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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7b44f33 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60452 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60452) diff --git a/old/60452-0.txt b/old/60452-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6ff699a..0000000 --- a/old/60452-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11201 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Off Sandy Hook and other stories, by Richard Dehan - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Off Sandy Hook and other stories - -Author: Richard Dehan - -Release Date: October 8, 2019 [EBook #60452] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OFF SANDY HOOK AND OTHER STORIES *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - OFF SANDY HOOK - - AND OTHER STORIES - - - - - _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ - - - THE MAN OF IRON - ONE BRAVER THING (THE DOP DOCTOR) - BETWEEN TWO THIEVES - THE HEADQUARTER RECRUIT - THE COST OF WINGS - - - - - OFF SANDY HOOK - AND OTHER STORIES - - - BY - RICHARD DEHAN - - _Author of “One Braver Thing” (“The Dop Doctor”), “The Man of Iron,” - “Between Two Thieves,” etc._ - -[Illustration] - - NEW YORK - FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY - PUBLISHERS - - - - - _Copyright, 1915, by_ - FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY - - _All rights reserved, including that of translation - into foreign languages_ - - -[Illustration: _September, 1915_] - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CONTENTS - - - PAGE - OFF SANDY HOOK 1 - - GEMINI 15 - - A DISH OF MACARONI 31 - - “FREDDY & C^{IE}” 44 - - UNDER THE ELECTRICS 60 - - “VALCOURT’S GRIN” 68 - - THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAIREST 81 - - THE REVOLT OF RUSTLETON 95 - - A DYSPEPTIC’S TRAGEDY 107 - - RENOVATION 119 - - THE BREAKING PLACE 133 - - A LANCASHIRE DAISY 143 - - A PITCHED BATTLE 154 - - THE TUG OF WAR 164 - - GAS! 180 - - AIR 193 - - SIDE! 205 - - A SPIRIT ELOPEMENT 219 - - THE WIDOW’S MITE 230 - - SUSANNA AND HER ELDERS 241 - - LADY CLANBEVAN’S BABY 264 - - THE DUCHESS’S DILEMMA 276 - - THE CHILD 287 - - A HINDERED HONEYMOON 295 - - “CLOTHES—AND THE MAN—!” 308 - - THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA 317 - - - - - OFF SANDY HOOK - - AND OTHER STORIES - - - - - OFF SANDY HOOK - - -On board the Rampatina liner, eleven days and a half out from Liverpool, -the usual terrific sensation created by the appearance of the -pilot-yacht prevailed. Necks were craned and toes were trodden on as the -steamer slackened speed, and a line dexterously thrown by a -blue-jerseyed deck-hand was caught by somebody aboard the yacht. The -pilot, not insensible to the fact of his being a personage of note, -carefully divested his bearded countenance of all expression as he -saluted the Captain, and taking from the deck-steward’s obsequiously -proffered salver a glass containing four-fingers of neat Bourbon whisky, -concealed its contents about his person without perceptible emotion, and -went up with the First Officer upon the upper bridge as the relieved -skipper plunged below. The telegraphs clicked their message—the -leviathan hulk of the liner quivered and began to forge slowly ahead, -and an intelligent-looking, thin-lipped, badly-shaved young man in a -bowler, tweeds, and striped necktie, introduced himself to the Second -Officer as an emissary of the Press. - -“Mr. Cyrus K. Pillson, _New York Yeller_.... Pleased to know you, sir,” -said the Second Officer; “step into the smoke-room, this way. -Bar-steward, a brandy cocktail for me, and you, sir, order whatever you -are most in the habit of hoisting. Whisky straight! Now, sir, happy to -afford you what information I can!” - -“I presume,” observed the young gentleman of the Press, settling himself -on the springy morocco cushions and accepting the Second Officer’s -polite offer of a green Havana of the strongest kind, “that you have had -a smooth passage, considerin’ the time of year?” - -“Smooth....” The Second Officer carefully reversed in his reply the -Pressman’s remark: “Well, yes, the time of year considered, a smooth -passage, I take it, we _have_ had.” - -“No fogs?” interrogated the young gentleman, clicking the elastic band -of a notebook which projected from his breast-pocket. - -“Fogs?... No!” said the Second Officer. - -“You didn’t chance,” pursued the young gentleman of the Press, taking -his short drink from the steward’s salver and throwing it contemptuously -down his throat, “to fall in with a berg off the Bank, did you?” - -“Not a smell of one!” replied the Second Officer with decision. - -“Ran into a derelict hencoop, perhaps?” persisted the young gentleman, -concealing the worn sole of a wearied boot from the searching glare of -the electric light by tucking it underneath him, “or an old lady’s -bonnet-box? ... or a rubber doll some woman’s baby had lost overboard? -No?” he echoed, as the Second Officer shook his head. “Then, how in -thunder did you manage to lose twenty feet of your port-rail?” - -“Carried away,” said the Second Officer, offering the young Press -gentleman a light. - -“No, thanks. Always eat mine,” said the young Press gentleman -gracefully. - -“Matter of taste,” observed the Second Officer, blowing blue rings. - -“I guess so; and I’ve a taste for knowing how you came,” said the young -Pressman, “to part with that twenty foot of rail.” - -“Carried away,” said the Second Officer. - -“I kin see that,” retorted the visitor. - -“It was carried away,” said the Second Officer, “by an elephant.” - -“A pet you had running about aboard?” queried the Pressman, with -imperturbable coolness. - -“A passenger,” returned the Second Officer, with equal calm. - -There was a snap, and the Pressman’s notebook was open on his knee. The -pencil vibrated over the virgin page, when a curious utterance, between -a wail, a cough, and a roar, made the hand that held it start. - -“Yarr-rr! Ohowgh! Yarr!” The melancholy sound came from without, borne -on the cool breeze of a late afternoon in March, through the open -ventilators. - -“Might that,” queried the young gentleman of the Press, “be an -expression of opinion on the part of the elephant?” - -“Lord love you, no!” said the Second Officer. “It’s the leopard.” He -added after a second’s pause: “Or the puma.” - -“Do you happen to have a menagerie aboard?” inquired the Pressman, -making a note in shorthand. - -“No, sir. The beasts—elephants, leopards, and a box of cobras—are -invoiced from the London Docks to a wealthy amateur in New York State. -Not an iron king, or a corn king, or a cotton king, or a pickle king, or -a kerosene king,” said the Second Officer, with a steady upper lip, “but -a chewing-gum king.” - -“If you mean Shadland C. McOster,” said the Pressman, “my mother is his -cousin. They used to chew gum together in school recess, sir, little -guessing that Shad would one day soar, on wings made of that article, to -the realms of gilded plutocracy.” - -“I rather imagine the name you mention to be the right one,” said the -Second Officer cautiously, “but I won’t commit myself. The beasts -shipped from Liverpool are intended as a present for the purchaser’s -infant daughter on her fifth birthday.” - -“Yarr-rr! Ohowgh! Ohowgh!” Again the coughing roar vibrated through the -smoke-room. Then the chorus of “Hail Columbia!” rose from the promenade -deck, where the lady passengers were assembled ready to wave starred and -striped silk pocket-handkerchiefs and exchange patriotic sentiments at -the first glimpse of land. - -“It’s not what I should call a humly voice, that of the leopard,” -observed the Pressman, controlling a slight shiver. - -“Children have queer tastes,” said the Second Officer. “And it’s as well -Old Spots is lively, as Bingo’s dead.” - -“Bingo?” queried the Pressman. - -“Bingo was the elephant,” said the Second Officer, passing the palm of -his brown right hand over his upper lip as the Pressman made a few rapid -notes. “And if the particulars of the deathbed scene are likely to be of -any interest to you—why, you’re welcome to ’em!” - -“You’re white!” said the Pressman warmly, licking his pencil. “What did -your elephant die of?” - -“Seasickness!” said the Second Officer calmly. - -“I’ve seen a few things worth seeing—myself,” said the Pressman -enviously, “but not a seasick elephant.” - -“With a professional lady-nurse in attendance,” said the Second Officer; -“all complete from stem to stern, in her print gown, white apron, -fly-away cap-rigging, and ward shoes.” - -The Pressman grunted, but not from lack of interest. Doubled up in the -corner of the smoke-room divan, his notebook balanced on his bulging -shirt-front, he made furious notes. The Second Officer waited until the -pencil seemed hungry, and then fed it with a little more information. - -“When that girl came aboard at Liverpool with her mackintosh and holdall -and little black shiny bag,” he went on, “I just noticed her in a -passing sort of way as a fresh-colored, tidy-looking young woman, rather -plump in the bows, and with an air as though she meant to get her full -money’s worth out of her eleven-pound fare. But our cheap tariff had -filled the passenger-lists fairly full, and I’d a long score of things -to attend to. A special derrick had had to be rigged to sling the -elephant’s cage aboard, and a capital one it was, of sound Indian teak -strengthened with steel—must have cost a mint of money. We stowed it, -after a lot of sweat and swearing, on the promenade deck, abaft the -funnels, bolting it to rings specially screwed in the deck, passing a -wire hawser across the top, which was made fast to the port and -starboard davits, and rigging weather-screens of double tarpaulin to -keep Bingo warm and dry. The other beasts we shipped under the lee of -the forward cabin skylight; and I’d just got through the job when a -quiet ladylike voice at my elbow says: - -“‘If you please, officer, with regard to my patient, I wish to know——’ - -“‘Ask the purser, ma’am,’ I said, rather snappishly, for I was hot and -worried ... ‘or the head-stewardess.’ - -“‘I have asked them both,’ says the voice in a calm, determined way, -‘and have been referred to you.’ - -“‘Well, what is it?’ says I. - -“‘By mistake,’ says the young lady—for a young lady she was, and a -hospital nurse besides, neatly rigged out in the usual uniform—‘by -mistake I have had allotted to me a bedroom on the ground-floor, so far -from my patient that I cannot possibly hear him should he call me in the -night. And,’ she went on, as the breeze played with her white silk -bonnet-strings and the wavy little kinks of soft brown hair that framed -her forehead, ‘and I want you to move me to the upper floor at once.’ - -“‘You mean the promenade deck, madam,’ says I, smoothing out a grin, -though I’m well enough used to the odd bungles land-folks make over -names of things at sea.” - -The flying pencil stopped. The Pressman looked up, turning his shortened -cigar between his teeth. - -“When do we come to the elephant?” he asked. - -“We’re at him now,” said the Second Officer. “‘You mean the promenade -deck,’ says I. ‘Does your patient occupy one of the cabins on the port -or the starboard side, and may I ask his number and name?’ Then she -smiled at me brightly, her eyes and teeth making a sort of flash -together. ‘He doesn’t have a cabin,’ says she; ‘he sleeps in a cage. My -patient is Bingo, the elephant!’” - -“Great Pierpont Morgan!” ejaculated the Pressman. His previously flying -pencil became almost invisible from the extreme rapidity with which he -plied it. Drops of perspiration broke out upon his sallow forehead. -“Glory!” he cried. “And not another man thought it worth while to run -out and tackle this wallowing old tub but me!” - -“I touched my cap,” went on the Second Officer, “keeping down as -professionally as I could the surprise I felt.... ‘Do I understand, -madam,’ I asked, ‘that you are the elephant’s nurse?’ And at that she -nodded with another bright smile, and told me that she was Nurse Amy, of -St. Baalam’s Nursing Association, London, specially engaged by the -American gentleman who had bought the elephant——” - -“Shadland C. McOster,” prompted the Pressman, without looking up. - -“To attend to the animal on the voyage. It was understood that if the -principal patient’s condition permitted, Nurse Amy was to pay the -leopards such attentions as they were capable of appreciating, but there -was no pressure on this point.” - -“Ohowgh!” coughed the voice outside. “Yarr! Ohowgh!” - -“He smells the land, I guess,” said the Pressman. - -“Or the niggers,” suggested the Second Officer. “You ought to have heard -Bingo when we were three days out from the Mersey.... We’d had a fair -wind and a smooth sea at first, and nothing delighted the ladies and -children on board like feeding him with apples, and nuts, and biscuits, -and things prigged from the saloon tables. The sea-air must have -sharpened the beast’s appetite, I suppose, for that old trunk of his was -snorking round all day, and the Purser, who was naturally wild about it, -said he must have put away hogsheads of good things in addition to his -allowance of hay, and bread, and beetroot, and grain, and cabbages, and -sugar——” - -“Was he ca’am in temper?” asked the Pressman. - -“Mild as milk.... As kind a beast as ever breathed; and elephants do a -lot of breathing,” said the Second Officer. “The ladies and gentlemen in -the upper-deck cabins used to complain about his snoring in the night; -but as Nurse Amy said, there are people who’d complain about anything. -And some of ’em didn’t like the smell of elephant—which, I’ll allow, -when you happened to get to wind’ard of Bingo, was—phew!” - -“Pooty vociferous?” hinted the Pressman. - -“Until,” went on the Second Officer, “Nurse Amy took to washing him with -scented soap.” - -The pencil stopped. The Pressman looked up with circular eyes. -“Scented——” - -“Soap,” said the Second Officer. “No expense was to be spared—and we’d -several cases of a special toilet and complexion article on board. By -the living Harry! if you’d seen that elephant standing up over his -morning tub of hot water, swabbing away at himself with a deck-sponge -Nurse Amy had soaped for him, and then squirting the water over himself -to rinse off the soap, you’d have believed in the intelligence of -animals. The sight drew like a pantomime.... But by the sixth day out -Bingo had given up all interest in his own appearance. The weather was -squally, a bit of a sea got up, hardly a passenger put in an appearance -at the saloon tables, and Bingo only shook his ears when the bugle blew, -and turned away from his morning haystack and mound of cabbages with -disgust. Nurse Amy got him to eat some biscuits and drink a bucket of -Bovril, but you could see he was only doing it to oblige her. ‘Oh, come, -cheer up!’ she said in a brisk, professional way. ‘You’ll get your -sea-legs on directly and the officer says we’re having a wonderfully -smooth passage, considering the time of the year.’ But Bingo only -sighed, and two tears trickled out of his little red eyes, as he swayed -from side to side. ‘He’ll be worse before he’s better,’ says I; for -somehow I was generally about when Nurse Amy was looking after her big -charge. ‘He’ll be worse before he’s better,’ _and he was_.” - -The Pressman’s face was streaked and shiny, his hair lay glued to his -brow. The pencil went on, devouring page after page. - -“Nurse Amy, luckily for her patient, was not upset by the pitching of -the vessel, for it blew half a gale steady from the sou’-west, and the -old _Centipede_ dipped her nose pretty frequently. Nurse was as busy as -a bee endeavoring by every means she could devise or adopt from the -suggestions of the stewardesses, who showed a good deal of interest in -her and her charge, to alleviate the sufferings of Bingo. I have seen -that little woman stand for an hour on the wet planking, holding a -six-foot deck-swab soaked with eau-de-Cologne to Bingo’s forehead....” - -The Pressman jotted down, breathing heavily. “Deck-swab soaked in -eau-de-Cologne....” he muttered. “Must have cost slathers of money, I -reckon——” - -“No expense was to be spared,” the Second Officer reminded him gently. -“As for the brandy, Martell’s Three Star, he must have put away a dozen -bottles a day.” - -“No blamed wonder his head ached!” said the Pressman, moistening his own -dry lips. - -“Except an occasional bucket of arrowroot with port wine and a tin or so -of cuddy biscuits, the animal would take no other nourishment whatever,” -continued the Second Officer. “As he grew weaker and weaker, it was -touching to see the way in which he clung to Nurse Amy.” - -“Clung to her?” the Pressman wrote, marking the words for a headline. - -“Fact,” said the Second Officer. “He would put his trunk round her -waist, and lay his head on her shoulder as she stood on a ladder lashed -against the side of his cage. And he would hang out his forefoot to have -his pulse felt, quite in a Christian style. Then when Nurse Amy wanted -to take his temperature, the docile brute would curl up his fire-hose—I -mean his trunk—and open his mouth, so that the instrument might be -comfortably placed under his tongue.” - -“By gings, sir, this story is going to knock corners off creation!” -gasped the Pressman, pausing to wipe his face with a slightly smeary -cuff. “An elephant that understood the use of the therm—blame it! that -beast robbed some man of a fortune when he passed in his checks!” - -“We lost so many of the ordinary kind of instrument in this way,” went -on the Second Officer, almost pensively, “that at last Nurse Amy was -obliged to fall back upon the large thermometer and barometer combined -that usually hung in the first saloon. But it recorded, to our sorrow, -no improvement. The mercury steadily sank, and it became plain to Nurse -Amy’s professional eye that her patient was not long for this world.” - -“Say, do you believe elephants have souls?” queried the Pressman. The -Second Officer deigned no reply. - -“She could not leave him a moment; he trumpeted so awfully when he saw -her quit his side. I forgot to tell you that from the moment he first -felt himself attacked by sea-sickness his bellows of rage and agony were -frightful to hear. The other animals became excited by them; they roared -and snarled without cessation.” - -“Raised general hell,” said the Pressman, “with trimmings.” But he wrote -down with a sign that meant leaded spaces and giant capitals: - - “PANDEMONIUM IN MID-OCEAN!” - -“Nobody on board got a wink of sleep,” said the Second Officer—“that is, -unless the devoted Nurse Amy was by the sufferer’s side. Towards the -end, when, exhausted by days and nights of arduous nursing, the devoted -girl had retired to her deck-cabin to snatch a few moments of -much-needed rest, the entire crew vied with each other in efforts to -pacify Bingo, without the slightest effect. When they tried to put his -feet in hot water he mashed the ship’s buckets like so many -gooseberries, and shot the Purser down with half a trunkful of hot -cocoa, which had been offered as a last resource. But on Nurse Amy’s -appearing he grew pacified, and from that moment until the end the -heroic woman never left his side. I begged her to consider herself and -those dear to her,” said the Second Officer, with a little tremble in -his voice, “but she only smiled—a worn kind of smile—and said that duty -must be considered first. I won’t deny it,” said the Second Officer, -openly producing a very white pocket-handkerchief and unfolding it. “I -kissed that woman’s hand as though she had been the Queen.” He concealed -his face with the handkerchief and coughed rather loudly. - -“The Rude Shellback Touched to the Quick,” wrote the Pressman. “He Sheds -Tears.” “Get on with the death-scene, sir, if you don’t object!” he -said, breathing through his nose excitedly. “If that elephant asked for -a minister, I’d not be surprised!” - -“He did make his will, after a fashion,” said the narrator. “You see, -during the convulsive struggles I have described, when he broke off his -right tusk—didn’t I mention that?” - -“No!” denied the Pressman. - -“He broke it, anyhow, right off short, as a boy might snap a carrot,” -said the Second Officer. “There it lay, among the litter, in the bottom -of his cage. He had suddenly ceased trumpeting, and a deathly silence -had fallen on all creation, one would have said. The vessel still rolled -a bit, but the wind had fallen, and the sun was going down like a blot -of fire, on the——” - -“Western horizon,” wrote the Pressman. - -“Nurse Amy, from her ladder, still rendered the last offices of human -kindness to the sinking animal, sponging his forehead with ice-water and -fanning him with a bellows. As she whispered to me that the end was -near, Bingo opened his eyes. With an expiring effort he lifted the -broken tusk from the bottom of the cage, dropped it on the deck at his -faithful Nurse’s feet, uttered a heavy groan, threw up his trunk, sank -gently forward upon his massive knees, and died!” - -“The editor of the opposition paper will do another die when he runs his -eye over the _Yeller_ to-morrow morning,” said the Pressman, joyfully -smacking the rubber band round the filled notebook. “And the port-rail -got carried away when you yanked the body overboard?” - -“We couldn’t stuff him,” said the Second Officer with a sigh. “As for -preserving him in spirits, we hadn’t enough spirits left to think of it. -We rigged a special derrick, and heaved Bingo overboard, carrying away, -as you have guessed, the port-rail in the operation. As Bingo’s -tremendous carcass rose and floated buoyantly away to leeward, back and -head well above the water, and the two great ears resting flat upon the -surface like gigantic lily-pads, Nurse Amy uttered a faint cry and -swooned in my arms.” - -“Some folks get all the luck!” commented the Pressman, who, having -filled his book, was now jotting down notes upon his left cuff. - -“You’ve not much to complain of, it strikes me!” observed the Second -Officer, with a glance at the crammed notebook. - -“I guess that’s true!” said the Pressman, with a sigh of satisfaction. -“Now, all I want is a photograph or a sketch of that splendid heroine of -a girl, and the honor of shaking her hand, and telling her she deserves -to be an American—and I’d not trade places with the President.” - -The Second Officer appeared to be struggling with some emotion. The -muscles of his mouth worked violently. He reddened through the red, and -suspicious moisture shone in his eyes. One by one the members of the -silent but not unappreciative audience of male passengers that had -gradually gathered within earshot of the Second Officer and his victim, -manifested the same symptoms. And glancing for the first time at those -listening faces, and observing the identical expression stamped upon -each, the Pressman, encircled by wet, crinkled eyes, and -cheerfully-curled-back lips, fringed with teeth in all stages of -preservation, grasped the conviction that he had been had. And at this -crucial moment the hatch-door of the smoke-room rolled back in its brass -coamings, and a pointed gray beard and kindly keen eyes, sheltered by -the peak of a gold-laced cap, appeared in the aperture. - -“New York Harbor, gentlemen,” said the Captain genially. “We’re running -into the docks now, and the Custom House officers will board us -directly.... I shouldn’t wonder,” he continued, as the majority of the -occupants of the smoke-room one by one glided away, “if the newspapers -made a story out of our missing port-rail!” - -“Permit me to introduce myself as a reporter of the _N’York Yeller_,” -said the young gentleman in tweeds, as he rose and touched his hat. -“Perhaps, sir, you would favor me with the facts in connection with the -occurrence?” - -“Haven’t you had it from Murchison? Why, Murchison——” the Captain was -beginning, when with a choking snort the Second Officer rushed from the -smoke-room. “Though there’s nothing to tell, Mr. Reporter, worth -hearing. A derrick-chain broke at Southampton Docks, and a case of -agricultural machine-parts did the damage. We temporarily repaired with -some iron piping, and a length of wire hawser; but, of course, it shows -badly, and suggests——” - -“A collision!” said a smiling stranger. - -“Or an elephant,” said another. - -“Yarr!” proclaimed the horrible voice outside. “Ohowgh! Yarr!” - -“I understand,” said the Pressman with an effort, “that the elephant -emanated from the teeming brain of Mr. Murchison. But the leopard—there -is a leopard, I surmise, if hearing goes for evidence?” - -The Captain’s excellent teeth showed under his gray mustache. “That -noise, you mean?” he exclaimed.... “Oh, that’s one of our electric -air-pumps, for forcing air into the lower-deck storage chambers, you -know. She’s out of gear, and lets us know it in that way. Must have her -seen to at New York. Take a drink, won’t you? Come, gentlemen, order -what you please.” - -“Whisky, square,” murmured the Pressman, as the long, smooth glide of -the liner was checked, the engines throbbed and stopped, and the dull -roar of the docks pressed upon listening ears. He drank, and as the -fluid traversed the usual channel, his eye grew brighter.... “Say, -Captain,” he asked, “do you know where your Second Officer was raised?” - -“Murchison comes, I believe, from Yorkshire,” said the Captain. “Hey, -Murchison, isn’t that the place?” - -“I am not acquainted with the geology of Yorkshire,” observed the -Pressman, as he passed the Second Officer on his way to the smoke-room; -“but the soil grows good liars! So long!” - - - - - GEMINI - AN EMBARRASSMENT OF CHOICE - - -To Captain Galahad Ranking, grilling over his Musketry-Instructorship at -Hounslow one arid July, came a square lilac envelope, addressed in a -sprawling hand, with plenty of violet ink. The missive smelt of Rhine -violets. It bore a monogram, the initials “L. K.” fantastically -intertwined, and was, in fact, an invitation from his affectionate -cousin Laura, dated from a pleasant country mansion situate amid green -lawns and blushing rose-gardens on the Werkshire reaches of the Thames. - -Laura was not Galahad’s cousin by blood, but by marriage. Laura was the -still young and attractive widow of Thomson Kingdom, once a stout man on -the Stock Exchange, remarkable for a head of very upright gray hair and -a startling taste in printed linen. Pigs and peaches were his pet -hobbies, and the apoplectic seizure from which he never rallied was -induced by a weakness in “the City” caused by unprecedentedly heavy -selling-orders from a nervous north-eastern European capital, about the -time of the _entente cordiale_. So the bloom was barely off Laura’s -crêpe, and the new black gloves purchased by Galahad to grace his -kinsman’s obsequies had not done duty at another funeral. The scrawly -postscript to her letter said: “I want to consult you _very -particularly_, in the _most absolute confidence_, upon a matter -affecting my _whole future_.” - -Galahad Ranking, Junior Captain, Fourth Battalion Royal Deershire -Regiment, wrinkled up his freckled little countenance into queer -puckers, and rubbed his bristly cinnamon-colored hair, already getting -thin on the summit of his skull, as he puzzled the brain within that -receptacle as to the possible meaning of Laura’s impassioned appeal. He -was a small man, whose demure and spinster-like demeanor led new -acquaintances to ask him plumply how on earth he had managed to get his -D.S.O. - -“There were chances,” he would reply to these querists, “to be had out -there,” waving his hand vaguely in the direction of South Africa, “and I -saw one of them and took it—that’s all.” - -Others might pump him more successfully to the effect that he—Galahad -Ranking—was a poor devil of a militiaman attached to the Royal -Deershires; that a small detachment of that well-known territorial -regiment, garrisoned in a beastly small tin-pot fort on the Springbok -River, Eastern Transvaal, were by Boers besieged; that relief was -urgently necessary; and that “one of the fellows went and brought up -Kitchener.” Said fellow admitted upon further cross-examination to have -been himself. But for such details as that the bringing up involved a -six-mile run in scorching sun over tangled bush veldt, crossing the -enemy’s lines, being sniped at by Boer sharpshooters and chased by Boer -pickets, the curious must refer to despatches. Stampeding Army mules -would not trample the truth out of the man. - -He wrung half-hearted leave of absence from the powers that were, and -his orderly packed the battered tin suit-case and the Gladstone bag that -had spent three days at the bottom of a water-hole, and, having had its -numerous labels soaked off, bore a painfully leprous appearance. - -He found Laura’s omnibus automobile, with its luggage tender, waiting at -Cholsford Junction, and smiled his dry little smile, mentally comparing -the dimensions of the vehicle with the size of the guest. The suit-case -and the Gladstone bag made a poor show; but there were other things to -come: huge packages from the Stores, and a sea-weedy hamper from Great -Fishby, and some cases of champagne with the label of a first-class -Regent Street firm. “Poor Kingdom’s wine-merchants!” Ranking said to -himself, and he blinked in a bewildered way at a bandbox of mammoth -proportions and three dressmakers’ boxes of stout cardboard with tin -corners, their covers bearing the flourishing signature of Babin _et -Cie_. Because, you know, Laura’s bereavement was so very recent, and -bachelors of Galahad’s type have a somewhat exaggerated notion of the -extent to which conjugal mourners are expected to bewail themselves. -However, even a widow requires clothes. This handsome concession to -feminine idiosyncrasy made, Galahad ousted Laura’s chauffeur from the -driving-seat, and, assuming the steering-wheel, was reaching for the -starting-lever when the chauffeur stopped him with— - -“Beg pardon, sir, but there’s a gentleman to fetch.” - -“A visitor to The Rodelands?” Galahad asked, with furrows of surprise -forming below his hat-brim. - -The mechanic, a gloomy young man in a gold-banded cap, with a weakness -for wearing waterproofs in the driest weather, replied, without a -groom’s alertness or a groom’s civility: - -“It’s a gentleman staying at Eyot Cottage....” Adding, as Galahad -faintly recalled the creeper-covered cot in question, modestly perched -on the edge of a marshy lawn running down to the river, and usually let -by the landlord of the local hotel to honeymooning couples: “And we -usually give him a lift.” - -As the chauffeur spoke, the gentleman emerged from the dim, echoing -archway through which the down platform disgorged. The stranger was -young—Galahad, who was middle-aged, saw that at a glance—and fair, while -Galahad was sandy. He wore a suit of gray tweeds too short in the -sleeves and trouser-legs, and his cherubically pink countenance, adorned -with large, round, china-blue eyes and a little flaxen mustache, was -carried at an altitude which would have been disconcerting to a -Lifeguardsman of six feet high, and was simply maddening to Galahad, who -could only be categorized as small. We are all human, and Galahad was -secretly gratified to observe that the young giant’s shoulders boasted a -graceful droop, and that his chest was somewhat narrow. - -“Hullo, Watson!” observed the tall young gentleman, condescendingly; and -Watson smiled faintly and actually touched his cap as the new-comer -favored Galahad with a long and round-eyed stare. - -“I believe you are coming with us?” said Galahad, raising his hat with -punctilious politeness. - -“Not inside, thanks,” was the long-legged young stranger’s reply. He -stared harder than ever, and Watson murmured in Galahad’s ear that the -gentleman usually drove. - -“Does he?” ejaculated the astonished Galahad. - -A man may hold the rank of captain in one of his Majesty’s territorial -Regiments, and yet be shy; may have earned the right to adorn his thorax -with the D.S.O., and yet be bashful; may be a more than efficient -instructor in Musketry, and yet shrink from the gratuitous schooling of -underbred youth in the amenities of good breeding. In less time than it -takes to relate it, Galahad was stowed in the omnibus body of the -“Runhard” where, a very little kernel in a very roomy shell, he rattled -about as the familiar landscape reeled giddily by at the will and -pleasure of the long-legged young gentleman, who might be described as -the kind of driver that takes risks. A peculiarly steep and curving hill -announced by signboards lettered, in appropriate crimson, “Dangerous!” -afforded facilities for the exercise of his peculiar talent which -temporarily deprived the inside passenger of breath. - -The river lay at the bottom of the hill, and the dwelling of Mrs. -Kingdom, described in the local guide as “an elegant riparian villa,” -sat in its green meadows and sunny croquet lawns and rose-trellised -gardens, on the other side. - -The automobile swirled in at the lodge-gates, stopped, and Galahad got -out, welcomed by the joyful barking of Dinmonts, fox-terriers, pugs, and -poodles. - -Knee-deep in dogs, the little man responded to the respectful greeting -of Laura’s butler, a meek, gray-faced, little, elderly personage with a -frill of white whiskers akin to the hirsute adornments of the rare -variety of the howling ape. Then the drawing-room door swung open, -letting out an avalanche of Pomeranians and some Persian cats; Laura -rose from a sofa and advanced with a gushful greeting. Her outstretched -hands were grasped by Galahad; he was tinglingly conscious that her -widow’s weeds were eminently becoming. - -“Dear Captain Ranking, how sweet of you to run down!” Laura cooed. The -flash of admiration in Galahad’s weary gray eyes gave her sugared -assurance that she was looking her best; his ardent squeeze confirmed -the look. - -“You used to call me by my Christian name,” he was saying, with a little -undulating wobble of sentiment in his voice. Then his glance went past -Mrs. Kingdom, and his lean under-jaw dropped. The long-legged gentleman -in gray tweed, who had driven, or rather hustled, him from the station, -was sitting on the sofa in a suit of blue serge. No, Galahad was not -mistaken. There were the long legs, the champagne-bottle shoulders, the -china-blue eyes, and the little flaxen mustache. He did not look so -pink, that was all. And when Laura, with a nervous giggle, introduced -him as Mr. Lasher, he began getting up from the sofa as though he never -would have done. - -“How do?” he said, when his yellow head had soared to the ceiling. - -“Met you before,” said Galahad with some terseness. “And you frightened -me abominably by the way you scorched down Penniford Hill.” - -The long-legged young man stared with circular blue eyes. Laura burst -into a peal of rippling laughter, which struck Galahad as being forced -and beside the point. - -“My dear Galahad,” Mrs. Kingdom cried, “you must have met Brosy! This is -Dosy,” she added, as though all were now clear, and welcomed with a -perfect _feu de joie_ of giggles the entrance of the veritable and -original young man in gray tweeds who had driven the automobile, and now -came strolling into the drawing-room. Then she introduced the pair -formally to Captain Ranking as Mr. Theodosius and Mr. Ambrose Lasher, -and rustled away to pour out tea, leaving Galahad in a jaundiced frame -of mind. For one thing, he hated to be mystified; for another, being an -ordinary, though heroic, human being, he had taken at the first moment -of encounter a singularly ardent and sincere dislike to the -“long-legged, blue-eyed young bounder,” as he mentally termed Mr. Brosy -Lasher; and the discovery that the object of his loathing existed in -duplicate was not a welcome one. He was dry, stiff, and jerky in his -responses to the loud and patronizing advances of the two Lashers. -Fortunately the twin young gentlemen accepted as admiration, what was, -in fact, the opposite sentiment. They had been used to a good deal of -this since the first moment of their simultaneous entrance upon this -mundane stage, and they were twenty-six. - -“It is so sad,” Laura said in confidential aside to Galahad. “They have -lost both parents, and have hardly a penny in the world.” She raised and -crumpled her still pretty eyebrows with the old infantile air of appeal. -“Two such delightful boys, and so handsome! ... though to my eye Brosy’s -nose is less purely Greek in outline than Dosy’s. And they were educated -at a public school, with every advantage that a rich man’s sons might -naturally expect. But, of course, you recognized the _cachet_ of Eton at -once?” - -“I notice,” said Ranking drily, “that they both leave the lower button -of their waistcoats undone, and call men whom they don’t like ‘scugs.’” -His quiet eye dwelt with dubious tenderness upon the Messrs. Lasher, who -were romping with the dogs upon the sofas, and devouring cake and -strawberries with infantile greed. “I have heard of the Eton manner, of -course,” he added, “and I meet a good many Eton-bred men; but I can’t -say that these young fellows have any—any special characteristics in -common with—ah—those.” - -“They belong to a grand old family,” Laura continued, with an air of -proprietorship that puzzled Galahad. “The Lashers of Dropshire, you -know—quite historical. And their father ran through everything before -they came of age. So thoughtless, wasn’t it? And now they are looking -round for an opening in life, and really, they tell me, it is dreadfully -difficult to find.” - -“I rather imagined as much,” said Galahad, making a little point of -sarcasm all to himself, and secretly smiling over it. - -“I wonder if you could suggest anything; you are always so helpful,” -Laura went on. “That they must be together, of course, goes without -saying. And that, of course, increases the difficulty. But nobody could -be so inhuman as to part twins.” Her lips quivered, and her eyes grew -misty with unshed tears. - -“My dear Laura,” expostulated the puzzled Galahad, “you talk as though -these two young men were six years old instead of six-and-twenty.” - -“How changed you are!” Laura blinked away a tear. “You used to -understand me so much better in the old days. _Of course_, they are -grown up, that is plain to the meanest capacity. But they have such -boyish, charming, confiding natures.... Toto will bite, Brosy, if you -hold him in the air by the tail!... that a woman like myself.... If you -would like some more cherry cake, Dosy, do ring the bell!... a woman -like myself, married at eighteen to a man true and noble if you will, -but incapable of awakening the deeper chords of passion and.... Of -course, you are both going to dine here and help me to entertain Captain -Ranking!... denied the happiness of being a mother”—Laura drooped her -eyes and bit her lip, and blushed slightly—“must naturally find their -company a _great resource_. And the distant cousin with whom they are -staying, a Mrs. Le Bacon Chalmers, who has taken Eyot Cottage for the -summer months, _knows this_ and _lends_ them to me as _often_ as I -like.” - -“Upon my word, she is uncommonly kind!” said Galahad, with emphasis -stronger than Laura’s italics. - -“Yes, isn’t she?” responded Laura, whose sense of humor was obscured by -predilection. “They ride and drive the horses, and give Holt and the -gardeners advice, and they exercise the automobiles, and run the -electric launch about, and play tennis and croquet——” - -“And the devil generally!” were the words that Galahad bit off and -gulped down. - -He was very quiet at dinner, sitting in the deceased Kingdom’s place at -the foot of the table. And Dosy and Brosy were very loud and very large, -though looking, it must be confessed, exceedingly well in evening garb. -They made themselves very much at home upon Laura’s right and left hand, -recommending certain dishes to each other, criticizing more, ravaging -the bonbons, reveling in the dessert, calling, with artless airs of -connoisseurship, for special wines laid down by the noble man who yet -had not known how to awaken the deeper chords of passion. - -“Gad! what a pair of hawbucks!” Galahad mentally ejaculated as the -servants ran about like distracted ants, and Laura and Laura’s -inseparable though elderly companion-friend, Miss Glidding, vied with -each other in encouraging Theodosius and Ambrose to renewed attacks upon -the strawberries and peaches. - -Left alone with Dosy and Brosy, he submitted to be patronized, offered -cigars he had chosen, recommended to try liqueurs with whose liverish -and headachy qualities he had been acquainted of old. - -They walked with the ladies in the dewy rose-gardens after dinner, and -as Galahad paused to light a cigar, behold, he was left alone. Laura -with Brosy, Miss Glidding (who looked her best by bat-light) with Dosy, -had vanished in the shadowy windings of the trellis-walks and arcades. -And Captain Ranking, shrugging his shoulders, picked a half-seen -Niphetos, glimmering among the wet, shining leaves, and walked back to -the smoking-room, wondering why on earth Laura had dragged him down -where he seemed least to be wanted. What was the matter “affecting her -whole future” upon which she required advice? His heart gave a sickening -little jog as he realized that the future of Dosy, or possibly of Brosy, -might also be involved. True, Laura was thirty-nine; but what are years -when the heart is young? Galahad asked himself, as peal after peal of -the widow’s laughter broke the silence of the scented night. Other -mental interrogations fretted his aching brain. What must the servants -not have thought and said? What would the neighbors say? What would the -County think of such sportive, not to say frivolous, conduct on the part -of a widow but recently emancipated from weepers, whose handkerchiefs -were still bordered with the inch-deep inky deposit of conjugal woe? - -Kingdom was an easy-going, level-headed man, Galahad admitted, biting at -one of the deceased’s Havanas and frowning; “but he would have raised -the Devil over this. Possibly he’s doing it.” - -The portrait of Mr. Kingdom over the mantelshelf of the smoking-room -seemed to scowl confirmatively. The servants were all in bed, the -promenaders in the garden showed no signs of returning. Galahad shrugged -his little shoulders, and went away to bed in a charming, drum-windowed, -chintz-hung bower over the front porch. And just as his little cropped -head plumped down on the pillow it was electrically jolted up again. -Laura was saying good-night in the porch to one—or was it both?—of the -infernal twins. And before the hall-door clashed they had promised to -come over to lunch to-morrow. Confound them! it was to-morrow now. - -One has only to add that when, after exhausting watches, slumber visited -Galahad’s eyelids, the twins in maddening iteration played dominoes -throughout his dreams, to convince the reader that they had thoroughly -got upon his nerves. - -Laura, looking wonderfully fresh and young in a lace morning _négligé_ -of the peek-a-boo description, poured out his coffee at breakfast and -sympathized with him about the headache he denied. Then, shaded by a -fluffy black-and-white sunshade, the widow led Galahad out into the -sunny garden to a tree-shaded and sequestered nook where West Indian -hammocks hung, and, installing herself in one of these receptacles, -invited her husband’s cousin to repose himself in another. - -Lying on your back, counting ripening plums dangling from green branches -above, oscillating at the bidding of the lightest breeze, liable to -upset at the slightest movement, it is difficult to be indignant and -sarcastic; but Galahad was both. - -“Adopt these young men as sons, my dear Laura! Are there no parentless -babies in the local workhouse that would better supply the need you -express of having something to cherish and love?” exclaimed Galahad. - -He sat up with an effort and stared at Laura. Laura rocked, prone amid -cushions, knitting a silk necktie of a tender hue suited to a blonde -complexion. - -“Workhouse babies are invariably ugly, and unhealthy into the bargain,” -she pouted. - -“Some orphan child from a Home, that is pretty to look at and has had -the distemper properly,” suggested Galahad. - -“I don’t want an orphan from a Home,” objected Laura. “Besides, it -wouldn’t be a twin.” - -“There are such things as twin orphans, my dear Laura,” protested -Galahad. - -But Laura was firm. - -“Dosy and Brosy are very, very dear to me,” she protested, a little -pinkness about the eyelids and nostrils threatening an impending -tear-shower. “They came into my life,” she continued poetically, “at a -time of sorrow and bereavement, and the sunshine of their presence drove -the dark clouds away. Of course, they are too old, or, rather, not young -enough, to be really my sons,” she continued, “but they might have been -poor Tom’s.” - -“If poor Tom had fathered a brace of bounders like those,” burst out -Galahad, “poor Tom would have kicked himself—that’s all I know—kicked -himself!” he repeated, fuming and climbing out of his hammock. - -“Pray don’t be coarse,” entreated Laura—“and abusive,” she added, as an -afterthought. “Of course, as poor Tom’s trustee and executor, I am bound -to make a show of consulting you, though my mind is really made up, and -nobody can prevent my doing what I like with my own income. I shall -allow the boys five hundred a year each for pocket money,” she added -with a pretty maternal air. “And Dosy shall go into the Diplomatic -Service, and Brosy——” - -“You have broached the adoption plan to them then?” gasped Galahad. -Laura bowed her head. “And this relative with whom I gather they are now -staying,” he continued, “is she agreeable to the proposed arrangement?” - -“Mrs. Le Bacon Chalmers? She couldn’t prevent it if she wasn’t!” -retorted Laura, “as the boys are of age. But, as it happens, she thinks -the plan an ideal one.” - -“That proves the value of her judgment, certainly. And the County? Will -your friends and neighbors also think the plan an ideal one?” demanded -Galahad. - -“My friends and neighbors,” said Laura, loftily, “will think as I do, or -they will cease to be my friends.” - -Galahad, usually punctiliously well-mannered, whistled long and -dismally. “Phew! And when you have alienated every soul upon your -visiting list, what will you do for society?” - -“I shall have the boys,” said Laura, with defiant tenderness. - -“And when the ‘boys,’ as you call them, marry?” insinuated Galahad. - -Laura sat up so suddenly that all her cushions rolled out of the -hammock. “If this is how you treat me when I turn to you for advice——” -she began. - -“Laura,” said Galahad firmly, “you don’t want advice.” He held up his -lean brown hand and checked her, as she would have spoken. “Nor do you -require twin sons of six feet three. What you want is——” He was going in -his innocence to say “a sincere and candid friend,” and prove himself -the ideal by some plain speaking, but Laura fairly brimmed over with -conscious blushes. - -“How—how can you?” she said, in vibrating tones of reproach, devoid of -even a shade of anger. “So soon, too! As if I did not know what was due -to poor Tom——” - -The toot of a motor-horn, the scuffle of the engine, the dry whirr of -the brake as the locomotive stopped at the avenue gate, broke in upon -her heroics. - -“Here are the boys,” she cried rapturously, and, indeed, hopped out of -the hammock with the agility of girlhood as the long-legged, -yellow-haired twins came stalking over the grass. She held out her hands -to them with a pretty maternal gesture. - -“Dosy pet, Brosy darling,” she babbled, “come and kiss Mummy! We have -been telling all our little plans to Uncle Galahad, and Uncle quite -agrees.” - -“No! Does he, though?” was the simultaneous utterance of the long-legged -twins. They twirled their yellow mustaches, stooped awkwardly and -“kissed Mummy,” as Galahad uttered a yell of frenzied laughter, and, -throwing himself recklessly into his recently-vacated hammock, shot out -upon the other side. - -He went back to Hounslow that day. Dosy and Brosy dutifully accompanied -him to the station, and exchanged a fraternal wink when his train -steamed out. - -“What an infatuation!” he groaned. In his mind’s eye he saw the County -grinning over the childless widow and her adopted twins. As for Dosy and -Brosy, they would have what in America is termed “a soft snap.” Powerful -jaws had both the young gentlemen, wide and greedy gullets. Still, with -his mind’s eye Galahad saw their foolish, affectionate, sentimental -benefactress gnawed to the bare bone. Day by day he anticipated a letter -of shrill astonishment from his cotrustee, and when it came, hinting at -mental weakness and the necessity of restraint, he flamed up into -defense of Laura so hotly as to surprise himself. - -And then, before anything decisive had been done with regard to the -settlement—before Brosy and Dosy had taken up their quarters for good -beneath the roof of their adopted parent—a change befell, and Galahad -received an imploring note from Mrs. Kingdom soliciting his instant -presence upon “an urgent matter.” - -“She has thought better of it,” said Galahad to himself, as he obeyed -the summons. “Her native good sense”—you will realize that the man must -have been genuinely in love to believe in Laura’s native good sense—“has -come to her aid!” And in his mind’s eye he beheld the long, narrow backs -of the twins walking away into a dim perspective. - -It was September. Dosy and Brosy were shooting the widow’s partridges, -and Galahad found her alone. She was pleased and excited, with an air of -one who with difficulty keeps the cork in a bottle of mystery; and when -she clasped her hands round Galahad’s arm and told him what a true, true -friend he was! he felt absurdly tender, as he begged her to confide her -trouble to him. - -“I have made such a dreadful discovery,” Laura gasped, dabbing her eyes -with a filmy little square of cambric edged with the narrowest possible -line of black, “about the—about the boys.” - -Galahad strove to compose his features into an expression of decent -regret. - -“Mr. Ambrose and Mr. Theodosius Lasher.... I rather anticipated that -you—that possibly there were discoveries to be made.” He turned his -weary gray eyes upon Laura, and pulled at one wiry end of his little -gingery mustache. “Have they done anything very bad?” he asked, and his -tone was not uncheerful. - -“Bad!” echoed Laura, with indignant scorn. “As though two young men -gifted with natures like theirs”—she had left off calling them “boys,” -Galahad noticed—“so lofty, so noble, so unselfish—and yes, I will say -it, so pure!—could possibly be guilty of any bad or even doubtful -action. But you do not know them, and you are prejudiced; you must admit -you are prejudiced when you hear the—the truth.” The cork escaped, and -the secret came with it in a gush. “It is this: I cannot be a mother to -Dosy and Brosy; they, poor dears, cannot be my sons. I had not the least -idea of their true feeling with regard to me, nor had they, until quite -recently.” She swallowed a little sob and dabbed her eyes again. “Oh, -Galahad, they are madly in love with me, both of them. What, what am I -to do?” - -“Send them to the devil, the impudent young beggars!” snorted Galahad. -And, striding up and down between the trembling china-tables with -clenched fists and angry eyes, he said all the things he had longed to -say about folly, and madness and infatuation. - -A woman will always submit with a good grace to masculine upbraiding -when she has reason to believe the upbraider jealous. Laura bore his -reproaches with saintly sweetness. - -“They have behaved in the most honorable way, poor darlings!” she -protested, “though the realization of the true nature of their feelings -towards me, of course, came as a terrible shock. The deeds of settlement -had been drawn up. We planned, as soon as everything had been sealed and -signed, that the dear boys were to come and live here. I had furnished -their bedrooms exactly alike, and fitted up the smoking-room with twin -armchairs, twin tobacco-tables, and so on, when the blow fell.” She -deepened her voice to a thrilling whisper. “Dosy, looking quite pale and -tragic, asked for an interview in the conservatory; Brosy begged for a -private word in the pavilion at the end of the upper croquet-lawn. And -then,” said Laura, shedding abundant tears, “I knew what I had done. It -did occur to me that I might—might marry Brosy and adopt Dosy as my son, -or marry Dosy and regard Brosy as an heir. But no, it could not be. Dosy -proposed to take poison, or shoot himself, in the most unselfish way; -and Brosy suggested going in for a swim too soon after breakfast, and -never rising from a dive again. But neither could endure to live to see -me the bride of the other,” sobbed Laura. - -“And as this is England, and not Malabar,” uttered Galahad, dryly, “the -law is against your marrying both.” - -“Why, of course, my dear Galahad,” cried Laura innocently, scandalized -and round-eyed. - -The man who really loved her looked at her and forgave her foolishness. -She had set the County buzzing with the tale of her absurd infatuation; -she had compromised her dignity by the tragic follies of the past few -months; there was but one way of gagging the scandalmongers and -regaining lost ground, one way of getting out of the _impasse_. Galahad -pointed out that way, as Laura entreated him to suggest something. - -“Why not marry me?” he said bluntly. - -“Oh, Galahad!” cried Laura, bright-eyed and quite pleasantly thrilled. -“And then we can both adopt the boys.” - -“Whether they embrace that idea or not,” said Galahad, with his arm -round the long-coveted waist, “remains to be seen. But I promise you, if -occasion should arise, that I will act as a father to them.” - -He went out, in his new parental character, to look for Dosy and Brosy -and break the joyful news. His freckled little face was beaming with -smiles, his usually weary gray eyes were alight; he smiled under his -bristly little mustache as he selected a stout but stinging Malacca cane -from the late Thompson Kingdom’s collection in the hall.... - - - - - A DISH OF MACARONI - - -On the occasion of the tenth biennial visit of the Carlo Da Capo Grand -Opera Combination to the musical, if murky, city of Smutchester, the -principal members of the company pitched their tents, as was their wont, -at the Crown Diamonds Hotel, occupying an entire floor of that capacious -caravanserie, whose _chef_, to the grief of many honest British stomachs -and the unrestrained joy of these artless children of song, was of -cosmopolitan gifts, being an Italian-Spanish-Swiss-German. Here _prime -donne_, tenors, and bassos could revel in national dishes from which -their palates had long been divorced, and steaming masses of yellow -polenta, _knüdels_, and _borsch_, heaped dishes of sausages and red -cabbage, ragouts of cockscombs and chicken-livers, veal stewed with -tomatoes, frittura of artichokes, with other culinary delicacies strange -of aspect and garlicky as to smell, loaded the common board at each -meal, only to vanish like the summer snow, so seldom seen but so -constantly referred to by the poetical fictionist, amidst a Babel of -conversation which might only find its parallel in the parrot-house at -the Zoo. Ringed hands plunged into salad-bowls; the smoke of cigarettes -went up in the intervals between the courses; the meerschaum-colored -lager of Munich, the yellow beer of Bass, the purple Chianti, or the -vintage of Epernay brimmed the glasses; and the coffee that crowned the -banquet was black and thick and bitter as the soul of a singer who has -witnessed the triumph of a rival. - -For singers can be jealous: and the advice of Dr. Watts is more at -discount behind the operatic scenes, perhaps, than elsewhere. For women -may be, and are, jealous of other women; and men may be, and are, -jealous of men, off the stage; but it is reserved for the hero and -heroine of the stage to be jealous of one another. The glare of the -footlights, held by so many virtuous persons to be inimical to the -rosebud of innocence, has a curiously wilting and shriveling effect upon -the fine flower of chivalry. Signor Alberto Fumaroli, _primo uomo_, and -possessor of a glorious tenor, was possessed by the idea that the chief -soprano, De Melzi, the enchanting Teresa—still in the splendor of her -youth, with ebony tresses, eyes of jet, skin of ivory, an almost -imperceptible mustache, and a figure of the most seductive, doomed ere -long to expand into a pronounced _embonpoint_—had adorned her classic -temples with laurels which should by rights have decked his own. The -press-cuttings of the previous weeks certainly balanced in her favor. -Feeble-minded musical critics, of what the indignant tenor termed -“provincial rags,” lauded the Signora to the skies. She was termed a -“springing fountain of crystal song,” a “human bulbul in the rose-garden -of melody.” Eulogy had exhausted itself upon her; while he, Alberto -Fumaroli, the admired of empresses, master of the emotions of myriads of -American millionairesses, he was fobbed off with half a dozen -patronizing lines. Glancing over the paper in the saloon carriage, he -had seen the impertinent upper lip of the De Melzi, tipped with the -faintest line of shadow, curl with delight as she scanned each accursed -column in turn, and handed the paper to her aunt (a vast person -invariably clad in the tightest and shiniest of black satins, and -crowned with a towering hat of violet velvet adorned with once snowy -plumes and crushed crimson roses), who went everywhere with her niece, -and mounted guard over the exchequer. Outwardly calm as Vesuvius, and -cool as a Neapolitan ice on a hot day, the outraged Alberto endured the -triumph of the women, marked the subterranean chuckles of the stout -Signora, the mischievous enjoyment of Teresa; pulled his -Austrian-Tyrolese hat over his Corsican brows, and vowed a wily -_vendetta_. His opportunity for wreaking retribution would come at -Smutchester, he knew. Wagner was to be given at the Opera House, and as -great as the previous triumph of Teresa de Melzi in the rôle of -Elsa—newly added by the soprano to her _repertoire_—should be her fall. -_Evviva!_ Down with that fatally fascinating face, smiling so -provokingly under its laurels! She should taste the consequences of -having insulted a Neapolitan. And the tenor smiled so diabolically that -Zamboni, the basso, sarcastically inquired whether Fumaroli was -rehearsing _Mephistofole_? - -“Not so, dear friend,” Fumaroli responded, with a dazzling show of -ivories. “In that part I should make a _bel fiasco_; I have no desire to -emulate a basso or a bull.... But in this—the rôle in which I am -studying to perfect myself—I predict that I shall achieve a dazzling -success.” He drew out a green Russia-leather cigarette case, adorned -with a monogram in diamonds. “It is permitted that one smokes?” he -added, and immediately lighted up. - -“It is permitted, if I am to have one also.” - -The De Melzi stretched a white, bejeweled hand out, and the seething -Alberto, under pain of appearing openly impolite, was forced to comply. -“No, I will not take the cigarette you point out,” said the saucy _prima -donna_, as the tenor extended the open case. “It might disagree with me, -who knows? and I have predicted that in the part of Elsa to-morrow night -at Smutchester _I_ shall achieve a ‘dazzling success.’” And she smiled -with brilliant malice upon Alberto Fumaroli, who played Lohengrin. “They -are discriminating—the audiences of that big, black, melancholy -place—they never mistake geese for swans.” - -“_Ach_, no!” said the Impresario, looking up from his tatting—he was -engaged upon a green silk purse for Madame Da Capo, a wrinkled little -doll of an old lady with whom he was romantically in love. “They will -not take a _dournure_, some declamation, and half a dozen notes in the -upper register _bour dout botage_. Sing to them well, they will be ready -to give you their heads. But sing to them badly, and they will be ready -to pelt yours. Twenty years ago they did. I remember a graceless -impostor, a _ragazzo_ (foisted upon me for a season by a villain of an -agent), who annoyed them in _Almaviva_.... _Ebbene_! the elections were -in progress—there was a _dimonstranza_. I can smell those antique eggs, -those decomposed oranges, now.” - -“Heart’s dearest, thou must not excite thyself,” interrupted Madame; “it -is so bad for thee. Play at the poker-game, _mes enfants_,” she -continued, “and leave my good child, my beloved little one, alone!” -Saying this, Madame drew from her vast under-pocket a neat case -containing an ivory comb, and, removing the fearfully and wonderfully -braided traveling cap of the Impresario, fell to combing his few -remaining hairs until, soothed by the process, Carlo, who had been -christened Karl, fell asleep with his head on Madame’s shoulder; snoring -peacefully, despite the screams, shrieks, howls, and maledictions which -were the invariable accompaniment of the poker-game. - -The train bundled into Smutchester some hours later; a string of cabs -conveyed the Impresario, his wife, and the principal members of his -company to the Crown Diamonds Hotel. Before he sought his couch that -night the revengeful Alberto Fumaroli had interviewed the _chef_ and -bribed him with the gift of a box of regalias from the cedar -smoking-cabinet of a King, to aid in the carrying-out of the _vendetta_. -Josebattista Funkmuller was not a regal judge of cigars; but these were -black, rank, and oily enough to have made an Emperor most imperially -sick. Besides, the De Melzi had, or so he declared, once ascribed an -indigestion which had ruined, or so she swore, one of her grandest -_scenas_, to an omelette of his making, and the cook was not unwilling -that the haughty spirit of the _cantatrice_ should be crushed. His -complex nature, his cosmopolitan origin, showed in the plan Josebattista -Funkmuller now evolved and placed before the revengeful tenor, who -clasped him to his bosom in an ecstasy of delight, planting at the same -time a huge, resounding kiss upon both his cheeks. - -“It is perfection!” Fumaroli cried. “My friend, it can scarcely fail! If -it should, _per Bacco_! the Fiend himself is upon that insolent -creature’s side! But I never heard yet of his helping a woman to resist -temptation—_oh, mai!_ it is he who spreads the board and invites Eve.” - -And the tenor retired exultant. His sleeping-chamber was next door to -that of the hated _cantatrice_. He dressed upon the succeeding morning -to the accompaniment of _roulades_ trilled by the owner of the lovely -throat to which Fumaroli would so willingly have given the fatal -squeeze. And as Fumaroli, completing his frugal morning ablutions by -wiping his beautiful eyes and classic temples very gingerly with a damp -towel, paused to listen, a smile of peculiar malignancy was only partly -obscured by the folds of the towel. But when the tenor and the soprano -encountered at the twelve o’clock _déjeuner_, Fumaroli’s politeness was -excessive, and his large, dark, brilliant eyes responded to every glance -of the gleaming black orbs of De Melzi with a languorous, melting -significance which almost caused her heart to palpitate beneath her -Parisian corsets. Concealed passion lay, it might be, behind an -affectation of enmity and ill-will. - -“_Mai santo cielo!_” exclaimed the stout aunt, to whom the _cantatrice_ -subsequently revealed her suspicions, “thou guessest always as I myself -have thought. The unhappy man is devoured by a grand passion for my -Teresa. He grinds his teeth, he calls upon the saints, he grows more -bilious every day, and thou more beautiful. One day he will declare -himself——” - -“And I shall lose an entertaining enemy, to find a stupid lover,” -gurgled Teresa. She was looking divine, her dark beauty glowing like a -gem in the setting of an Eastern silk of shot turquoise and purple, -fifty yards of which an enamored noble of the Ukraine had thrown upon -the stage of the Opera House, St. Petersburg, wound round the stem of a -costly bouquet. She glanced in the mirror as she kissed the black nose -of her Japanese pug. “Every man becomes stupid after a while,” she went -on. “Even Josebattista is in love with me. He sends me a little note -written on _papier jambon_ to entreat an interview.” - -“My soul!” cried the stout aunt, “thou wilt not deny him?” - -The saucy singer shook her head as Funkmuller tapped at the door. One -need not give in detail the interview that eventuated. It is enough that -the intended treachery of Fumaroli was laid bare. His intended victim -laughed madly. - -“But it is a _cerotto_—what the English call a nincompoop,” she gasped, -pressing a laced handkerchief to her streaming eyes. “If the heavens -were to fall, then one could catch larks; but the proverb says nothing -about nightingales.” - -She tossed her brilliant head and took a turn or two upon the hotel -sitting-room carpet, considering. - -“I will keep this appointment,” said she. - -“_Dio!_ And risk thy precious reputation?” shrieked the aunt. - - “Chi sa? Chi sa? - Evviva l’opportunita!” - -hummed the provoking beauty. And she dealt the cook a sparkling glance -of such intelligence that he felt Signor Alberto would never triumph. -Relieved in mind, Josebattista Funkmuller took his leave. - -“I will return the King’s cigars,” he said, as he pressed his -garlic-scented mustache to the pearly knuckles of the lady. - -“Bah!” said she, “they were won in a raffle at Vienna.” - -The door closed upon the disgusted _chef_, and reopened ten minutes -later to admit a waiter carrying upon a salver a pretty three-cornered -pink note with a gold monogram in the corner. The writer entreated the -inestimable privilege of three minutes’ conversation with Madame de -Melzi in a private apartment in the basement of the hotel. He did not -propose to visit the _prima donna_ in her own rooms, even under the wing -of her aunt, for it was of supreme importance that tongues should not be -set wagging. Delicacy and respect prevented him from suggesting an -interview in the apartments occupied by himself. On the neutral ground -of an office in the basement the interview might take place without -comment or interruption. He was, in fact, waiting there for an answer. - -The answer came in the person of the singer herself, charmingly dressed -and radiant with loveliness. - -“Fie! What an underground hole! The window barred, the blank wall of an -area beyond it!” Her beautiful nostrils quivered. “_Caro mio_, you have -in that covered dish upon the table there something that smells good. -What is under the cover?” - -“Look and see!” said the cunning tenor, with a provoking smile. - -“I am not curious,” responded Teresa, putting both hands behind her and -leaning her back against the door. “Come, hurry up! One of your three -minutes has gone by, the other two will follow, and I shall be obliged -to take myself off without having heard this mysterious revelation. What -is it?” She showed a double row of pearl-hued teeth in a mischievous -smile. “Shall I guess? You have, by chance, fallen in love with me, and -wish to tell me so? How dull and unoriginal! A vivacious, interesting -enemy is to be preferred a million times before a stupid friend or a -commonplace adorer.” - -“_Grazie a Dio!_” said the tenor, “I am not in love with you.” But at -that moment he was actually upon the verge; and the dull, dampish little -basement room, floored with kamptulicon warmed by a grudging little -gas-stove, its walls adorned with a few obsolete and hideous prints, its -oilcloth-covered table, on which stood the mysterious dish, closely -covered, bubbling over a spirit lamp and flanked by a spoon, fork, and -plate—that little room might have been the scene of a declaration -instead of a punishment had it not been for the De Melzi’s amazing -nonchalance. It would have been pleasant to have seen the spiteful -little arrow pierce that lovely bosom. But instead of frowning or biting -her lips, Teresa laughed with the frankest grace in the world. - -“Dear Signor Alberto, Heaven has spared you much. Besides, you are of -those who esteem quantity above quality—and, for a certain thing, I -should be torn to pieces by the ladies of the Chorus.” She shrugged her -shoulders. “Well, what is this mysterious communication? The three -minutes are up, the fumes of a gas fire are bad for the throat—and I -presume you of all people would not wish me to sing ‘Elsa’ with a veiled -voice, and disappoint the dear people of Smutchester, and Messieurs the -critics, who say such kind things.” - -Alberto Fumaroli’s brain spun round. Quick as thought his supple hand -went out; the wrist of the coquettish _prima donna_ was imprisoned as in -a vise of steel. - -“_Ragazza!_” he gnashed out, “you shall pay for your cursed insolence.” -He swung the _cantatrice_ from the door, and Teresa, noting the -convulsed workings of his Corsican features, and devoured by the almost -scorching glare of his fierce eyes, felt a thrill of alarm. - -“_Oimè!_ Signor,” she faltered, “what do you mean by this violence? -Recollect that we are not now upon the stage.” - -A harsh laugh came from the bull throat of the tenor. - - “By mystic Love - Brought from the distance - In thy hour of need. - Behold me, O Elsa! - Loveliest, purest— - Thine own - Unknown!” - -he hummed. But his Elsa did not entreat to flow about his feet like the -river, or kiss them like the flowers blooming amidst the grasses he -trod. Struggling in vain for release from the rude, unchivalrous grasp, -an idea came to her; she stooped her beautiful head and bit Lohengrin -smartly on the wrist, evoking, instead of further music, a torrent of -curses; and as Alberto danced and yelled in agony, she darted from the -room. With the key she had previously extracted she locked the door; and -as her light footsteps and crisping draperies retreated along the -passage, the tenor realized that he was caught in his own trap. Winding -his handkerchief about his smarting wrist, he bestowed a few more hearty -curses upon Teresa, and sat down upon a horsehair-covered chair to wait -for deliverance. They could not possibly give “Lohengrin” without -him—there was no understudy for the part. For her own sake, therefore, -the De Melzi would see him released in time to assume the armor of the -Knight of the Swan. _Ebbene!_ There was nothing to do but wait. He -looked at his watch, a superb timepiece encrusted with brilliants. Two -o’clock! And the opera did not commence until eight. Six hours to spend -in this underground hole, if no one came to let him out. Patience! He -would smoke. He got over half an hour with the aid of the green -cigarette-case. Then he did a little pounding at the door. This bruised -his tender hands, and he soon left off and took to shouting. To the -utmost efforts of his magnificent voice no response was made; the part -of the hotel basement in which his prison happened to be situated was, -in the daytime, when all the servants were engaged in their various -departments, almost deserted. Therefore, after an hour of shouting, -Fumaroli abandoned his efforts. - -What was to be done? He could take a _siesta_, and did, extended upon -two of the grim horsehair chairs with which the apartment was furnished. -He slept excellently for an hour, and woke hungry. - -Hungry! _Diavolo!_ with what a raging hunger—an appetite of Gargantuan -proportions, sharpened to the pitch of famine by the bubbling gushes of -savory steam that jetted from underneath the cover of the mysterious -dish still simmering over its spirit-lamp upon the table! He knew what -that dish contained—his revenge, in fact. Well, it had missed fire, the -_vendetta_. He who had devised the ordeal of temptation for Teresa found -himself helpless, exposed to its fiendish seductions. Not that he would -be likely to yield, _oh mai!_ was it probable? He banished the idea with -a gesture full of superb scorn and a haughty smile. Never, a thousand -times never! The cunning Teresa should be disappointed. That evening’s -performance should be attacked by him as ever, fasting, the voice of -melody, the sonorous lungs, supported by an empty frame. _Cospetto!_ how -savory the smell that came from that covered dish! The unhappy tenor -moved to the table, snuffed it up in nosefuls, thought of flinging the -dish and its contents out of window—would have done so had not the -window been barred. - -“After all, perhaps she means to keep me here all night,” he thought, -and rashly lifted the dish-cover, revealing a vast and heaving plain of -macaroni, over which little rills of liquid butter wandered. Parmesan -cheese was not lacking to the dish, nor the bland juices of the sliced -tomato, and, like the violet by the wayside, the modest garlic added its -perfume to the distracting bouquet. Fumaroli was only human, though, as -a tenor, divine. He had been shut up for four hours, fasting, in company -with a dish of macaroni.... Ah, Heaven! he could endure no longer.... He -drew up a chair, grasped fork and spoon—fell to. In the act of finishing -the dish, he started, fancying that the silvery tinkle of a feminine -laugh sounded at the keyhole. But his faculties were dulled by vast -feeding; his anger, like his appetite, had lost its edge. With an effort -he disposed of the last shreds of macaroni, the last trickle of butter; -and at seven o’clock a waiter, who accidentally unlocked the door of the -basement room, awakened a plethoric sleeper from heavy dreams. - -“To the Opera House,” was the listless direction he gave the driver of -his hired brougham; as one in a dream he entered by the stage-door, and -strode to his room. - -The curtain had already risen upon grassy lowlands in the neighborhood -of Antwerp. Henry, King of Germany, seated under a spreading canvas oak, -held court with military pomp. Frederic of Telramond, wizard husband of -Ortrud, the witch, had stepped forward to accuse Elsa of the murder of -her brother, Gottlieb; the King had cried, “Summon the maid!” and in -answer to the command, amidst the blare of brass and the clashing of -swords, the De Melzi, draped in pure white, followed by her ladies, and -looking the picture of virginal innocence, moved dreamily into view: - - “How like an angel! - He who accuses her - Must surely prove - This maiden’s guilt.” - -Ah! had those who listened to the thrilling strains that poured from -those exquisite lips but guessed, as Elsa described the appearance of -her dream-defender, her shining Knight, and sank upon her knees in an -ecstasy of passionate prayer, that the celestial deliverer was at that -moment gasping in the agonies of indigestion! - - “Let me behold - That form of light!” - -entreated the maiden; and amidst the exclamations of the eight-part -chorus the swan-drawn bark approached the bank; the noble, if somewhat -fleshy, form of Alberto Fumaroli, clad from head to foot in silvery -mail, stepped from it.... With lofty grace he waved his adieu to the -swan, he launched upon his opening strain of unaccompanied melody.... -Alas! how muffled, how farinaceous those once clarion tones!... In -labored accents, amid the growing disappointment of the Smutchester -audience, Lohengrin announced his mission to the King. As he folded the -entranced Elsa to his oppressed bosom, crying: - - “Elsa, I love thee!” - -“She-devil, you have ruined me!” he hissed in the De Melzi’s ear. - - “My hope, my solace, - My hero, I am thine!” - -Teresa trilled in answer. And raising her love-illumined, mischievously -dancing eyes to her deliverer, breathed in his ear: “Try pepsin!” - - - - - “FREDDY & C^{IE}” - - -It is always a perplexing question how to provide for younger sons, and -the immediate relatives of the Honorable Freddy Foulkes had forfeited a -considerable amount of beauty sleep in connection with the problem. - -“My poor darling!” the Marchioness of Glanmire sighed one day, more in -sorrow than in anger, when the Honorable Freddy brought his charming -smile and his graceful but unemployed person into her morning-room. “If -you could only find some congenial and at the same time lucrative post -that would take up your time and absorb your spare energy, how grateful -I should be!” - -“I have found it,” said the Honorable Freddy, with his cherubic smile. -He possessed the blonde curling hair and artless expression that may be -symbolical of guilelessness or the admirable mask of guile. - -“Thank Heaven!” breathed his mother. Then, with a sense that the -thanksgiving might, after all, be premature, she inquired: “But of what -nature is this post? Before it can be seriously considered, one must be -certain that it entails no loss of caste, demands nothing derogatory in -the nature of service from one who—I need not remind you of your -position, or of the fact that your family must be considered.” - -She smoothed her darling’s silky hair, which exhaled the choicest -perfume of Bond Street, and kissed his brow, as pure and shadowless as a -slice of cream cheese, as the young man replied: - -“Dearest mother, you certainly need not.” - -“Then tell me of this post. Is it anything,” the Marchioness asked, “in -the Diplomatic line?” - -“Without a good deal of diplomacy a man would be no good for the shop,” -admitted Freddy; “but otherwise, your guess is out.” - -Doubt darkened his mother’s eyes. - -“Don’t say,” she exclaimed, “that you have accepted a Club -Secretaryship? To me it seems the last resource of the unsuccessful -man.” - -“It will never be mine,” said Freddy, “because I can’t keep accounts, -and they wouldn’t have me. Try again.” - -“I trust it has nothing to do with Art,” breathed the Marchioness, who -loathed the children of canvas and palette with an unreasonable -loathing. - -“In a way it has,” replied her son, “and in another way it hasn’t. Come! -I’ll give you a lead. There is a good deal of straw in the business for -one thing.” - -“You cannot contemplate casting in your lot with the agricultural -classes? No! I knew the example of your unhappy cousin Reginald would -prevent you from adopting so wild a course ... but you spoke of straw.” - -“Of straw. And flowers. And tulles.” - -“Flowers and tools! Gardening is a craze which has become fashionable of -late. But I cannot calmly see you in an apron, potting plants.” - -“It is not a question of potting plants, but of potting customers,” said -Freddy, showing his white teeth in a charming smile. - -A shudder convulsed Freddy’s mother. Freddy went on, filially patting -her handsome hand: - -“You see, I have decided, and gone into trade. If I were a wealthy cad, -I should keep a bucket-shop. Being a poor gentleman, I am going to make -a bonnet-shop keep me. And, what is more—I intend to trim all the -bonnets myself!” - -There was no heart disease upon the maternal side of the house. The -Marchioness did not become pale blue, and sink backwards, clutching at -her corsage. She rose to her feet and boxed her son’s right ear. He -calmly offered the left one for similar treatment. - -“Don’t send me out looking uneven,” he said simply. “If I pride myself -upon anything, it is a well-balanced appearance. And I have to put in an -hour or so at the shop by-and-by.” He glanced in the mantel-mirror as he -spoke, and observing with gratification that his immaculate necktie had -escaped disarrangement, he twisted his little mustache, smiled, and knew -himself irresistible. - -“The shop! Degenerate boy!” cried his mother. “Who is your partner in -this—this enterprise?” - -“You know her by sight, I think,” returned the cherub coolly. “Mrs. -Vivianson, widow of the man who led the Doncaster Fusiliers to the top -of Mealie Kop and got shot there. Awfully fetching, and as clever as -they make them!” - -“That woman one sees everywhere with a positive _procession_ of young -men at her heels!” - -“That woman, and no other.” - -“She is hardly——” - -“She is awfully _chic_, especially in mourning.” - -“I will admit she has some style.” - -“_Admit_, when you and all the other women have copied the color of her -hair and the cut of her sleeves for three seasons past! I like that!” - -Freddy was growing warm. - -“When you accuse me of imitating the appearance of a person of that -kind,” said Lady Glanmire, in a cold fury, “you insult your mother. And -when you ally yourself with her in the face of Society, as you are about -to do, you are going too far. As to this millinery establishment, it -shall not open.” - -“My dear mother,” said Freddy, “it has been open for a week.” - -He drew a card from an exquisite case mounted in gold. On the pasteboard -appeared the following inscription in neat characters of copperplate:— - - FREDDY & C^{IE} - COURT MILLINERS, - 11, CONDOVER STREET, W. - -“Freddy and Company!” murmured the stricken parent, as she perused the -announcement. - -“Mrs. V. is company,” observed the son, with a spice of vulgarity; “and -uncommonly good company, too. As for myself, my talents have at last -found scope, and millinery is my _métier_. How often haven’t you said -that no one has such exquisite taste in the arrangement of flowers——” - -“As you, Freddy! It is true! But——” - -“Haven’t you declared, over and over again, that you have never had a -maid who could put on a mantle, adjust a fold of lace, or pin on a toque -as skillfully as your own son?” - -“My boy, I own it. Still, millinery as a profession? Can you call it -_quite_ manly for a man?” - -“To spend one’s life in arranging combinations to set off other women’s -complexions. Can you call that womanly for a woman? To my mind,” pursued -Freddy, “it is the only occupation for a man of real refinement. To -crown Beauty with beauty! To dream exquisite confections, which shall -add the one touch wanting to exquisite youth or magnificent middle-age! -To build up with deft touches a creation which shall betray in every -detail, in every effect, the hand of a genius united to the soul of a -lover, and reap not only gold, but glory! Would this not be Fame?” - -“Ah! I no longer recognize you. You do not talk like your dear old -self!” cried the Marchioness. - -“I am glad of it,” replied Freddy, “for, frankly, I was beginning to -find my dear old self a bore.” He drew out a watch, and his monogram and -crest in diamonds scintillated upon the case. His eye gleamed with proud -triumph as he said: “Ten to twelve. At twelve I am due at Condover -Street. Come, not as my mother, if you are ashamed of my profession, but -as a customer ashamed of that bonnet” (Lady Glanmire was dressed for -walking), “which you ought to have given to your cook long ago. Unless -you would prefer your own brougham, mine is at the door.” - -The vehicle in question bore the smartest appearance. The Marchioness -entered it without a murmur, and was whirled to Condover Street. The -name of Freddy & Cie. appeared in a delicate flourish of golden letters -above the chastely-decorated portals of the establishment, and the -plate-glass window contained nothing but an assortment of plumes, -ribbons, chiffons, and shapes of the latest mode, but not a single -completed article of head apparel. - -The street was already blocked with carriages, the vestibule packed, the -shop thronged with a vast and ever-increasing assemblage of women, -amongst whom Lady Glanmire recognized several of her dearest friends. -She wished she had not come, and looked for Freddy. Freddy had vanished. -His partner, Mrs. Vivianson, a vividly-tinted, elegant brunette of some -thirty summers, assisted by three or four charming girls, modestly -attired and elegantly _coiffée_, was busily engaged with those would-be -customers, not a few, who sought admission to the inner room, whose pale -green _portière_ bore in gold letters of embroidery the word _atelier_. - -“You see,” she was saying, “to the outer shop admission is _quite_ free. -We are charmed to see everybody who likes to come, don’t you know? and -show them the latest shades and shapes and things. But consultation with -Monsieur Freddy—we charge five shillings for that. Unusual? Perhaps. But -Monsieur Freddy is Monsieur Freddy!” And her shrug was worthy of a -Parisienne. “Why do you ask? ‘Is it true that he is the younger son of -the Duke of Deershire?’ Dear Madame, to _us_ he is Monsieur Freddy; and -we seek no more.” - -“A born tradeswoman!” thought Lady Glanmire, as the silver coins were -exchanged for little colored silk tickets bearing mystic numbers. She -moved forward and tendered two half-crowns; and Freddy’s partner and -Freddy’s mother looked one another in the face. But Mrs. Vivianson -maintained an admirable composure. - -And then the curtains of the _atelier_ parted, and a young and pretty -woman came out quickly. She was charmingly dressed, and wore the most -exquisite of hats, and a murmur went up at sight of it. She stretched -out her hands to a friend who rushed impulsively to meet her, and her -voice broke in a sob of rapture. - -“Did you ever see anything so _sweet_? And he did it like magic—one -scarcely saw his fingers move!” she cried; and her friend burst into -exclamations of delight, and a chorus rose up about them. - -“_Wonderful!_” - -“_Extraordinary!_” - -“_He does it while you wait!_” - -“_Just for curiosity, I really must!_” - -And a wave of eager women surged towards the green _portière_. Three -went in, being previously deprived of their headgear by the respectful -attendants, who averred that it put Monsieur Freddy’s taste out of gear -for the day to be compelled to gaze upon any creation other than his -own. And then it came to the turn of Lady Glanmire. - -She, disbonneted, entered the sanctum. A pale, clear, golden light -illumined it from above; the walls were hung with draperies of delicate -pink, the carpet was moss-green. In the center of the apartment, upon a -broad, low divan, reclined the figure of a slender young man. He wore a -black satin mask, concealing the upper part of his face, a loose, -lounging suit of black velvet, and slippers of the same with the -embroidered initial “F.” Round him stood, mute and attentive as slaves, -some half-dozen pretty young women, bearing trays of trimmings of every -conceivable kind. In the background rose a grove of stands supporting -hat-shapes, bonnet-shapes, toque-foundations, the skeletons of every -conceivable kind of headgear. - -Silent, the Marchioness stood before her disguised son. - -He gently put up his eyeglass, to accommodate which aid to vision his -mask had been specially designed, and motioned her to the sitter’s -chair, so constructed that with a touch of Monsieur Freddy’s foot upon a -lever it would revolve, presenting the customer from every point of -view. He touched the lever now, and chair and Marchioness spun slowly -around. But for the presence of the young ladies with their trays of -flowers, plumes, gauzes, and ribbons, Freddy’s mother could have -screamed. All the while Freddy remained silent, absorbed in -contemplation, as though trying to fix upon his memory features seen for -the first time. At last he spoke. - -“Tall,” he said, “and inclined to a becoming _embonpoint_. The eyes -blue-gray, the hair of auburn touched with silver, the features, of the -Anglo-Roman type, somewhat severe in outline, the chin——A hat to suit -this client”—he spoke in a sad, sweet, mournful voice—“would cost five -guineas. A Marquise shape, of broadtail”—one of the young lady -attendants placed the shape required in the artist’s hands—“the brim -lined with a rich drapery of chenille and silk.... Needle and thread, -Miss Banks. Thank you....” His fingers moved like white lightning as he -deftly wielded the feminine implement and snatched his materials from -the boxes proffered in succession by the girls. “Black and white tips of -ostrich falling over one side from a ring of cut steel,” he continued in -the same dreamy tone. “A knot of point d’Irlande, with a heart of -Neapolitan violets, and”—he rose from the divan and lightly placed the -beautiful completed fabric upon the Marchioness’s head—“here is your -hat, Madame. Five guineas. Good-morning. Next, please!” - -Emotion choked his mother’s utterance. At the same moment she saw -herself in the glass silently swung towards her by one of the -attendants, and knew that she was suited to a marvel. She made her exit, -paid her five guineas, and returned home, embarrassed by the discovery -that there was an artist in the family. - -One thing was clear, no more was to be said. The _Maison Freddy_ became -the morning resort of the smart world; it was considered the thing to -have hats made while Society waited. True, they came to pieces easily, -not being copper-nailed and riveted, so to speak; but what poems they -were! The charming conversation of Monsieur Freddy, the half-mystery -that veiled his identity, as his semi-mask partially concealed his fair -and smiling countenance, added to the attractions of the Condover Street -_atelier_. - -Money rolled in; the banking account of the partners grew plethoric; and -then Mrs. Vivianson, in spite of the claims of the business upon her -time, in spite of the Platonic standpoint she had up to the present -maintained in her relations with Freddy, began to be jealous. - -“Or—no! I will not admit that such a thing is possible!” she said, as -she looked through some recent entries in the day-book of the firm. “But -that American millionairess girl comes too often. She has bought a hat -every day for three weeks past. Good for business in one way, but bad -for it in another. If he should marry, what becomes of the _Maison -Freddy_?” - -She sighed and passed between the curtains. It was the slack time after -luncheon, and Freddy was enjoying a moment’s interval. Stretched on his -divan, his embroidered slippers elevated in the air, he smoked a -perfumed cigarette surrounded by the materials of his craft. He smiled -at Mrs. Vivianson as she entered, and then raised his aristocratic -eyebrows in surprise. - -“Has anything gone wrong? You swept in as tragically as my mother when -she comes to disown me. She does it regularly every week, and as -regularly takes me on again.” He exhaled a scented cloud, and smiled -once more. - -“Freddy,” said Mrs. Vivianson, going direct to the point, “this little -speculation of ours has turned out very well, hasn’t it?” - -“Beyond dreams!” acquiesced Freddy. She went on: - -“You came to me a penniless detrimental, with a talent of which nobody -guessed that anything could be made. I gave this gift a chance to -develop. I set you on your legs, and——” - -“_Me voici!_ You don’t want me to rise up and bless you, do you?” said -Freddy, with half-closed eyes. “Thanks awfully, you know, all the same!” - -“I don’t know that I want thanks, quite,” said Mrs. Vivianson. “I’ve had -back every penny that I invested, and pulled off a bouncing profit. Your -share amounts to a handsome sum. In a little while you’ll be able to pay -your debts.” - -“I shall never do that!” said Freddy, with feeling. - -“Marry, and leave me—perhaps,” went on Mrs. Vivianson. A shade swept -over her face, her dark eyes glowed somberly, the lines of her mouth -hardened. - -“Keep as you are!” cried Freddy, rebounding to a sitting position on the -divan. - -“Where’s that new Medici shape in gold rice-straw and the amber _crêpe -chiffon_, and the orange roses with crimson hearts?” His nimble fingers -darted hither and thither, his eyes shone, and his cheeks were flushed -with the enthusiasm of the artist. “A tuft of black and yellow cock’s -feathers, _à la Mephistophele_,” he cried, “a topaz buckle, and it is -finished. You must wear with it a _jabot_ of yellow _point d’Alençon_. -It is the hat of hats for a jealous woman!” - -“How dare you!” cried Mrs. Vivianson. But Freddy did not seem to hear -her—he was rapt in the contemplation of the new masterpiece; and as he -rose and gracefully placed it on his partner’s head, Miss Cornelia -Vanderdecken was ushered in. She was superbly beautiful in the -ivory-skinned, jetty-locked, slender American style, and she wore a hat -that Freddy had made the day before, which set off her charms to -admiration. - -She occupied the sitter’s chair as Mrs. Vivianson glided from the room, -and Freddy’s blue eyes dwelt upon her worshipingly. To do him justice, -he had lost his heart before he learned that Cornelia was an heiress. -Now words escaped him that brought a faint pink stain to her ivory -cheek. - -“Ah!” he cried impulsively, “you are ruining my business.” - -“Oh, why, Monsieur Freddy? Please tell me!” asked Miss Vanderdecken, -with naïve curiosity. - -“Because,” said Freddy, while a bright blush showed beyond the limits of -his black satin mask, “you are so beautiful that it is torture to make -hats for other women—since I have seen you.” - -There was a pause. Then Miss Cornelia’s silk foundations rustled as she -turned resolutely toward the divan. - -“I can’t return the compliment,” she said, “by telling you that it is -torture to me to wear hats made by any other man since I have seen you, -for other men don’t make hats, and I can’t really see you through that -thing you wear over your face. But——” - -Her voice faltered, and Freddy, with a gesture, dismissed his lady -assistants. Then he removed his mask. Their eyes met, and Cornelia -uttered a faint exclamation. - -“Oh my! You’re just like him!” - -“Who is he?” asked Freddy. - -“I can’t quite say, because I don’t know,” returned Cornelia; “but all -girls have their ideals, from the time they wear Swiss pinafores to the -time they wear forty-eight inch corsets; and I won’t deny”—her voice -trembled—“but what you fill the bill. My! What _are_ you doing?” - -For Freddy had grasped his materials and was making a hat. It was of -palest blush tulle, with a crown of pink roses, and an aigrette of -flamingo plumes was fastened with a Cupid’s bow in pink topaz. - -“Love’s first confession,” the young man murmured as he bit off the last -thread, “should be whispered beneath a hat like this.” And he gracefully -placed it on Cornelia’s raven hair. - -Mrs. Vivianson, her ear to the keyhole of a side door, quivered from -head to foot with rage and jealousy. Time was when he, a penniless, -high-bred boy, had implored her to marry him. Now—her blood boiled at -the remembrance of the half hint, the veiled suggestion she had made, -that they should unite in a more intimate partnership than that already -consolidated. With her jealousy was mingled despair. As long as Freddy -and his hats remained the fashion, the shop would pay, and pay royally. -There had as yet occurred no abatement in the onflow of aristocratic -patronage. To avow his identity—never really doubted—to become an -engaged man, meant ruin to the business. The blood hummed in her head. -She clung to the door-handle and entered, as Freddy, with real grace and -eloquence, pleaded his suit. - -“And you are really a Marquis’s second son, though you make hats for -money?” she heard Cornelia say. “I always guessed you had real old -English blood in you, from the tone of your voice and the shape of your -finger-nails, even when you wore a mask. And it seemed as though I -couldn’t do anything but buy hats. I surmised it was vanity at the time, -but now I guess it was—love!” - -“My dearest!” said Freddy, bending his blonde head over her jeweled -hands. “My Cornelia! I will make you a hat every day when you are -married. Ah! I have it! You shall wear one of mine to go away in upon -the day we are wed, the inspiration of a bridegroom, thought out and -achieved between the church door and the chancel. What an idea for a -lover! What an advertisement for the shop!” His blue eyes beamed at the -thought. - -But Cornelia’s face fell. - -“I don’t know how to say it, dear, but we shall never be married. Poppa -is perfectly rocky on one point, and that is that the man I hitch up -with shall never have dabbled as much as his little finger in trade. -‘You have dollars enough to buy one of the real high-toned sort,’ he -keeps saying, ‘and if blood royal is to be got for money, Silas P. -Vanderdecken is the man to get it. So run along and play, little girl, -till the right man comes along.’ And I know he’ll say you’re the wrong -one!” - -Freddy’s complexion, grown transparent from excess of emotion and lack -of exercise, paled to an ivory hue. His sedentary life had softened his -condition and unstrung his nerves. He adored Cornelia, and had looked -forward to a lifetime spent in adorning her beauty with bonnets of the -most becoming shapes and designs. Now that a coarse Transatlantic -millionaire with soft shirt-fronts and broad-leaved felt hats might step -in and shatter for ever his beautiful dream of union, bitter revulsion -seized him. He feared his fate. What was he? The second son of a poor -Marquis, with a particularly healthy elder brother. He looked upon the -chiffons, the flowers and the feathers that surrounded him, and felt -that the hopes of a heart reared upon so frail a basis were insecure -indeed. Then his old blood rallied to his heart, and he rose from the -divan and clasped the now tearful Cornelia to his breast. - -“Go, my dearest,” he said, “tell all to your father—plead for me. Do not -write or wire—bring me his verdict to-morrow. Meanwhile I will compose -two hats. Each shall be a masterpiece—a swan-song of my Art. One is to -be worn if”—his voice broke—“if I am to be happy; the other if I am -fated to despair. Go now, for I must be alone to carry out my -inspiration.” - -And Cornelia went. Then Freddy, sternly refusing to receive any more -customers that day, set himself to the completion of his task. Before -very long both hats were actualities. Hat Number One was an Empire shape -of dead-leaf beaver, the crown draped with dove-colored silk, a spray of -sere oak-leaves and rue in front, a fine scarf of black lace, partly to -veil the face of the wearer, thrown back over one side of the brim and -caught with a clasp of black pearls set in oxidized silver. It breathed -of chastened woe and temperate sadness, and was to be worn if Papa -Vanderdecken persisted in refusing to accept Freddy as a suitor. - -But Hat Number Two! It was of the palest blue guipure straw, draped with -coral silk and Cluny lace. In front was a spray of moss rosebuds and -forget-me-nots, dove’s wings of burnished hues were set at either side. -It was the very hat to be worn by a bringer of joyful news, the ideal -hat under which might be appropriately exchanged the first kiss of -plighted passion. Upon it Freddy pinned a fairy-like card, white and -gold-edged. - -“If I am to be happy, wear this,” was written upon it; and upon a buff -card attached to the hat of rejection he inscribed: “Wear this, if I am -to be unhappy.” Then he closed the large double bandbox in which he had -packed the hats, breathed a kiss into the folds of the silver paper, -and, ringing the bell, bade a messenger carry the box to the hotel at -which Cornelia Vanderdecken was staying, and where, millionairess though -she was, she was still content to dress with the help of a deft maid and -the adoration of a devoted companion. Then the exhausted artist fell -back on the divan. Cornelia was to come at twelve upon the morrow. - -“Then I shall learn my fate,” said Freddy. He drove home in his -brougham, and passed a sleepless night. The fateful hour found him again -upon his divan, surrounded by the materials of his craft, waiting -feverishly for Cornelia. - -The curtains parted. He started up at the rustling of her gown and the -jingling of her bangles. Horror! she wore the somber hat of sorrow, -though under its shadow her face was curiously bright. - -She advanced toward Freddy. He reeled and staggered backward, raised his -white hand to his delicate throat, and fell fainting amongst his -cushions. Cornelia screamed. Mrs. Vivianson and her young ladies came -hurrying in. As the stylish widow noted Cornelia’s headgear, her eyes -flashed and joy was in her face. Then it clouded over, for she knew that -Papa Vanderdecken had been coaxed over, and Freddy was an accepted man. -My reader, being exceptionally acute, will realize that the jealous -woman had changed the tickets on the hats. - -“Not that it was much use,” she avowed to herself, as she entered with -smelling-salts and burnt feathers to restore Freddy’s consciousness. -“When he revives, she will tell him the truth.” But Freddy only regained -consciousness to lose it in the ravings of delirium. He had an attack of -brain fever, in which he wandered through groves of bonnet shops, -looking unavailingly for Cornelia. And then came the crisis, and he woke -up with an ice-bandage on, to find himself in his bedroom at Glanmire -House, with the Marchioness leaning over him. - -“Mother, my heart is broken,” said the boy—he was really little more. -“The world exists no more for me. Let me make my last hat—and leave it.” - -“Oh, Freddy, don’t you know me?” gasped Cornelia in the background; but -the repentant woman who had brought about all this trouble drew the girl -away. - -“Even good news broken suddenly to him in his weak state,” said Mrs. -Vivianson in a rapid whisper, “may prove fatal. I have a plan which may -gradually enlighten him.” - -“I trust you,” said Cornelia. “You have saved his life with your -nursing. Now give him back to me!” - -“Hush!” said Mrs. Vivianson. - -She had rapidly dispatched a messenger to Condover Street, and now, as -Freddy again opened his eyes and repeated his piteous request, the -messenger returned. Then all present gathered about the bed, whose -inmate had been raised upon supporting pillows. It was a queer scene as -the shaded electric light above the bed played upon Freddy’s pallid -features, showing the ravages of sickness there. “Now!” said Mrs. -Vivianson. She placed the milliner’s box upon the bed, and Freddy’s -feeble fingers, diving into it, drew forth a spray of orange blossoms -and a diaphanous cloud of filmy lace. - -“Black—not white!” Freddy gasped brokenly. “It is a mourning toque that -I must make. Let Cornelia wear it at my funeral.” - -“Cornelia will not wear it at your funeral, Freddy,” said Mrs. -Vivianson, bending over him; “for she is going to marry you, not to bury -you.” And, drawing the tearful girl to Freddy’s side, she flung over her -beautiful head the bridal veil, and crowned her with a wreath of orange -blossoms. And as, with a feeble cry, Freddy opened his wasted arms and -Cornelia fell into them, Mrs. Vivianson, her work of atonement -completed, pressed the offered hand of Freddy’s mother, and hurried out -of the room and out of the story. Which ends, as stories ought, happily -for the lovers, who are now honeymooning in the Riviera. - - - - - UNDER THE ELECTRICS - A SHOW-LADY IS ELOQUENT - - -“Really, my dear, I think the man has gone a bit too far. Writes a -play with a fast young lady in the Profession for the heroine—and -where he got his model from I can’t imagine—and then writes to the -papers to explain, accounting for her past being a bit off -color—_twiggez-vous?_—by saying she isn’t a Chorus-lady, only a -Show-lady. - -“Gracious! I’m short of a bit of wig-paste, my pet complexion-color No. -2. Any lady present got half a stick to lend? I want to look my special -best to-night: _somebody in the stalls_, don’tcherknow! Chuck it -over!—mind that bottle of Bass! I’m aware beer is bad for the liver, but -such a nourishing tonic, isn’t it? When I get back to the theater, tired -after a sixty-mile ride in somebody’s 20 h.p. Gohard—_twiggez?_—a -tumbler with a good head to it makes my dear old self again in a twink. - -“Half-hour? That new call-boy must be spoke to on the quiet, dears. Such -manners, putting his nasty little head right into the show-ladies’ -dressing-room when he calls. I suggest, girlies, that when we’re all -running down for the general entrance in the First Act—and that -staircase on the prompt side is the narrowest I ever struck—I suggest -that when we meet that little brute—he’s always coming up to give the -principals the last call—I suggest that each girl bumps his head against -the wall as she goes by! That’ll make twenty bumps, and do him lots of -good, too! - -“Miss de la Regy, dear, I lent you my blue pencil last night. Hand it -over, there’s a good old sort, when you’ve given the customary languish -to your eyes, love. What are you saying? Stage-Manager’s order that -we’re not to grease-black our eyelashes so much, as some people say it -looks fair hideous from the front? Tell him to consume his own smoke -next time he’s in a beast of a cooker. Why don’t he tell _her_ to mind -her own business?—I’m sure she’s old enough! What I say is, I’ve always -been accustomed to put lots on mine, and I don’t see myself altering my -usual make-up at this time o’ day. Do you? Not much?—I rather thought -so. What else does he say?—he’ll be obliged if we’ll wear the chin-strap -of our Hussar busbies down instead of tucked up inside ’em? What I say -is—and I’m sure you’ll agree with me, girls—that it’s bad enough to have -to wear a fur hat with a red bag hangin’ over the top, without marking a -young lady’s face in an unbecoming way with a chin-strap. Also he -insists—what price him?—he _insists_ on our leavin’ our Bridgehands down -in the dressing-room, and not coming on the stage with ’em stuck in the -fronts of our tunics, in defiance of the Army Regulations? Rot the -Regulations, and bother the Stage-Manager! How _she_ must have been -nagging at him, mustn’t she?—because he _can_ be quite too frightfully -nice and gentlemanly when he likes. I will speak up for him that much. -Not that I ever was a special favorite—I keep myself to myself too much. -Different to some people not so far off. _Twiggez?_ I’ve my pride, -that’s what I say, if I am a Show-girl! - -“Thirty-five shillings a week, with _matinées_—you can’t say it’s much -to look like a lady on, can you now? No, but what a girl with taste and -clever fingers, and a knack of getting what she wants at a remnant -sale—and the things those forward creatures in black cashmere _Princess_ -robes try to shove down a lady-customer’s throat are generally the -things she could buy elsewhere new for less money—not but that a girl -with her head screwed on the right way can turn out in first-class style -for less than some people would think, and get credit in _some quarters -we know of_—this is a beastly, spiteful world, my dear—for taking -presents right and left. - -“Now, who has been and hung my wig on the electric light? If the person -considers that a practical joke, it shows—that’s what I say!—it shows -that she’s descended from the lowest circles. I won’t pretend I don’t -suspect who has been up to her little games again, and, though I should, -_as a lady_, be sorry to behave otherwise, I must caution her, unless -she wishes to find her military boots full of prepared chalk one o’ -these nights, to quit and chuck ’em. - -“Quarter of an hour! That _was_ clever of you, Miss Enderville dear, to -shut that imp’s head in the door before he could pop it back again. -Well, there! if you haven’t got another diamond ring!... Left at the -stage-door office, addressed to you, by a perfect stranger, who hasn’t -even enclosed a line.... Perhaps you’ll meet him in a better land, dear; -he seems a lot too shy for this one. Not that I admire the -three-speeds-forward sort of fellow, but there is such a thing as being -too backward in coming up to the scratch—twig? - -“I ought to know something about that, considering which my life was -spoiled—never you mind how long ago, because dates are a rotten -nuisance—by one of those hang-backers who want the young woman—the young -lady, I should say—to make all the pace for both sides. It was during -the three-hundred night run of——There! I’ve forgotten the name of the -gay old show, but Miss de la Regy was in it with me—one of the Tall -Eleven, weren’t you, Miss de la Regy dear? And we were Anchovian -Brigands in the First Act—Sardinian Brigands, did you say? I knew it had -something to do with the beginning of a dinner at the Savoy—and Marie -Antoinette gentlemen in powdered wigs and long, gold-headed canes in the -Second, and in the Final Tableau British tars in pink silk fleshings, -pale blue socks, and black pumps, and Union Jacks. I remember how I -fancied myself in that costume, and how frightfully it fetched _him_. - -“Me keeping my eyes very much to myself in those days, new to the -Profession as I was, I didn’t tumble to the fact of having made a -regular conquest till a girl older than me twigged and gave me a -hint—then I saw him sitting in the stalls, dear, if you’ll believe -me!—dash it! I’ve dropped my powder-puff in the water-jug!—with his -mouth wide open—not a becoming thing, but a sign of true feeling. - -“He was fair and pale and slim, with large blue eyes, and lovely linen, -and a diamond stud in the shirt-front, and a gardenia in the buttonhole -was good form then, and the white waistcoats were twill. To-day his -waistcoat would be heliotrope watered silk, and his shirt-front -embroidered cambric, and if he showed more than an inch of platinum -watch-chain, he’d be outcast for ever from his kind. Bless you! men -think as much of being in the fashion as we do, take my word for it, -dear. - -“He kept his mouth open, as I’ve said, all through the evening, only -putting the knob of his stick into it sometimes—silver knobs were all -the go then—and never took his eyes off me. ‘You’ve made a victim, -Daisy,’ says one of the girls as we did a step off to the chorus, two by -two, ‘and don’t you forget to make hay while the sun shines!’ I thanked -her to keep her advice to herself, and moved proudly away, but my heart -was doing ragtime under my corsets, and no mistake about it. When we ran -downstairs after the General Entrance and the Final Tableau, I took off -as much make-up as I thought necessary, and dressed in a hurry, wishing -I’d come to business in a more stylish get-up. And as I came out between -the swing-leaves of the stage-door, I saw _him_ outside in an overcoat -with a sable collar, a crush hat, and a white muffler. Dark as the light -was, he knew me, and I recognized him, his mouth being ajar, same as -during the show, and his eyes being fixed in the same intense gaze, -which I don’t blush to own gave me a sensation like what you have when -the shampooing young woman at the Turkish Baths stands you up in the -corner of a room lined with hot tiles and fires cold water at you from -the other end of it out of a rubber hose. - -“‘Well, have you found his name out yet, Daisy, old girl?’ was the -question in the dressing-room next night. I felt red-hot with good -old-crusted shame, when I found out that it was generally known he’d -followed me down Wellington Street to my ’bus—not a Vanguard, but a -gee-gee-er in those days—and stood on the splashy curb to see me get in, -without offering an utterance—which I dare say if he had I should have -shrieked for a policeman, me being young and shy. No, I’d no idea what -his name was, nor nothing more than that he looked the complete swell, -and was evidently a regular goner—_twiggez?_—on the personal charms of -yours truly. - -“If you’ll believe me, there wasn’t a line or a rosebud waiting for me -at the stage-door next night, though he sat in the same stall and stared -in the same marked way all through the evening. Perhaps he might for -ever have remained anonymous, but that the girl who dressed on my left -hand—quite a rattlingly good sort, but with a passion for eating pickled -gherkins out of the bottle with a fork during all the stage waits and -intervals such as I’ve never seen equaled—that girl happened to know the -man—middle-aged toff, with his head through his hair and a pane in his -eye—who was in the stall next my conquest the night before. She applied -the pump—_twiggez?_—and learned the name and title of one I shall always -remember, even though things never came to nothing definite betwixt -us—twig? - -“He was a Viscount—sable and not musquash—the genuine article, not dyed -or made up of inferior skins; blow on the hairs and hold it to the -light, you will not see the fatally regular line that bears testimony to -deception. Lord Polkstone, eldest son of the Earl of ——. Well, there, if -I haven’t been and forgotten his dadda’s title! Rolling in money, and an -only boy. It was less usual then than now for a peer to pick a -life-partner among the Show-girls, but just to keep us bright and -chirpy, the thing was occasionally done—twig? And there Lord Polkstone -sat night after night, _matinée_ after _matinée_, in the same place in -the stalls, with his mouth open and his large blue eyes nailed upon the -features of yours truly. Whenever I came out after the show, there he -was waiting, but it went no farther. Pitying his bashfulness, I might—I -don’t say I would, but I _might_—have passed a ladylike remark upon the -weather, and broken the ice that way. But every girl in my room—the Tall -Eleven dressed in one together—every girl’s unanimous advice was, ‘Let -him speak first, Daisy.’ Then they’d simply split with laughing and have -to wipe their eyes. Me, being young and unsophis—I forget how to spell -the rest of that word, but it means jolly fresh and green—never -suspected them of pulling my leg. I took their crocodileish advice, and -waited for Lord Polkstone to speak. My dear, I’ve wondered since how it -was I never suspected the truth! Weeks went by, and the affair had got -no farther. Young and inexperienced as I was, I could see by his eye -that his was no Sunday-to-Monday affection, but a real, lasting devotion -of the washable kind. Knowing that, helped me to go on waiting, though I -was dying to hear his voice. But he never spoke nor wrote, though -several other people did, and, my attention being otherwise taken up, I -treated those fellows with more than indifference. - -“I remember the Commissionaire—an obliging person when not under the -influence of whisky—telling me that what he called a rum party had left -several bouquets at the stage-door—no name being on them, and without -saying who for—which seemed uncommonly queer. Afterward it flashed on -me—but there! never mind! - -“If I had ever said a word to that dear when his imploring eyes met -mine, and lingered on the curb when I heard his faithful footsteps -following me to my ’bus, the mask would have fallen, dear, and the -blooming mystery been brought to light. But it shows the kind of girl I -was in those days, that with ‘Good-evening,’ ready on the tip of my -tongue, I shut my mouth and didn’t say it. If I had, I might have been a -Countess now, sitting in a turret and sewing tapestry, or walking about -a large estate in a tailor-made gown, showing happy cottagers how to do -dairy-work. - -“That’s my romance, dear—is there a drop of Bass left in that bottle? -I’ve a thirst on me I wouldn’t sell for four ‘d.’ Spite and malice on -the part of some I shall not condescend to accuse, helplessness on his -part—poor, devoted dear!—and ignorance on mine, nipped it in the bud; -and when he vanished from the stalls—didn’t turn up at the -stage-door—appearing in the Royal Box, one night I shall never forget, -with two young girls in white and a dowager in a diamond fender, I knew -he’d given up the chase, and with it all thoughts of poor little downy -Me. - -“We were singing a deadly lively chorus about being ‘jolly, confoundedly -jolly!’ and I stood and sang and sniveled with the black running off my -eyes. For even to my limited capacity, and without the sneering whispers -of a treacherous snake-in-the-grass, whose waist I had to keep my arm -round all the time, me playing boy to her girl, first couple proscenium -right, next the Royal Box, where he sat with those three women—I could -see how I’d lost the prize. One glance at Lord Polkstone—prattling away -on his fingers to the best-looking of those two girls, neither of ’em -being over and above what I should call passable—one glance revealed the -truth. - -“He was deaf and dumb!—and I had been waiting a week of Sundays for him -to speak out first. Hugging my happy love and my innocent hope to my -heart of hearts—there’s an exercise in h’s for any person whose weakness -lies in the letter—I’d been waiting for what couldn’t never come. Why -hadn’t he have wrote? That question I’ve often asked myself, and the -answer is that none of them who could have told Lord Polkstone my name -could understand the deaf and dumb alphabet. - -“Oh! it was a piercing shock—a freezing blow I’ve never got over, dear, -nor never shall. He married that girl in white, that artful thing who -could understand his finger language and talk back. - -“Think what a blessing I lost in a husband who could never contradict or -shout at me. And I feel I could have been an honor to the Peerage, and -worn a coronet like one born to it. I’ll stand another Bass, dear, if -you’ll tell the dresser to fetch it; or will you have a -brandy-and-Polly? You’ve hit it, dear, the girls were shocking spiteful, -but I was jolly well a lot too retiring and shy. I’ve got over the -weakness since, of course, and now I positively make a point of speaking -if one of ’em seems quite unusually hangbacky. - -“‘Who knows,’ I say to myself, ‘perhaps he’s deaf and dumb!’” - - - - - “VALCOURT’S GRIN” - - -The lovely and high-born relict of a decrepit and enormously wealthy -commoner, she had sustained her husband’s loss with a becoming display -of sorrow, and passed with exquisite grace and discretion through the -successive phases of the toilet indicative of connubial woe. From a -lovely chrysalis swathed in crape she had changed to a dove-colored -moth; the moth had become a heliotrope butterfly, on the point of -changing its wings for a brighter pair, when the post brought her a -letter from one of her dearest friends. It bore the Zurich postmark, and -ran as follows: - - “HOTEL SCHWERT, - “APPENBAD, - “_June 18th._” - -“I wonder, dear, whether you would mind being troubled with Val for a -day? He is coming up from Seaton next Thursday on dentist’s leave, and -one does not care that a boy of sixteen—one can consider Val a boy -without stretching the imagination overmuch—should be drifting -anchorless in town. You will find him grown and developed.... You see, I -take it for granted, in my own rude way, that you have already said -‘Yes’ to my request.... The views here are divine—such miles of -eye-flight over the Lake of Constance and the Rhine Valley! To quote -poor Dynham, who suffered much from the whey-cure, ‘every prospect -pleases, and only man is bile.’ Kiss Val for me. My dear, the thought of -his future is a continual anxiety. The title to keep up, and an income -of barely eight thousand pounds.... ‘Marry him,’ you will say; but to -whom? American heiresses are beginning to have an exorbitant idea of -their own value, and then Val’s is an open, simple nature—_unworldly to -a degree!_ Not that I, his mother, could wish him otherwise, but—you -will understand and sympathize, I know! And boys are so easily molded by -a woman who has charm! If you could drop a word here and there, -calculated to bring him to a sense of the responsibility that rests upon -his young shoulders, the _duty_ of restoring the diminished fortunes of -his house by a _really sensible_ marriage.... I have dinned and dinned, -but I fear without much result. - - “Ever yours, - “G. D. E. V. T. - -“Please address Val, ‘Care of Rev. H. Buntham, Seaton College, near -Grindsor.’—G. - -“Buntham is the house-master. V. says he ‘_understands the fellows -thoroughly_.’ Such a tribute, I think, to a tutor _from_ a boy.—G.” - -So a dainty monogrammed and coroneted note, on heliotrope paper, with a -thin but decided bordering of black, was sent off to the Marquis of -Valcourt, and Valcourt’s hostess in prospective consulted a male -relative over the luncheon-table as to the most approved methods of -entertaining a schoolboy. - -“Heaps of indigestible things to eat—sweet for choice—and a box at the -Gaiety if there’s a _matinée_; if not, the Hippodrome. But who’s the -boy?” asked the male relative. - -“Lord Valcourt, Geraldine’s eldest.” - -The male relative pursed up his lips into the shape of a whistle, and -helped himself to a cutlet in expressive silence. - -“Geraldine is devoted to him. He seems to have a delightful nature, to -be quite an ideal son!” - -“That young—that young fellow!” - -“You have met him, haven’t you?” - -“I have had that privilege. I was one of the house-party at Traye last -September.” - -“Geraldine asked me, but of course it was out of the question....” - -“Of course, poor Mussard’s death—quite too recent,” murmured the male -relative, taking green peas. - -Poor Mussard’s charming relict drooped her long-lashed, brown eyes -pensively, and the transparent lace, that covered the hiding-place of -the heart that had been wrung with presumable anguish eighteen months -before, billowed under the impulse of a little dutiful sigh. - -“What a prize for some lucky beggar with a big title and empty pockets!” -reflected the male relative, who happened to be a brother, and could -therefore contemplate dispassionately. “Thirty—and looks -three-and-twenty _en plein jour_, without a pink-lined sunshade.” Aloud -he said: “So you are to entertain Valcourt—Tuesday, I think you said?” - -“Thursday. It would be dear of you to come and help me,” murmured Mrs. -Mussard plaintively. - -“It would afford me delight to do so,” returned the male relative -unblushingly, “had I not unfortunately an engagement to see a man about -a fishing-tour in Norway.” - -“Tiresome! I know so little about modern schoolboys!” murmured Mrs. -Mussard. - -“The less you know about ’em, my dear Vivienne, the better.” - -“Having been a boy yourself,” the speaker’s sister responded, with -gentle acerbity, “you are naturally prejudiced. But, going by -Geraldine’s account, Valcourt is not the ordinary kind of boy at all. -Indeed, I have promised her to take him in hand, and impart a few _viva -voce_ lessons in _savoir faire_ and worldly wisdom.” - -“_Have you?_ By Jove, Vivie, you’ve taken something upon yourself! -‘Angels rush in where demons fear to tread....’ I’m mulling the -quotation, but in its perfect state it isn’t complimentary. May Valcourt -profit by your instructions on Thursday!” - -Thursday came, and with it Valcourt. He was pleasing to view; a -clean-limbed, broad-shouldered, straight-featured, pink-and-white -specimen of the well-bred English youth of sixteen, with fair hair -brushed into a silky sweep above a wide, ingenuous brow; sleepy -gray-green eyes, with yellow and blue reflections in them, reminding the -beholder of tourmaline; well-kept hands, pleasing manners, and a wide, -innocent grin of the cherubic-angelic kind, never more in evidence than -when Valcourt was engaged in some pursuit neither angelic nor cherubic. -Mrs. Mussard, at first sight, was conscious of a brief maternal -inclination to kiss him. Geraldine’s boy was, she said to herself, “a -perfect duck!” She subdued the osculatory impulse, shook hands with the -boy cordially, and hoped the dentist had not hurt him. - -“No, thanks awfully,” said Valcourt, with his cherubic grin. The teeth -revealed were exceedingly white and regular. - -“But you had gas, of course?” proceeded his hostess. - -“When I have teeth out I generally do,” said Valcourt carefully. “They -always give you half a guinea extra allowance for gas, so most of the -fellows ask to have it.” He touched his waistcoat pocket meditatively as -he spoke, and smiled, or rather grinned, again so seraphically that Mrs. -Mussard longed to tip him a ten-pound note. She gave her young guest a -sumptuous luncheon, and, not without serious misgivings, commanded the -butler to produce the exhilarating beverage of champagne. - -“A little sweet, isn’t it?” said Valcourt critically. - -“I thought that you—that is——” Mrs. Mussard crumpled her delicate -eyebrows in embarrassment, and the butler permitted himself the shadow -of a smile. - -“Ladies like sweet wine,” remarked Valcourt. He refused liqueur with -coffee, but considered Mrs. Mussard’s cigarettes “rather mild.” - -“I—I don’t usually smoke that brand,” his hostess explained. “I—I -ordered them on purpose for——” She broke off, in sheer admiration of -Valcourt’s beautiful grin. - -The _matinée_ for which she had secured a stage-box did not commence -until three. “Time for a little chat in the drawing-room,” she thought, -and ran over in her mind a list of the things dear Geraldine would have -wished her to say. She bade the boy sit in the opposite angle of her pet -sofa, upholstered in shimmering lily-leaf green, billowed with huge -puffy pillows of apricot-yellow, covered with cambric and Valenciennes. -She thought the harmony well completed by Valcourt’s sleek fair head and -inscrutable tourmaline eyes, and wished for the first time that poor -dear Mussard had left an heir. Vague as the yearning was, it imparted a -misty softness to her brown eyes, and caused the corners of her delicate -lips to quiver. She drew a little nearer to Valcourt, and laid her white -jeweled hand softly upon the muscular young arm, firm and hard beneath -an uncommonly well-cut sleeve. - -“My dear Valcourt,” she began. - -“Your eyes are brown, aren’t they?” asked Valcourt. - -“I believe they are,” murmured Mrs. Mussard. “My dear boy, I trust -that——” - -Valcourt shut his own sleepy tourmaline eyes and sniffed, a long -rapturous sniff. “Mother uses attar of violets. It’s her pet scent. -Jolly, but not so nice as yours. What is it?” He sniffed again. “I can’t -guess. ’Mph! I give it up. I know!” The sleepy tourmaline eyes opened, -large and round and bright, the cherubic-angelic smile suffused his -features. “Why, it comes from your hair!” - -“People have said that before. Oh! never mind my hair!” Mrs. Mussard was -not displeased, nevertheless. “Tell me how you progress at School. You -know your mother is my dearest friend. I should so much like you to -remember that and confide in me, _almost_ as you confide in her!” - -A solemn, innocent expression came over Valcourt’s face. - -“All right,” he said, after a pause, during which he seemed to be -listening to choirs of angels chanting to the accompaniment of celestial -harps. “I’ll tell you things just exactly as I tell ’em to mother!” - -“You dear!” exclaimed the impulsive young widow, and kissed him. The -smooth elastic skin, brownish-pink as a new-laid egg, and dotted with -sunny little freckles, grew pinker under the velvet violence of the -lady’s lips. Valcourt turned the other cheek, with his cherub’s smile, -and less warmly, because more consciously, his mother’s dearest friend -saluted that also. - -“Now,” he said, in his boyish voice, “what did you want me to tell you -about School? I’m not a sap at books, and I don’t spend all my time in -getting up my muscles. I’m just an ordinary kind of fellow.... I say, -how pretty your nails are!” - -He took up one of Mrs. Mussard’s exquisitely manicured hands, and, -holding it to the tempered sunlight that stole through the lace blinds, -noted with appreciative, if infantile, interest the pearly hues and rosy -inward radiances, the nicks and dimples of the wrist and the delicate -articulations of the fingers. Then, with a droll, half-mischievous -twinkle of the tourmaline eye that was next the fair widow, he bent his -sleek, fair head and rubbed his cheek against the pretty hand -caressingly. - -“Silly boy!” breathed Mrs. Mussard. - -“I believe I am an awful ass sometimes,” agreed Valcourt composedly. - -“Who says so?” - -“My tutor and heaps of other fellows, and the Head—not that he says so, -but he looks as if he thought it!” said Valcourt. - -“Does the Head see a great deal of you?” asked Mrs. Mussard, drawing -away her hand and grasping at a chance of improving the languishing -conversation. Then as Valcourt, with a grave air of reserve, nodded in -reply, “I am _so glad_!” breathed Mrs. Mussard gushingly; “because, at -your age, impressions received must sink in deeply. And to be brought in -contact with a personality so marked must be impressive, mustn’t it?” -she concluded, rather lamely. - -“I suppose so,” agreed Valcourt, examining the pattern of the carpet. He -looked a little sulky and a little bored, and for sheer womanly desire -of seeing the illuminations rekindled Mrs. Mussard gave him her hand -again. - -“You are going into the Guards, aren’t you, by-and-by?” she queried. - -“If I can get through,” said Valcourt, playing with her rings and -smiling. “I’m in the Army Class, mathematics and swot generally. But I -think our family’s too old or something to produce brainy fellows. Cads -are cleverer, really, than we are.” - -His tone took a reflection of the purple, his finely-cut profile looked -for an instant hard as diamond and exquisite as a cameo. - -Mrs. Mussard, sympathizing, said to herself: “After all, why _should_ he -be clever?” - -“Still, when one hasn’t much money,” she began, reminiscent of the -Duchess’s entreaty. - -“We’re beastly poor, of course,” admitted Valcourt. “But as to clothes -and horses and shootin’, tradespeople will tick a fellow till the cows -come home, and the millionaire manufacturers who buy or rent fellows’ -forests and moors and rivers and things are always glad to get the -fellow himself to show with ’em; and the keepers and gillies and chaps -take care that he gets the best that’s going generally. And so he does -himself pretty well all round.” - -“That sort of thing is too—undignified!” said Mrs. Mussard, “and too -uncertain. A man of rank and title must have a solid backing, a definite -_entourage_. You must marry, and marry well.” - -“Mother always talks like that!” said Valcourt. “I think,” he added, -“she has somebody in her eye for me!” - -“Who is she?” asked Mrs. Mussard sharply. - -“I’m not quite sure,” said Valcourt, his tourmaline eyes narrowing as he -smiled his angelic smile. “Dutch Jewess, perhaps,” he added simply, -“with barrels of bullion and a family all nose.” - -“Horrible!” cried Mrs. Mussard, shuddering. - -“Her brother’s in the Fifth,” let out Valcourt. “We call him ‘Hooky -Holland.’ Their father was secretary to the Klaproths and made heaps of -cash—‘cath’ Hooky calls it. He never talks about anything but ‘cath,’ -and fellows punch him for it.” Valcourt doubled his right hand -scientifically, thumb well down, and glanced at it with modest -appreciation ere he resumed: “He has lots of it, too, Hooky, and lends -at interest—pretty thick interest—to fellows who get broke at Bridge or -baccarat!” - -“Oh-h! You don’t play baccarat at school, surely! Such an awfully -gambling game!” expostulated Valcourt’s hostess. - -“We go to school to be educated, you see,” said Valcourt, in a slightly -argumentative tone, “for what Buntham calls ‘the business of life,’ and -cards are part of a fellow’s life, aren’t they? So they ought, instead -of being forbidden, to form part of what Old Cads calls the curriculum. -We call Buntham ‘Cads’ because he calls us cads when we do anything that -upsets him. He’s a nervous beggar, and gets a good deal of upsetting. My -dame says he weighs himself at the end of every term, and makes a note -of the pounds he’s lost since the beginning. When I go to Sandhurst she -thinks he’ll pick up a bit,” explained Valcourt with his angelic grin. - -“I hope your dame is a nice, motherly old person!” breathed Mrs. -Mussard. - -“She’s nice—quite,” said Valcourt, “and awfully obliging. I don’t know -about being old—unless you’d call thirty-three old.” Mrs. Mussard -started slightly. “When I have a cold she makes me jellies and things. -Awfully good things! And I give her concert tickets, and sometimes we go -on the river and have strawberries and cream. Lots of our fellows tell -her their love affairs.” - -“Do you?” - -“And some of ’em are in love with her,” went on Valcourt. - -Mrs. Mussard breathed quickly. Never before had she realized what perils -environ the young of the opposite sex, even with the chaste environment -of school bounds. In her agitation she laid her hand on Valcourt’s -shoulder. “I hope—you do not fancy yourself in love with her,” she -uttered anxiously. - -“Not much catch!” said Valcourt, with the composure of forty. “I got -over that in my second year.” - -“Silly boy!” Mrs. Mussard very gently smoothed down a lock at the back -of his head, which erected itself in silky defiance above its fellows. -“When love comes to you, Valcourt,” she went on, with a vivid -recollection of the utterances of the inspired authoress of _The Bride’s -Babble Book_, “you will find out what it _really_ means. It is a great -mystery, my dear boy, a sacred and solemn unveiling of the heart——” - -She stopped, for Valcourt had turned his face up toward hers, gently -smiling, and revealing two neat rows of milky white teeth. His -tourmaline eyes had an odd expression. - -“Did you speak, dear?” his fair Gamaliel asked. For the impression upon -her was that he had uttered two words, and that they were, “Hooky’s -sister!” - -But Valcourt shook his head. “I was only thinking. A fellow like me ... -has got to take what comes ... the best he can get ... and the better it -is, so much the better for him, don’t you see? If he don’t like what he -gets, he doesn’t go about grousing. He generally pretends he’s suited; -and _she_ pretends; and they get into a groove—or they get into the -newspapers,” said Geraldine’s unworldly babe. “Beastly bad form to get -into the newspapers. I never mean to.” - -Mrs. Mussard listened breathlessly. - -“I shall have a rattling time,” said Valcourt, in his soft, cooing -voice, “till Hooky’s sister grows up, and mother presents her, and then -I shall marry her, I suppose.” - -“Dearest boy, I hope not!” exclaimed Mrs. Mussard. “Someone more -suitable _must_ be found,” she continued, rapidly putting all the -moneyed girls of her acquaintance through a mental review. “Why should -you not marry beauty and birth as well as a banking account? The three -things are sometimes associated.” - -“German princes pick up girls of that kind,” said Valcourt, his elbows -upon his knees, and his round young chin cupped in his hands, “and -Austrian archdukes. But why need it be a girl?” he went on, pressing up -the smooth young skin at his temples with his finger-tips, so as to -produce the effect of premature crows’-feet. “I don’t like girls—all red -wrists and flat waists. Why shouldn’t it be a woman, say a dozen years -older—an awfully pretty woman, rich, and in the best set, who’d show me -the ropes? I’m a jolly ass in some things. I shall come no end of -croppers when I go into society, unless there’s somebody to give me the -needful tip.” - -Mrs. Mussard sat very upright. She looked at Valcourt; the hand with -which she had smoothed his hair remained suspended in mid-air until she -recollected it and laid it over its companion in her lap. - -“Most young fellows beginning life go to other men’s wives for advice,” -said Valcourt. “Why shouldn’t I go to my own?” - -Mrs. Mussard’s chiseled scarlet lips moved as though she had echoed, -“Why not?” - -“They—the chaps I’m talking of—are wild about ’em—the other men’s wives. -Yet nearly all of the women are old enough to be their mothers.” - -“Their grandmothers, sometimes,” said Mrs. Mussard unkindly. - -“Then why shouldn’t I marry a woman who’s only old enough to be my -aunt—a young aunt! I’d make a Marchioness of her, don’t you know! and -she’d make—she could make anything she liked of me!” said Valcourt, -turning his cherub smile and tourmaline eyes suddenly on Mrs. Mussard. -“_You_ could!” The lovely widow started violently, and flushed from the -string of pearls encircling her pretty throat to the little gold -hair-waves that crisped at her blue-veined temples. “You _know_ you -could!” murmured Valcourt. The strong young arm in the well-cut sleeve -intercepted the retreating movement that would have placed the lovely -widow in the uttermost corner of the sofa. The remonstrance upon -Vivienne’s lips was stifled by a kiss, given with eloquence and -decision, though the lips that administered it were soft, and unshaded -by even the rudiments of a mustache. “I’m seventeen the end of this -term, and five feet nine in my socks,” said Valcourt, a little -breathlessly, for the kiss had not been one-sided; “and—and you’re -simply awfully pretty. Marry me—I shall be of age before you know -it—and——” - -“You dreadfully presuming boy!” There were tears in the lovely eyes of -the late Mr. Mussard’s lovely widow; an unwonted throbbing in the region -of her bodice imparted a tremor to her voice that added to its charm. “I -shall write to your mother!” - -“Do!” said Valcourt, with his angelic smile. “She’ll be awfully pleased! -I wonder the idea didn’t occur to her instead of to me, for she’s -awfully clever, and I’m rather an ass.... Five o’clock!” he exclaimed, -as the delicate chime of a Pompadour clock upon the mantelshelf -announced the hour. - -“And you have missed the _matinée_!” said Mrs. Mussard. - -“I preferred this!” said Valcourt, getting up. She had no idea of his -being taller than herself until she found the tourmaline eyes looking -down into hers. “Good-bye, and thank you, Mrs. Mussard,” said the -boyish, ringing voice. “I’ve had an awfully pleasant day.” - -Their hands met and lingered. - -“Don’t call me Mrs. Mussard any more; my—my name is Vivienne,” she said -in a half-whisper. - -“Jolly! Hooky’s sister’s is Bethsaba,” said Valcourt. He made a quaint -grimace, as though the word tasted nasty, and Vivienne gave a little, -musical, contented laugh. “And I may come again, mayn’t I?” - -“This week,” nodded Mrs. Mussard. - -“I’ll say it’s my tooth,” explained Geraldine’s guileless offspring. - -He reached the door, the handle turned, when Mrs. Mussard beckoned, and -Valcourt came back. - -“I should like to ask you,” she began hesitatingly—“not that it matters -to me; but _still_, in your _own interests_—— And you know your mother -is my dearest friend!” ... Valcourt stood with the beautiful grin upon -his face, and Mrs. Mussard found the thing more difficult to say than -she had imagined. “Where did you—who taught you to make love like—like -that?—at your—at your age.... I—it is——” Valcourt made no reply in -words, but the expression upon his face became more celestial than -before. “I hope kissing is not a feature of the curriculum. But, -understand clearly,” said Mrs. Mussard, with that unusual tremor in her -charming voice, “that you are not for the future to kiss anybody but -me!” And as the door closed on Valcourt’s heavenly grin and tourmaline -eyes, she sat down to write a letter to Geraldine. - - - - - THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAIREST - - -If not absolutely a nincompoop, Gerald Delaurier Gandelish, Esq., of -Swellingham Mansions, Piccadilly, Undertherose Cottage, Sunningwater, -Berks, and Horshundam Abbey, Miltshire, was undoubtedly a type of the -_genus homo_ recently classified by a distinguished K.C. as soft-minded -gentlemen. Strictly educated by a private clerical tutor under the eye -of pious parents of limited worldly experience and unlimited prejudices, -it was not to be expected that Gerry, upon their dying and leaving him -in undisputed command of a handsome slice of the golden cheese of -worldly wealth, should not immediately proceed to make ducks and drakes -of it. He essayed to win a name upon the Turf; and when I remind you -that, at a huge price, the youth became possessor of that remarkable -Derby race-horse, Duffer, by Staggers out of Hansom Cab, from whom -eighteen opponents cantered away in the Prince’s year of ’90, leaving -the animal to finish the race at three lengths from the starting-post, I -have said all. Gerry dabbled “considerable,” as our American relatives -would say, in stocks, and started a _café chantant_ on the open-air -Parisian plan, which was frequented only by stray cats and London -blacks, and has since been roofed in and turned into tea-rooms. Sundry -other investments of Gerry’s resulted in the enrichment of several very -shady persons, and a consequent, and very considerable, diminution in -the large stock of ready money with which Gerry had started his career. -But though the edges of the slice of golden cheese had been a good deal -nibbled, the bulk of it remained, and Gerry’s Miltshire acres, strictly -entailed and worth eighty thousand pounds, with another twenty thousand -in Consols, and about half as much again snugly invested in Home Rails, -made him a catch worth angling for in the eyes of many mothers. - -We have termed Gerry “soft-minded.” He was also soft-hearted, soft-eyed, -soft-voiced, soft-haired, soft-skinned, and soft-mannered—the kind of -youth women who own to years of discretion like to pet and bully, the -kind of man schoolgirls call a “duck.” True, his neckties aroused -indignation in the breasts of intolerant elderly gentlemen, the patterns -of his tweeds afforded exquisite amusement to members of the Household -Brigade, and his jewelry could not be gazed at without winking by the -unseasoned eye; but, despite these drawbacks, Gerry was a gentleman. -Without the stamp of a public school or a select club, without the tone -of the best society—for, with the exception of a turfy baronet or so and -a couple of sporting peers, Gerry knew nobody who was anybody—Gerry was -decidedly a gentleman, whose progress to the dogs was arrested, luckily -for the young prodigal, when he fell in love with the famous burlesque -actress, Miss Lottie Speranza, of the Levity Theater. - -Of theaters and theatrical people Gerry may be said to have known little -or nothing until the enchanting Lottie blazed upon his field of vision. -Gerry’s worthy parents, strict moralists both, had considered the -theater as the temple of Satan, and had exacted from their only child a -solemn promise that he would never enter one. This promise Gerry had -actually kept, contenting himself with the entertainments offered by the -music halls, which his father had omitted to stigmatize and his mother -knew not of. But at the close of a festive dinner, given by Gerry to a -select party of “pals,” in a private room at the Levity Restaurant, when -a brief, lethargic slumber obscured the senses of the youthful host, the -brilliant idea of conveying him to a box in the theater upstairs -occurred to one of his guests, and was forthwith carried out. Emerging -from a condition of coma, Gerry found himself staring into a web of -crossing and intersecting limelights of varying hues, in which a -dazzling human butterfly, entangled, was beating quivering wings. The -butterfly had lustrous eyes, encircled with blue rims, a complexion of -theatrical red and white, and masses of golden hair. Her twinkling feet -beat out a measure to which Gerry’s pulses began to dance madly. He sent -the goddess an invitation to supper, which was promptly declined. He -forwarded a stack of roses, which were not acknowledged, and a -muff-chain, turquoise and peridot, which were returned to the address -upon his card. He felt hurt but happy at these rebuffs, which proved to -him that Miss Speranza was above reproach; and when a bosom friend of -his own age hinted that the prudish fair one was playing the big game, -and advised him to try her with a motor-car, Gerry promptly converted -the bosom friend into a stranger by the simple process of asking him to -redeem a few of his I O U’s. This got about, and caused Gerry’s other -friends to turn sharp round corners, or jump into hansoms when they saw -Gerry coming. Gerry hardly missed them, though the man who could have -afforded an introduction to his charmer would have been welcomed with -open arms. He occupied the same box at the Levity nightly now, and made -up, in its murkiest corner, a good deal of the nightly rest of which his -clamant passion deprived him. But he awakened, as by instinct, whenever -Miss Speranza tripped upon the stage; and the large-eyed, vacuous, -gorgeously-attired beauties who “went on” with the Chorus—the Lotties, -Maries, Daisies, Topsies of the noble houses of Montague, Talbot, De -Crespigny, and Delamere,—would languidly nudge each other at the -passionately prolonged plaudits of a particular pair of immaculate white -gloves, and wonder semi-audibly what the man saw in Speranza, dear, to -make such a bloomin’ silly fuss about? - -Gerry had occupied his watch-tower at the Levity for six weeks or so, -and was beginning to deteriorate in appetite and complexion (so powerful -are the effects of passion unreturned), when Undertherose Cottage at -Sunningwater, a charming Thames-side residence of the bijou kind, with -small grounds and a capacious cellar, a boat-house, and a house-boat, a -pigeon-cote and a private post-box, became suddenly vacant. The tenant, -a lady of many charms and much experience, who had passed over to Gerry -with the property, returned to her native Paris to open a bonnet-shop; -and Gerry, as he wandered over the dwelling with the sanitary engineer -and decorator, who had _carte blanche_ to do-up the place, found himself -strolling on the tiny lawn (in imagination) by the visioned side of the -enchantress who had enthralled him, supping (also in imagination) with -the same divine creature in the duodecimo oak dining-room, and smoking a -cigarette in her delightful company upon the balcony of the boudoir. -Waking from these dreams was a piquant anguish. Gerry indeed possessed -the cage, one of the most ideal nests for a honeymooning pair -imaginable; but in vain for the airy feminine songster might the -infatuated fowler spread nets and set springs. - -“If we didn’t live in this confoundedly proper twentieth century,” -thought disconsolate Gerry, “a chappie might hire a coach and eight, -bribe a few bruisers to repress attempts at rescue, snap her up -respectfully as she came out at the stage door, and absquatulate—no! -abduct’s the word. Not that I’d behave like a brute; I’d marry her -to-morrow if she’d only give me a chance to ask her. Marquises do that -sort of thing, and their families come round a bit and bless the young -people. She must have shown the door to dozens of ’em.” He sighed, for -where the possessor of a ripe old peerage had failed, how could Gerald -Gandelish, Esq., hope to triumph? “And she’s so awfully proper and -standoffish, too,” he reflected. He wondered how many years it had taken -those privileged persons whom the lady permitted to rank as her friends -to attain that enviable distinction. “I’ve never met a man who could, or -would, introduce me,” he added, pulling his mustache, which from happily -turning up at the corners had recently acquired a decided tendency to -droop. “Seemed to shy at it, somehow; and so I shall take the -initi—what-you-call—myself. She shall know from the start that my -intentions are honorable, and, hang it! the name’s a good one.... -There’s been a Gandelish of Horshundam ever since Henry the Eighth -hanged the abbot and turned out the monks, and put my ancestor Gorbred -in to keep the place warm. Gorbred was His Majesty’s principal purveyor -of sack and sugar, ‘and divers dainty cates beside,’ as the Chronicle -has it, and must have given the Tudor unlimited tick, I gather. Anyhow, -if four centuries of landlording don’t make a tradesman a gentleman, -they ought to; and I can’t see——” - -Gerry climbed into his “Runhard” thirty horse-power roadster, pulled -down the talc mask of his driving cap to preserve his eyes and -complexion, and ran back to town. That night, as he quitted his box at -the conclusion of the Levity performance (you will remember the -phenomenal run of _The Idiot Girl_ in 19—!), he turned up his coat -collar with the air of a man resolved to do or die, and boldly plunged -into the little entry leading to the stage door. The bemedaled military -guardian of those rigid portals, who had absorbed several of Gerry’s -sovereigns without winking, regarded him with a glazed eye and a stiff -upper lip. - -“Would you kindly——” began Gerry. - -But the stage-doorkeeper paid no heed, busily engaged as he was in -delivering letters from a rack on the wall, lettered S, into the hands -of a slight little woman in a rather shabby tweed ulster and plain felt -hat. Gerry’s heart jumped as he recognized his own handwriting upon one -of the envelopes.... Surely the tiny tin gods had favored him! The -little woman in the ulster and the plain felt hat must be lady’s maid to -the brilliant Speranza. As she thrust the letters into her pockets, -nodded familiarly to the commissionaire, and came out of the stage-door -office, Gerry, his heart in his mouth and his hat in his hand, stood in -her way. - -“Miss—Madam——” he began. “If I might ask you——” - -“What’s that?” shouted the commissionaire. As the little woman stepped -quickly backwards, Cerberus emerged, purple and growling, from his den -and reared his huge body as a barrier before her. “Annoying the lady, -are ye?” he roared, with a fine forgetfulness of Gerry’s sovereigns. -“Wait till I knock your mouth round to the back of your head, you -kid-gloved young blaggyard, you! Wait till——” - -“Be quiet, O’Murphy!” said the little woman in a tone and with an accent -which raised her to the level of lady’s companion in Gerry’s estimation. -And as the crestfallen O’Murphy retreated into his den, she said, -turning a plain little clever face, irradiated by a pair of brilliant -eyes, upon the crimson Gerry, “Did you wish to speak to me?” - -“I certainly do, if you are any relative—or a member of the household—of -Miss Speranza,” Gerry stuttered. - -There was a flash of eyes and teeth in the plain, insignificant face. - -“Oh, yes,” said the little woman, “I live with Miss Speranza.” - -Gerry’s tongue grew large, impeding utterance, and his palate dried up. -Of all creatures upon earth this little tweed-ulstered woman, in the -well-worn felt hat with the fatigued feather, seemed to him the most to -be envied. - -“You—you’re lucky,” he said lamely, and blushed up to the roots of his -hair, and down to the tips of his toes. - -“I’ve known her ever since she knew herself,” said the little companion. -“We were girls together.” Gerry could have laughed in her middle-aged -face, but he only handed her his card. “Oh yes,” she said after she had -glanced at it. “I seem to know the name. You have written to her, -haven’t you?” - -“Sev-several times,” acquiesced Gerry hoarsely. “I have ta-taken the -privilege.” - -“A great many other young gentlemen have taken it too,” observed Miss -Speranza’s companion. - -Then, as the swing doors behind her opened to let out a blast of hot air -and several grimy stage carpenters, and the swing doors before her -parted to let in a blast of cold air as the men shouldered out, “Excuse -me,” she said, and shivered, and moved as though to pass. “It is very -cold here, and the brougham is waiting.” - -“Beggin’ pardon!” said O’Murphy, looking out of his hole, “the groom -sent his jooty, an’ the pole av a ’bus had gone clane through the back -panel av the broom in a block off the Sthrand.... The horse kicked wan -av his four shoes off, an’ they’ve gone back wid themselves to the -stables to get the landau an’ pair——” - -“Call a hansom,” said the plain little woman. “I—we can’t wait here all -night!” - -As O’Murphy saluted and went outside, she stepped into his vacant hutch, -and Gerry daringly followed. - -“If I might venture to offer,” he began. “My cab—place disposal—Miss -Speranza—too much honored——” He trailed off into a morass of polite -intentions, rudimentarily expressed. The little companion maintained a -preoccupied air; she was probably expecting her mistress, Gerry thought, -but the conviction was no sooner formed than banished. - -“You are very kind,” she said, “but Miss Speranza cannot avail herself -of your offer. She sometimes leaves quite early, and by the private -door, and, as it happens, I am going home alone.” - -“Oh!” cried Gerry earnestly, “if you knew how awfully I want to speak to -you, you would let me drive you there—wherever it is!” - -Tears stood in the soft eyes of the somewhat soft-headed young man, and -the heart of the little lady in the ulster was softened, for she looked -upon him with a smile, saying: - -“Here comes O’Murphy to say my hansom is waiting.... You may drive with -me part of the way, and say what you have to say, if it is so very -important,” she said, with a brilliant gleam of mockery in her -remarkable eyes. - -Need one say that the enamored Gerry jumped at the proposal, and they -went out into the plashy night together. - -“Give the driver the address, O’Murphy,” ordered the little ulstered -woman. “Jump in!” she said to Gerry, and, presto! they were rattling -together up a stony thoroughfare leading from the roaring midnight -Strand, which in the present year of grace presents a smooth face of -macadam. - -“Will you have the glass down?” said Gerry. - -“Too warm!” cried the little ulstered woman. “Now, what have you to -say?” - -“How this trap rattles!” shouted Gerry. “One can hardly hear oneself -speak. But with regard to Miss Speranza——” - -“I suppose the pith of the matter is—you are in love with her?” shrieked -the little woman. - -“Madly!” bellowed Gerry. “Been so for weeks. Hold up, you brute!” This -to the cab-horse, a dilapidated equine wreck, which had stumbled. - -“Oh, you boys! You’re all alike!” cried his companion. - -“Mine is a man’s love,” roared Gerry. “I would lay the world at her -feet, if I had it; and I want you to tell her so.” The rattling of the -crazy cab nearly drowned his accents. “Oh! what do you think she will -say?” he bellowed, his lips close to the little woman’s ear. - -“She would say—Oh! _do_ you think this man is sober?” screamed the -little woman. “I mean the driver,” she added, meeting Gerry’s indignant -glare. - -“I don’t think he is too drunk to drive,” yelled Gerry. “Tell me, if you -have a heart,” he howled, “have I any chance _with her_?” - -“Ah! we’re off the cobblestones now!” said his companion, leaning back -with an air of relief. - -“And you can answer my question,” pressed Gerry. “I—I needn’t explain my -views are honorable—straight as a fellow’s can be. Love like mine is——” - -“So dreadfully greasy!” commented his companion anxiously, as the -debilitated steed recovered himself with difficulty at the end of a long -slide. - -“When I have been sitting, night after night, in that box looking at -her, thinking of her, worshiping her, by George!” went on Gerry, “she -must have sometimes noticed me, and said to herself——” - -“I _knew_ he would go down!” cried the little woman, clutching Gerry’s -arm, as the steed disappeared and the shaft-ends bumped on the asphalt. -“Let’s get out!” - -“Don’t be alarmed, lydy,” said a hoarse voice, through the trap -overhead, as the panting steed heaved and struggled to regain his hoofs. -“’E won’t do it agen this journey. One fall is ’is allowance, an’ ’e -never goes beyond.” - -“And we’re quite close to Pelgrave Square,” said Gerry. - -“How do you know Miss Speranza lives in Pelgrave Square?” said his -companion with a keen look. - -“Because I’ve seen photogravings of her house in an illustrated -interview,” replied Gerry. - -“Ah, of course,” said the little lady, with a thoughtful smile. The -steed, bearing out his driver’s recommendation, was now jogging along -reassuringly enough. “And did the portraits remind you of no one?” she -added, with another of those flashing smiles that invested her little -fatigued features with transient youth. - -“They weren’t half beautiful enough for her,” said Gerry fervently. Then -a ray of light broke upon him, and he jumped. “You—you’re a little bit -like her!” he exclaimed. “What a blind duffer I am! I’ve been taking you -for her companion, and all the while you’re a relative.” - -“Yes, I am a relative,” nodded the little lady. - -“Her aunt!” hazarded Gerry. - -“Her mother!” said the little lady, with a dazzling flash of eyes and -teeth. “How stupid you were not to guess it before!” - -“I’ve said nothing, madam, that I should not, I trust,” remarked Gerry, -with quite a seventeenth-century manner. “And, therefore, when I entreat -you to allow me an interview with your daughter, I trust you will not -refuse to grant my—my prayer.” - -“Hear the boy!” cried the little woman, with a trill of laughter, as the -cab pulled up before a large lighted house in a large darkish square. -“Well,” she added, “I think I can promise you that Lottie will see you -at least for a minute or two to-morrow. Not here—at the theater, seven -o’clock sharp. Lend me a pencil and one of your cards.” She scribbled a -word or two on the bit of pasteboard, paid the cab in spite of Gerry’s -protestations, and ran lightly up the solemn doorsteps, turned to the -enraptured young man standing, hat in hand, below, waved her hand, -plunged a Yale key into the keyhole—and instantly vanished from view. - -Behind Gerry’s shirt-front throbbed tumultuous delight. To have driven -in a cab with _her_ mother—talked of _her_, told his tale of love—albeit -with interruptions—and won the promise of an interview at seven sharp -upon the morrow.... Unprecedented fortune! incomparable luck! Did Time -itself cease he would not fail to keep the tryst with punctuality. He -caught a passing cab, drove home to his Piccadilly chambers, and went to -bed so blissfully happy that he spent a wretchedly bad night. The card -he kept beneath his pillow; and true to the promise made by the mother -of the enchantress of his soul—when, punctually to the stroke of seven, -Gerry, dressed with the most excruciating care, and clammy with -repressed emotion, presented himself at the stage door of the Levity—the -scrawled hieroglyphics on the blessed piece of pasteboard admitted him -behind the scenes. Led by a smartly-aproned maid, he climbed stairs, he -crossed the stage, was jostled by baize-aproned men in paper caps, and -begged their pardon. He followed his guide down a short passage, fell up -three steps—and knocked with his burning brow against the door—her door! -A voice he knew said, “Come in!” and in he went, to find, not the -adored, the worshiped Lottie, but the little plainish lady of the -previous night, sitting at a lace-veiled dressing-table, attired in a -Japanese gown. - -“Oh, I say!” murmured Gerry. - -“Ah! there you are!” The little lady looked at him over her shoulder, -and nodded kindly. “Don’t be too disappointed at not finding Lottie -here,” she said cheerfully; “she won’t be long.” - -“I’m so awfully obliged for all your kindness,” said Gerry, sheepishly -smiling over a giant bouquet. - -“You shall be really grateful to me one of these days, I promise you,” -said the little lady. “Let my maid take that haysta—that bouquet, and -sit down, do!” - -Gerry took the indicated chair beside the dressing-table, and noted, as -he sucked the top of his stick, how pitilessly the relentless radiance -of the electric light accentuated the worn lines of the little lady’s -face and the gray streaks in her still soft and pretty brown hair. - -“Cheer up!” she said, turning one of her flashing smiles upon him as he -sadly sucked his stick. “You won’t have long to wait for Lottie!” - -“No!” said Gerry rather vacuously. - -“No!” said Lottie’s mother, pulling off some very handsome rings and -hanging them upon the horns of a coral lobster that adorned the -dressing-table. “She takes about twenty minutes to make up.” Her pretty, -white, carefully-manicured fingers busied themselves, as she talked, -with various little pots and bottles and rolls of a mysterious substance -of a pinky hue, not unlike the peppermint suck-stick of Gerry’s youth. -“And are you as much in love with her to-day,” she continued, “as you -were last night?” - -“So much in love,” said Gerry, uncorking himself, “that to call her my -wife I would sacrifice everything.” - -“To _call_ her your wife?” The little lady pushed her hair back from her -face, twisted it tightly up behind, and pinned it flat with a relentless -hairpin. - -“To make her my wife,” Gerry amended, with a healthy blush. - -“Ah!” said the little lady, who had covered her entire countenance, -ears, and neck with a shiny mask of pinkish paste. “A word makes such a -difference.” She dipped a hare’s-foot into a saucer of rouge, and with -this compound impartially, as it seemed to Gerry, incarnadined her -cheeks and chin. “Of course,” she went on, dipping a disemboweled -powder-puff into a pot of French chalk and deftly applying it, “you are -aware that she possesses in years the advantage of yourself.” - -“I am twenty-three,” said Gerry proudly. - -“She owns to more than that!” said the lovely Lottie’s mother. She had -reddened her mouth, hitherto obliterated by the paste, into an alluring -Cupid’s bow, and darkened in, above her wonderfully brilliant eyes, a -pair of arch-provoking eyebrows. Now, as some inkling of the fateful -revelation in store clamped Gerry’s jaws upon his stick and twined his -legs in a death-grip about the supports of his chair, she rapidly, with -a blue pencil, imparted to those brilliant eyes the Oriental languor, -the divinely alluring, almond-lidded droop that distinguished Lottie’s, -seized a tooth-brush, dipped it into a bottle, apparently of liquid -soot, rapidly blackened her eyelashes, indicated with rose-pink a dimple -on her chin, groped for a moment in a cardboard box that stood upon the -ledge of her toilet table, produced a golden wig of streaming tresses, -dexterously assumed it, pulled here, patted there, twisted a -brow-tendril into shape—and turning, shed upon the paralyzed Gerry the -smile that had enchained his heart. - -“I told you Lottie would not be long,” said Lottie, “and I’ve made up -under twenty minutes. You dear, silly, honorable, romantic boy, don’t -stare in that awful way. Twenty-three indeed! And I told you I owned to -more! I ought to, for I have a son at Harrow, and a daughter of -seventeen besides.... Do try and shut your mouth. Why, you poor dear -goose, I was making my bow to the boys in the gallery when you were -playing with a Noah’s Ark. Shake hands, and go round in front and see me -do my piece, as usual. I’ve got used to that nice fresh face of yours up -in Box B, and applause is the breath of my nostrils, if I am old enough -to be your mother. Leave your flowers; my girl at home has got quite to -look out for them—and be off with you, because this”—she indicated the -French chalk—“has got to go farther!” She gave Gerry her pretty hand and -one of the brilliant smiles, as he blundered up from his chair, gasping -apologies. - -“Come and lunch with us to-morrow. You know my address, and I’ve told -the Professor all about you. You’ll like the Professor—my husband. One -of the best, though his wife says it. And the children——” - -“Can I come in, mother?” said a clear voice outside. - -“All right, pet!” called back Gerry’s late goddess, and a girl of -seventeen came into the room. She was all that Gerry had dreamed.... His -frozen blood began to thaw, and his tongue found words. Here was the -ideal. - -“But her name isn’t Lottie!” said his dethroned goddess, with a twinkle -of the wondrous eyes. “However, you’re coming to lunch to-morrow, aren’t -you?” - -“With the greatest pleasure,” said Gerry. And as he went round to his -box he carefully obliterated the name from the portrait cherished in his -bosom for so many weeks, with the intention of filling it in with -another to-morrow. - - - - - THE REVOLT OF RUSTLETON - - -A new-comer joined the circle of attentive listeners gathered round the -easiest of all the easy-chairs in the smoking-room of the Younger Sons’ -Club. The surrounded chair contained Hambridge Ost, a small, drab, -livery man, with long hair and drooping eyelids, who, as cousin to Lord -Pomphrey, enjoyed the immense but fleeting popularity of the moment. -Everyone panted to hear the details of the latest Society elopement -before the newspapers should disseminate them abroad. And Hambridge was -not unwilling to oblige. - -“The first inkling of the general trend of affairs, dear fellow,” said -Hambridge, joining his long, pale finger-tips before him, and smiling at -the new-comer across the barrier thus formed, “was conveyed to me by an -agitated ring at the telephone in my rooms. Bucknell, my man, hello’ed. -To Bucknell’s astonishment the ring-up came from 000, Werkeley Square, -the town mansion of my cousin, Lord Pomphrey, which he knew to be in -holland covers and the care of an ex-housekeeper. And Lady Pomphrey was -the ringer. When I hello’ed her, saying, ‘Are you there, Annabella? So -glad, but how unexpected; thought you were all enjoying your _otium cum_ -down at Cluckham-Pomphrey’—my cousin’s country-seat in Slowshire, dear -fellow—such a verbal flood of disjointed sentences came hustling over -the wire, so to speak, that I felt convinced, even in the act of rubbing -my ear, which tickled confoundedly, that something was quite absolutely -wrong somewhere. Pomphrey—dear fellow!—was my first thought; then the -Dowager—the ideal of a fine old Tory noblewoman of ninety-eight, who may -drop, so to put it, any moment, dear creature, relieving her family of -the charge of paying her income and leaving the Dower House vacant for -Lord Rustleton, my cousin’s heir and his—ahem!—bride. Knowing that -Rustleton was to lead the Hon. Celine Twissing to the altar of St. -George’s, Hanover Square, early in the Winter season, it occurred to me, -so to put it, that the demise of the Dowager could not have occurred at -a more auspicious moment. Thank you, dear fellow, I _will_ smoke one of -your particular Partagas, since you’re so good.” - -Four men struck vestas simultaneously as Hambridge relieved the nicotian -delicacy of its gold-and-scarlet cummerbund. Another man supplied him -with an ash-tray. Yet another pushed a footstool under his pampered -patent-leathers. Exhaling a thin blue cloud, the Oracle continued: - -“Amidst my distracted relative’s fragmentary utterances I gleaned the -name of Rustleton. Hereditary weak heart—circulation as limited as that -of a newspaper which on strictly moral grounds declines to report -Divorce Cases—and a disproportionate secretion of bile, so to put it, -distinguishes him, dear fellow, from, shall I say, mortals less favored -by birth and of lower rank. A vision of a hatchment over the door of -000, Werkeley Square—of the entire population of the county assisting at -his obsequies, dear fellow—volted through my brain. I seized my hat, and -rushed from my chambers in Ryder Street. An electric hansom had -fortunately pulled up in front of ’em. I jumped in. ‘Where to?’ asked -the chauffeur. ‘To a broken-hearted mother,’ said I, ‘000, Werkeley -Square, and drive like the dooce!’” - -Hambridge cleared his throat with some pomp, and crossed his little legs -comfortably. Then he went on: - -“Like the Belgian sportsman, who, in missin’ a sittin’ hare, shot his -father-in-law in the stomach, mine was an effort not altogether wasted. -All the blinds of the house were down, and the hysterical shrieks of -Lady Pomphrey echoin’ through practically a desert of rolled-up carpets -and swathed furniture, had collected a small but representative crowd -about the area-railings. I leaped out of the motor-cab, threw the -chauffeur the legal fare, and bein’ admitted to the house by an -hysterical caretaker, ascended to my cousin’s boudoir, the sobs and -shrieks of the distracted mother growing louder as I went. Dear fellows, -when Lady Pomphrey saw me, heard me saying, ‘Annabella, I must entreat -you as a near relative to calm yourself sufficiently to tell me the -worst without delay, or to direct me to the nearest person who can -supply authentic information,’ the floodgates of her sorrow were opened -to such an extent that—possessing a constitution naturally susceptible -to damp—I have had a deuce of a cold ever since. - -“Lord Rustleton—always a nervous faddist, though the dearest of -fellows—Rustleton had suddenly broken off his engagement to the Hon. -Celine Twissing, only child and heiress of Lord Twissing of Hopsacks, -the colossal financier figurehead, as I call him, of the Brewing Trade. -Naturally, the young man’s mother was crushed by the blow. The marriage -was to have been solemnized at the opening of the Winter Season—the -trousseau was nearly ready, and the cake—a mammoth pile of elaborate -indigestion—was bein’ built up in tiers at Guzzards’. The presents -(includin’ a diamond and sapphire bangle from a Royal source) had come -in in shoals. Nothing could be more confoundedly inopportune than -Rustleton’s decision. For all her muscularity—and she is an unpleasantly -muscular young woman—you’d marry her yourself to-morrow did you get the -chance, dear fellow. _Vous n’êtes pas dégoûté._ - -“But Rustleton’s a difficult man—always was. His personal appearance -ain’t prepossessin’, but he is Somebody, and looks it; d’ye foller me? -You feel at once that a long line of ancestors, more or less -distinguished, must have handed down the bilious tendency from father to -son. Originally—which goes to prove that first impressions are the -stronger—Lady Pomphrey tells me he could not stand Celine Twissing, -wouldn’t have her for nuts, or at any price; but after the disaster to -the steam yacht _Fifi_—run down by a collier at her moorings in -Southampton Water, you recollect, when by pure force of muscle Miss -Twissing snatched Lord Rustleton from a watery grave, so to put it—he -seemed to cave in, as it were, and the engagement was formally -announced. I thought his eye unsteady and his laugh hollow, when, with -the rest of the family, I proffered my insignificant congratulations. On -that occasion, dear fellow, he gave me two fingers instead of one, which -amounts to a grip with him, and whispered to the effect that there was -no use in cryin’ over spilled milk—a familiar saw which has sprung to my -own lips at the most inopportune moments. - -“Celine was undoubtedly in love. Her being in love, so to put it, added -immensely to Rustleton’s discomfort. For the New Girl is, as well as a -muscular being, a strenuous creature, omnivorous in her appetite for -mental exercise, and from the latest theories in physics to the morality -of the newest Slavonic novelist Rustleton was expected to range with her -hour by hour. Her mass of knowledge oppressed him, her inexhaustible -fund of argument exhausted him, her fiery enthusiasm reduced him to a -condition of clammy limpness which was—I may say it openly—painful to -witness. A backward Lower boy and an impatient Head Master might have -presented such a spectacle. Thank you, I will take a Vermouth, since you -are so kind. But the boy, in getting away for the holidays, had the -advantage of Rustleton, poor fellow!” - -Hambridge waited till the Vermouth came, and, sipping the tonic fluid, -continued: - -“These details, I need not say, were not culled from Lady Pomphrey, but -extracted from Rustleton, who had rushed up to town and gone to earth at -his Club, to the consternation of the few waiters who were not taking -holidays at the seaside. Little by little I became master of the facts -of the case, which was one of disparity from the outset. From the -muscular as from the intellectual point Celine Twissing had always -overshadowed her _fiancé_. But Celine’s intimate knowledge of the mode -of conduct necessary—I quote herself—to sane living and clear thinking -positively appalled him. Rustleton began the day with hot Vichy water, -dry toast, weak tea, and a tepid immersion. _She_, Miss Twissing, -commenced with Indian clubs, a three-quarter-mile sprint in sweaters, -coffee, eggs, cold game-pie, ham, jam, muffins, and marmalade. Did she -challenge the man, to whom she was soon to pledge lifelong obedience at -the altar, to a single at lawn-tennis, she quite innocently served him -twisters that he could only follow with his eye, and volleyed balls that -infallibly hit it. At croquet she was a scientist, winning the game by -the time Lord Rustleton had got through three hoops, and coming back to -stand by his side and goad him to silent frenzy by criticism of his -method. She is a red-hot motorist, and insisted upon taking Rustleton, -wrapped in fur coats, and protected by goggles, as passenger in the back -seat of her sixty-horse-power ‘Gohard’ when she competed in the -Crooklands Circular Track One Thousand Mile Platinum Cup Race, for -private owners only, professional drivers barred; and upon my honor, I -believe she would have pulled up the winner and heroine of the hour had -not the racing diet of bananas, meat jujubes, and egg-nog created such a -revolt in Rustleton’s system, poor fellow, that at the sixth hour of the -ordeal he was borne, almost insensible, and bathed in cold perspiration, -from the _tonneau_ to a neighboring hotel. - -“To anxiety, in combination with exploding tires, I attribute the fact -of Miss Twissing’s finishing as Number Four. Dear fellow, since you are -so good as to insist, I _will_ put that cushion behind the small of my -back. Lumbago, in damp weather, is my particular bane. Thankee!” - -Hambridge drew forth a spotlessly white handkerchief, flourished it, and -trumpeted. - -“Now we come to the crux, dear fellows. The Admirable Twissing, as many -call her, not content with bein’ an acknowledged expert in salmon -fishin’ and a darin’ rider to hounds, set her heart on Rustleton’s being -practically the same. With a light trout-rod and a tin of worms he _has_ -occasionally amoosed himself on locally-preserved waters; mounted on an -easy-goin’ cob, he is, so to put it, fairly at home. Scotch and -Norwegian rivers now, shall I say, claimed him as their sacrifice; -highly-mettled hunters—the Hopsacks stables are famous—took five-barred -gates and quickset hedges with him; occasionally even bolted with him, -regardless of his personal predilections. In the same spirit his -betrothed bride compelled him to fence with her; instructed him, at -severe physical expense to himself, in the rules of jiu-jitsu. The final -straw was laid upon the camel’s back when she insisted on his putting on -the gloves with her, and standing up for half an hour every morning to -be scientifically pummeled.” - -The listeners’ mouths screwed themselves into the shape of -long-expressive whistles. Glances of profound meaning were exchanged. -One man said, with a gulp of sympathy, “_Poor_ beggar!” - -“And so the worm turned,” said Hambridge Ost, running his forefinger -round inside the edge of his collar. “Smarting from upper-cuts -administered by the woman who was destined ere long to become the wife -of his bosom, flushed from having his head in Chancery, gravely -embarrassed by body-blows, dazzled by stars and stripes seen as the -result of merciless punches received upon the nose, Rustleton summoned -all his courage to the effort, and declined to take any more lessons. -Miss Twissing, to do her justice, was thunderstruck. - -“‘Oh!’ she said, her lips quivering—like a hurt child’s, according to -Rustleton—‘and you were coming on so _capitally_—we were getting on so -well. You are really gaining a knowledge of good boxing principles, you -were actually benefiting by our light little friendly spars.’ Rustleton -felt his nose, which was painfully swollen. ‘Of course, you could never, -never become a first-rater. Your poor little muscles are too rigid. You -haven’t the strength to hit a print of your knuckles into a pound of -butter, but you might come to show form enough to funk a big duffer, -supposing he went for you under the impression that you were as soft as -you look. But, of course, if you mean what you say’—she pulled her -gloves off and threw them into a corner of the gymnasium at Hopsacks -specially fitted up for her by a noted firm—‘there they go. I’ll read -the Greek Anthologists with you instead, or’—her eyes brightened—‘have -you ever tried polo?’ she asked. ‘We have some trained ponies in the -stable, and the largest croquet-lawn could be utilized for a ground, and -I’ll wire to the County Players for clubs and a couple of members to -teach us the rules of the game. You’ll like that?’ - -“‘I’m dashed if I shall!’ were the actual words that burst, so to put -it, from Rustleton. Celine drew herself up and looked him over, from the -feet upwards, as though she had never, so he says, seen him before. Five -feet five—his actual height—gave her an advantage of five inches and a -bit over. He begged her to be seated, and, standing before her in as -dignified an attitude as it is possible to assume in a light suit of -gymnasium flannels, with sawdust in your hair and a painfully swollen -nose, he broke the ice and demanded his release from their engagement, -saying that he felt it incumbent on him to live his own life in his own -way, that Celine crushed, humiliated, and oppressed him by the mere -vigor of her intellect and the exuberance of her physical -personality—with considerably more to the same effect. - -“She looked up when Rustleton, almost breathless, reached a full stop. -‘You give me your word of honor that there is no other woman in the -case,’ she murmured; ‘I _can_ stand your not loving me, I _can’t_ your -loving somebody else better.’ As Rustleton gave the required -denial—scouted the bare idea—a tear ran down her cheek and dropped on -her large powerful arms, which were folded upon her bust—really amazing, -dear fellow, and one of her strong points. ‘That settles it,’ she -uttered. ‘It’s understood, all’s off between us; you are free. And there -is a through express to London at 3:25. But I’m afraid I must detain you -a moment longer.’ She rang the bell, and told a servant to tell -Professor Pudsey she was wanted in the gym. ‘Tell her to come in -sparring kit, and be quick about it,’ were her actual words. - -“Until the Professor appeared, Miss Twissing chatted quite pleasantly -with Rustleton. The Professor was a large, flat-faced woman, of -remarkable muscular development, with her hair coiled in a tight knob at -the back of her head, her massive form attired in a thin jersey, short -serge skirt, long stockings, and light gymnasium shoes. ‘Let me -introduce my friend and resident instructress in boxing, fencing, and -athletics,’ says Celine, ‘and one of the best, so to put it, that ever -put a novice through his paces. Celebrated as the wife and trainer of -the late Ponto Pudsey, Heavy-weight Champion of England, and holder of -the Hyam’s Competition Belt three seasons running until beat by Bat -Collins at the International Club Grounds in ’92. Pudsey dear’—she -turned to the Professor—‘you know my little way when I’ve had a -set-back. Instead of playing _le diable à quatre_ and being disagreeable -and cantankerous all round, I simply send for you and say, as I say now, -“Put up your hands, and do your best; I warn you I’m going in for a -regular slugging match under the rules of the Amateur Boxing -Association. Three rounds—the first and second of three minutes’ length, -the third of four minutes’. This gentleman will act as time-keeper, and -pick up whichever of us gets knocked out. He has plenty of time before -he catches the express to town—and the lesson will be good for him.”’ -She and the Professor shook hands, and, with heads erect, mouths firmly -closed, eyes fixed, left toes straight, bodies evenly balanced, left -arms workin’ loosely, rights well across mark, and so forth, started -business in the most thorough-goin’ way. Such a bout of -fisticuffs—accordin’ to Rustleton—you couldn’t behold outside the -American prize-ring.” - -“By—Jingo!” ejaculated one of the listeners. - -“They led off in a perfectly scientific manner at the head, guarded and -returned, retreated and advanced, ducked, feinted, countered, and -cross-countered,” said Hambridge Ost, “until Rustleton grew giddy. -Terrific hits were given and taken before he could command himself -sufficiently to call ‘Time,’ the Professor with a black eye, Celine with -a cut lip, both of ’em smilin’ and self-possessed to an astonishin’ -degree; went in again at the end of the brief breathin’ space, and -fairly outdid the previous round. When a smashin’ knock-out on the point -of the jaw finally floored the Professor and she failed to come up to -time, leavin’ Miss Twissing mistress of the gory field, Celine nodded -significantly to Rustleton, and said, as she rolled down her sleeves, -‘That would have been for _you_, Russie, old boy, if there had been -another woman in the case. As there isn’t—goodbye, and good luck go with -you! I’m going to put dear old Pudsey to bed, and plaster this cut lip -of mine.’” - -“I like that girl!” declared the man who had said “By Jingo!” “A -rattling good sort, I call her. But a punch-bag would have done as well -as the Professor, I should have thought.” He tugged at his mustache and -wrinkled his forehead thoughtfully. “A damaged lip is so fearfully -disfiguring. Has it quite healed?” - -“I know nothing of Miss Twissing,” said Hambridge, settling his necktie, -“and desire to know nothing of that very unfeminine young person, who, I -feel sure, would have been as good as her word and pounded Rustleton -into a human jelly, had she been aware that there actually existed, if I -may so put it, an adequate feminine reason for the dear fellow’s—shall I -say, change of mind?” - -“Of course,” said the man who had been anxious about Miss Twissing’s -lip, “the little bounder—beg pardon! Of course, Rustleton was telling a -colossal howler. As all the world knows, or will know when the -newspapers come out to-morrow, there was another woman in the case.” - -“Petsie Le Poyntz,” put in another voice, “of the West End Theater. -Petsie of the lissom—ahem!—limbs, of the patent mechanical -smile—mistress of the wink that convulses the gallery, and inventor of -the kick that enraptures the stalls. Petsie, who has won her way into -what Slump, of the _Morning Gush_, calls the ‘peculiar favor of the -British playgoer,’ by her exquisite and spontaneous rendering of the -ballad, ‘Buzzy, Buzzy, Busy Bee,’ sung nightly and at two _matinées_ per -week in _The Charity Girl_. Petsie, once the promised bride of a -thriving young greengrocer, now——” - -“Now, Viscountess Rustleton,” said Hambridge Ost. “Don’t forget that, -dear fellow, pray. I can conceive, even while I condemn my cousin’s -ill-considered action in taking to his—shall I say bosom? yesterday -morning at the Registrar’s—a young lady of obvious gifts and obscure -parentage without letting his family into the secret—that he found her a -soothing change from Miss Twissing. No Greek, no athletics, no -strenuousness of any kind. An appearance distinctly pleasing, even off -the boards, a certain command of repartee of the ‘You’re another’ sort, -an agreeable friskiness varied by an inclination to lounge languidly—and -there you have Petsie, dear fellow. The weddin’ breakfast took place at -the Grill Room of the Savoy Hotel, the extra-sized table, number three, -at the east upper end against the glass partition havin’ been specially -engaged by the management of the West End Theater. That, not bein’ an -invited guest, I ascertained from the waiter who usually looks after me -when I lunch there. The _menu_ was distinctly a good ’un. _Hors -d’œuvres_ ... a bisque, follered by _turban de turbot_.... Birds with -bread-cream sauce, chipped potatoes, tomatoes stuffed, and a corn salad. -Chocolate _omelette soufflée_—ices in the shape of those corrugated musk -melons with pink insides, figs, and nectarines. Of course, a claret -figured—Château-Nitouche; but, bein’ a theatrical entertainment, the Boy -washed the whole thing down. The name of the liqueur I did not get hold -of.” - -“_Parfait Amour_, perhaps?” said a feeble voice, with a faint chuckle. - -“As I have said, I failed to ascertain,” returned Hambridge Ost, with a -dry little cough. “But as Lord Pomphrey, justly indignant with his heir -for throwing over Miss Twissing, with whose hand goes a colossal -fortune, has practically reduced his income to a mere”—he elevated his -eyebrows and blew a speck of cigar-ash from his coat-sleeve—“_that_—the -stirrup-cup that sped my cousin and his bride upon their wedding journey -was certainly not, shall I say, _Aqua d’Oro?_” - -There was a faint chorus of applause. Hambridge, repressing all sign of -triumph, smoothed his preternaturally sleek head and uncrossed his -little legs preparatory to getting out of his chair. The circle of -listeners melted away; the man who had said “By Jingo!” straightened his -hat carefully, staring at the reflection of a distinctly good-looking -face in the mantel-glass. - -“If she had known—if that girl Celine Twissing had known—the game that -bilious little rotter meant to play, he’d have had his liqueur before -his soup, and it would have been punch—not Milk Punch or Turtle Punch, -but the real thing, with trimmings.” He arranged a very neat mustache -with care. “Sorry she got her lip split,” he murmured; “hope it’s healed -all right.... Waiter, get me a dozen Sobranie cigarettes. It’s a pity, a -confounded pity, that the only man who is really able to appreciate that -grand girl Celine Twissing happens to be a younger son. But, anyhow, I -can have a shot at her, and I will.” - - - - - A DYSPEPTIC’S TRAGEDY - - -“He is a constant visitor,” observed Lady Millebrook. - -“And a constant friend,” said Mrs. Tollebranch. A delicate flush mantled -on her otherwise ivory cheek, her great gray eyes, famed for their -far-away, saintly expression, shone through a gleaming veil of tears. -With the lithe, undulating movement so characteristic of her, she -crossed the velvety carpets to the window, and, lifting a corner of her -silken blind, peeped out over her window-boxes of jonquils as the -hall-door closed, and a well-dressed man with a slight stoop and a worn, -dyspeptic countenance went slowly down the doorsteps and got into his -cab. As though some subtle magnetic thrill had conveyed to him the -knowledge that fair eyes looked on his departure, he glanced up and -bowed, for one moment becoming a younger man, as a temporary glow -suffused his pallid features. Then the cab drove off, and Mrs. -Tollebranch, slipping her hand within the arm of Lady Millebrook, drew -her back to her cosy seat within the radius of the fire-glow, and rang -for tea. - -“I did not have it up while poor Cadminster was here,” she explained. -“The sight of Sally Lunn is horrible to him, and he is positively -forbidden tea.” - -“They say,” said Lady Millebrook, nibbling the Sally Lunn, “that he -lives upon gluten biscuits, lean boiled mutton, and white fish, washed -down by weak Medoc, mixed with hot water.” - -“It is true,” returned her friend. - -“And yet he dines out. I meet him comparatively often at other people’s -tables,” said Lady Millebrook. “And here—invariably.” Her eyebrows wore -the crumple of interrogation. - -“The servants have orders to pass him over,” explained Mrs. Tollebranch, -sipping her tea. “If Jerks or Wilbraham were to offer him a made dish, -one, if not both of them, would be instantly dismissed.” - -“My dear Clarice! Friendship is friendship.... But Jerks and -Wilbraham.... Such invaluable servants! You cannot mean what you say!” - -“I do mean it,” nodded Mrs. Tollebranch. “Oh, Bettine!” she murmured, -clasping Lady Millebrook’s hand, “don’t look so surprised. If you only -knew how much that man has sacrificed for me!” - -“If there is anything upon which I pride myself,” observed Lady -Millebrook, “it is my absolute lack of curiosity. And yet people are -always telling me their secrets—the most intimate, the most important! -‘Bettine,’ they say, ‘you are a Grave!’ ... So I am; it is quite true. A -thing once repeated in my hearing is buried for ever! We have not known -each other very long, it is true, but you must have discovered that I am -absolutely reliable! Talking of sacrifices, there are so many sorts. Now -perhaps in your gratitude for this service rendered you by Lord -Cadminster, you overrate. Perhaps it is really not so great as you -imagine! Perhaps...! But I am not curious in the least!” - -“Would it surprise you to hear,” queried Mrs. Tollebranch, “that -Cadminster, two years ago, was _perfectly healthy!_ Not the cadaverous -dyspeptic he is now; not the semi-invalid, but a robust, healthy, -fresh-colored man of the out-of-doors, hardy English type?” - -Lady Millebrook elevated her eyebrows. “Dear me,” she observed. “How -very odd! And now—you know his horrid _soubriquet_—‘The Boiled Owl.’ He -has earned it _since_, of course.” - -“He had a splendid appetite once,” continued Mrs. Tollebranch, “an iron -constitution—a perfect digestion. He gave them all three to save a -woman’s honor. Oh! Bettine, can you guess who the woman was?” - -“I never hazard guesses about my friends,” said the inexorable Lady -Millebrook. “But I feel, somehow, that she may have been you?” - -“I was weak,” admitted Mrs. Tollebranch, clasping her friend’s hand with -agitated jeweled fingers. “But not wicked, Bettine. Promise me to -believe that!” - -“I never promise,” said Bettine, “but no one could look at you and doubt -that ... whatever you might do, would be the outcome of irresistible -impulse, _not_ the result of deliberate—ahem! My dearest, you interest -me indescribably,” she cried, “and if I were the _least bit_ inclined to -curiosity, I am sure I should implore you to go on.” - -“You shall hear the story of Cadminster’s Great Sacrifice, Bettine,” -said Mrs. Tollebranch, “and when you have heard, you will regard him——” - -“As Bayard and all the other heroes of chivalry rolled into one, and -dressed by a Bond Street tailor,” interrupted Lady Millebrook, with a -glow of impatience in her fine dark eyes. “I think you mentioned two -years ago?” she added, settling a little stray lock of her friend’s -silken blonde hair, and sinking back among her cushions. - -“Two years ago,” murmured Mrs. Tollebranch, “Willibrand became bitten -with the Golf Spider. He is as wild about the game to-day,” she added, -“as ever.” - -“There is a proverb, ‘Once a golfer, always a golfer,’” put in Lady -Millebrook. “I believe that to play the game successfully requires a -vast amount of thought and judgment, which insensibly diverts a man’s -mind from less harmless topics, and that it entails an invigorating and -healthy action of the arms and legs, soothing to the nervous system, and -improving in its effect upon the temper. Were I asked by any married -woman of my acquaintance whether she should encourage her husband in his -devotion to golf, or dissuade him from it, I should advise her to -encourage the fad. The game, unlike others, can be played all the year -round, in sunshine, rain, or snow.” - -“Willibrand used to play it in the snow,” put in Mrs. Tollebranch, “with -red balls. It was when we were spending March at Tobermuirie two years -ago, that——” - -“That Lord Cadminster performed the chivalrous action which resulted for -him in the permanent loss of his digestion? Well?” - -“Tobermuirie is the bleakest spot in North Britain,” began Mrs. -Tollebranch, returning the teacups to the tray, and touching the -electric bell in a manner which conveyed the intimation that she would -not be at home to any caller for the next quarter of an hour. “The -castle is one of the oldest inhabited residences in Europe, and, I -verily believe, the coldest. If you would like to find out for yourself -how easily a northern gale can penetrate walls ten feet thick in the -thinnest places, come to us in July.” - -“I shall make a point of it!” said Lady Millebrook, cuddling down into -her warm, scented lair of cushions. - -“Of course, the male division of the house-party was made up of golfing -enthusiasts,” went on Mrs. Tollebranch. “Major Wharfling, Sir Roger -Balcombe, Cadminster, who was as keen as Willibrand in those days, three -Guardsmen, and D’Arsy Pontoise.” - -“By the way, what has become of Pontoise?” queried Lady Millebrook. “One -never meets him now as one used.” - -“He scarcely ever leaves Paris, I believe,” returned Mrs. Tollebranch, -rather constrainedly. “Since his reconciliation with the Duc, his -great-uncle, and his marriage with Mademoiselle De Carapoix, who I have -heard is a very strict Catholic and humpbacked——” - -“Besides being a great heiress.... Of course, he is kept well within -bounds. But what a fascinating creature Pontoise used to be. Bubbling -with life, effervescing with spirits. Sadly naughty, too, I fear, for -the names of at least half a dozen pretty married women used to be mixed -up with his in all sorts of scan.... My dearest, I beg your pardon!” - -“I, at least, was not wicked—only weak!” said Clarice, with icy dignity. -“And as to there being five others——” - -“My sweet, it was the vaguest hearsay. Nothing certain, except that -Pontoise spoke perfect English and was a veritable Apollo! I can imagine -the rigors of imprisonment in a Border castle in March to have been -ameliorated by the fact of his being a guest under its aged roof. Did he -play golf?” - -Mrs. Tollebranch rose and took a dainty screen of crimson feathers from -the high mantelshelf. - -“He tried to learn,” she explained, holding the screen so as to shield -her delicate complexion from the glowing heat of the log fire. “But the -game baffled him. To play it properly, I believe, the mind must be dead -to all other interests——” - -“And Pontoise’s mind was unusually alive at that particular moment to -things outside the sphere of golf,” mused Lady Millebrook. “Golf is a -game for husbands, not for——” Her red lips closed on the unuttered word. - -“Don’t say, ‘lovers’!” implored Clarice. “From beginning to end, -Bettine, it was nothing but a flirtation. I will own that I -was—attracted, almost fascinated. I had never met a human being whose -nature was of so many colors ... whose soul....” She broke off. - -“I have been informed on good authority,” observed Lady Millebrook, -“that whenever Pontoise meant mischief he invariably talked about his -soul. But do go on! - -“Of course, you played golf also; and as one of the great advantages -connected with the game is that you can choose your own partner, I may -presume that Pontoise made acquaintance with it under your auspices, and -that when he landed himself in the jaws of some terrific sand-bunker, -you were at hand to help him out.” - -“As his hostess, it was rather incumbent upon me,” explained Mrs. -Tollebranch, “to make myself of use. Willibrand and Sir Roger Balcombe -termed him a duffer; Major Wharfling is nothing but a professional, -Cadminster and the Guardsmen were hard drivers all. And as Bluefern had -made me a golfing costume which was a perfect dream——” - -“You completed the conquest of Pontoise. I quite understand!” said -Bettine. “In that frock, armed with a long spoon. I quite grasp it.” - -“The golf course is very open at Tobermuirie,” went on Clarice, playing -with the feather fan. - -“But there are hillocks, and bumps and boulders, and things behind which -Pontoise managed to get in a good many references to his soul. I grasp -_that_ also,” observed Lady Millebrook. - -“He did mention his soul,” admitted Mrs. Tollebranch. “He said that it -had always been lonely, thirsting for the sympathy of a sister-spirit -until——” - -“Until he met you!” - -“He did say as much. And he explained how, in sheer desperation of ever -meeting the affinity, the flame for whom the spark of his being had been -originally kindled, a man may drift into all kinds of follies, even gain -the name of a libertine and a _roué_.” - -“Quite true.” - -“He has such wonderful eyes, like moss agates, and his profile is like -the Hermes of Praxiteles, or would be but for the waxed mustache and -crisp, golden beard. And there is a vibrating _timbre_ in his voice that -goes to the very heart. One could not but be sorry for him.” - -“I am sure you were very sorry indeed. But Pontoise, as one knows of -him, would not long be content with that. Your heartfelt pity, and the -tip of your little finger to kiss....” Lady Millebrook’s sleepily dark -eyes smiled cynical amusement. “Those things are the _hors d’œuvres_ of -flirtation. Soup, fish, made-dishes, roast, and sweets invariably -succeed, with black coffee and a subsequent indigestion.” - -Clarice avoided the glance of this feminine philosopher. - -“Pontoise was always respectful,” she said, with a little note of -defiance in her voice. “He never forgot what was due to me save once, -when——” - -“When it was borne in upon him too strongly what he owed to himself. And -then he kissed you, and you were furiously angry.” - -“Furious!” nodded Clarice, brushing her round chin with the edge of the -crimson screen. “I vowed I would never speak to him again.” - -“And how long did you keep that oath?” asked Bettine. - -“We met at dinner in the evening, and of course one has to be civil. And -when I went to bed, and he handed me my candlestick,” said Mrs. -Tollebranch—“for gas is only laid as high as the first floor of the -castle, and the electric light has never been heard of—he slipped a note -into my hand. It implored my pardon, and declared that unless I would -meet him in the golf-house on the links next day before lunch, and -receive his profound apologies, he would terminate an existence which my -well-deserved scorn had rendered insupportable. He spoke of the—the——” -Clarice hesitated. - -“The kiss,” put in Lady Millebrook, “and——” - -“Said he had dared, in a moment of insanity, to desecrate the cheek of -the purest woman breathing with lips that ought to be branded for their -criminal presumption. He could never atone, he ended, but he could never -forget.” - -“And asked you in the postscript to meet him in the golf-house. I quite -understand,” observed Lady Millebrook. “Of course, you didn’t go?” - -Clarice’s lovely gray-blue eyes opened. Her sensitive lips quivered. - -“Oh! but I am afraid....” She heaved a little regretful sigh over her -past folly. “That is where I was weak, Bettine. I went. Oh, don’t -laugh!” - -“My child, this is hysteria,” explained Lady Millebrook, removing the -filmy handkerchief from her lovely eyes. “Well—you went. You popped your -head into the lion’s mouth—and somehow or other Cadminster played the -_deus ex machina_, and got it out for you again.” - -“The golf-house was a queer shanty, with a tarred roof,” said Mrs. -Tollebranch retrospectively. “It held a bunker of coals, and stands for -clubs, and a fireplace, and a folding luncheon-table, and camp-stools, -and hampers. We used to lunch outside when it didn’t rain or snow, and -inside when it did. Well, when Willibrand and Sir Roger Balcombe, Major -Wharfling, the Guardsmen, and Cadminster were quite out of sight, -Pontoise and I somehow found ourselves back at the golf-house. I was -cold, and there was a fire there, and he looked so handsome and so -miserable as he stood bare-headed by the door, waiting for me to enter, -that——” - -“The fly walked in. And then the spider——” - -“He disappointed me, I will own,” said Clarice, with a little gulp. -“After all his penitent protestations! I have never trusted men with -agate-colored eyes since, and I never will. They have only one idea of -women, and that is—the worst. But when I ordered him to let go my hands -and get up from his knees, something in my face or voice seemed to tell -him that I was really, really, in earnest, and he obeyed me, and moved -suddenly away as I went to the door. The latch rattled as I lifted my -hand, the door opened; Cadminster stood there, white from head to foot, -for a sudden blizzard had swept down from the hills, and the links were -four inches deep in snow. Oh! I shall never forget how tactful he was! -‘You have got here before the rest of us!’ he said, quite in a cheery, -ordinary way. ‘Lucky for you! Tollebranch and the others are coming -after me as hard as they can pelt, and we shall have to put out the -“House Full” boards in a minute.’ And he began to rattle out the flaps -of the luncheon-table, and get out things from the hamper, and then he -looked at me, and said, as he lifted the lid from a great kettle of -Irish stew that had been simmering over the fire, ‘Suppose you were to -take the ladle and give this mess a bit of a stir, Mrs. Tollebranch! The -fire will burn your face, I’m afraid, but what woman wouldn’t sacrifice -her complexion in the cause of duty?’ Oh, Bettine, I could have blessed -Cadminster as I seized that iron ladle, for seeming so natural and at -ease. And then—almost before I had begun to stir the stew—while I was -bending over the pot, Willibrand and the other men came in. What -followed I can never forget!” - -“Now we come to Cadminster’s great act of heroism?” interrogated Lady -Millebrook. - -“Willibrand came in stamping the snow off,” went on Mrs. Tollebranch. -“So did all the other men. Willibrand sniffed the odor of the oniony -stew with rapture. All the other men sniffed too.” - -“The tastes of the male animal are extraordinarily simple,” observed -Lady Millebrook, “in spite of the elaborate pretense carried on and kept -up by him, of being a gourmand and a _connoisseur_. The coarsest dishes -are those which appeal most irresistibly to his palate, and when I find -it necessary for any length of time to chain Millebrook to his home, I -order a succession of barbaric _plats_. By the time we have reached -tripe and onions, served as an _entrée_, there is not a more -domesticated husband breathing. But pray continue.” - -“They all assembled round the stewpot,” went on Clarice, “and watched -with absorbed interest the operation of turning its steaming contents -into the dish that awaited them. Cadminster and Willibrand undertook -this duty. Well——” - -“Well?” - -“Just as they heaved up the steaming cauldron, Willibrand called out, -‘Hulloa, what the deuce is that?’ His hands were occupied—he could not -get at his eyeglass,” said Mrs. Tollebranch, “and so he peered and -exclaimed, while I leaned over his shoulder and glanced into the -stewpot. There, floating upon the surface of the muttony, oniony, -carroty, potatoey mass, was”—she shuddered—“the letter Pontoise had -given me with my candlestick on the preceding night!” - -“My _dear_, how awful!” gasped Lady Millebrook. - -“I had had it in my pocket,” explained Mrs. Tollebranch, “when I arrived -at the golf-house. When I began to stir the stew I found the handle of -the ladle too hot to be pleasant, and I pulled out my handkerchief to -wrap round it.” - -“Whisking Pontoise’s effusion out with it! How reckless not to have -burned it!” cried Lady Millebrook. - -“Imagine my feelings!” said Clarice. “There was the letter in the -stewpot. As the contents were turned by Cadminster into the dish, I lost -sight of the envelope beneath a greasy avalanche of fat mutton and -vegetables. I remembered that Pontoise had referred to that unlucky -kiss; I recalled Willibrand’s unfortunate tendency to outbursts of -jealous rage without reason; I shuddered at the thought of the amount of -reason that envelope contained. Self-control abandoned me—my brain spun -round, I thought all lost ... and then—I caught Cadminster’s eye. There -was encouragement in it—and hope. ‘Trust to me,’ it said, ‘I will save -you!’” - -“And——?” - -“We sat down to table, and that stew was distributed, in large portions, -to all those men. Cadminster assumed control of the ladle. He gravely -asked me whether I cared about stew, and I gasped out something—what I -don’t know, but I believe I said I didn’t. When the words were out, I -knew that I had lost my only chance—that Cadminster had intended to help -me to that fatal envelope. My fate hung in the balance as he filled -plate after plate.... Who would get my letter in his gravy, amongst his -vegetables? What would happen then? Would it be rendered illegible by -grease, or would it not? I scarcely breathed, the suspense was so -awful!” said Mrs. Tollebranch, clutching Lady Millebrook’s sleeve. “And -then—Relief came. I grasped that man’s heroic motive—I understood the -full nobility of his nature when——” - -“When Cadminster helped himself to the letter! But, good heavens! you -don’t mean to tell me,” cried Lady Millebrook, “that he _ate_ it?” - -“He did, he did!” cried Mrs. Tollebranch, throwing herself into her -friend’s sympathetic embrace. “Now you know why I call him a Bayard, and -look upon him as my truest, noblest friend. Now you know....” - -“Why he is a cadaverous dyspeptic! Of course. That document must have -completely wrecked his constitution.” - -“It has,” interrupted Clarice, with a little shower of tears. - -“I shall never say again,” remarked Lady Millebrook, as she took an -affectionate leave of her dearest friend but four, “that Romance and -Chivalry have no existence in these modern times. To jump into a den -full of lions and things to get a lady’s bracelet or save a lady’s glove -may sound finer, though I am not sure. But to eat another man’s -love-letter, envelope and all, to save a woman’s reputation ... there is -the true ring of heroism about it, the glow that ennobles an ordinary, -commonplace action into something superb. And, unless I mistake, -Pontoise invariably penned his amatory effusions upon the very stiffest -of parchment wove.... Darling, Lord Cadminster must dine with us.... -Next Thursday; I will not take No!” ended Lady Millebrook; “and he may -rely upon it that if either Jedbrook or Mills presume to offer him -anything rich or oleaginous, either or both of them will be dismissed -next day!” - - - - - RENOVATION - - -The hands of the Dresden clock upon the white travertine mantelshelf of -Lady Sidonia’s boudoir pointed to the small hours. There was a discreet -knock at the door. The maid, a pale, pretty young woman, who was -wielding the hair-brush, laid the weapon down, and answered the knock. - -“Who is it, Pauline?” asked Pauline’s mistress, with her eyes upon the -mirror, which certainly framed a picture well worth looking at. - -“Her Grace’s maid, my lady, asking whether you are too tired for a -chat?” - -“Say that I shall be delighted, and give me the blue Japanese kimono -instead of this pink thing. Will my hair do? Because, if it needs no -more brushing, you can go to bed.” - -“Thank you, my lady.” - -The door opened; trailing silks swept over the carpet.... - -“I can’t kiss you through all this brown-gold silk,” said the Duchess’s -voice. “Stop, though! You shall have it on the top of your head.” And -the kiss descended, light as a puff of thistle-down. “I kiss Cull there -sometimes, when I want him to be in a good temper. He says it thrills -right down to the tips of his toes.... You’re smiling! I guess you think -the stock of thrills ought to be exhausted by this time—three years -since we stood up together on the deck of Cluny F. Farradaile’s anchored -airship, a posse of detectives from Blueberry Street guarding the ends -of the fore and aft cables, where they were anchored three hundred feet -below in the grounds of the N’York Æther Club, just to prevent any one -of the dozens of Society girls who’d tried their level best to catch -Cull and failed, from coming along with a bowie and cutting ’em.... You -remember the pars. in all the papers, headed, ‘A Marriage Made in -Heaven,’ I guess?” - -“Of course, of course,” said the Duchess’s hostess and dearest friend. - -“My invention,” said her Grace, “and mighty smart, I reckon. I’d always -said I’d be married in a real original way—and I was. The only drawback -to the affair was that she pitched—I mean the airship—and the Minister, -and Cull, and Poppa, and the inventor—that’s Cluny F. Farradaile—were -taken poorly before the close of the cer’mony. As for my sex, I’m proud -to say that Amurrican women can rise superior even to air-sickness when -Paris frocks are in question. But when they wound us down we were glad -enough to get back to dry land. We found a representative of the Customs -waiting for us, by the way; and if Poppa hadn’t gone to law about it, -and proved that we were really fixed on to the States by our cables, -we’d have had to plank down the duty on every jewel we’d got on. Say, -pet, I’m perishing for a smoke!” - -The Duchess was supplied with cigarettes. Pauline placed upon a little -table the materials that “factorize,” as the Duchess would have said, -towards the composition of cognac and soda, and glided out. - -“Now I call that a real pretty, meek-looking creature,” said her Grace, -blowing a little flight of smoke rings in the direction of the door. “If -she’s as clever as she’s nice, Siddie, you’ve got a treasure!” - -“She _is_ a good maid,” responded Lady Sidonia. “For one thing, she -knows a great deal about the toilette, and on the subject of the -complexion she’s really quite an authority. She knows something of -massage, too—on the American system—for, though an English girl, she has -lived in your country——” - -“Oh!” said the Duchess, with an accent of interest. “Has she, indeed?” - -“She’s reasonable, too,” went on the maid’s mistress; “and not a limpet -in the way of sticking to one mode of doing the hair and refusing to -learn any other. Then she can _wave_——” - -“It is an accomplishment,” said the Duchess thoughtfully. “Now, my woman -either frizzes you like a Fiji, or leaves you dank and straight like a -mermaid. Why does hair never wave naturally—out of a novel? It’s a -question for a Convention. And men—dear idiots!—are such believers in -the reality of ripples. There! I’ve been implored over and over again -for ‘just that little bit with the wave in it’ to keep in a -locket—hundreds and hundreds of times. I guess Cull’s wiser now; but -once you’ve seen your husband’s teeth in a tumbler, you’ve entered into -a Conjugal Reciprocity Convention: ‘Believe in me—not as much of me as -really belongs to me, but as much as you see—and I’ll return the -compliment!’ Yes, I guess I’ll take some S. and B. It’s an English -accomplishment, and I’ve mastered it thoroughly. We Amurricans rinse out -with Apollinaris or ice-water, which isn’t half so comforting, -especially in trouble.” - -And the Duchess heaved a butterfly’s sigh, which scarcely stirred her -filmy laces, and smoothed her prettiest eyebrow with one exquisite -finger-tip. - -“Trouble!” exclaimed her friend. “My dear, you’re the happiest of women. -Don’t try to persuade me that you’ve got a silent sorrow!” - -“Not exactly a silent one, because I’m going to confide in you; but -still it is a sorrow.” The Duchess confided one hand to her dearest -friend’s consoling clasp, and wiped away a tear with a minute -handkerchief that would not have dried half a dozen. “Perhaps Amurrican -blood is warmer than English; but, anyhow, our family affections are -vurry much more strongly developed over in the States than yours are -here. And I had a letter from Momma by yesterday’s mail that would have -melted a heart of rock.” She dried a second tear. “If Momma lives till -the end of Creation,” she said, “she will never, never get over it. And -I don’t wonder!” - -“Darling, if it would really do you any good to tell me——” breathed Lady -Sidonia. - -“I tell all my friends,” said the Duchess with a sigh; “and they’re -invariably of one opinion—that Momma was cruelly victimized.” - -“She is——” - -“Call her forty, dear. It would be just cruel to say anything more. -People call me lovely and all those things,” said the Duchess candidly, -“and I allow they’re correct. Well, compared with what Momma was at my -age, I’m real ordinary.” - -“Oh!” - -“Frozen fact! And you can grasp the idea that when—in spite of every -effort—Momma began to lose her figure and her looks, she felt it!” - -“Every woman must!” - -“But the more she felt it, the more she seemed to expand.... Grief runs -to fat, I do believe,” said the Duchess. “Of course, Poppa’s allowance -to Momma being liber’l—even for a Corn King—she had unlimited funds at -her disposal. To begin with, she rented a medical specialist.” - -“Who dieted her?” - -“My dear, for a woman accustomed to French cookery, and with the -national predilection for cookies and candy, it must have been——” - -“Torture!” - -“One gluten biscuit and the eye of a mutton cutlet for dinner. Think of -it! Beef-juice and dry toast for breakfast, ditto for supper. And she -used to skip—a woman of that size, too—for hours! And her trainers came -every morning at five o’clock, and they’d make her just put on a sweater -and take her between them for a sharp trot round Central Park, just as -if she’d been a gentleman jockey sworn to ride at so many stone for a -Plate. And the number of stone Momma got off——” - -“She _got_ them off?” - -“I guess she got them off,” said the Duchess. “Poppa talked of having an -elegant tombstone set up in Central Park to commemorate the greater -portion of a wife buried there! then he gave up the notion. And then -Momma made handsome presents to her specialist and her trainers, and -contracted with the cleverest operator in N’York to make a face.” - -“To make a face?” repeated Lady Sidonia. - -“To make a face for Momma that matched her youthful figure,” said the -Duchess composedly. “My! the time that man took in creating a surface to -work on! She slept for a fortnight with her countenance covered with -slices of raw veal.” - -“Horrible!” shuddered the listener. - -“And the massaging and steaming that went on!” - -“I can imagine!” - -“The foundations being properly laid——” continued the Duchess, lighting -another cigarette. - -Lady Sidonia went into a little uncontrollable shriek of laughter. “As -though ... she had been a house!... Ha, ha, ha!” - -“My dear,” returned the Duchess, shaking her beautiful head, “the terms -employed in the contract were precisely those I have quoted.... The -specialist laid the foundations, and carried the contract out. Momma’s -appearance delighted everyone, except Poppa, who has old-fashioned -notions, and complained of feeling shy in the presence of a stranger. -Fortunately their Silver Wedding eventuated just then, and his -conscience—Poppa’s conscience is, for a corn speculator’s, wonderfully -sensitive—ceased to annoy him.” - -“And your mother?” - -“Momma wore her new face for six months with the greatest satisfaction,” -said the Duchess. “Of course, she had to lay up for repairs pretty -often, but the specialist was there to carry them out. Unluckily, he -contracted a severe chill in the N’York winter season and died. His wife -put his tools and enamels and things in his coffin. She said she knew -business would be brisk when he got up again, and she didn’t wish any -other speculator to chip in before him.” The Duchess sighed. “Then came -Momma’s great trouble.” - -“There was no other operator to—take up the—the contract?” hinted Lady -Sidonia. - -“There were dozens,” said the Duchess, “and Momma tried them all. My -dear, you may surmise what she looked like.” - -“A heterogeneous mingling of styles.” - -“It was impossible to conjecture,” said the Duchess confidentially, “to -what period the original structure belonged. By day Momma resorted to a -hat and voile.” - -“Even in the house?” - -“Even in the house. By night—well, I guess you’ve noticed that a human -work of art, illuminated by electric light, isn’t seen under the most -favorable conditions.” - -“There is a pitiless accuracy!” - -“An unmerciful candor about its revelations. After one unusually -brilliant reception, Momma retired from society and took to -spiritualism. She persevered until she had materialized that demised -face-specialist, and extracted some definite raps in the way of advice.” - -“And what did he advise?” - -“He suggested, through the medium, that Momma should apply to the -Milwaukee Mentalists.” - -“A Society of Faith Healers?” - -“‘Occult Operatists,’ they call themselves on the prospectuses. As for -the cult of the Society,” said the Duchess pensively, “one might call it -a mayonnaise of Freemasonry, Theosophy, Hypnotism, Humbug, and Hoodoo. -But the humbug, like salad oil in the mayonnaise, was the chief -ingredient.” The Duchess stopped to draw breath. - -“And into this vortex Mrs. Van Wacken was drawn?” sighed Lady Sidonia. - -“Sucked down and swallowed,” said the Duchess, who had been Miss Van -Wacken. “They undertook to make Momma right over again, brand new, by -prayer and faith and—a mentally electrified bath. For which treatment -Momma was to pay ten thousand down.” - -“Pounds!” shrieked the horrified Lady Sidonia. - -“Dollars,” corrected the Duchess. - -“In advance?” cried the listener. - -“In advance, after a demonstration had been given which was practically -to satisfy Momma that the Milwaukee Mentalists were square,” said the -Duchess. “My word! when I remember how they bluffed that poor darling—I -should want to laugh, if I didn’t cry.” She dried another tear. - -“Do go on!” entreated her friend. - -“The High Priestess of the Community was a woman,” went on the Duchess, -“just as cool and ca’am and cunning as they make ’em.” - -“I guessed as much,” said Lady Sidonia. - -“It takes a woman to know and work on another woman’s weak points,” -rejoined the Duchess. “The High Priestess pretended to be in -communication with a spirit. ‘The Mystikos,’ they called him, and he -resided, when he was at home, in a crystal ball; but bullion was the -real totem of the tribe. Well—but it’s getting late——” - -“I shall not sleep a _wink_ until I have heard the _whole story_,” said -Lady Sidonia. - -“And Cull and your husband are comparing notes about their wives in the -smoking-room,” said the Duchess. - -“Well, the Theologa——” - -“The—the—what?” - -“The Theologa—that was the professional title of the High -Priestess—whose or’nary name was Mrs. Gideon J. Swale,” her Grace went -on, “talked a great deal to Momma, and made some passes over her, and -got the poor dear completely under her thumb. Momma wasn’t the only -victim, you must know. There were four other ladies, all wealthy, and -each one, like Momma, the leader of a fashionable society set——” - -“And—no longer young?” - -“And past their first bloom,” amended the Duchess. “And each of ’em had -agreed to plank down the same sum in cold dollars.” - -“Fifty thousand in all,” said Lady Sidonia with a sigh. She could have -done so much with fifty thousand dollars, even though American money was -such beastly stuff. “Worth——” - -“Worth riskin’ a term in a N’York State prison for—I guess so!” said the -Duchess. “Well, Momma and the other ladies signed on to the terms, and -went through a cer’mony of purification—which included learnin’ a kind -of catechism used in admittin’ a new member into the Occult Operatists’ -Community—an’ several hymns. That was to make them worthy to receive the -Revelation from the Mystikos, I guess. At least, the Theologa——” - -“Mrs. Gideon J. Swale?” - -“The same. The Theologa said so. In a week or so—durin’ which period -they lived at the house of the Community—chiefly on nuts an’ -spring-water——” - -“For which entertainment they paid——” Lady Sidonia hinted. - -“Delmonico rates!” said the Duchess. “Well, it was settled that the -Demonstration was to come off, with the Mystikos’ consent.” - -“What sort of——” - -“Demonstration? Cur’us,” said the Duchess, “and inter_est_ing. There was -a woman—a Mrs. Gower, English by birth, Amurrican naturalized—who was to -be the Subject. She was a widow—her husband having met his death in an -explosion at an oil-gas producin’ factory. Stoker to the gas-generator -he was, and his wife had brought him his dinner—fried steak in a tin -pail—when the hull kitboodle blew up. Husband was killed—wife was saved, -though so scarred and disfigured about the face as to be changed from a -pretty woman into a plain one.” - -“And she—this scarred, disfigured woman—was to be made pretty again by -the Occult Operatists?” hazarded Lady Sidonia. - -“Guessed it first time,” nodded the Duchess. “The cer’mony took place in -a temple belonging to the Community, all painted over red and yellow -triangles and things like T-squares. At the upper end was an altar, -raised on three steps, and on this was the ground glass ball in which -the Mystikos lived when he wasn’t somewhere else, and an electric light -was fixed over it, so that it just dazzled your eyes to look at. Below -the altar was a seat for the Theologa, and, you bet, Mrs. Gideon J. -Swale came out strong in the costume line. Momma was reminded of Titiens -in _Norma_, she said.” - -“I want to hear about the Demonstration,” pleaded Lady Sidonia -plaintively. - -“My! you’re in a hurry,” said the Duchess. “But it was to be brought off -in a bath—if you must know!” - -“A _bath_?” - -“A bath that was full of water and boiled herbs, and had been properly -incanted over by the Theologa,” explained the Duchess. “There were -incense-burners all round, and not far off a kind of tent of white -linen, all over red triangles and T’s. And the five candidates for -renovation—I mean Momma and the other ladies—sat on a form, in bloomers, -each with a little purse-bag containing bills for ten thousand dollars, -and her heart full of hope and joy.” - -“_Oh!_ go on,” cried Lady Sidonia. - -“The temple was circular, something like the Mormon Tabernacle at Salt -Lake City,” said the Duchess, “and the Occult Operatives—a round hundred -of ’em—occupied the forms, to assist with the prayers and hymn-singin’. -Of course, the proceedings began with a hymn sung in several different -keys. I surmise the effect was impressive.” - -Lady Sidonia elevated her eyebrows. - -“Momma said it was wailful, and made her feel as though live clams were -crawling up and down her back. But then the bloomers may account for -that,” said the Duchess, “and I guess the temple registers were out of -order. Then—the lights were suddenly turned out!” - -“O-oh!” shivered Lady Sidonia. - -“Except the electric stars over the Mystikos’ crystal ball,” went on the -Duchess, “so that all the light in the temple seemed to come from the -altar. Momma said that made her feel those crawling clams worse than -ever.” - -“Could one see plainly what was going on?” asked Lady Sidonia. - -“It was a religious kind of dimness,” said the Duchess, “but most -everything showed plainly. For instance, when the hideous woman who was -to be the Subject of the Demonstration came out of the linen tent in a -suit of bloomers like Momma’s and the others, she appeared to be plain -enough. Do you keep a cat, dear?” whispered the Duchess. - -“Why? No!” said Lady Sidonia. - -“I thought I heard a scratching at the door,” explained the Duchess, -with her mouth close to Lady Sidonia’s ear. “Don’t open it.... I’d -rather—— Where was I?” - -“The Subject was in bloomers,” said Lady Sidonia. - -“Oh, well! Momma and the other ladies were asked to look at her -earnestly, to fix her features in their minds, so that they couldn’t but -recognize her again if they saw her. She was a slight woman, Momma said, -about thirty-five, and but for her scarred face would have been pretty, -with her pale complexion, brown wavy hair, and large gray eyes with -black lashes.... She had one peculiarity about the left hand, which no -one who ever saw it could forget. What are you listening for?” - -“_I_ hear something at the door,” faltered Lady Sidonia in a nervous -undertone. - -“Fancy. You don’t keep a cat. Well, the Subject went up to the altar and -knelt, and the Theologa—Mrs. Gideon J. Swale—invoked the Mystikos in a -solemn kind of conjuration, and the crystal ball on the altar began to -hop up and down.” - -“No!” - -“Fact! Then it rose right off the altar and hung suspended in the air, -and the hymn broke out worse than ever, and the Theologa led the Subject -down the altar steps and put her into the bath.” - -“Well?” gasped Lady Sidonia. - -“The Theologa threw incense on the burners round the bath, and perfect -clouds rose up all round it, completely hiding the Subject,” explained -the Duchess. - -“Then she——” - -“She began to scream.” - -“To scream?” - -“As if she was in absolute agony; and Momma and the four other ladies -nearly fainted off their form, they were so perfectly terrified.” - -“And—what happened?” - -“There was a scream more piercing than any of the others.” - -“Oh!” - -“The clouds of incense became so thick that you couldn’t see your hand.” - -“And——” - -“The Occult Operatives sang more loudly and less in tune than ever, and -the crystal ball kept on jumping up and down. Then the clouds of smoke -cleared away, and the lights went up, and——” The Duchess paused -provokingly. - -“Go on, go on!” - -“And the Subject got out of the bath.... And she had been ugly and -scarred when she went in, but now she was young and pretty!” - -“Impossible!” - -“It was the same woman to all appearances, but changed—wonderfully -changed. The same pretty brown hair, the same eyes, gray, with long -curly black lashes, and the same strange malformation of one finger of -the left hand. But no cicatrices, none of the seams and marks that made -the other frightful.” - -“The other!” - -“Did I say the other?” - -“Certainly!” - -“Then I guess I let the cat out of the bag.” - -“Ah, I begin to understand!” - -“I thought you’d tumble.” - -“There were two women—exactly alike!” - -“No, goosey! One woman younger than the other, and looking exactly like -her, as _she_ looked before the injury to her face.” - -“Sisters?” - -“No. Mother and daughter.” - -“And the change in the bath?” - -“Managed with a false bottom and trap exit. The sort of trick one sees -exposed at the Egyptian Hall.” - -“And the daughter took the mother’s place?” - -“Under cover of the incense—and the singing. The tent held _two_, you -understand.” - -“But Mrs. Van Wacken?” - -“Momma and the other ladies—once the thing had been proved genuine—were -only too anxious to plank down their money and hop into the wonderful -bath. So they went up to the Theologa, and she blessed them and laid the -five money-bags on the altar, and then——” - -“Then——” - -“Then all the lights went out,” said the Duchess, “and there was a kind -of stampede, and Momma and the four other ladies found themselves alone -in the temple. The Theologa and the Subject and the hundred members of -the Community who’d sat round on the seats and helped with the hymns -were gone—and the dollar bags had vanished. The doors of the temple were -locked, and Momma and the four other victims had to stop there until the -morning. An express man heard their cries for help, broke in the door, -and took them to an hotel in his wagon. Dear, I’m going to toddle to -by-by!” - -“It was an awful—awful swindle,” said Lady Sidonia, as she and the -Duchess kissed good-night. - -“And the exposure!” The Duchess shrugged her shoulders. “Momma and the -other ladies wanted it hushed, but the police went into the matter.” - -“Were the swindlers arrested?” - -“The Theologa was caught at Amsterdam, and extradited. The Community got -off. Nobody could prove any of them had had any of the money. I guess,” -said the Duchess, yawning, “Mrs. Gideon J. Swale knows where it is. But -she’s in prison, now, dear. And I hope she likes it. As for the woman -and her daughter, whose likenesses to each other had been made use of by -Mrs. Gideon—they’re still at large. Good-night.” - -“Do tell me,” pressed Lady Sidonia. “That peculiarity of one finger of -the left hand possessed by both mother and daughter—what was it?” - -“It was,” said the Duchess, “a double nail.” - -“_How_ odd!” said Lady Sidonia. “My maid has the same queer deformity, -and it is the only thing I don’t like about her.... She hates to have it -noticed.” - -“I guess she does,” said the Duchess. - -“Look at her hand to-morrow,” said Lady Sidonia. “It’s awfully queer. -Don’t forget.” - -“I won’t,” said the Duchess. “But she won’t be here to-morrow!” - -Lady Sidonia’s eyes opened to their widest extent. “Won’t—_be here_?” - -“No. She is the girl who got out of the bath!” - -“Good heavens!” cried Lady Sidonia. “How do you——Are you——” - -“I had been shown her photograph by the police—recognized her the moment -I saw her,” said the Duchess. “I’m not mistaken any, you may be sure. -But you needn’t trouble about her. She’s gone!” - -“Gone!” - -“She was listening at the door, and heard the whole story. When _you_ -spoke about the cat, she made tracks. She’s clear of this house by now, -you may bet your back teeth. Don’t worry about her,” said the Duchess. -“I’ll send my own maid to you in the morning. Good-night!” - - - - - THE BREAKING PLACE - - - _Being a letter from Miss Tossie Trilbina, of No. 000, Giddingham - Mansions, W., to the Editor of “The Keyhole,” an illustrated Weekly - Journal of Caterings for the Curious._ - -DEAR SIR, - -Since reserve and reticence can be carried too far by a lady, I drop the -present line of explanation, the newspapers having took so kind a -interest in the differences between me and Lord Wretchingham. And if -poets ask what’s in a name, the experience of me and many another young -lady whose talent for the Stage, developed by application and -go-aheadness, not to say good luck—for that there is such a thing must -be plain to the stubbornest person—has made her friends from the -Orchestra—(you’d never guess how the Second Violin can queer you in an -accomp. if you hadn’t experienced it!)—to the highest row in the -Threepenny Gallery at The Druids, or the shilling one at The Troc.—would -answer, _more than people think for_! - -My poor dear mother, who has been pretty nearly crazy about the affair, -in that shrinking from publicity which is natural to a lady, told the -young gentleman from _The Keyhole_, who dropped in on her at her little -place at Brixton, to fish and find out for himself why the -marriage-engagement between her daughter and his lordship should have -been broken off on the very verge of the altar. - -Of course, I don’t assume his lordship’s proposal wasn’t a compliment to -a young lady in the Profession; but lordly roofs and music halls may -cover vice or shelter virtue, as one of the serio characters so -beautifully said in the autumn show at dear old Drury Lane, the name of -which has slipped me. And I don’t pretend that my deepest and holiest -feelings were not wrenched a bit by me having to say in two words, after -mutual vows and presents of the solemnest kind had been exchanged -between me and Lord Wretchingham: “All is over between you and me for -ever, Hildebrand; and if you possess the mind as well as the manners and -appearance of a gentleman, you will not force me to give you the -definite chuck.” - -He went on awfully, grinding the heels of his boots into a brand-new -Wilton carpet, and telling me over and over that I had no heart and -never loved him, concerning which I prefer to keep myself to myself. -There are those that make as much noise when things go wrong with ’em as -a one-and-fourpenny sparking-plug, and there are others that keep -theirselves to theirselves and suffer in silence, of which I hope I am -one. Even supposing my ancestry did not toddle over with Edward the -Conkeror, which they may, for all I know. - -It was on the very first night of the production of _The Pop-in-Taw -Girl_, by the Trust or Bust Theatrical Syndicate, at the Hiram P. Goff -Theatre, W., that Lord Wretchingham caught my eye. Musical Comedy is my -strongest weakness, for though a principal boy’s part, with heaps of -changes, and electro-calcium with chromatic glasses for every song and -dance touches the spot, pantomime is not so refined. Perhaps you may -recall the record hits I made in “Freddy’s Flannel Waistcoat Wilted in -the Wash,” and “Lay Your Head on My Shoulder, Dear.” Not that it’s my -habit to refer to my successes, but the street organs alone will rub it -in when you happen to be the idol of the hour. - -He sat with his mouth wide open—of course, I refer to Lord -Wretchingham—all the time yours truly was on the stage, and I will say -no gentleman could have a more delicate regard for a young lady’s -feelings than his lordship did in sending a perfect haystack of the most -expensive hothouse flowers addressed to Miss Tossie Trilbina, with a -diamond and turquoise muff-chain twined round the moss handle of the -basket, and not a speck of address on the card for my poor dear mother -to return the jewelry to, her being over and above particular, I have -often thought, in discouraging attentions that only sprang from -gentlemen’s appreciation of the performance, and masked nothing the -smallest objections could be taken to. - -She quite warmed to Lord Wretchingham, I will say, when him being -respectfully presented by the Syndicate, and me being recommended fresh -country air by the doctors when suffering from tonsils in the throat, -his lordship placed his motor-car at my disposal. With poor dear mother -invariably in the glass compartment behind, the tongue of scandal could -not possibly find a handle, and her astonishment when she discovered -that Hildebrand regarded me with a warmer feeling than that of mere -admiration gave her quite a turn. - -We were formally engaged—me and Lord Wretchingham. We kept the thing so -dark I cannot think how the newspapers managed to get hold of it. But a -public favorite must pay the price of popularity in having her private -affairs discussed by the crowd. My poor dear mother felt it, but there! -what can you do? With interviewers calling same time as the milk, and -Press snap-shotters lurking behind the laurel bushes in the front -garden, is it to be wondered at that Hildebrand’s family were apprised -of our betrothal not only by pars., but by the publication of our -photographs, taken hand-in-hand on my poor dear mother’s doorstep, with -a vine climbing up behind us, Hildebrand’s motor car, an 18.26 h. p. -“Gadabout,” at the bottom of the doorsteps, with the French _chofore -parley-vousing_ away a good one to the three Japanese pugs, and poor -dear mother, looking a perfect lady, at her fancy-work, in the front -parlor window. How the negative was obtained, and how it found its way -into all the Illustrated Papers, and particularly how it got upon the -postcards, I don’t pretend to guess. It’s one of those regular mysteries -you come across in real life. - -Hildebrand, or, possibly, as all is over, I should say Lord -Wretchingham’s family, went into perfect fits when the news of our -betrothal leaked out. The Earl of Blandish, his father, raged like a mad -bull; and the Countess, his mother, implored him on her knees to break -the engagement. - -“Oh,” she said, with the tears in her eyes, “my own boy,” she said, “do -not, I beg of you,” she said—for, of course, I got it all out of -Hildebrand afterwards—“show yourself to be of so weak and unoriginal a -cast of mind as to follow the example of the countless other young men -of rank and property,” she said, “who have contracted unequal and -unhappy unions with young women on the boards,” she said—and like her -classy cheek! Upon which Lord Wretchingham calmly up and told her that -his word was his bond, and that I had got both; my poor dear mother -having insisted from the beginning that things should be set down in -black and white, which the spelling of irrevokable almost proved a -barrier the poor dear could not tackle, his education having been -neglected at Eton to that extent. - -Me and my poor dear mother being—I don’t mind telling you on the -strict—prepared for a struggle with Wretchingham’s family, was more than -surprised when, after a Saturday to Monday of anxious expectancy, a note -on plain paper with a coronet stamped in white from Lady Blandish -informed us that her ladyship had made up her mind to call. And she kept -the appointment as punctual as clockwork, driving up in a taxi, and -perfectly plainly dressed; and when I made my entrance in the dearest -morning arrangement of Valenciennes lace and baby ribbon you ever saw, I -will say she met me like a lady should her son’s intended, and said that -Lord Blandish and her had come to the determination to make the best of -their son’s choice, and invited me down to stay at Blandish Towers, in -Huntshire, when the run of _The Pop-in-Taw Girl_ broke off for the -autumn holidays. - -“Oh,” I said, “Lady Blandish,” I said, “of course, I shall be perfectly -delighted,” and let her know how unwilling I felt as a lady to make bad -blood between Lord Wretchingham and his family. “But, of course,” I -said, “my duty to the man who I have vowed to love and honor leaves me -no choice.” - -“My dear Miss Tossie Trilbina,” she said, “your sentiments towards -Wretchingham do you the utmost credit,” she said, and I explained to her -that though the surname sounds foreign, there is nothing of the -Italiano-ice-creamo about yours truly. - -“Oh!” she said, in that sweetly nasty way that the Upper Ten do seem to -have the knack of, “do not trouble to explain, my dear Miss Trilbina. -Lord Blandish and myself are quite prepared,” she said, “to accept the -inevitable,” she said, and kissed me, and smiled a great deal at my poor -dear mother, who was explaining to her ladyship that her family did not -regard an alliance with the aristocracy as anything but a match between -equals, and that my education had been of the most expensive and classy -kind you can imagine. And smiled herself into her taxi, and motored -away. - -That was in the middle of the summer season, and I bespoke my costumes -for my visit to my new relations next day. Of course, I expected a -house-party of really hall-marky, classy swells, and meant to do the -honors and help Lady Blandish to entertain as was my duty bound. And my -shooting and golfing and angling costumes, and motoring get-up and -riding-habit, and tea-gowns and dinner-dresses and ball-confections, -were a fair old treat to see, and did Madame Battens credit. - -Wretchingham drove me down in his 18.26 h.p. “Gadabout,” with my -dresser-maid in the glass case behind, and an omnibus motor from the -garage behind us with my dressing-baskets, and I thought of poor dear -mother at home, I don’t mind telling you, when the Towers rose up at the -end of an oak avenue longer than Regent Street, and Wretchingham’s two -sisters came running down the steps to hug their brother and be -presented to their new sister, and the white-headed family butler threw -a glass door open and Wretchingham led me in between six footmen, -bowing, three on each side. - -What price poor little me when I heard there wasn’t any House-Party? -Cheap wasn’t the word, with all those costumes in my dress-baskets. -However, I faked myself up in a frock that I really felt was a credit to -a person of my rank and station, and swam down to what her ladyship -called a “quiet family dinner.” - -The Earl of Blandish came in, leaning on his secretary’s arm, with a -gouty foot, and did the heavy father, calling me “my dear.” I sat on his -lordship’s right hand, and certainly he was most agreeable, telling me -the black oak carvings in the great hall were by Jacob Bean, and that -the walled garden with a separate division for every month in the year -and a bowling alley in the middle had been made by a lady ancestor of -his who lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was a friend of the -person who wrote Shakespeare. - -“Oh!” I said, “I suppose,” I said, “in those days bowls were not -considered a low form of amusement. Though if ever my poor dear mother -and father did have to call words, it would be over his weakness for -bowls and skittles as a waste of time and leading to betting and drink. -And as for Shakespeare, I call it all very well for literary swells with -nothing else to do,” I said, “but what the Halls cater for is the -business gentleman who drops in with a pal to hear the popular favorite -in a ten-o’clock turn over a cigar and a small Scotch. And gardening -never was much in my line,” I said, “though when a child it was my -favorite amusement to grow mustard and cress on damp flannel. Hunting is -my passion,” I said, “and as Wretchingham has told me you keep a -first-class stable of hunters and hacks, besides carriage beasts, I hope -to show your lordship that I shan’t disgrace you,” I said, and asked him -when the next meet would be? - -The Earl’s old eyebrows went up to the top of his aristocratic bald -forehead as he said not until October, and then only for cubbing, and -the two girls flushed up red, trying not to laugh, and wriggled in their -chairs, and Lady Blandish said in her nice nasty way that every day -brought innovations, and one might as well ride to hounds in August as -skate on artificial ice in May. - -“And if you are fond of sport,” Lord Blandish said, “we could possibly -find you some fishing. Don’t you think so, my dear?” and he looked at -his wife. - -“I have my salmoning costume with me,” I said, just to let them know, -“and a rod, and everything. And I suppose Wretchie won’t object,” I -said, giving the poor thing a smile, “to prompt me if I am fluffy in the -business.” - -“Dear me!” said Lady Blandish, “how stupid of me not to have explained -before,” she said, “that this is a trouting County and not a salmon -County, and that such trout as there are run very small.” And the two -girls choked again in the most underbred way I ever. - -I said I’d fall back on golf, having a killing get-up in my basket, but -there wasn’t a links within miles, Lady Blandish said, and how sorry she -was. All the hot-weather entertainment she had it in her power to offer -me in their quiet country home, she said, was an occasional flower-show, -or County cricket-match, or a garden-party, or a friendly dinner with -people who were not _too_ exacting. In September there would be the -birds, but then I would not be there. It was too unfortunate, she said. -Not that her saying so took me in much. - -I thought the top of my head would have come off with yawning that -evening, I really did; and when I remembered that there were three weeks -more of it before me I could have screamed out loud. Me and Wretchingham -went for a spin in his T-cart next morning before lunch, and that drive -settled me in deciding to off it on the next chance. - -“Tossie darling,” said the poor dear thing, “it has gratified my father -exceedingly to ascertain,” he said, “that you are fond of the country; -because a condition of the provision he is willing to make for us when -we are married,” he said—and he would have put his arm round my waist -only the trotter shied—“is that we reside at the Dower House,” he said, -“twenty miles from here, and lead a healthy life in accordance with his -views as regards what is appropriate for future land-owners who will one -day hold a solid stake in the County. Of course, you will leave the -Stage forever, my darling,” he said, “as a future Countess of Blandish -cannot figure upon the Lyric Boards,” he said, “without in some degree -compromising her reputation and bringing discredit upon the family of -which,” he said, “she has become a member. My father will allow us two -thousand a year at first,” he said, “which will enable us to keep a -couple of motor-cars and a hack or two, and with an occasional week-end -in Town, I have no doubt,” he said, “that our married life will be,” he -said, “one of ideal happiness for both of us. You observe,” he said, -pointing with his whip straight over the trotter’s ears, “that rather -low-pitched stone building of the Grange description down in that wooded -hollow there? The house is quite commodious,” he said. “You will -appreciate the exceptional garden; and as there is a good deal of arable -land comprised,” he said, “in the estate, I shall take up farming,” he -said, “with enthusiasm.” - -“You may take up farming,” I said haughtily, “with enthusiasm, dear old -boy; but what I say is, you will not take it up with yours truly! Do you -suppose in cold blood that Tossie Trilbina is the sort of girl to sit -down in the middle of a ploughed field and lead a life of ideal -happiness with a farming husband in gaiters,” I said, tossing my head, -“telling me how the turnips are looking every evening at dinner, and -taking me up to Town for a week-end,” I said, “every now and then as a -treat? No, Hildebrand,” I said, “clearly understand, much as I regret to -say it, that I am not taking any; and unless the old gentleman can be -brought to see the reason,” I said, “of a flat in Mayfair, all is over -betwixt me and you, and I shall go back to my poor dear mother by -to-night’s express,” I said, “if the lacerated state of your feelings -does not permit,” I said, “of your taking the steering-wheel.” - -Of course, the poor dear thing was dreadfully upset, and did his little -best to bring Lord Blandish to weaken on his spiteful old determination; -and Lady Blandish said heaps of nice-sounding nasty things, and the two -girls tried to be sympathetic and not to look as if they were really -ready to jump for joy. But the Earl remained relentless, and Lord -Wretchingham is free. I must now close. Hoping you will accept this -explanation in the spirit in which it is made, - - I remain, dear Sir, yours respectfully, - TOSSIE TRILBINA. - - - - - A LANCASHIRE DAISY - - -One of the giant police-constables on duty outside the Cotton Hall, -Smutchester, upon the occasion of the Conference of the National Union -for the Emancipation of Women Workers, was seized with the spirit of -prophecy when he saw Sal o’ Peg’s borne in, gesticulating, declaiming, -carried head and shoulders above an insurging wave of beshawled and -rampant factory-girls. - -“Theeaw goes th’ Stormy Pettrill, Tum!” he roared to a fellow guardian -of the public peace. “Neeaw us be sewer to ha’ trooble wi’ theeay——” He -did not add “tykes.” - -“Thee mun be misteeawken, mon,” urged Tum, who had newly joined the -Smutchester City Division. “’Tis boh a lil’ feer-feaced gell aw cud -braak between ma finger an’ thoomb lig a staalk o’ celery.” The great -blue eyes of the “lil’ feer-feaced gell” had done execution, it was -plain, and the first speaker, who was a married man, snorted -contemptuously. Sal o’ Peg’s had completely earned the disturbing -nickname bestowed on her. The courts and alleys of the roaring black -city would vomit angry, white-gilled, heavy-shod men and women at one -shrill, summoning screech of hers. The police-constable upon whose -features she had more recently executed a clog war-dance was not yet -discharged from the Infirmary, though the seventeen years and fragile -proportions of his assailant had, for the twentieth time, softened “th’ -Beawk” into letting Sal o’ Peg’s off with the option of a fortnight or a -fine, and the threat of being bound over to keep the peace next time, if -she insisted in being “so naughty.” - -With these blushing honors thick upon her, Sal o’ Peg’s attended the -Conference, and became, before the close of the presidential address, an -ardent convert to the cause of Female Suffrage. During the debate she -climbed a pillar and addressed the meeting, and when, with immense -difficulty, dislodged from her post of vantage, she took the platform by -storm. - -“Why, it’s a child!” chorused the delegates from the different branches -of the Union, whose ramifications extend over the civilized globe, as -the small, slim, light-haired young person in the inevitable shawl, -print gown, and clogs climbed over the brass platform-rail, and, folding -cotton-blouse-clad arms upon a flat, girlish bosom, stood motionless, -composed, even cheerful, in the full glare of the electric chandelier, -and under the full play of a battery of some two thousand feminine eyes. - -“Do let the little darling speak,” begged the Honorary Secretary of the -Chairwoman, who, as a native of Smutchester, had her doubts. But Sal o’ -Peg’s had not the faintest intention of waiting for permission. - -“Ah’m not bit o’ good at long words, gells,” said Sal o’ Peg’s. “Mappen -ah’ll be better ondersteawd wi’oot ’em.” - -The thunder of clogs in the body of the hall said “Yes!” She went on: -“Wimmin sheawd ha’ th’ Vote. ’Tis theear roight.” (Tremendous clogging, -mingled with shrieks of “Weel seayd, lass! Gie us th’ Vote!”) She -hitched her shawl about her with the factory-girl’s movement of the -shoulders, and went on. “Yo’ll noan fleg me wi’ yo’re din. Ah’m boh a -lil’ un, boh af ha’ got spunk. If you doubt thot——” A hundred strident -voices from the body of the hall sent back the refrain, “Ask a -pleeceman!” A roar of laughter shook the roof. - -“Ought we to interfere?” whispered the Honorary Secretary. - -“My dear, why should we?” said a London delegate, leaning forward to -answer. “The girl has got them in the hollow of her hand. A born leader -of women—a born leader. She voices in her untaught speech the heart-cry -of thousands of her dumb and helpless sisters. She——” - -The born leader of women continued: - -“Ah dunno whoy ah niver thout o’ it before, but ’tis a beawrfeaced -robbery neawt to gie us th’ Vote. Oor feythers has it, an’ sells it fur -braass.” (Screams, shrieks, and clogging.) “Oor heawsbands has it, an’ -sells it fur braass.” (Tempestuous applause.) “Oor lads, theay has it, -an’ sells it fur braass. Whoy shouldna’ we ha’ it, an’ sell it for -braass tew?” - -The enthusiasm with which this brilliant peroration was received nearly -wrecked the Cotton Hall. No more speeches were heard that night, though -several were delivered in dumb show, and Sal o’ Peg’s awakened upon the -morrow to find her utterances reported in the newspapers. To the sarcasm -of the leader-writer Sal o’ Peg’s was impervious. She “mun goo t’ Lunnon -neixt,” she said, “an’ leawt them tykes at the Hoose o’ Commeawns knaw a -bit” of her mind. She wasn’t afraid of Prime Ministers—not she. She -called at the branch office of the Union twice a day, imperatively -requesting to be forwarded as a delegate to the Metropolis. When her -services were declined with thanks, she harangued the populace from the -doorstep. When politely requested to move on, she broke a window with -one clog, and patted the office-boy violently upon the head with the -other. Then she burst into tears and retired, supported by a dozen or so -of sympathizing comrades of the factory. - -“’Tis a beeawrnin’ sheame!” they said, as they fastened up their chosen -representative’s loosened flaxen coils with hairpins of the patent -explosive kind, contributed from their own solid braids. “But donnot -thee fret, Sal o’ Peg’s, us’ll ha’ nah dollygeat but thee, sitha lass!” -And they sent the hat round among themselves with right goodwill. They -were not quite sure what a “dollygeat” was, but thought it was something -that could walk into the House of Commons, defy a Minister to his nose, -dance a clog-dance in the gangway of the Upper House, and receive in -chests and bagsful all the good money that women had been defrauded of -since the masculine voter first plumped for a consideration; of that -they were “as sure as deeawth.” - -So Sal o’ Peg’s gave notice at the factory that, being thenceforth -called to figure upon the arena of political life, she could not tend -frames any longer. She bought a black sailor straw hat with a portion of -the subscribed fund, and tied up the most cherished articles of her -wardrobe in a blue-spotted handkerchief bundle. She traveled express to -London, choosing a “smoking third,” as affording atmospherical and -social conditions less remote from her lifelong experience.... The -journey was purely uneventful: a young man of unrestrained amorous -proclivities receiving a black eye, and a young woman who sneered too -openly at the blue-spotted handkerchief bundle suffering the wreck of a -bandbox and sustaining a few scratches. The guard—alas! for the frailty -of man—being all upon the side of the blue eyes and flaxen coils of -hair.... - -I suppose the reader knows Pelham’s Inn, W. C., where are the -headquarters of the National Union for the Emancipation of Working -Women? There is no padding to the armchairs, cocoanut matting of a -severe and rasping character covers the Committee-room boards; the -Committee inkstand is of the zinc office description (the Committee are -not there to be comfortable—just the reverse). They are busy women of -small spare time and narrow spare means; but when they found Sal o’ -Peg’s sitting on the doorstep, they found leisure to be kind. They -looked at the clogs with pity, unaware of the _pas seul_ they had -performed upon the countenance of a policeman still in bandages, and the -great blue eyes yearning out of the small pale face, and the ropes of -fair hair tumbling over the shabby shawl that enfolded the childish -figure of the little factory-girl who had traveled up to London for the -sake of the Cause, won them to practical expression of the sympathy they -felt. - -“So different a type to the brawling, violent creature,” they said, “who -nearly caused a riot at the Smutchester Conference. Her one dream is to -see the House of Commons and speak a word in public for her toiling -sisters of the factories.” And those of them who wore glasses found them -dimmed with the dews of sympathetic emotion. It was such a touching -story, they said, of faith and enthusiasm and courage. - -It is upon the Records of the Nation that the events I have to relate -took place in the Central Hall of the sacred fane of Westminster between -four and five o’clock in the afternoon, when twenty or thirty ladies, -well-known adherents of the Cause, appeared upon the scene and asked for -Suffrage. It was an act of presumption, almost of treason, bordering on -blasphemy. Still, the arguments that were not drowned were sound. They -were all householders, taxpayers, earners, and owners of independent -incomes one daring female said, and as the drunken husband of her -charwoman possessed a vote, she thought she had a right to have one -also. The Sergeant-at-Arms instantly directed a constable to quell her. -Another audacious creature asked for the Vote Qualified. She demanded -that the Suffrage should indeed be given to women, but only to those -women who should, by passing a viva voce examination on the duties of -citizenship, prove themselves fit to discharge them.... She was listened -to with some attention until she suggested that male voters should be -subjected to a similar weeding-out process; upon which a portly -inspector bore down upon her, clasped her in a blue embrace, and carried -her, protesting loudly, down the hall, amidst demonstrations of intense -excitement. Members cried, “Shame!” Members cried, “Serve her right!” -Passing peers put up eyeglasses and stayed to see the fun. Hustled women -shrieked, “Cowards!” Pushed women cried, “Let us alone!” Punched women -only said, “Owch!” ... It was freely translated “Wretch!” for the -occasion. The middle-aged and advanced in years met the same treatment -as the younger and more excitable.... All were unceremoniously expelled -by the stalwart beings in blue from the sacred precincts where such -inviolable order is habitually maintained, and where all the Proprieties -find their permanent home. Crushed headgear, scattered handbags, and -strange derelict fragments of feminine attire bestrewed the scene of the -one-sided fray; the crowds of sympathizers outside cried, “Boo!” and -waved white flags in defiance as a dozen arrests were made in a dozen -seconds.... And a young woman in a brown plaid shawl and brass-bound -clogs danced with shoutings upon the pavements of St. Stephen’s Porch, -and while her long, light coils of hair came down and her hairpins were -scattered to the winds of Westminster, she asked, in the Lancashire -dialect, for admittance to the Bar of the House; for justice for the -oppression and downtrodden; for the blood of Ministers, Peers, and -Members; and for the viscera of the officials who were their tools. She -told the Chancellor of the Exchequer to come out and bring the Treasury -with him; and when he did not come, she knocked off one policeman’s -helmet and smote another with one of her clogs—_toujours_ those -clogs!—upon the nose. Also she relieved a third of half a whisker, bit -another in the hand, kicked them all in the shins, and generally made -history as six police-constables bore her, shrieking at the full pitch -of excellent lungs, to Blunderbuss Row Police Station. - -There were newspaper headlines next day—“Bedlam Let Loose!” “The -Shrieking Sisterhood!” “The Termagant Spirit!” “No Choice but to Use -Force!” The arrested demonstrators were paraded at the police-court; the -damaged policemen made an imposing show. Tears choked the utterance of -Mr. Vincent Squeers, presiding magistrate, as he asked: “Were thee, -indeed, women who had abraded the features, discolored the eyes, bruised -the shins, and plucked the whiskers from the gallant constables who -stood before him? Nay, but Mænads, Bacchantes, priestesses of savage -rites, unsexed Amazons—in two words, emancipated females!” He found a -melancholy relief in imposing a fine that had no precedent in cases of -brawling, or fourteen days’ imprisonment. He should not be surprised to -hear that these hunters after vulgar notoriety preferred to go to -Holloway, to luxuriate on prison fare, enjoy calm, undeserved repose on -straw beds, and clothe their unregenerate limbs with the drab garments -generously provided by the nation. - -“But there is one among you,” cried Mr. Vincent Squeers, “who has been -innocently led away by your pernicious example, but whom the spirit of -Justice, that dwells in the bosom of every Englishman, that hovers, -genius-like, above this Bench to-day”—the chief clerk hastily produced a -white handkerchief, and the reporters shook freedom into the flow of -their Geyser pens—“will stretch forth a hand to protect and to aid. I -speak of this simple, artless child....” A police-constable felt his -nose, and another groped for his missing whisker as Sal o’ Peg’s stood -up in the dock. “Lured from her humble home, from her laborious -employment, from her upright-minded, honest associates, by these -immodest and unwomanly women, cast a stranger upon the streets of -London, this simple country blossom, wilting in the atmosphere tainted -by habitual vice and common crime, appeals to the chivalry of every -honest man who ever had a mother”—the chief clerk was carried from the -court in hysterics—“ay, to the pity of every woman who is not bereft of -that heavenly attribute.” - -“Sheawt opp, thee donowt owd hosebird!” said Sal o’ Peg’s. “Dosta think -ah niver weur in a teawzle in th’ streeawts or a skirmidge wi’ th’ -police afeore? Dustha see th’ pickle theam girt big cheawps is in? If -theay saay theay got theawee scratts an’ sogers fra’ eany wench but Sal -o’ Peg’s, they be leears aw! Sitha? An’ as to yon weumen an’ lasses, yo -ca’ baad neams, I ha’ nowt o’ truck wi’ they. I coom to Lunnon as a -dollygeat fra myseln. Sitha?” - -“The child speaks only the roughest dialect of her native Lancashire,” -continued Mr. Vincent Squeers, “which, I own, I am unable to comprehend. -How could the hapless young creature understand the poisonous shibboleth -poured into her ears by the abandoned sisterhood whose leading evil -spirits are now before me? They have denied all knowledge of or -connection with her”—(as indeed they had)—“her who stands here—oh, shame -and utter disgrace!—in the dock of a police court as a result of their -vile and treacherous usage in dragging her from her home. She is -sufficiently punished by this outrage upon that innate modesty which is -as the bloom upon the peach, the—er, ah!—dew upon the daisy. Fined -three-and-sixpence, and I will order that the same be discharged out of -the Court poor-box. The Missionary will now take charge of the poor -young creature, who will, I trust—ah!—be returned to her sorrowing -family in the course of the next twenty-four hours. Good-day, my dear -child—good-day!” - -A clog whizzed from the dock and hit the paneling behind the Bench. The -Magistrate looked another way, the constables coughed behind their large -white gloves as Sal o’ Peg’s, weeping bitterly, was led away by the -Court Missionary, a bearded person in rusty black, with a felt -pudding-basin hat and a soiled white necktie. Robbed of the glory of -battle, denied her meed of acknowledgment for doughty deeds achieved, -bereft of her Amazonian reputation, Sal o’ Peg’s felt that life was -“scarcelin’s weath livin’.” And the afternoon newspapers administered -the final blow. Every leader-writer shed tears of pure ink over the -child lured from home, the “daisy with the dew upon it” sprouted in a -dozen paragraphs. Only in Smutchester there was Homeric jest and -uproarious laughter. The girls of the cotton-mills, the policemen of the -Lower Town—these knew their Sal o’ Peg’s, and were loud in their -appreciation of the satiric humor of the London newspapers. The -Missionary did not see his precious charge into the train for -Smutchester; a clergyman’s daughter, who had come into accidentally -compromising relations with an American gentleman’s diamond evening -solitaire and “wad” of bank-notes, urgently required his ministrations. -So a burly police-constable, with one whisker and a sore place on the -denuded cheek, performed the charitable office. In the four-wheeler, -turning into the Euston Road, Sal o’ Peg’s said suddenly: - -“Thoo wastna’ sheaved this mearnin’, lad?” - -“I ’adn’t no time, for one thing,” said the police-constable sulkily; -“an’ for another, I ’ad to keep this whisker on as evidence that you’d -pulled out the other. And a lot o’ good evidence does when Old -Foxey”—this was the nickname bestowed upon Mr. Vincent Squeers by the -staff of the Court—“’as made up ‘is mind not to listen to it.” He rubbed -the remaining whisker thoughtfully. - -“Eh, laad, laad!” cried Sal o’ Peg’s, bursting into tears and falling -upon the neck of the astonished police-constable, “but theaw knows ah -did it. Theaw said sa just neaw. Eh, laad, laad!” - -“Are you a-crying?” asked the police-constable, over whose blue tunic -meandered the heavy twists of fair hair which invariably tumbled down -under stress of Sal o’ Peg’s emotion. “Are you a-crying because you’re -sorry you pulled out my whisker, or glad as that you did it? Which?” - -Sal o’ Peg’s lifted radiant, tearful blue eyes to the burly -police-constable’s, which were little and piggish, but twinkling with -something more than mere reproof. - -“Ah be gleawd,” said Sal o’ Peg’s simply. - -“Very well,” said the police-constable, who was not only a man after -all, but a bachelor. He put a large blue arm round the slim little -figure of the war-goddess. “You’ve ’ad my whisker; _I’ll_ ’ave a kiss.” - -“Teawk it, laad,” said Sal o’ Peg’s. - -Hitherto, in her short but vivid experience of life, policemen had -occupied a different plane, moved in another sphere. They were beings to -dodge, defy, jeer at, and punch when you could get them down. Flowerpots -were kept on window-sills of upper floors expressly for dropping on -their helmets. She had danced upon the upturned face of one, given -another a swollen nose, distributed bites and shin-kicks impartially -among others. This Lunnon one had kissed her for pulling out his -whisker. She looked at him with melting eyes. The hitherto impregnable -bastion of her heart was taken—and by a member of the Force. - -“When tha dost sheave, laad, send tha whisker to Ah by peawst. Th’ -address be Sal o’ Peg’s, Briven’s Buildin’s, Clog Ceawrt, East Side, -Smutchester!” - -“I won’t _send_ it, you pretty little bit o’ frock,” said the enamored -police-constable. “I’ll wait till my next leave an’——” - -“Breng it _then_, laad,” sighed Sal o’ Peg’s. - - - - - A PITCHED BATTLE - - -The great Maestro sat at the piano, a small, square instrument. Upon it -were piles of music, a bottle of Rhine wine, half emptied, a cup of -black coffee, a plate of sliced garlic sausage, and a roll of black -bread, peppered outside with aniseed. A bottle of ink was balanced on -the music-desk, a blotted scroll of paper obscured the yellowed -keyboard. As the great composer worked at the score of his new opera, he -breakfasted, taking draughts from the bottle, bites of sausage and -bread, and sips of coffee at discretion. He was a quaint, ungainly -figure, with vivacious eyes, and his ill-fitting auburn wig had served -him, like the right lapel of his plaid dressing-gown, for a pen-wiper -for uncounted years. - -The Maestro was not alone in the dusty studio to which so many people, -both of the great and little worlds, sought entrance in vain. An -olive-skinned youth, shabbily dressed in a gray paletot over a worn suit -of black—a young fellow of sixteen, with a square, shaggy black head and -a determined chin, the cleft in which was rapidly being hidden by an -arriving beard—leaned against a music-stand crammed with portly volumes, -his dark eyes anxiously fixed upon the old gentleman at the piano, who -dipped in the ink and wrote, and wrote, and dipped in the ink, -occasionally laying down the pen to strike a chord or two, in seeming -forgetfulness of his visitor. - -Suddenly the Maestro’s face beamed with a cheerful smile. - -“There, mon cher Gladiali!” He handed the newly-written sheet of music -to the boy, and spread his wrinkled fingers above the keys. “This is the -great aria-solo I spoke of. Sing that at sight—your training should make -such a task an easy one—and let us see what stuff you are made of. -_Allons!_” And he struck the opening chord. - -Carlo Gladiali turned pale and then red. He crossed himself hastily, -grasped the sheet of paper, cast his eyes over it anxiously, and, -meeting with a smiling glance the glittering old eyes of the Maestro, he -inflated his deep chest and sang. A wonderful tenor voice poured from -his boyish throat; heart and soul shone in his eyes and thrilled in his -accents. Tears of delight dropped upon the piano-keys and upon the hands -of the composer, and when the last pure note soared on high and swelled -and sank, and the song ceased, the old musician cried: “Thou art a -treasure! Come, let me embrace thee!” and clasped the young singer to -his breast. “Once more, _mon fils_—once more!” - -And as he seated himself at the piano, sweeping the plate of sausage -into the wastepaper-basket with a flourish of the large, snuff-stained -yellow silk handkerchief with which he wiped his eyes, the door, which -had been left ajar, was flung open, and a little dark-eyed, fair-haired -girl, who carried a Pierrot-doll, ran quickly into the room. - -“Marraine brought me; she is panting up the stairs because she is so fat -and they are so steep. Oldest Papa——” she began; but the Maestro held up -his hand for silence as the song recommenced. More assurance was in -Carlo’s phrasing; the flexibility and brilliancy of his voice were no -longer marred by nervousness. As the solo reached its triumphant close, -the Maestro said, slapping the boy on the back and taking a gigantic -pinch of snuff: - -“The Archangel Gabriel might have done better. Aha!” He turned, -chuckling, to the little girl, who stood on one leg in the middle of the -narrow room, pouting and dangling her Pierrot. “_La petite_ there is -jealous. Is it not so?” - -“Oldest Papa, you make a very big mistake!” returned the little maiden, -pouting still more. “I am not jealous of anybody in the world—least of -all, a boy like that!” Her dark eyes rested contemptuously on the big, -shy, square-headed fellow in the gray paletot. - -“A boy, she calls him!” chuckled the Maestro. “_Ma mignonne_, he is -sixteen—six years older than thyself! Hasten to grow up, become a great -_prima donna_, and he shall sing Romeo to thy Juliette—I predict it!” - -“I had rather sing with my cat!” observed the little lady rudely. - -Carlo flushed crimson; the Maestro chuckled; and a stout lady who had -followed her, panting, into the room, murmured, “_Oh! la méchante!_” -adding, as the Maestro rose to greet her: “But she grows more -incorrigible every day. This morning she pulled the feathers out of -Coco’s tail because he whistled out of tune.” - -The elfin face of the small sinner dimpled into mischievous smiles. - -“But that was not being as wicked as the Maestro, who got angry at -rehearsal, and hit the flute-player on the head with his _bâton_, so -that it raised a hump. You told me that yourself, and how the Maestro——” - -“Quite true, _petite_; I did fetch him a rap, I promise you, and -afterwards I put bank-notes for a hundred francs on the lump for a -plaster. But come, now, sing to me, and we will give Signor Carlo here -something worth hearing. _Écoutez, mon cher!_” - -“Very well, I will sing; but, first, Pierrot must be comfortably seated. -That little armchair is just what he likes!” And, as quick as thought, -the willful little lady tilted a pile of music out of the little -armchair upon the floor. Then she placed Pierrot very carefully in his -throne, and, bidding him be very good and listen, because his _bonne -petite Maman_ was going to sing him something pretty, she tripped to the -piano, and demurely requested the aged musician to accompany her in the -Rondo of “Sonnambula.” - -Ah! what a miraculous voice proceeded from that small, willful throat! -Stirred to the depths by the extraordinary power and beauty of the -child’s delivery, Carlo Gladiali listened enthralled; and when the last -notes rippled from the pretty red lips of the now demure little -creature, the big boy, forgetting her rudeness and his own shyness, -started forward, and, sinking on one knee and seizing the small hand of -the child-singer, he kissed it impulsively, crying: “Ah, Signorina, you -were right, a thousand times! Compared with you, I sing like a cat!” - -“Oh, no! I did not mean to say that!” the tiny lady was beginning -graciously, when the Maestro broke in: - -“You both sing like cherubs and say civil things to one another. One day -you will sing like angels—and quarrel like devils! Please Heaven, you -will both make your _début_ under my _bâton_, and then, if I crack a -flute-player’s head, it will be for joy.” - - * * * * * - -Ten years had elapsed. Carlo Gladiali had risen to pre-eminence as a -public singer, had attained the prime of his powers and the apogee of -his fame. Courted, fêted, and adored, the celebrated tenor, sated with -success, laden with gifts, _blasé_ with admiration, retained a few -characteristics that might remind those who had known and loved him in -boyhood of the ingenuous, honest, simple Carlo of ten years ago. - -Certainly Carlo’s jealousy of the _prima donna_ who should dare to usurp -a greater share of the public plaudits than he himself received was -childish in its unreasonableness, and Othello-like in its tragic -intensity. - -At first, he would join in the compliments, and smile patronizingly as -he helped the successful _débutante_ to gather up the bouquets. Then his -admiration would cool; he would tolerate, endure, then sneer, and -finally grind his teeth. He would convey to the audience over one -shoulder that they were idiots to applaud, and wither the triumphant -_cantatrice_ with a look of infinite contempt over the other. He had -been known to feign sleep in the middle of a great soprano aria which, -against his wish, had been encored. He had—or it was malevolently -reputed so—bribed the hotel waiter to place a huge dish of macaroni, -dressed exquisitely and smoking hot, in the way of a voracious contralto -who within two hours was to essay for the first time the arduous rôle of -Brynhild. The macaroni had vanished, the contralto had failed to appear. -Numerous were the instances similar to these recorded of the tenor -Gladiali, and repeated in every corner of the opera-loving world. - -But it was in London, where the great singer was “starring” during the -Covent Garden Season of 19—, that the haughty and intolerant Carlo was -to meet his match. - -At rehearsal one morning, Rebelli, the famous basso, said to Gladiali, -with a twinkle: “A new ‘star’ has dawned on the operatic horizon. La -Betisi, the pretty little soprano with the fiend’s temper and the -seraph’s voice, has created a furore at Rome and Milan. She will ‘star’ -over here in her successful rôles. I have it from the impresario -himself.” - -“_Ebbene!_” Carlo shrugged his shoulders and smiled with superb -patronage. “We shall be very glad to welcome the little one.... Artists -should know how to value genius in others.” - -“How well you always express things!” said Rebelli, grinning. “She is to -sing Isolina in ‘Belverde’ on the 10th. The Spanish _prima donna_ has -broken her contract. As Galantuomo, you will have an excellent -opportunity of judging of her talents,” he added, as he turned away, -“and scowling at the lady.” - -But Carlo did not scowl at first. He was all engaging courtesy and -cordial welcome at the first rehearsal, when he was presented -ceremoniously to a tiny little lady with willful dark eyes, pouting -scarlet lips, and hair as golden as her own Neapolitan sunshine. She -vaguely reminded the tenor of somebody he had seen before. - -“The Maestro is coming from Naples to conduct,” he heard Rebelli say. -“He vowed that La Betisi should make her _début_ under no _bâton_ save -his own. Her rôle will be Isolina in his ‘Belverde,’ in which, you know, -she created such a sensation at La Scala.” - -“And you, Signor, are to sing the great part of Galantuomo in the -‘Belverde’?” said the Betisi demurely to Gladiali. “This time I will not -say, ‘_I had rather sing with my cat!_’” - -Carlo started. Yes; there was no mistaking the willful mouth and the -flashing defiant eyes. The little girl who had sung so divinely in the -Maestro’s dusty room ten years ago was the new operatic “star.” But he -was not jealous of the Betisi as yet. He said the most exquisite -things—as only an Italian can say them—and bowed over her hand. - -“The Signorina has fulfilled the glorious promise of her childhood and -the prophecy of the Maestro,” he said. “She who once sang like a cherub -now sings like an angel. I am dying to hear you!” he added. - -“Ah!” cried the Betisi with a little trill of laughter, “if you are -dying now, what will you do afterwards?” The speech might have meant -much or nothing, and, though Carlo Gladiali winced a little, he made no -comment. - -A few rehearsals later a cloud of snuff enveloped him, and he was -clasped in the arms of a brown great-coat of antique design. Add, above, -a gray woolen comforter and a traveling cap with ear-pieces, and, below, -a pair of green trousers, ending in cloth boots with patent-leather -toecaps, and you have the portrait of the Maestro in traveling costume. - -“Heaven be praised, my dear Carlino, that I have lived to see this -day!... Have you renewed acquaintance with my little witch, my enchanted -bird, my drop of singing-water? Embrace, my children; your Maestro -wishes it!” - -And Gladiali touched the cheek of Emilia Betisi with his lips. Her -sparkling eyes looked mockingly into his. Then the Maestro, who spoke -not a word of English, scrambled to the conductor’s chair, and commenced -to harangue the musicians who constituted the orchestra in a fluent -conglomeration of several other languages, and the rehearsals of -“Belverde” began. - -The new soprano and the new opera made an instantaneous and unparalleled -“hit.” Carlo helped to pick up La Betisi’s bouquets, and made a pretty -speech to her at the final descent of the curtain. But his heart was not -in his eyes or on his lips. - -Upon the second representation, he yawned in the middle of Isolina’s -great aria, and he openly sneered at the audience for encoring the song -three times. In the last Act, in the Garden Scene, which offered the -principal opportunity for the display of the new _prima donna’s_ art, -Carlo sucked jujubes, and openly wore one in his cheek while receiving, -as Galantuomo, from the maddened Isolina the most feverish protestations -of love. He noted something more than feigned frenzy in the flaming -black eyes of the Betisi at this juncture, and, somewhat unwisely, -permitted himself to smile. Next moment he received a deep scratch upon -the cheek, which tingled for a moment, then bled copiously, obliging the -tenor to sing the final Romanza with a handkerchief to his face. - -“Convey to Signor Gladiali my profoundest apologies,” said the Betisi to -her dresser. “He will really think that he was singing a duet with a -cat! But the next performance goes better.” Her dark eyes gleamed, her -red lips smiled. She thirsted for the second representation. - -So did Carlo. He had thought out a few little things calculated to drive -a _cantatrice_ to the pitch of desperation. For instance, at the second -encore of her great song, separated only by a duet from _his_ great song -in the First Act, he would fetch a chair and sit down. Aha! - -But—whether his intention had leaked out through Rebelli, to whom in a -moment of champagne he had confided it, or whether the Betisi was in -league with demons, let it be decided—it was she who fetched, not a -chair, but a three-legged stool, and sat down on it in the middle of his -first encore. And so charming an air of patience did she assume, and so -genuine seemed her pity for the deluded public who had redemanded the -song, that Signor Carlo, who wore a strip of black Court plaster on one -cheek, nearly had an apoplexy. He meant to eat jujubes through _her_ -great song, but the Betisi was prepared. She produced a box and offered -them to him, singing all the while more brilliantly than she had ever -sung before; and when the house rose at her in rapture and demanded an -encore, she tripped and fetched the three-legged stool and gave it, with -a triumphant curtsey, to the foaming Galantuomo. And the crowded house -roared with delight. - -But the punishment of Carlo came in the Second Act. In the celebrated -Garden Scene, where slighted love drives Isolina into temporary madness, -she not only scratched her Galantuomo on the other cheek, but pulled his -wig off. And in the crowning scene, where Isolina reveals herself as the -daughter of the King, and summons the Court to witness the humiliation -of Galantuomo by beating on a gong which is suspended from a tree, came -the Betisi’s great opportunity. Running through the most difficult -passages of the arduous _scena_ with the greatest nonchalance, disposing -of octaves, double octaves, and ranging from _sol_ to _si_-flat in the -violin-clef with the utmost ease, she electrified and enthralled her -hearers; and, in the _gusto_ of singing, when the moment arrived for -striking on the gong previously referred to, she missed the instrument, -and struck the tenor violently upon the nose. The unfortunate organ -attained pantomimic dimensions within the few minutes that ensued -subsequently to the delivery of the blow and previous to the falling of -the curtain, and I have heard was favored by the gallery with a special -call. - -“Alas, Signor Carlo, I know not how to express my regret!... I was -carried away...” faltered the Betisi, as with secret triumph and feigned -remorse she looked upon the tenor’s swollen nose. - -Carlo gave her a passionate glance over it. As it had enlarged, so had -his heart and his understanding; he saw his enemy beautiful, -triumphant—a Queen of Song. He was conquered and her slave. - -“Never mind my nose,” he said generously. “I am beaten, fairly beaten, -and with my own weapons. You are a clever woman, Signora, and a great -singer. Permit me to take your hand.” - -“There,” she said, and gave it. “And you, Signor, are a magnificent -artist, though I have sometimes thought you a stupid man. What is it but -stupidity—_Dio!_” she cried, “to be jealous of a woman of whom one is -not even the lover or the husband?” - -“Give me the right to be jealous,” said Carlo the tenor. “Make me one -and the other! Marry me, Emilia. I adore you!” - -An atmosphere of snuff and mildew enveloped them, as the Maestro, the -date and design of whose evening dress-suit baffled the antiquarian and -enraptured the caricaturist, embraced both the tenor and the soprano in -rapid succession. - -“Aha! _Mes enfants_, am I not a true prophet?” he cried. “_Hasten to -grow up_, I said to the little one ten years ago, _and Carlo there shall -one day sing Romeo to thy Juliet_.” He embraced them again. “You sing -like angels—you quarrel like devils! Heaven intended you for one -another. Be happy!” And the Maestro blessed the betrothed lovers with a -sprinkling of snuff. - - - - - THE TUG OF WAR - - -Men invariably termed her “a sweet woman.” Women called her other -things. - -What was she like? Of middle height and “caressable,” with a rounded, -supple figure, exquisitely groomed and got up! Her golden hair would -have been merely brown, if left to Nature. It came nearly to her -eyebrows in the dearest little rings, and was coaxed into the loveliest -of coils and waves and undulations. Her eyes were lustrous hazel, her -eyelashes and eyebrows as nearly black as perfect taste allowed. Her -cheeks were of an ivory pallor, sometimes relieved with a faint -sea-shell bloom. Her features were beautifully cut, inclining to the -aquiline in outline. Her voice was low and tender, especially when she -was saying the sort of thing that puts a young fellow out of conceit -with the girl he is engaged to, and makes the married man wonder why he -threw himself away. Why he was such an infuriated ass, by George! as to -beg and pray Clara to marry him ten years ago, and buy a new revolver -when she said it was esteem she felt for him, not love. Why Fate should -ordain just at this particular juncture that he should encounter the one -woman, by jingo! the only woman in the world who had ever really -understood and sympathized with him! It was Mrs. Osborne’s vocation to -make men of all grades, ranks, and ages ask this question. She had -followed her chosen path in life with enthusiasm, let us say, collecting -scalps, with here and there a little shudder of pity, and here and there -a little smart of pain. Fascination, exercised almost involuntarily, was -to her, as to the cobra, the means of life. Not in a vulgar sense, -because the late Colonel Osborne had left his widow handsomely provided -for. But the excitement of the sport, the keen delight of capturing new -victims—bringing the quarry boldly down in the open, or setting -insidious snares, pitfalls, and traps for the silly prey to blunder -into—these joys the huntress knows who sharpens her arrows and weaves -her webs for Man. - -I have said—or hinted—that other women did not love Mrs. Osborne. -Knowing, as they did, that the lovely widow frankly despised them, her -own sex responded by openly declaring war. They knew her strength, and -never attacked her save in bands. Yet, strange to say, the invincible -Mrs. Osborne was never so nearly worsted as in a single-handed combat to -which she was challenged by a mere neophyte—“a chit”—as, had she lived -in the eighteenth instead of the twentieth century, the fair widow would -have termed Polly Overshott. - -Polly’s real name was Mariana, but, as everyone in the county said, -Polly seemed more appropriate. Sir Giles Overshott had no other child, -and sometimes seemed not to regret this limitation of his family circle. -Lady Overshott had been dead some five years when the story opens, and -Sir Giles was beginning to speak of himself as a widower, which to -experienced ears means much. - -The estate of Overshott Foxbrush was a fine one, unencumbered, and -yielding a handsome rent-roll. It was understood that Polly would have -nearly everything. She had consented in the most daughterly manner to -become engaged to the eldest son of a county neighbor, a young gentleman -with whom she was very much in love, Costebald Ianson Smithgill, -commonly known as “Cis” Smithgill, his united initials forming the -caressing little name. He was six feet high, and had a bass voice with -treble inflections, which he was training for a parliamentary career. He -had, until the demise of an elder brother removed him from the service -of his country, held a lieutenancy in the Guards. As to his family, who -does not know that the Smithgills are a family of extreme antiquity, -descended from that British Princess and daughter of Vortigern who drank -the health of Hengist, proffering the Saxon General the mead-horn of -welcome when he first set his conquering foot on British soil? Who does -not know this, knows nothing. The mead-horn is said to be enclosed in -the masonry of the eldest portion of Hengs Hall, the family seat in the -country of Mixshire, where, of course, the scene of our story is laid. -And Polly and Cis had been engaged about two months when Mrs. Osborne -took The Sabines, and was called on by the county, because Osborne had -been the cousin of an Earl, and she herself came of a very good family. -You don’t want any name much better than that of Weng. And Mrs. Osborne -came of the Wengs of Hollowshire. - -She took The Sabines for the sake of her health, which required country -air. It was an old-fashioned, square Jacobean house of red brick faced -with stone, and it boasted a yew walk, the yews whereof had been wrought -by some long-moldered-away tree-clipper into arboreal representatives of -the Rape of the Sabines. That avenue was one of the lions of the county, -and every fresh tenant of the place had to bind him or herself, under -fearful penalties, to keep the Sabine ladies and their abductors -properly clipped. - -Mrs. Osborne was destitute of the faculty of reverence, Lady Smithgill -of Hengs said afterwards. Because early in June, when she drove over to -call—it would not become even a Smithgill to ignore a Weng of -Hollowshire—upon turning a curve in the avenue so as to command the -house, the lawn, and the celebrated Yew Tree Walk, the new tenant of The -Sabines, exquisitely attired in a Paris gown and carrying a marvelous -guipure sunshade, appeared to view; Sir Giles Overshott was with her, -and the lady and the baronet were laughing heartily. - -“Mrs. Osborne _simply shrieked_,” Lady Smithgill said afterwards, in -confidence to a few dozen dear friends; “and Sir Giles was quite -purple—that unpleasant shade, don’t you know? - -“It turned out that they were amusing themselves at the expense of The -Sabines. I looked at her, and I fancy I showed my surprise at her want -of taste. - -“‘We think a great deal of them in the county,’ I said, ‘and Sir Giles -can tell you how severe a censure would be pronounced by persons of -taste upon the tenant who was so audacious as to deface or so careless -as to neglect them, or even, ignorantly, to make sport of them.’ - -“At that Sir Charles became a deeper shade, almost violet, and she -uncovered her eyes and smiled. I think somebody has told her she -resembled Bernhardt in her youth. - -“‘Dear Lady Smithgill,’ she said, or rather cooed (and those cooing -voices are so irritating!), ‘depend on it, I shall make a point of -keeping them in the most _perfect_ condition. To be obliged to pay a -forfeit to my landlord would be a nuisance, but to be censured by -persons of taste residing in the county, that would be quite -insupportable.’ Then she rang for tea, and there were eight varieties of -little cakes, which must have been sent down from Buszard’s, and a -cut-glass liqueur bottle of rum upon the tray. ‘Do you take rum?’ she -had the audacity to ask me. I did not stoop to decline verbally, but -shook my head slightly, and she gave me another of _those smiles_ and -passed on the rum. Sir Charles brought it me, and I waved it away, -_speechless_, absolutely speechless, at the monstrosity of the idea. - -“She overwhelmed me with apologies, of course. - -“And both Sir Giles—who, I regret to see, is constantly there—and Sir -Costebald, who has _once_ called—consider her a sweet woman. But—think -me foreboding if you will—I _cannot_ feel that county Society has an -acquisition in Mrs. Osborne.” - -“Papa goes to The Sabines rather often,” said Polly Overshott, when it -came to her turn to be the recipient of Lady Smithgill’s confidence. “He -does say that Mrs. Osborne is a sweet woman, and he is helping her to -choose some brougham horses. He says the pair she brought down are -totally unfit for country roads. And as for the rum, she offered it to -me. Colonel Osborne held a post in the Diplomatic Service at Berlin, and -Germans drink it in tea, and I rather like it, though a second cup gives -you a headache afterwards.” - -“Mary!” screamed Miss Overshott’s mamma-in-law elect, who had effected -this compromise between Polly and Mariana. - -“As regards The Sabines,” Polly went on, “we have bowed down before them -for years and years, and we shall go on doing it, but they are absurd -all the same. So are our lead groups and garden temples at -Overshott—awfully absurd——” - -“I suppose you include our Saxon buttress and Roman pavement at Hengs in -the catalogue of absurdities,” said Lady Smithgill icily. “Fortunately, -Sir Costebald is not a widower, or they might stand in some danger of -being swept away. At the present moment, let me tell you, Mary, your -lead figures and garden temples are far from secure. That woman leads -your father by the nose—twines him round her little finger. Cis tells -me——” - -“What does Cis know about it?” said Polly, flushing to the temples. - -“Cis is a man of the world,” said Lady Smithgill. “But at the same time -he is a dutiful son. He tells everything to his mother. It seems—Cis -personally vouches for the truth of this—that Sir Giles is constantly at -The Sabines—in fact, every day.... He is dressed for conquest, it would -appear.” - -“Cis or Papa?” asked Polly, with feigned innocence. - -“Sir Giles wears coats and neckties that would be condemned as showy if -worn by a bridegroom,” said Lady Smithgill rapidly. “He is perfumed with -expensive extracts, and his boots must be torture, Cis says, knowing all -one does know of the Overshott tendency to gout. He never removes his -eyes from Mrs. Osborne, laughs to idiocy at everything she says, and -simply _lives_ in the corner of the sofa next her. He monopolizes the -conversation. Nobody else can get in a word, Cis tells me.” - -“Since when did Cis begin to be jealous?” said Polly under her breath. - -“I did not quite catch your remark,” returned Lady Smithgill. “By the -way, Mary, I hope you will wear those pearls as often as you can. They -require air, sunshine, and exercise.... I contracted my chronic -rheumatic tendency thirty years ago through sitting in the garden with -them on. For days together Sir Costebald’s mother used to _skip_ in them -upon the terrace, but I never went as far as that.” - -“The pearls—what pearls?” asked Polly vaguely. - -“Dear Mary, when a _fiancé_ makes a gift of such beauty—to say nothing -of its value—and the strings were originally purchased for two thousand -pounds—it is customary for the recipient to exhibit a _little_ -appreciation,” Lady Smithgill returned. - -“Appreciation!” - -“Of course you thanked Cis, my dear. I never doubted that. But there, we -will say no more....” - -Polly’s blue eyes flashed. She rose up; she had ridden over to the Hall -alone, and her slight upright figure looked its best in a habit. - -“I should like to say a little more.” She put up her hand and unpinned -her hat from her close braids of yellow-gold, and tossed the headgear -into a neighboring chair. “Dear Lady Smithgill, Cis has not given me any -pearls. Perhaps he has sent them to Bond Street to be cleaned——” - -“Cleaned! They are in perfect condition.” - -“Or—or perhaps he has given them to some one else. I have seen very -little of Cis lately,” Polly ended. “But Papa tells me that he is a good -deal at The Sabines. Papa seemed to find him as much in the way as ... -as Cis found Papa. And—her new kitchenmaid is the sister of our -laundrywoman, and a report reached me that she had lately been wearing -some magnificent pearls.... I thought nothing of it at the time, but -now....” - -There was a snorting gasp from Lady Smithgill. All had been made clear. -Her double chin trembled, and her eyes went wild. - -“Mary!” she cried.... “I have been blind! My boy—my infatuated boy! That -woman has a positively fiendish power over men.... She will -enslave—ensnare Cis as she has done your father and dozens of others. -Oh! my dear, there are stories.... She is relentless. The Sowersea’s -second son, De la Zouch Sowersea, is now driving a cab in Melbourne, and -the Countess attributes everything to her. At Berlin—where her husband -had a diplomatic appointment, and she learned to offer refined -English-women rum in their tea—there were worse scandals—agitations, -duels! Now my son is in peril. Save him, Mary! Do something before it is -too late!” - -“I can hardly drop in at The Sabines—say I have called for my property, -and take Cis and Papa away,” said Polly, her short upper lip quivering -with pain and anger. “But I will think over what is best to be done. In -the meantime do not worry Cis. Leave him to go his way. We need not be -too nervous. He and Papa will keep an eye upon each other,” she ended. - -“You know more of this than you have told me,” poor Lady Smithgill -gasped. “There are scandals in the air—people are talking—about my boy -and that woman! Why did she ever come here?” the unhappy lady murmured. -“I said from the first that she would be no acquisition to the county!” - -Polly’s cob, Kiss-me-Quick, came round, and Polly took leave. She had -warm young blood in her veins, and an imperious temper of her own, and -to be asked to “do something” to add a fresh access of caloric to the -obviously cooling temperature of one’s betrothed is not flattering. Yes, -she had suspected before; yes, she had known more than she had told the -proprietress of the agitated double chin and the agitated maternal -feelings. Sir Giles had betrayed Cis as unconsciously as he had betrayed -himself. “Really, Poll, I think you ought to keep the young man better -to heel,” he had said. “He means no harm, but Mrs. Osborne is a -dangerously fascinating woman, and a woman of that type possesses -advantages over a girl. And, of course, I don’t suggest anything in the -nature of disloyalty to yourself—Cis is the soul of honor and all that. -But to see an engaged young fellow sitting on footstools, and lying on -the grass at the feet of a pretty woman—who doesn’t happen to be the -_right one_—turning up his eyes at her like a dying duck in a -thunderstorm—by George!—irritates me. He is always in Mrs. Osborne’s -pocket, and one never can get a word with her alone—I mean, nobody is -allowed to usurp her attention for an instant. And here is the key to -the Crackle-Room, since you are asking for it.” - -And Sir Giles handed his daughter the key in question, a slim, rusty -implement belonging to the showroom of Overshott, an octagonal boudoir, -periodically dusted and swept by the housekeeper’s reverent hands, but -otherwise untouched, since Lady Barbara Overshott, the friend and -correspondent of Pope and Addison, was found by her distracted husband -sitting stone dead at her spinet before the newly-copied score of the -“Ode on Saint Cecilia’s Day,” which had been sent her with the united -compliments of the author and the composer. The furniture of the boudoir -was of the reign of William and Mary, the walls panelled with pink -lacquer beaded with ormolu, the shelves, brackets and cabinets laden -with priceless specimens of crackle ware—the joy of the connoisseur and -the envy of the collector. - -“Thank you,” said Polly, taking the key. “I was anxious to see for -myself how many of Lady Bab’s vases and bowls are left to us.” She -looked very tall and very fair, and rather terrifying as she confronted -Sir Giles. They were in the hall of Overshott, the doors of which stood -wide open to the faint September breeze and the hot September sunshine, -and Sir Giles, who was going to luncheon at The Sabines, was putting on -a thin dust-coat in preparation for the drive. He jumped at the -reference to the crackle. - -“I suppose Mrs. Brownlow has told you that I have removed a piece or -two,” he said, bungling with the sleeves of his dust-coat, for lack of -the daughterly hitch at the back of the collar which would have induced -the refractory garment to go on. - -“Mrs. Brownlow has told me that a baker’s dozen of bowls and vases and -plaques and teapots—the cream of the collection, in fact,” said Polly, -“are adorning Mrs. Osborne’s drawing-room.” - -“Confound it!” said Sir Giles, as he struggled with his garment. “The -crockery isn’t entailed; and if I desire to give a teapot to a friend I -suppose I can do as I like with my own! And—I can’t keep the cart -waiting. Fanchon won’t stand.” - -“Undoubtedly,” said Polly, becoming cool as Sir Giles grew warm. -“Only—if you are going on giving teapots to friends, and there is a -hamper of china at this moment under the seat of the cart—I think it -would be advisable to change the name of the Crackle-Room. One might -call it the ‘Plundered Apartment,’ or something equally appropriate.” - -“Call it what you choose, my dear.” Sir Giles was now recovering from -the shock of the unexpected onslaught. “I have said the crackle is no -more entailed than Overton Foxshott or the Lowndes Square house—or -anything else that at present I may call my own. If I were a younger -man, I might plunder my mother and disappoint my promised wife for the -pleasure of making a considerable present of jewelry to a woman ten -years my senior. As it is——” - -Sir Giles did not finish the speech, but strode angrily out and got into -the cart, and gave Polly a short, gruff “Good-bye,” as he drove away, -leaving that puzzled young woman on the doorsteps. - -“‘Plunder my mother and disappoint my promised wife.... Present of -jewelry ... a woman ten years his senior.’... Can Cis have been giving -jewels to Mrs. Osborne?” Polly wondered. The course of her love affair -had run so smoothly that she was at a loss to account for the pain at -her heart and the fever in her veins. Sir Giles’s complaint she -diagnosed correctly. He was jealous ... jealous of Cis! He was angry -with Polly. He had reminded her that he could do as he liked with his -own, that the county might call her an heiress, but the county had no -certain grounds for the assertion. Jealous and angry, the dear, cheery -Dad. Because Cis chose to loll upon the grass at the skirts of a woman -who was his senior by many more years than ten. Polly ordered round -Kiss-me-Quick, and rode over to Hengs Hall, pondering these things in -her mind. Much had been revealed to her, but it was for Lady Smithgill -to lift the last corner of the veil and disclose to Cis’s future wife -the true meaning of Sir Giles’s reference to jewels. - -“So Cis gave her the pearls, and Dad has given her the crackle to -recover lost ground. Mrs. Osborne must be a clever woman,” Polly -reflected, as she rode slowly home through the sunset lanes on -Kiss-me-Quick. - -“How was it going to end, all this? - -“If Dad married Mrs. Osborne, it will be extremely unpleasant to possess -a stepmother who has been made love to by one’s husband. And should Mrs. -Osborne succeed in marrying Cis——” Polly tightened the reins -involuntarily, and Kiss-me-Quick quickened her paces. “Let her, if she -wants him. No; let him if he wants her. But first—oh, first—there will -be a Tug of War! I will not endure to be routed on my own ground by this -designing charlataness,” thought Polly. - -In London it might have happened—almost without remark. But here—here in -the open—under familiar pitying, curious eyes.... Never, never, never! -And with each repetition of the word Kiss-me-Quick danced at a cut of -the whip. For Polly was humane, yet human. - -The double report of a gun in one of the Heng coppices gave -Kiss-me-Quick an excuse for more dancing, and presently, as Polly -looked, shading her blue eyes with her half-gauntleted right hand, Cis -and a keeper came plainly into view. She pulled up Kiss-me-Quick and -waited, as the young man, leaving his gun with the keeper, crossed the -hot stubbles dangling a brace of birds. - -“Why, Polly dear!” He tried to look natural and at ease as he lifted his -leather cap from his crisp brown waves. “If you had told me you thought -of riding over to see the mother, I’d have called for you and brought -you over.” - -“It was a sudden idea, Cis,” Polly said, as she gave him her gloved -hand. - -“Can you tie these birds on the saddle—or shall I send them over?” asked -Cis, glad of an excuse that made it possible to fix his eyes below the -level of hers. “They’re clean shot,” he added. - -“Fasten them on—there’s a strap in the saddle pocket—and I will leave -them at The Sabines as I pass!” said Polly cheerfully. - -Cis’s jaw dropped: he turned pale under his sun tan. “Leave them at The -Sabines!” he repeated blankly. - -“I thought,” said Polly, bending a cool, amused glance upon her lover’s -perturbed countenance, “that you meant them for Mamma. To be sure, she -is not Mamma yet, but it is a pretty compliment to treat her as though -she were already Papa’s wife—taking the pearls to show her before you -brought them to me! I call it _quite sweet_ of you!” Polly ended. - -“I—I!” The young man’s face was an extraordinary study. “I am so glad -you’re pleased,” he stuttered. - -“Dad is with her to-day,” went on Polly, stroking Kiss-me-Quick’s glossy -neck with her whip-lash. “He took her over a cargo of crackle china out -of Lady Bab’s room. China is a taste one begins to cultivate at her age, -dear thing, and I suppose they are having a nice, quiet, cosy afternoon, -arranging the pieces. She has her fads, Dad has his, and I am sure they -will get on excellently together. Dear me! how warm you are! Come to tea -to-morrow! Good-bye!” - -And Polly rode quickly away. Sore as she was, angry and jealous as she -was, she laughed as the vision of Cis’s hot, astonished, indignant face -rose before her. She laughed again as she turned in at the bridle-gate -of The Sabines. But she was grave and earnest as she dismounted at the -hall-door and followed Ames, the butler, down the long, cool hall to the -drawing-room. - -“Miss Overshott.” - -The announcement made Sir Giles attempt to get up from the footstool on -which he was sitting, but he did not succeed at the first attempt, -thanks to his rheumatism, and his daughter’s eye lighted on him at once. - -“Don’t move, Dad, dearest. Why should you? Oh! Mrs. Osborne!” Polly flew -to the fair widow, who advanced, cool, smiling, and exquisitely clad, to -greet her visitor. “Oh, Mrs. Osborne, I am so—so glad!” Polly seemed -choking with joyful tears as she caught the rounded waist of Melusine in -her strong young embrace, and vigorously kissed the exquisitely powdered -cheeks. “And I may call you Mamma—mayn’t I?” - -“Mamma?” echoed Sir Giles, sitting puzzled on the footstool. - -“Mamma?” re-echoed Mrs. Osborne in cooing accents of surprise. - -“You see, Dad has told me all,” explained Polly, turning beaming, -childlike eyes of happiness upon the embarrassed pair. “Though Cis knew -before I did, and I hardly call that quite fair. But as he is to be your -son, dear Mrs. Osborne—as I am to be your daughter——Why, there is the -crackle arranged upon your cabinets already! How nice it looks! But it -will all be yours, presently, won’t it, Mamma?” Polly gave Mrs. Osborne -another kiss, and then fluttered over to Sir Giles, who sat petrified -upon the footstool, and gave him a couple. “You mustn’t be jealous,” she -said, “you foolish old Dad! And now, Mamma darling, won’t you give me -some tea?” - -“Dear Mary, with pleasure!” assented Mrs. Osborne, who knew that her -hand had been forced, and yet could not help admiring the audacity of -the _coup_. As her graceful form undulated to the tea-table, she cast a -glance at Sir Giles, raising her beautifully tinted eyebrows almost to -her golden-brown curls. She gave him credit for being a party to the -plot, while he, poor astonished gentleman, was as innocent as a new-born -babe. In the passing out of a cup of tea she realized that a double game -was no longer possible, and that Polly Overshott had the stronger hand. -“Your father,” she said, as she gave Polly her tea, “has enlisted a -powerful advocate. All was not so settled as you seem to think, dear -Mary, but——” And she sighed, and extended her white hand to Sir Giles, -and helped him up from the footstool; and he was in the act of -gracefully kissing that fair hand as Cis, in riding-dress, pale, -agitated, and breathless from the gallop over, was ushered in. - -“Cis!” cried Polly, realizing that the supreme moment of the Tug of War -was now or never. Her eyes were blue fires, her cheeks red ones, as she -moved swiftly and gracefully to her lover and led him forward. “Kiss -Mamma and shake hands with Dad,” she said, and added with a coquetry of -which Cis had never thought her capable: “and then, perhaps, you may -kiss me.” Bewildered, choking with the reproaches, the recriminations -with which he was bursting, and which it need hardly be explained were -intended for Mrs. Osborne’s private ear, the young man obeyed. - -“I—I congratulate you both,” he said thickly. Mrs. Osborne had never -felt so little the niceties of a situation in her life. Nonplused, -angry, and perturbed, she looked every hour of her age, despite pink -curtains; and the powder only served to accentuate the suddenly revealed -hollows in her face. Polly, as I have explained, had never worn such an -air of coquetry, of brilliancy, of dare-devil, defiant mastery as she -now displayed. But her final blow was to be dealt—and she dealt it. - -“Mamma darling,” she cooed, taking the vacated stool at Mrs. Osborne’s -feet—the stool contested for by both the discomfited wooers—“how cosy we -are here—all together! Won’t you please Dad—and me—and Cis—by bringing -out the pearls!” - -“The—pearls!” Mrs. Osborne said. An electric shock went through her; she -turned stabbing eyes upon the speechless Cis. And Sir Giles, studying -her face, made up his mind that he would never marry that woman—not if -Polly did her level best to bring the match about. - -While Polly prattled on. - -“The pearls, of course. I told Cis I thought it sweet of him to bring -them to show you—as though I were really your daughter, don’t you know. -And if you will fasten them round my neck yourself, I shall think it -sweet of you. Where have you hidden them? Why, I believe you are wearing -them now—to keep them warm for me—under your lace cravat, you dear, -darling thing!” - -The affectionate daughter-elect raised a guileless hand and twitched the -jewels into sight. - -Mrs. Osborne, ashy pale, and with Medea-like eyes, unfastened the jewels -from her throat. - -“Here they are, dear Mary. Take them—and may they bring you all the -happiness I wish you!” said Mrs. Osborne in cooing accents. - -Polly could not restrain a little shudder, but she was grave. - -“Now Cis and I will go,” she said, when the pearls were fastened round -her neck over the neat white collar. “I am sure you and Dad want to be -alone. Come, Cis dear.” - -And she kissed Mrs. Osborne again, and bore Cis—not unwilling, strangely -fascinated by the new Polly so suddenly made manifest—away. They were -riding slowly home to dinner at Overshott Foxbrush, when the sound of -wheels rattling behind them, and Fanchon’s well-known trot, brought a -covert smile to Polly’s lips. - -Mrs. Osborne had a headache, Sir Giles explained, and so he had decided -not to remain to dinner. - -But father, daughter, and betrothed dined pleasantly at Overshott -Foxbrush. And when the dazzled Cis said good-night to the triumphant -Polly, the valediction was uttered unwillingly with as many repetitions -as there were pearls in the string Miss Overshott wore round her firm -white throat. - -There was no gas laid on at Overshott. Bedroom candlesticks were an -unabolished institution. As Sir Giles gave his daughter hers, he spoke. - -“You were a little premature in your conclusions, my girl, at The -Sabines to-day. I won’t ask why you played that little comedy, because I -know.... But you played it well ... and I don’t think Cis will kick over -the traces in that direction again. Nor do I think”—the Colonel cleared -his throat rather awkwardly—“that you are going to have Mrs. Osborne for -your second mother. She is too clever—and so are you! Good-night, my -dear!” - - - - - GAS! - - -Mrs. Gudrun’s season at the Sceptre Theatre was drawing to a finish, and -the funds of the Syndicate were in the same condition. Teddy -Candelish—Teddy of the cherubic smile and the golden mustache, -constantly described by the _Theatrical Piffer_ as the most ubiquitous -of acting-managers—sat in his sanctum before an American roll-top desk, -checking off applications for free seats and filing unpaid bills. -Gormleigh, the stage-director, balanced himself on the end of a -saddle-bag sofa, chewing an unlighted cigar; De Hanna, the -representative of the Syndicate, was going over the books at a -leather-covered table, his eyeglasses growing dim in the attempt to read -anything beyond deficit in those neatly kept columns. Mrs. Gudrun -occupied the easiest chair. Her feet, beautifully silk-stockinged and -wonderfully shod, occupied the next comfortable; her silken draperies -were everywhere, and a cigarette was between her finely cut lips. Her -feather boa hung from an electric-globe branch, and her flowery -diaphanous hat, bristling with diamond-headed pins, crowned the domelike -brow of a plaster bust of the Bard of Avon. - -“Well,” said the manageress, making smoke-rings and looking at De Hanna, -“there’s no putting the bare fact to bed! We’ve not pulled off things as -we had a right to expect.... We’ve lost our little pot, and come to the -end of our resources, eh?” - -“In plain terms,” said De Hanna, speaking through his nose, as he always -did when upon the subject of money, “the Syndicate has run you for all -the Syndicate is worth, and when we pay salaries on Saturday we shall -have”—he did some figuring with a lead pencil on the back of a -millionaire’s request for gratuitous stalls, and whistled -sadly—“something like four hundred and fifty left to carry us through -until the seventeenth.” - -“We began with as nice a little nest-egg as any management could wish -for,” said Candelish, dropping a smoking vesta into the waste-paper -basket with fatalistic unconcern. “We thought _The Stone Age_ would pay. -I’d my doubts of a prehistoric drama in five acts and fourteen scenes -that couldn’t be produced under an outlay of four thousand pounds, but -we were overruled.” He veered the tail of his eye round at Mrs. Gudrun. -“You and the Duke were mad about that piece.” - -“De Petoburgh saw great possibilities for me in it,” said Mrs. Gudrun, -throwing another cigarette-end at the fireplace and missing it. “That -scene where Kaja comes in dressed in woad for battle, and brains -What’s-his-name with her prehistoric stone ax because he doesn’t want to -fight her, always thrilled him. He said I would be greater than Siddons -in it, and, well—you remember the notices I got in the _Morning -Whooper_. Cluffer did me justice _then_, if he did turn nasty -afterward—the beast!” - -“When I met Cluffer in the vestibule on the first night after the third -act,” said Teddy Candelish, “he said he was going home because the -tension of your acting was positively too great to bear. He preferred me -to describe the rest of the play to him, and jotted the chief points on -his cuff before he went. And I grant you the notice was a ripper, but it -didn’t seem to bring people in; and after playing to paper for three -weeks, we had to put up the fortnight’s notice and jam _The Kiss of -Clytie_ into rehearsal.” - -“Dad vos a lofely—ach!—a lofely blay!” moaned Oscar Gormleigh, casting -up his little pig’s eyes to the highly ornamental ceiling of the -managerial sanctum. “Brigged from de Chairman in de pekinning, as I told -you, as all de goot blays are.” - -“I wish the Germans had stuck to it, I’m sure,” said De Hanna. “It -always appeared to me too much over the heads of ordinary intelligent -playgoers to pay worth a little damn.” - -“De dranscendental element——” Gormleigh was beginning, when Mrs. Gudrun -cut him short. - -“I never cared for it very much myself; but Bob Bolsover was dead set -upon my giving the public my reading of _Clytie_—and, well, you must -recollect the effect I created in that studio scene. Mullekens came -round afterward, and brought his critic with him, and said that the best -French school of acting must now look to its laurels, and a lot more. -Mullekens is the proprietor of the _Daily Tomahawk_, and so, of course, -I thought we were in for a good thing. How could I imagine that the -creature of a critic would go home and make game of the whole show? -Doesn’t Mullekens pay him?” - -“Ah, ja! Poot dat gritic’s vife is de sister of de Chairman agtress dat -blayed _Glytie_ in de orichinal Chairman broduction,” put in Gormleigh, -whose real surname was Gameltzch, as everybody does not know. “Did I not -varn you? It vas a gase of veels vidin veels.” - -“Wheels or no wheels, _Clytie_ kissed us out of three thou. odd,” said -De Hanna, wearily scratching his ear with his “Geyser” pen, “and then we -cut our throats with——” - -“With him,” put in Candelish, jerking a contemptuous thumb at the -hat-crowned effigy of the Bard of Avon. - -“You were keen on my giving the great mass of playgoers a chance of -seeing my Juliet,” remarked Mrs. Gudrun casting a Parthian glance at the -worm that had turned. - -“But they didn’t take the chance,” put in De Hanna, “and consequently—we -fizzle out.” - -“Like a burst bladder ...” moaned Candelish, who saw before him a weary -waste of months unenlivened by paid occupation. - -“Or a damp sguib,” put in Gormleigh. - -“Let’s have a sputter before we expire,” said De Hanna, with a momentary -revival of energy. “Lots of manuscripts have been sent in.... Isn’t -there a little domestic drama of the purely popular sort, or a farce -imbecile enough to pay for production, to be found among ’em?” - -“Dunno,” yawled Candelish, tilting his chair. - -“Who is supposed to read the plays that are sent in?” asked De Hanna, -turning his large Oriental eyes toward. Mrs. Gudrun. - -“I read some,” said the lady languidly, “and the dogs get the rest.” - -She stretched, and an overpowering combination of fashionable perfumes, -shaken from her draperies, filled the apartment. The three men sneezed -simultaneously. Mrs. Gudrun rose with majesty, and going to the -mantel-glass, patted her transformation fringe into form, and smiled at -the perennially beautiful image that smiled and patted back. Suddenly -there was a whining and scratching outside the door. - -“It’s Billy. Let him in, one of you,” ordered the manageress. - -All three men obeyed, clashing their heads together smartly at the -portal. De Hanna, with watering eyes, opened the door, and a brindled -bull of surpassing ugliness trotted into the office, carrying a chewed -brown paper parcel decorated with futile red seals and trailing loops of -string. Lying down in the center of the carpet and carefully arranging -the parcel between his forepaws, Billy proceeded to worry it. - -“Vot has de beast kott dere?” asked Gormleigh. - -“Take it from him and see!” said Mrs. Gudrun carelessly. Gormleigh’s -violet nose became pale lavender as Billy, looking up from the work of -destruction, emitted a loud growl. - -“He understonds everyding vot you say!” spluttered the stage-manager. - -“Try him with German,” advised De Hanna. - -“Or mit Yiddish,” retorted Gormleigh spitefully. - -As De Hanna winced under the retort, Candelish, who had rummaged -unnoticed in a drawer for some moments, produced a biscuit. Billy, -watching out of the corner of his eye, pricked a ragged ear and whacked -the carpet with his muscular tail. - -“Hee, boy, hee, Billy!” Candelish said seductively. Billy rose upon his -powerful bow-legs and hung out his tongue expectantly. - -“Koot old Pillee!” uttered Gormleigh encouragingly. “Gleffer old poy!” - -Billy vouchsafed the stage-manager not a glance; his bloodshot eyes were -glued upon the biscuit as he stood over the brown paper parcel. Then, as -Candelish, throwing an expression of eager voracity into his -countenance, made believe to eat the coveted delicacy himself, Billy -made a step forwards.... The end of the parcel projected from between -his hind-legs.... De Hanna softly stepped to the fireplace and seized -the tongs.... - -“Poo’ boy—poo’ ol’ Billy, then!” coaxed the acting-manager. He broke the -biscuit with one inviting snap, Billy forgot the parcel, and De Hanna -grabbed and got it. The next moment the bull, realizing his loss, pinned -the representative of the Syndicate by the leg. - -“Dash—dash—dash! Take the dash brute off, somebody!” shrieked De Hanna. - -There was a brief scene of confusion. Then, as Billy retired under a -corner table with a mouthful of ravished tweed, “He’s torn a piece out -of your trow-trows, old man,” Candelish remarked sympathetically. - -“He might have torn all the veins out of my leg!” De Hanna gasped. - -“Den,” said Gormleigh, chuckling, “you would haf been Kosher.” - -But Mrs. Gudrun was deeply disappointed in Billy. “Letting you off for a -bit of cloth!” she said. “Why, the breed are famous for their bite. He -ought to have taken a piece of flesh clean out—I shall never believe in -that dog again!” She swept over to Gormleigh, who was busy disentangling -the lengths of chewed string and removing the tatters of brown paper -from Billy’s treasure-trove. It proved to be a green-covered, rather -bulky volume of typescript. A red-bordered label gummed on the cover -announced its title: - - “MAGGS AT MARGATE - A SEASIDE FARCE, - IN THREE WHIFFS OF OZONE.” - -“What funny fool has written this?” snorted the manageress. - -“De name of de author.... Ach so! De name of de author is -Slump—Ferdinand Slump.” - -“I know the chap, or of him. He’s a business man who owns a half share -in some chemical gasworks at Hackney, and does comic literature in off -hours. He writes the weekly theatrical page of _Tickles_,” said De -Hanna, “and——” - -“_Dickles_ is a stupid halfpenny brint,” said Gormleigh, “dat sdeals all -its chokes from de Chairman babers.” - -“Really? It struck me that there must be some existing reason,” said -Candelish, “for the wonderfully level flow of dullness the publication -manages to maintain——” - -“Well, I suppose somebody is going to read this farce, since that is -what he calls it, by this Slump, since that is what he calls himself,” -said Mrs. Gudrun, removing her hat from Shakespeare and pinning it on. - -“Certainly. De Hanna, as the Representative of the Syndicate——” began -Candelish eagerly. - -“Pardon me. As acting-manager,” objected De Hanna, “you, Candelish, have -the prior claim.” - -“Didn’t you say you were going out of town to-night, Gormleigh?” -interrupted Mrs. Gudrun, who had stuck in all her hatpins, and was now -putting on her gloves. - -“Choost for a liddle plow,” admitted Gormleigh. “Dere is a cheab night -drain to Stinkton-on-Sea, sdarding from de Creat Northern at dwelve -dirty. I shall sleep in de gorridor gombardmend, oond breakfast at a -goffee and vinkle stall on de peach to-morrow morgen. By vich I haf poot -von night to pay for at de hotel.” His bearded lips parted in a -childlike smile of delight. “My vife goes not vid me,” he said, and -smiled again. - -“Then take this!” said Mrs. Gudrun, turning Slump’s farce over. “Report -on it after the show on Monday.” And she rustled from the office on -billows of silk, attended by clouds of perfume, the despised Billy, and -the assiduous Candelish. The stage-manager swore. De Hanna, concealing -the solution in the continuity of his tweeds with a bicycle -trouser-clip, grinned. - -“A little solid reading will steady you down, Gummy, and if my -experience of Slump goes for anything—you’ve got it there. But you’ll -report on Monday, as Her Nibs ordered. If you’ve not read it, look out -for squalls on Monday night!” - - * * * * * - -“Potstausend! Hof I read dot farce!” gasped Gormleigh on the night of -Monday. “Schwerlich! I hof read him tvice. Once from de beginning to de -end, oond akain from de end to de beginning.” His face assumed an -expression of anguish, and the veins on his bald forehead stood out as -the thick drops gathered there. “I cannot make heads or dails of him.... -He is gram-jam with chokes, poot I cannot lof at dem; his situations are -sgreaming, poot I cannot sgream. De tears day komm instead.... Dat vork -is vonderful ... it should one day be broduced, poot in de kreat -National School Theatre for authors oond actors dot de gountry hos not -yet founded, to brove to bubils vot is not a farce——” - -“Yet I shouldn’t be surprised if we did the piece here,” said Teddy -Candelish. “Slump, the author, has been talking over Her Nibs, and as he -would let _Maggs at Margate_ go for nothing down, find three hundred -pounds toward the production, and merely take a nominal sixty per cent., -the chances are that you’ll be rehearsing before Tuesday. Hullo!” for -the stage-manager had reeled heavily against him. - -“Ich bin unwohl.... It is dose undichested chokes of Slumps I haf hodd -on my gonstitution since I read dot farce. Oond now you komm mit -anodder,” Gormleigh groaned. - -“Here’s Her Nibs with Slump,” said Candelish, with a grin; and Mrs. -Gudrun, in the Renaissance robes of Juliet, swept into the green room -with a little grinning, long-haired man in an imitation -astrachan-collared overcoat over crumpled evening dress—a little man who -gave a large hand, with mourning nails, familiarly to Candelish, and -nodded cavalierly when Gormleigh was introduced. Slump was to read his -play to the manageress and her staff after the performance that night. - -Read his play Slump did, and Cimmerian gloom gathered upon the -countenances of his listeners as the first act dragged to a close. Slump -put the typescript down on the supper-table and looked round; -Gormleigh’s head had sunk upon his folded arms. Heavy snores testified -to the depth and genuineness of his slumbers. The countenances of De -Hanna and Candelish expressed the most profound dejection, while the -intellectual half of Mrs. Gudrun’s celebrated countenance had -temporarily vanished behind her upper lip. - -“What do you say to that?” Slump asked, quite undismayed by these signs -of weariness on the part of his listeners. Mrs. Gudrun came back to -answer him. - -“I say that it’s the longest funeral I’ve ever been at. Open another -bottle of the Boy, Teddy, and wake up, Gormleigh.” - -“I hof not been asleep,” explained Gormleigh. - -“I wish I had,” sighed De Hanna. “The fact is,” he continued, prompted -by a glance from Mrs. Gudrun, “that your play don’t do.” - -Slump maintained, in the face of this discouragement, a smiling front. - -“Won’t do, eh?” - -“Won’t do for nuts,” said De Hanna firmly. “Nobody could possibly laugh -at it,” he continued. - -“It is too tam tismal,” put in Gormleigh. - -“But if I prove to you that people can laugh at it, what then?” queried -the undismayed Slump. He took from a fob pocket-book a newspaper cutting -and handed it across the supper-table to De Hanna. The cutting was -headed - - “OZONE AT THE BALL,” - -and ran thus: - - -“‘Will you take a little refreshment?’ - -“‘Thank you, I have just had a sniff of ozone.’ - -“Question and answer at the ball given last night in aid of the —— -Hospital, —— Square, at the Royal Rooms, Kensington. For, besides -champagne, ozone was laid on. After every dance Dr. Blank, head of the -Hospital, wheeled about the hall an appliance in which, by electrical -action, pure oxygen was converted into the invigorating element of -mountain or seaside air, greatly to the purifying and enlivening of the -atmosphere of the ballroom.” - - -“My firm supplies the gas used in the treatment of the patients at that -hospital,” said Slump. “It’s a turnover of ten thousand per annum. We’re -ready to lay it on at the theater, and give the playgoers genuine ozone -with their evening’s entertainment. As for the farce, I don’t count it -A1 quality, but I’ve made up my mind to be acted and laughed at, and I’m -going to bring chemistry in to help me. Think what an advertisement for -the hoardings: ‘Real Ozone Wafted Over the Footlights,’ ‘Sea Air in the -Stalls and Gallery!’” - -“By thunder! it’s a whacking notion!” cried Candelish. - -“Colossal!” exclaimed De Hanna, taking fire at last. - -“Poot vill de beoble loff?” asked Gormleigh. - -“Ah, yes! Will they stand your farce even with an ozone accompaniment?” -doubted Mrs. Gudrun. - -“I’ve a machine downstairs in the stage-door office,” said Slump calmly. -“Will you try the first act over again—with gas?” - -Gormleigh groaned, but the other three nodded acquiescence; and the men -in charge of the electrical oxygen-generator received instructions to -bring the machine upstairs. - - * * * * * - -“Ha, ha, ha!” - -“Haw, haw, haw!” - -“Ach, it is too funny for anydings!” This from Gormleigh, rocking in his -chair, and mopping his streaming eyes with a red silk handkerchief. -“Ach, ha, ha, ha!” - -Mrs. Gudrun held up her jeweled hands for mercy. The laughing man who -worked the machine stopped pumping, the laughing author ceased to read, -Billy the bulldog, who had been grinning from ear to ear, wiped a wet -nose on his mistress’s gown and sat down panting. - -“How the deuce,” gasped De Hanna, “can oxygen make a stupid farce a -funny one? I can’t understand it, for the life of me.” - -“Because,” replied Slump, with brevity and clearness, “that’s my trade -secret, and I don’t mean to give it away. Well, does _Maggs_ go on, or -do I take it to another management?” - -The general assent was flattering in its unanimity. _Maggs at Margate_ -went into rehearsal at the “Sceptre” next day, and in a week was -presented to the public. We refer you to the critiques published in the -_Daily Tomahawk_, the _Yelper_, and other morning prints: - - -“It seems as though the good old days were come again.... Peals of -irresistible laughter rang through the crowded theater as the -side-splitting story of _Maggs_ was unfolded. The audience laughed, the -orchestra laughed, the actors themselves were infected by the general -merriment.” - - -“Mr. Slump is a public benefactor. When ‘down,’ a dose of him will be -found to act like magic. The management’s happy notion of supplying the -theater with real ozone adds not a little to the pleasure of the -entertainment.” - - -And so forth, and so forth. Booking was immense, the box-office and -libraries were besieged with applicants eager to breathe the genuine sea -air wafted over the footlights at the “Sceptre.” The treasury boxes had -to be carried to the office at night by two of the strongest -commissionaires. - -“Slump has a soft snap,” said De Hanna, chewing his Geyser pen -rapturously as he went over the books. “Sixty per cent. of the gross -receipts in author’s fees, and we’re averaging two thousand a week since -we went in for daily _matinées_. Then the Transatlantic Trust is running -the play in New York to phenomenal business, and we’ve planted it out -for the Colonies, while France and Germany——” - -“Id vas from Chairmany dat de leading itea of de blay was orichinally -sdolen,” said Gormleigh, who had blossomed out in new clothes, a red -necktie, and a cat’s-eye pin. - -“Leading idea of the play is the Ozone,” said De Hanna; “and as Slump’s -firm holds the patent for the electro-oxygen generator, and manufactures -the oxygen used in the theater——” - -“Dey call it bure oxygen, poot it is not dat,” said Gormleigh, laying -his finger to his nose. “It is a motch cheaber gombound, I give you my -vort.” - -“What?” De Hanna came closer, and his Oriental eyes gleamed. “If that’s -true, and we could manufacture and generate it for ourselves, we—we -could buy up every rotten play we come across—there’s heaps of them to -be had, Heaven knows—and run ’em for nuts. What is the stuff?” - -“It is nitrous oxide,” said Gormleigh, “gommonly known as loffing -kass—and I hof a friend, a Chairman chemist—dat vill——Hoosh!” He laid -his finger to his nose with an air of secrecy as Mrs. Gudrun swept into -the office, enveloped in her usual clouds of silk and perfume. Candelish -was not with her, but Slump and Billy followed at her heels. - -“Of course, it must be admitted, _Maggs_ is a phenomenal success,” she -was saying, “and we’re making money hand over hand; but the part of -‘Angelina’—though Cluffer says no French comedy actress of any age or -period could act it as I do—does not give me proper opportunities. Mr. -Slump thinks with me.” She smiled dazzlingly upon the enamored little -man. “And he has written a tragedy in blank verse—_The Poisoned -Smile_—which we mean to produce as soon as the run is over.” She swept -out again with her following, and De Hanna and Gormleigh exchanged a -wink of partnership. - -“A tragedy in blank verse by Slump.... Phew!” De Hanna whistled. “They -won’t want laughing-gas for that.... As for us, we go snacks in biz. -I’ll find the Syndicate and the theater.” - -“Oond I de blays, de sdage-management, oond de kass. De Chairman chemist -friend I dold you of, I hof vith him already a gontract made.” - -“Perhaps it is a bit shady,” said De Hanna punctiliously, “to exploit an -idea that really is Slump’s property....” - -“De chokes in Slump’s comic baber he sdole from a Chairman orichinal,” -said Gormleigh pachydermatously. “It is nodding poot tid for tad!” - - - - - AIR - - - “Sweet are the uses of advertisement.” - _The Professional Shakespeare._ - -“I believe in the value of an ad.,” said Mrs. Gudrun one night at the -Paris Grand Opera, the Sceptre Theatre, London, being temporarily closed -pending a new production. “Sarah believes in it, too—and that’s another -of the remarkable points of resemblance between us. And for the sake of -a puff, I’m willing to do all that a woman can.” - -“Can’t do more,” said De Petoburgh, shaking his head owlishly. “Can’t -possibly do more.” - -“Shut up, De Peto. That woman’s ready to bite you for talking through -her big _aria_,” commanded Mrs. Gudrun, with a slight glance of imperial -indifference towards the infuriated _prima donna_. She dropped her -opera-glasses into the orchestra with a crash, narrowly shaving the -kettle-drums, and causing the cymbal-player to miss his cue, as she -continued: “But, though I’m generally keen to see the pay-end of a big -notion, this idea of Bobby Bolsover’s won’t do for macaroons. Not that -I’m lacking in what the Americans call horse-grit—wasn’t I on De Brin’s -automobile when he won the Paris-Rouen race with his Gohard Cup Defender -in nineteen-three? That was one hairbreadth escape, from the revolver -shot that started us—you remember Bobby put in ball cartridge by -mistake—to the three flying kilometers at the finish, which we did on -one wheel, as the brakes refused to act. And I’ve hung by one coupling -over a raging American river in my own drawing-room Pullman saloon. But -when it comes to dangling in a little basket that weighs next to nothing -from a bag of gas that weighs nothing at all—I’m not taking any, and I -don’t care who knows it. A captive balloon’s another thing. You’re -cabled and sand-bagged and what not, and, unless you jump out, nothing -can happen to you. But——Do see who’s knocking at the door!” - -It was a uniformed and epauletted functionary conveying the polite -intimation of the management that Madame and her party must positively -maintain silence during the performance, or make themselves the trouble -to depart! - -“Tell him we’d had enough and were just going!” commanded Mrs. Gudrun. -She rose, and, followed by the Duke, Bobby Bolsover, and Teddy -Candelish—most active and ubiquitous of business managers, sailed out of -the box, knocking over a fauteuil and carrying a footstool away upon the -surging billows of her train. “Calls herself an artist!” she said, in -reference to the _prima donna_, upon whose trills and roulades an -enraptured audience hung breathless and enthralled; “and lets herself be -put about by a little thing like that! Where’s her artistic absorption, -I should like to know. Why, I’ve studied Juliet in the drawing-room -where Bobby and De Petoburgh were having a rat-hunt under the tables and -things, and what difference did it make to my conception of the part? -Not a sou. And _she_ was a shrimp-seller at Nice! They all have that -_voce squillante_ and those thick flat ankles and those rolling black -eyes like treacle-balls. Let’s go and have some supper at the Café -Paris.” - -Over American grilled lobster and quails _Georges Sand_, Bobby -Bolsover’s grand notion for an advertisement, cropped up again. One may -explain that it consisted in the suggestion that Mrs. Gudrun and party -should electrify Paris, and subsequently London, by traveling _per_ -motor-airship from St. Cloud, rounding the Eiffel Tower in emulation of -the immortal Santos, and returning to the Highfliers’ Club airship -station at the Parc upon the conclusion of the feat. A friend of De -Petoburgh’s, a distinguished member of the Highfliers’ Club, would -undertake to lend the airship—a newly completed vessel, with basket -accommodation for three. This philanthropist did not propose to share -the notoriety by joining the trip, and it was to be distinctly -understood that De Petoburgh was to be responsible for any expenses -involved. - -And Bobby Bolsover, brimming, as usual, with genuine British bravery and -brandy-and-soda, was ready to assume command. - -“You know the principle of a motor?” Bobby demanded, as the supper -proceeded, and a collection of champagne corks, gradually amassed on the -corner of the table, assumed proportions favorable to purposes of -demonstration. - -“Candelish knows the principle of a motor,” said De Petoburgh. “Never -could learn myshelf. Too much borror!” - -“One may say that there is gasoline in a receptacle,” began Teddy. “Air -passing through becomes charged with gas, and comes out ready to -explode. Then——” - -“To explode,” agreed De Petoburgh; “absorutely correc’ dennifishion, by -Ringo!” - -“Don’t mind De Peto: he’s in for one of his old attacks,” said Mrs. -Gudrun. “His legs have been all over the place since breakfast. Well?” - -“You give a twirl to a crank,” said Bobby Bolsover. - -“Down goes the piston,” continued Teddy. - -“Down go her pistol,” nodded De Petoburgh. - -“And the dashed thing begins working automatically,” exclaimed Bobby -Bolsover. De Petoburgh balked at the six-syllabled hedge. “Now, an -airship is an example of——” - -“The effectiveness of an aërial propeller driven by a petrol motor,” put -in Teddy. - -“Jusso,” said De Petoburgh. “Jusso.” - -“There is, practically speaking, no danger whatever,” pursued Bobby -Bolsover, warming to the subject, “that does not attend other popular -pursuits. You may be thrown from a horse, or tumble off a coach-box——” - -“Did once,” said De Petoburgh, smiling in sad retrospection. - -“Or you may blow up in a motor,” went on Bobby. - -“But in either case,” said Mrs. Gudrun, with point, “one is on the -ground, not hanging between heaven and earth, like What’s-his-name’s -coffin.” - -“Brarro!” exclaimed De Petoburgh. “Encore! _Bis!_” - -“Permit me to put in, dear lady,” said Teddy Candelish, with his best -professional manner, “that if you fall out of an airship, you eventually -finish on the ground!” - -“Under,” gloomily interpolated De Petoburgh. “Under.” - -“And, further,” said Bobby Bolsover, “the guide-rope is in connection -with the ground all the time. Seventy feet of it, trailing like——” - -“Snakes!” said the irrepressible De Petoburgh, with a glassy stare. - -“And,” went on Bobby, “we will have four picked men from the Highfliers’ -Club Grounds to run beside the guide-rope all the way and back.” - -“Thus combining personal advertisement,” said Teddy Candelish, “with -physical integrity.” - -Mrs. Gudrun permitted her classical features to soften. “Now you’re -talking!” the lady said. She smiled through the bottom of her -champagne-glass as Teddy, bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment, and -the trip was arranged forthwith. Thanks to the discretion of Teddy -Candelish, the preparations were kept so profoundly secret that all -Paris was on the alert when the eventful morning dawned. The Highfliers’ -Club Grounds were literally besieged, and the intending sky-navigators -fought their way to the aërodrome containing their vessel through a -surging throng of scientists, editors, journalists, dandies, actresses, -photographers, pickpockets, and politicians. - -“Regular scrimmage—what?” panted Bobby Bolsover, as, bare-headed and -disheveled, he reached the private side-door of the balloon-house. - -“We ought to have slept here,” said Mrs. Gudrun, straightening her -hat-brim as the breathless men collected her hairpins. - -“Nothing but perches to sleep on,” objected Bobby Bolsover, indicating -the skeleton arrangements of the vast interior. - -Mrs. Gudrun, whose eye soared with Bobby’s, would have changed color had -the feat been possible. - -“Do we really climb up that awful ladder to get on board?” she inquired. -“I have more nerve than any woman I know; but I wasn’t educated as an -acrobat. _J’en suis tout baba_, Bobby, that you should have let us all -in for a thing like this. We’re planted, however, and must go through. -What crowds of smart women! What on earth has brought _them_ out so -early in the morning? It must have got about that I’m going to be -killed!” She gulped and clutched Teddy. “I c-can’t go on in this scene! -Make an apology—make an apology and say I’m ill. I _am_ ill—horribly!” - -“I feel far from frisky,” said Bobby Bolsover candidly. “Gout all last -night in the head and eyes, and—every limb, in fact, that one relies -upon in steering a motor. But, of course, I am ready to undertake the -helm—unless anybody else would like to volunteer?” - -He looked at Teddy, whose eye was clear, whose cheek was blooming, whose -golden curls encroached upon a forehead unlined with the furrows of -personal apprehension. - -“W-what do you say, Teddy?” gasped Mrs. Gudrun. - -“I deeply regret.... It is imperatively necessary, dear lady,” said -Teddy glibly, “that in your absolute interests I should be at the -‘Fritz’ at twelve. The Paris representatives of the _Daily Yelper_, the -_Morning Whooper_, and the _Greenroom Rag_, have appointed that hour to -receive particulars of your start; three Berlin correspondents, one from -Nice, and the editors of the _Journal Rigolo_ and the _Vie Patachon_ are -to hole in ten minutes later; and there will be thousands of telegrams -to open and answer. You know that the Syndicate of the Escurial Palace -of Varieties have actually tendered to secure the turn. Therefore, -though my heart will make the voyage in your company, I—cannot.” - -Blue-eyed Teddy melted into thin air. Mrs. Gudrun, looking older than a -professional beauty has any right to look, surveyed her companions with -a hollow gaze of despair, while outside the aërodrome Paris roared and -waited. Bobby, as green as jade, in a complete suit of motor armor, -goggles included, leaned limply against the ladder that led upwards to -the platform of the aërodrome. De Petoburgh, in foul-weather yachting -kit, his glass fixed in his bloodshot left eye by the little mechanical -contrivance that keeps it from tumbling, looked back. That debilitated -nobleman, though shaky, was game to the backbone. - -“I can’t drive a motor, Bolsover,” he said quite distinctly, “but I can -drive _you_. Will you—oblige me—by climbing up that ladder? We follow. -After you, dear lady!” - -And the three negotiated the giddy ascent. Upon the platform they found -the owner of the airship and the four workmen who, under promise of -reward and threat of punishment, were to attend the guide-rope. The -airship itself, a vast sausage-shaped silk bag of hydrogen, from which -depended by rubber-sheathed piano wires a framework of proven bamboo -supporting three baskets—one forward, one amidships, and one aft—hovered -over the heads of the three depressed adventurers like a shapeless -embodiment of adverse Fate. And Paris was growing impatient. - -“Tell ’em to stick to the guide-rope, De Croqueville, for their lives,” -urged Bobby feverishly, squeezing the hands of the owner of the machine. -“Give it ’em in their own lingo; my French isn’t fluent to-day. They’re -not to trust to my steering, but just tow us to the Tower and back.” - -De Croqueville squeezed back, and embraced Bobby on both cheeks. “My -brave, my very dear, rely upon me. Madame”—he kissed the jeweled -knuckles of Mrs. Gudrun—“all Paris is assembled to behold the most -beautiful woman prove herself also to be of the most brave. M. le Duc,” -he saluted De Petoburgh distantly, and then cordially shook hands, “I am -as kin a sportsman as how you. I have plank my egg—my oof—a thousand -francs you circulate the Tour Eiffel, in spite of the wind, which blows -from the wrong quarter. Adieu!” - -“Blows from the wrong quarter!” gasped Bobby Bolsover. The eyeglass of -De Petoburgh turned in his direction, and he immediately climbed the -forward ladder and got into the steersman’s creaking basket, and grasped -the wheel with an awful sinking immediately below the heart.... The Duke -helped Mrs. Gudrun to assume the central position, and got in astern. -Just before the starting word was given and the great doors of the -aërodrome rolled apart in their steel grooves, he leaned over to De -Croqueville, addressing that gentleman in his own language: - -“One supposes she”—he alluded to the vessel—“is—sea—I mean -air-worthy—eh, my friend?” - -De Croqueville shot up his eyebrows and spread his hands. - -“One supposes.... Truly, dear friend, I know not!... The vessel is newly -complete—this is what in English you call the try-trip. That is why I -hedge my bet. One thousand francs you round the Tour Eiffel and return -uninjure—two thousand you do not return uninjure—whether you round the -Tour or no. _Adieu-dieu!_” - -The electric signal rang. The colossal doors groaned apart. The four -workmen scuttled down the ladders like frightened mice, seized the -guide-rope, and towed the airship out of dock. Paris waved -handkerchiefs, cheered. Bobby Bolsover, ghastly behind his goggles, -pressed the pedal and manipulated the wheel. The engine throbbed, the -tail-shaft screw revolved. The adventurers had started. - -“Qui-quite nice,” gulped Mrs. Gudrun tremulously, as the keen wind toyed -with her silk veil and fluttered her fur boa. - -“She pitches,” said De Petoburgh briefly. “Keep her head to it, -Bolsover.” - -There was a sickening moment as the airship mounted obliquely upward.... -Then a tug at the guide-rope brought her nose down, pointing to the sea -of fluttering handkerchiefs beneath. Mrs. Gudrun groaned and clung to -the sides of her padded basket. De Petoburgh swore. - -“I can’t—manage her. My—my nerve has gone. Let’s put about and take her -back to dock again,” gasped Bobby. - -“For—for Heaven’s sake, do!” groaned Mrs. Gudrun. But again that new -voice spake from the blue lips of De Petoburgh, and—— - -“I’ve lived like a dashed blackguard, but I’m not going to die like a -cowardly cad. Curtain’s up—go through with the show. Bolsover, you -bragging, white-livered idiot, you can steer an electric launch and -drive a motor-car. If I’d ever learned to do either, I’d take your -place. But as I can’t—go ahead, and keep on as I direct, or I’ll shoot -you through your empty skull with this revolver”—the click of the weapon -came stimulatingly to the ears of the scared helmsman—“and swear I went -mad and wasn’t responsible. They—they’d believe me! Mabel, if you sit -tight and go through with this, I’ll stand you that thousand-guinea -tiara you liked at Alphonse’s, if we—when we get safe to ground. Now, -Bolsover, drive on, or take the consequences!” - -Perhaps the familiar terms employed restored Bobby to the use of his -suspended faculties. Certain it is that the airship began to forge -steadily ahead at the rate of some twenty miles an hour—but _not_ -absolutely in the direction of the vast spidery erection of metal which -was its destined goal. It skimmed in the direction of the Bois de -Boulogne, keeping at so lofty an altitude that of the end of the -guide-rope merely a length of some six feet trailed upon the ground. - -“Those—those men l-look so funny running after it,” said Mrs. Gudrun, -upon whom the promise of the tiara had acted as a stimulant. - -“I hope they may keep up with it,” muttered De Petoburgh as the airship -sailed over the humming streets of the gay city, and tiny men and women -turned white specks of faces upwards to stare. “Ease her, Bolsover,” he -commanded. - -“Oh, we’re going right up again!” gasped Mrs. Gudrun. Then, as the -airship regained the horizontal: “This isn’t half bad,” she said in a -more cheerful tone, “but the housetops with their spiky chimney-pots -look dreadfully dangerous. The guide-rope has knocked a row of potted -geraniums off a third-floor balcony, and the old man who was reading the -paper in the cane chair must be swearing awfully. But where are the men? -I don’t see them; do you?” - -The four workmen were at that moment heatedly cursing the Municipal -Council of Paris at the bottom of a very long, very deep trench which -had been excavated across a certain street for the accommodation of a -new drain. The guide-rope pursued its course without them, now sweeping -a peaceful citizen off his legs, now covering the occupants of a smart -victoria with mud, now trailing over a roof or coiling serpent-wise -around the base of a block of chimneys. In the distance loomed the -Eiffel Tower, but in answer to De Petoburgh’s repeated requests that he -should steer thither, Bobby Bolsover only groaned. And the airship, -after navigating gracefully over the green ocean of the Bois de -Boulogne, continued her trip over the Longchamps racecourse, veered to -the south at the pleasure of a shifting current of air, and, having -leaked much, began plainly to buckle and bend. - -De Petoburgh, uncomfortably conscious of a misspent existence and wasted -opportunities, looked at the back of Mrs. Gudrun’s head, and wondered -whether she knew any prayers. - -“The trees are coming awfully close, aren’t they?” said the unconscious -beauty. - -“Awfully!” said the Duke, as the capricious motor stopped. - -Then Mrs. Gudrun screamed, and Bobby Bolsover, casting his goggles to -the winds, huddled in the bottom of his basket, and the debilitated but -plucky nobleman shut his eyes and thought of his long-dead mother as the -airship hurtled downwards ... crash into the top of the tallest of the -giant oaks in the magnificent park of H.S.H. Prince Gogonof Babouine. - -The Prince has the reputation of being excessively hospitable. When the -three passengers recovered from the shaking, the top of a long ladder -pierced the thick foliage beneath the wrecked vessel, and the Prince’s -major-domo, a stout personage in black with a gold chain, came climbing -up with a courteous message from the Prince. Would Madame and M. le Duc -and the other gentleman descend and partake of the second _déjeuner_, -which was on the point of being served, or would they prefer to remain -on board their vessel? - -“Stop up here? Does the man take us for angels?” snorted Mrs. Gudrun -indignantly. - -The descent was not without danger, but with the aid of De Petoburgh and -the major-domo, she braved and completed it without injury either to her -long celebrated limbs or her famous features. Bobby followed. - -The Prince entertained the shipwrecked castaways in princely fashion, -and drove the party back to Paris on his drag, the wonderful yellow -coach with the team of curly Orloffs. And he consented to dine; and that -night Mrs. Gudrun held a reception behind the illuminated balconies of -the Hotel Fritz, while the London newsboys were yelling her familiar -name, and the evening papers containing the most ornamental particulars -of her adventure went off like hot cakes. - -According to the most reliable account garnered by our special -correspondent from the lovely lips of the exquisite aëronaut, she had -never quailed in the moment of peril, and, indeed, upon the -distinguished authority of the Hon. R. Bolsover: “One is never -frightened while one can rely upon one’s own pluck!” Nobody interviewed -De Petoburgh, leaning vacuously smiling against the wall. Indeed, he had -developed another of his attacks, and could not have responded with any -coherence. - -“Wonderful fellow, Bolsover,” Teddy Candelish gushed, Teddy, all smile -and sparkle, “so brainy and resourceful!” - -“Rath’ ...” assented De Petoburgh fragmentarily. - -“And Her Nibs—a heroine—positively a heroine!” - -“Ra’!” assented De Petoburgh, as the heroine swept by, making -magnificent eyes at the palpably enamored Prince, while Paris murmured -indiscreet admiration. - -“And you, Duke, eh? Found it trying to your nerves, they tell me?” Teddy -continued, twirling his golden mustache. “Such trips too costly, eh, to -indulge in often?” - -“Ra’!” agreed De Petoburgh, with a glance at the thousand-guinea diamond -fender surmounting the most frequently photographed features in the -world. - - - - - SIDE! - - -Upon the conclusion of the phenomenally brief run of _The Poisoned Kiss_ -at the Sceptre Theatre, Mrs. Gudrun, who had sustained the heroic rôle -of Aldapora “with abounding verve and true histrionic inwardness” (to -cull a quotation from the enthusiastic notice which appeared in the -_Theatrical Piffer_), and whose sculpturesque temples throbbed no less -with the weight of the dramatic laurels heaped upon them than with the -heady quality of the champagne with which those laurels had been -liberally drowned—Mrs. Gudrun left the author and the Syndicate, _per_ -their Business Representative, exchanging poignant personalities over a -non-existent percentage, and hied her to the Gallic capital for -recreation and repose; bearing in her train the leading man, Mr. Leo De -Boo, a young actor who had chipped the egg of obscurity in the recent -production. De Boo was “a splendid specimen of virile beauty,” according -to the _Greenroom Rag_—all shoulders, legs, nose, and curls, without any -perceptible forehead; and Teddy Candelish, most ubiquitous of -acting-managers, came within an appreciable distance of being -epigrammatic when he termed him “a chronic cad in beautiful boots.” For -more exquisite foot-gloves than those De Boo sported were never seen, -whoever made and gave credit for them; and De Boo was said to have a -different pair for every day in the month and every imaginable change in -the weather. - -“Nearly threw up his part in _The Poisoned Kiss_,” said Teddy -afterwards, at the club, “when he discovered that it was to be a -sixteenth-century production; took me aside, and told me in confidence -afterwards, that if he’d been allowed to play Hermango in gray suède -tops with black pearl buttons and patent leather uppers, the piece would -have been a colossal monetary, as well as artistic, success.” - -“Schwerlich! Who konn bretend to follow de workings of a mind like dot -jung man’s,” said Oscar Gormleigh, “vidout de assisdance of de -migroscope? Und hof I not known a brima donna degline to go on for -Siebel begause she hodd been kifen brown insdead of violet tights? It -vas a tam gonsbiracy, she svore py all her kodds! In prown legs she -vould groak like von frog mit kvinsy—mit violet she always varble like -de nachtigall. De choke of it vas”—the talented stage-director laid a -hairy finger archly against his Teutonic nose—“dat voman always -groak—not never varble—tights or no tights!” - -“De Boo is a rank bounder,” said Candelish decidedly. - -“He has pounded from de ranks,” pronounced Gormleigh, “und he vill go on -pounding—each pound so motch higher dan de last von, oontil he drop -splosh into de kutter akain. He who now oggupies a svell mansion-flat in -Biccadilly, _ach ja!_—he vill end vere he bekan—in de liddle krubby -sit-bedding-room over de shabby shop vere dey let out segond hond boogs -on hire mit segond hond furnidure.” - -Mrs. Gudrun would have been deeply incensed had she heard this -unlicensed expression of opinion from one whom she had always kept in -his place as a paid underling. For six nights and a matinée she had, in -the character of Aldapora, elected to poison herself in the most painful -manner rather than incur the loss of De Boo’s affections, and, with the -“true histrionic inwardness” so belauded by the _Theatrical Piffer_, she -had identified herself with the part. So she took a blazing comet flight -to Paris with the actor in her train, and paragraphs announcing their -arrival at the Hotel Spitz appeared in the London papers. - -“Listen to this, Jane Ann,” said the paternal De Boo, whose name was -Boodie—and when I add that for twenty years the worthy father had been -employed as one of the principal cutters at Toecaps and Heels, that -celebrated firm of West-End bootmakers, it will be understood whence the -son obtained his boots. “To think,” Mr. Boodie continued, “that -Alfred—our Alfred, who sp’iled every particle of leather he set his -knife to, and couldn’t stitch a welt or strap a seam to save his -life—should ever have lived to be called a rising genius!” - -“The ways of Providence are wonderful, father!” returned the said -Alfred’s mother dutifully. Mrs. Boodie was an experienced finisher -herself, and had always lamented Alfred’s lack of “turn” in the family -direction. “An’, if I was you, I wouldn’t mention that bit in the paper -to Aphasia Cutts. She’s dreadful jealous over our Alfred, even now, -though he hasn’t bin to see ‘er or wrote for two years. As good as a -break off, I should a-regarded it, ’ad I bin in her place. But she’s -different to what I was.” - -“So are all the gals,” said Mr. Boodie with conviction, bestowing upon -his wife a salute flavored with Russia leather and calf. - -“Well, I’m sure. Go along, father, do!” said Mrs. Boodie, with a -delighted shove. - -But of course Aphasia—so christened by an ambitious mother in defiance -of the expostulations of a timid curate—had already seen and cried over -the paragraph. She had loved Alfred and stood up for him when he was a -plain, stupid boy with an unconquerable aversion to work. She had been -his champion when he grew up, no longer plain, but as pronounced a -loafer as ever. She had given up, in exchange for his loutish -affections, the love of an honest and hard-working man. - -“I can’t ’elp it!” she had said; “you can get on without me, and Alfred -can’t, pore chap. His Par calls ’im a waster—I believe ’e’d give ’im the -strap if ’e wasn’t six foot ’igh. But I’ve got ’im an opening in the -theatrical line, through a friend of mine as does fancy braiding at -Buskin’s, the stage shoemaker’s in Covent Garden. It’s only to walk on -as one of the Giant’s boy-babies in the Drury Lane panto.—eighteen pence -a night _and matinées_—but his Mar will be thankful. If only ’is legs -are long enough for the part——” - -They were, and from that hour Alfred had embarked on a career. When -entrusted with a line to speak, it was Aphasia who held the grimy slip -of paper on which it was written and aided the would-be actor with -counsel and advice. - -“And ’old up your ’ead, do, as if you was proud of yourself, and don’t -bend at the knees; and whether you remember your words or not, throw ’em -out from your chest as if you was proud of ’em. An’ move your arms from -the shoulder like as if you was swimmin’—don’t crook your elbers like a -wooden doll. And throw a bit o’ meanin’ into your eye. You took me to -see that Frenchman, Cocklin ’e calls ’imself; as played the chap with -the boko ’e wouldn’t let the other chaps make game of.... French or -Japanese, they’re both Dutch to me, but I watched Cocklin’s eye, and I -watched ’is ’ands, an’ I could foller the story as if it was print, an’ -plainer. I’ve went to see an actor since what folks said was a great -artis’, and if ’e did talk English, ’is eye was as dumb as a boiled -fresh ’addock’s an’ ’s ’ands was like slices of skate. Now say your bit -over again.” - -And Alfred said it, this time to the satisfaction of his instructress. -When he got a real part Aphasia coached him, and rode down from -Hammersmith with him on the bus, and was waiting for him at the -stage-door when he came out, the tears of joy undried on her pale -cheeks. And that was the night upon which she first noticed a coldness -in the manner of her betrothed. - -“An’ now I’m not good enough for him to wipe his boots on,” she sobbed, -sitting on her bed in the single room lodging off the roaring, clanging -Broadway—“the boots ’is Par cut an’ welted, an’ ’is Mar stitched, an’ I -finished. But I won’t stand in ’is light. I’ve my pride, if I am a -boot-finisher. I’ll see that Mrs. What’s-her-name face to face, an’ ’ave -it out as woman to woman, an’ tell ’er she’s welcome to marry ’im for -me.” - -And Aphasia dried her poor red eyes and took off Alfred’s betrothal -ring—a fifteen-carat gold circlet with three real garnets, bought in the -Broadway one blushful, blissful Saturday night—and evicted his -photographs from their gorgeous cheap frames, and made a brown-paper -parcel of these things, with a yellow leather purse with a blue enamel -“A” on it, and tied it up with string. - -Perhaps something of her fateful mood was telepathically conveyed to Mr. -Leo De Boo at that moment, for he shivered as he sat at the feet of Mrs. -Gudrun upon the balcony of a private suite at the Hotel Spitz, and -turned up eyes that were large and lustrous at that imperishable image -of Beauty, exhaling clouds of fashionable perfume and upborne on billows -of chiffon and lace. Mrs. Gudrun, who naturally mistook the spasms of a -genuine plebeian British conscience for the pangs of love, lent him her -hand—dazzlingly white, astonishingly manicured, jeweled to the knuckles, -and polished by the devout kisses of generations of worshipers—and De -Boo mumbled it, and tried to be grateful and talk beautifully about his -acting. But this bored Mrs. Gudrun, who preferred to talk about her own. - -“I have often felt that myself,” she said—“the conviction that a crowded -audience hung upon my lips and saw only with my eyes, and that I swayed -them as with a magic thingumbob, by the power of a magnetic -personality.” - -“It is a mystery,” said De Boo, passing his long fingers through his -clustering curls, “that once in a century or so a man should be born——” - -“Or a woman. Marvelous!” agreed Mrs. Gudrun. “Marvelous! the man who -runs the _Daily Tomahawk_ said that when I made my first appearance on -the stage.” - -“Genius is a crown of fire,” said De Boo, who had read this somewhere. -“It illuminates the world, yet scorches the wearer to the bone. He——” - -“She suffers,” said Mrs. Gudrun, neatly stopping the ball and playing it -on her side. “You may bet she suffers. Hasn’t she got the artistic -temperament? The amount of worry mine has given me you would never -believe. Cluffer, of the _Morning Whooper_, calls me a ‘consolidated -bundle of screaming nerves.’ When I’ve sat down to dinner on the eve of -a first night, De Petoburgh—you’ve met the Duke?—has had to hold me in -my chair while Bobby Bolsover gave me champagne and Angostura out of the -soup-ladle. And I believe I bit a piece out of that. And afterwards—ask -’em both if I wasn’t fairly _esquinte_.” - -“But the possessor of an artistic temperament—such as mine—even though -the fairy gift entails the keenest susceptibility to anguish,” quickly -continued De Boo, “enjoys unspeakable compensation in the revelation to -him alone of a kingdom which others may not enter. Looking upon the high -mountains in the blush of dawn, I have shouted aloud with glee——” - -“The first time I ever went into a southern Italian orange-grove in full -bloom,” acquiesced Mrs. Gudrun, “the Prince of Kursaal Carle Monto, who -was with me, simply sat down flat. He said Titian ought to have been -alive to paint my face and form against that background.... By the way, -the first act of that new play, the title of which I’ve forgotten, and -which I’ve leased from a scribbling idiot whose name don’t signify, -takes place in a blooming orange-grove. I’ve cast you for the leading -man’s part, Leo, and I hope you will be properly grateful for the -chance, and conquer that nasty habit you have of standing leering at the -audience in all my great moments.” - -“Dearest lady,” De Boo argued glibly, “does it not increase the dramatic -poignancy of such moments if the spectators are enabled to read in the -varying expressions pictured on _my_ face the feelings your art -inspires?” - -But Mrs. Gudrun was inexorable. “They can read ’em in the back of your -head if they’re anxious,” said she, “or they can take the direct tip -from me. I hope that’s good enough. I don’t see the cherry-bun of -running a theater to be scored off by other people, and so you know! And -now that’s settled, let us go and have stuffed oysters and roast ices at -Noel Peter’s, and see Sarah afterwards in her new tragedy _rôle_. I’m -the only woman she’s really afraid of, you know, and I feel I’m bound to -romp in in front of her before long. She says herself that acting like -mine cannot be taught in a conservatoire, and that I constitute a -complete school in myself. Have you ever seen me play Lady Teazle?” - -“Unhappily I have not. It is a loss,” said De Boo, “a distinct loss. By -the way, when I scored so tremendously as Charles Surface at -Mudderpool——” - -“Hell is full of men who have scored as Charles Surface at Mudderpool,” -said Mrs. Gudrun crushingly. “That sounds like a quotation, doesn’t it? -Only it must be mine, because I never read. You’re a charming fellow, -and a clever boy, Leo, but, as a friend, let me tell you that you talk -too much about yourself. It’s bad form; and the truly great are -invariably the truly modest. I must save up that epigram for my next -interview, I think. There’s the auto-brougham.” - -And De Boo enfolded the renowned form of his manageress in a point lace -and sable wrap, and they went off to Noel Peter’s, and saw La Gr-r-ande -perform. - - -Rehearsals of the new play, _Pride of Race_, at the Sceptre had scarcely -commenced when in upon Teddy Candelish, laboriously smoking in his -sanctum and opening the morning’s mail, swept Mrs. Gudrun. - -“I haven’t a moment to breathe,” she said imperially, accepting the -chair Teddy acrobatically vacated. “Come in, De Petoburgh—come in, -Bobby; you are in the way, but I’m used to it. No, De Petoburgh, that -cellaret’s tabooed; remember what Sir Henry said to you about liqueurs -before lunch. Are there any letters of importance, Teddy, to my cheek?” - -“Several bundles of press-cuttings from different firms, thirty or forty -bills, a few tenders from photographers, and—and some love-letters,” -replied Candelish, pointing to some neat piles of correspondence -arranged on the American roll-top desk. “Usual thing—declarations, -proposals, and so forth.” - -“Always plenty of those—hey?” chuckled De Petoburgh, sucking a -perfunctory peptoid lozenge in lieu of the stimulant denied. - -“Plenty, b’Jove!” echoed Bobby Bolsover. - -“Not so many as there used to be,” responded Candelish with tactless -truthfulness, rewarded by the lady with a magnificent glare. “By the -way, there’s one odd letter, from a girl or a woman who _isn’t_ quite a -lady, asking for an interview on private business. Signs herself by the -rummiest name—Aphasia Cutts.” He presented the letter. - -“Aphasia?” said Mrs. Gudrun, extending heavily jeweled fingers for the -missive. “Isn’t that what De Petoburgh has when he can only order drinks -in one syllable and his legs take him where he doesn’t want to go? Eh, -Bobby?” - -“Yes; but remindin’ the Duke of that always brings on an attack,” said -Bobby solicitously. “Look at him twitchin’ now.... Steady, Peto! Woa-a, -old mannums!” - -“Take him for a tatta while I finish the rehearsal,” commanded Mrs. -Gudrun, rising from Teddy’s chair in an upsurge of expensive draperies. -“Write to this Aphasia girl, Teddy, and say I’ll see her to-morrow, -between three and four p. m. After all, the whole-souled adoration of -one’s own sex is worth having,” the lady said, as, heralded by the -rustling of silken robes, the barbaric clash of jeweled ornaments, and -wafts of fashionable perfume, she sailed back to the boards. - -When Aphasia got her reply, p.p. Teddy, some hours later, there was very -little of whole-souled adoration in her reception of the missive. - -“I s’pose she looks on me as the dirt under her feet, like Alfred. But I -won’t let that put me off makin’ the sacrifice that’s for his good—the -ungrateful thing! I ’ope she’ll make ’im a nice wife, that’s all,” she -sobbed, as she took from her collar-and-cuff drawer the flat brown-paper -parcel containing the garnet ring, the photographs, and the letters. And -she dressed herself in her best, with a large lace collar over a cloth -jacket, and the once fashionable low-necked pneumonia-blouse, to which -the girls of her class so fondly cling, and went to meet the lady whom, -in terms borrowed from the latest penny romance, she called her “haughty -rival.” - -Mrs. Gudrun received her with excessive graciousness. A costume -rehearsal was in progress, and the lady was in the hands of her maids -and dressers. “I suppose this is the first time you have ever been -behind the scenes?” she inquired. “Look about you as much as you like, -and then you will be able to say to your friends: ‘I have been in Mrs. -Gudrun’s dressing-room.’ You see, I am in the gown I wear in the first -act. It is by Babin; and if you write for a ladies’ paper, you will -remember to say so, please.” - -“I don’t write for any ladies’ paper,” said Aphasia. “I couldn’t spell -well enough—not if they ast me ever so. But it’s a lovely gownd, and I -suppose all that stuff on your face is what makes you look so young an’ -’andsome—from a long way off.” - -Mrs. Gudrun’s famous features assumed a look of cold displeasure. She -assumed the majestic air that suited her so eminently well, and asked -the young person’s business. - -“It’s quite private, and I’ll thank you to send away your maids, if -you’ve no objection,” said the dauntless Aphasia. “The fact is,” she -continued, when the indignant menials had been waved from the apartment, -“as I’ve come to make you a present—a present of a young man——” - -“Look here, my good young woman,” began the incensed manageress. - -Aphasia suddenly handed her the brown-paper parcel, and the wrath of -Mrs. Gudrun was turned to trembling. She was sure this was an escaped -lunatic. Aphasia profited by the lull in the storm to explain. She had -come to hand over her Alfred—stock, goodwill, and fixtures. He had -forgotten to be off with the old love before he went on with the new, -but the old love bore no malice. All was now over. - -“And you may marry ’im whenever you like,” sobbed Aphasia. - -“I never heard anything so indecent in the whole course of my life,” -said Mrs. Gudrun, rising in offended majesty. “Marry Mr. De Boo, indeed! -If I had married every leading man I’ve played love-scenes with since I -adopted this profession, I should be a female Brigham Young! ‘In love -with me!’ Perhaps he is; it’s rather a common complaint among the men I -know. As for Mr. De Boo, if he has low connections and vulgar -entanglements, they are nothing to me. Good-day! Stop! You had better -take this parcel of rubbish with you. Dawkins—the stage-door!” - -And Aphasia found herself being ushered along the passage. Bewildered -and dazzled by the glaring lights, the excitement and the strangeness, -she ran almost into the arms of De Boo himself as he emerged from his -dressing-room next the manageress’s. Had he overheard? There had been a -curtained-over door on that side. Under his paint his handsome features -were black with rage; he caught the girl’s shoulders in a furious grip, -and spluttered in her ear: - -“Damn you! Damn you, you sneaking creature! You have made a pretty mess -of things for me—haven’t you?—with your blab about my father and the -boot-business, and my letters and the ring I gave you. To my dying day -I’ll never speak to you again!” - -He threw her from him savagely and strode away. - -Aphasia stood outside the theater and shook with sobs. It chanced—or did -not chance, so queer are the vagaries of Destiny—that Ulick Snowle, the -president of the New Stage-Door Club, happened to be passing; he had -just called in at the box-office to privately book the first three rows -of the upper circle on behalf of the club, the Old Stage-Doorers having -secured the gallery. Both clubs were originally one, the Old -Stage-Doorers having thrown off the younger club as the cuttlefish gets -rid of the supernumerary limb which in time becomes another cuttlefish. -And the unwritten compact between both clubs is that if one applauds a -new production, the other shall execrate the same—an arrangement which -contributes hugely to the liveliness of first-nights. - -No uninitiated person beholding Ulick, with his shaggy beard, aged -felt-basin hat of Continental make, short nautical coat, and -tight-fitting sporting trousers, would suppose him to be the great -personage he really is. He came up to Aphasia, and bluntly asked her -what was the matter, and if he couldn’t do something? In her -overwhelming woe and desolation, she was like the soda-water bottle of -the glass-ball-stoppered description—once push in the stopper, there is -no arresting the escape of the aërated fluid. She told the sympathizing -Ulick all before he put her into the Hammersmith bus, and when he would -have handed in the fateful brown-paper parcel—“Keep it,” she said, with -a gesture of aversion. “Burn it—chuck the thing in the dustbin. They’re -no manner o’ use to me!” And away she rattled, leaving Ulick Snowle upon -the pavement, in his hands an engine of destruction meet to be used in -the extermination of the unfittest. - -For the New Stage-Door Club did not love Mr. Leo De Boo, whose manner to -old friends—whom he had often led around street corners and relieved of -half-crowns—did not improve with his worldly prospects. And Ulick stood -and meditated while the double torrent of the London traffic went -roaring east and west; and as a charitable old lady was about to press a -penny into his hand, Tom Glauber, the dandy president of the Old -Stage-Doorers, came along, and the men greeted cordially. Von Glauber -seemed interested in something that Ulick had to tell, and the two went -off very confidentially, arm-in-arm. - -“It would be a sensation if, for once, the O.S.D.’s and the N.S.D.’s -acted in unison,” agreed Tom Glauber. - -And on the night when _Pride of Race_ was produced at the Sceptre, both -clubs attended in full strength, every man with a crook-handled -walking-stick, and a parcel buttoned under his coat. The piece had just -concluded a run of three hundred nights, and every reader is acquainted -with the plot, which is of modern Italy and Rome of to-day, to quote the -programme. We all know how the young Marchese di Monte Polverino, in -whose veins ran the bluest blood of the Latin race, secretly wedded -Aquella Guazetta, the tripe-seller, who had won his lofty affections in -the guise of a Bulgarian Princess, and how the dread secret of Aquella’s -origin was revealed at the very moment when the loftiest and most -exclusive of the Roman nobility were about to welcome the newly made -Marchesa into their ranks.... Aquella, her brain turned by the acuteness -of her mental suffering, greets the revelation with a peal of frenzied -laughter. Now this laughter was a continual obstacle, during rehearsals, -in the path of Mrs. Gudrun. Said she: - -“The peculiarity and originality of my genius, as Cluffer says, consists -in the fact that I can’t do the things that might be expected of me—not -for filberts; while I _can_ do the things that mightn’t. If I can’t -really hit off that laugh, I’ll have a woman in the wings to do it for -me. But my impression is that I shall be all right at night. Don’t -forget, Gormleigh, that you’re not to tub the chandelier altogether; I -hate to play to a dark house.” - -“Py vich innovation,” said Gormleigh afterwards, “de gonsbirators vas -enapled to garry out their blan. Himmel!” he cried, dabbing his -overflowing eyes with an antediluvian silk pocket-handkerchief, “shall I -effer forget—no, not vile I lif—de face of dot jung man!” - -For at the moment when Monte Polverino’s scorn of the lovely plebeian he -has wedded is expressed in words—when Aquella, pierced to the heart by -being called “a low-born vulgarian” and a “peasant huckster,” is about -to utter her famous yell of frenzied laughter, the Old Stage-Doorers and -the New Stage-Doorers hung out their boots. A _chevaux de frise_ of -walking-sticks, from each of which depended a pair of these -indispensable articles of attire, graced the gallery, distinguished the -upper circle, and appeared upon the level of the pit. Stricken to the -soul, faltering and ghastly under his paint, and shaking in the most -sumptuous pair of patent leathers, white kid topped, in which he had yet -appeared, De Boo blankly contemplated the horrid spectacle; while Mrs. -Gudrun, to whose somewhat latent sense of humor the spectacle appealed, -burst into peal upon peal of the wildest laughter ever heard beyond the -walls of an establishment for the care of the mentally afflicted. “The -grandeur, poignancy, and reality of the acting,” wrote Cluffer, of the -_Morning Whooper_, “was acknowledged by a crowded house with a deafening -and unanimous outburst of applause.” - -“Both Mrs. Gudrun and Mr. De Boo attained the highest level of dramatic -expression,” pronounced Mullekens, of the _Daily Tomahawk_. “It was the -touch of Nature which attunes the universe to one throb of universal -relationship.” - -The play was a success. Even the “Boo’s!” of both the clubs, united for -the nonce in disapprobation, could not rob Leo of his laurels. He wears -them to-day, for _Pride of Race_ has enjoyed a tremendous run. - -“We’ve made the beggar’s reputation instead of sending him back to the -boot-shop and that poor girl,” said Ulick Snowle to Tom Glauber next -day. - -“Possibly,” said Tom Glauber, sniffing at his inseparable carnation. -“But it’s all the better for the girl, I imagine, in the long run.” - - - - - A SPIRIT ELOPEMENT - - -When I exchanged my maiden name for better or worse, and dearest -Vavasour and I, at the conclusion of the speeches—I was married in a -traveling-dress of Bluefern’s—descended the steps of mamma’s house in -Ebury Street—the Belgravian, _not_ the Pimlican end—and, amid a -hurricane of farewells and a hailstorm of pink and yellow and white -_confetti_, stepped into the brougham that was to convey us to a -Waterloo Station, _en route_ for Southampton—our honeymoon was to be -spent in Guernsey—we were perfectly well satisfied with ourselves and -each other. This state of mind is not uncommon at the outset of wedded -life. You may have heard the horrid story of the newly-wedded cannibal -chief, who remarked that he had never yet known a young bride to -disagree with her husband in the early stages of the honeymoon. I -believe if dearest Vavasour had seriously proposed to chop me into -_cotêlettes_ and eat me, with or without sauce, I should have taken it -for granted that the powers that be had destined me to the high end of -supplying one of the noblest of created beings with an _entrée_ dish. - -We were idiotically blissful for two or three days. It was flowery -April, and Guernsey was looking her loveliest. No horrid hotel or -boarding-house sheltered our lawful endearments. Some old friends of -papa’s had lent us an ancient mansion standing in a wild garden, now one -pink riot of almond-blossom, screened behind lofty walls of lichened red -brick and weather-worn, wrought-iron gates, painted yellow-white like -all the other iron and wood work about the house. - -“Mon Désir” the place was called, and the fragrance of potpourri yet -hung about the old paneled salons. Vavasour wrote a sonnet—I have -omitted to speak before of my husband’s poetic gifts—all about the -breath of new Passion stirring the fragrant dust of dead old Love, and -the kisses of lips long moldered that mingled with ours. It was a lovely -sonnet, but crawly, as the poetical compositions of the Modern School -are apt to be. And Vavasour was an enthusiastic convert to, and follower -of, the Modern School. He had often told me that, had not his father -heartlessly thrown him into his brewery business at the outset of his -career—Sim’s Mild and Bitter Ales being the foundation upon which the -family fortunes were originally reared—he, Vavasour, would have been, -ere the time of speaking, known to Fame, not only as a Minor Poet, but a -Minor Decadent Poet—which trisyllabic addition, I believe, makes as -advantageous a difference as the word “native” when attached to an -oyster, or the guarantee “new laid” when employed with reference to an -egg. - -Dear Vavasour’s temperament and tastes having a decided bias towards the -gloomy and mystic, he had, before his great discovery of his latent -poetical gifts, and in the intervals of freedom from the brain-carking -and soul-stultifying cares of business, made several excursions into the -regions of the Unknown. He had had some sort of intercourse with the -Swedenborgians, and had mingled with the Muggletonians; he had coquetted -with the Christian Scientists, and had been, until Theosophic Buddhism -opened a wider field to his researches, an enthusiastic Spiritualist. -But our engagement somewhat cooled his passion for psychic research, and -when questioned by me with regard to table-rappings, manifestations, and -materializations, I could not but be conscious of a reticence in his -manner of responding to my innocent desire for information. The -reflection that he probably, like Canning’s knife-grinder, had no story -to tell, soon induced me to abandon the subject. I myself am somewhat -reserved at this day in my method of dealing with the subject of spooks. -But my silence does not proceed from ignorance. - -Knowledge came to me after this fashion. Though the April sun shone -bright and warm upon Guernsey, the island nights were chill. Waking by -dear Vavasour’s side—the novelty of this experience has since been -blunted by the usage of years—somewhere between one and two o’clock -towards break of the fourth day following our marriage, it occurred to -me that a faint cold draft, with a suggestion of dampness about it, was -blowing against my right cheek. One of the windows upon that side—our -room possessed a rather unbecoming cross-light—had probably been left -open. Dear Vavasour, who occupied the right side of our couch, would -wake with toothache in the morning, or, perhaps, with mumps! Shuddering, -as much at the latter idea as with cold, I opened my eyes, and sat up in -bed with a definite intention of getting out of it and shutting the -offending casement. Then I saw Katie for the first time. - -She was sitting on the right side of the bed, close to dear Vavasour’s -pillow; in fact, almost hanging over it. From the first moment I knew -that which I looked upon to be no creature of flesh and blood, but the -mere apparition of a woman. It was not only that her face, which struck -me as both pert and plain; her hands; her hair, which she wore dressed -in an old-fashioned ringletty mode—in fact, her whole personality was -faintly luminous, and surrounded by a halo of bluish phosphorescent -light. It was not only that she was transparent, so that I saw the -pattern of the old-fashioned, striped, dimity bed-curtain, in the -shelter of which she sat, quite plainly through her. The consciousness -was further conveyed to me by a voice—or the toneless, flat, faded -impression of a voice—speaking faintly and clearly, not at my outer, but -at my inner ear. - -“Lie down again, and don’t fuss. It’s only Katie!” she said. - -“Only Katie!” I liked that! - -“I dare say you don’t,” she said tartly, replying as she had spoken, and -I wondered that a ghost should exhibit such want of breeding. “But you -have got to put up with me!” - -“How dare you intrude here—and at such an hour!” I exclaimed mentally, -for there was no need to wake dear Vavasour by talking aloud when my -thoughts were read at sight by the ghostly creature who sat so -familiarly beside him. - -“I knew your husband before you did,” responded Katie, with a faint -phosphorescent sneer. “We became acquainted at a _séance_ in North-West -London soon after his conversion to Spiritualism, and have seen a great -deal of each other from time to time.” She tossed her shadowy curls with -a possessive air that annoyed me horribly. “He was constantly -materializing me in order to ask questions about Shakespeare. It is a -standing joke in our Spirit world that, from the best educated spook in -our society down to the most illiterate astral that ever knocked out -‘rapport’ with one ‘p,’ we are all expected to know whether Shakespeare -wrote his own plays, or whether they were done by another person of the -same name.” - -“And which way was it?” I asked, yielding to a momentary twinge of -curiosity. - -Katie laughed mockingly. “There you go!” she said, with silent contempt. - -“I wish _you_ would!” I snapped back mentally. “It seems to me that you -manifest a great lack of refinement in coming here!” - -“I cannot go until Vavasour has finished,” said Katie pertly. “Don’t you -see that he has materialized me by dreaming about me? And as there -exists _at present_”—she placed an annoying stress upon the last two -words—“a strong sympathy between you, so it comes about that I, as your -husband’s spiritual affinity, am visible to your waking perceptions. All -the rest of the time I am hovering about you, though unseen.” - -“I call it detestable!” I retorted indignantly. Then I gripped my -sleeping husband by the shoulder. “Wake up! wake up!” I cried aloud, -wrath lending power to my grasp and a penetrative quality to my voice. -“Wake up and leave off dreaming! I cannot and will not endure the -presence of this creature another moment!” - -“_Whaa_——” muttered my husband, with the almost inebriate incoherency of -slumber, “_whasamaramydarling?_” - -“Stop dreaming about that creature,” I cried, “or I shall go home to -Mamma!” - -“Creature?” my husband echoed, and as he sat up I had the satisfaction -of seeing Katie’s misty, luminous form fade slowly into nothingness. - -“You know who I mean!” I sobbed. “Katie—your spiritual affinity, as she -calls herself!” - -“You don’t mean,” shouted Vavasour, now thoroughly roused, “that you -have seen _her_?” - -“I do mean it,” I mourned. “Oh, if I had only known of your having an -entanglement with any creature of the kind, I would never have married -you—never!” - -“Hang her!” burst out Vavasour. Then he controlled himself, and said -soothingly: “After all, dearest, there is nothing to be jealous of——” - -“I jealous! And of that——” I was beginning, but Vavasour went on: - -“After all, she is only a disembodied astral entity with whom I became -acquainted—through my fifth principle, which is usually well -developed—in the days when I moved in Spiritualistic society. She was, -when living—for she died long before I was born—a young lady of very -good family. I believe her father was a clergyman ... and I will not -deny that I encouraged her visits.” - -“Discourage them from this day!” I said firmly. “Neither think of her -nor dream of her again, or I will have a separation.” - -“I will keep her, as much as possible, out of my waking thoughts,” said -poor Vavasour, trying to soothe me; “but a man cannot control his -dreams, and she pervades mine in a manner which, even before our -engagement, my pet, I began to find annoying. However, if she really is, -as she has told me, a lady by birth and breeding, she will -understand”—he raised his voice as though she were there and he intended -her to hear—“that I am now a married man, and from this moment desire to -have no further communication with her. Any suitable provision it is in -my power to make——” - -He ceased, probably feeling the difficulty he would have in explaining -the matter to his lawyers; and it seemed to me that a faint mocking -sniggle, or rather the auricular impression of it, echoed his words. -Then, after some more desultory conversation, we fell soundly asleep. An -hour may have passed when the same chilly sensation as of a damp draft -blowing across the bed roused me. I rubbed my cheek and opened my eyes. -They met the pale, impertinent smile of the hateful Katie, who was -installed in her old post beside Vavasour’s end of the bolster. - -“You see,” she said, in the same soundless way, and with a knowing -little nod of triumph, “it is no use. He is dreaming of me again!” - -“Wake up!” I screamed, snatching the pillow from under my husband’s head -and madly hurling it at the shameless intruder. This time Vavasour was -almost snappish at being disturbed. Daylight surprised us in the middle -of our first connubial quarrel. The following night brought a repetition -of the whole thing, and so on, _da capo_, until it became plain to us, -to our mutual disgust, that the more Vavasour strove to banish Katie -from his dreams, the more persistently she cropped up in them. She was -the most ill-bred and obstinate of astrals—Vavasour and I the most -miserable of newly-married people. A dozen times in a night I would be -roused by that cold draft upon my cheek, would open my eyes and see that -pale, phosphorescent, outline perched by Vavasour’s pillow—nine times -out of the dozen would be driven to frenzy by the possessive air and -cynical smile of the spook. And although Vavasour’s former regard for -her was now converted into hatred, he found the thought of her -continually invading his waking mind at the most unwelcome seasons. She -had begun to appear to both of us _by day as well as by night_ when our -poisoned honeymoon came to an end, and we returned to town to occupy the -house which Vavasour had taken and furnished in Sloane Street. I need -only mention that Katie accompanied us. - -Insufficient sleep and mental worry had by this time thoroughly soured -my temper no less than Vavasour’s. When I charged him with secretly -encouraging the presence I had learned to hate, he rudely told me to -think as I liked! He implored my pardon for this brutality afterwards -upon his knees, and with the passage of time I learned to endure the -presence of his attendant shade with patience. When she nocturnally -hovered by the side of my sleeping spouse, or in constituence no less -filmy than a whiff of cigarette-smoke, appeared at his elbow in the face -of day, I saw her plainly, and at these moments she would favor me with -a significant contraction of the eyelid, which was, to say the least of -it, unbecoming in a spirit who had been a clergyman’s daughter. After -one of these experiences it was that the idea which I afterwards carried -into execution occurred to me. - -I began by taking in a few numbers of a psychological publication -entitled _The Spirit-Lamp_. Then I formed the acquaintance of Madame -Blavant, the renowned Professoress of Spiritualism and Theosophy. -Everybody has heard of Madame, many people have read her works, some -have heard her lecture. I had heard her lecture. She was a lady with a -strong determined voice and strong determined features. She wore her -plentiful gray hair piled in sibylline coils on the top of her head, -and—when she lectured—appeared in a white Oriental silk robe that fell -around her tall gaunt figure in imposing folds. This robe was replaced -by one of black satin when she held her _séances_. At other times, in -the seclusion of her study, she was draped in an ample gown of Indian -chintz innocent of cut, but yet imposing. She smiled upon my new-born -desire for psychic instruction, and when I had subscribed for a course -of ten private _séances_ at so many guineas a piece she smiled more. - -Madame lived in a furtive, retiring house, situated behind high walls in -Endor’s Grove, N.W. A long glass tunnel led from the garden gate to the -street door, for the convenience of Mahatmas and other persons who -preferred privacy. I was one of those persons, for not for spirit worlds -would I have had Vavasour know of my repeated visits to Endor’s Grove. -Before these were over I had grown quite indifferent to supernatural -manifestations, banjos and accordions that were thrummed by invisible -performers, blood-red writing on mediums’ wrists, mysterious characters -in slate-pencil, Planchette, and the Table Alphabet. And I had made and -improved upon acquaintance with Simon. - -Simon was a spirit who found me attractive. He tried in his way to make -himself agreeable, and, with my secret motive in view—let me admit -without a blush—I encouraged him. When I knew I had him thoroughly in -hand, I attended no more _séances_ at Endor’s Grove. My purpose was -accomplished upon a certain night, when, feeling my shoulder violently -shaken, I opened the eyes which had been closed in simulated slumber to -meet the indignant glare of my husband. I glanced over his shoulder. -Katie did not occupy her usual place. I turned my glance towards the -armchair which stood at my side of the bed. It was not vacant. As I -guessed, it was occupied by Simon. There he sat, the luminously -transparent appearance of a weak-chinned, mild-looking young clergyman, -dressed in the obsolete costume of eighty years previously. He gave me a -bow in which respect mingled with some degree of complacency, and -glanced at Vavasour. - -“I have been explaining matters to your husband,” he said, in that -soundless spirit-voice with which Katie had first made me acquainted. -“He understands that I am a clergyman and a reputable spirit, drawn into -your life-orbit by the irresistible attraction which your mediumistic -organization exercises over my——” - -“There, you hear what he says!” I interrupted, nodding confirmatively at -Vavasour. “Do let me go to sleep!” - -“What, with that intrusive beast sitting beside you?” shouted Vavasour -indignantly. “Never!” - -“Think how many months I have put up with the presence of Katie!” said -I. “After all, it’s only tit for tat!” And the ghost of a twinkle in -Simon’s pale eye seemed to convey that he enjoyed the retort. - -Vavasour grunted sulkily, and resumed his recumbent position. But -several times that night he awakened me with renewed objurgations of -Simon, who with unflinching resolution maintained his post. Later on I -started from sleep to find Katie’s usual seat occupied. She looked less -pert and confident than usual, I thought, and rather humbled and fagged, -as though she had had some trouble in squeezing her way into Vavasour’s -sleeping thoughts. By day, after that night, she seldom appeared. My -husband’s brain was too much occupied with Simon, who assiduously -haunted me. And it was now my turn to twit Vavasour with unreasonable -jealousy. Yet though I gloried in the success of my stratagem, the -continual presence of that couple of spooks was an unremitting strain -upon my nerves. - -But at length an extraordinary conviction dawned on my mind, and became -stronger with each successive night. Between Simon and Katie an -acquaintance had sprung up. I would awaken, or Vavasour would arouse, to -find them gazing across the barrier of the bolster which divided them -with their pale negatives of eyes, and chatting in still, spirit voices. -Once I started from sleep to find myself enveloped in a kind of -mosquito-tent of chilly, filmy vapor, and the conviction rushed upon me -that He and She had leaned across our couch and exchanged an intangible -embrace. Katie was the leading spirit in this, I feel convinced—there -was no effrontery about Simon. Upon the next night I, waking, overheard -a fragment of conversation between them which plainly revealed how -matters stood. - -“We should never have met upon the same plane,” remarked Simon silently, -“but for the mediumistic intervention of these people. Of the man”—he -glanced slightingly towards Vavasour—“I cannot truthfully say I think -much. The lady”—he bowed in my direction—“is everything that a lady -should be!” - -“You are infatuated with her, it is plain!” snapped Katie, “and the -sooner you are removed from her sphere of influence the better.” - -“Her power with me is weakening,” said Simon, “as Vavasour’s is with -you. Our outlines are no longer so clear as they used to be, which -proves that our astral individualities are less strongly impressed upon -the brains of our earthly sponsors than they were. We are still -materialized; but how long this will continue——” He sighed and shrugged -his shoulders. - -“Don’t let us wait for a formal dismissal, then,” said Katie boldly. -“Let us throw up our respective situations.” - -“I remember enough of the Marriage Service to make our union, if not -regular, at least respectable,” said Simon. - -“And I know quite a fashionable place on the Outside Edge of Things, -where we could settle down,” said Katie, “and live practically on -nothing.” - -I blinked at that moment. When I saw the room again clearly, the chairs -beside our respective pillows were empty. - -Years have passed, and neither Vavasour nor myself has ever had a -glimpse of the spirits whom we were the means of introducing to one -another. We are quite content to know ourselves deprived for ever of -their company. Yet sometimes, when I look at our three babies, I wonder -whether that establishment of Simon’s and Katie’s on the Outside Edge of -Things includes a nursery. - - - - - THE WIDOW’S MITE - - -People bestowed that nickname upon little Lord Garlingham years ago, -when he was the daintiest of human playthings ever adored by a young -mother. Shutting my eyes, I can recall him, all golden curls and frills, -sitting on the front seat of the victoria with Toto, the Maltese. -Japanese pugs had not then come into fashion, nor the ubiquitous -automobile. Gar is the Widow’s Mite still, but for other reasons. He was -a charming, irresolute, impulsive child, who invariably meant -“macaroons” when he said “sponge cake.” It recurs to me that he was -passionately fond of dolls, not nigger Sambo dolls, or sailor dolls, or -Punchinelli with curved caps and bells, or policemen with large feet so -cunningly weighted that it is next door to impossible to knock them -over, but frilled and furbelowed dollies of the gentler sex. There was a -blue princess in tulle with a glass chandelier-drop tiara, and a dancing -girl in pink, and a stout, shapeless, rag lady, whose features were -painted on the calico ball that represented her head, and whose hair -resembled the fringe of a black woollen shawl. Holding her by one leg, -Gar would sink to sleep upon his lace-trimmed pillows in a halo of -shining curls, and Lady Garlingham’s last new friend or latest new -adorer would be brought up to the night nursery for an after-dinner peep -at “my precious in his cot.” - -“My precious” was equally charming in his Eton days, when his sleepy -green eyes looked up at you from under a lock of fair silky hair that -was never to be kept within regulation School bounds, but continually -strayed upon the fair, if freckled, expanse of a brow which might have -been the home of a pure and innocent mind, and probably was not. He had -a pleasant treble boy’s voice and a beautiful smile, particularly when -his mother told him he might smoke just one cigarette, of her own -special brand, as a great treat. - -“Mother’s are hay,” he said afterwards in confidence, and added that he -preferred cut Cavendish, and that the best way to induce a meerschaum to -color was to smoke it foul, and never to remove the dottle. But Lady -Garlingham was never the wiser. She had the utmost faith in her boy. - -“Gar will be a dab at Classics,” she said with pride. “Fancy his knowing -that Dido was a heathen goddess, and Procrustes was a Grecian King who -murdered his mother and afterwards put out his own eyes! I must really -give his tutor a hint not to bring him on _too_ fast. He will have to -make his own way in the world, poor dear, that is certain; but I don’t -want him to turn out a literary genius with eccentric clothes, or -anything in the scientific line that isn’t careful about its nails and -doesn’t comb its hair.” - -Garlingham’s clothes are always of the latest fashion and in the most -admirable taste. His hair is as well groomed, his hands are as -immaculate as any mother’s heart could desire, and he has not turned out -a genius. During his career at Oxford he did not allow his love of study -to interfere with the more serious pursuit of athletic distinction. He -left the University unburdened with honors, carrying in his wake a -string of bills as long as a kite’s tail. Relieved of this by the -sacrifice of some of Lady Garlingham’s diamonds, the kite shot up into -the empyrean in the wake of a dazzling star of the comic-opera stage. - -“But, thank Heaven, the boy has principles,” breathed Lady Garlingham. -“He never dreamed of marrying her!” - -Garlingham descended from the skies ere long, tangled in a telegraphic -wire, and went into the Diplomatic Service. He became fourth -under-secretary at an Imperial foreign Embassy, in virtue of the -marriage of his maternal aunt with Prince John Schulenstorff-Wangelbrode -(who was Military Attaché in the days of the pannier and the polonaise, -the bustle and the fringed whip-parasol). I have not the least idea in -what Garlingham’s duties consisted, and the dear fellow was -diplomatically reticent when sounded on the subject; but of one thing I -am sure, that few young men have worn an official button and lapels with -greater ease and distinction. He quite adored his mother, and made her -his _confidante_ in all his love affairs. Indeed I believe Lady -Garlingham kept a little register of these at one time on the sticks of -an ivory fan—those that were going off, those that were in full bloom, -and those that were just coming on; and posted up dates and set down -names with the utmost regularity. - -For, like the typical butterfly, Garlingham sipped every flower and -changed every hour. A very mature Polly has now his passion requited, -and if human happiness depended on avoirdupois, and it were an -established mathematical fact that the felicity of the object attracted -may be calculated by the dimensions of the object attracting, then is -the handsome boy I used to tip a happy man indeed. - -For Gar, “that pocket edition of Apollo,” as a Royal personage with a -happy knack at nicknames termed him—Gar has married a middle-aged, not -too good-looking, extremely fat widow, unknown to fame as Mrs. Rollo -Polkingham. The couple were Hanover Squared in June. Leila and Sheila -Polkingham made the loveliest pair of Dresden china bridesmaids -imaginable, and a Bishop tied the knot, assisted by the brother of the -bride, the Reverend Michael O’Halloran, of Mount Slattery, County Quare, -a surpliced brogue with a Trinity College B.A. hood. The hymns that were -sung by the choir during the ceremony were, “The Voice that Breathed,” -and “Fight the Good Fight,” and the bride looked quite as bridal as -might have been expected of a thirty-eight inch girth arrayed in the -latest heliotrope shade. She became peony, Garlingham pale blue, when -the moment arrived for him to pronounce his vows, and a voice—a high, -nasal voice of the penetrating, saw-edged American kind—said, several -pews behind, quite audibly: “Well, I call it child-stealing!” - -The owner of that voice was at the reception in Chesterfield Crescent. -So was I, and when Garlingham thanked me for a silver cigar-box I had -sent him in memory of our old friendship, his hand was damp and clammy, -though he smiled. The Dowager Lady Garlingham, looking much younger than -her daughter-in-law, floated across to ask me why I never came to see -her now, and Gar drifted away. Later, I had a fleeting glimpse of the -bridegroom standing in the large, cool shadow of his newly-made bride, -looking helplessly from one to the other of his recently-acquired -stepdaughters. Then my circular gaze met and merged in the still -attractive eyes of Lady Garlingham. - -“You heard,” she breathed in her old confidential way, “what that very -outspoken person—I think a Miss Van Something, from Philadelphia—said in -church?” - -“I did hear,” I returned, “and, while I deplored her candor, I could not -but admit——” - -“That she had hit off the situation with dreadful accuracy—I felt that, -too,” sighed Gar’s mother. - -“We are old friends, or were,” said I, for people always became -sentimental in the vicinity of Lady Garlingham. “Tell me how it -happened!” - -“Oh, how——” Lady Garlingham adroitly turned a slight groan into a little -cough. “Indeed, I hardly know. All that seems burned into me is that I -have become a dowager without adequate cause.” - -Her pretty brown eyebrows crumpled; she dabbed her still charming eyes -with an absurd little lace handkerchief. She wore a wonderful dress of -something filmy in Watteau blue, and a Lamballe hat with a _paradis_. -Through innumerable veils of tulle her complexion was really wonderful, -considering, and her superb hair still tawny gold. - -“Don’t look at me and ask yourself why I’ve never married again,” she -commanded, in the old petulant way. “For Gar’s sake, is the stereotyped -answer to that. And when I look at _her_——” She dabbed away a tear with -the absurd little handkerchief. “She hasn’t had the indecency to call me -‘Mother’ _yet_.... But she will, I know she will! If she doesn’t, she is -more than human. I have said such things to _her_.” - -“I can quite believe it,” I agreed. - -Champagne cups were going about; infinitesimal sandwiches, tabloids of -condensed indigestion, were being washed down. The best man, an Attaché -friend of Garlingham’s, brandishing a silver-handled carving-knife, was -encouraging the bridling bride to attack the cake. Sheila and Leila -hovered near with silver baskets, and Garlingham, with the merest shadow -of his old easy _insouciance_, was replying to the statute and legendary -chaff of the other men. - -“You know he was engaged to the second girl, Sheila, first?” went on -Lady Garlingham plaintively. - -I had not known it, and it gave me a thrill. - -“Indeed!” I said in a tone of polite inquiry. - -“When he was a very little boy, and I took him into a shop to buy a -toy,” said poor Lady Garlingham, “he always was in raptures with it, -whatever it was, until we were half-way home, and _then_ nothing would -satisfy him but the carriage being turned round and driven back, so that -he might exchange the thing for something he had particularly disliked -at first.” - -I recalled the trait in my own experience of my young friend. - -“Ah, yes. He always took _pralines_ when he really wanted chocolate -fondants,” sighed his mother. “And then—but perhaps you have -forgotten—the dolls?” - -I had forgotten the dolls. I suppose I gaped rather stupidly. - -“He had three,” gulped Lady Garlingham. “He chose the blue one first, -and then, when we had just reached Hyde Park Gate, he cried, and said it -was the pink one he had wanted all along. So we went back and got her, -and drove home to lunch, which, of course, was Gar’s dinner. And then, -if you had seen him, poor darling,”—her maternal bosom heaved with a -repressed sob—“with his underlip turned down in a quite South Sea Island -way, and the tears tumbling into his rice pudding because the blue -creature was absolutely his ideal from the first, you would have been -foolish enough to order the carriage and drive him back to the Regent -Street toyshop.” - -“As you did?” - -“As I did,” admitted Lady Garlingham. - -“With the result that might have been expected?” - -“With the result that seems to me _now_ to be a hateful foreshadowing of -what was to be my poor darling’s fate in life,” said the poor darling’s -mother.... “No, thank you, Sheila dear, I positively could not touch -it,” she added, as the cake-basket came our way. “Not even to dream on—I -have quite done with dreaming now.” - -“But how,” I asked hypercritically, “could Garlingham’s subsequent -choice of the blue doll, originally discarded in favor of the pink, -foreshadow his ultimate fate in life?” - -“Oh, don’t you understand?” quavered poor Lady Garlingham. “He went into -the toyshop by himself, and came marching out with what the Americans -call a rag-baby, the most odious, distorted, shapeless horror you can -imagine. It fascinated him by its sheer ugliness. He was obsessed, -magnetized, compelled.... As in this case!” A burst of confidence broke -down the floodgates of the poor woman’s reserve. She grasped me by the -arm as she gurgled out hysterically—rocking her slight form to and fro: -“My dear, _she_ is the rag-doll, this awful widow creature Garlingham -has married. And to his fatal curse of indecision he owes the Incubus -that is crushing him to-day.” - -The bride had tripped upstairs to put on her going-away gown, attended -by Leila and Sheila and some freshly-married women, who meant to -struggle for the slippers for second choice. - -Loud, explosive bursts of jeering merriment came from the dining-room, -where most of the men of the party had congregated. An exhausted maid -and a very obvious private detective hovered in the neighborhood of the -display of wedding presents, and through the open door of the -drawing-room one caught a glimpse of suspiciously new luggage piled up -in the hall, and a little group of youths and maidens of the callower -kind, who were industriously packing the sunshades and umbrellas in the -holdalls with rice and confetti. - -“My poor, poor boy has been in and out of love _hundreds_ of times,” -moaned the despairing Dowager, “without once having been actually -engaged. So that when I saw Gar with these three women sitting on four -green chairs in the Park in May, I was not seriously alarmed. Georgiana -Bayham told me that the stout woman with too many bangles was a Mrs. -Rollo Polkingham, a widow, of whom nobody who might with truth be styled -anybody had ever heard, and that she had a wild, jungly house in -Chesterfield Crescent—(don’t those climbing peacocks in the wall-paper -set your teeth on edge?)—and always asked young men to call—and wanted -to know their intentions at the third visit.... ‘I would give this -turquoise charm off my _porte-bonheur_,’ said Georgiana, in her loud, -bubbling voice, ‘to know which of the two daughters Gar is smitten with. -The girl with the eyes like black ballot-balls, or the other with the -Gaiety smile.’ ... My dear, it was the dark one, Leila, as it happened. -Not that Gar flirted desperately. But they went to Hurlingham and -lunched at Prince’s, and then the mother thought my boy hooked, and -struck——” - -“Asked his intentions?” I hinted. - -“I knew something had happened,” said Gar’s mother, “when he came in to -tea with me that very afternoon. ‘Mother, am I a villain?’ were his very -words. ‘No, dear,’ I said, ‘do you feel like one?’ Then it came out that -the Polkingham woman had asked his intentions with regard to Leila; and -never having had such a thing done to him before, poor, dear boy! Gar -was quite prostrated. He did not deny that he found the eldest -Polkingham girl attractive, but secretly he had been more closely drawn -to the second, Sheila.” - -“The pink doll,” I murmured. - -“He behaved with the nicest honor in the matter,” declared Lady -Garlingham. “When he told me he was really in love with Sheila, and -could never be happy until he had married her—and how a young woman with -such a muddy complexion could inspire such a passion I don’t pretend to -know—I said: ‘Very well, you have my permission to tell her so. I shall -never stand in the way of your happiness, my son—although these people -are not in Our Set.’ If you had seen his shining eyes. If you had heard -the thrill in his voice as he said, ‘What a rattling good sort you are, -mother!’ you would have felt with me that the sacrifice was worth it. -And then he rushed off in a hansom to declare himself.” Lady Garlingham -clutched my arm painfully. - -“To declare himself to Sheila?” - -“And came back within the space of half an hour engaged to Leila,” -panted Lady Garlingham. “No, don’t laugh!” - -“The b-blue d-doll!” I gasped. - -“He was as pale as death!” said his mother. “He had found Leila in the -drawing-room in a becoming half-light, and been taken off his guard.” - -“And metaphorically he told the shopwoman he would prefer that one,” I -said shakily. “I understand! Was he very unhappy over his bargain?” - -“Frightfully out of sorts and off color,” said the wooer’s mother, -“until at a crisis, a month later, I nerved him to go and see the mother -and explain the mistake.” - -“And did he?” - -“I will say Mrs. Polkingham took the revelation in good part,” said Lady -Garlingham. “Leila cried a good deal, I believe, when she turned Gar -over to Sheila, and Sheila was not disagreeably inclined to crow. I must -give the girls credit for their behavior. As for Gar, he was the very -picture of young, ardent happiness. ‘Mother,’ I can hear him saying, -‘thanks to you, I have won the dearest and loveliest girl in the world.’ -(Poor boy!) ‘And I’m as happy as a gardener.’” - -“Did that phase last long?” I queried, with twitching facial muscles. - -“He began to flag, as it were, in about six weeks,” said Garlingham’s -mother mournfully. “My poor, affectionate, _wobbly_ boy. The sky of his -simple happiness was overcast. There came a day when the floodgates of -his resolve to go through with everything at any cost—sacrifice himself -for the sake of his duty and for the credit of his family name——” - -“_Noblesse oblige_,” I stammered chokily. “_Noblesse oblige._” - -“The floodgates were broken down,” said his mother, with a tremble in -her voice. “His heart reverted with a bound to the—the other—to Leila.” - -“To the blue doll!” I spluttered. - -“When he entreated me,” went on Lady Garlingham, “begged me even with -tears to be his ambassadress to Leila, I grieve to say that for the -first time in his life I failed to rise to the occasion of his need. I -said: ‘I shall do nothing of the kind. Get out of the muddle as you -can—I wash my hands of it.’ And he thought me very hard and very -unfeeling, I know; but even when the _bouleversement_ was managed for -the third time, I could not bring myself to regard the position from my -usually philosophical point of view. It was too cruel. The retransfer of -the engagement-ring, for instance——” - -“Ah, true,” I murmured, “and the presents!” - -“Too painful!” sighed Lady Garlingham. “It was ultimately arranged by -Gar’s buying a new ring, and Sheila’s dropping the old one into the -almsbag at St. Baverstock’s. Poor girl! I will say her demeanor in the -trying circumstances was admirable.” - -“As for the other?” I hinted. - -“Leila is not a refined type of girl,” said Lady Garlingham decidedly. -“Her whole expression was that of a Bank Holiday tripper young person -who has just dismounted from one of those giddy-go-rounds. Boat-swings -might impart the dazed look. The mother seemed harassed. As for Gar——” - -I guessed what was coming, but I would not have missed hearing Lady -Garlingham tell it for worlds. - -“There came a day—a dreadful, dreadful day,” she said, with pale lips, -“when Gar told me that his life was ruined _unless he changed back_! We -had a _dreadful scene_, and for the first time in my life I had -hysterics. Then the unhappy boy tore from the house—_ventre à -terre_—leaving me a perfect wreck, held up by my maid Pinner—you know -Pinner?” - -I nodded speechlessly. - -“My wretched boy tore from the house, jumped into his ‘Gohard,’ which -was standing at the door—hurtled to Chesterfield Crescent—told the -painful truth——” - -“Swopped dolls yet once again, and came back with the rag-baby,” I -gasped. - -“_And_ now,” groaned Lady Garlingham, “he has to carry it through life!” - -There was a gabbling on the upper landing. The bride was coming down in -a white cut-cloth, tailor-made gown and a picture hat, Leila and Sheila -and a bonneted maid following. The bridegroom, in immaculate tweeds, -appeared at a lower door, the smug face of his valet behind him. There -was a rush of women, an insane kissing and shaking of hands, a glare of -red carpet, a flapping of striped awning. Rice and confetti impregnated -the air, the doorsteps were swamped with smartly-dressed people. The -chauffeur of Gar’s “Gohard” with a giant favor in the buttonhole of his -livery coat grinned when Garlingham leaped tigerishly upon him and tore -it from his chest. The automobile moved on, pursued by farewells. Some -one had thoughtfully attached two slippers to its rearward steps, a -stout, elderly, white satin slipper and a slim masculine, evening shoe -of the pump kind, almost new. - -“Say!” said the saw-edged American voice I had heard in the church—“say, -won’t the car-conductor allow she’s traveling with her little boy? What -will folks call him, anyhow?” - -My mouth was on a level with the speaker’s back hair. - -“The Widow’s Mite,” I said aloud—and fled. - - - - - SUSANNA AND HER ELDERS - - - I - -The Earl of Beaumaris, a worthy and imposing personage, flushed from the -nape of his neck to the high summit of his cranium—premature baldness -figured amongst the family heredities—paced, in creaking patent-leather -boots, up and down the castle library—a noble apartment of Tudor design, -lined with rare and antique volumes into which none ever looked. There -were other persons present beside the Dowager Countess, and, to judge by -the strainedly polite expression of their faces, the squeaking leather -must have been playing havoc with their nerves. - -“Gustavus,” said the Dowager at length, “you’re an English Peer in your -own castle, and not a pointsman on a Broadway block, unless I’m -considerably mistaken. Sit down!” - -“Mother, I will not be defied!” said Lord Beaumaris. “I will not be -bearded by my own child—a mere chit of a girl! Had Susanna been a boy I -should have known how to deal with this spirit of insubordination. Being -a girl—and moreover, motherless—I abandon her to you. She has many -things to learn, but let the first lesson you inculcate be this—that I -positively refuse to be defied!” - -“The child has, I gather, gone out to take the air when she ought to -have stayed in and taken a scolding,” said Lady Beaumaris. “Does anybody -know of her whereabouts?” - -Alaric Osmond-Omer, a languid, drab-complexioned, light-haired man of -aristocratic appearance, never seen without the smoked eyeglass that -concealed a diabolic squint, spoke: - -“I saw her in a crimson golfing-jacket and a white Tam-o’-shanter -crossing the upper terrace. She carried an alpenstock, and was followed -by quite a pack of dogs—incorporated in the body of one extraordinary -mongrel which I have occasionally observed about the stable-yards. I -gathered that she was going for a climb upon the cliffs. That was about -half an hour ago!” - -“Alaric, you have attended every Family Council that I recollect since I -became a member of this family, and have never before opened your lips,” -said Lady Beaumaris, fixing the unfortunate Alaric with her eye, which -was still black and snappingly bright. “Make this occasion memorable by -offering a suggestion. You really owe us one!” - -Everybody present looked at Alaric, who smiled helplessly and dropped -his eyeglass, revealing the physical peculiarity it concealed. The -effect of the diabolic squint, in combination with his mild features and -somewhat foolish expression, conveyed a general impression of reserve -force. He spoke, fumbling for the missing article, which had plunged -rapturously into his bosom, with long, trim fingers, encrusted with -mourning rings. - -“The question at issue is—unless I have failed in my mental digest of -the situation—how to bring Susanna Viscountess Lymston—pardon me if I -indulge a little my weakness for prolixity——” - -The door creaked, and Alaric broke off. - -“My dear man,” said the Dowager, “I never before heard you utter a -sentence of more than two words’ length!” - -“—To bring Susanna, who is just seventeen and fiercely virginal in her -expressed aversion to, and avoidance of, ordinary, everyday Man—into -compliance with your paternal wishes”—Alaric bowed to Lord -Beaumaris—“where the encouragement of a suitor is concerned!” - -“I have appealed to her filial feelings—which do not appear to exist,” -said Lord Beaumaris; “I have appealed to her reason—I doubt gravely -whether the girl possesses any: ‘There is too much landed property, -there are too many houses and too many heirlooms, and there is not -enough ready money to keep things going,’ I said. Her reply was: ‘Sell -some of the land and some of the houses and all of the pictures, and -then there will be enough to keep up the rest.’ ‘My dear child, is it -possible,’ I said, ‘that at your age, and occupying the position you -occupy, you have no idea of what is meant by an Entail?’ Then I made her -sit down here, in this library, opposite me, and laid plainly before her -why it is necessary for her, as my daughter, to marry, and to marry -Wealth, Position, and Title. Before I had ended she rose with a flaming -face and burst into an hysterical tirade, which lasted ten minutes. I -gather that she was willing to marry Sir Prosper Le Gai or the Knight of -the Swan if either of these gentlemen proposed for her hand. Neither -being available, she intends, I gather, to write great poems, or paint -great pictures, or go upon the stage.... Go upon the stage! My blood -curdled at the bare idea. It is still in that unpleasant condition.” -Lord Beaumaris shuddered violently, and pressed his handkerchief to his -nose. “If you have any advice to give, Alaric,” he said bluntly, “oblige -us by giving it. We are at a positive crux!” - -The drab-complexioned, light-haired Alaric responded: - -“In my poor opinion—which may be crassly wrong—too much stress has been -laid upon the necessity of Susanna’s marrying.” At this point the -contrast between the amiable vacuity of Alaric’s face and the -Mephistophelian intelligence of his monocled eye was so extraordinary as -to hold his listeners spellbound in their chairs. “I think we may take -it that the principal feature of the child’s character is—call it -determination amounting to obstinacy——” - -“Crass obstinacy!” burst from the Earl. - -“Pig-headedness!” interjected the Dowager. - -“I think I remember hearing that in her nursery days the sure way to -make her take a dose of harmless necessary medicine,” pursued Alaric, -his left eye fixed upon the door, “was to prepare the potion, pill, or -what-not, sweeten, and then carefully conceal it from her. Were she my -daughter—which Heaven for—which Heaven has not granted!—I should make -her take a husband in the same way.” - -“An utterance possibly inspired, but as obscure as the generality. I -fear, my dear Alaric——” Lord Beaumaris began. The Dowager cut him short. - -“Say, Gus, can’t you let him finish? That’s what I call real mean—to -switch a man off just when he’s beginning to grip the track.” - -“Mother, I bow to you,” Lord Beaumaris said, purpling with indignation. -“Pray continue, Alaric!” - -“Hum along, Alaric,” encouraged the Dowager. - -Alaric, his countenance as the countenance of a little child, his right -eye beaming with mildness, and his left eye as the eye of an intelligent -fiend, went on: - -“Susanna has never yet seen the Duke of Halcyon—her cousin, and the -husband for whom you destine her. When she does see him—I think I may be -pardoned for saying——” - -“She’ll raise Cain,” agreed Lady Beaumaris. “Girls think such heaps of -good looks; I was like that myself, before I married your father, Gus.” - -“My dear mother, granted that Halcyon’s gifts, both physical and mental, -are not”—the Earl coughed—“not of the kind best calculated to impress -and win upon a romantic, willful girl!... He is, to speak plainly——” - -“A hideous little Troglodyte,” nodded the Dowager, over her interminable -Shetland-wool knitting. - -“Odd, considering that his mother, when Lady Flora MacCodrum, was, with -the sole exception of myself, the handsomest young woman presented in -the Spring of 1845.” - -“Mother,” said Lord Beaumaris, “delightful as your reminiscences -invariably are, Alaric is waiting to resume.” - -“I had merely intended to suggest,” said Alaric, twirling his eyeglass -by its black ribbon and turning his demure drab-colored countenance and -balefully glittering left eye upon the Earl and the Dowager in turn, -“that the Duke of Halcyon, like the rhubarb of Susanna’s infancy, should -be rendered tolerable, agreeable, and even desirable to our dear girl’s -palate, by being forbidden and withheld. Ask him here in September for -the partridge shooting—as I understand you think of doing—but let him -appear, not in his own character as a young English Peer of immense -wealth and irreproachable reputation, but as one of those literary and -artistic Ineligibles, who are encouraged by Society to take every -liberty with it—short of marrying its cousins, sisters, or daughters. -Let him encourage his hair to grow—wear a velvet coat, a flamboyant -necktie, and silk stockings in combination with tweed knickerbockers. -Let him pay attention to Susanna—as marked as he chooses. And do you, -for your part”—he fixed Lord Beaumaris with his gleaming left -eye—“discourage those attentions, and lose no opportunity of impressing -upon your daughter that she is to discourage them too. Given this -tempting opportunity of manifesting her independent spirit, you will -find—or I know nothing of Susanna—that it will be pull baker, pull -devil. And I know which will pull the hardest!” - -Lord Beaumaris rose to his feet in superb indignation. He struck the -attitude in which he had posed for his portrait, by Millais, which hung -at the upper end of the library, representing him in the act of -delivering his maiden speech in Parliament—an address advocating the -introduction of footwarmers into the Upper House, and opened upon -Alaric: - -“Your proposal—I do not hesitate to say it—is audacious. You -deliberately expect that I—I, Gustavus Templebar Bloundle-Abbott -Bloundle, ninth Earl of Beaumaris, and head of this ancient -family—should stoop to carry out a deception—and upon my only child. -That I should take advantage of her willful youth, her undisciplined -temper, to——” - -“To bring about a match that will set every mother’s mouth watering, and -secure your daughter’s son a dukedom, and a hundred and thirty thousand -a year.... That’s so, and I guess,” said Lady Beaumaris, “you’ll do it, -Gus! You’re a representative English peer, it’s true, but on my side -you’ve Yankee blood in you, and the grandson of Elijah K. Van Powler -isn’t going to back out of a little bluff that’s going to pay. No, sir!” -The Dowager ran her knitting-needles through her wool ball, and rolled -up her work briskly. “He’ll do it, Alaric,” she said with conviction. - -“Mother,” exclaimed the Earl in desperation. “You were my father’s -choice, and Heaven forbid that I should fail in respect towards a lady -whom he honored with his hand. But when you suggest that to bring about -this most desirable union, I should wallow, metaphorically, in dirt——” - -“It’s pay dirt, Gus,” said the Dowager. “A hundred and thirty thousand a -year, my boy!” - -“Mother!” cried Lord Beaumaris. “If I brought myself to grovel to such -infamy, do you suppose for one moment Halcyon——” - -“That Halcyon would tumble to the plot? There are no flies on Halcyon,” -said the Dowager, “and you bet he’ll worry through—velvet coat, orange -necktie, forehead, curls, and all!” - -“Then do I understand,” said Lord Beaumaris helplessly, “that I am to -ask him to accept my hospitality in a character that is not his own, and -appear at my table in a disguise! The idea is inexpressibly loathsome, -and I cannot imagine in what character he could possibly appear.” - -“As a painter—of the fashionable fresco brand—engaged if you like to -decorate your new ballroom!” put in Alaric in his level expressionless -tones. - -“But he can’t paint!” said the Dowager. “That’s where we’re going to -buckle up and collapse. He can’t paint worth a cent! That takes brain, -and Halcyon isn’t overstocked with ’em, I must allow.” - -“Get a man who has the brain and the ability to do the work,” said the -imperturbable Alaric. - -“Deception on deception!” groaned Lord Beaumaris. - -“I have the very fellow in my eye,” pursued Alaric: “Remarkable clever -A.R.A., and a kinsman of your own. Perhaps you have forgotten him,” he -continued, as Lord Beaumaris stiffened with polite inquiry, and the -Dowager elevated her handsome and still jetty eyebrows into -interrogative arches; “perhaps—it’s equally likely—you never heard of -him, but at least you remember his mother, Janetta Bloundle?” - -“She married a person professionally interested in the restoration of -Perpendicular churches,” said Lord Beaumaris, “and though I cannot now -recall his name, I remember hearing of his death, and forwarding a -brief, condolatory postcard to his widow.” - -“Who joined him, wherever he is, six months ago.” - -“Dear me!” said Lord Beaumaris, “that is quite too regrettable. However, -it is too late in the day to send another postcard addressed to the -surviving members of the family.” - -“There is only a son,” said Alaric, “and he is the rising artist to whom -I suggest that you should offer a commission. He is strong in fresco, -and has just executed a series of wall cartoons for the new Naval and -Military Idiot Asylum, which will carry his name down to the remotest -posterity.” - -“Might—I—ah!—ask his name?” said Lord Beaumaris. - -“Wopse,” responded Alaric. - -Lord Beaumaris shuddered. - -“And the Christian prefix?” He closed his eyes in readiness for the -coming shock. - -“Halcyon.” - -Lord Beaumaris opened his eyes, and the Dowager uttered a slight snort -of astonishment. - -“A relationship existing upon the mother’s side between young Wopse and -the ducal house of Halcyon,” said Alaric, twirling his eyeglass faster: -“it is not surprising that the poor lady should have improved upon the -homespun Anglo-Saxonism of Wopse by the best means in her power. At any -rate the young fellow is well-looking and well-bred enough to carry both -names in a creditable fashion.” - -“You’ve taken considerable of a time about making it,” said Lady -Beaumaris, “but I’m bound to say your suggestion ain’t worth shucks. -Given the real artistic and Bohemian article to nibble at, is a girl -like Susanna likely to swallow the imitation article? I guess not!” - -“I concur entirely with my mother, Alaric,” said Lord Beaumaris. “You -propose, in the person of this young man, to introduce an element of -danger into our limited September house-party.” - -“You could let this Mr. Wopse live in the garden _châlet_, and -commission the keeper’s wife to attend to him,” said the Dowager, “but -even then, how are you to make sure that——” - -“That Susanna does not associate with him? There is a simple method of -divesting the young man of all attraction for a young creature of our -dear girl’s temperament,” said Alaric, “but for several reasons I shrink -from recommending its selection.” - -“Pray mention it,” said Lord Beaumaris, with an uneasy laugh. - -“Let’s hear it!” said Lady Beaumaris. - -“You have only,” said Alaric, with great distinctness, “to call this -young fellow by his Christian name; to let him take Lady Beaumaris in to -dinner; to put him up in your best room—the Indian chintz suite—and -generally to foster the idea——” - -“That he is the Duke of Halcyon!” cried the Dowager. “My stars! what a -Palais Royal farce to be played under this respectable old roof.” - -“You suggest a double—a doubly-infamous and objectionable deception! Not -a word more.... I will not hear it!” Lord Beaumaris rapped decidedly on -the table, rose in agitation, and strode on creaking patent leathers to -the door. “The question is closed forever,” said he, turning upon the -threshold. “Let no one refer to it again in my——” - -The door, which had occasionally creaked throughout this discussion, -smartly opened from without, and acting upon the Earl’s offended person -as a battering-ram, caused him to run forwards smartly, tripping over -the edge of the worn, but still splendid Turkey carpet. Lord Beaumaris -saved himself by clinging to the high back of an ancestral chair, upon -the seat of which he subsided, as the tall young figure of his daughter -appeared on the threshold, her Tam-o’-shanter cap, her long yellow -locks, and her red golfing jacket shining with moisture, her fresh -cheeks red with the cold kisses of the March winds. - -“It began to snow like Happy Jack,” said Susanna, pulling off her rough -beaver gauntlet gloves, “so I came home. Well, have you all done -plotting? You look like conspirators—all—with the exception of Alaric.” - -This was true, for while the Earl, his mother, and three other members -of the family council, whom we have not found it necessary to describe, -wore an air of somewhat guilty perturbation, the drab-colored, mild -countenance of Alaric, its diabolical left eye now blandly shuttered -with its tinted eyeglass, alone appeared guiltless and unmoved. - -“We’ve been discussing the September house-party,” explained this -Catesby, as Susanna sat upon the elbow of his chair and affectionately -rumpled his sparse, light-colored locks. - -“And husbands for me!” said Susanna, half throttling Alaric with her -strong young arm. - -“Susanna!” cried her father. “I am surprised! I say no more than that I -am surprised!” - -“And I say,” retorted Susanna, in clear, defiant, ringing accents, as -she swayed herself to and fro upon her narrow perch, “that it is -_beastly_ to be expected to marry just because money has got to be -brought into the family. Of course I _shall_ marry one day—I don’t want -to study law, or be a hospital nurse like that idiotic Laura Penglebury. -But I don’t want to be a married woman until I’m tired of being a girl. -I want to have lots of fun and do lots of things, and see lots of -people, and make my mind up for my own self. And——” - -Lord Beaumaris, who had long been fermenting, frothed over. “When you -form an alliance, my child, you will form it with my sanction and my -approval, and the husband you honor with your hand will be a person -selected and approved of by me. By me! I will choose for you——” - -“And suppose I choose for myself afterwards!” cried Susanna, blue fire -flashing from her defiant eyes. - -“_Every woman is at heart_—ahem!” muttered Alaric, as Lord Beaumaris -strove with incipient apoplexy. Susanna continued, with a whimper in her -voice: - -“The young men you and grandmother point out to me as nice and eligible, -and all that, are simply awful. They have no chins, or too much, and no -teeth, or too many, and they don’t talk at all, or they gabble all the -time, about nothing. They never read, they don’t care for Art or -Poetry—they aren’t interested in anything but Bridge and racing; and if -you told them that Beethoven composed the ‘Honeysuckle and the Bee,’ or -that Chopin wrote ‘When I Marry Amelia,’ they’d believe you. They like -married women better than girls, and people who dance at theaters better -than the married women——” - -“Pet, you’d better go to Mademoiselle.... Ask her, with my love, to fix -you up some French history to translate,” Lady Beaumaris suggested. - -“I should prefer a Gallic verb,” Lord Beaumaris amended. “I marry in -accordance with my parents’ wishes. Thou marriest in accordance with thy -parents’ wishes. He marries—and so on! And make a solid schoolroom tea -while you are about it, my child,” he continued, as Susanna bestowed a -parting strangle upon Alaric, kicked over a footstool, and rose to leave -the room. “For I fear we are to be deprived of your society at dinner -this evening.” - -Susanna’s lovely red underlip pouted; her blue eyes clouded with tears. -She flashed a resentful look at her sire, and went out. - -“She is not manageable by any ordinary methods,” said Lord Beaumaris, -running his forefinger round the inside of his collar, and shaking his -head. “In such a case Contumacy must be combated with Craft, and -Defiance met with Diplomacy. Alaric, regrettable as is the course you -have counseled us to pursue, I feel inclined to adopt it.... I shall -write to-night to make an appointment on Wednesday with the Duke of -Halcyon at the Peers’ Club, and—I shall be obliged if you will, at your -early convenience—favor me with the address of the young man Wopse.” - - - II - -The garden _châlet_ was damp; it had been raining, and the glittering -appearance of the walls betrayed the fact. “As though a bally lot of -snails had been dancin’ a cotillon on ’em!” said the Duke of Halcyon. He -yawned dismally as he opened the casement and leaned out, looking, in -his gaudily-hued silken night-suit, like a tulip drooping from the -window-sill. Then the keeper’s wife came splashing up the muddy path -carrying a tray covered with a mackintosh, and the knowledge that his -breakfast would presently be set before him, and set before him in a -lukewarm, flabby, and tepid condition, caused Halcyon to groan. But -presently, when bathed, shaved, and attired in a neat knickerbocker suit -of tawny-orange velveteen, with green silk stockings and tan shoes, -salmon-colored silk shirt, rainbow necktie, and Panama, he issued, -cigarette in mouth, from the _châlet_, and strolled in the direction of -the newly-restored west wing, his Grace’s equanimity seemed restored. He -even hummed a tune, which might have been “The Honeysuckle and the Bee” -or “God Save the King,” as he mounted the short, wide, double flight of -marble steps that led from the terrace, and, pushing open the glazed -swing-doors, entered the ballroom, the entire space of which was filled -by a bewildering maze of ropes and scaffolding, as though a giant spider -had spun a cobweb in hemp and pine. A smell of turpentine and size was -in the air, and a paint-table occupied a platform immediately under the -skylight dome, the sides of which were already filled in with outlines, -transferred from cartoons designed by the artist engaged to ornament the -apartment. That gentleman, arrayed in a blue canvas blouse and wearing a -deerstalker cap on the back of a well-shaped head, was actively engaged -in washing in the values of a colossal nude figure-group with a bucket -of sepia and a six-foot brush. He whistled rather queerly as his bright -eye fell upon the intruder. - -“You’re there, are you?” said the Duke unnecessarily. “Shall I come up?” - -“If you can!” said Halcyon Wopse, with a decided smile, that revealed a -very complete set of very white teeth. “But, to save time, perhaps I had -better come down to you.” And the painter swung himself lightly down -from stage to stage until he reached the ground-level of his august -relative. - -“Put what you’ve got to tell me as clearly as you can,” said the Duke. -“I never was a sap at Eton, and the classical names of these Johnnies -you’re thingambobbing on the what’s-a-name rather queer me.” - -“The design outlined on the plaster in the central space on the -left-hand side of the skylight dome,” said Wopse, A.R.A., “is the -‘Judgment of Paris.’ The three figures of the rival goddesses are -completely outlined, but, as you see, Paris is only roughly blocked in.” - -“I don’t see a city,” said the Duke with some annoyance. “I only see a -bit of a man. And, as for being block-tin——” - -“Paris was a man—or, rather, a youth,” said Halcyon Wopse, quoting— - - “‘Fair and disdainfully lidded, the Shepherd of Ida, - Holding the golden apple, desired of——’” - -“Hold on! When people get spouting it knocks me galley-west,” said the -Duke. “Just tell me plainly what the beggar was to judge? Goddesses? I -savvy! And which of ’em took the biscuit—I mean the apple? Venus? Right -you are! That’s as much as I can hold at one time, thanky!” - -“Sorry if I’ve over-estimated the extent of the accommodation,” said -Halcyon Wopse, smiling and lighting a cigar. - -“One of the Partagas. Now, hang it,” said the Duke, “that is infernally -stupid of my man.” - -“Of my man, you mean,” corrected the painter. - -“I begin to think,” said the Duke, “that I have, in falling in with the -absurd plot, cooked up by that old footler, Beaumaris, and swopping -characters with a beg—with an artist fellow like you, in order to take -the fancy of a long-haired, long-legged colt of a girl——” - -“I presume you allude to Lady Lymston?” put in the painter coldly. - -“Of course. I say, in tumblin’ to the idea and embarkin’ in the game, -I’ve made an ass of myself,” said the Duke. “As for you, you’re in -clover.” - -“Say nettles,” sighed the painter. - -“Passin’ under my name——” - -“Pardon,” said the painter. “The name is my own. And let us say, simply, -that in changing identities with your Grace in order to enable your -Grace to cast a glamour of artistic romance over a very ordinary——” - -“Eh?” interjected the Duke. - -“Situation,” continued the painter. “In doing this I have laid up for -myself a considerable store of regret.” - -“Regret! Why, hang you! You’re chalkin’ up scores the whole bally time!” -shrieked the Duke, stamping his tan shoes on the canvas-protected -parquet. “Beaumaris’s guests—only a few purposely selected fogies and -duffers, who don’t count, it’s true—believe you to be me. They flatter -you and defer to you. You take the Dowager in to dinner, and I’m left to -toddle after with Susanna’s French governess. I’m out of everything—and -obliged to talk Art, bally Art—from mornin’ till night! While you—you’ve -ridden to cub-hunts on my mounts—driven my motor-cars and bust my -tires——” - -“And very bad ones they are,” said the painter. - -“You ride infernally well, and show off before the field at Henworthy -Three Gates, where the hardest riders in the county hang back. You ain’t -afraid of a trappy take-off—you weren’t built for a broken neck,” -screeched the incensed Peer. “You play golf too, and win the Coronation -Challenge Cup for the Lymston Club, takin’ seven holes out of the -eighteen, and holin’ the round in the score of sixty-eight.” - -“It was my duty to maintain the honor of your Grace’s rank once I had -consented to assume it,” said the painter with a bow. - -“And you’re a dead shot, confound you, knockin’ the birds over right and -left, and getting a par. in every sportin’ newspaper for a record bag of -four hundred. You’re a polo player too—hit a ball up and down the field -and through the goals at each end, and look as if you didn’t care -whether the ladies applauded you or not, da—hang you! And you must own -to bein’ a bit of a cricketer, and consent to play in the County Match -on Thursday, and I wouldn’t like to bet against your chances of makin’ a -big score—an all-round admirable what’s-a-name of a fellow like you!” - -“Perhaps you’d better not,” the painter remarked calmly, knocking off -the ash of his cigar. “But I should be glad to know the reason for this -display of temper on your Grace’s part, all the same,” he added. “If I -rode like a tailor and shot like a duffer, hit your ponies’ legs instead -of the ball, and played cricket like a German governess at a girls’ -boarding-school, I could understand——” - -“Don’t you understand when I get back into my own skin again, I’ll have -to live up to the reputation you’ve made me?” yelled Halcyon. “I could -pass muster before because nobody looked for anything. But now....” - -“And what of my reputation? I think I heard you telling Susanna——” - -“Susanna!” echoed the Duke. - -“She is Susanna to your Grace. Did I not hear you telling her that -Chiaroscuro was an Italian painter of the Cinquecento—who, you said, was -a Pope who patronized Art! You went on to say that Chiaroscuro lived on -hard eggs, and designed carnival cars, and that Benvenuto Cellini won -the Gold Cup at Ascot Race Meeting in ’91.” - -“Look here, we won’t indulge in mutual recriminations. It’s beastly bad -form!” said the Duke. “And though you can ride and all that, I never -said I thought you could paint for nuts! In fact, between ourselves, I -don’t half like havin’ these spooks on the ceilin’ set down to me.” He -twisted his sandy little moustache, and fixed his eyeglass in his eye, -and started. “Here’s Lady Lymston comin’ over the lawn with a whole pack -of dogs, to ask me how I’ve got on since yesterday.” - -“Take my blouse!” The painter denuded himself of the turpentiny garment, -appearing in a well-cut tweed shooting-suit. - -“Get into that rag! Not me, thanks! Hand over your brush, and give me a -leg up on that scaffoldin’, like a good chap. I’d better be discovered -at work, I suppose,” said his Grace of Halcyon, as he slowly mounted to -the platform under the dome. - -He had just reached it when Susanna’s fresh young voice was heard -outside calling to her dogs, and a moment later she appeared. Her fair -cheeks were flushed, her blue eyes were bright with exercise. She wore a -rough gray skirt, which, if less abbreviated than of yore, still showed -a slim, arched foot and suggested a charming ankle. Her white silk -blouse was confined by a Norwegian belt, and a loose _beret_ cap of -black velvet crowned her yellow head, its silken riches being now -disposed in a great coil, through which a silver arrow was carelessly -thrust. She started and reddened from her temples to the edge of lace at -her round throat when the tweed-clad figure of the painter caught her -eye, and gave him her hand with an indifference which was too -ostentatious. - -“I didn’t know you were interested in Art,” she said. - -“Oh yes!” responded the painter. “At least, if this can be called Art,” -he added modestly. - -“’Ssh!” warned Susanna. “He is up there, and will hear you.” - -“He?” echoed the painter, reveling in the blush. - -“Did I hear my name?” called the Duke sweetly, from above. “Hulloa, Lady -Lymston, that you? Come to record progress? As you see, we’re going -strong.” His six-foot brush menaced a Juno’s draperies, a gallipot of -size upset, trickled its contents through the planking; his velveteen -coat-tails placed Paris in peril, as he turned his back to the cartoon -and resting his hands upon his knees, assumed a stooping attitude, and -peered waggishly down over the edge of the scaffolding at Susanna. - -“Take care—you!” shouted the painter, forgetting his aristocratic -_rôle_. - -“My foot is on my native thingumbob, ain’t it, Lady Lymston?” said the -owner of the small, cockneyfied, grinning countenance above. “How do you -like the wax-works? This is the”—he flourished the six-foot brush -perilously—“this is the Judgment of Berlin.” - -“Paris!” prompted the false Duke hoarsely. - -“He is trying to joke,” said Susanna, in an undertone. “Don’t discourage -him.” - -“I should think that would be difficult,” remarked Wopse grimly. - -“Papa tries to be crushing, and Cousin Alaric’s rudeness is simply -appalling,” said Susanna, in a confidential undertone. “And grandmother -walks over him as though he were a beetle—no! she would run away from a -thing like that—I should say an earwig or a snail, so one feels bound to -be a _little_ nice.” - -“If only out of opposition!” said the painter, with a keen look of -intelligence, at which Susanna blushed again. - -“He is idiotic when he tries to be funny about Art—and mixes up names -and dates—and tells you that Titian sang in opera and Rubens is a -popular composer. But he can paint, and Alaric Orme thinks he will be -President of the Academy one day. These cartoons are splendidly bold and -effective.” - -“You think so! Wait till I’ve colored these girls up a bit,” said the -Duke, catching the end of the sentence. “Then you’ll——” He dipped his -brush and advanced it, dripping with cobalt, towards the group of -goddesses. - -“Don’t touch them!” shouted Wopse, in agony. - -“Why not?” asked Susanna. - -“I don’t know. Excuse me, Lady Lymston, I believe the smell of this size -isn’t wholesome,” Wopse stammered. “I’ll get out into the air.” He -bolted. - -“Good Heavens!” he moaned, as he strode unseeing down a broad path of -the dazzling west front pasture, “I can’t stand this! I’ll tell that -idiot Osmond-Orme that the deception must come to an end....” - -“Why do you walk so fast?” said the voice of Susanna, behind him. “I -have had to _race_ to catch you.” - -“I am sorry,” said Wopse, stopping and turning his troubled eyes upon -the fair face of his young relation. - -“Let us walk on”—Susanna cast an apprehensive glance behind her—“or -somebody——” - -“Somebody will see us walking together!” said Wopse acutely. - -“It is so much nicer,” Susanna said demurely, “when one can keep -pleasant things to oneself. And we have had a good many walks and talks -since you came down here, haven’t we? And cliff scrambles—and bicycle -rides—and rows on the river. And the fun of it is that, although we are -such pals, really, father and grandmother and Uncle Alaric believe that -I positively detest you.” Her young laugh rang out gayly; she thrust a -sprig of lavender, perfumed and spicy, under the painter’s nose. He -captured the tantalizing hand. - -“Do you not?” - -“Detest you! You know I don’t.” - -“May I have it?” It was the sprig of lavender. But the painter looked -at, and squeezed, the hand. - -“If you promise to make a big score on Thursday!” - -Susanna, it must be admitted, was learning coquetry. - -“I will—if you are looking at me!” - -“Done!” - -“Done! Come into the beech avenue,” the painter pleaded, “just for a few -moments, before that little beast follows us. You know he will!” - -“He can’t!” Susanna’s golden eyelashes drooped upon crimson cheeks. “He -can’t get down! I—I took away the ladder before I came away!” she owned. -Both hands were imprisoned, her blue eyes lifted, lost themselves in the -brown ones that looked down at her. - -“Was that because you wanted—to be alone with me? Was it?” demanded -Wopse. - -“Oh, Hal, don’t!” - -“I’ll let you go when you have owned up, not before,” Wopse said -sternly. - -Susanna’s reply came in a whisper: “You—know—it—was!” - -The whisper was so faint that Wopse had to bend quite low to catch it. -Of course he need not have kissed Susanna. But he did, as Alaric -Osmond-Orme and Lord Beaumaris appeared, walking confidentially together -arm-in-arm. - -“I think my little stratagem succeeds!” Lord Beaumaris had just said, in -reference to the preference exhibited by his daughter for the society of -the pretended painter. And Alaric had responded: - -“Yes, as you say, my plan has proved quite a brilliant success!” when -Lord Beaumaris clutched his cousin’s arm. - -“Merciful powers! Susanna and that—that young impostor!” - -Alaric’s eyeglass fell with a click, and the diabolical left eye twirled -and twisted fiendishly in its socket as its retina embraced the picture -indicated. - -“Feign not to have observed.... Well, Susanna! How are you, Halcyon. We -are strolling towards the ballroom for a glimpse of Wopse’s work.” - -“We are stro——” Lord Beaumaris choked and purpled. Alaric dragged him -on. - -“Do you think?...” Susanna’s cheeks were white roses now. “Do you -think—they——” - -“Saw me kiss you? Not a doubt of it!” - -“Oh!” Susanna confronted him with blazing eyes. “You!—you did it on -_purpose_! It was a plot——” - -She clenched her strong young hands, battling with the desire to buffet -the handsome bronzed face before her. “I’ll never—never speak to you -again!” she cried. - -“You will not be allowed to,” groaned the poor painter. “Our walks and -rides and all the rest are over.... Yes, there has been a plot, but not -of the kind you suspect. I am a traitor—but not the kind of traitor you -think me. Lady Lymston, I am not the Duke of Halcyon. I am a poor -devil—I beg your pardon!—I am a painter; my name is Wopse, and I have -disgraced my profession by the part I have played!” He sat down -miserably on a rustic bench. - -“Oh! It has been a put-up thing between you all!” Susanna gasped. “Oh!” -She towered over Wopse like an incensed young goddess. - -“If I could only paint you like that! Yes—I deserve that you should hate -me. Never mind who planned the thing, I should have known better than to -soil my hands with a deception,” said Wopse. “As for the Duke——” - -“The Duke! Do I understand that that earwig in velveteen is my cousin -Halcyon!” Susanna’s voice was very cold. - -“Yes. I am a kind of cousin, too,” said Wopse. - -“But not that kind. Those—those designs—the work on the ceiling. They -are really yours?” Susanna asked. - -“Mine, of course. Do you think that fellow could have done them?” cried -Wopse, firing up. “I’ve risen at four every morning to work at them, -and——” - -“And you ride splendidly, and you’re a crack shot and polo player, and -you’re going to win for the county Eleven on Thursday,” came -breathlessly from Susanna. - -“Ah, you won’t care to look at me now!” said the depressed Wopse. - -“Won’t I?” Susanna’s eyes were dancing, her cheeks were glowing, she -pirouetted on the moss-grown ground of the avenue and dropped a little -curtsey to the painter. “When doing it will drive father and grandmother -and Alaric and the Earwig wild with rage.... When—when I like doing it, -too! When——” she stooped, and her lips were very near Wopse’s -cheek—“when I love doing it!” - -“Oh, Susanna!” cried the painter. - - -“My dear Halcyon!” said Lord Beaumaris, peering short-sightedly upwards -through a maze of scaffolding. “I think you may as well come down.” - -“In other words—the game is up!” said Alaric Osmond-Orme mildly. “Come -down, my dear fellow, and resume your own _rôle_ of hereditary -legislator. Allow me to replace the ladder.” He did so. - -“So that fellow’s done me! I guessed as much when that little—when -Susanna took away the ladder,” said the Duke, preparing to descend. “And -then when I saw him kiss her—there’s a remarkably good view of the -gardens through the end window. I——” He pointed to some remarkable -effects of color splashed upon the ground so carefully prepared by the -painter. “I took it out of the beggar in the only way I could, don’t you -know.” - -“Take it out of him still more,” suggested Alaric, his tinted eyeglass -concealing a fiendish twinkle, “by playing in the County Cricket Match. -He’s entered in your name, you know!” - -“You’re very obligin’,” said the Duke, “but I don’t think I’m taking -any.” He gracefully slithered to the floor as Susanna and Halcyon Wopse -entered the ballroom, radiant and hand in hand. - -“Papa,” said Susanna, taking the bull by the horns, “Mr. Wopse and I are -engaged. We mean to be married as soon as possible after the County -Cricket Match.” She kissed the perturbed countenance of Lord Beaumaris, -nodded to the Duke, and walked over to Alaric. “Your plan has succeeded -beautifully,” she said. “Ain’t you pleased—and won’t you congratulate -us?” - -“I am delighted,” said the imperturbable Alaric. He dropped his eyeglass -and before the preternatural intelligence of his left eye even Susanna -quailed. “And I congratulate you both most heartily.” He smiled, and -pressed the hands of Susanna and her lover, and, moving away, stepped -into the garden. There, unseen, he rubbed his hands, twinkling with -mourning rings. - -“I loved that boy’s mother very dearly, boy as I was then ...” said -Alaric. “As for Susanna, if she knew that I knew she was listening at -the library door....” He replaced his eyeglass, and his expression -became, as usual, a blank. - - - - - LADY CLANBEVAN’S BABY - - -There was a gray, woolly October fog over Hyde Park. The railings wept -grimy tears, and the damp yellow leaves dropped soddenly from the soaked -trees. Pedestrians looked chilled and sulky; camphor chests and -cedar-presses had yielded up their treasures of sables and sealskin, -chinchilla and silver fox. A double stream of fashionable traffic rolled -west and east, and the rich clarets and vivid crimsons of the -automobiles burned through the fog like genial, warming fires. - -A Baby-Bunting six horse-power petrol-car, in color a chrysanthemum -yellow, came jiggeting by. The driver stopped. He was a technical -chemist and biologist of note and standing, and I had last heard him -speak from the platform of the Royal Institution. - -“I haven’t seen you,” said the Professor, “for years.” - -“That must be because you haven’t looked,” said I, “for I have both seen -and heard you quite recently. Only you were upon the platform and I was -on the ground-floor.” - -“You are too much upon the ground-floor now,” said the Professor, with a -shudder of a Southern European at the dampness around and under foot, -“and I advise you to accept a seat in my car.” - -And the Baby-Bunting, trembling with excitement at being in the company -of so many highly-varnished electric victorias and forty horse-power -auto-cars, joined the steadily-flowing stream going west. - -“I wonder that you stoop to petrol, Professor,” I said, as the thin, -skillful hand in the baggy chamois glove manipulated the driving-wheel, -and the little car snaked in and out like a torpedo-boat picking her way -between the giant warships of a Channel Squadron. - -The Professor’s black brows unbent under the cap-peak, and his thin, -tightly-gripped lips relaxed into a mirthless smile. - -“Ah, yes; you think that I should drive my car by radio-activity, is it -not? And so I could—and would, if the pure radium chloride were not -three thousand times the price of gold. From eight tons of uranium ore -residues about one gramme—that is fifteen grains—can be extracted by -fusing the residue with carbonates of soda, dissolving in hydrochloric -acid, precipitating the lead and other metals in solution by the aid of -hydrogen-sulphide, and separating from the chlorides that -remain—polonium, actinium, barium, and so forth—the chloride of radium. -With a single pound of this I could not only drive an auto-car, my -friend”—his olive cheek warmed, and his melancholy dark eyes grew oddly -lustrous—“I could stop the world!” - -“And supposing it was necessary to make it go on again?” I suggested. - -“When I speak of the world,” exclaimed the Professor, “I do not refer to -the planet upon which we revolve; I speak of the human race which -inhabits it.” - -“Would the human race be obliged to you, Professor?” I queried. - -The Professor turned upon me with so sudden a verbal _riposte_ that the -Baby-Bunting swerved violently. - -“You are not as young as you were when I met you first. To be plain, you -are getting middle-aged. Do you like it?” - -“I hate it!” I answered, with beautiful sincerity. - -“Would you thank the man who should arrest, not the beneficent passage -of Time, which means progress, but the wear and tear of nerve and -muscle, tissue, and bone, the slow deterioration of the blood by the -microbes of old age, for Metchnikoff has shown that there is no -difference between the atrophy of senility and the atrophy caused by -microbe poison? Would you thank him—the man who should do that for you? -Tell me, my friend.” - -I replied, briefly and succinctly: “Wouldn’t I?” - -“Ha!” exclaimed the Professor, “I thought so!” - -“But I should have liked him to have begun earlier,” I said. -“Twenty-nine is a nice age, now.... It is the age we all try to stop at, -and can’t, however much we try. Look there!” - -A landau limousine, dark blue, beautifully varnished, nickel-plated, and -upholstered in cream-white leather, came gliding gracefully through the -press of vehicles. From the crest upon the panel to the sober -workmanlike livery of the chauffeur, the turn-out was perfection. The -pearl it contained was worthy of the setting. - -“Look there?” I repeated, as the rose-cheeked, sapphire-eyed, smiling -vision passed, wrapped in a voluminous coat of chinchilla and silver -fox, with a toque of Parma violets under the shimmer of the silken veil -that could only temper the burning glory of her wonderful Renaissance -hair. - -“There’s the exception to the rule.... There’s a woman who doesn’t need -the aid of science or of Art to keep her at nine and twenty. There’s a -woman in whom ‘the wear and tear of nerve and muscle, tissue and bone’ -goes on—if it does go on—imperceptibly. Her blood doesn’t seem to be -much deteriorated by the microbe of old age, Professor, does it? And -she’s forty-three! The alchemistical forty-three, that turns the gold of -life back into lead! The gold remains gold in her case, for that hair, -that complexion, that figure, are,” I solemnly declared, “her own.” - -At that moment Lady Clanbevan gave a smiling gracious nod to the -Professor, and he responded with a cold, grave bow. The glow of her -gorgeous hair, the liquid sapphire of her eyes, were wasted on this -stony man of science. She passed, going home to Stanhope Gate, I -suppose, in which neighborhood she has a house; I had barely a moment to -notice the white-bonneted, blue-cloaked nurse on the front of the -landau, holding a bundle of laces and cashmeres, and to reflect that I -have never yet seen Lady Clanbevan taking the air out of the society of -a baby, when the Professor spoke: - -“So Lady Clanbevan is the one woman who has no need of the aid of Art or -science to preserve her beauty and maintain her appearance of youth? -Supposing I could prove to you otherwise, my friend, what then?” - -“I should say,” I returned, “that you had proved what everybody else -denies. Even the enemies of that modern Ninon de l’Enclos, who has just -passed——” - -“With the nurse and the baby?” interpolated the Professor. - -“With the nurse and the baby,” said I. “Even her enemies—and they are -legion—admit the genuineness of the charms they detest. Mentioning the -baby, do you know that for twenty years I have never seen Lady Clanbevan -out without a baby? She must have quite a regiment of children—children -of all ages, sizes, and sexes.” - -“Upon the contrary,” said the Professor, “she has only one!” - -“The others have all died young, then?” I asked sympathetically, and was -rendered breathless by the rejoinder: - -“Lady Clanbevan is a widow.” - -“One never asks questions about the husband of a professional beauty,” I -said. “His individuality is merged in hers from the day upon which her -latest photograph assumes a marketable value. Are you sure there isn’t a -Lord Clanbevan alive somewhere?” - -“There is a Lord Clanbevan alive,” said the Professor coldly. “You have -just seen him, in his nurse’s arms. He is the only child of his mother, -and she has been a widow for nearly twenty years! You do not credit what -I assert, my friend?” - -“How can I, Professor?” I asked, turning to meet his full face, and -noticed that his dark, somewhat opaque brown irises had lights and -gleams of carbuncle-crimson in them. “I have had Lady Clanbevan and her -progeny under my occasional observation for years. The world grows -older, if she doesn’t, and she has invariably a baby—_toujours_ a new -baby—to add to the charming illusion of young motherhood which she -sustains so well. And now you tell me that she is a twenty-years’ widow -with one child, who must be nearly of age—or it isn’t proper. You puzzle -me painfully!” - -“Would you care,” asked the Professor after a moment’s pause, “to drive -back to Harley Street with me? I am, as you know, a vegetarian, so I -will not tax your politeness by inviting you to lunch. But I have -something in my laboratory I should wish to show you.” - -“Of all things, I should like to come,” I said. “How many times haven’t -I fished fruitlessly for an invitation to visit the famous laboratory -where nearly twenty years ago——” - -“I traced,” said the Professor, “the source of phenomena which heralded -the evolution of the Röntgen Ray and the ultimate discovery of the -radio-active salt they have christened radium. I called it protium -twenty years ago, because of its various and protean qualities. Why did -I not push on—perfect the discovery and anticipate Sir William C—— and -the X——’s? There was a reason. You will understand it before you leave -my laboratory.” - -The Baby-Bunting stopped at the unfashionable end of Harley Street, in -front of the dingy yellow house with the black front door, flanked by -dusty boxes of mildewed dwarf evergreens, and the Professor, relieved of -his fur-lined coat and cap, led the way upstairs as lightly as a boy. -Two garret-rooms had been knocked together for a laboratory. There was a -tiled furnace at the darker end of the long skylighted room thus made, -and solid wooden tables much stained with spilt chemicals, were covered -with scales, glasses, jars, and retorts—all the tools of chemistry. From -one of the many shelves running round the walls, the Professor took down -a circular glass flask and placed it in my hands. The flask contained a -handful of decayed and moldy-looking wheat, and a number of peculiarly -offensive-looking little beetles with tapir-like proboscides. - -“The perfectly developed beetle of the _Calandria granaria_,” said the -Professor, as I cheerfully resigned the flask, “a common British weevil, -whose larvæ feed upon stored grain. Now look at this.” He reached down -and handed me a precisely similar flask, containing another handful of -grain, cleaner and sounder in appearance, and a number of grubs, -sharp-ended chrysalis-like things buried in the grain, inert and -inactive. - -“The larvæ of _Calandria granaria_,” said the Professor, in his drawling -monotone. “How long does it take to hatch the beetle from the grub? you -ask. Less than a month. The perfect weevils that I have just shown you I -placed in their flask a little more than three weeks back. The grubs you -see in the flask you are holding, and which, as you will observe by -their anxiety to bury themselves in the grain so as to avoid contact -with the light, are still immature, I placed in the glass receptacle -twenty years ago. Don’t drop the flask—I value it.” - -“Professor!” I gasped. - -“Twenty years ago,” repeated the Professor, delicately handling the -venerable grubs, “I enclosed these grubs in this flask, with sufficient -grain to fully nourish them and bring them to the perfect state. In -another flask I placed a similar number of grubs in exactly the same -quantity of wheat. Then for twenty-four hours I exposed flask number one -to the rays emanating from what is now called radium. And as the -electrons discharged from radium are obstructed by collision with -air-atoms, I exhausted the air contained in the flask.” He paused. - -“Then, when the grubs in flask number two hatched out,” I anticipated, -“and the larvæ in flask number one remained stationary, you realized——” - -“I realized that the rays from the salt arrested growth, and at the same -time prolonged to an almost incalculable extent,” said the -Professor—“for you will understand that the grubs in flask number one -had lived as grubs half a dozen times as long as grubs usually do.... -And I said to myself that the discovery presented an immense, a -tremendous field for future development. Suppose a young woman of, say, -twenty-nine were enclosed in a glass receptacle of sufficient bulk to -contain her, and exposed for a few hours to my protium rays, she would -retain for many years to come—until she was a great-grandmother of -ninety!—the same charming, youthful appearance——” - -“As Lady Clanbevan!” I cried, as the truth rushed upon me and I grasped -the meaning this astonishing man had intended to convey. - -“As Lady Clanbevan presents to-day,” said the Professor, “thanks to the -discovery of a——” - -“Of a great man,” said I, looking admiringly at the lean worn figure in -the closely-buttoned black frock-coat. - -“I loved her.... It was a delight to her to drag a disciple of Science -at her chariot-wheels. People talked of me as a coming man. Perhaps I -was.... But I did not thirst for distinction, honors, fame.... I -thirsted for that woman’s love.... I told her of my discovery—as I told -her everything. Bah!” His lean nostrils worked. “You know the game that -is played when one is in earnest and the other at play. She promised -nothing, she walked delicately among the passions she sowed and fostered -in the souls of men, as a beautiful tigress walks among the -poison-plants of the jungle. She saw that rightly used, or wrongly used, -my great discovery might save her beauty, her angelic, dazzling beauty -that had as yet but felt the first touch of Time. She planned the whole -thing, and when she said, ‘You do not love me if you will not do this,’ -I did it. I was mad when I acceded to her wish, perhaps; but she is a -woman to drive men frenzied. You have seen how coldly, how slightingly -she looked at me when we encountered her in the Row? I tell you—you have -guessed already—I went there to see her. I always go where she is to be -encountered, when she is in town. And she bows, always; but her eyes are -those of a stranger. Yet I have had her on her knees to me. She cried -and begged and kissed my hands.” - -He knotted his thin hands, their fingers brown-tipped with the stains of -acids, and wrung and twisted them ferociously. - -“And so I granted what she asked, carried out the experiment, and paid -what you English call the piper. The giant glass bulb with the -rubber-valve door was blown and finished in France. It involved an -expense of three hundred pounds. The salt I used—of protium (christened -radium now)—cost me all my savings—over two thousand pounds—for I had -been a struggling man——” - -“But the experiment?” I broke in. “Good Heavens, Professor! How could a -living being remain for any time in an exhausted receiver? Agony -unspeakable, convulsions, syncope, death! One knows what the result -would be. The merest common sense——” - -“The merest common sense is not what one employs to make discoveries or -carry out great experiments,” said the Professor. “I will not disclose -my method; I will only admit to you that the subject—the subjects were -insensible; that I induced _anæsthesia_ by the ordinary ether-pump -apparatus, and that the strength of the ray obtained was concentrated to -such a degree that the exposure was complete in three hours.” He looked -about him haggardly. “The experiment took place here nineteen years -ago—nineteen years ago, and it seems to me as though it were yesterday.” - -“And it must seem like yesterday to Lady Clanbevan—whenever she looks in -the glass,” I said. “But you have pricked my curiosity, Professor, by -the use of the plural. Who was the other subject?” - -“Is it possible you don’t guess?” The sad, hollow eyes questioned my -face in surprise. Then they turned haggardly away. “My friend, the other -subject associated with Lady Clanbevan in my great experiment was—Her -Baby!” - -I could not speak. The dowdy little grubs in the flask became for me -creatures imbued with dreadful potentialities.... The tragedy and the -sublime absurdity of the thing I realized caught at my throat, and my -brain grew dizzy with its horror. - -“Oh! Professor!” I gurgled, “how—how grimly, awfully, tragically -ridiculous! To carry about with one wherever one goes a baby that never -grows older—a baby——” - -“A baby nearly twenty years old? Yes, it is as you say, ridiculous and -horrible,” the Professor agreed. - -“What could have induced the woman!” burst from me. - -The Professor smiled bitterly. - -“She is greedy of money. It is the only thing she loves—except her -beauty and her power over men; and during the boy’s infancy—that word is -used in the Will—she has full enjoyment of the estate. After he ‘attains -to manhood’—I quote the Will again—hers is but a life-interest. Now you -understand?” - -I did understand, and the daring of the woman dazzled me. She had made -the Professor doubly her tool. - -“And so,” I gurgled between tears and laughter, “Lord Clanbevan, who -ought to be leaving Eton this year to commence his first Oxford term, is -being carried about in the arms of a nurse, arrayed in the flowing -garments of a six-months’ baby! What an astonishing conspiracy!” - -“His mother,” continued the Professor calmly, “allows no one to approach -him but the nurse. The family are only too glad to ignore what they -consider a deplorable case of atavistic growth-arrest, and the boy -himself——” He broke off. “I have detained you,” he said, after a pause. -“I will not do so longer. Nor will I offer you my hand. I am as -conscious as you are—that it has committed a crime.” And he bowed me out -with his hands sternly held behind him. There were few more words -between us, only I remember turning on the threshold of the laboratory, -where I left him, to ask whether protium—radium, as it is now -christened—checks the growth of every organic substance? The answer I -received was curious: - -“Certainly, with the exception of the nails and the hair!” - -A week later the Professor was found dead in his laboratory.... There -were reports of suicide—hushed up. People said he had been more -eccentric than ever of late, and theorized about brain-mischief; only I -located the trouble in the heart. A year went by, and I had almost -forgotten Lady Clanbevan—for she went abroad after the Professor’s -death—when at a little watering-place on the Dorset coast, I saw that -lovely thing, as lovely as ever—she who was fifty if a day! With her -were the blue-cloaked elderly nurse and Lord Clanbevan, borne, as usual, -in the arms of his attendant, or wheeled in a luxurious perambulator. -Day after day I encountered them—the lovely mother, the middle-aged -nurse, and the mysterious child—until the sight began to get on my -nerves. Had the Professor selected me as the recipient of a secret -unrivaled in the records of biological discovery, or had he been the -victim of some maniacal delusion that cold October day when we met in -Rotten Row? One peep under the thick white lace veil with which the -baby’s face was invariably covered would clear everything up! Oh! for a -chance to allay the pangs of curiosity! - -The chance came. It was a hot, waspy August forenoon. Everybody was -indoors with all the doors and windows open, lunching upon the -innutritive viands alone procurable at health resorts—everybody but -myself, Lord Clanbevan, and his nurse. She had fallen asleep upon a -green-painted esplanade seat, gratuitously shielded by a striped awning. -Lord Clanbevan’s C-springed, white-hooded, cane-built perambulator stood -close beside her. He was, as usual, a mass of embroidered cambric and -cashmere, and, as always, thickly veiled, his regular breathing heaved -his infant breast; the thick white lace drapery attached to his -beribboned bonnet obscured the features upon which I so ardently longed -to gaze! It was the chance, as I have said; and as the head of the -blue-cloaked nurse dropped reassuringly upon her breast, as she emitted -the snore that gave assurance of the soundness of her slumbers, I -stepped silently on the gravel towards the baby’s perambulator. Three -seconds, and I stood over its apparently sleeping inmate; another, and I -had lifted the veil from the face of the mystery—and dropped it with a -stifled cry of horror! - -The child had a moustache! - - - - - THE DUCHESS’S DILEMMA - - -“A person called to see me!” repeated the Duchess of Rantorlie. “He -pleaded urgent business, you say?” - -She glanced at the card presented by her groom-of-the-chambers without -taking the trouble to lift it from the salver. “‘Mr. Moss Rubelius.’ I -do not know the name—I have no knowledge of any urgent business. You -must tell him to go away at once, and not call again.” - -“Begging your Grace’s pardon,” remarked the official, “the person seemed -to anticipate a message of the kind——” - -“Did he? Then,” thought her Grace, “he is not disappointed.” - -“And, still begging your Grace’s pardon,” pursued the discreet domestic, -“he asked me to hand this second card to your Grace.” - -It was rather a shabby card, and dog’s-eared as though it had been -carried long in somebody’s pocket; but it was large and feminine, and -adorned with a ducal coronet and the Duchess’s own cipher, and scribbled -upon it in pencil, in the Duchess’s own handwriting, were two or three -words, simple enough, apparently, and yet sufficiently fraught with -meaning to make their fair reader turn very pale. She did not replace -this card upon the salver, but kept it as she said: - -“Bring the person to me at once.” - -And when the softly stepping servant had left the room—one of her -Grace’s private suite, charmingly furnished as a study—she made haste to -tear the card up, dropping the fragments into the hottest part of the -wood-fire, and thrusting at them with the poker until the last tremulous -fragment of gray ash had disappeared. Rising from this exercise with a -radiant glow upon her usually colorless cheeks the Duchess became aware -that she was not alone. A person of vulgar appearance, outrageously -attired in a travesty of the ordinary afternoon costume of an English -gentleman, stood three or four feet off, regarding her with an observant -and rather wily smile. Not at all discomposed, he was the first to -speak. - -“Before burnin’ _that_,” he remarked, in the thick, snuffling accents of -the low-bred, “your Grace ought to have asked yourself whether it was -any use. Because—I put it to your Grace, as a poker-player, being told -the game’s fashionable in your Grace’s set—a man who holds four aces can -afford to throw away the fifth card, even if it’s a king. And people of -my profession don’t go in for bluff. It ain’t their fancy.” - -“What is your profession?” asked the Duchess, regarding with contempt -the dark, full-fed, red-lipped, hook-beaked countenance before her. - -“Money!” returned Mr. Moss Rubelius. He rattled coin in his -trousers-pockets as he spoke, and the superfluity of gold manifested in -large, coarse rings upon his thick fingers, the massy chain festooned -across his broad chest, the enormous links fastening his cuffs, and the -huge diamond pin in his cravat, seemed to echo “Money.” - -The Duchess lost no time in coming to the point. She was not guided by -previous experience, having hitherto, by grace as well as luck, steered -clear of scandal. But, girl of twenty as she was, she asked, as coolly -as an _intrigante_ of forty, though her young heart was fluttering -wildly against the walls of its beautiful prison, “How did you get that -card?” - -“I will be quite plain with your Grace,” returned the money-lender. -“When the second lot of cavalry drafts sailed for South Africa early in -the year of 1900, our firm, ’aving a writ of _’abeas_ out against -Captain Sir Hugh Delaving of the Royal Red Dragoon Guards—I have reason -to believe your Grace knew something of the Captain?” - -“Yes,” said the Duchess, turning her cold blue eyes upon the twinkling -orbs of Mr. Moss Rubelius, “I knew something of the Captain. You do not -need to ask the question. Please go on!” - -“The Captain was,” resumed Mr. Rubelius, “for a born aristocrat, the -downiest I ever see—saw, I mean. He gave our clerks and the men with the -warrant the slip by being ’eaded up in a wooden packin’ case, labeled -‘Officers’ Stores,’ and got away to the Cape, where he was killed in his -first engagement.” - -“This,” said the Duchess, “is no news to me.” - -“No,” said the money-lender; “but it may be news to your Grace that, -though we couldn’t lay our ‘ands on the Captain himself, we got hold of -all his luggage. Not much there that was of any marketable value, except -a silver-gilt toilet-set. But there was a packet of letters in a Russia -writin’-case with a patent lock, all of ’em written in the large-sized, -square ’and peculiar to the leadin’ female aristocracy, and signed -‘Ethelwyne,’ or merely ‘E.’” - -“And this discovery procures me the pleasure of this interview?” -remarked the Duchess. “The letters are mine—you come on the errand of a -blackmailer. I have only one thing to wonder at, and that is—why you -have not come before?” - -“Myself and partner thought, as honorable men of business, it would be -better to approach the Captain first,” explained the usurer. “His mother -died the week he sailed for Africa, and left him ten thousand pounds. We -’astened to communicate with him, but——” - -“But he had been killed meanwhile,” said the Duchess. “You would have -had the money he owed—or did not owe—you, and your price for the -letters, had you reached him in time; but you did not, and your goods -are left upon your hands. Why, as honorable men of business”—her lovely -lip curled—“did you not take them at once to the Duke?” - -Mr. Moss Rubelius seemed for the first time a little nonplussed. He -looked down at his large, shiny boots, and the sight did not appear to -relieve him. - -“I will be quite plain with your Grace.” - -“Pray endeavor!” said the Duchess. - -“The letters are—to put it delicately—not compromising enough. They’re -more,” said Mr. Rubelius, “the letters a school-girl at Brighton would -write to her music-master, supposing him to be young and possessed of a -pair of cavalry legs and a moustache. There’s fuel in ’em for a -First-Class Connubial Row,” continued Mr. Rubelius, “but not material -for a Domestic Upheaval—followed by an Action for Divorce. As a man, no -longer, but once in business—for within this last month our firm has -dissolved, and myself and my partner have retired upon our means—this is -my opinion with regard to these letters in your Grace’s handwriting, -addressed to the late Captain Sir H. Delaving: The Duke, I believe, -would only laugh at ’em.” - -The Duchess started violently, and seemed about to speak. - -“But, still, the letters are worth paying for,” ended Mr. Moss Rubelius. -“And your Grace can have em—at my price.” - -“What is your price?” asked the Duchess, trying in vain to read in the -stolid physiognomy before her the secret purpose of the soul within. - -“Perhaps your Grace wouldn’t mind my taking a chair?” insinuated Mr. -Rubelius. - -“Do as you please, sir,” said the Duchess, “only be brief.” - -“I’ll try,” said the money-lender, comfortably crossing his legs. “To -begin—we’re in the London Season and the month of March, and your Grace -has a party at Rantorlie for the April salmon-fishing. Angling’s my one -vice—my only weakness, ever since I caught minnows in the Regent’s Canal -with a pickle-bottle tied to a string. Coarse fishing in the Thames was -my recreation in grub times, whenever I ’ad a day away from our office -in the Minories. Trout I’ve caught now and then, with a worm on a Stuart -tackle—since I became a butterfly. But I’ve never had a slap at a -salmon, and the finest salmon-anglin’ in the kingdom is to be ’ad in the -Haste, below Rantorlie. Ask me there for April, see that I ’ave the pick -of the sport, even if you ’ave a Royal duke to cater for, as you ’ad -last year, and, the day I land my first twenty-pounder, the letters are -yours.” - -The Duchess burst out laughing wildly. - -“Ha, ha! Oh!” she cried; “it is impossible to help it.... I can’t!... It -is so.... Ha, ha, ha!” - -“I shan’t disgrace you,” said Mr. Rubelius. “My kit and turn-out will be -by the best makers, and I’ll tip the ’ead gillie fifty pound. I’m a -soft-hearted hass to let the letters go so cheap, but——Golly! the chance -of catchin’ a twenty-pound specimen of _Salmo salar_ that a Royal -’Ighness ’as angled for in vain!... Look ’ere, your Grace”—his tones -were oily with entreaty—“write me the invitation now, on the spot, and -you shall ’ave back the first three of those nine letters down on the -nail.” - -“You have them——?” - -“With me!” said Mr. Rubelius, producing a letter-case attached to his -stout person by a chain. “The others are—say, in retirement for the -present.” He extracted from the case three large, square, gray -envelopes, their addresses penned in a large, angular, girlish hand. -“Write me the invite now,” he said, “and these are yours to burn or show -to his Grace—whichever you please. The others shall be yours the day I -land my twenty-pounder.” - -The Duchess moved to her writing-table and sat down. She chose paper and -a pen, and dashed off these few lines: - - - “900, BERKELEY SQUARE, W. - -“DEAR MR. MOSS RUBELIUS, - -“The Duke and myself have asked a few friends to join us at Rantorlie on -April 1, for the salmon-fishing, and we should be so pleased if you -would come. - - “Sincerely yours, - “ETHELWYNE RANTORLIE.” - - -“The first letter I ever had, dated from Berkeley Square,” commented Mr. -Rubelius, as, holding the letter very firmly down upon the blotter with -her slim and white, but very strong hands, the Duchess signed to him -with her chin to read, “that was anything in the nature of a genial -invitation.” - -He allowed the Duchess to take the three letters previously referred to -from his right hand, as he dexterously twitched the invitation from the -blotter with his left finger and thumb. “This, your Grace, will be as -good as half a dozen more to me,” he observed, “when I show it about and -get a par. into the papers.” - -“Horrible!” cried the Duchess, shuddering. “You would not do that!” - -Mr. Rubelius favored her with a knowing smile as he produced his shiny -hat, his gloves, and a malacca cane, gold-handled, from some remote -corner in which he had concealed them. - -“Let us, being now on the footing of ’ostess and guest, part friendly,” -he said. “Your Grace, may I take your ’and?” - -“I think the formality absolutely unnecessary,” said the Duchess, -ringing the bell. - -Then the money-lender went away, and she caught up a little portrait of -the Duke that stood upon her writing-table and began to cry over it and -kiss it, and say incoherent, affectionate things, like quite an -ordinary, commonplace young wife. For, after eighteen months of -marriage, she had fallen seriously in love with her quiet, well-bred, -intellectual husband, and the remembrance of the silly, romantic -flirtation with dead Hugh Delaving was gall and wormwood to the palate -that had learned a finer taste. How had she fallen so low as to write -those idiotic, gushing letters? - -Their perfume sickened her. She shuddered at the touch of them, as she -would have shuddered at the touch of the man to whom they had been -written had he still lived. But he was dead, and she had never let him -kiss her. She was thankful to remember that, as she put the letters in -the fire and watched them blacken and burst into flame. - - * * * * * - -“My dear Ethelwyne,” asked the Duke, “where did you pick up Mr. -Rubelius? Or, I should ask, perhaps, how did that gentleman attain to -your acquaintance?” - -“It is rather a long, dull story,” said his wife, “but he is really an -excellent person, if a little vulgar, and—— You won’t bother me any more -about him, Rantorlie, will you?” - -She clasped her gloved hands about her husband’s arm as they stood -together on the river beach below Rantorlie. The turbid flood of the -Haste, tinged brown by spate, raced past between its rocky banks; the -pine-forests climbed to meet the mountains, and the mountains lifted to -the sky their crowns of snow. There was a smell of spring in the air, -and word of new-run fish in the string of deep pools below the famous -Falls. - -“I will not, if you particularly wish it,” said her husband. “But to -banish your guest from my mind—that is impossible. For one thing, he is -hung with air-belts, bottles, and canteens, as though he were starting -for a tour in the wildest part of Norway. I believe his equipment -includes a hatchet, and I think that wad he wears upon his shoulders is -a rubber tent, but I am not sure. He has never heard of prawn-baiting, -his rods are of the most alarming weight and size, and his salmon-flies -are as large and gaudy as paroquets, and calculated, McDona says, to -frighten any self-respecting fish out of his senses. We can’t allow such -a gorgeous tyro to spoil the best water. He must be sent to some of the -smaller pools, with a man to look after him.” - -“But he—he won’t be likely to catch anything there, will he?” asked the -Duchess anxiously. - -“A seven-pounder, if he has luck!” - -“Oh, Rantorlie, that won’t do _at all_!” cried Rantorlie’s wife in -dismay. “I want him to have the chance of something _really big_. It’s -our duty to see that our guests are properly treated, and, though you -don’t like Mr. Rubelius——” - -“Dear child, I don’t dislike Mr. Rubelius. I simply don’t think about -him any more than I think about the sea-lice on the new-run fish. They -are there, and they look nasty. Rubelius is here, and so does he.” - -“_Doesn’t_ he—especially in evening-dress with a red camelia and a -turn-down collar?” gasped the Duchess. - -The Duke could not restrain a smile at the vision evoked, as Mr. -Rubelius, panoplied in india-rubber, cork, and unshrinkables, strode -into view. One of the gillies bore his rod, the other his basket. A -third followed with that wobbliest of aquatic vehicles, a coracle, -strapped upon his back. With a grin, the man waded into the water, -unhitched his light burden, placed it on the rapid stream, and stood, -knee-deep, holding the short painter, as the frisky coracle tugged at -it. - -“You’re going to try one of those things?” said the Duke, as Rubelius -gracefully lifted his waterproof helmet to the Duchess. “You know -they’re awfully crank, don’t you, and not at all safe for a bung—I mean, -a beginner?” - -“The men, your Grace,” explained Mr. Rubelius, “are going to peg me down -in the bed of the stream, a little way out from the shore.” - -“But if your peg draws,” said his host, “do you know how to use your -paddle?” - -“That will be all right, your Grace,” said the affable Rubelius. “I know -how to punt. Often on the Thames at Twicken’am——” - -“My dear sir, the Haste in Moss-shire and the Thames at Twickenham are -two very different rivers,” said the Duke, beckoning his gillies to -follow, and turning away. “I hope the man may not come to any harm,” he -said. “Ethelwyne, will you walk down to the Falls with me? I”—he -reddened a little—“I sent the others on in carts by road. We see so -little of each other these days.” - -And the young couple started, leaving Mr. Rubelius to be put into his -coracle, with much splashing, and swearing on his part, by two of the -gillies and a volunteer. It was a mild day for April in the North. A -single cuckoo called by the riverside, and the Duke and Duchess did not -hurry, though Ethelwyne turned back before she reached the Falls, below -which the deepest salmon-pools were situated, and where the men, the -boats, and the rest of the party waited. She had her rod and gillie, and -meant to spin a little desultorily from the bank, the Haste being almost -in every part too deep for waders, except in the upper reaches. - -“I wonder how that horror is getting on?” she thought, as the gillie -baited her prawn-tackle. Then, stepping out upon a natural pier of rough -stones leading well out into the turbulent whitey-brown stream, the -Duchess skilfully swung out her line, and, after a little manipulation, -found herself fast in a good-sized fish. - -“What weight should you judge it?” she asked the attendant, when the -silvery prey had been gaffed and landed. - -“All saxteen,” said the gillie briefly. “Hech! What cry was that?” - -As the man held up his hand the noise was repeated. - -“It sounds like somebody shouting ‘Help!’” said the Duchess. - -And, rod in hand, she ran out upon the pier of bowlders, and, shading -her eyes with her hand, gazed upstream, as round a rocky point above -came something like a tarred washing-basket with a human figure huddled -knees-to-chin inside. The coracle had betrayed the confidence of Mr. -Rubelius, and drifted with its hapless tenant down the mile and a half -of racing water which lay between Rantorlie and the Falls. The Falls! At -that remembrance the laughter died upon the Duchess’s lips, and the -ridiculous figure drifting towards her in the bobbing coracle became -upon an instant a tragic spectacle. For Death waited for Mr. Rubelius a -little below the next bend in the rocky bed of the Haste. And—if the -money-lender were drowned—those letters ... yes, those letters, the -proofs of the Duchess’s folly, might be regained and destroyed, -secretly, and nobody would ever—— - -It seemed an age of reflection, but really only a second or two went by -before the Duchess cried out to Rubelius in her sweet, shrill voice, and -ran out to the very end of the pier of rocks, and with a clever -underhand jerk sent the heavy prawn-tackle spinning out up and down the -river. Once she tried—and failed. The second time, two of the three -hooks stuck firmly into the wickerwork of the coracle. It spun round, -suddenly arrested in its course, but the strong salmon-gut held, and, -after an anxious minute or two, the livid Rubelius safely reached shore. - -“I’ve ’ad my lesson,” said he, as the gillie administered whisky. “Never -any more salmon-fishing for me! It’s too tryin’,” he gulped—“too ’ard -upon the nerves of a man not born to it!” Then he got up, and came -bare-headed to the Duchess. His face was very pale and flabby, and his -thick lips had lost their color, as he held out a black leather notecase -to her Grace. “You—you saved my life,” he said, “and I’m not going to be -ungrateful. Here they are—the six letters. Look ’em over, if you like, -and see for yourself. And, my obliged thanks to his Grace for his -hospitality—but I leave for town to-morrow. Good-by, your Grace. You -won’t hear of me again!” And Mr. Rubelius kept his word. - - - - - THE CHILD - - -He arrived late—long after the ship of his father’s fortune had been -safely tugged into dock—announcing his entrance upon this terrestrial -stage at a moment when people had ceased to expect him. I may say that -Tom and Leila, having spent twelve years of married life in the -propagation of theories alone, had the most definite notions upon the -subject of infant rearing, training, culture, and so forth. Leila -intended, she informed me in confidence, to be “an advanced mother,” and -Tom, as father to the child of an advanced mother, could hardly help -turning out an advanced father, even had he not cherished ambitions in -that line. - -The boy—for, as Tom reassured all sympathetic callers during the -high-pressure first week of its existence, it undoubtedly was a -boy—seemed on first sight rather smaller and spottier than the child of -so many brilliant prospects had any right to be. They gave him the name -of Harold, a clanking procession of other names coupled on to it, ending -in Alexander Eric. And they engaged and imported a professional Child -Culturist, Miss Sallie Cooter, of Washington—pronounced -Wawshington—certified teacher, trained nurse, member of the -Ethnophysiological Society of America, and one doesn’t know how many -others, to rear Harold on the very latest scientific plan. Miss Cooter, -as the intimate friend and chosen disciple of the Inventress of the -System at which Tom and Leila had taken fire (a lady of literary talents -and original views, who had brought up, on purely hygienic principles, a -family of one, and expanded it into a multiplicity of chapters)—Miss -Cooter might be trusted to achieve the desired result, and turn out -Harold, physically and mentally, a prodigy of infantile perfection. Her -work was purely philanthropic, and if she consented to accept the -inadequate salary of two hundred a year in return for her services, -Leila and Tom explained, she must in no sense be treated as a hireling. - -The united efforts of the brougham and the spring-cart fetched Miss -Cooter and a mountain of Saratogas from the station one spring day, and -she came down to afternoon tea in the very newest of Parisian tea-gowns, -which, properly speaking, is not a tea-gown at all. She was decidedly -pretty, being dark, slim, bright-eyed, keen-featured, and almost -painfully intelligent-looking, even without her gold-framed pince-nez. -We devoted the evening to sociality, as Harold’s regimen of mental and -physical culture was to commence upon the following day. - -“But you shall have a little peep at Baby,” Leila said, “when we go up -to dress for dinner.” - -Miss Cooter agreed. “But I guess I’ve got to ask you, since the boy’s -name is Har’ld, to call him by it, and no other,” she said. “Our society -is dead against abbreviations and pet names. We hold that they act as a -clog upon the expanding faculties of the child, and arrest mental -progress. Besides, when maturity is reached, how pyfectly absurd it is -to hear middle-aged men and women addressed as ‘Toto’ and ‘Tiny’!” - -Tom, who has a way of calling Leila “Mouse” when in good humor, turned -rich imperial purple at this home-thrust, and Leila, whose pet name for -Tom is “Tumps,” called attention to the green-fly on the pot-roses, both -silently registering a vow never again, save _in camera_, to use the -offending appellations. - -Miss Cooter was formally invested with Harold on the following morning. -His ex-nurse, a plump, rosy-cheeked country-woman, painfully devoid of -culture, and absolutely unskilled in the repression of emotion, was -relegated, in floods of tears, to command of the laundry. Leila, -compassionating the grief of the exile, would have pleaded for Mary’s -reduction to the post of under-nurse; but Miss Cooter pronounced that -Mary was an obstacle in the way of Progress, and an enemy to Culture, -and must go. - -Mary went, and Harold, at first too stunned by her desertion to yield to -sorrow, presently proclaimed his bereavement in a succession of -ear-piercing shrieks. - -“What is to be done?” queried Leila, by signs. - -Applying both hands to his mouth, after the fashion of a -speaking-trumpet, Tom vocalized the suggestion, “Send—for Mary—back!” - -But Miss Cooter sternly shook her head, and, bending over the cradle -which contained Harold, looked sternly in his flushed and disfigured -countenance. He immediately held his breath, growing from crimson to -purple and from purple to black as she delivered her inaugural address. - -“My dear Har’ld,” said she, with crisp distinctness, “you are a vurry -little boy——” - -“Hear, hear!” I interpolated, and got a frown from Leila. - -“And at three months old your reasoning fahculties are not developed -enough for you to comprehend that what you don’t like may be the best -thing for you. Mary has gone, and Mary will not come back. Henceforth -you are in my cayah, and you will find me fyum, but gentle. However -badly you may act, I shall not punish you.” - -Harold hiccoughed and stared up at the bright, intellectual face above -him with round, astonished eyes and open, dribbling mouth. - -“Your own sense of what is right and what is wrawng, dormant though it -be at this vurry moment, I intend to awaken and——” - -Harold, never before in his brief life harangued after this fashion, -appeared to grasp already the idea that something was wrong. The -expression of astonishment faded, his down-drooped mouth assumed the -bell or trumpet-shape, and, rapidly doubling and undoubling himself with -mechanical regularity, he emitted the most astonishing series of sounds -we had yet heard from him. No caresses were administered for the -assuagement of his woe, no broken English babbled in his infant ears. -The Rules of the System of Child Culture absolutely prohibited petting, -and baby-language was denounced by Miss Cooter as “pynicious.” - -As she predicted, Harold left off howling after a certain interval. - -“Now I guess you have lyned one lesson already!” said Miss Cooter. “When -you are older, Har’ld, you will cawmprehend that the truest kindness on -your payrents’ part praumpted the separation that has given you pain. -You will have your bottle now; you will say ‘Thank you’ for it, and -ahfter consuming the contents, you will go quietly to sleep.” - -But it took a long time to convince the dubious Harold that the -trumpet-shaped, nickel-silver-stoppered vessel tendered by his new -guardian was the equivalent of his beloved and familiar “Maw.” When -finally convinced, he grabbed it without the slightest attempt at saying -“Thank you,” and, with the gloomiest scowl that I have ever beheld upon -a countenance of such pulpy immaturity, applied himself to deglutition. -Miss Cooter shook her head discouragingly. - -“This child has a strawngly developed animal nature,” pronounced she—“a -throwback to the primeval savage, I should opine.” - -“Delightful! Do buy him a little stone ax and a baby bearskin, Leila,” I -pleaded. “Think what light he will throw upon the Tertiary Period—if -Miss Cooter happens to be right!” - -But Miss Cooter shook her head. “He must be environed by softening and -civilizing influences,” said she, “from this vurry moment. Vegetarian -diet is what I should strawngly recommend.” Her eye doubtfully -questioned the rapidly sinking level of the sterilized milk in Harold’s -glass trumpet. - -“There is such a thing as a cow-tree, isn’t there?” said Leila -anxiously. “Perhaps Cope might acclimatize one in the tropical house?” - -“But while the cow-tree is being acclimatized,” I asked disturbingly, -“upon what is Harold to live?” - -“Kindly take this,” said Miss Cooter. “May I trouble you? Please!” she -repeated sternly. But Harold only screwed up his eyes and dug his pinky -fists into them as his monitress took the empty trumpet away, telling us -stories of an atypical and highly-cultured boy baby of her acquaintance -who not only exhibited Chesterfieldian politeness at four months of age, -saying “Please” and “Thank you,” and “Kindly pass the salt,” but -regularly performed its own ablutions, went through breathing exercises -and simple gymnastics, was familiar with the use of the abacus, and -could work out sums in simple addition upon a patent hygienic slate. All -these facts Miss Cooter put before us with convincing eloquence. Her -language was well chosen, her scientific knowledge and technical skill -quite appalling. There was nothing about a baby that she did not -understand, except, perhaps—the baby. - -From that day Harold lived under the microscope. Charts of his temper, -as of his temperature, were regularly kept up to date; and his progress, -physical and psychological, was recorded by Miss Cooter in a kind of -ship’s log-book, in which data of meteorological disturbances appeared -with distressing frequency. He was not precocious enough to be -classified as abnormal, or sufficiently original to come under the -heading “Atypical,” or old enough to tell lies, and so be dubbed -imaginative. But that tertiary ancestor from whom, according to Miss -Cooter, he derived his temperament, must have possessed some strength of -character, for from the beginning to the end, Harold’s strongest -prejudice was manifested towards Miss Cooter, his most violent -attachment in the direction of the banished Mary, for whom he howled at -regular intervals until he forgot her, when he became reserved, -distrustful, and apathetic. His intellectual qualities were not of the -kind that responded to scientific forcing. He never learned that an -orange was a sphere, or a rusk an irregular cube. The india-rubber -letters and object-blocks possessed for him no meaning; the colored -balls of the abacus only awakened in him a tepid interest. He was in -texture flabby, and habitually wore an expression of languid -indifference—intensified when Miss Cooter was delivering one of her oral -lectures, to utter boredom. Despite his sanitary surroundings, his -day-nursery, intermediate nursery, and night-nursery, papered, carpeted, -furnished, lighted, ventilated, and warmed upon the most approved -scientific methods, he did not thrive, contracting complaints incidental -to infancy with passionate enthusiasm, and keeping them long after -another child would have done with them. And then he complicated an -unusually violent attack of croup with convulsions, and Miss Cooter -guessed she had better resign the case, which she did “right away,” in -favor of some atypical, imaginative, non-atavistic young American -citizen. When last I looked into the hygienic day-nursery, most of the -educational objects it had contained had vanished—presumably into -cupboards—and Harold was lying in the cotton lap of his recovered Mary, -nursing a stuffed kitten, and sucking an attenuated thumb. The -expression of gloomy boredom had vanished from his countenance as Mary -chanted a rhyme, deplorably lacking in sense and construction, about a -certain Baby Bunting whose father went a-hunting to get a little -rabbit-skin to wrap the Baby Bunting in. It afforded Harold such -undisguised delight that I felt sure the rabbit must have burrowed in -tertiary strata, and that the predatory parents of Baby Bunting must -have been the primal type from which Harold hailed. But Miss Cooter, who -could alone have sympathized with my scientific delight in this -discovery, was tossing in mid-Atlantic on her way to the land of the -Stars and Stripes. - -We were, however, to meet yet once again under the spangled folds of Old -Glory. It was a year or so later, on board a Hudson River steamboat. She -was prettier than ever, quite beautifully dressed, and her _entourage_ -comprised two nurses (a colored “mammy” and a pretty Swiss), a -perambulator with a baby, and a husband. She introduced me to the -husband and the baby, a round, rosy baby, neither atypical nor -atavistic, but just of the common, old-fashioned kind. - -“Isn’t he cute!” she exclaimed, with rapture. “Smile at Momma, Baby, and -show um’s pretty toofs!” Then she addressed the child as a “doodleum -ducksey,” while I stood speechless and staring. - -My circular gaze awakened memories of the past. She asked after Harold. - -“He is very well—now!” I said with point. “May I be pardoned for -remarking that you do not appear to be rearing your own baby upon the -System of Child Culture you formerly followed with such extraordinary -success?” - -“No,” said the late Miss Cooter thoughtfully. “No-o!” - -“Why not?” I asked, hot with the remembrance of Harold’s sufferings. - -Miss Cooter considered, a beautifully manicured forefinger in a dimple -that I had never observed before. - -“Why not? You earnestly advocated the system—for other people’s babies.” - -“Well,” said the late Miss Cooter, with a burst of candor, “I reckon -because those _were_ other people’s babies. This is mine!” - - - - - A HINDERED HONEYMOON - - -The coffee and liquor stage of a long and elaborate luncheon having been -reached, the rubicund and puffy personage occupying the chair at the -head of the table—number three against the glass partition, east end, -Savoy Grill-room—waved a stout hand, and instantly eight of the nimblest -waiters—two to a double-leaved folding-screen—closed in upon the table -with these aids to privacy. The rubicund personage, attired, like each -of his male guests present, in the elaborate frock-coat, with white -buttonhole bouquet, tender-hued necktie, pale-complexioned waistcoat, -gray trousers, and shiny patent leathers inseparable from a wedding—the -rubicund personage (who was no less a personage than Mr. Otto Funkstein, -managing head of the West End Theatre Syndicate) got upon his legs, -champagne-glass in hand, and proposed the united healths of Lord and -Lady Rustleton. - -“For de highly-brivileged nopleman who hos dis day gonferred ubon de -brightest oond lofliest ornamend of de London sdage a disdinguished name -oond an ancient didle I hof noding put gongradulations,” said Mr. -Funkstein, balancing himself upon the tips of his patent-leather toes, -and thrusting his left hand (hairy and adorned with rings of price) in -between the jeweled buttons of his large, double-breasted buff -waistcoat. “For de sdage oond de pooblic dot will lose de most prilliant -star dot has efer dwinkled on de sdage of de West Enf Deatre I hof -nodings poot gommiseration. As de manacher of dot blayhouse I feel vit -de pooblic. As de friend—am I bermitted to say de lofing oond baternal -friend of de late Miss Betsie le Boyntz?”—(tumultuous applause checked -the current of the speaker’s eloquence)—“changed poot dis day in de -dwingling of an eye—in de hooding of a modor-horn—by de machick of a -simble ceremony at de Registrar’s—gonverted from a yoong kirl in de -first dender ploom”—(deafening bravos hailed this flight of poetic -imagination)—“de first dender ploom of peauty oond de early brime of -chenius”—(the lady-guests produced their handkerchiefs)—“into a yoong -vife, desdined ere long to wear upon her lofely prow de goronet of an -English Gountess”—(Otto began to weep freely)—“a Gountess of -Pomphrey.... Potztauzend! de dears dey choke me. Mine dear vriends, I -gannot go on.” - -Everybody patted Funkstein upon the back at once. Everybody uttered -something consoling at an identical moment. Mopping his streaming -features with the largest white cambric handkerchief ever seen, the -manager was about to resume, when Lord Rustleton—whose tragic demeanor -at the Registrar’s Office had created a subdued sensation among the -officials there, whose deep depression during the wedding banquet had -been intensified rather than alleviated by frequent bumpers of -champagne, and who had gradually collapsed in his chair during -Funkstein’s address until little save his hair and features remained -above the level of the tablecloth, galvanically rose and, with a soft -attempt to thump the table, cried: “Order!” - -“Choke him off,” murmured a smart comedian to his neighbor, “for pity’s -sake. He’s going to tell us how he threw over the swell girl he was -engaged to a month before their wedding—for Petsie’s sake; and how he -has brought his parents’ gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, and for -ever forfeited the right to call himself an English gentleman. I know, -bless you! I had it all from him last night at the Mummers’ Club, and -this morning at his rooms in Wigmore Street.” - -“Rustleton!” - -“Order!” yelled Rustleton again. - -“Order!” echoed Funkstein, turning a circular pair of rather bibulous -and bloodshot blue eyes upon the protestant bridegroom. “Oond vy order?” - -“Permimme to reminyou,” said Rustleton, with laborious distinctness, -“that the present Head of my fammary, the Rironaurable the Earl of -Pomphrey—in poinnofac’, my Fara—is at the present momen’ of speaking in -the enjoymen’ of exhallent health, an’ nowistanning present painfully -strained rela’ions essisting bi’ween us, I have no desire—nor, I feel -convinned, has my wife, Lady Rustleton, any desire—to, in poinnofac’, -usurp his shoes, or play leapfrog over his—in poinnofac’, his coffin. -Therefore, the referen’ of the distinnwished gelleman who, in -poinnofac’, holds the floor, to the coronet of a Countess in premature -conneshion with the brow of my newly-marriwife I am compelled to regard -as absorrutely ram bad form!” - -“Tam bad _vat_?” shrieked Funkstein. - -Rustleton leaned over the table. His eyes were set in a leaden-hued -countenance. His hair hung lankly over his damp forehead. He nerved -himself for a supreme effort. “Ununerrarrably ram baform!” he said, and -with this polysyllabic utterance fell into a crystal dish of melted ice, -and a comatose condition. - -“Bad, bad boy!” said the recently-made Lady Rustleton, biting her -notorious cherry underlip, and darting a brilliant glance at Funkstein -out of her celebrated eyes as Rustleton was snatched from his perilous -position by a strong-armed chorus beauty; and the low comedian, who had -become famous since the production of _The Charity Girl_, dried the -Viscount’s head with a table-napkin and propped him firmly in his chair. - -“It is not de Boy, but de man dat drinks it,” giggled Funkstein, with -recovered good temper. “Ach ja, oond also de voman. How many bints hof I -not seen you....” - -“That’ll do, thanks,” said the newly-made Viscountess, with her -well-known expression of prim propriety. “Not so much reminiscing, you -know; it’s what poor Tonnie called ‘ahem’d bad form’ just now, didn’t -you, ducky?” - -“Don’t call me rucky,” said the gentleman addressed, who was now rapidly -lapsing into the lachrymose stage of his complaint. “Call me a -mirerrable worm or a ‘fernal villain. I reserve both names. Doesn’ a man -who has alienarid the affeshuns of his father, blirid his mother’s -fonnest hopes, and broken his pli’rid word to a fonnanloving woman—girl, -by Jingo——” - -“Oh, do dry up about that now, darling!” said Lady Rustleton tartly. “I -dare say she deserved what she got. What you have to remember now is -that you’re married to me, and we shall be spinning away in the -Liverpool Express in another hour, _en route_ for the ocean wave. I -always _said_, when I _did_ have a honeymoon—a real one—I’d have it on -the opening week of the production on a big Atlantic liner. And this is -the trial voyage of the _Regent Street_, and she’s the biggest thing in -ships afloat to-day. Do let’s drink her health!” - -The toast was drunk with enthusiasm. Two waiters advanced bearing a -wedding-cake upon a charger. The bride coyly cut a segment from the -mass. It was divided and passed round. The ladies took pieces to dream -on, the men shied at the indigestible morsels. Somebody had the bright -idea of sending a lump to the chauffeur of the bridal motor-car, which -had been waiting in the bright October sunshine, outside in the -palm-adorned courtyard, since one o’clock. A _chassé_ of cognac went -round. Rustleton was shaken into consciousness of his marital -responsibilities and a fur-lined overcoat; everybody kissed Petsie; all -the women cried, Petsie included—but not unbecomingly. Her bridal gown, -a walking-costume of white cloth trimmed with silver braid, contained a -thoroughly contented young woman; her hat, a fascinating creation, -trimmed with a rose-colored bird, a _marquisette_, and a real lace veil, -crowned a completely happy wife. Tonnie possessed nothing extraordinary -in the way of good looks or good brains, it was true; but Tonnie’s wife -was wealthy in these physical attributes. He possessed a high-nosed, -aristocratic old fossil of a father, whose prejudices against a -daughter-in-law taken from the lyric boards must be got over. He owned a -perfectly awful mother, whose ancestral pride and whose three chins -must—nay, should—be leveled with the dust. His sisters, the Ladies -Pope-Baggotte, Petsie said to herself with a smile, were foewomen -unworthy of such steel as is forged in the _coulisses_ of the musical -comedy theaters. Yet should they, too, bite the dust. In a golden -halo—partly hope, partly champagne—she saw Lady Rustleton sweeping, -attired in electrifying gowns, onwards to the conquest of Society. The -greengrocer’s shop in Camberwell, among whose cabbages and potatoes her -infancy had been passed; the Board-School, on whose benches the -first-fruits of knowledge had been garnered, were quite forgotten. Some -other little circumstances connected with the Past were blotted from the -slate of memory by the perfumed sponge of gratified ambition. She bore -the deluge of rice and confetti with dazzling equanimity. She hummed -“Buzzy, Buzzy, Busy Bee” as the motor-car, its chauffeur sorely -embarrassed by a giant wedding favor, a pair of elderly slippers tied on -the rear-axle, sped to Euston. - -“I’ve got there at last,” said Petsie, as the Express ran into the -Liverpool docks and toiling human ants began to climb up the ship’s -gangways thrust downwards from the beetling gray sides of the biggest of -all modern liners. “I’ve got there at last, I have, and in spite of -Billy Boman. A precious little silly I must have been to take a -hairdresser for a swell; but at seventeen what girl brought up in a -Camberwell backstreet knows a paste solitaire from a real diamond, or a -ready-made suit, bought for thirty bob at a Universal Supply Stores, -from a Bond Street one? And if nice curly hair and a straight nose, a -clear skin, and a good figure were all that’s wanted to make a -gentleman, Billy could have sported himself along with the best. But now -he’s dead, and I’ve married again into the Peerage, and I shall sit on -the Captain’s right at the center saloon table, not only as the -prettiest woman on board his big new ship, but as a bride and a -Viscountess into the bargain. Wake up, Tonnie dear. You’ve slept all the -way from Euston, and there’s a plank to climb.” - -“Eh?” Tonnie stared with glassy eyes at the scurrying crowds of human -figures, the piled-up trucks of giant trunks and dress-baskets soaring -aloft at the end of donkey-engine cables, to vanish into the bowels of -the marine leviathan. “Eh! What! Hang it! How confoundedly my head -aches! Funkstein must have given us a brutally unwholesome luncheon. Why -did I allow him to entertain us? I felt from the first it was a hideous -mistake.” - -“Why did you let the fellows persuade you to drink more of the Boy than -is good for you, you soft-headed old darling?” Petsie gurgled. She -smoothed the lank hair of her new-made spouse, and, reaching down his -hat from the netting, crowned him with it, and bounded out of the -reserved first-class compartment like a lively little rubber ball. -“Here’s Timms, your man, with my new maid. No, thank you, Simpkins. You -can take the traveling-bags. I may be a woman of title, but I mean to -carry my jewel-case myself. Come along into the Ark, Tonnie, with the -other couples. What number did you say belonged to our cabin, darling?” - -“The Gobelin Tapestry Bridal Suite Number Four,” said Rustleton, with a -pallid smile, as a white-capped, gold-banded official hurried forward to -relieve the Viscountess of her coroneted jewel-case. - -“How tweedlums!” sighed Petsie, retaining firm hold of the leather -repository of her brand-new diamond tiara and necklace, not to mention -all the rings and brooches and bangles reaped from the admiring -occupants of the orchestra-stalls at the West End Theatre during the -tumultuously successful run of _The Charity Girl_. - -“It costs for the trip—five days, four hours, and sixteen -minutes—between Queenstown and the Daunts Rock Lightship,” said -Rustleton, with a heavy groan, “exactly two hundred and seventy-five -guineas. Ha, ha!” He laughed hollowly. - -“But why did you choose such a screamingly swell suite, you wicked, -wasteful duckums?” cried the bride coquettishly, as their guide switched -on the electric light and revealed a chaste and sumptuous nest of -apartments in carved and inlaid mahogany, finished in white enamel with -artistic touches of gold, and hung with tapestry of a greeny-blue and -livid flesh-color. - -“Because I can’t afford it,” said the dismal bridegroom, “and because -the meals and all that will be served here separately and privately.” He -sank limply upon a sumptuous lounge, and hurled an extinct cigarette-end -into an open fireplace surrounded by beaten brass and crowned by a -mantel in rose-colored marble. “The execrable ordeal of the first cabin -dining-room, with its crowds of gross, commonplace, high-spirited, -hungry feeders will thus be spared us. You need never set foot in the -Ladies’ Drawing-room; the Lounge and the Smoking-room shall equally be -shunned by me. Exercise on the Promenade Deck is a necessity. We shall -take it daily, and take it together, my _incognito_ preserved by a -motor-cap and goggles, your privacy ensured by a silk—two silk—veils.” -He smiled wanly. “I have roughly laid down these lines, formulated this -plan, for the maintenance of our privacy without making any allowance -for the exigencies of the weather and the condition of the sea. But if I -should be prostrated—and I am an exceedingly bad sailor at the best of -times—remember, dearest, that a tumbler of hot water administered every -ten minutes, alternately with a slice of iced lemon, should feverish -symptoms intervene, is not a panacea, but an alleviation, as my cousin, -Hambridge Ost, would say. I rather wonder what Hambridge is saying now. -He possesses an extraordinary faculty of being scathingly sarcastic at -the expense of persons who deserve censure. An unpleasant sensation in -my spine gives me the impression—do you ever have those -impressions?—that he is exercising that faculty now—and at my expense. -Timms, I will ask you to unpack my dressing-gown and papooshes, and -then, if you, my darling, do not object, I will lie down comfortably in -my own room and have a cup of tea. If I might make a suggestion, -dearest, it is that you would tell your maid to get out _your_ -dressing-gown and _your_ slippers, and lie down comfortably in _your_ -own room and have a cup of tea.” - -The twenty-six thousand ton Atlantic flyer moved gracefully down the -Mersey, the last flutter of handkerchiefs died away on the stage, the -last head was pulled back over the vessel’s rail, the seething tumult of -settling down reduced itself to a hive-like buzzing. The _Regent -Street’s_ passenger-list comprised quite a number of notabilities -connected with Art and the Drama, a promising crop of American -millionaires, an ex-Viceroy of India, and a singularly gifted -orang-utan, the biggest sensation of the London season, who had dined -with the Lord Mayor and Corporation at the Mansion House, and was now -crossing the ocean to fulfill a roof-garden engagement in New York, and -be entertained at a freak supper by six of the supreme leaders of -American Society. Petsie pondered the passenger-list with a pouting lip. -She heard from her enraptured maid of the glories of the floating palace -in which the first week of her honeymoon was to be spent as she sipped -the cup of tea recommended by Rustleton. - -“Lifts to take you up and down stairs, silver-gilt and enamel souvenirs -given to everybody free, Turkish baths, needle baths, electric baths, -hairdressing and manicuring saloons, millinery establishments, a theater -with a stock company who don’t know what sea-sickness means, jewelers’ -shops, florists, and Fuller’s, a palmist, and a thought-reader. -Goodness! the gay old ship must be a floating London, with fish and -things squattering about underneath one’s shoe-heels instead of -‘phone-wires and electric-light cables. And I’m shut up like a blooming -pearl in an oyster, instead of running about and looking at everything. -Oh, Simpkie’—Simpkins, the new maid, had been a dresser at the West End -Theatre—“I’m dying for the chance of a little flutter on my own, and how -am I to get it?” - -The _Regent Street_ gave a long, stately, sliding dive forwards as a -mammoth roller of St. George’s Channel swept under her sky-scraping -stern. A long, plaintive moan—forerunner of how many to come!—sounded -from the other side of the partition dividing the apartments of the -bride from that of her newly-wedded lord. - -“I think you’re goin’ to get it, my lady,” said the demure Simpkins, as -Rustleton’s man knocked at his mistress’s door to convey the intimation -that his lordship preferred not to dine. - -A head-wind and a heavy sea combined, during the next three days of the -voyage, to render Rustleton a prey to agonies which are better imagined -than described. While he imbibed hot water and nibbled captain’s -biscuits, or lay prone and semi-conscious in the clutches of the hideous -malady of the wave, Lady Rustleton, bright-eyed, _petite_, and -beautifully dressed, paraded the promenade deck with a tail of male and -female cronies, played at quoits and croquet, to the delight of select -audiences, and sat in sheltered corners after dinner, well out of the -radius of the electric light, sometimes with two or three, generally -with one, of the best-looking victims of her bow and spear. She sat on -the Captain’s right hand at the center table, outrageously bedecked with -diamonds. She played in a musical sketch and sang at a charity concert. -“Buzzy, Buzzy, Busy Bee” was thenceforth to be heard in every corner of -the vast maritime hotel that was hurrying its guests Westward at the -utmost speed of steel and steam. Fresh bouquets of Malmaison carnations, -roses and violets from the Piccadilly florists, were continually heaped -upon her shrine, dainty jeweled miniature representations of the _Regent -Street’s_ house-flag, boxes of choice bonbons showered upon her like -rain. The celebrated orang-utan occupied the chair next hers at a -special banquet, the newest modes in millinery found their way -mysteriously to her apartment, if she had but tried them on, smiled, -and, with the inimitable Petsie wink at the reflection of her own -provokingly pretty features in the shop mirror, approved. - -“I keep forgetting I’m a married woman,” she would say, with the Petsie -smile, when elderly ladies of the cat-like type, and middle-aged men who -were malicious, inquired after the health of the invisible Lord -Rustleton. “But he’s there, poor dear; or as much as is left of him. -Quite contented if he gets his milk and beef-juice, and the hot water -comes regularly, and there’s a slice of lemon to suck. No; I’m afraid I -can’t give him your kind message of sympathy, you know, because sympathy -is too disturbing, he says.... He doesn’t even like _me_ to ask him if -he’s feeling bad, because, as he tells me, I have only to look at him to -know that he is, poor darling.” - -Thus prattled the bride, even ready to _faire l’ingénue_ for the benefit -of even an audience of one. The voyage agreed with Petsie. Her -complexion, dulled by make-up, assumed a healthier tint; her eyes and -smile grew brighter, even as the ruddy gold faded from her abundant -hair. The end of this story would have been completely different had not -the tricksy sea-air brought about this deplorable change. - -“I’m getting dreadfully rusty, as you say, Simpkie; and if the man in -the hairdresser’s shop on the Promenade Deck Arcade can give me a -shampoodle and touch me up a bit—quite an artist is he, and quite the -gentleman? Oh, very well, I’ll look in on my gentleman-artist between -breakfast and _bouillon_.” - -Petsie did look in. The artist’s studio, elegantly hung with heavy pink -plush curtains, only contained, besides a shampooing-basin, a large -mirror, a nickel-silver instrument of a type between a chimney-cowl and -a ship’s ventilator, and a client’s chair, a young person of -ingratiating manners, who offered Lady Rustleton the chair, and -enveloping her dainty person in a starchy pink wrapper, touched a bell, -and saying, “The operator will attend immediately, moddam,” glided -noiselessly away. Petsie, approvingly surveying her image in the mirror, -did not hear a male footstep behind her. But as the head and shoulders -of the operator rose above the level of her topmost waves, and his -reflected gaze encountered her own, she became ghastly pale beneath her -rose-bloom, and with a little choking cry of recognition gasped out: - -“Bill ... Boman! ... it can’t be you?” - -“The old identical same,” Mr. William Boman said, with a cheerful smile. -“And if the shock has made you giddy, I can turn on the basin-hose in -half a tick, and give you a splash of cold as a reviver. Will you have -it? No? Then don’t faint, that’s all.” - -“You wrote to say you were dying at Dieppe five years ago,” sobbed -Petsie, into the folds of the pink calico wrapper. “You wicked, cruel -man, you know you did!” - -“And now you’re crying because I didn’t die,” said Mr. Boman, arranging -his sable forehead-curls in the glass, and complacently twirling a -highly-waxed mustache. “No pleasing you women. You never know what you -want, strikes me.” - -“But somebody sent me a French undertaker’s bill for a first-class -funeral, nearly thirty pounds it came to when we’d got the francs down -to sovereigns,” moaned Petsie, “and I paid it.” - -“That was my little dodge,” said Mr. Boman calmly, “to get a few -yellow-birds to go on with. Trouble I’d got into—don’t say any more -about it, because I am a reformed character now. And now we’re talking -about characters, what price yours, my Lady Rustleton?” - -“Oh, Billy!” - -“Bigamy ain’t a pretty word, but that’s what it comes to, as I’ve said -to myself many an evening as I smoked my cigar on the second-class deck -promenade, and heard you singing away in there to the swells in the -music-room like a—like a cage full of canaries. I shan’t make no scene -nor nothing like that, says I. Her hair’s getting a bit off color—see it -by daylight, she’ll have to come my way before long, and then I shall -tip her the ghost with a vengeance.” - -“Oh, Bill dear, how could you be so cruel!” pleaded Petsie. - -“Not so much of the ‘Bill dear,’ I’ll trouble you,” said Mr. Boman -sternly. “Why don’t you produce that aristocratic corpse you’ve married, -and let me have it out with him? Seasick, is he? I’ll make him land-sick -before I’ve done with him, and so I tell you. He’ll have to sell some of -his blooming acres to satisfy me, or some of them diamonds of yours, my -lady.” - -But at this juncture the delayed attack of hysteria swooped upon its -victim. Summoning his young lady-assistant, Mr. Boman, with a few -injunctions, placed the patient in her care. Then brushing a few -bronze-hued hairs from his frock-coat, removing his dapper apron, and -tidying his hair with a rapid application of the brush, he winked as one -well pleased, and betook himself to Gobelin Tapestry Bridal Suite Number -Four, in the character of a Messenger of Fate. - -Three hours later the news had leaked out all over the _Regent Street_. -The great vessel buzzed like a wasps’-nest, and the utmost resources of -wireless telegraphy were taxed to communicate to sister ships upon the -ocean and fellow-men upon the nearest land the astounding fact of the -sudden collapse of the Rustleton marriage, owing to the arrival on the -scene of a previous husband of the lady. - -“_Ach Himmel!_ it is klorious!” gasped Funkstein, waving a pale blue -paper, “I haf here Petsie’s reply to de offer of de Syindigate—she comes -to de Vest End Theatre; at an advanced salary returns—and de house will -be cram-jammed to de doors for anoder tree hoondred berformances. It is -an ill vind dot to nopody plows goot, mark my vords!” - -Lord Pomphrey had just given utterance to a similar sentiment; -Rustleton, on the other side of the Atlantic, had previously arrived at -a like conclusion. Mr. Boman had entertained the same view from the -outset of affairs. Petsie—again Le Poyntz—realizing the gigantic -advertisement that the resurrection of her first proprietor involved, -was gradually becoming reconciled to the situation. When all the -characters of a tale are made content, is it not time the narrative came -to a close? - - - - - “CLOTHES—AND THE MAN—!” - - -The smoking-room of the Younger Sons’ Club, the bow-windows of which -command a view of Piccadilly, contained at the hour of two-thirty its -full complement of habitual nicotians, who, seated in the comfortable -armchairs, recumbent on the leather divans, or grouped upon the -hearthrug, lent their energies with one accord to the thickening of the -atmosphere. - -Hambridge Ost, a small, drab-hued man with a triangular face, -streakily-brushed hair, champagne-bottle shoulders, and feet as narrow -as boot-trees without the detachable side-pieces, invariably encased in -the shiniest of patent leathers,—Hambridge, from behind a large green -cigar, was giving a select audience of very young and callow listeners -the benefit of his opinions upon dress. - -“If I proposed to jot down the small events of my insignificant private -life, dear fellers, or had the gift—supposing I did commit ’em to -paper—of makin’ ’em interesting ...” said Hambridge, raising his -eyebrows to the edge of his carefully parted hair and letting them down -again, “I don’t mind telling you, dear fellers, that the resultant -volume or two would mark an epoch in autobiographical literature. But, -like the violet—so to put it—I have, up to the present, preferred to -blush unseen. Not that the violet _can_ blush anything but purple—or -blue in frosty weather, but the simile has up to now always held good in -literature. Lord Pomphrey—a man appreciative to a degree of the talents -of his relatives—has said to me a thousand times if one, ‘Confound you, -Hambridge, why is not that, or this, or the other, so to put it, in -print?’ But Pomphrey may be partial——” - -“No, no!” exclaimed, in a very deep bass, a very young man in a knitted -silk waistcoat and a singularly brilliant set of pimples. “No, no!” - -“Much obliged, dear fellow,” said Hambridge, hoisting his eyebrows and -letting them drop in his characteristic manner. “Some of my views may -possess originality—even freshness when expressed, as I invariably -express ’em, in a perfectly commonplace manner.” - -“No, no!” again exclaimed the pimply-faced owner of the deep bass voice. - -“As to the Ethics of the Crinoline, now,” went on Hambridge, “I observe -that an energetic effort is being made—in a certain quarter and amongst -a certain _coterie_—to revive the discarded hoops of 1855–66. They did -their best to impart a second vitality to the Early Victorian -poke-bonnet some years ago. Why did the effort fail, dear fellers? -Because, with their accompanying garniture of modesty, blushes were -considered necessary to the feminine equipment at the date I have -mentioned. And because blushes—I speak on the most reliable -authority—are more difficult to simulate than tears. Also because, -looking down the pink silk-lined tunnel of the poke-bonnet of 1855–66, -it was impossible for you, as an ordinary male creature, to decide -whether the rosy glow invading the features of the woman you adored—we -adored women, dear fellows, at that period—was genuine or the reverse. -There you have in a nutshell the reason why the poke-bonnet was not -welcomed at the dawn of the twentieth century. Modesty and blushes, dear -fellers, are out of date.” - -Hambridge leaned back in his chair with an air of mild triumph, running -his movable eye—the left was rigidly fixed behind his monocle—over the -faces of the listeners. - -“Will the woman of the Twentieth Century willingly enclose her legs—they -were limbs in 1855–66—once more in the steel-barred calico cage, fifteen -feet in circumference, if not more, that contained the woman of the -Early Victorian Era? Dear fellers, the question furnishes material for -an interestin’ debate. In my young days there was no sittin’ in ladies’ -pockets, no cosy-cornering, so to put it. You invariably kept at a -respectful distance from the young creature whom you, more or less -ardently—we could be ardent in those days—desired to woo and win, simply -because you couldn’t get nearer. You didn’t approach her mother for -permission to pay your addresses-her mother was encased in a similar -panoply. You went to her father, because you could get at him—there you -have the plain, simple reason of the custom of ‘askin’ Papa.’ And if you -were reprehensibly desirous of eloping with another fellow’s wife, you -didn’t express your wish in words. You wrote a letter invitin’ her to -fly with you—we called it flying in those days—and dropped it in the -post. If the lady disapproved, she dropped you. If not, she bolted with -you in a chaise with four or a pair—and even then her crinoline kept you -at a distance. You were no more at liberty to put your arm round her -waist than if the eye of Early Victorian Society had been glued upon -you. - -“To put forward another reason _contra_ the reacceptance of the -crinoline by the Woman of To-day, dear fellers, the Woman of To-day can -swim. Therefore, the advantage of being dressed practically in a -lifebuoy, does not appeal to her as it did early in the previous reign. -I could quote you an instance of an accident which occurred to the Dover -and Calais paddle-wheel steam-packet, on board which I happened to be a -passenger, which, owing to the negligence of the captain, ran ashore -upon a sandbank half a mile from the pier. The first boat which was -lowered was filled with lady passengers, all in crinolines. It was -swamped by a wave which washed over the stern. The steersman and the -sailors who were rowing were unluckily snatched to a watery grave, poor -fellows. Not so the women passengers of the swamped boat, dear -creatures, who simply floated, keeping hold of one another’s scarves and -bonnet-strings, and so forth, until they could be picked up and conveyed -ashore. Not one of ’em could swim a stroke—and all were saved, thanks to -the crinoline in which each was attired. But, useful as under certain -circumstances the birdcage may be, the Twentieth Century Woman will -never be tempted back into it. She has learned what it is to have -muscles and to use ’em, dear fellers! and the era of languid inertia is -over for her. - -“I will add, dear fellers, that in these drab and uncommonly dismal days -of early December, the dash of color now perceptible in the clothes of -the best dressed men present at social functions of the superior sort, -adds largely to the cheeriness of the scene. _Cela me fait cet effet_, -dear fellers, but of course I may be wrong. And the first man to adopt -and appear in the newest style in evenin’ dress—a bright blue coat of -fine faced cloth, with black velvet collar, velvet cuffs, and silk -facin’s, worn with trousers of the same material, braided with black -down the side seams, and a V-cut vest of white Irish silk poplin-has -realized a fortune through it. - -“A well-known man, dear fellers, connected with two old Tory families of -the highest distinction, educated at Eton, popular at the -University-where he did not allow his love of study to interfere with -the more serious pursuit of sport—d’ye take me? Suppose we call him Eric -de Peauchamp-Walmerdale. His marriage took place yesterday at St. -Neot’s, Knightsbridge, the sacred edifice bein’ decorated with large -lilies and white chrysanthemums, and the gatherin’ of guests -surprisingly large—the biggest crush of the Season as yet. There were -six little girl-bridesmaids in pale blue, with diamond lockets, and the -bride’s train was carried by four pages, also in pale blue, with -gold-headed canes. As for the bride, considerin’ her age—a cool -seventy—surprisin’, dear fellers! Only daughter and heiress of an -ex-butler, who invented a paste for cleanin’ plate, patented it, and -became a millionaire, Isaac Shyne, Esq., M.P., of The Beeches, Wopsley, -and 710, Park Lane, deceased ten years ago at the ripe age of ninety. - -“De Peauchamp-Walmerdale’s married sister lived next door to the rich -Miss Shyne, who practically went nowhere, and only received her -Nonconformist minister, and a few whist-playin’ friends of the same -denomination on certain specified evenin’s. House absolutely Early -Victorian—walnut-wood drawing-room suite, upholstered in green silk rep, -mahogany and brown leather for the dinin’-room. Berlin woolwork -curtains, worked by the mistress of the house, at all the front windows. -Three parrots, two poodles, and a pair of King Charles spaniels of the -obsolete miniature breed. Maid-servants—all elderly, butler like a -bishop, uncommon good cellar of gouty old Madeiras and sherries, laid -down by the defunct Shyne, awful collection of pictures by Smith, Jones, -Brown, and Robinson, splendid plate, too heavy to lift. And a fortune of -one hundred and fifty thousand in the most reliable Home Rails and -breweries, besides an estate of sixty thousand acres in Crannshire, and -the title deeds of the Park Lane house. - -“It came—the idea of bringing Miss Shyne and De Peauchamp-Walmerdale -together—like a flash of inspiration—as the dear feller’s sister, Lady -Tewsminster, told me yesterday when people had struggled up after the -Psalm, and yawned through the address, _not_ delivered by a -Nonconformist, but by the Bishop of Baxterham; and while the choir were -singin’, ‘O Perfect Love!’ She was frightfully cast down when she -discovered through her maid, who had scraped, under orders, an -acquaintance with Miss Shyne’s elderly confidential attendant, that her -lady objected to young gentlemen—couldn’t endure the sight, so to put -it, of anything masculine under fifty, or without a bulge under the -waistcoat, and a bald top to its head. Further inquiries elicited that -Miss Shyne had had a disappointment in early life, and wore at the back -of an old-fashioned cameo brooch, representin’ the ‘Choice of Paris,’ -the portrait on ivory of a handsome young man with fair hair, the livin’ -image of Eric de Peauchamp-Walmerdale, in a light blue tail-coat, with a -black velvet collar and gold buttons, holding a King Charles spaniel of -the miniature breed under his arm. - -“Dear fellers, Lady Tewsminster, the evening upon which she received -this item of information, knew no more than a newly-born infant what she -was going to do with it. As happens to most of us, she mentally filed it -for further reference, and getting into her gown, her diamonds, and her -evening _coiffure_—those Etruscan rolled curls are extremely becoming to -a woman of pronounced outlines, and there’s only one place in London, -she tells me, where they can be bought or redressed—went down to the -drawing-room. - -“A small but select party had been invited for the evenin’, including, -on the feminine side, an American heiress on the lookout for a husband -with a title—or, at least, the next heir to one-a handsome widow with a -fairly decent jointure, and a couple of marriageable girls with almost -quite respectable _dots_. From these, carefully collected on approval by -a devoted sister, De Peauchamp-Walmerdale might, who knows? have -selected a life partner, and sunk into the obscurity of moderate means -for ever, had it not occurred to him upon that particular evening—do you -take me, dear fellers?—to array himself in the latest cry of modern -masculine evening dress. - -“He was standing on the hearthrug when Lady Tewsminster entered, a tall, -slim, youthful figure, fair-haired and complexioned, and quite -uncommonly handsome, in his light blue coat with the black velvet -collar, braided accompaniments, and pearl-buttoned, watch-chainless, -white silk vest. - -“‘How do you like me, Ju, old girl?’ he said, coming to kiss her. ‘I’ve -come to dine in character as our great-grandfather. Awful fool I feel, -but my tailor insisted on my wearin’ ’em, and as I owe the brute a -frightful bill I thought I’d best appease him by givin’ in.’ - -“The gilded Early Victorian frame of the high mantel-mirror behind De -Peauchamp-Walmerdale had the effect of being a frame, if you foller me, -out of which, the figure of the dear feller had stepped. A cameo brooch -shot into the mind of Lady Tewsminster, above it the long narrow face -and dowdy black lace bonnet of the heiress, Miss Jane Ann Shyne. A plan -of campaign was instantly formulated in the mind of that surprising -woman. She stepped to one of the windows commandin’ Park Lane, drew -aside the blind, and saw, paddlin’ up and down on the rainy pavement -outside, the waterproofed figure of Miss Shyne’s confidential maid, -taking the King Charles spaniels and the poodles for their customary -evenin’ ta-ta. Instantly she touched the bell, sent for her maid and -said to her in a rapid undertone, ‘Johnson, ten pounds are yours if you -can steal one of Miss Shyne’s pet King Charles spaniels while their -attendant is not looking. There is no risk—I shall send the creature -back in ten minutes. Will you undertake this? Yes? Very well, go and get -the beast.’ - -“The maid, Johnson, departed swiftly, the area-gate clicked, and Lady -Tewsminster, feverish with the great project boiling under her -transformation, paced the drawing-room until she heard the second click -of the gate. She swept down the stairs to meet Johnson, in whose black -silk apron struggled the smallest of the King Charles spaniels. ‘Did the -woman see?’ whispered the mistress. ‘Not a bit of her, my lady,’ -returned the maid. ‘She was gossiping with the District Police-Inspector -about a burglary they’ve had three doors away. So I got Tottles—that’s -his name, my lady-quite easy, not being on a lead.’ - -“Telling the maid the promised ten pounds should be hers that night, -Lady Tewsminster snatched the struggling ‘Tottles’ from the enveloping -apron and swept back to her drawing-room to carry out her plan. ‘Peachie -dear,’ she said as she entered, ‘it would be frightfully sweet of you if -you would run in next door and carry this little beast to its owner, -Miss Shyne. Insist on seeing her; do not give the animal into any other -hands; do not wear your hat or an overcoat. I am firm upon this; and -remember,’ she fixed her large, expressive eyes full upon her brother’s -face, ‘remember, she has _nearly two hundred thousand pounds, and your -fate is in your own hands!... Go!_’ - -“Rather bewildered by Lady Tewsminster’s almost tragic address, De -Peauchamp-Walmerdale took the wriggling Tottles, left the house, and -carried out his instructions to the letter. The loss of Tottles had been -discovered. Miss Shyne’s establishment was topsy-turvy when he arrived, -servants tearing up and down stairs, the confidential attendant in tears -on a hall chair, Miss Shyne in hysterics in her Early Victorian boudoir, -the remaining dogs harking their heads off, and the very devil to pay. -But the arrival of De Peauchamp-Walmerdale, dear fellers, caused a lull -in the storm. Faithful to his instructions, he refused to give up the -dog, except to its mistress, and after a feint or two of departure, Miss -Shyne gave in and ordered her fate, as it turned out to be—d’ye foller -me?—to be shown upstairs. - -“The Early Victorian drawing-room, with the green rep furniture and the -Berlin woolwork curtains—a pattern of macaws and dahlias, I -understood—was in partial darkness. Only the wax candles in the crystal -candelabra on the marble mantelshelf were alight, no electric -illuminations bein’ permitted on the premises. - -“De Peauchamp-Walmerdale—dog under his arm—took up a commandin’ position -on the hearthrug, also worked in Berlin wool, in front of a small, -mysterious and palely-twinkling fire. As he did so the foldin’ doors -opposite, communicating with the boudoir, slowly opened, and Miss Jane -Ann Shyne, spinster, aged seventy, saw before her the long-dead romance -of her youth, resuscitated from the ashes of—wherever long-dead romances -are deposited, dear fellers. There was a faint, feminine scream—quite -Early Victorian in character—a rustle of old-fashioned satins—an -outburst of joyous barks from Tottles, a strong, bewildering perfume of -lavender water (triple extract), and the old lady sank, literally sank, -upon the white Irish poplin vest that added style and _cachet_ to De -Peauchamp-Walmerdale’s uncommonly fetchin’ costume. - -“What more, dear fellers? The couple were united yesterday at -St. Neot’s, Knightsbridge. Every penny is settled on De -Peauchamp-Walmerdale, and Lady Tewsminster says she can now die happy, -her dear boy being provided for, for life. She naturally claims the -honors of the affair! Quite so, but without the clothes where would the -man have been? D’ye foller me, dear fellers? In my poor opinion, the -principal factor in the making of De Peauchamp-Walmerdale’s fortune was -the Man Behind the Shears. Do you foller me? So glad! Thought you -would.” - - - - - THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA - - -“‘Let us be consistent,’” said Lady Pomphrey, her three saddle-bag chins -quivering with emotion, “‘or let us die’—that is what I have always -said. Here is my only niece, Wendoleth Caer-Brydglingbury, goes—actually -goes—and marries a Liberal Member of Parliament in a red necktie—who -makes speeches in townhalls and tents, and things, to masses of people, -all about pulling down the House of Lords and abolishing the Peerage, -and absolutely declines to allow his wife to drop her title. To you—so -intimate a friend, don’t you know?—I may say in confidence I am -sickened. I cannot imagine what the world is coming to. I could wish to -die and leave it, were it not that Jane and Charlotte are still -unmarried, and I have promised to present three of the _sweetest_ -girls—well-bred Americans of the best type, without a trace of accent—at -the first Drawing-room of the Winter Season. And the family diamonds are -being reset in view of Rustleton’s approaching marriage—a union -satisfactory from every point of view, especially a mother’s.” - -Lady Pomphrey paused for breath, and the intimate friend-they had met at -Bad Smellstein a fortnight previously while taking little early morning -walks, and drinking little glasses of excessively nauseous waters -warranted to correct the most aristocratic acidity—the intimate friend -murmured something sympathetic. - -“Of course, I might have _known_ one _could_ look to _you_ for -comprehension and all that sort of thing,” said Lady Pomphrey, -graciously bending her head, which was enveloped in a large mushroom hat -of blue straw tied down all round with a drab silk veil, and patting the -intimate friend upon the knee with the stick of her celebrated green -silk sunshade. “One of those delightful literary creatures-was it -Algernon Meredith or George Swinburne?—has termed friendship ‘the -marriage of true minds.’ Ever since the Hambridge-Osts introduced us—in -a thunderstorm—at the firework display in the Park in honor of the Grand -Duke’s birthday—and being Sunday, I will _own_ that the nerve-shattering -meteorological demonstrations that drove us to shelter in that extremely -leaky Chinese pavilion seemed to me but a judgment upon German -Sabbath-breakers—ours has been such a union. Cemented by your -helpfulness in the matter of sandbags for a rattling window—Lord -Pomphrey is completely impervious to all such nerve-shattering tortures, -and will sleep happily in his cabin on the yacht in Cowes Roads through -a Royal Naval Review—and your timely ministrations with soda-mint -lozenges when acute indigestion virtually prostrated me after a -homicidal _plat_ of eels with cranberry-sauce, of which I foolishly -partook at the _table d’hôte_. The mysteriousness of it allured me. I -wished for once to feel like a German. Now I feel assured their -extraordinary diet accounts for much that is abstruse and metaphysical -in the national character. For you cannot possibly be normal if you are -fed upon abnormal things. And I am grateful that Rustleton has never -shown himself in the least susceptible to the attractions of their -women. I know—almost quite intimately—a Grand Duchess who has brought up -every one of her nine young daughters upon red-cabbage soup, with -sausage-meat balls and dumplings; and somehow it is suggested in the -girls’ complexions and figures—_especially_ the dumplings.” - -The friend tittered. Lady Pomphrey placed upon the seat beside her a -straw handbag containing a Tauchnitz edition of the last new Mudie -novel, a black fan, a large bottle of frightfully strong salts, several -spare pocket-handkerchiefs, several indelible-ink pencils, and a -quantity of obsolete railway tickets, and became more confidential than -ever. - -“Had I been consulted by destiny when the arrangement of Rustleton’s -matrimonial future came _sur le tapis_ I could not—with my expiring -breath I would repeat this—_could not_ be more completely satisfied. It -began by his hating her.... She hit him on the nose with a diabolo in -June at Ranelagh, and, ‘Mother,’ he said afterwards to me—his upper lip -perfectly rigid with wounded dignity—‘I should have greatly preferred to -have been born in the days of “Coningsby,” or “Lothair.” Muscular young -women create in me a feeling of _positive aversion_!’ He found her -agitating even at that early stage of affairs? How subtle of you to -_see_ that!” - -The flattered friend murmured an interrogation. - -“Who is she?” repeated Lady Pomphrey. “But surely the newspapers?... You -suffer too acutely from dancing spots in the field of vision ever to -read when undergoing a cure?... Poor dear, I can feel for you. She is -the Hon. Céline Twissing—will be Baroness Twissing of Hopsacks in her -own right when old Lord Twissing dies. He insisted upon _that_ -arrangement in the interests of his only child; when the intimation was -conveyed from a Certain Quarter that the Jubilee Baronetcy he already -enjoyed would be changed into a Peerage did he encourage the idea. Quite -a bluff old English type, and I must say in hospitality Imperial. -‘Twissing’s Bonded Breweries.’... A colossal fortune, and that _sweet_ -girl is to inherit nearly the whole. Shall I say that my heart went out -to her from the first instant I saw her? As a mother yourself, you will -understand! Here comes the young woman with the tray for our glasses. -_Ja, bitte, Ich danke Sie...._ You _don’t_ mean to tell me the creature -is a Cockney?... How distressing! I may be fanciful, possibly I am,” -said Lady Pomphrey, “but I do prefer my surroundings to be congruous and -in tone. I’m sure you feel what I convey? You do? How nice that is!...” - -The friend smiled and inaudibly murmured something. - -“Of course,” cried Lady Pomphrey, “you’re on thorns to hear all about -Rustleton’s love-match. As I told you, Céline Twissing—the _Christian_ -name has been Gallicized from Selina—and why on earth not? _Céline_ is -an expert at diabolo. It’s a knack, sending these little black and red -demons as high as a house, or into your neighbor’s eye; and she is a -talented as well as a charming girl. With three languages, several -sciences, a system of physical-culture exercises, golf, tennis, and the -laws of hockey at her finger-ends, she would have gone far in these days -of violent recreations and brusque manners, even without a _dot_. -Masculine? Oh _dear no_! Perhaps deficient in reverence for what _we_ -were taught to believe in as the superior sex. Perhaps lacking in -feminine _finesse_. I _have_ heard it said that the girl of the -twentieth century cannot cajole, and is ignorant how to be alluring. -Perhaps it is a pity. The woman who has a gift of managing difficult -people, smoothing absurd people down, and being perfectly amiable to the -absolutely objectionable is practically priceless as a greaser of the -social cog-wheels. Now Céline calls that sort of woman, plumply and -plainly, a hypocrite.... But is it not a woman’s _duty_ to be a -hypocrite, if telling the truth to everybody makes the world a place of -gnashing?” demanded Lady Pomphrey, making her eyebrows climb up out of -sight under the shadow of her mushroom hat. - -The compliant friend assented. - -“You understand, then, how dissonant was the chord Céline Twissing -struck in Rustleton. With his Plantagenet dash in the blood, his -hereditary intolerance of anything smacking of vulgarity, his medieval -attitude of chivalry towards Woman, his Early Victorian dislike of the -_outré_ and the _bizarre_, he frankly found her intolerable. ‘In a -drawing-room,’ he said to me in confidence, ‘that girl reminds me of a -Polar bear in a hothouse.’ Where the boy could have seen one I cannot -imagine—probably it was only a young man’s daring figure of speech. -Shall we walk about a little? I think I felt a twinge.” - -The friend agreed, and, gently ambling up and down the Kreuzbrunnen -Promenade, Lady Pomphrey continued her narrative. - -“Rustleton said she was a New Girl of the worst type. Then came the -diabolo affair, which, considering Céline’s remarkable knack, I cannot -think accidental. The bridge of Rustleton’s nose was seriously contused, -and his monocle was shattered—fortunately without danger to the eye. He -took no revenge beyond an epigram, quite worthy of La Rochefou—what’s -his name?... She is keen on dancing, unlike other muscular girls; and -said so in my boy’s near vicinity. ‘Why not? She has hops in her blood,’ -he uttered. Of course, a little bird carried it to her ear.... How d’ye -do, Lady Frederica? How d’ye do, Count Pyffer? I quite agree with -you.... Piercing winds, varied by muggy airlessness and a distressingly -relaxing warmth, _have_ made the last eight days intolerable.... My -dear, where was I when I left off?” The suffering friend indicated the -point. Lady Pomphrey continued: - -“And _after all_ they have come together. Quite a romance. If a mother’s -prayers have any influence, ... and I am old-fashioned enough to believe -they have.... But I knew Rustleton too well to breathe a hint of my -hopes. I did not stoop to intrigue, as some mothers would, to bring the -young people together. But dearest Jane, who is always my right hand, -conceived a devoted friendship for Céline just at the psychological -moment, and owing to that she and Rustleton were _constantly_ thrown in -each other’s way. Céline quite exerted herself to be overwhelmingly -unpleasant. Jane says that during a bicycling excursion in the -neighborhood of our place at Cluckham-Pomphrey, she offered to help him -to lift his machine over a stile, and would have done it unaided and -alone if Rustleton had not peremptorily seized the frame-bar, gripping -both her hands in his. On Jane’s authority, she crimsoned to the hat, -throwing him off like a feather, and, mounting her machine, was out of -sight in an instant. He was icily sarcastic on the subject of muscular -young women all the way home, and limited his dinner to clear soup and a -single cutlet with dry toast, while Céline went through all the courses -in her usual thoroughgoing way. They are not in the least ashamed to -eat, do you notice?—these golfing, hockey-playing, open-air young -people.... Now you and I can recall placing a solid barrier of five -o’clock cake and muffins between undue appetite and the eight o’clock -dinner, at which we merely toyed with our knives and forks, trusting to -our maids to have a tray of cold eatables ready in the bedroom for -consumption while our hair was being brushed. Of _course_! ‘but _these_ -girls devour at tea, _wolf_ at dinner’—I quote Rustleton—‘and probably -stodge sandwiches and cold chicken and chocolate-wafers before they -plunge into their beds. When there, how they must snore!’ - -“His eye gleamed with such feverish malignancy as he said this, that I -involuntarily dropped a quantity of stitches in the silk necktie I was -knitting for him—a soothing neutral shade not calculated to call -attention to the tinge of bile in his complexion—and exclaimed, ‘Good -Heavens!’ He immediately begged my pardon and bade me ‘good-night,’ -whispering that he had arranged to shoot over the lower sixty acres with -Stubbins, the head keeper—purely as a filial duty, Pomphrey not feeling -robust enough to undertake it this year.... - -“Whether it was my having breathed a hint of this to Jane—who is, as a -rule, a _grave_ for chance confidence—or whether Miss Twissing had -overheard, how can I say? But she and Stubbins were waiting for my boy -on the following morning, Stubbins—who loathes sporting women—in a state -of complacency that only a five-pound note could have brought about. Her -beautiful Bond-street self-ejecting breechloader, her cap, tweeds, and -gaiters were the _dernier cri_, and with the coolest self-possession she -wiped my poor boy’s eye over and over again. Out of thirty brace of -birds before luncheon only three and a half fell to his gun, and _those_ -were of the red-legged French description, ‘bred for duffers to blaze -at,’ according to Lord Pomphrey. Rustleton went up to town that night, -charging Jane with all sorts of civil messages for Miss Twissing, and -slept at his Club, which was being painted and disagreed with him -excessively.” - -The friend sighed sympathy. - -“Even with every door and window open and a flat dish full of milk upon -the washstand,” said Lady Pomphrey, taking the friend’s arm and -emphasizing her utterances with the green sunshade, “white paint -permeates my whole being in a way that is perfectly indescribable. My -son inherits my receptiveness—perhaps my weakness-indeed, he came into -the world at Cluckham-Pomphrey during an early visit of ours, subsequent -to spring-cleaning, where, owing to an unhappy facility possessed by -Lord Pomphrey of being easily persuaded by self-interested persons, the -hall screen, grand staircase, and all the Jacobean paneling had been -covered by the local decorator with a creamy-hued, turpentiny and -glutinous mixture known as ‘Eggster’s Exquisite Enamel.’ It cost a -fortune to get off again, and some of it still lingers in the crevices -of the carving. My basket.... It is a little cumbrous, but I really -couldn’t think of letting you.... Well then, dear friend, if you -insist.... Now for the really remarkable ending of my boy’s story. - -“He flew to his cousin for consolation. Now, Wendoleth -Caer-Brydglingbury is extremely sympathetic. Only for the color of her -hair-a violent Boadicean red, almost purple in some lights—Rustleton and -she—but I am devoutly thankful things have turned out as they _have_. - -“‘A sea cruise,’ said Wendoleth promptly, ‘will get the white paint out -of your system quicker than anything I know; and your morbid feeling of -vexation with this girl, impatience of her persistency in continuing to -exist, and so forth, will vanish with other things. Mr. Mudge,’—the -person she has since married,—‘has kindly asked Papa and myself to join -his party on board the steam-yacht _Fifi_ for a trip to Lisbon, Madeira, -and the Canaries; join us. I assure you a complete welcome and at least -half a cabin.’ Rustleton recognized the cousinly kindness in Wendoleth’s -proposal, accepted, and went with her and Todmoxen—the Earl is still -robust, but not what he was in the ’seventies, nor is it to be -expected—down to Southampton to join the _Fifi_. Mudge is Liberal member -for the North Clogger Division of Mudderpool. But for a crimson -necktie—the Party badge—and a habit of hanging on to his own coat-lapels -when conversing, he is almost quite presentable, and, like all those -people who begin by not having twopence, he is astonishingly rich. His -welcome to Rustleton was cordial in the extreme. But when Rustleton -found Lord Twissing and his daughter already on board, discovered that -he was to share Twissing’s cabin, and that Céline slept in the one next -door, he was dismayed. He would have excused himself and left the _Fifi_ -only that she was already on her way. Fate, like one of those curious -jelly-like creatures which wave their tentacles to attract their prey -and then clutch it and gradually absorb it, had wrapped its feelers -around my poor boy. He is now resigned, calm, content, even happy; but -when I think how he must have suffered.... My salts. In the basket. So -kind of you, and _so_ reviving.” - -Lady Pomphrey inhaled with drooping eyelids and sniffed at the -salts-flagon from time to time as she embarked once more upon her -narrative way. - -“The _Fifi_ anchored for the night, which promised to be squally, in -Southampton Water, about a quarter of a mile from Hythe Pier. Depressed -and discouraged, my boy retired to his cabin, leaving the entire party -screaming over ‘Bridge’ at a number of little tables in the saloon. He -had just put on his nightalines,—pink with a green stripe, the jacket -ornamented with green braid in loops, to match—and was attending to his -teeth with a palm-stick, when, with a terrific crash, all the electric -lights went out and the _Fifi_ was plunged in darkness. I shudder when I -realize the awfulness of all that. Don’t you?” - -The friend supplied a shudder expressly manufactured for the purpose. - -“A Welsh collier steamer, the _Rattletrap_, from Penwryg, had run -down Mr. Mudge’s yacht, becoming firmly embedded in the hull of the -craft—the details are graven on my memory,” said Lady Pomphrey -impressively—“immediately forward of the engine-room. The crew -turned out—not into the sea, but out of their hammocks—the ‘Bridge’ -players rushed in confusion upon deck. In their evening dresses, -without being even able to save a bag from below, Mr. Mudge’s party -were dragged over the grimy bows of the collier. The crew scrambled -after. The captain of the _Rattletrap_, having ascertained that the -_Fifi_ was rapidly filling, and that all her passengers, as he -thought, were safe on board his vessel, was about to give the signal -from the bridge to reverse engines when, with an appalling scream a -lithe young girl in a crêpe de Chine evening wrap embroidered with -roses and turtle-doves—quite symbolic when you think of it—leaped -back upon the deck of the _Fifi_ and disappeared below. Guess who -she was, and whither she had gone? You can? You do? What romance in -real life, isn’t it? Céline Twissing had missed Rustleton, and, -knowing that he occupied the cabin next to her own, had rushed below -to save him. - -“He had rung for his man and was waiting calmly to be dressed, when she -burst in the door with her shoulder—have you ever noticed her -shoulders?—and shrieked to him to come on deck and be saved. Wrapped in -a Scotch plaid which he had hastily thrown over his pyjamas at the -moment of her entrance, he defied her, rebuked her immodesty in entering -a gentleman’s dressing-room unannounced, ordered her to quit the cabin -and go back to her father. When properly attired to appear before -ladies, my boy, ever chivalrous and delicate-minded, said he would board -the _Rattletrap_. ‘Don’t you feel that this yacht is water-logged?’ -screamed Céline Twissing. ‘Don’t you know she’ll sink under our feet in -another minute? Come on deck at _once_, you duffing little precisian, -unless you want me to carry you!’ He retorted with contempt. She -instantly seized him in her muscular arms—have you ever noticed her -arms?—threw him, Scotch plaid and all, over her shoulder, carried him up -the yacht’s companion-ladder, and amidst the cheers of the united crews -of the _Fifi_ and the _Rattletrap_, handed him over the bulwarks to the -men of the collier. Then she followed, the captain gave the order to go -astern, the collier reversed her engines, the water rushed into the -yacht, and she sank instantly. All that can be seen of her to-day is her -masts. And Céline Twissing and my boy are to be made one at St. -George’s, Hanover Square, in the first week of the Winter Season. Céline -will be married in white satin and _mousseline_ trimmed with silver -embroidery, and she goes away in a gown of putty-colored _velvelise_—the -new stuff. I believe she secretly adored Rustleton from the very -beginning, and he, I feel, is reconciled to the inscrutable appointments -of Providence. _How_ we have been chattering, haven’t we? Time for -luncheon now. Oh, I pray, no carp in beer, or eels with currant jelly. -But one never knows. _Au revoir_, dear! _Au revoir!_” And Lady Pomphrey -put up her green sunshade and sailed away. - - - THE END - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - 2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as - printed. - 3. 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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Off Sandy Hook and other stories - -Author: Richard Dehan - -Release Date: October 8, 2019 [EBook #60452] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OFF SANDY HOOK AND OTHER STORIES *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class='tnotes covernote'> - -<p class='c000'><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b></p> - -<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p> - -</div> - -<div class='section ph1'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div>OFF SANDY HOOK</div> - <div class='c002'>AND OTHER STORIES</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c001'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><em>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</em></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line c003'>THE MAN OF IRON</div> - <div class='line'>ONE BRAVER THING (<span class='sc'>The Dop Doctor</span>)</div> - <div class='line'>BETWEEN TWO THIEVES</div> - <div class='line'>THE HEADQUARTER RECRUIT</div> - <div class='line'>THE COST OF WINGS</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='titlepage'> - -<div> - <h1 class='c004'>OFF SANDY HOOK<br /> <span class='large'>AND OTHER STORIES</span></h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>BY</div> - <div><span class='xlarge'>RICHARD DEHAN</span></div> - <div class='c002'><span class='small'><em>Author of “One Braver Thing” (“The Dop Doctor”), “The Man of Iron,” “Between Two Thieves,” etc.</em></span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/title.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='large'>NEW YORK</span></div> - <div><span class='large'>FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY</span></div> - <div><span class='large'>PUBLISHERS</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><em>Copyright, 1915, by</em></div> - <div><span class='sc'>Frederick A. Stokes Company</span></div> - <div class='c002'><em>All rights reserved, including that of translation</em></div> - <div><em>into foreign languages</em></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='figleft id002'> -<img src='images/copyright.jpg' alt='_September, 1915_' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c003' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table class='table0' summary=''> - <tr> - <th class='c006'></th> - <th class='c007'>PAGE</th> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>OFF SANDY HOOK</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>GEMINI</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_15'>15</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>A DISH OF MACARONI</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_31'>31</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>“FREDDY & C<sup>IE</sup>”</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_44'>44</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>UNDER THE ELECTRICS</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_60'>60</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>“VALCOURT’S GRIN”</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_68'>68</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAIREST</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_81'>81</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>THE REVOLT OF RUSTLETON</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>A DYSPEPTIC’S TRAGEDY</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_107'>107</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>RENOVATION</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_119'>119</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>THE BREAKING PLACE</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_133'>133</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>A LANCASHIRE DAISY</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_143'>143</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>A PITCHED BATTLE</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_154'>154</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>THE TUG OF WAR</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_164'>164</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>GAS!</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_180'>180</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>AIR</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_193'>193</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>SIDE!</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_205'>205</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>A SPIRIT ELOPEMENT</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_219'>219</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>THE WIDOW’S MITE</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_230'>230</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>SUSANNA AND HER ELDERS</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_241'>241</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>LADY CLANBEVAN’S BABY</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_264'>264</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>THE DUCHESS’S DILEMMA</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_276'>276</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>THE CHILD</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_287'>287</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>A HINDERED HONEYMOON</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_295'>295</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>“CLOTHES—AND THE MAN—!”</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_308'>308</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c006'>THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA</td> - <td class='c007'><a href='#Page_317'>317</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class='section ph1'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div>OFF SANDY HOOK</div> - <div class='c002'>AND OTHER STORIES</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span> - <h2 class='c005'>OFF SANDY HOOK</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>On board the Rampatina liner, eleven days and a half -out from Liverpool, the usual terrific sensation created -by the appearance of the pilot-yacht prevailed. Necks -were craned and toes were trodden on as the steamer -slackened speed, and a line dexterously thrown by a -blue-jerseyed deck-hand was caught by somebody aboard -the yacht. The pilot, not insensible to the fact of his -being a personage of note, carefully divested his bearded -countenance of all expression as he saluted the Captain, -and taking from the deck-steward’s obsequiously proffered -salver a glass containing four-fingers of neat Bourbon -whisky, concealed its contents about his person without -perceptible emotion, and went up with the First -Officer upon the upper bridge as the relieved skipper -plunged below. The telegraphs clicked their message—the -leviathan hulk of the liner quivered and began to -forge slowly ahead, and an intelligent-looking, thin-lipped, -badly-shaved young man in a bowler, tweeds, -and striped necktie, introduced himself to the Second -Officer as an emissary of the Press.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mr. Cyrus K. Pillson, <cite>New York Yeller</cite>.... -Pleased to know you, sir,” said the Second Officer; “step -into the smoke-room, this way. Bar-steward, a brandy -cocktail for me, and you, sir, order whatever you are -most in the habit of hoisting. Whisky straight! Now, -sir, happy to afford you what information I can!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I presume,” observed the young gentleman of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>Press, settling himself on the springy morocco cushions -and accepting the Second Officer’s polite offer of a green -Havana of the strongest kind, “that you have had a -smooth passage, considerin’ the time of year?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Smooth....” The Second Officer carefully reversed -in his reply the Pressman’s remark: “Well, yes, -the time of year considered, a smooth passage, I take it, -we <em>have</em> had.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No fogs?” interrogated the young gentleman, clicking -the elastic band of a notebook which projected from -his breast-pocket.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Fogs?... No!” said the Second Officer.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You didn’t chance,” pursued the young gentleman -of the Press, taking his short drink from the steward’s -salver and throwing it contemptuously down his throat, -“to fall in with a berg off the Bank, did you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Not a smell of one!” replied the Second Officer with -decision.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ran into a derelict hencoop, perhaps?” persisted the -young gentleman, concealing the worn sole of a wearied -boot from the searching glare of the electric light by -tucking it underneath him, “or an old lady’s bonnet-box? -... or a rubber doll some woman’s baby had -lost overboard? No?” he echoed, as the Second Officer -shook his head. “Then, how in thunder did you manage -to lose twenty feet of your port-rail?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Carried away,” said the Second Officer, offering the -young Press gentleman a light.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, thanks. Always eat mine,” said the young Press -gentleman gracefully.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Matter of taste,” observed the Second Officer, blowing -blue rings.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I guess so; and I’ve a taste for knowing how you -came,” said the young Pressman, “to part with that -twenty foot of rail.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Carried away,” said the Second Officer.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>“I kin see that,” retorted the visitor.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It was carried away,” said the Second Officer, “by -an elephant.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A pet you had running about aboard?” queried the -Pressman, with imperturbable coolness.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A passenger,” returned the Second Officer, with -equal calm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was a snap, and the Pressman’s notebook was -open on his knee. The pencil vibrated over the virgin -page, when a curious utterance, between a wail, a cough, -and a roar, made the hand that held it start.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yarr-rr! Ohowgh! Yarr!” The melancholy sound -came from without, borne on the cool breeze of a late -afternoon in March, through the open ventilators.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Might that,” queried the young gentleman of the -Press, “be an expression of opinion on the part of the -elephant?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Lord love you, no!” said the Second Officer. “It’s -the leopard.” He added after a second’s pause: “Or -the puma.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do you happen to have a menagerie aboard?” inquired -the Pressman, making a note in shorthand.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, sir. The beasts—elephants, leopards, and a box -of cobras—are invoiced from the London Docks to a -wealthy amateur in New York State. Not an iron king, -or a corn king, or a cotton king, or a pickle king, or a -kerosene king,” said the Second Officer, with a steady -upper lip, “but a chewing-gum king.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If you mean Shadland C. McOster,” said the Pressman, -“my mother is his cousin. They used to chew -gum together in school recess, sir, little guessing that -Shad would one day soar, on wings made of that article, -to the realms of gilded plutocracy.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I rather imagine the name you mention to be the -right one,” said the Second Officer cautiously, “but I -won’t commit myself. The beasts shipped from Liverpool -<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>are intended as a present for the purchaser’s infant -daughter on her fifth birthday.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yarr-rr! Ohowgh! Ohowgh!” Again the coughing -roar vibrated through the smoke-room. Then the -chorus of “Hail Columbia!” rose from the promenade -deck, where the lady passengers were assembled ready -to wave starred and striped silk pocket-handkerchiefs -and exchange patriotic sentiments at the first glimpse -of land.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It’s not what I should call a humly voice, that of -the leopard,” observed the Pressman, controlling a slight -shiver.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Children have queer tastes,” said the Second Officer. -“And it’s as well Old Spots is lively, as Bingo’s -dead.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Bingo?” queried the Pressman.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Bingo was the elephant,” said the Second Officer, -passing the palm of his brown right hand over his upper -lip as the Pressman made a few rapid notes. “And if -the particulars of the deathbed scene are likely to be -of any interest to you—why, you’re welcome to ’em!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You’re white!” said the Pressman warmly, licking -his pencil. “What did your elephant die of?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Seasickness!” said the Second Officer calmly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’ve seen a few things worth seeing—myself,” said -the Pressman enviously, “but not a seasick elephant.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“With a professional lady-nurse in attendance,” said -the Second Officer; “all complete from stem to stern, -in her print gown, white apron, fly-away cap-rigging, -and ward shoes.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Pressman grunted, but not from lack of interest. -Doubled up in the corner of the smoke-room divan, his -notebook balanced on his bulging shirt-front, he made -furious notes. The Second Officer waited until the pencil -seemed hungry, and then fed it with a little more information.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>“When that girl came aboard at Liverpool with her -mackintosh and holdall and little black shiny bag,” he -went on, “I just noticed her in a passing sort of way as -a fresh-colored, tidy-looking young woman, rather plump -in the bows, and with an air as though she meant to get -her full money’s worth out of her eleven-pound fare. -But our cheap tariff had filled the passenger-lists fairly -full, and I’d a long score of things to attend to. A -special derrick had had to be rigged to sling the elephant’s -cage aboard, and a capital one it was, of sound -Indian teak strengthened with steel—must have cost a -mint of money. We stowed it, after a lot of sweat and -swearing, on the promenade deck, abaft the funnels, -bolting it to rings specially screwed in the deck, passing -a wire hawser across the top, which was made fast to -the port and starboard davits, and rigging weather-screens -of double tarpaulin to keep Bingo warm and -dry. The other beasts we shipped under the lee of -the forward cabin skylight; and I’d just got through the -job when a quiet ladylike voice at my elbow says:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘If you please, officer, with regard to my patient, I -wish to know——’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘Ask the purser, ma’am,’ I said, rather snappishly, -for I was hot and worried ... ‘or the head-stewardess.’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘I have asked them both,’ says the voice in a calm, -determined way, ‘and have been referred to you.’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘Well, what is it?’ says I.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘By mistake,’ says the young lady—for a young -lady she was, and a hospital nurse besides, neatly rigged -out in the usual uniform—‘by mistake I have had allotted -to me a bedroom on the ground-floor, so far from -my patient that I cannot possibly hear him should he -call me in the night. And,’ she went on, as the breeze -played with her white silk bonnet-strings and the wavy -little kinks of soft brown hair that framed her forehead, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>‘and I want you to move me to the upper floor -at once.’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘You mean the promenade deck, madam,’ says I, -smoothing out a grin, though I’m well enough used to -the odd bungles land-folks make over names of things -at sea.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The flying pencil stopped. The Pressman looked up, -turning his shortened cigar between his teeth.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When do we come to the elephant?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We’re at him now,” said the Second Officer. “‘You -mean the promenade deck,’ says I. ‘Does your patient -occupy one of the cabins on the port or the starboard -side, and may I ask his number and name?’ Then she -smiled at me brightly, her eyes and teeth making a sort -of flash together. ‘He doesn’t have a cabin,’ says she; -‘he sleeps in a cage. My patient is Bingo, the elephant!’”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Great Pierpont Morgan!” ejaculated the Pressman. -His previously flying pencil became almost invisible -from the extreme rapidity with which he plied it. Drops -of perspiration broke out upon his sallow forehead. -“Glory!” he cried. “And not another man thought it -worth while to run out and tackle this wallowing old -tub but me!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I touched my cap,” went on the Second Officer, -“keeping down as professionally as I could the surprise -I felt.... ‘Do I understand, madam,’ I asked, -‘that you are the elephant’s nurse?’ And at that she -nodded with another bright smile, and told me that -she was Nurse Amy, of St. Baalam’s Nursing Association, -London, specially engaged by the American gentleman -who had bought the elephant——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Shadland C. McOster,” prompted the Pressman, -without looking up.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To attend to the animal on the voyage. It was understood -that if the principal patient’s condition permitted, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>Nurse Amy was to pay the leopards such attentions -as they were capable of appreciating, but there -was no pressure on this point.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ohowgh!” coughed the voice outside. “Yarr! -Ohowgh!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He smells the land, I guess,” said the Pressman.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Or the niggers,” suggested the Second Officer. -“You ought to have heard Bingo when we were three -days out from the Mersey.... We’d had a fair wind -and a smooth sea at first, and nothing delighted the -ladies and children on board like feeding him with apples, -and nuts, and biscuits, and things prigged from -the saloon tables. The sea-air must have sharpened the -beast’s appetite, I suppose, for that old trunk of his -was snorking round all day, and the Purser, who was -naturally wild about it, said he must have put away -hogsheads of good things in addition to his allowance of -hay, and bread, and beetroot, and grain, and cabbages, -and sugar——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Was he ca’am in temper?” asked the Pressman.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mild as milk.... As kind a beast as ever -breathed; and elephants do a lot of breathing,” said the -Second Officer. “The ladies and gentlemen in the upper-deck -cabins used to complain about his snoring in -the night; but as Nurse Amy said, there are people -who’d complain about anything. And some of ’em -didn’t like the smell of elephant—which, I’ll allow, when -you happened to get to wind’ard of Bingo, was—phew!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Pooty vociferous?” hinted the Pressman.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Until,” went on the Second Officer, “Nurse Amy -took to washing him with scented soap.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The pencil stopped. The Pressman looked up with -circular eyes. “Scented——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Soap,” said the Second Officer. “No expense was -to be spared—and we’d several cases of a special toilet -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>and complexion article on board. By the living Harry! -if you’d seen that elephant standing up over his morning -tub of hot water, swabbing away at himself with -a deck-sponge Nurse Amy had soaped for him, and then -squirting the water over himself to rinse off the soap, -you’d have believed in the intelligence of animals. The -sight drew like a pantomime.... But by the sixth -day out Bingo had given up all interest in his own appearance. -The weather was squally, a bit of a sea got -up, hardly a passenger put in an appearance at the -saloon tables, and Bingo only shook his ears when the -bugle blew, and turned away from his morning haystack -and mound of cabbages with disgust. Nurse Amy -got him to eat some biscuits and drink a bucket of -Bovril, but you could see he was only doing it to oblige -her. ‘Oh, come, cheer up!’ she said in a brisk, professional -way. ‘You’ll get your sea-legs on directly and -the officer says we’re having a wonderfully smooth passage, -considering the time of the year.’ But Bingo only -sighed, and two tears trickled out of his little red eyes, -as he swayed from side to side. ‘He’ll be worse before -he’s better,’ says I; for somehow I was generally about -when Nurse Amy was looking after her big charge. -‘He’ll be worse before he’s better,’ <em>and he was</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Pressman’s face was streaked and shiny, his hair -lay glued to his brow. The pencil went on, devouring -page after page.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Nurse Amy, luckily for her patient, was not upset -by the pitching of the vessel, for it blew half a gale -steady from the sou’-west, and the old <em>Centipede</em> dipped -her nose pretty frequently. Nurse was as busy as a -bee endeavoring by every means she could devise or -adopt from the suggestions of the stewardesses, who -showed a good deal of interest in her and her charge, -to alleviate the sufferings of Bingo. I have seen that -little woman stand for an hour on the wet planking, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>holding a six-foot deck-swab soaked with eau-de-Cologne -to Bingo’s forehead....”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Pressman jotted down, breathing heavily. “Deck-swab -soaked in eau-de-Cologne....” he muttered. -“Must have cost slathers of money, I reckon——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No expense was to be spared,” the Second Officer -reminded him gently. “As for the brandy, Martell’s -Three Star, he must have put away a dozen bottles a -day.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No blamed wonder his head ached!” said the Pressman, -moistening his own dry lips.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Except an occasional bucket of arrowroot with port -wine and a tin or so of cuddy biscuits, the animal would -take no other nourishment whatever,” continued the -Second Officer. “As he grew weaker and weaker, it -was touching to see the way in which he clung to Nurse -Amy.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Clung to her?” the Pressman wrote, marking the -words for a headline.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Fact,” said the Second Officer. “He would put his -trunk round her waist, and lay his head on her shoulder -as she stood on a ladder lashed against the side of his -cage. And he would hang out his forefoot to have his -pulse felt, quite in a Christian style. Then when Nurse -Amy wanted to take his temperature, the docile brute -would curl up his fire-hose—I mean his trunk—and open -his mouth, so that the instrument might be comfortably -placed under his tongue.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“By gings, sir, this story is going to knock corners -off creation!” gasped the Pressman, pausing to wipe -his face with a slightly smeary cuff. “An elephant that -understood the use of the therm—blame it! that beast -robbed some man of a fortune when he passed in his -checks!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We lost so many of the ordinary kind of instrument -in this way,” went on the Second Officer, almost pensively, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>“that at last Nurse Amy was obliged to fall back -upon the large thermometer and barometer combined -that usually hung in the first saloon. But it recorded, -to our sorrow, no improvement. The mercury steadily -sank, and it became plain to Nurse Amy’s professional -eye that her patient was not long for this world.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Say, do you believe elephants have souls?” queried -the Pressman. The Second Officer deigned no reply.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She could not leave him a moment; he trumpeted -so awfully when he saw her quit his side. I forgot to -tell you that from the moment he first felt himself -attacked by sea-sickness his bellows of rage and agony -were frightful to hear. The other animals became excited -by them; they roared and snarled without cessation.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Raised general hell,” said the Pressman, “with trimmings.” -But he wrote down with a sign that meant -leaded spaces and giant capitals:</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>“PANDEMONIUM IN MID-OCEAN!”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>“Nobody on board got a wink of sleep,” said the -Second Officer—“that is, unless the devoted Nurse Amy -was by the sufferer’s side. Towards the end, when, exhausted -by days and nights of arduous nursing, the -devoted girl had retired to her deck-cabin to snatch a -few moments of much-needed rest, the entire crew vied -with each other in efforts to pacify Bingo, without the -slightest effect. When they tried to put his feet in hot -water he mashed the ship’s buckets like so many gooseberries, -and shot the Purser down with half a trunkful -of hot cocoa, which had been offered as a last resource. -But on Nurse Amy’s appearing he grew pacified, and -from that moment until the end the heroic woman never -left his side. I begged her to consider herself and those -dear to her,” said the Second Officer, with a little -<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>tremble in his voice, “but she only smiled—a worn kind -of smile—and said that duty must be considered first. -I won’t deny it,” said the Second Officer, openly producing -a very white pocket-handkerchief and unfolding -it. “I kissed that woman’s hand as though she had been -the Queen.” He concealed his face with the handkerchief -and coughed rather loudly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Rude Shellback Touched to the Quick,” wrote -the Pressman. “He Sheds Tears.” “Get on with the -death-scene, sir, if you don’t object!” he said, breathing -through his nose excitedly. “If that elephant asked -for a minister, I’d not be surprised!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He did make his will, after a fashion,” said the narrator. -“You see, during the convulsive struggles I have -described, when he broke off his right tusk—didn’t I -mention that?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No!” denied the Pressman.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He broke it, anyhow, right off short, as a boy might -snap a carrot,” said the Second Officer. “There it lay, -among the litter, in the bottom of his cage. He had -suddenly ceased trumpeting, and a deathly silence had -fallen on all creation, one would have said. The vessel -still rolled a bit, but the wind had fallen, and the sun -was going down like a blot of fire, on the——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Western horizon,” wrote the Pressman.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Nurse Amy, from her ladder, still rendered the last -offices of human kindness to the sinking animal, sponging -his forehead with ice-water and fanning him with -a bellows. As she whispered to me that the end was -near, Bingo opened his eyes. With an expiring effort -he lifted the broken tusk from the bottom of the cage, -dropped it on the deck at his faithful Nurse’s feet, -uttered a heavy groan, threw up his trunk, sank gently -forward upon his massive knees, and died!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The editor of the opposition paper will do another -die when he runs his eye over the <em>Yeller</em> to-morrow -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>morning,” said the Pressman, joyfully smacking the -rubber band round the filled notebook. “And the port-rail -got carried away when you yanked the body overboard?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We couldn’t stuff him,” said the Second Officer -with a sigh. “As for preserving him in spirits, we -hadn’t enough spirits left to think of it. We rigged -a special derrick, and heaved Bingo overboard, carrying -away, as you have guessed, the port-rail in the -operation. As Bingo’s tremendous carcass rose and -floated buoyantly away to leeward, back and head well -above the water, and the two great ears resting flat -upon the surface like gigantic lily-pads, Nurse Amy -uttered a faint cry and swooned in my arms.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Some folks get all the luck!” commented the Pressman, -who, having filled his book, was now jotting down -notes upon his left cuff.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You’ve not much to complain of, it strikes me!” -observed the Second Officer, with a glance at the -crammed notebook.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I guess that’s true!” said the Pressman, with a -sigh of satisfaction. “Now, all I want is a photograph -or a sketch of that splendid heroine of a girl, and the -honor of shaking her hand, and telling her she deserves -to be an American—and I’d not trade places with the -President.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Second Officer appeared to be struggling with -some emotion. The muscles of his mouth worked violently. -He reddened through the red, and suspicious moisture -shone in his eyes. One by one the members of the -silent but not unappreciative audience of male passengers -that had gradually gathered within earshot of the -Second Officer and his victim, manifested the same symptoms. -And glancing for the first time at those listening -faces, and observing the identical expression stamped -upon each, the Pressman, encircled by wet, crinkled eyes, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>and cheerfully-curled-back lips, fringed with teeth in all -stages of preservation, grasped the conviction that he -had been had. And at this crucial moment the hatch-door -of the smoke-room rolled back in its brass coamings, -and a pointed gray beard and kindly keen eyes, -sheltered by the peak of a gold-laced cap, appeared -in the aperture.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“New York Harbor, gentlemen,” said the Captain -genially. “We’re running into the docks now, and the -Custom House officers will board us directly.... I -shouldn’t wonder,” he continued, as the majority of the -occupants of the smoke-room one by one glided away, -“if the newspapers made a story out of our missing port-rail!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Permit me to introduce myself as a reporter of the -<cite>N’York Yeller</cite>,” said the young gentleman in tweeds, -as he rose and touched his hat. “Perhaps, sir, you -would favor me with the facts in connection with the -occurrence?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Haven’t you had it from Murchison? Why, Murchison——” -the Captain was beginning, when with a -choking snort the Second Officer rushed from the smoke-room. -“Though there’s nothing to tell, Mr. Reporter, -worth hearing. A derrick-chain broke at Southampton -Docks, and a case of agricultural machine-parts did the -damage. We temporarily repaired with some iron piping, -and a length of wire hawser; but, of course, it -shows badly, and suggests——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A collision!” said a smiling stranger.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Or an elephant,” said another.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yarr!” proclaimed the horrible voice outside. -“Ohowgh! Yarr!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I understand,” said the Pressman with an effort, -“that the elephant emanated from the teeming brain -of Mr. Murchison. But the leopard—there is a leopard, -I surmise, if hearing goes for evidence?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>The Captain’s excellent teeth showed under his gray -mustache. “That noise, you mean?” he exclaimed.... -“Oh, that’s one of our electric air-pumps, for forcing -air into the lower-deck storage chambers, you know. -She’s out of gear, and lets us know it in that way. Must -have her seen to at New York. Take a drink, won’t you? -Come, gentlemen, order what you please.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Whisky, square,” murmured the Pressman, as the -long, smooth glide of the liner was checked, the engines -throbbed and stopped, and the dull roar of the docks -pressed upon listening ears. He drank, and as the fluid -traversed the usual channel, his eye grew brighter.... -“Say, Captain,” he asked, “do you know where your -Second Officer was raised?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Murchison comes, I believe, from Yorkshire,” said -the Captain. “Hey, Murchison, isn’t that the place?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I am not acquainted with the geology of Yorkshire,” -observed the Pressman, as he passed the Second Officer -on his way to the smoke-room; “but the soil grows good -liars! So long!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span> - <h2 class='c005'>GEMINI<br /> <span class='large'>AN EMBARRASSMENT OF CHOICE</span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>To Captain Galahad Ranking, grilling over his Musketry-Instructorship -at Hounslow one arid July, came -a square lilac envelope, addressed in a sprawling hand, -with plenty of violet ink. The missive smelt of Rhine -violets. It bore a monogram, the initials “L. K.” fantastically -intertwined, and was, in fact, an invitation -from his affectionate cousin Laura, dated from a pleasant -country mansion situate amid green lawns and blushing -rose-gardens on the Werkshire reaches of the Thames.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Laura was not Galahad’s cousin by blood, but by marriage. -Laura was the still young and attractive widow -of Thomson Kingdom, once a stout man on the Stock -Exchange, remarkable for a head of very upright gray -hair and a startling taste in printed linen. Pigs and -peaches were his pet hobbies, and the apoplectic seizure -from which he never rallied was induced by a weakness -in “the City” caused by unprecedentedly heavy selling-orders -from a nervous north-eastern European capital, -about the time of the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">entente cordiale</span></i>. So the bloom -was barely off Laura’s crêpe, and the new black gloves -purchased by Galahad to grace his kinsman’s obsequies -had not done duty at another funeral. The scrawly -postscript to her letter said: “I want to consult you -<em>very particularly</em>, in the <em>most absolute confidence</em>, upon -a matter affecting my <em>whole future</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Galahad Ranking, Junior Captain, Fourth Battalion -Royal Deershire Regiment, wrinkled up his freckled -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>little countenance into queer puckers, and rubbed his -bristly cinnamon-colored hair, already getting thin on -the summit of his skull, as he puzzled the brain within -that receptacle as to the possible meaning of Laura’s -impassioned appeal. He was a small man, whose demure -and spinster-like demeanor led new acquaintances -to ask him plumply how on earth he had managed to -get his D.S.O.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There were chances,” he would reply to these querists, -“to be had out there,” waving his hand vaguely -in the direction of South Africa, “and I saw one of -them and took it—that’s all.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Others might pump him more successfully to the -effect that he—Galahad Ranking—was a poor devil of -a militiaman attached to the Royal Deershires; that a -small detachment of that well-known territorial regiment, -garrisoned in a beastly small tin-pot fort on the -Springbok River, Eastern Transvaal, were by Boers besieged; -that relief was urgently necessary; and that -“one of the fellows went and brought up Kitchener.” -Said fellow admitted upon further cross-examination to -have been himself. But for such details as that the -bringing up involved a six-mile run in scorching sun -over tangled bush veldt, crossing the enemy’s lines, being -sniped at by Boer sharpshooters and chased by Boer -pickets, the curious must refer to despatches. Stampeding -Army mules would not trample the truth out -of the man.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He wrung half-hearted leave of absence from the -powers that were, and his orderly packed the battered -tin suit-case and the Gladstone bag that had spent three -days at the bottom of a water-hole, and, having had its -numerous labels soaked off, bore a painfully leprous -appearance.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He found Laura’s omnibus automobile, with its luggage -tender, waiting at Cholsford Junction, and smiled -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>his dry little smile, mentally comparing the dimensions -of the vehicle with the size of the guest. The suit-case -and the Gladstone bag made a poor show; but there -were other things to come: huge packages from the -Stores, and a sea-weedy hamper from Great Fishby, and -some cases of champagne with the label of a first-class -Regent Street firm. “Poor Kingdom’s wine-merchants!” -Ranking said to himself, and he blinked in a bewildered -way at a bandbox of mammoth proportions and -three dressmakers’ boxes of stout cardboard with tin -corners, their covers bearing the flourishing signature -of Babin <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">et Cie</span></i>. Because, you know, Laura’s bereavement -was so very recent, and bachelors of Galahad’s -type have a somewhat exaggerated notion of the extent -to which conjugal mourners are expected to bewail themselves. -However, even a widow requires clothes. This -handsome concession to feminine idiosyncrasy made, -Galahad ousted Laura’s chauffeur from the driving-seat, -and, assuming the steering-wheel, was reaching for the -starting-lever when the chauffeur stopped him with—</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Beg pardon, sir, but there’s a gentleman to fetch.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A visitor to The Rodelands?” Galahad asked, with -furrows of surprise forming below his hat-brim.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The mechanic, a gloomy young man in a gold-banded -cap, with a weakness for wearing waterproofs in the -driest weather, replied, without a groom’s alertness or -a groom’s civility:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It’s a gentleman staying at Eyot Cottage....” -Adding, as Galahad faintly recalled the creeper-covered -cot in question, modestly perched on the edge of a -marshy lawn running down to the river, and usually -let by the landlord of the local hotel to honeymooning -couples: “And we usually give him a lift.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>As the chauffeur spoke, the gentleman emerged from -the dim, echoing archway through which the down platform -disgorged. The stranger was young—Galahad, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>who was middle-aged, saw that at a glance—and fair, -while Galahad was sandy. He wore a suit of gray -tweeds too short in the sleeves and trouser-legs, and his -cherubically pink countenance, adorned with large, -round, china-blue eyes and a little flaxen mustache, was -carried at an altitude which would have been disconcerting -to a Lifeguardsman of six feet high, and was -simply maddening to Galahad, who could only be categorized -as small. We are all human, and Galahad was -secretly gratified to observe that the young giant’s -shoulders boasted a graceful droop, and that his chest -was somewhat narrow.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Hullo, Watson!” observed the tall young gentleman, -condescendingly; and Watson smiled faintly and actually -touched his cap as the new-comer favored Galahad -with a long and round-eyed stare.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I believe you are coming with us?” said Galahad, -raising his hat with punctilious politeness.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Not inside, thanks,” was the long-legged young -stranger’s reply. He stared harder than ever, and -Watson murmured in Galahad’s ear that the gentleman -usually drove.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Does he?” ejaculated the astonished Galahad.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A man may hold the rank of captain in one of his -Majesty’s territorial Regiments, and yet be shy; may -have earned the right to adorn his thorax with the D.S.O., -and yet be bashful; may be a more than efficient instructor -in Musketry, and yet shrink from the gratuitous -schooling of underbred youth in the amenities of good -breeding. In less time than it takes to relate it, Galahad -was stowed in the omnibus body of the “Runhard” -where, a very little kernel in a very roomy shell, he -rattled about as the familiar landscape reeled giddily -by at the will and pleasure of the long-legged young -gentleman, who might be described as the kind of -driver that takes risks. A peculiarly steep and curving -<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>hill announced by signboards lettered, in appropriate -crimson, “Dangerous!” afforded facilities for the exercise -of his peculiar talent which temporarily deprived -the inside passenger of breath.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The river lay at the bottom of the hill, and the dwelling -of Mrs. Kingdom, described in the local guide as -“an elegant riparian villa,” sat in its green meadows -and sunny croquet lawns and rose-trellised gardens, -on the other side.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The automobile swirled in at the lodge-gates, stopped, -and Galahad got out, welcomed by the joyful barking -of Dinmonts, fox-terriers, pugs, and poodles.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Knee-deep in dogs, the little man responded to the -respectful greeting of Laura’s butler, a meek, gray-faced, -little, elderly personage with a frill of white whiskers -akin to the hirsute adornments of the rare variety -of the howling ape. Then the drawing-room door swung -open, letting out an avalanche of Pomeranians and -some Persian cats; Laura rose from a sofa and advanced -with a gushful greeting. Her outstretched hands were -grasped by Galahad; he was tinglingly conscious that -her widow’s weeds were eminently becoming.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dear Captain Ranking, how sweet of you to run -down!” Laura cooed. The flash of admiration in Galahad’s -weary gray eyes gave her sugared assurance that -she was looking her best; his ardent squeeze confirmed -the look.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You used to call me by my Christian name,” he -was saying, with a little undulating wobble of sentiment -in his voice. Then his glance went past Mrs. Kingdom, -and his lean under-jaw dropped. The long-legged gentleman -in gray tweed, who had driven, or rather hustled, -him from the station, was sitting on the sofa in a suit -of blue serge. No, Galahad was not mistaken. There -were the long legs, the champagne-bottle shoulders, the -china-blue eyes, and the little flaxen mustache. He -<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>did not look so pink, that was all. And when Laura, -with a nervous giggle, introduced him as Mr. Lasher, -he began getting up from the sofa as though he never -would have done.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How do?” he said, when his yellow head had soared -to the ceiling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Met you before,” said Galahad with some terseness. -“And you frightened me abominably by the way you -scorched down Penniford Hill.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The long-legged young man stared with circular blue -eyes. Laura burst into a peal of rippling laughter, -which struck Galahad as being forced and beside the -point.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear Galahad,” Mrs. Kingdom cried, “you must -have met Brosy! This is Dosy,” she added, as though -all were now clear, and welcomed with a perfect <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">feu de -joie</span></i> of giggles the entrance of the veritable and original -young man in gray tweeds who had driven the automobile, -and now came strolling into the drawing-room. -Then she introduced the pair formally to Captain Ranking -as Mr. Theodosius and Mr. Ambrose Lasher, and -rustled away to pour out tea, leaving Galahad in a jaundiced -frame of mind. For one thing, he hated to be -mystified; for another, being an ordinary, though heroic, -human being, he had taken at the first moment -of encounter a singularly ardent and sincere dislike to -the “long-legged, blue-eyed young bounder,” as he mentally -termed Mr. Brosy Lasher; and the discovery that -the object of his loathing existed in duplicate was not -a welcome one. He was dry, stiff, and jerky in his -responses to the loud and patronizing advances of the -two Lashers. Fortunately the twin young gentlemen -accepted as admiration, what was, in fact, the opposite -sentiment. They had been used to a good deal of this -since the first moment of their simultaneous entrance -upon this mundane stage, and they were twenty-six.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>“It is so sad,” Laura said in confidential aside to -Galahad. “They have lost both parents, and have -hardly a penny in the world.” She raised and crumpled -her still pretty eyebrows with the old infantile air of -appeal. “Two such delightful boys, and so handsome! -... though to my eye Brosy’s nose is less purely Greek -in outline than Dosy’s. And they were educated at a -public school, with every advantage that a rich man’s -sons might naturally expect. But, of course, you recognized -the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cachet</span></i> of Eton at once?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I notice,” said Ranking drily, “that they both leave -the lower button of their waistcoats undone, and call -men whom they don’t like ‘scugs.’” His quiet eye -dwelt with dubious tenderness upon the Messrs. Lasher, -who were romping with the dogs upon the sofas, and -devouring cake and strawberries with infantile greed. -“I have heard of the Eton manner, of course,” he added, -“and I meet a good many Eton-bred men; but I can’t -say that these young fellows have any—any special characteristics -in common with—ah—those.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“They belong to a grand old family,” Laura continued, -with an air of proprietorship that puzzled Galahad. -“The Lashers of Dropshire, you know—quite historical. -And their father ran through everything before -they came of age. So thoughtless, wasn’t it? And -now they are looking round for an opening in life, and -really, they tell me, it is dreadfully difficult to find.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I rather imagined as much,” said Galahad, making -a little point of sarcasm all to himself, and secretly -smiling over it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I wonder if you could suggest anything; you are -always so helpful,” Laura went on. “That they must -be together, of course, goes without saying. And that, -of course, increases the difficulty. But nobody could -be so inhuman as to part twins.” Her lips quivered, and -her eyes grew misty with unshed tears.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>“My dear Laura,” expostulated the puzzled Galahad, -“you talk as though these two young men were six -years old instead of six-and-twenty.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How changed you are!” Laura blinked away a tear. -“You used to understand me so much better in the old -days. <em>Of course</em>, they are grown up, that is plain to -the meanest capacity. But they have such boyish, charming, -confiding natures.... Toto will bite, Brosy, if -you hold him in the air by the tail!... that a woman -like myself.... If you would like some more cherry -cake, Dosy, do ring the bell!... a woman like myself, -married at eighteen to a man true and noble if you will, -but incapable of awakening the deeper chords of passion -and.... Of course, you are both going to dine -here and help me to entertain Captain Ranking!... -denied the happiness of being a mother”—Laura -drooped her eyes and bit her lip, and blushed slightly—“must -naturally find their company a <em>great resource</em>. -And the distant cousin with whom they are staying, -a Mrs. Le Bacon Chalmers, who has taken Eyot Cottage -for the summer months, <em>knows this</em> and <em>lends</em> them to -me as <em>often</em> as I like.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Upon my word, she is uncommonly kind!” said -Galahad, with emphasis stronger than Laura’s italics.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, isn’t she?” responded Laura, whose sense of -humor was obscured by predilection. “They ride and -drive the horses, and give Holt and the gardeners advice, -and they exercise the automobiles, and run the -electric launch about, and play tennis and croquet——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And the devil generally!” were the words that Galahad -bit off and gulped down.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He was very quiet at dinner, sitting in the deceased -Kingdom’s place at the foot of the table. And Dosy -and Brosy were very loud and very large, though looking, -it must be confessed, exceedingly well in evening -garb. They made themselves very much at home upon -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>Laura’s right and left hand, recommending certain -dishes to each other, criticizing more, ravaging the bonbons, -reveling in the dessert, calling, with artless airs -of connoisseurship, for special wines laid down by the -noble man who yet had not known how to awaken -the deeper chords of passion.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Gad! what a pair of hawbucks!” Galahad mentally -ejaculated as the servants ran about like distracted ants, -and Laura and Laura’s inseparable though elderly companion-friend, -Miss Glidding, vied with each other in -encouraging Theodosius and Ambrose to renewed attacks -upon the strawberries and peaches.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Left alone with Dosy and Brosy, he submitted to be -patronized, offered cigars he had chosen, recommended -to try liqueurs with whose liverish and headachy qualities -he had been acquainted of old.</p> - -<p class='c009'>They walked with the ladies in the dewy rose-gardens -after dinner, and as Galahad paused to light a cigar, -behold, he was left alone. Laura with Brosy, Miss Glidding -(who looked her best by bat-light) with Dosy, had -vanished in the shadowy windings of the trellis-walks -and arcades. And Captain Ranking, shrugging his shoulders, -picked a half-seen Niphetos, glimmering among the -wet, shining leaves, and walked back to the smoking-room, -wondering why on earth Laura had dragged him -down where he seemed least to be wanted. What was -the matter “affecting her whole future” upon which -she required advice? His heart gave a sickening little -jog as he realized that the future of Dosy, or possibly -of Brosy, might also be involved. True, Laura was -thirty-nine; but what are years when the heart is young? -Galahad asked himself, as peal after peal of the widow’s -laughter broke the silence of the scented night. Other -mental interrogations fretted his aching brain. What -must the servants not have thought and said? What -would the neighbors say? What would the County think -<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>of such sportive, not to say frivolous, conduct on the -part of a widow but recently emancipated from weepers, -whose handkerchiefs were still bordered with the inch-deep -inky deposit of conjugal woe?</p> - -<p class='c009'>Kingdom was an easy-going, level-headed man, Galahad -admitted, biting at one of the deceased’s Havanas -and frowning; “but he would have raised the Devil -over this. Possibly he’s doing it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The portrait of Mr. Kingdom over the mantelshelf -of the smoking-room seemed to scowl confirmatively. -The servants were all in bed, the promenaders in the -garden showed no signs of returning. Galahad shrugged -his little shoulders, and went away to bed in a charming, -drum-windowed, chintz-hung bower over the front porch. -And just as his little cropped head plumped down on -the pillow it was electrically jolted up again. Laura -was saying good-night in the porch to one—or was it -both?—of the infernal twins. And before the hall-door -clashed they had promised to come over to lunch to-morrow. -Confound them! it was to-morrow now.</p> - -<p class='c009'>One has only to add that when, after exhausting -watches, slumber visited Galahad’s eyelids, the twins -in maddening iteration played dominoes throughout his -dreams, to convince the reader that they had thoroughly -got upon his nerves.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Laura, looking wonderfully fresh and young in a lace -morning <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">négligé</span></i> of the peek-a-boo description, poured -out his coffee at breakfast and sympathized with him -about the headache he denied. Then, shaded by a fluffy -black-and-white sunshade, the widow led Galahad out -into the sunny garden to a tree-shaded and sequestered -nook where West Indian hammocks hung, and, installing -herself in one of these receptacles, invited her husband’s -cousin to repose himself in another.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lying on your back, counting ripening plums dangling -from green branches above, oscillating at the bidding -<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>of the lightest breeze, liable to upset at the slightest -movement, it is difficult to be indignant and sarcastic; -but Galahad was both.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Adopt these young men as sons, my dear Laura! -Are there no parentless babies in the local workhouse -that would better supply the need you express of having -something to cherish and love?” exclaimed Galahad.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He sat up with an effort and stared at Laura. Laura -rocked, prone amid cushions, knitting a silk necktie of -a tender hue suited to a blonde complexion.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Workhouse babies are invariably ugly, and unhealthy -into the bargain,” she pouted.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Some orphan child from a Home, that is pretty to -look at and has had the distemper properly,” suggested -Galahad.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t want an orphan from a Home,” objected -Laura. “Besides, it wouldn’t be a twin.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There are such things as twin orphans, my dear -Laura,” protested Galahad.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But Laura was firm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dosy and Brosy are very, very dear to me,” she -protested, a little pinkness about the eyelids and nostrils -threatening an impending tear-shower. “They came -into my life,” she continued poetically, “at a time of -sorrow and bereavement, and the sunshine of their presence -drove the dark clouds away. Of course, they are -too old, or, rather, not young enough, to be really my -sons,” she continued, “but they might have been poor -Tom’s.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If poor Tom had fathered a brace of bounders like -those,” burst out Galahad, “poor Tom would have kicked -himself—that’s all I know—kicked himself!” he repeated, -fuming and climbing out of his hammock.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Pray don’t be coarse,” entreated Laura—“and abusive,” -she added, as an afterthought. “Of course, as -poor Tom’s trustee and executor, I am bound to make -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>a show of consulting you, though my mind is really -made up, and nobody can prevent my doing what I like -with my own income. I shall allow the boys five hundred -a year each for pocket money,” she added with -a pretty maternal air. “And Dosy shall go into the -Diplomatic Service, and Brosy——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You have broached the adoption plan to them then?” -gasped Galahad. Laura bowed her head. “And this -relative with whom I gather they are now staying,” he -continued, “is she agreeable to the proposed arrangement?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mrs. Le Bacon Chalmers? She couldn’t prevent it -if she wasn’t!” retorted Laura, “as the boys are of age. -But, as it happens, she thinks the plan an ideal one.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That proves the value of her judgment, certainly. -And the County? Will your friends and neighbors also -think the plan an ideal one?” demanded Galahad.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My friends and neighbors,” said Laura, loftily, -“will think as I do, or they will cease to be my friends.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Galahad, usually punctiliously well-mannered, whistled -long and dismally. “Phew! And when you have alienated -every soul upon your visiting list, what will you -do for society?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I shall have the boys,” said Laura, with defiant tenderness.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And when the ‘boys,’ as you call them, marry?” insinuated -Galahad.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Laura sat up so suddenly that all her cushions rolled -out of the hammock. “If this is how you treat me when -I turn to you for advice——” she began.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Laura,” said Galahad firmly, “you don’t want advice.” -He held up his lean brown hand and checked -her, as she would have spoken. “Nor do you require -twin sons of six feet three. What you want is——” -He was going in his innocence to say “a sincere and -candid friend,” and prove himself the ideal by some -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>plain speaking, but Laura fairly brimmed over with -conscious blushes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How—how can you?” she said, in vibrating tones -of reproach, devoid of even a shade of anger. “So soon, -too! As if I did not know what was due to poor -Tom——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The toot of a motor-horn, the scuffle of the engine, -the dry whirr of the brake as the locomotive stopped -at the avenue gate, broke in upon her heroics.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Here are the boys,” she cried rapturously, and, indeed, -hopped out of the hammock with the agility of -girlhood as the long-legged, yellow-haired twins came -stalking over the grass. She held out her hands to them -with a pretty maternal gesture.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dosy pet, Brosy darling,” she babbled, “come and -kiss Mummy! We have been telling all our little plans -to Uncle Galahad, and Uncle quite agrees.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No! Does he, though?” was the simultaneous utterance -of the long-legged twins. They twirled their yellow -mustaches, stooped awkwardly and “kissed -Mummy,” as Galahad uttered a yell of frenzied laughter, -and, throwing himself recklessly into his recently-vacated -hammock, shot out upon the other side.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He went back to Hounslow that day. Dosy and Brosy -dutifully accompanied him to the station, and exchanged -a fraternal wink when his train steamed out.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What an infatuation!” he groaned. In his mind’s -eye he saw the County grinning over the childless widow -and her adopted twins. As for Dosy and Brosy, they -would have what in America is termed “a soft -snap.” Powerful jaws had both the young gentlemen, -wide and greedy gullets. Still, with his mind’s eye -Galahad saw their foolish, affectionate, sentimental benefactress -gnawed to the bare bone. Day by day he anticipated -a letter of shrill astonishment from his cotrustee, -and when it came, hinting at mental weakness -<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>and the necessity of restraint, he flamed up into defense -of Laura so hotly as to surprise himself.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And then, before anything decisive had been done -with regard to the settlement—before Brosy and Dosy -had taken up their quarters for good beneath the roof -of their adopted parent—a change befell, and Galahad -received an imploring note from Mrs. Kingdom soliciting -his instant presence upon “an urgent matter.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She has thought better of it,” said Galahad to himself, -as he obeyed the summons. “Her native good -sense”—you will realize that the man must have been -genuinely in love to believe in Laura’s native good -sense—“has come to her aid!” And in his mind’s eye -he beheld the long, narrow backs of the twins walking -away into a dim perspective.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It was September. Dosy and Brosy were shooting the -widow’s partridges, and Galahad found her alone. She -was pleased and excited, with an air of one who with -difficulty keeps the cork in a bottle of mystery; and when -she clasped her hands round Galahad’s arm and told him -what a true, true friend he was! he felt absurdly tender, -as he begged her to confide her trouble to him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have made such a dreadful discovery,” Laura -gasped, dabbing her eyes with a filmy little square of -cambric edged with the narrowest possible line of black, -“about the—about the boys.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Galahad strove to compose his features into an expression -of decent regret.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mr. Ambrose and Mr. Theodosius Lasher.... I -rather anticipated that you—that possibly there were -discoveries to be made.” He turned his weary gray eyes -upon Laura, and pulled at one wiry end of his little -gingery mustache. “Have they done anything very -bad?” he asked, and his tone was not uncheerful.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Bad!” echoed Laura, with indignant scorn. “As -though two young men gifted with natures like theirs”—she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>had left off calling them “boys,” Galahad noticed—“so -lofty, so noble, so unselfish—and yes, I will -say it, so pure!—could possibly be guilty of any bad or -even doubtful action. But you do not know them, and -you are prejudiced; you must admit you are prejudiced -when you hear the—the truth.” The cork escaped, and -the secret came with it in a gush. “It is this: I cannot -be a mother to Dosy and Brosy; they, poor dears, cannot -be my sons. I had not the least idea of their true feeling -with regard to me, nor had they, until quite recently.” -She swallowed a little sob and dabbed her eyes -again. “Oh, Galahad, they are madly in love with me, -both of them. What, what am I to do?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Send them to the devil, the impudent young beggars!” -snorted Galahad. And, striding up and down -between the trembling china-tables with clenched fists -and angry eyes, he said all the things he had longed to -say about folly, and madness and infatuation.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A woman will always submit with a good grace to -masculine upbraiding when she has reason to believe -the upbraider jealous. Laura bore his reproaches with -saintly sweetness.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“They have behaved in the most honorable way, poor -darlings!” she protested, “though the realization of the -true nature of their feelings towards me, of course, came -as a terrible shock. The deeds of settlement had been -drawn up. We planned, as soon as everything had been -sealed and signed, that the dear boys were to come and -live here. I had furnished their bedrooms exactly alike, -and fitted up the smoking-room with twin armchairs, -twin tobacco-tables, and so on, when the blow fell.” She -deepened her voice to a thrilling whisper. “Dosy, looking -quite pale and tragic, asked for an interview in the -conservatory; Brosy begged for a private word in the -pavilion at the end of the upper croquet-lawn. And -then,” said Laura, shedding abundant tears, “I knew -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>what I had done. It did occur to me that I might—might -marry Brosy and adopt Dosy as my son, or marry -Dosy and regard Brosy as an heir. But no, it could -not be. Dosy proposed to take poison, or shoot himself, -in the most unselfish way; and Brosy suggested going -in for a swim too soon after breakfast, and never rising -from a dive again. But neither could endure to live -to see me the bride of the other,” sobbed Laura.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And as this is England, and not Malabar,” uttered -Galahad, dryly, “the law is against your marrying -both.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why, of course, my dear Galahad,” cried Laura innocently, -scandalized and round-eyed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The man who really loved her looked at her and forgave -her foolishness. She had set the County buzzing -with the tale of her absurd infatuation; she had compromised -her dignity by the tragic follies of the past -few months; there was but one way of gagging the -scandalmongers and regaining lost ground, one way of -getting out of the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">impasse</span></i>. Galahad pointed out that -way, as Laura entreated him to suggest something.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why not marry me?” he said bluntly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, Galahad!” cried Laura, bright-eyed and quite -pleasantly thrilled. “And then we can both adopt the -boys.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Whether they embrace that idea or not,” said Galahad, -with his arm round the long-coveted waist, “remains -to be seen. But I promise you, if occasion should -arise, that I will act as a father to them.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He went out, in his new parental character, to look -for Dosy and Brosy and break the joyful news. His -freckled little face was beaming with smiles, his usually -weary gray eyes were alight; he smiled under his bristly -little mustache as he selected a stout but stinging -Malacca cane from the late Thompson Kingdom’s collection -in the hall....</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span> - <h2 class='c005'>A DISH OF MACARONI</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>On the occasion of the tenth biennial visit of the -Carlo Da Capo Grand Opera Combination to the musical, -if murky, city of Smutchester, the principal members -of the company pitched their tents, as was their -wont, at the Crown Diamonds Hotel, occupying an entire -floor of that capacious caravanserie, whose <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chef</span></i>, to the -grief of many honest British stomachs and the unrestrained -joy of these artless children of song, was of -cosmopolitan gifts, being an Italian-Spanish-Swiss-German. -Here <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">prime donne</span></i>, tenors, and bassos could revel -in national dishes from which their palates had long -been divorced, and steaming masses of yellow polenta, -<em>knüdels</em>, and <em>borsch</em>, heaped dishes of sausages and red -cabbage, ragouts of cockscombs and chicken-livers, veal -stewed with tomatoes, frittura of artichokes, with other -culinary delicacies strange of aspect and garlicky as to -smell, loaded the common board at each meal, only to -vanish like the summer snow, so seldom seen but so -constantly referred to by the poetical fictionist, amidst -a Babel of conversation which might only find its parallel -in the parrot-house at the Zoo. Ringed hands -plunged into salad-bowls; the smoke of cigarettes went -up in the intervals between the courses; the meerschaum-colored -lager of Munich, the yellow beer of Bass, the -purple Chianti, or the vintage of Epernay brimmed the -glasses; and the coffee that crowned the banquet was -black and thick and bitter as the soul of a singer who -has witnessed the triumph of a rival.</p> - -<p class='c009'>For singers can be jealous: and the advice of Dr. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>Watts is more at discount behind the operatic scenes, -perhaps, than elsewhere. For women may be, and are, -jealous of other women; and men may be, and are, jealous -of men, off the stage; but it is reserved for the hero -and heroine of the stage to be jealous of one another. -The glare of the footlights, held by so many virtuous -persons to be inimical to the rosebud of innocence, has -a curiously wilting and shriveling effect upon the fine -flower of chivalry. Signor Alberto Fumaroli, <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">primo -uomo</span></i>, and possessor of a glorious tenor, was possessed -by the idea that the chief soprano, De Melzi, the enchanting -Teresa—still in the splendor of her youth, with -ebony tresses, eyes of jet, skin of ivory, an almost imperceptible -mustache, and a figure of the most seductive, -doomed ere long to expand into a pronounced -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">embonpoint</span></i>—had adorned her classic temples with laurels -which should by rights have decked his own. The -press-cuttings of the previous weeks certainly balanced -in her favor. Feeble-minded musical critics, of what -the indignant tenor termed “provincial rags,” lauded -the Signora to the skies. She was termed a “springing -fountain of crystal song,” a “human bulbul in the -rose-garden of melody.” Eulogy had exhausted itself -upon her; while he, Alberto Fumaroli, the admired of -empresses, master of the emotions of myriads of American -millionairesses, he was fobbed off with half a dozen -patronizing lines. Glancing over the paper in the saloon -carriage, he had seen the impertinent upper lip of -the De Melzi, tipped with the faintest line of shadow, -curl with delight as she scanned each accursed column -in turn, and handed the paper to her aunt (a vast person -invariably clad in the tightest and shiniest of black -satins, and crowned with a towering hat of violet velvet -adorned with once snowy plumes and crushed crimson -roses), who went everywhere with her niece, and mounted -guard over the exchequer. Outwardly calm as Vesuvius, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>and cool as a Neapolitan ice on a hot day, the outraged -Alberto endured the triumph of the women, marked -the subterranean chuckles of the stout Signora, the mischievous -enjoyment of Teresa; pulled his Austrian-Tyrolese -hat over his Corsican brows, and vowed a wily <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">vendetta</span></i>. -His opportunity for wreaking retribution would -come at Smutchester, he knew. Wagner was to be given -at the Opera House, and as great as the previous triumph -of Teresa de Melzi in the rôle of Elsa—newly -added by the soprano to her <em>repertoire</em>—should be her -fall. <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Evviva!</span></i> Down with that fatally fascinating face, -smiling so provokingly under its laurels! She should -taste the consequences of having insulted a Neapolitan. -And the tenor smiled so diabolically that Zamboni, the -basso, sarcastically inquired whether Fumaroli was rehearsing -<cite>Mephistofole</cite>?</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Not so, dear friend,” Fumaroli responded, with a -dazzling show of ivories. “In that part I should make -a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bel fiasco</span></i>; I have no desire to emulate a basso or a -bull.... But in this—the rôle in which I am studying -to perfect myself—I predict that I shall achieve a -dazzling success.” He drew out a green Russia-leather -cigarette case, adorned with a monogram in diamonds. -“It is permitted that one smokes?” he added, and immediately -lighted up.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is permitted, if I am to have one also.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The De Melzi stretched a white, bejeweled hand out, -and the seething Alberto, under pain of appearing -openly impolite, was forced to comply. “No, I will not -take the cigarette you point out,” said the saucy <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">prima -donna</span></i>, as the tenor extended the open case. “It might -disagree with me, who knows? and I have predicted that -in the part of Elsa to-morrow night at Smutchester <em>I</em> -shall achieve a ‘dazzling success.’” And she smiled -with brilliant malice upon Alberto Fumaroli, who played -Lohengrin. “They are discriminating—the audiences of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>that big, black, melancholy place—they never mistake -geese for swans.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<i><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Ach</span></i>, no!” said the Impresario, looking up from his -tatting—he was engaged upon a green silk purse for -Madame Da Capo, a wrinkled little doll of an old lady -with whom he was romantically in love. “They will -not take a <em>dournure</em>, some declamation, and half a -dozen notes in the upper register <em>bour dout botage</em>. -Sing to them well, they will be ready to give you their -heads. But sing to them badly, and they will be ready -to pelt yours. Twenty years ago they did. I remember -a graceless impostor, a <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">ragazzo</span></i> (foisted upon me -for a season by a villain of an agent), who annoyed them -in <em>Almaviva</em>.... <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ebbene</span></i>! the elections were in progress—there -was a <em>dimonstranza</em>. I can smell those antique -eggs, those decomposed oranges, now.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Heart’s dearest, thou must not excite thyself,” interrupted -Madame; “it is so bad for thee. Play at the -poker-game, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mes enfants</span></i>,” she continued, “and leave -my good child, my beloved little one, alone!” Saying -this, Madame drew from her vast under-pocket a neat -case containing an ivory comb, and, removing the fearfully -and wonderfully braided traveling cap of the Impresario, -fell to combing his few remaining hairs until, -soothed by the process, Carlo, who had been christened -Karl, fell asleep with his head on Madame’s shoulder; -snoring peacefully, despite the screams, shrieks, howls, -and maledictions which were the invariable accompaniment -of the poker-game.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The train bundled into Smutchester some hours later; -a string of cabs conveyed the Impresario, his wife, and -the principal members of his company to the Crown -Diamonds Hotel. Before he sought his couch that night -the revengeful Alberto Fumaroli had interviewed the -<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">chef</span></i> and bribed him with the gift of a box of regalias -from the cedar smoking-cabinet of a King, to aid in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>the carrying-out of the <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">vendetta</span></i>. Josebattista Funkmuller -was not a regal judge of cigars; but these were -black, rank, and oily enough to have made an Emperor -most imperially sick. Besides, the De Melzi had, or -so he declared, once ascribed an indigestion which had -ruined, or so she swore, one of her grandest <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">scenas</span></i>, to an -omelette of his making, and the cook was not unwilling -that the haughty spirit of the <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">cantatrice</span></i> should be -crushed. His complex nature, his cosmopolitan origin, -showed in the plan Josebattista Funkmuller now evolved -and placed before the revengeful tenor, who clasped him -to his bosom in an ecstasy of delight, planting at -the same time a huge, resounding kiss upon both his -cheeks.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is perfection!” Fumaroli cried. “My friend, it -can scarcely fail! If it should, <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">per Bacco</span></i>! the Fiend -himself is upon that insolent creature’s side! But I -never heard yet of his helping a woman to resist temptation—<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">oh, -mai!</span></i> it is he who spreads the board and invites -Eve.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And the tenor retired exultant. His sleeping-chamber -was next door to that of the hated <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">cantatrice</span></i>. He -dressed upon the succeeding morning to the accompaniment -of <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">roulades</span></i> trilled by the owner of the lovely throat -to which Fumaroli would so willingly have given the -fatal squeeze. And as Fumaroli, completing his frugal -morning ablutions by wiping his beautiful eyes and classic -temples very gingerly with a damp towel, paused to -listen, a smile of peculiar malignancy was only partly -obscured by the folds of the towel. But when the tenor -and the soprano encountered at the twelve o’clock -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i>, Fumaroli’s politeness was excessive, and his -large, dark, brilliant eyes responded to every glance of -the gleaming black orbs of De Melzi with a languorous, -melting significance which almost caused her heart to -palpitate beneath her Parisian corsets. Concealed passion -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>lay, it might be, behind an affectation of enmity -and ill-will.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Mai santo cielo!</span></i>” exclaimed the stout aunt, to whom -the <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">cantatrice</span></i> subsequently revealed her suspicions, -“thou guessest always as I myself have thought. The -unhappy man is devoured by a grand passion for my -Teresa. He grinds his teeth, he calls upon the saints, -he grows more bilious every day, and thou more beautiful. -One day he will declare himself——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And I shall lose an entertaining enemy, to find a -stupid lover,” gurgled Teresa. She was looking divine, -her dark beauty glowing like a gem in the setting of -an Eastern silk of shot turquoise and purple, fifty -yards of which an enamored noble of the Ukraine had -thrown upon the stage of the Opera House, St. Petersburg, -wound round the stem of a costly bouquet. She -glanced in the mirror as she kissed the black nose of her -Japanese pug. “Every man becomes stupid after a -while,” she went on. “Even Josebattista is in love -with me. He sends me a little note written on <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">papier -jambon</span></i> to entreat an interview.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My soul!” cried the stout aunt, “thou wilt not deny -him?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The saucy singer shook her head as Funkmuller tapped -at the door. One need not give in detail the interview -that eventuated. It is enough that the intended treachery -of Fumaroli was laid bare. His intended victim -laughed madly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But it is a <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">cerotto</span></i>—what the English call a nincompoop,” -she gasped, pressing a laced handkerchief to her -streaming eyes. “If the heavens were to fall, then one -could catch larks; but the proverb says nothing about -nightingales.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She tossed her brilliant head and took a turn or two -upon the hotel sitting-room carpet, considering.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I will keep this appointment,” said she.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>“<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Dio!</span></i> And risk thy precious reputation?” shrieked -the aunt.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c010'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Chi sa? Chi sa?</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Evviva l’opportunita!</span>”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>hummed the provoking beauty. And she dealt the cook -a sparkling glance of such intelligence that he felt -Signor Alberto would never triumph. Relieved in mind, -Josebattista Funkmuller took his leave.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I will return the King’s cigars,” he said, as he -pressed his garlic-scented mustache to the pearly -knuckles of the lady.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Bah!” said she, “they were won in a raffle at -Vienna.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The door closed upon the disgusted <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chef</span></i>, and reopened -ten minutes later to admit a waiter carrying -upon a salver a pretty three-cornered pink note with -a gold monogram in the corner. The writer entreated -the inestimable privilege of three minutes’ conversation -with Madame de Melzi in a private apartment in the -basement of the hotel. He did not propose to visit the -<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">prima donna</span></i> in her own rooms, even under the wing of -her aunt, for it was of supreme importance that tongues -should not be set wagging. Delicacy and respect prevented -him from suggesting an interview in the apartments -occupied by himself. On the neutral ground of -an office in the basement the interview might take place -without comment or interruption. He was, in fact, waiting -there for an answer.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The answer came in the person of the singer herself, -charmingly dressed and radiant with loveliness.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Fie! What an underground hole! The window -barred, the blank wall of an area beyond it!” Her -beautiful nostrils quivered. “<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Caro mio</span></i>, you have in -that covered dish upon the table there something that -smells good. What is under the cover?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>“Look and see!” said the cunning tenor, with a provoking -smile.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I am not curious,” responded Teresa, putting both -hands behind her and leaning her back against the door. -“Come, hurry up! One of your three minutes has -gone by, the other two will follow, and I shall be -obliged to take myself off without having heard this -mysterious revelation. What is it?” She showed a -double row of pearl-hued teeth in a mischievous smile. -“Shall I guess? You have, by chance, fallen in love -with me, and wish to tell me so? How dull and unoriginal! -A vivacious, interesting enemy is to be preferred -a million times before a stupid friend or a commonplace -adorer.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Grazie a Dio!</span></i>” said the tenor, “I am not in love -with you.” But at that moment he was actually upon -the verge; and the dull, dampish little basement room, -floored with kamptulicon warmed by a grudging little -gas-stove, its walls adorned with a few obsolete and -hideous prints, its oilcloth-covered table, on which stood -the mysterious dish, closely covered, bubbling over a -spirit lamp and flanked by a spoon, fork, and plate—that -little room might have been the scene of a declaration -instead of a punishment had it not been for the -De Melzi’s amazing nonchalance. It would have been -pleasant to have seen the spiteful little arrow pierce -that lovely bosom. But instead of frowning or biting -her lips, Teresa laughed with the frankest grace in the -world.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dear Signor Alberto, Heaven has spared you much. -Besides, you are of those who esteem quantity above -quality—and, for a certain thing, I should be torn to -pieces by the ladies of the Chorus.” She shrugged her -shoulders. “Well, what is this mysterious communication? -The three minutes are up, the fumes of a gas -fire are bad for the throat—and I presume you of all -<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>people would not wish me to sing ‘Elsa’ with a veiled -voice, and disappoint the dear people of Smutchester, -and Messieurs the critics, who say such kind things.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Alberto Fumaroli’s brain spun round. Quick as -thought his supple hand went out; the wrist of the coquettish -<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">prima donna</span></i> was imprisoned as in a vise of -steel.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ragazza!</span></i>” he gnashed out, “you shall pay for your -cursed insolence.” He swung the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cantatrice</span></i> from the -door, and Teresa, noting the convulsed workings of his -Corsican features, and devoured by the almost scorching -glare of his fierce eyes, felt a thrill of alarm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Oimè!</span></i> Signor,” she faltered, “what do you mean -by this violence? Recollect that we are not now upon -the stage.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>A harsh laugh came from the bull throat of the tenor.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c010'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“By mystic Love</div> - <div class='line'>Brought from the distance</div> - <div class='line'>In thy hour of need.</div> - <div class='line'>Behold me, O Elsa!</div> - <div class='line'>Loveliest, purest—</div> - <div class='line'>Thine own</div> - <div class='line'>Unknown!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>he hummed. But his Elsa did not entreat to flow about -his feet like the river, or kiss them like the flowers blooming -amidst the grasses he trod. Struggling in vain for -release from the rude, unchivalrous grasp, an idea came -to her; she stooped her beautiful head and bit Lohengrin -smartly on the wrist, evoking, instead of further music, -a torrent of curses; and as Alberto danced and yelled in -agony, she darted from the room. With the key she had -previously extracted she locked the door; and as her -light footsteps and crisping draperies retreated along -the passage, the tenor realized that he was caught in -his own trap. Winding his handkerchief about his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>smarting wrist, he bestowed a few more hearty curses -upon Teresa, and sat down upon a horsehair-covered -chair to wait for deliverance. They could not possibly -give “Lohengrin” without him—there was no understudy -for the part. For her own sake, therefore, the -De Melzi would see him released in time to assume -the armor of the Knight of the Swan. <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ebbene!</span></i> There -was nothing to do but wait. He looked at his watch, -a superb timepiece encrusted with brilliants. Two -o’clock! And the opera did not commence until eight. -Six hours to spend in this underground hole, if no one -came to let him out. Patience! He would smoke. He -got over half an hour with the aid of the green cigarette-case. -Then he did a little pounding at the door. -This bruised his tender hands, and he soon left off and -took to shouting. To the utmost efforts of his magnificent -voice no response was made; the part of the hotel -basement in which his prison happened to be situated -was, in the daytime, when all the servants were engaged -in their various departments, almost deserted. Therefore, -after an hour of shouting, Fumaroli abandoned -his efforts.</p> - -<p class='c009'>What was to be done? He could take a <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">siesta</span></i>, and -did, extended upon two of the grim horsehair chairs -with which the apartment was furnished. He slept -excellently for an hour, and woke hungry.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Hungry! <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Diavolo!</span></i> with what a raging hunger—an -appetite of Gargantuan proportions, sharpened to the -pitch of famine by the bubbling gushes of savory steam -that jetted from underneath the cover of the mysterious -dish still simmering over its spirit-lamp upon the table! -He knew what that dish contained—his revenge, in fact. -Well, it had missed fire, the <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">vendetta</span></i>. He who had -devised the ordeal of temptation for Teresa found himself -helpless, exposed to its fiendish seductions. Not that -he would be likely to yield, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">oh mai!</span></i> was it probable? -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>He banished the idea with a gesture full of superb scorn -and a haughty smile. Never, a thousand times never! -The cunning Teresa should be disappointed. That evening’s -performance should be attacked by him as ever, -fasting, the voice of melody, the sonorous lungs, supported -by an empty frame. <em>Cospetto!</em> how savory the -smell that came from that covered dish! The unhappy -tenor moved to the table, snuffed it up in nosefuls, -thought of flinging the dish and its contents out of window—would -have done so had not the window been -barred.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“After all, perhaps she means to keep me here all -night,” he thought, and rashly lifted the dish-cover, revealing -a vast and heaving plain of macaroni, over -which little rills of liquid butter wandered. Parmesan -cheese was not lacking to the dish, nor the bland juices -of the sliced tomato, and, like the violet by the wayside, -the modest garlic added its perfume to the distracting -bouquet. Fumaroli was only human, though, as a tenor, -divine. He had been shut up for four hours, fasting, -in company with a dish of macaroni.... Ah, Heaven! -he could endure no longer.... He drew up a chair, -grasped fork and spoon—fell to. In the act of finishing -the dish, he started, fancying that the silvery tinkle -of a feminine laugh sounded at the keyhole. But his -faculties were dulled by vast feeding; his anger, like -his appetite, had lost its edge. With an effort he disposed -of the last shreds of macaroni, the last trickle -of butter; and at seven o’clock a waiter, who accidentally -unlocked the door of the basement room, awakened a -plethoric sleeper from heavy dreams.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To the Opera House,” was the listless direction he -gave the driver of his hired brougham; as one in a dream -he entered by the stage-door, and strode to his room.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The curtain had already risen upon grassy lowlands -in the neighborhood of Antwerp. Henry, King of Germany, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>seated under a spreading canvas oak, held court -with military pomp. Frederic of Telramond, wizard -husband of Ortrud, the witch, had stepped forward to -accuse Elsa of the murder of her brother, Gottlieb; -the King had cried, “Summon the maid!” and in answer -to the command, amidst the blare of brass and the -clashing of swords, the De Melzi, draped in pure white, -followed by her ladies, and looking the picture of virginal -innocence, moved dreamily into view:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c010'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“How like an angel!</div> - <div class='line'>He who accuses her</div> - <div class='line'>Must surely prove</div> - <div class='line'>This maiden’s guilt.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>Ah! had those who listened to the thrilling strains -that poured from those exquisite lips but guessed, as -Elsa described the appearance of her dream-defender, -her shining Knight, and sank upon her knees in an -ecstasy of passionate prayer, that the celestial deliverer -was at that moment gasping in the agonies of indigestion!</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c010'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Let me behold</div> - <div class='line'>That form of light!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>entreated the maiden; and amidst the exclamations of -the eight-part chorus the swan-drawn bark approached -the bank; the noble, if somewhat fleshy, form of Alberto -Fumaroli, clad from head to foot in silvery mail, stepped -from it.... With lofty grace he waved his adieu to -the swan, he launched upon his opening strain of unaccompanied -melody.... Alas! how muffled, how farinaceous -those once clarion tones!... In labored accents, -amid the growing disappointment of the Smutchester -audience, Lohengrin announced his mission to -the King. As he folded the entranced Elsa to his oppressed -bosom, crying:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c010'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>“Elsa, I love thee!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>“She-devil, you have ruined me!” he hissed in the -De Melzi’s ear.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c010'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My hope, my solace,</div> - <div class='line'>My hero, I am thine!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>Teresa trilled in answer. And raising her love-illumined, -mischievously dancing eyes to her deliverer, -breathed in his ear: “Try pepsin!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span> - <h2 class='c005'>“FREDDY & C<sup>IE</sup>”</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>It is always a perplexing question how to provide -for younger sons, and the immediate relatives of the -Honorable Freddy Foulkes had forfeited a considerable -amount of beauty sleep in connection with the problem.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My poor darling!” the Marchioness of Glanmire -sighed one day, more in sorrow than in anger, when -the Honorable Freddy brought his charming smile and -his graceful but unemployed person into her morning-room. -“If you could only find some congenial and at -the same time lucrative post that would take up your -time and absorb your spare energy, how grateful I -should be!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have found it,” said the Honorable Freddy, with -his cherubic smile. He possessed the blonde curling hair -and artless expression that may be symbolical of guilelessness -or the admirable mask of guile.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Thank Heaven!” breathed his mother. Then, with -a sense that the thanksgiving might, after all, be premature, -she inquired: “But of what nature is this -post? Before it can be seriously considered, one must -be certain that it entails no loss of caste, demands nothing -derogatory in the nature of service from one who—I -need not remind you of your position, or of the fact -that your family must be considered.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She smoothed her darling’s silky hair, which exhaled -the choicest perfume of Bond Street, and kissed his brow, -as pure and shadowless as a slice of cream cheese, as -the young man replied:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dearest mother, you certainly need not.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>“Then tell me of this post. Is it anything,” the -Marchioness asked, “in the Diplomatic line?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Without a good deal of diplomacy a man would be -no good for the shop,” admitted Freddy; “but otherwise, -your guess is out.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Doubt darkened his mother’s eyes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t say,” she exclaimed, “that you have accepted -a Club Secretaryship? To me it seems the last resource -of the unsuccessful man.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It will never be mine,” said Freddy, “because I -can’t keep accounts, and they wouldn’t have me. Try -again.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I trust it has nothing to do with Art,” breathed -the Marchioness, who loathed the children of canvas and -palette with an unreasonable loathing.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“In a way it has,” replied her son, “and in another -way it hasn’t. Come! I’ll give you a lead. There is -a good deal of straw in the business for one thing.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You cannot contemplate casting in your lot with -the agricultural classes? No! I knew the example of -your unhappy cousin Reginald would prevent you from -adopting so wild a course ... but you spoke of straw.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of straw. And flowers. And tulles.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Flowers and tools! Gardening is a craze which has -become fashionable of late. But I cannot calmly see -you in an apron, potting plants.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is not a question of potting plants, but of potting -customers,” said Freddy, showing his white teeth in a -charming smile.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A shudder convulsed Freddy’s mother. Freddy went -on, filially patting her handsome hand:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You see, I have decided, and gone into trade. If -I were a wealthy cad, I should keep a bucket-shop. -Being a poor gentleman, I am going to make a bonnet-shop -keep me. And, what is more—I intend to trim -all the bonnets myself!”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>There was no heart disease upon the maternal side -of the house. The Marchioness did not become pale blue, -and sink backwards, clutching at her corsage. She rose -to her feet and boxed her son’s right ear. He calmly -offered the left one for similar treatment.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t send me out looking uneven,” he said simply. -“If I pride myself upon anything, it is a well-balanced -appearance. And I have to put in an hour or so at the -shop by-and-by.” He glanced in the mantel-mirror as -he spoke, and observing with gratification that his immaculate -necktie had escaped disarrangement, he twisted -his little mustache, smiled, and knew himself irresistible.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The shop! Degenerate boy!” cried his mother. -“Who is your partner in this—this enterprise?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You know her by sight, I think,” returned the -cherub coolly. “Mrs. Vivianson, widow of the man who -led the Doncaster Fusiliers to the top of Mealie Kop -and got shot there. Awfully fetching, and as clever as -they make them!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That woman one sees everywhere with a positive -<em>procession</em> of young men at her heels!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That woman, and no other.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She is hardly——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She is awfully <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chic</span></i>, especially in mourning.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I will admit she has some style.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>Admit</em>, when you and all the other women have -copied the color of her hair and the cut of her sleeves -for three seasons past! I like that!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Freddy was growing warm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When you accuse me of imitating the appearance of -a person of that kind,” said Lady Glanmire, in a cold -fury, “you insult your mother. And when you ally -yourself with her in the face of Society, as you are about -to do, you are going too far. As to this millinery establishment, -it shall not open.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>“My dear mother,” said Freddy, “it has been open -for a week.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He drew a card from an exquisite case mounted in -gold. On the pasteboard appeared the following inscription -in neat characters of copperplate:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>FREDDY & C<sup><span class='fss'>IE</span></sup></div> - <div class='line in4'><span class='sc'>Court Milliners</span>,</div> - <div class='line in8'><span class='sc'>11, Condover Street, W.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>“Freddy and Company!” murmured the stricken parent, -as she perused the announcement.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mrs. V. is company,” observed the son, with a spice -of vulgarity; “and uncommonly good company, too. As -for myself, my talents have at last found scope, and -millinery is my <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">métier</span></i>. How often haven’t you said -that no one has such exquisite taste in the arrangement -of flowers——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As you, Freddy! It is true! But——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Haven’t you declared, over and over again, that you -have never had a maid who could put on a mantle, -adjust a fold of lace, or pin on a toque as skillfully as -your own son?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My boy, I own it. Still, millinery as a profession? -Can you call it <em>quite</em> manly for a man?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To spend one’s life in arranging combinations to -set off other women’s complexions. Can you call that -womanly for a woman? To my mind,” pursued Freddy, -“it is the only occupation for a man of real refinement. -To crown Beauty with beauty! To dream exquisite -confections, which shall add the one touch wanting to -exquisite youth or magnificent middle-age! To build -up with deft touches a creation which shall betray in -every detail, in every effect, the hand of a genius united -to the soul of a lover, and reap not only gold, but glory! -Would this not be Fame?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>“Ah! I no longer recognize you. You do not talk -like your dear old self!” cried the Marchioness.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I am glad of it,” replied Freddy, “for, frankly, I -was beginning to find my dear old self a bore.” He -drew out a watch, and his monogram and crest in diamonds -scintillated upon the case. His eye gleamed with -proud triumph as he said: “Ten to twelve. At twelve -I am due at Condover Street. Come, not as my mother, -if you are ashamed of my profession, but as a customer -ashamed of that bonnet” (Lady Glanmire was dressed -for walking), “which you ought to have given to your -cook long ago. Unless you would prefer your own -brougham, mine is at the door.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The vehicle in question bore the smartest appearance. -The Marchioness entered it without a murmur, and was -whirled to Condover Street. The name of Freddy & -Cie. appeared in a delicate flourish of golden letters -above the chastely-decorated portals of the establishment, -and the plate-glass window contained nothing but an -assortment of plumes, ribbons, chiffons, and shapes of -the latest mode, but not a single completed article of -head apparel.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The street was already blocked with carriages, the -vestibule packed, the shop thronged with a vast and -ever-increasing assemblage of women, amongst whom -Lady Glanmire recognized several of her dearest friends. -She wished she had not come, and looked for Freddy. -Freddy had vanished. His partner, Mrs. Vivianson, a -vividly-tinted, elegant brunette of some thirty summers, -assisted by three or four charming girls, modestly attired -and elegantly <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coiffée</span></i>, was busily engaged with those -would-be customers, not a few, who sought admission -to the inner room, whose pale green <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">portière</span></i> bore in gold -letters of embroidery the word <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">atelier</span></i>.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You see,” she was saying, “to the outer shop admission -is <em>quite</em> free. We are charmed to see everybody -<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>who likes to come, don’t you know? and show them the -latest shades and shapes and things. But consultation -with Monsieur Freddy—we charge five shillings for that. -Unusual? Perhaps. But Monsieur Freddy is Monsieur -Freddy!” And her shrug was worthy of a Parisienne. -“Why do you ask? ‘Is it true that he is the younger -son of the Duke of Deershire?’ Dear Madame, to <em>us</em> -he is Monsieur Freddy; and we seek no more.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A born tradeswoman!” thought Lady Glanmire, as -the silver coins were exchanged for little colored silk -tickets bearing mystic numbers. She moved forward -and tendered two half-crowns; and Freddy’s partner -and Freddy’s mother looked one another in the face. -But Mrs. Vivianson maintained an admirable composure.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And then the curtains of the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">atelier</span></i> parted, and a -young and pretty woman came out quickly. She was -charmingly dressed, and wore the most exquisite of hats, -and a murmur went up at sight of it. She stretched -out her hands to a friend who rushed impulsively to -meet her, and her voice broke in a sob of rapture.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Did you ever see anything so <em>sweet</em>? And he did it -like magic—one scarcely saw his fingers move!” she -cried; and her friend burst into exclamations of delight, -and a chorus rose up about them.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>Wonderful!</em>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>Extraordinary!</em>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>He does it while you wait!</em>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>Just for curiosity, I really must!</em>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And a wave of eager women surged towards the green -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">portière</span></i>. Three went in, being previously deprived of -their headgear by the respectful attendants, who averred -that it put Monsieur Freddy’s taste out of gear for -the day to be compelled to gaze upon any creation -other than his own. And then it came to the turn of -Lady Glanmire.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She, disbonneted, entered the sanctum. A pale, clear, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>golden light illumined it from above; the walls were -hung with draperies of delicate pink, the carpet was -moss-green. In the center of the apartment, upon a -broad, low divan, reclined the figure of a slender young -man. He wore a black satin mask, concealing the upper -part of his face, a loose, lounging suit of black velvet, -and slippers of the same with the embroidered initial -“F.” Round him stood, mute and attentive as slaves, -some half-dozen pretty young women, bearing trays of -trimmings of every conceivable kind. In the background -rose a grove of stands supporting hat-shapes, bonnet-shapes, -toque-foundations, the skeletons of every conceivable -kind of headgear.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Silent, the Marchioness stood before her disguised -son.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He gently put up his eyeglass, to accommodate -which aid to vision his mask had been specially -designed, and motioned her to the sitter’s chair, so constructed -that with a touch of Monsieur Freddy’s foot -upon a lever it would revolve, presenting the customer -from every point of view. He touched the lever now, -and chair and Marchioness spun slowly around. But -for the presence of the young ladies with their trays -of flowers, plumes, gauzes, and ribbons, Freddy’s mother -could have screamed. All the while Freddy remained -silent, absorbed in contemplation, as though trying to -fix upon his memory features seen for the first time. At -last he spoke.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Tall,” he said, “and inclined to a becoming <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">embonpoint</span></i>. -The eyes blue-gray, the hair of auburn touched -with silver, the features, of the Anglo-Roman type, somewhat -severe in outline, the chin——A hat to suit this -client”—he spoke in a sad, sweet, mournful voice—“would -cost five guineas. A Marquise shape, of broadtail”—one -of the young lady attendants placed the -shape required in the artist’s hands—“the brim lined -<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>with a rich drapery of chenille and silk.... Needle -and thread, Miss Banks. Thank you....” His fingers -moved like white lightning as he deftly wielded the feminine -implement and snatched his materials from the -boxes proffered in succession by the girls. “Black and -white tips of ostrich falling over one side from a ring -of cut steel,” he continued in the same dreamy tone. -“A knot of point d’Irlande, with a heart of Neapolitan -violets, and”—he rose from the divan and lightly placed -the beautiful completed fabric upon the Marchioness’s -head—“here is your hat, Madame. Five guineas. Good-morning. -Next, please!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Emotion choked his mother’s utterance. At the same -moment she saw herself in the glass silently swung -towards her by one of the attendants, and knew that -she was suited to a marvel. She made her exit, paid her -five guineas, and returned home, embarrassed by the -discovery that there was an artist in the family.</p> - -<p class='c009'>One thing was clear, no more was to be said. The -<em>Maison Freddy</em> became the morning resort of the smart -world; it was considered the thing to have hats made -while Society waited. True, they came to pieces easily, -not being copper-nailed and riveted, so to speak; but -what poems they were! The charming conversation of -Monsieur Freddy, the half-mystery that veiled his identity, -as his semi-mask partially concealed his fair and -smiling countenance, added to the attractions of the -Condover Street <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">atelier</span></i>.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Money rolled in; the banking account of the partners -grew plethoric; and then Mrs. Vivianson, in spite of the -claims of the business upon her time, in spite of the -Platonic standpoint she had up to the present maintained -in her relations with Freddy, began to be jealous.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Or—no! I will not admit that such a thing is possible!” -she said, as she looked through some recent entries -in the day-book of the firm. “But that American -<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>millionairess girl comes too often. She has bought a -hat every day for three weeks past. Good for business -in one way, but bad for it in another. If he should -marry, what becomes of the <em>Maison Freddy</em>?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She sighed and passed between the curtains. It was -the slack time after luncheon, and Freddy was enjoying -a moment’s interval. Stretched on his divan, his embroidered -slippers elevated in the air, he smoked a perfumed -cigarette surrounded by the materials of his craft. -He smiled at Mrs. Vivianson as she entered, and then -raised his aristocratic eyebrows in surprise.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Has anything gone wrong? You swept in as tragically -as my mother when she comes to disown me. She -does it regularly every week, and as regularly takes me -on again.” He exhaled a scented cloud, and smiled -once more.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Freddy,” said Mrs. Vivianson, going direct to the -point, “this little speculation of ours has turned out very -well, hasn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Beyond dreams!” acquiesced Freddy. She went on:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You came to me a penniless detrimental, with a talent -of which nobody guessed that anything could be -made. I gave this gift a chance to develop. I set you -on your legs, and——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Me voici!</span></i> You don’t want me to rise up and bless -you, do you?” said Freddy, with half-closed eyes. -“Thanks awfully, you know, all the same!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t know that I want thanks, quite,” said Mrs. -Vivianson. “I’ve had back every penny that I invested, -and pulled off a bouncing profit. Your share amounts to -a handsome sum. In a little while you’ll be able to pay -your debts.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I shall never do that!” said Freddy, with feeling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Marry, and leave me—perhaps,” went on Mrs. -Vivianson. A shade swept over her face, her dark eyes -glowed somberly, the lines of her mouth hardened.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>“Keep as you are!” cried Freddy, rebounding to a -sitting position on the divan.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Where’s that new Medici shape in gold rice-straw -and the amber <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">crêpe chiffon</span></i>, and the orange roses with -crimson hearts?” His nimble fingers darted hither and -thither, his eyes shone, and his cheeks were flushed with -the enthusiasm of the artist. “A tuft of black and yellow -cock’s feathers, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la Mephistophele</span></i>,” he cried, “a -topaz buckle, and it is finished. You must wear with it -a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jabot</span></i> of yellow <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">point d’Alençon</span></i>. It is the hat of hats -for a jealous woman!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How dare you!” cried Mrs. Vivianson. But Freddy -did not seem to hear her—he was rapt in the contemplation -of the new masterpiece; and as he rose and gracefully -placed it on his partner’s head, Miss Cornelia Vanderdecken -was ushered in. She was superbly beautiful -in the ivory-skinned, jetty-locked, slender American -style, and she wore a hat that Freddy had made the day -before, which set off her charms to admiration.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She occupied the sitter’s chair as Mrs. Vivianson -glided from the room, and Freddy’s blue eyes dwelt -upon her worshipingly. To do him justice, he had lost -his heart before he learned that Cornelia was an heiress. -Now words escaped him that brought a faint pink stain -to her ivory cheek.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah!” he cried impulsively, “you are ruining my -business.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, why, Monsieur Freddy? Please tell me!” asked -Miss Vanderdecken, with naïve curiosity.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Because,” said Freddy, while a bright blush showed -beyond the limits of his black satin mask, “you are so -beautiful that it is torture to make hats for other women—since -I have seen you.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was a pause. Then Miss Cornelia’s silk foundations -rustled as she turned resolutely toward the -divan.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>“I can’t return the compliment,” she said, “by telling -you that it is torture to me to wear hats made by -any other man since I have seen you, for other men -don’t make hats, and I can’t really see you through -that thing you wear over your face. But——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her voice faltered, and Freddy, with a gesture, dismissed -his lady assistants. Then he removed his mask. -Their eyes met, and Cornelia uttered a faint exclamation.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh my! You’re just like him!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Who is he?” asked Freddy.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I can’t quite say, because I don’t know,” returned -Cornelia; “but all girls have their ideals, from the time -they wear Swiss pinafores to the time they wear forty-eight -inch corsets; and I won’t deny”—her voice trembled—“but -what you fill the bill. My! What <em>are</em> -you doing?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>For Freddy had grasped his materials and was making -a hat. It was of palest blush tulle, with a crown of -pink roses, and an aigrette of flamingo plumes was -fastened with a Cupid’s bow in pink topaz.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Love’s first confession,” the young man murmured -as he bit off the last thread, “should be whispered beneath -a hat like this.” And he gracefully placed it on -Cornelia’s raven hair.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Vivianson, her ear to the keyhole of a side door, -quivered from head to foot with rage and jealousy. -Time was when he, a penniless, high-bred boy, had implored -her to marry him. Now—her blood boiled at -the remembrance of the half hint, the veiled suggestion -she had made, that they should unite in a more intimate -partnership than that already consolidated. With her -jealousy was mingled despair. As long as Freddy and -his hats remained the fashion, the shop would pay, and -pay royally. There had as yet occurred no abatement -in the onflow of aristocratic patronage. To avow his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>identity—never really doubted—to become an engaged -man, meant ruin to the business. The blood hummed in -her head. She clung to the door-handle and entered, as -Freddy, with real grace and eloquence, pleaded his suit.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And you are really a Marquis’s second son, though -you make hats for money?” she heard Cornelia say. “I -always guessed you had real old English blood in you, -from the tone of your voice and the shape of your finger-nails, -even when you wore a mask. And it seemed -as though I couldn’t do anything but buy hats. I surmised -it was vanity at the time, but now I guess it was—love!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dearest!” said Freddy, bending his blonde head -over her jeweled hands. “My Cornelia! I will make -you a hat every day when you are married. Ah! I have -it! You shall wear one of mine to go away in upon the -day we are wed, the inspiration of a bridegroom, thought -out and achieved between the church door and the chancel. -What an idea for a lover! What an advertisement -for the shop!” His blue eyes beamed at the thought.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But Cornelia’s face fell.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t know how to say it, dear, but we shall never -be married. Poppa is perfectly rocky on one point, and -that is that the man I hitch up with shall never have -dabbled as much as his little finger in trade. ‘You have -dollars enough to buy one of the real high-toned sort,’ -he keeps saying, ‘and if blood royal is to be got for -money, Silas P. Vanderdecken is the man to get it. -So run along and play, little girl, till the right man -comes along.’ And I know he’ll say you’re the wrong -one!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Freddy’s complexion, grown transparent from excess -of emotion and lack of exercise, paled to an ivory hue. -His sedentary life had softened his condition and unstrung -his nerves. He adored Cornelia, and had looked -forward to a lifetime spent in adorning her beauty with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>bonnets of the most becoming shapes and designs. Now -that a coarse Transatlantic millionaire with soft shirt-fronts -and broad-leaved felt hats might step in and shatter -for ever his beautiful dream of union, bitter revulsion -seized him. He feared his fate. What was he? -The second son of a poor Marquis, with a particularly -healthy elder brother. He looked upon the chiffons, the -flowers and the feathers that surrounded him, and felt -that the hopes of a heart reared upon so frail a basis -were insecure indeed. Then his old blood rallied to his -heart, and he rose from the divan and clasped the now -tearful Cornelia to his breast.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Go, my dearest,” he said, “tell all to your father—plead -for me. Do not write or wire—bring me his verdict -to-morrow. Meanwhile I will compose two hats. -Each shall be a masterpiece—a swan-song of my Art. -One is to be worn if”—his voice broke—“if I am to be -happy; the other if I am fated to despair. Go now, for -I must be alone to carry out my inspiration.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And Cornelia went. Then Freddy, sternly refusing -to receive any more customers that day, set himself to -the completion of his task. Before very long both hats -were actualities. Hat Number One was an Empire -shape of dead-leaf beaver, the crown draped with dove-colored -silk, a spray of sere oak-leaves and rue in front, -a fine scarf of black lace, partly to veil the face of the -wearer, thrown back over one side of the brim and -caught with a clasp of black pearls set in oxidized silver. -It breathed of chastened woe and temperate sadness, -and was to be worn if Papa Vanderdecken persisted -in refusing to accept Freddy as a suitor.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But Hat Number Two! It was of the palest blue -guipure straw, draped with coral silk and Cluny lace. -In front was a spray of moss rosebuds and forget-me-nots, -dove’s wings of burnished hues were set at either -side. It was the very hat to be worn by a bringer of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>joyful news, the ideal hat under which might be appropriately -exchanged the first kiss of plighted passion. -Upon it Freddy pinned a fairy-like card, white and -gold-edged.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If I am to be happy, wear this,” was written upon -it; and upon a buff card attached to the hat of rejection -he inscribed: “Wear this, if I am to be unhappy.” -Then he closed the large double bandbox in which he had -packed the hats, breathed a kiss into the folds of the -silver paper, and, ringing the bell, bade a messenger -carry the box to the hotel at which Cornelia Vanderdecken -was staying, and where, millionairess though she -was, she was still content to dress with the help of a -deft maid and the adoration of a devoted companion. -Then the exhausted artist fell back on the divan. Cornelia -was to come at twelve upon the morrow.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Then I shall learn my fate,” said Freddy. He drove -home in his brougham, and passed a sleepless night. -The fateful hour found him again upon his divan, surrounded -by the materials of his craft, waiting feverishly -for Cornelia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The curtains parted. He started up at the rustling -of her gown and the jingling of her bangles. Horror! -she wore the somber hat of sorrow, though under its -shadow her face was curiously bright.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She advanced toward Freddy. He reeled and staggered -backward, raised his white hand to his delicate -throat, and fell fainting amongst his cushions. Cornelia -screamed. Mrs. Vivianson and her young ladies came -hurrying in. As the stylish widow noted Cornelia’s -headgear, her eyes flashed and joy was in her face. -Then it clouded over, for she knew that Papa Vanderdecken -had been coaxed over, and Freddy was an accepted -man. My reader, being exceptionally acute, will -realize that the jealous woman had changed the tickets -on the hats.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>“Not that it was much use,” she avowed to herself, -as she entered with smelling-salts and burnt feathers to -restore Freddy’s consciousness. “When he revives, she -will tell him the truth.” But Freddy only regained -consciousness to lose it in the ravings of delirium. He -had an attack of brain fever, in which he wandered -through groves of bonnet shops, looking unavailingly -for Cornelia. And then came the crisis, and he woke -up with an ice-bandage on, to find himself in his bedroom -at Glanmire House, with the Marchioness leaning -over him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mother, my heart is broken,” said the boy—he was -really little more. “The world exists no more for me. -Let me make my last hat—and leave it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, Freddy, don’t you know me?” gasped Cornelia -in the background; but the repentant woman who had -brought about all this trouble drew the girl away.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Even good news broken suddenly to him in his weak -state,” said Mrs. Vivianson in a rapid whisper, “may -prove fatal. I have a plan which may gradually enlighten -him.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I trust you,” said Cornelia. “You have saved his -life with your nursing. Now give him back to me!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Hush!” said Mrs. Vivianson.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She had rapidly dispatched a messenger to Condover -Street, and now, as Freddy again opened his eyes and -repeated his piteous request, the messenger returned. -Then all present gathered about the bed, whose inmate -had been raised upon supporting pillows. It was a queer -scene as the shaded electric light above the bed played -upon Freddy’s pallid features, showing the ravages of -sickness there. “Now!” said Mrs. Vivianson. She -placed the milliner’s box upon the bed, and Freddy’s -feeble fingers, diving into it, drew forth a spray of orange -blossoms and a diaphanous cloud of filmy lace.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Black—not white!” Freddy gasped brokenly. “It -<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>is a mourning toque that I must make. Let Cornelia -wear it at my funeral.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Cornelia will not wear it at your funeral, Freddy,” -said Mrs. Vivianson, bending over him; “for she is -going to marry you, not to bury you.” And, drawing -the tearful girl to Freddy’s side, she flung over her -beautiful head the bridal veil, and crowned her with a -wreath of orange blossoms. And as, with a feeble cry, -Freddy opened his wasted arms and Cornelia fell into -them, Mrs. Vivianson, her work of atonement completed, -pressed the offered hand of Freddy’s mother, and hurried -out of the room and out of the story. Which ends, -as stories ought, happily for the lovers, who are now -honeymooning in the Riviera.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span> - <h2 class='c005'>UNDER THE ELECTRICS<br /> <span class='large'>A SHOW-LADY IS ELOQUENT</span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>“Really, my dear, I think the man has gone a bit too -far. Writes a play with a fast young lady in the Profession -for the heroine—and where he got his model -from I can’t imagine—and then writes to the papers -to explain, accounting for her past being a bit off color—<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">twiggez-vous?</span></i>—by -saying she isn’t a Chorus-lady, only -a Show-lady.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Gracious! I’m short of a bit of wig-paste, my pet -complexion-color No. 2. Any lady present got half a -stick to lend? I want to look my special best to-night: -<em>somebody in the stalls</em>, don’tcherknow! Chuck it over!—mind -that bottle of Bass! I’m aware beer is bad for -the liver, but such a nourishing tonic, isn’t it? When I -get back to the theater, tired after a sixty-mile ride in -somebody’s 20 h.p. Gohard—<em>twiggez?</em>—a tumbler with -a good head to it makes my dear old self again in a -twink.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Half-hour? That new call-boy must be spoke to on -the quiet, dears. Such manners, putting his nasty little -head right into the show-ladies’ dressing-room when he -calls. I suggest, girlies, that when we’re all running -down for the general entrance in the First Act—and -that staircase on the prompt side is the narrowest I -ever struck—I suggest that when we meet that little -brute—he’s always coming up to give the principals the -last call—I suggest that each girl bumps his head against -<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>the wall as she goes by! That’ll make twenty bumps, -and do him lots of good, too!</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Miss de la Regy, dear, I lent you my blue pencil last -night. Hand it over, there’s a good old sort, when -you’ve given the customary languish to your eyes, love. -What are you saying? Stage-Manager’s order that we’re -not to grease-black our eyelashes so much, as some people -say it looks fair hideous from the front? Tell him -to consume his own smoke next time he’s in a beast of -a cooker. Why don’t he tell <em>her</em> to mind her own business?—I’m -sure she’s old enough! What I say is, I’ve -always been accustomed to put lots on mine, and I don’t -see myself altering my usual make-up at this time o’ -day. Do you? Not much?—I rather thought so. What -else does he say?—he’ll be obliged if we’ll wear the chin-strap -of our Hussar busbies down instead of tucked up -inside ’em? What I say is—and I’m sure you’ll agree -with me, girls—that it’s bad enough to have to wear a -fur hat with a red bag hangin’ over the top, without -marking a young lady’s face in an unbecoming way with -a chin-strap. Also he insists—what price him?—he <em>insists</em> -on our leavin’ our Bridgehands down in the dressing-room, -and not coming on the stage with ’em stuck -in the fronts of our tunics, in defiance of the Army Regulations? -Rot the Regulations, and bother the Stage-Manager! -How <em>she</em> must have been nagging at him, -mustn’t she?—because he <em>can</em> be quite too frightfully -nice and gentlemanly when he likes. I will speak up -for him that much. Not that I ever was a special favorite—I -keep myself to myself too much. Different -to some people not so far off. <em>Twiggez?</em> I’ve my pride, -that’s what I say, if I am a Show-girl!</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Thirty-five shillings a week, with <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">matinées</span></i>—you -can’t say it’s much to look like a lady on, can you now? -No, but what a girl with taste and clever fingers, and -a knack of getting what she wants at a remnant sale—and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>the things those forward creatures in black cashmere -<em>Princess</em> robes try to shove down a lady-customer’s -throat are generally the things she could buy elsewhere -new for less money—not but that a girl with her head -screwed on the right way can turn out in first-class style -for less than some people would think, and get credit in -<em>some quarters we know of</em>—this is a beastly, spiteful -world, my dear—for taking presents right and left.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now, who has been and hung my wig on the electric -light? If the person considers that a practical joke, it -shows—that’s what I say!—it shows that she’s descended -from the lowest circles. I won’t pretend I don’t suspect -who has been up to her little games again, and, -though I should, <em>as a lady</em>, be sorry to behave otherwise, -I must caution her, unless she wishes to find her -military boots full of prepared chalk one o’ these nights, -to quit and chuck ’em.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Quarter of an hour! That <em>was</em> clever of you, Miss -Enderville dear, to shut that imp’s head in the door -before he could pop it back again. Well, there! if you -haven’t got another diamond ring!... Left at the -stage-door office, addressed to you, by a perfect stranger, -who hasn’t even enclosed a line.... Perhaps you’ll -meet him in a better land, dear; he seems a lot too shy -for this one. Not that I admire the three-speeds-forward -sort of fellow, but there is such a thing as being too -backward in coming up to the scratch—twig?</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I ought to know something about that, considering -which my life was spoiled—never you mind how long -ago, because dates are a rotten nuisance—by one of -those hang-backers who want the young woman—the -young lady, I should say—to make all the pace for both -sides. It was during the three-hundred night run of——There! -I’ve forgotten the name of the gay old show, -but Miss de la Regy was in it with me—one of the Tall -Eleven, weren’t you, Miss de la Regy dear? And we -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>were Anchovian Brigands in the First Act—Sardinian -Brigands, did you say? I knew it had something to do -with the beginning of a dinner at the Savoy—and Marie -Antoinette gentlemen in powdered wigs and long, gold-headed -canes in the Second, and in the Final Tableau -British tars in pink silk fleshings, pale blue socks, and -black pumps, and Union Jacks. I remember how I fancied -myself in that costume, and how frightfully it -fetched <em>him</em>.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Me keeping my eyes very much to myself in those -days, new to the Profession as I was, I didn’t tumble to -the fact of having made a regular conquest till a girl -older than me twigged and gave me a hint—then I saw -him sitting in the stalls, dear, if you’ll believe me!—dash -it! I’ve dropped my powder-puff in the water-jug!—with -his mouth wide open—not a becoming thing, but -a sign of true feeling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He was fair and pale and slim, with large blue eyes, -and lovely linen, and a diamond stud in the shirt-front, -and a gardenia in the buttonhole was good form then, -and the white waistcoats were twill. To-day his waistcoat -would be heliotrope watered silk, and his shirt-front -embroidered cambric, and if he showed more than -an inch of platinum watch-chain, he’d be outcast for -ever from his kind. Bless you! men think as much of -being in the fashion as we do, take my word for it, -dear.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He kept his mouth open, as I’ve said, all through -the evening, only putting the knob of his stick into it -sometimes—silver knobs were all the go then—and never -took his eyes off me. ‘You’ve made a victim, Daisy,’ -says one of the girls as we did a step off to the chorus, -two by two, ‘and don’t you forget to make hay while -the sun shines!’ I thanked her to keep her advice to -herself, and moved proudly away, but my heart was -doing ragtime under my corsets, and no mistake about -<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>it. When we ran downstairs after the General Entrance -and the Final Tableau, I took off as much make-up -as I thought necessary, and dressed in a hurry, wishing -I’d come to business in a more stylish get-up. And -as I came out between the swing-leaves of the stage-door, -I saw <em>him</em> outside in an overcoat with a sable collar, a -crush hat, and a white muffler. Dark as the light was, -he knew me, and I recognized him, his mouth being ajar, -same as during the show, and his eyes being fixed in the -same intense gaze, which I don’t blush to own gave me -a sensation like what you have when the shampooing -young woman at the Turkish Baths stands you up in -the corner of a room lined with hot tiles and fires cold -water at you from the other end of it out of a rubber -hose.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘Well, have you found his name out yet, Daisy, old -girl?’ was the question in the dressing-room next night. -I felt red-hot with good old-crusted shame, when I found -out that it was generally known he’d followed me down -Wellington Street to my ’bus—not a Vanguard, but a -gee-gee-er in those days—and stood on the splashy curb -to see me get in, without offering an utterance—which -I dare say if he had I should have shrieked for a policeman, -me being young and shy. No, I’d no idea what -his name was, nor nothing more than that he looked the -complete swell, and was evidently a regular goner—<em>twiggez?</em>—on -the personal charms of yours truly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If you’ll believe me, there wasn’t a line or a rosebud -waiting for me at the stage-door next night, though he -sat in the same stall and stared in the same marked way -all through the evening. Perhaps he might for ever have -remained anonymous, but that the girl who dressed on -my left hand—quite a rattlingly good sort, but with a -passion for eating pickled gherkins out of the bottle with -a fork during all the stage waits and intervals such as -I’ve never seen equaled—that girl happened to know -<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>the man—middle-aged toff, with his head through his -hair and a pane in his eye—who was in the stall next -my conquest the night before. She applied the pump—<em>twiggez?</em>—and -learned the name and title of one I shall -always remember, even though things never came to -nothing definite betwixt us—twig?</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He was a Viscount—sable and not musquash—the -genuine article, not dyed or made up of inferior skins; -blow on the hairs and hold it to the light, you will not -see the fatally regular line that bears testimony to deception. -Lord Polkstone, eldest son of the Earl of ——. -Well, there, if I haven’t been and forgotten his dadda’s -title! Rolling in money, and an only boy. It was less -usual then than now for a peer to pick a life-partner -among the Show-girls, but just to keep us bright and -chirpy, the thing was occasionally done—twig? And -there Lord Polkstone sat night after night, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">matinée</span></i> after -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">matinée</span></i>, in the same place in the stalls, with his mouth -open and his large blue eyes nailed upon the features -of yours truly. Whenever I came out after the show, -there he was waiting, but it went no farther. Pitying -his bashfulness, I might—I don’t say I would, but I -<em>might</em>—have passed a ladylike remark upon the weather, -and broken the ice that way. But every girl in my -room—the Tall Eleven dressed in one together—every -girl’s unanimous advice was, ‘Let him speak first, Daisy.’ -Then they’d simply split with laughing and have to wipe -their eyes. Me, being young and unsophis—I forget how -to spell the rest of that word, but it means jolly fresh -and green—never suspected them of pulling my leg. I -took their crocodileish advice, and waited for Lord Polkstone -to speak. My dear, I’ve wondered since how it was -I never suspected the truth! Weeks went by, and the -affair had got no farther. Young and inexperienced as -I was, I could see by his eye that his was no Sunday-to-Monday -affection, but a real, lasting devotion of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>washable kind. Knowing that, helped me to go on waiting, -though I was dying to hear his voice. But he never -spoke nor wrote, though several other people did, and, -my attention being otherwise taken up, I treated those -fellows with more than indifference.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I remember the Commissionaire—an obliging person -when not under the influence of whisky—telling me that -what he called a rum party had left several bouquets -at the stage-door—no name being on them, and without -saying who for—which seemed uncommonly queer. -Afterward it flashed on me—but there! never mind!</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If I had ever said a word to that dear when his imploring -eyes met mine, and lingered on the curb when -I heard his faithful footsteps following me to my ’bus, -the mask would have fallen, dear, and the blooming mystery -been brought to light. But it shows the kind of -girl I was in those days, that with ‘Good-evening,’ ready -on the tip of my tongue, I shut my mouth and didn’t say -it. If I had, I might have been a Countess now, sitting -in a turret and sewing tapestry, or walking about -a large estate in a tailor-made gown, showing happy cottagers -how to do dairy-work.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That’s my romance, dear—is there a drop of Bass -left in that bottle? I’ve a thirst on me I wouldn’t sell -for four ‘d.’ Spite and malice on the part of some -I shall not condescend to accuse, helplessness on his part—poor, -devoted dear!—and ignorance on mine, nipped -it in the bud; and when he vanished from the stalls—didn’t -turn up at the stage-door—appearing in the Royal -Box, one night I shall never forget, with two young girls -in white and a dowager in a diamond fender, I knew -he’d given up the chase, and with it all thoughts of -poor little downy Me.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We were singing a deadly lively chorus about being -‘jolly, confoundedly jolly!’ and I stood and sang and -sniveled with the black running off my eyes. For even to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>my limited capacity, and without the sneering whispers -of a treacherous snake-in-the-grass, whose waist I had to -keep my arm round all the time, me playing boy to her -girl, first couple proscenium right, next the Royal Box, -where he sat with those three women—I could see how -I’d lost the prize. One glance at Lord Polkstone—prattling -away on his fingers to the best-looking of those two -girls, neither of ’em being over and above what I should -call passable—one glance revealed the truth.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He was deaf and dumb!—and I had been waiting a -week of Sundays for him to speak out first. Hugging -my happy love and my innocent hope to my heart of -hearts—there’s an exercise in h’s for any person whose -weakness lies in the letter—I’d been waiting for what -couldn’t never come. Why hadn’t he have wrote? That -question I’ve often asked myself, and the answer is -that none of them who could have told Lord Polkstone -my name could understand the deaf and dumb alphabet.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh! it was a piercing shock—a freezing blow I’ve -never got over, dear, nor never shall. He married that -girl in white, that artful thing who could understand -his finger language and talk back.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Think what a blessing I lost in a husband who could -never contradict or shout at me. And I feel I could have -been an honor to the Peerage, and worn a coronet like -one born to it. I’ll stand another Bass, dear, if you’ll -tell the dresser to fetch it; or will you have a brandy-and-Polly? -You’ve hit it, dear, the girls were shocking -spiteful, but I was jolly well a lot too retiring and shy. -I’ve got over the weakness since, of course, and now I -positively make a point of speaking if one of ’em seems -quite unusually hangbacky.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘Who knows,’ I say to myself, ‘perhaps he’s deaf -and dumb!’”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span> - <h2 class='c005'>“VALCOURT’S GRIN”</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The lovely and high-born relict of a decrepit and enormously -wealthy commoner, she had sustained her husband’s -loss with a becoming display of sorrow, and -passed with exquisite grace and discretion through the -successive phases of the toilet indicative of connubial -woe. From a lovely chrysalis swathed in crape she had -changed to a dove-colored moth; the moth had become a -heliotrope butterfly, on the point of changing its wings -for a brighter pair, when the post brought her a letter -from one of her dearest friends. It bore the Zurich -postmark, and ran as follows:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>Hotel Schwert</span>,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>Appenbad</span>,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<em>June 18th.</em>”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>“I wonder, dear, whether you would mind being -troubled with Val for a day? He is coming up from -Seaton next Thursday on dentist’s leave, and one does -not care that a boy of sixteen—one can consider Val a -boy without stretching the imagination overmuch—should -be drifting anchorless in town. You will find -him grown and developed.... You see, I take it for -granted, in my own rude way, that you have already -said ‘Yes’ to my request.... The views here are divine—such -miles of eye-flight over the Lake of Constance -and the Rhine Valley! To quote poor Dynham, -who suffered much from the whey-cure, ‘every prospect -pleases, and only man is bile.’ Kiss Val for me. -My dear, the thought of his future is a continual anxiety. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>The title to keep up, and an income of barely eight -thousand pounds.... ‘Marry him,’ you will say; but -to whom? American heiresses are beginning to have an -exorbitant idea of their own value, and then Val’s is an -open, simple nature—<em>unworldly to a degree!</em> Not that -I, his mother, could wish him otherwise, but—you will -understand and sympathize, I know! And boys are so -easily molded by a woman who has charm! If you could -drop a word here and there, calculated to bring him to -a sense of the responsibility that rests upon his young -shoulders, the <em>duty</em> of restoring the diminished fortunes -of his house by a <em>really sensible</em> marriage.... I have -dinned and dinned, but I fear without much result.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Ever yours,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“G. D. E. V. T.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>“Please address Val, ‘Care of Rev. H. Buntham, Seaton -College, near Grindsor.’—G.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Buntham is the house-master. V. says he ‘<em>understands -the fellows thoroughly</em>.’ Such a tribute, I think, -to a tutor <em>from</em> a boy.—G.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>So a dainty monogrammed and coroneted note, on -heliotrope paper, with a thin but decided bordering of -black, was sent off to the Marquis of Valcourt, and Valcourt’s -hostess in prospective consulted a male relative -over the luncheon-table as to the most approved methods -of entertaining a schoolboy.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Heaps of indigestible things to eat—sweet for choice—and -a box at the Gaiety if there’s a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">matinée</span></i>; if not, -the Hippodrome. But who’s the boy?” asked the male -relative.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Lord Valcourt, Geraldine’s eldest.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The male relative pursed up his lips into the shape of -a whistle, and helped himself to a cutlet in expressive -silence.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>“Geraldine is devoted to him. He seems to have a -delightful nature, to be quite an ideal son!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That young—that young fellow!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You have met him, haven’t you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have had that privilege. I was one of the house-party -at Traye last September.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Geraldine asked me, but of course it was out of the -question....”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of course, poor Mussard’s death—quite too recent,” -murmured the male relative, taking green peas.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Poor Mussard’s charming relict drooped her long-lashed, -brown eyes pensively, and the transparent lace, -that covered the hiding-place of the heart that had been -wrung with presumable anguish eighteen months before, -billowed under the impulse of a little dutiful sigh.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What a prize for some lucky beggar with a big title -and empty pockets!” reflected the male relative, who -happened to be a brother, and could therefore contemplate -dispassionately. “Thirty—and looks three-and-twenty -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en plein jour</span></i>, without a pink-lined sunshade.” -Aloud he said: “So you are to entertain Valcourt—Tuesday, -I think you said?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Thursday. It would be dear of you to come and -help me,” murmured Mrs. Mussard plaintively.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It would afford me delight to do so,” returned the -male relative unblushingly, “had I not unfortunately -an engagement to see a man about a fishing-tour in Norway.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Tiresome! I know so little about modern schoolboys!” -murmured Mrs. Mussard.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The less you know about ’em, my dear Vivienne, the -better.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Having been a boy yourself,” the speaker’s sister -responded, with gentle acerbity, “you are naturally prejudiced. -But, going by Geraldine’s account, Valcourt -is not the ordinary kind of boy at all. Indeed, I have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>promised her to take him in hand, and impart a few -<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">viva voce</span></i> lessons in <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">savoir faire</span></i> and worldly wisdom.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>Have you?</em> By Jove, Vivie, you’ve taken something -upon yourself! ‘Angels rush in where demons fear to -tread....’ I’m mulling the quotation, but in its perfect -state it isn’t complimentary. May Valcourt profit -by your instructions on Thursday!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Thursday came, and with it Valcourt. He was pleasing -to view; a clean-limbed, broad-shouldered, straight-featured, -pink-and-white specimen of the well-bred English -youth of sixteen, with fair hair brushed into a silky -sweep above a wide, ingenuous brow; sleepy gray-green -eyes, with yellow and blue reflections in them, reminding -the beholder of tourmaline; well-kept hands, pleasing -manners, and a wide, innocent grin of the cherubic-angelic -kind, never more in evidence than when Valcourt -was engaged in some pursuit neither angelic nor -cherubic. Mrs. Mussard, at first sight, was conscious of -a brief maternal inclination to kiss him. Geraldine’s -boy was, she said to herself, “a perfect duck!” She -subdued the osculatory impulse, shook hands with the -boy cordially, and hoped the dentist had not hurt him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, thanks awfully,” said Valcourt, with his cherubic -grin. The teeth revealed were exceedingly white and -regular.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But you had gas, of course?” proceeded his hostess.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When I have teeth out I generally do,” said Valcourt -carefully. “They always give you half a guinea -extra allowance for gas, so most of the fellows ask to -have it.” He touched his waistcoat pocket meditatively -as he spoke, and smiled, or rather grinned, again so -seraphically that Mrs. Mussard longed to tip him a ten-pound -note. She gave her young guest a sumptuous -luncheon, and, not without serious misgivings, commanded -the butler to produce the exhilarating beverage -of champagne.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>“A little sweet, isn’t it?” said Valcourt critically.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I thought that you—that is——” Mrs. Mussard -crumpled her delicate eyebrows in embarrassment, and -the butler permitted himself the shadow of a smile.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ladies like sweet wine,” remarked Valcourt. He -refused liqueur with coffee, but considered Mrs. Mussard’s -cigarettes “rather mild.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I—I don’t usually smoke that brand,” his hostess -explained. “I—I ordered them on purpose for——” -She broke off, in sheer admiration of Valcourt’s beautiful -grin.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">matinée</span></i> for which she had secured a stage-box -did not commence until three. “Time for a little chat -in the drawing-room,” she thought, and ran over in her -mind a list of the things dear Geraldine would have -wished her to say. She bade the boy sit in the opposite -angle of her pet sofa, upholstered in shimmering lily-leaf -green, billowed with huge puffy pillows of apricot-yellow, -covered with cambric and Valenciennes. She -thought the harmony well completed by Valcourt’s sleek -fair head and inscrutable tourmaline eyes, and wished -for the first time that poor dear Mussard had left an -heir. Vague as the yearning was, it imparted a misty -softness to her brown eyes, and caused the corners of -her delicate lips to quiver. She drew a little nearer to -Valcourt, and laid her white jeweled hand softly upon -the muscular young arm, firm and hard beneath an uncommonly -well-cut sleeve.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear Valcourt,” she began.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Your eyes are brown, aren’t they?” asked Valcourt.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I believe they are,” murmured Mrs. Mussard. “My -dear boy, I trust that——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Valcourt shut his own sleepy tourmaline eyes and -sniffed, a long rapturous sniff. “Mother uses attar of -violets. It’s her pet scent. Jolly, but not so nice as -yours. What is it?” He sniffed again. “I can’t guess. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>’Mph! I give it up. I know!” The sleepy tourmaline -eyes opened, large and round and bright, the cherubic-angelic -smile suffused his features. “Why, it comes -from your hair!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“People have said that before. Oh! never mind my -hair!” Mrs. Mussard was not displeased, nevertheless. -“Tell me how you progress at School. You know your -mother is my dearest friend. I should so much like you -to remember that and confide in me, <em>almost</em> as you confide -in her!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>A solemn, innocent expression came over Valcourt’s -face.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“All right,” he said, after a pause, during which -he seemed to be listening to choirs of angels chanting -to the accompaniment of celestial harps. “I’ll tell you -things just exactly as I tell ’em to mother!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You dear!” exclaimed the impulsive young widow, -and kissed him. The smooth elastic skin, brownish-pink -as a new-laid egg, and dotted with sunny little -freckles, grew pinker under the velvet violence of the -lady’s lips. Valcourt turned the other cheek, with his -cherub’s smile, and less warmly, because more consciously, -his mother’s dearest friend saluted that also.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now,” he said, in his boyish voice, “what did you -want me to tell you about School? I’m not a sap at -books, and I don’t spend all my time in getting up my -muscles. I’m just an ordinary kind of fellow.... I -say, how pretty your nails are!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He took up one of Mrs. Mussard’s exquisitely manicured -hands, and, holding it to the tempered sunlight -that stole through the lace blinds, noted with appreciative, -if infantile, interest the pearly hues and rosy inward -radiances, the nicks and dimples of the wrist and -the delicate articulations of the fingers. Then, with a -droll, half-mischievous twinkle of the tourmaline eye -that was next the fair widow, he bent his sleek, fair head -<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>and rubbed his cheek against the pretty hand caressingly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Silly boy!” breathed Mrs. Mussard.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I believe I am an awful ass sometimes,” agreed Valcourt -composedly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Who says so?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My tutor and heaps of other fellows, and the Head—not -that he says so, but he looks as if he thought it!” -said Valcourt.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Does the Head see a great deal of you?” asked Mrs. -Mussard, drawing away her hand and grasping at a -chance of improving the languishing conversation. Then -as Valcourt, with a grave air of reserve, nodded in reply, -“I am <em>so glad</em>!” breathed Mrs. Mussard gushingly; “because, -at your age, impressions received must sink in -deeply. And to be brought in contact with a personality -so marked must be impressive, mustn’t it?” she concluded, -rather lamely.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I suppose so,” agreed Valcourt, examining the pattern -of the carpet. He looked a little sulky and a little -bored, and for sheer womanly desire of seeing the illuminations -rekindled Mrs. Mussard gave him her hand -again.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You are going into the Guards, aren’t you, by-and-by?” -she queried.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If I can get through,” said Valcourt, playing with -her rings and smiling. “I’m in the Army Class, mathematics -and swot generally. But I think our family’s -too old or something to produce brainy fellows. Cads -are cleverer, really, than we are.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>His tone took a reflection of the purple, his finely-cut -profile looked for an instant hard as diamond and exquisite -as a cameo.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Mussard, sympathizing, said to herself: “After -all, why <em>should</em> he be clever?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Still, when one hasn’t much money,” she began, -reminiscent of the Duchess’s entreaty.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>“We’re beastly poor, of course,” admitted Valcourt. -“But as to clothes and horses and shootin’, tradespeople -will tick a fellow till the cows come home, and the millionaire -manufacturers who buy or rent fellows’ forests -and moors and rivers and things are always glad to get -the fellow himself to show with ’em; and the keepers -and gillies and chaps take care that he gets the best -that’s going generally. And so he does himself pretty -well all round.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That sort of thing is too—undignified!” said Mrs. -Mussard, “and too uncertain. A man of rank and title -must have a solid backing, a definite <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">entourage</span></i>. You -must marry, and marry well.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mother always talks like that!” said Valcourt. “I -think,” he added, “she has somebody in her eye for -me!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Who is she?” asked Mrs. Mussard sharply.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’m not quite sure,” said Valcourt, his tourmaline -eyes narrowing as he smiled his angelic smile. “Dutch -Jewess, perhaps,” he added simply, “with barrels of -bullion and a family all nose.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Horrible!” cried Mrs. Mussard, shuddering.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Her brother’s in the Fifth,” let out Valcourt. “We -call him ‘Hooky Holland.’ Their father was secretary -to the Klaproths and made heaps of cash—‘cath’ Hooky -calls it. He never talks about anything but ‘cath,’ and -fellows punch him for it.” Valcourt doubled his right -hand scientifically, thumb well down, and glanced at it -with modest appreciation ere he resumed: “He has lots -of it, too, Hooky, and lends at interest—pretty thick -interest—to fellows who get broke at Bridge or baccarat!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh-h! You don’t play baccarat at school, surely! -Such an awfully gambling game!” expostulated Valcourt’s -hostess.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We go to school to be educated, you see,” said Valcourt, -in a slightly argumentative tone, “for what Buntham -<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>calls ‘the business of life,’ and cards are part of a -fellow’s life, aren’t they? So they ought, instead of -being forbidden, to form part of what Old Cads calls the -curriculum. We call Buntham ‘Cads’ because he calls -us cads when we do anything that upsets him. He’s -a nervous beggar, and gets a good deal of upsetting. -My dame says he weighs himself at the end of every -term, and makes a note of the pounds he’s lost since the -beginning. When I go to Sandhurst she thinks he’ll -pick up a bit,” explained Valcourt with his angelic grin.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I hope your dame is a nice, motherly old person!” -breathed Mrs. Mussard.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She’s nice—quite,” said Valcourt, “and awfully -obliging. I don’t know about being old—unless you’d -call thirty-three old.” Mrs. Mussard started slightly. -“When I have a cold she makes me jellies and things. -Awfully good things! And I give her concert tickets, -and sometimes we go on the river and have strawberries -and cream. Lots of our fellows tell her their love -affairs.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And some of ’em are in love with her,” went on Valcourt.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Mussard breathed quickly. Never before had she -realized what perils environ the young of the opposite -sex, even with the chaste environment of school bounds. -In her agitation she laid her hand on Valcourt’s shoulder. -“I hope—you do not fancy yourself in love with -her,” she uttered anxiously.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Not much catch!” said Valcourt, with the composure -of forty. “I got over that in my second year.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Silly boy!” Mrs. Mussard very gently smoothed -down a lock at the back of his head, which erected itself -in silky defiance above its fellows. “When love comes -to you, Valcourt,” she went on, with a vivid recollection -of the utterances of the inspired authoress of <cite>The Bride’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>Babble Book</cite>, “you will find out what it <em>really</em> means. -It is a great mystery, my dear boy, a sacred and solemn -unveiling of the heart——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She stopped, for Valcourt had turned his face up toward -hers, gently smiling, and revealing two neat rows -of milky white teeth. His tourmaline eyes had an odd -expression.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Did you speak, dear?” his fair Gamaliel asked. For -the impression upon her was that he had uttered two -words, and that they were, “Hooky’s sister!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>But Valcourt shook his head. “I was only thinking. -A fellow like me ... has got to take what comes ... -the best he can get ... and the better it is, so much -the better for him, don’t you see? If he don’t like what -he gets, he doesn’t go about grousing. He generally -pretends he’s suited; and <em>she</em> pretends; and they get -into a groove—or they get into the newspapers,” said -Geraldine’s unworldly babe. “Beastly bad form to get -into the newspapers. I never mean to.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Mussard listened breathlessly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I shall have a rattling time,” said Valcourt, in his -soft, cooing voice, “till Hooky’s sister grows up, and -mother presents her, and then I shall marry her, I suppose.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dearest boy, I hope not!” exclaimed Mrs. Mussard. -“Someone more suitable <em>must</em> be found,” she continued, -rapidly putting all the moneyed girls of her acquaintance -through a mental review. “Why should you not -marry beauty and birth as well as a banking account? -The three things are sometimes associated.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“German princes pick up girls of that kind,” said -Valcourt, his elbows upon his knees, and his round young -chin cupped in his hands, “and Austrian archdukes. -But why need it be a girl?” he went on, pressing up -the smooth young skin at his temples with his finger-tips, -so as to produce the effect of premature crows’-feet. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>“I don’t like girls—all red wrists and flat waists. Why -shouldn’t it be a woman, say a dozen years older—an -awfully pretty woman, rich, and in the best set, who’d -show me the ropes? I’m a jolly ass in some things. I -shall come no end of croppers when I go into society, -unless there’s somebody to give me the needful tip.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Mussard sat very upright. She looked at Valcourt; -the hand with which she had smoothed his hair -remained suspended in mid-air until she recollected it -and laid it over its companion in her lap.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Most young fellows beginning life go to other men’s -wives for advice,” said Valcourt. “Why shouldn’t I go -to my own?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Mussard’s chiseled scarlet lips moved as though -she had echoed, “Why not?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“They—the chaps I’m talking of—are wild about ’em—the -other men’s wives. Yet nearly all of the women -are old enough to be their mothers.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Their grandmothers, sometimes,” said Mrs. Mussard -unkindly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Then why shouldn’t I marry a woman who’s only -old enough to be my aunt—a young aunt! I’d make a -Marchioness of her, don’t you know! and she’d make—she -could make anything she liked of me!” said Valcourt, -turning his cherub smile and tourmaline eyes suddenly -on Mrs. Mussard. “<em>You</em> could!” The lovely -widow started violently, and flushed from the string of -pearls encircling her pretty throat to the little gold hair-waves -that crisped at her blue-veined temples. “You -<em>know</em> you could!” murmured Valcourt. The strong -young arm in the well-cut sleeve intercepted the retreating -movement that would have placed the lovely -widow in the uttermost corner of the sofa. The remonstrance -upon Vivienne’s lips was stifled by a kiss, given -with eloquence and decision, though the lips that administered -it were soft, and unshaded by even the rudiments -<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>of a mustache. “I’m seventeen the end of this term, and -five feet nine in my socks,” said Valcourt, a little breathlessly, -for the kiss had not been one-sided; “and—and -you’re simply awfully pretty. Marry me—I shall be of -age before you know it—and——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You dreadfully presuming boy!” There were tears -in the lovely eyes of the late Mr. Mussard’s lovely widow; -an unwonted throbbing in the region of her bodice imparted -a tremor to her voice that added to its charm. -“I shall write to your mother!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do!” said Valcourt, with his angelic smile. “She’ll -be awfully pleased! I wonder the idea didn’t occur to -her instead of to me, for she’s awfully clever, and I’m -rather an ass.... Five o’clock!” he exclaimed, as the -delicate chime of a Pompadour clock upon the mantelshelf -announced the hour.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And you have missed the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">matinée</span></i>!” said Mrs. Mussard.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I preferred this!” said Valcourt, getting up. She -had no idea of his being taller than herself until she -found the tourmaline eyes looking down into hers. -“Good-bye, and thank you, Mrs. Mussard,” said the boyish, -ringing voice. “I’ve had an awfully pleasant day.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Their hands met and lingered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t call me Mrs. Mussard any more; my—my -name is Vivienne,” she said in a half-whisper.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Jolly! Hooky’s sister’s is Bethsaba,” said Valcourt. -He made a quaint grimace, as though the word tasted -nasty, and Vivienne gave a little, musical, contented -laugh. “And I may come again, mayn’t I?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“This week,” nodded Mrs. Mussard.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’ll say it’s my tooth,” explained Geraldine’s guileless -offspring.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He reached the door, the handle turned, when Mrs. -Mussard beckoned, and Valcourt came back.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I should like to ask you,” she began hesitatingly—“not -<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>that it matters to me; but <em>still</em>, in your <em>own interests</em>—— -And you know your mother is my dearest -friend!” ... Valcourt stood with the beautiful grin -upon his face, and Mrs. Mussard found the thing more -difficult to say than she had imagined. “Where did you—who -taught you to make love like—like that?—at your—at -your age.... I—it is——” Valcourt made no -reply in words, but the expression upon his face became -more celestial than before. “I hope kissing is not a feature -of the curriculum. But, understand clearly,” said -Mrs. Mussard, with that unusual tremor in her charming -voice, “that you are not for the future to kiss anybody -but me!” And as the door closed on Valcourt’s -heavenly grin and tourmaline eyes, she sat down to write -a letter to Geraldine.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAIREST</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>If not absolutely a nincompoop, Gerald Delaurier Gandelish, -Esq., of Swellingham Mansions, Piccadilly, Undertherose -Cottage, Sunningwater, Berks, and Horshundam -Abbey, Miltshire, was undoubtedly a type of the -<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">genus homo</span></i> recently classified by a distinguished K.C. -as soft-minded gentlemen. Strictly educated by a private -clerical tutor under the eye of pious parents of limited -worldly experience and unlimited prejudices, it was -not to be expected that Gerry, upon their dying and leaving -him in undisputed command of a handsome slice -of the golden cheese of worldly wealth, should not immediately -proceed to make ducks and drakes of it. He -essayed to win a name upon the Turf; and when I remind -you that, at a huge price, the youth became possessor -of that remarkable Derby race-horse, Duffer, by -Staggers out of Hansom Cab, from whom eighteen opponents -cantered away in the Prince’s year of ’90, leaving -the animal to finish the race at three lengths from -the starting-post, I have said all. Gerry dabbled “considerable,” -as our American relatives would say, in -stocks, and started a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">café chantant</span></i> on the open-air Parisian -plan, which was frequented only by stray cats -and London blacks, and has since been roofed in and -turned into tea-rooms. Sundry other investments of -Gerry’s resulted in the enrichment of several very shady -persons, and a consequent, and very considerable, diminution -in the large stock of ready money with which -Gerry had started his career. But though the edges of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>the slice of golden cheese had been a good deal nibbled, -the bulk of it remained, and Gerry’s Miltshire acres, -strictly entailed and worth eighty thousand pounds, with -another twenty thousand in Consols, and about half as -much again snugly invested in Home Rails, made him a -catch worth angling for in the eyes of many mothers.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We have termed Gerry “soft-minded.” He was also -soft-hearted, soft-eyed, soft-voiced, soft-haired, soft-skinned, -and soft-mannered—the kind of youth women -who own to years of discretion like to pet and bully, the -kind of man schoolgirls call a “duck.” True, his neckties -aroused indignation in the breasts of intolerant -elderly gentlemen, the patterns of his tweeds afforded exquisite -amusement to members of the Household Brigade, -and his jewelry could not be gazed at without -winking by the unseasoned eye; but, despite these drawbacks, -Gerry was a gentleman. Without the stamp of -a public school or a select club, without the tone of the -best society—for, with the exception of a turfy baronet -or so and a couple of sporting peers, Gerry knew nobody -who was anybody—Gerry was decidedly a gentleman, -whose progress to the dogs was arrested, luckily for the -young prodigal, when he fell in love with the famous -burlesque actress, Miss Lottie Speranza, of the Levity -Theater.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Of theaters and theatrical people Gerry may be said -to have known little or nothing until the enchanting -Lottie blazed upon his field of vision. Gerry’s worthy -parents, strict moralists both, had considered the theater -as the temple of Satan, and had exacted from their only -child a solemn promise that he would never enter one. -This promise Gerry had actually kept, contenting himself -with the entertainments offered by the music halls, -which his father had omitted to stigmatize and his -mother knew not of. But at the close of a festive dinner, -given by Gerry to a select party of “pals,” in a private -<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>room at the Levity Restaurant, when a brief, lethargic -slumber obscured the senses of the youthful host, the -brilliant idea of conveying him to a box in the theater -upstairs occurred to one of his guests, and was forthwith -carried out. Emerging from a condition of coma, Gerry -found himself staring into a web of crossing and intersecting -limelights of varying hues, in which a dazzling -human butterfly, entangled, was beating quivering wings. -The butterfly had lustrous eyes, encircled with blue rims, -a complexion of theatrical red and white, and masses of -golden hair. Her twinkling feet beat out a measure to -which Gerry’s pulses began to dance madly. He sent -the goddess an invitation to supper, which was promptly -declined. He forwarded a stack of roses, which were -not acknowledged, and a muff-chain, turquoise and peridot, -which were returned to the address upon his card. -He felt hurt but happy at these rebuffs, which proved to -him that Miss Speranza was above reproach; and when -a bosom friend of his own age hinted that the prudish -fair one was playing the big game, and advised him to -try her with a motor-car, Gerry promptly converted the -bosom friend into a stranger by the simple process of -asking him to redeem a few of his I O U’s. This got -about, and caused Gerry’s other friends to turn sharp -round corners, or jump into hansoms when they saw -Gerry coming. Gerry hardly missed them, though the -man who could have afforded an introduction to his -charmer would have been welcomed with open arms. -He occupied the same box at the Levity nightly now, -and made up, in its murkiest corner, a good deal of the -nightly rest of which his clamant passion deprived him. -But he awakened, as by instinct, whenever Miss Speranza -tripped upon the stage; and the large-eyed, vacuous, -gorgeously-attired beauties who “went on” with the -Chorus—the Lotties, Maries, Daisies, Topsies of the noble -houses of Montague, Talbot, De Crespigny, and Delamere,—would -<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>languidly nudge each other at the passionately -prolonged plaudits of a particular pair of immaculate -white gloves, and wonder semi-audibly what -the man saw in Speranza, dear, to make such a bloomin’ -silly fuss about?</p> - -<p class='c009'>Gerry had occupied his watch-tower at the Levity -for six weeks or so, and was beginning to deteriorate -in appetite and complexion (so powerful are the effects -of passion unreturned), when Undertherose Cottage at -Sunningwater, a charming Thames-side residence of -the bijou kind, with small grounds and a capacious cellar, -a boat-house, and a house-boat, a pigeon-cote and -a private post-box, became suddenly vacant. The tenant, -a lady of many charms and much experience, who had -passed over to Gerry with the property, returned to her -native Paris to open a bonnet-shop; and Gerry, as he -wandered over the dwelling with the sanitary engineer -and decorator, who had <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">carte blanche</span></i> to do-up the place, -found himself strolling on the tiny lawn (in imagination) -by the visioned side of the enchantress who had -enthralled him, supping (also in imagination) with the -same divine creature in the duodecimo oak dining-room, -and smoking a cigarette in her delightful company upon -the balcony of the boudoir. Waking from these dreams -was a piquant anguish. Gerry indeed possessed the -cage, one of the most ideal nests for a honeymooning -pair imaginable; but in vain for the airy feminine songster -might the infatuated fowler spread nets and set -springs.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If we didn’t live in this confoundedly proper twentieth -century,” thought disconsolate Gerry, “a chappie -might hire a coach and eight, bribe a few bruisers to -repress attempts at rescue, snap her up respectfully as -she came out at the stage door, and absquatulate—no! -abduct’s the word. Not that I’d behave like a brute; -I’d marry her to-morrow if she’d only give me a chance -<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>to ask her. Marquises do that sort of thing, and their -families come round a bit and bless the young people. -She must have shown the door to dozens of ’em.” He -sighed, for where the possessor of a ripe old peerage -had failed, how could Gerald Gandelish, Esq., hope to -triumph? “And she’s so awfully proper and standoffish, -too,” he reflected. He wondered how many years -it had taken those privileged persons whom the lady -permitted to rank as her friends to attain that enviable -distinction. “I’ve never met a man who could, or -would, introduce me,” he added, pulling his mustache, -which from happily turning up at the corners had recently -acquired a decided tendency to droop. “Seemed -to shy at it, somehow; and so I shall take the initi—what-you-call—myself. -She shall know from the start -that my intentions are honorable, and, hang it! the -name’s a good one.... There’s been a Gandelish of -Horshundam ever since Henry the Eighth hanged the -abbot and turned out the monks, and put my ancestor -Gorbred in to keep the place warm. Gorbred was His -Majesty’s principal purveyor of sack and sugar, ‘and -divers dainty cates beside,’ as the Chronicle has it, and -must have given the Tudor unlimited tick, I gather. -Anyhow, if four centuries of landlording don’t make a -tradesman a gentleman, they ought to; and I can’t see——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Gerry climbed into his “Runhard” thirty horse-power -roadster, pulled down the talc mask of his driving cap -to preserve his eyes and complexion, and ran back to -town. That night, as he quitted his box at the conclusion -of the Levity performance (you will remember the -phenomenal run of <cite>The Idiot Girl</cite> in 19—!), he turned -up his coat collar with the air of a man resolved to -do or die, and boldly plunged into the little entry leading -to the stage door. The bemedaled military guardian -of those rigid portals, who had absorbed several of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>Gerry’s sovereigns without winking, regarded him with -a glazed eye and a stiff upper lip.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Would you kindly——” began Gerry.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But the stage-doorkeeper paid no heed, busily engaged -as he was in delivering letters from a rack on the wall, -lettered S, into the hands of a slight little woman in a -rather shabby tweed ulster and plain felt hat. Gerry’s -heart jumped as he recognized his own handwriting upon -one of the envelopes.... Surely the tiny tin gods had -favored him! The little woman in the ulster and the -plain felt hat must be lady’s maid to the brilliant Speranza. -As she thrust the letters into her pockets, nodded -familiarly to the commissionaire, and came out of the -stage-door office, Gerry, his heart in his mouth and his -hat in his hand, stood in her way.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Miss—Madam——” he began. “If I might ask you——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What’s that?” shouted the commissionaire. As the -little woman stepped quickly backwards, Cerberus -emerged, purple and growling, from his den and reared -his huge body as a barrier before her. “Annoying the -lady, are ye?” he roared, with a fine forgetfulness of -Gerry’s sovereigns. “Wait till I knock your mouth -round to the back of your head, you kid-gloved young -blaggyard, you! Wait till——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Be quiet, O’Murphy!” said the little woman in a -tone and with an accent which raised her to the level of -lady’s companion in Gerry’s estimation. And as the -crestfallen O’Murphy retreated into his den, she said, -turning a plain little clever face, irradiated by a pair of -brilliant eyes, upon the crimson Gerry, “Did you wish -to speak to me?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I certainly do, if you are any relative—or a member -of the household—of Miss Speranza,” Gerry stuttered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was a flash of eyes and teeth in the plain, insignificant -face.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>“Oh, yes,” said the little woman, “I live with Miss -Speranza.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Gerry’s tongue grew large, impeding utterance, and -his palate dried up. Of all creatures upon earth this -little tweed-ulstered woman, in the well-worn felt hat -with the fatigued feather, seemed to him the most to -be envied.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You—you’re lucky,” he said lamely, and blushed -up to the roots of his hair, and down to the tips of his -toes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’ve known her ever since she knew herself,” said -the little companion. “We were girls together.” Gerry -could have laughed in her middle-aged face, but he only -handed her his card. “Oh yes,” she said after she had -glanced at it. “I seem to know the name. You have -written to her, haven’t you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Sev-several times,” acquiesced Gerry hoarsely. “I -have ta-taken the privilege.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A great many other young gentlemen have taken it -too,” observed Miss Speranza’s companion.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then, as the swing doors behind her opened to let out -a blast of hot air and several grimy stage carpenters, -and the swing doors before her parted to let in a blast -of cold air as the men shouldered out, “Excuse me,” -she said, and shivered, and moved as though to pass. “It -is very cold here, and the brougham is waiting.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Beggin’ pardon!” said O’Murphy, looking out of -his hole, “the groom sent his jooty, an’ the pole av a -’bus had gone clane through the back panel av the broom -in a block off the Sthrand.... The horse kicked wan -av his four shoes off, an’ they’ve gone back wid themselves -to the stables to get the landau an’ pair——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Call a hansom,” said the plain little woman. “I—we -can’t wait here all night!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>As O’Murphy saluted and went outside, she stepped -into his vacant hutch, and Gerry daringly followed.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>“If I might venture to offer,” he began. “My cab—place -disposal—Miss Speranza—too much honored——” -He trailed off into a morass of polite intentions, rudimentarily -expressed. The little companion maintained -a preoccupied air; she was probably expecting her mistress, -Gerry thought, but the conviction was no sooner -formed than banished.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You are very kind,” she said, “but Miss Speranza -cannot avail herself of your offer. She sometimes leaves -quite early, and by the private door, and, as it happens, -I am going home alone.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh!” cried Gerry earnestly, “if you knew how -awfully I want to speak to you, you would let me drive -you there—wherever it is!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Tears stood in the soft eyes of the somewhat soft-headed -young man, and the heart of the little lady in the -ulster was softened, for she looked upon him with a -smile, saying:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Here comes O’Murphy to say my hansom is waiting.... -You may drive with me part of the way, and -say what you have to say, if it is so very important,” -she said, with a brilliant gleam of mockery in her remarkable -eyes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Need one say that the enamored Gerry jumped at -the proposal, and they went out into the plashy night -together.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Give the driver the address, O’Murphy,” ordered -the little ulstered woman. “Jump in!” she said to -Gerry, and, presto! they were rattling together up a -stony thoroughfare leading from the roaring midnight -Strand, which in the present year of grace presents a -smooth face of macadam.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Will you have the glass down?” said Gerry.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Too warm!” cried the little ulstered woman. “Now, -what have you to say?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How this trap rattles!” shouted Gerry. “One can -<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>hardly hear oneself speak. But with regard to Miss -Speranza——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I suppose the pith of the matter is—you are in love -with her?” shrieked the little woman.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Madly!” bellowed Gerry. “Been so for weeks. -Hold up, you brute!” This to the cab-horse, a dilapidated -equine wreck, which had stumbled.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, you boys! You’re all alike!” cried his companion.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mine is a man’s love,” roared Gerry. “I would lay -the world at her feet, if I had it; and I want you to -tell her so.” The rattling of the crazy cab nearly -drowned his accents. “Oh! what do you think she will -say?” he bellowed, his lips close to the little woman’s -ear.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She would say—Oh! <em>do</em> you think this man is sober?” -screamed the little woman. “I mean the driver,” -she added, meeting Gerry’s indignant glare.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t think he is too drunk to drive,” yelled -Gerry. “Tell me, if you have a heart,” he howled, “have -I any chance <em>with her</em>?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah! we’re off the cobblestones now!” said his companion, -leaning back with an air of relief.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And you can answer my question,” pressed Gerry. -“I—I needn’t explain my views are honorable—straight -as a fellow’s can be. Love like mine is——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“So dreadfully greasy!” commented his companion -anxiously, as the debilitated steed recovered himself -with difficulty at the end of a long slide.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When I have been sitting, night after night, in that -box looking at her, thinking of her, worshiping her, -by George!” went on Gerry, “she must have sometimes -noticed me, and said to herself——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I <em>knew</em> he would go down!” cried the little woman, -clutching Gerry’s arm, as the steed disappeared and the -shaft-ends bumped on the asphalt. “Let’s get out!”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>“Don’t be alarmed, lydy,” said a hoarse voice, -through the trap overhead, as the panting steed heaved -and struggled to regain his hoofs. “’E won’t do it agen -this journey. One fall is ’is allowance, an’ ’e never -goes beyond.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And we’re quite close to Pelgrave Square,” said -Gerry.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How do you know Miss Speranza lives in Pelgrave -Square?” said his companion with a keen look.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Because I’ve seen photogravings of her house in an -illustrated interview,” replied Gerry.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah, of course,” said the little lady, with a thoughtful -smile. The steed, bearing out his driver’s recommendation, -was now jogging along reassuringly enough. “And -did the portraits remind you of no one?” she added, -with another of those flashing smiles that invested her -little fatigued features with transient youth.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“They weren’t half beautiful enough for her,” said -Gerry fervently. Then a ray of light broke upon him, -and he jumped. “You—you’re a little bit like her!” he -exclaimed. “What a blind duffer I am! I’ve been taking -you for her companion, and all the while you’re a -relative.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, I am a relative,” nodded the little lady.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Her aunt!” hazarded Gerry.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Her mother!” said the little lady, with a dazzling -flash of eyes and teeth. “How stupid you were not to -guess it before!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’ve said nothing, madam, that I should not, I trust,” -remarked Gerry, with quite a seventeenth-century manner. -“And, therefore, when I entreat you to allow me -an interview with your daughter, I trust you will not -refuse to grant my—my prayer.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Hear the boy!” cried the little woman, with a trill -of laughter, as the cab pulled up before a large lighted -house in a large darkish square. “Well,” she added, “I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>think I can promise you that Lottie will see you at least -for a minute or two to-morrow. Not here—at the theater, -seven o’clock sharp. Lend me a pencil and one of -your cards.” She scribbled a word or two on the bit -of pasteboard, paid the cab in spite of Gerry’s protestations, -and ran lightly up the solemn doorsteps, turned -to the enraptured young man standing, hat in hand, below, -waved her hand, plunged a Yale key into the keyhole—and -instantly vanished from view.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Behind Gerry’s shirt-front throbbed tumultuous delight. -To have driven in a cab with <em>her</em> mother—talked -of <em>her</em>, told his tale of love—albeit with interruptions—and -won the promise of an interview at seven sharp -upon the morrow.... Unprecedented fortune! incomparable -luck! Did Time itself cease he would not fail -to keep the tryst with punctuality. He caught a passing -cab, drove home to his Piccadilly chambers, and went -to bed so blissfully happy that he spent a wretchedly -bad night. The card he kept beneath his pillow; and -true to the promise made by the mother of the enchantress -of his soul—when, punctually to the stroke -of seven, Gerry, dressed with the most excruciating care, -and clammy with repressed emotion, presented himself -at the stage door of the Levity—the scrawled hieroglyphics -on the blessed piece of pasteboard admitted him -behind the scenes. Led by a smartly-aproned maid, he -climbed stairs, he crossed the stage, was jostled by baize-aproned -men in paper caps, and begged their pardon. -He followed his guide down a short passage, fell up -three steps—and knocked with his burning brow against -the door—her door! A voice he knew said, “Come in!” -and in he went, to find, not the adored, the worshiped -Lottie, but the little plainish lady of the previous night, -sitting at a lace-veiled dressing-table, attired in a Japanese -gown.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, I say!” murmured Gerry.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>“Ah! there you are!” The little lady looked at him -over her shoulder, and nodded kindly. “Don’t be too -disappointed at not finding Lottie here,” she said cheerfully; -“she won’t be long.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’m so awfully obliged for all your kindness,” said -Gerry, sheepishly smiling over a giant bouquet.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You shall be really grateful to me one of these days, -I promise you,” said the little lady. “Let my maid take -that haysta—that bouquet, and sit down, do!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Gerry took the indicated chair beside the dressing-table, -and noted, as he sucked the top of his stick, how -pitilessly the relentless radiance of the electric light -accentuated the worn lines of the little lady’s face and -the gray streaks in her still soft and pretty brown hair.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Cheer up!” she said, turning one of her flashing -smiles upon him as he sadly sucked his stick. “You -won’t have long to wait for Lottie!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No!” said Gerry rather vacuously.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No!” said Lottie’s mother, pulling off some very -handsome rings and hanging them upon the horns of a -coral lobster that adorned the dressing-table. “She takes -about twenty minutes to make up.” Her pretty, white, -carefully-manicured fingers busied themselves, as she -talked, with various little pots and bottles and rolls of -a mysterious substance of a pinky hue, not unlike the -peppermint suck-stick of Gerry’s youth. “And are you -as much in love with her to-day,” she continued, “as you -were last night?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“So much in love,” said Gerry, uncorking himself, -“that to call her my wife I would sacrifice everything.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To <em>call</em> her your wife?” The little lady pushed her -hair back from her face, twisted it tightly up behind, -and pinned it flat with a relentless hairpin.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To make her my wife,” Gerry amended, with a -healthy blush.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah!” said the little lady, who had covered her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>entire countenance, ears, and neck with a shiny mask -of pinkish paste. “A word makes such a difference.” -She dipped a hare’s-foot into a saucer of rouge, and -with this compound impartially, as it seemed to Gerry, -incarnadined her cheeks and chin. “Of course,” she -went on, dipping a disemboweled powder-puff into a -pot of French chalk and deftly applying it, “you are -aware that she possesses in years the advantage of -yourself.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I am twenty-three,” said Gerry proudly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She owns to more than that!” said the lovely Lottie’s -mother. She had reddened her mouth, hitherto obliterated -by the paste, into an alluring Cupid’s bow, and -darkened in, above her wonderfully brilliant eyes, a pair -of arch-provoking eyebrows. Now, as some inkling of -the fateful revelation in store clamped Gerry’s jaws -upon his stick and twined his legs in a death-grip about -the supports of his chair, she rapidly, with a blue pencil, -imparted to those brilliant eyes the Oriental languor, -the divinely alluring, almond-lidded droop that distinguished -Lottie’s, seized a tooth-brush, dipped it into a -bottle, apparently of liquid soot, rapidly blackened her -eyelashes, indicated with rose-pink a dimple on her chin, -groped for a moment in a cardboard box that stood -upon the ledge of her toilet table, produced a golden wig -of streaming tresses, dexterously assumed it, pulled here, -patted there, twisted a brow-tendril into shape—and -turning, shed upon the paralyzed Gerry the smile that -had enchained his heart.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I told you Lottie would not be long,” said Lottie, -“and I’ve made up under twenty minutes. You dear, -silly, honorable, romantic boy, don’t stare in that awful -way. Twenty-three indeed! And I told you I owned -to more! I ought to, for I have a son at Harrow, and -a daughter of seventeen besides.... Do try and shut -your mouth. Why, you poor dear goose, I was making -<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>my bow to the boys in the gallery when you were playing -with a Noah’s Ark. Shake hands, and go round -in front and see me do my piece, as usual. I’ve got used -to that nice fresh face of yours up in Box B, and applause -is the breath of my nostrils, if I am old enough -to be your mother. Leave your flowers; my girl at -home has got quite to look out for them—and be off -with you, because this”—she indicated the French chalk—“has -got to go farther!” She gave Gerry her pretty -hand and one of the brilliant smiles, as he blundered -up from his chair, gasping apologies.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Come and lunch with us to-morrow. You know my -address, and I’ve told the Professor all about you. You’ll -like the Professor—my husband. One of the best, though -his wife says it. And the children——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Can I come in, mother?” said a clear voice outside.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“All right, pet!” called back Gerry’s late goddess, and -a girl of seventeen came into the room. She was all -that Gerry had dreamed.... His frozen blood began -to thaw, and his tongue found words. Here was the -ideal.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But her name isn’t Lottie!” said his dethroned -goddess, with a twinkle of the wondrous eyes. “However, -you’re coming to lunch to-morrow, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“With the greatest pleasure,” said Gerry. And as he -went round to his box he carefully obliterated the name -from the portrait cherished in his bosom for so many -weeks, with the intention of filling it in with another -to-morrow.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE REVOLT OF RUSTLETON</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>A new-comer joined the circle of attentive listeners -gathered round the easiest of all the easy-chairs in the -smoking-room of the Younger Sons’ Club. The surrounded -chair contained Hambridge Ost, a small, drab, -livery man, with long hair and drooping eyelids, who, -as cousin to Lord Pomphrey, enjoyed the immense but -fleeting popularity of the moment. Everyone panted -to hear the details of the latest Society elopement before -the newspapers should disseminate them abroad. -And Hambridge was not unwilling to oblige.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The first inkling of the general trend of affairs, -dear fellow,” said Hambridge, joining his long, pale -finger-tips before him, and smiling at the new-comer -across the barrier thus formed, “was conveyed to me -by an agitated ring at the telephone in my rooms. Bucknell, -my man, hello’ed. To Bucknell’s astonishment the -ring-up came from 000, Werkeley Square, the town -mansion of my cousin, Lord Pomphrey, which he knew -to be in holland covers and the care of an ex-housekeeper. -And Lady Pomphrey was the ringer. When -I hello’ed her, saying, ‘Are you there, Annabella? So -glad, but how unexpected; thought you were all enjoying -your <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">otium cum</span></i> down at Cluckham-Pomphrey’—my -cousin’s country-seat in Slowshire, dear fellow—such -a verbal flood of disjointed sentences came hustling -over the wire, so to speak, that I felt convinced, even -in the act of rubbing my ear, which tickled confoundedly, -that something was quite absolutely wrong somewhere. -Pomphrey—dear fellow!—was my first thought; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>then the Dowager—the ideal of a fine old Tory noblewoman -of ninety-eight, who may drop, so to put it, -any moment, dear creature, relieving her family of the -charge of paying her income and leaving the Dower -House vacant for Lord Rustleton, my cousin’s heir and -his—ahem!—bride. Knowing that Rustleton was to lead -the Hon. Celine Twissing to the altar of St. George’s, -Hanover Square, early in the Winter season, it occurred -to me, so to put it, that the demise of the Dowager could -not have occurred at a more auspicious moment. Thank -you, dear fellow, I <em>will</em> smoke one of your particular -Partagas, since you’re so good.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Four men struck vestas simultaneously as Hambridge -relieved the nicotian delicacy of its gold-and-scarlet cummerbund. -Another man supplied him with an ash-tray. -Yet another pushed a footstool under his pampered -patent-leathers. Exhaling a thin blue cloud, the Oracle -continued:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Amidst my distracted relative’s fragmentary utterances -I gleaned the name of Rustleton. Hereditary -weak heart—circulation as limited as that of a newspaper -which on strictly moral grounds declines to report -Divorce Cases—and a disproportionate secretion -of bile, so to put it, distinguishes him, dear fellow, from, -shall I say, mortals less favored by birth and of lower -rank. A vision of a hatchment over the door of 000, -Werkeley Square—of the entire population of the county -assisting at his obsequies, dear fellow—volted through -my brain. I seized my hat, and rushed from my chambers -in Ryder Street. An electric hansom had fortunately -pulled up in front of ’em. I jumped in. ‘Where -to?’ asked the chauffeur. ‘To a broken-hearted mother,’ -said I, ‘000, Werkeley Square, and drive like the -dooce!’”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Hambridge cleared his throat with some pomp, and -crossed his little legs comfortably. Then he went on:</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>“Like the Belgian sportsman, who, in missin’ a sittin’ -hare, shot his father-in-law in the stomach, mine was -an effort not altogether wasted. All the blinds of the -house were down, and the hysterical shrieks of Lady -Pomphrey echoin’ through practically a desert of rolled-up -carpets and swathed furniture, had collected a small -but representative crowd about the area-railings. I -leaped out of the motor-cab, threw the chauffeur the legal -fare, and bein’ admitted to the house by an hysterical -caretaker, ascended to my cousin’s boudoir, the sobs -and shrieks of the distracted mother growing louder as -I went. Dear fellows, when Lady Pomphrey saw me, -heard me saying, ‘Annabella, I must entreat you as a -near relative to calm yourself sufficiently to tell me the -worst without delay, or to direct me to the nearest person -who can supply authentic information,’ the floodgates -of her sorrow were opened to such an extent that—possessing -a constitution naturally susceptible to damp—I -have had a deuce of a cold ever since.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Lord Rustleton—always a nervous faddist, though -the dearest of fellows—Rustleton had suddenly broken -off his engagement to the Hon. Celine Twissing, only -child and heiress of Lord Twissing of Hopsacks, the colossal -financier figurehead, as I call him, of the Brewing -Trade. Naturally, the young man’s mother was crushed -by the blow. The marriage was to have been solemnized -at the opening of the Winter Season—the trousseau was -nearly ready, and the cake—a mammoth pile of elaborate -indigestion—was bein’ built up in tiers at Guzzards’. -The presents (includin’ a diamond and sapphire -bangle from a Royal source) had come in in shoals. -Nothing could be more confoundedly inopportune than -Rustleton’s decision. For all her muscularity—and she -is an unpleasantly muscular young woman—you’d marry -her yourself to-morrow did you get the chance, dear -fellow. <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vous n’êtes pas dégoûté.</span></i></p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>“But Rustleton’s a difficult man—always was. His -personal appearance ain’t prepossessin’, but he is Somebody, -and looks it; d’ye foller me? You feel at once -that a long line of ancestors, more or less distinguished, -must have handed down the bilious tendency from father -to son. Originally—which goes to prove that first impressions -are the stronger—Lady Pomphrey tells me he -could not stand Celine Twissing, wouldn’t have her for -nuts, or at any price; but after the disaster to the -steam yacht <em>Fifi</em>—run down by a collier at her moorings -in Southampton Water, you recollect, when by pure -force of muscle Miss Twissing snatched Lord Rustleton -from a watery grave, so to put it—he seemed to cave -in, as it were, and the engagement was formally announced. -I thought his eye unsteady and his laugh hollow, -when, with the rest of the family, I proffered my -insignificant congratulations. On that occasion, dear fellow, -he gave me two fingers instead of one, which -amounts to a grip with him, and whispered to the effect -that there was no use in cryin’ over spilled milk—a -familiar saw which has sprung to my own lips at the most -inopportune moments.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Celine was undoubtedly in love. Her being in love, -so to put it, added immensely to Rustleton’s discomfort. -For the New Girl is, as well as a muscular being, -a strenuous creature, omnivorous in her appetite for -mental exercise, and from the latest theories in physics -to the morality of the newest Slavonic novelist Rustleton -was expected to range with her hour by hour. Her -mass of knowledge oppressed him, her inexhaustible -fund of argument exhausted him, her fiery enthusiasm -reduced him to a condition of clammy limpness which -was—I may say it openly—painful to witness. A backward -Lower boy and an impatient Head Master might -have presented such a spectacle. Thank you, I will take -a Vermouth, since you are so kind. But the boy, in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>getting away for the holidays, had the advantage of -Rustleton, poor fellow!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Hambridge waited till the Vermouth came, and, sipping -the tonic fluid, continued:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“These details, I need not say, were not culled from -Lady Pomphrey, but extracted from Rustleton, who had -rushed up to town and gone to earth at his Club, to the -consternation of the few waiters who were not taking -holidays at the seaside. Little by little I became master -of the facts of the case, which was one of disparity from -the outset. From the muscular as from the intellectual -point Celine Twissing had always overshadowed her <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fiancé</span></i>. -But Celine’s intimate knowledge of the mode of conduct -necessary—I quote herself—to sane living and clear -thinking positively appalled him. Rustleton began the -day with hot Vichy water, dry toast, weak tea, and a -tepid immersion. <em>She</em>, Miss Twissing, commenced with -Indian clubs, a three-quarter-mile sprint in sweaters, -coffee, eggs, cold game-pie, ham, jam, muffins, and marmalade. -Did she challenge the man, to whom she was -soon to pledge lifelong obedience at the altar, to a single -at lawn-tennis, she quite innocently served him twisters -that he could only follow with his eye, and volleyed balls -that infallibly hit it. At croquet she was a scientist, -winning the game by the time Lord Rustleton had got -through three hoops, and coming back to stand by his -side and goad him to silent frenzy by criticism of his -method. She is a red-hot motorist, and insisted upon -taking Rustleton, wrapped in fur coats, and protected -by goggles, as passenger in the back seat of her sixty-horse-power -‘Gohard’ when she competed in the Crooklands -Circular Track One Thousand Mile Platinum Cup -Race, for private owners only, professional drivers -barred; and upon my honor, I believe she would have -pulled up the winner and heroine of the hour had not -the racing diet of bananas, meat jujubes, and egg-nog -<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>created such a revolt in Rustleton’s system, poor fellow, -that at the sixth hour of the ordeal he was borne, almost -insensible, and bathed in cold perspiration, from the -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tonneau</span></i> to a neighboring hotel.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To anxiety, in combination with exploding tires, I -attribute the fact of Miss Twissing’s finishing as Number -Four. Dear fellow, since you are so good as to -insist, I <em>will</em> put that cushion behind the small of my -back. Lumbago, in damp weather, is my particular -bane. Thankee!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Hambridge drew forth a spotlessly white handkerchief, -flourished it, and trumpeted.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now we come to the crux, dear fellows. The Admirable -Twissing, as many call her, not content with bein’ -an acknowledged expert in salmon fishin’ and a darin’ -rider to hounds, set her heart on Rustleton’s being practically -the same. With a light trout-rod and a tin of -worms he <em>has</em> occasionally amoosed himself on locally-preserved -waters; mounted on an easy-goin’ cob, he is, -so to put it, fairly at home. Scotch and Norwegian rivers -now, shall I say, claimed him as their sacrifice; highly-mettled -hunters—the Hopsacks stables are famous—took -five-barred gates and quickset hedges with him; occasionally -even bolted with him, regardless of his personal -predilections. In the same spirit his betrothed bride -compelled him to fence with her; instructed him, at -severe physical expense to himself, in the rules of jiu-jitsu. -The final straw was laid upon the camel’s back -when she insisted on his putting on the gloves with her, -and standing up for half an hour every morning to -be scientifically pummeled.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The listeners’ mouths screwed themselves into the -shape of long-expressive whistles. Glances of profound -meaning were exchanged. One man said, with a gulp -of sympathy, “<em>Poor</em> beggar!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And so the worm turned,” said Hambridge Ost, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>running his forefinger round inside the edge of his collar. -“Smarting from upper-cuts administered by the -woman who was destined ere long to become the wife of -his bosom, flushed from having his head in Chancery, -gravely embarrassed by body-blows, dazzled by stars -and stripes seen as the result of merciless punches received -upon the nose, Rustleton summoned all his courage -to the effort, and declined to take any more lessons. -Miss Twissing, to do her justice, was thunderstruck.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘Oh!’ she said, her lips quivering—like a hurt -child’s, according to Rustleton—‘and you were coming -on so <em>capitally</em>—we were getting on so well. You are -really gaining a knowledge of good boxing principles, -you were actually benefiting by our light little friendly -spars.’ Rustleton felt his nose, which was painfully -swollen. ‘Of course, you could never, never become a -first-rater. Your poor little muscles are too rigid. You -haven’t the strength to hit a print of your knuckles -into a pound of butter, but you might come to show -form enough to funk a big duffer, supposing he went -for you under the impression that you were as soft as -you look. But, of course, if you mean what you say’—she -pulled her gloves off and threw them into a corner -of the gymnasium at Hopsacks specially fitted up for -her by a noted firm—‘there they go. I’ll read the -Greek Anthologists with you instead, or’—her eyes -brightened—‘have you ever tried polo?’ she asked. ‘We -have some trained ponies in the stable, and the largest -croquet-lawn could be utilized for a ground, and I’ll -wire to the County Players for clubs and a couple of -members to teach us the rules of the game. You’ll like -that?’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘I’m dashed if I shall!’ were the actual words that -burst, so to put it, from Rustleton. Celine drew herself -up and looked him over, from the feet upwards, as -though she had never, so he says, seen him before. Five -<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>feet five—his actual height—gave her an advantage of -five inches and a bit over. He begged her to be seated, -and, standing before her in as dignified an attitude -as it is possible to assume in a light suit of gymnasium -flannels, with sawdust in your hair and a painfully -swollen nose, he broke the ice and demanded his release -from their engagement, saying that he felt it incumbent -on him to live his own life in his own way, that Celine -crushed, humiliated, and oppressed him by the mere -vigor of her intellect and the exuberance of her physical -personality—with considerably more to the same -effect.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She looked up when Rustleton, almost breathless, -reached a full stop. ‘You give me your word of honor -that there is no other woman in the case,’ she murmured; -‘I <em>can</em> stand your not loving me, I <em>can’t</em> your loving -somebody else better.’ As Rustleton gave the required -denial—scouted the bare idea—a tear ran down her -cheek and dropped on her large powerful arms, which -were folded upon her bust—really amazing, dear fellow, -and one of her strong points. ‘That settles it,’ she -uttered. ‘It’s understood, all’s off between us; you are -free. And there is a through express to London at -3:25. But I’m afraid I must detain you a moment -longer.’ She rang the bell, and told a servant to tell -Professor Pudsey she was wanted in the gym. ‘Tell -her to come in sparring kit, and be quick about it,’ were -her actual words.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Until the Professor appeared, Miss Twissing chatted -quite pleasantly with Rustleton. The Professor was a -large, flat-faced woman, of remarkable muscular development, -with her hair coiled in a tight knob at the back -of her head, her massive form attired in a thin jersey, -short serge skirt, long stockings, and light gymnasium -shoes. ‘Let me introduce my friend and resident instructress -in boxing, fencing, and athletics,’ says Celine, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>‘and one of the best, so to put it, that ever put a novice -through his paces. Celebrated as the wife and trainer of -the late Ponto Pudsey, Heavy-weight Champion of England, -and holder of the Hyam’s Competition Belt three -seasons running until beat by Bat Collins at the International -Club Grounds in ’92. Pudsey dear’—she -turned to the Professor—‘you know my little way when -I’ve had a set-back. Instead of playing <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">le diable à -quatre</span></i> and being disagreeable and cantankerous all -round, I simply send for you and say, as I say now, -“Put up your hands, and do your best; I warn you -I’m going in for a regular slugging match under the -rules of the Amateur Boxing Association. Three rounds—the -first and second of three minutes’ length, the third -of four minutes’. This gentleman will act as time-keeper, -and pick up whichever of us gets knocked out. He has -plenty of time before he catches the express to town—and -the lesson will be good for him.”’ She and the -Professor shook hands, and, with heads erect, mouths -firmly closed, eyes fixed, left toes straight, bodies evenly -balanced, left arms workin’ loosely, rights well across -mark, and so forth, started business in the most thorough-goin’ -way. Such a bout of fisticuffs—accordin’ to -Rustleton—you couldn’t behold outside the American -prize-ring.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“By—Jingo!” ejaculated one of the listeners.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“They led off in a perfectly scientific manner at the -head, guarded and returned, retreated and advanced, -ducked, feinted, countered, and cross-countered,” said -Hambridge Ost, “until Rustleton grew giddy. Terrific -hits were given and taken before he could command -himself sufficiently to call ‘Time,’ the Professor with a -black eye, Celine with a cut lip, both of ’em smilin’ and -self-possessed to an astonishin’ degree; went in again -at the end of the brief breathin’ space, and fairly outdid -the previous round. When a smashin’ knock-out on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>the point of the jaw finally floored the Professor and -she failed to come up to time, leavin’ Miss Twissing -mistress of the gory field, Celine nodded significantly to -Rustleton, and said, as she rolled down her sleeves, ‘That -would have been for <em>you</em>, Russie, old boy, if there had -been another woman in the case. As there isn’t—goodbye, -and good luck go with you! I’m going to put dear -old Pudsey to bed, and plaster this cut lip of mine.’”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I like that girl!” declared the man who had said -“By Jingo!” “A rattling good sort, I call her. But -a punch-bag would have done as well as the Professor, -I should have thought.” He tugged at his mustache -and wrinkled his forehead thoughtfully. “A damaged -lip is so fearfully disfiguring. Has it quite healed?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I know nothing of Miss Twissing,” said Hambridge, -settling his necktie, “and desire to know nothing of that -very unfeminine young person, who, I feel sure, would -have been as good as her word and pounded Rustleton -into a human jelly, had she been aware that there actually -existed, if I may so put it, an adequate feminine -reason for the dear fellow’s—shall I say, change of -mind?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of course,” said the man who had been anxious -about Miss Twissing’s lip, “the little bounder—beg pardon! -Of course, Rustleton was telling a colossal howler. -As all the world knows, or will know when the newspapers -come out to-morrow, there was another woman -in the case.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Petsie Le Poyntz,” put in another voice, “of the -West End Theater. Petsie of the lissom—ahem!—limbs, -of the patent mechanical smile—mistress of the wink that -convulses the gallery, and inventor of the kick that enraptures -the stalls. Petsie, who has won her way into -what Slump, of the <cite>Morning Gush</cite>, calls the ‘peculiar -favor of the British playgoer,’ by her exquisite and -spontaneous rendering of the ballad, ‘Buzzy, Buzzy, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>Busy Bee,’ sung nightly and at two <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">matinées</span></i> per week -in <cite>The Charity Girl</cite>. Petsie, once the promised bride of -a thriving young greengrocer, now——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now, Viscountess Rustleton,” said Hambridge Ost. -“Don’t forget that, dear fellow, pray. I can conceive, -even while I condemn my cousin’s ill-considered action -in taking to his—shall I say bosom? yesterday morning -at the Registrar’s—a young lady of obvious gifts and -obscure parentage without letting his family into the -secret—that he found her a soothing change from Miss -Twissing. No Greek, no athletics, no strenuousness of -any kind. An appearance distinctly pleasing, even off -the boards, a certain command of repartee of the ‘You’re -another’ sort, an agreeable friskiness varied by an inclination -to lounge languidly—and there you have Petsie, -dear fellow. The weddin’ breakfast took place at the -Grill Room of the Savoy Hotel, the extra-sized table, -number three, at the east upper end against the glass -partition havin’ been specially engaged by the management -of the West End Theater. That, not bein’ an -invited guest, I ascertained from the waiter who -usually looks after me when I lunch there. The <em>menu</em> -was distinctly a good ’un. <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Hors d’œuvres</span></i> ... a bisque, -follered by <em>turban de turbot</em>.... Birds with bread-cream -sauce, chipped potatoes, tomatoes stuffed, and a -corn salad. Chocolate <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">omelette soufflée</span></i>—ices in the shape -of those corrugated musk melons with pink insides, figs, -and nectarines. Of course, a claret figured—Château-Nitouche; -but, bein’ a theatrical entertainment, the Boy -washed the whole thing down. The name of the liqueur -I did not get hold of.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Parfait Amour</span></i>, perhaps?” said a feeble voice, with -a faint chuckle.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As I have said, I failed to ascertain,” returned Hambridge -Ost, with a dry little cough. “But as Lord -Pomphrey, justly indignant with his heir for throwing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>over Miss Twissing, with whose hand goes a colossal fortune, -has practically reduced his income to a mere”—he -elevated his eyebrows and blew a speck of cigar-ash -from his coat-sleeve—“<em>that</em>—the stirrup-cup that sped -my cousin and his bride upon their wedding journey -was certainly not, shall I say, <em>Aqua d’Oro?</em>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was a faint chorus of applause. Hambridge, -repressing all sign of triumph, smoothed his preternaturally -sleek head and uncrossed his little legs preparatory -to getting out of his chair. The circle of listeners melted -away; the man who had said “By Jingo!” straightened -his hat carefully, staring at the reflection of a distinctly -good-looking face in the mantel-glass.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If she had known—if that girl Celine Twissing had -known—the game that bilious little rotter meant to -play, he’d have had his liqueur before his soup, and it -would have been punch—not Milk Punch or Turtle -Punch, but the real thing, with trimmings.” He arranged -a very neat mustache with care. “Sorry she -got her lip split,” he murmured; “hope it’s healed all -right.... Waiter, get me a dozen Sobranie cigarettes. -It’s a pity, a confounded pity, that the only man who -is really able to appreciate that grand girl Celine Twissing -happens to be a younger son. But, anyhow, I can -have a shot at her, and I will.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span> - <h2 class='c005'>A DYSPEPTIC’S TRAGEDY</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>“He is a constant visitor,” observed Lady Millebrook.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And a constant friend,” said Mrs. Tollebranch. A -delicate flush mantled on her otherwise ivory cheek, her -great gray eyes, famed for their far-away, saintly expression, -shone through a gleaming veil of tears. With -the lithe, undulating movement so characteristic of her, -she crossed the velvety carpets to the window, and, lifting -a corner of her silken blind, peeped out over her -window-boxes of jonquils as the hall-door closed, and a -well-dressed man with a slight stoop and a worn, dyspeptic -countenance went slowly down the doorsteps and -got into his cab. As though some subtle magnetic thrill -had conveyed to him the knowledge that fair eyes looked -on his departure, he glanced up and bowed, for one -moment becoming a younger man, as a temporary glow -suffused his pallid features. Then the cab drove off, and -Mrs. Tollebranch, slipping her hand within the arm of -Lady Millebrook, drew her back to her cosy seat within -the radius of the fire-glow, and rang for tea.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I did not have it up while poor Cadminster was -here,” she explained. “The sight of Sally Lunn is horrible -to him, and he is positively forbidden tea.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“They say,” said Lady Millebrook, nibbling the Sally -Lunn, “that he lives upon gluten biscuits, lean boiled -mutton, and white fish, washed down by weak Medoc, -mixed with hot water.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is true,” returned her friend.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And yet he dines out. I meet him comparatively -often at other people’s tables,” said Lady Millebrook. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>“And here—invariably.” Her eyebrows wore the -crumple of interrogation.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The servants have orders to pass him over,” explained -Mrs. Tollebranch, sipping her tea. “If Jerks -or Wilbraham were to offer him a made dish, one, if -not both of them, would be instantly dismissed.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear Clarice! Friendship is friendship.... -But Jerks and Wilbraham.... Such invaluable servants! -You cannot mean what you say!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I do mean it,” nodded Mrs. Tollebranch. “Oh, Bettine!” -she murmured, clasping Lady Millebrook’s hand, -“don’t look so surprised. If you only knew how much -that man has sacrificed for me!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If there is anything upon which I pride myself,” -observed Lady Millebrook, “it is my absolute lack of -curiosity. And yet people are always telling me their -secrets—the most intimate, the most important! ‘Bettine,’ -they say, ‘you are a Grave!’ ... So I am; it is -quite true. A thing once repeated in my hearing is -buried for ever! We have not known each other very -long, it is true, but you must have discovered that I am -absolutely reliable! Talking of sacrifices, there are so -many sorts. Now perhaps in your gratitude for this -service rendered you by Lord Cadminster, you overrate. -Perhaps it is really not so great as you imagine! Perhaps...! -But I am not curious in the least!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Would it surprise you to hear,” queried Mrs. Tollebranch, -“that Cadminster, two years ago, was <em>perfectly -healthy!</em> Not the cadaverous dyspeptic he is now; not -the semi-invalid, but a robust, healthy, fresh-colored -man of the out-of-doors, hardy English type?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lady Millebrook elevated her eyebrows. “Dear me,” -she observed. “How very odd! And now—you know -his horrid <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">soubriquet</span></i>—‘The Boiled Owl.’ He has earned -it <em>since</em>, of course.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He had a splendid appetite once,” continued Mrs. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>Tollebranch, “an iron constitution—a perfect digestion. -He gave them all three to save a woman’s honor. -Oh! Bettine, can you guess who the woman was?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I never hazard guesses about my friends,” said the -inexorable Lady Millebrook. “But I feel, somehow, that -she may have been you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I was weak,” admitted Mrs. Tollebranch, clasping -her friend’s hand with agitated jeweled fingers. “But -not wicked, Bettine. Promise me to believe that!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I never promise,” said Bettine, “but no one could -look at you and doubt that ... whatever you might do, -would be the outcome of irresistible impulse, <em>not</em> the -result of deliberate—ahem! My dearest, you interest -me indescribably,” she cried, “and if I were the <em>least -bit</em> inclined to curiosity, I am sure I should implore you -to go on.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You shall hear the story of Cadminster’s Great Sacrifice, -Bettine,” said Mrs. Tollebranch, “and when you -have heard, you will regard him——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As Bayard and all the other heroes of chivalry rolled -into one, and dressed by a Bond Street tailor,” interrupted -Lady Millebrook, with a glow of impatience in -her fine dark eyes. “I think you mentioned two years -ago?” she added, settling a little stray lock of her -friend’s silken blonde hair, and sinking back among -her cushions.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Two years ago,” murmured Mrs. Tollebranch, “Willibrand -became bitten with the Golf Spider. He is as -wild about the game to-day,” she added, “as ever.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There is a proverb, ‘Once a golfer, always a golfer,’” -put in Lady Millebrook. “I believe that to play the -game successfully requires a vast amount of thought and -judgment, which insensibly diverts a man’s mind from -less harmless topics, and that it entails an invigorating -and healthy action of the arms and legs, soothing to the -nervous system, and improving in its effect upon the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>temper. Were I asked by any married woman of my -acquaintance whether she should encourage her husband -in his devotion to golf, or dissuade him from it, I should -advise her to encourage the fad. The game, unlike -others, can be played all the year round, in sunshine, -rain, or snow.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Willibrand used to play it in the snow,” put in -Mrs. Tollebranch, “with red balls. It was when we were -spending March at Tobermuirie two years ago, that——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That Lord Cadminster performed the chivalrous action -which resulted for him in the permanent loss of his -digestion? Well?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Tobermuirie is the bleakest spot in North Britain,” -began Mrs. Tollebranch, returning the teacups to the -tray, and touching the electric bell in a manner which -conveyed the intimation that she would not be at home -to any caller for the next quarter of an hour. “The -castle is one of the oldest inhabited residences in Europe, -and, I verily believe, the coldest. If you would -like to find out for yourself how easily a northern gale -can penetrate walls ten feet thick in the thinnest places, -come to us in July.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I shall make a point of it!” said Lady Millebrook, -cuddling down into her warm, scented lair of -cushions.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of course, the male division of the house-party was -made up of golfing enthusiasts,” went on Mrs. Tollebranch. -“Major Wharfling, Sir Roger Balcombe, Cadminster, -who was as keen as Willibrand in those days, -three Guardsmen, and D’Arsy Pontoise.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“By the way, what has become of Pontoise?” queried -Lady Millebrook. “One never meets him now as one -used.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He scarcely ever leaves Paris, I believe,” returned -Mrs. Tollebranch, rather constrainedly. “Since his reconciliation -with the Duc, his great-uncle, and his marriage -<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>with Mademoiselle De Carapoix, who I have heard -is a very strict Catholic and humpbacked——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Besides being a great heiress.... Of course, he is -kept well within bounds. But what a fascinating creature -Pontoise used to be. Bubbling with life, effervescing -with spirits. Sadly naughty, too, I fear, for the names -of at least half a dozen pretty married women used to -be mixed up with his in all sorts of scan.... My dearest, -I beg your pardon!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I, at least, was not wicked—only weak!” said Clarice, -with icy dignity. “And as to there being five -others——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My sweet, it was the vaguest hearsay. Nothing certain, -except that Pontoise spoke perfect English and was -a veritable Apollo! I can imagine the rigors of imprisonment -in a Border castle in March to have been ameliorated -by the fact of his being a guest under its aged -roof. Did he play golf?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Tollebranch rose and took a dainty screen of -crimson feathers from the high mantelshelf.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He tried to learn,” she explained, holding the screen -so as to shield her delicate complexion from the glowing -heat of the log fire. “But the game baffled him. To -play it properly, I believe, the mind must be dead to -all other interests——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And Pontoise’s mind was unusually alive at that -particular moment to things outside the sphere of golf,” -mused Lady Millebrook. “Golf is a game for husbands, -not for——” Her red lips closed on the unuttered word.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t say, ‘lovers’!” implored Clarice. “From beginning -to end, Bettine, it was nothing but a flirtation. -I will own that I was—attracted, almost fascinated. I -had never met a human being whose nature was of so -many colors ... whose soul....” She broke off.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have been informed on good authority,” observed -Lady Millebrook, “that whenever Pontoise meant mischief -<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>he invariably talked about his soul. But do go -on!</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of course, you played golf also; and as one of the -great advantages connected with the game is that you -can choose your own partner, I may presume that Pontoise -made acquaintance with it under your auspices, and -that when he landed himself in the jaws of some terrific -sand-bunker, you were at hand to help him out.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As his hostess, it was rather incumbent upon me,” -explained Mrs. Tollebranch, “to make myself of use. -Willibrand and Sir Roger Balcombe termed him a duffer; -Major Wharfling is nothing but a professional, Cadminster -and the Guardsmen were hard drivers all. And -as Bluefern had made me a golfing costume which was -a perfect dream——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You completed the conquest of Pontoise. I quite -understand!” said Bettine. “In that frock, armed with -a long spoon. I quite grasp it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The golf course is very open at Tobermuirie,” went -on Clarice, playing with the feather fan.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But there are hillocks, and bumps and boulders, and -things behind which Pontoise managed to get in a good -many references to his soul. I grasp <em>that</em> also,” observed -Lady Millebrook.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He did mention his soul,” admitted Mrs. Tollebranch. -“He said that it had always been lonely, thirsting for -the sympathy of a sister-spirit until——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Until he met you!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He did say as much. And he explained how, in -sheer desperation of ever meeting the affinity, the flame -for whom the spark of his being had been originally -kindled, a man may drift into all kinds of follies, even -gain the name of a libertine and a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">roué</span></i>.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Quite true.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He has such wonderful eyes, like moss agates, and -his profile is like the Hermes of Praxiteles, or would be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>but for the waxed mustache and crisp, golden beard. -And there is a vibrating <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">timbre</span></i> in his voice that goes -to the very heart. One could not but be sorry for him.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I am sure you were very sorry indeed. But Pontoise, -as one knows of him, would not long be content with -that. Your heartfelt pity, and the tip of your little -finger to kiss....” Lady Millebrook’s sleepily dark -eyes smiled cynical amusement. “Those things are the -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">hors d’œuvres</span></i> of flirtation. Soup, fish, made-dishes, -roast, and sweets invariably succeed, with black coffee -and a subsequent indigestion.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Clarice avoided the glance of this feminine philosopher.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Pontoise was always respectful,” she said, with a -little note of defiance in her voice. “He never forgot -what was due to me save once, when——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When it was borne in upon him too strongly what -he owed to himself. And then he kissed you, and you -were furiously angry.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Furious!” nodded Clarice, brushing her round chin -with the edge of the crimson screen. “I vowed I would -never speak to him again.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And how long did you keep that oath?” asked Bettine.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We met at dinner in the evening, and of course one -has to be civil. And when I went to bed, and he handed -me my candlestick,” said Mrs. Tollebranch—“for gas -is only laid as high as the first floor of the castle, and -the electric light has never been heard of—he slipped -a note into my hand. It implored my pardon, and declared -that unless I would meet him in the golf-house -on the links next day before lunch, and receive his profound -apologies, he would terminate an existence which -my well-deserved scorn had rendered insupportable. He -spoke of the—the——” Clarice hesitated.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The kiss,” put in Lady Millebrook, “and——”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>“Said he had dared, in a moment of insanity, to -desecrate the cheek of the purest woman breathing with -lips that ought to be branded for their criminal presumption. -He could never atone, he ended, but he could -never forget.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And asked you in the postscript to meet him in the -golf-house. I quite understand,” observed Lady Millebrook. -“Of course, you didn’t go?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Clarice’s lovely gray-blue eyes opened. Her sensitive -lips quivered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh! but I am afraid....” She heaved a little regretful -sigh over her past folly. “That is where I was -weak, Bettine. I went. Oh, don’t laugh!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My child, this is hysteria,” explained Lady Millebrook, -removing the filmy handkerchief from her lovely -eyes. “Well—you went. You popped your head into -the lion’s mouth—and somehow or other Cadminster -played the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">deus ex machina</span></i>, and got it out for you -again.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The golf-house was a queer shanty, with a tarred -roof,” said Mrs. Tollebranch retrospectively. “It held a -bunker of coals, and stands for clubs, and a fireplace, -and a folding luncheon-table, and camp-stools, and hampers. -We used to lunch outside when it didn’t rain or -snow, and inside when it did. Well, when Willibrand -and Sir Roger Balcombe, Major Wharfling, the Guardsmen, -and Cadminster were quite out of sight, Pontoise -and I somehow found ourselves back at the golf-house. -I was cold, and there was a fire there, and he looked so -handsome and so miserable as he stood bare-headed by -the door, waiting for me to enter, that——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The fly walked in. And then the spider——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He disappointed me, I will own,” said Clarice, with -a little gulp. “After all his penitent protestations! I -have never trusted men with agate-colored eyes since, -and I never will. They have only one idea of women, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>and that is—the worst. But when I ordered him to let -go my hands and get up from his knees, something in -my face or voice seemed to tell him that I was really, -really, in earnest, and he obeyed me, and moved suddenly -away as I went to the door. The latch rattled as I lifted -my hand, the door opened; Cadminster stood there, -white from head to foot, for a sudden blizzard had swept -down from the hills, and the links were four inches -deep in snow. Oh! I shall never forget how tactful he -was! ‘You have got here before the rest of us!’ he said, -quite in a cheery, ordinary way. ‘Lucky for you! Tollebranch -and the others are coming after me as hard as -they can pelt, and we shall have to put out the “House -Full” boards in a minute.’ And he began to rattle out -the flaps of the luncheon-table, and get out things from -the hamper, and then he looked at me, and said, as he -lifted the lid from a great kettle of Irish stew that had -been simmering over the fire, ‘Suppose you were to take -the ladle and give this mess a bit of a stir, Mrs. Tollebranch! -The fire will burn your face, I’m afraid, but -what woman wouldn’t sacrifice her complexion in the -cause of duty?’ Oh, Bettine, I could have blessed Cadminster -as I seized that iron ladle, for seeming so natural -and at ease. And then—almost before I had begun -to stir the stew—while I was bending over the pot, -Willibrand and the other men came in. What followed -I can never forget!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now we come to Cadminster’s great act of heroism?” -interrogated Lady Millebrook.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Willibrand came in stamping the snow off,” went -on Mrs. Tollebranch. “So did all the other men. Willibrand -sniffed the odor of the oniony stew with rapture. -All the other men sniffed too.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The tastes of the male animal are extraordinarily -simple,” observed Lady Millebrook, “in spite of the elaborate -pretense carried on and kept up by him, of being -<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>a gourmand and a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">connoisseur</span></i>. The coarsest dishes are -those which appeal most irresistibly to his palate, and -when I find it necessary for any length of time to chain -Millebrook to his home, I order a succession of barbaric -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">plats</span></i>. By the time we have reached tripe and onions, -served as an <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">entrée</span></i>, there is not a more domesticated -husband breathing. But pray continue.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“They all assembled round the stewpot,” went on -Clarice, “and watched with absorbed interest the operation -of turning its steaming contents into the dish that -awaited them. Cadminster and Willibrand undertook -this duty. Well——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Just as they heaved up the steaming cauldron, Willibrand -called out, ‘Hulloa, what the deuce is that?’ His -hands were occupied—he could not get at his eyeglass,” -said Mrs. Tollebranch, “and so he peered and exclaimed, -while I leaned over his shoulder and glanced into the -stewpot. There, floating upon the surface of the muttony, -oniony, carroty, potatoey mass, was”—she shuddered—“the -letter Pontoise had given me with my candlestick -on the preceding night!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My <em>dear</em>, how awful!” gasped Lady Millebrook.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I had had it in my pocket,” explained Mrs. Tollebranch, -“when I arrived at the golf-house. When I began -to stir the stew I found the handle of the ladle too -hot to be pleasant, and I pulled out my handkerchief to -wrap round it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Whisking Pontoise’s effusion out with it! How reckless -not to have burned it!” cried Lady Millebrook.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Imagine my feelings!” said Clarice. “There was -the letter in the stewpot. As the contents were turned -by Cadminster into the dish, I lost sight of the envelope -beneath a greasy avalanche of fat mutton and vegetables. -I remembered that Pontoise had referred to that unlucky -kiss; I recalled Willibrand’s unfortunate tendency -<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>to outbursts of jealous rage without reason; I shuddered -at the thought of the amount of reason that envelope -contained. Self-control abandoned me—my brain spun -round, I thought all lost ... and then—I caught Cadminster’s -eye. There was encouragement in it—and -hope. ‘Trust to me,’ it said, ‘I will save you!’”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And——?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We sat down to table, and that stew was distributed, -in large portions, to all those men. Cadminster assumed -control of the ladle. He gravely asked me whether -I cared about stew, and I gasped out something—what -I don’t know, but I believe I said I didn’t. When the -words were out, I knew that I had lost my only chance—that -Cadminster had intended to help me to that fatal -envelope. My fate hung in the balance as he filled plate -after plate.... Who would get my letter in his gravy, -amongst his vegetables? What would happen then? -Would it be rendered illegible by grease, or would it not? -I scarcely breathed, the suspense was so awful!” said -Mrs. Tollebranch, clutching Lady Millebrook’s sleeve. -“And then—Relief came. I grasped that man’s heroic -motive—I understood the full nobility of his nature -when——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When Cadminster helped himself to the letter! But, -good heavens! you don’t mean to tell me,” cried Lady -Millebrook, “that he <em>ate</em> it?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He did, he did!” cried Mrs. Tollebranch, throwing -herself into her friend’s sympathetic embrace. “Now -you know why I call him a Bayard, and look upon him -as my truest, noblest friend. Now you know....”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why he is a cadaverous dyspeptic! Of course. That -document must have completely wrecked his constitution.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It has,” interrupted Clarice, with a little shower of -tears.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I shall never say again,” remarked Lady Millebrook, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>as she took an affectionate leave of her dearest friend -but four, “that Romance and Chivalry have no existence -in these modern times. To jump into a den full of lions -and things to get a lady’s bracelet or save a lady’s glove -may sound finer, though I am not sure. But to eat -another man’s love-letter, envelope and all, to save a -woman’s reputation ... there is the true ring of heroism -about it, the glow that ennobles an ordinary, commonplace -action into something superb. And, unless I -mistake, Pontoise invariably penned his amatory effusions -upon the very stiffest of parchment wove.... Darling, -Lord Cadminster must dine with us.... Next -Thursday; I will not take No!” ended Lady Millebrook; -“and he may rely upon it that if either Jedbrook or -Mills presume to offer him anything rich or oleaginous, -either or both of them will be dismissed next day!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span> - <h2 class='c005'>RENOVATION</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The hands of the Dresden clock upon the white travertine -mantelshelf of Lady Sidonia’s boudoir pointed -to the small hours. There was a discreet knock at the -door. The maid, a pale, pretty young woman, who was -wielding the hair-brush, laid the weapon down, and answered -the knock.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Who is it, Pauline?” asked Pauline’s mistress, with -her eyes upon the mirror, which certainly framed a -picture well worth looking at.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Her Grace’s maid, my lady, asking whether you are -too tired for a chat?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Say that I shall be delighted, and give me the blue -Japanese kimono instead of this pink thing. Will my -hair do? Because, if it needs no more brushing, you -can go to bed.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Thank you, my lady.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The door opened; trailing silks swept over the carpet....</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I can’t kiss you through all this brown-gold silk,” -said the Duchess’s voice. “Stop, though! You shall -have it on the top of your head.” And the kiss descended, -light as a puff of thistle-down. “I kiss Cull -there sometimes, when I want him to be in a good temper. -He says it thrills right down to the tips of his -toes.... You’re smiling! I guess you think the stock -of thrills ought to be exhausted by this time—three years -since we stood up together on the deck of Cluny F. -Farradaile’s anchored airship, a posse of detectives from -Blueberry Street guarding the ends of the fore and aft -<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>cables, where they were anchored three hundred feet -below in the grounds of the N’York Æther Club, just -to prevent any one of the dozens of Society girls who’d -tried their level best to catch Cull and failed, from -coming along with a bowie and cutting ’em.... You -remember the pars. in all the papers, headed, ‘A Marriage -Made in Heaven,’ I guess?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of course, of course,” said the Duchess’s hostess and -dearest friend.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My invention,” said her Grace, “and mighty smart, -I reckon. I’d always said I’d be married in a real original -way—and I was. The only drawback to the affair -was that she pitched—I mean the airship—and the Minister, -and Cull, and Poppa, and the inventor—that’s -Cluny F. Farradaile—were taken poorly before the close -of the cer’mony. As for my sex, I’m proud to say that -Amurrican women can rise superior even to air-sickness -when Paris frocks are in question. But when they -wound us down we were glad enough to get back to dry -land. We found a representative of the Customs waiting -for us, by the way; and if Poppa hadn’t gone to -law about it, and proved that we were really fixed on to -the States by our cables, we’d have had to plank down -the duty on every jewel we’d got on. Say, pet, I’m -perishing for a smoke!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Duchess was supplied with cigarettes. Pauline -placed upon a little table the materials that “factorize,” -as the Duchess would have said, towards the composition -of cognac and soda, and glided out.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now I call that a real pretty, meek-looking creature,” -said her Grace, blowing a little flight of smoke -rings in the direction of the door. “If she’s as clever as -she’s nice, Siddie, you’ve got a treasure!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She <em>is</em> a good maid,” responded Lady Sidonia. “For -one thing, she knows a great deal about the toilette, and -on the subject of the complexion she’s really quite an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>authority. She knows something of massage, too—on the -American system—for, though an English girl, she has -lived in your country——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh!” said the Duchess, with an accent of interest. -“Has she, indeed?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She’s reasonable, too,” went on the maid’s mistress; -“and not a limpet in the way of sticking to one mode of -doing the hair and refusing to learn any other. Then -she can <em>wave</em>——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is an accomplishment,” said the Duchess thoughtfully. -“Now, my woman either frizzes you like a Fiji, -or leaves you dank and straight like a mermaid. Why -does hair never wave naturally—out of a novel? It’s a -question for a Convention. And men—dear idiots!—are -such believers in the reality of ripples. There! I’ve -been implored over and over again for ‘just that little -bit with the wave in it’ to keep in a locket—hundreds -and hundreds of times. I guess Cull’s wiser now; but -once you’ve seen your husband’s teeth in a tumbler, -you’ve entered into a Conjugal Reciprocity Convention: -‘Believe in me—not as much of me as really belongs to -me, but as much as you see—and I’ll return the compliment!’ -Yes, I guess I’ll take some S. and B. It’s an -English accomplishment, and I’ve mastered it thoroughly. -We Amurricans rinse out with Apollinaris or -ice-water, which isn’t half so comforting, especially in -trouble.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And the Duchess heaved a butterfly’s sigh, which -scarcely stirred her filmy laces, and smoothed her prettiest -eyebrow with one exquisite finger-tip.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Trouble!” exclaimed her friend. “My dear, you’re -the happiest of women. Don’t try to persuade me that -you’ve got a silent sorrow!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Not exactly a silent one, because I’m going to confide -in you; but still it is a sorrow.” The Duchess confided -one hand to her dearest friend’s consoling clasp, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>and wiped away a tear with a minute handkerchief that -would not have dried half a dozen. “Perhaps Amurrican -blood is warmer than English; but, anyhow, our -family affections are vurry much more strongly developed -over in the States than yours are here. And I had a letter -from Momma by yesterday’s mail that would have -melted a heart of rock.” She dried a second tear. “If -Momma lives till the end of Creation,” she said, “she -will never, never get over it. And I don’t wonder!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Darling, if it would really do you any good to tell -me——” breathed Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I tell all my friends,” said the Duchess with a sigh; -“and they’re invariably of one opinion—that Momma -was cruelly victimized.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She is——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Call her forty, dear. It would be just cruel to say -anything more. People call me lovely and all those -things,” said the Duchess candidly, “and I allow they’re -correct. Well, compared with what Momma was at my -age, I’m real ordinary.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Frozen fact! And you can grasp the idea that when—in -spite of every effort—Momma began to lose her figure -and her looks, she felt it!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Every woman must!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But the more she felt it, the more she seemed to -expand.... Grief runs to fat, I do believe,” said the -Duchess. “Of course, Poppa’s allowance to Momma being -liber’l—even for a Corn King—she had unlimited -funds at her disposal. To begin with, she rented a medical -specialist.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Who dieted her?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear, for a woman accustomed to French cookery, -and with the national predilection for cookies and -candy, it must have been——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Torture!”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>“One gluten biscuit and the eye of a mutton cutlet -for dinner. Think of it! Beef-juice and dry toast for -breakfast, ditto for supper. And she used to skip—a -woman of that size, too—for hours! And her trainers -came every morning at five o’clock, and they’d make her -just put on a sweater and take her between them for a -sharp trot round Central Park, just as if she’d been a -gentleman jockey sworn to ride at so many stone for a -Plate. And the number of stone Momma got off——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She <em>got</em> them off?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I guess she got them off,” said the Duchess. “Poppa -talked of having an elegant tombstone set up in Central -Park to commemorate the greater portion of a wife -buried there! then he gave up the notion. And then -Momma made handsome presents to her specialist and -her trainers, and contracted with the cleverest operator -in N’York to make a face.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To make a face?” repeated Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To make a face for Momma that matched her youthful -figure,” said the Duchess composedly. “My! the -time that man took in creating a surface to work on! -She slept for a fortnight with her countenance covered -with slices of raw veal.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Horrible!” shuddered the listener.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And the massaging and steaming that went on!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I can imagine!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The foundations being properly laid——” continued -the Duchess, lighting another cigarette.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lady Sidonia went into a little uncontrollable shriek -of laughter. “As though ... she had been a house!... -Ha, ha, ha!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear,” returned the Duchess, shaking her beautiful -head, “the terms employed in the contract were precisely -those I have quoted.... The specialist laid the -foundations, and carried the contract out. Momma’s -appearance delighted everyone, except Poppa, who has -<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>old-fashioned notions, and complained of feeling shy in -the presence of a stranger. Fortunately their Silver -Wedding eventuated just then, and his conscience—Poppa’s -conscience is, for a corn speculator’s, wonderfully -sensitive—ceased to annoy him.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And your mother?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Momma wore her new face for six months with the -greatest satisfaction,” said the Duchess. “Of course, she -had to lay up for repairs pretty often, but the specialist -was there to carry them out. Unluckily, he contracted a -severe chill in the N’York winter season and died. His -wife put his tools and enamels and things in his coffin. -She said she knew business would be brisk when he got -up again, and she didn’t wish any other speculator to -chip in before him.” The Duchess sighed. “Then came -Momma’s great trouble.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There was no other operator to—take up the—the -contract?” hinted Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There were dozens,” said the Duchess, “and Momma -tried them all. My dear, you may surmise what she -looked like.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A heterogeneous mingling of styles.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It was impossible to conjecture,” said the Duchess -confidentially, “to what period the original structure belonged. -By day Momma resorted to a hat and voile.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Even in the house?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Even in the house. By night—well, I guess you’ve -noticed that a human work of art, illuminated by electric -light, isn’t seen under the most favorable conditions.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There is a pitiless accuracy!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“An unmerciful candor about its revelations. After -one unusually brilliant reception, Momma retired from -society and took to spiritualism. She persevered until -she had materialized that demised face-specialist, and extracted -some definite raps in the way of advice.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And what did he advise?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>“He suggested, through the medium, that Momma -should apply to the Milwaukee Mentalists.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A Society of Faith Healers?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘Occult Operatists,’ they call themselves on the prospectuses. -As for the cult of the Society,” said the -Duchess pensively, “one might call it a mayonnaise of -Freemasonry, Theosophy, Hypnotism, Humbug, and -Hoodoo. But the humbug, like salad oil in the mayonnaise, -was the chief ingredient.” The Duchess stopped -to draw breath.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And into this vortex Mrs. Van Wacken was drawn?” -sighed Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Sucked down and swallowed,” said the Duchess, who -had been Miss Van Wacken. “They undertook to make -Momma right over again, brand new, by prayer and faith -and—a mentally electrified bath. For which treatment -Momma was to pay ten thousand down.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Pounds!” shrieked the horrified Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dollars,” corrected the Duchess.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“In advance?” cried the listener.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“In advance, after a demonstration had been given -which was practically to satisfy Momma that the Milwaukee -Mentalists were square,” said the Duchess. “My -word! when I remember how they bluffed that poor darling—I -should want to laugh, if I didn’t cry.” She -dried another tear.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do go on!” entreated her friend.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The High Priestess of the Community was a woman,” -went on the Duchess, “just as cool and ca’am and cunning -as they make ’em.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I guessed as much,” said Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It takes a woman to know and work on another -woman’s weak points,” rejoined the Duchess. “The -High Priestess pretended to be in communication with a -spirit. ‘The Mystikos,’ they called him, and he resided, -when he was at home, in a crystal ball; but bullion was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>the real totem of the tribe. Well—but it’s getting -late——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I shall not sleep a <em>wink</em> until I have heard the <em>whole -story</em>,” said Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And Cull and your husband are comparing notes -about their wives in the smoking-room,” said the -Duchess.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well, the Theologa——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The—the—what?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Theologa—that was the professional title of the -High Priestess—whose or’nary name was Mrs. Gideon J. -Swale,” her Grace went on, “talked a great deal to -Momma, and made some passes over her, and got the -poor dear completely under her thumb. Momma wasn’t -the only victim, you must know. There were four other -ladies, all wealthy, and each one, like Momma, the leader -of a fashionable society set——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And—no longer young?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And past their first bloom,” amended the Duchess. -“And each of ’em had agreed to plank down the same -sum in cold dollars.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Fifty thousand in all,” said Lady Sidonia with a -sigh. She could have done so much with fifty thousand -dollars, even though American money was such beastly -stuff. “Worth——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Worth riskin’ a term in a N’York State prison for—I -guess so!” said the Duchess. “Well, Momma and the -other ladies signed on to the terms, and went through -a cer’mony of purification—which included learnin’ a -kind of catechism used in admittin’ a new member into -the Occult Operatists’ Community—an’ several hymns. -That was to make them worthy to receive the Revelation -from the Mystikos, I guess. At least, the Theologa——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mrs. Gideon J. Swale?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The same. The Theologa said so. In a week or so—durin’ -<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>which period they lived at the house of the Community—chiefly -on nuts an’ spring-water——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“For which entertainment they paid——” Lady Sidonia -hinted.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Delmonico rates!” said the Duchess. “Well, it was -settled that the Demonstration was to come off, with the -Mystikos’ consent.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What sort of——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Demonstration? Cur’us,” said the Duchess, “and -inter<em>est</em>ing. There was a woman—a Mrs. Gower, English -by birth, Amurrican naturalized—who was to be the -Subject. She was a widow—her husband having met his -death in an explosion at an oil-gas producin’ factory. -Stoker to the gas-generator he was, and his wife had -brought him his dinner—fried steak in a tin pail—when -the hull kitboodle blew up. Husband was killed—wife -was saved, though so scarred and disfigured about the -face as to be changed from a pretty woman into a plain -one.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And she—this scarred, disfigured woman—was to be -made pretty again by the Occult Operatists?” hazarded -Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Guessed it first time,” nodded the Duchess. “The -cer’mony took place in a temple belonging to the Community, -all painted over red and yellow triangles and -things like T-squares. At the upper end was an altar, -raised on three steps, and on this was the ground glass -ball in which the Mystikos lived when he wasn’t somewhere -else, and an electric light was fixed over it, so -that it just dazzled your eyes to look at. Below the -altar was a seat for the Theologa, and, you bet, -Mrs. Gideon J. Swale came out strong in the costume -line. Momma was reminded of Titiens in <em>Norma</em>, -she said.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I want to hear about the Demonstration,” pleaded -Lady Sidonia plaintively.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>“My! you’re in a hurry,” said the Duchess. “But -it was to be brought off in a bath—if you must know!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A <em>bath</em>?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A bath that was full of water and boiled herbs, and -had been properly incanted over by the Theologa,” explained -the Duchess. “There were incense-burners all -round, and not far off a kind of tent of white linen, all -over red triangles and T’s. And the five candidates for -renovation—I mean Momma and the other ladies—sat -on a form, in bloomers, each with a little purse-bag containing -bills for ten thousand dollars, and her heart full -of hope and joy.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>Oh!</em> go on,” cried Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The temple was circular, something like the Mormon -Tabernacle at Salt Lake City,” said the Duchess, “and -the Occult Operatives—a round hundred of ’em—occupied -the forms, to assist with the prayers and hymn-singin’. -Of course, the proceedings began with a hymn -sung in several different keys. I surmise the effect was -impressive.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lady Sidonia elevated her eyebrows.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Momma said it was wailful, and made her feel as -though live clams were crawling up and down her back. -But then the bloomers may account for that,” said the -Duchess, “and I guess the temple registers were out of -order. Then—the lights were suddenly turned out!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“O-oh!” shivered Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Except the electric stars over the Mystikos’ crystal -ball,” went on the Duchess, “so that all the light in the -temple seemed to come from the altar. Momma said that -made her feel those crawling clams worse than ever.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Could one see plainly what was going on?” asked -Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It was a religious kind of dimness,” said the Duchess, -“but most everything showed plainly. For instance, -when the hideous woman who was to be the Subject of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>the Demonstration came out of the linen tent in a suit -of bloomers like Momma’s and the others, she appeared -to be plain enough. Do you keep a cat, dear?” whispered -the Duchess.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why? No!” said Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I thought I heard a scratching at the door,” explained -the Duchess, with her mouth close to Lady Sidonia’s -ear. “Don’t open it.... I’d rather—— Where -was I?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Subject was in bloomers,” said Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, well! Momma and the other ladies were asked -to look at her earnestly, to fix her features in their -minds, so that they couldn’t but recognize her again if -they saw her. She was a slight woman, Momma said, -about thirty-five, and but for her scarred face would -have been pretty, with her pale complexion, brown wavy -hair, and large gray eyes with black lashes.... She -had one peculiarity about the left hand, which no one -who ever saw it could forget. What are you listening -for?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>I</em> hear something at the door,” faltered Lady Sidonia -in a nervous undertone.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Fancy. You don’t keep a cat. Well, the Subject -went up to the altar and knelt, and the Theologa—Mrs. -Gideon J. Swale—invoked the Mystikos in a solemn kind -of conjuration, and the crystal ball on the altar began -to hop up and down.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Fact! Then it rose right off the altar and hung suspended -in the air, and the hymn broke out worse than -ever, and the Theologa led the Subject down the altar -steps and put her into the bath.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well?” gasped Lady Sidonia.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Theologa threw incense on the burners round -the bath, and perfect clouds rose up all round it, completely -hiding the Subject,” explained the Duchess.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>“Then she——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She began to scream.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To scream?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As if she was in absolute agony; and Momma and -the four other ladies nearly fainted off their form, they -were so perfectly terrified.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And—what happened?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There was a scream more piercing than any of the -others.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The clouds of incense became so thick that you -couldn’t see your hand.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Occult Operatives sang more loudly and less in -tune than ever, and the crystal ball kept on jumping up -and down. Then the clouds of smoke cleared away, and -the lights went up, and——” The Duchess paused provokingly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Go on, go on!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And the Subject got out of the bath.... And she -had been ugly and scarred when she went in, but now -she was young and pretty!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Impossible!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It was the same woman to all appearances, but -changed—wonderfully changed. The same pretty -brown hair, the same eyes, gray, with long curly black -lashes, and the same strange malformation of one finger -of the left hand. But no cicatrices, none of the seams -and marks that made the other frightful.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The other!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Did I say the other?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Certainly!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Then I guess I let the cat out of the bag.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah, I begin to understand!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I thought you’d tumble.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There were two women—exactly alike!”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>“No, goosey! One woman younger than the other, and -looking exactly like her, as <em>she</em> looked before the injury -to her face.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Sisters?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No. Mother and daughter.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And the change in the bath?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Managed with a false bottom and trap exit. The -sort of trick one sees exposed at the Egyptian Hall.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And the daughter took the mother’s place?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Under cover of the incense—and the singing. The -tent held <em>two</em>, you understand.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But Mrs. Van Wacken?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Momma and the other ladies—once the thing had -been proved genuine—were only too anxious to plank -down their money and hop into the wonderful bath. So -they went up to the Theologa, and she blessed them and -laid the five money-bags on the altar, and then——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Then——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Then all the lights went out,” said the Duchess, “and -there was a kind of stampede, and Momma and the four -other ladies found themselves alone in the temple. The -Theologa and the Subject and the hundred members of -the Community who’d sat round on the seats and helped -with the hymns were gone—and the dollar bags had vanished. -The doors of the temple were locked, and Momma -and the four other victims had to stop there until the -morning. An express man heard their cries for help, -broke in the door, and took them to an hotel in his wagon. -Dear, I’m going to toddle to by-by!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It was an awful—awful swindle,” said Lady Sidonia, -as she and the Duchess kissed good-night.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And the exposure!” The Duchess shrugged her -shoulders. “Momma and the other ladies wanted it -hushed, but the police went into the matter.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Were the swindlers arrested?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Theologa was caught at Amsterdam, and extradited. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>The Community got off. Nobody could prove any -of them had had any of the money. I guess,” said the -Duchess, yawning, “Mrs. Gideon J. Swale knows where -it is. But she’s in prison, now, dear. And I hope she -likes it. As for the woman and her daughter, whose likenesses -to each other had been made use of by Mrs. -Gideon—they’re still at large. Good-night.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do tell me,” pressed Lady Sidonia. “That peculiarity -of one finger of the left hand possessed by both -mother and daughter—what was it?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It was,” said the Duchess, “a double nail.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>How</em> odd!” said Lady Sidonia. “My maid has the -same queer deformity, and it is the only thing I don’t -like about her.... She hates to have it noticed.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I guess she does,” said the Duchess.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Look at her hand to-morrow,” said Lady Sidonia. -“It’s awfully queer. Don’t forget.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I won’t,” said the Duchess. “But she won’t be here -to-morrow!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lady Sidonia’s eyes opened to their widest extent. -“Won’t—<em>be here</em>?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No. She is the girl who got out of the bath!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Good heavens!” cried Lady Sidonia. “How do you——Are -you——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I had been shown her photograph by the police—recognized -her the moment I saw her,” said the Duchess. -“I’m not mistaken any, you may be sure. But you -needn’t trouble about her. She’s gone!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Gone!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She was listening at the door, and heard the whole -story. When <em>you</em> spoke about the cat, she made tracks. -She’s clear of this house by now, you may bet your back -teeth. Don’t worry about her,” said the Duchess. “I’ll -send my own maid to you in the morning. Good-night!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE BREAKING PLACE</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><em>Being a letter from Miss Tossie Trilbina, of No. 000, -Giddingham Mansions, W., to the Editor of “The -Keyhole,” an illustrated Weekly Journal of Caterings -for the Curious.</em></p> - -<p class='c011'><span class='sc'>Dear Sir</span>,</p> - -<p class='c009'>Since reserve and reticence can be carried too far by -a lady, I drop the present line of explanation, the newspapers -having took so kind a interest in the differences -between me and Lord Wretchingham. And if poets ask -what’s in a name, the experience of me and many another -young lady whose talent for the Stage, developed by application -and go-aheadness, not to say good luck—for -that there is such a thing must be plain to the stubbornest -person—has made her friends from the Orchestra—(you’d -never guess how the Second Violin can -queer you in an accomp. if you hadn’t experienced it!)—to -the highest row in the Threepenny Gallery at The -Druids, or the shilling one at The Troc.—would answer, -<em>more than people think for</em>!</p> - -<p class='c009'>My poor dear mother, who has been pretty nearly -crazy about the affair, in that shrinking from publicity -which is natural to a lady, told the young gentleman -from <cite>The Keyhole</cite>, who dropped in on her at her little -place at Brixton, to fish and find out for himself why -the marriage-engagement between her daughter and his -lordship should have been broken off on the very verge -of the altar.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Of course, I don’t assume his lordship’s proposal -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>wasn’t a compliment to a young lady in the Profession; -but lordly roofs and music halls may cover vice or shelter -virtue, as one of the serio characters so beautifully said -in the autumn show at dear old Drury Lane, the name -of which has slipped me. And I don’t pretend that -my deepest and holiest feelings were not wrenched a bit -by me having to say in two words, after mutual vows -and presents of the solemnest kind had been exchanged -between me and Lord Wretchingham: “All is over -between you and me for ever, Hildebrand; and if you -possess the mind as well as the manners and appearance -of a gentleman, you will not force me to give you the -definite chuck.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He went on awfully, grinding the heels of his boots -into a brand-new Wilton carpet, and telling me over and -over that I had no heart and never loved him, concerning -which I prefer to keep myself to myself. There -are those that make as much noise when things go wrong -with ’em as a one-and-fourpenny sparking-plug, and -there are others that keep theirselves to theirselves and -suffer in silence, of which I hope I am one. Even supposing -my ancestry did not toddle over with Edward the -Conkeror, which they may, for all I know.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It was on the very first night of the production of <cite>The -Pop-in-Taw Girl</cite>, by the Trust or Bust Theatrical Syndicate, -at the Hiram P. Goff Theatre, W., that Lord -Wretchingham caught my eye. Musical Comedy is my -strongest weakness, for though a principal boy’s part, -with heaps of changes, and electro-calcium with chromatic -glasses for every song and dance touches the -spot, pantomime is not so refined. Perhaps you may recall -the record hits I made in “Freddy’s Flannel Waistcoat -Wilted in the Wash,” and “Lay Your Head on My -Shoulder, Dear.” Not that it’s my habit to refer to my -successes, but the street organs alone will rub it in when -you happen to be the idol of the hour.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>He sat with his mouth wide open—of course, I refer to -Lord Wretchingham—all the time yours truly was on -the stage, and I will say no gentleman could have a more -delicate regard for a young lady’s feelings than his -lordship did in sending a perfect haystack of the most -expensive hothouse flowers addressed to Miss Tossie Trilbina, -with a diamond and turquoise muff-chain twined -round the moss handle of the basket, and not a speck of -address on the card for my poor dear mother to return -the jewelry to, her being over and above particular, I -have often thought, in discouraging attentions that only -sprang from gentlemen’s appreciation of the performance, -and masked nothing the smallest objections could -be taken to.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She quite warmed to Lord Wretchingham, I will say, -when him being respectfully presented by the Syndicate, -and me being recommended fresh country air by the -doctors when suffering from tonsils in the throat, his -lordship placed his motor-car at my disposal. With -poor dear mother invariably in the glass compartment -behind, the tongue of scandal could not possibly find -a handle, and her astonishment when she discovered -that Hildebrand regarded me with a warmer feeling -than that of mere admiration gave her quite a turn.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We were formally engaged—me and Lord Wretchingham. -We kept the thing so dark I cannot think how -the newspapers managed to get hold of it. But a public -favorite must pay the price of popularity in having her -private affairs discussed by the crowd. My poor dear -mother felt it, but there! what can you do? With interviewers -calling same time as the milk, and Press -snap-shotters lurking behind the laurel bushes in the -front garden, is it to be wondered at that Hildebrand’s -family were apprised of our betrothal not only by pars., -but by the publication of our photographs, taken hand-in-hand -on my poor dear mother’s doorstep, with a vine -<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>climbing up behind us, Hildebrand’s motor car, an 18.26 -h. p. “Gadabout,” at the bottom of the doorsteps, with -the French <em>chofore parley-vousing</em> away a good one to -the three Japanese pugs, and poor dear mother, looking -a perfect lady, at her fancy-work, in the front parlor -window. How the negative was obtained, and how it -found its way into all the Illustrated Papers, and particularly -how it got upon the postcards, I don’t pretend -to guess. It’s one of those regular mysteries you come -across in real life.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Hildebrand, or, possibly, as all is over, I should say -Lord Wretchingham’s family, went into perfect fits when -the news of our betrothal leaked out. The Earl of -Blandish, his father, raged like a mad bull; and the -Countess, his mother, implored him on her knees to break -the engagement.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh,” she said, with the tears in her eyes, “my own -boy,” she said, “do not, I beg of you,” she said—for, -of course, I got it all out of Hildebrand afterwards—“show -yourself to be of so weak and unoriginal a cast -of mind as to follow the example of the countless other -young men of rank and property,” she said, “who have -contracted unequal and unhappy unions with young women -on the boards,” she said—and like her classy cheek! -Upon which Lord Wretchingham calmly up and told -her that his word was his bond, and that I had got both; -my poor dear mother having insisted from the beginning -that things should be set down in black and white, -which the spelling of irrevokable almost proved a barrier -the poor dear could not tackle, his education having -been neglected at Eton to that extent.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Me and my poor dear mother being—I don’t mind -telling you on the strict—prepared for a struggle with -Wretchingham’s family, was more than surprised when, -after a Saturday to Monday of anxious expectancy, a -note on plain paper with a coronet stamped in white -<span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>from Lady Blandish informed us that her ladyship had -made up her mind to call. And she kept the appointment -as punctual as clockwork, driving up in a taxi, and -perfectly plainly dressed; and when I made my entrance -in the dearest morning arrangement of Valenciennes -lace and baby ribbon you ever saw, I will say -she met me like a lady should her son’s intended, and -said that Lord Blandish and her had come to the determination -to make the best of their son’s choice, and -invited me down to stay at Blandish Towers, in Huntshire, -when the run of <cite>The Pop-in-Taw Girl</cite> broke off for -the autumn holidays.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh,” I said, “Lady Blandish,” I said, “of course, I -shall be perfectly delighted,” and let her know how -unwilling I felt as a lady to make bad blood between -Lord Wretchingham and his family. “But, of course,” -I said, “my duty to the man who I have vowed to -love and honor leaves me no choice.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear Miss Tossie Trilbina,” she said, “your sentiments -towards Wretchingham do you the utmost -credit,” she said, and I explained to her that though -the surname sounds foreign, there is nothing of the -Italiano-ice-creamo about yours truly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh!” she said, in that sweetly nasty way that the -Upper Ten do seem to have the knack of, “do not -trouble to explain, my dear Miss Trilbina. Lord Blandish -and myself are quite prepared,” she said, “to -accept the inevitable,” she said, and kissed me, and -smiled a great deal at my poor dear mother, who was -explaining to her ladyship that her family did not regard -an alliance with the aristocracy as anything but -a match between equals, and that my education had -been of the most expensive and classy kind you can -imagine. And smiled herself into her taxi, and motored -away.</p> - -<p class='c009'>That was in the middle of the summer season, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>I bespoke my costumes for my visit to my new relations -next day. Of course, I expected a house-party of really -hall-marky, classy swells, and meant to do the honors -and help Lady Blandish to entertain as was my duty -bound. And my shooting and golfing and angling costumes, -and motoring get-up and riding-habit, and tea-gowns -and dinner-dresses and ball-confections, were -a fair old treat to see, and did Madame Battens credit.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Wretchingham drove me down in his 18.26 h.p. “Gadabout,” -with my dresser-maid in the glass case behind, -and an omnibus motor from the garage behind us with -my dressing-baskets, and I thought of poor dear mother -at home, I don’t mind telling you, when the Towers -rose up at the end of an oak avenue longer than Regent -Street, and Wretchingham’s two sisters came running -down the steps to hug their brother and be presented -to their new sister, and the white-headed family butler -threw a glass door open and Wretchingham led me in -between six footmen, bowing, three on each side.</p> - -<p class='c009'>What price poor little me when I heard there wasn’t -any House-Party? Cheap wasn’t the word, with all -those costumes in my dress-baskets. However, I faked -myself up in a frock that I really felt was a credit to -a person of my rank and station, and swam down to -what her ladyship called a “quiet family dinner.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Earl of Blandish came in, leaning on his secretary’s -arm, with a gouty foot, and did the heavy father, -calling me “my dear.” I sat on his lordship’s right -hand, and certainly he was most agreeable, telling me -the black oak carvings in the great hall were by Jacob -Bean, and that the walled garden with a separate division -for every month in the year and a bowling alley in the -middle had been made by a lady ancestor of his who -lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and was a friend -of the person who wrote Shakespeare.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh!” I said, “I suppose,” I said, “in those days -<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>bowls were not considered a low form of amusement. -Though if ever my poor dear mother and father did -have to call words, it would be over his weakness for -bowls and skittles as a waste of time and leading to -betting and drink. And as for Shakespeare, I call it -all very well for literary swells with nothing else to do,” -I said, “but what the Halls cater for is the business -gentleman who drops in with a pal to hear the popular -favorite in a ten-o’clock turn over a cigar and a small -Scotch. And gardening never was much in my line,” I -said, “though when a child it was my favorite amusement -to grow mustard and cress on damp flannel. Hunting -is my passion,” I said, “and as Wretchingham has -told me you keep a first-class stable of hunters and -hacks, besides carriage beasts, I hope to show your lordship -that I shan’t disgrace you,” I said, and asked him -when the next meet would be?</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Earl’s old eyebrows went up to the top of his -aristocratic bald forehead as he said not until October, -and then only for cubbing, and the two girls flushed -up red, trying not to laugh, and wriggled in their chairs, -and Lady Blandish said in her nice nasty way that -every day brought innovations, and one might as well -ride to hounds in August as skate on artificial ice in -May.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And if you are fond of sport,” Lord Blandish said, -“we could possibly find you some fishing. Don’t you -think so, my dear?” and he looked at his wife.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have my salmoning costume with me,” I said, just -to let them know, “and a rod, and everything. And I -suppose Wretchie won’t object,” I said, giving the poor -thing a smile, “to prompt me if I am fluffy in the business.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dear me!” said Lady Blandish, “how stupid of me -not to have explained before,” she said, “that this is a -trouting County and not a salmon County, and that such -<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>trout as there are run very small.” And the two girls -choked again in the most underbred way I ever.</p> - -<p class='c009'>I said I’d fall back on golf, having a killing get-up in -my basket, but there wasn’t a links within miles, Lady -Blandish said, and how sorry she was. All the hot-weather -entertainment she had it in her power to offer -me in their quiet country home, she said, was an occasional -flower-show, or County cricket-match, or a garden-party, -or a friendly dinner with people who were not -<em>too</em> exacting. In September there would be the birds, -but then I would not be there. It was too unfortunate, -she said. Not that her saying so took me in much.</p> - -<p class='c009'>I thought the top of my head would have come off -with yawning that evening, I really did; and when I remembered -that there were three weeks more of it before -me I could have screamed out loud. Me and Wretchingham -went for a spin in his T-cart next morning before -lunch, and that drive settled me in deciding to off it on -the next chance.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Tossie darling,” said the poor dear thing, “it has -gratified my father exceedingly to ascertain,” he said, -“that you are fond of the country; because a condition -of the provision he is willing to make for us when -we are married,” he said—and he would have put his -arm round my waist only the trotter shied—“is that -we reside at the Dower House,” he said, “twenty miles -from here, and lead a healthy life in accordance with -his views as regards what is appropriate for future land-owners -who will one day hold a solid stake in the County. -Of course, you will leave the Stage forever, my darling,” -he said, “as a future Countess of Blandish cannot -figure upon the Lyric Boards,” he said, “without in -some degree compromising her reputation and bringing -discredit upon the family of which,” he said, “she has -become a member. My father will allow us two thousand -<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>a year at first,” he said, “which will enable us -to keep a couple of motor-cars and a hack or two, and -with an occasional week-end in Town, I have no doubt,” -he said, “that our married life will be,” he said, “one -of ideal happiness for both of us. You observe,” he -said, pointing with his whip straight over the trotter’s -ears, “that rather low-pitched stone building of the -Grange description down in that wooded hollow there? -The house is quite commodious,” he said. “You will -appreciate the exceptional garden; and as there is a -good deal of arable land comprised,” he said, “in the -estate, I shall take up farming,” he said, “with enthusiasm.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You may take up farming,” I said haughtily, “with -enthusiasm, dear old boy; but what I say is, you will not -take it up with yours truly! Do you suppose in cold -blood that Tossie Trilbina is the sort of girl to sit down -in the middle of a ploughed field and lead a life of ideal -happiness with a farming husband in gaiters,” I said, -tossing my head, “telling me how the turnips are looking -every evening at dinner, and taking me up to Town -for a week-end,” I said, “every now and then as a treat? -No, Hildebrand,” I said, “clearly understand, much as -I regret to say it, that I am not taking any; and unless -the old gentleman can be brought to see the reason,” -I said, “of a flat in Mayfair, all is over betwixt me -and you, and I shall go back to my poor dear mother -by to-night’s express,” I said, “if the lacerated state of -your feelings does not permit,” I said, “of your taking -the steering-wheel.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Of course, the poor dear thing was dreadfully upset, -and did his little best to bring Lord Blandish to weaken -on his spiteful old determination; and Lady Blandish -said heaps of nice-sounding nasty things, and the two -girls tried to be sympathetic and not to look as if they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>were really ready to jump for joy. But the Earl remained -relentless, and Lord Wretchingham is free. I -must now close. Hoping you will accept this explanation -in the spirit in which it is made,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>I remain, dear Sir, yours respectfully,</div> - <div class='line in28'><span class='sc'>Tossie Trilbina</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span> - <h2 class='c005'>A LANCASHIRE DAISY</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>One of the giant police-constables on duty outside -the Cotton Hall, Smutchester, upon the occasion of the -Conference of the National Union for the Emancipation -of Women Workers, was seized with the spirit of prophecy -when he saw Sal o’ Peg’s borne in, gesticulating, -declaiming, carried head and shoulders above an insurging -wave of beshawled and rampant factory-girls.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Theeaw goes th’ Stormy Pettrill, Tum!” he roared -to a fellow guardian of the public peace. “Neeaw us -be sewer to ha’ trooble wi’ theeay——” He did not add -“tykes.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Thee mun be misteeawken, mon,” urged Tum, who -had newly joined the Smutchester City Division. “’Tis -boh a lil’ feer-feaced gell aw cud braak between ma -finger an’ thoomb lig a staalk o’ celery.” The great blue -eyes of the “lil’ feer-feaced gell” had done execution, -it was plain, and the first speaker, who was a married -man, snorted contemptuously. Sal o’ Peg’s had completely -earned the disturbing nickname bestowed on her. -The courts and alleys of the roaring black city would -vomit angry, white-gilled, heavy-shod men and women at -one shrill, summoning screech of hers. The police-constable -upon whose features she had more recently executed -a clog war-dance was not yet discharged from the -Infirmary, though the seventeen years and fragile proportions -of his assailant had, for the twentieth time, softened -“th’ Beawk” into letting Sal o’ Peg’s off with the -option of a fortnight or a fine, and the threat of being -<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>bound over to keep the peace next time, if she insisted -in being “so naughty.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>With these blushing honors thick upon her, Sal o’ -Peg’s attended the Conference, and became, before the -close of the presidential address, an ardent convert to the -cause of Female Suffrage. During the debate she -climbed a pillar and addressed the meeting, and when, -with immense difficulty, dislodged from her post of vantage, -she took the platform by storm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why, it’s a child!” chorused the delegates from the -different branches of the Union, whose ramifications extend -over the civilized globe, as the small, slim, light-haired -young person in the inevitable shawl, print gown, -and clogs climbed over the brass platform-rail, and, folding -cotton-blouse-clad arms upon a flat, girlish bosom, -stood motionless, composed, even cheerful, in the full -glare of the electric chandelier, and under the full play -of a battery of some two thousand feminine eyes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do let the little darling speak,” begged the Honorary -Secretary of the Chairwoman, who, as a native of -Smutchester, had her doubts. But Sal o’ Peg’s had not -the faintest intention of waiting for permission.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah’m not bit o’ good at long words, gells,” said Sal -o’ Peg’s. “Mappen ah’ll be better ondersteawd wi’oot -’em.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The thunder of clogs in the body of the hall said -“Yes!” She went on: “Wimmin sheawd ha’ th’ Vote. -’Tis theear roight.” (Tremendous clogging, mingled -with shrieks of “Weel seayd, lass! Gie us th’ Vote!”) -She hitched her shawl about her with the factory-girl’s -movement of the shoulders, and went on. “Yo’ll noan -fleg me wi’ yo’re din. Ah’m boh a lil’ un, boh af ha’ -got spunk. If you doubt thot——” A hundred strident -voices from the body of the hall sent back the refrain, -“Ask a pleeceman!” A roar of laughter shook the -roof.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>“Ought we to interfere?” whispered the Honorary -Secretary.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear, why should we?” said a London delegate, -leaning forward to answer. “The girl has got them in -the hollow of her hand. A born leader of women—a -born leader. She voices in her untaught speech the -heart-cry of thousands of her dumb and helpless sisters. -She——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The born leader of women continued:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah dunno whoy ah niver thout o’ it before, but ’tis -a beawrfeaced robbery neawt to gie us th’ Vote. Oor -feythers has it, an’ sells it fur braass.” (Screams, -shrieks, and clogging.) “Oor heawsbands has it, an’ sells -it fur braass.” (Tempestuous applause.) “Oor lads, -theay has it, an’ sells it fur braass. Whoy shouldna’ we -ha’ it, an’ sell it for braass tew?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The enthusiasm with which this brilliant peroration -was received nearly wrecked the Cotton Hall. No more -speeches were heard that night, though several were delivered -in dumb show, and Sal o’ Peg’s awakened upon -the morrow to find her utterances reported in the newspapers. -To the sarcasm of the leader-writer Sal o’ Peg’s -was impervious. She “mun goo t’ Lunnon neixt,” she -said, “an’ leawt them tykes at the Hoose o’ Commeawns -knaw a bit” of her mind. She wasn’t afraid of Prime -Ministers—not she. She called at the branch office of -the Union twice a day, imperatively requesting to be -forwarded as a delegate to the Metropolis. When her -services were declined with thanks, she harangued the -populace from the doorstep. When politely requested -to move on, she broke a window with one clog, and patted -the office-boy violently upon the head with the other. -Then she burst into tears and retired, supported by a -dozen or so of sympathizing comrades of the factory.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“’Tis a beeawrnin’ sheame!” they said, as they fastened -up their chosen representative’s loosened flaxen -<span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>coils with hairpins of the patent explosive kind, contributed -from their own solid braids. “But donnot thee -fret, Sal o’ Peg’s, us’ll ha’ nah dollygeat but thee, sitha -lass!” And they sent the hat round among themselves -with right goodwill. They were not quite sure what a -“dollygeat” was, but thought it was something that -could walk into the House of Commons, defy a Minister -to his nose, dance a clog-dance in the gangway -of the Upper House, and receive in chests and bagsful -all the good money that women had been defrauded of -since the masculine voter first plumped for a consideration; -of that they were “as sure as deeawth.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>So Sal o’ Peg’s gave notice at the factory that, being -thenceforth called to figure upon the arena of political -life, she could not tend frames any longer. She bought -a black sailor straw hat with a portion of the subscribed -fund, and tied up the most cherished articles of her -wardrobe in a blue-spotted handkerchief bundle. She -traveled express to London, choosing a “smoking third,” -as affording atmospherical and social conditions less remote -from her lifelong experience.... The journey -was purely uneventful: a young man of unrestrained -amorous proclivities receiving a black eye, and a young -woman who sneered too openly at the blue-spotted handkerchief -bundle suffering the wreck of a bandbox and -sustaining a few scratches. The guard—alas! for the -frailty of man—being all upon the side of the blue eyes -and flaxen coils of hair....</p> - -<p class='c009'>I suppose the reader knows Pelham’s Inn, W. C., -where are the headquarters of the National Union for -the Emancipation of Working Women? There is no -padding to the armchairs, cocoanut matting of a severe -and rasping character covers the Committee-room -boards; the Committee inkstand is of the zinc office -description (the Committee are not there to be comfortable—just -the reverse). They are busy women of small -<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>spare time and narrow spare means; but when they -found Sal o’ Peg’s sitting on the doorstep, they found -leisure to be kind. They looked at the clogs with pity, -unaware of the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pas seul</span></i> they had performed upon the -countenance of a policeman still in bandages, and the -great blue eyes yearning out of the small pale face, and -the ropes of fair hair tumbling over the shabby shawl -that enfolded the childish figure of the little factory-girl -who had traveled up to London for the sake of the -Cause, won them to practical expression of the sympathy -they felt.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“So different a type to the brawling, violent creature,” -they said, “who nearly caused a riot at the Smutchester -Conference. Her one dream is to see the House -of Commons and speak a word in public for her toiling -sisters of the factories.” And those of them who wore -glasses found them dimmed with the dews of sympathetic -emotion. It was such a touching story, they said, of faith -and enthusiasm and courage.</p> - -<p class='c009'>It is upon the Records of the Nation that the events I -have to relate took place in the Central Hall of the sacred -fane of Westminster between four and five o’clock in the -afternoon, when twenty or thirty ladies, well-known adherents -of the Cause, appeared upon the scene and asked -for Suffrage. It was an act of presumption, almost of -treason, bordering on blasphemy. Still, the arguments -that were not drowned were sound. They were all householders, -taxpayers, earners, and owners of independent -incomes one daring female said, and as the drunken husband -of her charwoman possessed a vote, she thought she -had a right to have one also. The Sergeant-at-Arms instantly -directed a constable to quell her. Another audacious -creature asked for the Vote Qualified. She demanded -that the Suffrage should indeed be given to -women, but only to those women who should, by passing -a viva voce examination on the duties of citizenship, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>prove themselves fit to discharge them.... She was -listened to with some attention until she suggested that -male voters should be subjected to a similar weeding-out -process; upon which a portly inspector bore down upon -her, clasped her in a blue embrace, and carried her, protesting -loudly, down the hall, amidst demonstrations of -intense excitement. Members cried, “Shame!” Members -cried, “Serve her right!” Passing peers put up -eyeglasses and stayed to see the fun. Hustled women -shrieked, “Cowards!” Pushed women cried, “Let us -alone!” Punched women only said, “Owch!” ... It -was freely translated “Wretch!” for the occasion. The -middle-aged and advanced in years met the same treatment -as the younger and more excitable.... All were -unceremoniously expelled by the stalwart beings in blue -from the sacred precincts where such inviolable order -is habitually maintained, and where all the Proprieties -find their permanent home. Crushed headgear, scattered -handbags, and strange derelict fragments of feminine -attire bestrewed the scene of the one-sided fray; -the crowds of sympathizers outside cried, “Boo!” and -waved white flags in defiance as a dozen arrests were -made in a dozen seconds.... And a young woman in -a brown plaid shawl and brass-bound clogs danced with -shoutings upon the pavements of St. Stephen’s Porch, -and while her long, light coils of hair came down and -her hairpins were scattered to the winds of Westminster, -she asked, in the Lancashire dialect, for admittance -to the Bar of the House; for justice for the oppression -and downtrodden; for the blood of Ministers, Peers, and -Members; and for the viscera of the officials who were -their tools. She told the Chancellor of the Exchequer -to come out and bring the Treasury with him; and when -he did not come, she knocked off one policeman’s helmet -and smote another with one of her clogs—<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">toujours</span></i> those -<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>clogs!—upon the nose. Also she relieved a third of half -a whisker, bit another in the hand, kicked them all in -the shins, and generally made history as six police-constables -bore her, shrieking at the full pitch of excellent -lungs, to Blunderbuss Row Police Station.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There were newspaper headlines next day—“Bedlam -Let Loose!” “The Shrieking Sisterhood!” “The Termagant -Spirit!” “No Choice but to Use Force!” The arrested -demonstrators were paraded at the police-court; -the damaged policemen made an imposing show. Tears -choked the utterance of Mr. Vincent Squeers, presiding -magistrate, as he asked: “Were thee, indeed, women -who had abraded the features, discolored the eyes, -bruised the shins, and plucked the whiskers from the -gallant constables who stood before him? Nay, but Mænads, -Bacchantes, priestesses of savage rites, unsexed -Amazons—in two words, emancipated females!” He -found a melancholy relief in imposing a fine that had -no precedent in cases of brawling, or fourteen days’ imprisonment. -He should not be surprised to hear that -these hunters after vulgar notoriety preferred to go to -Holloway, to luxuriate on prison fare, enjoy calm, undeserved -repose on straw beds, and clothe their unregenerate -limbs with the drab garments generously provided -by the nation.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But there is one among you,” cried Mr. Vincent -Squeers, “who has been innocently led away by your -pernicious example, but whom the spirit of Justice, that -dwells in the bosom of every Englishman, that hovers, -genius-like, above this Bench to-day”—the chief clerk -hastily produced a white handkerchief, and the reporters -shook freedom into the flow of their Geyser pens—“will -stretch forth a hand to protect and to aid. I speak of -this simple, artless child....” A police-constable felt -his nose, and another groped for his missing whisker -<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>as Sal o’ Peg’s stood up in the dock. “Lured from her -humble home, from her laborious employment, from her -upright-minded, honest associates, by these immodest and -unwomanly women, cast a stranger upon the streets of -London, this simple country blossom, wilting in the -atmosphere tainted by habitual vice and common crime, -appeals to the chivalry of every honest man who ever -had a mother”—the chief clerk was carried from the -court in hysterics—“ay, to the pity of every woman -who is not bereft of that heavenly attribute.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Sheawt opp, thee donowt owd hosebird!” said Sal o’ -Peg’s. “Dosta think ah niver weur in a teawzle in th’ -streeawts or a skirmidge wi’ th’ police afeore? Dustha -see th’ pickle theam girt big cheawps is in? If theay -saay theay got theawee scratts an’ sogers fra’ eany -wench but Sal o’ Peg’s, they be leears aw! Sitha? An’ -as to yon weumen an’ lasses, yo ca’ baad neams, I ha’ -nowt o’ truck wi’ they. I coom to Lunnon as a dollygeat -fra myseln. Sitha?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The child speaks only the roughest dialect of her -native Lancashire,” continued Mr. Vincent Squeers, -“which, I own, I am unable to comprehend. How could -the hapless young creature understand the poisonous -shibboleth poured into her ears by the abandoned sisterhood -whose leading evil spirits are now before me? They -have denied all knowledge of or connection with her”—(as -indeed they had)—“her who stands here—oh, shame -and utter disgrace!—in the dock of a police court as a -result of their vile and treacherous usage in dragging -her from her home. She is sufficiently punished by this -outrage upon that innate modesty which is as the bloom -upon the peach, the—er, ah!—dew upon the daisy. Fined -three-and-sixpence, and I will order that the same be -discharged out of the Court poor-box. The Missionary -will now take charge of the poor young creature, who -will, I trust—ah!—be returned to her sorrowing family -<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>in the course of the next twenty-four hours. Good-day, -my dear child—good-day!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>A clog whizzed from the dock and hit the paneling -behind the Bench. The Magistrate looked another way, -the constables coughed behind their large white gloves -as Sal o’ Peg’s, weeping bitterly, was led away by the -Court Missionary, a bearded person in rusty black, with -a felt pudding-basin hat and a soiled white necktie. -Robbed of the glory of battle, denied her meed of acknowledgment -for doughty deeds achieved, bereft of her -Amazonian reputation, Sal o’ Peg’s felt that life was -“scarcelin’s weath livin’.” And the afternoon newspapers -administered the final blow. Every leader-writer -shed tears of pure ink over the child lured from home, -the “daisy with the dew upon it” sprouted in a dozen -paragraphs. Only in Smutchester there was Homeric -jest and uproarious laughter. The girls of the cotton-mills, -the policemen of the Lower Town—these knew -their Sal o’ Peg’s, and were loud in their appreciation -of the satiric humor of the London newspapers. The -Missionary did not see his precious charge into the train -for Smutchester; a clergyman’s daughter, who had come -into accidentally compromising relations with an American -gentleman’s diamond evening solitaire and “wad” -of bank-notes, urgently required his ministrations. So -a burly police-constable, with one whisker and a sore -place on the denuded cheek, performed the charitable -office. In the four-wheeler, turning into the Euston -Road, Sal o’ Peg’s said suddenly:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Thoo wastna’ sheaved this mearnin’, lad?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I ’adn’t no time, for one thing,” said the police-constable -sulkily; “an’ for another, I ’ad to keep this -whisker on as evidence that you’d pulled out the other. -And a lot o’ good evidence does when Old Foxey”—this -was the nickname bestowed upon Mr. Vincent -Squeers by the staff of the Court—“’as made up ‘is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>mind not to listen to it.” He rubbed the remaining -whisker thoughtfully.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Eh, laad, laad!” cried Sal o’ Peg’s, bursting into -tears and falling upon the neck of the astonished police-constable, -“but theaw knows ah did it. Theaw said sa -just neaw. Eh, laad, laad!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Are you a-crying?” asked the police-constable, over -whose blue tunic meandered the heavy twists of fair hair -which invariably tumbled down under stress of Sal o’ -Peg’s emotion. “Are you a-crying because you’re sorry -you pulled out my whisker, or glad as that you did it? -Which?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sal o’ Peg’s lifted radiant, tearful blue eyes to the -burly police-constable’s, which were little and piggish, -but twinkling with something more than mere reproof.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah be gleawd,” said Sal o’ Peg’s simply.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Very well,” said the police-constable, who was not -only a man after all, but a bachelor. He put a large -blue arm round the slim little figure of the war-goddess. -“You’ve ’ad my whisker; <em>I’ll</em> ’ave a kiss.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Teawk it, laad,” said Sal o’ Peg’s.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Hitherto, in her short but vivid experience of life, -policemen had occupied a different plane, moved in another -sphere. They were beings to dodge, defy, jeer at, -and punch when you could get them down. Flowerpots -were kept on window-sills of upper floors expressly -for dropping on their helmets. She had danced upon -the upturned face of one, given another a swollen nose, -distributed bites and shin-kicks impartially among others. -This Lunnon one had kissed her for pulling out his -whisker. She looked at him with melting eyes. The -hitherto impregnable bastion of her heart was taken—and -by a member of the Force.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When tha dost sheave, laad, send tha whisker to Ah -by peawst. Th’ address be Sal o’ Peg’s, Briven’s -Buildin’s, Clog Ceawrt, East Side, Smutchester!”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>“I won’t <em>send</em> it, you pretty little bit o’ frock,” said -the enamored police-constable. “I’ll wait till my next -leave an’——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Breng it <em>then</em>, laad,” sighed Sal o’ Peg’s.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span> - <h2 class='c005'>A PITCHED BATTLE</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The great Maestro sat at the piano, a small, square -instrument. Upon it were piles of music, a bottle of -Rhine wine, half emptied, a cup of black coffee, a plate -of sliced garlic sausage, and a roll of black bread, peppered -outside with aniseed. A bottle of ink was balanced -on the music-desk, a blotted scroll of paper obscured -the yellowed keyboard. As the great composer -worked at the score of his new opera, he breakfasted, -taking draughts from the bottle, bites of sausage and -bread, and sips of coffee at discretion. He was a quaint, -ungainly figure, with vivacious eyes, and his ill-fitting -auburn wig had served him, like the right lapel of his -plaid dressing-gown, for a pen-wiper for uncounted -years.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Maestro was not alone in the dusty studio to -which so many people, both of the great and little -worlds, sought entrance in vain. An olive-skinned youth, -shabbily dressed in a gray paletot over a worn suit of -black—a young fellow of sixteen, with a square, shaggy -black head and a determined chin, the cleft in which -was rapidly being hidden by an arriving beard—leaned -against a music-stand crammed with portly volumes, -his dark eyes anxiously fixed upon the old gentleman -at the piano, who dipped in the ink and wrote, and -wrote, and dipped in the ink, occasionally laying down -the pen to strike a chord or two, in seeming forgetfulness -of his visitor.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Suddenly the Maestro’s face beamed with a cheerful -smile.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>“There, mon cher Gladiali!” He handed the newly-written -sheet of music to the boy, and spread his wrinkled -fingers above the keys. “This is the great aria-solo -I spoke of. Sing that at sight—your training should -make such a task an easy one—and let us see what stuff -you are made of. <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Allons!</span></i>” And he struck the opening -chord.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Carlo Gladiali turned pale and then red. He crossed -himself hastily, grasped the sheet of paper, cast his eyes -over it anxiously, and, meeting with a smiling glance -the glittering old eyes of the Maestro, he inflated his -deep chest and sang. A wonderful tenor voice poured -from his boyish throat; heart and soul shone in his eyes -and thrilled in his accents. Tears of delight dropped -upon the piano-keys and upon the hands of the composer, -and when the last pure note soared on high and swelled -and sank, and the song ceased, the old musician cried: -“Thou art a treasure! Come, let me embrace thee!” -and clasped the young singer to his breast. “Once -more, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mon fils</span></i>—once more!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And as he seated himself at the piano, sweeping the -plate of sausage into the wastepaper-basket with a flourish -of the large, snuff-stained yellow silk handkerchief -with which he wiped his eyes, the door, which had been -left ajar, was flung open, and a little dark-eyed, fair-haired -girl, who carried a Pierrot-doll, ran quickly into -the room.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Marraine brought me; she is panting up the stairs -because she is so fat and they are so steep. Oldest -Papa——” she began; but the Maestro held up his hand -for silence as the song recommenced. More assurance -was in Carlo’s phrasing; the flexibility and brilliancy -of his voice were no longer marred by nervousness. As -the solo reached its triumphant close, the Maestro said, -slapping the boy on the back and taking a gigantic -pinch of snuff:</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>“The Archangel Gabriel might have done better. -Aha!” He turned, chuckling, to the little girl, who -stood on one leg in the middle of the narrow room, -pouting and dangling her Pierrot. “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La petite</span></i> there is -jealous. Is it not so?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oldest Papa, you make a very big mistake!” returned -the little maiden, pouting still more. “I am not -jealous of anybody in the world—least of all, a boy -like that!” Her dark eyes rested contemptuously on -the big, shy, square-headed fellow in the gray paletot.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A boy, she calls him!” chuckled the Maestro. “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ma -mignonne</span></i>, he is sixteen—six years older than thyself! -Hasten to grow up, become a great <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">prima donna</span></i>, and -he shall sing Romeo to thy Juliette—I predict it!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I had rather sing with my cat!” observed the little -lady rudely.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Carlo flushed crimson; the Maestro chuckled; and a -stout lady who had followed her, panting, into the room, -murmured, “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Oh! la méchante!</span></i>” adding, as the Maestro -rose to greet her: “But she grows more incorrigible -every day. This morning she pulled the feathers out of -Coco’s tail because he whistled out of tune.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The elfin face of the small sinner dimpled into mischievous -smiles.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But that was not being as wicked as the Maestro, -who got angry at rehearsal, and hit the flute-player on -the head with his <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bâton</span></i>, so that it raised a hump. You -told me that yourself, and how the Maestro——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Quite true, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">petite</span></i>; I did fetch him a rap, I promise -you, and afterwards I put bank-notes for a hundred -francs on the lump for a plaster. But come, now, sing -to me, and we will give Signor Carlo here something -worth hearing. <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Écoutez, mon cher!</span></i>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Very well, I will sing; but, first, Pierrot must be -comfortably seated. That little armchair is just what -he likes!” And, as quick as thought, the willful little -<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>lady tilted a pile of music out of the little armchair -upon the floor. Then she placed Pierrot very carefully -in his throne, and, bidding him be very good and listen, -because his <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bonne petite Maman</span></i> was going to sing him -something pretty, she tripped to the piano, and demurely -requested the aged musician to accompany her -in the Rondo of “Sonnambula.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Ah! what a miraculous voice proceeded from that -small, willful throat! Stirred to the depths by the extraordinary -power and beauty of the child’s delivery, -Carlo Gladiali listened enthralled; and when the last -notes rippled from the pretty red lips of the now demure -little creature, the big boy, forgetting her rudeness -and his own shyness, started forward, and, sinking on -one knee and seizing the small hand of the child-singer, -he kissed it impulsively, crying: “Ah, Signorina, you -were right, a thousand times! Compared with you, I -sing like a cat!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, no! I did not mean to say that!” the tiny lady -was beginning graciously, when the Maestro broke in:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You both sing like cherubs and say civil things to -one another. One day you will sing like angels—and -quarrel like devils! Please Heaven, you will both make -your <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">début</span></i> under my <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bâton</span></i>, and then, if I crack a flute-player’s -head, it will be for joy.”</p> - -<hr class='c013' /> - -<p class='c009'>Ten years had elapsed. Carlo Gladiali had risen to -pre-eminence as a public singer, had attained the prime -of his powers and the apogee of his fame. Courted, -fêted, and adored, the celebrated tenor, sated with success, -laden with gifts, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">blasé</span></i> with admiration, retained -a few characteristics that might remind those who had -known and loved him in boyhood of the ingenuous, -honest, simple Carlo of ten years ago.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Certainly Carlo’s jealousy of the <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">prima donna</span></i> who -should dare to usurp a greater share of the public plaudits -<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>than he himself received was childish in its unreasonableness, -and Othello-like in its tragic intensity.</p> - -<p class='c009'>At first, he would join in the compliments, and smile -patronizingly as he helped the successful <em>débutante</em> to -gather up the bouquets. Then his admiration would -cool; he would tolerate, endure, then sneer, and finally -grind his teeth. He would convey to the audience over -one shoulder that they were idiots to applaud, and wither -the triumphant <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cantatrice</span></i> with a look of infinite contempt -over the other. He had been known to feign -sleep in the middle of a great soprano aria which, against -his wish, had been encored. He had—or it was malevolently -reputed so—bribed the hotel waiter to place a -huge dish of macaroni, dressed exquisitely and smoking -hot, in the way of a voracious contralto who within two -hours was to essay for the first time the arduous rôle -of Brynhild. The macaroni had vanished, the contralto -had failed to appear. Numerous were the instances similar -to these recorded of the tenor Gladiali, and repeated -in every corner of the opera-loving world.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But it was in London, where the great singer was -“starring” during the Covent Garden Season of 19—, -that the haughty and intolerant Carlo was to meet his -match.</p> - -<p class='c009'>At rehearsal one morning, Rebelli, the famous basso, -said to Gladiali, with a twinkle: “A new ‘star’ has -dawned on the operatic horizon. La Betisi, the pretty -little soprano with the fiend’s temper and the seraph’s -voice, has created a furore at Rome and Milan. She will -‘star’ over here in her successful rôles. I have it from -the impresario himself.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ebbene!</span></i>” Carlo shrugged his shoulders and smiled -with superb patronage. “We shall be very glad to welcome -the little one.... Artists should know how to -value genius in others.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How well you always express things!” said Rebelli, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>grinning. “She is to sing Isolina in ‘Belverde’ on the -10th. The Spanish <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">prima donna</span></i> has broken her contract. -As Galantuomo, you will have an excellent opportunity -of judging of her talents,” he added, as he -turned away, “and scowling at the lady.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>But Carlo did not scowl at first. He was all engaging -courtesy and cordial welcome at the first rehearsal, when -he was presented ceremoniously to a tiny little lady -with willful dark eyes, pouting scarlet lips, and hair as -golden as her own Neapolitan sunshine. She vaguely -reminded the tenor of somebody he had seen before.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Maestro is coming from Naples to conduct,” -he heard Rebelli say. “He vowed that La Betisi should -make her <em>début</em> under no <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bâton</span></i> save his own. Her rôle -will be Isolina in his ‘Belverde,’ in which, you know, she -created such a sensation at La Scala.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And you, Signor, are to sing the great part of Galantuomo -in the ‘Belverde’?” said the Betisi demurely to -Gladiali. “This time I will not say, ‘<em>I had rather sing -with my cat!</em>’”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Carlo started. Yes; there was no mistaking the willful -mouth and the flashing defiant eyes. The little girl -who had sung so divinely in the Maestro’s dusty room -ten years ago was the new operatic “star.” But he -was not jealous of the Betisi as yet. He said the most -exquisite things—as only an Italian can say them—and -bowed over her hand.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Signorina has fulfilled the glorious promise of -her childhood and the prophecy of the Maestro,” he -said. “She who once sang like a cherub now sings like -an angel. I am dying to hear you!” he added.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah!” cried the Betisi with a little trill of laughter, -“if you are dying now, what will you do afterwards?” -The speech might have meant much or nothing, and, -though Carlo Gladiali winced a little, he made no comment.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>A few rehearsals later a cloud of snuff enveloped him, -and he was clasped in the arms of a brown great-coat -of antique design. Add, above, a gray woolen comforter -and a traveling cap with ear-pieces, and, below, a pair -of green trousers, ending in cloth boots with patent-leather -toecaps, and you have the portrait of the Maestro -in traveling costume.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Heaven be praised, my dear Carlino, that I have lived -to see this day!... Have you renewed acquaintance -with my little witch, my enchanted bird, my drop of -singing-water? Embrace, my children; your Maestro -wishes it!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And Gladiali touched the cheek of Emilia Betisi with -his lips. Her sparkling eyes looked mockingly into his. -Then the Maestro, who spoke not a word of English, -scrambled to the conductor’s chair, and commenced to -harangue the musicians who constituted the orchestra -in a fluent conglomeration of several other languages, -and the rehearsals of “Belverde” began.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The new soprano and the new opera made an instantaneous -and unparalleled “hit.” Carlo helped to -pick up La Betisi’s bouquets, and made a pretty speech -to her at the final descent of the curtain. But his heart -was not in his eyes or on his lips.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Upon the second representation, he yawned in the -middle of Isolina’s great aria, and he openly sneered at -the audience for encoring the song three times. In the -last Act, in the Garden Scene, which offered the principal -opportunity for the display of the new <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">prima donna’s</span></i> -art, Carlo sucked jujubes, and openly wore one in his -cheek while receiving, as Galantuomo, from the maddened -Isolina the most feverish protestations of love. -He noted something more than feigned frenzy in the -flaming black eyes of the Betisi at this juncture, and, -somewhat unwisely, permitted himself to smile. Next -moment he received a deep scratch upon the cheek, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>which tingled for a moment, then bled copiously, obliging -the tenor to sing the final Romanza with a handkerchief -to his face.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Convey to Signor Gladiali my profoundest apologies,” -said the Betisi to her dresser. “He will really -think that he was singing a duet with a cat! But the -next performance goes better.” Her dark eyes gleamed, -her red lips smiled. She thirsted for the second representation.</p> - -<p class='c009'>So did Carlo. He had thought out a few little things -calculated to drive a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cantatrice</span></i> to the pitch of desperation. -For instance, at the second encore of her great -song, separated only by a duet from <em>his</em> great song in -the First Act, he would fetch a chair and sit down. -Aha!</p> - -<p class='c009'>But—whether his intention had leaked out through -Rebelli, to whom in a moment of champagne he had -confided it, or whether the Betisi was in league with demons, -let it be decided—it was she who fetched, not a -chair, but a three-legged stool, and sat down on it in -the middle of his first encore. And so charming an air -of patience did she assume, and so genuine seemed her -pity for the deluded public who had redemanded the -song, that Signor Carlo, who wore a strip of black Court -plaster on one cheek, nearly had an apoplexy. He -meant to eat jujubes through <em>her</em> great song, but the -Betisi was prepared. She produced a box and offered -them to him, singing all the while more brilliantly than -she had ever sung before; and when the house rose at -her in rapture and demanded an encore, she tripped -and fetched the three-legged stool and gave it, with a -triumphant curtsey, to the foaming Galantuomo. And -the crowded house roared with delight.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But the punishment of Carlo came in the Second Act. -In the celebrated Garden Scene, where slighted love -drives Isolina into temporary madness, she not only -<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>scratched her Galantuomo on the other cheek, but pulled -his wig off. And in the crowning scene, where Isolina -reveals herself as the daughter of the King, and summons -the Court to witness the humiliation of Galantuomo -by beating on a gong which is suspended from a tree, -came the Betisi’s great opportunity. Running through -the most difficult passages of the arduous <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">scena</span></i> with the -greatest nonchalance, disposing of octaves, double octaves, -and ranging from <em>sol</em> to <em>si</em>-flat in the violin-clef -with the utmost ease, she electrified and enthralled her -hearers; and, in the <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">gusto</span></i> of singing, when the moment -arrived for striking on the gong previously referred to, -she missed the instrument, and struck the tenor violently -upon the nose. The unfortunate organ attained pantomimic -dimensions within the few minutes that ensued -subsequently to the delivery of the blow and previous -to the falling of the curtain, and I have heard was -favored by the gallery with a special call.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Alas, Signor Carlo, I know not how to express my -regret!... I was carried away...” faltered the Betisi, -as with secret triumph and feigned remorse she -looked upon the tenor’s swollen nose.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Carlo gave her a passionate glance over it. As it had -enlarged, so had his heart and his understanding; he -saw his enemy beautiful, triumphant—a Queen of Song. -He was conquered and her slave.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Never mind my nose,” he said generously. “I am -beaten, fairly beaten, and with my own weapons. You -are a clever woman, Signora, and a great singer. Permit -me to take your hand.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There,” she said, and gave it. “And you, Signor, -are a magnificent artist, though I have sometimes thought -you a stupid man. What is it but stupidity—<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Dio!</span></i>” -she cried, “to be jealous of a woman of whom one is not -even the lover or the husband?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Give me the right to be jealous,” said Carlo the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>tenor. “Make me one and the other! Marry me, Emilia. -I adore you!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>An atmosphere of snuff and mildew enveloped them, -as the Maestro, the date and design of whose evening -dress-suit baffled the antiquarian and enraptured the caricaturist, -embraced both the tenor and the soprano in -rapid succession.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Aha! <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Mes enfants</span></i>, am I not a true prophet?” he -cried. “<em>Hasten to grow up</em>, I said to the little one ten -years ago, <em>and Carlo there shall one day sing Romeo to -thy Juliet</em>.” He embraced them again. “You sing like -angels—you quarrel like devils! Heaven intended you -for one another. Be happy!” And the Maestro blessed -the betrothed lovers with a sprinkling of snuff.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE TUG OF WAR</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Men invariably termed her “a sweet woman.” Women -called her other things.</p> - -<p class='c009'>What was she like? Of middle height and “caressable,” -with a rounded, supple figure, exquisitely groomed -and got up! Her golden hair would have been merely -brown, if left to Nature. It came nearly to her eyebrows -in the dearest little rings, and was coaxed into -the loveliest of coils and waves and undulations. Her -eyes were lustrous hazel, her eyelashes and eyebrows -as nearly black as perfect taste allowed. Her cheeks -were of an ivory pallor, sometimes relieved with a faint -sea-shell bloom. Her features were beautifully cut, inclining -to the aquiline in outline. Her voice was low -and tender, especially when she was saying the sort of -thing that puts a young fellow out of conceit with the -girl he is engaged to, and makes the married man wonder -why he threw himself away. Why he was such -an infuriated ass, by George! as to beg and pray Clara -to marry him ten years ago, and buy a new revolver -when she said it was esteem she felt for him, not love. -Why Fate should ordain just at this particular juncture -that he should encounter the one woman, by jingo! -the only woman in the world who had ever really understood -and sympathized with him! It was Mrs. Osborne’s -vocation to make men of all grades, ranks, and ages -ask this question. She had followed her chosen path in -life with enthusiasm, let us say, collecting scalps, with -here and there a little shudder of pity, and here and there -a little smart of pain. Fascination, exercised almost involuntarily, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>was to her, as to the cobra, the means of -life. Not in a vulgar sense, because the late Colonel -Osborne had left his widow handsomely provided for. -But the excitement of the sport, the keen delight of -capturing new victims—bringing the quarry boldly down -in the open, or setting insidious snares, pitfalls, and traps -for the silly prey to blunder into—these joys the huntress -knows who sharpens her arrows and weaves her webs -for Man.</p> - -<p class='c009'>I have said—or hinted—that other women did not -love Mrs. Osborne. Knowing, as they did, that the -lovely widow frankly despised them, her own sex responded -by openly declaring war. They knew her -strength, and never attacked her save in bands. Yet, -strange to say, the invincible Mrs. Osborne was never so -nearly worsted as in a single-handed combat to which -she was challenged by a mere neophyte—“a chit”—as, -had she lived in the eighteenth instead of the twentieth -century, the fair widow would have termed Polly Overshott.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Polly’s real name was Mariana, but, as everyone in -the county said, Polly seemed more appropriate. Sir -Giles Overshott had no other child, and sometimes seemed -not to regret this limitation of his family circle. Lady -Overshott had been dead some five years when the story -opens, and Sir Giles was beginning to speak of himself -as a widower, which to experienced ears means much.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The estate of Overshott Foxbrush was a fine one, unencumbered, -and yielding a handsome rent-roll. It was -understood that Polly would have nearly everything. -She had consented in the most daughterly manner to -become engaged to the eldest son of a county neighbor, -a young gentleman with whom she was very much in love, -Costebald Ianson Smithgill, commonly known as “Cis” -Smithgill, his united initials forming the caressing little -name. He was six feet high, and had a bass voice with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>treble inflections, which he was training for a parliamentary -career. He had, until the demise of an elder -brother removed him from the service of his country, held -a lieutenancy in the Guards. As to his family, who -does not know that the Smithgills are a family of extreme -antiquity, descended from that British Princess -and daughter of Vortigern who drank the health of Hengist, -proffering the Saxon General the mead-horn of welcome -when he first set his conquering foot on British -soil? Who does not know this, knows nothing. The -mead-horn is said to be enclosed in the masonry of the -eldest portion of Hengs Hall, the family seat in the -country of Mixshire, where, of course, the scene of our -story is laid. And Polly and Cis had been engaged -about two months when Mrs. Osborne took The Sabines, -and was called on by the county, because Osborne had -been the cousin of an Earl, and she herself came of a -very good family. You don’t want any name much -better than that of Weng. And Mrs. Osborne came of -the Wengs of Hollowshire.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She took The Sabines for the sake of her health, which -required country air. It was an old-fashioned, square -Jacobean house of red brick faced with stone, and it -boasted a yew walk, the yews whereof had been wrought -by some long-moldered-away tree-clipper into arboreal -representatives of the Rape of the Sabines. That avenue -was one of the lions of the county, and every fresh -tenant of the place had to bind him or herself, under -fearful penalties, to keep the Sabine ladies and their -abductors properly clipped.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Osborne was destitute of the faculty of reverence, -Lady Smithgill of Hengs said afterwards. Because early -in June, when she drove over to call—it would not become -even a Smithgill to ignore a Weng of Hollowshire—upon -turning a curve in the avenue so as to command -the house, the lawn, and the celebrated Yew Tree Walk, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>the new tenant of The Sabines, exquisitely attired in a -Paris gown and carrying a marvelous guipure sunshade, -appeared to view; Sir Giles Overshott was with her, and -the lady and the baronet were laughing heartily.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mrs. Osborne <em>simply shrieked</em>,” Lady Smithgill said -afterwards, in confidence to a few dozen dear friends; -“and Sir Giles was quite purple—that unpleasant shade, -don’t you know?</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It turned out that they were amusing themselves -at the expense of The Sabines. I looked at her, and I -fancy I showed my surprise at her want of taste.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘We think a great deal of them in the county,’ I -said, ‘and Sir Giles can tell you how severe a censure -would be pronounced by persons of taste upon the tenant -who was so audacious as to deface or so careless as to -neglect them, or even, ignorantly, to make sport of them.’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“At that Sir Charles became a deeper shade, almost -violet, and she uncovered her eyes and smiled. I think -somebody has told her she resembled Bernhardt in her -youth.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘Dear Lady Smithgill,’ she said, or rather cooed (and -those cooing voices are so irritating!), ‘depend on it, -I shall make a point of keeping them in the most <em>perfect</em> -condition. To be obliged to pay a forfeit to my landlord -would be a nuisance, but to be censured by persons of -taste residing in the county, that would be quite insupportable.’ -Then she rang for tea, and there were eight -varieties of little cakes, which must have been sent down -from Buszard’s, and a cut-glass liqueur bottle of rum -upon the tray. ‘Do you take rum?’ she had the audacity -to ask me. I did not stoop to decline verbally, but -shook my head slightly, and she gave me another of -<em>those smiles</em> and passed on the rum. Sir Charles brought -it me, and I waved it away, <em>speechless</em>, absolutely speechless, -at the monstrosity of the idea.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She overwhelmed me with apologies, of course.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>“And both Sir Giles—who, I regret to see, is constantly -there—and Sir Costebald, who has <em>once</em> called—consider -her a sweet woman. But—think me foreboding -if you will—I <em>cannot</em> feel that county Society has -an acquisition in Mrs. Osborne.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Papa goes to The Sabines rather often,” said Polly -Overshott, when it came to her turn to be the recipient -of Lady Smithgill’s confidence. “He does say that Mrs. -Osborne is a sweet woman, and he is helping her to choose -some brougham horses. He says the pair she brought -down are totally unfit for country roads. And as for -the rum, she offered it to me. Colonel Osborne held a -post in the Diplomatic Service at Berlin, and Germans -drink it in tea, and I rather like it, though a second -cup gives you a headache afterwards.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mary!” screamed Miss Overshott’s mamma-in-law -elect, who had effected this compromise between Polly -and Mariana.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As regards The Sabines,” Polly went on, “we have -bowed down before them for years and years, and we -shall go on doing it, but they are absurd all the same. -So are our lead groups and garden temples at Overshott—awfully -absurd——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I suppose you include our Saxon buttress and Roman -pavement at Hengs in the catalogue of absurdities,” -said Lady Smithgill icily. “Fortunately, Sir -Costebald is not a widower, or they might stand in some -danger of being swept away. At the present moment, -let me tell you, Mary, your lead figures and garden -temples are far from secure. That woman leads your -father by the nose—twines him round her little finger. -Cis tells me——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What does Cis know about it?” said Polly, flushing -to the temples.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Cis is a man of the world,” said Lady Smithgill. -“But at the same time he is a dutiful son. He tells -<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>everything to his mother. It seems—Cis personally -vouches for the truth of this—that Sir Giles is constantly -at The Sabines—in fact, every day.... He is dressed -for conquest, it would appear.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Cis or Papa?” asked Polly, with feigned innocence.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Sir Giles wears coats and neckties that would be condemned -as showy if worn by a bridegroom,” said Lady -Smithgill rapidly. “He is perfumed with expensive extracts, -and his boots must be torture, Cis says, knowing -all one does know of the Overshott tendency to gout. -He never removes his eyes from Mrs. Osborne, laughs -to idiocy at everything she says, and simply <em>lives</em> in the -corner of the sofa next her. He monopolizes the conversation. -Nobody else can get in a word, Cis tells me.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Since when did Cis begin to be jealous?” said Polly -under her breath.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I did not quite catch your remark,” returned Lady -Smithgill. “By the way, Mary, I hope you will wear -those pearls as often as you can. They require air, sunshine, -and exercise.... I contracted my chronic rheumatic -tendency thirty years ago through sitting in the -garden with them on. For days together Sir Costebald’s -mother used to <em>skip</em> in them upon the terrace, but I -never went as far as that.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The pearls—what pearls?” asked Polly vaguely.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dear Mary, when a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fiancé</span></i> makes a gift of such beauty—to -say nothing of its value—and the strings were originally -purchased for two thousand pounds—it is customary -for the recipient to exhibit a <em>little</em> appreciation,” -Lady Smithgill returned.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Appreciation!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of course you thanked Cis, my dear. I never doubted -that. But there, we will say no more....”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Polly’s blue eyes flashed. She rose up; she had ridden -over to the Hall alone, and her slight upright figure -looked its best in a habit.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>“I should like to say a little more.” She put up -her hand and unpinned her hat from her close braids -of yellow-gold, and tossed the headgear into a neighboring -chair. “Dear Lady Smithgill, Cis has not given -me any pearls. Perhaps he has sent them to Bond Street -to be cleaned——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Cleaned! They are in perfect condition.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Or—or perhaps he has given them to some one else. -I have seen very little of Cis lately,” Polly ended. “But -Papa tells me that he is a good deal at The Sabines. -Papa seemed to find him as much in the way as ... as -Cis found Papa. And—her new kitchenmaid is the sister -of our laundrywoman, and a report reached me that -she had lately been wearing some magnificent pearls.... -I thought nothing of it at the time, but now....”</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was a snorting gasp from Lady Smithgill. All -had been made clear. Her double chin trembled, and -her eyes went wild.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mary!” she cried.... “I have been blind! My boy—my -infatuated boy! That woman has a positively -fiendish power over men.... She will enslave—ensnare -Cis as she has done your father and dozens of -others. Oh! my dear, there are stories.... She is -relentless. The Sowersea’s second son, De la Zouch -Sowersea, is now driving a cab in Melbourne, and the -Countess attributes everything to her. At Berlin—where -her husband had a diplomatic appointment, and -she learned to offer refined English-women rum in their -tea—there were worse scandals—agitations, duels! Now -my son is in peril. Save him, Mary! Do something -before it is too late!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I can hardly drop in at The Sabines—say I have -called for my property, and take Cis and Papa away,” -said Polly, her short upper lip quivering with pain and -anger. “But I will think over what is best to be done. -In the meantime do not worry Cis. Leave him to go his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>way. We need not be too nervous. He and Papa will -keep an eye upon each other,” she ended.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You know more of this than you have told me,” -poor Lady Smithgill gasped. “There are scandals in -the air—people are talking—about my boy and that woman! -Why did she ever come here?” the unhappy lady -murmured. “I said from the first that she would be no -acquisition to the county!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Polly’s cob, Kiss-me-Quick, came round, and Polly took -leave. She had warm young blood in her veins, and an -imperious temper of her own, and to be asked to “do -something” to add a fresh access of caloric to the obviously -cooling temperature of one’s betrothed is not flattering. -Yes, she had suspected before; yes, she had -known more than she had told the proprietress of the -agitated double chin and the agitated maternal feelings. -Sir Giles had betrayed Cis as unconsciously as he had -betrayed himself. “Really, Poll, I think you ought to -keep the young man better to heel,” he had said. “He -means no harm, but Mrs. Osborne is a dangerously fascinating -woman, and a woman of that type possesses advantages -over a girl. And, of course, I don’t suggest -anything in the nature of disloyalty to yourself—Cis is -the soul of honor and all that. But to see an engaged -young fellow sitting on footstools, and lying on the grass -at the feet of a pretty woman—who doesn’t happen to be -the <em>right one</em>—turning up his eyes at her like a dying -duck in a thunderstorm—by George!—irritates me. He -is always in Mrs. Osborne’s pocket, and one never can -get a word with her alone—I mean, nobody is allowed -to usurp her attention for an instant. And here is the -key to the Crackle-Room, since you are asking for it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And Sir Giles handed his daughter the key in question, -a slim, rusty implement belonging to the showroom -of Overshott, an octagonal boudoir, periodically -dusted and swept by the housekeeper’s reverent hands, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>but otherwise untouched, since Lady Barbara Overshott, -the friend and correspondent of Pope and Addison, was -found by her distracted husband sitting stone dead at -her spinet before the newly-copied score of the “Ode on -Saint Cecilia’s Day,” which had been sent her with the -united compliments of the author and the composer. The -furniture of the boudoir was of the reign of William -and Mary, the walls panelled with pink lacquer beaded -with ormolu, the shelves, brackets and cabinets laden -with priceless specimens of crackle ware—the joy of the -connoisseur and the envy of the collector.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Thank you,” said Polly, taking the key. “I was -anxious to see for myself how many of Lady Bab’s vases -and bowls are left to us.” She looked very tall and -very fair, and rather terrifying as she confronted Sir -Giles. They were in the hall of Overshott, the doors -of which stood wide open to the faint September breeze -and the hot September sunshine, and Sir Giles, who was -going to luncheon at The Sabines, was putting on a -thin dust-coat in preparation for the drive. He jumped -at the reference to the crackle.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I suppose Mrs. Brownlow has told you that I have -removed a piece or two,” he said, bungling with the -sleeves of his dust-coat, for lack of the daughterly hitch -at the back of the collar which would have induced the -refractory garment to go on.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mrs. Brownlow has told me that a baker’s dozen of -bowls and vases and plaques and teapots—the cream of -the collection, in fact,” said Polly, “are adorning Mrs. -Osborne’s drawing-room.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Confound it!” said Sir Giles, as he struggled with -his garment. “The crockery isn’t entailed; and if I desire -to give a teapot to a friend I suppose I can do as I -like with my own! And—I can’t keep the cart waiting. -Fanchon won’t stand.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Undoubtedly,” said Polly, becoming cool as Sir Giles -<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>grew warm. “Only—if you are going on giving teapots -to friends, and there is a hamper of china at this moment -under the seat of the cart—I think it would be advisable -to change the name of the Crackle-Room. One might call -it the ‘Plundered Apartment,’ or something equally appropriate.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Call it what you choose, my dear.” Sir Giles was -now recovering from the shock of the unexpected onslaught. -“I have said the crackle is no more entailed -than Overton Foxshott or the Lowndes Square house—or -anything else that at present I may call my own. If -I were a younger man, I might plunder my mother and -disappoint my promised wife for the pleasure of making -a considerable present of jewelry to a woman ten years -my senior. As it is——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Sir Giles did not finish the speech, but strode angrily -out and got into the cart, and gave Polly a short, gruff -“Good-bye,” as he drove away, leaving that puzzled -young woman on the doorsteps.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘Plunder my mother and disappoint my promised -wife.... Present of jewelry ... a woman ten years -his senior.’... Can Cis have been giving jewels to Mrs. -Osborne?” Polly wondered. The course of her love affair -had run so smoothly that she was at a loss to account -for the pain at her heart and the fever in her veins. Sir -Giles’s complaint she diagnosed correctly. He was jealous ... -jealous of Cis! He was angry with Polly. He -had reminded her that he could do as he liked with his -own, that the county might call her an heiress, but the -county had no certain grounds for the assertion. Jealous -and angry, the dear, cheery Dad. Because Cis chose -to loll upon the grass at the skirts of a woman who was -his senior by many more years than ten. Polly ordered -round Kiss-me-Quick, and rode over to Hengs Hall, pondering -these things in her mind. Much had been revealed -to her, but it was for Lady Smithgill to lift the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>last corner of the veil and disclose to Cis’s future wife -the true meaning of Sir Giles’s reference to jewels.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“So Cis gave her the pearls, and Dad has given her -the crackle to recover lost ground. Mrs. Osborne must -be a clever woman,” Polly reflected, as she rode slowly -home through the sunset lanes on Kiss-me-Quick.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How was it going to end, all this?</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If Dad married Mrs. Osborne, it will be extremely -unpleasant to possess a stepmother who has been made -love to by one’s husband. And should Mrs. Osborne succeed -in marrying Cis——” Polly tightened the reins -involuntarily, and Kiss-me-Quick quickened her paces. -“Let her, if she wants him. No; let him if he wants -her. But first—oh, first—there will be a Tug of War! -I will not endure to be routed on my own ground by -this designing charlataness,” thought Polly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>In London it might have happened—almost without -remark. But here—here in the open—under familiar -pitying, curious eyes.... Never, never, never! And -with each repetition of the word Kiss-me-Quick danced -at a cut of the whip. For Polly was humane, yet human.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The double report of a gun in one of the Heng coppices -gave Kiss-me-Quick an excuse for more dancing, -and presently, as Polly looked, shading her blue eyes -with her half-gauntleted right hand, Cis and a keeper -came plainly into view. She pulled up Kiss-me-Quick -and waited, as the young man, leaving his gun with the -keeper, crossed the hot stubbles dangling a brace of -birds.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why, Polly dear!” He tried to look natural and at -ease as he lifted his leather cap from his crisp brown -waves. “If you had told me you thought of riding over -to see the mother, I’d have called for you and brought -you over.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It was a sudden idea, Cis,” Polly said, as she gave -him her gloved hand.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>“Can you tie these birds on the saddle—or shall I send -them over?” asked Cis, glad of an excuse that made it -possible to fix his eyes below the level of hers. “They’re -clean shot,” he added.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Fasten them on—there’s a strap in the saddle pocket—and -I will leave them at The Sabines as I pass!” said -Polly cheerfully.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Cis’s jaw dropped: he turned pale under his sun tan. -“Leave them at The Sabines!” he repeated blankly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I thought,” said Polly, bending a cool, amused -glance upon her lover’s perturbed countenance, “that -you meant them for Mamma. To be sure, she is not -Mamma yet, but it is a pretty compliment to treat her as -though she were already Papa’s wife—taking the pearls -to show her before you brought them to me! I call it -<em>quite sweet</em> of you!” Polly ended.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I—I!” The young man’s face was an extraordinary -study. “I am so glad you’re pleased,” he stuttered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dad is with her to-day,” went on Polly, stroking -Kiss-me-Quick’s glossy neck with her whip-lash. “He -took her over a cargo of crackle china out of Lady Bab’s -room. China is a taste one begins to cultivate at her -age, dear thing, and I suppose they are having a nice, -quiet, cosy afternoon, arranging the pieces. She has her -fads, Dad has his, and I am sure they will get on excellently -together. Dear me! how warm you are! Come -to tea to-morrow! Good-bye!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And Polly rode quickly away. Sore as she was, angry -and jealous as she was, she laughed as the vision of Cis’s -hot, astonished, indignant face rose before her. She -laughed again as she turned in at the bridle-gate of The -Sabines. But she was grave and earnest as she dismounted -at the hall-door and followed Ames, the butler, -down the long, cool hall to the drawing-room.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Miss Overshott.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>The announcement made Sir Giles attempt to get up -from the footstool on which he was sitting, but he did -not succeed at the first attempt, thanks to his rheumatism, -and his daughter’s eye lighted on him at once.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t move, Dad, dearest. Why should you? Oh! -Mrs. Osborne!” Polly flew to the fair widow, who advanced, -cool, smiling, and exquisitely clad, to greet her -visitor. “Oh, Mrs. Osborne, I am so—so glad!” Polly -seemed choking with joyful tears as she caught the -rounded waist of Melusine in her strong young embrace, -and vigorously kissed the exquisitely powdered cheeks. -“And I may call you Mamma—mayn’t I?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mamma?” echoed Sir Giles, sitting puzzled on the -footstool.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mamma?” re-echoed Mrs. Osborne in cooing accents -of surprise.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You see, Dad has told me all,” explained Polly, turning -beaming, childlike eyes of happiness upon the embarrassed -pair. “Though Cis knew before I did, and I -hardly call that quite fair. But as he is to be your son, -dear Mrs. Osborne—as I am to be your daughter——Why, -there is the crackle arranged upon your cabinets -already! How nice it looks! But it will all be yours, -presently, won’t it, Mamma?” Polly gave Mrs. Osborne -another kiss, and then fluttered over to Sir Giles, -who sat petrified upon the footstool, and gave him a -couple. “You mustn’t be jealous,” she said, “you foolish -old Dad! And now, Mamma darling, won’t you give -me some tea?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dear Mary, with pleasure!” assented Mrs. Osborne, -who knew that her hand had been forced, and yet could -not help admiring the audacity of the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coup</span></i>. As her -graceful form undulated to the tea-table, she cast a glance -at Sir Giles, raising her beautifully tinted eyebrows almost -to her golden-brown curls. She gave him credit -for being a party to the plot, while he, poor astonished -<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>gentleman, was as innocent as a new-born babe. In the -passing out of a cup of tea she realized that a double -game was no longer possible, and that Polly Overshott -had the stronger hand. “Your father,” she said, as she -gave Polly her tea, “has enlisted a powerful advocate. -All was not so settled as you seem to think, dear Mary, -but——” And she sighed, and extended her white hand -to Sir Giles, and helped him up from the footstool; and -he was in the act of gracefully kissing that fair hand as -Cis, in riding-dress, pale, agitated, and breathless from -the gallop over, was ushered in.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Cis!” cried Polly, realizing that the supreme moment -of the Tug of War was now or never. Her eyes were -blue fires, her cheeks red ones, as she moved swiftly and -gracefully to her lover and led him forward. “Kiss -Mamma and shake hands with Dad,” she said, and added -with a coquetry of which Cis had never thought her capable: -“and then, perhaps, you may kiss me.” Bewildered, -choking with the reproaches, the recriminations -with which he was bursting, and which it need hardly -be explained were intended for Mrs. Osborne’s private -ear, the young man obeyed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I—I congratulate you both,” he said thickly. Mrs. -Osborne had never felt so little the niceties of a situation -in her life. Nonplused, angry, and perturbed, she -looked every hour of her age, despite pink curtains; and -the powder only served to accentuate the suddenly revealed -hollows in her face. Polly, as I have explained, -had never worn such an air of coquetry, of brilliancy, -of dare-devil, defiant mastery as she now displayed. But -her final blow was to be dealt—and she dealt it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mamma darling,” she cooed, taking the vacated stool -at Mrs. Osborne’s feet—the stool contested for by both -the discomfited wooers—“how cosy we are here—all together! -Won’t you please Dad—and me—and Cis—by -bringing out the pearls!”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>“The—pearls!” Mrs. Osborne said. An electric shock -went through her; she turned stabbing eyes upon the -speechless Cis. And Sir Giles, studying her face, made -up his mind that he would never marry that woman—not -if Polly did her level best to bring the match about.</p> - -<p class='c009'>While Polly prattled on.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The pearls, of course. I told Cis I thought it sweet -of him to bring them to show you—as though I were -really your daughter, don’t you know. And if you will -fasten them round my neck yourself, I shall think it -sweet of you. Where have you hidden them? Why, I -believe you are wearing them now—to keep them warm -for me—under your lace cravat, you dear, darling -thing!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The affectionate daughter-elect raised a guileless hand -and twitched the jewels into sight.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Osborne, ashy pale, and with Medea-like eyes, unfastened -the jewels from her throat.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Here they are, dear Mary. Take them—and may -they bring you all the happiness I wish you!” said Mrs. -Osborne in cooing accents.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Polly could not restrain a little shudder, but she was -grave.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now Cis and I will go,” she said, when the pearls -were fastened round her neck over the neat white collar. -“I am sure you and Dad want to be alone. Come, Cis -dear.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And she kissed Mrs. Osborne again, and bore Cis—not -unwilling, strangely fascinated by the new Polly so suddenly -made manifest—away. They were riding slowly -home to dinner at Overshott Foxbrush, when the sound -of wheels rattling behind them, and Fanchon’s well-known -trot, brought a covert smile to Polly’s lips.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Osborne had a headache, Sir Giles explained, and -so he had decided not to remain to dinner.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But father, daughter, and betrothed dined pleasantly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>at Overshott Foxbrush. And when the dazzled Cis said -good-night to the triumphant Polly, the valediction was -uttered unwillingly with as many repetitions as there -were pearls in the string Miss Overshott wore round her -firm white throat.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was no gas laid on at Overshott. Bedroom candlesticks -were an unabolished institution. As Sir Giles -gave his daughter hers, he spoke.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You were a little premature in your conclusions, my -girl, at The Sabines to-day. I won’t ask why you played -that little comedy, because I know.... But you played -it well ... and I don’t think Cis will kick over the -traces in that direction again. Nor do I think”—the -Colonel cleared his throat rather awkwardly—“that you -are going to have Mrs. Osborne for your second mother. -She is too clever—and so are you! Good-night, my -dear!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span> - <h2 class='c005'>GAS!</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Mrs. Gudrun’s season at the Sceptre Theatre was drawing -to a finish, and the funds of the Syndicate were in -the same condition. Teddy Candelish—Teddy of the -cherubic smile and the golden mustache, constantly described -by the <cite>Theatrical Piffer</cite> as the most ubiquitous -of acting-managers—sat in his sanctum before an American -roll-top desk, checking off applications for free seats -and filing unpaid bills. Gormleigh, the stage-director, -balanced himself on the end of a saddle-bag sofa, chewing -an unlighted cigar; De Hanna, the representative -of the Syndicate, was going over the books at a leather-covered -table, his eyeglasses growing dim in the attempt -to read anything beyond deficit in those neatly kept columns. -Mrs. Gudrun occupied the easiest chair. Her -feet, beautifully silk-stockinged and wonderfully shod, -occupied the next comfortable; her silken draperies were -everywhere, and a cigarette was between her finely cut -lips. Her feather boa hung from an electric-globe branch, -and her flowery diaphanous hat, bristling with diamond-headed -pins, crowned the domelike brow of a plaster bust -of the Bard of Avon.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well,” said the manageress, making smoke-rings and -looking at De Hanna, “there’s no putting the bare fact -to bed! We’ve not pulled off things as we had a right to -expect.... We’ve lost our little pot, and come to the -end of our resources, eh?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“In plain terms,” said De Hanna, speaking through -his nose, as he always did when upon the subject of -money, “the Syndicate has run you for all the Syndicate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>is worth, and when we pay salaries on Saturday we -shall have”—he did some figuring with a lead pencil -on the back of a millionaire’s request for gratuitous -stalls, and whistled sadly—“something like four hundred -and fifty left to carry us through until the seventeenth.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We began with as nice a little nest-egg as any management -could wish for,” said Candelish, dropping a -smoking vesta into the waste-paper basket with fatalistic -unconcern. “We thought <cite>The Stone Age</cite> would pay. -I’d my doubts of a prehistoric drama in five acts and -fourteen scenes that couldn’t be produced under an outlay -of four thousand pounds, but we were overruled.” -He veered the tail of his eye round at Mrs. Gudrun. -“You and the Duke were mad about that piece.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“De Petoburgh saw great possibilities for me in it,” -said Mrs. Gudrun, throwing another cigarette-end at the -fireplace and missing it. “That scene where Kaja comes -in dressed in woad for battle, and brains What’s-his-name -with her prehistoric stone ax because he doesn’t -want to fight her, always thrilled him. He said I would -be greater than Siddons in it, and, well—you remember -the notices I got in the <cite>Morning Whooper</cite>. Cluffer did -me justice <em>then</em>, if he did turn nasty afterward—the -beast!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When I met Cluffer in the vestibule on the first night -after the third act,” said Teddy Candelish, “he said he -was going home because the tension of your acting was -positively too great to bear. He preferred me to describe -the rest of the play to him, and jotted the chief -points on his cuff before he went. And I grant you the -notice was a ripper, but it didn’t seem to bring people -in; and after playing to paper for three weeks, we had -to put up the fortnight’s notice and jam <cite>The Kiss of -Clytie</cite> into rehearsal.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dad vos a lofely—ach!—a lofely blay!” moaned Oscar -Gormleigh, casting up his little pig’s eyes to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>highly ornamental ceiling of the managerial sanctum. -“Brigged from de Chairman in de pekinning, as I told -you, as all de goot blays are.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I wish the Germans had stuck to it, I’m sure,” said -De Hanna. “It always appeared to me too much over -the heads of ordinary intelligent playgoers to pay worth -a little damn.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“De dranscendental element——” Gormleigh was beginning, -when Mrs. Gudrun cut him short.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I never cared for it very much myself; but Bob Bolsover -was dead set upon my giving the public my reading -of <em>Clytie</em>—and, well, you must recollect the effect I created -in that studio scene. Mullekens came round afterward, -and brought his critic with him, and said that the -best French school of acting must now look to its laurels, -and a lot more. Mullekens is the proprietor of the <cite>Daily -Tomahawk</cite>, and so, of course, I thought we were in for a -good thing. How could I imagine that the creature of a -critic would go home and make game of the whole show? -Doesn’t Mullekens pay him?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah, ja! Poot dat gritic’s vife is de sister of de Chairman -agtress dat blayed <em>Glytie</em> in de orichinal Chairman -broduction,” put in Gormleigh, whose real surname was -Gameltzch, as everybody does not know. “Did I not -varn you? It vas a gase of veels vidin veels.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Wheels or no wheels, <em>Clytie</em> kissed us out of three -thou. odd,” said De Hanna, wearily scratching his ear -with his “Geyser” pen, “and then we cut our throats -with——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“With him,” put in Candelish, jerking a contemptuous -thumb at the hat-crowned effigy of the Bard of -Avon.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You were keen on my giving the great mass of playgoers -a chance of seeing my Juliet,” remarked Mrs. -Gudrun casting a Parthian glance at the worm that had -turned.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>“But they didn’t take the chance,” put in De Hanna, -“and consequently—we fizzle out.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Like a burst bladder ...” moaned Candelish, who -saw before him a weary waste of months unenlivened by -paid occupation.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Or a damp sguib,” put in Gormleigh.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Let’s have a sputter before we expire,” said De -Hanna, with a momentary revival of energy. “Lots of -manuscripts have been sent in.... Isn’t there a little -domestic drama of the purely popular sort, or a farce -imbecile enough to pay for production, to be found among -’em?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dunno,” yawled Candelish, tilting his chair.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Who is supposed to read the plays that are sent in?” -asked De Hanna, turning his large Oriental eyes toward. -Mrs. Gudrun.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I read some,” said the lady languidly, “and the dogs -get the rest.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She stretched, and an overpowering combination of -fashionable perfumes, shaken from her draperies, filled -the apartment. The three men sneezed simultaneously. -Mrs. Gudrun rose with majesty, and going to the mantel-glass, -patted her transformation fringe into form, and -smiled at the perennially beautiful image that smiled and -patted back. Suddenly there was a whining and scratching -outside the door.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It’s Billy. Let him in, one of you,” ordered the -manageress.</p> - -<p class='c009'>All three men obeyed, clashing their heads together -smartly at the portal. De Hanna, with watering eyes, -opened the door, and a brindled bull of surpassing ugliness -trotted into the office, carrying a chewed brown -paper parcel decorated with futile red seals and trailing -loops of string. Lying down in the center of the carpet -and carefully arranging the parcel between his forepaws, -Billy proceeded to worry it.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>“Vot has de beast kott dere?” asked Gormleigh.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Take it from him and see!” said Mrs. Gudrun carelessly. -Gormleigh’s violet nose became pale lavender as -Billy, looking up from the work of destruction, emitted -a loud growl.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He understonds everyding vot you say!” spluttered -the stage-manager.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Try him with German,” advised De Hanna.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Or mit Yiddish,” retorted Gormleigh spitefully.</p> - -<p class='c009'>As De Hanna winced under the retort, Candelish, who -had rummaged unnoticed in a drawer for some moments, -produced a biscuit. Billy, watching out of the corner of -his eye, pricked a ragged ear and whacked the carpet -with his muscular tail.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Hee, boy, hee, Billy!” Candelish said seductively. -Billy rose upon his powerful bow-legs and hung out his -tongue expectantly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Koot old Pillee!” uttered Gormleigh encouragingly. -“Gleffer old poy!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Billy vouchsafed the stage-manager not a glance; his -bloodshot eyes were glued upon the biscuit as he stood -over the brown paper parcel. Then, as Candelish, throwing -an expression of eager voracity into his countenance, -made believe to eat the coveted delicacy himself, Billy -made a step forwards.... The end of the parcel projected -from between his hind-legs.... De Hanna softly -stepped to the fireplace and seized the tongs....</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Poo’ boy—poo’ ol’ Billy, then!” coaxed the acting-manager. -He broke the biscuit with one inviting snap, -Billy forgot the parcel, and De Hanna grabbed and got -it. The next moment the bull, realizing his loss, pinned -the representative of the Syndicate by the leg.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dash—dash—dash! Take the dash brute off, somebody!” -shrieked De Hanna.</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was a brief scene of confusion. Then, as Billy -retired under a corner table with a mouthful of ravished -<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>tweed, “He’s torn a piece out of your trow-trows, old -man,” Candelish remarked sympathetically.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He might have torn all the veins out of my leg!” De -Hanna gasped.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Den,” said Gormleigh, chuckling, “you would haf -been Kosher.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>But Mrs. Gudrun was deeply disappointed in Billy. -“Letting you off for a bit of cloth!” she said. “Why, -the breed are famous for their bite. He ought to have -taken a piece of flesh clean out—I shall never believe in -that dog again!” She swept over to Gormleigh, who -was busy disentangling the lengths of chewed string and -removing the tatters of brown paper from Billy’s treasure-trove. -It proved to be a green-covered, rather bulky -volume of typescript. A red-bordered label gummed on -the cover announced its title:</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>“MAGGS AT MARGATE</div> - <div><span class='sc'>A Seaside Farce,</span></div> - <div><span class='sc'>In Three Whiffs of Ozone.</span>”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>“What funny fool has written this?” snorted the -manageress.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“De name of de author.... Ach so! De name of de -author is Slump—Ferdinand Slump.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I know the chap, or of him. He’s a business man -who owns a half share in some chemical gasworks at -Hackney, and does comic literature in off hours. He -writes the weekly theatrical page of <cite>Tickles</cite>,” said De -Hanna, “and——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>Dickles</em> is a stupid halfpenny brint,” said Gormleigh, -“dat sdeals all its chokes from de Chairman babers.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Really? It struck me that there must be some existing -reason,” said Candelish, “for the wonderfully -<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>level flow of dullness the publication manages to maintain——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well, I suppose somebody is going to read this farce, -since that is what he calls it, by this Slump, since that is -what he calls himself,” said Mrs. Gudrun, removing her -hat from Shakespeare and pinning it on.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Certainly. De Hanna, as the Representative of the -Syndicate——” began Candelish eagerly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Pardon me. As acting-manager,” objected De -Hanna, “you, Candelish, have the prior claim.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Didn’t you say you were going out of town to-night, -Gormleigh?” interrupted Mrs. Gudrun, who had stuck in -all her hatpins, and was now putting on her gloves.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Choost for a liddle plow,” admitted Gormleigh. -“Dere is a cheab night drain to Stinkton-on-Sea, sdarding -from de Creat Northern at dwelve dirty. I shall -sleep in de gorridor gombardmend, oond breakfast at a -goffee and vinkle stall on de peach to-morrow morgen. -By vich I haf poot von night to pay for at de hotel.” -His bearded lips parted in a childlike smile of delight. -“My vife goes not vid me,” he said, and smiled again.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Then take this!” said Mrs. Gudrun, turning Slump’s -farce over. “Report on it after the show on Monday.” -And she rustled from the office on billows of silk, attended -by clouds of perfume, the despised Billy, and -the assiduous Candelish. The stage-manager swore. De -Hanna, concealing the solution in the continuity of his -tweeds with a bicycle trouser-clip, grinned.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A little solid reading will steady you down, Gummy, -and if my experience of Slump goes for anything—you’ve -got it there. But you’ll report on Monday, as -Her Nibs ordered. If you’ve not read it, look out for -squalls on Monday night!”</p> - -<hr class='c013' /> - -<p class='c009'>“Potstausend! Hof I read dot farce!” gasped Gormleigh -on the night of Monday. “Schwerlich! I hof read -<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>him tvice. Once from de beginning to de end, oond -akain from de end to de beginning.” His face assumed -an expression of anguish, and the veins on his bald forehead -stood out as the thick drops gathered there. “I -cannot make heads or dails of him.... He is gram-jam -with chokes, poot I cannot lof at dem; his situations -are sgreaming, poot I cannot sgream. De tears day -komm instead.... Dat vork is vonderful ... it -should one day be broduced, poot in de kreat National -School Theatre for authors oond actors dot de gountry -hos not yet founded, to brove to bubils vot is not a -farce——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yet I shouldn’t be surprised if we did the piece -here,” said Teddy Candelish. “Slump, the author, has -been talking over Her Nibs, and as he would let <cite>Maggs -at Margate</cite> go for nothing down, find three hundred -pounds toward the production, and merely take a nominal -sixty per cent., the chances are that you’ll be rehearsing -before Tuesday. Hullo!” for the stage-manager -had reeled heavily against him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ich bin unwohl.... It is dose undichested chokes -of Slumps I haf hodd on my gonstitution since I read -dot farce. Oond now you komm mit anodder,” Gormleigh -groaned.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Here’s Her Nibs with Slump,” said Candelish, with -a grin; and Mrs. Gudrun, in the Renaissance robes of -Juliet, swept into the green room with a little grinning, -long-haired man in an imitation astrachan-collared overcoat -over crumpled evening dress—a little man who -gave a large hand, with mourning nails, familiarly to -Candelish, and nodded cavalierly when Gormleigh was -introduced. Slump was to read his play to the manageress -and her staff after the performance that night.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Read his play Slump did, and Cimmerian gloom gathered -upon the countenances of his listeners as the first -act dragged to a close. Slump put the typescript down -<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>on the supper-table and looked round; Gormleigh’s head -had sunk upon his folded arms. Heavy snores testified -to the depth and genuineness of his slumbers. The countenances -of De Hanna and Candelish expressed the most -profound dejection, while the intellectual half of Mrs. -Gudrun’s celebrated countenance had temporarily vanished -behind her upper lip.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What do you say to that?” Slump asked, quite undismayed -by these signs of weariness on the part of his -listeners. Mrs. Gudrun came back to answer him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I say that it’s the longest funeral I’ve ever been at. -Open another bottle of the Boy, Teddy, and wake up, -Gormleigh.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I hof not been asleep,” explained Gormleigh.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I wish I had,” sighed De Hanna. “The fact is,” -he continued, prompted by a glance from Mrs. Gudrun, -“that your play don’t do.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Slump maintained, in the face of this discouragement, -a smiling front.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Won’t do, eh?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Won’t do for nuts,” said De Hanna firmly. “Nobody -could possibly laugh at it,” he continued.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is too tam tismal,” put in Gormleigh.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But if I prove to you that people can laugh at it, -what then?” queried the undismayed Slump. He took -from a fob pocket-book a newspaper cutting and handed -it across the supper-table to De Hanna. The cutting -was headed</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>“OZONE AT THE BALL,”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>and ran thus:</p> - -<p class='c014'>“‘Will you take a little refreshment?’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘Thank you, I have just had a sniff of ozone.’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Question and answer at the ball given last night in -aid of the —— Hospital, —— Square, at the Royal -<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>Rooms, Kensington. For, besides champagne, ozone was -laid on. After every dance Dr. Blank, head of the Hospital, -wheeled about the hall an appliance in which, by -electrical action, pure oxygen was converted into the invigorating -element of mountain or seaside air, greatly to -the purifying and enlivening of the atmosphere of the -ballroom.”</p> - -<p class='c014'>“My firm supplies the gas used in the treatment of the -patients at that hospital,” said Slump. “It’s a turnover -of ten thousand per annum. We’re ready to lay it on -at the theater, and give the playgoers genuine ozone with -their evening’s entertainment. As for the farce, I don’t -count it A1 quality, but I’ve made up my mind to be -acted and laughed at, and I’m going to bring chemistry -in to help me. Think what an advertisement for the -hoardings: ‘Real Ozone Wafted Over the Footlights,’ -‘Sea Air in the Stalls and Gallery!’”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“By thunder! it’s a whacking notion!” cried Candelish.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Colossal!” exclaimed De Hanna, taking fire at last.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Poot vill de beoble loff?” asked Gormleigh.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah, yes! Will they stand your farce even with an -ozone accompaniment?” doubted Mrs. Gudrun.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’ve a machine downstairs in the stage-door office,” -said Slump calmly. “Will you try the first act over -again—with gas?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Gormleigh groaned, but the other three nodded acquiescence; -and the men in charge of the electrical oxygen-generator -received instructions to bring the machine -upstairs.</p> - -<hr class='c013' /> - -<p class='c009'>“Ha, ha, ha!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Haw, haw, haw!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ach, it is too funny for anydings!” This from -Gormleigh, rocking in his chair, and mopping his streaming -<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>eyes with a red silk handkerchief. “Ach, ha, ha, -ha!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Gudrun held up her jeweled hands for mercy. -The laughing man who worked the machine stopped -pumping, the laughing author ceased to read, Billy the -bulldog, who had been grinning from ear to ear, wiped -a wet nose on his mistress’s gown and sat down panting.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How the deuce,” gasped De Hanna, “can oxygen -make a stupid farce a funny one? I can’t understand -it, for the life of me.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Because,” replied Slump, with brevity and clearness, -“that’s my trade secret, and I don’t mean to give -it away. Well, does <cite>Maggs</cite> go on, or do I take it to another -management?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The general assent was flattering in its unanimity. -<cite>Maggs at Margate</cite> went into rehearsal at the “Sceptre” -next day, and in a week was presented to the public. -We refer you to the critiques published in the <cite>Daily -Tomahawk</cite>, the <cite>Yelper</cite>, and other morning prints:</p> - -<p class='c014'>“It seems as though the good old days were come -again.... Peals of irresistible laughter rang through -the crowded theater as the side-splitting story of <cite>Maggs</cite> -was unfolded. The audience laughed, the orchestra -laughed, the actors themselves were infected by the general -merriment.”</p> - -<p class='c014'>“Mr. Slump is a public benefactor. When ‘down,’ a -dose of him will be found to act like magic. The management’s -happy notion of supplying the theater with -real ozone adds not a little to the pleasure of the entertainment.”</p> - -<p class='c014'>And so forth, and so forth. Booking was immense, -the box-office and libraries were besieged with applicants -eager to breathe the genuine sea air wafted over the footlights -at the “Sceptre.” The treasury boxes had to be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>carried to the office at night by two of the strongest -commissionaires.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Slump has a soft snap,” said De Hanna, chewing his -Geyser pen rapturously as he went over the books. -“Sixty per cent. of the gross receipts in author’s fees, -and we’re averaging two thousand a week since we went -in for daily <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">matinées</span></i>. Then the Transatlantic Trust is -running the play in New York to phenomenal business, -and we’ve planted it out for the Colonies, while France -and Germany——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Id vas from Chairmany dat de leading itea of de -blay was orichinally sdolen,” said Gormleigh, who had -blossomed out in new clothes, a red necktie, and a cat’s-eye -pin.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Leading idea of the play is the Ozone,” said De -Hanna; “and as Slump’s firm holds the patent for the -electro-oxygen generator, and manufactures the oxygen -used in the theater——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dey call it bure oxygen, poot it is not dat,” said -Gormleigh, laying his finger to his nose. “It is a motch -cheaber gombound, I give you my vort.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What?” De Hanna came closer, and his Oriental -eyes gleamed. “If that’s true, and we could manufacture -and generate it for ourselves, we—we could buy up -every rotten play we come across—there’s heaps of them -to be had, Heaven knows—and run ’em for nuts. What -is the stuff?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is nitrous oxide,” said Gormleigh, “gommonly -known as loffing kass—and I hof a friend, a Chairman -chemist—dat vill——Hoosh!” He laid his finger to -his nose with an air of secrecy as Mrs. Gudrun swept into -the office, enveloped in her usual clouds of silk and perfume. -Candelish was not with her, but Slump and Billy -followed at her heels.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of course, it must be admitted, <cite>Maggs</cite> is a phenomenal -success,” she was saying, “and we’re making money -<span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>hand over hand; but the part of ‘Angelina’—though -Cluffer says no French comedy actress of any age or period -could act it as I do—does not give me proper opportunities. -Mr. Slump thinks with me.” She smiled -dazzlingly upon the enamored little man. “And he has -written a tragedy in blank verse—<cite>The Poisoned Smile</cite>—which -we mean to produce as soon as the run is over.” -She swept out again with her following, and De Hanna -and Gormleigh exchanged a wink of partnership.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A tragedy in blank verse by Slump.... Phew!” -De Hanna whistled. “They won’t want laughing-gas -for that.... As for us, we go snacks in biz. I’ll find -the Syndicate and the theater.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oond I de blays, de sdage-management, oond de kass. -De Chairman chemist friend I dold you of, I hof vith -him already a gontract made.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Perhaps it is a bit shady,” said De Hanna punctiliously, -“to exploit an idea that really is Slump’s property....”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“De chokes in Slump’s comic baber he sdole from a -Chairman orichinal,” said Gormleigh pachydermatously. -“It is nodding poot tid for tad!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span> - <h2 class='c005'>AIR</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Sweet are the uses of advertisement.”</div> - <div class='line in16'><cite>The Professional Shakespeare.</cite></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>“I believe in the value of an ad.,” said Mrs. Gudrun -one night at the Paris Grand Opera, the Sceptre Theatre, -London, being temporarily closed pending a new production. -“Sarah believes in it, too—and that’s another of -the remarkable points of resemblance between us. And -for the sake of a puff, I’m willing to do all that a woman -can.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Can’t do more,” said De Petoburgh, shaking his -head owlishly. “Can’t possibly do more.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Shut up, De Peto. That woman’s ready to bite you -for talking through her big <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">aria</span></i>,” commanded Mrs. Gudrun, -with a slight glance of imperial indifference towards -the infuriated <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">prima donna</span></i>. She dropped her opera-glasses -into the orchestra with a crash, narrowly shaving -the kettle-drums, and causing the cymbal-player to miss -his cue, as she continued: “But, though I’m generally -keen to see the pay-end of a big notion, this idea of -Bobby Bolsover’s won’t do for macaroons. Not that I’m -lacking in what the Americans call horse-grit—wasn’t I -on De Brin’s automobile when he won the Paris-Rouen -race with his Gohard Cup Defender in nineteen-three? -That was one hairbreadth escape, from the revolver shot -that started us—you remember Bobby put in ball cartridge -by mistake—to the three flying kilometers at the -finish, which we did on one wheel, as the brakes refused -to act. And I’ve hung by one coupling over a raging -<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>American river in my own drawing-room Pullman saloon. -But when it comes to dangling in a little basket -that weighs next to nothing from a bag of gas that -weighs nothing at all—I’m not taking any, and I don’t -care who knows it. A captive balloon’s another thing. -You’re cabled and sand-bagged and what not, and, unless -you jump out, nothing can happen to you. But——Do -see who’s knocking at the door!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>It was a uniformed and epauletted functionary conveying -the polite intimation of the management that -Madame and her party must positively maintain silence -during the performance, or make themselves the trouble -to depart!</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Tell him we’d had enough and were just going!” -commanded Mrs. Gudrun. She rose, and, followed by -the Duke, Bobby Bolsover, and Teddy Candelish—most -active and ubiquitous of business managers, sailed out -of the box, knocking over a fauteuil and carrying a footstool -away upon the surging billows of her train. “Calls -herself an artist!” she said, in reference to the <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">prima -donna</span></i>, upon whose trills and roulades an enraptured -audience hung breathless and enthralled; “and lets herself -be put about by a little thing like that! Where’s -her artistic absorption, I should like to know. Why, I’ve -studied Juliet in the drawing-room where Bobby and -De Petoburgh were having a rat-hunt under the tables -and things, and what difference did it make to my conception -of the part? Not a sou. And <em>she</em> was a shrimp-seller -at Nice! They all have that <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">voce squillante</span></i> and -those thick flat ankles and those rolling black eyes like -treacle-balls. Let’s go and have some supper at the -Café Paris.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Over American grilled lobster and quails <em>Georges -Sand</em>, Bobby Bolsover’s grand notion for an advertisement, -cropped up again. One may explain that it consisted -in the suggestion that Mrs. Gudrun and party -<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>should electrify Paris, and subsequently London, by -traveling <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">per</span></i> motor-airship from St. Cloud, rounding -the Eiffel Tower in emulation of the immortal Santos, -and returning to the Highfliers’ Club airship station at -the Parc upon the conclusion of the feat. A friend of -De Petoburgh’s, a distinguished member of the Highfliers’ -Club, would undertake to lend the airship—a -newly completed vessel, with basket accommodation for -three. This philanthropist did not propose to share the -notoriety by joining the trip, and it was to be distinctly -understood that De Petoburgh was to be responsible for -any expenses involved.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And Bobby Bolsover, brimming, as usual, with genuine -British bravery and brandy-and-soda, was ready to -assume command.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You know the principle of a motor?” Bobby demanded, -as the supper proceeded, and a collection of -champagne corks, gradually amassed on the corner of -the table, assumed proportions favorable to purposes of -demonstration.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Candelish knows the principle of a motor,” said De -Petoburgh. “Never could learn myshelf. Too much -borror!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“One may say that there is gasoline in a receptacle,” -began Teddy. “Air passing through becomes charged -with gas, and comes out ready to explode. Then——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To explode,” agreed De Petoburgh; “absorutely correc’ -dennifishion, by Ringo!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t mind De Peto: he’s in for one of his old attacks,” -said Mrs. Gudrun. “His legs have been all over -the place since breakfast. Well?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You give a twirl to a crank,” said Bobby Bolsover.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Down goes the piston,” continued Teddy.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Down go her pistol,” nodded De Petoburgh.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And the dashed thing begins working automatically,” -exclaimed Bobby Bolsover. De Petoburgh balked -<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>at the six-syllabled hedge. “Now, an airship is an example -of——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The effectiveness of an aërial propeller driven by a -petrol motor,” put in Teddy.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Jusso,” said De Petoburgh. “Jusso.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There is, practically speaking, no danger whatever,” -pursued Bobby Bolsover, warming to the subject, “that -does not attend other popular pursuits. You may be -thrown from a horse, or tumble off a coach-box——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Did once,” said De Petoburgh, smiling in sad retrospection.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Or you may blow up in a motor,” went on Bobby.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But in either case,” said Mrs. Gudrun, with point, -“one is on the ground, not hanging between heaven and -earth, like What’s-his-name’s coffin.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Brarro!” exclaimed De Petoburgh. “Encore! -<i><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Bis!</span></i>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Permit me to put in, dear lady,” said Teddy Candelish, -with his best professional manner, “that if you fall -out of an airship, you eventually finish on the ground!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Under,” gloomily interpolated De Petoburgh. “Under.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And, further,” said Bobby Bolsover, “the guide-rope -is in connection with the ground all the time. Seventy -feet of it, trailing like——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Snakes!” said the irrepressible De Petoburgh, with -a glassy stare.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And,” went on Bobby, “we will have four picked -men from the Highfliers’ Club Grounds to run beside the -guide-rope all the way and back.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Thus combining personal advertisement,” said Teddy -Candelish, “with physical integrity.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Gudrun permitted her classical features to -soften. “Now you’re talking!” the lady said. She -smiled through the bottom of her champagne-glass as -Teddy, bowed in acknowledgment of the compliment, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>the trip was arranged forthwith. Thanks to the discretion -of Teddy Candelish, the preparations were kept so -profoundly secret that all Paris was on the alert when -the eventful morning dawned. The Highfliers’ Club -Grounds were literally besieged, and the intending sky-navigators -fought their way to the aërodrome containing -their vessel through a surging throng of scientists, editors, -journalists, dandies, actresses, photographers, pickpockets, -and politicians.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Regular scrimmage—what?” panted Bobby Bolsover, -as, bare-headed and disheveled, he reached the private -side-door of the balloon-house.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We ought to have slept here,” said Mrs. Gudrun, -straightening her hat-brim as the breathless men collected -her hairpins.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Nothing but perches to sleep on,” objected Bobby -Bolsover, indicating the skeleton arrangements of the -vast interior.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Gudrun, whose eye soared with Bobby’s, would -have changed color had the feat been possible.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do we really climb up that awful ladder to get on -board?” she inquired. “I have more nerve than any -woman I know; but I wasn’t educated as an acrobat. -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">J’en suis tout baba</span></i>, Bobby, that you should have let us -all in for a thing like this. We’re planted, however, and -must go through. What crowds of smart women! What -on earth has brought <em>them</em> out so early in the morning? -It must have got about that I’m going to be killed!” -She gulped and clutched Teddy. “I c-can’t go on in this -scene! Make an apology—make an apology and say -I’m ill. I <em>am</em> ill—horribly!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I feel far from frisky,” said Bobby Bolsover candidly. -“Gout all last night in the head and eyes, and—every -limb, in fact, that one relies upon in steering a motor. -But, of course, I am ready to undertake the helm—unless -anybody else would like to volunteer?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>He looked at Teddy, whose eye was clear, whose cheek -was blooming, whose golden curls encroached upon a -forehead unlined with the furrows of personal apprehension.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“W-what do you say, Teddy?” gasped Mrs. Gudrun.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I deeply regret.... It is imperatively necessary, -dear lady,” said Teddy glibly, “that in your absolute -interests I should be at the ‘Fritz’ at twelve. The Paris -representatives of the <cite>Daily Yelper</cite>, the <cite>Morning -Whooper</cite>, and the <cite>Greenroom Rag</cite>, have appointed that -hour to receive particulars of your start; three Berlin -correspondents, one from Nice, and the editors of the -<cite>Journal Rigolo</cite> and the <cite>Vie Patachon</cite> are to hole in ten -minutes later; and there will be thousands of telegrams -to open and answer. You know that the Syndicate of -the Escurial Palace of Varieties have actually tendered -to secure the turn. Therefore, though my heart will -make the voyage in your company, I—cannot.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Blue-eyed Teddy melted into thin air. Mrs. Gudrun, -looking older than a professional beauty has any right -to look, surveyed her companions with a hollow gaze of -despair, while outside the aërodrome Paris roared and -waited. Bobby, as green as jade, in a complete suit of -motor armor, goggles included, leaned limply against the -ladder that led upwards to the platform of the aërodrome. -De Petoburgh, in foul-weather yachting kit, his -glass fixed in his bloodshot left eye by the little mechanical -contrivance that keeps it from tumbling, looked back. -That debilitated nobleman, though shaky, was game to -the backbone.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I can’t drive a motor, Bolsover,” he said quite distinctly, -“but I can drive <em>you</em>. Will you—oblige me—by -climbing up that ladder? We follow. After you, -dear lady!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And the three negotiated the giddy ascent. Upon the -platform they found the owner of the airship and the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>four workmen who, under promise of reward and threat -of punishment, were to attend the guide-rope. The airship -itself, a vast sausage-shaped silk bag of hydrogen, -from which depended by rubber-sheathed piano wires a -framework of proven bamboo supporting three baskets—one -forward, one amidships, and one aft—hovered -over the heads of the three depressed adventurers like -a shapeless embodiment of adverse Fate. And Paris -was growing impatient.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Tell ’em to stick to the guide-rope, De Croqueville, -for their lives,” urged Bobby feverishly, squeezing the -hands of the owner of the machine. “Give it ’em in -their own lingo; my French isn’t fluent to-day. They’re -not to trust to my steering, but just tow us to the Tower -and back.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>De Croqueville squeezed back, and embraced Bobby on -both cheeks. “My brave, my very dear, rely upon me. -Madame”—he kissed the jeweled knuckles of Mrs. Gudrun—“all -Paris is assembled to behold the most beautiful -woman prove herself also to be of the most brave. -M. le Duc,” he saluted De Petoburgh distantly, and then -cordially shook hands, “I am as kin a sportsman as how -you. I have plank my egg—my oof—a thousand francs -you circulate the Tour Eiffel, in spite of the wind, which -blows from the wrong quarter. Adieu!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Blows from the wrong quarter!” gasped Bobby Bolsover. -The eyeglass of De Petoburgh turned in his direction, -and he immediately climbed the forward ladder -and got into the steersman’s creaking basket, and grasped -the wheel with an awful sinking immediately below the -heart.... The Duke helped Mrs. Gudrun to assume -the central position, and got in astern. Just before the -starting word was given and the great doors of the aërodrome -rolled apart in their steel grooves, he leaned over -to De Croqueville, addressing that gentleman in his own -language:</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>“One supposes she”—he alluded to the vessel—“is—sea—I -mean air-worthy—eh, my friend?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>De Croqueville shot up his eyebrows and spread his -hands.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“One supposes.... Truly, dear friend, I know -not!... The vessel is newly complete—this is what -in English you call the try-trip. That is why I hedge -my bet. One thousand francs you round the Tour Eiffel -and return uninjure—two thousand you do not return -uninjure—whether you round the Tour or no. <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Adieu-dieu!</span></i>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The electric signal rang. The colossal doors groaned -apart. The four workmen scuttled down the ladders -like frightened mice, seized the guide-rope, and towed -the airship out of dock. Paris waved handkerchiefs, -cheered. Bobby Bolsover, ghastly behind his goggles, -pressed the pedal and manipulated the wheel. The engine -throbbed, the tail-shaft screw revolved. The adventurers -had started.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Qui-quite nice,” gulped Mrs. Gudrun tremulously, -as the keen wind toyed with her silk veil and fluttered -her fur boa.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She pitches,” said De Petoburgh briefly. “Keep her -head to it, Bolsover.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was a sickening moment as the airship mounted -obliquely upward.... Then a tug at the guide-rope -brought her nose down, pointing to the sea of fluttering -handkerchiefs beneath. Mrs. Gudrun groaned and clung -to the sides of her padded basket. De Petoburgh -swore.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I can’t—manage her. My—my nerve has gone. -Let’s put about and take her back to dock again,” -gasped Bobby.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“For—for Heaven’s sake, do!” groaned Mrs. Gudrun. -But again that new voice spake from the blue lips of De -Petoburgh, and——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>“I’ve lived like a dashed blackguard, but I’m not going -to die like a cowardly cad. Curtain’s up—go through -with the show. Bolsover, you bragging, white-livered -idiot, you can steer an electric launch and drive a motor-car. -If I’d ever learned to do either, I’d take your -place. But as I can’t—go ahead, and keep on as I direct, -or I’ll shoot you through your empty skull with this revolver”—the -click of the weapon came stimulatingly to -the ears of the scared helmsman—“and swear I went -mad and wasn’t responsible. They—they’d believe me! -Mabel, if you sit tight and go through with this, I’ll -stand you that thousand-guinea tiara you liked at Alphonse’s, -if we—when we get safe to ground. Now, -Bolsover, drive on, or take the consequences!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Perhaps the familiar terms employed restored Bobby -to the use of his suspended faculties. Certain it is that -the airship began to forge steadily ahead at the rate of -some twenty miles an hour—but <em>not</em> absolutely in the -direction of the vast spidery erection of metal which -was its destined goal. It skimmed in the direction of -the Bois de Boulogne, keeping at so lofty an altitude that -of the end of the guide-rope merely a length of some -six feet trailed upon the ground.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Those—those men l-look so funny running after it,” -said Mrs. Gudrun, upon whom the promise of the tiara -had acted as a stimulant.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I hope they may keep up with it,” muttered De -Petoburgh as the airship sailed over the humming streets -of the gay city, and tiny men and women turned white -specks of faces upwards to stare. “Ease her, Bolsover,” -he commanded.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, we’re going right up again!” gasped Mrs. Gudrun. -Then, as the airship regained the horizontal: -“This isn’t half bad,” she said in a more cheerful tone, -“but the housetops with their spiky chimney-pots look -dreadfully dangerous. The guide-rope has knocked a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>row of potted geraniums off a third-floor balcony, and -the old man who was reading the paper in the cane -chair must be swearing awfully. But where are the -men? I don’t see them; do you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The four workmen were at that moment heatedly -cursing the Municipal Council of Paris at the bottom of -a very long, very deep trench which had been excavated -across a certain street for the accommodation of a new -drain. The guide-rope pursued its course without them, -now sweeping a peaceful citizen off his legs, now covering -the occupants of a smart victoria with mud, now -trailing over a roof or coiling serpent-wise around the -base of a block of chimneys. In the distance loomed the -Eiffel Tower, but in answer to De Petoburgh’s repeated -requests that he should steer thither, Bobby Bolsover -only groaned. And the airship, after navigating gracefully -over the green ocean of the Bois de Boulogne, -continued her trip over the Longchamps racecourse, -veered to the south at the pleasure of a shifting current -of air, and, having leaked much, began plainly to buckle -and bend.</p> - -<p class='c009'>De Petoburgh, uncomfortably conscious of a misspent -existence and wasted opportunities, looked at the back -of Mrs. Gudrun’s head, and wondered whether she knew -any prayers.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The trees are coming awfully close, aren’t they?” -said the unconscious beauty.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Awfully!” said the Duke, as the capricious motor -stopped.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then Mrs. Gudrun screamed, and Bobby Bolsover, -casting his goggles to the winds, huddled in the bottom -of his basket, and the debilitated but plucky nobleman -shut his eyes and thought of his long-dead mother as the -airship hurtled downwards ... crash into the top of the -tallest of the giant oaks in the magnificent park of -H.S.H. Prince Gogonof Babouine.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>The Prince has the reputation of being excessively -hospitable. When the three passengers recovered from -the shaking, the top of a long ladder pierced the thick -foliage beneath the wrecked vessel, and the Prince’s -major-domo, a stout personage in black with a gold -chain, came climbing up with a courteous message from -the Prince. Would Madame and M. le Duc and the other -gentleman descend and partake of the second <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i>, -which was on the point of being served, or would they -prefer to remain on board their vessel?</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Stop up here? Does the man take us for angels?” -snorted Mrs. Gudrun indignantly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The descent was not without danger, but with the aid -of De Petoburgh and the major-domo, she braved and -completed it without injury either to her long celebrated -limbs or her famous features. Bobby followed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Prince entertained the shipwrecked castaways in -princely fashion, and drove the party back to Paris on -his drag, the wonderful yellow coach with the team of -curly Orloffs. And he consented to dine; and that night -Mrs. Gudrun held a reception behind the illuminated -balconies of the Hotel Fritz, while the London newsboys -were yelling her familiar name, and the evening papers -containing the most ornamental particulars of her adventure -went off like hot cakes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>According to the most reliable account garnered by -our special correspondent from the lovely lips of the -exquisite aëronaut, she had never quailed in the moment -of peril, and, indeed, upon the distinguished authority -of the Hon. R. Bolsover: “One is never frightened -while one can rely upon one’s own pluck!” Nobody -interviewed De Petoburgh, leaning vacuously smiling -against the wall. Indeed, he had developed another of -his attacks, and could not have responded with any coherence.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Wonderful fellow, Bolsover,” Teddy Candelish -<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>gushed, Teddy, all smile and sparkle, “so brainy and resourceful!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Rath’ ...” assented De Petoburgh fragmentarily.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And Her Nibs—a heroine—positively a heroine!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ra’!” assented De Petoburgh, as the heroine swept -by, making magnificent eyes at the palpably enamored -Prince, while Paris murmured indiscreet admiration.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And you, Duke, eh? Found it trying to your nerves, -they tell me?” Teddy continued, twirling his golden -mustache. “Such trips too costly, eh, to indulge in -often?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ra’!” agreed De Petoburgh, with a glance at the -thousand-guinea diamond fender surmounting the most -frequently photographed features in the world.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span> - <h2 class='c005'>SIDE!</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>Upon the conclusion of the phenomenally brief run of -<cite>The Poisoned Kiss</cite> at the Sceptre Theatre, Mrs. Gudrun, -who had sustained the heroic rôle of Aldapora “with -abounding verve and true histrionic inwardness” (to -cull a quotation from the enthusiastic notice which appeared -in the <cite>Theatrical Piffer</cite>), and whose sculpturesque -temples throbbed no less with the weight of the -dramatic laurels heaped upon them than with the heady -quality of the champagne with which those laurels had -been liberally drowned—Mrs. Gudrun left the author -and the Syndicate, <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">per</span></i> their Business Representative, -exchanging poignant personalities over a non-existent -percentage, and hied her to the Gallic capital for recreation -and repose; bearing in her train the leading man, -Mr. Leo De Boo, a young actor who had chipped the egg -of obscurity in the recent production. De Boo was “a -splendid specimen of virile beauty,” according to the -<cite>Greenroom Rag</cite>—all shoulders, legs, nose, and curls, -without any perceptible forehead; and Teddy Candelish, -most ubiquitous of acting-managers, came within an appreciable -distance of being epigrammatic when he -termed him “a chronic cad in beautiful boots.” For -more exquisite foot-gloves than those De Boo sported -were never seen, whoever made and gave credit for -them; and De Boo was said to have a different pair for -every day in the month and every imaginable change in -the weather.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Nearly threw up his part in <cite>The Poisoned Kiss</cite>,” -said Teddy afterwards, at the club, “when he discovered -<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>that it was to be a sixteenth-century production; took -me aside, and told me in confidence afterwards, that if -he’d been allowed to play Hermango in gray <span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">suède</span> tops -with black pearl buttons and patent leather uppers, the -piece would have been a colossal monetary, as well as -artistic, success.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Schwerlich! Who konn bretend to follow de workings -of a mind like dot jung man’s,” said Oscar Gormleigh, -“vidout de assisdance of de migroscope? Und -hof I not known a brima donna degline to go on for -Siebel begause she hodd been kifen brown insdead of -violet tights? It vas a tam gonsbiracy, she svore py all -her kodds! In prown legs she vould groak like von -frog mit kvinsy—mit violet she always varble like de -nachtigall. De choke of it vas”—the talented stage-director -laid a hairy finger archly against his Teutonic -nose—“dat voman always groak—not never varble—tights -or no tights!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“De Boo is a rank bounder,” said Candelish decidedly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He has pounded from de ranks,” pronounced Gormleigh, -“und he vill go on pounding—each pound so -motch higher dan de last von, oontil he drop splosh into -de kutter akain. He who now oggupies a svell mansion-flat -in Biccadilly, <i><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">ach ja!</span></i>—he vill end vere he bekan—in -de liddle krubby sit-bedding-room over de shabby -shop vere dey let out segond hond boogs on hire mit -segond hond furnidure.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Gudrun would have been deeply incensed had -she heard this unlicensed expression of opinion from -one whom she had always kept in his place as a paid underling. -For six nights and a matinée she had, in the -character of Aldapora, elected to poison herself in the -most painful manner rather than incur the loss of De -Boo’s affections, and, with the “true histrionic inwardness” -so belauded by the <cite>Theatrical Piffer</cite>, she had identified -<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>herself with the part. So she took a blazing comet -flight to Paris with the actor in her train, and paragraphs -announcing their arrival at the Hotel Spitz appeared -in the London papers.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Listen to this, Jane Ann,” said the paternal De Boo, -whose name was Boodie—and when I add that for twenty -years the worthy father had been employed as one -of the principal cutters at Toecaps and Heels, that celebrated -firm of West-End bootmakers, it will be understood -whence the son obtained his boots. “To think,” -Mr. Boodie continued, “that Alfred—our Alfred, who -sp’iled every particle of leather he set his knife to, and -couldn’t stitch a welt or strap a seam to save his life—should -ever have lived to be called a rising genius!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The ways of Providence are wonderful, father!” returned -the said Alfred’s mother dutifully. Mrs. Boodie -was an experienced finisher herself, and had always -lamented Alfred’s lack of “turn” in the family direction. -“An’, if I was you, I wouldn’t mention that bit -in the paper to Aphasia Cutts. She’s dreadful jealous -over our Alfred, even now, though he hasn’t bin to see -‘er or wrote for two years. As good as a break off, I -should a-regarded it, ’ad I bin in her place. But she’s -different to what I was.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“So are all the gals,” said Mr. Boodie with conviction, -bestowing upon his wife a salute flavored with Russia -leather and calf.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well, I’m sure. Go along, father, do!” said Mrs. -Boodie, with a delighted shove.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But of course Aphasia—so christened by an ambitious -mother in defiance of the expostulations of a timid -curate—had already seen and cried over the paragraph. -She had loved Alfred and stood up for him when he was -a plain, stupid boy with an unconquerable aversion to -work. She had been his champion when he grew up, no -longer plain, but as pronounced a loafer as ever. She -<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>had given up, in exchange for his loutish affections, the -love of an honest and hard-working man.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I can’t ’elp it!” she had said; “you can get on without -me, and Alfred can’t, pore chap. His Par calls ’im -a waster—I believe ’e’d give ’im the strap if ’e wasn’t -six foot ’igh. But I’ve got ’im an opening in the theatrical -line, through a friend of mine as does fancy braiding -at Buskin’s, the stage shoemaker’s in Covent Garden. -It’s only to walk on as one of the Giant’s boy-babies -in the Drury Lane panto.—eighteen pence a night -<em>and matinées</em>—but his Mar will be thankful. If only ’is -legs are long enough for the part——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>They were, and from that hour Alfred had embarked -on a career. When entrusted with a line to speak, it -was Aphasia who held the grimy slip of paper on which -it was written and aided the would-be actor with counsel -and advice.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And ’old up your ’ead, do, as if you was proud of -yourself, and don’t bend at the knees; and whether you -remember your words or not, throw ’em out from your -chest as if you was proud of ’em. An’ move your arms -from the shoulder like as if you was swimmin’—don’t -crook your elbers like a wooden doll. And throw a bit -o’ meanin’ into your eye. You took me to see that -Frenchman, Cocklin ’e calls ’imself; as played the chap -with the boko ’e wouldn’t let the other chaps make game -of.... French or Japanese, they’re both Dutch to -me, but I watched Cocklin’s eye, and I watched ’is ’ands, -an’ I could foller the story as if it was print, an’ plainer. -I’ve went to see an actor since what folks said was a -great artis’, and if ’e did talk English, ’is eye was as -dumb as a boiled fresh ’addock’s an’ ’s ’ands was like -slices of skate. Now say your bit over again.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And Alfred said it, this time to the satisfaction of -his instructress. When he got a real part Aphasia -coached him, and rode down from Hammersmith with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>him on the bus, and was waiting for him at the stage-door -when he came out, the tears of joy undried on her -pale cheeks. And that was the night upon which she -first noticed a coldness in the manner of her betrothed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“An’ now I’m not good enough for him to wipe his -boots on,” she sobbed, sitting on her bed in the single -room lodging off the roaring, clanging Broadway—“the -boots ’is Par cut an’ welted, an’ ’is Mar stitched, an’ I -finished. But I won’t stand in ’is light. I’ve my pride, -if I am a boot-finisher. I’ll see that Mrs. What’s-her-name -face to face, an’ ’ave it out as woman to woman, -an’ tell ’er she’s welcome to marry ’im for me.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And Aphasia dried her poor red eyes and took off -Alfred’s betrothal ring—a fifteen-carat gold circlet with -three real garnets, bought in the Broadway one blushful, -blissful Saturday night—and evicted his photographs -from their gorgeous cheap frames, and made a -brown-paper parcel of these things, with a yellow leather -purse with a blue enamel “A” on it, and tied it up with -string.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Perhaps something of her fateful mood was telepathically -conveyed to Mr. Leo De Boo at that moment, for -he shivered as he sat at the feet of Mrs. Gudrun upon -the balcony of a private suite at the Hotel Spitz, and -turned up eyes that were large and lustrous at that imperishable -image of Beauty, exhaling clouds of fashionable -perfume and upborne on billows of chiffon and lace. -Mrs. Gudrun, who naturally mistook the spasms of a -genuine plebeian British conscience for the pangs of -love, lent him her hand—dazzlingly white, astonishingly -manicured, jeweled to the knuckles, and polished by the -devout kisses of generations of worshipers—and De Boo -mumbled it, and tried to be grateful and talk beautifully -about his acting. But this bored Mrs. Gudrun, who -preferred to talk about her own.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have often felt that myself,” she said—“the conviction -<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>that a crowded audience hung upon my lips and -saw only with my eyes, and that I swayed them as with -a magic thingumbob, by the power of a magnetic personality.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is a mystery,” said De Boo, passing his long fingers -through his clustering curls, “that once in a century -or so a man should be born——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Or a woman. Marvelous!” agreed Mrs. Gudrun. -“Marvelous! the man who runs the <cite>Daily Tomahawk</cite> -said that when I made my first appearance on the -stage.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Genius is a crown of fire,” said De Boo, who had -read this somewhere. “It illuminates the world, yet -scorches the wearer to the bone. He——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She suffers,” said Mrs. Gudrun, neatly stopping the -ball and playing it on her side. “You may bet she suffers. -Hasn’t she got the artistic temperament? The -amount of worry mine has given me you would never -believe. Cluffer, of the <cite>Morning Whooper</cite>, calls me a -‘consolidated bundle of screaming nerves.’ When I’ve -sat down to dinner on the eve of a first night, De Petoburgh—you’ve -met the Duke?—has had to hold me in -my chair while Bobby Bolsover gave me champagne and -Angostura out of the soup-ladle. And I believe I bit -a piece out of that. And afterwards—ask ’em both if I -wasn’t fairly <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">esquinte</span></i>.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But the possessor of an artistic temperament—such -as mine—even though the fairy gift entails the keenest -susceptibility to anguish,” quickly continued De Boo, -“enjoys unspeakable compensation in the revelation to -him alone of a kingdom which others may not enter. -Looking upon the high mountains in the blush of dawn, -I have shouted aloud with glee——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The first time I ever went into a southern Italian -orange-grove in full bloom,” acquiesced Mrs. Gudrun, -“the Prince of Kursaal Carle Monto, who was with me, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>simply sat down flat. He said Titian ought to have been -alive to paint my face and form against that background.... -By the way, the first act of that new -play, the title of which I’ve forgotten, and which I’ve -leased from a scribbling idiot whose name don’t signify, -takes place in a blooming orange-grove. I’ve cast you -for the leading man’s part, Leo, and I hope you will -be properly grateful for the chance, and conquer that -nasty habit you have of standing leering at the audience -in all my great moments.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dearest lady,” De Boo argued glibly, “does it not -increase the dramatic poignancy of such moments if -the spectators are enabled to read in the varying expressions -pictured on <em>my</em> face the feelings your art inspires?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>But Mrs. Gudrun was inexorable. “They can read -’em in the back of your head if they’re anxious,” said -she, “or they can take the direct tip from me. I hope -that’s good enough. I don’t see the cherry-bun of running -a theater to be scored off by other people, and so -you know! And now that’s settled, let us go and have -stuffed oysters and roast ices at Noel Peter’s, and see -Sarah afterwards in her new tragedy <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</span></i>. I’m the only -woman she’s really afraid of, you know, and I feel I’m -bound to romp in in front of her before long. She -says herself that acting like mine cannot be taught -in a conservatoire, and that I constitute a complete -school in myself. Have you ever seen me play Lady -Teazle?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Unhappily I have not. It is a loss,” said De Boo, -“a distinct loss. By the way, when I scored so tremendously -as Charles Surface at Mudderpool——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Hell is full of men who have scored as Charles -Surface at Mudderpool,” said Mrs. Gudrun crushingly. -“That sounds like a quotation, doesn’t it? Only it must -be mine, because I never read. You’re a charming -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>fellow, and a clever boy, Leo, but, as a friend, let me -tell you that you talk too much about yourself. It’s -bad form; and the truly great are invariably the truly -modest. I must save up that epigram for my next interview, -I think. There’s the auto-brougham.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And De Boo enfolded the renowned form of his -manageress in a point lace and sable wrap, and they -went off to Noel Peter’s, and saw La Gr-r-ande perform.</p> - -<p class='c014'>Rehearsals of the new play, <cite>Pride of Race</cite>, at the -Sceptre had scarcely commenced when in upon Teddy -Candelish, laboriously smoking in his sanctum and opening -the morning’s mail, swept Mrs. Gudrun.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I haven’t a moment to breathe,” she said imperially, -accepting the chair Teddy acrobatically vacated. -“Come in, De Petoburgh—come in, Bobby; you are in -the way, but I’m used to it. No, De Petoburgh, that -cellaret’s tabooed; remember what Sir Henry said to -you about liqueurs before lunch. Are there any letters -of importance, Teddy, to my cheek?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Several bundles of press-cuttings from different -firms, thirty or forty bills, a few tenders from photographers, -and—and some love-letters,” replied Candelish, -pointing to some neat piles of correspondence arranged -on the American roll-top desk. “Usual thing—declarations, -proposals, and so forth.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Always plenty of those—hey?” chuckled De Petoburgh, -sucking a perfunctory peptoid lozenge in lieu -of the stimulant denied.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Plenty, b’Jove!” echoed Bobby Bolsover.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Not so many as there used to be,” responded Candelish -with tactless truthfulness, rewarded by the lady -with a magnificent glare. “By the way, there’s one -odd letter, from a girl or a woman who <em>isn’t</em> quite a -lady, asking for an interview on private business. Signs -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>herself by the rummiest name—Aphasia Cutts.” He -presented the letter.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Aphasia?” said Mrs. Gudrun, extending heavily jeweled -fingers for the missive. “Isn’t that what De Petoburgh -has when he can only order drinks in one syllable -and his legs take him where he doesn’t want to -go? Eh, Bobby?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes; but remindin’ the Duke of that always brings -on an attack,” said Bobby solicitously. “Look at him -twitchin’ now.... Steady, Peto! Woa-a, old mannums!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Take him for a tatta while I finish the rehearsal,” -commanded Mrs. Gudrun, rising from Teddy’s chair in -an upsurge of expensive draperies. “Write to this -Aphasia girl, Teddy, and say I’ll see her to-morrow, -between three and four p. m. After all, the whole-souled -adoration of one’s own sex is worth having,” the -lady said, as, heralded by the rustling of silken robes, -the barbaric clash of jeweled ornaments, and wafts of -fashionable perfume, she sailed back to the boards.</p> - -<p class='c009'>When Aphasia got her reply, p.p. Teddy, some hours -later, there was very little of whole-souled adoration -in her reception of the missive.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I s’pose she looks on me as the dirt under her feet, -like Alfred. But I won’t let that put me off makin’ -the sacrifice that’s for his good—the ungrateful thing! -I ’ope she’ll make ’im a nice wife, that’s all,” she -sobbed, as she took from her collar-and-cuff drawer the -flat brown-paper parcel containing the garnet ring, the -photographs, and the letters. And she dressed herself -in her best, with a large lace collar over a cloth jacket, -and the once fashionable low-necked pneumonia-blouse, -to which the girls of her class so fondly cling, and went -to meet the lady whom, in terms borrowed from the -latest penny romance, she called her “haughty rival.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Gudrun received her with excessive graciousness. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>A costume rehearsal was in progress, and the lady was -in the hands of her maids and dressers. “I suppose -this is the first time you have ever been behind the -scenes?” she inquired. “Look about you as much as -you like, and then you will be able to say to your -friends: ‘I have been in Mrs. Gudrun’s dressing-room.’ -You see, I am in the gown I wear in the first act. It -is by Babin; and if you write for a ladies’ paper, you -will remember to say so, please.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t write for any ladies’ paper,” said Aphasia. -“I couldn’t spell well enough—not if they ast me ever -so. But it’s a lovely gownd, and I suppose all that -stuff on your face is what makes you look so young an’ -’andsome—from a long way off.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mrs. Gudrun’s famous features assumed a look of -cold displeasure. She assumed the majestic air that -suited her so eminently well, and asked the young person’s -business.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It’s quite private, and I’ll thank you to send away -your maids, if you’ve no objection,” said the dauntless -Aphasia. “The fact is,” she continued, when the indignant -menials had been waved from the apartment, -“as I’ve come to make you a present—a present of a -young man——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Look here, my good young woman,” began the incensed -manageress.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Aphasia suddenly handed her the brown-paper parcel, -and the wrath of Mrs. Gudrun was turned to -trembling. She was sure this was an escaped lunatic. -Aphasia profited by the lull in the storm to explain. -She had come to hand over her Alfred—stock, goodwill, -and fixtures. He had forgotten to be off with the old -love before he went on with the new, but the old love -bore no malice. All was now over.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And you may marry ’im whenever you like,” -sobbed Aphasia.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>“I never heard anything so indecent in the whole -course of my life,” said Mrs. Gudrun, rising in offended -majesty. “Marry Mr. De Boo, indeed! If I had married -every leading man I’ve played love-scenes with -since I adopted this profession, I should be a female -Brigham Young! ‘In love with me!’ Perhaps he is; -it’s rather a common complaint among the men I know. -As for Mr. De Boo, if he has low connections and vulgar -entanglements, they are nothing to me. Good-day! -Stop! You had better take this parcel of rubbish with -you. Dawkins—the stage-door!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And Aphasia found herself being ushered along the -passage. Bewildered and dazzled by the glaring lights, -the excitement and the strangeness, she ran almost into -the arms of De Boo himself as he emerged from his -dressing-room next the manageress’s. Had he overheard? -There had been a curtained-over door on that -side. Under his paint his handsome features were -black with rage; he caught the girl’s shoulders in a -furious grip, and spluttered in her ear:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Damn you! Damn you, you sneaking creature! You -have made a pretty mess of things for me—haven’t you?—with -your blab about my father and the boot-business, -and my letters and the ring I gave you. To my dying -day I’ll never speak to you again!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He threw her from him savagely and strode away.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Aphasia stood outside the theater and shook with sobs. -It chanced—or did not chance, so queer are the vagaries -of Destiny—that Ulick Snowle, the president of the -New Stage-Door Club, happened to be passing; he had -just called in at the box-office to privately book the -first three rows of the upper circle on behalf of the -club, the Old Stage-Doorers having secured the gallery. -Both clubs were originally one, the Old Stage-Doorers -having thrown off the younger club as the cuttlefish gets -rid of the supernumerary limb which in time becomes -<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>another cuttlefish. And the unwritten compact between -both clubs is that if one applauds a new production, -the other shall execrate the same—an arrangement which -contributes hugely to the liveliness of first-nights.</p> - -<p class='c009'>No uninitiated person beholding Ulick, with his shaggy -beard, aged felt-basin hat of Continental make, short -nautical coat, and tight-fitting sporting trousers, would -suppose him to be the great personage he really is. He -came up to Aphasia, and bluntly asked her what was -the matter, and if he couldn’t do something? In her -overwhelming woe and desolation, she was like the soda-water -bottle of the glass-ball-stoppered description—once -push in the stopper, there is no arresting the escape -of the aërated fluid. She told the sympathizing Ulick -all before he put her into the Hammersmith bus, and -when he would have handed in the fateful brown-paper -parcel—“Keep it,” she said, with a gesture of aversion. -“Burn it—chuck the thing in the dustbin. They’re no -manner o’ use to me!” And away she rattled, leaving -Ulick Snowle upon the pavement, in his hands an engine -of destruction meet to be used in the extermination of -the unfittest.</p> - -<p class='c009'>For the New Stage-Door Club did not love Mr. Leo -De Boo, whose manner to old friends—whom he had -often led around street corners and relieved of half-crowns—did -not improve with his worldly prospects. -And Ulick stood and meditated while the double torrent -of the London traffic went roaring east and west; and -as a charitable old lady was about to press a penny into -his hand, Tom Glauber, the dandy president of the Old -Stage-Doorers, came along, and the men greeted cordially. -Von Glauber seemed interested in something -that Ulick had to tell, and the two went off very confidentially, -arm-in-arm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It would be a sensation if, for once, the O.S.D.’s and -the N.S.D.’s acted in unison,” agreed Tom Glauber.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>And on the night when <cite>Pride of Race</cite> was produced -at the Sceptre, both clubs attended in full strength, every -man with a crook-handled walking-stick, and a parcel -buttoned under his coat. The piece had just concluded -a run of three hundred nights, and every reader is acquainted -with the plot, which is of modern Italy and -Rome of to-day, to quote the programme. We all know -how the young Marchese di Monte Polverino, in whose -veins ran the bluest blood of the Latin race, secretly -wedded Aquella Guazetta, the tripe-seller, who had won -his lofty affections in the guise of a Bulgarian Princess, -and how the dread secret of Aquella’s origin was revealed -at the very moment when the loftiest and most -exclusive of the Roman nobility were about to welcome -the newly made Marchesa into their ranks.... Aquella, -her brain turned by the acuteness of her mental suffering, -greets the revelation with a peal of frenzied laughter. -Now this laughter was a continual obstacle, during -rehearsals, in the path of Mrs. Gudrun. Said she:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The peculiarity and originality of my genius, as -Cluffer says, consists in the fact that I can’t do the -things that might be expected of me—not for filberts; -while I <em>can</em> do the things that mightn’t. If I can’t really -hit off that laugh, I’ll have a woman in the wings to -do it for me. But my impression is that I shall be all -right at night. Don’t forget, Gormleigh, that you’re not -to tub the chandelier altogether; I hate to play to a -dark house.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Py vich innovation,” said Gormleigh afterwards, -“de gonsbirators vas enapled to garry out their blan. -Himmel!” he cried, dabbing his overflowing eyes with -an antediluvian silk pocket-handkerchief, “shall I effer -forget—no, not vile I lif—de face of dot jung man!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>For at the moment when Monte Polverino’s scorn of -the lovely plebeian he has wedded is expressed in words—when -Aquella, pierced to the heart by being called -<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>“a low-born vulgarian” and a “peasant huckster,” is -about to utter her famous yell of frenzied laughter, the -Old Stage-Doorers and the New Stage-Doorers hung out -their boots. A <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chevaux de frise</span></i> of walking-sticks, from -each of which depended a pair of these indispensable -articles of attire, graced the gallery, distinguished the -upper circle, and appeared upon the level of the pit. -Stricken to the soul, faltering and ghastly under his -paint, and shaking in the most sumptuous pair of patent -leathers, white kid topped, in which he had yet appeared, -De Boo blankly contemplated the horrid spectacle; -while Mrs. Gudrun, to whose somewhat latent -sense of humor the spectacle appealed, burst into peal -upon peal of the wildest laughter ever heard beyond -the walls of an establishment for the care of the mentally -afflicted. “The grandeur, poignancy, and reality -of the acting,” wrote Cluffer, of the <cite>Morning Whooper</cite>, -“was acknowledged by a crowded house with a deafening -and unanimous outburst of applause.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Both Mrs. Gudrun and Mr. De Boo attained the -highest level of dramatic expression,” pronounced Mullekens, -of the <cite>Daily Tomahawk</cite>. “It was the touch of -Nature which attunes the universe to one throb of universal -relationship.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The play was a success. Even the “Boo’s!” of both -the clubs, united for the nonce in disapprobation, could -not rob Leo of his laurels. He wears them to-day, for -<cite>Pride of Race</cite> has enjoyed a tremendous run.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We’ve made the beggar’s reputation instead of sending -him back to the boot-shop and that poor girl,” said -Ulick Snowle to Tom Glauber next day.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Possibly,” said Tom Glauber, sniffing at his inseparable -carnation. “But it’s all the better for the girl, -I imagine, in the long run.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span> - <h2 class='c005'>A SPIRIT ELOPEMENT</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>When I exchanged my maiden name for better or -worse, and dearest Vavasour and I, at the conclusion of -the speeches—I was married in a traveling-dress of -Bluefern’s—descended the steps of mamma’s house in -Ebury Street—the Belgravian, <em>not</em> the Pimlican end—and, -amid a hurricane of farewells and a hailstorm of -pink and yellow and white <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">confetti</span></i>, stepped into the -brougham that was to convey us to a Waterloo Station, -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en route</span></i> for Southampton—our honeymoon was to be -spent in Guernsey—we were perfectly well satisfied with -ourselves and each other. This state of mind is not -uncommon at the outset of wedded life. You may have -heard the horrid story of the newly-wedded cannibal -chief, who remarked that he had never yet known a -young bride to disagree with her husband in the early -stages of the honeymoon. I believe if dearest Vavasour -had seriously proposed to chop me into <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cotêlettes</span></i> and -eat me, with or without sauce, I should have taken it -for granted that the powers that be had destined me to -the high end of supplying one of the noblest of created -beings with an <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">entrée</span></i> dish.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We were idiotically blissful for two or three days. It -was flowery April, and Guernsey was looking her loveliest. -No horrid hotel or boarding-house sheltered our -lawful endearments. Some old friends of papa’s had -lent us an ancient mansion standing in a wild garden, -now one pink riot of almond-blossom, screened behind -lofty walls of lichened red brick and weather-worn, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>wrought-iron gates, painted yellow-white like all the -other iron and wood work about the house.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mon Désir” the place was called, and the fragrance -of potpourri yet hung about the old paneled salons. -Vavasour wrote a sonnet—I have omitted to speak before -of my husband’s poetic gifts—all about the breath -of new Passion stirring the fragrant dust of dead old -Love, and the kisses of lips long moldered that mingled -with ours. It was a lovely sonnet, but crawly, as the -poetical compositions of the Modern School are apt to -be. And Vavasour was an enthusiastic convert to, and -follower of, the Modern School. He had often told me -that, had not his father heartlessly thrown him into his -brewery business at the outset of his career—Sim’s Mild -and Bitter Ales being the foundation upon which the -family fortunes were originally reared—he, Vavasour, -would have been, ere the time of speaking, known to -Fame, not only as a Minor Poet, but a Minor Decadent -Poet—which trisyllabic addition, I believe, makes as advantageous -a difference as the word “native” when attached -to an oyster, or the guarantee “new laid” when -employed with reference to an egg.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Dear Vavasour’s temperament and tastes having a -decided bias towards the gloomy and mystic, he had, before -his great discovery of his latent poetical gifts, and -in the intervals of freedom from the brain-carking and -soul-stultifying cares of business, made several excursions -into the regions of the Unknown. He had had -some sort of intercourse with the Swedenborgians, and -had mingled with the Muggletonians; he had coquetted -with the Christian Scientists, and had been, until Theosophic -Buddhism opened a wider field to his researches, -an enthusiastic Spiritualist. But our engagement somewhat -cooled his passion for psychic research, and when -questioned by me with regard to table-rappings, manifestations, -and materializations, I could not but be conscious -<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>of a reticence in his manner of responding to my -innocent desire for information. The reflection that he -probably, like Canning’s knife-grinder, had no story to -tell, soon induced me to abandon the subject. I myself -am somewhat reserved at this day in my method of dealing -with the subject of spooks. But my silence does -not proceed from ignorance.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Knowledge came to me after this fashion. Though -the April sun shone bright and warm upon Guernsey, -the island nights were chill. Waking by dear Vavasour’s -side—the novelty of this experience has since been -blunted by the usage of years—somewhere between one -and two o’clock towards break of the fourth day following -our marriage, it occurred to me that a faint cold -draft, with a suggestion of dampness about it, was blowing -against my right cheek. One of the windows upon -that side—our room possessed a rather unbecoming cross-light—had -probably been left open. Dear Vavasour, -who occupied the right side of our couch, would wake -with toothache in the morning, or, perhaps, with mumps! -Shuddering, as much at the latter idea as with cold, I -opened my eyes, and sat up in bed with a definite intention -of getting out of it and shutting the offending casement. -Then I saw Katie for the first time.</p> - -<p class='c009'>She was sitting on the right side of the bed, close to -dear Vavasour’s pillow; in fact, almost hanging over it. -From the first moment I knew that which I looked upon -to be no creature of flesh and blood, but the mere apparition -of a woman. It was not only that her face, which -struck me as both pert and plain; her hands; her hair, -which she wore dressed in an old-fashioned ringletty -mode—in fact, her whole personality was faintly luminous, -and surrounded by a halo of bluish phosphorescent -light. It was not only that she was transparent, so -that I saw the pattern of the old-fashioned, striped, -dimity bed-curtain, in the shelter of which she sat, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>quite plainly through her. The consciousness was further -conveyed to me by a voice—or the toneless, flat, -faded impression of a voice—speaking faintly and -clearly, not at my outer, but at my inner ear.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Lie down again, and don’t fuss. It’s only Katie!” -she said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Only Katie!” I liked that!</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I dare say you don’t,” she said tartly, replying as -she had spoken, and I wondered that a ghost should -exhibit such want of breeding. “But you have got to -put up with me!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How dare you intrude here—and at such an hour!” -I exclaimed mentally, for there was no need to wake -dear Vavasour by talking aloud when my thoughts were -read at sight by the ghostly creature who sat so familiarly -beside him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I knew your husband before you did,” responded -Katie, with a faint phosphorescent sneer. “We became -acquainted at a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">séance</span></i> in North-West London soon after -his conversion to Spiritualism, and have seen a great -deal of each other from time to time.” She tossed her -shadowy curls with a possessive air that annoyed me -horribly. “He was constantly materializing me in order -to ask questions about Shakespeare. It is a standing -joke in our Spirit world that, from the best educated -spook in our society down to the most illiterate astral -that ever knocked out ‘rapport’ with one ‘p,’ we are -all expected to know whether Shakespeare wrote his -own plays, or whether they were done by another person -of the same name.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And which way was it?” I asked, yielding to a -momentary twinge of curiosity.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Katie laughed mockingly. “There you go!” she said, -with silent contempt.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I wish <em>you</em> would!” I snapped back mentally. “It -<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>seems to me that you manifest a great lack of refinement -in coming here!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I cannot go until Vavasour has finished,” said Katie -pertly. “Don’t you see that he has materialized me by -dreaming about me? And as there exists <em>at present</em>”—she -placed an annoying stress upon the last two words—“a -strong sympathy between you, so it comes about -that I, as your husband’s spiritual affinity, am visible -to your waking perceptions. All the rest of the time I -am hovering about you, though unseen.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I call it detestable!” I retorted indignantly. Then I -gripped my sleeping husband by the shoulder. “Wake -up! wake up!” I cried aloud, wrath lending power to -my grasp and a penetrative quality to my voice. “Wake -up and leave off dreaming! I cannot and will not endure -the presence of this creature another moment!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>Whaa</em>——” muttered my husband, with the almost -inebriate incoherency of slumber, “<em>whasamaramydarling?</em>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Stop dreaming about that creature,” I cried, “or I -shall go home to Mamma!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Creature?” my husband echoed, and as he sat up I -had the satisfaction of seeing Katie’s misty, luminous -form fade slowly into nothingness.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You know who I mean!” I sobbed. “Katie—your -spiritual affinity, as she calls herself!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You don’t mean,” shouted Vavasour, now thoroughly -roused, “that you have seen <em>her</em>?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I do mean it,” I mourned. “Oh, if I had only -known of your having an entanglement with any creature -of the kind, I would never have married you—never!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Hang her!” burst out Vavasour. Then he controlled -himself, and said soothingly: “After all, dearest, -there is nothing to be jealous of——”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>“I jealous! And of that——” I was beginning, but -Vavasour went on:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“After all, she is only a disembodied astral entity -with whom I became acquainted—through my fifth principle, -which is usually well developed—in the days when -I moved in Spiritualistic society. She was, when living—for -she died long before I was born—a young lady -of very good family. I believe her father was a clergyman -... and I will not deny that I encouraged her -visits.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Discourage them from this day!” I said firmly. -“Neither think of her nor dream of her again, or I will -have a separation.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I will keep her, as much as possible, out of my waking -thoughts,” said poor Vavasour, trying to soothe -me; “but a man cannot control his dreams, and she pervades -mine in a manner which, even before our engagement, -my pet, I began to find annoying. However, if she -really is, as she has told me, a lady by birth and breeding, -she will understand”—he raised his voice as though -she were there and he intended her to hear—“that I -am now a married man, and from this moment desire -to have no further communication with her. Any suitable -provision it is in my power to make——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He ceased, probably feeling the difficulty he would -have in explaining the matter to his lawyers; and it -seemed to me that a faint mocking sniggle, or rather -the auricular impression of it, echoed his words. Then, -after some more desultory conversation, we fell soundly -asleep. An hour may have passed when the same chilly -sensation as of a damp draft blowing across the bed -roused me. I rubbed my cheek and opened my eyes. -They met the pale, impertinent smile of the hateful -Katie, who was installed in her old post beside Vavasour’s -end of the bolster.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You see,” she said, in the same soundless way, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>with a knowing little nod of triumph, “it is no use. He -is dreaming of me again!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Wake up!” I screamed, snatching the pillow from -under my husband’s head and madly hurling it at the -shameless intruder. This time Vavasour was almost -snappish at being disturbed. Daylight surprised us in -the middle of our first connubial quarrel. The following -night brought a repetition of the whole thing, and -so on, <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">da capo</span></i>, until it became plain to us, to our mutual -disgust, that the more Vavasour strove to banish Katie -from his dreams, the more persistently she cropped up -in them. She was the most ill-bred and obstinate of -astrals—Vavasour and I the most miserable of newly-married -people. A dozen times in a night I would be -roused by that cold draft upon my cheek, would open -my eyes and see that pale, phosphorescent, outline -perched by Vavasour’s pillow—nine times out of the -dozen would be driven to frenzy by the possessive air -and cynical smile of the spook. And although Vavasour’s -former regard for her was now converted into -hatred, he found the thought of her continually invading -his waking mind at the most unwelcome seasons. -She had begun to appear to both of us <em>by day as well as -by night</em> when our poisoned honeymoon came to an end, -and we returned to town to occupy the house which -Vavasour had taken and furnished in Sloane Street. -I need only mention that Katie accompanied us.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Insufficient sleep and mental worry had by this time -thoroughly soured my temper no less than Vavasour’s. -When I charged him with secretly encouraging the presence -I had learned to hate, he rudely told me to think -as I liked! He implored my pardon for this brutality -afterwards upon his knees, and with the passage of time -I learned to endure the presence of his attendant shade -with patience. When she nocturnally hovered by the -side of my sleeping spouse, or in constituence no less -<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>filmy than a whiff of cigarette-smoke, appeared at his -elbow in the face of day, I saw her plainly, and at -these moments she would favor me with a significant contraction -of the eyelid, which was, to say the least of it, -unbecoming in a spirit who had been a clergyman’s -daughter. After one of these experiences it was that -the idea which I afterwards carried into execution occurred -to me.</p> - -<p class='c009'>I began by taking in a few numbers of a psychological -publication entitled <cite>The Spirit-Lamp</cite>. Then I formed -the acquaintance of Madame Blavant, the renowned Professoress -of Spiritualism and Theosophy. Everybody -has heard of Madame, many people have read her works, -some have heard her lecture. I had heard her lecture. -She was a lady with a strong determined voice and -strong determined features. She wore her plentiful -gray hair piled in sibylline coils on the top of her head, -and—when she lectured—appeared in a white Oriental -silk robe that fell around her tall gaunt figure in imposing -folds. This robe was replaced by one of black -satin when she held her <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">séances</span></i>. At other times, in the -seclusion of her study, she was draped in an ample gown -of Indian chintz innocent of cut, but yet imposing. She -smiled upon my new-born desire for psychic instruction, -and when I had subscribed for a course of ten private -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">séances</span></i> at so many guineas a piece she smiled more.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Madame lived in a furtive, retiring house, situated -behind high walls in Endor’s Grove, N.W. A long glass -tunnel led from the garden gate to the street door, for -the convenience of Mahatmas and other persons who -preferred privacy. I was one of those persons, for -not for spirit worlds would I have had Vavasour know -of my repeated visits to Endor’s Grove. Before these -were over I had grown quite indifferent to supernatural -manifestations, banjos and accordions that were -thrummed by invisible performers, blood-red writing on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>mediums’ wrists, mysterious characters in slate-pencil, -Planchette, and the Table Alphabet. And I had made -and improved upon acquaintance with Simon.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Simon was a spirit who found me attractive. He tried -in his way to make himself agreeable, and, with my secret -motive in view—let me admit without a blush—I -encouraged him. When I knew I had him thoroughly -in hand, I attended no more <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">séances</span></i> at Endor’s Grove. -My purpose was accomplished upon a certain night, -when, feeling my shoulder violently shaken, I opened -the eyes which had been closed in simulated slumber to -meet the indignant glare of my husband. I glanced over -his shoulder. Katie did not occupy her usual place. I -turned my glance towards the armchair which stood at -my side of the bed. It was not vacant. As I guessed, -it was occupied by Simon. There he sat, the luminously -transparent appearance of a weak-chinned, mild-looking -young clergyman, dressed in the obsolete costume of -eighty years previously. He gave me a bow in which -respect mingled with some degree of complacency, and -glanced at Vavasour.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have been explaining matters to your husband,” -he said, in that soundless spirit-voice with which Katie -had first made me acquainted. “He understands that I -am a clergyman and a reputable spirit, drawn into your -life-orbit by the irresistible attraction which your mediumistic -organization exercises over my——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There, you hear what he says!” I interrupted, nodding -confirmatively at Vavasour. “Do let me go to -sleep!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What, with that intrusive beast sitting beside you?” -shouted Vavasour indignantly. “Never!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Think how many months I have put up with the -presence of Katie!” said I. “After all, it’s only tit for -tat!” And the ghost of a twinkle in Simon’s pale eye -seemed to convey that he enjoyed the retort.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>Vavasour grunted sulkily, and resumed his recumbent -position. But several times that night he awakened me -with renewed objurgations of Simon, who with unflinching -resolution maintained his post. Later on I started -from sleep to find Katie’s usual seat occupied. She -looked less pert and confident than usual, I thought, and -rather humbled and fagged, as though she had had some -trouble in squeezing her way into Vavasour’s sleeping -thoughts. By day, after that night, she seldom appeared. -My husband’s brain was too much occupied -with Simon, who assiduously haunted me. And it was -now my turn to twit Vavasour with unreasonable jealousy. -Yet though I gloried in the success of my stratagem, -the continual presence of that couple of spooks was -an unremitting strain upon my nerves.</p> - -<p class='c009'>But at length an extraordinary conviction dawned on -my mind, and became stronger with each successive -night. Between Simon and Katie an acquaintance had -sprung up. I would awaken, or Vavasour would arouse, -to find them gazing across the barrier of the bolster -which divided them with their pale negatives of eyes, -and chatting in still, spirit voices. Once I started from -sleep to find myself enveloped in a kind of mosquito-tent -of chilly, filmy vapor, and the conviction rushed -upon me that He and She had leaned across our couch -and exchanged an intangible embrace. Katie was the -leading spirit in this, I feel convinced—there was no -effrontery about Simon. Upon the next night I, waking, -overheard a fragment of conversation between them -which plainly revealed how matters stood.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We should never have met upon the same plane,” -remarked Simon silently, “but for the mediumistic intervention -of these people. Of the man”—he glanced -slightingly towards Vavasour—“I cannot truthfully say -I think much. The lady”—he bowed in my direction—“is -everything that a lady should be!”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>“You are infatuated with her, it is plain!” snapped -Katie, “and the sooner you are removed from her sphere -of influence the better.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Her power with me is weakening,” said Simon, “as -Vavasour’s is with you. Our outlines are no longer so -clear as they used to be, which proves that our astral -individualities are less strongly impressed upon the -brains of our earthly sponsors than they were. We are -still materialized; but how long this will continue——” -He sighed and shrugged his shoulders.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t let us wait for a formal dismissal, then,” said -Katie boldly. “Let us throw up our respective situations.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I remember enough of the Marriage Service to make -our union, if not regular, at least respectable,” said Simon.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And I know quite a fashionable place on the Outside -Edge of Things, where we could settle down,” said -Katie, “and live practically on nothing.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>I blinked at that moment. When I saw the room -again clearly, the chairs beside our respective pillows -were empty.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Years have passed, and neither Vavasour nor myself -has ever had a glimpse of the spirits whom we were the -means of introducing to one another. We are quite -content to know ourselves deprived for ever of their -company. Yet sometimes, when I look at our three babies, -I wonder whether that establishment of Simon’s -and Katie’s on the Outside Edge of Things includes a -nursery.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE WIDOW’S MITE</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>People bestowed that nickname upon little Lord Garlingham -years ago, when he was the daintiest of human -playthings ever adored by a young mother. Shutting -my eyes, I can recall him, all golden curls and frills, sitting -on the front seat of the victoria with Toto, the Maltese. -Japanese pugs had not then come into fashion, -nor the ubiquitous automobile. Gar is the Widow’s Mite -still, but for other reasons. He was a charming, irresolute, -impulsive child, who invariably meant “macaroons” -when he said “sponge cake.” It recurs to me -that he was passionately fond of dolls, not nigger Sambo -dolls, or sailor dolls, or Punchinelli with curved caps -and bells, or policemen with large feet so cunningly -weighted that it is next door to impossible to knock them -over, but frilled and furbelowed dollies of the gentler -sex. There was a blue princess in tulle with a glass -chandelier-drop tiara, and a dancing girl in pink, and -a stout, shapeless, rag lady, whose features were painted -on the calico ball that represented her head, and whose -hair resembled the fringe of a black woollen shawl. -Holding her by one leg, Gar would sink to sleep upon -his lace-trimmed pillows in a halo of shining curls, and -Lady Garlingham’s last new friend or latest new adorer -would be brought up to the night nursery for an after-dinner -peep at “my precious in his cot.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My precious” was equally charming in his Eton -days, when his sleepy green eyes looked up at you from -under a lock of fair silky hair that was never to be kept -<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>within regulation School bounds, but continually strayed -upon the fair, if freckled, expanse of a brow which might -have been the home of a pure and innocent mind, and -probably was not. He had a pleasant treble boy’s voice -and a beautiful smile, particularly when his mother told -him he might smoke just one cigarette, of her own special -brand, as a great treat.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mother’s are hay,” he said afterwards in confidence, -and added that he preferred cut Cavendish, and that the -best way to induce a meerschaum to color was to smoke -it foul, and never to remove the dottle. But Lady Garlingham -was never the wiser. She had the utmost faith -in her boy.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Gar will be a dab at Classics,” she said with pride. -“Fancy his knowing that Dido was a heathen goddess, -and Procrustes was a Grecian King who murdered his -mother and afterwards put out his own eyes! I must -really give his tutor a hint not to bring him on <em>too</em> fast. -He will have to make his own way in the world, poor -dear, that is certain; but I don’t want him to turn out -a literary genius with eccentric clothes, or anything in -the scientific line that isn’t careful about its nails and -doesn’t comb its hair.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Garlingham’s clothes are always of the latest fashion -and in the most admirable taste. His hair is as well -groomed, his hands are as immaculate as any mother’s -heart could desire, and he has not turned out a genius. -During his career at Oxford he did not allow his love of -study to interfere with the more serious pursuit of athletic -distinction. He left the University unburdened -with honors, carrying in his wake a string of bills as long -as a kite’s tail. Relieved of this by the sacrifice of some -of Lady Garlingham’s diamonds, the kite shot up into -the empyrean in the wake of a dazzling star of the comic-opera -stage.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But, thank Heaven, the boy has principles,” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>breathed Lady Garlingham. “He never dreamed of -marrying her!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Garlingham descended from the skies ere long, tangled -in a telegraphic wire, and went into the Diplomatic -Service. He became fourth under-secretary at an Imperial -foreign Embassy, in virtue of the marriage of his -maternal aunt with Prince John Schulenstorff-Wangelbrode -(who was Military Attaché in the days of the -pannier and the polonaise, the bustle and the fringed -whip-parasol). I have not the least idea in what Garlingham’s -duties consisted, and the dear fellow was -diplomatically reticent when sounded on the subject; but -of one thing I am sure, that few young men have worn -an official button and lapels with greater ease and distinction. -He quite adored his mother, and made her his -<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">confidante</span></i> in all his love affairs. Indeed I believe Lady -Garlingham kept a little register of these at one time -on the sticks of an ivory fan—those that were going off, -those that were in full bloom, and those that were just -coming on; and posted up dates and set down names with -the utmost regularity.</p> - -<p class='c009'>For, like the typical butterfly, Garlingham sipped -every flower and changed every hour. A very mature -Polly has now his passion requited, and if human happiness -depended on avoirdupois, and it were an established -mathematical fact that the felicity of the object -attracted may be calculated by the dimensions of the -object attracting, then is the handsome boy I used to -tip a happy man indeed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>For Gar, “that pocket edition of Apollo,” as a Royal -personage with a happy knack at nicknames termed him—Gar -has married a middle-aged, not too good-looking, -extremely fat widow, unknown to fame as Mrs. Rollo -Polkingham. The couple were Hanover Squared in -June. Leila and Sheila Polkingham made the loveliest -<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>pair of Dresden china bridesmaids imaginable, and a -Bishop tied the knot, assisted by the brother of the bride, -the Reverend Michael O’Halloran, of Mount Slattery, -County Quare, a surpliced brogue with a Trinity College -B.A. hood. The hymns that were sung by the choir -during the ceremony were, “The Voice that Breathed,” -and “Fight the Good Fight,” and the bride looked quite -as bridal as might have been expected of a thirty-eight -inch girth arrayed in the latest heliotrope shade. She -became peony, Garlingham pale blue, when the moment -arrived for him to pronounce his vows, and a voice—a -high, nasal voice of the penetrating, saw-edged American -kind—said, several pews behind, quite audibly: “Well, -I call it child-stealing!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The owner of that voice was at the reception in Chesterfield -Crescent. So was I, and when Garlingham -thanked me for a silver cigar-box I had sent him in memory -of our old friendship, his hand was damp and clammy, -though he smiled. The Dowager Lady Garlingham, -looking much younger than her daughter-in-law, floated -across to ask me why I never came to see her now, and -Gar drifted away. Later, I had a fleeting glimpse of -the bridegroom standing in the large, cool shadow of -his newly-made bride, looking helplessly from one to -the other of his recently-acquired stepdaughters. Then -my circular gaze met and merged in the still attractive -eyes of Lady Garlingham.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You heard,” she breathed in her old confidential -way, “what that very outspoken person—I think a Miss -Van Something, from Philadelphia—said in church?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I did hear,” I returned, “and, while I deplored her -candor, I could not but admit——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That she had hit off the situation with dreadful -accuracy—I felt that, too,” sighed Gar’s mother.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We are old friends, or were,” said I, for people always -<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>became sentimental in the vicinity of Lady Garlingham. -“Tell me how it happened!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, how——” Lady Garlingham adroitly turned a -slight groan into a little cough. “Indeed, I hardly know. -All that seems burned into me is that I have become a -dowager without adequate cause.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Her pretty brown eyebrows crumpled; she dabbed her -still charming eyes with an absurd little lace handkerchief. -She wore a wonderful dress of something filmy -in Watteau blue, and a Lamballe hat with a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">paradis</span></i>. -Through innumerable veils of tulle her complexion was -really wonderful, considering, and her superb hair still -tawny gold.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t look at me and ask yourself why I’ve never -married again,” she commanded, in the old petulant -way. “For Gar’s sake, is the stereotyped answer to -that. And when I look at <em>her</em>——” She dabbed away -a tear with the absurd little handkerchief. “She hasn’t -had the indecency to call me ‘Mother’ <em>yet</em>.... But -she will, I know she will! If she doesn’t, she is more -than human. I have said such things to <em>her</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I can quite believe it,” I agreed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Champagne cups were going about; infinitesimal sandwiches, -tabloids of condensed indigestion, were being -washed down. The best man, an Attaché friend of Garlingham’s, -brandishing a silver-handled carving-knife, -was encouraging the bridling bride to attack the cake. -Sheila and Leila hovered near with silver baskets, and -Garlingham, with the merest shadow of his old easy -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">insouciance</span></i>, was replying to the statute and legendary -chaff of the other men.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You know he was engaged to the second girl, Sheila, -first?” went on Lady Garlingham plaintively.</p> - -<p class='c009'>I had not known it, and it gave me a thrill.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Indeed!” I said in a tone of polite inquiry.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When he was a very little boy, and I took him into -<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>a shop to buy a toy,” said poor Lady Garlingham, “he -always was in raptures with it, whatever it was, until -we were half-way home, and <em>then</em> nothing would satisfy -him but the carriage being turned round and driven -back, so that he might exchange the thing for something -he had particularly disliked at first.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>I recalled the trait in my own experience of my young -friend.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah, yes. He always took <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pralines</span></i> when he really -wanted chocolate fondants,” sighed his mother. “And -then—but perhaps you have forgotten—the dolls?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>I had forgotten the dolls. I suppose I gaped rather -stupidly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He had three,” gulped Lady Garlingham. “He -chose the blue one first, and then, when we had just -reached Hyde Park Gate, he cried, and said it was the -pink one he had wanted all along. So we went back and -got her, and drove home to lunch, which, of course, was -Gar’s dinner. And then, if you had seen him, poor darling,”—her -maternal bosom heaved with a repressed -sob—“with his underlip turned down in a quite South -Sea Island way, and the tears tumbling into his rice -pudding because the blue creature was absolutely his -ideal from the first, you would have been foolish enough -to order the carriage and drive him back to the Regent -Street toyshop.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As you did?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As I did,” admitted Lady Garlingham.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“With the result that might have been expected?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“With the result that seems to me <em>now</em> to be a hateful -foreshadowing of what was to be my poor darling’s -fate in life,” said the poor darling’s mother.... “No, -thank you, Sheila dear, I positively could not touch it,” -she added, as the cake-basket came our way. “Not even -to dream on—I have quite done with dreaming now.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But how,” I asked hypercritically, “could Garlingham’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>subsequent choice of the blue doll, originally discarded -in favor of the pink, foreshadow his ultimate -fate in life?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, don’t you understand?” quavered poor Lady -Garlingham. “He went into the toyshop by himself, -and came marching out with what the Americans call a -rag-baby, the most odious, distorted, shapeless horror you -can imagine. It fascinated him by its sheer ugliness. -He was obsessed, magnetized, compelled.... As in this -case!” A burst of confidence broke down the floodgates -of the poor woman’s reserve. She grasped me by -the arm as she gurgled out hysterically—rocking her -slight form to and fro: “My dear, <em>she</em> is the rag-doll, -this awful widow creature Garlingham has married. -And to his fatal curse of indecision he owes the Incubus -that is crushing him to-day.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The bride had tripped upstairs to put on her going-away -gown, attended by Leila and Sheila and some -freshly-married women, who meant to struggle for the -slippers for second choice.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Loud, explosive bursts of jeering merriment came -from the dining-room, where most of the men of the -party had congregated. An exhausted maid and a very -obvious private detective hovered in the neighborhood -of the display of wedding presents, and through the -open door of the drawing-room one caught a glimpse of -suspiciously new luggage piled up in the hall, and a -little group of youths and maidens of the callower kind, -who were industriously packing the sunshades and umbrellas -in the holdalls with rice and confetti.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My poor, poor boy has been in and out of love <em>hundreds</em> -of times,” moaned the despairing Dowager, “without -once having been actually engaged. So that when I -saw Gar with these three women sitting on four green -chairs in the Park in May, I was not seriously alarmed. -Georgiana Bayham told me that the stout woman with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>too many bangles was a Mrs. Rollo Polkingham, a widow, -of whom nobody who might with truth be styled anybody -had ever heard, and that she had a wild, jungly -house in Chesterfield Crescent—(don’t those climbing -peacocks in the wall-paper set your teeth on edge?)—and -always asked young men to call—and wanted to -know their intentions at the third visit.... ‘I would -give this turquoise charm off my <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">porte-bonheur</span></i>,’ said -Georgiana, in her loud, bubbling voice, ‘to know which -of the two daughters Gar is smitten with. The girl with -the eyes like black ballot-balls, or the other with the -Gaiety smile.’ ... My dear, it was the dark one, Leila, -as it happened. Not that Gar flirted desperately. But -they went to Hurlingham and lunched at Prince’s, and -then the mother thought my boy hooked, and -struck——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Asked his intentions?” I hinted.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I knew something had happened,” said Gar’s -mother, “when he came in to tea with me that very -afternoon. ‘Mother, am I a villain?’ were his very -words. ‘No, dear,’ I said, ‘do you feel like one?’ Then -it came out that the Polkingham woman had asked his -intentions with regard to Leila; and never having had -such a thing done to him before, poor, dear boy! Gar was -quite prostrated. He did not deny that he found the -eldest Polkingham girl attractive, but secretly he had -been more closely drawn to the second, Sheila.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The pink doll,” I murmured.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He behaved with the nicest honor in the matter,” declared -Lady Garlingham. “When he told me he was -really in love with Sheila, and could never be happy until -he had married her—and how a young woman with -such a muddy complexion could inspire such a passion I -don’t pretend to know—I said: ‘Very well, you have -my permission to tell her so. I shall never stand in the -way of your happiness, my son—although these people -<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>are not in Our Set.’ If you had seen his shining eyes. -If you had heard the thrill in his voice as he said, ‘What -a rattling good sort you are, mother!’ you would have -felt with me that the sacrifice was worth it. And then -he rushed off in a hansom to declare himself.” Lady -Garlingham clutched my arm painfully.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To declare himself to Sheila?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And came back within the space of half an hour -engaged to Leila,” panted Lady Garlingham. “No, -don’t laugh!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The b-blue d-doll!” I gasped.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He was as pale as death!” said his mother. “He -had found Leila in the drawing-room in a becoming half-light, -and been taken off his guard.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And metaphorically he told the shopwoman he would -prefer that one,” I said shakily. “I understand! Was -he very unhappy over his bargain?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Frightfully out of sorts and off color,” said the -wooer’s mother, “until at a crisis, a month later, I -nerved him to go and see the mother and explain the -mistake.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And did he?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I will say Mrs. Polkingham took the revelation in -good part,” said Lady Garlingham. “Leila cried a good -deal, I believe, when she turned Gar over to Sheila, and -Sheila was not disagreeably inclined to crow. I must -give the girls credit for their behavior. As for Gar, he -was the very picture of young, ardent happiness. -‘Mother,’ I can hear him saying, ‘thanks to you, I have -won the dearest and loveliest girl in the world.’ (Poor -boy!) ‘And I’m as happy as a gardener.’”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Did that phase last long?” I queried, with twitching -facial muscles.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He began to flag, as it were, in about six weeks,” said -Garlingham’s mother mournfully. “My poor, affectionate, -<em>wobbly</em> boy. The sky of his simple happiness was -overcast. There came a day when the floodgates of his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>resolve to go through with everything at any cost—sacrifice -himself for the sake of his duty and for the credit -of his family name——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Noblesse oblige</span></i>,” I stammered chokily. “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Noblesse -oblige.</span></i>”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The floodgates were broken down,” said his mother, -with a tremble in her voice. “His heart reverted with -a bound to the—the other—to Leila.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To the blue doll!” I spluttered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When he entreated me,” went on Lady Garlingham, -“begged me even with tears to be his ambassadress to -Leila, I grieve to say that for the first time in his life I -failed to rise to the occasion of his need. I said: ‘I shall -do nothing of the kind. Get out of the muddle as you -can—I wash my hands of it.’ And he thought me very -hard and very unfeeling, I know; but even when the -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bouleversement</span></i> was managed for the third time, I could -not bring myself to regard the position from my usually -philosophical point of view. It was too cruel. The retransfer -of the engagement-ring, for instance——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah, true,” I murmured, “and the presents!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Too painful!” sighed Lady Garlingham. “It was -ultimately arranged by Gar’s buying a new ring, and -Sheila’s dropping the old one into the almsbag at St. -Baverstock’s. Poor girl! I will say her demeanor in -the trying circumstances was admirable.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As for the other?” I hinted.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Leila is not a refined type of girl,” said Lady Garlingham -decidedly. “Her whole expression was that of -a Bank Holiday tripper young person who has just dismounted -from one of those giddy-go-rounds. Boat-swings -might impart the dazed look. The mother seemed -harassed. As for Gar——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>I guessed what was coming, but I would not have -missed hearing Lady Garlingham tell it for worlds.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There came a day—a dreadful, dreadful day,” she -said, with pale lips, “when Gar told me that his life was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>ruined <em>unless he changed back</em>! We had a <em>dreadful -scene</em>, and for the first time in my life I had hysterics. -Then the unhappy boy tore from the house—<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ventre à -terre</span></i>—leaving me a perfect wreck, held up by my maid -Pinner—you know Pinner?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>I nodded speechlessly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My wretched boy tore from the house, jumped into -his ‘Gohard,’ which was standing at the door—hurtled -to Chesterfield Crescent—told the painful truth——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Swopped dolls yet once again, and came back with -the rag-baby,” I gasped.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>And</em> now,” groaned Lady Garlingham, “he has to -carry it through life!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>There was a gabbling on the upper landing. The -bride was coming down in a white cut-cloth, tailor-made -gown and a picture hat, Leila and Sheila and a bonneted -maid following. The bridegroom, in immaculate tweeds, -appeared at a lower door, the smug face of his valet -behind him. There was a rush of women, an insane -kissing and shaking of hands, a glare of red carpet, a -flapping of striped awning. Rice and confetti impregnated -the air, the doorsteps were swamped with smartly-dressed -people. The chauffeur of Gar’s “Gohard” with -a giant favor in the buttonhole of his livery coat grinned -when Garlingham leaped tigerishly upon him and tore -it from his chest. The automobile moved on, pursued -by farewells. Some one had thoughtfully attached two -slippers to its rearward steps, a stout, elderly, white -satin slipper and a slim masculine, evening shoe of the -pump kind, almost new.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Say!” said the saw-edged American voice I had -heard in the church—“say, won’t the car-conductor allow -she’s traveling with her little boy? What will folks -call him, anyhow?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>My mouth was on a level with the speaker’s back hair.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Widow’s Mite,” I said aloud—and fled.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span> - <h2 class='c005'>SUSANNA AND HER ELDERS</h2> -</div> - -<h3 class='c016'>I</h3> - -<p class='c017'>The Earl of Beaumaris, a worthy and imposing personage, -flushed from the nape of his neck to the high summit -of his cranium—premature baldness figured amongst -the family heredities—paced, in creaking patent-leather -boots, up and down the castle library—a noble apartment -of Tudor design, lined with rare and antique volumes -into which none ever looked. There were other -persons present beside the Dowager Countess, and, to -judge by the strainedly polite expression of their faces, -the squeaking leather must have been playing havoc with -their nerves.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Gustavus,” said the Dowager at length, “you’re an -English Peer in your own castle, and not a pointsman on -a Broadway block, unless I’m considerably mistaken. -Sit down!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mother, I will not be defied!” said Lord Beaumaris. -“I will not be bearded by my own child—a mere chit of -a girl! Had Susanna been a boy I should have known -how to deal with this spirit of insubordination. Being -a girl—and moreover, motherless—I abandon her to you. -She has many things to learn, but let the first lesson you -inculcate be this—that I positively refuse to be defied!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The child has, I gather, gone out to take the air -when she ought to have stayed in and taken a scolding,” -said Lady Beaumaris. “Does anybody know of her -whereabouts?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>Alaric Osmond-Omer, a languid, drab-complexioned, -light-haired man of aristocratic appearance, never seen -without the smoked eyeglass that concealed a diabolic -squint, spoke:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I saw her in a crimson golfing-jacket and a white -Tam-o’-shanter crossing the upper terrace. She carried -an alpenstock, and was followed by quite a pack -of dogs—incorporated in the body of one extraordinary -mongrel which I have occasionally observed about the -stable-yards. I gathered that she was going for a climb -upon the cliffs. That was about half an hour ago!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Alaric, you have attended every Family Council -that I recollect since I became a member of this family, -and have never before opened your lips,” said Lady -Beaumaris, fixing the unfortunate Alaric with her eye, -which was still black and snappingly bright. “Make -this occasion memorable by offering a suggestion. You -really owe us one!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Everybody present looked at Alaric, who smiled helplessly -and dropped his eyeglass, revealing the physical -peculiarity it concealed. The effect of the diabolic -squint, in combination with his mild features and somewhat -foolish expression, conveyed a general impression -of reserve force. He spoke, fumbling for the missing -article, which had plunged rapturously into his bosom, -with long, trim fingers, encrusted with mourning rings.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The question at issue is—unless I have failed in my -mental digest of the situation—how to bring Susanna -Viscountess Lymston—pardon me if I indulge a little -my weakness for prolixity——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The door creaked, and Alaric broke off.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear man,” said the Dowager, “I never before -heard you utter a sentence of more than two words’ -length!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“—To bring Susanna, who is just seventeen and -fiercely virginal in her expressed aversion to, and avoidance -<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>of, ordinary, everyday Man—into compliance with -your paternal wishes”—Alaric bowed to Lord Beaumaris—“where -the encouragement of a suitor is concerned!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have appealed to her filial feelings—which do not -appear to exist,” said Lord Beaumaris; “I have appealed -to her reason—I doubt gravely whether the girl -possesses any: ‘There is too much landed property, -there are too many houses and too many heirlooms, and -there is not enough ready money to keep things going,’ -I said. Her reply was: ‘Sell some of the land and some -of the houses and all of the pictures, and then there will -be enough to keep up the rest.’ ‘My dear child, is it -possible,’ I said, ‘that at your age, and occupying the -position you occupy, you have no idea of what is meant -by an Entail?’ Then I made her sit down here, in this -library, opposite me, and laid plainly before her why it -is necessary for her, as my daughter, to marry, and to -marry Wealth, Position, and Title. Before I had ended -she rose with a flaming face and burst into an hysterical -tirade, which lasted ten minutes. I gather that she was -willing to marry Sir Prosper Le Gai or the Knight of -the Swan if either of these gentlemen proposed for her -hand. Neither being available, she intends, I gather, to -write great poems, or paint great pictures, or go upon -the stage.... Go upon the stage! My blood curdled -at the bare idea. It is still in that unpleasant condition.” -Lord Beaumaris shuddered violently, and -pressed his handkerchief to his nose. “If you have any -advice to give, Alaric,” he said bluntly, “oblige us by -giving it. We are at a positive crux!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The drab-complexioned, light-haired Alaric responded:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“In my poor opinion—which may be crassly wrong—too -much stress has been laid upon the necessity of Susanna’s -marrying.” At this point the contrast between -the amiable vacuity of Alaric’s face and the Mephistophelian -<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>intelligence of his monocled eye was so extraordinary -as to hold his listeners spellbound in their chairs. -“I think we may take it that the principal feature of -the child’s character is—call it determination amounting -to obstinacy——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Crass obstinacy!” burst from the Earl.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Pig-headedness!” interjected the Dowager.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I think I remember hearing that in her nursery days -the sure way to make her take a dose of harmless necessary -medicine,” pursued Alaric, his left eye fixed upon -the door, “was to prepare the potion, pill, or what-not, -sweeten, and then carefully conceal it from her. Were -she my daughter—which Heaven for—which Heaven has -not granted!—I should make her take a husband in the -same way.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“An utterance possibly inspired, but as obscure as the -generality. I fear, my dear Alaric——” Lord Beaumaris -began. The Dowager cut him short.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Say, Gus, can’t you let him finish? That’s what I -call real mean—to switch a man off just when he’s beginning -to grip the track.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mother, I bow to you,” Lord Beaumaris said, purpling -with indignation. “Pray continue, Alaric!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Hum along, Alaric,” encouraged the Dowager.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Alaric, his countenance as the countenance of a little -child, his right eye beaming with mildness, and his left -eye as the eye of an intelligent fiend, went on:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Susanna has never yet seen the Duke of Halcyon—her -cousin, and the husband for whom you destine her. -When she does see him—I think I may be pardoned for -saying——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She’ll raise Cain,” agreed Lady Beaumaris. “Girls -think such heaps of good looks; I was like that myself, -before I married your father, Gus.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear mother, granted that Halcyon’s gifts, both -physical and mental, are not”—the Earl coughed—“not -<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>of the kind best calculated to impress and win -upon a romantic, willful girl!... He is, to speak -plainly——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A hideous little Troglodyte,” nodded the Dowager, -over her interminable Shetland-wool knitting.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Odd, considering that his mother, when Lady Flora -MacCodrum, was, with the sole exception of myself, the -handsomest young woman presented in the Spring of -1845.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mother,” said Lord Beaumaris, “delightful as your -reminiscences invariably are, Alaric is waiting to resume.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I had merely intended to suggest,” said Alaric, -twirling his eyeglass by its black ribbon and turning his -demure drab-colored countenance and balefully glittering -left eye upon the Earl and the Dowager in turn, -“that the Duke of Halcyon, like the rhubarb of Susanna’s -infancy, should be rendered tolerable, agreeable, -and even desirable to our dear girl’s palate, by being -forbidden and withheld. Ask him here in September -for the partridge shooting—as I understand you -think of doing—but let him appear, not in his own character -as a young English Peer of immense wealth and -irreproachable reputation, but as one of those literary -and artistic Ineligibles, who are encouraged by Society -to take every liberty with it—short of marrying its -cousins, sisters, or daughters. Let him encourage his -hair to grow—wear a velvet coat, a flamboyant necktie, -and silk stockings in combination with tweed knickerbockers. -Let him pay attention to Susanna—as marked -as he chooses. And do you, for your part”—he fixed -Lord Beaumaris with his gleaming left eye—“discourage -those attentions, and lose no opportunity of impressing -upon your daughter that she is to discourage -them too. Given this tempting opportunity of manifesting -her independent spirit, you will find—or I know -<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>nothing of Susanna—that it will be pull baker, pull -devil. And I know which will pull the hardest!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lord Beaumaris rose to his feet in superb indignation. -He struck the attitude in which he had posed for -his portrait, by Millais, which hung at the upper end -of the library, representing him in the act of delivering -his maiden speech in Parliament—an address advocating -the introduction of footwarmers into the Upper -House, and opened upon Alaric:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Your proposal—I do not hesitate to say it—is audacious. -You deliberately expect that I—I, Gustavus -Templebar Bloundle-Abbott Bloundle, ninth Earl of -Beaumaris, and head of this ancient family—should -stoop to carry out a deception—and upon my only child. -That I should take advantage of her willful youth, her -undisciplined temper, to——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To bring about a match that will set every mother’s -mouth watering, and secure your daughter’s son a dukedom, -and a hundred and thirty thousand a year.... -That’s so, and I guess,” said Lady Beaumaris, “you’ll -do it, Gus! You’re a representative English peer, it’s -true, but on my side you’ve Yankee blood in you, and -the grandson of Elijah K. Van Powler isn’t going to -back out of a little bluff that’s going to pay. No, sir!” -The Dowager ran her knitting-needles through her wool -ball, and rolled up her work briskly. “He’ll do it, -Alaric,” she said with conviction.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mother,” exclaimed the Earl in desperation. “You -were my father’s choice, and Heaven forbid that I -should fail in respect towards a lady whom he honored -with his hand. But when you suggest that to bring -about this most desirable union, I should wallow, metaphorically, -in dirt——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It’s pay dirt, Gus,” said the Dowager. “A hundred -and thirty thousand a year, my boy!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mother!” cried Lord Beaumaris. “If I brought myself -<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>to grovel to such infamy, do you suppose for one -moment Halcyon——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That Halcyon would tumble to the plot? There are -no flies on Halcyon,” said the Dowager, “and you bet -he’ll worry through—velvet coat, orange necktie, forehead, -curls, and all!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Then do I understand,” said Lord Beaumaris helplessly, -“that I am to ask him to accept my hospitality -in a character that is not his own, and appear at my -table in a disguise! The idea is inexpressibly loathsome, -and I cannot imagine in what character he -could possibly appear.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As a painter—of the fashionable fresco brand—engaged -if you like to decorate your new ballroom!” -put in Alaric in his level expressionless tones.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But he can’t paint!” said the Dowager. “That’s -where we’re going to buckle up and collapse. He can’t -paint worth a cent! That takes brain, and Halcyon -isn’t overstocked with ’em, I must allow.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Get a man who has the brain and the ability to do -the work,” said the imperturbable Alaric.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Deception on deception!” groaned Lord Beaumaris.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I have the very fellow in my eye,” pursued Alaric: -“Remarkable clever A.R.A., and a kinsman of your -own. Perhaps you have forgotten him,” he continued, -as Lord Beaumaris stiffened with polite inquiry, and -the Dowager elevated her handsome and still jetty eyebrows -into interrogative arches; “perhaps—it’s equally -likely—you never heard of him, but at least you remember -his mother, Janetta Bloundle?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She married a person professionally interested in -the restoration of Perpendicular churches,” said Lord -Beaumaris, “and though I cannot now recall his name, -I remember hearing of his death, and forwarding a brief, -condolatory postcard to his widow.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Who joined him, wherever he is, six months ago.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>“Dear me!” said Lord Beaumaris, “that is quite too -regrettable. However, it is too late in the day to send -another postcard addressed to the surviving members of -the family.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There is only a son,” said Alaric, “and he is the -rising artist to whom I suggest that you should offer a -commission. He is strong in fresco, and has just executed -a series of wall cartoons for the new Naval and -Military Idiot Asylum, which will carry his name down -to the remotest posterity.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Might—I—ah!—ask his name?” said Lord Beaumaris.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Wopse,” responded Alaric.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lord Beaumaris shuddered.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And the Christian prefix?” He closed his eyes in -readiness for the coming shock.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Halcyon.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lord Beaumaris opened his eyes, and the Dowager -uttered a slight snort of astonishment.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A relationship existing upon the mother’s side between -young Wopse and the ducal house of Halcyon,” -said Alaric, twirling his eyeglass faster: “it is not surprising -that the poor lady should have improved upon -the homespun Anglo-Saxonism of Wopse by the best -means in her power. At any rate the young fellow is -well-looking and well-bred enough to carry both names -in a creditable fashion.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You’ve taken considerable of a time about making -it,” said Lady Beaumaris, “but I’m bound to say your -suggestion ain’t worth shucks. Given the real artistic -and Bohemian article to nibble at, is a girl like Susanna -likely to swallow the imitation article? I guess not!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I concur entirely with my mother, Alaric,” said -Lord Beaumaris. “You propose, in the person of this -young man, to introduce an element of danger into our -limited September house-party.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>“You could let this Mr. Wopse live in the garden -<em>châlet</em>, and commission the keeper’s wife to attend to -him,” said the Dowager, “but even then, how are you -to make sure that——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That Susanna does not associate with him? There -is a simple method of divesting the young man of all -attraction for a young creature of our dear girl’s temperament,” -said Alaric, “but for several reasons I -shrink from recommending its selection.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Pray mention it,” said Lord Beaumaris, with an -uneasy laugh.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Let’s hear it!” said Lady Beaumaris.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You have only,” said Alaric, with great distinctness, -“to call this young fellow by his Christian name; -to let him take Lady Beaumaris in to dinner; to put him -up in your best room—the Indian chintz suite—and -generally to foster the idea——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That he is the Duke of Halcyon!” cried the Dowager. -“My stars! what a Palais Royal farce to be -played under this respectable old roof.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You suggest a double—a doubly-infamous and objectionable -deception! Not a word more.... I will -not hear it!” Lord Beaumaris rapped decidedly on -the table, rose in agitation, and strode on creaking patent -leathers to the door. “The question is closed forever,” -said he, turning upon the threshold. “Let no -one refer to it again in my——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The door, which had occasionally creaked throughout -this discussion, smartly opened from without, and acting -upon the Earl’s offended person as a battering-ram, -caused him to run forwards smartly, tripping over the -edge of the worn, but still splendid Turkey carpet. Lord -Beaumaris saved himself by clinging to the high back of -an ancestral chair, upon the seat of which he subsided, -as the tall young figure of his daughter appeared on -the threshold, her Tam-o’-shanter cap, her long yellow -<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>locks, and her red golfing jacket shining with moisture, -her fresh cheeks red with the cold kisses of the March -winds.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It began to snow like Happy Jack,” said Susanna, -pulling off her rough beaver gauntlet gloves, “so I came -home. Well, have you all done plotting? You look -like conspirators—all—with the exception of Alaric.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>This was true, for while the Earl, his mother, and -three other members of the family council, whom we -have not found it necessary to describe, wore an air -of somewhat guilty perturbation, the drab-colored, mild -countenance of Alaric, its diabolical left eye now blandly -shuttered with its tinted eyeglass, alone appeared guiltless -and unmoved.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We’ve been discussing the September house-party,” -explained this Catesby, as Susanna sat upon the elbow -of his chair and affectionately rumpled his sparse, light-colored -locks.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And husbands for me!” said Susanna, half throttling -Alaric with her strong young arm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Susanna!” cried her father. “I am surprised! I -say no more than that I am surprised!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And I say,” retorted Susanna, in clear, defiant, ringing -accents, as she swayed herself to and fro upon her -narrow perch, “that it is <em>beastly</em> to be expected to marry -just because money has got to be brought into the family. -Of course I <em>shall</em> marry one day—I don’t want -to study law, or be a hospital nurse like that idiotic -Laura Penglebury. But I don’t want to be a married -woman until I’m tired of being a girl. I want to have -lots of fun and do lots of things, and see lots of people, -and make my mind up for my own self. And——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lord Beaumaris, who had long been fermenting, -frothed over. “When you form an alliance, my child, -you will form it with my sanction and my approval, -and the husband you honor with your hand will be a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>person selected and approved of by me. By me! I will -choose for you——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And suppose I choose for myself afterwards!” cried -Susanna, blue fire flashing from her defiant eyes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>Every woman is at heart</em>—ahem!” muttered Alaric, -as Lord Beaumaris strove with incipient apoplexy. Susanna -continued, with a whimper in her voice:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The young men you and grandmother point out to -me as nice and eligible, and all that, are simply awful. -They have no chins, or too much, and no teeth, or too -many, and they don’t talk at all, or they gabble all the -time, about nothing. They never read, they don’t care -for Art or Poetry—they aren’t interested in anything -but Bridge and racing; and if you told them that Beethoven -composed the ‘Honeysuckle and the Bee,’ or that -Chopin wrote ‘When I Marry Amelia,’ they’d believe -you. They like married women better than girls, and -people who dance at theaters better than the married -women——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Pet, you’d better go to Mademoiselle.... Ask her, -with my love, to fix you up some French history to -translate,” Lady Beaumaris suggested.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I should prefer a Gallic verb,” Lord Beaumaris -amended. “I marry in accordance with my parents’ -wishes. Thou marriest in accordance with thy parents’ -wishes. He marries—and so on! And make a solid -schoolroom tea while you are about it, my child,” he -continued, as Susanna bestowed a parting strangle upon -Alaric, kicked over a footstool, and rose to leave the -room. “For I fear we are to be deprived of your society -at dinner this evening.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Susanna’s lovely red underlip pouted; her blue eyes -clouded with tears. She flashed a resentful look at her -sire, and went out.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She is not manageable by any ordinary methods,” -said Lord Beaumaris, running his forefinger round the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>inside of his collar, and shaking his head. “In such a -case Contumacy must be combated with Craft, and Defiance -met with Diplomacy. Alaric, regrettable as is -the course you have counseled us to pursue, I feel inclined -to adopt it.... I shall write to-night to make -an appointment on Wednesday with the Duke of Halcyon -at the Peers’ Club, and—I shall be obliged if you -will, at your early convenience—favor me with the address -of the young man Wopse.”</p> - -<h3 class='c016'>II</h3> - -<p class='c018'>The garden <em>châlet</em> was damp; it had been raining, -and the glittering appearance of the walls betrayed the -fact. “As though a bally lot of snails had been dancin’ -a cotillon on ’em!” said the Duke of Halcyon. He -yawned dismally as he opened the casement and leaned -out, looking, in his gaudily-hued silken night-suit, like -a tulip drooping from the window-sill. Then the keeper’s -wife came splashing up the muddy path carrying a -tray covered with a mackintosh, and the knowledge that -his breakfast would presently be set before him, and -set before him in a lukewarm, flabby, and tepid condition, -caused Halcyon to groan. But presently, when -bathed, shaved, and attired in a neat knickerbocker suit -of tawny-orange velveteen, with green silk stockings -and tan shoes, salmon-colored silk shirt, rainbow necktie, -and Panama, he issued, cigarette in mouth, from -the <em>châlet</em>, and strolled in the direction of the newly-restored -west wing, his Grace’s equanimity seemed restored. -He even hummed a tune, which might have -been “The Honeysuckle and the Bee” or “God Save -the King,” as he mounted the short, wide, double flight -of marble steps that led from the terrace, and, pushing -open the glazed swing-doors, entered the ballroom, the -entire space of which was filled by a bewildering maze -<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>of ropes and scaffolding, as though a giant spider had -spun a cobweb in hemp and pine. A smell of turpentine -and size was in the air, and a paint-table occupied a -platform immediately under the skylight dome, the -sides of which were already filled in with outlines, transferred -from cartoons designed by the artist engaged to -ornament the apartment. That gentleman, arrayed in a -blue canvas blouse and wearing a deerstalker cap on -the back of a well-shaped head, was actively engaged in -washing in the values of a colossal nude figure-group -with a bucket of sepia and a six-foot brush. He whistled -rather queerly as his bright eye fell upon the intruder.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You’re there, are you?” said the Duke unnecessarily. -“Shall I come up?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If you can!” said Halcyon Wopse, with a decided -smile, that revealed a very complete set of very white -teeth. “But, to save time, perhaps I had better come -down to you.” And the painter swung himself lightly -down from stage to stage until he reached the ground-level -of his august relative.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Put what you’ve got to tell me as clearly as you -can,” said the Duke. “I never was a sap at Eton, and -the classical names of these Johnnies you’re thingambobbing -on the what’s-a-name rather queer me.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The design outlined on the plaster in the central -space on the left-hand side of the skylight dome,” said -Wopse, A.R.A., “is the ‘Judgment of Paris.’ The three -figures of the rival goddesses are completely outlined, -but, as you see, Paris is only roughly blocked in.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t see a city,” said the Duke with some annoyance. -“I only see a bit of a man. And, as for being -block-tin——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Paris was a man—or, rather, a youth,” said Halcyon -Wopse, quoting—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c010'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“‘Fair and disdainfully lidded, the Shepherd of Ida,</div> - <div class='line'>Holding the golden apple, desired of——’”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>“Hold on! When people get spouting it knocks me -galley-west,” said the Duke. “Just tell me plainly what -the beggar was to judge? Goddesses? I savvy! And -which of ’em took the biscuit—I mean the apple? Venus? -Right you are! That’s as much as I can hold -at one time, thanky!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Sorry if I’ve over-estimated the extent of the accommodation,” -said Halcyon Wopse, smiling and lighting -a cigar.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“One of the Partagas. Now, hang it,” said the Duke, -“that is infernally stupid of my man.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of my man, you mean,” corrected the painter.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I begin to think,” said the Duke, “that I have, -in falling in with the absurd plot, cooked up by that old -footler, Beaumaris, and swopping characters with a -beg—with an artist fellow like you, in order to take the -fancy of a long-haired, long-legged colt of a girl——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I presume you allude to Lady Lymston?” put in -the painter coldly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of course. I say, in tumblin’ to the idea and embarkin’ -in the game, I’ve made an ass of myself,” said -the Duke. “As for you, you’re in clover.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Say nettles,” sighed the painter.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Passin’ under my name——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Pardon,” said the painter. “The name is my own. -And let us say, simply, that in changing identities with -your Grace in order to enable your Grace to cast a -glamour of artistic romance over a very ordinary——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Eh?” interjected the Duke.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Situation,” continued the painter. “In doing this -I have laid up for myself a considerable store of regret.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Regret! Why, hang you! You’re chalkin’ up -scores the whole bally time!” shrieked the Duke, stamping -his tan shoes on the canvas-protected parquet. “Beaumaris’s -guests—only a few purposely selected fogies and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>duffers, who don’t count, it’s true—believe you to be -me. They flatter you and defer to you. You take the -Dowager in to dinner, and I’m left to toddle after with -Susanna’s French governess. I’m out of everything—and -obliged to talk Art, bally Art—from mornin’ till -night! While you—you’ve ridden to cub-hunts on my -mounts—driven my motor-cars and bust my tires——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And very bad ones they are,” said the painter.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You ride infernally well, and show off before the -field at Henworthy Three Gates, where the hardest riders -in the county hang back. You ain’t afraid of a trappy -take-off—you weren’t built for a broken neck,” -screeched the incensed Peer. “You play golf too, and -win the Coronation Challenge Cup for the Lymston -Club, takin’ seven holes out of the eighteen, and holin’ -the round in the score of sixty-eight.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It was my duty to maintain the honor of your -Grace’s rank once I had consented to assume it,” said -the painter with a bow.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And you’re a dead shot, confound you, knockin’ -the birds over right and left, and getting a par. in -every sportin’ newspaper for a record bag of four hundred. -You’re a polo player too—hit a ball up and -down the field and through the goals at each end, and -look as if you didn’t care whether the ladies applauded -you or not, da—hang you! And you must own to bein’ -a bit of a cricketer, and consent to play in the County -Match on Thursday, and I wouldn’t like to bet against -your chances of makin’ a big score—an all-round admirable -what’s-a-name of a fellow like you!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Perhaps you’d better not,” the painter remarked -calmly, knocking off the ash of his cigar. “But I should -be glad to know the reason for this display of temper -on your Grace’s part, all the same,” he added. “If I -rode like a tailor and shot like a duffer, hit your ponies’ -legs instead of the ball, and played cricket like a German -<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>governess at a girls’ boarding-school, I could understand——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t you understand when I get back into my own -skin again, I’ll have to live up to the reputation you’ve -made me?” yelled Halcyon. “I could pass muster -before because nobody looked for anything. But -now....”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And what of my reputation? I think I heard you -telling Susanna——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Susanna!” echoed the Duke.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She is Susanna to your Grace. Did I not hear you -telling her that Chiaroscuro was an Italian painter of -the Cinquecento—who, you said, was a Pope who patronized -Art! You went on to say that Chiaroscuro lived -on hard eggs, and designed carnival cars, and that Benvenuto -Cellini won the Gold Cup at Ascot Race Meeting -in ’91.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Look here, we won’t indulge in mutual recriminations. -It’s beastly bad form!” said the Duke. “And -though you can ride and all that, I never said I thought -you could paint for nuts! In fact, between ourselves, -I don’t half like havin’ these spooks on the ceilin’ set -down to me.” He twisted his sandy little moustache, -and fixed his eyeglass in his eye, and started. “Here’s -Lady Lymston comin’ over the lawn with a whole pack -of dogs, to ask me how I’ve got on since yesterday.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Take my blouse!” The painter denuded himself of -the turpentiny garment, appearing in a well-cut tweed -shooting-suit.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Get into that rag! Not me, thanks! Hand over your -brush, and give me a leg up on that scaffoldin’, like a -good chap. I’d better be discovered at work, I suppose,” -said his Grace of Halcyon, as he slowly mounted to the -platform under the dome.</p> - -<p class='c009'>He had just reached it when Susanna’s fresh young -voice was heard outside calling to her dogs, and a moment -<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>later she appeared. Her fair cheeks were flushed, -her blue eyes were bright with exercise. She wore a -rough gray skirt, which, if less abbreviated than of yore, -still showed a slim, arched foot and suggested a charming -ankle. Her white silk blouse was confined by a Norwegian -belt, and a loose <em>beret</em> cap of black velvet -crowned her yellow head, its silken riches being now -disposed in a great coil, through which a silver arrow -was carelessly thrust. She started and reddened from -her temples to the edge of lace at her round throat when -the tweed-clad figure of the painter caught her eye, and -gave him her hand with an indifference which was too -ostentatious.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I didn’t know you were interested in Art,” she said.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh yes!” responded the painter. “At least, if this -can be called Art,” he added modestly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“’Ssh!” warned Susanna. “He is up there, and will -hear you.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He?” echoed the painter, reveling in the blush.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Did I hear my name?” called the Duke sweetly, from -above. “Hulloa, Lady Lymston, that you? Come to -record progress? As you see, we’re going strong.” His -six-foot brush menaced a Juno’s draperies, a gallipot -of size upset, trickled its contents through the planking; -his velveteen coat-tails placed Paris in peril, as he turned -his back to the cartoon and resting his hands upon his -knees, assumed a stooping attitude, and peered waggishly -down over the edge of the scaffolding at Susanna.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Take care—you!” shouted the painter, forgetting -his aristocratic <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</span></i>.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My foot is on my native thingumbob, ain’t it, Lady -Lymston?” said the owner of the small, cockneyfied, -grinning countenance above. “How do you like the -wax-works? This is the”—he flourished the six-foot -brush perilously—“this is the Judgment of Berlin.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>“Paris!” prompted the false Duke hoarsely.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He is trying to joke,” said Susanna, in an undertone. -“Don’t discourage him.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I should think that would be difficult,” remarked -Wopse grimly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Papa tries to be crushing, and Cousin Alaric’s rudeness -is simply appalling,” said Susanna, in a confidential -undertone. “And grandmother walks over him as -though he were a beetle—no! she would run away from -a thing like that—I should say an earwig or a snail, so -one feels bound to be a <em>little</em> nice.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If only out of opposition!” said the painter, with -a keen look of intelligence, at which Susanna blushed -again.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He is idiotic when he tries to be funny about Art—and -mixes up names and dates—and tells you that Titian -sang in opera and Rubens is a popular composer. But -he can paint, and Alaric Orme thinks he will be President -of the Academy one day. These cartoons are splendidly -bold and effective.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You think so! Wait till I’ve colored these girls -up a bit,” said the Duke, catching the end of the sentence. -“Then you’ll——” He dipped his brush and -advanced it, dripping with cobalt, towards the group of -goddesses.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t touch them!” shouted Wopse, in agony.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why not?” asked Susanna.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I don’t know. Excuse me, Lady Lymston, I believe -the smell of this size isn’t wholesome,” Wopse stammered. -“I’ll get out into the air.” He bolted.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Good Heavens!” he moaned, as he strode unseeing -down a broad path of the dazzling west front pasture, -“I can’t stand this! I’ll tell that idiot Osmond-Orme -that the deception must come to an end....”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why do you walk so fast?” said the voice of Susanna, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>behind him. “I have had to <em>race</em> to catch you.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I am sorry,” said Wopse, stopping and turning his -troubled eyes upon the fair face of his young relation.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Let us walk on”—Susanna cast an apprehensive -glance behind her—“or somebody——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Somebody will see us walking together!” said Wopse -acutely.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is so much nicer,” Susanna said demurely, “when -one can keep pleasant things to oneself. And we have -had a good many walks and talks since you came down -here, haven’t we? And cliff scrambles—and bicycle -rides—and rows on the river. And the fun of it is that, -although we are such pals, really, father and grandmother -and Uncle Alaric believe that I positively detest -you.” Her young laugh rang out gayly; she thrust -a sprig of lavender, perfumed and spicy, under the -painter’s nose. He captured the tantalizing hand.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do you not?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Detest you! You know I don’t.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“May I have it?” It was the sprig of lavender. But -the painter looked at, and squeezed, the hand.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If you promise to make a big score on Thursday!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Susanna, it must be admitted, was learning coquetry.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I will—if you are looking at me!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Done!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Done! Come into the beech avenue,” the painter -pleaded, “just for a few moments, before that little -beast follows us. You know he will!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He can’t!” Susanna’s golden eyelashes drooped -upon crimson cheeks. “He can’t get down! I—I took -away the ladder before I came away!” she owned. Both -hands were imprisoned, her blue eyes lifted, lost themselves -in the brown ones that looked down at her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Was that because you wanted—to be alone with -me? Was it?” demanded Wopse.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>“Oh, Hal, don’t!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’ll let you go when you have owned up, not before,” -Wopse said sternly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Susanna’s reply came in a whisper: “You—know—it—was!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The whisper was so faint that Wopse had to bend -quite low to catch it. Of course he need not have kissed -Susanna. But he did, as Alaric Osmond-Orme and Lord -Beaumaris appeared, walking confidentially together -arm-in-arm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I think my little stratagem succeeds!” Lord Beaumaris -had just said, in reference to the preference exhibited -by his daughter for the society of the pretended -painter. And Alaric had responded:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes, as you say, my plan has proved quite a brilliant -success!” when Lord Beaumaris clutched his -cousin’s arm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Merciful powers! Susanna and that—that young -impostor!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Alaric’s eyeglass fell with a click, and the diabolical -left eye twirled and twisted fiendishly in its socket as its -retina embraced the picture indicated.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Feign not to have observed.... Well, Susanna! -How are you, Halcyon. We are strolling towards the -ballroom for a glimpse of Wopse’s work.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“We are stro——” Lord Beaumaris choked and purpled. -Alaric dragged him on.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do you think?...” Susanna’s cheeks were white -roses now. “Do you think—they——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Saw me kiss you? Not a doubt of it!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh!” Susanna confronted him with blazing eyes. -“You!—you did it on <em>purpose</em>! It was a plot——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She clenched her strong young hands, battling with -the desire to buffet the handsome bronzed face before -her. “I’ll never—never speak to you again!” she cried.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You will not be allowed to,” groaned the poor -<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>painter. “Our walks and rides and all the rest are -over.... Yes, there has been a plot, but not of the -kind you suspect. I am a traitor—but not the kind of -traitor you think me. Lady Lymston, I am not the -Duke of Halcyon. I am a poor devil—I beg your pardon!—I -am a painter; my name is Wopse, and I have -disgraced my profession by the part I have played!” -He sat down miserably on a rustic bench.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh! It has been a put-up thing between you all!” -Susanna gasped. “Oh!” She towered over Wopse like -an incensed young goddess.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If I could only paint you like that! Yes—I deserve -that you should hate me. Never mind who planned -the thing, I should have known better than to soil my -hands with a deception,” said Wopse. “As for the -Duke——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Duke! Do I understand that that earwig in -velveteen is my cousin Halcyon!” Susanna’s voice was -very cold.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes. I am a kind of cousin, too,” said Wopse.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But not that kind. Those—those designs—the work -on the ceiling. They are really yours?” Susanna asked.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Mine, of course. Do you think that fellow could -have done them?” cried Wopse, firing up. “I’ve risen -at four every morning to work at them, and——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And you ride splendidly, and you’re a crack shot -and polo player, and you’re going to win for the county -Eleven on Thursday,” came breathlessly from Susanna.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah, you won’t care to look at me now!” said the -depressed Wopse.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Won’t I?” Susanna’s eyes were dancing, her -cheeks were glowing, she pirouetted on the moss-grown -ground of the avenue and dropped a little curtsey to -the painter. “When doing it will drive father and -grandmother and Alaric and the Earwig wild with rage.... -When—when I like doing it, too! When——” she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>stooped, and her lips were very near Wopse’s cheek—“when -I love doing it!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, Susanna!” cried the painter.</p> - -<p class='c014'>“My dear Halcyon!” said Lord Beaumaris, peering -short-sightedly upwards through a maze of scaffolding. -“I think you may as well come down.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“In other words—the game is up!” said Alaric Osmond-Orme -mildly. “Come down, my dear fellow, and -resume your own <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</span></i> of hereditary legislator. Allow -me to replace the ladder.” He did so.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“So that fellow’s done me! I guessed as much when -that little—when Susanna took away the ladder,” said -the Duke, preparing to descend. “And then when I -saw him kiss her—there’s a remarkably good view of -the gardens through the end window. I——” He -pointed to some remarkable effects of color splashed upon -the ground so carefully prepared by the painter. “I -took it out of the beggar in the only way I could, don’t -you know.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Take it out of him still more,” suggested Alaric, his -tinted eyeglass concealing a fiendish twinkle, “by playing -in the County Cricket Match. He’s entered in your -name, you know!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You’re very obligin’,” said the Duke, “but I don’t -think I’m taking any.” He gracefully slithered to the -floor as Susanna and Halcyon Wopse entered the ballroom, -radiant and hand in hand.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Papa,” said Susanna, taking the bull by the horns, -“Mr. Wopse and I are engaged. We mean to be married -as soon as possible after the County Cricket Match.” -She kissed the perturbed countenance of Lord Beaumaris, -nodded to the Duke, and walked over to Alaric. -“Your plan has succeeded beautifully,” she said. “Ain’t -you pleased—and won’t you congratulate us?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I am delighted,” said the imperturbable Alaric. He -<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>dropped his eyeglass and before the preternatural intelligence -of his left eye even Susanna quailed. “And -I congratulate you both most heartily.” He smiled, and -pressed the hands of Susanna and her lover, and, moving -away, stepped into the garden. There, unseen, he -rubbed his hands, twinkling with mourning rings.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I loved that boy’s mother very dearly, boy as I -was then ...” said Alaric. “As for Susanna, if she -knew that I knew she was listening at the library -door....” He replaced his eyeglass, and his expression -became, as usual, a blank.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span> - <h2 class='c005'>LADY CLANBEVAN’S BABY</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>There was a gray, woolly October fog over Hyde Park. -The railings wept grimy tears, and the damp yellow -leaves dropped soddenly from the soaked trees. Pedestrians -looked chilled and sulky; camphor chests and -cedar-presses had yielded up their treasures of sables -and sealskin, chinchilla and silver fox. A double stream -of fashionable traffic rolled west and east, and the rich -clarets and vivid crimsons of the automobiles burned -through the fog like genial, warming fires.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A Baby-Bunting six horse-power petrol-car, in color a -chrysanthemum yellow, came jiggeting by. The driver -stopped. He was a technical chemist and biologist of -note and standing, and I had last heard him speak from -the platform of the Royal Institution.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I haven’t seen you,” said the Professor, “for years.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That must be because you haven’t looked,” said I, -“for I have both seen and heard you quite recently. -Only you were upon the platform and I was on the -ground-floor.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You are too much upon the ground-floor now,” said -the Professor, with a shudder of a Southern European -at the dampness around and under foot, “and I advise -you to accept a seat in my car.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And the Baby-Bunting, trembling with excitement at -being in the company of so many highly-varnished electric -victorias and forty horse-power auto-cars, joined the -steadily-flowing stream going west.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I wonder that you stoop to petrol, Professor,” I -said, as the thin, skillful hand in the baggy chamois -<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>glove manipulated the driving-wheel, and the little car -snaked in and out like a torpedo-boat picking her way -between the giant warships of a Channel Squadron.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Professor’s black brows unbent under the cap-peak, -and his thin, tightly-gripped lips relaxed into a -mirthless smile.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ah, yes; you think that I should drive my car by -radio-activity, is it not? And so I could—and would, -if the pure radium chloride were not three thousand -times the price of gold. From eight tons of uranium ore -residues about one gramme—that is fifteen grains—can -be extracted by fusing the residue with carbonates of -soda, dissolving in hydrochloric acid, precipitating the -lead and other metals in solution by the aid of hydrogen-sulphide, -and separating from the chlorides that remain—polonium, -actinium, barium, and so forth—the chloride -of radium. With a single pound of this I could -not only drive an auto-car, my friend”—his olive cheek -warmed, and his melancholy dark eyes grew oddly lustrous—“I -could stop the world!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And supposing it was necessary to make it go on -again?” I suggested.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“When I speak of the world,” exclaimed the Professor, -“I do not refer to the planet upon which we -revolve; I speak of the human race which inhabits it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Would the human race be obliged to you, Professor?” -I queried.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Professor turned upon me with so sudden a verbal -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">riposte</span></i> that the Baby-Bunting swerved violently.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You are not as young as you were when I met you -first. To be plain, you are getting middle-aged. Do -you like it?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I hate it!” I answered, with beautiful sincerity.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Would you thank the man who should arrest, not -the beneficent passage of Time, which means progress, -but the wear and tear of nerve and muscle, tissue, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>bone, the slow deterioration of the blood by the microbes -of old age, for Metchnikoff has shown that there is no -difference between the atrophy of senility and the atrophy -caused by microbe poison? Would you thank him—the -man who should do that for you? Tell me, my -friend.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>I replied, briefly and succinctly: “Wouldn’t I?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ha!” exclaimed the Professor, “I thought so!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But I should have liked him to have begun earlier,” -I said. “Twenty-nine is a nice age, now.... It is -the age we all try to stop at, and can’t, however much -we try. Look there!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>A landau limousine, dark blue, beautifully varnished, -nickel-plated, and upholstered in cream-white leather, -came gliding gracefully through the press of vehicles. -From the crest upon the panel to the sober workmanlike -livery of the chauffeur, the turn-out was perfection. -The pearl it contained was worthy of the setting.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Look there?” I repeated, as the rose-cheeked, sapphire-eyed, -smiling vision passed, wrapped in a voluminous -coat of chinchilla and silver fox, with a toque of -Parma violets under the shimmer of the silken veil -that could only temper the burning glory of her wonderful -Renaissance hair.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There’s the exception to the rule.... There’s a -woman who doesn’t need the aid of science or of Art to -keep her at nine and twenty. There’s a woman in whom -‘the wear and tear of nerve and muscle, tissue and bone’ -goes on—if it does go on—imperceptibly. Her blood -doesn’t seem to be much deteriorated by the microbe of -old age, Professor, does it? And she’s forty-three! The -alchemistical forty-three, that turns the gold of life back -into lead! The gold remains gold in her case, for that -hair, that complexion, that figure, are,” I solemnly declared, -“her own.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>At that moment Lady Clanbevan gave a smiling gracious -nod to the Professor, and he responded with a -cold, grave bow. The glow of her gorgeous hair, the -liquid sapphire of her eyes, were wasted on this stony -man of science. She passed, going home to Stanhope -Gate, I suppose, in which neighborhood she has a house; -I had barely a moment to notice the white-bonneted, -blue-cloaked nurse on the front of the landau, holding -a bundle of laces and cashmeres, and to reflect that I -have never yet seen Lady Clanbevan taking the air out -of the society of a baby, when the Professor spoke:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“So Lady Clanbevan is the one woman who has no -need of the aid of Art or science to preserve her beauty -and maintain her appearance of youth? Supposing I -could prove to you otherwise, my friend, what then?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I should say,” I returned, “that you had proved -what everybody else denies. Even the enemies of that -modern Ninon de l’Enclos, who has just passed——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“With the nurse and the baby?” interpolated the Professor.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“With the nurse and the baby,” said I. “Even her -enemies—and they are legion—admit the genuineness -of the charms they detest. Mentioning the baby, do you -know that for twenty years I have never seen Lady -Clanbevan out without a baby? She must have quite -a regiment of children—children of all ages, sizes, and -sexes.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Upon the contrary,” said the Professor, “she has -only one!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The others have all died young, then?” I asked -sympathetically, and was rendered breathless by the -rejoinder:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Lady Clanbevan is a widow.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“One never asks questions about the husband of a -professional beauty,” I said. “His individuality is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>merged in hers from the day upon which her latest photograph -assumes a marketable value. Are you sure there -isn’t a Lord Clanbevan alive somewhere?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There is a Lord Clanbevan alive,” said the Professor -coldly. “You have just seen him, in his nurse’s -arms. He is the only child of his mother, and she has -been a widow for nearly twenty years! You do not -credit what I assert, my friend?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How can I, Professor?” I asked, turning to meet -his full face, and noticed that his dark, somewhat opaque -brown irises had lights and gleams of carbuncle-crimson -in them. “I have had Lady Clanbevan and her -progeny under my occasional observation for years. The -world grows older, if she doesn’t, and she has invariably -a baby—<em>toujours</em> a new baby—to add to the -charming illusion of young motherhood which she sustains -so well. And now you tell me that she is a twenty-years’ -widow with one child, who must be nearly of -age—or it isn’t proper. You puzzle me painfully!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Would you care,” asked the Professor after a moment’s -pause, “to drive back to Harley Street with -me? I am, as you know, a vegetarian, so I will not -tax your politeness by inviting you to lunch. But I -have something in my laboratory I should wish to show -you.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of all things, I should like to come,” I said. “How -many times haven’t I fished fruitlessly for an invitation -to visit the famous laboratory where nearly twenty -years ago——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I traced,” said the Professor, “the source of phenomena -which heralded the evolution of the Röntgen Ray -and the ultimate discovery of the radio-active salt they -have christened radium. I called it protium twenty -years ago, because of its various and protean qualities. -Why did I not push on—perfect the discovery and anticipate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>Sir William C—— and the X——’s? There -was a reason. You will understand it before you leave -my laboratory.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Baby-Bunting stopped at the unfashionable end -of Harley Street, in front of the dingy yellow house -with the black front door, flanked by dusty boxes of -mildewed dwarf evergreens, and the Professor, relieved -of his fur-lined coat and cap, led the way upstairs as -lightly as a boy. Two garret-rooms had been knocked -together for a laboratory. There was a tiled furnace -at the darker end of the long skylighted room thus made, -and solid wooden tables much stained with spilt chemicals, -were covered with scales, glasses, jars, and retorts—all -the tools of chemistry. From one of the many -shelves running round the walls, the Professor took down -a circular glass flask and placed it in my hands. The -flask contained a handful of decayed and moldy-looking -wheat, and a number of peculiarly offensive-looking little -beetles with tapir-like proboscides.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The perfectly developed beetle of the <em>Calandria granaria</em>,” -said the Professor, as I cheerfully resigned the -flask, “a common British weevil, whose larvæ feed upon -stored grain. Now look at this.” He reached down and -handed me a precisely similar flask, containing another -handful of grain, cleaner and sounder in appearance, -and a number of grubs, sharp-ended chrysalis-like things -buried in the grain, inert and inactive.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The larvæ of <em>Calandria granaria</em>,” said the Professor, -in his drawling monotone. “How long does it take -to hatch the beetle from the grub? you ask. Less than -a month. The perfect weevils that I have just shown -you I placed in their flask a little more than three weeks -back. The grubs you see in the flask you are holding, -and which, as you will observe by their anxiety to bury -themselves in the grain so as to avoid contact with the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>light, are still immature, I placed in the glass receptacle -twenty years ago. Don’t drop the flask—I value -it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Professor!” I gasped.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Twenty years ago,” repeated the Professor, delicately -handling the venerable grubs, “I enclosed these -grubs in this flask, with sufficient grain to fully nourish -them and bring them to the perfect state. In another -flask I placed a similar number of grubs in exactly -the same quantity of wheat. Then for twenty-four -hours I exposed flask number one to the rays emanating -from what is now called radium. And as the electrons -discharged from radium are obstructed by collision with -air-atoms, I exhausted the air contained in the flask.” -He paused.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Then, when the grubs in flask number two hatched -out,” I anticipated, “and the larvæ in flask number one -remained stationary, you realized——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I realized that the rays from the salt arrested growth, -and at the same time prolonged to an almost incalculable -extent,” said the Professor—“for you will understand -that the grubs in flask number one had lived -as grubs half a dozen times as long as grubs usually do.... -And I said to myself that the discovery presented -an immense, a tremendous field for future development. -Suppose a young woman of, say, twenty-nine were enclosed -in a glass receptacle of sufficient bulk to contain -her, and exposed for a few hours to my protium rays, -she would retain for many years to come—until she -was a great-grandmother of ninety!—the same charming, -youthful appearance——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As Lady Clanbevan!” I cried, as the truth rushed -upon me and I grasped the meaning this astonishing -man had intended to convey.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As Lady Clanbevan presents to-day,” said the Professor, -“thanks to the discovery of a——”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>“Of a great man,” said I, looking admiringly at the -lean worn figure in the closely-buttoned black frock-coat.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I loved her.... It was a delight to her to drag -a disciple of Science at her chariot-wheels. People talked -of me as a coming man. Perhaps I was.... But I -did not thirst for distinction, honors, fame.... I -thirsted for that woman’s love.... I told her of my -discovery—as I told her everything. Bah!” His lean -nostrils worked. “You know the game that is played -when one is in earnest and the other at play. She promised -nothing, she walked delicately among the passions -she sowed and fostered in the souls of men, as a beautiful -tigress walks among the poison-plants of the jungle. -She saw that rightly used, or wrongly used, my great -discovery might save her beauty, her angelic, dazzling -beauty that had as yet but felt the first touch of Time. -She planned the whole thing, and when she said, ‘You do -not love me if you will not do this,’ I did it. I was mad -when I acceded to her wish, perhaps; but she is a woman -to drive men frenzied. You have seen how coldly, -how slightingly she looked at me when we encountered -her in the Row? I tell you—you have guessed already—I -went there to see her. I always go where she is to -be encountered, when she is in town. And she bows, -always; but her eyes are those of a stranger. Yet I -have had her on her knees to me. She cried and begged -and kissed my hands.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He knotted his thin hands, their fingers brown-tipped -with the stains of acids, and wrung and twisted them -ferociously.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And so I granted what she asked, carried out the -experiment, and paid what you English call the piper. -The giant glass bulb with the rubber-valve door was -blown and finished in France. It involved an expense -of three hundred pounds. The salt I used—of protium -(christened radium now)—cost me all my savings—over -<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>two thousand pounds—for I had been a struggling -man——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But the experiment?” I broke in. “Good Heavens, -Professor! How could a living being remain for any -time in an exhausted receiver? Agony unspeakable, convulsions, -syncope, death! One knows what the result -would be. The merest common sense——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The merest common sense is not what one employs -to make discoveries or carry out great experiments,” -said the Professor. “I will not disclose my method; I -will only admit to you that the subject—the subjects -were insensible; that I induced <em>anæsthesia</em> by the ordinary -ether-pump apparatus, and that the strength of -the ray obtained was concentrated to such a degree that -the exposure was complete in three hours.” He looked -about him haggardly. “The experiment took place here -nineteen years ago—nineteen years ago, and it seems to -me as though it were yesterday.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And it must seem like yesterday to Lady Clanbevan—whenever -she looks in the glass,” I said. “But you -have pricked my curiosity, Professor, by the use of the -plural. Who was the other subject?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Is it possible you don’t guess?” The sad, hollow -eyes questioned my face in surprise. Then they turned -haggardly away. “My friend, the other subject associated -with Lady Clanbevan in my great experiment was—Her -Baby!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>I could not speak. The dowdy little grubs in the flask -became for me creatures imbued with dreadful potentialities.... -The tragedy and the sublime absurdity -of the thing I realized caught at my throat, and my brain -grew dizzy with its horror.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh! Professor!” I gurgled, “how—how grimly, -awfully, tragically ridiculous! To carry about with one -wherever one goes a baby that never grows older—a -baby——”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>“A baby nearly twenty years old? Yes, it is as you -say, ridiculous and horrible,” the Professor agreed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What could have induced the woman!” burst from -me.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Professor smiled bitterly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“She is greedy of money. It is the only thing she -loves—except her beauty and her power over men; and -during the boy’s infancy—that word is used in the -Will—she has full enjoyment of the estate. After he -‘attains to manhood’—I quote the Will again—hers is -but a life-interest. Now you understand?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>I did understand, and the daring of the woman -dazzled me. She had made the Professor doubly her -tool.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And so,” I gurgled between tears and laughter, -“Lord Clanbevan, who ought to be leaving Eton this -year to commence his first Oxford term, is being carried -about in the arms of a nurse, arrayed in the flowing -garments of a six-months’ baby! What an astonishing -conspiracy!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“His mother,” continued the Professor calmly, “allows -no one to approach him but the nurse. The family -are only too glad to ignore what they consider a deplorable -case of atavistic growth-arrest, and the boy himself——” -He broke off. “I have detained you,” he -said, after a pause. “I will not do so longer. Nor will -I offer you my hand. I am as conscious as you are—that -it has committed a crime.” And he bowed me -out with his hands sternly held behind him. There were -few more words between us, only I remember turning -on the threshold of the laboratory, where I left him, to -ask whether protium—radium, as it is now christened—checks -the growth of every organic substance? The -answer I received was curious:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Certainly, with the exception of the nails and the -hair!”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>A week later the Professor was found dead in his -laboratory.... There were reports of suicide—hushed -up. People said he had been more eccentric than ever -of late, and theorized about brain-mischief; only I located -the trouble in the heart. A year went by, and I -had almost forgotten Lady Clanbevan—for she went -abroad after the Professor’s death—when at a little -watering-place on the Dorset coast, I saw that lovely -thing, as lovely as ever—she who was fifty if a day! -With her were the blue-cloaked elderly nurse and Lord -Clanbevan, borne, as usual, in the arms of his attendant, -or wheeled in a luxurious perambulator. Day after day -I encountered them—the lovely mother, the middle-aged -nurse, and the mysterious child—until the sight began -to get on my nerves. Had the Professor selected me -as the recipient of a secret unrivaled in the records of -biological discovery, or had he been the victim of some -maniacal delusion that cold October day when we met -in Rotten Row? One peep under the thick white lace -veil with which the baby’s face was invariably covered -would clear everything up! Oh! for a chance to allay -the pangs of curiosity!</p> - -<p class='c009'>The chance came. It was a hot, waspy August forenoon. -Everybody was indoors with all the doors and -windows open, lunching upon the innutritive viands -alone procurable at health resorts—everybody but myself, -Lord Clanbevan, and his nurse. She had fallen -asleep upon a green-painted esplanade seat, gratuitously -shielded by a striped awning. Lord Clanbevan’s -C-springed, white-hooded, cane-built perambulator stood -close beside her. He was, as usual, a mass of embroidered -cambric and cashmere, and, as always, thickly -veiled, his regular breathing heaved his infant breast; -the thick white lace drapery attached to his beribboned -bonnet obscured the features upon which I so ardently -longed to gaze! It was the chance, as I have said; and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>as the head of the blue-cloaked nurse dropped reassuringly -upon her breast, as she emitted the snore that -gave assurance of the soundness of her slumbers, I -stepped silently on the gravel towards the baby’s perambulator. -Three seconds, and I stood over its apparently -sleeping inmate; another, and I had lifted the veil from -the face of the mystery—and dropped it with a stifled -cry of horror!</p> - -<p class='c009'>The child had a moustache!</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE DUCHESS’S DILEMMA</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>“A person called to see me!” repeated the Duchess of -Rantorlie. “He pleaded urgent business, you say?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She glanced at the card presented by her groom-of-the-chambers -without taking the trouble to lift it from -the salver. “‘Mr. Moss Rubelius.’ I do not know the -name—I have no knowledge of any urgent business. -You must tell him to go away at once, and not call -again.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Begging your Grace’s pardon,” remarked the official, -“the person seemed to anticipate a message of the -kind——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Did he? Then,” thought her Grace, “he is not -disappointed.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And, still begging your Grace’s pardon,” pursued -the discreet domestic, “he asked me to hand this second -card to your Grace.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>It was rather a shabby card, and dog’s-eared as though -it had been carried long in somebody’s pocket; but it -was large and feminine, and adorned with a ducal coronet -and the Duchess’s own cipher, and scribbled upon -it in pencil, in the Duchess’s own handwriting, were -two or three words, simple enough, apparently, and yet -sufficiently fraught with meaning to make their fair -reader turn very pale. She did not replace this card -upon the salver, but kept it as she said:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Bring the person to me at once.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And when the softly stepping servant had left the -room—one of her Grace’s private suite, charmingly furnished -as a study—she made haste to tear the card up, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>dropping the fragments into the hottest part of the -wood-fire, and thrusting at them with the poker until -the last tremulous fragment of gray ash had disappeared. -Rising from this exercise with a radiant glow -upon her usually colorless cheeks the Duchess became -aware that she was not alone. A person of vulgar appearance, -outrageously attired in a travesty of the -ordinary afternoon costume of an English gentleman, -stood three or four feet off, regarding her with an -observant and rather wily smile. Not at all discomposed, -he was the first to speak.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Before burnin’ <em>that</em>,” he remarked, in the thick, -snuffling accents of the low-bred, “your Grace ought to -have asked yourself whether it was any use. Because—I -put it to your Grace, as a poker-player, being told -the game’s fashionable in your Grace’s set—a man who -holds four aces can afford to throw away the fifth card, -even if it’s a king. And people of my profession don’t -go in for bluff. It ain’t their fancy.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What is your profession?” asked the Duchess, regarding -with contempt the dark, full-fed, red-lipped, -hook-beaked countenance before her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Money!” returned Mr. Moss Rubelius. He rattled -coin in his trousers-pockets as he spoke, and the superfluity -of gold manifested in large, coarse rings upon -his thick fingers, the massy chain festooned across his -broad chest, the enormous links fastening his cuffs, and -the huge diamond pin in his cravat, seemed to echo -“Money.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Duchess lost no time in coming to the point. She -was not guided by previous experience, having hitherto, -by grace as well as luck, steered clear of scandal. But, -girl of twenty as she was, she asked, as coolly as an -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">intrigante</span></i> of forty, though her young heart was fluttering -wildly against the walls of its beautiful prison, -“How did you get that card?”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>“I will be quite plain with your Grace,” returned -the money-lender. “When the second lot of cavalry -drafts sailed for South Africa early in the year of 1900, -our firm, ’aving a writ of <em>’abeas</em> out against Captain -Sir Hugh Delaving of the Royal Red Dragoon Guards—I -have reason to believe your Grace knew something of -the Captain?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Yes,” said the Duchess, turning her cold blue eyes -upon the twinkling orbs of Mr. Moss Rubelius, “I knew -something of the Captain. You do not need to ask the -question. Please go on!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Captain was,” resumed Mr. Rubelius, “for a -born aristocrat, the downiest I ever see—saw, I mean. -He gave our clerks and the men with the warrant the -slip by being ’eaded up in a wooden packin’ case, -labeled ‘Officers’ Stores,’ and got away to the Cape, -where he was killed in his first engagement.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“This,” said the Duchess, “is no news to me.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No,” said the money-lender; “but it may be news -to your Grace that, though we couldn’t lay our ‘ands -on the Captain himself, we got hold of all his luggage. -Not much there that was of any marketable value, except -a silver-gilt toilet-set. But there was a packet of letters -in a Russia writin’-case with a patent lock, all of ’em -written in the large-sized, square ’and peculiar to the -leadin’ female aristocracy, and signed ‘Ethelwyne,’ or -merely ‘E.’”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And this discovery procures me the pleasure of this -interview?” remarked the Duchess. “The letters are -mine—you come on the errand of a blackmailer. I have -only one thing to wonder at, and that is—why you have -not come before?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Myself and partner thought, as honorable men of -business, it would be better to approach the Captain -first,” explained the usurer. “His mother died the -week he sailed for Africa, and left him ten thousand -<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>pounds. We ’astened to communicate with him, -but——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But he had been killed meanwhile,” said the -Duchess. “You would have had the money he owed—or -did not owe—you, and your price for the letters, -had you reached him in time; but you did not, and -your goods are left upon your hands. Why, as honorable -men of business”—her lovely lip curled—“did you -not take them at once to the Duke?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mr. Moss Rubelius seemed for the first time a little -nonplussed. He looked down at his large, shiny boots, -and the sight did not appear to relieve him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I will be quite plain with your Grace.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Pray endeavor!” said the Duchess.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The letters are—to put it delicately—not compromising -enough. They’re more,” said Mr. Rubelius, “the -letters a school-girl at Brighton would write to her -music-master, supposing him to be young and possessed -of a pair of cavalry legs and a moustache. There’s -fuel in ’em for a First-Class Connubial Row,” continued -Mr. Rubelius, “but not material for a Domestic Upheaval—followed -by an Action for Divorce. As a man, -no longer, but once in business—for within this last -month our firm has dissolved, and myself and my partner -have retired upon our means—this is my opinion -with regard to these letters in your Grace’s handwriting, -addressed to the late Captain Sir H. Delaving: -The Duke, I believe, would only laugh at ’em.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Duchess started violently, and seemed about to -speak.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But, still, the letters are worth paying for,” ended -Mr. Moss Rubelius. “And your Grace can have em—at -my price.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What is your price?” asked the Duchess, trying in -vain to read in the stolid physiognomy before her the -secret purpose of the soul within.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>“Perhaps your Grace wouldn’t mind my taking a -chair?” insinuated Mr. Rubelius.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Do as you please, sir,” said the Duchess, “only be -brief.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’ll try,” said the money-lender, comfortably crossing -his legs. “To begin—we’re in the London Season -and the month of March, and your Grace has a party -at Rantorlie for the April salmon-fishing. Angling’s -my one vice—my only weakness, ever since I caught -minnows in the Regent’s Canal with a pickle-bottle tied -to a string. Coarse fishing in the Thames was my recreation -in grub times, whenever I ’ad a day away from our -office in the Minories. Trout I’ve caught now and then, -with a worm on a Stuart tackle—since I became a butterfly. -But I’ve never had a slap at a salmon, and -the finest salmon-anglin’ in the kingdom is to be ’ad -in the Haste, below Rantorlie. Ask me there for April, -see that I ’ave the pick of the sport, even if you ’ave -a Royal duke to cater for, as you ’ad last year, and, -the day I land my first twenty-pounder, the letters are -yours.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Duchess burst out laughing wildly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Ha, ha! Oh!” she cried; “it is impossible to help -it.... I can’t!... It is so.... Ha, ha, ha!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I shan’t disgrace you,” said Mr. Rubelius. “My -kit and turn-out will be by the best makers, and I’ll -tip the ’ead gillie fifty pound. I’m a soft-hearted hass -to let the letters go so cheap, but——Golly! the chance -of catchin’ a twenty-pound specimen of <em>Salmo salar</em> that -a Royal ’Ighness ’as angled for in vain!... Look -’ere, your Grace”—his tones were oily with entreaty—“write -me the invitation now, on the spot, and you shall -’ave back the first three of those nine letters down on -the nail.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You have them——?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“With me!” said Mr. Rubelius, producing a letter-case -<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>attached to his stout person by a chain. “The -others are—say, in retirement for the present.” He -extracted from the case three large, square, gray envelopes, -their addresses penned in a large, angular, -girlish hand. “Write me the invite now,” he said, “and -these are yours to burn or show to his Grace—whichever -you please. The others shall be yours the day I -land my twenty-pounder.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Duchess moved to her writing-table and sat down. -She chose paper and a pen, and dashed off these few -lines:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c003'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“900, <span class='sc'>Berkeley Square, W.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c009'>“<span class='sc'>Dear Mr. Moss Rubelius</span>,</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Duke and myself have asked a few friends to -join us at Rantorlie on April 1, for the salmon-fishing, -and we should be so pleased if you would come.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Sincerely yours,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“<span class='sc'>Ethelwyne Rantorlie</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c014'>“The first letter I ever had, dated from Berkeley -Square,” commented Mr. Rubelius, as, holding the letter -very firmly down upon the blotter with her slim -and white, but very strong hands, the Duchess signed -to him with her chin to read, “that was anything in -the nature of a genial invitation.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>He allowed the Duchess to take the three letters previously -referred to from his right hand, as he dexterously -twitched the invitation from the blotter with his -left finger and thumb. “This, your Grace, will be as -good as half a dozen more to me,” he observed, “when -I show it about and get a par. into the papers.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Horrible!” cried the Duchess, shuddering. “You -would not do that!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mr. Rubelius favored her with a knowing smile as -he produced his shiny hat, his gloves, and a malacca -<span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>cane, gold-handled, from some remote corner in which -he had concealed them.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Let us, being now on the footing of ’ostess and guest, -part friendly,” he said. “Your Grace, may I take your -’and?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I think the formality absolutely unnecessary,” said -the Duchess, ringing the bell.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Then the money-lender went away, and she caught up -a little portrait of the Duke that stood upon her writing-table -and began to cry over it and kiss it, and say -incoherent, affectionate things, like quite an ordinary, -commonplace young wife. For, after eighteen months -of marriage, she had fallen seriously in love with her -quiet, well-bred, intellectual husband, and the remembrance -of the silly, romantic flirtation with dead Hugh -Delaving was gall and wormwood to the palate that had -learned a finer taste. How had she fallen so low as -to write those idiotic, gushing letters?</p> - -<p class='c009'>Their perfume sickened her. She shuddered at the -touch of them, as she would have shuddered at the -touch of the man to whom they had been written had -he still lived. But he was dead, and she had never let -him kiss her. She was thankful to remember that, as -she put the letters in the fire and watched them blacken -and burst into flame.</p> - -<hr class='c013' /> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear Ethelwyne,” asked the Duke, “where did -you pick up Mr. Rubelius? Or, I should ask, perhaps, -how did that gentleman attain to your acquaintance?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It is rather a long, dull story,” said his wife, “but -he is really an excellent person, if a little vulgar, -and—— You won’t bother me any more about him, -Rantorlie, will you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>She clasped her gloved hands about her husband’s -arm as they stood together on the river beach below -Rantorlie. The turbid flood of the Haste, tinged brown -<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>by spate, raced past between its rocky banks; the pine-forests -climbed to meet the mountains, and the mountains -lifted to the sky their crowns of snow. There -was a smell of spring in the air, and word of new-run -fish in the string of deep pools below the famous -Falls.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I will not, if you particularly wish it,” said her -husband. “But to banish your guest from my mind—that -is impossible. For one thing, he is hung with air-belts, -bottles, and canteens, as though he were starting -for a tour in the wildest part of Norway. I believe his -equipment includes a hatchet, and I think that wad he -wears upon his shoulders is a rubber tent, but I am -not sure. He has never heard of prawn-baiting, his -rods are of the most alarming weight and size, and his -salmon-flies are as large and gaudy as paroquets, and -calculated, McDona says, to frighten any self-respecting -fish out of his senses. We can’t allow such a gorgeous -tyro to spoil the best water. He must be sent -to some of the smaller pools, with a man to look after -him.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But he—he won’t be likely to catch anything there, -will he?” asked the Duchess anxiously.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A seven-pounder, if he has luck!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, Rantorlie, that won’t do <em>at all</em>!” cried Rantorlie’s -wife in dismay. “I want him to have the chance -of something <em>really big</em>. It’s our duty to see that our -guests are properly treated, and, though you don’t like -Mr. Rubelius——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dear child, I don’t dislike Mr. Rubelius. I simply -don’t think about him any more than I think about -the sea-lice on the new-run fish. They are there, and -they look nasty. Rubelius is here, and so does he.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<em>Doesn’t</em> he—especially in evening-dress with a red -camelia and a turn-down collar?” gasped the Duchess.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The Duke could not restrain a smile at the vision -<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>evoked, as Mr. Rubelius, panoplied in india-rubber, cork, -and unshrinkables, strode into view. One of the gillies -bore his rod, the other his basket. A third followed -with that wobbliest of aquatic vehicles, a coracle, -strapped upon his back. With a grin, the man waded -into the water, unhitched his light burden, placed it -on the rapid stream, and stood, knee-deep, holding the -short painter, as the frisky coracle tugged at it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You’re going to try one of those things?” said the -Duke, as Rubelius gracefully lifted his waterproof helmet -to the Duchess. “You know they’re awfully -crank, don’t you, and not at all safe for a bung—I mean, -a beginner?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The men, your Grace,” explained Mr. Rubelius, “are -going to peg me down in the bed of the stream, a little -way out from the shore.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But if your peg draws,” said his host, “do you know -how to use your paddle?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That will be all right, your Grace,” said the affable -Rubelius. “I know how to punt. Often on the Thames -at Twicken’am——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear sir, the Haste in Moss-shire and the Thames -at Twickenham are two very different rivers,” said the -Duke, beckoning his gillies to follow, and turning away. -“I hope the man may not come to any harm,” he said. -“Ethelwyne, will you walk down to the Falls with me? -I”—he reddened a little—“I sent the others on in carts -by road. We see so little of each other these days.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>And the young couple started, leaving Mr. Rubelius to -be put into his coracle, with much splashing, and swearing -on his part, by two of the gillies and a volunteer. -It was a mild day for April in the North. A single -cuckoo called by the riverside, and the Duke and Duchess -did not hurry, though Ethelwyne turned back -before she reached the Falls, below which the deepest -salmon-pools were situated, and where the men, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>boats, and the rest of the party waited. She had her -rod and gillie, and meant to spin a little desultorily -from the bank, the Haste being almost in every part -too deep for waders, except in the upper reaches.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I wonder how that horror is getting on?” she -thought, as the gillie baited her prawn-tackle. Then, -stepping out upon a natural pier of rough stones leading -well out into the turbulent whitey-brown stream, -the Duchess skilfully swung out her line, and, after a -little manipulation, found herself fast in a good-sized -fish.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What weight should you judge it?” she asked the -attendant, when the silvery prey had been gaffed and -landed.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“All saxteen,” said the gillie briefly. “Hech! What -cry was that?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>As the man held up his hand the noise was repeated.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It sounds like somebody shouting ‘Help!’” said the -Duchess.</p> - -<p class='c009'>And, rod in hand, she ran out upon the pier of -bowlders, and, shading her eyes with her hand, gazed upstream, -as round a rocky point above came something -like a tarred washing-basket with a human figure huddled -knees-to-chin inside. The coracle had betrayed the -confidence of Mr. Rubelius, and drifted with its hapless -tenant down the mile and a half of racing water -which lay between Rantorlie and the Falls. The Falls! -At that remembrance the laughter died upon the Duchess’s -lips, and the ridiculous figure drifting towards -her in the bobbing coracle became upon an instant a -tragic spectacle. For Death waited for Mr. Rubelius -a little below the next bend in the rocky bed of the -Haste. And—if the money-lender were drowned—those -letters ... yes, those letters, the proofs of the Duchess’s -folly, might be regained and destroyed, secretly, -and nobody would ever——</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>It seemed an age of reflection, but really only a second -or two went by before the Duchess cried out to -Rubelius in her sweet, shrill voice, and ran out to the -very end of the pier of rocks, and with a clever underhand -jerk sent the heavy prawn-tackle spinning out -up and down the river. Once she tried—and failed. -The second time, two of the three hooks stuck firmly -into the wickerwork of the coracle. It spun round, suddenly -arrested in its course, but the strong salmon-gut -held, and, after an anxious minute or two, the livid -Rubelius safely reached shore.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’ve ’ad my lesson,” said he, as the gillie administered -whisky. “Never any more salmon-fishing for me! -It’s too tryin’,” he gulped—“too ’ard upon the nerves -of a man not born to it!” Then he got up, and came -bare-headed to the Duchess. His face was very pale -and flabby, and his thick lips had lost their color, as -he held out a black leather notecase to her Grace. “You—you -saved my life,” he said, “and I’m not going to -be ungrateful. Here they are—the six letters. Look -’em over, if you like, and see for yourself. And, my -obliged thanks to his Grace for his hospitality—but -I leave for town to-morrow. Good-by, your Grace. You -won’t hear of me again!” And Mr. Rubelius kept his -word.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE CHILD</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>He arrived late—long after the ship of his father’s -fortune had been safely tugged into dock—announcing -his entrance upon this terrestrial stage at a moment -when people had ceased to expect him. I may say that -Tom and Leila, having spent twelve years of married -life in the propagation of theories alone, had the most -definite notions upon the subject of infant rearing, training, -culture, and so forth. Leila intended, she informed -me in confidence, to be “an advanced mother,” and -Tom, as father to the child of an advanced mother, -could hardly help turning out an advanced father, even -had he not cherished ambitions in that line.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The boy—for, as Tom reassured all sympathetic callers -during the high-pressure first week of its existence, -it undoubtedly was a boy—seemed on first sight rather -smaller and spottier than the child of so many brilliant -prospects had any right to be. They gave him -the name of Harold, a clanking procession of other -names coupled on to it, ending in Alexander Eric. And -they engaged and imported a professional Child Culturist, -Miss Sallie Cooter, of Washington—pronounced -Wawshington—certified teacher, trained nurse, member -of the Ethnophysiological Society of America, and one -doesn’t know how many others, to rear Harold on the -very latest scientific plan. Miss Cooter, as the intimate -friend and chosen disciple of the Inventress of the System -at which Tom and Leila had taken fire (a lady of -literary talents and original views, who had brought up, -on purely hygienic principles, a family of one, and expanded -<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>it into a multiplicity of chapters)—Miss Cooter -might be trusted to achieve the desired result, and turn -out Harold, physically and mentally, a prodigy of infantile -perfection. Her work was purely philanthropic, -and if she consented to accept the inadequate salary -of two hundred a year in return for her services, Leila -and Tom explained, she must in no sense be treated as -a hireling.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The united efforts of the brougham and the spring-cart -fetched Miss Cooter and a mountain of Saratogas -from the station one spring day, and she came down -to afternoon tea in the very newest of Parisian tea-gowns, -which, properly speaking, is not a tea-gown at -all. She was decidedly pretty, being dark, slim, bright-eyed, -keen-featured, and almost painfully intelligent-looking, -even without her gold-framed pince-nez. We -devoted the evening to sociality, as Harold’s regimen of -mental and physical culture was to commence upon -the following day.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But you shall have a little peep at Baby,” Leila said, -“when we go up to dress for dinner.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Miss Cooter agreed. “But I guess I’ve got to ask -you, since the boy’s name is Har’ld, to call him by it, -and no other,” she said. “Our society is dead against -abbreviations and pet names. We hold that they act as -a clog upon the expanding faculties of the child, and -arrest mental progress. Besides, when maturity is -reached, how pyfectly absurd it is to hear middle-aged -men and women addressed as ‘Toto’ and ‘Tiny’!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Tom, who has a way of calling Leila “Mouse” when in -good humor, turned rich imperial purple at this home-thrust, -and Leila, whose pet name for Tom is “Tumps,” -called attention to the green-fly on the pot-roses, both -silently registering a vow never again, save <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">in camera</span></i>, -to use the offending appellations.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Miss Cooter was formally invested with Harold on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>the following morning. His ex-nurse, a plump, rosy-cheeked -country-woman, painfully devoid of culture, and -absolutely unskilled in the repression of emotion, was -relegated, in floods of tears, to command of the laundry. -Leila, compassionating the grief of the exile, would -have pleaded for Mary’s reduction to the post of under-nurse; -but Miss Cooter pronounced that Mary was -an obstacle in the way of Progress, and an enemy to -Culture, and must go.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Mary went, and Harold, at first too stunned by her -desertion to yield to sorrow, presently proclaimed his -bereavement in a succession of ear-piercing shrieks.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What is to be done?” queried Leila, by signs.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Applying both hands to his mouth, after the fashion -of a speaking-trumpet, Tom vocalized the suggestion, -“Send—for Mary—back!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>But Miss Cooter sternly shook her head, and, bending -over the cradle which contained Harold, looked sternly -in his flushed and disfigured countenance. He immediately -held his breath, growing from crimson to purple -and from purple to black as she delivered her inaugural -address.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“My dear Har’ld,” said she, with crisp distinctness, -“you are a vurry little boy——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Hear, hear!” I interpolated, and got a frown from -Leila.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And at three months old your reasoning fahculties -are not developed enough for you to comprehend that -what you don’t like may be the best thing for you. -Mary has gone, and Mary will not come back. Henceforth -you are in my cayah, and you will find me fyum, -but gentle. However badly you may act, I shall not -punish you.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Harold hiccoughed and stared up at the bright, intellectual -face above him with round, astonished eyes -and open, dribbling mouth.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>“Your own sense of what is right and what is wrawng, -dormant though it be at this vurry moment, I intend to -awaken and——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Harold, never before in his brief life harangued after -this fashion, appeared to grasp already the idea that -something was wrong. The expression of astonishment -faded, his down-drooped mouth assumed the bell or -trumpet-shape, and, rapidly doubling and undoubling -himself with mechanical regularity, he emitted the most -astonishing series of sounds we had yet heard from him. -No caresses were administered for the assuagement of -his woe, no broken English babbled in his infant ears. -The Rules of the System of Child Culture absolutely -prohibited petting, and baby-language was denounced -by Miss Cooter as “pynicious.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>As she predicted, Harold left off howling after a certain -interval.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Now I guess you have lyned one lesson already!” -said Miss Cooter. “When you are older, Har’ld, you -will cawmprehend that the truest kindness on your -payrents’ part praumpted the separation that has given -you pain. You will have your bottle now; you will say -‘Thank you’ for it, and ahfter consuming the contents, -you will go quietly to sleep.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>But it took a long time to convince the dubious Harold -that the trumpet-shaped, nickel-silver-stoppered vessel -tendered by his new guardian was the equivalent of -his beloved and familiar “Maw.” When finally convinced, -he grabbed it without the slightest attempt at -saying “Thank you,” and, with the gloomiest scowl that -I have ever beheld upon a countenance of such pulpy -immaturity, applied himself to deglutition. Miss Cooter -shook her head discouragingly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“This child has a strawngly developed animal nature,” -pronounced she—“a throwback to the primeval -savage, I should opine.”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>“Delightful! Do buy him a little stone ax and a -baby bearskin, Leila,” I pleaded. “Think what light -he will throw upon the Tertiary Period—if Miss Cooter -happens to be right!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>But Miss Cooter shook her head. “He must be environed -by softening and civilizing influences,” said she, -“from this vurry moment. Vegetarian diet is what I -should strawngly recommend.” Her eye doubtfully -questioned the rapidly sinking level of the sterilized milk -in Harold’s glass trumpet.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“There is such a thing as a cow-tree, isn’t there?” -said Leila anxiously. “Perhaps Cope might acclimatize -one in the tropical house?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But while the cow-tree is being acclimatized,” I -asked disturbingly, “upon what is Harold to live?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Kindly take this,” said Miss Cooter. “May I trouble -you? Please!” she repeated sternly. But Harold only -screwed up his eyes and dug his pinky fists into them as -his monitress took the empty trumpet away, telling us -stories of an atypical and highly-cultured boy baby of -her acquaintance who not only exhibited Chesterfieldian -politeness at four months of age, saying “Please” and -“Thank you,” and “Kindly pass the salt,” but regularly -performed its own ablutions, went through breathing -exercises and simple gymnastics, was familiar with -the use of the abacus, and could work out sums in -simple addition upon a patent hygienic slate. All -these facts Miss Cooter put before us with convincing -eloquence. Her language was well chosen, her scientific -knowledge and technical skill quite appalling. -There was nothing about a baby that she did not understand, -except, perhaps—the baby.</p> - -<p class='c009'>From that day Harold lived under the microscope. -Charts of his temper, as of his temperature, were regularly -kept up to date; and his progress, physical and -psychological, was recorded by Miss Cooter in a kind -<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>of ship’s log-book, in which data of meteorological disturbances -appeared with distressing frequency. He was -not precocious enough to be classified as abnormal, or -sufficiently original to come under the heading “Atypical,” -or old enough to tell lies, and so be dubbed imaginative. -But that tertiary ancestor from whom, according -to Miss Cooter, he derived his temperament, -must have possessed some strength of character, for -from the beginning to the end, Harold’s strongest prejudice -was manifested towards Miss Cooter, his most violent -attachment in the direction of the banished Mary, -for whom he howled at regular intervals until he forgot -her, when he became reserved, distrustful, and apathetic. -His intellectual qualities were not of the kind -that responded to scientific forcing. He never learned -that an orange was a sphere, or a rusk an irregular cube. -The india-rubber letters and object-blocks possessed for -him no meaning; the colored balls of the abacus only -awakened in him a tepid interest. He was in texture -flabby, and habitually wore an expression of languid -indifference—intensified when Miss Cooter was delivering -one of her oral lectures, to utter boredom. Despite -his sanitary surroundings, his day-nursery, intermediate -nursery, and night-nursery, papered, carpeted, furnished, -lighted, ventilated, and warmed upon the most -approved scientific methods, he did not thrive, contracting -complaints incidental to infancy with passionate -enthusiasm, and keeping them long after another child -would have done with them. And then he complicated -an unusually violent attack of croup with convulsions, -and Miss Cooter guessed she had better resign the case, -which she did “right away,” in favor of some atypical, -imaginative, non-atavistic young American citizen. -When last I looked into the hygienic day-nursery, most -of the educational objects it had contained had vanished—presumably -into cupboards—and Harold was lying -<span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>in the cotton lap of his recovered Mary, nursing a -stuffed kitten, and sucking an attenuated thumb. The -expression of gloomy boredom had vanished from his -countenance as Mary chanted a rhyme, deplorably lacking -in sense and construction, about a certain Baby -Bunting whose father went a-hunting to get a little -rabbit-skin to wrap the Baby Bunting in. It afforded -Harold such undisguised delight that I felt sure the -rabbit must have burrowed in tertiary strata, and that -the predatory parents of Baby Bunting must have been -the primal type from which Harold hailed. But Miss -Cooter, who could alone have sympathized with my scientific -delight in this discovery, was tossing in mid-Atlantic -on her way to the land of the Stars and Stripes.</p> - -<p class='c009'>We were, however, to meet yet once again under the -spangled folds of Old Glory. It was a year or so later, -on board a Hudson River steamboat. She was prettier -than ever, quite beautifully dressed, and her <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">entourage</span></i> -comprised two nurses (a colored “mammy” and a pretty -Swiss), a perambulator with a baby, and a husband. -She introduced me to the husband and the baby, a -round, rosy baby, neither atypical nor atavistic, but just -of the common, old-fashioned kind.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Isn’t he cute!” she exclaimed, with rapture. “Smile -at Momma, Baby, and show um’s pretty toofs!” Then -she addressed the child as a “doodleum ducksey,” while -I stood speechless and staring.</p> - -<p class='c009'>My circular gaze awakened memories of the past. She -asked after Harold.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He is very well—now!” I said with point. “May -I be pardoned for remarking that you do not appear to -be rearing your own baby upon the System of Child -Culture you formerly followed with such extraordinary -success?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No,” said the late Miss Cooter thoughtfully. -“No-o!”</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>“Why not?” I asked, hot with the remembrance of -Harold’s sufferings.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Miss Cooter considered, a beautifully manicured forefinger -in a dimple that I had never observed before.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why not? You earnestly advocated the system—for -other people’s babies.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Well,” said the late Miss Cooter, with a burst of -candor, “I reckon because those <em>were</em> other people’s -babies. This is mine!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span> - <h2 class='c005'>A HINDERED HONEYMOON</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The coffee and liquor stage of a long and elaborate -luncheon having been reached, the rubicund and puffy -personage occupying the chair at the head of the table—number -three against the glass partition, east end, Savoy -Grill-room—waved a stout hand, and instantly eight -of the nimblest waiters—two to a double-leaved folding-screen—closed -in upon the table with these aids to -privacy. The rubicund personage, attired, like each of -his male guests present, in the elaborate frock-coat, with -white buttonhole bouquet, tender-hued necktie, pale-complexioned -waistcoat, gray trousers, and shiny patent -leathers inseparable from a wedding—the rubicund personage -(who was no less a personage than Mr. Otto -Funkstein, managing head of the West End Theatre -Syndicate) got upon his legs, champagne-glass in hand, -and proposed the united healths of Lord and Lady -Rustleton.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“For de highly-brivileged nopleman who hos dis day -gonferred ubon de brightest oond lofliest ornamend of -de London sdage a disdinguished name oond an ancient -didle I hof noding put gongradulations,” said Mr. Funkstein, -balancing himself upon the tips of his patent-leather -toes, and thrusting his left hand (hairy and -adorned with rings of price) in between the jeweled -buttons of his large, double-breasted buff waistcoat. -“For de sdage oond de pooblic dot will lose de most -prilliant star dot has efer dwinkled on de sdage of de -West Enf Deatre I hof nodings poot gommiseration. -As de manacher of dot blayhouse I feel vit de pooblic. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>As de friend—am I bermitted to say de lofing oond -baternal friend of de late Miss Betsie le Boyntz?”—(tumultuous -applause checked the current of the speaker’s -eloquence)—“changed poot dis day in de dwingling -of an eye—in de hooding of a modor-horn—by de machick -of a simble ceremony at de Registrar’s—gonverted -from a yoong kirl in de first dender ploom”—(deafening -bravos hailed this flight of poetic imagination)—“de -first dender ploom of peauty oond de early brime -of chenius”—(the lady-guests produced their handkerchiefs)—“into -a yoong vife, desdined ere long to wear -upon her lofely prow de goronet of an English Gountess”—(Otto -began to weep freely)—“a Gountess of -Pomphrey.... Potztauzend! de dears dey choke me. -Mine dear vriends, I gannot go on.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Everybody patted Funkstein upon the back at once. -Everybody uttered something consoling at an identical -moment. Mopping his streaming features with the largest -white cambric handkerchief ever seen, the manager -was about to resume, when Lord Rustleton—whose tragic -demeanor at the Registrar’s Office had created a -subdued sensation among the officials there, whose deep -depression during the wedding banquet had been intensified -rather than alleviated by frequent bumpers of -champagne, and who had gradually collapsed in his -chair during Funkstein’s address until little save his -hair and features remained above the level of the tablecloth, -galvanically rose and, with a soft attempt to thump -the table, cried: “Order!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Choke him off,” murmured a smart comedian to his -neighbor, “for pity’s sake. He’s going to tell us how -he threw over the swell girl he was engaged to a month -before their wedding—for Petsie’s sake; and how he has -brought his parents’ gray hairs with sorrow to the grave, -and for ever forfeited the right to call himself an English -gentleman. I know, bless you! I had it all from -<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>him last night at the Mummers’ Club, and this morning -at his rooms in Wigmore Street.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Rustleton!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Order!” yelled Rustleton again.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Order!” echoed Funkstein, turning a circular pair -of rather bibulous and bloodshot blue eyes upon the -protestant bridegroom. “Oond vy order?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Permimme to reminyou,” said Rustleton, with laborious -distinctness, “that the present Head of my fammary, -the Rironaurable the Earl of Pomphrey—in poinnofac’, -my Fara—is at the present momen’ of speaking -in the enjoymen’ of exhallent health, an’ nowistanning -present painfully strained rela’ions essisting bi’ween us, -I have no desire—nor, I feel convinned, has my wife, -Lady Rustleton, any desire—to, in poinnofac’, usurp -his shoes, or play leapfrog over his—in poinnofac’, his -coffin. Therefore, the referen’ of the distinnwished gelleman -who, in poinnofac’, holds the floor, to the coronet -of a Countess in premature conneshion with the brow -of my newly-marriwife I am compelled to regard as absorrutely -ram bad form!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Tam bad <em>vat</em>?” shrieked Funkstein.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Rustleton leaned over the table. His eyes were set in -a leaden-hued countenance. His hair hung lankly over -his damp forehead. He nerved himself for a supreme -effort. “Ununerrarrably ram baform!” he said, and -with this polysyllabic utterance fell into a crystal dish -of melted ice, and a comatose condition.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Bad, bad boy!” said the recently-made Lady Rustleton, -biting her notorious cherry underlip, and darting a -brilliant glance at Funkstein out of her celebrated eyes -as Rustleton was snatched from his perilous position -by a strong-armed chorus beauty; and the low comedian, -who had become famous since the production of <cite>The -Charity Girl</cite>, dried the Viscount’s head with a table-napkin -and propped him firmly in his chair.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>“It is not de Boy, but de man dat drinks it,” giggled -Funkstein, with recovered good temper. “Ach ja, oond -also de voman. How many bints hof I not seen -you....”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That’ll do, thanks,” said the newly-made Viscountess, -with her well-known expression of prim propriety. -“Not so much reminiscing, you know; it’s what poor -Tonnie called ‘ahem’d bad form’ just now, didn’t you, -ducky?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Don’t call me rucky,” said the gentleman addressed, -who was now rapidly lapsing into the lachrymose stage -of his complaint. “Call me a mirerrable worm or a -‘fernal villain. I reserve both names. Doesn’ a man -who has alienarid the affeshuns of his father, blirid his -mother’s fonnest hopes, and broken his pli’rid word to -a fonnanloving woman—girl, by Jingo——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, do dry up about that now, darling!” said Lady -Rustleton tartly. “I dare say she deserved what she -got. What you have to remember now is that you’re -married to me, and we shall be spinning away in the -Liverpool Express in another hour, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en route</span></i> for the -ocean wave. I always <em>said</em>, when I <em>did</em> have a honeymoon—a -real one—I’d have it on the opening week of -the production on a big Atlantic liner. And this is the -trial voyage of the <em>Regent Street</em>, and she’s the biggest -thing in ships afloat to-day. Do let’s drink her health!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The toast was drunk with enthusiasm. Two waiters -advanced bearing a wedding-cake upon a charger. The -bride coyly cut a segment from the mass. It was divided -and passed round. The ladies took pieces to dream on, -the men shied at the indigestible morsels. Somebody had -the bright idea of sending a lump to the chauffeur of the -bridal motor-car, which had been waiting in the bright -October sunshine, outside in the palm-adorned courtyard, -since one o’clock. A <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chassé</span></i> of cognac went round. -Rustleton was shaken into consciousness of his marital -<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>responsibilities and a fur-lined overcoat; everybody kissed -Petsie; all the women cried, Petsie included—but not unbecomingly. -Her bridal gown, a walking-costume of -white cloth trimmed with silver braid, contained a thoroughly -contented young woman; her hat, a fascinating -creation, trimmed with a rose-colored bird, a <em>marquisette</em>, -and a real lace veil, crowned a completely happy -wife. Tonnie possessed nothing extraordinary in the -way of good looks or good brains, it was true; but Tonnie’s -wife was wealthy in these physical attributes. He -possessed a high-nosed, aristocratic old fossil of a father, -whose prejudices against a daughter-in-law taken from -the lyric boards must be got over. He owned a perfectly -awful mother, whose ancestral pride and whose -three chins must—nay, should—be leveled with the dust. -His sisters, the Ladies Pope-Baggotte, Petsie said to herself -with a smile, were foewomen unworthy of such steel -as is forged in the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coulisses</span></i> of the musical comedy theaters. -Yet should they, too, bite the dust. In a golden -halo—partly hope, partly champagne—she saw Lady -Rustleton sweeping, attired in electrifying gowns, onwards -to the conquest of Society. The greengrocer’s -shop in Camberwell, among whose cabbages and potatoes -her infancy had been passed; the Board-School, -on whose benches the first-fruits of knowledge had been -garnered, were quite forgotten. Some other little circumstances -connected with the Past were blotted from -the slate of memory by the perfumed sponge of gratified -ambition. She bore the deluge of rice and confetti with -dazzling equanimity. She hummed “Buzzy, Buzzy, -Busy Bee” as the motor-car, its chauffeur sorely embarrassed -by a giant wedding favor, a pair of elderly -slippers tied on the rear-axle, sped to Euston.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’ve got there at last,” said Petsie, as the Express -ran into the Liverpool docks and toiling human ants -began to climb up the ship’s gangways thrust downwards -<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>from the beetling gray sides of the biggest of all -modern liners. “I’ve got there at last, I have, and in -spite of Billy Boman. A precious little silly I must -have been to take a hairdresser for a swell; but at seventeen -what girl brought up in a Camberwell backstreet -knows a paste solitaire from a real diamond, or a -ready-made suit, bought for thirty bob at a Universal -Supply Stores, from a Bond Street one? And if nice -curly hair and a straight nose, a clear skin, and a good -figure were all that’s wanted to make a gentleman, Billy -could have sported himself along with the best. But -now he’s dead, and I’ve married again into the Peerage, -and I shall sit on the Captain’s right at the center saloon -table, not only as the prettiest woman on board his -big new ship, but as a bride and a Viscountess into the -bargain. Wake up, Tonnie dear. You’ve slept all the -way from Euston, and there’s a plank to climb.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Eh?” Tonnie stared with glassy eyes at the scurrying -crowds of human figures, the piled-up trucks of -giant trunks and dress-baskets soaring aloft at the end -of donkey-engine cables, to vanish into the bowels of -the marine leviathan. “Eh! What! Hang it! How -confoundedly my head aches! Funkstein must have -given us a brutally unwholesome luncheon. Why did -I allow him to entertain us? I felt from the first it -was a hideous mistake.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Why did you let the fellows persuade you to drink -more of the Boy than is good for you, you soft-headed -old darling?” Petsie gurgled. She smoothed the lank -hair of her new-made spouse, and, reaching down his hat -from the netting, crowned him with it, and bounded out -of the reserved first-class compartment like a lively little -rubber ball. “Here’s Timms, your man, with my -new maid. No, thank you, Simpkins. You can take the -traveling-bags. I may be a woman of title, but I mean -to carry my jewel-case myself. Come along into the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>Ark, Tonnie, with the other couples. What number did -you say belonged to our cabin, darling?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Gobelin Tapestry Bridal Suite Number Four,” -said Rustleton, with a pallid smile, as a white-capped, -gold-banded official hurried forward to relieve the Viscountess -of her coroneted jewel-case.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“How tweedlums!” sighed Petsie, retaining firm hold -of the leather repository of her brand-new diamond tiara -and necklace, not to mention all the rings and brooches -and bangles reaped from the admiring occupants of the -orchestra-stalls at the West End Theatre during the -tumultuously successful run of <cite>The Charity Girl</cite>.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It costs for the trip—five days, four hours, and sixteen -minutes—between Queenstown and the Daunts Rock -Lightship,” said Rustleton, with a heavy groan, “exactly -two hundred and seventy-five guineas. Ha, ha!” -He laughed hollowly.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But why did you choose such a screamingly swell -suite, you wicked, wasteful duckums?” cried the bride -coquettishly, as their guide switched on the electric light -and revealed a chaste and sumptuous nest of apartments -in carved and inlaid mahogany, finished in white enamel -with artistic touches of gold, and hung with tapestry of -a greeny-blue and livid flesh-color.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Because I can’t afford it,” said the dismal bridegroom, -“and because the meals and all that will be -served here separately and privately.” He sank limply -upon a sumptuous lounge, and hurled an extinct cigarette-end -into an open fireplace surrounded by beaten -brass and crowned by a mantel in rose-colored marble. -“The execrable ordeal of the first cabin dining-room, -with its crowds of gross, commonplace, high-spirited, -hungry feeders will thus be spared us. You need never -set foot in the Ladies’ Drawing-room; the Lounge and -the Smoking-room shall equally be shunned by me. Exercise -on the Promenade Deck is a necessity. We shall -<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>take it daily, and take it together, my <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">incognito</span></i> preserved -by a motor-cap and goggles, your privacy ensured -by a silk—two silk—veils.” He smiled wanly. “I have -roughly laid down these lines, formulated this plan, for -the maintenance of our privacy without making any allowance -for the exigencies of the weather and the condition -of the sea. But if I should be prostrated—and I -am an exceedingly bad sailor at the best of times—remember, -dearest, that a tumbler of hot water administered -every ten minutes, alternately with a slice of iced -lemon, should feverish symptoms intervene, is not a -panacea, but an alleviation, as my cousin, Hambridge -Ost, would say. I rather wonder what Hambridge is -saying now. He possesses an extraordinary faculty of -being scathingly sarcastic at the expense of persons who -deserve censure. An unpleasant sensation in my spine -gives me the impression—do you ever have those impressions?—that -he is exercising that faculty now—and at -my expense. Timms, I will ask you to unpack my dressing-gown -and papooshes, and then, if you, my darling, -do not object, I will lie down comfortably in my own -room and have a cup of tea. If I might make a suggestion, -dearest, it is that you would tell your maid to get -out <em>your</em> dressing-gown and <em>your</em> slippers, and lie down -comfortably in <em>your</em> own room and have a cup of tea.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The twenty-six thousand ton Atlantic flyer moved -gracefully down the Mersey, the last flutter of handkerchiefs -died away on the stage, the last head was pulled -back over the vessel’s rail, the seething tumult of settling -down reduced itself to a hive-like buzzing. The -<em>Regent Street’s</em> passenger-list comprised quite a number -of notabilities connected with Art and the Drama, a -promising crop of American millionaires, an ex-Viceroy -of India, and a singularly gifted orang-utan, the biggest -sensation of the London season, who had dined with the -Lord Mayor and Corporation at the Mansion House, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>and was now crossing the ocean to fulfill a roof-garden -engagement in New York, and be entertained at a freak -supper by six of the supreme leaders of American Society. -Petsie pondered the passenger-list with a pouting -lip. She heard from her enraptured maid of the glories -of the floating palace in which the first week of her -honeymoon was to be spent as she sipped the cup of tea -recommended by Rustleton.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Lifts to take you up and down stairs, silver-gilt and -enamel souvenirs given to everybody free, Turkish baths, -needle baths, electric baths, hairdressing and manicuring -saloons, millinery establishments, a theater with a stock -company who don’t know what sea-sickness means, jewelers’ -shops, florists, and Fuller’s, a palmist, and a -thought-reader. Goodness! the gay old ship must be a -floating London, with fish and things squattering about -underneath one’s shoe-heels instead of ‘phone-wires and -electric-light cables. And I’m shut up like a blooming -pearl in an oyster, instead of running about and looking -at everything. Oh, Simpkie’—Simpkins, the new maid, -had been a dresser at the West End Theatre—“I’m dying -for the chance of a little flutter on my own, and how -am I to get it?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The <em>Regent Street</em> gave a long, stately, sliding dive -forwards as a mammoth roller of St. George’s Channel -swept under her sky-scraping stern. A long, plaintive -moan—forerunner of how many to come!—sounded from -the other side of the partition dividing the apartments -of the bride from that of her newly-wedded lord.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I think you’re goin’ to get it, my lady,” said the -demure Simpkins, as Rustleton’s man knocked at his -mistress’s door to convey the intimation that his lordship -preferred not to dine.</p> - -<p class='c009'>A head-wind and a heavy sea combined, during the -next three days of the voyage, to render Rustleton a prey -to agonies which are better imagined than described. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>While he imbibed hot water and nibbled captain’s biscuits, -or lay prone and semi-conscious in the clutches of -the hideous malady of the wave, Lady Rustleton, bright-eyed, -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">petite</span></i>, and beautifully dressed, paraded the promenade -deck with a tail of male and female cronies, played -at quoits and croquet, to the delight of select audiences, -and sat in sheltered corners after dinner, well out of -the radius of the electric light, sometimes with two or -three, generally with one, of the best-looking victims of -her bow and spear. She sat on the Captain’s right hand -at the center table, outrageously bedecked with diamonds. -She played in a musical sketch and sang at a -charity concert. “Buzzy, Buzzy, Busy Bee” was thenceforth -to be heard in every corner of the vast maritime -hotel that was hurrying its guests Westward at the utmost -speed of steel and steam. Fresh bouquets of Malmaison -carnations, roses and violets from the Piccadilly -florists, were continually heaped upon her shrine, dainty -jeweled miniature representations of the <em>Regent Street’s</em> -house-flag, boxes of choice bonbons showered upon her -like rain. The celebrated orang-utan occupied the chair -next hers at a special banquet, the newest modes in millinery -found their way mysteriously to her apartment, -if she had but tried them on, smiled, and, with the inimitable -Petsie wink at the reflection of her own provokingly -pretty features in the shop mirror, approved.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I keep forgetting I’m a married woman,” she would -say, with the Petsie smile, when elderly ladies of the -cat-like type, and middle-aged men who were malicious, -inquired after the health of the invisible Lord Rustleton. -“But he’s there, poor dear; or as much as is left -of him. Quite contented if he gets his milk and beef-juice, -and the hot water comes regularly, and there’s a -slice of lemon to suck. No; I’m afraid I can’t give him -your kind message of sympathy, you know, because sympathy -is too disturbing, he says.... He doesn’t even -<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>like <em>me</em> to ask him if he’s feeling bad, because, as he tells -me, I have only to look at him to know that he is, poor -darling.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Thus prattled the bride, even ready to <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">faire l’ingénue</span></i> -for the benefit of even an audience of one. The voyage -agreed with Petsie. Her complexion, dulled by make-up, -assumed a healthier tint; her eyes and smile grew -brighter, even as the ruddy gold faded from her abundant -hair. The end of this story would have been completely -different had not the tricksy sea-air brought -about this deplorable change.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I’m getting dreadfully rusty, as you say, Simpkie; -and if the man in the hairdresser’s shop on the Promenade -Deck Arcade can give me a shampoodle and touch -me up a bit—quite an artist is he, and quite the gentleman? -Oh, very well, I’ll look in on my gentleman-artist -between breakfast and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bouillon</span></i>.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Petsie did look in. The artist’s studio, elegantly hung -with heavy pink plush curtains, only contained, besides -a shampooing-basin, a large mirror, a nickel-silver instrument -of a type between a chimney-cowl and a ship’s -ventilator, and a client’s chair, a young person of ingratiating -manners, who offered Lady Rustleton the -chair, and enveloping her dainty person in a starchy -pink wrapper, touched a bell, and saying, “The operator -will attend immediately, moddam,” glided noiselessly -away. Petsie, approvingly surveying her image in the -mirror, did not hear a male footstep behind her. But -as the head and shoulders of the operator rose above the -level of her topmost waves, and his reflected gaze encountered -her own, she became ghastly pale beneath her -rose-bloom, and with a little choking cry of recognition -gasped out:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Bill ... Boman! ... it can’t be you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The old identical same,” Mr. William Boman said, -with a cheerful smile. “And if the shock has made you -<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>giddy, I can turn on the basin-hose in half a tick, and -give you a splash of cold as a reviver. Will you have -it? No? Then don’t faint, that’s all.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You wrote to say you were dying at Dieppe five -years ago,” sobbed Petsie, into the folds of the pink -calico wrapper. “You wicked, cruel man, you know you -did!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And now you’re crying because I didn’t die,” said -Mr. Boman, arranging his sable forehead-curls in the -glass, and complacently twirling a highly-waxed mustache. -“No pleasing you women. You never know what -you want, strikes me.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“But somebody sent me a French undertaker’s bill for -a first-class funeral, nearly thirty pounds it came to -when we’d got the francs down to sovereigns,” moaned -Petsie, “and I paid it.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“That was my little dodge,” said Mr. Boman calmly, -“to get a few yellow-birds to go on with. Trouble I’d -got into—don’t say any more about it, because I am a -reformed character now. And now we’re talking about -characters, what price yours, my Lady Rustleton?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, Billy!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Bigamy ain’t a pretty word, but that’s what it comes -to, as I’ve said to myself many an evening as I smoked -my cigar on the second-class deck promenade, and heard -you singing away in there to the swells in the music-room -like a—like a cage full of canaries. I shan’t make -no scene nor nothing like that, says I. Her hair’s getting -a bit off color—see it by daylight, she’ll have to -come my way before long, and then I shall tip her the -ghost with a vengeance.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Oh, Bill dear, how could you be so cruel!” pleaded -Petsie.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Not so much of the ‘Bill dear,’ I’ll trouble you,” -said Mr. Boman sternly. “Why don’t you produce that -aristocratic corpse you’ve married, and let me have it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>out with him? Seasick, is he? I’ll make him land-sick -before I’ve done with him, and so I tell you. He’ll have -to sell some of his blooming acres to satisfy me, or some -of them diamonds of yours, my lady.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>But at this juncture the delayed attack of hysteria -swooped upon its victim. Summoning his young lady-assistant, -Mr. Boman, with a few injunctions, placed the -patient in her care. Then brushing a few bronze-hued -hairs from his frock-coat, removing his dapper apron, -and tidying his hair with a rapid application of the -brush, he winked as one well pleased, and betook himself -to Gobelin Tapestry Bridal Suite Number Four, in -the character of a Messenger of Fate.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Three hours later the news had leaked out all over -the <em>Regent Street</em>. The great vessel buzzed like a wasps’-nest, -and the utmost resources of wireless telegraphy -were taxed to communicate to sister ships upon the -ocean and fellow-men upon the nearest land the astounding -fact of the sudden collapse of the Rustleton marriage, -owing to the arrival on the scene of a previous -husband of the lady.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“<i><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Ach Himmel!</span></i> it is klorious!” gasped Funkstein, -waving a pale blue paper, “I haf here Petsie’s reply -to de offer of de Syindigate—she comes to de Vest End -Theatre; at an advanced salary returns—and de house -will be cram-jammed to de doors for anoder tree hoondred -berformances. It is an ill vind dot to nopody plows -goot, mark my vords!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lord Pomphrey had just given utterance to a similar -sentiment; Rustleton, on the other side of the Atlantic, -had previously arrived at a like conclusion. Mr. Boman -had entertained the same view from the outset of affairs. -Petsie—again Le Poyntz—realizing the gigantic advertisement -that the resurrection of her first proprietor -involved, was gradually becoming reconciled to the situation. -When all the characters of a tale are made content, -is it not time the narrative came to a close?</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span> - <h2 class='c005'>“CLOTHES—AND THE MAN—!”</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>The smoking-room of the Younger Sons’ Club, the bow-windows -of which command a view of Piccadilly, contained -at the hour of two-thirty its full complement of -habitual nicotians, who, seated in the comfortable armchairs, -recumbent on the leather divans, or grouped upon -the hearthrug, lent their energies with one accord to -the thickening of the atmosphere.</p> - -<p class='c009'>Hambridge Ost, a small, drab-hued man with a triangular -face, streakily-brushed hair, champagne-bottle -shoulders, and feet as narrow as boot-trees without the -detachable side-pieces, invariably encased in the shiniest -of patent leathers,—Hambridge, from behind a large -green cigar, was giving a select audience of very young -and callow listeners the benefit of his opinions upon -dress.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“If I proposed to jot down the small events of my insignificant -private life, dear fellers, or had the gift—supposing -I did commit ’em to paper—of makin’ ’em interesting -...” said Hambridge, raising his eyebrows -to the edge of his carefully parted hair and letting them -down again, “I don’t mind telling you, dear fellers, -that the resultant volume or two would mark an epoch -in autobiographical literature. But, like the violet—so -to put it—I have, up to the present, preferred to blush -unseen. Not that the violet <em>can</em> blush anything but purple—or -blue in frosty weather, but the simile has up to -now always held good in literature. Lord Pomphrey—a -man appreciative to a degree of the talents of his relatives—has -said to me a thousand times if one, ‘Confound -you, Hambridge, why is not that, or this, or the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>other, so to put it, in print?’ But Pomphrey may be -partial——”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, no!” exclaimed, in a very deep bass, a very -young man in a knitted silk waistcoat and a singularly -brilliant set of pimples. “No, no!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Much obliged, dear fellow,” said Hambridge, hoisting -his eyebrows and letting them drop in his characteristic -manner. “Some of my views may possess originality—even -freshness when expressed, as I invariably express -’em, in a perfectly commonplace manner.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>“No, no!” again exclaimed the pimply-faced owner of -the deep bass voice.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“As to the Ethics of the Crinoline, now,” went on -Hambridge, “I observe that an energetic effort is being -made—in a certain quarter and amongst a certain <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coterie</span></i>—to -revive the discarded hoops of 1855–66. They -did their best to impart a second vitality to the Early -Victorian poke-bonnet some years ago. Why did the -effort fail, dear fellers? Because, with their accompanying -garniture of modesty, blushes were considered necessary -to the feminine equipment at the date I have mentioned. -And because blushes—I speak on the most reliable -authority—are more difficult to simulate than -tears. Also because, looking down the pink silk-lined -tunnel of the poke-bonnet of 1855–66, it was impossible -for you, as an ordinary male creature, to decide whether -the rosy glow invading the features of the woman you -adored—we adored women, dear fellows, at that period—was -genuine or the reverse. There you have in a nutshell -the reason why the poke-bonnet was not welcomed -at the dawn of the twentieth century. Modesty and -blushes, dear fellers, are out of date.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Hambridge leaned back in his chair with an air of -mild triumph, running his movable eye—the left was -rigidly fixed behind his monocle—over the faces of the -listeners.</p> - -<p class='c009'><span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>“Will the woman of the Twentieth Century willingly -enclose her legs—they were limbs in 1855–66—once more -in the steel-barred calico cage, fifteen feet in circumference, -if not more, that contained the woman of the -Early Victorian Era? Dear fellers, the question furnishes -material for an interestin’ debate. In my young -days there was no sittin’ in ladies’ pockets, no cosy-cornering, -so to put it. You invariably kept at a respectful -distance from the young creature whom you, -more or less ardently—we could be ardent in those days—desired -to woo and win, simply because you couldn’t -get nearer. You didn’t approach her mother for permission -to pay your addresses-her mother was encased -in a similar panoply. You went to her father, because -you could get at him—there you have the plain, simple -reason of the custom of ‘askin’ Papa.’ And if you -were reprehensibly desirous of eloping with another -fellow’s wife, you didn’t express your wish in words. -You wrote a letter invitin’ her to fly with you—we called -it flying in those days—and dropped it in the post. If -the lady disapproved, she dropped you. If not, she -bolted with you in a chaise with four or a pair—and -even then her crinoline kept you at a distance. You -were no more at liberty to put your arm round her waist -than if the eye of Early Victorian Society had been -glued upon you.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“To put forward another reason <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">contra</span></i> the reacceptance -of the crinoline by the Woman of To-day, dear fellers, -the Woman of To-day can swim. Therefore, the -advantage of being dressed practically in a lifebuoy, -does not appeal to her as it did early in the previous -reign. I could quote you an instance of an accident -which occurred to the Dover and Calais paddle-wheel -steam-packet, on board which I happened to be a passenger, -which, owing to the negligence of the captain, -ran ashore upon a sandbank half a mile from the pier. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>The first boat which was lowered was filled with lady -passengers, all in crinolines. It was swamped by a -wave which washed over the stern. The steersman and -the sailors who were rowing were unluckily snatched to -a watery grave, poor fellows. Not so the women passengers -of the swamped boat, dear creatures, who simply -floated, keeping hold of one another’s scarves and bonnet-strings, -and so forth, until they could be picked up -and conveyed ashore. Not one of ’em could swim a -stroke—and all were saved, thanks to the crinoline in -which each was attired. But, useful as under certain -circumstances the birdcage may be, the Twentieth Century -Woman will never be tempted back into it. She -has learned what it is to have muscles and to use ’em, -dear fellers! and the era of languid inertia is over for -her.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“I will add, dear fellers, that in these drab and uncommonly -dismal days of early December, the dash of -color now perceptible in the clothes of the best dressed -men present at social functions of the superior sort, adds -largely to the cheeriness of the scene. <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Cela me fait cet -effet</span></i>, dear fellers, but of course I may be wrong. And -the first man to adopt and appear in the newest style in -evenin’ dress—a bright blue coat of fine faced cloth, -with black velvet collar, velvet cuffs, and silk facin’s, -worn with trousers of the same material, braided with -black down the side seams, and a V-cut vest of white -Irish silk poplin-has realized a fortune through it.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A well-known man, dear fellers, connected with two -old Tory families of the highest distinction, educated at -Eton, popular at the University-where he did not allow -his love of study to interfere with the more serious -pursuit of sport—d’ye take me? Suppose we call him -Eric de Peauchamp-Walmerdale. His marriage took -place yesterday at St. Neot’s, Knightsbridge, the sacred -edifice bein’ decorated with large lilies and white chrysanthemums, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>and the gatherin’ of guests surprisingly -large—the biggest crush of the Season as yet. There -were six little girl-bridesmaids in pale blue, with diamond -lockets, and the bride’s train was carried by four -pages, also in pale blue, with gold-headed canes. As -for the bride, considerin’ her age—a cool seventy—surprisin’, -dear fellers! Only daughter and heiress of an -ex-butler, who invented a paste for cleanin’ plate, patented -it, and became a millionaire, Isaac Shyne, Esq., -M.P., of The Beeches, Wopsley, and 710, Park Lane, -deceased ten years ago at the ripe age of ninety.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“De Peauchamp-Walmerdale’s married sister lived -next door to the rich Miss Shyne, who practically went -nowhere, and only received her Nonconformist minister, -and a few whist-playin’ friends of the same denomination -on certain specified evenin’s. House absolutely -Early Victorian—walnut-wood drawing-room suite, upholstered -in green silk rep, mahogany and brown leather -for the dinin’-room. Berlin woolwork curtains, worked -by the mistress of the house, at all the front windows. -Three parrots, two poodles, and a pair of King Charles -spaniels of the obsolete miniature breed. Maid-servants—all -elderly, butler like a bishop, uncommon good cellar -of gouty old Madeiras and sherries, laid down by the defunct -Shyne, awful collection of pictures by Smith, -Jones, Brown, and Robinson, splendid plate, too heavy -to lift. And a fortune of one hundred and fifty thousand -in the most reliable Home Rails and breweries, besides -an estate of sixty thousand acres in Crannshire, -and the title deeds of the Park Lane house.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“It came—the idea of bringing Miss Shyne and De -Peauchamp-Walmerdale together—like a flash of inspiration—as -the dear feller’s sister, Lady Tewsminster, -told me yesterday when people had struggled up after -the Psalm, and yawned through the address, <em>not</em> delivered -by a Nonconformist, but by the Bishop of Baxterham; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>and while the choir were singin’, ‘O Perfect Love!’ -She was frightfully cast down when she discovered -through her maid, who had scraped, under orders, an acquaintance -with Miss Shyne’s elderly confidential attendant, -that her lady objected to young gentlemen—couldn’t -endure the sight, so to put it, of anything masculine -under fifty, or without a bulge under the waistcoat, -and a bald top to its head. Further inquiries elicited -that Miss Shyne had had a disappointment in early -life, and wore at the back of an old-fashioned cameo -brooch, representin’ the ‘Choice of Paris,’ the portrait -on ivory of a handsome young man with fair hair, the -livin’ image of Eric de Peauchamp-Walmerdale, in a -light blue tail-coat, with a black velvet collar and gold -buttons, holding a King Charles spaniel of the miniature -breed under his arm.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Dear fellers, Lady Tewsminster, the evening upon -which she received this item of information, knew no -more than a newly-born infant what she was going to -do with it. As happens to most of us, she mentally filed -it for further reference, and getting into her gown, her -diamonds, and her evening <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coiffure</span></i>—those Etruscan -rolled curls are extremely becoming to a woman of pronounced -outlines, and there’s only one place in London, -she tells me, where they can be bought or redressed—went -down to the drawing-room.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A small but select party had been invited for the -evenin’, including, on the feminine side, an American -heiress on the lookout for a husband with a title—or, -at least, the next heir to one-a handsome widow with -a fairly decent jointure, and a couple of marriageable -girls with almost quite respectable <em>dots</em>. From these, -carefully collected on approval by a devoted sister, De -Peauchamp-Walmerdale might, who knows? have selected -a life partner, and sunk into the obscurity of -moderate means for ever, had it not occurred to him -<span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>upon that particular evening—do you take me, dear fellers?—to -array himself in the latest cry of modern masculine -evening dress.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He was standing on the hearthrug when Lady Tewsminster -entered, a tall, slim, youthful figure, fair-haired -and complexioned, and quite uncommonly handsome, in -his light blue coat with the black velvet collar, braided -accompaniments, and pearl-buttoned, watch-chainless, -white silk vest.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘How do you like me, Ju, old girl?’ he said, coming -to kiss her. ‘I’ve come to dine in character as our -great-grandfather. Awful fool I feel, but my tailor -insisted on my wearin’ ’em, and as I owe the brute a -frightful bill I thought I’d best appease him by givin’ -in.’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The gilded Early Victorian frame of the high mantel-mirror -behind De Peauchamp-Walmerdale had the -effect of being a frame, if you foller me, out of which, -the figure of the dear feller had stepped. A cameo -brooch shot into the mind of Lady Tewsminster, above it -the long narrow face and dowdy black lace bonnet of -the heiress, Miss Jane Ann Shyne. A plan of campaign -was instantly formulated in the mind of that surprising -woman. She stepped to one of the windows commandin’ -Park Lane, drew aside the blind, and saw, paddlin’ up -and down on the rainy pavement outside, the waterproofed -figure of Miss Shyne’s confidential maid, taking -the King Charles spaniels and the poodles for their customary -evenin’ ta-ta. Instantly she touched the bell, -sent for her maid and said to her in a rapid undertone, -‘Johnson, ten pounds are yours if you can steal one -of Miss Shyne’s pet King Charles spaniels while their -attendant is not looking. There is no risk—I shall send -the creature back in ten minutes. Will you undertake -this? Yes? Very well, go and get the beast.’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The maid, Johnson, departed swiftly, the area-gate -<span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>clicked, and Lady Tewsminster, feverish with the great -project boiling under her transformation, paced the -drawing-room until she heard the second click of the -gate. She swept down the stairs to meet Johnson, in -whose black silk apron struggled the smallest of the -King Charles spaniels. ‘Did the woman see?’ whispered -the mistress. ‘Not a bit of her, my lady,’ returned the -maid. ‘She was gossiping with the District Police-Inspector -about a burglary they’ve had three doors -away. So I got Tottles—that’s his name, my lady-quite -easy, not being on a lead.’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Telling the maid the promised ten pounds should be -hers that night, Lady Tewsminster snatched the struggling -‘Tottles’ from the enveloping apron and swept -back to her drawing-room to carry out her plan. -‘Peachie dear,’ she said as she entered, ‘it would be -frightfully sweet of you if you would run in next door -and carry this little beast to its owner, Miss Shyne. -Insist on seeing her; do not give the animal into any -other hands; do not wear your hat or an overcoat. I -am firm upon this; and remember,’ she fixed her large, -expressive eyes full upon her brother’s face, ‘remember, -she has <em>nearly two hundred thousand pounds, and your -fate is in your own hands!... Go!</em>’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Rather bewildered by Lady Tewsminster’s almost -tragic address, De Peauchamp-Walmerdale took the -wriggling Tottles, left the house, and carried out his instructions -to the letter. The loss of Tottles had been -discovered. Miss Shyne’s establishment was topsy-turvy -when he arrived, servants tearing up and down -stairs, the confidential attendant in tears on a hall chair, -Miss Shyne in hysterics in her Early Victorian boudoir, -the remaining dogs harking their heads off, and the very -devil to pay. But the arrival of De Peauchamp-Walmerdale, -dear fellers, caused a lull in the storm. Faithful -to his instructions, he refused to give up the dog, except -<span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>to its mistress, and after a feint or two of departure, -Miss Shyne gave in and ordered her fate, as it -turned out to be—d’ye foller me?—to be shown upstairs.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The Early Victorian drawing-room, with the green -rep furniture and the Berlin woolwork curtains—a pattern -of macaws and dahlias, I understood—was in partial -darkness. Only the wax candles in the crystal candelabra -on the marble mantelshelf were alight, no electric -illuminations bein’ permitted on the premises.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“De Peauchamp-Walmerdale—dog under his arm—took -up a commandin’ position on the hearthrug, also -worked in Berlin wool, in front of a small, mysterious -and palely-twinkling fire. As he did so the foldin’ doors -opposite, communicating with the boudoir, slowly -opened, and Miss Jane Ann Shyne, spinster, aged seventy, -saw before her the long-dead romance of her youth, -resuscitated from the ashes of—wherever long-dead romances -are deposited, dear fellers. There was a faint, -feminine scream—quite Early Victorian in character—a -rustle of old-fashioned satins—an outburst of joyous -barks from Tottles, a strong, bewildering perfume of -lavender water (triple extract), and the old lady sank, -literally sank, upon the white Irish poplin vest that -added style and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">cachet</span></i> to De Peauchamp-Walmerdale’s -uncommonly fetchin’ costume.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“What more, dear fellers? The couple were united -yesterday at St. Neot’s, Knightsbridge. Every penny is -settled on De Peauchamp-Walmerdale, and Lady Tewsminster -says she can now die happy, her dear boy being -provided for, for life. She naturally claims the honors -of the affair! Quite so, but without the clothes -where would the man have been? D’ye foller me, dear -fellers? In my poor opinion, the principal factor in the -making of De Peauchamp-Walmerdale’s fortune was the -Man Behind the Shears. Do you foller me? So glad! -Thought you would.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span> - <h2 class='c005'>THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>“‘Let us be consistent,’” said Lady Pomphrey, her -three saddle-bag chins quivering with emotion, “‘or let -us die’—that is what I have always said. Here is my -only niece, Wendoleth Caer-Brydglingbury, goes—actually -goes—and marries a Liberal Member of Parliament -in a red necktie—who makes speeches in townhalls -and tents, and things, to masses of people, all about -pulling down the House of Lords and abolishing the -Peerage, and absolutely declines to allow his wife to -drop her title. To you—so intimate a friend, don’t you -know?—I may say in confidence I am sickened. I cannot -imagine what the world is coming to. I could wish -to die and leave it, were it not that Jane and Charlotte -are still unmarried, and I have promised to present three -of the <em>sweetest</em> girls—well-bred Americans of the best -type, without a trace of accent—at the first Drawing-room -of the Winter Season. And the family diamonds -are being reset in view of Rustleton’s approaching marriage—a -union satisfactory from every point of view, -especially a mother’s.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lady Pomphrey paused for breath, and the intimate -friend-they had met at Bad Smellstein a fortnight previously -while taking little early morning walks, and -drinking little glasses of excessively nauseous waters -warranted to correct the most aristocratic acidity—the -intimate friend murmured something sympathetic.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of course, I might have <em>known</em> one <em>could</em> look to <em>you</em> -for comprehension and all that sort of thing,” said Lady -Pomphrey, graciously bending her head, which was enveloped -<span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>in a large mushroom hat of blue straw tied -down all round with a drab silk veil, and patting the -intimate friend upon the knee with the stick of her celebrated -green silk sunshade. “One of those delightful -literary creatures-was it Algernon Meredith or George -Swinburne?—has termed friendship ‘the marriage of -true minds.’ Ever since the Hambridge-Osts introduced -us—in a thunderstorm—at the firework display in the -Park in honor of the Grand Duke’s birthday—and being -Sunday, I will <em>own</em> that the nerve-shattering meteorological -demonstrations that drove us to shelter in that -extremely leaky Chinese pavilion seemed to me but a -judgment upon German Sabbath-breakers—ours has -been such a union. Cemented by your helpfulness in -the matter of sandbags for a rattling window—Lord -Pomphrey is completely impervious to all such nerve-shattering -tortures, and will sleep happily in his cabin -on the yacht in Cowes Roads through a Royal Naval Review—and -your timely ministrations with soda-mint lozenges -when acute indigestion virtually prostrated me -after a homicidal <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">plat</span></i> of eels with cranberry-sauce, of -which I foolishly partook at the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</span></i>. The mysteriousness -of it allured me. I wished for once to feel -like a German. Now I feel assured their extraordinary -diet accounts for much that is abstruse and metaphysical -in the national character. For you cannot possibly be -normal if you are fed upon abnormal things. And I am -grateful that Rustleton has never shown himself in the -least susceptible to the attractions of their women. I -know—almost quite intimately—a Grand Duchess who -has brought up every one of her nine young daughters -upon red-cabbage soup, with sausage-meat balls and -dumplings; and somehow it is suggested in the girls’ -complexions and figures—<em>especially</em> the dumplings.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The friend tittered. Lady Pomphrey placed upon the -seat beside her a straw handbag containing a Tauchnitz -<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>edition of the last new Mudie novel, a black fan, a large -bottle of frightfully strong salts, several spare pocket-handkerchiefs, -several indelible-ink pencils, and a quantity -of obsolete railway tickets, and became more confidential -than ever.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Had I been consulted by destiny when the arrangement -of Rustleton’s matrimonial future came <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sur le -tapis</span></i> I could not—with my expiring breath I would repeat -this—<em>could not</em> be more completely satisfied. It -began by his hating her.... She hit him on the nose -with a diabolo in June at Ranelagh, and, ‘Mother,’ he -said afterwards to me—his upper lip perfectly rigid -with wounded dignity—‘I should have greatly preferred -to have been born in the days of “Coningsby,” or “Lothair.” -Muscular young women create in me a feeling -of <em>positive aversion</em>!’ He found her agitating even at -that early stage of affairs? How subtle of you to <em>see</em> -that!”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The flattered friend murmured an interrogation.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Who is she?” repeated Lady Pomphrey. “But -surely the newspapers?... You suffer too acutely -from dancing spots in the field of vision ever to read -when undergoing a cure?... Poor dear, I can feel -for you. She is the Hon. Céline Twissing—will be Baroness -Twissing of Hopsacks in her own right when old -Lord Twissing dies. He insisted upon <em>that</em> arrangement -in the interests of his only child; when the intimation -was conveyed from a Certain Quarter that the Jubilee -Baronetcy he already enjoyed would be changed into a -Peerage did he encourage the idea. Quite a bluff old -English type, and I must say in hospitality Imperial. -‘Twissing’s Bonded Breweries.’... A colossal fortune, -and that <em>sweet</em> girl is to inherit nearly the whole. -Shall I say that my heart went out to her from the first -instant I saw her? As a mother yourself, you will understand! -Here comes the young woman with the tray -<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>for our glasses. <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ja, bitte, Ich danke Sie....</span></i> You -<em>don’t</em> mean to tell me the creature is a Cockney?... -How distressing! I may be fanciful, possibly I am,” -said Lady Pomphrey, “but I do prefer my surroundings -to be congruous and in tone. I’m sure you feel what -I convey? You do? How nice that is!...”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The friend smiled and inaudibly murmured something.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Of course,” cried Lady Pomphrey, “you’re on -thorns to hear all about Rustleton’s love-match. As I -told you, Céline Twissing—the <em>Christian</em> name has been -Gallicized from Selina—and why on earth not? <em>Céline</em> -is an expert at diabolo. It’s a knack, sending these little -black and red demons as high as a house, or into -your neighbor’s eye; and she is a talented as well as -a charming girl. With three languages, several sciences, -a system of physical-culture exercises, golf, tennis, and -the laws of hockey at her finger-ends, she would have -gone far in these days of violent recreations and brusque -manners, even without a <em>dot</em>. Masculine? Oh <em>dear no</em>! -Perhaps deficient in reverence for what <em>we</em> were taught -to believe in as the superior sex. Perhaps lacking in -feminine <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">finesse</span></i>. I <em>have</em> heard it said that the girl of -the twentieth century cannot cajole, and is ignorant how -to be alluring. Perhaps it is a pity. The woman who -has a gift of managing difficult people, smoothing absurd -people down, and being perfectly amiable to the absolutely -objectionable is practically priceless as a greaser -of the social cog-wheels. Now Céline calls that sort of -woman, plumply and plainly, a hypocrite.... But is -it not a woman’s <em>duty</em> to be a hypocrite, if telling the -truth to everybody makes the world a place of gnashing?” -demanded Lady Pomphrey, making her eyebrows -climb up out of sight under the shadow of her mushroom -hat.</p> - -<p class='c009'>The compliant friend assented.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“You understand, then, how dissonant was the chord -<span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>Céline Twissing struck in Rustleton. With his Plantagenet -dash in the blood, his hereditary intolerance of -anything smacking of vulgarity, his medieval attitude of -chivalry towards Woman, his Early Victorian dislike of -the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">outré</span></i> and the <em>bizarre</em>, he frankly found her intolerable. -‘In a drawing-room,’ he said to me in confidence, -‘that girl reminds me of a Polar bear in a hothouse.’ -Where the boy could have seen one I cannot imagine—probably -it was only a young man’s daring figure of -speech. Shall we walk about a little? I think I felt a -twinge.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The friend agreed, and, gently ambling up and down -the Kreuzbrunnen Promenade, Lady Pomphrey continued -her narrative.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Rustleton said she was a New Girl of the worst type. -Then came the diabolo affair, which, considering Céline’s -remarkable knack, I cannot think accidental. The -bridge of Rustleton’s nose was seriously contused, and -his monocle was shattered—fortunately without danger -to the eye. He took no revenge beyond an epigram, -quite worthy of La Rochefou—what’s his name?... -She is keen on dancing, unlike other muscular girls; -and said so in my boy’s near vicinity. ‘Why not? She -has hops in her blood,’ he uttered. Of course, a little -bird carried it to her ear.... How d’ye do, Lady -Frederica? How d’ye do, Count Pyffer? I quite agree -with you.... Piercing winds, varied by muggy airlessness -and a distressingly relaxing warmth, <em>have</em> made -the last eight days intolerable.... My dear, where -was I when I left off?” The suffering friend indicated -the point. Lady Pomphrey continued:</p> - -<p class='c009'>“And <em>after all</em> they have come together. Quite a -romance. If a mother’s prayers have any influence, -... and I am old-fashioned enough to believe they have.... -But I knew Rustleton too well to breathe a hint -of my hopes. I did not stoop to intrigue, as some mothers -<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>would, to bring the young people together. But -dearest Jane, who is always my right hand, conceived -a devoted friendship for Céline just at the psychological -moment, and owing to that she and Rustleton were <em>constantly</em> -thrown in each other’s way. Céline quite exerted -herself to be overwhelmingly unpleasant. Jane -says that during a bicycling excursion in the neighborhood -of our place at Cluckham-Pomphrey, she offered to -help him to lift his machine over a stile, and would have -done it unaided and alone if Rustleton had not peremptorily -seized the frame-bar, gripping both her hands in -his. On Jane’s authority, she crimsoned to the hat, -throwing him off like a feather, and, mounting her machine, -was out of sight in an instant. He was icily sarcastic -on the subject of muscular young women all the -way home, and limited his dinner to clear soup and a -single cutlet with dry toast, while Céline went through -all the courses in her usual thoroughgoing way. They -are not in the least ashamed to eat, do you notice?—these -golfing, hockey-playing, open-air young people.... -Now you and I can recall placing a solid barrier -of five o’clock cake and muffins between undue appetite -and the eight o’clock dinner, at which we merely toyed -with our knives and forks, trusting to our maids to have -a tray of cold eatables ready in the bedroom for consumption -while our hair was being brushed. Of <em>course</em>! -‘but <em>these</em> girls devour at tea, <em>wolf</em> at dinner’—I quote -Rustleton—‘and probably stodge sandwiches and cold -chicken and chocolate-wafers before they plunge into -their beds. When there, how they must snore!’</p> - -<p class='c009'>“His eye gleamed with such feverish malignancy as he -said this, that I involuntarily dropped a quantity of -stitches in the silk necktie I was knitting for him—a -soothing neutral shade not calculated to call attention -to the tinge of bile in his complexion—and exclaimed, -‘Good Heavens!’ He immediately begged my pardon -<span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>and bade me ‘good-night,’ whispering that he had arranged -to shoot over the lower sixty acres with Stubbins, -the head keeper—purely as a filial duty, Pomphrey -not feeling robust enough to undertake it this year....</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Whether it was my having breathed a hint of this -to Jane—who is, as a rule, a <em>grave</em> for chance confidence—or -whether Miss Twissing had overheard, how can I -say? But she and Stubbins were waiting for my boy -on the following morning, Stubbins—who loathes sporting -women—in a state of complacency that only a five-pound -note could have brought about. Her beautiful -Bond-street self-ejecting breechloader, her cap, tweeds, -and gaiters were the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dernier cri</span></i>, and with the coolest -self-possession she wiped my poor boy’s eye over and -over again. Out of thirty brace of birds before luncheon -only three and a half fell to his gun, and <em>those</em> were of -the red-legged French description, ‘bred for duffers to -blaze at,’ according to Lord Pomphrey. Rustleton went -up to town that night, charging Jane with all sorts of -civil messages for Miss Twissing, and slept at his Club, -which was being painted and disagreed with him excessively.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The friend sighed sympathy.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“Even with every door and window open and a flat -dish full of milk upon the washstand,” said Lady Pomphrey, -taking the friend’s arm and emphasizing her utterances -with the green sunshade, “white paint permeates -my whole being in a way that is perfectly indescribable. -My son inherits my receptiveness—perhaps -my weakness-indeed, he came into the world at Cluckham-Pomphrey -during an early visit of ours, subsequent -to spring-cleaning, where, owing to an unhappy facility -possessed by Lord Pomphrey of being easily persuaded -by self-interested persons, the hall screen, grand staircase, -and all the Jacobean paneling had been covered by -the local decorator with a creamy-hued, turpentiny and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>glutinous mixture known as ‘Eggster’s Exquisite Enamel.’ -It cost a fortune to get off again, and some of -it still lingers in the crevices of the carving. My basket.... -It is a little cumbrous, but I really couldn’t -think of letting you.... Well then, dear friend, if -you insist.... Now for the really remarkable ending -of my boy’s story.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He flew to his cousin for consolation. Now, Wendoleth -Caer-Brydglingbury is extremely sympathetic. Only -for the color of her hair-a violent Boadicean red, almost -purple in some lights—Rustleton and she—but I -am devoutly thankful things have turned out as they -<em>have</em>.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“‘A sea cruise,’ said Wendoleth promptly, ‘will get -the white paint out of your system quicker than anything -I know; and your morbid feeling of vexation with -this girl, impatience of her persistency in continuing to -exist, and so forth, will vanish with other things. Mr. -Mudge,’—the person she has since married,—‘has kindly -asked Papa and myself to join his party on board the -steam-yacht <em>Fifi</em> for a trip to Lisbon, Madeira, and the -Canaries; join us. I assure you a complete welcome and -at least half a cabin.’ Rustleton recognized the cousinly -kindness in Wendoleth’s proposal, accepted, and went -with her and Todmoxen—the Earl is still robust, but -not what he was in the ’seventies, nor is it to be expected—down -to Southampton to join the <em>Fifi</em>. Mudge -is Liberal member for the North Clogger Division of -Mudderpool. But for a crimson necktie—the Party -badge—and a habit of hanging on to his own coat-lapels -when conversing, he is almost quite presentable, and, -like all those people who begin by not having twopence, -he is astonishingly rich. His welcome to Rustleton was -cordial in the extreme. But when Rustleton found Lord -Twissing and his daughter already on board, discovered -that he was to share Twissing’s cabin, and that Céline -<span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>slept in the one next door, he was dismayed. He would -have excused himself and left the <em>Fifi</em> only that she was -already on her way. Fate, like one of those curious -jelly-like creatures which wave their tentacles to attract -their prey and then clutch it and gradually absorb it, -had wrapped its feelers around my poor boy. He is -now resigned, calm, content, even happy; but when I -think how he must have suffered.... My salts. In -the basket. So kind of you, and <em>so</em> reviving.”</p> - -<p class='c009'>Lady Pomphrey inhaled with drooping eyelids and -sniffed at the salts-flagon from time to time as she embarked -once more upon her narrative way.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“The <em>Fifi</em> anchored for the night, which promised to -be squally, in Southampton Water, about a quarter of a -mile from Hythe Pier. Depressed and discouraged, my -boy retired to his cabin, leaving the entire party screaming -over ‘Bridge’ at a number of little tables in the saloon. -He had just put on his nightalines,—pink with a -green stripe, the jacket ornamented with green braid in -loops, to match—and was attending to his teeth with a -palm-stick, when, with a terrific crash, all the electric -lights went out and the <em>Fifi</em> was plunged in darkness. -I shudder when I realize the awfulness of all that. Don’t -you?”</p> - -<p class='c009'>The friend supplied a shudder expressly manufactured -for the purpose.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“A Welsh collier steamer, the <em>Rattletrap</em>, from Penwryg, -had run down Mr. Mudge’s yacht, becoming firmly -embedded in the hull of the craft—the details are -graven on my memory,” said Lady Pomphrey impressively—“immediately -forward of the engine-room. The -crew turned out—not into the sea, but out of their hammocks—the -‘Bridge’ players rushed in confusion upon -deck. In their evening dresses, without being even able -to save a bag from below, Mr. Mudge’s party were -dragged over the grimy bows of the collier. The crew -scrambled after. The captain of the <em>Rattletrap</em>, having -<span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>ascertained that the <em>Fifi</em> was rapidly filling, and that all -her passengers, as he thought, were safe on board his -vessel, was about to give the signal from the bridge to -reverse engines when, with an appalling scream a lithe -young girl in a crêpe de Chine evening wrap embroidered -with roses and turtle-doves—quite symbolic when -you think of it—leaped back upon the deck of the <em>Fifi</em> -and disappeared below. Guess who she was, and whither -she had gone? You can? You do? What romance in -real life, isn’t it? Céline Twissing had missed Rustleton, -and, knowing that he occupied the cabin next to her own, -had rushed below to save him.</p> - -<p class='c009'>“He had rung for his man and was waiting calmly to -be dressed, when she burst in the door with her shoulder—have -you ever noticed her shoulders?—and shrieked to -him to come on deck and be saved. Wrapped in a Scotch -plaid which he had hastily thrown over his pyjamas at -the moment of her entrance, he defied her, rebuked her -immodesty in entering a gentleman’s dressing-room unannounced, -ordered her to quit the cabin and go back -to her father. When properly attired to appear before -ladies, my boy, ever chivalrous and delicate-minded, said -he would board the <em>Rattletrap</em>. ‘Don’t you feel that this -yacht is water-logged?’ screamed Céline Twissing. -‘Don’t you know she’ll sink under our feet in another -minute? Come on deck at <em>once</em>, you duffing little precisian, -unless you want me to carry you!’ He retorted -with contempt. She instantly seized him in her muscular -arms—have you ever noticed her arms?—threw him, -Scotch plaid and all, over her shoulder, carried him up -the yacht’s companion-ladder, and amidst the cheers of -the united crews of the <em>Fifi</em> and the <em>Rattletrap</em>, handed -him over the bulwarks to the men of the collier. Then -she followed, the captain gave the order to go astern, the -collier reversed her engines, the water rushed into the -yacht, and she sank instantly. All that can be seen of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>her to-day is her masts. And Céline Twissing and my -boy are to be made one at St. George’s, Hanover Square, -in the first week of the Winter Season. Céline will be -married in white satin and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mousseline</span></i> trimmed with silver -embroidery, and she goes away in a gown of putty-colored -<em>velvelise</em>—the new stuff. I believe she secretly -adored Rustleton from the very beginning, and he, I feel, -is reconciled to the inscrutable appointments of Providence. -<em>How</em> we have been chattering, haven’t we? -Time for luncheon now. Oh, I pray, no carp in beer, -or eels with currant jelly. But one never knows. <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Au -revoir</span></i>, dear! <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Au revoir!</span></i>” And Lady Pomphrey put -up her green sunshade and sailed away.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><span class='small'>THE END</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c002' /> -</div> -<div class='tnotes'> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c005'>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</h2> -</div> - <ol class='ol_1 c003'> - <li>Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - - </li> - <li>Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. - </li> - </ol> - -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Off Sandy Hook and other stories, by Richard Dehan - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OFF SANDY HOOK AND OTHER STORIES *** - -***** This file should be named 60452-h.htm or 60452-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/4/5/60452/ - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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