diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/63841-h/63841-h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/63841-h/63841-h.htm | 5727 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 5727 deletions
diff --git a/old/63841-h/63841-h.htm b/old/63841-h/63841-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index cef355a..0000000 --- a/old/63841-h/63841-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5727 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> - <title>A Yellow Aster Volume 2—A Project Gutenberg eBook</title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - body { margin-left: 8%; margin-right: 10%; } - h1 { text-align: center; font-weight: normal; font-size: 1.4em; } - h2 { text-align: center; font-weight: normal; font-size: 1.2em; } - .pageno { right: 1%; font-size: x-small; background-color: inherit; color: silver; - text-indent: 0em; text-align: right; position: absolute; - border: thin solid silver; padding: .1em .2em; font-style: normal; - font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; } - p { text-indent: 0; margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: justify; } - .fss { font-size: 75%; } - .sc { font-variant: small-caps; } - .large { font-size: large; } - .xlarge { font-size: x-large; } - .lg-container-b { text-align: center; } - @media handheld { .lg-container-b { clear: both; } } - .linegroup { display: inline-block; text-align: left; } - @media handheld { .linegroup { display: block; margin-left: 1.5em; } } - .linegroup .group { margin: 1em auto; } - .linegroup .line { text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em; } - div.linegroup > :first-child { margin-top: 0; } - .chapter { clear: both; page-break-before: always; } - .table0 { margin: auto; margin-top: 2em; } - .nf-center { text-align: center; } - .nf-center-c0 { text-align: left; margin: 0.5em 0; } - .c000 { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } - .c001 { page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em; } - .c002 { text-indent: 0; margin-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } - .c003 { margin-top: 2em; } - .c004 { margin-top: 1em; } - .c005 { text-align: right; } - .c006 { margin-top: 4em; } - .c007 { page-break-before:auto; margin-top: 4em; } - .c008 { vertical-align: top; text-align: left; padding-right: 1em; } - .c009 { vertical-align: top; text-align: right; } - .c010 { text-indent: 0; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } - .c011 { margin-top: 2em; text-indent: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; } - .c012 { margin-left: 2.78%; text-indent: -2.78%; margin-top: 0.25em; - margin-bottom: 0.25em; } - .c013 { margin-left: 2.78%; text-indent: 1em; margin-top: 0.25em; - margin-bottom: 0.25em; } - .covercaption { display: none; } - @media handheld { .covercaption {display: block;} } - </style> - </head> - <body> -<pre style='margin-bottom:6em;'>The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Yellow Aster Volume 2 (of 3), by Kathleen -Mannington Caffyn - -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 -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this ebook. - -Title: A Yellow Aster Volume 2 (of 3) - -Author: Kathleen Mannington Caffyn - -Release Date: November 22, 2020 [EBook #63841] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Sonya Schermann and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YELLOW ASTER VOLUME 2 (OF 3) *** -</pre> -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>This ebook was created in honour of Distributed Proofreaders’ 20th Anniversary.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='covercaption'> - -<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p> - -</div> - -<div> - <h1 class='c001'>A <span class='sc'>Yellow Aster</span></h1> -</div> -<p class='c002'>BY</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='sc'>Iota</span></p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“And if this fought-for climax <em>is</em> ever reached</div> - <div class='line'>and science, creeping along the path of experiment,</div> - <div class='line'>so invades the realm of Nature that a blue chrysanthemum</div> - <div class='line'>or A Yellow Aster can be produced at</div> - <div class='line'>will, the question still remains, has Nature been</div> - <div class='line'>made more beautiful thereby?”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>IN THREE VOLUMES</i></div> - <div class='c004'>VOL. II</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c000'>London 1894</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>HUTCHINSON & CO.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='c005'>34 PATERNOSTER ROW</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c006'> - <div>PRINTED AT NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND)</div> - <div>BY H. C. A. THIEME OF NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND)</div> - <div>AND</div> - <div>TALBOT HOUSE, ARUNDEL STREET</div> - <div>LONDON, W.C.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table class='table0' summary=''> - <tr> - <td class='c008'> </td> - <td class='c009'>PAGE</td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XVIII.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XIX.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_19'>19</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XX.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_33'>33</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XXI.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_59'>59</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XXII.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_75'>75</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XXIII.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_91'>91</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XXIV.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_109'>109</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XXV.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_122'>122</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XXVI.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_133'>133</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XXVII.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_161'>161</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XXVIII.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_174'>174</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XXIX.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_191'>191</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>CHAPTER XXX.</td> - <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_203'>203</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c006'> - <div><span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span><span class='xlarge'>A YELLOW ASTER.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“<span class='sc'>To</span> look at the fellow one would never -give him credit for half the grit he has,” -thought Strange as he glanced round for -a cab at the street corner. “If I had money -I should send him to Paris,” he went -on as soon as he had settled himself -comfortably, “the Kensington methods are -no manner of use to him. It’s the deuce -of a shame too, that he has to attempt -<span class='pageno' id='Page_2'>2</span>finished work for a living when he should -be swatting over the primaries; and that -colour mania—that will get chronic and -overgrow him, and then God help him!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>As it happened Lady Mary was at home -and quite wide-awake. As a rule this -was not the case until much later in the -day, but just now various things combined -to keep off sleep.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When Strange was announced, she -was sitting well screened from the small -bright fire, gazing in soft meditation at -her plump white hands, with the corners -of her mouth slightly drawn downwards, -and her smooth round forehead -wrinkled up in a way that would have -gone to the heart of a stone to see in -such a picture of comfort as she was -made to be.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>“Humphrey!” she exclaimed, making a -vain try at a spring and flopping down -again limply, “Humphrey!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Myself and no other,” said Strange, -receiving her kiss cheerfully, and settling -himself into a chair after he had shaken -it to see if it would bear. “I needn’t -ask you how you are, Aunt Moll, you look -just as you always did, like a catkin.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“A what, Humphrey?” she enquired -anxiously.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“A catkin, we used to call them goslings, -soft, oval, pale gold, silky, fluffy masses—you -have a weakness for adjectives I know, -judging from the line in literature you -patronize. The harshest wind has never -been known to ruffle a gosling, it always -skips them, they always feel warm to the -touch, as if the sun were on them, they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>are delicious things. The sun is always on -you, Aunt Moll, ain’t it?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, Humphrey, you little know, you -can make but a faint guess at my troubles, -the death of my dear——”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Aunt Moll, we’ll skip that!” interrupted -Strange, with a twinkle.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He knew quite well what an unmixed -relief the deceased peer’s removal was -to all his kith and kin, more especially -to his wife.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“If you recollect, before I went to Algeria -we agreed to let my uncle rest undisturbed -in his present retreat, which, from what -we know of his past, must be unexceptionable—whatever -his faults may have -been no one can deny that he was a -most exclusive person and had a very just -notion of his position.”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>“Dear Humphrey! That flippancy! I -had hoped that the many dangers you -have experienced, the many times you -have come face to face with death—and, -Humphrey—with <em>Eternity</em>—would have -brought the seriousness of life before your -eyes.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Aunt Moll, the sight of you there in -that chair brings that view of the case -more clearly before me than ever the sight -of death did.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Lady Mary again looked anxious, her -nephew always made her feel like that, -his eyes seemed to rake her from stem -to stern and to find some mute amusement -in the process. Suddenly she gave a little -start.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“What have I been thinking of?” she -murmured. “Humphrey,” she began again, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>“we must speak of your prospects.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She was bubbling over with them as -it happened, besides, they would keep him -off her.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“What are you thinking of doing now?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“What I have always been thinking of -doing and have never done yet, making -the result of my face to face encounters -with death—<em>and Eternity</em>—of some -practical value to the world in general -and to myself in particular, by filling my -trousers’ pockets, which at this present -moment contain one pound six and threepence, -and that’s mostly due for beer.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Humphrey! Have you heard nothing? -Your letters?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I never read them. For Heaven’s -sake, speak, divulge, I’m ready for anything!”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>“Your great-uncle is dead—died last -month. Before he went he confessed a -heavy sin that had lain for years on his -soul, poor dear creature. That great lanky -son of his, about whom, as you know, I -always had a nasty feeling, as if he were -not altogether quite right, as if somehow -he was not one of us. This now proves -to have been a quite prophetic instinct, -he turns out to be—ahem—illegitimate, -and you, you, Humphrey, are the heir.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I say! It’s beastly hard lines on -Tom!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange was quite as staggered with -the news, as any other younger son in -his condition would have been. It vibrated -through and through him, but as one cannot -clothe thunder in harmonies any more -than one can a tumultuous muddle of sensations -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>in speech in the presence of a woman -inclined to gush and stoutness, he swallowed -his muddle and was flippant.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Humphrey!” said Lady Mary with -dignity, wondering a little if Humphrey -himself were quite right. “This minute -you have ten thousand a year, and you, -my nephew, are Sir Humphrey Strange.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Am I? You’ll be astonished to hear -I don’t feel a bit like it, I feel exactly -as I did before. Is there any difference -to the naked eye, if so, do you mind telling -me?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Lady Mary stirred uneasily and crossed -her hands.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Dear Humphrey!” she cried at last, -with a soft wailing bleat, “I confess I -did expect some show of proper feeling -from you on this occasion. It is a shock -<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>to me to see you in your present frame -of mind, it seems like flying in the face -of Providence, and may end in bringing -down a judgment on your head.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Lady Mary sighed and continued, lowering -her voice to a coo, “When I heard the -news, Humphrey, I went down on my knees -and prayed that my poor sinful uncle might -be forgiven for foisting that counterfeit -young man off on our family, and that -you, my nephew, might face your responsibilities -with a seriousness befitting the -occasion. My dear, if you knew what -it costs me to kneel, now that I have -grown a little stout, you might perhaps -appreciate this act.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Humphrey grinned.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Aunt Moll, my feelings are always -too deep for expression, it would upset -<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>you for a month if I were to give -you the merest glimpse of the emotions -that are ravaging me this minute. These -inward upheavals are frightfully wasting, -your acts of prayer and thanksgiving are -a fool to them—There doesn’t happen to -be any tea going, does there?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Tea! Is it five o’clock? What can -have happened? Pray ring. The misery -I have to <a id='end'></a>endure with servants! I wonder -my hair isn’t even greyer than it is, and -my poor face more worn.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Your hair is as brown as a nut, and -there isn’t a crease in your dear, soft -young face. What was wrong with you -when I came in, the corners of your -mouth were turned the wrong way?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Lady Mary reflected as she made his -tea.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>“Ah, it was Gwen, she has thrown -aside another most unexceptionable match, -the third in three months.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Gwen, what?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Gwen Waring, she is with me for -the season.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, that queer, sulky, imperturbable, -long-legged girl, belonging to those wonderful -young fossils at Waring Park. I -shouldn’t have thought she’d have got the -chance to throw over any match, let alone -three unexceptionable ones——”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Humphrey!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“What’s up? Gru!—”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He sprang to his feet.</p> - -<p class='c000'>A tall superb girl with a face like a -hothouse flower, was standing in the middle -of the room, looking at him with a cool -aloofness that made his blood run cold. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>She had heard every word, she must -have, his voice was a big one.</p> - -<p class='c000'>This magnificent dominant creature, before -whom he felt as a worm, was only -an enlarged completed edition of the “sulky, -long-legged” slip he used to catch fitful -glances of, in his stays with his aunt.</p> - -<p class='c000'>If only he hadn’t classified her in such -cool pleasant tones! It was not often -the fellow felt at such a disadvantage. -If the girl had made a joke now, or even -looked as if she could make one! But she -knew better than to joke, she had her -tactics ready to her hand, and she was -determined his impertinence should be -brought home to him.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Her own classification never troubled -her in the least, it was the good-humoured -sneer at her parents which touched her. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>Was she always to suffer for being the -product of such a house?</p> - -<p class='c000'>The next few minutes Strange felt -younger than he had done for ten years.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Lady Mary has been telling me of -your good fortune,” she remarked kindly, -sipping her tea, and looking at him in as -motherly a way as so very splendid a -person could look. “You must be quite -excited—I suppose you are already making -a hundred plans?</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I seem to know you quite well,” -she went on, not giving him the chance -to reply, “Lady Mary is always telling -anecdotes of ‘her boy’, very entertaining -ones they are too, and I should fancy -characteristic.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She helped herself to more cream and -regarded him coolly.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>“When she reads prayers, she always -makes a special and very full mention -of you.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Lady Mary winced abjectly and looked -deprecatingly at her nephew, but his eyes -were fastened on Gwen. His aunt felt she -had escaped for once. She settled herself -into her pillows, and wondered vaguely -what would happen next.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She had a horrid feeling that there -were breakers ahead somewhere, but -as she never by any chance could see -farther than her own nose, she decided -not to make any effort at sighting them, -but to drift on with faith.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Very considerate of my aunt!” said -Strange, in a pause.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, that is only one instance of her -consideration and the least important. She -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>has done much more than that for you, -she is like John the Baptist without the -skins and locusts, she has ‘been preparing -the way before’ you, and you have only to -appear to be mobbed, Sir Humphrey. There’s -not a matron nor a maid in London who -doesn’t babble of you; your name is rippling -off a hundred tongues at this very minute; -you are the hero of a hundred teas. All -this came on after a long round of calls -Lady Mary and I paid last Monday,” she -continued, scanning him. “I had only -heard your name before, in the outward -world, that is—the Baronetcy never affected -Lady Mary’s prayers and anecdotes, they -were always with us—in a queer aside -way, as if one hinted at dark things that -had better not be unearthed. Ah, but -that is all changed! You have no notion -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>though how exhausting the process has -been to Lady Mary.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She stopped at last.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“No,” he said, looking at his aunt, -“I certainly hadn’t perceived any symptoms -of a cave-in about her. Monday, did you -say, Miss Waring? Would you mind letting -me have your visiting list for that day, -Aunt Moll? I suppose I know some of -the people, and my soul’s one desire for -years has been to pose as an afternoon-tea -hero. I shall just have time to get -a foretaste of the joys this afternoon. -Good-bye, Aunt Moll, pray don’t look -anxious on my account, my morals are -tough enough to run the gauntlet of all -the teas in London, and my digestion is -unimpaired. Good-bye, Miss Waring,” he -said, bowing gravely in her direction, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>“thank you for standing by my aunt on -Monday’s warpath, I am gratified to see -<em>you</em> are in no sort of way exhausted by -the process. Damnation!” he muttered -as he got out into the street, “she -smells of a hothouse with her overpowering -beauty and her insolent airs, -and that cool inexorable way of hers. -Oh, Aunt Moll, you’ll rue the day you -made me a by-word. To think I had -to swallow all that, and let a girl bait -me!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He laughed aloud.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“And so I am the coming <em>parti</em>! Good -Lord! I’ll be fine practice for the ‘sport,’ -anyway they’ll find me shy game. I’ll -go home, finish a chapter or two, dose -Tolly, and then I’ll dine.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Hullo!” he exclaimed suddenly, “things -<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>are looking up for Charlie, he can go -to Paris now when he likes. I wonder -how I can reduce his high stomach to -seeing it in that light!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>Strange</span> found the preliminaries of his -induction into the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</span></i> of an English -Squire even more unpleasant than he had -expected.</p> - -<p class='c000'>During the period when he had read -Roman law and knocked about the Courts -with the hope of supplementing his -income by the experience he picked up -there, the technicalities of the law had -bored him to excruciation point. Now, -when they were brought specially to bear -<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>on him he found them more galling still, -but being a wise man in his way, he -shirked none of them, and took good care -not to take a solitary step in the dark, -till, by the time they had got him -off their hands, the solicitors of the -Stranges were in a position to congratulate -themselves at last, on the fact of -having found a whole man in the family.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He had gone the rounds of his duties -doggedly and had found them insufferably -dull, he had been down to Strange Hall, -had left things there in trim, and had -now flown back to London.</p> - -<p class='c000'>One afternoon in June he was standing -in the shadow of a deep window, in one -of his rooms in Piccadilly, lazily sharpening -a pencil.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>He had plenty of work to do, but -somehow he had no stomach for it, the -change in his life had got into his bones, -and had filled him with unrest and a -certain loss of faith in himself. When -at last after a long meditation, the truth -of this broke upon him, it came with an -audible and ample, “Damn!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I may as well give it up and amuse -myself in a mild way,” he thought, after -a hasty review of matters, “nothing can -be too weak and vapid for my present -condition—I feel flabby.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>A mild grunt at his back made him -swing round. It was Tolly, just back from -the dentist, of a deeper puce than usual, and -with a terrible uncompromising row of -glistening teeth shooting out aggressively -between his thin lips.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>He gave a deferential duck, and stood -on approval, with a laboured attempt at -an appearance of modest deprecation.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Turn round, Tolly,” said his master, -“away from me, I can’t bear it all at -once!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He was shaking with silent laughter.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“How do you feel about them yourself, -Tolly?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Fust-rate, sir—your wussup.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Since his master’s rise in life he was -much exercised as to the best terms by -which to give him honour, and he varied -them daily.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I can bite nails, your wussup.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah! You mustn’t play fast and loose -with these tusks as you might with ones -bred and reared on the premises.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Lord! your wussup, I wouldn’t make -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>that free, being, as they are your property, -sir, besides, any fool can see as how they -be the real bought article, money down, -not your everyday common grinders. -There weren’t a toff I met as didn’t -mention ’em, I tried to keep ’em dark, -sir.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I shall expect a good deal more from -you,” said Strange, pointing the moral, -“now you’re complete. If anyone calls to-day -say I’m out and I won’t be home -till night, and—take these to the post -before I start,” he pointed to a big -heap of notes on the table, “and don’t -drop any of them, nor swallow your -teeth.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Twenty invitations in a week,” reflected -Tolly’s master, “the first-fruits of my rise in -life! they used to average six a week. I’ll go -<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>and see Lady Mary. Damn it all, why -need a man lie to himself, I’ll go and -see Miss Waring!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>And he went, and somehow the next -day he went again, and the next, and the -next after that. Then he and Gwen -discovered a mutual passion for riding, -not up and down the Row, that seemed -as tame a pastime to the one as to the -other, but in the early mornings out on the -heath at Hampstead, or sometimes far out -on the Surrey side.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Once they went as far as Surbiton, -where they got drenched in a shower -and had to take refuge and have tea in -an old inn.</p> - -<p class='c000'>But it is not at all to be supposed -that with all this intimacy those two -got an inch nearer one another, they were -<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>intellectual companions, nothing more, not -even to be called comrades.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen neither evaded nor shirked conventions, -she simply swept them aside, as -she did her lovers. As for Strange, he felt her -and the rides very distinctly a boon. She -was an excellent flint to make sparks -with, her ways of thought were so new, -let alone startling, her modes of expression -so quaint, her tongue so remarkably -sharp, and she had such a brutal habit -of speaking undiluted truths. For the once -the two agreed, they disagreed at least -three times, and a good pitched battle had -to be fought to settle any question. The -sponge was never by any chance thrown -up, it was forced out of the hand of one -or of the other of them. It was a most -bracing and delightful experience for Gwen, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>it was so satisfactory and so absolutely -free from mawkishness, and she reflected, -with superb self-congratulation, that the -man had just as little capacity for that -phase as herself.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“She’s hard—hard as nails,” he reflected -after an evening at Lady Mary’s, “and -yet, she wasn’t made like that, I could -swear. I wonder what the devil’s wrong -with her eyes, and what’ll put them right? -I believe, upon my word I do, that a -baby might do the business for her. There’s -not a man living that would have any -effect upon them, and yet there are fellows -going who would take that dewiness, for -softness, hang it! it’s mere moisture, but—ah, -well, the effect is magnificent!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He took out his watch, but his hand -shook so that he could not open it.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>“God forgive me!” he muttered, “this is -awful! I have had a good deal in the way -of education at women’s hands, but this is a -new experience,” he remarked after a pause, -grinning, and flicking a spot of ash off his -coat, “her want of self-consciousness is -next to ghastly, it has an uncanny sexless -sort of air about it that gives one the -shivers.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>The intellectual companionship continued -unabated for ten more days, then one -evening at the end of June, Gwen Waring -told Strange that she and Lady Mary were -going down into the country early in -July.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When he got home that night he had -a difficulty in mounting the stairs. When -he succeeded, he got himself to the glass, and -found he was white to the lips. He had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>had a shock—he had discovered, as he had -turned out of Lady Mary’s softly-lighted -hall into the street, that he loved the -girl irretrievably, and with the knowledge -came fear.</p> - -<p class='c000'>For a few minutes he leaned against -the mantel-piece, his head sunk into his -hands, then he raised himself with a sigh, -threw off his light overcoat, and sat down -to smoke, but he couldn’t draw a puff, -then it struck him that he was numb with -cold.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He looked at the grate with a purpose -to make a fire lighting in his eyes, -but with a shrug he shirked the trouble. -He could not go to bed, that was out of -the question; as for sitting there freezing, -that was just as impossible. He must -move, he must feel the life stir in him -<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>again. He stood up and shook himself, then -a thought struck him, he hurried to his -room, changed his clothes, and went out -round the corner to the mews where he -kept the horses he had brought up from -Strange Hall.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He found the gear, saddled the freshest, -and rode away through short cuts -and byways, away from the noise and -hurly-burly, out into the quiet of the -country. Then he drew rein, pulled the -mare aside on to a green strip flanking -the road, and let her go her own pace. -For a long time he gave her grace and -smoked savagely.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It is about the most killing blow that -could have fallen on a man. It would be -bad for any fellow; but for me, who can -love if I can do anything, to have to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>pour it all out at the feet of a girl who -couldn’t understand what love, much less -passion, means, to save her life! It’s a -beastly backhanded stroke of fate, and I -don’t know that I’ve ever done anything -bad enough to deserve it. Lord, how the -mare’s sides smoke! I must have ridden -like a maniac. The worst of it is, this -isn’t a thing one can clear off and forget—with -the woman right in one’s soul!—the -fine, grand, proud creature! God! it’s -almost sacrilege to expect her to love, with -love in the beastly state it is—to love -any man-Jack of us; it’s honour enough -to love her and yet,—yet,—when a man -has once done it, done it once and for -ever, the only thing in life seems to be -to get something in return. What commercial -brutes we are even in this holiest -<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>connection of all! But let her love or not, -I’ll give her my love if she’ll take it and I -shall pick up crumbs like old Lazarus.—Pah, -how she dominates one!—Ah, and when -<em>her</em> love wakes up—but, the devil! suppose -another fellow is the instrument chosen! -Ah!—ah! hold up, mare, are you stumbling -or am I reeling? It’s myself, by Jove, -God help us!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Involuntarily he drove his spurs into -the beast, she started forward angrily, -unused to maniacs. Presently he came to -his senses and pulled her up with a drag -on her mouth that she did not forget for -some time. She went sulky and stumbled -for the next mile, small blame to her! -A Christian would have done more.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gradually her master’s face cleared -itself and softened.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>“Perhaps,” he muttered, “perhaps -no other fellow after all, but—who -knows?—a baby’s tender little mouth -may do it.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XX.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>When</span> Strange got back to town, after -baiting man and beast at a little inn on -the outskirts of Weybridge, Tolly’s greeting, -which was blasphemous and amazed, -and the unusual look in his green eyes, -caused his master to glance at himself in -the glass.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Heaven!” he thought, turning away, -“I’m a nice object to go courting! One -would think I had just emerged from D.T., -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>or Bedlam! Tolly, turn on the hot water, -empty a bottle of vinegar into it, and -put out clean clothes for me. I feel like -jelly. Good Lord! has love this limping -effect often?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He turned into his bedroom. As he -was wrestling with one of his shirt buttons -he muttered,</p> - -<p class='c000'>“However this goes, it’s a toss-up -what the gain will be, heaven or hell. -Well, a man might do worse than face -hell for her.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He had hardly made this heroic remark -when the absurdity of it struck him; -he laughed aloud. “I had better face -my bath,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When he was washed and dressed, he -rather thought of the Club and a good -lunch, but the game didn’t seem worth -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>the candle. He felt that his hands were -quite sufficiently full with one woman, he -had no desire for men, more especially -at feeding-time.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I shall have my lunch here,” he -said, looking up from his paper, “get -out some bread and cheese, and beer, -and anything else you can lay your -hands on.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>In five minutes Tolly had covered a -little round table with a cloth, and had -set out on it a mixed assortment of -cheese, beer, jam, and a freshly-opened -tin of <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">foie gras</span></i>, and he stood proudly -in attendance with napkin on arm, keeping -down with difficulty a grin of self-satisfaction.</p> - -<p class='c000'>However full he was of himself, Strange -never let a new accomplishment of Tolly’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>escape him, if he did, the effect on the -boy would have been disastrous. No sinner -ever strove after God as this sinner after -his owner.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Well done, Tolly, you’ll shine in life -yet, the way you flourish that damask -is sublime!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Beggin’ your pardon, your wussup,” -said Tolly, “Bill, the groom, ’e were -round after ye, a-stormin’ at me because -the horse was out. Bill always lets out -at me like when he feels hisself put -about in his mind, and he thought you -and the beast were lost,” sniggered Tolly. -“I told him you was big enough to take -care of yourself, and that gents often finds -the nights more convenienter than the -days,” he remarked confidentially, pushing -the salt under his master’s nose. “Bill -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>is that ignorant, sir, of loife and sich, he -erstonishes me.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange drank his beer with a look at -the half-made creature who had plumbed -‘loife’ from the vantage ground of her -sewers.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Very like his betters,” he thought, -“we get lots of our views from a vantage -ground not one whit sweeter or cleaner -than Tolly’s.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He made a fresh dive into the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pâté</span></i> -and his thoughts broke out on a new -track.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I think we’re going off somehow. -I believe it is a good deal the women’s -fault; this new craze for advanced talk -between the sexes is no good, the women -who affect it are never clever enough -nor good enough to make a success of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>the thing, it’s a pose mostly, as their -smoking is, just done for effect.—Tolly, -pass that jam!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>When he had rounded off his meal with -a hunch of bread and strawberry jam, he -stretched himself, went to the window -and looked out, drumming gently on the -pane.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I wonder,” he thought, “I wonder if -I am quite a fool or not, but—but, God! -how I love her!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Then he stopped drumming, and began -to wonder vaguely how in the name -of Heaven he was able to eat great -hunches of bread and jam not five minutes -before.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He turned and watched Tolly through -the door, devouring at his ease, with a sudden -shock of disgust, more at himself than at -<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>the fellow, with his hideous mouth all -moist and jammy. He turned again to -the window and tried to steady his brain, -but it reeled and everything in the room -swam before him, he dropped his head in -his hands and trembled from head to foot, -when he raised it he felt steadier and -not so raging hot.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I shall chance it,” he said, “I shall -chance it.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>When he reached Lady Mary’s he was -in a much more wholesome frame of mind. -He had gone there by roundabout ways, -where he saw a good deal of stark, -staring, naked humanity; this helped to -crystallize his emotions, to sift the dross -out and leave the clean stuff.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He never in his life felt clearer-headed -than when he went up the stairs unannounced, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>and paused to look through the half -opened door at Gwen, sitting near a -window in a cloudy dress of soft yellow -crêpey stuff and with her strong, long-fingered, -composed hands lying idle in her -lap and the guard dropped from her eyes, -showing a good deal more of herself than -he had ever seen before.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He only paused for one minute, he had -no right yet to the girl’s secrets; then -he threw open the door with a little -bang and brought her back to the -present.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, is it you?” she said with the -ghost of a start, looking up at him.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She felt in a vague way that he knew -more of her in that one minute than he -had any business to do, and she was not -quite sure if she liked it or not. He did -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>not offer to shake hands with her but -glanced round the room silently. Gwen -laughed.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You are looking for Lady Mary? She -has a bad headache, an abnormally bad -one, and won’t be down till five.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He offered up a dumb thanksgiving and -sat down carefully, then he felt a horrible -desire to say, “Hem!” or to mention the -deuce or the weather.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He had felt intensely reasonable the -minute before, but he was confused by -the beauty of the girl sitting so close to -him, with the flickering sunshine running -golden threads in and out her twisted -russet hair, and clothing her in pale -molten gold.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“She shall have nothing to add to -her beauty,” he thought, “I shall not -<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>make a beast of myself to desire the -least of her when it is the greatest I -want.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He started up, and asked if he might -draw down the blinds.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Yes,” said Gwen wonderingly, as she -saw his big brown hand tremble on the -blind line.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Then a sudden certainty of his intention -came upon her with a burst of angry -horror, but she swept this off and waited -coolly, with a sort of sneering excitement.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange drew his chair farther forward -and sat facing her.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Miss Waring,” he said, “I have come -to ask if you will listen to the shady side -of a man’s life.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>There was no more tremble or hesitation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>about him now, he looked as cool as -she did.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It is a side that men as a rule keep -to themselves and to their male companions, -no matter how near a man and a woman -come to each other, this impalpable barrier -keeps them apart. This has always struck -me as a rather low form of lie and -distinctly dishonourable, especially practised, -as it is, by the stronger on the presumably -weaker. If a woman is not strong -and pure and magnanimous enough to -bear this knowledge, a man should find -it out and go his way before he has -dared to touch her life; if she is -strong enough she should be given the -opportunity of gaining this knowledge at -first hand, and taking her subsequent -course accordingly. You are immeasurably -<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>nobler than any other woman who has -crossed my path.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Involuntarily he lowered his head as he -spoke, in a reverential way that touched -Gwen and forced her to hear him. After -the first disgusted shock her impulse had -been to send him about his business. She -had half risen from her seat on the spur -of this impulse, but somehow she had sat -down again, and in spite of herself she -had let him speak.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“No decent man could deceive you,” -he went on, “even if every word he -spoke were to cut his own throat. May -I speak to you as man to man?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He watched the palpitations of her -throat—which unfortunately were beyond -her control—with a sort of choking sensation—</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>“Or more,” he added simply, “as if you -were God.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen’s colour neither increased nor left -her, she neither trembled nor stirred. For -a minute she was quite silent except for -one quick little swallowing sound, she was -fighting with a concentrated restrained -frenzy of despair against her fate, against -the overpowering longing to hear this man, -as he sat there ready to spoil his own -life sooner than lie to her even in a -fashion recognized by the use of generations.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She was quite aware she had nothing -whatsoever to give him in exchange, she -knew perfectly well she was about to do -him a grievous wrong, and yet her whole -being was concentrated into one imperative -demand to hear what he had to say.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>“You may speak,” she said in a hard -emotionless voice.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Then he told her simply, with neither -condonation nor reservation, the whole -truth about his life.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It is all very well to talk glibly about -the advantages of calling a spade a spade, -but when it comes to giving dozens of -spades their unvarnished titles in the -presence of one virgin clean woman, and -when every fresh spade may be about to -dig up the heart you would foster, the -matter is no joke.</p> - -<p class='c000'>By the time that Strange had arrived -at the end of his unadorned record, his -smooth, brick-dust cheeks looked gray -and haggard, and his voice sounded tired.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Once during the recital Gwen had lost -guard over herself and had let a flash of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>half-triumphant interest escape from her -eyes. It was when he had said—“Thank -Heaven! I never loved one of these women, -that is, taking love in its all-round, large -sense.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>When he had finished he stood up and -looked at her, waiting.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She had herself still in her power, she -felt, with a wild leap of her spirit, she -could yet ward off her fate and his; “his,” -she thought with a wave of soft unaccustomed -pity. She had nothing to give -this man, nothing, not even the germs of -a possible something—something called -Love.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She laughed aloud and looked in his -face when the empty word stirred her -brain, then she lowered her eyes and -turned all her thoughts in on herself, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>moving a small pearl ring up and down -her finger with a swift rhythmic movement.—This -man would take her for -mere hope—hope that had no foundation -in fact,—it was a mean exchange, -nothing for everything,—mean and unjust; -for the minute she was hideous to herself, -with her own whole life a protest -against the injustice of others.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She looked at him again, and a horrible -power seemed to drag and bind her to -him, she turned her eyes away angrily -and made a little involuntary sound of -trouble.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, if I only could treat him as I -did the others!” she muttered under her -breath, “but I can’t, I can’t!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She was frightened at herself—at the -power which drove her to the man inexorably,—she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>looked at the door and -stirred in her seat, half-rising, but she -sat down again and began to move her -ring with the old movement, only quicker -and with tenser fingers.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Then a cold feeling of finality came -on her, she knew she must say something -and she knew she was going to say -the wrong thing; an inexplicable smile -flickered across her face and touched her -mouth, she grew quite calm and ceased -to move her ring.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You have done me a very high -honour,” she said; “thank you.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He came nearer and looked down -on her.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I have tried to be perfectly honest,” -he said, “and you have no idea what -an awful grind it has been. It would be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>quite impossible for me to give you any -idea of how I honour you, and as for -love—” he stopped, breathing hard, -“I have a heart full for you, dear, I -don’t think I know myself how much I -love you.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>The girl looked at him curiously, the -simple intensity of his manner struck her, -then her eyes fell and she sighed.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Love is such a mere name to me,” -she said, “it seems such a collapsable -bubbly thing and put to such feeble uses. -You want me to be your wife then, and -you offer me a whole heart full of love, -whatever that may mean. I must be -honest too, and tell you that I shouldn’t -know how to dispose of a whole heart -full of love. I know nothing at all practically -about the matter, and theoretically -<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>it has never interested me. My situation is -hard to explain,” she exclaimed, with a -petulant sweeping movement of her hand, -“in the face of all this I want to accept your -offer, I don’t know why, I really believe -it is not I, Gwen Waring, that wants -this, it is something outside me that wants -it for me. I never felt so impersonal in -all my life.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He winced, her honesty, to say the least -of it, was a trifle bald.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Perhaps I am more concerned in it -than I think,” she went on with a queer -intense serenity, dissecting herself audibly, -“I like new sensations, I am curious, -most things are so flat and boring.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange started forward and was about -to speak, she raised her hand imperiously.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>“Stop!” she cried, “I must finish, I -want you quite clearly to understand that -if I take you at your word and become -your wife—wife,” she repeated, “how -astonishing the word sounds in connection -with me!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She laughed in an untranslatable way -and went on,</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Remember and understand that I am -doing it as an experiment.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He flushed, it was his own precise -thought but it seemed less hideous when -thought than when spoken.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“An experiment,” she repeated, “but -whether it is fair to try experiments in -lives is another matter. I wish—” she -cast a half-wistful, half-provoked look at -him, “I wish you were sufficiently clear -and reasonable yourself to help me to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>answer the question—I am so ignorant -in these matters.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>A sudden crimson rushed to her cheeks, -she was furious. What right had she to -blush like a dairy-maid and mislead the man?</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I’m not blushing properly, as girls ought -to blush,” she explained, “I am merely -angry, I feel caught in a trap. Why can’t -I tell you to begone and leave me at -peace?” she demanded, looking at him -with curious swift repulsion, “I have -never found any difficulty before,—why -don’t you help me?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>In spite of his love, Strange shook with -laughter.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was no laughing matter for Gwen, -she kept her eyes fixed on him, angry -and full of pain.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You stand there and laugh—laugh! I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>wish to mercy I could. Don’t you know -I am going to accept you—I, who -don’t know what love means—I, who -am, I believe, sexless, don’t you know -you’re mad and don’t you think it’s rather -degrading to give all you offer me for -nothing? After all, it is not absolutely -necessary to my salvation that I should -make experiments on you.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She felt a sudden tiredness come on -her and nestled back in her cushions.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I am ready to take you with open -eyes, Gwen; you are very honest, dear; -you will lose some of that when you have -suffered a little,” he added, with a ring -of sadness in his voice, as he looked -tenderly down on her.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She raised her head quickly. “Suffer! -Why should I suffer?”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>He watched her for a minute with -sombre eyes.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I don’t know,” he said half-absently, -“but you will. Then this is our betrothal, -is it, dear?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She bowed her head.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, my darling!” he said suddenly.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Will he often say it?” she thought -curiously, “can I stand this?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“My darling, you have no idea how I -shall enjoy giving you lessons in love.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Will you?” she said grimly, “I doubt -it, I tell you I have no taste for the -cult. Well, it is at least fortunate that -one can be honest and that it isn’t -necessary for me to befool you for the -sake of your income. This marriage is -the very perfection of an alliance from -all such points of view, and yet—do -<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>you know, Sir Humphrey, I wish quite -intensely, we were both of us in another -position, in quite a low, unknown one, then -we need not marry. Engagements are -nothing; I know as much of you -now as any engagement can teach me. -We might then try a preliminary experiment -as to how life together goes; if it -did not do, we might each go our own -way and bury the past. I never wished -for such a thing before, it follows, I suppose,” -she added with a mirthless little -laugh, “that I care this much for you or -for my experiment. Have you grasped -the whole situation?” she demanded, turning -her troubled eyes full on him.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“My child, you have been very explicit, -I think I have quite grasped it. When -will you marry me?”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>She gave a little start.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I was wondering,” she said at last, -“if this was final?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It is final,” he said, “you know it is.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Yes, I know; it was rather paltry to -pretend I didn’t—oh!—”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She looked up at him with her face -held in both her hands. “Final? yes, so -it is. I am one section of a puzzle moved -by fate, you’re another. It is humiliating -when one comes to think of it.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Well?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I will marry you when you like.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“The end of next month?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Won’t it interfere with the shooting?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I had forgotten that—I don’t think I -shall mind—the end of July, then.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He took her hands and kissed them, and -he thought as he got out into the street that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>he had felt them tremble. It was a -pleasant surprise, on which he felt inclined -to congratulate himself.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The knowledge had a quite other effect -on his betrothed. She smote her clenched -fists angrily together and scorned herself -for the feebleness of her extremities.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Mean deceitful wretch,” she cried, “to -mislead that man, when I am only tired -and wanting my tea!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>There were some slight eruptions in the -domestic circle at Waring Park before it -was decided what form the wedding was -to take. As might be expected, Mr. and -Mrs. Waring in no way interfered, but -kept themselves carefully aloof from the -whole concern. But not so Dacre.</p> - -<p class='c000'>On hearing of the engagement, he swooped -down on the paternal abode, all agog to -have his say in the arrangements. He -<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>was now a budding warrior, full of himself -and his profession, and horribly cocksure -on all subjects in heaven and on earth, a -good honest affectionate creature of conventions, -but with “a coarse thumb” which -he wielded in a promiscuous style, and -often planted sheer on the quick.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Dacre wanted a wedding that would have -astonished the neighbours, and that would -more than probably have been the death -of the two rarified beings who had borne -him, but Gwen, backed by Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes, -arranged things quite her own way.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The wedding was to be as quiet as -a wedding can be. Neither Strange nor -Gwen were rich in relations, which simplified -matters. Lady Mary must come, of -course, and the old Waring uncle, and one -or two creatures of an unobservant and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>fossilized type, not worth mentioning, -besides a few of Strange’s belongings.</p> - -<p class='c000'>As for friends, when Gwen began to cast -about in her mind on that subject, she -found that for her, putting aside Mr. and -Mrs. Fellowes, none existed. Of the girl -friends who usually flock in the wake of -a bride, Gwen hadn’t a vestige.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She had gone to her room to straighten -her thoughts after a hot encounter with -Dacre, whose carnal mind still hankered -after a proper full-blown wedding, and had -been making itself objectionable in a bumptious -youthful style. She had lost her -cool scornful calm at last, and had given -him such a glance from her big eyes as -had quelled the British lion in him, and -had accompanied it with a lash of her -able tongue.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>“Oh, you are anxious to amuse yourself -by importing the world and the flesh down -here—here! that they may sneer at two -people who, if they have brought children -into the world for pure purposes of investigation, -are at any rate too good to make -sport for your friends. You can get your -world and your flesh elsewhere, not here -at my expense.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I never saw anyone just going to be -married like you before!” said Dacre, with -a dash of his old astonished terror at her.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Probably not, your experience not -being wide.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Strange is a million times too good -for you!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>To his astonishment he got no immediate -retort.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen stood up, getting rather white, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>and went to the door. She stopped -in the shadow of the threshold, and a -gray shade fell on her face and made it -whiter, but a sunbeam caught her hair -and turned it to the orange-gold that Dacre -hated.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Fools speak the truth a great deal -oftener than they have any notion of,” -she said, “it is a pity that being thick-headed -themselves they can’t know how -it hurts.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Now she was in her room reflecting -gloomily on things in general.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I never thought,” she said, “I never -thought that by any process of reasoning -I should be ashamed of the fact of having -no girl friends—I used rather to pique -myself on it, but upon my word I am -ashamed, I am degradingly, abjectly ashamed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>of it, it is one of the symptoms of my -disease.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She went to the glass, and crossing her -arms on a little table near, she looked at -herself, laughing.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Would anyone think it to look at -me? I look so very sound and complete, -and yet I am rotten at the core, a sort -of Dead Sea apple. What a hackneyed -order of fruit to belong to, I am not -even original—ugh! I am inclined to -think if I were a downright bad woman, -who had sinned, sinned solidly, -and all for love—I wish to Heaven I -could get the feelings of one of them just -for five minutes, to understand this temptation -which to me is so utterly incomprehensible—Well, -I really think that Humphrey -would do better to marry a woman of this -<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>sort than me. It has come to a pretty pass -when I—I, Gwen Waring, have taken to -envying that sort of person!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She raised her head, got to her feet, -and went down and played for an hour, -then she went out and walked, walked, -walked, till she hadn’t a leg to stand -on, and could no more think than she -could fly.</p> - -<p class='c000'>About a week before his marriage, -Strange ran up to London for a couple of -days, but even to Gwen he did not specify -the nature of his business, which altogether -concerned Brydon’s launching in life.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When he reached the studio, he found -things looking pretty bad. Like many a -better man, if his Art didn’t drive him -Brydon couldn’t drive his Art; besides, his -health was below par, there were days -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>and days when he couldn’t so much as -paint a potboiler, then he starved.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He was learning Italian just now, to -solace himself. Strange perceived, however, -that the soft vowels hardly appealed -to an empty stomach. Brydon was a -haggard and distressful object, sitting with -Dante on the table before him, smoking -cheap tobacco, and with the ghastly beginning -of a sketch crying shame on him from -every corner.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Goodness, how outrageously jolly you -look! Is it engagement or ten thousand -a year?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, I’m all right, which is more than -you look! Taken to shag, I see—well, -I can stomach a lot, but not that. Would you -mind chucking that pipe somewhere where -it won’t smell, and try some of my stuff, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>just to oblige me? Overheated Arab and -shag are the two stinks I draw the line -at. Hallo!” he remarked, looking at one -of the sketches.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I am taking a holiday.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He was going on to lie a little—but -with a shrug he changed his course.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I have to, as a matter of fact. I -can’t paint, I’ve lost the way—do you -ever forget the way to write?” he -asked.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Do I? The deuce I do! We all do -at times, then we feel like throat-cutting -or ‘Rough on Rats.’ However, I came -on business. I have some spare cash and -I want to invest it, and on looking round I -have come to the conclusion you would -be rather a good thing to put some of it -into.”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>“I?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Yes, even your beastliest daubs have -something in them that saves their souls. -One has to look more than once at everything -you do, even if it is only to swear -at it. You have capacity somewhere about -you, wherever you hide it—as for drawing, -you don’t know the beginnings of it! -But what’s that? You can learn, it’s a -mere question of swatting. If I had any -doubt of your success, I wouldn’t be here -to-day. I never on principle put a penny -into a rotten concern, and I am here to -make you a definite distinct offer, as -binding on you as on me. I will defray -your expenses in Paris for three years, I -will give you enough to learn under the -best men, and to live decently, not a -farthing more,—don’t speak yet!—”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>Brydon had jumped up rather wildly.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Wait till you hear all about it—your -conditions are pretty hard. In case you -should die during your apprenticeship—the -best of us are liable to that contingency—I -shall insist on you insuring your life -for an amount equivalent to that I lay -out on you. If you live (the best thing -you can do under the circumstances), you -shall pay me back principal and interest -in a given term of years, say fifteen, -after you begin to sell.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Brydon threw himself down into his -chair and buried his head in his hands, -a limited diet of bread and mustard -had taken the starch out of him. He -was soft, and his eyes were brimful of -tears, he was young too, and nearly burst -in his efforts to bolt them, then he lifted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>his head from his hands and began precipitately,</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You have given me the chance of a -career, you put the world within reach -of me, you trust me down to the ground, -all in one breath. Look here!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>For one minute he was about to throw -back the salvation waiting under his nose -with most laudable self-respect, but he -looked at Strange and his heart got soft -again.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I’d black your boots for you, why -shouldn’t I be dependent on you? I’ll -take your offer, and—and—and—”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I told you the conditions, I shall stick -to them, we don’t thank one another or -get emotional in these transactions, I mean -to have my money back, principal and -interest, my full pound of flesh. I’m -<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>doing a trade with you—take it or leave -it, as you like.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Do you know I’d die for you?” cried -Brydon, in a burst of low-diet mawkishness.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Die, before you’ve paid in a penny of -your premium! If we can come to terms -off-hand, I should like to finish up the -matter at once, and start for my lawyer’s.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Brydon got up without a word, and began -to make himself decent with shaking hands. -At last he found safety in a wild burst of -gaiety and by the time he had his best -coat on, he was bubbling over with a -nervous gentle sort of fun peculiar to -his kind.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When they were going downstairs he -stopped, and remarked in a soft deprecatory -sort of way,</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I say! I believe my heart’s next to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>gone. Three goes of rheumatic fever -leaves that part of a fellow not worth -mentioning. Won’t that make the premium -pretty stiff?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Probably, I never thought of that. -However, it’s you will have to pay the -piper, not I.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You’re an artist in conferring favours—”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, stow that!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I wouldn’t take your offer, by Jove! -I wouldn’t, but that I mean to repay you.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“But I’ve already taken good care of -that!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“The money isn’t everything,” said -Brydon impatiently, “there is such a thing -as being proud of a fellow you’ve made, -of valuing your own creation—”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“All that comes in the contract, the -sense of moral elevation it gives one to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>run a successful concern, even if it’s only -an artist, pleases the carnal mind. There -was only the choice between you and a -patent medicine, I’d have gone for that -but that I heard at the last moment that -peppermint was the active principle in its -manufacture—I draw the line at peppermint—and -you were the only alternative. -And look here, old man—But, good Lord! -See that child there? Which is more -human, the child’s face or the monkey’s -on the organ? Upon my word, the imp -scores off the beast only in the matter -of cheek pouch. Gru! how it hangs!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Brydon shuddered.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You always see the beastliest details! -Couldn’t you keep them to yourself! I -shall dream of that child for a week.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“And yet you devour Zola? I had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>begun something, what was it? Oh,—if I -were you I should walk gingerly as soon -as you strike Paris pavement; there is -something in it that drives fellows mad. -London is a fool to it! It’s a bad investment -for any man, but it would spoil -your work for a twelvemonth, if it didn’t -give me my premium sooner than I want -it. That weak heart of yours, Charlie, -if you work the thing properly, should be -as good as a family chaplain to you, and -it isn’t every man that can boast of as -much.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Talk of utilitarianism,” sighed Brydon, -“it is to be a struggle, then, between my -natural instincts and my game heart. I -wonder which will win?”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>When</span> Gwen was dressing for her wedding, -it never somehow struck her mother to -go to her room, and Gwen had herself -given an absolute command that no one -should ask her to do so. She made no -remark at all on the subject when she did -not come, but she insisted on going to the -church in the carriage with Mrs. Fellowes.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was useless to oppose her, she was like -adamant on this point, which set Dacre -<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>swearing like mad. She was white and -silent as they drove off. Mrs. Fellowes was -silent too, and rather whiter, but she daren’t -show any feeling; they were on the brink -of a general upheaval, and her whole -energy must be concentrated to ward it -off.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen felt her situation with such -cruel intensity, that even to herself she -had to pretend to a total stony indifference, -but when they got to the gates -she sighed and stirred softly and put out -her hand with unaccustomed wistfulness -and laid it on Mrs. Fellowes. It was -cold and stiff. Mrs. Fellowes rubbed it -gently between hers and laid it lovingly -against her cheek, and kept in her tears, -she dared not speak.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“God help her, God help her, and God -<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>help Humphrey!” she kept repeating to -herself in a sort of childish entreaty.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Gwen,” she said at last, “you must not -look like this when Humphrey sees you. -Gwen, my darling, you have nothing to -fear with such a man!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Do you think I fear him? I thought -you would have known better, it is myself -I fear.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Yourself is a bogie you have set up, -Gwen, Humphrey will soon demolish that!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I wish I felt sure of it. I wish I felt -sure of anything. Upon my word, Mrs. -Fellowes, upon my word, I wish from -the bottom of my soul I could say with -any decent show of honesty, God help us, -Humphrey and me! But God never felt -so unreal, such a mere bubble to please -fools, as He does at this minute—Don’t, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>don’t exclaim, or protest, or be shocked—not -to-day, my wedding day, and such a -brilliant match, too!” she added laughing. -“Ah, well! I won’t hurt you, we’ll leave -that part.—My father is to go through -the farce of bringing me up to the altar, -is he not?” she asked, thrusting all trace -of emotion from her face and sitting up -straight.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“If you don’t keep a very sharp eye -on him he is sure to do something -quite unique. If one could only wind -him up and touch springs at intervals! -one can’t unfortunately, and I feel sure -I shall be made ridiculous. Your eye -must get off him now and again, so I suppose -I may as well accustom myself to -the thought,” she went on with a shrug, -“and resolve to swallow the whole hog -<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>without grimacing, but I do so loathe -being made to look like a fool. Are we -here? Oh, my flowers! The children -have them perhaps? Yes, look!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>As she walked up the church, just -touching her father’s arm, with Mrs. Fellowes’ -two little nieces in white gauze -and water lilies, looking like a pair of -lilies themselves for softness and cool -creaminess, trotting after her, her mother -from her chancel pew caught sight of her -for the first time.</p> - -<p class='c000'>For a minute she looked dazed and -frightened, then suddenly with a broken -smothered cry, she leaned forward and -threw out both her hands to her daughter, -two big tears in her eyes, and her face -tremulous with a great joy that was pain.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Fellowes saw it, it was intensely -<span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>pathetic to her and a revelation. She had -at last, at the end of all these years, -seen a glimpse of this small, golden-headed -creature’s motherhood—after all she was -really human! She hurried up, sat down -beside her, and gently brought her back -to herself. Then with one of Mrs. -Waring’s hands caught in hers, as if she -had been a child, she looked at Gwen, -and wondered how on earth any girl with -a stone for a heart could look as divine as -she did. She looked round the church, and -every man, woman, and child was worshipping -her in audible silence. There was -not a whisper, not a joke, not a smile.</p> - -<p class='c011'>As soon as the cake was cut, Gwen -went away to dress. As she passed Mrs. -Fellowes she whispered,</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>“Will you help me? I want to speak -to you.—Mary, Mrs. Fellowes will help me -to dress, and please don’t cry,” she said -wearily, “I shall see you often, and—really, -I have given you no very special -reason to cry for me.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She half laughed, then she stooped and -kissed the old woman’s cheek.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You have always been so good to me, -come and see me before I go.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>When Mary had disappeared, choking, -Gwen turned to the glass and began to -take off her bracelets.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Sit down and let me take off your -wreath,” said Mrs. Fellowes.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I wish I had done as Mr. Fellowes -suggested,” said Gwen at last, playing -with a diamond dagger that Strange had -given her, “and looked through that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>marriage service; it is a degrading thing -to lie as I have done to-day. I might -have been any common-minded vulgar -woman perjuring myself for a settlement. -You see, I am marrying as a sort of -experiment!—Oh, don’t, you gave my hair -an awful pull!—Humphrey knows it, but -I didn’t realize that I should actually have -to swear to a lie—no experiment is worth -that. I have put myself in a false position,” -she continued, stirring irritably, -“from having told those miserable blatant -lies. I was never at a wedding in my -life in the church, I always managed to -escape that part, and I really never thought -of the words, ‘love, honour, and obey,’ -in any solemn, binding, personal connection. -On the whole, it is a pity for women -not to have been reared on Bibles and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>Prayer-books, it might keep them -from some pitfalls, and no doubt the -ordinary mother is useful too, in such -cases.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Fellowes’ heart quivered painfully, -and her hands trembled as she twisted up -a coil of Gwen’s hair that had come loose. -She had suspected the truth very early -in the day, but all through her short engagement -Gwen had kept both her and the -Rector at arm’s length.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“When I found out what I really was -in for,” went on Gwen, “it was too late -to draw back—no, it wasn’t!” she cried, -“the habit of lies is growing on me, but -then I was ashamed, too much of a -coward.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“This is very sad,” said Mrs. Fellowes -at last, “it is so sad, dear, that one can -<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>hardly speak of it. No woman has the -right to try experiments, to play pranks -with hearts and souls. You deserve—ah, -what a brute I am! I have no right -to scold you, my poor Gwen, you’ll have -to pay dearly enough for your play. -You will know some day what you -have done,” said she, laying her soft -warm cheek down on the girl’s head in -the caressing way she had when Gwen -was a child, “then you will suffer, ah, -child, how you will suffer! But it is -Humphrey one feels for now. Gwen, you -must not let him feel you are so far -from loving him.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“He knows. You don’t suppose I lied -to him?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“He knows in a way, but he doesn’t -realize the knowledge, nor does he quite -<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>know the material he has to work on, or -how the twist came into the warp and -woof of it. Gwen, don’t let your horrid -truthfulness make you cruel, be patient, -dearest, be patient, this love won’t come -like a shock, it will steal in on you, -and I am perfectly convinced your first -impulse will be to kick it out.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen gave a little laugh.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Fellowes dropped the brooch with -which she was going to fasten Gwen’s collar, -went a few steps away, and looked -at her.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Humphrey knows precious little about -you,” she cried, with some natural irritation, -“he is dazed, small blame to -him! so am I, so is John, we are all -dazed.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Her eyes filled suddenly with tears.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>“We all pour out our love on you, -and—and for what? Just for a cold -ghost of a thing, for mere hope—hope, -what good is that to any man? Now, -look here, Gwen, don’t let Humphrey -know this, naked truth though it be. -There is no lie in the matter, you can -love, darling, you can, ’tis only the -learning that is the trouble for you, but -I have a horrid hateful presentiment, in -spite of all I can say, that your most -objectionable direct methods will run you -into deplorable difficulties.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Truth is tangible, even if it is brutal,” -said Gwen, “but love—love—love, this -intangible vague horror, why should I be -persecuted with it, why should I realize -now that, vague as the thing is, it is -sacred, and a sort of crime of a very low -<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>order to be incapable of it? I got as far -as that in church to-day with all those -glaring faces on me, and Mr. Fellowes’ -eyes—he has no right to look through -people like that!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She turned away to hide the crimson -in her cheeks.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Then this one-flesh business, this is -a horrid thing.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She squeezed her hands into her eyes.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“This is maddening!” she cried, and -sprang up and stood looking out of the -window.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“One flesh!” she murmured breathlessly, -“One flesh!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Presently she shook herself, and with a -long sigh brought the calmness back into -her face, then she went and put her two -hands on Mrs. Fellowes’ shoulders and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>looked down on the sad face with a little laugh.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Look here!” she said, “advise every -girl you care about not to try experiments in -marriage, and to read the marriage service -with the man she is engaged to -standing opposite to her, before she dares -to quote from it in church before all the -rag-tag and bobtail of society. And now, -give me my hat and kiss me, you don’t -know how much a part of my life your -love for me is, even though it is fed on -hope only, and—I shall try to be honest -to myself without any flagrant brutality -to Humphrey,” she said laughing, “I -think that is all I can promise just yet. -Ah, what a lovely scheme of colour!” -she cried, looking at her superb figure, -in its dusty-amethyst gown with the flashes -of lemon-yellow in it.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>“Do you think my father and mother -are awake to the fact that I am married -to-day?” she demanded.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“If you had heard your mother’s cry -when she saw you go up the aisle, and -had seen her face—as long as I live I -shall never forget either!—you would have -no need to ask such a question,” said -Mrs. Fellowes, with gentle gravity.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I thought she looked rather different -from usual, and I fancied my father’s arm -trembled when I held it. So—so!” she -said with a half-mocking smile as she -fastened the top button of her glove, “so -marriage is so solemn and sacred a subject -that it has actually touched the human -part of those two people! Ah, Mary, -here I am, ready for my new life—do -you like me? The outside is satisfactory, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>is it not? It is quite pleasant to feel so -like a whited sepulchre!” she said to -Mrs. Fellowes as they went down the -stairs, “it excites me.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>When</span> the two drove away on the first -stage of their experiment, Mr. and Mrs. -Waring, the Rector and Mrs. Fellowes, -Dacre and a few others stood watching -them from the great stone steps of the -hall.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Fellowes was reflecting with mixed -feelings on Gwen’s good-bye to her mother, -which by chance she had witnessed. The -girl had already, in the face of everyone, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>bidden her a quiet and emotionless -farewell, but just at the last she had swept -round suddenly, as if she were driven, and -had caught the little dazed creature—a -deal too young to be her mother—in her -arms, and had given her an imperative -hug of the volcanic order. As it was a -first experience, no one could blame the -little woman from shrinking visibly from -it, and, when it was over, for escaping -with a sigh to the side of her husband, -and slipping her hand into his with the -air of one who has escaped a danger. -Gwen allowed one flash of angry pain to -shoot from her eyes, then she walked -grandly out of the house with her hand -quite properly on her father’s arm, which -Dacre took good care to have in readiness.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>“Dacre!” said Mrs. Fellowes, as soon -as they were well off, “we must get rid -of these people. I am sure we have all -done our duty by them, and your father -and mother have, very obviously, had -enough of them.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I am ready to swear that Admiral -Trowe has had a good sight too much of -the governor. He has been hammering into -him the life and blow-up of that gray rock -at Henty’s they are always grubbing at, for -a solid ten minutes. Now he’s on selection, -and the Admiral has murder in his eye—look!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Yes, and your mother, see how tired -she looks! She is telling Mrs. Irvine the -most wonderful new facts about babies. -Mrs. Irvine has ten, two sets of twins -among them, and she is the champion -<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>mother of the parish. Dacre, you cover -one wing, I shall manœuvre the other, -there’s not a minute to lose.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>In next to no time they had cleared -the field, and Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes were -just about to say good-bye and to carry -Dacre off to dinner, when to their amazement, -after a hurried consultation, Mr. and Mrs. -Waring begged them to stay, and drew -them into the library, utterly ignoring the -furious Dacre, who betook himself, softly -swearing, to the stables, where he wandered -disconsolately, scathing the screws that -lumbered the stalls and thanking God lustily -that his stud was elsewhere.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Fellowes were -closeted together in the library. While -the other two looked silently and questioningly -at one another Mrs. Fellowes -<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>telegraphed despairing signals to her husband.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It has been a most wearing day,” -said Mr. Waring at last, “I feared my -wife would break down under the strain. -No doubt you felt it too?” he went on -with his brows raised, looking concernedly -at his guests. “I thought, my dear,” and -he pressed her hand, “I thought, my dear, -that our daughter Gwen bore it admirably, -the girl appears to have much courage, -the courage of your race, my love.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He beamed softly down on her, and -paused for an unconscionable time, then -suddenly he remembered himself and -started.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Our daughter Gwen is a very beautiful -person,” he went on, musing aloud. “I do -not think I ever noticed the fact until lately, -until that night she went to some—h’m—party -<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>with Lady Mary. Dearest, do you -recollect?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Perfectly,” said Mrs. Waring, getting -a shade paler, and with a troubled look in -her eyes, “you saw her, Mrs. Fellowes,” -she said with sudden eagerness, “that -night?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I did indeed, Gwen’s beauty was a -shock to me. But I didn’t know—that -is, I thought you were busy.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah yes, very busy, I remember, but -we came out to see Gwen, she was on -the stairs, and we got no farther than the -door, the lamplight shone on her and cast -soft strange lovely shadows on her white -silk—it was silk, was it not, Mrs. Fellowes?”—She -nodded. “And her arms -and neck were like—down—”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Snow,” murmured her husband.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>“No, dear, they looked too warm for -that, and her face! We were, I think, a -little frightened at its beauty.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She gave a little shy laugh.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“We should have come out, but just -then I do not think I could have spoken. -My husband thought I was not very well -and he brought me back—Henry spoils me, -Mrs. Fellowes—but to-day I shall never -forget Gwen’s look, never!” and her small -face got still one shade whiter.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She tried to say something but she -only made a little husky noise, she turned -to Mrs. Fellowes and tried again.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You know Gwen,” she said faintly, “do -you think she was happy to-day, as a bride -should be?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Fellowes looked keenly at her and -turned to her husband.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>“Mrs. Waring must lie down, she is -worn out,” she said.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He made ready the sofa and drew the -trembling small creature down on it.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mr. Waring yielded her up with a disturbed -and astonished gaze, and stood -aside contemplating events patiently.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Henry,” she said softly, after resting -silently for a minute, “ask Mrs. Fellowes -what we want to know—tell her our—our -fears.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He came over and laid his hand on her -sunny head, that time seemed to have -quite forgotten.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“My dear friends,” he said solemnly, -“my wife and I are in some perplexity. -The fact is—h’m—we have never, so to -speak, known much of our daughter Gwen, -she is a difficult person to know. From -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>time to time we have attempted to gain -some nearer knowledge of her, but she—ahem—in -fact, did not seem inclined to -encourage our advances. From her very -babyhood,” he went on more fluently, -“the girl has interested us very keenly, -she has been quite a study to us, but I -regret to say we have never arrived at -any very definite conclusions about her, -we have never quite understood her.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Never!” said Mrs. Waring, suddenly -bending towards Mrs. Fellowes, with a -look very like terror in her face.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Of course you more than I, dear,” -said Mr. Waring, “you have your woman’s -instincts to guide you, and they, as a rule, -are trustworthy.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I have never known Gwen,” said she, -with very unusual decision.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>“What is your opinion on this matter?” -said Mr. Waring, turning to Mr. Fellowes, -“you know our daughter.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was all cruelly pathetic, his voice, -and his face, and his gesture, and the -strained hopeless look in his small wife’s -eyes.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Gwen is not ready yet for complete -happiness,” said Mr. Fellowes; “when she -is, it will come to her in full measure.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“But—she is a person of intelligence and -what is called grown-up,” said Mr. Waring -anxiously, “and very perfect in her development—outwardly,” -he added, a doubtful -look fleeting across his face.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Yes, to look at, she is perfect, but does -it not strike you,” said Mrs. Fellowes slowly, -“that much of Gwen’s womanhood is still -elemental? Do you not think that some -<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>of her senses are also still in that condition?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah!” murmured Mr. Waring, looking -sadly down on his wife, “Ah! I have -thought, I have feared this. I cannot see -in our daughter Gwen a complete creature, -but I thought, knowing so little of women -as I do, that I might be mistaken. Do -you hope for ultimate completeness in -our daughter?” he asked suddenly, watching -curiously for the answer.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The Rector’s superior knowledge of -Gwen had fixed him very uncomfortably -on a pedestal, there was no getting off -it just yet, he had to make the best of -the situation.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Indeed I do, no half development -will content Gwen when she learns -her deficiencies, nor her husband either.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“These elements then may develop to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>ultimate greatness or wither and die—to -reappear, of course, in some form or other. -But to disappear from our knowledge -untimely! Ah! that would be sad waste. -We will hope it may not occur. Do you -happen to know if her husband looks on -our daughter as we do, in relation to her -ultimate possibilities of development, or if -he has chosen her for the thing she looks—a -most beautiful and finished young woman -of fair intelligence?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I am quite sure that Strange loves -Gwen strongly and truly,” began Mr. -Fellowes evasively.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was a difficult subject to thrash out -thoroughly with this wonderful pair, it -might be better to let it fade gradually -from their minds, and to aid them to glide -back into their own still waters.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>“Yes, but on what grounds?” went -on Mr. Waring with strange persistence.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Have you ever spoken to Strange -himself on the subject?” asked Mr. Fellowes.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ahem, no. In fact, under like circumstances,” -he reddened and coughed a little, -“I should myself have resented any attempt -of such nature. No, I did not put any -questions to Strange. But will you not -favour us with an opinion, you, who -know our daughter so well?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I think that, in a measure, Strange -knows what he is about, and we are bound -to trust his judgment. It would be folly -to suppose that he sees the entire truth -clearly, he is under the usual conditions -of a man in love. Gwen dominates him -<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>as she does even us old married people, -hearts and brains will always fall before -our Gwen.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“What is the entire truth?” said Mrs. -Waring, pushing her hair back and sitting -up.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“The truth as it strikes me,” said Mr. -Fellowes very gently, “is, that Gwen is -at present incapable of loving.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You refer—ahem, to that phase of -the emotion known as sexual love?” said -Mr. Waring hurriedly.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Or of any other yet.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I knew it, we both knew it, but it -was hard to speak out,” murmured Mrs. -Waring sadly.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“She was in no way constrained,” said -Mr. Waring in a frightened way.</p> - -<p class='c000'>His wife sat still with sad wide eyes.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>“It seems a reasonless thing in one in -Gwen’s position,” he went on with a fine -touch of pride, “to marry without love. -I know such things do happen now and -again with young portionless women—women -have a feline craving for soft -living and pretty things, but our daughter -Gwen—ah!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I thought all this, I knew it,” said -Mrs. Waring quietly, “I wished so often -to ask Gwen definitely for the truth, but -I did not seem able to do so, I wish -now I had.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Fellowes put her hands tenderly -on her shoulders and made her lie down -again.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“She will love, she will be happy!” she -whispered softly, “she is in good hands.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Too soon, too soon!” murmured the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>mother, “she should be in mine still. But -they never held her. She should be happy -now, now,” she cried with sudden passion, -her voice still in soft minors, “not in the -future! Why should she have to reach -her happiness and her love ‘through much -tribulation’? It should come by divine -right. She is so strong, she will suffer -strongly, she is so strong that when -passion comes to her it will tear her, -torture her, break her to pieces! Henry, -Henry,” she gasped, “we are to blame, -we have failed miserably! We never had -any right to have children. While we -have been worrying over the dry fossils -of the past we have allowed the living—the -young—to wither around us. Ah, -how sad it all is, how sad!” she sighed, -“how sad!”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>The Rector came and put his hand on -his wife’s shoulder softly. He well knew -how awful this too-late awakening of the -other woman’s motherhood was to her, -with her own so terribly, persistently -wide-awake and alive with the throbbing -of unsatisfied pain.</p> - -<p class='c000'>There was nothing further to be -said, nothing, altogether unsatisfactory -as everything was. Mr. Fellowes felt -this and said in his bright frank -way.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“We are all very tired, and you—” -he said, turning to his wife, “you are -frightfully washed out! And, good gracious! -Dacre is waiting all this time!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>To her own intense amazement, Mrs. -Fellowes stooped down and gave Mrs. -Waring a kiss.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>The other’s tremor went through her -like an electric shock and she did -not get over it for the rest of the -evening.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>The</span> day after the wedding Dacre decided -to depart in rather indecent haste. The -situation was too much for him.</p> - -<p class='c000'>All the morning he had been receiving -a succession of small shocks, but some time -after lunch he experienced an awful one. -He caught his mother’s eyes fixed on -him with such a dumb yearning as -would have upset a rhinoceros, not to -say Dacre, and he could have sworn -<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>to two tears that gathered in them -and were as suddenly dried up. He -blushed furiously and fled, in a terrible -access of shyness, to the Rectory, where -he astonished Mrs. Fellowes by the heat -of his countenance and his greedy consumption -of tea.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Good gracious!” she thought, “is he -in love—Dacre?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She took up her cup, and gulping -down her tea in rather an hysterical -way, she watched him over the edge of it.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“The colour, and the stutter, and that -awful thirst, they are all deadly symptoms. -On the contrary, the amount -of cake he swallows goes against it. -What can it be anyway? Mercy! Can’t -he hurry? I feel worn out between -them all.”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>Presently Dacre recovered a little and -began to talk in a desultory way, saying -a vast number of things he didn’t -want to say, but on the whole lucidly -enough.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Fellowes pricked up her ears and -grew keen all over, she got for her pains -little direct information but, with a previous -experience of the family, enough to go on.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Worse than lovers!” she thought -ruefully, “poor little woman! All the same, -I am not the least surprised he wants to -clear—he ought to stay though!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Dacre, your mother will miss Gwen more -than any of us think, you have no idea how -upsetting a wedding is, you might come -in very useful just now. Won’t the -regiment survive if you stay down for a -few days?”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>Dacre wriggled on his seat.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Mrs. Fellowes, I have to go back, it -is absolutely imperative.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She laughed. “So it seems by the -look of you!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Look at that big fellow!” she thought, -“who fears neither man, death, nor devil, -nor God much to speak of, routed by one -flash of feeling from an unexpected quarter. -The creatures can’t stand the unexpected -at all, they are intrinsically conventional! -If that fool had a glimmer of sense in him, -he would have given the poor little woman -a hug, and have let her have a comfortable -easy howl for once in her life. I suppose -she is doing problems with the old fossil -in the library instead.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Dacre felt his size frightfully, and began -to contrast it mentally with the Sevres -<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>cup in his hand. He set it down, and -towering huge above Mrs. Fellowes, delivered -himself of another solemn asseveration -as to the impossibility of staying -one day longer.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“My dear boy, I am quite convinced,” -she said, “if you did, your country must -infallibly burst up.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Mrs. Fellowes, that isn’t fair!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“No more it is! Sit down, Dacre, I -have to shout to make my voice reach -you up there, and yours comes down on -me like a thousand bricks. What do you -want me to do?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He gave a sigh of relief and settled -down comfortably.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I want you to go and see her, -and—oh, you know best then what to -do. Don’t you think—I don’t know, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>but perhaps if you were to take her out -for a walk or something.—Oh, good-bye, -Mrs. Fellowes, and thanks, thanks, most -awfully!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Fellowes watched him swing along -down the drive, then pull up with a -jerk to speak to her husband who was -coming up, then swing off again out of sight.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Poor old Dacre! But why didn’t he -kiss her, the fool? I suppose he wasn’t -‘game’.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She put some fresh tea into the pot -and set her kettle on the little spirit lamp -to boil up.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Has Dacre been making you a declaration -of unlawful love?” said the Rector -when he came in. “He had precisely -that air.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Worse than that a thousand times. His -<span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>mother looked like crying, and was on the -point of breaking out into sudden and -condign maternal affection. Dacre fled -incontinently. He is going to make a precipitate -retreat to his regiment, and he -came to plant me in the breach. The -longer one lives, the less one thinks of the -courage of your sex.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Want of experience makes cowards of -us all. You couldn’t expect the fellow to -face the unknown!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“That’s it, you are all tarred with the -same brush, you must have brutal sight to -steady your nerves. Now, we——”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You! You, my love, have intuition. -Besides, there is a quotation that might -apply, ‘fools rush in—’”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Do drink your tea, and don’t try to -be funny, I feel awful.”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>“I feel rather off myself, I have just -been at the Park.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, oh! What were they at?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Waring was lost in some new speculation, -his wife was lost in a bad dream. -I suppose this late awakening of her nature -is good for her, but it seems cruel. It -hurts one to see her suffer in that still, -patient way of hers, and it will play the -deuce with Waring’s way of life if it goes -on. It wasn’t nature, of course, but that -absolute oneness of their life was a beautiful -thing to watch, and quite unique. I -suppose I ought to be glad that it has -received this check, but I’m not.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Then you ought to be ashamed of -yourself for wanting to perpetuate such a -life—have you forgotten Gwen’s face?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Shall I ever forget it, Ruth? But -<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>anything absolutely unusual in a sober -married couple, and in a Midland parish -on a clay soil, the carnal mind will cling -to like any burr. Let us put the moralities -aside for a moment and consider the -subject with the pagan mind. What would -outside life be to you or to me in these -smug levels, except for that delicious pair -of maniacs? We both know how stodgy -undiluted duty grows, how one’s feet stick -and stumble in it, faithfully as one tries -to keep one’s eyes on the ‘everlasting -hills’; how dreary and hopeless work often -seems in scattered districts, with neither -abject poverty nor active crime to fight -against, to raise and keep alive in one -the inspiring battle greed. But to be -obliged to face a level life daily; to spend -one’s soul in trying to raise sodden dough; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>to galvanize half-dead things, heavy, dull, -sullen hearts, neither hot nor cold, desiring -neither good nor evil, knowing neither -tears nor laughter, but slogging on to the -grave in dreadful patience! And, in spite of -exceptions, this is the life of dozens of -country parsons, only we hold our tongues -about it, or else we hunt and fatten ourselves, -or we have big families to blunt -our feelings.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“John, what’s wrong?” she said.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He stroked her hair softly.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Nothing except myself, I suppose. -You know I was at the Low Church -Meeting yesterday, and the fellows tried -me, some of them are so intense as -regards food—that isn’t so indecent as -haste, however. In the hurry to gobble -his brown soup that he might have a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>go at the white, Lang nearly choked -himself. Then it went against one to -see how they swallowed syrupy port, -one could feel the saccharine sediment -on one’s tongue, it showed somehow a -defective development. Then when gossip, -chiefly concerning the gone-astray young -women of the neighbourhood set in, they -grew so keen on their subject, that three -of them fairly spluttered. When this course -was removed and religion brought on, one -seemed to get a blow at every turn, the -meat and the drink had got into our souls -and it came out in our speech.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It looks well for me, little woman, -me, a middle-aged country parson, -with a fat parish, and reputed sane; -but I would give it all, and my eyes -into the bargain, to be in the thick of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>the turmoil—I don’t care a rap where, -London holds no talisman for me any -more than any other big centre—where -men teem and life lives, for it seems even -better to live in pain than to doze in -apathy. Ah! if only my brutal health -would have stood it!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Poor John, how the old sore will -break out!” she said tenderly, with a -short, dry little sob, “and I too, I would -give it all, and my eyes to boot, if I had -just one little child.—And Mrs. Waring, -up there in her fine house, would give it -all if she could only grasp her lost motherhood. -Two old sores and a new!</p> - -<p class='c000'>“After all,” she added, “when all’s said -and done, we are no worse off than our -neighbours. None of us, it seems to -me, get any more than the rags and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>fragments of their hearts’ desires, and -yet we all manage to make life jolly on -them. We do, John,” she said, with a gay -little laugh.—It was wonderful how she -managed it with her heart quivering.—“Look -in my face and say we do!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He looked in her face, and he kissed her.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>When</span> Strange set out on his honeymoon, -it was with a distinct project simmering -in his brain. He meditated a good three -months’ loiter through the byways of the -Tyrol, on into Switzerland, and then home -through the towns of the Netherlands, -and all by routes best known to himself.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It becomes, however, a moral impossibility -for a man to loiter with any comfort by -the side of a new-made wife, into whose -<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>very bones and marrow the spirit of unrest -has crept, and so, by intangible gradations -the loiter had developed into a tumultuous -forging on.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen seemed possessed by a very dignified -and quite calm-seeming devil; he was -a gentlemanly creature and made no untoward -fuss or excitement, but movement -he must have, he dared not rest.</p> - -<p class='c000'>In spite of herself, Gwen found -growing in her from the very day of -her marriage, a craving, full of subdued -fierceness, to be in the very middle of -the hurly-burly, no matter whether it -raged in a fashionable hotel, or, in the -market-place of a country town. She -had, besides, other uncomfortable ways. -In valleys, where the sun shone and -the wind rested, and where ordinary -<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>mortals were bathed in a soft entrancement -of delight, she seemed to lose half -her life.</p> - -<p class='c000'>On the contrary, she lived, her voice -regained its timbre, her eyes shone, her -mouth laughed, her very hair sparkled -with vitality, as soon as ever she got high -on a mountain—the bleaker and harsher -the better.</p> - -<p class='c000'>One day they had climbed to the top -of the D’Auburg, a dour-looking mountain -in the Tyrol generally avoided of tourists, -but for some reason Gwen took it into -her head to ascend it.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She now sat glowing and tingling with -radiant health, leaning up against a rock -that sheltered her from the blast that was -screeching across the ledge of the mountain. -She looked as cool, and as beautiful and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>unruffled, as if she had just dropped from -the clouds, instead of climbing up to them -by a most villainous path. There was -always a sort of exotic splendour about -her, and yet she never seemed out of -place.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Are you never tired?” said her husband, -as he was pouring some wine into a little -silver cup.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Never! I don’t remember ever once -having been tired.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Looked at from the carnal mind of a -chaperon, that was rather a nuisance, -wasn’t it?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It was; Lady Mary suffered a good -deal from it. I used to try to accommodate -myself to her in this matter and to look -tired, but I never could manage it.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Have another sandwich?”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>She went on in a reflective way as she -ate it,</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It is a wretched thing generally, for a -woman to be absolutely untireable. A very -strong woman is docked of half the privileges -of her sex. If you notice the stock -devoted husband, he has always a sickly -creature of a wife to devote himself to—or -one that poses as sickly—or if her body -isn’t sickly, her brain is. You hardly ever -find a woman quite sound in wind and -limb and intellect, with an absolutely unselfish -husband, ready to think all things -for her, and to dance attendance on her to -all eternity. Helplessness is such supreme -flattery. I tell you, the modern man -doesn’t like intellect any more than his -fathers before him did, if it comes home -too much to him.”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>“No! Sickliness and softness of brain -don’t, however, appeal equally to all -men.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I suppose not; but the things they -carry in their train do. The parasitical, -gracious, leaning ways, the touch of pathos -and pleading,—those are the things I should -look for if I were a man, they charm me -infinitely. Then that lovely craving for -sympathy, and that delicious feeling of -insecurity they float in, which makes the -touch of strong hands a Heaven-sent -boon to them—those women, you see, strew -incense in your path and they get it back -in service. When one hears of a devoted -couple and is called on to admire with -bated breath, I never can till I have dug -out the reason of this devotion. I hate -sticking up people on pinnacles, and then -<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>having to knock them down like a pair of -nine-pins.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Hero worship isn’t your tap evidently, -but if one makes a principle of never -smelling a flower or eating fruit until one -has ascertained the manure used in its -growth, one gets put off a lot. By the -way, I haven’t noticed any marked symptoms -of mental or physical decay in you, and -yet, God knows and can possibly score -up the number of your lovers—they -certainly were beyond all human computation.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She flashed a quick untranslatable look -at him and smiled.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“My lovers? They weren’t lovers at -all, they were explorers, experimental -philosophers. They had the same strong -yearning for me that a botanist has -<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>for a blue chrysanthemum or a yellow -aster. If a man could succeed in getting -this thing he would go mad over it and -put it in the best house in his grounds -for all his neighbours and friends to admire, -but do you think he would love it like -an ordinary sweet red rose that he can -gather, and smell, and caress, and bury -his nose in, and wear near his heart? -Not he!</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Do you think one of these men -ever wanted to touch me,” she went -on calmly, taking little sips of wine, “or -to ruffle the hair round my forehead -which is their invariable habit in novels, -or to lay his hand on my bare shoulder—they -do that, too, I have read—or to clasp -me to his breast, the climax to these -pretty little customs of theirs? Goodness! -<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>And imagine my feelings if one had! But -they didn’t even want to; and yet they -were my slaves, to do with precisely as -I liked.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“When I was in the thick of it I -thought I could not live without all this, -yet it was disappointing on the whole, -I believe. I remember wishing now and -then that I could flirt like other girls, -and make men make palpable fools of -themselves for my sake. It looks such a -very delightful pastime! I have seen plain -girls look positively quite beautiful when -engaged in it. The under-current of heaps -of girls lives, upon which it seems to -me all the rest is built up, is a sort -of simmering, unconfessed, vague longing -for the sensation of being ‘caught and -kissed’, like the little brown maid in the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>old rhyme; not in a general vulgar -way, but in a well-bred particular way. -It is a quite incomprehensible sensation -to me.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Probably. It’s natural all the same,” -he said looking at her eyes which regarded -him curiously, “and Nature is such a -vindictive grasping beast it is as well not -to run counter to her, or she will have limb -for limb.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I wonder what limb of mine she will -want?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh you, she’ll trip you up in your -own coils somehow! Fill you with an -overpowering desire to be ‘caught and -kissed’,” he said with a short laugh, “and -have no one handy to do it.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, then she must make me over -again!”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>She stood up and looked down over the -gloomy valley.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“What is it to be natural, I wonder? -I don’t know.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Time will tell you all about it. Now, -you want to be down over that precipice? -Well, anyway, I am glad you are warranted -sound. Come on, my yellow aster!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>They were past the precipice, far -down the other side when Gwen spoke -again.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Humphrey,” she said, with a stronger -trace of emotion in her voice than he had -ever detected there before, “upon my -word, I often wish for your sake I was -just a good common frowsy red cabbage-rose.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, do you?—Well, ‘<i><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">die Zeit bringt -Rosen!</span></i>’”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>About</span> a week later they arrived in -Paris. Gwen had never been there before, -and her curiosity to see everything was -insatiable and unresting.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She often seemed to herself as if she -were caught in the whirl of a mad intoxicating -race with fate; it was glorious; it -stimulated her like a draught of wine; it -filled her veins with fire; it was as if -the spirit of the world had got into -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>her spirit and shot streams of the strength -of immortality through all her being.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She was as a god to herself, and fate -was as a thing of naught. This was in -her times of exaltation however; but even -in these early days there came moments -of reaction in their due season. Fortunately -she knew the symptoms of their approach, -and could hide herself away from her -husband’s eyes. Her room could tell -strange tales whenever Gwen shut herself -in and threw up the sponge till the -next round.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Then there came shame into that proud -face, fear into those fearless eyes, a stoop -into those stoopless shoulders. She neither -ranted nor raved, she dared not; if she -had once raised her voice, she knew -quite well she must shriek, and howl -<span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>forth the terror and disgust and dismay -with which the possible ending to this -race with fate filled her.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Sometimes she would pull off her -shoes and stockings, and go barefooted -to and fro the length of the long polished -floor with its strips of Eastern carpet—the -cool slippery surface soothing the fever -of her flying feet. Invariably she would -pull off her guard and wedding-ring and -lay them with curious gentle wistfulness -down on the table. Once when she did -this, she drew a deep breath, threw out -her arms and laughed.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I am free, free!” she cried, “my -body is my own again, and my soul, and -my brain! I am myself again, Gwen -Waring, a self-respecting creature, with no -man’s brand on me—”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>In a few minutes she came back and -looked at the golden bands.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“What is the use of lying?” she said, -“that mends nothing, and only degrades -me. I am not free; whatever happens, -whatever could possibly happen, I shall -never any more be what I was! Good -God! And yet women take marriage as -they do a box at the Opera!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>But it was not in the strong nature -of her, wholesome what there was of it -awake, to lose courage often, and her -powers of recuperation were superb. Half -an hour after she was striding wildly -through the room, she came down as -unruffled and more untranslatable than -ever, to propose some expedition.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange looked at his watch. “Too late -for that, suppose we go and see Brydon?”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>“Oh, yes, let us go,” she said -eagerly.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He looked at her, and knew all -about it.</p> - -<p class='c000'>For a minute he felt an overmastering -desire to shake her, and make her -eyes speak plain English, he was getting -tired of their hieroglyphics. He was buttoning -her glove at the time and involuntarily -he gave the button a cross twist -and twitched it out.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, hang it, is the glove rotten or -are my methods? Will it matter?” he -asked.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, not at all, my sleeve will cover it.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was a diabolical lottery altogether, -and the soul of the man groaned within -him. It was even worse than he had -anticipated in the first hot glamour of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>love. He freely confessed this, but he had -sworn to himself, in his foolish raptures, -that he would face hell for the girl, -and he was not the man to eat his -words.</p> - -<p class='c000'>They walked to Brydon’s.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen took a great delight in going in -and out among the streets, and a shamefaced -pleasure in listening to her husband’s -stories of every twist and turning -in them.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“There is no one like him for a -companion!” she often confessed to herself -angrily, “no one I know that comes -near him. What made me marry him, -what? Even this part of him I can’t -accept and enjoy without disgust and -self-loathing.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>At last they got to the little street -<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>that Brydon lived in, and climbed to the -fourth flat of a tall house.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When Brydon saw Strange he reddened -with delight, but when he was presented -to Gwen, he paled suddenly and his -eyes fell.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You could have knocked me down -with a feather!” he explained afterwards, -to his chosen comrade.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was a superb compliment to her, -and her husband laughed as he saw -it. And then a queer wonder took hold -of him as to the sort of ending this good -humoured half-impersonal pride he took -in her conquests would have, then this -evolved another wonder which dealt -with the birth of a strong woman’s passion.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange pulled himself up and thrust -<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>this out of his mind with a rough -shove.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“On the whole, what’s the result so -far, Charlie?” he asked, when that young -man had established his wife in a big cane -chair, softening the light from one side -and strengthening it from another in a -lingering, absorbed way, as with half-closed -eyes he furtively drank in the fulness of -her beauty.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The question stripped the glamour from -him at a rush, he flopped limply down -on to a seat.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“If only you hadn’t asked that question -for three more months, but now, now, -it is cruel! Just imagine a fellow, free -all his life to ride his own nag, a sorry -jade it might be, but anyway fit enough -for him, and his own; just fancy him -<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>strapped on to a small donkey belonging -to another fellow, that it would be more -than his life was worth to prod into a -gallop, and to have to peg along on this -beast week in, week out, along the same -old road! Oh Lord, the grind, it’s awful, -awful, digging one’s heels into that confounded -ass—Oh!—”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He jumped up with a guilty start. -“Lady Strange, I beg your pardon, I -forget what ladies are like, and Strange -is such a comfortable fellow to growl to, -bad language slips out before one can -catch it, at the very sight of him.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Don’t apologize to me, especially if -my husband is the cause of your offence,” -said Gwen kindly.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She had a fancy to be kind to -this boy, if she had confessed it to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>herself, it was with a distinct view of -getting to know a side of her husband, -that Brydon knew all about and she -nothing. She was making a study of -him in spite of herself, and liked to collect -evidence.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Meantime Strange had been looking -carefully through some of Brydon’s sketches, -scattered everywhere.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You’ll draw as well as you colour, -old man, and that is more than I ever -expected of you. What does Legrun say?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“He says he’ll say nothing until I have -unlearned every cursed mannerism I have -picked up in England, that den of bad -taste. Then ‘<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">peut-être</span></i>—who knows?’</p> - -<p class='c000'>“But the fellow rages just as much against -his own rapid methods, as he does against -those we’ve been born and bred in. How -<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>dare we think to get an effect with a -few strokes like he does, he, who has -worked, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">parbleu!</span></i> who has sweated, who -has prayed, who has blasphemed, who -has torn the heart out of his body -to arrive at this ease, this divine confidence—‘the -head of us should be -punched!’ he is great in English. We must -take twenty strokes to one of his; we -must do with pain, with tears, what is -but ‘<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">delices</span></i>’ to him—details—we must -know them as the ‘<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bon Dieu</span></i>’ knows them, -before we venture to omit or even to -suggest one! Then he ups and splutters -out some delicious blasphemy on some -unwary youth’s head.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Look at me, the ghost of a creature, -stalking mournfully on eggs, with furtive -fear in all my lineaments. And this is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>an artist’s training! Good Lord, when I -remember how I sat in that garret in -Bland Street and thought of fame and -myself in a new suit, dancing a war-dance -before my masterpiece on the line, with -duchesses squabbling for the first shake -of my hand!—Lady Strange, I am going -to make some tea.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I wish you would,” said Gwen laughing, -“we walked, and I am so thirsty.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Hu!” said Brydon, examining his milk-jug -when he had filled his kettle and -set it on the little charcoal stove, “every -drop gone! I won’t be two minutes. The -old lady on the first flat and I are affinities -to a certain extent; in return for sundry -packets of English tea, she keeps me in -milk at odd times. Strange, will you -shepherd the kettle?”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>“I wonder if his cups are clean?” said -Strange rummaging them out of a cupboard -over the stove, “look, an inch thick with -dust, and the handles! That fellow moons -too much to be very cleanly. Look at the -tea-cloth, Lord! Have you a clean handkerchief, -Gwen?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen’s brows contracted slightly. She -was a dainty person and unpractical, and -teacups in connection with handkerchiefs -gave her an uncomfortable feeling of -impropriety.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She gave him a handkerchief however, -with a small gasp of disgust, and watched -his doings with a faint, half-scornful -interest.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“How particular you are!” she said, -“I had no idea you could trouble yourself -about such things.”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>“I can’t stand dirt in man or beast.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“How did you stand travelling—in -Algeria, for example?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah! there—there were compensations, -the game was worth the candle, and if -civilization has produced nothing better—give -the devil his due—it has produced -clean skins and clean eating. I fancy I -was originally designed for an inspector -of nuisances,” he continued, running Gwen’s -lovely morsel of cambric on the end of a -pointed stick in and out the handle of -a cup.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen noticed with some wonder the -curiously delicate way in which he did -it, “The thing would have smashed long -ago in any other man’s hand,” she thought. -“He treats women like that, he is very -gentle, but he is the master, he holds -<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>them in his hand and does as he likes -with them. And I have no doubt whatever, -that there are at this minute hundreds -of women who would like it. Why doesn’t -that handle break and cut him—there is -no legal bond between them?” This struck -her grim sense of humour, and she had -to bite her lips to keep in a wild -laugh.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Yes, as a nuisance man I should have -been a success,” he went on, “whereas, as -a British landowner!” he gave an expressive -shrug. “Gwen, how do you think -you’ll stand a flat clay country, overrun -with woolly-brained squires and their -dames and daughters?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was a horrid thought. Gwen gave a -swift little turn to put it away from her; -her dress caught in a stretched canvas -<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>put up face inwards against the wall, -and brought it down with a muffled -crash.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange came forward to help her put it -up, and, with a hand of each of them on -it, they paused suddenly and started, and -with a quick turn of his hand Strange -set it this time face outwards in its place, -and looked into it with eager excitement, -while Gwen’s face grew cold and still, -with a touch of sternness on it.</p> - -<p class='c000'>While they were looking, the door burst -open and Brydon came in with the -milk and a soft paper parcel—looking like -cakes.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Strange, how did you find it?” he -cried, “I never meant you to see it. -Lady Strange, it is only a sketch.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I beg your pardon,” she said, “my -<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>dress caught in it and knocked it down, -and as we raised it we saw the face, then, -I suppose, curiosity did the rest.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“When did you see my wife, Brydon?” -said Strange, still absorbed in the picture.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“In church, the day she was married. -I know I should have been in Paris, but -I wanted to make this sketch. I want, -when I know well enough how to do it,” -he said, turning to her humbly, “to make -a picture of you, Lady Strange, and to -give it to Strange, and this is just the -idea for it.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I am sure my husband must appreciate -your kindness,” she said half absently.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Perhaps she might have put a little more -warmth into her voice if she had seen -the fallen face of the boy as he turned -to look to his kettle. She had, however, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>already more to occupy her than she -wanted.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The sketch was a stroke of genius. It -was a gracious, graceful girl, standing -before the altar in her shimmering marriage -robes, in actual flesh and blood, the great -soul of a woman shining out from the -violet eyes; the tender strength of the -mouth, the resolute pose of the rounded -chin, the russet gold of the hair—the -whole lived and thought. One held one’s -breath to catch the regular soft rhythm of -hers, the very hand held out for its ring -was palpitating with life.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Naturally, the whole thing would have -filled the soul of a dilettante with unutterable -disgust, being as glaringly full of -faults of detail as it well could be, but -an artist with half an eye in his head -<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>would have put all these by in a place -by themselves to be dealt with later, and -would have gone mad over the truth that -remained.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was the girl’s figure alone that made -the picture; the man she stood before, was -a mere blur of an idea, as were all the -surroundings.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange’s eyes, as he watched the -woman, were brimful of a terrible joy, and -of a more terrible sadness.</p> - -<p class='c000'>As for Gwen, she fell to criticizing the -details in a way that made Brydon’s flesh -creep on his bones.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“This is not the original sketch,” she -said suddenly, stopping short in a sweeping -criticism, “I wish you would show us that.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It is very bad, you would like it still -less than you do this.”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>“I might like it less as a picture, but, -as a likeness, more, perhaps. Do show it -to me.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>The mere suspicion of entreaty she -threw into her voice had never yet -been rejected by any man, and soft-hearted -Brydon was not going to be the first to -run counter to her inclinations, so altogether -against his will he pulled the -sketch, about half the size of the other -one, out from among a number of others, -and put it in a good light where she -could examine it at her ease.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah!” she said, “yes, that’s me, -myself! What induced you to idealize? -It was unjust towards me and dishonest -to yourself.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It was neither, it was prophetic,” said -Strange in a low voice only audible to her.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>She glanced at him for a second with -curling scornful lips.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Was it impossible then to make a -decent picture of me as I look now?” -she asked with a laugh, turning to Brydon, -who was blushing furiously and wishing -he could swallow himself.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“No fellow living could do justice to -you,” he blurted out painfully, “however -you may look! but I was trying to paint -a bride, and there in that first study you -didn’t look just like one—from my own -confounded fault, no doubt, so I tried the -other.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You have certainly succeeded in -producing your bride,” she remarked -with a curious, absent smile.</p> - -<p class='c000'>To give her her due, she did not know -how cruel her own pain made her. Her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>husband did, however; he winced as he -put the two sketches side by side to -compare them. He had the delicate -sensitive respect of most strong men for -feelings and other frail nervous things of -that sort.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen came and stood beside her husband, -and looked from one to the other -of the sketches.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Now in this first one,” she said, “the -girl looks as if she were pre-ordained to -the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</span></i> of bride; in this other one, as you -observe, she does <em>not</em>, but she is me. -I am so sorry to disillusion you of your -idea.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You have not,” said Brydon softly, -“only showed her many-sidedness.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I can get my wedding dress over,” -said Gwen, with a touch of malice about -<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>her mouth, “shall I, and give you a few -sittings in the character of bride?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“No, thank you, Lady Strange,” said -the boy, with admirable coolness, “I shall -stick to the ideal for my picture, I will -work hard on it. And when it is finished, -will you have it, Strange?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Will I? The deuce I will! It would -be a magnificent present without another -stroke of work in it.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“What will you call it, Humphrey?” -asked his wife.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I shall call it ‘The Incognita’.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Mr. Brydon, tea is getting cold all -this time, and I am so thirsty,” she said -with serene imperiousness, turning from -the sketches and going over to the little -table. “I hope you are as good at making -tea as you are at making brides,” she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>went on mockingly. “Sugar? Yes, please, -two lumps, and—galette? How delicious! -I do like French cake.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Lady Strange, you said you would sit -to me as a bride, did you mean it?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I did,” she said amusedly.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The ungainly-looking boy with his great -saving clauses of eyes and his queer red -blushes and open admiration of herself, -gave her a sensation of interest.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Would you sit just once in that dress—or -any other you like? You don’t know -how good of you it would be.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Is it such a boon then when I require -such an amount of idealization?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Lady Strange!” he murmured reproachfully, -with ludicrous woe.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, well, then, I will sit for you—where—here?”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>“Oh, not here! Did you think I would -have the cheek to ask you to climb these -steps to sit for me? Anywhere you arrange -for me to come.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Then come to our hotel, but I know -my husband intends to ask you to dine -with us to-day so we can then settle the -time.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Thank you more than awfully!” he -cried with most unaffected fervour, “it’s -such a boon for a fellow like me to get -a lady; we can get more or less colour -and lovely flesh, you know, to paint -from in the cheap models, but then they -are <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grisette</span></i> to the very marrow. Besides, -it is not safe with Legrun even to -experiment on them. We must learn to -draw before we go about libelling even -models, he says, ‘Poor devils, they have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>enough to put up without that!’ So -you can see what an inestimable benefit -you are bestowing on me. Strange, do -you notice my walls? Not a rag to break -the monotony.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I do; I thought the sternness of Art -had come on you prematurely.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“No, but Legrun did. I brought all the -old rags from the old shop and renewed -the stock here, and those four walls were -one delicate glimmer of colour, when, as -Satan himself arranged it, who should -come shambling and blaspheming up the -stairs one blessed Sabbath day but Legrun, -who insists upon having our addresses. I -thought he’d have a fit when he sat -down gasping and glaring at the walls. -‘My good lad,’ he roared at last, ‘how -old are you?’ ‘Nineteen,’ says I, shaking -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>like a jelly fish. ‘I thought you were -nine,’ he yelled, ‘and making a doll’s -house; clean down that filth, clean it from -the decent lime-washed walls that never -injured you, and remember—remember, -boy, that Art is serious, severe, stern, -grave, terrible,’ he shrieked, waving his -arms like a maniac, and spitting horribly, -‘it will stand no tricks, no mockings, -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">parbleu</span></i>! Rags!—Filth!—with the disease -shock full in them! Gur! Guz! Hu! Never -no more let me see such sights!’ and he -raged down the stairs into the street, -spitting, and scraping his throat,—he -lives in an awful funk of infection,—and -so I had to strip off my rags -and leave the walls to their native -nakedness.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You can have your revenge when -<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>you set up on your own account. Gwen, -it is nearly six o’clock.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Yes, we must go. We’ll see you at -dinner, Mr. Brydon?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Will you walk or drive, Gwen?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I will drive,” she said, and there was -a dull, tired tone in her voice.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>Gwen</span> was in an unusual humour this -afternoon. She was silent until they got -into the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fiacre</span></i>, but directly it moved she -began to talk in a swift even way peculiarly -her own.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Everything she said had the calm -cold brilliancy of steel about it, and she -advanced the most dangerously heterodox -opinions in a most unimpassioned and -frozen style.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>Strange shrugged his shoulders with -grim good humour as she went on. He -admired her splendid insolence, as any -man would have done; all the same, he -felt a half frantic longing for that -picture-bride and an ever-increasing wonder -as to how any woman cast in -the same mould, eye for eye, mouth -for mouth, dimple for dimple, curve for -curve, could so atrociously belie her -nature.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Suddenly Gwen veered round and turned -the conversation into a personal and -analytical channel. She had never done -it before, except in her one brief allusion -to the yellow aster.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“That boy of yours is a genius, -Humphrey, your swan is no goose,” said -she, “but, tell me, did I look in the very -<span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>least like that woman, the day you married -me?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He looked at her face of fine scorn.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Not in the least, except in the -matter of form, and colour, and pose. -These are you in tangible flesh and -blood.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“What did you mean by your ‘prophetic’?” -she demanded, casting pink shadows over -her face as she moved the red silk blind -slowly to and fro.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“The possibility of your being as she is -one day.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>The blind moved a little faster and -her hand held it tighter.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I put it to you as a reasonable -man—do you believe in that possibility?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“As a reasonable man, I do,” said he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>watching the pink shadows playing in her -dimples.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Yes—? And how is this to come to -pass?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, there you have me!” he said, “I -don’t know—possibly God may, or the -modern monster, Evolution.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Through what processes, I should very -much like to know?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“So should I, but I don’t, you see.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“She’d feel better if her face flushed -like other women’s,” he thought; “it must -be ghastly to have to consume all one’s -own smoke like that.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen looked out of the window, laughing -softly to herself.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You look super-humanly cool,” she said, -“but this minute your pride is all agog -to knead and mould me into that bridal -<span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>creature. It would be a triumph of Art -assuredly, and to your credit. I wish -you might have the kudos of it—why -can’t you—why can’t I help you to, for -the life of me?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>There came a rush of calm restrained -vehemence into her cold tones that brought -them to a sort of white heat. “Why -am I not mouldable—or like other -women?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“My good child, you could hardly -expect that from the daughter of your -father and mother—you are unreasonable!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Yes, you are right, I had forgotten -them,” she said.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It is abominable we should be such -puppets, not only present chances to -play fast and loose with us, but to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>have to dance to the tune of old, -ignorant, half-daft ones, that should go -and rot in the grave of old failures! Why -should they stay and torment us? We -have enough of their kind to deal with -on our own account. Have you ever read -the Bible?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Have I ever read the Bible! Do I not -know every inch of Syria, and every -second inch of Egypt? Yes, I have read the -Book, and on its native soil.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Perhaps that may suit it, I don’t -think ours does. There was one thing, -however, I read in it, that took hold of -me; you may know it—‘God’s ways -are past finding out,’—this seems to me to -contain a whole philosophy, capable of -universal application, and reaching to the -present time.”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>“You are going too fast, my good Gwen; -isn’t that rather the philosophy of -ignorance? You are arguing from a point -you rarely affect—from the point of view -of Jewish theology with its strong, and -primitive, and mystery-loving methods. -God’s ways, after all, if we choose to dig -into them are no denser, and are just on -the same line as Nature’s. She permits -no cause without an effect, or she will -very well know the reason why.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I wasn’t arguing from any point of -view, Jewish or otherwise, I was just -applying a theological axiom personally, -thinking of parents and other chances.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, that’s an idle subject, isn’t it? -By the way, you have a sneaking regard -yourself for that bridal creature—you -admire the woman, don’t you?”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>“Admire her! Yes, as a woman, of -course I do. Why, she is—superb! With -that mature strong tenderness in every -line of her, and that divine protecting -patient air of hers—that woman might be -a mother of nations.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange started and his mouth twitched -suddenly, the blood stopped in his veins and -red and blue stars swam before his eyes. -Gwen went on unheeding, in her passionless -tones—</p> - -<p class='c000'>“That woman is not, however, me. I -am a beautiful girl—that, and no more—I -contain nothing, I assure you, nothing -that could be moulded into that woman.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You contain everything,” said her -husband slowly, “only the deuce of the -matter is, that none of us know where to -find it!”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>“No, nor ever will.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She leant forward so that her breath -touched his cheek. “Humphrey, I wish -you had never seen that picture! This -necessity for idealization is an insult to -me and to yourself—you should have -had more insight from the beginning.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“My good child,” he said laughing -softly, “I thought the experiment was an -avowed fact.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She drew in her lips sharply, and was -silent.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When she spoke again her voice was -rather hoarse.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I have often tried to imagine the -things that go to a murder, and I really -do think I understand the impulse now. -I shall never altogether hate a murderer -again. I am glad I know; one feels -<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>better—more liberal, for every new sensation.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange laughed.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“And, after all, it was supremely -silly,” she went on, “the experiment <em>is</em> -two-sided, but you have no idea how -infinitely brutal the bald fact sounded.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Bald facts mostly do.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Well—there is reason even in experiments, -and remember, once for all, I am -not a dramatic creature given to sudden -new developments, I am no emporium for -the creation of fresh sensations; here I am, -finished and complete.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange laughed.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“‘Finished and complete!’ Was ever -conceit like unto hers! My good girl, -you are neither.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She threw up her head.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>“Well, here I am then, unfinished and -incomplete.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, but Nature invariably finishes -her work if it’s worth the tools.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Like Providence shapes our ends,” -she sneered with modulated savageness. -“Ah, this marriage truly is an experiment! -Look at those two at the window—that -girl and that man, that stunted creature -there! Perhaps he’s an artist. She has -a measly look and the man’s nose is -awful! They are not a scrap like Browning’s -artist and the girl, and yet, I fancy, they -think themselves in love with one another—tell -the man to stop for a minute!—here, -here, at this house—there, do you see the -idiotic simpers! Ah, yes, that’s love! -And the two will marry, no doubt, on next -Shrove Tuesday, but it won’t be an experiment, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>I don’t think either of the pair -looks as if he or she went in for observing -new phases.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“They’ll have enough to do to keep -the wolf from the door. Perhaps in time, -instead of observing new phases they’ll -punch one another’s heads if they must -have fresh sensations.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Is that the usual and orthodox end -to being in love—punching the head physically -or morally, according to the rank of -the lovers?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“No, the methods vary according to -the quality of the love. Have you had -enough, shall we drive on?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She nodded.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“If it’s worth its salt, of course there’s -no end.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“One even continuous stream into the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>ocean of—Nothingness! How appallingly -trite and stale—nothing fresh, nothing -new!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“The state has a quite peculiar freshness -and newness of its own, I am told, which -is perennial—and here we are at the -door.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>Gwen</span> dropped quite easily into the ways -of her new home, she could generally -adapt herself to mere physical conditions, -her unnatural unrest and craving for excitement, -in the first few weeks of her -married life, were, of course, the symptoms -of an abnormal mental condition.</p> - -<p class='c000'>So when she had to face the inevitable, -and to stay her albatross-flight and -betake herself to the domestic roost she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>did it gracefully enough, and if her -wings did strain and stretch themselves -now and again, till they often came near -snapping, and would pull and tug at her -as if they wanted to drag the heart out -of her body, no one but herself—and one -other, who guessed very near to the -truth—was any the wiser.</p> - -<p class='c000'>But it was perhaps the unconfessed -humdrumness of life when her flight had -ceased, that set her off on her new track—that, -and her sense of justice, which -began to fret and peak in her again, now -there was no longer constant outer stir and -movement to shut thought’s mouth.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The necessity to touch dogs that will -sleep no longer is a hideous one, but it -must be dealt with.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When Gwen found this necessity a real -<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>and absolute one, and no imaginary demand -that could be shelved, she faced it, and -proceeded to thrash out the ground with -an organized exhaustiveness, that was -almost brutal in its uncompromising frankness.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She had gone through it all, by bits, in a -desultory way, several times since her home-coming. -This was unsatisfactory; the matter -must be laid out in its full bearings and -fundamentally cleared up. But the time -to do this was hard to find between callers -and calling.</p> - -<p class='c000'>This afternoon she was quite idle, however. -Humphrey was off attending a meeting -in the neighbouring town, and it was -snowing heavily.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“The most daring visitor must jib to-day!” -thought Gwen, “I shall claim it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>unreservedly, and I must have open air -for this business.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Her maid naturally thought her mad; -that mattered little. She was dressed and -right out in the storm in ten minutes -from the time she had taken her resolution.</p> - -<p class='c000'>An old hound of Strange’s that had -taken to her from the first, was as much -scandalized as the maid, but he was not -the one to be outdone by any slip of a -girl. He gathered up his great legs, -shook himself with a drowsy grunt, and -followed her with a half-contemptuous -curiosity.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The Park had a certain beauty of its own, -it was big and, if its undulations were insignificant, -their curves were soft and full, and -the timber was magnificent and well-placed; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>the whole looked well under snow. The -great dull red-brick house stood out in -fine contrast to the dazzling white of the -earth, and the glittering green of the -clump of pines that flanked its left wing, -and from which the fierce wind kept -stripping the snow wreaths, that tried hard -to nestle in the shelter of the cosy -branches.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When Gwen got beyond the terraces -to a turn in the drive, she could see the -sluggish stream that ran through a mile -or so of the Park, turned into a torrent, -rushing and foaming onward in its brilliant -course.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She stopped in the very teeth of the -storm, and looked round her with a radiant -face.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“The whole place is transformed!” she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>thought. “It generally reminds me of a -great soft white cow, chewing the cud -knee-deep in water in the shade of a full -silky beech, it has all that beast’s ample, -contented, intolerably depressing beauty; -but to-day it is grand, glorious, like anything -but a cow, the heart of it is alive -and throbbing under that driving storm, -it is the birth of passion in that suave -smooth green sod, and the snow is the -christening robe. Oh, I wish it were always -like this!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She threw off her veil and turned round, -that the blast might strike every part -of her.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It’s magnificent!” she shouted in her -excitement, “and—after all, passion’s a -wonderful thing!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She laughed as she bent to the blast. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>“But it’s amazing the way it subsides -without leaving a token of its presence—what’s -a broken bough or two as a -witness to these wonders? In two days, -in less, this place will be as uncompromisingly -smooth and smug as ever. -Ah, passion is a fraud then, or else it -requires explanation!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She hurried on to the little ivy-covered -bridge that spanned the stream, and looked -down into the roaring seething waters -with laughing parted lips.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She wanted to stay, the hurrying -foaming mass of unrest had a fascination -for her, but she dragged herself from it -and turned off from the drive on to a -narrow path that led to a sheltered wooded -glade about half a mile from the gates.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I see the deer and the sheep have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>taken refuge there!” she said to herself, -“I suppose the fury of the storm goes -over their heads. I can think of nothing -I ought to here, I shall follow the deer. -Bran, what do you mean to do?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She pointed significantly to the antlers -peeping through the snow-laden branches. -The hound gave a solemn nod. Seemingly -he understood her, at any rate he kept by -her side and refrained from sport for that -afternoon.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When she got to the trees she looked -round for a seat.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The snow on the ground was too soft -for sitting purposes, even for her reckless -strength to venture on, but she found at -last safe anchorage on a broad wooden -fence that skirted the grove, then she -turned all her senses in on herself.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>She fixed her eyes advisedly on a peaceful -group of sheep, cuddled together on the lee -side of an old beech, as being less disturbing -to the mind than the tossing antlers -of the deer, and then she fell to meditation.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“To begin with,” she said, “I am -married. That is the one solid fact to argue -from. Into the bargain I was, I believe, -sane when I committed the deed which -is beyond recall, even on the plea of -insanity—that idea struck me once in the -early days with tremendous force. I must -then give up crying over spilt milk, it is -a degrading pursuit and offers no loophole -of escape, I must just face the future—ah, -my dear, that wrings your withers, -does it?” she muttered, as a cold shiver -ran down her spine.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>“Humphrey and I are playing at cross-purposes -now, that must be put a stop -to—well, perhaps it is as well to leave -that to time which will do the business -for him quite effectually. Ah, that picture! -That has deluded the man, he has -hampered himself with two wives—the -sooner he returns to monogamy, the -better for himself. This,” she said, -touching her breast, “this is as nothing -to that other! Men might fall down -before her and call her blessed; they -fall down before me, sure enough, but -they don’t call me blessed—quite the -contrary!—even Humphrey can’t go the -length of that, but fancy him before that -other! I wish I had never looked at her, -I shall get to hate her yet, she confuses -me, she complicates matters in the most -<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>annoying way! Pah! I never intended to -dissect her to-day, why can’t I keep to -myself, me, who belongs body and soul—soul!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She looked down on herself with -curling lips, “Soul! Well, any soul I -have and <em>all</em> my body belongs to Humphrey -Strange, as sure as any horse in his -stable does. And he calls this thing wife -and loves it, loves it, bless you! and in a -most astonishing way. Then this wife, -she honours Humphrey Strange, she obeys -him, I have never gone contrary to him -in one solitary thing and I never will—that -is vulgar. But as for love! I don’t -love the man; I see every good point in -him; he dominates me in a way that is -simply horrible; but love him! Why, every -day it seems less possible to do it, yet it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>seems that one’s first and paramount duty -in this amazing contract is to love—and -now I have got to face this duty. How, -I wonder?—Am I to set diligently to fall -in love with this husband of mine, and -how? And how?” she cried, with a short -hard laugh.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Then she stopped thinking, and looked -out on the whitened earth and the -sheep huddled together still closer -under a sudden sharp side blast, that -whisked round their shelter and set -the branches above them sighing and -moaning.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The sun had sunk further into the -West and had carried its glow away, -and the snow had lost its glitter. Gwen -shivered.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It chokes one to think of it!” she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>said. Pulling her hands out of her muff, -and taking off her hat, she turned her -face to the blast, and let it beat her at -its savage will.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, my hair—how heavy it is!” -she muttered, and began pulling out the -hairpins until the whole heavy mass fell -about her and was caught by the wind, -which shrieked with delight at its prize. -“Ah, that’s better! Well—now, this duty! -After all, it’s only sheer justice. I must, -must, must face it! If only an earthquake -would come into our lives, if I -were dying or Humphrey mortally wounded, -or if some catastrophe could fall on us, -in the general shock and upheaval something -might snap in me, some undiscovered -spring might burst up and I might -feel as duty demands! But in this everyday -<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>existence, in this flat country, among -the flatter squires and squiresses, nothing -ever happens, no one dies, no one gets -a mortal wound, there is never a sign of -an earthquake of any description, and yet -this duty stands out as clear and as -aggressive as ever.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>A strand of her long hair got caught -in a nail in the fence, she lingered over -the disentangling of it, then she turned -to Bran and had a little talk with him, -but the patient love in his eyes vexed -her.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Go!” she said, giving him a little -shove with her foot, “go! You look -like that other woman! Oh, this duty, -this duty! Well, I will make one solitary -conscientious try at it, I will begin this -very day!”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>She drew a long breath.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Touches and caresses and things of -that sort bring thrills and shakes and -trembles and flushes, every female novelist -assures one of that fact. Well, I must -practise touches and such, and hope for -results; also, I must not let myself shiver -and feel sick when I in my turn get -them bestowed upon me. I wish to goodness -I had thought of all this before, it -would have been far easier to have begun -right from the first.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She suddenly hid her face in her -muff.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“How awful that was, how awful! -oh!—gr—”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She began to drum her feet with some -slight violence on the lower rail of the -fence and she beat her hands together—“to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>keep them warm,” she assured herself.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“That picture person must be put down -and this, this,” she whispered, taking her -face with a sudden soft pathos between -her hands, “this must be brought forward, -made inevitable, so to speak; -then, then, perhaps, with time and custom -the other will be allowed to rest, and—rot!” -she cried sharply, lifting her face -and turning it again to the blast. “Ugh! -how vulgar I am, that painted creature -demoralizes me altogether! Ah, there -comes Humphrey, walking and leading his -horse, I will call him and launch out on -my duty. Look at him, it’s a wonder I -can say ‘No,’ to that ‘pulse’s magnificent -come and go!’ I can though, it -doesn’t move me the eighth of an -inch.”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>She stood up on the fence and waved -her handkerchief to him.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Now, enter duty, exit vague speculation!” -she cried with a laugh, as she -jumped off the fence.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>Strange’s</span> horse had stood on a sharp -stump hidden by the snow and had lamed -himself, and they were both making the -best of their way to the house. It was -bad going, the fluttering snow kept constantly -balling in Lorraine’s hoofs. Any -attempt at hurry was out of the question, -so Strange’s thoughts turned, as they always -did in any unhurried moment, on his wife, -and the puzzle they were both dissecting.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>“There is one thing,” he said with a -laugh, “we are not likely to pall on one -another in a hurry, there is nothing in -the least mawkish in our relations, and -we are both of us good-humoured. That -half-amused malice in her radiant face -whenever she catches me watching her!—Was -there ever before such radiance in -any woman’s face? This wife of mine is -superb, and yet I haven’t an atom of -claim to her, except from the law’s brutal -point of view. But the mistake was mine, -I thought it was in all women to be taught -to love, given a decent education, but it -seems there are some who want a special -dispensation to get it driven into them. -What a mystery the whole thing is! And -you try to do your duty, my poor little -girl, groping blindly in the cold outer air -<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>of ignorance, and you think I know nothing -of your unrest and your wild endeavours! -How little you know after all, with all -your big brain! Hallo, there you are—yourself, -on the top of the fence, with -your hair flying! What hair it is! If -you were anyone else,” he shouted, “I -should see visions of colds and swollen -noses; you can laugh and dare anything. -Have you been long out?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She came up panting.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Since two o’clock. I had no idea I could -be moved to enthusiasm for this part of -the world. But this storm has rummaged -out every latent spark in me. Look at -those pines fighting the wind! Oh, oh, -my hat!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Hold Lorraine, I’ll catch it.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen laughed gaily as she watched the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>chase. At first it was even betting between -the two, but in the end Strange brought -it back in triumph.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You can’t catch cold, but don’t you -think the dignity of your position in the -county demands a hat?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“If it wants a hat as disreputable as -this to prop itself up with, it can’t be up -to much! By the way, what a united -couple the servants will think us, what a -striking picture of easy affection!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Strange laughed, but his wife could -have bitten out her tongue. After getting -nearly frozen to the fence in her zeal to -map out her duty, this to be the outcome -of it all!</p> - -<p class='c000'>She began to speak quickly, and her -voice had a curious new little note in it -that interested her husband, and made him -<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>turn his eyes on her more than once. -But she was talking too fast to notice him, -then she had the wind to fight. Besides -all this, wild ideas of touches and such like -began to float about her brain in rather a -frantic way.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She brought herself to reason with a -shake, fortunately perhaps, the time being -hardly fitting to launch out on any new line.</p> - -<p class='c011'>When Gwen was coming down to tea -in a wonderful gown of white velvet with -slashes of crocus yellow, she met Tolly, -now the valet’s young man, carrying off -an armful of Strange’s wet clothes. By -some sudden impulse she stopped and -accosted him.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I hope you will be happy here,” she -said, if the truth must be told, in rather -<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>a shy way, the experience was so new -and shocking.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You must try to keep away from -gin,” she added sagely, “and then you -will be sure to get on well. I know -your master wants you to.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Tolly gave a wild dab at his red mat -of stubble, muttered inarticulately and fled.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, what made me do it, what? That -horror will haunt me for a week. What -is Humphrey made of that he can endure -the constant sight of him? And now I -remember, Mrs. Fellowes told me one day, -he nursed that awful thing for three weeks -once, because it whimpered at the thought -of a hospital. Imagine that mouth, that -nose, that ghastly whole, in delirium, oh -imagine the mere touch of those flabby -paws with their great red knobs—those -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>knobs fascinated me and, ugh! they have -got into my eyes! Without doubt I have -a remarkable man for a husband! I wish, -oh, I wish I had my tea, I am dying -for it, I think I must be tired.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She sank down into a big chair and -put her feet out to catch the heat, then -she put her hands up and set to to rub her -eyes, in a foolish futile effort to clear her -whirling brain, and then Strange and the -tea came in.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I have seen Tolly,” she said, giving -him some tea.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“In that gown?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Yes.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, that’s good, it may awaken some -sense of religion in the beggar. I have -experimented on him with every variety -of church, and with a most mixed assortment -<span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>of parsons, without the slightest -effect, but there is a certain divinity about -you in that gown that may appeal to the -fellow—be the thin edge of the wedge, -and lead to higher things. It would be -a new <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</span></i> for you to pose in, Gwen, as -an instrument of grace.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I think I should do better as an -instrument of wrath,” she said, with rather -a strained smile; she felt a sudden impulse -of loathing against what Strange called -her “divinity.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It is one of the things which keeps -me so remote, so absolutely aloof,” she -thought hurriedly, “what do women -want with divinity or any other superhuman -attribute? I believe Rossetti -must have thought of me for his -‘Lilith’.”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>She stood up half absently and looked -into a mirror near at hand, then she -moved away suddenly with sneering lips -and a quick flush.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“That’s not the fire!” her husband -thought, “Oh Lord, what’s up now?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>After a few minutes she went slowly -over to the piano, and began to play in -a vague fitful way. Her husband dropped -the paper he had taken up, and listened. -It struck him that her playing had altered, -it used to be mechanical and rather expressionless, -no one could accuse it of want -of expression to-night, even if the expression -did limit itself to anger and unrest.</p> - -<p class='c000'>After a time she stopped playing, with -one dissatisfied, disordered chord, then there -was a little pause which she broke by -singing, first softly and half humming, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>then she seemed to awaken with a start, -and she sang on, song after song, with a -sort of excited vehemence. Her voice -was a low contralto, there was not a -sharp nor a hard tone in it, but there -were some strong harsh ones, like the -groans of men, and some deep guttural -ones, like the sighs of women; there was -no passion in her voice, but it was full -of consuming soft tumults of vague sad -unrest.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“This is rather a pleasanter modification -of her first storms!” thought Strange. -“What possibilities there are in that voice, -I wonder what would happen if I went -over and tried to kiss that dead woman -into life! Pygmalion’s task was a fool to -mine, what’s marble to an undeveloped -woman!”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>He stood behind her and joined in -with her song, his bass to her contralto. -The combination gave one rather a shock -at first, but it grew fascinating as they -went on.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Gwen stopped suddenly in the middle -of a song.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I could not have believed our two -voices could ever mix and make completeness.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“It is a ‘sport’.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I like explicable things best,” she said, -peering out into the semi-gloom.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You go about with a scalpel in your -brain, Gwen! What a thing it is to come -of scientific stock!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, it’s a diabolical thing for a woman!” -said Gwen.</p> - -<p class='c000'>She shut the piano up softly—she never -<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>by any chance banged things—and went -upstairs to dress.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I shall wear that silk that looks like -flesh,” she said.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I put it away your ladyship, you said -you did not like it.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“If you could get at it quite easily, I -should like to wear it to-night.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“That dress suggests good sound flesh -and blood, with no remote divinity about -it,” she thought. “Oh, I wish I could -let things be, and stop poking about among -mysteries. I will touch him to-night, yes, -I will. I wonder—I wonder—if I can -possibly muster up strength for a kiss.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span> - <h2 class='c007'>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='sc'>Mrs. Fellowes</span>, meanwhile, was having -a most unsatisfactory time with the Park -people; it seemed absolutely impossible to -dig into them or to be of any service to -them. They were wearing her to skin and -bone, and she was meditating a change -somewhere or other, when one day, -crossing the hall just after lunch, she -heard a knock at the door and opened it -herself.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>She found Mr. and Mrs. Waring standing -in their normal attitude and looking frightfully -embarrassed; she saw at a glance that -they looked queerer than usual, and not -feeling equal just at that minute to face -them alone, she carried them straight off -to the dining-room.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, the <em>Nineteenth Century</em>, I perceive,” -said Mr. Waring as soon as he -found himself in a chair, with his hat -grasped in one hand and the other on the -edge of his knee with the fingers stretched -out and feeling nervously in a baulked -way.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“In that last article of St. George -Mivart’s,” continued Mr. Waring, “we -find a marked evidence of the deteriorating -effect of any special bias on a man’s mind. -If this man were not an ardent churchman -<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>of the Romish persuasion I have always -thought he might have done well in literary -science, but as it is—it seems to me he -has so much confused the thread of his -discourse as to render it comparatively -valueless by weaving into it, with most conscientious -persistence, stray fragments of -the deductions he has drawn from his own -crude creed. This demands, on the reader’s -part, a searching, sifting process, which the -intrinsic value of the gentleman’s articles -to my mind hardly warrants.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, you like your science neat,” said -the rector, “so possibly might I, if I had -time to collect my own facts.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, but for work that must last, time -and an undivided mind are necessities, no -matter what the cause may be that clouds -the brain.”</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>He looked at his wife, and his floating, -near-sighted eyes grew dim with tender -pain, and the tendril-like movement of -his fingers increased.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He forgot St. George Mivart, and all -at once it occurred to him why he had -come.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Poor old boy, his punishment is horribly -out of proportion to his deserts,” thought -the rector, as, in the pause that followed, -he caught snatches of the low-toned talk -of the women, with Gwen’s name entering -largely into it, and saw Mrs. Waring’s face -fixed on his own wife with pathetic shy -yearning, not veering round to her husband -with covert eagerness, as it used -to do.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mr. Fellowes caught himself echoing -the other husband’s sigh, and he laughed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>as the absurdity of the situation struck him.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“This must be stopped,” he thought, -“it grows mawkish. I wonder if they -have forgotten to feed—more than likely. -Ruth, have you asked Mrs. Waring if she -has lunched?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Indeed I haven’t!” she cried, “I -don’t know what I can have been thinking -about.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Oh, please, Mrs. Fellowes,” stammered -the little woman, then her eyes turned -towards their magnet.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mr. Waring was at her side and with -her hand in his, with a speed that made -Mrs. Fellowes gasp.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“The fact is, Mrs. Fellowes,” he explained -heroically, “we were both a -little forgetful, we—we—” he paused -painfully and gulped. “Ah!——I”—</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>He repented the word sadly, it was -the first time his conscience had forced -him to separate the two, and it hurt him. -“Yes, I was much absorbed in my work—and -my wife, I think she is not very well.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I am quite well, dear,” she murmured.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Ah, dearest, I doubt it. I thought -some quinine might be beneficial, Mrs. -Fellowes. In fact, that was the primary -motive of our call.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Give her some claret for the present, -and make her eat something, wine and -meat are as good as quinine any day.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Waring was the most docile creature -breathing, she swallowed obediently everything -set before her, when suddenly a -little tremble ran all down her and shook -her gently, and she let her fork drop with -a little clash.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>She had caught sight just over the -sideboard of one of Brydon’s sketches -of Gwen, that she had sent Mrs. Fellowes.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Her husband had not seen the picture, -so he only pressed her knife hand gently, -and murmured, “Nerves!”</p> - -<p class='c000'>She went back obediently to her meal, -and if they had given her the whole of -a chicken and a quart of claret, she would -have swallowed both without a murmur, -so long as they let her get finished and -go close up to that picture.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mr. Waring’s meal, on the contrary, was -very interesting to him, and he enjoyed it -with a zest that set him playing at a -quite new and charming departure in classification. -A graceful pretty house-mother -moving on the field of his vision, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>supplying every unspoken want of his, was -a pleasing variation.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“A charming type, this serving woman,” -he reflected, regarding her with gentle -favour, “charming. By no means a unique -or even an unusual one, but really quite -charming and pleasant to observe. In that -woman the maternal instinct will be found -in a very advanced state of development—and -yet, if I recollect aright,” he started, -frowning, and pausing, with a morsel of -meat on his fork, he contemplated her -curiously, “Yes, I believe my recollections -are accurate, she has never had any children -and probably, after this lapse of -time, will not produce any. Very strange -indeed, very strange, another of those -most puzzling instances of Nature’s waste.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He sighed and reflected a little on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>Mrs. Fellowes as she helped his wife to -cream, then he went rather sadly to his -tart, feeling a slight tinge of contempt -for Nature’s inconsistency.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When Mrs. Waring had consumed as -much nourishment as her entertainers -thought fit for her, Mr. Fellowes went -over to the sideboard, unhooked the sketch, -and propped it against the claret jug.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“The colouring is good, isn’t it?” -he said. “Gwen sent it to us last -week.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Waring threw up her head and -looked at the rector’s wife, then her face -flooded with pink, and there came a pain -into her heart that she had never felt before. -For the first time in her seven-and-thirty -years this little woman was jealous.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Gwen gave it!” she repeated. “Henry, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>do you think Gwen would give us -one?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>There was a perceptible choke in her -voice, and she put up her little hand to -her throat with a swift movement.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“My love!” he said in a rather frightened -way, “we could hardly ask our -daughter for such a very valuable present.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I suppose we could not,” she said, -with sweet humility.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“My reasonable, my docile one!” he -thought, with tender satisfaction, “better -a thousand times than any other female -type, serving or otherwise.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He might have felt more disturbed if -he had had the merest ghost of a notion -as to the causes of her humility, which had -less to do with him than he would -altogether have relished. With all this -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>congestion of novel emotion the woman -was losing her pristine transparency.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“What are your plans for the afternoon?” -asked the rector. “You know that even -the ordinary decencies of civilization have -to be shunted in a parson’s life, I must -be off in five minutes. Are you on for a -walk, Waring?”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I!—Oh, thank you, but, we—I—we—” -he caught nervously on to his wife’s eyes, -“we—we are very much engaged just -now. We just called concerning this matter -of quinine, and we have already absorbed -too much of your time; untimely visitors -are a keen trial—my wife and I have -suffered much from this form of affliction.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>The rector laughed.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Visitors are a brutal bane, ninety -per cent. of them, but you two are most -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>marked exceptions. We can go as far -as the Park, anyway, for that is on my -way, and I know my wife has designs -on yours—you won’t get her back -much before dinner time.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mr. Waring turned round with a start.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Is this the case?” he asked blankly.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I would like to stay,” said Mrs. Waring -softly, but she hung her head and did not -look at her husband.</p> - -<p class='c000'>He looked at her, however, and his -brows lifted themselves. He turned with -solemnity to Mrs. Fellowes.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Pray consider this question of quinine,” -he said, “and let us know the result—our -experience is quite insufficient -to go on.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“You are quite welcome to all mine,” -said Mrs. Fellowes laughing.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>He turned to his wife again. “Good-bye, -my love. I hope I shall be able to get -on with my work, but—ahem—this upsets -one sadly.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Fellowes went to her husband in -the hall just then and they were alone.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“This is quite unusual, love—are you -wise to remain?” he said.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Waring’s eyes wandered to Gwen’s -picture.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I would like to stay,” she said, then -suddenly she bent towards him and the -pink deepened on her cheeks, “but I will -go if you like.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>“I wish you to do just as you like -yourself, love.”</p> - -<p class='c000'>He loosed his hand gently from her clasp -and followed Mrs. Fellowes into the hall, -his fingers twitching.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>In an instant she was after him and -making for her hat when Mrs. Fellowes -caught her.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“Come to the door and see them off,” -she remarked innocently, drawing her arm -through her own.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When she had seen them off the premises, -Mrs. Fellowes shut her guest up -with the picture and went to dress, then -she scurried her off to the village, where -they spent a rather remarkable two hours.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Fellowes’ companion was first discovered -by an urchin who was making -mud pies in a gutter. At the first shock -of his find, he gave a whoop and turned -a summersault back into the dust, then he -uplifted himself and fled with the news, -despatching scouts to right and left on -his progress.</p> - -<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>When the ladies reached the village -they found it all agog, every door was -full of faces, and the howls of scrubbing -infancy arose from every yard.</p> - -<p class='c000'>Mrs. Waring looked shy and twitched -a good deal, but on the whole she bore -herself gallantly.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The mothers embarrassed her, they -seemed to expect conversation, and this -was even the case with the children; -she could just smile at them, however, -and be silent. It was among the babies -she shone, not, indeed, in her mode of holding -them—she did that with her fingers, -delicately, as if they were pens—but she -got so eager over them, so full of interest, -asked so many anxious questions as to -their appetites, and gave such amazing -hints concerning their management that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>she made an impression on the village -such as astonished the oldest inhabitant, -and set the women’s tongues wagging at -a rate to surprise even their husbands.</p> - -<p class='c000'>It was an event, an epoch-making day -in the village of Waring, when the squire’s -wife stepped in bodily presence in and -out of its houses, and disseminated useful -knowledge concerning the human infant.</p> - -<p class='c000'>When Gwen heard of it, in the same -letter that told her to send her mother a -sketch of herself without delay, she -laughed sarcastically.</p> - -<p class='c000'>“This is dishonest of Mrs. Fellowes!” -she cried with a little stamp, “how dare -she make all this fresh phase of lunacy -into a pathetic story? There is a ring of -false sentiment through the whole business.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>END OF VOL. II.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>Messrs. HUTCHINSON & Co’s.<br /> <br />LIBRARY EDITION <span class='fss'>OF</span> POPULAR NOVELS<br /> <br />BY AUTHORS OF THE DAY.</h2> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>In cloth, gilt top, 2s. 6d. each.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c011'><i>The Guardian</i> says:—Messrs. <span class='sc'>Hutchinson’s</span> Popular Library is really a most -promising and remarkable sign of the times. Here we have the old-established -novel docked of its superfluous spaces and margins, and offered to the reader -neatly bound, nicely printed, comfortable to handle, with plenty of matter and -interest, and all for the modest sum of 2s. 6d.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><i>BY MRS. RIDDELL.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>Austin Friars.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Too Much Alone.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The Rich Husband.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Maxwell Drewitt.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Far above Rubies.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>A Life’s Assize.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The World in the Church.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Home, Sweet Home.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Phemie Keller.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The Race for Wealth.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The Earl’s Promise.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Mortomley’s Estate.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Frank Sinclair’s Wife.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The Ruling Passion.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>My First and My Last Love.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>City and Suburb.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Above Suspicion.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Joy after Sorrow.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY FLORENCE MARRYAT.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>Miss Harrington’s Husband.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Mount Eden.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Gerald Estcourt.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Love’s Conflict.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Too Good for Him.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Woman against Woman.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>For Ever and Ever.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Nelly Brooke.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Veronique.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Her Lord and Master.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The Prey of the Gods.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The Girls of Feversham.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Mad Dumaresq.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>No Intentions.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Petronel.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY JOSEPH HATTON.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>A Modern Ulysses.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>By Order of the Czar.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Clytie.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The Tallants of Barton.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>In the Lap of Fortune.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The Valley of Poppies.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Not in Society.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Christopher Kenrick.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Cruel London.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The Queen of Bohemia.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Bitter Sweets.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY J. SHERIDAN LEFANU.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>Checkmate.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>All in the Dark.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Guy Deverell.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The Rose and the Key.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Tenants of Mallory.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Willing to Die.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Wylder’s Hand.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY F. W. ROBINSON.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>Christie’s Faith.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Carry’s Confession.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Under the Spell.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>The House of Elmore.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Milly’s Hero.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Mr. Stewart’s Intentions.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>No Man’s Friend.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Wild Flowers.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Poor Humanity.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Owen, a Waif.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Woodleigh.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>A Woman’s Ransom.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Mattie, a Stray.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Slaves of the Ring.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>One and Twenty.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY G. A. SALA.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>Quite Alone.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY HELEN MATHERS.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>Sam’s Sweetheart.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY SIDNEY S. HARRIS.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>The Sutherlands.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Rutledge.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Christine.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY ANNIE THOMAS.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>On Guard.</b></div> - <div class='line'><b>Walter Goring.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY M. BETHAM EDWARDS.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>Love and Mirage.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY IZA DUFFUS HARDY.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>The Girl he did not Marry.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY JOHN COLEMAN.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>The White Ladye of Rosemount.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY COLONEL WALMSLEY.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>Branksome Dene.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY SIR JULIUS VOGEL, K.C.M.G.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><b>A. D. 2000; or, Woman’s Destiny.</b></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO., 34 Paternoster Row.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>SELECTIONS FROM</div> - <div class='c004'>MESSRS. HUTCHINSON’S LIST.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY W. L. REES.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>The Life and Times of Sir George Grey.</b></span> -K.C.B. By <span class='sc'>W. L. Rees</span>. With Photogravure Portraits. In -demy 8vo. buckram gilt, 2 vols. 32/-. and in one vol. 12/-.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The <i>Daily Telegraph</i> (Leader) says:—“A work of extraordinary interest.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY DOUGLAS SLADEN.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>The Japs at Home.</b></span> With over 50 Full-Page -and other Illustrations. Third edition. In demy 8vo. cloth, 6/-.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The <i>Times</i> says:—“His notes and impressions make capital reading, and we -feel on closing the volume that it is not a bad substitute for a visit to Japan.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY GILBERT PARKER.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>Round the Compass in Australia.</b></span> Demy -8vo. cloth gilt, fully illustrated, 3/6.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i> says:—“Mr. <span class='sc'>Parker</span> may fairly claim to have produced -one of the most readable of recent works on Australia.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY MRS. OLIPHANT.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>The Cuckoo in the Nest.</b></span> A Fifth Edition. -With Illustrations by <span class='sc'>G. H. Edwards</span>. In crown 8vo. cloth gilt, 6<i>s.</i></p> - -<p class='c000'>The <i>Athenæum</i> says:—“Mrs. Oliphant’s most successful novel.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY F. FRANKFORT MOORE.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>“I Forbid the Banns.”</b></span> The Story of a Comedy -which was played seriously. Sixth Edition. Cr. 8vo. cloth gilt, 6/-.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The <i>Athenæum</i> says:—“So racy and brilliant a novel.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>By the author of “I FORBID THE BANNS.”</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>Daireen.</b></span> A Novel. Second Edition. In -crown 8vo. cloth gilt, 6/-.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY CLARK RUSSELL.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>The Tragedy of Ida Noble.</b></span> With over -Forty full-page and smaller Illustrations by <span class='sc'>Everard Hopkins</span>. -In crown 8vo. buckram gilt, gilt top, 6/-.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The <i>Times</i> says:—“Mr. <span class='sc'>Clark Russell</span> has never written a better story than -‘The Tragedy of Ida Noble.’”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY AMELIA E. BARR.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>A Singer from the Sea.</b></span> In crown 8vo. -cloth gilt, 5/-.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY ANNIE S. SWAN.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>A Bitter Debt.</b></span> A Tale of the Black Country. -With Illustrations by <span class='sc'>D. Murray Smith</span>. In cr. 8vo., cloth gilt, 5/-.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY B. L. FARJEON.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>The Last Tenant.</b></span> A Novel. In crown -8vo. cloth gilt, 5/-.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The <i>Globe</i> says:—“In ‘The Last Tenant’ Mr. <span class='sc'>B. L. Farjeon</span> shows all his -old skill as a plot-weaver, and all his usual ingenuity in the choice and arrangement -of incidents.... ‘The Last Tenant’ is a capital tale.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY MRS. W. K. CLIFFORD.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>A Wild Proxy.</b></span> By the Author of “Aunt -Anne.” In crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> - -<p class='c000'>The <i>Athenæum</i> says:—“Strikingly original, clever, fresh, cynical, epigrammatic, -stimulating, picturesque.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY DICK DONOVAN.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>From Clue to Capture.</b></span> A Series of Thrilling -Detective Stories. With numerous Illustrations by <span class='sc'>Paul -Hardy</span>. In crown 8vo., cloth gilt, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY TWENTY-FOUR DISTINGUISHED NOVELISTS</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>The Fate of Fenella.</b></span> Fourth Edition. In -crown 8vo., cloth gilt, with over 70 Original Illustrations, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> - -<p class='c013'><span class='sc'>The Authors are:—Helen Mathers, Justin H. M’Carthy, -Mrs. Trollope, A. Conan Doyle, May Crommelin, F. C. Phillips, -“Rita,” Joseph Hatton, Mrs. Lovett Cameron, -Bram Stoker, Florence Marryat, Frank Danby, Mrs. -Edward Kennard, Richard Dowling, Mrs. Hungerford, -Arthur A’Beckett, G. Manville Fenn, Jean Middlemass, -H. W. Lucy, Clo. Graves, F. Anstey, “Tasma,” Clement -Scott, and Adeline Sergeant.</span></p> - -<p class='c000'>The <i>Academy</i> says:—“An ingenious success.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>By the author of “BY ORDER OF THE CZAR.”</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>Under the Great Seal.</b></span> By <span class='sc'>Joseph Hatton</span>, -Third Edition. In crown 8vo. cloth, 3/6.</p> - -<p class='c000'>The <i>Daily Telegraph</i> says:—“This thrilling story, every salient incident is -more or less tragical.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY SEVEN POPULAR AUTHORS.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>Seven Christmas Eves.</b></span> Being the Romance -of a Social Evolution. By <span class='sc'>Clo. Graves</span>, <span class='sc'>B. L. Farjeon</span>, -<span class='sc'>Florence Marryat</span>, <span class='sc'>G. Manville Fenn</span>, <span class='sc'>Mrs. Campbell -Praed</span>, <span class='sc'>Justin Huntly McCarthy</span>, and <span class='sc'>Clement Scott</span>. -With 28 Original Illustrations by <span class='sc'>Dudley Hardy</span>. In cr. 8vo, -cloth gilt, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><i>BY H. B. MARRIOT-WATSON.</i></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c012'><span class='large'><b>The Web of the Spider.</b></span> A Story of New -Zealand Adventure. With Frontispiece by <span class='sc'>Stanley S. Wood</span>. -Cr. 8vo. cloth gilt, 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i></p> - -<p class='c000'>The <i>Times</i> says:—“We are quite unable to give any idea of the thrilling -events.... It is magnificent.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO., <span class='sc'>34 Paternoster Row</span>.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c006'> - <div>Transcriber’s Note</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c011'>This book uses inconsistent spelling and hyphenation, which were retained -in the ebook version. Ditto marks used to represent repeated text have -been replaced with the text that they represent. Some corrections have been made to the text, including -normalizing punctuation. Further corrections are noted below:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>p. <a href='#end'>10</a>: The misery I have to endureit wh servants -> The misery I have to endure with servants</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<pre style='margin-top:6em'> -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YELLOW ASTER VOLUME 2 (OF 3) *** - -This file should be named 63841-h.htm or 63841-h.zip - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/8/4/63841/ - -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. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - 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 will have to check the laws of the country where - you are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - -</pre> -</body> -</html> - |