diff options
| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-25 04:25:58 -0800 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-25 04:25:58 -0800 |
| commit | 443b80894bf5620f5ee898c2df3c26cd1322bc4e (patch) | |
| tree | cf91800af24945fca5538b2c14ba37ab9a3ca9a8 | |
| parent | d6032356b79c0d142588d862b258ec6d33016155 (diff) | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69446-0.txt | 24259 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69446-0.zip | bin | 465916 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69446-h.zip | bin | 2865942 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69446-h/69446-h.htm | 28647 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69446-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 2137107 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69446-h/images/coversmall.jpg | bin | 259910 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/69446-h/images/i_title.jpg | bin | 38995 -> 0 bytes |
10 files changed, 17 insertions, 52906 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a16b44b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69446 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69446) diff --git a/old/69446-0.txt b/old/69446-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 69c54a7..0000000 --- a/old/69446-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,24259 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Massarenes, by Ouida - -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: The Massarenes - -Author: Ouida - -Release Date: November 30, 2022 [eBook #69446] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASSARENES *** - - - - - -THE MASSARENES - - - - - THE - MASSARENES - - BY - OUIDA - - AUTHOR OF “UNDER TWO FLAGS,” “SYRLIN” - - NEW YORK - R. F. FENNO & COMPANY - 112 FIFTH AVENUE - - LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO. - - - - - Copyright, 1897 - BY - R. F. FENNO & COMPANY - - - - - TO - - A BELOVED FRIEND, - - THE LADY HOWARD OF GLOSSOP. - (WINIFRED MARY DE LISLE.) - - - - -NOTICE. - - -In case it may be supposed that the African episode in this book was -suggested by recent events in the Transvaal, I desire to state that it -was written four years before the Jameson raid occurred. - - OUIDA. - - - - -THE MASSARENES. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -“Mouse,” said her husband to Lady Kenilworth, one morning at Homburg, -“do you see that large pale woman over there, with a face like a -crumpled whitey-brown paper bag?” - -Lady Kenilworth looked. - -“Yes,” she said, impatiently. “Yes. Well?--what?--why?” - -“Well, she rolls--she absolutely rolls--wallows--biggest pile ever made -out West.” - -His wife looked again with a little more attention at the large figure -of a lady, superbly clothed, who sat alone under a tree, and had that -desolate air of “not being in it” which betrays the unelect. - -“Nobody discovered her? Nobody taken her up?” she asked, still looking -through her eye-glass. - -“Well, old Khris a little; but Khris can’t get anybody on now. He does -’em more harm than good. He’s dead broke.” - -His wife smiled. - -“They must be new, indeed, if they don’t know that. Would they be rich -enough to buy Vale Royal of Gerald?” - -“Lord, yes; rich enough to buy a hundred Gerrys and Vales Royal. I -know it for a fact from men in the City: they are astonishing--biggest -income in the United States, after Vanderbilt and Pullman.” - -“American, then?” - -“No; made their ‘stiff’ there, and come home to spend it.” - -“Name?” - -“Massarene. Cotton to her if you can. There’s money to be made.” - -“Hush! somebody will hear.” - -Her lord chuckled. - -“Does anybody know these dear souls and their kind for any other reason -than the flimsy? She’s looking your way. You’ll have to introduce -yourself, for she don’t know anybody here. Make Boo fall down and break -her nose in front of her.” - -Boo was a four-year-old angel with lovely black eyes and bright yellow -hair, the second child of the Kenilworth family. Accompanied by one of -her nurses, she was playing near them, with a big rosy bladder tied to -a string. - -“I don’t think the matter so difficult that Boo’s nose need be -sacrificed. At what hotel is this person staying?” - -“At ours.” - -“Oh! Then the thing’s very easy.” - -She nodded and dismissed him. She was on fairly good terms with her -husband, and would make common cause with him when it suited her; but -she could not stand much of his society. She took another prolonged -stare through her eye-glass at the large pale woman, so splendidly -attired, sitting in solitude under the tree, then rose and walked away -in her graceful and nonchalant fashion, with her knot of young men -around her. She was followed by the dreary envious gaze of the lonely -lady whose countenance had been likened to a large whitey-brown paper -bag. - -“If one could but get to know _her_ all the rest would come easy,” -thought that solitary and unhappy outsider, looking longingly after -that pliant and perfect figure with its incomparable air of youth, of -sovereignty, and of indifference. What was the use of having an income -second only to Vanderbilt’s and Pullman’s? - -There are things which cannot be purchased. Manner is chief amongst -them. - -Margaret Massarene was very lonely indeed, as she sat under the big -tree watching the gay, many-colored, animated crowd amongst which there -was not a creature with whom she had even a bowing acquaintance. Her -lord and master, of whom she stood in much awe, was away on business in -Frankfort; her daughter, her only living child, was in India; she was -here because it was the proper place for an aspirant to society to be -in at that season; but of all this multitude of royal people, titled -people, pretty people, idle people, who thronged the alleys and crowded -the hotels, she did not know a single creature. She envied her own maid -who had many acquaintances with other maids and couriers and smart -German sergeants and corporals of cavalry. - -On the previous day she had made also a fatal mistake. As she had -crossed the hall of her own hotel, she had seen a fair small woman, -insignificantly dressed, in a deer-stalker’s hat and a gray ulster, -who was arguing with the cashier about an item in her bill which she -refused to pay: so many kreutzer for ice; ice was always given gratis, -she averred; and she occupied the whole window of the cashier’s bureau -as she spoke, having laid down an umbrella, a packet of newspapers, and -a mackintosh on the shelf. Indignant at being made to wait by such a -shabby little person, Mrs. Massarene pushed her aside. “Folks as has to -count pence shouldn’t come to grand hotels,” she muttered, with more -reason than politeness, elbowing away the shabby fair woman. - -The shabby fair woman turned round and stared, then laughed: the -cashier and the clerk were confounded, and lost their presence of mind. -To the shabby fair woman a man in plain clothes, obviously her servant, -approached, and bowing low said, “If you please, madam, his Imperial -Majesty is at the door.” And the lady who quarreled with a clerk for -half a kreutzer went out of the hall, and mounted besides a gentleman -who was driving himself; one of those gentlemen to whom all the world -doff their hats, yet who, by a singular contradiction, are always -guarded by policemen. - -The Massarene courier, who was always hovering near his mistress in the -vain effort to preserve her from wrongdoing, took her aside. - -“It’s Mrs. Cecil Courcy, madam,” he murmured. “There’s nobody so chic -as Mrs. Cecil Courcy. She’s hand and glove with all them royalties. -Pinching and screwing--oh yes, that she _do_--but then you see, madam, -she _can_ do it.” - -“You won’t tell your master, Gregson?” said Mrs. Massarene in an agony -of penitence. - -Gregson winced at the word “master,” but he answered sincerely, “No, -madam; I won’t tell Mr. Massarene. But if you think that because -they’re high they’re large, you’re very much mistaken. Lord, ma’am, -they’ll pocket the _marrons glacés_ at the _table d’hôte_ and take the -matches away from their bedrooms, but then, you see, ma’am, them as are -swagger can do them things. Mrs. Cecil Courcy might steal the spoons if -she’d a mind to do it!” - -Mrs. Massarene gasped. A great name covering a multitude of small -thefts appalled her simple mind. - -“You can’t mean it, Gregson?” she said with breathless amaze. - -“Indeed, madam, I do,” said the courier, “and that’s why, madam, I -won’t ever go into service with gentlefolks. They’ve got such a lot to -keep up, and so precious little to do it with, that they’re obliged to -pinch and to screw and get three sixpences out of a shilling, as I tell -you, madam.” - -Mrs. Massarene was sad and silent. It was painful to hear one’s own -courier say that he would never take service with “gentlefolk.” One -never likes to see oneself as others see us. - -The poignant horror of that moment as she had seen the imperial wheels -flash and rotate through the flying dust was still fresh in her mind, -and should have prevented her from ever trusting to her own judgment -or forming that judgment from mere appearances. She could still hear -the echo of the mocking voice of that prince whom Kenilworth had -described as “dead broke” saying to her, as he had said more than once -in England: “Not often do you make a mistake; ah no, not often, my very -dear madam, not often; but when you do make one--_eh bien, vous la -faites belle_!” - -Mrs. Massarene sighed heavily as she sat alone under her tree, her -large hands folded on her lap; the lessons of society seemed to her -of an overwhelming difficulty and intricacy. How could she possibly -have guessed that the great Mrs. Cecil Courcy, who gave tea and -bread-and-butter to kings and sang duets with their consorts, was a -little shabby, pale-faced being in a deer-stalker’s hat and a worn gray -ulster who had disputed _in propriâ personâ_ at the cashier’s office -the charge of half a kreutzer on her bill for some iced water? - -As she was thinking these melancholy thoughts and meditating on -the isolation of her greatness, a big rose-colored bladder struck -her a sharp blow on the cheek; and at her involuntary cry of pain -and surprise a little child’s voice said pleadingly, “Oh! begs ’oo -pardon--vewy muss!” - -The rosebud face of Lady Kenilworth’s little daughter was at her knee, -and its prettiness and penitence touched to the quick her warm maternal -heart. - -“My little dear, ’tis nothing at all,” she said, stooping to kiss the -child under its white lace coalscuttle bonnet. Boo submitted to the -caress, though she longed to rub the place kissed by the stranger. - -“It didn’t hurt ’oo, did it?” she asked solicitously, and then she -added in a whisper, “Has ’oo dot any sweeties?” - -For she saw that the lady was kind, and thought her pretty, and in her -four-year-old mind decided to utilize the situation. As it chanced, -Mrs. Massarene, being fond of “sweeties” herself, had some caramels in -a gold bonbon-box, and she pressed them, box and all, into the little -hands in their tiny tan gloves. - -Boo’s beautiful sleepy black eyes grew wide-awake with pleasure. - -“Dat’s a real dold box,” she said, with the fine instincts proper to -one who will have her womanhood in the twentieth century. And slipping -it in her little bosom she ran off with it to regain her nurse. - -Her mother was walking past at the moment with the King of Greece -on one side of her, and the Duc d’Orléans on the other; wise little -Boo kept aloof with her prize. But she knew not, or forgot, that her -mother’s eyes were as the optic organs of the fly which can see all -round at once, and possess twelve thousand facets. - -Ten minutes later, when the king had gone to drink his glasses of water -and Prince Gamelle had gone to breakfast, Lady Kenilworth, leading her -sulky and unwilling Boo by the hand, approached the tree where the lone -lady sat. “You have been too kind to my naughty little girl,” she said -with her sweetest smile. “She must not keep this _bonbonnière_; the -contents are more than enough for a careless little trot who knocks -people about with her balloon.” - -Mrs. Massarene, agitated almost out of speech and sense at the sight -of this radiant apparition which spoke with such condescension to her, -stammered thanks, excuses, protestations in an unintelligible hotchpot -of confused phrases; and let the gold box fall neglected to the ground. - -“The dear pretty baby,” she said entreatingly. “Oh, pray, ma’am, oh, -pray, my lady, do let her have it, such a trifle as it is!” - -“No, indeed I cannot,” said Lady Kenilworth firmly, but still with her -most winning smile, and she added with that graceful abruptness natural -to her, “Do tell me, I am not quite sure, but wasn’t it you who snubbed -Phyllis Courcy so delightfully at the hotel bureau yesterday morning?” - -Mrs. Massarene’s pallid face became purple. - -“Oh, my lady,” she said faintly, “I shall never get over it, such a -mistake as I made! When Mr. Massarene comes to hear of it he’ll be -ready to kill me----” - -“It was quite delightful,” said Lady Kenilworth with decision. -“Nobody ever dares pull her up for her cheese-paring ways. We were -all enchanted. She is a detestable cat, and if she hadn’t that -mezzo-soprano voice she wouldn’t be petted and cossetted at Balmoral -and Berlin and Bernsdorff as she is. She is my aunt by marriage, but I -hate her.” - -“Dear me, my lady,” murmured Mrs. Massarene, doubtful if her ears could -hear aright. “I was ready to sink into my shoes,” she added, “when I -saw her drive away with the Emperor.” - -Lady Kenilworth laughed, a genuine laugh which meant a great number of -things, unexplained to her auditor. Then she nodded; a little pleasant -familiar nod of farewell. - -“We shall meet again. We are at the same hotel. Thanks so much for your -kindness to my naughty pet.” - -And with the enchanting smile she used when she wanted to turn people’s -heads she nodded again, and went on her way, dragging the reluctant Boo -away from the tree and the golden box. - -When she consigned her little daughter to the nurse, Boo’s big black -eyes looked up at her in eloquent reproach. The big black eyes said -what the baby lips did not dare to say: “I did what you told me; I hit -the lady very cleverly as if it was accident, and then you wouldn’t let -me have the pretty box, and you called me naughty!” - -Later, in the nursery, Boo poured out her sorrows to her brother Jack, -who exactly resembled herself with his yellow hair, his big dark eyes, -and his rosebud of a mouth. - -“She telled me to hit the old ’ooman, and then she said I was naughty -’cos I did it, and she tooked away my dold box!” - -“Never mind, Boo. Mammy always lets one in for it. What’d you tell -her of the box for? Don’t never tell mammy nothin’,” said Jack in the -superior wisdom of the masculine sex and ten months greater age. - -Boo sobbed afresh. - -“I didn’t tell her. She seed it through my frock.” - -Jack kissed her. - -“Let’s find old woman, Boo, if we can get out all by ’selves, and we’ll -ask her for the box.” - -Boo’s face cleared. - -“And we’ll tell her mammy telled me to hit her!” - -Jack’s cherub face grew grave. - -“N-n-no. We won’t do that, Boo. Mammy’s a bad ’un to split on.” - -Jack had once overheard this said on the staircase by Lord Kenilworth, -and his own experiences had convinced him of the truth of it. “Mammy -can be cruel nasty,” he added, with great solemnity of aspect and many -painful personal recollections. - -Mrs. Massarene had remained under the tree digesting the water she had -drunk, and the memory of the blunder she had made with regard to Mrs. -Courcy. She ought to have known that there is nothing more perilous -than to judge by appearances, for this is a fact to be learned in -kitchens as well as palaces. But she had not known it, and by not -knowing it had offended a person who went en _intime_ to Balmoral, and -Berlin, and Bernsdorff! - -Half an hour later, when she slowly and sorrowfully walked back through -the gardens of her hotel, to go in to luncheon, two bright cherubic -apparitions came toward her over the grass. - -Walking demurely hand-in-hand, looking the pictures of innocent -infancy, Jack and Boo, having had their twelve o’clock dinner, -dedicated their united genius to the finding and besieging of the old -fat woman. - -“How’s ’oo do?” said Boo very affably, whilst her brother, leaving her -the initiative, pulled his sky-blue Tam o’ Shanter cap off his golden -curls with his best possible manner. - -Their victim was enchanted by their overtures, and forgot that she was -hungry, as these radiant little Gainsborough figures blocked her path. -They were welcome to her as children, but as living portions of the -peerage they were divinities. - -“What’s your name, my pretty dears?” she said, much flattered and -embarrassed. “You’re Lord Kersterholme, aren’t you, sir?” - -“I’m Kers’ham, ’ess. But I’m Jack,” said the boy with the big black -eyes and the yellow locks, cut short over his forehead and falling long -on his shoulders. - -“And your dear little sister, she’s Lady Beatrix Orme?” said Mrs. -Massarene, who had read their names and dates of birth a score of times -in her ‘Burke.’ - -“She’s Boo,” said Jack. - -Boo herself stood with her little nose and chin in the air, and her -mouth pursed contemptuously. She was ready to discharge herself of -scathing ironies on the personal appearance of the questioner, but -she resisted the impulse because to indulge it might endanger the -restoration of the gold box. - -“I am sure you are very fond of your pretty mamma, my dears?” said Mrs. -Massarene, wondering why they thus honored her by standing in her path. - -Boo shut up her rosy mouth and her big eyes till they were three -straight lines of cruel scorn, and was silent. - -Jack hesitated. - -“We’re very fond of Harry,” he said, by way of compromise, and as in -allusion to a substitute. - -“Who is Harry?” asked Mr. Massarene, surprised. - -The children were puzzled. Who was Harry? - -They were used to seeing him perpetually, to playing with him, to -teasing him, to getting everything they wanted out of him; but, as to -who he was, of that they had never thought. - -“He’s in the Guards,” said Jack at last. “The Guards that have the -white tails on their heads, you know, and ride down Portland Place of a -morning.” - -“He belongs to mammy,” said Boo, by way of additional identification; -she was a lovely little fresh dewdrop of childhood only just four years -old, but she had a sparkle of malice and meaning in her tone and her -eyes, of which her brother was innocent. - -“Oh, indeed,” murmured Mrs. Massarene, more and more embarrassed; for -ought she knew, it might be the habit for ladies in the great world to -have an officer of the Guards attached to their service. - -Jack looked critically at the strange lady. “Don’t ’oo know people?” -he asked; this poor old fat woman seemed to him very forlorn and -friendless. - -“I don’t know many people as yet, my lord,” murmured their victim -humbly. - -“Is ’oo a cook or a nurse?” said Jack, with his head on one side, -surveying her with puzzled compassion. - -“My dear little sir!” cried Mrs. Massarene, horrified. “Why, gracious -me! I’m a lady.” - -Jack burst out laughing. “Oh, no, ’oo isn’t,” he said decidedly. -“Ladies don’t say they’s ladies.” - -Boo twitched his hand to remind him of the ultimate object of their -mission. - -Mrs. Massarene had never more cruelly felt how utterly she was “nobody” -at her first Drawing-room, than she felt it now under the merciless -eyes of these chicks. - -Boo pulled Jack’s sleeve. “She won’t give us nothin’ else if ’oo tease -her,” she whispered in his rosy ear. - -Jack shook her off. “P’r’aps we’re rude,” he said remorsefully to his -victim. “We’s sorry if we’ve vexed ’oo.” - -“And does ’oo want the little box mammy gived back to ’oo?” said Boo -desperately, perceiving that her brother would never attack this main -question. - -Over the plain broad flat face of the poor plebian there passed a gleam -of intelligence, and a shadow of disappointment. It was only for sake -of the golden box that these little angels had smilingly blocked her -road! - -She brought out the _bonbonnière_ at once from her pocket. “Pray take -it and keep it, my little lady,” she said to Boo, who required no -second bidding; and after a moment’s hesitation Mrs. Massarene took out -of her purse a new Napoleon. “Would you please, my lord,” she murmured, -pushing the bright coin into Jack’s fingers. - -Jack colored. He was tempted to take the money; he had spent his last -money two days before, and the Napoleon would buy a little cannon -for which his heart pined; a real cannon which would load with real -little shells. But something indefinite in his mind shrank from taking -a stranger’s money. He put his hands behind his back. “Thanks, very -much,” he said resolutely, “but please, no; I’d rather not.” - -She pressed it on him warmly, but he was obstinate. “No, thanks,” he -said twice. “’Oo’s very kind,” he added courteously. “But I don’t know -’oo, and I’d rather not.” And he adhered to his refusal. He could not -have put his sentiment into words, but he had a temper which his sister -had not. - -“’Oo’s very kind,” he said again, to soften his refusal. - -“’Oo’s very kind,” repeated Boo sarcastically, with a little grin and a -mocking curtsey, “and Jack’s a great big goose. Ta-ta!” - -She pulled her brother away, being afraid of the arrival of governess, -nurse, or somebody who might yet again snatch the gold box away from -her. - -“Why didn’t ’oo take the money, Jack?” she said, as they ran -hand-in-hand down the path. - -“I don’t know,” said Jack truthfully. “Somethin’ inside me told me -not.” - -Their forsaken admirer looked after them wistfully. “Fine feathers -don’t make a fine bird o’ me,” she thought sorrowfully. “Even those -babies see I ain’t a lady. I always told William as how it wouldn’t be -no use. I dare say in time they’ll come to us for sake of what they’ll -get, but they won’t never think us aught except the rinsins of the -biler.” - -Lord Kenilworth had been looking idly out of a window of the hotel -across the evergreens after his breakfast of brandy and seltzer and had -seen the little scene in the garden and chuckled as he saw. - -“Shrewd little beggars, gettin’ things out of the fat old woman,” he -thought with approval. “How like they look to their mother; and what -a blessing it is there’s never any doubts as to the _maternity_ of -anybody!” - -He, although not a student of ‘Burke’ like Mrs. Massarene, had opened -that majestic volume once on a rainy day in the library of a country -house, and had looked at his own family record in it, and had seen, -underneath his own title and his father’s, the names of four little -children:-- - - Sons: - (1) John Cecil Victor, Lord Kersterholme. - (2) Gerald George. - (3) Francis Lionel Desmond Edward. - - Daughter: - Beatrix Cicely. - -“Dear little duckies!” he had murmured, biting a cigarette. “Sweet -little babes! Precious little poppets! Damn ’em the whole blooming lot!” - -But he had been quite alone when he had said this: for a man who drank -so much as he did he was always remarkably discreet. What he drank did -not make him garrulous; it made him suspicious and mute. No one had -ever known him allow a word to escape his lips which he would, being -sober, have regretted to have said. How many abstemious persons amongst -us can boast as much? - - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -It was four o’clock on a misty and dark afternoon of the month of March -in London. - -The reception-rooms of a fine house facing Grosvenor Gate were all -lighted by the last modern perfection of rose-shaded electricity. They -were rooms of unusually admirable proportions and size for the city in -which they were situated, and were decorated and filled with all that -modern resources, both in art and in wealth, can obtain. - -Harrenden House, as it was called, had been designed for a rich and -eccentric duke of that name, and occupied by him for a few years, at -the end of which time he had tired of it, had carried all its treasures -elsewhere, and put it up for sale; it had remained unsold and unlet -for a very long period, the price asked being too large even for -millionaires. At last, in the autumn of the previous year, it had been -taken by a person who was much more than a millionaire, though he had -been born in a workhouse and had begun life as a cow-boy. - -The great mansion had nothing whatever of the _parvenu_ about it except -its new owner. Its interior had been arranged in perfect taste by an -unerring master’s hand. The square hall had ancient Italian tapestries, -Italian marbles, Italian mosaics, all of genuine age and extreme -beauty, whilst from its domed cupola a mellowed light streamed down -through painted glass of the fifteenth century, taken from the private -chapel of a Flemish castle. - -The two-winged staircase, broad and massive, had balustrades of oak -which had once been the choir railings of a cathedral in Karinthia, the -silver lamps which hung above these stairs had once illumined religious -services in the Kremlin, and above the central balustrade leaned, -lovely as adolescence, a nude youth with a hawk on his wrist--the work -of Clodion. - -The rest of the mansion was in the same proportions and perfection. No -false note jarred on its harmonies, no doubtful thing intruded a coarse -or common chord. The household were not pushed away into dark cell-like -corners, but had comfortable and airy sleeping-chambers. It was a -palace fit for a Queen of Loves; it was a home made for a young Cæsar -in the first flush of his dreams of Cleopatra. And it belonged actually -to William Massarene, late of Kerosene City, North Dakota, U. S. A., -miner, miller, meat salesman, cattle exporter, railway contractor, -owner of gambling-saloons, and opium dens for the heathen Chinee, and -one of the richest and hardiest-headed men in either hemisphere. - -Nothing was wanting which money could buy--tapestries, ivories, -marbles, bronzes, porcelains, potteries, orchids, palms, roses, silks, -satins, and velvets, were all there in profusion. Powdered lackeys -lolled in the anteroom, dignified men in black stole noiselessly over -carpets soft and elastic as moss; in the tea-room the china was Sèvres -of 1770, and the water boiled in what had once been a gold water-vase -of Leo X.; in the delicious little oval boudoir the walls were entirely -covered with old Saxe plates, and Saxe shepherds and shepherdesses made -groups in all the corners, while a Watteau formed the ceiling; and yet, -amidst these gay and smiling porcelain people of Meissen, who were a -century and a half old, and yet kept the roses on their cheeks and the -laugh on their lips, Margaret Massarene, the mistress of it all, sat in -solitary state and melancholy meditation; a heavy hopelessness staring -in her pale grey eyes, a dreary dejection expressed in the loose -clasp of her fat hands folded on her knee, the fingers now and then -beating a nervous tattoo. What use was it to have the most beautiful -dwelling-house in all London if no one ever beheld its beauties from -one week’s end to another? What use was it to have a regiment of -polished and disdainful servants if there were no visitors of rank for -them to receive? - -Many things are hard in this world; but nothing is harder than to be -ready to prostrate yourself, and be forbidden to do it; to be ready to -eat the bitter pastry which is called humble pie, and yet find no table -at which so much even as this will be offered you. The great world did -not affront them; it did worse, it did not seem to know they existed. - -“Take a big town-house; buy a big country place; ask people; the rest -will all follow of itself,” had said their counsellor and confidant at -the baths of Homburg. They had bought the town-house, and the country -place, but as yet they had found no people to invite to either of -them; and not a soul had as yet called at the magnificent mansion by -Gloucester Gate, although for fifteen days and more its porter had sat -behind open gates; gates of bronze and gold with the Massarene arms, -which the Herald’s College had lately furnished, emblazoned above on -their scroll-work awaiting the coronet which a grateful nation and a -benign Sovereign would, no doubt, ere many years should have passed, -add to them. - -People of course there were by hundreds and thousands, who would have -been only too glad to be bidden to their doors; but they were people of -that common clay with which the Massarenes had finished for ever and -aye. - -There were many families, rich, if not as rich as themselves, and -living in splendor on Clapham Common, near Epping Forest, or out by -Sydenham and Dulwich, who would have willingly been intimate with Mrs. -Massarene as their husbands were with hers in the city. She would have -been content with their fine houses, their good dinners, their solid -wealth, their cordial company. She would have been much more at ease -in their suburban villas amidst their homelier comforts, hearing and -sharing their candid boastfulness of their rise in life. But these -were not the acquaintances which her husband desired. He did not want -commerce, however enriched; he wanted the great world, or what now -represents it, the smart world; and he intended to have that or none. - -And Lady Kenilworth, their Homburg friend, had written a tiny -three-cornered note ten days before, with a mouse in silver on its -paper, which said: “I am in town and am coming to see you. Jack and Boo -send love,” and on this familiar epistle they had built up an Eiffel -Tower of prodigious hope and expectation. But ten days and more had -passed and their correspondent had not yet fulfilled her promise. - -Therefore, amidst all the beauty and splendor of it, the mistress of -the house sat, pale, sullen, despondent, melancholy. She had sat thus -for fifteen days--ever since Parliament had met--and it was all in -vain, in vain. The gold urn bubbled, the shepherds smiled, the orchids -bloomed, the men in black and the men in powder waited in vain, and the -splendid and spacious mansion warmed itself, lighted itself, perfumed -itself in vain. Nobody came. - -She had dropped all her old friends and the new ones were faithless and -few. - -She had been forced by her lord and master to cease her acquaintance -with the wives of aldermen and city magnates and magistrates; -good-natured wealthy women, who had been willing to make her one of -themselves; and the desired successors, the women of the world, were -only conspicuous by their absence. - -She was dressed admirably by a great authority on clothes; but the -dull Venetian red, embroidered with gold thread and slashed with tawny -color, was suited to a Vittoria Accrombona, to a Lucrezia Borgia, and -did not suit at all the large loose form and the pallid insignificant -features of their present wearer. - -When the head cutter of the great Paris house which had turned out that -magnificent gown had ventured to suggest to its chief that such attire -was thrown away on such a face and figure as these, that Oracle had -answered with withering contempt, “_Rien ne va aux gens de leur espèce, -excepté leur tablier d’ouvrière. Et le tablier on ne veut plus porter!_” - -His scorn was unutterable for all “_gens de leur espèce_,” but he did -what he could for them; he let them have exquisite attire and sent them -very long bills. It was not his fault if they never knew how to wear -their clothes; he could not teach them that secret, which only comes by -the magic of nature and breeding. The present wearer of his beautiful -Venetian red and gold gown was laced in until she could scarcely -breathe; her fat hands were covered with beautiful rings; her grey hair -had been washed with gold-colored dye; her broad big feet, which had -stood so many years before cooking stoves and washtubs, were encased -in Venetian red hose of silk and black satin shoes with gold buckles; -her maid had assured her that she looked like a picture but she felt -like a guy, and was made nervous by the Medusa-like gaze of the men in -black who occasionally flitted across her boudoir to attend to a lamp, -contract the valve of the _calorifère_, or lay the afternoon papers cut -and aired by her chair. - -“If only they wouldn’t look at me so!” she thought, piteously. What -must they think of her, sitting alone like this, day after day, week -after week, when the dreary two hours’ drive in the Park was over, -behind the high-stepping horses, which were the envy of all beholders, -but to their owners seemed strange, terrible and dangerous creatures. - -London was full, not with the suffocating fullness indeed of July, but -with the comparative animation which comes into the street with the -meeting of Parliament. - -But not a soul had passed those gates as yet, at least not one as human -souls had of late become classified in the estimation of the dwellers -within them. - -The beautiful rooms seemed to yawn like persons whose mind and whose -time are vacant. The men in black and the men in powder yawned also, -and bore upon their faces the visible expression of that depression and -discontent which were in their bosoms at the sense, ever increasing -in them, that every additional day in the house of people whom nobody -knew, robbed them of caste, injured their prestige, and ruined their -future. - -The mistress of the palace only did not yawn because she was too -agitated, too nervous and disappointed and unhappy to be capable of -such a minor suffering a _ennui_; she was not dull because she was -strung up to a high state of anxious expectation, gradually subsiding, -as day after day went on, to a complete despair. - -They had done all that could be done in the way of getting into -society; they had neglected no means, shunned no humiliation, spared -no expense, refused no subscription, avoided no insult which could -possibly, directly or indirectly, have helped them to enter its charmed -circle, and yet nothing had succeeded. Nobody came, nobody at least out -of that mystic and magic sphere into which they pined and slaved to -force or to insinuate themselves; not one of those, the dust of whose -feet they were ready to kiss, would come up the staircase under the -smiling gaze of Clodion’s young falconer. - -But on this second day of the month of March, when the clocks showed -five of the afternoon, there was a slight movement perceptible in the -rooms of which the suite was visible from the door of the boudoir. The -groom of the chambers, a slender, solemn, erect personage, by name -Winter, came forward with a shade of genuine respect for the first time -shown in his expression and demeanor. - -“Lady Kenilworth asks if you receive, madam?” - -“Why, lord, man! ain’t I in o’ purpose?” said his mistress, in her -agitation and surprise reverting to her natural vernacular; whilst -she rose in vast excitement and unspeakable trepidation, and tumbled -against a stool in her nervousness. - -“I was sure that I should find you at home, so I followed on the heels -of your man,” said a sweet, silvery, impertinent voice, as the fair -young mother of Jack and Boo entered the boudoir, looking at everything -about her in a bird-like way, and with an eye-glass which she did not -want lifted to the bridge of her small and delicate nose. - -“So kind--so kind--so honored,” murmured Mrs. Massarene with -bewilderment and enthusiasm, her pale, flaccid cheeks warm with -pleasure, and her voice tremulous with timidity. - -“Not at all,” murmured Lady Kenilworth absently and vaguely, occupied -with her inspection of the objects round her. She seated herself on a -low chair, and let her glance wander over the walls, the ceiling, the -Meissen china, the Watteau ceiling, and her hostess’s gown. - -“How’s your dear little children, ma’am?” said Mrs. Massarene humbly. - -“Oh, they’re all right, thanks,” said their mother carelessly, her head -thrown back as she gazed up at the Watteau. “It seems very well done,” -she said at last. “Who did it for you? The Bond Street people?” - -“Did what?” said her hostess falteringly, drawing in her breath with a -sudden little gasp to prevent herself from saying “my lady.” - -“The whole thing,” explained her guest, pointing with the handle of her -eye-glass toward the vista of the rooms. - -“The--the--house?” said Mrs. Massarene hesitatingly, still not -understanding. “We bought it--that is, Mr. Massarene bought it--and -Prince Kristof of Karstein was so good as to see to the decorations and -the furniture. The duke had left a-many fixtures.” - -“Prin and Kris?” repeated Lady Kenilworth, hearing imperfectly through -indifference to the subject and attention to the old Saxe around her. -“I never heard of them. Are they a London firm?” - -“Prince Kristof of Karstein,” repeated Mrs. Massarene, distressed to -find the name misunderstood. “He is a great friend of ours. I think -your ladyship saw him with us in Paris last autumn.” - -Lady Kenilworth opened wide her pretty, innocent, impertinent, -forget-me-not colored eyes. - -“What, old Khris? Khris Kar? Did he do it all for you? Oh, I must -run about and look at it all, if he did it!” she said, as she jumped -from her seat, and, without any premiss or permission, began a tour -of the rooms, sweeping swiftly from one thing to another, lingering -momentarily here and there, agile and restless as a squirrel, yet soft -in movement as a swan. She did run about, flitting from one room to -another, studying, appraising, censuring, admiring, all in a rapid and -cursory way, but with that familiarity with what she saw, and that -accurate eye for what was good in it, which the mistress of all these -excellent and beautiful things would live to the end of her years -without acquiring. - -She put up her eye-glass at the pictures, fingered the tapestries, -turned the porcelains upside down to see their marks, flitted from -one thing to another, knew every orchid and odontoglossum by its -seven-leagued name, and only looked disapproval before a Mantegna -exceedingly archaic and black, and a Pietro di Cortona ceiling which -seemed to her florid and doubtful. - -She went from reception-rooms to library, dining-room, conservatories, -with drawing-rooms, morning-rooms, studies, bedchambers, galleries, -bath-rooms, as swift as a swallow and as keen of glance as a falcon, -touching a stuff, eyeing a bit of china, taking up a bibelot, with -just the same pretty pecking action as a chaffinch has in an orchard, -or a pigeon in a bean-field. Everything was really admirable and -genuine. All the while she paid not the slightest attention to the -owner of the house, who followed her anxiously and humbly, not daring -to ask a question, and panting in her tight corset at the speed of her -going, but basking in the sense of her visitor’s rank as a cat basks in -the light and warmth of a coal fire and a fur-lined basket. - -Not a syllable did Lady Kenilworth deign to cast to her in her -breathless scamper through the house. She had some solid knowledge -of value in matters of art, and she begrudged these delicious things -to the woman with the face like a large unbaked loaf and the fat big -hands, as her four-year-old Boo had begrudged the gold box. - -“Really they say there is a Providence above us, but I can’t think -there is, when I am pestered to death by bills, and this creature owns -Harrenden House;” she thought, with those doubts as to the existence -of a deity which always assail people when deity is, as it were, in -the betting against them. She had read an article that morning by -Jules Simon, in which he argued that if the anarchists could be only -persuaded to believe in a future life they would turn their bombs -into bottles of kid reviver and cheerfully black the boots of the -bourgeoisie. But she felt herself that there was something utterly -wrong in a scheme of creation which could bestow Harrenden House on a -Margaret Massarene, and in a Divine Judge who could look on at such -discrepancies of property without disapproval. - -She scarcely said a syllable in her breathless progress over the -building; although the unhappy mistress of Harrenden House pined in -trembling for her verdict, as a poor captain of a company longs for a -word from some great general inspecting his quarters. But when she had -finished her tour of inspection, and consented to take a cup of tea -and a caviare biscuit in the tea-room where the Leo the Tenth urn was -purring, and Mr. Winter and two of his subordinates were looking on in -benign condescension, she said brusquely: - -“_Eh bien, il ne vous a pas volé._” - -Mrs. Massarene had not the most remote idea of what she meant, but -smiled vaguely, and anxiously, hoping the phrase meant praise. - -“He’s given you the value of your money,” Lady Kenilworth explained. -“It’s the finest house in London, and nearly everything in it is good. -The Mantegna is rubbish, as I told you, and if I had been asked I -shouldn’t have put up that Pietro di Cortona. What did Khris make you -pay for it?” - -“I don’t know, I am sure, ma’am,” replied the mistress of the Mantegna -meekly. “William--Mr. Massarene--never tells me the figure of anything.” - -“The Cortona was painted last year in the Avenue de Villiers, I -suspect,” continued Lady Kenilworth. “But all the rest, or nearly all, -is admirable.” - -“It’s a very grand house,” replied its mistress meekly; “but it’s -mighty lonesome-like to be in it, with no company. If all the great -folks you promised, my lady----” - -“I never promised, I never do promise,” said her visitor sharply. -“I can’t take people by their petticoats and coat-tails and drag -them up your stairs. You must get yourself known for something; then -they’ll come. What? Oh, I have no idea. Something. A cook; or a wine; -or a surprise. People like surprises under their dinner napkins. -Or a speciality, any speciality. I knew a person who entirely got -into society by white hares; _civet de lièvre_, you know; but white, -Siberian.” - -Mrs. Massarene gasped. She had a feeling then she was being talked to -in Sanscrit or Welsh and expected to understand it. Why white hares -should be better than brown hares she could not imagine. Nobody ate the -fur. - -“But you was so good as to say when we were in Paris, ma’am----” - -“Never remind me of anything I said. I can’t endure it! I believe you -want to get in the swim, don’t you?” - -“Please, I don’t quite understand, ma’am.” - -Her visitor was silently finishing nibbling at a caviare biscuit -and reflecting what a goose she had been to go to Egypt instead of -utilizing this Massarene vein. She must certainly, she thought, do all -she could for these people. - -“You’re Catholic, aren’t you?” she said abruptly. - -The horror of an Ulster woman spread itself over the flaccid and pallid -clay in which the features of her hostess were moulded. - -“Oh no, my lady, we were never Romans,” she said, so aghast that she -was carried out of herself into the phraseology of her earlier years. -“We were never Romans. How could you think it of us?” - -“It would be better for you if you were,” said Lady Kenilworth -unfeelingly and irreverently. “Catholics are _chic_; and then all the -great Catholic families push a convert unanimously. They’d get a sweep -to all the best houses if he only went often enough to the Oratory.” - -“We’ve always been loyal people,” murmured Mrs. Massarene piteously; -“always Orange as Orange could be.” - -“Loyalty’s nothing,” said Lady Kenilworth, contemptuously eyeing the -beautiful gold urn with the envious appreciation of a dealer’s glance. -“Loyalty don’t ‘take the cake.’ Nobody is afraid of it. It’s all fear -now that we go by----” - -“And gain,” she was about to add but checked the words unuttered. - -“I wish you were Catholic,” she said instead. “It would make everything -so much smoother for you. I suppose you couldn’t change? They’d make it -very easy for you.” - -Margaret Massarene gasped. Life had unfolded many possibilities to her -of which she had never dreamed; but never such a possibility as this. - -“Couldn’t you?” said her guest sharply. “After all, it’s nothing to -do. The Archbishop would see to it all for you. They make it very easy -where there is plenty of money.” - -“I don’t think I could, my lady; it would be eternal punishment for me -in the world to come,” said Mrs. Massarene faintly, whilst her groom of -the chambers restrained a violent inclination to box her on the ears -for the vulgarity of her two last words. - -He had been long trained in the necessary art of banishing from his -countenance every ray of expression, every shadow of indication that -he overheard what was said around him, but nature for once prevailed -over training; deep and unutterable disgust was spoken on his bland -yet austere features. Eternal punishment! did the creature think that -Harrenden House was a Methody chapel? - -As for Lady Kenilworth, she went into a long and joyous peal of -laughter; laughed till the tears brimmed over in her pretty ingenuous -turquoise-colored eyes. - -“Oh, my good woman,” she said, as soon as she could speak, -good-humoredly and contemptuously, “you don’t mean to say that you -believe in eternal punishment? What is the use of getting old Khris -to furnish for you and ask me to show you the way about, if you weigh -yourself down with such an old-fashioned funny packful of antiquated -ideas as that? You must not say such things really; you will never get -on amongst us if you do.” - -The countenance of Margaret Massarene grew piteous to behold; she was -a feeble woman, but obstinate; she was ready to sell her soul to “get -on,” but the ghastly terrors inculcated to her in her childhood were -too strongly embedded in her timid and apprehensive nature to leave her -a free agent. - -“Anything else, ma’am--anything else,” she murmured wretchedly. “But -not Romanism, not Papistry. You don’t know what it means to me, you -don’t indeed.” - -Lady Kenilworth shrugged her shoulders and got up from the tea-table. - -“I always said,” she observed slightingly, “that the Orange people were -the real difficulty in Ireland. There would never have been any trouble -without them.” - -“But you are not a Papist yourself, my lady?” asked Mrs. Massarene with -trembling accents. - -“Oh, I? no,” said the pretty young woman with the same contemptuous and -indifferent tone. “We can’t change. We must stick to the mast--fall -with the colors--die in the breach--all that kind of thing. We can’t -turn and twist about. But you new people can, and you are geese if you -don’t. You want to get in the swim. Well, if you’re wise you’ll take -the first swimming-belt that you can get. But do just as you like, -it does not matter to me. I am afraid I must go now, I have half a -hundred things to do.” - -She glanced at the watch in her bracelet and drew up her feather boa to -her throat. Tears rose to the pale gray eyes of her hostess. - -“Pray don’t be offended with me, my lady,” she said timidly. “I hoped, -I thought, perhaps you’d be so very kind and condescending as to tell -me what to do; things bewilder me, and nobody comes. Couldn’t you spare -me a minute more in the boudoir yonder? where these men won’t hear us,” -she added in a whisper. - -She could not emulate her guest’s patrician indifference to the -presence of the men in black; it seemed to her quite frightful to -discuss religious and social matters beneath the stony glare of -Mr. Winter and his colleagues. But Lady Kenilworth could not share -or indulge such sentiments, nor would she consent to take any such -precautions. - -She seated herself where she had been before by the tea-table, her -eyes always fascinated by the Leo the Tenth urn. She took a bonbon and -nibbled it prettily, as a squirrel may nibble a filbert. - -“Tell me what you want,” she said bluntly; she was often blunt, but she -was always graceful. - -Margaret Massarene glanced uneasily at Winter and his subordinates, and -wished that she could have dared to order them out of earshot, as she -would have done with a red-armed and red-haired maid-of-all-work who -had marked her first stage on the steep slopes of “gentility.” - -“You told us at Homburg, my lady----” she began timidly. - -“Don’t say ‘my lady,’ whatever you do.” - -“I beg your pardon, my--yes, ma’am--no ma’am--I beg pardon--you were -so good as to tell William and me at the baths that you would help us -to get on in London if we took a big house and bought that place in -Woldshire. We’ve done both them things, but we don’t get on; nobody -comes nigh us here nor there.” - -She heaved a heart-broken sigh which lifted and depressed the gold -embroideries on her ample bosom. - -Lady Kenilworth smiled unsympathetically. - -“What can you expect, my good woman?” she murmured. “People don’t call -on people whom they don’t know; and you don’t know anybody except my -husband and old Khris and myself.” - -It was only too true. Mrs. Massarene sighed. - -“But I thought as how your la--, as how you would be so very, very good -as to----” - -“I am not a bear-leader,” said Lady Kenilworth with hauteur. Mrs. -Massarene was as helpless and as flurried as a fish landed on a grassy -bank with a barbed hook through its gills. There was a long and to her -a torturing silence. The water hissed gently, like a purring cat, in -the vase of Leo the Tenth, and Mouse Kenilworth looked at it as a woman -of Egypt may have gazed at a statue of Pascht. - -It seemed a visible symbol of the immense wealth of these Massarene -people, of all the advantages which she herself might derive therefrom, -of the unwisdom of allowing their tutelage to lapse into other hands -than theirs. If she did not launch them on the tide of fashion others -would do so, and others would gain by it all that she would lose by -not doing it. She was a woman well-born and well-bred, and proud by -temperament and by habit, and the part she was moved to play was -disagreeable to her, even odious. But it was yet one which in a way -allured her, which drew her by her necessities against her will; and -the golden water-vase seemed to say to her with the voice of a deity, -“Gold is the only power left in life.” She herself commanded all other -charms and sorceries; but she did not command that. - -She was silent some moments whilst the pale eyes of her hostess watched -her piteously and pleadingly. - -She felt that she had made a mistake, but she did not know what it was -nor how to rectify it. - -“I beg pardon, ma’am,” she said humbly; “I understood you to say as how -you would introduce me to your family and friends in town and in the -country. I didn’t mean any offence--indeed, indeed, I didn’t.” - -“And none is taken,” said Lady Kenilworth graciously, thinking to -herself, “One must suit oneself to one’s company. That’s how they -talk, I believe, in the servants’ hall, where she ought to be.” - -Aloud she continued: - -“You see, whatever one says at Homburg, or indeed anywhere at all out -of England, does not count _in_ England: that is understood everywhere -by everybody.” - -“Really,” murmured Mrs. Massarene, confused and crestfallen: for it had -been on the faith of this fair lady’s promises and predictions in the -past summer that Harrenden House and Vale Royal had been purchased. - -“Of course,” said Lady Kenilworth rather tartly, still looking at the -gold water-vase, which exercised a strange fascination over her, as if -it were a fetish which she was compelled, _nolens volens_, to worship. -“Only imagine what a mob we should have round us at home if everyone we -were civil to in Nice and Florence and Homburg and Ostend, and all the -other places, could take us seriously and expect to be invited by us -_here_. It would be frightful.” - -Margaret Massarene sighed: existence seemed to her complicated and -difficult to an extent which she could never have credited in the days -when she had carried her milking-pails to and from the rich grass -meadows of her old home in Ulster. In those remote and simple days -“I’ll be glad to see you” meant “I shall be glad,” and when you ate out -of your neighbor’s potato bowl, your neighbor had a natural right to -eat in return out of yours--a right never disavowed. But in the great -world these rules of veracity and reciprocity seemed unknown. Lady -Kenilworth sat lost in thought some moments, playing with the ends of -her feather boa and thinking whether the game were worth the candle. It -would be such a dreadful bore! - -Then there came before her mind’s eyes the sum total of many unpaid -bills, and the vision of that infinite sweetness which lies in renewed -and unlimited credit. - -“You want to be _lancée_?” she said at last in her brusque yet graceful -manner suddenly, as she withdrew her gaze from the tea-table, “Well, -sometimes to succeed socially is very easy and sometimes it is very -difficult--for new people very difficult. Society is always uncertain. -It acts on no fixed principles. It keeps out A. and lets in B., and -couldn’t possibly say why it does either. Your money alone won’t help -you. There are such swarms of rich persons, and everybody who gets rich -wants the same thing. You are, I believe, enormously rich, but there -are a good many enormously rich. The world is in a queer state; ninety -out of a hundred have nothing but debts, the other ten are gorged on -money, gorged; it is very queer. Something is wrong. The sense of -proportion has gone out of life altogether. You want, you say, to know -people. Well, I can let you see them; you can come and meet them at my -house; but I can’t make them take you up if they won’t do it.” - -Mrs. Massarene sighed. She dared not say so, but she thought--of what -use had been all the sums flung away at this lovely lady’s bidding in -the previous autumn? - -“It is no use to waste time on the idiot,” reflected her visitor. “She -don’t understand a word one says, and she thinks they can buy Society -as if it were a penny bun. Old Billy’s sharper; I wonder he had not the -sense to divorce her in the States, or wherever they come from.” - -“Where’s your man?” she said impatiently. - -“William’s in the City, my lady,” answered Mrs. Massarene proudly. -“William, ma’am, is very much thought of in the City.” - -“He’s on lots of things, I suppose?” - -After some moments’ puzzled reflection his wife replied, “Meaning -Boards, ma’am? Yes, he is. They seem they can’t do without him. William -had always a wonderful head for business.” - -“Ah!” said Lady Kenilworth. “He must put Cocky on some good things. My -husband, you know. Everything is done by companies nowadays. Even the -Derby favorite is owned by a syndicate. Tell him to put Lord Kenilworth -on all his good things, and not to mind if he’s unpunctual. Lord -Kenilworth never can understand why half-past two isn’t the same hour -as twelve.” - -“That won’t do in business, my lady,” said Mrs. Massarene boldly, -for here she was sure of her ground. “Five minutes late writes ruin -sometimes.” - -“Does it indeed? I suppose that’s what makes it so fetching. I am sure -it would do Cocky worlds of good; wake him up; give him things to think -of.” - -“Is my lord a business man, ma’am?” said Mrs. Massarene, with great -doubt in her tone. - -“Oh, they all are now, you know. Cocky’s very lazy, but he’s very -clever.” - -“My lord don’t want to be clever; he’ll be duke,” said Mrs. Massarene, -intending no sarcasm. “I can’t think, ma’am, as your noble husband -would like to toil and moil in the City.” - -“No--no; but to be on things, you know,” answered her visitor vaguely. -“You send Mr. Massarene to me and we’ll talk about it. He mustn’t mind -if Lord Kenilworth only gives his name and never shows.” - -Mrs. Massarene’s was a slow brain and a dull one, but she was not -really stupid; in some matters she was shrewd, and she began dimly to -perceive what was expected of her and her William, and what _quid pro -quo_ would be demanded by this lovely lady who had the keys of society -if she used any of these keys in their favor; she had had glimmerings -of this before, but it had never presented itself before her so clearly -as now. She had sense enough, however, to keep the discovery to -herself. “I’ll tell Mr. Massarene, ma’am,” she said meekly, “and I know -he’ll be very proud to wait on you. Shall it be to-morrow?” - -“Yes; to-morrow, before luncheon. About half-past twelve.” - -“I won’t forget, ma’am.” - -“And I’ll come and dine with you next week. I’ll bring some people, my -sisters; they won’t mind, Carrie certainly won’t. Lady Wisbeach, you -know. What day? Oh, I don’t know. I must go home and look at my book. -I think there is something of no importance that I can throw over next -week.” - -“And how many will be there at dinner, ma’am,” asked Mrs. Massarene, -feeling hot all over, as she would have expressed it, at the prospect -of this banquet. - -“Oh, well, I can’t say. I’ll see who will come. You have a very good -_chef_, haven’t you? If not I could get you Van Holstein’s. You know -when people are well fed once they’ll come to be fed again, and they -tell others.” - -“Just like fowls,” murmured Mrs. Massarene, her mind reverting to the -poultry yard of her youth, with the hens running over and upsetting -each other in their haste to get to the meal-pan. - -She was sensible of an awakening interest of a warmer tinge in the -manner of her protectress, since the subject of good things in the City -had been broached. - -“You mustn’t want to go too fast at once,” continued that fair lady. -“It’s like cycling. You’ll wobble about and get a good many falls at -first. But you’ve begun well. You’ve a beautiful house, and you have -my cousin’s place, in the heart of a hunting county. Several of the -county people have asked me about the purchaser of Vale Royal, and I -have always said something nice about you both. You know I have been -four months on the Nile, and one sees the whole world there; such a -climate as this is to return to after Egypt! Why weren’t you in Egypt? -Oh, I forgot; your man’s member for Limehouse, isn’t he? I wonder the -party hasn’t done more for you. But, you see, money alone, unless there -is tact---- Well, I dare say I can’t make you understand if I talk till -doomsday; I have two or three people the night after to-morrow. I will -send you a card. And, by the way, you had better tell Khris to call on -me if he be in town. I will talk over with him what we can do for you.” - -Mr. Winter, standing within earshot, at a discreet distance, to -all appearance as bereft of sight and hearing, and impervious as a -statue to all sight and sounds, lost not a syllable uttered by Lady -Kenilworth, and approved of all. “It is clever of her,” he thought, “to -be ready to go halves in the spoils with that old prince. Meet him half -way, she does; mighty clever that; she’ll cut his claws and draw his -teeth. She’s a lady of the right sort, she is. If she weren’t quite so -clever she’d have him jealous of him and have made an enemy of him at -the onset.” - -His employer meantime was exhausting her somewhat limited vocabulary -in agitated thanks and protestations of undying gratitude which Lady -Kenilworth nipped in the bud by giving her two fingers chillily and -hurrying away, her farewell glance being cast at the golden water-vase. - -“Khris a house decorator and I a tout! How very dreadful it is! But -hard times make strange trades,” thought the young mother of Jack and -Boo, as she sank down on the soft seat of her little brougham, and was -borne swiftly away to other houses, as the lamps begun to shine through -the foggy evening air. - - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -Mrs. Massarene had conducted her visitor with great obsequiousness to -the head of the staircase, and would have gone down the stairs with her -had not Lady Kenilworth prevented such a demonstration. - -“My dear creature, pray don’t! One only does that for royalty,” she had -said, while a repressed grin was visible through the impassive masks of -all the footmen’s faces where they stood above and below. - -“How ever is one to know what’s right and what’s wrong,” thought the -mistress of Harrenden House, resting her hands for a moment upon the -carved rail of the balustrade, and eyeing nervously the naked boy of -Clodion. That statue was very terrible to her; “To set a lad without -any scrap o’ clothes on a-beckoning with a bird to everybody as come -upstairs, I can’t think as it’s decent or proper,” she said constantly -to her husband. But a master hand had indicated the top of the -staircase as the proper place for that nude young falconer to stand, in -all his mingled realism and idealization; therefore, no one could be -bold enough to move him elsewhere, and he leaned airily against the old -choir-carving, and wore a fawn-like smile as he tossed his hawk above -his head and stretched his hand outward as though to beckon the crowds, -which would not come, up that silent stair. - -But the crowds were coming now! - -For where Lady Kenilworth pointed, the world would surely follow; and -the heart of simple Margaret Massarene, late Margaret Hogan, dairymaid -of Kilrathy, County Down, beat high in her breast under the red and -gold of her gorgeous bodice. “It’s mighty hard work being a lady,” -she thought, “but since I’ve got to be one, I’d like to go the whole -hog, and show Kathleen when she comes back to us that we are as smart -gentlefolks as any of her friends.” - -When Mr. Massarene came home to dinner that evening, his wife felt that -she had great news to give him. - -“I think she’ll take us up, William,” she said, almost under her -breath. “But I think she’ll want a lot of palm-grease.” - -She was a simple woman, of coarse views and expressions. - -“Whatever my lady wants she shall have,” reflected her husband, but his -heavy brows frowned; for he was a man who did not like even the wife of -his bosom to see into his intentions, and if he were going to buy his -way into that society where his shooting-irons were of no use to him, -he did not care for even the “old ’ooman” to know it. - -But the next day, at one o’clock precisely, he presented himself at the -house in Stanhope Street which the Kenilworths honored by residence. He -looked like an eminently respectable grazier or cheesemonger clothed in -the best that money could buy; a hat, which was oppressively lustrous -and new, was carried in his hand with a pair of new gloves. In his -shirt-sleeves and butcher-boots, with a brace of revolvers in his belt, -as he had sworn at his platelayers, or his diggers, or his puddlers, -in the hard bright light of the Dakotan sun, he had been a formidable -and manly figure in keeping with the giant rocks, and the seething -streams, and the rough boulder-strewn roads of the country round him. -But standing in the hall of a London house, clad in London clothes made -by the first tailors, he looked clumsy and absurd, and he knew it. He -was a stolid, sensible, and very bold man; when a railway train in the -early days of the Pacific road had been “held up” by a native gang, -those desperate robbers had found more than their match in him, and -the whole convoy, with the million odd dollars he was carrying in his -breast-pocket, had been saved by his own ready and pitiless courage. -But as he mounted the staircase in Stanhope Street his knees shook and -his tongue clove to his teeth; he felt what actors describe as stage -fright. - -Lady Kenilworth had deigned to know him at Homburg, had put him in the -way of buying Vale Royal of her cousin Roxhall, had dined more than -once at his expense with a noisy gay party who scarcely said good-day -to him, and likewise at his expense had picnicked in the woods and -drunk much more of the best Rhenish wines than were good for them; and -on a smooth stretch of green sward under the pines, that lovely lady -had imitated the dancing of Nini-Patte-en-l’air of the Eden Theatre, -until the “few last sad grey hairs” upon his head had stood erect in -scandalized amazement. She had also dined and supped at his expense -several times with various friends of her own in Paris, in the November -following on the July at Homburg; and she had let him take boxes for -her at the operas and theatres, and had generally used his purse -without seeming to see that it was open for her. But he had exchanged -very few words with her (though he had already through her inspiration -spent a good deal of money), and his stout, squat figure shook like a -leaf as he was ushered into her presence, while her two Blenheims flew -at his trousers with a fugue of barks. - -What a dazzling vision she was, as she smiled on him across the -flower-filled and perfumed space which divided them! She had smiled -like that when she had first spoken to him of buying Vale Royal in -the early days of his acquaintance with her. William Massarene was no -fool, and he knew that he would have to pay its full price for that -enchanting smile, but though he was not its dupe he was its victim. He -was nervous as he had never been when he had heard the order, “Hands -up!” in the solitude of a mountain gorge at midnight amongst the -Rockies. - -The smile was encouraging, but the rest of the attitude was serene, -almost severe, as pure as a Virgin in a tryptich of Van der Goes; -she was at work on some embroidery; she had Boo on a stool at her -feet; she looked an exquisite picture of youthful maternity; he could -scarcely believe that he had seen her cutting those mad capers on the -sward of the German forest, or heard her scream with laughter at the -supper-table of Bignon’s. - -Boo got up on her little black-stockinged legs, ran to him, and looked -at him from under her golden cloud of hair. - -“What has oo brought me?” said the true child of modernity. - -“Do you remember the sweeties at the Baths, my lovely darling?” -stammered Mr. Massarene, immensely touched and gratified at the child’s -recollection of him, and full of remorse that he had not rifled Regent -Street. - -“Boo always remembers her friends,” said Boo’s mother very pleasantly, -as she delivered him from the Blenheims, and made him seat himself -beside her. - -“Old fat man’s come as was at Ombo; but he didn’t bring nothin’ for -us,” said Boo to Jack at the nursery dinner ten minutes later. “Mammy’s -goin’ to get somethin’ ’cos she was so civil to him.” - -“Oo’re always thinkin’ of _gettin’_, Boo,” said Jack, with his rosy -mouth full of mashed potato. - -“What’s the use o’ peoples else?” said his sister solemnly, picking up -the roast mutton which her nurse had cut up into little dice on her -plate. - -Jack pondered awhile upon this question. - -“I likes peoples ’cos I like ’em,” he replied at last. - -“You’re a boy!” returned his sister with withering contempt. - -A week later, Boo’s mother, with a very gay and hilarious round -dozen of friends, including her eldest sister, Lady Wisbeach, dined -at Harrenden House, and the gentleman known as Harry took in Mrs. -Massarene. - -Two weeks later the Massarenes breakfasted in Stanhope Street expressly -to meet an imperial grand duchess who at that time was running about -London; and the grand duchess was very smiling and good-natured, and -chattered volubly, and invited herself to dinner at Harrenden House. - -“They do tell me,” she said graciously, “that you have such a wonderful -Clodion.” - -Three weeks later William Massarene allowed himself to be led into the -purchase of a great Scotch estate of moor, seashore, and morass, in the -extreme northwest of Scotland, which had come to Brancepeth through -his late maternal grandmother, and which had been always considered as -absolutely unsaleable on account of certain conditions attached to its -purchase, and of the fact that it had been for many years ill-preserved -and its sport ruined, the deer having been destroyed by crofters. - -Brancepeth, who was primitive and simple in many of his ideas, had -demurred to the transaction. - -“This beggar don’t know anything about sport,” he said to the -intermediary, Mouse; “’cause he’s buying a deer forest he takes for -granted he’ll find deer. ’Tisn’t fair, you know. One ought to tell him -that he’ll get no more stalking there than he’d get on Woolwich Common.” - -“Why should you tell him anything?” said his friend. “He can ask a -factor, can’t he?” - -“Well, but it would only be honest, you know.” - -“You are odiously ungrateful,” said Mouse with much heat. “I might have -made the man buy Black Alder of us, and I chose to get him to buy your -place instead.” - -Brancepeth made a droll face very like what Jack would make when he -kept in a naughty word for fear of his nurse. He thought to himself -that the fair lady who was rating him knew very well that her share -in the purchase-money of Black Alder, which belonged to her lord, -would have been remarkably small, whilst her share of that of Blair -Airon--but there are some retorts a man who is a gentleman cannot make, -however obvious and merited they may be. - -“Get him to buy ’em both,” he said, tossing cakes to the Blenheims. -“You do what you like with the cad; turn him round your little finger. -One’s just as much a white elephant as t’other, and it’s no use knowing -sweeps unless you make ’em clean your chimneys.” - -“Mr. Massarene is not a cad or a sweep,” said his friend in a tone of -reproof. “He is a very clever man of business.” - -“He must be to have to think of buying Blair Airon!” - -“Probably _he_ will make it productive. Or if he wants big game he’ll -import it from the Rockies, or--or--from somewhere. What he wants is -Scottish land; well, the land is there, isn’t it?” - -She invariably glossed over to herself these transactions which she -knew very well were discreditable, and she was always extremely angry -with those who failed to keep up the glamour of fiction in which she -arrayed them. Conscience she had not, in the full sense of the word, -but she had certain instincts of breeding which made some of her -own actions disagreeable to her, and only supportable if they were -disguised, as a courtly chemist silvered for her the tonic pills which -as courtly a physician prescribed when she, who could ride all day and -dance all night, desired her nervous system to be found in jeopardy. - -“He buys with his eyes open. No one has misrepresented anything,” she -added calmly. “He can send an army of factors to look at the estate -if he pleases. Pray don’t be a fool, Harry; and when your bread is -buttered for you don’t quarrel with it.” - -Harry did as he was bid. - -His principles were not very fine, or very strong, but they were -the instincts of a gentleman. They were smothered under the -unscrupulousness of a woman who had influence over him, as so many -of the best feelings and qualities of men often are. Blair Airon was -sold to William Massarene; and at the same period many tradesmen in -Paris and London who dealt in toilettes, perfumes, jewelry, fans and -_lingerie_ were agreeably surprised by receiving large instalments of -what was due to them from their customer, Lady Kenilworth. To what -better use could barren rocks, and dreary sands, and a dull rambling -old house, which dated from James IV. and stood in the full teeth of -the north wind facing the Orkneys, have possibly been put than to be -thus transmuted into gossamer body linen, and petticoats covered with -real lace, and exquisite essences, and fairy-like shoes, with jewels -worked into their kid, and court trains, with hand-woven embroideries -in gold and silver on their velvet? - -If William Massarene discovered that he had bought a white elephant he -never said so to anyone, and no one ventured to say so to him. All new -men have a mania for buying Scotch shootings, and if there was little -or nothing to shoot at Blair Airon the fact served for a laugh at the -clubs when the purchaser was not present. The purchaser, however, knew -well that there were no deer, and that there was scarce fur or feather -on the barren soil; he had not bought without first “prospecting”; he -was too old a hand at such matters. But he had turned a deaf ear to -those in his interests who had drawn his attention to the fact, and he -had signed and sealed the transfer of the estate to himself without a -protest. - -Nobody in North Dakota it is true could ever have cheated him out -of a red deer or a red cent, but then nobody in North Dakota had -ever held that magic key to the entrance of good society which he so -ardently coveted. He was prepared to pay very liberally to obtain that -key. He was far from generous by nature, but he could be generous to -extravagance when it suited him to be so. - -William Massarene was a short, broad, heavily-built man, like his wife -in feature, and having, like her, a muddy-pale complexion which the -Sierra suns had had no force to warm and the cold blasts of the North -Pacific no power to bleach. His close-shut, thin, long lips, his square -jaw, and his intent gray eyes, showed, however, in his countenance, a -degree of volition and of intelligence which were his portion alone, -and with which hers had no likeness. He was a silent, and seemed a -dull, man; but he had a clear brain and a ruthless will, and he had in -its full strength that genius for making money which is independent of -education and scornful of culture, yet is the only original offspring -of that modern life in which education is an institution and culture is -a creed. - -When he had been only eighteen years of age he had married Margaret -Hogan, because she was a stout strong hard-working wench, and had at -once taken a steerage ticket to New York. - -When he reached the United States he had gone straightway to the new -settlements in North Dakota, where cities consisted of plank-walks -and shingle-roof shanties, and where the inhabitants of those cities -were rougher and ruder even than himself. He had scent for wealth as -a thirsty steer for distant water-springs, and he said to himself: “I -won’t leave off till I’m second to Jay Gould.” - -He began very modestly by employing himself as a pig-sticker and -opening a pork shop in a town called Kerosene. His wife made and fried -sausages to perfection. The shop became a popular resort, and, in the -back room, miners, diggers, cattlemen, and all the roughs for miles -around came to eat sausages, and found drinks, hot as flame, and play -_ad libitum_. Sometimes they staked nuggets, and lost them. - -William Massarene never played, he only watched the gamblers, and when -they wanted money lent it to them, or if they sold a nugget bought -it. They were a wild lot who cared neither for man nor devil; but he -knew how to keep them in order with his cold grey eyes and his good -six-shooter. Many swore that they would kill him or rob him; but nobody -ever did either, though several tried to do both. - -His wife was liked; hard-worked as she was she found time to do a -good turn to sick neighbors unknown to him; and more than one rough -fellow spared him because she had been kind to his kids or had brought -some broth to his girl. The sausage-shop in dreary, dirty, plank-made -Kerosene City was the foundation of his fortune. - -How the place had stunk and how it had reeked with tobacco stench -and echoed with foul outcries and the blows and shots of ruined and -reckless men! Margaret Massarene often dreamt of it, and when she did -so dream, woke, bathed in sweat, and filled with nameless terror. - -Her husband never dreamed, except when wide-awake and of his own -glories. - -Kerosene City had long outgrown its infancy of planks and shingles, and -had expanded into a huge town crammed with factories, and tall houses, -tramways and elevators and churches, sky-scraping roofs, electric -railways, chemical works, fire-belching foundries, hissing, screaming, -vomiting machinery, and all the many joys of modern and American -civilization. - -But Kerosene City, most of it Mr. Massarene’s property, was but an -item in the Massarene property. He had been in many trades and many -speculations; he owned railway plant and cattle ranches and steam-boats -and grain-depots, and docks and tramways and manufactories, and men and -women and children labored for him day and night by thousands harder -than the Israelites toiled for the Pharaohs. - -Everything turned to gold that he touched. He bought for little -with prodigious insight and sold for much with the same intuition. -No foolish scruples hampered his acquisitiveness, no weak-minded -compassion ever arrested him on any road which led to his own -advantage. He had never been known to relent or to regret, to give -except in ostentation, or to stir a step unless self-interest suggested -and self-recompense awaited it. Herbert Spencer has said that kindness -and courtesy are indispensable to success: William Massarene knew -better than that philosopher. He had lived amongst men, and not amongst -books. In the land of his adoption his fellows feared him as they -feared no one else; his few short hard words cut them like the knotted -lash of an overseer’s whip. He was dreaded, obeyed, hated: that was all -the feeling he cared to excite. - -Whilst he remained in that country he never lived like a man of any -means; he never spent a dollar on personal ease or comfort; but it was -known far and wide that after Vanderbilt and Pullman the biggest pile -in the States was his; his wife alone did not know it. - -To the day that she sailed past Sandy Hook on her way home Margaret -Massarene had never ceased to work hard and to save any red cent she -could. She knew nothing of his business, of his ambitions, of his -hoarded wealth; when he took a first-class cabin on a Cunard steamer -and bade her get a sealskin cloak for the voyage and buy herself a -handsome outfit, she was astounded. - -“We’ll come back great folks and buy out the old ’uns,” he had said -to her thirty-five years earlier, as they had meekly set down their -bundles and umbrellas amongst the steerage passengers of the emigrant -ship and seen the shores of Ireland fade from their sight as the day -had waned. All through the thirty-five years which he had spent on -alien soil he had never forgotten his object; he had lived miserably, -saving and screwing, paring and hoarding, happy in the knowledge that -his “pile” grew and grew and grew, a little bigger, a little broader, -with every day which dawned; and when it was big enough and broad -enough for him to sit on it, monarch of all which he might choose to -survey, he said to his wife: “Marg’ret, woman, it’s time to shut up -the store. We’ll be going home, I’m thinkin’, and buyin’ the old ’uns -out. I said as I’d do it, didn’t I, five-and-thirty year agone?” - -And his wife, being only a woman and therefore foolish, burst out -crying and threw her apron over her head. - -“But the dear old folk they be dead, William; and dead be my poor -babies too!” - -Then her William smiled; a very rare thing to see was a smile on his -tight straight lips. - -“’Tisn’t those old folks I’m meanin’--and ye’ve your daughter surely to -comfort ye; we’ll marry her to a lord duke.” - -Margaret Massarene had dried her tears knowing that weeping would not -bring her back her old parents whose bones lay under the rich grass -in Kilrathy, nor her little lost boys who had been killed--two in a -blizzard on the cruel central plains, and one in a forest fire by a -rushing herd of terrified cattle. She had dried her tears, bought -her sealskins and velvets as she was bidden to do, and come eastward -with her lord in all the pomp and plenty which can be purchased on a -first-class ocean steamer, and when the distant line of the low green -shores of Cork became visible to her, she had turned round the rings -on her large fingers and patted the heavy bracelets on her wrists to -make sure that both were real, and said in her own heart if only the -old people had been living, if only her three boys had been there -beside her, if only she could go once more a buxom girl in a cotton -frock through the sweet wet grass with her milking stool! But William -Massarene, as he looked at the low green shores, had no such fond and -futile regrets; he set his legs wide apart and crossed his hands on the -handle of his stick and said only to himself, with a pride which was -fairly legitimate if its sources were foul-- - -“I did as I said I’d do; I’ve come back as I said I’d come back.” - -For him, the herdsman who had tramped to and fro the pastures in the -falling rain, carrying a newly-dropped calf after its mother, or -driving a heifer to meet the butcher’s knife, had been dead and gone -for five-and-thirty years; there was only alive now William Massarene, -millionaire ten times over, who had the power of the purse in his -pocket and meant to buy Great Britain and Ireland with it. - -As yet, he had, in his own ambitious sense of the words, failed to buy -them. He remained one of the obscure rich, who are unknown to fame and -to princes. It was not for lack of expenditure that he had hitherto -failed to gratify his social ambitions. He had not understood how to -set about the matter; he had been timid and awkward; his wife had been -a drag on him, and his daughter, on whom he had counted for the best -of assistance, had declined to accept the office which he assigned to -her. He had lost time, missed occasions, failed to advance to his goal -in a manner which intensely irritated a man who had never before this -been foiled or baulked in any of his plans. He had learned that the -great world was not a drinking den, to be entered by “bluff,” with a -nugget in one hand and a revolver in the other; and in this stage of -chagrin and disappointment, Lady Kenilworth held out her hand to him. -He had done all that he knew how to do. He had been returned for a -metropolitan division and elected to the Carlton. He and his wife had -been presented at Court almost as soon as they had arrived in England. -They had been invited to a few political houses. They had gone where -everybody went in summer, winter, spring, and autumn. His subscriptions -were many and large. His financial value was recognized by Conservative -leaders. But there he remained. He was an outsider, and in this period -of perplexity, disappointment, and futile aspirations to the “smart -world,” Lady Kenilworth, the high priestess of smartness, held out her -hand to him. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -Lady Kenilworth was the prettiest woman in England; her family, the -Courcys of Faldon, was renowned for physical charms, and she was the -loveliest of them all, exactly reproducing a famous Romney which -portrayed the features of her great great grandmother. - -She had eyes like forget-me-nots, a brilliantly fair skin, a purely -classic profile, a mass of sunny shining hair, which needed no arts -to brighten or to ripple it, and a carriage, which for airy grace and -supreme distinction, had its equal nowhere among her contemporaries. -Her baptismal name of Clare had been almost entirely abandoned by her -relatives and friends, and she was always called by them Mouse, a -nickname given her in nursery days when she pillaged her elder sisters’ -bonbons and made raids on the early strawberry beds, and which had -gained in the course of time many variations, such as Sourisette, Petit -Rat, Topinetta, Fine-ears, Liebe Mus, and any other derivative which -came to the lips of her associates. - -She had a mouse painted on the panels of her village cart, stamped in -silver on her note paper, mounted in gold on her riding whip, cut in -chrysoprase as a charm, and made of diamonds as a locket; and many and -various were the forms in which the little rodent was offered to her -by her adorers on New Year’s Day and at Easter. She had, indeed, so -identified herself with the nickname, that when she signed her name in -a royal album, or to a ceremonious letter, she had great difficulty in -remembering to write herself down Clare Kenilworth. - -When she had been brought out at eighteen years old, she had been the -idol of the season; people had stood on chairs and benches in the -Park to see her drive to her first Drawing-room. It was not only her -physical charms which were great, but her manner, her scornful grace, -her airy hauteur, and the mixture in her expression of daredevil -audacity and childlike innocence, were fascinations all her own. The -way she wore her clothes, the way she moved, the things she said, the -challenge of her sapphire eyes, were all enchanting and indescribable. -She “fetched the town” as soon as she was out in an amazing manner; and -it was thought that she had thrown away her chances in an astonishing -degree when it was known that she had accepted the hand of a little -_mauvais sujet_, known as Cocky to all London and half Europe, who -passed his time in the lowest company he could find, and was without -stamina, principles, or credit. But she knew what she was about, and -without giving any explanation to her people, she dismissed the best -men, and decided to select the worst she could find; the worst, at -least, physically and morally. - -True, he always looked a gentleman, even when he was soaked in brandy -and gin as the wick of a tea-kettle is soaked in spirits of wine. -Cocky’s hands, Cocky’s profile, Cocky’s slow soft voice, had always -proclaimed his race, even whilst he chaffed a cabman whom he could not -pay. - -True, he was by courtesy Earl of Kenilworth, and would certainly be, if -he outlived his father, Duke of Otterbourne; but then he was besides -that and beyond that to all his world--Cocky, and a more disreputable -little sinner than Cocky it would have been hard to find in the peerage -or out of it. - -But Cocky “suited her book”; and to the horror of her own family and -the amazement of his, this radiant _débutante_ selected as her partner -for life this little drunkard, who had one lung already gone and who -formed the whipping-boy and stalking-horse of every Radical newspaper -in Great Britain. - -At a garden party on the river Lord Kenilworth showed himself for once -in decent society, and unfuddled by pick-me-ups and eye-openers. He -walked alone with the beauty of the year under an elm avenue by the -waterside, and this was their conversation: - -“You won’t expect much of me?” he said, with his glass in his eye, -looking vaguely down the river. “My wretched health, you know; -er--there’s one good thing about it for you--I may kick over the bucket -any day; one lung gone, you know.” - -“Yes,” replied his companion; “I’ve always heard so. But you’ll let me -hang on my own hook, drive my own team, won’t you?” - -Cocky nodded. He perfectly understood the allegorical phrases. - -“Oh, Lord, yes,” he made answer. “I’m a very easy-going fellow. Take my -own way and let other people take theirs.” - -“I warn you I shall take mine,” said the young beauty--she looked him -full in the eyes. Cocky’s own pale, drowsy eyes looked back into hers -with so cynical a smile in them that for once she was disconcerted. - -“Lord, what’ll that matter to me?” he responded candidly. “I only marry -to make the Pater come down with the flimsy. We shall have to agree -over financial questions, you and I, that’s all. Most married people -only meet over the accounts, you know.” - -The young lady laughed. - -“Very well, then. If you see it in that sensible light, we’ll say it’s -concluded.” - -Cocky had a gleam of conscience in his brandy-soaked soul. “You might -do better, you know,” he said slowly. “You’re awfully fetching and -you’re very young, and I’m--well, I’m a bad lot--and--and wretched -health, you know.” - -“I know; but you suit me,” said his companion with brevity. “I shall -have the jewels, sha’n’t I?” - -“Yes; I’ve spoken to the Pater; he’ll let you have ’em.” - -“_Tôpe là donc!_” she said frankly, and she held out her pretty gloved -right hand. Cocky respectfully kissed the tips of her fingers. Then he -grinned. - -“Let’s go and ask the Pater’s blessing! He’s over there with the -Princess.” - -“The devil take her if she hasn’t got some card up her sleeve that she -don’t show me,” he thought as he continued to walk on beside her. “But -she’s awfully fetching, and she’ll be great fun, and the Pater will -think I’m reforming, and he’ll come down with the blunt, and what a wax -Beric’ll be in!” - -Beric was his next brother, Alberic Orme. - -Meantime the lovely and youthful creature, who brushed the grass with -her bronze kid boots beside him, pursued similar reflections. - -“He don’t look as if he’d live a year; and he’s too far gone to -bother me much, and such a _crétin_ as that Harry won’t mind, and the -vulture’s egg is worth a little worry.” - -Her relatives, and especially her eldest brother, were horrified by -her decision; but their persuasions and their entreaties were as -ineffectual as their condemnation. - -“He will let me do as I like, and I shall have the vulture’s egg,” she -invariably answered. The vulture’s egg was a great diamond, so called, -which, while it had been in the possession of each succeeding Duchess -of Otterbourne, had rendered her the envied of all her sex. One of the -family, present at the battle of Plassy, as a volunteer, had taken it -from the turban of a native prince whom he had slain. It was a yellow -diamond of great size and effulgence; and if she married Cocky she -could, she hoped, wear it at once, as his mother had been dead many -years. - -“You marry that little wretch for the sake of that looted jewel!” said -her brother Hurstmanceaux, furious. - -“Many people don’t marry anything half as nice as a jewel,” she replied -calmly, and she persisted and did give her hand to the sickly little -man with a classic profile and a ruined constitution, of whom his own -father was ashamed. - -Cocky was a slight, pale, feminine-looking person, with very light -eyes, which were usually without any expression at all in them, but now -and then at rare intervals could flash with a steely sharpness. His -wife knew those electric flashes of those colorless orbs, and was as -afraid of them as it was possible to the intrepid nature of a Courcy of -Faldon to be ever afraid. - -Cocky, however, possessed some excellent qualities. Other men were -garrulous and confidential after drinking; but the more Cocky drank the -more wary and the more silent he became. The tacit compact they made -on that day of their betrothal, when they had walked beside the Thames -together, was never broken on her side or his. They never interfered -with each other, and they were at times almost cordial allies when it -was a question of playing into each other’s hands against some detested -third person, or of deriving some mutual advantage from some mutual -concessions. - -He usually let her have her own way as she had stipulated, for it was -the easiest and most profitable way for himself. - -He was very lazy and wholly unscrupulous. Many thousands of pounds -of good money had been spent on his education; tutors of the best -intellect and the best morals had trained him from seven to twenty-one: -his father, though a vain man, was of immaculate honor; every kind of -inducement and pressure was put on him to be a worthy representative -of a noble name; and nature had given him plenty of brains. Yet, so -pigheaded is human nature, or so faulty is the English system of -patrician education, that Cocky, for all practical result to his -bringing up, might have been reared in a taproom and have matriculated -in a thieves’ quarter. - -“Queer, monstrous queer,” thought his father often, with an agony of -irritation and regret. “Train a child in the way he should go and hang -me if he won’t go just t’other way to spite you.” - -Cocky was a very old child at the time of his marriage; he was -thirty-seven years of age, with his thin, fair hair turning very grey, -and one lung nearly gone as he had declared; but he did not evince the -slightest desire to reform, and he took money in all ways, good, bad, -and indifferent, in which it offered itself to him. - -“What a man to leave behind one!” thought Otterbourne very often, with -real shame and sorrow at his heart. - -He was himself a very good man, and a gentleman to the marrow of his -bones; his vanities were harmless, and his little airs of youth were -not ridiculous because he was still very handsome and well preserved. - -By what horrible fatality, he often asked himself, was Cocky the heir -of his dukedom? He had three other sons, all men of admirable conduct -and health, both moral and physical. By what extraordinary irony and -brutality of fate had his eldest son, who had enjoyed every possible -benefit from early training and good influences, become what he was? -His wife had been a saint, and, for the first ten years of his life -Cocky had been as pretty and promising a boy as ever rejoiced the heart -of parents. - -She had given birth to the four charming little children whose names -were recorded in Burke, and who were admired by all the women they met -when they toddled along the sunny side of the Park, or drove in their -basket carriage behind their two sleek donkeys with Jack holding the -reins and a groom walking at the asses’ heads. - -They were pretty babies, dear little men and women, with big black -eyes and golden masses of hair, and skins as soft and as fair as -blush-roses; she was fond of them but they could not have much space in -her life, it had been already so very full when they had come into it. -She had never a moment to herself unless it were the time of meditation -which her bath gave her, or the minutes in which, alone in her little -brougham, she rushed from one house to another. - -Cocky went about with his wife quite often enough to set a good -example. Not into society indeed, Cocky had a society of his own to -which he was faithful, but he was always there when wanted--in the -London house, in the country houses, in the Paris hotel, at the German -bath--he was always there in the background, a shadowy presence letting -himself in and out with noiseless and discreet footsteps, a permanent -sanction and indisputable guarantee that all was as it should be, and -that Lady Kenilworth, with the big diamond of his House on her fair -bosom, could attend a Drawing-room or a State ball whenever she chose. -He really kept his part of the compact with a loyalty which better men -might have not shown, for better men would not have had his inducements -or his patience to do so. - -Their financial embarrassments were chronic, but never interfered with -their expenditure. Money was always got somehow for anything that they -really wished to do. They were at all places in their due season, and -their own houses never saw them except when there was a house-party -to be entertained, or a royal visit to be received. True Cocky on -such occasions was usually indisposed and unseen, but that fact did -not greatly matter to anyone. It was an understood thing in society -that he had motor ataxy, a very capricious disease as everyone knows; -putting you in purgatory one day and letting you sup with ballet-girls -the next. And Cocky had this useful faculty of the well-born and -naturally well-bred man that he could, when he chose, pull himself out -of the slough, remember his manners, and behave as became his race. But -it bored him excruciatingly, and the effort was brief. - -The marriage, on a whole, if they had not been continually in -difficulties about money, might fairly have been called as happy as -most marriages are. When they quarreled it was in private, and when -they combined they were dangerous to their families. - -She knew that she was never likely ever again to find anyone quite so -reasonable, quite so useful as he. - -He had, immediately on their marriage, been on very good terms with her -friend Harry; and when there was later on question of other friends -beside Harry he did not feel half so much irritation at the fact as did -Harry himself. - -He had learned what card it had been which she had kept up her sleeve -when she had spoken with such apparent frankness as she had walked -along the grass path by the Thames. But he had never made a fuss about -it. He really thought Harry a very good fellow though “deuced poor, -deuced poor,” he said sometimes shaking his head. - -Harry, too, was useful and unobtrusive, always ready to get theatre -stalls, or make up a supper party, or row the stablemen if the horses -got out of form, or go on beforehand to see the right rooms were taken -at Homburg or Biarritz, or Nice. A good-natured fellow, too, was Harry; -sort of fellow who would pawn his last shirt for you if he liked you. -Cocky always nodded to him, and used his cigar-case, and sauntered -with him for appearance sake down Pall Mall or Piccadilly in the most -amicable manner possible. - -Cocky was a nursery nickname which had gone with him to Eton, and -from Eton into the world, and Kenny was an abbreviation of his -courtesy title which was unfortunately in use even amongst the cabmen, -policemen, crossing-sweepers, and match-sellers of that district of -Mayfair where he dwelt whilst awaiting the inheritance of Otterbourne -House. - -“Jump in, boy,” said the driver of a hansom to a telegraph lad, who had -hailed him at the same time as Lord Kenilworth. “Jump in, a growler’s -good enough for Kenny. He wants to get slow over the ground to give my -lady time with her fancy-man.” - -There was something about him which made all manly men, of whatever -class, from cabdrivers to his own brothers and brother-in-law, -perpetually desire to kick him. He knew that men wished to kick him; -and he did not try to kick them in return. He wore his degradation -smilingly, as if it were an Order. - -“That is the utterly hopeless thing about him,” said his father once. - -The Ormes had always been great people--true, staunch, polished -gentlemen, holding a great stake in the country, and holding it -worthily, riding straight, and living honorably. By what caprice of -chance, what irony of fate, had this stalwart and high-principled race -produced such a depraved and degenerate being as Cocky? - -“There must be something very wrong in our social system that so many -of our men of position are no sounder than rotten apples,” the duke -said once to a person, who replied that there were black sheep in all -countries. “Yes, but our black sheep are labeled prize rams,” replied -Otterbourne. - -The four little children in the nurseries did not give him much -consolation. The gossip of society hung over them like a cloud in his -sight, and there were none of those dark sleepy eyes in his family -portraits at Staghurst. - -“There are no black-eyed Ormes in our family portraits,” he said -once to his eldest son; and Cocky’s face wore for an instant a droll -expression, and his left eye winked. But it was only for an instant. - -“There’s a legend,” he said, rolling a cigarette; “Richard Orme married -a gipsy in William Rufus’s time. Lord, who shall say to where the brats -throw back?” - -“Who indeed?” said the duke with a significance which penetrated even -the Cognac-sodden brains of his heir. - -But the legend did really exist, and when the children’s mother heard -of the gipsy of William Rufus’s time she thought the legend a very -interesting one and very useful. - -But who could blame Cocky’s wife for anything? Besides, the duke was -of that old English temper, now grown so rare, which thought dishonor -carried into a law court was only made much worse by the process, and -was painfully conscious that Kenilworth, although he looked like a -gentleman, spoke like one, moved like one, and wore his clothes like -one, was in many sorrowful respects a cad. But a clever cad! Yes, Cocky -was clever by nature, if not by study; that was perhaps the very worst -part of the whole matter. He could play the fool--did play it almost -perpetually--but he had not been born a fool. - -There was not even that excuse for him. - -He was a man of considerable intelligence, whom indolence, depravity, -and disinclination to take trouble had made approach very nearly to -an idiot. But, as his mind had odd nooks and corners in it, which -contained out-of-the-way scraps of learning sometimes profound, so his -character had, occasionally, spasms in it of resolve and of volition, -which showed that he might have been a different person to the mere -nonentity and lounger that he was, if he had been forced to work for -his living. As it was he was the butt of his friends, the torture of -his father, the ridicule of his wife, and the favorite whipping-boy of -the press and public, when they wanted indirectly to slate a prince -or directly to pillory an order. As a gun loaded to the muzzle, which -could at any moment be discharged with deadly effect at the Upper -House, he was unspeakably dear to the Radicals. - -One day, in a Hyde Park meeting met to howl against the Lords, Cocky, -who was riding his cob down the road past the Achilles, heard his own -name spoken, and his fitness for an hereditary legislator irreverently -denied. He stopped to listen, putting his glass in his eye to see his -adversaries. - -“My good people, you are all wrong,” he called to them at a pause in -the oration. “I’m a commoner. Plain John Orme, without a shilling -to bless myself with. Don’t suppose I shall ever live to get into -the Lords. The Pater’s lungs are much sounder than mine, and his -politics too; for he’d trounce you all round, and give each of you a -horse-drench.” - -So oddly constituted are mobs, that this one laughed and cheered him -for the speech, and Cocky, much diverted, got off his cob in Hamilton -Place, at the Batchelor’s Club, and went to refresh his throat with a -glass of brandy. - -It was his sole appearance in public life. - -“Told ’em you’d give each of ’em a horse-drench,” he said with a faint -chuckle, the next time he saw his father. - -“Thanks,” said Otterbourne; “and if they break my windows the next time -they’re out, will you pay for the glazier?” - -“Never pay for anything,” said Cocky, solemnly and truthfully. And it -was probably the only truthful word that he had spoken for many years. - - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -“Ronnie,” said Mouse to her elder brother one morning, “I don’t think -I’ve ever told you about those new people to whom Gerald sold Vale -Royal----” - -“To whom _you_ sold Vale Royal,” said Lord Hurstmanceaux with curt -significance. - -She colored; she did not like her brother’s rough and blunt ways of -putting things, though it was a Courcy habit into which she herself -lapsed in cynical and imprudent moments. - -She let the subject pass, however, and continued as if she had not -heard the correction. - -“They are such fun; you can’t imagine how delightful they are; and they -have made Harrenden House a paradise. When I came from Cairo they were -already in it. Old Prince Khris had done it all.” - -“There are a good many such dollar-lined paradises in London,” said -Hurstmanceaux. “I’d rather you didn’t go into them. But, of course, you -do as you like.” - -“Of course I do! Old Khris arranged the house for them.” - -Hurstmanceaux laughed. - -“Khris and you! They will be warm people indeed if they have even a -_paire pour le soif_ left for themselves between you two. Poor devils! -I think I’ll go and give them the lay of the course.” - -“My dear Ronnie! How absurd you are. If anybody heard you they might -think you were in earnest.” - -Hurstmanceaux looked at his sister with a shrewd, appreciative scorn in -his eyes. - -“They might,” he said gravely. “I am usually in earnest, my dear.” - -“I know you are and it is a horrid thing to be,” she replied with -petulance. “Earnest people are always such bores.” Then, remembering -that she would not produce the effect she desired by abusing him, she -changed her tone. - -“Dearest Ronald, these persons are coming here to-morrow night. Let me -present them to you; and if you would but say a good word for them in -the world----” - -He was silent. - -“I think, you know,” she murmured softly, “that as they bought Gerald’s -place they naturally rather look to us all to make things pleasant for -them.” - -Hurstmanceaux put the white small ringed finger off his coat with a -gesture which had sternness in it. - -“My dear child, you are Delilah to all men born of Adam; but not to me, -not to me, my child, because you are my sister. The Lord be praised -for His mercies! If you had not been my sister I should have had no -strength against you probably. As it is, I won’t keep bad company, my -dear, even to please you.” - -“Bad company! They are most estimable people.” - -“I am happy to hear so, since you let them in here.” - -“But everybody is going to know them.” - -“Then why should you care about my knowing them too?” - -“That is just----” began his sister, and paused, scanning the little -mouse embroidered on her handkerchief. - -“Take your eyes off that bit of gossamer and look at me,” said -Hurstmanceaux severely. “You do this kind of thing. Cocky does it. You -make Gerald do it. But I’ll be damned, my dear, if you make me.” - -She was mute, distressed, irritated, not seeing very well what to say -or resent. - -“Get up a firm with old Khris,” continued her brother; “Khris and -Kenilworth; it will run very nicely and take the town like wildfire; I -am convinced that it will; but Hurstmanceaux as ‘Co.’--no thank you.” - -“You don’t even hear me,” said his sister rather piteously. - -“I know all you’re going to say,” he replied. “You mean to float these -people, and you’ll do it. You’ll get ’em to State concerts, and you’ll -get ’em to Marlborough House garden-parties, and you’ll get ’em to -political houses, and you’ll ram ’em down all our throats, and take -the princes to dine with ’em; I know all that; it’s always the same -programme; and the he-beast will get a baronetcy, and the she-beast -will get to Hatfield, and you’ll run them just as Barnum used to run -his giants and dwarfs, and you’ll make a pot by it as Barnum did. Only -leave me out of the thing, if you please.” - -“Why shouldn’t you be the sleeping partner?” said his sister jestingly, -but with a side glance of her lovely eyes which had a timid and keen -interrogation in it. “Nobody’d be the wiser, and your word has such -weight.” - -“Don’t make that sort of suggestion, my dear, even in joke. Gerald has -helped you; I am not Gerald. You’ve made him dance to your tune through -a lot of mud, but you won’t make me. There are enough of the family in -this shabby kind of business as it is.” - -“Oh, Ronald!----” - -“You see, Sourisette,” he added, “you are always telling me that I -wear my clothes too long; you’ve often seen me in an old coat, in a -shockingly old coat; but you never saw me in an ill-cut one. Well, I -like my acquaintances to be like my clothes. They may be out at elbows, -but I must have ’em well cut.” - -Lady Kenilworth gazed at her pocket-handkerchief for a few minutes in -disturbed silence. - -“Is that the tone you mean to take about my new people?” she asked at -last. - -“My dearest Sourisette, I don’t take any tone. These _richards_ from -the Northwest are nothing to me. You are taking them up, and getting -Carrie to take them up, because you mean to get lots of good things -out of them. No one can possibly know ‘a bull-dozing boss’ from North -Dakota for any other reason than to plunder him.” - -“Oh, Ronald! What coarse and odious things you say!” - -Her exclamation was beseeching and indignant; a little flush of color -went over her fair cheeks. “You shouldn’t be so hard upon one,” she -added. “Some poet has said that poverty gives us strange bed-fellows.” - -“We need never lie down on the bed; we can lie in our own straw.” - -“But if we have used up all our straw?” - -“Then we can go out of doors and sleep _à la belle étoile_.” - -“And the rural constable will pass by with his lanthorn, and wake us -up, and run us in! Oh, my dear Ronald, you don’t know what it is to -want a sovereign every moment. You’re unmarried, and you shoot with a -keeper’s gun, and you yacht in an old wooden tub, and you lounge about -all over the world with your places shut up, and your town-house let; -what can you tell, what can you dream, of the straits Cocky and I are -put to every single minute of our lives?” - -“Because you won’t pull up and lead sensible lives,” said -Hurstmanceaux. “You must always be in the swim, always at the most -ruinously expensive places. Can’t you exist without tearing over -Europe and bits of Africa every year? Did our forefathers want Cairene -winters? Couldn’t they fish and shoot, and dance and flirt, without -Norway and the Riviera? Wasn’t their own county town enough for them? -Weren’t their lungs capable of breathing without Biskra? Weren’t they -quite as good sportsmen as we are with only their fowling-pieces? Quite -as fine ladies as you are, though they saw to their still-rooms?” - -“Their women look very nice in the Romneys and Reynolds,” said Mouse. -“But you might as well ask why we don’t go from Derby to Bath in a -coach-and-six. _Autre temps autre moeurs._ There is nothing else to be -said. Would you yourself use your grandfather’s gun? Why should I see -to my still-room? - -“I do wish,” she continued, “that you would talk about what you -understand. I will send you the bill for the children’s boots and -shoes, just to show you what it costs one merely to have them properly -shod.” - -“Poor little souls!” said Hurstmanceaux, with his smile which people -called cynical. “I don’t think they are the heaviest of your expenses. -I believe you could live with the whole lot of them in a cottage at -Broadstairs or Herne Bay all the year round for about what your hunting -mares cost you in one season.” - -“Don’t be an ass, Ronald,” said his sister crossly; “what is the use -of talking of things that nobody can do, any more than they can wear -their fustian clothes or wooden shoes? You will know what I mean some -day when you’re married. We are worse off than the match-sellers, than -the crossing-sweepers. They can do as they like, but we can’t.” - -“Life isn’t all skittles and swipes,” observed Hurstmanceaux. “You -always seem to think it is.” - -But she, disregarding him, went on in her wrath: - -“It is a thousand times worse to be poor in our world than to be -beggars on the high road. If they keep in with the police they’re all -right, but _our_ police are all round us every minute of our lives, -spying to see if we have a man less in the anterooms, a hoof less in -the stables, if we have the same gown on, or the same houses open; if -we’ve given up any club, any habit, any moors, any shooting; if the -prince talks as much to us as usual, or the princess asks us to drive -with her; if we go away for the winter to shut up a place, or make -lungs an excuse for getting away to avoid Scotland; they are eternally -staring, commenting, annotating, whispering over all we do; we can -never get away from them; and we daren’t retrench a halfpenny’s worth, -because if we did, the tradespeople would think we were ruined and all -the pack would be down on us.” - -“There is some truth in that, my poor Mouse, I must allow,” said -her brother with a shade of unwilling sympathy in his tone. “But -it’s a beggarly rotten system to live your lives out on, and I think -Broadstairs would be the better part, if you could only make up your -mind to it. It would be only one effort instead of a series of efforts, -and the cheap trippers wouldn’t be worse than the Mastodons; at least -you wouldn’t have to do so much for them.” - -“Massarenes,” said his sister with an impatient dive for the silver -poker, and another dive with it at the fire. “The name isn’t such a bad -name. It might have been Healy, it might have been Murphy.” - -“It might have even been Biggar,” replied Hurstmanceaux, amused. -“Possibilities in the ways of horror are infinite when we once begin -opening our doors to people whom nobody knows. Practically, there need -be no end to it.” - -Mouse, leaning softly against her brother, with her hand caressing the -lapel of his coat, said sweetly and insidiously: - -“There is an only daughter, Ronald--an only child.” - -“Indeed!” - -“She will be an immense heiress,” sighed his sister. “Everybody will be -after her.” - -“Everybody bar one,” said her brother. - -“And why bar one?” - -His face darkened. “Don’t talk nonsense!” he said curtly. “I don’t like -you when you are impertinent. It is a pity Cocky ever saw you; the -Massarene alliance would have suited _him_ down to the ground.” - -“She would have been millions of miles too good for him!” said Cocky’s -wife, with boundless contempt. “They don’t want merely rank; they want -character.” - -“My dear Mouse,” said Hurstmanceaux, “the other day a young fellow went -into a _café_ in Paris, had a good soup, fish, and _roti_, _and_ three -cups of coffee. An unfeeling landlord arrested him as he was about to -go off without paying. The people in the streets pitied him, on the -whole, but they thought the three cups of coffee too much. ‘_Ca c’est -trop fort de café_,’ said a workman in a blouse to me. In a similar -manner, allow me to remark that if your new friends, in addition to the -smart dinner of rank, require the strong coffee of character, they are -too exacting. The people in the streets won’t let them have both.” - -Lady Kenilworth felt very angry at this impudent anecdote, and pulled -to pieces some narcissus standing near her in an old china bowl. - -“The analogy don’t run on all fours,” she said petulantly. “_My_ people -can pay. You have a right to anything if you only pay enough for it.” - -“Most things--not everything quite,” said her brother indolently, as he -took up his hat and cane and whistled his collie dog, who was playing -with the Blenheims. “Not everything quite--yet,” he repeated, as if the -declaration refreshed him. “You have not the smallest effect upon me, -and you will not present your _protégés_ to me--remember that, once for -all. Adieu!” - -Then he touched her lightly and affectionately on her fair hair, shook -himself like a dog who has been in dirty water, and left her. - -Mouse, who was not a patient or resigned woman by nature, flashed a -furious glance after him from the soft shade of her dark eyelashes, -and her white teeth gnawed restlessly and angrily the red and lovely -under-lip beneath them. He could have done so much if he would! His -opinion was always listened to, and his recommendation was so rarely -given that it always carried great weight. He would have told her that -they were so respected precisely because he did not do such things as -this which she wanted him to do. - -He was a very tall and extremely handsome man, with a debonnair and -careless aspect, and a distinguished way of wearing his clothes which -made their frequent shabbiness look ultra _chic_. The Courcy beauty -had been a thing of note for many generations, and he had as full a -share of it as his sister, whom he strongly resembled. He was fourteen -years older than she, and she had long been accustomed to regard him -as the head of her House, for he had succeeded to the earldom when a -schoolboy, and she had never known her father. He had tried his best to -alter the ways of the Kenilworth establishment, but he had failed. If -he talked seriously to his sister, it always ended in his paying some -bill; if he talked seriously to his brother-in-law, it always ended in -his being asked to settle some affair about an actress or a dispute in -a pot-house. They both used him--used him incessantly; but they never -attended to his counsels or his censure. They both considered that as -he was unmarried, spent little, and was esteemed stingy, they really -only did him a service in making him “bleed” occasionally. - -“He’s such a close-fisted prig,” said Lord Kenilworth, and his wife -always agreed to the opinion. - -“Ronnie is a bore,” she said, “he is always asking questions. If -anybody wants to do any good they should do it with their eyes shut, -and their mouths shut; a kindness is no kindness at all if it is made -the occasion for an inquisitorial sermon. Ronnie does not often -refuse one in the end, but he is always asking why and how and what, -and wanting to go to the bottom of the thing, and it is never anything -that concerns him. If he would just do what one wants and say nothing, -it would be so much nicer, so much more delicate; I cannot endure -indelicacy.” - -The Kenilworths, like many other wedded people, had no common bond -whatever, except when they were united against somebody else; they -bickered, sneered, and quarreled whenever they were by any rare chance -alone, but when it was a question of attacking any third person their -solidarity was admirable. Hurstmanceaux seemed to them both to have -been created by nature and law to be of use to them, to carry them over -troublesome places, and to lend them the ægis of his unblemished name; -but of any gratitude to him neither ever dreamed; it always seemed to -them that he did next to nothing for them, though if the little folks -upstairs had roast mutton and sago pudding, and if the servants in -Stanhope Street got their wages with any regularity, it was usually -wholly due to his intervention. - -He had succeeded to heavily encumbered estates, and the years of his -minority, though they had done something, had not done much toward -lessening the burden which lay on the title, and he had always been a -poor man. But now, when he was nearing forty years of age, he could say -that he was a free one. - -To obtain such freedom it had required much self-denial and philosophy, -and he had incurred much abuse in his family and out of it, and, -as he was by nature careless and generous, the restraint upon his -inclinations had been at times irksome and well-nigh unendurable. -But he had adhered to the plan of retrenchment which he had cut -out for himself, and it had been successful in releasing him from -all obligations without selling a rood of land on any estate, or -cutting any more timber than was necessary to the health of the woods -themselves. He was called “the miser” commonly amongst his own people; -but he did not mind the nickname; he kept his hands clean and his name -high, which was more than do all his contemporaries and compeers. - -When he had left his sister this morning, and had got as far as the -head of the staircase, his heart misgave him. Poor Mousie, had he been -too rough on her? Did she really want money? He turned back and entered -the little room again where Lady Kenilworth was sitting before the -hearth, her elbow on her knee, her cheek on her hand, her blue eyes -gazing absently on the fire. - -He came up to her and laid his hand on her shoulder. - -“My dear Sourisette! Are you troubled about money?” - -“You know I always am, Ronnie,” she said impatiently. “It is chronic -with us; it always will be; even when the Poodle goes to glory it will -be hardly any better. You know that.” - -The Poodle was the irreverent nickname given to the Duke of Otterbourne -by his eldest son and that son’s wife, on account of his fleecy-white -hair and his bland ceremonious manners of the old school, at which they -saw fit to laugh irreverently. - -“My poor child! If you have no more solid resource than to decant -Poodle’s demise your prospects look blue; I always tell you so. Poodle -means living and loving on into the twentieth century, never doubt -that.” - -“I don’t doubt it,” said Mouse very angrily. “He will always do -everything which can by any possibility most annoy us.” - -“But are you in any especial difficulty at this moment, Sourisette?” -asked her brother in a very kind and tender tone intended to invite her -confidence. - -“What is especial with other people is chronic with me,” she replied -pettishly. “My worries and miseries are as eternal as Poodle’s youth -and courtships.” - -“But do you want money--well, more than usual?” - -“I always want it,” replied Mouse. “Everybody always wants it, except -you.” - -“I know you always say that. I want it very much just now. But if it’s -anything for the children----” - -“You are a model uncle out of a fairy book! No; it is not for the -mites; they get their bread and milk and mutton chops--as yet. It is, -it is--well, if you really care to know, these people are horribly rude -and pressing, and I haven’t even a hundred pounds to throw them as a -sop.” - -She leaned back toward her writing-table which stood beside the hearth, -and, tossing its litter of paper to and fro, took from the chaos a -letter from a famous firm of Bond Street tradesmen, and gave it to her -brother. - -“As he is in the mood he may as well pay something,” she thought. “It -would be a pity not to bleed the miser when one can.” - -Lord Hurstmanceaux ran his eyes quickly over the letter, and a pained -look passed over his face, an expression of annoyance and regret. - -She was Kenilworth’s wife, and had been long out of her brother’s -guardianship, but it hurt him to think that she exposed herself to -these insults, these importunities, these humiliations. - -“My dear Clare, why will you lay yourself open to be addressed in this -manner?” he said gravely, and when he called her Clare she knew that he -was very greatly displeased. “Why will you not pull your life together -into some degree of order? Why descend to the level on which it is -possible for your tradesmen to write to you in such terms as these?” - -Lady Kenilworth, who was the most _caline_ and coaxing of women when -she chose, as she could be the most autocratic and brusque when she was -with people she despised, rose, looked up in her brother’s face, and -stroked the lappet of his coat with her pretty slender hand sparkling -with its many rings. - -“Write me a little check, Ronnie,” she said, “and don’t put my name; -make it payable to bearer.” - -He shook his head. - -“Little checks or big checks, Mousie, don’t find their way to your -tradesmen. You have played me that trick more than once; I will go to -these people myself and pay them the whole account; but----” - -“Oh, don’t pay them the whole!” said Mouse uneasily. “That would be -great waste of money. If you can really spare me as much as this give -it to me; I will find a thousand better uses for it than----” - -“Paying a bill? I dare say. Sheridan was of your opinion; and when he -was dying they sold his bed from under him.” - -“They won’t sell mine, because my brother will be by my bedside,” said -Mouse with a sunny yet plaintive smile in her forget-me-not like eyes. - -“Don’t trust too much to that, my dear; I am mortal, and a good many -years older than you,” he answered gravely as he folded up the Bond -Street tradesmen’s threatening letter and put it in his coat pocket. - -“You had better write a check for me, Ronald, indeed,” said his sister -coaxingly; “it will look odd if you pay this, or if your people pay it, -and I could do a great deal with all that money.” - -“You would do everything except pay the account! I don’t think you -would do much with the riches of all the world except run through -them,” said Hurstmanceaux curtly, and taking no notice of the appeal. -Past experience had taught him that money which passed through his -sister’s fingers had a knack of never reaching its destination. “I -won’t compromise you,” he added; “don’t be afraid, and I shall tell -them that they have lost your custom.” - -“You need not say that,” said Mouse uneasily; she was very fond of this -particular Bond Street shop, and what was the use of paying an account -if you did not avail yourself of the advantage so gained by opening -another one instantly? - -“I certainly shall say it,” said Hurstmanceaux decidedly; and he once -more left the room. Mouse looked after him with regret and uneasiness; -regret that she had turned his generous impulse to such small account, -and uneasiness lest he should suspect more of her affairs than it would -be well for him to learn. - -“He is a good fellow sometimes, but so stiff-necked and mule-headed,” -she thought, as she hastily calculated in her rapidly working brain -how much percentage she might have got off the Bond Street account -if she had dealt with the matter herself. She was extravagant, but -she was very keen about money at the same time, at once prodigal and -parsimonious, which is a more general combination than most people -suppose. - -Hurstmanceaux looked back at her rather wistfully from between the -cream-colored, rose-embroidered curtains of the doorway. It was on his -lips to ask her not to pursue her patronage of Harrenden House; but as -he had just promised to do her a service he could not seem to dictate -to her an obedience as a return payment to him. He went away in silence. - -“Besides, whatever she were to promise she would always do as she -liked,” he reflected: previous experiences having told him that neither -threats nor persuasions ever had the slightest effect upon his sister’s -actions. - -As he went out of the vestibule into the street, he passed a tall, -very good-looking young man who was about to enter, and who nodded to -him familiarly as one brother may nod to another. Hurstmanceaux said -a curt good-day without a smile. The other man passed in without the -preliminary of enquiring whether the lady of the house was at home, and -the footman of the antechamber took off his great coat and laid his hat -and cane on the table as a matter of course: a person who had known no -better might have concluded that the visitor was Kenilworth himself. -But to Kenny, as they called him behind his back, the anteroom lackeys -were much less attentive than they were to this young man. - -“My real brother-in-law,” said Hurstmanceaux to himself, with a vexed -frown upon his brows and a little laugh which people would have called -cynical upon his lips. He did not love Kenilworth, but young Lord -Brancepeth he abhorred. - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - - -“I met the Miser: how has he been to-day? Rating you, eh?” said -Lord Brancepeth when he had been ten minutes or more ensconced in -the cosiest corner by the boudoir fire. He was a very well-featured -and well-built young man, with a dark oval face, pensive brows, and -great dreamy dark brown eyes; his physiognomy, which was poetic and -melancholy, did not accord with his conversation, which was slipshod -and slangy, or his life which was idiotic, after the manner of his -generation. - -Mouse was standing behind him leaning over his shoulder to look at an -ancient British coin newly attached to his watch-chain; her own eyes -were soft with a fullness of admiration which would have been doubtless -delightful to him if he had not been so terribly used to it. - -“The Miser was out of humor as usual,” she replied; “Ronald should -really live amongst some primitive sect of Shakers or Quakers, or -Ranters or Roarers, whatever they are called: he has all the early -Christian virtues, and he thinks nobody should live upon credit.” - -“He certainly shouldn’t live amongst us,” said Brancepeth, with a -self-satisfied laugh, as if chronic debt were a source of especial -felicitation. “How he hates me, by the way, Mousie.” - -“You are not a primitive virtue,” said his friend, with her hands lying -lightly on his shoulders, and her breath stirring like a soft balmy -south wind amongst his close curling dark hair. - -Brancepeth had ceased to be a worshipper: and he had ceased even to -like being the worshipped, but habit is second nature, and it was -his habit to be wherever Lady Kenilworth was, and that kind of habit -becomes second nature to lazy and good-hearted men. - -He was a young man who was so constantly, almost universally, adored -that it bored him, and he often reflected that he should never be -lastingly attached except to a woman who should detest him. He had -not found that woman at the date at which he was allowing his friend -Mouse to hang over his shoulder and admire the ancient British coin. -He always told people that he was very fond of Cocky. Cocky and he -were constantly to be seen walking together, or driving together, or -playing games together, outdoors and indoors; they were even sometimes -seen together in the nursery of those charming little blonde-haired, -black-eyed children who were taught by their nurses to pray for Cocky -as papa. - -“The Miser will marry some day,” said Brancepeth now, “and then he -won’t be so easy to bleed.” - -“I am sure he will never marry. Alan is sure he never will.” Alan was -her second brother. - -“Stuff!” said Brancepeth. “Alan will be out in his calculations.” - -“You will marry some day, too, I am sure, Harry,” whispered Mouse, as -she leaned over his chair; her tone was the tone of a woman who says -what she does not think to enjoy the pleasure of being told that what -she says is absurd and impossible. - -Brancepeth gave a little laugh, and kissed the hand which was resting -on the back of his chair. - -“When Cocky goes to glory,” he answered. - -“Cocky!” said Cocky’s wife with fierce contempt. “_He_ will never die. -Men like him never do die. They drink like ducks and never show it. -They eat like pigs and never feel it. They cut their own throats every -hour and are all the better for it. They destroy their livers, their -lungs, their stomachs and their brains, and live on just as if they -had all four in perfection. Nothing ever hurts them though their blood -is brandy, their flesh is absinthe, and their minds are a sink emptied -into a bladder. They look like cripples and like corpses; but they -never die. The hard-working railway men die, the hard-working curates -die, the pretty little children die, the men who do good all day long -and have thousands weeping for them, they die; but men like Cocky live -and like to live, and if by any chance they ever fall ill, they get -well just because everybody is passionately wishing them dead!” - -She spoke with unusual intensity of expression, her transparent -nostrils dilated, her red lips curled, her turquoise eyes gleamed and -glittered; Brancepeth looked at her in alarm. - -“On my word, Sourisette,” he murmured, “when you look like that you -frighten a fellow. I wouldn’t be in Cocky’s shoes, not for a kingdom.” - -“I thought you were longing to replace Cocky?” - -“Well, yes, of course, yes,” said Brancepeth. “Only you positively -alarm me when you talk like this. I’m not such an over-and-above -correct-living fellow myself, and Cocky isn’t so out-and-out bad as all -that, you know. After all, he’s got some excuse.” - -“Some excuse!” she repeated, her delicate complexion flushing red. -“Some excuse! You--you, Harry--you dare to say that to me?” - -“Well, it’s the truth,” murmured Brancepeth sulkily. “And don’t make -me a scene, Mouse; my nerves can’t stand it; I’m taking cocaine and I -ought to keep quiet, I ought indeed.” - -“Why do you take cocaine?” asked Lady Kenilworth, changing to -inquietude and interrogating his countenance anxiously. - -“All sorts of reasons,” said her friend, sulkily still. “Oh, yes, I -look well enough, I dare say; people often look well when they are half -dead. Don’t make me scenes, Topinetta; I can’t bear them.” - -“I never make _you_ scenes, darling; not even when you give me reason!” - -“Humph!” said Brancepeth, very doubtfully, “when do I give you reason? -There never was anybody who stood your bullying as I stand it.” - -“Bullying! Oh, Harry!” - -“Yes, bullying. Cocky don’t stand it; he licks you; I cave in.” - -With those unpoetic words Lord Brancepeth laid his poetic head back on -the cushions of his chair, and closed his eyelids till their long thick -lashes rested on his cheeks, with an air of martyrdom and exhaustion. -She looked at him anxiously. - -“You really do not look well, love,” she whispered, as she hung over -his chair. “It is--is it--that you care for any other woman? I would -rather know the truth, Harry.” - -“Women be hanged,” said Brancepeth with a sigh, his eyes still closed. -“It’s the cocaine; cures a fellow, you know, but kills him. That’s what -all the new medicines do.” - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - - -“By the way,” said the young man, still with his eyes closed, and -indisposed to follow his companion’s lead into the domain of sentiment, -“I saw the most beautiful woman last night that I ever saw in my -life--the most glorious creature! Such eyes! you can’t imagine such -eyes!” - -“What color?” asked Mouse, with a glance at her own eyes in an adjacent -mirror and a displeased severity on her mouth. - -“Black--black as night! At least, you know, perhaps they weren’t -really black; they were like that stone--what do you call it--opal? -No; onyx--yes, onyx. Such a woman! I’m a bad ’un to please, but, on my -honor----” - -“You are very enthusiastic!” said Mouse, with the lines of her lips -more scornful and displeased. “Where did you see this miracle?” - -Brancepeth smiled. - -“Lord, how soon they are jealous!” he thought. “Take fire like tow!” - -Aloud he answered: - -“Yesterday my sister got me to go to complines at the Oratory. It was -some swell saint or another, and some of the cracks were singing there. -This woman was close to where I was. She was all in black, and seemed -very much ‘gone’ on the service; her eyes got full of tears at part of -it. Well, I don’t mind telling you she fetched me so that I asked the -Duc d’Arcy to see my sister safe home, and I followed the lady with the -eyes. She got into a little dark _coupé_, and my hansom bowled after -it. I ran her to earth at a private hotel--quite solemn sort of place -called Brown’s--and there they told she was the Countess zu Lynar.” - -“Countess zu Lynar! then one can soon see who she is,” said Mouse, -as she went and got an Almanac de Gotha of the year from her -writing-table. - -“Oh, I looked there last night,” said Brancepeth; “she isn’t there; but -the porter told me she used to be the wife of that awfully rich banker -Vanderlin.” - -Mouse looked up, astonished and momentarily interested. - -“Are you quite sure?” - -“Positive.” - -“Then she can’t be young now,” said Lady Kenilworth, with relief and -satisfaction. - -“Oh, yes, she is; at least, quite young enough,” said Brancepeth -vaguely. - -“Oh, I know all about her!” continued his friend. “She is not in -society. We stand a good deal in London, but at present we don’t -receive divorced women.” - -Brancepeth laughed softly with vast amusement, and did not offer any -explanation of his laughter. - -“Such eyes!” he murmured dreamily. His friend was silent. After a -while--“Oh, Lord, such eyes!” - -“My dear Harry,” said Mouse, with cold dignity, “pray spare me your -lyrics, and go and write them in the porter’s book at the private -hotel. You could probably approach the lady without the formula of -introduction; a bouquet would do it for you.” - -Brancepeth shook his head mournfully. - -“Not that sort,” he said gloomily. “And you needn’t be in such a wax -about it, Mouse; she’s gone back to the Continent this morning. They -told me so at the hotel just now.” - -“And you did not go to Dover instead of coming here?” said his friend -sarcastically. “I am amazed that old acquaintance had such a hold -remaining on you as to make you resist the seductions of the tidal -train.” - -“You can be nasty about it if you like,” said the handsome youth with -sullen resignation. “You make the mistake which all women make. You -fly at a man when he tells you the truth; and then you are astonished -another time that he tells you a lie. If there’d been anything in it, -of course I shouldn’t have told you anything.” - -“An admirable confession. I shall remember it another time.” - -“Women always make fellows lie. You bite our noses off if we ever -happen to tell a word of truth!” - -“But it breaks my heart to think that you even see that other women -exist, Harry!” - -“Oh, bother!” said Brancepeth roughly. “Don’t be a fool, Mousie. You -see other men exist fast enough yourself.” - -She was silent. She was conscious that she did do so. Happily for -the preservation of peace, there was at that moment announced Prince -Khristof of Karstein. - -“Her father,” murmured Mousie in a swift whisper, but Brancepeth was -too obtuse to understand; he only stared, conscious that he had missed -a tip. - -Prince Khristof was a bland, gracious person who had been very fair -in youth and early manhood, and still preserved a delicate clear -complexion and eyes as blue and serene as Clare Kenilworth’s; his -hair was white and silken, his form slender and stately, his carriage -elegant; and, alas! there was not a good club in all the world into -which he could take his charming presence. When the century was young -he had been born the seventh son of a then reigning duke in a small -principality of green pasture and glacier-fed stream, and pretty towns -like magnified toys, and many square leagues of resinous scented pine -forest. The century had seen the principality absorbed, the dukedom -mediatized, the towns ruined, and the pine-woods leased to Javish -banks. As in many other cases the gain of the empire had been the ruin -of the province. Prince Khristof’s eldest brother still abode in his -toy-city, and hats were lifted as he passed, but he reigned no more; -and Prince Khristof himself, who had been a Colonel of Cuirassiers -in his cradle, and at ten years old had seen a sentinel flogged for -omitting to carry arms when he had passed, was glad to furnish a -mansion for Mr. Massarene, and take forty per cent. from the decorators -and dealers, who under his patronage furnished the admirable Clodion -and the other rarities, beauties, and luxuries, to the adornment of -Harrenden House. - -He felt it hard that when he had permitted his daughter to marry into -finance the misalliance had so little profited himself that he was -driven to such expedients. But so it was; and though the descent had -been gradual, it had been one which ended in Avernus, and royal and -patrician society had shut all its great gates upon him, leaving him -only its side entrances and back staircases. The man who could remember -when he had been a child in his nurse’s arms, seeing guards carry arms -to salute him as he was borne past them suffered acutely from his -degradation: but he was beyond all things a philosopher, and thought -that fine tobaccos and delicate wines soothe, if they do not cure, many -wounds, even when you can only enjoy such things at the expense of your -inferiors. - -“This old beggar ought to know,” thought Brancepeth, occupied with -his new idea and to whom Germans meant every nationality from -Schleswig-Holstein to Moldavia; and he addressed the newcomer -point-blank. - -“Do you know a Countess Lynar, sir?” - -“I know a great many Lynars,” replied the Prince. “It is a very general -name. Can you add anything more definite?” - -“She’s the woman whom that Jew fellow, Vanderlin, divorced,” replied -Brancepeth. - -The Prince smiled and coughed. - -“Olga zu Lynar? I know her--yes. She is my only daughter. Vanderlin is -a banker, but he is not a Jew.” - -Brancepeth grew very red. - -“I--I--beg you ten thousand pardons,” he muttered. “I didn’t know, you -know; I am always blundering.” - -“There is nothing to pardon,” said Prince Khris sweetly. “Englishmen -are so insular. They never know anything about their neighbors across -the water. It is perfectly well known everywhere out of England that -my daughter was--separated--from Vanderlin, but that you, my Lord -Brancepeth, should not know it is _tout ce qu’il y a de plus naturel_.” - -“He takes it uncommonly coolly,” thought Brancepeth, still under the -spell of his astonishment, and still distressed as an Englishman always -is at having made a stupid mistake and wounded an acquaintance. - -“But is she married again?” he asked anxiously. “How does she come to -be Lynar?” - -“Dear youth, you are not discreet,” thought the Prince, as he replied -frankly that her mother had been a Countess Lynar, and that his -daughter had taken her mother’s name, he was himself never very sure -why; but she was always a little self-willed and fanciful, she was a -woman; _femme très femme_! When she had married into _la haute finance_ -she had of course forfeited her place in the Hof-Kalendar. - -“But her maiden name is there.” He turned over the leaves of the -Almanac de Gotha and pointed to the entry of the birth of his daughter -the Countess Olga Marie Valeria. - -“Why does she call herself Countess Lynar?” said Brancepeth with -curiosity, conscious of his own bad manners. Prince Khris pointed to -the page: - -“It was her mother’s name, you see; and more than that, in the property -which my daughter possesses there is a little Schloss Lynar, hardly -more than a ruin, hidden under woods in Swabia which gives that title -to whoever owns it. Were you to purchase it you would have the right to -write yourself Graf zu Lynar.” - -“I would rather own the lady than the castle,” said Brancepeth, too -stupid and too careless to note the deepening offence in the eyes of -Mouse. - -Prince Khris smiled meaningly. - -“The lady might give you the more trouble of the two.” - -“How he hates her!” thought Brancepeth. “I suppose she keeps a tight -rein on the property.” - -Brancepeth’s experiences, which had been extensive in range though -brief in years, had told him that these family dislikes and -disagreements usually had their root in the _auri sacra fames_; and -the fact was well known all over Europe that this serene, courtly, -distinguished-looking gentleman, whose name was recorded in the -Hof-Kalendar, lived very nearly, if not entirely, by his wits. - -High play is one thing; cheating is another; if you ruin yourself it -is your own affair, but if you try to ruin others by unfair means it -is the affair of your neighbors. Prince Khristof’s mind was so made -that he had never been able to perceive or comprehend the difference; -of late years the meaning of that difference had been enforced on him -disagreeably. - -“I suspect he is the devil and all to have anything to do with at -close quarters,” reflected Brancepeth, who was a very cautious young -man. “And what a mess he’s made of his life, good Lord, with all his -cleverness and position; why, a decent croupier’s a ten thousand times -better fellow; he’ll rook you like winking if he can get you down at -_écarté_.” - -“And she came over here to see you, I suppose,” inquired Brancepeth, -still curious. - -“Scarcely,” said the Prince with a fleeting smile. - -“Would you--wouldn’t you give me a word of introduction?” said -Brancepeth hurriedly and conscious of his own temerity. - -“To my daughter?” said the Prince blandly. “My dear lord, I should of -course be delighted to do so--delighted; but I am not on speaking terms -with her. I don’t call on her myself. How can I send anybody else to -call?” - -“What did you quarrel about?” asked Harry bluntly. “Who was right?” - -Prince Khris looked at him with amusement; it was so droll to find -people who asked questions like children instead of finding out things -quietly for themselves. To his finer and more philosophic intelligence -such a primitive question as right could not seriously affect anything. -He thought the young Englishman a fool, an impertinent and dense fool; -but he was never impatient of fools, they were too useful to him in the -long run. What wise man would be able to play _écarté_ unless there -were fools with whom to play it? - -“Of course the divorce was all Vanderlin’s fault!” said Brancepeth with -clumsy curiosity. - -“It is always the man’s fault in such cases. That is well known.” - -Prince Khris smiled as he spoke; there was something sardonic and -suggestive about the smile which made it almost a grin, and which -seemed singularly ugly to Brancepeth considering that the person -concerned was the grinner’s only daughter. No one could more completely -or more cruelly have expressed the speaker’s conviction that Vanderlin -was entirely blameless in this matter. - -Mouse listened in extreme irritation; it seemed to be beyond even -her Harry’s usual obtuseness to continue the theme of a woman’s -indiscretions to that woman’s own father. Besides, she hated women who -were divorced: they made it so difficult and unpleasant for the wiser -members of their sex. - -“My daughter seems to have impressed you, Lord Brancepeth,” continued -the Prince. “Where is it that you have seen her?” - -“At the Oratory,” said Brancepeth, “and in the street. She is so -awfully fetching, you know.” - -“She is a woman who makes people look at her,” replied Prince Khristof -indifferently. “Did you hear her sing at the Oratory? She has a voice! -ah, such a voice! the most flexible mezzo-soprano. She could have made -her fortune on the stage.” - -“No. She didn’t sing,” said Brancepeth, greatly interested. “She seemed -to pray no end, and she cried. But she cried so beautifully. Not as -most of them do who make such figures of themselves. But the tears just -brimming in her eyes and falling, like the what d’ye call ’em, you -know, the Magdalens in the picture galleries.” - -The Prince laughed outright. - -“For felicitous allusion your Englishman has never an equal,” he -thought, whilst he said aloud: “My dear lord, what did I tell you? Olga -is _femme, très femme_. If I wanted to weep I should not go to the -Oratory myself. But a woman does go. It is a consolation to her to be -admired and pitied, and I have no doubt she observed that you did both.” - -“She didn’t even see me,” said the younger man, on whose not -oversensitive nerves something in the elder’s tone grated. - -“Her father don’t do much to save her character,” he thought. “It’s an -ill bird fouls its own nest.” - -Meanwhile Mouse had listened with scarcely concealed impatience to all -these questions and answers. She sat apparently engrossed in the pages -of the Almanac de Gotha, but in reality losing nothing of her friend’s -interrogations and implications. At last, out of patience, she closed -the little red book and said imperiously to Brancepeth: - -“Surely it is time you went on guard? Have you any idea what time it -is? Besides, if you don’t mind my saying so, I want to talk about -something to the Prince before I go for my drive.” - -“I aren’t on guard to-day; but I’ll go, of course, if you want me to -go,” murmured Brancepeth sulkily, raising his lazy long limbs out of -his comfortable resting-place with a sense of regret, for he would -willingly have gone on talking about the lady of the Oratory for -another hour. - -“Such a dear good boy, but always wanting in tact,” said Lady -Kenilworth, as the door of the morning-room closed on him. - -“Wanting in reason too. To talk of another woman when he is in the -presence of Lady Kenilworth! What obtuseness! what blindness,” said -Prince Khris with graceful gallantry. “But Englishmen are always -like that. They go all round the world and see nothing but their own -umbrellas; they keep on their hats in St. Peter’s, and set up their -kodaks at the Taj Mahal. I have always said that a people who could -conquer India and yet clothe their Viceroy in a red cloth tunic, are -a people without perception. They travel, but they remain islanders. -Their minds are enfolded in their bath-towels and sanitary flannels. -They do not see beyond the rim of their tubs. But I believe you did me -the honor to wish to speak to me? I need not say that if there be the -smallest thing in which I can be of service you command my devotion.” - -Mouse sat dreamily and irritably opening and shutting the Almanac de -Gotha. Prince Khristof wore a wholly altered aspect to her now that she -saw him as the father of a woman whom Harry admired and had followed. - -“Do you know--such is my insularity--that I never knew you had a -daughter or had had a wife?” she said abruptly, as she pushed the book -away. - -“Dear Madame! you surely have not sent for me to speak of these two -ladies?” he said, picking up the little red book. “My deceased wife’s -name is here, if you chose to look for it; my daughter’s is not, -because she exiled herself into the _haute finance_. I once had the -entire collection of this Almanac since its beginning in 1760. If we -want to see how despicably modern editions fall below the standard -of all work of the last century, nothing will show us that fact more -completely and conclusively than this Almanac. Contrast the commonplace -portraits of to-day’s Gotha with the exquisite designs of the -eighteenth century kalendars.” - -“Yes,” said Mouse shortly: “yes, no doubt. You are always right in -matters of art. My dear Prince, how very admirably you have housed -those people at Harrenden House. If only the birds were worthy the -nest.” - -“Ah-ha! It was for this, was it, that you wanted to see me?” he -thought, as he said aloud: “I suggested--I merely suggested. I am -delighted the result meets your approval. They are excellent people, -those good Massarenes. You remember that I told you so in Paris. _Des -bons gens; de très bons gens._ A little uncouth, but the world likes -what is simple and fresh.” - -She looked at him to see if he could really say all this with a serious -countenance; she saw that he could; his handsome fair features were -without the ghost of a smile and his whole expression was grave, -sincere, attuned to admiring candor. - -“If he takes it like that I had best take it so too,” thought Mouse, -who was aware that she was but a mere beginner and baby beside him in -the delicate arts of dissimulation. But Nature had made her proud, -inclined to be blunt and sarcastic, and occasionally unwisely inclined -to frankness; she looked him straight in the eyes now, and said: - -“But you and I are going to do our duty to our fellow Christians, -and polish them, aren’t we? I was quite straight with you about the -purchase of Vale Royal; but you weren’t so straight with me about -Harrenden House. Don’t you think, Prince, we can do our friends more -good if we are friends ourselves? Quarreling is always a mistake.” - -He bowed and smiled. His smooth delicate features expressed neither -annoyance nor pleasure, neither wonder nor surprise. - -“I am always Lady Kenilworth’s devoted servant,” he said graciously, -with the air of a suzerain accepting homage. “I am sorry you think that -I should have consulted you about the town-house,” he added. “It did -not occur to me; you were in Egypt. I never offend or forget those who -wish me well--of that you may be sure. It was amusing to arrange that -house, and one could be of so much use to artists and other deserving -people of talent.” - -Mouse laughed, rather rudely, and her laughter brought a slight angry -flush to the cheek of Prince Khris. He had both noble and royal blood -in his veins, and at the sound of that derisive little laugh he could -have strangled her with pleasure. By an odd contradiction, Lady -Kenilworth offended him by precisely that same kind of bluntness and -nakedness of speech with which her brother had offended herself. The -delicate euphemisms which she expected to have used to please herself -seemed to her altogether ridiculous when they were required by another -person. - -“Englishwomen are always so coarse,” he thought; “they never understand -veiled phrases. They will call their spade a spade. There is no need -to do so, whether you are digging a grave with it or digging for gold; -it can always be a drawing-room fire-shovel for other people, whatever -work it may accomplish. - -“Yes, you are quite right, dear lady,” he added, after a slight pause. -“The task is not a light one; we will divide its difficulties. I have -experience that you have not yet gained; you have influence that I -have--alas!--lost. Let us take counsel together. Our friends the -Massarenes are good people--excellent people; it is a pleasure to guide -them in the way they should go.” - -He remained with her half an hour, and only left her when it was -announced that her carriage was waiting below. He kissed her hand -with all the reverential grace which a fine gentleman can lend to his -farewell; but as he descended the staircase and went into the street, -he swore under his breath. - -“There is no devil like a blonde devil!” he thought. “Mouse they call -her! A rat! a rat! with teeth as sharp as nails and claws which can -cling like a flying bat’s! It is little use for the world to have made -woman all these thousands of years; she remains just what she was in -Eve’s time, in Eriphyle’s time--always the same--always purchasable, -always venal, always avaricious! Ah! why was this rodent not my -daughter? We would have made the world our oyster, and no one should -have known the taste of an oyster but ourselves!” - -Whilst he passed along Stanhope Street into the Park his own daughter -was standing in a room of a secluded and aristocratic hotel in the -Faubourg St. Germain, where she had arrived that morning. - -She was dressed in black, with three strings of pearls round -her throat; they were the pearls she had worn on her ill-fated -marriage-day. She was a woman of singular beauty; the kind of beauty -which resists sorrow and time, and ennobles even the mask of death. - -With her was one of her cousins, Ernst von Karstein, the only one of -her family who had been faithful to her through good and evil report, -who had loved her always, before her marriage and after it; but who had -always known that he could look for no response from her. - -“You are always well, Olga,” he was saying now. “What amulet have you?” - -“I imagine,” she answered, “that my talisman consists in absolute -indifference as to whether I be ill or well.” - -“That is a blasphemy,” said her companion. “No one can be indifferent -to health. Ill-health intensifies every other evil and saps the roots -of every enjoyment.” - -“Yet to lie on a sick bed, at peace with man and God, and surrounded by -those we love, would that be so sad a fate?” - -“You speak of what you know nothing about; you are never ill! You grow -morbid, Olga. You live like a nun. You see no one. The finest mind -cannot resist the morbid influences of constant solitude. Whoever your -Pope is, you should ask his dispensation from such vows.” - -“The law has been my Pope, and has set me free of all vows. I live thus -because I do not care to live otherwise.” - -“I should have thought you too proud a woman to accept excommunication -in this submissive way.” - -She smiled a little. - -“Proud? I? The daughter of Khristof of Karstein, and the divorced wife -of Adrian Vanderlin?” - -“Curse them both!” said her cousin under his breath. - -“You have been in London?” he said aloud. - -“A week, yes: my father’s affairs, as usual.” - -“You never see him?” - -“Never. See the man who ruined my life!” - -“But you have no proof of that?” - -She smiled again very sadly. - -“A crime which can be proved is half undone. He was too wary to be -traced in all these schemes of infamy.” - -“Yet you befriend him?” - -“Befriend? That is not the word. I spend my mother’s money on him for -her sake. One saves him at least from public disgrace. But he games -away all he gets, and continues to live in the way you know.” - -“I do not think you should waste your substance on him. Keep it for -yourself, and return to the world.” - -“On sufferance, as a _declasée_? Never!” - -“As my wife. I have said so many times. I never change, Olga.” - -She held out her hand to him with a noble and grateful gesture. - -“You are always faithful. You alone. I thank you. But you must leave me -to my fate, dear Ernst. It is not in your power to change it.” - -“It would be in my power if you gave me the mandate.” - -“But it is that which I cannot do; which I shall never do.” - -“Because you still love the man who repudiated and disgraced you!” - -She shrank a little as at a blow. - -“One cannot love and unlove at will,” she said simply. “It is very -generous of you to be ready to give the shield of your umblemished -honor to a dishonored woman. But were I ungenerous, unworthy enough, -to accept such a sacrifice I should but make you and make myself more -unhappy than we now are. All the feeling which is still alive in me -lives only for the memory of the past.” - -Her cousin turned away and paced the room to hide the pain he felt. -He had loved her through good and evil report, had remained unmarried -for her sake, and was ready now to accept all obloquy, censure and -discredit for her sake. - -“Go, my dear Ernst,” she said very gently; “go, and forget me. You -might as well love a buried corpse as love a woman with such a fate as -mine.” - -“My love should have power to magnetize the corpse into fresh life!” - -She shook her head. - -“It would be impossible. Were it possible, what use would be a -galvanized corpse? An unnatural unreal thing which would drop back into -the dust of death.” - -He did not reply; he endeavored to control his emotion. - -“My dear Olga,” he said, when he could do so, “allow me to say one -thing to you without causing you offence. Unknown to yourself, I think -you cherish an illusion which can only cause you unhappiness. You think -and speak as if your division from Adrian Vanderlin were but some -quarrel, some mistake, which explanation, mediation, or time could -clear away. You forget that you are entire strangers to each other; -worse than strangers, because there is an irrevocable chasm between -you.” - -She did not reply; an expression of intense suffering came into her -eyes, but she restrained any outward utterance of it. - -“It hurts me to say these harsh things to you,” he continued. “I would -so much sooner encourage you in your sentiment. But to what end should -I do so? You are a woman of deep and passionate feeling. You do not -forget; you do not change; your little boy’s grave is to you what -Bethlehem was to the Early Christians; Vanderlin is to you what Ulysses -was to Penelope. You never seem to realize that this past to which -you cling is a wholly dead thing, no more to be imbued again with the -breath of life than the body of your poor child, or the marble which -lies over him. It is intolerable that a woman as young, as lovely, as -rich, as admired and as admirable as you are should pass your years in -obscurity fettered to a pack of useless memories like a living person, -to a corpse. I have told you so often; I shall never cease to tell you -so. What do you expect? What do you hope? What do you desire?” - -“Nothing.” The word was cold, incisive, harsh; he tortured her but she -did not give any sign of pain except by the nervous gesture with which -her fingers closed on the strings of pearls at her throat as if they -were a _collier de force_ which compressed and suffocated her. - -“No one lives without desires or ends of some kind however absurd or -unattainable they may be,” he said with truth. “I think you deceive -yourself. I think that, without your being sensible of it, you brood so -much over the past because you fancy vaguely that you will evolve some -kind of future out of it, as necromancers used to stare into a crystal -until they saw the future suggested on its surface. The crystal gave -them nothing but what their own imagination supplied. So it is with -you. Your imagination makes you see in Vanderlin a man who does not -exist and never existed; and it also makes you fancy possible some kind -of reconciliation or friendship which is as totally impossible as if -you and he were both in your coffins.” - -She had turned from the window and walked to and fro the room, -unwilling that he should see the emotion which his blunt speech -awakened in her. There was a certain truth in them which she could not -wholly deny and of which she was ashamed. - -“Do not let us speak of these things. It is useless,” she said with -impatience. “You do not understand; you are a man; how can you -comprehend all that there is ineffaceable, unforgetable, for a woman in -four years of the tenderest and closest union? Nothing can destroy it -for her. For a man it is a mere episode more or less agreeable, more or -less tenacious in its hold on him; but to her----.” - -She stopped abruptly: her companion looked at her with admiration and -compassion mingled in equal parts, and he smiled slightly. - -“My dear Olga! Once in a hundred years a woman is born who takes -such a view as you do of love and life. They are dear to poets, and -furnish the themes of the most moving dramas. But they are women who -invariably end miserably, either in a cloister like Heloise, or in a -tomb like Juliet, or simply and more prosaically with tubercles on -their lungs at Hyères or the Canaries. You know the world, or you used -to know it. You must be aware that there are millions of women who in -your place would have consoled themselves long ago. I want you to see -the unwisdom and the uselessness of such self-sacrifice. I want you -to resume your place in the world. I want you to realize that life is -like the earth: there is the winter, more or less long, no doubt, but -afterward there is the spring. You know that poem of Sully Prudhomme, -in which he imagines that all the plants agree to refrain from bearing -flowers a whole year. But that year has never been seen in fact. The -poem is wrong artistically and scientifically.” - -“Of the earth, yes; but in the human soul there are many spots stricken -with barrenness for ever.” - -“But not at your age?” - -“What has age to do with it?” - -He sighed; he felt the use of argument, the futility of entreaty. - -“Are you not too proud a woman,” he said at length, “to sit in the -dust, with ashes on your head, smitten to the ground by an unjust -sentence?” - -“I have told you. All my pride is dead; not for a year like Sully -Prudhomme’s flowers, but for ever.” - -“And you forgive the man who killed it?” - -The blood mantled in her face. - -“That is a question I cannot allow, even to you, dear Ernst.” - -He was silenced. - -“And you are going back to the owls and the bitterns of Schloss Lynar?” -he asked, as he took his leave of her half an hour later. “What a life -for you, that Swabian solitude!” - -“The bitterns and owls are very good company, and at least they never -offend me.” - -“Let me be as fortunate!” he said with a sigh. “I may return to-morrow.” - -“Yes, I do not leave until evening!” - -When he had left her she remained lost in the sadness of her own -useless thoughts for some moments; then she put on a long black cloak, -a veil which hid her features, and went out in the street, saying -nothing to the two servants who traveled with her or to the servant of -the hotel. She went out into the street and crossed the Seine by the -bridge of Henri Quatre, her elegance of form and her height making some -of the passers-by pause and stare, wondering who she could be, alone, -on foot, and so closely veiled. One man followed and accosted her, but -he did not dare persevere. - -She went straight on her way to the Rue de Rivoli, for she had known -Paris well, and loved it as we love a place which has been the seat of -our happiness. It was near the end of a grey and chilly day; the lights -were glittering everywhere, and the animation of a great and popular -thoroughfare was at its height. The noise of traffic and the haste of -crowds made her ears ache with sound, so used as she now was to the -absolute silence of her Swabian solitude; a silence only broken by the -rush of wind or water. She approached a very large and stately building -which looked like a palace blent with a prison; it was the French house -of business of the great Paris and Berlin financiers, Vanderlin et Cie. - -She walked toward it and past it, very slowly, whilst its electric -lamps shed their rays upon her. - -She passed it and turned, and passed it and turned again, and as often -as she could do so without attracting attention from the throngs or -from the police. There was a mingling of daylight and lamplight; -above-head cumuli clouds were driven before a north wind. She waited on -a mere chance; the chance of seeing one whom she had not seen for eight -years pass out of a small private door to his carriage. She knew his -hours, his habits; probably, she thought, they had not changed. - -She was rewarded, if it could be called reward. - -As she passed the façade for the eighth time, and those on guard before -the building began to watch her suspiciously, she saw a tall man come -out of that private doorway and cross the pavement to a _coupé_ waiting -by the curbstone. In a moment he had entered it; the door had closed -on him, the horses had started down the Rue de Rivoli. - -She had seen the man who had repudiated and dishonored her; the only -man she had ever loved; the father of her dead boy. - -“Does he ever remember?” she wondered as she turned away, and was lost -amongst the crowds in the falling night. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - - -“If you get into a bad set, I tell you frankly I shall never help you -out of it. A bad set is a bog; a hopeless bog; you flounder on in it -till you sink. Can’t you understand? If you are going to be taken up by -this kind of people, don’t ask me to do any more for you. That’s all. I -don’t want to be unkind, but it must be one thing or another. I cannot -come here if I am likely to meet persons whom I won’t know. Anybody -would say the same.” - -She spoke with severity, as to a chidden child, as she lighted a -cigarette and put it between her roseleaf lips. She was in the boudoir -of Harrenden House, and Margaret Massarene listened in humble and -dejected silence to the rebuke. The bone of contention was represented -by two visiting cards, on which were printed respectively Lady Mary -Altringham and Lady Linlithgow: the bearers of those names had just -been turned away from the gate below by order of the fair consor, and -the mistress of Harrenden House, being a primitive person, to whom a -want of hospitality appeared a crime, was swallowing her tears under -difficulty. - -“But surely these ladies are high and all that, ma’am?” she pleaded -piteously in her ignorance. - -“They were born if you mean that,” replied Mouse with great impatience. -“Lady Mary was a Fitz-Frederick and the Linlithgow was a Knotts-Buller. -But they are nowhere. They have put themselves out of court. No one -worth thinking of knows them. They can do you no good, and they can do -you a great deal of harm.” - -Mrs. Massarene puckered up in her fingers the fine cambric of her -handkerchief. - -“But I know Lady Mary, ma’am!” - -“Drop her, then.” - -“What have she done, ma’am?” - -“Oh, lots of things; gone wrong stupidly, turned the county against -her; her boy’s tutor, and a young artist who went down to paint the -ballroom, and all that kind of silly public sort of thing; people don’t -speak to her even in the hunting-field. She can’t show herself at -Court. The girls were presented by their grandmother. She is completely -_tarée_--completely!” - -The portrait was somewhat heavily loaded with colors, but she knew that -her hearer would not be impressed by semi-tones or monochrome, and she -really could not have Lady Mary coming and going at Harrenden House. - -“As for the other woman,” she added, “there is nothing actually against -her, but she is bad form. They are as poor as Job and riddled with -debts; they have even been glad to let their eldest daughter marry the -banker of their own county borough!” - -To her humble companion, to whom not so very long before a banker’s -clerk had seemed a functionary to be addressed as Sir, and viewed with -deep respect, this social error did not carry a deep dye of iniquity. -But she abandoned Lady Linlithgow; for the other culprit she ventured -to plead. - -“Lady Mary was so very kind to my child,” she murmured timidly. -“When Kathleen was at school, before we came over, Lady Mary’s own -daughters----” - -“What has that to do with it? I tell you her daughters go out with -their grandmother. You know nothing of all these things. You must do as -you are told. You remember your blunder about my aunt Courcy?” - -This reminiscence was a whip of nettles which always lay ready to her -monitress’s hand, and the monitress used it with great effect. But -such a blunder still seemed natural to her; Mrs. Cecil Courcy was a -commoner, and these ladies who had just been turned from her gates were -titled people. Why was the one at the apex of fashion, and the others -“nowhere,” as her monitress expressed it. - -She hinted timidly at this singular discrepancy, so unintelligible to -the socially untutored mind. - -“How is it possible to make you understand?” said Mouse, lighting a -second cigarette before the first was half consumed, after the wasteful -manner of female smokers. “Rank by itself is nothing at all; at least, -well, yes, of course, it is something; but when people have got on -the wrong side of the post, they are of no use socially to anybody. -It isn’t what you do; it is how you do it. You know there is an old -adage: ‘Some mustn’t look in at a church door, and others may steal -all the church plate.’ It is always so in this world. Lady Mary’s -muffed her life, as the boys say. I dare say there are worse women; but -there isn’t one so stupid in all the three kingdoms. Who goes driving -all alone with a tutor? Who makes a pet of a little two-sous Belgian -fresco painter? Who gets herself talked about with the attorney of her -own town? Nobody who has a grain of sense. These are things which put -a woman out of society at once and for ever. I must beg you to try -and understand one most essential fact. There are people extremely -well-born who are shady, and there are others come from heaven knows -where who are _chic_. It is due to tact more than anything else. Tact -is, after all, the master of the ceremonies of life. It isn’t Burke -or Debrett who can tell you who to know, and who to avoid. There is -no Court Circular published which can show you where the ice won’t -bear you, and where it will, whom you may only know out of England -and whom you may safely know in it. There are no hard and fast rules -about the thing. If you haven’t been born to that kind of knowledge -you must grope about till you pick it up. I am very much afraid you -will never pick it up. You will never know a princess without her gilt -coach-and-six; you will never recognize an empress in a waterproof and -goloshes; and you will never grasp the fact that supreme, inexorable, -and omnipotent Fashion may be a little pale shabby creature like my -aunt Courcy, who pinches and screws about a groschen, but who can make -or mar people in society just as she pleases.” - -Margaret Massarene winced. She had seen Mrs. Cecil Courcy that very -day in the park driving with the Queen of Denmark, who was on a -visit to Marlborough House. All these niceties of shade confused her -utterly. “Society’s just like Aspinall’s Enamels,” she thought in her -bewilderment; and if you wanted a plain yellow, you were confused by a -score of gradations varying from palest lemon to deepest orange: there -were no plain yellows any more. - -“But I’ve always been told that if one’s pile’s big, real big, one can -always go anywhere?” she ventured to say, unconscious of the cynical -character of her remark. - -“You can go to Court _here_, if that’s your ideal. You do go,” replied -her teacher with a slighting accent of contempt which sounded like high -treason to the mind of the Ulster loyalist; “but it don’t follow you -can get in elsewhere. It just depends on lots of chances. Some people -never get into the world at all; merely because they don’t spend their -money cleverly at the onset.” - -“Perhaps they spare at the spigot and pour out at the bung-hole, my -lady,” said Mrs. Massarene in homely metaphor. “There’s a-many has that -fault, I have it myself. It’s all I can do still to hold myself from -saving the candle-ends.” - -“Good heavens! Do you really mean it?” - -“I do, indeed, ma’am,” said the mistress of Harrenden House. “When I -see them beautiful wax-lights, just burned an inch or two, and going to -be taken away by them wasteful servants----” - -Her companion laughed, infinitely diverted. - -“But it’s all electric light here!” - -“Not in the bedrooms. I wouldn’t have the uncanny thing in the -bedrooms. You see, my lady,” she added timidly in confidential -whispers, “William should have led me up to all this grandeur gradual. -But he didn’t. He always said, ‘We’ll scrape on this side and dash on -the other.’ So till we come over to be gentlefolks, I had to cook and -sweep, and pinch and spare, and toil and moil, and I can’t get out of -the habit. On the child he always spent; but on naught else not a cent -till we came to Europe.” - -“Ah, by the way, this daughter,” said Mouse, suddenly roused to the -perception that there was an unknown factor in the lives of these -humble people. “Where is she? I have never seen her. She is out, I -think?” - -Over the pallid, puffy, sorrowful face of the poor harassed aspirant to -smart society there came a momentary brightness. - -“Yes, ma’am; she’s what you call ‘out’; I presented her myself,” said -Mrs. Massarene with pride. - -“But where is she now?” - -“Kathleen--Katherine--is in India, my lady.” - -“Good gracious! Why?” - -“Well, she’s great friends with the Marquis of Framlingham’s -daughters,” said Mrs. Massarene, feeling sure this time she was safe. - -“What! Sherry and Bitters?” cried Lady Kenilworth. Sherry and Bitters -was the nickname which his caustic but ever courteous wit had earned -for Lord Framlingham in that London world which he had left for an -Indian presidency. She was vexed with herself for not having thought -sooner of asking for this daughter and taking her under her own wing. - -Mrs. Massarene was bewildered by the exclamation; but she was sure of -her ground this time, and was not alarmed. “Lord and Lady Framlingham, -ma’am,” she repeated with zest. “It’s cruel hard on me to lose her for -so long, but as they’re such grand folks one couldn’t in reason object.” - -“Grand folks?” repeated her visitor with amusement. “Poor dear souls! -how amused they be. They’d have been sold up if they hadn’t gone out; -she hated going, said she’d rather live on a crust in England, but he -jumped at the appointment; he’d a whole yelling pack of Jews on him; -it’s quieted them of course; and he’s let Saxe-Durham for the term. -You’d better tell your husband not to lend him any money, for he never -pays, he can’t pay; he’s sure to get your daughter to ask.” - -“Lord’s sakes, my lady!” murmured Margaret Massarene: life became -altogether inexplicable to her; if a gentleman who was a marquis, and -governor of a province twice as big as France, they said, were not -everything he ought to be, where could excellence and solvency be -looked for? _O vertu où vas-tu te nicher?_ she would have said had she -ever heard of the line. - -“But they are very--very--good people, are they not, ma’am?” she asked -pathetically. - -“Oh, dear, yes; _she_ is much too ugly to be anything else, and he’s -a very good fellow though he does make himself hated with his sharp -tongue. He’s like that monarch, you know, who never did a wise thing -and never said a silly one. He’s awfully clever, but he can’t keep his -head above water. But why on earth did you let your daughter go for so -long? They’ll get marrying her to one of their boys; they’ve no end of -them.” - -She was not pleased that the young woman was staying with Lord -Framlingham; he was a very clever and sarcastic person who might supply -his guest with inconvenient and premature knowledge of English society -in general and of Cocky and herself in particular. - -Mrs. Massarene smoothed down her beautiful gown with a nervous worried -gesture. - -“Oh, ma’am, Katherine’s very discreet, and by her letters all she seems -to be thinking about is the white temples and the black men.” - -“There are no black men in India, and you’d have done much better to -keep her at home,” said her visitor sharply. “What is she like?” - -She intended this young woman for her brother Ronald, whatever she -might be like. - -Maternal pride made Mrs. Massarene’s inexpressive and commonplace face -for once eloquent and not ordinary: its troubled and dreary expression -of chronic bewilderment lighted and changed; her wide mouth smiled, her -colorless eyes grew almost bright. - -“If you’ll honor me, ma’am, by stepping this way,” she said with -alacrity as she rose. - -“Horses step--people don’t,” said Lady Kenilworth, unkindly, as she -accompanied the person whose instructress and tormentor she was, -into a smaller room in which, set as it were upon an altar, a white -marble bust stood on a plinth of jasper with a fence of hothouse -flowers around it; hanging on the wall behind it was a portrait. -Lady Kenilworth looked critically at both bust and portrait. She was -surprised to find them what they were. - -“A classic face, and clever,” she said to the anxious mother. “Are they -at all like? The bust’s Dalou’s, isn’t it? And the portrait----” - -“They are both the image of her, ma’am,” said Mrs. Massarene, with -great triumph in the effect which they produced. “But the marble -pleases me best.” - -Lady Kenilworth was still looking at them critically through her double -eye-glass. She was thinking that the original of that straight and -somewhat severe profile was perhaps as well in India until Prince Khris -and she had tired of the Massarene vein. On the other hand, unless the -girl came home, she could not be married to Hurstmanceaux. - -“Your daughter isn’t _facile_, is she?” she asked abruptly. - -“What, ma’am?” asked the mother, gazing with tears in her eyes, -delicious tears, at the bust which would have passed as an Athene or a -Clio. - -“Well, not easy to deal with--not easy to make believe things; likes -her own way, don’t she?” - -“Well, ma’am,” said Mrs. Massarene doubtfully, “sweet-tempered she is, -and forgetful of self to a fault, and I wouldn’t lay blame to her as -obstinate. But if you mean as how she can be firm, well, she can; and -if you mean as how she can have opinions, well, she have.” - -Lady Kenilworth laughed, but she was vexed. - -“That’s what I do mean. Nobody has that straight profile for nothing; -where did she get it?” - -“Lord, ma’am, however should I know,” said the mother meekly. “She -don’t take after either of us, that’s a fact. The children pick up -their own looks in heaven, I think, for often nobody can account for -’em on earth. Look at your own little dears; what black eyes they all -have, and you and my lord so fair. I met them in the Park this morning, -my lady. Would you let them come and see me some day?” - -Lady Kenilworth, to her own extreme amazement and annoyance, felt -herself color as the straightforward gaze of this common woman looked -in sincerity and in ignorance at her. - -“The children shall certainly come to see you if you wish,” she said. -“But they are naughty little people. They will bother you horribly. -And pray, my dear woman, don’t say ‘My lady,’ you set all my nerves on -edge.” - -Mrs. Massarene humbly excused herself. “It comes natural,” she said -with a sigh; “I was dairymaid at the Hall. William can’t bear me to say -I was, but I don’t see as it matters.” - -“William is right,” said Lady Kenilworth with a glance at the bust, -“and I am sure your daughter will say so too.” - -Mrs. Massarene shook her head. “Kathleen is quite the other way, -ma’am. She says we can’t be quality, and why should we pretend to; she -angers her father terrible; to tell you the truth, she angers him _so_ -terrible that it was for that reason I gave in about this long visit to -India.” - -“She is not of her time then,” said Lady Kenilworth. “I am afraid she -gets those ideas from Framlingham. He is a downright Radical.” - -“I don’t know where she gets them,” said Mrs. Massarene drearily. -“William always said the only comfort about a girl was that a girl -couldn’t spite you in politics as a boy might; but if her ideas aren’t -politics, and the worst sort of politics, I don’t know what is, and -when you’ve kept a daughter ten years and more at school where nobody -else goes as isn’t titled, it’s a cross as one doesn’t look for to have -her turned out a Republican.” - -Lady Kenilworth laughed with genuine mirth, which showed all her pretty -teeth, white, and even and pointed like a puppy’s. - -“Is she a Republican? Well, that is a popular creed enough now. I am -not sure it wouldn’t get you on better than being on our side. The -Radicals do such a lot for their people, and do it seriously without -a grimace. We always”--“put our tongue in our cheek while we do it,” -she was about to add, when a sense of the imprudence of her confession -arrested her utterance of it. “I do wonder, you know, that you belong -to us,” she hastened to add with that air of candor which so often -stood her in good stead; “you would have found Hawarden easier of -access than Hatfield.” - -Margaret Massarene stared. - -“But William’s principles, ma’am,” she murmured, “Church and State and -Property; William says them three stand or fall together.” - -“And he will hold them all up on his shoulders like a Caryatide,” said -Lady Kenilworth, with her most winning smile. - -Mrs. Massarene smiled too, blankly, because she did not understand, but -gratefully, because she felt that a compliment was intended. - -“I can’t think, though, that it is wise of him to allow this visit. -I think it is exceedingly ill-advised to let her be away from you so -long,” said her visitor, still gazing through her eye-glass at Dalou’s -bust, and reflecting as she gazed: “The young woman must be odious, -but she is good-looking and Ronnie shall marry her. You don’t know my -brother?” she said, apparently abruptly, but in her own mind following -out her thoughts. - -“Meaning Lord Hurstmanceaux? No, ma’am, we haven’t that honor.” - -“We call it Hur’sceaux, please.” - -“Oh, indeed! As you say O’borne for Otterbourne, and Kers’ham for -Kersterholme. Might I ask why those names are cut about so, ma’am?” - -“Usage! Why do we say Gore for Gower, and Sellenger for St. Leger?” - -“Rebecca Gower was postmistress at Kilrathy when I was a girl,” said -Mrs. Massarene reflectively. “But Lord! if anybody had clipped _her_ -down to Gore their letters would have all gone in the swill-tub!” - -“You see, we have not the privilege of acquaintance with the -postmistress of Kilrathy! Well, I must try and bring my brother to see -you. But he is like your daughter; he is not _facile_. Like all those -reactionary sort of people, he thinks nobody good enough to know. I -never can induce him to make a new acquaintance. But perhaps if he sees -this Dalou----” With a pretty smile she left the unfinished sentence -to sink into the mind of Katherine Massarene’s mother. That simple and -candid personage answered the unspoken thought. - -“We’ve had a-many asking for Kathleen’s hand, ma’am,” she said very -stupidly. “But neither she or William are easy to please in that way. -He looks so high as naught but kings would satisfy him, and she--well, -I don’t know what she wants, I’m sure, and I don’t think she knows -herself.” - -“Perhaps she’s in love with Framlingham!” cried her companion with a -disagreeable little laugh, for she was provoked at her unplayed cards -being discerned by a person of such limited intelligence. - -“A married man, ma’am!” cried Mrs. Massarene, with a countenance so -pallid from horror that Lady Kenilworth laughed as heartily as if she -were hearing Yvette Guilbert sing. - -“Oh, my good woman, how much you have got to learn!” she cried gaily. - -Mrs. Massarene patted her gown a little irritably, but she dared not -resent; though it seemed to her that, after all her William had done -for this lovely young lady, it was hard to be called by her a good -woman. - -“I’ll never learn to break the Holy Commandments, ma’am,” she said in a -tone of offence. - -“Oh, you dear droll creature!” cried her visitor, more and more amused. - -“But let us go over your lists,” she said sharply, realizing that she -was wasting valuable time on this goose. “They will want no end of -weeding. I will not meet anybody who is not in my own set. You’ll get -the right people if you don’t mix them with the wrong.” - -With her little gold pencil as a stiletto she set to work mercilessly -on her work of expurgation and execution. - -Mrs. Massarene looked on helpless but agitated; a sense of wrath was -stirring in her mild bosom, but she dared not show it. - -“To be called a good woman!” she thought. “Just as I’d speak to the -match-seller at the corner of a street!” - -The lists thus weeded with such pitiless surgery produced very -brilliant gatherings at Harrenden House, and the falconer of Clodion -saw nearly all that was fairest and noblest pass up the grand staircase -which he guarded. - -Margaret Massarene, standing till she was ready to drop at the entrance -of her reception-rooms, felt her head swim under her tiara as she heard -the great names announced by Winters. - -The Massarene pile had been touched by the magic wand which could -transform it into fashion. To go to Harrenden House became the -amusement of the great and the ambition of all lesser folks. Not to -go to Harrenden House became soon a confession that you were nobody -yourself. “_Tenez la dragée haute!_” said their guide, philosopher, and -friend; and she made them very exclusive indeed, and would let no one -snub them or laugh at them except herself. - -“On my soul, she do give worth for her money!” thought William -Massarene; and he was pleased to feel that he had not been fooled even -when he had bought a barren Scotch estate and compromised his credit in -the City by putting a consumptive little sot on the Board of a bank. - -“Why don’t you bespeak the Massarene young woman for me, Mouse?” said -Brancepeth in the boudoir of Stanhope Street, when he heard of the bust -of Dalou and the portrait of Orchardson. - -“How exactly like a man!” said his friend, blue fire flashing from her -eyes. “A little while ago you were mad about the Countess Lynar!” - -“It’s uncommon like a man to get a pot of money when he can!” said -Brancepeth with amusement. “If you did your duty by me, you’d bespeak -me those loaves and fishes; you do what you like with the bloomin’ cad.” - -“I would sooner see you dead than married!” - -“I be bound you would,” muttered the young man. “Lord, that’s the sort -of thing women call love!” - -“Men’s love is so disinterested, we know!” said Mouse with withering -contempt. - -“You want the young woman for Ronnie,” continued Brancepeth. “That’s -your little game. But he won’t take your tip.” - -“Why not?” - -“’Cos he’s the cussedest crank in all Judee! Let Ronnie please himself -and get me the Massarene dollars. I’ll give you half I get; and I -sha’n’t know whether she’s a snub nose or a straight one.” - -Mouse colored with anger. There are things when however necessary it -may be to do them, cannot be spoken of without offence. - -“How odiously coarse you grow,” she observed with severity. - -“Oh, bother! you call a spade a spade fast enough sometimes. How you -do make me think of my old granny Luce!” - -“In what do I resemble your old granny Luce?” - -Brancepeth was mute. To repeat what his maternal grandmother had said -would not pour oil on troubled waters. What the very free-spoken and -sharp-tongued old Lady Luce had said was this, when Brancepeth was -still in the sixth form at Eton: - -“You’re such a pretty boy, Harry, the women-folks will be after you -like wasps after treacle; take my advice, whatever you do steer clear -of the married ones. A married woman always has such a lot of trumps up -her sleeve. She sticks like a burr: you can pay off a wench, but you -can’t pay off her; and if her fancy-man tries to get away she calls -in her husband and there’s the devil and all to pay. Don’t you forget -that, Harry.” - -But he had forgotten it. - -“I think I’ll go up and see the little beggars,” he said, to make a -diversion; and he slipped away before she could stop him and went up, -four stairs at a time, to the nurseries. There he was extremely popular -and much beloved, especially by Jack; and there he was perfectly -happy, being a young man of simple tastes, limited intelligence, and -affectionate disposition. - -He was in the midst of an uproarious game of romps there one day, when -Cocky looked in from the doorway with an odd little smile. - -“What a good paterfamilias you’ll be, Harry, when your time comes!” he -said, with a look which made poor Harry color to the roots of his hair. - -The head nurse intervened by calling to order noisy, laughing little -Jack. - -“Don’t you see your dear papa at the door, Lord Kersholm?” said that -discreet woman. - -This day there was no Cocky in the doorway; but the blindman’s buff was -early in its merry course interrupted by a message from Lady Kenilworth -requesting his presence downstairs. - -“Oh, Lord, what a pity!” said Brancepeth, as he pulled the handkerchief -off his eyes, swung Jack up above his head, and then kissed him a dozen -times. - -“I wasn’t doing any harm,” he said sulkily, as he reëntered the -presence of Jack’s mother. - -“Yes, you were,” she said coldly. “I cannot allow you to be upstairs -with the children so long and so constantly. Their women must think it -very odd; they will talk. No other of my husband’s friends enters the -nurseries. You must have something to do at the barracks, or the clubs, -or the stables, or somewhere. Go and do it.” - -Brancepeth hung his head. He understood what his punishment would be -if he dreamed of marrying the Massarene heiress or any other person -whatsoever. Not to see the children any more except as any other of -“Cocky’s friends” saw them! He was tender-hearted and weak in will; -she cowed him and ruled him with a rod of iron. “Lord, how right my -grandmother Luce was!” thought the poor fellow as he went down Stanhope -Street meekly, feeling in remembrance the touch of Jack’s soft, fresh, -rosy lips. - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - - -Some time before Easter cards had been issued for a Costume Ball at -Otterbourne House, _temp._ Charles II., to be given immediately after -Easter. The Duke occasionally lent the mansion to his daughter-in-law -for such entertainments, never very willingly, for he had always to -defray himself the cost of them, and he greatly disliked many members -of her set. But he recognized a certain right in his eldest son’s wife -to have the house sometimes, though he did not concede that it went so -far as for her to inhabit it. Those little dark-eyed children running -about Otterbourne House, and Harry Brancepeth going in and out of it -continually--“Not whilst I live,” said the Duke to himself. After him, -Cocky must do as he chose. Cocky would probably let it, or sell it at -once for a monster hotel. - -She arranged her ball greatly to her satisfaction in every detail -before she went down for the Easter recess. But there was one thing -which had been difficult. That was, to persuade the Duke, who always -insisted on revising her list for parties given at his houses, whether -in town or country, to allow that of Massarene to remain on it. He -inquired who the Massarenes were; and did not inquire only of herself, -but of others. He was most decidedly opposed to the presence of such -people at Otterbourne House. But Blair Airon was not yet definitely -purchased, and it had been given to her to understand that unless the -gates of Otterbourne House unclosed, that purchase never might be -ratified. All her ingenuity, all her cajolery, all her infinite skill -in the manipulation of the minds and wills of men, failed absolutely -for a long time with the old Duke. He would not have a man come from -God knew where--well, from the State of Dakota, that was equally -indefinite--brought within his doors; and everything she could think of -to say only rooted him more firmly in his prejudices. - -“Odious, insolent, ill-natured, pigheaded, spiteful, out-of-date old -wretch!” exclaimed Mouse, as she read a note from him, and cast it -across the room to her husband. - -“The Pater? Oh, I say, choose your language,” said Cocky. - -In his shrivelled heart, dry and sere as a last year’s leaf, if there -was one remnant of regard and respect left, it was for his father. -Besides, like most men, he always disagreed with anything his wife -said. He read the note in a glance. - -“Won’t swallow man from Dakota,” he said, under a smile. “Well, I -wouldn’t have swallowed him if he hadn’t greased my throat so well.” - -“Hush!” - -“Who’s to hear? Dogs don’t blab, bless ’em!” - -“I dislike to hear such things said, even in jest.” - -Cocky chuckled. - -“What do you bother the pater about him for? I’ve swallowed him; -society’s swallowed him; all the royal folks have swallowed him. Why -can’t you leave the pater in peace?” - -“Why? Why? Because it is absolutely necessary that the Massarenes -should be seen at Otterbourne House--seen at _my_ ball! The refusal -is an insult to _me_! Your father is a hundred years out of date. -The country is practically a republic; we shall all have our lands -taken from us before long and parcelled out to Jack and Jill. It is -ridiculous to be stiff-necked about knowing people. All stiffness of -that sort went out when the Hanoverian line came in. What’s half the -peerage? Titled tradesmen. They have got Richemont. Could your father -afford Richemont? There’s only one aristocracy now left; it’s Money. -When I have been getting them everywhere, and everybody so kind about -it, what shall I look to people when I don’t have them at my own ball? -Your father has no consideration for me; he never has. Put it as a -personal favor to myself, and you see what he answers--within a week of -the ball!” - -Cocky listened quietly, because it was diverting to see his wife so -displeased and to hear her so incoherent. He liked her to be “in a -wax”; he hated to think things went as smoothly as they usually did go -with her; but he saw the gravity of the dilemma. If Otterbourne would -not have the Massarenes, then he and she would be like the farm-girl -of fable--“_Adieu, veau vache cochons canvée!_” There might even ensue -inquiries from high places, and rebuffs which even the talent of -Richemont would not avert. Cocky, to whom the talent of Richemont was -agreeable (he lunched and dined whenever he chose at Harrenden House), -and more agreeable the master of Richemont (who accepted his signature -as if it were Rothschild’s), saw that this was one of those exceptional -occasions on which he would do better for himself to side with the -mother of the four little poppets upstairs. - -“I’ll see pater about the thing if you’re so set on it,” he said, with -unusual amiability. - -“Can you do anything?” she said doubtfully and sullenly. - -“Well, I don’t know. I’ll tell him Billy’s reforming me--making an -honest man of me in Fleet Street, and that he’ll damage me if he shuts -his doors on the beggars. Perhaps he’ll believe it, perhaps he won’t; -I’ll try.” - -“I’ve sent them their cards; tell him so.” - -“That wouldn’t move him a jot; but when I do the eldest son rather -well, and make believe to see the errors of my ways, I can get a thing -or two out of Poodle--sometimes. After all----” - -After all, thought Cocky, there had been days, though it seemed odd -enough to think so now, when he had been a clean and pretty little -child jumping up on to his father’s knee. The duke thought of those -far-away days oftener than he did, and Cocky was never ashamed to -_exploiter_ the remembrance to base ends. - -“Go at once, then,” said his wife ungraciously. - -Cocky nodded. But when he had reached the door he looked back between -the curtains, a rather diabolic grin upon his thin fair features. - -“I won’t tell pater you sold Blair Airon instead of selling Black -Hazel. Ain’t I magnanimous?” - -He disappeared, whilst the Blenheims barked shrilly at his memory. -Cocky turned into his own den and strengthened his courage with an -“eye-opener” of the strongest species; then he took his way to his -father’s mansion looking on St. James’s Park--a beautiful and majestic -house built by Christopher Wren, and coveted ardently by an hotel -company. - -As he spun along the streets in a hansom, for Cocky never went a -yard on foot if he could help it, he changed his intended tactics; -the reformation dodge would not do; the duke, who could on occasion -be disagreeably keen-sighted, would inevitably discover beneath it -accepted bills and unworthy obligations. - -“I’ll touch him up in his loyalty,” he thought. “The Poodle’s a -Cavalier in his creeds.” - -He found the duke at home with a slight touch of gout in his left foot. -“I suppose he comes for money,” thought Otterbourne, for Cocky did -not cross his threshold once in three months. But Cocky made it soon -apparent that his motive was more disinterested. - -“You wrote a very sharp note to my wife just now,” he said. “It has -worried her.” - -The duke looked at him with sarcastic incredulity. - -“Are you going to pose as your wife’s champion? It is late in the day.” - -“No, I ain’t,” said Cocky. “Do you mind my lighting up, Pater?” - -Otterbourne indicated with a gesture that when anything was painful to -him an unpleasant trifle did not matter. Cocky lit his cigar. - -“You won’t let her invite these new people, the Massarenes?” - -“Most decidedly not. Is it necessary to inquire?” - -“Well, you see, you put her in a hole.” - -“Your language is not mine; but I conclude you mean that I -inconvenience her. I regret it if it be so, but I cannot say otherwise.” - -“Why did you object to the people?” - -“I might more pertinently inquire why did you know them?” - -“Everybody does.” - -“Everybody does--through you, or rather through your wife. At least, so -I have heard.” - -“Oh, we run ’em, yes.” - -Otterbourne’s silence was eloquent. - -“You see it’s just that,” Cocky pursued with engaging frankness. “When -the town’s taken ’em on our word it will be such a slap in the face to -her if you won’t let ’em into your house. We must take Willis’s Rooms -or some place instead of giving the ball here, but that will make -people talk.” - -“And cost you money,” said the duke with significance. - -“And there’s another thing, you know. _He’s_ gone to ’em through us. -Mouse persuaded him. He’ll be rough on us if he hears you set up your -back; there might be an awful rumpus; it might be unpleasant for -him--the papers would magnify the thing.” - -“You seem to make a mountain out of a molehill,” said the duke with -suspicion and impatience. “Go to Willis’s Rooms. You can ask any number -of shoeblacks there that you please.” - -“You don’t see the thing as it is. You’ll get her into trouble with -the Prince, and give the Press a lot of brick-bats to shy at him: I -know you’d regret that. I shouldn’t have come to bother you if I didn’t -think the thing of some importance. After all you can’t reasonably -exclude a man received at Court.” - -“My bootmaker goes to Court, and my stationer. Very worthy persons, but -they don’t dine with me.” - -“But Massarene won’t dine with you: we only want him to come to the -ball; and it’s her ball and it’s not yours.” - -“The house is mine as yet,” said the duke stiffly. - -“And will be yours twenty years after I’m tucked up; I’m dead -broke--legs and lungs.” - -“You have ruined yourself.” - -This was so obvious that Cocky did not notice it. - -“Come, Pater, do give in; don’t get us in a row with the Prince; when -he’s accepted these people to please us it would enrage him awfully if -he learned you wouldn’t let ’em in. He’d ask you about it, of course, -or have you asked by somebody.” - -“And if he asks why I do let them in?” - -“He won’t do that; he goes there.” - -The duke was silent. He sighed. He could not mend the manners or the -men of a time which was out of tune with him. - -But Cocky’s argument had weight. He was of all things kind and -chivalrous, and would have no more caused a scandal or a scene than -he would have set fire to St. James’s Palace next door to him. He -reflected on the matter; saw clearly how ugly it was, look at it how -you would, and at last conceded permission to let the new people come -on the condition, however, that they should not be introduced to -himself. “I am too old,” he said, “to digest American cheese.” - -His daughter-in-law, who did not care in the least for this -stipulation, went gaily to luncheon at Harrenden House, and interested -herself graciously about their costumes, which were a source of great -anxiety to both of them. - -“May I wear my diamonds?” asked Mrs. Massarene; her diamonds were a -great resource and support to her in society. - -“Oh, the more diamonds the better?” said Mouse. “Of course you’ll go as -somebody’s grandmother, a Hyde perhaps? You need only telegraph to your -people in Paris the epoch; they’ll know exactly what to send you; they -know your age and appearance.” - -Margaret Massarene was not pleased, and felt that persons of high rank -could be most unpleasantly rude. - -“What time is it?” asked her lord, who had not rightly understood. - -“Charles the Second’s. Do you know who Charles the Second was?” asked -Mouse with a malicious little laugh. - -“Him as had his head took off?” asked Mr. Massarene. - -Her laugh became a melodious scream of delight. - -“Oh, you are too delightful! There were no standards in your young -days, were there, Billy?” - -He reddened angrily under his thick dull skin; he was ashamed of his -blunder, and he hated to be called Billy, even by those lovely lips. - -Finally it was decided that he should go as Titus Oates, and should get -his dress from Paris, and should learn to say, “O Lard.” - -“Remember, the man is not to speak to me, not to approach me,” said -Otterbourne to his daughter-in-law on the day of the ball, when she had -come to give a glance at the completed decorations. - -“Oh, he quite understands that,” she replied. “I have told him you -dislike strange men, as some people are afraid of strange dogs.” - -She laughed gaily as she spoke. - -“You might have told him,” said the duke drily, “that there are -old-fashioned persons who think that their acquaintance should be kept -as clean as their hands.” - -“_That_ he wouldn’t understand,” replied Mouse. - -“What makes you protect such people?” - -“Oh! I don’t know! In other ages everybody had a pet jester; now -everybody has a pet _parvenu_. One runs him; it’s great fun.” - -The duke was silent. - -“You know,” she continued, “he bought Vale Royal of Gerald. Surely all -the family ought to be rather nice to him?” - -“You surprise me,” replied the duke. “I sold Seeton Pastures to a -grazier last year; but the obligation to be ‘nice’ to the purchaser -was not in the contract. The sale of Vale Royal was a great disgrace -to Roxhall, for his affairs were by no means in such a state as to -necessitate or excuse it. But whether his loss or his gain, the sale is -certainly his affair; and no one else’s.” - -“Oh, you look at things so--so--stiffly,” said his daughter-in-law. “We -don’t, you know.” - -“I am aware that you do not,” said Otterbourne with significance; and -dropped the subject. - -When Clare Courcy, lovely as a dream, had been first married to his -son, the duke, fascinated out of his better judgment, had admired and -been inclined to love his daughter-in-law. Even now he could not be -wholly insensible always to the witchery of the prettiest woman in -England. He knew her worthlessness; he was aware that his son, bad as -he had been before, had become ten times worse in every way since his -marriage; he could never see the little black-eyed, fair-haired cherubs -of the Kenilworth nurseries without a sigh and a curse in his own -thoughts; but she at certain moments fascinated him still. - -“I may send the bills in to Masters, I suppose?” she asked. Colonel -Masters was the duke’s agent, a silent, conscientious ex-soldier -entirely insensible to her own attractions. - -“Certainly. He has my authority to discharge them all. You seem to me -to have been more extravagant than usual in your orders.” - -He looked around him as he spoke; they were standing in a long gallery -at the head of the grand staircase. Flowers--flowers--flowers, met the -eye in every direction, and the various devices which held the electric -lights were concealed on the walls by millions of roses and orchids. - -“I suppose it is an old-fashioned idea,” said Otterbourne; “but I think -a gentleman’s house should be thought good enough for his friends, even -for his future sovereigns, without all this dressing-up and disguising. -Modern fashions are extremely snobbish.” - -“They certainly are; there I quite agree with you,” said his -daughter-in-law, and meant what she said. “A fine house like this wants -no dressing-up. But we must do as other people do, or look odd.” - -“Or you think you must,” said the duke, viewing with small pleasure -a suit of Damascene armor which an ancestor had worn before Acre and -Antioch, wreathed and smothered with long trails made of the united -blossoms of cattleya and tigredia, whilst within its open vizor two -golden orioles sat upon a nest. - -“Do you think that in good taste?” he said, pointing to it. - -“No; execrable. Nothing done in time is ever otherwise,” said Mouse -with unusual sincerity. “We are never merry, and we are never sorry; -so we heap up flowers to make believe for us at our dances and our -burials. You are quite right, Pater, in the abstract. But, you see, we -can’t live in the abstract. We must do as others do.” - -“I should have thought the only true privilege of birth was to set -us free of that obligation,” said Otterbourne, to whom his noble old -palace looked on these occasions very much like the sweep who was -muffled up in evergreens as Jack-in-the-Green on May-day in the little -old-world country town which clustered under the hills of his big -place, Staghurst Castle. - -“Of course he is right enough,” she thought, as she drove away. “The -house would be ten thousand times better left to itself, and we are -all as vulgar as it is possible to be. We have lost the secret of -elegance--we have only got display. Why couldn’t he give me a blank -check, instead of making me send in the bills to Masters? He is such a -screw! He wants to save all he can for his precious ’Beric.” - -Alberic Orme was the duke’s second son; he was in Orders, was a scholar -of high degree, held one of his father’s livings, had married the -daughter of a rural dean, and was the especial object of the ridicule, -derision, and suspicion of Cocky and his wife. - -Judging Lord Alberic by themselves, they attributed to him and his -hostile influence every one of the duke’s acts which was disagreeable -to them. He was the one of his family nearest to the heart and to the -ear of the duke; the other two being officers in cavalry regiments, -both somewhat spendthrifts and troublesome, and his daughters having -married early and being little with him. - -To be dressed up like a tomfool, and prate like a poll parrot, as he -phrased it in his own thoughts, was unutterably odious to William -Massarene, but he was powerless under his enslaver’s orders. When the -Easter recess was passed and the great night came, he appeared as -Titus Oates, looking and feeling very ridiculous with his stout bowed -legs in black silk stockings and ruffled breeches; but, after all, it -was not worse than Court dress, and it had procured him admittance to -Otterbourne House. - -“Mind, the man is not to speak to me; not here, nor anywhere even -at any time,” said the duke to his daughter-in-law, nervously and -apprehensively. - -“No, he never shall,” she promised; but she knew that nobody who would -see him there would be aware of the stipulation. - -She had got him to Otterbourne House and had fulfilled one of the -clauses of the unwritten contract by which Blair Airon was sold. - -The ball was a great pageant and a great success; and she, as the most -exquisite of Nell Gwynnes, with all her lovely natural hair curling -over her shoulders, was very kind to Titus Oates, guided his squat -stiff unaccustomed limbs through the mazes of one quadrille, and even -snatched a few moments to present him to some great people; and as her -father-in-law made but a brief appearance in the rooms and only spoke -with the royal personages present and two or three of his intimate -friends, she found little difficulty in avoiding the introduction to -him of the “man from Dakota.” - -“Another time, another time,” she said vaguely, and William Massarene -was dazzled and quieted. - -Cocky was present for half an hour, looking a shaky, consumptive, but -not inelegant Grammont, for his figure was slender and his features -were good. He was infinitely diverted by the sight of William Massarene. - -“Passes muster, don’t he, when he don’t open his mouth?” he said to -Hurstmanceaux. “Lord, what an ugly mug he’s got! But the women are -always asking for his photo. Haha! we’ve got it in Stanhope Street -large as life. Pater won’t let him be taken up to him, and you won’t -know him either. You’re both wrong. He’s thoroughly respectable, and -he’s got a lot of my paper.” - -And Cocky, leaving his brother-in-law furious, sneaked off to find the -buffets. - -It was a very splendid and gorgeous scene in the great house which -Wren had designed, and many a famous painter had decorated. Margaret -Massarene gazed at it as she sat in solitary state, blazing with -diamonds and admirably attired in black velvet and white satin, -with that due regard to her age which it had so wounded her to hear -suggested. No one noticed her, no one remembered her; but some -very stately dowagers near her glanced at her now and then with an -expression which made her wish that she were back again in Dakota by -her oil-stove and her linen-wringer. - -“’Tis a mighty pretty sight,” thought Margaret Massarene as she sat -and looked on; “and William’s dancing is a thing I never did think to -see in all my days. But these women look as if they’d like to duck me -in a pond.” - -Carrie Wisbeach, who was genuinely good-natured, observed her -neglected and isolated aspect, and called to her side a fresh-colored -pleasant-looking person, old, but hale and bright-eyed, who had taken -with success the name of Samuel Pepys. - -“Daddy, let me take you up to the Massarene woman,” she whispered. -“She’s so dreadfully disconsolate, and they give extraordinarily good -dinners.” - -He looked and made a little wry face. - -“They’ve got Von Holstein’s cook,” she added persuasively. - -“Really? Richemont?” - -“Yes, Richemont; and the best cellar now in London. Come, make yourself -pleasant!” - -“Ronnie won’t know ’em,” said the gentleman, glancing down the rooms to -where Hurstmanceaux stood, looking very handsome but extremely bored, -wearing the dress which a Courcy had worn when ambassador for Charles -to the French Court. - -“Ronnie!” said Lady Wisbeach. “If Ronnie’s fads were attended to we -should know nobody except our own families. Come along!” - -He reluctantly submitted, deriving courage as he went from the memories -of Von Holstein’s _chefs_. Her aunts looked unutterable reproach -at Carrie Wisbeach as she murmured the inarticulate formula which -presented Mr. Gwyllian of Lostwithiel to Mrs. Massarene. - -“Pretty sight, isn’t it?” he said, as he sank back on cushions beside -her. - -“A beautiful sight,” said Margaret, with unction, “and one as I never -thought to see, sir.” - -He stared and laughed. - -“Unsophisticated soul!” he thought. “Why has cruel fate brought you -amongst us? Tell me,” he murmured, “is it true that you have Von -Holstein’s cook?” - -If she had, he would wait and take her to the supper-tables; if she had -not, he would at once leave her to her fate. - -“Meaning the German Ambassador’s, sir?” she replied. “Yes, we have.” - -“Ah!” He decided to take her to supper. - -“But I can’t say as we like him.” - -“What?” It was like hearing anybody say they did not like Dante, or -Jean de Reszké, or truffles, or comet-claret. - -“No, sir, we don’t,” she answered; “he doesn’t cook himself at all.” - -“Of course he doesn’t! You might as well say that a pianist should make -the piano he plays on, and shoot an elephant to get ivory for his keys! -Richemont--it is Richemont whom you have?--is a surpassing artist.” - -“’Tis easy to be an artist, sir, if you set a lot of people working and -send up their work in your name,” said Margaret Massarene. “He don’t do -naught all day--the under-cooks say so--and he gets more’n a thousand -guineas a year; and he called Mr. Massarene an imbecile because he -wouldn’t eat snails! Now I put it to you, sir, what’s the use of being -able to pay for the fat of the land if you’re to put up with hodmedods -out of the hedges?” - -Gwyllian laughed so delightedly that the two terrible dowagers turned -to glance at him with a Medusan frown. - -“After all,” he thought, “one does get a great deal more fun out of -this kind of people than one ever gets out of one’s own.” And he took -her in to supper, and made himself exceedingly pleasant. He was one -of those wise persons who if they cannot be pleasant with others are -nothing at all. - -Under the gentle exhilaration produced by a little sparkling wine, -Mrs. Massarene amused him infinitely, and he cleverly extracted from -her more about life in Dakota than the rest of London had learned -in a year; he was even made acquainted with the oil-stove and the -linen-wringer. - -“What a nice kind man! How interested he do seem!” she thought, poor -creature, unconscious that the oil-stove and the linen-wringer would -make the diversion of a dozen dinner-tables, manipulated with that -skill at mimicry which was one of Daddy Gwyllian’s social attractions. - -Her husband saw her from a distance, and divined that she was being -“drawn”; but he was powerless. He was in waiting on an aunt of Lady -Kenilworth’s, a very high and mighty person with aquiline features and -an immense appetite. It was her garrulous stupidity and her clumsy -ingenuousness which made him hate her with a hate which deepened every -day. Why had he hung such a millstone round his neck when he had been -a farm-lad in County Down? Her good and kindly qualities, her natural -sincerity, simplicity, and good nature were all homely instincts, no -more wanted in her new life than a pail of fresh milk was wanted at one -of the grand dinners at Harrenden House. - -Once she had gone back to Kilrathy, the place of her birth, and -revisited the pastures, the woods, the streams, which she had known -in girlhood. The big house in the midst of the green lands was shut -up; bad times had told there as in so many other places in the land; -the family she had served was abroad, impoverished, alienated, and -all but forgotten. But nothing else was changed. The same great trees -spread their vast shadows above the grass; the same footpaths ran -through the meadows; the same kind of herds fed lazily, hock deep in -clover, the rain shining on their sleek sides, their breath odorous -on the misty air; the same kind of birds sang above her head. Every -step of the way was familiar to her: here was the stile where she -had listened first to William’s wooing; there the footbridge which -she had crossed every market day; here the black hazel coppice where -she had once lost a silver sixpence; there the old oak stump where -the red cow had been suddenly taken with labor pains; the rich long -grass, the soft grey rain, the noisy frogs in the marsh, the brimming -river with the trout up-leaping amongst the sword rush and the dock -leaves--all these and a thousand other familiar things were just as -they had been five-and-thirty years before; but none of the people -guessed that the lonely lady so richly dressed, walking silently -through the water meadows, had once been Margaret Hogan. She did not -dare make herself known to any of them; she stole into the churchyard -and sat by her parents’ graves in the dusk, and gathered a few daisies -off the nameless mounds, and stole away again feeling ashamed as of -some overt act. She saw a barelegged girl going home with the cattle, -a switch in her hand and a gleam of sunset light coming through the -rain-clouds and touching her red hair and her red kirtle; and in an odd -breathless, senseless kind of ingratitude to fate, she wished that her -Kathleen--Katherine--were that cow-girl, threading that fragrant twilit -path with the gentle kine lowing about her, and a little calf nibbling -at a bunch of clover in her hand. - -“’Twas a good life when all was said,” she murmured, a good life, -washed by the dews, freshened with the winds, sweetened by the flowers. -She left a bank note at the poor-box of the little church, and returned -to her grandeur and greatness, bearing in memory for many a day that -pleasant sound of the cattle chewing the wet grasses in the dusk, -smelling in memory for many a day the honey scent of the cowslips in -the wide pastures by the river. Those memories were shut up in her -heart in secret; she would not have dared to speak of them to her -husband, or her daughter, but they were there, as the withered daisies -were in the secret drawer of her dressing-case; and they kept a little -corner of feeling alive in her poor puffed-out stiffened overstretched -soul, so overweighted with its cares and honors. - -It seemed wonderful to her that she should be a grand rich lady going -to Court and wearing diamonds. Through all these years through which -the millions had been accumulating she had not been allowed to know -of their accumulation, or permitted to cease from privations and -incessant labor. More than a quarter of a century had been to her a -period of toil quite as severe in one way as the life as a dairy-girl -had been here in another way. Often and often in the bitter winters -and scorching summers of the Northwest she had thought as of a lost -paradise of these peaceful pastures, where no greater anxiety had -burdened her than to keep her cows in health and have her milking -praised. - -It was a fine thing to be a fine lady; yes, no doubt she was very proud -of her new station in the world. But still, these white satin corsets -of Paris which laced her in so tightly were less easy than the cotton -jacket and the frieze coat; her hands laden with rings or imprisoned in -gloves could not do the nimble work which they had been used to do; and -the unconcealed contempt of the “smart society” in which she lived had -not the warmth and comfort which had been in the jokes and the tears of -the farm-girls when a cow upset the milk she had given or the boys came -home fresh from a fair. It was all much grander of course in this, but -ease was wanting. - -“My dear Ronnie! Those new folk your sister’s running are too -delicious for anything,” said Daddy Gwyllian to Hurstmanceaux in the -smoking-room. “I took the woman into supper, and on my soul I never -laughed more at the Coquelins! I’m going to dine there on Sunday; -they’ve got Richemont.” - -“More shame for you, Daddy!” said Hurstmanceaux. “I never thought you’d -worship the golden calf.” - -“Well, rich people are pleasant to know,” said Daddy Gwyllian. “They’re -comfortable; like these easy chairs. Borrow of ’em? No, ’tisn’t that. -I never borrowed, or wanted to borrow, half-a-crown in my life. But -they’re indirectly so useful. And they’re pleasant. You can turn -lots of things on to them. You can get lots of fun out of them. You -can do such a deal for your friends with them. Rich people are like -well-filled luncheon-baskets; they make the journey with ’em mighty -pleasant. The wine’s dry and the game-pie’s good, and the peaches are -hothouse, and it’s all as it should be and no bother.” - -“I travel on cold tea,” said Hurstmanceaux with dry significance. - -“Oh, lord, my dear Ronnie, I know you do,” said Gwyllian. “But I can’t -stomach cold tea, and a good many other people can’t either. Now your -poor folks are cold tea and my rich folks are dry sherry. Economy’s a -damned ugly thing, you know, at its best. When I go down to shoot with -poor folks I know they put me in a cold room and expect my servant to -clean my gun. The wealth of my neighbor means my own comfort. The want -of means of my friend means my own want of _bien-être_ when I go to -see him. Naturally I don’t go. Equally naturally I do go where I am -sure to get all I want. I don’t want any bills backed, but I do want a -warm house, a dry wine, and a good cook. The very good cooks only go -nowadays to the very rich people; that is to the _rôture_. I dined at a -royal palace last month execrably; I was ill afterwards for twenty-four -hours. I know one of the chamberlains very well; I got to the bottom of -this horrible mystery; the king pays so much a head for his dinners, -wine included! I fled from that capital. The royal dynasty is very -ancient, very chivalrous, very heroic, but I prefer the Massarenes.” - -“I dare say you are right,” said Hurstmanceaux bitterly. “The adoration -of new wealth is not so much snobbism as selfishness.” - -“It is not snobbism at all in us,” said Gwyllian, “the snobbism is on -their side. They kiss our boots when we kick ’em. Why shouldn’t we kick -’em if they like it?” - -“I don’t blame your kicking them for a moment. I blame your legs being -under their dinner-tables while you do it.” - -“That’s a matter of opinion,” said Daddy. “‘_Je prends mon bien où je -le trouve_,’ and if there’s a good cook in a house I go there.” - -“There are good cooks at the Clubs.” - -“Passable. But when I dine at a club I have to pay for my dinner,” said -Gwyllian with a chuckle. “I don’t borrow money, but I like to save it. -I should not pay a guinea for a peach, but a couple of guinea peaches -taste uncommon good when somebody else provides ’em.” - -“What a beast you make yourself out, Daddy!” - -“I’m a man of my time, dear boy,” said Gwyllian, as he opened a silver -cigarette-case which a pretty woman had won at a bazaar raffle and -given to him. - -Daddy was popular with both the sexes. Everybody liked him, though -nobody could tell why they did so. - -He was one of those men who do nothing all their lives except run to -and fro society like dogs in a fair. He was of ancient descent, and -had enough to live on, as a bachelor, without, as he had averred, ever -wanting to borrow half-a-crown of anybody. He had a little nest of -three rooms in Albemarle Street, full of pretty things which had all -been given him chiefly by ladies, and he was seen in London, in Paris, -in Homburg, in Cowes, in Cannes, in Monaco, in Biarritz, at the height -of their respective seasons with unvarying regularity: farther afield -he did not go often; he liked to have his familiar world about him. - -He was now an old man, and to the younger generation seemed -patriarchal; he had been called Daddy for more years than anybody -could remember. But he was healthy and strong, for he had always taken -care of himself; he could shoot with the best of them still, and could -sit up all night and look fresh and rosy after his shower-bath in the -morning. - -“You young ’uns have no stamina,” he said once to Brancepeth when he -found that young man measuring the drops of his digitalis. “It is the -way you were brought up. In my time we were fed on bread and milk, and -rice-pudding, and wore low frocks till we were eight or nine, and never -even saw what the grown-up folks ate. You were all of you muffled up -to your chins in the nurseries, and got at by the doctors, and plied -with wine and raw meat, and told that you had livers and lungs and -digestions before you could toddle, and given claret and what not at -luncheon, and made old men of you before you were boys. Dilitation -of the heart, have you got? Hypertrophy, eh? Lord bless my soul, you -shouldn’t know you’ve got a heart, except as a figure of speech, when -you swear it away to a woman.” - -Everybody listened to Daddy even in an age which never listens: he was -so obviously always right; he had so evidently found out the secret of -an evergreen vitality; he was so sagaciously and unaffectedly devoted -to himself, his selfishness was just tempered by that amount of good -nature, when it cost him nothing, which makes a person popular; he was -naturally good-natured and _serviable_ and kindly when to be so caused -him no difficulty; he would even take a little trouble for people when -he liked them, and he liked a great many. On the whole, he was a happy -and very sensible creature, and if his existence was one long egotism -and inutility--if he were really of no more value than a snail on a -cabbage-leaf--if the alpha and omega of existence were comprised for -him in his own comfort, he was at least pleasant to look at and to -listen to, which cannot always be said of persons of great utility. -Daddy, moreover, though a very prudent creature, did patch up some -quarrels, prevent some scandals, remove some misunderstandings amongst -his numerous acquaintances, but it was because he liked smooth waters -around his own little barque; life ought to be comfortable, he thought; -it was short, it was bothered, it was subject to unforeseen accident, -and it was made precarious by draughts, fogs, model stoves, runaway -horses, and orange peel on the pavement; but as far as it could be kept -so, it ought to be comfortable. All his philosophy centred in that; and -it was a philosophy which carried him along without friction. - -If Daddy Gwyllian never borrowed, he also never lent half-a-crown; but -he got other people to lend it to other people, and this is the next -most attractive social qualification which endears us to our friends. - -To real necessity he was occasionally very serviceable indeed, so -long as it did not put its empty hand in his own pockets; but on the -distresses of fine ladies and gentlemen he was exceedingly severe. - -Why couldn’t everybody keep straight as he himself had always kept? - -“Why do you bother about Cocky and your sister?” he said to -Hurstmanceaux, whom he had known from a child, as they sat alone in -the ducal smoking-room. “If Cocky and your sister had a million a year -to-morrow they’d want a million and a half when the year ended. There -are people like that: you can’t alter ’em. Their receptivity is always -greater than what they receive. Their maw’s bigger than the biggest -morsel you can put into it. Don’t strip yourself for them. You might as -well go without your bath for fear the Thames should run dry.” - -Daddy was so fond of pretty women (platonically) that he generally -forgave them all their sins, which was the easier because they were not -sins against himself. But Lady Kenilworth, though he admired her, he -did not like her; he gave her a little sly pat whenever he could. - -She yawned when he talked, which nobody else ever did, and once, when -they were staying at the same country house, when he had offered to -ride with her, she had told him in plain terms that she didn’t care for -old men in the saddle or out of it. - -It was not in human nature to forget and forgive such a reply, even -though you were the best natured man in the world. He could not do -her much harm, for Mouse was at that height of beauty, fashion and -renown at which a person is absolutely unassailable; but when he could -breathe on the mirror of her charms and dull it, he did so; when he -could slip a little stone under the smoothly-rolling wheel of her -life’s triumphal chariot, he did so. It was but rarely. She was a very -popular person. Her elastic spirit, her beauty, her grace, her untiring -readiness for pleasure, all made her welcome in society; her very -insolence was charming, and her word was law on matters of fashion. She -was often unkind, often malicious, always selfish, always cruel, but -these qualities served to intimidate and added to her potency. People -trembled for her verdict and supplicated for her presence. Whether she -were leading the cotillon or the first flight, whether she was forming -a costume quadrille or bringing down a rocksetter, she was equally -admirable, and although she excelled in masculine sports she had the -tact always to remain exquisitely feminine in appearance and style. -She had had also the tact and the good luck always to preserve her -position. She had always done what she liked, but she had always done -it in such a way that it had never injured her. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - - -A week or two later Hurstmanceaux saw a paragraph in the morning -papers which made him throw them hastily aside, leave his breakfast -unfinished, and go to his sister’s house in Stanhope Street. Her -ladyship was in her bath. “Say I shall return in half an hour. I come -on an urgent matter.” Leaving that message with her servants he went to -walk away the time in the Park. It was a fine and breezy morning, but -Hurstmanceaux, who always hated the town, saw no beauty in the budding -elms, or the cycling women, or even in Jack or Boo, who were trotting -along on their little black Shetlands. When the time was up he waited -restlessly another half hour in his sister’s boudoir, where he felt and -looked like a St. Bernard dog shut up in a pen at a show. - -She at last made her appearance, looking charming, with her hair -scarce dry gathered loosely up with a turquoise-studded comb and a -morning-gown of cloudy lace and chiffon floating about her; a modern -Aphrodite. - -“You have made your husband a director in the City,” said Hurstmanceaux -without preface, almost before she had entered the room. - -She was prepared for the attack and smiled, rather impertinently. - -“What does it matter to you, Ronnie?” - -“A director of a bank!” - -“’Tisn’t your bank, is it?” - -“A director of a bank!” he repeated. It seemed to him so monstrous, so -shocking that he had no words left. - -“They won’t let him into the strong-room,” said Cocky’s wife. “It -may be rather absurd; but it isn’t more absurd than numbers of other -things--than your being asked to be a mayor, for instance.” - -“If I had accepted I should not have disgraced the mayoralty.” - -“Cocky won’t disgrace anything. They’ll look after him.” - -“Who did it?” - -“Is that your business, dear Ronnie?” - -“Oh, of course, it was that miserable cad from Dakota, whom you forced -through the gates of Otterbourne House.” - -“If you know, why ask?” - -“What an insult to us all! What a position to put us in! When -everybody’s seen the man at your ball where we all were----!” - -His indignation and emotion checked his utterance. - -His sister laughed a little, but she was bored and annoyed. What -business was it of his? Why could she not be let alone to arrange these -little matters to her own convenience in any ingenious way she chose? - -“How could you make the duke appear to play such a part?” said -Hurstmanceaux. “He is the soul of honor and of proper pride. What have -you made him look like? It is the kind of thing that is a disgrace -to the country! It is the kind of thing that makes the whole peerage -ridiculous and contemptible. Imagine what the Radical press will say! -Such scandalous jobbery justifies the worst accusations.” - -“Don’t read the Radical newspapers then. I shall read them, because -they will be so deliciously funny. They are always so amusing about -Cocky.” - -“You have singular notions of amusement. I do not share them.” - -“I know you don’t. You are always on stilts. You never see the comedy -of Cocky.” - -“I do not see the comedy of what is disreputable and dishonorable. His -father will be most cruelly distressed.” - -“He should give us more money then. We must do what we can to keep -ourselves; Poodle never helps us. Well--hardly ever.” - -Hurstmanceaux emitted a sound very like a big dog’s growl. - -“Otterbourne has been endlessly good to you. It is no use for him or -anybody else to fill a sieve with water.” - -“Why don’t he give us the house? We are obliged to pay fifteen hundred -a year for this nutshell, while he lives all alone in that huge place.” - -“Why should he not live in his own house? What decent gentleman would -have Cocky under his roof?” - -“You have no kind of feeling, Ronnie. I ought to have Otterbourne -House. I have always said so. I can’t give a ball here. Not even a -little dance. Poodle might keep his own apartments, those he uses on -the ground floor there, but we ought to have all the rest.” - -“He allowed you to have that ball there the other night, and all the -cost of it fell on him.” - -“That is a great deal for him to do certainly! To lend us the house -once in a season when it is our right to live in it altogether!” - -“He does not think so.” - -“No! Horrid selfish old man! Pretending to be young, too, with his -flossy white hair and his absurd flirtations. Would you believe that he -even made difficulties about our keeping our horses at his mews!” - -“He probably knew that it meant his paying the forage bills. The duke -is most generous and kind, and I think you ought to be more grateful to -him than you are.” - -“Oh, rubbish!” said Mouse, infinitely bored. “People who hate you to -amuse yourself, who want you to live on a halfpenny a day, and who -say something disagreeable whenever they open their lips, are always -considered to be good to one. There is only one really good-natured -thing that we ever wanted Poodle to do, and that was to let us live in -Otterbourne House; and he has always refused. I am certain he will go -on living for twenty years merely to keep us out of it!” - -“Don’t wish him in his grave. As soon as your husband gets Otterbourne -House he will sell it to make an hotel. A company has already spoken to -him.” - -“Isn’t it in the entail?” - -“Perhaps. I cannot say. Ask your lawyer. But I know that an hotel -company has made overtures to him for purchase or lease in event of the -duke’s death--may it be many a day distant! He is an honest gentleman, -and you and your husband and your cursed cad out of Dakota have made -him look to English society as if he were capable of having sold the -honor of entrance to his house for a mess of pottage for his son’s -thirsty maw.” - -“My dear Ronald, how you excite yourself! Really there is no reason.” - -Hurstmanceaux looked at her very wistfully. - -“Can’t you see the dishonor of what you’ve done?” he said impatiently. -“You coax and persecute Otterbourne until he allows you to take those -new people to his house, and then you let the cad you take there make -your husband a director of a bank of which the man is chairman! Can’t -you see to what comment you expose us all? Of what wretched manœuvring -you make us all look guilty? Have you any perception, no conscience, -no common decency? If Cocky were another kind of man than he is, such -a thing would look a job. But being what he is, the transaction is -something still more infamous.” - -She listened, so much amused, that she really could scarcely feel angry. - -“My dear Ronald,” she said very impertinently, “you have a morality -altogether of your own; it is so extremely old-fashioned that you can’t -expect anybody to make themselves ridiculous by adopting it. As for -‘a job,’ isn’t the whole of government a job? When you’ve cleaned out -Downing Street it will be time to bring your brooms in here.” - -At that moment Cocky put his head in between the door-curtains and -nodded to Hurstmanceaux. “She’s made me a guinea-pig, Ronnie,” he said, -with his little thin laugh. “Didn’t think I should take to business, -did you? Have you seen the papers? Lord, they’re such fun! I’ve bought -ten copies of _Truth_.” - -His wife laughed. - -“It’s no use reading _Truth_ to Ronnie. He’s no sense of fun; he never -had.” - -“I have some sense of shame,” replied Hurstmanceaux, looking with -loathing on his brother-in-law’s thin, colorless, grinning face. “It is -an old-fashioned thing; but if this wretched little cur were not too -feeble for a man to touch, I would teach him some respect for it with a -hunting-crop.” - -Then he pushed past Cocky, who was still between the door-curtains, -and went downstairs to take his way to Otterbourne House. - -Cocky laughed shrilly and gleefully. - -“Jove! what a wax he’s in,” said Cocky, greatly diverted. “Just as if -he didn’t know us by this time!” - -“He is always so absurd,” replied Mouse. “He has no common sense and no -perception.” - -“He ought to go about in chain armor,” said Cocky, picking up _Truth_ -and reading for the fourth time, with infinite relish, the description -of himself as an “Hereditary Legislator in Mincing Lane.” “I am not a -hereditary legislator yet,” he said as he read. “As I don’t get the -halfpence, why should I get the kicks? That’s what I said to the mob in -the park. Break the pater’s windows, don’t break mine. I’m plain John -Orme, without a shilling to bless myself with, and the beggars cheered -me! They’ll cheer you for any rot if they’re only in the mood for it; -and if they aren’t in the mood, you might talk like Moses and Mahomet, -they’d bawl you down--oh, get out you little beasts, damn you!” - -This objurgation was addressed to the Blenheims, who, suddenly becoming -aware of his presence, made for his trousers with that conviction that -his immediate destruction would be a public service, which they shared -with the editor of _Truth_. - -Hurstmanceaux walked through the streets and felt his ears tingle as he -heard the newsboys shouting the names of newspapers. - -His sister had said rightly; he was not a man of his time; he was -impetuous in action, warm in feeling, sensitive in honor; he had -nothing of the cynical morality, the apathetic indifference, the cool -opportunism of modern men of his age. He was no philosopher, and he -could not bring himself to smile at an unprincipled action. He felt as -ashamed as though he were himself at fault, as he entered the duke’s -apartments in Otterbourne House. - -Hurstmanceaux and the duke had much regard for each other, but their -conversation was usually somewhat guarded and reserved, for the one -could not say all he thought of Otterbourne’s son, and the other could -not say all he thought of Ronald’s sister. There were many subjects -on which they mutually preserved silence. But this appointment of -Kenilworth seemed so monstrous to both that it broke the reserve -between them. They each felt to owe the other an apology. - -“My dear Ronald,” said the duke, holding out his hand, “I know why you -have come. I thank you.” - -“I dare not offer any plea in her defence,” replied Hurstmanceaux -huskily; “I can only tell you how grieved I am that your constant -kindness and forbearance to my sister should meet with so base a -requital.” - -The duke sighed. - -“I am bound in honor to remember that the basest of men is her -husband--and my son!” - -They were both silent. - -The morning papers were lying on a table by the duke’s side, amongst -them the green cover of _Truth_. - -“That is no excuse for her,” said her brother at length. “This thing is -of her devising much more than it is his.” - -“There are women who are a moral phylloxera,” replied Otterbourne. -“They corrupt all they touch. But in fairness to her I must say that it -was chiefly my son who persuaded me to let this man Massarene into my -house. They made me an accomplice in a job! Perhaps,” the duke added -with a sad smile, “the world knows me well enough to give me credit for -having been an unconscious accomplice--for having been a fool, not a -knave!” - -To these two honest gentlemen the matter was one of excruciating -pain, and of what seemed to them both intolerable humiliation. But -society, though it laughed loudly for five minutes over the article on -an hereditary legislator, forgot it five minutes later, and was not -shocked: it is too well-used in these days to similar transactions -between an impoverished nobility, with unpaid rents and ruinous -death-duties, and a new-born plutocracy creeping upward on its swollen -belly like the serpent of Scripture. - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - - -A young woman, dressed in white cambric, with the deep shade of a -magnolia grove cast upon her as she sat on the marble steps of an -Oriental garden, read of these brilliant festivities in various English -journals whose office it is to chronicle such matters; and as she read -she frowned, and as she frowned she sighed. “Oh, the waste, the folly, -the disgrace!” she murmured as she pushed the newspapers away from -her. For she had peculiar views of her own, and had little or nothing -in common with her generation or with her procreators. She looked very -like her bust by Dalou as she thrust the offending journals off her lap. - -“I am a _déclassée_,” she said to herself as she sat amongst the -rhododendrons and the monkeys. “All they have spent on me cannot -make me anything more. They should have left me in the place which -they occupied when I was born. I would sooner go out as a common -servant any day than be forced to witness their ignominy and live in -their suffocating wealth, to see the laugh in the eyes of the people -they toady, and overhear the ridicule of those who crowd to their -supper-table. If he would only disown me--cut me off with a shilling!” - -“What’s the matter, my dear? Bad news from England? Parents ill?” said -a mellow and cheerful voice, as the temporary owner of terrace and -magnolia grove, Lord Framlingham, came out of the house and across -the rough grass, accompanied by his two inseparable companions, his -cigarette and his skye-terrier. - -She picked up one of the newspapers and pointed to a paragraph in it. - -“They must be the laugh of London!” - -“Oh, my dear, you don’t know London,” said her host as he read. “They -will be the idols of London, the very Buddha of solid gold that its -smart people most delight to adore. Look at the whole thing as a -comedy, my child, and you will enjoy it.” - -“I once spoke to a clown’s wife at a circus,” said Katherine Massarene. -“While the clown was making the audience scream with laughter, she was -crying. ‘I can’t help crying,’ she said, ‘to see my man make a butt and -a guy of himself. He’s nabbut a tomfool to them, but he’s my man to -me.’ I am as foolish as the clown’s wife.” - -“I can’t admit the analogy,” said her host. “I think you take the -thing too seriously. Your people’s position is a common one enough in -our days. When anybody has made a heap of money they are never happy -till they get a mob of smart beggars to crowd round ’em and pick their -pockets. How would smart society go on unless there were these feeders -for it to fatten on? If I were your father I should keep my money in my -pocket and snap my fingers at smart society. But then, you see, I know -what smart society is and he doesn’t.” - -“But why should he want to know? He is not made for it. It only laughs -at him.” - -“Oh, pardon me, I am sure it does more than laugh; I am sure it -plunders him as well. I only hope that he will know when to cry ‘stop, -thief!’ for if he doesn’t all his millions will go into the maw of his -fine friends.” - -Katherine Massarene sighed. - -“My father will never lose except when he chooses to do so. If they use -him, he uses them. It is a _quid pro quo_. It is a question of barter. -But that is what is so disgraceful about it.” - -“I have said,” replied her host, “I think if I were an intelligent -man who had made a pot of money by my own exertions, as Mr. Massarene -has done, that I should not care a damn (excuse the word) for all the -fine folks in creation. Certainly I should not care to waste my money -upon them. But the fact is that all these new men do care for that and -that alone. They appear wholly to underrate themselves and their own -accomplishment, and care only to be rooked by a set of idle loungers -with handles to their names. It is not they who will ever destroy the -Upper House.” - -“No,” said his guest bitterly. “An earl can see and say that the days -of the Upper House are numbered, but my father regards it as the holy -of holies because he means to seat himself in its gilded chamber.” - -“It’s Joe Chamberlain’s reason too,” said Framlingham with a chuckle. -“When we make peers of the tradesmen, my dear, we know what we are -about; we are soldering our own leaking pot.” - -“Solder it with other men’s smelted gold? You had better break it up -honestly as a thing which has had its day and is done with.” - -“Poor old pot! Perhaps it would be better to bury it for good and all -on Runnymede island. But I think you exaggerate a little--I must say -you exaggerate. And you totally ignore a fact which has been put on -record by every English sociologist and historian, that it has been -its frank admission to its ranks of _novi homines_ which has kept the -English aristocracy vigorous and popular.” - -She gave a scornful gesture of denial. - -“It is the _novi homines_ who have degraded the English aristocracy. -Pardon me if I contradict you. Mr. Mallock has written very kind and -possibly very just things of your nobility, but he has forgotten to -satirize its most shameful infirmity, its moral scrofula--its incessant -and unblushing prostration of itself before wealth _quà_ wealth. It -likes hothouse pines and can no longer afford to keep them for its own -eating. It can only grow them for sale and eat them at the tables of -those who buy them.” - -“That is very severe!” - -“Who would be less severe who had seen anything at all of Paris, -of London, of Nice, of Biarritz, of any place where modern society -disports itself?” - -Framlingham laughed. - -“My dear Miss Massarene, you delight me beyond expression, but I can -imagine that you are, to a parent who adores princes and means to die a -peer, rather--rather--forgive a vulgar word--rather a handful.” - -“My father has purchased a place called Vale Royal,” continued -Katherine. “You know it? Well, he wishes to be there _plus royaliste -que le roi_. In the leases he gives to his farmers they are bound over -to pay £40 for every pheasant killed or maimed on their ground. Is -it not out-heroding Herod? He cares nothing for such trumpery sport -himself; he has killed grizzlies and negroes and train-lifters; he -would care nothing to fire at a flock of frightened hand-fed birds; but -he wishes to tempt princes and lords to his coverts and to see the bags -made on his estate cited in newspapers. Who set him that base example? -Princes and lords themselves.” - -“No estates would be kept up but for the game,” said her host, rather -feebly as he felt. - -“What satire can be so withering as such a statement? There is then no -love of hereditary lands, no sense of woodland beauty, no interest in -fur or feather without slaughter attached to them, no tenderness for -tradition and for nature? Nothing, nothing whatever, of such pride in -and affection for the soil itself as Shakspeare felt, who only owned a -little rural freehold? Who can condemn you as utterly as you condemn -yourselves?” - -“I think we are rather useful sometimes,” he said humbly. - -“Oh, very! You vote against marriage with a deceased wife’s sister and -maintain the game laws! - -“I am not ashamed of my parents’ origin, Lord Framlingham, I assure -you,” she added after a pause. “I am ashamed that they are ashamed of -it.” - -“I understand, my dear, and I sympathize, though I suppose not many -people would do either. You see, we all have our crosses. My daughters -have to endure the misery of a conspicuous rank with wholly inadequate -means--a more trying position than you can imagine.” - -“I should not mind that.” - -“Oh, yes, you would. It is humiliation at every turn. It is to be -checked in every generous impulse, to spend half your time in efforts -to make a five-pound note do the work of ten sovereigns; it is to wear -your George and Garter over a ragged shirt, and knock your diamond -tiara against the roof of a hackney cab. I know what I am talking -about, my dear, as most unhappy English land-owners do in this year of -grace. I know that there is no misery so accursed as the combination -of high place and narrow means. I came out here to relieve the strain -a little. It was worse for the women than for me. You, my dear, are a -high-mettled pony which kicks at carrying the money-bags. But my poor -girls are high-mettled ponies which sweat under the halter and the -cobble. That’s a good deal worse. You’ll have to buy a fine name with -your big dower. But they will have to take what offers first, for they -must go to their husbands portionless, or nearly so. And we were Thanes -in Alfred’s time, my dear, and we fought for Harold tooth and nail, and -we were at Runnymede, and at Bosworth, and at Tewkesbury, and all the -rest of it, and our name is as old as the very hills round the Wrekin; -and that, you see, is what an ancient lineage is worth in these days. -Your father has the better part.” - -Katherine shook her head. - -“And honor?” she said in a low tone. - -Lord Framlingham laughed grimly. - -“When one is in debt to one’s banker and one’s tradesmen, and has to -let one’s place to a sugar-baker, the less said about honor the better. -I wish I were a monkey--don’t you wish you were one? They get such fun -out of each other’s tails, and it must be such a jolly life swinging on -branches and living on fruits. And if you like ancient lineage look at -theirs!” - -She smiled, but her heart was heavy. She knew that she could not alter -her fate, and she loathed it. - -“Do not misunderstand me,” she said, with a passing flush coming on her -face. “Do not think me more stoical or philosophical than I am. It is -probably pride not humility which makes me suffer so much from my sense -of my parents’ present position. If I had been born in your class, in -your world, I should probably have been odiously arrogant.” - -“I do not think you could be ‘odiously’ anything, my dear,” said Lord -Framlingham with a smile. - -“Oh, yes, I can; I know it, I feel it, I regret it, and yet I cannot -help it. When I am in their world, to which we have no right, to which -we shall be only welcomed for reasons as discreditable to ourselves -as to those who welcome us, I know that I offend everyone, and that -I afflict, surprise and disappoint, my parents; but I cannot be -otherwise; it is all I can do to keep in unspoken the bitter truths -which rise to my lips.” - -“The _amari aliquid_ was never enclosed in a fairer crystal sphere,” -said her host gallantly. - -“I never would have left my mother,” she added, “but I could do -nothing. I was only the helpless spectator of a kind of effort which is -in my sight the most ignoble, the most foolish of all, the endeavor to -appear what one is not, and never can be.” - -“You take it too much to heart,” said her companion. “You do not make -allowance for the times. Your people are only doing what every person -who has made money does on a small scale or a big scale, according to -their means. Mr. Massarene is immensely rich, and so his aspirations -are very large too.” - -“Aspirations! To get on in society, to have great persons to dinner, -to represent in Parliament the interest of a constituency he had never -heard of a year ago, to get a title, though my brothers are all dead, -to entertain troops of people who scarcely know his name and have -hardly the decency to pretend to know it, do you call that aspiration? -It is more like degradation. Why cannot he remain in obscurity spending -his vast fortune for the good of others instead of squandering it on -idle people, impudent people, worthless people, people to whom he is a -jest, a by-word and a jeer?” - -“My dear young lady, money is power,” said Lord Framlingham. “It is -nothing new that it should be so; but in other ages, it was subordinate -to many greater powers than itself. Now it is practically supreme; -it is practically alone. Aristocracy in its true sense exists no -longer. War in its modern form is wholly a question of supply. The -victory will go to who can pay most and longest. The religious orders, -once so absolute, are now timid anachronisms quaking before secular -governments. Science, which cannot move a step without funds, goes cap -in hand to the rich. Art has perished nearly. What is left of it does -the same thing as science. The Pope, who ought to be a purely spiritual -power, is mendicant and begs like Belisarius. What remains? Nothing -except trade, and trade cannot oppose wealth, because it lives solely -through it. For this reason, money, mere money, with no other qualities -or attractions behind it, is omnipotent now as it never was before in -the history of the world. It is not one person or set of persons who is -responsible for this. It is the tendency of the age, an age which is -essentially mercenary and is very little else! In politics, as in war -and in science, there is no moving a step without money and much money. -The least corrupt election costs a large outlay. Royalty recognizing -that money is stronger than itself, courts men of money, borrows from -them, and puts out in foreign stocks where it borrows as a reserve -fund against exile. You see there is no power left which can, or dare, -attempt to oppose the undisputed sway of money. A great evil, you say? -No doubt.” - -She sighed; she recognized the truth of all he said; but she loathed -the fact she was compelled by her reason to acknowledge. - - “‘When she’s convinced against her will - She’s of the same opinion still,’” - -quoted Framlingham. “Come, my dear, let’s go and have a game of tennis.” - -Katherine Massarene, whose future was a subject of lively speculation -to many, was now twenty-one years old; she looked much more than that -then, and twenty years hence will probably look no older. At five -years of age, notwithstanding her poor mother’s tears and prayers, she -had been sent to the care of a gentlewoman in England, who lived at -Eastbourne and received only half a dozen children to educate, with two -of her own. The lady had been recommended to William Massarene by the -English minister at Washington; and the influence of that gentleman -had been exercised in persuading her to consent to receive against her -rules a little ignorant obscure brat from Dakota. - -“Make her happy and keep her well, ma’am, for she’s all we’ve got,” -wrote her poor mother. - -“Make her English, ma’am, and fit to hold her head with the highest, -for she’ll mean gold,” wrote her father. - -The lady disliked excessively accepting a charge which was alien to -her habits and might injure the tone of her house; but she was under -obligations to the English minister, and reluctantly consented to take -into her home this one little girl who had great astonished unwinking -eyes like an owl’s, and who said to her with a dreadful nasal accent: -“Don’t grin when I speak, or I’ll hit yer.” - -For twelve years she remained under this lady’s care, being trained -in all exercises of the mind and body, and becoming a calm cold -high-bred girl who looked as if she had a thousand years behind her of -old nobility and gracious memories. Of her parents she saw nothing, -and only heard that they were extremely rich. But the orthography of -her mother’s letters, and the style of her father’s few lines, always -made her uneasy, and the recollections of life in Dakota were not as -absolutely obliterated as her parents desired. But of those she never -spoke; she divined what was expected of her. Those recollections became -increasingly painful as with increasing perception she could construe -them by induction. - -When in her eighteenth year her parents came for the first time to -England, she could only see in them strangers, and strangers who, -alas! had nothing of that attraction which bridges the distance -between age and youth. If what she felt on meeting them was an agony -of disappointment and a sense of shame, more acute because it was shut -close in her own breast, they were themselves not less chagrined. When -they first saw her, her parents both thought that she did not give them -great results for the vast sums they had spent on her, and that really -they would have turned her out smarter if they had had her brought up -in New York. The art of gilding gold and painting lilies is at its -perihelion in the empire city. He especially was disappointed in her at -first; he had expected her to make more show, to have more color, to be -more swagger, as the slang words ran; this tall, proud, slender young -woman, who wore generally black or grey in the day, and white in the -evening, and put on no jewelry of any kind, seemed to him to give him -poor value for the many thousand of dollars he had spent on her. He had -intended her to be ultra fashionable, ultra chic, always in the swim, -always in the first flight; on race-courses, on yacht decks, on the box -seat of drags, at aristocratic river clubs, at exclusive and crowded -little suppers after theatres. - -“I wanted a gal of fashion, not a school-marm!” he said with much -disgust, when the lady who had brought her up told him that she was the -finest Hellenist of her sex. - -He did not know what a Hellenist was, but he understood that it was -something connected with teaching. What he wanted was something very -showy, very sensational, very superfine. But Katherine did not like -fashionable life at all. A very little of it wearied her. She did -not like a man to lean his elbows on a little, round, _tête-à-tête_ -supper-table, and stare at her, with his eyes within six inches of -her necklace, and his champagne and cigar-scented breath hot in her -face; and she did not think the situation made more agreeable by the -fact that the starer was illustrious. She infinitely preferred to -be alone in the music-room with her violin and harmonium, or in the -library comparing Jowett’s Dialogues with the original. It is easy to -understand that she was a great disappointment to her father, though -a sort of sullen pride in her was wrung out of him when he saw how -indifferent she appeared to the great folks he adored, yet at the same -time how at home she seemed in the mystic arena of that society which -made him shake in his shoes, strong, hard, shrewd man though he was. - -Except the archduke who insisted on becoming a skipper of a -timber-brig, so infuriating and insensate a flying in the face of a -fair fate had never been known. Katherine Massarene for her part did -not enter, or try to enter into his feelings, as no doubt it should -have been her filial duty to do. She had some of his stubbornness, -and a pride of her own kind which made her unyielding. Her numerous -teachers, male and female, had all found her of unusual intelligence -and she had studied the classics with ardor and thoroughness. She could -say extremely caustic and witty things, but she generally was merciful -and forbore to say them. She had a vast reserve of sound and unusual -knowledge, but she endeavored to conceal it, disliking all display, -and being by nature very modest. As, little by little, she began -gradually to understand the position of her parents, she suffered from -it acutely. If she could, with a clear conscience, have done so, she -would have liked to renounce all their wealth and grandeur and earn her -own living, which she could have earned very well as a musician, or a -professor of history or dead languages. - -She said so once to her father, on his arrival in England, and the rage -of the taciturn, ruthless man was so terrible that her mother on her -knees entreated her never to allude to such an idea. - -“You are all we have left,” she said, weeping. “Your brothers and -sisters all died in that horrible West. You are the sole one he has to -look to for bearing his name and glorifying his money. You are heir and -heiress both, Kathleen. Has he slaved and spared and laid by thirty -years and more only that the sole begot of his loins shall disgrace him -as a menial?” - -“Rise up, my dear mother; we will not speak of it again,” said -Katherine, a mere schoolgirl then of seventeen. “We might discuss and -argue for ever, neither my father nor you would ever see these things -as I see them.” - -And with great self-control, most rare in one of her age, she renounced -her dreams of independence and never did allude again in any way to -them. - -She soon perceived that whatever chance she might have had of -influencing her mother, she had none whatever of moving her father: if -she had stood in his way, he would have brushed her aside, or trampled -her down; he had not made his money to lose the enjoyment of it for the -quips and cranks of a crotchety child. - -Her indifference to all which fascinated and awed himself compelled -his reluctant respect, and the serene hauteur of her habitual manner -made him feel awkward and insignificant in her presence. He was in some -respects, when he pitted himself against her, compelled unwillingly -to acknowledge that she was the stronger of the two. She had hurt him -enough by the mere accident of her sex. He never forgave her that she -had lived whilst her brothers had died. He had no affection for her, -and only a sullen unwilling respect, which was rung out of him by -seeing her ease in that world where he was uneasy and her familiarity -with those great persons before whom he was always himself dumb and -frightened and distressed. - -So far, at least, the money spent on her had not been wasted, it had -made her one of them. For this he held her in respect, but she could -not move him a hair’s breadth from his ambitions or his methods of -pursuing them. - -These methods were to her more refined taste and more penetrating -vision absurd and odious. She knew that the great world would use him, -rook him, feed on him, but would always laugh at him and never see in -him anything except a snob. She knew that every invitation given to him -or accepted from him, every house-party which he was allowed to gather, -or allowed to join, every good club which he was put up for, every -great man who consented to dine with him, were all paid for by him at -enormous cost, indirectly indeed but none the less extravagantly. She -knew that he would in all likelihood live to do all he had aspired -to do; to get into the Commons, perhaps to get into the Cabinet, to -receive royalty, to shake hands with princes of the blood, even perhaps -to die a peer. But she knew that all this would be done by purchase, by -giving money, by lending money, by spending money largely and asking no -questions, by doing for the impoverished great what Madame de Sevigné -called manuring the ground. - -To her taste, success and rank procured in such a manner left you -precisely where you were before its purchase. She knew that to -a society which you only enter on sufferance you remain always -practically outside on the door-mat; and she did not understand that to -the soul of the snob even the dust of the door-mat is sweet. She did -not understand either that in her father’s case the door-mat was but -one of the preliminary stages of the triumphant career which he had -mapped out in his brain when he had first put _one dollar on another_ -in Dakota. - -She early perceived that her parents looked to her for assistance in -their ambitions, but she was obdurate in giving them none; they called -her undutiful, and undutiful she might be; but she felt that she would -rather be guilty of any offence whatever than become degraded and -servile. So extreme was her resistance on this point that one evening -it brought an open rupture with her father, and that exile to India -of which Mrs. Massarene had not told all the truth when exhibiting -Dalont’s bust of her daughter. - -The winter before their acquaintance with Lady Kenilworth the -Massarenes had been at Cannes and Monte Carlo, following that smart -world of which they still vainly pined to enter the arena. They had not -as yet found their guide, philosopher, and friend in the fair mother -of Jack and Boo, and William Massarene was beginning to fear that gold -was not the all-potent solvent he had believed it. But a very high -personage, whose notice would have had power to lift them at once into -the empyrean was also at Cannes at that period, and the white-rose skin -and admirable form of Katherine Massarene attracted him, and he desired -that she should be presented to him. Very unwillingly, very coldly, she -had submitted to her fate at a public ball to which she had been taken. -The great gentleman asked her to waltz. Neither his age nor his figure -were suited to the dance, but women were nevertheless enchanted to be -embraced by him in its giddy gyrations. Katherine excused herself and -said that she did not waltz. - -The great gentleman was annoyed but attracted; he sat out the dance by -her side on a couch in a little shady corner under palm trees such as -he especially favored. But he made very little way with her; she was -chilly, reserved, respectful. “Take your respect to the devil,” thought -the misunderstood prince. - -“Why are you so very unkind to me, Miss Massarene?” he said in a joking -fashion, which would have convulsed with joy every other women in those -rooms. - -“There can be no question of unkindness from me to yourself, sir,” she -replied more distantly still, and she looked him straight in the eyes: -he was not used to being looked at thus. - -He had drunk more wine than was good for him; he tried to take her -hand, his breath was hot upon her shoulder. - -“I’ll dine with your father if _you_ ask me,” he murmured. - -A whole world of suggestion was in the simple phrase. - -Katherine Massarene drew her hand away. - -“Sir,” she said very distinctly; “my father was a cowherd and my mother -a dairy-woman. I do not know why you should do them the honor to dine -with them, sir, merely because they earned money in America!” - -Her companion had never received such a “facer” in all his fifty years -of life. Like his own speech it suggested innumerable things. He grew -very red and his glassy eyes became very sullen. - -He was silent for a few moments. Then he rose and offered her his arm. - -“Allow me to take you back to your chaperon,” he said in glacial -accents which she infinitely preferred to his familiarity. - -“What have you done to him?” said that lady as he left her with a -ceremonious bow. - -“I have told him a truth,” said Katherine indifferently. “I suppose it -is too strong diet for him. He is not used to it!” - -“I should think not indeed!” said the lady, much disturbed. “What can -you have said?” - -“He will probably tell people,” said Katherine. “If he do not, I shall -not.” - -He did, not very wisely, tell two of his boon companions that same -night as they sat smoking with him. - -Of course the story ran about the Riviera next day from Monaco to -Hyères, taking protean forms, and changing with every tongue that told -it. - -One of its versions, one of the most accurate, reached the ears of -William Massarene. - -His nickname in the States had been “Blasted Blizzard,” and his temper -was such as corresponded with the name. His wrath was terrible. From -his point of view it was justified. His wife, trembling like a leaf -in a hurricane, was paralyzed with fear. His daughter remained calm. -She did not for an instant admit that she was at fault, although she -regretted that any cause for anger should arise between her and her -parents. - -“You shall apologize!” he swore a dozen times. - -“I shall certainly never do that,” said Katherine with contemptuous -composure. - -“You shall apologize in public!” - -“Neither in public, nor in private.” - -“You shall go on your knees to him, if I flog you on to them!” yelled -Mr. Massarene. - -“My dear father, pray keep within the laws of that ‘good society’ into -which you have been so anxious to enter,” she said, with a delicate -scorn, which he felt through all his tough hide like the tingling -strokes of the whip with which he threatened her. - -“Cannot _you_ understand, mother?” she said wistfully. “Surely you must -see, must feel, the insult that it was?” - -“Oh, my dear, don’t appeal to me!” said her mother with a sob. “Great -folks aren’t like other folks; and your father must know best.” - -“How dare you turn to your fool of a mother!” he yelled. “Is it she -whose dollars have dressed you fine, and cockered you up amongst -blood-fillies all these years?” - -“I regret that I have cost you so much. But if you will allow me, I -will relieve you of my presence and maintain myself,” she said, with a -tranquillity which made her father’s rage choke him as though he were -on the point of apoplexy. - -“Did I bring you up amongst duchesses’ daughters that you might -disgrace me?” he cried, with a foul oath. - -From his point of view it was hard on him, unjust, a very abomination -of Providence. There were four hundred young women in London, four -thousand in Great Britain, who would have asked nothing better than -to be beautifully dressed, to have abundance of pocket-money, to ride -thoroughbred hacks in the Park, to pay court to great people, and -to make themselves agreeable and popular in society. There was not, -indeed, one young woman in ten millions who would have quarrelled with -such a fate; and that extraordinary and solitary exception was his -daughter. It was not wonderful, it was scarcely even blamable, that -William Massarene was beside himself with chagrin and rage. - -A thousand other men had daughters who asked nothing better than to -be allowed to spend money, and be made love to by princes, and wear -smart frocks, and push themselves into smart society; and he had this -_rara avis_, this abnormal, unnatural, incredible phenomenon to whom -all these things, which were the very salt of life to other women, were -only as dust and ashes! - -What punishment could he give her? What other threats could he make -her? It was useless to threaten with being turned out of doors a -person who asked nothing better than to be set free to work for her -livelihood. If he had hinted at such a punishment, she would have taken -him at his word, would have put on her simplest gown, and would have -gone to the nearest railway-station. - -He thundered at her; he hurled at her blasphemous words, which had used -to make the blood of miners and navvies turn cold when the “bull-dozing -boss” used such to them; he swore by all heavenly and infernal powers -that he would drag her on her knees to the offended gentleman. But -he made no impression whatever on her. She ceased to reply. But she -gave no sign of any emotion, either timorous or repentant; she was -altogether unmoved. Say what he would he could not intimidate her, -and the force of his fury spent itself in time, beaten by passive -resistance. - -The upshot of the stormy scene was, that he exiled her from his world -by allowing her to accept an invitation to pass a year in India with -some school friends, who were daughters of a nobleman who had recently -accepted the governorship of one of the presidencies in India. - -The decision cost her mother many tears, but it was the mildest -ultimatum to which William Massarene could be brought. He only saw in -his daughter a person who might have secured to him the one supreme -honor for which his soul pined, and who had not done so, out of some -squeamish, insolent, democratic, intolerable self-assertion. In sending -her to pass a year in the family of Lord Framlingham, he not only -removed her from his own sight, but placed her where he not unnaturally -supposed that she would be surrounded by Conservative and aristocratic -influences. Framlingham, however, though it had suited his pocket -to accept his appointment, was a revolutionary at heart, and railed -incessantly at the existence of his own order and his own privileges. -He had heard of the discomfiture of the great personage, and chuckled -over it, and welcomed the heroine of that rebuff with great cordiality -to his marble palace, looking through the golden stems of palm-groves -on to the Indian Ocean, where he was a funny incongruous figure -himself, in his checked tweed clothes, with his red English face, his -shining bald head, his eye-glass screwed into his left eye, and his -clean-shaven lips shut close on a big cigar. - -“Did so right, Miss Massarene, did so right,” he said warmly to her, -soon after her arrival. “Mustn’t say so, you know, as I’m one of Her -Majesty’s servants, but I’m always deuced glad when any royalty gets a -facer. Those people, you know, are like preserved meats in a tin case -which has had all the air pumped out of it. They never get a chance of -hearing the truth, nor of knowing what they look like to people who -aren’t snobs. Almost everybody is a snob, you see. I should like to -write a new ‘Book of Snobs.’ The species has grown a good deal since -Thackeray’s days. It has developed like orchids or prize vegetables.” - -Framlingham, although an unpoetic-looking occupant of a marble palace -in rose-gardens of the gorgeous East, was a person of delicate -perceptions, high intelligence, and cultured mind. He took a great -liking to this young woman, who quarreled with a lot which all the -world envied her, and he pressed her to remain with his family when the -year had passed; and she obtained permission to do so. Her mother was -yearning for her return, but her father would willingly never have seen -her face again. He was not a man who forgave. - -She was thinking of the scene with her father as she sat on the marble -steps in the governor’s gardens, in the deep shade of a magnolia grove, -absently listening to the chatter of the monkeys overhead. She felt -that she had been in the right. She burned with shame whenever she -remembered the eyes of the great gentleman luring upon her as he said, -“I’ll dine with your father, if _you_ ask me.” - -And her father had not seen the meaning in those words; or had seen it, -but would willingly have purchased the honor even at that price! - -She felt as if she could never go back to that life in England, at -Monte Carlo, at Homburg. If only they would allow her to make her -own career here in this ancient and romantic land as a teacher, as a -nurse, as an artist, as anything. If only they would not oblige her to -return to the yoke of that inane humiliating tedious routine which they -thought honor and the world called pleasure! - -She had by that day’s mail received from her mother some cuttings from -a society journal, descriptive of the glories of Harrenden House and -Vale Royal, and containing an account of the dinner-party which the -Grand Duchess had ordered and honored. These brilliant paragraphs had -filled her with pain and disgust. - -“We are getting on fast, my dear child,” wrote her mother, “and it’s -time as you came back, for people are always asking after you, and I’d -like to see you well married, and I’m sure you look more of a lady than -many of them.” - -She knew very well what kind of marriage she would alone be allowed to -make; marriage which would give her some high place in return for an -abyss of debt filled up, which would purchase for her entry into some -great family who would receive her for sake of what she would bring -to clear off mortgages, and save the sale of timber, and enable some -titled fool to go on keeping his racing-stud. - -“Never! never!” she said to herself; her father might disinherit her if -he pleased, but he should never make her marry so. - -The same temper was in her which had made her say as a small child: -“If you grin when I speak I’ll hit yer.” The temper was softened by -courtesy, by culture, by self-control, by polished habit; but it was -there, proud, imperious and indomitable. - -_L’échine souple_ of the snob and the courtier was wanting in her. -“You might have swallowed your ancestor’s sword,” said one of her -girl playmates once to her; and she thought bitterly, “My father’s -‘shooting-irons’ are the only substitute for ancestral steel that I -know!” - -But yet she bore herself as though she had all the barons of Runnymede -behind her; and she could not bend or cringe. “I don’t know how the -devil she comes by it, but she is certainly thoroughbred,” thought her -host. “Who knows what grace of Geraldines, or strength of Hamiltons, or -charm of Sheridans, may have filtered into the veins of some ancestor -of hers in the long, long ago?” - - - - -CHAPTER XII. - - -In the March and early April of the next year there was very bad -weather in England: snow, sleet and storm, killing sheep, starving -cattle, delaying railway-trains, and covering much in the woodland -nooks where the primrose roots were getting ready their buds for -sacrifice at Westminster in the drollest form of hero-worship which a -generation bereft of any sense of humor ever invented. - -The moors were vast unbroken plains of virginal whiteness, and the -woods looked black against a steely sky as Hurstmanceaux got into the -express which had been signalled by telegram to stop for him at the -little station outside the park of a country house at which he had been -staying in the North Riding. The engine snorted, hissed and flung up -steam and fire into the chilly air as he hastened across the platform. - -He got quickly into the carriage indicated to him by his servant, -pushing his dog before him, and the train had moved off before he -saw that there was a lady in the compartment, to whom he lifted his -Glengarry cap with a word of apology for the presence of his collie. - -“I am very fond of dogs,” said the lady with a smile, and the collie -smelt the hem of her gown and the fur of her cloak with approval. - -“Thanks!” said his master, and, as he looked at her, thought how -“well-groomed,” in his own vernacular, she was. She did not belong to -the county he felt sure. He had never seen her before, and he knew all -the Ridings well. - -She was plainly dressed in dark cloth; but the sables lining her cloak -were of the finest; her gloves were of perfect fit and texture; her -buttoned velvet boots were admirably made; she had a little velvet -toque on a shapely head; she had an air of great distinction and -simplicity combined. - -She resumed the perusal of her book, and he unfolded a morning paper. -The train swung on its way at great speed. The dog, Ossian, lay down in -the middle of the carriage. The glass of the windows was silvered with -hoar-frost; nothing was to be seen out of them of the country through -which they were being hurried. The snow fell continually; there was no -wind. - -Ossian, waking out of his nap and yawning, much bored, began the -conversation by laying his muzzle on the lady’s knees. - -“Pray forgive him!” said his master. - -“There is nothing to forgive. What a beauty he is!” - -“He is as good as he looks. But perhaps he ought to apologize for being -here.” - -“Why?” - -“Well, really, I do not know why; but it is expected that a dog’s owner -should say so.” - -“Only when he writes to the _Times_,” said the lady, amused. “In -point of fact, it is I who am in the wrong place, for this is a -smoking-carriage.” - -Ossian having thus broken the ice between them they continued to talk, -of the weather, of the news of the day, of the book she had brought -with her, of dogs in general, and of the collie in particular. - -They were neither of them very talkative by temperament, or disposed -to be communicative usually, but they got on very well together. He -shifted his seat to the corner in front of her, and they continued to -skim over a variety of subjects, harmoniously and agreeably to both, -as the train glided over the frozen ground, scattering the fine white -powder of the snow in front of it. - -“How fast it snows!” said the lady rather anxiously, trying to rub the -pane of glass nearest her clear with her handkerchief. - -“Were you ever blocked up by a snowstorm?” asked Hurstmanceaux. “I -have been--once in Scotland and once in Canada. It is a disagreeable -experience.” - -“It must be, indeed. I hope there will be no chance of that to-day?” - -“Oh, no; men will have kept the line clear, no doubt!” - -As he spoke the train slackened its speed, moved with a jerking and -dragging sound for some time, and a little while later stopped still -with a great noise of rushing steam, and a jar which shook the carriage -violently and flung Ossian against one of the doors. - -The lady turned pale, but she did not move or scream; she looked a mute -inquiry. - -“I suppose they have failed to keep the line clear,” he said, in answer -to the glance. “Allow me to look out a moment.” - -He let down a window and leaned out of it; but the air was so dense -with steam and snow that he could not see a yard before him. - -“Is it an accident?” she said. - -“I do not think so. I imagine we have run into a snow-drift, nothing -more.” - -The noise of the steam rushing out of the engine, and the shouts of -officials calling to each other, almost drowned his voice. He took his -railway-key out of his pocket and opened the door. - -“I will go and see what it is, and return in a moment,” he said to her, -signing to Ossian to remain in the carriage, and leaving the door open. - -She did not attempt to detain or to follow him. - -“That is a thoroughbred woman,” he said to himself. - -He did return in a few minutes, and brought word that they had stuck -fast in the snow. The engine-driver had slackened speed in time to -avoid an accident, but they might be detained for hours; the telegraph -wires were all down through the weight of the snow. - -“It is extremely disagreeable, but it is not dangerous,” he said to -reassure her. “We shall be _quittes pour la peur_. We shall probably -have time to get dreadfully keen about eating, and have nothing to eat. -England is such a small place: one never thinks of ‘stoking’ when one -travels in it.” - -“My poor maid!” she said anxiously. “I am afraid she must be very -frightened, wherever she is.” - -“Can I look for her?” - -“You are very kind, but how should you know her? I will get out myself.” - -“It may be as well to get out. You would be warmer if you stayed in the -carriage, but there is the chance that a train may come up behind and -run into ours, though men have gone down the line with lamps.” - -She had nothing with her except her book and a bouquet of violets. -Closely followed by Ossian, he accompanied her along the line, looking -into each compartment to find her maid. There were many people, both -in the train and out of it, talking confusedly, suggesting this, that, -and the other; the air was full of fog and snow; the engine, snorting -and smoking, stood with its brazen breast pushed against the high white -hillocks. - -When they found the maid, a grey elderly person, she was in a panic of -terror, which made her perfectly useless. She was shaking from head to -foot, and repeating disconnected Scriptural texts; she resisted all -her mistress’s requests and entreaties to her to descend; she said she -wished to meet her God where she was. - -“If there be any thieves in the train,” said Hurstmanceaux to the lady, -“they will have an easy time with your jewel-box.” - -“I do not wear jewels,” said his fellow-traveler curtly. - -He looked at her in some surprise. Her tone had asperity in it. - -“Were you going up to town, may I ask?” he ventured to inquire. - -“No,” she answered. “Only from one country house to another.” - -He wished he knew what country houses they were, but he could not ask -that. - -She argued with her maid very patiently and with great kindness, but -made no impression. - -“Poor Danvers! She is out of her mind with fear. What shall I do?” she -said, appealing to him as though they had been old acquaintances. - -“Are you afraid of a long walk?” - -“No.” - -“Will you come with me, then? I know the country. The nearest town is -four miles away. I am going there to send help. Will you like to come?” - -She did not immediately reply. - -“May I present myself?” he added, “I am Lord Hurstmanceaux.” - -She looked up quickly. - -“Indeed? You are very like your sister.” - -“Which one? I have several.” - -“Lady Kenilworth.” - -He laughed. - -“That is a great compliment. She is the beauty of the family. Do you -know her? She is one of the beauties of England.” - -“Not I; but my people do. I have seen her, of course!” - -The tone was rather repellant; by no means cordial. - -“Well, we must not lose daylight,” said Ronald. “Will you come? The -snow is firm, and it will be fair cross-country walking. You will be -less chilled than staying here in inaction; and it is not more than -four miles to the town by short cuts which I know.” - -She hesitated. - -“But my poor woman? To leave her here alone----” - -“I will tell my servant to stay and look after her. She will join you -in the town, and you will continue your journey. I think you had better -come with me. I must go myself, anyhow, for no one else knows the -country. I have hunted and ridden over it scores of times, and I know -every bush and briar.” - -“I will come,” she said, without any further hesitation. - -“You are a good walker?” he said a little anxiously. - -She laughed a little. - -“Oh, yes; I shall not break down and cast my shoes.” - -“Come along, then. It soon grows dark in these early spring days. Our -Aprils are considerably worse than our Novembers.” - -“He is rather too familiar,” she thought; but she perceived that it was -his natural manner, which, when he was not irritated, or sarcastic, -or--as he frequently was--silent, had great frankness and simplicity in -it. - -“It is an odd thing to do,” she continued to say to herself, “to walk -across country in the snow with a man one does not know. But he is -certainly Lord Hurstmanceaux by his resemblance to his sister, and it -will be better to walk than to sit still in a railway-carriage, with -the chance of being frozen into bronchitis or smashed by an express -train.” - -And she took her way across the bleak, blank pastures which stretched -around the scene of the accident, with little frozen brooks and ditches -and sunken fences dividing them, and no trees or hedges to relieve -the tedium of the level landscape, since scientific agriculture ruled -supreme. - -“How well she carries herself,” thought Hurstmanceaux. “Who can she be -possibly, that I do not know her by sight? And her people know Mouse -and not me!” - -The snow was hard, and afforded good footing. She crossed the ditches -and little streams as easily and with as much elasticity as Ossian did, -and went on her way quickly and with energy, carrying her bouquet of -violets close up to her mouth to keep out the biting wind. - -She asked him the name of the town to which they were going, and if -they would be able to telegraph thence. - -“I fear the wires will be damaged there, too,” he answered. “It is -called Greater Thorpe. There is Lesser Thorpe, St. Mary’s Thorpe, -Monk’s Thorpe, Dane’s Thorpe--the two latter charming names suggestive -of the past. You would see the spire of Greater Thorpe from here if it -were a clear day, or what does duty in England as a clear day.” - -“One’s greatest want in England is distance,” she answered. “I was in -India a little while ago. What an atmosphere! It is heaven only to live -in it.” - -“Yes, the light is wonderful.” - -“So golden and so pure. To think that the English dare to defile it -with factory smoke!” - -“That is on a piece with all we do there.” - -“How vulgar, how fussy, how common the conquerors look beside the -conquered! Go into a bank, a counting-house, a police-station, and see -the calm, stately, proud, reposeful natives in their flowing robes, -bullied and sworn at by some smug, sandy-haired, snub-nosed official in -a checked suit and a pot hat! One wishes for a second and successful -mutiny.” - -“It must be admitted we are neither pliant nor picturesque. The -Russians, when they succeed us, will at least ‘compose’ better. In what -part of India were you?” - -She told him, adding, “I have left with extreme regret.” - -“You were in the Framlingham’s Presidency; did you know them?” - -“I was on a visit to them.” - -“If she would only say who she is!” thought Ronald, as a gust of wind -blew them apart and sent the snow spray into their faces; he felt sure -that she belonged to his world and that she was married; she had a -composure of tone and manner which made her seem much older than her -features looked. He was lost in admiration of the beauty of her feet as -the wind lifted her skirts, or as she lifted herself over the ditches -in a spring as easy as the dog’s. - -“You enjoy this rough walk,” he said shortly to her. - -“I think I do,” she answered. “But I should enjoy it more if I were -sure I could telegraph from this Greater Thorpe.” - -“You wish to reassure your people?” - -“I do.” - -“If she would only say who they are!” he thought, but she did not. - -They could only converse when the wind lulled, which was not very -often; it blew straight in their faces over the bare level land, and he -had some trouble in recognizing the landmarks in the white obliteration -of the always featureless landscape, and in avoiding the barbed wire -fencing which had many a day cost him many an angry oath as he had -hunted over those pastures. - -“I used to be a good deal in this country,” he said, as they at last -left the wide level fields for a high road, and which was less exposed -to the wind. “I used to hunt with the Vale of Thorpe hounds. I do not -hunt anywhere now; and I have nothing now to bring me into the county -since my cousin, Lord Roxhall, sold his place.” - -“Vale Royal?” - -“Yes? Do you know it?” - -“I have seen it.” - -“A fine old place, the biggest beeches in England, and a herd of wild -cattle equal to the Chillingham. I only wish one of the red bulls would -gore the wretched cad who has bought it, or perhaps in strict justice -the bulls ought first to have gored Roxhall.” - -She did not reply; she was walking as easily and quickly as ever, -though it was the fourth mile, and the cold of the bleak sunless day -grew more intense as the hours wore away. - -“Vale Royal was given by Henry the Second to the Roxhalls of that -time,” he continued. “My cousin wanted money, it is true; but not -so desperately that he need have done so vile a thing. He was led -into it. The man who has bought it is a brute from the Northwestern -States; made his fortune in all kinds of foul ways, drinking-shops, -gambling-saloons, cattle-trading, opium-dealing, cheating poor -devils who landed with a little money and went to him for advice and -concessions; an unspeakable rascal, who after thirty years’ infamy out -there pulls himself together, praises God for all His mercies, and -comes back to this country to go to church, sit in Parliament, wear a -tall hat, and buy English society and English estates. Don’t you agree -with me that it is utterly disgraceful?” - -She held her violets higher up to her face so that he saw nothing but -her eyes, which were looking down the long straight white road which -stretched out before them into a grey haze of fogs. - -“I quite agree with you,” she said in very clear and incisive tones. “I -think it utterly disgraceful. But the disgrace is as much to the bought -as the buyer.” - -“Certainly,” said Hurstmanceaux with great warmth. “A society is -utterly rotten and ruined when such a fungus as this can take root in -it. That I have always maintained. ‘Tell me whom you know and I will -tell you what you are,’ is as true when said of society as when it is -said of an individual. Certainly society only knows this man, this -Massarene, in a perfunctory supercilious way, and only gives him the -kind of nod which is the equivalent of a kick; but it does know him; it -drinks his wines and eats his dinners; it nods to him, it elects him, -it leaves cards on him; it lets him look ridiculous in white breeches -and a gilded coat at St. James’s, and it makes him pay through the nose -for all its amiabilities and tolerations. It is an infamy!” - -She looked straight before her down the road and did not reply. - -“You said you agreed with me?” said Hurstmanceaux, surprised at her -silence. - -“I agree with you entirely.” - -But there was a chillness in her tone which suggested to him -that, however completely she shared his opinions, the subject was -disagreeable to her. - -“She can’t belong to that class herself, she is thoroughbred down to -the ground,” he thought, as he said aloud, “I am afraid you are tired. -The cold is beginning to tell on you.” - -“No; I am not at all cold,” she answered, holding up nearer to her the -poor violets shrivelling in the frost. - -“What has come over her, I wonder,” he said to himself. “She was so -frank and natural and pleasant, and now she is chilly and stiff, and -scarcely opens her lips. It is since I spoke of Vale Royal. But she -said she agreed with me. Perhaps she knows Gerald, and is fond of him. -But he could hardly know anybody intimately whom I have never seen, or -never heard of, at the least.” - -“Yet there is this to be said. You blame this person,” she added in -a low but clear tone as she walked on, looking straight before her. -“You admit that your world is more contemptible than he. What obliged -Lord Roxhall to live in such a manner that he was forced to sell his -old estate? Are not nearly all of you tradesmen and horse-dealers and -speculators? Who fill the markets with game, the wharfs with coal, the -shows with fat cattle and brood-mares? Who breed herds of Shetland -ponies to sell them to the cruel work of the mines? Who destroy all the -wild-bird life of three kingdoms, that the slaughter of the battues may -be wholesale and the pheasants sent in thousands to Leadenhall? Your -own order, your own order. What has it done, what does it ever do, to -make it so superior to the man from Dakota?” - -Hurstmanceaux listened in extreme astonishment. He could not understand -the scorn and suppressed vehemence with which her words vibrated. He -was silent because, in his own mind, he found the indictment a just -one. But his aristocratic temper was in conflict with his intellectual -judgment. - -“What have the English aristocracy brought into fashion? What do -they uphold by example and precept?” she continued. “Their life is -one course of reckless folly; the summer is wasted in crowded London -houses, varied by race-meetings and pigeon-shooting; the autumn and -winter are spent in the incessant slaughtering of birds and beasts; -their beautiful country houses are only visited at intervals, when they -are as crowded as a booth at a fair. What kind of example do they set -to ‘the man from Dakota’? What do they suggest to him of self-denial, -of culture, of true grace and courtesy, of contempt for ill-gotten -riches? They crowd around him as poultry around a feeding-pan! The -whole thing is discreditable. But perhaps the most shameful part in it -is not his!” - -Hurstmanceaux was silent. He thought of Cocky and his sister, and he -felt his blood tingle under the lash of her stinging words. - -“My own withers are unwrung,” he said at last with a smile. “I don’t do -those things. My estates are extremely unproductive, and I live, for -the chief part of the year, on one of them--Faldon.” - -“It is on the sea, I think?” - -“Yes; on the coast of Waterford.” - -“Do you cut your timber?” - -“I do not.” - -“Do you preserve?” - -“For sport? No. Wild life has a happy time of it, I assure you, with -me.” - -“I am glad to hear any Englishman say so.” - -“Are we such a set of barbarians?” - -“Yes, you are very barbarous; much more so than the Hindoos whom you -have conquered. Compare the simplicity of their diet, the purity -of their arts, the beauty of their costume and their architecture, -with a Lord Mayor’s feast, a Royal Academy show, a Manchester -Canal, a Forth Bridge, a team of cyclists, a London woman’s gown! -Barbarians!--barbarians indeed, worse than any Goth or Vandal!--the -nation which destroyed Delhi!” - -“She must surely be a Russian,” thought Hurstmanceaux. “They often -speak English with an admirable fluency. But why, if so, should Vale -Royal affect her so singularly?” - -He was not impressionable in these ways; but his new acquaintance -attracted him extremely. He admired her, and her voice charmed him like -music. - -At that moment Ossian, perceiving in a distant field some sheep feeding -on swedes in the snow, could not resist his hereditary instinct of -shepherding them, and caused his master some trouble, as the sheep -entirely mistook the collie’s good intentions and fled away in all -directions. The lady watched the scene, standing still under a -pollarded willow. When order was restored and they walked on again, she -asked him what had made him give up hunting; in herself she regretted -her late eloquence, and wished her companion to forget it. - -“What made you give up hunting?” she asked suddenly, as if conscious -that the severity of her tone might appear strange to him. - -“Well, I have never told anybody,” he answered, and paused. - -Then he went on, in a rather embarrassed manner, nerved by the -confidence which his unknown companion roused in him: - -“I was one day in my own woods at Faldon sketching; hounds were out, -but I was not with them. I was sitting in the bracken quite hidden by -it, and an old dog-fox slouched by me; his tail drooped, he was dead -beat, he could scarcely drag himself along; he had a bad gash in his -side from a stake or something; he went up to an old hollow oak, and -out of it came his bitch and three little cubs; and they welcomed him, -I assure you, just as his family might welcome a man going home after -a hard campaign, and the bitch fell to licking the gash in his side, -and the cubs frolicked around her. I never had the heart to hurt a fox -again. Hares I never did hunt; it is barbarous work. But that fox, too, -set me thinking. He cared for his home and his wife just like any good -citizen going home in the tram to Peckham Rise or Brixton. It was a -pretty sight that poor thing going home. I stopped there till dark to -make sure the pack didn’t come after him.” - -“You did very right,” she said in her soft grave voice. “I wish more -men would pause and think like that.” - -The wind rose and blew some more fine snow powder over them and in -their faces. - -“It is half-past two o’clock,” he said, looking at his watch, “I am -sure you must miss your luncheon.” - -“I should like a cup of tea,” she answered. “How much farther is it to -Thorpe?” - -“About three-quarters of a mile. We shall get there before dark. But I -fear the Thorpe tea will not be up to your standard. However, they will -give you a good fire at the Bell Inn.” - -“The Bell Inn! It sounds like Charles Dickens and Washington Irving.” - -“Yes; but there is no longer the abundance and the comfort of the old -coaching-days; country inns, now, like most other things, hardly pay -their own expenses.” - -“I am afraid I prefer the wayside station on the edge of the Indian -jungle, with ripe bananas brought to me on a cocoa-nut leaf, and the -monkeys looking down for a share from the reed roofs.” - -“So do I,” he said, thinking that she looked pale and fatigued. “But -for our sins we are in Woldshire, and we shall have to put up with coal -fires and beefsteaks.” - -She looked alarmed. - -“Surely I shall not have to stay there?” - -“That will depend on what state the roads and the lines are in; the -snow is less thick about here. Where are you going to? Of course, -horses cannot stir out in this frost.” - -She avoided the direct question. - -“Oh, well, it is an adventure; one must not complain. If I can get my -poor woman to the town I will support its indifferent accommodation.” - -“We will do the best we can, but the Thorpe mind is slow and -uninventive. The rural brain in England is apt to be clogged with beer. -Fortunately, however, whatever be its density, it always retains its -perception of the value of shillings and sovereigns. We will try that -gentle stimulant so appreciated in politics, so especially appreciated -since bribery was made a crime.” - -They had now come near enough to the town to perceive in the haze the -square shoulders of its roofs and the tower of its famous church, -all blurred and blotted by the fog like a too-much-washed water-color -drawing. She did not seem to be tired, but she had lost her elasticity -of movement; her eyes looked straight ahead, and no longer turned to -meet his own frankly as they had done before. She seemed to wish to -be silent, so he let the conversation drop, and walked on beside her -mutely, as the straggling suburbs of a country town began to show -themselves in the more frequent cottages, in the occasional alehouse, -and in the presence of people in the roads, and in the small wayside -gardens where they were scraping and sweeping clear little paths from -the gates to the doors. Some of these, recognizing him, touched their -hats; he spoke to the most capable-looking, told them briefly of the -accident, and sent them on to the station-master, whilst he took his -companion to the Bell Inn, an old house which had been a busy and -prosperous place in the posting and coaching times of which he had -spoken. It stood in the centre of a market-place, which was alive -and noisy with country-folks once a week, but was now a desolate and -well-nigh empty place filled with wind and driven snow. - -“If you will rest here ten minutes,” he said to her, “I will come back -as soon as I have seen the authorities and heard what they propose to -do, and I will tell you if the lines are safe and the wires in working -order. I am afraid you will find it very rough and uncomfortable, but -they are lighting the fire and the landlady is a good soul; my cousins -used to come and have some of her soup on hunting mornings; you will -like her, I think.” - -He held open the door of the only sitting-room, and as she passed -within bowed very low to her and went out into the street again. - -As he reached the middle of the market-place he heard his name spoken, -and, turning at the sound, saw her to his surprise coming toward him -from the entrance of the inn. He went back a few steps to meet her. She -was very pale still, and there was a pride which was almost aggressive -in her attitude as she stood still on the slippery trodden stones and -faced him. - -“Pray do not come back to me,” she said coldly. “I can have all I need -here till my woman can join me. But there is something I ought to -tell you, and I ought also to thank you for all your good nature and -courtesy.” - -She paused a moment whilst he looked at her in silence and surprise. -She was evidently speaking under the influence of some strong and -personal feeling. - -“It is to Vale Royal that I am going,” she added with a visible effort. -“I am Katherine Massarene.” - -The blood leapt up into Hurstmanceaux’s face; he was dumb with -amazement and regret; he forgot utterly that he was standing bareheaded -in a snowy sloppy market-place with a dozen yokels staring and -grinning about the gates of the inn yard. He drew a very long breath. -“I beg your pardon,” he said gravely and with great humility. “I am -shocked----” - -“You have no need to be so,” she replied, “I quite agreed with your -views. But I cannot alter my father, nor you your world.” - -She stroked the uplifted head of Ossian and turned to go back to the -door of the Bell Inn. He strode after her and reached her side. - -“I am extremely sorry,” he murmured. “I am shocked at my gross -indiscretion. I cannot look for your forgiveness. But pray do let me -beg of you to take off those pretty velvet boots at once, and let the -woman rub your feet with spirits of some sort, failing eau de Cologne. -I wish I had thought to take your dressing-bag from your woman.” - -“Thanks.” - -She looked at him a moment as she said the word, and he thought there -were tears in her large serious eyes. Then she went inside the old -posting-house and he saw her no more. - -“That cad’s daughter, heavens and earth!” he said to himself as he -brushed the men aside and hastened across the market-place. - -He scarcely knew what he said to the frightened station-master and the -obsequious mayor, and the bustling town clerk, and all the good people -who crowded to welcome a live lord and hear of a railway accident. He -was intensely surprised, disproportionately irritated, and sincerely -vexed with himself for having spoken so incautiously. He knew that -every one of his words must have cut like a knife into the sensitive -nerves of this woman whom he had admired and who had looked to him so -thoroughbred. - -He had felt more attracted to her than he had ever felt to any -stranger, and to receive this shock of disillusion left him colder than -he had been all day in the mists and the snow. - -Suddenly it flashed across his memory that she must be the heiress whom -Mouse had desired him to marry. Suspicion awoke in him. - -He had not known her but it was very possible she had known him when -he had entered the railway-carriage; she had spoken of his likeness to -his sister. Her avoidance of any hint as to who she was or whither she -was going appeared to him to suggest design. Why had she not disclosed -her name until the very last moment? Though a poor man, for his rank, -he had been a great deal run after by women on account of his physical -beauty, and he was wary and suspicious where women were in question. -She had caught him off his guard and he repented it. - -If she were in truth William Massarene’s daughter she probably knew -the share which his sister had so largely taken in the sales of Vale -Royal and Blair Airon; and in the persuasion of society to accept the -purchasers. He did not know the details of his sister’s diplomacy, -but he guessed enough of them for him to burn with shame at the mere -conjecture. When his own kith and kin were foremost in this disgraceful -traffic what could his own condemnation of it look like--hypocrisy, -affectation, subterfuge? - -What had possessed him to talk of such subjects on a public road to a -stranger. He never by any chance “gave himself away.” Why had he done -so this day merely because he had felt as if he had known for years a -woman who had beautiful feet in fur-rimmed boots and a big bouquet of -violets? - -He was furious at his own folly, and he had told her that story of the -fox too, which he had buried so closely in his own breast as men like -him do secrete all their best impulses and emotions of which they are -more ashamed than of any of their sins and vices! He had never been -so incensed and troubled about a trifle in his whole life; and all -the high breeding in him made him feel the keenest regret to have so -cruelly mortified a woman about her own father and her own position. - -To a gentleman the knowledge that he has insulted a person who cannot -punish him for it is a very dreadful thing. - -He had said no more than he meant, no more than he felt, and nothing -which he would have retracted; but he was extremely sorry that he had -said it to the daughter of the man Massarene. To the man himself he -would have had the greatest pleasure in saying it. - -“What was I about to walk across country with a stranger and talk so -indiscreetly to her?” he asked himself in self-reproach as sincere as -it was useless. - -She asked herself the same question as she dried her snow-wet clothes -before the fire of the Bell Inn, and offered all the notes and gold in -her purse to have an old post-chaise got ready at once, and the shoes -of two horses roughed. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII. - - -When she reached Vale Royal, which she did late that night, after a -dreary and dangerous drive of fourteen miles, at a walking pace, over -frozen roads, she told her parents of the detention of the train by -the snow-drift, but she did not tell them of her meeting with Lady -Kenilworth’s brother. - -She was tired and chilled, and went at once to a hot bath and her bed, -whither her mother brought her a cup of boiling milk with two spoonsful -of Cognac in it. - -“It ought by rights to be milked on to the brandy,” said that good -lady. “But that can’t be done here, though there are half a score of -beautiful Alderneys standing on the Home farm only just to supply -the house--and such a dairy, my dear! Chiny the walls is, and marble -the floors. Only I don’t hold with their method of churning, and the -wenches are much too fine. I showed ’em how to turn out butter one -day, and I heard ’em say as I come away that my proper place was the -kitchen! Well, good-night, my dearie; sleep well.” - -“Good-night, dear mother,” said Katherine with unusual tenderness, for -she was not demonstrative, and her parents to her were almost strangers. - -“It is not her fault,” she thought, “if we are upstarts and interlopers -in this place which Henry the Second gave the Roxhalls.” - -Then her great fatigue conquered her and, the brandied milk aiding, she -fell sound asleep and slept dreamlessly until the chimes of the clock -tower sounded eleven in the still, sunny, frosty, noonday air. - -Then she awoke with the sense of something odiously painful having -happened, and, as she saw the withered bouquet of violets, which she -had told her maid to leave, with her gloves and her muff on a table -near, she remembered, and the words of Hurstmanceaux came back on her -mind with poignant mortification in their memories. - -“How right he was! Oh, how right he was! But how merciless!” she -thought, as she looked through the panes of the oriel window of her -chamber out on to the white and silent park. She saw the huge old oaks, -the grand old views, the distant mere frozen over, the deer crossing -the snow in the distance to be fed. The bells of a church unseen were -chiming musically. In the ivy beneath her windows two robins were -singing in friendly rivalry. Above-head was a pale soft sky of faintest -blue. In the air there was frost. It was all charming, homelike, -stately, simple; it would have delighted her if--if--if--there was so -many “ifs” she felt sick and weary at the mere thought of them, and the -innocent tranquillity of the scene jarred on all her nerves with pain. - -It was late in the morning before she could summon strength to go -downstairs, where she found her mother lunching alone in the Tudor -dining-hall; her father had gone away early in a sledge to attend -political meetings in an adjacent county, and the large house-party -invited was not due for two weeks. - -“Who are coming, mother?” she asked. - -“Oh, my dear, I never know; I scarce know who they are when I see -’em,” replied the present mistress of Vale Royal. “Lady Kenilworth has -arranged it all. She brings her friends.” - -Katherine colored at the name. - -“As she would go to the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo, or the -Sanatorium at Hot Springs!” she said bitterly. - -“Well, I don’t know about that. She’d have to pay for ’em in those -places,” said Mrs. Massarene seriously, not intending any sarcasm. - -“Don’t you eat nothing, my dear?” asked her mother anxiously. “I can’t -say as India have made you fat, Kathleen.” - -She smiled involuntarily. - -“Surely you do not wish me to be fat, mother?” - -“Well, no, not exactly. But I’d like to see you enjoy your food.” - -“Did she go through the form of showing you her list?” - -“No, my dear, she didn’t. Your father knows who is coming. I did say -to her as how I wished she’d bring her children--they are such little -ducks--but she gave a little scoffing laugh and didn’t even reply.” - -“How can you tolerate her! You should turn her out of the house!” - -“Oh, my dear Kathleen,” said Mrs. Massarene in an awed tone. “We’ve -owed everything to her. If it hadn’t been for her I believe we -shouldn’t have known a soul worth speaking of to this day. That old -Khris (though he’s a real prince) is somehow down on his luck and -can’t get anybody anywhere. You’ve made fine friends, to be sure, but -they didn’t cotton to us; and your Lady Mary--whom you’ve just come -from--they say, isn’t what she should be.” - -“Is Lady Kenilworth?” - -“Lord, she must be, my dear! Why she comes on here from Sandringham! -She’s at the very tiptop of the tree. She stays at Windsor and she sits -next the Queen at the Braemar gathering. What more could you have? And -though she does bite my nose off and treat me like dirt I can’t help -being took by her; there’s something about her carries you off your -feet like; I don’t know what to call it.” - -“Fascination.” - -“Well, yes; I suppose you’d say so. It’s a kind of power in her, and -grace and beauty and cruelty all mixed up in her, as ’tis in a pretty -young cat. Your father’s that wrapped up in her he sits staring like an -owl when she’s in the room, and I believe if she told him to hop on one -leg round the Houses of Parliament he’d do it to please her.” - -“Does he not see how ridiculous she makes him?” - -“My dear,” said Mrs. Massarene with solemnity, “a man never thinks he -is ridiculous. He says to himself, ‘I’m a _man_,’ and he gets a queer -sort of comfort out of that as a baby does out of sucking its thumb.” - -Katherine smiled absently. - -“Does Lady Kenilworth ever speak of her brother--her eldest brother, -Lord Hurstmanceaux?” she said in an embarrassed tone, which her mother -did not observe. - -“Yes; she says he’s a bear. She’s brought her brothers-in-law, and a -good many of her relations, her ‘people,’ as she calls ’em, but her own -brothers, none of ’em, ever.” - -“This place belonged to her cousin.” - -“Did it? I never knew anything about it. William came in one day -and said: ‘I’ve bought a place in the shires. Go down there this -afternoon.’ That was all. I was struck all of a heap when I saw it. -And the housekeeper, who had stayed on to go over the inventory, drew -herself up when she met me, stiff as stiff, and said to me, ‘I shall be -glad if you will release me of my charge, madam. I have always lived -with gentlefolks.’ Those were her very words, Kathleen. A fine set-up, -glum-looking woman she was, dressed in black watered silk, and she went -off the next morning, though we had offered her double her price to -remain under us. That’s just, you know, what Gregson, the courier, said -once; or rather, _he_ said he wouldn’t live with gentlefolks because -they was always out o’ pocket.” - -Katherine moved restlessly: words rose to her lips which she repressed. - -“And when I go in the village,” continued her mother, “there’s nothing -but black looks and shut doors, and the very geese on the little common -screech at me. The rector’s civil, of course, because he’s an eye to -the main chance, but he’s the only one; and I’m afeard it’s mostly -because he wants your father to give him a peal of bells. They seem to -think your father should pay the National Debt!” - -Katherine sighed. - -“Poor mother! _Que de couleuvres on vous fait avaler!_” - -“Don’t talk French, Kathleen, I can’t abide it,” said Mrs. Massarene -with unusual acerbity. “When we first set foot in Kerosene City, a few -planks on the mud as ’twas then, a little nasty Frenchman had an eating -shop next ours and he undersold me in everything, and made dishes out -of nothing, and such pastry--light as love! My best was lead beside it.” - -She continued to recall the culinary feats of her Gallic rival, whose -superiority had filled her with a Gallophobia deathless and pitiless -as that of Francesco Crispi; and her daughter’s thoughts wandered away -from her to the low-lying white fields round Greater Thrope, and to -the remembrance of the dark blue eyes which had met her own so frankly -through the misty air. - -“Would you mind very much, mother,” she said at length, “if I did not -appear while these people are here? I could go to Lady Mary’s or to -Brighton.” - -Mrs. Massarene was startled and alarmed. - -“Oh, my dearie, no! Not on any account. Your father would never forgive -it. You have been so much away; it has angered him so. And as for your -views and your reasons he’d never see them, my dear, no more than a -blind man can see a church clock. Pray don’t dream of it, child. People -say it is so odd you went to India. They will think you have some -skin-disease, or are light in your head, unless you are seen now at -home.” - -Katherine sighed again. - -“I think you do not understand,” she said in a low, grave voice. -“I utterly disapprove, I utterly abhor, the course which my father -takes. I think his objects contemptible and his means to attain them -loathsome. If you only knew what they look to persons of breeding and -honor! Society laughs at him whilst it uses him and rules him. He is -not a gentleman. He never will be one. A complacent premier may get him -a knightage, a baronetage, a peerage; and a sovereign as complacent may -let him kiss her hand. But nothing of that will make him a gentleman. -He will never be one if he lived to be a hundred or if he live to -entertain emperors. I cannot alter his actions. I cannot open his -eyes. I have perhaps no right to speak thus of him. But I cannot help -it. I despise the whole miserable ignominious farce. I cannot bear to -be forced to remain a spectator of it. This place is Lord Roxhall’s. -All the money in the world cannot make it ours. We are aliens and -intruders. All the people whom Lady Kenilworth will bring here next -week will go away to ridicule us, plebeians as we are masquerading in -fine clothes and ancient houses.” - -“My dear! my dear!” cried her mother in great trepidation. “You make -me all in a cold tremble to hear you. All you say is gospel truth, and -I’ve felt it many a time, or like to it, myself. But it is no manner -of use to say it. Your father thinks he’s a great man, and nobody’ll -put him out of conceit of himself; it’s true that as he made his pile -he’s the right to the spending of it. Don’t you talk of going away, -Kathleen. You are the only creature I have to look to, for I know -full well that I’m only a stone in your father’s path and a thorn -in his flesh. I can’t kill myself to pleasure him, for ’twould be -fire everlasting, but I know I’m no use to him now. I was of use on -the other side, and he knew it then, though I can’t call to mind one -grateful word as ever he said to me; but he knew it, and wouldn’t have -got along as fast as he did without me; and nobody kept ledgers better -than me, nor scrubbed a kitchen table whiter. That’s neither here nor -there now, however; and I’m in his way now with fine folks; and look -like ’em I never shall. But you, my dear, you do look like ’em, and -talk like ’em, and carry yourself like ’em. I would call you like an -empress, only I saw an empress once, and she was a little old hodmedod -of a woman in a Shetland shawl, and she was cheapening shells on the -beach at Blankenberge; and you are grand and stately, and fine as a -lily on its stalk. I want them to see what you look like, my dear; and -they won’t laugh at _you_, that’s certain. As for the house, it’s been -paid for, so I don’t see how you can say it’s Lord Roxhall’s still. He -can’t eat his cake and have it. - -“And my dear Kathleen,” she continued, changing the subject with great -agitation, “they say you mustn’t know Lady Mary; she, she, she isn’t -respectable. There is something about her boy’s tutor and about a -painter, a house painter, even, they say.” - -Katherine Massarene colored. “Dear mother, I know Lady Mary is not all -she might be. She is light and foolish. But when you sent me to that -Brighton school, a little frightened, stupid, miserable child, who -could not even speak grammatically, Lady Mary noticed me when she came -to see Enid and May (her own daughters), and told them to be kind to -me, and asked me to spend the holidays with them; and they were kind, -most kind, and never laughed at me, and took pains to tell me how to -behave and how to speak; and I assure you, my dear mother, that Lady -Mary might be the worst woman under the sun I should never admit it, -and I should always be grateful to her for her goodness to me when I -was friendless and common and ridiculous--a little vulgar chit who -called you ‘Ma.’” - -Mrs. Massarene was divided between wrath and emotion. - -“I am sure you were a well-brought-up child from your cradle, and -pretty-behaved if ever there were one,” she said with offence. “And I -dare say she knew as how your father’d made his pile, and had an eye on -it.” - -“Oh no, oh no,” said Katherine with warmth and scorn. “Lady Mary is -not like that, nor any of her people; they are generous and careless, -and never calculate; they are not like your Kenilworths and Karsteins. -She is a very thoroughbred woman, and to her _novi homines_ are _novi -homines_, however gilded may be their stucco pedestals.” - -Happily the phrase was incomprehensible to her hearer, who merely -replied obstinately: “Well, they tell me she’s ill spoke of, and I -can’t have you mixed up with any as is; but if she was kind to you, -my dear, and I mind me well you always wrote about her as being such, -I’ll do anything to help her in reason. You know, my dear,” she added, -lowering her voice, for the utterance was treasonable, “I have found -out as how all them great folks are all hollow inside, as one may say. -They live uncommon smart, and whisk about all the year round, but -they’re all of ’em in Queer Street, living by their wits, as one may -say; now I be bound your Lady Mary is so too, because she’s a duke’s -daughter, and her husband came into the country with King Canute, him -as washed his feet in the sea--at least the book says so--and anything -she’d like done in the way of money I’d be delighted to do, since she -was good to you----” - -“Oh, my dear mother,” cried Katherine, half amused and half incensed, -“pray put that sort of thing out of your mind altogether. Lady Mary has -everything she wants, and if she had not she would die sooner than say -so. And indeed they are quite rich. Not what my father would call so -probably, but enough so for a county family which dates, as you rightly -observe, from Knutt.” - -Mrs. Massarene sighed heavily; she was bewildered but she was -obstinate. - -“Di’monds then?” she said tentatively. “None of them ever have -enough di’monds. One might send her a standup thing for her head -in di’monds--tira I think they call it; and say as how we are most -grateful all of us, but you can’t be intimate because virtue’s more -than rank.” - -Katherine rose with strong effort controlling the deep anger and the -irresistible laughter which moved her. - -“We will talk of these things another time, dear,” she said after a -moment. “Lady Mary will not be in London this season after Whitsuntide. -Enid and May go out this year with their grandmother, Lady Chillingham.” - -“That’s just what she said,” cried her mother in triumph. “She said -Lady Mary couldn’t show her nose at Court even to present her own -girls!” - -“Who said so?” - -“Lady Kenilworth.” - -“Lady Kenilworth a purist! I fear she could give my poor Lady Mary a -good many points----” - -“What do you mean? Lady Kenilworth knows the world.” - -“That no one doubts. And I dare say _she_ would take the tiara, my dear -mother.” - -“I don’t understand you, and you have a very rude way of speaking.” - -“Forgive me, dear!” said her daughter with grace and penitence. “I do -not like your guide, philosopher and friend, though she is one of the -prettiest women I ever saw in my life.” - -“Well, you can’t say _she_ doesn’t go to Court,” cried Mrs. Massarene -in triumph. - -“I am quite sure she will go to Court all her life,” replied Katherine -Massarene--an answer on which her mother pondered darkly in silence. -It must be meant for praise, it could not be meant for blame; and -yet there was a tone in the speaker’s voice, a way of saying this -apparently acquiescent and complimentary phrase, which troubled its -hearer. - -“Her answer’s for all the world like a pail of fine milk spoilt by the -cow having ate garlic,” thought Mrs. Massarene, her mind reverting to -happy homely days in the dairy and the pastures with Blossom and Bee -and Buttercup, where Courts were realms unknown. - -Katherine was silent. - -She felt the absolute impossibility of inducing her mother to make -any stand against the way of life which to herself was so abhorrent; -or even to make her comprehend the suffering it was to her finer and -more sensitive nature. Her mother disliked the life because it worried -her and made her feel foolish and incapable, but she could not reach -any conception of the torture and degradation which it appeared to -Katherine. If she had possessed any power, any influence, if she had -been able to return in kind the insolence she winced under, and the -patronage she so bitterly resented, things would have seemed different -to her; but she could do nothing, she could only remain the passive -though indignant spectator of what she abhorred. - -To her the position was false, contemptible, infamous, everything -which Hurstmanceaux had called it; and she was compelled to appear a -voluntary sharer in and accessory to it. The house, beautiful, ancient, -interesting as it was, seemed to her only a hateful prison--a prison in -which she was every day set in a pillory. - -All the underlings of the gardens, the stables, the Home farm, the -preserves, showed the contempt which they felt for these unwelcome -successors of the Roxhall family. - -“One would think one had not paid a single penny for the place,” said -Mrs. Massarene, who, when she asked the head gardener at what rate he -sold his fresias, was met by the curt reply, “We don’t sell no flowers -here, mum. Lord Roxhall never allowed it.” - -“But, my good man,” said his present mistress, “Lord Roxhall’s gone -for ever and aye; he’s naught to do with the place any more, and to -keep all these miles of glass without making a profit out of them is -a thing I couldn’t hold with anyhow. Nobody’s so much money that they -can afford waste, Mr. Simpson; and what we don’t want ourselves must be -sold.” - -“That must be as you choose, mum,” said the head gardener doggedly. -“You’ll suit yourself and I’ll suit _my_self. I’ve lived with -gentlefolk and I hain’t lived with traders.” - -At the same moment Mr. Winter, who had of course brought down his -household, was saying to the head keeper: - -“Yes, it does turn one’s stomach to stay with these shoeblacks. It’s -the social democracy, that’s what it is. But the old families they’re -all run to seed like your Roxhall’s; they expect one to put up with -double-bedded rooms and African sherrys. I am one as always stands up -for the aristocracy, but their cellars aren’t what they were nor their -tables neither. That’s why they’re always dining theirselves with the -sweeps and the shoeblacks.” - -In happy ignorance that his groom of the chambers was describing him as -a sweep and a shoeblack, William Massarene, with a marquis, a bishop, -and a lord-lieutenant awaiting him, was driving to address a political -meeting in the chief town of South Woldshire. - -When he got up on his dog-cart, correctly attired in the garb and the -gaiters of a squire of high degree, and drove over to quarter sessions, -he felt as if he had been a justice of the peace and the master of Vale -Royal all his life. He really handled horses very well; his driving was -somewhat too flashy and reckless for English taste, but the animal had -never been foaled which he would not have been able to break in; he who -had ridden bronchos barebacked, and raced blue grass trotters, and this -power stood him in good stead in such a horsy county as Woldshire. - -The snow was gone and the weather was open. There was the prospect -of political changes in the air, and, in the event of a general -election, his chiefs of party desired that he should represent his -county instead of continuing member for that unsound and uncertain -metropolitan division, which he did actually represent. To feel the -way and introduce him politically in the borough before there should -be any question of his being put up for it, those who were interested -in the matter had got up a gathering of county notabilities on a -foreign question of the moment, which was supposed, as all foreign -questions always are, to involve the entire existence of England. -He had been told what to say on these questions, and although it -seemed to him “awful rot,” like everything inculcated by his leaders, -he said it obediently, and refreshed himself afterwards by some -personal statements. Amongst men, on public matters he always showed -to advantage. He was common, ignorant, absurd, very often; but he was -a man, a man who could hold his own and had a head on his shoulders. -That mastery of fate which had made him what he was gave meaning to his -dull features, and light to his dull eyes. No one, as modern existence -is constituted, could separate him altogether from the weight of his -ruthless will, and the greatness of his accomplished purpose; he stood -on a solid basis of acquired gold. Before a fine lady he shook in his -shoes, and before a prince he trembled; but at a mass-meeting he was -still the terrible, the formidable, the indomitable, “bull-dozing boss” -of Kerosene City. His stout hands gripped the rail in front of him, -while their veins stood out like cords, and his rough rasping voice -made its way through the wintry air of England, as it had done through -a blizzard on the plains of the West. - -“I’ve been a workingman myself, gentlemen,” he said, amidst vociferous -cheers, “and if I’m a rich man to-day it’s been by my own hand and my -own head as I’ve become so. I’ve come home to die” (a voice in the -crowd: “You’ll live a hundred years!”), “but before I die I want to do -what good I can to my country and my fellow-countrymen.” (Vociferous -cheers.) “Blood’s thicker than water, gentlemen----” - -The applause here was so deafening that he was forced to pause; this -phrase never fails to raise a tempest of admiration, probably because -no one can ever possibly say what it is intended to mean. - -“I know the institutions of my country, gentlemen,” he continued, “and -I am proud to take my humble share in holding them steady through -stormy weather. I have lived for over thirty years, gentlemen, in a -land where the institutions are republican, and I wish to speak of that -great republic with the sincere respect I feel. But a republican form -of government would be wholly unfitted for Great Britain.” - -“Why so?” asked a voice in the crowd. - -Mr. Massarene did not feel called on to answer so indiscreet a -question; he continued as though no one had spoken. - -“The foundations of her greatness lie embedded in the past, and are -inseparably allied with her institutions. The courage, honor and -patriotism of her nobility” (the marquis with a gratified expression -played with his watch-chain), “the devotion, purity, and self-sacrifice -of her church” (the prelate patted the black silk band on his stomach -and purred gently like a cat), “the examples of high virtue and wisdom -which have adorned her throne” (the lord-lieutenant looked ecstatic -and adoring, as a pilgrim of Lourdes before the shrine)--“all these, -gentlemen, have made her what she is, the idol of her sons, the terror -of her foes, the bulwark at once of religious faith and of religious -freedom. The great glory of our country, sirs, is that poor and rich -are equal before the law” (“Yah!” from a rude man below), “and that -the roughest, most friendless lad may by probity and industry reach -her highest honors. I myself left Queenstown, gentlemen, a young -fellow with three pounds in my pocket and a change of clothes in a -bundle, and that I have the honor of addressing you here to-day is -due to the fact that I toiled honestly from morning till night for -more than thirty years in exile. It was the hope of coming back, sirs, -and settling on my native soil, which kept the heart up in me through -hunger and thirst, and heat and cold, and such toil as here you know -nothing about. I was a poor working lad, gentlemen, with three pounds -in my pocket, and yet here I stand to-day the equal of prince and -peer” (the marquis frowned, the bishop fidgetted, the lord-lieutenant -coughed, but Mr. Massarene was _emballé_, and heeded not these hints -of disapprobation). “What do you want with republican institutions, my -friends, when under a monarchy the doors of wealth and honor open wide -to the laboring man who has had sense and self-denial enough to work -his way upward?” (“They open to a golden key, damn your jaw!” cried -a vulgar being in the mob below.) “who by honesty and economy, and -incessant toil, has come to put his legs under the same mahogany with -the highest of the land. You talk of golden keys, sir--the only key to -success is the key of character. Before I give my hand, sir, whether to -prince or pauper, I ask--what is his character?” - -“Dear me, dear me, this is very irrelevant,” murmured the -lord-lieutenant, much distressed. - -“Damned inconvenient,” murmured the marquis with a chuckle. The bishop -folded his hands and looked rapt and pious. But the mayor of the -borough, with desperation, plucked at the orator’s coat-tails. - -“Order, order,” he murmured with a clever adaptation of parliamentary -procedure; and Mr. Massarene, whose ear was quick, and who was proud of -his knowledge of the by-words of the benches, understood that he was -irrelevant and on ticklish grounds, and brought forward a racy American -anecdote with ready presence of mind and extreme success; whilst the -crowd below roared with loud and delighted laughter. The gentlemen -at his elbow breathed again. There had been, in a ducal house of the -countryside, a very grave scandal a few months earlier; a scandal -which had become town-talk, and even been dragged into the law courts. -It would never do to have the yokels told their “character” was a -patrician or political _sine qua non_. - -On the whole the speech was a very popular one; the new owner of Vale -Royal was welcomed. Too egotistic in places, and too unpolished in -others, it was vigorous, strong, and appealed forcibly to the mob by -its picture of a herdsman with three pounds in his pocket become a -capitalist and a patron of princes. - -To his own immediate and aristocratic supporters its effect was less -inspiriting. He gave them distinctly to understand the _quid pro quo_ -which he gave and expected. - -“If he don’t get what he wants from our side he’ll rat as sure as he -lives,” thought the lord-lieutenant; and the mayor thought to himself -that it would really have been better to have left the metropolitan -division its member ungrudged. - -“What a fearful person,” said the lord-lieutenant, a tall slender man -with fair hair turning grey, and a patrician face, blank and dreary in -expression, though many years of conflict between a great name and a -narrow income. - -“His speech was quite Radical. I really did not know how to sit still -and hear it,” whispered the bishop in a tone of awe and horror. - -The marquis lighted a cigar. “Never mind that. It took with the yokels. -He’ll vote straight for us. He wants a peerage.” - -“Gladstone would give him a peerage.” - -“Of course. But Gladstone’s peerages are like Gladstone -claret--unpleasantly cheap. Besides, our man loves smart folks--the -liberals are dowdy; our man loves ‘proputty,’ like the northern farmer, -and the liberals are always nibbling into it like mice into cheese. -Besides, Mouse Kenilworth’s godmother to this beast; she has put him in -the way he should go.” - -“I wish she would write his speeches for him,” said the bishop. - -“Took with the yokels, took with the yokels,” repeated the marquis. -“Ain’t that what speeches are made for? People who can read don’t want -to be bawled at. Man will do very well, and we shall have him in the -Lords; he’ll call himself Lord Vale Royal, I suppose--ha! ha!--poor -Roxhall!” - -The lord-lieutenant, who could not accept the social earthquake with -the serenity of his friend, shivered, and went to his carriage. - -“I shall go and ask our candidate for some money,” murmured the bishop, -whose carriage was not quite ready. - -The marquis grinned. “Nothing like a cleric for thinking of the main -chance!” he said to himself. - -The bishop hesitated a few moments, looked up at the steps of the -hotel, and hastened across the market-place as rapidly as his portly -paunch and tight ecclesiastical shoes permitted. Mr. Massarene was -standing on the top of the step with three of his supporters. The -churchman took from his pocket a roll of thick vellum-like paper, -evidently a memorial or a subscription-list. - -“For the rood-screen,” he murmured. “A transcendent work of art. -And the restoration of the chauntry. Dear Mr. Massarene, with your -admirable principles, I am sure we may count on your support?” - -William Massarene, with his gold pencil case between his thick finger -and thumb, added his name to the list on the vellum-like scroll. - -The lord-lieutenant was on that list for twenty guineas; Lord Roxhall -for ten guineas. William Massarene wrote himself down for two hundred -guineas. - -“Back the Church for never forgetting to do business,” said the marquis -with a chuckle to himself; and he too mounted the hotel steps as his -ecclesiastical friend descended them, after warmly and blandly pressing -the candidate’s hand and inviting him to dinner at the episcopal palace. - -“Booking a front seat in heaven, Mr. Massarene?” he cried out in his -good-humored contemptuous voice. “Well, come, do something for earth -too. You haven’t subscribed to the Thorpe Valley Hounds. Got to do it, -you know. Hope you’re sound about Pug.” - -The marquis had been master of the pack for a dozen years. - -“I’m no sportsman,” said his victim, who had no notion who or what Pug -was. “But if it’s the custom in the county----” - -“Of course it’s the custom of the county! Roxhall, poor fellow, was a -staunch friend to us. You mustn’t be otherwise. We’ll draw Vale Royal -coverts for cubs next October. Mind you’re sound about Pug.” - -“May I ask what Lord Roxhall subscribed?” - -“Fifty guineas,” said the M. F. H. truthfully. - -Mr. Massarene planted his legs a little further apart and thrust out -his stomach. - -“I’ll give four fifties to the dogs,” he said with grandeur. - -“The dogs!” ejaculated the marquis; but he restrained his emotions and -grasped his new subscriber’s hand cordially. - -“The Kennels and the Cathedral got the same measure,” he thought with -amusement, as he nodded good-humoredly to the crowd below and entered -the hotel to get a nip of something warm. - -“Deuced clever of the Bishop; I shouldn’t have thought of making the -cad ‘part.’ What an eye the saints always have on the money-bags,” he -thought as he drank some rum-punch. - -But, being a cheery person who took the world as he found it, he said -to his wife when he got home that day: “Go and call at Vale Royal, -Anne; the man’s a very good fellow. No nonsense about his origin. Told -us all he began life with three pounds in his pocket. Don’t like going -to see ’em in Roxhall’s place? Oh, Lord, my dear, that’s sentiment. If -Roxhall hadn’t sold the place they couldn’t have bought it, could they?” - -“But why should we know them?” said the lady, who was unwilling to -accord her countenance to new people. - -“Because he’s promised two hundred guineas to the ‘dogs,’” said -the marquis with a chuckle, “and because he’s a pillar of the Tory -Democracy, my dear!” - -“Tory Democracy? A contradiction in terms!” said the lady. “You might -as well say Angelic Anarchy!” - -“We shall come to that, too,” said her spouse. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV. - - -The snow was gone, but it was still cold and unpleasant weather when -the ruler of Mr. Massarene’s fate, accompanied by a score or more -intimate acquaintances who had been persuaded to patronize “Billy,” -arrived in the dusk at Vale Royal with an enormous amount of luggage -and a regiment of body-servants and maids. - -“You needn’t have come to meet us. I know my way about here better than -you do,” was the ungracious salutation with which the host, who had -gone himself to the station, was met by the object of his veneration. -She never flattered him now; she had got him well in hand; it was no -longer necessary to do violence to her nature; when one likes the use -of the spur one does not humor one’s horse with sugar; she thought the -spur and the whip salutary for him, and employed them with scant mercy. - -She mounted as lightly as a young cat to the box of the four-in-hand -break, took the reins, and drove her mesmerized, trembling yet -enchanted victim through the dusky lanes and over the muddy roads which -were familiar to her, the lights of the lamps flashing, and the chatter -and laughter of the other occupants of the break bringing the laboring -people out of their cottages, as the lady whom they knew so well flew -by them in the twilight. - -“Seems kind o’ heartless like in Lady Kenny to go to the great house -now the poor lord’s in it no more; him her own cousin and all,” said -a young woman to her husband who was only a hedger and ditcher, but a -shrewd observer in his way, and who replied, as he looked after the -four white-stockinged bays: “Lady Kenny aren’t one to cry for spilt -milk; she knows where her bread is buttered. Lord, gal, ’twas she made -Roxhall sell, and I’ll take my oath as I stands here that most o’ the -blunt went in her pocket.” - -All the people for forty miles round were of the same opinion, and owed -her a grudge for it. Roxhall had been a very popular landlord and -employer; his tenantry and laboring folks mourned for him, and despised -the new man who stood on his hearthstone. Quite indifferent, however, -to the _voces populi_ she drove safely through the familiar gates and -up the mile-long avenue as night descended, and went into the library, -looking very handsome with her blue eyes almost black, and her fair -face bright and rosy, from the chilly high winds of the bleak April -evening. - -She pulled off her sealskins and threw them to one of her attendant -gentlemen, and then walked forward to the warmth of the great -Elizabethan fireplace. “Well, my dear woman, how do you like it?” -she said good-humoredly to Margaret Massarene, as she drew off her -gloves and took a cup of tea before the hearth where a stately fire -was burning for its beauty’s sake: the great room was heated by hot -water pipes. Margaret Massarene was in that dual state of trepidation, -anxiety, offence, and bewilderment into which the notice of her -monitress invariably plunged her. She murmured some inarticulate words, -and glanced timidly at the bevy of strangers. But Mouse did not take -the trouble to introduce her friends to their hostess; some of them -were already acquainted with her, but some were not: all with equal -and unceremonious readiness ignored her presence, and descended on the -teacups and muffins and caviare sandwiches with the unanimity of a -flock of rooks settling down on to a field mined with wire worms. - -“Always had tea in here in Gerald’s time,” said one of the men, staring -about him to see if there was any alteration made in the room. - -“I don’t think you know my daughter,” Mrs. Massarene summed courage to -murmur, with a nervous glance toward Katherine, who stood at the other -end of the wide chimney-piece, a noble piece of fine oak carving with -huge silver dogs of the Stuart period, and the Roxhall arms in bold -bosses above it. - -Mouse, looking extremely like her brother, flashed her sapphire eyes -like a search light over the face and figure of the person in whom -she had by instinct divined an antagonist, and desired to find a -sister-in-law. - -“So glad,” she murmured vaguely, as she put down her cup, and held out -her hand with a composite grace all her own, at once charmingly amiable -and intolerably insolent. - -Katherine merely made her a low curtsey, and did not put out her hand -in return. - -“How’s Sherry and Bitters?” asked Lady Kenilworth, marking but ignoring -the rudeness. “Amusing creature, isn’t he? Bored to death, I suppose, -in India?” - -“It would be difficult, I think, for the most stupid person to be bored -in India,” replied Katherine briefly. “Lord Framlingham is not stupid.” - -Lady Kenilworth stared. Then she laughed, as it was so very comical to -find Billy’s daughter such a person as this. - -“I saw from that bust of Dalou’s that she wouldn’t be _facile_,” she -reflected. “Looks as if she thought pumpkins of herself; if she’s -cheeky to me it will be the worse for her.” - -Katherine was very cold, very pale, very still; the men did not get -on with her, and soon abandoned the attempt to do so. The ladies, -after staring hard, scarcely noticed her or her mother, but chattered -amongst themselves like sparrows on a house roof after rain. With -swelling heart she felt their gaze fixed on her; two of them put up -their eyeglasses. She wore a plain silver-colored woolen gown, but -their experienced eye recognized the cut of a famous _faiseur_, and the -natural lines of her form were unusually perfect. - -“_Très bien mise; très simple, mais très bien_,” said a Parisienne, -Duchesse de Saint-Avit, quite audibly, gazing at her as if she were -some curious piece of carving like the fireplace. - -“_Elle n’est pas mal du tout_,” returned a foreign diplomatist quite -audibly also, as though he were in the stalls of a theatre. - -“Sullen, is she?” thought Mouse, toasting one of her pretty feet on -the fender. “Gives herself airs, does she? That’s old Fram’s doing, I -expect.” - -Ignoring her as an unknown quantity, to be seen to at leisure and -annihilated if needful, she turned to her host, who was standing -awkwardly behind the brilliant throng. “Got my telegram about the Bird -rooms?” she said sharply. She would have spoken more civilly to an -hotel-keeper. - -The Bird rooms were a set of three rooms, bed, dressing, and -sitting-room; their walls painted with birds and flowers on a pale-blue -ground, their silk hangings and furniture of corresponding color and -design; and many birds in Chelsea and Battersea, majolica, terra de -pipa, and other china and pottery, on the tables and cabinets. She -did not care a straw about the birds; but they were the warmest, -cosiest rooms in the house facing full south, and were detached from -observation in a manner which was agreeable and convenient; and she -had sent a brief dispatch that morning to command their reservation -for herself. Country houses are always selected with regard to their -conveniences for innocent and unobserved intercourse. - -The Bird rooms were duly assigned to her, and Mr. Massarene himself had -walked through them that morning to make sure that they were thoroughly -warmed, that the writing-table was properly furnished, and that the -rarest flowers had been gathered for the vases on the table; he with -eagerness assured her that her word had been law. - -“I hope you haven’t altered anything _there_?” she said, taking up her -gloves. “It’s very absurd, you know, to put Turkish screens and lamps -in an old Tudor room like this. They’ve smartened the place up,” she -said to her friends, looking about her. “That open work cedar wood -screen wasn’t across that door in Gerald’s time, nor those great bronze -lamps hanging over there. Where’d you get them, Billy? They look like -Santa Sophia.” - -But she did not listen to Billy’s reply. She was looking at the -mulberry-colored velvet curtains which replaced in the windows the -somewhat shabby and frayed hangings of her cousin’s reign. - -“I wish I had come here last year,” she said to her discomfited host. -“You should have touched nothing. A place like this doesn’t want Bond -Street emptied into it. I don’t know what Gerald would say. He’d be -dreadfully angry.” - -Mr. Massarene thought that Lord Roxhall had parted with his right to be -angry; but he dared not say so. He murmured that he was sorry; whatever -there might be that was not suitable should be removed. - -“Can’t you see how wrong it all is?” asked his tyrant impatiently. - -He regretfully confessed his utter inability to see it; was grieved -they were incorrect; they should be moved to-morrow. - -“Lady Kenilworth is a purist,” said his daughter in clear cold tones. -“New people who come into old houses are of necessity eclectic.” - -Her father frowned. He did not know what eclectic meant, but he -supposed it meant something vulgar. His guest stared: if Billy’s -daughter were cheeky like this it would be necessary, she thought, to -take her down a peg or two. But she was forced to confess to herself -that the daughter of the house did not look like a person whom it would -be easy to take down, either one peg or many. - -“Would you like to go to your rooms, ma’am?” murmured her hostess, when -the tea had been drunk and the chatter had ceased for a minute and the -sound of the first dinner-gong boomed through the house. - -“My dear woman,” replied Mouse, “I know the place better than you do! -But, really, if I shall find Pekin mandarins on oak banisters, and -Minton plaques on Tudor panels, I shall not have strength to go up the -staircase!” - -“What _do_ she mean?” murmured Margaret Massarene. - -“She means to be insolent,” replied her daughter, and the reply was not -in a very low tone. But Lady Kenilworth was or pretended to be out of -hearing, going out of the library with two of her special friends and -calling on others to come with her and see what the vandals had done: -the gong was booming loudly. - -William Massarene was inexpressibly mortified; the more keenly so -because if he had listened to Prince Khris two years before he -would not have had Bond Street and the Rue de Rivoli emptied into a -beautiful, hoary, sombre, old Tudor house. - -Mouse felt no qualms whatever at seeing the new people in the old -house. She had been unable to understand why Roxhall would not himself -come with her. But some people were so whimsical and faddish and -sentimental. They spoiled their own lives and bothered those of others. -She thought it was good fun to see William Massarene in the old Tudor -dining-hall and his wife in the beautiful oval Italian drawing-room. -Roxhall would not have seen the fun of it, but men are so slow to catch -a joke. - -“They are so deliciously ridiculous and incongruous!” she said to one -of her companions. - -She had brought a “rattling good lot” with her; smart women and cheery -men who could ride to hounds all day and play bac’ all night, or run -twenty miles to see an otter-worry and be as “fresh as paint” next -morning; people with blue blood in their veins, and good old names, -and much personal beauty and strength, and much natural health and -intelligence; but who by choice led a kind of life beside which that of -an ape is intellectual and that of an amœba is useful; people who were -very good-natured and horribly cruel, who could no more live without -excitement than without cigarettes, who were never still unless their -doctor gave them morphia, who went to Iceland for a fortnight and to -Africa for a month; who never dined in their own homes except when they -gave a dinner-party, who could not endure solitude for ten minutes, who -went anywhere to be amused, who read nothing except telegrams, and who -had only two cares in life--money and their livers. - -They came down to Vale Royal to be amused, to eat well, to chatter -amongst themselves as if they were on a desert island, to carry on -their flirtations, their meetings, their intrigues, and to arrange the -pastimes of their days and nights precisely as they pleased without the -slightest reference to those who entertained them. - -“What would you like to do to-morrow?” their host had ventured to say -to one of them, and the guest had replied, “Oh, pray don’t bother; -we’re going somewhere, but I forget where.” - -They had brought a roulette-wheel with them, and cards and counters; -for their leader knew by experience that the evenings without such -resources were apt to be dull at Vale Royal. William Massarene, indeed, -had provided forms of entertainment such as were unattainable by the -limited means of the Roxhall family. He had caused admirable musicians, -good singers, even a choice little troupe of foreign comedians, to -be brought down for this famous week in which the azure eyes of his -divinity smiled upon him under his own roof-tree. But there was one -diversion which she considered superior in its attractions to anything -which tenors and sopranos, viols and violins, or even Palais Royal -players, could give her, and that diversion she took without asking -the permission of anybody. There was a with-drawing-room at Vale Royal -which was always known as the Italian Room because some Venetian -artist, of no great fame but of much graceful talent, had painted -ceiling and walls, as was proven by old entries in account books of the -years 1640-50, contained in the muniment-room of the Roxhalls. On the -third night after their arrival, when they were all in this Italian -room, after a short performance by the Parisian comedians, a long -table of ebony and ivory was unceremoniously cleared of the various -objects of art which had been placed on it, and the roulette-wheel was -enthroned there instead by the hands of Lady Kenilworth herself, and -the little ball was set off on its momentous gyrations. - -She was looking more than ever like a lovely flower, with a turquoise -collar round her throat, and real forget-me-nots fastened by diamonds -in her hair. For some minutes William Massarene, who had slept through -the French comedy, and was still drowsy, did not become sensible of -what was taking place in his drawing-room. But when the shouts and -laughter of the merry gamblers reached his ear and he realized with -difficulty what was taking place, a heavy frown, such as Kerosene City -had learned to dread, stole on his brows, and a startled horror opened -wide his eyes. - -Play! Play under his roof! - -All his Protestant and Puritan soul awoke. A large portion of his -earliest gains had been made by the miners and navvies and cowboys -who had gathered to stake their dollars in the back den of his shop -in Kerosene City; and later on he had made millions by his ownership -of private hells in larger towns of the United States; and the very -thought of gambling was odious to him because he felt that these were -portions of his past on which no light must ever shine. He felt that -he owed it to the conscience which he had acquired with his London -clothes and his English horses to prohibit all kinds of play, however -innocent, in his own drawing-rooms. He crossed the room and, nervously -approaching the leader of the band, ventured to murmur close to her -ivory shoulder: “You never said you meant to play, Lady Kenilworth. I -can’t have any play--I can’t indeed--in my house.” - -His tone was timid and imploring. He was frightened at his own -temerity, and grew grey with terror as he spoke. She turned her head -and transfixed him with the imperious challenge of her glance. - -“What are you talking about, my good man?” she said in her clearest and -unkindest tone. “It is not your house when I’m in it.” - -“But I can’t allow play,” he murmured, with a gasp. “It’s against my -principles.” - -“Don’t talk rot, Billy!” she cried with impatience. “Who cares about -your principles? Keep them for the hustings.” - -Then she turned the ivory shoulder on him again, and, amidst the -vociferous laughter of the circle of players, William Massarene, -feeling that he had made a fool of himself, hastily and humbly -retreated. - -The merriment pealed in louder ecstasy up to the beautiful painted -ceiling, as she cried after the retreating figure: “You go to bed, -Billy--go to bed! Or we sha’n’t let you dine with us to-morrow night!” - -“You’re rather rough on the poor beast, Lady Kenny,” said one of the -players who was next her. - -“Billy’s like a Cairo donkey--he must feel the goad and be gagged,” -replied Mouse, sweeping her counters together with a rapacious grace -like a hawk’s circling flight. - -Then the little ball ran about in its momentous gyrations, and the -counters changed hands, and the game went on all the giddier, all the -merrier, because “Billy thought it improper.” - -Katherine rose from her seat by the pianoforte and came to her -father’s side. Indignation shone in her lustrous eyes, while a flash of -pain, of shame, and of anger burned on her cheeks. - -“Father, oh, father!” she said in a low, intense murmur, “send them -away! They insult you every hour, every moment! Why do you endure it? -Turn them all out to-morrow morning!” - -“Mind your own business! Do I want any lessons from you, damn you?” -said Massarene, in a sullen whisper, more infuriated by her perspicuity -than by the facts on which her appeal to him was based. - -His daughter shrank a little, like a high-spirited animal unjustly -beaten--not from fear, but from wounded pride and mute disgust. She -went back to the pianoforte and opened the book of “Lohengrin.” - -He threw himself heavily into an armchair, and took up an album of -Caran d’Ache drawings and bent over it, not seeing a line of the -sketches, and not being able to read a line of the jests appended -to them. All he saw was that lovely figure down there at the -roulette-table, with the forget-me-nots in her glittering hair and at -her snowy bosom, and the turquoise collar round her throat. - -“Billy!” - -No one had ever called him Billy since the time when he had been a -cow-boy, getting up in the dark in bitter winter mornings to pitchfork -the dung out of the stalls, and chop the great swedes and mangolds, -and break the ice in the drinking-trough. Never in all her life -had his wife ever dared to call him Billy. He knew the name made -him ridiculous; he knew that he was the object of all that ringing -laughter; he knew that he was made absurd, contemptible, odious; but -he would not allow his daughter, nor would he allow any other person, -to say so. He was hypnotized by that fair patrician who threw the mud -in his face; the mud smelt as sweet to him as roses. It was only her -pretty, airy, nonchalant way--the way she had de _par la grâce de Dieu_ -which became her so well, which was part and parcel of her, which was a -mark of grace, like her delicate nostrils and her arched instep. - -When she had tired of her roulette, it irritated her extremely to -see the large gorgeous form of Mrs. Massarene dozing on a couch and -waking up with difficulty from dreams, no doubt, of cowslip meadows and -patient cows whisking their tails over the dew; and the erect figure of -her daughter sitting beside the grand piano and turning over the leaves -of musical scores. - -“Why don’t you send your women to bed, Billy?” she said to him very -crossly. “It fidgets one to see them eternally sitting there like the -Horse Guards in their saddles at Whitehall. Politeness? Oh, is it meant -for politeness? Well, I will give them a dispensation, then. Do tell -them to go to bed; I am sure good creatures like those have lots of -prayers to say before they go to by-bye!” - -“Why don’t you and your mother go to your rooms? We are all of us very -late people,” she said, directly, as she passed Katherine Massarene. - -“You are my parents’ guest, Lady Kenilworth; I endeavor not to forget -it,” was the reply. - -“What does she mean by that?” her guest wondered; she thought she meant -some covert rebuke. She did not at all like the steady contemptuous -gaze of this young woman’s tranquil eyes. - -“Oh, my dear, how dreadfully old-fashioned and formal you are!” she -cried, with an impatient little laugh; and the daughter of the house -thought her familiarity more odious than her rudeness. She perceived -the impression she made on the young woman whom she meant to marry -Ronald. - -“You see, I feel quite at home here,” she added by way of explanation. -“Of course, you know it was my cousin’s house.” - -“I wonder you like to come to it,” said Katherine as she paused. -“It must be painful to see it in the hands of strangers, and those -strangers common people.” - -“How droll you are!” cried Mouse, with another little laugh. “I am sure -we shall be great friends when we come to know each other well.” - -Katherine was silent; and Mouse, slightly disconcerted, bade her a -brief good-night, and took her own way to the Bird rooms. For once in -her life she had met a person whom she did not understand. - -“Ronald shall marry her, but I shall always hate her,” she thought, -as she went to the Bird rooms. “However, everybody always hates their -sisters-in-law, whoever they may be.” - -The young woman seemed intolerably insolent to her: so cold, so -grave, so visibly disapproving herself; it was quite insupportable -to have Billy’s daughter giving herself grand airs like a tragedian -at the Français. But for her intention to make Ronald marry the -Massarene fortune she would have expressed her surprise and offence in -unequivocal terms. - -“Really, these new people are too absurd,” she thought, as her maid -disrobed her whilst the chimes of the clock tower rung in the fourth -hour of the morning. “Too infinitely absurd. They must know that we -don’t come to their houses to see them; and yet they will stay in their -drawing-rooms like so many figures of Tussaud. It is really too obtuse -and ridiculous.” - -She was, however, too sleepy to reflect longer on their stolid -obstinacy, or to decide how she should on the morrow best teach them -their place. - - - - -CHAPTER XV. - - -“_Elle a du chic; elle a positivement du chic_,” said the Duchesse -d’Avit to her friends, in her great astonishment at the appearance and -manner of the daughter of the house. - -“It’s easy to look _chic_ when one’s got as good a figure as she has,” -said one of the other ladies, rather crossly. “She does _look_ like a -well-bred person, I admit, but I dare say the cloven foot will show in -some way or another.” - -They all watched for it with curiosity, so far at least as they -troubled themselves to notice her at all. But they failed to perceive -it. They found that she rode extremely well, and played wonderfully -well too, but no one got on with her. She was extraordinarily silent, -and they could not divine that she held her tongue so obstinately -because she feared every moment that some stinging word would escape -her. - -The week seemed to her a year. She could not see the comedy of the -thing as Framlingham had advised her to do. She could only resent -helplessly, censure mutely, despise unavailingly, and suffer secretly. -She might have been some doomed queen, passing from the prison to the -scaffold; and all the incessant chatter and laughter around her awoke -no echo in her; it always sounded to her derisive, a mockery of the -absurdity of William Massarene masquerading as a country gentleman. She -had read a good deal of philosophy, but she could not practice any. -The only tolerable moments of the day or night to her were when she -was alone in her own rooms with a stray rough large dog of nondescript -breed she had found and adopted. - -“If you must have a filthy beast of that kind, why don’t you buy -a decent bred one?” said her father. “They price ’em as high as a -thousand guineas at the shows.” - -“A dog who will sell for a thousand guineas,” she replied, “will never -want friends as long as the world is of its present complexion.” - -William Massarene swore an ugly oath. - -“Why will you rile your father in that way?” said Margaret Massarene, -as he left the room. “You know gold’s his god. And let me tell you, -my dear, that if ye’d ever known what ’tis to want it, ye’d tell a -different tale. You’ve never had to want nor to wait for naught, for -when ye was little I never stinted ye. Your brothers had died of the -hard life, and you’d come late when I could do more for ye. Your -father’s a great man, my dear, and you should respect him, if there be -failings as ye would change in him.” - -“No doubt you are right, mother,” said her daughter humbly. - -Perhaps, she thought, she was too unmindful of all that they had done -for her. But, oh, if they had only left her to teach their letters to -little rough children in the back woods, or play the harmonium in some -little iron church buried in the pine gloom of some clearing! - -“You must stay in my rooms,” she said to the dog, “and only go out -with me and never chase the deer, nor go into the covers, for you are -in a civilized country which prides itself on its progress and piety, -and whose men of light and leading slaughter harmless creatures for -pleasure every season of the year. You are a mongrel, they say, poor -boy? Well, I believe you are. But ‘hath not a Jew eyes?’ Has not a -mongrel nerves to wince, and a heart to ache, and a body to feel cold -and pain and hunger, and a fond soul to love somebody, if there be only -somebody to love him?” - -And the dog looked at her with his pathetic golden-brown eyes and -understood, and was comforted. - -Katherine Massarene, in her ignorance of the manifold wheels within -wheels of a temperament and character like that of her father’s most -honored guest, thought that at least Lady Kenilworth showed some decent -feeling in not being accompanied by Lord Brancepeth. - -In point of fact she had not brought Harry because she retained a vivid -recollection of his expressed desire to be allowed to ally himself -with the heiress of Vale Royal. Besides, Harry, like greater men, had -substitutes, and one of them had come down with her; a very agreeable -and accomplished foreign diplomatist whose wife was remaining at -Sandringham, a gentleman who would have been able to add many chapters -to the _Psychologie de l’Amour_, who considered that brevity was the -soul of love as of wit; and who had a good-humored contempt for Harry, -such as very clever persons who are also amiable feel for other persons -not very clever whom they are outwitting with discretion and amusement. - -“_Pauvre garçon! il prend la chose en bon père de famille_,” he said -once, looking at Harry carrying little Gerry on his shoulders, with -Jack clinging to his coat-pockets, in the park at Staghurst. - -The gentleman preferred episodes which could be enjoyed like -cigarettes, but, in this to cigarettes superior, leave no ash nor even -a bit of burnt paper behind them. This distinguished representative of -a Great Power was met by Mr. Massarene early one morning, when he went -to see if the heating-apparatus in the corridor was duly at the proper -degree of caloric in the long tapestry-hung gallery which led to the -Bird rooms, and led nowhere else. He was so unpleasantly astonished at -the meeting that he stared open-mouthed at the elegant form of this -gentleman, who, after a rapid glance round, which told him that to -conceal himself was impossible, sauntered on calmly till he was close -to his host, who kept the knob of an open valve in his hand. - -“I hear you have some wonderful Battersea and Chelsea in there, -Monsieur,” he said with his soft meridional accent. “Miladi Kenilworth -kindly offered to show it to me, but her maid says she is gone in the -garden.” - -Mr. Massarene, to whom the words were somewhat unintelligible -from their foreign pronunciation, only heard distinctly Battersea -and Chelsea, names to him only suggestive of Primrose Habitations -and political gatherings. He repeated the words mechanically and -apologetically. - -“Faïence,” said the diplomatist in explanation; “china birds, very -rare, very old, very curious.” - -Mr. Massarene’s countenance cleared a little. “Oh, yes I believe there -is some old china in that apartment. I could take your Excellency in -to see it if Lady Kenilworth has gone out; did her maid say that she -had?” - -Though the ambassador’s countenance was trained to express nothing it -did express for an instant a lively alarm. - -“Oh, some other time, on some other occasion,” he said hurriedly. “It -would not do at all to go into a lady’s chambers in her absence.” - -Mr. Massarene felt that he had committed a solecism in proposing such a -thing. Yet to his homely mind it seemed a still greater offence to go -into her chamber when she was present. - -He was perplexed, and uncertain of his ground, and intimidated by the -rank and aspect of this notable foreigner; but he looked with an odd -expression in his eyes at the dressing-gown of old-gold silk lined -with pale rose plush in which the slender person of the visitor to the -china birds was arrayed. It might be the custom for dilettanti to pay -early morning visits in this kind of attire to see works of art, but he -did not think that it was so. He was oppressed, amazed, annoyed, what -his guest in the dressing-gown would have called _ombrageux_, and two -conflicting feelings were at work within him: one a sombre jealousy -and the other that offended sense of outraged propriety natural to the -class to which he belonged. - -But he was not sure of his ground, he scarcely dared to realize what -he suspected, and he was afraid of this grand gentleman, who, on -arrival, had offered him the tips of two fingers and had said that -the day was cold, and had from that moment completely forgotten his -existence, so that the urbanity and familiarity of this address in -the corridor roused suspicion as well as embarrassment in his breast. -To think that his house should be used to shelter improper dalliance -awakened all the Puritan element in his Protestant breast, whilst as -well as his outraged morality there arose in him a different, a more -personal, feeling of wrath, vexation, and impatient envy; ridiculous, -he knew, but unconquerable. But the diplomatist did not wait for him -to disentangle his sentiments, nor did he offer any reason for the -untimely hour of his own artistic ardor of investigation. - -“_Au revoir, mon bon_,” he said carelessly, and sauntered on till he -reached the door at the other end of the gallery and vanished. - -Mr. Massarene shut the valve of the heating-apparatus, and sighed; it -was probably the first time in his unsentimental existence that he had -ever sighed. How many things he had still to learn! - -“Don’t you keep a plumber, Billy?” said Mouse very sharply, later in -the day; “don’t you keep a plumber? What do you potter about the pipes -yourself for? You woke me this morning opening and shutting those -valves in the gallery.” - -He muttered his regrets. He was about to say that a distinguished guest -had told him that she was already out in the gardens at the time of his -inspection of the heating-apparatus; but he perceived that he was on -slippery ground, and he held his tongue, observing meekly that he was -very afraid of fires, that servants were a bad lot, not to be trusted, -and that it was through their negligence that overheated flues burned -down half the country houses in England. But he saw that she was deeply -and inexplicably displeased. - -As for the diplomatist, he was, of course, sufficiently trained in -diplomacy to give no signs of displeasure; but in his secret soul he -was extremely worried by his meeting with his host in the corridor, for -though Lady Kenilworth was a lovely woman, and a very seductive one, -yet to be the temporary substitute of that excellent young guardsman -who carried her children pick-a-back had its dangers for an eminent -person whom a public scandal would ruin. He wished her and the china -birds and his own dressing-gown at the devil. He had no fancy for a -cigarette which would burn the fingers which held it; some unimportant -telegrams were brought to him an hour later, and he made believe that -one of them was important and took his departure before dinner for -London. - -“Your Excellency will not see the china birds?” said William Massarene -quietly and drily, with a finesse which astonished the hearer as he -accompanied his departing guest to the carriage. Their eyes met. They -understood each other. - -“It will be an excuse to return to your amiable hospitalities,” said -the eminent person with a charming smile and an adorable salutation. - -“_L’ours saurait mordre_,” he thought, as he leaned back in the bear’s -warm little station-brougham. - -The departure annoyed Mouse unspeakably. He was only an episode; but, -as an episode should be, amusing and interesting. He was a man of many -brilliant _bonnes fortunes_, and the stories he had told her of women -she hated were beyond measure diverting. She treated her host more -cruelly than ever; and had never felt so irritated at the sight of his -short squat figure, and his broad rough hands, and his splay feet in -his varnished shoes. - -Mr. Massarene was much exercised in his mind as to his idol. He could -not get the diplomatist in the elegant dressing-gown out of his mind; -and he also heard on all sides that the handsome fool, of whom he had -purchased Blair Airon, was undoubtedly considered as “best friend” -of the lady who had been the intermediary in that sale. These, and -various similar facts, left him no peace in his private reflections, -and tormented him the more because he did not venture to unburden his -wrath to the fair cause of it. He had been a virtuous man all his life; -he had had no time to be otherwise; he had been so busy eighteen hours -out of the twenty-four making money that the other six he had spent -in eating like a hungry hound, and sleeping like a tired dray-horse. -Vice had always represented itself to him as waste of precious time and -waste of precious dollars. His rare concessions to it had been grudging -and hurried, like his attendance at church. - -His discovery disturbed him exceedingly, not only because he was a -very moral man who considered that immorality ought to be punished (he -had once even made one of a body of moral citizens who, in a township -of the West, had stripped and beaten a local Guinevere and tarred and -feathered her Lancelot), but he was also visited by that bluest of blue -devils who had never paid him a visit in his life before--jealousy. - -She knew it very well, and it diverted her, though it appeared to her -as preposterous as if her pad-groom had been jealous. But he, who -did not exactly know what ailed him, suffered alternately from the -irritation and the depression common to all those in whose breasts the -green-eyed monster has found a throne. - -“Billy, come and talk to me,” said his enslaver the last evening of her -visit. Mr. Massarene obeyed, fascinated out of any will of his own, -and in love with his own degradation as fakirs with their torture. She -saw his struggles and tortures, which seemed to her as preposterous in -him as they would have seemed in a stableman or a street-sweeper. But -though she had no patience with them she turned them to account. - -She was sitting in a very low long chair in a nook of one of the -drawing-rooms amongst flowers; she wore a black lace gown with immense -transparent sleeves, and some strings of pearls were wound round her -throat; her skin looked fairer than ever, her eyes bluer, her hair -lovelier. He took meekly the low seat she assigned to him, though it -had no rest for his back, and gazed at her, remembering despite himself -the Chelsea and Battersea birds and the connoisseur who had wished to -see, or had seen, them. He was not deceived by her for a moment, but he -was hypnotized. - -“There is something I want you to do, Billy,” she added very -candidly--she was always candid in manner. Mr. Massarene murmured that -she had only to command and he only to obey. - -“That is very nice of you, but there are other people in it,” she -replied. He waited mutely to hear more. She sent some cigarette smoke -across his eyes. “I mean you to marry your daughter to my brother.” - -He was silent. - -The thought was not new to his own mind; he had felt sure that she -would desire it; but to himself it presented no attractions; he did not -understand the antiquity and purity of the Courcy blood, and his own -ambitions for his heiress ranged in much loftier spheres. - -“Why don’t you answer?” said Mouse, beginning to feel offence. “I -should have thought you would have been overjoyed.” - -“They don’t know each other,” he objected feebly. - -“What has that to do with it? When you and I settle a thing that thing -has to be done. Ronnie and your daughter were made in heaven for -each other; they are both awfully stiff, intensely disagreeable, and -preëminently virtuous. There’d be no more cakes and ale in our world if -those two could reform it.” - -Mr. Massarene was still mute; he did not at all know what to say; at -last he asked humbly if Lord Hurstmanceaux had said anything on the -subject. - -“I haven’t consulted him,” she replied, this time with genuine candor. -“I never consult people when I am acting for their good, and my brother -never talks unless he lectures somebody. This thing has to be done, -Billy. You know when I say a thing I mean it.” - -“But you laugh at my daughter,” he said with hesitation. - -“Oh, I laugh at everybody,” said Mouse. “People are made to be laughed -at. There’s something ridiculous in everyone if you only look for -it. Your daughter seems ridiculous to me because she gives herself -goody-goody airs, which nobody has nowadays; she looks as if she were -always doing penance for your ill-gotten riches.” - -This shaft hit the gold of fact so neatly in the eye that William -Massarene colored angrily under his dull skin. But his rage was against -his daughter rather than against his tormentor. Why could not Katherine -look and act like other young women of her time? - -“Yes, I know,” said Mouse, answering his unspoken reflections. “It must -be very annoying to have a perpetual monitress in one’s own daughter, -and of course you couldn’t make your millions with clean hands; nobody -can; but society gives you lots of soap and water after you’ve made -them, so what does it matter? Besides, a daughter shouldn’t look as -if she were always saying, ‘Out, damned spot,’ as Ellen Terry does. -However, that is just the kind of thing that will please Ronald. -He will think it such an admirable spirit in her to despise your -ill-gotten gold.” - -“Perhaps he would not require a dowry of dirty money with her, then?” -said Mr. Massarene, allowing for one instant the natural sarcastic -shrewdness in him to escape. - -Mouse was for the moment discomfited; she had never seen this -unpleasant side of him before. Then, with her most insolent audacity, -she blew some cigarette smoke over to where he sat. - -“My dear Billy, perhaps Ronald would dispense with a dowry if he liked -her well enough; he is fool enough for anything. But you wouldn’t save -a penny by that--I should take it all over as commission!” - -Mr. Massarene was dumb from astonishment. He had known many sharp -dealers in the Far West, but nobody who had ever for coolness equalled -his fair friend and patroness. - -He slapped his hand on his knee with vulgar effusion in his mingled -feelings of amazement and admiration. - -“Well, my lady, damn me if there’s many boys in Bowery who could afford -to give points to _you_!” - -She laughed. Of course it was only a joke; but the joke made her feel -for the moment a little insecure and uncomfortable, as you might feel -if you found a packet of dynamite in your sandwich-case. - -“Of course the marriage would be a very good thing for Ronald,” said -his sorceress, with her frankest accents--her frankness was one of her -chief weapons--“but it would be good for you too, Billy. It would place -you. There are people who jib at you still, you know; when once you -were one of us, they wouldn’t dare.” - -Mr. Massarene was silent. He thought if there were still people who -jibbed at him, he had paid very dearly for the patronage of this fair -sponsor. He was beginning to feel his feet a little on his new ground -and to be a little less easily led about; but at the same time he was -as much in love as a cold-blooded, circumspect, puritan-minded man -could be, and she dazzled his sight and his senses and led him whither -she would. He made a faint endeavor to assert his independence. - -“Lord Hurstmanceaux has never even condescended to know me. It seems -odd he should be anxious to enter my family.” - -“Enter your family!” echoed Mouse, with a laugh of derision which -brought the blood into his puffy pale cheeks. “Oh, my good Billy, don’t -try on those grandiose phrases! I never said _he_ wanted anything of -the kind; I said _I_ mean you to give him your daughter, and you know -when I mean a thing I have it done.” - -Mr. Massarene was cowed; he felt an awkward, ignorant, vulgar booby -under the flashing fires of her contemptuous eyes. There was nothing -left in him of the stolid self-assurance and self-admiration with which -he had spoken at the public meeting a few days earlier. Before the -mocking presence of his enchantress he felt only a stupid, illiterate, -helpless booby and boor. He felt that men respected his riches; he felt -that Mouse Kenilworth only meant to annex them. - -“My daughter is not an easy person to control,” he said with -hesitation, “and I think she and you don’t hit it off, my lady, do you?” - -“No,” said his guest shortly; “but that don’t matter. There’s no law -that I know of to love one’s brother’s wife. Anyhow, that’s what I -mean you to do with her. Of course, my brother is a poor man, you know -that; but that is no consequence to you. What you want is an assured -position, and alliance with us will _poser_ you. Ronnie’s word has -great weight in society.” - -“But Lord Hurstmanceaux have never given me even good day, not even -when he’s seen me in your own house, my lady.” - -“Don’t say ‘my lady.’ Can’t you break yourself of it? Of course, he’ll -have to speak to you if he marries your daughter. I must get you all -asked to some country house where he goes; the thing will come of -itself. I’ll think it over and tell you where I send him.” - -She spoke as if she were telling her major-domo how many people she -expected to dinner. - -Mr. Massarene naturally concluded that Hurstmanceaux himself was in the -plot. He did not dare to object further, and temporized by dropping the -subject. - -“But--but,” he said with a timid attempt to obtain a _quid pro quo_, -“would you do one little thing to oblige me; would you--would you--not -play, not gamble, any more in my houses?” - -He was intensely frightened when he had said it, but he felt that it -might injure him with his coveted constituency if it were known that -there was roulette, real roulette, in his drawing-rooms. - -Her eyes grew of a steely coldness, of an electric luminance, and -seemed to transfix him as with barbed arrows. She threw away the end of -her cigarette as she got out of her chair with that graceful abruptness -peculiar to her. “I told you the other night, Billy, where _I_ am the -house is mine. An Irishman said something like that I believe about the -head of the table. Ronnie don’t play. He’ll do the policeman for you -when he marries your daughter. Meanwhile, just let me alone, my good -man, or you’ll be sorry.” - -Wherewith she carried her elegant person and her trailing black laces -to the other end of the room where Fabian Delkass, the fashionable -salon-singer, was tuning his great Spanish guitar and softly warbling -fragments of Lassen. - -Mouse knew nothing about music and cared as little, but ditties softly -warbled by a very good-looking tenor have attractions outside the -science of melody; she could appreciate the talent of Delkass, because -he never sung a note under twenty guineas each warble. She had sent him -down to Vale Royal, she had arranged that he should receive ten times -as much there as his usual terms for such country house engagements; -in return Delkass, who was _beau garçon_ and very courteous to pretty -women, would be sure to sing something charming at her own afternoons -in London for nothing at all. - -She despised artists as a mere flock of sheep; silly edible obscure -creatures; but as she ate a mutton cutlet for luncheon when it was very -well cooked, so she nibbled at an artist now and then, when he was very -much the fashion. - -If she were obliged to have recourse to these expedients it was not -her fault; it was the fault of her father-in-law, who was so miserably -stingy, and of her settlements which were so miserable, and of society -which compels anybody who is in it to live in a certain way. Why did -Providence (a vague personage in whom she as vaguely believed) put -you where you were obliged every day to do quantities of things which -cost money unless that arbiter of fate supplied you with the necessary -means? - - - - -CHAPTER XVI. - - -There was an old friend of his mother to whom Hurstmanceaux was much -attached, a Mrs. Raby of Bedlowes, with whom he invariably spent a few -days at Whitsuntide. Bedlowes was a romantic and historic old manor -in Hampshire, famous for its gigantic yew-trees, and a bowling-green -on which Charles the First had played. To this elderly lady Mouse -frankly unfolded her budget of matrimonial projects; and Mrs. Raby, -who shared the prejudices of Hurstmanceaux against _novi homines_, -but was persuaded to conquer them for the general good, consented to -allow the Massarenes to be presented to her at a Marlborough House -party, and graciously invited them to go to her for a couple of days -in Whitsun week. When the time came Mr. Massarene, who was told -nothing, but surmised that this was the place at which the meeting with -Hurstmanceaux was arranged, took his daughter down to this historic -and romantic old house; it had belonged to John of Gaunt, and had -sheltered in the centuries of its existence many noble and unfortunate -personages, the traditions of whose sojourn did not agree with the -visit of “Blasted Blizzard” to its stately guest-chambers and its -tapestried halls. - -Mrs. Raby was a person genial, kind-hearted, and of great simplicity of -manner and taste, who pleased Katherine and did not alarm her father; -indeed he thought, irreverentially, to himself, “Blast me if she don’t -look like an old New England Shaker sempstress,” for the _châtelaine_ -of Bedlowes wore her own grey hair in the fashion of the year ’40, -had plain black gowns made by her women, and a very simple and homely -manner. There was a large party assembled, of notable and interesting -people, amongst whom William Massarene was as a false note in a -Beethoven rendering. But society, even the best society, has grown used -to such false notes, and does not mind them. There is the ring of gold -in the discord. - -Daddy Gwyllian, who was there--as where was he not?--said to his -hostess, who was his cousin, as were ninety-nine out of every hundred -persons: - -“Why, bless us and save us, my dear Adela, have _you_ been brought to -recognize the new man from North Dakota? I thought you were the last -Tory stronghold still left standing in the country? Do you mean you -have capitulated to Harrenden House?” - -Mrs. Raby’s sweet temper was a little ruffled. - -“The man is a sound Tory,” she said pettishly. “If I have him here I -have a very good reason for doing so.” - -Daddy drew back a step and stared at her in mock amazement. - -“Everybody who has him anywhere has a very good reason for doing so. -But do you mean to say, Adela, that _you_ want to get on a Company, -or sell a spavined racer, or weed your gallery of dubious Holbeins or -spurious Romneys at a profit, or get useful hints as to Canadian or -Pacific booms?” - -Mrs. Raby laughed. - -“No, I don’t want to do any of those things. I want Ronald to have a -chance to admire his daughter.” - -Daddy laughed his inward chuckling laughter; and indulged in a -prolonged whistle. - -“Well, my dear Adela, you won’t want a commission for bringing the -match about as most of ’em would do. But I think I know who’d get a -pretty high one if it ever come off. Lady Kenny set you on, of course?” - -His hostess, who did not like the phrase “set on” as applied to -herself, replied stiffly: - -“It would be a good thing in many ways. She is charming. She could not -look more thoroughbred if she were an archduchess, and you know he is -very poor despite all his self-denial. I would not for worlds,” she -continued with warmth, “be privy to any marriage in which either the -man or the woman were sacrificed for mere money. But if they should -like each other there could be no harm done but a great deal of good; -and you know that any woman who marries Ronnie will have a heart of -gold in her keeping.” - -Daddy nodded. - -“Ronnie’s all right. But he’s a horse you may lead to the water; he -aren’t a horse you can make drink. When is he coming?” - -“To-night. You know he is the most punctual and faithful of persons. He -has spent the Whitsun week with me ever since his first year at Eton.” - -Daddy chuckled. “Lord, it will be a rare sight when he finds out what -you’ve let him in for! His sister has been hammering at him for two -years to make him know those people.” - -“‘It is well to begin with a little aversion,’” quoted Mrs. Raby. -“Don’t say anything to him, pray; you would spoil it all.” - -“I never say anything indiscreet,” replied Daddy, with truth. “But -he’ll twig it for himself in a jiffy; Ronnie’s real sharp.” - -“What odious vulgarisms!” said Mrs. Raby. “You grow very vulgar, Daddy.” - -“Must keep pace with the times,” replied Daddy; “secret of keeping -young, as Bulwer says somewhere. It’s kind of you to give me this -little bit of comedy. Why on earth do people go to nasty draughty -theatres and get cricks in their neck when they have society all around -’em to make ’em laugh?” - -It was the tea-hour on the following day when Hurstmanceaux arrived. -Everyone was in the library, a long, fine room worthy of the volumes -it enshrined, of which many were rare and all well-chosen. Daddy, -comfortably ensconced in a corner, with a cup in his hand and some hot -buttered scone at his elbow, waited for the coming scene. The library -was dimly lighted by the descending sun, which itself was dim. He -saw that Hurstmanceaux did not on his entry perceive the Massarenes, -and stood by Mrs. Raby’s chair for some minutes talking with her and -greeting old friends; but he also saw, which surprised him, that -Katherine Massarene, who was at some distance from that table and -seated at another, changed countenance visibly and rose as if to leave -the room, then sat down again with a pained and startled expression on -her face. - -“She aren’t in the game,” thought Daddy. “But why the deuce does she -look like that because he’s come into the room?” - -Mr. Massarene drew near his daughter and whispered to her: “That man -just come in is Hurstmanceaux; Mrs. Raby’ll bring him up to us. Be -civil.” - -Daddy was too far off to hear the words, but he guessed what they were; -he saw that Katherine looked distressed, annoyed, perplexed, and began -hurriedly to talk with the people round her. “She knows what they’re -after, and she don’t like it,” thought Daddy. He could not tell that in -her ears and in her memory were resounding the scornful sentences, the -withering sarcasms, which had been spoken to her in the walk over the -frozen fields to Great Thorpe. - -After a time, while Daddy watched them from his snug corner, Mrs. Raby -rose and put her hand on Hurstmanceaux’s arm. - -“Let me present you to some friends of Clare’s whom I think you don’t -know as yet,” she murmured softly; and ere he could be aware of what -was being done with him, he was led off to Katherine and her father. - -Daddy watched the arrival of the unsuspecting chief actor with that -lively interest which he always felt in his own amusement. He had no -kind of sympathy with such prejudices as Ronald’s; he would himself -have dined with a sweep if the sweep could have given him something -unusually good to eat; but he liked prejudices in others as an element -of human comedy which frequently produced the most diverting situations. - -“He’s the toughest fellow in creation,” he thought. “They’ll no more -change him than they’ll make an ironclad into a lady’s slipper.” - -Ronald, although the most easy-going and unconventional of men in -intimacy, had the coldness and the stiffness of the Englishman of rank -when he was annoyed or felt himself outwitted. He was perfectly correct -in his manner, but that manner was glacial as he realized the trap -which had been laid in his path; he looked eight feet in height as he -bent his head in recognition of Katherine Massarene and her father. - -She was as cold as himself, and Mr. Massarene was divided between a -feeling of great embarrassment and a desire to propitiate a person whom -he saw was not easy to win over by any means. In his difficulty he said -the worst thing he could have said: - -“I hope, Lord Hurstmanceaux,” he stammered, pronouncing correctly the -name as society pronounced it, Hurceaux--“I venture to hope we shall be -friends; your sister, Lady Kenilworth, wishes it so much.” - -“My sister’s friends are seldom mine,” replied Ronald with extreme -incivility; then, fearing he might be thought to imply--as he -did--something to her prejudice, added in icy accents, “I mean that her -set is not mine.” - -“Indeed! Is that so, sir?” said Mr. Massarene, surprised; for the -mystery of “Sets” was still unmastered by him, he only understood -Classes. “The Prince is coming to stay with me at Vale Royal,” he -added; “might I hope that you too----?” - -“I am not in the Prince’s set,” said Hurstmanceaux curtly, and seeming -to the eyes of Mr. Massarene to become ten feet in height. The reply -was altogether beyond him. - -“Not in the Prince’s set,” he thought to himself; “what on earth can -the fellow mean?” - -“Don’t you go to Court, my lord?” he said aloud in his bewilderment. - -Ronald’s severity relaxed despite himself; he laughed outright. -Katherine stood by, indignant, ashamed, frozen by humiliation and anger -into a statue. At last, in desperation, she turned to her father: - -“Lord Hurstmanceaux would hardly care to come to us at his cousin’s -place. He must have shot there many seasons. I think Mrs. Raby is -looking for you. Someone has arrived.” - -Mr. Massarene hurried toward his hostess and her tea-table; with a -chilly inclination of the head his daughter followed him, and left -Hurstmanceaux to his own reflections. - -The foremost of these was, that it was a pity so thoroughbred-looking -a woman has such an unutterable brute for a sire. The second was that -he had been guilty himself of discourtesy and incivility toward a lady -to whom he already owed some apology. But he was extremely angry at -the snare which had been spread for him in this innocent old house of -Bedlowes. - -He stayed three days in the same house with them, because he had no -decent pretext to hasten his departure, but he avoided all chance of -increased acquaintance as he would have avoided the bubonic plague in -his travels through Thibet. - -“He’s only a second-class earl and gives himself such airs as that!” -said Mr. Massarene, in great displeasure, to his daughter when he could -speak to her unheard. - -“What do you mean by a second-class earl? It is an expression unknown -in ‘Burke,’” asked his daughter in her coldest accents. Mr. Massarene -explained that he meant an earl who had very little money, whose chief -estates were in Ireland, and who was not a knight of any Order or -anything of that decorative kind. - -“And he said that he doesn’t even go to Court,” he ended as a climax. - -“He said nothing of the kind,” replied Katherine. “He said he was not -in the Prince’s set, which means--well, which means--never mind what it -means. As for his rank, it is a very old creation; at least, very old -for England; the Courcys of Faldon go back to the Conqueror.” - -Mr. Massarene looked sharply at his daughter. “I thought you didn’t -like the man?” - -“I neither like nor dislike him. I do not know him.” - -Then as this seemed to her sensitive conscience something approaching -to an untruth, she added: “I met Lord Hurstmanceaux as I came to Vale -Royal in the train that snowy day, but that can scarcely be called an -acquaintance. I think you had better not ask him there, if you will -allow me to say so, for he seemed much irritated at his cousin’s sale -of the place to you.” - -“The damned starched puppy! What is the sale to him? Roxhall’s old -enough to know his own business, eh?” muttered Mr. Massarene, as he -thought to himself that the pet project of Lady Kenilworth would not -be easy of realization. It was certainly not farther advanced by her -careful arrangement of the visit to Bedlowes. - -“Why did you set up your back like that, Ronnie?” said Daddy to him in -the evening. “Man is a beast, but girl is good form.” - -“I have not a word to say against her,” replied Hurstmanceaux. “But as -it is impossible to know her without knowing her father, I relinquish -the pleasure of doing so.” - -“Buckram!” said Daddy. “’Tisn’t worn nowadays. Even soldiers don’t have -stocks any longer.” - -“It is not buckram. It is common decency. That infernal cad is living -in Gerald’s house.” - -“Well, that is Gerald’s fault, I suppose, for selling it. You are -wrong, Ronnie--quite wrong. Miss Massarene is well-bred enough to -get her father accepted. In point of fact he is accepted; he goes -everywhere.” - -“She is very distinguished-looking. But I don’t know what that has to -do with it,” said Hurstmanceaux in his stiffest and crossest manner. -“As for your seeing him anywhere, you won’t see him at Faldon. I wish -Mrs. Raby had told me of her intentions; I should not have come here. I -have avoided these people everywhere for two years.” - -“People don’t send a list of their guests on approval except to -Royalty. They’d never fill their houses if they did. Miss Massarene -knows your sentiments, don’t she? Her back was up as well as yours.” - -“Certainly she knows them. I have never made a secret of them. Who -could suppose that at Bedlowes of all places one would come across that -cad?” - -Daddy yawned and shut his eyes. - -“I think you know,” he said drowsily, “that as your sister has run ’em -you ought to back ’em. Must back one’s own stable!” - -“My sister’s stable is not mine,” replied Hurstmanceaux quickly. “She -runs her dark ’uns wholly on her own responsibility.” - -“Of course, of course,” said Daddy. “But the young woman’s fit for -any stables. How she came by it I don’t know, but she’s uncommonly -well-bred.” - -“She appears so,” said Ronald. “But she must dree her weird. She can -no more escape the penalty of being her father’s daughter than a -hangman’s daughter can escape hers.” - -It was not a liberal sentiment, but it was one which seemed perfectly -natural and just to the views which he took of life. - -He was deeply angry with his sister and Mrs. Raby. It seemed to -him a monstrously bare-faced piece of intrigue to have brought him -and the Massarenes under the same roof. He did not think Katherine -herself privy to it; there had been surprise and trouble as well as -embarrassment in her eyes when he had been led up to her; but he was -sure that her father had been in the plot. - -He spoke in his usual tone; not loud, but not very low. He had his back -turned to a grand piano of Erard’s which stood in a recess; but Daddy -Gwyllian had his face turned to it, and he could see through his sleepy -eyes that Katherine Massarene, who with some men around her was at that -moment approaching the instrument, had, though at some distance, heard -the last part of this speech regarding the hangman’s daughter. He was -certain that she had done so by a flush which rose over her face and -a momentary pause which she made. In another instant she had reached -the Erard and seated herself by it. If she had felt any emotion it did -not make her touch less clear, her memory less perfect, as she played -through the grand passage of Beethoven’s Sonata in E flat. - -Daddy did not hear the sonata; he was away in the land of dreams, -comfortably hidden behind a huge African palm-tree, his placid round -face looking as innocent as a babe’s in his slumber; even his curiosity -could not keep him awake any longer. - -Hurstmanceaux, who loved and understood good music, listened charmed -despite himself; but when the last chords thrilled through the air he -did not join the group which gathered round her, but walked away to -another of the drawing-rooms. - -From the distance he could see her as she sat at the pianoforte -receiving the compliments of the men about her; but the expression -of her countenance was proud, cold and bored. She had looked very -different on the Woldshire high road and in the market-place of the -little town. - -He felt sorry for her; there was something in her bearing, in her -manner, in her countenance, so far superior to her parentage and -position. She looked like the last scion of some great unfortunate race -rather than the heiress of new ill-gotten millions. - -“_Où prenez vous ce ton qui n’appartient qu’ à vous?_” he thought; -and he acquitted her of any conspiracy in the cross-country walk, any -complicity in his sister’s manœuvres to make her meet him at Bedlowes. -She was undoubtedly a victim of circumstances--a square-cut ivory peg -which was ill fitted to the round gilded hole into which it was forced. -He did not for a moment doubt the sincerity of her dislike to her -position; his own nature was one which enabled him to understand the -revolt of hers. “But she must dree her weird,” he thought again. - -“Why are you so uncivil to that charming person who renders Beethoven -so perfectly?” said his hostess to him that evening. - -“There is no harm in the charming person, but there is a great deal in -her antecedents,” replied Hurstmanceaux very coldly. - -“Oh, ‘antecedents,’ my dear Ronnie! Who can look at them? Royalty -itself disregards them when--when----” - -“When there’s money enough! I am not bound to follow the example of -Royalty.” - -“You did what was unworthy of you, my dear old friend,” he added. “Of -course Mouse egged you on; but you should know what Mouse is by this -time.” - -“Indeed she meant no harm in this instance. She knows that you want -money.” - -“I do not want money. I have not got very much at my command: that is -another matter.” - -“But the boys are such a drag on you?” - -“Oh, no, they are fine fellows; they interest me, and they do very much -what I tell them.” - -“You are a good man, Ronald, but you are obstinate and prejudiced.” - -“_On a les défauts de ses qualités._ I am not sure that I can boast any -especial _qualités_, but I do know this, that I would be shot to-morrow -rather than shake hands with a low brute who comes from God knows -where with probably untold crimes upon his conscience.” - -Mrs. Raby shuddered and gave a nervous glance to the far distance where -Mr. Massarene was playing whist. She was a delicate aged woman, and the -idea of entertaining an undetected criminal was extremely painful to -her. - -“He does look very like Cruickshank’s burglars in _Oliver Twist_,” she -thought, regarding the round bullet head and Camus nose of her guest -as he scowled down on the cards which he held; he was losing, and -losing to the Principal of an Oxford College, whilst a Cabinet Minister -was his (very inefficient) partner; but Mr. Massarene did not like -losing--even at half-crown points and in the best company. He had not -had much practice at whist; but he possessed a mathematical brain, and -grasped its combinations admirably; and he would have made his inferior -hand do the work of a good one if the Cabinet Minister had not been an -ass, but had been able to second him. - -“They put men in the Government here,” he thought, “who over yonder we -should not think had brains enough to drive a sweet stuff barrow on a -plank walk.” - -For despite the deference which he really felt for the world into which -he had entered, he could not help the shrewd good sense in him boiling -up sometimes into a savage contempt. To his rough strong temper and his -unscrupulous keenness the gentlemen who were now his companions in life -did seem very poor creatures. - -“If I ever get into the Cabinet I’ll show them the time of day,” he -thought very often. There was no reason why he should not get into -the Cabinet as he had once got into the House. He was made of the -solid metal, and the plebeian respectability, with which patrician -conservatism, trembling in its shoes for its own existence, is -delighted to ally itself; and knew that he would make a very good -minister of the type which works hard, pleases the public, is always -mentioned with praise by the Press of the Party, and lends itself to -the illustration of admirable public dinner speeches in praise of the -Constitution, and of that constitutional bulwark the Middle Class. -He was a very shrewd man and he had the golden gift of silence. He -knew his shortcomings better than his wife knew hers, and so concealed -his ambitions more successfully. Nobody could “draw” him. Men in the -smoking-room of his own or other houses often tried after dinner -to make him “give himself away,” but they never succeeded. He was -never warmed by wine or friendship into indiscreet reminiscences or -revelations. - -Moreover in business he was _facile princeps_; no one could beat him -in the supreme knowledge of money or how to make it. And indeed the -thorough knowledge of and capacity for business does carry its own -weight with it in an age in which the Mercurius of mart and change is -chief of all the gods. - -In society he was a heavy, awkward, common-looking man, who did -not know what to do with his hands, and always sat on the edge of -his chair, with his legs very wide apart. But in a clubroom, a -committee-room, a board-room, a bank parlor, anywhere where there was -question of the sowing and reaping of gold, he was a totally different -person; he was at his ease, on his ground, master of his subject and -of his hearers; his hands rested on his knees with a firm grip, his -words were trenchant, convincing, logical; and on his pallid, fleshy, -expressionless face there came a look, very hard, very unmerciful, very -cunning, but a look of intelligence and power, and of entire command of -his object. The mind showed through the envelope of flesh. - -It was a money-making mind, a harsh astute grasping mind, a mean -ignoble greedy mind, but it was a master mind in its way, and as such -impressed itself on all those who encountered it on its field of -combat. And the men that came into contact with him knew that he had -been a day laborer who had, entirely by his own ability and industry, -become the possessor of a colossal fortune, and all men respect this -successful self-help, and few inquire if the self-help had been made -with clean hands. - -He was what is called an essentially worthy man, and he was an -essentially modern product of modern energies. - -He had no perceivable sins, he conformed to all religious observances, -he had always kept on the right side of the law, he never made a -jest, and he never lost a shilling. As a husband he was faithful, as a -father exemplary, as a Christian devout, and as a citizen blameless. If -thousands of people had cursed him, if tens of thousands of workmen had -sweated for him, if hundreds of thousands of cattle had perished for -him, if gambling hells and drinking-shops and opium dens had enriched -him, if rotten ships and starved crews, and poisonous trades and -famished families had helped to make the splendors of Harrenden House -and the glories of Vale Royal, these facts did not matter to either -society or Christianity, and were mere personal details into which -nobody could enter. William Massarene was one of those persons who are -the pillars of the great middle class and the sources of that healthy -plebeian blood from which a decaying patriciate is recruited. - -“I stand by all as upholds property,” he said one day to Lord Greatrex, -the great Conservative leader. - -“The Northern Farmer has said it before you,” murmured that gentleman. -“The creed is sound and simple, if not popular.” - -Massarene dared not swear in such a presence, but he thought, “Damn -popularity!” - -He did not want to be popular. He despised the people: which was very -natural, for he had come from them. He liked to drive behind his sleek -high-bred carriage-horses and see the crowd part in the Strand or on -the Embankment, and women and children scurry and stumble to make way -for his progress; it made him realize the vast distance which now -separated himself from the common multitude. - -He would have liked, if it had been possible, to knock down -half-a-dozen of the rabble as a sign of his superiority. But he was -in a country full of policemen and prejudices, and so he had to show -his superiority in another manner. One morning, when he was driving -to a meeting in the City with a member of parliament, who was a noted -philanthropist, in his brougham, his high-stepping bays did knock -down an old woman, lame and very poorly clad. William Massarene held -all women in slight esteem, but old women were in his estimate wholly -useless and obnoxious; he would have put them all at forty years old -in lethal chambers. When cattle were past bearing they went to the -shambles, eh? - -But, having a philanthropist beside him, and two policemen at his -carriage-door, he busied himself about this maimed old female, had her -put in a cab, told his footman to go on the box with her, and ordered -his card to be given to the authorities of the nearest hospital. - -“Say I will provide for her for life,” he said to his servant rather -loudly. - -The people in the street cheered him. - -“That’s a real gemman!” said a baker’s boy. - -William Massarene threw the discerning lad a shilling. - -“Dear friend,” said the religious philanthropist with emotion, “how -glad I am to see that your immense prosperity has not driven out the -warmth of human sympathy from your heart.” - -Massarene was sorely tempted to put his tongue in his cheek, but as -he saw that the philanthropist’s face was quite grave he kept his own -equally serious. - -“You’ve an uncommon lot of barebacked poor for a Christian country, -sir,” he said in return--a reply which somewhat disconcerted the -philanthropist. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII. - - -In the autumn of the year the general election took place, and -Southwoldshire returned William Massarene, whilst Limehouse selected a -labor member to represent its interests. His majority was smaller than -the Carlton agent had calculated and the Conservative press prophesied, -but that made little impression on him, though it disappointed his -party. A large portion of the country-folks would not hear of the -newcomer, who had turned out the Roxhalls. “He’s no more nor us, that -chap, and an uncommon ugly jowl he’ve got,” said one old gaffer to -another, as they munched their noonday snack under the hedge which they -had been cutting down into the hideousness demanded by high farming, -or behind which they had been drenching the mosses and lichens of -old apple-trees with a solution of lime and sublimate of iron, as -scientific experts advise. - -He took with the yokels to a certain extent, as the marquis had said, -but not in those districts where the Roxhalls were beloved, and -where the laborers liked a gentleman and knew one when they saw him. -Moreover, the clergy of the county backed him to a man, and that lost -him many votes from the rustic population. “Passon knows which side -his bread be buttered,” said the old gaffers; and even the influence -of Lady Kenilworth and other Primrose Dames, who came down to canvass -for him, and who did not scruple to plead and to promise everything -possible and impossible, could turn them to the side espoused by the -Established Church. - -“My cousin Roxhall begs you to plump for his friend,” she assured them; -but the gaffers smelt the lie, and were not to be caught by chaff. -They were corrupted by political bunkum, weakened in their marrow by a -tawdry and trumpery civilization, bewildered by the multitude of their -teachers and flatterers, but they were still the descendants in direct -line of the bowmen of Cressy and the king’s troopers of Naseby, and -they knew good blood when they saw it, and did not like the look of the -gold man from Ameriky. - -However, by the aid of that man in the moon, whose occult and -untraceable influence determines all political elections all the world -over, these loyal and sturdy rustics were put in the minority, and the -clergy and the county people crowded them out at the polls. - -“Lord save us! How they dawdle over matters here!” thought the -successful candidate. “In Dakota I’d just have run in thirty thousand -miners, and the trick’d been done.” He almost, for an instant, -regretted that he had forsaken the congenial country of mug-wamps and -roar-backs, where the ten-dollar bill could satisfactorily circulate -and settle everything, as the power of the purse should do. He was -with difficulty restrained from exercising those feudal rights which -he conceived were his through the possession of Vale Royal, and giving -notice to quit to everybody on his estate who had voted against him. - -“If my hands had voted against me in the States,” he said, with his -blackest frown, “they’d hev known a hotter hole than hell.” - -“Yes, Billy, but we are not in the States,” said his fair guide, -philosopher and friend, “and there _are_ a _few_ people here who can’t -be bought, and mustn’t be bullied.” - -“One don’t meet that sort in society, nor see ’em in church,” he -growled under his breath. - -“Perhaps you don’t,” she replied, not well pleased. “But they are not -a _quantité négligéable_. I mean, you mustn’t set their backs up and -their tongues wagging. I don’t know what the Carlton wouldn’t do to you -if you turned out the lowest Tommy Trot of them all from one of your -cottages, because he voted against you. On the contrary, it is to that -particular Tommy Trot who voted against you that you must send coals -and blankets at Christmas, and port wine and beef tea when he gets -fever.” - -He muttered that he couldn’t do more than that for the Tommy Trots who -had voted for him. - -“Of course you can’t,” she answered. “And for them you may do less.” - -William Massarene pondered silently on this reply, and came to the -conclusion that if political life in England was much less corrupt -than in the States--as they all said--it was certainly, also, much -more complicated. On the whole, he had preferred Limehouse to -Southwoldshire; the London mechanics had understood him with a wink, -and their stomachs had not “riz” at bribery direct or indirect. - -“My vote’s my own, ain’t it?” one rivet maker there had said to him. -“Well, I can do what I like with my own, can’t I? I can wallup my old -’ooman, and my brats, and my dawg, and I can sell my vote, that’s flat. -Yah!--hand the blunt over, old un.” - -That was a practical politician, with whom he had rejoiced to make a -deal. But these rural electors, who turned him out of their hovels, and -chalked up on their walls “Roxhalls for us; not no Yankees,” were so -abhorrent to his feelings as a county magnate and a future peer that -he would have seen them all dead of fen fever with pleasure, and would -not have sent them a single drop of port wine, however much Lady Kenny -and the Carlton had counseled it. But she and the Carlton between them -contrived to restrain him from any public or compromising expression of -his feelings, and although there was some talk of a petition against -his return being made, it never went farther than words, and when the -new Parliament assembled, William Massarene represented in it one of -the most aristocratic counties in England, which had been represented -by some Roxhall’s nominee ever since George the Third had ascended the -throne. - -“One of the infamous results of that inexcusable sale,” said -Hurstmanceaux, in the smoking-room of the Marlborough. - -The remark was reported to a lady who did not love Roxhall, and who -caused it to be reported in turn to him at the French watering-place -where he was curing his body and fretting his soul. - -“Ronnie might guess who was under the sale,” he thought, “who had the -gilt off the gingerbread.” His cousin Mouse had always done what she -chose with him. Their families knew it, his wife knew it, his county -knew it. He was in other ways a clever and high-spirited man, but she -made him a fool, a coward, a tool, a laughing-stock. It seemed to him -that Ronnie might know that and excuse him. - -“Well, Billy, how do you get on in the House?” asked Lady Kenilworth -one evening after Whitsuntide when she had been dining with him. - -Mr. Massarene did not immediately reply. “Billy” was always a very hard -morsel for him to swallow. - -“I hear they’re very pleased with you,” she added graciously. - -“Indeed, my lady?” - -“Don’t say ‘my lady.’ Surely you might have left that off by this time. -Yes, you get on there they say. It is very difficult you know.” - -She was not pleased that he had become politically successful; she -knew that it would make him more independent of her, and that he would -now find many to “show him the way” with whom Cocky could not compete. -She was driven to rely for her influence on his admiration of her, -which bored her to extinction but which was a fulcrum she could not -neglect. Then there was that odious cat, as she called his daughter, -though Katherine Massarene had very little that was feline in her. -The presence of Katherine Massarene was as unpleasant to her as the -presence in a card-room of a very calm and intelligent player, who is -not playing but looking on with an eye-glass in his eye, is to the man -who is cheating at bac’. - -“Why couldn’t that young woman stay in India and marry one of -Framlingham’s household?” she thought with great irritation, and -William Massarene himself began to think the same; his daughter -frequently made him feel uncomfortable when her glance dwelt on him -where he sat beside Lady Kenilworth at a race or a ball or an opera; he -felt like a boy detected in trying to climb a pear-tree. - -“Damn it all, if I ever get the pears, I’ve paid precious high for -’em,” he thought; all the same his daughter’s calm, contemplative, -contemptuous glance made him feel that at his age he had no business to -be tempted by such sweet forbidden fruit. - -“What do you watch me for so?” he said savagely one day. “I was not -aware that I did,” she replied, and was quite truthful in the reply. - -“You are terrible unfilial, my dear!” cried Mrs. Massarene. “What tens -of thousands there is as would give their souls to be in your shoes.” - -“Possibly,” said Katherine with fatigue. The opinions she had expressed -to Lord Framlingham in India were still hers, unaltered, indeed -strengthened, by all which she had seen in English society since her -return to her parents’ house. - -She often thought of the walk across the frozen fields to Greater -Thrope, and when once or twice she saw Hurstmanceaux when riding, or -at the opera, she felt a sense of shame burn in her heart and warm her -cheeks which it required all her serenity and self-control to restrain -from outward evidence. - -“The hangman’s daughter!” she said to herself, recalling the speech she -had overheard at Bedlowes. “Oh, how right he was!” - -When he saw her he bowed to her gravely and courteously, but never -attempted to approach her. - -“My dear child, if you rile your father he won’t leave you nothing,” -said Margaret Massarene, in her emotion forgetting the syntax of her -new sphere. - -“So be it,” said Katherine; “but why do you speak of him as so sure to -die before me? He is a very strong man and he is only fifty-seven.” - -“My dear,” whispered her mother in sepulchral tones, “’tis true he’s a -very strong man, but the cooking’ll kill him before his time, to say -nothing of other things. Look ye, Kathleen, a man works like a horse -and lives like an ox all the best of his years, just beef and bread and -bacon and beer, and them only taken in snacks, just to keep the body -going. Then all at once, when he’s made his pile, he says, says he, -‘Now I’ll stuff,’ and he eats like ten princes rolled in one and drinks -in proportion, because he’s made his money and why shouldn’t he spend -it? And he forgets as he’s a liver, and he forgets as he ain’t as young -as he used to be, and he forgets as the fatted hog would die of fat if -the butcher didn’t stick him first.” - -With which homely illustration she sighed heavily and patted her smart -gown in a melancholy reverie. - -“I dare say you are right,” said her daughter. “But if my father -were temperate by force of will so very long, is it not strange that -temperance should not have become his habit, too strong a habit to be -ever broken?” - -Her mother shook her head. - -“I don’t suppose, my dear, you’ve watched pigs in the styes and out; -I have. They’ll put up with bran when they must, but lord, if they -get out amongst the clams and the yams, twist their tails as you will -they’ll ne’er leave off. When a man’s made his pile he’s just like a -pig in a sweet potato patch.” - -With which apologue she sighed again and rose to go and dress for her -daily drive behind those immensely tall and always-prancing horses, who -always seemed to her as the winged beasts of the Apocalypse. - -“And as for temperance,” she said as she paused in the doorway, “well, -my dear, ’tisn’t temperate as I’d call any man out West. Your father -could drink deep like the rest; but he had always a very strong head; a -very strong head indeed, my dear.” - -Was his strong head being turned by Lady Kenilworth? his daughter -wondered. Would the brain which had never grown dizzy over the poisoned -drinks and the delirious speculations of America be whirled out of its -orbit by that which is the most intoxicating thing in all creation--a -lovely woman who is also a woman of the world? She believed that Lady -Kenilworth would do precisely what she pleased with him. Did not she -and her roulette-wheel reign in triumph even in the arcana of Harrenden -House? As far as a woman who is essentially honorable, candid, and -single-minded can follow the moves and read the mind of one who is -entirely without those qualities, she understood the character and -the circumstances of her father’s _veneris victrix_. She had asked -Framlingham what his opinion was of her and he had answered: “I never -say anything but good of a woman, my dear; but if I had the choice -between seeing one of my sons enamored of her, or shot by his own hand, -I should choose the revolver, as less prejudicial to his reputation -than the lady.” - -She was very sensible that her position as the daughter of the house -did not permit her in any way to show her own disapprobation of one -of its favored guests. She knew also that nothing she could have said -or have done would have ever moved her father a hair’s breadth. She -remained strictly passive and neutral, but to all the advances of -Hurstmanceaux’s sister she was adamant; and now and then a caustic hint -or phrase escaped her; usually when she saw her mother treated with -unconcealed contempt by the lady of her father’s idolatry. - -“I am going on to the Duchess of Parminster’s reception; are you?” said -Mrs. Massarene one evening, satisfied that this time, at least, she was -saying the right thing. - -“Old Par’s Zoo? Not if I know it,” said Mouse, in her brusquest tone, -and, turning her shoulder on her unfortunate interlocutor, resumed her -interrupted flirtation. - -“There is no play at the Parminsters,” said Katherine Massarene in -a tone, low, but so clear that Mouse reddened angrily, and several -persons near smiled indiscreetly, despite themselves. - -Mrs. Massarene went crestfallen to her carriage. - -If a duchess, daughter, wife, and mother of dukes, was not a -distinguished acquaintance, who was? And if a party gathered together -to meet princes could be called a menagerie, where was salvation to be -found? She was a meek woman, used to endure bullying with patience, -but now and then her bile would rise, as she expressed it, under -the insolence of that lovely lady who yet exercised over her the -fascination of the brilliant-coated snake for the humble barndoor hen. - -She resented, but she dare not rebel. She went to the assembly at -Parminster House sorely exercised in her mind and vaguely wondering -what could be amiss with a courtly crowd, in which the first person she -saw was her future sovereign, who had dined there. - -“Well, _he_ comes because there are certain dishes they do so -remarkably well in this house,” said Daddy Gwyllian, of whom she -asked for information, as he took her to have an ice. “But Lady Kenny -wouldn’t trouble herself to show here; it’s not her style; it’s deadly -respectable. You see she’s too young to bore herself at present for -the sake of a sauce.” - -Mrs. Massarene sighed and reflected that the study of society was a -service which required to be learned very young. - -Mouse felt herself read and understood by Billy’s daughter, and she did -not like it. When she dined at Harrenden House or made them give a ball -there, the evenings were spoiled to her by the sense that those large, -calm, dark violet eyes of the young woman of the house were upon her -and all her doings. - -Who would ever have supposed that such a cockatrice’s egg of irony and -insolence could have been laid and hatched in such a nest of respectful -subserviency as was Harrenden House? - -The air, the manner, the style, even the glance of this young woman -were odious to her; the idea of Billy’s daughter daring to be cold -and distant to herself, and pretending to be a gentlewoman in her own -right! What possible business had a young woman, so born, to arched -insteps, beautiful hands, and a low melodious voice? The thing was -preposterous! “Born in a garret, in a kitchen bred,” her natural sphere -the still-room or the laundry, how could she venture to carry herself -with dignity at a Drawing-room, and answer patronage with cold disdain? - -“I really think,” she reflected, “that she must be a natural daughter -of Framlingham’s, whom he has got the Massarenes to adopt. She has just -his caustic way of saying things, and it would account for her going to -India.” - -This fable seemed so satisfactory to her that she whispered it to one -or two persons, who in turn whispered it to two or three others, till -it became generally whispered and believed, and was indeed only not -heard by the persons whom it immediately concerned, and who alone could -have disproved it. - -“But if she’s old Billy’s heiress, it don’t matter a pin whose daughter -she was?” said Brancepeth, with admirable common sense, the kind of -common sense which is a conspicuous trait of youth at the end of this -century. - -And it was the general sentiment. - -This story came to the ears of Hurstmanceaux. - -“Who told you?” he said to the lady who prattled it to him. - -“Mouse,” the lady hastened to say. “It is because it came from her that -I believed it.” - -He went to his sister. - -“I hear you are the originator of a story that Miss Massarene is the -daughter of Framlingham. What authority have you for such a statement?” - -She laughed a little. - -“Oh, I don’t know! I think so----” - -“You think so. Is that all?” - -“Well, yes, I suppose it is. But I am quite sure of it.” - -“On what grounds?” - -“Grounds? What do you mean? It is my idea----” - -“Ah! it is your idea. And for such ideas, when they are spoken or -written, there is a legal phraseology and a legal punishment.” - -She looked at him startled, but amused. - -“What can you possibly mean? One can say anything one pleases.” - -“If it be not libel. This is. You will do well to contradict the report -you have set afloat.” - -“Goodness, Ronald! How odd you are! You won’t even know these people. -What can it matter to you whether they are talked of or not?” - -“It matters nothing to me. But it matters much to me that you should -invent and circulate falsehoods, and try to injure by them an entirely -blameless person.” - -“Meaning Katherine Massarene?” - -“Certainly, meaning Miss Massarene.” - -She laughed, much diverted. - -“Are you changing your mind about her?” - -“In no way. But she is a person who conducts herself admirably in a -most difficult and odious position, and I do not choose to allow you -to circulate inventions which may ultimately injure her extremely. You -will remember that some time ago I made you retract a calumny; I shall -act in the same way now unless you, of your accord, can completely -withdraw this tale you have set about.” - -She was silent. - -She remembered how unpleasant he had been when she had fabricated a -pretty web of falsehoods concerning one of her acquaintances, actually -forcing her to apologize to all the people concerned. - -“I can’t imagine why you should care,” she said sullenly. - -“To care for abstract justice is quite unintelligible to you,” he -answered. “It is to most people. Will you retract this lie or will you -not?” - -“You make a storm in a teacup. What will you do if I don’t?” - -“I shall tell your friend Mr. Massarene how you return his -hospitalities, and I shall make you confess your inventions.” - -“How horrid you are, Ronald!” she said, while her lips quivered, partly -with fear and partly with rage. “You won’t look at the young woman, and -yet you set your back up like this. Oh, of course I can tell people -that I was only joking. But it will be very disagreeable.” - -“You should bridle your tongue,” said Hurstmanceaux sternly, surprised -himself to feel with what extreme irritation this story of hers had -awakened in him. He could not and would not know Massarene’s heiress, -but he admired her conduct in society; he admired most of all what -others condemned in her, the contemptuous coldness and indifference -of her manner, her brief replies, sometimes so cutting and caustic, -her avoidance of all those whose high position made them sought by her -parents, the unwavering coldness with which she resented all court paid -to her. - -When he watched her in the world, he felt inclined to applaud as he -would have applauded a fine innings at Lord’s or a hard-won race on -the Thames. It seemed to him monstrous that his sister, because her -matrimonial schemes had failed, should pursue with slander anyone so -innocent and so much to be praised. - -William Massarene was in no haste to marry his daughter. His vanity -would have impelled him to give her an unusual dower if she had -married, and he did not care to cut so huge a slice out of his -capital. Moreover, his ambitions, growing by what they fed on, became -inordinate. No alliance seemed to him great enough. - -Besides, he thought often, the old woman might go to glory, and -he might marry again and have sons. To his strength of purpose and -vastness of reach the future--his future--seemed illimitable. - -She received a homage which nauseated, a flattery which disgusted, her. -She knew that she was seen through the golden haze of her father’s -reputation for wealth. “If I were deaf, or blind, or crooked,” she -thought, “if I were diseased, or imbecile, or mutilated, there would -not be one the less ready to worship and wed me out of all these -throngs of wooers.” And very often her brief words cut them like a -lash, and in her eyes, which were the hue of the darkest purple of a -pansy, there came a flash of scorn whose cause those around her were -too self-complacent to attribute aright. - -She had but one pleasure--that of bringing together great artists, -and causing Harrenden House to be renowned for something better than -the usual display and expenditure of “new” houses. She had difficulty -in making her father pay the singers and musicians as she wished them -to be paid, for he who would give two guineas a bottle for a rare -Comet-wine, or waste many thousands of pounds in receiving a sporting -prince at Vale Royal, grudged their fees to what he contemptuously -called “professionals.” But when he saw how greatly these musical -entertainments “took on,” and how much they did to raise the tone of -his house, he gave her large credit and discretion, and the reputation -for the weekly chamber-music at Harrenden House soon attracted to it -those choicer souls whom millions and Richemont could not alone have -drawn there. - -Sometimes she wished she could invite that lover of music who had -listened to the sonata in B flat at Bedlowes. She would sooner have -seen him there than his sister, who showed for an hour at these -concerts, and then took herself off to some gayer form of entertainment. - -“It is intensely classic and correct, but deadly dull,” said Lady -Kenilworth, although she was, on occasion, a musical composer herself, -and wrote little songs which, with many corrections and additions from -Delkass and other salon-singers and fashionable pianists, passed muster -and were published as her own. - -Once, to please her, Massarene bade his daughter have one of these -ballads sung at the next Harrenden House concert. - -“My dear father, get someone else to manage these things,” she -answered. “Or let us give them up altogether. But bad amateur music I -will not have sung or played whilst I am responsible for the selection.” - -She was quite resolute on the point, and, as he did not wish concerts -which were so admired to be abandoned, he could not please his idol in -this matter. - -“She says your songs ain’t good enow, my lady,” he announced grimly, -with that relish in annoying her which occasionally overcame his -submissiveness, at such times as he remembered the diplomatist and the -Bird rooms, or saw a bevy of men round her as she donned her evening -cloak. - -The announcement did not lessen the impatient aversion which she felt -for his heiress. - -“Are you afraid of your own daughter, Billy?” she asked very -contemptuously. - -“I ain’t afraid of nobody,” said Mr. Massarene; and there was an ugly -look for a moment on his face. - -“What an odious man he was!” she thought. “What a lout, what a bore, -and, no doubt, what a bully too where he could be so!” - -Sometimes a gleam of good sense made her afraid of him; afraid of all -the obligations which she was under to him; afraid of some future -reprisal he might take for all her insolence. But she was utterly -careless and extremely imprudent, and she dismissed the fear as soon as -it assailed her. - -“You don’t marry your daughter, Billy,” she said one day. “It was very -provoking that the affair with my brother went off as it did.” - -“It was never on that I am aware of,” said William Massarene stiffly, -with a look like that of a displeased bull on his face. - -“Well, no, of course it wasn’t. Ronald wouldn’t know you. I’m afraid, -my good Billy, there’ll be people who won’t know you to the very end of -your day.” - -He looked more displeased still, but he was accustomed to bear her -insolence patiently. - -“Every man has his price, they say,” he answered doggedly. “Seems as I -haven’t hit on Lord Hurstmanceaux’s.” - -He did not venture to say to her that he was delighted her project had -failed. - -“What funny things you say, Billy,” cried Mouse, with a peal of her -enchanting laughter. - -He was charmed, and began to believe himself a wit. - -“I’m coming to hear you to-night,” she added. - -He had been asked to speak on the Early Closing Bill; the bill was -originally a Conservative measure, and so the Conservative party was -obliged to support it in its Radical dress. The prospect made him -nervous, but he was a man who knew how to control his nerves; and he -had that solid sense of his own powers which when it is allied to good -sense is the surest of all support. Moreover, Mouse knew exactly how -to flatter whilst she bullied him; to flatter him enough, to make him -happy, never enough to make herself ridiculous, or her kind words cheap. - -“It’s darned rot,” thought William Massarene. “All this here kind of -thing is socialism in disguise. The public is treated like a child, -and an idiot child. If it wants shops open late, it’ll pay traders to -keep ’em open, and if it wants ’em shut early, it won’t pay traders to -keep ’em open. That’s all about it I reckon. ’Tis one of them things -that should be left to the public. A trader don’t want to sit twiddling -his thumbs, and why in hell’s name should the Government force him to -twiddle his thumbs?” - -But this simple common-sense view of the case was not the one taken by -the persons he had to support, and so he prepared a very neat speech -which argued the case from the opposite point of view to his own. - -“Awful rot,” he thought, as he jotted down the heads of it. “But this -old country takes the cake for rot.” - -Naturally, he did not care a straw which way the votes went; the time -had long gone by when he had kept a shop, and even the time when he -had owned many shops with dummy names over their doors and dummy -proprietors returned in the census; and whether Islington, and Notting -Hill, and Camden Town, and Bethnal Green burned gas till midnight, or -shut up at twilight, did not matter the least to him. - -She had prophesied his success in the House, and he soon justified her -prophecy. He spoke on questions of home-legislation, and spoke well, -in short but telling sentences without nervousness, but with apparent -modesty; to be sure, there was the drawback of his accent, which was at -once plebeian and Yankee, but of this he was himself unconscious, and -the time is passed when the House of Commons exacted either education -or elegance; it has heard so many dialects and dropped aspirates within -the last twenty years that its ear has grown deaf to such offences. -What he had to say seemed to him, in its matter, very poor trash, but -he said it well; and a sense that this stout, uncouth, unpleasant -person would be a tower of strength in their ranks spread itself -downward from their chief throughout all the ranks of the Conservative -party, and made them feel that they had better not call him Billy too -often. - -He was too sagacious a man to be tempted to speak on subjects out -of his range of special knowledge; on those of which he had such -knowledge, stocks, mining, railways, or finance, he spoke rarely, -but with admirable practical astuteness; the House saw that he was -an authority not to be despised. In smart society he was embarrassed -and ill at ease and conscious of his own deficiencies; but with men -on public matters, he was neither daunted nor dazzled. He had a very -poor opinion of the House of Commons, whether as a talking-shop or a -manager of public business, and he felt nothing of the awe which is -popularly supposed to be inspired in all new members by the sight of -the Speaker’s Mace. - -He had quickly taken the measure of the Assembly, and he was not afraid -of it. He thought it a very poor affair; wasting all its time in -jaw, and timidly endeavoring to conciliate the masses, which, to his -knowledge, were best governed with a stock-whip and a six-shooter. But -he was too shrewd to let his private opinion leak out; and he contented -himself with making both sides of the House feel that a man had come -amongst them who, if they liked to listen to them, could teach them the -time of day on all subjects which concerned practical politics and the -business side of government. - -The Irish members loathed him because he had turned his back on Ireland -instead of consecrating his millions to leagues and dynamite. But on -the rest of the House the impression he made was favorable. After all, -a politician who has Richemont at the head of his kitchen, and gives -you the great wines of comet years, is a superior companion on the -benches to the Nonconformist schoolmaster, the hungry barrister, or the -professor full of crotchets, whom Northern England or Eastern London -sends to St. Stephen’s. - -“Really, Billy, you got on very well,” said Mouse, who had come to the -speaker’s box to hear him; that little box is much more comfortable -than the Lady’s Gallery. - -“’Twas all soft sawder,” said Mr. Massarene, with grim contempt. - -She was standing in the corridor twisting a lace wrap round her -head, and he had come upstairs after the division to receive her -congratulations and take her orders. - -“What I’d like to teach ’em is how to do the business of this ’ere -House. Why, if any private business was carried on for half a year as -the business of the nation’s done by these gentlemen, there’d be an -almighty smash such as somebody’d go in the docks for----” - -“Tell the House so,” said Mouse, much diverted. - -He puffed out his cheeks, which was his equivalent for a smile. - -“Guess, my lady, ’tain’t the place for truth-telling.” - -“You should have gone to the other side.” - -He shook his head. - -“Not me, my lady. What do the Radicals say to me? This is what they -say: ‘My good fellow, you’ve earned five shillin’s by sweatin’ all day; -hand it over here, will ye. We want to buy beer and beefsteaks for Tom, -Dick, and Harry, who’ve been sittin’ loafin’ on a wall over there while -you was workin’.’ No Radicals for me if I know it.” - -“You are very delightful, Billy,” said his patroness, “and you may come -with us to supper at the Papillons Club. I’m dreadfully hungry, though -I have only been ‘loafin’’ behind a grating. I’ve made rendezvous -there with Carrie.” - -He obeyed the permission of his enchantress; and meekly ate some -oysters and drank some champagne in company with her and a dozen of her -gayest associates; it occurred to no one of them to pay the bill, and -the head waiter took it discreetly to the master of Harrenden House -when no one else was looking. - -The Papillons was a new and very fashionable supper club, much resorted -to after the opera, the theatres, and parliamentary debates. - -He felt that it was a place too full of gaiety, frivolity, and youth -to be a meet place for a member of parliament and a Crœsus of his age -and his ambitions. He thought suppers apoplectical, champagnes, even -_brùt_, very poor stuff, and English oysters ridiculous; nevertheless, -he went, and was rewarded by seeing his enchantress toss the liliputian -bivalves down her rosy throat and turn her shoulder on him as she had -done on his wife. - -To be sure, he had the privilege of paying the bill, a privilege which -he found the English aristocracy always willing to concede to him. - -“There’ll always be people too proud to know me, will there?” he -thought, as he drove homeward; “but I guess there’ll never be people -too proud to let me pay for ’em.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII. - - -The giddy months frolicked away like youths and maidens dancing on -a golden ground on one of Povis de Chavanne’s friezes. Flirting, -laughing, gaming, waltzing, shooting, hunting, driving, dressing--above -all dressing--the seasons succeeded each other with breathless rapidity -for Mouse Kenilworth, and hundreds of fair women like her. - -Money grew scarcer, credit grew rarer, Billy became less easy to bleed, -Harry seemed to grow duller and less good-looking, cabmen became shyer -still of Cocky, and the old duke more unwilling to sign and sell; but -she still all the same enjoyed herself, still carried high her golden -head, and still crammed forty-eight hours into every twenty-four. -Occasionally she did a little philanthropy; inaugurated a railway line, -visited some silk mills, or laid the stone of a church. The silver -barrow she received made a pretty flower-stand, the pieces of silk -offered to her were also useful in their way, and when she had opened a -church she felt she had a dispensation for months from attending church -services. Only Egypt she could not manage this year. Egypt is a pastime -which requires a good deal of ready money, and she had to console -herself with hunting in the Midlands and shooting rocketers in the damp -English woods; she did not really care about shooting, but she found -zest in it because Ronald and the old duke hated the idea of women -killing things, and even Brancepeth disapproved it. - -She went down again more than once to Vale Royal and went out with the -hounds to whose maintenance her host had subscribed so liberally. But -in February a long black frost sent hunters to their straw and riders -up to town, and she opened her house in Stanhope Street as the session -opened at Westminster. She had the children up also; partly because she -was really fond of them, partly because children _poser_ you, and touch -the heart and the purse-strings of your relatives. - -She disliked the town in winter; she wanted to be in Cairo or at Monte -Carlo or Rome; but, being in London, she made the best of it and took -her graceful person to any place where she thought she could be amused. -There are many dinners in London when the frost binds the country in -its iron bonds and the horses champ and fret in their stalls, and the -herons starve by the frozen streams, and the dead kingfishers lie like -crumpled heaps of broken iris-flowers on the cruel ice of their native -ponds. - -“Has Billy run dry?” asked her lord one day when their financial -difficulties were pressing more hardly than usual, and an unpaid cabman -had threatened Bow Street. - -“No,” said Mouse curtly. “But the young woman is always there. She’s as -sharp as a needle.” - -“Why didn’t you splice her to Ronnie?” - -“He won’t even look at her.” - -“How exactly like him!” said Cocky. “If there’s a thing he might do to -oblige one he always kicks at it.” - -Hurstmanceaux always seemed to them odiously unfeeling and huffy; -nevertheless, as they always did in their troubles, they sent to him -to come and speak to them one day when their creditors had been more -offensive than usual. He was so rarely in town that they agreed it was -only prudent to take advantage of his being there for a week or two on -account of evidence he had to give before a House of Lords Committee on -an Irish land question. - -What Daddy Gwyllian had said once in the smoking-room at Otterbourne -House, and had more than once since then repeated, dwelt in -Hurstmanceaux’s memory, and made him doubt whether it was indeed -worth while to go on impoverishing himself for people who had neither -gratitude nor scruple. - -After all, if the Duke of Otterbourne’s eldest son went into the -Bankruptcy Court, it was the Duke of Otterbourne’s affair. - -It would be cruelly hard on Otterbourne, who was himself one of the -most upright, honorable and conscientious of gentlemen. But it would -be still harder on himself, Hurstmanceaux, after his long self-denial -and self-sacrifice to find himself in Queer Street for sake of his -brother-in-law, a brother-in-law whom he considered, in his own -forcible language, not fit to be touched with a pair of tongs. - -If they would only retire awhile and retrench they could pull -themselves together. Cocky had an estate in the west of Ireland, -entirely unsaleable for the best of reasons that nobody would buy it, -but which Hurstmanceaux considered a very heaven upon earth, for its -views of land and sea were sublime, and its myrtle and bay thickets, -its pine and cork woods, had almost the beauty of Cintra with the vast -billows of the Atlantic rolling on the rocky shores at their feet. If -they would go to this place, called Black _Hazel_, and live there for -a few years, their affairs would come round, and Mouse would be taken -out of that vicious circle of unending expenditure and compromising -expedient in which women of the world turn like squirrels in a cage. - -To the innocence of this simple masculine mind it seemed quite possible -that if such a course were suggested to her she would follow it. She -was fond of the children; Black Hazel would be a paradise for them; she -liked sport--Black Hazel offered quail, woodcock, blackcock, teal in -abundance, and both fresh water and deep sea fishing to any extent. - -He enumerated its attractions enthusiastically to himself as if he were -an auctioneer endeavoring to sell the estate, and, with the _naïveté_ -of an honest man, imagined that after all his sister could only need to -have her duty clearly shown her to do it. - -“The finest thoroughbred mare will chew dry reeds when she finds she -can’t get hay or oats,” he thought, his mind reverting to his memories -of the Egyptian campaign, which he had shared in as an amateur. The -brother of Lady Kenilworth should have known that women of the world -are more “kittle cattle” than even blood-mares; but he did not realize -this. - -He knew that she was unreasonable, wildly extravagant, very selfish, -and so accustomed to have her own way that she thought the stars would -pause in their courses to please her; but still, even she would stop -short of absolute social suicide, he thought. - -So when next he received a note from his sister asking him to come to -her on a matter of importance, which always with her meant money, he -took his way to the conference determined to tell her frankly that the -retreat to the west of Ireland was the only possible refuge for her, -and to keep well in his memory the sensible warning and counsel of -Daddy Gwyllian. - -When he got to the house in Stanhope Street he found Cocky waiting to -see him before he went out. This fact alone was ominous and extremely -disagreeable to him, the presence of Cocky, in his wife’s morning-room, -invariably indicating not only that money was wanted, which was -chronic, but that some more than usually unpleasant dilemma had to be -met. - -Cocky’s paper was all over the place, as he would have expressed it; -and very often in hands so disreputable that its rescue was a matter as -compromising as it was costly. - -When he was walking about amongst the china and the trinkets, and the -flowers and the lacquer work, with his thin pale aquiline profile -against the light, and the Blenheims barking furiously at him as -they invariably did, his presence was the certain sign of something -impending which might get with most odious prominence into the -newspapers. - -“If he’s forged anybody’s name, I only hope to heavens that it’s only -mine,” thought Hurstmanceaux: he always expected Cocky to come to -forgery sooner or later. In point of fact, Cocky had come to it very -early in his career, as early as his Eton days, when he had been ducked -in the river by the comrade with whose name he had taken such liberties. - -With his hands in his trowser pockets and his little frail person -flitting amongst the chinoiseries and the heaths and orchids, he peered -up at this moment at Hurstmanceaux where he stood on the hearth, very -tall, very stern, very unsympathetic, and absolutely silent. - -“What a glum brute he is,” Cocky thought of the man to whom he had -owed his own social salvation a score of times. “What an uncommon -nasty thing human nature must be that it must always look so deuced -unpleasant whenever it finds anybody in trouble.” - -Cocky was of opinion that it was the first duty of other men to pick -himself out of the mud whenever he got into it, and that it should not -only be the duty of his neighbors but their pleasure. - -“Such a hard-hearted brute is Ronnie,” he thought. “Only lives for -himself and don’t spend sixpence a day. I do hate selfishness and -stinginess.” - -The Blenheims at this instant scampered into the room, and flew at his -ankles with that strong disapproval of him which they never failed to -show. - -“Oh Lord, you little beasts!” he cried, as their shrill voices rent the -air. - -Hurstmanceaux looked on in grim approval of the dogs’ discrimination, -whilst his brother-in-law wasted kicks in all directions, the Blenheims -avoiding them with the happiest dexterity and returning undaunted to -the charge. - -The entrance of their mistress effected a diversion in the warfare and -relaxed the contemptuous sternness of her brother’s face. - -“So kind of you, dear Ronnie,” she said sweetly as she came up to him -softly and brought a sense of fragrance and freshness, like a dewy -rose, as she came straight from her bath and its opponax soap and eau -de verveine. - -“They’ve torn my trowsers,” said Cocky, looking down at the marks of -their small sharp teeth upon frayed cloth. - -“You know they dislike you,” said his wife coldly. “Why do you provoke -them?” - -“Hang it all, I’m their master,” murmured Cocky, eyeing his ankles -ruefully. - -“Oh, dear no, you are not,” said Mouse very uncivilly; “I never taught -them to think so for a moment.” - -“If you only sent for me to hear you quarrel over the ownership of the -Blenheims----” said Hurstmanceaux. He was angry; he had to attend a -Royal Commission at two o’clock, and he wanted to be instead on the -river, watching the practice of the Eton eight of which his youngest -brother was captain. And here he was, shut up at half-past twelve with -two bickering people and two barking lap-dogs, with the prospect of -hearing for an hour of debts and difficulties which he had neither the -power nor the will to meet or dissipate. “Pray let me hear the worst -at once,” he added. “Is it the Old Bailey, or only the Bankruptcy -Court, that Cocky is going to show himself in this time to an admiring -society?” - -His sister looked at him and saw that he was not in a pleasant mood; -but she did not mind his moods, they always ended in giving her what -she wanted. He was an intrinsically generous and compassionate man, and -such tempers are always kindly to their own hurt. - -“Damned ungrateful fellow he is!” reflected Cocky. “As if there wasn’t -_one_ Court that he ought to bless me for never going into.” - -But he said nothing aloud, and left the recital of their difficulties -to his wife. - -She plunged immediately into the narrative of their woes and needs, -the Blenheims, reduced to silence through want of breath, sitting with -their tongues out and their heads on one side, listening attentively as -though they were two auditors in bankruptcy. - -Hurstmanceaux listened also in an unsympathetic silence which to his -companions seemed to bode no good to themselves. There was nothing new -in the relation; debts have seven-leagued boots, as everyone knows, and -people who spend a few thousands every year in railway journeys, but -do not pay their tailor, shoemaker, and greengrocer, realize this with -unpleasant frequency. Then there were debts of honor in all directions, -these being the only form of honor which was left to the delinquents as -Hurstmanceaux thought, but charitably forebode to say. - -He looked at his sister whilst she spoke, admiring her appearance -whilst he scarcely attended to her words because he knew their import -beforehand so painfully well. What a terribly expensive animal was a -modern woman of the world! As costly as an ironclad and as complicated -as a theatrophone. The loveliest product of an entirely artificial -state, but the most ruinous, and the most irritating to those whom she -ruined. - -He told himself that Daddy Gwyllian had been entirely right. And he -hardened his heart against this beautiful apparition which with dewy -lips, perfumed hair, and a delicious suggestion of a nymph fresh from a -waterbrook, stood before him in that charming attitude of contrition -and candor with which from her nursery days he had always known her -tell her very largest lies. - -“So all the dirt you’ve eaten hasn’t done you any good,” he said -curtly, after some minutes of silence. - -“What can you possibly mean?” said Mouse. - -Cocky chuckled feebly. He knew what his brother-in-law meant. - -“We can’t bleed Billy every day,” he murmured in an explanatory tone. - -“You seem to think you can bleed your father and myself whenever you -please,” said Hurstmanceaux in his most incisive tones. - -“Lord, what else is one’s family for?” said Cocky candidly. - -His wife looked with impatience at the clock, for she had appointments -which were agreeable. - -“Really, I think we’ve told you everything,” she said to her brother. -“It is not nice of you to insult us in our troubles, but I am sure you -mean to help us in the end, don’t you, Ronnie?” - -“I am extremely sorry,” said Hurstmanceaux. “But it is wholly out of my -power to help you this time. Your debts are enormous. The only possible -chance for you is to give up London life, and life in the world -altogether, and go and retrench in the country. Why not at Black Hazel? -It would be admirable for the children; and your creditors, if they -knew you were really economizing, could probably be induced to wait. I -see no other prospect possible.” - -“Don’t be a fool, Ronald,” said his sister curtly, throwing her -handkerchief rolled in a ball to the dogs. - -Her husband stared through his eye-glass. “Ah--er--I thought you would -make some practical suggestion; something feasible, you know!” - -Hurstmanceaux frowned. - -“So I do. When people are in your position they always withdraw to -their Black Hazel or whatever their retreat is called. They don’t go -on living in the world. Black Hazel is a delightful place. It will be -much better than a second floor in Florence, or a boarding house in -Dresden, which many people come to who are in your plight.” - -His sister looked at her watch. - -“My dear Ronald, I have no more time to spare you,” she said rather -insolently. “And if you can suggest nothing more sensible than a second -floor in Florence, or a bog in Ireland, I shall lose little by not -hearing anything more that you may have to say.” - -“I have given you my opinion and my advice,” said Hurstmanceaux -stiffly. “You can live at Black Hazel tolerably well, and in a way -becoming your position; the air is very fine and the children will -thrive admirably. But if you persist in continuing your present rate of -expenditure----” - -His sister opened the door and disappeared, calling the Blenheims with -her. - -“Lord, excuse me, Ronnie, but why do you talk that rot?” said her -husband, peering up through his glasses at his brother-in-law. “What on -earth is the use of going on in that way to her? Out o’ London? Down in -the west of Ireland? Your sister and me? Oh, Lord!” - -The idea of his exile from “life” so tickled his fancy that he laughed -till he choked himself. - -“Black Hazel! Mouse and I and her chicks at Black Hazel! Oh, good Lord, -Ronnie! You won’t beat that if you try for a week o’ Sundays!” - -He chuckled feebly but merrily. - -“What is there to laugh at?” said Hurstmanceaux. “Is the Bankruptcy -Court more agreeable than a country place which is your own and where -you will be your own master?” - -But Cocky continued to laugh convulsively, holding his side and -coughing. - -From his great height Hurstmanceaux looked down in scorn on the speaker. - -“Pray,” he said coldly, “do you ever ask how your wife gets the ready -money she has to carry on with?” - -Kenilworth shook his head. - -“Not I. Mutual what do-ye-call it and non-interference is the only -sound basis for domestic peace.” - -He spoke with an expression of implicit seriousness and good faith; -only his left eye winked knowingly, as if he had said something very -amusing indeed. Hurstmanceaux wondered if it would be within decent -manners to kick one’s brother-in-law on his own hearth. - -“You are an unutterable scoundrel, Cocky,” he said, with an effort -mastering his impulse to use acts instead of words. - -Kenilworth remained unmoved. - -“That’s libel. A beak would fine you a fiver for it,” he said placidly. -“Do you happen to have got a fiver about you?” - -“Go and ask Brancepeth for one,” said Hurstmanceaux, white with rage. - -“Oh, Lord!” said the other innocently. “I’ve had _his_ last ages ago. -He is a very poor devil is Harry, a very poor devil, else we shouldn’t -be in this strait.” - -Hurstmanceaux approached him so closely that Cocky, whose nerves were -shaken by much absinthe and angostura, trembled. - -“I would sooner my sister were on the pavement of the Haymarket than -that she were the wife of such a cur as you.” - -Cocky breathed more freely. - -“That is a very exaggerated remark,” he murmured. “You are so very -stagy, my dear Ronald, so very stagy. You should have lived a century -or two ago.” - -“I am ashamed to be of the same generation as yourself,” said -Hurstmanceaux sternly. “Great heavens, man! You come of a good stock; -you will be chief of a great house; your father is a gentleman in -every fibre of his being; how can you endure to live as you do with -your very name a by-word for the cabmen in the street? There is not a -servant in your house, not a match-seller on your area steps, not a -stableboy in your mews, who does not know the dishonor which you alone -affect to ignore! She is my sister, I am ashamed to say; but I can do -nothing with her so long as you, her husband, condone and countenance -what she does. You have every power; I have none. Take her to Black -Hazel, sacrifice yourself for sake of your children, shut yourself up -there, try and lead a cleanly life and make her lead an honest one. -Cease to be the miserable thing you are--a diseased maggot living on -putrefaction?” - -Kenilworth listened imperturbably. To be likened to a diseased maggot -did not distress him; it slightly diverted him in its appositeness. - -“The children?” he said softly and slowly. “You really think I ought to -consider those children?” - -His pale, expressionless grey eyes, becoming suddenly full of -unutterable depth of expression, looked up into his brother-in-law’s -and said volumes without words. - -Hurstmanceaux grew red to the roots of his bright curly hair. After -all, the woman spoken of, if this man’s wife, was his own sister, his -favorite sister, the little one whom he had carried about in his arms -when a boy, up and down the tapestried galleries and the oak staircases -of the dear old house at Faldon. - -Kenilworth saw that emotion and despised it, but thought he would -profit by it and do a bit of dignity. - -“My dear Ronnie,” he said almost seriously, “if I had married another -sort of woman than your sister Clare, I might have become a different -sort of man. It is not likely; still, it is possible. But, you may -believe me, if she had married the best man under heaven, she would -have been just exactly what she is. Sages and angels wouldn’t alter -her. Don’t you fret yourself about us. We aren’t worth it--I grant -that. We are of our time, and we shall get along somehow. Ta-ta, -Ronnie; you are a good boy. Be grateful that I am what I am; if I -were like you, _vieux jeu_, what a bother I should have made for our -respective families long ago in the D. C.” - -And with a low complacent chuckle at having got the best of the -argument, he dived under his seat for his hat, glanced at the clock, -and, with an apologetic gesture of two fingers, left Hurstmanceaux -alone in the morning-room with the chinoiseries and nipponiséries. - -“Now his conscience will work and make him miserable,” he thought, -as he went across the hall with satisfaction. “After all, I said the -truth, and he knows it is the truth. She is his sister, and she’s a -bad a lot as there is in London, and he’ll feel he owes me something, -and he’ll come down handsomely, stingy old bloke though he is. What -duffers those sentiment men always are to be sure. How neat I handled -him. Gad, if he didn’t blush like a girl!” - -And Cocky stepped lightly down Park Lane to Hamilton Place and entered -the Bachelors Club “fancying himself very much,” as he would have -expressed it; and quite aware that his strategy would end sooner or -later in an interview more or less agreeable to his interests between -his own lawyers and those of his brother-in-law. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX. - - -It was another wet and chilly Easter in another year, and the town had -just begun to fill after the recess, when one morning after luncheon -the good Duke of Otterbourne, as his county called him, riding down -the Kensington high road, was thrown from his horse, between whose -forelegs a bicycle had staggered and fallen. The boy on the bicycle was -but scarcely bruised; the Duke was carried insensible to the nearest -pharmacy and never rallied. By four o’clock he was dead; and many -persons, men and women, old and young, gentle and simple, felt their -eyes wet as the news of his death circulated through the Park and -streets. - -His daughter-in-law heard of it as she drove in at Hyde Park Corner; -a man she knew stopped her carriage and broke the intelligence to her -as gently as he could. She was shocked for a moment; then she thought -to herself: “We shall have Otterbourne House now, and I suppose -there’ll be money, at least for a time.” Then, as she always studied -appearances, she went home decorously and busied herself telegraphing -to his family and her own. - -The body of the old duke had been already taken to Otterbourne House -and laid on his bed in those modest rooms opening on the gardens, to -which she had so often desired to limit him. His features were calm -and wore a look of peace; his neck had been broken in the fall; it -was thought probable that he had suffered nothing, not even a passing -pang. Whilst telegrams were being sent all over England, and it grew -dusk, she came, clothed in black, and knelt by the low bed, weeping. -She always did what was right in small things, and at any moment some -member of her family or his might enter the room. Meanwhile messengers -of all degrees, servants, grooms, commissionaires, telegraph boys, were -rushing to and fro over the metropolis and its environs in their vain -search for the Earl of Kenilworth. No one had any idea where Cocky was. - -No one had seen him for two days; his absence was of so slight an -account that even his valet never took any heed of it; it was surmised -that he was in congenial society. - -She was thinking as she knelt of the alterations she would make in -the house; the gardens were old-fashioned and would have to be laid -out afresh; the circular entrance-hall should be made a _patio_ like -Frederic Leighton’s and have a glass dome; the picture gallery sadly -wanted weeding, and the process of weeding might be made lucrative to -the weeder, for dealers would buy anything out of Otterbourne House -with their eyes shut; the small oval room painted by Angelica Kauffman -should be her boudoir. “I sha’n’t need to bore myself with Billy,” she -thought: the duke had not been a rich man and had been impoverished -by his sacrifices to assist Cocky; but still things would be very -different to the hand-to-mouth life which they led, and which drove her -to support the nuisance of Harrenden House and Vale Royal, and similar -expedients. The Duchess of Otterbourne would, she reckoned, have a free -hand at least for a time; and they would probably be able to sell lots -of things despite the entail. - -Alberic Orme arrived that night from his country vicarage; he was -white, haggard, inexpressibly grieved; he had loved his father dearly. - -“Where is my brother?” he asked her. - -The two younger sons were away--the one with his ship, the other with -his troop--in the Indian Ocean and at the Cape. - -“Cocky?” said Cocky’s wife. “Oh, they are looking for him. They will -find him--in some pot-house!” - -And so they did on the following morning. - -When messengers in hot haste went flying over London to find his son, -and telegrams were being despatched to the lamented duke’s country -seats and county towns, Cocky was drinking gin and playing poker with -half-a-dozen persons, more congenial than distinguished, at a little -riverside inn near Marlow, where he had been spending three days lost -to the world, but dear at least to the hearts of Radical journalists. -When at last he was found, and the fatal accident to his father -communicated to him, Cocky, who, however drunk he might be, never -became a fool, pulled himself together, comprehended the position, and -put all the money lying about in his pocket. - -“Damned if they’ll dare ask a duke for it!” he said to himself with a -chuckle, and walked quite steadily to the carriage which had come for -him, not casting even a look at his late companions, male or female, -who were too awed and astonished, as well as too befumed with various -drinks to stop him or even to speak to him. - -“I’ll have a rattling good time now,” he thought, as he drove to -the Marlow station. “And I’ll divorce her; Lord, what a joke it’ll -be! Perhaps they won’t give it me; I dare say they won’t give it -me; there’s a marplot called the Queen’s Proctor; they’ll talk of -collusion, and she’ll bring counter-charges, and all the rest of it; -but we’ll have the fun all the same, and she won’t be able to show her -face at Court. They’re so damned particular at Court about the people -who are found out! So is society: she’ll be drummed out of society. -Lord, what fun it will be!” - -Better even than gin and poker and music-hall singers and shady -bookmakers in a village on the Thames. - -Whilst his father had lived that fun had been always peremptorily -forbidden to him. - -“Whatever your wife may have done or shall do, you have forfeited all -title to resent it,” the old duke had always said to him; “and I will -not have my name bespattered with your filth in public.” - -Wholly unconscious of the dark designs he carried in his sodden but -sharp little brains, his wife was almost civil to him when he came into -her presence, sobered by the fresh air he had breathed on his return -from Marlow. She restrained the Blenheims from attacks on his trousers, -and did not make any inquiries as to why he had been missing for -fifty-six hours. - -He was Cocky, he would always be Cocky, the most wretched little scamp -in creation; still he was indisputably Seventh Duke of Otterbourne, and -had considerable power to make himself disagreeable. - -Out of his presence she enjoyed rapturously the vituperation which -society papers and the Radical press poured upon him now that he had -really become an hereditary legislator. - -“They are too funny for anything,” she said, tossing a handful of them -to Brancepeth. “They must have had detectives after him every hour of -his life. How on earth do they know all they do?” - -“It’s easy enough to know about a man who don’t pay his cabman and -borrows sovereigns of his valet,” replied Brancepeth with equanimity, -picking up the scattered news sheets. - -“Well, he won’t want to borrow sovereigns now,” remarked his wife. - -“Won’t he?” said her friend, with worlds of significance in the simple -words. “Oh, Lord, if he ever gets to heaven he’ll pawn St. Peter’s key!” - -“But there’ll be lots of money, won’t there? And the roc’s egg will be -mine, won’t it?” she asked, for her knowledge of such matters was vague. - -“Ask your solicitor,” said Brancepeth. - -The remains of the late duke were taken down to Staghurst, his -principal place, a vast mansion and a vaster park in a southwest -county, his sons and daughter accompanying the corpse; his -daughter-in-law went also, taking with her Jack and Gerry; in small -things she always did what looked well. If you pay in halfpence in that -way the world pays you back in guineas. - -The funeral took place on the following morning, on a very disagreeable -day, with sleet and rain and wind; and the family vault and monuments -were in a churchyard which lay fully exposed to the blasts from the -east, with great yews overshadowing it and sepulchral figures by -Chantrey and Nollekens and Roubiliac, looking grim and grey in the -foggy air. - -The late duke had many sincere mourners, for he had inspired many -warm friendships in his own world, and respect and regard in all -classes. Moreover, the large number of persons who in various ways were -connected with, or dependent on, the Duke of Otterbourne could not but -view with terror the advent to that title of the small, frail, hectic -little man, who had so cynical a smile in his pale eyes and so shocking -a reputation in the country. Gossip, too, had not spared that lovely -lady in her graceful crape garments, and the beautiful little boys, -whose rosy cheeks were a little less bright than usual, as she led them -under the darkling yews and the sombre, weird sculptures of the tombs. -The people assembled there, especially the tenantry, peasantry, and -servants, all felt that the reign of kindness, straightforwardness, and -dignity was over, and that the future before them was one clouded and -threatening. - -“His new Grace do look a mighty poor chap,” said one old laborer to -another. “And they do say as his blood’s all brandy, and none o’ the -young ’uns is his own.” - -“Hold yer gab, Garge, or they’ll hev ye in the lockup,” said his more -prudent spouse. - -But what the old man said audibly many there present thought. - -The ceremony was dreary and tedious; Jack and Gerry were cold and -frightened, and everyone else was bored; the clergy alone were, as -usual, in all their swelling glory and fussy supremacy, headed by the -late duke’s brother, Augustus Orme, who was Bishop of Dunwich and -Waton-on-the-Naze. - -After the funeral, and reading of the will, the local magnates of -county and church dispersed, and everyone else returned to London by -the four o’clock express except Cocky and his wife. He was chilly, -feverish, sleepy, and disinclined to leave the house, and she wanted -to look over the collection of historial laces which had belonged to -her mother-in-law, which had never seen the light for many years, -Otterbourne having always jealously guarded them as the most sacred -heirloom. They could not be sold now, but they might be used, in -various ways; at the least they would adorn Drawing-room costumes; -there was, she knew, a _manteau de cour_ which had belonged to -Henriette d’Angleterre. She was very fond of lace, and she was still -more fond of little _mauvais tours_; she did not forget or forgive -many words and acts of the late duke; it was one of those unkind small -revenges which were to her pampered taste as cayenne pepper or chutney -is to a jaded palate, to unlock the dead lady’s Italian cabinets and -Indian boxes and sandal-wood coffers, and to play havoc with the -Spanish point, the English point, the Venetian point, the Chantilly, -the Flemish, the Dutch, kerchiefs and collars and aprons and flounces -and edgings, all fine and rare, many marked with the arms or badges of -famous houses or royal wearers of a vanished time. - -The poetic interest of the collection was nothing at all to the present -duchess; what mattered to her was the value of it in money, though she -could not sell it, and the effect it would have if she wore any of it. -She did not herself like old lace, it always looked yellow and dingy; -but other people did and envied it, and it would all look very nice at -some Loan Collection, and make her friends most agreeably jealous. She -passed the afternoon hours over it, and in ransacking all the little -drawers and boxes in the various cabinets of what had been the favorite -sitting-room of the late duchess. Otterbourne, though he had often -given his wife cause for jealousy, had been profoundly attached to her -and had kept this room untouched, even unentered, except to be swept, -dusted, and aired. - -Mouse knew this well enough--she had often been irritated at this -room being locked against her; but her knowledge did not prevent her -pillaging it any more than the sanctity of a church or a mosque to its -pious devotees prevents soldiers from sacking and firing it. She had -nothing to do, this rainy, chilly, dull day, and the examination of -her mother-in-law’s relics and treasures served to pass the time; her -second maid aided her, a sagacious and discreet young woman, who knew -when to use her eyes and when to close them. - -The poor dead duchess’s room was the cosiest and cheeriest in the -whole huge building of Staghurst, which was an immense, uninteresting, -last-century house built by Bonnani, and with a fire burning on its -long-cold hearth, and a dozen wax-candles lighted in its silver -sconces, it was a warm, comfortable, pleasant place for a chilly -evening. She had a nice succulent little dinner served there, and when -she had done full justice to it returned to her examination of the -Japanese cabinets and the Indian boxes and the sandal-wood coffers. - -What sentimental creatures men are, she thought, seeing a bouquet -of flowers, which had been dead five-and-twenty years, still left -untouched in their porcelain bowl in which the water had long been dry. -If ever there was a male flirt, poor Poodle had been one, and yet he -had cherished such a solemn _culte_ for his dead wife that he had kept -her morning-room like a temple for a quarter of a century! It seemed to -her very droll. - -The little boys came to bid her good-night, and she gave them some -_marrons glacés_ and kissed them and sent them away. She was impatient -to go on with her examination of her late mother-in-law’s possessions -before anyone could interrupt her, for she did not know at all who had -the legal right to them. - -Jack’s brilliant eyes under their long lashes roved over the room and -espied the suggestive confusion of it. - -“She’s been lootin’,” he thought; he knew what looting was; Harry had -told him. - -“P’rhaps these was looted too,” he thought, gazing down on his handful -of Paris chestnuts. - -He was a very honest little man; he was honest by nature, and Harry had -made him so on principle; he had never seen his friend “dedful angy” -save once, when he, Jack, had taken a large, sweet, crescent-shaped -cake off a stall in the Promenade des Sept Heures at Spa. - -His mother had no such qualms; she continued her investigations. - -There were things which would have touched some women. There were the -love letters of Otterbourne, then Lord Kenilworth, ardent, tender, and -graceful, tied up with faded ribbon. There were innocent little notes -written by Cocky in a big round hand between pencilled lines beginning -“my darling mama.” There were baby shoes in pale-blue kid and pale-pink -satin, of which the little wearers had died in infancy. There were -diaries, very simple, very brief, not always perfectly well spelled, -but always full of affectionate records and entreating prayers of which -her husband and her children were the objects. But these things did not -move the present occupier of the title and of the room; she pitched -them all into a heap with no very gentle touch and cast the heap upon -the fire. Old rubbish was best burned! - -Just as she had done so and was assailed by an unpleasant misgiving -that somebody might make a row about the destruction of these things -(for everybody was so foolish and sentimental), she heard the voice of -Cocky’s body-servant speaking at the door to her maid, and the maid -approached her with a rather astonished face. - -“If you please, your Grace, his Grace is unwell: could you go to his -room a moment, madam?” - -“Go to his room?” - -She was as astonished as her maid. Cocky must be very ill indeed if she -were summoned to him. His chronic maladies, due to brandies and sodas -and insomnia, were never even named to her. He had certainly coughed -and shivered at the funeral that forenoon, and in the train the day -before, but then he so often did this no one attached any importance to -a little more of it or a little less. - -This time, however, poor Cocky, over whom Providence (or the powers -of darkness) did not watch as they ought to have done, had caught -something worse than a cold, standing without a hat so long in that -biting March morning, in a damp and windy country churchyard, and -without a drop of anything inside him, as he pathetically remarked. - -In the evening he was so unwell with shivering, difficulty of -breathing, and pains in his head and limbs, that he could not even -drink liquors and enjoy the newspaper attacks upon himself in his own -rooms, but had to go to bed at ten o’clock, which he had certainly -never done since his early boyhood. - -“Most unlucky beast in all creation I am,” he muttered as he shivered -between the sheets. “Just got the ribbons between my fingers and ten to -one the coach’ll land in a ditch; ditch we must all end in, eh? Worms -and winding sheet and all; even Mouse’ll come to that some time. Here, -you, get me some brandy and don’t stand staring, you fool.” - -But his valet was no fool, and instead of bringing the brandy went to -another wing of the house for the doctor, who had always lived in it -for many years as attendant on the deceased duke. - -The doctor found the new duke in a very sad state of health, with some -fever and a hacking cough, which threatened to become pleuro-pneumonia -and would try the slender amount of strength which the sick man -possessed very dangerously; he advised that the duchess should be told. - -So she was told, and came across the great house looking like a -Burne-Jones in her long black robes, with the fairness of her skin and -hair dazzling in their contrast to her garb of woe. - -“Is it anything serious?” she said, in an awed voice, for she was -really shocked by his appearance, and did not want him to die at this -moment of his succession. - -“It’s skull and cross-bones business; that’s what it is,” said her -husband with a groan. “Rascally east wind did it. Don’t come here; you -can’t do me any good.” - -A famous London physician, who had probably killed more people than any -other doctor living, and was esteemed proportionately, was summoned by -telegraph; and by the sick man’s own desire the chief solicitor of the -county town, who had been legal adviser and agent to the late duke, -was sent for, to return in all haste to Staghurst and take down his -instructions. Left alone with this person on his arrival, by his own -express desire, Cocky, who had scarcely any voice left, whispered to -him: - -“Would it keep ’em out of the succession if I declare they aren’t my -children?” - -The solicitor hesitated; he felt his own position a most delicate and -embarrassing one. - -“Your Grace must not entertain such suspicions,” he said, with some -confusion. “The duchess enjoys the esteem and respect of every----” - -“Stow your gab!” hissed Cocky. “All I want to know is--if I made a -formal declaration, would it stand?” - -“No, sir--it would not.” - -The lawyer thought the dying man’s mind wandered, being himself a -country person to whose ears the gossip of smart society did not come. -“Oh, your Grace, you must not think of such a thing,” he added, -greatly embarrassed. “Dear me, dear me, I do not know what to say, sir.” - -“Would it keep her brats out?” said Cocky, as savagely as his failing -breath allowed. - -The lawyer shook his head. “No, your Grace--it would not. Whatever may -have happened, sir, you have condoned, you see. Of course, I am not for -a moment supposing that there are any grounds----” - -“Stow that bosh!” said his client, as savagely as his weakness allowed. -“If I could have divorced her all these years, and didn’t? If I said so -now?” - -The lawyer shook his head again. “It would not stand, sir.” - -“Why not?” asked Cocky. - -“Children born in wedlock must be legitimate heirs, your Grace,” the -lawyer said, very decidedly, to pierce through the muddled senses of -the dying client. - -“Wedlock, eh?--wedlock?” repeated Cocky with a chuckle which ended -in a convulsive cough. The word tickled his fancy mightily, though -Mr. Curton could not imagine what he had said which was ludicrous. -“Wedlock!” echoed Cocky; “you won’t beat that, Curton, in a brace of -years!” - -“The word is good law and good English, sir,” said the solicitor, a -little offended. “I repeat, after so many years of wedlock you could -not leave a posthumous charge of the kind behind you. It might be mere -pique and malice on your part. No Court would ratify it. It would only -make a dreadful scandal, sir, because, I presume, Lord Alberic would -endeavor to uphold your declaration, since he is next in succession -after your Grace’s sons.” - -An angry flash came into Cocky’s sunken colorless eyes. - -“Beric? Gad! I’d forgot that. So he would. I’d rather little Jack came -after me. He’s a good plucked one; bit his lips not to squeal when I -pinched him. And I don’t dislike poor Harry. He’s a good fellow, and -she got over him.” - -A fit of coughing stopped his revelations, to which the discreet -lawyer turned a deaf ear. He was an excellent person who lived in a -large, square, white house, with shrubberies, and a carriage-drive, and -a page in buttons; to him marriage was marriage, and a duke and duchess -were one and indivisible; when such people got into law courts he was -sincerely sorry that they did not respect themselves as greatly as he -respected them; he knew that the gentleman, too, who now lay dying had -been in many discreditable straits, for he had himself been frequently -called in to assist in getting the delinquent out of them; but a duke -was a duke, Otterbourne was Otterbourne, in the eyes of the good and -conservative attorney, and he had a deaf ear which he could turn very -usefully when needed. - -To assist in making such a terrible hotch-potch of scandal, as would -be made by any posthumous repudiation, might have tempted a London -Old Bailey practitioner, but it did not tempt for an instant this -respectable rural devotee of Themis. - -Cocky was silent for some time, breathing hard and deliberating what he -would do. Almost more than his wife he hated his brother Alberic, who -had always been the beloved of his father. - -He raised himself, at last, feebly on his pillows. “Look here, Curton,” -he said, with gasping effort, “you make my will, and be quick about -it, for I’m dead beat. I can’t touch much, I know, but where I can do -anything, make it as deuced unpleasant for her as you can; and renew -the--the--what d’ye call it--settlement for the jewels, so that -she’ll have to give ’em up; renew it just as it stood in my father’s -and grandfather’s wills, will you? And look here, Curton: I appoint as -guardians my brother-in-law and my uncle Augustus.” - -Mr. Curton inclined his head in approval. - -“Lord Hurstmanceaux and the Bishop of Dunwich? Your Grace could not -make a more admirable selection. The highest principle----” - -Cocky chuckled with a sound very like the death-rattle. “I choose -Ronnie ’cause he’s so damned conscientious, he can’t refuse, and he’ll -hate it so; and I choose old Augustus ’cause he came down once when I -was a shaver at Eton and never tipped me, and gave me a beastly book -called ‘The Christian Year.’ Make it all as deuced annoyin’ to both -of ’em as you can. Lord, what a pother they’ll find all my affairs -in--that’s a comfort.” - -And it was a genuine tonic and cordial to him to think how, after his -decease, all his sins and embarrassments would continue to circle like -mosquitos around the heads of his trustees and executors. - -“Beric will hate being left out,” he murmured; on the whole he was -getting considerable fun out of this ante-mortem duty. But it was a -bore to die, an awful bore, just when he had come into things and could -do what he liked; he moved restlessly and uneasily on his bed while the -lawyer wrote out the clauses of the testament, hastening as much as he -could, for he saw that every breath might be his client’s last. When -the witnesses were called in, oxygen was given to the dying man, and he -rallied enough to sit up in his servant’s arms and sign “Otterbourne” -legibly, in that clear handwriting which he had learned at Eton, and -which had signed so much “bad paper.” - -“I couldn’t do much, but I’ve done what I could,” he said feebly, as -the pen fell from his fingers. “To be damned disagreeable to ’em all -round,” he concluded, as his cough permitted him to complete the phrase. - -“What a Christian spirit!” murmured the vicar of the village, who was -present to witness the will, and had not heard the concluding sentence. - -“Shut up!” said Cocky feebly but viciously. “You parsons are just like -ravens, always comin’ and cawin’ where anybody’s bein’ snuffed out; -birds of ill-omen, you are--marryin’ and buryin’--he, he!” - -The scared vicar looked aghast at the polished London physician. “The -mind wanders: the end is near,” murmured that bland person, with a -professional sigh. - -Mr. Curton shook his head as he folded up the document. It was all very -painful to the excellent lawyer; it destroyed all his theories of the -nobility; and to make a ducal will in a hurry seemed to him almost like -_leze-majesty_. - -“Oh, my dear sir,” he murmured, in sad and useless regret, “why, oh, -why leave such a document as this to such a moment?” - -“Always thought the pater’d outlive me,” murmured Cocky; “so he -would--twenty years--if that byke hadn’t upset him.” - -Mouse, sweet, resigned, composed, regretful, came noiselessly into the -chamber of death, leading Jack by the hand, very sober and a little -frightened, with his beautiful black eyes wide open and fixed in a -vague terror on the bed. - -“Dear little angel!” murmured the vicar, at whom Jack was wont to aim -paper pellets in church. - -Mouse approached the bedside. “Beric is here, dear,” she said gently. -“He begs to see you. May he come in? Ronald is here, too.” - -“Goody-goody and the Miser?” said her husband, in a muffled faint -voice. “No; tell ’em both to go to the devil.” - -Cocky closed his eyes, and lay to all outward semblance unconscious -and indifferent to worldly things; the worn-out lungs drawing in -desperately a few last breaths of air. Who shall say what vain regrets -for lost opportunities, for wasted talents, for foolish and fruitless -hours, were in his thoughts? He looked already dead, save for the -slight labored heaving of his chest beneath the bedclothes. - -And there had been a time when in that very house he had been a pretty, -innocent, beloved child; when he had been clasped in a mother’s arms, -her idol and her hope; when he had run across those lawns without with -fleet feet and flying hair; when old servants had watched his every -step, repeated his every word, and a proud race had seen in him the -security for its future continuance and honor! - -The vicar by sheer force of habit folded his hands, composed a pious -face, and began a prayer. - -“O Lord our God, let this Thy good and faithful servant----” - -“Stop that,” said Cocky, opening his eyes. “I won’t bluff the Almighty -just at the last out of funk.” - -It was one feeble flicker of the honor of his race, which he had -outraged and derided all the forty years of his life, but which in -the moment of death came to him for one second. The words shocked his -hearers as a blasphemy, but in truth they expressed the only honorable -scruple of a dishonorable life. He would not “bluff the Almighty”; he -would not at the end of all, and in the face of death, turn, out of -fear, to what he had mocked and ridiculed through all his years of life. - -“Get on the bed and kiss your poor dear papa, my lord,” whispered the -nurse, who had followed Jack into the room lest he should worry her -lady. - -Jack hung back, reluctant, but the slender white hands of his mother, -which could hold so tightly, gripped him round the waist and lifted him -on to the bed. He burst out crying from fright and a vague pity which -stirred in his childish bosom. Then his compassion made him conquer -his fears. He put his fresh rosy mouth shrinkingly to the waxen sunken -cheek of the dying man. But Cocky by a supreme effort turned his head -away with a glare of anger in his eyes, and the child’s warm lips -kissed the pillow. - -“Damn you and your brats!” he said, with enfeebled voice but -intensified venom, and his gaze, full of meaning, met hers, and said -all which he had never spoken through all the years in which she had -borne his name. - -“It is so sad how often the dying take a hatred to what they love best -in life,” she murmured to the London physician, a bland bald person -who had buried patients in Westminster Abbey, and that second best -Valhalla, St. Paul’s. - -“Damn you and all your brats!” Cocky muttered feebly again as his gaze -sought and found his wife’s face through the mist of unreality which -was fast hiding all the facts and figures of existence from him for -evermore. - -“Let us pray,” said the vicar in a hushed and awed voice, for he was -indeed unspeakably shocked. She dropped on her knees and everyone else -knelt also. - -Then the shrill short labored breathing ceased to whistle feebly -through the silence: the bed-covering heaved no more. - -Cocky was dead. - -The child slipped down on to the floor. Alberic Orme and Hurstmanceaux -stood hesitating on the threshold of the chamber. - -“Oh, dear Duchess!” sighed the fashionable Esculapius, who was -eminently pious. “These are the trials which are sent to us to detach -us from earthly affections! The ways of God are inscrutable, but we -must not question their merciful purpose.” - -Cocky lay on the bed between them, very straight, very waxen, very like -an effigy in yellow stone; but looking down on him his wife shuddered, -for it seemed to her that his left eye opened and winked and that his -rigid jaw grinned. She had an uncomfortable feeling that, though she -would soon comfortably forget all the rest of him, Cocky’s grin and -Cocky’s wink would long rise up in her memory. - - - - -CHAPTER XX. - - -In another week he also was carried out under the big yews and the -Chantrey and Roubiliac statues, and laid beside the remains of his -father and forefathers in a black-velvet covered coffin with silver -handles and his ducal coronet upon it. But he had no sincere mourners, -not one, although in the usual sickly tawdry habit of the time heaps of -wreaths and garlands were piled up to his detested memory. His wife was -again present, enveloped in the long crape veil of usage, with her two -little sons beside her--a most touching and lovely figure. During the -ceremony it would have been impossible for any observer to say whether -she were profoundly touched or merely apathetic; but at one point in -the service, when the village choir were singing a Mendelssohn hymn, -her head drooped lower and lower, and her veiled figure moved with what -resembled a convulsive sob: a correspondent of a daily paper, indeed, -scribbled in shorthand that only for one instant did her admirable -fortitude give way to an irrepressible burst of natural anguish. Jack -knew better: he nudged Gerry and whispered very low: “Mammy’s laughin’. -We mustn’t.” - -Amongst the floral decorations there, heaped on and about the coffin, -there was a harp made of lilies with silver strings and one string -broken. As an emblem of Cocky’s life it was really too deliciously -funny. It got the better of her nerves and she was forced to bury her -face in her handkerchief. - -For on the harp was a card, and on the card was written in a big -sprawling handwriting, “From Lily.” - -Lily Larking, of the Salamander Music Hall, of course. - -It was too irresistibly droll. She laughed till she really cried. - -Happily all human emotions are so closely related that irrepressible -laughter resembles irrepressible tears enough to deceive a newspaper -correspondent and a sympathetic crowd. - -“Isn’t it too comical?” she said to her sister Carrie. - -“Very droll, yes,” said Lady Wisbeach. “Awfully cheeky in the woman -sending a wreath here.” - -“How Cocky would laugh if he knew,” said his widow; she could not -divest herself of the feeling that Cocky did know, and did enjoy, the -farce of his own burial. - -Poor Cocky! Well, he was buried for good and all, with his crowns and -crosses and harps and garlands all left to wither and rot above him, -and he would never bore her and worry her and annoy her any more. -She felt almost charitably toward him; he might have been worse, he -might have been interfering and difficult and quarrelsome, and might -have noticed, as his father had done, that the pretty children in his -nursery had little resemblance to his family portraits. All was quite -safe now, and he was silent for ever under his mass of decaying flowers. - -She passed to her carriage on her brother’s arm, amidst a respectful -murmur of deep admiration and of that genuine good feeling which is so -often awakened in crowds, they know not why and hardly know for whom. - -“Poor dear pretty crittur, widdered in all her bloom!” said a good -village dame to her husband, the water in her honest eyes as they -followed the two little fair heads of the orphaned boys. - -Then they all returned to the castle, and the will was read, and the -thing was over, and she ate a luncheon in her own rooms with a good -appetite. - -She was relieved that her sisters-in-law had taken their departure -without going into, or making any remark about, their late mother’s -morning-room. The fact was, that these ladies disliked her so extremely -that they had hurried away after each funeral as quickly as they could, -compatible with usage and decency. - -Her portrait by Henner was one of the most beautiful pictures in -the galleries of Staghurst; but the old duke’s daughters would have -preferred less loveliness and more scruples in the mother of the little -boy with the soft black eyes, who was now the lawful head of their -family. - -Jack, meanwhile, was full of his own new position, which his mind only -dimly grasped; and the whole thing puzzled him greatly. Fifteen days -before they had put his grandfather in a box, and shut down the slab -of stone on him, and now they were doing the same with poor pappy, who -would never any more come behind him on the staircases and painfully -pinch his legs, or tap a hot cigarette unexpectedly against his cheek. -Why was not Harry here to make it all clear to him? He did not know -that Harry, who really and profoundly mourned the dead man, had desired -to come to the funeral, had entreated to be allowed to come, but had -been peremptorily forbidden. - -He noticed that all the people about Staghurst regarded him with awe, -and the women bobbed very low in the country lanes; and the young -footman who waited on him at table was very solicitous to press on him -jams and candied fruits. It was the first time in his life that he had -ever had as much jam as he wished for; rank has its privileges still, -despite the Labor Party. - -“That’s the little duke, bless his pretty face!” he had heard the women -say who were respectfully gathered about the churchyard entrance to see -the great people come out from the gate. And very pretty Jack did look, -with his bright hair shining like new gold against his sable garments, -and a look of pity and wistfulness and solemnity on his face which was -touching. - -“Am I really duke and all that?” he asked later of the nurse who had -accompanied them to Staghurst. - -She replied: “You really are, sir, yes.” - -“Am I what gran’pa’ was?” - -“Yes, your Grace, yes.” - -He pondered deeply on the fact, standing with his legs very wide apart -and his brows knitted. - -“Then I’ll live with Harry.” - -The nurse, who was discretion itself, answered, “Your Grace will do -just whatever your Grace wishes.” - -“That’ll be jolly,” said the new duke; and he stood on his golden head. - -“But I suppose I shall always have to behave very well,” he thought, -in a soberer moment. The obligation was painful; Jack’s natural man -was naughty; not as naughty as Boo wished him to be, but still naughty, -naughty in a frank sportive merry way, as colts are skittish and pups -destructive. - -His mother enjoyed her luncheon, because that long Service had given -her renewed appetite, and she was infinitely diverted by Lily Larking’s -wreath; but, all the same, she felt as she had never felt in her -life, lonely, insecure, anxious, apprehensive. Cocky had been more -support to her than she had realized before his death; his connivance, -his condonation, his ready resources in difficulty, his unlimited -unscrupulousness, had all been more useful and more valuable than she -had ever realized until they were all lost to her for ever. Their -association had not been much more creditable than that of two thieves -or marauders, but mutual interest had bound them together as it binds -those, and the link, when broken, left a blank. - -Moreover, had she not married him to be Duchess of Otterbourne? She -was Duchess of Otterbourne now, but shorn of all the advantages -appertaining to the title except the mere barren rank. Anything -more odious than the position of a widow living on her jointure and -bullied by trustees, could not, she thought, be conceived. She had -not been able to grasp the sense of Cocky’s will as it had been read -aloud in its barbarous legal jargon and bastard Latin, but she had -understood that it was “nasty,” very nasty in its provisions; and that -as guardians of the children, there were appointed her brother and -Augustus Orme, the churchman. She seemed, herself, to come in nowhere, -and to have no power or privileges of any sort, and to be cut down as -utterly in every way as the provisions of her marriage settlements -allowed. - -There had been so much solidarity between Cocky and herself in their -way of looking at life, in their enjoyment of ruse and expedient, in -their mutual sense of the injustice and the nuisance of things, that -this sympathy between them had prevented her from perceiving that the -man she had married hated her very bitterly for having married him. She -was not in the least prepared for the many forms of vengeance which -were gathered together in that neat and formal document which was the -last will and testament of the companion of her life. - -Cocky had never expected to outlive his father; but he had always said -to himself: “By God, if I _do_----!” - -The law--that stiff, starched, unbending, and unpleasant thing which -comes so often between us and our desires--had denied him the pleasure -of doing much that he had wished to do, but all that it had let him do -he had done to punish and torment the lady who had wedded him “with a -card up her sleeve.” - -When Hurstmanceaux and Alberic Orme came to visit her, after the -lawyers and the other members of the family had left the castle, they -were both surprised to see how seriously depressed and how much worn -she looked. - -“Did you see Lily Larking’s wreath? It was too droll,” were her first -words. - -Lord Alberic briefly replied that he had not. - -“It was scandalous that it was allowed to pass the church doors,” said -Hurstmanceaux. “I suppose they did not know.” - -“Of course they did not know; who should have heard of Lily Larking in -Somersetshire? We can go up to town to-night, can’t we, Ronnie?” - -“Do you wish it? There is a ten o’clock train. The children would be -better in bed.” - -“That does not matter. I want to be in town.” - -She was anxious to get away from Staghurst, which had grown hateful -to her, and was very desirious to learn something which she could -only learn in London, _viva voce_, from her own lawyer, Mr. Gregge, a -gentleman who had not been invited to either of the funerals, though -his existence, as her confidential adviser, had been known to both the -families. - -She and her brother and brother-in-law dined together at eight o’clock. -She was silent and pre-occupied. - -“Who would ever have imagined that any woman would lament Cocky’s -loss?” thought Alberic Orme; and Hurstmanceaux thought, “_Souvent femme -varie, bien fol qui s’y fie_. The idea of her mourning for Cocky!” They -could not see into her mind, which was gloomy and troubled, like the -dark old ponds which were lying black under a fitful moonlight in the -melancholy park without. - -Both the men who accompanied her up to town were perplexed. The tears -which rose to her eyes, the unmistakable trouble in her expression, the -look of anxiety and sorrow were genuine; there was no doubt about it. -Lord Alberic, who had always been very cold to her, wondered if he had -done her injustice all these years, and Hurstmanceaux, who knew her -better, thought: “She counted on having a rattling good time on the -succession, and she’s really sorry that little blackguard is dead.” - -But it was a matter concealed from almost everyone, and of which -neither family dreamed, which was racking her nerves like neuralgia. It -was the destination of the big diamond, the roc’s egg, which had been -her ostensible object in marrying Cocky. - -When she thought of that jewel, high-couraged and mettlesome and -thoroughbred though she was, a sickly chill passed over her, and she -shuddered, as she looked at her brother’s profile in the faint light of -the railway-lamp, as the train sped through the night. For she had, in -vulgar parlance, pawned the famous jewel. - -That is to say, that being in great want of money, of a sum so large -that no one she could appeal to would be likely or even able to give -it to her, she had borrowed that sum, four years previously, on the -roc’s egg, of a great jeweler, who had caused to be made for her such -a precise counterfeit in paste that no detection was possible by the -naked eye. - -The famous jeweler was a Pole by birth, a Parisian by long residence -and habit; he had dropped his own name, which had been politically -compromised in his earliest manhood and for forty years had traded in -the city of his adoption as a naturalized Frenchman, known as M. Boris -Beaumont. His riches were now great; his taste in and knowledge of gems -were unerring; and he had that note of fashion without which a great -tradesman in Paris is an Apollo without a bow or a lute. All the great -ladies were his clients; without something of Beaumont’s no bridal -_corbeille_ was well furnished; his exquisite trifles were the most -distinguished of New Year’s gifts. He was deferential, good-natured, -adroit; in his trade he was absolutely to be depended on; if Beaumont -told you a stone was good, you might buy it without further warranty, -and you would never repent; the price of it was high, even very high; -but if you made that objection he would say briefly with a little -shrug: “_Que voulezvous? Ça vient de moi!_” - -Behind his very elegant shop was a conservatory, behind the -conservatory was a little salon where his patronesses could have -ices or tea according to the season, and read Gyp’s last delightful -persiflage. In that little salon many a secret has been confided to -Beaumont; many a dilemma been exposed to him. - -“_Les honnêtes femmes! Les honnêtes femmes!_” he said once to a friend. -“_Ah mon cher, il n’y qu’elles pour canaille!_” But it was rarely he -was so indiscreet as this, though he knew so many of the passions -and pains which throbbed under the diamond tiaras and the sapphire -_rivières_ in the brains and in the breasts of his fair clients. - -Now and then Beaumont went to the opera, or to the Français on -a Tuesday, and from his modest stall looked up at his patrician -patronesses in all the beauty of their semi-nudity, their admirable -_maquillage_, their wondrous toilettes, and then he smiled as he -lowered his glasses with a little malice but more indulgence. - -To Mouse, of course, Beaumont was well known: when she had wanted this -large sum he had taken it from his capital for her, but as security he -would accept in return nothing less than the famous Otterbourne jewel. - -“You have it. Bring it me,” he said as simply as if he had been -speaking of a bit of cornelian or agate. - -In vain she implored, protested, entreated, wept, tried all the armory -of persuasion, represented that he was tempting her to a crime, -actually to a crime! - -“Ah, no, madame,” said Beaumont very gently, “I tempt you to nothing. -I would rather keep my three hundred thousand francs in the Bank of -France. I do not wish for your diamond at all. Only if there be any -question of this loan, that is the only security I can take for it. -Whether you like these terms or not is nothing to me; they are mine, -and I cannot change them. The affair will oblige you, madame, not me.” - -Beaumont was not an unkind man; more than one young actress had owed -her prosperity to him, more than one honorable family had been saved -from ruin by his assistance; but to women like Mouse he was inflexible, -he had not a shred of compassion for their troubles, and never believed -a word they spoke; he dealt with them harshly and obstinately; he -despised them from the depths of his soul, the pretty creatures, who -sipped his iced mocha, and broke off the buds of his Malmaison roses. - -The roc’s egg was brought to him one heavily raining day by a lady in -a cab in whom he, well-used though he was to such secret visits, had -difficulty in recognizing the blonde English beauty. It had been now in -his possession for four years, and though it was a magnificent object -such as could be fully appreciated only by trained eyes like his own, -he began to get tired of keeping it locked up, and unseen by any eyes -save his own. He would not have felt tired if she had paid him any -interest on his loan; but she had never paid him a centième. She had -not even paid anything for the imitation diamond which had cost him a -good deal, for it was admirably and exquisitely made; it had been worn -many times at Courts at home and abroad, and she had nearly laughed -outright more than once at the precautions with which it was surrounded -when it was not worn, and the fire-proof iron safe screwed down to the -floor in which it dwelt when it was not the envied occupant of her own -white breast; not even the sharp suspicious eyes of Cocky had ever -discerned any difference in it from that of the great gem which it -represented. - -“_C’est une ingrâte_,” said Beaumont to himself when he saw a person -for whom he had done so much flash past him on the boulevards as she -drove to Chantilly or La Marche; and he hated ingratitude. - -For her own part, having given him the great jewel and worn the -substitute successfully, she had of late dismissed the subject from -her mind with her usual happy _insouciance_. But now, clauses in her -husband’s will and in that of his father’s, had recalled it to her -harshly, and with insistence. She knew that the jewels, like most -other things, were held in trust for the little rosy-cheeked man in the -further corner of the carriage; and that sooner or later they would -be subjected to examination, and in all probability taken out of her -custody. She had no longer even the rights in them which are called -rights of user. So much she had gathered as she had listened to the -reading of the will; she was not sure, but she was afraid, and this -glacial fear gripped her light and courageous heart, and almost made -its pulses stand still. - -She felt almost to hate the unconscious little duke, tucked up in -a bear-skin with his legs crossed under him in a corner of the -railway-carriage. - -Jack could not get out of his mind the idea of poor Pappy being left -all alone in that dark stone place underground; “and he can’t even -smoke,” he thought, with a tender pity in his little heart for the man -who had so often pinched his legs and tugged at his hair. His mother -reclined in her compartment looking very white, grave, and angry, in -her sombre clothes, and in her unwonted taciturnity; his uncles talked -to each other of things that he could not understand. Gerry was sound -asleep; Jack watched the steam fly past the window-pane. - -“It’s a horrid thing to be deaded,” he thought. “Oh, I hope,--I -hope,--I _do_ hope,--Harry won’t ever be deaded.” - -In his fervor he said the words unconsciously aloud. - -“What nonsense are you talking to yourself?” said his mother angrily. -“And people say dead--not deaded.” - -Jack shrank into his corner and watched the wreaths of steam fly on -against the dark. - -“What’s the use of being all grandpa’ was?” he thought. “Mammy’ll -always be bullying.” - -Jack had seen his grandfather omnipotent, deferred to by everybody, and -independent in all actions; why did not these privileges descend with -the dukedom to himself? - -“You’re a minor, Jack,” one of his aunts had said to him, but the -word had only confused him. He thought it meant a man who worked -underground with a pickaxe and a safety-lamp as he had seen them drawn -in instructive books. - -“Harry’ll tell me all I can do,” he thought; and comforted by that -thought he fell asleep like his brother. - -“I can see no one,” she said to her groom of the chambers the next -morning in Stanhope Street. - -“No exceptions, your Grace?” asked that functionary, his mind reverting -to Brancepeth. - -“None,” she answered curtly--“at least only Gregge.” - -This gentleman waited on her and bore himself with a manner that -expressed his wounded feelings at not having been sent for into the -country. - -“Never mind that,” she said impatiently. “They don’t like you, you -know, because you give me good advice, and they think it bad; I want -you to tell me what rights I have.” - -“I was not at the reading of the will, your Grace,” replied Mr. Gregge, -still full of his own wrongs. - -“But I am sure you know all about it.” - -“I have heard something from Messrs. Wilton and Somers,” he answered -cautiously, naming the London solicitors of the late dukes. - -“Well, what rights have I?” - -“Your rights are limited, madam; exceedingly limited. At least I -believe so. I have no positive information.” - -Her pretty teeth shut tightly together. He seemed to her less polite -and deferential than usual. - -“I do as I like with the children, don’t I?” she asked angrily. - -“Subject to their guardians’ approval.” - -“That is to say, I don’t?” - -He was silent. - -She beat the carpet very feverishly with her foot. - -“I keep the jewels, of course?” - -“Your own, madam, of course.” - -“I mean the Otterbourne jewels; the great Indian diamond?” - -“No, madam. I fear they will be removed from your keeping. You have no -right of user over them.” - -Her eyes dilated with a strange expression. - -“They are not mine? For my lifetime?” - -Then, alarmed at the terror and fury he read in her countenance, he -hastened to add: - -“I speak as _amicus curiæ_; I have not read the will; if you wish me to -confer with the late duke’s legal advisers I will do so, and inform you -more exactly of your position.” - -She assented and dismissed him with scant courtesy, being a prey -to extreme anxiety. She had never entertained any doubt as to her -jurisdiction over the children and the jewels, and she had never -correctly comprehended the changed position in which the death of her -husband places a woman of rank. She wrote to Beaumont a harsh and -imperious letter in the third person, ordering him to come to her at -once and bring her property with him. In her eyes, whatever he might be -in his own, he was only a tradesman. - -Beaumont knew very well that he had done an invalid thing, and that the -signature of the lady locked up in his safe was in law worth nothing. -But he was used to doing illegal things, he always found they answered -best. The transaction was _bonâ fide_ on his part, and the jewel was in -his hands. - -Before the Duke of Otterbourne would lose it, and let the matter be -brought before a tribunal, Beaumont knew very well that he himself -should be repaid. She could not repay him, her husband could not, but -the family, the head of the family, would. So he had always reasoned. -“_La famille! C’est le magôt de ces gens là_,” he said to himself. - -The death of the Duke of Otterbourne had disagreeably surprised him, -and made him take a trip across the Channel, a fidgety, worrying -little journey which he at all times disliked, for he was never -comfortable out of the Rue de la Paix. He had scarcely reached London -when the newspapers informed him of the illness, and in a few days of -the demise, of the late duke’s successor. He was much too well-bred -to intrude on the retreat of the widowed duchess. He knew that the -retreat would not last very long. He amused himself by going to see -the imitation jewelry of Birmingham, and was lost in wonder that a -nation which has the art of India under its eyes can outrage heaven -and earth by gewgaws meet for savages. Then, having taken precautions -so as to be informed of all which might be done with the Otterbourne -heirlooms, he returned to the home of his heart and awaited events. -When some few days later he received her curt summons he was extremely -astonished, but agreeably so; he concluded he was about to receive his -money. No one, he thought, would write in that imperious tone who was -not prepared to pay to the uttermost farthing. So he reluctantly again -undertook that fidgeting little journey of Calais-Douvres which the wit -and wisdom of two nations are content to leave in chaos whilst they -ridicule the Chinese for not making good roads. - -He read her letter again on the steamer; it was so very uncivil that -it could only mean payment, immediate and complete. Why not? The -Otterbourne family was after all a very illustrious one. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI. - - -“Poor papa is deaded,” said Jack to Boo on his return to town; in the -tenderness of his heart he was beginning to forget the dead man’s -pinches and to pity his retirement from the world. - -“I know; and I do hate black so,” said Boo twitching wrathfully at her -frock. - -“I’m ’fraid he must be so dull in heaven,” said Jack seriously. “I -don’t think they let them race, or bet, or do anything amusin’ there.” - -He wasn’t sure, but he thought he had heard so. - -“I ought to have gone down as well as you, instead of Gerry,” said Boo, -who had been exceedingly aggrieved at being left in town like Baby. - -“Oh, no,” said Jack with much dignity, “you’re not in the succession; -you’re a female.” - -“A female? Me? How dare you?” cried Boo in a red fury of wrath, and -gave him a resounding box on the ear. The head of her House perceived -that he was not a hero to his relatives, and, ignorant of the French -proverb, turned to the servants. - -“I’m Duke, James,” he said to his friend the hall-boy. - -“So I’ve heard, your Grace.” - -“We’ll play marbles all day long, James.” - -“All right, sir.” - -“Why aren’t you a duke, James?” - -The hall-boy grinned. - -“_M. le Duc ne doit pas causer avec les domestiques_,” said the French -governess, and took hold of him by his right ear and propelled him -upstairs. - -“_Pourquoi nong pas?_” asked Jack. - -“_Parcequ’ils sont vos inférieurs_,” replied the French lady. - -Jack did like the reply, it sounded harsh, he did not believe it was -true; James beat him at marbles, and could make popguns and cut out -boats, and had talents and virtues innumerable. - -Jack loved the hall-boy, and had once got into dreadful disgrace by -taking his place and answering the door, to let his friend go round the -corner. - -As he was being driven upstairs by the governess he heard the voice of -Brancepeth arguing with a footman; the young man was insisting that -they should let him in, and the servants were apologizing, her Grace’s -orders had been positive. Jack, with a leap like a chamois’s, rushed -downstairs and leaped into his friend’s arms. - -“Well, your Grace,” said Brancepeth, as he kissed the child, “how is my -lord duke, eh?” - -Brancepeth had not been allowed to go down to Staghurst, even for the -funeral; he had been desired to allege military duties as an obstacle, -and had done so, though he thought it brutally uncivil to poor Cocky. - -Jack laughed; his rosy face was bright above his black jersey; but he -tried to look serious, as he had been told that he ought to do. - -“Mammy says we must not laugh,” he said sorrowfully. “Come in here.” - -He pulled his favorite by the hand into the library. - -“He’s deaded you know,” he whispered solemnly. - -Brancepeth nodded; he sat down on a low chair, took Jack on his knee -and kissed him. - -“He won’t pinch my calves any more,” said Jack with a sense of relief. - -“He won’t do anything any more, poor devil,” said his friend, who -sincerely mourned him. - -Jack was silent, trying to realize the position and failing. -“Cuckoopint’s mine now, ain’t he?” he said suddenly. - -Cuckoopint was Cocky’s cob. - -“Everything’s yours, you lucky little beggar,” said Brancepeth. “But -don’t flatter yourself they’ll let you do as you like. Ronnie and the -bishop between ’em will keep you uncommon tight.” - -Jack did not attend to this foreboding: his mind was full of Cuckoopint. - -“Were you with him when he died, Jack?” asked Brancepeth, who felt a -morbid interest in Cocky’s end. Jack nodded. - -“Yes; he said ‘damn’; they told me to go on the bed and kiss him, but -he wouldn’t; he said ‘damn.’” - -“Poor devil!” sighed Brancepeth with a twinge in his conscience like -neuralgia. - -“Well, you’ve a long minority,” he added as he kissed the child again. -“Things’ll pull round and get straight in all these years, but I’m -afraid you’ll run amuck when you’re your own master, you naughty little -beggar. I don’t know though, I think you’ve got grit in you.” - -Jack meditated profoundly. Then he whispered in his elder’s ears, “If -I’m all that grandpa’ was mayn’t I live without mammy somewhere? Take -Cuckoopint and Boo and live with ’oo?” - -Brancepeth shook his head with a sigh. “No, Jack, you’ll never live -with me. At least----” he paused as a certain possibility crossed his -mind. “As for your mother,” he added, “well, you’ll see as much of her -as _she_ wishes, wherever you live. You won’t see more.” - -Jack’s face puckered up ready for a good cry; his position did not seem -to him changed in any of its essentials. - -“And Cuckoopint?” he said piteously. - -“They’ll sell Cuckoopint probably,” said Brancepeth. “But I’ll try and -buy him and keep for you; you’re not big enough to ride him yet.” - -Jack threw his arms about his friend’s throat. - -“I do love ’oo, Harry. Oh, I _do_ love ’oo!” - -Brancepeth pressed the boy to him fondly; he knew the caress was -chiefly for the sake of Cuckoopint. Still it was sweet to him. - -“And that poor devil died with a bad word in his mouth,” he thought; -and something as like remorse as any modern person can feel stirred in -him. - -The widowed duchess could not see her Parisian creditor at her own -house. It would be known that he came there, and would look very odd -at such a time, and might awaken her brother’s suspicions. She ordered -him to meet her at the house of a famous Court dressmaker, a woman who -had been often useful to her in more agreeable appointments and more -interesting embarrassments. She went out alone on foot, ostensibly to -church, deeply veiled of course, at ten o’clock on the Sunday morning -which followed her husband’s funeral. The Court dressmaker lived in a -private house in Green Street, and she had not far to go. There, in a -perfectly safe seclusion, she awaited the arrival of her creditor. - -She was in a pretty room on the first floor. It had rose blinds and -heavy curtains, and had been furnished in subdued and artistic style by -a famous firm of decorators; she knew the room well, and it had always -been at her disposition. Her heart had throbbed more agreeably, but -never so nervously, there, as it did this Sunday morning whilst the -church bells jangled and boomed in her ears, and the warm steam of a -_calorifère_ heating a foggy atmosphere, made her feel sick and faint. -In a few moments the jeweler was announced--a slender, frail, fair -man of some sixty-five years old, who saluted her gracefully, and in -return had a haughty stare which revealed to him forcibly that he was -a tradesman and she was a gentlewoman. Beaumont, who was accustomed to -different treatment, said to himself that she wanted a lesson. Nothing -costs us so dear in this world as our pride, and if we cannot afford to -purchase the privilege of its indulgence the world will make us smart -for claiming so great a luxury. - -The deep black of her attire, so trying to most of her sex, only made -fairer her skin, made brighter her hair and her eyes, and lent a richer -rose to her lips; she looked extremely well, though she looked cross -and anxious as she saw the jeweler enter. - -“Good morning, Beaumont!” she said sharply. “Have you brought the -jewels?” - -He smiled: the question seemed to him of an extraordinary _naïveté_ for -a lady who knew the world so well. - -“I do not carry jewels in my pocket, madame,” he replied. “I am here to -speak of yours.” - -“Didn’t you get my letter?” - -“Yes, madame; am I not here by your appointment?” - -“But I ordered you to bring the diamonds?” she asked with that brusque -authority which was part of her being. - -“I came to speak of the transaction, madame,” he repeated and smiled. - -The cool audacity of her manner and commands diverted him. He perceived -that she had no intention of paying him. “The cocotte has never been -born,” he thought, “who could hold a candle to a great lady for -impudence.” - -If she had asked him to sit down he still would have refrained from -troubling her; but she said no syllable that was civil; she continued -to look at her creditor with haughty impatience. - -“Be quick about what you have to say then,” she remarked; “I can only -stay a few moments here; I am going to church.” - -A creditor, if deftly treated as a Buddha of power and sanctity, -may be disarmed, for, although a creditor, he is human. But if he -be “cheeked” and treated as of no importance he is naturally moved -to use his thunderbolt and assert his godhead. Beaumont sat down -without invitation or permission, and she, to show her disgust at such -familiarity, rose and remained standing. - -“Madame,” he said very politely, “have you forgotten the paper which -you signed?” - -She was silent, darting azure lightning on him from her eyes. She did -not distinctly remember what she had signed. She had not very clearly -understood it at the time of signing; it had been all done in such a -hurry, and the cab had been waiting for her in the rain, and she had -wanted to get back to the Bristol unseen and dress for a dinner at the -English Embassy, and the time to do so had been very short. Certainly -she remembered writing her name; but the words above her name she did -not recall; it was more than four years ago. - -Beaumont saw that she had forgotten. - -“I warned you of the importance of what you signed,” he said politely. -“If you desire now to read it over----” - -“Is that what I signed?” she said eagerly; she thought it would not be -difficult to get it away from him; he looked very weak and small, and -must, she thought, be seventy if he were a day. - -Beaumont smiled. - -“It is a copy.” - -Her face clouded; she took it with an impatient gesture and read its -clauses. The lines were few, but they clearly stated that she was the -sole and lawful owner of the diamond and transferred it to the keeping -of the jeweler until such time as he should be repaid in full, capital -and interest. - -“Well, madame?” said Beaumont, having waited for five long minutes, -during which she stood looking out of the window, her foot irritably -beating on the carpet. - -“What is there to say?” she replied bluntly, her brain was less clear -than usual. “I can’t pay you, if that’s what you want.” - -Beaumont raised his eyebrows. - -“I conclude I have the honor of being your Grace’s first creditor, or -you would have learned by painful experience that it is not well to -be impolite to creditors. The situation is changed since you signed -that little memorandum. I was content to wait whilst the good Duke of -Otterbourne was living: but he is dead, and I am indisposed to wait, -and if you cannot pay me I must see who will.” - -“You beast!” muttered Mouse between her pearl like teeth. - -“I do not think I am a beast,” said Beaumont meekly. “At least, not -more so than most men. I took you at your word, madame, and it appears -that your word was--was not entirely to be depended upon. It appears -that the jewel is an heirloom; it goes to your little boy under -settlement in trust. So I am informed by those competent to know.” - -She stood with her profile turned toward him, and continued to look out -of the window at the house opposite. - -“If it is my son’s you can’t claim it,” she said sullenly. “You knew -well enough at the time it wasn’t mine. You only pretended to believe -that it was. You did an illegal thing when you lent me the money; and -you know you can’t go into any Court about it. My husband was alive -then; my signature was not worth a farthing, you know that!” - -Beaumont gazed at her in admiration for her boldness, in compassion for -her temerity and want of worldly wisdom. - -“I have done business sometimes, madame, in Paris,” he said softly, -“with persons of your sex who are not considered, there, pure enough to -sit beside you in the tribune at Chantilly, or at the Institute, or at -the Chambers. But amongst those _horizontales_ I never knew one quite -of your force. _Je vous en fais mes compliments._” - -Angry blood flew into the fair cheeks of his debtor; her blue eyes -flashed like stormy summer skies; her hand clenched till her rings cut -into the skin. - -“You dare to insult me because my lord is dead!” - -Cocky in memory really appeared to her, at this moment, as a very tower -of strength. - -Beaumont made a little gesture of smiling protestation. - -“Oh, madame, if your lord were living he would not make much difference -to me in this matter, or to any action of your creditors. But he would -certainly have apprehended the situation more quickly than you do.” - -“You are an insolent!” - -She would have reached to touch the button of the electric bell, but -Beaumont interposed. - -“Do not make a scandal, duchesse; I shall not, if you do not press me -too far. I am not your enemy. I never expose women if I can help it. -Nature made them dishonest; jewels and money are to them what cherries -and apples are to schoolboys. That is why they are so much better -shut up in harems. However, I came for strict business; let us limit -ourselves to it. You say I cannot go into a tribunal. You have relied -upon that fact. But it is a rotten staff to lean on; it is not a fact. -I both can and will go into any number of tribunals about this matter. -They may nonsuit me. I may, perhaps, lose both the diamond and the -money; but I have plenty of money and no children, and it will amuse -me, madame, to see you cross-examined. It will not amuse you.” - -She stared fixedly at the windows of the opposite house, and observed, -as people do observe extraneous matters in moments of horrible -agitation, that the lace curtains to them were very soiled. Her heart -heaved under the crape _fichû_ of her bodice, and he saw that it was -only by great effort that she controlled herself from some bodily -assault upon him. - -“What a godsend for the illustrated press such a trial would be!” he -continued, in quiet, amused tones. “But it would be disagreeable to -you, because those papers disfigure so the pretty people whom they -pretend to represent.” - -“You would never dare to go to law!” she interrupted in a hoarse, -fierce voice. “You would not dare! You would be punished yourself!” - -“I should be punished, possibly, by losing the money. They would -nonsuit me, but I think they would make you pay my costs. But as I -have said, I do not mind losing the money; I have a good deal and no -children, and I am old----” - -“Well, then, why make this hideous fuss?” - -Beaumont smiled. - -“Why not make you, madame, a free gift of the money and the interest? -_Allez donc!_ You ought to be too proud to dream of taking a present -from a tradesman. If I were a young man I might--on conditions--but I -am old, and a beautiful woman is not much more to me than an ugly one, -alas! Besides, you have been very rude, duchesse. No one should be so -rude as that who does not stand on a solid bank balance.” - -She turned her head over her shoulder and flashed a scathing glance -upon him. - -“How much longer are you going to prose on in this way? I want to go -out.” - -Beaumont shook his head. “You will not learn wisdom? You are wrong, -madame. Twist a tiger’s tail, laugh at an anarchist, and put -nitro-glycerine in your dressing-bag, but never, ah, never be rude to -anyone who has you in his power.” - -“In your power? I? In yours? You are mad.” - -“Oh, no; I am entirely sane. Saner than you, madame; for you do not -seem to understand that you have done a very ugly thing, a vulgar thing -even; what is called in English, I believe, a first-class misdemeanor, -for you obtained a very large sum by false representation.” - -She changed color; she was intelligent and she did see her conduct in -the light in which twelve London jurymen would be likely to see it, -and also in the shape in which the Radical press would be certain to -present it to their public. - -Beaumont relented a little. A man may be too old to fully appreciate -beauty, but he is always kinder to a pretty woman than to a plain -one. Moreover he had no real inclination to figure in the law courts -himself, though to punish her he was prepared to take her into them. - -“Is it possible, madame,” he said with hesitation, “that all the great -people you belong to cannot arrange this small matter for you without -forcing me to go to extremes? The magnificent English aristocracy.” - -“The magnificent English aristocracy,” she repeated with unspeakable -scorn, “who are coal-owners, corn-factors, horse-dealers, game-vendors, -shop-owners, tradesmen, every man-jack of them, are most of them -bankrupt tradesmen, my good Beaumont! They are obliged to ally -themselves with tradesmen who aren’t bankrupt--like you--to keep their -heads above water. The great families with whom I am allied, as you -expressed it, couldn’t, I believe, amongst them all raise a thousand -guineas in solid coin.” - -“But you came to me for twelve thousand,” thought Beaumont; aloud he -merely said, “But monsieur your brother? Surely he----” - -A shiver ran over her from head to foot. She would rather, she thought, -face the Middlesex jury than tell this tale to Ronald. - -“My brother has all the copy-book virtues,” she answered sharply. “He -would sell his shirt to pay you if you told him this story, but if he -hasn’t got a shirt?” - -“You speak figuratively, I presume?” - -“Figuratively? I mean what I say. Well, of course he’s got shirts to -his back; but that is pretty well all he has got. And he is guardian to -the boy, to all the children.” - -“I understand.” - -He saw in what a position Hurstmanceaux would be placed between his -duty to his wards and his sentiment for his sister if the knowledge -of what had been done with the roc’s egg came before him. “But if he -be a poor man it would be no use to worry him,” thought Beaumont, who -was keenly practical, and who, in this matter, merely wanted to get -his money back, and to be safely out of what he knew was not a very -creditable position for himself, since the family would naturally argue -that he should not have taken Lady Kenilworth’s unsupported word in a -matter of so much importance. - -“Everyone knows the high character of Lord Hurstmanceaux,” he said, to -gain time for his own reflections. Mouse repressed a rude exclamation; -she was so utterly sick of Ronnie’s character. A brother who had known -how to do all the things that Cocky had used to do, and would have -put her up to doing them, would have been so much more useful at the -moment. She felt that she had not drunk at the fountain of knowledge -during her husband’s lifetime as she ought to have done. For a person -who was not hampered by scruples she was most blamably ignorant about -the ins and outs and hooks and crooks of left-handed financing. - -Beaumont waited in polite silence. He was not a hard or harsh man -and he was not insensible to the purity of her profile as she stood -sideways against the window; he saw that she was genuinely alarmed and -genuinely powerless; the folded crape which went crossways over her -bosom heaved with her deep drawn hurried breathing. - -“Have you no friend?” he said at last very softly and with a world of -meaning in the tone. - -She changed countenance; she could not pretend to misunderstand his -meaning. - -“Friends have more sympathy than relatives,” he added in the same -meditative manner. “It is true, madame, that your dilemma is not -in itself interesting; it resembles too much actions which receive -unlovely names when in a lower class than yours, still a beautiful -woman can always persuade the weaker sense to be blind to her errors; -at least until those errors have been proclaimed in print, so that all -who run may read them.” - -He took a natural and not a very malignant vengeance in his words, but -to her he seemed a very Mephistopheles torturing her with every refined -devilry. - -And she was insulted and she could not resent! She could not ring for -her servants and have this man turned into the street. - -The twelve thousand pounds had melted like morning mist. She could -scarcely remember what they had gone for; but the bitter insult -remained, would remain, she thought, with her for ever. - -He rose and stood before her. “Well?” he said gently. - -“You have a right to your money, I suppose,” she said sullenly between -her set teeth. “I have no notion on earth how to get you a farthing, -but if you will wait a month and not speak to my brother in the -interval, I will--I will see what I can do.” - -Beaumont bowed. - -“I will wait six months and I will speak to no one. But if at the end -of six months I do not receive all, I shall speak, with pain, madame, -but inevitably not to your brother but to the world.” - -“I understand,” she said haughtily. “You will do your worst. Well, -never enter my presence again, that is all; and leave it now this -moment.” - -Beaumont smiled with admiration and regret combined. - -“You are very unwise, madame. If you had not been rude to me I would -have accorded you a year. _Mais on chasse de race._” - -She knew that it was unwise to be so insolent, but she could not have -made herself polite to him to save her life. He punished her for -having tricked him and flouted her. He was a very rich man and she had -offended him. - -She saw her mistake, but she would not have resisted repeating it if he -had come back into the room. Women always bring temper into business, -and that is why they fail in it so frequently, for those who do not -bring temper bring sentiment, and the one is as ruinous as the other. - -She had a rapid imagination; she saw before her the crowded court, the -witness-box where prevarication was of no use, all her dearest friends -with their _lorgnons_ lifted, the bench of the scribbling reporters, -the correspondents of the illustrated papers making their sketches -furtively and staring at her as she had stared at people in _causes -célèbres_; she saw it all, even the portraits of herself which would -appear in those woodcuts of artistic journals which would make Helen’s -self hideous and Athene’s self grotesque. - -She saw it all--all the huge headings in the posters and papers, all -the staring eyes, all the commiserating censure, all the discreet -veiled enjoyment of her acquaintances, all the rancid acrid virulence -of the rejoicing Radical press. - -She imagined that Beaumont would not get his money easily because she -knew something about the risks run by those who lend on an imperfect -title, as to minors or to women; but she had seen in his regard that he -would not mind losing any amount of money if he had his revenge on her -in putting her into court. - -Actually, Beaumont was by no means a revengeful, nor even a hard man, -and a very little diplomacy would have made him favorable to her. - -She hated him more intensely than she had ever hated anyone. For in -the first place he had done her a favor, and in the second place she -had done him a wrong--a mixture which naturally produces the strongest -hatred. She knew that, despite his courtesy, she had nothing more to -hope from him; that he would have his money back again, or he would -make the transaction public. - -Public sympathy would be entirely with him against herself. Even that, -however, seemed to her less horrible than the fact that Ronald would -know what she had done. At the bottom of her heart she was not very -brave; she could hector and bully, and command, and she had that share -in the physical courage of her race which took her unflinching over a -bullfinch in the shires. But she had not the moral courage which would -allow that punishment was just and bear it calmly. It was probable -that Ronald and her brothers-in-law would never let the matter come to -a trial, that they would get the money between them together somehow, -though they were all as poor as Job; but to have the matter brought -before these prejudiced persons seemed to her worse than the law court -itself. Ronald she dreaded, the Ormes she detested, and her sisters’ -husbands she thought the most odious prigs in the world; to come before -a family council of this sort would be more unsupportable than the law -court itself, which would at least contain an element of excitement, -and in which her personal appearance would be sure to rouse some -feeling in her favor. To that personal fascination her brother and her -brothers-in-law were at all times insensible. - -“Some women have men belonging to them who are of some use,” she -thought bitterly, “but all the men I have anything to do with are -paupers and prigs. What is a family made for if it is not to pull one -through awkward places, and follow one with a second horse?” - -She hated her family fiercely. It seemed to her that it was all their -fault that she had been placed in such a dreadful dilemma. If there -was one thing more sure than another, she knew that it was the dead -certainty that everybody in her world were as poor as rats, unless they -were men of business who did not properly belong to that world at all. -It was wonderful how soon you come to the end of a man’s resources! No -one knew that better than herself. As for the bigwigs who look so swell -and imposing to the classes which know nothing about them, she was but -too well aware of the carking cares, the burdened lands, the desperate -devices which sustained their magnificent appearances as the rotten -timbers of a doomed ship may support a gilded figure-head. - -“By the time Jack’s thirty years old the whole rotten thing will be -gone like a smashed egg,” she thought, with a certain pleasure in -reflecting that all the wearisome and impertinent precautions which -Jack’s guardians took to shelter his interests would be of no avail -for him in the long run against the rapidly rising tide of English -socialism. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII. - - -She remained in London May and June. Of course it was deadly dull, but -people came to dine with her; she could dine with her very intimate -friends; and men were in and out all day long from the Commons and the -club and the guard-rooms; and she made a lovely picture in her floating -crape garments, cut a little low round the throat _en bébé_, to show -its white and slender beauty. Everyone felt bound to do their best to -console her, and the task was a pleasant one even to her own sex, for -her house, in a subdued discreet manner, was always full of agreeable -persons, and softly buzzing with the latest news. - -When she drove in the park with her whole equipage turned into -mourning, she had one or other of her golden-haired children always -with her, and the spectacle was one which especially touched the -policemen at the crossings, the old apple-women at the corners, the -workingmen eating their bread and cheese on the benches, and all that -good-natured, credulous, purblind throng which creates popular opinion. - -“Our public men don’t make up enough,” she thought, seeing the effect -which she had on the multitude. “Napoleon’s white horse and Boulanger’s -black one did half their business for them. The public should always be -governed through its eyes and its appetites; our leaders of it appeal -to its mind--a non-existent entity.” - -Black was very becoming to her. It is the surest of consolations to -have a dazzlingly fair skin which crape adorns. Still death in the -house is always tiresome; there are so many pleasant things which we -cannot do. On the whole she thought it would have been better if Cocky -had lived some little time longer. - -Cocky’s death had happened at an awkward moment. The London season -was irrevocably lost to her. All her new gowns must remain shut up in -their cases. There was nowhere in the known world (of society) where -she could by any possibility dance and laugh and flirt and play -cards, and go to races, and do theatres, and sup at restaurants, and -generally amuse herself for the next six months. She did not care for -conventionality, but there are things which no well-bred person can do; -observances which the mere usage of the world enforces as it does the -wearing of clothes, or of shoes and stockings. - -She was wholly unconscious of the benevolent intentions which Cocky had -entertained toward her; she had never dreamed that he would think of -causing a _cause célèbre_ in connection with her. - -She wished devoutly that he had lived for a year or two after his -succession. The tutelage of Ronald was a prospect which appalled her. - -She knew that Ronald, however generous with his own, would be a very -dragon in defence of his ward’s possessions; and the little duke’s -minority would be an exceedingly long one. From all power she had -herself been carefully and mercilessly excluded by all the provisions -alike of her husband and of his father. The terms of the wills had been -sufficiently explained to her to leave her no doubt in that respect. -Her courage was high and her carelessness was great; but both quailed -at the idea of many matters which would inevitably now come under her -brother’s eyes. - -Cocky had been a bore; but you could always shut Cocky’s eyes and his -mouth too if you had a twenty-pound note to give him; and he was never -in the least degree curious whence it came. - -Cocky had had many defects, but he had been at times a very convenient -person; she had wished him dead very often, but now that he was really -dead she was rather sorry. She could not now even take any of that lace -away from Staghurst; it would all be locked up again to wait twenty -years for Jack’s wife. - -She was not in the least afraid of doing wrong, but she was keenly -afraid of being found out, and especially of being found out by her -brother. She knew very well that Ronald’s toleration of her and -affection for her were entirely based on the fact that she had in a -great degree always succeeded in blindfolding him. - -He knew her to be reckless, imprudent, and madly extravagant, but he -thought her innocent in other ways, and compromised by her husband. - -Oh, the support that Cocky had been! She did feel genuine sorrow for -his loss. To lose your scapegoat, your standing apology, your excuse -for everything, is worse than to lose your jewel-box, especially when -it has only paste copies of your jewels in it. She would really have -liked to have had Cocky survive a few years as Duke of Otterbourne. -They would not have had much money, but they would have had such -quantities of credit that their want of actual money would scarcely -have been felt. They would have sold everything which settlement would -have allowed them to sell, and very probably found means even to break -the entail. - -She was wholly unaware that the very first use he would have made -of his accession would have been to drag her into the glare of that -transpontine melodrama which is played in the Court of Probate and -Divorce. In the glare of his dying eyes she had indeed recognized -hatred, but she had not known that such hatred would have taken its -worst vengeance on her had he lived. - -She did not know that fate, often so favorable to her, had never done -her so kind a turn as when it had made him catch that cold at his -father’s grave in the bitter east winds of the March morning. He had -been something to complain of, to fret about, to quarrel with; at his -door she could lay any responsibility she chose, and he had been often -useful in a great strait through the ingenuity and unscrupulousness of -his devices. Then she had cordially detested him, and that sentiment -alone had something exhilarating about it like a glass of bitters. - -And yet again it had been the existence of Cocky which had made Harry -interesting. Now that it could become quite proper for her to annex -Harry, in the manner dear to Mrs. Grundy, he lost a great deal of his -attraction. He fell suddenly in value like a depreciated currency. - -After the first moments of awe which the presence of death causes to -the most indifferent person, her first reflection had been that she -could now marry him. - -But her second and wiser was that it would be ridiculous to do -anything of the kind. Poor Harry was as poor as the traditional church -mouse. The little he had ever been worth had been squeezed out of him -by Cocky and herself. She wanted money, an endless amount of money. -Women of the world want money as orchids want moisture. They cannot -live except with their feet ankle deep in a pactolus. Money, or its -equivalent credit, is the necessity of their existence. Her existence, -hitherto, however brilliant on the surface, had been little better -than a series of shifty expedients. She had danced her shawl dance on -the brink of exposure and bankruptcy. What was the use of marrying -a man with whom the same, or still worse, embarrassments would have -perpetually to be endured? - -At no time had she been ready to throw herself away on Harry. She had -been for several years fonder of him than she had ever supposed herself -capable of being of anyone. When he had showed the least inclination -for any other woman, her sentiment for him had become violent and -ferocious in its sense of wronged ownership. But to marry him would be, -she knew--she had always known--a grotesque mistake. - -It would be one of those follies which are never forgiven by Fate. -Harry was no more meant for marriage, she thought, as she sat alone in -her morning-room, than that wheelbarrow was meant for use. It was a -charming wheelbarrow in satin, scarlet, and green, with gilded wheels -and handles; filled with cherries, plumbs, currants, and strawberries -made by the first bonbon-makers of Paris, and sent at Easter, the week -before the old duke died. One might just as well roll that barrow over -the stones to Covent Garden market, as think of marriage with Harry. - -If she had been rich she would not have married again at all; men were -crochetty worrying bores whenever you saw much of them, but to go on -like this under Ronald’s and the Ormes’s tutelage, and next to nothing -to amuse herself with, was wholly out of the question. - -A vindictive dislike rose up in her against Jack. He was everything and -she was nothing. This absurd rosy-faced monkey was lord of all; this -little curly-headed imp in his man-o’-war suit was owner of everything -and she of nothing, or of next to nothing; she felt an unreasonable -and most unjust impatience at the very sight of his round laughing face -and his sunny Correggio curls; and he avoided her as a puppy avoids a -person who kicks it or scowls at it. - -“Can’t mammy be nasty? Oh, can’t she!” he said to his confidant Harry, -who frowned and answered: - -“It’s blackguard of her if she’s nasty to _you_.” - -Harry himself was dull. On due consideration of his position he had -felt no doubt whatever that he would have to marry Jack’s mother. - -Cocky had been his best friend; had Cocky’s duration of life depended -on him the Seventh Duke of Otterbourne would have seen a green old age. - -“Bother it all,” thought the poor fellow, “and I must say something -about it to her, I suppose. Oh, damn it! It’s telling a man in Newgate -that he must settle the day for his own hanging!” - -His world supposed him still to be very much in love with Jack’s -mother, but the prospect of being wedded to her appalled him. “My -granny always said she would end in doing it,” he thought, recalling -the prophetic wisdom of the aged Lady Luce. - -Men as a rule are not remarkable for tact, especially in personal -matters which touch on the affections, and he had less of that valuable -instinct than most people. Unaware that the lady of his destiny had -mentally weighed him in the balance with the satin wheelbarrow, and -found him wanting like the wheelbarrow in solidity, he was tormented -by the feeling that he ought to speak to her on the subject and the -indefinable reluctance which held him back from doing so. - -The position of a man who has to marry a lady with whom his name has -long been associated before his world can never be agreeable. He is -conscious of paying over again in gold for what he has long ago bought -with paper. He is aware that lookers-on laugh in their sleeve. - -It requires the _beaux restes_ of a veritable passion, the perennial -charm of an undying sympathy, to make the most loyal of lovers accept -without flinching so conspicuous and questionable a position. - -To her, it is triumph as to the master builder when the gilded vane -crowns the giddy height of the steeple. She shows that she has kept her -man well in hand, and ridden him with science to the finish. Beside, -the shyest of women always likes what compromises and compliments her. - -But the masculine mind is differently constituted; it sincerely -dislikes being talked about, it still more dislikes to be laughed at, -and when it is English, it is, on matters of the affections, uncommonly -shy. - -The necessity of broaching this delicate matter weighed heavily on -Brancepeth’s spirits; he did not know how to set about it, and he felt -that it was at once ungracious to her to delay and unfeeling to poor -buried Cocky to hasten the necessary avowal. He was always thankful -when he found other people with her, and equally thankful that her -respect for appearances had caused her to relax her demands on his -attendance and affection ever since her return from the interments at -Staghurst. One day, however, some six weeks after Cocky’s disappearance -from a world of poker and pick-me-ups, Brancepeth found himself alone -with the fair mourner to whom crape was so infinitely becoming. - -To this poor fellow, in whose breast the primitive feelings of human -nature were planted too deeply for the ways of his world to have -uprooted them, the idea of having the children with him, in his own -house, seeing them every day and watching them grow up, was one which -consoled him for being forced to sacrifice his liberty. Of course, they -would always be Cocky’s children to the world and in “Burke,” but if he -were their mother’s husband nobody would think it odd if he made much -of them, and took them to ride in the Row, or went with them to see a -pantomime, or hired a houseboat for them, and taught them how to scull; -simple joys which smiled at him from the future. Their mother would -always be what she always had been. He had no illusions about her; he -would have to give her her head whether he liked it or not; but the -children--Harry saw himself living very properly, as a married man, -in a little house off the Park, and getting every now and then “a day -out” with Jack on the river. He would leave the Guards, he reflected, -and pull himself together; he had next to nothing of his own left, but -some day or other he would be Lord Inversay, and then, though it would -always be a beggarly business, for the estates were mortgaged to their -last sod of grass, he would try to make things run as straight as he -could for sake of these merry little men who were Cocky’s children. -Occupied with such innocent and purifying thoughts, he had arrived in -Stanhope Street. - -It was a soft grey day in early May, and her room was a bower of lilac, -heliotrope, and tea-roses. The Blenheims were quiet, for Cocky annoyed -them no more. The tempered light fell through silk blinds on to the -charming figure of their lady, as she lay back on a long low chair, -her black robes falling softly about her as if she were some Blessed -Damozel, or Lady of Tears, of Rossetti’s or Burne-Jones’s. Only between -her lips was a cigarette and on her knee was a volume of Gyp’s. Harry, -good soul, was not awake to the incongruity; he only thought how -awfully fetching she was, and yet he groaned in spirit. But after a -few preliminary nothings, with much the same desperate and unpleasant -resolve as that with which he had gone up to be birched at Eton, he -opened his lips and spoke. - -“I say,” he murmured with timidity--“I say, dear, I have wanted to ask -you ever since--I suppose--I mean, of course, I understand, now you -are free you will want me to--wish me to--I mean we shall have to get -married, shan’t we, when the year’s out?” - -When these words had escaped him he was sensible that they were not -complimentary, that they were not at all what he ought to have said, -and a vague sensation of fright stole over him and he felt himself turn -pale. - -Into the blue eyes of Mouse that terrible lightning flashed which had -withered up his courage very often as flame licks up dry grass. Then -her sense of humor was stronger than her sense of offence; she took her -cigarette out of her mouth and laughed with a genuine peal of musical -laughter which was not affected. He stared at her, relieved, but in -his turn offended. After all, he thought, it was not every man who -would have ridden so straight up to the fence of duty and taken it so -gallantly. - -“My dear Harry,” she said, rather slightingly, when her mirth had -subsided, “I have had to listen to many declarations in my time, -but--but I never had one so eloquent, so delicate, so opportune as -yours. Pray will you tell me why I should be supposed to want to marry -you, as you chivalrously express it?” - -“It’s usual,” he answered sulkily, not daring to express the -astonishment with which her tone and manner filled him. - -“What is usual?” she asked, looking straight at him with serene -imperturbable coolness and entire refusal to meet him half way by any -kind of comprehension. - -“Well, it _is_, you know that,” he replied, looking down on the carpet. - -“Usual for a woman to marry again seven weeks after her husband’s -death? I never heard so. I believe there is a country where a widow -does marry all her husband’s brothers one after another, as fast as she -can, but that country is not England.” - -She put her cigarette back into her mouth again. - -He looked at her apprehensively and shyly as Jack did very often from -under his long lashes. He was puzzled and he was humiliated. He had -brought himself up with a rush to do what he thought honor and all -the rest of it required of him, and his self-sacrifice was not even -appreciated but derided. - -“I thought, of course, you’d desire it on account of the children,” he -said stupidly, insanely, for he should have known that truths like this -cannot be told to women with any possibility of pardon to the teller of -them. - -She looked at him with an admirably imitated astonishment. - -“For the children? For Cocky’s children? I am really unable to guess -why.” - -“Oh, damnation!” - -The rude word escaped him despite himself; he rose and walked to and -fro across the room trying to keep down the very unreasonable passion -which burned within him. - -“Pray sit down--or go out,” said Mouse calmly, and she lighted a fresh -cigarette at the little silver lighter. - -Brancepeth’s eyes filled with tears. He was wounded and unnerved. The -amazing impudence of woman which always so completely outstrips and -eclipses the uttermost audacity of man stunned his feebler and tender -organization. She was really still fond of him, though his savor, as of -forbidden fruit, was gone, and the stupid veracity and _naïveté_ of his -character irritated and bored her. - -“My dear Harry, don’t be so upset,” she said in a kinder tone. “There -are things which should never be said. Walls have ears. The Chinese are -quite right. If a thing is not to be told do not tell it. It is quite -natural you should like Cocky’s children since you were such friends -with him and me; but you sometimes make too much fuss with them, -especially in the nurseries. Children are so soon spoilt.” - -Brancepeth looked at her from under his sleepy eyelids with something -near akin to contempt. - -“The doors are shut,” he said sullenly, “and there’s nobody on the -balconies. Can’t we speak without bosh for once? The poor devil’s dead. -Can’t we let his name alone? He was a bad lot, certainly, but we didn’t -try to make him better. He wasn’t a fool; he must have known, you -know----” - -She roused herself from her reclining attitude, and her fair features -were very set and stern. - -“He is dead, as you observe. Ordinary intelligence would therefore -suggest that it does not in the least matter what he did know and what -he didn’t know. Being dead he yet speaketh, cannot happily be said of -Cocky. He has tormented me by setting Ronnie over me and the children, -but that is the only annoyance he had the wit to inflict.” - -“Ronnie’ll do his duty.” - -“Of course he will. People always do their duty when it consists in -being disagreeable to others.” - -“Answer me, Mouse,” said Brancepeth, bringing his walk to an end -immediately in front of her. “I want to know, you know. Shall we marry -or not? Don’t beat about the bush. Say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’” - -She blew some perfumed smoke in the air, then, in a very chilly and -cutting tone, replied: - -“Most distinctly: no.” - -“And why not?” said Brancepeth, feeling an irrational offence, although -a moment before he had dreaded receiving an affirmative answer. - -“My dear Harry, we are both as poor as church mice. If you can’t pay -your own tailors how would you pay mine?” - -“We should get along somehow.” - -“Oh, thanks! I have had nearly ten years of ‘getting along somehow,’ -and it is an extremely uncomfortable and crablike mode of moving. I -hope to have no more of it. It takes it out of one. I shall marry -again, of course. But I shall marry money.” - -He, still standing in front of her, gazed down on her gloomily. -Certainly he had been keenly and nervously apprehensive that she would -expect to marry him--would insist on marrying him; but now that she -so decidedly refused to do so the matter took another aspect in his -eyes. A vague sullen sense of offended and repudiated ownership rose -up in him; it is a sentiment extremely tenacious, unreasonable, and -aggressive, whether it be agrarian or amorous. He did not say anything; -words were not very abundant with him, but he continued to look down on -her gloomily. - -Marry money! - -And the man with money would have all this charming fair beauty of -hers, and would have Jack and the others in his nurseries: and he -himself--where would he be? Done with; rubbed off the slate; struck -out of the running; allowed to do a theatre with her now and then -perhaps, and see Jack and the others on their ponies in the ride of a -morning--where was the good of Cocky having died? He wished with all -his soul that Cocky had not died. Things had been so comfortable with -poor old Cocky. - -He was accustomed to consider himself as a part of her property; for -nearly ten years she had disposed of his time, his circumstance, -and his resources; he had always been at her beck and call, and the -nurseries had been his recompense; he was stunned to be flung off in -this way like any stranger. She saw that he was angry, more angry than -he knew. She guessed all the various feelings which were at work within -him; they were clearer to her than to himself. She was fond of him; she -did not wish to lose him entirely; there was nobody else she liked so -much, nobody else so extremely good-looking. She administered an opiate -after the severe wound she had given. - -“You goose!” she said softly, whilst her blue eyes smiled caressingly -upon him. “You are too terribly tragic to-day. Do look at things in -their right form, dear; you must see that however much we might like -it we can’t possibly afford to marry each other. We might as well want -to drive a team of giraffes down Piccadilly. We have nothing to marry -upon, and we are both of us people who require a good deal. Besides, -society will expect us to marry, and for that reason alone I wouldn’t. -It would be _de me donner dans le tort_. I shall marry somebody -extremely rich. I don’t know who yet, but somebody, I promise you, -who shall be nice to you, dear; just as nice as poor Cocky was, and -somebody who won’t be always wanting five pounds as Cocky was, but, on -the contrary, will be able to lend five hundred if you wish for it.” - -The future she so delicately suggested seemed to her so seductive -that she expected it to fully satisfy her companion. But he saw it in -another and a less favorable aspect. His handsome face grew dark as a -thunder-cloud and his teeth shut tightly together. He stood before her, -staring down on her. - -“The devil take you and all your soft speeches!” he said, through his -clenched teeth. “You are an out and out bad woman. That’s what you are. -If you weren’t their mother I would----.” - -His voice choked in his throat. He turned quickly, took up his hat -and cane from the chair he had left them on, and went out of the room -without looking behind him. He closed the door roughly and ran down the -staircase. - -A youthful philosopher in powder and black shoulder-knots, who was on -duty at the head of the stairs, looked after his retreating figure -with placid derision. “She’s wanting him to be spliced to her and he -won’t hear of it,” thought the youth; but even philosophers in powder, -whose Portico is the vestibule of a fashionable London house, sometimes -err in their conclusions. - -Fury, as though it were the drug _curare_, held her motionless and -speechless as she heard the door close behind her self-emancipated -slave. The common coarse language of the streets used to her! She could -not believe her ears. Her rage stifled her. She could scarcely breathe. -The Blenheims were frightened at her expression and went under a sofa. -She took the satin wheelbarrow--she did not know why, except that it -was associated in her thoughts with him--and she broke it, and tore it, -and flung its contents all over the room, and trampled on the gilded -wheel and handles till they were mere glittering splinters and shivers. -That exercise of violence did her good, the blood ceased to buzz in -her ears, her nerves grew calmer; she would willingly have killed -someone or something, but even this destruction of a toy did her good, -it was better than nothing, it relaxed the tension of her nerves. It -had allowed her a little of that violent physical action which is the -instinct of even civilized human nature when it is offended or outraged. - -When she was a little calmer and could reflect, she thought she would -tell his commanding officer and demand his punishment; she thought -she would tell the Prince of Wales and entreat his exclusion from -Marlborough House and Sandringham; she thought she would tell the -editor of _Truth_, and beg him to have a paragraph about it. Then, as -she grew calmer still, she became aware that she could tell nobody at -all anything whatever. If the world knew that Harry had used bad words -to her, the world would immediately ask what tether had been given to -Harry that he had ever so greatly dared. - -“The coward, the coward!” she said, in her teeth. “He knows I can’t -even have him thrashed by another man.” - -His crime against her seemed to her monstrous. It was indeed of the -kind which no woman forgives. It was the cruellest of all insults; -one which was based upon fact. To her own idea she had very delicately -and good-naturedly intimated to her friend that she would arrange her -future so that their relation should be as undisturbed as in the past. -If that did not merit a man’s gratitude, what did? Yet, instead of -thanks, he had spoken to her as she had not supposed women were spoken -to outside the Haymarket or the Rat Mort. - -She never admitted to herself that she did wrong; much less had she -ever permitted anyone else to hint that she did so. A bad woman! -Ladies like herself can no more conceive such a phrase being used to -describe them than a winner of the Oaks could imagine herself between -a costermonger’s shafts. All that they do is ticketed under pretty or -pleasant names on the shelves of their memories; tact, friendship, -amusement, sympathy, convenience, amiability, health, one or other of -these nice sounding words labels every one of their motives or actions. -To class themselves with “bad people” never enters their minds for a -moment; Messalina would certainly never have dreamed of being classed -with the horizontales of the Suburra. What made it worse was that she -was still fond of him, though he often bored her. She would have given -ten years of life to have had his face under her foot and to have -stamped it into blurred ugliness as she had stamped the wheelbarrow -into atoms. But these fierce simple pleasures, alas! are only allowed -to the women of the Haymarket and the Rat Mort. - -She had done incalculable harm to Harry; she had worried, enslaved, and -tormented the best years of his life; she had impoverished him utterly, -she had stripped him of the little he had ever possessed, she had -driven him into debt which would hang about his neck like a millstone -to the day of his death; she had turned a simple and honest nature into -devious and secret ways; she had made him lie, and laughed at him when -he had been ashamed of lying; she had done him a world of harm, and in -return he had only said five little rude words to her. But his offence -seemed to her so enormous that if she had possessed the power she would -have had him beaten with rods or roasted at a slow fire. That she had -been his worst enemy she would never have admitted for one instant, -never have supposed that anyone could think it. She considered that she -had made him supremely happy during a very long period, that if she had -ever given him cause for jealousy he had never known it, which is all -that a well-bred man should expect; and that he had enjoyed the supreme -felicity of being associated in her home life, of knowing all her -worries and annoyances, and of being allowed to make an ass of himself -in the nurseries in a simili-domestic fashion which was just suited to -his simple tastes as a simili-bronze of a classic statuette is suited -to the narrow purse of a tourist. His ingratitude seemed to her so -vile, so enormous, that the immensity of her own wrongs made her submit -to bear them in silence out of admiration of her own magnanimity and -the serenity of her own certitude that she would avenge herself somehow -or other to the smallest iota. - -She rang the bell, which was answered by a colleague of the young -philosopher in powder of the anteroom. “The dogs have torn up -this bonbon thing,” she said, pointing to the wreck of the ruined -wheelbarrow. “Take it away and bring me some luncheon in here; only -a quail and some plover eggs and some claret; order the carriage for -three o’clock.” - -She felt exhausted from the extreme violence of her anger and the -infamy of the affront she had received; and were Phedre or Dido or -Cleopatra living on the brink of the twentieth century no one of them -would any day go without her luncheon. They would know that their -emotions “took it out” of them, that their nervous system was in -danger when their affections are disturbed; they would know all about -neurasthenia and marasma, and however angry or unhappy for Hippolytus, -for Æneas, or for Anthony, would remember that they were organisms very -easily put out of order, machines which require very regular nutrition; -they would be fully conscious of the important functions of their -livers, and would regulate their passions so as not to interfere with -their digestions. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII. - - -When she had ended her repast with two hothouse nectarines, her -brother was announced, to her great vexation. She never saw Ronnie -very willingly and now less willing than ever, for his position with -regard to her and her children was one which could not have made him a -_persona gratâ_ even had he been less outspoken and uncompromising than -he was. At the present moment he was especially unwelcome to her; but -as he had come upstairs disregarding the servants’ endeavors to induce -him to wait while they inquired their mistress’s pleasure, he had -entered the room before she had quite finished her second nectarine, -and it was impossible to order him to go away as he came. He had come -on business. - -There was a great deal of business concerning little Jack’s succession, -the many burdens already laid thereon, and the various projects -which were in consideration for turning to the best account the long -minority. Then there were her own jointure, her own rights and claims, -her own debts. The views which he had been afforded from time to time -of hers and Cocky’s affairs had been but partial; nothing had ever been -completely divulged to him, neither Cocky or she could ever tell the -exact truth--it was not in them. Therefore, although Hurstmanceaux had -known a good deal of their embarrassments he had not known many matters -which now appalled him when they came before him in the dry, cold prose -of legal fact, and he had not spared his sister the complete expression -of his supreme amazement and supreme disgust. - -Their interviews were therefore neither gay nor cordial, and she did -not assume a contentment which she was so far from feeling, as his -entrance made the claret seem corked and the nectarine seem sour. - -After the statement of the especial piece of legal business which had -brought him there that morning, the letting on a long lease of the -dower-house at Staghurst, for which her signature was necessary, -Hurstmanceaux, standing on the hearth in the same attitude he had -assumed when he had recommended Black Hazel, said very simply and very -curtly to her: - -“You let the dower-house instead of living in it. Will you tell me -where you do mean to live?” - -She frowned; she hated direct questions, they were so ill-bred. - -“Live?” she repeated. “Oh, I don’t know at all. Of course I shall be a -good deal here----” - -“By here do you mean in this house?” - -“I dare say--I don’t know; I have not thought about it.” - -“You had better think. The rent of this house is fifteen hundred a -year. Happily it was only taken by the year. I have told them it will -not be required next year.” - -“Very officious of you!” she said with a chilly smile. “I have a right -to Otterbourne House.” - -“Not the smallest right.” - -“That is absurd.” - -“It is law.” - -“Is it true you have let it to Mannheim?” - -“Quite true.” - -Mannheim was the ambassador of the Russian Emperor. - -“All these things are no concern of yours,” said Hurstmanceaux gravely. -“Pray give your attention to what does concern you. Your jointure is -a narrow one. Out of it you should surrender two thousand a year for -twenty years to pay off your personal debts. How can you keep on any -London house on what will be left to you? Of course the children live -with you and bring you in something, but very little, for there is next -to nothing at present; the charges on the estate are so heavy, as we -demonstrated to you the other day. What will you do if you can’t break -yourself in to some sort of economy and sacrifice?” - -She deigned no reply. She had really none ready. She was only -intensely, bitterly, furiously angry. If she could not live in the way -she liked she did not care to live at all. - -She was very pale, with the pallor of deep anger; her lips were white -and her blue eyes dark and flashing. How she hated everybody! How -above all she hated that little dead beast who had left her tied hand -and foot like this! - -“Surely you must see,” her brother said with pain, “that in the -position in which I stand toward you I must be more strict with you, my -sister, than it might be necessary to be with a stranger?” - -“How exactly like your priggish humbug!” she cried furiously. “Nobody -else would take such a view. What is the use of connections if they -don’t make things smooth?” - -“I am well aware that it is the only purpose of my own existence in -your eyes,” said Hurstmanceaux; “you have taught me that long ago. But -I am afraid you will find others less indulgent than I have been, and I -am sorry to say, whether you understand it or not, I cannot myself be -indulgent to you at the expense of your sons.” - -She gave an impatient gesture. “You always get on your moral -hobbyhorse,” she said insolently. “I believe there was never such a -prig in all creation. I wish you would go away. You are wasting for me -all this fine morning.” - -There was silence between them. Hurstmanceaux broke it by a question he -was half afraid to put. - -“I have to apologize for asking you, but I should be glad to know--I -suppose you mean to marry Brancepeth?” - -She threw back her head and looked at him with distended nostrils -breathing defiance. - -“Pray why should I marry Lord Brancepeth?” - -Hurstmanceaux hesitated; he was astonished and embarrassed. - -“Well, everybody expects you to do so; it would be natural and proper -that you should; it is the only thing you can do to--to----” - -He paused; he had never spoken to her of Brancepeth, it hurt him to do -so; he grew red with embarrassment for her. He could not have used any -words which could have stung, infuriated and embittered her more than -these unfortunate and far too candid phrases. Coming after the scene of -an hour before, they were like petroleum poured on a leaping flame. - -“Lord Brancepeth did me the honor to offer me his hand a few minutes -ago; I refused it,” she said between her teeth. “I am entirely at a -loss to know why you and ‘everybody’ consider that I ought to marry a -penniless guardsman who has nothing to recommend him but a handsome -face.” - -“By heaven! That’s cool.” - -Hurstmanceaux, as he muttered the involuntary words, stared down on her -too astonished to say more, too completely stupefied and taken aback to -be aware of the indelicacy of his own astonishment. - -“Have you any more suggestions to make?” she said with her utmost -insolence. - -“Unhappily, I have to speak to you about a very unpleasant thing,” said -Hurstmanceaux and paused. - -“You never speak of anything that is not unpleasant by any chance,” -said his sister. “Bray unburden yourself.” - -“Well then,” said Hurstmanceaux, not softened by her manner, “briefly, -I must ask you to be so good as to give up the family jewels out of -your keeping; the bank will send for them by our orders on Monday.” - -She was prepared for the question. - -“I have always had the use of them,” she replied very calmly, -“precedent makes possession.” - -“No, it does not. The late duke never gave you by signature, nor before -witnesses, any interest in them or any right of user. He let you wear -them as he might have lent me a horse, but the horse having been lent -to me would not have become mine through that loan. The jewels are tied -up by settlement, and go with the real estate. Your husband renewed -that settlement on his deathbed and the jewels go to Jack with the rest -of the real estate. Do I make myself clear?” - -“The little beast!” said Jack’s mother between her teeth. - -“I do not know why you should call your child bad names. He is _your_ -child, there can be no doubt about that. Failing Jack, his brother -succeeds. It is not Jack personally who causes you this annoyance, it -is the settlement under his father and grandfather’s will. It would be -just the same if you had no sons and if Lord Alberic succeeded.” - -Mouse gave a fierce, nervous, impatient gesture. - -“Why was I allowed to have the jewels, then, at all if I am to be made -ridiculous by having them taken away from me?” - -“It would have been better if you had not had them, no doubt. But the -duke was always good-natured and indulgent, and your husband was of -course perfectly aware that the jewels were protected by settlement; -he renewed the settlement on his deathbed. Besides, the great Indian -diamond is not an ordinary jewel--it is a fortune in itself.” - -She was prepared for this or some similar remark and did not flinch. - -“It is precisely that which is so annoying,” she replied. “That jewel -is so conspicuous; to appear without it at a drawing-room or any -function of any importance would be absurd--odious. Surely some way can -be found to leave me the usage of them until the boy’s majority?” - -“No way at all,” said Hurstmanceaux sternly. “They will go to Coutts’s, -and stay there until his majority. By the way, where are they now?” - -“In my jewel-safe,” she answered sullenly. - -“What imprudence!” - -“It has a Chubb’s lock.” - -“Why did you not keep them at the bank? Nobody wears such jewels as -these every evening.” - -“I wear them very often.” - -Something aggressive in her tone aroused her brother. - -“You will not wear them any more,” he said harshly. “You must learn to -realize that they do not belong to you.” - -“I shall dispute that fact before the court.” - -“What court?” - -“I do not know yet, but some court--some court which sees to such -things.” - -“Pray be reasonable. You have not an inch of ground to stand on; there -is the settlement renewed every generation; the jewels are chattels and -the chattels are devised to the heir; they go with the dukedom.” - -“I shall see Mr. Gregge.” - -“Pray do. Mr. Gregge is not a very scrupulous man, but he is a man of -sense, and he will not tell you to run your head against a stone wall.” - -“If he do not do his duty, I shall employ someone else.” - -“No decent attorney in the three kingdoms would take up such a case. -You have no more title to the Otterbourne jewels than the woman selling -primroses at the corner of the street.” - -“So _you_ say.” - -“It is not what I say, it is what the law says; what the dead men’s -wills say; what the Lord Chancellor himself would say if he were asked. -You are a person accustomed to do whatever you like and to bewitch -any man who approaches you, but you will find there are some things -stronger than yourself, and one of them is the common law of England, -which in this instance is dead against you.” - -With these words he rose. - -Then, with one of those audacious inspirations which might have made -her a great general had she been a man, she added between her teeth-- - -“Perhaps you would like to see them and convince yourself of their -safety? Will you come to my room? The safe is screwed to its stand.” - -She spoke without apprehension because she knew that the false diamonds -would defy detection by anyone except an expert. Hurstmanceaux was -reassured by the frankness of the offer. - -“No, oh, no!” he said less coldly. “I will of course take your word for -it that they are all there.” - -“You are really too confiding,” said his sister very contemptuously. -She rose also with tightened teeth, dilated nostrils, flashing eyes. -“Your conduct is infamous! To insult your own sister!” - -“There is no insult,” said Hurstmanceaux. “An honest woman would not -want to be asked twice to give up what is not her own.” - -“Out of my presence!” she cried with a shrill sound in her voice like -that of the wind as it rises in storm. - -“With pleasure,” said her brother very coldly. “To-morrow is Sunday. -On Monday at ten o’clock in the morning they will come from the bank -for the jewels, and you will consult your own interests best by giving -them up without more of this folly; we shall have them valued afresh by -Hunt and Roskell, for values change with time.” - -“Out of my presence, and never dare to enter it again so long as -you live!” she said with fury, whilst she twisted her handkerchief -between her hands as though it were Jack’s little throat that she was -strangling. - -Hurstmanceaux shrugged his shoulders, bowed to her slightly, and went -out of the room. - -To a more suspicious man the impression that she had some worse motive -for her opposition than a mere vain reluctance to part with these -ornaments would have suggested itself; but he was not suspicious, and -he knew that women of her type would sell their souls to be smarter -than their neighbors. - -“Cocky only put me in his will,” he thought ruefully, “because he knew -that I was up to her tricks, and should put the curb on her for the -young un’s sake.” - -He did his duty loyally; but the doing of it was extremely disagreeable -to him. He could not help being fond of her; he never could wholly -forget the time when she had been a little, saucy, lovely, bewitching -child, resting her golden curls on his shoulder when he went home from -Eton or Oxford. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV. - - -When he went downstairs he summoned the major-domo into the library on -the ground floor, where Cocky’s sporting literature still strewed the -tables. - -“Mason, her Grace leaves this house on the first of July,” he said to -that functionary. - -“Very good, my lord,” said Mason, with impassable countenance. - -“You see, Mason,” continued Ronald, “the duchess is of course in a very -altered position; if the duke had lived----” - -“Quite so, my lord,” said Mason, who thought: “Bless us and save us! If -he had, everything would have gone in the smelting-pot.” - -“Her establishment will be much diminished; I am afraid she will be -obliged to relinquish your services and those of others.” - -“Oh, my lord,” said Mason with a respectful little gesture which -implied that persons like himself were always in demand at all seasons, -and that the loss would be her Grace’s, not his. - -“Well, you will see that everything is packed up that belongs to the -family, and you will see that the house is put in due order to be given -up to its owners on the last day of the month; for your wages and those -of the others you will go to the late duke’s lawyers.” - -Mr. Mason’s face clouded haughtily at the word wages, but he was a -good-hearted man--he did not openly resent. - -“I beg pardon, my lord,” he said with hesitation, “but does her Grace -know she leaves the house?” - -“Yes,” said Ronald. “That is, she knows she must leave it.” - -“And do you think she will, my lord?” - -“She must!” - -Mason shook his head. - -“The duchess never does what is not agreeable to her, my lord.” - -“She must leave it; and you must see that preparations are duly made, -so that she cannot remain in it.” - -Mr. Mason coughed slightly. - -“My lord, I have heard that there are tenants in Ireland who will not -go out till the thatch is set afire over their heads, and even then let -themselves and their pigs be burnt rather than give up possession. I -mean no disrespect, my lord, when I venture to say that my lady--I mean -her Grace--is very much of that kind of temper, my lord.” - -“I know she is,” said Hurstmanceaux. “That is why I speak to you on -this matter. Go out of the house she must.” - -“Of course I will do my best, my lord,” said Mason in a dubious tone; -he knew if her Grace did not choose anything to be packed up nothing -would be. - -At that moment Cecile, the head maid, entered; she was a tall, -supercilious, conceited-looking Swiss woman of forty. - -“If you please, my lord,” she said, looking impudently in Ronald’s -face, “her Grace would be glad to know when you mean to go out of the -house, as her Grace is waiting to come downstairs.” - -Hurstmanceaux turned his back on her. - -“You have received my orders, Mason. The landlord resumes possession -here on the last day of the month.” - -Then he went into the hall and out of the house door. - -“_Quel ours!_” said Cecile, with her nose in the air. She liked -gentlemen like the foreign diplomatist who had gone to see the -Battersea birds. - -Mr. Mason shook his head in a melancholy manner. - -“I think we had better all of us leave,” he said gloomily. “The Miser’s -got the purse-strings now and the duchess aren’t anywhere.” - -“_Moi, j’ resterai_,” said the Swiss woman. “She does hit one with the -hairbrush sometimes and pretty hard too, but she is first-rate fun, -and always leaves her letters about, and never knows what she has or -she hasn’t. Take my word for it, Mr. Mason, _she_ will always live in -clover.” - -“I dare say she will,” said the more virtuous Mason. “But it won’t be -correct, now Cocky’s gone; and myself I shall give her the go-by.” - -Their mistress meanwhile was walking up and down her morning-room, a -prey to many torturing and conflicting thoughts. She knew that she had -done an unwise and an ill-bred thing in sending that message by Cecile -to her brother, but her rage had outstripped her prudence. Ronald was -the best friend she had, and she had proved it a thousand times; but an -ungovernable hatred seethed within her against him. He and Harry--she -did not know which she hated the more, which of the two had insulted -her the more infamously. A woman may lose all title to respect, but -that is no reason why she does not retain every pretension to it. - -Nothing could ever have persuaded her that she had lost her right to -have everyone hold her in the highest esteem. Nevertheless, she had -sense enough to be aware that she was in a very odious position, and -that she might very easily be in one which would be absolute disgrace, -one which would place her on the level with those poor simpletons -whom she had always scorned so immeasurably, women who had lost their -natural position and were nowhere at home, and could only get received -at Florence tea-tables and Homburg picnics and Monaco supper parties. -She had always thought that she would sooner die than be put in the -basket with the _pêches à quinze_ series. For she was intensely -proud, and had made many a poor woman who had been compromised feel -the weight of her disdain and the sting of her cruelty. She always -intended to enjoy herself, to do exactly whatever she pleased, but she -never intended to lose her right to present Boo ten years hence at the -Drawing-room. People who did lose their place were idiots. So she had -always thought, but at the present moment she was obliged to feel that -she might very easily lose her place herself. - -Beaumont had frightened her, but he had not frightened her so intensely -as had her brother; and, as he had given her six months’ time, she had -with her usual happy _insouciance_ almost dismissed the peril from her -mind. But she knew her brother’s character and she knew that he would -send the men from the bank at the time fixed as punctually as the clock -would strike eleven. And then from the bank he would send the jewels -to Hunt and Roskell, and that admirable imitation of the roc’s egg, -which would deceive the unaided eye of anyone, would be detected in -its falseness by their acids or their wheels or whatever the things -were with which jewelers tested diamonds. And then he, despite his -unsuspicious stupidity, would know, without any further proof, that she -had pawned or sold the original. - -“I am at home to no one,” she said to her footman, and continued to -walk up and down the room in nervous agitation. - -She had several engagements, such engagements as her mourning allowed, -but she ignored them all; she could not see anyone until she could find -out some way of exit from this hideous labyrinth of trouble. - -Suddenly it flashed upon her mind that, do what she would, she could -not get the diamond in time for Monday morning. It was in Paris. If -she went to Paris without the money she would be no nearer to it; and -besides, her sudden departure would at once awaken the suspicions of -Jack’s guardians. She must not only find the large sum of money needed, -but she must also find someone who would go to Paris and bring the -stone back before Monday forenoon. - -There were many men who were devoted to her, but as she ran over their -names in her mind she could think of no one whose adoration, whether -expectant or retrospective, would be equal to such a strain on it as -that; nor everyone to whom she could quite safely trust her secret. - -There are very pretty theories and ideals about the honor of men of -the world, but she knew such men down to the ground, as she would have -phrased it, and she had few illusions about their honor. She knew that -when they are in love with one woman they show up to that one all the -others who have preceded her in their affections. Harry, indeed, she -might have trusted; but she had broken with him, and even if she had -not done so, he could no more have raised a seventh part of the money -than he could have uprooted St. James’s Palace. He was stone broke, -as he said himself. Her little travelling timepiece, which stood on -her writing-table, seemed to sway over the seconds and minutes with a -fiendish rapidity. Half an hour had gone by since her brother had left -her, and she was no nearer a solution to her torturing difficulties. -Other women would have weakened and compromised themselves by running -to some female confidant, but she had none; with her own sisters she -was always on the terms of an armed neutrality and in female friends -she had never seen any object or savor. As soon as a woman was intimate -with you she only tried to take your men away from you; she never gave -any woman the opportunity to do so. - -Another quarter of an hour passed by; she heard her horses stamping on -the stones beneath the windows; she heard the children scamper down the -staircase on their way to their afternoon walk in the park; she heard -people drive up and drive away as they were met by the inexorable “Not -at home” of the good-looking youth in powder and black shoulder-knots -who opened the hall door. - -How horrible! she thought, oh, how horrible! This might be the very -last day on which anybody would call on her! For she knew well enough -that the offence she had committed was one which, once made public, -would close to her the only world for which she cared. “And yet I -really meant no harm,” she thought. “I thought the thing was mine or -would be. Why did that odious Poodle lend it me? So treacherous! Why -did he not explain to me that it was a ‘chattel’? What is a chattel? -Why did Beaumont advance the money upon it? He was much more to blame -than I am, because of course he knew the law.” - -In that she was perhaps not wrong, for though the world may blame only -the borrower, the lender is not seldom the wickeder of the two. - -Tired out with her ceaseless pacing to and fro over the carpet, her -nerve gave way, and for almost the first time in her life she burst -into tears, bitter, hysterical, cruel tears, the tears which disfigure -and age the woman who sheds them. The Blenheims, infinitely distressed, -jumped on her lap and endeavored to console her; rubbing their little -red and white heads against her cheeks. Their caresses touched her in -her loneliness. “We hated Cocky, you and I,” she said to them; “but I -wish to heaven he had never died.” With all her keen enjoyment of life -she really understood in that hour of torture how it was that women -driven at bay killed themselves to escape detection and condemnation. -She did not mean to kill herself because she was a woman of many -resources and had her beautiful face and form, and loved life; but she -felt that she would rather kill herself than meet Ronald’s eyes if he -learned that the Indian diamond had been changed and pawned. And know -it he must as soon as Hunt and Roskell’s assayer tested the stones. -Beaumont had told her honestly that the imitation would deceive anyone, -even a jeweler, unless it were tested; but that tested it would of -course fly in pieces and confess itself a fraud. - -She had only forty-three hours before the messenger from the bank -would come. Whatever she did had to be done before the stones were -consigned to him, for after they were out of her possession she would -not be safe for a moment. At all costs she must get back the roc’s egg -from Beaumont or be a ruined, disgraced, miserable woman. True, she -felt sure that her brother and the Ormes would not expose her to the -world. They would scrape the money together at all costs, and redeem -the jewel, and observe secrecy on the whole abominable affair; but she -would be in their power for ever; they would be able to punish her in -any way they chose, and their punishment would certainly take the form -of exiling her from everything which made life worth living. - -The old churchman, Lord Augustus, was hardly more than a lay figure, -but Alberic, she knew, looked on her with all the disdain and dislike -of a refined and religious man, for one whom he condemned in all -her ways and whom he considered had made his brother and his father -dupes from the first day of her marriage. And Ronald would be but -the more bitterly inflexible because he would consider that her near -relationship to himself compelled him in honor to the uttermost -severity in judgment and action; he would consider that he could not -show to her the indulgence he might have shown to a stranger. - -Her fit of weeping exhausted itself by its own violence, and as she -glanced at her face in the glass she was horrified to see her red and -swollen eyelids and her complexion smudged and dulled like a pastel -which some ignorant servant has dusted. - -“Nothing on earth is worth the loss of one’s beauty,” she said to -herself, and she went upstairs and, without summoning her maid, washed -her face with rosewater and ran a comb through her hair; the Blenheims -sitting on either side of her, critical of processes with which they -were familiar. - -As she sat before her toilet-table and its oval silver-framed swinging -mirror, her eyes fell by chance on a glove box made of tortoise shell -and gold, with two gold amorini playing with a fawn on its lid. - -“Billy!” she said suddenly, half aloud. - -William Massarene had given her the box when she had betted gloves with -him at the previous year’s Goodwood races. - -“Billy!” she said again under her breath. - -Yes, there was Billy; the only person in the whole world who could do -for her what she wanted without feeling it. - -She would have to tell him, to make him understand the urgency of it, -some portion of the truth; the blood rushed over her face with the -repulsion of pride. Tell her necessities to the man she bullied and -despised! She sat with her eyes fixed on the two gold cupids thinking -how she could put the story so that she would not be lowered in his -eyes. It was a difficult and embarrassing test of her ingenuity, for -not only had she to get the money out of him but she must get him -to send or to go to Paris by that evening’s train. She had pillaged -Massarene without shame or compunction. She had made him “bleed” -without stint. She had made him do a thousand follies, costly to -himself but useful to her, like the purchases of Blair Airon and Vale -Royal. She had rooked him without mercy, considering that she did him -an honor in noticing him at all. But, by some contradiction, or some -instinct of pride or of decency, she shrank at the idea of actually -borrowing money from him--of actually being indebted to him for a great -service. - -In all lesser transactions with him she had considered him her debtor -for her patronage; but to make him do this, to make him pay Beaumont -and restore her the Indian stone, would be to become his debtor. There -was no shirking the fact. Would she ever be able to bully and insult -him afterwards? Yes, why not? He was a cad, a snob, a horror; such men -were only made to be trodden on and have their ears boxed. - -She decided that it did not matter what a low-bred brute like him -knew or thought, and that since Providence had given her a rich idiot -into her hands it would be worse than folly not to use his resources. -Anything, anything, was better than to let the imitation jewel go to -Hunt and Roskell for inevitable detection. And there were now only -forty-three hours in which to act. - -He was in town she knew. He was in town because she was in town, and -because the House was sitting. Where should she see him? - -To send for him to her residence might cause some story to get about; -to go to Harrenden House was still more compromising unless she began -by a visit to his wife, which would be round about and cause delay; she -knew he might very possibly be at the Commons--new members are always -very assiduous in their attendance--and he was at that time serving on -a Royal Commission on some agricultural difficulty. She had herself -dressed, feeling that Cecile looked curiously at her, and telling the -woman to take the dogs in Kensington Gardens, she went to her carriage -which had been waiting two hours. - -“To Palace Yard!” she said to her footman: the horses, irritated in -temper and with their mouths and necks in pain from their long penance -in their bearing-reins, flew thither with the speed of the wind. - -She sent for Mr. Massarene, who was, the doorkeeper said, in the House. -After a few moments he came out to her with the deferential haste -of an enamored man, which sat ill on his broad squat figure and his -iron-grey, elderly, respectable, tradesmanlike aspect. - -“I want to speak to you a moment,” she said as he came and stood by the -carriage. “Can you give me a cup of tea on the terrace?” - -“Certainly, certainly!” he stammered, confused by a dual sentiment--the -charm of her presence and the fear that it would look odd to be seen -with her. “The committee I am on has just ended its sitting,” he added -with the pride which he felt in his functions. “I shall be delighted if -I can be of any use.” - -“There is no one there now, is there?” she asked, sensible as he was -that her appearance in such a public place would look very strange. - -“No one, or next to no one. No one of your friends, certainly. A few -Radical members.” - -“They don’t matter,” she said, and went with him through the House to -the terrace. - -He gave her a seat and ordered tea. He was dazzled and intimidated -as he always was by her presence, but he was conscious that her -beguilements always ended in some advantage for herself, so that he was -less flattered than he would otherwise have been by her sudden appeal -to him. - -It was a grey day, the river was in fog, but the air was windless and -mild. - -She threw back her veil and the pale light fell on the brightness of -her hair, and the beauty of her face enhanced by the frame of crape. -The traces of her weeping had passed away, leaving her face softer and -whiter than usual with a tremor on the mouth like that of a little -child who has been scolded. - -William Massarene’s observant eyes read those signs. “She’s in some -real sharp trouble this time, I reckon,” he said to himself. - -He was a man who had never known pity, but he did feel sorry for her. - -She made the mistake of judging him from the exterior. Because he -was afraid of her and of her friends, because he did not know how -to bow, because he made ludicrous mistakes in language and manner, -because he crumbled his bread on the dinner-cloth, and never used his -finger-glass, she imagined him to be a fool. - -She did not understand that if he let himself be robbed he did so with -a purpose and not out of feebleness. She did not understand that, -although he was hypnotized by her because he was under the influence -of a woman for the first time, there was always alive underneath his -obedience the sharp, keen, brutal selfishness which had made him the -great man he was. - -“What is the trouble, my lady?” he said, leaning forward, his hands on -his knees in his usual attitude. “Why, lord, you’re no more made for -trouble than a white cockatoo’s for mud and rain.” - -There was not a soul on the terrace; the attendant who had brought the -tea-tray had retired; there was the scream and roar of a steam-tug -coming up the river in the fog, and a factory bell on the opposite -shore was clanging loudly: she thought she should hear those two sounds -in her ears as long as ever she should live. - -She knew that there was no time to lose, that the moments were tearing -along like sleuth-hounds, that she must tell him now or never, must get -his help or be ruined. - -She was of high physical courage; she had slid from the back of a -rearing horse; she had never lost her nerve on a yacht-deck in a storm, -when men were washed overboard like chickens; she had been perfectly -cool and self-possessed one awful night on a Highland mountain when she -and her whole party had lost their way for twelve hours of snow-drift -and hurricane; but now, for the first time in her life, she was -nerveless, and felt her tongue cleave to the roof of her mouth and her -spirit fail her. - -“Come, keep up your pecker,” said Mr. Massarene in what he meant to be -a kindly encouragement. “Come, tell me what the matter is, my pretty -one.” - -She started like a doe past whose side a bullet whistles as the odious -familiarity struck her ear--the familiarity which she did not dare to -resent, the familiarity which told her how much the expression of her -face must have confessed already. With dilated nostrils, through which -her breath came and went rapidly and in short pulsations, she plunged -midmost into her story: the story as arranged and decorated and trimmed -by her own intelligent skill, wherein she was plainly the victim of -circumstance, of her own ignorance, of a tradesman’s deceitfulness, and -of her relatives’ cruelty and harshness. The old duke, she averred, had -given her the jewels; but it seemed there was nothing to show that he -had done so, and her brother and brothers-in-law were so inconceivably -base as to doubt her word for it, and to claim them for the heir as -“real estate.” No woman, she thought, had ever been so brutally treated -in the whole history of the world. - -She spoke at first hesitatingly and with visible embarrassment, but she -grew more at her ease as she got her story well in hand, and she became -eloquent in the description of her wrongs. - -William Massarene followed her narrative attentively and without -interruption, leaning a little forward with his hands on his knee -and glancing round to see that no one was in sight to wonder at his -flattering but compromising _tête-à-tête_. He was magnetized by her -voice, dazzled by her eyes, but what she spoke of was a matter of -business and he was beyond all else a man of business. Business was -his own domain. On that he was master; in that it was not in the power -of anyone to cheat him. His sharp perception quickly understood her -position, disentangled facts from fiction, and comprehended in what -danger she was placed. He did not let her see that he knew she was -glossing over and changing the circumstances; but he did know it, and -stripped the false from the true in his own reflections as surely as he -had shifted gold from quartz in his days in the gold-fields. He could -have turned her narrative inside out and rent it to pieces in a second, -but he forbore to do so, and appeared to accept her version of the -matter as she presented it to him. - -“But what made you take the jewels to this Beaumont?” he asked her as -she paused. - -“I wanted money,” she said sullenly. - -“Was it before you knew me?” - -“Just before.” - -“And you asked nobody’s advice?” - -“No.” - -The ghost of a grim smile flitted over his face: certainly for -consummate folly he thought these great folks beat anything in all -creation. - -“Oh, don’t laugh at one, Billy,” she said with genuine mortification -and shame in her voice. “You don’t know what it is to want money as we -do.” - -He looked at her indulgently. - -“I dare say it’s hard on you. You have to keep up all that swagger on -nothing. Well, as I understand the matter, you must have these diamonds -before Monday forenoon, eh?” - -“Yes,” she said shortly, with a catch in her breath; she felt by the -change in his tone how far she had descended from her pedestal by her -confession. “Oh, the brute!” she thought passionately; “how I should -love to strangle him and fling him into the Thames pea-soup!” - -“What is it you want me to do?” he asked, whilst he knew without -asking; but he liked “to keep her nose to the grindstone”; he was but -paying in fair coin the innumerable insults she had passed on him, the -countless awkward and painful moments she had entailed on him. - -She took up all her courage and trusted to the magic of her influence -over him. - -“I want you to go over to Paris and get them for me. I dare say you -could get them for half price. Beaumont would be afraid of you.” - -His face did not reveal his thoughts; his dull grey eyes stared at her -fixedly. - -“What was the sum you had from him?” - -“Three hundred thousand francs; but then there is the cast of the false -stones to add to that and the interest.” - -She spoke the truth in this, for she knew that it would be no use to do -otherwise. - -“And what did you sign for?” - -“I can’t remember.” - -William Massarene laughed, a short, rasping, grim sound, like the -chuckle of the big woodpecker. - -“Beaumont has a very good reputation,” she added. “He never cheats. He -was once a gentleman, they say.” - -“And gentlefolks never cheat, do they, my lady!” - -“Oh, Billy, don’t mock at me,” she cried with genuine distress. “I am -in horrible trouble. I have told you everything because you are my -friend. Will you do this thing or won’t you?” - -“How will you pay me if I do?” - -“Pay you!” - -In her heart of hearts she knew that she had not the remotest intention -of ever paying him. - -“How will you pay me if I do?” he repeated. A look came into his eyes -as they stared on her which might have warned her that he was not a man -who would go for ever unpaid. She was silent; she really did not know -what to say. She knew that she hated him horribly. But she had no other -chance. - -He enjoyed her discomfiture. - -“You’ll pay me somehow, I reckon,” he said, after leaving her in -torture for a few moments. “Well, I’ll do this thing for you. I’ll go -to Paris to-night. Send me a line from you authorizing me to treat for -you with this jeweler. I’ll get back to-morrow evening. You’ll be at -your house by ten o’clock, and I’ll come there straight from Cannon -Street. Mind you’re alone.” - -The rough authority of the sentences chilled her to the bone; she -realized that he was no more her timid obedient slave, but her master, -and a master with a whip. Something in the expression of his face made -her sick with fear. But there was no other means, no other saviour; -if she offended him, if she rejected the aid she had asked for, -the false stones would go to Hunt and Roskell, and her brother and -brothers-in-law would know everything. - -“You’d better go now,” said William Massarene, reading in her mind as -if it were a book. “This aren’t a place to talk secrets; and pull your -veil down, for you look out of sorts, my dear!” - -A shudder of rage passed through her as she heard his words. Oh, how -she hated herself that she had been such an imbecile as to drift into a -position in which this wretched cad could dare speak to her as he would -speak to a mill-hand in Milwaukee. - -Oh, heavens! How dreadful it was, she thought, to loathe and despise -a man, and yet to be obliged to use him! It was all her brother’s -fault, who had placed her in such an odious and agonizing position! It -seemed as if the whole of humanity, dead and living, were in conspiracy -against her! - -“Look here, my dear,” said Mr. Massarene in a low tone, as they crossed -the Speaker’s Court, “I’ll send you round to your house in an hour a -line or two that you’ll sign. Mere matter of form, but must be done, or -I can’t treat with your jeweler. Sign it, put it in a sealed envelope, -and send it back by the bearer. When I get it, I’ll take the club train -at nine o’clock. To-morrow’s Sunday. There’s nothing odd in going out -of town on Sunday.” - -“Very well,” she said faintly; for it had never occurred to her mind -that Billy would be business-like with herself. She was used to people -who, whether they had little or much, never stooped to _marchander_. -Nobody had ever asked her to sign anything before, except Beaumont. - -“What do you want a signature for?” she said impatiently. “Can’t you -forget you sold sausages?” - -She was looking at a brougham entering the courtyard, and not at the -face of William Massarene; had she seen it, careless as she was, she -might have been alarmed. - -He did not reply. - -As he put her in her carriage, she said, with anxiety: - -“You won’t tell anybody, will you?” - -William Massarene smiled grimly. - -“A man who sold sausages don’t come to be what I am by telling people -what he does. Telling aren’t my habit, your Grace. Go straight home and -wait for my messenger.” - -She was not used to remembering that her servants existed, but she -was for once nervously conscious that the footman holding open the -carriage-door heard these words, and must wonder at them. Oh, what a -path of thorns she had entered upon, all because Providence, or the -Ormes, or Ronnie, or whatever it was, had made life so difficult for -her! - -She did go straight home, for she was conscious that she could not -afford to miss Massarene’s messenger, who arrived punctually within the -hour. - -She glanced feverishly at what he had sent her; a few lines printed in -typewriting, so that his own handwriting did not appear; it seemed to -her inoffensive; it authorized him to pay Beaumont the money for her, -and get back the Otterbourne jewels; it further stated that when he -should have completed the transaction, she would be his debtor for the -sum of twelve thousand pounds sterling. This last clause she did not -like. It alarmed her. For an instant a flash of good sense came across -her mind and suggested to her that it would be a thousand times better -to send for Ronald, even for any of the Ormes, and confess her position -to one of them, than to put herself in the power of this man whom she -had cheated, fooled, derided, ridiculed, and ordered about under the -whip of her contemptuous words. Her relatives would save her from all -exposure, at whatever painful cost to themselves. But her vanity and -her stubbornness rejected the whispers of common sense. She detested -Alberic Orme, and her feeling toward her brother was now little less -virulent. “No!” she said to herself, “rather than confess myself and -humiliate myself to either of them, I would die like Sarah Bernhardt in -_Ixeile_!” But she forgot that there are worse things than death. - -After hesitating for ten minutes, and looking down with disgust on -this paper, which looked so vulgar with its big type-written words, -she decided with a reckless plunge into the unknown to sign it, and -scrawled at the bottom of the lines the name which she wrote so seldom, -Clare Otterbourne. With similar haste she thrust it into an envelope, -sealed and sent it down to Massarene’s messenger. - -She cried bitterly when it was irrevocably gone from her, but she -felt that she could do no less than she had done; everybody took such -dreadful advantage of poor Cocky’s death! - -“I shall treat the beast worse than ever,” she thought, as her sobs -ceased gradually. “_Poignez vilain il vous oindra._” - -She had always beaten her _vilain_, and he had always submitted and -cowed before her. She believed that he would do so as long as he lived. - -For this satirical, intelligent, and _fin-de-siècle_ creature, so quick -to see and ridicule the follies and frailties of other creatures, did -not in the very faintest degree understand the stuff of which William -Massarene was made. - -Meantime, he was travelling toward Dover in the club train with the -type-written paper safe in his inner breast-pocket. This errand pleased -him. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV. - - -She had never known great anxiety before. She had had many worries, -many troublesome moments, when she wanted money, but never such a -weight of care as this. There had always been Cocky, on to whose -shoulders she had been able to throw the blame of everything; and whose -ingenuity had frequently (for a consideration) been of exceeding use -to her. Now she was alone, without even the solace of having Harry to -quarrel with and upbraid; and she had put herself and her secret and -her signature into the hands of William Massarene. When she thought of -it she felt as if a rush of ice-cold wind passed over her. - -It was Sunday. She went to a fashionable church and took Boo with her, -looking a picture of childish loveliness in the crape frock, and her -big black hat and her little black silk legs displayed far above the -knee. - -“Mammy’s got a lot o’ bills to pay,” said Boo at the schoolroom dinner. - -“How d’you know?” asked Jack. - -“Cos she prayed such a deal,” said his sister. “She flopped down on her -knees and I think she cried.” - -“There must be bills then,” said Jack seriously. “Or p’rhaps,” he -added, “’twas only the church. Churches is always sorrowful.” - -“I don’t mind ’em,” said Boo. “There’s a lot o’ fun in people’s -bonnets. I drawed two or three bonnets in my Prayer Book.” - -Their mother was, indeed, as Boo’s observant eyes had discovered, -greatly disturbed and apprehensive. Throughout the service of the -fashionable church she was absorbed in one thought: would Billy play -her false? Would he, if he were true to her, be in time? Might not -Beaumont be away from Paris for the Sunday, like so many Parisian -tradesmen; he had a country house, she knew, at Compigne. What would -happen to her if, when the men from Coutts’s came, and she had not the -veritable diamonds to give? - -Exposure, complete and inevitable, must follow; when the jewels should -be brought to valuation Hurstmanceaux and the Ormes must at least know -the truth, and that seemed to her worse than to be pilloried, as people -were of old, and stoned by the multitude. - -She thought she could trust “Billy”; she felt that a hard-headed man -of business would not go over to Paris on so grave an errand and -leave it undone; but she could not be sure, a thousand things might -happen. Channel steamers never do get wrecked, but the one in which -he crossed might do so; the train might come to grief; Paris might be -in revolution; Paris made revolutions as rapidly as it made omeletts -for breakfast; she was not naturally imaginative, but in this tension -of terror her fancy conjured up innumerable horrors as she apparently -kneeled in prayer. - -When she came home she shut herself up in her bedroom, said she had -a headache and took a little chloral. As she lay on her sofa, with a -handkerchief over her eyes, she heard the children trundling down the -staircase to go for their afternoon drive; they always were driven -somewhere into the country on Sunday afternoons to avoid the crowds and -noise of the parks. She heard Jack’s voice shouting a negro melody as -he jumped down three stairs at a time. She got up despite her headache -and her chloral, opened her door which led on to the stairs, and caught -the little sinner as he passed her by his blouse. - -“How can you let the duke disgrace himself so?” she said sternly to the -governess. “The very boys in the street respect the seventh day.” - -Then, still with her fair hand closed fast on the blouse she said to -the wearer of it: “I am shocked at you, Jack! Go upstairs to your room -and stay there. You do not go out to-day.” - -The great tears brimmed up in Jack’s eyes, but he would not cry; he -looked at her with a fixed reproachful, indignant look, very like -Brancepeth. - -The governess and the nurses all pleaded for him; everyone in the -household loved Jack as they hated Boo. But it was in vain; his -mother was in that kind of mood when every woman must have a victim, -and he was all that offered to her. He was taken upstairs to be -locked in his chamber by a sympathetic under-nurse, who whispered -consolation. Boo, half vexed, half pleased, called after him with much -self-righteousness: “I telled you never to sing those naughty songs. -Didn’t I tell you, Jack?” - -Jack did not reply or look round; he went manfully onward and upward to -his doom. His mother retired to her own repose, whilst Boo, with the -two other little boys, descended down to the entrance-hall. She was -glad to think of Jack shut up in solitude and fretting his heart out -this fine clear rainless afternoon in May. - -The governess and the head nurse whispered together in the landau as to -the duchess’s strange unkindness to her eldest son. Boo, who never lost -a word of their whispering, when she sat between them, turned up her -pretty nose: “Mammy don’t like Jack ’cos he’s got everything; she’s got -to give him her jewels.” - -For Boo, unseen and forgotten, had been sitting in the next room, -playing with her big doll which talked, whilst the scene concerning the -jewels had taken place between her mother and her uncle. Boo enjoyed -anything which bothered Mammy. Only Boo was of opinion that the jewels -ought to be her own, not Jack’s. - -Meantime poor Jack, crying his heart out on his bed, thought, “Whatever -good is it being a duke? Two of ’em have had to die one after the -other, and I’ve got to be shut up here. And how mean it was of Boo to -crow over me. Boo’s so like mammy. I wish there were no women and no -girls.” - -At that moment the sympathetic under-nurse brought him two peaches and -a raspberry ice, which she had begged for from the kitchen, and Jack -kissed her and thought better of her sex. - -“I wish all women were dead ’cept you, Harriet,” he said tenderly. - -“Oh, your Grace, don’t say that,” said Harriet. “But it was to be sure -cruel unkind of your mamma.” - -“I hate mammy,” said Jack with a deep drawn breath. “She took away my -Punch, and she’s sent away Harry.” - -“Oh, your Grace, don’t let yourself blame your mamma,” said the good -nursemaid. “But for sure it is hard to be shut up here on a bright -breezy day. But eat your peaches, dear, ’twill all be the same -to-morrow.” - -“But you’re shut up too, Harriet,” said Jack, regarding her -thoughtfully. - -“Law, yes, sir, I never hardly gets an hour out.” - -“But you’d like to go out?” - -“Yes, sir; but them as it above me, you see, don’t think of that.” - -Jack ceased munching his peach and looked at her gravely. “I think -that’s very wrong. When I’m a man, Harriet, _everybody_ shall have -hours out.” - -“You dear little soul,” thought Harriet, “you think so now, but when -you’re a man I dessay you’ll be like all the others, and think only of -yourself.” - -“No, Harriet,” said Jack, solemnly divining her thoughts, “no, I -sha’n’t forget.” - -The solace of having hurt Jack only momentarily diverted his mother -from her torturing thoughts for a brief space of time. Her mind -returned in fretting and feverish anxiety to the mission on which -William Massarene had gone. - -Two or three intimate friends were coming to dine with her at eight -o’clock. She wrote a few hasty words and put them off on the score of -her headache; they were intimate friends, and what is intimacy worth -if it does not enable us to sacrifice our intimates to ourselves? The -notes sent, she went to sleep and slept fitfully for some hours. She -really felt ill, for she was so unused to severe mental disturbance -that it affected her physical health. She would have liked to send -for her physician, but she was afraid he would perceive that she had -something on her mind. She saw in the mirror that she did not look like -herself. - -She was so unused to being alone, that solitude was in itself an -illness to her. She had no resource of any kind; everything bored her -except the life she was used to lead. She could never imagine why -people read books or wrote them. Even the newspapers she had never -read, except when they had had something about herself or Cocky. - -William Massarene had said, “Mind you are alone,” and she felt that it -would be the height of imprudence to have any of her friends with her -when he should make his appearance at ten o’clock. She took a bowl of -hot soup, a little claret, and a little fruit, and felt better. She had -herself arrayed in a tea-gown of crape, with loose floating sleeves -and a long train which trailed after her; it was very becoming; her -hair was loosely wound round her head, and a high jet comb was stuck in -it. She went down and into her boudoir. It was eight o’clock. She had -forgotten Jack. Lights shaded with big butterfly shades were burning -low. The room was full of the scent of lilies of the valley. It was a -nest for human nightingales. And she had to wait for an odious brute -out of Dakota, who had got her signature for twelve thousand pounds! -How disgracefully inappropriate to the boudoir and to herself! - -There were several rings at the door-bell which echoed through the hall -below; but no one came for her. - -She felt it was a blessing that Harry could not come; he had been used -to racing up the stairs when he heard she was unwell, and forcing his -entry by right of usage. And yet in a way she missed Harry. She had -always been able to make him believe anything. - -Ten o’clock struck at last. She shivered when she heard it. If the man -did not come, what on earth would she do in the morning? She almost -resolved to take the jewel-safe and go out of England. Certainly -neither Ronald nor the Ormes would pursue her as a common thief. But -after a moment’s consideration she knew that to do this would be -useless. They would find her wherever she went, and her life would be -ruined. No, she reflected, there was nothing but to trust to Billy. She -had always had immeasurable power over him, and moved him about like a -pawn at chess. She did not doubt that she would always be able to do -the same. _Ce que femme vent!_ was her gospel. - -She belonged to a world in which the grace and charm of women are still -very dominant features; but William Massarene belonged to one in which -woman was represented by a round O, except in as far as she was wanted -for child-bearing and household work. In her latest transaction with -him she had confided in him as if he had been a gentleman; she had -ignored what she knew so well, that he was but a low brute varnished -by money. She expected him to behave as a gentleman would have done -in similar circumstances, forgetting that he had neither blood nor -breeding in him. - -She watched the movements of the hands of the little timepiece with -intense anxiety. The tidal train arrived in Cannon Street at half-past -nine. He might have been here by ten. It was twenty minutes past ten -when the bell downstairs rang loudly. It was he! A few moments later -a manservant ushered him into her presence; she had given orders that -they should do so immediately on his arrival. - -He was hot from his journey and dusty, and had some of the smoke of -funnel and engine upon him; he had never been more unlovely: he had -his hat on his head as he entered and his overcoat on his shoulders; -he took both off slowly as a man does in whose eyes good clothes are -precious, and she watched them with her nerves strung to the highest -pitch, yet her intense agitation not excluding a vivid anger at his -want of ceremony. His coat carefully laid on a chair, and his gloves on -the top of it, he came and sat down before her, square, solid, hard as -a piece of old Roman masonry. - -“Well?” she said breathlessly. How cruel it was to keep her in such -suspense! - -“It’s all right, my lady,” he replied briefly. - -She raised herself on her couch, animation and color returning to her -face, light to her eyes, warmth to her face. - -“Oh, that is very good of you!” she exclaimed. “I am very grateful, -indeed I am.” - -William Massarene laughed a little, deep down in his throat. - -“Gratitude don’t wash, my dear. I never took a red cent of it in change -for any goods of mine.” - -“But I _am_ grateful,” she said, disconcerted and vaguely distressed. -“It was very good of you. What have you done with them? Where are they?” - -He took a large packet out of his inner breast-pocket. - -“I had the tiara dismounted because ’twas safer to carry it so. You’ll -know how to put it together, I guess.” - -With a scream of relief and delight she sprang up and seized the -packet, tears of joy welling up into her eyes. - -“Verify ’em,” said Massarene, and she undid the parcel and saw once -more the great dazzling egg diamond and all its lesser luminaries. He -watched her as a tom-cat on the tiles with gloating eyes may watch some -white graceful feline form walking amongst roses in a garden. - -“Verify ’em,” he repeated--“count ’em.” - -“I have, I have,” she said in her ecstasy. “They are the Otterbourne -diamonds just as I gave them to Beaumont. Oh, my dear good man, how can -I thank you?” - -He did not answer; he breathed so loudly and heavily that she thought -he was going to have a fit, and she could not but wish that he might -have one. Like a child with a toy she took the jewels and began fitting -them together to make the ornament she had so often worn. - -“Oh, how can I ever be seen without them! It is so monstrous, so brutal -to shut them up at Coutts’s unseen for all those years!” - -As soon as she had escaped from one danger she, woman-like, bewailed -another affliction. - -“How did you get over Beaumont,” she asked: “was he disagreeable about -me?” - -“No; like a man of sense he was glad to get his money and asked no -questions whence it came. Here is his receipt.” - -He held it before her, but he did not let it go out of his hands. She -saw that Beaumont had received of William Massarene, on behalf of the -Duchess of Otterbourne, the sum of three hundred thousand francs _plus_ -interest. A painful flush rose over her face as she saw that, and she -realized more distinctly what she had done. - -“How can I ever repay you?” she murmured. - -William Massarene’s thin tight-shut lips smiled, not agreeably. He put -the receipt back in his breast-pocket. - -“And my signature?” she said timidly, the first time in all her life -that timidity had ever assailed her. - -Then he smiled outright. - -“I ain’t Billy the scorned no more, am I, my dear? Where’s your cheek, -my lady?” - -Mouse, bending over the tiara which she was building up, turned sick -at his tone. She dared not resent it. She was vaguely but intensely -alarmed, and she was aware that this man, so long her butt and jest, -was her master. - -He sat with his hands still on his knees and with a horrible leer on -his dull eyes, gazing at her as a fox might look at a silver pheasant -from which nothing divided him. He had always succeeded in everything, -and now he had succeeded in getting _quid pro quo_ for all he had -endured and expended for her. - -As far as his sluggish passions could be aroused they were excited for -her; she had aroused in him one of those passions of mature years which -are more slow yet more brutal than those of youth. But stronger still -than this was his grim pleasure in her humiliation, in her silence, in -her subserviency. - -And what a fool she was, despite all her fine airs, and cool wit, and -sovereign disdain! - -He continued to gaze at her fixedly, the veins swelling like cords on -his forehead, his stertorous breath as loud as the gasp of an engine, -his small grey eyes grown red and shining luridly. - -“My signature?” she repeated in an unsteady voice. - -“You’ve got the jewels, my beauty. You can’t have no more.” - -“Then it is not generosity!” said Mouse passionately, and very unwarily -betraying her unfounded hopes. - -“No, my dear,” he answered, “I never said ’twas.” Then he put his -two big knotted yellow hands one on each knee, and looked at her -mercilessly. “Think I’ll take my payment now, or else the di’monds,” he -said, with a vile chuckle. - -She felt his odious grasp on her bare arms and his loathsome breath on -her cheek. - -“Don’t cry out, my beauty, or you’ll lose your di’monds,” he said, with -his lips on her shell-like ear. “You’ve got to be fond of Billy now!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI. - - -On the morrow, at the appointed hour, the real Otterbourne jewels -were consigned to the representatives of the Otterbourne bankers, and -Hurstmanceaux, like all kind-hearted persons, now that he had got his -own way, felt sorry he had been obliged to enforce it, especially as he -heard that his sister was unwell, and could see no one. “Poor little -Sourisette,” he thought remorsefully. “Perhaps I am too hard on her. -She had a beast of a husband. She is more to be pitied than blamed.” - -Always ready to forgive, he called in Stanhope Street more than once, -but she refused to see him. The children told him she was unwell and -invisible. - -Boo came flying down the staircase between the palms and pointsettias -in all the glee which to be the bearer of an unpleasant message -naturally afforded her. - -“Mammy says she won’t see you ever any more, uncle Ronald,” said this -miniature woman, with much contemptuous dignity. “She would like, if -you please, that you shouldn’t speak to her even in the street.” - -Boo felt very important, standing in the middle of the hall, in her -crape frock, with her black silk legs, and her golden cascade of hair -on her shoulders, as she delivered herself of this message, and pursed -up her lips like two red geranium buds. - -“Tell your mother that her desires shall be obeyed,” said -Hurstmanceaux, and he turned and went out, followed by the saucy echoes -of Boo’s triumphant laugh. - -She never liked her uncle Ronald; she was very pleased to see such a -big, tall, grown-up man go away in discomfiture. - -“You should have said it kinder, Boo,” murmured Jack, from above on the -staircase. - -“Why?” said Boo, with her chin in the air. “He don’t ever give us -anything, at least, hardly ever.” - -“Oh, yes, he does,” said Jack, with remonstrance. “And _she’s_ cruel -nasty. She’s took away the Punch, and sent away Harry.” He did not much -like his uncle Ronald, but he was sorry for him now that he, too, was -dismissed. - -Hurstmanceaux was sad at heart as he walked down Great Stanhope Street -into the Park; he was full of compunction for having, as he imagined, -wronged his sister about the jewels, and he was deeply wounded by the -unforgiving ingratitude of her feeling toward himself. He had made many -sacrifices to her in the past, and although a generous temper does not -count its gifts, he could not but feel that he received poor reward for -a devotion to her interests which had impoverished him to a degree he -could ill support. The day was bright and breezy, the flowers blazed -with color, the season was at its height, everyone and everything -around him was gay, but he himself felt that cheerless depression of -spirit which is born in us of the ingratitude of those we cherish. - -Katherine Massarene passed him, driving herself a pair of roan ponies. -She thought how weary and grave he looked, so unlike the man who had -laughed and talked with her as they had gone together over the snowy -pastures and the frozen ditches of the hunting country more than two -years before. - -“It’s really flying in the face of Providence, Ronnie, not to marry the -Massarene heiress,” said Daddy Gwyllian, that evening, in the stalls at -Covent Garden, letting fall his lorgnon, after a prolonged examination -of the Massarene box. - -“I never knew that Providence kept a Bureau de Marriage,” replied -Hurstmanceaux, “and I do not see what right you have to speak of that -lady as if she were a filly without a bidder at Tattersall’s.” - -“Without a bidder! Lord, no! She refuses ’em, they say, fifty a week. -But you know, Ronnie, you do fetch women uncommonly; look what scores -of ’em have been in love with you.” - -“If they have, I am sure it has benefited them very little, and myself -not at all,” replied Hurstmanceaux, very ungraciously. - -“She keeps a circular printed--a stamped form of refusal,” said Daddy -Gwyllian with glee. “Sends ’em out in batches. Have a mind to propose -to her myself, just for the fun of getting a circular.” - -“Your wit is as admirable as your invention is original,” said -Hurstmanceaux, with much impatience, glancing, despite himself, at the -box on the grand tier, where the classic profile and white shoulders -of Katherine Massarene were visible beside the large, gorgeous, and -much-jeweled person of her mother. - -Margaret Massarene disliked the opera-house. What she called the -“noise” always reminded her of the braying of bands and the rattling -of shots on a day of political excitement in Kerosene City. But she -was not displeased to sit in that blaze of light with her di’monds on -her ample bosom, and feel that she was as great a lady as any other -there; and she was proud and pleased to see the number of high and -mighty gentlemen who came to make their bow in her box, and with whom -Katherine “talked music” in the most recondite and artistic fashion. - -“That’s the Duchess’s brother down there,” she whispered, as she turned -her lorgnon on Hurstmanceaux. - -“It is,” replied Katherine. - -“Why don’t he come up here like the rest?” she asked. “He’s the best -looking of them all.” - -“He has never left his card on you,” answered her daughter. “It would -be very bad manners indeed if he came here.” - -“And why hain’t he left his card? I’m sure we’ve done enough for his -sister.” - -“He probably does not feel that any gratitude is obligatory on him. He -probably does not approve of her accepting favors from strangers.” - -“Then he’s born a century out of his time,” said Mrs. Massarene, with -the acuteness which occasionally flashed up in her. “In these days, my -dear, everybody takes all they can lay their hands on----” - -“Hush!” said Katherine, as Jean de Reszké came on to the stage. - -Margaret Massarene would have preferred a companion who would have worn -big pearls, and had some color in her gown, and who would have talked -all through “the music,” and would have made a sign with a flower or a -fan to that handsome man down there to come up with Daddy Gwyllian and -chat with them. - -“Why didn’t my lord come up with ye?” she asked, as Daddy did appear. - -“His lordship’s music mad, ma’am,” replied Daddy, who delighted in -adopting her style; “never misses a season at Bayreuth, or a _première_ -of Saint-Saëns’s.” - -“He’s never left a card, and ’tis rude,” said Mrs. Massarene. “We know -all his sisters and brothers-in-law.” - -“It _is_ rude, madam,” assented Daddy, “but men don’t go often where -they’re liable to meet their own families.” - -“That’s a heathen sentiment,” said Mrs. Massarene severely. - -“Only human nature,” said Daddy cheerfully. “Human nature is much the -same, dear lady, whether heathen, Chinee, or Christian.” - -“Ye don’t know much about the Chinese, sir,” said Mrs. Massarene. -“They’re that wrapped up in their families that they’re always agoin’ -to their graves; not like the folks here, who poke a dead person into -the earth and give orders to a florist, and then thinks of ’em never no -more. The Chinese pray to their dead; ’tis very touching, though it may -be an offence to Deity.” - -“I imagine, ma’am, their sensibilities are not blunted by -death-duties,” said Daddy rather crossly; he disliked being corrected, -and he disliked being taken _au pied de la lettre:_ it is highly -inconvenient to anyone who has the reputation of a humorist. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII. - - -Brancepeth, like Hurstmanceaux, was sincerely unhappy through her, for -a woman whom men love much, despite her faults and caprices, has an -almost unlimited power of worrying and of torturing their less complex -and more kindly natures. The breaking of a habit is always painful, and -he had an affectionate soul. To have the door of Stanhope Street shut -in his face hurt him as it hurts a kind-hearted St. Bernard dog to be -shut out of an accustomed house and left to pine on the area pavement. - -She swept past him in her carriage with a distant bow which cut him to -the quick. Pride kept him from calling at her residence, but he could -not help haunting the street to see the little black forms and golden -heads of the children trotting off on their noonday walk, or Jack, in -solitary manhood, riding with his groom. - -There was no one to whom he could appeal. - -Her sister, Carrie Wisbeach, the only one of her family who had ever -liked him, had been three months away on a yachting journey round the -world; and he felt, without ever hearing it said, that her people and -her set approved the conduct of the Duchess of Otterbourne in having -broken with him; they approved her more than if she had married him. - -“Mammy’s took away my Punch, Harry--the beautiful Punch you giv’d me,” -said Jack, in woebegone accents; it had been a real Punch, show box, -puppets, a Toby that squeaked, and a set of pandean pipes--a delicious -toy with which Jack could make believe to be “the man in the street” to -his great ecstasy. - -“She says I’m a little beast ’cos I have everythin’. What have I got? -She’s even tooked away the Punch. I haven’t got anything,” said the -poor little man with tragic intensity. - -“Taken away the Punch? Oh, lord! That is real mean,” said Brancepeth, -with his face growing very dark. “Merely because I gave it you? What -devils women are!” - -“I always telled you, Harry,” said Jack solemnly. “I always telled you -that mammy could be nasty. You’ve set her back up, that’s what you’ve -done.” - -Jack was sitting astride of an Exmoor pony with his left hand resting -on the crupper, and his face turned full on his friend in melancholy -reproach. Harry was on the pedestrians’ side of the rails and had -stopped the rider under a tree in full fresh leaf. This was the only -way now in which he could see the children, when they were out walking -or riding, and he managed to waylay them. The nursery doors were closed -against him, and he felt his exile as bitterly as the cast-out Peri of -the poem. - -“You should have put up with mammy,” said Jack, with the superiority of -a sage, “’cos you can’t come to us now she’s angry with you. And when -she’s angry once, it lasts a long long while, for ever, and ever, and -ever.” - -His tone was very impressive; he spoke as if he had a hundred years’ -experience behind him; and his big soft black eyes had tears in them; -he missed his Harry. - -“You dear little beggar!” said Brancepeth tenderly, but glancing -apprehensively at the groom on the off-side. “Don’t fidget your pony’s -mouth, Jack; keep your bridle hand quiet, low down and quiet.” - -“That’s the little Duke,” said some work-people walking past, and -smiled good-naturedly. - -“What a little love!” said some ladies. - -“You’ve got Tom Tit, Jack, and you’d better gallop him,” said -Brancepeth, nervously conscious of the open ears of the stolid and -wooden-faced groom. “Don’t let his Grace hustle his pony; there can’t -be a worse habit,” he said to that functionary. “Never hustle your -cattle, Jack, do you understand? Off with you, dear! I want to see how -you go.” - -He watched the pretty figure of the boy as Tom Tit skurried over the -tan with his undocked tail switching the ground, and his sturdy, shaggy -little head pulling wilfully at the bridle. - -“Took his Punch away! Good lord! What out-and-out brutes women are,” -he thought, as he leaned over the rail under the green leaves in the -sunshine. - -But his heart was heavy and his conscience ill at ease, and he envied -Hurstmanceaux the power he had over these children and their future. - -“Harry’s been hard hit over the Oaks,” said one of his friends, staring -after him, to another as they passed. “Never saw him look so blue in -all his days.” - -“No; he’s got to marry Lady Kenny, I suspect,” said another of his -friends, using the title by which she had been known to the town so -long. - -“If I go on as I am doing now, what shall I be when that dear little -beggar’s a man?” he thought. He felt that he would be a very poor -example for the child he loved. He felt that Jack, who loved him in -return, would get no good from him, but might be led into much evil. -“I’ll try and pull up,” he said to himself. “If I’m alive twenty years -hence, I should like those little chaps to be the better not the worse -through knowing me.” - -He sighed as he thought so, and then he laughed at himself for being in -such a mood. They were Cocky’s sons, of course! Why should he bother -about them? His laugh was bitter, but his heart was heavy. - -She had used up all the best years of his life, and beggared him -to boot, and he had no more power over her than if he had been the -crossing-sweeper yonder in St. George’s Place. - -Harry was not very wise, and the ways of his life had not been prudent, -but a seriousness and sadness which he had never known came over him as -he watched the Exmoor pony till it was out of sight, and then walked on -by himself in the opposite direction toward Apsley House. - -The next week he had a long interview with his father, and another with -his Colonel, and in a week or two more he sent in his papers. - -“I shall never alter the pace here,” he said to his father, who, much -relieved that he did not hear Harry was going to marry the Duchess of -Otterbourne, said, cordially: “No, my dear boy, we can’t get out of the -swill till we’re clear of the stye!” By which elegant metaphor he meant -life in London. - -It was growing hot and close in Mayfair and Belgravia, and Jack went -for his last ride in the Park one sultry misty morning when the sky -was like a grey woolen blanket, and the Serpentine resembled a dull -steel mirror as it reflected the forms of the ill-fed and melancholy -water-birds. - -Tom Tit and Jack were going down on the morrow with the rest of the -juvenile household to the country. Their mother was already away from -London. - -Jack was worrying his mind with wondering how he should see his -favorite friend in the country. In other years Harry had generally been -where they were, that is to say, when they accompanied their mother to -Homburg, or Carlsbad, or Cowes, or Staghurst, or Scotland. But Jack -was uncomfortably and dimly conscious that those pleasant days were -over and were not likely to be renewed. It is hard at his age to have -to look back to the past with regret. But Jack felt that nothing in -his present was likely to be so agreeable as those merry days when his -mother and Harry had been such good friends. - -It was very warm, heavy weather; even Tom Tit had not much scamper in -him, and his rider let him amble slowly along whilst he himself pushed -his sailor hat to the extreme back of his head and yawned, opening his -rosy mouth as wide as it would go. - -“Men don’t yawn in their saddles, Jack,” said a voice, which was music -in his ears. - -“Oh!” he cried, with delight. He was on the north side of the Park, no -one was near, and Brancepeth was walking where he had no business to -be, as he was on foot. He came up to the child and greeted him, then -turned to the groom: - -“I want to speak to the Duke a minute or two. You will wait here,” he -said, as he slipped a gold piece into the man’s hand. “Jump off, Jack, -and come with me.” - -Jack needed no second bidding. - -The groom, with the sovereign in his whip hand, made no opposition, and -Harry walked away with the boy across the grass, talking to him as they -went of horsemanship and all its etiquette, while Jack’s face, gay and -rosy in its happiness, was turned upward with adoring eyes. - -“I thought I shouldn’t see you again, Harry,” he said, as he trotted -along by his friend’s side. “We’re all going into the country -to-morrow.” - -“With your mother?” asked Brancepeth. - -“No; mammy’s at Ems. Boo’s so cross ’cos she’s got to stay with us. She -won’t play at anything.” - -“When did your mother go?” - -“Day before yesterday.” - -Brancepeth sighed. - -“And she didn’t leave ’ny money, and she didn’t leave ’ny orders for -us, and the servants went away, and there was nothin’ to eat, and the -scullery-maid she came upstairs, and said: ‘You duckies, I’ll buy you -chops if I go without a new hat,’ and nurse said she was an imperent -jade, and we didn’t get ’ny chops, and somebody sent to uncle Ronnie, -and he came and gived money, and I told him of the scullery-maid, and -he gived her half a sovereign, and said, ‘You’re a good girl,’ and that -I heard, and we and the dogs and horses go down this afternoon.” - -Jack drew a long breath after his eloquence, and added, “Harriet is -gone down into Essex to see her mother, who’s dyin’, or _she’d_ have -bought the chops.” - -There were very few persons on the north side of the Park, and they -went on across the grass until they had got out of sight of the groom, -and came up to an elm-tree with a circular bench round its roots. - -“Let’s sit down a moment, Jack,” said Harry. “It will be a long time -perhaps before I see you again.” - -“Why?” said Jack, in alarm. “Are you going to Ems?” - -“No, dear--I am not going to Ems,” said Brancepeth sadly, looking down -at the boy’s face, with the golden nimbus of its ruffled hair and the -black circle of the sailor hat framing the hair as in an ebon frame. -There was no one near. - -The great elm trunk was behind them like a wall, and its branches above -them like a roof. - -How far away they seemed, those pleasant summers when, as the London -season ended, he and she had planned their meetings at this bath or -at the other, and Cocky, pliant, philosophic Cocky, had said always -opportunely: “You’ll come too, won’t you, Harry? Filthy feeding and -beastly waters, but they set one on one’s legs again somehow or other.” - -The distant sound of the traffic in the road beyond the railing was -like the muttering of an angry but distant sea. A white butterfly -floated above the heat-scorched turf. Jack’s two little sunburnt hands -were clasped on one of his own; he looked longingly and wistfully down -on the child’s face and form as we look on what we cherish and may -never see again. - -“Jack,” said Brancepeth suddenly, “if you were never to see me any more -after to-day would you remember me?” - -Jack’s face had on it the distressed perplexed wonder with which -children feel their hearts stirred by appeals which they very dimly -understand; his eyes were suffused, his forehead frowned. “Of course I -should,” he said almost crossly. - -“Really?” said Brancepeth very wistfully. - -“Yes,” said Jack very solemnly; then he burst out crying. “What do you -say such things for?” he said between his sobs. “Where’s you going?” - -“You dear little beggar,” said Harry, much moved himself, as he put his -arm round the child’s shoulders and drew him closer. “I am not sure I’m -going anywhere, but I may go a long way, and I mayn’t come back. Don’t -cry. Listen. If you grow up without seeing me try and be a good man. -Not such a beast as men are nowadays. Not such a fool as I am; a mere -horse-riding, card-playing, dawdling, gaping, well-groomed tomfool. -Keep out of the accursed London life. Don’t mind what women say. -Tell the truth. Keep straight. Live on your land, if any land’s left -when you’re of age. There are a lot of things I want to say to you, -but I don’t know how to say ’em, and you’re too little, you wouldn’t -understand. But don’t do as I’ve done, that’s all; and make yourself as -like your uncle Ronnie as you can.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII. - - -Katherine Massarene noticed that her father paired early in the season -and was ordered by his physician to take the waters of Ems. But she -made no remark on the fact, and her mother said, quite unsuspiciously, -to her husband on his departure, “If you see the Duchess there, -William, give her my love. She was looking worried and worn when she -left.” She was always fascinated by that lovely apparition which had -seemed to her so splendid an incarnation of aristocracy and grace, -delicious insolence and incomparable sorcery. - -“Them German waters are wonderful curers,” she said to her daughter. -“They’re good for the Duchess’s nerves, and your father’s rheumatics.” - -Katherine said nothing. Was her mother as simple as she seemed? she -wondered. Herself, in her own despite, she felt a curious reluctant -pity for Hurstmanceaux’s sister; such pity as she might have felt if -she had seen a lithe young jaguar crushed by the hirsute strength of a -baboon. The jaguar is itself cruel, stealthy, pitiless, but still--the -duel is unequal, and is decided by sheer brutal savage force. - -“Somehow or other,” she thought, “my father has frightened her and -cowed her; she looks as racing mares do when they come in off the -trotting piste, with their strained eyes and their nervous trembling.” - -She felt a vague desire to warn the victim of her father’s character, -of his pitiless cruelty, of his unutterable brutality; but she knew -that it would be unfilial to do so, and would be probably an act -useless, misunderstood, and attributed to some selfish motive. She knew -the world well enough to be aware that, whatever we may do to serve -another, we are always suspected of serving our own interests. - -To her it was evident that the saucy and thievish rodent had run once -too often and once too near the claws and teeth of the tom-cat, who -had let her gambol before him only to seize her and crunch her at -leisure. She came very close toward the truth in her observations and -deductions, but she shut her suspicions up in her own breast, and said -nothing to anyone, being used to live without confidantes and to put a -padlock on her lips. - -“Who would ever have thought Sourisette would be so depressed by her -little beast of a husband’s death?” said the friends who saw her at Ems -that summer, one to another. They found her extremely altered; she was -nervous, pale, had lost her spirits, and shut herself up a great deal, -alleging her mourning. - -“Mouse as _la veuve inconsolable_ is too droll,” said her world; but -when it became known that the guardians and executors had taken away -the Otterbourne jewels, including the roc’s egg, and locked them up, -never to be unlocked until Jack should attain his majority, her female -friends argued that it was no wonder she felt such an insult. - -“It is not an insult. It is the law. The trustees are obliged to do -it; the little Duke’s a minor,” explained their male relatives. But to -the female mind this kind of explanation always appears as trivial as -it is impertinent. The general impression was given in society that -Hurstmanceaux was very harsh to his sister, and that his unkindness was -the cause of her loss of spirits and change of habits; moreover, it was -said that it was he who had insisted on her rupture with Brancepeth. - -Altogether she was pitied and admired, for her conduct had been quite -admirable ever since the day that her wreath of forget-me-nots had been -placed on poor Cocky’s grave, almost side by side with Lily Larking’s -harp of calla lilies. - -No one noticed that when she went on from Ems to Homburg, William -Massarene went there also a few days later, whilst his wife and -daughter remained at Vale Royal; no one except the courtly diplomatist -of the silk dressing-gown, who was at Homburg too, and who observed -that she did not bully “Billy” as she had done in the days of the Bird -rooms, and that when “Billy” approached her there came into her eyes -a flash of hate, a gleam of fear and loathing. Also that whatever he -proposed in the way of walking, driving, or dining, she acquiesced in -with a certain sullenness but with unusual docility. - -If ever in his sturdy life William Massarene had been shy, he was so -when the gaze of this accomplished person met his own. But whatever -the minister observed, and any conclusions he might draw from his -observations, he kept to himself, having in his career learned that -there is no proverb truer than that of _l’arbre et l’écorce_. He was -bland and charming both to _l’ours et l’agneau_, as he called them. -_Pauvre agneau!_ She had gambolled too carelessly and skipped too -nearly the hairy arms of the ponderous bear! The diplomatist felt -thankful that he could look calmly as a spectator at the struggle. He -was prudent by nature and by habit, and beyond all women who were ever -created his own personal reputation and his own personal ambitions were -dear to him. - -Equally circumspect, Massarene, as he took great care not to compromise -himself, did not compromise her, except in the inductions of such very -fine and accomplished observers as this diplomatist, of whom there are -few left in the hurry and hurly-burly of modern society. If the whole -of his constituency had been watching him, he could not have been more -careful. A man has not been President of the Band of Purity and the -White Riband Association in an American township without learning how -to keep his neighbors’ noses out of his own whiskey and candy stores. - -But he was an ever present horror in her life. He could subdue her with -a glance of his colorless, dull eyes. She no longer dragged him behind -in the dust of her chariot; she was dragged in the dust behind his. She -was tortured by the ever harrowing dread that others would notice the -change. She had even lost the spirits and the nerve to invent fictions -to account for such a change to her friends. She let things drift in -apathy and disgust and fear. - -From Homburg he let her go on to Carlsbad, where he did not show -himself, and thence on a visit to a sister of hers who had married -a Magyar magnate, where she was for a while in peace, since there -certainly her tyrant could not go. - -Her children were meantime still at Whiteleaf, a ducal property, of -which Alberic Orme held the living, where they and the Blenheims had -a healthier, if less brilliant, life than had been their portion when -with her. She had no anxiety about them. She knew that their uncle -Ronnie would see to all that was necessary for them. She hated his -conscientiousness bitterly, but she trusted to it as to a staff which -would never break. - -The vast domain of Staghurst had already been let to an Indian -maharajah. Otterbourne House had been leased to the representative of a -great Power. All other houses and estates were similarly disposed of, -and the strictest measures were being taken to make the little Duke’s -minority fruitful. - -The dreadful debaucheries of Cocky had impoverished his father -woefully, and the entail had been eaten into as the eastern coast of -England is being gnawed away by the sea. But the long minority would do -much to restore the fallen fortunes of the great dukedom, and a strict -economy was inaugurated. - -Her own jointure was of course paid regularly to her; but it seemed to -her brother that it must be utterly insufficient to afford her means to -live as she chose to live. A great disquietude and alarm always weighed -on him about her, but she had chosen to quarrel with him. He could not -sue for reconciliation when he was in the right. - -Hurstmanceaux was as tender-hearted as he was proud, and if she had -made any sign of contrition or affection he would have forgiven all -her insolence and have gone to her at once. But she had shut the door -in his face; she had insulted him by the lips of her little daughter. -He could not make any advances to her. For her own part she was -relieved not to see him. Something might have transpired to excite -his suspicions; he might have noticed the altered tone of William -Massarene, or he might have interrogated her as to her ways and means, -and found her replies unsatisfactory. He was much better away, and she -made no sign to him. Her movements he heard of from his other sisters, -and from the columns of the _Morning Post_. In the late autumn he saw -that she was staying at Vale Royal; the Christmas recess she passed -with Carrie Wisbeach; the new year saw her in a suite of rooms at the -Residential Hotel facing Hyde Park. - -“How does she get the ready money?” he said to Lady Wisbeach, who had -come from her journey round the globe as though she had only been down -to Greenwich. - -“Oh, a woman alone, you know, with only a maid,” said that loyal lady -carelessly, “a woman alone needn’t spend more than a sparrow. It isn’t -as if she had the children. And then in mourning, and hardly going out -except to quiet little things----” - -Hurstmanceaux did not find the explanation very satisfactory. - -“Do you think she regrets that man?” he said, after a pause. - -“What man?” - -“Lord Brancepeth.” - -“Oh, no,” said Carrie Wisbeach. “My dear Ronnie, where _do_ you live? -Who regrets things when they have been on all that while?” - -He was silent; he felt that his sisters were far beyond him in the -knowledge of life. - -“You might as well talk of regretting a worn-out shoe,” said Lady -Wisbeach, with some impatience. - -“Surely you admit she should have married him?” - -“I?” cried his sister with amazement. “I implored her not to marry -him. She would have been mad if she had married him. She would not -marry him when--when she was wild about him. She married Cocky. She -did quite right. The Inversays are utterly ruined. The old people have -nothing. The very little he ever had came from his grandmother, old -Lady Luce, and that little was--was--well, was got rid of in a year or -two. Besides, nothing is so stupid--such a want of sense and _savoir -faire_--as to marry a person who has been talked about in connection -with you. It is foolish. It confirms things. It makes people laugh. Of -course if you get a very great position by it, it’s a different thing. -But even in that case I should always say to a woman--at least to a -young woman--don’t!” - -“Why especially to a young woman?” - -“My dear Ronnie, you are really too stupid for anything! If a woman -isn’t young she isn’t likely to have many offers of marriage, is she?” - -“I see,” replied Hurstmanceaux, and felt once more that beside the -worldly wisdom of his sisters he was indeed a novice. - -“You live in the country till you forget everything,” said Lady -Wisbeach. - -During the visits of the Duchess of Otterbourne to Vale Royal her -hostess saw a great change in her. “That pretty creature isn’t what she -was, William,” she said to her husband. “She don’t cheek you as she -used to do, and she seems quite down in the dumps. Surely it can’t be -that she’s fretting on account of the death of that little drunkard?” - -William Massarene did not look at his wife as he answered. “’Tis want -of dollars frets her, my good woman. That’s a disease as ages these -young ’uns fast. Thoroughbred mares want gilded oats.” - -“Deary me! What’s the use of being a duchess if you don’t get gilded -oats?” said his wife. She was troubled by the idea of anyone so exalted -being brought so low as to want money. Being tender-hearted she -redoubled her attentions to her guest, but being tactless she mingled -with them a familiarity for which their object would willingly have -murdered her, and which she resented all the more bitterly because she -was forced to conceal her resentment. - -He got far beyond all social need of her now. His position was secure -in the county, in the country, in the world. Men knew what he was worth -both in millions and in mind, and they feared him. He did not scruple -to treat them like dirt, as he expressed it, and it was they who wanted -him now, they who had to sue for his good offices and bear his snubs. - -For some few people like Hurstmanceaux he was still only a cad sitting -on a pile of money-bags; but these were so very few that they did not -count, and he could very well do without them. - -All the pick of the Tory party came to Vale Royal, shot his pheasants -and partridges, drank his rare wines, asked his opinion, and shook -his hand. If out of his hearing they still called him a blackguard -American, they were now extremely civil to his face, and when he wanted -them he had only to whistle. It pleased his love of dominion and his -sense of successful effort. He felt that all these noble people, -pretty people, fastidious people, all these political chiefs and swell -notabilities and leaders of parliament and of fashion, were as so many -comedians, all playing for him. He hated them for a great many reasons: -for their polished accents, for their way of bowing, for the ease -with which they wore their clothes, for the trick they had of looking -well-bred even in shabby gowns or old shooting-coats. But he despised -them; he could afford to despise them, and they could not afford to -despise him. - -When he thought of this he passed his tongue over his lips with a -relishing gesture, like a dog who has been eating a beefsteak. - -With the world, as with the Duchess of Otterbourne, he had ceased to -be suppliant--he had become master; and he had always been a hard -master, he had always thought that the best argument was a long strip -of cowhide. - -“Oh, you brute--you unutterable brute! If a look could kill you, you -would fall dead where you stand!” thought Mouse one day as she looked -from one of the windows of the Bird room, and saw his short broad -figure, with the squat legs cased in the gaiters of a country gentleman -and the country gentleman’s round felt hat on his stubbly iron-grey -hair, as he went over the turf with his back to her, having on his left -the lord-lieutenant of the county, and on his right the Tory Chancellor -of the Exchequer, each of them bending their tall forms affably and -listening to him with deference. - -But looks cannot kill; and he continued to walk on across the sunlight -and shadow over the grass, and she continued to watch him from the -upper windows, convulsed with a deadly loathing impotent rage against -him, such as Marie Antoinette must have felt for the gaoler of the -Concièrgerie. - -There were men who loved her to insanity; even in the weary, shallow, -indifferent, modern world there are still women who inspire insane if -short-lived passions, and she was of those women; but she could not -appeal to any one of these men since appeal would entail confession; -and confession to one would mean exposure to all, for she knew that her -tyrant would be merciless if she freed herself from him, or he would -not keep her signatures as he did keep them. Skilled in male human -nature, and the management of it, though she was, she had no experience -to guide her in dealing with Massarene, because all the men amongst -whom she had lived had been gentlemen; and the way of treating women of -the gentlemen and the cad is as different as their way of shooting. A -man capable of acting as Massarene did could not have been met with in -her world. - -“It is all our own fault,” she thought. “Why do we let these boors and -brutes in at our gates because they have got their sacks of bullion -on their backs?” And as she always blamed somebody for the issue of -her own errors, she thought with detestation of Cocky coming up to her -under the trees at Homburg, and telling her to make the acquaintance of -the Massarenes. - -Happily for her William Massarene was too cautious, too busy, and too -ambitious a man to lose much of his time in torturing her. He delighted -in her hatred, her helplessness, her servitude, but she was only a -toy to him; his gigantic schemes of self-advancement, and his many -financial enterprises, engrossed him much more, and he would not have -risked his social position by a scandal for all the beautiful women in -creation. He supplied her with the money she wanted, but he made her -beg, and he made her sign, for every penny of it. It was fine sport! - -Her own people attributed the change in her to her rupture with -Brancepeth; and, in himself, Hurstmanceaux did so also. But it was a -subject on which he could know nothing since the scene she had with -him concerning her late friend, and he could only suppose that like -many another woman she sorrowed for the loss of what she had refused to -keep. He knew that she stayed a good deal with the folks at Vale Royal, -but his penetration did not go farther than to conclude that she did -so because it saved her expense. He saw nothing of her personally -in the autumn and winter following Cocky’s death; his unavoidable -communications with her on business were made by letter. Sometimes he -wondered how she and the lady with whom he had walked to Greater Thorpe -got on together; he did not think that they could suit each other; but -he saw little of the one and nothing at all of the other. - -Of William Massarene he of course saw nothing either; so that the curt -and insolent tone which Massarene at times now allowed himself to use -to one whose humble slave he had once been was unknown to him; if he -had heard it and resented it, the “bull-dozing boss” would have cast -the truth in his teeth, and, grinning, have awaited his reception of -it, for courage had never been lacking to the man who for thirty years -had held his own against the hatred of the whole Central States. - -This terror lest he should thus tell the truth to her brother haunted -her night and day. She did not think there was much fear because she -knew that he held his social position as dear as life itself, and he -would be well aware that Hurstmanceaux would destroy it at a blow. -Still she could not be sure, for she knew that temper sometimes hurries -the wisest and most ambitious man into irrevocable indiscretion. - -She had herself lost absolutely all power over the man who had been -so blindly her slave. Their positions had wholly changed. It was she -who shrank from his glance; it was he who ordered and was obeyed. She, -who had no acquaintance with pain, suffered as never before would she -have believed it possible to suffer. Humiliation, terror, abhorrence, -self-contempt, were all united to an agony of apprehension with regard -to the future. She would easily have made a second marriage, but her -tyrant forbade her any such issue from her difficulties. - -She had never before supposed that it would ever be possible for her to -be miserable in London, but she was so now; the dull cold bleak weather -aiding her depression, and the mourning which she had still to wear -seeming to her indeed the very livery of gloom. - -A whole hothouse of flowers emptied into her room could not make opaque -yellow fog supportable, and the sight of William Massarene driving past -her windows or coming up the staircase anything less than torture. - -How she envied those women of ruder ages who could hire bravoes for a -quick cold steel to rid them of what they loathed. She hated him so -intensely that there were even times when she looked wistfully in at -the gunsmiths’ shops in Piccadilly. - -But she lived in a world in which all strong passions seemed farcical, -and the ridicule of the thing restrained her from buying a revolver. A -tragedy with Billy as the slain! She laughed a hollow little laugh of -misery and scorn as she threw herself back in her brougham and ceased -to look at the little ivory mounted weapons so temptingly displayed by -the gunsmiths. - -She had insight enough to perceive that his adoration of her was a -thing dead and gone for ever; she saw that the only dregs of it which -remained with him were love of hurting her, of mortifying her, of -ordering her about as though she were a factory wench in one of his -cotton-mills in North Dakota. Fortunately for her his prudence saved -her from any display of this tyranny in public; but in private he -treated her as a tanner of the Ile de France might have treated a young -duchess of the Faubourg when it only needed a sign to the mob for the -axe to fall and the pikes to be twisted in the perfumed hair. She had -no will of her own; she dared not dispose of her time for a week; she -had to know what he permitted and what he forbade. - -“She’s a morsel for a king,” he would say to himself, passing his -tongue over his lips. Still he had become very indifferent to her, -except that his power of humiliating her was always agreeable and -stimulating to him. - -“You’ve found out as Billy ain’t a fool, haven’t you, my beauty,” he -said a hundred times to her. “Billy’s been one too many for you, eh?” - -And at such moments if a revolver had been near her she would have shot -him dead. - -The harassing torment of her compulsory submission to him made her look -worn, anxious, thin. “Surely I am not losing my beauty,” she thought -with horror, as she looked at herself in the mirrors, and each day she -was obliged to have a little more recourse to the aids of art. - -She knew well enough that however brilliant may be artificial -loveliness, it is never quite the same as the radiance of that natural -beauty which can affront the drenching rain of a hunting-field or the -scorching sun on a yacht-deck, or, most difficult to bear of all, the -clear light of early day after a ball. - -Oh, how she hated everyone! Cocky in his grave, and Beaumont in -his shop, and Ronald who had brought all this misery upon her, and -Brancepeth who had taken her at her word; and--oh, how bitterly and -with what deadly hatred!--this coarse, common, hideous creature who -said to her in his brutal derision: - -“Billy’s been one too many for you, eh, my dear?” - -He had put this thoroughbred trotter into the harness of his homely -wagon, and it never ceased to please him to watch her jib, and start, -and tremble, and pant, as he flogged her along the stony road of -subservience to his will and desires. - -The more intensely she dreaded and loathed him the more entirely did he -enjoy his revenge. It had cost him a great deal of money, but he did -not grudge the money. The sport was rare. - -“Stow that, my pretty,” he said to her when he saw her receiving as -if she liked it the attentions of some man who might very well be in -earnest and desire to persuade her to a second marriage. “Stow that, my -pretty. You aren’t a-going to wed with nobody--Billy’s here.” - -Her disgust, her indignation, her helpless revolt, were all infinitely -diverting to him; he let her free herself a moment, only to pull her -up with a jerk and remind her that he was her master. She felt that as -long as he lived he would never let her escape him. - -“Perhaps I’ll marry you myself if the old woman goes to glory,” he said -with a grin. “Don’t you count on it though, my dear; I may see somebody -else and disappoint you!” - -His position was too dear to him for any jeopardy of it to be risked -for any other consideration on earth. It was to his own fear for -himself that she owed such partial relief from him as she obtained, -such comparative liberty as his jealous vengeance permitted; such -formal politeness as he showed her in society. He was afraid she might -make a confession to Hurstmanceaux if he pressed her too hard, and this -feeling alone kept his tyrannies within certain bounds, and compelled -him to treat her with courtesy before the world. - -But the low-bred ruffianism which was his true inner man showed itself -frequently in private. - -Once he wiped his dusty boots on the hem of her gown. - -“A duchess’s frock makes a nice door-mat,” he said with relish. “Don’t -you squeal, my pretty, or damn me if I don’t wipe ’em with your hair -next.” - -She knew that he would do as he said. - -He kept her in perpetual slavery also for him in the world; he made her -serve his interests with all her relatives and friends; he sometimes -exacted what was not only difficult but almost impossible, and she had -to get it done somehow or other. His ambitions grew with what they fed -on, and he became arrogant, critical, overbearing in his expectations. - -“I mean to die a lord and a cabinet minister,” he said, with a sense -that death could only be his obedient valet like the Conservative party. - -“If wishes could kill you, you would fall dead where you stand,” she -thought; but she dared not say so, and she devoured her hatred and her -humiliation in silence. - -“You aren’t so young as you were, my beauty,” he said one day out of -doors, staring ruthlessly at her. “Billy don’t agree with you, eh? Keep -worrying the curb, don’t you? Pull as hard as you will, you won’t get -your head. You’re between my shafts, and you must just go quiet over -the stones at my pace, my lady fair.” - -The stones were very sharp, and this road was apparently without an -end. She grew thin, she looked harassed and hectic, she contracted a -nervous way of glancing back over her shoulder to see if he were within -earshot, even when she knew that he was a hundred miles away. - -One day when he was with her one of her many admirers sent her a large -gilded gondola-shaped basket filled with Palestine lilies and La France -roses. - -“Who sent these?” he growled, and he pulled the card off it and read -the name. It was a great name. “What’s this mean, eh?” he said as he -showed her the card. - -“It means nothing at all,” she said, with that tremor in her which was -partly impotent rage and chiefly genuine fear; and added, with a little -nervous laugh, “We have no language of flowers like the Orientals.” - -“Eh?” said Massarene, who did not understand--“mean nothing, do -they? That’s one of your damned lies. Now ye hearken to me, my lady. -Him as sent ’em’s so deep in my debt that he’d hev to turn crossin’ -sweeper if I held up my little finger. Now I won’t hev my debtors come -gallivantin’ to my sweetheart. Mind that. Make him keep his distance or -it’ll be worse for him and for you. You know Billy by this time.” - -Then he kicked over the gilded gondola and trampled the beautiful -flowers under his big feet. - -Her nerves gave way under the sickening nausea of the scene. She buried -her face in her hands and sobbed aloud, her tortured pride of race and -of womanhood writhing like some delicate animal in a steel trap. - -William Massarene stood and watched her, his thumbs in the armholes -of his coat, his legs wide apart, his yellow teeth showing in a broad -grin. It was rare sport. It had cost him an almighty pile of dollars, -but it was rare sport. He felt that after his long career of hard work -and self-denial he had earned the right to some such fun and feast as -this. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX. - - -With the next season he allowed her to accept the loan of her sister -Carrie’s house in town; that lady having gone on a little trip to -Japan. She hated the Wisbeach house, which was dark, ugly, and situated -in the dreary district of Portman Square. Carrie Wisbeach, who was but -little in town, and was a sportswoman renowned in more lands than her -own, had little heed of all the artistic and graceful luxuries with -which her younger sister had always required to be surrounded, and had -left her husband’s old London house very much as his grandparents had -made it. - -Mouse detested it unspeakably, but it was roomy and a good way off -Harrenden House, and she put up with it, trusting that she would be -almost always out of it. For her tyrant favored rather than discouraged -her perpetual appearance in society; it prevented people talking, and -in society alone could she favor his interests social and political. - -She was still altered; she had still that harassed apprehensive -glance backward over her shoulder; but she was familiarized with -her captivity, and had learned to make bricks without straw for her -bondmaster without too plainly betraying to others the marks of the -sand and the clay in which she was forced to kneel. - -Ever since her first season she had done whatever she had pleased, and -amused herself in any manner she desired. But she had never got into -trouble, never been compromised, never felt her position shake beneath -her. A woman, young and popular, who has great connections behind -her, can, if she have tact and skill, easily avoid being injured by -scandal. If she knows how to conciliate opinion by certain concessions, -she can enjoy herself as thoroughly as any young cat gambolling about -a dairy; and no one will seriously interfere with her. Society had -certainly “talked”; but when a woman has a brother like Hurstmanceaux, -and a father-in-law like the good Duke of Otterbourne, and many other -male relatives high-spirited and innumerable, people do not talk very -incautiously or very loudly. - -Now through “Billy,” for the first time, she saw her position -jeopardized. That low-bred creature, whom she had made fetch and carry, -and wince and tremble at her whim and pleasure, had now the power -to make her, if he chose, in the eyes of the world, that miserable, -contemptible, and despicable creature, a _femme tarée_. - -Sometimes, too, a more tragic, a more sickening, fear assailed her, -when she thought of the possibility of her tyrant telling the truth, in -boastfulness or in revenge, to her brother. It was not likely, but it -was always possible; for she saw that in William Massarene, at times, -temper--the savage, uncontrolled temper of the low-born man--got the -better of good sense, of caution, and even of ambition. She could never -be sure that it might not do so some day in her case, and that for the -ruffianly relish of dragging the pride of the head of the House of -Courcy in the dust, he might not throw to the devil all his cherished -triumphs, all his hardly-bought distinctions. - -Happily for her Hurstmanceaux was almost always in the country, or on -the sea, and the sight of him in London streets seldom tempted the -fiend to rise in her gaoler. - -Meanwhile the London season came on and ran its course with its usual -plethora of pleasure and politics, its interludes of Easter and -Whitsuntide weeks, and its comings and goings of people, who could not -live without running to Rome, flying to Biskra, shipping over to New -York, and taking a breathless scamper to Thibet. - -Katherine Massarene came up to town in the spring, sorely against her -will, and she went through the routine which was so wearisome to her, -and rejected many offers of the hands and hearts of gentlemen with whom -she had exchanged half-a-dozen sentences at a dinner-party or riding -down Rotten Row. - -“Lord, child, what do you want that you’re so particular?” said her -mother, who did not approve this incessant and ruthless dismissal of -suitors. - -“I want nothing and no one. I want to be let alone,” replied her -daughter. “As for the life of London, I abhor it, I am asphyxiated in -it.” - -Suitors who might fairly have expected her to appreciate them solicited -her suffrage in vain; she did not give them a thought, she abhorred -them--everyone. She only longed to get away from it all and have -finished for ever with the pomp, the pretention, the oppressive effort -which seemed to her parents the very marrow of life. - -“Mr. Mallock calls this the best society of Europe,” she thought again. -“If it be so, why does it all come to us to be fed?” - -Had she possessed the disposal of her father’s fortune she would not -have fed it. Being obliged to stand by and see it fed, in such apparent -acquiescence as silence confers, she lost all appetite herself for the -banquet of life. - -Such slight cutting phrases as she permitted herself to speak were -repeated with embittered and exaggerated emphasis in London houses -until London society grew horribly afraid of her. But it concealed its -fear and wreathed in smiles its resentment, being sincerely desirous of -obtaining the hand of the satirist for one of its sons. - -More than once the Press announced her betrothal to some great -personage, but on the following morning was always forced to retract -the statement as a snail draws in its horns. To her mother it seemed -heathenish and unnatural that a young woman should not wish to be -“settled”; she thought the mischief came from the education Katherine -had received, reading books that had even a different alphabet. - -“You want all the hideous vulgarity of a fashionable wedding, my dear -mother,” said Katherine. “If ever I should marry I assure you I shall -wear a white cotton gown and go alone to some remote village church.” - -“My dear, how can you say such things? It is quite shocking to hear -you,” said the mistress of Harrenden House, infinitely distressed. - -“Pray set your mind at ease,” said her daughter. “I shall never marry, -for the best of all reasons that no man whom I could respect would ever -marry me.” - -“Not respect ye! How can you say such things? You’re the daughter of -one of the richest men in the whole world, and he’ll be noble as well, -he says, afore he goes to Kingdom Come.” - -The younger woman lifted her head, like a forest-doe who hears the -crack of a carter’s whip. - -“To belong to the Peerage is not necessarily to belong to the nobility; -and you may belong to the nobility without being included in the -Peerage. Sir Edward Coke laid down that law. Surely, my dear mother, -you cannot for a moment pretend that if my father be given a peerage he -will become noble?” - -Katherine Massarene knew that she might as well have spoken to the -Clodion on the staircase, as said these reasonable things to her -mother; but now and then she could not wholly keep back the expression -of the scorn of her father’s ambitions which moved her--ambitions, in -her eyes, so peurile and so poor. - -“Who was Edward Coke?” said Mrs. Massarene sullenly. - -“The greatest lawyer England has ever seen. The greatest exponent of -Common Law.” - -“Well, then, I think he might have known better than to deny as his -sovereign can make a gentleman of anybody if so be she choose,” said -her mother doggedly. - -“You might as well say that the sovereign can cure the king’s evil!” - -“Well, they say she _can_?” - -“Oh, my dear mother! Can you live in the world and keep such -superstitions?” - -“You’ve no belief in you!” - -“I at least believe enough in true nobility to hold that it is a gift -of race and breeding beyond purchase, and uncreatable by any formula.” - -“If the Queen makes your father a lord, a lord he will be with the best -of them.” - -“She can make him a lord; she cannot make him either noble or gentle. -His nobility will be a lie, as his armorial bearings are already.” - -“That’s a cruel thing to say, Kathleen!” - -“It is the truth.” - -“Why do I try to reason with her?” she thought. “One might as well try -to persuade the stone supporters on the gateway?” - -But Margaret Massarene, although she would not allow it, did, in her -own mind, think that her man was soaring too high in his aspirations. -To look up where he meant to rise to, made her feel giddy and afraid. - -“They’ll never give it to ye, William,” his wife ventured timidly to -say one day, by “it” meaning his peerage. - -He smiled grimly. - -“Why not? ’Cos I ain’t a Radical turncoat? ’Cause I ain’t a Birmingham -sweater? ’Cause I ain’t a Hebrew broker? They’ll give it me, old woman, -or I’ll know the reason why. You’ll be ‘my Lady,’ if you live.” - -He devoutly hoped she would not live; but if she did live, she should -be Lady Cottesdale. - -He had decided on his title, which he intended to take from a little -property that he had purchased in the Midlands, and he had already -ordered a dinner-service of gold plate, with a coronet on all its -pieces, which was to be a work of art, and would take some years to -finish. Before it would be ready for him he would be ready for it, with -his baron’s crown to put on everything, from the great gates to the -foot-baths. - -Any man who is very rich can become an English peer if he has kept -clear of scandals and dabbled a little in public life. And who was -richer than he? Nobody this side the herring-pond. The Conservatives -were in office. The Flying Boats of the fair, to which he had once -irreverently compared the two political parties, had made their -see-sawing journey, and the one was temporarily up and the other -temporarily down. The owner of Vale Royal was beginning to make them -feel that they would lose him if they did not please him, and that they -could not afford to lose him. He had a forty-horse power of making -himself dangerous and disagreeable. - -“A very dreadful person,” said Lord Greatrex always, when in the bosom -of his family; but he knew that it was precisely this kind of person -who must be conciliated and retained by a Prime Minister on the eve -of the twentieth century. A chief of government has only a certain -quantity of good things in his gift, and he does not waste them -on those who, being neglected, will not avenge themselves. William -Massarene worried the heads of his party extremely; they were well -aware that if he did not get what he wanted from them, he would rat and -make terms with the enemy. Governments are accustomed to John Snob, -whom nothing will pacify, except to become Lord Vere de Vere; but John -Snob is never beloved by them. - -William Massarene did not care whether they loved him or hated him. The -time had long passed when a “How do?” in the Lobby from one of them -could thrill him with pleasure and pride; or a careless nod in the dusk -on the Terrace send him to dinner with a joyously-beating heart. He -could corner the gentlemen of the Carlton as easily as he had cornered -a company in other days in Dakota. You could not buy society as you -bought a corporation or a department in the States; the matter required -more dressing-up and glossing over. Still, the principle of purchase -remained the same, and Massarene recuperated himself for what he spent -so largely in Belgravia by his commercial successes and financial fame -in the City. - -In the freemasonry of business he had been at once recognized in the -City as a Grand Master. Many a London gold broker, railway contractor, -and bank chairman felt himself a mere child, a mere neophyte, when this -silent, squat, keen-eyed man from the Northwest came down into the -precincts of Mincing Lane and Threadneedle Street. - -In the City he knew his power, and made it felt. He united the American -rapidity, daring, and instinct in business with the Englishman’s -coldness, reserve, and prudence. The union was irresistible. He had -quaked and crouched before fine ladies; but when he met the directors -of the Bank of England he felt like Napoleon at Tilsit. - -He was a magnate in the City, whilst he was still a neophyte in the -great world. But his ambitions were of another kind than those which -the City gratifies. They were social and political. He meant to die a -Cabinet Minister and a Peer. He went to Walmer one Easter and looked -at the portraits of the Wardens. “Guess mine’ll hang there one day,” he -said to himself. - -Everything in his new life was still, in reality, most uncomfortable -to him; the very clothes he had to wear were tight and oppressive; -he had to drink hocks and clarets, when he longed for gin and beer; -he had to eat _salmis_ and _relevés_ when he hungered for bread and -cheese and salted pork; he longed to spit on his own carpets, and dared -not; he was in awe of his own servants; he was awkward and ill at ease -in his own houses; he quailed before the contemptuous eye of his own -secretary; and he could not read the bill of fare of his own dinners; -and yet, though he pined to be once more in his shirt-sleeves, with a -clay pipe in his mouth and a glass of hot grog at his elbow, he was -happy in his misery, for he “had arrived.” - -Not arrived at the apex as yet; but in full view of it, and within -an ace of planting his flag on the summit. And so in all probability -he would have done in the opening years of the new century but for -one of those small, very small, mistakes, which upset the chariot of -successful life as the loose rivet, the weak plank, the uncovered valve -destroys the stately steamship, the colossal scaffolding, the rushing -and thundering steam-engine. - -One day in the autumn of the year the American Consul-General in London -received a letter from his “great country” which, although ill-spelt, -ill-writ, and signed by a poor workingman, startled his secretary so -considerably by its contents that he brought the epistle direct to his -chief for instructions. - -This letter ran thus:-- - - “_’Onored ’Xcellence, theer’s a-living in London town a man as - is callt Willum Massarene; ’e was known in this ’ere township as - Blasted Blizzard. B. B. made a big pile an’ went ’ome, and they says - as ’e’s a swell an’ kings an’ lords mess wi’ him. That’s neither - ’ere nor theer. But theer’s a pore fellar arsts me to writ this, - ’cos he hev hisself no larnin’, an’ ’e hev workt many a year on - Massarene’s line--Kerosene, Issoura, and Chicago Main Trunk--an’ he’s - a platelayer an’ hev allus bin ’onest an’ ’ard-workin’, an’ ’ad his - left arm cut hoff two summers ago by a goods-train, and hev arskt for - ’Elp an’ got no ’Elp ’cos ’e be a non-Union man, and the Line say as - how ’twas ’is own fault ’cos ’e ’ad gone to sleep on the metals. Now - this ’ere man, sir--name as is Robert Airley, native o’ Haddington, - N.B.--says as ’ow he ’ud be a rich un now but ’e med a mistek: - ’e sold a claim to a bit ’o ground as ’ad tin in it to this ’ere - Massarene when he was young an’ starving an’ ’is wife in pains o’ - labor. Robert Airley ’e say he found some sparkles sticking to roots - o’ grass, an’ didn’t know wot ’twas, an’ show it to Massarene, who - was thin kippen a drink and play saloon in Kerosene, and Massarene - bought his claim to the land for thirty dollars and ever arterwards - dared Robert to prove it, and prove he couldn’t, but says as how - ’tis God Amighty’s truth as he owned the tin and sold ’is rights - un-be-known as I tell ye. Bein’ allus very pore he couldn’t git away - from Kerosene, and went on Main Trunk as platelayer, an’ now he arsks - yer ’Onor to see Blasted Blizzard and tell ’im as ’ow ’e can work no - more and ’e must be purvided for. I writt this for ’im ’cos Robert - can’t writt ’isself an’ I be your ’Onor’s ’umble servant_, - - “GEORGE MATHERS, - “_Lamp-cleaner on K.I.C. Line. - “Written in engine-house._ - - “_Native o’ Sudbury, Suffolk, England, and out in this damned country - sore agen his will. Direct Robert Airley, Post Office, Kerosene City, - North Dakota, U. S. A._” - -The Consul-General read this letter twice through very carefully, for -its spelling and its blots made it difficult of comprehension. It did -not astonish him, for he knew a good deal about the antecedents of the -owner of Harrenden House and Vale Royal. He had never alluded to them -in English society, because if American consuls once began to tell what -they know, society in Europe would be decimated at once. - -The letter did not astonish him but it made him very uncomfortable. -He was a person of amiable disposition and he felt that it would be -unkind to wholly neglect so pitiful and just an appeal. Yet to address -the owner of Harrenden House and Vale Royal, on such a subject was an -extremely unpleasant task, one which he was not disposed for a moment -to accept. To tell Solomon in all his glory that he had kept a drink -and play saloon, and cheated about a placer-claim, demanded a degree -of audacity which is not required by governments from those excellent -public servants who sit in consular offices and in chancelleries to -indite reports which are to be pigeon-holed unread, and throw oil on -the troubled waters of international commerce. - -He had no doubt whatever that the statements of the letter were true; -he remembered having heard it said by some members of Congress in -Washington a score of years before that the Penamunic Tin Mine had been -obtained by Massarene through a chance more fortunate than honest, -and nothing which anyone could have told him of the past of Blasted -Blizzard would have ever found him incredulous. He knew too well on -what foundations the fortunes of such men are built. - -“This is very dreadful,” he said to the Vice-Consul, when the latter -had read the letter. “But you see the man is a native of Haddington. -I cannot admit that he should apply to us. We are clearly only here -to assist American subjects. If it were a matter of a kind on which -I could approach Mr. Massarene as _amicus curiæ_, I would do so. -But on such a matter as this it would be impossible to speak to him -without offence. Will you be so good as to write to the man Mathers, -and tell him that our office is not the channel through which his -friend--er--what is his name?--Robert Airley, can apply; tell him he -should address the English Consul-General in New York.” - -“Poor devils!” said the Vice-Consul, who knew well what is meant by -the dreary and interminable labyrinth of official assistance and -interference. - -“You know Massarene very well,” he ventured to add. “Couldn’t you -suggest to him----” - -“Certainly not,” said his chief decidedly. “Massarene is an English -subject. So is Robert Airley. So is George Mathers. We have nothing to -do with any of them. They have never been naturalized. The application -is entirely irregular. Return the letter and tell them to address the -English Consul-General at New York.” - -The Vice-Consul did so; and in due time a similar letter was sent to -the English Consul-General at New York by George Mathers, who added to -it that the wife of Robert Airley had died a week earlier of pneumonia -brought on by want of food. - -The English Consul-General returned the letter addressed to him, and -informed the writer that he could not interfere between employer and -employed, or in any private quarrel at any time; the matter was not -within his competence. - -Then the Suffolk man, who worked in the engine-house and cleaned -railway lamps, wrote direct to William Massarene, London. This -address was of course sufficient. The letter found its way in -due course to Harrenden House and arrived there a week after the -opening of Parliament, amongst many coroneted envelopes, appeals -for subscriptions, and political pamphlets. It was candid, simple, -ingenuous, but it was certainly not politic, and was extremely -impolite. It began abruptly:-- - - “_William Massarene, Sir--Blasted Blizzard, as we used to call - yer--you’ll remember Robert Airley, though they say you figger as a - swell now in Lonnon town. We’ve wrote to Consuls and They won’t do - nought, so I write this for Robert to you. You bought Robert’s claim; - you knew ’twas tin, yet ye niver giv ’im nought but thetty dollars. - Robert has workd on yer Line twenty year if One, an’ ’e can work no - More. ’Is wife she ded last Month, ’cos she were out o’ food, an’ ’is - Son be ded too--rin over on yer Line. Ye’re Bound to give ’im enuff - to kip ’is life in him. Not to speak o’ the placer-claim as ye took - and found yer mine in it. Robert’s a ole servant on the Line, an’ - ye be bound to kip life in ’im. Ye was allus close-fisted an’ main - ’ard, and a Blackgud in all ways, but they ses as ’ow ye be a swell - now, an’ it won’t Become ye to let a ole servant starve as was allus - God-fearin’ an’ law-abidin’, an’ ’ave workt as ’ard as a ’oss, an’ - never brott the tin claim agen ye, tho’ ye cheated so bad._” - -The letter was signed as that to the Consul had been, and Massarene -read it from the first line to the last. - -He had two secretaries at this time, young men of good family and -university education, of whom he stood in perpetual awe; but he -never allowed these youths to see his correspondence until it had -been examined by himself. He received too many letters menacing and -injurious, containing too many references to his past existence, for -the bland and supercilious young gentlemen to be trusted with their -perusal. Therefore the letter from the two railway men in North Dakota -came direct into his own hands as he sat in his library before a table -covered with papers and blue books, and surrounded by well-filled -book-shelves off which he never removed a volume. When he had read it -his face was terrible to behold. One of his footmen coming in to look -at the fire was frightened at its black savage terrible scowl. It is -hard for any man to find his past always rising up like Banquo’s ghost -against him; to William Massarene it was insupportable. - -He had a long memory; he never forgot a face or a name. He remembered -all about Robert Airley the moment his eyes fell on the letter. It was -thirty years before that the Lowland Scotch emigrant, who had none of -the proverbial canniness of his race, but was a simple and trustful -lad of some twenty-four years old, had come into Kerosene City, one -of a wagon-full of weary folks; there were no railways then within a -thousand miles. But he did not trust only to memory. He had brought -with him to England all his old ledgers, account books, folios of every -kind filling many cases, and all now filed, docketed, and arranged -in locked cases in a small study of which he kept the key on his -watch-chain. He went to this little room now, and, with the precise -and orderly recollection for which his brain was conspicuous, went -straight to the books which referred to the tenth year of his residence -in Dakota. It took him some forty minutes to find the entry which he -required, but he did find it. - -“Paid Robert Airley the sum of one dollar for specimens of tin -ore.” “Paid Robert Airley the sum of thirty dollars for his claim -at Penamunic.” The transaction was perfectly legitimate and legal. -Appended were the receipts of the said Airley and the deed which -transferred the land. Twenty-nine years had gone by and the ink had -rusted and the paper grown yellow, but the record was there. - -The fool had sold his bit of prairie land out and out and the tin under -the soil of it. He had done it with his eyes open. Who could complain -of free contract? - -To Robert Airley it had seemed a poor bit of soil, good for naught in -husbandry, and his young wife had been ailing and her first delivery -at hand; and he had been glad to get the dollars to buy her what she -wanted. Many men were in the settlement who could have told him not -to sell his placer-claim for a mess of pottage, but there was no one -who cared to go against Blasted Blizzard, and, in new townships where -shooting-irons are arguments, men mind their own business. - -William Massarene locked up the ledger and the case containing it, and -went back to his library. He then sat down and wrote a cypher telegram -to his manager in Kerosene City: “Tell platelayer Airley he won’t get a -red cent from me. Accident was due to his own carelessness.” - -He wrote this because he was in a towering rage at the manner in which -he had been addressed. Perhaps at some other moment, or if addressed -more humbly, he might have bought off these men as he had previously -bought off others; but this letter had come to him in an hour when he -was filled with vainglory and self-satisfaction. Only the previous day -he had been at a banquet given him by the Conservatives of the county -he represented. His blood was still warm, his vanity still fermenting -like yeast, at the memory of the compliments paid to him by the great -personages present; the praises of his glorious self-made position, the -homage offered to him in the name of Great Britain. The Leader of the -House had given him to understand that when there was next any vacancy -or change he would be offered a place in the administration; the great -county folks at the county banquet had heaped adulation upon him, for -they wanted him to make a new short-route railway line to London; the -_Times_ newspaper had had a leader consecrated to himself and to his -admirable promise as a future chief in the political world. And in such -a moment of supreme distinction a platelayer and a lamp-cleaner dared -to write to him that he had been always a “blackgud”! - -Acute as his mind was, and vast as had been the sums which he had -expended in shipping his own and his wife’s people to Australia, so as -not to be annoyed by their demands or vicinity, he should have been -willing to spend the insignificant sum which would have pensioned and -quieted Robert Airley; he should also have given something to the -Suffolk lamp-cleaner and thanked him; both men would have praised him -in the city where his fortune had been first made. But the wrath which -was in him for once clouded his keen perception; he would not have -given either of the poor devils a crust of bread to save their life or -his own. - -The survival of the strongest was the law of nature; he had heard a -sociologist say so. Even beasts in the woods followed that rule; the -bison and the opossum and the jaguar and the bear deferred to that law. -How should men defy or dare to demur to it? - -Because a weak sawney of a long-limbed emigrant had not owned brains -enough to see what was under the soil which had been given him, could -he blame a keener and stronger man, already on the soil, for having -had the wit to know what ore was hidden under the rank grass and the -juniper scrub? Clearly, no. Fortune favored those who helped themselves. - -“A blackgud in all ways”! - -Did a wretched railway hand dare to write this to a colossus of finance -whose brain was shrewder and whose pile was bigger than those of any -man on the Corporation of London? William Massarene felt as a Burmese -Buddha, hung with gold and jewels, may be supposed to feel when a -Cook’s tourist pokes at him with the brass ferule of an umbrella. - -On a man of breeding the insults of inferiors fall without power to -wound; but to a man of low origin and enormous pretension they are the -most intolerable of offences. For one brief moment all his greatness -seemed to him as ashes in his mouth if these workingmen out in North -Dakota did not bow down before his glory. It was delightful to be -called “my dear friend” by the proud Premier of England; it was -delightful to be complimented on his stables and his dinners by royal -princes; it was delightful to be consulted as a financial authority -by the Governor of the Bank of England; but all these delights seemed -nothing at all if a platelayer and a lamp-cleaner could refuse to -acknowledge his godhead. He knew if he drove through Kerosene City -next month the whole population of it would turn out in his honor; -the governor of the State, the mayor of the town, the sheriff of the -county, the members it sent to Congress, its senators, its solicitors, -its merchants, its manufacturers, its hotel-keepers, its white men and -its black men, would all be in the streets to cheer and welcome him, to -feast and flatter him, to hang out the Union Jack and the star-spangled -banner side by side in the oily, sooty, reeking air from the -ten-storied houses and the towering factories. But in the background -there would be two grimy railway hands who would shout “Blackgud!” - -This passing weakness was brief; he was not a man of sentiment. The -two railway hands might scream what libellous rubbish they liked. -Nobody would listen to them. Curses many, loud and deep, had followed -him throughout his career; but they were a chorus which attested the -success of that career. What he heard now were the cheers of the House -of Commons. - -His sense of humiliation was momentary; his sense of his fury was -lasting. He would have strangled the two men with his own hands if they -had been in sight. - -Many bones must whiten in the building of a pyramid, and William -Massarene had but done what the Pharaohs did. Only their structure was -of brick, and his of bullion. - -The letter had only moved him to a momentary sense of fear; it passed -almost as soon as roused; but his bitter wrath remained, a fire -unquenchable. - -Temper is always a bad adviser. It advised him badly now. A very small -annuity would have quieted Robert Airley, who knew that he had no legal -claim, and had not long to live, for he had a tumor in his stomach. But -when the manager of the Main Trunk Line gave the reply of its owner to -the platelayer, he, who was a gentle and patient man, worn-out with -hard work and sorrow, felt a devil enter into him and seize his very -soul. - -He said nothing, but the manager thought, “The boss might have given -the poor fellow a few dollars a week. After all, the Penamunic ore was -found on his claim, and he’s been on this line ever since the metals -were laid.” - -But the manager cared too well to keep his own post, and knew William -Massarene too well to venture to express this opinion. - -“My dear child, something has riled your father dreadful,” said Mrs. -Massarene after luncheon that day; “he’s got his black cap on; oh, I -always calls it his black cap when he looks thunder and lightning like, -as he do to-day, and swallers his food without a word.” - -“Perhaps the Prince is not coming on the tenth,” said her daughter, -with that inflection of contempt which she knew was unfilial, and which -they told her was disloyal. - -Mrs. Massarene shook her head. - -“The Prince always comes _here_. He don’t get better dinners nowhere; -and he’s a deal o’ use for your father in many ways. ’Tisn’t that. I am -afeared ’tis some of the folks out in Dakota as bothers him.” - -“He must have so many who hate him!” said Katherine. - -“Well, yes, my dear, no doubt,” said his wife mournfully. “Did you ever -see a hogshead o’ molasses without wasps? He have a very big fortune, -has your father.” - -Katherine was silent. - -“Do you know, if he were to die, what he would do with it?” she said -after awhile. - -“Why, leave it to you, my dear. Who else should have it?” - -“I hope he would not. I am sure he would not. I have displeased and -opposed him too often. I think he will bequeath it in such a manner -that it shall be a perpetual monument to himself.” - -“He’ll leave it to you, my dear. Nature is nature, even in a man like -your father.” - -Katherine shuddered. - -“If I thought there was any fear of that I would speak to him about -it.” - -“Oh, good gracious me, child, don’t dream of such a thing!” said Mrs. -Massarene, in trepidation. “’Twould be firing dynamite! In the first -place, you’d never turn him--nobody ever could--his mind’s made up, you -may be sure, and nothing you could say would change it; but, oh Lord! -if you was to hint to him that he must die one day, he’d never forgive -it; he’s one o’ them as thinks he can square Almighty God. ’Twouldn’t -be decent either, you know. ’Twould look as if you was counting on his -going and wishing for his pile.” - -“If you think it would look like that I will say nothing. But I should -beg him to leave me out of his will altogether.” - -“He wouldn’t believe you meant it,” said her mother. “He wouldn’t -believe anybody could mean it. He would think you was trying to find -out how much he’s worth and how much you’ll get.” - -Katherine Massarene sighed and abandoned the argument. She went to ride -in the Park with a heavy and anxious spirit. The season was odious to -her; all which to most women of her age would have been delightful -was, to her, tedious and oppressive beyond description. The sense -that she was always being pointed out as William Massarene’s daughter -destroyed such pleasure as she might have taken in the music, the art, -the intellectual and political life of London. The sense that she -was continually on show shut up her lips and gave her that slighting -contempt and coldness of manner which repelled both men and women. The -many offers for her hand which were made were addressed to her father; -no one was bold enough to address them to herself. Everybody, except a -few aged people, thought her a most disagreeable young woman. - -“Refuse every offer made to you--I do not mean to marry,” she had said -once to him; and he had replied: - -“You will marry when I order you to do so.” - -But there was something in her regard which restrained him from -ordering her, though he received various proposals which tempted him. -What he wished for, however, was an English duke if a royal one was not -to be had, and there was no duke in the market, they were all married -or minors. So for the present he left her in peace concerning her -settlement in life. - -Her heart was heavy as she rode over the tan, her thoroughbred mare -dancing airily beneath her. She was a fine rider and quite fearless; -but she hated park-riding amongst a mob of other people with a staring -crowd at the rails. “A circus would be better,” she thought. She passed -Hurstmanceaux, who was riding a young Irish horse; he lifted his hat -slightly with a very cold expression on his face. - -Jack was with him, promoted to a Welsh pony of fourteen hands, Tom Tit -having passed to the use of his brother Gerald. Jack and Boo had been -sent for by their mother, who had again the loan of the Wisbeach house, -her sister being this year in Nebraska for shooting. - -Jack was feeling quite a man, his pretty long curls had been cut off, -he had a tutor chosen by Lord Augustus, he had a hunting-watch in -his pocket, and he was wondering when he should be allowed to smoke. -Manhood was not all roses. He never heard anything of Harry, and he did -not see much of Boo. - -Jack looked after Katherine Massarene and her beautiful mare. - -“That’s the daughter of the old fat man who gives mammy such a lot of -money,” he said, as he rode onward. - -“What do you mean?” said Hurstmanceaux, startled and stern. - -Jack was frightened. - -“What do you mean?” repeated his uncle. - -“Old man is made of money,” he said evasively; his uncle, very high -above him, very erect and severe, looking down with sternly searching -eyes, was an object of fear to Jack. - -“But why do you say your mother has his money? You must have some -reason. Answer,” said Ronald, in a tone which did not admit of refusal. - -“The--the--person who told me knew. But I can’t tell you who it was,” -said Jack, with a resolute look on his face. - -The “person” had been Boo. Hurstmanceaux placed a great effort on -himself to desist from further enquiry. - -“You are right not to betray your friends,” he said. “But you would do -better still not to repeat their falsehoods.” - -Jack did not reply, but from the expression on his face it was plain -that he did not think he had repeated falsehoods. - -Ronald was about to say something to him about his obligation to -protect his mother from such calumnies, but it was not the time or -place for lectures on duty; and he was painfully conscious that, the -older Jack grew, the less esteem would he entertain for his mother and -the more true would such statements be likely to seem to him. What the -child had said was like a thorn in his own flesh. He had thought better -of his sister since her surrender of the Otterbourne jewels, and he -had tried to persuade himself that all her previous faults and follies -had been due to the wrongdoing of her husband. The boy’s unfortunate -speech was like a bolt in a clear sky. For it was certain that Jack -could not have had such an idea himself without suggestion from others, -and though it was probably the mere garbage of the servants’ hall, it -was nevertheless miserably certain that some such story must be in -circulation. - -He continued his ride in great anxiety. - -He knew nothing of the affair with Beaumont, but many other things rose -to his memory; the sale of Vale Royal, the sale of Blair Airon, her -incessant patronage of the Massarenes, the persuasion used by her to -induce great and royal persons to go to their houses--all this recurred -to him in damning confirmation of the suspicions raised by Jack’s -words. He felt that he must not question the child further; he could -not in honor put her little son in the witness-box against her; but the -charge contained in Jack’s words seemed so horrible to him that as he -rode past Harrenden House he was tempted to stop and enter, and take -the owner of it by the throat, and force the truth out of him. - -He remembered how much money she had spent that he had never been -able to account for; how large her expenditure had been, despite the -slenderness of her jointure since the death of Cocky; how obstinately -Roxhall had always refused to tell him anything whatever about the -conditions of the sale of Vale Royal, alleging that it was a thing he -was ashamed of and of which he would never speak; and Roxhall he knew -had always been in love with her, and turned by her at her will round -her little finger. - -Something of this kind he had long ago suspected and feared, but the -truth had never been visible to him in its naked venality before this -morning ride with Jack. So long as Cocky had been alive, although it -had been disgraceful enough, it had not seemed so utterly abominable -as it did now to know that his sister obtained her luxuries by such -expedients. What to do he could not tell. She did not acknowledge -his authority in any way, and set the law at defiance as far as she -could, even as concerned his jurisdiction over her children. He could -not accuse her without proof, and he had none; accusation also was -useless--she was wholly indifferent to his opinion and censure. Her -position in the world remained intact, and it was not her brother’s -place to proclaim her unworthy to occupy it. That which he longed to -do--to take William Massarene by the throat and shake the truth out of -him--was impossible by reason of his own habits, manners, and social -sphere, in which all such brawling was considered only fit for cads. - -“How very angry he looks!” thought Jack, and was glad when he had got -away and changed his riding-clothes, and run upstairs to Boo. It was -not very often now that he was allowed to scamper up to the children’s -tea and daub himself with honey and marmalade, and pile sugar on hot -buttered toast. The servants called him “sir,” and Boo’s governess -called him “M. le Duc.” It was all deadly dull, and Jack envied the -hall-boy. - -“You will have a great stake in the country,” said his tutor. - -“A beefsteak?” said saucy Jack, and was set to write out a line fifty -times, which was very hard work to a little man who could only move a -pen with extreme slowness and stiffness in letters an inch high, for -his education had been extremely neglected. - -He admired his uncle Ronald because Hurstmanceaux was the kind of man -whom boys always do admire; but he was afraid of him, and he sighed for -his beloved Harry. There was nobody like Harry in all the wide world, -and where had his idol gone? - -“Not ever to write!” said Jack to himself, with tears in his eyes. He -did not say anything about his anxiety even to Boo, for Boo was at no -time sympathetic, and was at this moment delirious with town joys, -having gone to a morning performance, some _tableaux vivants_, and a -water-color exhibition all in one day, wearing a marvelous picture-hat -and a new bracelet-watch. - -Except by Jack, Brancepeth was wholly forgotten, consigned to that -oblivion which society spreads like a pall over even the memories of -the absent. His father and mother heard from him at intervals; no -one else. He was one of the many who have gone too fast, who pull up -perforce, and drop off the course: such non-stayers interest no one. -The men with whom he had gone out to the South Pole, and later to the -Cape, returned, and said they had left him there. That was all. He had -spoken of exploration. They supposed that meant he had gone “on the -make.” He had been a very popular man, but popularity is a flame which -must be kept alight by the fuel of contact and of conversation: absence -extinguishes it instantly. - -Jack thought about a great many things, especially when he was shut up -for his sins all alone, an event which occurred frequently. - -The sum of his thoughts were not favorable to his mother. - -“Mother has driven Harry away,” he said to himself. - -Why? - -Perhaps because Harry had come to an end of his money? Perhaps Harry -had finished it all buying that Punch which his mother had taken from -him? - -“If I was sure of that, and if I knew where he was, I’d walk all the -world over till I found him,” thought Jack; and wondered how he could -make out where Harry was gone. No one ever even spoke of Harry. Who -could he ask? He asked his groom one morning when he had halted under a -tree very early in the Park. - -“I have no idea, sir, where Lord Brancepeth is,” said the groom, who -was a miracle of discretion. - -“Couldn’t you ask?” said Jack. - -“I don’t think I could, sir.” - -“Wherever he is, he’s got Cuckoopint.” - -“Has he indeed, sir?” - -“Yes; because he promised. He always keeps a promise.” - -“That’s a very good quality, sir.” - -“He’s all good,” said Jack solemnly. - -The discreet groom smothered a smile. - -“I’ll give you five shillings, Philips, if you can find him -and Cuckoopint,” said Jack, pulling two half-crowns out of his -knickerbockers. - -“Make it ten, sir, and I’ll do it,” said the virtuous groom. - -“I’ll make it ten,” said Jack. “But it must be next week, for I’ve -spent all they give me except this.” - -“Next week will do, sir,” said the groom, slipping the half-crowns in -his waistcoat pocket. - -Jack did not speak of this transaction to anyone, not even to Boo. -He loved his sister, but he had discovered of late years that Boo, -to “get in with mammy” and get taken to a garden party or a pastoral -play or a picture exhibition, would not hesitate to betray him and his -confidences. - -“I wouldn’t ever betray _you_,” he said once in reproach. - -“Then you’d be a silly not to, if you’d get anything by it,” said Boo, -with her little chin in the air and her big eyes shut up into two -slits, which was her manner of expressing extreme derision. - -“You’re so dishon’able ’cause you’re a girl,” said Jack, with more -sorrow than anger. - -Every day for a week Jack asked Philips breathlessly, “Well?” but -Philips prudently would not admit any knowledge until the next week -arrived, when Jack entered into his month’s allowance and produced the -third and fourth half-crowns. - -“If you please, your Grace,” then said this prudent person, “the cob as -is called Cuckoopint is down at Market Harborough, in Lord Brancepeth’s -box there.” - -“He did buy him, then?” - -“Yessir.” - -“And he--Harry?” - -“His lordship, sir, went to the South Pole the summer before last with -Lord Tenby and Sir Francis Yorke and two other gentlemen; his lordship -have left the Service altogether, sir.” - -“Left the Guards!” - -Jack was dumbfounded. He had always been so pleased to see Harry riding -down Portland Place or Kensington Road with all those beautiful horses -and cuirasses and jackboots. - -“Where’s the South Pole?” he asked piteously. Of the North Pole he had -heard. - -“I don’t know, sir,” said Philips, much bored; he had had enough of a -subject which only brought him in four half-crowns. - -Jack had to wait till his ride was over and he could go in the house -and get down his atlas and look for the South Pole; he did not make -the position out to his satisfaction in the atlas and he turned to -the terrestrial globe; then indeed he realized how many weary leagues -divided him from his friend. He leaned on the great globe and put his -head down on it and cried bitterly. Oh, how he hated his mother! It was -his mother who had sent Harry away! - -“’Cause he’d done all his money!” he thought indignantly. But how good -it was of Harry with no money to keep his word and buy Cuckoopint! - -His tutor came in and found him crying; poor Jack had the penalty of -position--he was never left alone. - -The tutor asked in a rather dry tone what was the matter. Jack, ashamed -of his grief, brushed the hot tears from his eyelashes and tried to -check his sobs. - -“It is quite a personal matter,” he said with much dignity as he -steadied his sobs. “It doesn’t concern anybody but me. Please don’t -ask.” - -The tutor, though a severe man, had some tact and judgment; he did not -ask, but took a volume from one of the shelves and went out of the room. - -To his mother it was convenient and agreeable that Brancepeth was out -of London. She was not sensitive, but still it had been disagreeable to -her to see him there when she had broken with him. Ruptures have always -this unpleasantness, that people notice them. - -But he was away at the other end of the world, where they all went when -they were in trouble, and where they were as good as dead--somewhere -distant and barbarous--and in being so he showed more tact than usual, -for with that loveliest and most useful of all qualities he had not -been gifted. When she thought of his parting words to her she wished a -lion or a bison to make an end of him. - -She had been fond of him certainly a good many years, but in women -of her disposition a wound to self-esteem is the death of affection. -Their love is rooted in their vanity, and you cannot offend the latter -without killing that which springs from it. At times she wished that he -were there that she could make him murder William Massarene; but then -murder was unknown in her world, and she could not have told him what -made her wish the brute stuck in the throat like a Pyrenean boar; and -so things were best as they were. - -Poor Harry; if he had remained in England, he would only have been -an additional complication. He would have seen, as this horrible -brute saw, that shame and disgust and terror were ageing her fast and -painfully. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX. - - -One afternoon there landed from an American liner, at a Liverpool -wharf, a tall, bony, haggard-looking man, roughly and shabbily dressed, -with a long, tangled, grey beard, and dark, wide-open, wistful eyes; he -had lost his left arm. He had been a steerage passenger of the poorest -class, and had been moody and silent on the voyage, giving no offence, -but making no friends or acquaintances, and saying nothing of whence he -came or of whither he was bound; others talked of the little village -they were going to return to, of the old parents who were longing to -welcome them, of the graves left behind them or the health and youth -lost for ever, of their cheated hopes and broken fortunes or their -modest gains and longed-for rest; but he said nothing whatever; he had -interested no one as he had offended no one; no one noticed or cared -where he went when he landed. - -He did not stop to eat or drink, but took his third-class ticket for -London, and when that was paid had only two dollars remaining in his -pocket as his share of the goods of this earth. - -He was wedged up between rough navvies in an overfilled compartment, -and had a slow, tedious, uncomfortable journey in the parliamentary -train. But he did not heed these minor troubles; his mind was engrossed -in one overwhelming, all-engrossing thought which sat on his breast and -gnawed at his vitals like a vampire. - -“I guess I’ll find him soon, even in that great city, if he’s as big a -man as they say,” he muttered to himself as he got out of the train and -passed into the mirk and noise and hurry of the London streets. - -He looked at his little bit of money, hesitated, walked through several -streets, then entered a modest eating-house, which proclaimed its -calling by eggs and cheese and rounds of beef ticketed with their -prices in the window. - -He ordered a cup of coffee and a fried rasher of bacon, and when he -had drunken and eaten these paid his small reckoning and said to the -person who had served him: - -“Can you tell me where a rich man called William Massarene, who came -over from the States some years ago, lives in this city of yours?” - -“No, I can’t,” said the woman. “There’s no rich folks in these here -parts. But next door at the wine shop they’ve got a ‘Directory’; I’ll -go and get it for you.” - -In a few minutes she returned with the huge red volume under her arm -and laid it open on the table. - -“What trade’s your Ameriky man?” she asked. - -Airley smiled grimly. - -“A gentleman. Money makes gentlefolks.” - -“Here you are, then,” she said, turning over the leaves to the West-end -division of the book. “You can look out the name yourself.” - -“No, I can’t,” he answered. “I can’t read.” - -“Lord, man, you are behind the time o’ day!” said the woman. “Well, -tell me the name agen and I’ll look it out for you.” - -He repeated it slowly three times over: - -“Massarene--Massarene--William Massarene.” - -She whirled the leaves about for a few minutes, and then she said -triumphantly: - -“Here you are! - - “_William Massarene, M. P.; Harrenden House, Gloucester Gate; Carlton - Club; Vale Royal, South Woldshire Cottesdale Grange, Salop; Blair - Airon, Caithness, N. B._ - -“That’s your friend, isn’t it? My, he must be a swell!” - -“Which of all them places is in this city?” asked the man. - -“Why, Carlton Club and Gloucester Gate, of course, you gaby!” - -“Where’s Gloucester Gate?” said Airley heavily, without resenting her -epithet. - -She told him how to get to it. He bade her good-day, murmured a hoarse -and tardy “thank ye,” and went out of her doorway. - -The woman looked after him with some misgiving in her mind. - -“I wish I hadn’t give him the address,” she thought; “he looks like an -anarchist, he do.” - -She was tempted for the moment to go and tell the policeman at the -corner to keep an eye on this stranger, but there were no serious -grounds for doing so, and the police were not beloved by those who work -for their living in great cities. - -So Robert Airley went on his way unnoticed, one of the many -ill-fed, ill-clad, gaunt, and weary-looking men who may be counted -by tens of thousands in the London streets, and who sometimes are -ill-bred and disrespectful enough to die on their pavements. He was -not an anarchist, but had been always a strictly law-abiding and -long-suffering man, and was by nature very patient and tender-hearted. -But a direful purpose had entered into him now, and worked havoc in his -gentle breast, and changed his very nature. He walked on through the -maze of many streets which divided the humble eating-house from the -precincts of Hyde Park. It was four in the afternoon, and the traffic -was great and the carriages were countless. But he scarcely noticed -them except to get out of their way, and he went on steadily down -Piccadilly with its close-packed throngs, and onward past Apsley House -and the French Embassy, until he approached what a cabman standing on -the curbstone told him were Gloucester Gate and Harrenden House. When -he saw its magnificent frontage, its gilded gates, its stately portals, -he looked up at them all, and a bitter fleeting smile crossed his face -for an instant. - -Blasted Blizzard dwelt there! - -He rang in his ignorance at the grand gateway’s bell. A magnificent -functionary bade him begone without even deigning to ask why he had -come. He realized that those gilded gates did not open to the like -of him. He did not insist or entreat; he shrank away like a starved -dog which is refused admittance and dreads a kick, and went into the -opposite Park and mingled with the pedestrians, feeling giddy for a -moment as the great stream of horses and carriages and persons swept -past him in the pale London sunset light. - -He was a poor, unnoticeable, humble figure, with his battered hat -pulled down to shade his eyes and his red bundle under his one arm. -Every now and then he put his hand in his breast-pocket to make sure -that something which he carried there was safe. - -He went onward till he found a secluded part of the Park where he could -smoke his pipe in peace, and as he smoked could meditate how best to do -that which he had come across the Atlantic to accomplish: wild justice, -of which the fascination held him fast in its hypnotism. - -He took his pipe out of his pocket and lighted it, where he sat on a -bench under a tree. His tobacco was strong and vulgar in its smell. A -young lady, probably a governess, who sat on the same bench with two -well-dressed small children, put her handkerchief to her nostrils and -looked appealingly at a constable who stood near. The policeman touched -him on the shoulder. - -“We can’t have that stench ’ere, my good man. Leddies don’t like it!” - -“Aren’t this a public park?” said Airley. - -“Don’t cheek me, or I’ll run you in as if you was a dawg,” said the -guardian of law and order. - -Airley put out his pipe. His mind was filled with one memory, one -intention, one desire; these left no room in it for resentment at -petty annoyances. He got up and moved away amongst the well-dressed -sauntering people. “Thanks,” said the pretty governess who sat beside -the children, with a smile to the constable. - -Robert Airley walked along slowly with his felt hat drawn down over his -eyes. The policeman looked after him suspiciously. - -“One of the unemployed?” said the governess, with another smile. - -“Calls himself so, mum, I dessay,” replied the policeman with impatient -contempt. “Them wagabonds ought to be took up like dawgs,” he added; he -had just beaten a little terrier to death with his truncheon. - -Robert Airley’s mind was filled with one memory--that of the day on -which he had first showed William Massarene the shining bits of -“sparkles” at the roots of the long grass. “It’s silver, ain’t it?” he -had said to the keeper of that house of entertainment where Margaret -Massarene fried sausages for the rough men who drank her husband’s -strong waters and hot brews. - -William Massarene had looked at the shining particles on the -grass-roots and had known immediately what it was. “’Tis a rubbishy -slate there is in these parts,” he said, with great presence of mind. -“Where that slate’s found ground’s always poor and no good for man or -beasts.” - -Robert Airley had believed him; he was a young man of good faith and -weak brain. - -In the winter which followed on that conversation all things went ill -with him: his cow died, his two pigs strayed into the scrub and were -never recovered, his young wife was pregnant and ill; the violent -blasts of those parts unroofed his shingle house and terrified her -almost out of her wits. He took her down into the township of Kerosene -and timidly asked Massarene to lend him a little money on his ground. - -“I won’t lend on it,” said Massarene. “I told you ’tis all shale and -slate. I’ll buy it for thirty dollars. Not a cent more nor less. The -slate’s the only good thing on it, and that must be quarried, and you -haven’t means to quarry.” - -Robert Airley knew that this was the truth as regarded his fortunes, he -had not a cent in his pocket; he had nothing to get food or lodging; -his young wife in her first labor pains was moaning that she would -never go back to that wilderness. He was so tormented and worried -and out of heart that he closed with Massarene’s offer and sold his -claim to the bit of land out and out, and settled in the township as a -mechanic, which he had been at home. - -Three years later he heard that mining had been begun on his old claim -and that a fine vein of tin had been found. - -“You cheated me,” he said to William Massarene. - -“Not I,” said the fortunate speculator. “I bought your waste land on -spec.; I’ve a right to what I find there. And,” he added, with his -blackest scowl, stepping close to Airley’s ear, “if you dare say a word -o’ that sort ever again in all your years, I’ll put two bullets in your -numskull of a noddle sure as my name’s Massarene. I aren’t a good un to -rouse.” - -Robert Airley was not a coward, but he was miserably poor, and poverty -is apt to be cowardice when it is not desperation. - -He held his tongue while the ore of the Penamunic mine was being -brought to the surface. He loved his young wife, who was miserable -away from the friendly faces and merry little shops of her native -town, and he adored the rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed, noisy boy to whom -she had given birth; life was sweet to him despite his poverty; he did -not dare provoke William Massarene, who was already lord of Kerosene -township and of much else besides. It was bitter to him to think that -had he only possessed enough wit to know what that shining dust on the -grass-roots had meant he would have been a rich and fortunate man. -But he could not retrieve his foolish unhappy error; and when William -Massarene made the Main Trunk Line from Kerosene by way of Issouri -to Chicago, over four thousand miles of swamp and scrub, he meekly -accepted the place of platelayer on the new railway which was offered -him at the great man’s instigation. - -“You see I don’t forget old friends,” said Massarene with a cynical -grin. - -But for his wife and his little boy at home dependent on himself for -their bread, Robert Airley would have killed him then and there. - -From that day he had never been able to get away from that vile -city of Kerosene, which spread and spread in its brick and mortar -hideousness between him and the country, which multiplied its churches -and its counting-houses, which had its gambling hells next door to its -Methodist chapels, which was black and stinking and smoke-befouled, and -filled all day and all night with the oaths of men and the cries of -beasts, the throbbing of engines, the shrieking of steam, the bleating -of sheep, the screaming of women, the lowing of tortured oxen, the -howling of kidnapped dogs--that thrice-accursed cancer on the once fair -breast of the dear earth! - -What he would have given that he had never pulled up that grass with -those shining atoms in the earth at its roots, but had lived, ever so -hardly, on his own ground, at Penamunic, under the rough winds and the -torrid suns and the driving snows, toiling like the oxen, hungering -like the swine, chased by forest fires, pursued by rolling floods, but -free at least in the untainted air, and away from that infernal curse -which men dare to call civilization. - -Absorbed in his own thoughts, he walked on now along the footpath which -runs parallel with the Ladies’ Mile; jostling the smart people he -passed, who drew away from his contact as though he had been a leper. -He was wondering if he could trust his nerve, and rely on his hand, to -do what he had come to do. - -William Massarene was at that moment in the lobby of the House of -Commons conversing with the Conservative Whip. - -He was beginning to be appreciated by the Unionist, and he had always -been feared. Of course they still ridiculed him to themselves for his -accent, his ambitions, his antecedents, and his snobbism, but they knew -that he was valuable to them, and he had a hard sound grip of certain -practical questions which made members, and ministers too, listen when -he was on his legs. In public life of any kind he showed always a -certain rude power in him which enabled him to hold his own with the -men who surrounded him, whoever they might be. - -He was grievous and terrible to the patricians of the Party, but the -patricians have learned in the last twenty years that they must pocket -their pride to keep their heads above water; politically and socially, -Tory democracy has to lie down with strange bed-fellows. - -They knew, too, very well that he would exact his full price, that they -would have to give him office in some small way at some future time, -that they would have to put him on the next batch of new baronets, and -that eventually he would have to be hoisted into the Lords in company -with the brewers and iron-masters, and wool-staplers and chemists, who -now adorn the Upper Chamber. - -They knew that if they did not please him to the fullest measure of his -demands, he would rat without scruple; and there are so many questions -in this immediate day about which it is so easy for a man to have a -sudden awakening of conscience if he is not obtaining all he wants in -the shape he wishes. They knew that, and they hated the thought of it, -but they could not afford to alienate and offend him. He had not only -money, he had a sledge-hammer power in him, and in a marvellously short -time had got his grasp on the attention of the House. He was a common -man, a vulgar man, an uneducated man; but he was a man of great ability -and absolute unscrupulousness such as no government or opposition can -afford in these days to despise. - -All the ambitions which he had brought with him from the Northwest were -certain of fruition if he lived. - -Of death he had no fear; his physician told him that his heart was -sound, his lungs were sound, and that he had no tendency to gout or any -other malady. - -At eight o’clock as he drove home to dinner he felt very content with -himself as he rested his short squab figure and massive shoulders -against the soft cushions of his brougham. The Whip had consulted -him, the Premier had complimented him; the great person who headed a -committee of which he was a member had thanked him for his industry -and assistance. On the whole, he was on excellent terms with himself. -He had done what he had come home to do. He had made himself a power -in the land. Even with that merciless rodent who had eaten so far into -his fortune he was even now; he was her master now. She was horribly, -cruelly, unspeakably afraid of him. He kept her nose to the grindstone, -in his own phraseology, mercilessly and with brutal relish. He paid -her off for every one of her insults, for every one of her jests, for -every one of the moments in which she had called him Billy. He had no -feeling for her left except delight in her humiliation, he gloried in -her shrinking hatred of him, in her abject fear. If she wanted to marry -again--ah!--he chuckled in his grimmest mirth when he thought of the -pull-up he would give to this thoroughbred mare if she tried to cut any -capers. She should die in a garret abroad, and whistle for her fine -friends and her lovers in vain! - -Yes, all went well with him. Everybody was afraid of him all round. It -was the triumph which he had always craved. They might hate him as much -as they liked provided only they feared him, and let him go step by -step, step by step, over their silly heads up his golden ladder. - -“I said I’d do it and I’ve done it,” he said to himself, with his hands -clasped on his broad belly and his long tight lips puffed out with a -smile of content. - -The carriage stopped at that moment before the open gates; he seldom -drove through the gates when alone, for he felt some unacknowledged -fear of his carriage-horses when driven by such butter-fingered fools -as he considered English coachmen to be, and he preferred to alight in -the street. The white brilliancy of the electric lamps of the courtyard -was streaming out into the dusky misty night. - -He got out of the brougham slowly, for he was a heavy man, his figure -plainly visible in the bright light from the open portals, his footman -obsequiously aiding him, and the wide-open entrance of the great house -glowing with light in front of him. A dark figure unperceived came out -of the shadow and drew close to him; there was a flash, a report, and -the joys and ambitions of William Massarene were ended for ever and aye. - -He fell forward on the marble steps of his great mansion, stone dead, -with a bullet through his heart. - -“’Tis too good for him, the brute! Too short and too sweet!” thought -Robert Airley as he turned away, unseen by anyone, and mingled with the -traffic behind the dead man’s house. - -The vengeance he had taken seemed to him a poor thing after all. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI. - - -Katherine Massarene was coming down the staircase under the smiling -gaze of Clodion’s falconer, dressed for the evening and about to dine -out, when she heard the shot, muffled as it was by the sounds of the -traffic; in another moment she heard a great outcry and understood that -something unusual must have taken place; she descended the stairs more -quickly, and was crossing the hall when the inner and outer doors were -thrown open, and the servants within hurried up to her. - -“Don’t go, madam! Don’t look!” - -“What has happened?” she said to them. “An accident? To whom? Tell me -at once.” - -“Mr. Massarene’s murdered, madam,” said a young footman, who had hated -his employer and relished the telling of the tale. “Don’t look, madam; -they’re bringing him in.” - -She put them aside and went to the open doors. There she met the body -of her father, which was carried across the threshold by four men, -his arms hanging down, his head leaning toward one shoulder; behind, -in the bright electric light, were curious lookers-on, thrust back by -constables. And above, on the head of the staircase, the falconer of -Clodion looked down and smiled at the vanity of human ambitions. - -Throughout fashionable London people were dressing for dinner, or were -sitting at dinner-tables, or were driving to dinner-parties, when the -strange rumor ran through the streets and spread from mouth to mouth, -and was whispered in ghostly speed through the telephonic tubes of -club-houses, that William Massarene had been shot as he had alighted -from his carriage at the gate of Harrenden House. - -“There _is_ a God above us!” said Lord Greatrex to his nephew. - -To him it was an immense relief; it was as though an octopus had loosed -its tentacles. - -But as the news ran through the town, and was received at first with -incredulity and then with consternation, a keen anxiety succeeded to -astonishment in the breasts of many--so many of these great people owed -him money! - -He was assassinated at eight of the clock. By ten in the evening -newspapers were issued with the startling intelligence printed in large -type. The journals sold by millions; people snatched them from each -other’s hands and read them in the streets, in the cabs and carriages, -under the noses of the horses, in the lobby and on the terrace of St. -Stephen’s. - -He had what answers in modern cities to the Triumph of the Romans. The -town talked solely of his end. - -That evening the Duchess of Otterbourne was dining _en intime_ with a -familiar friend at a house in Cadogan Square. They were all congenial -and pleasant acquaintances at the little banquet, and after it they sat -down to play poker, a game which makes up in excitement what it lacks -in intellectuality. - -Cadogan Square is somewhat distant from those central haunts where -news first circulates, and the poker-players were uninterrupted by the -intelligence of the tragedy which was being discussed all around the -Parliament House and in the great clubs of the West. They neither heard -it by telephone, or by the shouting of newsboys, and when at midnight a -young nephew of the hostess, who was also a member of the Conservative -party, came into the drawing-room he saw at a glance that the tidings -he had brought with him had not been forestalled. - -“Oh, I say!” he cried, as he came up behind his aunt’s chair. “Oh, I -say! Such a piece of news! Who do you think has been shot?” - -The players went on with their game unheeding. - -“Don’t bother, Dick!” said the lady of the house. “Who cares who’s -shot?” - -“Somebody in Ireland, of course,” said another lady, with impatience, -“Somebody at the Castle?” - -“Oh, but I say, Duchess,” said the young man, staring at her from -behind his aunt’s chair, which was opposite to hers, “it’s your friend, -you know. The fellow that bought Roxhall’s place. The member for South -Woldshire, that you are so fond of. He’s been shot dead as he got out -of his brougham. It was telephoned to the House as we were all coming -away for dinner.” - -Mouse was standing up to draw a card; she dropped down on her chair as -if she too had been shot; her knees shook under her, she gasped for -breath. The shock was one of joy, not of grief; but it was so violent -that it seemed to take her very life away in the immense relief. - -“Dear me, I’m sorry,” murmured the young man, greatly surprised. “Had -no idea you cottoned to the cad so much.” - -All eyes were turned on her. - -“Shot? When? Where? Who shot him?” she said, in quick short gasps of -broken speech. - -No one had ever seen her strongly moved before. - -“Who, nobody knows. But he was shot dead as a door-nail at his own gate -this evening.” - -“How deeply she must be in debt to him!” thought her hostess, while she -laughed and scolded her nephew for coming to disturb them with such -eerie tales. - -Mouse recovered herself in a few moments, and as soon as she could -steady her voice asked again, as the others were asking, “Who told you? -Are you sure?” - -The young man answered, rather sulkily, that he was quite sure; -everybody was talking of it in the House; it was attributed to the -anarchists. - -“They are good for something, then,” said the hostess. - -“Don’t,” said Mouse, conscious that she must account for the emotion -she had shown. “Please don’t, Pussie. He was a rough, common, -ridiculous man, but he was very kind in his way, really kind, to poor -Cocky and to me.” - -“Oh, my dear, what a liar you are!” thought her friend. - -“Are you sure he is dead?” Mouse asked of the young member again. “He -might be only wounded, and not dead, you know.” - -“Dead as a door-nail,” answered the youthful legislator, resenting the -doubt thrown on his news. “He was shot through the heart from behind. -He died before they could carry him into the house.” - -Mouse drew a deep sigh of contentment which sounded like one of regret. - -“Who did it?” - -“They don’t know. Nobody saw how it was done.” - -“He must have had numbers of enemies.” - -“Oh, no doubt.” - -“Who will have all his money?” asked the lady of the house. - -“His daughter, of course,” said her nephew. “It will be a lucky dog who -marries her.” - -“Try and be that dog,” said the lady. “And now don’t you think we’ve -chanted Mr. Massarene’s requiem long enough? He wasn’t an attractive -person. Let us play again.” - -But her guests did not accept her invitation; they were all more or -less excited by the news. Who could tell what scandals might not come -to the surface when the dead man’s papers were unsealed? Meantime they -made as much scandal as they could themselves--raking up old stories, -computing how much this, that, or the other owed him, whose debts of -honor he had paid, and what personages, crowned and uncrowned, were in -his hands. - -“What tremendous sport his daughter will have,” said one of the ladies. -“If I were she I should bring all the bigwigs into court for principal -and interest. But she doesn’t look as if she liked fun.” - -Mouse was on thorns as she listened. For the first time in her life -people seemed to her odiously heartless. This event mattered so -enormously to her that she wondered the earth did not stand still. For -the first time in her life she felt the chill of that indifference in -others which is at times so hard to bear. Her hostess, who was one -of the many pretty women who kissed and caressed her, and hated her, -watched her with suspicious amusement. “I never saw Sourisette so upset -in her life,” she thought. “Did the man pay her an annuity of twenty -thousand a year which dies with him?” - -It appeared to her that nothing less than some great pecuniary loss -could possibly thus affect the nerves of her friend. - -Mouse went away from the card-party early. - -“One would think the dead cad had held a lot of her ‘bad paper,’” said -the lady with a cruel little laugh, as she returned from embracing her -guest affectionately on the head of the staircase. - -“I dare say he did,” answered her nephew. “I wonder what he’ll cut up -for? Twelve million sterling, they say, not counting the house and the -estates.” - -“Oh, I don’t believe that,” said his aunt. “However rich he might be -when he came over, Mouse has had the running of him, you know, ever -since!” - -The friend of whom she spoke thus kindly, as she drove the distance -which separated Cadogan Square from Portman Square, heard the shouting -of the newspaper vendors: “Murder of Mr. Massarene! Assassination of -the Member for South Woldshire! Awful crime by anarchists at Gloucester -Gate! Member of Parliament shot dead! Millionaire murdered on his own -doorstep! Murder! Murder! Murder!” - -There was still immense excitement in the streets. The papers were -being sold as fast as they could be supplied. Men of all classes -stopped under street lamps or before the blaze of shop windows to read -the news. William Massarene had the apotheosis which he would have -desired. All London was in agitation at the news of his death. There -could scarcely have been more interest displayed if a German army had -landed at Southsea or a French flotilla bombarded Dover. The crime was -a sensational one; the mystery enshrouding it added to its tragedy; and -the victim had that power over the modern mind which only capitalists -now hold. - -The horror which was in the atmosphere was in herself, and yet what an -ecstasy of relief came with it! - -When she reached her sister’s house she hurried up the stairs and shut -herself in her bedchamber, dismissing her maid for the moment. She -walked up and down the room in breathless excitation. She longed, oh! -how she longed, to see the brute lying dead! How she would have liked -to take a knife and cut and slash the lifeless body, and box the deaf -ears, and strike the soundless mouth. She understood how people in -revolution had sated their hatred in the mutilation and the outrage of -dead men and women. She would have liked to tear his corpse limb from -limb and fling his flesh to starving hounds. - -Who was the assassin? How she would have rewarded him had it been in -her power for that straight, sure, deadly shot! She would have had him -fed from gold and silver, and clad in purple and fine linen for all the -rest of his days. She would have kissed the barrel of the revolver that -had done the deed, she would have cradled the weapon between her white -breasts, like a sucking child! - -No one, she thought, had ever hated another human being as she had -hated William Massarene. - -And who could tell whether she was wholly freed from him by his death? - -Was it such entire release as she had thought? - -She shuddered as she remembered that he had never given her back her -own receipt about Beaumont, or Beaumont’s to him. He had kept them -no doubt locked in his iron safe as witnesses against her. There, of -course, his lawyers or executors would find them, and they would pass -into his daughter’s possession with all other documents eventually. - -There was, possibly, the hope that he might have provided for their -transmission to herself, but she did not think so; it would not be -in keeping with his brutality and his greed to have provided for her -safety after his decease. If he had not left those signatures to -herself they would be inevitably discovered by his men of business, -and be made public as a part of monies due to him. All the unutterable -torment which she had sold herself to the Minotaur to escape would -again be her portion. She would be at Katherine Massarene’s mercy! - -For she had no doubt that his daughter would inherit the whole of his -wealth, and with his wealth his hold over his debtors. She knew little -or nothing of business, but she knew that she, like all the princes and -lords who had been his debtors, would see her financial relations with -him exposed to the light of day; unless he had had mercy enough in him -to provide for her safety, which was not probable. - -She passed the hours miserably, though having summoned her women she -had taken her bath and had tried to sleep. - -She could get no rest even from chloral. When some -semi-unconsciousness came over her she saw in her dreams the ghost -of Massarene with a smile upon his face. “Here I am again!” his -shade said, like a clown in a pantomime. “Here I am again, my pretty -one!”--and he laid his icy grip on her and grinned at her with -fleshless skeleton jaws. - -Early in the morning she was awakened from a late and heavy slumber by -the cries of the newspaper boys passing down the street and shouting, -as their precursors had done on the previous evening: “Murder of a -Member of Parliament! Assassination by an Anarchist! Awful crime at the -gates of Harrenden House!” - -Then it was true, and not a nightmare, which the day could dissipate! - -She felt torn in two between relief and apprehension; with her -breakfast they brought her the morning papers, which announced the -ghastly event in large capital letters. There were no details given -because there were none to give; the papers said that there was great -activity at Scotland Yard, but at present nothing had transpired to -account for the crime. - -Later in the day she drove to Harrenden House and left two cards for -the widow and the daughter. - -On that for Margaret Massarene she had written: - -“My whole heart is with you. So shocked and grieved for the loss of my -good friend.” - -“That’s very sweet of her!” said Mrs. Massarene with tremulous lips and -red eyelids. - -Katherine Massarene took the cards and tore them in two. - -“Why do you do that, Kathleen?” said her mother between her sobs. “Your -poor dear father was always so good to her. ’Tis only pretty of her to -sorrow for him.” - -Katherine did not reply. - -The man who killed him was not discovered. No one had noticed the lean -bent dark figure which had mingled with the crowd behind Harrenden -House. - -“But, oh! for certain sure ’twas one of the many as he wronged,” -said his wife, with the tears running down her pale cheeks. “I allus -thought, though I didn’t dare to say so, that this was how your father -would end some day, my dear. He always thought as he was God Almighty, -did your poor father, my dear, and he never gave a back glance, as -’twere, to the tens and hundreds and thousands as he’d ruined.” - -Katherine Massarene, very calm, very grave, listened and did not -dissent. “What he might have done!” she murmured. “Oh, what he might -have done!--how much good, how much kindness!--what blessings might -have gone with him to his grave!” - -She had felt a great shock, a great horror, at the fate of her father, -but she could not feel sorrow, such as the affections feel at death. It -was unspeakably terrible that he should have died like this, without -a moment of preparation, without a single word or glance to reconcile -him with the humanity which he had outraged, but this was all that she -could feel. Between her and her father there had always been in life an -impassable gulf; death could not bridge that gulf. - -“Am I made of stone?” she said to herself in remorse; but it was of -no use; she felt horror, but sorrow she could not feel. She was too -sincere to pretend it to herself or others. She seemed to her mother, -to the household, to the official persons who came in contact with -her, unnaturally chill and silent; they thought it the coldness of -indifference. - -The grief of Margaret Massarene was violent and genuine, but its -safety-valve was in its hysterical garrulity. She suffered extremely, -for she had loved her husband despite his brutality, and had honored -him despite all his faults. She had always believed in him with a -pathetic devotion which no ill-treatment changed. - -“He was a great man, was William,” she said again and again between her -convulsive sobs, as she sat by the bed on which his body had been laid -after the autopsy. “He was a great man, and God knows what heights he -wouldn’t have riz to if he’d lived a few years longer. For he’d took -the measure of ’em all. He said he’d die a peer, and he would have died -a peer if this cruel bullet hadn’t cut him down like a bison on the -plains. Lord, to think of all he had gone through by flood and by fire, -in storm and in quarrel, by the hand of God and by the hand of man; -and when he comes here to enjoy his own and get his just reward, he is -struck just like any poor Texan steer pithed in the slaughter place! -The ways o’ the Almighty are past finding out indeed.” - -Then she took his dead hand between both her own and held it tenderly -and kissed it. - -His princes and his lords, his fine ladies and fair favorites, were all -far away from him now; he was all her own in his dead loneliness; her -own man as he had been when they had walked across the green fields of -Kilrathy on their marriage-day, with all their worldly goods put up in -a bundle hung upon a stick. In her grief and her despair there was a -thrill of jealous joy; he was once again all her own as he had been on -that soft wet midsummer morning when they had walked through the grass -man and wife. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII. - - -“We’ll give him the grandest buryin’ that money can get,” she said to -her daughter. - -Katherine could not oppose her wishes, alien as they were to her own -tastes and desires. She felt that the wish would have been also her -father’s. The tragic suddenness of his end had startled and impressed -London society; the evidences of sympathy and condolence were -innumerable and seemed sincere; very many were extremely grieved that -the hospitalities of Harrenden House had ceased in the height of the -season; and the more personal and secret anxieties in those who were -his debtors found natural expression in delicate attentions which took -much of the sting of her bereavement out of his wife’s heart. A very -great personage even called himself, and pressed her hand, and murmured -his regret. - -“You can’t say as your father ain’t honored in his end,” she said -reproachfully to her daughter. - -Katherine was silent. Everything that passed was sickeningly, odiously, -intolerably offensive to her. The week which followed on his death, -during which he was, as it were, lying in state, seemed to her as -though it were ten years in length. When it came to a close, the -body in its bier (a triple coffin of lead and oak and silver) was -taken by rail from London into the southern portion of the county -which he had represented, and solemnly deposited at the station of -that rural capital town where he had once written down the sum of -his subscriptions to the church and to “the dogs.” A very imposing -gathering of county notables and borough dignitaries, of noblemen -and gentlemen and municipal councilmen and clerical luminaries, -were all assembled at the station ready to do him the last honors -in their power, and sincerely affected by his loss, for the sad and -general conviction was that, without his patronage as a fulcrum, the -short-route railway would never now be made. - -The blinds were drawn down in the houses of his supporters, and the -bells of the churches tolled mournfully as the dismal procession wended -on its way through the old-fashioned streets. There were eight black -horses harnessed to the hearse with black plumes at their ears and long -black velvet housings, and equerries in black walking at their heads, -and carriages innumerable followed in slow and stately measure the -leading equipages of the Sheriff, the Lord-Lieutenant, and the Mayor, -who was a Viscount. - -“A prince couldn’t be buried more beautiful,” murmured his widow, -as she followed in a mourning-carriage with four black horses. She -derived a strange consolation from this pageantry; it made her feel -as if she were doing all she could for his soul, and as if she were -keeping her marriage vows righteously. She was pleased, too, to see the -drawn blinds, the closed shops, the steady, silent, respectful country -crowds, the flag which hung half-mast high on the keep of the ancient -town-castle. - -“They could scarce do more if ’twas a royal prince. ’Tis consoling -to see such respect and such lamentation,” she murmured, looking out -furtively from the handkerchief in which her face appeared buried. -The part of her character which had taken pleasure in the great folk -and the great houses, and the great successes of their English life, -thrilled with pride to think that her “man,” her own man, with whom she -had toiled and moiled so many, many years, was being honored in his -obsequies thus. Even English Royalty was represented at the funeral -by a small slim young gentleman with an eye-glass, who belonged to -the Household and brought with him an enormous wreath of gardenia and -Bermuda lilies. - -Her daughter, whose eyes were dry, and who had no handkerchief even -in her hand, did not answer, but she thought: “The respect and the -lamentation are bought like the crape and the horses’ plumes, like the -lies on the silver coffin-plate and the stolen place in the Roxhall -crypt!” - -“That darter o’ Massarene’s a hard woman,” said a cooper of the town to -a wheelwright. “Not a drop o’ water in her eye for her pore murdered -dad.” - -“One don’t pipe one’s eye when one comes into a fortun’,” said the -wheelwright, winking his own. “And such a fortun’! For my part I -respect her; she don’t pretend nought.” - -“No, she don’t pretend. But one likes to see a little ’uman feelin’,” -said the more tender-hearted cooper, watching the tails of the black -horses sweep the stones of the High Street. That was the general public -sentiment in Woldshire against Katherine Massarene. She was a hard -young woman. The county foresaw that she would draw her purse-strings -very tight, and be but of little use to it. “A hard young woman,” they -all thought, as they saw her straight delicate profile, like a fine -ivory intaglio, through the glass of her equipage. - -It was a fine day in early summer and the sun shone on the green -cornfields, the sheep in the meadows, the cows under the pollards, the -whirling sails of windmills, the tall yellow flags in the ditches, -the hamlets dotting the level lands, the village children climbing on -stiles to see the pageant pass. - -Katherine looked out at the simple landscape and the soft dim blue of -the sky, and felt sick at heart. - -“Am I a monster,” she thought, “that I can feel no common ordinary -sorrow, no common natural regret even, nothing but a burning -humiliation?” - -The solemn and stately procession went on its way decorously and -tediously, along the country roads which separated the county town from -the park of Vale Royal. Everybody in the carriages which one by one -followed the widow’s were excruciatingly bored; but they all wore long -faces, and conversed under their breath of the Goodwood meeting, of the -prospect of the hay harvest, of quarter sessions, of pigeon matches, of -drainage, of ensilage, and of the promise of the young broods in the -coverts. - -“I think death is made more of a nuisance than it need be really,” said -the slender young gentleman who represented Royalty to the _Custos -Rotulorum_ who replied with a groan, “Oh, Lord, yes! If one could only -smoke!” - -For two miles and more the roads had been lined by rural folks waiting -respectfully for the pageant to pass by; but as they drew near Vale -Royal and entered on what had been Roxhall’s lands, all the cottages -which they passed were shut up; not a man, woman, or child was visible -in the little gardens or in the fields beyond. - -“I suppose the cottagers are all gone on to the churchyard,” said a -plump rector in one of the carriages, as he looked out of his window. - -The town clerk, who was beside him, said in a whisper: “You won’t see a -man-jack of Roxhall’s old tenants or peasantry show their noses to-day. -They neither forget nor forgive.” - -“How very un-Christian!” said the plump rector, with a sigh. - -“Fidelity’s its own religion,” said the town clerk, who had been born -on a farm on Roxhall’s land, and had hated to see the old homesteads -and the familiar fields pass to the man from Dakota. - -He was a true prophet. None of the peasantry or of the tenantry were -visible on the roads or at the church of Vale Royal, which was within -the park gates and surrounded by yew-trees and holly hedges; they -were loyal to their lost lord. Princes and nobles and ministers might -truckle to the wealth of the dead man, but these men of the soil were -faithful to the old owners of the soil. They despised the newcomer, -living or dead. - -The bishop of the diocese was awaiting the body, surrounded by minor -clergy, in the little, dusky, venerable church, with its square Saxon -tower and its moss-grown tombstones standing about it in the long grass -(like those of Staghurst and of many an English God’s-acre) under the -yews, which were of vast size and unknown age. The coffin of William -Massarene was placed in the middle of the aisle, as Carnot’s in the -Panthéon, and the wreaths were heaped round it in the grotesque and -odious manner dear to the close of the most vulgar of all centuries. -One of them, made of gloxinias, rose and white, had the card of the -Duchess of Otterbourne attached to it. The sun shone mild and serene; -the birds sang above the black figures of the mourners; the voice -of the venerable prelate droned on like a bumble-bee buzzing on a -window-pane; selections from Weber in E flat were played and vocalized -with exquisite taste by admirable artistes; all the gentlemen present -stood bareheaded and solemn of countenance, trying to look affected and -only succeeding in looking bored. The daughter of the dead man assisted -at the ceremony with revolted taste and aching heart. To her it was -one long sickening penance, painfully ludicrous in its mockery and -hypocrisy and folly. Every word of the burial service sounded on her -ear like the laughter of some demon. Her father’s life had been a long -black crime, none the less, but the greater because one of those crimes -which are not punished but rewarded by men; and he was bidden to enter -into the joy of his Lord! - -“Kathleen may say what she likes, but that pretty creature has shown -a deal of heart,” thought Margaret Massarene, kneeling under her -overwhelming masses of crape before the heaps of gummed and nailed -and wired flowers which were considered emblematic of the Christian -religion and her lost William’s soul. The pretty creature represented -by the garland of gloxinias had written her a most affecting and even -affectionate note on the previous evening, saying how grieved she -was that a touch of bronchitis kept her confined to her room, as it -prevented her attendance at the committal to earth of the remains -of her kind and valued friend. That note Margaret Massarene had not -shown to her daughter, but had wept over it and shut it up in her -dressing-box. - -“Kathleen’s that hard,” she had thought, as the crowds of South -Woldshire were thinking it, “she wouldn’t be made to believe in the -Duchess’s sorrow if the angels descended from the clouds to swear to -it!” - -Outside the church there were two brakes filled with wreaths from less -distinguished givers piled one on another, as if they were garbage; -for these there had been no room in the church. The savages who carry -scalps and weapons to a dead chief’s grave are considerably in advance -of _fin-de-siècle_ England in sense of fitness and consistency in -funeral rites. - -From the church, when the burial service was over, the body was borne -to a mausoleum of granite, gloomy, dark and solemn, which had been -the place of sepulchre of the Roxhall family for many centuries. The -building above ground was of the eighteenth century, but the crypt -beneath it was as old as the days of the great oak in the park which -was called King Alfred’s. Its subterranean vaults were spacious and -spread far under arched ceilings, supported by short Doric pillars; -here there were many knights lying in effigy on their tombs; many -shields hung to the columns, many banners drooping in the gloom; here -an ancient, gallant, chivalrous race had placed its dead in their last -rest for a thousand years. The latest made grave was a little child’s, -a three-year-old daughter of Roxhall’s, with a white marble lily carved -on the marble above her, for her name had been Lillias, and she had -died from a fall. The coffin of William Massarene was placed beside -this little child’s. - -The keeper of a gambling den lay with the fair children, the pure -women, and the brave men of an honored race. - -To Katherine the desecration of the place seemed blasphemous. - -How could Roxhall have sold the very graves of his race? She thought -of his cousin Hurstmanceaux; _he_ would have died sooner. As the choir -sang the _Benedictus_ of Gounod, and the sweet spiritual melodies -warbled softly over the still open vault, she felt sick with the satire -and the derision of the whole scene. The Lord-Lieutenant, who stood on -her right, looked at her with anxiety. - -“Do you feel faint?” he asked. “Is it too much for you? Ladies should -not go through such trying ceremonies.” - -“I am quite well, thanks,” she replied coldly; and he too thought what -an uncivil and unfeeling person she was. - -“I suppose she is not sure to inherit, and so is worried,” thought -the gentleman; he could imagine no other possible motive for so much -coldness and so much evidently painful emotion. - -“Well, ’tis all over,” thought the dead man’s widow. “But ’tis strange -to think as so masterful a man as poor dear William is gone where he -won’t never have his own way any more!” - -Her ideas of a future state were vague, but so far as they were -formulated, they always represented immortal life to her as a kind of -perpetual Sunday school, with much music and considerable discipline. -She felt that William would be very uncomfortable with such limited -opportunities for “making deals” and swinging his stock-whip, as it -were, around him. She was a devoutly religious woman, but her common -sense made her piety a difficult matter, as common sense is apt to do -to many pious persons. She could not bring her mind into any actual -conception of her dead husband as powerless to assert his will, or gone -whither his banking-books would be useless to buy him a warm place. - -When the service was over and the bishop had spoken some beautiful -impressive words, during the delivery of which everyone present looked -rapt and divided between ecstasy and anguish (Katherine alone having -her usual expression of reserve and indifference), all the mourners -and officials flocked across the park to the great house to enjoy, in -their several places, according to their rank, the magnificent luncheon -which was destined to be the last effort of Richemont in the Massarene -service. - -Katherine and her mother were, during the banqueting, closeted with -the solicitors and administrators to hear the reading of the will. The -executors were two solid and sagacious city magnates, for in business -matters the testator had only trusted business-men. - -His daughter was undisturbed; she felt quite certain that he would -have disinherited her. He would, she felt sure, have disposed of his -millions in some splendid, public, and sensational way. His widow was -visibly nervous and anxious. - -“I never saw an inch into his mind in this matter,” she thought. “’Tis -quite likely as he’ll cut us both off with a shilling.” - -To dispute his will, whatever it might be, never occurred as possible -to one who had been his obedient slave nigh forty years. - -She listened in strained and painful attention as she sat in the -library with her daughter, and the great London solicitor, who had been -the person chiefly trusted by Massarene, opened the momentous document -and laid it before him, and, resting his hand upon it, said to the two -women: - -“My dear ladies, there is no later will than that made ten years -ago, which, with your permission, I will now proceed to read to you. -It is to be presumed that the deceased always remained in the same -dispositions of mind and feeling, since he has never even added a -codicil to this document.” - -With that preamble he turned toward the light and read aloud a -testament of much simplicity considering the enormous fortune of -which it disposed. It left everything unreservedly to his only child, -Katherine Massarene, and provided only that she should pay to her -mother the annual sum of a thousand pounds a year. It left nothing -whatever directly to his wife, not even jewels, and with the exception -of a few bequests to hospitals and executors, provided for nothing -else than the transmission of his entire property to his daughter, for -her own absolute and unrestricted possession on the attainment of her -majority: that age she had now passed by four years. - -The envied inheritor of this envied and enormous wealth showed no -emotion which they could construe into either surprise or exultation; -her features might have been of marble for any change they displayed. -An immense consternation paralyzed her. She had hoped that the dislike -her father had conceived for her, and the disappointment she had caused -him, would have led to his leaving away from her some very large -portion of his wealth. She would not have been surprised, and she would -have been infinitely relieved, if he had left her nothing at all. That -she could by any possibility become sole mistress of this immense -property which was so loathsome to her had never for a moment occurred -to her. Royal legatees, public institutions, churches, endowments, -asylums, any one of the many means by which the dead glorify their -memory and purchase a brief respite from the cruelty of oblivion, -would, she had imagined, have preceded her in her father’s bequests. - -She had forgotten the fact that to such men as William Massarene the -continuation of their own blood in alliance with their wealth is -absolutely necessary to their ambition. For that reason, although he -had often thought of leaving his fortune to the Prince of Wales, or to -the Nation, he had never actually brought himself to revoke the will -in his only living child’s favor. - -Her mother sat still for a moment, a deep purple flush covering her big -and pallid face. Then for the solitary time in all her life she rose -with dignity to the exigency of a trying hour. - -“Gentlemen,” she said, in a firm voice to those present, “what is my -child’s is the same as though ’twere mine, and she is learned and a -true lady, and she’ll grace all she gets. But my husband should hev -thought twice before he put such a slight upon me, his partner for nigh -forty year, who worked with him in cold and heat, in mud and sweat, -in hunger and in sorrow. Still the pile was his own to do as he liked -with, and never think, gentlemen, as I dream o’ putting forward any -contrary claim.” - -The gentlemen present heard in respectful silence. The fat, homely, -vulgar woman was transfigured by the noble endurance of a great wrong. - -On reflection men deride such sentiments, but their first impulse is to -respect them and to salute them with respect. First thoughts are often -best. - -Katherine looked at her with deep sorrow in her eyes; but she sat quite -still with no expression on her face, at least, none that the men -present could construe. - -The lawyers and executors timidly began to offer their congratulations; -they were afraid of this stately, cold, mute, young woman, who gave -no sign either of exultation or of mourning; it seemed to them, as -it always seemed to everyone, as if she could not possibly bear any -relation to the dead millionaire. - -She stopped their felicitations with a gesture, and rose. - -“You will excuse me, sirs, if I cannot converse with you, and if I -leave you now. After to-day I shall be always at your disposition for -any business that may require me. Meantime, consider this house yours. -Come, my dear mother.” - -She took her mother’s hand and forced her to rise; then made a low -formal curtsey to the men present and passed out of the room, leading -her mother with her. - -“Well, I never,” said one of the city gentlemen. - -“She knows the time o’ day,” said the other. - -“I think she’ll be near,” said the country lawyer. - -“She’s mighty grand and distant,” said the first speaker. - -The London solicitor said nothing. He admired her. But he felt that she -would not be an easy client if she left the affairs in his hands. She -would want to know the why and the wherefore of everything. No man of -law likes that. - -Katherine, when she was alone with her mother in her own rooms, bent -down and kissed Mrs. Massarene’s pale face. - -“Oh, my dear mother, what a shame to you, what an injustice and insult! -Oh, if I had only known what he had done when he was living! Why would -you never let me speak to him of his will?” - -Her voice shook with deep-rooted anger and exceeding pain. She was -indignant to be made the instrument of her mother’s humiliation. - -“My dear, you wouldn’t have altered him,” said her mother, between her -sobs. “He wished to lay me low, and he’s done it. But he was a great -man, was poor William, all the same. It’s a bitter pill to swallow,” -she continued, between her sobs, “and I don’t deserve it from him, for -I toiled day and night for him, and with him, when neither of us had -more than the clothes we stood up in, and ’twas just what I made by -washing and cooking as kept us on our legs for the first year in that -blackguard township. Of course I was in the way of late years. He would -have liked to take a young wife with a great name, and have sons and -that like. ’Twas only natural, perhaps; I was but a clog upon him. But -he forgot all the early years we toiled together.” - -“It is an infamy! His will is the greatest crime of an abominable -life!” said Katherine, with deep wrath shining in her eyes and -quivering on her lips. - -“Hush! He was your father,” said his wife. “And he was a great man; -there’s excuse for men as is great--they can’t be tied down like common -folks.” - -Then, poor soul, she leaned her head on her hands and wept bitterly. - -This will, so short and simple in comparison with the enormous wealth -it disposed of, had been the only one signed amongst the various -testaments he had caused to be written. It had been made on his arrival -in England when Katherine had been fourteen years old, when his -ambitions had all centred in her, and on her head he had in imagination -seen resting the circlet of some ducal coronet or princely crown. - -Moreover he had always loathed the thought of death; to this man of -iron strength and constant success the idea of something which was -stronger than himself, and which would put an end to his success, was -horrible. - -The slight to his wife he would always have caused: he could not -forgive her for not having died long before in Kerosene City. He went -as near to hatred of her as a man of sluggish blood, and superstitious -respect for custom and conventionality, could allow himself to do. She -was a great burden, a drawback and disfigurement; she was stupid and -tactless; she had no powers of assimilation; and in all her grandeur -and glory she remained the Margaret Hogan of Kilrathy. He paid her -out for her persistency in living on and being as incongruous in his -fine houses as a dish of pigs’ trotters would have been at one of his -dinners for Royal Highnesses. - -She had toiled hard with and for him in the Northwest; she had laid -the first modest foundations on which he had subsequently been able to -raise his golden temple; and for that very reason he detested her and -cut her off with a meagre legacy, and recalled to her that her jewels -even had been only lent to her, never given. - -Philosophers and psychologists when they reason on human nature do not -realize the enormous place which pure spite occupies in its motives and -actions. - -All the use she had been to him, all her industry, patience, affection, -and self-denial had all counted for nothing with him; she was a blot on -his greatness, a ridiculous figure in his houses, and her existence had -stood in the way of his marrying some fair young virgin of noble race -who might have given him an heir, and let him cut off his daughter with -a shilling. He did not therefore make a new will, because he could not -make up his mind to disinherit his only living representative; besides -that, he felt that he had at least another score of years to live; and -probably he would have reached his fourscore and ten and died an earl, -as he intended to do, had not the bullet of Robert Airley cut short his -career. - -But the vengeance of a poor Scotch workingman had put an end to all, -and his wife had survived him and was sobbing into her handkerchief -whilst his daughter became sole inheritrix of his millions and estates. - -He had made many other dispositions of his property, but as these -others were all unsigned they were worth nothing at all in the sight of -the law. His daughter was the richest woman in Great Britain, and all -those whose offers of marriage had been rejected by her cursed her with -the heartiest unanimity. - -Meanwhile she herself felt as though an avalanche had fallen on her and -overwhelmed her. - -“That creature has got everything!” said the Duchess of Otterbourne, -as she read the synopsis of the will in the newspapers. “Oh, why did -Ronnie not make himself pleasant and marry her!” The soiled linen which -she was conscious of having piled up against herself in the dead man’s -hand would at least have been washed _en famille_! - -By the solicitor’s and executors’ request, Katherine who seemed to all -who surrounded her the most favored mortal under the sun went to London -on the day following the funeral. Her mother would not go with her. - -“I’ll never set foot in that house no more,” she said; its gilded -gates and marble staircase with the smiling nude boy of Clodion had -become hateful to her. She was not physically ill, but she was nervous, -depressed, cried for hours, and wished incessantly that she had never -left the dairy and the pastures of Kilrathy. “I’m Humpty Dumpty tumbled -off the wall,” she said more than once. “All the king’s horses and all -the king’s men won’t put me together again.” - -“Oh, it is shameful, shameful!” said Katherine between her teeth. “And -to make me the instrument to wound you! What cynical cruelty!” - -She implored her mother to resist the will, to dispute it in court; to -claim a proper share of a fortune which she had largely contributed to -gain. - -But her mother would not hear of such a thing. “I ain’t going to put -good gold and silver in attorneys’ pockets,” she said resolutely. -“I wouldn’t bring William’s will into litigation, no, not if I was -starvin’ on the streets. He was a great man when all’s said and done, -and it won’t be me as dishonors him.” For she was very proud of him now -he was gone and lying under his marble slab in the Roxhall’s crypt; he -had stuck a knife in her, as it were, but she did not complain of the -wound; he had been the “bull-dozing boss” to the last and he had had a -right to be it. - -The natural bitterness she felt did not turn against him, but against -her daughter. - -“You’ll marry very high _now_,” murmured Margaret Massarene. “Lord! -There’s nothing you may not get if you wish it.” - -“I shall never marry,” said Katherine; and through her memory passed -the simile of the hangman’s daughter. - -She felt crushed to earth with the weight of this loathsome -inheritance. It was odious to her as blood-money. Where could she go, -what could she do, to escape from the world, which would see in her a -golden idol whilst to herself only the clay feet standing in mud would -be visible? - -Outside Harrenden House there was the incessant movement of the -London season at its perihelion; the gaiety, the haste, the press, -the excitement, the display of a capital in its most crowded hour. -Within all was gloom, silence, mournings. Only the boy of Clodion still -laughed. - -The weary work of examination, verification, classification, began; -all the wearisome formalities which follow on the death of a rich man. -The executors, the solicitors, and the household all alike felt awe -and dread of the new owner of the fortune. Her silence seemed to them -unnatural. She was always at the command of the men of business, and -she was always perfectly courteous to every one, but they were afraid -of her. She broke all the seals herself in the presence of those who -had a right to be with her, and examined, herself alone, all the mass -of documents left by her father. She had a presentiment that there -must be much left behind him that would dishonor his memory, and -disgrace still more grossly his debtors. She despised from the depths -of her soul all those illustrious persons whose names figured on the -secret ledgers with their Bramah locks which he had kept as rigidly -as he had used to keep his books in Kerosene City when it was but an -embryo township. But she wished to screen them from the publicity with -which it was in her power to ruin them all; and shortly afterwards -several great persons were at once infinitely relieved, embarrassed, -and humiliated by having their obligations returned to them. - -Strangely as it seemed to her, almost one of the first things she -saw in a drawer of her father’s bureau was an envelope with the -superscription:-- - - “To be sent to the Earl of Hurstmanceaux immediately on my demise. - W. M.” - -It was a small envelope and thin. - -It seemed odd to her that her father should have left a missive for -a man with whom he had no acquaintance and from whom he had received -only insults. But she concluded that the communication must regard the -affairs of Hurstmanceaux’s sister. She gave the letter at once to a -confidential servant to be taken to Hurstmanceaux’s London address. - -In half an hour the servant returned. - -“His lordship has rooms in Bruton Street, madam; but he is out of town, -they do not know where. He is yachting in the north of Ireland, they -think; I left the letter to be given as soon as he arrives.” - -“Quite right,” said Katherine; but she felt afraid that she ought to -have sent it through some surer channel; by the superscription it -was probably of importance, and no doubt treated of the Duchess of -Otterbourne’s affairs. She thought, too late, that it would have been -wiser to have sent it to Faldon Castle, where she remembered he had -said that he passed most part of the year. - -In the same afternoon she received a note on black-edged paper with a -duchess’s coronet on the envelope. It said: - - “DEAR MISS MASSARENE.--_I could not tell you how grieved I have been - at the appalling tragedy. I have thought so much of you in your - bereavement, and of your poor mother. If I had not suffered from - bronchitis I should have come in person to the funeral. I hope your - mother received my note? It is all so dreadful and sudden one cannot - realize it. Did my kind good friend leave no letter or message for - me? You know how I trusted him in all my affairs, and the loss of his - experience and his advice is to me an immeasurable misfortune. He was - so wonderfully clever, and so willing to counsel and to aid! His loss - can never be made up to any of us. In sincere sympathy I remain_, - - “_Ever yours affectionately_, - - “CLARE OTTERBOURNE.” - -Katherine read the note twice over. She profoundly mistrusted the -writer. It read very naturally, very unaffectedly; but it was wholly -impossible that the writer could be sincere. - -She was about to reply and say that her father had left a letter for -Hurstmanceaux; but on second thoughts she doubted if she had a right -to do so; the matter belonged to the person to whom the letter was -addressed, who would tell his sister of its contents or not, as he -chose. - -She wrote, instead, a few brief polite distant words saying that she -had as yet found no communication for the Duchess amongst her father’s -papers, and thanking her for her expressions of sorrow and sympathy. - -“Why should she expect any remembrance from him?” she wondered. “Did -she expect to be named in his will?” - -She felt regret that Hurstmanceaux was out of town. She thought his -sister quite capable of going to Bruton Street and intercepting the -letter if she got wind of it. Perhaps, she thought, there was money -in it; it had borne a large seal, bearing the newly-found arms of the -Massarenes. - -“Did my father ever speak to you of the Duchess of Otterbourne?” she -asked his solicitor that afternoon. - -“Never!” said the lawyer, with a passing smile. - -“Did you ever hear that he helped her in monetary affairs?” - -“No,” said the solicitor, with the same demure suggestive smile -hovering on his lips. “But everyone knows that Mr. Massarene was a -great admirer of that lady.” - -Katherine asked him no more. She lighted a match and burnt the -sympathetic little note. - -Meanwhile her own note was like lead on the heart of its recipient, -who had made sure that some message, some bequest, would come to -her from William Massarene. She knew the man so little, despite her -intelligence and worldly wisdom, that she had actually believed that he -might provide for the restoration to her, at his death, of her own and -Beaumont’s signatures, or would leave her some assurance that they were -destroyed. As it was, in the absence of any indication, she could not -tell that they might not at any moment be found by his daughter or his -executors. Every moment of these weeks was a torture to her. She could -not sleep an hour at night without anodynes. - -It was now the beginning of July: the height of the season. She had to -act in pastoral plays, keep stalls at bazaars, go to garden-parties, -dinner-parties, marriages, _déjeuners_, flower-shows, Primrose -gatherings, and be seen once at least at a Drawing-room. She did not -dare give in, or go away, or pretend to be ill, because she was afraid -that the world might suspect that she was worried by the consequences -of Massarene’s death. These days during which she knew that his -heiress must be searching amongst his papers, reading his memoranda, -and sorting his correspondence, were the most horrible of her life. -She felt stretched on a rack from morning till night. Outwardly she -was lovely, impertinent, careless, gay, as ever, and people wondered -whom she would marry; but her mental life was one of the most restless -conjecture, the most agonized dread. - -As the days became weeks, and she heard nothing of any discovery made -at Harrenden House, she began to grow quieter, she began to feel -reassured. The signatures no doubt had been burnt. She persuaded -herself that they had certainly been burnt. She did not dream that -Beaumont’s receipt and the type-written lines she herself had signed -had been enclosed, without a word, in the sealed letter which was lying -awaiting her brother at his rooms in Bruton street. - -The same night that he had returned from Paris, William Massarene, who -never left till to-morrow that which should be done to-day, had put -them in that envelope, had addressed and sealed them. “Now if I die my -lady will remember me,” he had thought. “She’ll wish she hadn’t called -me Billy, and told me lies about the Bird rooms.” - -In his own way at that time he was fiercely in love with her; but -his passion did not make him forget or forgive. It was a posthumous -vengeance which he thus arranged; but it was a diabolical and ingenious -one. - -Every week from that night until the night before his murder he had -looked at that letter and thought, with an inward chuckle, that if he -fell down in a fit, or died of a carriage accident, his retaliation -was safely arranged to smite her when he should be in his grave. In a -rough vague way he believed in a God above him. Most successful persons -do. But he did not choose to leave his revenge to the hands of deity. -“Always load your rifle yourself,” was his maxim in death as in life. - -He knew that her brother was the one person on earth whom she feared. -And the shell he thus filled to burst after his death would hit hard -Hurstmanceaux himself, that damnable swell who would not speak to him -even in a street or a club-house, and who had refused his heiress’s -hand before it was actually offered to him! “My lord’ll sing small when -he learns as his sister was saved from a criminal charge by Billy’s -dirty dollars,” he had thought as he had prepared that envelope which -his heiress now found in the hush and gloom of Harrenden House. He -might have made his vengeance still more cruel. He might have left -arrows still more barbed behind him to rankle in the breast of that -proud man, of that penniless peer, who would never know him. But he -had always attached great importance to reputation for chastity; he -felt ashamed to admit in his mature years that he too had felt the -temptation of a fair face and of a lovely form. He did not like to -confess, even posthumously, his own frailties. - -So he had only enclosed her signature and Beaumont’s. They spoke for -themselves. They were enough; they would leave to himself the glory of -a generous action, and to her the shame of a mean one. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII. - - -There was no one in London of the world which had been William -Massarene’s highest heaven. The August sun shone on the flower-beds -of the parks in all their glory, and the poor forgotten plants which -drooped in the balconies before shuttered windows, and the cats, -forgotten also, mewed vainly in closed kitchens and behind iron -railings, and the dogs, abandoned to servants and grooms, moped sadly -in stable or basement yards, or, straying out into the streets and -mews, were lassoed by the police or coaxed to their doom by the agents -of experimental institutes. Katherine Massarene, all alone, stayed on -at Harrenden House, absorbed in the enormous work of examining her late -father’s papers. Her mother remained in the country, whither Katherine -went from Saturday to Monday to see her. But all the other days of the -week the inheritress of Mr. Massarene’s wealth spent in tracing the -sources of that poisoned and blood-stained Pactolus. - -He, like many another successful and masterful man, had never taken -death into account, or he would have destroyed many of those written -witnesses against him. As it was, he had kept everything, partly from -the sense of power which it gave him to do so, partly from the prudent -sharpness of a business man which made him never lose a letter, however -insignificant, or destroy a signature, however unneeded. She could not -understand all the meaning of these papers, but she understood much: -enough to make her heart sick with shame, frozen with horror. She had -always known, vaguely, that his fortunes had been obtained mainly -through crimes which in the successful man society has agreed to let -pass as virtues; but she could now name, measure, analyze those crimes -and see them in all their entity, as drops of blood are seen under a -microscope. - -Thus she became acquainted with all the steps which had conducted -him from the straw of the cattle-shed to the carpets of Harrenden -House. That small study, in which he had kept locked all his ledgers, -folios, banking-books, and documents of every kind, seemed like a -very charnel-house to its new visitant. She had read very widely; she -had thought a great deal; and to her clear and cultured intelligence -the true aims and objects of her father’s life seemed as sordid and -miserable as those of the ragged men whom she had seen in her childhood -greedily washing river sand in tin pannikins in the hope of finding -some gleam of gold, and ready to murder their bosom friend to secure a -grain of the coveted metal. - -Among those papers was the letter written by the Suffolk emigrant for -Robert Airley. She read it, and it flashed across her mind that Robert -Airley had come to England and had killed her father. There was nothing -to suggest it, nothing to prove it; but she had no more doubt of it -than if she had heard the confession of the assassin. She telegraphed -to Kerosene City to inquire where Robert Airley was. It was telegraphed -back to her that he had sailed for Liverpool on the 30th of May: her -father had been shot on the night of the 17th of June: she had no doubt -after this that her inference had been correct. And it had not been -murder, but justice! Justice red-handed and rude--the _lex talionis_, -but justice nevertheless. - -Through suggestions from the American police, and Massarene’s manager, -the same suspicions were entertained by Scotland Yard. But Robert -Airley was lost sight of on his arrival in London, and, as the woman of -the eating-house held her peace and kept her own counsel, he remained -untraced. - -She said nothing of what she found and thought to her mother, and lived -on in that state of isolated reflection and regret which can only be -supported by those who are strong in character and independent of -sympathy, but from which even they suffer greatly. She did not try to -trace Robert Airley. When she heard that he was suspected of the crime -but could not be found, she was relieved to think that he was lost to -sight; his seizure and trial would have been agony to her. The horror -of her discoveries and the shame of them filled her with a feeling as -of personal guilt. She looked worn, unwell, aged; she had nothing in -her regard, in her manner, in her thoughts, of the sense of freedom and -power which all would have expected her to feel in such an accession -to immense wealth, in entire liberty. She had no one to whom she could -speak of anything which she felt. Lord Framlingham was in India, and he -was the only person to whom she could have confided something of her -anxieties, her shame, her uncertainty what to do and how to bear the -burden laid upon her. She knew that she must carry all her knowledge -shut up in her own breast as long as she lived. It lay like a stone -upon her, as did the inheritance of all this ill-gotten wealth. - -One day, when she was as usual in the little study poring over an old -ledger, one of the servants brought her a card. On it was printed, -“Earl of Hurstmanceaux.” She was surprised, much surprised, but she -remembered the letter her father had addressed to him. She hesitated -some moments: if he came on his sister’s business could he not go to -the lawyer? - -“Ask Lord Hurstmanceaux to be so good as to see the solicitors,” she -said to the servant, who returned in a few minutes with the reply that -Lord Hurstmanceaux desired the favor of a personal interview. - -“Show him into the library then,” she said, much surprised. “I will -come to him there.” - -She put back the ledger in its place, closed the case which held it, -and left the room, locking the door with that safety-key which had -never quitted her father’s watch-chain in his lifetime, and which she -carried now always on hers. - -She did not go to her room to see how she looked, as most women would -have done; she did not even glance at one of the mirrors in the rooms -through which she passed. She went as she was, looking very white, very -worn, very stern in her close black gown, to the other end of the house -where the library was. - -Hurstmanceaux was standing in the middle of the room; the light from -one of the windows shone on his fair hair. She saw that he too was very -pale and appeared distressed and embarrassed. - -“You wished to see me, Lord Hurstmanceaux,” she said coldly. “Would not -the solicitors have done equally well?” - -“No,” said Hurstmanceaux--his voice was harsh and unsteady. “I venture -to beg of you not to make my errand known to your solicitors.” - -She was silent; she sat down and motioned to him to do the same, but he -remained standing. - -“You sent me a letter from your late father--Mr. Massarene?” he -said--his voice seemed strangled in his throat. - -“I enclosed one some time ago, yes.” - -“I have only now received it. I have been away yachting. Nothing was -forwarded.” His words came with difficulty; he spoke like a man to whom -what he is obliged to say is torture. - -“It does not concern me,” she said coldly. “I have no wish to know what -it contained.” - -“You must know,” said Ronald. “It contained a signature of my sister of -Otterbourne, who, it appears from another paper enclosed with it, owed -to your father the enormous sum of twelve thousand pounds.” - -Katherine was silent: she thought that probably the Duchess of -Otterbourne had owed very much more than that to her father. - -Hurstmanceaux breathed heavily: he was overwhelmed with shame at what -he was forced to say. - -“Apparently,” he continued, “she owed this amount to Beaumont, the -jeweler in the Rue de la Paix. Your father sent me Beaumont’s receipt -to him, and my sister’s acknowledgment of her debt to him, for the -payment to Beaumont. She is now in Norway with the Bassenthwaites; but -the two signatures make the matter quite clear. There is no necessity -for any inquiry.” - -He paused, struggling with an emotion which he feared would get the -better of his manhood. - -Katherine saw that, and it affected her keenly. - -“He sent you those signatures!” she said, as a sense of her father’s -cruelty dawned on her. “What a brutal, what an infamous thing to do! -What a message from the grave!” - -“Mr. Massarene was quite within his rights,” said Ronald stiffly: -“wholly within them. As my sister’s husband is dead, I am the person -to whom her creditors should apply. I blame him for lending her such a -sum, without my knowledge, in his lifetime. It is impossible to say to -you what I suffer in finding her--in finding her----” - -His voice broke down; for an instant he walked away to the window -nearest him, and looked out in silence. - -Katherine did not reply. - -She was thinking of the many times, in her father’s private account -books, in which Lady Kenilworth’s name was written, the many slips in -the old check-books in which there was also written, in her father’s -hand: “Drawn self: passed to Lady K.” - -What could she say? It seemed to her nothing, yet she felt acute sorrow -for this proud, sensitive, honorable gentleman, who had the cruel -humiliation of such a discovery and such a confession, after all his -pride, his scorn, and his avoidance of her and of her parents. - -In another moment he turned back from the window and walked toward her. - -“I came to ask you, if you can, not to let your men of business know -of this,” he said more calmly. “I do not think there is any necessity -for them to know. I regret unspeakably that I cannot repay this sum at -once, but I am a poor man. In a month’s time I hope to be able to do -so. Meanwhile, if you can keep my sister’s wretched secret, I shall be -very grateful to you.” - -Katherine rose and looked at him, with some indignation and much -sympathy shining in her large dark eyes. - -“Do you think, because I am his daughter, that I have neither decency -nor honor? Do not take this matter so deeply to heart. If my father -lent the duchess money, she was, on her part, of great use to him. He -owed his social position almost entirely to her assistance. I grieve -more than I can say that he should have stabbed you from his grave -like this. Nor can I imagine why he did so, unless to avenge himself -for your persistent refusal to be acquainted with us; a mean motive, -indeed, if it was his motive. Pray believe me, Lord Hurstmanceaux. -Your sister’s name is safe for ever with me; and as for repaying this -money, do not think of it. The debt is not yours.” - -“Of my payment of it there must be no dispute,” said Ronald quickly. -“It was a strictly business matter. Your father was a business man. I -would not ask even a day’s delay were I not forced. I thank you for -your promise of silence; it is more than I have deserved.” - -He tried to put the matter on a business footing, to endeavor to treat -his sister’s receipt of money from Massarene as though it had been a -mere affair of agreement and mutual interest; but he was too frank -to play a part, and he was conscious that he showed the shame, the -disgust, the loathing which he felt for the false position of a woman -so near to him. - -“Do not speak of money to me,” said Katherine, with an intensity of -feeling which surprised him. “I have passed nearly every day since my -father’s death in seeing how the riches he loved were put together. I -loathe so utterly all he has left to me, that I envy every work-girl -who sews for daily bread in her garret. You said rightly on the road in -Woldshire that such a fortune as ours is only amassed by wickedness, -and cruelty, and fraud. If I could cast it from me as a toad its skin, -I would not pause a moment before I did so, and fled from it for ever.” - -She was carried out of herself by the forces of feeling, which, for -an instant, broke down her reserve, and hurried her into eloquent and -unstudied speech. - -Hurstmanceaux, at any other time, would have been moved to sympathy -with her; but now he was too absorbed in his own humiliation and pain -to have any perception of hers. - -“You will soon get reconciled to your burden, madam,” he said, with a -slight and bitter smile. “Do not fear. The world will help you to get -rid of it. Allow me once more to thank you for your promise of silence. -I am conscious that both I and she are unworthy of your clemency.” - -Katherine’s soul shrank within her. She felt all the recoil, the -embarrassment, the revulsion of feeling of a reserved nature, which has -unbent and revealed itself, and finds its expansion unresponded to and -misunderstood. She felt that he did not believe in what she had said -in the least. - -“You have not heard your sister’s defence,” she said, after a pause. - -“My sister’s fables? I do not want to hear them. Her signature speaks -for her. Besides, I can have the whole facts of the transaction from -the jeweler. No ingenuity of hers can ever explain them away.” - -“You are very harsh.” - -“I am far from harsh. And of my harshness or my mildness you cannot be -the judge.” - -“Why not?” - -“Because you are the daughter of a man who knew nothing of honor, -or of its exactions, and that instinct is not acquired in a single -generation.” - -“Have twenty-three generations of nobility bequeathed it to your -sister?” was the retort which sprang to her lips, but she generously -and valorously kept it unspoken. - -Her white skin flushed hotly and painfully at the insult, which was to -her what a blow would have been to a man. - -She did not resent, but she suffered intensely. What he had said was so -completely the reflection of her own feelings that it seemed to burn -itself into her brain like a branding-iron. - -Oh, to have come of some stainless and valiant race, with traditions -of a past great and pure! What she would have given for that heritage -of barren honor, which would have been, in her keeping, virgin and -puissant, as a kingdom guarded against every foe! - -For an instant she was tempted to go and unlock the drawer in which -all the memoranda of his sister’s other debts were lying, and put them -before him and say: “Did a thousand years of nobility teach honor and -honesty to her?” But she resisted the temptation. - -He was humiliated and embittered, and this insolence of his speech -was, she thought, to be forgiven to him. She said nothing in protest -or defence; but there was that in her expression which touched him to -repentance for his utterance. He felt that she had deserved better at -his hands, though he could not bend his pride to say so. - -He was silent some moments, so was she--a silence of pain and of -embarrassment. At length, with a great effort, he forced himself to say -to her: - -“I should not have said that. I beg your pardon. It was offensive.” - -She made a slight inclination of the head, as if to accept the apology. - -“You said what is generally true, I believe. But there may be -exceptions.” - -His apology could not efface the impression of his speech, which seemed -like vitriol thrown in her face. The impression of pain which his -speech left on her was so poignant that she felt as if it would never -pass away. - -He was violently and bitterly prejudiced against her; he was incapable -of being just to her; she seemed to him steeped in the villainy of all -that ill-gotten gold in which she had her being; but he could not but -acknowledge the dignity and simplicity of her attitude under insult, -and he was conscious that he had insulted her grossly. After all, the -disgrace of his sister was no fault of hers. - -She might be wholly in earnest when she said that she abhorred the -wealth of which she was the sole possessor. He was tempted to believe -that she was entirely sincere; but she was the daughter of William -Massarene. She was _anathema maranatha_. - -She bowed to suggest to him that his interview had lasted long enough. - -“Good-day to you,” she said coldly. - -“Good-day,” repeated Hurstmanceaux. “In a month’s time you will hear -from me. Meanwhile, forget if you can.” - -Then he left the library. - -She remained standing beside the heavy table laden with choice octavos -and the reviews of the month. - -She had been tempted out of her habitual silence, and had opened a -little window into her heart. And she regretted that she had done -so, as, alas! we always do; for there is nothing which we regret so -bitterly, and pay for so heavily, as the confidence we give. She was -vexed with herself, also, that she had dismissed him so soon and so -abruptly, that she had not endeavored to atone for that brutal action -after death, that cruel legacy which her father had left in vengeance. -She felt that he would pay the money back, if to do so he had to sell -every rood of land he possessed, and she hated herself for having sent -him, however innocently on her part, that barbed legacy of the dead. -She understood how deep a wound it must have given to a man of the -principles, the temperament, and the pride of Hurstmanceaux. - -“But he is unjust to me--unjust and hard!” she said half aloud, in her -solitude. - -Meanwhile he, who had only returned to London an hour previously, took -the tidal train to Paris, where he went forthwith to Beaumont. - -“What would you, milord?” said Beaumont the following morning. “Madame -la duchesse sent that old, fat, common man to pay in her name, and he -paid. It was no matter to me who paid. I wanted my money back. Yes; I -lent it on the big jewel and the others. Illegal! Oh, ta-ta-ta, milord! -Of course all dealings with those pretty married ladies are great -risks. We know that in business. That is why I was anxious to get back -my money. If I had not had it, I should have gone to law. Perhaps my -title to it was unsound, as you say. Perhaps it was. But _madame, votre -sœur_, had had the money from me--she could not have denied that in a -law court--and great families do not like scandals which touch them. -Ah, no, milord! _noblesse oblige_ we know!” - -And Beaumont smiled softly, with a very sweet, sub-ironic, inflection -of the voice, as he sat handling some uncut stones in his bureau which -looked on the garden. - -From him Hurstmanceaux obtained the certainty of what he had suspected -from the moment that he had received Massarene’s posthumous letter: -that his sister had not had the Otterbourne jewels in her possession -when he had asked her for them. - -Heaven and earth! the duplicity of women!--he thought as he passed -along the sunny Paris streets with a heart as heavy as lead in his -breast. His sister, his blue-eyed Sourisette, his favorite from her -nursery days, was no better than a thief! No better than any wretched -woman of the streets whose _souteneur_ might strike him with a knife in -the gloaming that evening! - -From Beaumont’s he went to Boussod et Valadon’s, and after an -interview with that famous firm, returned to his favorite place -of Faldon, where he had a small collection of old Flemish and -Dutch pictures brought together in the previous century by his -great-grandfather. They were not in the entail, and he had always been -at liberty to sell them, but he had never been tempted to do so, for he -was attached to the paintings and he liked to see them hanging in the -oval room with a north light, where they had been for over a hundred -years. He abhorred selling things, all his economies had been effected -without selling anything: only by refraining from buying, which is an -unpopular method. Dilettanti and dealers had all alike hinted to him -that those pictures were worth a great deal, and that it was a pity to -keep them in a secluded country place on the edge of the Atlantic. But -he had always turned a deaf ear to such suggestions. - -Now, he said to himself, the pictures must go. He had nothing else in -his possession which would fetch a tenth part of his sister’s debt to -William Massarene. He was even afraid that the pictures would fail to -realize the whole amount. But he asked for that amount and after some -demur the price was accepted, the pictures were well known, and the -money would be paid down, on their delivery in Ireland, to the agent of -the great Paris house. - -It was a matter easily concluded; but one which cut him to the quick. - -However rapidly and privately it had been arranged the facts of the -sale would not, he knew, be kept out of the newspapers. Paragraphs -would appear in all the social and artistic journals to the effect -that Lord Hurstmanceaux had sold his Dutch and Flemish collections of -_petits maîtres_. - -Every misfortune is nowadays doubled and trebled by the publicity given -to it in the press, which turns the knife in our wounds and pours -petroleum on our burning roof-tree. He would also be unable to explain -to his friends why he sold them. He would appear like any other of the -spendthrifts and idiots who sent to the hammer their libraries and -pictures. No pressure would ever have forced him to make such a sale -for his own pleasures or his own necessities. - -To a sensitive and proud man the comment which it would excite was -worse to endure than all the blows of adversity. - -“So you have sold your pictures after all!” a thousand tongues would -say to him; and society would say that Ronnie had become like other -people at last. - -They are so silly, so unutterably silly, those flippant sneers of our -acquaintances, and yet they irritate and wound like mosquitos. - -But he accepted these inevitable consequences and he went to Faldon, -and saw them packed with his own eyes, and with his own hands placed -in its wooden case with tender care a little flaxen-haired maiden -spinning, of Mieris, which when he had been a child he had always -called the portrait of his wife. - -It was a cruel sacrifice to an unworthy object when the pictures went -from their places, and the red sunset light coming over the Atlantic -billows shone on the blank walls from which they had been torn. - -Truly have the Rosny spoken of the _semi-humanité des choses_! the -sympathetic companionship which we feel in those cherished things of -our homes, wound as they are about the roots of our fondest memories, -of our longest associations. - -Two days later Katherine Massarene received a check on Coutts’s, signed -Hurstmanceaux, for the amount which her father had paid the jeweler -_plus_ the interest at five per cent. for two years. - -It was enclosed with the compliments of the sender. A week later she -saw in an art journal the announcement of the sale, to the Paris -dealers, of the Dutch and Flemish collection of Faldon Castle. - -It seemed to her as if her father’s spirit rose from the tomb in -malignant power for evil. - -She put the check in one of the iron safes in the little study and -turned the key on it. - -He might send her the money in what way he would. He could not make her -take it. But she had forgotten that this stubbornness might equal, and -even exceed her own. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV. - - -In the month of August Lord Roxhall, who was at Arcachon with his wife, -ostensibly for health, in reality to cut short the expenses of a season -in town, received amongst his correspondence a letter in a black-edged -envelope addressed in a clear firm handwriting which was unknown to -him, and bearing the postmark of his own country town, that town which -William Massarene’s funeral had recently passed through in such pomp -and glory. - -The letter astonished him, and he read it twice, incredulous of its -meaning and wondering vaguely if it were genuine. - -It was dated from Vale Royal and worded thus: - - “MY DEAR LORD ROXHALL, - - “_Pardon me that I have not earlier replied to your very kind letter - of condolence on the terrible death of my father. Under his will I - unfortunately become sole owner of all he possessed. He purchased - this estate of Vale Royal of you, and I inherit it with the rest. I - do not think we have done any harm here; we have perhaps done some - material good, but the people on the estate dislike us and despise - us. I quite understand and do not blame their feeling. I like and - respect it. They are as faithful to you as Highlanders to Charles - Edward. I cannot remain here, for neither my mother nor I care to - reside amongst a justly disaffected population. My poor father bought - your estate at a fair price no doubt; but it will never be morally - or righteously ours. There are some things of which no amount of - money can legalize the sale to a sensitive conscience. Will you - do me a favor? Will you buy it back? I should only require half - the purchase-money, and should be much obliged to you to let the - other half remain on mortgage on the estate. I believe the value of - land is decreased since he bought it, and of course you would have - a valuation taken. Or I should be happy to comply with any other - conditions which might be more suitable to you. In any way if you - will take it off my hands as soon as the law permits me to dispose of - it, I shall be greatly indebted and relieved of a heavy burden; for - no one can do any good on a property where all the occupants of the - soil are their enemies. So entirely is my mother, as well as myself, - convinced of this fact that we shall leave the place, never to return - to it, in a few days’ time, and the house will remain closed. I hope - that you will before long go back to it._ - - “_I remain, sincerely yours_, - - “KATHERINE MASSARENE.” - -He was breakfasting under the pine trees, his wife was opposite to him -at a small round table. The letter astonished him and affected him, -he discerned the generosity which was ill-concealed under its effort -to make the offer seem to the advantage of the writer. When he had -pondered over it for some minutes he passed it over the table to his -companion. - -“She would give it to us if she dared,” he said as his wife took it. -She read it quickly at a glance, as women do read, and looked up, the -color rising in her face, her eyes radiant with hope. - -“Oh, Gerald! Can you do it?” - -“Do you care so much?” said Roxhall; his own voice was unsteady. - -Lady Roxhall leaned her elbow on the table and covered her eyes with -her hand to hide her emotion from the passers-by in the hotel garden. - -“I could not tell you all I have suffered; I tried to conceal it; if it -were only to have left the grave of Lillias to strangers----” - -“You good little thing, to have been so silent!” said Roxhall, touched -and grateful. - -“Shall we go back, Gerald?” his wife murmured, her heart beating with -mingled fear and hope. - -“I think I could do it,” answered Roxhall. “At least, if it is fair to -take her offer. One must not come over this young woman because she is -generous. Yes; I think with great pinching we could do it.” - -“I would live on bread and water all my life to go back!” said his wife -with a force he had never known in her. - -“I ought never to have sold it,” said Roxhall, his thoughts reverting -to his cousin’s wiles. He took up the letter and read it again. - -“She would like to give it to us,” he said a second time. “How very -odd that such an unutterable cad as that man Massarene was should have -such a daughter. I think I had better go to London to-night and see our -lawyers. I will get the old place back somehow, if it’s fair to her.” - -“Yes, one must be fair to her,” said his wife, and added with remorse, -“And to think how rude I have always been to her! I turned my back on -them all three at the late State concert, just a week before the man -was assassinated.” - -Roxhall laughed and got up to go and look at the railway time-table, -and she rose too, and to avoid her many acquaintances went to walk by -herself in the woods and commune with her own heart, and her longing -to return to Vale Royal, and her wistful memories of her little dead -child, Lillias. She was a gentle, brave, tender-hearted woman who had -suffered much and concealed her sufferings courageously from both her -husband and her world. - -At the end of that month Katherine Massarene had ceased for a time her -painful self-imposed task and gone down to Bournemouth, where she had -taken a house for the autumn and winter; a villa in a pine-wood which -looked on to the sea. It was a pretty place but to her mother it seemed -a poor nutshell after the spaciousness and splendor of Harrenden House -and Vale Royal. The diminished establishment, the comparatively empty -stables, the loss of Richemont and his satellites, were at once a -relief and an offence to her. - -“One would think poor William had been sold up and we was livin’ on my -savings,” she said in indignation. - -“My dear mother, you could not keep up this place under three thousand -a year,” said her daughter. - -“And what’s that to us as had millions?” asked her mother. - -Katherine thought of the primary plank hut at Kerosene City, but she -saw that her mother was in no mood to remember those primitive times. - -The Bournemouth residence was really pretty and had a simple elegance -in it which was due to a great painter whose whim and pleasure it had -been; and it was a fitting retreat for two women in deep mourning. But -Margaret Massarene chose to consider it as a mixture of workhouse -and prison. Her fretfulness and incessant lamentation made her -companionship very trying, for it was the kind of obstinate discontent -with which no arguments can struggle with any chance of success. One -fine dim balmy morning, when the smell of the sea blended strongly with -the scent from the pine-woods, Katherine was alone in the large room -which had been the painter’s studio and was now set aside for her own -use, reading the still voluminous correspondence from her agents and -solicitors. A young footman, who had not the perfect training which Mr. -Winter had exacted in his underlings, opened the door and ushered in -unannounced a tall fair man, who stood in hesitation on the threshold. -“Lord Hurstmanceaux, ma’am,” said the young servant, and shut the door -behind the visitor’s back. - -Katherine looked up from her heavily-laden writing-table, and was vexed -to feel that she changed color. - -“My mother and I do not receive----” she said with some embarrassment. - -Hurstmanceaux came across the room and stood on the other side of the -table. - -“You have not drawn the check which I sent to you on Coutts’s,” he said -abruptly. - -She answered merely “No.” - -“And why not?” - -“Because I do not choose to take that money.” - -Hurstmanceaux’s face grew red and very stern. - -“You insult me, Miss Massarene.” - -“I do not mean to do so,” said Katherine gently. “I begged you not to -send it to me. My father, I am certain, never expected the duchess to -repay it.” - -“That is very singular language. Do you mean that your father was on -terms with my sister which would justify him in making her such gifts?” - -She was silent; that was her meaning but she could not say so. - -“If you do think it, you must cease to think it,” said Ronald. “If -there were any man in your family----” - -Katherine looked him straight in the eyes. - -“Pray do not let the fact of my sex influence you. I dare say I have -many male relatives, but they are, I believe, navvies, and colliers, -and laborers, and the like, who would not be foemen worthy of your -patrician steel.” - -She spoke with a certain cold and careless contempt which brought the -blood to his cheeks. - -“You have full right to condemn my sister, but not to suppose what you -do not know,” he said with some embarrassment. “The debt was a matter -of business, as a matter of business I treat it, and refund the money -to you, who are the sole living representative of the dead creditor.” - -“There are many debts due to him. I have cancelled them all. They are -all due from persons of your great world. He thought their suffrages -worth buying. I do not. And I think the people who sell oranges and -apples in the streets are superior to those who sell their prestige, -their patronage, or their company.” - -Hurstmanceaux winced as he heard her, like a high-mettled horse flicked -with the whip. - -“I am wholly of your opinion,” he said coldly. “But in this instance -the debt is paid so far as a debt ever can be; and you are bound to -take the payment of it. You are not bound to preserve silence on the -matter, but if you do so you will make me grateful.” - -“I have told you that you may be certain of my silence,” she said, with -some impatience. “That is elementary honor which even I, low-born as I -am, can understand!” - -“Honor does not require silence of you,” said Hurstmanceaux. “But such -silence will be a charity to us.” - -“Call it what you will,” she replied curtly, “you may count on it.” - -“If you are a gentlewoman, madam,” he added, in his coldest and most -courteous manner, “you must also understand that you render my position -insupportable unless you accept that money.” - -She did not immediately reply. She had not thought of the matter from -his point of view. She reflected a little while, not looking at him, -then she said, briefly: - -“Very well. It shall be as you wish.” - -“I thank you,” he said, with embarrassment; and after a pause added, “I -thank you exceedingly.” Then he bowed distantly, and left her without -any additional words. - -She sat in the same place for many minutes looking out over the grey -sea which gleamed between the stems of the pines. Then she rose and -went to a dispatch-box, in which she had placed all his sister’s -letters to her father, all proof of sums received by her, and all -William Massarene’s counterfoils of checks passed to her, and also the -worthless bills of Cocky. - -She put all these together in a large envelope, sealed it carefully, -and sent it registered to the Duchess of Otterbourne at the post office -of Bergen, where she knew that the steam-yacht in which that lady had -gone to Norway was at anchor. - -She thus put it out of her own power for ever, and out of the power of -any who might come after her, to prove the shame of Hurstmanceaux’s -best-beloved sister. “He will never be dishonored through us,” she -thought. - -The voice of her mother startled her and jarred on her. - -“That’s a handsome man as is gone out just now,” said Mrs. Massarene. -“’Tis the duchess’s brother, ain’t it?” - -Katherine assented. - -“He’s his sister’s good looks,” said Mrs. Massarene. “But he never -would know poor William. May one ask what he come about, my dear?” - -“Only some business of his sister’s,” replied her daughter. - -“He was always mighty high,” said Mrs. Massarene. “I hope you’re stand -off too. Let him feel as you’re your father’s daughter.” - -Katherine shuddered in the warm, pine-scented, sea-impregnated air. - -Mrs. Massarene, since the tyranny under which she had been repressed -so long had been removed from her, was a more self-asserting and -self-satisfied person. Her deep crape garments lent her in her own eyes -majesty and importance, despite the slur which the will had cast upon -her. She was William’s widow, a position which seemed to her second to -none in distinction. Death did for her lost spouse in her eyes what -it often does for the dead with tender-hearted survivors; it made his -cruelties dim and distant, it made his memory something which his -life certainly had never been. That burial by peers and princes had -been as a cloud of incense which was for ever rising about his manes. -Royalty would not have sent even its youngest and smallest officer of -the Household to represent it at any funeral which had not been the -wake of all the virtues. Those towering heaps of wreaths had been in -her view as a cairn burying out of sight all her husband’s misdeeds and -brutalities. - -As ill-luck would have it, Daddy Gwyllian, who was staying at Cowes, -crossed over to Bournemouth that morning to see an invalid friend. He -was sauntering along in his light grey clothes, his straw hat, and his -yachting shoes, when as he passed the garden gateway of the villa which -Mrs. Massarene had hired, he encountered Ronald coming out of it. - -“Ah! dear boy,” he cried, in his pleasantest manner. “Making it up -with the heiress, eh? Quite right. Quite right. Pity you’ve been so -stiff-necked about it all these years.” - -Hurstmanceaux was extremely annoyed at this undesirable meeting. But he -had nothing that he could say which would not have made matters worse. - -“Where did you spring from, Daddy?” he said impatiently. “You are -always appearing like a Jack in a box.” - -“I make it a rule to be where my richest and laziest fellow-creatures -most congregate,” replied Daddy. “And that in the month of August is -the Solent. But come, Ronnie, let out a bit; you know I’m a very old -friend. What are you doing down here if you’re not paying court to Miss -Massarene?” - -“I am certainly not paying court to Miss Massarene,” replied -Hurstmanceaux, very distantly. “I was obliged to see her on business.” - -“Ah! Business is a very good antechamber to marriage,” said Daddy, with -a chuckle. - -“It may be. I remain in the antechamber.” - -“Tut, tut! Of course you say so. You are really becoming like other -people, Ronnie. I see you have sold your pictures!” - -“Is that anyone’s affair but mine?” - -“Well, yes, I think so. A sale is everybody’s affair. There’s nothing -sacred about it. I always told you they were wasted at Faldon. Nobody -saw ’em but spiders and mice.” - -Hurstmanceaux was silent. - -“What an uncommunicative beggar he is,” thought Daddy. “When one thinks -that I’ve known him ever since he was in knickerbockers with his hair -down to his waist!” - -“Is it true that Roxhall buys back Vale Royal?” he asked. - -“Ask Roxhall,” said Hurstmanceaux, “and I fear I must leave you now and -walk on faster to the station.” - -But Gwyllian held him by the lappet of his coat. - -“They do say,” he whispered, “that she’s almost given it to him. You -must know. Now do be frank, Ronnie.” - -“Frankness does not necessitate the discussion of other people’s -affairs. Ask Roxhall’s wife; she is at Cowes; or go in and ask Miss -Massarene; you know her.” - -He disengaged himself with some difficulty from the clinging hold of -Gwyllian’s white wrinkled fingers, and went onward to the station to -go to Southampton, where his yawl was awaiting him. Daddy looked at -the gate of the villa. Should he ring? No, he thought not. She was an -unpleasant woman to tackle, hedgehoggy and impenetrable; she would be -capable of saying to him, as Hurstmanceaux had done, that Roxhall’s -affairs were no business of his. She was one of those unnatural and -offensive persons who, having no curiosity themselves, regard curiosity -in others without sympathy, and even with disapproval. Daddy, feeling -ill-used and aggrieved, turned down a lane bordered by rhododendrons -and eucalyptus, and went to lunch with his sick friend, to whom he -imparted _sotto voce_ the fact that he thought Ronald would come round -and marry Miss Massarene. - -“He’s always been such a crank,” added Daddy. “But he’s begun to sell. -That looks like coming to his senses--doing like other people.” - -“It is certainly doing like many other people,” said his sick friend -with a sad smile, for he had seen his own collections go to the -hammer. When Gwyllian, a few hours later, went comfortably back over -the water in a steam-launch to East Cowes, he reflected as he glided -along on what he had heard. Being a sagacious person, he connected the -sale of the Faldon pictures with the visit to Katherine Massarene. -“He’s either paying some debt of his sister’s or he’s helping Roxhall -to buy back the place. He’s such a confounded fool, he’d give his head -away; and I dare say the young woman is sharp about money; wouldn’t be -her father’s daughter if she wasn’t.” So he came very nearly to the -truth in his own mind as he sat in the launch, whilst it wound in and -out among the craft in the roads. - -It was no business of his, but Daddy Gwyllian had always found that -guessing what hands other people held was the most amusing way of -playing the rubber of life; at least, when you are old, and only a -looker-on at the tables. - -“They do say she’s almost given it to him.” The words rang in Ronald’s -ears as he went on board his old yawl, the _Dianthus_, and crossed to -the island. Roxhall had not spoken to him of the matter; he only knew -what was, by that time, table-talk, that Vale Royal was to return to -its original owner so soon as the law permitted Katherine Massarene -to dispose of any portion of her inheritance. Meantime, the house was -closed. Roxhall had not sought him on the subject, and he felt that -if they discussed it, they would probably quarrel, their views would -be so different. It was very bitter to him that any member of his -family should again be indebted to the Massarene fortune. It seemed as -if the very stars in their courses fought against his will. Why had -not Roxhall simply replied to her overtures, as he himself would have -replied, that the sale of the estates, once having been made, could not -be annulled? - -As it was, all the world was talking of her generosity. It was -intolerable! She had meant well, no doubt, but Roxhall should have -taught her, as he had taught her, that men who respect themselves -cannot receive that kind of favors. - -“Why did you let him accept the return of the property, Elsie?” he -said to Lady Roxhall, whom he saw on the club terrace at Cowes as soon -as he landed there. - -Lady Roxhall colored a little. - -“Perhaps we ought not to have done so. But, oh, my dear Ronald, I shall -be so rejoiced to go back! It was very good of Miss Massarene to offer -its release,” she added, “so rude as we have all of us been to her.” - -“You cannot be rude any more,” said Hurstmanceaux. “You have sold your -freedom of choice for a mess of pottage. You have accepted this lady’s -favors. You must embrace her in return if she exacts it.” - -“How irritable Ronald has grown,” thought Lady Roxhall. “He used to -be so kind and sweet-tempered. I suppose it is his having to sell his -pictures that sours him. I wonder why he did sell them?” - -Hurstmanceaux, before he went on board to sleep that night, wrote a -letter at the R. Y. S. Club, which it cost him a great effort to write. - -“But it’s not fair for all the generosity to be on her side,” he -thought. “We must look like a set of savages to her. We have not even -the common decency to thank her.” - - “MADAM,-- - - “_Circumstances, on which it is needless for me to dwell, make it - impossible for me to have the honor of any intercourse with you in - the future. But do not think that I am, for that reason, insensible - to the nobility, generosity, and kindness which you have displayed - in your dealings with more than one member of my family, and the - forbearance you have shown to one wholly unworthy of it. For the - silence you have kept in the past, and have offered to preserve in - the future, I pray you to accept my sincere gratitude. I beg to - remain, Madam_, - - “_Your obedient servant_, - - “HURSTMANCEAUX.” - -This letter brought tears to the eyes of the woman to whom it was -addressed, although she was but very rarely moved to such emotion. -“Why should we be strangers,” she thought, “because of the sins or the -crimes of others?” - -She drew the check which he had sent her on his bankers, but she gave, -at the same time, a commission to a famous art agent in Paris to buy -back the Dutch and Flemish pictures of the Faldon Collection from the -dealers who had purchased them, and on no account to let her name -appear in connection with the purchase. - -Why should an honest and gallant gentleman lose heirlooms because his -sister had been as venal as any courtezan of ancient Rome or modern -Paris? How she would be able ever to restore them to him she did not -know; meantime, she saved them from the hammer. - -She thought that she would leave them to him by will, in case of her -own death, with reversion to the National Gallery if he refused to -accept them, and to restore them to their places at Faldon. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV. - - -At the head of a Norwegian fjord, where the tents of a gay and -aristocratic party of travellers had been pitched on the green sward -for a merry month or two of fishing and shooting and canoeing, the -postbags were brought up the valley on the back of a stout mountain -pony one fine cold day at the end of the sporting season. Sir Henry -Bassenthwaite, leader and host of the expedition, was a newly-made -baronet, a very rich brewer, one of those persons who bear with them a -trail of electric light and a cloud of gold dust as they rush through -unsophisticated lands which they annoy by their impertinence, and -console by their expenditure. - -Sir Henry took the letter-bags, untied them, unsealed them, and -distributed their contents to his party. - -“A round dozen for you, Duchess!” he cried gaily, as he held them above -his head. - -The Duchess of Otterbourne, who was seated on the turf leaning against -a boulder, grey with lichens, amongst the cloud-berry with her rod and -kreel beside her, and a little court of men round her, received her -letters with that quickening of the pulse under apprehension which -was frequent with her since she had been taught to tremble by William -Massarene. The dread of a posthumous retaliation was always upon -her: she never now saw a closed envelope without an inward shiver of -apprehension. - -Instinctively she rose and walked to a little distance with her -back to her companions, and stood still on the edge of the foaming, -crystal-clear, noisy river into which a little while before she had -been throwing her line. - -She broke the seals with unsteady fingers. She hastily scanned -assurances from Whiteleaf that the children were well. Then she took up -the rest of the correspondence, and her heart stood still as she saw a -large packet sealed with six large black seals and addressed to her in -a handwriting which she knew at a glance to be Katherine Massarene’s. -There must be some message from the dead at last! - -Out of the linen-lined envelope there fell many letters in her own -writing, and the counterfoils of many checks made out to her own name -and signed “W. M.,” and many others marked, “Drawn self, passed to Lady -K.”; there were also bills signed by Cocky. Then she understood. - -The daughter of William Massarene knew all, or at least knew much, -and must guess what she did not know. She turned cold with fear; the -whirling water made her giddy; she gasped for breath and clutched the -stem of a young rowan-tree. - -She, who had but scanty belief in generosity, wondered how many -signatures of hers might not have been kept back by the sender? - -Of all these things of the past she had, herself, but the most confused -recollection. In the early time, when Billy had been as Pactolus to her -insatiable thirst, she had never kept any account of all she drew from -him directly or indirectly. - -But whether all which compromised her were restored or not, the main -fact remained the same: his daughter must _know_. - -And the signatures concerning the diamonds--where were they? Katherine -Massarene might or might not have restored all the rest; but she had -not sent her those. - -Where were they? Those which mattered most of all? It was mere mockery -of her fears to send her back all these others and withhold from her -the proofs of the transaction with Beaumont. - -It was cruelty, odious, tantalizing, cat-like cruelty, playing with her -only to humiliate and degrade her more! - -“I always tried to be pleasant with her, and she never would respond,” -she thought, with that sense of never being the least in fault herself, -which so happily consoled and sustained her at all times. - -She heard steps approaching and she tore with frantic haste in little -bits all her own letters and receipts and Massarene’s counterfoils, -and flung them with the black-sealed envelope into the boiling stream, -which eddying amongst its rocks swallowed them under spray and foam. -The trout leaped up alarmed from the upper water, the field-fares -and redwings flew up frightened from the cloud-berry bushes. The -camp-ponies tethered near whinnied nervously. - -“What a destruction of correspondence!” said the voice of Sir Henry. -“What have the writers done to you, Duchess?” - -With that marvellous power of self-command which the habit of the world -teaches, she turned to him and laughed a little. - -“All advertisements!--and six sheets from Fraulein Heyse about the -children. Such a disappointment, the envelope looked so imposing.” - -“For a clever liar at a pinch commend me to Cocky’s widow,” he thought. - -When, a few days later, the whole party, warned by a snowstorm, rode -down the mountains and through the meadows to Bergen to rejoin Sir -Henry’s schooner, which was in harbor there, she, who was the gayest -and noisiest amongst them, thought of nothing but of those two missing -signatures. - -To have had the others returned was useless whilst these two were out -of her hands and in the power of someone unknown. She felt anxious to -get to England, though what to do when she should be there in this -matter she could not tell: tell the truth for once, perhaps--that last -refuge of the desperate--in an appeal to Katherine Massarene’s mercy. - -When she went on board the Bassenthwaite boat--a fine vessel which had -gone all round the world--Sir Henry met her cheerfully; he had preceded -the party by two hours. - -“Here’s a pleasant surprise, Duchess,” he cried. “Your brother’s -yacht’s in the roads; she was signalled this morning.” - -“The _Dianthus_?” she asked, startled and dismayed. - -“The _Dianthus_--yes,” he replied. “You will have some message, no -doubt, soon. It is a surprise, eh?” - -“A very great surprise,” she answered. “I thought Hurstmanceaux was in -the Irish Channel.” - -Bassenthwaite was astonished at her evident vexation. Under the plea -of fatigue she went to her cabin. She was alarmed beyond expression. -That intuition which does duty for wisdom in many women told her that -her brother had the missing signatures--that it was on their account -that he had come into the North seas. - -William Massarene was dead: would the ghost from his grave never cease -from pursuing her? She felt chilly and ill-used. - -It was dinner-time: she was obliged to laugh and talk and look -her best; the German Emperor’s yacht was in the harbor; there -were fireworks, illumination of the shipping, bands played; the -Bassenthwaite schooner was a blaze of light and fire; there was dancing -on deck; the Kaiser came on board and was very pleasant. - -She had to appear to enjoy it all, while her heart grew sick as she -gazed past the lights outward to the darkness of the offing to where -they said that the _Dianthus_ was riding at anchor. - -Early next morning they announced to her that a message had come for -her: one of her brother’s men had brought a note. It was extremely -brief, and requested her to come to him by the boat he sent. - -She wrote in answer: “The Bassenthwaites hope you will come and lunch. -We weigh anchor at three o’clock. I cannot come to you.” - -When Hurstmanceaux received this answer by his sailor’s hands, he was -pacing his deck in great anger to see his boat returning without her. - -He did not know the Bassenthwaites; he did not wish to know them; and -at this moment of all others he could not have endured to meet her -before strangers. - -He wrote again: “I desire you to come in my boat. I am here only to see -you. I have your signature and Beaumont’s”--and sent his sailors back -to Bassenthwaite’s schooner. - -It was no more than she had expected, but she felt as if all the ice -of the Pole were drifting down and closing on her when she saw his men -returning. She dare not disobey the summons. She went in the boat from -the _Dianthus_. - -“I wonder what she’ll hear when she gets there,” said Bassenthwaite to -his wife. - -“Nothing pleasant, I suspect. He is an odious man,” said his wife. “He -thinks the Courcys of Faldon were made before Adam.” - -The despatch of the letters and receipts from Katherine Massarene had, -in a measure, prepared her for worse to come. She had not for a moment -attributed the sending of them to a movement of generosity. She had -supposed that “Billy’s daughter” took that form of vengeance as the -simplest and the easiest, and she did not hope for an instant that the -secrets contained in that packet would be respected. Therefore she was -the less surprised, though the more alarmed, when the curt command of -Hurstmanceaux was brought to her. - -She immediately concluded that Katherine Massarene had been his -informant against her. - -She was not an instant alone after his message came to reflect on -what course she should pursue, and could only trust to her usual good -fortune to bear her through this crisis, as it had borne her through -many another. But as the boat threaded its course through the craft -in the roads, she felt a sharper terror than she had ever known, even -in the presence of William Massarene, as she saw across the water the -well-known lines of the old yawl. - -When she reached the yacht at the entrance of the roads, she found, to -her surprise, that Hurstmanceaux was not on deck to receive her. - -“Is my brother unwell?” she asked of his skipper. - -“No, madam,” answered the old man. “I was to ask your Grace to be so -good as to go below.” - -She went down the companionway. Hurstmanceaux rose in silence, and -closed the door on her of his cabin when she had entered. He had felt -it impossible to force himself to meet her before his crew. - -She endeavored to laugh. - -“How very tragic you are!” she said, mastering the great fear which -froze her blood; “and how extremely rude!” - -“I have your signatures,” he said, as he stood before her in the plain -little cabin of which the only ornaments were two large photographs of -Faldon and a sketch by Watts of his mother. - -“I suppose, if you have them, you have thrown away a great deal of good -money in getting them; and you might have spent it better,” she replied -with airy nonchalance. - -He was so astounded at her levity, indifference, and insolence, that -for some moments he was mute. - -“I don’t like being ordered about like this,” she continued. “It looks -very odd to the Bassenthwaites. Why didn’t you come to luncheon? You -could have talked to me afterwards on deck. When did you see the -children?” - -A great oath broke from his lips. - -“Have you no decency? No conscience? Do you not understand? Amongst -his papers a letter of Massarene’s was found to me; it contained your -signature to him for twelve thousand pounds plus interest, and another -signature to Beaumont, the jeweler with whom you placed the Otterbourne -jewels in pawn.” - -His words said all: he expected to see her overwhelmed by shame. But -she preserved her equanimity. - -“You might have sent them to me without coming out to Bergen,” she -said with impatience. She spoke with her usual tone, a little more -impertinently than usual; but her lips were very pale. - -“What did Billy tell you?” she added between her teeth. She felt sick -with fear. - -“Mr. Massarene told me nothing. Beaumont, whom I saw subsequently, told -me everything.” - -She breathed more freely. Billy might have done worse than he had done. -Beaumont of course knew nothing, except the fact of this debt and its -payment. She sat down in a low reclining chair and leaned back in it, -and put her coat with its big gold buttons and wild-rose perfume on the -cabin table. - -“Did you come out here only to say this?” she asked in a very bored -tone; she wondered why she had so terrified and tortured herself: -whatever Ronald knew he would not say to others. - -Her attitude, her tone, her surpassing insolence and coolness broke the -bonds of his patience, the storm of his wrath and of his scorn burst; -he spoke as had never thought to speak to any woman. All the pain and -humiliation he had suffered through her, of which he had been able to -say no word to any living soul, found outlet in a flood of furious -reproach. - -She listened, indifferent, taking a cigarette off the cabin table and -lighting it from a fusee box which she carried in the breast-pocket -of her serge jacket. The whole thing was odious to her in its -recollection; but it was past and Massarene was in his grave, and had -taken her secrets with him except as regarded her debts. Ronald might -rave as he would; he would not kill her, and he would not expose her to -other people. It was a wretched scene to have to go through, but after -all scenes only take it out of one. One doesn’t die of them. So she sat -still, swaying gently to and fro, and smoking, while the bitter shame -and suffering, which her brother expressed, rolled like a tempest over -her head and left her unmoved, unrepentant. - -“To think that you come of my blood--that you had my name!” he said -with hot tears scorching his eyes. “To think that you were once a -little innocent child whom I carried about in my arms at Faldon! You -are a mass of lies, a tissue of infamy; your very breath is falsehood. -You have not even such common shame and honesty as we may find in the -poorest women of the streets. Poor Otterbourne said once to me that -your influence was a moral phylloxera. How true, good God! how true! -They tear up and burn the tainted vines. We ought to slay such women as -you!” - -She laughed a little, but her eyes flashed fire. - -“A moral phylloxera! I never knew poor Poodle say anything so clever. -How long is this scene to last? I really see no good in it. It seems to -relieve your feelings, but it offends my taste. You appear to forget -that though you are my children’s guardian you are not mine.” - -“I am the head of your family and your trustee.” - -“I know; and you can annoy me in any way about money, as you always -have done; but there your power ends. I should not have been obliged to -have recourse to others if you had showed more feeling for my position. -But you never showed me any sympathy. I saw in the English papers that -you had sold the _petits maîtres_. Why did you not sell them before, -and give the proceeds to me?” - -He looked at her in silence. - -“It was the same thing with the jewels,” she continued. “You could -have induced the others to leave them with me until Jack’s majority. -But instead of that you talked high-flown stuff about the law and your -duties, and you cared nothing at all what injury and difficulty you -caused to me.” - -He was still silent; she took another cigarette, lighted it, and again -continued: - -“You blame me for what I did. I did what I could. When the hare runs -for her life she doesn’t look where she goes. The diamonds are none -the worse for being with Beaumont. They were quite safe with him. -If my husband had lived, nobody would have known anything about the -transaction. His death, immediately on his succession, was disastrous -in every way.” - -“Do you mean that your husband was aware of this loan?” - -“Yes, certainly,” she said a moment later, without hesitation, for -Cocky could not contradict her. “It was his idea first of all.” - -“It could not have been his idea to borrow of Mr. Massarene, for -that transaction took place two months and a half after his death at -Staghurst.” - -“He would have thought it a very good idea if he had been alive!” she -said with her short, satirical little laugh: she was afraid of little -now, for she saw that her brother knew nothing beyond the mere fact of -the loan. “As for the reproduction of the jewels in paste, which you -seem to think a crime, several women I know wear imitations of their -jewels for safety in these days of ingenious thefts, and leave the -originals in deposit at their bankers.” - -Hurstmanceaux looked at her in silence, wondering why a creature so -fair should be born without a conscience. Was she really without one, -or was this indifference only a part of the attitude she assumed? Was -there something still worse which he did not know? - -He felt that despair which overcomes a brave man before the -shamelessness of a woman. What could he do? He could not kill her. He -could not disgrace her. To awaken any conscience in her was hopeless. -If she did feel any humiliation she would not show it. For a moment a -red mist swam before his eyes and a nervous tremor passed along his -muscles; he longed to stamp the life out of her and bruise her accursed -beauty into nothingness as a man of Shoreditch, or Montmartre, or the -Calle of Venice might have done under such provocation as was his. The -moment passed, of course. He could only realize his own powerlessness. -There is nothing on earth so powerless as the impotence of a man of -honor before the vileness of a woman who is dear to him. - -He moved a step nearer to her and gazed down on her with a look which -made her lower her sunny audacious eyes. - -“You had more money than this from Massarene?” - -Regaining her courage, and remembering that Katherine Massarene had -probably sent her all her other signatures, she rose and faced him, -throwing her fresh cigarette on the table. - -“I do not admit that you have the smallest right to interrogate me. -There is no one living who has. Marry his daughter, and you and she can -look over his old check-books together. You are my children’s keeper, -but you are not mine, and I entirely refuse to answer your insults.” - -It was clear, she reflected, that Massarene had told him nothing except -the facts concerning the diamonds. He might flounder about in a sea of -conjecture, and make himself as wretched as ever he pleased; she was -not so simple as to confess to him. - -He stood above her, and his hands fell heavily on her shoulders and -held her as in a vice. - -“You had more money than this from Massarene?” - -She was silent. - -He still held her motionless, and a thrill of intense physical fear -passed through her. - -“You gave yourself to that brute for lucre?” - -She was silent. - -“If I wrong you, look me in the face and say so.” - -He waited; still holding her motionless. - -She tried to lift her eyes and look at him; she had never before -quailed before any duplicity, never before been unequal to the demands -which any necessity for falsehood put upon her. But now, for once, she -dared not meet the eyes of this man whose lifelong affection she had -abused, and whose family she had dishonored. For once she could not -lie; for once her defiant audacity failed her; for once, for a brief -passing moment, she saw herself as he would see her could he know all. -Standing before him, in his grasp, her head drooped, her whole form -trembled, her eyelids closed; she dared not meet his gaze. - -He understood. - -He released and thrust her from him. - -“Would to God our mother had never borne you!” - -He grew pale as ashes; for the moment he had difficulty to restrain -himself from striking to the ground this woman who had dishonored his -race. - -She took her coat off the table and turned away. - -“Take me to the boat,” she said imperiously. “I scarcely suppose you -want your crew to see that we have quarrelled?” - -He opened the door of the cabin. “Be so good as to accompany the -duchess, Mr. Evans,” he said to his skipper; and he went back into the -cabin and closed and bolted the door. - -The faint, sweet scent of wild-rose essence was on the air and on the -table where her coat had been lying. He dropped into the chair where -she had sat, and, leaning his head on his hands, sobbed like a child. - -She went back over the harbor-water talking pleasantly with Evans. “My -brother grows such a hermit,” she said to him. “It is a great pity that -he avoids society. He is becoming quite morose.” - -“Morose? No, your Grace,” said the old man, who adored his owner. “But -it is certain his lordship leads a lonesome life. When we’re in any -port, he don’t go ashore o’ nights to sup and play and lark as other -gentlemen do. But there aren’t his equal for goodness and kindness, -madam, anywhere; no, not in the ’varsal world.” - -“It is very nice of you to say so,” she replied, buttoning the big gold -buttons of her coat; her spirits had risen; she was not afraid of her -brother any longer; he had said his worst and she had made him feel his -impotence. After all it did not really matter what he knew or guessed, -he would not talk. - -“My poor darling, has he worried you?” said Lady Bassenthwaite, full of -sympathy, when she returned. - -“Worried me? I should think so!” she answered. “He insists on my -shutting myself up at Whiteleaf, and says Boo is to have no more Paris -frocks. Pray give me some tea, I am worn out with being lectured!” - -Lady Bassenthwaite’s sympathy did not include credulity. - -“He can’t have come out all the way from Cowes to Bergen only to talk -about Boo’s frocks,” she said later in the evening to her husband. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVI. - - -Katherine Massarene was as unhappy as it is possible for a person to -be who has no personal crime on their conscience, and has all their -personal wants supplied. She was incessantly haunted by the sense of -her father’s wickedness. True he had never gone to windward of the law; -he had never done anything which would have enabled the law to call -him to account. But his actions seemed to her all the worse because -of that cold-blooded caution which had kept him carefully justified -legally in all which he did. His own advancement had always been his -governing purpose; and he had been too shrewd to imperil this by any -excess in overreaching others, such as might have made him liable to -law. He had dealt with men so that they were always legally in the -wrong: for moral right he cared nothing. To his heiress all his wealth -seemed blood-stained and accursed. She seemed to herself blood-stained -in keeping or using it. Some part might possibly have been gained by -industry, frugality, and self-denial; but the main portion of it had -been built up on the ruin of others. In any case she would have felt -thus, but the words of Hurstmanceaux had been like electric light shed -on a dark place where murdered bodies lie. His scorn cut her to the -heart. She did not resent it; she admired it; but it cut her to the -quick. - -This was how all men of honor and honesty must regard the career of -William Massarene; if the world in general had not done so it was -only because the world is corrupt and venal itself and always open -to purchase; the world it may roughly be said does not quarrel with -its bread and butter. But what Hurstmanceaux felt was, she knew, that -which every person of high principle would feel with regard to the vast -ill-gotten wealth which she had inherited. She did not even quarrel -with the patrician temper which had insulted herself; it was so much -better and worthier than the general disposition of the times to -condone anything to wealth. - -She suffered under it, but she did not resent it. Individually, to -herself, it was unjust; but she could not expect him to know that or to -believe in it. - -It did not help her on her difficult road; but it made her see only one -issue to it. - -This she saw clearly. - -She walked slowly one day through the wood which was a portion of the -little property; between the pine stems the grey water of the Channel -was seen, dreamy, misty, and dull in a sunless day. Some colliers and -a fishing-lugger with dingy canvas were drifting slowly through the -windless air, under the low clouds. Her thoughts were not with the -landscape, and she paced absently the path, strewn with fir-needles, -which led to the cliff. She was roused by a little dog bustling gaily -through the underwood and jumping upon her in recognition, whilst her -own dog, whom she called Argus, immediately investigated the stranger’s -credentials. A moment or two later pleasant cherry tones, which she had -last heard on the deck of the steamer leaving Indian shores, reached -her ear. “Hello, Miss Massarene! Whisky knows old friends. How are you, -my dear? I was coming up to your house.” - -She turned and saw Lord Framlingham, with great pleasure: she had heard -that he was in England for a few weeks, but had scarcely hoped to meet -him unless she went up to town for the purpose. - -“Did you really come down here only to see me? That is very good of -you,” she said gratefully. - -“The goodness is to myself. Besides, I could not show my face to my -girls if I went back without having a chat with you. No thanks. I have -lunched. If you are going for a walk, Whisky and I will go with you. - -“Is this big rough fellow yours?” he added, looking at Argus. “I dare -say he’s very devoted, but I can’t say much for his breeding.” - -Katherine laughed slightly. “How like an Englishman! Why are ‘humans’ -the only animals in whom you do not exact breeding?” - -They went on through the woods talking of his family, who had remained -in India, and of the political matters which had brought him home for -a personal conference with the Home Government. When they came out on -to the head of the cliff they sat down in sight of the sea. - -“How homelike it all looks! That brown lugger, those leaden clouds, -that rainy distance.” - -He was silent a minute or two, touched to the vague sadness of the -exile. Then he turned to her. - -“Now tell me of yourself; I have thought much of you since your -father’s death. It was a frightful end.” - -“It was.” - -“Do you remember our long talk under the magnolias? How little we -thought then that his ambitions would so soon be over! You don’t look -well. It must have been a great shock.” - -She gave a gesture of assent. - -“And you are sole mistress of everything?” - -“Yes.” - -“That is an immense burden.” - -“Yes.” - -“You must get someone to bear it with you. Pardon me, but I am as -interested in your future as if you were one of my daughters. I saw -something in a society paper about you this morning. I devoutly hope it -is true.” - -“What was it?” - -“That you were about to marry Lord Hurstmanceaux.” - -“What!” - -She rose from her seat as if a snake had bitten her, her colorless skin -grew red as a rose, her eyes blazed with an indignation for which her -companion was puzzled to account. “Whoever dare--whoever dare----” she -said breathlessly. - -Framlingham was astonished. “Come, come, my dear; there’s nothing in -the report to put your back up like that. I don’t know him personally, -but I have always heard that he is a very fine fellow--poor--but that -wouldn’t matter to you; on my word, I don’t think you could possibly do -better. You might get much higher rank, of course, but then you don’t -care about rank. Pray be seated and calm yourself.” - -“How could such a falsehood possibly be put in print?” she said -nervously. - -“You might be more astonished if you saw a truth in print,” said -Framlingham with a chuckle. “So it’s no foundation, eh? Do you know -him?” - -“Slightly. He called on me on business a few weeks since. But he is the -very last person on earth of whom a statement of that kind could ever -possibly be true.” - -“Humph!” said Framlingham, and he threw a dead stick for Whisky to -fetch. - -“His sister played fast and loose with your father’s money, didn’t -she?” he asked. - -“I would prefer not to speak of her.” - -“All right,” said Framlingham rather disappointed. “But because you -don’t like the sister that is no reason to refuse the brother. I have -always heard that she is a thorn in his side.” - -“There could be no question of refusal or acceptance,” said Katherine, -exceedingly annoyed. “Lord Hurstmanceaux and I scarcely know each -other; and there is no one who more thoroughly despises myself and my -origin than he does.” - -Framlingham was very astonished, and sent Whisky after another stick. - -“He can scarcely have told you so?” he said. “Hie--good dog--bring it!” - -“He has told me so in most unmistakable terms. Pray don’t think that -I blame him for a moment; but you will understand that, knowing this, -such a report as you speak of in the papers is incomprehensible to me -and most odious.” - -“Necessarily,” said Framlingham, as he looked at her with his keen -sagacious grey eyes and thought to himself, “It is well to begin with -a little aversion. He may be odious to her, but I doubt if he is -indifferent.” - -Katherine was silent; the momentary color had faded out of her face; -her gaze followed the grimy canvas of the collier as it sailed slowly -to westward. - -“Well, I’m sorry,” said her friend, as he patted his skye-terrier. -“He’s a good man, and I should like to know you were in the hands of a -good man, my dear. You will have all the royal and noble blackguards in -Europe after you, and you have nobody I think to advise you, except -your lawyers, who are all very well in their way, but----” - -Katherine smiled a little, rather scornfully. - -“The royal and noble people cannot marry me by force, and I should -suppose they will understand a plain ‘No’ if they don’t often hear one. -Besides, if I do what I meditate I shall soon lose all attraction for -them.” - -“Good Lord, what’s that? You alarm me. I remember you expressed very -revolutionary ideas in India.” - -“I will tell you after dinner. You will dine with us, won’t you, and -stay a day or two?” - -“I will dine with pleasure, and sleep the night. But I must be back in -town by the first morning train. I have to go down to Windsor at noon. -What on earth can you be thinking of doing? Buying a kingdom in the -South Seas, or finishing the Panama?” - -“Something that you will perhaps think quite as eccentric. Let us talk -of other things. The day is a real English day to welcome you, so dim, -so sad, so still; the weather you sigh for in India.” - -“Yes,” said Framlingham, falling in with her mood. “One thinks of -Lytton’s verses: - - “‘Wandering lonely, over seas, - At shut of day, in unfamiliar land, - What time the serious light is on the leas, - To me there comes a sighing after ease - Much wanted, and an aching wish to stand - Knee-deep in English grass, and have at hand - A little churchyard cool, with native trees - And grassy mounds, thick laced with osier-bands, - Wherein to rest at last, nor farther stray. - So, sad of heart, muse I at shut of day, - On safe and quiet England, till thought ails - With inward groanings deep for meadows grey, - Grey copses, cool with twilight, shady dales, - Home-gardens, full of rest, where never may - Come loud intrusion, and what chiefly fails - My sick desire, old friendships fled away. - I am much vexed with loss. Kind Memory, lay - My head upon thy lap and tell me tales.’ - -“He was a very young man when he wrote these lines,” said Framlingham, -“and the only criticism I would offer, is, that I should prefer ‘close’ -of day to ‘shut’ of day. What say you?” - -After dinner that evening, when Mrs. Massarene had retired to -her room not to offend a governor, who was spoken of as a future -governor-general, by the sight of her nodding and dozing, Katherine -turned to her guest and said briefly-- - -“I will tell you now what my wishes are, and what my one doubt is.” - -“I am all attention,” said Framlingham, lifting the sleepy Whisky on to -his knee. - -“I have found out,” she continued, “that the money got together by my -late father was nearly all gained in bad ways, cruel ways, dishonest -ways.” - -“That does not surprise me,” said Framlingham. “Most self-made men are -made by questionable means. Go on.” - -“If he had his deserts he would have been spurned by everyone,” said -Katherine, whose voice shook and was very low. “I have reason to -believe that the man who killed him had been cheated by him out of a -tin mine. I traced that man. He was driven wild by want. His blood is -on us and on the money.” - -“I thought no one knew who killed Massarene?” - -“No one does know. I found letters. I traced their writer. There would -be no use in publicity. His case was not worse than that of others. But -he was miserable and alone. He took his revenge. At least I believe -so. I have gone through all my father’s documents, and ledgers, -and records. His whole life was one course of selfish, merciless, -unprincipled gain. His earlier economies were made out of the navvies, -and miners, and squatters who frequented a low gambling den which he -kept in what was then the small township of Kerosene. All his money -is accursed. It is all blood-money. I cannot spend a sixpence of it -without shame.” - -She spoke still in low tones and gently, but with intense though -restrained feeling. - -Framlingham scarcely knew what to say. He had no doubt that she was -perfectly right as to the sources of her father’s wealth, and he was -sorry that she had been able to arrive at such knowledge. - -“These are your views,” he said as she paused. “Now let me hear your -projects.” - -“They can be told in very few words,” she replied. “I desire--I think I -may say I intend to free myself of the whole burden of the inheritance. -Alas! I cannot undo its curse.” - -“You mean to beggar yourself!” exclaimed her companion in amaze and -consternation. - -“If you call it so. I must leave my mother her yearly income which is -given her under the will; but I can do as I please with all the rest, -and I shall restore it as far as possible to those from whom he gained -it. Of course few of his victims will be traceable; but some may be, -so at all events the money shall go back to the poor from whom it was -drained.” - -Framlingham stared at her in silent stupefaction. - -“You cannot be serious,” he said at last. - -“I am sorry you look at it in that way. I thought I should have had -your sympathy.” - -“My sympathy!” - -“Certainly. You are a man of honor.” - -Framlingham was silent. - -“Cannot you pity my dishonor?” she said in the same hushed, grave tones. - -“My dear girl,” said her friend, “I pity acutely what you feel, and -I can imagine nothing more painful to a sensitive nature than such a -discovery as you have made. But you may have exaggerated your censure -and your conclusions. The age we live in is lenient to such deeds when -they are successful. Your father was a rude man dwelling in rough -society. You must not judge him by the standard of your own high -ethics. As for what you propose to do, it is simply madness.” - -“I am sorry you take that view.” - -“How can I take any other? What man or woman of the world would take -any other? You hold a magnificent position. You have the means of -leading a life of extreme usefulness and beauty. You can marry and -have children to whom your property can pass. If it has been defiled -at its source, it will be purified in passing through your hands. Foul -water going through a porcelain filter comes out clear. You are not -responsible for what your father did. His crimes, if he committed any, -lie buried with him. Neither God nor man can call you to account for -them.” - -“I call myself.” - -“This is midsummer madness in midwinter! If you put your project into -execution, you would be rooked, robbed, ruined on every side, and you -would raise a hornet’s nest of swindlers around you. No one would be -grateful to you. All would turn you into ridicule and environ you -with intrigue. My dear, you have had Aladdin’s lamp given to you. For -Heaven’s sake use it for your own happiness and that of others. Do not -break it because there is a flaw in the glass. There is your mother -also to be considered,” he added after a pause. “What right have you to -cause her such change of circumstance, such possible mortification as -your abandonment of your inheritance would bring with it?” - -“In that perhaps you may be right,” said Katherine wearily, “but in -that only, and perhaps not even in that. You speak with the view of the -world, and wisely no doubt. But I am sorry you see it so. I should have -hoped you would have understood me better.” - -He strove to turn her and to argue with her for more than two hours, -but he failed to bring home his own convictions to her mind. - -“Marry, marry, marry!” he said. “It is the only cure for distempered -dreams.” - -“I shall not marry,” replied Katherine, “and I do not dream. What I -have said to you are facts. What I mean to do is expiation.” - -Framlingham shook his head. - -“When a woman is once started on the road of self-sacrifice, an -eighty-horse power would not hold her back from pursuing it. -Good-night, my dear.” - -He went up the staircase to his own room, and when there opened one -of the windows and looked out; the night was dark, but he could hear -the swell of the sea, and the homely smell of wet grass, of rotting -leaves, of falling rain, was agreeable to him because it was that of -the country of his birth. - -“What she wants to do is really very fine and very honorable,” he -thought. “It is midsummer madness, but most honorable sentiments are. -It is a pity that one’s worldly wisdom obliges one to throw cold water -on such a scheme.” - -The next morning, very early, he went back to town. - -He left an additional sense of depression and uncertainty behind him in -Katherine’s mind. He had not altered her opinion, but he had increased -her perplexities. If this was how a sagacious and experienced man -of the world looked at her project, it was possible that there were -obstacles in the way of its accomplishment which escaped her own sight. -She had expected to have Framlingham’s comprehension and concurrence, -for in India he had felt so much sympathy with her revolt against her -father’s wealth. The worldly wisdom which he esteemed it his duty to -preach chilled her with its egotism and its coldness. There was only -one person living who would have understood her scruples and desires, -and to that one person she would certainly never speak again. - -There had been a wall between them before this mendacious report of -which Framlingham had spoken; since that report there was an abyss. -She felt that if she met Hurstmanceaux on a public road, they would by -tacit mutual consent pass each other without visible recognition. - -Had her mother not been living, she would have had no hesitation in -going straight to the end she had in view. But her mother constituted a -duty of another and opposite kind. - -The rights of his wife had been almost entirely ignored by William -Massarene; but her daughter could not ignore them morally, if the law -would have allowed her (as it did) to do so legally. More than once she -attempted to approach the subject, and was arrested by her own natural -reserve, and by the slow comprehension to take a hint of her mother. - -Moreover, the memory of William Massarene was quite different to -what his presence had been to the wife, whom his last testament had -insulted. With his coffin in the Roxhall crypt, all his offences had -been buried in her eyes; a man to whose funeral princes had sent -wreaths and a silver stick could not in her sight be other than -assoilzied. Her heart was much warmer than her mind was strong, and -she was accessible to those charms of social greatness to which her -daughter was wholly invulnerable. She had suffered in the great world, -but she had liked it. - -“Would you mind being poor again?” Katherine asked her once, -tentatively. - -Margaret Massarene was unpleasantly startled. - -“There aren’t anything wrong about the money, is there?” she said -anxiously. “I’m always afraid, now your dear father aren’t here, to -hold it all together.” - -“Oh, it is all solid enough!” replied Katherine, with some bitterness. -“I merely asked you, would you dislike being poor if you were so?” - -“Well, my dear,” replied Mrs. Massarene, crossing her hands on her -lap, “I can’t say as I should like it. When I went over to Kilrathy -I did wish as how I’d stayed milkin’ all my days. But that’s neither -here nor there, and the past is spilled milk as nobody can lap up, not -even a cat. But, to be honest with ye, I think there’s a good deal of -pleasantness about money, and living well, and being warm in winter -and cool in summer, and seein’ everybody hat in hand as ’twere. No, my -dear, I shouldn’t like to be poor; and you wouldn’t either, if you’d -ever known what ’twas.” - -Katherine was silent. She had not expected any other answer, yet she -was disappointed. - -“But,” she said, after a few moments--“but, my dear mother, I think -you know, I think you must know, that this vast amount of money and -possessions which we inherit----” - -“Which you inherit,” said Mrs. Massarene with a little asperity. “I’m -struck out----” - -“You or I, it is the same thing,” said Katherine. “You must know, I -think, that--that--it was not very creditably gained. You must, I -suppose, have known many things and many details of my father’s life -in Kerosene; of his early life, at any rate; of the foundations of his -wealth.” - -“Perhaps I did and perhaps I didn’t,” said her mother rather sullenly. -“Your good father never consulted me, my dear, and if I’d put myself -forward he’d have locked me up in the coal cellar, and left me there.” - -“No doubt he never consulted you,” said Katherine. “But it is -impossible that living with him, and working for him as you have often -told me you did, you can have been wholly ignorant of the beginning of -his rise to wealth. You must know very much of the ways by which he -first acquired it.” - -Her mother was moved by divided feelings, of which, however, vexation -was the chief. She was embarrassed because she was a very honest woman; -but at the same time her buried lord was purified and exalted in her -eyes. Had not a bishop laid him in his grave? - -“’Tis neither here nor there what I may have known, or leastways may -have guessed,” she said sullenly and with some offence. “Your father -never did nothing as the police could have laid hold of--never!” - -“Oh, mother!” cried Katherine. “Is that your standard of morality, of -virtue?” - -The indignation in her voice increased her mother’s annoyance. - -“I don’t see, anyhow,” she said very angrily, “that it is the place -of a daughter to try and rake up things against her father. William -was in a new country, where the morals is new, and maybe he did like -his neighbors. But the first people in the old country thought much of -him. He’d hev died a lord if he’d lived a year more. The Prince sent a -wreath and a gentleman. When he’s laid in his grave with all that pomp -and honor, what for do you, his own child, go and try to throw mud on -his coffin? I think it shame of you, Kathleen; and if that’s all your -fine eddication has taught you, well ’twas money ill spent, and you’d -better look at the fifth commandment.” - -With a sigh her daughter rose and walked through the veranda into the -gardens beyond, and thence into the pine-woods. She felt the utter -impossibility of ever bringing her mother’s mind into any unison with -her own. It was wholly useless to attempt to reach and touch a chord -which did not exist. If she pursued the course which she thought right, -she must do so in spite of her mother, and alone in her choice. - -Margaret Massarene loved her daughter, but she thought Katherine was a -“crank.” She could see no reason why they should not both of them enjoy -the good things poor William had left behind him. - -She was a good and honest woman; but in Kerosene City the moral -feelings lose their sensitiveness, and she could not follow Katherine’s -reasonings; she considered them high-flown, and a pack of nonsense. “As -for fortunes being made honest,” said Margaret Massarene to herself, -“’tis a pack of stuff to dream of it. You can’t no more make a big -fortune with clean hands than you can stack a dung heap.” - -But when the fortune, however accumulated, was made, it seemed to her -flying in the face of an all-seeing Providence to quarrel with it, and -to “climb down.” Whoever did climb down if they could help it? - -“You would not like to visit America, mother?” Katherine said to her a -few days later. - -Margaret Massarene gasped. - -“America? The States?” - -“The States, yes--Dakota.” - -“Ropes shouldn’t drag me,” replied her mother with unusual firmness. -“Oh, Lord! The food served all higgledy-piggledy, sour and sweet all -running amuck; the trains a-peering in at your sixth floor window; the -men hanging on to hooks in the crowd of the cars; the spittle all over -the place; the rush and the crush and the pother never still. Go back -there? No; you should kill me first!” - -She was roused to unusual self-assertion and emphasis. - -“Only for a visit,” said Katherine timidly. - -“And what for--for a visit?” repeated Mrs. Massarene. “Now I’ve got -back, I’ll stay where I am. Many and many a night I’ve lain awake in -that hell; for hell ’tis, with the railways a-shrieking and rumbling -past the windows, and the furnace chimneys a-bellowing fire and -smoke, and the whistles a-screaming, and the pistons a-thumping; and -I’ve thought of the old home and cried till I was blind, and said to -myself, if ever a good God let me go back, I’d stay at home if I swept -the streets for a living. _I_ don’t fly in the face of Providence, -Katherine.” - -“But your home was in Ulster!” - -“You don’t want to be throwing that in my teeth. I wasn’t brought up a -fine English lady like you. But Europe’s Europe and the States is the -States; and I won’t cross that grey, wild water again; no, not if you -kill me!” - -“Of course, my dear mother, you shall do as you wish.” - -“Oh, you’re very soft-spoken, but you’re that obstinate! What do you -want with the States? You’re so mighty pitiful of the poor--almost a -socialist, as one may say. Well, I can tell you there’s harder lines -there between rich and poor than there is in these old countries, and -more hatred too. There aren’t nowhere,” continued Margaret Massarene, -her pale face growing warm, “where the luxury’s more overdone, and the -selfishness crueller, and the spending of money wickeder, than in the -States. Nowhere on earth where the black man is loathed and the poor -white is scorned as they are in that canting ‘free’ country!” - -Katherine sighed. - -“So I have always understood. But it only makes it a greater duty.” - -“What a greater duty?” - -Katherine hesitated. - -“To go there. To see for oneself. To try and restore what one can.” - -“Duty never lies at home, my dear, we know,” said Mrs. Massarene with -sarcastic acerbity. “I suppose you’ll write to me once a month; and if -anything happens to me while you’re away, you’ll give orders as they’ll -lay me by your poor dear father, whom you’re ashamed on.” - -Her daughter felt that her path of duty, whether at home or abroad, -was one which it was not easy to discern in the gloaming of a finite -humanity, through the tangled brush-wood of conflicting demands and -principles. - -“Won’t you, can’t you understand, mother?” she said, with a wistful -supplication in her voice. - -“No,” replied her mother sternly. “I could hev understood if you’d -held your head high, and married high, and had a lot of nice little -children; but a freak as will make you the laughing-stock of all the -respectable newspapers on this side and the other, I don’t understand -and don’t want to understand; and ’tis an insult to poor William in his -grave.” - -“I’m not speaking for myself, my dear,” she added; “it’s very good of -you not to hev put me in the workhouse.” - -Katherine felt that, though duty may be bracing and fortifying, it -strongly resembles a cold salt bath when the thermometer is below zero. - -She spent many solitary hours walking in the little wood which led to -the sea, or sitting where she had sat with Framlingham, thinking over -the immense task which lay before her, and wondering how it was best -to execute it. She searched her heart relentlessly for any selfish or -unworthy motive which might lurk in it. All alone under the pine trees -as she was, she felt herself flush with consciousness as she asked -herself: was she moved by any personal desire? She felt that she would -be glad to vindicate herself in the eyes of Hurstmanceaux--to force him -to acknowledge that one basely born might act well and with honor. She -longed to show him that she could shake off the ill-gotten wealth which -he despised and which the world adored. Something of this might move -her--so much her conscience compelled her to admit--but with perfect -honesty she could also feel that, had she never seen him, she would -none the less have desired to undo, as far as should be in her power, -the evil which her father had done to the poor and helpless. - -Again, was she wronging her mother? Was she leaving the real duty, -which lay close at hand, for the imaginary duty, which lay far away? -She knew that many a dreamer did so; that many an enthusiast left his -own garden to weed and drought, whilst he went to sow in strange lands. -She held in horror the religion which taught that the soul should be -saved, however the hearth and home were deserted. - -These days of indecision and mental conflict were days of infinite -pain, for her own nature was resolute and not wavering, and to such a -temper irresolution seems a form of cowardice. Moreover she, who had -read widely and thought deeply, knew that it is easier to move the -mountains or to arrest the tides than it is to do any real good to the -mass of mankind. She had none of the illusions of the socialist, none -of the distorted idealism of revolutionists and philanthropists; she -was not sustained by any erroneous idolatry of humanity; she did not -expect the seed she would sow to bring forth any fruit which would -change the face of Nature; but the impulse to cast from her the wealth -acquired by fraud, by violence, and by usury, was too strong in her for -her to be able to resist it. - -She knew that what she wished to do was fraught with innumerable -difficulties, and that might, unless well done, cause more evil than -good. She had hoped to find in Framlingham some guidance, some help; -but she saw that she must rely on no one but herself. It saddened -her to know that it was so, but it did not entirely discourage her. -Conscience is a lamp which burns low in the press of the world, but -lights clearly enough the path of the solitary. - -In the autumn of that year, sixteen months after the death of William -Massarene, she sailed from Southampton for that dread Northwest, -which remained in the memories of her earliest childhood as a place -of horror, whose summer meant sandstorms, and drought, and sunstroke, -and the whirling of the mad tornado, and the scorching billows of the -forest fires, and winter meant the pall of snow on hill and plain, the -driving of the dreadful blizzard, the lowing of starved cattle, the -mourning of famished wolves, the shapeless heaps upon the ice which -were the bodies of frozen travelers and foundered caravans. - -It was terrible to her to return there, and behold all which she must -see there; but it was more terrible to her to remain possessor of the -millions which had been acquired in that hell. - -“Why can that young woman be gone to America?” said Daddy Gwyllian. - -“Gone to look after her property, I presume,” said Hurstmanceaux, whom -he addressed. - -“It is a _joli denier_ to look after. That cad was second only to -Vanderbilt and Pullman.” - -“Why will you always talk about money, Daddy? It is a very vulgar -habit.” - -“Money’s like robust health,” said Daddy. “Vulgar if you like, but -deuced comfortable to those who have got it.” - -Hurstmanceaux, as he walked down Pall Mall a few moments later, felt -irrationally disappointed that she had gone to America. No doubt she -had gone to look after her property there, but he did not think that -the person he had seen, with her large, dark, calm eyes and her stately -grace, ought to care whether those millions of acres and billions of -dollars diminished or increased. If her attitude and expressions in -his presence had been real, and not affected, she could not care. He -regretted that he had written that letter to her from Cowes. It had -been written from his heart on a generous impulse; and he knew life -well enough to know that our generous impulses are the costliest of all -our indulgences. - -When he thought also of all which she might know--which she certainly -must suspect--of the sister whom he had loved so well, he suffered as -only a man of tender heart and sensitive honor can suffer when wounded -in his family pride and his natural affections. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVII. - - -With the following March London saw once more the Duchess of -Otterbourne carrying her graceful presence to Court and salon and -theatre, having recovered her beauty and with it her spirits. One of -those fortunate incidents of which life is prodigal to its favorites -had happened. An old aunt had died and left her a legacy of a few -thousands; enough thousands to make a year at least pass smoothly, -without too much self-denial. - -She was pleased to have a little ready money, indisputably her own, -which had come to her in a most respectable manner, and could be -squandered just as she chose, without the interference of anybody. -Millions do not really afford you the smallest satisfaction if somebody -stands over you to see how you spend them. - -The insolence and the courage of her character brought her back to -the scene of her slavery to William Massarene. She felt that it was -necessary to show her brother that she did not care a straw for his -condemnation, and to prove to society in general that her position was -unshaken. Who could tell how that young woman, who had sent her the -counterfoils and the acceptances, might not have talked? Besides, she -wished to see her children. Her affection for them was genuine. It was -not profound or unselfish, it was not tender or ideal, but it was a -real affection in its way; and, besides, she was proud of them. They -were the handsomest little people in England; always well and always -strong. Against Jack she bore a grudge--unreasoningly and unkindly--but -still, she wished to have him with her in London. The presence of the -little duke and his brothers and sister in her new house would prove to -people that her conduct had always been perfectly correct. - -“One does miss one’s children so cruelly,” she said to her sister -Carrie, who answered: “Yes, one does; it is like losing one’s -dressing-bag.” - -She fully expected Hurstmanceaux to forbid their coming to her, but he -left the matter to the Ormes’s decision; he was at Faldon, and gave no -opinion one way or the other. To her intimate friends she attributed -her rupture with him to his extreme severity and unkindness about the -Otterbourne diamonds and her own financial affairs; and, as she was -always a popular person, and he never was, her version was accepted and -circulated, and the opinion of the world was indulgent to her. - -She took a pretty, furnished house in Eaton Place, and resumed the life -which she had led when Cocky, like a ministering angel, had been behind -her, to excuse her imprudence and share her extravagance. The Blenheims -were left down at Whiteleaf, but Jack and his brothers and sister were -brought to town. - -Boo, wild with delight, raced upstairs to a bedroom on the third -floor, and thought that altitude a seventh heaven. Jack was dull; he -loved the country and hated London, hated it doubly now that he had -lost Harry, and he felt sure that his mother was the cause of Harry’s -disappearance. When he saw the Life Guards ride down through the Park -to Knightsbridge, the sight made him very sad, for there were no kind -dark eyes looking at him with a smile in them from under the shining -helmet. - -His mother, who was not harassed by such regrets, was very pleased -to be in London again with a little money at her back. She was very -tenacious of her social position, and she knew that it was necessary -to be respectable now and then. She attended the first Drawing-room; -went to the first receptions of some tiresome _gros bonnets_ whom she -called old dowdies; and reascended a social throne which for a moment -had shaken under her. The Chapel Royal saw her every Sunday, and she -began to think of making a pleasant second marriage before Katherine -Massarene (who might spoil one) should return to society. - -Harrenden House was shut up; its porter alone, stripped of his gorgeous -vestments, dwelt behind the gates looking no more like himself than -a grub looks like a butterfly. There was a hatchment above the door, -large, imposing, majestic; it was there by Margaret Massarene’s wish -beyond the usual time to have it shown. All the great people and -the smart people who had dined at that house, and pocketed cotillon -presents, and drunk rare wines, and borrowed money and paid it by -insolent jokes, now drove past in the sunshine or the fog, in the north -wind or the east, had found other dupes and other butts for their needs -and their jests, and did not even give a thought to “Billy.” - -He was gone, and there were always new people coming in from the -States or the Colonies, or even homemade, who were the natural manure -wherewith to nourish starving genealogical trees. - -“I say, Sourisette, how was it you got nothing under Billy’s will?” -said her cousin Roxhall to her one day as they rode in the Park. - -“My dear Gerald,” she answered with dignity, “_I_ had not sold him an -ancestral estate. If I had done so I should not have taken it back as a -gift from his daughter as you have done!” - -“Oh I say,” muttered Roxhall. “That’s a nasty one, but it isn’t the -fact. I’ve paid back half the purchase price and the other half is on -the land, and it’s not you, Mousie, who have the right to say such -things.” - -Roxhall’s mind reverted to the sale of Vale Royal at Homburg, when he -had never looked too closely into the percentage received by the fair -negotiatress of the sale. They were speaking as they rode down Rotten -Row, and at that moment her mare became fidgety and carried her out of -earshot. He rode after her. - -“You think you can say those things to me,” he said, leaning a little -toward her, “because I am a relative, and because I have always been a -fool about you; but don’t you put people’s backs up like that, my dear, -or you’ll get more than you like some day.” - -“My dear Gerald,” said Mouse between her teeth, “fall back a little, -please; I don’t care to be seen riding with a person who has taken alms -from Miss Massarene, even if he _is_ my cousin.” - -She was not afraid to be insolent to him; Roxhall would be no use any -more to her, for he could never sell Vale Royal twice. - -Roxhall checked his horse and let her groom pass him. This was the -woman for whom he had nearly broken his wife’s heart, and more than -nearly ruined himself! - -“What a confounded ass I was!” he thought. “She isn’t worth the tan -that her mare kicks up; and yet--and yet--oh, Lord, if she whistled me -I should run to her like a dog, I know I should!” - -He was a clever if careless man of the world, and he was sincerely -attached to his wife, but he had been as wax in the hands of his cousin -Mouse, and would be so again, he felt, if she cared to make him so. -Neither philosophy nor psychology can explain fascination or the power -it exercises in the teeth of common sense and to the root of conscience. - -She, who believed and disbelieved in a Higher Power, as most people -do according to the favor or the frown which they consider the Higher -Power gives them, was at this moment in the full fervor of belief, as -she had money enough to let her do as she liked for a year or two. -Roxhall could not touch her conscience; Hurstmanceaux could not rouse -her shame; the sight of the closed gates of Harrenden House could not -disturb that serenity which she had regained so successfully; but -something did occur which momentarily disturbed and almost afflicted -her. - -Jack had been usually kept down at Whiteleaf with his brothers; and a -remote Northamptonshire country house amongst farmsteads, streams, and -orchards, is not a centre of news. No word or sign had come to him of -his friend, and in his occasional visits to town he had heard nothing -of him. Though years had passed since Harry had bade him good-bye under -the elm-tree, and children are usually forgetful, with little minds -like sieves, Jack did not cease to lament his lost friend. If he had -been sure where Harry had gone, he would have tried to get on board a -ship and work his way out to the same place, like the cabin-boys he -read of in story-books. But the South Pole was a vague destination; -and he once heard some men saying, who had been Harry’s friends, that -he was now in Uganda or Rhodesia. It was all so vague that it was -impossible to plan any wanderings and voyages on such data. - -Mammy must know, he thought; but he could not bring himself to ask her. -He had a vague but positive sense that Harry’s exile and disappearance -were due to her; that she had been unkind and had hurt Harry in some -way or another in some incurable and unmerciful manner. - -When Jack saw all the London life going on just the same--the Life -Guards prancing, the ladies cycling or riding, the traffic filling up -the streets, the carriages flashing toward the Park--his young heart -ached with a dull painful sense of the heartlessness of things. Harry -had always been there in that movement and glitter and rush; and now he -was no more seen, and no one cared, not even his troop. Once he went -up to Harry’s late colonel, whom he knew by sight, and asked straight -out for news of him. The colonel looked surprised, for a long time had -elapsed. “My dear boy, I don’t know at all where he is; he’s gone on -the make somewhere, I believe. Out of sight, out of mind, you know, -more shame for us.” - -What unkind, indifferent people they all were, thought Jack. - -But in the middle of June, when he was on his visit to his mother, -there was a telegram in a morning paper which disinterred the buried -name so dear to him. It said, in the usual niggard brevity, “Lord -Brancepeth said to have been severely wounded fighting in Loomalia.” - -Now Harry’s late colonel was startled by that telegram as he sat at -luncheon in his club; and as he walked an hour later across the Green -Park he chanced to meet Jack and his tutor. - -“Look here, my boy,” he said, holding out the newspaper. “You asked me -once about this friend of yours--” - -Jack read the two lines through starting tears. - -“Thanks very much,” he said in a low tone, and took off his hat to the -colonel; then he said to Mr. Lane, “If you please, we will go home.” - -“That child’s a good plucked one,” thought the colonel. “It’s hit him -hard.” - -By that time many people in fashionable London had read the telegram, -and were talking of it. - -“Who is this gentleman about whom you are so unhappy?” asked his tutor, -who knew nothing of fashionable society and its rumors and traditions. - -Jack felt himself color. He could not have exactly analyzed what he -felt. - -“He’s Harry,” he said in a low tone. “He was always very kind to us; -kinder than anyone.” - -The Colonial Office was applied to for information, and the Minister -for the Colonies buttonholed in the Lobby. The Minister was chill and -careful; he remarked that Lord Brancepeth was acting as an amateur, on -his own responsibility--entirely on his own responsibility; he could -not approve his action; the Loomalis were in insurrection; the Boers -were the allies of England; there were treaties; treaties must be -respected, however individuals might suffer; the Government could not -be responsible for any adventurous gentleman fighting on his own hand. - -A similar answer was returned to Lord Inversay when he, a weary and -infirm old man, came up to town, and went to the Colonial Office and to -the Premier. - -A little later, fuller particulars were telegraphed from the newspaper -correspondents at Capetown, and then everybody began again to talk of -Harry at the dinner-tables, and club-houses, and pleasure places in -which he had been once such a familiar figure. - -The Boers had, as usual, made an excuse of an imaginary transgression -of boundary, to attack a friendly tribe, of which they were bound to -respect the neutrality. They had harried and ravaged the country, -carried off herds and flocks, burned villages, and borne off to -servitude old men, women and children, with all those excesses of -barbarous brutality which invariably characterize the introduction of -civilization anywhere. This especial tribe was blameless, willing to be -at peace, and contented to live in a simple and natural manner with the -harvests of a bountiful soil. But that soil their neighbors wanted; it -is the story of every war. - -Brancepeth had gone as a traveler, only to look on; but he was soon -disgusted by the cruelty of the white men, touched by the helplessness -of the natives, alienated by the avarice and violence of the former, -and moved by the rights and sufferings of the latter. He had gone with -no intention of taking a share in the strife; but when he saw the -flaming kraals, the ravaged flocks, the fettered women, the starved and -hunted old people and young children, the blood of a soldier grew hot -in him; the sense of justice uprose in him; the generosity of a manly -temper impelled him to take part with the weak, the oppressed, the -natural owners of the vast plains, the solemn mountains, the trackless -hills, the immense waters. He drew his sword on their side. He led them -more than once to victory. If he had had a single troop of the men he -had commanded at home, he would have driven the Dutchmen back over -their own veldt, and forced them to relinquish their prey. But the poor -Loomalis had been already exhausted, demoralized, hopelessly weakened, -when he had first come into their land. They could not second his -efforts or comprehend his tactics. Had he arrived a month earlier, he -might perhaps have saved them. As it was, he could only die with them. - -He had fought side by side with their chief, Mahembele, hewing down -the Boers with a sabre when the last shots had been fired from his -revolver, and not a single cartridge had been left. - -“It is not your cause; go, while you have life,” said the African to -him. - -“I’ll be damned if I will,” said Brancepeth. “Right is right, and the -right is on your side.” - -So he fought like a knight of old, knee-deep in the heap of dead he had -slain, and he fell at last as the sun went down, pierced by a score of -wounds, and Mahembele dropped, shot through the forehead, across his -body. - -The Boers retreated down the hillside--for he had mauled them -terribly--and a few of the Loomalis ventured to carry off the body -of their chief for burial; and as they removed it, they saw that the -white leader was not dead quite, and in gratitude they bore him away -to a cavern in the rocks, where their women tended him, until months -afterwards some English travelers, hearing of his deeds and of his -fate, sought him out, and had him carried down the river to their camp, -many miles away. Thus it became known who he was, and how he had given -away his life for these poor and persecuted people. - -The story moved his own London world when it was told in the columns of -the great daily papers. Poor Harry! He had lived like a fool, but he -had ended his life like a hero. - -For ended it surely was; he might rally, he might even live through -a few months, a few years, but he had been shot and slashed like a -desert animal slaughtered and maimed by a hundred hands; he would never -breathe without pain, never move without help, never stand upright -again. So the surgeon who was with him telegraphed to his father; and -the Governor at Capetown to the Government at home. - -And for ten minutes, in guardroom, in clubroom, in drawing-room, his -old friends were sorry and spoke of him in a hushed voice. Only the -Colonial Office was annoyed, because it had been pledged to protect the -Loomalis and had broken its word, and failed them in their need; and -the fact that one English gentleman had stood by these poor Africans -to the last disagreeably emphasized by contrast the bad faith and -pusillanimity of England as an empire. - -The Duchess of Otterbourne, like the Colonial Office, was much shocked -and displeased. It was odious to have all London talking of Harry; it -would, she knew, make people remember his relations with herself. - -When a woman has ordered a man out of her life she prefers him to -efface himself from other people’s lives. Harry had effaced himself and -gone docily into oblivion, which was quite right, but that now from -that nether world he should have sent a clarion blast echoing over the -seas, as if he were one of Wagner’s heroes, was distinctly irritating. -Do what she would, too, she could often not sleep for thinking of him -with his body hacked to pieces and his blood staining the yellow grass. -To be sure she could take chloral, but she was very prudent as regarded -health, and she knew that chloral has two faces, one beneficent and the -other malevolent, and is not a deity to be too frequently invoked. - -Meantime he was coming home; every day the vessel drew nearer and -nearer, whether it brought him living or brought him dead. It was too -dreadfully irritating when she had been relieved from the incubus of -William Massarene to have this revival of an old scandal. - -If his mother had said a word to her eldest son about their old friend, -he would have laid his head on her lap and sobbed his heart out, and -asked her why she had sent him to Africa. But she said not a word. -He saw her always going out here, there, and everywhere, beautifully -dressed and gay and bright; and Jack hated her for her heartlessness -and avoided her, which was easy to do, for she seldom asked for him. -Boo she had frequently with her, and his little brothers were sometimes -taken in her carriage; but for Jack she scarcely ever inquired. He was -left to the care of Mr. Lane. Once she told him to go as a page to a -cousin’s wedding, the daughter of Mrs. Cecil Courcy, and Jack bluntly -refused. - -“I won’t be dressed up like a boy in a pantomime,” he said to Boo, who -brought him the order; and he was steadfast in his refusal, for how -could he know that Harry might not be already dead? - -“You’d get a diamond pin,” said Boo. - -“What do I want with pins?” replied Jack with scorn. “I won’t be made a -guy of; I’d sooner be a _real_ page and help to clean the plate.” - -“You are such a low boy, Jack,” said Boo with disdain. “Mammy always -says so.” - -Jack’s brows clouded at his mother’s name. Was he a low boy? he -wondered. He did not think so, but then his tutor had told him that no -one has any knowledge of themselves. He liked real things, he liked -people who told the truth; he hated being called “your Grace”; he loved -dogs and horses; he detested fine ladies and all their perfumes and -pranks and pastimes; perhaps he was a very low boy indeed. - -Jack, after the colonel had shown him that telegram, bought up all -the newspapers he could (when he was not watched), and read them with -difficulty where the words were long, and understood that his friend -had been behaving like a knight of old. How his heart ached, and how -his blood thrilled! One thing too added greatly to his pain; the news -was more than four months old. Intelligence traveled slowly from the -land of the Loomalis, and people did so also. He could not tell at all -how his friend was on these especial days when he, himself seated on -his own bed to be undisturbed, devoured the chronicles from Capetown -in one London journal after another. Jack had heard enough about wounds -from shot and sabre to know that they were often mortal, and that -recovery, if it ensued, was terribly tedious and slow, and often too -uncertain. - -In his ignorance and unhappiness he took a bold step. He wrote to -Harry’s father, whom he did not know. He composed a letter “all out of -his own head.” - - “_The Duke of Otterbourne presents his compliments to Lord Inversay - and wishes very much if you would tell him where Harry is, and if it - is true that he is hurt amongst black men. I am so very very anxious, - and I want you please to tell me, and no one knows that the Duke of - Otterbourne is writing to you, so please don’t say, and excuse these - blots; please answer soon, and I am your very affectionate Jack._” - -When he had read it over it seemed to him not altogether right; he was -afraid it was ungrammatical, but he could not tell where the mistakes -were, and he put it in an envelope and addressed it to the Marquis of -Inversay, looking out the address in the big red book so dear to Mrs. -Massarene, and sealing it with a seal lent him by his friend Hannah, -bearing the device of two doves and a rose. - -The little note would have gone to the heart of Harry’s father, and -would have certainly been answered, but, as Jack’s unlucky star would -have it, his mother espied his letter lying on the hall table with her -own, and seeing the address in the big childish caligraphy, took it, -opened it, and consigned it in atoms to the waste-paper basket. - -She was agitated and irritated in an extreme degree by its perusal. -What would old Inversay think if he got such a note? He would actually -think that Jack _knew_! She was beyond measure annoyed and alarmed -to see this impudent little fellow daring to act and to write all by -himself. - -In her own way she was herself worried about Harry, although she -concealed her worry successfully; it pained her to think of his wounds -and his danger; her anxiety did not prevent her from going to theatres -and operas, and pastoral plays and dinner-parties, and State concerts -and all the rest of it; but still the thought of him hurt her, and no -doubt he would come home and be made a pet of by everybody, and be sent -for to Windsor, and it would all be rather worrying, and _malapropos_, -and perhaps some woman would get hold of him--women are always mad -about heroes--and then that woman would make him talk of herself. - -She said nothing about his letter to Jack, who, after watching with -eagerness for the post in vain for a week, sadly decided that Lord -Inversay must have been offended with a stranger for writing to him. -He did not say anything about his disappointment to anyone, for Jack -had already learned that our sorrows only bore other people. But he got -all the newspapers he could and searched through them every day. Once -he saw that Lord Brancepeth had been brought down from the interior, -and had been carried on board a homeward bound steamer at Capetown, and -although very weak and shattered, it was considered possible the voyage -might save him, and that he might rally on reaching his native air. - -Through all those weeks of uncertainty Jack was perpetually punished -by Mr. Lane for inattention, for disobedience, for neglected tasks, -for unlearnt lessons, for bad spelling, for saying that two and three -made seven, and that Caractacus was Julius Cæsar’s brother. The child’s -thoughts were far away on the big green rollers of the ocean on which -the vessel which bore his friend homeward was rocking and panting. What -sort of weather was it? were the winds kind and the waves gentle? were -the hot calms he had read of very trying? did Harry suffer when the -ship pitched? Those were the questions he was always asking himself, -and to which he could have no answer; and he began to grow thin and -pale and seemed a hopelessly naughty and unteachable little boy to Mr. -Lane, who could beat nothing whatever into his head, and who, being a -very conscientious person, wrote to Hurstmanceaux that he feared he -should be obliged to relinquish his charge. - -“Don’t encourage the duke in his fancies for Africa, Mr. Lane, or -we shall have him Africa mad like them all, and running off to Cecil -Rhodes,” his mother said once jestingly to his tutor; and although that -gentleman was not used to smart ladies and their way of talking _au -bout des levres_, he understood that the subject of the Black Continent -was disagreeable to her. But the time came when she was forced to think -about Africa herself. - -One day, rather early in the forenoon, when she was alone, they brought -in to her the card of Lord Inversay. She was extremely astonished -and somewhat embarrassed. Harry’s father had never set foot in her -house--she did not even know him to speak to; he had always obstinately -avoided both her and her husband; he was poor and unfashionable, a man -seldom seen in the smart world, and who lived almost all the year round -on his estates on the Border. - -For the moment she was inclined not to receive him, then curiosity -conquered the vague apprehension which moved her. Moreover, she -recollected with a chill that the newspapers had spoken of Harry as -returning home; was it possible that he had sent her a message? - -Inversay entered her presence without ceremony; he was a weary-looking -man about sixty, and the expression of his face was cold and greatly -troubled; he declined with a gesture her invitation to a seat beside -her, and continued standing. She looked at him with the sense of -apprehension weighing more heavily upon her. - -“To what am I indebted?” she began. - -“Madam,” said Inversay very coldly, though his voice was husky and -almost inaudible, “I bring you a request from my son; he has come home -to die.” - -“To die? Harry?” - -She grew very pale; there were genuine horror and emotion in the cry, -if there was also some personal terror of a baser kind; dying men are -so garrulous sometimes! - -She was not unprepared for such a statement, but its clear and hard -expression, as of an unalterable fact, gave her a great shock. - -Poor silly Harry! - -“Madam,” said his father, “you may be quite sure that nothing short -of the greatest extremity would have brought me to your house. He is -dying, I repeat. I doubt if he can live an hour longer; that he can -live a day is impossible.” - -“How very horrible!” she said nervously; she trembled visibly, she felt -that Inversay intended to insult her, and she had not courage to resent -and reprove it. Harry dying! Such a possibility had presented itself to -her, and she had thoughts, even when she had read in the papers that he -was coming home wounded, that perhaps he would be better--safer--dead; -but now that the actual tragedy of his end was brought home to her, it -seemed to her extremely dreadful. - -Poor Harry! - -He was only a year older than herself! - -Inversay looked at her with loathing and hatred. But for her what a -happy and simple life his boy might have led! - -“I have a favor from you to ask for in his name,” he said huskily; -“nothing less could have made me leave him. But he cannot die in peace -if he cannot see your son, the eldest boy; he would like to see all the -children.” - -She checked the nervous tremor in her limbs and braved herself to -combat and composure; she felt all that the stern eyes of the old man -said to her while his lips limited themselves to those few harmless -words. - -“He was always very fond of the children,” she said quite naturally, -with marvellous self-possession. “But I don’t think I can send them to -see him; it would look so very odd; and a deathbed frightens small boys -so much; Jack was ill for weeks after seeing his father die.” - -This tremendous falsehood glided smoothly off her lips in the purposed -introduction of her husband’s name. - -Inversay moved a step nearer to her, and the scathing scorn of his gaze -would have struck to the earth a woman less sure of herself, less safe -in the surety of duplicity, less confident in the silence of the dying -man who had her reputation in his hands. - -“Madam,” he said with a bitter scorn and wrath unspoken, “my son may -breathe his last whilst you make me dawdle here. Let your eldest boy -come with me at once--at once--do you hear?” - -“Lord Brancepeth was very fond of all children,” she said again, a -little nervously, “but it will seem very odd to people----” - -“He loved _yours_, madam,” said Inversay curtly; the three words cut -her pride like a sword; seemed to bear down through all her hypocrisies -and falsehoods and devices as she had seen the sabres of Harry’s -troopers cut through a veil of gauze and sever a lemon in two. - -“Send for your son,” he said with stern passion. “Send at once, madam; -do you hear me?” - -She was awed, and quailed under his fixed gaze. She did not dare to -refuse his command, strange as the thing would look. She rang, and to -the servant who entered said: - -“Tell Mr. Lane to come to me, and to bring his Grace.” - -A moment or two later the tutor came into the room, and Jack also. - -“Jack, you are to go with this gentleman where he wishes to take you. -Mr. Lane, will you be so good as to accompany the duke and bring him -home?” - -“Where are we going to?” asked Jack, as they went downstairs; he did -not know who Lord Inversay was, but he was a little afraid of the -strained stern look on the old man’s face; he felt that he was in the -presence of some great grief, and his thoughts flew to Harry, vaguely -hoping and fearing he knew not what. - -“You will soon know,” said Inversay, whose voice was choked in his -throat as he looked at the handsome child with the soft black eyes, so -like the eyes of another boy of the same age who, twenty years or so -before this day, had run beside him over the sunny lawns of his old -home; the old home was mortgaged to its last sod, and the boy had come -home in the flower of his manhood to die--ruined by a woman. - -They were driven quickly to the door of a well-known hotel; Inversay -begged the tutor to wait below in the reading-room, and went alone -upstairs with Jack, who caught his breath and felt his heart quake a -little. - -A vague terror had seized him; he recalled all the papers had said of -the fighting in Loomalia. - -Was it, perhaps----? The child’s warm blood turned cold. - -Before the closed door of a bedroom Inversay paused. - -“It is someone you like who is very ill,” he said in a broken voice. -“Don’t be frightened and don’t cry out, for heaven’s sake.” - -He opened the door and motioned to the boy to precede him and enter. - -There were two bay windows in the chamber, they were open, and the -light shone on to the bed where an emaciated form was lying, a hand -wasted and bony lay on the coverlid, a face, which had a ghastly beauty -in it, was like marble on the snow of the pillows; some women, his -mother and sisters, were kneeling beside the bed. - -“Harry!” cried the child with a shrill scream, and swift as the wind he -sprang across the room and leaped on the bed and covered the cold still -face with kisses. - -“Oh, Harry, Harry, wake up!” he sobbed. “Oh, speak to me, Harry. Look -at me. It’s Jack, it’s Jack, that’s here!” - -His voice found its way to the fading memories of the dying man; -Harry’s closed eyes opened and smiled at him. - -“You dear little beggar!” he murmured. “How you’re grown! I’m glad----” - -His strengthless hands tried to clasp the child and draw him closer. - -“I’ve left you Cuckoopint, Jack,” he said faintly. “Don’t forget--what -I told you--in the Park. Try and grow like your uncle Ronnie. He’ll -help you to keep straight.” - -His voice was scarce louder than a breath; his feeble heart was -straining to force the blood through its vessels, the tired eyelids -fell, and closed once more. - -They gave him oxygen and he revived slightly, enough to know that -Jack’s head was lying on the pillow by his own and that Jack’s arm was -round his throat. - -“Don’t cry,” he murmured. “Kiss the others for me. They never cared as -you did.” - -There was a long silence, only broken by the passionate sobbing of the -child and the subdued weeping of those present. - -“Keep clear of women, Jack,” he said huskily, painfully, as he tried -to draw the boy still closer. “Tell your mother--no--never mind. Thank -her for letting you come. Where are you, dear? I can’t see you. Kiss me -again.” - -Then his mouth opened, gasping, and his last breath passed out into the -summer air. - -He had died, silent, as a gentleman must. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVIII. - - -When Jack entered his mother’s house that afternoon he looked as if he -had left boyhood behind him for ever. His face was drawn and pinched, -his eyes were swollen with weeping, his rosy mouth was pale and -compressed. - -“His Grace is to go to the duchess at once, and alone, if you please, -sir,” said one of the servants. - -“Go upstairs to your mother,” said Mr. Lane to the child. - -But Jack stood irresolute, his hands clenched involuntarily, his breath -was uneven. - -“Go,” repeated his tutor. - -Jack obeyed, and mounted the staircase with slow, unwilling steps; his -heart was aching as it had never ached in his life. - -“It’s hit him hard, hasn’t it, sir?” said the servant to the tutor, and -smiled a discreet but eloquent smile. - -Mr. Lane seemed not to hear, and went into the study; the boy passed -out of sight amongst the heaths and poinsettias on the staircase, a -stray pale London sunbeam following his golden head. His mother was -alone. - -She was seated at the other end of the room with her back to the little -light there was. She looked haggard and apprehensive. - -“Is he dead?” she said in a low, awed tone; she knew he was by the face -of her little son. “Is he dead, dear?” - -Jack looked at her in silence; his eyes had a seriousness in them which -was rather a man’s than a child’s, stern, scornful, reproachful. - -“Jack, don’t stare like that! Speak to me! Is Harry dead?” - -As she spoke she crossed the distance between them and tried to take -the child in her embrace; she was alarmed and nervous. What had the -dying man said? - -Jack recoiled from her outstretched arms and continued to look at her -with the gaze she sought to evade. - -His expression terrified her extremely; what could the boy know that he -was old enough to understand? - -“Jack, darling, speak to me,” she said faintly. - -“I--I--don’t know much,” said the child slowly in a voice which seemed -no more his own. “I don’t--know--much; but I think you are a wicked, -wicked, wicked woman. And you killed him.” - -Then, without waiting for any answer or remonstrance, Jack turned his -back on her and went slowly to the door. - -His mother was agitated beyond expression; she was for the moment -paralyzed and could think of nothing which she could do or say. She let -her son pass out of the room without censure or inquiry or punishment. -She threw herself down upon the cushions of a couch and wept. - -Her sorrow was real for the moment. As far as she had ever really -cared for anyone in a sense of tenderness, she had loved Harry. But -it was not long before her grief gave way to violent indignation. How -ungenerous, how ungentlemanlike, it had been of him to speak ill of her -to her child! - -She had no doubt that he had done so, for it never occurred to her that -Jack’s active mind had unaided arrived at its just estimate of herself, -and that the instincts of the boy had made him see in her the true -assassin of his dear dead friend. - -The bitterness of her anger dried the well springs of her grief. When -she felt herself injured, she always thought that the whole world -should rise up and do battle for her. For a man base enough to set her -son against her there could be no occasion to mourn; especially when -to mourn would compromise her before others. She had no anxiety about -what correspondence Harry might have left behind him, for when he had -gone to Africa he had sent her all her letters and other mementoes. -She ordered her carriage and drove into the Park as usual; then she -dined early at a club with some friends, and did a theatre, and went -afterward with a merry party to supper at the Papillons Club. - -That is how Helen mourns for Paris nowadays. - -The obligation to laugh a little louder than usual for fear people -should suppose you are sorry; a little shiver of regret when you are -coming home alone in your brougham; a few drops more chloral than usual -when you do get home--these are the only sacrifices that need to be -made on the funeral pyre of the lover of to-day. - -Jack did not sleep all night. He had sobbed himself into a heavy, -agitated slumber as the day dawned, and his tutor had given orders that -he should not be disturbed. When he had risen, had bathed, and been -dressed, it was eleven o’clock in the forenoon, and he slipped out of -sight of his servant, and instead of going to breakfast with Mr. Lane -ran out of the house and came to seek his uncle Ronald, who happened -to be in town on business; he was seldom in town for anything else. As -Hurstmanceaux opened the hall door of his rooms to go down into the -street, he saw with surprise the figure of a boy in sailor clothes -standing on the head of the stairs. - -“Is that you, Jack?” he said, recognizing his nephew. “You don’t look -well. Is anything the matter?” - -“May I speak to you?” said Jack, standing on the threshold with his -sailor hat in his hand. - -“Certainly--come in,” replied Hurstmanceaux, surprised to see the boy -unaccompanied. “Are you alone?” - -“Yes,” said Jack; and he came and stood before his uncle; his face was -grave, his eyes had dark circles under them; he looked very still, -pale, and spiritless. - -“Harry is dead,” he said heavily, with a strange hopeless tone in his -voice. - -“I have heard so,” replied Ronald, coldly and unfeelingly, as he felt. -“Is that what you have come to say?” - -“No,” said Jack. “I have come to tell you I will not live with my -mother any longer.” - -It was the first time he had called her formally mother. Hurstmanceaux -looked at him in great surprise. - -“That is a very grave statement,” he said at last. “Don’t you know that -you have no will of your own? You are a minor.” - -Jack was silent, but his face grew very resolute; his uncle saw that he -was in earnest. - -“You wish to live no longer with your mother?” said Ronald slowly. “May -I ask your reasons?” - -“I shall not tell my reasons,” said Jack haughtily, with the color -coming back into his face, hotly and painfully. - -Hurstmanceaux appreciated the answer; it did not anger him as it would -have done most men. - -“Did you see Lord Brancepeth before he died?” he asked. - -“Yes.” - -“Did he tell you to say this?” - -“No.” - -Jack’s lips quivered, but he manfully strove not to cry. - -Hurstmanceaux was perplexed. He dimly perceived the workings of the -boy’s mind, and he sympathized with them; but he could not let his -sympathy be shown. - -“Put me down in the country somewhere,” said Jack, seeing his auditor -was with him. “I don’t want grooms, and watches, and dressing-cases, -and rubbish; I want to be alone down in the country.” - -“My dear child,” said Ronald, “what is this new idea? Why do you -want to bury yourself in a hermitage at your age? I am not your only -guardian, Jack. There’s Lord Augustus.” - -“Then send me to school,” said Jack desperately. “People as young as I -go to schools. I tell you,” he added, and his teeth were shut tight as -he said it, “I tell you, I will not live with _her_.” - -Hurstmanceaux was silent, extremely perplexed, but moved to more -feeling for the boy than he had ever felt. - -“I will not live with _her_,” Jack repeated between his teeth. “I know -I am a minor at present and that you can lock me up, and all that sort -of thing, but if you make me live with her I will kill myself. A quite -little boy, littler than I, killed himself the other day, only because -his _pensum_ was too hard. It was put in the papers. It is quite easy, -and it doesn’t hurt--much.” - -Hurstmanceaux was still silent. Other men would have seized the -occasion to point out the unlawfulness of suicide, but he refrained -from any rebuke. He saw that the boy was in that kind of mood when -nothing which is said in censure can pierce through the heavy fog of a -dull despairing sorrow: the fog can only be penetrated by the sunshine -of sympathy. - -“You don’t like me, do you, Jack?” he said at last. - -Jack was silent through truthfulness and courtesy. - -“If you did,” said Hurstmanceaux, “I would take you to live with me -at Faldon, and give you an Oxford friend of mine for a tutor; I don’t -like the man you have. This is of course subject to Lord Augustus’s -approval. Would Faldon suit you, if he did not disapprove?” - -“Yes,” said Jack rather coldly. “He told me to try and grow up like -you; so I suppose he would have liked me to live with you.” - -“Who said that?” - -“He did--Harry.” - -Hurstmanceaux felt an embarrassment which Jack was quick to perceive. - -He moved a little nearer to his uncle with the first impulse of -confidence he had ever shown in him. - -“He gave me Cuckoopint,” he said, with the tears gushing from his eyes. -“The cob Cuckoopint. May he go to Faldon? But I’ll groom him myself, if -you please. I want to be a man, not a fool. He told me to----” - -Then Jack’s voice broke down with a great sob in his throat. - -“I beg your pardon,” he said in a suffocated voice, and turned that -Hurstmanceaux should not see his grief. - -“I think you will be a man,” said Hurstmanceaux as he laid his hand on -the child’s shoulder. “Don’t sob so. It will vex your friend--if he -knows.” - -“Yes; but will he know?” cried Jack wildly. “Will anyone tell him I -remember? Oh, I loved him!” cried the boy with a piteous wail. “And she -killed him; she killed him, I am sure!” - -“Hush!” said Hurstmanceaux. “You are not old enough to judge of these -things. I am very sorry for you, for you are too young to have so much -pain. Look, Ossian, too, is sorry. He is coming up to you. Lie down on -that bear-skin, and try to compose yourself. I will do all I can for -you. You do not like me, I know, but I think you feel you can trust me.” - -Jack made a sign of assent; his face was hidden in his hands. - -“My poor boy, I am very, very sorry,” said Hurstmanceaux, whose own -voice was unsteady. “Whatever Lord Brancepeth’s life may have been, its -end was that of a hero. Think of that, dear, always. You cannot have -better or truer consolation.” - -Alberic Orme, whom Hurstmanceaux always consulted, approved the -project, and Lord Augustus had found that the easiest way for his own -convenience of discharging his duties to his wards was to say in a -benign ecclesiastical manner: “My dear Hurstmanceaux, I have every -confidence in your judgment. Whatever you decide I shall ratify, secure -that in such acquiescence will lie my best provision for the welfare of -my poor nephew’s children.” - -Therefore he made but little difficulty in allowing Jack’s residence -to be moved to Faldon, and a new tutor substituted for the learned -gentleman who had on his part found the little duke insupportable. -Cuckoopint went also to Faldon; and Jack, by his own wish, was -instructed in the stable science of bedding, feeding, grooming and -watering. - -Of course Jack was only a boy, and his spirits came back to him in -time, and his laugh rang through the old oak hall of his uncle’s house, -but he did not forget. He never forgot. - -When he had been left alone for the night he got up in his bed, and -knelt on it, and said in a whisper, for fear his servant who slept in -the next room should hear: - -“Please God, be good to Harry, and tell him I remember.” - -O fair illusion; fair, however false! Happy is the dead soul which has -left its image enshrined in the tender heart of a child! - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIX. - - -“We are here,” wrote Boo to her eldest brother half a year later. “It’s -quite hot: one wants summer frocks. There are no end of Germans and -Russes to play with; but I don’t like them. Mammy’s got a new man made -of millions, or rather she has not got him and it makes her cross. He -gave me a gold Cupid seal--so pretty. She took it away from me, and -sent it as a wedding-present to Daisy Ffiennes. Wasn’t that like mammy? -She never speaks of you. She says uncle Ronnie has made you a bad boy.” - -The letter was dated from Cannes. - -Jack had good sense enough to put the note in the roaring fire of old -salt-encrusted ship logs which was burning on the great hearth of -Faldon’s central hall, before which he and many dogs were lying in the -gloom of the December afternoon. He did not envy his sister the roses -and mimosa and white lilac of Cannes. His mother had gone there because -everybody in the winter does go there, or to Egypt, or to India; but -she was out of temper with Fate, as her little daughter had said. She -did not wish for more adventures. She dreaded other tyrants. She wanted -to have two things in one: liberty and money. Of marriage she was -afraid. Where find another Cocky? - -Still in her moments of sober reflection she knew that she must marry, -or risk drifting into an insecure, shifty, and discreditable position. -Liaisons, however agreeable and amusing, are not sheet-anchors. -Besides, she had been on the verge of losing her reputation--she knew -what the danger feels like; and to become one of the throng of people -who live on their knees outside the gates which once opened wide to -them would have been infinitely more odious to her than an over dose of -chloral. She was Duchess of Otterbourne, but she was very much more in -her own sight and that of her family; she was a Courcy of Faldon. - -That memory had been powerless to keep her feet straight in the path -of honor; but it was strong enough to make her feel that she would die -sooner than go down in the dust amongst the discrowned--the discrowned -who live in Pyrenean watering-places, or second-rate Italian cities, -or German baths out of their season, and are made much of at the hands -of consuls’ wives and British chaplains, and who sneak back to their -people’s country house in England, and are received there as a family -obligation, and never more are seen in London between Easter and -Goodwood. Such an existence she would no more have led than she would -have worn a three-guinea ready-made gown bought at an annual sale. She -had always led the first flight in the hunting-field or out of it. - -She had, though a very unpoetic personage, this in common with -poets and grasshoppers, that she seldom looked beyond the immediate -day. But now the immediate day frowned on her, grey and ugly; and, -grasshopper-like, she began to feel the shiver and the rime of frost. - -Her income under settlement was enough, as her brother had more than -once told her, to enable her to live very quietly at her dower-house, -or at any quiet rural place with her children. But as she would -infinitely have preferred a fatal dose of chloral to such an existence -her future vaguely terrified her. It was no longer possible to rely -upon Ronald, and she found bankers and lenders were all fully alive to -the fact that the widowed Duchess of Otterbourne with only her jointure -was a very different person to Lady Kenilworth, who had always had the -money potentialities of her lord’s future inheritance behind her, and -had also had the ingenious ability in matters financial of Cocky at her -back. - -Poor Cocky! Whoever would have thought that she would have so sincerely -missed his support as she now did? - -Her aunt’s legacy was well-nigh finished; she had spent it recklessly. -When it had come to her it had seemed inexhaustible, but it actually -dissolved as fast as a water-ice in a ballroom. She was much tormented -by the sense of her poverty. She felt that she could not afford to -run any more risks in supplying the deficiencies in her exchequer. -She knew that her brother was now aware of her tendency to replace -resources by ingenious intrigue; and any step which would compromise -her afresh she was afraid to take. - -What on earth could she do? - -What a wretch William Massarene had been not to leave her some portion -of his immense wealth! She thought about it until she persuaded herself -that she had been deeply wronged. After torturing her as he had done -surely he should have left her at peace for the rest of her actual -life! She really thought so. If he had only left his fortune to his -wife she could have mesmerized that dull, simple soul into anything. -But the fortune had all gone to the woman she hated the most in the -world, that stately, lily-like, silent person who had considered that -her own songs were not good enough to be sung at the Harrenden House -concerts; and who had sent her all those receipts and counterfoils -without even her compliments, just as you might send her boxes after a -dismissed maid! - -She had no inclination to write good or bad music now; she was absorbed -in the discords of her life. Her tradespeople in Paris and London were -no longer pliant; they even wrote rudely; Beaumont no doubt had talked. -Meanwhile she wanted money every moment as a plant wants air. - -There was a man near her in Cannes who was made of money and of whom -she had often thought: Adrian Vanderlin. But how to reach him she did -not know. He was a hermit. He had a beautiful place three miles from -Cannes, and was at that moment in residence there; so much she learned -from an archduke who had been to see him, but the rest was not easy -even to her audacity. Vanderlin, who had divorced his wife and was a -financier, would scarcely, she reasoned, be an _ingénu_. If she could -see him--well, she had few doubts as to the effect she produced on -those who saw her. Experience had justified her optimism. - -One day she drove through the olive-woods which were on his estate and -through which a drive had been cut which was open to the public. She -saw the château at a distance; it was built in the style of François -Premier, and was at once elegant and stately; it had long terraces -which looked out on to the sea. It was precisely the sort of place -to which she would like to come when east winds were blowing down -Piccadilly and north winds down the Champs Elysées. - -“How could that woman be so stupid as to separate from him?” she said -to the Archduke in whose carriage she was. That gentleman smiled. - -“As to give him any cause to separate from her? Well, no one knows the -rights of the drama. She was very young and extremely beautiful. Many -suppose that she was sacrificed to intrigues of her father’s.” - -“But there must have been evidence against her,” said Mouse, who had a -great dislike to this woman whom she had never seen. - -“There is such a thing as suborned witnesses,” replied the Archduke. -“Besides, in German courts divorce is given on slight grounds. Myself, -I think Vanderlin regrets it, or else I do not know why a man of his -years and his wealth should shut himself up away from the world as he -does.” - -“But he must be seen in Paris?” - -“By men of business; scarcely anyone else. He never goes into society.” - -“But you see him, sir?” - -“On business, on business.” - -“Could you not show me the château?” - -“I grieve to refuse you, but I should not venture. I should look like -Mephisto leading a temptress of the Venusberg to disturb an anchorite -in a Paraclete.” - -“What a fool he must be!” said Mouse with sincere conviction. - -The Archduke laughed. - -“Dear Duchess, there are people, even men, to whom, when the affections -go wrong, life seems worthless. Of course you do not understand that. -Your mission is to inspire despairing passions, not to feel them. - -“You are a charming creature,” he thought as he spoke. “But you are as -keen after gold as a stoat after poultry. I shall not put you on the -track of Vanderlin’s. He is a great capitalist; but such women as you -would eat up the treasure of an empire and still cry ‘Give!’--daughter -of the horse-leech as you are, with your innocent eyes and your -childlike smile.” - -Mouse said no more on the subject, but she carefully surveyed the -approaches of the château and the shore which stretched immediately -beneath its terraces. She had a plan in her fertile mind. - -She was as at home in the water as a fish; the family at Faldon had -always lived half their days in the sea. - -Early the next morning she rowed herself out in a small rowing-boat -which belonged to one of her friends; she had Boo with her. - -“We will go and have a bathe in deep water,” she said to the child. -They frequently did so. But she did not go out very far, and she -steered eastward where the woods of Vanderlin’s château rose above the -shore. In front of the house, and in sight of it, she took advantage -of a moment in which Boo was busy clapping her hands at some gulls to -pull up the plug in the bottom of the boat. It began to leak and then -to fill. She gave a cry as the water welled up over her ankles, and -drawing the child to her rapidly pulled off Boo’s clothes, leaving her -in her chemise and drawers. - -“Jump on my back and put your arms round my throat. Don’t hold too hard -to choke me. Don’t be frightened--I will take you to shore.” - -With the little girl on her shoulders she cleared herself of the boat -as it filled to its edges, and let herself go into the sea, which was -quite calm and not very cold in the noontide. Boo, who had her mother’s -high spirit, and was used to dance about in sea surf, was not nervous -and did not cling too closely. Mouse struck out toward the beach -somewhat embarrassed by her clothing, but swimming with the skill which -she had acquired in childish days in the rougher waters of the Irish -Channel. - -She knew that if anyone was looking through a binocular on the terraces -above she must make a very effective picture--like Venus Aphrodite -bearing Eros. Boo, who was amused, rode triumphant, keeping her -golden hair and her black Gainsborough hat out of the water. Some -men who were on the beach holloaed and ran to get a boat out of a -boathouse lower on the shore, but before they could launch it Mouse -and her little daughter had come ashore laughing and dripping like two -playfellows. Their little skiff, turned keel upward, was floating away -to the eastward as the wind drove it. - -“There will be several napoleons to pay for that,” she thought, as she -saw the derelict going fast out of sight. “Never mind if one gets into -the enchanted castle.” - -At that moment of her landing, whilst she stood shaking the salt water -off her on to the sand, a voice addressed her from the marble sea-wall -above: - -“Have you had an accident, madam? You have displayed great courage. -Pray come up those steps; my house is at your disposal.” - -“God helps those who help themselves,” thought Mouse, as she looked up -and saw a man above who, she felt certain, must be Adrian Vanderlin. “I -shall be glad to dry my little daughter’s clothes,” she said, as she -began to ascend the stone steps. “The plug of the boat was rotten; it -filled before one could call out even. If you have any outhouse you can -put us in--we are as wet as two Newfoundlands.” - -Boo, feeling that it would be more interesting to do so, had begun to -tremble a little and cry, looking a very pretty watery baby-syren. - -“Don’t cry, Boo,” said her mother. “You know you’re not frightened a -bit, only cold.” - -“I have sent to my women servants to bring you cloaks,” said the owner -of the château as he came down the steps to meet her, unconscious of -the comedy which had been acted for him. “It was very venturesome,” he -added, “to come in a rowing-boat with no one to aid you.” - -“It was very stupid of me not to examine the condition of the boat,” -she replied. “As for danger there was none. I kept close to land, and -my child and I swim like fish.” - -“So I have seen; but the Mediterranean, if only a salt-water lake as -some say, can be a very turbulent one.” - -At that moment his servants came, bringing wraps in which they hastened -to enfold the lady and her little girl, who were beginning to feel -really chilly. They went up to the house, over whose façade the -appreciative eyes of Mouse ranged enviously. - -“Pray consider everything here at your disposal,” he said courteously. -“My housekeeper will take you upstairs, and if you will allow me to -advise you, you will go to bed. Meantime, can I send to inform your -people?” - -She thanked him gracefully, not too warmly, and gave him her address in -Cannes. - -“If you could get my maid over with some clothes I should be glad,” she -said, as she went up the staircase looking, as no other woman would -have looked, lovely despite the thick wraps and the soaked hair. - -“But you have not told me your name?” - -“Duchess of Otterbourne,” she called back to him, whilst she went up -the stairs followed by Boo, who by this time had grown cold and equally -cross. - -She was taken into a beautiful bedchamber of the Louis Quinze style, -with silver dogs on the hearth where a wood fire already blazed. - -“It was really very well done,” she thought with self-complacency. -“I only hope to goodness Boo will not take cold. That man must be -Vanderlin himself. He is more good-looking than I expected; and for an -anchorite he is civil.” - -“They’re silver,” said Boo, surveying the andirons, whilst two maids -were rubbing dry her rosy limbs. “So’s the mirror,” she added as she -looked around her after drinking a cup of hot milk; after which she -allowed herself to be put to bed and soon fell fast asleep. - -Her mother sat by the fire wrapped in blankets and eider-down. - -Even to Boo’s busy and suspicious intelligence it did not occur that -the plug had been pulled out on purpose. The little secret was quite -safe in her mother’s own brain. - -“This is a very nice house,” said Boo with condescension to the owner -of it when, three hours later, the maid and the clothes having arrived -from Cannes, they went downstairs with no trace in either of their late -immersion in salt water, and saw their host in his library. - -“I am honored by your approval,” said Vanderlin. - -“Boo is a great connoisseur,” said her mother. - -Vanderlin was a tall and slender man, with a handsome face, spoiled by -melancholy and fatigue; his eyes were dreamy and gentle, his manner was -grave and gave the impression that his thoughts were not greatly in -what he was saying; he at all times spoke little. - -He smiled at the child indulgently. “I hope she has felt no ill -effects,” he said to her mother. “Nor yourself?” - -“They took too good care of us,” replied Mouse. “It is so very kind of -you to have been so hospitable to two drowned rats.” - -“I am happy to have been of use.” He said it with perfect politeness, -but the tone suggested to her that he would be grateful if she went -away and left him to his solitude. - -The indifference stimulated her vanity. - -“You have not told me who you are,” she said with that abruptness which -in her was graceful. “But I think I know. You are Baron Vanderlin.” - -He assented. - -“Why do you not see people?” she asked brusquely. “Why do you shut -yourself up all alone in this beautiful place?” - -“I come here for rest.” - -“But even in Paris or London or Berlin you shun society?” - -“I do not care for it.” - -“What a pity!” - -“Do you think so?” - -“Certainly I do. No one should live alone who is not old and blind and -poor.” - -He smiled slightly. - -“If one were old and blind and poor, one would be probably left alone, -_malgré soi_.” - -“Ah, you are a pessimist! I am not. I think the world very delightful -and people very good.” - -“Your experiences have been fortunate--and brief.” - -He looked vaguely round the room as if he looked for somebody to take -her away. - -Boo, who had been examining the library, came up to him with a little -agate Cupid, a paper weight; the Cupid had gold wings and quiver, and -was a delicate work of art. “It’s pretty,” she said; “will you let me -have it?” - -“Pray keep it,” said Vanderlin. Her mother scolded her and protested, -she was indeed considerably annoyed at the child’s effrontery; but Boo -kept tight hold on the Cupid. - -“Gentleman don’t want it,” she said. “He’s too old for toys.” - -He laughed. He had not laughed for a long time. - -“Have you any children?” asked Boo. - -“No, my dear.” - -“Why haven’t you?” - -“They are treasures not accorded to all.” - -“Treasure is great anxiety, whether it is your kind of treasure or -mine, M. Vanderlin,” said Boo’s mother. “You have been very kind to -this naughty little girl; and we have trespassed too long on your -hospitality. Yet, if it wouldn’t bore you too much, I should so like to -see something of the house before I go. I have often wished to enter as -I sallied past it or drove through your olive woods.” - -He assented to her wish with a reluctance which she ignored; and he -showed her over the chief part of his château, which contained much -which was beautiful and rare. Boo, wishing for everything she saw but -warned by her mother’s eyes not to ask for anything more, went jumping -and running through the rooms, her hat in her hand and the light on her -golden head. - -“You have several children, I think,” said Vanderlin to her mother. - -“Four,” replied Mouse; and she felt that she would have preferred for -this hermit to know nothing about her by reputation. - -“Are they all with you?” - -“No; they are little boys; their guardians have more to do with them -than I.” - -There was a sadness in her tone which made him look at her with a -certain interest. - -“Law is very hard on women,” she added. “Especially as regards their -offspring.” - -She was, to men of serious temper, most interesting in her maternal -feeling, and it was genuine in a sense though used with artifice. -Vanderlin looked at her with less indifference and unwillingness, -but she made little way in his intimacy; he remained distant in his -courtesy, and as she drove away with baskets of roses for herself and -of fruit for her little daughter she felt discontentedly that she had -gone through the trouble of her invention, and spent the money which -the lost boat would cost, for small purpose. - -Boo turned and looked back at the turrets of the château already -distant above its woods. - -“That’s a nice man,” she said decidedly. “Won’t you marry him, mammy?” - -Her mother colored at such unexpected divination of her own projects. - -“What odious things you say, Boo,” she answered; “and how odiously you -behaved, asking for things in that bare-faced way. I have told you -fifty times never to ask.” - -“I shouldn’t have got it else,” replied Boo, calmly and unmoved, taking -the Cupid out of the pocket of her fur paletôt, and contemplating it -with satisfaction. She had improved in the science of looting since -the day when her mother had made her give back the gold box to Mrs. -Massarene. - -As the carriage drove along the sea-road Vanderlin returned to the -solitude of his library. - -It had been unwelcome to him to be obliged to entertain them, and yet -now that they were gone he momentarily missed them, the gay bright -presence of the child and the graceful nonchalance in speech and -movement of the woman. It was years since either child or woman had -been in the rooms of Les Mouettes. - -The days passed and brought her no recompense whatever for her -self-inflicted immersion in the cold January waves. The boat had been -found and restored to its owner, so it did not cost her very much. But -the sense of failure irritated her exceedingly. Boo importuned her -several times to return to the château of the silver dogs, but only -encountered a sharp reprimand and was scolded for effrontery. The -Cupid had been taken away from her and found its home in her mother’s -dispatch-box till it was sent as a wedding-gift to somebody who was -being married in the fog in Belgravia. Boo resented the injustice -bitterly and meditated compensation or revenge. More than once she was -on the point of starting by herself for Les Mouettes, but it was far -off, her feet would not take her there, and she could not get away in -a boat because her governess or her maid was always after her. “If I -could only get there alone he’d give me a lot of things,” she thought; -she could see the promontory on which it stood some five miles off -to westward. But she had to stay in Cannes, and be walked out by her -women, and play stupid games with little Muscovite princesses, pale -and peevish, and little German countesses, rustic and rosy. Mammy took -little notice of her. “She’s always nasty when she’s got no money,” -reflected Boo. - -Boo knew that there was a scarcity of money. - -One day, as she was walking with her governess, which she hated, she -saw two gentlemen on the other side of a myrtle hedge. She kissed her -hand to one of them and rushed headlong to where a break in the hedge -enabled her to join them. - -“Good morning!” she cried, rapturously throwing her arms about -Vanderlin. He looked down at her, surprised at such a welcome. - -“Is it you, my little friend? How is your mother?” - -“Why haven’t you been to see us?” asked Boo. - -He smiled. - -“I am remiss in those matters. I need education.” - -“I’ll tell you what to do,” said Boo. “I know what people ought to do. -Come and see mammy now.” - -“Not now, my dear. I have other engagements.” - -Boo’s brows knit together. - -“People break engagements when I tell them,” she said with hauteur. - -“Mine are business engagements.” - -“Come!” she said with a stamp of one small foot. - -“No, my dear, I will call on you at three if you wish it so much.” - -“That is a rude way to speak.” - -“I am not a courtier, my dear. Run away now. I am occupied. I will call -on you at three.” - -Boo was forced to be content with this compromise; she looked after him -as he walked on with his companion, a prime minister. - -“He’s made of millions,” she said to her governess, and her little face -had a reverential look upon it. - -Her mother was at home at three o’clock in the pretty room with its -windows opening on to a flower-filled balcony which cost so much in -the first hotel in Cannes. She was reading, and Boo, at a table, -was dabbling with some water-color paints, when he who was “made of -millions” entered, being faithful to his word. - -“Your little daughter reminded me that I have been to blame in not -earlier doing myself this honor,” he said as he bent over her hand: she -thought that he did not look either honored or enthusiastic. - -She had a vague sense of hostility to her in him which stimulated her -interest and her intentions. - -“You owed no duty to two shipwrecked waifs whom you entertained only -too amiably,” she said with a charming smile. “I am surprised that you -have given us a thought.” - -He had scarcely given her a thought, but he could not tell her so. - -He remained with her half an hour, talking in a somewhat absent manner -of French literature and of German music. - -“What’ll you give me, mammy?” said Boo when he had taken his leave, as -she dropped down at her mother’s feet. - -“Give you? What do you mean?” said Mouse, who was irritated that he had -not invited her to his château. - -“What’ll you give me, mammy?” repeated Boo; and her upraised saucy -imperious eyes said plainly, “Reward me for bringing the person you -wanted or I shall tell him you’ve sent his Cupid--my Cupid--as a -wedding-present to Daisy Ffiennes.” - -“I will give you a kiss first,” said Mouse with apparent ignorance of -the meaning of the upraised eyes, “and then I will give you a drive. -Run away.” - -To Boo the recompense seemed small besides the greatness of the service -rendered. But her short years of life had been long enough to convince -her that people were not grateful. - -“Man’s made of millions,” she said dreamily when she was seated by her -mother’s side in the victoria and Vanderlin, driving a pair of horses -on his homeward way, passed them. - -“I believe he is,” said her mother. “But his millions are nothing to -us.” - -Boo turned her head away that she might grin unrepressed, showing all -her pretty teeth to an eucalyptus tree on the road. - -Her mother did not like Vanderlin. His grave abstracted manner, his -visible indifference to herself, his somewhat ceremonious words bored -her, chilled her; she felt in his presence very much as she did when in -church. - -But she intended him to marry her. She fancied he was weak and -unintelligent; she thought she would do as she liked with him and the -millions which were undoubtedly his. On his part he would benefit, for -he wanted rousing and being reconciled to the world. What was the use -of the millions if there were nobody to spend them? She knew that no -one could distance her in the art of making money fly about and diffuse -itself. - -She would much sooner have married Wuffie. - -Wuffie was His Serene Highness Prince Woffram of Karstein-Lowenthal; -he was twenty-four years old, very good-looking, very mirthful and -pleasure-loving, very popular and sociable; he was extremely in love -with her, and would have given her all he possessed with rapture. But, -alas! that all was represented by a rank which was negotiable in the -marriage market, and bills which were not negotiable anywhere. He was a -fourth son, and his parents were so poor that Daddy Gwyllian declared -he knew for a fact that, when they were dining alone, they had the -_Volkzeitung_ outspread for a tablecloth to save their palatial damask. -Wuffie was charming, but matrimonially he was impossible. - -Wuffie was then at Cannes, floating himself in the best society, as -penniless princes of his Fatherland alone can do. She liked him; she -had even more than liking for him, but she kept him at a respectful -distance, for he did not accord with the grave intentions with which -she had swum toward the terraces of Les Mouettes. In racing parlance, -she did not dare put her money on him for any big event. - -“Why am I out in the cold, darling?” he asked sorrowfully of Boo, who -was always consulted by her mother’s admirers as an unfailing aneroid. - -Boo shook her head and pursed up her lips. - -“Why?” insisted the poor prince. “You know everything, Boo.” - -This appeal to her omniscience prevailed. - -“You’re very pretty, Wuffie,” she said, caressing his golden hair, -which was as bright as her own. “You’re very pretty, and you’re great -fun. But you know, poor, poor Wuffie, you haven’t got a pfennig to -spend.” - -“Come and see, Boo,” said Wuffie, stung by such a statement into -mad expenditure, which resulted in the purchase for Boo of a toy -opera-house, with orchestra, costumes, and personages complete, which -had, for three days, been the object of her ardent desires in a shop -window in Nice. - -“I’ll sing all the parts myself,” she said rapturously. - -“You must give the tenor’s to me,” said the purchaser of it, with a -double meaning. - -“Tenors is always spitted,” said Boo solemnly. “They’re always -spitted--or poisoned.” - -Her mother passed some days in perplexed meditation. She felt that -all the charms of her ever-irresistible sorcery would be thrown away -on the owner of that delicious sea-palace, and that, as matters now -stood, there was not a shadow of reason for the threat of Prince -Khristof to be put into execution. But she was tenacious, and did not -like to acknowledge herself beaten. She could not readily believe that -Vanderlin was so different to other men that he could in the end remain -wholly uninfluenced by her. The great difficulty was to approach him, -for she felt that she had already committed herself to more than was -wise or was delicate in her advances to him in his solitude. She cast -about her for some _deus ex machina_ that she could set in motion, and -decided on the old Austrian Archduke. - -The Archduke was an old man in years, but not in temperament, and -he was highly sensible of her attractions; she did very much as -she pleased with him, and he, sternest of martinets and harshest -of commanding officers, was like a ball of feathers in her hands. -With great adroitness, and the magnetism which every charming woman -exercises, she so interested him by her descriptions of Les Mouettes, -that he was inspired by a desire of seeing the place for himself, and -was induced to overcome both his well-bred dislike to intruding on -a recluse, and his imperial reluctance to cross the threshold of a -man not noble. In the end, so well did she know how to turn men and -things to her own purposes, that, despite the mutual reluctance of -both the guest and the host, Vanderlin did, taken at a disadvantage -one day, when he met them all three together, invite the old general -to breakfast, and invited also herself and her little girl, and the -invitations were promptly accepted. It was impossible to be more -perfectly courteous than Vanderlin was on the occasion, or to show more -urbanity and tact than he did in his reception of them; but even she, -who could easily persuade herself of most things which she wished to -believe, could not fail to see that the entertainment was a weariness -to him--a concession, and an unwilling one, to the wishes of an aged -prince with whom his banking-house had, for many years, had relations. - -No one was ever, she thought, so gracefully courteous and so -impenetrably indifferent as her host was. The child alone seemed to -interest him; and Boo, who had taken her cue unbidden from her mother, -was charming, subdued, almost shy, and wholly bewitching. She had a -genuine respect for the man made of millions. - -The Archduke, after the luncheon, tired by his perambulations over the -large house, and having eaten and drunk largely, fell asleep on a sofa -with some miniatures, which he was looking at, lying on his knees; he -was sunk in the heavy slumber of age and defective digestion. Not to -disturb him, Vanderlin and she conversed in low tones at some distance -from him, whilst the gentleman of his household, who had accompanied -him, discreetly played a noiseless game of ball with Boo on the terrace -outside the windows. - -She, who was greatly daring, thought that now or never was the moment -to find out what her host’s feelings were toward the woman whom he -had divorced. It was difficult, and she knew that it was shockingly -ill-bred to invade the privacy of such a subject, but she felt that it -was the only way to get even with Khris Kar. - -They were in a room consecrated to the portraits of women--a collection -made by Vanderlin’s father--chiefly portraits of the eighteenth -century, some oils, some pastels, some crayons, and most of them French -work, except a Romney or two and several Conway miniatures. She had -looked, admired, criticised them with that superficial knowledge of the -technique and jargon of art which is so easily acquired in the world -by people to whom art, _quâ_ art, is absolutely indifferent. She said -the right thing in the right place, displaying culture and accurate -criticism, and looking, as she always did, like a brilliant Romney -herself, very simply attired with a white gown, a blue ribbon round her -waist, and a straw hat, covered with forget-me-nots, on her hair. - -The room was in shade and silence, full of sweetness from great china -bowls of lilies of the valley; the old man slept on with his chin on -his chest; the sound of the sea and the smothered ripple of childish -laughter came from without. Now or never, she thought, and turned to -Vanderlin. - -“What an exquisite place this is! What a pity you are all alone in it.” - -“Solitude has its compensations, if not its distractions,” he answered; -he was profoundly distrustful of her simple, natural, friendly manner, -which seemed to him more dangerous than any other; he believed it to -be assumed on purpose to put him off his guard. He thought the Circe -who now endeavored to beguile him one of the loveliest women he had -ever seen, and he felt convinced that she was also one of the most -dangerous. But she aroused neither interest nor curiosity in him, -though his mind acknowledged her potent charms. - -“Do you never regret?” she asked abruptly. - -“Who can outlive youth without regret?” he replied. He was hostile to -her in his mind. He felt her charm, but he resented her approaches. -He could not but perceive her desire to draw him into confidential -conversation, and the reserve which was natural to him increased in -proportion to her persistent endeavor to overcome it. - -In herself, she was irritated and discouraged; but she concealed both -feelings, and summoned all her courage. - -“Is there a portrait of your wife here?” she asked abruptly, turning -and facing him. - -He grew pale to his lips, and an expression of intense pain passed over -his countenance. - -“Madame,” he said very coldly, “that lady’s name must not be mentioned -to me.” - -“Oh, you know, I am a very impertinent person!” she answered lightly. -“Perhaps you will say I am a very ill-bred one. But her story has -always had a fascination for me. They say she is such a very beautiful -person.” - -He said nothing; he retained his composure with difficulty; this -audacious stranger probed a wound which he would not have allowed his -most intimate friend to touch. - -“I know her father very well,” she continued, disregarding the visible -offence and suffering with which he heard her; “he has sometimes spoken -of her to me. He is not very scrupulous. Don’t you think there may have -been some misunderstanding, some misrepresentation, some intentional -mischief?” - -Vanderlin, with increasing difficulty, controlled his anger and his -emotion. - -“I do not discuss these matters,” he said with great chillness. “Allow -me, madame, to remind you that the privilege of your acquaintance is to -me a very recent honor.” - -“And you think me very intrusive and insupportable? Oh! I quite -understand that. But I have heard things--and it seems a pity--you are -not old enough to mope all by yourself like this; and if there was any -mistake?” - -“There was none.” - -He said it between his teeth; the recollections she evoked were fraught -for him with intolerable torture, and he could have taken this -intruder by her shoulders and thrust her out of his presence if he had -not been restrained by the habits and self-command of a man of the -world. - -“But she ruins your life. You do not forget her?” said his unwelcome -visitant. - -“I shall not replace her, madame,” replied Vanderlin curtly, weary of -the cross-examination, and wondering, half divining, what the scope of -it might be. - -“Ah, there you are so right!” Mouse murmured. “How can the ruling of a -judge undo what is done, efface what is written on the heart, or make -the past a _tabula rasa_? You think me an impertinent, tiresome person, -I am sure, but I must say to you how glad, how very glad I should be, -if I could ever prove to you that you wronged the Countess zu Lynar.” - -“Why do you speak of such things?” said Vanderlin, his self-control -momentarily deserting him. “Does one put out the light of one’s life, -of one’s soul, on mere suspicion? You do not know what you are saying. -You torture me. You will make me forget myself. Be silent, I tell you; -be silent!” - -She looked at him, very sweetly, without offence. - -“I understand. You love this woman still. She was the mother of your -dead child. I understand--oh! so completely! Well, if ever I can prove -to you that I am right and you are wrong, I shall be very glad, for I -am quite sure that you will never care for any other person. It may -seem to you very impertinent, but I have an idea--an idea---- Never -mind, if there be any grounds for it, time will show.” - -“You speak very strangely, madame,” said Vanderlin, agitated to a -degree which it was hard for him to conceal, yet extremely suspicious -of her motives. - -“I dare say I do,” she answered without offence, “for I know nothing -whatever, and I conjecture a great deal; very feminine that, you will -say. Hush! the Archduke is stirring.” - -At that moment the Archduke awoke from his slumber, astonished to find -himself where he was, and looking round for his missing gentleman. -Vanderlin hastened, of course, to his side, and the _tête-à-tête_ -was over, but it had lasted long enough for her to be certain that -it would be as easy to raise the sunken galleys of Carthage from the -violet seas beyond the windows as to revive passion in the heart of her -host. - -She hastened to leave him and go out on to the terrace to tell Boo to -be quiet, for she had, as she had truly said, no knowledge whatever, -and merely some vague impressions suggested by the visit and the -warning of Prince Khris. But she had gleaned two certainties from her -conversation with Vanderlin--one, that he had never ceased to regret -his divorced wife, the other that it would be as much use to woo a -marble statue as to attempt to fascinate this man, whose heart was -buried in the deep sea grave of a shipwrecked passion. She had read -of such passions, and seen them represented on the stage, but she had -never before believed in their existence. Now that she did believe in -them, such a waste of opportunities seemed to her supremely idiotic. -The idea of a financier, a man of the world, a Crœsus of Paris and -Berlin, sitting down to weep for the broken jug of spilt milk, for the -shattered basket of eggs, like the farm-girl in the fable! What could -be sillier or less remunerative? But she remembered she had often heard -that the cleverest men in public business were always the greatest -fools in private life. - -She drove away in the radiance of the late afternoon in the Archduke’s -carriage, Boo sitting opposite to her holding disconsolately a bouquet -of orchids, of which the rarity did not compensate to her for not -having got anything else. - -“What a pity that man does not marry again,” said the old gentleman, as -they passed through the olive and ilex woods of the park. - -“I believe he is in love with his lost wife,” said Mouse. - -“Very possibly,” replied the Archduke. “I remember her as a young girl; -her beauty was quite extraordinary; it was her misfortune, for it was -the cause of his jealousy.” - -“Jealous! That serene impassive man?” - -“The serenity is acquired, and the impassiveness is an armor. He is a -person of strong passions and deep affections. He adored his wife, and -I have always supposed that his susceptibilities were played upon by -some Iago.” - -“But what Iago? And why?” - -“Her father, perhaps, and out of spite. But I really know nothing,” -said the Archduke, recollecting himself, the good wines of Les Mouettes -having loosened his tongue to unusual loquacity. - -“He didn’t give me anything to-day!” said Boo woefully from the -front seat; she was unrewarded for her painful goodness, for her -sweetly-imitated shyness, for the self-denial with which she had held -her tongue, and bored herself to play ball noiselessly with that stout, -bald, florid aide-de-camp. - -The Archduke laughed. - -“Giving is a delightful privilege,” he said; “but when we know that all -the world is expecting us to give, the pastime palls. Adrian Vanderlin -has felt that from the time he was in his nursery. You must allow me to -remedy his omission in this instance, my charming little friend.” - -Mouse went home sorely out of temper; it seemed to her quite monstrous -that two persons, like this man and Billy’s daughter, should each -have had command given them of a vast fortune by which they were each -only bored, whilst she who would have spent such a fortune so well, -and with so much enjoyment, was left a victim to the most sordid -anxieties. There was certainly something wrong in the construction of -the universe. She felt almost disposed to be a socialist. - -As she went up the staircase of her hotel she was roused from her -meditations by Boo’s voice, which was saying plaintively again, “He -didn’t give me anything to-day!” - -“I am very glad he did not,” said her mother. “You are a greedy, -shameless, gobbling little cat.” - -“You’re the cat and I’m your kitten,” thought her young daughter, but -Boo, saucy and bold as she was, never dared to be impudent to her -mother. - -When they had left him Vanderlin went up to his bedchamber, unlocked -a drawer in a cabinet, and took out of it two portraits, one of his -divorced wife, the other of her dead child. - -He looked at them long with slow, hot tears welling up into his eyes. - -He would have given all the millions which men envied him to have had -the child playing at his side, and the mother with her hand in his. - -A sorrow of the affections may not affect the health, the strength, the -mind, the occupations, or the general life of a man, but it embitters -it as a single drop of wormwood can embitter the whole clearness and -brightness of a bowl of pure water; the bowl may be of silver, may be -of gold, but the water in it is spoilt for ever; and he who must drink -from it envies the peasant the wooden cup which he fills and refills at -a purling stream. - - - - -CHAPTER XL. - - -Prince Khris of Karstein was at Monte Carlo playing continuously, -losing almost always, living in a miserable lodging over a small shop, -and devoting, to that blind goddess with a thousand hands who is called -Play, his clothes, his sustenance, his last rings and shirt studs. He -did this every winter, and every spring he was supplied afresh through -his daughter’s means, and went to Spa or Luchon and did the same. From -Germany he was banned. - -One day at the Casino he saw the Duchess of Otterbourne stretching out -her slender hand between a Jew broker and a Paris cocotte to put some -gold upon the red. - -“Ah! blonde devil! blonde devil!” he thought to himself, and wished he -might see her lose her last farthing and crawl under a hedge to drink -her last dose of morphia. But this he knew he was not likely to see, -nor anyone else, for she was not the kind of person who kills herself, -and at play she generally won, for she kept quite cool at it and never -let it run away with her judgment. - -He hated her intensely; he had never liked her, but when she had shut -Harrenden House to him, she had excited and merited his most bitter -detestation. She had not played fair, and Prince Khris, though he -might cheat, abhorred being cheated; he felt it an insult to his -intelligence. He had discovered the Massarenes before she had done so; -they had been his placer-claim, his treasure isle, his silver mine; -she had come after him and profited and plundered. This he might have -pardoned if she had kept faith with him and gone shares. But she had -acted treacherously. She had mined the ground under his feet. She had -taught these ignorant people to know him as he was. She had made them -understand that they must drop him, shake him off; that to be seen -with him did them social harm, not good. She had annexed them and made -them hers; she had created a monopoly in them for herself. She had -taken them with her into spheres the entrance into which had long been -forfeited by himself. And all this had been done so skilfully, with so -much coolness and acumen, that he had been powerless to oppose it. The -dinners of Harrenden House had become to him things of the past; the -Clodion falconer which he had found for them saw him no more pass up -their staircase; they were ungrateful like all low-bred people, and she -triumphed. - -“The blonde devil! the blonde devil!” he said with a curse. - -But for her they would in all likelihood have remained unknown to -immaculate society, and would to the end of time have believed in -himself as a semi-royal divinity, knowing nothing of the stains on his -purples, nothing of the cankered breast which rotted under the ribbons -of his orders. - -She had not been so clever as the groom of the chamber at Harrenden -House had thought her; she had not gone shares fairly with her -predecessor in the exploitation of the Massarene vein. - -She had made an enemy of him. She thought his enmity was of no -consequence because he was a person wholly discredited and despised, -but in this she was greatly mistaken; because water is muddy it is not -therefore incapable of drowning you. - -Khris Kar, who was a person of extreme intelligence, guessed all her -motives and all her modes of action, and divined exactly all she said -against him. - -It is always a dangerous and difficult thing to “drop people,” and -neither the master nor the mistress of Harrenden House had tact and -experience enough to do it in the least offensive manner. Indeed, -Massarene himself enjoyed doing it offensively; it made him feel a -greater swell than ever to be able to be rude and slighting to a person -of the original rank of Prince Khris. It afflicted the tenderer heart -of his wife, but she did not dare to disobey orders, and despite his -rage the old prince could not be otherwise than amused to note the -elaborate devices with which she shifted her parasol so as not to see -him in the Park, and fumbled with her handkerchief or her fan as he -approached at a concert or a theatre to avoid offering him her hand. - -He read his fair foe’s tactics in the stiff and frightened manner of -the Massarenes toward him; he saw that they had been warned he was a -bird of prey, that they were afraid to say anything to his face, and -could only clumsily draw away from him. He was used to this treatment -from his equals, but in these low creatures it stung him painfully; -he felt like a disabled hawk having its eyes pecked out by a crow. As -he watched, as time went on, the upward progress of these people into -that higher world for ever closed to himself, he knew that she had done -for them what he had lost all power of doing for them or for anyone. -He acknowledged her superiority, but her treachery he intended to -repay at the earliest opportunity. One does not pull a ferret out of a -rabbit-burrow without being bitten. - -As it chanced there came into his hands a weekly journal published -at Nice which contained such items of social intelligence as it was -thought would interest the visitors to the Riviera, and amongst these -was a paragraph which spoke of the boating accident to the Duchess -of Otterbourne and the coolness and courage displayed by that lady; -it mentioned that the accident had happened off the terraces of the -Mouettes. As he read, he thought he saw between the lines; he suspected -the accident was one of design; he suspected the rescue of the child by -her mother was a brilliant _coup de théâtre_, done with intention to -arouse the interest of a solitary. - -He made a few careful discreet inquiries; he found that Vanderlin had -been to see her at her hotel; he learned that the circumstances of the -fair swimmer were embarrassed, which did not surprise him; he heard -some gossiper laugh and say that she was intending to marry the great -banker; he saw as completely into her mind and soul as if he had been -Mephistopheles. - -He promised himself that she should not succeed. - -Some remorseful regret occasionally stirred in him when he thought of -his daughter’s lonely life, and when he remembered the passionate love -which had been ruptured when she and Vanderlin had parted. He was a -bad old man with a shrivelled heart and a numbed conscience, but he was -human. - -Mouse was at that time especially irritated and depressed. There -had come to Cannes that week a young beauty, a mere child, but of -extreme loveliness and wonderful coloring, very much what Boo would -be in a few more years. This young girl, an Austrian just married -to a Russian thrice her age, had turned all heads and occupied all -tongues at Cannes, and Mouse, for the first time in her life, had the -uncomfortable sensation of being eclipsed, of being rather out of it, -as she would have said, in her own phraseology. - -It was a dull and unpleasant feeling which filled her with resentment, -and made her stare into her mirror with an anxiety and uncertainty -wholly new to her. - -She was in this kind of mood when Prince Khris walked up the steps of -her hotel. - -She had come in from driving, fretful and disposed to think that life -was more trouble than it was worth, when they brought her a card, and -said the gentleman who owned it was waiting downstairs. - -“Khris Kar! What can he possibly want with me?” she wondered. She was -disposed to let him remain downstairs, and she was in no mood for -visitors, especially those who could be of no possible use or amusement -to her. - -Then she reflected that she had not behaved very well to him, that he -had at one time been very intimate at Harrenden House, and also that -he had been the father-in-law, at all events for a few years, of the -master of Les Mouettes. - -“Show him up,” she said irritably to her servant. In another minute -the old man entered, frailer, thinner, with the gold dye on his hair -more visible, but bland and polished as before, and with the same -keen, intent gleam in his pale-blue eyes. She welcomed him sweetly, -suppressing a yawn, and seemed as if it were the most natural thing in -the world to receive a man against whom society had long closed all its -doors. - -Who could tell what old Khris might know? She was well aware that she -had ousted him out of Harrenden House. - -“You are not looking well, Prince,” she said with solicitude, offering -him her little silver tray of cigarettes. - -“Old age, old age!” said Prince Khris airily, as he took a cigarette -and lighted it. “How happy are you, Duchess, who are in all the -wonder-blossoming of your youth!” - -“That is a nasty one,” thought Mouse, for she knew that when your -children are growing up speeches of this kind have a sub-acid flavor -which it is intended should be distinctly tasted by you. - -He settled himself comfortably in the lounging-chair he occupied, and -blew the perfumed smoke into the air. - -“I am especially fortunate to find you alone,” he said. “May I at -once mention the purport of my visit, for I know how rare it is to -be favored by a _tête-à-tête_ with you when one is, alas, old and -uninteresting!” - -“Pray say anything you like,” she replied, the sweetness beginning to -go out of her manner and the softness out of her voice, for she felt -that whatever his purpose might be it was not amiable. - -“Allow me, then,” said the old man very suavely, “to ask you if it -be true what people say in these places--that you intend to marry my -ex-son-in-law, Adrian Vanderlin?” - -She was silent from astonishment and annoyance. She did not want to -have the keen eyes of this old gambler watching her cards. - -“There is not the smallest authority for such a statement,” she -answered with hauteur, “and I think you might phrase your inquiry more -courteously.” - -He smiled and made a little gesture with the cigarette, indicative of -apology or derision, as she chose to take it. - -“Why should not either or both of them marry again?” she asked, her -anxiety on the matter getting the better of her prudence and good taste. - -“Dear lady,” replied Prince Khris, “it seems incredible to properly -constituted minds, but there are actually persons so disposed by nature -that they only love once! It is a lamentable limitation of what was -intended to be our most agreeable and varied pastime; but so it is. You -know there are some persons who take everything seriously, and drink -sparkling Moselle with a long face.” - -“Perhaps they will re-marry each other? It is not against the law, I -believe.” - -“No; it is not against the law, probably because no lawmakers ever -thought such a case possible.” - -“How he dislikes them both!” she thought. “Perhaps because they didn’t -give him enough money, or perhaps because they are maintaining him now.” - -It seemed to her experienced mind that you would naturally hate anybody -who maintained you. - -“I heard of a boat upset beneath the terraces of Les Mouettes, of -an intrepid _sauvetage_ of your lovely little girl on your own fair -shoulders,” murmured Prince Khris. “I hope the master of the château -was grateful, but I doubt it; men of business are sceptical rather than -impressionable. I hope you took no cold?” - -“None whatever,” said Mouse crossly and curtly, for she felt herself -_dévinée_, and this sensation is never soothing to the nerves. - -“I am charmed to hear it. But is it true that you have an intention to -render still richer than he is the singularly ungrateful person who is -called the Christian Rothschild?” - -“I don’t know what you mean,” she said sullenly; “and I don’t know -what this man, Christian or Jew, can matter to you. He divorced your -daughter.” - -It was more than a rude thing, it was an ill-bred thing to say, and she -knew that it was so; but her temper got the better of her prudence, as -it had done in her interview with Beaumont. - -Prince Khris remained unmoved. - -“That is matter of history,” he said serenely. “The man, as you call -him (who is unquestionably a Christian), may have been touched by that -heroic spectacle of a modern Aphrodite battling with the waves. No -doubt it was intended that he should be touched. All that I wish to -say, dear Duchess, is this, that if the report be true that you intend -to marry him--and it may be, for millionaires are the only men worth -marrying--I merely venture to say that I--well, in a word, I should -prevent it. That is all.” - -She stared at him in unaffected amazement, and her anger was as real as -her surprise. - -“How dare you say such things to me?” she said in great offence. “You -would venture to imply that the boat was upset on purpose!” - -He laughed a little softly. - -“The unaided _à propos_ is rarely of occurrence in this life. But -perhaps M. Vanderlin was impressed by the accident; men of finance -are sometimes children in matters outside their counting-houses. -However, all I desired, Duchess, is to intimate to you that if you have -any intention of marrying the man who, as you remarked, divorced my -daughter, I shall not permit the marriage to take place.” - -“How can you prevent it?” - -“That is my affair. Rest assured only that I can and that I shall.” - -She was silent, intensely irritated and uncertain how to treat him; -she was aware that there was something ludicrous and undignified in -her position; she could not allege that Vanderlin had any intention to -marry her; she had been taken off her guard and placed in a position of -absurd embarrassment. - -What could this old man mean? He was too keen and experienced a person -to menace what he had not the ability to carry out. Had he known -anything of her relations with Massarene? - -She knew that he had a long score against her to pay off, that he must -hate her and would make her feel its hatred if he could; but he was not -a man to indulge in unprofitable rancor. - -She said between her teeth: “Do you suppose, if I wished to marry any -man, I shouldn’t do it?” - -“It is impossible to say,” murmured Prince Khris. “There are some -persons so perverted that they do not like new-mown hay or early -strawberries. There may be also persons so dead to beauty and to virtue -that they do not appreciate the exquisite qualities of the Duchess of -Otterbourne.” - -“You old wretch!” she thought, with difficulty controlling herself -from ordering him out of the room. “I had not the remotest intention -of annexing your _ci-devant_ son-in-law,” she said aloud; “but as you -have put the idea in my head, perhaps I shall do it.” - -“Are you sure it is I who put it there?” said Prince Khris, smiling. -“Then allow me to take it out again. I do not intend you to marry -Adrian Vanderlin.” - -“What business would it be of yours if I did? He disgraced your -daughter before all Europe.” - -His face remained impassive. “You cannot wonder, then, if only out of -vengeance I shall deny him the paradise of your embrace! Be my motive -what it will, dear lady, take this for certain: I shall not allow you -to carry out your present scheme.” - -“Sir!” Anger flashed from her sapphire eyes, her voice was stifled -by rage. Her “scheme”!--as if she were an intriguing horizontale, a -nameless adventuress! - -He laid down the cigarette which he had appreciated and finished. - -“Remember,” he said serenely--“I can say that to Vanderlin which will -prevent him from marrying you or any other woman.” - -“I shall tell him that is your boast.” - -“You can tell him if you like. He will not believe you, and he -certainly will not question me.” - -“But what could his marriage, were there any question of it, matter to -you?” Her curiosity got the better of her rage. - -“That is my affair,” he replied. “To be quite frank with you, it does -not matter to me in the least, but I do not intend you to step into my -daughter’s place. She is my daughter, though many years have passed -since I saw her; and you, madame, shall not sit where she sat, love -where she loved, sleep where she slept; you shall not do her that -injury. A sentimentalism, you think. No, I am not sentimental, though -I come of the land of Werther. But a few years ago you did me a bad -turn when I was weak enough to trust you, and I do not forget easily. -I can prevent you from reaching the Canaan of Vanderlin’s wealth, and -I intend to do so. I know what you would do; you would entice him with -exquisite skill, and it is possible that you would make him your dupe; -in finance he is clever, but in the affections he is a child. Well, -take warning; let him alone, for if you attempt to succeed with him, -I shall intervene. That is all. I have told you to desist because I am -not desirous of approaching the man who, as you observed, dishonored my -daughter before all Europe. But if you do not listen to good counsels I -shall do so, for I repeat I do not intend you ever to reach the Canaan -of his riches.” - -Then, without waiting for any reply from her, he rose, bowed with -the courtly grace which to the last distinguished him, and left her -presence walking with that feebleness which infirmity and years -entailed, but with a pleased smile upon his face and as much alacrity -as he could command, for he was in his haste to return to the tables of -Monte Carlo. - -She remained in a sort of stupor, staring at the smoked-out cigarette -which he had left behind him on the ash tray. - -She had been so utterly astonished, humiliated, and disgusted that she -had not had presence of mind enough to charge him with having brought -about his daughter’s ruin by his own intrigues and falsehoods. - -Unfortunately too she knew so little, so very little, only what the -Archduke Franz had hinted to her, and with that weak weapon of mere -conjecture she could not have discomfited so skilled and accomplished a -master of fence as was Prince Khristopher of Karstein. - -How she wished, oh! how she wished that she had let him have his fair -share of the spoils of Harrenden House! There are few things more -utterly painful than to have done mean, ungenerous, and dishonorable -acts, and find them all like a nest of vipers torpid from cold which -have been warmed on your hearth and uncurl and hiss at you. - -“My greatuncle came to call on you!” said young Prince Woffram with -astonishment and curiosity. “I saw him in the hall; I don’t speak to -him, you know--we none of us do. But I felt sorry----” - -“So do I whenever I see him,” said Mouse in her frankest and sweetest -manner. “I have always stood by him, you know. He is so courtly and -charming and now so old. It is horribly cruel, I think, to shut one’s -doors on a man of that age. He may have been all they say--I suppose -he has--but his sins must have been over before we were born, and when -anybody is so old as that I, for one, really cannot be unkind.” - -What an angel she was! thought the young grandnephew of Prince Khris; -an angel of modern make, with wings of chiffon, which would not perhaps -stand a shower of rain or a buffet of wind, but still an angel! - - - - -CHAPTER XLI. - - -“Lord! my dear Ronnie,” exclaimed Daddy Gwyllian, “what poor -short-sighted creatures we are with all our worldly wisdom! To think -that I ever advised you to do such a thing! Lord! I might have ruined -you!” - -His astonishment and repentance were so extreme and sincere that -Hurstmanceaux was bewildered. - -“What did you ever advise me to do,” he asked, “that would have ruined -me?” - -“I told you to marry her.” - -“To marry whom?” - -“Massarene’s daughter.” - -Hurstmanceaux’s face changed. “I believe you did,” he said stiffly. “I -am glad you see the impropriety of telling a poor man to marry a rich -woman.” - -“But she isn’t a rich woman!” cried the poor matchmaker in almost a -shriek of remorse. “I might have led you to your ruin. She has gone and -given it all away!” - -Hurstmanceaux turned quickly to him with animation. - -“What do you say? Given what away? Her father’s fortune?” - -“Read that,” said Gwyllian. “Oh, Lord, that fools should ever have -money, and sensible folks be worn into their graves for want of it!” - -What he gave Ronald to read was a column in a leading journal of Paris -and New York; an article adorned by a woodcut which was labelled a -portrait of Katherine Massarene, and resembled her as much as it did a -Burmese idol or a face on a door-knocker. The article, which was long, -abounded in large capital letters and startling italics. Its hyperbolic -and hysterical language, being translated into the language of sober -sense, stated that the daughter of the “bull-dozing boss,” so well -known in the States as William Massarene, having inherited the whole of -his vast wealth, had come over to America _incognita_, had spent some -months in the study of life as seen in the city of Kerosene, and the -adjacent townships and provinces, and having made herself intimately -acquainted with the people and the institutions, had divided two-thirds -of her inheritance between those who had shared in any way in the -making of that wealth, or whose descendants were in want. - -She had devoted another large portion of it to the creation of various -asylums and institutions and provision for human and animal needs in -both Great Britain and Ireland, whilst the valuable remainder had been -divided amongst many poor families of County Down. The journal said, -in conclusion, that she had purchased an annuity for her mother, which -would give that lady double the annual income allotted to her under -William Massarene’s will; and that for herself she had kept nothing, -not a red cent. The editor added a personal note stating that Miss -Massarene had certainly made no provision for her own maintenance, -since she had forgotten to endow a lunatic asylum! - -The column closed with the total in plain figures of the enormous -property which had been thus broken up and distributed. Hurstmanceaux -read it in silence from the first line to the last; then in silence -returned it to Daddy Gwyllian. - -“Isn’t it heaven’s mercy you didn’t marry her!” cried Daddy. “To be -sure you would have prevented this. She must be stark staring mad, you -know; the paper hints as much.” - -“If she had consulted the Seven Sages and the Four Evangelists, she -could not have been advised by them to act more wisely or more well,” -replied Hurstmanceaux with emphasis. “Good-bye, Daddy. Leave off -match-making, or you may burn your fingers at it.” - -He went away without more comment, and Daddy stood staring after him -with round, wide-open eyes. Was it possible that anybody lived who -could consider such a course of action praiseworthy or sane? - -“But Ronnie was always as mad as a hatter himself,” he thought -sorrowfully as he buttonholed another friend, and displayed his -Parisian-American paper. - -“Ah, yes--frightful insanity!” said the newcomer. “I’ve just seen it -in _Truth_. It was wired. Enough to make old Billy get up out of his -grave, don’t you think? _Sic transit gloria mundi._” - -“Damned socialistic thing to do,” said a third who joined them and -who also had seen _Truth_. “Horrible bad example! If property isn’t -inviolate to your heirs, where are you? If there isn’t solidarity -amongst the holders of property, what can keep back the nationalization -of property?” - -No one could say what would. - -“This is what comes of young women reading Herbert Spencer and Goldwin -Smith,” said a fourth. - -“These men are not communists,” said the previous speaker. “This lady’s -act is rank communism.” - -“Can’t one do what one likes with one’s own?” asked another. - -“Certainly not,” replied the gentleman who dreaded the nationalization -of property. “We should first consider the effect of what we do on -the world at large. This young woman (I never liked her) has said -practically to the many millions of operatives all the world over that -capital is a crime.” - -“Capital, acquired as Billy’s was, is uncommonly near a crime,” -murmured the first speaker. - -“Capital by its mere consolidation becomes purified,” said the other -angrily, “as carbon becomes by crystallization a diamond. This young -woman has practically told every beggar throughout both hemispheres -that he has a right to grind the diamonds into dust.” - -“I always thought her plain,” said a more frivolous listener. - -“Fine eyes, fine figure, but plain,” said another, “and she was always -so rude to the Prince.” - -“Rude to everybody, and always looked bored,” said a person whose hand -she had rejected. - -“Subversive,” said the upholder of property. “Very odd: her father was -so sound in all his views.” - -“I think Billy’ll wake and walk!” said the gentleman who had before -expressed this opinion; “all his pile split up into match wood!” - -Daddy Gwyllian felt so vexed that he left them discussing the matter -and went home. Why could not Ronnie have made himself agreeable to her -before this horrible socialistic idea had come into her head, and so -have held all that marvellously solid fortune together? It made him -quite sad to think of these millions of good money frittered away in -asylums and refuges and the dirty hands of a lot of hungry people. - -Even Harrenden House was sold, they said, just as it stood, with all -its admirable works of art, and the beckoning falconer of Clodion at -the head of the staircase. - -At the same moment the Duchess of Otterbourne was also reading this -article in the Paris-New York journal. She thought it a hoax; a yarn -spun by some mischievous spinner of sensational stories. When she heard -however from all sides that it was true, she felt a kind of relief. - -“Nobody will know her now,” she thought. “So she won’t be able to -talk. It is really enough to wake that brute in his grave. I always -considered her odious, but I should never have supposed she was mad.” - -“What do you think of it?” she asked Vanderlin, whom she met the day -she had read of this amazing piece of folly. He had not heard of it: -she described the salient features of the narrative. - -“I know nothing of the lady or of the sources of the fortune she has -broken up,” he replied, “so I cannot judge. But if she wishes to be at -peace she has acted very wisely for herself.” - -Mouse heard with an impatience which she could not conceal. - -“Do you mean,” she asked point-blank, “that you would like to lose your -fortune?” - -“One must never say those things aloud, madame,” he replied. “For the -_boutade_ of a discontented moment may be repeated in print by these -Paul Prys of the Press as the serious conviction of a lifetime.” - -“How I loathe your diplomatic answers!” she thought, much irritated -at her perpetual failure to entice him out of his habitual reserve. -“One can’t talk at all unless one says what one thinks,” she answered -impatiently. - -He smiled slightly again. - -“I should rather have supposed that the chief necessity in social -intercourse was to successfully repress one’s sincerity: is it not so?” - -“You are a very tantalizing person to talk to!” she said with a chagrin -which was real. - -“Why insist on talking to me then?” thought Vanderlin, and he let the -conversation drop; it was too personal for his taste. - -Her verdict, more or less softened, was the verdict of the world in -general on Katherine Massarene’s action. - -The action was insane, and to English and American society offensive. - -The world considered it had warmed an adder in its breast. Everybody -had known her only because of her money, and now she had stripped -herself of her money, and would expect to know them just the same! - -Besides, what a shocking example! Ought big brewers, instead of -ascending to the celestial regions of the Upper House, to strip -themselves of their capital and build inebriate asylums? Ought big -bankers, instead of going to court and marrying dukes’ daughters, to -live on bread and cheese, and give their millions in pensions and -bonuses? Ought big manufacturers, instead of receiving baronetcies, -and having princes at their shooting parties, to go in sackcloth and -ashes, and spend all their profits in making the deadly trades healthy? -Were all the titled railway directors to pull off their Bath ribbons, -and melt down the silver spades with which they had cut the sods of -new lines, in order to give all they possess to maimed stokers, or -dazed signalmen, or passengers who had lost their legs or their arms in -accidents? - -Forbid it, heaven! - -Society shook on its very foundations. Never had there been set -precedent fraught with such disastrous example. It was something worse -than socialism; they could not give it a name. Socialism knocked you -down and picked your pocket: but this act of hers was a voluntary -eating of dust. She, who had supposed that she would be able to do what -she choose with her inheritance unremarked, was astonished at the storm -of indignation raised by the intolerable example she was considered to -have set. American capitalists were as furious as English aristocracy -and plutocracy, and the chief organs of the American press asked her if -she could seriously suppose that anybody would take the trouble to put -money together if they had to give it away as soon as they got it? - -The publicity and hostility roused in two nations by an act which -she had endeavored to make as private as possible disconcerted -her exceedingly, and the encomiums she received from anonymous -correspondents were not more welcome. - -What most annoyed her were the political deductions and accusations -which were roused by her action and roared around it. She was claimed -by the Collectivists, praised by the Positivists, seized by the -Socialists, and admired by the Anarchists. She was supposed to belong -to every new creed to which the latter years of the nineteenth century -has given birth, and such creeds are multitudinous as ants’ eggs in an -ant-hill. A ton weight of subversive literature and another ton weight -of begging letters were sent to her, and she was requested to forward -funds for a monument to Jesus Ravachol and Harmodius-Caserio. - -The Fabian philosophers wept with joy over her; but the upholders of -property said that nothing more profoundly immoral than this dispersion -of wealth had ever been accomplished since Propriété Nationale was -written on the façade of the Tuileries. Tolstoi dedicated a work to -her; Cuvallotti wrote her an ode; Brunetière consecrated an article to -her, Mr. Mallock stigmatized her action as the most immoral of the age, -whilst Auberon Herbert considered it the most admirable instance of -high spirited individualism; Mr. Gladstone wrote a beautiful epistle on -a postcard, and Mr. Swinburne a poem in which her charity was likened -to the sea in a score of magnificent imageries and rolling hexameters. - -She was overwhelmed with shame at her position and was only sustained -in the pillory of such publicity by the knowledge that the world -forgets and discards as rapidly as it adores and enthrones. She -felt that she deserved as little the praises of those who lauded -her generosity as she did the censure of others who blamed her for -subversive designs and example. Her strongest motive power had been -the desire to atone, in such measure as possible, for the evil her -father had done, and to rid herself of an overwhelming burden. Deep -down in her soul, too, scarcely acknowledged to herself, was the desire -that the Duchess of Otterbourne’s brother should know that, if she -could not understand the finer gradations of honor as old races can do, -she yet had nothing of that mercenary passion which a woman of his own -race showed so unblushingly. - -She longed, with more force than she had ever wished for anything, that -Hurstmanceaux should be justified in that higher appreciation of her -which his letter had expressed. - -“Why should I care what that man thinks?” she had asked herself as the -steamship glided over the moonlit waters of the Atlantic. “I shall -never speak to him again as long as our lives last.” - -But she did care. - -This result of her acts annoyed, harassed, and depressed her, for she -was afraid that in trying to do well she had only done ill. “But our -path is so steep and our light is so dim,” she thought, “we can only go -where it seems right to us to go, and if we fail in our aims we must -not mind failure if our intent was good. - - “‘’Tis not in mortals to command success.’” - -But her heart was sometimes heavy, and she felt the want of sympathy -and comprehension. - -Only one message soothed and reassured her: it was a telegram from -Framlingham. - -“Now the thing is done, I may venture to tell you that I both approve -and admire what I considered it my duty theoretically to oppose.” - -It was the only sympathy she received. From her mother, although she -had met no active opposition, she felt that she had no forgiveness -because she had no comprehension. - -“You’ve done what you chose, and I hope you’ll never regret it. You’ve -your poor father’s dogged will, and your poor father’s hard heart,” -said Margaret Massarene, very unkindly, on the day that her daughter -landed at Southampton. - -If she had had an attack of diphtheria or had broken her arm no one -would have been kinder and more devoted than her mother; but, for -the sorrows of the soul, the maladies of the mind, the nervousness -of conscience, her mother had no compassion, because she had no -comprehension. To such troubles as those of Katherine least of all; -because to the practical views of Margaret Massarene it seemed that -her daughter was moon-struck, nothing less; just like poor Ophelia, -for whom she had wept at the Lyceum. To be sure Katherine was not at -all strange in her ways: she dressed like other people, walked, ate, -spoke, and behaved like other people; but she could not be altogether -in her proper mind to give away right and left all the fruits of poor -William’s many years of toil and of self-denial. The pile might have -been got together by questionable means, but that was not for William’s -heiress to think or to judge; she had nothing to do but to be grateful. -Her mother watched anxiously for straws in her hair and rosemary -“that’s for remembrance” in her hand. - -Yet she was almost reconciled to her daughter’s acts by this uproar -over them. - -“Well!” she said with a certain dogged satisfaction--“well, Kathleen, -you meant to degrade your father, and to spite him, and to undo all -he’d done, and to drag his memory through the mud; but it’s all turned -to his honor and glory. ’Tis of him they must think when they talk of -you.” - -But in the middle of the night, after this utterance, Katherine was -awakened by the entrance into her chamber of her mother, who came up to -the side of her bed in silence. - -“Are you ill?” said Katherine, starting up from her pillow. - -“No, my dear,” said Mrs. Massarene, sitting down heavily on a low chair -and putting aside the volumes which were upon its cushions. “No, my -dear, but I couldn’t let the night go on without telling you, my dear, -as how you’re right and I’m wrong, and I beg your pardon for my temper, -and the lies I told ye.” - -“Oh, mother, pray don’t!” said her daughter infinitely distressed. “I’m -sure you never said anything which you did not think it your duty to -say.” - -“Well, my dear, we dress up many bad passions and vanities as duty, -but that’s neither here nor there,” said Margaret Massarene, a white, -cumbrous, shapeless figure enveloped in Chuddah shawls. “I’ve been -wrong to be out of temper with you, and to deny to you as your father’s -money was ill got. Ill got it was; and all the princes and nobles in -the world can’t alter that, though it did seem to me as how they did -when I see ’em all a-kneeling and a-sighing round his coffin. Ill got -it was, and may be you’ve done well to get rid of it, though most folks -will call it a pack of stuff to scatter away millions as if ye were -scattering barley to chicks. No; hear me out; I shouldn’t hev done this -thing myself, and I think ’twould hev been better to do it more gradual -like and less high falutin, for it has set all the world gossiping and -grubbing in the past; but ’tis done, and I won’t let it be a bone of -contention between you and me.” - -“I thank you very much,” said Katherine humbly, the tears rising to her -eyes. - -“There aren’t anything to thank me for,” said her mother. “I’m an -ignorant body and you’re a learned fine lady--a ‘blue stocking,’ as -people say; and your ways of looking at things I can’t follow. I -suppose you’ve found ’em in your Greek books. But when I told ye I -didn’t know as your poor father’s pile was ill got I told you a lie; -for many and many’s the night I’ve been kep’ awake thinkin’ o’ the poor -souls as he’d turned out of house and home. He was a hard man--smart, -as they say over there: and he bought the lawyers right and left, and -nobody ever did nought to him--till that man shot him at Gloucester -Gate.” - -“Mother,” said Katherine in a hushed voice, “I have learned who that -man was. Did ever you know Robert Airley?” - -Margaret Massarene reflected a minute or two. - -“Yes, my dear. I mind him well: a long, thin man, soft-spoken and -harmless, with a pretty young wife; they came from the North. Your -father bought his bit o’ land, his ‘placer-claim,’ as they say -out there, and found tin on it, and ’tis now in full work is that -lode--’tis called the Penamunic mine.” - -“I know,” said Katherine, and she told her mother how she had learned -the request of Robert Airley and what she believed to have been his -errand to England. - -Her mother listened without surprise. - -“I mind him well,” she said again. “He must have been driven desperate -indeed, for he was a gentle soul and wouldn’t hev hurt a fly when I -knew him. I always thought, my dear, as how your father would lose -his life through some of those he’d injured; but he’d never no fear -himself. He was a great man in many ways, Katherine.” - -“As modern life measures greatness,” said Katherine. - -Margaret Massarene was crying noiselessly. - -“’Tis so dreadful to think as he got his death through one he wronged,” -she murmured between her sobs. - -“Yes, mother,” said Katherine gravely; “and that is why I told you all -the money was blood-money and I could not keep it. Perhaps you are -right. Perhaps you are right that I should have done this thing more -gradually, more wisely, more secretly, but I acted for the best. I felt -as if a curse were on me so long as I did nothing in atonement.” - -“I won’t say no more against it, my dear,” said Margaret Massarene with -a heavy sense of resignation. “But you haven’t left yourself a jointure -even, and who will ever marry you now?” - -Katherine smiled. - -“Do not let that vex you. I will live with you, and you will give -me twenty pounds a year for my clothes, and it will be wholesome -discipline for me, and I shall be able to have a new gown once a year, -which ought to be quite enough.” - -“Oh, Katherine, how can you jest?” said her mother, with fresh tears; -for, though the great world had laughed at her, worried her, tortured -her, robbed her, harassed her, she had been pleased and proud to be in -it, and now she was to “climb down,” and be nobody in particular, and -have a penniless daughter who talked of dressing on twenty pounds a -year and who would never marry! - -“We will be very happy together, mother,” said Katherine with a -caressing tenderness of tone, rare in her, as she took her mother’s -hand, which was resting on the eider-down coverlet of the bed. “I may -have done this thing too quickly and not wisely, but I breathe freely -and am content.” - -Margaret Massarene sighed. - -“My dear, you won’t be happy. You’ll repent. ’Tis a pity you weren’t -made like the Duchess of Otterbourne. _She_ wouldn’t have quarrelled -with your father’s pile.” - -“Certainly she would not,” said Katherine bitterly, “and I am sorry you -wish me like her, mother.” - -Margaret Massarene reflected a moment, drying her tears. - -“My dear, ’twould be better for you. People only call you odd and -queer. You see, Kathleen,” she added with that shrewdness which early -life had taught her, “in what you’ve done, you’ve as good as said to -all other people that they’re knaves: it’s very bad to be thought above -one’s generation, my dear. Jesus cleared the Temple with a scourge; but -they paid him out for it, my dear--they paid him out for it on Calvary.” - -The excitement which had sustained her throughout her arduous and -self-imposed task had subsided and left, as all spent forces do, a -sense of lassitude and weariness behind them. A fatigued impression of -failure and of loneliness was on her. - -She had done what had seemed to her right in the best way which had -been open to her. But she could not be sure of the result. She had -used great volition, great energy, great resistance in her late work, -and her strength had for the time spent itself. It had left a solitude -round her in which her personal _ego_ seemed to awake and cry like a -lost child in the dark. - -Her future wore no smile and offered her no companionship. Whilst -her mother lived she felt that she must not leave her; and Margaret -Massarene was strong and hale, and likely to live long. Whilst her -mother lived she could never herself attempt to lead any other -existence than that which she led now. True, in it she could study as -much as she pleased, but study in this moment of depression did not -seem to her the Alpha and Omega of life as it always had done. - -All that she had heard, seen, and learned of brutal practical appetites -and needs within the past twelve months haunted her; she had cast from -her her father’s wealth, but she could not shake off the shadow of his -sins. His memory pursued her like a ghost. - -It was a morbid and exaggerated idea, she knew that; no one shunned -her, no one execrated her--at the utmost people thought her an -absurd quixotic young woman, absolutely uninteresting now that she -had divested herself of her golden ornaments: she knew that. But she -felt herself in spirit and in destiny like the hangman’s daughter, as -Hurstmanceaux had said, who, through no fault of her own, was shunned -by all, and execrated by all, merely because she was the hangman’s -daughter! - -One day, soon after her return, she was walking again through that -pine-wood on the little estate in which, nearly a year earlier, she -had been greeted by Framlingham. She had a reefer’s jacket on her arm, -and held a white sunshade over her head, for the air was very mild. -Her gown was of that pale silvery grey which she often wore; there -were a few Malmaison roses and a ruffle of old lace at her throat. She -walked slowly and with no energy suggested in her movements; in truth, -she felt weary and spiritless. For many months both her intelligence -and her volition had been stretched like a bent bow, and now that they -were spent the inevitable reaction set in with both her will and her -mind. She had accomplished her great task; it was done and could not -be undone; she had no illusions about its success, she could only hope -that it might bear good fruit. - -The grey, still, windless day was without a sound. Even the sea was -voiceless. The weather and the landscape seemed languid and mournful, -like herself. She could not regain her lost energy. She felt as if she -had given it away with her father’s fortune. - -As regarded her own future she had no illusions either. She expected -nothing agreeable from it. She knew that her mother had said quite -rightly--she would never be happy. Her nature was proud and everything -connected with her caused her shame. Her affections would have been -strong, but they had no object. Her talents were unusual, but they -were out of harmony with her destiny and her generation. It seemed to -her that she had been only created to carry on in her own soul a mute -and barren revolt against all the received opinions and objects of the -world in general. Was the world right, and was she wrong? Had she been -presumptuous and vain-glorious in opposing her own single opinion to -the vast serried masses of human prejudice and custom? - -She made her way slowly through the pine trees and the rhododendrons -to the bench where she had sat with Framlingham, from which the sea -was seen and the shores of Tennyson’s island were visible. It was a -fine calm day, with diaphanous mists in the silvery offing. She thought -of the line in the “Prometheus,” and of Lecomte de Lisle’s beautiful -rendering of it: “_Le sourire infini des flots marins._” - -Some fishing cobles were half a mile off, trawling; in the offing a -white-winged vessel--a yacht, no doubt--was bearing toward the island; -inland, some church bells were ringing far away, but sweet as a lark’s -song. She sat still and wished that she could feel as poets felt, which -was perhaps being more near them than she knew. She had sat there some -time, the roses faded in the light, and she was so motionless that some -wrens in the pine boughs over her head picked larvæ off the branches -without heeding her. - -She had been there an hour or more, Argus sometimes chasing imaginary -rabbits, sometimes lying at her feet, when steps crushing the carpet of -pine needles behind her made her turn her head. - -A tall man wearing yachting clothes was coming through the shadow of -the trees; he uncovered his head as he approached, evidently knowing -that she was there. - -“I beg your pardon,” he said vaguely, with some embarrassment; then he -came behind her and stood still--it was Hurstmanceaux. - -She was so much surprised that she said nothing. He came round the -trees and stood in front of the bench on which she was sitting. The -light shone on his fair hair and the color rose slightly in his face. - -“I beg your pardon,” he said again. “I am an intruder on your privacy, -but I have come here on purpose to say to you----” He hesitated, then -continued--“To say to you how much admiration and esteem I feel for -your noble action.” - -She was still too surprised to reply, and almost too troubled by -various conflicting and obscure emotions to comprehend him. She could -not believe her own ears, and the memory of that false report of which -Framlingham had spoken seemed buzzing and stinging about her like a -swarm of bees. - -“I do not suppose you can care for my approval,” he added as she -remained silent, “but such as it is worth you command it--and my most -sincere respect.” - -“Everyone thinks me mad,” she said, with a passing smile as she strove -to recover her composure. - -“Do swine see the stars?” he said, with impatient contempt. “Of course -it looks madness to the world. May I ask one thing--does your mother’s -income die with her?” - -“Yes,” replied Katherine, more and more surprised, and vaguely offended -at the unceremonious interrogation. - -“Then if she died to-morrow you would be penniless?” - -“What a very odd question!” she said, recovering her self-possession. -“Certainly I should be so; but I could maintain myself.” - -“What would you do?” - -“I really cannot say at this moment. Play at concerts perhaps, or teach -Latin or Greek to children. I do not see that it can concern anyone -except myself.” - -His questions, which seemed to her rude and intrusive, had restored -her to her natural calmness, though her heart beat a little nervously -against the Malmaison roses. The sun was in her eyes and she did not -look at him, or she would have understood the expression in his own. He -came nearer to her; his head was still uncovered. - -“I am afraid I have forgotten my Greek. Will you teach it to me?” - -“I really cannot understand you,” she replied, vaguely annoyed and -much astonished; if he had been any other man, she would have thought -he had taken too much wine at luncheon. - -“I must speak more clearly, then,” said Ronald with some embarrassment. -“Will you marry me?” - -“How can you jest?” - -“I should scarcely jest on such a subject,” said Hurstmanceaux. “I mean -absolutely what I say. I admire you more than I could tell you. Your -memory has haunted me ever since that winter walk in the snow. But I, -of course, could have never told you so if your father had lived, or -if, he being dead, you had kept his money.” - -She was silent; she breathed with difficulty; a tremor shook her from -head to foot. - -She was so utterly amazed, so thunderstruck and stunned, that the -light, and the sea, and the stems of trees, and the green woodland -shadows, all went round her in dizzy circling mists. - -“Why are you so surprised? You must have heard many men before now -express the same wish as mine.” - -“Oh! only for one reason.” - -“That reason exists no longer. In putting away from you your father’s -wealth, you at least acquire the certainty of being sought for -yourself.” - -“You speak in derision, or in compassion.” - -“Derision? Who could dare deride you? Your worst enemy, if you have -one, must admire you. As for compassion, if there be any in the desire -I have ventured to express to you, it is for myself.” - -She was still silent. She was so violently startled and shocked that a -sensation of faintness came over her; her lips lost color, her sight -was troubled. - -“It is utterly impossible,” she said, after long silence, in a low, -hoarse voice. “You cannot mean it. You must be out of your mind.” - -“I always mean what I say. And I cannot see what there is to surprise -you so greatly. True, you know me very little, and the few times I have -seen you I have been rude to you.” - -“I cannot believe you! It is wholly impossible.” - -“It may seem so to you because our only previous interviews have been -stormy and cold, and my expressed opinions were offensive, though you -were generous enough to say that you agreed with them. But from those -interviews I bore away an impression against which I contended in vain. -As long as you were the heiress or holder of Mr. Massarene’s fortune, -my lips were sealed. But now that you stand in voluntary and honorable -poverty, looking forward to work for your living when your mother dies, -I see nothing to prevent my saying to you what I have said.” - -“I am not less my father’s daughter.” - -“No, and I will not say what is untrue. I wish that you were the -daughter of any other man. But in the East I have seen beautiful lilies -growing out of heaps of potsherds. You are the lily which I wish to -gather. Your purity and stately grace are your own; your fine temper -and you unsullied character are your own. William Massarene is dead. -Let his sins be buried with him. After all, he was not worse than the -great world which flattered and plundered him. You have done all you -could to atone for his crimes. Do not let his ghost arise to stand -between you and me. That is, at least, if you could care for me. -Perhaps it is impossible.” - -She breathed heavily; she felt faint; her sight was obscured. - -“You say this to me, to me, to the daughter of William Massarene?” - -“I will not lie to you; I wish to Heaven you were the daughter of any -other man. But his vileness cannot affect your honor. You know me very -slightly, and I insulted you when we did meet. But there are sympathies -which overstep time and efface all injuries. As long as you held your -father’s fortune I could say nothing to you; but now there is no -barrier between us unless it exist in your own will.” - -“But there is your sister!” - -His face darkened. - -“If you mean the Duchess of Otterbourne, I have no acquaintance with -her.” - -“But all your family?” - -“I have long borne all the burdens of my family; I am not disposed to -consult them on a matter which concerns myself alone. My wife will be -respected by all of them. Do not fear otherwise. And,” he added, with -a smile, “we will not sell our game to Leadenhall or send our Shetland -ponies to the mines.” - -The allusion to their walk through the snowy lanes made the absolute -reality of what he was saying break in on her like a burst of light, -light bewildering and unbearable. - -“You must be out of your mind,” she said, in a broken voice, “or you -are playing a cruel comedy.” - -“I am not a comedian. And why should you suppose it unlikely for a man -to love you and respect you?” - -“But you!--I am his daughter. You said once--it was like being the -hangman’s daughter. I am low-born, low-bred; I am utterly unworthy in -my own sight.” - -She was painfully agitated. She could not control her emotion. Her -heart beat tumultuously, her lips were white and trembled. - -“Madam,” said Hurstmanceaux, very gravely and with extreme grace, “you -are the woman that I love. If you accept what I offer, I swear to you -that my family and the world will receive and reverence my wife. I can -say no more. My future is in your hands.” - -It was impossible for her to doubt his sincerity; she was silent, -overcome by emotion. She did not look at him as she answered. - -“I am deeply touched,” she said, in a low tone. “I am honored----” - -He gave an impatient movement. - -“Yes--honored,” she repeated, and her lips quivered. - -She paused a moment to steady her voice. - -“I appreciate your generosity and your confidence,” she added. “But I -cannot wrong either. I cannot do what you say.” - -“Why?” - -“Why? For innumerable reasons, for reasons as countless as those sands.” - -“One will do! Do you dislike me? Do you resent?” - -She shook her head. - -“No. Oh, no!” - -“Do you think you would not be happy with me?” - -“I am certain that you would be miserable, and I so too to know that I -had caused your misery.” - -“Allow me to judge for myself. There could be no question of misery for -either.” - -She made the same gesture of protest and dissent. - -“What fantastic folly comes between us!” he said angrily, for he was -not a patient man. “You must surely allow me to know my own mind.” - -“No doubt you think you know it. I am sure you are wholly sincere. I -tell you--you honor me. But the future you wish for would make you -wretched. You think you would forget my origin, but you could not do -so. You would reproach yourself for having brought base blood into your -race; you are prouder than you know--justly proud, I think. You would -be too kind to show it, but you would regret every hour of your life. -And I--I could not live to see that and know myself the cause.” - -“You must think me a poor, weak, flickering fool!” - -“Not at all. But you are speaking on impulse, and in cold blood you -would lament your impulse.” - -“I am not speaking on impulse. I come here in deliberate choice after -long reflection.” - -“And can you say that when you thus reflected you did not feel that -marriage with me would sully your race?” - -He was silent. He could not and would not lie to her. - -“You are nobility and purity yourself,” he answered, after that -silence. “You are not responsible for the sins of your father.” - -She smiled a little, very sadly. - -“Nevertheless, I am the hangman’s daughter; and a Courcy of Faldon must -not wed with me. Go! God be with you. I thank you for the trust you -have shown in me, and I do not abuse it.” - -“That is your last word?” - -“Yes, it must be so.” - -He grew very white, and his eyes darkened with anger; he was annoyed -and indignant; an immense offence was his first and dominant feeling. -He was misunderstood, doubted, rejected, when he had in the fullness -of his heart brought and laid at her feet the greatest gift he could -offer. He did not stoop to plead with an ingrate. He bowed low to her, -and in perfect silence turned away. The sound of his steps on the -fallen fir-needles made a faint crackling noise on the still air. - -She stood looking seaward, but of sea and of sky seeing nothing. - -Her dog whined wistfully in sympathy, knowing that her motionless -serenity was sorrow. - - - - -CHAPTER XLII. - - -About two weeks from the time of the unwelcome visit to her of Prince -Khris, the Duchess of Otterbourne, descending the terrace steps of her -hotel, met, as he ascended them, young Woffram of Karstein. - -“How dull you look!” she said to him. “What on earth is the matter? Are -you going to enliven us with a sensational suicide?” - -The young man smiled, but with no mirth in his smile. - -“Something horrible has happened, though not a suicide,” he answered -sadly. “My poor granduncle Khris, the one who came to you the other -day, has fallen down in a fit at the rouge-et-noir table yonder.” - -With a gesture toward the east he indicated Monte Carlo, which lay in -the distant curves of the coast. - -“Is he dead?” she said eagerly. - -“No. But he is dying. Hugo von Börn told me. He has just come from -there. He saw it.” - -“You seem singularly afflicted!” said Mouse with a little laugh to -conceal the impression which the news made on herself. - -“Well,” said Prince Woffram with embarrassment, “the death of a good -man, you know, isn’t half so shocking as the death of a bad one.” - -“Indeed?” said Mouse. “I should have thought just the contrary. But -then I don’t see things by the light of the Lutheran religion! Where -did Prince Khris live? Who had he with him? Who will look after him?” - -“I fear he is past looking after. Where his lodgings were I don’t know; -they were something very poor, for all his money went at the tables. I -think--don’t you think?--I ought to go and see if I can do anything for -him?” - -“But your people don’t know him, you say?” - -“No; but when an old man is dying things seem different. I think I -ought to go.” - -“Telegraph for your father’s permission,” said Mouse, leaning against -the balustrade and playing with her long gold muff chain. She was -thinking of many things: she was certain in her own mind that the man -now stricken down at Monte Carlo could tell much about his daughter’s -divorce, if he could not, which she thought possible, tell that which -would reunite his daughter and Vanderlin. It would never do to let his -grandnephew, who was simplicity and veracity incarnate, get to the -bedside and hear what might be the deathbed confessions. She wished to -do that herself, for knowledge is always power. - -The complete security with which Khris of Karstein had told her that he -would prevent her schemes as to Vanderlin ever bearing fruition, must -certainly point to one thing only, that he had the means to clear the -character of his daughter to her divorced husband. - -She hastily reasoned that, however odd it might look to others, she -must see the old man before he died. After all, her visit to him could -be put upon charity; poor Charity has borne many heavier and uglier -burdens than the rosy children with which Correggio loaded her. - -She felt moreover that she would like to see him, lying speechless, -paralyzed, impatient; he had been so odiously rude! - -Still playing with the long gold chain, she turned her eyes on young -Woffram, dazzling him with their azure light. - -“I feel like a brute to do nothing for him,” said the good-natured -young cuirassier. “As to telegraphing to my father it would be a -mere waste of money; he would never bear his uncle Khristof’s name -mentioned.” - -“Then I think you would do very foolishly to go near the old man,” -said his friend. “It would embroil you with your people, and go -against you at Berlin. I told you the other day that I am not afraid -of compromising myself by being kind to people who are under a cloud. -I will go and see after Prince Khris if you like; I was going to Monte -Carlo to-morrow--I will go to-day instead. There is a train in an hour. -I will telegraph you word how he is.” - -The young man stared at her. - -It seemed very angelic, but he was not accustomed to see her in such an -angelic light, though he adored her. Simple and unsuspecting though he -was he could not help seeing that there must be some interest in this -offered charity beyond the benevolence visible on the surface. - -“It would be wonderfully good of you,” he said with hesitation. “But -would it not look rather odd?” - -“I never care what a thing looks,” she replied with impatience, “and -really, my dear Wuffie, I don’t believe even an international jury of -British and German matrons would put a scandalous interpretation on a -visit to a dying man of seventy-eight years of age!” - -“He’s only sixty-eight,” murmured his grandnephew. “But of course, if -you don’t mind, it would be exceedingly kind of you, and--and----” - -“Where is Prince Khris living--do you know?” - -“No.” - -“Oh, I can soon find out when I get there. He won’t be far from the -Casino.” - -The young soldier was surprised. He had not thought charity abode -within the white bosom of his enchanting friend. He could not easily -imagine her sitting by a discarded and despised old sinner’s deathbed. -He had seen her in many characters but never in that of the ministering -angel when pain and anguish wring the brow. - -“What on earth is she up to?” he thought, and said a little awkwardly: - -“He didn’t win much, I think; he’d just got on a run of the rouge when -he dropped----” - -“My dear Wuffie, I’m not going to steal his winnings!” said Mouse with -her pretty crystal-clear laugh. “I’ve known him a long time, poor old -man, and it’s only human to go and look after him. People at Monte -Carlo are wild beasts, and they didn’t look off the tables I dare say, -when he fell, and I am sure none of them will go near him. I shall take -the two o’clock train; you can come over on Sunday as we agreed.” - -Prince Woffram meekly acquiesced. He felt that there was something -which he did not understand in the air; although not very quick of -perception, and although very much enamored, he vaguely suspected that -his unknown greatuncle must possess letters or papers or knowledge -which might compromise this ministering angel if she did not get to the -bedside before somebody else. He adored her, but he had no illusions -about her, the few he had ever had, like roses rudely shaken, had -fallen before the merciless revelations of his friend Boo. - -Boo and her governess accompanied her that day on her mission of mercy. -She knew too well the value as social shield of her little daughter’s -presence. She was genuinely fond of the child; but if she had not been -fond of her, she would nevertheless have appreciated and utilized the -safety which lies in such an accompaniment. As for the governess, she -was discretion itself, saw nothing, heard nothing, that she was not to -see and hear, and was easily purchased for all eternity by a bracelet -at Christmas or a ring at Easter. - -As the train ran through the beautiful coast scenery, so familiar -to her that she had ceased even to look at it, she had such a vague -titillation of curiosity and excitement as a young panther may feel -who for the first time smells a human footprint on the grass. She -liked intrigue and comedy for their own sakes; even if they had no -consequences they passed the time amusingly and lent a sense of -ability and power. The combinations of life are like those of whist or -chess--they exercise the intelligence, they flatter the consciousness -of skill. - -She was more convinced than ever that Prince Khris had the power to -reunite his daughter and her divorced husband. The idea of a _femme -tarée_ reigning over the beautiful Les Mouettes was odious to her -and ridiculous. She had a most profound contempt for women who were -compromised. She felt for them what the head of the herd is said to -feel for the lamed and stricken deer. She had indeed no patience with -them, for it was they, the silly demonstrative creatures, who set -society’s back up and made things uncomfortable for wiser persons. A -woman like Olga zu Lynar who had married into all this money and had -not known how to keep it seemed to her perfectly idiotic. She felt that -if she herself had acquired all these millions her own conduct would -have been perfectly exemplary; at all events wholly unattackable. - -But she desired intensely to know the truth about this unworthy -_divorcée_, since until she did know it she could not make her own -plans with any chance of success. As the train swung on through the -tunnels her pity for herself was extreme; it was cruelly hard that -she should always be driven to do all kinds of unpleasant and dubious -things because other people were so inconsiderate and annoying. - -Why could not old Khris have had his fit before coming to interfere -about Vanderlin? She could not really be sure that he had not already -seen Vanderlin; the latter had been impenetrable, and clearly on his -guard that day of the breakfast at Les Mouettes. She felt that she was -playing a dangerous game in the dark--playing lawn-tennis blindfolded. -But it therefore interested her the more. - -It was the merest chance that she would gain anything by visiting the -old man; but, on the other hand, she would not lose anything, and she -would look amiable; it seemed to her also clever to have remembered -the few words about him which had been spoken by the Archduke. It is -just such _à propos_ remembrance, such connection of trifles, which -make clever detectives and successful spies. As the train ran on she -apparently listened to the chatter of Boo over a big sack of bonbons -and a big bouquet of lilies of the valley, but in herself she was -thinking that her ingenuity and intelligence had merited a better fate -than that of having to worry about hotel bills and scheme to marry -a banker. She did not like the idea of marrying Vanderlin, she did -not think he would be facile, though he had the reputation of being -generous; she did not think that he would be likely to let her make -ducks and drakes of European finance as it would have diverted her to -do in his place; he looked grave, he was serious and sad, and he bored -her. Besides, she would have preferred to marry no one. But there was -nothing else that she could do, or at least nothing else which promised -so well, which offered so much solidity and comfort for the future. -Therefore she went on through the olive-woods and by the edge of the -blue sea to Monte Carlo. - -When Boo and the bouquets and bonbons were left in safety at the Hotel -de Paris, she caused herself to be dressed in the simplest black gown -she possessed, put a grey golfing-cloak over that, and with a felt hat -and a thick veil went out all alone; hoping to pass unperceived in this -place which was filled with hundreds of men and women of her world, and -hundreds also of worlds of which hers knew nothing. - -She had learned that Prince Khris was to be found in a house out of -the town, where he had a modest chamber, whither he had been carried -speechless and apparently unconscious on the previous night, when he -had dropped, huddled and bent like a collapsed marionette, amidst a -crowd of gamblers who scarcely turned their heads to see what had -happened. - -It was a small poor chamber over a grocer’s shop in the outskirts, in -which there lay dying the man who had seen sentinels present arms when -he had passed as a young child in his donkey chaise, with a lady of his -father’s Court in charge of him, across the Platz of the small ducal -city. - -She felt a sense of pain as she ascended the narrow uncarpeted stair in -the close unpleasant atmosphere. - -“Has he not even a valet?” she said to the old woman who left the shop -to show her the way upstairs. - -“No, madame,” answered the woman. “We look after the poor old gentleman -as well as we can; there is only me and my sister; and one of us must -attend to the business.” - -Mouse shivered a little as she heard; it was a realization of indigence -by which she had never been before confronted. Want of money she had -known, and debt and great anxiety; but she had never been without -servants, up a rickety stair, above a smelly little shop. It shocked -her to see a man of this rank, of her own world, thus utterly abandoned -like any beggar who had fallen by the roadside. - -The frightful callousness of human nature when it is not softened -by deference to wealth and self-interest struck her with its chill -brutality like a handful of ice flung in her face. She was no kinder -herself; still the realization of the rough and jeering egotism of the -world momentarily hurt her. She thought of Buckingham dying alone -in the garret. There was the solidarity of class between her and the -fallen prince; and there was also the possibility that she herself -might some day, in some far away old age, be no better off than he. - -The woman opened a low door as she spoke, and Mouse saw into the -room--a poor place with grey walls, a brick floor, spare furniture, and -a narrow bed, whereon lay what was left of the once courtly and elegant -person of Prince Khristof of Karstein. There was one window through -which the slope of an olive-covered hill was visible. - -He was conscious, though motionless and speechless; he opened his eyes -at the unclosing of the door, but he did not recognize his visitor -through her thick veil. His features were twisted and drawn, his hands -lay supinely on the rough woollen coverlet; he looked almost already a -corpse: there was only life in the steel-blue, watching, apprehensive -eyes, into which at her appearance there came a gleam of wonder, -perhaps of hope. - -“It is very horrible!” she said, with a thrill of genuine distress. - -“Are you a relation, madame?” said the woman of the house. - -“Only a friend. Does the doctor come often? What does he say?” - -“He comes but little,” replied the woman. “He knows he will never be -paid, and he knows nothing will be of any use.” - -“Is it quite hopeless?” - -“It is only a question of hours.” - -“Why did you not send for a _sœur_?” - -“We did, but they are all out. Will you be at the charge of the burial, -madame?” - -“Send for another,” said Mouse; “there are scores of them.” - -“Will madame guarantee all expenses?” asked the woman. - -Mouse hesitated; she did not wish to have her visit there known or her -name given. - -“I am sure the family of the prince will repay everything,” she -answered. “They are great people.” - -The woman smiled dubiously. “Is he really a prince, madame? They are -all princes here, but they pawn their shirts all the same.” - -“He is really a prince--a serene highness; he is allied by blood to one -imperial house and two royal houses.” - -The woman looked dubious still; a napoleon would have better eased her -doubts. - -“That is nothing, madame,” she said with contempt; “those people pay -less willingly than anybody.” - -During this colloquy the eyes of Prince Khris watched intently; his -brain was not clear, and his ears seemed stuffed up and filled with -buzzing noises, but he understood that they were talking of him. She -had put back her veil and he had recognized her. Why was the blonde -devil there? Why was not Olga there instead? He had forgotten time, -he had only a confused notion of things; he had recognized the blonde -devil and he was afraid she should get at his papers, but all the rest -was mist and confusion. His memory of his daughter was of her as a -little child--a little child in a white frock, with a pearl necklace -and great brown eyes and a cloud of dark soft hair. When she had been a -little child he had never done her any harm. - -The old dame retired, well pleased to see a lady take her place, and -she, left alone, came up to the bedside forcing herself to conquer -her natural aversion to painful and unlovely scenes: she was vaguely -afraid of that mute, paralyzed figure. She dreaded intensely lest the -doctor should arrive before she should have been able to do what she -desired; but for that reason she deemed it prudent to seem anxious -for his presence. No one bent on a dubious errand would ever endeavor -to hasten a doctor’s arrival. The motionless figure on the bed looked -entirely unlike the man whom she had known as Khris Kar: entirely -unlike except for those steel-blue eyes which were staring at her -without recognition, but with challenge and inquiry, for his brain was -still conscious. That gaze frightened her. After all, what business had -she to be there? She was momentarily unnerved; but she had courage and -audacity, and she controlled her nerves and looked away not to see -those searching eyes in the lean, waxen, distorted face. - -She went to the window and closed the wooden blinds, for the setting -sun was strong though winter was scarce past. Then she took off her -hat and veil, and moved about the small chamber putting it in order as -she had seen nurses do in sick-rooms, and filling a glass with fresh -water from a pitcher which stood on the floor. The place was horrible -to her; its air was close, its scent bad, its floor was not clean, -the chairs were rush-bottomed, the table was deal; but there was one -thing which belonged to a different sphere, one thing which attracted -her and seemed to suggest that her errand might not be fruitless--it -was a despatch-box of Russian leather, with initials and the crown -of a serene highness in gold or silver gilt above its lock. If there -were any papers of consequence in the room, that box, much battered -by frequent travel, contained them. Moreover, when she approached and -dusted it, she saw the eyes of the man on the bed dilate with menace. -She left it at once and cut a lemon into the glass of water and went to -the bedside with the drink. The shaded light fell across the bed. She -saw the eyes of the paralytic stare upward at her. Then into them came -a ray of comprehension--a flash of hate. - -“It _is_ the blonde devil,” thought the still conscious brain, which -had lost all power to communicate its thoughts to the lips and tongue. - -“Dear Prince, do you know me?” said his visitor very softly. “I am so -sorry to find you here, and so ill. I should like to be of some use.” - -The kind, soft words found their way to the dulled, imprisoned brain; -she saw that by the expression of the eyes; for the eyes in answer -said to her: “I am half dead--I am almost wholly dead; but I am not so -utterly dead yet that I can be fooled by you. Blonde devil, what is it -that you come here to seek?” - -She observed that his eyes, leaving her face, turned anxiously in the -direction where the despatch-box was; she saw also that round his -throat was a steel chain with a small gold key. In that box was there -any message for his daughter, or for Vanderlin, or any proof that he -had brought about their separation? It was evident that he was afraid -the box should be touched. This interested her. She was pleased that -her instinct had led her right. She did not dare to act in any way; he -might not be entirely paralyzed as the people said; he might not be so -absolutely sure to die, or to remain speechless until his death; she -knew nothing about his malady, except that he had dropped down suddenly -when punting at Monte Carlo. - -She felt that he suspected her, that he would, if he had use of -his voice, have ordered her out of the room; she read all that -in his regard. Prudence necessitated the continuance of the very -tiresome _rôle_ of ministering angel. She dared do nothing until the -doctor should have confirmed the hopelessness of his state. She was -excruciatingly bored, and somewhat frightened. The horrible spectre on -the bed looked like a ghoul so lean, so colorless, so distorted, so -motionless. She had nothing to do, she felt a palpitating terror lest -he should recover the power of speech; she believed that people struck -down by hemiplegia did so recover it sometimes. She held a spoonful of -lemonade to his shut lips; but he did not open them, he only glared at -her. The spoon was of a common white metal, ugly, yellow, discolored; -she hated to touch it. - -At that moment a heavy step was heard on the stair and a broad, -bearded, rough-looking man entered with his hat on his head; it was the -doctor. - -“_Sapristi!_” he shouted very angrily; “what do you send for again and -again and again. The man is as good as dead. All the science in the -world could not save him. You waste my time. You----” - -Catching sight then of a lady in the room he pulled off his hat and -muttered his excuses: he was very busy, he had many sick people, people -who were curable, the man on the bed could not recover. - -“Oh, pray do not say so!” said Mouse with much apparent feeling. “Do -they not recover sometimes? I think I have heard----” - -“A man of that age cannot recover,” said the doctor impatiently. “He is -practically dead already. He will not live through the night, if you -can call him still living. You are a relation?” - -“No. But I have known him in other years, when he was less--less -fortunate; and I know all his people.” - -“The lady says they are royal,” murmured the woman of the house. - -“Royal!” echoed the doctor with scorn. “If they were the consul would -be after him like a dog after a bone.” - -The consul! Mouse remembered with a shock that such a person might -indeed arrive at any moment. She had not thought of this possibility. - -The doctor had gone up to the bed, turned down the bedclothes, placed -his stethoscope over the heart, and listened. - -“He will die in three or four hours,” he said, as he turned again from -the bed. “The heart is exhausted; it has lost almost all power of -propulsion. Let me hear when all is over. Madame, your servant.” - -He hurried out of the room, clapping his hat on his head and noisily -clattering down the stairs. - -“You may go,” said Mouse to the woman of the house. “I will stay a few -hours here. Meantime try and get a _Sœur de Charité_.” - -“Who will pay for all this expense, madame?” said the woman. “Who will -pay for the burial and all the rest?” - -“You must send to the German consul--he will tell you,” said Mouse. “I -ought to have thought of it before. I cannot stay here much longer, but -I will stay till someone in authority comes. Go; send at once to the -consulate.” - -“You talk very glibly of sending here and there and everywhere,” said -the woman rather rudely. - -Mouse put ten francs into the woman’s hand, wishing to make a friend -of her. “And send for the consul at once that I may speak to him,” she -added, for she always remembered appearances. - -It was growing dark. By her watch it was a quarter to six. All light -had faded off the olive-clad slope in front of the window. She had had -no afternoon tea. She began to want her dinner, and, after all, she -might be boring herself to no purpose, on a mere fool’s errand. - -The woman came in with a petroleum lamp smelling atrociously. - -“Send for a nun,” said Mouse, who only desired to get rid of her. “Send -for another doctor. The Prince cannot lie like this.” - -“Very well, madame,” said the woman. “But errands cost money. People -won’t run messages for nothing.” - -Mouse gave her some more silver and bade her find a messenger. She was -anxious to be rid of her, for in her presence it was impossible to open -the box. She was resolved to open it. It was not a pleasant thing to -do, but she had an intuitive sense that it was worth doing. - -She was glad that neither the woman nor the doctor had asked her -who she was. She summoned all her fortitude to her assistance and -approached the bed. - -She saw that he was, as the doctor said, very nearly lifeless. His -breathing was labored and painful, his heart scarcely beat any longer. -His eyes were closed. They had ceased to stare at her. How could she -sever the little steel chain round his throat? He could not cry out or -raise his hand to oppose her; she leaned over him and took hold of the -key. She shrank in all her nerves from the horror of touching him, but -she put a strong pressure on herself and tried to wrench the key from -the ring on which it hung. He seemed insensible and unaware of what -she was doing. But suddenly, as she succeeded in wrenching open the -ring, breaking her shell-like fingernails in doing so, his eyelids were -lifted and consciousness once more glared at her from his regard. She -felt herself turn white with terror and disgust, but she did not loosen -her hold and she pulled the key off the ring. His eyes cursed her, but -his curse was impotent. - -She hurried to the leather box, fitted the key in its lock, and opened -it. She did not even look back at the bed. She was in haste lest the -consul or someone else should come up the stairs. In the box there -was nothing but papers. There were the diplomas of orders; there were -certificates of marriage and birth; there were some old letters; and -there was a large sealed packet addressed to Vanderlin. There was -nothing else. Whatever it might once have held of value had been -removed previously by himself, and the stars of the orders had been -pawned and lost. - -She took out the packet addressed to Vanderlin, laid the other -documents in order, locked the box and returned to the bedside to put -back the key on the chain. - -Then she saw a change which it was impossible to misread. He was dead. -The cerebral excitement, caused by his recognition of her and of her -endeavor to seize the key, had killed him. He was dead and could never -bear witness against her. She fastened the little key on its ring, drew -the sheet up over his breast, and with a shudder left the bedside. -Then she opened the bodice of her gown and put the packet against her -corset; it was bulky, but when she put on her golfing-cloak it did not -show. - -When the German consul mounting the stairs opened the door of the -chamber he saw a lady in black and grey, who kneeled by the side of -the bed, the lamplight illumining the golden coils of her hair. He was -greatly touched and impressed. She rose from her knees and addressed -him with a sweet, sad gravity. - -“My poor old friend expired but a moment ago,” she said softly. “I am -so glad I came. He would otherwise have died in solitude. Oh, how harsh -and cruel is the world!” - -Then she gave him her name and address, said that she had known the -dead man from her childhood, and had come to nurse him because she had -understood that he was all alone. - -The consul, a simple sturdy man of business, was deeply moved. When he -had executed the few formalities necessary, and affixed his seal to the -despatch-box, he begged this charming and compassionate stranger to -allow him the honor of driving her back to her hotel. - -“Why was not his daughter with him?” she said to the consul. “Oh, I -know why--they have quarrelled; but it is such a sacred tie! Surely----” - -“The Countess Olga has always been most generous to her father, -madame,” replied the gentleman. “But it was of no use. It was pouring -money into sieve. I have telegraphed to her. She will probably come in -person, but she cannot be here before another day at the least.” - -“How fortunate I had the start of her!” thought the ministering angel -of this deathbed, as she watched the consul affix his seals to the old -despatch-box, of which the only contents of any value were lying safe -against the satin and lace of her stays. She would have infinitely -preferred slipping away unseen from that sorry house, and finding -her way as she could, on foot or by cab, back to her hotel unseen by -anyone. But her mind quickly grasped all the points of a question, -and she immediately perceived that her visit to be creditable must be -unconcealed, and when the fascinated official offered to drive her -back to her hotel, she accepted the offer, realizing all the solidity, -veracity, and respectability which his countenance of her conferred. -She left the woman of the house in charge of the dead body, and with -an aureole of virtue round her head descended the stair which she had -ascended on so questionable an errand. - - - - -CHAPTER XLIII. - - -When she reached the hotel, everyone was already gone to the concert -at the Casino; it was Thursday night; she got to her own rooms -unperceived, and told her maid that she had lost her way in the -olive-woods, was terribly tired, and only wished for some hot soup and -a cutlet, she was indeed fatigued and worn out; she had found the good -consul’s cab dreadfully slow and rickety; his great coat had smelt -unpleasantly of very coarse tobacco, and the night was cold and the way -into the town seemed endless. - -She did not venture to look at the packet she had stolen until she was -safely in the warmth of her bed, with a reading lamp beside her, and -an eider-down quilt over her. She did not feel at ease, and she was -haunted by vague terrors. The steel-blue eyes of the dying man haunted -her. Hatred, powerless, but only the more intense for its impotency, -had stared at her with a look which she felt that she would never -forget if she lived for a hundred years. Moreover, she knew that she -had committed a crime, or what people would call a crime if they knew -of it. She knew that it had been an ugly thing to do; the kind of -thing which people who are well-born and well-bred do not do. There is -a class of sins which are well-bred; there is another class which is -caddish. She knew that this act of hers belonged to the latter category. - -Nevertheless, she opened the packet when she was quite safe from -interruption, whilst the mellowed light of her reading lamp shed its -soft radiance on her pillow, and the billets of olive-wood were burning -fragrantly upon the hearth. Her pulses beat unevenly as she opened it, -for it was very possible that she had gone through all this agitation -and danger quite uselessly. There might be nothing in it whatever of -interest or value. - -She undid it with great care so as to leave the seals unbroken. Oddly -enough, there recurred to her at that moment the memory of her little -son looking at her with his sorrowful angry eyes and saying: - -“I don’t know much, but I think--I think--I think you are a wicked, -wicked woman!” - -Was she a wicked woman? - -It was a very unpleasant, vulgar kind of thing to be! She had always -thought that wicked women belonged exclusively to the lower classes. -The idea that she might be wicked was disagreeable to her; it was as -though she had been forced to wear a cheap gown or carry a cotton -umbrella. - -The stare of the dying man had brought the same charge against her. She -did not think the charge was true. She was only a woman, all alone, in -difficult circumstances, who tried to help herself; that was all. The -fault was clearly with those who had placed her in those circumstances; -with Cocky first of all, with Ronald next, and, above all, with that -dreadful brute whose bones lay in the crypt at Vale Royal. - -The documents were all in German, but she knew that language well -and read them easily. There was nothing dubious in them. They were -the confession of Khris of Karstein of the wickedness he had done in -bringing about the separation of his daughter from Adrian Vanderlin, -and the proofs of the false testimony he had caused to be brought -against her. They were indisputably genuine, attested, and positive. -They had been lying in his despatch-box for years; perhaps his remorse -had not been strong enough to impel him to condemn himself, or perhaps -he had reserved them for still greater stress of want when he could use -then to obtain subsidies, or perhaps, seeing nothing of Vanderlin, he -had been in doubt as to how far they would be welcome. She who had now -possessed herself of them did know how precious they would be esteemed. -But would she dare to give them to either Vanderlin or Olga zu Lynar? -What history could she invent, plausible enough, probable enough, to -account naturally for her possession of them? Would she, if she could -think of one--would she have the courage (some people would call it the -effrontery) to carry through such a piece of comedy? - -Her nerve had been shaken by all she had suffered from William -Massarene. She was no longer as sure of her own audacity and dexterity -as she once had been. She would have burnt these papers without the -slightest hesitation if burning them would have done her any good; -but their disposal, unburnt, cost her much torturing indecision, and -she could not forget the glare of old Khris’s dying eyes, so full of -impotent hatred. - -On the other hand, as they were genuine, and bore internal evidence -of their _bonâ fides_, there could not be any doubt thrown on their -accuracy, nor on the unblemished motives of her intervention. No one -could blame her for giving documents to the person to whom they were -addressed. She understood that they were worth many millions to the man -made of millions, as Boo called him. She read them all twice over to be -sure that she had made no mistake in her perusal and estimate of them. -No! She had made none. Their meaning was clear as crystal. There could -not be two constructions of their text and import. - -What should she do with them? She was uncertain. - -Where was Vanderlin? - -In Paris, they said. - -Burn them, and continue her scheme of marriage? - -Tell him, and withhold them until she got what she wanted? - -Either choice had its drawbacks. She was conscious that both were what -people would call discreditable. She endeavored to think of something -which should not be discreditable, yet should be profitable. - -Sitting up against her pillows with a pink plush dressing-jacket -trimmed with swansdown on her shoulders, and her bright hair rolled -closely round her head, she looked a charming, innocent, poetic picture -in the warm and fragrant atmosphere of her chamber. - -Painful emotions were odious to her; tragic events still more so; -she liked her life to be all dressing and dining and flirting, doing -theatres, leading cotillons, hunting with the best horses, laughing and -being amused, the whole sprinkled intrigue and stimulated by exciting -much passion and feeling a little. - -But anything serious she detested, anything painful annoyed her. - -She wished she had let the despatch-box alone. She was alarmed and -discouraged. The papers were all which she had expected to find them, -but she had not courage to use them. She was like a person who steals -jewels and then is afraid to sell them, or pawn them, or wear them, for -fear of inquiry. She cried a little from the wretched tension of her -nerves and over-fatigue. She took a few drops of chloral and put the -documents under her pillow and decided to try and go to sleep. Night -brings counsel. - -In the morning, after her bath and her coffee, things wore a different -aspect. She did not see the old man’s dying stare, nor the boy’s -reproachful sad eyes, any longer. She made up her mind suddenly; she -said to her maid, “Pack up a day gown and an evening gown--I am going -away for two days.” And said to Boo’s governess, “Take care of Lady -Beatrix, and don’t let her get into mischief; and take care nobody lets -her go to the Casino.” - -She wrote a telegram to Wuffie at Cannes: “So thankful I came. I could -soothe his dying hours, and persuaded him to a tardy repentance. I go -to Paris on his errand. The consul is charged with his burial. Will -explain on return.” - -The consul’s name looked well, she thought, in this message. - -The young cuirassier did not recognize his correspondent in this -mood; but he was simple and sentimental by temperament, and he was in -love. He put the note in his pocket with a photograph of her which -he had carried for three months next his heart, and went to the -golfing-ground. He could not resist speaking of her there to a cousin, -a very big cousin, no less a person than the gentleman with the glassy -eyes whom Katherine Massarene once had snubbed. - -“Is it not good of her?” he said enthusiastically to this very big -cousin. - -“Extremely good,” replied that gentleman. “So very good, indeed, that -I have difficulty in picturing the duchess in such a _rôle_. But women -are protean.” - -Wuffie pondered on the reply and failed to understand it. - -She, meanwhile, of whom the great personage spoke so irreverently, -was rushing swiftly across Central France, her strength sustained by -a well-filled tea-basket of the latest invention, and most extensive -resources. With her traveled the dead man’s papers. She was alone -nearly all the way; at that season everyone was coming southward, few -were going northward, except some English members leaving Monte Carlo -play and pigeon-shooting for the opening of Parliament, rueful and -gloomy at their lot. - -Her mind was filled with unformed plans and conflicting projects. She -formed a fresh one every minute. She could not decide what would be the -surest wisdom, and she felt so afraid of her own indecision that Paris -was reached all too soon for her. - -She went to her favorite hotel and had a night’s rest. There was snow -in Paris and on the surrounding country. The temperature seemed very -low after that of the Alpes Maritimes, and her spirits sank with the -mercury. But in the morning she had herself dressed becomingly with -sable furs which enhanced the beauty and delicacy of her complexion and -the golden gleam of her hair, and went out of the Cour d’honneur of the -great caravanserai on foot. It was not very far from the end of the Rue -de Rivoli in which there was situated the vast and imposing building -called the Maison Vanderlin, where ministers were suppliants and kings -were debtors. Her heart quaked within her as she ascended its broad -white steps. - -Even yet she had not decided what it would be best to say; but inside -her muff were the documents which she had taken from the despatch-box. - -“Is M. Vanderlin in Paris?” she asked the stately functionary who -waited beside the inner glass doors. - -“Yes, madame,” he answered. - -“Is he in the bank this morning?” - -“Yes, madame.” - -She passed within. She gave her card. - -“I require to see him alone,” she said to the officials who received -her. - -“It will be impossible,” they answered her. “M. Vanderlin sees no one -except by appointment.” - -“Try,” she urged on them. “Take my card. Say that I come on an urgent -matter.” - -“It is impossible, madame,” they reiterated. “He never receives anyone -without previous arrangement, often weeks in advance. At this moment -the Minister of Foreign Affairs is with him.” - -“Gaulois? Oh, I know him well! Show me to a private room, and when M. -Gaulois comes out, bring him to me.” - -The officials were moved by the beauty and grace of the suppliant, -and consented to let her wait in a small apartment warmed as all the -building was by hot air, and looking on an inner court where a fountain -played. - -The time that she waited was not more than twenty minutes, but it -seemed to her to be hours. At last the minister was ushered into her -presence; an agreeable, sagacious, unscrupulous man of the south of -France, who had begun life as an advocate in the town of Dax. - -He was her humble servant; he was at her feet; he would move heaven and -earth to do her bidding; but if it were a question of seeing Vanderlin, -that was impossible; he regretted it profoundly, but it was impossible; -two ambassadors, a nuncio, an Orleans prince, and an English banker -were all waiting their turn of audience. - -“One would think that he was a king!” she said irritably, while tears -of rage and disappointment started to her eyes. - -“Alas! madame, he exercises the only sovereignty truly potent in modern -life--that of wealth,” said the minister. “He is greatly occupied, and -the rules which regulate his interviews are rigorously observed. May I -ask if you know him?” - -“I know him, yes.” She added, after a moment’s hesitation, “I require -to see him. Prince Khristof of Karstein-Lowenthal is dead.” - -Gaulois was astonished. - -“That was the father of the lady he divorced? His death can have -nothing to do with Vanderlin?” - -“Yes, it has; I require to see him.” - -Gaulois was perplexed. At last he reluctantly consented to return to -Vanderlin’s room, and inform him of her presence and her desire. She -was again left alone; the rippling of the fountain the only sound on -the silence. She had burnt her boats; she could not turn back now. The -time again appeared to her interminable, though it was not more than -eight minutes before the minister returned. - -“Dearest lady, I have done my uttermost, but it is impossible that he -can receive you here. If you will leave word where you are staying, he -will have the honor of waiting on you at four o’clock. Alas! men of -business are insensible and _farouches_! Allow me, duchess, to profit -by Vanderlin’s austerity, and enjoy the felicity of driving you home.” - -There was nothing else to be done. She was forced to let the loquacious -and amiable Gaulois conduct her to his _coupé_, and was obliged to -laugh and talk with him, and consent to be carried by him to breakfast -with his wife at his official residence on the Quay d’Orsay. Since -William Massarene had passed out of her life, she had never found it -so hard to counterfeit the gaiety and interest which are necessary in -social intercourse. - -“Did you tell M. Vanderlin of Prince Khristof’s death?” she asked of -Gaulois as he accompanied her downstairs after breakfast. - -“_Ah, mon Dieu, non!_” exclaimed the minister. “Who speaks to any man -of a divorced wife’s family?” - -“I was wondering if he had any feeling at all for the poor old man,” -she said with much pathos. - -“I should think none; very pardonably,” replied the minister. “The poor -old man drew an allowance of a thousand francs a month from Vanderlin -and it all went in play.” - -“But the poor prince had some conscience?” - -“Had he indeed? He concealed it very carefully throughout a long life.” - -“_Ma belle_ Sourisette!” he thought, “what secret have you got hold of -that you are going to try to sell to Vanderlin?” - -He had been a lawyer, he was now a statesman; despite his loquacity -he was very discreet; he told no one that he had met her at the great -banking-house in the Rue de Rivoli. - -By the time breakfast was over it was nearly three o’clock, and -when she returned to her hotel she gave an hour to her toilette. She -was conscious that she looked what Parisians call _défaite_. She was -nervous and undecided, and she dreaded the visit of Vanderlin whilst -she desired it. It was only a little after three when she went into her -_salon_ which looked on the Rue Rouget de Lisle; and sat down to wait -for him vainly trying to read the morning journals. - -She always dressed in accordance with the character she assumed, -and she wore a rather sombre loose gown of grey velvet trimmed with -chincilla and old Mechlin lace, a kind of gown that Vittoria Colonna or -Blanche of Castille might have worn. Her own personality only revealed -itself in the diamond arrow run through the coils of her hair and the -little bouquet of heliotrope at her throat. She was melancholy but she -was preëminently seductive. - -Punctually as the timepiece struck four Vanderlin was announced. He -entered and saluted her with his usual grave and distant courtesy. - -“You desired to see me, madame? I am at your commands, of course. I -hope Mr. Gaulois explained that it was impossible for me to receive you -this morning.” - -No one could have been more courteous, but she felt that he was on his -guard against her and that he saw her desire to see him singular; the -perception of that did not decrease the embarrassment she felt. She was -Venus, but he would never be Tannhäuser. - -After all, she did not want him to be Tannhäuser: she only wanted some -small share of his million, some little mouse-like nibbling at his -golden store. - -“You must have been much surprised at my request,” she said as she -motioned to him to be seated. “But I have a communication to make to -you. I was present at the death of Prince Khristof of Karstein.” - -The expression of Vanderlin’s features grew very cold. - -“The fact of that death was telegraphed to me,” he replied. “It cannot -concern me in any way.” - -“Are you sure of that?” - -“Perfectly sure. Nor can I conceive why you, a total stranger, were -with him.” - -“I was not a stranger to him. I have known him many years; and I am -about to marry his grandnephew. He was altogether abandoned; he had not -even a servant or a nurse; I did what I could.” - -Vanderlin was silent; he, like the royal person on the golfing-ground, -had difficulty in imagining her in these circumstances. He wondered -what she was aiming at--what she desired. - -“I did what I could,” she repeated; “he suffered greatly; he was -completely paralyzed; but for a few moments he recovered his speech a -little, and he made me understand--various things.” - -She paused, hoping to excite his curiosity, wishing to induce him to -interrogate her. But he remained mute; he was used to listening in -silence whilst people revealed to him their necessities, described -their projects, or endeavored to awaken his sympathies. - -She was discouraged and embarrassed. Changing her manner she said with -her natural abruptness. - -“You were much attached to your wife, were you not?” - -She had the pleasure of seeing his composure rudely disturbed; an -expression of extreme pain, a flush of extreme offence, came on his -face: an unhealed wound had been roughly touched. - -“On that subject,” he said briefly, “I allow no one to speak to me. I -told you so at Les Mouettes.” - -“But I am going to speak to you!” said Mouse with her more natural -manner, “whether you allow it or whether you don’t. As I tell you, -I will be quite frank with you,” she continued with a graceful -embarrassment which became her infinitely. “I had wished to know -you, to attract you if I could. Say it was vanity, necessity, love -of money--what you will; I admit that I had that idea when I was so -hospitably received by you.” - -A gesture of impatience escaped him; she was telling him nothing that -he did not know. - -“But,” she pursued, “when I had that brief conversation with you after -luncheon at your house, I understood that your heart was closed to -all except one memory. With the prior knowledge I possessed of your -wife’s father, and the recollection of certain hints he had given me, -I conceived the idea that he could if he chose establish her innocence. -I determined to try and persuade him to do so if he possessed the power -as I thought. I went for that purpose to Monte Carlo; and on reaching -there I learned that he had been struck down by hemiplegia at the -tables.” - -He was now listening to her with great intentness, his eyes dwelling -on her with a searching interrogation which did not make her part the -easier to play. They were eyes trained to read the minds and penetrate -the falsehoods of others. - -“I found the poor old Prince all alone in a miserable room with a bear -of a doctor, and not a nun even present to see to his wants. I am not -a very susceptible person, but it hurt me to think of what he was, -and all he might have been. I did what little I could for him, and he -recognized me, and was pleased; one could see that by his eyes. I sent -all over the place for nurses, for physicians, for the German consul, -for the Lutheran pastor, but no one came until the end--too late. He -had lodgings in an out-of-the-way country road; I suppose he could not -afford any better--everything went at the tables. Well, he recovered -his faculties a little, and he made me understand that he was repentant -and wretched because he had wronged his daughter and separated her from -you. He was almost inarticulate but I managed to make out his meaning; -I know German very well. I gathered that your wife was innocent; that -she was the victim of suborned witnesses, and that her father had been -the chief fabricator of the testimony which ruined her.” - -Vanderlin with difficulty controlled his emotion. He was used to -conceal his thoughts, but for once his reserve broke down, and he was -unable to conceal his anxiety. - -“Go on! Go on!” he said in a breathless vein. “Are there any proofs of -what you say?” - -“Hear me out,” she said with some impatience. “What Khris said was -mumbled, incoherent, rambling, his tongue moved with difficulty. But I -understood so much as this. That the lady they call the Countess Olga -zu Lynar, and whom as you gave me to understand you have never ceased -to regret, is absolutely innocent of any offence against you. Your -jealousy was wickedly aroused and your credulity abused.” - -“These are words!” cried Vanderlin. “I want proof! What proof did he -give you? He was always a knave and a comedian.” - -“Poor old Khris!” said Mouse softy and sadly. “He was sincere on his -deathbed, at any rate, for he confessed to sins which no one would -wittingly assume.” Then she added with a certain embarrassed but -graceful _câlinerie_, “I have proof, proof positive; his attestation -and those of his bribed witnesses. But what will you give me for them? -I am a very poor woman, M. Vanderlin, and you are a very rich man!” - -Vanderlin rose impetuously; he looked twenty years younger; the mask -of impassive coldness which he had worn so long dropped; his natural -expression was revealed, his eyes shone with the light of hope and -expectation. - -“I will give you anything you wish!” he answered. “Anything! Of what -use is wealth without happiness?” - -She changed her tactics, for she knew that to make any demand was -dangerous and unseemly; and she realized that this man’s gratitude -would be boundless and his generosity as great. - -“It was only my jest,” she said with a smile. “I am not a -_cabrioleuse_. Here are the documents. I am, of course, not a very good -judge of such things, but they seem to me quite indisputable.” - -Then risking everything on one chance she gave him the packet. - -He turned away from her and went to one of the windows and stood so -that she could not see his countenance, whilst he examined the papers -with the swift but unerring perusal of a man accustomed every day of -his life to examine and adjudicate upon important documents. - -It seemed to her years that he stood thus, the curtain falling so that -she could not see his face. Her anxiety was terrible. If the papers -should not satisfy him? If he did not desire reunion with his wife? If -her own acts should appear to him, as they well might do, effrontery, -interference, attempt at extortion? Above all, if he should not believe -the description she had given him of the last moments of Khristof of -Karstein? She was safe from all risk of contradiction. The doctor -could not declare that the dying man had not recovered speech during -his absence. The consul had only arrived when he was already dead. The -woman of the house could testify to the presence of the foreign lady -in the chamber from early afternoon to late evening. Her narrative was -absolutely safe from any discovery of its falsity. But still, she felt -afraid of Vanderlin. Since she had seen the interior of that great -establishment of the Rue de Rivoli, and had heard of all those great -personages waiting in his antechamber, he seemed a much more imposing -individuality to her than had seemed the sad and solitary master of -Les Mouettes. But her conscience was clear. If she had cheated him in -the manner, she had not cheated him in the matter, of her revelations. -The papers were genuine. That was her great point. The one solid and -indisputable truth which underlay like a rock of safety her whole -impudent fabric of lies. - -After what seemed to her a century of silence and suspense he left the -embrasure of the window and turned toward her. His face was still pale -and grave, but there was the light of a great happiness upon it, of an -immense relief; the frozen snows of an endless sorrow had melted in a -moment, the sun shone on his path once more. - -“Madame, I thank you,” he said in a low voice which had a tremor in it. -“For eight years I have not lived. You have given me back to life.” - -She had the supreme tact, the supreme self-control, to dismiss him as -though she had had no other purpose in her action than to do simply -what was natural and kind in obedience to a dead sinner’s trust. - -“I am very glad,” she said simply, with that perfect intuition which -had so often served her purpose so well: “and now go. I am sure you -must wish to be alone. I am very, very glad to have been of use to you -and glad that the poor old man did make some true atonement at the -last.” - -Profoundly touched, Vanderlin kissed her hands. - -“I will return to-morrow at this hour; you must tell me your -embarrassments and employ my resources as you will. Command my -friendship as long as my life lasts.” He hesitated a moment, then added -with an infinite tenderness of tone: “I am sure you will also command -that of Olga.” - -Left alone, as the door closed on him, she buried her face on the sofa -cushions and cried and laughed hysterically, for the strain on her -nerves had been very great. Then she threw her tear-wet handkerchief -into the air and played ball with it. What fools men were! Oh, -what fools! Taking their passions and affections so seriously and -tragically, and letting a love and its loss spoil all the gains of the -world to them. Then pride in her own genius and success danced like a -band of elves before her eyes. Sarah Bernhardt herself could not have -played that part with more exquisite art. - -She touched the electric bell, bade them telephone for a _coupé_ and a -box at the Gymnase, and then had herself put in visiting trim, and when -the _coupé_ pulled up by the peristyle went out to see some friends of -the Faubourg St. Germain whose day for afternoon reception it happened -to be. - -In the circles of the old aristocracy she was sure not to meet the -republican minister, Gaulois. She did not wish to see him. She felt as -if he would read in her eyes that she had triumphed in her interview -with Vanderlin. She was a little ashamed of what she had done; not -much, for success and shame are not sisters, but a little. - - - - -CHAPTER XLIV. - - -Two days later Olga zu Lynar was seated by her fireside in the home -of her choice in the Swabian Alb, where the March day had none of the -sunlight and fragrance of Monte Carlo. Snow was still deep in the -passes of the hills, and blocks of ice were breaking up on all the -rivers. The great oak and pine-woods were black against heavy storm -clouds, and enclosed the landscape on all sides save one, where they -were cleft abruptly by a narrow gorge, which alone gave access to the -world beyond. - -The news of her father’s end at Monte Carlo had intensified the -melancholy of her thoughts. She had always hoped whilst he lived that -some revelation, some atonement, might come from him. - -He was dead; and death carries with it its own depression, its own -hopelessness. Death in her father’s case seemed to her intensified in -horror, because it was the end of a base, valueless, miserable life. It -filled her with the same sort of despair which Hurstmanceaux had felt -on hearing that Cocky was dying at Staghurst. - -Nothing could be undone; nothing could be atoned for; nothing could be -explained: he was dead in a gambling place; and had left no message for -her. The German consul had telegraphed to her that there had been no -papers found anywhere except the official declarations of his birth and -rank. - -She had never expected anything, and yet now that he was dead, in -unforgiving and unconfessing silence, she felt as if some added -hopelessness settled down on her. She was still young in years, she -had the kind of beauty which never wholly passes away, she had wealth, -and she could have found many who would have willingly aided her to -forget and make her life anew. But she had no wish to do so. She was -proud, and she would not have returned to the world on sufferance, to -be pointed out and whispered about. She preferred the sombre, mediæval -loneliness of her Swabian solitude, where the household honored and the -peasantry loved her. To them she was the Countess Olga zu Lynar, whom -they had served and cherished and admired ever since she had been a -young child riding through the forests and climbing up the braes. For -them she was the daughter of their dear and revered lady; of Prince -Khris they had known little. Their affection and respect were feudal; -and if any stranger had said an injurious word of her in the woods -round Schloss Lynar, he would have found a deep and a sure grave in the -rushing waters of their mountain streams. - -Here, if she did not find peace, she found what most resemble it: -security, repose, and uninterrupted thought. - -The death of her father rudely disturbed that calmness, because it -awakened the passion and sorrows of the past as a single rifleshot -would wake all the sleeping echoes of the hills and woods. - -She sat beside the hearth, a boarhound stretched out in the warmth at -her feet; the dull grey day seeming evening as its light came through -the panes of the deep mullioned windows. Where she sat was the old -Rittersaäl of the castle, with the armor, the shields, and the banners -of a hundred forgotten battles ranged down the oaken walls. She had -touched nothing. She had left it all as her grandfather had found and -left it. It was gloomy, but she liked the gloom. It hurt her less than -light and movement and modern luxuries, which were in such cruelly -ironical mockery of her own sorrow. - -As she sat thus, her long cloth fur-bordered skirts falling about her -feet, and the fire light shining on her face, the dog sprang up with -a loud rolling bark and rushed from the hall. She heard wheels on the -rarely used and lonely drive, which passed round under the trees to the -chief entrance on the other side of the house. - -Who could it be? No one ever came there except some man of business. -No doubt it was some consul, or some lawyer, come to speak of Prince -Khristof’s funeral, and be paid for it. - -But she heard a voice say in the outer hall beyond in speaking to the -dog: - -“What Oscar, good Oscar, have you not forgotten?” - -The sound of the voice made her heart stand still. - -It was eight long years since she had heard it. Was she sane? Was she -in her senses? Did she only dream, awake, as she had so often dreamed -in sleep all vainly? - -She stood in the centre of the great dark hall and saw, as through a -mist, a person enter. She saw him put back the servants with a gesture, -she saw him turn and close the door and remain motionless, the dog -leaping upon him; but she saw it all as in a cloud, as though many, -many miles away, and she felt that it was only a vision which would -fade and pass, like so many other visions of her lonely nights. - -He who had entered hesitated still some moments; then he drew nearer. - -“Olga,” he said timidly: “Olga, can you forgive?” - -She fell forward insensible into his outstretched arms. - -She had dreamed vainly of reunion for so long; and at last the dream -had come true. - - - - -CHAPTER XLV. - - -“I’ll marry you, Wuffie,” said Mouse, three days later as she walked -along a secluded alley of the Casino gardens, whilst the sun sparkled -on marble balustrades and glossy orange leaves. “No; pray spare me -those ecstasies, and for goodness sake don’t use German endearments; it -sets my nerves on edge. Listen; there is a condition; perhaps you’ll -set your back up at it, and if you do I shall marry somebody else. _Il -n’y a que l’embarras du choix._” - -She only cared for Woffram’s consent because he was the only one -amongst her adorers who could be brought with decent reason to accept -Vanderlin’s money; the only one also who combined the poverty which -could be bought with the high rank which would conceal the sale. - -Besides, he was, as she said, a very pretty boy, with a Cupidon’s -face and a grenadier’s frame, and she thought that he would make _bon -ménage_, _i.e._, do exactly as he was told to do. - -She knew society too well not to know that an English duchess is a -really much greater person than a German Serenissime, but she was tired -of being Duchess of Otterbourne on twopence-halfpenny a year, and being -under tutelage and coercion; and there were one or two royal princesses -whom she especially detested to whom it would be amusing to be cousin -by marriage, she could scratch them so deftly with the softest of -velvet paws. - -On the whole, she thought it was the best thing to do, so she spoke -coldly and rudely to the young prince as he walked beside her. It was -the way she managed her men, and it had always succeeded--except once. - -“Every wish of yours is law,” said Prince Woffram, radiant and -submissive, for he was extremely in love and had never seen any way -of inducing his syren to accept his sword and his title, which were -all he possessed in the world. She had always told him that he was a -nice-looking boy and wore a pretty uniform, and might follow her about -and carry her wraps, but was good for nothing more serious. - -“Let us walk a little quicker, and don’t keep kissing my hand. It is -ridiculous,” she said, with some acerbity, for when you are going to -marry a man it is always best not to be too civil to him. “Now listen -here. Your greatuncle Khris is dead. I was with him when he died. I -persuaded him to do an act of very tardy justice to his daughter. I -knew the whole story long ago, and that was why I went to see him. I -wanted to try and persuade him to undo the harm he had done.” - -The young man was silent. He was surprised and could not grasp her -meaning, for he knew that it must be something other than what her mere -words expressed. - -“You never knew Olga, did you?” he said, rather stupidly. - -“No,” said Mouse, keeping both hands in her muff. “I never knew her, -but I have always pitied her profoundly, and I knew her wicked old -father could set things right if he chose, for once he almost confessed -as much to me. But all this does not matter to you. It is an old story, -and they are now going to live happy ever afterwards like people in a -fairy-tale. That is their idea of felicity; it wouldn’t be mine. If you -would believe it, that man has never cared about anybody else. It seems -impossible, but it is so. I suppose men of business are not like other -people.” - -“I don’t understand,” said the young prince humbly, and in great -perplexity. “Who are going to live happily for ever? Who are you -speaking of? Please tell me more.” - -“Nobody wants you to understand--you are to listen,” said Mouse, with -her brilliant eyes flashing on him above her sable collar. “I tell you -I was with your greatuncle when he died, and he gave me his confession -to take to Adrian Vanderlin, and the proof of the false witness which -he had bribed people to bear against his daughter, because he was so -angry that she did so little to get her husband’s money for him (when -you think of it, that was natural enough, for one don’t give one’s -daughter into the _bourgeoise_ without expecting to be paid for it). -He played Iago’s part, you know, and Vanderlin was jealous, and your -cousin Olga was too proud to clear herself, and so they were made -very miserable and separated. Well, this is what he did and what he -confessed, and if I had not been there he would have had the papers -burned, for he was a bad, vindictive old man to the last.” - -This she said with great sincerity and emphasis, for she saw in memory -the glare of those steel-blue eyes in the yellow, drawn face. - -“But why should you have been the intermediary?” asked the young man, -bewildered. “Why did not poor old Khris send to my uncle Ernst (his -nephew, you know), who has always remained a devoted friend of Olga’s?” - -“I don’t know _why_ he didn’t. I know he did not,” she replied -irritably, for she was not disposed to submit to cross-examination, and -she had by this time come to believe in her narrative as actual fact. -“I was there; and he was mortally ill. I doubt if anyone else would -have had patience to unravel his confused confessions.” - -“Well?” said the young prince anxiously. - -“Well, I have done Vanderlin an enormous service,” she continued. -“That is to say, with his peculiar ideas of fidelity, he thinks it -enormous. It is the ‘one man one vote’ theory, don’t you know. ‘One -life, one love’--that sort of thing. One has read of it. Great bosh, -but still--no, pray don’t go on like that or you will bore me to -extinction. Listen. You and I can’t marry as we are. We are as poor as -church mice. My people won’t and your people can’t do anything for us. -But Vanderlin will.” - -“Vanderlin!” exclaimed Wuffie. He was dismayed and horrified; he was a -young man of easy principles, but there are some scruples which women -dance over like a stool at a cotillon, and which men jib at violently -as their hunters do at brick walls. - -“If your pater ordered you to marry a royal schoolgirl, you’d take her -dower fast enough,” she continued; “and yet what disgraceful sources it -would come from--opium-taxes, and gin-palace-taxes, and dog-taxes, and -poor men’s sixpences and shillings, and nailmakers’ and glassworkers’ -pennies, and real coinage, as one may say, out of vice and misery and -want.” - -“You can’t be a republican--a socialist?” cried Prince Woffram in -horror. - -“I don’t know whether I am or not. I dare say I may be. Anybody would -be to see a little German princeling, with twopence-halfpenny a year, -and whose granduncle has just died without money to pay his doctor’s -bill, giving himself airs as if he were somebody.” - -“How dreadfully unkind you are,” murmured the young man. - -“If you don’t like home-truths, you can go and amuse yourself anywhere -you like,” she replied, in a severe tone, her hands folded inside her -muff, and her coldest and most resolute expression on her face. - -His heart sank into his boots. He walked on beside her, crestfallen and -conquered. - -“I was quite frank with Cocky beforehand, and I am quite frank with -you. It is much the best way. There are no disappointments and no -recriminations.” - -Prince Woffram did not reply. He did not care to fill the _rôle_ which -had suited Cocky so admirably, and he was, moreover, blindly in love -with her. Men in love do not like to be mere lay-figures. But he was -weak by disposition, and both his poverty and passion made him weaker -still. - -“Vanderlin will do whatever we wish,” said Mouse sharply, with an -accent of inflexible authority. “He is made of millions, as Boo says, -and he is immensely grateful to me. He wants to give me half his -fortune, but of course he can’t give it to me, so I told him that I was -going to marry you, and that he might give it you; quite secretly, you -understand, and you will always consider that it is mine. That must be -very distinctly understood.” - -The young man was silent; he was, indeed, overwhelmed with astonishment -and confusion. It seemed odd to hear that another man had been told of -her intention to marry him before he himself had been informed of his -future happiness; moreover, there was something about the projected -arrangement which struck jarringly on his not very sensitive conscience -and appalled him, and his proposed benefactor had divorced a woman of -his race! - -He stammered some German phrases, embarrassed and apprehensive of her -displeasure, for he was afraid of her, keenly and childishly afraid. - -“Don’t use that ridiculous language!” said Mouse, with a boundless -scorn for the mother tongue of Goethe and of Kant. “Have you understood -all I have been saying? If you accept what Vanderlin will do for -us--and he will do a great deal--I will marry you. If you won’t, I -shall never see you any more. Pray make no mistake about that.” - -“But if you love me----” - -“I never said I loved you. I don’t love people. I like you in a -way, and I will marry you on certain conditions, but I will not -marry you, my good Wuffie, to live on an empty title and the pay of -a German lieutenant of cuirassiers. Not if I know it! I won’t even -enter Germany, except for the month at Homburg when everybody’s -there. Thanks--I have seen your father’s court, once in the duchy of -Karstein-Lowenthal, and very often in the duchy of Gerolstein!” - -She laughed cruelly, not relaxing her quick elastic step over the -smooth gravel between the palms and the orange-trees. She intended -to marry him, and she had no doubt whatever about the result of the -conversation. Men were like horses. Ride them with a firm hand and you -could put them at any timber you chose. - -Prince Woffram’s face flushed painfully; the jeer at his father’s court -hurt him. As far as he could feel offence with her he felt it then, as -her clear unkind laughter rippled on the wintry air. - -“You are very rough on me,” he said, humbly, in English. “I am poor--we -are poor--I know that; but honorable poverty----” - -Mouse turned her face to him, withering scorn flashing from her -sapphire eyes upon him. - -“Honorable poverty has just died in the person of Prince Khristof of -Karstein-Lowenthal, and he had not a penny to pay his laundress, and -his lodging, and his doctor, and his grave! Adrian Vanderlin paid for -all of them.” - -She said it cruelly, triumphantly, with her silvery laugh sounding -shriller than usual. - -The young man grew redder still with anger and shame commingled. His -eyes were downcast. He had no reply ready as he walked beside her down -the lonely alley. - -She saw that she had wounded and offended him. - -“Come, Wuffie, be reasonable,” she said, in another tone. “You know -well enough that I shall no more marry you to remain penniless than I -shall marry one of the croupiers in the Casino. If you were going to -ally yourself with a royal princess, you would see nothing degrading in -living on her allowance allotted to her by what is called the State, -that is, taken out of the taxes paid by the public on their sugar, and -tea, and cheese, and clothing, and yet, when you come to analyze it, -that is not very creditable. It is much more creditable to take what an -immensely rich financier never will miss, and offers, _de bon cœur_, -to acquit himself of a debt of gratitude; and since you are so fond of -your family, he is your cousin by marriage--at least he was and he will -be again, for he means to re-marry his lost angel. My dear Wuffie, pray -don’t mind my saying so, but German princes are living on their wives’ -dowers all over the world by the hundred. It is their _métier_.” - -He still did not answer. He looked on the ground as he walked. There -was sufficient truth in what she said for his national and family pride -to wince under it. He knew that if he looked at her he should consent -to this abominable, indefensible, unworthy act to which she tempted -him. He kept his eyes on the ground; the color burnt hotly in his -cheeks. She was silent too a few moments. Then she stopped short in her -walk, forcing him to stop also, and faced him, her hands in her muff -and her face very resolute and insolent, with a contemptuous smile on -her lips. - -“My dear Wuffie,” she said with sovereign contempt, “you can’t suppose -that I was going to marry you for yourself, do you?” - -The young man colored, much mortified. He had supposed so. - -“You are a very pretty boy, but one doesn’t marry for good looks,” she -said in the same tone. “One marries for bread and butter. Neither you -nor I have got it; but together we can get it.” - -“But--but----” stammered Prince Woffram; he knew that he was being -tempted to what was disgraceful; to what, judged by any court of honor, -would brand him as unworthy to wear his sword. - -“Can you really think, my dear boy,” she said with a cruel, slighting -little laugh, “that I shall marry you for the mere sake of going, as -the wife of the sixth son of a six-hundredth-time-removed cousin of -the emperor, in the _défiler-cour_ at Berlin? I can assure you that -such a prospect would not attract me for a moment. I have no desire to -figure in the Salle once in ten years, and make jam and knit stockings -like a true German fürstin all the rest of my life. ‘_Kuche, kirche, -kinder_,’ was not said by your Imperial relative of me. If you accept -my conditions I will become your wife, but if you do not there are many -others who will. I like you very much, Wuffie, but I can live extremely -well without you, my dear boy.” - -He strove to keep his eyes away from her face. He looked at the trees, -at the clouds, at the sea, then at the ground again. He knew that he -was being led to his own undoing, to his disgrace in his own eyes, to -the abandonment of self-respect and independence and manhood; he knew -that he would become Vanderlin’s pensioner and her slave, that he would -fall in his own sight to a lower place than was held by one of the -croupiers raking in gold at the tables yonder. He tried to keep his -eyes from her face. He had had a pious mother; he prayed for strength. - -“Look at me, Wuffie!” she said imperiously. - -The delicate scent of the perfumed muff was wafted to his nostrils like -a puff of incense from the altars of the Venusberg. He lifted his eyes -and saw hers, with their challenge, their mockery, their malice, their -command. He was lost. - -A few minutes later Boo, who had been playing near, ran down the alley -at a headlong pace toward them, and lifted her rosebud mouth to be -kissed. - -“You are going to be my new pappy, Wuffie!” she said, in her sweetest -and most innocent manner. “I’ve had two; but they’re both dead, and I -shall like you the best of the three, because you’re so pretty, Wuffie.” - -And she sprang up into his arms, and laughed and beat him about the -eyes with a bunch of violets, and so dazzled and blinded him that he -had no time to ask himself--who had been the _two_ of whom she spoke? - -Jack had a letter a month later which astonished and annoyed him. He -read it sitting in a favorite nook in one of the embrasures of the hall -windows at Faldon, with dogs between his knees, at his feet, under -his arms, and behind his back; young frolicsome foolish dogs, big and -little, who were the object of Ossian’s deepest scorn. - -The letter was from Boo, and dated from a fashionable hotel in the Rue -Castiglione. - - “_Mammy says you are to come over_,” the note began abruptly. “_She’s - writing to your gardjens. She is going to marry Wuffie. Wuffie is - nicer than anybody as was before. He has such a beautiful white coat, - and is all chaines, and orders, and swords that clatter, that is when - he puts ’em on; when they’re off he don’t look more nor any other - man; but she means to make him give up soldiering. She says you are - to come over. You won’t carry her traine ’cos people as are widders - don’t have traines when they marry, and besides you’re too old. But - that don’t matter. I shall have a beautiful frock and Wuffie has - gived me a tuckoiss belt. Don’t fret about your dress. They’ll dress - you here. It’s on the third. Mammy sends you one hundred thousand - kisses; me too. Au revoir. Auf weidersehn._” - -For Boo, a true daughter of her time, could write correctly all -languages except her own. - -This letter was painful to its recipient. He sat looking gloomily -out at the glades of the park where wild winds from St. George’s -Channel were swaying the great trees and driving the Faldon river into -scurrying clouds of brown foam. - -“I’ll take it to him,” he thought. He had learned to know that his -uncle Ronnie was a rock of refuge. He got up as well as he could -for being embraced by all his dogs at once, and knocked down by a -Newfoundland twice in excess of adoration. - -He found Hurstmanceaux at the other end of the house engaged in reading -his own correspondence of the morning. - -“If you please is this true?” - -“Is what true?” - -“That my mother is to marry.” - -He held out his sister’s letter. - -“I don’t know if it means that. If it don’t mean that I can’t tell what -it means,” he added despondently. - -“Your mother marries, yes,” said Hurstmanceaux, taking the note, “and -this letter says you are to go to Paris. Do you wish to go?” - -Jack’s fair face grew almost stern. - -“I will never go to her,” he said with more decision than could have -been expected from his years. - -“Make no rash vows, my boy,” said Ronald. “But as regards your -appearance at this marriage it is not necessary; I think you are right -not to go.” - -“I would not go if they dragged me with ropes through the sea from -Dublin Bay to Calais,” said Jack; “and up the Seine,” he added with a -geographical afterthought. - -“She killed him, and she has forgotten him,” thought her son as he went -out with his dogs into the bare March avenues of the park. Jack did not -forget. - -So it came to pass that at the brilliant wedding celebrated at the -English and German embassies, and attended by many great persons of -royal and noble families, there was not present either the eldest -brother or the eldest son of the lady who became H.S.H. Princess -Woffram of Karstein-Lowenthal. - - - - -CHAPTER XLVI. - - -In the following autumn Margaret Massarene caught cold. It was a -slight ailment at first, and if she had been the woman she had been -in North Dakota she would have soon thrown off the chill. But she had -experienced in her own person the perils with which she had once said -her William was menaced--her love of the good things of the table had -affected her liver and her digestive organs. She had never stinted -herself, as she had expressed it; indeed, she had overeaten herself -continually ever since that first wondrous day when her man had said to -her: “The pile’s made, old woman; we’ll go home and spend it.” - -All the guinea-fowls, and pheasants, and oysters, and turtle, and -anchovies, and capons, and grouse, and prawns, and whitebait which -had been immolated on the altar of her appetite, had their posthumous -vengeance. Richemont, who had loathed her, had helped with his -exquisite inventions to hasten her undoing. She was naturally very -strong and of good constitution, but the incessant eating which -prevails in England, and which kills nine-tenths of its gentle people, -had been too much for her. Annual visits to German baths, to Carlsbad, -and to Vichy had warded off the evil, but could not wholly avert it. -When she got cold, the over-tasked liver and the failing gastric -juices struck work; the lungs were already feeble; and before a month -was over, after she had felt a chill as she came from church, she was -declared by her attendant physicians to be beyond their aid. - -She had always been a meek and patient woman, accepting whatever came -to her, the bitter with the sweet, and she did not rebel now, though -the loss of life was hard to her. - -“Just when I was in the straw-yard, as it were. Comfortable, like an -old horse as is past work and has had a good owner, not as many on ’em -has,” she murmured. It seemed an unkind disposition of Providence. -“But there! we don’t know what’s best for us!” she said, with that -submissive obedience to the frown of fate which she had shown so long -to the scowl of William Massarene. Her daughter was more sad than she. - -“If I had only really loved her once for five minutes!” she thought. -But she had not. She had never felt a single thrill of those affections -of which the world is, or affects to be, so full. - -She was devotion itself in attendance on her mother--watched by her -night and day, and addressed her with exquisite gentleness. But it was -pity, sorrow, compassion, regret, all other kind and tender emotions -which moved her, but amongst them there was no love. All the other gods -will come if called, but not love in any of his guises. - -“Don’t ye try to feign what you don’t feel,” said Margaret Massarene. -“You’ve no feigning in you, my dear, and why should you try? You was -took away from me when you were a little thing of five, and you was -always kept away to be made a lady of (and that they _did_). It stood -to reason, as when you see me all them years after, you couldn’t have -no feeling for me. I was nought to you but a stranger, and I saw as my -way of talk hurt you.” - -Katherine wept, leaning her head down on her mother’s broad, pallid -hand. - -“Don’t ye fret, Kathleen! Why should you fret?” said the sick woman. -“You have nothin’ to blame yourself for--toward me, at any rate. I did -think as ’twas your duty to respect your father more in his life, and -to keep his great work together when he was gone. But there! you’d your -own way of lookin’ at things, and you’re not to be blamed for that.” - -Then her weak voice failed her, and she lay looking out, through the -branches of an acacia-tree beyond the window, to the silvery line of -the sea. - -“I did according to my light, mother,” said Katherine in a whisper. “I -may have been in error.” - -“Ay, my dear,” said Margaret; “that’s what all you clever, eddicated -people do. You make a law for yourselves, and then you say you follow -it!” - -It might be so. - -What had seemed the voice of conscience might have been the voice of -vanity. She could not tell. Perhaps this poor, simple, vulgar woman had -been more in the right than she. - -Some hours passed; one physician remained in the house, another came -and went; nothing was to be done. The human machine was worn out; it -had been ill-fed too long and then over-fed; its delicate and intricate -mechanism rebelled, waxed feeble, gave way altogether. - -“I’d hev liked another ten years of it,” she said regretfully. “’Twas a -holiday like, the nice easy life. And you won’t ever know, my dear, how -hard I worked--over there.” - -Then she cried feebly but sadly, thinking of those wearing and cruel -days in Dakota, in burning heat and freezing cold, when she had worked -so hard, and of this pleasant “lady’s life” which she had now to leave, -which had come too late to do much more than cause her such regret. -Katherine’s head was bowed down upon the bed. - -“And you had no reward!” - -“Oh, yes, my dear, I _had_ my reward! Don’t ever go for to say -otherwise! I see your father a great man and shaken by the hand by -princes and honored by everybody--except you.” Then her mind wandered -a little, and she said many things about her man’s renown, and his -virtues, and his attainments, and the height to which he had risen. -“Princes at his own table,” she murmured. “In his life and his death -they honored him. Look at his grave, piled up with flowers--nothin’ in -the Abbey ever grander.” - -Once she raised herself on her elbow and took hold of her daughter’s -arm. - -“Look you, child--divorce is as easy got out there as berries in the -fields in summer; a rich man can put away his wife like an old glove, -and he never did that--never! I was an eyesore to him, but he kept -me by him, and he had me dressed and served like a queen. He was a -God-fearing man, was William.” - -All her memory was of him, of the brute who had scarcely ever thrown -her a kind word in all the forty years that she had dwelt beside him. - -“He was a great man, a very great man, was your father,” she repeated. -“He’d have died a peer, and I dare say a minister too, if that shot -hadn’t killed him on his threshold.” - -Her mind was little with her living daughter beside her; it was almost -entirely with the dead man who, when they had both been young, had -stepped out beside her through the green grass of Kilrathy to conquer -the world--and had done it. - -“He was a great man, was William,” she said as she closed her eyes. -She looked at her worn fingers, on which the flesh hung in folds, and -turned the plain brass wedding ring feebly round and round; the ring -that was now covered by a diamond guard. - -“’Twas a fine mornin’ as he put it there,” she murmured. “The sun was -shinin’ and the dew sparklin’, and I mind me of a little tit as sat on -a wild bit o’ sweetbriar against the church door. ’Tis a sweet feelin’, -Kathleen, when ye gives yerself for a man for good. But ye don’t care -about them feelin’s. You’re too high and too cold.” - -“Oh, not cold! Oh, mother--no, not cold!” - -“Well, you’re somethin’ as comes to the same thing,” said Margaret -wearily, and lay still. The light of the intellect must always seem -cold as Arctic light to those who only know the mellow warmth of the -sunshine of the heart. - -Her daughter remained leaning against the bed upon her knees. She felt -as if so much atonement were due from her, and yet----? Perhaps she -should have remembered more the excuse which lay in society for the -faults of her father. - -Society says to the successful man: “You have done well and wisely; -you have thought of yourself alone from your cradle.” Society offers -the premium of its flattery and its rewards to the man who succeeds, -without regard to the means he has employed. Provided he avoids -scandals which become public, there would be obvious impertinence in -any investigation into his methods. Society is only occupied with the -results. When he succeeds his qualities become virtues, as when a vine -bears fruit the chemicals which it has absorbed during its culture -become grapes. Public subscriptions will become accreditated to him -as divine charities; if he write his name down for a large sum at a -banquet at which a royal duke or a lord mayor presides, to enrich a -hospital or endow an asylum, he need fear no demands as to how he has -gained his vast capital. The man who succeeds knows that his sins will -be ignored because he has acquired greatly, as hers were forgiven -to Mary Magdalene because she had loved greatly. Can we blame a man -because his morality is not higher than that of the world in general? -“Get money, honestly if you can, but get money,” says society, and when -he has got it, if it has been got in quantities sufficiently large, -sovereigns and princes will visit him and require nothing more from him -than the fact and proof of its possession. Her father had not created -the worship of the golden calf; he had only availed himself of it; he -had only set up the animal in his own kailyard and opened his gates. - -Great qualities he had undoubtedly possessed; if they were not lovable -or altruistic, or such as pleased the strict moralist or the poetic -philanthropist, they were such as are alone appreciated in an age which -would send the Nazarene to a treadmill and the Stagyrite to a _maison -centrale_ if they were living now. - -Had she done wrong not to value them more? No; she could not think so. - -“He was a great man, my dear, and he had a right to do as he liked with -his own,” her mother murmured again, faithful to the last, like a dog, -to the hand which, though it had struck her many a brutal blow, had -been her master’s. - -“He was a great man, was William,” she said again; and then her mind -wandered away to the green wet pastures of Kilrathy, and she thought -she was a dairy-girl again with bare feet and kilted skirt, and she -called the cows to the milking: “Come, my pretties, come--Blossom and -Bell and Buttercup. Come; ’tis time.” Then her hands moved feebly, as -though they pulled the udders, and she smiled a little and would have -laughed, but she had no strength. “I’m home again,” she murmured; and -then life left her. - - - - -CHAPTER XLVII. - - -It was a gusty, wild, and cloudy morning at Faldon some days later, -and Hurstmanceaux sat in his library reading a communication which -he had received from the head of the Government. The epistle, which -was written by the premier himself, offered him the governorship of -a very important colony. The letter was extremely complimentary, and -there was no possible reason to doubt its sincerity. It urged upon -him the sacrifice of his independence to the welfare of his country, -and hinted that as years passed on it became time to abandon certain -eccentricities of opinion and habits of isolation. Hurstmanceaux read -it with the attention which the position of its writer demanded; but he -did not waste many minutes in its consideration. It was not the first -time that such offers had been pressed on him. The independence of his -character was so well known, and his principles so much respected by -all men, that his accession to the governing ranks would have been an -increase of strength to those who were in office. But they had never -been able to tempt him to forsake private for public life. He now wrote -a very courteous but most decided refusal, expressing his sense of the -compliment paid to him, sealed it with his signet ring, and sat still -awhile at his writing-table thinking. - -“I have never yet been in the scramble for the loaves and fishes,” he -said to himself, “and I shall not begin now. He will find men enough -and to spare who have outrun the constable, or who want handles to -their names, and who will be delighted to go to the nether world -and play at pseudo-sovereignty. Faldon and my other poor places are -kingdoms enough for me, small ones though they be; and Jack’s active -mind is colony enough to cultivate.” - -Whatever else Jack might be, he was half a Courcy, and must be brought -up to be a man and a gentleman. - -At that moment Jack came in followed by his dogs of all sizes, on whom -Ossian, lying in a reading-chair, opened a contemptuous eye; Jack had -permission to run free of the library as he liked. He had now a morning -paper in his hand which he held out to his uncle. - -“Mr. Adeane wishes me to ask you, please, if this is true,” he said, -pointing to a paragraph marked by his tutor. - -Hurstmanceaux glanced at it. It announced his acceptance of the -Australian governorship. His brows contracted in displeasure. “Nothing -could be less true,” he answered. “It is true that the appointment has -been offered to me. But tell Adeane I decline it. Leave the paper here, -dear. I will send a contradiction.” - -Jack went out by one of the windows opening on a terrace as he had -entered, his canine courtiers leaping about him, and Hurstmanceaux took -up the journal to see the date of the paragraph. - -It was a journal of fashion and politics; the statement which concerned -him was in a column containing other items of news; the name in one of -these caught his eye; he read that the wife of William Massarene was -dead at her villa at Bournemouth. - -When Katherine Massarene closed her mother’s eyes she felt both regret -and remorse. Why had she not had patience and penetration enough to do -justice to the unrecognized loyalty and affection in that existence -of which he had only seen the envelope of flesh, only despised the -narrowness and ignorance? She knew that she had never loved her mother; -she felt that she must have often, very often, caused her pain and -humiliation. She had persistently gazed at her mother’s foolishness and -commonness; she had never tried to be just to her better qualities. - -Fine temperaments are always cruelly open to such self-reproach; she -never ceased to blame her own heartlessness, and when she followed -her only relative to the grave she said to herself, with exaggerated -self-censure, that she had rolled more than one stone to her mother’s -cairn. - -She had indeed been indulgent, submissive, kind beyond that which many -would have thought incumbent upon her, but she forgot that she had been -so; she only remembered her own lack of feeling, her own intolerance -and antagonism, her own contemptuous isolation; all which had seemed as -cold as Greenland ice to the poor dead woman. - -As regarded her own future she had made no plans. She would have liked -to take charge of the children’s orphanage which she had founded in her -mother’s name in County Down; but she thought to do so would look as if -she had been making a refuge for herself in creating the institution. -She wished to gain her own living, without favor, simply by means of -her head or her hands. She inclined toward music; she was enough of an -artist to make her mark in it; but the publicity necessitated would, -she knew, be very distasteful to her. For the moment she decided -nothing, but when she had buried her mother in the crypt of Vale -Royal, according to her last request, she returned to the house at -Bournemouth to pass there the few months during which it was still her -own. The Roxhalls had entreated her to remain with them, but she felt -an imperative longing for solitude. - -“You are much too young to live alone,” said Roxhall to her. - -“I feel a hundred years old,” she answered. - -A great weight of what seemed to her unending regret lay like lead on -her life. She was the more unhappy because happiness had been offered -to her, and she had been obliged to refuse it, or had thought herself -to be so obliged. It would have been happiness, great and wondrous -happiness, but she tried not to think of it, lest the memory of what -might have been should entirely unnerve her for the combat of her life -to come. For one thing she was thankful--people had by this time quite -ceased to talk about her. Only a few old friends like the Framlinghams -and Lady Mary Altringham wrote to her. Nothing is easier than to drop -out of people’s recollection if you wish it; nor is it difficult if you -don’t. - -She was a great deal on the sea and by the sea, and passed much of her -time when on shore in the pine-wood which belonged to the grounds. It -was sheltered, and no one ever intruded there; and to Argus it was a -sylvan paradise. - -A day or two after her mother’s funeral she was seated on the same -bench where Framlingham and Hurstmanceaux had found her in an earlier -time. She was reading a letter from one of the poor people whom she had -raised from grinding misery in the States. It was a true and tender -letter, none the less welcome because ill-writ and ill-spelt. Sometimes -these rude letters have more eloquence in them than lies in Bossuet or -John Newman. - -She read it twice, being touched by it, then laid it down on the bench -and looked out seaward. - -It was a November day, but still and bright. In the west, beyond the -heaving expanse of grey water, the sun was going in rosy mists to his -setting; the outline of a great liner was black against the horizon; -midway in the Channel there were some fishing boats, trawlers, who -had put up lights betimes at their mastheads. Her face looked very -colorless as she sat there, the deep dull black of her dress made her -skin look like snow itself, and her ungloved hands, as they rested on -her lap, might have been the sculptured hands carved on the marble -breast of some recumbent figure in a crypt. - -“I have often wished to be alone and free,” she thought. “I have my -wish.” And like most wishes in their fulfilment, this wish of hers was -not very sweet. - -“May I speak to you?” said a man’s voice, which thrilled through the -innermost nerves of her being. - -Instinctively she rose. Hurstmanceaux was standing as he had stood six -months before; he had his face to the sunset; its light shone in his -blue eyes; he uncovered his head; he did not touch her hand. - -“I have come from Faldon to see you,” he said. “I read of your mother’s -death.” - -She was silent; she had no idea what to say in answer. - -“Did she suffer?” - -“No; happily, not much.” - -“You buried her at Vale Royal?” - -“Yes; your cousin Roxhall gave permission.” - -“Of course!” - -Then silence ensued between them. The dog stood looking from one to -another; the sun sank down beyond the edge of the far sea. - -“I came to speak to you,” said Hurstmanceaux with an effort. “I left -you in anger and offence, and you had answered me, I think, in too -great haste.” - -“Oh, no----” - -“Pardon me; hear me to the end. I have thought of little else since we -parted. I have not left Faldon. I have seen scarcely anyone, except my -little nephew and his tutor. I have had full time for reflection. Well, -what I come to say to you is this. Between you and me there ought not -to come, there ought not to exist, any unworthy misunderstandings born -of doubt, or temper, or suspicion. Such are unworthy of us both.” - -“There was no misunderstanding.” - -“I think there was. You chose to conceive that I desired what I should -regret if I obtained it, and I was too much in haste and in anger to -prove to you your error. One does not persuade angels to bless one’s -life, unless one wrestles with them. I took you by surprise. Perhaps I -spoke like a coxcomb in too great security. I should have remembered -that all you had ever seen in me had been intolerable rudeness. I -should have sued you more humbly----” - -“Oh, how can you say such things?” - -“I say the truth. I was too rough, too rash, too confident. I want you -to forget that: to only remember that in all I said I was entirely -sincere, and that in all you objected in answer you were entirely -wrong--absolutely and utterly mistaken. I once more offer you my name, -my heart, my life. No man can do more. I earnestly entreat you not to -let the world’s conventionalities or your own imaginations part us.” - -She was profoundly moved by the words; she could not doubt their truth -or their loyalty. Incredible as it seemed to her, it was clear that -this sentiment which had brought him hither twice was one both deep and -lasting. But she could not and would not allow herself to be persuaded -to his hurt. - -“What did my poor mother say on her deathbed? They sent me away from -her to be ‘_made_ a lady of.’ Lord Hurstmanceaux, your wife must be one -born, not made.” - -He was silent; he was the most truthful of men and he believed -intensely in race. - -“Listen to me,” he said at last. “I should be false to the tenets of -my life if I denied the influence of race. But there are exceptions -to all laws. There are beggars whom a Burleigh fitly mates with; that -is, I think, for Burleigh himself to judge. She cannot judge because, -like all generous persons, if she had the casting vote, she would vote -against herself. Let me speak for once; and only for once, of a subject -which is to me intolerable pain and shame. My sister, my best-beloved -sister, who is thoroughbred in every pulse of her blood and every -fibre of her being, dropped to the level of a courtezan for sake of -money. She was--there can be no doubt of it--your father’s mistress; of -details I know nothing, but the fact is beyond doubt.” - -She tried to silence him. - -“Oh, why--oh, why distress yourself thus? He is dead--she is married -again----” - -“Those circumstances alter nothing. The fact must have been--what I -say. You yourself must have learnt or concluded it from his papers.” - -She made no reply. She could not deny what was obvious. - -“Now,” said Hurstmanceaux, and his face was white with pain as he -spoke, “race did not keep unsoiled in her either our name or her own -womanhood. I believe that you would keep both my honor and your own -immaculate. If you could care for me, do not let apprehensions and -doubts and mistrust divide our lives. I love you; is love so strange a -word to you that you cannot even guess what it wishes and suffers?” - -His eyes rested on hers as he spoke. It seemed as if a blaze of -unbearable light inundated her soul. - -“You love _me_!” she said in a hushed voice of great amaze. - -“I love you. What is there so strange in that? I told you so six months -ago.” - -She threw her arm round a young pine stem near her, and, leaning her -forehead on its rough bark, burst into tears. - -“Lead me, guide me, take me if you will,” she said brokenly. “I have -trusted to my own wisdom, and perhaps I have always done wrong.” - - - - -CHAPTER XLVIII. - - -The château of Les Mouettes was lent for the coming winter season to -the Prince and Princess Woffram of Karstein by its owners, who, both -naturally generous, and made more generous still by happiness and a -sense of gratitude, were unceasing and inexhaustible in the wideness of -their goodwill. It was always well to oblige persons who are led away -by their feelings, thought the recipient of their bounties. Such people -do not inquire too minutely or measure too exactly. It is of such as -these that is made that succulent oyster which the wise man or woman -opens with his or her knife, and sucks the juices thereof. - -Mouse had fully persuaded herself that she had done an admirable -action. She had made two people happy; if their happiness were idiotic, -and to her incomprehensible, it was none the less to them what their -hearts desired: no one can account for the tastes of others. - -She really admired herself and quite succeeded in forgetting whatever -there might have been a little questionable or a little disagreeable to -explain about her visit to Prince Khris on his deathbed. The documents -had all been quite genuine; if she had embroidered a little on the -plain facts of how she had obtained them, that mattered to nobody. -Neither Vanderlin nor Olga ever doubted her narrative, and their -gratitude toward her found incessant expression. If Prince Woffram -doubted it he never said so. He had accepted its results, and his lips -were sealed. - -She was standing on the sea-wall of the Mouettes on a bright and balmy -morning, looking herself as radiant as the morning, with a great bunch -of tea-roses at her breast, and a gold-headed cane in her hand, when -Daddy Gwyllian, who was staying at Cannes, came to her from the garden -side of the sea-terrace. - -He was looking brimful of news and of amazement; a white cashmere -neckerchief was wound about his throat; he was wearing a fur coat -and little bunch of fresias at the buttonhole of it; he was visibly -agitated. - -“My dear Princess!” he said, pressing her hands and quite forgetting -that he disliked her. “What you must suffer! How I sympathize! Who -could ever have thought it! A man of such sense! Perhaps if you had not -left England it would not have happened!” - -“What on earth is the matter, Daddy?” asked Mouse, astonished and -curious. “Have you come to bring me bad news?” - -“_You ask me!_” cried Daddy in amaze; then dropping his voice to a -sepulchral moan, he added, “Is it possible--possible--that you have not -heard of your brother’s fatal act?” - -Over her face a cold and angry shadow passed. - -“Has he killed himself?” she asked. “I don’t think he’d ever do -anything half so agreeable to others.” - -Daddy Gwyllian drew a long breath. - -“I am really grieved to be the bearer of such tidings,” he said, with -the very keenest relish in telling them. “But Ronnie--stay--you know -that the Massarene woman gave all that immense fortune away to the -poor?” - -“Yes,” said Mouse impatiently. “I saw all that rubbish in the papers -long ago. What has that to do with Hurstmanceaux?” - -“He has married her!” ejaculated Daddy. “Now!--now!--when she hasn’t -got a penny! Oh, Lord!” - -“What!” she cried in turn, as she rose impetuously and stared at him. - -“My dear lady! You may well be incredulous. It does seem impossible -that any man in his senses---- But he married her yesterday, down at -Bournemouth.” - -“You foolish old gossip!” she cried, with a concentrated fury, which -almost stifled her voice. “Can you think of nothing better than to -frighten one with such preposterous inventions? My brother would never -even look at that creature.” - -“I may be an old gossip, Princess,” said Daddy, with high offence and -some dignity, “but I do not consciously say what is not true. Will you -do me the honor to read this?” - -He fumbled beneath his fur coat, his paletôt, and his morning coat, -and brought out a telegram, which he handed to her. It was dated from -Bournemouth, and addressed to Daddy himself. - - “_You often counselled me to marry the daughter of Mr. Massarene. I - am happy to inform you that I have done so this morning. The ceremony - was private: Alberic Orme officiated._” - -It was signed--“Hurstmanceaux.” - -She read the lines in a single glance. - -“You advised him? You advised him to disgrace us like this!” she cried -with a furious gesture, crushing the dispatch in her hand, whilst her -azure eyes poured their lightning upon him. - -“I advised him to do so when the young woman was rich. You sent her -down to Bedlowes yourself on purpose to bring it about. Perhaps, if you -had not shown your hand so openly, he might have done it when it would -have been a desirable thing to do. But I am a foolish old gossip, and -I will leave you to digest--er--this extremely unpleasant fact. I have -the honor to wish you good morning.” - -He took himself off, very huffed, stiff, and alienated; he had -repossessed himself of his telegram. - -Mouse stood still, convulsed with an inward fury, for which there was -no possible outward expression. She was stunned. - -He had done it on purpose, she was convinced! On purpose to outrage her! - -“Wherever I meet them first,” she said between her teeth: “if it be at -a Drawing-room--I will cut them both dead!” - -“What is the matter, Sourisette?” asked one of her women friends who -was staying with her and approached as Daddy withdrew. - -“You may well ask me. My brother has married the lowest of low women!” - -“How very dreadful for you!” said the lady with sympathy. “But are you -quite sure? Because when I came away from England last week they said -he was going to marry Miss Massarene, the daughter of your good old -friend Billy.” - -Mouse shuddered within herself. She could not hear the name of William -Massarene without a spasm of unbearable remembrance, and she felt that -her attitude of hostility was difficult to explain. - -“He has married her. That is just the horror of it!” she said between -her teeth. “You know what they all were, the lowest of the low. As -acquaintances while they had their money, they were all very well: but -as a connection--it is too frightful! I will never speak to her--never, -never, not if I meet her at Osborne or Windsor.” - -A servant at that moment brought her telegrams from Carrie Wisbeach, -and various other members of her family, all repeating the news and -reflecting her own views with regard to it. - -Such a _mésalliance_! If the money had been there it would have been a -most admirable alliance, a most suitable arrangement, a most excellent -choice; but when the money was all gone back to the poor from whom it -had been extracted originally, the union was positively monstrous. If -he had married a pauper out of the county workhouse, it would have been -less insult to them; so they all agreed. - -There is a kind of cynical frankness about “good society,” with regard -to its love of money, which is, perhaps, the only candid thing about -it. It sticks like a swarm of bees where money is, and it vanishes like -locusts before the north wind where it is not. - -All the family and all the connections of Hurstmanceaux viewed his -marriage as she viewed it. If he had blown his brains out they would -have been less shocked, for they would have been able to say that he -had had an accident with a revolver or a repeating-rifle. But it was -impossible for them to explain away this act of insanity; and though he -would probably live down in the country, as people should do who are -ashamed of themselves, still, some time or other they would have to -meet him, and they felt uncomfortably certain that the head of their -house would compel from them respect and deference toward his wife. - -Even those few friends who were sincerely attached to him felt, like -Daddy Gwyllian, that they could not venture to apologize for a man -who had shown such culpable indifference to his own interests and the -world’s opinion. - -“What has disturbed you, my heart’s dearest?” said Prince Woffram as he -came on to the terrace on his return from a golfing match; he had met -Daddy Gwyllian a mile from the entrance gate, who had driven past him -merely touching his hat. - -“What has disturbed you?” he continued. “Did that pleasant little old -gentleman come to bring you any ill news?” - -Her answer was to throw the telegrams into his hands; from them he -gleaned some idea of what had passed. - -“Your brother marries? Well, what does that matter?” - -“What?” she echoed, her eyes shining and flashing with fury. “If he had -married a woman off the pavement of the Haymarket he could not have -disgraced us more utterly! And for Alberic Orme to countenance such a -disgrace! What an infamy!” - -The young man raised his eyebrows and played with the tea-roses of the -balustrade. The placidity of his temper opposed itself to the violence -of hers like a marble breakwater to the fretting fury of a Venetian -lagoon in December. - -“She will have my eldest son with her to poison his mind against me!” -she added, tears of genuine rage and grief overflowing her lovely eyes. -“Have they not even taken away my only daughter from my guardianship?” - -The young man was silent; he was not grieved that his friend Boo had -been removed to England. - -“He has married her merely to pass this insult on me!” she said with -tears which burnt her eyes like fire. - -“That is scarcely probable, my beloved,” said Prince Woffram gently; -“the lady is not noble, it is true; but then you have great license in -these matters in Great Britain. Your Heralds’ Office is practically a -box of puppets.” - -“I cannot see,” he repeated, “why you should be thus affected. The -lady was much admired in London; she had great musical talent. I -remember my cousins----” - -“Great musical talent!” echoed Mouse bitterly. “Whilst she had her -money, of course, they gave her every talent under heaven!” - -She heard in memory the harsh, rude voice of Massarene saying of her -own songs: - -“She says yours is bad amatoor music, my lady!” - -Oh, how she hated the creature! And to think she was now mistress of -Faldon! - -Katherine Massarene mistress of Faldon! It seemed to her an outrage too -intolerable to be borne! - -She had never cared to go to Faldon since the time of her marriage -to Cocky; she had always railed against it as the dullest, wildest, -and most out-of-the-way place upon earth. She would have perished of -_ennui_ if she had been forced to pass a week there between its ancient -woods and its solitary seas; but for all that it was the cradle of her -race, the home of her childhood, the house of her mother. To think of -“Billy’s daughter” as reigning there was an utterly unendurable insult! -And the bust by Dalou and the portrait by Orchardson were no doubt gone -there already, and were impudently taking their place in the gallery -where the women of her race were portrayed and where her own portrait -as a child, painted by Millais, hung in the light of the setting sun! - -“I cannot see what it matters,” repeated Prince Woffram, turning a -telescope placed on the balustrade above the tea-roses on to a distant -passing yacht. - -He had become a very philosophic young man since his marriage. - -The quiet common sense of the words fell like mild rain on the raging -fires of her fierce indignation. Perhaps he was right and it did -not matter. Perhaps he was more right than he knew and it was even -advantageous. - -If Katherine Massarene had not talked before of what she had found -in her father’s papers she certainly would not talk now. Shameful as -Ronnie’s conduct was, he would not allow his wife to expose his sister. -It was a frightful _mésalliance_, but it had its serviceable side. A -padlock was on the lips of “Billy’s daughter.” - -“I will never speak to her if I meet her at Osborne or Windsor,” she -repeated suddenly. - -Prince Woffram looked round from the telescope and the tea-roses. - -“My angel,” he said very gently, “that would be to argue yourself -unused to royal circles, and it would bring down on you many--many--oh! -many questions.” - -“You would have me make advances to this beggared wretch--this scum of -the earth!” - -“No, no,” said Prince Woffram soothingly. “I would not suggest to you -to make advances. To make advances is to put oneself in the wrong. I -would suggest to you to await events; and, in the not very probable -coincidence which you imagine, I would beg you to remember that a great -sovereign’s invitation confers a credential which none can dispute.” - -Since he had trampled on his conscience, as he had put away his sword, -Wuffie had substituted for them much practical common sense, and in -very bland sentences said things which smote edgeways. His wife at -times wondered how much he guessed, how far he was blinded, and now and -then felt a spasm of fear that this cherub-faced boy, with his artless, -meaningless smile, might, in some things, prove her master. - -It is dangerous to teach a man, and a very young man, to sell his soul. -Nature will substitute something else for it, something which you will -not like when you learn to know it well. - -She felt that he had fully determined on two things: one, that he would -be well paid; the other, that he would not be compromised. So when she -went into the house she tore up the various infuriated telegrams she -had written in answer to her correspondents, and wrote instead some -prettily-worded intimations that, as she had counseled her brother to -make this marriage when the lady was rich, she could not blame him -for making it now the same lady was poor, and could only hope that -the result would be as fortunate as she sincerely desired for them -both, though circumstances had arisen which unhappily estranged her -from Hurstmanceaux. This way of looking at the matter was at once -so angelic, and so nice and temperate, that it suggested an idea, -which gradually filtered down through her intimate correspondents and -permeated society, the impression, vague but general, that William -Massarene’s daughter had jockeyed her out of some portion of William -Massarene’s fortune. No one could explain how, but everyone thought -so. Daddy Gwyllian did indeed stoutly declare that the impression was -preposterous and untenable, and that if Hurstmanceaux had broken all -relations with his sister he had doubtless very sound reasons for doing -so. But Daddy was waxing old and society was getting tired of him. When -people live too long they outstay the welcome of the world. - - * * * * * - -With May Harrenden House was again open. The falconer of Clodion -leaned and laughed in silent mirth as the throngs of society passed -up the staircase under his gaze. The Massarenes were like Malbrouck, -_morts et enterrés_, and an Australian wool-stapler reigned in their -stead, worshipped where they had worshipped, and was guarded by their -lares and pénates. Across the threshold, where William Massarene had -been carried lifeless, the great world he had loved flocked, as the -water-fowl on the ponds of the Green Park flock with equal avidity to -be fed, no matter what hand it may be which scatters the bread. - -Up that well-known staircase, under the eyes of the nude falconer, -there came a beautiful and very fair woman, who had often been up -those stairs before; a fair and slim and ever blandly-smiling youth -was by her side, who had been told, as children are told in the -nursery, to shut his eyes and open his mouth, and who had done so. He -had been rewarded, for a great many good things had dropped into his -mouth. England had become for him what it is for so many other German -princelings, the Canaan overflowing with milk and honey where he could -enjoy himself at other people’s expense, and lead the first flight on -other people’s horses. She looked about her as she passed on through -the reception-rooms: nothing was changed, nothing of any importance, -and she herself not very much. There were still the same florid Pietro -di Cortona high overhead in the effulgence of the electric lamps, still -the same too dark and dubious Mantegna hanging above a pyramid of -Calla lilies and damask roses. There were only no longer in the alcove -where they had been enshrined the bust by Dalou and the portrait by -Orchardson: they were at Faldon! Insupportable as this idea was to her, -the outrage had its silver side; it meant silence, entire, absolute, on -the part of her brother’s wife. - -“Billy--you brute!--I have been stronger than you!” she thought as she -passed the place where the gold vase of Leo the Tenth still filled -the humble office of a samovàr. Life had once more become easy and -agreeable to her. Death had been discriminating and Fortune on the -whole not unkind. - -“The poor Massarenes were such dear good friends of mine, but you -have so much more taste than they had,” she said to the Australian -wool-stapler. - -And he, a big burly heavy man, who owned many millions of sheep on -many thousands of pastures, and had as much taste as one of his wooly -wethers, was flattered, and thrust out his big paunch, and thought to -himself, under the sorcery of her smile, why should he not succeed -wherever William Massarene had succeeded? - -Why not indeed? - - -THE END. - - - - - A Few Press Opinions on - - A Living Lie - - BY PAUL BOURGET - - _12 mo, Cloth, $1.25; Paper Covers, 50 cents._ - - -=Scotsman= - - Mr. de Vallieres’ translation leaves nothing to be desired, and - deserves the thanks of English readers for having rendered accessible - to them a masterpiece of minute analysis of character and feeling. - -=Pall Mall Gazette= - - M. Bourget’s celebrated novel ... it is good to find a translation of - a popular French novel so well done as this is, and the vivid picture - of Parisian life loses nothing of its force or truth in its English - dress. - -=World= - - “Mensonges” is undoubtedly a clever story, and the present version is - excellent. - -=Vanity Fair= - - The book itself is an education: the very greatest novel of analysis - and character France has produced since Balzac. - -=New York Commercial Advertiser= - - “A Living Lie,” published in this country by Fenno, is one of the - earlier works of Paul Burget, and one that shows both the weakness - and strength of his methods. In an introduction written to the - translation, the author speaks of his humble decipleship of Flaubert - and Zola, and perhaps none of Bourget’s novels better than this - recent translation will show better how closely the student has - followed the masters, especially the former. But one man could write - “Madame Bovary,” and that was Flaubert, but there are portions of - “Mensonges” that would lead one to believe that M. Bourget thought - that he might have written it himself. Madame Bovary’s meeting - with her lover in a house of ill-fame and Rene’s meetings with his - mistress might even seem to some as an illustration of where the - pupil had learned his lesson too well. - - As for the story itself there is no need of rehearsing that. It is - strong, and viewed from the point of fiction is good. But since M. - Bourget aspires to be something more than novelist, to be an analyst, - a psychologist and feminologist, it would be wrong to ignore what - he considers his best labor. Perhaps it would not be malapropos to - quote, in relation to M. Bourget’s study of women and women’s mind, - what Nietzsche has written, that we are puzzled when we try to probe - women’s mind, not because it is so deep, not because it has no - bottom--“it is not even shallow.” Which is basely cynical, and anyway - it was written by a man who is now in a mad house. But, nevertheless, - it is a good sentence to bear in mind when one is reading the works - of a feminologist. There is no doubt of M. Bourget’s intuitive - powers. True, that too frequently does he affirm with unbecoming and - exultant delight and misplaced passion that two and two are four, but - often this leads to the higher and more complicated problems, such - as four and four are eight. Surely M. Bourget is an analyst, but he - spends too much time analyzing very obvious brick walls. - - But, “A Living Lie” is good fiction, if it is not good literature. It - is well translated. - - - - - A Few Press Opinions on - - Robert Urquhart - - By GABRIEL SETOUN - - 12mo, Cloth, Illustrated, $1.00; Paper Covers, 50 Cents - - -=The Outlook= - - “Robert Urquhart,” by Gabriel Setoun, is a Scotch story possessing a - certain degree of strength. Courageous indeed is the writer to-day - who brings his work in contrast with that of Ian Maclaren, Crockett, - and J. M. Barrie. Comparison between these masters and the lesser - lights there cannot be. - -=Toledo Blade= - - In “Robert Urquhart,” by Gabriel Setoun, the lovers of Scotch - stories will experience a delight the same as felt in the reading of - “The Lilac Sunbonnet,” “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush,” “The Little - Minister,” and other novels and tales in which are found tender - pathos, delicate humor and a dramatic construction. The character of - old Rob cannot fail to impress all readers, winning their love by - his simple kindness; while the schoolmaster’s sturdy manliness calls - forth feeling of liking and respect, with a desire that he shall gain - his heart’s wish. The story is well worth a reading. - -=Sunday Times= - - Lovers of a good story, which is at the same time good literature, - and especially lovers of the Scotch atmosphere and temperament, - will enjoy “Robert Urquhart.” This is a new book by Gabriel Setoun, - published by R. F. Fenno & Company. The central character is a school - teacher, not the periwig old goose who has so long been strutting, - conventional to a hair through Scotch stories, but a man of head - and heart endowments which appeal to the head and the heart for our - belief, sympathy and love. If Mr. Setoun had not the originality - to lead the way, he has at least the genius to follow with highest - credit in the paths of Barrie, Maclaren and Crockett, and who will - say it is not as hard to follow creditably in beaten paths as to - charm public fancy with a trifle when it is new? - -=Times-Union= - - “Robert Urquhart.” This is an entertaining novel, well written, with - a good plot and with many of the essentials of a book of the highest - character. Its pretty binding should also be mentioned, and in this - it suggests itself as a present to a friend. Its author is Gabriel - Setoun. It is a Scotch tale. Its pathos is as sweet, its humor as - delicate, its construction as dramatic and its characters as lovable - as any to be found in the other Scottish stories which have caught - the fancy. - -=Kansas City Journal= - - An American edition of “Robert Urquhart” will attract the attention - of many thousands who have read and enjoyed “The Lilac Sunbonnet,” - “A Galloway Herd,” “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush,” and “The Little - Minister” and they will find within its covers a pathos as sweet, - a humor as delicate a construction as dramatic, and characters as - lovable as are to be found in any of the above-mentioned works. - - - - - A Few Press Opinions on - - The Professor’s Experiment - - By MRS. HUNGERFORD (The Duchess) - - 12mo, Cloth, $1.25; Paper Covers, 50 Cents - - -=The Watchman= - - “The ‘experiment,’ which gives name to the story, is a weird one and - picturesquely presented, reminding one faintly of the old French - story of the ‘Broken Ear.’ It turns the red light briskly on the - hero and heroine, who, having been thus vividly introduced to us and - to each other, proceed to the business of the occasion by falling - in love with each other and entangling themselves in divers nets - of embarrassing circumstances, settling away from the storm to a - peaceful horizon of marriage at last. It has become necessary, in - these days, to indicate the exceptional and welcome fact that this - is a pure story; painting cheery pictures of normal domestic life, - and opening no side doors to encourage the stealthy adventures of a - prurient fancy. It is a novel, strictly speaking, involving neither - sermon nor stump speech. It offers entertainment only, but it gives - what it offers; resting the tired brain and leaving no poison in the - blood.” - -=Evening Bulletin= - - “It is a capital story of an Irish savant, who, like the magicians - of mediæval days, passed his years in concocting a draught to put - his subjects to sleep. Fortunately a beautiful girl of eighteen - is found insensible on the professor’s doorstep. She becomes his - patient, enters upon a long sleep, and, in the ‘large awakening,’ - learns that she is heiress to an immense fortune and the professor’s - granddaughter.” - -=Indianapolis Journal= - - “‘The Professor’s Experiment’ is the title of a new book by Mrs. - Hungerford (The Duchess). It is of a somewhat more elaborate and - ambitious character than this writer’s recent stories, and shows - a return to her earlier manner. The heroine is the impulsive, - warm-hearted young Irish girl with whom all Mrs. Hungerford’s - readers are well acquainted, but of whom, in her various phases and - reappearances they do not tire.” - - - - - A Few Press Opinions on - - The Unclassed - - By GEORGE GISSING - - 12mo, Cloth, Illustrated, $1.25; Paper Covers, 50 Cents - - -=Outlook= - - It shows remarkable powers of observation and realistic reproduction - of certain phases of life. It deals with the life of the “unclassed” - very bluntly, and with unnecessary detail, but there is no intention - to pervert morals. - -=Boston Post= - - The story is full of strong and telling situations, a story in which - the realism often impinges closely upon the ideal. In many places the - book is absorbing in its interest. - -=N. Y. Advertiser= - - It is a story of the struggling ones, struggling against and for - class distinction; struggling to keep from going down into the - “lowest class;” struggling to reach the class where bread and butter - are not the only living cries. - -=Buffalo Commercial= - - Mr. Gissing has secured a place in the front rank of the best English - novelists, and any story of which he is the author will be widely - and eagerly read. “The Unclassed” is a thrilling, intensely dramatic - story. - -=Meadville Stylus= - - Ida Starr is a child of ten years when the story opens. It closes - with her marriage. We are permitted to observe her character in - all the stages of its development from a childhood all love and - gentleness, through a solitary and defenseless girlhood spent in - a desperate struggle against the poverty that ends in starvation, - through her temptation, her fall, and her redemption through love. - There are, curiously enough, no traces of the influence of the - naturalistic school in Mr. Gissing’s work. The entire story is - planned and wrought out with the greatest imaginable delicacy. - - - - - A Few Press Opinions on - - Uncle Scipio - - BY MRS. JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH - - _12mo, Cloth, $1.25; Paper Covers, 50 Cents_ - - -=Public Opinion= - - A very effective story of the reconstruction days in Mississippi - is Mrs. Jeannette H. Walworth’s “Uncle Scipio.” It is bright and - healthy, with a well devised plot, full of incident and entertaining. - Stories based on those days of fermentation are not at all rare, but - Mrs. Walworth, being a transplanted Northener, has been able to take, - not a dispassionate view, but that of a warm-hearted, clear-headed - woman. Her novel, however, is by no means a political argument; the - time is in the early seventies, and the situation which then existed - in the South is merely a background for a good story, which is about - the best Mrs. Walworth has written. - -=Courier= - - Mrs. Walworth’s stories of Southern and negro life are vivaciously - characteristic of people and scenes of that portion of our country, - and they reveal charming pictures of a variety of types, grave and - gay. This is a love story, set in the gay picturesque Mississippi - Valley, describing the conditions that prevailed immediately after - the war of the rebellion. Mrs. Walworth is a Southerner by adoption, - and she is thus enabled to give us a true and sympathetic insight - that is certain to please and at the same time instruct. - -=Commercial Advertiser= - - Mrs. J. H. Walworth has already some celebrity as a story writer. - “Uncle Scipio,” which has made its appearance fresh from her pen, - is a love tale, set in the picturesque Mississippi Valley. As a - Northern woman the writer finds much in the country of her adoption, - immediately following the civil war, to strike her with peculiar - force. She is thus enabled to give a true and sympathetic insight - that is certain to please and at the same time instruct. “Uncle - Scipio,” the hero of the story, is a dear old negro slave of the - Uncle Tom variety, for whom the reader is bound to form a genuine - admiration and attachment before he lays down the book. - -=Post= - - A love story set in the Mississippi Valley, describing the conditions - that prevailed immediately after the War of the Rebellion. Mrs. - Walworth is a Southerner by adoption, and she is thus enabled to give - us a true and sympathetic insight that is certain to please and at - the same time instruct. Uncle Scipio is a dear old negro slave that - you are sure to become attached to before the volume is laid aside. - -=Plain Dealer= - - Mrs. J. H. Walworth’s “Uncle Scipio” is a story of the South the - time of which is the reconstruction period but the action had its - beginning in the ante-war days and was shaped by the events of the - great struggle. “Uncle Scipio” is the old negro whose reminiscent - gossip with the visiting agent of a Northern land syndicate brings - out the story which Mrs. Walworth narrates with the skill of a - practical novelist. - - -R. F. FENNO & CO., 112 Fifth Ave., N. Y. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - - Dialect and non-English words are transcribed as printed except for - obvious errors which have been corrected. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASSARENES *** - -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 an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks 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 other than 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 website -(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 the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager 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 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 website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without -widespread 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 website which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This website 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. diff --git a/old/69446-0.zip b/old/69446-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 8e50be1..0000000 --- a/old/69446-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/69446-h.zip b/old/69446-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 8b8542c..0000000 --- a/old/69446-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/69446-h/69446-h.htm b/old/69446-h/69446-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 17cbc77..0000000 --- a/old/69446-h/69446-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,28647 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html> -<html lang="en"> -<head> - <meta charset="UTF-8"> - <title> - The Massarenes, by Ouida—A Project Gutenberg eBook - </title> - <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> - <style> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} -hr.tiny {width: 10%; margin-left: 45%; margin-right: 45%;} -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } - -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} -h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - font-style: normal; - font-weight: normal; - font-variant: normal; - text-indent: 0; -} - -.blockquot { - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; -} - -.x-ebookmaker .blockquot { - margin-left: 7.5%; - margin-right: 7.5%; -} - -.blockquot2 { - margin-left: 2em; - margin-right: 2em; -} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - -.ph1 {text-align: center; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;} -.ph2 {text-align: center; font-size: xx-large; font-weight: bold;} -.ph3 {text-align: center; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;} - -div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;} -div.titlepage p {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 2em;} - -.xxlarge {font-size: 200%;} -.xlarge {font-size: 150%;} -.large {font-size: 125%;} - -.x-ebookmaker .hide {display: none; visibility: hidden;} - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; - page-break-inside: avoid; - max-width: 100%; -} - -.indentright {margin-right: 5em;} -.indentright2 {margin-right: 7em;} -.indentleft {margin-left: 5em;} - -.poetry-container {text-align: center;} -.poetry {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} -.poetry .verse {text-indent: -2.5em; padding-left: 3em;} -.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} -.poetry .indent {text-indent: 1.5em;} -.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: 6em;} -.poetry .first {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} -.poetry .center {text-align: center;} -@media print { .poetry {display: block;} } -.x-ebookmaker .poetry {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} - -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - margin-left: 17.5%; - margin-right: 17.5%; - padding: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - -</style> -</head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Massarenes, by Ouida</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Massarenes</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Ouida</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: November 30, 2022 [eBook #69446]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASSARENES ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter hide"><img src="images/coversmall.jpg" width="450" alt=""></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> -<div class="chapter"> -<h1>THE MASSARENES</h1> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt=""></div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="titlepage"> -<p><span class="xxlarge"><span class="indentright">THE</span><br> -<span class="indentleft">MASSARENES</span></span></p> - -<p>BY<br> -<span class="xlarge">OUIDA</span><br> - -AUTHOR OF “UNDER TWO FLAGS,” “SYRLIN”</p> - -<p>NEW YORK<br> -<span class="large">R. F. FENNO & COMPANY</span><br> -112 FIFTH AVENUE</p> -<hr class="tiny"> -<p><span class="smcap">London</span>: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO.</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center"> -Copyright, 1897<br> -BY<br> -R. F. FENNO & COMPANY</p> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> -<div class="center"> - -<p class="center">TO<br> -<br> -<small>A BELOVED FRIEND,</small><br> -<br> -THE LADY HOWARD OF GLOSSOP.<br> -(WINIFRED MARY DE LISLE.)</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">NOTICE.</h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p>In case it may be supposed that the African episode -in this book was suggested by recent events in the -Transvaal, I desire to state that it was written four -years before the Jameson raid occurred.</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Ouida.</span></p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> - -<p class="ph2">THE MASSARENES.</p> - -<hr class="tiny"> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</h2> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Mouse</span>,” said her husband to Lady Kenilworth, one -morning at Homburg, “do you see that large pale woman -over there, with a face like a crumpled whitey-brown -paper bag?”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth looked.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, impatiently. “Yes. Well?—what?—why?”</p> - -<p>“Well, she rolls—she absolutely rolls—wallows—biggest -pile ever made out West.”</p> - -<p>His wife looked again with a little more attention at -the large figure of a lady, superbly clothed, who sat alone -under a tree, and had that desolate air of “not being in -it” which betrays the unelect.</p> - -<p>“Nobody discovered her? Nobody taken her up?” she -asked, still looking through her eye-glass.</p> - -<p>“Well, old Khris a little; but Khris can’t get anybody -on now. He does ’em more harm than good. He’s dead -broke.”</p> - -<p>His wife smiled.</p> - -<p>“They must be new, indeed, if they don’t know that. -Would they be rich enough to buy Vale Royal of Gerald?”</p> - -<p>“Lord, yes; rich enough to buy a hundred Gerrys and -Vales Royal. I know it for a fact from men in the City: -they are astonishing—biggest income in the United States, -after Vanderbilt and Pullman.”</p> - -<p>“American, then?”</p> - -<p>“No; made their ‘stiff’ there, and come home to spend -it.”</p> - -<p>“Name?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>“Massarene. Cotton to her if you can. There’s money -to be made.”</p> - -<p>“Hush! somebody will hear.”</p> - -<p>Her lord chuckled.</p> - -<p>“Does anybody know these dear souls and their kind -for any other reason than the flimsy? She’s looking your -way. You’ll have to introduce yourself, for she don’t -know anybody here. Make Boo fall down and break her -nose in front of her.”</p> - -<p>Boo was a four-year-old angel with lovely black eyes -and bright yellow hair, the second child of the Kenilworth -family. Accompanied by one of her nurses, she -was playing near them, with a big rosy bladder tied to a -string.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think the matter so difficult that Boo’s nose -need be sacrificed. At what hotel is this person staying?”</p> - -<p>“At ours.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! Then the thing’s very easy.”</p> - -<p>She nodded and dismissed him. She was on fairly good -terms with her husband, and would make common cause -with him when it suited her; but she could not stand -much of his society. She took another prolonged stare -through her eye-glass at the large pale woman, so splendidly -attired, sitting in solitude under the tree, then rose and -walked away in her graceful and nonchalant fashion, with -her knot of young men around her. She was followed by -the dreary envious gaze of the lonely lady whose countenance -had been likened to a large whitey-brown paper -bag.</p> - -<p>“If one could but get to know <i>her</i> all the rest would -come easy,” thought that solitary and unhappy outsider, -looking longingly after that pliant and perfect figure with -its incomparable air of youth, of sovereignty, and of indifference. -What was the use of having an income second -only to Vanderbilt’s and Pullman’s?</p> - -<p>There are things which cannot be purchased. Manner -is chief amongst them.</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene was very lonely indeed, as she sat -under the big tree watching the gay, many-colored, animated -crowd amongst which there was not a creature with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> -whom she had even a bowing acquaintance. Her lord -and master, of whom she stood in much awe, was away on -business in Frankfort; her daughter, her only living child, -was in India; she was here because it was the proper place -for an aspirant to society to be in at that season; but of -all this multitude of royal people, titled people, pretty -people, idle people, who thronged the alleys and crowded -the hotels, she did not know a single creature. She envied -her own maid who had many acquaintances with other -maids and couriers and smart German sergeants and -corporals of cavalry.</p> - -<p>On the previous day she had made also a fatal mistake. -As she had crossed the hall of her own hotel, she had seen -a fair small woman, insignificantly dressed, in a deer-stalker’s -hat and a gray ulster, who was arguing with the -cashier about an item in her bill which she refused to -pay: so many kreutzer for ice; ice was always given -gratis, she averred; and she occupied the whole window -of the cashier’s bureau as she spoke, having laid down an -umbrella, a packet of newspapers, and a mackintosh on -the shelf. Indignant at being made to wait by such a -shabby little person, Mrs. Massarene pushed her aside. -“Folks as has to count pence shouldn’t come to grand -hotels,” she muttered, with more reason than politeness, -elbowing away the shabby fair woman.</p> - -<p>The shabby fair woman turned round and stared, then -laughed: the cashier and the clerk were confounded, and -lost their presence of mind. To the shabby fair woman a -man in plain clothes, obviously her servant, approached, -and bowing low said, “If you please, madam, his Imperial -Majesty is at the door.” And the lady who quarreled -with a clerk for half a kreutzer went out of the hall, and -mounted besides a gentleman who was driving himself; -one of those gentlemen to whom all the world doff their -hats, yet who, by a singular contradiction, are always -guarded by policemen.</p> - -<p>The Massarene courier, who was always hovering near -his mistress in the vain effort to preserve her from wrongdoing, -took her aside.</p> - -<p>“It’s Mrs. Cecil Courcy, madam,” he murmured. -“There’s nobody so chic as Mrs. Cecil Courcy. She’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span> -hand and glove with all them royalties. Pinching and -screwing—oh yes, that she <i>do</i>—but then you see, madam, -she <i>can</i> do it.”</p> - -<p>“You won’t tell your master, Gregson?” said Mrs. -Massarene in an agony of penitence.</p> - -<p>Gregson winced at the word “master,” but he answered -sincerely, “No, madam; I won’t tell Mr. Massarene. But -if you think that because they’re high they’re large, -you’re very much mistaken. Lord, ma’am, they’ll pocket -the <i>marrons glacés</i> at the <i>table d’hôte</i> and take the matches -away from their bedrooms, but then, you see, ma’am, them -as are swagger can do them things. Mrs. Cecil Courcy -might steal the spoons if she’d a mind to do it!”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene gasped. A great name covering a multitude -of small thefts appalled her simple mind.</p> - -<p>“You can’t mean it, Gregson?” she said with breathless -amaze.</p> - -<p>“Indeed, madam, I do,” said the courier, “and that’s -why, madam, I won’t ever go into service with gentlefolks. -They’ve got such a lot to keep up, and so precious little to -do it with, that they’re obliged to pinch and to screw and -get three sixpences out of a shilling, as I tell you, -madam.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene was sad and silent. It was painful to -hear one’s own courier say that he would never take service -with “gentlefolk.” One never likes to see oneself as -others see us.</p> - -<p>The poignant horror of that moment as she had seen the -imperial wheels flash and rotate through the flying dust -was still fresh in her mind, and should have prevented her -from ever trusting to her own judgment or forming that -judgment from mere appearances. She could still hear -the echo of the mocking voice of that prince whom Kenilworth -had described as “dead broke” saying to her, as he -had said more than once in England: “Not often do you -make a mistake; ah no, not often, my very dear madam, -not often; but when you do make one—<i>eh bien, vous la -faites belle</i>!”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene sighed heavily as she sat alone under -her tree, her large hands folded on her lap; the lessons of -society seemed to her of an overwhelming difficulty and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> -intricacy. How could she possibly have guessed that the -great Mrs. Cecil Courcy, who gave tea and bread-and-butter -to kings and sang duets with their consorts, was a little -shabby, pale-faced being in a deer-stalker’s hat and a -worn gray ulster who had disputed <i>in propriâ personâ</i> at -the cashier’s office the charge of half a kreutzer on her -bill for some iced water?</p> - -<p>As she was thinking these melancholy thoughts and -meditating on the isolation of her greatness, a big rose-colored -bladder struck her a sharp blow on the cheek; -and at her involuntary cry of pain and surprise a little -child’s voice said pleadingly, “Oh! begs ’oo pardon—vewy -muss!”</p> - -<p>The rosebud face of Lady Kenilworth’s little daughter -was at her knee, and its prettiness and penitence touched -to the quick her warm maternal heart.</p> - -<p>“My little dear, ’tis nothing at all,” she said, stooping -to kiss the child under its white lace coalscuttle bonnet. -Boo submitted to the caress, though she longed to rub the -place kissed by the stranger.</p> - -<p>“It didn’t hurt ’oo, did it?” she asked solicitously, and -then she added in a whisper, “Has ’oo dot any sweeties?”</p> - -<p>For she saw that the lady was kind, and thought her -pretty, and in her four-year-old mind decided to utilize -the situation. As it chanced, Mrs. Massarene, being fond -of “sweeties” herself, had some caramels in a gold bonbon-box, -and she pressed them, box and all, into the little -hands in their tiny tan gloves.</p> - -<p>Boo’s beautiful sleepy black eyes grew wide-awake with -pleasure.</p> - -<p>“Dat’s a real dold box,” she said, with the fine instincts -proper to one who will have her womanhood in the twentieth -century. And slipping it in her little bosom she ran -off with it to regain her nurse.</p> - -<p>Her mother was walking past at the moment with the -King of Greece on one side of her, and the Duc d’Orléans -on the other; wise little Boo kept aloof with her prize. -But she knew not, or forgot, that her mother’s eyes were -as the optic organs of the fly which can see all round at -once, and possess twelve thousand facets.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>Ten minutes later, when the king had gone to drink his -glasses of water and Prince Gamelle had gone to breakfast, -Lady Kenilworth, leading her sulky and unwilling -Boo by the hand, approached the tree where the lone lady -sat. “You have been too kind to my naughty little girl,” -she said with her sweetest smile. “She must not keep this -<i>bonbonnière</i>; the contents are more than enough for a careless -little trot who knocks people about with her balloon.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene, agitated almost out of speech and sense -at the sight of this radiant apparition which spoke with -such condescension to her, stammered thanks, excuses, -protestations in an unintelligible hotchpot of confused -phrases; and let the gold box fall neglected to the ground.</p> - -<p>“The dear pretty baby,” she said entreatingly. “Oh, -pray, ma’am, oh, pray, my lady, do let her have it, such a -trifle as it is!”</p> - -<p>“No, indeed I cannot,” said Lady Kenilworth firmly, -but still with her most winning smile, and she added with -that graceful abruptness natural to her, “Do tell me, I -am not quite sure, but wasn’t it you who snubbed Phyllis -Courcy so delightfully at the hotel bureau yesterday -morning?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene’s pallid face became purple.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my lady,” she said faintly, “I shall never get -over it, such a mistake as I made! When Mr. Massarene -comes to hear of it he’ll be ready to kill me——”</p> - -<p>“It was quite delightful,” said Lady Kenilworth with -decision. “Nobody ever dares pull her up for her cheese-paring -ways. We were all enchanted. She is a detestable -cat, and if she hadn’t that mezzo-soprano voice she -wouldn’t be petted and cossetted at Balmoral and Berlin -and Bernsdorff as she is. She is my aunt by marriage, -but I hate her.”</p> - -<p>“Dear me, my lady,” murmured Mrs. Massarene, doubtful -if her ears could hear aright. “I was ready to sink -into my shoes,” she added, “when I saw her drive away -with the Emperor.”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth laughed, a genuine laugh which -meant a great number of things, unexplained to her -auditor. Then she nodded; a little pleasant familiar nod -of farewell.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>“We shall meet again. We are at the same hotel. -Thanks so much for your kindness to my naughty pet.”</p> - -<p>And with the enchanting smile she used when she wanted -to turn people’s heads she nodded again, and went on her -way, dragging the reluctant Boo away from the tree and -the golden box.</p> - -<p>When she consigned her little daughter to the nurse, -Boo’s big black eyes looked up at her in eloquent reproach. -The big black eyes said what the baby lips did -not dare to say: “I did what you told me; I hit the lady -very cleverly as if it was accident, and then you wouldn’t -let me have the pretty box, and you called me naughty!”</p> - -<p>Later, in the nursery, Boo poured out her sorrows to -her brother Jack, who exactly resembled herself with his -yellow hair, his big dark eyes, and his rosebud of a -mouth.</p> - -<p>“She telled me to hit the old ’ooman, and then she said -I was naughty ’cos I did it, and she tooked away my dold -box!”</p> - -<p>“Never mind, Boo. Mammy always lets one in for it. -What’d you tell her of the box for? Don’t never tell -mammy nothin’,” said Jack in the superior wisdom of the -masculine sex and ten months greater age.</p> - -<p>Boo sobbed afresh.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t tell her. She seed it through my frock.”</p> - -<p>Jack kissed her.</p> - -<p>“Let’s find old woman, Boo, if we can get out all by -’selves, and we’ll ask her for the box.”</p> - -<p>Boo’s face cleared.</p> - -<p>“And we’ll tell her mammy telled me to hit her!”</p> - -<p>Jack’s cherub face grew grave.</p> - -<p>“N-n-no. We won’t do that, Boo. Mammy’s a bad ’un -to split on.”</p> - -<p>Jack had once overheard this said on the staircase by -Lord Kenilworth, and his own experiences had convinced -him of the truth of it. “Mammy can be cruel nasty,” he -added, with great solemnity of aspect and many painful -personal recollections.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene had remained under the tree digesting -the water she had drunk, and the memory of the blunder -she had made with regard to Mrs. Courcy. She ought to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> -have known that there is nothing more perilous than to -judge by appearances, for this is a fact to be learned in -kitchens as well as palaces. But she had not known it, -and by not knowing it had offended a person who went en -<i>intime</i> to Balmoral, and Berlin, and Bernsdorff!</p> - -<p>Half an hour later, when she slowly and sorrowfully -walked back through the gardens of her hotel, to go in to -luncheon, two bright cherubic apparitions came toward -her over the grass.</p> - -<p>Walking demurely hand-in-hand, looking the pictures of -innocent infancy, Jack and Boo, having had their twelve -o’clock dinner, dedicated their united genius to the finding -and besieging of the old fat woman.</p> - -<p>“How’s ’oo do?” said Boo very affably, whilst her -brother, leaving her the initiative, pulled his sky-blue Tam -o’ Shanter cap off his golden curls with his best possible -manner.</p> - -<p>Their victim was enchanted by their overtures, and -forgot that she was hungry, as these radiant little Gainsborough -figures blocked her path. They were welcome to -her as children, but as living portions of the peerage they -were divinities.</p> - -<p>“What’s your name, my pretty dears?” she said, much -flattered and embarrassed. “You’re Lord Kersterholme, -aren’t you, sir?”</p> - -<p>“I’m Kers’ham, ’ess. But I’m Jack,” said the boy -with the big black eyes and the yellow locks, cut short -over his forehead and falling long on his shoulders.</p> - -<p>“And your dear little sister, she’s Lady Beatrix Orme?” -said Mrs. Massarene, who had read their names and dates -of birth a score of times in her ‘Burke.’</p> - -<p>“She’s Boo,” said Jack.</p> - -<p>Boo herself stood with her little nose and chin in the -air, and her mouth pursed contemptuously. She was -ready to discharge herself of scathing ironies on the personal -appearance of the questioner, but she resisted the -impulse because to indulge it might endanger the restoration -of the gold box.</p> - -<p>“I am sure you are very fond of your pretty mamma, -my dears?” said Mrs. Massarene, wondering why they -thus honored her by standing in her path.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>Boo shut up her rosy mouth and her big eyes till they -were three straight lines of cruel scorn, and was silent.</p> - -<p>Jack hesitated.</p> - -<p>“We’re very fond of Harry,” he said, by way of compromise, -and as in allusion to a substitute.</p> - -<p>“Who is Harry?” asked Mr. Massarene, surprised.</p> - -<p>The children were puzzled. Who was Harry?</p> - -<p>They were used to seeing him perpetually, to playing -with him, to teasing him, to getting everything they -wanted out of him; but, as to who he was, of that they -had never thought.</p> - -<p>“He’s in the Guards,” said Jack at last. “The Guards -that have the white tails on their heads, you know, and -ride down Portland Place of a morning.”</p> - -<p>“He belongs to mammy,” said Boo, by way of additional -identification; she was a lovely little fresh dewdrop -of childhood only just four years old, but she had a -sparkle of malice and meaning in her tone and her eyes, -of which her brother was innocent.</p> - -<p>“Oh, indeed,” murmured Mrs. Massarene, more and -more embarrassed; for ought she knew, it might be the -habit for ladies in the great world to have an officer of -the Guards attached to their service.</p> - -<p>Jack looked critically at the strange lady. “Don’t ’oo -know people?” he asked; this poor old fat woman seemed -to him very forlorn and friendless.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know many people as yet, my lord,” murmured -their victim humbly.</p> - -<p>“Is ’oo a cook or a nurse?” said Jack, with his head on -one side, surveying her with puzzled compassion.</p> - -<p>“My dear little sir!” cried Mrs. Massarene, horrified. -“Why, gracious me! I’m a lady.”</p> - -<p>Jack burst out laughing. “Oh, no, ’oo isn’t,” he said -decidedly. “Ladies don’t say they’s ladies.”</p> - -<p>Boo twitched his hand to remind him of the ultimate -object of their mission.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene had never more cruelly felt how utterly -she was “nobody” at her first Drawing-room, than she -felt it now under the merciless eyes of these chicks.</p> - -<p>Boo pulled Jack’s sleeve. “She won’t give us nothin’ -else if ’oo tease her,” she whispered in his rosy ear.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>Jack shook her off. “P’r’aps we’re rude,” he said remorsefully -to his victim. “We’s sorry if we’ve vexed -’oo.”</p> - -<p>“And does ’oo want the little box mammy gived back -to ’oo?” said Boo desperately, perceiving that her brother -would never attack this main question.</p> - -<p>Over the plain broad flat face of the poor plebian there -passed a gleam of intelligence, and a shadow of disappointment. -It was only for sake of the golden box that these -little angels had smilingly blocked her road!</p> - -<p>She brought out the <i>bonbonnière</i> at once from her pocket. -“Pray take it and keep it, my little lady,” she said to -Boo, who required no second bidding; and after a moment’s -hesitation Mrs. Massarene took out of her purse a -new Napoleon. “Would you please, my lord,” she murmured, -pushing the bright coin into Jack’s fingers.</p> - -<p>Jack colored. He was tempted to take the money; he -had spent his last money two days before, and the Napoleon -would buy a little cannon for which his heart pined; -a real cannon which would load with real little shells. -But something indefinite in his mind shrank from taking -a stranger’s money. He put his hands behind his back. -“Thanks, very much,” he said resolutely, “but please, -no; I’d rather not.”</p> - -<p>She pressed it on him warmly, but he was obstinate. -“No, thanks,” he said twice. “’Oo’s very kind,” he added -courteously. “But I don’t know ’oo, and I’d rather not.” -And he adhered to his refusal. He could not have put -his sentiment into words, but he had a temper which his -sister had not.</p> - -<p>“’Oo’s very kind,” he said again, to soften his refusal.</p> - -<p>“’Oo’s very kind,” repeated Boo sarcastically, with a -little grin and a mocking curtsey, “and Jack’s a great big -goose. Ta-ta!”</p> - -<p>She pulled her brother away, being afraid of the arrival -of governess, nurse, or somebody who might yet again -snatch the gold box away from her.</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t ’oo take the money, Jack?” she said, as -they ran hand-in-hand down the path.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” said Jack truthfully. “Somethin’ inside -me told me not.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>Their forsaken admirer looked after them wistfully. -“Fine feathers don’t make a fine bird o’ me,” she thought -sorrowfully. “Even those babies see I ain’t a lady. I -always told William as how it wouldn’t be no use. I -dare say in time they’ll come to us for sake of what they’ll -get, but they won’t never think us aught except the rinsins -of the biler.”</p> - -<p>Lord Kenilworth had been looking idly out of a window -of the hotel across the evergreens after his breakfast -of brandy and seltzer and had seen the little scene in the -garden and chuckled as he saw.</p> - -<p>“Shrewd little beggars, gettin’ things out of the fat old -woman,” he thought with approval. “How like they -look to their mother; and what a blessing it is there’s -never any doubts as to the <i>maternity</i> of anybody!”</p> - -<p>He, although not a student of ‘Burke’ like Mrs. Massarene, -had opened that majestic volume once on a rainy -day in the library of a country house, and had looked at -his own family record in it, and had seen, underneath his -own title and his father’s, the names of four little children:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Sons:</div> -<div class="indent">(1) John Cecil Victor, Lord Kersterholme.</div> -<div class="indent">(2) Gerald George.</div> -<div class="indent">(3) Francis Lionel Desmond Edward.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Daughter:</div> -<div class="indent">Beatrix Cicely.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>“Dear little duckies!” he had murmured, biting a -cigarette. “Sweet little babes! Precious little poppets! -Damn ’em the whole blooming lot!”</p> - -<p>But he had been quite alone when he had said this: for -a man who drank so much as he did he was always remarkably -discreet. What he drank did not make him -garrulous; it made him suspicious and mute. No one had -ever known him allow a word to escape his lips which he -would, being sober, have regretted to have said. How -many abstemious persons amongst us can boast as much?</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER II.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was four o’clock on a misty and dark afternoon of -the month of March in London.</p> - -<p>The reception-rooms of a fine house facing Grosvenor -Gate were all lighted by the last modern perfection of -rose-shaded electricity. They were rooms of unusually -admirable proportions and size for the city in which they -were situated, and were decorated and filled with all that -modern resources, both in art and in wealth, can obtain.</p> - -<p>Harrenden House, as it was called, had been designed -for a rich and eccentric duke of that name, and occupied -by him for a few years, at the end of which time he had -tired of it, had carried all its treasures elsewhere, and -put it up for sale; it had remained unsold and unlet for a -very long period, the price asked being too large even for -millionaires. At last, in the autumn of the previous year, -it had been taken by a person who was much more than a -millionaire, though he had been born in a workhouse and -had begun life as a cow-boy.</p> - -<p>The great mansion had nothing whatever of the -<i>parvenu</i> about it except its new owner. Its interior had -been arranged in perfect taste by an unerring master’s -hand. The square hall had ancient Italian tapestries, -Italian marbles, Italian mosaics, all of genuine age and -extreme beauty, whilst from its domed cupola a mellowed -light streamed down through painted glass of the fifteenth -century, taken from the private chapel of a Flemish -castle.</p> - -<p>The two-winged staircase, broad and massive, had balustrades -of oak which had once been the choir railings of a -cathedral in Karinthia, the silver lamps which hung above -these stairs had once illumined religious services in the -Kremlin, and above the central balustrade leaned, lovely -as adolescence, a nude youth with a hawk on his wrist—the -work of Clodion.</p> - -<p>The rest of the mansion was in the same proportions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span> -and perfection. No false note jarred on its harmonies, -no doubtful thing intruded a coarse or common chord. -The household were not pushed away into dark cell-like -corners, but had comfortable and airy sleeping-chambers. -It was a palace fit for a Queen of Loves; it was a home -made for a young Cæsar in the first flush of his dreams of -Cleopatra. And it belonged actually to William Massarene, -late of Kerosene City, North Dakota, U. S. A., -miner, miller, meat salesman, cattle exporter, railway contractor, -owner of gambling-saloons, and opium dens for -the heathen Chinee, and one of the richest and hardiest-headed -men in either hemisphere.</p> - -<p>Nothing was wanting which money could buy—tapestries, -ivories, marbles, bronzes, porcelains, potteries, -orchids, palms, roses, silks, satins, and velvets, were all -there in profusion. Powdered lackeys lolled in the anteroom, -dignified men in black stole noiselessly over carpets -soft and elastic as moss; in the tea-room the china was -Sèvres of 1770, and the water boiled in what had once -been a gold water-vase of Leo X.; in the delicious little -oval boudoir the walls were entirely covered with old Saxe -plates, and Saxe shepherds and shepherdesses made groups -in all the corners, while a Watteau formed the ceiling; -and yet, amidst these gay and smiling porcelain people of -Meissen, who were a century and a half old, and yet kept -the roses on their cheeks and the laugh on their lips, -Margaret Massarene, the mistress of it all, sat in solitary -state and melancholy meditation; a heavy hopelessness -staring in her pale grey eyes, a dreary dejection expressed -in the loose clasp of her fat hands folded on her knee, the -fingers now and then beating a nervous tattoo. What use -was it to have the most beautiful dwelling-house in all -London if no one ever beheld its beauties from one week’s -end to another? What use was it to have a regiment of -polished and disdainful servants if there were no visitors -of rank for them to receive?</p> - -<p>Many things are hard in this world; but nothing is -harder than to be ready to prostrate yourself, and be forbidden -to do it; to be ready to eat the bitter pastry which -is called humble pie, and yet find no table at which so -much even as this will be offered you. The great world<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span> -did not affront them; it did worse, it did not seem to know -they existed.</p> - -<p>“Take a big town-house; buy a big country place; ask -people; the rest will all follow of itself,” had said their -counsellor and confidant at the baths of Homburg. They -had bought the town-house, and the country place, but as -yet they had found no people to invite to either of them; -and not a soul had as yet called at the magnificent mansion -by Gloucester Gate, although for fifteen days and -more its porter had sat behind open gates; gates of bronze -and gold with the Massarene arms, which the Herald’s -College had lately furnished, emblazoned above on their -scroll-work awaiting the coronet which a grateful nation -and a benign Sovereign would, no doubt, ere many years -should have passed, add to them.</p> - -<p>People of course there were by hundreds and thousands, -who would have been only too glad to be bidden to their -doors; but they were people of that common clay with -which the Massarenes had finished for ever and aye.</p> - -<p>There were many families, rich, if not as rich as themselves, -and living in splendor on Clapham Common, near -Epping Forest, or out by Sydenham and Dulwich, who -would have willingly been intimate with Mrs. Massarene -as their husbands were with hers in the city. She would -have been content with their fine houses, their good dinners, -their solid wealth, their cordial company. She would -have been much more at ease in their suburban villas -amidst their homelier comforts, hearing and sharing their -candid boastfulness of their rise in life. But these were -not the acquaintances which her husband desired. He -did not want commerce, however enriched; he wanted -the great world, or what now represents it, the smart -world; and he intended to have that or none.</p> - -<p>And Lady Kenilworth, their Homburg friend, had -written a tiny three-cornered note ten days before, with a -mouse in silver on its paper, which said: “I am in town -and am coming to see you. Jack and Boo send love,” -and on this familiar epistle they had built up an Eiffel -Tower of prodigious hope and expectation. But ten days -and more had passed and their correspondent had not yet -fulfilled her promise.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>Therefore, amidst all the beauty and splendor of it, the -mistress of the house sat, pale, sullen, despondent, melancholy. -She had sat thus for fifteen days—ever since -Parliament had met—and it was all in vain, in vain. The -gold urn bubbled, the shepherds smiled, the orchids -bloomed, the men in black and the men in powder waited -in vain, and the splendid and spacious mansion warmed -itself, lighted itself, perfumed itself in vain. Nobody -came.</p> - -<p>She had dropped all her old friends and the new ones -were faithless and few.</p> - -<p>She had been forced by her lord and master to cease -her acquaintance with the wives of aldermen and city -magnates and magistrates; good-natured wealthy women, -who had been willing to make her one of themselves; and -the desired successors, the women of the world, were only -conspicuous by their absence.</p> - -<p>She was dressed admirably by a great authority on -clothes; but the dull Venetian red, embroidered with gold -thread and slashed with tawny color, was suited to a -Vittoria Accrombona, to a Lucrezia Borgia, and did not -suit at all the large loose form and the pallid insignificant -features of their present wearer.</p> - -<p>When the head cutter of the great Paris house which -had turned out that magnificent gown had ventured to -suggest to its chief that such attire was thrown away on -such a face and figure as these, that Oracle had answered -with withering contempt, “<i>Rien ne va aux gens de leur -espèce, excepté leur tablier d’ouvrière. Et le tablier on ne -veut plus porter!</i>”</p> - -<p>His scorn was unutterable for all “<i>gens de leur espèce</i>,” -but he did what he could for them; he let them have exquisite -attire and sent them very long bills. It was not -his fault if they never knew how to wear their clothes; -he could not teach them that secret, which only comes by -the magic of nature and breeding. The present wearer -of his beautiful Venetian red and gold gown was laced in -until she could scarcely breathe; her fat hands were covered -with beautiful rings; her grey hair had been washed -with gold-colored dye; her broad big feet, which had stood -so many years before cooking stoves and washtubs, were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> -encased in Venetian red hose of silk and black satin shoes -with gold buckles; her maid had assured her that she -looked like a picture but she felt like a guy, and was made -nervous by the Medusa-like gaze of the men in black who -occasionally flitted across her boudoir to attend to a lamp, -contract the valve of the <i>calorifère</i>, or lay the afternoon -papers cut and aired by her chair.</p> - -<p>“If only they wouldn’t look at me so!” she thought, -piteously. What must they think of her, sitting alone -like this, day after day, week after week, when the dreary -two hours’ drive in the Park was over, behind the high-stepping -horses, which were the envy of all beholders, but -to their owners seemed strange, terrible and dangerous -creatures.</p> - -<p>London was full, not with the suffocating fullness indeed -of July, but with the comparative animation which comes -into the street with the meeting of Parliament.</p> - -<p>But not a soul had passed those gates as yet, at least -not one as human souls had of late become classified in the -estimation of the dwellers within them.</p> - -<p>The beautiful rooms seemed to yawn like persons whose -mind and whose time are vacant. The men in black and -the men in powder yawned also, and bore upon their faces -the visible expression of that depression and discontent -which were in their bosoms at the sense, ever increasing -in them, that every additional day in the house of people -whom nobody knew, robbed them of caste, injured their -prestige, and ruined their future.</p> - -<p>The mistress of the palace only did not yawn because -she was too agitated, too nervous and disappointed and -unhappy to be capable of such a minor suffering a <i>ennui</i>; -she was not dull because she was strung up to a high state -of anxious expectation, gradually subsiding, as day after -day went on, to a complete despair.</p> - -<p>They had done all that could be done in the way of -getting into society; they had neglected no means, -shunned no humiliation, spared no expense, refused no -subscription, avoided no insult which could possibly, -directly or indirectly, have helped them to enter its -charmed circle, and yet nothing had succeeded. Nobody -came, nobody at least out of that mystic and magic sphere<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span> -into which they pined and slaved to force or to insinuate -themselves; not one of those, the dust of whose feet they -were ready to kiss, would come up the staircase under the -smiling gaze of Clodion’s young falconer.</p> - -<p>But on this second day of the month of March, when -the clocks showed five of the afternoon, there was a slight -movement perceptible in the rooms of which the suite -was visible from the door of the boudoir. The groom of -the chambers, a slender, solemn, erect personage, by name -Winter, came forward with a shade of genuine respect for -the first time shown in his expression and demeanor.</p> - -<p>“Lady Kenilworth asks if you receive, madam?”</p> - -<p>“Why, lord, man! ain’t I in o’ purpose?” said his mistress, -in her agitation and surprise reverting to her natural -vernacular; whilst she rose in vast excitement and unspeakable -trepidation, and tumbled against a stool in her -nervousness.</p> - -<p>“I was sure that I should find you at home, so I followed -on the heels of your man,” said a sweet, silvery, -impertinent voice, as the fair young mother of Jack and -Boo entered the boudoir, looking at everything about her -in a bird-like way, and with an eye-glass which she did not -want lifted to the bridge of her small and delicate nose.</p> - -<p>“So kind—so kind—so honored,” murmured Mrs. Massarene -with bewilderment and enthusiasm, her pale, flaccid -cheeks warm with pleasure, and her voice tremulous with -timidity.</p> - -<p>“Not at all,” murmured Lady Kenilworth absently and -vaguely, occupied with her inspection of the objects round -her. She seated herself on a low chair, and let her glance -wander over the walls, the ceiling, the Meissen china, the -Watteau ceiling, and her hostess’s gown.</p> - -<p>“How’s your dear little children, ma’am?” said Mrs. -Massarene humbly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, they’re all right, thanks,” said their mother carelessly, -her head thrown back as she gazed up at the Watteau. -“It seems very well done,” she said at last. “Who -did it for you? The Bond Street people?”</p> - -<p>“Did what?” said her hostess falteringly, drawing in -her breath with a sudden little gasp to prevent herself -from saying “my lady.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>“The whole thing,” explained her guest, pointing with -the handle of her eye-glass toward the vista of the rooms.</p> - -<p>“The—the—house?” said Mrs. Massarene hesitatingly, -still not understanding. “We bought it—that is, Mr. -Massarene bought it—and Prince Kristof of Karstein was -so good as to see to the decorations and the furniture. -The duke had left a-many fixtures.”</p> - -<p>“Prin and Kris?” repeated Lady Kenilworth, hearing -imperfectly through indifference to the subject and attention -to the old Saxe around her. “I never heard of them. -Are they a London firm?”</p> - -<p>“Prince Kristof of Karstein,” repeated Mrs. Massarene, -distressed to find the name misunderstood. “He is a great -friend of ours. I think your ladyship saw him with us in -Paris last autumn.”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth opened wide her pretty, innocent, impertinent, -forget-me-not colored eyes.</p> - -<p>“What, old Khris? Khris Kar? Did he do it all for -you? Oh, I must run about and look at it all, if he did -it!” she said, as she jumped from her seat, and, without -any premiss or permission, began a tour of the rooms, -sweeping swiftly from one thing to another, lingering -momentarily here and there, agile and restless as a -squirrel, yet soft in movement as a swan. She did run -about, flitting from one room to another, studying, appraising, -censuring, admiring, all in a rapid and cursory -way, but with that familiarity with what she saw, and that -accurate eye for what was good in it, which the mistress -of all these excellent and beautiful things would live to -the end of her years without acquiring.</p> - -<p>She put up her eye-glass at the pictures, fingered the -tapestries, turned the porcelains upside down to see their -marks, flitted from one thing to another, knew every orchid -and odontoglossum by its seven-leagued name, and only -looked disapproval before a Mantegna exceedingly archaic -and black, and a Pietro di Cortona ceiling which seemed -to her florid and doubtful.</p> - -<p>She went from reception-rooms to library, dining-room, -conservatories, with drawing-rooms, morning-rooms, -studies, bedchambers, galleries, bath-rooms, as swift as a -swallow and as keen of glance as a falcon, touching a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> -stuff, eyeing a bit of china, taking up a bibelot, with just -the same pretty pecking action as a chaffinch has in an -orchard, or a pigeon in a bean-field. Everything was -really admirable and genuine. All the while she paid not -the slightest attention to the owner of the house, who followed -her anxiously and humbly, not daring to ask a question, -and panting in her tight corset at the speed of her -going, but basking in the sense of her visitor’s rank as a -cat basks in the light and warmth of a coal fire and a fur-lined -basket.</p> - -<p>Not a syllable did Lady Kenilworth deign to cast to her -in her breathless scamper through the house. She had -some solid knowledge of value in matters of art, and she -begrudged these delicious things to the woman with the -face like a large unbaked loaf and the fat big hands, as -her four-year-old Boo had begrudged the gold box.</p> - -<p>“Really they say there is a Providence above us, but I -can’t think there is, when I am pestered to death by bills, -and this creature owns Harrenden House;” she thought, -with those doubts as to the existence of a deity which -always assail people when deity is, as it were, in the betting -against them. She had read an article that morning by -Jules Simon, in which he argued that if the anarchists -could be only persuaded to believe in a future life they -would turn their bombs into bottles of kid reviver and -cheerfully black the boots of the bourgeoisie. But she -felt herself that there was something utterly wrong in a -scheme of creation which could bestow Harrenden House -on a Margaret Massarene, and in a Divine Judge who -could look on at such discrepancies of property without -disapproval.</p> - -<p>She scarcely said a syllable in her breathless progress -over the building; although the unhappy mistress of Harrenden -House pined in trembling for her verdict, as a poor -captain of a company longs for a word from some great -general inspecting his quarters. But when she had finished -her tour of inspection, and consented to take a cup -of tea and a caviare biscuit in the tea-room where the Leo -the Tenth urn was purring, and Mr. Winter and two of -his subordinates were looking on in benign condescension, -she said brusquely:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>“<i>Eh bien, il ne vous a pas volé.</i>”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene had not the most remote idea of what -she meant, but smiled vaguely, and anxiously, hoping the -phrase meant praise.</p> - -<p>“He’s given you the value of your money,” Lady Kenilworth -explained. “It’s the finest house in London, and -nearly everything in it is good. The Mantegna is rubbish, -as I told you, and if I had been asked I shouldn’t -have put up that Pietro di Cortona. What did Khris -make you pay for it?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, I am sure, ma’am,” replied the mistress -of the Mantegna meekly. “William—Mr. Massarene—never -tells me the figure of anything.”</p> - -<p>“The Cortona was painted last year in the Avenue de -Villiers, I suspect,” continued Lady Kenilworth. “But -all the rest, or nearly all, is admirable.”</p> - -<p>“It’s a very grand house,” replied its mistress meekly; -“but it’s mighty lonesome-like to be in it, with no company. -If all the great folks you promised, my lady——”</p> - -<p>“I never promised, I never do promise,” said her visitor -sharply. “I can’t take people by their petticoats and -coat-tails and drag them up your stairs. You must get -yourself known for something; then they’ll come. What? -Oh, I have no idea. Something. A cook; or a wine; or -a surprise. People like surprises under their dinner napkins. -Or a speciality, any speciality. I knew a person -who entirely got into society by white hares; <i>civet de -lièvre</i>, you know; but white, Siberian.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene gasped. She had a feeling then she -was being talked to in Sanscrit or Welsh and expected to -understand it. Why white hares should be better than -brown hares she could not imagine. Nobody ate the fur.</p> - -<p>“But you was so good as to say when we were in -Paris, ma’am——”</p> - -<p>“Never remind me of anything I said. I can’t endure -it! I believe you want to get in the swim, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Please, I don’t quite understand, ma’am.”</p> - -<p>Her visitor was silently finishing nibbling at a caviare -biscuit and reflecting what a goose she had been to go to -Egypt instead of utilizing this Massarene vein. She must -certainly, she thought, do all she could for these people.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>“You’re Catholic, aren’t you?” she said abruptly.</p> - -<p>The horror of an Ulster woman spread itself over the -flaccid and pallid clay in which the features of her hostess -were moulded.</p> - -<p>“Oh no, my lady, we were never Romans,” she said, so -aghast that she was carried out of herself into the phraseology -of her earlier years. “We were never Romans. -How could you think it of us?”</p> - -<p>“It would be better for you if you were,” said Lady -Kenilworth unfeelingly and irreverently. “Catholics are -<i>chic</i>; and then all the great Catholic families push a convert -unanimously. They’d get a sweep to all the best -houses if he only went often enough to the Oratory.”</p> - -<p>“We’ve always been loyal people,” murmured Mrs. -Massarene piteously; “always Orange as Orange could -be.”</p> - -<p>“Loyalty’s nothing,” said Lady Kenilworth, contemptuously -eyeing the beautiful gold urn with the envious -appreciation of a dealer’s glance. “Loyalty don’t ‘take -the cake.’ Nobody is afraid of it. It’s all fear now that -we go by——”</p> - -<p>“And gain,” she was about to add but checked the -words unuttered.</p> - -<p>“I wish you were Catholic,” she said instead. “It -would make everything so much smoother for you. I -suppose you couldn’t change? They’d make it very easy -for you.”</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene gasped. Life had unfolded many -possibilities to her of which she had never dreamed; but -never such a possibility as this.</p> - -<p>“Couldn’t you?” said her guest sharply. “After all, -it’s nothing to do. The Archbishop would see to it all -for you. They make it very easy where there is plenty -of money.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t think I could, my lady; it would be eternal -punishment for me in the world to come,” said Mrs. Massarene -faintly, whilst her groom of the chambers restrained -a violent inclination to box her on the ears for the vulgarity -of her two last words.</p> - -<p>He had been long trained in the necessary art of banishing -from his countenance every ray of expression, every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> -shadow of indication that he overheard what was said -around him, but nature for once prevailed over training; -deep and unutterable disgust was spoken on his bland yet -austere features. Eternal punishment! did the creature -think that Harrenden House was a Methody chapel?</p> - -<p>As for Lady Kenilworth, she went into a long and joyous -peal of laughter; laughed till the tears brimmed over -in her pretty ingenuous turquoise-colored eyes.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my good woman,” she said, as soon as she could -speak, good-humoredly and contemptuously, “you don’t -mean to say that you believe in eternal punishment? -What is the use of getting old Khris to furnish for you -and ask me to show you the way about, if you weigh yourself -down with such an old-fashioned funny packful of -antiquated ideas as that? You must not say such things -really; you will never get on amongst us if you do.”</p> - -<p>The countenance of Margaret Massarene grew piteous -to behold; she was a feeble woman, but obstinate; she -was ready to sell her soul to “get on,” but the ghastly -terrors inculcated to her in her childhood were too strongly -embedded in her timid and apprehensive nature to leave -her a free agent.</p> - -<p>“Anything else, ma’am—anything else,” she murmured -wretchedly. “But not Romanism, not Papistry. You -don’t know what it means to me, you don’t indeed.”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth shrugged her shoulders and got up -from the tea-table.</p> - -<p>“I always said,” she observed slightingly, “that the -Orange people were the real difficulty in Ireland. There -would never have been any trouble without them.”</p> - -<p>“But you are not a Papist yourself, my lady?” asked -Mrs. Massarene with trembling accents.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I? no,” said the pretty young woman with the -same contemptuous and indifferent tone. “We can’t -change. We must stick to the mast—fall with the colors—die -in the breach—all that kind of thing. We can’t -turn and twist about. But you new people can, and you -are geese if you don’t. You want to get in the swim. -Well, if you’re wise you’ll take the first swimming-belt -that you can get. But do just as you like, it does not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> -matter to me. I am afraid I must go now, I have half a -hundred things to do.”</p> - -<p>She glanced at the watch in her bracelet and drew up -her feather boa to her throat. Tears rose to the pale gray -eyes of her hostess.</p> - -<p>“Pray don’t be offended with me, my lady,” she said -timidly. “I hoped, I thought, perhaps you’d be so very -kind and condescending as to tell me what to do; things -bewilder me, and nobody comes. Couldn’t you spare me -a minute more in the boudoir yonder? where these men -won’t hear us,” she added in a whisper.</p> - -<p>She could not emulate her guest’s patrician indifference -to the presence of the men in black; it seemed to her -quite frightful to discuss religious and social matters beneath -the stony glare of Mr. Winter and his colleagues. -But Lady Kenilworth could not share or indulge such -sentiments, nor would she consent to take any such precautions.</p> - -<p>She seated herself where she had been before by the tea-table, -her eyes always fascinated by the Leo the Tenth -urn. She took a bonbon and nibbled it prettily, as a -squirrel may nibble a filbert.</p> - -<p>“Tell me what you want,” she said bluntly; she was -often blunt, but she was always graceful.</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene glanced uneasily at Winter and his -subordinates, and wished that she could have dared to -order them out of earshot, as she would have done with a -red-armed and red-haired maid-of-all-work who had marked -her first stage on the steep slopes of “gentility.”</p> - -<p>“You told us at Homburg, my lady——” she began -timidly.</p> - -<p>“Don’t say ‘my lady,’ whatever you do.”</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, my—yes, ma’am—no ma’am—I beg -pardon—you were so good as to tell William and me at -the baths that you would help us to get on in London if -we took a big house and bought that place in Woldshire. -We’ve done both them things, but we don’t get on; nobody -comes nigh us here nor there.”</p> - -<p>She heaved a heart-broken sigh which lifted and depressed -the gold embroideries on her ample bosom.</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth smiled unsympathetically.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>“What can you expect, my good woman?” she murmured. -“People don’t call on people whom they don’t -know; and you don’t know anybody except my husband -and old Khris and myself.”</p> - -<p>It was only too true. Mrs. Massarene sighed.</p> - -<p>“But I thought as how your la—, as how you would be -so very, very good as to——”</p> - -<p>“I am not a bear-leader,” said Lady Kenilworth with -hauteur. Mrs. Massarene was as helpless and as flurried -as a fish landed on a grassy bank with a barbed hook -through its gills. There was a long and to her a torturing -silence. The water hissed gently, like a purring cat, in -the vase of Leo the Tenth, and Mouse Kenilworth looked -at it as a woman of Egypt may have gazed at a statue of -Pascht.</p> - -<p>It seemed a visible symbol of the immense wealth of -these Massarene people, of all the advantages which she -herself might derive therefrom, of the unwisdom of allowing -their tutelage to lapse into other hands than theirs. -If she did not launch them on the tide of fashion others -would do so, and others would gain by it all that she -would lose by not doing it. She was a woman well-born -and well-bred, and proud by temperament and by habit, -and the part she was moved to play was disagreeable to -her, even odious. But it was yet one which in a way -allured her, which drew her by her necessities against her -will; and the golden water-vase seemed to say to her with -the voice of a deity, “Gold is the only power left in life.” -She herself commanded all other charms and sorceries; -but she did not command that.</p> - -<p>She was silent some moments whilst the pale eyes of her -hostess watched her piteously and pleadingly.</p> - -<p>She felt that she had made a mistake, but she did not -know what it was nor how to rectify it.</p> - -<p>“I beg pardon, ma’am,” she said humbly; “I understood -you to say as how you would introduce me to your -family and friends in town and in the country. I didn’t -mean any offence—indeed, indeed, I didn’t.”</p> - -<p>“And none is taken,” said Lady Kenilworth graciously, -thinking to herself, “One must suit oneself to one’s company.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> -That’s how they talk, I believe, in the servants’ -hall, where she ought to be.”</p> - -<p>Aloud she continued:</p> - -<p>“You see, whatever one says at Homburg, or indeed -anywhere at all out of England, does not count <i>in</i> England: -that is understood everywhere by everybody.”</p> - -<p>“Really,” murmured Mrs. Massarene, confused and -crestfallen: for it had been on the faith of this fair lady’s -promises and predictions in the past summer that Harrenden -House and Vale Royal had been purchased.</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said Lady Kenilworth rather tartly, still -looking at the gold water-vase, which exercised a strange -fascination over her, as if it were a fetish which she was -compelled, <i>nolens volens</i>, to worship. “Only imagine what -a mob we should have round us at home if everyone we -were civil to in Nice and Florence and Homburg and -Ostend, and all the other places, could take us seriously -and expect to be invited by us <i>here</i>. It would be frightful.”</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene sighed: existence seemed to her -complicated and difficult to an extent which she could -never have credited in the days when she had carried her -milking-pails to and from the rich grass meadows of her -old home in Ulster. In those remote and simple days -“I’ll be glad to see you” meant “I shall be glad,” and -when you ate out of your neighbor’s potato bowl, your -neighbor had a natural right to eat in return out of yours—a -right never disavowed. But in the great world these -rules of veracity and reciprocity seemed unknown. Lady -Kenilworth sat lost in thought some moments, playing -with the ends of her feather boa and thinking whether the -game were worth the candle. It would be such a dreadful -bore!</p> - -<p>Then there came before her mind’s eyes the sum total -of many unpaid bills, and the vision of that infinite -sweetness which lies in renewed and unlimited credit.</p> - -<p>“You want to be <i>lancée</i>?” she said at last in her -brusque yet graceful manner suddenly, as she withdrew -her gaze from the tea-table, “Well, sometimes to succeed -socially is very easy and sometimes it is very difficult—for -new people very difficult. Society is always uncertain.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> -It acts on no fixed principles. It keeps out A. and lets in -B., and couldn’t possibly say why it does either. Your -money alone won’t help you. There are such swarms of -rich persons, and everybody who gets rich wants the same -thing. You are, I believe, enormously rich, but there are -a good many enormously rich. The world is in a queer -state; ninety out of a hundred have nothing but debts, -the other ten are gorged on money, gorged; it is very -queer. Something is wrong. The sense of proportion -has gone out of life altogether. You want, you say, to -know people. Well, I can let you see them; you can -come and meet them at my house; but I can’t make them -take you up if they won’t do it.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene sighed. She dared not say so, but she -thought—of what use had been all the sums flung away at -this lovely lady’s bidding in the previous autumn?</p> - -<p>“It is no use to waste time on the idiot,” reflected her -visitor. “She don’t understand a word one says, and she -thinks they can buy Society as if it were a penny bun. -Old Billy’s sharper; I wonder he had not the sense to -divorce her in the States, or wherever they come from.”</p> - -<p>“Where’s your man?” she said impatiently.</p> - -<p>“William’s in the City, my lady,” answered Mrs. Massarene -proudly. “William, ma’am, is very much thought -of in the City.”</p> - -<p>“He’s on lots of things, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>After some moments’ puzzled reflection his wife replied, -“Meaning Boards, ma’am? Yes, he is. They seem they -can’t do without him. William had always a wonderful -head for business.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” said Lady Kenilworth. “He must put Cocky -on some good things. My husband, you know. Everything -is done by companies nowadays. Even the Derby -favorite is owned by a syndicate. Tell him to put Lord -Kenilworth on all his good things, and not to mind if he’s -unpunctual. Lord Kenilworth never can understand why -half-past two isn’t the same hour as twelve.”</p> - -<p>“That won’t do in business, my lady,” said Mrs. Massarene -boldly, for here she was sure of her ground. “Five -minutes late writes ruin sometimes.”</p> - -<p>“Does it indeed? I suppose that’s what makes it so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> -fetching. I am sure it would do Cocky worlds of good; -wake him up; give him things to think of.”</p> - -<p>“Is my lord a business man, ma’am?” said Mrs. Massarene, -with great doubt in her tone.</p> - -<p>“Oh, they all are now, you know. Cocky’s very lazy, -but he’s very clever.”</p> - -<p>“My lord don’t want to be clever; he’ll be duke,” said -Mrs. Massarene, intending no sarcasm. “I can’t think, -ma’am, as your noble husband would like to toil and moil -in the City.”</p> - -<p>“No—no; but to be on things, you know,” answered -her visitor vaguely. “You send Mr. Massarene to me -and we’ll talk about it. He mustn’t mind if Lord Kenilworth -only gives his name and never shows.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene’s was a slow brain and a dull one, but -she was not really stupid; in some matters she was shrewd, -and she began dimly to perceive what was expected of her -and her William, and what <i>quid pro quo</i> would be demanded -by this lovely lady who had the keys of society if -she used any of these keys in their favor; she had had glimmerings -of this before, but it had never presented itself -before her so clearly as now. She had sense enough, however, -to keep the discovery to herself. “I’ll tell Mr. -Massarene, ma’am,” she said meekly, “and I know he’ll be -very proud to wait on you. Shall it be to-morrow?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; to-morrow, before luncheon. About half-past -twelve.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t forget, ma’am.”</p> - -<p>“And I’ll come and dine with you next week. I’ll -bring some people, my sisters; they won’t mind, Carrie -certainly won’t. Lady Wisbeach, you know. What day? -Oh, I don’t know. I must go home and look at my book. -I think there is something of no importance that I can -throw over next week.”</p> - -<p>“And how many will be there at dinner, ma’am,” asked -Mrs. Massarene, feeling hot all over, as she would have -expressed it, at the prospect of this banquet.</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, I can’t say. I’ll see who will come. You -have a very good <i>chef</i>, haven’t you? If not I could get -you Van Holstein’s. You know when people are well fed -once they’ll come to be fed again, and they tell others.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>“Just like fowls,” murmured Mrs. Massarene, her mind -reverting to the poultry yard of her youth, with the hens -running over and upsetting each other in their haste to -get to the meal-pan.</p> - -<p>She was sensible of an awakening interest of a warmer -tinge in the manner of her protectress, since the subject -of good things in the City had been broached.</p> - -<p>“You mustn’t want to go too fast at once,” continued -that fair lady. “It’s like cycling. You’ll wobble about -and get a good many falls at first. But you’ve begun well. -You’ve a beautiful house, and you have my cousin’s place, -in the heart of a hunting county. Several of the county -people have asked me about the purchaser of Vale Royal, -and I have always said something nice about you both. -You know I have been four months on the Nile, and one -sees the whole world there; such a climate as this is to -return to after Egypt! Why weren’t you in Egypt? Oh, -I forgot; your man’s member for Limehouse, isn’t he? -I wonder the party hasn’t done more for you. But, you -see, money alone, unless there is tact—— Well, I dare say -I can’t make you understand if I talk till doomsday; -I have two or three people the night after to-morrow. I -will send you a card. And, by the way, you had better -tell Khris to call on me if he be in town. I will talk over -with him what we can do for you.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Winter, standing within earshot, at a discreet distance, -to all appearance as bereft of sight and hearing, -and impervious as a statue to all sight and sounds, lost -not a syllable uttered by Lady Kenilworth, and approved -of all. “It is clever of her,” he thought, “to be ready to -go halves in the spoils with that old prince. Meet him -half way, she does; mighty clever that; she’ll cut his -claws and draw his teeth. She’s a lady of the right sort, -she is. If she weren’t quite so clever she’d have him -jealous of him and have made an enemy of him at the -onset.”</p> - -<p>His employer meantime was exhausting her somewhat -limited vocabulary in agitated thanks and protestations of -undying gratitude which Lady Kenilworth nipped in the -bud by giving her two fingers chillily and hurrying away, -her farewell glance being cast at the golden water-vase.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>“Khris a house decorator and I a tout! How very -dreadful it is! But hard times make strange trades,” -thought the young mother of Jack and Boo, as she sank -down on the soft seat of her little brougham, and was borne -swiftly away to other houses, as the lamps begun to shine -through the foggy evening air.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER III.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Massarene</span> had conducted her visitor with great -obsequiousness to the head of the staircase, and would -have gone down the stairs with her had not Lady Kenilworth -prevented such a demonstration.</p> - -<p>“My dear creature, pray don’t! One only does that -for royalty,” she had said, while a repressed grin was visible -through the impassive masks of all the footmen’s -faces where they stood above and below.</p> - -<p>“How ever is one to know what’s right and what’s -wrong,” thought the mistress of Harrenden House, resting -her hands for a moment upon the carved rail of the -balustrade, and eyeing nervously the naked boy of Clodion. -That statue was very terrible to her; “To set a -lad without any scrap o’ clothes on a-beckoning with a -bird to everybody as come upstairs, I can’t think as it’s -decent or proper,” she said constantly to her husband. -But a master hand had indicated the top of the staircase -as the proper place for that nude young falconer to stand, -in all his mingled realism and idealization; therefore, no -one could be bold enough to move him elsewhere, and he -leaned airily against the old choir-carving, and wore a -fawn-like smile as he tossed his hawk above his head and -stretched his hand outward as though to beckon the -crowds, which would not come, up that silent stair.</p> - -<p>But the crowds were coming now!</p> - -<p>For where Lady Kenilworth pointed, the world would -surely follow; and the heart of simple Margaret Massarene, -late Margaret Hogan, dairymaid of Kilrathy, County -Down, beat high in her breast under the red and gold of -her gorgeous bodice. “It’s mighty hard work being a -lady,” she thought, “but since I’ve got to be one, I’d like -to go the whole hog, and show Kathleen when she comes -back to us that we are as smart gentlefolks as any of her -friends.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>When Mr. Massarene came home to dinner that evening, -his wife felt that she had great news to give him.</p> - -<p>“I think she’ll take us up, William,” she said, almost -under her breath. “But I think she’ll want a lot of -palm-grease.”</p> - -<p>She was a simple woman, of coarse views and expressions.</p> - -<p>“Whatever my lady wants she shall have,” reflected -her husband, but his heavy brows frowned; for he was a -man who did not like even the wife of his bosom to see -into his intentions, and if he were going to buy his way -into that society where his shooting-irons were of no use -to him, he did not care for even the “old ’ooman” to -know it.</p> - -<p>But the next day, at one o’clock precisely, he presented -himself at the house in Stanhope Street which the Kenilworths -honored by residence. He looked like an eminently -respectable grazier or cheesemonger clothed in the -best that money could buy; a hat, which was oppressively -lustrous and new, was carried in his hand with a pair of -new gloves. In his shirt-sleeves and butcher-boots, with -a brace of revolvers in his belt, as he had sworn at his -platelayers, or his diggers, or his puddlers, in the hard -bright light of the Dakotan sun, he had been a formidable -and manly figure in keeping with the giant rocks, and the -seething streams, and the rough boulder-strewn roads of -the country round him. But standing in the hall of a -London house, clad in London clothes made by the first -tailors, he looked clumsy and absurd, and he knew it. -He was a stolid, sensible, and very bold man; when a -railway train in the early days of the Pacific road had -been “held up” by a native gang, those desperate robbers -had found more than their match in him, and the whole -convoy, with the million odd dollars he was carrying in -his breast-pocket, had been saved by his own ready and -pitiless courage. But as he mounted the staircase in -Stanhope Street his knees shook and his tongue clove to -his teeth; he felt what actors describe as stage fright.</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth had deigned to know him at Homburg, -had put him in the way of buying Vale Royal of -her cousin Roxhall, had dined more than once at his expense<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> -with a noisy gay party who scarcely said good-day -to him, and likewise at his expense had picnicked in the -woods and drunk much more of the best Rhenish wines -than were good for them; and on a smooth stretch of -green sward under the pines, that lovely lady had imitated -the dancing of Nini-Patte-en-l’air of the Eden Theatre, -until the “few last sad grey hairs” upon his head had -stood erect in scandalized amazement. She had also dined -and supped at his expense several times with various -friends of her own in Paris, in the November following on -the July at Homburg; and she had let him take boxes for -her at the operas and theatres, and had generally used his -purse without seeming to see that it was open for her. -But he had exchanged very few words with her (though -he had already through her inspiration spent a good deal -of money), and his stout, squat figure shook like a leaf as -he was ushered into her presence, while her two Blenheims -flew at his trousers with a fugue of barks.</p> - -<p>What a dazzling vision she was, as she smiled on him -across the flower-filled and perfumed space which divided -them! She had smiled like that when she had first spoken -to him of buying Vale Royal in the early days of his acquaintance -with her. William Massarene was no fool, -and he knew that he would have to pay its full price for -that enchanting smile, but though he was not its dupe he -was its victim. He was nervous as he had never been -when he had heard the order, “Hands up!” in the solitude -of a mountain gorge at midnight amongst the -Rockies.</p> - -<p>The smile was encouraging, but the rest of the attitude -was serene, almost severe, as pure as a Virgin in a tryptich -of Van der Goes; she was at work on some embroidery; -she had Boo on a stool at her feet; she looked an -exquisite picture of youthful maternity; he could scarcely -believe that he had seen her cutting those mad capers on -the sward of the German forest, or heard her scream with -laughter at the supper-table of Bignon’s.</p> - -<p>Boo got up on her little black-stockinged legs, ran to -him, and looked at him from under her golden cloud of hair.</p> - -<p>“What has oo brought me?” said the true child of -modernity.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>“Do you remember the sweeties at the Baths, my lovely -darling?” stammered Mr. Massarene, immensely touched -and gratified at the child’s recollection of him, and full of -remorse that he had not rifled Regent Street.</p> - -<p>“Boo always remembers her friends,” said Boo’s mother -very pleasantly, as she delivered him from the Blenheims, -and made him seat himself beside her.</p> - -<p>“Old fat man’s come as was at Ombo; but he didn’t -bring nothin’ for us,” said Boo to Jack at the nursery -dinner ten minutes later. “Mammy’s goin’ to get somethin’ -’cos she was so civil to him.”</p> - -<p>“Oo’re always thinkin’ of <i>gettin’</i>, Boo,” said Jack, with -his rosy mouth full of mashed potato.</p> - -<p>“What’s the use o’ peoples else?” said his sister -solemnly, picking up the roast mutton which her nurse -had cut up into little dice on her plate.</p> - -<p>Jack pondered awhile upon this question.</p> - -<p>“I likes peoples ’cos I like ’em,” he replied at last.</p> - -<p>“You’re a boy!” returned his sister with withering -contempt.</p> - -<p>A week later, Boo’s mother, with a very gay and hilarious -round dozen of friends, including her eldest sister, -Lady Wisbeach, dined at Harrenden House, and the gentleman -known as Harry took in Mrs. Massarene.</p> - -<p>Two weeks later the Massarenes breakfasted in Stanhope -Street expressly to meet an imperial grand duchess -who at that time was running about London; and the -grand duchess was very smiling and good-natured, and -chattered volubly, and invited herself to dinner at Harrenden -House.</p> - -<p>“They do tell me,” she said graciously, “that you have -such a wonderful Clodion.”</p> - -<p>Three weeks later William Massarene allowed himself -to be led into the purchase of a great Scotch estate of -moor, seashore, and morass, in the extreme northwest of -Scotland, which had come to Brancepeth through his late -maternal grandmother, and which had been always considered -as absolutely unsaleable on account of certain -conditions attached to its purchase, and of the fact that it -had been for many years ill-preserved and its sport ruined, -the deer having been destroyed by crofters.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>Brancepeth, who was primitive and simple in many of -his ideas, had demurred to the transaction.</p> - -<p>“This beggar don’t know anything about sport,” he said -to the intermediary, Mouse; “’cause he’s buying a deer -forest he takes for granted he’ll find deer. ’Tisn’t fair, -you know. One ought to tell him that he’ll get no -more stalking there than he’d get on Woolwich Common.”</p> - -<p>“Why should you tell him anything?” said his friend. -“He can ask a factor, can’t he?”</p> - -<p>“Well, but it would only be honest, you know.”</p> - -<p>“You are odiously ungrateful,” said Mouse with much -heat. “I might have made the man buy Black Alder of -us, and I chose to get him to buy your place instead.”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth made a droll face very like what Jack would -make when he kept in a naughty word for fear of his -nurse. He thought to himself that the fair lady who was -rating him knew very well that her share in the purchase-money -of Black Alder, which belonged to her lord, would -have been remarkably small, whilst her share of that of -Blair Airon—but there are some retorts a man who is a -gentleman cannot make, however obvious and merited -they may be.</p> - -<p>“Get him to buy ’em both,” he said, tossing cakes to -the Blenheims. “You do what you like with the cad; -turn him round your little finger. One’s just as much a -white elephant as t’other, and it’s no use knowing sweeps -unless you make ’em clean your chimneys.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Massarene is not a cad or a sweep,” said his friend -in a tone of reproof. “He is a very clever man of -business.”</p> - -<p>“He must be to have to think of buying Blair -Airon!”</p> - -<p>“Probably <i>he</i> will make it productive. Or if he wants -big game he’ll import it from the Rockies, or—or—from -somewhere. What he wants is Scottish land; well, the -land is there, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>She invariably glossed over to herself these transactions -which she knew very well were discreditable, and she was -always extremely angry with those who failed to keep up -the glamour of fiction in which she arrayed them. Conscience<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> -she had not, in the full sense of the word, but she -had certain instincts of breeding which made some of her -own actions disagreeable to her, and only supportable if -they were disguised, as a courtly chemist silvered for her -the tonic pills which as courtly a physician prescribed -when she, who could ride all day and dance all night, -desired her nervous system to be found in jeopardy.</p> - -<p>“He buys with his eyes open. No one has misrepresented -anything,” she added calmly. “He can send an -army of factors to look at the estate if he pleases. Pray -don’t be a fool, Harry; and when your bread is buttered -for you don’t quarrel with it.”</p> - -<p>Harry did as he was bid.</p> - -<p>His principles were not very fine, or very strong, but -they were the instincts of a gentleman. They were -smothered under the unscrupulousness of a woman who -had influence over him, as so many of the best feelings -and qualities of men often are. Blair Airon was sold to -William Massarene; and at the same period many tradesmen -in Paris and London who dealt in toilettes, perfumes, -jewelry, fans and <i>lingerie</i> were agreeably surprised -by receiving large instalments of what was due to -them from their customer, Lady Kenilworth. To what -better use could barren rocks, and dreary sands, and a -dull rambling old house, which dated from James IV. and -stood in the full teeth of the north wind facing the -Orkneys, have possibly been put than to be thus transmuted -into gossamer body linen, and petticoats covered -with real lace, and exquisite essences, and fairy-like shoes, -with jewels worked into their kid, and court trains, with -hand-woven embroideries in gold and silver on their -velvet?</p> - -<p>If William Massarene discovered that he had bought a -white elephant he never said so to anyone, and no one -ventured to say so to him. All new men have a mania -for buying Scotch shootings, and if there was little or -nothing to shoot at Blair Airon the fact served for a laugh -at the clubs when the purchaser was not present. The -purchaser, however, knew well that there were no deer, -and that there was scarce fur or feather on the barren -soil; he had not bought without first “prospecting”; he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> -was too old a hand at such matters. But he had turned a -deaf ear to those in his interests who had drawn his attention -to the fact, and he had signed and sealed the -transfer of the estate to himself without a protest.</p> - -<p>Nobody in North Dakota it is true could ever have -cheated him out of a red deer or a red cent, but then nobody -in North Dakota had ever held that magic key to -the entrance of good society which he so ardently coveted. -He was prepared to pay very liberally to obtain that key. -He was far from generous by nature, but he could be generous -to extravagance when it suited him to be so.</p> - -<p>William Massarene was a short, broad, heavily-built -man, like his wife in feature, and having, like her, a -muddy-pale complexion which the Sierra suns had had no -force to warm and the cold blasts of the North Pacific no -power to bleach. His close-shut, thin, long lips, his square -jaw, and his intent gray eyes, showed, however, in his -countenance, a degree of volition and of intelligence which -were his portion alone, and with which hers had no likeness. -He was a silent, and seemed a dull, man; but he -had a clear brain and a ruthless will, and he had in its -full strength that genius for making money which is independent -of education and scornful of culture, yet is the -only original offspring of that modern life in which education -is an institution and culture is a creed.</p> - -<p>When he had been only eighteen years of age he had -married Margaret Hogan, because she was a stout strong -hard-working wench, and had at once taken a steerage -ticket to New York.</p> - -<p>When he reached the United States he had gone -straightway to the new settlements in North Dakota, -where cities consisted of plank-walks and shingle-roof -shanties, and where the inhabitants of those cities were -rougher and ruder even than himself. He had scent for -wealth as a thirsty steer for distant water-springs, and he -said to himself: “I won’t leave off till I’m second to Jay -Gould.”</p> - -<p>He began very modestly by employing himself as a pig-sticker -and opening a pork shop in a town called Kerosene. -His wife made and fried sausages to perfection. -The shop became a popular resort, and, in the back room,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span> -miners, diggers, cattlemen, and all the roughs for miles -around came to eat sausages, and found drinks, hot as -flame, and play <i>ad libitum</i>. Sometimes they staked nuggets, -and lost them.</p> - -<p>William Massarene never played, he only watched the -gamblers, and when they wanted money lent it to them, -or if they sold a nugget bought it. They were a wild lot -who cared neither for man nor devil; but he knew how to -keep them in order with his cold grey eyes and his good -six-shooter. Many swore that they would kill him or rob -him; but nobody ever did either, though several tried to -do both.</p> - -<p>His wife was liked; hard-worked as she was she found -time to do a good turn to sick neighbors unknown to -him; and more than one rough fellow spared him because -she had been kind to his kids or had brought some broth -to his girl. The sausage-shop in dreary, dirty, plank-made -Kerosene City was the foundation of his fortune.</p> - -<p>How the place had stunk and how it had reeked with -tobacco stench and echoed with foul outcries and the -blows and shots of ruined and reckless men! Margaret -Massarene often dreamt of it, and when she did so -dream, woke, bathed in sweat, and filled with nameless -terror.</p> - -<p>Her husband never dreamed, except when wide-awake -and of his own glories.</p> - -<p>Kerosene City had long outgrown its infancy of planks -and shingles, and had expanded into a huge town crammed -with factories, and tall houses, tramways and elevators -and churches, sky-scraping roofs, electric railways, chemical -works, fire-belching foundries, hissing, screaming, -vomiting machinery, and all the many joys of modern and -American civilization.</p> - -<p>But Kerosene City, most of it Mr. Massarene’s property, -was but an item in the Massarene property. He had -been in many trades and many speculations; he owned -railway plant and cattle ranches and steam-boats and -grain-depots, and docks and tramways and manufactories, -and men and women and children labored for him day and -night by thousands harder than the Israelites toiled for -the Pharaohs.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>Everything turned to gold that he touched. He -bought for little with prodigious insight and sold for much -with the same intuition. No foolish scruples hampered -his acquisitiveness, no weak-minded compassion ever -arrested him on any road which led to his own advantage. -He had never been known to relent or to regret, to give -except in ostentation, or to stir a step unless self-interest -suggested and self-recompense awaited it. Herbert -Spencer has said that kindness and courtesy are indispensable -to success: William Massarene knew better -than that philosopher. He had lived amongst men, and -not amongst books. In the land of his adoption his -fellows feared him as they feared no one else; his few -short hard words cut them like the knotted lash of an -overseer’s whip. He was dreaded, obeyed, hated: that -was all the feeling he cared to excite.</p> - -<p>Whilst he remained in that country he never lived like a -man of any means; he never spent a dollar on personal -ease or comfort; but it was known far and wide that after -Vanderbilt and Pullman the biggest pile in the States was -his; his wife alone did not know it.</p> - -<p>To the day that she sailed past Sandy Hook on her way -home Margaret Massarene had never ceased to work hard -and to save any red cent she could. She knew nothing of -his business, of his ambitions, of his hoarded wealth; -when he took a first-class cabin on a Cunard steamer and -bade her get a sealskin cloak for the voyage and buy herself -a handsome outfit, she was astounded.</p> - -<p>“We’ll come back great folks and buy out the old -’uns,” he had said to her thirty-five years earlier, as they -had meekly set down their bundles and umbrellas amongst -the steerage passengers of the emigrant ship and seen the -shores of Ireland fade from their sight as the day had -waned. All through the thirty-five years which he had -spent on alien soil he had never forgotten his object; he -had lived miserably, saving and screwing, paring and -hoarding, happy in the knowledge that his “pile” grew -and grew and grew, a little bigger, a little broader, with -every day which dawned; and when it was big enough -and broad enough for him to sit on it, monarch of all -which he might choose to survey, he said to his wife:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> -“Marg’ret, woman, it’s time to shut up the store. We’ll -be going home, I’m thinkin’, and buyin’ the old ’uns out. -I said as I’d do it, didn’t I, five-and-thirty year agone?”</p> - -<p>And his wife, being only a woman and therefore foolish, -burst out crying and threw her apron over her head.</p> - -<p>“But the dear old folk they be dead, William; and -dead be my poor babies too!”</p> - -<p>Then her William smiled; a very rare thing to see was -a smile on his tight straight lips.</p> - -<p>“’Tisn’t those old folks I’m meanin’—and ye’ve your -daughter surely to comfort ye; we’ll marry her to a lord -duke.”</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene had dried her tears knowing that -weeping would not bring her back her old parents whose -bones lay under the rich grass in Kilrathy, nor her little -lost boys who had been killed—two in a blizzard on the -cruel central plains, and one in a forest fire by a rushing -herd of terrified cattle. She had dried her tears, bought -her sealskins and velvets as she was bidden to do, and -come eastward with her lord in all the pomp and plenty -which can be purchased on a first-class ocean steamer, and -when the distant line of the low green shores of Cork -became visible to her, she had turned round the rings on -her large fingers and patted the heavy bracelets on her -wrists to make sure that both were real, and said in her -own heart if only the old people had been living, if only -her three boys had been there beside her, if only she could -go once more a buxom girl in a cotton frock through the -sweet wet grass with her milking stool! But William -Massarene, as he looked at the low green shores, had no -such fond and futile regrets; he set his legs wide apart -and crossed his hands on the handle of his stick and said -only to himself, with a pride which was fairly legitimate -if its sources were foul—</p> - -<p>“I did as I said I’d do; I’ve come back as I said I’d -come back.”</p> - -<p>For him, the herdsman who had tramped to and fro the -pastures in the falling rain, carrying a newly-dropped calf -after its mother, or driving a heifer to meet the butcher’s -knife, had been dead and gone for five-and-thirty years; -there was only alive now William Massarene, millionaire<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> -ten times over, who had the power of the purse in his -pocket and meant to buy Great Britain and Ireland with -it.</p> - -<p>As yet, he had, in his own ambitious sense of the words, -failed to buy them. He remained one of the obscure rich, -who are unknown to fame and to princes. It was not for -lack of expenditure that he had hitherto failed to gratify -his social ambitions. He had not understood how to set -about the matter; he had been timid and awkward; his -wife had been a drag on him, and his daughter, on whom -he had counted for the best of assistance, had declined to -accept the office which he assigned to her. He had lost -time, missed occasions, failed to advance to his goal in a -manner which intensely irritated a man who had never -before this been foiled or baulked in any of his plans. He -had learned that the great world was not a drinking den, -to be entered by “bluff,” with a nugget in one hand and a -revolver in the other; and in this stage of chagrin and -disappointment, Lady Kenilworth held out her hand to -him. He had done all that he knew how to do. He had -been returned for a metropolitan division and elected to -the Carlton. He and his wife had been presented at Court -almost as soon as they had arrived in England. They had -been invited to a few political houses. They had gone -where everybody went in summer, winter, spring, and -autumn. His subscriptions were many and large. His -financial value was recognized by Conservative leaders. -But there he remained. He was an outsider, and in this -period of perplexity, disappointment, and futile aspirations -to the “smart world,” Lady Kenilworth, the high priestess -of smartness, held out her hand to him.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IV.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Lady Kenilworth</span> was the prettiest woman in England; -her family, the Courcys of Faldon, was renowned -for physical charms, and she was the loveliest of them all, -exactly reproducing a famous Romney which portrayed -the features of her great great grandmother.</p> - -<p>She had eyes like forget-me-nots, a brilliantly fair skin, -a purely classic profile, a mass of sunny shining hair, -which needed no arts to brighten or to ripple it, and a -carriage, which for airy grace and supreme distinction, had -its equal nowhere among her contemporaries. Her baptismal -name of Clare had been almost entirely abandoned -by her relatives and friends, and she was always called by -them Mouse, a nickname given her in nursery days when -she pillaged her elder sisters’ bonbons and made raids on -the early strawberry beds, and which had gained in the -course of time many variations, such as Sourisette, Petit -Rat, Topinetta, Fine-ears, Liebe Mus, and any other derivative -which came to the lips of her associates.</p> - -<p>She had a mouse painted on the panels of her village -cart, stamped in silver on her note paper, mounted in gold -on her riding whip, cut in chrysoprase as a charm, and -made of diamonds as a locket; and many and various were -the forms in which the little rodent was offered to her by -her adorers on New Year’s Day and at Easter. She had, -indeed, so identified herself with the nickname, that when -she signed her name in a royal album, or to a ceremonious -letter, she had great difficulty in remembering to write -herself down Clare Kenilworth.</p> - -<p>When she had been brought out at eighteen years old, -she had been the idol of the season; people had stood on -chairs and benches in the Park to see her drive to her -first Drawing-room. It was not only her physical charms -which were great, but her manner, her scornful grace, her -airy hauteur, and the mixture in her expression of daredevil -audacity and childlike innocence, were fascinations<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> -all her own. The way she wore her clothes, the way she -moved, the things she said, the challenge of her sapphire -eyes, were all enchanting and indescribable. She “fetched -the town” as soon as she was out in an amazing manner; -and it was thought that she had thrown away her chances -in an astonishing degree when it was known that she had -accepted the hand of a little <i>mauvais sujet</i>, known as -Cocky to all London and half Europe, who passed his -time in the lowest company he could find, and was without -stamina, principles, or credit. But she knew what -she was about, and without giving any explanation to her -people, she dismissed the best men, and decided to select -the worst she could find; the worst, at least, physically -and morally.</p> - -<p>True, he always looked a gentleman, even when he was -soaked in brandy and gin as the wick of a tea-kettle is -soaked in spirits of wine. Cocky’s hands, Cocky’s profile, -Cocky’s slow soft voice, had always proclaimed his race, -even whilst he chaffed a cabman whom he could not pay.</p> - -<p>True, he was by courtesy Earl of Kenilworth, and -would certainly be, if he outlived his father, Duke of Otterbourne; -but then he was besides that and beyond that -to all his world—Cocky, and a more disreputable little -sinner than Cocky it would have been hard to find in the -peerage or out of it.</p> - -<p>But Cocky “suited her book”; and to the horror of -her own family and the amazement of his, this radiant -<i>débutante</i> selected as her partner for life this little drunkard, -who had one lung already gone and who formed the -whipping-boy and stalking-horse of every Radical newspaper -in Great Britain.</p> - -<p>At a garden party on the river Lord Kenilworth showed -himself for once in decent society, and unfuddled by pick-me-ups -and eye-openers. He walked alone with the beauty -of the year under an elm avenue by the waterside, and -this was their conversation:</p> - -<p>“You won’t expect much of me?” he said, with his -glass in his eye, looking vaguely down the river. “My -wretched health, you know; er—there’s one good thing -about it for you—I may kick over the bucket any day; -one lung gone, you know.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>“Yes,” replied his companion; “I’ve always heard so. -But you’ll let me hang on my own hook, drive my own -team, won’t you?”</p> - -<p>Cocky nodded. He perfectly understood the allegorical -phrases.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord, yes,” he made answer. “I’m a very easy-going -fellow. Take my own way and let other people -take theirs.”</p> - -<p>“I warn you I shall take mine,” said the young beauty—she -looked him full in the eyes. Cocky’s own pale, -drowsy eyes looked back into hers with so cynical a smile -in them that for once she was disconcerted.</p> - -<p>“Lord, what’ll that matter to me?” he responded candidly. -“I only marry to make the Pater come down with -the flimsy. We shall have to agree over financial questions, -you and I, that’s all. Most married people only -meet over the accounts, you know.”</p> - -<p>The young lady laughed.</p> - -<p>“Very well, then. If you see it in that sensible light, -we’ll say it’s concluded.”</p> - -<p>Cocky had a gleam of conscience in his brandy-soaked -soul. “You might do better, you know,” he said slowly. -“You’re awfully fetching and you’re very young, and I’m—well, -I’m a bad lot—and—and wretched health, you -know.”</p> - -<p>“I know; but you suit me,” said his companion with -brevity. “I shall have the jewels, sha’n’t I?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; I’ve spoken to the Pater; he’ll let you have -’em.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Tôpe là donc!</i>” she said frankly, and she held out her -pretty gloved right hand. Cocky respectfully kissed the -tips of her fingers. Then he grinned.</p> - -<p>“Let’s go and ask the Pater’s blessing! He’s over -there with the Princess.”</p> - -<p>“The devil take her if she hasn’t got some card up her -sleeve that she don’t show me,” he thought as he continued -to walk on beside her. “But she’s awfully fetching, -and she’ll be great fun, and the Pater will think I’m -reforming, and he’ll come down with the blunt, and what -a wax Beric’ll be in!”</p> - -<p>Beric was his next brother, Alberic Orme.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>Meantime the lovely and youthful creature, who brushed -the grass with her bronze kid boots beside him, pursued -similar reflections.</p> - -<p>“He don’t look as if he’d live a year; and he’s too far -gone to bother me much, and such a <i>crétin</i> as that Harry -won’t mind, and the vulture’s egg is worth a little worry.”</p> - -<p>Her relatives, and especially her eldest brother, were -horrified by her decision; but their persuasions and their -entreaties were as ineffectual as their condemnation.</p> - -<p>“He will let me do as I like, and I shall have the vulture’s -egg,” she invariably answered. The vulture’s egg -was a great diamond, so called, which, while it had been -in the possession of each succeeding Duchess of Otterbourne, -had rendered her the envied of all her sex. One -of the family, present at the battle of Plassy, as a volunteer, -had taken it from the turban of a native prince -whom he had slain. It was a yellow diamond of great -size and effulgence; and if she married Cocky she could, -she hoped, wear it at once, as his mother had been dead -many years.</p> - -<p>“You marry that little wretch for the sake of that looted -jewel!” said her brother Hurstmanceaux, furious.</p> - -<p>“Many people don’t marry anything half as nice as a -jewel,” she replied calmly, and she persisted and did give -her hand to the sickly little man with a classic profile and -a ruined constitution, of whom his own father was -ashamed.</p> - -<p>Cocky was a slight, pale, feminine-looking person, with -very light eyes, which were usually without any expression -at all in them, but now and then at rare intervals -could flash with a steely sharpness. His wife knew those -electric flashes of those colorless orbs, and was as afraid -of them as it was possible to the intrepid nature of a -Courcy of Faldon to be ever afraid.</p> - -<p>Cocky, however, possessed some excellent qualities. -Other men were garrulous and confidential after drinking; -but the more Cocky drank the more wary and the -more silent he became. The tacit compact they made on -that day of their betrothal, when they had walked beside -the Thames together, was never broken on her side or his. -They never interfered with each other, and they were at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> -times almost cordial allies when it was a question of playing -into each other’s hands against some detested third -person, or of deriving some mutual advantage from some -mutual concessions.</p> - -<p>He usually let her have her own way as she had stipulated, -for it was the easiest and most profitable way for -himself.</p> - -<p>He was very lazy and wholly unscrupulous. Many -thousands of pounds of good money had been spent on his -education; tutors of the best intellect and the best morals -had trained him from seven to twenty-one: his father, -though a vain man, was of immaculate honor; every kind -of inducement and pressure was put on him to be a worthy -representative of a noble name; and nature had given him -plenty of brains. Yet, so pigheaded is human nature, or -so faulty is the English system of patrician education, that -Cocky, for all practical result to his bringing up, might -have been reared in a taproom and have matriculated in a -thieves’ quarter.</p> - -<p>“Queer, monstrous queer,” thought his father often, -with an agony of irritation and regret. “Train a child in -the way he should go and hang me if he won’t go just -t’other way to spite you.”</p> - -<p>Cocky was a very old child at the time of his marriage; -he was thirty-seven years of age, with his thin, fair hair -turning very grey, and one lung nearly gone as he had -declared; but he did not evince the slightest desire to reform, -and he took money in all ways, good, bad, and indifferent, -in which it offered itself to him.</p> - -<p>“What a man to leave behind one!” thought Otterbourne -very often, with real shame and sorrow at his heart.</p> - -<p>He was himself a very good man, and a gentleman to -the marrow of his bones; his vanities were harmless, and -his little airs of youth were not ridiculous because he was -still very handsome and well preserved.</p> - -<p>By what horrible fatality, he often asked himself, was -Cocky the heir of his dukedom? He had three other sons, -all men of admirable conduct and health, both moral and -physical. By what extraordinary irony and brutality of -fate had his eldest son, who had enjoyed every possible -benefit from early training and good influences, become<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> -what he was? His wife had been a saint, and, for the -first ten years of his life Cocky had been as pretty and -promising a boy as ever rejoiced the heart of parents.</p> - -<p>She had given birth to the four charming little children -whose names were recorded in Burke, and who were admired -by all the women they met when they toddled along -the sunny side of the Park, or drove in their basket carriage -behind their two sleek donkeys with Jack holding -the reins and a groom walking at the asses’ heads.</p> - -<p>They were pretty babies, dear little men and women, -with big black eyes and golden masses of hair, and skins -as soft and as fair as blush-roses; she was fond of them -but they could not have much space in her life, it had -been already so very full when they had come into it. -She had never a moment to herself unless it were the time -of meditation which her bath gave her, or the minutes in -which, alone in her little brougham, she rushed from one -house to another.</p> - -<p>Cocky went about with his wife quite often enough to -set a good example. Not into society indeed, Cocky had -a society of his own to which he was faithful, but he was -always there when wanted—in the London house, in the -country houses, in the Paris hotel, at the German bath—he -was always there in the background, a shadowy presence -letting himself in and out with noiseless and discreet -footsteps, a permanent sanction and indisputable guarantee -that all was as it should be, and that Lady Kenilworth, -with the big diamond of his House on her fair -bosom, could attend a Drawing-room or a State ball whenever -she chose. He really kept his part of the compact -with a loyalty which better men might have not shown, -for better men would not have had his inducements or his -patience to do so.</p> - -<p>Their financial embarrassments were chronic, but never -interfered with their expenditure. Money was always got -somehow for anything that they really wished to do. -They were at all places in their due season, and their own -houses never saw them except when there was a house-party -to be entertained, or a royal visit to be received. -True Cocky on such occasions was usually indisposed and -unseen, but that fact did not greatly matter to anyone.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> -It was an understood thing in society that he had motor -ataxy, a very capricious disease as everyone knows; putting -you in purgatory one day and letting you sup with -ballet-girls the next. And Cocky had this useful faculty -of the well-born and naturally well-bred man that he -could, when he chose, pull himself out of the slough, remember -his manners, and behave as became his race. But -it bored him excruciatingly, and the effort was brief.</p> - -<p>The marriage, on a whole, if they had not been continually -in difficulties about money, might fairly have been -called as happy as most marriages are. When they quarreled -it was in private, and when they combined they -were dangerous to their families.</p> - -<p>She knew that she was never likely ever again to find -anyone quite so reasonable, quite so useful as he.</p> - -<p>He had, immediately on their marriage, been on very -good terms with her friend Harry; and when there was -later on question of other friends beside Harry he did not -feel half so much irritation at the fact as did Harry himself.</p> - -<p>He had learned what card it had been which she had -kept up her sleeve when she had spoken with such apparent -frankness as she had walked along the grass path by -the Thames. But he had never made a fuss about it. He -really thought Harry a very good fellow though “deuced -poor, deuced poor,” he said sometimes shaking his head.</p> - -<p>Harry, too, was useful and unobtrusive, always ready -to get theatre stalls, or make up a supper party, or row -the stablemen if the horses got out of form, or go on beforehand -to see the right rooms were taken at Homburg -or Biarritz, or Nice. A good-natured fellow, too, was -Harry; sort of fellow who would pawn his last shirt for -you if he liked you. Cocky always nodded to him, and -used his cigar-case, and sauntered with him for appearance -sake down Pall Mall or Piccadilly in the most amicable -manner possible.</p> - -<p>Cocky was a nursery nickname which had gone with -him to Eton, and from Eton into the world, and Kenny -was an abbreviation of his courtesy title which was unfortunately -in use even amongst the cabmen, policemen, -crossing-sweepers, and match-sellers of that district of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> -Mayfair where he dwelt whilst awaiting the inheritance -of Otterbourne House.</p> - -<p>“Jump in, boy,” said the driver of a hansom to a telegraph -lad, who had hailed him at the same time as Lord -Kenilworth. “Jump in, a growler’s good enough for -Kenny. He wants to get slow over the ground to give -my lady time with her fancy-man.”</p> - -<p>There was something about him which made all manly -men, of whatever class, from cabdrivers to his own brothers -and brother-in-law, perpetually desire to kick him. -He knew that men wished to kick him; and he did not -try to kick them in return. He wore his degradation -smilingly, as if it were an Order.</p> - -<p>“That is the utterly hopeless thing about him,” said -his father once.</p> - -<p>The Ormes had always been great people—true, staunch, -polished gentlemen, holding a great stake in the country, -and holding it worthily, riding straight, and living honorably. -By what caprice of chance, what irony of fate, had -this stalwart and high-principled race produced such a -depraved and degenerate being as Cocky?</p> - -<p>“There must be something very wrong in our social -system that so many of our men of position are no sounder -than rotten apples,” the duke said once to a person, who -replied that there were black sheep in all countries. -“Yes, but our black sheep are labeled prize rams,” replied -Otterbourne.</p> - -<p>The four little children in the nurseries did not give -him much consolation. The gossip of society hung over -them like a cloud in his sight, and there were none of -those dark sleepy eyes in his family portraits at Staghurst.</p> - -<p>“There are no black-eyed Ormes in our family portraits,” -he said once to his eldest son; and Cocky’s face -wore for an instant a droll expression, and his left eye -winked. But it was only for an instant.</p> - -<p>“There’s a legend,” he said, rolling a cigarette; “Richard -Orme married a gipsy in William Rufus’s time. Lord, -who shall say to where the brats throw back?”</p> - -<p>“Who indeed?” said the duke with a significance -which penetrated even the Cognac-sodden brains of his -heir.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>But the legend did really exist, and when the children’s -mother heard of the gipsy of William Rufus’s time she -thought the legend a very interesting one and very useful.</p> - -<p>But who could blame Cocky’s wife for anything? Besides, -the duke was of that old English temper, now -grown so rare, which thought dishonor carried into a law -court was only made much worse by the process, and was -painfully conscious that Kenilworth, although he looked -like a gentleman, spoke like one, moved like one, and -wore his clothes like one, was in many sorrowful respects -a cad. But a clever cad! Yes, Cocky was clever by nature, -if not by study; that was perhaps the very worst -part of the whole matter. He could play the fool—did -play it almost perpetually—but he had not been born a -fool.</p> - -<p>There was not even that excuse for him.</p> - -<p>He was a man of considerable intelligence, whom indolence, -depravity, and disinclination to take trouble had -made approach very nearly to an idiot. But, as his mind -had odd nooks and corners in it, which contained out-of-the-way -scraps of learning sometimes profound, so his -character had, occasionally, spasms in it of resolve and of -volition, which showed that he might have been a different -person to the mere nonentity and lounger that he was, -if he had been forced to work for his living. As it was -he was the butt of his friends, the torture of his father, -the ridicule of his wife, and the favorite whipping-boy of -the press and public, when they wanted indirectly to slate -a prince or directly to pillory an order. As a gun loaded -to the muzzle, which could at any moment be discharged -with deadly effect at the Upper House, he was unspeakably -dear to the Radicals.</p> - -<p>One day, in a Hyde Park meeting met to howl against -the Lords, Cocky, who was riding his cob down the road -past the Achilles, heard his own name spoken, and his -fitness for an hereditary legislator irreverently denied. -He stopped to listen, putting his glass in his eye to see his -adversaries.</p> - -<p>“My good people, you are all wrong,” he called to them -at a pause in the oration. “I’m a commoner. Plain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> -John Orme, without a shilling to bless myself with. Don’t -suppose I shall ever live to get into the Lords. The -Pater’s lungs are much sounder than mine, and his politics -too; for he’d trounce you all round, and give each of -you a horse-drench.”</p> - -<p>So oddly constituted are mobs, that this one laughed -and cheered him for the speech, and Cocky, much diverted, -got off his cob in Hamilton Place, at the Batchelor’s -Club, and went to refresh his throat with a glass of -brandy.</p> - -<p>It was his sole appearance in public life.</p> - -<p>“Told ’em you’d give each of ’em a horse-drench,” he -said with a faint chuckle, the next time he saw his father.</p> - -<p>“Thanks,” said Otterbourne; “and if they break my -windows the next time they’re out, will you pay for the -glazier?”</p> - -<p>“Never pay for anything,” said Cocky, solemnly and -truthfully. And it was probably the only truthful word -that he had spoken for many years.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER V.</h2> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Ronnie</span>,” said Mouse to her elder brother one morning, -“I don’t think I’ve ever told you about those new -people to whom Gerald sold Vale Royal——”</p> - -<p>“To whom <i>you</i> sold Vale Royal,” said Lord Hurstmanceaux -with curt significance.</p> - -<p>She colored; she did not like her brother’s rough and -blunt ways of putting things, though it was a Courcy -habit into which she herself lapsed in cynical and imprudent -moments.</p> - -<p>She let the subject pass, however, and continued as if -she had not heard the correction.</p> - -<p>“They are such fun; you can’t imagine how delightful -they are; and they have made Harrenden House a -paradise. When I came from Cairo they were already in -it. Old Prince Khris had done it all.”</p> - -<p>“There are a good many such dollar-lined paradises in -London,” said Hurstmanceaux. “I’d rather you didn’t -go into them. But, of course, you do as you like.”</p> - -<p>“Of course I do! Old Khris arranged the house for -them.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux laughed.</p> - -<p>“Khris and you! They will be warm people indeed if -they have even a <i>paire pour le soif</i> left for themselves between -you two. Poor devils! I think I’ll go and give -them the lay of the course.”</p> - -<p>“My dear Ronnie! How absurd you are. If anybody -heard you they might think you were in earnest.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux looked at his sister with a shrewd, appreciative -scorn in his eyes.</p> - -<p>“They might,” he said gravely. “I am usually in -earnest, my dear.”</p> - -<p>“I know you are and it is a horrid thing to be,” she -replied with petulance. “Earnest people are always such -bores.” Then, remembering that she would not produce<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> -the effect she desired by abusing him, she changed her -tone.</p> - -<p>“Dearest Ronald, these persons are coming here to-morrow -night. Let me present them to you; and if you -would but say a good word for them in the world——”</p> - -<p>He was silent.</p> - -<p>“I think, you know,” she murmured softly, “that as -they bought Gerald’s place they naturally rather look to -us all to make things pleasant for them.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux put the white small ringed finger off -his coat with a gesture which had sternness in it.</p> - -<p>“My dear child, you are Delilah to all men born of -Adam; but not to me, not to me, my child, because you -are my sister. The Lord be praised for His mercies! If -you had not been my sister I should have had no strength -against you probably. As it is, I won’t keep bad company, -my dear, even to please you.”</p> - -<p>“Bad company! They are most estimable people.”</p> - -<p>“I am happy to hear so, since you let them in here.”</p> - -<p>“But everybody is going to know them.”</p> - -<p>“Then why should you care about my knowing them -too?”</p> - -<p>“That is just——” began his sister, and paused, scanning -the little mouse embroidered on her handkerchief.</p> - -<p>“Take your eyes off that bit of gossamer and look at -me,” said Hurstmanceaux severely. “You do this kind -of thing. Cocky does it. You make Gerald do it. But -I’ll be damned, my dear, if you make me.”</p> - -<p>She was mute, distressed, irritated, not seeing very well -what to say or resent.</p> - -<p>“Get up a firm with old Khris,” continued her brother; -“Khris and Kenilworth; it will run very nicely and take -the town like wildfire; I am convinced that it will; but -Hurstmanceaux as ‘Co.’—no thank you.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t even hear me,” said his sister rather piteously.</p> - -<p>“I know all you’re going to say,” he replied. “You -mean to float these people, and you’ll do it. You’ll get -’em to State concerts, and you’ll get ’em to Marlborough -House garden-parties, and you’ll get ’em to political -houses, and you’ll ram ’em down all our throats, and take<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> -the princes to dine with ’em; I know all that; it’s always -the same programme; and the he-beast will get a baronetcy, -and the she-beast will get to Hatfield, and you’ll run -them just as Barnum used to run his giants and dwarfs, -and you’ll make a pot by it as Barnum did. Only leave -me out of the thing, if you please.”</p> - -<p>“Why shouldn’t you be the sleeping partner?” said his -sister jestingly, but with a side glance of her lovely eyes -which had a timid and keen interrogation in it. “Nobody’d -be the wiser, and your word has such weight.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t make that sort of suggestion, my dear, even in -joke. Gerald has helped you; I am not Gerald. You’ve -made him dance to your tune through a lot of mud, but -you won’t make me. There are enough of the family in -this shabby kind of business as it is.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Ronald!——”</p> - -<p>“You see, Sourisette,” he added, “you are always telling -me that I wear my clothes too long; you’ve often seen -me in an old coat, in a shockingly old coat; but you -never saw me in an ill-cut one. Well, I like my acquaintances -to be like my clothes. They may be out at elbows, -but I must have ’em well cut.”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth gazed at her pocket-handkerchief for -a few minutes in disturbed silence.</p> - -<p>“Is that the tone you mean to take about my new -people?” she asked at last.</p> - -<p>“My dearest Sourisette, I don’t take any tone. These -<i>richards</i> from the Northwest are nothing to me. You -are taking them up, and getting Carrie to take them up, -because you mean to get lots of good things out of them. -No one can possibly know ‘a bull-dozing boss’ from -North Dakota for any other reason than to plunder -him.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Ronald! What coarse and odious things you -say!”</p> - -<p>Her exclamation was beseeching and indignant; a little -flush of color went over her fair cheeks. “You shouldn’t -be so hard upon one,” she added. “Some poet has said -that poverty gives us strange bed-fellows.”</p> - -<p>“We need never lie down on the bed; we can lie in our -own straw.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>“But if we have used up all our straw?”</p> - -<p>“Then we can go out of doors and sleep <i>à la belle -étoile</i>.”</p> - -<p>“And the rural constable will pass by with his lanthorn, -and wake us up, and run us in! Oh, my dear -Ronald, you don’t know what it is to want a sovereign -every moment. You’re unmarried, and you shoot with a -keeper’s gun, and you yacht in an old wooden tub, and -you lounge about all over the world with your places -shut up, and your town-house let; what can you tell, -what can you dream, of the straits Cocky and I are put -to every single minute of our lives?”</p> - -<p>“Because you won’t pull up and lead sensible lives,” -said Hurstmanceaux. “You must always be in the swim, -always at the most ruinously expensive places. Can’t -you exist without tearing over Europe and bits of Africa -every year? Did our forefathers want Cairene winters? -Couldn’t they fish and shoot, and dance and flirt, without -Norway and the Riviera? Wasn’t their own county town -enough for them? Weren’t their lungs capable of -breathing without Biskra? Weren’t they quite as good -sportsmen as we are with only their fowling-pieces? -Quite as fine ladies as you are, though they saw to their -still-rooms?”</p> - -<p>“Their women look very nice in the Romneys and -Reynolds,” said Mouse. “But you might as well ask why -we don’t go from Derby to Bath in a coach-and-six. <i>Autre -temps autre moeurs.</i> There is nothing else to be said. -Would you yourself use your grandfather’s gun? Why -should I see to my still-room?</p> - -<p>“I do wish,” she continued, “that you would talk -about what you understand. I will send you the bill for -the children’s boots and shoes, just to show you what it -costs one merely to have them properly shod.”</p> - -<p>“Poor little souls!” said Hurstmanceaux, with his -smile which people called cynical. “I don’t think they -are the heaviest of your expenses. I believe you could -live with the whole lot of them in a cottage at Broadstairs -or Herne Bay all the year round for about what your -hunting mares cost you in one season.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be an ass, Ronald,” said his sister crossly;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> -“what is the use of talking of things that nobody can do, -any more than they can wear their fustian clothes or -wooden shoes? You will know what I mean some day -when you’re married. We are worse off than the match-sellers, -than the crossing-sweepers. They can do as they -like, but we can’t.”</p> - -<p>“Life isn’t all skittles and swipes,” observed Hurstmanceaux. -“You always seem to think it is.”</p> - -<p>But she, disregarding him, went on in her wrath:</p> - -<p>“It is a thousand times worse to be poor in our world -than to be beggars on the high road. If they keep in with -the police they’re all right, but <i>our</i> police are all round -us every minute of our lives, spying to see if we have a -man less in the anterooms, a hoof less in the stables, if -we have the same gown on, or the same houses open; if -we’ve given up any club, any habit, any moors, any shooting; -if the prince talks as much to us as usual, or the -princess asks us to drive with her; if we go away for the -winter to shut up a place, or make lungs an excuse for -getting away to avoid Scotland; they are eternally staring, -commenting, annotating, whispering over all we do; -we can never get away from them; and we daren’t retrench -a halfpenny’s worth, because if we did, the tradespeople -would think we were ruined and all the pack -would be down on us.”</p> - -<p>“There is some truth in that, my poor Mouse, I must -allow,” said her brother with a shade of unwilling sympathy -in his tone. “But it’s a beggarly rotten system to -live your lives out on, and I think Broadstairs would be -the better part, if you could only make up your mind to -it. It would be only one effort instead of a series of -efforts, and the cheap trippers wouldn’t be worse than the -Mastodons; at least you wouldn’t have to do so much for -them.”</p> - -<p>“Massarenes,” said his sister with an impatient dive -for the silver poker, and another dive with it at the fire. -“The name isn’t such a bad name. It might have been -Healy, it might have been Murphy.”</p> - -<p>“It might have even been Biggar,” replied Hurstmanceaux, -amused. “Possibilities in the ways of horror are -infinite when we once begin opening our doors to people<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> -whom nobody knows. Practically, there need be no end -to it.”</p> - -<p>Mouse, leaning softly against her brother, with her -hand caressing the lapel of his coat, said sweetly and insidiously:</p> - -<p>“There is an only daughter, Ronald—an only child.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed!”</p> - -<p>“She will be an immense heiress,” sighed his sister. -“Everybody will be after her.”</p> - -<p>“Everybody bar one,” said her brother.</p> - -<p>“And why bar one?”</p> - -<p>His face darkened. “Don’t talk nonsense!” he said -curtly. “I don’t like you when you are impertinent. It -is a pity Cocky ever saw you; the Massarene alliance -would have suited <i>him</i> down to the ground.”</p> - -<p>“She would have been millions of miles too good for -him!” said Cocky’s wife, with boundless contempt. -“They don’t want merely rank; they want character.”</p> - -<p>“My dear Mouse,” said Hurstmanceaux, “the other -day a young fellow went into a <i>café</i> in Paris, had a good -soup, fish, and <i>roti</i>, <i>and</i> three cups of coffee. An unfeeling -landlord arrested him as he was about to go off without -paying. The people in the streets pitied him, on the -whole, but they thought the three cups of coffee too -much. ‘<i>Ca c’est trop fort de café</i>,’ said a workman in a -blouse to me. In a similar manner, allow me to remark -that if your new friends, in addition to the smart dinner -of rank, require the strong coffee of character, they are -too exacting. The people in the streets won’t let them -have both.”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth felt very angry at this impudent -anecdote, and pulled to pieces some narcissus standing -near her in an old china bowl.</p> - -<p>“The analogy don’t run on all fours,” she said petulantly. -“<i>My</i> people can pay. You have a right to anything -if you only pay enough for it.”</p> - -<p>“Most things—not everything quite,” said her brother -indolently, as he took up his hat and cane and whistled -his collie dog, who was playing with the Blenheims. -“Not everything quite—yet,” he repeated, as if the declaration -refreshed him. “You have not the smallest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> -effect upon me, and you will not present your <i>protégés</i> to -me—remember that, once for all. Adieu!”</p> - -<p>Then he touched her lightly and affectionately on her -fair hair, shook himself like a dog who has been in dirty -water, and left her.</p> - -<p>Mouse, who was not a patient or resigned woman by -nature, flashed a furious glance after him from the soft -shade of her dark eyelashes, and her white teeth gnawed -restlessly and angrily the red and lovely under-lip beneath -them. He could have done so much if he would! -His opinion was always listened to, and his recommendation -was so rarely given that it always carried great -weight. He would have told her that they were so respected -precisely because he did not do such things as -this which she wanted him to do.</p> - -<p>He was a very tall and extremely handsome man, with -a debonnair and careless aspect, and a distinguished way -of wearing his clothes which made their frequent shabbiness -look ultra <i>chic</i>. The Courcy beauty had been a -thing of note for many generations, and he had as full a -share of it as his sister, whom he strongly resembled. He -was fourteen years older than she, and she had long been -accustomed to regard him as the head of her House, for -he had succeeded to the earldom when a schoolboy, and -she had never known her father. He had tried his best -to alter the ways of the Kenilworth establishment, but he -had failed. If he talked seriously to his sister, it always -ended in his paying some bill; if he talked seriously to -his brother-in-law, it always ended in his being asked to -settle some affair about an actress or a dispute in a pot-house. -They both used him—used him incessantly; but -they never attended to his counsels or his censure. They -both considered that as he was unmarried, spent little, and -was esteemed stingy, they really only did him a service in -making him “bleed” occasionally.</p> - -<p>“He’s such a close-fisted prig,” said Lord Kenilworth, -and his wife always agreed to the opinion.</p> - -<p>“Ronnie is a bore,” she said, “he is always asking -questions. If anybody wants to do any good they should -do it with their eyes shut, and their mouths shut; a kindness -is no kindness at all if it is made the occasion for an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> -inquisitorial sermon. Ronnie does not often refuse one -in the end, but he is always asking why and how and -what, and wanting to go to the bottom of the thing, and -it is never anything that concerns him. If he would just -do what one wants and say nothing, it would be so much -nicer, so much more delicate; I cannot endure indelicacy.”</p> - -<p>The Kenilworths, like many other wedded people, had -no common bond whatever, except when they were united -against somebody else; they bickered, sneered, and quarreled -whenever they were by any rare chance alone, but -when it was a question of attacking any third person their -solidarity was admirable. Hurstmanceaux seemed to -them both to have been created by nature and law to be -of use to them, to carry them over troublesome places, -and to lend them the ægis of his unblemished name; but -of any gratitude to him neither ever dreamed; it always -seemed to them that he did next to nothing for them, -though if the little folks upstairs had roast mutton and -sago pudding, and if the servants in Stanhope Street got -their wages with any regularity, it was usually wholly -due to his intervention.</p> - -<p>He had succeeded to heavily encumbered estates, and -the years of his minority, though they had done something, -had not done much toward lessening the burden which -lay on the title, and he had always been a poor man. But -now, when he was nearing forty years of age, he could -say that he was a free one.</p> - -<p>To obtain such freedom it had required much self-denial -and philosophy, and he had incurred much abuse in his -family and out of it, and, as he was by nature careless and -generous, the restraint upon his inclinations had been at -times irksome and well-nigh unendurable. But he had -adhered to the plan of retrenchment which he had cut out -for himself, and it had been successful in releasing him -from all obligations without selling a rood of land on any -estate, or cutting any more timber than was necessary to -the health of the woods themselves. He was called “the -miser” commonly amongst his own people; but he did -not mind the nickname; he kept his hands clean and his -name high, which was more than do all his contemporaries -and compeers.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>When he had left his sister this morning, and had got -as far as the head of the staircase, his heart misgave him. -Poor Mousie, had he been too rough on her? Did she -really want money? He turned back and entered the -little room again where Lady Kenilworth was sitting before -the hearth, her elbow on her knee, her cheek on her -hand, her blue eyes gazing absently on the fire.</p> - -<p>He came up to her and laid his hand on her shoulder.</p> - -<p>“My dear Sourisette! Are you troubled about -money?”</p> - -<p>“You know I always am, Ronnie,” she said impatiently. -“It is chronic with us; it always will be; even -when the Poodle goes to glory it will be hardly any better. -You know that.”</p> - -<p>The Poodle was the irreverent nickname given to the -Duke of Otterbourne by his eldest son and that son’s wife, -on account of his fleecy-white hair and his bland ceremonious -manners of the old school, at which they saw fit -to laugh irreverently.</p> - -<p>“My poor child! If you have no more solid resource -than to decant Poodle’s demise your prospects look blue; -I always tell you so. Poodle means living and loving on -into the twentieth century, never doubt that.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t doubt it,” said Mouse very angrily. “He will -always do everything which can by any possibility most -annoy us.”</p> - -<p>“But are you in any especial difficulty at this moment, -Sourisette?” asked her brother in a very kind and tender -tone intended to invite her confidence.</p> - -<p>“What is especial with other people is chronic with -me,” she replied pettishly. “My worries and miseries -are as eternal as Poodle’s youth and courtships.”</p> - -<p>“But do you want money—well, more than usual?”</p> - -<p>“I always want it,” replied Mouse. “Everybody always -wants it, except you.”</p> - -<p>“I know you always say that. I want it very much -just now. But if it’s anything for the children——”</p> - -<p>“You are a model uncle out of a fairy book! No; it is -not for the mites; they get their bread and milk and mutton -chops—as yet. It is, it is—well, if you really care to -know, these people are horribly rude and pressing, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> -I haven’t even a hundred pounds to throw them as a -sop.”</p> - -<p>She leaned back toward her writing-table which stood -beside the hearth, and, tossing its litter of paper to and -fro, took from the chaos a letter from a famous firm of -Bond Street tradesmen, and gave it to her brother.</p> - -<p>“As he is in the mood he may as well pay something,” -she thought. “It would be a pity not to bleed the miser -when one can.”</p> - -<p>Lord Hurstmanceaux ran his eyes quickly over the letter, -and a pained look passed over his face, an expression -of annoyance and regret.</p> - -<p>She was Kenilworth’s wife, and had been long out of -her brother’s guardianship, but it hurt him to think that -she exposed herself to these insults, these importunities, -these humiliations.</p> - -<p>“My dear Clare, why will you lay yourself open to be -addressed in this manner?” he said gravely, and when he -called her Clare she knew that he was very greatly displeased. -“Why will you not pull your life together into -some degree of order? Why descend to the level on -which it is possible for your tradesmen to write to you in -such terms as these?”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth, who was the most <i>caline</i> and coaxing -of women when she chose, as she could be the most autocratic -and brusque when she was with people she despised, -rose, looked up in her brother’s face, and stroked the lappet -of his coat with her pretty slender hand sparkling with its -many rings.</p> - -<p>“Write me a little check, Ronnie,” she said, “and don’t -put my name; make it payable to bearer.”</p> - -<p>He shook his head.</p> - -<p>“Little checks or big checks, Mousie, don’t find their -way to your tradesmen. You have played me that trick -more than once; I will go to these people myself and pay -them the whole account; but——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t pay them the whole!” said Mouse uneasily. -“That would be great waste of money. If you can really -spare me as much as this give it to me; I will find a thousand -better uses for it than——”</p> - -<p>“Paying a bill? I dare say. Sheridan was of your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> -opinion; and when he was dying they sold his bed from -under him.”</p> - -<p>“They won’t sell mine, because my brother will be by -my bedside,” said Mouse with a sunny yet plaintive smile -in her forget-me-not like eyes.</p> - -<p>“Don’t trust too much to that, my dear; I am mortal, -and a good many years older than you,” he answered -gravely as he folded up the Bond Street tradesmen’s -threatening letter and put it in his coat pocket.</p> - -<p>“You had better write a check for me, Ronald, indeed,” -said his sister coaxingly; “it will look odd if you pay -this, or if your people pay it, and I could do a great deal -with all that money.”</p> - -<p>“You would do everything except pay the account! I -don’t think you would do much with the riches of all the -world except run through them,” said Hurstmanceaux -curtly, and taking no notice of the appeal. Past experience -had taught him that money which passed through -his sister’s fingers had a knack of never reaching its destination. -“I won’t compromise you,” he added; “don’t -be afraid, and I shall tell them that they have lost your -custom.”</p> - -<p>“You need not say that,” said Mouse uneasily; she was -very fond of this particular Bond Street shop, and what -was the use of paying an account if you did not avail -yourself of the advantage so gained by opening another -one instantly?</p> - -<p>“I certainly shall say it,” said Hurstmanceaux decidedly; -and he once more left the room. Mouse looked after him -with regret and uneasiness; regret that she had turned -his generous impulse to such small account, and uneasiness -lest he should suspect more of her affairs than it -would be well for him to learn.</p> - -<p>“He is a good fellow sometimes, but so stiff-necked and -mule-headed,” she thought, as she hastily calculated in her -rapidly working brain how much percentage she might -have got off the Bond Street account if she had dealt with -the matter herself. She was extravagant, but she was -very keen about money at the same time, at once prodigal -and parsimonious, which is a more general combination -than most people suppose.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>Hurstmanceaux looked back at her rather wistfully -from between the cream-colored, rose-embroidered curtains -of the doorway. It was on his lips to ask her not to pursue -her patronage of Harrenden House; but as he had -just promised to do her a service he could not seem to -dictate to her an obedience as a return payment to him. -He went away in silence.</p> - -<p>“Besides, whatever she were to promise she would -always do as she liked,” he reflected: previous experiences -having told him that neither threats nor persuasions ever -had the slightest effect upon his sister’s actions.</p> - -<p>As he went out of the vestibule into the street, he -passed a tall, very good-looking young man who was -about to enter, and who nodded to him familiarly as one -brother may nod to another. Hurstmanceaux said a curt -good-day without a smile. The other man passed in without -the preliminary of enquiring whether the lady of the -house was at home, and the footman of the antechamber -took off his great coat and laid his hat and cane on the -table as a matter of course: a person who had known no -better might have concluded that the visitor was Kenilworth -himself. But to Kenny, as they called him behind -his back, the anteroom lackeys were much less attentive -than they were to this young man.</p> - -<p>“My real brother-in-law,” said Hurstmanceaux to himself, -with a vexed frown upon his brows and a little laugh -which people would have called cynical upon his lips. -He did not love Kenilworth, but young Lord Brancepeth -he abhorred.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VI.</h2> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">I met</span> the Miser: how has he been to-day? Rating -you, eh?” said Lord Brancepeth when he had been ten -minutes or more ensconced in the cosiest corner by the -boudoir fire. He was a very well-featured and well-built -young man, with a dark oval face, pensive brows, and -great dreamy dark brown eyes; his physiognomy, which -was poetic and melancholy, did not accord with his conversation, -which was slipshod and slangy, or his life which -was idiotic, after the manner of his generation.</p> - -<p>Mouse was standing behind him leaning over his shoulder -to look at an ancient British coin newly attached to -his watch-chain; her own eyes were soft with a fullness of -admiration which would have been doubtless delightful to -him if he had not been so terribly used to it.</p> - -<p>“The Miser was out of humor as usual,” she replied; -“Ronald should really live amongst some primitive sect -of Shakers or Quakers, or Ranters or Roarers, whatever -they are called: he has all the early Christian virtues, and -he thinks nobody should live upon credit.”</p> - -<p>“He certainly shouldn’t live amongst us,” said Brancepeth, -with a self-satisfied laugh, as if chronic debt were a -source of especial felicitation. “How he hates me, by the -way, Mousie.”</p> - -<p>“You are not a primitive virtue,” said his friend, with -her hands lying lightly on his shoulders, and her breath -stirring like a soft balmy south wind amongst his close -curling dark hair.</p> - -<p>Brancepeth had ceased to be a worshipper: and he had -ceased even to like being the worshipped, but habit is -second nature, and it was his habit to be wherever Lady -Kenilworth was, and that kind of habit becomes second -nature to lazy and good-hearted men.</p> - -<p>He was a young man who was so constantly, almost -universally, adored that it bored him, and he often reflected -that he should never be lastingly attached except<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> -to a woman who should detest him. He had not found -that woman at the date at which he was allowing his -friend Mouse to hang over his shoulder and admire the -ancient British coin. He always told people that he was -very fond of Cocky. Cocky and he were constantly to be -seen walking together, or driving together, or playing -games together, outdoors and indoors; they were even -sometimes seen together in the nursery of those charming -little blonde-haired, black-eyed children who were taught -by their nurses to pray for Cocky as papa.</p> - -<p>“The Miser will marry some day,” said Brancepeth now, -“and then he won’t be so easy to bleed.”</p> - -<p>“I am sure he will never marry. Alan is sure he never -will.” Alan was her second brother.</p> - -<p>“Stuff!” said Brancepeth. “Alan will be out in his -calculations.”</p> - -<p>“You will marry some day, too, I am sure, Harry,” -whispered Mouse, as she leaned over his chair; her tone -was the tone of a woman who says what she does not think -to enjoy the pleasure of being told that what she says is -absurd and impossible.</p> - -<p>Brancepeth gave a little laugh, and kissed the hand -which was resting on the back of his chair.</p> - -<p>“When Cocky goes to glory,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“Cocky!” said Cocky’s wife with fierce contempt. “<i>He</i> -will never die. Men like him never do die. They drink -like ducks and never show it. They eat like pigs and -never feel it. They cut their own throats every hour and -are all the better for it. They destroy their livers, their -lungs, their stomachs and their brains, and live on just as -if they had all four in perfection. Nothing ever hurts -them though their blood is brandy, their flesh is absinthe, -and their minds are a sink emptied into a bladder. They -look like cripples and like corpses; but they never die. -The hard-working railway men die, the hard-working -curates die, the pretty little children die, the men who do -good all day long and have thousands weeping for them, -they die; but men like Cocky live and like to live, and if -by any chance they ever fall ill, they get well just because -everybody is passionately wishing them dead!”</p> - -<p>She spoke with unusual intensity of expression, her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> -transparent nostrils dilated, her red lips curled, her turquoise -eyes gleamed and glittered; Brancepeth looked at -her in alarm.</p> - -<p>“On my word, Sourisette,” he murmured, “when you -look like that you frighten a fellow. I wouldn’t be in -Cocky’s shoes, not for a kingdom.”</p> - -<p>“I thought you were longing to replace Cocky?”</p> - -<p>“Well, yes, of course, yes,” said Brancepeth. “Only -you positively alarm me when you talk like this. I’m not -such an over-and-above correct-living fellow myself, and -Cocky isn’t so out-and-out bad as all that, you know. -After all, he’s got some excuse.”</p> - -<p>“Some excuse!” she repeated, her delicate complexion -flushing red. “Some excuse! You—you, Harry—you -dare to say that to me?”</p> - -<p>“Well, it’s the truth,” murmured Brancepeth sulkily. -“And don’t make me a scene, Mouse; my nerves can’t -stand it; I’m taking cocaine and I ought to keep quiet, I -ought indeed.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you take cocaine?” asked Lady Kenilworth, -changing to inquietude and interrogating his countenance -anxiously.</p> - -<p>“All sorts of reasons,” said her friend, sulkily still. -“Oh, yes, I look well enough, I dare say; people often -look well when they are half dead. Don’t make me scenes, -Topinetta; I can’t bear them.”</p> - -<p>“I never make <i>you</i> scenes, darling; not even when you -give me reason!”</p> - -<p>“Humph!” said Brancepeth, very doubtfully, “when -do I give you reason? There never was anybody who -stood your bullying as I stand it.”</p> - -<p>“Bullying! Oh, Harry!”</p> - -<p>“Yes, bullying. Cocky don’t stand it; he licks you; I -cave in.”</p> - -<p>With those unpoetic words Lord Brancepeth laid his -poetic head back on the cushions of his chair, and closed -his eyelids till their long thick lashes rested on his cheeks, -with an air of martyrdom and exhaustion. She looked at -him anxiously.</p> - -<p>“You really do not look well, love,” she whispered, as -she hung over his chair. “It is—is it—that you care for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> -any other woman? I would rather know the truth, -Harry.”</p> - -<p>“Women be hanged,” said Brancepeth with a sigh, his -eyes still closed. “It’s the cocaine; cures a fellow, you -know, but kills him. That’s what all the new medicines -do.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VII.</h2> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">By</span> the way,” said the young man, still with his eyes -closed, and indisposed to follow his companion’s lead into -the domain of sentiment, “I saw the most beautiful -woman last night that I ever saw in my life—the most -glorious creature! Such eyes! you can’t imagine such -eyes!”</p> - -<p>“What color?” asked Mouse, with a glance at her own -eyes in an adjacent mirror and a displeased severity on -her mouth.</p> - -<p>“Black—black as night! At least, you know, perhaps -they weren’t really black; they were like that stone—what -do you call it—opal? No; onyx—yes, onyx. Such a -woman! I’m a bad ’un to please, but, on my honor——”</p> - -<p>“You are very enthusiastic!” said Mouse, with the -lines of her lips more scornful and displeased. “Where -did you see this miracle?”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth smiled.</p> - -<p>“Lord, how soon they are jealous!” he thought. “Take -fire like tow!”</p> - -<p>Aloud he answered:</p> - -<p>“Yesterday my sister got me to go to complines at the -Oratory. It was some swell saint or another, and some of -the cracks were singing there. This woman was close to -where I was. She was all in black, and seemed very much -‘gone’ on the service; her eyes got full of tears at part -of it. Well, I don’t mind telling you she fetched me so -that I asked the Duc d’Arcy to see my sister safe home, -and I followed the lady with the eyes. She got into a -little dark <i>coupé</i>, and my hansom bowled after it. I ran -her to earth at a private hotel—quite solemn sort of place -called Brown’s—and there they told she was the Countess -zu Lynar.”</p> - -<p>“Countess zu Lynar! then one can soon see who she -is,” said Mouse, as she went and got an Almanac de Gotha -of the year from her writing-table.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>“Oh, I looked there last night,” said Brancepeth; “she -isn’t there; but the porter told me she used to be the wife -of that awfully rich banker Vanderlin.”</p> - -<p>Mouse looked up, astonished and momentarily interested.</p> - -<p>“Are you quite sure?”</p> - -<p>“Positive.”</p> - -<p>“Then she can’t be young now,” said Lady Kenilworth, -with relief and satisfaction.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, she is; at least, quite young enough,” said -Brancepeth vaguely.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I know all about her!” continued his friend. -“She is not in society. We stand a good deal in London, -but at present we don’t receive divorced women.”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth laughed softly with vast amusement, and -did not offer any explanation of his laughter.</p> - -<p>“Such eyes!” he murmured dreamily. His friend was -silent. After a while—“Oh, Lord, such eyes!”</p> - -<p>“My dear Harry,” said Mouse, with cold dignity, “pray -spare me your lyrics, and go and write them in the porter’s -book at the private hotel. You could probably approach -the lady without the formula of introduction; a -bouquet would do it for you.”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth shook his head mournfully.</p> - -<p>“Not that sort,” he said gloomily. “And you needn’t -be in such a wax about it, Mouse; she’s gone back to the -Continent this morning. They told me so at the hotel -just now.”</p> - -<p>“And you did not go to Dover instead of coming -here?” said his friend sarcastically. “I am amazed that -old acquaintance had such a hold remaining on you as to -make you resist the seductions of the tidal train.”</p> - -<p>“You can be nasty about it if you like,” said the handsome -youth with sullen resignation. “You make the -mistake which all women make. You fly at a man when -he tells you the truth; and then you are astonished -another time that he tells you a lie. If there’d been -anything in it, of course I shouldn’t have told you anything.”</p> - -<p>“An admirable confession. I shall remember it another -time.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>“Women always make fellows lie. You bite our noses -off if we ever happen to tell a word of truth!”</p> - -<p>“But it breaks my heart to think that you even see -that other women exist, Harry!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, bother!” said Brancepeth roughly. “Don’t be a -fool, Mousie. You see other men exist fast enough yourself.”</p> - -<p>She was silent. She was conscious that she did do so. -Happily for the preservation of peace, there was at that -moment announced Prince Khristof of Karstein.</p> - -<p>“Her father,” murmured Mousie in a swift whisper, but -Brancepeth was too obtuse to understand; he only stared, -conscious that he had missed a tip.</p> - -<p>Prince Khristof was a bland, gracious person who had -been very fair in youth and early manhood, and still preserved -a delicate clear complexion and eyes as blue and -serene as Clare Kenilworth’s; his hair was white and -silken, his form slender and stately, his carriage elegant; -and, alas! there was not a good club in all the world into -which he could take his charming presence. When the -century was young he had been born the seventh son of a -then reigning duke in a small principality of green pasture -and glacier-fed stream, and pretty towns like magnified -toys, and many square leagues of resinous scented pine -forest. The century had seen the principality absorbed, -the dukedom mediatized, the towns ruined, and the pine-woods -leased to Javish banks. As in many other cases the -gain of the empire had been the ruin of the province. -Prince Khristof’s eldest brother still abode in his toy-city, -and hats were lifted as he passed, but he reigned no more; -and Prince Khristof himself, who had been a Colonel of -Cuirassiers in his cradle, and at ten years old had seen a -sentinel flogged for omitting to carry arms when he had -passed, was glad to furnish a mansion for Mr. Massarene, -and take forty per cent. from the decorators and dealers, -who under his patronage furnished the admirable Clodion -and the other rarities, beauties, and luxuries, to the -adornment of Harrenden House.</p> - -<p>He felt it hard that when he had permitted his daughter -to marry into finance the misalliance had so little profited -himself that he was driven to such expedients. But so it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> -was; and though the descent had been gradual, it had -been one which ended in Avernus, and royal and patrician -society had shut all its great gates upon him, leaving him -only its side entrances and back staircases. The man who -could remember when he had been a child in his nurse’s -arms, seeing guards carry arms to salute him as he was -borne past them suffered acutely from his degradation: -but he was beyond all things a philosopher, and thought -that fine tobaccos and delicate wines soothe, if they do not -cure, many wounds, even when you can only enjoy such -things at the expense of your inferiors.</p> - -<p>“This old beggar ought to know,” thought Brancepeth, -occupied with his new idea and to whom Germans meant -every nationality from Schleswig-Holstein to Moldavia; -and he addressed the newcomer point-blank.</p> - -<p>“Do you know a Countess Lynar, sir?”</p> - -<p>“I know a great many Lynars,” replied the Prince. -“It is a very general name. Can you add anything more -definite?”</p> - -<p>“She’s the woman whom that Jew fellow, Vanderlin, -divorced,” replied Brancepeth.</p> - -<p>The Prince smiled and coughed.</p> - -<p>“Olga zu Lynar? I know her—yes. She is my only -daughter. Vanderlin is a banker, but he is not a Jew.”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth grew very red.</p> - -<p>“I—I—beg you ten thousand pardons,” he muttered. -“I didn’t know, you know; I am always blundering.”</p> - -<p>“There is nothing to pardon,” said Prince Khris -sweetly. “Englishmen are so insular. They never -know anything about their neighbors across the water. -It is perfectly well known everywhere out of England -that my daughter was—separated—from Vanderlin, but -that you, my Lord Brancepeth, should not know it is <i>tout -ce qu’il y a de plus naturel</i>.”</p> - -<p>“He takes it uncommonly coolly,” thought Brancepeth, -still under the spell of his astonishment, and still distressed -as an Englishman always is at having made a -stupid mistake and wounded an acquaintance.</p> - -<p>“But is she married again?” he asked anxiously. -“How does she come to be Lynar?”</p> - -<p>“Dear youth, you are not discreet,” thought the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> -Prince, as he replied frankly that her mother had been a -Countess Lynar, and that his daughter had taken her -mother’s name, he was himself never very sure why; but -she was always a little self-willed and fanciful, she was a -woman; <i>femme très femme</i>! When she had married into -<i>la haute finance</i> she had of course forfeited her place in the -Hof-Kalendar.</p> - -<p>“But her maiden name is there.” He turned over the -leaves of the Almanac de Gotha and pointed to the entry -of the birth of his daughter the Countess Olga Marie -Valeria.</p> - -<p>“Why does she call herself Countess Lynar?” said -Brancepeth with curiosity, conscious of his own bad manners. -Prince Khris pointed to the page:</p> - -<p>“It was her mother’s name, you see; and more than -that, in the property which my daughter possesses there -is a little Schloss Lynar, hardly more than a ruin, hidden -under woods in Swabia which gives that title to whoever -owns it. Were you to purchase it you would have the -right to write yourself Graf zu Lynar.”</p> - -<p>“I would rather own the lady than the castle,” said -Brancepeth, too stupid and too careless to note the deepening -offence in the eyes of Mouse.</p> - -<p>Prince Khris smiled meaningly.</p> - -<p>“The lady might give you the more trouble of the two.”</p> - -<p>“How he hates her!” thought Brancepeth. “I suppose -she keeps a tight rein on the property.”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth’s experiences, which had been extensive in -range though brief in years, had told him that these -family dislikes and disagreements usually had their root -in the <i>auri sacra fames</i>; and the fact was well known all -over Europe that this serene, courtly, distinguished-looking -gentleman, whose name was recorded in the Hof-Kalendar, -lived very nearly, if not entirely, by his wits.</p> - -<p>High play is one thing; cheating is another; if you -ruin yourself it is your own affair, but if you try to ruin -others by unfair means it is the affair of your neighbors. -Prince Khristof’s mind was so made that he had never -been able to perceive or comprehend the difference; of -late years the meaning of that difference had been enforced -on him disagreeably.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>“I suspect he is the devil and all to have anything to -do with at close quarters,” reflected Brancepeth, who was -a very cautious young man. “And what a mess he’s made -of his life, good Lord, with all his cleverness and position; -why, a decent croupier’s a ten thousand times better fellow; -he’ll rook you like winking if he can get you down -at <i>écarté</i>.”</p> - -<p>“And she came over here to see you, I suppose,” inquired -Brancepeth, still curious.</p> - -<p>“Scarcely,” said the Prince with a fleeting smile.</p> - -<p>“Would you—wouldn’t you give me a word of introduction?” -said Brancepeth hurriedly and conscious of his -own temerity.</p> - -<p>“To my daughter?” said the Prince blandly. “My -dear lord, I should of course be delighted to do so—delighted; -but I am not on speaking terms with her. I -don’t call on her myself. How can I send anybody else -to call?”</p> - -<p>“What did you quarrel about?” asked Harry bluntly. -“Who was right?”</p> - -<p>Prince Khris looked at him with amusement; it was so -droll to find people who asked questions like children instead -of finding out things quietly for themselves. To -his finer and more philosophic intelligence such a primitive -question as right could not seriously affect anything. He -thought the young Englishman a fool, an impertinent and -dense fool; but he was never impatient of fools, they were -too useful to him in the long run. What wise man would -be able to play <i>écarté</i> unless there were fools with whom to -play it?</p> - -<p>“Of course the divorce was all Vanderlin’s fault!” said -Brancepeth with clumsy curiosity.</p> - -<p>“It is always the man’s fault in such cases. That is -well known.”</p> - -<p>Prince Khris smiled as he spoke; there was something -sardonic and suggestive about the smile which made it -almost a grin, and which seemed singularly ugly to -Brancepeth considering that the person concerned was the -grinner’s only daughter. No one could more completely or -more cruelly have expressed the speaker’s conviction that -Vanderlin was entirely blameless in this matter.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>Mouse listened in extreme irritation; it seemed to be -beyond even her Harry’s usual obtuseness to continue the -theme of a woman’s indiscretions to that woman’s own -father. Besides, she hated women who were divorced: -they made it so difficult and unpleasant for the wiser -members of their sex.</p> - -<p>“My daughter seems to have impressed you, Lord -Brancepeth,” continued the Prince. “Where is it that -you have seen her?”</p> - -<p>“At the Oratory,” said Brancepeth, “and in the street. -She is so awfully fetching, you know.”</p> - -<p>“She is a woman who makes people look at her,” replied -Prince Khristof indifferently. “Did you hear her -sing at the Oratory? She has a voice! ah, such a voice! -the most flexible mezzo-soprano. She could have made -her fortune on the stage.”</p> - -<p>“No. She didn’t sing,” said Brancepeth, greatly interested. -“She seemed to pray no end, and she cried. But -she cried so beautifully. Not as most of them do who -make such figures of themselves. But the tears just -brimming in her eyes and falling, like the what d’ye call -’em, you know, the Magdalens in the picture galleries.”</p> - -<p>The Prince laughed outright.</p> - -<p>“For felicitous allusion your Englishman has never an -equal,” he thought, whilst he said aloud: “My dear lord, -what did I tell you? Olga is <i>femme, très femme</i>. If I -wanted to weep I should not go to the Oratory myself. -But a woman does go. It is a consolation to her to be admired -and pitied, and I have no doubt she observed that -you did both.”</p> - -<p>“She didn’t even see me,” said the younger man, on -whose not oversensitive nerves something in the elder’s -tone grated.</p> - -<p>“Her father don’t do much to save her character,” he -thought. “It’s an ill bird fouls its own nest.”</p> - -<p>Meanwhile Mouse had listened with scarcely concealed -impatience to all these questions and answers. She sat -apparently engrossed in the pages of the Almanac de -Gotha, but in reality losing nothing of her friend’s interrogations -and implications. At last, out of patience, she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> -closed the little red book and said imperiously to Brancepeth:</p> - -<p>“Surely it is time you went on guard? Have you any -idea what time it is? Besides, if you don’t mind my saying -so, I want to talk about something to the Prince before -I go for my drive.”</p> - -<p>“I aren’t on guard to-day; but I’ll go, of course, if you -want me to go,” murmured Brancepeth sulkily, raising -his lazy long limbs out of his comfortable resting-place -with a sense of regret, for he would willingly have gone -on talking about the lady of the Oratory for another hour.</p> - -<p>“Such a dear good boy, but always wanting in tact,” -said Lady Kenilworth, as the door of the morning-room -closed on him.</p> - -<p>“Wanting in reason too. To talk of another woman -when he is in the presence of Lady Kenilworth! What -obtuseness! what blindness,” said Prince Khris with -graceful gallantry. “But Englishmen are always like -that. They go all round the world and see nothing but -their own umbrellas; they keep on their hats in St. -Peter’s, and set up their kodaks at the Taj Mahal. I -have always said that a people who could conquer India -and yet clothe their Viceroy in a red cloth tunic, are a -people without perception. They travel, but they remain -islanders. Their minds are enfolded in their bath-towels -and sanitary flannels. They do not see beyond the rim -of their tubs. But I believe you did me the honor to -wish to speak to me? I need not say that if there be the -smallest thing in which I can be of service you command -my devotion.”</p> - -<p>Mouse sat dreamily and irritably opening and shutting -the Almanac de Gotha. Prince Khristof wore a wholly -altered aspect to her now that she saw him as the father -of a woman whom Harry admired and had followed.</p> - -<p>“Do you know—such is my insularity—that I never -knew you had a daughter or had had a wife?” she said -abruptly, as she pushed the book away.</p> - -<p>“Dear Madame! you surely have not sent for me to -speak of these two ladies?” he said, picking up the little -red book. “My deceased wife’s name is here, if you -chose to look for it; my daughter’s is not, because she exiled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> -herself into the <i>haute finance</i>. I once had the entire -collection of this Almanac since its beginning in 1760. -If we want to see how despicably modern editions fall -below the standard of all work of the last century, nothing -will show us that fact more completely and conclusively -than this Almanac. Contrast the commonplace -portraits of to-day’s Gotha with the exquisite designs of -the eighteenth century kalendars.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mouse shortly: “yes, no doubt. You are -always right in matters of art. My dear Prince, how very -admirably you have housed those people at Harrenden -House. If only the birds were worthy the nest.”</p> - -<p>“Ah-ha! It was for this, was it, that you wanted to -see me?” he thought, as he said aloud: “I suggested—I -merely suggested. I am delighted the result meets your -approval. They are excellent people, those good Massarenes. -You remember that I told you so in Paris. <i>Des -bons gens; de très bons gens.</i> A little uncouth, but the -world likes what is simple and fresh.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him to see if he could really say all this -with a serious countenance; she saw that he could; his -handsome fair features were without the ghost of a smile -and his whole expression was grave, sincere, attuned to -admiring candor.</p> - -<p>“If he takes it like that I had best take it so too,” -thought Mouse, who was aware that she was but a mere -beginner and baby beside him in the delicate arts of dissimulation. -But Nature had made her proud, inclined to -be blunt and sarcastic, and occasionally unwisely inclined -to frankness; she looked him straight in the eyes now, -and said:</p> - -<p>“But you and I are going to do our duty to our fellow -Christians, and polish them, aren’t we? I was quite -straight with you about the purchase of Vale Royal; but -you weren’t so straight with me about Harrenden House. -Don’t you think, Prince, we can do our friends more good -if we are friends ourselves? Quarreling is always a mistake.”</p> - -<p>He bowed and smiled. His smooth delicate features -expressed neither annoyance nor pleasure, neither wonder -nor surprise.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>“I am always Lady Kenilworth’s devoted servant,” he -said graciously, with the air of a suzerain accepting homage. -“I am sorry you think that I should have consulted -you about the town-house,” he added. “It did not occur -to me; you were in Egypt. I never offend or forget -those who wish me well—of that you may be sure. It -was amusing to arrange that house, and one could be of so -much use to artists and other deserving people of talent.”</p> - -<p>Mouse laughed, rather rudely, and her laughter brought -a slight angry flush to the cheek of Prince Khris. He -had both noble and royal blood in his veins, and at the -sound of that derisive little laugh he could have strangled -her with pleasure. By an odd contradiction, Lady Kenilworth -offended him by precisely that same kind of bluntness -and nakedness of speech with which her brother had -offended herself. The delicate euphemisms which she expected -to have used to please herself seemed to her altogether -ridiculous when they were required by another -person.</p> - -<p>“Englishwomen are always so coarse,” he thought; -“they never understand veiled phrases. They will call -their spade a spade. There is no need to do so, whether -you are digging a grave with it or digging for gold; it can -always be a drawing-room fire-shovel for other people, -whatever work it may accomplish.</p> - -<p>“Yes, you are quite right, dear lady,” he added, after a -slight pause. “The task is not a light one; we will -divide its difficulties. I have experience that you have -not yet gained; you have influence that I have—alas!—lost. -Let us take counsel together. Our friends the -Massarenes are good people—excellent people; it is a -pleasure to guide them in the way they should go.”</p> - -<p>He remained with her half an hour, and only left her -when it was announced that her carriage was waiting below. -He kissed her hand with all the reverential grace -which a fine gentleman can lend to his farewell; but as -he descended the staircase and went into the street, he -swore under his breath.</p> - -<p>“There is no devil like a blonde devil!” he thought. -“Mouse they call her! A rat! a rat! with teeth as sharp -as nails and claws which can cling like a flying bat’s! It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span> -is little use for the world to have made woman all these -thousands of years; she remains just what she was in -Eve’s time, in Eriphyle’s time—always the same—always -purchasable, always venal, always avaricious! Ah! why -was this rodent not my daughter? We would have made -the world our oyster, and no one should have known the -taste of an oyster but ourselves!”</p> - -<p>Whilst he passed along Stanhope Street into the Park -his own daughter was standing in a room of a secluded -and aristocratic hotel in the Faubourg St. Germain, where -she had arrived that morning.</p> - -<p>She was dressed in black, with three strings of pearls -round her throat; they were the pearls she had worn on -her ill-fated marriage-day. She was a woman of singular -beauty; the kind of beauty which resists sorrow and -time, and ennobles even the mask of death.</p> - -<p>With her was one of her cousins, Ernst von Karstein, -the only one of her family who had been faithful to her -through good and evil report, who had loved her always, -before her marriage and after it; but who had always -known that he could look for no response from her.</p> - -<p>“You are always well, Olga,” he was saying now. -“What amulet have you?”</p> - -<p>“I imagine,” she answered, “that my talisman consists -in absolute indifference as to whether I be ill or well.”</p> - -<p>“That is a blasphemy,” said her companion. “No one -can be indifferent to health. Ill-health intensifies every -other evil and saps the roots of every enjoyment.”</p> - -<p>“Yet to lie on a sick bed, at peace with man and God, -and surrounded by those we love, would that be so sad a -fate?”</p> - -<p>“You speak of what you know nothing about; you are -never ill! You grow morbid, Olga. You live like a nun. -You see no one. The finest mind cannot resist the morbid -influences of constant solitude. Whoever your Pope -is, you should ask his dispensation from such vows.”</p> - -<p>“The law has been my Pope, and has set me free of all -vows. I live thus because I do not care to live otherwise.”</p> - -<p>“I should have thought you too proud a woman to accept -excommunication in this submissive way.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>She smiled a little.</p> - -<p>“Proud? I? The daughter of Khristof of Karstein, -and the divorced wife of Adrian Vanderlin?”</p> - -<p>“Curse them both!” said her cousin under his breath.</p> - -<p>“You have been in London?” he said aloud.</p> - -<p>“A week, yes: my father’s affairs, as usual.”</p> - -<p>“You never see him?”</p> - -<p>“Never. See the man who ruined my life!”</p> - -<p>“But you have no proof of that?”</p> - -<p>She smiled again very sadly.</p> - -<p>“A crime which can be proved is half undone. He was -too wary to be traced in all these schemes of infamy.”</p> - -<p>“Yet you befriend him?”</p> - -<p>“Befriend? That is not the word. I spend my -mother’s money on him for her sake. One saves him at -least from public disgrace. But he games away all he -gets, and continues to live in the way you know.”</p> - -<p>“I do not think you should waste your substance on -him. Keep it for yourself, and return to the world.”</p> - -<p>“On sufferance, as a <i>declasée</i>? Never!”</p> - -<p>“As my wife. I have said so many times. I never -change, Olga.”</p> - -<p>She held out her hand to him with a noble and grateful -gesture.</p> - -<p>“You are always faithful. You alone. I thank you. -But you must leave me to my fate, dear Ernst. It is not -in your power to change it.”</p> - -<p>“It would be in my power if you gave me the mandate.”</p> - -<p>“But it is that which I cannot do; which I shall never -do.”</p> - -<p>“Because you still love the man who repudiated and -disgraced you!”</p> - -<p>She shrank a little as at a blow.</p> - -<p>“One cannot love and unlove at will,” she said simply. -“It is very generous of you to be ready to give the shield -of your umblemished honor to a dishonored woman. But -were I ungenerous, unworthy enough, to accept such a -sacrifice I should but make you and make myself more -unhappy than we now are. All the feeling which is still -alive in me lives only for the memory of the past.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>Her cousin turned away and paced the room to hide -the pain he felt. He had loved her through good and evil -report, had remained unmarried for her sake, and was -ready now to accept all obloquy, censure and discredit for -her sake.</p> - -<p>“Go, my dear Ernst,” she said very gently; “go, and -forget me. You might as well love a buried corpse as -love a woman with such a fate as mine.”</p> - -<p>“My love should have power to magnetize the corpse -into fresh life!”</p> - -<p>She shook her head.</p> - -<p>“It would be impossible. Were it possible, what use -would be a galvanized corpse? An unnatural unreal -thing which would drop back into the dust of death.”</p> - -<p>He did not reply; he endeavored to control his emotion.</p> - -<p>“My dear Olga,” he said, when he could do so, “allow -me to say one thing to you without causing you offence. -Unknown to yourself, I think you cherish an illusion -which can only cause you unhappiness. You think and -speak as if your division from Adrian Vanderlin were but -some quarrel, some mistake, which explanation, mediation, -or time could clear away. You forget that you are entire -strangers to each other; worse than strangers, because -there is an irrevocable chasm between you.”</p> - -<p>She did not reply; an expression of intense suffering -came into her eyes, but she restrained any outward utterance -of it.</p> - -<p>“It hurts me to say these harsh things to you,” he continued. -“I would so much sooner encourage you in your -sentiment. But to what end should I do so? You are a -woman of deep and passionate feeling. You do not forget; -you do not change; your little boy’s grave is to you -what Bethlehem was to the Early Christians; Vanderlin -is to you what Ulysses was to Penelope. You never seem -to realize that this past to which you cling is a wholly -dead thing, no more to be imbued again with the breath -of life than the body of your poor child, or the marble -which lies over him. It is intolerable that a woman as -young, as lovely, as rich, as admired and as admirable as -you are should pass your years in obscurity fettered to a -pack of useless memories like a living person, to a corpse.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> -I have told you so often; I shall never cease to tell you -so. What do you expect? What do you hope? What -do you desire?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing.” The word was cold, incisive, harsh; he -tortured her but she did not give any sign of pain except -by the nervous gesture with which her fingers closed on -the strings of pearls at her throat as if they were a <i>collier -de force</i> which compressed and suffocated her.</p> - -<p>“No one lives without desires or ends of some kind -however absurd or unattainable they may be,” he said with -truth. “I think you deceive yourself. I think that, without -your being sensible of it, you brood so much over the -past because you fancy vaguely that you will evolve some -kind of future out of it, as necromancers used to stare into -a crystal until they saw the future suggested on its surface. -The crystal gave them nothing but what their own -imagination supplied. So it is with you. Your imagination -makes you see in Vanderlin a man who does not exist -and never existed; and it also makes you fancy possible -some kind of reconciliation or friendship which is as -totally impossible as if you and he were both in your -coffins.”</p> - -<p>She had turned from the window and walked to and fro -the room, unwilling that he should see the emotion which -his blunt speech awakened in her. There was a certain -truth in them which she could not wholly deny and of -which she was ashamed.</p> - -<p>“Do not let us speak of these things. It is useless,” -she said with impatience. “You do not understand; you -are a man; how can you comprehend all that there is ineffaceable, -unforgetable, for a woman in four years of the -tenderest and closest union? Nothing can destroy it for -her. For a man it is a mere episode more or less agreeable, -more or less tenacious in its hold on him; but to her——.”</p> - -<p>She stopped abruptly: her companion looked at her with -admiration and compassion mingled in equal parts, and he -smiled slightly.</p> - -<p>“My dear Olga! Once in a hundred years a woman is -born who takes such a view as you do of love and life. -They are dear to poets, and furnish the themes of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> -most moving dramas. But they are women who invariably -end miserably, either in a cloister like Heloise, or in a -tomb like Juliet, or simply and more prosaically with tubercles -on their lungs at Hyères or the Canaries. You know -the world, or you used to know it. You must be aware -that there are millions of women who in your place would -have consoled themselves long ago. I want you to see -the unwisdom and the uselessness of such self-sacrifice. -I want you to resume your place in the world. I want -you to realize that life is like the earth: there is the -winter, more or less long, no doubt, but afterward there -is the spring. You know that poem of Sully Prudhomme, -in which he imagines that all the plants agree to refrain -from bearing flowers a whole year. But that year has -never been seen in fact. The poem is wrong artistically -and scientifically.”</p> - -<p>“Of the earth, yes; but in the human soul there are -many spots stricken with barrenness for ever.”</p> - -<p>“But not at your age?”</p> - -<p>“What has age to do with it?”</p> - -<p>He sighed; he felt the use of argument, the futility of -entreaty.</p> - -<p>“Are you not too proud a woman,” he said at length, -“to sit in the dust, with ashes on your head, smitten to -the ground by an unjust sentence?”</p> - -<p>“I have told you. All my pride is dead; not for a year -like Sully Prudhomme’s flowers, but for ever.”</p> - -<p>“And you forgive the man who killed it?”</p> - -<p>The blood mantled in her face.</p> - -<p>“That is a question I cannot allow, even to you, dear -Ernst.”</p> - -<p>He was silenced.</p> - -<p>“And you are going back to the owls and the bitterns -of Schloss Lynar?” he asked, as he took his leave of her -half an hour later. “What a life for you, that Swabian -solitude!”</p> - -<p>“The bitterns and owls are very good company, and at -least they never offend me.”</p> - -<p>“Let me be as fortunate!” he said with a sigh. “I -may return to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I do not leave until evening!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>When he had left her she remained lost in the sadness of -her own useless thoughts for some moments; then she put -on a long black cloak, a veil which hid her features, and -went out in the street, saying nothing to the two servants -who traveled with her or to the servant of the hotel. She -went out into the street and crossed the Seine by the -bridge of Henri Quatre, her elegance of form and her -height making some of the passers-by pause and stare, -wondering who she could be, alone, on foot, and so closely -veiled. One man followed and accosted her, but he did -not dare persevere.</p> - -<p>She went straight on her way to the Rue de Rivoli, for -she had known Paris well, and loved it as we love a place -which has been the seat of our happiness. It was near -the end of a grey and chilly day; the lights were glittering -everywhere, and the animation of a great and popular -thoroughfare was at its height. The noise of traffic and -the haste of crowds made her ears ache with sound, so -used as she now was to the absolute silence of her Swabian -solitude; a silence only broken by the rush of wind -or water. She approached a very large and stately building -which looked like a palace blent with a prison; it was -the French house of business of the great Paris and Berlin -financiers, Vanderlin et Cie.</p> - -<p>She walked toward it and past it, very slowly, whilst -its electric lamps shed their rays upon her.</p> - -<p>She passed it and turned, and passed it and turned -again, and as often as she could do so without attracting -attention from the throngs or from the police. There was -a mingling of daylight and lamplight; above-head cumuli -clouds were driven before a north wind. She waited on -a mere chance; the chance of seeing one whom she had -not seen for eight years pass out of a small private door -to his carriage. She knew his hours, his habits; probably, -she thought, they had not changed.</p> - -<p>She was rewarded, if it could be called reward.</p> - -<p>As she passed the façade for the eighth time, and those -on guard before the building began to watch her suspiciously, -she saw a tall man come out of that private -doorway and cross the pavement to a <i>coupé</i> waiting by the -curbstone. In a moment he had entered it; the door had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span> -closed on him, the horses had started down the Rue de -Rivoli.</p> - -<p>She had seen the man who had repudiated and dishonored -her; the only man she had ever loved; the -father of her dead boy.</p> - -<p>“Does he ever remember?” she wondered as she turned -away, and was lost amongst the crowds in the falling -night.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">If</span> you get into a bad set, I tell you frankly I shall -never help you out of it. A bad set is a bog; a hopeless -bog; you flounder on in it till you sink. Can’t you understand? -If you are going to be taken up by this kind -of people, don’t ask me to do any more for you. That’s -all. I don’t want to be unkind, but it must be one thing -or another. I cannot come here if I am likely to meet -persons whom I won’t know. Anybody would say the -same.”</p> - -<p>She spoke with severity, as to a chidden child, as she -lighted a cigarette and put it between her roseleaf lips. -She was in the boudoir of Harrenden House, and Margaret -Massarene listened in humble and dejected silence -to the rebuke. The bone of contention was represented -by two visiting cards, on which were printed respectively -Lady Mary Altringham and Lady Linlithgow: the bearers -of those names had just been turned away from the gate -below by order of the fair consor, and the mistress of -Harrenden House, being a primitive person, to whom a -want of hospitality appeared a crime, was swallowing her -tears under difficulty.</p> - -<p>“But surely these ladies are high and all that, ma’am?” -she pleaded piteously in her ignorance.</p> - -<p>“They were born if you mean that,” replied Mouse -with great impatience. “Lady Mary was a Fitz-Frederick -and the Linlithgow was a Knotts-Buller. But they are -nowhere. They have put themselves out of court. No -one worth thinking of knows them. They can do you -no good, and they can do you a great deal of harm.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene puckered up in her fingers the fine -cambric of her handkerchief.</p> - -<p>“But I know Lady Mary, ma’am!”</p> - -<p>“Drop her, then.”</p> - -<p>“What have she done, ma’am?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, lots of things; gone wrong stupidly, turned the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> -county against her; her boy’s tutor, and a young artist -who went down to paint the ballroom, and all that kind -of silly public sort of thing; people don’t speak to her -even in the hunting-field. She can’t show herself at -Court. The girls were presented by their grandmother. -She is completely <i>tarée</i>—completely!”</p> - -<p>The portrait was somewhat heavily loaded with colors, -but she knew that her hearer would not be impressed by -semi-tones or monochrome, and she really could not have -Lady Mary coming and going at Harrenden House.</p> - -<p>“As for the other woman,” she added, “there is nothing -actually against her, but she is bad form. They are -as poor as Job and riddled with debts; they have even -been glad to let their eldest daughter marry the banker -of their own county borough!”</p> - -<p>To her humble companion, to whom not so very long -before a banker’s clerk had seemed a functionary to be -addressed as Sir, and viewed with deep respect, this social -error did not carry a deep dye of iniquity. But she -abandoned Lady Linlithgow; for the other culprit she -ventured to plead.</p> - -<p>“Lady Mary was so very kind to my child,” she murmured -timidly. “When Kathleen was at school, before -we came over, Lady Mary’s own daughters——”</p> - -<p>“What has that to do with it? I tell you her daughters -go out with their grandmother. You know nothing of all -these things. You must do as you are told. You remember -your blunder about my aunt Courcy?”</p> - -<p>This reminiscence was a whip of nettles which always -lay ready to her monitress’s hand, and the monitress used -it with great effect. But such a blunder still seemed -natural to her; Mrs. Cecil Courcy was a commoner, and -these ladies who had just been turned from her gates were -titled people. Why was the one at the apex of fashion, -and the others “nowhere,” as her monitress expressed it.</p> - -<p>She hinted timidly at this singular discrepancy, so unintelligible -to the socially untutored mind.</p> - -<p>“How is it possible to make you understand?” said -Mouse, lighting a second cigarette before the first was -half consumed, after the wasteful manner of female -smokers. “Rank by itself is nothing at all; at least,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> -well, yes, of course, it is something; but when people -have got on the wrong side of the post, they are of no -use socially to anybody. It isn’t what you do; it is how -you do it. You know there is an old adage: ‘Some -mustn’t look in at a church door, and others may steal -all the church plate.’ It is always so in this world. -Lady Mary’s muffed her life, as the boys say. I dare say -there are worse women; but there isn’t one so stupid in -all the three kingdoms. Who goes driving all alone with -a tutor? Who makes a pet of a little two-sous Belgian -fresco painter? Who gets herself talked about with the -attorney of her own town? Nobody who has a grain of -sense. These are things which put a woman out of society -at once and for ever. I must beg you to try and understand -one most essential fact. There are people extremely -well-born who are shady, and there are others -come from heaven knows where who are <i>chic</i>. It is due -to tact more than anything else. Tact is, after all, the -master of the ceremonies of life. It isn’t Burke or Debrett -who can tell you who to know, and who to avoid. -There is no Court Circular published which can show -you where the ice won’t bear you, and where it will, -whom you may only know out of England and whom you -may safely know in it. There are no hard and fast rules -about the thing. If you haven’t been born to that kind -of knowledge you must grope about till you pick it -up. I am very much afraid you will never pick it up. -You will never know a princess without her gilt coach-and-six; -you will never recognize an empress in a waterproof -and goloshes; and you will never grasp the fact -that supreme, inexorable, and omnipotent Fashion may -be a little pale shabby creature like my aunt Courcy, who -pinches and screws about a groschen, but who can make -or mar people in society just as she pleases.”</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene winced. She had seen Mrs. Cecil -Courcy that very day in the park driving with the Queen -of Denmark, who was on a visit to Marlborough House. -All these niceties of shade confused her utterly. “Society’s -just like Aspinall’s Enamels,” she thought in her -bewilderment; and if you wanted a plain yellow, you -were confused by a score of gradations varying from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span> -palest lemon to deepest orange: there were no plain yellows -any more.</p> - -<p>“But I’ve always been told that if one’s pile’s big, real -big, one can always go anywhere?” she ventured to say, -unconscious of the cynical character of her remark.</p> - -<p>“You can go to Court <i>here</i>, if that’s your ideal. You -do go,” replied her teacher with a slighting accent of contempt -which sounded like high treason to the mind of the -Ulster loyalist; “but it don’t follow you can get in elsewhere. -It just depends on lots of chances. Some people -never get into the world at all; merely because they don’t -spend their money cleverly at the onset.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps they spare at the spigot and pour out at the -bung-hole, my lady,” said Mrs. Massarene in homely metaphor. -“There’s a-many has that fault, I have it myself. -It’s all I can do still to hold myself from saving the -candle-ends.”</p> - -<p>“Good heavens! Do you really mean it?”</p> - -<p>“I do, indeed, ma’am,” said the mistress of Harrenden -House. “When I see them beautiful wax-lights, just -burned an inch or two, and going to be taken away by -them wasteful servants——”</p> - -<p>Her companion laughed, infinitely diverted.</p> - -<p>“But it’s all electric light here!”</p> - -<p>“Not in the bedrooms. I wouldn’t have the uncanny -thing in the bedrooms. You see, my lady,” she added -timidly in confidential whispers, “William should have -led me up to all this grandeur gradual. But he didn’t. -He always said, ‘We’ll scrape on this side and dash on the -other.’ So till we come over to be gentlefolks, I had to -cook and sweep, and pinch and spare, and toil and moil, -and I can’t get out of the habit. On the child he always -spent; but on naught else not a cent till we came to -Europe.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, by the way, this daughter,” said Mouse, suddenly -roused to the perception that there was an unknown factor -in the lives of these humble people. “Where is she? I -have never seen her. She is out, I think?”</p> - -<p>Over the pallid, puffy, sorrowful face of the poor harassed -aspirant to smart society there came a momentary brightness.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>“Yes, ma’am; she’s what you call ‘out’; I presented -her myself,” said Mrs. Massarene with pride.</p> - -<p>“But where is she now?”</p> - -<p>“Kathleen—Katherine—is in India, my lady.”</p> - -<p>“Good gracious! Why?”</p> - -<p>“Well, she’s great friends with the Marquis of Framlingham’s -daughters,” said Mrs. Massarene, feeling sure -this time she was safe.</p> - -<p>“What! Sherry and Bitters?” cried Lady Kenilworth. -Sherry and Bitters was the nickname which his caustic but -ever courteous wit had earned for Lord Framlingham in -that London world which he had left for an Indian presidency. -She was vexed with herself for not having -thought sooner of asking for this daughter and taking her -under her own wing.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene was bewildered by the exclamation; -but she was sure of her ground this time, and was not -alarmed. “Lord and Lady Framlingham, ma’am,” she repeated -with zest. “It’s cruel hard on me to lose her for -so long, but as they’re such grand folks one couldn’t in -reason object.”</p> - -<p>“Grand folks?” repeated her visitor with amusement. -“Poor dear souls! how amused they be. They’d have -been sold up if they hadn’t gone out; she hated going, -said she’d rather live on a crust in England, but he jumped -at the appointment; he’d a whole yelling pack of Jews -on him; it’s quieted them of course; and he’s let Saxe-Durham -for the term. You’d better tell your husband -not to lend him any money, for he never pays, he can’t -pay; he’s sure to get your daughter to ask.”</p> - -<p>“Lord’s sakes, my lady!” murmured Margaret Massarene: -life became altogether inexplicable to her; if a -gentleman who was a marquis, and governor of a province -twice as big as France, they said, were not everything he -ought to be, where could excellence and solvency be looked -for? <i>O vertu où vas-tu te nicher?</i> she would have said had -she ever heard of the line.</p> - -<p>“But they are very—very—good people, are they not, -ma’am?” she asked pathetically.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear, yes; <i>she</i> is much too ugly to be anything -else, and he’s a very good fellow though he does make<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> -himself hated with his sharp tongue. He’s like that monarch, -you know, who never did a wise thing and never -said a silly one. He’s awfully clever, but he can’t keep -his head above water. But why on earth did you let -your daughter go for so long? They’ll get marrying her -to one of their boys; they’ve no end of them.”</p> - -<p>She was not pleased that the young woman was staying -with Lord Framlingham; he was a very clever and -sarcastic person who might supply his guest with inconvenient -and premature knowledge of English society in -general and of Cocky and herself in particular.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene smoothed down her beautiful gown -with a nervous worried gesture.</p> - -<p>“Oh, ma’am, Katherine’s very discreet, and by her -letters all she seems to be thinking about is the white -temples and the black men.”</p> - -<p>“There are no black men in India, and you’d have done -much better to keep her at home,” said her visitor sharply. -“What is she like?”</p> - -<p>She intended this young woman for her brother Ronald, -whatever she might be like.</p> - -<p>Maternal pride made Mrs. Massarene’s inexpressive and -commonplace face for once eloquent and not ordinary: its -troubled and dreary expression of chronic bewilderment -lighted and changed; her wide mouth smiled, her colorless -eyes grew almost bright.</p> - -<p>“If you’ll honor me, ma’am, by stepping this way,” she -said with alacrity as she rose.</p> - -<p>“Horses step—people don’t,” said Lady Kenilworth, -unkindly, as she accompanied the person whose instructress -and tormentor she was, into a smaller room in which, -set as it were upon an altar, a white marble bust stood -on a plinth of jasper with a fence of hothouse flowers -around it; hanging on the wall behind it was a portrait. -Lady Kenilworth looked critically at both bust and -portrait. She was surprised to find them what they -were.</p> - -<p>“A classic face, and clever,” she said to the anxious -mother. “Are they at all like? The bust’s Dalou’s, -isn’t it? And the portrait——”</p> - -<p>“They are both the image of her, ma’am,” said Mrs.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> -Massarene, with great triumph in the effect which they -produced. “But the marble pleases me best.”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth was still looking at them critically -through her double eye-glass. She was thinking that the -original of that straight and somewhat severe profile was -perhaps as well in India until Prince Khris and she had -tired of the Massarene vein. On the other hand, unless -the girl came home, she could not be married to Hurstmanceaux.</p> - -<p>“Your daughter isn’t <i>facile</i>, is she?” she asked abruptly.</p> - -<p>“What, ma’am?” asked the mother, gazing with tears -in her eyes, delicious tears, at the bust which would have -passed as an Athene or a Clio.</p> - -<p>“Well, not easy to deal with—not easy to make believe -things; likes her own way, don’t she?”</p> - -<p>“Well, ma’am,” said Mrs. Massarene doubtfully, “sweet-tempered -she is, and forgetful of self to a fault, and I -wouldn’t lay blame to her as obstinate. But if you mean -as how she can be firm, well, she can; and if you mean as -how she can have opinions, well, she have.”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth laughed, but she was vexed.</p> - -<p>“That’s what I do mean. Nobody has that straight -profile for nothing; where did she get it?”</p> - -<p>“Lord, ma’am, however should I know,” said the -mother meekly. “She don’t take after either of us, that’s -a fact. The children pick up their own looks in heaven, I -think, for often nobody can account for ’em on earth. -Look at your own little dears; what black eyes they all -have, and you and my lord so fair. I met them in the -Park this morning, my lady. Would you let them come -and see me some day?”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth, to her own extreme amazement and -annoyance, felt herself color as the straightforward gaze -of this common woman looked in sincerity and in ignorance -at her.</p> - -<p>“The children shall certainly come to see you if you -wish,” she said. “But they are naughty little people. -They will bother you horribly. And pray, my dear -woman, don’t say ‘My lady,’ you set all my nerves on -edge.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>Mrs. Massarene humbly excused herself. “It comes -natural,” she said with a sigh; “I was dairymaid at the -Hall. William can’t bear me to say I was, but I don’t -see as it matters.”</p> - -<p>“William is right,” said Lady Kenilworth with a glance -at the bust, “and I am sure your daughter will say so too.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene shook her head. “Kathleen is quite -the other way, ma’am. She says we can’t be quality, and -why should we pretend to; she angers her father terrible; -to tell you the truth, she angers him <i>so</i> terrible that it was -for that reason I gave in about this long visit to India.”</p> - -<p>“She is not of her time then,” said Lady Kenilworth. -“I am afraid she gets those ideas from Framlingham. He -is a downright Radical.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know where she gets them,” said Mrs. Massarene -drearily. “William always said the only comfort -about a girl was that a girl couldn’t spite you in politics -as a boy might; but if her ideas aren’t politics, and the -worst sort of politics, I don’t know what is, and when -you’ve kept a daughter ten years and more at school where -nobody else goes as isn’t titled, it’s a cross as one doesn’t -look for to have her turned out a Republican.”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth laughed with genuine mirth, which -showed all her pretty teeth, white, and even and pointed -like a puppy’s.</p> - -<p>“Is she a Republican? Well, that is a popular creed -enough now. I am not sure it wouldn’t get you on better -than being on our side. The Radicals do such a lot for -their people, and do it seriously without a grimace. We -always”—“put our tongue in our cheek while we do it,” -she was about to add, when a sense of the imprudence of -her confession arrested her utterance of it. “I do wonder, -you know, that you belong to us,” she hastened to add -with that air of candor which so often stood her in good -stead; “you would have found Hawarden easier of access -than Hatfield.”</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene stared.</p> - -<p>“But William’s principles, ma’am,” she murmured, -“Church and State and Property; William says them -three stand or fall together.”</p> - -<p>“And he will hold them all up on his shoulders like a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> -Caryatide,” said Lady Kenilworth, with her most winning -smile.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene smiled too, blankly, because she did not -understand, but gratefully, because she felt that a compliment -was intended.</p> - -<p>“I can’t think, though, that it is wise of him to allow -this visit. I think it is exceedingly ill-advised to let her -be away from you so long,” said her visitor, still gazing -through her eye-glass at Dalou’s bust, and reflecting as she -gazed: “The young woman must be odious, but she is -good-looking and Ronnie shall marry her. You don’t -know my brother?” she said, apparently abruptly, but in -her own mind following out her thoughts.</p> - -<p>“Meaning Lord Hurstmanceaux? No, ma’am, we -haven’t that honor.”</p> - -<p>“We call it Hur’sceaux, please.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, indeed! As you say O’borne for Otterbourne, -and Kers’ham for Kersterholme. Might I ask why those -names are cut about so, ma’am?”</p> - -<p>“Usage! Why do we say Gore for Gower, and Sellenger -for St. Leger?”</p> - -<p>“Rebecca Gower was postmistress at Kilrathy when I -was a girl,” said Mrs. Massarene reflectively. “But Lord! -if anybody had clipped <i>her</i> down to Gore their letters -would have all gone in the swill-tub!”</p> - -<p>“You see, we have not the privilege of acquaintance -with the postmistress of Kilrathy! Well, I must try and -bring my brother to see you. But he is like your daughter; -he is not <i>facile</i>. Like all those reactionary sort of -people, he thinks nobody good enough to know. I never -can induce him to make a new acquaintance. But perhaps -if he sees this Dalou——” With a pretty smile she -left the unfinished sentence to sink into the mind of -Katherine Massarene’s mother. That simple and candid -personage answered the unspoken thought.</p> - -<p>“We’ve had a-many asking for Kathleen’s hand, ma’am,” -she said very stupidly. “But neither she or William are -easy to please in that way. He looks so high as naught -but kings would satisfy him, and she—well, I don’t know -what she wants, I’m sure, and I don’t think she knows -herself.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>“Perhaps she’s in love with Framlingham!” cried her -companion with a disagreeable little laugh, for she was -provoked at her unplayed cards being discerned by a person -of such limited intelligence.</p> - -<p>“A married man, ma’am!” cried Mrs. Massarene, with -a countenance so pallid from horror that Lady Kenilworth -laughed as heartily as if she were hearing Yvette Guilbert -sing.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my good woman, how much you have got to -learn!” she cried gaily.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene patted her gown a little irritably, but -she dared not resent; though it seemed to her that, after -all her William had done for this lovely young lady, it -was hard to be called by her a good woman.</p> - -<p>“I’ll never learn to break the Holy Commandments, -ma’am,” she said in a tone of offence.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you dear droll creature!” cried her visitor, more -and more amused.</p> - -<p>“But let us go over your lists,” she said sharply, realizing -that she was wasting valuable time on this goose. -“They will want no end of weeding. I will not meet anybody -who is not in my own set. You’ll get the right -people if you don’t mix them with the wrong.”</p> - -<p>With her little gold pencil as a stiletto she set to work -mercilessly on her work of expurgation and execution.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene looked on helpless but agitated; a sense -of wrath was stirring in her mild bosom, but she dared not -show it.</p> - -<p>“To be called a good woman!” she thought. “Just -as I’d speak to the match-seller at the corner of a street!”</p> - -<p>The lists thus weeded with such pitiless surgery produced -very brilliant gatherings at Harrenden House, and -the falconer of Clodion saw nearly all that was fairest and -noblest pass up the grand staircase which he guarded.</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene, standing till she was ready to drop -at the entrance of her reception-rooms, felt her head swim -under her tiara as she heard the great names announced -by Winters.</p> - -<p>The Massarene pile had been touched by the magic -wand which could transform it into fashion. To go to -Harrenden House became the amusement of the great and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> -the ambition of all lesser folks. Not to go to Harrenden -House became soon a confession that you were nobody -yourself. “<i>Tenez la dragée haute!</i>” said their guide, philosopher, -and friend; and she made them very exclusive -indeed, and would let no one snub them or laugh at them -except herself.</p> - -<p>“On my soul, she do give worth for her money!” thought -William Massarene; and he was pleased to feel that he had -not been fooled even when he had bought a barren Scotch -estate and compromised his credit in the City by putting -a consumptive little sot on the Board of a bank.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you bespeak the Massarene young woman -for me, Mouse?” said Brancepeth in the boudoir of Stanhope -Street, when he heard of the bust of Dalou and the -portrait of Orchardson.</p> - -<p>“How exactly like a man!” said his friend, blue fire -flashing from her eyes. “A little while ago you were mad -about the Countess Lynar!”</p> - -<p>“It’s uncommon like a man to get a pot of money when -he can!” said Brancepeth with amusement. “If you did -your duty by me, you’d bespeak me those loaves and -fishes; you do what you like with the bloomin’ cad.”</p> - -<p>“I would sooner see you dead than married!”</p> - -<p>“I be bound you would,” muttered the young man. -“Lord, that’s the sort of thing women call love!”</p> - -<p>“Men’s love is so disinterested, we know!” said Mouse -with withering contempt.</p> - -<p>“You want the young woman for Ronnie,” continued -Brancepeth. “That’s your little game. But he won’t -take your tip.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“’Cos he’s the cussedest crank in all Judee! Let -Ronnie please himself and get me the Massarene dollars. -I’ll give you half I get; and I sha’n’t know whether she’s -a snub nose or a straight one.”</p> - -<p>Mouse colored with anger. There are things when -however necessary it may be to do them, cannot be spoken -of without offence.</p> - -<p>“How odiously coarse you grow,” she observed with -severity.</p> - -<p>“Oh, bother! you call a spade a spade fast enough<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> -sometimes. How you do make me think of my old granny -Luce!”</p> - -<p>“In what do I resemble your old granny Luce?”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth was mute. To repeat what his maternal -grandmother had said would not pour oil on troubled -waters. What the very free-spoken and sharp-tongued -old Lady Luce had said was this, when Brancepeth was -still in the sixth form at Eton:</p> - -<p>“You’re such a pretty boy, Harry, the women-folks -will be after you like wasps after treacle; take my advice, -whatever you do steer clear of the married ones. A married -woman always has such a lot of trumps up her -sleeve. She sticks like a burr: you can pay off a wench, -but you can’t pay off her; and if her fancy-man tries to -get away she calls in her husband and there’s the devil -and all to pay. Don’t you forget that, Harry.”</p> - -<p>But he had forgotten it.</p> - -<p>“I think I’ll go up and see the little beggars,” he said, -to make a diversion; and he slipped away before she -could stop him and went up, four stairs at a time, to the -nurseries. There he was extremely popular and much -beloved, especially by Jack; and there he was perfectly -happy, being a young man of simple tastes, limited intelligence, -and affectionate disposition.</p> - -<p>He was in the midst of an uproarious game of romps -there one day, when Cocky looked in from the doorway -with an odd little smile.</p> - -<p>“What a good paterfamilias you’ll be, Harry, when -your time comes!” he said, with a look which made poor -Harry color to the roots of his hair.</p> - -<p>The head nurse intervened by calling to order noisy, -laughing little Jack.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you see your dear papa at the door, Lord Kersholm?” -said that discreet woman.</p> - -<p>This day there was no Cocky in the doorway; but the -blindman’s buff was early in its merry course interrupted -by a message from Lady Kenilworth requesting his presence -downstairs.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord, what a pity!” said Brancepeth, as he pulled -the handkerchief off his eyes, swung Jack up above his -head, and then kissed him a dozen times.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>“I wasn’t doing any harm,” he said sulkily, as he reëntered -the presence of Jack’s mother.</p> - -<p>“Yes, you were,” she said coldly. “I cannot allow -you to be upstairs with the children so long and so constantly. -Their women must think it very odd; they will -talk. No other of my husband’s friends enters the nurseries. -You must have something to do at the barracks, -or the clubs, or the stables, or somewhere. Go and do it.”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth hung his head. He understood what his -punishment would be if he dreamed of marrying the -Massarene heiress or any other person whatsoever. Not -to see the children any more except as any other of -“Cocky’s friends” saw them! He was tender-hearted -and weak in will; she cowed him and ruled him with a -rod of iron. “Lord, how right my grandmother Luce -was!” thought the poor fellow as he went down Stanhope -Street meekly, feeling in remembrance the touch of Jack’s -soft, fresh, rosy lips.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IX.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Some</span> time before Easter cards had been issued for a -Costume Ball at Otterbourne House, <i>temp.</i> Charles II., to -be given immediately after Easter. The Duke occasionally -lent the mansion to his daughter-in-law for such entertainments, -never very willingly, for he had always to -defray himself the cost of them, and he greatly disliked -many members of her set. But he recognized a certain -right in his eldest son’s wife to have the house sometimes, -though he did not concede that it went so far as for her -to inhabit it. Those little dark-eyed children running -about Otterbourne House, and Harry Brancepeth going -in and out of it continually—“Not whilst I live,” said the -Duke to himself. After him, Cocky must do as he chose. -Cocky would probably let it, or sell it at once for a monster -hotel.</p> - -<p>She arranged her ball greatly to her satisfaction in -every detail before she went down for the Easter recess. -But there was one thing which had been difficult. That -was, to persuade the Duke, who always insisted on revising -her list for parties given at his houses, whether in -town or country, to allow that of Massarene to remain on -it. He inquired who the Massarenes were; and did not -inquire only of herself, but of others. He was most decidedly -opposed to the presence of such people at Otterbourne -House. But Blair Airon was not yet definitely -purchased, and it had been given to her to understand -that unless the gates of Otterbourne House unclosed, -that purchase never might be ratified. All her ingenuity, -all her cajolery, all her infinite skill in the manipulation -of the minds and wills of men, failed absolutely for a long -time with the old Duke. He would not have a man come -from God knew where—well, from the State of Dakota, -that was equally indefinite—brought within his doors; -and everything she could think of to say only rooted him -more firmly in his prejudices.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>“Odious, insolent, ill-natured, pigheaded, spiteful, out-of-date -old wretch!” exclaimed Mouse, as she read a note -from him, and cast it across the room to her husband.</p> - -<p>“The Pater? Oh, I say, choose your language,” said -Cocky.</p> - -<p>In his shrivelled heart, dry and sere as a last year’s -leaf, if there was one remnant of regard and respect left, -it was for his father. Besides, like most men, he always -disagreed with anything his wife said. He read the note -in a glance.</p> - -<p>“Won’t swallow man from Dakota,” he said, under a -smile. “Well, I wouldn’t have swallowed him if he -hadn’t greased my throat so well.”</p> - -<p>“Hush!”</p> - -<p>“Who’s to hear? Dogs don’t blab, bless ’em!”</p> - -<p>“I dislike to hear such things said, even in jest.”</p> - -<p>Cocky chuckled.</p> - -<p>“What do you bother the pater about him for? I’ve -swallowed him; society’s swallowed him; all the royal -folks have swallowed him. Why can’t you leave the -pater in peace?”</p> - -<p>“Why? Why? Because it is absolutely necessary -that the Massarenes should be seen at Otterbourne House—seen -at <i>my</i> ball! The refusal is an insult to <i>me</i>! -Your father is a hundred years out of date. The country -is practically a republic; we shall all have our lands -taken from us before long and parcelled out to Jack and -Jill. It is ridiculous to be stiff-necked about knowing -people. All stiffness of that sort went out when the -Hanoverian line came in. What’s half the peerage? -Titled tradesmen. They have got Richemont. Could -your father afford Richemont? There’s only one aristocracy -now left; it’s Money. When I have been getting -them everywhere, and everybody so kind about it, what -shall I look to people when I don’t have them at my own -ball? Your father has no consideration for me; he never -has. Put it as a personal favor to myself, and you see -what he answers—within a week of the ball!”</p> - -<p>Cocky listened quietly, because it was diverting to see -his wife so displeased and to hear her so incoherent. He -liked her to be “in a wax”; he hated to think things<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> -went as smoothly as they usually did go with her; but he -saw the gravity of the dilemma. If Otterbourne would -not have the Massarenes, then he and she would be like -the farm-girl of fable—“<i>Adieu, veau vache cochons canvée!</i>” -There might even ensue inquiries from high places, and -rebuffs which even the talent of Richemont would not -avert. Cocky, to whom the talent of Richemont was -agreeable (he lunched and dined whenever he chose at -Harrenden House), and more agreeable the master of -Richemont (who accepted his signature as if it were -Rothschild’s), saw that this was one of those exceptional -occasions on which he would do better for himself to side -with the mother of the four little poppets upstairs.</p> - -<p>“I’ll see pater about the thing if you’re so set on it,” -he said, with unusual amiability.</p> - -<p>“Can you do anything?” she said doubtfully and sullenly.</p> - -<p>“Well, I don’t know. I’ll tell him Billy’s reforming -me—making an honest man of me in Fleet Street, and -that he’ll damage me if he shuts his doors on the -beggars. Perhaps he’ll believe it, perhaps he won’t; I’ll -try.”</p> - -<p>“I’ve sent them their cards; tell him so.”</p> - -<p>“That wouldn’t move him a jot; but when I do the -eldest son rather well, and make believe to see the errors -of my ways, I can get a thing or two out of Poodle—sometimes. -After all——”</p> - -<p>After all, thought Cocky, there had been days, though -it seemed odd enough to think so now, when he had been -a clean and pretty little child jumping up on to his -father’s knee. The duke thought of those far-away days -oftener than he did, and Cocky was never ashamed to -<i>exploiter</i> the remembrance to base ends.</p> - -<p>“Go at once, then,” said his wife ungraciously.</p> - -<p>Cocky nodded. But when he had reached the door he -looked back between the curtains, a rather diabolic grin -upon his thin fair features.</p> - -<p>“I won’t tell pater you sold Blair Airon instead of selling -Black Hazel. Ain’t I magnanimous?”</p> - -<p>He disappeared, whilst the Blenheims barked shrilly at -his memory. Cocky turned into his own den and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> -strengthened his courage with an “eye-opener” of the -strongest species; then he took his way to his father’s -mansion looking on St. James’s Park—a beautiful and -majestic house built by Christopher Wren, and coveted -ardently by an hotel company.</p> - -<p>As he spun along the streets in a hansom, for Cocky -never went a yard on foot if he could help it, he changed -his intended tactics; the reformation dodge would not do; -the duke, who could on occasion be disagreeably keen-sighted, -would inevitably discover beneath it accepted -bills and unworthy obligations.</p> - -<p>“I’ll touch him up in his loyalty,” he thought. “The -Poodle’s a Cavalier in his creeds.”</p> - -<p>He found the duke at home with a slight touch of gout -in his left foot. “I suppose he comes for money,” thought -Otterbourne, for Cocky did not cross his threshold once in -three months. But Cocky made it soon apparent that his -motive was more disinterested.</p> - -<p>“You wrote a very sharp note to my wife just now,” he -said. “It has worried her.”</p> - -<p>The duke looked at him with sarcastic incredulity.</p> - -<p>“Are you going to pose as your wife’s champion? It -is late in the day.”</p> - -<p>“No, I ain’t,” said Cocky. “Do you mind my lighting -up, Pater?”</p> - -<p>Otterbourne indicated with a gesture that when anything -was painful to him an unpleasant trifle did not matter. -Cocky lit his cigar.</p> - -<p>“You won’t let her invite these new people, the Massarenes?”</p> - -<p>“Most decidedly not. Is it necessary to inquire?”</p> - -<p>“Well, you see, you put her in a hole.”</p> - -<p>“Your language is not mine; but I conclude you mean -that I inconvenience her. I regret it if it be so, but I -cannot say otherwise.”</p> - -<p>“Why did you object to the people?”</p> - -<p>“I might more pertinently inquire why did you know -them?”</p> - -<p>“Everybody does.”</p> - -<p>“Everybody does—through you, or rather through your -wife. At least, so I have heard.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>“Oh, we run ’em, yes.”</p> - -<p>Otterbourne’s silence was eloquent.</p> - -<p>“You see it’s just that,” Cocky pursued with engaging -frankness. “When the town’s taken ’em on our word it -will be such a slap in the face to her if you won’t let ’em -into your house. We must take Willis’s Rooms or some -place instead of giving the ball here, but that will make -people talk.”</p> - -<p>“And cost you money,” said the duke with significance.</p> - -<p>“And there’s another thing, you know. <i>He’s</i> gone to -’em through us. Mouse persuaded him. He’ll be rough -on us if he hears you set up your back; there might be an -awful rumpus; it might be unpleasant for him—the papers -would magnify the thing.”</p> - -<p>“You seem to make a mountain out of a molehill,” said -the duke with suspicion and impatience. “Go to Willis’s -Rooms. You can ask any number of shoeblacks there -that you please.”</p> - -<p>“You don’t see the thing as it is. You’ll get her into -trouble with the Prince, and give the Press a lot of brick-bats -to shy at him: I know you’d regret that. I shouldn’t -have come to bother you if I didn’t think the thing of -some importance. After all you can’t reasonably exclude -a man received at Court.”</p> - -<p>“My bootmaker goes to Court, and my stationer. -Very worthy persons, but they don’t dine with me.”</p> - -<p>“But Massarene won’t dine with you: we only want -him to come to the ball; and it’s her ball and it’s not -yours.”</p> - -<p>“The house is mine as yet,” said the duke stiffly.</p> - -<p>“And will be yours twenty years after I’m tucked up; -I’m dead broke—legs and lungs.”</p> - -<p>“You have ruined yourself.”</p> - -<p>This was so obvious that Cocky did not notice it.</p> - -<p>“Come, Pater, do give in; don’t get us in a row with -the Prince; when he’s accepted these people to please us -it would enrage him awfully if he learned you wouldn’t let -’em in. He’d ask you about it, of course, or have you -asked by somebody.”</p> - -<p>“And if he asks why I do let them in?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>“He won’t do that; he goes there.”</p> - -<p>The duke was silent. He sighed. He could not mend -the manners or the men of a time which was out of tune -with him.</p> - -<p>But Cocky’s argument had weight. He was of all -things kind and chivalrous, and would have no more caused -a scandal or a scene than he would have set fire to St. -James’s Palace next door to him. He reflected on the -matter; saw clearly how ugly it was, look at it how you -would, and at last conceded permission to let the new -people come on the condition, however, that they should -not be introduced to himself. “I am too old,” he said, -“to digest American cheese.”</p> - -<p>His daughter-in-law, who did not care in the least for -this stipulation, went gaily to luncheon at Harrenden -House, and interested herself graciously about their -costumes, which were a source of great anxiety to both of -them.</p> - -<p>“May I wear my diamonds?” asked Mrs. Massarene; -her diamonds were a great resource and support to her in -society.</p> - -<p>“Oh, the more diamonds the better?” said Mouse. -“Of course you’ll go as somebody’s grandmother, a Hyde -perhaps? You need only telegraph to your people in -Paris the epoch; they’ll know exactly what to send you; -they know your age and appearance.”</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene was not pleased, and felt that persons -of high rank could be most unpleasantly rude.</p> - -<p>“What time is it?” asked her lord, who had not rightly -understood.</p> - -<p>“Charles the Second’s. Do you know who Charles -the Second was?” asked Mouse with a malicious little -laugh.</p> - -<p>“Him as had his head took off?” asked Mr. Massarene.</p> - -<p>Her laugh became a melodious scream of delight.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you are too delightful! There were no standards -in your young days, were there, Billy?”</p> - -<p>He reddened angrily under his thick dull skin; he was -ashamed of his blunder, and he hated to be called Billy, -even by those lovely lips.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>Finally it was decided that he should go as Titus Oates, -and should get his dress from Paris, and should learn to -say, “O Lard.”</p> - -<p>“Remember, the man is not to speak to me, not to approach -me,” said Otterbourne to his daughter-in-law on -the day of the ball, when she had come to give a glance at -the completed decorations.</p> - -<p>“Oh, he quite understands that,” she replied. “I have -told him you dislike strange men, as some people are -afraid of strange dogs.”</p> - -<p>She laughed gaily as she spoke.</p> - -<p>“You might have told him,” said the duke drily, “that -there are old-fashioned persons who think that their acquaintance -should be kept as clean as their hands.”</p> - -<p>“<i>That</i> he wouldn’t understand,” replied Mouse.</p> - -<p>“What makes you protect such people?”</p> - -<p>“Oh! I don’t know! In other ages everybody had a -pet jester; now everybody has a pet <i>parvenu</i>. One runs -him; it’s great fun.”</p> - -<p>The duke was silent.</p> - -<p>“You know,” she continued, “he bought Vale Royal -of Gerald. Surely all the family ought to be rather nice -to him?”</p> - -<p>“You surprise me,” replied the duke. “I sold Seeton -Pastures to a grazier last year; but the obligation to be -‘nice’ to the purchaser was not in the contract. The sale -of Vale Royal was a great disgrace to Roxhall, for his -affairs were by no means in such a state as to necessitate -or excuse it. But whether his loss or his gain, the sale is -certainly his affair; and no one else’s.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you look at things so—so—stiffly,” said his -daughter-in-law. “We don’t, you know.”</p> - -<p>“I am aware that you do not,” said Otterbourne with -significance; and dropped the subject.</p> - -<p>When Clare Courcy, lovely as a dream, had been first -married to his son, the duke, fascinated out of his better -judgment, had admired and been inclined to love his -daughter-in-law. Even now he could not be wholly insensible -always to the witchery of the prettiest woman in -England. He knew her worthlessness; he was aware that -his son, bad as he had been before, had become ten times<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> -worse in every way since his marriage; he could never -see the little black-eyed, fair-haired cherubs of the Kenilworth -nurseries without a sigh and a curse in his own -thoughts; but she at certain moments fascinated him still.</p> - -<p>“I may send the bills in to Masters, I suppose?” she -asked. Colonel Masters was the duke’s agent, a silent, -conscientious ex-soldier entirely insensible to her own attractions.</p> - -<p>“Certainly. He has my authority to discharge them -all. You seem to me to have been more extravagant than -usual in your orders.”</p> - -<p>He looked around him as he spoke; they were standing -in a long gallery at the head of the grand staircase. -Flowers—flowers—flowers, met the eye in every direction, -and the various devices which held the electric lights were -concealed on the walls by millions of roses and orchids.</p> - -<p>“I suppose it is an old-fashioned idea,” said Otterbourne; -“but I think a gentleman’s house should be -thought good enough for his friends, even for his future -sovereigns, without all this dressing-up and disguising. -Modern fashions are extremely snobbish.”</p> - -<p>“They certainly are; there I quite agree with you,” -said his daughter-in-law, and meant what she said. “A -fine house like this wants no dressing-up. But we must -do as other people do, or look odd.”</p> - -<p>“Or you think you must,” said the duke, viewing with -small pleasure a suit of Damascene armor which an ancestor -had worn before Acre and Antioch, wreathed and -smothered with long trails made of the united blossoms -of cattleya and tigredia, whilst within its open vizor two -golden orioles sat upon a nest.</p> - -<p>“Do you think that in good taste?” he said, pointing -to it.</p> - -<p>“No; execrable. Nothing done in time is ever otherwise,” -said Mouse with unusual sincerity. “We are -never merry, and we are never sorry; so we heap up -flowers to make believe for us at our dances and our -burials. You are quite right, Pater, in the abstract. -But, you see, we can’t live in the abstract. We must do -as others do.”</p> - -<p>“I should have thought the only true privilege of birth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> -was to set us free of that obligation,” said Otterbourne, -to whom his noble old palace looked on these occasions -very much like the sweep who was muffled up in evergreens -as Jack-in-the-Green on May-day in the little old-world -country town which clustered under the hills of his -big place, Staghurst Castle.</p> - -<p>“Of course he is right enough,” she thought, as she -drove away. “The house would be ten thousand times -better left to itself, and we are all as vulgar as it is possible -to be. We have lost the secret of elegance—we have -only got display. Why couldn’t he give me a blank -check, instead of making me send in the bills to Masters? -He is such a screw! He wants to save all he can for his -precious ’Beric.”</p> - -<p>Alberic Orme was the duke’s second son; he was in -Orders, was a scholar of high degree, held one of his -father’s livings, had married the daughter of a rural dean, -and was the especial object of the ridicule, derision, and -suspicion of Cocky and his wife.</p> - -<p>Judging Lord Alberic by themselves, they attributed to -him and his hostile influence every one of the duke’s acts -which was disagreeable to them. He was the one of his -family nearest to the heart and to the ear of the duke; -the other two being officers in cavalry regiments, both -somewhat spendthrifts and troublesome, and his daughters -having married early and being little with him.</p> - -<p>To be dressed up like a tomfool, and prate like a poll -parrot, as he phrased it in his own thoughts, was unutterably -odious to William Massarene, but he was powerless -under his enslaver’s orders. When the Easter recess was -passed and the great night came, he appeared as Titus -Oates, looking and feeling very ridiculous with his stout -bowed legs in black silk stockings and ruffled breeches; -but, after all, it was not worse than Court dress, and it had -procured him admittance to Otterbourne House.</p> - -<p>“Mind, the man is not to speak to me; not here, nor -anywhere even at any time,” said the duke to his daughter-in-law, -nervously and apprehensively.</p> - -<p>“No, he never shall,” she promised; but she knew that -nobody who would see him there would be aware of the -stipulation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>She had got him to Otterbourne House and had fulfilled -one of the clauses of the unwritten contract by which -Blair Airon was sold.</p> - -<p>The ball was a great pageant and a great success; -and she, as the most exquisite of Nell Gwynnes, with all -her lovely natural hair curling over her shoulders, was -very kind to Titus Oates, guided his squat stiff unaccustomed -limbs through the mazes of one quadrille, and even -snatched a few moments to present him to some great -people; and as her father-in-law made but a brief appearance -in the rooms and only spoke with the royal personages -present and two or three of his intimate friends, she -found little difficulty in avoiding the introduction to him -of the “man from Dakota.”</p> - -<p>“Another time, another time,” she said vaguely, and -William Massarene was dazzled and quieted.</p> - -<p>Cocky was present for half an hour, looking a shaky, -consumptive, but not inelegant Grammont, for his figure -was slender and his features were good. He was infinitely -diverted by the sight of William Massarene.</p> - -<p>“Passes muster, don’t he, when he don’t open his -mouth?” he said to Hurstmanceaux. “Lord, what an -ugly mug he’s got! But the women are always asking -for his photo. Haha! we’ve got it in Stanhope Street large -as life. Pater won’t let him be taken up to him, and you -won’t know him either. You’re both wrong. He’s thoroughly -respectable, and he’s got a lot of my paper.”</p> - -<p>And Cocky, leaving his brother-in-law furious, sneaked -off to find the buffets.</p> - -<p>It was a very splendid and gorgeous scene in the great -house which Wren had designed, and many a famous -painter had decorated. Margaret Massarene gazed at it -as she sat in solitary state, blazing with diamonds and admirably -attired in black velvet and white satin, with that -due regard to her age which it had so wounded her to hear -suggested. No one noticed her, no one remembered her; -but some very stately dowagers near her glanced at her -now and then with an expression which made her wish -that she were back again in Dakota by her oil-stove and -her linen-wringer.</p> - -<p>“’Tis a mighty pretty sight,” thought Margaret Massarene<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> -as she sat and looked on; “and William’s dancing is -a thing I never did think to see in all my days. But these -women look as if they’d like to duck me in a pond.”</p> - -<p>Carrie Wisbeach, who was genuinely good-natured, observed -her neglected and isolated aspect, and called to her -side a fresh-colored pleasant-looking person, old, but hale -and bright-eyed, who had taken with success the name of -Samuel Pepys.</p> - -<p>“Daddy, let me take you up to the Massarene woman,” -she whispered. “She’s so dreadfully disconsolate, and -they give extraordinarily good dinners.”</p> - -<p>He looked and made a little wry face.</p> - -<p>“They’ve got Von Holstein’s cook,” she added persuasively.</p> - -<p>“Really? Richemont?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Richemont; and the best cellar now in London. -Come, make yourself pleasant!”</p> - -<p>“Ronnie won’t know ’em,” said the gentleman, glancing -down the rooms to where Hurstmanceaux stood, looking -very handsome but extremely bored, wearing the dress -which a Courcy had worn when ambassador for Charles -to the French Court.</p> - -<p>“Ronnie!” said Lady Wisbeach. “If Ronnie’s fads -were attended to we should know nobody except our own -families. Come along!”</p> - -<p>He reluctantly submitted, deriving courage as he went -from the memories of Von Holstein’s <i>chefs</i>. Her aunts -looked unutterable reproach at Carrie Wisbeach as she -murmured the inarticulate formula which presented Mr. -Gwyllian of Lostwithiel to Mrs. Massarene.</p> - -<p>“Pretty sight, isn’t it?” he said, as he sank back on -cushions beside her.</p> - -<p>“A beautiful sight,” said Margaret, with unction, “and -one as I never thought to see, sir.”</p> - -<p>He stared and laughed.</p> - -<p>“Unsophisticated soul!” he thought. “Why has cruel -fate brought you amongst us? Tell me,” he murmured, -“is it true that you have Von Holstein’s cook?”</p> - -<p>If she had, he would wait and take her to the supper-tables; -if she had not, he would at once leave her to her -fate.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>“Meaning the German Ambassador’s, sir?” she replied. -“Yes, we have.”</p> - -<p>“Ah!” He decided to take her to supper.</p> - -<p>“But I can’t say as we like him.”</p> - -<p>“What?” It was like hearing anybody say they did -not like Dante, or Jean de Reszké, or truffles, or comet-claret.</p> - -<p>“No, sir, we don’t,” she answered; “he doesn’t cook -himself at all.”</p> - -<p>“Of course he doesn’t! You might as well say that a -pianist should make the piano he plays on, and shoot an -elephant to get ivory for his keys! Richemont—it is -Richemont whom you have?—is a surpassing artist.”</p> - -<p>“’Tis easy to be an artist, sir, if you set a lot of people -working and send up their work in your name,” said Margaret -Massarene. “He don’t do naught all day—the -under-cooks say so—and he gets more’n a thousand -guineas a year; and he called Mr. Massarene an imbecile -because he wouldn’t eat snails! Now I put it to you, sir, -what’s the use of being able to pay for the fat of the land -if you’re to put up with hodmedods out of the hedges?”</p> - -<p>Gwyllian laughed so delightedly that the two terrible -dowagers turned to glance at him with a Medusan frown.</p> - -<p>“After all,” he thought, “one does get a great deal -more fun out of this kind of people than one ever gets -out of one’s own.” And he took her in to supper, and -made himself exceedingly pleasant. He was one of those -wise persons who if they cannot be pleasant with others -are nothing at all.</p> - -<p>Under the gentle exhilaration produced by a little -sparkling wine, Mrs. Massarene amused him infinitely, -and he cleverly extracted from her more about life in Dakota -than the rest of London had learned in a year; he -was even made acquainted with the oil-stove and the -linen-wringer.</p> - -<p>“What a nice kind man! How interested he do -seem!” she thought, poor creature, unconscious that the -oil-stove and the linen-wringer would make the diversion -of a dozen dinner-tables, manipulated with that skill -at mimicry which was one of Daddy Gwyllian’s social attractions.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>Her husband saw her from a distance, and divined that -she was being “drawn”; but he was powerless. He was -in waiting on an aunt of Lady Kenilworth’s, a very high -and mighty person with aquiline features and an immense -appetite. It was her garrulous stupidity and her clumsy -ingenuousness which made him hate her with a hate which -deepened every day. Why had he hung such a millstone -round his neck when he had been a farm-lad in County -Down? Her good and kindly qualities, her natural sincerity, -simplicity, and good nature were all homely instincts, -no more wanted in her new life than a pail of -fresh milk was wanted at one of the grand dinners at -Harrenden House.</p> - -<p>Once she had gone back to Kilrathy, the place of her -birth, and revisited the pastures, the woods, the streams, -which she had known in girlhood. The big house in the -midst of the green lands was shut up; bad times had told -there as in so many other places in the land; the family -she had served was abroad, impoverished, alienated, and -all but forgotten. But nothing else was changed. The -same great trees spread their vast shadows above the -grass; the same footpaths ran through the meadows; the -same kind of herds fed lazily, hock deep in clover, the -rain shining on their sleek sides, their breath odorous on -the misty air; the same kind of birds sang above her -head. Every step of the way was familiar to her: here -was the stile where she had listened first to William’s -wooing; there the footbridge which she had crossed every -market day; here the black hazel coppice where she had -once lost a silver sixpence; there the old oak stump where -the red cow had been suddenly taken with labor pains; -the rich long grass, the soft grey rain, the noisy frogs in -the marsh, the brimming river with the trout up-leaping -amongst the sword rush and the dock leaves—all these -and a thousand other familiar things were just as they had -been five-and-thirty years before; but none of the people -guessed that the lonely lady so richly dressed, walking -silently through the water meadows, had once been Margaret -Hogan. She did not dare make herself known to -any of them; she stole into the churchyard and sat by -her parents’ graves in the dusk, and gathered a few daisies<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span> -off the nameless mounds, and stole away again feeling -ashamed as of some overt act. She saw a barelegged girl -going home with the cattle, a switch in her hand and a -gleam of sunset light coming through the rain-clouds and -touching her red hair and her red kirtle; and in an odd -breathless, senseless kind of ingratitude to fate, she wished -that her Kathleen—Katherine—were that cow-girl, threading -that fragrant twilit path with the gentle kine lowing -about her, and a little calf nibbling at a bunch of clover -in her hand.</p> - -<p>“’Twas a good life when all was said,” she murmured, -a good life, washed by the dews, freshened with the -winds, sweetened by the flowers. She left a bank note at -the poor-box of the little church, and returned to her -grandeur and greatness, bearing in memory for many a -day that pleasant sound of the cattle chewing the wet -grasses in the dusk, smelling in memory for many a day -the honey scent of the cowslips in the wide pastures by -the river. Those memories were shut up in her heart in -secret; she would not have dared to speak of them to her -husband, or her daughter, but they were there, as the -withered daisies were in the secret drawer of her dressing-case; -and they kept a little corner of feeling alive in her -poor puffed-out stiffened overstretched soul, so overweighted -with its cares and honors.</p> - -<p>It seemed wonderful to her that she should be a grand -rich lady going to Court and wearing diamonds. Through -all these years through which the millions had been accumulating -she had not been allowed to know of their accumulation, -or permitted to cease from privations and incessant -labor. More than a quarter of a century had been -to her a period of toil quite as severe in one way as the -life as a dairy-girl had been here in another way. Often -and often in the bitter winters and scorching summers of -the Northwest she had thought as of a lost paradise of -these peaceful pastures, where no greater anxiety had -burdened her than to keep her cows in health and have -her milking praised.</p> - -<p>It was a fine thing to be a fine lady; yes, no doubt she -was very proud of her new station in the world. But -still, these white satin corsets of Paris which laced her in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> -so tightly were less easy than the cotton jacket and the -frieze coat; her hands laden with rings or imprisoned in -gloves could not do the nimble work which they had been -used to do; and the unconcealed contempt of the “smart -society” in which she lived had not the warmth and comfort -which had been in the jokes and the tears of the -farm-girls when a cow upset the milk she had given or the -boys came home fresh from a fair. It was all much -grander of course in this, but ease was wanting.</p> - -<p>“My dear Ronnie! Those new folk your sister’s running -are too delicious for anything,” said Daddy Gwyllian -to Hurstmanceaux in the smoking-room. “I took the -woman into supper, and on my soul I never laughed more -at the Coquelins! I’m going to dine there on Sunday; -they’ve got Richemont.”</p> - -<p>“More shame for you, Daddy!” said Hurstmanceaux. -“I never thought you’d worship the golden calf.”</p> - -<p>“Well, rich people are pleasant to know,” said Daddy -Gwyllian. “They’re comfortable; like these easy chairs. -Borrow of ’em? No, ’tisn’t that. I never borrowed, or -wanted to borrow, half-a-crown in my life. But they’re -indirectly so useful. And they’re pleasant. You can -turn lots of things on to them. You can get lots of fun -out of them. You can do such a deal for your friends -with them. Rich people are like well-filled luncheon-baskets; -they make the journey with ’em mighty pleasant. -The wine’s dry and the game-pie’s good, and the -peaches are hothouse, and it’s all as it should be and no -bother.”</p> - -<p>“I travel on cold tea,” said Hurstmanceaux with dry -significance.</p> - -<p>“Oh, lord, my dear Ronnie, I know you do,” said -Gwyllian. “But I can’t stomach cold tea, and a good -many other people can’t either. Now your poor folks are -cold tea and my rich folks are dry sherry. Economy’s a -damned ugly thing, you know, at its best. When I go -down to shoot with poor folks I know they put me in a -cold room and expect my servant to clean my gun. The -wealth of my neighbor means my own comfort. The -want of means of my friend means my own want of <i>bien-être</i> -when I go to see him. Naturally I don’t go. Equally<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> -naturally I do go where I am sure to get all I want. I -don’t want any bills backed, but I do want a warm house, -a dry wine, and a good cook. The very good cooks only -go nowadays to the very rich people; that is to the <i>rôture</i>. -I dined at a royal palace last month execrably; I was ill -afterwards for twenty-four hours. I know one of the -chamberlains very well; I got to the bottom of this horrible -mystery; the king pays so much a head for his dinners, -wine included! I fled from that capital. The royal -dynasty is very ancient, very chivalrous, very heroic, but -I prefer the Massarenes.”</p> - -<p>“I dare say you are right,” said Hurstmanceaux bitterly. -“The adoration of new wealth is not so much -snobbism as selfishness.”</p> - -<p>“It is not snobbism at all in us,” said Gwyllian, “the -snobbism is on their side. They kiss our boots when we -kick ’em. Why shouldn’t we kick ’em if they like it?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t blame your kicking them for a moment. I -blame your legs being under their dinner-tables while you -do it.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a matter of opinion,” said Daddy. “‘<i>Je prends -mon bien où je le trouve</i>,’ and if there’s a good cook in a -house I go there.”</p> - -<p>“There are good cooks at the Clubs.”</p> - -<p>“Passable. But when I dine at a club I have to pay -for my dinner,” said Gwyllian with a chuckle. “I don’t -borrow money, but I like to save it. I should not pay a -guinea for a peach, but a couple of guinea peaches taste -uncommon good when somebody else provides ’em.”</p> - -<p>“What a beast you make yourself out, Daddy!”</p> - -<p>“I’m a man of my time, dear boy,” said Gwyllian, as -he opened a silver cigarette-case which a pretty woman -had won at a bazaar raffle and given to him.</p> - -<p>Daddy was popular with both the sexes. Everybody -liked him, though nobody could tell why they did so.</p> - -<p>He was one of those men who do nothing all their lives -except run to and fro society like dogs in a fair. He was -of ancient descent, and had enough to live on, as a bachelor, -without, as he had averred, ever wanting to borrow -half-a-crown of anybody. He had a little nest of three -rooms in Albemarle Street, full of pretty things which had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span> -all been given him chiefly by ladies, and he was seen in -London, in Paris, in Homburg, in Cowes, in Cannes, in -Monaco, in Biarritz, at the height of their respective seasons -with unvarying regularity: farther afield he did not -go often; he liked to have his familiar world about him.</p> - -<p>He was now an old man, and to the younger generation -seemed patriarchal; he had been called Daddy for more -years than anybody could remember. But he was healthy -and strong, for he had always taken care of himself; he -could shoot with the best of them still, and could sit up -all night and look fresh and rosy after his shower-bath in -the morning.</p> - -<p>“You young ’uns have no stamina,” he said once to -Brancepeth when he found that young man measuring the -drops of his digitalis. “It is the way you were brought -up. In my time we were fed on bread and milk, and rice-pudding, -and wore low frocks till we were eight or nine, -and never even saw what the grown-up folks ate. You -were all of you muffled up to your chins in the nurseries, -and got at by the doctors, and plied with wine and raw -meat, and told that you had livers and lungs and digestions -before you could toddle, and given claret and what -not at luncheon, and made old men of you before you were -boys. Dilitation of the heart, have you got? Hypertrophy, -eh? Lord bless my soul, you shouldn’t know you’ve got a -heart, except as a figure of speech, when you swear it -away to a woman.”</p> - -<p>Everybody listened to Daddy even in an age which -never listens: he was so obviously always right; he had -so evidently found out the secret of an evergreen vitality; -he was so sagaciously and unaffectedly devoted to -himself, his selfishness was just tempered by that amount -of good nature, when it cost him nothing, which makes a -person popular; he was naturally good-natured and <i>serviable</i> -and kindly when to be so caused him no difficulty; he -would even take a little trouble for people when he liked -them, and he liked a great many. On the whole, he was -a happy and very sensible creature, and if his existence -was one long egotism and inutility—if he were really of -no more value than a snail on a cabbage-leaf—if the alpha -and omega of existence were comprised for him in his own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> -comfort, he was at least pleasant to look at and to listen -to, which cannot always be said of persons of great utility. -Daddy, moreover, though a very prudent creature, -did patch up some quarrels, prevent some scandals, remove -some misunderstandings amongst his numerous acquaintances, -but it was because he liked smooth waters -around his own little barque; life ought to be comfortable, -he thought; it was short, it was bothered, it was -subject to unforeseen accident, and it was made precarious -by draughts, fogs, model stoves, runaway horses, and -orange peel on the pavement; but as far as it could be -kept so, it ought to be comfortable. All his philosophy -centred in that; and it was a philosophy which carried -him along without friction.</p> - -<p>If Daddy Gwyllian never borrowed, he also never lent -half-a-crown; but he got other people to lend it to other -people, and this is the next most attractive social qualification -which endears us to our friends.</p> - -<p>To real necessity he was occasionally very serviceable -indeed, so long as it did not put its empty hand in his -own pockets; but on the distresses of fine ladies and -gentlemen he was exceedingly severe.</p> - -<p>Why couldn’t everybody keep straight as he himself -had always kept?</p> - -<p>“Why do you bother about Cocky and your sister?” -he said to Hurstmanceaux, whom he had known from a -child, as they sat alone in the ducal smoking-room. “If -Cocky and your sister had a million a year to-morrow -they’d want a million and a half when the year ended. -There are people like that: you can’t alter ’em. Their -receptivity is always greater than what they receive. -Their maw’s bigger than the biggest morsel you can put -into it. Don’t strip yourself for them. You might as -well go without your bath for fear the Thames should run -dry.”</p> - -<p>Daddy was so fond of pretty women (platonically) that -he generally forgave them all their sins, which was the -easier because they were not sins against himself. But -Lady Kenilworth, though he admired her, he did not like -her; he gave her a little sly pat whenever he could.</p> - -<p>She yawned when he talked, which nobody else ever<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> -did, and once, when they were staying at the same country -house, when he had offered to ride with her, she had -told him in plain terms that she didn’t care for old men in -the saddle or out of it.</p> - -<p>It was not in human nature to forget and forgive such -a reply, even though you were the best natured man in -the world. He could not do her much harm, for Mouse -was at that height of beauty, fashion and renown at -which a person is absolutely unassailable; but when he -could breathe on the mirror of her charms and dull it, he -did so; when he could slip a little stone under the -smoothly-rolling wheel of her life’s triumphal chariot, he -did so. It was but rarely. She was a very popular person. -Her elastic spirit, her beauty, her grace, her untiring -readiness for pleasure, all made her welcome in -society; her very insolence was charming, and her word -was law on matters of fashion. She was often unkind, -often malicious, always selfish, always cruel, but these -qualities served to intimidate and added to her potency. -People trembled for her verdict and supplicated for her -presence. Whether she were leading the cotillon or the -first flight, whether she was forming a costume quadrille -or bringing down a rocksetter, she was equally admirable, -and although she excelled in masculine sports she had the -tact always to remain exquisitely feminine in appearance -and style. She had had also the tact and the good luck -always to preserve her position. She had always done -what she liked, but she had always done it in such a way -that it had never injured her.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER X.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">A week</span> or two later Hurstmanceaux saw a paragraph in -the morning papers which made him throw them hastily -aside, leave his breakfast unfinished, and go to his sister’s -house in Stanhope Street. Her ladyship was in her bath. -“Say I shall return in half an hour. I come on an urgent -matter.” Leaving that message with her servants he -went to walk away the time in the Park. It was a fine and -breezy morning, but Hurstmanceaux, who always hated -the town, saw no beauty in the budding elms, or the -cycling women, or even in Jack or Boo, who were trotting -along on their little black Shetlands. When the time -was up he waited restlessly another half hour in his -sister’s boudoir, where he felt and looked like a St. Bernard -dog shut up in a pen at a show.</p> - -<p>She at last made her appearance, looking charming, -with her hair scarce dry gathered loosely up with a turquoise-studded -comb and a morning-gown of cloudy lace -and chiffon floating about her; a modern Aphrodite.</p> - -<p>“You have made your husband a director in the City,” -said Hurstmanceaux without preface, almost before she -had entered the room.</p> - -<p>She was prepared for the attack and smiled, rather impertinently.</p> - -<p>“What does it matter to you, Ronnie?”</p> - -<p>“A director of a bank!”</p> - -<p>“’Tisn’t your bank, is it?”</p> - -<p>“A director of a bank!” he repeated. It seemed to -him so monstrous, so shocking that he had no words left.</p> - -<p>“They won’t let him into the strong-room,” said -Cocky’s wife. “It may be rather absurd; but it isn’t -more absurd than numbers of other things—than your -being asked to be a mayor, for instance.”</p> - -<p>“If I had accepted I should not have disgraced the -mayoralty.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>“Cocky won’t disgrace anything. They’ll look after -him.”</p> - -<p>“Who did it?”</p> - -<p>“Is that your business, dear Ronnie?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, of course, it was that miserable cad from Dakota, -whom you forced through the gates of Otterbourne -House.”</p> - -<p>“If you know, why ask?”</p> - -<p>“What an insult to us all! What a position to put us -in! When everybody’s seen the man at your ball where -we all were——!”</p> - -<p>His indignation and emotion checked his utterance.</p> - -<p>His sister laughed a little, but she was bored and -annoyed. What business was it of his? Why could she -not be let alone to arrange these little matters to her own -convenience in any ingenious way she chose?</p> - -<p>“How could you make the duke appear to play such a -part?” said Hurstmanceaux. “He is the soul of honor -and of proper pride. What have you made him look like? -It is the kind of thing that is a disgrace to the country! -It is the kind of thing that makes the whole peerage -ridiculous and contemptible. Imagine what the Radical -press will say! Such scandalous jobbery justifies the -worst accusations.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t read the Radical newspapers then. I shall read -them, because they will be so deliciously funny. They -are always so amusing about Cocky.”</p> - -<p>“You have singular notions of amusement. I do not -share them.”</p> - -<p>“I know you don’t. You are always on stilts. You -never see the comedy of Cocky.”</p> - -<p>“I do not see the comedy of what is disreputable and -dishonorable. His father will be most cruelly distressed.”</p> - -<p>“He should give us more money then. We must do -what we can to keep ourselves; Poodle never helps us. -Well—hardly ever.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux emitted a sound very like a big dog’s -growl.</p> - -<p>“Otterbourne has been endlessly good to you. It is no -use for him or anybody else to fill a sieve with water.”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t he give us the house? We are obliged to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> -pay fifteen hundred a year for this nutshell, while he lives -all alone in that huge place.”</p> - -<p>“Why should he not live in his own house? What decent -gentleman would have Cocky under his roof?”</p> - -<p>“You have no kind of feeling, Ronnie. I ought to have -Otterbourne House. I have always said so. I can’t give -a ball here. Not even a little dance. Poodle might keep -his own apartments, those he uses on the ground floor -there, but we ought to have all the rest.”</p> - -<p>“He allowed you to have that ball there the other -night, and all the cost of it fell on him.”</p> - -<p>“That is a great deal for him to do certainly! To lend -us the house once in a season when it is our right to live -in it altogether!”</p> - -<p>“He does not think so.”</p> - -<p>“No! Horrid selfish old man! Pretending to be -young, too, with his flossy white hair and his absurd flirtations. -Would you believe that he even made difficulties -about our keeping our horses at his mews!”</p> - -<p>“He probably knew that it meant his paying the forage -bills. The duke is most generous and kind, and I think -you ought to be more grateful to him than you are.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, rubbish!” said Mouse, infinitely bored. “People -who hate you to amuse yourself, who want you to live on -a halfpenny a day, and who say something disagreeable -whenever they open their lips, are always considered to -be good to one. There is only one really good-natured -thing that we ever wanted Poodle to do, and that was to -let us live in Otterbourne House; and he has always refused. -I am certain he will go on living for twenty years -merely to keep us out of it!”</p> - -<p>“Don’t wish him in his grave. As soon as your husband -gets Otterbourne House he will sell it to make an -hotel. A company has already spoken to him.”</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it in the entail?”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps. I cannot say. Ask your lawyer. But I -know that an hotel company has made overtures to him -for purchase or lease in event of the duke’s death—may it -be many a day distant! He is an honest gentleman, and -you and your husband and your cursed cad out of Dakota -have made him look to English society as if he were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> -capable of having sold the honor of entrance to his house -for a mess of pottage for his son’s thirsty maw.”</p> - -<p>“My dear Ronald, how you excite yourself! Really -there is no reason.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux looked at her very wistfully.</p> - -<p>“Can’t you see the dishonor of what you’ve done?” he -said impatiently. “You coax and persecute Otterbourne -until he allows you to take those new people to his house, -and then you let the cad you take there make your husband -a director of a bank of which the man is chairman! -Can’t you see to what comment you expose us all? Of -what wretched manœuvring you make us all look guilty? -Have you any perception, no conscience, no common decency? -If Cocky were another kind of man than he is, -such a thing would look a job. But being what he is, the -transaction is something still more infamous.”</p> - -<p>She listened, so much amused, that she really could -scarcely feel angry.</p> - -<p>“My dear Ronald,” she said very impertinently, “you -have a morality altogether of your own; it is so extremely -old-fashioned that you can’t expect anybody to -make themselves ridiculous by adopting it. As for ‘a -job,’ isn’t the whole of government a job? When you’ve -cleaned out Downing Street it will be time to bring your -brooms in here.”</p> - -<p>At that moment Cocky put his head in between the -door-curtains and nodded to Hurstmanceaux. “She’s -made me a guinea-pig, Ronnie,” he said, with his little -thin laugh. “Didn’t think I should take to business, did -you? Have you seen the papers? Lord, they’re such -fun! I’ve bought ten copies of <i>Truth</i>.”</p> - -<p>His wife laughed.</p> - -<p>“It’s no use reading <i>Truth</i> to Ronnie. He’s no sense -of fun; he never had.”</p> - -<p>“I have some sense of shame,” replied Hurstmanceaux, -looking with loathing on his brother-in-law’s thin, colorless, -grinning face. “It is an old-fashioned thing; but if -this wretched little cur were not too feeble for a man to -touch, I would teach him some respect for it with a -hunting-crop.”</p> - -<p>Then he pushed past Cocky, who was still between the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> -door-curtains, and went downstairs to take his way to -Otterbourne House.</p> - -<p>Cocky laughed shrilly and gleefully.</p> - -<p>“Jove! what a wax he’s in,” said Cocky, greatly -diverted. “Just as if he didn’t know us by this time!”</p> - -<p>“He is always so absurd,” replied Mouse. “He has no -common sense and no perception.”</p> - -<p>“He ought to go about in chain armor,” said Cocky, -picking up <i>Truth</i> and reading for the fourth time, with -infinite relish, the description of himself as an “Hereditary -Legislator in Mincing Lane.” “I am not a hereditary -legislator yet,” he said as he read. “As I don’t get -the halfpence, why should I get the kicks? That’s what -I said to the mob in the park. Break the pater’s windows, -don’t break mine. I’m plain John Orme, without -a shilling to bless myself with, and the beggars cheered -me! They’ll cheer you for any rot if they’re only in the -mood for it; and if they aren’t in the mood, you might -talk like Moses and Mahomet, they’d bawl you down—oh, -get out you little beasts, damn you!”</p> - -<p>This objurgation was addressed to the Blenheims, who, -suddenly becoming aware of his presence, made for his -trousers with that conviction that his immediate destruction -would be a public service, which they shared with -the editor of <i>Truth</i>.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux walked through the streets and felt his -ears tingle as he heard the newsboys shouting the names -of newspapers.</p> - -<p>His sister had said rightly; he was not a man of his -time; he was impetuous in action, warm in feeling, sensitive -in honor; he had nothing of the cynical morality, -the apathetic indifference, the cool opportunism of modern -men of his age. He was no philosopher, and he could -not bring himself to smile at an unprincipled action. He -felt as ashamed as though he were himself at fault, as he -entered the duke’s apartments in Otterbourne House.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux and the duke had much regard for each -other, but their conversation was usually somewhat -guarded and reserved, for the one could not say all he -thought of Otterbourne’s son, and the other could not -say all he thought of Ronald’s sister. There were many<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span> -subjects on which they mutually preserved silence. But -this appointment of Kenilworth seemed so monstrous to -both that it broke the reserve between them. They each -felt to owe the other an apology.</p> - -<p>“My dear Ronald,” said the duke, holding out his -hand, “I know why you have come. I thank you.”</p> - -<p>“I dare not offer any plea in her defence,” replied -Hurstmanceaux huskily; “I can only tell you how grieved -I am that your constant kindness and forbearance to my -sister should meet with so base a requital.”</p> - -<p>The duke sighed.</p> - -<p>“I am bound in honor to remember that the basest of -men is her husband—and my son!”</p> - -<p>They were both silent.</p> - -<p>The morning papers were lying on a table by the -duke’s side, amongst them the green cover of <i>Truth</i>.</p> - -<p>“That is no excuse for her,” said her brother at length. -“This thing is of her devising much more than it is his.”</p> - -<p>“There are women who are a moral phylloxera,” replied -Otterbourne. “They corrupt all they touch. But -in fairness to her I must say that it was chiefly my son -who persuaded me to let this man Massarene into my -house. They made me an accomplice in a job! Perhaps,” -the duke added with a sad smile, “the world -knows me well enough to give me credit for having been -an unconscious accomplice—for having been a fool, not a -knave!”</p> - -<p>To these two honest gentlemen the matter was one of -excruciating pain, and of what seemed to them both intolerable -humiliation. But society, though it laughed -loudly for five minutes over the article on an hereditary -legislator, forgot it five minutes later, and was not -shocked: it is too well-used in these days to similar -transactions between an impoverished nobility, with unpaid -rents and ruinous death-duties, and a new-born plutocracy -creeping upward on its swollen belly like the serpent -of Scripture.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XI.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">A young</span> woman, dressed in white cambric, with the -deep shade of a magnolia grove cast upon her as she sat -on the marble steps of an Oriental garden, read of these -brilliant festivities in various English journals whose -office it is to chronicle such matters; and as she read she -frowned, and as she frowned she sighed. “Oh, the -waste, the folly, the disgrace!” she murmured as she -pushed the newspapers away from her. For she had -peculiar views of her own, and had little or nothing in -common with her generation or with her procreators. -She looked very like her bust by Dalou as she thrust the -offending journals off her lap.</p> - -<p>“I am a <i>déclassée</i>,” she said to herself as she sat -amongst the rhododendrons and the monkeys. “All -they have spent on me cannot make me anything more. -They should have left me in the place which they occupied -when I was born. I would sooner go out as a common -servant any day than be forced to witness their ignominy -and live in their suffocating wealth, to see the laugh in -the eyes of the people they toady, and overhear the ridicule -of those who crowd to their supper-table. If he -would only disown me—cut me off with a shilling!”</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter, my dear? Bad news from England? -Parents ill?” said a mellow and cheerful voice, -as the temporary owner of terrace and magnolia grove, -Lord Framlingham, came out of the house and across the -rough grass, accompanied by his two inseparable companions, -his cigarette and his skye-terrier.</p> - -<p>She picked up one of the newspapers and pointed to a -paragraph in it.</p> - -<p>“They must be the laugh of London!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear, you don’t know London,” said her host -as he read. “They will be the idols of London, the -very Buddha of solid gold that its smart people most delight<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> -to adore. Look at the whole thing as a comedy, -my child, and you will enjoy it.”</p> - -<p>“I once spoke to a clown’s wife at a circus,” said -Katherine Massarene. “While the clown was making -the audience scream with laughter, she was crying. ‘I -can’t help crying,’ she said, ‘to see my man make a butt -and a guy of himself. He’s nabbut a tomfool to them, -but he’s my man to me.’ I am as foolish as the clown’s -wife.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t admit the analogy,” said her host. “I think -you take the thing too seriously. Your people’s position -is a common one enough in our days. When anybody -has made a heap of money they are never happy till they -get a mob of smart beggars to crowd round ’em and pick -their pockets. How would smart society go on unless -there were these feeders for it to fatten on? If I were -your father I should keep my money in my pocket and -snap my fingers at smart society. But then, you see, I -know what smart society is and he doesn’t.”</p> - -<p>“But why should he want to know? He is not made -for it. It only laughs at him.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, pardon me, I am sure it does more than laugh; I -am sure it plunders him as well. I only hope that he will -know when to cry ‘stop, thief!’ for if he doesn’t all his -millions will go into the maw of his fine friends.”</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene sighed.</p> - -<p>“My father will never lose except when he chooses to -do so. If they use him, he uses them. It is a <i>quid pro -quo</i>. It is a question of barter. But that is what is so -disgraceful about it.”</p> - -<p>“I have said,” replied her host, “I think if I were an -intelligent man who had made a pot of money by my own -exertions, as Mr. Massarene has done, that I should not -care a damn (excuse the word) for all the fine folks in -creation. Certainly I should not care to waste my money -upon them. But the fact is that all these new men do -care for that and that alone. They appear wholly to underrate -themselves and their own accomplishment, and -care only to be rooked by a set of idle loungers with handles -to their names. It is not they who will ever destroy -the Upper House.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>“No,” said his guest bitterly. “An earl can see and -say that the days of the Upper House are numbered, but -my father regards it as the holy of holies because he -means to seat himself in its gilded chamber.”</p> - -<p>“It’s Joe Chamberlain’s reason too,” said Framlingham -with a chuckle. “When we make peers of the tradesmen, -my dear, we know what we are about; we are soldering -our own leaking pot.”</p> - -<p>“Solder it with other men’s smelted gold? You had -better break it up honestly as a thing which has had its -day and is done with.”</p> - -<p>“Poor old pot! Perhaps it would be better to bury it -for good and all on Runnymede island. But I think you -exaggerate a little—I must say you exaggerate. And you -totally ignore a fact which has been put on record by -every English sociologist and historian, that it has been -its frank admission to its ranks of <i>novi homines</i> which has -kept the English aristocracy vigorous and popular.”</p> - -<p>She gave a scornful gesture of denial.</p> - -<p>“It is the <i>novi homines</i> who have degraded the English -aristocracy. Pardon me if I contradict you. Mr. Mallock -has written very kind and possibly very just things -of your nobility, but he has forgotten to satirize its most -shameful infirmity, its moral scrofula—its incessant and -unblushing prostration of itself before wealth <i>quà</i> wealth. -It likes hothouse pines and can no longer afford to keep -them for its own eating. It can only grow them for sale -and eat them at the tables of those who buy them.”</p> - -<p>“That is very severe!”</p> - -<p>“Who would be less severe who had seen anything at -all of Paris, of London, of Nice, of Biarritz, of any place -where modern society disports itself?”</p> - -<p>Framlingham laughed.</p> - -<p>“My dear Miss Massarene, you delight me beyond expression, -but I can imagine that you are, to a parent who -adores princes and means to die a peer, rather—rather—forgive -a vulgar word—rather a handful.”</p> - -<p>“My father has purchased a place called Vale Royal,” -continued Katherine. “You know it? Well, he wishes -to be there <i>plus royaliste que le roi</i>. In the leases he gives -to his farmers they are bound over to pay £40 for every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> -pheasant killed or maimed on their ground. Is it not -out-heroding Herod? He cares nothing for such trumpery -sport himself; he has killed grizzlies and negroes and -train-lifters; he would care nothing to fire at a flock of -frightened hand-fed birds; but he wishes to tempt princes -and lords to his coverts and to see the bags made on his -estate cited in newspapers. Who set him that base example? -Princes and lords themselves.”</p> - -<p>“No estates would be kept up but for the game,” said -her host, rather feebly as he felt.</p> - -<p>“What satire can be so withering as such a statement? -There is then no love of hereditary lands, no sense of -woodland beauty, no interest in fur or feather without -slaughter attached to them, no tenderness for tradition -and for nature? Nothing, nothing whatever, of such -pride in and affection for the soil itself as Shakspeare felt, -who only owned a little rural freehold? Who can condemn -you as utterly as you condemn yourselves?”</p> - -<p>“I think we are rather useful sometimes,” he said -humbly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, very! You vote against marriage with a deceased -wife’s sister and maintain the game laws!</p> - -<p>“I am not ashamed of my parents’ origin, Lord Framlingham, -I assure you,” she added after a pause. “I am -ashamed that they are ashamed of it.”</p> - -<p>“I understand, my dear, and I sympathize, though I -suppose not many people would do either. You see, we -all have our crosses. My daughters have to endure the -misery of a conspicuous rank with wholly inadequate -means—a more trying position than you can imagine.”</p> - -<p>“I should not mind that.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, you would. It is humiliation at every turn. -It is to be checked in every generous impulse, to spend -half your time in efforts to make a five-pound note do the -work of ten sovereigns; it is to wear your George and -Garter over a ragged shirt, and knock your diamond tiara -against the roof of a hackney cab. I know what I am -talking about, my dear, as most unhappy English land-owners -do in this year of grace. I know that there is no -misery so accursed as the combination of high place and -narrow means. I came out here to relieve the strain a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> -little. It was worse for the women than for me. You, -my dear, are a high-mettled pony which kicks at carrying -the money-bags. But my poor girls are high-mettled -ponies which sweat under the halter and the cobble. -That’s a good deal worse. You’ll have to buy a fine name -with your big dower. But they will have to take what -offers first, for they must go to their husbands portionless, -or nearly so. And we were Thanes in Alfred’s time, my -dear, and we fought for Harold tooth and nail, and we -were at Runnymede, and at Bosworth, and at Tewkesbury, -and all the rest of it, and our name is as old as the -very hills round the Wrekin; and that, you see, is what -an ancient lineage is worth in these days. Your father -has the better part.”</p> - -<p>Katherine shook her head.</p> - -<p>“And honor?” she said in a low tone.</p> - -<p>Lord Framlingham laughed grimly.</p> - -<p>“When one is in debt to one’s banker and one’s tradesmen, -and has to let one’s place to a sugar-baker, the less -said about honor the better. I wish I were a monkey—don’t -you wish you were one? They get such fun out of -each other’s tails, and it must be such a jolly life swinging -on branches and living on fruits. And if you like ancient -lineage look at theirs!”</p> - -<p>She smiled, but her heart was heavy. She knew that -she could not alter her fate, and she loathed it.</p> - -<p>“Do not misunderstand me,” she said, with a passing -flush coming on her face. “Do not think me more stoical -or philosophical than I am. It is probably pride not -humility which makes me suffer so much from my sense -of my parents’ present position. If I had been born in -your class, in your world, I should probably have been -odiously arrogant.”</p> - -<p>“I do not think you could be ‘odiously’ anything, my -dear,” said Lord Framlingham with a smile.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, I can; I know it, I feel it, I regret it, and -yet I cannot help it. When I am in their world, to which -we have no right, to which we shall be only welcomed for -reasons as discreditable to ourselves as to those who welcome -us, I know that I offend everyone, and that I afflict, -surprise and disappoint, my parents; but I cannot be otherwise;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> -it is all I can do to keep in unspoken the bitter -truths which rise to my lips.”</p> - -<p>“The <i>amari aliquid</i> was never enclosed in a fairer crystal -sphere,” said her host gallantly.</p> - -<p>“I never would have left my mother,” she added, “but -I could do nothing. I was only the helpless spectator of -a kind of effort which is in my sight the most ignoble, the -most foolish of all, the endeavor to appear what one is -not, and never can be.”</p> - -<p>“You take it too much to heart,” said her companion. -“You do not make allowance for the times. Your people -are only doing what every person who has made money -does on a small scale or a big scale, according to their -means. Mr. Massarene is immensely rich, and so his aspirations -are very large too.”</p> - -<p>“Aspirations! To get on in society, to have great persons -to dinner, to represent in Parliament the interest of -a constituency he had never heard of a year ago, to get a -title, though my brothers are all dead, to entertain troops -of people who scarcely know his name and have hardly -the decency to pretend to know it, do you call that aspiration? -It is more like degradation. Why cannot he -remain in obscurity spending his vast fortune for the good -of others instead of squandering it on idle people, impudent -people, worthless people, people to whom he is a jest, -a by-word and a jeer?”</p> - -<p>“My dear young lady, money is power,” said Lord -Framlingham. “It is nothing new that it should be so; -but in other ages, it was subordinate to many greater -powers than itself. Now it is practically supreme; it is -practically alone. Aristocracy in its true sense exists no -longer. War in its modern form is wholly a question of -supply. The victory will go to who can pay most and -longest. The religious orders, once so absolute, are now -timid anachronisms quaking before secular governments. -Science, which cannot move a step without funds, goes -cap in hand to the rich. Art has perished nearly. What -is left of it does the same thing as science. The Pope, -who ought to be a purely spiritual power, is mendicant -and begs like Belisarius. What remains? Nothing except -trade, and trade cannot oppose wealth, because it lives<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> -solely through it. For this reason, money, mere money, -with no other qualities or attractions behind it, is omnipotent -now as it never was before in the history of the -world. It is not one person or set of persons who is responsible -for this. It is the tendency of the age, an -age which is essentially mercenary and is very little else! -In politics, as in war and in science, there is no moving a -step without money and much money. The least corrupt -election costs a large outlay. Royalty recognizing that -money is stronger than itself, courts men of money, borrows -from them, and puts out in foreign stocks where it -borrows as a reserve fund against exile. You see there is -no power left which can, or dare, attempt to oppose the -undisputed sway of money. A great evil, you say? No -doubt.”</p> - -<p>She sighed; she recognized the truth of all he said; but -she loathed the fact she was compelled by her reason to -acknowledge.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="first">“‘When she’s convinced against her will</div> -<div class="verse">She’s of the same opinion still,’”</div> -</div></div> - -<p>quoted Framlingham. “Come, my dear, let’s go and -have a game of tennis.”</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene, whose future was a subject of -lively speculation to many, was now twenty-one years -old; she looked much more than that then, and twenty -years hence will probably look no older. At five years of -age, notwithstanding her poor mother’s tears and prayers, -she had been sent to the care of a gentlewoman in England, -who lived at Eastbourne and received only half a -dozen children to educate, with two of her own. The -lady had been recommended to William Massarene by the -English minister at Washington; and the influence of that -gentleman had been exercised in persuading her to consent -to receive against her rules a little ignorant obscure -brat from Dakota.</p> - -<p>“Make her happy and keep her well, ma’am, for she’s -all we’ve got,” wrote her poor mother.</p> - -<p>“Make her English, ma’am, and fit to hold her head -with the highest, for she’ll mean gold,” wrote her father.</p> - -<p>The lady disliked excessively accepting a charge<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span> -which was alien to her habits and might injure the -tone of her house; but she was under obligations to the -English minister, and reluctantly consented to take into -her home this one little girl who had great astonished unwinking -eyes like an owl’s, and who said to her with a -dreadful nasal accent: “Don’t grin when I speak, or I’ll -hit yer.”</p> - -<p>For twelve years she remained under this lady’s care, -being trained in all exercises of the mind and body, and -becoming a calm cold high-bred girl who looked as if she -had a thousand years behind her of old nobility and -gracious memories. Of her parents she saw nothing, and -only heard that they were extremely rich. But the orthography -of her mother’s letters, and the style of her father’s -few lines, always made her uneasy, and the recollections -of life in Dakota were not as absolutely obliterated as her -parents desired. But of those she never spoke; she divined -what was expected of her. Those recollections became -increasingly painful as with increasing perception -she could construe them by induction.</p> - -<p>When in her eighteenth year her parents came for the -first time to England, she could only see in them strangers, -and strangers who, alas! had nothing of that attraction -which bridges the distance between age and youth. If -what she felt on meeting them was an agony of disappointment -and a sense of shame, more acute because it -was shut close in her own breast, they were themselves -not less chagrined. When they first saw her, her parents -both thought that she did not give them great results for -the vast sums they had spent on her, and that really they -would have turned her out smarter if they had had her -brought up in New York. The art of gilding gold and -painting lilies is at its perihelion in the empire city. He -especially was disappointed in her at first; he had expected -her to make more show, to have more color, to be -more swagger, as the slang words ran; this tall, proud, -slender young woman, who wore generally black or grey -in the day, and white in the evening, and put on no jewelry -of any kind, seemed to him to give him poor value for the -many thousand of dollars he had spent on her. He had -intended her to be ultra fashionable, ultra chic, always in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> -the swim, always in the first flight; on race-courses, on -yacht decks, on the box seat of drags, at aristocratic river -clubs, at exclusive and crowded little suppers after -theatres.</p> - -<p>“I wanted a gal of fashion, not a school-marm!” he -said with much disgust, when the lady who had brought -her up told him that she was the finest Hellenist of her -sex.</p> - -<p>He did not know what a Hellenist was, but he understood -that it was something connected with teaching. -What he wanted was something very showy, very sensational, -very superfine. But Katherine did not like fashionable -life at all. A very little of it wearied her. She -did not like a man to lean his elbows on a little, round, -<i>tête-à-tête</i> supper-table, and stare at her, with his eyes -within six inches of her necklace, and his champagne and -cigar-scented breath hot in her face; and she did not -think the situation made more agreeable by the fact that -the starer was illustrious. She infinitely preferred to be -alone in the music-room with her violin and harmonium, -or in the library comparing Jowett’s Dialogues with the -original. It is easy to understand that she was a great -disappointment to her father, though a sort of sullen pride -in her was wrung out of him when he saw how indifferent -she appeared to the great folks he adored, yet at the -same time how at home she seemed in the mystic arena -of that society which made him shake in his shoes, strong, -hard, shrewd man though he was.</p> - -<p>Except the archduke who insisted on becoming a skipper -of a timber-brig, so infuriating and insensate a flying -in the face of a fair fate had never been known. Katherine -Massarene for her part did not enter, or try to enter -into his feelings, as no doubt it should have been her filial -duty to do. She had some of his stubbornness, and a -pride of her own kind which made her unyielding. Her -numerous teachers, male and female, had all found her of -unusual intelligence and she had studied the classics with -ardor and thoroughness. She could say extremely caustic -and witty things, but she generally was merciful and -forbore to say them. She had a vast reserve of sound and -unusual knowledge, but she endeavored to conceal it, disliking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span> -all display, and being by nature very modest. As, -little by little, she began gradually to understand the -position of her parents, she suffered from it acutely. If -she could, with a clear conscience, have done so, she -would have liked to renounce all their wealth and grandeur -and earn her own living, which she could have -earned very well as a musician, or a professor of history -or dead languages.</p> - -<p>She said so once to her father, on his arrival in England, -and the rage of the taciturn, ruthless man was so terrible -that her mother on her knees entreated her never to allude -to such an idea.</p> - -<p>“You are all we have left,” she said, weeping. “Your -brothers and sisters all died in that horrible West. You -are the sole one he has to look to for bearing his name -and glorifying his money. You are heir and heiress both, -Kathleen. Has he slaved and spared and laid by thirty -years and more only that the sole begot of his loins shall -disgrace him as a menial?”</p> - -<p>“Rise up, my dear mother; we will not speak of it -again,” said Katherine, a mere schoolgirl then of seventeen. -“We might discuss and argue for ever, neither my -father nor you would ever see these things as I see them.”</p> - -<p>And with great self-control, most rare in one of her -age, she renounced her dreams of independence and never -did allude again in any way to them.</p> - -<p>She soon perceived that whatever chance she might -have had of influencing her mother, she had none whatever -of moving her father: if she had stood in his way, -he would have brushed her aside, or trampled her down; -he had not made his money to lose the enjoyment of it -for the quips and cranks of a crotchety child.</p> - -<p>Her indifference to all which fascinated and awed himself -compelled his reluctant respect, and the serene hauteur -of her habitual manner made him feel awkward and insignificant -in her presence. He was in some respects, -when he pitted himself against her, compelled unwillingly -to acknowledge that she was the stronger of the -two. She had hurt him enough by the mere accident of -her sex. He never forgave her that she had lived whilst -her brothers had died. He had no affection for her, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> -only a sullen unwilling respect, which was rung out of -him by seeing her ease in that world where he was uneasy -and her familiarity with those great persons before whom -he was always himself dumb and frightened and distressed.</p> - -<p>So far, at least, the money spent on her had not been -wasted, it had made her one of them. For this he held -her in respect, but she could not move him a hair’s breadth -from his ambitions or his methods of pursuing them.</p> - -<p>These methods were to her more refined taste and more -penetrating vision absurd and odious. She knew that the -great world would use him, rook him, feed on him, but -would always laugh at him and never see in him anything -except a snob. She knew that every invitation given to -him or accepted from him, every house-party which he was -allowed to gather, or allowed to join, every good club -which he was put up for, every great man who consented -to dine with him, were all paid for by him at enormous -cost, indirectly indeed but none the less extravagantly. -She knew that he would in all likelihood live to do all he -had aspired to do; to get into the Commons, perhaps to -get into the Cabinet, to receive royalty, to shake hands -with princes of the blood, even perhaps to die a peer. But -she knew that all this would be done by purchase, by -giving money, by lending money, by spending money -largely and asking no questions, by doing for the impoverished -great what Madame de Sevigné called manuring -the ground.</p> - -<p>To her taste, success and rank procured in such a manner -left you precisely where you were before its purchase. -She knew that to a society which you only enter on sufferance -you remain always practically outside on the door-mat; -and she did not understand that to the soul of the -snob even the dust of the door-mat is sweet. She did not -understand either that in her father’s case the door-mat -was but one of the preliminary stages of the triumphant -career which he had mapped out in his brain when he -had first put <i>one dollar on another</i> in Dakota.</p> - -<p>She early perceived that her parents looked to her for -assistance in their ambitions, but she was obdurate in -giving them none; they called her undutiful, and undutiful -she might be; but she felt that she would rather<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span> -be guilty of any offence whatever than become degraded -and servile. So extreme was her resistance on this point -that one evening it brought an open rupture with her -father, and that exile to India of which Mrs. Massarene -had not told all the truth when exhibiting Dalont’s bust -of her daughter.</p> - -<p>The winter before their acquaintance with Lady Kenilworth -the Massarenes had been at Cannes and Monte -Carlo, following that smart world of which they still -vainly pined to enter the arena. They had not as yet -found their guide, philosopher, and friend in the fair -mother of Jack and Boo, and William Massarene was beginning -to fear that gold was not the all-potent solvent -he had believed it. But a very high personage, whose -notice would have had power to lift them at once into the -empyrean was also at Cannes at that period, and the -white-rose skin and admirable form of Katherine Massarene -attracted him, and he desired that she should be presented -to him. Very unwillingly, very coldly, she had -submitted to her fate at a public ball to which she had -been taken. The great gentleman asked her to waltz. -Neither his age nor his figure were suited to the dance, -but women were nevertheless enchanted to be embraced -by him in its giddy gyrations. Katherine excused herself -and said that she did not waltz.</p> - -<p>The great gentleman was annoyed but attracted; he -sat out the dance by her side on a couch in a little shady -corner under palm trees such as he especially favored. -But he made very little way with her; she was chilly, reserved, -respectful. “Take your respect to the devil,” -thought the misunderstood prince.</p> - -<p>“Why are you so very unkind to me, Miss Massarene?” -he said in a joking fashion, which would have convulsed -with joy every other women in those rooms.</p> - -<p>“There can be no question of unkindness from me to -yourself, sir,” she replied more distantly still, and she -looked him straight in the eyes: he was not used to being -looked at thus.</p> - -<p>He had drunk more wine than was good for him; he -tried to take her hand, his breath was hot upon her -shoulder.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>“I’ll dine with your father if <i>you</i> ask me,” he murmured.</p> - -<p>A whole world of suggestion was in the simple phrase.</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene drew her hand away.</p> - -<p>“Sir,” she said very distinctly; “my father was a cowherd -and my mother a dairy-woman. I do not know why -you should do them the honor to dine with them, sir, -merely because they earned money in America!”</p> - -<p>Her companion had never received such a “facer” in -all his fifty years of life. Like his own speech it suggested -innumerable things. He grew very red and his glassy -eyes became very sullen.</p> - -<p>He was silent for a few moments. Then he rose and -offered her his arm.</p> - -<p>“Allow me to take you back to your chaperon,” he said -in glacial accents which she infinitely preferred to his -familiarity.</p> - -<p>“What have you done to him?” said that lady as he -left her with a ceremonious bow.</p> - -<p>“I have told him a truth,” said Katherine indifferently. -“I suppose it is too strong diet for him. He is not used -to it!”</p> - -<p>“I should think not indeed!” said the lady, much disturbed. -“What can you have said?”</p> - -<p>“He will probably tell people,” said Katherine. “If he -do not, I shall not.”</p> - -<p>He did, not very wisely, tell two of his boon companions -that same night as they sat smoking with him.</p> - -<p>Of course the story ran about the Riviera next day from -Monaco to Hyères, taking protean forms, and changing -with every tongue that told it.</p> - -<p>One of its versions, one of the most accurate, reached -the ears of William Massarene.</p> - -<p>His nickname in the States had been “Blasted Blizzard,” -and his temper was such as corresponded with the name. -His wrath was terrible. From his point of view it was -justified. His wife, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, -was paralyzed with fear. His daughter remained calm. -She did not for an instant admit that she was at fault, -although she regretted that any cause for anger should -arise between her and her parents.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>“You shall apologize!” he swore a dozen times.</p> - -<p>“I shall certainly never do that,” said Katherine with -contemptuous composure.</p> - -<p>“You shall apologize in public!”</p> - -<p>“Neither in public, nor in private.”</p> - -<p>“You shall go on your knees to him, if I flog you on to -them!” yelled Mr. Massarene.</p> - -<p>“My dear father, pray keep within the laws of that -‘good society’ into which you have been so anxious to -enter,” she said, with a delicate scorn, which he felt -through all his tough hide like the tingling strokes of the -whip with which he threatened her.</p> - -<p>“Cannot <i>you</i> understand, mother?” she said wistfully. -“Surely you must see, must feel, the insult that it was?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear, don’t appeal to me!” said her mother -with a sob. “Great folks aren’t like other folks; and -your father must know best.”</p> - -<p>“How dare you turn to your fool of a mother!” he -yelled. “Is it she whose dollars have dressed you fine, -and cockered you up amongst blood-fillies all these -years?”</p> - -<p>“I regret that I have cost you so much. But if you -will allow me, I will relieve you of my presence and maintain -myself,” she said, with a tranquillity which made her -father’s rage choke him as though he were on the point of -apoplexy.</p> - -<p>“Did I bring you up amongst duchesses’ daughters that -you might disgrace me?” he cried, with a foul oath.</p> - -<p>From his point of view it was hard on him, unjust, a -very abomination of Providence. There were four hundred -young women in London, four thousand in Great -Britain, who would have asked nothing better than to be -beautifully dressed, to have abundance of pocket-money, -to ride thoroughbred hacks in the Park, to pay court to -great people, and to make themselves agreeable and popular -in society. There was not, indeed, one young woman -in ten millions who would have quarrelled with such a -fate; and that extraordinary and solitary exception was his -daughter. It was not wonderful, it was scarcely even -blamable, that William Massarene was beside himself -with chagrin and rage.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>A thousand other men had daughters who asked nothing -better than to be allowed to spend money, and be made -love to by princes, and wear smart frocks, and push themselves -into smart society; and he had this <i>rara avis</i>, this -abnormal, unnatural, incredible phenomenon to whom all -these things, which were the very salt of life to other -women, were only as dust and ashes!</p> - -<p>What punishment could he give her? What other -threats could he make her? It was useless to threaten -with being turned out of doors a person who asked nothing -better than to be set free to work for her livelihood. If -he had hinted at such a punishment, she would have -taken him at his word, would have put on her simplest -gown, and would have gone to the nearest railway-station.</p> - -<p>He thundered at her; he hurled at her blasphemous -words, which had used to make the blood of miners and -navvies turn cold when the “bull-dozing boss” used such -to them; he swore by all heavenly and infernal powers -that he would drag her on her knees to the offended gentleman. -But he made no impression whatever on her. -She ceased to reply. But she gave no sign of any emotion, -either timorous or repentant; she was altogether unmoved. -Say what he would he could not intimidate her, -and the force of his fury spent itself in time, beaten by -passive resistance.</p> - -<p>The upshot of the stormy scene was, that he exiled her -from his world by allowing her to accept an invitation to -pass a year in India with some school friends, who were -daughters of a nobleman who had recently accepted the -governorship of one of the presidencies in India.</p> - -<p>The decision cost her mother many tears, but it was the -mildest ultimatum to which William Massarene could be -brought. He only saw in his daughter a person who -might have secured to him the one supreme honor for -which his soul pined, and who had not done so, out of -some squeamish, insolent, democratic, intolerable self-assertion. -In sending her to pass a year in the family of -Lord Framlingham, he not only removed her from his own -sight, but placed her where he not unnaturally supposed -that she would be surrounded by Conservative and aristocratic -influences. Framlingham, however, though it had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> -suited his pocket to accept his appointment, was a revolutionary -at heart, and railed incessantly at the existence of -his own order and his own privileges. He had heard of -the discomfiture of the great personage, and chuckled over -it, and welcomed the heroine of that rebuff with great -cordiality to his marble palace, looking through the golden -stems of palm-groves on to the Indian Ocean, where he -was a funny incongruous figure himself, in his checked -tweed clothes, with his red English face, his shining bald -head, his eye-glass screwed into his left eye, and his clean-shaven -lips shut close on a big cigar.</p> - -<p>“Did so right, Miss Massarene, did so right,” he said -warmly to her, soon after her arrival. “Mustn’t say so, -you know, as I’m one of Her Majesty’s servants, but I’m -always deuced glad when any royalty gets a facer. Those -people, you know, are like preserved meats in a tin case -which has had all the air pumped out of it. They never -get a chance of hearing the truth, nor of knowing what -they look like to people who aren’t snobs. Almost everybody -is a snob, you see. I should like to write a new -‘Book of Snobs.’ The species has grown a good deal -since Thackeray’s days. It has developed like orchids or -prize vegetables.”</p> - -<p>Framlingham, although an unpoetic-looking occupant -of a marble palace in rose-gardens of the gorgeous East, -was a person of delicate perceptions, high intelligence, -and cultured mind. He took a great liking to this young -woman, who quarreled with a lot which all the world -envied her, and he pressed her to remain with his family -when the year had passed; and she obtained permission -to do so. Her mother was yearning for her return, but -her father would willingly never have seen her face again. -He was not a man who forgave.</p> - -<p>She was thinking of the scene with her father as she -sat on the marble steps in the governor’s gardens, in the -deep shade of a magnolia grove, absently listening to the -chatter of the monkeys overhead. She felt that she had -been in the right. She burned with shame whenever she -remembered the eyes of the great gentleman luring -upon her as he said, “I’ll dine with your father, if <i>you</i> -ask me.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>And her father had not seen the meaning in those -words; or had seen it, but would willingly have purchased -the honor even at that price!</p> - -<p>She felt as if she could never go back to that life in -England, at Monte Carlo, at Homburg. If only they -would allow her to make her own career here in this ancient -and romantic land as a teacher, as a nurse, as an -artist, as anything. If only they would not oblige her to -return to the yoke of that inane humiliating tedious routine -which they thought honor and the world called -pleasure!</p> - -<p>She had by that day’s mail received from her mother -some cuttings from a society journal, descriptive of the -glories of Harrenden House and Vale Royal, and containing -an account of the dinner-party which the Grand -Duchess had ordered and honored. These brilliant paragraphs -had filled her with pain and disgust.</p> - -<p>“We are getting on fast, my dear child,” wrote her -mother, “and it’s time as you came back, for people are -always asking after you, and I’d like to see you well -married, and I’m sure you look more of a lady than many -of them.”</p> - -<p>She knew very well what kind of marriage she would -alone be allowed to make; marriage which would give -her some high place in return for an abyss of debt filled -up, which would purchase for her entry into some great -family who would receive her for sake of what she would -bring to clear off mortgages, and save the sale of timber, -and enable some titled fool to go on keeping his racing-stud.</p> - -<p>“Never! never!” she said to herself; her father might -disinherit her if he pleased, but he should never make her -marry so.</p> - -<p>The same temper was in her which had made her say -as a small child: “If you grin when I speak I’ll hit yer.” -The temper was softened by courtesy, by culture, by self-control, -by polished habit; but it was there, proud, imperious -and indomitable.</p> - -<p><i>L’échine souple</i> of the snob and the courtier was wanting -in her. “You might have swallowed your ancestor’s -sword,” said one of her girl playmates once to her; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> -she thought bitterly, “My father’s ‘shooting-irons’ are the -only substitute for ancestral steel that I know!”</p> - -<p>But yet she bore herself as though she had all the -barons of Runnymede behind her; and she could not bend -or cringe. “I don’t know how the devil she comes by it, -but she is certainly thoroughbred,” thought her host. -“Who knows what grace of Geraldines, or strength of -Hamiltons, or charm of Sheridans, may have filtered into -the veins of some ancestor of hers in the long, long ago?”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the March and early April of the next year there -was very bad weather in England: snow, sleet and storm, -killing sheep, starving cattle, delaying railway-trains, and -covering much in the woodland nooks where the primrose -roots were getting ready their buds for sacrifice at Westminster -in the drollest form of hero-worship which a -generation bereft of any sense of humor ever invented.</p> - -<p>The moors were vast unbroken plains of virginal whiteness, -and the woods looked black against a steely sky as -Hurstmanceaux got into the express which had been -signalled by telegram to stop for him at the little station -outside the park of a country house at which he had been -staying in the North Riding. The engine snorted, hissed -and flung up steam and fire into the chilly air as he -hastened across the platform.</p> - -<p>He got quickly into the carriage indicated to him by -his servant, pushing his dog before him, and the train had -moved off before he saw that there was a lady in the -compartment, to whom he lifted his Glengarry cap with a -word of apology for the presence of his collie.</p> - -<p>“I am very fond of dogs,” said the lady with a smile, -and the collie smelt the hem of her gown and the fur of -her cloak with approval.</p> - -<p>“Thanks!” said his master, and, as he looked at her, -thought how “well-groomed,” in his own vernacular, she -was. She did not belong to the county he felt sure. He -had never seen her before, and he knew all the Ridings -well.</p> - -<p>She was plainly dressed in dark cloth; but the sables -lining her cloak were of the finest; her gloves were of -perfect fit and texture; her buttoned velvet boots were -admirably made; she had a little velvet toque on a shapely -head; she had an air of great distinction and simplicity -combined.</p> - -<p>She resumed the perusal of her book, and he unfolded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span> -a morning paper. The train swung on its way at great -speed. The dog, Ossian, lay down in the middle of the -carriage. The glass of the windows was silvered with -hoar-frost; nothing was to be seen out of them of the -country through which they were being hurried. The -snow fell continually; there was no wind.</p> - -<p>Ossian, waking out of his nap and yawning, much bored, -began the conversation by laying his muzzle on the lady’s -knees.</p> - -<p>“Pray forgive him!” said his master.</p> - -<p>“There is nothing to forgive. What a beauty he is!”</p> - -<p>“He is as good as he looks. But perhaps he ought to -apologize for being here.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Well, really, I do not know why; but it is expected -that a dog’s owner should say so.”</p> - -<p>“Only when he writes to the <i>Times</i>,” said the lady, -amused. “In point of fact, it is I who am in the wrong -place, for this is a smoking-carriage.”</p> - -<p>Ossian having thus broken the ice between them they -continued to talk, of the weather, of the news of the day, -of the book she had brought with her, of dogs in general, -and of the collie in particular.</p> - -<p>They were neither of them very talkative by temperament, -or disposed to be communicative usually, but they -got on very well together. He shifted his seat to the -corner in front of her, and they continued to skim over a -variety of subjects, harmoniously and agreeably to both, -as the train glided over the frozen ground, scattering the -fine white powder of the snow in front of it.</p> - -<p>“How fast it snows!” said the lady rather anxiously, -trying to rub the pane of glass nearest her clear with her -handkerchief.</p> - -<p>“Were you ever blocked up by a snowstorm?” asked -Hurstmanceaux. “I have been—once in Scotland and -once in Canada. It is a disagreeable experience.”</p> - -<p>“It must be, indeed. I hope there will be no chance -of that to-day?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; men will have kept the line clear, no doubt!”</p> - -<p>As he spoke the train slackened its speed, moved with -a jerking and dragging sound for some time, and a little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span> -while later stopped still with a great noise of rushing -steam, and a jar which shook the carriage violently and -flung Ossian against one of the doors.</p> - -<p>The lady turned pale, but she did not move or scream; -she looked a mute inquiry.</p> - -<p>“I suppose they have failed to keep the line clear,” he -said, in answer to the glance. “Allow me to look out a -moment.”</p> - -<p>He let down a window and leaned out of it; but the -air was so dense with steam and snow that he could not -see a yard before him.</p> - -<p>“Is it an accident?” she said.</p> - -<p>“I do not think so. I imagine we have run into a -snow-drift, nothing more.”</p> - -<p>The noise of the steam rushing out of the engine, and -the shouts of officials calling to each other, almost drowned -his voice. He took his railway-key out of his pocket and -opened the door.</p> - -<p>“I will go and see what it is, and return in a moment,” -he said to her, signing to Ossian to remain in the carriage, -and leaving the door open.</p> - -<p>She did not attempt to detain or to follow him.</p> - -<p>“That is a thoroughbred woman,” he said to himself.</p> - -<p>He did return in a few minutes, and brought word that -they had stuck fast in the snow. The engine-driver had -slackened speed in time to avoid an accident, but they -might be detained for hours; the telegraph wires were all -down through the weight of the snow.</p> - -<p>“It is extremely disagreeable, but it is not dangerous,” -he said to reassure her. “We shall be <i>quittes pour la peur</i>. -We shall probably have time to get dreadfully keen about -eating, and have nothing to eat. England is such a small -place: one never thinks of ‘stoking’ when one travels in -it.”</p> - -<p>“My poor maid!” she said anxiously. “I am afraid -she must be very frightened, wherever she is.”</p> - -<p>“Can I look for her?”</p> - -<p>“You are very kind, but how should you know her? -I will get out myself.”</p> - -<p>“It may be as well to get out. You would be warmer -if you stayed in the carriage, but there is the chance that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span> -a train may come up behind and run into ours, though -men have gone down the line with lamps.”</p> - -<p>She had nothing with her except her book and a bouquet -of violets. Closely followed by Ossian, he accompanied -her along the line, looking into each compartment -to find her maid. There were many people, both in the -train and out of it, talking confusedly, suggesting this, -that, and the other; the air was full of fog and snow; -the engine, snorting and smoking, stood with its brazen -breast pushed against the high white hillocks.</p> - -<p>When they found the maid, a grey elderly person, she -was in a panic of terror, which made her perfectly useless. -She was shaking from head to foot, and repeating disconnected -Scriptural texts; she resisted all her mistress’s requests -and entreaties to her to descend; she said she -wished to meet her God where she was.</p> - -<p>“If there be any thieves in the train,” said Hurstmanceaux -to the lady, “they will have an easy time with -your jewel-box.”</p> - -<p>“I do not wear jewels,” said his fellow-traveler curtly.</p> - -<p>He looked at her in some surprise. Her tone had -asperity in it.</p> - -<p>“Were you going up to town, may I ask?” he ventured -to inquire.</p> - -<p>“No,” she answered. “Only from one country house -to another.”</p> - -<p>He wished he knew what country houses they were, but -he could not ask that.</p> - -<p>She argued with her maid very patiently and with great -kindness, but made no impression.</p> - -<p>“Poor Danvers! She is out of her mind with fear. -What shall I do?” she said, appealing to him as though -they had been old acquaintances.</p> - -<p>“Are you afraid of a long walk?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Will you come with me, then? I know the country. -The nearest town is four miles away. I am going there -to send help. Will you like to come?”</p> - -<p>She did not immediately reply.</p> - -<p>“May I present myself?” he added, “I am Lord -Hurstmanceaux.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>She looked up quickly.</p> - -<p>“Indeed? You are very like your sister.”</p> - -<p>“Which one? I have several.”</p> - -<p>“Lady Kenilworth.”</p> - -<p>He laughed.</p> - -<p>“That is a great compliment. She is the beauty of the -family. Do you know her? She is one of the beauties -of England.”</p> - -<p>“Not I; but my people do. I have seen her, of -course!”</p> - -<p>The tone was rather repellant; by no means cordial.</p> - -<p>“Well, we must not lose daylight,” said Ronald. “Will -you come? The snow is firm, and it will be fair cross-country -walking. You will be less chilled than staying -here in inaction; and it is not more than four miles to the -town by short cuts which I know.”</p> - -<p>She hesitated.</p> - -<p>“But my poor woman? To leave her here alone——”</p> - -<p>“I will tell my servant to stay and look after her. She -will join you in the town, and you will continue your -journey. I think you had better come with me. I must -go myself, anyhow, for no one else knows the country. I -have hunted and ridden over it scores of times, and I -know every bush and briar.”</p> - -<p>“I will come,” she said, without any further hesitation.</p> - -<p>“You are a good walker?” he said a little anxiously.</p> - -<p>She laughed a little.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes; I shall not break down and cast my shoes.”</p> - -<p>“Come along, then. It soon grows dark in these early -spring days. Our Aprils are considerably worse than our -Novembers.”</p> - -<p>“He is rather too familiar,” she thought; but she perceived -that it was his natural manner, which, when he -was not irritated, or sarcastic, or—as he frequently was—silent, -had great frankness and simplicity in it.</p> - -<p>“It is an odd thing to do,” she continued to say to herself, -“to walk across country in the snow with a man one -does not know. But he is certainly Lord Hurstmanceaux -by his resemblance to his sister, and it will be better to -walk than to sit still in a railway-carriage, with the chance of -being frozen into bronchitis or smashed by an express train.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>And she took her way across the bleak, blank pastures -which stretched around the scene of the accident, with -little frozen brooks and ditches and sunken fences dividing -them, and no trees or hedges to relieve the tedium of -the level landscape, since scientific agriculture ruled supreme.</p> - -<p>“How well she carries herself,” thought Hurstmanceaux. -“Who can she be possibly, that I do not know -her by sight? And her people know Mouse and not me!”</p> - -<p>The snow was hard, and afforded good footing. She -crossed the ditches and little streams as easily and with as -much elasticity as Ossian did, and went on her way -quickly and with energy, carrying her bouquet of violets -close up to her mouth to keep out the biting wind.</p> - -<p>She asked him the name of the town to which they -were going, and if they would be able to telegraph thence.</p> - -<p>“I fear the wires will be damaged there, too,” he -answered. “It is called Greater Thorpe. There is Lesser -Thorpe, St. Mary’s Thorpe, Monk’s Thorpe, Dane’s Thorpe—the -two latter charming names suggestive of the past. -You would see the spire of Greater Thorpe from here if it -were a clear day, or what does duty in England as a clear -day.”</p> - -<p>“One’s greatest want in England is distance,” she -answered. “I was in India a little while ago. What an -atmosphere! It is heaven only to live in it.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, the light is wonderful.”</p> - -<p>“So golden and so pure. To think that the English -dare to defile it with factory smoke!”</p> - -<p>“That is on a piece with all we do there.”</p> - -<p>“How vulgar, how fussy, how common the conquerors -look beside the conquered! Go into a bank, a counting-house, -a police-station, and see the calm, stately, proud, -reposeful natives in their flowing robes, bullied and sworn -at by some smug, sandy-haired, snub-nosed official in a -checked suit and a pot hat! One wishes for a second and -successful mutiny.”</p> - -<p>“It must be admitted we are neither pliant nor picturesque. -The Russians, when they succeed us, will at least -‘compose’ better. In what part of India were you?”</p> - -<p>She told him, adding, “I have left with extreme regret.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>“You were in the Framlingham’s Presidency; did you -know them?”</p> - -<p>“I was on a visit to them.”</p> - -<p>“If she would only say who she is!” thought Ronald, -as a gust of wind blew them apart and sent the snow -spray into their faces; he felt sure that she belonged to -his world and that she was married; she had a composure -of tone and manner which made her seem much older -than her features looked. He was lost in admiration of -the beauty of her feet as the wind lifted her skirts, or as -she lifted herself over the ditches in a spring as easy as -the dog’s.</p> - -<p>“You enjoy this rough walk,” he said shortly to her.</p> - -<p>“I think I do,” she answered. “But I should enjoy it -more if I were sure I could telegraph from this Greater -Thorpe.”</p> - -<p>“You wish to reassure your people?”</p> - -<p>“I do.”</p> - -<p>“If she would only say who they are!” he thought, but -she did not.</p> - -<p>They could only converse when the wind lulled, which -was not very often; it blew straight in their faces over -the bare level land, and he had some trouble in recognizing -the landmarks in the white obliteration of the -always featureless landscape, and in avoiding the barbed -wire fencing which had many a day cost him many an -angry oath as he had hunted over those pastures.</p> - -<p>“I used to be a good deal in this country,” he said, as -they at last left the wide level fields for a high road, and -which was less exposed to the wind. “I used to hunt -with the Vale of Thorpe hounds. I do not hunt anywhere -now; and I have nothing now to bring me into the county -since my cousin, Lord Roxhall, sold his place.”</p> - -<p>“Vale Royal?”</p> - -<p>“Yes? Do you know it?”</p> - -<p>“I have seen it.”</p> - -<p>“A fine old place, the biggest beeches in England, and -a herd of wild cattle equal to the Chillingham. I only -wish one of the red bulls would gore the wretched cad -who has bought it, or perhaps in strict justice the bulls -ought first to have gored Roxhall.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>She did not reply; she was walking as easily and -quickly as ever, though it was the fourth mile, and the -cold of the bleak sunless day grew more intense as the -hours wore away.</p> - -<p>“Vale Royal was given by Henry the Second to the -Roxhalls of that time,” he continued. “My cousin wanted -money, it is true; but not so desperately that he need -have done so vile a thing. He was led into it. The man -who has bought it is a brute from the Northwestern -States; made his fortune in all kinds of foul ways, drinking-shops, -gambling-saloons, cattle-trading, opium-dealing, -cheating poor devils who landed with a little money and -went to him for advice and concessions; an unspeakable -rascal, who after thirty years’ infamy out there pulls himself -together, praises God for all His mercies, and comes back -to this country to go to church, sit in Parliament, wear -a tall hat, and buy English society and English estates. -Don’t you agree with me that it is utterly disgraceful?”</p> - -<p>She held her violets higher up to her face so that he saw -nothing but her eyes, which were looking down the long -straight white road which stretched out before them into -a grey haze of fogs.</p> - -<p>“I quite agree with you,” she said in very clear and -incisive tones. “I think it utterly disgraceful. But the -disgrace is as much to the bought as the buyer.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly,” said Hurstmanceaux with great warmth. -“A society is utterly rotten and ruined when such a fungus -as this can take root in it. That I have always maintained. -‘Tell me whom you know and I will tell you -what you are,’ is as true when said of society as when it -is said of an individual. Certainly society only knows -this man, this Massarene, in a perfunctory supercilious -way, and only gives him the kind of nod which is the -equivalent of a kick; but it does know him; it drinks his -wines and eats his dinners; it nods to him, it elects him, -it leaves cards on him; it lets him look ridiculous in -white breeches and a gilded coat at St. James’s, and it -makes him pay through the nose for all its amiabilities -and tolerations. It is an infamy!”</p> - -<p>She looked straight before her down the road and did -not reply.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>“You said you agreed with me?” said Hurstmanceaux, -surprised at her silence.</p> - -<p>“I agree with you entirely.”</p> - -<p>But there was a chillness in her tone which suggested -to him that, however completely she shared his opinions, -the subject was disagreeable to her.</p> - -<p>“She can’t belong to that class herself, she is thoroughbred -down to the ground,” he thought, as he said aloud, -“I am afraid you are tired. The cold is beginning to tell -on you.”</p> - -<p>“No; I am not at all cold,” she answered, holding up -nearer to her the poor violets shrivelling in the frost.</p> - -<p>“What has come over her, I wonder,” he said to himself. -“She was so frank and natural and pleasant, and -now she is chilly and stiff, and scarcely opens her lips. It -is since I spoke of Vale Royal. But she said she agreed -with me. Perhaps she knows Gerald, and is fond of him. -But he could hardly know anybody intimately whom I -have never seen, or never heard of, at the least.”</p> - -<p>“Yet there is this to be said. You blame this person,” -she added in a low but clear tone as she walked on, looking -straight before her. “You admit that your world is -more contemptible than he. What obliged Lord Roxhall -to live in such a manner that he was forced to sell his old -estate? Are not nearly all of you tradesmen and horse-dealers -and speculators? Who fill the markets with game, -the wharfs with coal, the shows with fat cattle and brood-mares? -Who breed herds of Shetland ponies to sell them -to the cruel work of the mines? Who destroy all the wild-bird -life of three kingdoms, that the slaughter of the battues -may be wholesale and the pheasants sent in thousands -to Leadenhall? Your own order, your own order. What -has it done, what does it ever do, to make it so superior -to the man from Dakota?”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux listened in extreme astonishment. He -could not understand the scorn and suppressed vehemence -with which her words vibrated. He was silent because, -in his own mind, he found the indictment a just one. But -his aristocratic temper was in conflict with his intellectual -judgment.</p> - -<p>“What have the English aristocracy brought into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> -fashion? What do they uphold by example and precept?” -she continued. “Their life is one course of reckless folly; -the summer is wasted in crowded London houses, varied -by race-meetings and pigeon-shooting; the autumn and -winter are spent in the incessant slaughtering of birds and -beasts; their beautiful country houses are only visited at -intervals, when they are as crowded as a booth at a fair. -What kind of example do they set to ‘the man from -Dakota’? What do they suggest to him of self-denial, of -culture, of true grace and courtesy, of contempt for ill-gotten -riches? They crowd around him as poultry around -a feeding-pan! The whole thing is discreditable. But -perhaps the most shameful part in it is not his!”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux was silent. He thought of Cocky and -his sister, and he felt his blood tingle under the lash of -her stinging words.</p> - -<p>“My own withers are unwrung,” he said at last with a -smile. “I don’t do those things. My estates are extremely -unproductive, and I live, for the chief part of the -year, on one of them—Faldon.”</p> - -<p>“It is on the sea, I think?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; on the coast of Waterford.”</p> - -<p>“Do you cut your timber?”</p> - -<p>“I do not.”</p> - -<p>“Do you preserve?”</p> - -<p>“For sport? No. Wild life has a happy time of it, I -assure you, with me.”</p> - -<p>“I am glad to hear any Englishman say so.”</p> - -<p>“Are we such a set of barbarians?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you are very barbarous; much more so than the -Hindoos whom you have conquered. Compare the simplicity -of their diet, the purity of their arts, the beauty of -their costume and their architecture, with a Lord Mayor’s -feast, a Royal Academy show, a Manchester Canal, a -Forth Bridge, a team of cyclists, a London woman’s gown! -Barbarians!—barbarians indeed, worse than any Goth or -Vandal!—the nation which destroyed Delhi!”</p> - -<p>“She must surely be a Russian,” thought Hurstmanceaux. -“They often speak English with an admirable -fluency. But why, if so, should Vale Royal affect her so -singularly?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>He was not impressionable in these ways; but his new -acquaintance attracted him extremely. He admired her, -and her voice charmed him like music.</p> - -<p>At that moment Ossian, perceiving in a distant field -some sheep feeding on swedes in the snow, could not resist -his hereditary instinct of shepherding them, and -caused his master some trouble, as the sheep entirely mistook -the collie’s good intentions and fled away in all -directions. The lady watched the scene, standing still -under a pollarded willow. When order was restored and -they walked on again, she asked him what had made him -give up hunting; in herself she regretted her late eloquence, -and wished her companion to forget it.</p> - -<p>“What made you give up hunting?” she asked suddenly, -as if conscious that the severity of her tone might -appear strange to him.</p> - -<p>“Well, I have never told anybody,” he answered, and -paused.</p> - -<p>Then he went on, in a rather embarrassed manner, -nerved by the confidence which his unknown companion -roused in him:</p> - -<p>“I was one day in my own woods at Faldon sketching; -hounds were out, but I was not with them. I was sitting -in the bracken quite hidden by it, and an old dog-fox -slouched by me; his tail drooped, he was dead beat, he -could scarcely drag himself along; he had a bad gash in -his side from a stake or something; he went up to an old -hollow oak, and out of it came his bitch and three little -cubs; and they welcomed him, I assure you, just as his -family might welcome a man going home after a hard -campaign, and the bitch fell to licking the gash in his side, -and the cubs frolicked around her. I never had the heart -to hurt a fox again. Hares I never did hunt; it is barbarous -work. But that fox, too, set me thinking. He -cared for his home and his wife just like any good citizen -going home in the tram to Peckham Rise or Brixton. It -was a pretty sight that poor thing going home. I stopped -there till dark to make sure the pack didn’t come after -him.”</p> - -<p>“You did very right,” she said in her soft grave voice. -“I wish more men would pause and think like that.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>The wind rose and blew some more fine snow powder -over them and in their faces.</p> - -<p>“It is half-past two o’clock,” he said, looking at his -watch, “I am sure you must miss your luncheon.”</p> - -<p>“I should like a cup of tea,” she answered. “How -much farther is it to Thorpe?”</p> - -<p>“About three-quarters of a mile. We shall get there -before dark. But I fear the Thorpe tea will not be up to -your standard. However, they will give you a good fire -at the Bell Inn.”</p> - -<p>“The Bell Inn! It sounds like Charles Dickens and -Washington Irving.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; but there is no longer the abundance and the -comfort of the old coaching-days; country inns, now, like -most other things, hardly pay their own expenses.”</p> - -<p>“I am afraid I prefer the wayside station on the edge -of the Indian jungle, with ripe bananas brought to me on -a cocoa-nut leaf, and the monkeys looking down for a -share from the reed roofs.”</p> - -<p>“So do I,” he said, thinking that she looked pale and -fatigued. “But for our sins we are in Woldshire, and -we shall have to put up with coal fires and beefsteaks.”</p> - -<p>She looked alarmed.</p> - -<p>“Surely I shall not have to stay there?”</p> - -<p>“That will depend on what state the roads and the -lines are in; the snow is less thick about here. Where -are you going to? Of course, horses cannot stir out in -this frost.”</p> - -<p>She avoided the direct question.</p> - -<p>“Oh, well, it is an adventure; one must not complain. -If I can get my poor woman to the town I will support -its indifferent accommodation.”</p> - -<p>“We will do the best we can, but the Thorpe mind is -slow and uninventive. The rural brain in England is apt -to be clogged with beer. Fortunately, however, whatever -be its density, it always retains its perception of the -value of shillings and sovereigns. We will try that -gentle stimulant so appreciated in politics, so especially -appreciated since bribery was made a crime.”</p> - -<p>They had now come near enough to the town to perceive -in the haze the square shoulders of its roofs and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> -tower of its famous church, all blurred and blotted by the -fog like a too-much-washed water-color drawing. She did -not seem to be tired, but she had lost her elasticity of -movement; her eyes looked straight ahead, and no longer -turned to meet his own frankly as they had done before. -She seemed to wish to be silent, so he let the conversation -drop, and walked on beside her mutely, as the straggling -suburbs of a country town began to show themselves -in the more frequent cottages, in the occasional -alehouse, and in the presence of people in the roads, and -in the small wayside gardens where they were scraping -and sweeping clear little paths from the gates to the doors. -Some of these, recognizing him, touched their hats; he -spoke to the most capable-looking, told them briefly of the -accident, and sent them on to the station-master, whilst he -took his companion to the Bell Inn, an old house which -had been a busy and prosperous place in the posting and -coaching times of which he had spoken. It stood in the -centre of a market-place, which was alive and noisy with -country-folks once a week, but was now a desolate and -well-nigh empty place filled with wind and driven snow.</p> - -<p>“If you will rest here ten minutes,” he said to her, “I -will come back as soon as I have seen the authorities and -heard what they propose to do, and I will tell you if the -lines are safe and the wires in working order. I am -afraid you will find it very rough and uncomfortable, but -they are lighting the fire and the landlady is a good soul; -my cousins used to come and have some of her soup on -hunting mornings; you will like her, I think.”</p> - -<p>He held open the door of the only sitting-room, and as -she passed within bowed very low to her and went out -into the street again.</p> - -<p>As he reached the middle of the market-place he heard -his name spoken, and, turning at the sound, saw her to -his surprise coming toward him from the entrance of the -inn. He went back a few steps to meet her. She was -very pale still, and there was a pride which was almost -aggressive in her attitude as she stood still on the slippery -trodden stones and faced him.</p> - -<p>“Pray do not come back to me,” she said coldly. “I -can have all I need here till my woman can join me. But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> -there is something I ought to tell you, and I ought also -to thank you for all your good nature and courtesy.”</p> - -<p>She paused a moment whilst he looked at her in silence -and surprise. She was evidently speaking under the influence -of some strong and personal feeling.</p> - -<p>“It is to Vale Royal that I am going,” she added with -a visible effort. “I am Katherine Massarene.”</p> - -<p>The blood leapt up into Hurstmanceaux’s face; he was -dumb with amazement and regret; he forgot utterly that -he was standing bareheaded in a snowy sloppy market-place -with a dozen yokels staring and grinning about the -gates of the inn yard. He drew a very long breath. “I -beg your pardon,” he said gravely and with great humility. -“I am shocked——”</p> - -<p>“You have no need to be so,” she replied, “I quite -agreed with your views. But I cannot alter my father, -nor you your world.”</p> - -<p>She stroked the uplifted head of Ossian and turned to -go back to the door of the Bell Inn. He strode after her -and reached her side.</p> - -<p>“I am extremely sorry,” he murmured. “I am shocked -at my gross indiscretion. I cannot look for your forgiveness. -But pray do let me beg of you to take off those -pretty velvet boots at once, and let the woman rub your -feet with spirits of some sort, failing eau de Cologne. I -wish I had thought to take your dressing-bag from your -woman.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him a moment as she said the word, and -he thought there were tears in her large serious eyes. -Then she went inside the old posting-house and he saw -her no more.</p> - -<p>“That cad’s daughter, heavens and earth!” he said to -himself as he brushed the men aside and hastened across -the market-place.</p> - -<p>He scarcely knew what he said to the frightened station-master -and the obsequious mayor, and the bustling -town clerk, and all the good people who crowded to welcome -a live lord and hear of a railway accident. He was -intensely surprised, disproportionately irritated, and sincerely -vexed with himself for having spoken so incautiously.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> -He knew that every one of his words must have -cut like a knife into the sensitive nerves of this woman -whom he had admired and who had looked to him so -thoroughbred.</p> - -<p>He had felt more attracted to her than he had ever felt -to any stranger, and to receive this shock of disillusion -left him colder than he had been all day in the mists and -the snow.</p> - -<p>Suddenly it flashed across his memory that she must be -the heiress whom Mouse had desired him to marry. Suspicion -awoke in him.</p> - -<p>He had not known her but it was very possible she had -known him when he had entered the railway-carriage; -she had spoken of his likeness to his sister. Her avoidance -of any hint as to who she was or whither she was -going appeared to him to suggest design. Why had she -not disclosed her name until the very last moment? -Though a poor man, for his rank, he had been a great -deal run after by women on account of his physical beauty, -and he was wary and suspicious where women were in -question. She had caught him off his guard and he repented -it.</p> - -<p>If she were in truth William Massarene’s daughter she -probably knew the share which his sister had so largely -taken in the sales of Vale Royal and Blair Airon; and in -the persuasion of society to accept the purchasers. He -did not know the details of his sister’s diplomacy, but he -guessed enough of them for him to burn with shame at -the mere conjecture. When his own kith and kin were -foremost in this disgraceful traffic what could his own -condemnation of it look like—hypocrisy, affectation, subterfuge?</p> - -<p>What had possessed him to talk of such subjects on a -public road to a stranger. He never by any chance “gave -himself away.” Why had he done so this day merely because -he had felt as if he had known for years a woman -who had beautiful feet in fur-rimmed boots and a big -bouquet of violets?</p> - -<p>He was furious at his own folly, and he had told her -that story of the fox too, which he had buried so closely -in his own breast as men like him do secrete all their best<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> -impulses and emotions of which they are more ashamed -than of any of their sins and vices! He had never been -so incensed and troubled about a trifle in his whole life; -and all the high breeding in him made him feel the keenest -regret to have so cruelly mortified a woman about her own -father and her own position.</p> - -<p>To a gentleman the knowledge that he has insulted a -person who cannot punish him for it is a very dreadful -thing.</p> - -<p>He had said no more than he meant, no more than he -felt, and nothing which he would have retracted; but he -was extremely sorry that he had said it to the daughter -of the man Massarene. To the man himself he would -have had the greatest pleasure in saying it.</p> - -<p>“What was I about to walk across country with a -stranger and talk so indiscreetly to her?” he asked himself -in self-reproach as sincere as it was useless.</p> - -<p>She asked herself the same question as she dried her -snow-wet clothes before the fire of the Bell Inn, and -offered all the notes and gold in her purse to have an old -post-chaise got ready at once, and the shoes of two horses -roughed.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> she reached Vale Royal, which she did late that -night, after a dreary and dangerous drive of fourteen -miles, at a walking pace, over frozen roads, she told her -parents of the detention of the train by the snow-drift, -but she did not tell them of her meeting with Lady Kenilworth’s -brother.</p> - -<p>She was tired and chilled, and went at once to a hot -bath and her bed, whither her mother brought her a cup -of boiling milk with two spoonsful of Cognac in it.</p> - -<p>“It ought by rights to be milked on to the brandy,” said -that good lady. “But that can’t be done here, though -there are half a score of beautiful Alderneys standing on -the Home farm only just to supply the house—and such -a dairy, my dear! Chiny the walls is, and marble the -floors. Only I don’t hold with their method of churning, -and the wenches are much too fine. I showed ’em how -to turn out butter one day, and I heard ’em say as I come -away that my proper place was the kitchen! Well, good-night, -my dearie; sleep well.”</p> - -<p>“Good-night, dear mother,” said Katherine with unusual -tenderness, for she was not demonstrative, and her -parents to her were almost strangers.</p> - -<p>“It is not her fault,” she thought, “if we are upstarts -and interlopers in this place which Henry the Second gave -the Roxhalls.”</p> - -<p>Then her great fatigue conquered her and, the brandied -milk aiding, she fell sound asleep and slept dreamlessly -until the chimes of the clock tower sounded eleven in the -still, sunny, frosty, noonday air.</p> - -<p>Then she awoke with the sense of something odiously -painful having happened, and, as she saw the withered -bouquet of violets, which she had told her maid to leave, -with her gloves and her muff on a table near, she remembered, -and the words of Hurstmanceaux came back on her -mind with poignant mortification in their memories.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>“How right he was! Oh, how right he was! But how -merciless!” she thought, as she looked through the panes -of the oriel window of her chamber out on to the white -and silent park. She saw the huge old oaks, the grand -old views, the distant mere frozen over, the deer crossing -the snow in the distance to be fed. The bells of a church -unseen were chiming musically. In the ivy beneath her -windows two robins were singing in friendly rivalry. -Above-head was a pale soft sky of faintest blue. In the -air there was frost. It was all charming, homelike, -stately, simple; it would have delighted her if—if—if—there -was so many “ifs” she felt sick and weary at the -mere thought of them, and the innocent tranquillity of the -scene jarred on all her nerves with pain.</p> - -<p>It was late in the morning before she could summon -strength to go downstairs, where she found her mother -lunching alone in the Tudor dining-hall; her father had -gone away early in a sledge to attend political meetings -in an adjacent county, and the large house-party invited -was not due for two weeks.</p> - -<p>“Who are coming, mother?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear, I never know; I scarce know who they -are when I see ’em,” replied the present mistress of Vale -Royal. “Lady Kenilworth has arranged it all. She -brings her friends.”</p> - -<p>Katherine colored at the name.</p> - -<p>“As she would go to the Hotel de Paris at Monte Carlo, -or the Sanatorium at Hot Springs!” she said bitterly.</p> - -<p>“Well, I don’t know about that. She’d have to pay for -’em in those places,” said Mrs. Massarene seriously, not -intending any sarcasm.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you eat nothing, my dear?” asked her mother -anxiously. “I can’t say as India have made you fat, -Kathleen.”</p> - -<p>She smiled involuntarily.</p> - -<p>“Surely you do not wish me to be fat, mother?”</p> - -<p>“Well, no, not exactly. But I’d like to see you enjoy -your food.”</p> - -<p>“Did she go through the form of showing you her list?”</p> - -<p>“No, my dear, she didn’t. Your father knows who is -coming. I did say to her as how I wished she’d bring her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span> -children—they are such little ducks—but she gave a little -scoffing laugh and didn’t even reply.”</p> - -<p>“How can you tolerate her! You should turn her out -of the house!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear Kathleen,” said Mrs. Massarene in an -awed tone. “We’ve owed everything to her. If it hadn’t -been for her I believe we shouldn’t have known a soul -worth speaking of to this day. That old Khris (though -he’s a real prince) is somehow down on his luck and can’t -get anybody anywhere. You’ve made fine friends, to be -sure, but they didn’t cotton to us; and your Lady Mary—whom -you’ve just come from—they say, isn’t what she -should be.”</p> - -<p>“Is Lady Kenilworth?”</p> - -<p>“Lord, she must be, my dear! Why she comes on here -from Sandringham! She’s at the very tiptop of the tree. -She stays at Windsor and she sits next the Queen at the -Braemar gathering. What more could you have? And -though she does bite my nose off and treat me like dirt I -can’t help being took by her; there’s something about her -carries you off your feet like; I don’t know what to call it.”</p> - -<p>“Fascination.”</p> - -<p>“Well, yes; I suppose you’d say so. It’s a kind of -power in her, and grace and beauty and cruelty all mixed -up in her, as ’tis in a pretty young cat. Your father’s that -wrapped up in her he sits staring like an owl when she’s in -the room, and I believe if she told him to hop on one leg -round the Houses of Parliament he’d do it to please her.”</p> - -<p>“Does he not see how ridiculous she makes him?”</p> - -<p>“My dear,” said Mrs. Massarene with solemnity, “a -man never thinks he is ridiculous. He says to himself, -‘I’m a <i>man</i>,’ and he gets a queer sort of comfort out of -that as a baby does out of sucking its thumb.”</p> - -<p>Katherine smiled absently.</p> - -<p>“Does Lady Kenilworth ever speak of her brother—her -eldest brother, Lord Hurstmanceaux?” she said in an embarrassed -tone, which her mother did not observe.</p> - -<p>“Yes; she says he’s a bear. She’s brought her brothers-in-law, -and a good many of her relations, her ‘people,’ as -she calls ’em, but her own brothers, none of ’em, ever.”</p> - -<p>“This place belonged to her cousin.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span>“Did it? I never knew anything about it. William -came in one day and said: ‘I’ve bought a place in the -shires. Go down there this afternoon.’ That was all. I -was struck all of a heap when I saw it. And the housekeeper, -who had stayed on to go over the inventory, drew -herself up when she met me, stiff as stiff, and said to me, -‘I shall be glad if you will release me of my charge, -madam. I have always lived with gentlefolks.’ Those -were her very words, Kathleen. A fine set-up, glum-looking -woman she was, dressed in black watered silk, -and she went off the next morning, though we had offered -her double her price to remain under us. That’s just, -you know, what Gregson, the courier, said once; or rather, -<i>he</i> said he wouldn’t live with gentlefolks because they was -always out o’ pocket.”</p> - -<p>Katherine moved restlessly: words rose to her lips -which she repressed.</p> - -<p>“And when I go in the village,” continued her mother, -“there’s nothing but black looks and shut doors, and the -very geese on the little common screech at me. The -rector’s civil, of course, because he’s an eye to the main -chance, but he’s the only one; and I’m afeard it’s mostly -because he wants your father to give him a peal of bells. -They seem to think your father should pay the National -Debt!”</p> - -<p>Katherine sighed.</p> - -<p>“Poor mother! <i>Que de couleuvres on vous fait avaler!</i>”</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk French, Kathleen, I can’t abide it,” said -Mrs. Massarene with unusual acerbity. “When we first -set foot in Kerosene City, a few planks on the mud as -’twas then, a little nasty Frenchman had an eating shop -next ours and he undersold me in everything, and made -dishes out of nothing, and such pastry—light as love! -My best was lead beside it.”</p> - -<p>She continued to recall the culinary feats of her Gallic -rival, whose superiority had filled her with a Gallophobia -deathless and pitiless as that of Francesco Crispi; and her -daughter’s thoughts wandered away from her to the low-lying -white fields round Greater Thrope, and to the remembrance -of the dark blue eyes which had met her own -so frankly through the misty air.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>“Would you mind very much, mother,” she said at -length, “if I did not appear while these people are here? -I could go to Lady Mary’s or to Brighton.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene was startled and alarmed.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dearie, no! Not on any account. Your -father would never forgive it. You have been so much -away; it has angered him so. And as for your views -and your reasons he’d never see them, my dear, no more -than a blind man can see a church clock. Pray don’t -dream of it, child. People say it is so odd you went to -India. They will think you have some skin-disease, or -are light in your head, unless you are seen now at home.”</p> - -<p>Katherine sighed again.</p> - -<p>“I think you do not understand,” she said in a low, -grave voice. “I utterly disapprove, I utterly abhor, the -course which my father takes. I think his objects contemptible -and his means to attain them loathsome. If -you only knew what they look to persons of breeding and -honor! Society laughs at him whilst it uses him and rules -him. He is not a gentleman. He never will be one. A -complacent premier may get him a knightage, a baronetage, -a peerage; and a sovereign as complacent may let -him kiss her hand. But nothing of that will make him a -gentleman. He will never be one if he lived to be a -hundred or if he live to entertain emperors. I cannot -alter his actions. I cannot open his eyes. I have perhaps -no right to speak thus of him. But I cannot help -it. I despise the whole miserable ignominious farce. I -cannot bear to be forced to remain a spectator of it. This -place is Lord Roxhall’s. All the money in the world -cannot make it ours. We are aliens and intruders. All -the people whom Lady Kenilworth will bring here next -week will go away to ridicule us, plebeians as we are -masquerading in fine clothes and ancient houses.”</p> - -<p>“My dear! my dear!” cried her mother in great trepidation. -“You make me all in a cold tremble to hear -you. All you say is gospel truth, and I’ve felt it many a -time, or like to it, myself. But it is no manner of use to -say it. Your father thinks he’s a great man, and nobody’ll -put him out of conceit of himself; it’s true that -as he made his pile he’s the right to the spending of it.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> -Don’t you talk of going away, Kathleen. You are the -only creature I have to look to, for I know full well that -I’m only a stone in your father’s path and a thorn in his -flesh. I can’t kill myself to pleasure him, for ’twould be -fire everlasting, but I know I’m no use to him now. I -was of use on the other side, and he knew it then, though -I can’t call to mind one grateful word as ever he said to -me; but he knew it, and wouldn’t have got along as fast -as he did without me; and nobody kept ledgers better than -me, nor scrubbed a kitchen table whiter. That’s neither -here nor there now, however; and I’m in his way now with -fine folks; and look like ’em I never shall. But you, my -dear, you do look like ’em, and talk like ’em, and carry -yourself like ’em. I would call you like an empress, -only I saw an empress once, and she was a little old hodmedod -of a woman in a Shetland shawl, and she was -cheapening shells on the beach at Blankenberge; and -you are grand and stately, and fine as a lily on its -stalk. I want them to see what you look like, my dear; -and they won’t laugh at <i>you</i>, that’s certain. As for the -house, it’s been paid for, so I don’t see how you can say -it’s Lord Roxhall’s still. He can’t eat his cake and have -it.</p> - -<p>“And my dear Kathleen,” she continued, changing the -subject with great agitation, “they say you mustn’t know -Lady Mary; she, she, she isn’t respectable. There is -something about her boy’s tutor and about a painter, a -house painter, even, they say.”</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene colored. “Dear mother, I know -Lady Mary is not all she might be. She is light and -foolish. But when you sent me to that Brighton school, -a little frightened, stupid, miserable child, who could not -even speak grammatically, Lady Mary noticed me when -she came to see Enid and May (her own daughters), and -told them to be kind to me, and asked me to spend the -holidays with them; and they were kind, most kind, and -never laughed at me, and took pains to tell me how to behave -and how to speak; and I assure you, my dear -mother, that Lady Mary might be the worst woman under -the sun I should never admit it, and I should always be -grateful to her for her goodness to me when I was friendless<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> -and common and ridiculous—a little vulgar chit who -called you ‘Ma.’”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene was divided between wrath and emotion.</p> - -<p>“I am sure you were a well-brought-up child from your -cradle, and pretty-behaved if ever there were one,” she -said with offence. “And I dare say she knew as how -your father’d made his pile, and had an eye on it.”</p> - -<p>“Oh no, oh no,” said Katherine with warmth and -scorn. “Lady Mary is not like that, nor any of her people; -they are generous and careless, and never calculate; -they are not like your Kenilworths and Karsteins. She -is a very thoroughbred woman, and to her <i>novi homines</i> are -<i>novi homines</i>, however gilded may be their stucco pedestals.”</p> - -<p>Happily the phrase was incomprehensible to her hearer, -who merely replied obstinately: “Well, they tell me -she’s ill spoke of, and I can’t have you mixed up with any -as is; but if she was kind to you, my dear, and I mind -me well you always wrote about her as being such, I’ll do -anything to help her in reason. You know, my dear,” she -added, lowering her voice, for the utterance was treasonable, -“I have found out as how all them great folks are -all hollow inside, as one may say. They live uncommon -smart, and whisk about all the year round, but they’re all -of ’em in Queer Street, living by their wits, as one may -say; now I be bound your Lady Mary is so too, because -she’s a duke’s daughter, and her husband came into the -country with King Canute, him as washed his feet in the -sea—at least the book says so—and anything she’d like -done in the way of money I’d be delighted to do, since she -was good to you——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear mother,” cried Katherine, half amused -and half incensed, “pray put that sort of thing out of -your mind altogether. Lady Mary has everything she -wants, and if she had not she would die sooner than say -so. And indeed they are quite rich. Not what my father -would call so probably, but enough so for a county family -which dates, as you rightly observe, from Knutt.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene sighed heavily; she was bewildered -but she was obstinate.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>“Di’monds then?” she said tentatively. “None of -them ever have enough di’monds. One might send her a -standup thing for her head in di’monds—tira I think they -call it; and say as how we are most grateful all of us, -but you can’t be intimate because virtue’s more than -rank.”</p> - -<p>Katherine rose with strong effort controlling the deep -anger and the irresistible laughter which moved her.</p> - -<p>“We will talk of these things another time, dear,” she -said after a moment. “Lady Mary will not be in London -this season after Whitsuntide. Enid and May go out this -year with their grandmother, Lady Chillingham.”</p> - -<p>“That’s just what she said,” cried her mother in -triumph. “She said Lady Mary couldn’t show her nose -at Court even to present her own girls!”</p> - -<p>“Who said so?”</p> - -<p>“Lady Kenilworth.”</p> - -<p>“Lady Kenilworth a purist! I fear she could give my -poor Lady Mary a good many points——”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean? Lady Kenilworth knows the -world.”</p> - -<p>“That no one doubts. And I dare say <i>she</i> would take -the tiara, my dear mother.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand you, and you have a very rude -way of speaking.”</p> - -<p>“Forgive me, dear!” said her daughter with grace and -penitence. “I do not like your guide, philosopher and -friend, though she is one of the prettiest women I ever -saw in my life.”</p> - -<p>“Well, you can’t say <i>she</i> doesn’t go to Court,” cried -Mrs. Massarene in triumph.</p> - -<p>“I am quite sure she will go to Court all her life,” replied -Katherine Massarene—an answer on which her -mother pondered darkly in silence. It must be meant for -praise, it could not be meant for blame; and yet there was -a tone in the speaker’s voice, a way of saying this apparently -acquiescent and complimentary phrase, which -troubled its hearer.</p> - -<p>“Her answer’s for all the world like a pail of fine milk -spoilt by the cow having ate garlic,” thought Mrs. Massarene, -her mind reverting to happy homely days in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> -dairy and the pastures with Blossom and Bee and Buttercup, -where Courts were realms unknown.</p> - -<p>Katherine was silent.</p> - -<p>She felt the absolute impossibility of inducing her -mother to make any stand against the way of life which -to herself was so abhorrent; or even to make her comprehend -the suffering it was to her finer and more sensitive -nature. Her mother disliked the life because it worried -her and made her feel foolish and incapable, but she could -not reach any conception of the torture and degradation -which it appeared to Katherine. If she had possessed -any power, any influence, if she had been able to return -in kind the insolence she winced under, and the patronage -she so bitterly resented, things would have seemed different -to her; but she could do nothing, she could only remain -the passive though indignant spectator of what she -abhorred.</p> - -<p>To her the position was false, contemptible, infamous, -everything which Hurstmanceaux had called it; and she -was compelled to appear a voluntary sharer in and accessory -to it. The house, beautiful, ancient, interesting as it -was, seemed to her only a hateful prison—a prison in -which she was every day set in a pillory.</p> - -<p>All the underlings of the gardens, the stables, the Home -farm, the preserves, showed the contempt which they felt -for these unwelcome successors of the Roxhall family.</p> - -<p>“One would think one had not paid a single penny for -the place,” said Mrs. Massarene, who, when she asked the -head gardener at what rate he sold his fresias, was met by -the curt reply, “We don’t sell no flowers here, mum. -Lord Roxhall never allowed it.”</p> - -<p>“But, my good man,” said his present mistress, “Lord -Roxhall’s gone for ever and aye; he’s naught to do -with the place any more, and to keep all these miles of -glass without making a profit out of them is a thing I -couldn’t hold with anyhow. Nobody’s so much money -that they can afford waste, Mr. Simpson; and what we -don’t want ourselves must be sold.”</p> - -<p>“That must be as you choose, mum,” said the head -gardener doggedly. “You’ll suit yourself and I’ll suit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> -<i>my</i>self. I’ve lived with gentlefolk and I hain’t lived with -traders.”</p> - -<p>At the same moment Mr. Winter, who had of course -brought down his household, was saying to the head -keeper:</p> - -<p>“Yes, it does turn one’s stomach to stay with these -shoeblacks. It’s the social democracy, that’s what it is. -But the old families they’re all run to seed like your -Roxhall’s; they expect one to put up with double-bedded -rooms and African sherrys. I am one as always stands -up for the aristocracy, but their cellars aren’t what they -were nor their tables neither. That’s why they’re always -dining theirselves with the sweeps and the shoeblacks.”</p> - -<p>In happy ignorance that his groom of the chambers was -describing him as a sweep and a shoeblack, William Massarene, -with a marquis, a bishop, and a lord-lieutenant -awaiting him, was driving to address a political meeting -in the chief town of South Woldshire.</p> - -<p>When he got up on his dog-cart, correctly attired in the -garb and the gaiters of a squire of high degree, and drove -over to quarter sessions, he felt as if he had been a justice -of the peace and the master of Vale Royal all his life. -He really handled horses very well; his driving was somewhat -too flashy and reckless for English taste, but the -animal had never been foaled which he would not have -been able to break in; he who had ridden bronchos barebacked, -and raced blue grass trotters, and this power -stood him in good stead in such a horsy county as Woldshire.</p> - -<p>The snow was gone and the weather was open. There -was the prospect of political changes in the air, and, in the -event of a general election, his chiefs of party desired -that he should represent his county instead of continuing -member for that unsound and uncertain metropolitan -division, which he did actually represent. To feel the -way and introduce him politically in the borough before -there should be any question of his being put up for it, -those who were interested in the matter had got up a -gathering of county notabilities on a foreign question of -the moment, which was supposed, as all foreign questions -always are, to involve the entire existence of England.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> -He had been told what to say on these questions, and -although it seemed to him “awful rot,” like everything -inculcated by his leaders, he said it obediently, and refreshed -himself afterwards by some personal statements. -Amongst men, on public matters he always showed to advantage. -He was common, ignorant, absurd, very often; -but he was a man, a man who could hold his own and had -a head on his shoulders. That mastery of fate which had -made him what he was gave meaning to his dull features, -and light to his dull eyes. No one, as modern existence -is constituted, could separate him altogether from the -weight of his ruthless will, and the greatness of his accomplished -purpose; he stood on a solid basis of acquired -gold. Before a fine lady he shook in his shoes, and before -a prince he trembled; but at a mass-meeting he was still -the terrible, the formidable, the indomitable, “bull-dozing -boss” of Kerosene City. His stout hands gripped the -rail in front of him, while their veins stood out like -cords, and his rough rasping voice made its way through -the wintry air of England, as it had done through a blizzard -on the plains of the West.</p> - -<p>“I’ve been a workingman myself, gentlemen,” he said, -amidst vociferous cheers, “and if I’m a rich man to-day -it’s been by my own hand and my own head as I’ve become -so. I’ve come home to die” (a voice in the crowd: -“You’ll live a hundred years!”), “but before I die I -want to do what good I can to my country and my fellow-countrymen.” -(Vociferous cheers.) “Blood’s thicker -than water, gentlemen——”</p> - -<p>The applause here was so deafening that he was forced -to pause; this phrase never fails to raise a tempest of admiration, -probably because no one can ever possibly say -what it is intended to mean.</p> - -<p>“I know the institutions of my country, gentlemen,” he -continued, “and I am proud to take my humble share in -holding them steady through stormy weather. I have -lived for over thirty years, gentlemen, in a land where the -institutions are republican, and I wish to speak of that -great republic with the sincere respect I feel. But a republican -form of government would be wholly unfitted -for Great Britain.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>“Why so?” asked a voice in the crowd.</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene did not feel called on to answer so indiscreet -a question; he continued as though no one had -spoken.</p> - -<p>“The foundations of her greatness lie embedded in the -past, and are inseparably allied with her institutions. The -courage, honor and patriotism of her nobility” (the marquis -with a gratified expression played with his watch-chain), -“the devotion, purity, and self-sacrifice of her -church” (the prelate patted the black silk band on his -stomach and purred gently like a cat), “the examples of -high virtue and wisdom which have adorned her throne” -(the lord-lieutenant looked ecstatic and adoring, as a pilgrim -of Lourdes before the shrine)—“all these, gentlemen, -have made her what she is, the idol of her sons, the terror -of her foes, the bulwark at once of religious faith and of -religious freedom. The great glory of our country, sirs, -is that poor and rich are equal before the law” (“Yah!” -from a rude man below), “and that the roughest, most -friendless lad may by probity and industry reach her highest -honors. I myself left Queenstown, gentlemen, a young -fellow with three pounds in my pocket and a change of -clothes in a bundle, and that I have the honor of addressing -you here to-day is due to the fact that I toiled honestly -from morning till night for more than thirty years -in exile. It was the hope of coming back, sirs, and settling -on my native soil, which kept the heart up in me -through hunger and thirst, and heat and cold, and such -toil as here you know nothing about. I was a poor working -lad, gentlemen, with three pounds in my pocket, and -yet here I stand to-day the equal of prince and peer” -(the marquis frowned, the bishop fidgetted, the lord-lieutenant -coughed, but Mr. Massarene was <i>emballé</i>, and -heeded not these hints of disapprobation). “What do -you want with republican institutions, my friends, when -under a monarchy the doors of wealth and honor open -wide to the laboring man who has had sense and self-denial -enough to work his way upward?” (“They open -to a golden key, damn your jaw!” cried a vulgar being in -the mob below.) “who by honesty and economy, and incessant -toil, has come to put his legs under the same mahogany<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> -with the highest of the land. You talk of golden -keys, sir—the only key to success is the key of character. -Before I give my hand, sir, whether to prince or pauper, -I ask—what is his character?”</p> - -<p>“Dear me, dear me, this is very irrelevant,” murmured -the lord-lieutenant, much distressed.</p> - -<p>“Damned inconvenient,” murmured the marquis with a -chuckle. The bishop folded his hands and looked rapt -and pious. But the mayor of the borough, with desperation, -plucked at the orator’s coat-tails.</p> - -<p>“Order, order,” he murmured with a clever adaptation -of parliamentary procedure; and Mr. Massarene, whose -ear was quick, and who was proud of his knowledge of -the by-words of the benches, understood that he was irrelevant -and on ticklish grounds, and brought forward a -racy American anecdote with ready presence of mind and -extreme success; whilst the crowd below roared with loud -and delighted laughter. The gentlemen at his elbow -breathed again. There had been, in a ducal house of the -countryside, a very grave scandal a few months earlier; a -scandal which had become town-talk, and even been -dragged into the law courts. It would never do to have -the yokels told their “character” was a patrician or -political <i>sine qua non</i>.</p> - -<p>On the whole the speech was a very popular one; the -new owner of Vale Royal was welcomed. Too egotistic -in places, and too unpolished in others, it was vigorous, -strong, and appealed forcibly to the mob by its picture of -a herdsman with three pounds in his pocket become a -capitalist and a patron of princes.</p> - -<p>To his own immediate and aristocratic supporters its -effect was less inspiriting. He gave them distinctly to -understand the <i>quid pro quo</i> which he gave and expected.</p> - -<p>“If he don’t get what he wants from our side he’ll rat -as sure as he lives,” thought the lord-lieutenant; and the -mayor thought to himself that it would really have been -better to have left the metropolitan division its member -ungrudged.</p> - -<p>“What a fearful person,” said the lord-lieutenant, a -tall slender man with fair hair turning grey, and a patrician -face, blank and dreary in expression, though many<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> -years of conflict between a great name and a narrow income.</p> - -<p>“His speech was quite Radical. I really did not know -how to sit still and hear it,” whispered the bishop in a -tone of awe and horror.</p> - -<p>The marquis lighted a cigar. “Never mind that. It -took with the yokels. He’ll vote straight for us. He -wants a peerage.”</p> - -<p>“Gladstone would give him a peerage.”</p> - -<p>“Of course. But Gladstone’s peerages are like Gladstone -claret—unpleasantly cheap. Besides, our man -loves smart folks—the liberals are dowdy; our man loves -‘proputty,’ like the northern farmer, and the liberals are -always nibbling into it like mice into cheese. Besides, -Mouse Kenilworth’s godmother to this beast; she has put -him in the way he should go.”</p> - -<p>“I wish she would write his speeches for him,” said the -bishop.</p> - -<p>“Took with the yokels, took with the yokels,” repeated -the marquis. “Ain’t that what speeches are made for? -People who can read don’t want to be bawled at. Man -will do very well, and we shall have him in the Lords; -he’ll call himself Lord Vale Royal, I suppose—ha! ha!—poor -Roxhall!”</p> - -<p>The lord-lieutenant, who could not accept the social -earthquake with the serenity of his friend, shivered, and -went to his carriage.</p> - -<p>“I shall go and ask our candidate for some money,” -murmured the bishop, whose carriage was not quite -ready.</p> - -<p>The marquis grinned. “Nothing like a cleric for -thinking of the main chance!” he said to himself.</p> - -<p>The bishop hesitated a few moments, looked up at the -steps of the hotel, and hastened across the market-place -as rapidly as his portly paunch and tight ecclesiastical -shoes permitted. Mr. Massarene was standing on the top -of the step with three of his supporters. The churchman -took from his pocket a roll of thick vellum-like paper, -evidently a memorial or a subscription-list.</p> - -<p>“For the rood-screen,” he murmured. “A transcendent -work of art. And the restoration of the chauntry. Dear<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span> -Mr. Massarene, with your admirable principles, I am sure -we may count on your support?”</p> - -<p>William Massarene, with his gold pencil case between -his thick finger and thumb, added his name to the list on -the vellum-like scroll.</p> - -<p>The lord-lieutenant was on that list for twenty guineas; -Lord Roxhall for ten guineas. William Massarene wrote -himself down for two hundred guineas.</p> - -<p>“Back the Church for never forgetting to do business,” -said the marquis with a chuckle to himself; and he too -mounted the hotel steps as his ecclesiastical friend descended -them, after warmly and blandly pressing the -candidate’s hand and inviting him to dinner at the episcopal -palace.</p> - -<p>“Booking a front seat in heaven, Mr. Massarene?” he -cried out in his good-humored contemptuous voice. -“Well, come, do something for earth too. You haven’t -subscribed to the Thorpe Valley Hounds. Got to do it, -you know. Hope you’re sound about Pug.”</p> - -<p>The marquis had been master of the pack for a dozen -years.</p> - -<p>“I’m no sportsman,” said his victim, who had no notion -who or what Pug was. “But if it’s the custom in the -county——”</p> - -<p>“Of course it’s the custom of the county! Roxhall, -poor fellow, was a staunch friend to us. You mustn’t be -otherwise. We’ll draw Vale Royal coverts for cubs next -October. Mind you’re sound about Pug.”</p> - -<p>“May I ask what Lord Roxhall subscribed?”</p> - -<p>“Fifty guineas,” said the M. F. H. truthfully.</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene planted his legs a little further apart -and thrust out his stomach.</p> - -<p>“I’ll give four fifties to the dogs,” he said with grandeur.</p> - -<p>“The dogs!” ejaculated the marquis; but he restrained -his emotions and grasped his new subscriber’s hand -cordially.</p> - -<p>“The Kennels and the Cathedral got the same measure,” -he thought with amusement, as he nodded good-humoredly -to the crowd below and entered the hotel to get -a nip of something warm.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span>“Deuced clever of the Bishop; I shouldn’t have -thought of making the cad ‘part.’ What an eye the -saints always have on the money-bags,” he thought as he -drank some rum-punch.</p> - -<p>But, being a cheery person who took the world as he -found it, he said to his wife when he got home that day: -“Go and call at Vale Royal, Anne; the man’s a very good -fellow. No nonsense about his origin. Told us all he -began life with three pounds in his pocket. Don’t like -going to see ’em in Roxhall’s place? Oh, Lord, my dear, -that’s sentiment. If Roxhall hadn’t sold the place they -couldn’t have bought it, could they?”</p> - -<p>“But why should we know them?” said the lady, who -was unwilling to accord her countenance to new people.</p> - -<p>“Because he’s promised two hundred guineas to the -‘dogs,’” said the marquis with a chuckle, “and because -he’s a pillar of the Tory Democracy, my dear!”</p> - -<p>“Tory Democracy? A contradiction in terms!” said -the lady. “You might as well say Angelic Anarchy!”</p> - -<p>“We shall come to that, too,” said her spouse.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIV.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> snow was gone, but it was still cold and unpleasant -weather when the ruler of Mr. Massarene’s fate, accompanied -by a score or more intimate acquaintances who -had been persuaded to patronize “Billy,” arrived in the -dusk at Vale Royal with an enormous amount of luggage -and a regiment of body-servants and maids.</p> - -<p>“You needn’t have come to meet us. I know my way -about here better than you do,” was the ungracious salutation -with which the host, who had gone himself to the -station, was met by the object of his veneration. She -never flattered him now; she had got him well in hand; -it was no longer necessary to do violence to her nature; -when one likes the use of the spur one does not humor -one’s horse with sugar; she thought the spur and the -whip salutary for him, and employed them with scant -mercy.</p> - -<p>She mounted as lightly as a young cat to the box of the -four-in-hand break, took the reins, and drove her mesmerized, -trembling yet enchanted victim through the dusky -lanes and over the muddy roads which were familiar to her, -the lights of the lamps flashing, and the chatter and -laughter of the other occupants of the break bringing the -laboring people out of their cottages, as the lady whom -they knew so well flew by them in the twilight.</p> - -<p>“Seems kind o’ heartless like in Lady Kenny to go to -the great house now the poor lord’s in it no more; him -her own cousin and all,” said a young woman to her husband -who was only a hedger and ditcher, but a shrewd -observer in his way, and who replied, as he looked after -the four white-stockinged bays: “Lady Kenny aren’t one -to cry for spilt milk; she knows where her bread is buttered. -Lord, gal, ’twas she made Roxhall sell, and I’ll -take my oath as I stands here that most o’ the blunt went -in her pocket.”</p> - -<p>All the people for forty miles round were of the same -opinion, and owed her a grudge for it. Roxhall had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span> -a very popular landlord and employer; his tenantry and -laboring folks mourned for him, and despised the new man -who stood on his hearthstone. Quite indifferent, however, -to the <i>voces populi</i> she drove safely through the -familiar gates and up the mile-long avenue as night descended, -and went into the library, looking very handsome -with her blue eyes almost black, and her fair face bright -and rosy, from the chilly high winds of the bleak April -evening.</p> - -<p>She pulled off her sealskins and threw them to one of -her attendant gentlemen, and then walked forward to the -warmth of the great Elizabethan fireplace. “Well, my -dear woman, how do you like it?” she said good-humoredly -to Margaret Massarene, as she drew off her gloves -and took a cup of tea before the hearth where a stately -fire was burning for its beauty’s sake: the great room was -heated by hot water pipes. Margaret Massarene was in -that dual state of trepidation, anxiety, offence, and bewilderment -into which the notice of her monitress invariably -plunged her. She murmured some inarticulate words, -and glanced timidly at the bevy of strangers. But Mouse -did not take the trouble to introduce her friends to their -hostess; some of them were already acquainted with her, -but some were not: all with equal and unceremonious -readiness ignored her presence, and descended on the teacups -and muffins and caviare sandwiches with the -unanimity of a flock of rooks settling down on to a field -mined with wire worms.</p> - -<p>“Always had tea in here in Gerald’s time,” said one of -the men, staring about him to see if there was any alteration -made in the room.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think you know my daughter,” Mrs. Massarene -summed courage to murmur, with a nervous glance toward -Katherine, who stood at the other end of the wide -chimney-piece, a noble piece of fine oak carving with huge -silver dogs of the Stuart period, and the Roxhall arms in -bold bosses above it.</p> - -<p>Mouse, looking extremely like her brother, flashed her -sapphire eyes like a search light over the face and figure -of the person in whom she had by instinct divined an antagonist, -and desired to find a sister-in-law.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>“So glad,” she murmured vaguely, as she put down her -cup, and held out her hand with a composite grace all her -own, at once charmingly amiable and intolerably insolent.</p> - -<p>Katherine merely made her a low curtsey, and did not -put out her hand in return.</p> - -<p>“How’s Sherry and Bitters?” asked Lady Kenilworth, -marking but ignoring the rudeness. “Amusing creature, -isn’t he? Bored to death, I suppose, in India?”</p> - -<p>“It would be difficult, I think, for the most stupid person -to be bored in India,” replied Katherine briefly. -“Lord Framlingham is not stupid.”</p> - -<p>Lady Kenilworth stared. Then she laughed, as it was -so very comical to find Billy’s daughter such a person as -this.</p> - -<p>“I saw from that bust of Dalou’s that she wouldn’t be -<i>facile</i>,” she reflected. “Looks as if she thought pumpkins -of herself; if she’s cheeky to me it will be the worse -for her.”</p> - -<p>Katherine was very cold, very pale, very still; the men -did not get on with her, and soon abandoned the attempt -to do so. The ladies, after staring hard, scarcely noticed -her or her mother, but chattered amongst themselves like -sparrows on a house roof after rain. With swelling heart -she felt their gaze fixed on her; two of them put up their -eyeglasses. She wore a plain silver-colored woolen gown, -but their experienced eye recognized the cut of a famous -<i>faiseur</i>, and the natural lines of her form were unusually -perfect.</p> - -<p>“<i>Très bien mise; très simple, mais très bien</i>,” said a -Parisienne, Duchesse de Saint-Avit, quite audibly, gazing -at her as if she were some curious piece of carving like -the fireplace.</p> - -<p>“<i>Elle n’est pas mal du tout</i>,” returned a foreign diplomatist -quite audibly also, as though he were in the stalls -of a theatre.</p> - -<p>“Sullen, is she?” thought Mouse, toasting one of her -pretty feet on the fender. “Gives herself airs, does she? -That’s old Fram’s doing, I expect.”</p> - -<p>Ignoring her as an unknown quantity, to be seen to at -leisure and annihilated if needful, she turned to her host, -who was standing awkwardly behind the brilliant throng.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> -“Got my telegram about the Bird rooms?” she said -sharply. She would have spoken more civilly to an hotel-keeper.</p> - -<p>The Bird rooms were a set of three rooms, bed, dressing, -and sitting-room; their walls painted with birds and -flowers on a pale-blue ground, their silk hangings and furniture -of corresponding color and design; and many birds -in Chelsea and Battersea, majolica, terra de pipa, and -other china and pottery, on the tables and cabinets. She -did not care a straw about the birds; but they were the -warmest, cosiest rooms in the house facing full south, and -were detached from observation in a manner which was -agreeable and convenient; and she had sent a brief dispatch -that morning to command their reservation for herself. -Country houses are always selected with regard to -their conveniences for innocent and unobserved intercourse.</p> - -<p>The Bird rooms were duly assigned to her, and Mr. -Massarene himself had walked through them that morning -to make sure that they were thoroughly warmed, that -the writing-table was properly furnished, and that the -rarest flowers had been gathered for the vases on the -table; he with eagerness assured her that her word had -been law.</p> - -<p>“I hope you haven’t altered anything <i>there</i>?” she said, -taking up her gloves. “It’s very absurd, you know, to -put Turkish screens and lamps in an old Tudor room like -this. They’ve smartened the place up,” she said to her -friends, looking about her. “That open work cedar -wood screen wasn’t across that door in Gerald’s time, nor -those great bronze lamps hanging over there. Where’d -you get them, Billy? They look like Santa Sophia.”</p> - -<p>But she did not listen to Billy’s reply. She was looking -at the mulberry-colored velvet curtains which replaced -in the windows the somewhat shabby and frayed hangings -of her cousin’s reign.</p> - -<p>“I wish I had come here last year,” she said to her discomfited -host. “You should have touched nothing. A -place like this doesn’t want Bond Street emptied into it. -I don’t know what Gerald would say. He’d be dreadfully -angry.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>Mr. Massarene thought that Lord Roxhall had parted -with his right to be angry; but he dared not say so. He -murmured that he was sorry; whatever there might be -that was not suitable should be removed.</p> - -<p>“Can’t you see how wrong it all is?” asked his tyrant -impatiently.</p> - -<p>He regretfully confessed his utter inability to see it; -was grieved they were incorrect; they should be moved -to-morrow.</p> - -<p>“Lady Kenilworth is a purist,” said his daughter in -clear cold tones. “New people who come into old houses -are of necessity eclectic.”</p> - -<p>Her father frowned. He did not know what eclectic -meant, but he supposed it meant something vulgar. His -guest stared: if Billy’s daughter were cheeky like this it -would be necessary, she thought, to take her down a peg -or two. But she was forced to confess to herself that the -daughter of the house did not look like a person whom it -would be easy to take down, either one peg or many.</p> - -<p>“Would you like to go to your rooms, ma’am?” murmured -her hostess, when the tea had been drunk and the -chatter had ceased for a minute and the sound of the first -dinner-gong boomed through the house.</p> - -<p>“My dear woman,” replied Mouse, “I know the place -better than you do! But, really, if I shall find Pekin -mandarins on oak banisters, and Minton plaques on Tudor -panels, I shall not have strength to go up the staircase!”</p> - -<p>“What <i>do</i> she mean?” murmured Margaret Massarene.</p> - -<p>“She means to be insolent,” replied her daughter, and -the reply was not in a very low tone. But Lady Kenilworth -was or pretended to be out of hearing, going out of -the library with two of her special friends and calling on -others to come with her and see what the vandals had -done: the gong was booming loudly.</p> - -<p>William Massarene was inexpressibly mortified; the -more keenly so because if he had listened to Prince Khris -two years before he would not have had Bond Street and -the Rue de Rivoli emptied into a beautiful, hoary, sombre, -old Tudor house.</p> - -<p>Mouse felt no qualms whatever at seeing the new people -in the old house. She had been unable to understand<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span> -why Roxhall would not himself come with her. But some -people were so whimsical and faddish and sentimental. -They spoiled their own lives and bothered those of others. -She thought it was good fun to see William Massarene in -the old Tudor dining-hall and his wife in the beautiful -oval Italian drawing-room. Roxhall would not have seen -the fun of it, but men are so slow to catch a joke.</p> - -<p>“They are so deliciously ridiculous and incongruous!” -she said to one of her companions.</p> - -<p>She had brought a “rattling good lot” with her; smart -women and cheery men who could ride to hounds all day -and play bac’ all night, or run twenty miles to see an otter-worry -and be as “fresh as paint” next morning; people -with blue blood in their veins, and good old names, and -much personal beauty and strength, and much natural -health and intelligence; but who by choice led a kind of -life beside which that of an ape is intellectual and that of -an amœba is useful; people who were very good-natured -and horribly cruel, who could no more live without excitement -than without cigarettes, who were never still unless -their doctor gave them morphia, who went to Iceland for -a fortnight and to Africa for a month; who never dined -in their own homes except when they gave a dinner-party, -who could not endure solitude for ten minutes, who went -anywhere to be amused, who read nothing except telegrams, -and who had only two cares in life—money and -their livers.</p> - -<p>They came down to Vale Royal to be amused, to eat -well, to chatter amongst themselves as if they were on a -desert island, to carry on their flirtations, their meetings, -their intrigues, and to arrange the pastimes of their days -and nights precisely as they pleased without the slightest -reference to those who entertained them.</p> - -<p>“What would you like to do to-morrow?” their host -had ventured to say to one of them, and the guest had replied, -“Oh, pray don’t bother; we’re going somewhere, -but I forget where.”</p> - -<p>They had brought a roulette-wheel with them, and cards -and counters; for their leader knew by experience that -the evenings without such resources were apt to be dull -at Vale Royal. William Massarene, indeed, had provided<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> -forms of entertainment such as were unattainable by the -limited means of the Roxhall family. He had caused admirable -musicians, good singers, even a choice little troupe -of foreign comedians, to be brought down for this famous -week in which the azure eyes of his divinity smiled upon -him under his own roof-tree. But there was one diversion -which she considered superior in its attractions to anything -which tenors and sopranos, viols and violins, or even -Palais Royal players, could give her, and that diversion -she took without asking the permission of anybody. -There was a with-drawing-room at Vale Royal which was -always known as the Italian Room because some Venetian -artist, of no great fame but of much graceful talent, had -painted ceiling and walls, as was proven by old entries in -account books of the years 1640-50, contained in the -muniment-room of the Roxhalls. On the third night after -their arrival, when they were all in this Italian room, after -a short performance by the Parisian comedians, a long -table of ebony and ivory was unceremoniously cleared of -the various objects of art which had been placed on it, and -the roulette-wheel was enthroned there instead by the -hands of Lady Kenilworth herself, and the little ball was -set off on its momentous gyrations.</p> - -<p>She was looking more than ever like a lovely flower, -with a turquoise collar round her throat, and real forget-me-nots -fastened by diamonds in her hair. For some -minutes William Massarene, who had slept through the -French comedy, and was still drowsy, did not become -sensible of what was taking place in his drawing-room. -But when the shouts and laughter of the merry gamblers -reached his ear and he realized with difficulty what was -taking place, a heavy frown, such as Kerosene City had -learned to dread, stole on his brows, and a startled horror -opened wide his eyes.</p> - -<p>Play! Play under his roof!</p> - -<p>All his Protestant and Puritan soul awoke. A large -portion of his earliest gains had been made by the miners -and navvies and cowboys who had gathered to stake their -dollars in the back den of his shop in Kerosene City; and -later on he had made millions by his ownership of private -hells in larger towns of the United States; and the very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> -thought of gambling was odious to him because he felt -that these were portions of his past on which no light -must ever shine. He felt that he owed it to the conscience -which he had acquired with his London clothes -and his English horses to prohibit all kinds of play, however -innocent, in his own drawing-rooms. He crossed the -room and, nervously approaching the leader of the band, -ventured to murmur close to her ivory shoulder: “You -never said you meant to play, Lady Kenilworth. I can’t -have any play—I can’t indeed—in my house.”</p> - -<p>His tone was timid and imploring. He was frightened -at his own temerity, and grew grey with terror as he -spoke. She turned her head and transfixed him with the -imperious challenge of her glance.</p> - -<p>“What are you talking about, my good man?” she said -in her clearest and unkindest tone. “It is not your house -when I’m in it.”</p> - -<p>“But I can’t allow play,” he murmured, with a gasp. -“It’s against my principles.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t talk rot, Billy!” she cried with impatience. -“Who cares about your principles? Keep them for the -hustings.”</p> - -<p>Then she turned the ivory shoulder on him again, and, -amidst the vociferous laughter of the circle of players, -William Massarene, feeling that he had made a fool of -himself, hastily and humbly retreated.</p> - -<p>The merriment pealed in louder ecstasy up to the beautiful -painted ceiling, as she cried after the retreating -figure: “You go to bed, Billy—go to bed! Or we -sha’n’t let you dine with us to-morrow night!”</p> - -<p>“You’re rather rough on the poor beast, Lady Kenny,” -said one of the players who was next her.</p> - -<p>“Billy’s like a Cairo donkey—he must feel the goad -and be gagged,” replied Mouse, sweeping her counters -together with a rapacious grace like a hawk’s circling -flight.</p> - -<p>Then the little ball ran about in its momentous gyrations, -and the counters changed hands, and the game went -on all the giddier, all the merrier, because “Billy thought -it improper.”</p> - -<p>Katherine rose from her seat by the pianoforte and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span> -came to her father’s side. Indignation shone in her lustrous -eyes, while a flash of pain, of shame, and of anger -burned on her cheeks.</p> - -<p>“Father, oh, father!” she said in a low, intense murmur, -“send them away! They insult you every hour, -every moment! Why do you endure it? Turn them all -out to-morrow morning!”</p> - -<p>“Mind your own business! Do I want any lessons -from you, damn you?” said Massarene, in a sullen -whisper, more infuriated by her perspicuity than by the -facts on which her appeal to him was based.</p> - -<p>His daughter shrank a little, like a high-spirited animal -unjustly beaten—not from fear, but from wounded pride -and mute disgust. She went back to the pianoforte and -opened the book of “Lohengrin.”</p> - -<p>He threw himself heavily into an armchair, and took up -an album of Caran d’Ache drawings and bent over it, not -seeing a line of the sketches, and not being able to read -a line of the jests appended to them. All he saw was -that lovely figure down there at the roulette-table, -with the forget-me-nots in her glittering hair and at -her snowy bosom, and the turquoise collar round her -throat.</p> - -<p>“Billy!”</p> - -<p>No one had ever called him Billy since the time when -he had been a cow-boy, getting up in the dark in bitter -winter mornings to pitchfork the dung out of the stalls, -and chop the great swedes and mangolds, and break the -ice in the drinking-trough. Never in all her life had his -wife ever dared to call him Billy. He knew the name -made him ridiculous; he knew that he was the object of -all that ringing laughter; he knew that he was made -absurd, contemptible, odious; but he would not allow his -daughter, nor would he allow any other person, to say so. -He was hypnotized by that fair patrician who threw the -mud in his face; the mud smelt as sweet to him as -roses. It was only her pretty, airy, nonchalant way—the -way she had de <i>par la grâce de Dieu</i> which became her so -well, which was part and parcel of her, which was a -mark of grace, like her delicate nostrils and her arched instep.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>When she had tired of her roulette, it irritated her extremely -to see the large gorgeous form of Mrs. Massarene -dozing on a couch and waking up with difficulty from -dreams, no doubt, of cowslip meadows and patient cows -whisking their tails over the dew; and the erect figure of -her daughter sitting beside the grand piano and turning -over the leaves of musical scores.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you send your women to bed, Billy?” she -said to him very crossly. “It fidgets one to see them -eternally sitting there like the Horse Guards in their -saddles at Whitehall. Politeness? Oh, is it meant for -politeness? Well, I will give them a dispensation, then. -Do tell them to go to bed; I am sure good creatures -like those have lots of prayers to say before they go to -by-bye!”</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you and your mother go to your rooms? -We are all of us very late people,” she said, directly, as -she passed Katherine Massarene.</p> - -<p>“You are my parents’ guest, Lady Kenilworth; I endeavor -not to forget it,” was the reply.</p> - -<p>“What does she mean by that?” her guest wondered; -she thought she meant some covert rebuke. She did not -at all like the steady contemptuous gaze of this young -woman’s tranquil eyes.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear, how dreadfully old-fashioned and formal -you are!” she cried, with an impatient little laugh; and -the daughter of the house thought her familiarity more -odious than her rudeness. She perceived the impression -she made on the young woman whom she meant to marry -Ronald.</p> - -<p>“You see, I feel quite at home here,” she added by way -of explanation. “Of course, you know it was my cousin’s -house.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder you like to come to it,” said Katherine as -she paused. “It must be painful to see it in the hands of -strangers, and those strangers common people.”</p> - -<p>“How droll you are!” cried Mouse, with another little -laugh. “I am sure we shall be great friends when we -come to know each other well.”</p> - -<p>Katherine was silent; and Mouse, slightly disconcerted, -bade her a brief good-night, and took her own way to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> -Bird rooms. For once in her life she had met a person -whom she did not understand.</p> - -<p>“Ronald shall marry her, but I shall always hate her,” -she thought, as she went to the Bird rooms. “However, -everybody always hates their sisters-in-law, whoever they -may be.”</p> - -<p>The young woman seemed intolerably insolent to her: -so cold, so grave, so visibly disapproving herself; it was -quite insupportable to have Billy’s daughter giving herself -grand airs like a tragedian at the Français. But for her -intention to make Ronald marry the Massarene fortune she -would have expressed her surprise and offence in unequivocal -terms.</p> - -<p>“Really, these new people are too absurd,” she thought, -as her maid disrobed her whilst the chimes of the clock -tower rung in the fourth hour of the morning. “Too infinitely -absurd. They must know that we don’t come to -their houses to see them; and yet they will stay in their -drawing-rooms like so many figures of Tussaud. It is -really too obtuse and ridiculous.”</p> - -<p>She was, however, too sleepy to reflect longer on their -stolid obstinacy, or to decide how she should on the morrow -best teach them their place.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XV.</h2> -</div> - -<p>“<i><span class="smcap">Elle</span> a du chic; elle a positivement du chic</i>,” said the -Duchesse d’Avit to her friends, in her great astonishment -at the appearance and manner of the daughter of the -house.</p> - -<p>“It’s easy to look <i>chic</i> when one’s got as good a -figure as she has,” said one of the other ladies, rather -crossly. “She does <i>look</i> like a well-bred person, I admit, -but I dare say the cloven foot will show in some way or -another.”</p> - -<p>They all watched for it with curiosity, so far at least as -they troubled themselves to notice her at all. But they -failed to perceive it. They found that she rode extremely -well, and played wonderfully well too, but no one got on -with her. She was extraordinarily silent, and they could -not divine that she held her tongue so obstinately because -she feared every moment that some stinging word would -escape her.</p> - -<p>The week seemed to her a year. She could not see the -comedy of the thing as Framlingham had advised her to -do. She could only resent helplessly, censure mutely, -despise unavailingly, and suffer secretly. She might have -been some doomed queen, passing from the prison to the -scaffold; and all the incessant chatter and laughter around -her awoke no echo in her; it always sounded to her -derisive, a mockery of the absurdity of William Massarene -masquerading as a country gentleman. She had read a -good deal of philosophy, but she could not practice any. -The only tolerable moments of the day or night to her -were when she was alone in her own rooms with a stray -rough large dog of nondescript breed she had found and -adopted.</p> - -<p>“If you must have a filthy beast of that kind, why -don’t you buy a decent bred one?” said her father. -“They price ’em as high as a thousand guineas at the -shows.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>“A dog who will sell for a thousand guineas,” she replied, -“will never want friends as long as the world is of -its present complexion.”</p> - -<p>William Massarene swore an ugly oath.</p> - -<p>“Why will you rile your father in that way?” said -Margaret Massarene, as he left the room. “You know -gold’s his god. And let me tell you, my dear, that if ye’d -ever known what ’tis to want it, ye’d tell a different tale. -You’ve never had to want nor to wait for naught, for when -ye was little I never stinted ye. Your brothers had died -of the hard life, and you’d come late when I could do more -for ye. Your father’s a great man, my dear, and you should -respect him, if there be failings as ye would change in him.”</p> - -<p>“No doubt you are right, mother,” said her daughter -humbly.</p> - -<p>Perhaps, she thought, she was too unmindful of all that -they had done for her. But, oh, if they had only left her -to teach their letters to little rough children in the back -woods, or play the harmonium in some little iron church -buried in the pine gloom of some clearing!</p> - -<p>“You must stay in my rooms,” she said to the dog, -“and only go out with me and never chase the deer, nor -go into the covers, for you are in a civilized country which -prides itself on its progress and piety, and whose men of -light and leading slaughter harmless creatures for pleasure -every season of the year. You are a mongrel, they say, -poor boy? Well, I believe you are. But ‘hath not a Jew -eyes?’ Has not a mongrel nerves to wince, and a heart -to ache, and a body to feel cold and pain and hunger, and -a fond soul to love somebody, if there be only somebody -to love him?”</p> - -<p>And the dog looked at her with his pathetic golden-brown -eyes and understood, and was comforted.</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene, in her ignorance of the manifold -wheels within wheels of a temperament and character like -that of her father’s most honored guest, thought that at -least Lady Kenilworth showed some decent feeling in not -being accompanied by Lord Brancepeth.</p> - -<p>In point of fact she had not brought Harry because she -retained a vivid recollection of his expressed desire to be -allowed to ally himself with the heiress of Vale Royal.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> -Besides, Harry, like greater men, had substitutes, and one -of them had come down with her; a very agreeable and -accomplished foreign diplomatist whose wife was remaining -at Sandringham, a gentleman who would have been -able to add many chapters to the <i>Psychologie de l’Amour</i>, -who considered that brevity was the soul of love as of -wit; and who had a good-humored contempt for Harry, -such as very clever persons who are also amiable feel for -other persons not very clever whom they are outwitting -with discretion and amusement.</p> - -<p>“<i>Pauvre garçon! il prend la chose en bon père de famille</i>,” -he said once, looking at Harry carrying little Gerry on his -shoulders, with Jack clinging to his coat-pockets, in the -park at Staghurst.</p> - -<p>The gentleman preferred episodes which could be enjoyed -like cigarettes, but, in this to cigarettes superior, leave no -ash nor even a bit of burnt paper behind them. This distinguished -representative of a Great Power was met by -Mr. Massarene early one morning, when he went to see -if the heating-apparatus in the corridor was duly at the -proper degree of caloric in the long tapestry-hung gallery -which led to the Bird rooms, and led nowhere else. He -was so unpleasantly astonished at the meeting that he -stared open-mouthed at the elegant form of this gentleman, -who, after a rapid glance round, which told him that -to conceal himself was impossible, sauntered on calmly till -he was close to his host, who kept the knob of an open -valve in his hand.</p> - -<p>“I hear you have some wonderful Battersea and Chelsea -in there, Monsieur,” he said with his soft meridional accent. -“Miladi Kenilworth kindly offered to show it to -me, but her maid says she is gone in the garden.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene, to whom the words were somewhat unintelligible -from their foreign pronunciation, only heard -distinctly Battersea and Chelsea, names to him only suggestive -of Primrose Habitations and political gatherings. -He repeated the words mechanically and apologetically.</p> - -<p>“Faïence,” said the diplomatist in explanation; “china -birds, very rare, very old, very curious.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene’s countenance cleared a little. “Oh, yes -I believe there is some old china in that apartment. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span> -could take your Excellency in to see it if Lady Kenilworth -has gone out; did her maid say that she had?”</p> - -<p>Though the ambassador’s countenance was trained to -express nothing it did express for an instant a lively alarm.</p> - -<p>“Oh, some other time, on some other occasion,” he said -hurriedly. “It would not do at all to go into a lady’s -chambers in her absence.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene felt that he had committed a solecism in -proposing such a thing. Yet to his homely mind it seemed -a still greater offence to go into her chamber when she was -present.</p> - -<p>He was perplexed, and uncertain of his ground, and intimidated -by the rank and aspect of this notable foreigner; -but he looked with an odd expression in his eyes at the -dressing-gown of old-gold silk lined with pale rose plush -in which the slender person of the visitor to the china birds -was arrayed. It might be the custom for dilettanti to pay -early morning visits in this kind of attire to see works of -art, but he did not think that it was so. He was oppressed, -amazed, annoyed, what his guest in the dressing-gown -would have called <i>ombrageux</i>, and two conflicting feelings -were at work within him: one a sombre jealousy and the -other that offended sense of outraged propriety natural to -the class to which he belonged.</p> - -<p>But he was not sure of his ground, he scarcely dared to -realize what he suspected, and he was afraid of this grand -gentleman, who, on arrival, had offered him the tips of two -fingers and had said that the day was cold, and had from -that moment completely forgotten his existence, so that -the urbanity and familiarity of this address in the corridor -roused suspicion as well as embarrassment in his breast. -To think that his house should be used to shelter improper -dalliance awakened all the Puritan element in his Protestant -breast, whilst as well as his outraged morality there -arose in him a different, a more personal, feeling of wrath, -vexation, and impatient envy; ridiculous, he knew, but -unconquerable. But the diplomatist did not wait for him -to disentangle his sentiments, nor did he offer any reason -for the untimely hour of his own artistic ardor of investigation.</p> - -<p>“<i>Au revoir, mon bon</i>,” he said carelessly, and sauntered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> -on till he reached the door at the other end of the gallery -and vanished.</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene shut the valve of the heating-apparatus, -and sighed; it was probably the first time in his unsentimental -existence that he had ever sighed. How many -things he had still to learn!</p> - -<p>“Don’t you keep a plumber, Billy?” said Mouse very -sharply, later in the day; “don’t you keep a plumber? -What do you potter about the pipes yourself for? You -woke me this morning opening and shutting those valves -in the gallery.”</p> - -<p>He muttered his regrets. He was about to say that a -distinguished guest had told him that she was already out -in the gardens at the time of his inspection of the heating-apparatus; -but he perceived that he was on slippery -ground, and he held his tongue, observing meekly that he -was very afraid of fires, that servants were a bad lot, not -to be trusted, and that it was through their negligence -that overheated flues burned down half the country houses -in England. But he saw that she was deeply and inexplicably -displeased.</p> - -<p>As for the diplomatist, he was, of course, sufficiently -trained in diplomacy to give no signs of displeasure; but -in his secret soul he was extremely worried by his meeting -with his host in the corridor, for though Lady Kenilworth -was a lovely woman, and a very seductive one, yet -to be the temporary substitute of that excellent young -guardsman who carried her children pick-a-back had its -dangers for an eminent person whom a public scandal -would ruin. He wished her and the china birds and his -own dressing-gown at the devil. He had no fancy for a -cigarette which would burn the fingers which held it; -some unimportant telegrams were brought to him an hour -later, and he made believe that one of them was important -and took his departure before dinner for London.</p> - -<p>“Your Excellency will not see the china birds?” said -William Massarene quietly and drily, with a finesse which -astonished the hearer as he accompanied his departing -guest to the carriage. Their eyes met. They understood -each other.</p> - -<p>“It will be an excuse to return to your amiable hospitalities,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span> -said the eminent person with a charming smile -and an adorable salutation.</p> - -<p>“<i>L’ours saurait mordre</i>,” he thought, as he leaned back -in the bear’s warm little station-brougham.</p> - -<p>The departure annoyed Mouse unspeakably. He was -only an episode; but, as an episode should be, amusing -and interesting. He was a man of many brilliant <i>bonnes -fortunes</i>, and the stories he had told her of women she -hated were beyond measure diverting. She treated her -host more cruelly than ever; and had never felt so irritated -at the sight of his short squat figure, and his broad -rough hands, and his splay feet in his varnished shoes.</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene was much exercised in his mind as to -his idol. He could not get the diplomatist in the elegant -dressing-gown out of his mind; and he also heard on all -sides that the handsome fool, of whom he had purchased -Blair Airon, was undoubtedly considered as “best friend” -of the lady who had been the intermediary in that sale. -These, and various similar facts, left him no peace in his -private reflections, and tormented him the more because -he did not venture to unburden his wrath to the fair cause -of it. He had been a virtuous man all his life; he had -had no time to be otherwise; he had been so busy eighteen -hours out of the twenty-four making money that the -other six he had spent in eating like a hungry hound, and -sleeping like a tired dray-horse. Vice had always represented -itself to him as waste of precious time and waste -of precious dollars. His rare concessions to it had been -grudging and hurried, like his attendance at church.</p> - -<p>His discovery disturbed him exceedingly, not only because -he was a very moral man who considered that immorality -ought to be punished (he had once even made -one of a body of moral citizens who, in a township of the -West, had stripped and beaten a local Guinevere and -tarred and feathered her Lancelot), but he was also -visited by that bluest of blue devils who had never paid -him a visit in his life before—jealousy.</p> - -<p>She knew it very well, and it diverted her, though it -appeared to her as preposterous as if her pad-groom had -been jealous. But he, who did not exactly know what -ailed him, suffered alternately from the irritation and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> -depression common to all those in whose breasts the -green-eyed monster has found a throne.</p> - -<p>“Billy, come and talk to me,” said his enslaver the last -evening of her visit. Mr. Massarene obeyed, fascinated -out of any will of his own, and in love with his own degradation -as fakirs with their torture. She saw his -struggles and tortures, which seemed to her as preposterous -in him as they would have seemed in a stableman or -a street-sweeper. But though she had no patience with -them she turned them to account.</p> - -<p>She was sitting in a very low long chair in a nook of -one of the drawing-rooms amongst flowers; she wore a -black lace gown with immense transparent sleeves, and -some strings of pearls were wound round her throat; her -skin looked fairer than ever, her eyes bluer, her hair lovelier. -He took meekly the low seat she assigned to him, -though it had no rest for his back, and gazed at her, remembering -despite himself the Chelsea and Battersea -birds and the connoisseur who had wished to see, or had -seen, them. He was not deceived by her for a moment, -but he was hypnotized.</p> - -<p>“There is something I want you to do, Billy,” she -added very candidly—she was always candid in manner. -Mr. Massarene murmured that she had only to command -and he only to obey.</p> - -<p>“That is very nice of you, but there are other people -in it,” she replied. He waited mutely to hear more. She -sent some cigarette smoke across his eyes. “I mean you -to marry your daughter to my brother.”</p> - -<p>He was silent.</p> - -<p>The thought was not new to his own mind; he had felt -sure that she would desire it; but to himself it presented -no attractions; he did not understand the antiquity and -purity of the Courcy blood, and his own ambitions for his -heiress ranged in much loftier spheres.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t you answer?” said Mouse, beginning to -feel offence. “I should have thought you would have -been overjoyed.”</p> - -<p>“They don’t know each other,” he objected feebly.</p> - -<p>“What has that to do with it? When you and I settle -a thing that thing has to be done. Ronnie and your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> -daughter were made in heaven for each other; they are -both awfully stiff, intensely disagreeable, and preëminently -virtuous. There’d be no more cakes and ale in -our world if those two could reform it.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene was still mute; he did not at all know -what to say; at last he asked humbly if Lord Hurstmanceaux -had said anything on the subject.</p> - -<p>“I haven’t consulted him,” she replied, this time with -genuine candor. “I never consult people when I am -acting for their good, and my brother never talks unless -he lectures somebody. This thing has to be done, Billy. -You know when I say a thing I mean it.”</p> - -<p>“But you laugh at my daughter,” he said with hesitation.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I laugh at everybody,” said Mouse. “People are -made to be laughed at. There’s something ridiculous in -everyone if you only look for it. Your daughter seems -ridiculous to me because she gives herself goody-goody -airs, which nobody has nowadays; she looks as if she -were always doing penance for your ill-gotten riches.”</p> - -<p>This shaft hit the gold of fact so neatly in the eye that -William Massarene colored angrily under his dull skin. -But his rage was against his daughter rather than against -his tormentor. Why could not Katherine look and act -like other young women of her time?</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know,” said Mouse, answering his unspoken -reflections. “It must be very annoying to have a perpetual -monitress in one’s own daughter, and of course you -couldn’t make your millions with clean hands; nobody -can; but society gives you lots of soap and water after -you’ve made them, so what does it matter? Besides, a -daughter shouldn’t look as if she were always saying, -‘Out, damned spot,’ as Ellen Terry does. However, that -is just the kind of thing that will please Ronald. He -will think it such an admirable spirit in her to despise -your ill-gotten gold.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps he would not require a dowry of dirty -money with her, then?” said Mr. Massarene, allowing for -one instant the natural sarcastic shrewdness in him to -escape.</p> - -<p>Mouse was for the moment discomfited; she had never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> -seen this unpleasant side of him before. Then, with her -most insolent audacity, she blew some cigarette smoke -over to where he sat.</p> - -<p>“My dear Billy, perhaps Ronald would dispense with a -dowry if he liked her well enough; he is fool enough for -anything. But you wouldn’t save a penny by that—I -should take it all over as commission!”</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene was dumb from astonishment. He had -known many sharp dealers in the Far West, but nobody -who had ever for coolness equalled his fair friend and -patroness.</p> - -<p>He slapped his hand on his knee with vulgar effusion in -his mingled feelings of amazement and admiration.</p> - -<p>“Well, my lady, damn me if there’s many boys in -Bowery who could afford to give points to <i>you</i>!”</p> - -<p>She laughed. Of course it was only a joke; but the -joke made her feel for the moment a little insecure and -uncomfortable, as you might feel if you found a packet -of dynamite in your sandwich-case.</p> - -<p>“Of course the marriage would be a very good thing -for Ronald,” said his sorceress, with her frankest accents—her -frankness was one of her chief weapons—“but it -would be good for you too, Billy. It would place you. -There are people who jib at you still, you know; when -once you were one of us, they wouldn’t dare.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene was silent. He thought if there were -still people who jibbed at him, he had paid very dearly -for the patronage of this fair sponsor. He was beginning -to feel his feet a little on his new ground and to be a -little less easily led about; but at the same time he was -as much in love as a cold-blooded, circumspect, puritan-minded -man could be, and she dazzled his sight and his -senses and led him whither she would. He made a faint -endeavor to assert his independence.</p> - -<p>“Lord Hurstmanceaux has never even condescended -to know me. It seems odd he should be anxious to enter -my family.”</p> - -<p>“Enter your family!” echoed Mouse, with a laugh of -derision which brought the blood into his puffy pale -cheeks. “Oh, my good Billy, don’t try on those grandiose -phrases! I never said <i>he</i> wanted anything of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> -kind; I said <i>I</i> mean you to give him your daughter, and -you know when I mean a thing I have it done.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene was cowed; he felt an awkward, ignorant, -vulgar booby under the flashing fires of her contemptuous -eyes. There was nothing left in him of the -stolid self-assurance and self-admiration with which he -had spoken at the public meeting a few days earlier. -Before the mocking presence of his enchantress he felt -only a stupid, illiterate, helpless booby and boor. He -felt that men respected his riches; he felt that Mouse -Kenilworth only meant to annex them.</p> - -<p>“My daughter is not an easy person to control,” he said -with hesitation, “and I think she and you don’t hit it off, -my lady, do you?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said his guest shortly; “but that don’t matter. -There’s no law that I know of to love one’s brother’s wife. -Anyhow, that’s what I mean you to do with her. Of -course, my brother is a poor man, you know that; but -that is no consequence to you. What you want is an assured -position, and alliance with us will <i>poser</i> you. Ronnie’s -word has great weight in society.”</p> - -<p>“But Lord Hurstmanceaux have never given me even -good day, not even when he’s seen me in your own house, -my lady.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say ‘my lady.’ Can’t you break yourself of it? -Of course, he’ll have to speak to you if he marries your -daughter. I must get you all asked to some country house -where he goes; the thing will come of itself. I’ll think it -over and tell you where I send him.”</p> - -<p>She spoke as if she were telling her major-domo how -many people she expected to dinner.</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene naturally concluded that Hurstmanceaux -himself was in the plot. He did not dare to object -further, and temporized by dropping the subject.</p> - -<p>“But—but,” he said with a timid attempt to obtain a -<i>quid pro quo</i>, “would you do one little thing to oblige me; -would you—would you—not play, not gamble, any more -in my houses?”</p> - -<p>He was intensely frightened when he had said it, but he -felt that it might injure him with his coveted constituency<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span> -if it were known that there was roulette, real roulette, in -his drawing-rooms.</p> - -<p>Her eyes grew of a steely coldness, of an electric luminance, -and seemed to transfix him as with barbed arrows. -She threw away the end of her cigarette as she got out of -her chair with that graceful abruptness peculiar to her. -“I told you the other night, Billy, where <i>I</i> am the house -is mine. An Irishman said something like that I believe -about the head of the table. Ronnie don’t play. He’ll -do the policeman for you when he marries your daughter. -Meanwhile, just let me alone, my good man, or you’ll be -sorry.”</p> - -<p>Wherewith she carried her elegant person and her trailing -black laces to the other end of the room where Fabian -Delkass, the fashionable salon-singer, was tuning his great -Spanish guitar and softly warbling fragments of Lassen.</p> - -<p>Mouse knew nothing about music and cared as little, -but ditties softly warbled by a very good-looking tenor -have attractions outside the science of melody; she could -appreciate the talent of Delkass, because he never sung a -note under twenty guineas each warble. She had sent -him down to Vale Royal, she had arranged that he should -receive ten times as much there as his usual terms for such -country house engagements; in return Delkass, who was -<i>beau garçon</i> and very courteous to pretty women, would be -sure to sing something charming at her own afternoons in -London for nothing at all.</p> - -<p>She despised artists as a mere flock of sheep; silly edible -obscure creatures; but as she ate a mutton cutlet for -luncheon when it was very well cooked, so she nibbled at -an artist now and then, when he was very much the -fashion.</p> - -<p>If she were obliged to have recourse to these expedients -it was not her fault; it was the fault of her father-in-law, -who was so miserably stingy, and of her settlements which -were so miserable, and of society which compels anybody -who is in it to live in a certain way. Why did Providence -(a vague personage in whom she as vaguely believed) put -you where you were obliged every day to do quantities of -things which cost money unless that arbiter of fate supplied -you with the necessary means?</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XVI.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was an old friend of his mother to whom Hurstmanceaux -was much attached, a Mrs. Raby of Bedlowes, -with whom he invariably spent a few days at Whitsuntide. -Bedlowes was a romantic and historic old manor in Hampshire, -famous for its gigantic yew-trees, and a bowling-green -on which Charles the First had played. To this -elderly lady Mouse frankly unfolded her budget of matrimonial -projects; and Mrs. Raby, who shared the prejudices -of Hurstmanceaux against <i>novi homines</i>, but was -persuaded to conquer them for the general good, consented -to allow the Massarenes to be presented to her at a -Marlborough House party, and graciously invited them to -go to her for a couple of days in Whitsun week. When -the time came Mr. Massarene, who was told nothing, but -surmised that this was the place at which the meeting -with Hurstmanceaux was arranged, took his daughter -down to this historic and romantic old house; it had belonged -to John of Gaunt, and had sheltered in the centuries -of its existence many noble and unfortunate personages, -the traditions of whose sojourn did not agree -with the visit of “Blasted Blizzard” to its stately guest-chambers -and its tapestried halls.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Raby was a person genial, kind-hearted, and of -great simplicity of manner and taste, who pleased Katherine -and did not alarm her father; indeed he thought, -irreverentially, to himself, “Blast me if she don’t look like -an old New England Shaker sempstress,” for the <i>châtelaine</i> -of Bedlowes wore her own grey hair in the fashion of the -year ’40, had plain black gowns made by her women, and -a very simple and homely manner. There was a large -party assembled, of notable and interesting people, -amongst whom William Massarene was as a false note in -a Beethoven rendering. But society, even the best society, -has grown used to such false notes, and does not -mind them. There is the ring of gold in the discord.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>Daddy Gwyllian, who was there—as where was he not?—said -to his hostess, who was his cousin, as were ninety-nine -out of every hundred persons:</p> - -<p>“Why, bless us and save us, my dear Adela, have <i>you</i> -been brought to recognize the new man from North Dakota? -I thought you were the last Tory stronghold still -left standing in the country? Do you mean you have -capitulated to Harrenden House?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Raby’s sweet temper was a little ruffled.</p> - -<p>“The man is a sound Tory,” she said pettishly. “If -I have him here I have a very good reason for doing so.”</p> - -<p>Daddy drew back a step and stared at her in mock -amazement.</p> - -<p>“Everybody who has him anywhere has a very good -reason for doing so. But do you mean to say, Adela, that -<i>you</i> want to get on a Company, or sell a spavined racer, or -weed your gallery of dubious Holbeins or spurious Romneys -at a profit, or get useful hints as to Canadian or -Pacific booms?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Raby laughed.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t want to do any of those things. I want -Ronald to have a chance to admire his daughter.”</p> - -<p>Daddy laughed his inward chuckling laughter; and indulged -in a prolonged whistle.</p> - -<p>“Well, my dear Adela, you won’t want a commission -for bringing the match about as most of ’em would do. -But I think I know who’d get a pretty high one if it ever -come off. Lady Kenny set you on, of course?”</p> - -<p>His hostess, who did not like the phrase “set on” as -applied to herself, replied stiffly:</p> - -<p>“It would be a good thing in many ways. She is -charming. She could not look more thoroughbred if she -were an archduchess, and you know he is very poor -despite all his self-denial. I would not for worlds,” she -continued with warmth, “be privy to any marriage in -which either the man or the woman were sacrificed for -mere money. But if they should like each other there -could be no harm done but a great deal of good; and you -know that any woman who marries Ronnie will have a -heart of gold in her keeping.”</p> - -<p>Daddy nodded.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>“Ronnie’s all right. But he’s a horse you may lead to -the water; he aren’t a horse you can make drink. When -is he coming?”</p> - -<p>“To-night. You know he is the most punctual and -faithful of persons. He has spent the Whitsun week -with me ever since his first year at Eton.”</p> - -<p>Daddy chuckled. “Lord, it will be a rare sight when -he finds out what you’ve let him in for! His sister has -been hammering at him for two years to make him know -those people.”</p> - -<p>“‘It is well to begin with a little aversion,’” quoted -Mrs. Raby. “Don’t say anything to him, pray; you would -spoil it all.”</p> - -<p>“I never say anything indiscreet,” replied Daddy, with -truth. “But he’ll twig it for himself in a jiffy; Ronnie’s -real sharp.”</p> - -<p>“What odious vulgarisms!” said Mrs. Raby. “You -grow very vulgar, Daddy.”</p> - -<p>“Must keep pace with the times,” replied Daddy; -“secret of keeping young, as Bulwer says somewhere. -It’s kind of you to give me this little bit of comedy. -Why on earth do people go to nasty draughty theatres -and get cricks in their neck when they have society all -around ’em to make ’em laugh?”</p> - -<p>It was the tea-hour on the following day when Hurstmanceaux -arrived. Everyone was in the library, a long, -fine room worthy of the volumes it enshrined, of which -many were rare and all well-chosen. Daddy, comfortably -ensconced in a corner, with a cup in his hand and some -hot buttered scone at his elbow, waited for the coming -scene. The library was dimly lighted by the descending -sun, which itself was dim. He saw that Hurstmanceaux -did not on his entry perceive the Massarenes, and stood -by Mrs. Raby’s chair for some minutes talking with her -and greeting old friends; but he also saw, which surprised -him, that Katherine Massarene, who was at some -distance from that table and seated at another, changed -countenance visibly and rose as if to leave the room, then -sat down again with a pained and startled expression on -her face.</p> - -<p>“She aren’t in the game,” thought Daddy. “But why<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span> -the deuce does she look like that because he’s come into -the room?”</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene drew near his daughter and whispered -to her: “That man just come in is Hurstmanceaux; Mrs. -Raby’ll bring him up to us. Be civil.”</p> - -<p>Daddy was too far off to hear the words, but he guessed -what they were; he saw that Katherine looked distressed, -annoyed, perplexed, and began hurriedly to talk with the -people round her. “She knows what they’re after, and -she don’t like it,” thought Daddy. He could not tell that -in her ears and in her memory were resounding the scornful -sentences, the withering sarcasms, which had been -spoken to her in the walk over the frozen fields to Great -Thorpe.</p> - -<p>After a time, while Daddy watched them from his snug -corner, Mrs. Raby rose and put her hand on Hurstmanceaux’s -arm.</p> - -<p>“Let me present you to some friends of Clare’s whom -I think you don’t know as yet,” she murmured softly; -and ere he could be aware of what was being done with -him, he was led off to Katherine and her father.</p> - -<p>Daddy watched the arrival of the unsuspecting chief -actor with that lively interest which he always felt in his -own amusement. He had no kind of sympathy with -such prejudices as Ronald’s; he would himself have dined -with a sweep if the sweep could have given him something -unusually good to eat; but he liked prejudices in -others as an element of human comedy which frequently -produced the most diverting situations.</p> - -<p>“He’s the toughest fellow in creation,” he thought. -“They’ll no more change him than they’ll make an ironclad -into a lady’s slipper.”</p> - -<p>Ronald, although the most easy-going and unconventional -of men in intimacy, had the coldness and the stiffness -of the Englishman of rank when he was annoyed -or felt himself outwitted. He was perfectly correct in -his manner, but that manner was glacial as he realized -the trap which had been laid in his path; he looked -eight feet in height as he bent his head in recognition of -Katherine Massarene and her father.</p> - -<p>She was as cold as himself, and Mr. Massarene was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> -divided between a feeling of great embarrassment and a -desire to propitiate a person whom he saw was not easy -to win over by any means. In his difficulty he said the -worst thing he could have said:</p> - -<p>“I hope, Lord Hurstmanceaux,” he stammered, pronouncing -correctly the name as society pronounced it, -Hurceaux—“I venture to hope we shall be friends; your -sister, Lady Kenilworth, wishes it so much.”</p> - -<p>“My sister’s friends are seldom mine,” replied Ronald -with extreme incivility; then, fearing he might be thought -to imply—as he did—something to her prejudice, added -in icy accents, “I mean that her set is not mine.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed! Is that so, sir?” said Mr. Massarene, surprised; -for the mystery of “Sets” was still unmastered -by him, he only understood Classes. “The Prince is -coming to stay with me at Vale Royal,” he added; -“might I hope that you too——?”</p> - -<p>“I am not in the Prince’s set,” said Hurstmanceaux -curtly, and seeming to the eyes of Mr. Massarene to become -ten feet in height. The reply was altogether beyond -him.</p> - -<p>“Not in the Prince’s set,” he thought to himself; “what -on earth can the fellow mean?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t you go to Court, my lord?” he said aloud in -his bewilderment.</p> - -<p>Ronald’s severity relaxed despite himself; he laughed -outright. Katherine stood by, indignant, ashamed, frozen -by humiliation and anger into a statue. At last, in desperation, -she turned to her father:</p> - -<p>“Lord Hurstmanceaux would hardly care to come to us -at his cousin’s place. He must have shot there many -seasons. I think Mrs. Raby is looking for you. Someone -has arrived.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene hurried toward his hostess and her tea-table; -with a chilly inclination of the head his daughter -followed him, and left Hurstmanceaux to his own reflections.</p> - -<p>The foremost of these was, that it was a pity so thoroughbred-looking -a woman has such an unutterable brute -for a sire. The second was that he had been guilty himself -of discourtesy and incivility toward a lady to whom<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span> -he already owed some apology. But he was extremely -angry at the snare which had been spread for him in this -innocent old house of Bedlowes.</p> - -<p>He stayed three days in the same house with them, because -he had no decent pretext to hasten his departure, -but he avoided all chance of increased acquaintance as he -would have avoided the bubonic plague in his travels -through Thibet.</p> - -<p>“He’s only a second-class earl and gives himself such -airs as that!” said Mr. Massarene, in great displeasure, to -his daughter when he could speak to her unheard.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean by a second-class earl? It is an -expression unknown in ‘Burke,’” asked his daughter in -her coldest accents. Mr. Massarene explained that he -meant an earl who had very little money, whose chief estates -were in Ireland, and who was not a knight of any -Order or anything of that decorative kind.</p> - -<p>“And he said that he doesn’t even go to Court,” he -ended as a climax.</p> - -<p>“He said nothing of the kind,” replied Katherine. “He -said he was not in the Prince’s set, which means—well, -which means—never mind what it means. As for his -rank, it is a very old creation; at least, very old for -England; the Courcys of Faldon go back to the Conqueror.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene looked sharply at his daughter. “I -thought you didn’t like the man?”</p> - -<p>“I neither like nor dislike him. I do not know him.”</p> - -<p>Then as this seemed to her sensitive conscience something -approaching to an untruth, she added: “I met -Lord Hurstmanceaux as I came to Vale Royal in the train -that snowy day, but that can scarcely be called an acquaintance. -I think you had better not ask him there, if -you will allow me to say so, for he seemed much irritated -at his cousin’s sale of the place to you.”</p> - -<p>“The damned starched puppy! What is the sale to -him? Roxhall’s old enough to know his own business, -eh?” muttered Mr. Massarene, as he thought to himself -that the pet project of Lady Kenilworth would not be -easy of realization. It was certainly not farther advanced -by her careful arrangement of the visit to Bedlowes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>“Why did you set up your back like that, Ronnie?” -said Daddy to him in the evening. “Man is a beast, but -girl is good form.”</p> - -<p>“I have not a word to say against her,” replied Hurstmanceaux. -“But as it is impossible to know her without -knowing her father, I relinquish the pleasure of doing -so.”</p> - -<p>“Buckram!” said Daddy. “’Tisn’t worn nowadays. -Even soldiers don’t have stocks any longer.”</p> - -<p>“It is not buckram. It is common decency. That infernal -cad is living in Gerald’s house.”</p> - -<p>“Well, that is Gerald’s fault, I suppose, for selling it. -You are wrong, Ronnie—quite wrong. Miss Massarene -is well-bred enough to get her father accepted. In point -of fact he is accepted; he goes everywhere.”</p> - -<p>“She is very distinguished-looking. But I don’t know -what that has to do with it,” said Hurstmanceaux in his -stiffest and crossest manner. “As for your seeing him -anywhere, you won’t see him at Faldon. I wish Mrs. -Raby had told me of her intentions; I should not have -come here. I have avoided these people everywhere for -two years.”</p> - -<p>“People don’t send a list of their guests on approval -except to Royalty. They’d never fill their houses if they -did. Miss Massarene knows your sentiments, don’t she? -Her back was up as well as yours.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly she knows them. I have never made a -secret of them. Who could suppose that at Bedlowes of -all places one would come across that cad?”</p> - -<p>Daddy yawned and shut his eyes.</p> - -<p>“I think you know,” he said drowsily, “that as your -sister has run ’em you ought to back ’em. Must back -one’s own stable!”</p> - -<p>“My sister’s stable is not mine,” replied Hurstmanceaux -quickly. “She runs her dark ’uns wholly on her -own responsibility.”</p> - -<p>“Of course, of course,” said Daddy. “But the young -woman’s fit for any stables. How she came by it I don’t -know, but she’s uncommonly well-bred.”</p> - -<p>“She appears so,” said Ronald. “But she must dree -her weird. She can no more escape the penalty of being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span> -her father’s daughter than a hangman’s daughter can escape -hers.”</p> - -<p>It was not a liberal sentiment, but it was one which -seemed perfectly natural and just to the views which he -took of life.</p> - -<p>He was deeply angry with his sister and Mrs. Raby. -It seemed to him a monstrously bare-faced piece of intrigue -to have brought him and the Massarenes under the -same roof. He did not think Katherine herself privy to -it; there had been surprise and trouble as well as embarrassment -in her eyes when he had been led up to her; but -he was sure that her father had been in the plot.</p> - -<p>He spoke in his usual tone; not loud, but not very low. -He had his back turned to a grand piano of Erard’s which -stood in a recess; but Daddy Gwyllian had his face -turned to it, and he could see through his sleepy eyes that -Katherine Massarene, who with some men around her was -at that moment approaching the instrument, had, though -at some distance, heard the last part of this speech regarding -the hangman’s daughter. He was certain that -she had done so by a flush which rose over her face and a -momentary pause which she made. In another instant -she had reached the Erard and seated herself by it. If -she had felt any emotion it did not make her touch less -clear, her memory less perfect, as she played through the -grand passage of Beethoven’s Sonata in E flat.</p> - -<p>Daddy did not hear the sonata; he was away in the -land of dreams, comfortably hidden behind a huge African -palm-tree, his placid round face looking as innocent as -a babe’s in his slumber; even his curiosity could not keep -him awake any longer.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux, who loved and understood good music, -listened charmed despite himself; but when the last -chords thrilled through the air he did not join the group -which gathered round her, but walked away to another of -the drawing-rooms.</p> - -<p>From the distance he could see her as she sat at the pianoforte -receiving the compliments of the men about her; -but the expression of her countenance was proud, cold -and bored. She had looked very different on the Woldshire -high road and in the market-place of the little town.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>He felt sorry for her; there was something in her bearing, -in her manner, in her countenance, so far superior to -her parentage and position. She looked like the last -scion of some great unfortunate race rather than the heiress -of new ill-gotten millions.</p> - -<p>“<i>Où prenez vous ce ton qui n’appartient qu’ à vous?</i>” he -thought; and he acquitted her of any conspiracy in the -cross-country walk, any complicity in his sister’s manœuvres -to make her meet him at Bedlowes. She was -undoubtedly a victim of circumstances—a square-cut -ivory peg which was ill fitted to the round gilded hole -into which it was forced. He did not for a moment doubt -the sincerity of her dislike to her position; his own nature -was one which enabled him to understand the revolt -of hers. “But she must dree her weird,” he thought -again.</p> - -<p>“Why are you so uncivil to that charming person who -renders Beethoven so perfectly?” said his hostess to him -that evening.</p> - -<p>“There is no harm in the charming person, but there is -a great deal in her antecedents,” replied Hurstmanceaux -very coldly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, ‘antecedents,’ my dear Ronnie! Who can look at -them? Royalty itself disregards them when—when——”</p> - -<p>“When there’s money enough! I am not bound to follow -the example of Royalty.”</p> - -<p>“You did what was unworthy of you, my dear old -friend,” he added. “Of course Mouse egged you on; -but you should know what Mouse is by this time.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed she meant no harm in this instance. She -knows that you want money.”</p> - -<p>“I do not want money. I have not got very much at -my command: that is another matter.”</p> - -<p>“But the boys are such a drag on you?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no, they are fine fellows; they interest me, and -they do very much what I tell them.”</p> - -<p>“You are a good man, Ronald, but you are obstinate -and prejudiced.”</p> - -<p>“<i>On a les défauts de ses qualités.</i> I am not sure that I -can boast any especial <i>qualités</i>, but I do know this, that I -would be shot to-morrow rather than shake hands with a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span> -low brute who comes from God knows where with probably -untold crimes upon his conscience.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Raby shuddered and gave a nervous glance to the -far distance where Mr. Massarene was playing whist. -She was a delicate aged woman, and the idea of entertaining -an undetected criminal was extremely painful to -her.</p> - -<p>“He does look very like Cruickshank’s burglars in -<i>Oliver Twist</i>,” she thought, regarding the round bullet -head and Camus nose of her guest as he scowled down on -the cards which he held; he was losing, and losing to the -Principal of an Oxford College, whilst a Cabinet Minister -was his (very inefficient) partner; but Mr. Massarene did -not like losing—even at half-crown points and in the best -company. He had not had much practice at whist; but -he possessed a mathematical brain, and grasped its combinations -admirably; and he would have made his inferior -hand do the work of a good one if the Cabinet Minister -had not been an ass, but had been able to second him.</p> - -<p>“They put men in the Government here,” he thought, -“who over yonder we should not think had brains enough -to drive a sweet stuff barrow on a plank walk.”</p> - -<p>For despite the deference which he really felt for the -world into which he had entered, he could not help the -shrewd good sense in him boiling up sometimes into a -savage contempt. To his rough strong temper and his -unscrupulous keenness the gentlemen who were now his -companions in life did seem very poor creatures.</p> - -<p>“If I ever get into the Cabinet I’ll show them the time -of day,” he thought very often. There was no reason -why he should not get into the Cabinet as he had once -got into the House. He was made of the solid metal, and -the plebeian respectability, with which patrician conservatism, -trembling in its shoes for its own existence, is delighted -to ally itself; and knew that he would make a very -good minister of the type which works hard, pleases the -public, is always mentioned with praise by the Press of -the Party, and lends itself to the illustration of admirable -public dinner speeches in praise of the Constitution, -and of that constitutional bulwark the Middle Class. He -was a very shrewd man and he had the golden gift of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span> -silence. He knew his shortcomings better than his wife -knew hers, and so concealed his ambitions more successfully. -Nobody could “draw” him. Men in the smoking-room -of his own or other houses often tried after dinner -to make him “give himself away,” but they never succeeded. -He was never warmed by wine or friendship -into indiscreet reminiscences or revelations.</p> - -<p>Moreover in business he was <i>facile princeps</i>; no one -could beat him in the supreme knowledge of money or -how to make it. And indeed the thorough knowledge of -and capacity for business does carry its own weight with -it in an age in which the Mercurius of mart and change is -chief of all the gods.</p> - -<p>In society he was a heavy, awkward, common-looking -man, who did not know what to do with his hands, and -always sat on the edge of his chair, with his legs very -wide apart. But in a clubroom, a committee-room, a -board-room, a bank parlor, anywhere where there was -question of the sowing and reaping of gold, he was a -totally different person; he was at his ease, on his ground, -master of his subject and of his hearers; his hands rested -on his knees with a firm grip, his words were trenchant, -convincing, logical; and on his pallid, fleshy, expressionless -face there came a look, very hard, very unmerciful, -very cunning, but a look of intelligence and power, and of -entire command of his object. The mind showed through -the envelope of flesh.</p> - -<p>It was a money-making mind, a harsh astute grasping -mind, a mean ignoble greedy mind, but it was a master -mind in its way, and as such impressed itself on all those -who encountered it on its field of combat. And the men -that came into contact with him knew that he had been a -day laborer who had, entirely by his own ability and industry, -become the possessor of a colossal fortune, and all -men respect this successful self-help, and few inquire if -the self-help had been made with clean hands.</p> - -<p>He was what is called an essentially worthy man, -and he was an essentially modern product of modern energies.</p> - -<p>He had no perceivable sins, he conformed to all religious -observances, he had always kept on the right side<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> -of the law, he never made a jest, and he never lost a shilling. -As a husband he was faithful, as a father exemplary, -as a Christian devout, and as a citizen blameless. If -thousands of people had cursed him, if tens of thousands -of workmen had sweated for him, if hundreds of thousands -of cattle had perished for him, if gambling hells and drinking-shops -and opium dens had enriched him, if rotten ships -and starved crews, and poisonous trades and famished -families had helped to make the splendors of Harrenden -House and the glories of Vale Royal, these facts did not -matter to either society or Christianity, and were mere -personal details into which nobody could enter. William -Massarene was one of those persons who are the pillars -of the great middle class and the sources of that healthy -plebeian blood from which a decaying patriciate is recruited.</p> - -<p>“I stand by all as upholds property,” he said one day -to Lord Greatrex, the great Conservative leader.</p> - -<p>“The Northern Farmer has said it before you,” murmured -that gentleman. “The creed is sound and simple, -if not popular.”</p> - -<p>Massarene dared not swear in such a presence, but he -thought, “Damn popularity!”</p> - -<p>He did not want to be popular. He despised the people: -which was very natural, for he had come from them. -He liked to drive behind his sleek high-bred carriage-horses -and see the crowd part in the Strand or on the -Embankment, and women and children scurry and stumble -to make way for his progress; it made him realize the vast -distance which now separated himself from the common -multitude.</p> - -<p>He would have liked, if it had been possible, to knock -down half-a-dozen of the rabble as a sign of his superiority. -But he was in a country full of policemen and prejudices, -and so he had to show his superiority in another manner. -One morning, when he was driving to a meeting in the -City with a member of parliament, who was a noted philanthropist, -in his brougham, his high-stepping bays did -knock down an old woman, lame and very poorly clad. -William Massarene held all women in slight esteem, but -old women were in his estimate wholly useless and obnoxious;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span> -he would have put them all at forty years old in -lethal chambers. When cattle were past bearing they -went to the shambles, eh?</p> - -<p>But, having a philanthropist beside him, and two policemen -at his carriage-door, he busied himself about this -maimed old female, had her put in a cab, told his footman -to go on the box with her, and ordered his card to be -given to the authorities of the nearest hospital.</p> - -<p>“Say I will provide for her for life,” he said to his -servant rather loudly.</p> - -<p>The people in the street cheered him.</p> - -<p>“That’s a real gemman!” said a baker’s boy.</p> - -<p>William Massarene threw the discerning lad a shilling.</p> - -<p>“Dear friend,” said the religious philanthropist with -emotion, “how glad I am to see that your immense prosperity -has not driven out the warmth of human sympathy -from your heart.”</p> - -<p>Massarene was sorely tempted to put his tongue in his -cheek, but as he saw that the philanthropist’s face was -quite grave he kept his own equally serious.</p> - -<p>“You’ve an uncommon lot of barebacked poor for a -Christian country, sir,” he said in return—a reply which -somewhat disconcerted the philanthropist.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XVII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the autumn of the year the general election took -place, and Southwoldshire returned William Massarene, -whilst Limehouse selected a labor member to represent its -interests. His majority was smaller than the Carlton -agent had calculated and the Conservative press prophesied, -but that made little impression on him, though it -disappointed his party. A large portion of the country-folks -would not hear of the newcomer, who had turned out -the Roxhalls. “He’s no more nor us, that chap, and an -uncommon ugly jowl he’ve got,” said one old gaffer to another, -as they munched their noonday snack under the -hedge which they had been cutting down into the hideousness -demanded by high farming, or behind which they had -been drenching the mosses and lichens of old apple-trees -with a solution of lime and sublimate of iron, as scientific -experts advise.</p> - -<p>He took with the yokels to a certain extent, as the -marquis had said, but not in those districts where the -Roxhalls were beloved, and where the laborers liked a -gentleman and knew one when they saw him. Moreover, -the clergy of the county backed him to a man, and that -lost him many votes from the rustic population. “Passon -knows which side his bread be buttered,” said the old -gaffers; and even the influence of Lady Kenilworth and -other Primrose Dames, who came down to canvass for -him, and who did not scruple to plead and to promise -everything possible and impossible, could turn them to the -side espoused by the Established Church.</p> - -<p>“My cousin Roxhall begs you to plump for his friend,” -she assured them; but the gaffers smelt the lie, and were -not to be caught by chaff. They were corrupted by -political bunkum, weakened in their marrow by a tawdry -and trumpery civilization, bewildered by the multitude of -their teachers and flatterers, but they were still the -descendants in direct line of the bowmen of Cressy and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span> -the king’s troopers of Naseby, and they knew good blood -when they saw it, and did not like the look of the gold -man from Ameriky.</p> - -<p>However, by the aid of that man in the moon, whose -occult and untraceable influence determines all political -elections all the world over, these loyal and sturdy rustics -were put in the minority, and the clergy and the county -people crowded them out at the polls.</p> - -<p>“Lord save us! How they dawdle over matters here!” -thought the successful candidate. “In Dakota I’d just -have run in thirty thousand miners, and the trick’d been -done.” He almost, for an instant, regretted that he had -forsaken the congenial country of mug-wamps and roar-backs, -where the ten-dollar bill could satisfactorily circulate -and settle everything, as the power of the purse should -do. He was with difficulty restrained from exercising -those feudal rights which he conceived were his through -the possession of Vale Royal, and giving notice to quit to -everybody on his estate who had voted against him.</p> - -<p>“If my hands had voted against me in the States,” he -said, with his blackest frown, “they’d hev known a hotter -hole than hell.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Billy, but we are not in the States,” said his fair -guide, philosopher and friend, “and there <i>are</i> a <i>few</i> people -here who can’t be bought, and mustn’t be bullied.”</p> - -<p>“One don’t meet that sort in society, nor see ’em in -church,” he growled under his breath.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you don’t,” she replied, not well pleased. -“But they are not a <i>quantité négligéable</i>. I mean, you -mustn’t set their backs up and their tongues wagging. I -don’t know what the Carlton wouldn’t do to you if you -turned out the lowest Tommy Trot of them all from -one of your cottages, because he voted against you. On -the contrary, it is to that particular Tommy Trot who -voted against you that you must send coals and blankets -at Christmas, and port wine and beef tea when he gets -fever.”</p> - -<p>He muttered that he couldn’t do more than that for the -Tommy Trots who had voted for him.</p> - -<p>“Of course you can’t,” she answered. “And for them -you may do less.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>William Massarene pondered silently on this reply, and -came to the conclusion that if political life in England -was much less corrupt than in the States—as they all said—it -was certainly, also, much more complicated. On the -whole, he had preferred Limehouse to Southwoldshire; -the London mechanics had understood him with a wink, -and their stomachs had not “riz” at bribery direct or indirect.</p> - -<p>“My vote’s my own, ain’t it?” one rivet maker there -had said to him. “Well, I can do what I like with my -own, can’t I? I can wallup my old ’ooman, and my brats, -and my dawg, and I can sell my vote, that’s flat. Yah!—hand -the blunt over, old un.”</p> - -<p>That was a practical politician, with whom he had -rejoiced to make a deal. But these rural electors, who -turned him out of their hovels, and chalked up on their -walls “Roxhalls for us; not no Yankees,” were so abhorrent -to his feelings as a county magnate and a future peer -that he would have seen them all dead of fen fever with -pleasure, and would not have sent them a single drop of -port wine, however much Lady Kenny and the Carlton -had counseled it. But she and the Carlton between them -contrived to restrain him from any public or compromising -expression of his feelings, and although there was -some talk of a petition against his return being made, it -never went farther than words, and when the new Parliament -assembled, William Massarene represented in it one -of the most aristocratic counties in England, which had -been represented by some Roxhall’s nominee ever since -George the Third had ascended the throne.</p> - -<p>“One of the infamous results of that inexcusable -sale,” said Hurstmanceaux, in the smoking-room of the -Marlborough.</p> - -<p>The remark was reported to a lady who did not love -Roxhall, and who caused it to be reported in turn to him -at the French watering-place where he was curing his body -and fretting his soul.</p> - -<p>“Ronnie might guess who was under the sale,” he -thought, “who had the gilt off the gingerbread.” His -cousin Mouse had always done what she chose with him. -Their families knew it, his wife knew it, his county knew<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span> -it. He was in other ways a clever and high-spirited man, -but she made him a fool, a coward, a tool, a laughing-stock. -It seemed to him that Ronnie might know that -and excuse him.</p> - -<p>“Well, Billy, how do you get on in the House?” asked -Lady Kenilworth one evening after Whitsuntide when she -had been dining with him.</p> - -<p>Mr. Massarene did not immediately reply. “Billy” -was always a very hard morsel for him to swallow.</p> - -<p>“I hear they’re very pleased with you,” she added -graciously.</p> - -<p>“Indeed, my lady?”</p> - -<p>“Don’t say ‘my lady.’ Surely you might have left that -off by this time. Yes, you get on there they say. It is -very difficult you know.”</p> - -<p>She was not pleased that he had become politically -successful; she knew that it would make him more independent -of her, and that he would now find many to -“show him the way” with whom Cocky could not compete. -She was driven to rely for her influence on his admiration -of her, which bored her to extinction but which -was a fulcrum she could not neglect. Then there was -that odious cat, as she called his daughter, though Katherine -Massarene had very little that was feline in her. -The presence of Katherine Massarene was as unpleasant to -her as the presence in a card-room of a very calm and intelligent -player, who is not playing but looking on with an -eye-glass in his eye, is to the man who is cheating at bac’.</p> - -<p>“Why couldn’t that young woman stay in India and -marry one of Framlingham’s household?” she thought -with great irritation, and William Massarene himself began -to think the same; his daughter frequently made him -feel uncomfortable when her glance dwelt on him where -he sat beside Lady Kenilworth at a race or a ball or an -opera; he felt like a boy detected in trying to climb a -pear-tree.</p> - -<p>“Damn it all, if I ever get the pears, I’ve paid precious -high for ’em,” he thought; all the same his daughter’s -calm, contemplative, contemptuous glance made him feel -that at his age he had no business to be tempted by such -sweet forbidden fruit.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>“What do you watch me for so?” he said savagely one -day. “I was not aware that I did,” she replied, and was -quite truthful in the reply.</p> - -<p>“You are terrible unfilial, my dear!” cried Mrs. Massarene. -“What tens of thousands there is as would give -their souls to be in your shoes.”</p> - -<p>“Possibly,” said Katherine with fatigue. The opinions -she had expressed to Lord Framlingham in India were -still hers, unaltered, indeed strengthened, by all which she -had seen in English society since her return to her -parents’ house.</p> - -<p>She often thought of the walk across the frozen fields -to Greater Thrope, and when once or twice she saw Hurstmanceaux -when riding, or at the opera, she felt a sense of -shame burn in her heart and warm her cheeks which it -required all her serenity and self-control to restrain from -outward evidence.</p> - -<p>“The hangman’s daughter!” she said to herself, recalling -the speech she had overheard at Bedlowes. “Oh, -how right he was!”</p> - -<p>When he saw her he bowed to her gravely and courteously, -but never attempted to approach her.</p> - -<p>“My dear child, if you rile your father he won’t leave -you nothing,” said Margaret Massarene, in her emotion -forgetting the syntax of her new sphere.</p> - -<p>“So be it,” said Katherine; “but why do you speak of -him as so sure to die before me? He is a very strong man -and he is only fifty-seven.”</p> - -<p>“My dear,” whispered her mother in sepulchral tones, -“’tis true he’s a very strong man, but the cooking’ll kill -him before his time, to say nothing of other things. Look -ye, Kathleen, a man works like a horse and lives like an -ox all the best of his years, just beef and bread and bacon -and beer, and them only taken in snacks, just to keep the -body going. Then all at once, when he’s made his pile, -he says, says he, ‘Now I’ll stuff,’ and he eats like ten -princes rolled in one and drinks in proportion, because -he’s made his money and why shouldn’t he spend it? And -he forgets as he’s a liver, and he forgets as he ain’t as -young as he used to be, and he forgets as the fatted hog -would die of fat if the butcher didn’t stick him first.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>With which homely illustration she sighed heavily and -patted her smart gown in a melancholy reverie.</p> - -<p>“I dare say you are right,” said her daughter. “But -if my father were temperate by force of will so very long, -is it not strange that temperance should not have become -his habit, too strong a habit to be ever broken?”</p> - -<p>Her mother shook her head.</p> - -<p>“I don’t suppose, my dear, you’ve watched pigs in the -styes and out; I have. They’ll put up with bran when -they must, but lord, if they get out amongst the clams and -the yams, twist their tails as you will they’ll ne’er leave -off. When a man’s made his pile he’s just like a pig in a -sweet potato patch.”</p> - -<p>With which apologue she sighed again and rose to go -and dress for her daily drive behind those immensely tall -and always-prancing horses, who always seemed to her as -the winged beasts of the Apocalypse.</p> - -<p>“And as for temperance,” she said as she paused in the -doorway, “well, my dear, ’tisn’t temperate as I’d call any -man out West. Your father could drink deep like the -rest; but he had always a very strong head; a very strong -head indeed, my dear.”</p> - -<p>Was his strong head being turned by Lady Kenilworth? -his daughter wondered. Would the brain which had -never grown dizzy over the poisoned drinks and the delirious -speculations of America be whirled out of its orbit -by that which is the most intoxicating thing in all creation—a -lovely woman who is also a woman of the world? -She believed that Lady Kenilworth would do precisely -what she pleased with him. Did not she and her roulette-wheel -reign in triumph even in the arcana of Harrenden -House? As far as a woman who is essentially honorable, -candid, and single-minded can follow the moves and read -the mind of one who is entirely without those qualities, -she understood the character and the circumstances of her -father’s <i>veneris victrix</i>. She had asked Framlingham what -his opinion was of her and he had answered: “I never -say anything but good of a woman, my dear; but if I had -the choice between seeing one of my sons enamored of her, -or shot by his own hand, I should choose the revolver, as -less prejudicial to his reputation than the lady.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>She was very sensible that her position as the daughter -of the house did not permit her in any way to show her -own disapprobation of one of its favored guests. She -knew also that nothing she could have said or have done -would have ever moved her father a hair’s breadth. She -remained strictly passive and neutral, but to all the advances -of Hurstmanceaux’s sister she was adamant; and -now and then a caustic hint or phrase escaped her; usually -when she saw her mother treated with unconcealed contempt -by the lady of her father’s idolatry.</p> - -<p>“I am going on to the Duchess of Parminster’s reception; -are you?” said Mrs. Massarene one evening, satisfied -that this time, at least, she was saying the right -thing.</p> - -<p>“Old Par’s Zoo? Not if I know it,” said Mouse, in her -brusquest tone, and, turning her shoulder on her unfortunate -interlocutor, resumed her interrupted flirtation.</p> - -<p>“There is no play at the Parminsters,” said Katherine -Massarene in a tone, low, but so clear that Mouse reddened -angrily, and several persons near smiled indiscreetly, -despite themselves.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene went crestfallen to her carriage.</p> - -<p>If a duchess, daughter, wife, and mother of dukes, was -not a distinguished acquaintance, who was? And if a -party gathered together to meet princes could be called a -menagerie, where was salvation to be found? She was a -meek woman, used to endure bullying with patience, but -now and then her bile would rise, as she expressed it, under -the insolence of that lovely lady who yet exercised -over her the fascination of the brilliant-coated snake for -the humble barndoor hen.</p> - -<p>She resented, but she dare not rebel. She went to the -assembly at Parminster House sorely exercised in her -mind and vaguely wondering what could be amiss with a -courtly crowd, in which the first person she saw was her -future sovereign, who had dined there.</p> - -<p>“Well, <i>he</i> comes because there are certain dishes they -do so remarkably well in this house,” said Daddy Gwyllian, -of whom she asked for information, as he took her to -have an ice. “But Lady Kenny wouldn’t trouble herself -to show here; it’s not her style; it’s deadly respectable.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span> -You see she’s too young to bore herself at present for the -sake of a sauce.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene sighed and reflected that the study of -society was a service which required to be learned very -young.</p> - -<p>Mouse felt herself read and understood by Billy’s -daughter, and she did not like it. When she dined at -Harrenden House or made them give a ball there, the -evenings were spoiled to her by the sense that those large, -calm, dark violet eyes of the young woman of the house -were upon her and all her doings.</p> - -<p>Who would ever have supposed that such a cockatrice’s -egg of irony and insolence could have been laid and -hatched in such a nest of respectful subserviency as was -Harrenden House?</p> - -<p>The air, the manner, the style, even the glance of this -young woman were odious to her; the idea of Billy’s -daughter daring to be cold and distant to herself, and pretending -to be a gentlewoman in her own right! What -possible business had a young woman, so born, to arched -insteps, beautiful hands, and a low melodious voice? The -thing was preposterous! “Born in a garret, in a kitchen -bred,” her natural sphere the still-room or the laundry, -how could she venture to carry herself with dignity at a -Drawing-room, and answer patronage with cold disdain?</p> - -<p>“I really think,” she reflected, “that she must be a -natural daughter of Framlingham’s, whom he has got the -Massarenes to adopt. She has just his caustic way of saying -things, and it would account for her going to India.”</p> - -<p>This fable seemed so satisfactory to her that she whispered -it to one or two persons, who in turn whispered it -to two or three others, till it became generally whispered -and believed, and was indeed only not heard by the persons -whom it immediately concerned, and who alone could -have disproved it.</p> - -<p>“But if she’s old Billy’s heiress, it don’t matter a pin -whose daughter she was?” said Brancepeth, with admirable -common sense, the kind of common sense which is a -conspicuous trait of youth at the end of this century.</p> - -<p>And it was the general sentiment.</p> - -<p>This story came to the ears of Hurstmanceaux.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>“Who told you?” he said to the lady who prattled it -to him.</p> - -<p>“Mouse,” the lady hastened to say. “It is because it -came from her that I believed it.”</p> - -<p>He went to his sister.</p> - -<p>“I hear you are the originator of a story that Miss Massarene -is the daughter of Framlingham. What authority -have you for such a statement?”</p> - -<p>She laughed a little.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know! I think so——”</p> - -<p>“You think so. Is that all?”</p> - -<p>“Well, yes, I suppose it is. But I am quite sure of it.”</p> - -<p>“On what grounds?”</p> - -<p>“Grounds? What do you mean? It is my idea——”</p> - -<p>“Ah! it is your idea. And for such ideas, when they -are spoken or written, there is a legal phraseology and a -legal punishment.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him startled, but amused.</p> - -<p>“What can you possibly mean? One can say anything -one pleases.”</p> - -<p>“If it be not libel. This is. You will do well to contradict -the report you have set afloat.”</p> - -<p>“Goodness, Ronald! How odd you are! You won’t -even know these people. What can it matter to you -whether they are talked of or not?”</p> - -<p>“It matters nothing to me. But it matters much to -me that you should invent and circulate falsehoods, and -try to injure by them an entirely blameless person.”</p> - -<p>“Meaning Katherine Massarene?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, meaning Miss Massarene.”</p> - -<p>She laughed, much diverted.</p> - -<p>“Are you changing your mind about her?”</p> - -<p>“In no way. But she is a person who conducts herself -admirably in a most difficult and odious position, and I -do not choose to allow you to circulate inventions which -may ultimately injure her extremely. You will remember -that some time ago I made you retract a calumny; I shall -act in the same way now unless you, of your accord, -can completely withdraw this tale you have set about.”</p> - -<p>She was silent.</p> - -<p>She remembered how unpleasant he had been when she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span> -had fabricated a pretty web of falsehoods concerning one -of her acquaintances, actually forcing her to apologize to -all the people concerned.</p> - -<p>“I can’t imagine why you should care,” she said sullenly.</p> - -<p>“To care for abstract justice is quite unintelligible to -you,” he answered. “It is to most people. Will you retract -this lie or will you not?”</p> - -<p>“You make a storm in a teacup. What will you do if -I don’t?”</p> - -<p>“I shall tell your friend Mr. Massarene how you return -his hospitalities, and I shall make you confess your -inventions.”</p> - -<p>“How horrid you are, Ronald!” she said, while her lips -quivered, partly with fear and partly with rage. “You -won’t look at the young woman, and yet you set your -back up like this. Oh, of course I can tell people that I -was only joking. But it will be very disagreeable.”</p> - -<p>“You should bridle your tongue,” said Hurstmanceaux -sternly, surprised himself to feel with what extreme irritation -this story of hers had awakened in him. He could -not and would not know Massarene’s heiress, but he admired -her conduct in society; he admired most of all -what others condemned in her, the contemptuous coldness -and indifference of her manner, her brief replies, -sometimes so cutting and caustic, her avoidance of all -those whose high position made them sought by her parents, -the unwavering coldness with which she resented all -court paid to her.</p> - -<p>When he watched her in the world, he felt inclined to -applaud as he would have applauded a fine innings at -Lord’s or a hard-won race on the Thames. It seemed to -him monstrous that his sister, because her matrimonial -schemes had failed, should pursue with slander anyone so -innocent and so much to be praised.</p> - -<p>William Massarene was in no haste to marry his daughter. -His vanity would have impelled him to give her an -unusual dower if she had married, and he did not care to -cut so huge a slice out of his capital. Moreover, his ambitions, -growing by what they fed on, became inordinate. -No alliance seemed to him great enough.</p> - -<p>Besides, he thought often, the old woman might go to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> -glory, and he might marry again and have sons. To his -strength of purpose and vastness of reach the future—his -future—seemed illimitable.</p> - -<p>She received a homage which nauseated, a flattery -which disgusted, her. She knew that she was seen -through the golden haze of her father’s reputation for -wealth. “If I were deaf, or blind, or crooked,” she -thought, “if I were diseased, or imbecile, or mutilated, -there would not be one the less ready to worship and wed -me out of all these throngs of wooers.” And very often -her brief words cut them like a lash, and in her eyes, -which were the hue of the darkest purple of a pansy, -there came a flash of scorn whose cause those around her -were too self-complacent to attribute aright.</p> - -<p>She had but one pleasure—that of bringing together -great artists, and causing Harrenden House to be renowned -for something better than the usual display and -expenditure of “new” houses. She had difficulty in -making her father pay the singers and musicians as she -wished them to be paid, for he who would give two -guineas a bottle for a rare Comet-wine, or waste many -thousands of pounds in receiving a sporting prince at -Vale Royal, grudged their fees to what he contemptuously -called “professionals.” But when he saw how greatly -these musical entertainments “took on,” and how much -they did to raise the tone of his house, he gave her large -credit and discretion, and the reputation for the weekly -chamber-music at Harrenden House soon attracted to it -those choicer souls whom millions and Richemont could -not alone have drawn there.</p> - -<p>Sometimes she wished she could invite that lover of -music who had listened to the sonata in B flat at Bedlowes. -She would sooner have seen him there than his -sister, who showed for an hour at these concerts, and then -took herself off to some gayer form of entertainment.</p> - -<p>“It is intensely classic and correct, but deadly dull,” -said Lady Kenilworth, although she was, on occasion, a -musical composer herself, and wrote little songs which, -with many corrections and additions from Delkass and -other salon-singers and fashionable pianists, passed muster -and were published as her own.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>Once, to please her, Massarene bade his daughter have -one of these ballads sung at the next Harrenden House -concert.</p> - -<p>“My dear father, get someone else to manage these -things,” she answered. “Or let us give them up altogether. -But bad amateur music I will not have sung or -played whilst I am responsible for the selection.”</p> - -<p>She was quite resolute on the point, and, as he did not -wish concerts which were so admired to be abandoned, he -could not please his idol in this matter.</p> - -<p>“She says your songs ain’t good enow, my lady,” he -announced grimly, with that relish in annoying her which -occasionally overcame his submissiveness, at such times as -he remembered the diplomatist and the Bird rooms, or saw -a bevy of men round her as she donned her evening cloak.</p> - -<p>The announcement did not lessen the impatient aversion -which she felt for his heiress.</p> - -<p>“Are you afraid of your own daughter, Billy?” she -asked very contemptuously.</p> - -<p>“I ain’t afraid of nobody,” said Mr. Massarene; and -there was an ugly look for a moment on his face.</p> - -<p>“What an odious man he was!” she thought. “What -a lout, what a bore, and, no doubt, what a bully too where -he could be so!”</p> - -<p>Sometimes a gleam of good sense made her afraid of -him; afraid of all the obligations which she was under to -him; afraid of some future reprisal he might take for all -her insolence. But she was utterly careless and extremely -imprudent, and she dismissed the fear as soon as it assailed -her.</p> - -<p>“You don’t marry your daughter, Billy,” she said one -day. “It was very provoking that the affair with my -brother went off as it did.”</p> - -<p>“It was never on that I am aware of,” said William -Massarene stiffly, with a look like that of a displeased -bull on his face.</p> - -<p>“Well, no, of course it wasn’t. Ronald wouldn’t know -you. I’m afraid, my good Billy, there’ll be people who -won’t know you to the very end of your day.”</p> - -<p>He looked more displeased still, but he was accustomed -to bear her insolence patiently.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>“Every man has his price, they say,” he answered doggedly. -“Seems as I haven’t hit on Lord Hurstmanceaux’s.”</p> - -<p>He did not venture to say to her that he was delighted -her project had failed.</p> - -<p>“What funny things you say, Billy,” cried Mouse, with -a peal of her enchanting laughter.</p> - -<p>He was charmed, and began to believe himself a wit.</p> - -<p>“I’m coming to hear you to-night,” she added.</p> - -<p>He had been asked to speak on the Early Closing Bill; -the bill was originally a Conservative measure, and so the -Conservative party was obliged to support it in its Radical -dress. The prospect made him nervous, but he was a -man who knew how to control his nerves; and he had -that solid sense of his own powers which when it is allied -to good sense is the surest of all support. Moreover, -Mouse knew exactly how to flatter whilst she bullied him; -to flatter him enough, to make him happy, never enough -to make herself ridiculous, or her kind words cheap.</p> - -<p>“It’s darned rot,” thought William Massarene. “All -this here kind of thing is socialism in disguise. The public -is treated like a child, and an idiot child. If it wants -shops open late, it’ll pay traders to keep ’em open, and if -it wants ’em shut early, it won’t pay traders to keep ’em -open. That’s all about it I reckon. ’Tis one of them -things that should be left to the public. A trader don’t -want to sit twiddling his thumbs, and why in hell’s -name should the Government force him to twiddle his -thumbs?”</p> - -<p>But this simple common-sense view of the case was not -the one taken by the persons he had to support, and so he -prepared a very neat speech which argued the case from -the opposite point of view to his own.</p> - -<p>“Awful rot,” he thought, as he jotted down the heads -of it. “But this old country takes the cake for rot.”</p> - -<p>Naturally, he did not care a straw which way the votes -went; the time had long gone by when he had kept a -shop, and even the time when he had owned many shops -with dummy names over their doors and dummy proprietors -returned in the census; and whether Islington, and -Notting Hill, and Camden Town, and Bethnal Green<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span> -burned gas till midnight, or shut up at twilight, did not -matter the least to him.</p> - -<p>She had prophesied his success in the House, and he -soon justified her prophecy. He spoke on questions of -home-legislation, and spoke well, in short but telling sentences -without nervousness, but with apparent modesty; to -be sure, there was the drawback of his accent, which was -at once plebeian and Yankee, but of this he was himself -unconscious, and the time is passed when the House of -Commons exacted either education or elegance; it has -heard so many dialects and dropped aspirates within the -last twenty years that its ear has grown deaf to such offences. -What he had to say seemed to him, in its matter, -very poor trash, but he said it well; and a sense that this -stout, uncouth, unpleasant person would be a tower of -strength in their ranks spread itself downward from their -chief throughout all the ranks of the Conservative party, -and made them feel that they had better not call him -Billy too often.</p> - -<p>He was too sagacious a man to be tempted to speak on -subjects out of his range of special knowledge; on those -of which he had such knowledge, stocks, mining, railways, -or finance, he spoke rarely, but with admirable practical -astuteness; the House saw that he was an authority not -to be despised. In smart society he was embarrassed and -ill at ease and conscious of his own deficiencies; but with -men on public matters, he was neither daunted nor dazzled. -He had a very poor opinion of the House of Commons, -whether as a talking-shop or a manager of public business, -and he felt nothing of the awe which is popularly supposed -to be inspired in all new members by the sight of -the Speaker’s Mace.</p> - -<p>He had quickly taken the measure of the Assembly, and -he was not afraid of it. He thought it a very poor affair; -wasting all its time in jaw, and timidly endeavoring to -conciliate the masses, which, to his knowledge, were best -governed with a stock-whip and a six-shooter. But he -was too shrewd to let his private opinion leak out; and -he contented himself with making both sides of the House -feel that a man had come amongst them who, if they liked -to listen to them, could teach them the time of day on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span> -all subjects which concerned practical politics and the -business side of government.</p> - -<p>The Irish members loathed him because he had turned -his back on Ireland instead of consecrating his millions to -leagues and dynamite. But on the rest of the House the -impression he made was favorable. After all, a politician -who has Richemont at the head of his kitchen, and gives -you the great wines of comet years, is a superior companion -on the benches to the Nonconformist schoolmaster, -the hungry barrister, or the professor full of crotchets, -whom Northern England or Eastern London sends to St. -Stephen’s.</p> - -<p>“Really, Billy, you got on very well,” said Mouse, who -had come to the speaker’s box to hear him; that little box -is much more comfortable than the Lady’s Gallery.</p> - -<p>“’Twas all soft sawder,” said Mr. Massarene, with grim -contempt.</p> - -<p>She was standing in the corridor twisting a lace wrap -round her head, and he had come upstairs after the division -to receive her congratulations and take her orders.</p> - -<p>“What I’d like to teach ’em is how to do the business -of this ’ere House. Why, if any private business was carried -on for half a year as the business of the nation’s done -by these gentlemen, there’d be an almighty smash such as -somebody’d go in the docks for——”</p> - -<p>“Tell the House so,” said Mouse, much diverted.</p> - -<p>He puffed out his cheeks, which was his equivalent for -a smile.</p> - -<p>“Guess, my lady, ’tain’t the place for truth-telling.”</p> - -<p>“You should have gone to the other side.”</p> - -<p>He shook his head.</p> - -<p>“Not me, my lady. What do the Radicals say to me? -This is what they say: ‘My good fellow, you’ve earned -five shillin’s by sweatin’ all day; hand it over here, will -ye. We want to buy beer and beefsteaks for Tom, Dick, -and Harry, who’ve been sittin’ loafin’ on a wall over there -while you was workin’.’ No Radicals for me if I know -it.”</p> - -<p>“You are very delightful, Billy,” said his patroness, -“and you may come with us to supper at the Papillons -Club. I’m dreadfully hungry, though I have only been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span> -‘loafin’’ behind a grating. I’ve made rendezvous there -with Carrie.”</p> - -<p>He obeyed the permission of his enchantress; and -meekly ate some oysters and drank some champagne in -company with her and a dozen of her gayest associates; it -occurred to no one of them to pay the bill, and the head -waiter took it discreetly to the master of Harrenden -House when no one else was looking.</p> - -<p>The Papillons was a new and very fashionable supper -club, much resorted to after the opera, the theatres, and -parliamentary debates.</p> - -<p>He felt that it was a place too full of gaiety, frivolity, -and youth to be a meet place for a member of parliament -and a Crœsus of his age and his ambitions. He thought -suppers apoplectical, champagnes, even <i>brùt</i>, very poor -stuff, and English oysters ridiculous; nevertheless, he -went, and was rewarded by seeing his enchantress toss -the liliputian bivalves down her rosy throat and turn her -shoulder on him as she had done on his wife.</p> - -<p>To be sure, he had the privilege of paying the bill, a -privilege which he found the English aristocracy always -willing to concede to him.</p> - -<p>“There’ll always be people too proud to know me, will -there?” he thought, as he drove homeward; “but I guess -there’ll never be people too proud to let me pay for ’em.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> giddy months frolicked away like youths and -maidens dancing on a golden ground on one of Povis de -Chavanne’s friezes. Flirting, laughing, gaming, waltzing, -shooting, hunting, driving, dressing—above all dressing—the -seasons succeeded each other with breathless rapidity -for Mouse Kenilworth, and hundreds of fair women like -her.</p> - -<p>Money grew scarcer, credit grew rarer, Billy became -less easy to bleed, Harry seemed to grow duller and less -good-looking, cabmen became shyer still of Cocky, and -the old duke more unwilling to sign and sell; but she -still all the same enjoyed herself, still carried high her -golden head, and still crammed forty-eight hours into -every twenty-four. Occasionally she did a little philanthropy; -inaugurated a railway line, visited some silk -mills, or laid the stone of a church. The silver barrow -she received made a pretty flower-stand, the pieces of silk -offered to her were also useful in their way, and when she -had opened a church she felt she had a dispensation for -months from attending church services. Only Egypt she -could not manage this year. Egypt is a pastime which requires -a good deal of ready money, and she had to console -herself with hunting in the Midlands and shooting rocketers -in the damp English woods; she did not really care -about shooting, but she found zest in it because Ronald -and the old duke hated the idea of women killing things, -and even Brancepeth disapproved it.</p> - -<p>She went down again more than once to Vale Royal -and went out with the hounds to whose maintenance her -host had subscribed so liberally. But in February a long -black frost sent hunters to their straw and riders up to -town, and she opened her house in Stanhope Street as the -session opened at Westminster. She had the children up -also; partly because she was really fond of them, partly -because children <i>poser</i> you, and touch the heart and the -purse-strings of your relatives.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>She disliked the town in winter; she wanted to be in -Cairo or at Monte Carlo or Rome; but, being in London, -she made the best of it and took her graceful person to -any place where she thought she could be amused. There -are many dinners in London when the frost binds the -country in its iron bonds and the horses champ and fret in -their stalls, and the herons starve by the frozen streams, -and the dead kingfishers lie like crumpled heaps of broken -iris-flowers on the cruel ice of their native ponds.</p> - -<p>“Has Billy run dry?” asked her lord one day when -their financial difficulties were pressing more hardly than -usual, and an unpaid cabman had threatened Bow Street.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Mouse curtly. “But the young woman is -always there. She’s as sharp as a needle.”</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t you splice her to Ronnie?”</p> - -<p>“He won’t even look at her.”</p> - -<p>“How exactly like him!” said Cocky. “If there’s a -thing he might do to oblige one he always kicks at it.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux always seemed to them odiously unfeeling -and huffy; nevertheless, as they always did in their -troubles, they sent to him to come and speak to them one -day when their creditors had been more offensive than -usual. He was so rarely in town that they agreed it was -only prudent to take advantage of his being there for a -week or two on account of evidence he had to give before -a House of Lords Committee on an Irish land question.</p> - -<p>What Daddy Gwyllian had said once in the smoking-room -at Otterbourne House, and had more than once since -then repeated, dwelt in Hurstmanceaux’s memory, and -made him doubt whether it was indeed worth while to go -on impoverishing himself for people who had neither -gratitude nor scruple.</p> - -<p>After all, if the Duke of Otterbourne’s eldest son went -into the Bankruptcy Court, it was the Duke of Otterbourne’s -affair.</p> - -<p>It would be cruelly hard on Otterbourne, who was himself -one of the most upright, honorable and conscientious -of gentlemen. But it would be still harder on himself, -Hurstmanceaux, after his long self-denial and self-sacrifice -to find himself in Queer Street for sake of his brother-in-law, -a brother-in-law whom he considered, in his own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span> -forcible language, not fit to be touched with a pair of -tongs.</p> - -<p>If they would only retire awhile and retrench they -could pull themselves together. Cocky had an estate in -the west of Ireland, entirely unsaleable for the best of -reasons that nobody would buy it, but which Hurstmanceaux -considered a very heaven upon earth, for its views -of land and sea were sublime, and its myrtle and bay -thickets, its pine and cork woods, had almost the beauty -of Cintra with the vast billows of the Atlantic rolling on -the rocky shores at their feet. If they would go to this -place, called Black <i>Hazel</i>, and live there for a few years, -their affairs would come round, and Mouse would be -taken out of that vicious circle of unending expenditure -and compromising expedient in which women of the world -turn like squirrels in a cage.</p> - -<p>To the innocence of this simple masculine mind it -seemed quite possible that if such a course were suggested -to her she would follow it. She was fond of the -children; Black Hazel would be a paradise for them; she -liked sport—Black Hazel offered quail, woodcock, blackcock, -teal in abundance, and both fresh water and deep -sea fishing to any extent.</p> - -<p>He enumerated its attractions enthusiastically to himself -as if he were an auctioneer endeavoring to sell the -estate, and, with the <i>naïveté</i> of an honest man, imagined -that after all his sister could only need to have her duty -clearly shown her to do it.</p> - -<p>“The finest thoroughbred mare will chew dry reeds -when she finds she can’t get hay or oats,” he thought, his -mind reverting to his memories of the Egyptian campaign, -which he had shared in as an amateur. The brother of -Lady Kenilworth should have known that women of the -world are more “kittle cattle” than even blood-mares; -but he did not realize this.</p> - -<p>He knew that she was unreasonable, wildly extravagant, -very selfish, and so accustomed to have her own way that -she thought the stars would pause in their courses to please -her; but still, even she would stop short of absolute social -suicide, he thought.</p> - -<p>So when next he received a note from his sister asking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span> -him to come to her on a matter of importance, which always -with her meant money, he took his way to the conference -determined to tell her frankly that the retreat to -the west of Ireland was the only possible refuge for her, -and to keep well in his memory the sensible warning and -counsel of Daddy Gwyllian.</p> - -<p>When he got to the house in Stanhope Street he found -Cocky waiting to see him before he went out. This fact -alone was ominous and extremely disagreeable to him, the -presence of Cocky, in his wife’s morning-room, invariably -indicating not only that money was wanted, which was -chronic, but that some more than usually unpleasant -dilemma had to be met.</p> - -<p>Cocky’s paper was all over the place, as he would have -expressed it; and very often in hands so disreputable that -its rescue was a matter as compromising as it was costly.</p> - -<p>When he was walking about amongst the china and the -trinkets, and the flowers and the lacquer work, with his -thin pale aquiline profile against the light, and the Blenheims -barking furiously at him as they invariably did, his -presence was the certain sign of something impending -which might get with most odious prominence into the -newspapers.</p> - -<p>“If he’s forged anybody’s name, I only hope to heavens -that it’s only mine,” thought Hurstmanceaux: he always -expected Cocky to come to forgery sooner or later. In -point of fact, Cocky had come to it very early in his -career, as early as his Eton days, when he had been ducked -in the river by the comrade with whose name he had taken -such liberties.</p> - -<p>With his hands in his trowser pockets and his little -frail person flitting amongst the chinoiseries and the heaths -and orchids, he peered up at this moment at Hurstmanceaux -where he stood on the hearth, very tall, very stern, -very unsympathetic, and absolutely silent.</p> - -<p>“What a glum brute he is,” Cocky thought of the man -to whom he had owed his own social salvation a score of -times. “What an uncommon nasty thing human nature -must be that it must always look so deuced unpleasant -whenever it finds anybody in trouble.”</p> - -<p>Cocky was of opinion that it was the first duty of other<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span> -men to pick himself out of the mud whenever he got into -it, and that it should not only be the duty of his neighbors -but their pleasure.</p> - -<p>“Such a hard-hearted brute is Ronnie,” he thought. -“Only lives for himself and don’t spend sixpence a day. -I do hate selfishness and stinginess.”</p> - -<p>The Blenheims at this instant scampered into the room, -and flew at his ankles with that strong disapproval of him -which they never failed to show.</p> - -<p>“Oh Lord, you little beasts!” he cried, as their shrill -voices rent the air.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux looked on in grim approval of the dogs’ -discrimination, whilst his brother-in-law wasted kicks in -all directions, the Blenheims avoiding them with the happiest -dexterity and returning undaunted to the charge.</p> - -<p>The entrance of their mistress effected a diversion in -the warfare and relaxed the contemptuous sternness of her -brother’s face.</p> - -<p>“So kind of you, dear Ronnie,” she said sweetly as she -came up to him softly and brought a sense of fragrance -and freshness, like a dewy rose, as she came straight from -her bath and its opponax soap and eau de verveine.</p> - -<p>“They’ve torn my trowsers,” said Cocky, looking down -at the marks of their small sharp teeth upon frayed cloth.</p> - -<p>“You know they dislike you,” said his wife coldly. -“Why do you provoke them?”</p> - -<p>“Hang it all, I’m their master,” murmured Cocky, -eyeing his ankles ruefully.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear no, you are not,” said Mouse very uncivilly; -“I never taught them to think so for a moment.”</p> - -<p>“If you only sent for me to hear you quarrel over the -ownership of the Blenheims——” said Hurstmanceaux. -He was angry; he had to attend a Royal Commission at -two o’clock, and he wanted to be instead on the river, -watching the practice of the Eton eight of which his -youngest brother was captain. And here he was, shut up -at half-past twelve with two bickering people and two -barking lap-dogs, with the prospect of hearing for an hour -of debts and difficulties which he had neither the power -nor the will to meet or dissipate. “Pray let me hear the -worst at once,” he added. “Is it the Old Bailey, or only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span> -the Bankruptcy Court, that Cocky is going to show himself -in this time to an admiring society?”</p> - -<p>His sister looked at him and saw that he was not in a -pleasant mood; but she did not mind his moods, they always -ended in giving her what she wanted. He was an -intrinsically generous and compassionate man, and such -tempers are always kindly to their own hurt.</p> - -<p>“Damned ungrateful fellow he is!” reflected Cocky. -“As if there wasn’t <i>one</i> Court that he ought to bless me -for never going into.”</p> - -<p>But he said nothing aloud, and left the recital of their -difficulties to his wife.</p> - -<p>She plunged immediately into the narrative of their -woes and needs, the Blenheims, reduced to silence through -want of breath, sitting with their tongues out and their -heads on one side, listening attentively as though they -were two auditors in bankruptcy.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux listened also in an unsympathetic silence -which to his companions seemed to bode no good to -themselves. There was nothing new in the relation; -debts have seven-leagued boots, as everyone knows, and -people who spend a few thousands every year in railway -journeys, but do not pay their tailor, shoemaker, and -greengrocer, realize this with unpleasant frequency. Then -there were debts of honor in all directions, these being -the only form of honor which was left to the delinquents -as Hurstmanceaux thought, but charitably forebode to -say.</p> - -<p>He looked at his sister whilst she spoke, admiring her -appearance whilst he scarcely attended to her words because -he knew their import beforehand so painfully well. -What a terribly expensive animal was a modern woman -of the world! As costly as an ironclad and as complicated -as a theatrophone. The loveliest product of an entirely -artificial state, but the most ruinous, and the most -irritating to those whom she ruined.</p> - -<p>He told himself that Daddy Gwyllian had been entirely -right. And he hardened his heart against this beautiful -apparition which with dewy lips, perfumed hair, and a -delicious suggestion of a nymph fresh from a waterbrook, -stood before him in that charming attitude of contrition<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span> -and candor with which from her nursery days he had always -known her tell her very largest lies.</p> - -<p>“So all the dirt you’ve eaten hasn’t done you any good,” -he said curtly, after some minutes of silence.</p> - -<p>“What can you possibly mean?” said Mouse.</p> - -<p>Cocky chuckled feebly. He knew what his brother-in-law -meant.</p> - -<p>“We can’t bleed Billy every day,” he murmured in an -explanatory tone.</p> - -<p>“You seem to think you can bleed your father and myself -whenever you please,” said Hurstmanceaux in his most -incisive tones.</p> - -<p>“Lord, what else is one’s family for?” said Cocky -candidly.</p> - -<p>His wife looked with impatience at the clock, for she -had appointments which were agreeable.</p> - -<p>“Really, I think we’ve told you everything,” she said -to her brother. “It is not nice of you to insult us in our -troubles, but I am sure you mean to help us in the end, -don’t you, Ronnie?”</p> - -<p>“I am extremely sorry,” said Hurstmanceaux. “But -it is wholly out of my power to help you this time. Your -debts are enormous. The only possible chance for you is -to give up London life, and life in the world altogether, -and go and retrench in the country. Why not at Black -Hazel? It would be admirable for the children; and your -creditors, if they knew you were really economizing, could -probably be induced to wait. I see no other prospect -possible.”</p> - -<p>“Don’t be a fool, Ronald,” said his sister curtly, throwing -her handkerchief rolled in a ball to the dogs.</p> - -<p>Her husband stared through his eye-glass. “Ah—er—I -thought you would make some practical suggestion; something -feasible, you know!”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux frowned.</p> - -<p>“So I do. When people are in your position they always -withdraw to their Black Hazel or whatever their retreat -is called. They don’t go on living in the world. -Black Hazel is a delightful place. It will be much better -than a second floor in Florence, or a boarding house in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span> -Dresden, which many people come to who are in your -plight.”</p> - -<p>His sister looked at her watch.</p> - -<p>“My dear Ronald, I have no more time to spare you,” -she said rather insolently. “And if you can suggest -nothing more sensible than a second floor in Florence, or a -bog in Ireland, I shall lose little by not hearing anything -more that you may have to say.”</p> - -<p>“I have given you my opinion and my advice,” said -Hurstmanceaux stiffly. “You can live at Black Hazel -tolerably well, and in a way becoming your position; the -air is very fine and the children will thrive admirably. -But if you persist in continuing your present rate of expenditure——”</p> - -<p>His sister opened the door and disappeared, calling the -Blenheims with her.</p> - -<p>“Lord, excuse me, Ronnie, but why do you talk that -rot?” said her husband, peering up through his glasses at -his brother-in-law. “What on earth is the use of going -on in that way to her? Out o’ London? Down in the -west of Ireland? Your sister and me? Oh, Lord!”</p> - -<p>The idea of his exile from “life” so tickled his fancy -that he laughed till he choked himself.</p> - -<p>“Black Hazel! Mouse and I and her chicks at Black -Hazel! Oh, good Lord, Ronnie! You won’t beat that if -you try for a week o’ Sundays!”</p> - -<p>He chuckled feebly but merrily.</p> - -<p>“What is there to laugh at?” said Hurstmanceaux. -“Is the Bankruptcy Court more agreeable than a country -place which is your own and where you will be your own -master?”</p> - -<p>But Cocky continued to laugh convulsively, holding his -side and coughing.</p> - -<p>From his great height Hurstmanceaux looked down in -scorn on the speaker.</p> - -<p>“Pray,” he said coldly, “do you ever ask how your -wife gets the ready money she has to carry on with?”</p> - -<p>Kenilworth shook his head.</p> - -<p>“Not I. Mutual what do-ye-call it and non-interference -is the only sound basis for domestic peace.”</p> - -<p>He spoke with an expression of implicit seriousness and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span> -good faith; only his left eye winked knowingly, as if he -had said something very amusing indeed. Hurstmanceaux -wondered if it would be within decent manners to kick -one’s brother-in-law on his own hearth.</p> - -<p>“You are an unutterable scoundrel, Cocky,” he said, -with an effort mastering his impulse to use acts instead of -words.</p> - -<p>Kenilworth remained unmoved.</p> - -<p>“That’s libel. A beak would fine you a fiver for it,” -he said placidly. “Do you happen to have got a fiver -about you?”</p> - -<p>“Go and ask Brancepeth for one,” said Hurstmanceaux, -white with rage.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Lord!” said the other innocently. “I’ve had <i>his</i> -last ages ago. He is a very poor devil is Harry, a very -poor devil, else we shouldn’t be in this strait.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux approached him so closely that Cocky, -whose nerves were shaken by much absinthe and angostura, -trembled.</p> - -<p>“I would sooner my sister were on the pavement of the -Haymarket than that she were the wife of such a cur as -you.”</p> - -<p>Cocky breathed more freely.</p> - -<p>“That is a very exaggerated remark,” he murmured. -“You are so very stagy, my dear Ronald, so very stagy. -You should have lived a century or two ago.”</p> - -<p>“I am ashamed to be of the same generation as yourself,” -said Hurstmanceaux sternly. “Great heavens, -man! You come of a good stock; you will be chief of a -great house; your father is a gentleman in every fibre of -his being; how can you endure to live as you do with -your very name a by-word for the cabmen in the street? -There is not a servant in your house, not a match-seller -on your area steps, not a stableboy in your mews, who -does not know the dishonor which you alone affect to ignore! -She is my sister, I am ashamed to say; but I can -do nothing with her so long as you, her husband, condone -and countenance what she does. You have every power; -I have none. Take her to Black Hazel, sacrifice yourself -for sake of your children, shut yourself up there, try and -lead a cleanly life and make her lead an honest one.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span> -Cease to be the miserable thing you are—a diseased -maggot living on putrefaction?”</p> - -<p>Kenilworth listened imperturbably. To be likened to a -diseased maggot did not distress him; it slightly diverted -him in its appositeness.</p> - -<p>“The children?” he said softly and slowly. “You really -think I ought to consider those children?”</p> - -<p>His pale, expressionless grey eyes, becoming suddenly -full of unutterable depth of expression, looked up into his -brother-in-law’s and said volumes without words.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux grew red to the roots of his bright curly -hair. After all, the woman spoken of, if this man’s wife, -was his own sister, his favorite sister, the little one whom -he had carried about in his arms when a boy, up and down -the tapestried galleries and the oak staircases of the dear -old house at Faldon.</p> - -<p>Kenilworth saw that emotion and despised it, but thought -he would profit by it and do a bit of dignity.</p> - -<p>“My dear Ronnie,” he said almost seriously, “if I had -married another sort of woman than your sister Clare, I -might have become a different sort of man. It is not -likely; still, it is possible. But, you may believe me, if -she had married the best man under heaven, she would -have been just exactly what she is. Sages and angels -wouldn’t alter her. Don’t you fret yourself about us. -We aren’t worth it—I grant that. We are of our time, -and we shall get along somehow. Ta-ta, Ronnie; you are -a good boy. Be grateful that I am what I am; if I were -like you, <i>vieux jeu</i>, what a bother I should have made for -our respective families long ago in the D. C.”</p> - -<p>And with a low complacent chuckle at having got the -best of the argument, he dived under his seat for his hat, -glanced at the clock, and, with an apologetic gesture of -two fingers, left Hurstmanceaux alone in the morning-room -with the chinoiseries and nipponiséries.</p> - -<p>“Now his conscience will work and make him miserable,” -he thought, as he went across the hall with satisfaction. -“After all, I said the truth, and he knows it is the truth. -She is his sister, and she’s a bad a lot as there is in London, -and he’ll feel he owes me something, and he’ll come -down handsomely, stingy old bloke though he is. What<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span> -duffers those sentiment men always are to be sure. How -neat I handled him. Gad, if he didn’t blush like a girl!”</p> - -<p>And Cocky stepped lightly down Park Lane to Hamilton -Place and entered the Bachelors Club “fancying himself -very much,” as he would have expressed it; and quite -aware that his strategy would end sooner or later in an -interview more or less agreeable to his interests between -his own lawyers and those of his brother-in-law.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIX.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was another wet and chilly Easter in another year, -and the town had just begun to fill after the recess, when -one morning after luncheon the good Duke of Otterbourne, -as his county called him, riding down the Kensington -high road, was thrown from his horse, between whose -forelegs a bicycle had staggered and fallen. The boy on -the bicycle was but scarcely bruised; the Duke was carried -insensible to the nearest pharmacy and never rallied. By -four o’clock he was dead; and many persons, men and -women, old and young, gentle and simple, felt their eyes -wet as the news of his death circulated through the Park -and streets.</p> - -<p>His daughter-in-law heard of it as she drove in at Hyde -Park Corner; a man she knew stopped her carriage and -broke the intelligence to her as gently as he could. She -was shocked for a moment; then she thought to herself: -“We shall have Otterbourne House now, and I suppose -there’ll be money, at least for a time.” Then, as she -always studied appearances, she went home decorously and -busied herself telegraphing to his family and her own.</p> - -<p>The body of the old duke had been already taken to -Otterbourne House and laid on his bed in those modest -rooms opening on the gardens, to which she had so often -desired to limit him. His features were calm and wore a -look of peace; his neck had been broken in the fall; it -was thought probable that he had suffered nothing, not -even a passing pang. Whilst telegrams were being sent -all over England, and it grew dusk, she came, clothed in -black, and knelt by the low bed, weeping. She always -did what was right in small things, and at any moment -some member of her family or his might enter the room. -Meanwhile messengers of all degrees, servants, grooms, -commissionaires, telegraph boys, were rushing to and fro -over the metropolis and its environs in their vain search -for the Earl of Kenilworth. No one had any idea where -Cocky was.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>No one had seen him for two days; his absence was of -so slight an account that even his valet never took any -heed of it; it was surmised that he was in congenial society.</p> - -<p>She was thinking as she knelt of the alterations she -would make in the house; the gardens were old-fashioned -and would have to be laid out afresh; the circular entrance-hall -should be made a <i>patio</i> like Frederic Leighton’s and -have a glass dome; the picture gallery sadly wanted weeding, -and the process of weeding might be made lucrative -to the weeder, for dealers would buy anything out of -Otterbourne House with their eyes shut; the small oval -room painted by Angelica Kauffman should be her boudoir. -“I sha’n’t need to bore myself with Billy,” she thought: -the duke had not been a rich man and had been impoverished -by his sacrifices to assist Cocky; but still things -would be very different to the hand-to-mouth life which -they led, and which drove her to support the nuisance of -Harrenden House and Vale Royal, and similar expedients. -The Duchess of Otterbourne would, she reckoned, have a -free hand at least for a time; and they would probably be -able to sell lots of things despite the entail.</p> - -<p>Alberic Orme arrived that night from his country vicarage; -he was white, haggard, inexpressibly grieved; he had -loved his father dearly.</p> - -<p>“Where is my brother?” he asked her.</p> - -<p>The two younger sons were away—the one with his -ship, the other with his troop—in the Indian Ocean and -at the Cape.</p> - -<p>“Cocky?” said Cocky’s wife. “Oh, they are looking -for him. They will find him—in some pot-house!”</p> - -<p>And so they did on the following morning.</p> - -<p>When messengers in hot haste went flying over London -to find his son, and telegrams were being despatched to -the lamented duke’s country seats and county towns, -Cocky was drinking gin and playing poker with half-a-dozen -persons, more congenial than distinguished, at a -little riverside inn near Marlow, where he had been spending -three days lost to the world, but dear at least to the -hearts of Radical journalists. When at last he was found, -and the fatal accident to his father communicated to him,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span> -Cocky, who, however drunk he might be, never became a -fool, pulled himself together, comprehended the position, -and put all the money lying about in his pocket.</p> - -<p>“Damned if they’ll dare ask a duke for it!” he said to -himself with a chuckle, and walked quite steadily to the -carriage which had come for him, not casting even a look -at his late companions, male or female, who were too awed -and astonished, as well as too befumed with various drinks -to stop him or even to speak to him.</p> - -<p>“I’ll have a rattling good time now,” he thought, as he -drove to the Marlow station. “And I’ll divorce her; -Lord, what a joke it’ll be! Perhaps they won’t give it -me; I dare say they won’t give it me; there’s a marplot -called the Queen’s Proctor; they’ll talk of collusion, and -she’ll bring counter-charges, and all the rest of it; but -we’ll have the fun all the same, and she won’t be able to -show her face at Court. They’re so damned particular at -Court about the people who are found out! So is -society: she’ll be drummed out of society. Lord, what -fun it will be!”</p> - -<p>Better even than gin and poker and music-hall singers -and shady bookmakers in a village on the Thames.</p> - -<p>Whilst his father had lived that fun had been always -peremptorily forbidden to him.</p> - -<p>“Whatever your wife may have done or shall do, you -have forfeited all title to resent it,” the old duke had -always said to him; “and I will not have my name bespattered -with your filth in public.”</p> - -<p>Wholly unconscious of the dark designs he carried in -his sodden but sharp little brains, his wife was almost -civil to him when he came into her presence, sobered by -the fresh air he had breathed on his return from Marlow. -She restrained the Blenheims from attacks on his trousers, -and did not make any inquiries as to why he had been -missing for fifty-six hours.</p> - -<p>He was Cocky, he would always be Cocky, the most -wretched little scamp in creation; still he was indisputably -Seventh Duke of Otterbourne, and had considerable -power to make himself disagreeable.</p> - -<p>Out of his presence she enjoyed rapturously the vituperation -which society papers and the Radical press<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> -poured upon him now that he had really become an hereditary -legislator.</p> - -<p>“They are too funny for anything,” she said, tossing a -handful of them to Brancepeth. “They must have had -detectives after him every hour of his life. How on earth -do they know all they do?”</p> - -<p>“It’s easy enough to know about a man who don’t pay -his cabman and borrows sovereigns of his valet,” replied -Brancepeth with equanimity, picking up the scattered -news sheets.</p> - -<p>“Well, he won’t want to borrow sovereigns now,” remarked -his wife.</p> - -<p>“Won’t he?” said her friend, with worlds of significance -in the simple words. “Oh, Lord, if he ever gets -to heaven he’ll pawn St. Peter’s key!”</p> - -<p>“But there’ll be lots of money, won’t there? And the -roc’s egg will be mine, won’t it?” she asked, for her -knowledge of such matters was vague.</p> - -<p>“Ask your solicitor,” said Brancepeth.</p> - -<p>The remains of the late duke were taken down to Staghurst, -his principal place, a vast mansion and a vaster -park in a southwest county, his sons and daughter accompanying -the corpse; his daughter-in-law went also, taking -with her Jack and Gerry; in small things she always did -what looked well. If you pay in halfpence in that way -the world pays you back in guineas.</p> - -<p>The funeral took place on the following morning, on a -very disagreeable day, with sleet and rain and wind; and -the family vault and monuments were in a churchyard -which lay fully exposed to the blasts from the east, with -great yews overshadowing it and sepulchral figures by -Chantrey and Nollekens and Roubiliac, looking grim and -grey in the foggy air.</p> - -<p>The late duke had many sincere mourners, for he had -inspired many warm friendships in his own world, and -respect and regard in all classes. Moreover, the large -number of persons who in various ways were connected -with, or dependent on, the Duke of Otterbourne could -not but view with terror the advent to that title of the -small, frail, hectic little man, who had so cynical a smile -in his pale eyes and so shocking a reputation in the country.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span> -Gossip, too, had not spared that lovely lady in her -graceful crape garments, and the beautiful little boys, -whose rosy cheeks were a little less bright than usual, as -she led them under the darkling yews and the sombre, -weird sculptures of the tombs. The people assembled -there, especially the tenantry, peasantry, and servants, all -felt that the reign of kindness, straightforwardness, and -dignity was over, and that the future before them was one -clouded and threatening.</p> - -<p>“His new Grace do look a mighty poor chap,” said one -old laborer to another. “And they do say as his blood’s -all brandy, and none o’ the young ’uns is his own.”</p> - -<p>“Hold yer gab, Garge, or they’ll hev ye in the lockup,” -said his more prudent spouse.</p> - -<p>But what the old man said audibly many there present -thought.</p> - -<p>The ceremony was dreary and tedious; Jack and Gerry -were cold and frightened, and everyone else was bored; -the clergy alone were, as usual, in all their swelling glory -and fussy supremacy, headed by the late duke’s brother, -Augustus Orme, who was Bishop of Dunwich and -Waton-on-the-Naze.</p> - -<p>After the funeral, and reading of the will, the local -magnates of county and church dispersed, and everyone -else returned to London by the four o’clock express -except Cocky and his wife. He was chilly, feverish, -sleepy, and disinclined to leave the house, and she wanted -to look over the collection of historial laces which had -belonged to her mother-in-law, which had never seen the -light for many years, Otterbourne having always jealously -guarded them as the most sacred heirloom. They could -not be sold now, but they might be used, in various ways; -at the least they would adorn Drawing-room costumes; -there was, she knew, a <i>manteau de cour</i> which had belonged -to Henriette d’Angleterre. She was very fond of -lace, and she was still more fond of little <i>mauvais tours</i>; -she did not forget or forgive many words and acts of the -late duke; it was one of those unkind small revenges -which were to her pampered taste as cayenne pepper or -chutney is to a jaded palate, to unlock the dead lady’s -Italian cabinets and Indian boxes and sandal-wood<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span> -coffers, and to play havoc with the Spanish point, -the English point, the Venetian point, the Chantilly, -the Flemish, the Dutch, kerchiefs and collars -and aprons and flounces and edgings, all fine and rare, -many marked with the arms or badges of famous houses -or royal wearers of a vanished time.</p> - -<p>The poetic interest of the collection was nothing at all -to the present duchess; what mattered to her was the -value of it in money, though she could not sell it, and -the effect it would have if she wore any of it. She did -not herself like old lace, it always looked yellow and -dingy; but other people did and envied it, and it would -all look very nice at some Loan Collection, and make -her friends most agreeably jealous. She passed the afternoon -hours over it, and in ransacking all the little drawers -and boxes in the various cabinets of what had been the -favorite sitting-room of the late duchess. Otterbourne, -though he had often given his wife cause for jealousy, had -been profoundly attached to her and had kept this room -untouched, even unentered, except to be swept, dusted, -and aired.</p> - -<p>Mouse knew this well enough—she had often been irritated -at this room being locked against her; but her -knowledge did not prevent her pillaging it any more than -the sanctity of a church or a mosque to its pious devotees -prevents soldiers from sacking and firing it. She had -nothing to do, this rainy, chilly, dull day, and the examination -of her mother-in-law’s relics and treasures served -to pass the time; her second maid aided her, a sagacious -and discreet young woman, who knew when to use her -eyes and when to close them.</p> - -<p>The poor dead duchess’s room was the cosiest and -cheeriest in the whole huge building of Staghurst, which -was an immense, uninteresting, last-century house built -by Bonnani, and with a fire burning on its long-cold -hearth, and a dozen wax-candles lighted in its silver -sconces, it was a warm, comfortable, pleasant place for a -chilly evening. She had a nice succulent little dinner -served there, and when she had done full justice to it returned -to her examination of the Japanese cabinets and -the Indian boxes and the sandal-wood coffers.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>What sentimental creatures men are, she thought, seeing -a bouquet of flowers, which had been dead five-and-twenty -years, still left untouched in their porcelain bowl -in which the water had long been dry. If ever there was -a male flirt, poor Poodle had been one, and yet he had -cherished such a solemn <i>culte</i> for his dead wife that he -had kept her morning-room like a temple for a quarter of -a century! It seemed to her very droll.</p> - -<p>The little boys came to bid her good-night, and she -gave them some <i>marrons glacés</i> and kissed them and sent -them away. She was impatient to go on with her examination -of her late mother-in-law’s possessions before -anyone could interrupt her, for she did not know at all -who had the legal right to them.</p> - -<p>Jack’s brilliant eyes under their long lashes roved over -the room and espied the suggestive confusion of it.</p> - -<p>“She’s been lootin’,” he thought; he knew what looting -was; Harry had told him.</p> - -<p>“P’rhaps these was looted too,” he thought, gazing -down on his handful of Paris chestnuts.</p> - -<p>He was a very honest little man; he was honest by -nature, and Harry had made him so on principle; he had -never seen his friend “dedful angy” save once, when he, -Jack, had taken a large, sweet, crescent-shaped cake off -a stall in the Promenade des Sept Heures at Spa.</p> - -<p>His mother had no such qualms; she continued her investigations.</p> - -<p>There were things which would have touched some women. -There were the love letters of Otterbourne, then -Lord Kenilworth, ardent, tender, and graceful, tied up -with faded ribbon. There were innocent little notes -written by Cocky in a big round hand between pencilled -lines beginning “my darling mama.” There were baby -shoes in pale-blue kid and pale-pink satin, of which the -little wearers had died in infancy. There were diaries, -very simple, very brief, not always perfectly well spelled, -but always full of affectionate records and entreating -prayers of which her husband and her children were the -objects. But these things did not move the present occupier -of the title and of the room; she pitched them all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span> -into a heap with no very gentle touch and cast the heap -upon the fire. Old rubbish was best burned!</p> - -<p>Just as she had done so and was assailed by an unpleasant -misgiving that somebody might make a row -about the destruction of these things (for everybody was -so foolish and sentimental), she heard the voice of Cocky’s -body-servant speaking at the door to her maid, and the -maid approached her with a rather astonished face.</p> - -<p>“If you please, your Grace, his Grace is unwell: -could you go to his room a moment, madam?”</p> - -<p>“Go to his room?”</p> - -<p>She was as astonished as her maid. Cocky must be -very ill indeed if she were summoned to him. His -chronic maladies, due to brandies and sodas and insomnia, -were never even named to her. He had certainly coughed -and shivered at the funeral that forenoon, and in the train -the day before, but then he so often did this no one attached -any importance to a little more of it or a little less.</p> - -<p>This time, however, poor Cocky, over whom Providence -(or the powers of darkness) did not watch as they ought -to have done, had caught something worse than a cold, -standing without a hat so long in that biting March -morning, in a damp and windy country churchyard, and -without a drop of anything inside him, as he pathetically -remarked.</p> - -<p>In the evening he was so unwell with shivering, difficulty -of breathing, and pains in his head and limbs, that -he could not even drink liquors and enjoy the newspaper -attacks upon himself in his own rooms, but had to -go to bed at ten o’clock, which he had certainly never -done since his early boyhood.</p> - -<p>“Most unlucky beast in all creation I am,” he muttered -as he shivered between the sheets. “Just got the ribbons -between my fingers and ten to one the coach’ll land -in a ditch; ditch we must all end in, eh? Worms and -winding sheet and all; even Mouse’ll come to that some -time. Here, you, get me some brandy and don’t stand -staring, you fool.”</p> - -<p>But his valet was no fool, and instead of bringing the -brandy went to another wing of the house for the doctor,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span> -who had always lived in it for many years as attendant -on the deceased duke.</p> - -<p>The doctor found the new duke in a very sad state of -health, with some fever and a hacking cough, which -threatened to become pleuro-pneumonia and would try -the slender amount of strength which the sick man possessed -very dangerously; he advised that the duchess -should be told.</p> - -<p>So she was told, and came across the great house looking -like a Burne-Jones in her long black robes, with the -fairness of her skin and hair dazzling in their contrast to -her garb of woe.</p> - -<p>“Is it anything serious?” she said, in an awed voice, -for she was really shocked by his appearance, and did -not want him to die at this moment of his succession.</p> - -<p>“It’s skull and cross-bones business; that’s what it is,” -said her husband with a groan. “Rascally east wind did -it. Don’t come here; you can’t do me any good.”</p> - -<p>A famous London physician, who had probably killed -more people than any other doctor living, and was esteemed -proportionately, was summoned by telegraph; and -by the sick man’s own desire the chief solicitor of the -county town, who had been legal adviser and agent to the -late duke, was sent for, to return in all haste to Staghurst -and take down his instructions. Left alone with -this person on his arrival, by his own express desire, -Cocky, who had scarcely any voice left, whispered to him:</p> - -<p>“Would it keep ’em out of the succession if I declare -they aren’t my children?”</p> - -<p>The solicitor hesitated; he felt his own position a most -delicate and embarrassing one.</p> - -<p>“Your Grace must not entertain such suspicions,” he -said, with some confusion. “The duchess enjoys the esteem -and respect of every——”</p> - -<p>“Stow your gab!” hissed Cocky. “All I want to -know is—if I made a formal declaration, would it -stand?”</p> - -<p>“No, sir—it would not.”</p> - -<p>The lawyer thought the dying man’s mind wandered, -being himself a country person to whose ears the gossip -of smart society did not come. “Oh, your Grace, you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span> -must not think of such a thing,” he added, greatly embarrassed. -“Dear me, dear me, I do not know what to -say, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Would it keep her brats out?” said Cocky, as -savagely as his failing breath allowed.</p> - -<p>The lawyer shook his head. “No, your Grace—it -would not. Whatever may have happened, sir, you have -condoned, you see. Of course, I am not for a moment -supposing that there are any grounds——”</p> - -<p>“Stow that bosh!” said his client, as savagely as his -weakness allowed. “If I could have divorced her all -these years, and didn’t? If I said so now?”</p> - -<p>The lawyer shook his head again. “It would not -stand, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?” asked Cocky.</p> - -<p>“Children born in wedlock must be legitimate heirs, -your Grace,” the lawyer said, very decidedly, to pierce -through the muddled senses of the dying client.</p> - -<p>“Wedlock, eh?—wedlock?” repeated Cocky with a -chuckle which ended in a convulsive cough. The word -tickled his fancy mightily, though Mr. Curton could not -imagine what he had said which was ludicrous. “Wedlock!” -echoed Cocky; “you won’t beat that, Curton, in -a brace of years!”</p> - -<p>“The word is good law and good English, sir,” said the -solicitor, a little offended. “I repeat, after so many -years of wedlock you could not leave a posthumous charge -of the kind behind you. It might be mere pique and -malice on your part. No Court would ratify it. It -would only make a dreadful scandal, sir, because, I presume, -Lord Alberic would endeavor to uphold your declaration, -since he is next in succession after your Grace’s -sons.”</p> - -<p>An angry flash came into Cocky’s sunken colorless -eyes.</p> - -<p>“Beric? Gad! I’d forgot that. So he would. I’d -rather little Jack came after me. He’s a good plucked -one; bit his lips not to squeal when I pinched him. And -I don’t dislike poor Harry. He’s a good fellow, and she -got over him.”</p> - -<p>A fit of coughing stopped his revelations, to which the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> -discreet lawyer turned a deaf ear. He was an excellent -person who lived in a large, square, white house, with -shrubberies, and a carriage-drive, and a page in buttons; -to him marriage was marriage, and a duke and duchess -were one and indivisible; when such people got into law -courts he was sincerely sorry that they did not respect -themselves as greatly as he respected them; he knew that -the gentleman, too, who now lay dying had been in many -discreditable straits, for he had himself been frequently -called in to assist in getting the delinquent out of them; -but a duke was a duke, Otterbourne was Otterbourne, in -the eyes of the good and conservative attorney, and he -had a deaf ear which he could turn very usefully when -needed.</p> - -<p>To assist in making such a terrible hotch-potch of -scandal, as would be made by any posthumous repudiation, -might have tempted a London Old Bailey practitioner, -but it did not tempt for an instant this respectable -rural devotee of Themis.</p> - -<p>Cocky was silent for some time, breathing hard and deliberating -what he would do. Almost more than his wife -he hated his brother Alberic, who had always been the -beloved of his father.</p> - -<p>He raised himself, at last, feebly on his pillows. “Look -here, Curton,” he said, with gasping effort, “you make my -will, and be quick about it, for I’m dead beat. I can’t -touch much, I know, but where I can do anything, make -it as deuced unpleasant for her as you can; and renew the—the—what -d’ye call it—settlement for the jewels, so -that she’ll have to give ’em up; renew it just as it stood -in my father’s and grandfather’s wills, will you? And -look here, Curton: I appoint as guardians my brother-in-law -and my uncle Augustus.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Curton inclined his head in approval.</p> - -<p>“Lord Hurstmanceaux and the Bishop of Dunwich? -Your Grace could not make a more admirable selection. -The highest principle——”</p> - -<p>Cocky chuckled with a sound very like the death-rattle. -“I choose Ronnie ’cause he’s so damned conscientious, he -can’t refuse, and he’ll hate it so; and I choose old -Augustus ’cause he came down once when I was a shaver<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> -at Eton and never tipped me, and gave me a beastly book -called ‘The Christian Year.’ Make it all as deuced annoyin’ -to both of ’em as you can. Lord, what a pother -they’ll find all my affairs in—that’s a comfort.”</p> - -<p>And it was a genuine tonic and cordial to him to think -how, after his decease, all his sins and embarrassments -would continue to circle like mosquitos around the heads -of his trustees and executors.</p> - -<p>“Beric will hate being left out,” he murmured; on the -whole he was getting considerable fun out of this ante-mortem -duty. But it was a bore to die, an awful bore, -just when he had come into things and could do what he -liked; he moved restlessly and uneasily on his bed while -the lawyer wrote out the clauses of the testament, hastening -as much as he could, for he saw that every breath might -be his client’s last. When the witnesses were called in, -oxygen was given to the dying man, and he rallied -enough to sit up in his servant’s arms and sign “Otterbourne” -legibly, in that clear handwriting which he had -learned at Eton, and which had signed so much “bad -paper.”</p> - -<p>“I couldn’t do much, but I’ve done what I could,” he -said feebly, as the pen fell from his fingers. “To be -damned disagreeable to ’em all round,” he concluded, as -his cough permitted him to complete the phrase.</p> - -<p>“What a Christian spirit!” murmured the vicar of the -village, who was present to witness the will, and had not -heard the concluding sentence.</p> - -<p>“Shut up!” said Cocky feebly but viciously. “You -parsons are just like ravens, always comin’ and cawin’ -where anybody’s bein’ snuffed out; birds of ill-omen, you -are—marryin’ and buryin’—he, he!”</p> - -<p>The scared vicar looked aghast at the polished London -physician. “The mind wanders: the end is near,” murmured -that bland person, with a professional sigh.</p> - -<p>Mr. Curton shook his head as he folded up the document. -It was all very painful to the excellent lawyer; -it destroyed all his theories of the nobility; and to make -a ducal will in a hurry seemed to him almost like <i>leze-majesty</i>.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear sir,” he murmured, in sad and useless regret,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span> -“why, oh, why leave such a document as this to such -a moment?”</p> - -<p>“Always thought the pater’d outlive me,” murmured -Cocky; “so he would—twenty years—if that byke hadn’t -upset him.”</p> - -<p>Mouse, sweet, resigned, composed, regretful, came noiselessly -into the chamber of death, leading Jack by the -hand, very sober and a little frightened, with his beautiful -black eyes wide open and fixed in a vague terror on -the bed.</p> - -<p>“Dear little angel!” murmured the vicar, at whom Jack -was wont to aim paper pellets in church.</p> - -<p>Mouse approached the bedside. “Beric is here, dear,” -she said gently. “He begs to see you. May he come in? -Ronald is here, too.”</p> - -<p>“Goody-goody and the Miser?” said her husband, in a -muffled faint voice. “No; tell ’em both to go to the -devil.”</p> - -<p>Cocky closed his eyes, and lay to all outward semblance -unconscious and indifferent to worldly things; the worn-out -lungs drawing in desperately a few last breaths of air. -Who shall say what vain regrets for lost opportunities, for -wasted talents, for foolish and fruitless hours, were in his -thoughts? He looked already dead, save for the slight -labored heaving of his chest beneath the bedclothes.</p> - -<p>And there had been a time when in that very house he -had been a pretty, innocent, beloved child; when he had -been clasped in a mother’s arms, her idol and her hope; -when he had run across those lawns without with fleet -feet and flying hair; when old servants had watched his -every step, repeated his every word, and a proud race had -seen in him the security for its future continuance and -honor!</p> - -<p>The vicar by sheer force of habit folded his hands, composed -a pious face, and began a prayer.</p> - -<p>“O Lord our God, let this Thy good and faithful -servant——”</p> - -<p>“Stop that,” said Cocky, opening his eyes. “I won’t -bluff the Almighty just at the last out of funk.”</p> - -<p>It was one feeble flicker of the honor of his race, which -he had outraged and derided all the forty years of his life,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span> -but which in the moment of death came to him for one -second. The words shocked his hearers as a blasphemy, -but in truth they expressed the only honorable scruple of -a dishonorable life. He would not “bluff the Almighty”; -he would not at the end of all, and in the face of death, -turn, out of fear, to what he had mocked and ridiculed -through all his years of life.</p> - -<p>“Get on the bed and kiss your poor dear papa, my -lord,” whispered the nurse, who had followed Jack into -the room lest he should worry her lady.</p> - -<p>Jack hung back, reluctant, but the slender white hands -of his mother, which could hold so tightly, gripped him -round the waist and lifted him on to the bed. He burst -out crying from fright and a vague pity which stirred in -his childish bosom. Then his compassion made him conquer -his fears. He put his fresh rosy mouth shrinkingly -to the waxen sunken cheek of the dying man. But Cocky -by a supreme effort turned his head away with a glare of -anger in his eyes, and the child’s warm lips kissed the -pillow.</p> - -<p>“Damn you and your brats!” he said, with enfeebled -voice but intensified venom, and his gaze, full of meaning, -met hers, and said all which he had never spoken through -all the years in which she had borne his name.</p> - -<p>“It is so sad how often the dying take a hatred to what -they love best in life,” she murmured to the London -physician, a bland bald person who had buried patients -in Westminster Abbey, and that second best Valhalla, -St. Paul’s.</p> - -<p>“Damn you and all your brats!” Cocky muttered -feebly again as his gaze sought and found his wife’s -face through the mist of unreality which was fast hiding -all the facts and figures of existence from him for evermore.</p> - -<p>“Let us pray,” said the vicar in a hushed and awed -voice, for he was indeed unspeakably shocked. She -dropped on her knees and everyone else knelt also.</p> - -<p>Then the shrill short labored breathing ceased to whistle -feebly through the silence: the bed-covering heaved no -more.</p> - -<p>Cocky was dead.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>The child slipped down on to the floor. Alberic Orme -and Hurstmanceaux stood hesitating on the threshold of -the chamber.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear Duchess!” sighed the fashionable Esculapius, -who was eminently pious. “These are the trials which -are sent to us to detach us from earthly affections! The -ways of God are inscrutable, but we must not question -their merciful purpose.”</p> - -<p>Cocky lay on the bed between them, very straight, very -waxen, very like an effigy in yellow stone; but looking -down on him his wife shuddered, for it seemed to her that -his left eye opened and winked and that his rigid jaw -grinned. She had an uncomfortable feeling that, though -she would soon comfortably forget all the rest of him, -Cocky’s grin and Cocky’s wink would long rise up in her -memory.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XX.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> another week he also was carried out under the big -yews and the Chantrey and Roubiliac statues, and laid -beside the remains of his father and forefathers in a black-velvet -covered coffin with silver handles and his ducal -coronet upon it. But he had no sincere mourners, not -one, although in the usual sickly tawdry habit of the time -heaps of wreaths and garlands were piled up to his detested -memory. His wife was again present, enveloped -in the long crape veil of usage, with her two little sons -beside her—a most touching and lovely figure. During -the ceremony it would have been impossible for any observer -to say whether she were profoundly touched or -merely apathetic; but at one point in the service, when -the village choir were singing a Mendelssohn hymn, her -head drooped lower and lower, and her veiled figure -moved with what resembled a convulsive sob: a correspondent -of a daily paper, indeed, scribbled in shorthand -that only for one instant did her admirable fortitude give -way to an irrepressible burst of natural anguish. Jack -knew better: he nudged Gerry and whispered very low: -“Mammy’s laughin’. We mustn’t.”</p> - -<p>Amongst the floral decorations there, heaped on and -about the coffin, there was a harp made of lilies with silver -strings and one string broken. As an emblem of Cocky’s -life it was really too deliciously funny. It got the better -of her nerves and she was forced to bury her face in her -handkerchief.</p> - -<p>For on the harp was a card, and on the card was written -in a big sprawling handwriting, “From Lily.”</p> - -<p>Lily Larking, of the Salamander Music Hall, of course.</p> - -<p>It was too irresistibly droll. She laughed till she really -cried.</p> - -<p>Happily all human emotions are so closely related that -irrepressible laughter resembles irrepressible tears enough<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span> -to deceive a newspaper correspondent and a sympathetic -crowd.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it too comical?” she said to her sister Carrie.</p> - -<p>“Very droll, yes,” said Lady Wisbeach. “Awfully -cheeky in the woman sending a wreath here.”</p> - -<p>“How Cocky would laugh if he knew,” said his widow; -she could not divest herself of the feeling that Cocky did -know, and did enjoy, the farce of his own burial.</p> - -<p>Poor Cocky! Well, he was buried for good and all, -with his crowns and crosses and harps and garlands all -left to wither and rot above him, and he would never bore -her and worry her and annoy her any more. She felt almost -charitably toward him; he might have been worse, -he might have been interfering and difficult and quarrelsome, -and might have noticed, as his father had done, that -the pretty children in his nursery had little resemblance -to his family portraits. All was quite safe now, and -he was silent for ever under his mass of decaying -flowers.</p> - -<p>She passed to her carriage on her brother’s arm, amidst -a respectful murmur of deep admiration and of that genuine -good feeling which is so often awakened in crowds, -they know not why and hardly know for whom.</p> - -<p>“Poor dear pretty crittur, widdered in all her bloom!” -said a good village dame to her husband, the water in her -honest eyes as they followed the two little fair heads of -the orphaned boys.</p> - -<p>Then they all returned to the castle, and the will was -read, and the thing was over, and she ate a luncheon in -her own rooms with a good appetite.</p> - -<p>She was relieved that her sisters-in-law had taken their -departure without going into, or making any remark -about, their late mother’s morning-room. The fact was, -that these ladies disliked her so extremely that they had -hurried away after each funeral as quickly as they could, -compatible with usage and decency.</p> - -<p>Her portrait by Henner was one of the most beautiful -pictures in the galleries of Staghurst; but the old duke’s -daughters would have preferred less loveliness and more -scruples in the mother of the little boy with the soft black -eyes, who was now the lawful head of their family.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>Jack, meanwhile, was full of his own new position, -which his mind only dimly grasped; and the whole thing -puzzled him greatly. Fifteen days before they had put -his grandfather in a box, and shut down the slab of stone -on him, and now they were doing the same with poor -pappy, who would never any more come behind him on -the staircases and painfully pinch his legs, or tap a hot -cigarette unexpectedly against his cheek. Why was not -Harry here to make it all clear to him? He did not -know that Harry, who really and profoundly mourned the -dead man, had desired to come to the funeral, had entreated -to be allowed to come, but had been peremptorily -forbidden.</p> - -<p>He noticed that all the people about Staghurst regarded -him with awe, and the women bobbed very low in the -country lanes; and the young footman who waited on him -at table was very solicitous to press on him jams and candied -fruits. It was the first time in his life that he had -ever had as much jam as he wished for; rank has its -privileges still, despite the Labor Party.</p> - -<p>“That’s the little duke, bless his pretty face!” he had -heard the women say who were respectfully gathered about -the churchyard entrance to see the great people come out -from the gate. And very pretty Jack did look, with his -bright hair shining like new gold against his sable garments, -and a look of pity and wistfulness and solemnity -on his face which was touching.</p> - -<p>“Am I really duke and all that?” he asked later of the -nurse who had accompanied them to Staghurst.</p> - -<p>She replied: “You really are, sir, yes.”</p> - -<p>“Am I what gran’pa’ was?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, your Grace, yes.”</p> - -<p>He pondered deeply on the fact, standing with his legs -very wide apart and his brows knitted.</p> - -<p>“Then I’ll live with Harry.”</p> - -<p>The nurse, who was discretion itself, answered, “Your -Grace will do just whatever your Grace wishes.”</p> - -<p>“That’ll be jolly,” said the new duke; and he stood on -his golden head.</p> - -<p>“But I suppose I shall always have to behave very -well,” he thought, in a soberer moment. The obligation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span> -was painful; Jack’s natural man was naughty; not as -naughty as Boo wished him to be, but still naughty, -naughty in a frank sportive merry way, as colts are skittish -and pups destructive.</p> - -<p>His mother enjoyed her luncheon, because that long -Service had given her renewed appetite, and she was infinitely -diverted by Lily Larking’s wreath; but, all the -same, she felt as she had never felt in her life, lonely, -insecure, anxious, apprehensive. Cocky had been more -support to her than she had realized before his death; his -connivance, his condonation, his ready resources in difficulty, -his unlimited unscrupulousness, had all been more -useful and more valuable than she had ever realized until -they were all lost to her for ever. Their association had -not been much more creditable than that of two thieves -or marauders, but mutual interest had bound them together -as it binds those, and the link, when broken, left a -blank.</p> - -<p>Moreover, had she not married him to be Duchess of -Otterbourne? She was Duchess of Otterbourne now, but -shorn of all the advantages appertaining to the title except -the mere barren rank. Anything more odious than the -position of a widow living on her jointure and bullied by -trustees, could not, she thought, be conceived. She had -not been able to grasp the sense of Cocky’s will as it had -been read aloud in its barbarous legal jargon and bastard -Latin, but she had understood that it was “nasty,” very -nasty in its provisions; and that as guardians of the children, -there were appointed her brother and Augustus -Orme, the churchman. She seemed, herself, to come in -nowhere, and to have no power or privileges of any sort, -and to be cut down as utterly in every way as the provisions -of her marriage settlements allowed.</p> - -<p>There had been so much solidarity between Cocky and -herself in their way of looking at life, in their enjoyment -of ruse and expedient, in their mutual sense of the injustice -and the nuisance of things, that this sympathy between -them had prevented her from perceiving that the man she -had married hated her very bitterly for having married -him. She was not in the least prepared for the many -forms of vengeance which were gathered together in that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span> -neat and formal document which was the last will and -testament of the companion of her life.</p> - -<p>Cocky had never expected to outlive his father; but he -had always said to himself: “By God, if I <i>do</i>——!”</p> - -<p>The law—that stiff, starched, unbending, and unpleasant -thing which comes so often between us and our desires—had -denied him the pleasure of doing much that he -had wished to do, but all that it had let him do he had -done to punish and torment the lady who had wedded him -“with a card up her sleeve.”</p> - -<p>When Hurstmanceaux and Alberic Orme came to visit -her, after the lawyers and the other members of the -family had left the castle, they were both surprised to -see how seriously depressed and how much worn she -looked.</p> - -<p>“Did you see Lily Larking’s wreath? It was too -droll,” were her first words.</p> - -<p>Lord Alberic briefly replied that he had not.</p> - -<p>“It was scandalous that it was allowed to pass the -church doors,” said Hurstmanceaux. “I suppose they -did not know.”</p> - -<p>“Of course they did not know; who should have -heard of Lily Larking in Somersetshire? We can go up -to town to-night, can’t we, Ronnie?”</p> - -<p>“Do you wish it? There is a ten o’clock train. The -children would be better in bed.”</p> - -<p>“That does not matter. I want to be in town.”</p> - -<p>She was anxious to get away from Staghurst, which had -grown hateful to her, and was very desirious to learn -something which she could only learn in London, <i>viva voce</i>, -from her own lawyer, Mr. Gregge, a gentleman who had -not been invited to either of the funerals, though his existence, -as her confidential adviser, had been known to -both the families.</p> - -<p>She and her brother and brother-in-law dined together -at eight o’clock. She was silent and pre-occupied.</p> - -<p>“Who would ever have imagined that any woman -would lament Cocky’s loss?” thought Alberic Orme; and -Hurstmanceaux thought, “<i>Souvent femme varie, bien fol -qui s’y fie</i>. The idea of her mourning for Cocky!” They -could not see into her mind, which was gloomy and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span> -troubled, like the dark old ponds which were lying black -under a fitful moonlight in the melancholy park without.</p> - -<p>Both the men who accompanied her up to town were -perplexed. The tears which rose to her eyes, the unmistakable -trouble in her expression, the look of anxiety and -sorrow were genuine; there was no doubt about it. Lord -Alberic, who had always been very cold to her, wondered -if he had done her injustice all these years, and Hurstmanceaux, -who knew her better, thought: “She counted -on having a rattling good time on the succession, and -she’s really sorry that little blackguard is dead.”</p> - -<p>But it was a matter concealed from almost everyone, -and of which neither family dreamed, which was racking -her nerves like neuralgia. It was the destination of the -big diamond, the roc’s egg, which had been her ostensible -object in marrying Cocky.</p> - -<p>When she thought of that jewel, high-couraged and -mettlesome and thoroughbred though she was, a sickly -chill passed over her, and she shuddered, as she looked at -her brother’s profile in the faint light of the railway-lamp, -as the train sped through the night. For she had, in -vulgar parlance, pawned the famous jewel.</p> - -<p>That is to say, that being in great want of money, of a -sum so large that no one she could appeal to would be -likely or even able to give it to her, she had borrowed -that sum, four years previously, on the roc’s egg, of a -great jeweler, who had caused to be made for her such a -precise counterfeit in paste that no detection was possible -by the naked eye.</p> - -<p>The famous jeweler was a Pole by birth, a Parisian by -long residence and habit; he had dropped his own name, -which had been politically compromised in his earliest -manhood and for forty years had traded in the city of -his adoption as a naturalized Frenchman, known as M. -Boris Beaumont. His riches were now great; his taste -in and knowledge of gems were unerring; and he had -that note of fashion without which a great tradesman in -Paris is an Apollo without a bow or a lute. All the great -ladies were his clients; without something of Beaumont’s -no bridal <i>corbeille</i> was well furnished; his exquisite trifles -were the most distinguished of New Year’s gifts. He was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span> -deferential, good-natured, adroit; in his trade he was absolutely -to be depended on; if Beaumont told you a stone -was good, you might buy it without further warranty, and -you would never repent; the price of it was high, even -very high; but if you made that objection he would say -briefly with a little shrug: “<i>Que voulezvous? Ça vient -de moi!</i>”</p> - -<p>Behind his very elegant shop was a conservatory, behind -the conservatory was a little salon where his -patronesses could have ices or tea according to the season, -and read Gyp’s last delightful persiflage. In that little -salon many a secret has been confided to Beaumont; -many a dilemma been exposed to him.</p> - -<p>“<i>Les honnêtes femmes! Les honnêtes femmes!</i>” he said -once to a friend. “<i>Ah mon cher, il n’y qu’elles pour -canaille!</i>” But it was rarely he was so indiscreet as this, -though he knew so many of the passions and pains which -throbbed under the diamond tiaras and the sapphire -<i>rivières</i> in the brains and in the breasts of his fair -clients.</p> - -<p>Now and then Beaumont went to the opera, or to the -Français on a Tuesday, and from his modest stall looked -up at his patrician patronesses in all the beauty of their -semi-nudity, their admirable <i>maquillage</i>, their wondrous -toilettes, and then he smiled as he lowered his glasses with -a little malice but more indulgence.</p> - -<p>To Mouse, of course, Beaumont was well known: when -she had wanted this large sum he had taken it from his -capital for her, but as security he would accept in return -nothing less than the famous Otterbourne jewel.</p> - -<p>“You have it. Bring it me,” he said as simply as if he -had been speaking of a bit of cornelian or agate.</p> - -<p>In vain she implored, protested, entreated, wept, tried -all the armory of persuasion, represented that he was -tempting her to a crime, actually to a crime!</p> - -<p>“Ah, no, madame,” said Beaumont very gently, “I -tempt you to nothing. I would rather keep my three -hundred thousand francs in the Bank of France. I do -not wish for your diamond at all. Only if there be any -question of this loan, that is the only security I can take -for it. Whether you like these terms or not is nothing to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span> -me; they are mine, and I cannot change them. The -affair will oblige you, madame, not me.”</p> - -<p>Beaumont was not an unkind man; more than one -young actress had owed her prosperity to him, more than -one honorable family had been saved from ruin by his assistance; -but to women like Mouse he was inflexible, he -had not a shred of compassion for their troubles, and never -believed a word they spoke; he dealt with them harshly -and obstinately; he despised them from the depths of his -soul, the pretty creatures, who sipped his iced mocha, and -broke off the buds of his Malmaison roses.</p> - -<p>The roc’s egg was brought to him one heavily raining -day by a lady in a cab in whom he, well-used though he -was to such secret visits, had difficulty in recognizing the -blonde English beauty. It had been now in his possession -for four years, and though it was a magnificent object such -as could be fully appreciated only by trained eyes like his -own, he began to get tired of keeping it locked up, and -unseen by any eyes save his own. He would not have felt -tired if she had paid him any interest on his loan; but she -had never paid him a centième. She had not even paid -anything for the imitation diamond which had cost him a -good deal, for it was admirably and exquisitely made; it -had been worn many times at Courts at home and abroad, -and she had nearly laughed outright more than once at -the precautions with which it was surrounded when it was -not worn, and the fire-proof iron safe screwed down to the -floor in which it dwelt when it was not the envied occupant -of her own white breast; not even the sharp -suspicious eyes of Cocky had ever discerned any difference -in it from that of the great gem which it represented.</p> - -<p>“<i>C’est une ingrâte</i>,” said Beaumont to himself when he -saw a person for whom he had done so much flash past him -on the boulevards as she drove to Chantilly or La -Marche; and he hated ingratitude.</p> - -<p>For her own part, having given him the great jewel -and worn the substitute successfully, she had of late -dismissed the subject from her mind with her usual happy -<i>insouciance</i>. But now, clauses in her husband’s will and -in that of his father’s, had recalled it to her harshly, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span> -with insistence. She knew that the jewels, like most other -things, were held in trust for the little rosy-cheeked man -in the further corner of the carriage; and that sooner or -later they would be subjected to examination, and in all -probability taken out of her custody. She had no longer -even the rights in them which are called rights of user. -So much she had gathered as she had listened to the reading -of the will; she was not sure, but she was afraid, and -this glacial fear gripped her light and courageous heart, -and almost made its pulses stand still.</p> - -<p>She felt almost to hate the unconscious little duke, -tucked up in a bear-skin with his legs crossed under him -in a corner of the railway-carriage.</p> - -<p>Jack could not get out of his mind the idea of poor -Pappy being left all alone in that dark stone place underground; -“and he can’t even smoke,” he thought, with a -tender pity in his little heart for the man who had so often -pinched his legs and tugged at his hair. His mother reclined -in her compartment looking very white, grave, and -angry, in her sombre clothes, and in her unwonted taciturnity; -his uncles talked to each other of things that he -could not understand. Gerry was sound asleep; Jack -watched the steam fly past the window-pane.</p> - -<p>“It’s a horrid thing to be deaded,” he thought. “Oh, -I hope,—I hope,—I <i>do</i> hope,—Harry won’t ever be -deaded.”</p> - -<p>In his fervor he said the words unconsciously aloud.</p> - -<p>“What nonsense are you talking to yourself?” said his -mother angrily. “And people say dead—not deaded.”</p> - -<p>Jack shrank into his corner and watched the wreaths of -steam fly on against the dark.</p> - -<p>“What’s the use of being all grandpa’ was?” he -thought. “Mammy’ll always be bullying.”</p> - -<p>Jack had seen his grandfather omnipotent, deferred to -by everybody, and independent in all actions; why did -not these privileges descend with the dukedom to himself?</p> - -<p>“You’re a minor, Jack,” one of his aunts had said to -him, but the word had only confused him. He thought it -meant a man who worked underground with a pickaxe -and a safety-lamp as he had seen them drawn in instructive -books.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span>“Harry’ll tell me all I can do,” he thought; and comforted -by that thought he fell asleep like his brother.</p> - -<p>“I can see no one,” she said to her groom of the chambers -the next morning in Stanhope Street.</p> - -<p>“No exceptions, your Grace?” asked that functionary, -his mind reverting to Brancepeth.</p> - -<p>“None,” she answered curtly—“at least only Gregge.”</p> - -<p>This gentleman waited on her and bore himself with -a manner that expressed his wounded feelings at not having -been sent for into the country.</p> - -<p>“Never mind that,” she said impatiently. “They don’t -like you, you know, because you give me good advice, and -they think it bad; I want you to tell me what rights I -have.”</p> - -<p>“I was not at the reading of the will, your Grace,” replied -Mr. Gregge, still full of his own wrongs.</p> - -<p>“But I am sure you know all about it.”</p> - -<p>“I have heard something from Messrs. Wilton and -Somers,” he answered cautiously, naming the London -solicitors of the late dukes.</p> - -<p>“Well, what rights have I?”</p> - -<p>“Your rights are limited, madam; exceedingly limited. -At least I believe so. I have no positive information.”</p> - -<p>Her pretty teeth shut tightly together. He seemed to -her less polite and deferential than usual.</p> - -<p>“I do as I like with the children, don’t I?” she asked -angrily.</p> - -<p>“Subject to their guardians’ approval.”</p> - -<p>“That is to say, I don’t?”</p> - -<p>He was silent.</p> - -<p>She beat the carpet very feverishly with her foot.</p> - -<p>“I keep the jewels, of course?”</p> - -<p>“Your own, madam, of course.”</p> - -<p>“I mean the Otterbourne jewels; the great Indian -diamond?”</p> - -<p>“No, madam. I fear they will be removed from your -keeping. You have no right of user over them.”</p> - -<p>Her eyes dilated with a strange expression.</p> - -<p>“They are not mine? For my lifetime?”</p> - -<p>Then, alarmed at the terror and fury he read in her -countenance, he hastened to add:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>“I speak as <i>amicus curiæ</i>; I have not read the will; if -you wish me to confer with the late duke’s legal advisers -I will do so, and inform you more exactly of your position.”</p> - -<p>She assented and dismissed him with scant courtesy, -being a prey to extreme anxiety. She had never entertained -any doubt as to her jurisdiction over the children -and the jewels, and she had never correctly comprehended -the changed position in which the death of her husband -places a woman of rank. She wrote to Beaumont a harsh -and imperious letter in the third person, ordering him to -come to her at once and bring her property with him. In -her eyes, whatever he might be in his own, he was only a -tradesman.</p> - -<p>Beaumont knew very well that he had done an invalid -thing, and that the signature of the lady locked up in his -safe was in law worth nothing. But he was used to doing -illegal things, he always found they answered best. The -transaction was <i>bonâ fide</i> on his part, and the jewel was -in his hands.</p> - -<p>Before the Duke of Otterbourne would lose it, and let -the matter be brought before a tribunal, Beaumont knew -very well that he himself should be repaid. She could -not repay him, her husband could not, but the family, the -head of the family, would. So he had always reasoned. -“<i>La famille! C’est le magôt de ces gens là</i>,” he said to -himself.</p> - -<p>The death of the Duke of Otterbourne had disagreeably -surprised him, and made him take a trip across the Channel, -a fidgety, worrying little journey which he at all times -disliked, for he was never comfortable out of the Rue de -la Paix. He had scarcely reached London when the newspapers -informed him of the illness, and in a few days of -the demise, of the late duke’s successor. He was much -too well-bred to intrude on the retreat of the widowed -duchess. He knew that the retreat would not last very -long. He amused himself by going to see the imitation -jewelry of Birmingham, and was lost in wonder that a -nation which has the art of India under its eyes can outrage -heaven and earth by gewgaws meet for savages. -Then, having taken precautions so as to be informed of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span> -all which might be done with the Otterbourne heirlooms, -he returned to the home of his heart and awaited events. -When some few days later he received her curt summons -he was extremely astonished, but agreeably so; he concluded -he was about to receive his money. No one, he -thought, would write in that imperious tone who was not -prepared to pay to the uttermost farthing. So he reluctantly -again undertook that fidgeting little journey of -Calais-Douvres which the wit and wisdom of two nations -are content to leave in chaos whilst they ridicule the -Chinese for not making good roads.</p> - -<p>He read her letter again on the steamer; it was so very -uncivil that it could only mean payment, immediate and -complete. Why not? The Otterbourne family was after -all a very illustrious one.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXI.</h2> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Poor</span> papa is deaded,” said Jack to Boo on his return to -town; in the tenderness of his heart he was beginning to -forget the dead man’s pinches and to pity his retirement -from the world.</p> - -<p>“I know; and I do hate black so,” said Boo twitching -wrathfully at her frock.</p> - -<p>“I’m ’fraid he must be so dull in heaven,” said Jack -seriously. “I don’t think they let them race, or bet, or -do anything amusin’ there.”</p> - -<p>He wasn’t sure, but he thought he had heard so.</p> - -<p>“I ought to have gone down as well as you, instead of -Gerry,” said Boo, who had been exceedingly aggrieved at -being left in town like Baby.</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” said Jack with much dignity, “you’re not in -the succession; you’re a female.”</p> - -<p>“A female? Me? How dare you?” cried Boo in a -red fury of wrath, and gave him a resounding box on the -ear. The head of her House perceived that he was not a -hero to his relatives, and, ignorant of the French proverb, -turned to the servants.</p> - -<p>“I’m Duke, James,” he said to his friend the hall-boy.</p> - -<p>“So I’ve heard, your Grace.”</p> - -<p>“We’ll play marbles all day long, James.”</p> - -<p>“All right, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Why aren’t you a duke, James?”</p> - -<p>The hall-boy grinned.</p> - -<p>“<i>M. le Duc ne doit pas causer avec les domestiques</i>,” said -the French governess, and took hold of him by his right -ear and propelled him upstairs.</p> - -<p>“<i>Pourquoi nong pas?</i>” asked Jack.</p> - -<p>“<i>Parcequ’ils sont vos inférieurs</i>,” replied the French -lady.</p> - -<p>Jack did like the reply, it sounded harsh, he did not believe -it was true; James beat him at marbles, and could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span> -make popguns and cut out boats, and had talents and virtues -innumerable.</p> - -<p>Jack loved the hall-boy, and had once got into dreadful -disgrace by taking his place and answering the door, to -let his friend go round the corner.</p> - -<p>As he was being driven upstairs by the governess he -heard the voice of Brancepeth arguing with a footman; -the young man was insisting that they should let him in, -and the servants were apologizing, her Grace’s orders had -been positive. Jack, with a leap like a chamois’s, rushed -downstairs and leaped into his friend’s arms.</p> - -<p>“Well, your Grace,” said Brancepeth, as he kissed the -child, “how is my lord duke, eh?”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth had not been allowed to go down to Staghurst, -even for the funeral; he had been desired to -allege military duties as an obstacle, and had done so, -though he thought it brutally uncivil to poor Cocky.</p> - -<p>Jack laughed; his rosy face was bright above his black -jersey; but he tried to look serious, as he had been told -that he ought to do.</p> - -<p>“Mammy says we must not laugh,” he said sorrowfully. -“Come in here.”</p> - -<p>He pulled his favorite by the hand into the library.</p> - -<p>“He’s deaded you know,” he whispered solemnly.</p> - -<p>Brancepeth nodded; he sat down on a low chair, took -Jack on his knee and kissed him.</p> - -<p>“He won’t pinch my calves any more,” said Jack with -a sense of relief.</p> - -<p>“He won’t do anything any more, poor devil,” said his -friend, who sincerely mourned him.</p> - -<p>Jack was silent, trying to realize the position and failing. -“Cuckoopint’s mine now, ain’t he?” he said suddenly.</p> - -<p>Cuckoopint was Cocky’s cob.</p> - -<p>“Everything’s yours, you lucky little beggar,” said -Brancepeth. “But don’t flatter yourself they’ll let you -do as you like. Ronnie and the bishop between ’em will -keep you uncommon tight.”</p> - -<p>Jack did not attend to this foreboding: his mind was -full of Cuckoopint.</p> - -<p>“Were you with him when he died, Jack?” asked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span> -Brancepeth, who felt a morbid interest in Cocky’s end. -Jack nodded.</p> - -<p>“Yes; he said ‘damn’; they told me to go on the bed and -kiss him, but he wouldn’t; he said ‘damn.’”</p> - -<p>“Poor devil!” sighed Brancepeth with a twinge in his -conscience like neuralgia.</p> - -<p>“Well, you’ve a long minority,” he added as he kissed -the child again. “Things’ll pull round and get straight -in all these years, but I’m afraid you’ll run amuck when -you’re your own master, you naughty little beggar. I -don’t know though, I think you’ve got grit in you.”</p> - -<p>Jack meditated profoundly. Then he whispered in his -elder’s ears, “If I’m all that grandpa’ was mayn’t I live -without mammy somewhere? Take Cuckoopint and Boo -and live with ’oo?”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth shook his head with a sigh. “No, Jack, -you’ll never live with me. At least——” he paused as a -certain possibility crossed his mind. “As for your -mother,” he added, “well, you’ll see as much of her as -<i>she</i> wishes, wherever you live. You won’t see more.”</p> - -<p>Jack’s face puckered up ready for a good cry; his -position did not seem to him changed in any of its essentials.</p> - -<p>“And Cuckoopint?” he said piteously.</p> - -<p>“They’ll sell Cuckoopint probably,” said Brancepeth. -“But I’ll try and buy him and keep for you; you’re not -big enough to ride him yet.”</p> - -<p>Jack threw his arms about his friend’s throat.</p> - -<p>“I do love ’oo, Harry. Oh, I <i>do</i> love ’oo!”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth pressed the boy to him fondly; he knew -the caress was chiefly for the sake of Cuckoopint. Still it -was sweet to him.</p> - -<p>“And that poor devil died with a bad word in his -mouth,” he thought; and something as like remorse as -any modern person can feel stirred in him.</p> - -<p>The widowed duchess could not see her Parisian creditor -at her own house. It would be known that he came -there, and would look very odd at such a time, and might -awaken her brother’s suspicions. She ordered him to -meet her at the house of a famous Court dressmaker, a -woman who had been often useful to her in more agreeable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span> -appointments and more interesting embarrassments. -She went out alone on foot, ostensibly to church, deeply -veiled of course, at ten o’clock on the Sunday morning -which followed her husband’s funeral. The Court dressmaker -lived in a private house in Green Street, and she -had not far to go. There, in a perfectly safe seclusion, -she awaited the arrival of her creditor.</p> - -<p>She was in a pretty room on the first floor. It had rose -blinds and heavy curtains, and had been furnished in subdued -and artistic style by a famous firm of decorators; -she knew the room well, and it had always been at her -disposition. Her heart had throbbed more agreeably, but -never so nervously, there, as it did this Sunday morning -whilst the church bells jangled and boomed in her ears, -and the warm steam of a <i>calorifère</i> heating a foggy atmosphere, -made her feel sick and faint. In a few moments -the jeweler was announced—a slender, frail, fair man of -some sixty-five years old, who saluted her gracefully, and -in return had a haughty stare which revealed to him -forcibly that he was a tradesman and she was a gentlewoman. -Beaumont, who was accustomed to different -treatment, said to himself that she wanted a lesson. Nothing -costs us so dear in this world as our pride, and if we -cannot afford to purchase the privilege of its indulgence the -world will make us smart for claiming so great a luxury.</p> - -<p>The deep black of her attire, so trying to most of her -sex, only made fairer her skin, made brighter her hair and -her eyes, and lent a richer rose to her lips; she looked extremely -well, though she looked cross and anxious as she -saw the jeweler enter.</p> - -<p>“Good morning, Beaumont!” she said sharply. “Have -you brought the jewels?”</p> - -<p>He smiled: the question seemed to him of an extraordinary -<i>naïveté</i> for a lady who knew the world so well.</p> - -<p>“I do not carry jewels in my pocket, madame,” he replied. -“I am here to speak of yours.”</p> - -<p>“Didn’t you get my letter?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, madame; am I not here by your appointment?”</p> - -<p>“But I ordered you to bring the diamonds?” she -asked with that brusque authority which was part of her -being.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>“I came to speak of the transaction, madame,” he repeated -and smiled.</p> - -<p>The cool audacity of her manner and commands diverted -him. He perceived that she had no intention of paying -him. “The cocotte has never been born,” he thought, -“who could hold a candle to a great lady for impudence.”</p> - -<p>If she had asked him to sit down he still would have -refrained from troubling her; but she said no syllable that -was civil; she continued to look at her creditor with -haughty impatience.</p> - -<p>“Be quick about what you have to say then,” she remarked; -“I can only stay a few moments here; I am -going to church.”</p> - -<p>A creditor, if deftly treated as a Buddha of power and -sanctity, may be disarmed, for, although a creditor, he is -human. But if he be “cheeked” and treated as of no importance -he is naturally moved to use his thunderbolt and -assert his godhead. Beaumont sat down without invitation -or permission, and she, to show her disgust at such -familiarity, rose and remained standing.</p> - -<p>“Madame,” he said very politely, “have you forgotten -the paper which you signed?”</p> - -<p>She was silent, darting azure lightning on him from her -eyes. She did not distinctly remember what she had -signed. She had not very clearly understood it at the -time of signing; it had been all done in such a hurry, -and the cab had been waiting for her in the rain, and she -had wanted to get back to the Bristol unseen and dress -for a dinner at the English Embassy, and the time to do -so had been very short. Certainly she remembered writing -her name; but the words above her name she did not -recall; it was more than four years ago.</p> - -<p>Beaumont saw that she had forgotten.</p> - -<p>“I warned you of the importance of what you signed,” -he said politely. “If you desire now to read it over——”</p> - -<p>“Is that what I signed?” she said eagerly; she thought -it would not be difficult to get it away from him; he -looked very weak and small, and must, she thought, be -seventy if he were a day.</p> - -<p>Beaumont smiled.</p> - -<p>“It is a copy.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>Her face clouded; she took it with an impatient gesture -and read its clauses. The lines were few, but they clearly -stated that she was the sole and lawful owner of the diamond -and transferred it to the keeping of the jeweler -until such time as he should be repaid in full, capital and -interest.</p> - -<p>“Well, madame?” said Beaumont, having waited for -five long minutes, during which she stood looking out of -the window, her foot irritably beating on the carpet.</p> - -<p>“What is there to say?” she replied bluntly, her brain -was less clear than usual. “I can’t pay you, if that’s what -you want.”</p> - -<p>Beaumont raised his eyebrows.</p> - -<p>“I conclude I have the honor of being your Grace’s -first creditor, or you would have learned by painful experience -that it is not well to be impolite to creditors. -The situation is changed since you signed that little memorandum. -I was content to wait whilst the good Duke of -Otterbourne was living: but he is dead, and I am indisposed -to wait, and if you cannot pay me I must see who -will.”</p> - -<p>“You beast!” muttered Mouse between her pearl like -teeth.</p> - -<p>“I do not think I am a beast,” said Beaumont meekly. -“At least, not more so than most men. I took you at -your word, madame, and it appears that your word was—was -not entirely to be depended upon. It appears that -the jewel is an heirloom; it goes to your little boy under -settlement in trust. So I am informed by those competent -to know.”</p> - -<p>She stood with her profile turned toward him, and continued -to look out of the window at the house opposite.</p> - -<p>“If it is my son’s you can’t claim it,” she said sullenly. -“You knew well enough at the time it wasn’t mine. You -only pretended to believe that it was. You did an illegal -thing when you lent me the money; and you know you -can’t go into any Court about it. My husband was alive -then; my signature was not worth a farthing, you know -that!”</p> - -<p>Beaumont gazed at her in admiration for her boldness, -in compassion for her temerity and want of worldly wisdom.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span>“I have done business sometimes, madame, in Paris,” -he said softly, “with persons of your sex who are not considered, -there, pure enough to sit beside you in the tribune -at Chantilly, or at the Institute, or at the Chambers. But -amongst those <i>horizontales</i> I never knew one quite of your -force. <i>Je vous en fais mes compliments.</i>”</p> - -<p>Angry blood flew into the fair cheeks of his debtor; her -blue eyes flashed like stormy summer skies; her hand -clenched till her rings cut into the skin.</p> - -<p>“You dare to insult me because my lord is dead!”</p> - -<p>Cocky in memory really appeared to her, at this moment, -as a very tower of strength.</p> - -<p>Beaumont made a little gesture of smiling protestation.</p> - -<p>“Oh, madame, if your lord were living he would not -make much difference to me in this matter, or to any -action of your creditors. But he would certainly have -apprehended the situation more quickly than you do.”</p> - -<p>“You are an insolent!”</p> - -<p>She would have reached to touch the button of the -electric bell, but Beaumont interposed.</p> - -<p>“Do not make a scandal, duchesse; I shall not, if you -do not press me too far. I am not your enemy. I never -expose women if I can help it. Nature made them dishonest; -jewels and money are to them what cherries and -apples are to schoolboys. That is why they are so much -better shut up in harems. However, I came for strict -business; let us limit ourselves to it. You say I cannot -go into a tribunal. You have relied upon that fact. But -it is a rotten staff to lean on; it is not a fact. I both -can and will go into any number of tribunals about this -matter. They may nonsuit me. I may, perhaps, lose -both the diamond and the money; but I have plenty of -money and no children, and it will amuse me, madame, to -see you cross-examined. It will not amuse you.”</p> - -<p>She stared fixedly at the windows of the opposite house, -and observed, as people do observe extraneous matters in -moments of horrible agitation, that the lace curtains to -them were very soiled. Her heart heaved under the crape -<i>fichû</i> of her bodice, and he saw that it was only by great -effort that she controlled herself from some bodily assault -upon him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span>“What a godsend for the illustrated press such a trial -would be!” he continued, in quiet, amused tones. “But -it would be disagreeable to you, because those papers -disfigure so the pretty people whom they pretend to represent.”</p> - -<p>“You would never dare to go to law!” she interrupted -in a hoarse, fierce voice. “You would not dare! You -would be punished yourself!”</p> - -<p>“I should be punished, possibly, by losing the money. -They would nonsuit me, but I think they would make you -pay my costs. But as I have said, I do not mind losing -the money; I have a good deal and no children, and I am -old——”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, why make this hideous fuss?”</p> - -<p>Beaumont smiled.</p> - -<p>“Why not make you, madame, a free gift of the money -and the interest? <i>Allez donc!</i> You ought to be too proud -to dream of taking a present from a tradesman. If I were -a young man I might—on conditions—but I am old, and -a beautiful woman is not much more to me than an ugly -one, alas! Besides, you have been very rude, duchesse. -No one should be so rude as that who does not stand on a -solid bank balance.”</p> - -<p>She turned her head over her shoulder and flashed a -scathing glance upon him.</p> - -<p>“How much longer are you going to prose on in this -way? I want to go out.”</p> - -<p>Beaumont shook his head. “You will not learn wisdom? -You are wrong, madame. Twist a tiger’s tail, -laugh at an anarchist, and put nitro-glycerine in your -dressing-bag, but never, ah, never be rude to anyone who -has you in his power.”</p> - -<p>“In your power? I? In yours? You are mad.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no; I am entirely sane. Saner than you, madame; -for you do not seem to understand that you have done a -very ugly thing, a vulgar thing even; what is called in -English, I believe, a first-class misdemeanor, for you obtained -a very large sum by false representation.”</p> - -<p>She changed color; she was intelligent and she did see -her conduct in the light in which twelve London jurymen -would be likely to see it, and also in the shape in which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span> -the Radical press would be certain to present it to their -public.</p> - -<p>Beaumont relented a little. A man may be too old to -fully appreciate beauty, but he is always kinder to a pretty -woman than to a plain one. Moreover he had no real inclination -to figure in the law courts himself, though to -punish her he was prepared to take her into them.</p> - -<p>“Is it possible, madame,” he said with hesitation, -“that all the great people you belong to cannot arrange -this small matter for you without forcing me to go to extremes? -The magnificent English aristocracy.”</p> - -<p>“The magnificent English aristocracy,” she repeated -with unspeakable scorn, “who are coal-owners, corn-factors, -horse-dealers, game-vendors, shop-owners, tradesmen, -every man-jack of them, are most of them bankrupt -tradesmen, my good Beaumont! They are obliged to ally -themselves with tradesmen who aren’t bankrupt—like you—to -keep their heads above water. The great families -with whom I am allied, as you expressed it, couldn’t, I -believe, amongst them all raise a thousand guineas in -solid coin.”</p> - -<p>“But you came to me for twelve thousand,” thought -Beaumont; aloud he merely said, “But monsieur your -brother? Surely he——”</p> - -<p>A shiver ran over her from head to foot. She would -rather, she thought, face the Middlesex jury than tell this -tale to Ronald.</p> - -<p>“My brother has all the copy-book virtues,” she answered -sharply. “He would sell his shirt to pay you if -you told him this story, but if he hasn’t got a shirt?”</p> - -<p>“You speak figuratively, I presume?”</p> - -<p>“Figuratively? I mean what I say. Well, of course -he’s got shirts to his back; but that is pretty well all he -has got. And he is guardian to the boy, to all the children.”</p> - -<p>“I understand.”</p> - -<p>He saw in what a position Hurstmanceaux would be -placed between his duty to his wards and his sentiment -for his sister if the knowledge of what had been done -with the roc’s egg came before him. “But if he be a poor -man it would be no use to worry him,” thought Beaumont, -who was keenly practical, and who, in this matter, merely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span> -wanted to get his money back, and to be safely out of -what he knew was not a very creditable position for himself, -since the family would naturally argue that he -should not have taken Lady Kenilworth’s unsupported -word in a matter of so much importance.</p> - -<p>“Everyone knows the high character of Lord Hurstmanceaux,” -he said, to gain time for his own reflections. -Mouse repressed a rude exclamation; she was so utterly -sick of Ronnie’s character. A brother who had known -how to do all the things that Cocky had used to do, and -would have put her up to doing them, would have been -so much more useful at the moment. She felt that she -had not drunk at the fountain of knowledge during her -husband’s lifetime as she ought to have done. For a person -who was not hampered by scruples she was most -blamably ignorant about the ins and outs and hooks and -crooks of left-handed financing.</p> - -<p>Beaumont waited in polite silence. He was not a hard -or harsh man and he was not insensible to the purity of -her profile as she stood sideways against the window; he -saw that she was genuinely alarmed and genuinely powerless; -the folded crape which went crossways over her -bosom heaved with her deep drawn hurried breathing.</p> - -<p>“Have you no friend?” he said at last very softly and -with a world of meaning in the tone.</p> - -<p>She changed countenance; she could not pretend to -misunderstand his meaning.</p> - -<p>“Friends have more sympathy than relatives,” he added -in the same meditative manner. “It is true, madame, -that your dilemma is not in itself interesting; it resembles -too much actions which receive unlovely names when -in a lower class than yours, still a beautiful woman can -always persuade the weaker sense to be blind to her -errors; at least until those errors have been proclaimed -in print, so that all who run may read them.”</p> - -<p>He took a natural and not a very malignant vengeance -in his words, but to her he seemed a very Mephistopheles -torturing her with every refined devilry.</p> - -<p>And she was insulted and she could not resent! She -could not ring for her servants and have this man turned -into the street.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span>The twelve thousand pounds had melted like morning -mist. She could scarcely remember what they had gone -for; but the bitter insult remained, would remain, she -thought, with her for ever.</p> - -<p>He rose and stood before her. “Well?” he said gently.</p> - -<p>“You have a right to your money, I suppose,” she said -sullenly between her set teeth. “I have no notion on -earth how to get you a farthing, but if you will wait a -month and not speak to my brother in the interval, I will—I -will see what I can do.”</p> - -<p>Beaumont bowed.</p> - -<p>“I will wait six months and I will speak to no one. -But if at the end of six months I do not receive all, I -shall speak, with pain, madame, but inevitably not to -your brother but to the world.”</p> - -<p>“I understand,” she said haughtily. “You will do your -worst. Well, never enter my presence again, that is all; -and leave it now this moment.”</p> - -<p>Beaumont smiled with admiration and regret combined.</p> - -<p>“You are very unwise, madame. If you had not been -rude to me I would have accorded you a year. <i>Mais on -chasse de race.</i>”</p> - -<p>She knew that it was unwise to be so insolent, but she -could not have made herself polite to him to save her life. -He punished her for having tricked him and flouted her. -He was a very rich man and she had offended him.</p> - -<p>She saw her mistake, but she would not have resisted -repeating it if he had come back into the room. Women -always bring temper into business, and that is why they -fail in it so frequently, for those who do not bring temper -bring sentiment, and the one is as ruinous as the other.</p> - -<p>She had a rapid imagination; she saw before her the -crowded court, the witness-box where prevarication was -of no use, all her dearest friends with their <i>lorgnons</i> lifted, -the bench of the scribbling reporters, the correspondents -of the illustrated papers making their sketches furtively -and staring at her as she had stared at people in <i>causes -célèbres</i>; she saw it all, even the portraits of herself which -would appear in those woodcuts of artistic journals which -would make Helen’s self hideous and Athene’s self grotesque.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span>She saw it all—all the huge headings in the posters and -papers, all the staring eyes, all the commiserating censure, -all the discreet veiled enjoyment of her acquaintances, all -the rancid acrid virulence of the rejoicing Radical press.</p> - -<p>She imagined that Beaumont would not get his money -easily because she knew something about the risks run -by those who lend on an imperfect title, as to minors or -to women; but she had seen in his regard that he would -not mind losing any amount of money if he had his revenge -on her in putting her into court.</p> - -<p>Actually, Beaumont was by no means a revengeful, nor -even a hard man, and a very little diplomacy would have -made him favorable to her.</p> - -<p>She hated him more intensely than she had ever hated -anyone. For in the first place he had done her a favor, -and in the second place she had done him a wrong—a -mixture which naturally produces the strongest hatred. -She knew that, despite his courtesy, she had nothing more -to hope from him; that he would have his money back -again, or he would make the transaction public.</p> - -<p>Public sympathy would be entirely with him against -herself. Even that, however, seemed to her less horrible -than the fact that Ronald would know what she had done. -At the bottom of her heart she was not very brave; she -could hector and bully, and command, and she had that -share in the physical courage of her race which took her -unflinching over a bullfinch in the shires. But she had -not the moral courage which would allow that punishment -was just and bear it calmly. It was probable that -Ronald and her brothers-in-law would never let the matter -come to a trial, that they would get the money between -them together somehow, though they were all as -poor as Job; but to have the matter brought before these -prejudiced persons seemed to her worse than the law -court itself. Ronald she dreaded, the Ormes she detested, -and her sisters’ husbands she thought the most odious -prigs in the world; to come before a family council of -this sort would be more unsupportable than the law court -itself, which would at least contain an element of excitement, -and in which her personal appearance would be -sure to rouse some feeling in her favor. To that personal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span> -fascination her brother and her brothers-in-law were at -all times insensible.</p> - -<p>“Some women have men belonging to them who are of -some use,” she thought bitterly, “but all the men I have -anything to do with are paupers and prigs. What is a -family made for if it is not to pull one through awkward -places, and follow one with a second horse?”</p> - -<p>She hated her family fiercely. It seemed to her that it -was all their fault that she had been placed in such a -dreadful dilemma. If there was one thing more sure than -another, she knew that it was the dead certainty that -everybody in her world were as poor as rats, unless they -were men of business who did not properly belong to that -world at all. It was wonderful how soon you come to the -end of a man’s resources! No one knew that better than -herself. As for the bigwigs who look so swell and imposing -to the classes which know nothing about them, she -was but too well aware of the carking cares, the burdened -lands, the desperate devices which sustained their magnificent -appearances as the rotten timbers of a doomed ship -may support a gilded figure-head.</p> - -<p>“By the time Jack’s thirty years old the whole rotten -thing will be gone like a smashed egg,” she thought, with -a certain pleasure in reflecting that all the wearisome and -impertinent precautions which Jack’s guardians took to -shelter his interests would be of no avail for him in the long -run against the rapidly rising tide of English socialism.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">She</span> remained in London May and June. Of course it -was deadly dull, but people came to dine with her; she -could dine with her very intimate friends; and men were -in and out all day long from the Commons and the club -and the guard-rooms; and she made a lovely picture in her -floating crape garments, cut a little low round the throat -<i>en bébé</i>, to show its white and slender beauty. Everyone -felt bound to do their best to console her, and the task -was a pleasant one even to her own sex, for her house, in -a subdued discreet manner, was always full of agreeable -persons, and softly buzzing with the latest news.</p> - -<p>When she drove in the park with her whole equipage -turned into mourning, she had one or other of her golden-haired -children always with her, and the spectacle was -one which especially touched the policemen at the crossings, -the old apple-women at the corners, the workingmen -eating their bread and cheese on the benches, and all that -good-natured, credulous, purblind throng which creates -popular opinion.</p> - -<p>“Our public men don’t make up enough,” she thought, -seeing the effect which she had on the multitude. “Napoleon’s -white horse and Boulanger’s black one did half their -business for them. The public should always be governed -through its eyes and its appetites; our leaders of it appeal -to its mind—a non-existent entity.”</p> - -<p>Black was very becoming to her. It is the surest of -consolations to have a dazzlingly fair skin which crape -adorns. Still death in the house is always tiresome; there -are so many pleasant things which we cannot do. On the -whole she thought it would have been better if Cocky had -lived some little time longer.</p> - -<p>Cocky’s death had happened at an awkward moment. -The London season was irrevocably lost to her. All her -new gowns must remain shut up in their cases. There -was nowhere in the known world (of society) where she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span> -could by any possibility dance and laugh and flirt and play -cards, and go to races, and do theatres, and sup at restaurants, -and generally amuse herself for the next six months. -She did not care for conventionality, but there are things -which no well-bred person can do; observances which the -mere usage of the world enforces as it does the wearing of -clothes, or of shoes and stockings.</p> - -<p>She was wholly unconscious of the benevolent intentions -which Cocky had entertained toward her; she had never -dreamed that he would think of causing a <i>cause célèbre</i> in -connection with her.</p> - -<p>She wished devoutly that he had lived for a year or two -after his succession. The tutelage of Ronald was a prospect -which appalled her.</p> - -<p>She knew that Ronald, however generous with his own, -would be a very dragon in defence of his ward’s possessions; -and the little duke’s minority would be an exceedingly -long one. From all power she had herself been carefully -and mercilessly excluded by all the provisions alike -of her husband and of his father. The terms of the wills -had been sufficiently explained to her to leave her no doubt -in that respect. Her courage was high and her carelessness -was great; but both quailed at the idea of many -matters which would inevitably now come under her -brother’s eyes.</p> - -<p>Cocky had been a bore; but you could always shut -Cocky’s eyes and his mouth too if you had a twenty-pound -note to give him; and he was never in the least degree -curious whence it came.</p> - -<p>Cocky had had many defects, but he had been at times -a very convenient person; she had wished him dead very -often, but now that he was really dead she was rather -sorry. She could not now even take any of that lace away -from Staghurst; it would all be locked up again to wait -twenty years for Jack’s wife.</p> - -<p>She was not in the least afraid of doing wrong, but she -was keenly afraid of being found out, and especially of -being found out by her brother. She knew very well that -Ronald’s toleration of her and affection for her were -entirely based on the fact that she had in a great degree -always succeeded in blindfolding him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span>He knew her to be reckless, imprudent, and madly extravagant, -but he thought her innocent in other ways, and -compromised by her husband.</p> - -<p>Oh, the support that Cocky had been! She did feel -genuine sorrow for his loss. To lose your scapegoat, your -standing apology, your excuse for everything, is worse than -to lose your jewel-box, especially when it has only paste -copies of your jewels in it. She would really have liked -to have had Cocky survive a few years as Duke of Otterbourne. -They would not have had much money, but they -would have had such quantities of credit that their want -of actual money would scarcely have been felt. They -would have sold everything which settlement would have -allowed them to sell, and very probably found means even -to break the entail.</p> - -<p>She was wholly unaware that the very first use he would -have made of his accession would have been to drag her -into the glare of that transpontine melodrama which is -played in the Court of Probate and Divorce. In the glare -of his dying eyes she had indeed recognized hatred, but -she had not known that such hatred would have taken its -worst vengeance on her had he lived.</p> - -<p>She did not know that fate, often so favorable to her, -had never done her so kind a turn as when it had made -him catch that cold at his father’s grave in the bitter east -winds of the March morning. He had been something to -complain of, to fret about, to quarrel with; at his door she -could lay any responsibility she chose, and he had been -often useful in a great strait through the ingenuity and -unscrupulousness of his devices. Then she had cordially -detested him, and that sentiment alone had something -exhilarating about it like a glass of bitters.</p> - -<p>And yet again it had been the existence of Cocky which -had made Harry interesting. Now that it could become -quite proper for her to annex Harry, in the manner dear -to Mrs. Grundy, he lost a great deal of his attraction. He -fell suddenly in value like a depreciated currency.</p> - -<p>After the first moments of awe which the presence of -death causes to the most indifferent person, her first reflection -had been that she could now marry him.</p> - -<p>But her second and wiser was that it would be ridiculous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span> -to do anything of the kind. Poor Harry was as poor -as the traditional church mouse. The little he had ever -been worth had been squeezed out of him by Cocky and -herself. She wanted money, an endless amount of money. -Women of the world want money as orchids want moisture. -They cannot live except with their feet ankle deep -in a pactolus. Money, or its equivalent credit, is the -necessity of their existence. Her existence, hitherto, however -brilliant on the surface, had been little better than a -series of shifty expedients. She had danced her shawl -dance on the brink of exposure and bankruptcy. What was -the use of marrying a man with whom the same, or still worse, -embarrassments would have perpetually to be endured?</p> - -<p>At no time had she been ready to throw herself away -on Harry. She had been for several years fonder of him -than she had ever supposed herself capable of being of -anyone. When he had showed the least inclination for -any other woman, her sentiment for him had become violent -and ferocious in its sense of wronged ownership. -But to marry him would be, she knew—she had always -known—a grotesque mistake.</p> - -<p>It would be one of those follies which are never forgiven -by Fate. Harry was no more meant for marriage, -she thought, as she sat alone in her morning-room, than -that wheelbarrow was meant for use. It was a charming -wheelbarrow in satin, scarlet, and green, with gilded -wheels and handles; filled with cherries, plumbs, currants, -and strawberries made by the first bonbon-makers of -Paris, and sent at Easter, the week before the old duke -died. One might just as well roll that barrow over the -stones to Covent Garden market, as think of marriage -with Harry.</p> - -<p>If she had been rich she would not have married again -at all; men were crochetty worrying bores whenever you -saw much of them, but to go on like this under Ronald’s -and the Ormes’s tutelage, and next to nothing to amuse -herself with, was wholly out of the question.</p> - -<p>A vindictive dislike rose up in her against Jack. He -was everything and she was nothing. This absurd rosy-faced -monkey was lord of all; this little curly-headed imp -in his man-o’-war suit was owner of everything and she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span> -of nothing, or of next to nothing; she felt an unreasonable -and most unjust impatience at the very sight of his round -laughing face and his sunny Correggio curls; and he -avoided her as a puppy avoids a person who kicks it or -scowls at it.</p> - -<p>“Can’t mammy be nasty? Oh, can’t she!” he said to -his confidant Harry, who frowned and answered:</p> - -<p>“It’s blackguard of her if she’s nasty to <i>you</i>.”</p> - -<p>Harry himself was dull. On due consideration of his -position he had felt no doubt whatever that he would -have to marry Jack’s mother.</p> - -<p>Cocky had been his best friend; had Cocky’s duration -of life depended on him the Seventh Duke of Otterbourne -would have seen a green old age.</p> - -<p>“Bother it all,” thought the poor fellow, “and I must -say something about it to her, I suppose. Oh, damn it! -It’s telling a man in Newgate that he must settle the day -for his own hanging!”</p> - -<p>His world supposed him still to be very much in love -with Jack’s mother, but the prospect of being wedded to -her appalled him. “My granny always said she would -end in doing it,” he thought, recalling the prophetic wisdom -of the aged Lady Luce.</p> - -<p>Men as a rule are not remarkable for tact, especially in -personal matters which touch on the affections, and he -had less of that valuable instinct than most people. Unaware -that the lady of his destiny had mentally weighed -him in the balance with the satin wheelbarrow, and found -him wanting like the wheelbarrow in solidity, he was tormented -by the feeling that he ought to speak to her on -the subject and the indefinable reluctance which held him -back from doing so.</p> - -<p>The position of a man who has to marry a lady with -whom his name has long been associated before his world -can never be agreeable. He is conscious of paying over -again in gold for what he has long ago bought with paper. -He is aware that lookers-on laugh in their sleeve.</p> - -<p>It requires the <i>beaux restes</i> of a veritable passion, the -perennial charm of an undying sympathy, to make the -most loyal of lovers accept without flinching so conspicuous -and questionable a position.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span>To her, it is triumph as to the master builder when the -gilded vane crowns the giddy height of the steeple. She -shows that she has kept her man well in hand, and ridden -him with science to the finish. Beside, the shyest of -women always likes what compromises and compliments -her.</p> - -<p>But the masculine mind is differently constituted; it -sincerely dislikes being talked about, it still more dislikes -to be laughed at, and when it is English, it is, on matters -of the affections, uncommonly shy.</p> - -<p>The necessity of broaching this delicate matter weighed -heavily on Brancepeth’s spirits; he did not know how to -set about it, and he felt that it was at once ungracious to -her to delay and unfeeling to poor buried Cocky to -hasten the necessary avowal. He was always thankful -when he found other people with her, and equally thankful -that her respect for appearances had caused her to relax -her demands on his attendance and affection ever -since her return from the interments at Staghurst. One -day, however, some six weeks after Cocky’s disappearance -from a world of poker and pick-me-ups, Brancepeth found -himself alone with the fair mourner to whom crape was -so infinitely becoming.</p> - -<p>To this poor fellow, in whose breast the primitive feelings -of human nature were planted too deeply for the -ways of his world to have uprooted them, the idea of having -the children with him, in his own house, seeing them -every day and watching them grow up, was one which -consoled him for being forced to sacrifice his liberty. Of -course, they would always be Cocky’s children to the -world and in “Burke,” but if he were their mother’s -husband nobody would think it odd if he made much of -them, and took them to ride in the Row, or went with -them to see a pantomime, or hired a houseboat for them, -and taught them how to scull; simple joys which smiled -at him from the future. Their mother would always be -what she always had been. He had no illusions about -her; he would have to give her her head whether he liked -it or not; but the children—Harry saw himself living -very properly, as a married man, in a little house off the -Park, and getting every now and then “a day out” with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span> -Jack on the river. He would leave the Guards, he reflected, -and pull himself together; he had next to nothing -of his own left, but some day or other he would be -Lord Inversay, and then, though it would always be a -beggarly business, for the estates were mortgaged to their -last sod of grass, he would try to make things run as -straight as he could for sake of these merry little men -who were Cocky’s children. Occupied with such innocent -and purifying thoughts, he had arrived in Stanhope -Street.</p> - -<p>It was a soft grey day in early May, and her room was -a bower of lilac, heliotrope, and tea-roses. The Blenheims -were quiet, for Cocky annoyed them no more. -The tempered light fell through silk blinds on to the -charming figure of their lady, as she lay back on a long -low chair, her black robes falling softly about her as if -she were some Blessed Damozel, or Lady of Tears, of -Rossetti’s or Burne-Jones’s. Only between her lips was -a cigarette and on her knee was a volume of Gyp’s. -Harry, good soul, was not awake to the incongruity; he -only thought how awfully fetching she was, and yet he -groaned in spirit. But after a few preliminary nothings, -with much the same desperate and unpleasant resolve as -that with which he had gone up to be birched at Eton, he -opened his lips and spoke.</p> - -<p>“I say,” he murmured with timidity—“I say, dear, I -have wanted to ask you ever since—I suppose—I mean, of -course, I understand, now you are free you will want me -to—wish me to—I mean we shall have to get married, -shan’t we, when the year’s out?”</p> - -<p>When these words had escaped him he was sensible -that they were not complimentary, that they were not at -all what he ought to have said, and a vague sensation of -fright stole over him and he felt himself turn pale.</p> - -<p>Into the blue eyes of Mouse that terrible lightning -flashed which had withered up his courage very often as -flame licks up dry grass. Then her sense of humor was -stronger than her sense of offence; she took her cigarette -out of her mouth and laughed with a genuine peal of -musical laughter which was not affected. He stared at -her, relieved, but in his turn offended. After all, he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span> -thought, it was not every man who would have ridden so -straight up to the fence of duty and taken it so gallantly.</p> - -<p>“My dear Harry,” she said, rather slightingly, when -her mirth had subsided, “I have had to listen to many -declarations in my time, but—but I never had one so -eloquent, so delicate, so opportune as yours. Pray will -you tell me why I should be supposed to want to marry -you, as you chivalrously express it?”</p> - -<p>“It’s usual,” he answered sulkily, not daring to express -the astonishment with which her tone and manner filled -him.</p> - -<p>“What is usual?” she asked, looking straight at him -with serene imperturbable coolness and entire refusal to -meet him half way by any kind of comprehension.</p> - -<p>“Well, it <i>is</i>, you know that,” he replied, looking -down on the carpet.</p> - -<p>“Usual for a woman to marry again seven weeks after -her husband’s death? I never heard so. I believe there -is a country where a widow does marry all her husband’s -brothers one after another, as fast as she can, but that -country is not England.”</p> - -<p>She put her cigarette back into her mouth again.</p> - -<p>He looked at her apprehensively and shyly as Jack did -very often from under his long lashes. He was puzzled -and he was humiliated. He had brought himself up with -a rush to do what he thought honor and all the rest of it -required of him, and his self-sacrifice was not even appreciated -but derided.</p> - -<p>“I thought, of course, you’d desire it on account of -the children,” he said stupidly, insanely, for he should -have known that truths like this cannot be told to women -with any possibility of pardon to the teller of them.</p> - -<p>She looked at him with an admirably imitated astonishment.</p> - -<p>“For the children? For Cocky’s children? I am -really unable to guess why.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, damnation!”</p> - -<p>The rude word escaped him despite himself; he rose -and walked to and fro across the room trying to keep -down the very unreasonable passion which burned within -him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span>“Pray sit down—or go out,” said Mouse calmly, and -she lighted a fresh cigarette at the little silver lighter.</p> - -<p>Brancepeth’s eyes filled with tears. He was wounded -and unnerved. The amazing impudence of woman which -always so completely outstrips and eclipses the uttermost -audacity of man stunned his feebler and tender organization. -She was really still fond of him, though his savor, -as of forbidden fruit, was gone, and the stupid veracity -and <i>naïveté</i> of his character irritated and bored her.</p> - -<p>“My dear Harry, don’t be so upset,” she said in a -kinder tone. “There are things which should never be -said. Walls have ears. The Chinese are quite right. If -a thing is not to be told do not tell it. It is quite natural -you should like Cocky’s children since you were such -friends with him and me; but you sometimes make too -much fuss with them, especially in the nurseries. Children -are so soon spoilt.”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth looked at her from under his sleepy eyelids -with something near akin to contempt.</p> - -<p>“The doors are shut,” he said sullenly, “and there’s -nobody on the balconies. Can’t we speak without bosh -for once? The poor devil’s dead. Can’t we let his name -alone? He was a bad lot, certainly, but we didn’t try to -make him better. He wasn’t a fool; he must have known, -you know——”</p> - -<p>She roused herself from her reclining attitude, and her -fair features were very set and stern.</p> - -<p>“He is dead, as you observe. Ordinary intelligence -would therefore suggest that it does not in the least -matter what he did know and what he didn’t know. Being -dead he yet speaketh, cannot happily be said of -Cocky. He has tormented me by setting Ronnie over -me and the children, but that is the only annoyance he -had the wit to inflict.”</p> - -<p>“Ronnie’ll do his duty.”</p> - -<p>“Of course he will. People always do their duty when -it consists in being disagreeable to others.”</p> - -<p>“Answer me, Mouse,” said Brancepeth, bringing his -walk to an end immediately in front of her. “I want to -know, you know. Shall we marry or not? Don’t beat -about the bush. Say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>She blew some perfumed smoke in the air, then, in a -very chilly and cutting tone, replied:</p> - -<p>“Most distinctly: no.”</p> - -<p>“And why not?” said Brancepeth, feeling an irrational -offence, although a moment before he had dreaded receiving -an affirmative answer.</p> - -<p>“My dear Harry, we are both as poor as church mice. -If you can’t pay your own tailors how would you pay -mine?”</p> - -<p>“We should get along somehow.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, thanks! I have had nearly ten years of ‘getting -along somehow,’ and it is an extremely uncomfortable and -crablike mode of moving. I hope to have no more of it. -It takes it out of one. I shall marry again, of course. -But I shall marry money.”</p> - -<p>He, still standing in front of her, gazed down on her -gloomily. Certainly he had been keenly and nervously -apprehensive that she would expect to marry him—would -insist on marrying him; but now that she so decidedly -refused to do so the matter took another aspect in his -eyes. A vague sullen sense of offended and repudiated -ownership rose up in him; it is a sentiment extremely -tenacious, unreasonable, and aggressive, whether it be -agrarian or amorous. He did not say anything; words -were not very abundant with him, but he continued to -look down on her gloomily.</p> - -<p>Marry money!</p> - -<p>And the man with money would have all this charming -fair beauty of hers, and would have Jack and the others -in his nurseries: and he himself—where would he be? -Done with; rubbed off the slate; struck out of the running; -allowed to do a theatre with her now and then perhaps, -and see Jack and the others on their ponies in the -ride of a morning—where was the good of Cocky having -died? He wished with all his soul that Cocky had not -died. Things had been so comfortable with poor old -Cocky.</p> - -<p>He was accustomed to consider himself as a part of her -property; for nearly ten years she had disposed of his -time, his circumstance, and his resources; he had always -been at her beck and call, and the nurseries had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span> -his recompense; he was stunned to be flung off in this -way like any stranger. She saw that he was angry, more -angry than he knew. She guessed all the various feelings -which were at work within him; they were clearer to her -than to himself. She was fond of him; she did not wish -to lose him entirely; there was nobody else she liked so -much, nobody else so extremely good-looking. She administered -an opiate after the severe wound she had given.</p> - -<p>“You goose!” she said softly, whilst her blue eyes -smiled caressingly upon him. “You are too terribly -tragic to-day. Do look at things in their right form, dear; -you must see that however much we might like it we -can’t possibly afford to marry each other. We might as -well want to drive a team of giraffes down Piccadilly. -We have nothing to marry upon, and we are both of us -people who require a good deal. Besides, society will -expect us to marry, and for that reason alone I wouldn’t. -It would be <i>de me donner dans le tort</i>. I shall marry -somebody extremely rich. I don’t know who yet, but -somebody, I promise you, who shall be nice to you, dear; -just as nice as poor Cocky was, and somebody who won’t -be always wanting five pounds as Cocky was, but, on the -contrary, will be able to lend five hundred if you wish -for it.”</p> - -<p>The future she so delicately suggested seemed to her so -seductive that she expected it to fully satisfy her companion. -But he saw it in another and a less favorable -aspect. His handsome face grew dark as a thunder-cloud -and his teeth shut tightly together. He stood before her, -staring down on her.</p> - -<p>“The devil take you and all your soft speeches!” he -said, through his clenched teeth. “You are an out and -out bad woman. That’s what you are. If you weren’t -their mother I would——.”</p> - -<p>His voice choked in his throat. He turned quickly, -took up his hat and cane from the chair he had left them -on, and went out of the room without looking behind -him. He closed the door roughly and ran down the staircase.</p> - -<p>A youthful philosopher in powder and black shoulder-knots, -who was on duty at the head of the stairs, looked<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span> -after his retreating figure with placid derision. “She’s -wanting him to be spliced to her and he won’t hear of it,” -thought the youth; but even philosophers in powder, -whose Portico is the vestibule of a fashionable London -house, sometimes err in their conclusions.</p> - -<p>Fury, as though it were the drug <i>curare</i>, held her motionless -and speechless as she heard the door close behind -her self-emancipated slave. The common coarse language -of the streets used to her! She could not believe her -ears. Her rage stifled her. She could scarcely breathe. -The Blenheims were frightened at her expression and -went under a sofa. She took the satin wheelbarrow—she -did not know why, except that it was associated in her -thoughts with him—and she broke it, and tore it, and -flung its contents all over the room, and trampled on the -gilded wheel and handles till they were mere glittering -splinters and shivers. That exercise of violence did her -good, the blood ceased to buzz in her ears, her nerves -grew calmer; she would willingly have killed someone or -something, but even this destruction of a toy did her -good, it was better than nothing, it relaxed the tension of -her nerves. It had allowed her a little of that violent -physical action which is the instinct of even civilized -human nature when it is offended or outraged.</p> - -<p>When she was a little calmer and could reflect, she -thought she would tell his commanding officer and demand -his punishment; she thought she would tell the -Prince of Wales and entreat his exclusion from Marlborough -House and Sandringham; she thought she would -tell the editor of <i>Truth</i>, and beg him to have a paragraph -about it. Then, as she grew calmer still, she became -aware that she could tell nobody at all anything whatever. -If the world knew that Harry had used bad -words to her, the world would immediately ask what -tether had been given to Harry that he had ever so greatly -dared.</p> - -<p>“The coward, the coward!” she said, in her teeth. -“He knows I can’t even have him thrashed by another -man.”</p> - -<p>His crime against her seemed to her monstrous. It was -indeed of the kind which no woman forgives. It was the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span> -cruellest of all insults; one which was based upon fact. -To her own idea she had very delicately and good-naturedly -intimated to her friend that she would arrange -her future so that their relation should be as undisturbed -as in the past. If that did not merit a man’s gratitude, -what did? Yet, instead of thanks, he had spoken to her -as she had not supposed women were spoken to outside -the Haymarket or the Rat Mort.</p> - -<p>She never admitted to herself that she did wrong; much -less had she ever permitted anyone else to hint that she -did so. A bad woman! Ladies like herself can no more -conceive such a phrase being used to describe them than a -winner of the Oaks could imagine herself between a costermonger’s -shafts. All that they do is ticketed under -pretty or pleasant names on the shelves of their memories; -tact, friendship, amusement, sympathy, convenience, amiability, -health, one or other of these nice sounding words -labels every one of their motives or actions. To class -themselves with “bad people” never enters their minds -for a moment; Messalina would certainly never have -dreamed of being classed with the horizontales of the -Suburra. What made it worse was that she was still fond -of him, though he often bored her. She would have -given ten years of life to have had his face under her foot -and to have stamped it into blurred ugliness as she had -stamped the wheelbarrow into atoms. But these fierce -simple pleasures, alas! are only allowed to the women of -the Haymarket and the Rat Mort.</p> - -<p>She had done incalculable harm to Harry; she had -worried, enslaved, and tormented the best years of his -life; she had impoverished him utterly, she had stripped -him of the little he had ever possessed, she had driven -him into debt which would hang about his neck like a -millstone to the day of his death; she had turned a simple -and honest nature into devious and secret ways; she had -made him lie, and laughed at him when he had been -ashamed of lying; she had done him a world of harm, and -in return he had only said five little rude words to her. -But his offence seemed to her so enormous that if she had -possessed the power she would have had him beaten with -rods or roasted at a slow fire. That she had been his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span> -worst enemy she would never have admitted for one instant, -never have supposed that anyone could think it. -She considered that she had made him supremely happy -during a very long period, that if she had ever given him -cause for jealousy he had never known it, which is all that -a well-bred man should expect; and that he had enjoyed -the supreme felicity of being associated in her home life, -of knowing all her worries and annoyances, and of being -allowed to make an ass of himself in the nurseries in a -simili-domestic fashion which was just suited to his simple -tastes as a simili-bronze of a classic statuette is suited to -the narrow purse of a tourist. His ingratitude seemed to -her so vile, so enormous, that the immensity of her own -wrongs made her submit to bear them in silence out of -admiration of her own magnanimity and the serenity of -her own certitude that she would avenge herself somehow -or other to the smallest iota.</p> - -<p>She rang the bell, which was answered by a colleague -of the young philosopher in powder of the anteroom. -“The dogs have torn up this bonbon thing,” she said, -pointing to the wreck of the ruined wheelbarrow. “Take -it away and bring me some luncheon in here; only a quail -and some plover eggs and some claret; order the carriage -for three o’clock.”</p> - -<p>She felt exhausted from the extreme violence of her -anger and the infamy of the affront she had received; and -were Phedre or Dido or Cleopatra living on the brink of -the twentieth century no one of them would any day go -without her luncheon. They would know that their -emotions “took it out” of them, that their nervous system -was in danger when their affections are disturbed; they -would know all about neurasthenia and marasma, and -however angry or unhappy for Hippolytus, for Æneas, -or for Anthony, would remember that they were -organisms very easily put out of order, machines which -require very regular nutrition; they would be fully conscious -of the important functions of their livers, and would -regulate their passions so as not to interfere with their -digestions.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> she had ended her repast with two hothouse -nectarines, her brother was announced, to her great vexation. -She never saw Ronnie very willingly and now less -willing than ever, for his position with regard to her and -her children was one which could not have made him a -<i>persona gratâ</i> even had he been less outspoken and uncompromising -than he was. At the present moment he -was especially unwelcome to her; but as he had come upstairs -disregarding the servants’ endeavors to induce him -to wait while they inquired their mistress’s pleasure, he -had entered the room before she had quite finished her -second nectarine, and it was impossible to order him to go -away as he came. He had come on business.</p> - -<p>There was a great deal of business concerning little -Jack’s succession, the many burdens already laid thereon, -and the various projects which were in consideration for -turning to the best account the long minority. Then there -were her own jointure, her own rights and claims, her own -debts. The views which he had been afforded from time -to time of hers and Cocky’s affairs had been but partial; -nothing had ever been completely divulged to him, neither -Cocky or she could ever tell the exact truth—it was not in -them. Therefore, although Hurstmanceaux had known a -good deal of their embarrassments he had not known -many matters which now appalled him when they came -before him in the dry, cold prose of legal fact, and he had -not spared his sister the complete expression of his supreme -amazement and supreme disgust.</p> - -<p>Their interviews were therefore neither gay nor cordial, -and she did not assume a contentment which she was so far -from feeling, as his entrance made the claret seem corked -and the nectarine seem sour.</p> - -<p>After the statement of the especial piece of legal business -which had brought him there that morning, the letting -on a long lease of the dower-house at Staghurst, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span> -which her signature was necessary, Hurstmanceaux, standing -on the hearth in the same attitude he had assumed -when he had recommended Black Hazel, said very simply -and very curtly to her:</p> - -<p>“You let the dower-house instead of living in it. Will -you tell me where you do mean to live?”</p> - -<p>She frowned; she hated direct questions, they were so -ill-bred.</p> - -<p>“Live?” she repeated. “Oh, I don’t know at all. Of -course I shall be a good deal here——”</p> - -<p>“By here do you mean in this house?”</p> - -<p>“I dare say—I don’t know; I have not thought about -it.”</p> - -<p>“You had better think. The rent of this house is fifteen -hundred a year. Happily it was only taken by the -year. I have told them it will not be required next year.”</p> - -<p>“Very officious of you!” she said with a chilly smile. -“I have a right to Otterbourne House.”</p> - -<p>“Not the smallest right.”</p> - -<p>“That is absurd.”</p> - -<p>“It is law.”</p> - -<p>“Is it true you have let it to Mannheim?”</p> - -<p>“Quite true.”</p> - -<p>Mannheim was the ambassador of the Russian Emperor.</p> - -<p>“All these things are no concern of yours,” said Hurstmanceaux -gravely. “Pray give your attention to what -does concern you. Your jointure is a narrow one. Out -of it you should surrender two thousand a year for twenty -years to pay off your personal debts. How can you keep -on any London house on what will be left to you? Of -course the children live with you and bring you in something, -but very little, for there is next to nothing at present; -the charges on the estate are so heavy, as we demonstrated -to you the other day. What will you do if you -can’t break yourself in to some sort of economy and -sacrifice?”</p> - -<p>She deigned no reply. She had really none ready. She -was only intensely, bitterly, furiously angry. If she could -not live in the way she liked she did not care to live at all.</p> - -<p>She was very pale, with the pallor of deep anger; her -lips were white and her blue eyes dark and flashing. How<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span> -she hated everybody! How above all she hated that little -dead beast who had left her tied hand and foot like this!</p> - -<p>“Surely you must see,” her brother said with pain, -“that in the position in which I stand toward you I must -be more strict with you, my sister, than it might be necessary -to be with a stranger?”</p> - -<p>“How exactly like your priggish humbug!” she cried -furiously. “Nobody else would take such a view. What -is the use of connections if they don’t make things -smooth?”</p> - -<p>“I am well aware that it is the only purpose of my own -existence in your eyes,” said Hurstmanceaux; “you have -taught me that long ago. But I am afraid you will find -others less indulgent than I have been, and I am sorry to -say, whether you understand it or not, I cannot myself be -indulgent to you at the expense of your sons.”</p> - -<p>She gave an impatient gesture. “You always get on -your moral hobbyhorse,” she said insolently. “I believe -there was never such a prig in all creation. I wish you -would go away. You are wasting for me all this fine -morning.”</p> - -<p>There was silence between them. Hurstmanceaux -broke it by a question he was half afraid to put.</p> - -<p>“I have to apologize for asking you, but I should be -glad to know—I suppose you mean to marry Brancepeth?”</p> - -<p>She threw back her head and looked at him with distended -nostrils breathing defiance.</p> - -<p>“Pray why should I marry Lord Brancepeth?”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux hesitated; he was astonished and embarrassed.</p> - -<p>“Well, everybody expects you to do so; it would be -natural and proper that you should; it is the only thing -you can do to—to——”</p> - -<p>He paused; he had never spoken to her of Brancepeth, -it hurt him to do so; he grew red with embarrassment for -her. He could not have used any words which could have -stung, infuriated and embittered her more than these unfortunate -and far too candid phrases. Coming after the -scene of an hour before, they were like petroleum poured -on a leaping flame.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span>“Lord Brancepeth did me the honor to offer me his -hand a few minutes ago; I refused it,” she said between -her teeth. “I am entirely at a loss to know why you and -‘everybody’ consider that I ought to marry a penniless -guardsman who has nothing to recommend him but a -handsome face.”</p> - -<p>“By heaven! That’s cool.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux, as he muttered the involuntary words, -stared down on her too astonished to say more, too completely -stupefied and taken aback to be aware of the indelicacy -of his own astonishment.</p> - -<p>“Have you any more suggestions to make?” she said -with her utmost insolence.</p> - -<p>“Unhappily, I have to speak to you about a very unpleasant -thing,” said Hurstmanceaux and paused.</p> - -<p>“You never speak of anything that is not unpleasant -by any chance,” said his sister. “Bray unburden yourself.”</p> - -<p>“Well then,” said Hurstmanceaux, not softened by her -manner, “briefly, I must ask you to be so good as to give -up the family jewels out of your keeping; the bank will -send for them by our orders on Monday.”</p> - -<p>She was prepared for the question.</p> - -<p>“I have always had the use of them,” she replied very -calmly, “precedent makes possession.”</p> - -<p>“No, it does not. The late duke never gave you by -signature, nor before witnesses, any interest in them or -any right of user. He let you wear them as he might -have lent me a horse, but the horse having been lent to -me would not have become mine through that loan. The -jewels are tied up by settlement, and go with the real -estate. Your husband renewed that settlement on his -deathbed and the jewels go to Jack with the rest of the -real estate. Do I make myself clear?”</p> - -<p>“The little beast!” said Jack’s mother between her -teeth.</p> - -<p>“I do not know why you should call your child bad -names. He is <i>your</i> child, there can be no doubt about -that. Failing Jack, his brother succeeds. It is not Jack -personally who causes you this annoyance, it is the settlement -under his father and grandfather’s will. It would<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span> -be just the same if you had no sons and if Lord Alberic -succeeded.”</p> - -<p>Mouse gave a fierce, nervous, impatient gesture.</p> - -<p>“Why was I allowed to have the jewels, then, at all if -I am to be made ridiculous by having them taken away -from me?”</p> - -<p>“It would have been better if you had not had them, -no doubt. But the duke was always good-natured and indulgent, -and your husband was of course perfectly aware -that the jewels were protected by settlement; he renewed -the settlement on his deathbed. Besides, the great Indian -diamond is not an ordinary jewel—it is a fortune in itself.”</p> - -<p>She was prepared for this or some similar remark and -did not flinch.</p> - -<p>“It is precisely that which is so annoying,” she replied. -“That jewel is so conspicuous; to appear without it at a -drawing-room or any function of any importance would -be absurd—odious. Surely some way can be found to -leave me the usage of them until the boy’s majority?”</p> - -<p>“No way at all,” said Hurstmanceaux sternly. “They -will go to Coutts’s, and stay there until his majority. By -the way, where are they now?”</p> - -<p>“In my jewel-safe,” she answered sullenly.</p> - -<p>“What imprudence!”</p> - -<p>“It has a Chubb’s lock.”</p> - -<p>“Why did you not keep them at the bank? Nobody -wears such jewels as these every evening.”</p> - -<p>“I wear them very often.”</p> - -<p>Something aggressive in her tone aroused her brother.</p> - -<p>“You will not wear them any more,” he said harshly. -“You must learn to realize that they do not belong to -you.”</p> - -<p>“I shall dispute that fact before the court.”</p> - -<p>“What court?”</p> - -<p>“I do not know yet, but some court—some court which -sees to such things.”</p> - -<p>“Pray be reasonable. You have not an inch of ground -to stand on; there is the settlement renewed every generation; -the jewels are chattels and the chattels are devised -to the heir; they go with the dukedom.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>“I shall see Mr. Gregge.”</p> - -<p>“Pray do. Mr. Gregge is not a very scrupulous man, -but he is a man of sense, and he will not tell you to run -your head against a stone wall.”</p> - -<p>“If he do not do his duty, I shall employ someone else.”</p> - -<p>“No decent attorney in the three kingdoms would take -up such a case. You have no more title to the Otterbourne -jewels than the woman selling primroses at the -corner of the street.”</p> - -<p>“So <i>you</i> say.”</p> - -<p>“It is not what I say, it is what the law says; what the -dead men’s wills say; what the Lord Chancellor himself -would say if he were asked. You are a person accustomed -to do whatever you like and to bewitch any man who approaches -you, but you will find there are some things -stronger than yourself, and one of them is the common -law of England, which in this instance is dead against -you.”</p> - -<p>With these words he rose.</p> - -<p>Then, with one of those audacious inspirations which -might have made her a great general had she been a man, -she added between her teeth—</p> - -<p>“Perhaps you would like to see them and convince -yourself of their safety? Will you come to my room? -The safe is screwed to its stand.”</p> - -<p>She spoke without apprehension because she knew that -the false diamonds would defy detection by anyone except -an expert. Hurstmanceaux was reassured by the frankness -of the offer.</p> - -<p>“No, oh, no!” he said less coldly. “I will of course -take your word for it that they are all there.”</p> - -<p>“You are really too confiding,” said his sister very contemptuously. -She rose also with tightened teeth, dilated -nostrils, flashing eyes. “Your conduct is infamous! To -insult your own sister!”</p> - -<p>“There is no insult,” said Hurstmanceaux. “An honest -woman would not want to be asked twice to give up what -is not her own.”</p> - -<p>“Out of my presence!” she cried with a shrill sound in -her voice like that of the wind as it rises in storm.</p> - -<p>“With pleasure,” said her brother very coldly. “To-morrow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span> -is Sunday. On Monday at ten o’clock in the -morning they will come from the bank for the jewels, and -you will consult your own interests best by giving them -up without more of this folly; we shall have them valued -afresh by Hunt and Roskell, for values change with time.”</p> - -<p>“Out of my presence, and never dare to enter it again -so long as you live!” she said with fury, whilst she twisted -her handkerchief between her hands as though it were -Jack’s little throat that she was strangling.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux shrugged his shoulders, bowed to her -slightly, and went out of the room.</p> - -<p>To a more suspicious man the impression that she had -some worse motive for her opposition than a mere vain -reluctance to part with these ornaments would have suggested -itself; but he was not suspicious, and he knew that -women of her type would sell their souls to be smarter -than their neighbors.</p> - -<p>“Cocky only put me in his will,” he thought ruefully, -“because he knew that I was up to her tricks, and should -put the curb on her for the young un’s sake.”</p> - -<p>He did his duty loyally; but the doing of it was extremely -disagreeable to him. He could not help being -fond of her; he never could wholly forget the time when -she had been a little, saucy, lovely, bewitching child, -resting her golden curls on his shoulder when he went -home from Eton or Oxford.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> he went downstairs he summoned the major-domo -into the library on the ground floor, where Cocky’s -sporting literature still strewed the tables.</p> - -<p>“Mason, her Grace leaves this house on the first of -July,” he said to that functionary.</p> - -<p>“Very good, my lord,” said Mason, with impassable -countenance.</p> - -<p>“You see, Mason,” continued Ronald, “the duchess is -of course in a very altered position; if the duke had -lived——”</p> - -<p>“Quite so, my lord,” said Mason, who thought: “Bless -us and save us! If he had, everything would have gone -in the smelting-pot.”</p> - -<p>“Her establishment will be much diminished; I am -afraid she will be obliged to relinquish your services and -those of others.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my lord,” said Mason with a respectful little -gesture which implied that persons like himself were always -in demand at all seasons, and that the loss would be -her Grace’s, not his.</p> - -<p>“Well, you will see that everything is packed up that -belongs to the family, and you will see that the house is -put in due order to be given up to its owners on the last -day of the month; for your wages and those of the others -you will go to the late duke’s lawyers.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Mason’s face clouded haughtily at the word wages, -but he was a good-hearted man—he did not openly resent.</p> - -<p>“I beg pardon, my lord,” he said with hesitation, “but -does her Grace know she leaves the house?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Ronald. “That is, she knows she must -leave it.”</p> - -<p>“And do you think she will, my lord?”</p> - -<p>“She must!”</p> - -<p>Mason shook his head.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span>“The duchess never does what is not agreeable to her, -my lord.”</p> - -<p>“She must leave it; and you must see that preparations -are duly made, so that she cannot remain in it.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Mason coughed slightly.</p> - -<p>“My lord, I have heard that there are tenants in Ireland -who will not go out till the thatch is set afire over their -heads, and even then let themselves and their pigs be -burnt rather than give up possession. I mean no disrespect, -my lord, when I venture to say that my lady—I -mean her Grace—is very much of that kind of temper, -my lord.”</p> - -<p>“I know she is,” said Hurstmanceaux. “That is why -I speak to you on this matter. Go out of the house she -must.”</p> - -<p>“Of course I will do my best, my lord,” said Mason in -a dubious tone; he knew if her Grace did not choose anything -to be packed up nothing would be.</p> - -<p>At that moment Cecile, the head maid, entered; she -was a tall, supercilious, conceited-looking Swiss woman -of forty.</p> - -<p>“If you please, my lord,” she said, looking impudently -in Ronald’s face, “her Grace would be glad to know when -you mean to go out of the house, as her Grace is waiting -to come downstairs.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux turned his back on her.</p> - -<p>“You have received my orders, Mason. The landlord -resumes possession here on the last day of the month.”</p> - -<p>Then he went into the hall and out of the house door.</p> - -<p>“<i>Quel ours!</i>” said Cecile, with her nose in the air. She -liked gentlemen like the foreign diplomatist who had gone -to see the Battersea birds.</p> - -<p>Mr. Mason shook his head in a melancholy manner.</p> - -<p>“I think we had better all of us leave,” he said gloomily. -“The Miser’s got the purse-strings now and the duchess -aren’t anywhere.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Moi, j’ resterai</i>,” said the Swiss woman. “She does -hit one with the hairbrush sometimes and pretty hard too, -but she is first-rate fun, and always leaves her letters -about, and never knows what she has or she hasn’t. Take -my word for it, Mr. Mason, <i>she</i> will always live in clover.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span>“I dare say she will,” said the more virtuous Mason. -“But it won’t be correct, now Cocky’s gone; and myself -I shall give her the go-by.”</p> - -<p>Their mistress meanwhile was walking up and down -her morning-room, a prey to many torturing and conflicting -thoughts. She knew that she had done an unwise -and an ill-bred thing in sending that message by Cecile to -her brother, but her rage had outstripped her prudence. -Ronald was the best friend she had, and she had proved -it a thousand times; but an ungovernable hatred seethed -within her against him. He and Harry—she did not know -which she hated the more, which of the two had insulted -her the more infamously. A woman may lose all title to -respect, but that is no reason why she does not retain -every pretension to it.</p> - -<p>Nothing could ever have persuaded her that she had -lost her right to have everyone hold her in the highest -esteem. Nevertheless, she had sense enough to be aware -that she was in a very odious position, and that she might -very easily be in one which would be absolute disgrace, -one which would place her on the level with those poor -simpletons whom she had always scorned so immeasurably, -women who had lost their natural position and were -nowhere at home, and could only get received at Florence -tea-tables and Homburg picnics and Monaco supper parties. -She had always thought that she would sooner die than -be put in the basket with the <i>pêches à quinze</i> series. For -she was intensely proud, and had made many a poor woman -who had been compromised feel the weight of her disdain -and the sting of her cruelty. She always intended to enjoy -herself, to do exactly whatever she pleased, but she -never intended to lose her right to present Boo ten years -hence at the Drawing-room. People who did lose their -place were idiots. So she had always thought, but at the -present moment she was obliged to feel that she might -very easily lose her place herself.</p> - -<p>Beaumont had frightened her, but he had not frightened -her so intensely as had her brother; and, as he had given -her six months’ time, she had with her usual happy -<i>insouciance</i> almost dismissed the peril from her mind. But -she knew her brother’s character and she knew that he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span> -would send the men from the bank at the time fixed as -punctually as the clock would strike eleven. And then -from the bank he would send the jewels to Hunt and -Roskell, and that admirable imitation of the roc’s egg, -which would deceive the unaided eye of anyone, would be -detected in its falseness by their acids or their wheels or -whatever the things were with which jewelers tested diamonds. -And then he, despite his unsuspicious stupidity, -would know, without any further proof, that she had -pawned or sold the original.</p> - -<p>“I am at home to no one,” she said to her footman, and -continued to walk up and down the room in nervous agitation.</p> - -<p>She had several engagements, such engagements as her -mourning allowed, but she ignored them all; she could -not see anyone until she could find out some way of exit -from this hideous labyrinth of trouble.</p> - -<p>Suddenly it flashed upon her mind that, do what she -would, she could not get the diamond in time for Monday -morning. It was in Paris. If she went to Paris without -the money she would be no nearer to it; and besides, her -sudden departure would at once awaken the suspicions of -Jack’s guardians. She must not only find the large sum -of money needed, but she must also find someone who -would go to Paris and bring the stone back before Monday -forenoon.</p> - -<p>There were many men who were devoted to her, but as -she ran over their names in her mind she could think of -no one whose adoration, whether expectant or retrospective, -would be equal to such a strain on it as that; nor -everyone to whom she could quite safely trust her secret.</p> - -<p>There are very pretty theories and ideals about the -honor of men of the world, but she knew such men down -to the ground, as she would have phrased it, and she had -few illusions about their honor. She knew that when -they are in love with one woman they show up to that -one all the others who have preceded her in their affections. -Harry, indeed, she might have trusted; but she -had broken with him, and even if she had not done so, he -could no more have raised a seventh part of the money -than he could have uprooted St. James’s Palace. He was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span> -stone broke, as he said himself. Her little travelling -timepiece, which stood on her writing-table, seemed to -sway over the seconds and minutes with a fiendish rapidity. -Half an hour had gone by since her brother had left -her, and she was no nearer a solution to her torturing difficulties. -Other women would have weakened and compromised -themselves by running to some female confidant, -but she had none; with her own sisters she was always -on the terms of an armed neutrality and in female friends -she had never seen any object or savor. As soon as a -woman was intimate with you she only tried to take your -men away from you; she never gave any woman the -opportunity to do so.</p> - -<p>Another quarter of an hour passed by; she heard her -horses stamping on the stones beneath the windows; she -heard the children scamper down the staircase on their -way to their afternoon walk in the park; she heard people -drive up and drive away as they were met by the inexorable -“Not at home” of the good-looking youth in powder -and black shoulder-knots who opened the hall door.</p> - -<p>How horrible! she thought, oh, how horrible! This -might be the very last day on which anybody would call -on her! For she knew well enough that the offence she -had committed was one which, once made public, would -close to her the only world for which she cared. “And -yet I really meant no harm,” she thought. “I thought -the thing was mine or would be. Why did that odious -Poodle lend it me? So treacherous! Why did he not -explain to me that it was a ‘chattel’? What is a chattel? -Why did Beaumont advance the money upon it? He was -much more to blame than I am, because of course he knew -the law.”</p> - -<p>In that she was perhaps not wrong, for though the world -may blame only the borrower, the lender is not seldom -the wickeder of the two.</p> - -<p>Tired out with her ceaseless pacing to and fro over the -carpet, her nerve gave way, and for almost the first time -in her life she burst into tears, bitter, hysterical, cruel -tears, the tears which disfigure and age the woman who -sheds them. The Blenheims, infinitely distressed, jumped -on her lap and endeavored to console her; rubbing their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span> -little red and white heads against her cheeks. Their -caresses touched her in her loneliness. “We hated Cocky, -you and I,” she said to them; “but I wish to heaven he -had never died.” With all her keen enjoyment of life she -really understood in that hour of torture how it was that -women driven at bay killed themselves to escape detection -and condemnation. She did not mean to kill herself because -she was a woman of many resources and had her -beautiful face and form, and loved life; but she felt that -she would rather kill herself than meet Ronald’s eyes if he -learned that the Indian diamond had been changed and -pawned. And know it he must as soon as Hunt and -Roskell’s assayer tested the stones. Beaumont had told -her honestly that the imitation would deceive anyone, even -a jeweler, unless it were tested; but that tested it would -of course fly in pieces and confess itself a fraud.</p> - -<p>She had only forty-three hours before the messenger -from the bank would come. Whatever she did had to be -done before the stones were consigned to him, for after -they were out of her possession she would not be safe for -a moment. At all costs she must get back the roc’s egg -from Beaumont or be a ruined, disgraced, miserable woman. -True, she felt sure that her brother and the Ormes would -not expose her to the world. They would scrape the -money together at all costs, and redeem the jewel, and observe -secrecy on the whole abominable affair; but she -would be in their power for ever; they would be able to -punish her in any way they chose, and their punishment -would certainly take the form of exiling her from everything -which made life worth living.</p> - -<p>The old churchman, Lord Augustus, was hardly more -than a lay figure, but Alberic, she knew, looked on her -with all the disdain and dislike of a refined and religious -man, for one whom he condemned in all her ways and -whom he considered had made his brother and his father -dupes from the first day of her marriage. And Ronald -would be but the more bitterly inflexible because he would -consider that her near relationship to himself compelled -him in honor to the uttermost severity in judgment and -action; he would consider that he could not show to her -the indulgence he might have shown to a stranger.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span>Her fit of weeping exhausted itself by its own violence, -and as she glanced at her face in the glass she was horrified -to see her red and swollen eyelids and her complexion -smudged and dulled like a pastel which some ignorant -servant has dusted.</p> - -<p>“Nothing on earth is worth the loss of one’s beauty,” -she said to herself, and she went upstairs and, without -summoning her maid, washed her face with rosewater and -ran a comb through her hair; the Blenheims sitting on -either side of her, critical of processes with which they -were familiar.</p> - -<p>As she sat before her toilet-table and its oval silver-framed -swinging mirror, her eyes fell by chance on a -glove box made of tortoise shell and gold, with two gold -amorini playing with a fawn on its lid.</p> - -<p>“Billy!” she said suddenly, half aloud.</p> - -<p>William Massarene had given her the box when she had -betted gloves with him at the previous year’s Goodwood -races.</p> - -<p>“Billy!” she said again under her breath.</p> - -<p>Yes, there was Billy; the only person in the whole world -who could do for her what she wanted without feeling it.</p> - -<p>She would have to tell him, to make him understand -the urgency of it, some portion of the truth; the blood -rushed over her face with the repulsion of pride. Tell -her necessities to the man she bullied and despised! She -sat with her eyes fixed on the two gold cupids thinking -how she could put the story so that she would not be lowered -in his eyes. It was a difficult and embarrassing test -of her ingenuity, for not only had she to get the money -out of him but she must get him to send or to go to Paris -by that evening’s train. She had pillaged Massarene without -shame or compunction. She had made him “bleed” -without stint. She had made him do a thousand follies, -costly to himself but useful to her, like the purchases of -Blair Airon and Vale Royal. She had rooked him without -mercy, considering that she did him an honor in noticing -him at all. But, by some contradiction, or some -instinct of pride or of decency, she shrank at the idea of -actually borrowing money from him—of actually being -indebted to him for a great service.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span>In all lesser transactions with him she had considered -him her debtor for her patronage; but to make him do -this, to make him pay Beaumont and restore her the -Indian stone, would be to become his debtor. There was -no shirking the fact. Would she ever be able to bully -and insult him afterwards? Yes, why not? He was a -cad, a snob, a horror; such men were only made to be -trodden on and have their ears boxed.</p> - -<p>She decided that it did not matter what a low-bred -brute like him knew or thought, and that since Providence -had given her a rich idiot into her hands it would -be worse than folly not to use his resources. Anything, -anything, was better than to let the imitation jewel go to -Hunt and Roskell for inevitable detection. And there -were now only forty-three hours in which to act.</p> - -<p>He was in town she knew. He was in town because she -was in town, and because the House was sitting. Where -should she see him?</p> - -<p>To send for him to her residence might cause some story -to get about; to go to Harrenden House was still more -compromising unless she began by a visit to his wife, -which would be round about and cause delay; she knew -he might very possibly be at the Commons—new members -are always very assiduous in their attendance—and -he was at that time serving on a Royal Commission on -some agricultural difficulty. She had herself dressed, feeling -that Cecile looked curiously at her, and telling the -woman to take the dogs in Kensington Gardens, she went -to her carriage which had been waiting two hours.</p> - -<p>“To Palace Yard!” she said to her footman: the -horses, irritated in temper and with their mouths and -necks in pain from their long penance in their bearing-reins, -flew thither with the speed of the wind.</p> - -<p>She sent for Mr. Massarene, who was, the doorkeeper -said, in the House. After a few moments he came out to -her with the deferential haste of an enamored man, which -sat ill on his broad squat figure and his iron-grey, elderly, -respectable, tradesmanlike aspect.</p> - -<p>“I want to speak to you a moment,” she said as he -came and stood by the carriage. “Can you give me a cup -of tea on the terrace?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span>“Certainly, certainly!” he stammered, confused by a -dual sentiment—the charm of her presence and the fear -that it would look odd to be seen with her. “The committee -I am on has just ended its sitting,” he added with -the pride which he felt in his functions. “I shall be delighted -if I can be of any use.”</p> - -<p>“There is no one there now, is there?” she asked, sensible -as he was that her appearance in such a public place -would look very strange.</p> - -<p>“No one, or next to no one. No one of your friends, -certainly. A few Radical members.”</p> - -<p>“They don’t matter,” she said, and went with him -through the House to the terrace.</p> - -<p>He gave her a seat and ordered tea. He was dazzled -and intimidated as he always was by her presence, but he -was conscious that her beguilements always ended in -some advantage for herself, so that he was less flattered -than he would otherwise have been by her sudden appeal -to him.</p> - -<p>It was a grey day, the river was in fog, but the air was -windless and mild.</p> - -<p>She threw back her veil and the pale light fell on the -brightness of her hair, and the beauty of her face enhanced -by the frame of crape. The traces of her weeping had -passed away, leaving her face softer and whiter than usual -with a tremor on the mouth like that of a little child who -has been scolded.</p> - -<p>William Massarene’s observant eyes read those signs. -“She’s in some real sharp trouble this time, I reckon,” he -said to himself.</p> - -<p>He was a man who had never known pity, but he did -feel sorry for her.</p> - -<p>She made the mistake of judging him from the exterior. -Because he was afraid of her and of her friends, because -he did not know how to bow, because he made ludicrous -mistakes in language and manner, because he crumbled -his bread on the dinner-cloth, and never used his finger-glass, -she imagined him to be a fool.</p> - -<p>She did not understand that if he let himself be robbed -he did so with a purpose and not out of feebleness. She -did not understand that, although he was hypnotized by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span> -her because he was under the influence of a woman for -the first time, there was always alive underneath his obedience -the sharp, keen, brutal selfishness which had made -him the great man he was.</p> - -<p>“What is the trouble, my lady?” he said, leaning forward, -his hands on his knees in his usual attitude. “Why, -lord, you’re no more made for trouble than a white cockatoo’s -for mud and rain.”</p> - -<p>There was not a soul on the terrace; the attendant who -had brought the tea-tray had retired; there was the scream -and roar of a steam-tug coming up the river in the fog, -and a factory bell on the opposite shore was clanging -loudly: she thought she should hear those two sounds in -her ears as long as ever she should live.</p> - -<p>She knew that there was no time to lose, that the moments -were tearing along like sleuth-hounds, that she must -tell him now or never, must get his help or be ruined.</p> - -<p>She was of high physical courage; she had slid from the -back of a rearing horse; she had never lost her nerve on a -yacht-deck in a storm, when men were washed overboard -like chickens; she had been perfectly cool and self-possessed -one awful night on a Highland mountain when she -and her whole party had lost their way for twelve hours -of snow-drift and hurricane; but now, for the first time in -her life, she was nerveless, and felt her tongue cleave to -the roof of her mouth and her spirit fail her.</p> - -<p>“Come, keep up your pecker,” said Mr. Massarene in -what he meant to be a kindly encouragement. “Come, -tell me what the matter is, my pretty one.”</p> - -<p>She started like a doe past whose side a bullet whistles -as the odious familiarity struck her ear—the familiarity -which she did not dare to resent, the familiarity which -told her how much the expression of her face must have -confessed already. With dilated nostrils, through which -her breath came and went rapidly and in short pulsations, -she plunged midmost into her story: the story as arranged -and decorated and trimmed by her own intelligent skill, -wherein she was plainly the victim of circumstance, of -her own ignorance, of a tradesman’s deceitfulness, and of -her relatives’ cruelty and harshness. The old duke, she -averred, had given her the jewels; but it seemed there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span> -was nothing to show that he had done so, and her brother -and brothers-in-law were so inconceivably base as to doubt -her word for it, and to claim them for the heir as “real -estate.” No woman, she thought, had ever been so brutally -treated in the whole history of the world.</p> - -<p>She spoke at first hesitatingly and with visible embarrassment, -but she grew more at her ease as she got her -story well in hand, and she became eloquent in the description -of her wrongs.</p> - -<p>William Massarene followed her narrative attentively -and without interruption, leaning a little forward with his -hands on his knee and glancing round to see that no one -was in sight to wonder at his flattering but compromising -<i>tête-à-tête</i>. He was magnetized by her voice, dazzled by -her eyes, but what she spoke of was a matter of business -and he was beyond all else a man of business. Business -was his own domain. On that he was master; in that it -was not in the power of anyone to cheat him. His sharp -perception quickly understood her position, disentangled -facts from fiction, and comprehended in what danger she -was placed. He did not let her see that he knew she was -glossing over and changing the circumstances; but he did -know it, and stripped the false from the true in his own -reflections as surely as he had shifted gold from quartz -in his days in the gold-fields. He could have turned her -narrative inside out and rent it to pieces in a second, but -he forbore to do so, and appeared to accept her version of -the matter as she presented it to him.</p> - -<p>“But what made you take the jewels to this Beaumont?” -he asked her as she paused.</p> - -<p>“I wanted money,” she said sullenly.</p> - -<p>“Was it before you knew me?”</p> - -<p>“Just before.”</p> - -<p>“And you asked nobody’s advice?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>The ghost of a grim smile flitted over his face: certainly -for consummate folly he thought these great folks beat -anything in all creation.</p> - -<p>“Oh, don’t laugh at one, Billy,” she said with genuine -mortification and shame in her voice. “You don’t know -what it is to want money as we do.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span>He looked at her indulgently.</p> - -<p>“I dare say it’s hard on you. You have to keep up all -that swagger on nothing. Well, as I understand the -matter, you must have these diamonds before Monday forenoon, -eh?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said shortly, with a catch in her breath; -she felt by the change in his tone how far she had descended -from her pedestal by her confession. “Oh, the -brute!” she thought passionately; “how I should love -to strangle him and fling him into the Thames pea-soup!”</p> - -<p>“What is it you want me to do?” he asked, whilst he -knew without asking; but he liked “to keep her nose to -the grindstone”; he was but paying in fair coin the innumerable -insults she had passed on him, the countless -awkward and painful moments she had entailed on him.</p> - -<p>She took up all her courage and trusted to the magic -of her influence over him.</p> - -<p>“I want you to go over to Paris and get them for me. -I dare say you could get them for half price. Beaumont -would be afraid of you.”</p> - -<p>His face did not reveal his thoughts; his dull grey eyes -stared at her fixedly.</p> - -<p>“What was the sum you had from him?”</p> - -<p>“Three hundred thousand francs; but then there is -the cast of the false stones to add to that and the interest.”</p> - -<p>She spoke the truth in this, for she knew that it would -be no use to do otherwise.</p> - -<p>“And what did you sign for?”</p> - -<p>“I can’t remember.”</p> - -<p>William Massarene laughed, a short, rasping, grim sound, -like the chuckle of the big woodpecker.</p> - -<p>“Beaumont has a very good reputation,” she added. -“He never cheats. He was once a gentleman, they say.”</p> - -<p>“And gentlefolks never cheat, do they, my lady!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Billy, don’t mock at me,” she cried with genuine -distress. “I am in horrible trouble. I have told you -everything because you are my friend. Will you do this -thing or won’t you?”</p> - -<p>“How will you pay me if I do?”</p> - -<p>“Pay you!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span>In her heart of hearts she knew that she had not the -remotest intention of ever paying him.</p> - -<p>“How will you pay me if I do?” he repeated. A look -came into his eyes as they stared on her which might -have warned her that he was not a man who would go for -ever unpaid. She was silent; she really did not know -what to say. She knew that she hated him horribly. But -she had no other chance.</p> - -<p>He enjoyed her discomfiture.</p> - -<p>“You’ll pay me somehow, I reckon,” he said, after leaving -her in torture for a few moments. “Well, I’ll do this -thing for you. I’ll go to Paris to-night. Send me a line -from you authorizing me to treat for you with this jeweler. -I’ll get back to-morrow evening. You’ll be at your house -by ten o’clock, and I’ll come there straight from Cannon -Street. Mind you’re alone.”</p> - -<p>The rough authority of the sentences chilled her to the -bone; she realized that he was no more her timid obedient -slave, but her master, and a master with a whip. Something -in the expression of his face made her sick with -fear. But there was no other means, no other saviour; if -she offended him, if she rejected the aid she had asked for, -the false stones would go to Hunt and Roskell, and her -brother and brothers-in-law would know everything.</p> - -<p>“You’d better go now,” said William Massarene, reading -in her mind as if it were a book. “This aren’t a place -to talk secrets; and pull your veil down, for you look out -of sorts, my dear!”</p> - -<p>A shudder of rage passed through her as she heard his -words. Oh, how she hated herself that she had been such -an imbecile as to drift into a position in which this wretched -cad could dare speak to her as he would speak to a mill-hand -in Milwaukee.</p> - -<p>Oh, heavens! How dreadful it was, she thought, to -loathe and despise a man, and yet to be obliged to use -him! It was all her brother’s fault, who had placed her -in such an odious and agonizing position! It seemed as -if the whole of humanity, dead and living, were in conspiracy -against her!</p> - -<p>“Look here, my dear,” said Mr. Massarene in a low -tone, as they crossed the Speaker’s Court, “I’ll send you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span> -round to your house in an hour a line or two that you’ll -sign. Mere matter of form, but must be done, or I can’t -treat with your jeweler. Sign it, put it in a sealed envelope, -and send it back by the bearer. When I get it, -I’ll take the club train at nine o’clock. To-morrow’s -Sunday. There’s nothing odd in going out of town on -Sunday.”</p> - -<p>“Very well,” she said faintly; for it had never occurred -to her mind that Billy would be business-like with herself. -She was used to people who, whether they had little or -much, never stooped to <i>marchander</i>. Nobody had ever -asked her to sign anything before, except Beaumont.</p> - -<p>“What do you want a signature for?” she said impatiently. -“Can’t you forget you sold sausages?”</p> - -<p>She was looking at a brougham entering the courtyard, -and not at the face of William Massarene; had she seen -it, careless as she was, she might have been alarmed.</p> - -<p>He did not reply.</p> - -<p>As he put her in her carriage, she said, with anxiety:</p> - -<p>“You won’t tell anybody, will you?”</p> - -<p>William Massarene smiled grimly.</p> - -<p>“A man who sold sausages don’t come to be what I am -by telling people what he does. Telling aren’t my -habit, your Grace. Go straight home and wait for my -messenger.”</p> - -<p>She was not used to remembering that her servants -existed, but she was for once nervously conscious that the -footman holding open the carriage-door heard these words, -and must wonder at them. Oh, what a path of thorns -she had entered upon, all because Providence, or the Ormes, -or Ronnie, or whatever it was, had made life so difficult -for her!</p> - -<p>She did go straight home, for she was conscious that she -could not afford to miss Massarene’s messenger, who arrived -punctually within the hour.</p> - -<p>She glanced feverishly at what he had sent her; a few -lines printed in typewriting, so that his own handwriting -did not appear; it seemed to her inoffensive; it authorized -him to pay Beaumont the money for her, and get back the -Otterbourne jewels; it further stated that when he should -have completed the transaction, she would be his debtor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span> -for the sum of twelve thousand pounds sterling. This last -clause she did not like. It alarmed her. For an instant -a flash of good sense came across her mind and suggested -to her that it would be a thousand times better to send -for Ronald, even for any of the Ormes, and confess her -position to one of them, than to put herself in the power -of this man whom she had cheated, fooled, derided, ridiculed, -and ordered about under the whip of her contemptuous -words. Her relatives would save her from all exposure, -at whatever painful cost to themselves. But her -vanity and her stubbornness rejected the whispers of common -sense. She detested Alberic Orme, and her feeling -toward her brother was now little less virulent. “No!” -she said to herself, “rather than confess myself and -humiliate myself to either of them, I would die like Sarah -Bernhardt in <i>Ixeile</i>!” But she forgot that there are -worse things than death.</p> - -<p>After hesitating for ten minutes, and looking down -with disgust on this paper, which looked so vulgar with -its big type-written words, she decided with a reckless -plunge into the unknown to sign it, and scrawled at the -bottom of the lines the name which she wrote so seldom, -Clare Otterbourne. With similar haste she thrust it into -an envelope, sealed and sent it down to Massarene’s messenger.</p> - -<p>She cried bitterly when it was irrevocably gone from -her, but she felt that she could do no less than she had -done; everybody took such dreadful advantage of poor -Cocky’s death!</p> - -<p>“I shall treat the beast worse than ever,” she thought, as -her sobs ceased gradually. “<i>Poignez vilain il vous oindra.</i>”</p> - -<p>She had always beaten her <i>vilain</i>, and he had always -submitted and cowed before her. She believed that he -would do so as long as he lived.</p> - -<p>For this satirical, intelligent, and <i>fin-de-siècle</i> creature, -so quick to see and ridicule the follies and frailties of -other creatures, did not in the very faintest degree understand -the stuff of which William Massarene was made.</p> - -<p>Meantime, he was travelling toward Dover in the club -train with the type-written paper safe in his inner breast-pocket. -This errand pleased him.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXV.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">She</span> had never known great anxiety before. She had -had many worries, many troublesome moments, when she -wanted money, but never such a weight of care as this. -There had always been Cocky, on to whose shoulders she -had been able to throw the blame of everything; and -whose ingenuity had frequently (for a consideration) been -of exceeding use to her. Now she was alone, without -even the solace of having Harry to quarrel with and upbraid; -and she had put herself and her secret and her -signature into the hands of William Massarene. When -she thought of it she felt as if a rush of ice-cold wind -passed over her.</p> - -<p>It was Sunday. She went to a fashionable church and -took Boo with her, looking a picture of childish loveliness -in the crape frock, and her big black hat and her little -black silk legs displayed far above the knee.</p> - -<p>“Mammy’s got a lot o’ bills to pay,” said Boo at the -schoolroom dinner.</p> - -<p>“How d’you know?” asked Jack.</p> - -<p>“Cos she prayed such a deal,” said his sister. “She -flopped down on her knees and I think she cried.”</p> - -<p>“There must be bills then,” said Jack seriously. “Or -p’rhaps,” he added, “’twas only the church. Churches -is always sorrowful.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t mind ’em,” said Boo. “There’s a lot o’ fun -in people’s bonnets. I drawed two or three bonnets in -my Prayer Book.”</p> - -<p>Their mother was, indeed, as Boo’s observant eyes had -discovered, greatly disturbed and apprehensive. Throughout -the service of the fashionable church she was absorbed -in one thought: would Billy play her false? Would he, -if he were true to her, be in time? Might not Beaumont -be away from Paris for the Sunday, like so many Parisian -tradesmen; he had a country house, she knew, at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span> -Compigne. What would happen to her if, when the men -from Coutts’s came, and she had not the veritable diamonds -to give?</p> - -<p>Exposure, complete and inevitable, must follow; when -the jewels should be brought to valuation Hurstmanceaux -and the Ormes must at least know the truth, and that -seemed to her worse than to be pilloried, as people were -of old, and stoned by the multitude.</p> - -<p>She thought she could trust “Billy”; she felt that a -hard-headed man of business would not go over to Paris -on so grave an errand and leave it undone; but she could -not be sure, a thousand things might happen. Channel -steamers never do get wrecked, but the one in which he -crossed might do so; the train might come to grief; Paris -might be in revolution; Paris made revolutions as rapidly -as it made omeletts for breakfast; she was not naturally -imaginative, but in this tension of terror her fancy conjured -up innumerable horrors as she apparently kneeled in -prayer.</p> - -<p>When she came home she shut herself up in her bedroom, -said she had a headache and took a little chloral. -As she lay on her sofa, with a handkerchief over her eyes, -she heard the children trundling down the staircase to go -for their afternoon drive; they always were driven somewhere -into the country on Sunday afternoons to avoid the -crowds and noise of the parks. She heard Jack’s voice -shouting a negro melody as he jumped down three stairs -at a time. She got up despite her headache and her -chloral, opened her door which led on to the stairs, and -caught the little sinner as he passed her by his blouse.</p> - -<p>“How can you let the duke disgrace himself so?” she -said sternly to the governess. “The very boys in the -street respect the seventh day.”</p> - -<p>Then, still with her fair hand closed fast on the blouse -she said to the wearer of it: “I am shocked at you, Jack! -Go upstairs to your room and stay there. You do not go -out to-day.”</p> - -<p>The great tears brimmed up in Jack’s eyes, but he -would not cry; he looked at her with a fixed reproachful, -indignant look, very like Brancepeth.</p> - -<p>The governess and the nurses all pleaded for him;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span> -everyone in the household loved Jack as they hated Boo. -But it was in vain; his mother was in that kind of mood -when every woman must have a victim, and he was all -that offered to her. He was taken upstairs to be locked -in his chamber by a sympathetic under-nurse, who whispered -consolation. Boo, half vexed, half pleased, called -after him with much self-righteousness: “I telled you -never to sing those naughty songs. Didn’t I tell you, -Jack?”</p> - -<p>Jack did not reply or look round; he went manfully -onward and upward to his doom. His mother retired to -her own repose, whilst Boo, with the two other little boys, -descended down to the entrance-hall. She was glad to -think of Jack shut up in solitude and fretting his heart -out this fine clear rainless afternoon in May.</p> - -<p>The governess and the head nurse whispered together -in the landau as to the duchess’s strange unkindness to -her eldest son. Boo, who never lost a word of their -whispering, when she sat between them, turned up her -pretty nose: “Mammy don’t like Jack ’cos he’s got everything; -she’s got to give him her jewels.”</p> - -<p>For Boo, unseen and forgotten, had been sitting in the -next room, playing with her big doll which talked, whilst -the scene concerning the jewels had taken place between -her mother and her uncle. Boo enjoyed anything which -bothered Mammy. Only Boo was of opinion that the -jewels ought to be her own, not Jack’s.</p> - -<p>Meantime poor Jack, crying his heart out on his bed, -thought, “Whatever good is it being a duke? Two of -’em have had to die one after the other, and I’ve got to be -shut up here. And how mean it was of Boo to crow over -me. Boo’s so like mammy. I wish there were no women -and no girls.”</p> - -<p>At that moment the sympathetic under-nurse brought -him two peaches and a raspberry ice, which she had -begged for from the kitchen, and Jack kissed her and -thought better of her sex.</p> - -<p>“I wish all women were dead ’cept you, Harriet,” he -said tenderly.</p> - -<p>“Oh, your Grace, don’t say that,” said Harriet. “But -it was to be sure cruel unkind of your mamma.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span>“I hate mammy,” said Jack with a deep drawn breath. -“She took away my Punch, and she’s sent away Harry.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, your Grace, don’t let yourself blame your mamma,” -said the good nursemaid. “But for sure it is hard -to be shut up here on a bright breezy day. But eat your -peaches, dear, ’twill all be the same to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“But you’re shut up too, Harriet,” said Jack, regarding -her thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>“Law, yes, sir, I never hardly gets an hour out.”</p> - -<p>“But you’d like to go out?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, sir; but them as it above me, you see, don’t think -of that.”</p> - -<p>Jack ceased munching his peach and looked at her -gravely. “I think that’s very wrong. When I’m a man, -Harriet, <i>everybody</i> shall have hours out.”</p> - -<p>“You dear little soul,” thought Harriet, “you think so -now, but when you’re a man I dessay you’ll be like all the -others, and think only of yourself.”</p> - -<p>“No, Harriet,” said Jack, solemnly divining her thoughts, -“no, I sha’n’t forget.”</p> - -<p>The solace of having hurt Jack only momentarily -diverted his mother from her torturing thoughts for a -brief space of time. Her mind returned in fretting and -feverish anxiety to the mission on which William Massarene -had gone.</p> - -<p>Two or three intimate friends were coming to dine -with her at eight o’clock. She wrote a few hasty words -and put them off on the score of her headache; they -were intimate friends, and what is intimacy worth if it -does not enable us to sacrifice our intimates to ourselves? -The notes sent, she went to sleep and slept fitfully for -some hours. She really felt ill, for she was so unused to -severe mental disturbance that it affected her physical -health. She would have liked to send for her physician, -but she was afraid he would perceive that she had something -on her mind. She saw in the mirror that she did -not look like herself.</p> - -<p>She was so unused to being alone, that solitude was in -itself an illness to her. She had no resource of any kind; -everything bored her except the life she was used to lead. -She could never imagine why people read books or wrote<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span> -them. Even the newspapers she had never read, except -when they had had something about herself or Cocky.</p> - -<p>William Massarene had said, “Mind you are alone,” -and she felt that it would be the height of imprudence to -have any of her friends with her when he should make -his appearance at ten o’clock. She took a bowl of hot -soup, a little claret, and a little fruit, and felt better. She -had herself arrayed in a tea-gown of crape, with loose -floating sleeves and a long train which trailed after her; -it was very becoming; her hair was loosely wound round -her head, and a high jet comb was stuck in it. She went -down and into her boudoir. It was eight o’clock. She -had forgotten Jack. Lights shaded with big butterfly -shades were burning low. The room was full of the -scent of lilies of the valley. It was a nest for human -nightingales. And she had to wait for an odious brute -out of Dakota, who had got her signature for twelve -thousand pounds! How disgracefully inappropriate to -the boudoir and to herself!</p> - -<p>There were several rings at the door-bell which echoed -through the hall below; but no one came for her.</p> - -<p>She felt it was a blessing that Harry could not come; -he had been used to racing up the stairs when he heard -she was unwell, and forcing his entry by right of usage. -And yet in a way she missed Harry. She had always -been able to make him believe anything.</p> - -<p>Ten o’clock struck at last. She shivered when she -heard it. If the man did not come, what on earth would -she do in the morning? She almost resolved to take the -jewel-safe and go out of England. Certainly neither -Ronald nor the Ormes would pursue her as a common -thief. But after a moment’s consideration she knew that -to do this would be useless. They would find her wherever -she went, and her life would be ruined. No, she reflected, -there was nothing but to trust to Billy. She had -always had immeasurable power over him, and moved him -about like a pawn at chess. She did not doubt that she -would always be able to do the same. <i>Ce que femme vent!</i> -was her gospel.</p> - -<p>She belonged to a world in which the grace and charm -of women are still very dominant features; but William<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span> -Massarene belonged to one in which woman was represented -by a round O, except in as far as she was wanted -for child-bearing and household work. In her latest -transaction with him she had confided in him as if he had -been a gentleman; she had ignored what she knew so -well, that he was but a low brute varnished by money. -She expected him to behave as a gentleman would have -done in similar circumstances, forgetting that he had -neither blood nor breeding in him.</p> - -<p>She watched the movements of the hands of the little -timepiece with intense anxiety. The tidal train arrived in -Cannon Street at half-past nine. He might have been -here by ten. It was twenty minutes past ten when the -bell downstairs rang loudly. It was he! A few moments -later a manservant ushered him into her presence; she -had given orders that they should do so immediately on -his arrival.</p> - -<p>He was hot from his journey and dusty, and had some -of the smoke of funnel and engine upon him; he had -never been more unlovely: he had his hat on his head as -he entered and his overcoat on his shoulders; he took -both off slowly as a man does in whose eyes good clothes -are precious, and she watched them with her nerves strung -to the highest pitch, yet her intense agitation not excluding -a vivid anger at his want of ceremony. His coat -carefully laid on a chair, and his gloves on the top of it, -he came and sat down before her, square, solid, hard as a -piece of old Roman masonry.</p> - -<p>“Well?” she said breathlessly. How cruel it was to -keep her in such suspense!</p> - -<p>“It’s all right, my lady,” he replied briefly.</p> - -<p>She raised herself on her couch, animation and color -returning to her face, light to her eyes, warmth to her -face.</p> - -<p>“Oh, that is very good of you!” she exclaimed. “I -am very grateful, indeed I am.”</p> - -<p>William Massarene laughed a little, deep down in his -throat.</p> - -<p>“Gratitude don’t wash, my dear. I never took a red -cent of it in change for any goods of mine.”</p> - -<p>“But I <i>am</i> grateful,” she said, disconcerted and vaguely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span> -distressed. “It was very good of you. What have you -done with them? Where are they?”</p> - -<p>He took a large packet out of his inner breast-pocket.</p> - -<p>“I had the tiara dismounted because ’twas safer to carry -it so. You’ll know how to put it together, I guess.”</p> - -<p>With a scream of relief and delight she sprang up and -seized the packet, tears of joy welling up into her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Verify ’em,” said Massarene, and she undid the -parcel and saw once more the great dazzling egg diamond -and all its lesser luminaries. He watched her as a tom-cat -on the tiles with gloating eyes may watch some white -graceful feline form walking amongst roses in a garden.</p> - -<p>“Verify ’em,” he repeated—“count ’em.”</p> - -<p>“I have, I have,” she said in her ecstasy. “They are -the Otterbourne diamonds just as I gave them to Beaumont. -Oh, my dear good man, how can I thank you?”</p> - -<p>He did not answer; he breathed so loudly and heavily -that she thought he was going to have a fit, and she -could not but wish that he might have one. Like a child -with a toy she took the jewels and began fitting them together -to make the ornament she had so often worn.</p> - -<p>“Oh, how can I ever be seen without them! It is so -monstrous, so brutal to shut them up at Coutts’s unseen -for all those years!”</p> - -<p>As soon as she had escaped from one danger she, woman-like, -bewailed another affliction.</p> - -<p>“How did you get over Beaumont,” she asked: “was -he disagreeable about me?”</p> - -<p>“No; like a man of sense he was glad to get his money and -asked no questions whence it came. Here is his receipt.”</p> - -<p>He held it before her, but he did not let it go out of his -hands. She saw that Beaumont had received of William -Massarene, on behalf of the Duchess of Otterbourne, the -sum of three hundred thousand francs <i>plus</i> interest. A -painful flush rose over her face as she saw that, and she -realized more distinctly what she had done.</p> - -<p>“How can I ever repay you?” she murmured.</p> - -<p>William Massarene’s thin tight-shut lips smiled, not -agreeably. He put the receipt back in his breast-pocket.</p> - -<p>“And my signature?” she said timidly, the first time -in all her life that timidity had ever assailed her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span>Then he smiled outright.</p> - -<p>“I ain’t Billy the scorned no more, am I, my dear? -Where’s your cheek, my lady?”</p> - -<p>Mouse, bending over the tiara which she was building -up, turned sick at his tone. She dared not resent it. She -was vaguely but intensely alarmed, and she was aware -that this man, so long her butt and jest, was her master.</p> - -<p>He sat with his hands still on his knees and with a -horrible leer on his dull eyes, gazing at her as a fox might -look at a silver pheasant from which nothing divided him. -He had always succeeded in everything, and now he had -succeeded in getting <i>quid pro quo</i> for all he had endured -and expended for her.</p> - -<p>As far as his sluggish passions could be aroused they -were excited for her; she had aroused in him one of those -passions of mature years which are more slow yet more -brutal than those of youth. But stronger still than this -was his grim pleasure in her humiliation, in her silence, -in her subserviency.</p> - -<p>And what a fool she was, despite all her fine airs, and -cool wit, and sovereign disdain!</p> - -<p>He continued to gaze at her fixedly, the veins swelling -like cords on his forehead, his stertorous breath as loud as -the gasp of an engine, his small grey eyes grown red and -shining luridly.</p> - -<p>“My signature?” she repeated in an unsteady voice.</p> - -<p>“You’ve got the jewels, my beauty. You can’t have -no more.”</p> - -<p>“Then it is not generosity!” said Mouse passionately, -and very unwarily betraying her unfounded hopes.</p> - -<p>“No, my dear,” he answered, “I never said ’twas.” -Then he put his two big knotted yellow hands one on -each knee, and looked at her mercilessly. “Think I’ll -take my payment now, or else the di’monds,” he said, -with a vile chuckle.</p> - -<p>She felt his odious grasp on her bare arms and his -loathsome breath on her cheek.</p> - -<p>“Don’t cry out, my beauty, or you’ll lose your -di’monds,” he said, with his lips on her shell-like ear. -“You’ve got to be fond of Billy now!”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the morrow, at the appointed hour, the real Otterbourne -jewels were consigned to the representatives of -the Otterbourne bankers, and Hurstmanceaux, like all -kind-hearted persons, now that he had got his own way, -felt sorry he had been obliged to enforce it, especially as -he heard that his sister was unwell, and could see no one. -“Poor little Sourisette,” he thought remorsefully. “Perhaps -I am too hard on her. She had a beast of a husband. -She is more to be pitied than blamed.”</p> - -<p>Always ready to forgive, he called in Stanhope Street -more than once, but she refused to see him. The children -told him she was unwell and invisible.</p> - -<p>Boo came flying down the staircase between the palms -and pointsettias in all the glee which to be the bearer of -an unpleasant message naturally afforded her.</p> - -<p>“Mammy says she won’t see you ever any more, uncle -Ronald,” said this miniature woman, with much contemptuous -dignity. “She would like, if you please, that -you shouldn’t speak to her even in the street.”</p> - -<p>Boo felt very important, standing in the middle of the -hall, in her crape frock, with her black silk legs, and her -golden cascade of hair on her shoulders, as she delivered -herself of this message, and pursed up her lips like two -red geranium buds.</p> - -<p>“Tell your mother that her desires shall be obeyed,” -said Hurstmanceaux, and he turned and went out, followed -by the saucy echoes of Boo’s triumphant laugh.</p> - -<p>She never liked her uncle Ronald; she was very pleased -to see such a big, tall, grown-up man go away in discomfiture.</p> - -<p>“You should have said it kinder, Boo,” murmured -Jack, from above on the staircase.</p> - -<p>“Why?” said Boo, with her chin in the air. “He -don’t ever give us anything, at least, hardly ever.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, he does,” said Jack, with remonstrance.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span> -“And <i>she’s</i> cruel nasty. She’s took away the Punch, and -sent away Harry.” He did not much like his uncle -Ronald, but he was sorry for him now that he, too, was -dismissed.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux was sad at heart as he walked down -Great Stanhope Street into the Park; he was full of compunction -for having, as he imagined, wronged his sister -about the jewels, and he was deeply wounded by the unforgiving -ingratitude of her feeling toward himself. He -had made many sacrifices to her in the past, and although -a generous temper does not count its gifts, he could not -but feel that he received poor reward for a devotion to -her interests which had impoverished him to a degree he -could ill support. The day was bright and breezy, the -flowers blazed with color, the season was at its height, -everyone and everything around him was gay, but he -himself felt that cheerless depression of spirit which is -born in us of the ingratitude of those we cherish.</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene passed him, driving herself a pair -of roan ponies. She thought how weary and grave he -looked, so unlike the man who had laughed and talked -with her as they had gone together over the snowy -pastures and the frozen ditches of the hunting country -more than two years before.</p> - -<p>“It’s really flying in the face of Providence, Ronnie, -not to marry the Massarene heiress,” said Daddy Gwyllian, -that evening, in the stalls at Covent Garden, letting -fall his lorgnon, after a prolonged examination of the -Massarene box.</p> - -<p>“I never knew that Providence kept a Bureau de Marriage,” -replied Hurstmanceaux, “and I do not see what -right you have to speak of that lady as if she were a filly -without a bidder at Tattersall’s.”</p> - -<p>“Without a bidder! Lord, no! She refuses ’em, they -say, fifty a week. But you know, Ronnie, you do fetch -women uncommonly; look what scores of ’em have been -in love with you.”</p> - -<p>“If they have, I am sure it has benefited them very -little, and myself not at all,” replied Hurstmanceaux, -very ungraciously.</p> - -<p>“She keeps a circular printed—a stamped form of refusal,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span> -said Daddy Gwyllian with glee. “Sends ’em out -in batches. Have a mind to propose to her myself, just -for the fun of getting a circular.”</p> - -<p>“Your wit is as admirable as your invention is original,” -said Hurstmanceaux, with much impatience, glancing, -despite himself, at the box on the grand tier, where -the classic profile and white shoulders of Katherine Massarene -were visible beside the large, gorgeous, and much-jeweled -person of her mother.</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene disliked the opera-house. What -she called the “noise” always reminded her of the braying -of bands and the rattling of shots on a day of political -excitement in Kerosene City. But she was not displeased -to sit in that blaze of light with her di’monds on her -ample bosom, and feel that she was as great a lady as any -other there; and she was proud and pleased to see the -number of high and mighty gentlemen who came to make -their bow in her box, and with whom Katherine “talked -music” in the most recondite and artistic fashion.</p> - -<p>“That’s the Duchess’s brother down there,” she whispered, -as she turned her lorgnon on Hurstmanceaux.</p> - -<p>“It is,” replied Katherine.</p> - -<p>“Why don’t he come up here like the rest?” she -asked. “He’s the best looking of them all.”</p> - -<p>“He has never left his card on you,” answered her -daughter. “It would be very bad manners indeed if he -came here.”</p> - -<p>“And why hain’t he left his card? I’m sure we’ve done -enough for his sister.”</p> - -<p>“He probably does not feel that any gratitude is obligatory -on him. He probably does not approve of her accepting -favors from strangers.”</p> - -<p>“Then he’s born a century out of his time,” said Mrs. -Massarene, with the acuteness which occasionally flashed -up in her. “In these days, my dear, everybody takes all -they can lay their hands on——”</p> - -<p>“Hush!” said Katherine, as Jean de Reszké came on -to the stage.</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene would have preferred a companion -who would have worn big pearls, and had some color in -her gown, and who would have talked all through “the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span> -music,” and would have made a sign with a flower or a -fan to that handsome man down there to come up with -Daddy Gwyllian and chat with them.</p> - -<p>“Why didn’t my lord come up with ye?” she asked, as -Daddy did appear.</p> - -<p>“His lordship’s music mad, ma’am,” replied Daddy, who -delighted in adopting her style; “never misses a season at -Bayreuth, or a <i>première</i> of Saint-Saëns’s.”</p> - -<p>“He’s never left a card, and ’tis rude,” said Mrs. -Massarene. “We know all his sisters and brothers-in-law.”</p> - -<p>“It <i>is</i> rude, madam,” assented Daddy, “but men don’t -go often where they’re liable to meet their own families.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a heathen sentiment,” said Mrs. Massarene -severely.</p> - -<p>“Only human nature,” said Daddy cheerfully. “Human -nature is much the same, dear lady, whether heathen, -Chinee, or Christian.”</p> - -<p>“Ye don’t know much about the Chinese, sir,” said -Mrs. Massarene. “They’re that wrapped up in their -families that they’re always agoin’ to their graves; not -like the folks here, who poke a dead person into the earth -and give orders to a florist, and then thinks of ’em never -no more. The Chinese pray to their dead; ’tis very -touching, though it may be an offence to Deity.”</p> - -<p>“I imagine, ma’am, their sensibilities are not blunted -by death-duties,” said Daddy rather crossly; he disliked -being corrected, and he disliked being taken <i>au pied de la -lettre:</i> it is highly inconvenient to anyone who has the -reputation of a humorist.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Brancepeth</span>, like Hurstmanceaux, was sincerely unhappy -through her, for a woman whom men love much, -despite her faults and caprices, has an almost unlimited -power of worrying and of torturing their less complex -and more kindly natures. The breaking of a habit is always -painful, and he had an affectionate soul. To have the -door of Stanhope Street shut in his face hurt him as it -hurts a kind-hearted St. Bernard dog to be shut out of an -accustomed house and left to pine on the area pavement.</p> - -<p>She swept past him in her carriage with a distant bow -which cut him to the quick. Pride kept him from calling -at her residence, but he could not help haunting the street -to see the little black forms and golden heads of the children -trotting off on their noonday walk, or Jack, in solitary -manhood, riding with his groom.</p> - -<p>There was no one to whom he could appeal.</p> - -<p>Her sister, Carrie Wisbeach, the only one of her family -who had ever liked him, had been three months away on -a yachting journey round the world; and he felt, without -ever hearing it said, that her people and her set approved -the conduct of the Duchess of Otterbourne in having -broken with him; they approved her more than if she had -married him.</p> - -<p>“Mammy’s took away my Punch, Harry—the beautiful -Punch you giv’d me,” said Jack, in woebegone accents; -it had been a real Punch, show box, puppets, a Toby that -squeaked, and a set of pandean pipes—a delicious toy with -which Jack could make believe to be “the man in the -street” to his great ecstasy.</p> - -<p>“She says I’m a little beast ’cos I have everythin’. -What have I got? She’s even tooked away the Punch. -I haven’t got anything,” said the poor little man with -tragic intensity.</p> - -<p>“Taken away the Punch? Oh, lord! That is real -mean,” said Brancepeth, with his face growing very dark.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span> -“Merely because I gave it you? What devils women -are!”</p> - -<p>“I always telled you, Harry,” said Jack solemnly. “I -always telled you that mammy could be nasty. You’ve -set her back up, that’s what you’ve done.”</p> - -<p>Jack was sitting astride of an Exmoor pony with his -left hand resting on the crupper, and his face turned full -on his friend in melancholy reproach. Harry was on the -pedestrians’ side of the rails and had stopped the rider -under a tree in full fresh leaf. This was the only way -now in which he could see the children, when they were -out walking or riding, and he managed to waylay them. -The nursery doors were closed against him, and he felt -his exile as bitterly as the cast-out Peri of the poem.</p> - -<p>“You should have put up with mammy,” said Jack, -with the superiority of a sage, “’cos you can’t come to -us now she’s angry with you. And when she’s angry -once, it lasts a long long while, for ever, and ever, and -ever.”</p> - -<p>His tone was very impressive; he spoke as if he had a -hundred years’ experience behind him; and his big soft -black eyes had tears in them; he missed his Harry.</p> - -<p>“You dear little beggar!” said Brancepeth tenderly, -but glancing apprehensively at the groom on the off-side. -“Don’t fidget your pony’s mouth, Jack; keep your bridle -hand quiet, low down and quiet.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the little Duke,” said some work-people walking -past, and smiled good-naturedly.</p> - -<p>“What a little love!” said some ladies.</p> - -<p>“You’ve got Tom Tit, Jack, and you’d better gallop -him,” said Brancepeth, nervously conscious of the open -ears of the stolid and wooden-faced groom. “Don’t let -his Grace hustle his pony; there can’t be a worse habit,” -he said to that functionary. “Never hustle your cattle, -Jack, do you understand? Off with you, dear! I want -to see how you go.”</p> - -<p>He watched the pretty figure of the boy as Tom Tit -skurried over the tan with his undocked tail switching the -ground, and his sturdy, shaggy little head pulling wilfully -at the bridle.</p> - -<p>“Took his Punch away! Good lord! What out-and-out<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span> -brutes women are,” he thought, as he leaned over the -rail under the green leaves in the sunshine.</p> - -<p>But his heart was heavy and his conscience ill at ease, -and he envied Hurstmanceaux the power he had over -these children and their future.</p> - -<p>“Harry’s been hard hit over the Oaks,” said one of his -friends, staring after him, to another as they passed. -“Never saw him look so blue in all his days.”</p> - -<p>“No; he’s got to marry Lady Kenny, I suspect,” said -another of his friends, using the title by which she had -been known to the town so long.</p> - -<p>“If I go on as I am doing now, what shall I be when -that dear little beggar’s a man?” he thought. He felt -that he would be a very poor example for the child he -loved. He felt that Jack, who loved him in return, would -get no good from him, but might be led into much evil. -“I’ll try and pull up,” he said to himself. “If I’m alive -twenty years hence, I should like those little chaps to be -the better not the worse through knowing me.”</p> - -<p>He sighed as he thought so, and then he laughed at -himself for being in such a mood. They were Cocky’s -sons, of course! Why should he bother about them? -His laugh was bitter, but his heart was heavy.</p> - -<p>She had used up all the best years of his life, and beggared -him to boot, and he had no more power over her -than if he had been the crossing-sweeper yonder in St. -George’s Place.</p> - -<p>Harry was not very wise, and the ways of his life had -not been prudent, but a seriousness and sadness which he -had never known came over him as he watched the Exmoor -pony till it was out of sight, and then walked on by himself -in the opposite direction toward Apsley House.</p> - -<p>The next week he had a long interview with his father, -and another with his Colonel, and in a week or two more -he sent in his papers.</p> - -<p>“I shall never alter the pace here,” he said to his father, -who, much relieved that he did not hear Harry was going -to marry the Duchess of Otterbourne, said, cordially: -“No, my dear boy, we can’t get out of the swill till we’re -clear of the stye!” By which elegant metaphor he meant -life in London.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span>It was growing hot and close in Mayfair and Belgravia, -and Jack went for his last ride in the Park one sultry -misty morning when the sky was like a grey woolen -blanket, and the Serpentine resembled a dull steel mirror -as it reflected the forms of the ill-fed and melancholy -water-birds.</p> - -<p>Tom Tit and Jack were going down on the morrow -with the rest of the juvenile household to the country. -Their mother was already away from London.</p> - -<p>Jack was worrying his mind with wondering how he -should see his favorite friend in the country. In other -years Harry had generally been where they were, that is -to say, when they accompanied their mother to Homburg, -or Carlsbad, or Cowes, or Staghurst, or Scotland. But -Jack was uncomfortably and dimly conscious that those -pleasant days were over and were not likely to be renewed. -It is hard at his age to have to look back to the -past with regret. But Jack felt that nothing in his present -was likely to be so agreeable as those merry days -when his mother and Harry had been such good friends.</p> - -<p>It was very warm, heavy weather; even Tom Tit had -not much scamper in him, and his rider let him amble -slowly along whilst he himself pushed his sailor hat to the -extreme back of his head and yawned, opening his rosy -mouth as wide as it would go.</p> - -<p>“Men don’t yawn in their saddles, Jack,” said a voice, -which was music in his ears.</p> - -<p>“Oh!” he cried, with delight. He was on the north -side of the Park, no one was near, and Brancepeth was -walking where he had no business to be, as he was on foot. -He came up to the child and greeted him, then turned to -the groom:</p> - -<p>“I want to speak to the Duke a minute or two. You -will wait here,” he said, as he slipped a gold piece into -the man’s hand. “Jump off, Jack, and come with me.”</p> - -<p>Jack needed no second bidding.</p> - -<p>The groom, with the sovereign in his whip hand, made -no opposition, and Harry walked away with the boy across -the grass, talking to him as they went of horsemanship -and all its etiquette, while Jack’s face, gay and rosy in its -happiness, was turned upward with adoring eyes.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span>“I thought I shouldn’t see you again, Harry,” he said, -as he trotted along by his friend’s side. “We’re all going -into the country to-morrow.”</p> - -<p>“With your mother?” asked Brancepeth.</p> - -<p>“No; mammy’s at Ems. Boo’s so cross ’cos she’s got -to stay with us. She won’t play at anything.”</p> - -<p>“When did your mother go?”</p> - -<p>“Day before yesterday.”</p> - -<p>Brancepeth sighed.</p> - -<p>“And she didn’t leave ’ny money, and she didn’t leave -’ny orders for us, and the servants went away, and there -was nothin’ to eat, and the scullery-maid she came upstairs, -and said: ‘You duckies, I’ll buy you chops if I go -without a new hat,’ and nurse said she was an imperent -jade, and we didn’t get ’ny chops, and somebody sent to -uncle Ronnie, and he came and gived money, and I told -him of the scullery-maid, and he gived her half a sovereign, -and said, ‘You’re a good girl,’ and that I heard, and -we and the dogs and horses go down this afternoon.”</p> - -<p>Jack drew a long breath after his eloquence, and added, -“Harriet is gone down into Essex to see her mother, -who’s dyin’, or <i>she’d</i> have bought the chops.”</p> - -<p>There were very few persons on the north side of the -Park, and they went on across the grass until they had -got out of sight of the groom, and came up to an elm-tree -with a circular bench round its roots.</p> - -<p>“Let’s sit down a moment, Jack,” said Harry. “It will -be a long time perhaps before I see you again.”</p> - -<p>“Why?” said Jack, in alarm. “Are you going to -Ems?”</p> - -<p>“No, dear—I am not going to Ems,” said Brancepeth -sadly, looking down at the boy’s face, with the golden -nimbus of its ruffled hair and the black circle of the sailor -hat framing the hair as in an ebon frame. There was no -one near.</p> - -<p>The great elm trunk was behind them like a wall, and -its branches above them like a roof.</p> - -<p>How far away they seemed, those pleasant summers -when, as the London season ended, he and she had -planned their meetings at this bath or at the other, and -Cocky, pliant, philosophic Cocky, had said always opportunely:<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span> -“You’ll come too, won’t you, Harry? Filthy -feeding and beastly waters, but they set one on one’s legs -again somehow or other.”</p> - -<p>The distant sound of the traffic in the road beyond the -railing was like the muttering of an angry but distant -sea. A white butterfly floated above the heat-scorched -turf. Jack’s two little sunburnt hands were clasped on -one of his own; he looked longingly and wistfully down -on the child’s face and form as we look on what we cherish -and may never see again.</p> - -<p>“Jack,” said Brancepeth suddenly, “if you were never -to see me any more after to-day would you remember -me?”</p> - -<p>Jack’s face had on it the distressed perplexed wonder -with which children feel their hearts stirred by appeals -which they very dimly understand; his eyes were suffused, -his forehead frowned. “Of course I should,” he said -almost crossly.</p> - -<p>“Really?” said Brancepeth very wistfully.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Jack very solemnly; then he burst out -crying. “What do you say such things for?” he said -between his sobs. “Where’s you going?”</p> - -<p>“You dear little beggar,” said Harry, much moved -himself, as he put his arm round the child’s shoulders and -drew him closer. “I am not sure I’m going anywhere, -but I may go a long way, and I mayn’t come back. -Don’t cry. Listen. If you grow up without seeing me -try and be a good man. Not such a beast as men are -nowadays. Not such a fool as I am; a mere horse-riding, -card-playing, dawdling, gaping, well-groomed tomfool. -Keep out of the accursed London life. Don’t mind what -women say. Tell the truth. Keep straight. Live on -your land, if any land’s left when you’re of age. There -are a lot of things I want to say to you, but I don’t know -how to say ’em, and you’re too little, you wouldn’t understand. -But don’t do as I’ve done, that’s all; and -make yourself as like your uncle Ronnie as you can.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Katherine Massarene</span> noticed that her father paired -early in the season and was ordered by his physician to -take the waters of Ems. But she made no remark on the -fact, and her mother said, quite unsuspiciously, to her -husband on his departure, “If you see the Duchess there, -William, give her my love. She was looking worried and -worn when she left.” She was always fascinated by that -lovely apparition which had seemed to her so splendid an -incarnation of aristocracy and grace, delicious insolence -and incomparable sorcery.</p> - -<p>“Them German waters are wonderful curers,” she said -to her daughter. “They’re good for the Duchess’s nerves, -and your father’s rheumatics.”</p> - -<p>Katherine said nothing. Was her mother as simple as -she seemed? she wondered. Herself, in her own despite, -she felt a curious reluctant pity for Hurstmanceaux’s -sister; such pity as she might have felt if she had seen a -lithe young jaguar crushed by the hirsute strength of a -baboon. The jaguar is itself cruel, stealthy, pitiless, but -still—the duel is unequal, and is decided by sheer brutal -savage force.</p> - -<p>“Somehow or other,” she thought, “my father has -frightened her and cowed her; she looks as racing mares -do when they come in off the trotting piste, with their -strained eyes and their nervous trembling.”</p> - -<p>She felt a vague desire to warn the victim of her -father’s character, of his pitiless cruelty, of his unutterable -brutality; but she knew that it would be unfilial to -do so, and would be probably an act useless, misunderstood, -and attributed to some selfish motive. She knew -the world well enough to be aware that, whatever we -may do to serve another, we are always suspected of serving -our own interests.</p> - -<p>To her it was evident that the saucy and thievish -rodent had run once too often and once too near the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span> -claws and teeth of the tom-cat, who had let her gambol -before him only to seize her and crunch her at leisure. -She came very close toward the truth in her observations -and deductions, but she shut her suspicions up in her own -breast, and said nothing to anyone, being used to live -without confidantes and to put a padlock on her lips.</p> - -<p>“Who would ever have thought Sourisette would be -so depressed by her little beast of a husband’s death?” -said the friends who saw her at Ems that summer, one to -another. They found her extremely altered; she was -nervous, pale, had lost her spirits, and shut herself up a -great deal, alleging her mourning.</p> - -<p>“Mouse as <i>la veuve inconsolable</i> is too droll,” said her -world; but when it became known that the guardians and -executors had taken away the Otterbourne jewels, including -the roc’s egg, and locked them up, never to be unlocked -until Jack should attain his majority, her female -friends argued that it was no wonder she felt such an insult.</p> - -<p>“It is not an insult. It is the law. The trustees are -obliged to do it; the little Duke’s a minor,” explained -their male relatives. But to the female mind this kind of -explanation always appears as trivial as it is impertinent. -The general impression was given in society that Hurstmanceaux -was very harsh to his sister, and that his unkindness -was the cause of her loss of spirits and change -of habits; moreover, it was said that it was he who had -insisted on her rupture with Brancepeth.</p> - -<p>Altogether she was pitied and admired, for her conduct -had been quite admirable ever since the day that her -wreath of forget-me-nots had been placed on poor Cocky’s -grave, almost side by side with Lily Larking’s harp of -calla lilies.</p> - -<p>No one noticed that when she went on from Ems to -Homburg, William Massarene went there also a few days -later, whilst his wife and daughter remained at Vale -Royal; no one except the courtly diplomatist of the silk -dressing-gown, who was at Homburg too, and who observed -that she did not bully “Billy” as she had done in -the days of the Bird rooms, and that when “Billy” approached -her there came into her eyes a flash of hate, a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span> -gleam of fear and loathing. Also that whatever he proposed -in the way of walking, driving, or dining, she acquiesced -in with a certain sullenness but with unusual -docility.</p> - -<p>If ever in his sturdy life William Massarene had been -shy, he was so when the gaze of this accomplished person -met his own. But whatever the minister observed, and -any conclusions he might draw from his observations, he -kept to himself, having in his career learned that there is -no proverb truer than that of <i>l’arbre et l’écorce</i>. He was -bland and charming both to <i>l’ours et l’agneau</i>, as he called -them. <i>Pauvre agneau!</i> She had gambolled too carelessly -and skipped too nearly the hairy arms of the ponderous -bear! The diplomatist felt thankful that he could -look calmly as a spectator at the struggle. He was -prudent by nature and by habit, and beyond all women -who were ever created his own personal reputation and -his own personal ambitions were dear to him.</p> - -<p>Equally circumspect, Massarene, as he took great care -not to compromise himself, did not compromise her, except -in the inductions of such very fine and accomplished -observers as this diplomatist, of whom there are few left -in the hurry and hurly-burly of modern society. If the -whole of his constituency had been watching him, he -could not have been more careful. A man has not been -President of the Band of Purity and the White Riband -Association in an American township without learning -how to keep his neighbors’ noses out of his own whiskey -and candy stores.</p> - -<p>But he was an ever present horror in her life. He -could subdue her with a glance of his colorless, dull eyes. -She no longer dragged him behind in the dust of her -chariot; she was dragged in the dust behind his. She -was tortured by the ever harrowing dread that others -would notice the change. She had even lost the spirits -and the nerve to invent fictions to account for such a -change to her friends. She let things drift in apathy and -disgust and fear.</p> - -<p>From Homburg he let her go on to Carlsbad, where he -did not show himself, and thence on a visit to a sister of -hers who had married a Magyar magnate, where she was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span> -for a while in peace, since there certainly her tyrant could -not go.</p> - -<p>Her children were meantime still at Whiteleaf, a ducal -property, of which Alberic Orme held the living, where -they and the Blenheims had a healthier, if less brilliant, -life than had been their portion when with her. She -had no anxiety about them. She knew that their -uncle Ronnie would see to all that was necessary for -them. She hated his conscientiousness bitterly, but she -trusted to it as to a staff which would never break.</p> - -<p>The vast domain of Staghurst had already been let to -an Indian maharajah. Otterbourne House had been -leased to the representative of a great Power. All other -houses and estates were similarly disposed of, and the -strictest measures were being taken to make the little -Duke’s minority fruitful.</p> - -<p>The dreadful debaucheries of Cocky had impoverished -his father woefully, and the entail had been eaten into as -the eastern coast of England is being gnawed away by -the sea. But the long minority would do much to restore -the fallen fortunes of the great dukedom, and a strict -economy was inaugurated.</p> - -<p>Her own jointure was of course paid regularly to her; -but it seemed to her brother that it must be utterly insufficient -to afford her means to live as she chose to live. -A great disquietude and alarm always weighed on him -about her, but she had chosen to quarrel with him. He -could not sue for reconciliation when he was in the right.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux was as tender-hearted as he was proud, -and if she had made any sign of contrition or affection he -would have forgiven all her insolence and have gone to -her at once. But she had shut the door in his face; she -had insulted him by the lips of her little daughter. He -could not make any advances to her. For her own part -she was relieved not to see him. Something might have -transpired to excite his suspicions; he might have noticed -the altered tone of William Massarene, or he might have -interrogated her as to her ways and means, and found her -replies unsatisfactory. He was much better away, and -she made no sign to him. Her movements he heard of -from his other sisters, and from the columns of the <i>Morning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span> -Post</i>. In the late autumn he saw that she was staying -at Vale Royal; the Christmas recess she passed with -Carrie Wisbeach; the new year saw her in a suite of -rooms at the Residential Hotel facing Hyde Park.</p> - -<p>“How does she get the ready money?” he said to -Lady Wisbeach, who had come from her journey round the -globe as though she had only been down to Greenwich.</p> - -<p>“Oh, a woman alone, you know, with only a maid,” -said that loyal lady carelessly, “a woman alone needn’t -spend more than a sparrow. It isn’t as if she had the -children. And then in mourning, and hardly going out -except to quiet little things——”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux did not find the explanation very satisfactory.</p> - -<p>“Do you think she regrets that man?” he said, after -a pause.</p> - -<p>“What man?”</p> - -<p>“Lord Brancepeth.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no,” said Carrie Wisbeach. “My dear Ronnie, -where <i>do</i> you live? Who regrets things when they have -been on all that while?”</p> - -<p>He was silent; he felt that his sisters were far beyond -him in the knowledge of life.</p> - -<p>“You might as well talk of regretting a worn-out -shoe,” said Lady Wisbeach, with some impatience.</p> - -<p>“Surely you admit she should have married him?”</p> - -<p>“I?” cried his sister with amazement. “I implored -her not to marry him. She would have been mad if she -had married him. She would not marry him when—when -she was wild about him. She married Cocky. She -did quite right. The Inversays are utterly ruined. The -old people have nothing. The very little he ever had -came from his grandmother, old Lady Luce, and that -little was—was—well, was got rid of in a year or two. -Besides, nothing is so stupid—such a want of sense and -<i>savoir faire</i>—as to marry a person who has been talked -about in connection with you. It is foolish. It confirms -things. It makes people laugh. Of course if you get a -very great position by it, it’s a different thing. But even -in that case I should always say to a woman—at least to -a young woman—don’t!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[337]</span>“Why especially to a young woman?”</p> - -<p>“My dear Ronnie, you are really too stupid for anything! -If a woman isn’t young she isn’t likely to have -many offers of marriage, is she?”</p> - -<p>“I see,” replied Hurstmanceaux, and felt once more -that beside the worldly wisdom of his sisters he was indeed -a novice.</p> - -<p>“You live in the country till you forget everything,” -said Lady Wisbeach.</p> - -<p>During the visits of the Duchess of Otterbourne to -Vale Royal her hostess saw a great change in her. “That -pretty creature isn’t what she was, William,” she said to -her husband. “She don’t cheek you as she used to do, -and she seems quite down in the dumps. Surely it can’t -be that she’s fretting on account of the death of that little -drunkard?”</p> - -<p>William Massarene did not look at his wife as he answered. -“’Tis want of dollars frets her, my good woman. -That’s a disease as ages these young ’uns fast. Thoroughbred -mares want gilded oats.”</p> - -<p>“Deary me! What’s the use of being a duchess if you -don’t get gilded oats?” said his wife. She was troubled -by the idea of anyone so exalted being brought so low -as to want money. Being tender-hearted she redoubled -her attentions to her guest, but being tactless she mingled -with them a familiarity for which their object would willingly -have murdered her, and which she resented all the -more bitterly because she was forced to conceal her resentment.</p> - -<p>He got far beyond all social need of her now. His position -was secure in the county, in the country, in the -world. Men knew what he was worth both in millions -and in mind, and they feared him. He did not scruple to -treat them like dirt, as he expressed it, and it was they -who wanted him now, they who had to sue for his good -offices and bear his snubs.</p> - -<p>For some few people like Hurstmanceaux he was still only -a cad sitting on a pile of money-bags; but these were so -very few that they did not count, and he could very well -do without them.</p> - -<p>All the pick of the Tory party came to Vale Royal, shot<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[338]</span> -his pheasants and partridges, drank his rare wines, asked -his opinion, and shook his hand. If out of his hearing -they still called him a blackguard American, they were -now extremely civil to his face, and when he wanted them -he had only to whistle. It pleased his love of dominion -and his sense of successful effort. He felt that all these -noble people, pretty people, fastidious people, all these -political chiefs and swell notabilities and leaders of parliament -and of fashion, were as so many comedians, all -playing for him. He hated them for a great many reasons: -for their polished accents, for their way of bowing, -for the ease with which they wore their clothes, for the -trick they had of looking well-bred even in shabby gowns -or old shooting-coats. But he despised them; he could -afford to despise them, and they could not afford to despise -him.</p> - -<p>When he thought of this he passed his tongue over his -lips with a relishing gesture, like a dog who has been eating -a beefsteak.</p> - -<p>With the world, as with the Duchess of Otterbourne, -he had ceased to be suppliant—he had become master; -and he had always been a hard master, he had always -thought that the best argument was a long strip of cowhide.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you brute—you unutterable brute! If a look -could kill you, you would fall dead where you stand!” -thought Mouse one day as she looked from one of the -windows of the Bird room, and saw his short broad figure, -with the squat legs cased in the gaiters of a country gentleman -and the country gentleman’s round felt hat on his -stubbly iron-grey hair, as he went over the turf with his -back to her, having on his left the lord-lieutenant of the -county, and on his right the Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer, -each of them bending their tall forms affably and -listening to him with deference.</p> - -<p>But looks cannot kill; and he continued to walk on -across the sunlight and shadow over the grass, and she -continued to watch him from the upper windows, convulsed -with a deadly loathing impotent rage against him, -such as Marie Antoinette must have felt for the gaoler of -the Concièrgerie.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[339]</span>There were men who loved her to insanity; even in the -weary, shallow, indifferent, modern world there are still -women who inspire insane if short-lived passions, and she -was of those women; but she could not appeal to any one -of these men since appeal would entail confession; and -confession to one would mean exposure to all, for she -knew that her tyrant would be merciless if she freed herself -from him, or he would not keep her signatures as he -did keep them. Skilled in male human nature, and the -management of it, though she was, she had no experience -to guide her in dealing with Massarene, because all the -men amongst whom she had lived had been gentlemen; -and the way of treating women of the gentlemen and the -cad is as different as their way of shooting. A man capable -of acting as Massarene did could not have been met -with in her world.</p> - -<p>“It is all our own fault,” she thought. “Why do we -let these boors and brutes in at our gates because they -have got their sacks of bullion on their backs?” And as -she always blamed somebody for the issue of her own errors, -she thought with detestation of Cocky coming up to -her under the trees at Homburg, and telling her to make -the acquaintance of the Massarenes.</p> - -<p>Happily for her William Massarene was too cautious, -too busy, and too ambitious a man to lose much of his -time in torturing her. He delighted in her hatred, her -helplessness, her servitude, but she was only a toy to him; -his gigantic schemes of self-advancement, and his many -financial enterprises, engrossed him much more, and he -would not have risked his social position by a scandal for -all the beautiful women in creation. He supplied her -with the money she wanted, but he made her beg, and he -made her sign, for every penny of it. It was fine sport!</p> - -<p>Her own people attributed the change in her to her -rupture with Brancepeth; and, in himself, Hurstmanceaux -did so also. But it was a subject on which he could -know nothing since the scene she had with him concerning -her late friend, and he could only suppose that like -many another woman she sorrowed for the loss of what -she had refused to keep. He knew that she stayed a good -deal with the folks at Vale Royal, but his penetration did<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[340]</span> -not go farther than to conclude that she did so because it -saved her expense. He saw nothing of her personally in -the autumn and winter following Cocky’s death; his unavoidable -communications with her on business were made -by letter. Sometimes he wondered how she and the lady -with whom he had walked to Greater Thorpe got on together; -he did not think that they could suit each other; -but he saw little of the one and nothing at all of the -other.</p> - -<p>Of William Massarene he of course saw nothing either; -so that the curt and insolent tone which Massarene at -times now allowed himself to use to one whose humble -slave he had once been was unknown to him; if he had -heard it and resented it, the “bull-dozing boss” would -have cast the truth in his teeth, and, grinning, have -awaited his reception of it, for courage had never been -lacking to the man who for thirty years had held his own -against the hatred of the whole Central States.</p> - -<p>This terror lest he should thus tell the truth to her -brother haunted her night and day. She did not think -there was much fear because she knew that he held his -social position as dear as life itself, and he would be well -aware that Hurstmanceaux would destroy it at a blow. -Still she could not be sure, for she knew that temper sometimes -hurries the wisest and most ambitious man into irrevocable -indiscretion.</p> - -<p>She had herself lost absolutely all power over the man -who had been so blindly her slave. Their positions had -wholly changed. It was she who shrank from his glance; -it was he who ordered and was obeyed. She, who had no -acquaintance with pain, suffered as never before would -she have believed it possible to suffer. Humiliation, terror, -abhorrence, self-contempt, were all united to an agony -of apprehension with regard to the future. She would -easily have made a second marriage, but her tyrant forbade -her any such issue from her difficulties.</p> - -<p>She had never before supposed that it would ever be -possible for her to be miserable in London, but she was so -now; the dull cold bleak weather aiding her depression, -and the mourning which she had still to wear seeming to -her indeed the very livery of gloom.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[341]</span>A whole hothouse of flowers emptied into her room -could not make opaque yellow fog supportable, and the -sight of William Massarene driving past her windows or -coming up the staircase anything less than torture.</p> - -<p>How she envied those women of ruder ages who could -hire bravoes for a quick cold steel to rid them of what -they loathed. She hated him so intensely that there were -even times when she looked wistfully in at the gunsmiths’ -shops in Piccadilly.</p> - -<p>But she lived in a world in which all strong passions -seemed farcical, and the ridicule of the thing restrained -her from buying a revolver. A tragedy with Billy as the -slain! She laughed a hollow little laugh of misery and -scorn as she threw herself back in her brougham and -ceased to look at the little ivory mounted weapons so -temptingly displayed by the gunsmiths.</p> - -<p>She had insight enough to perceive that his adoration of -her was a thing dead and gone for ever; she saw that the -only dregs of it which remained with him were love of -hurting her, of mortifying her, of ordering her about as -though she were a factory wench in one of his cotton-mills -in North Dakota. Fortunately for her his prudence -saved her from any display of this tyranny in public; but -in private he treated her as a tanner of the Ile de France -might have treated a young duchess of the Faubourg -when it only needed a sign to the mob for the axe to fall -and the pikes to be twisted in the perfumed hair. She -had no will of her own; she dared not dispose of her time -for a week; she had to know what he permitted and what -he forbade.</p> - -<p>“She’s a morsel for a king,” he would say to himself, -passing his tongue over his lips. Still he had become -very indifferent to her, except that his power of humiliating -her was always agreeable and stimulating to him.</p> - -<p>“You’ve found out as Billy ain’t a fool, haven’t you, -my beauty,” he said a hundred times to her. “Billy’s -been one too many for you, eh?”</p> - -<p>And at such moments if a revolver had been near her -she would have shot him dead.</p> - -<p>The harassing torment of her compulsory submission to -him made her look worn, anxious, thin. “Surely I am<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[342]</span> -not losing my beauty,” she thought with horror, as she -looked at herself in the mirrors, and each day she was obliged -to have a little more recourse to the aids of art.</p> - -<p>She knew well enough that however brilliant may be -artificial loveliness, it is never quite the same as the -radiance of that natural beauty which can affront the -drenching rain of a hunting-field or the scorching sun on -a yacht-deck, or, most difficult to bear of all, the clear -light of early day after a ball.</p> - -<p>Oh, how she hated everyone! Cocky in his grave, and -Beaumont in his shop, and Ronald who had brought all -this misery upon her, and Brancepeth who had taken her -at her word; and—oh, how bitterly and with what deadly -hatred!—this coarse, common, hideous creature who said -to her in his brutal derision:</p> - -<p>“Billy’s been one too many for you, eh, my dear?”</p> - -<p>He had put this thoroughbred trotter into the harness -of his homely wagon, and it never ceased to please him to -watch her jib, and start, and tremble, and pant, as he -flogged her along the stony road of subservience to his -will and desires.</p> - -<p>The more intensely she dreaded and loathed him the -more entirely did he enjoy his revenge. It had cost him -a great deal of money, but he did not grudge the money. -The sport was rare.</p> - -<p>“Stow that, my pretty,” he said to her when he saw -her receiving as if she liked it the attentions of some man -who might very well be in earnest and desire to persuade -her to a second marriage. “Stow that, my pretty. You -aren’t a-going to wed with nobody—Billy’s here.”</p> - -<p>Her disgust, her indignation, her helpless revolt, were -all infinitely diverting to him; he let her free herself a -moment, only to pull her up with a jerk and remind her -that he was her master. She felt that as long as he lived -he would never let her escape him.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I’ll marry you myself if the old woman goes -to glory,” he said with a grin. “Don’t you count on it -though, my dear; I may see somebody else and disappoint -you!”</p> - -<p>His position was too dear to him for any jeopardy of it -to be risked for any other consideration on earth. It was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[343]</span> -to his own fear for himself that she owed such partial relief -from him as she obtained, such comparative liberty as -his jealous vengeance permitted; such formal politeness -as he showed her in society. He was afraid she might -make a confession to Hurstmanceaux if he pressed her -too hard, and this feeling alone kept his tyrannies within -certain bounds, and compelled him to treat her with -courtesy before the world.</p> - -<p>But the low-bred ruffianism which was his true inner -man showed itself frequently in private.</p> - -<p>Once he wiped his dusty boots on the hem of her gown.</p> - -<p>“A duchess’s frock makes a nice door-mat,” he said with -relish. “Don’t you squeal, my pretty, or damn me if I -don’t wipe ’em with your hair next.”</p> - -<p>She knew that he would do as he said.</p> - -<p>He kept her in perpetual slavery also for him in the -world; he made her serve his interests with all her relatives -and friends; he sometimes exacted what was not -only difficult but almost impossible, and she had to get it -done somehow or other. His ambitions grew with what -they fed on, and he became arrogant, critical, overbearing -in his expectations.</p> - -<p>“I mean to die a lord and a cabinet minister,” he said, -with a sense that death could only be his obedient valet -like the Conservative party.</p> - -<p>“If wishes could kill you, you would fall dead where -you stand,” she thought; but she dared not say so, and -she devoured her hatred and her humiliation in silence.</p> - -<p>“You aren’t so young as you were, my beauty,” he -said one day out of doors, staring ruthlessly at her. -“Billy don’t agree with you, eh? Keep worrying the -curb, don’t you? Pull as hard as you will, you won’t get -your head. You’re between my shafts, and you must -just go quiet over the stones at my pace, my lady fair.”</p> - -<p>The stones were very sharp, and this road was apparently -without an end. She grew thin, she looked -harassed and hectic, she contracted a nervous way of -glancing back over her shoulder to see if he were within -earshot, even when she knew that he was a hundred miles -away.</p> - -<p>One day when he was with her one of her many admirers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[344]</span> -sent her a large gilded gondola-shaped basket filled -with Palestine lilies and La France roses.</p> - -<p>“Who sent these?” he growled, and he pulled the card -off it and read the name. It was a great name. “What’s -this mean, eh?” he said as he showed her the card.</p> - -<p>“It means nothing at all,” she said, with that tremor in -her which was partly impotent rage and chiefly genuine -fear; and added, with a little nervous laugh, “We have -no language of flowers like the Orientals.”</p> - -<p>“Eh?” said Massarene, who did not understand—“mean -nothing, do they? That’s one of your damned -lies. Now ye hearken to me, my lady. Him as sent ’em’s -so deep in my debt that he’d hev to turn crossin’ sweeper -if I held up my little finger. Now I won’t hev my debtors -come gallivantin’ to my sweetheart. Mind that. Make -him keep his distance or it’ll be worse for him and for -you. You know Billy by this time.”</p> - -<p>Then he kicked over the gilded gondola and trampled -the beautiful flowers under his big feet.</p> - -<p>Her nerves gave way under the sickening nausea of the -scene. She buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud, -her tortured pride of race and of womanhood writhing like -some delicate animal in a steel trap.</p> - -<p>William Massarene stood and watched her, his thumbs in -the armholes of his coat, his legs wide apart, his yellow -teeth showing in a broad grin. It was rare sport. It had -cost him an almighty pile of dollars, but it was rare sport. -He felt that after his long career of hard work and self-denial -he had earned the right to some such fun and feast -as this.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[345]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">With</span> the next season he allowed her to accept the loan -of her sister Carrie’s house in town; that lady having -gone on a little trip to Japan. She hated the Wisbeach -house, which was dark, ugly, and situated in the dreary -district of Portman Square. Carrie Wisbeach, who was -but little in town, and was a sportswoman renowned in -more lands than her own, had little heed of all the artistic -and graceful luxuries with which her younger sister had -always required to be surrounded, and had left her husband’s -old London house very much as his grandparents -had made it.</p> - -<p>Mouse detested it unspeakably, but it was roomy and a -good way off Harrenden House, and she put up with it, -trusting that she would be almost always out of it. For -her tyrant favored rather than discouraged her perpetual -appearance in society; it prevented people talking, and -in society alone could she favor his interests social and -political.</p> - -<p>She was still altered; she had still that harassed apprehensive -glance backward over her shoulder; but she was -familiarized with her captivity, and had learned to make -bricks without straw for her bondmaster without too -plainly betraying to others the marks of the sand and the -clay in which she was forced to kneel.</p> - -<p>Ever since her first season she had done whatever she -had pleased, and amused herself in any manner she desired. -But she had never got into trouble, never been compromised, -never felt her position shake beneath her. A -woman, young and popular, who has great connections -behind her, can, if she have tact and skill, easily avoid -being injured by scandal. If she knows how to conciliate -opinion by certain concessions, she can enjoy herself as -thoroughly as any young cat gambolling about a dairy; -and no one will seriously interfere with her. Society had -certainly “talked”; but when a woman has a brother like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[346]</span> -Hurstmanceaux, and a father-in-law like the good Duke -of Otterbourne, and many other male relatives high-spirited -and innumerable, people do not talk very incautiously -or very loudly.</p> - -<p>Now through “Billy,” for the first time, she saw her -position jeopardized. That low-bred creature, whom she -had made fetch and carry, and wince and tremble at her -whim and pleasure, had now the power to make her, if he -chose, in the eyes of the world, that miserable, contemptible, -and despicable creature, a <i>femme tarée</i>.</p> - -<p>Sometimes, too, a more tragic, a more sickening, fear -assailed her, when she thought of the possibility of her -tyrant telling the truth, in boastfulness or in revenge, to -her brother. It was not likely, but it was always possible; -for she saw that in William Massarene, at times, -temper—the savage, uncontrolled temper of the low-born -man—got the better of good sense, of caution, and even -of ambition. She could never be sure that it might not -do so some day in her case, and that for the ruffianly -relish of dragging the pride of the head of the House of -Courcy in the dust, he might not throw to the devil all -his cherished triumphs, all his hardly-bought distinctions.</p> - -<p>Happily for her Hurstmanceaux was almost always in -the country, or on the sea, and the sight of him in London -streets seldom tempted the fiend to rise in her gaoler.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile the London season came on and ran its -course with its usual plethora of pleasure and politics, its -interludes of Easter and Whitsuntide weeks, and its comings -and goings of people, who could not live without -running to Rome, flying to Biskra, shipping over to New -York, and taking a breathless scamper to Thibet.</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene came up to town in the spring, -sorely against her will, and she went through the routine -which was so wearisome to her, and rejected many offers -of the hands and hearts of gentlemen with whom she had -exchanged half-a-dozen sentences at a dinner-party or riding -down Rotten Row.</p> - -<p>“Lord, child, what do you want that you’re so particular?” -said her mother, who did not approve this incessant -and ruthless dismissal of suitors.</p> - -<p>“I want nothing and no one. I want to be let alone,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[347]</span> -replied her daughter. “As for the life of London, I abhor -it, I am asphyxiated in it.”</p> - -<p>Suitors who might fairly have expected her to appreciate -them solicited her suffrage in vain; she did not give -them a thought, she abhorred them—everyone. She only -longed to get away from it all and have finished for ever -with the pomp, the pretention, the oppressive effort which -seemed to her parents the very marrow of life.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Mallock calls this the best society of Europe,” she -thought again. “If it be so, why does it all come to us to -be fed?”</p> - -<p>Had she possessed the disposal of her father’s fortune -she would not have fed it. Being obliged to stand by -and see it fed, in such apparent acquiescence as silence -confers, she lost all appetite herself for the banquet of -life.</p> - -<p>Such slight cutting phrases as she permitted herself to -speak were repeated with embittered and exaggerated emphasis -in London houses until London society grew horribly -afraid of her. But it concealed its fear and wreathed -in smiles its resentment, being sincerely desirous of obtaining -the hand of the satirist for one of its sons.</p> - -<p>More than once the Press announced her betrothal to -some great personage, but on the following morning was -always forced to retract the statement as a snail draws in -its horns. To her mother it seemed heathenish and unnatural -that a young woman should not wish to be “settled”; -she thought the mischief came from the education -Katherine had received, reading books that had even a -different alphabet.</p> - -<p>“You want all the hideous vulgarity of a fashionable -wedding, my dear mother,” said Katherine. “If ever I -should marry I assure you I shall wear a white cotton -gown and go alone to some remote village church.”</p> - -<p>“My dear, how can you say such things? It is quite -shocking to hear you,” said the mistress of Harrenden -House, infinitely distressed.</p> - -<p>“Pray set your mind at ease,” said her daughter. “I -shall never marry, for the best of all reasons that no man -whom I could respect would ever marry me.”</p> - -<p>“Not respect ye! How can you say such things?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[348]</span> -You’re the daughter of one of the richest men in the -whole world, and he’ll be noble as well, he says, afore he -goes to Kingdom Come.”</p> - -<p>The younger woman lifted her head, like a forest-doe -who hears the crack of a carter’s whip.</p> - -<p>“To belong to the Peerage is not necessarily to belong -to the nobility; and you may belong to the nobility without -being included in the Peerage. Sir Edward Coke laid -down that law. Surely, my dear mother, you cannot for -a moment pretend that if my father be given a peerage he -will become noble?”</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene knew that she might as well have -spoken to the Clodion on the staircase, as said these reasonable -things to her mother; but now and then she could -not wholly keep back the expression of the scorn of her -father’s ambitions which moved her—ambitions, in her -eyes, so peurile and so poor.</p> - -<p>“Who was Edward Coke?” said Mrs. Massarene sullenly.</p> - -<p>“The greatest lawyer England has ever seen. The -greatest exponent of Common Law.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, I think he might have known better than -to deny as his sovereign can make a gentleman of anybody -if so be she choose,” said her mother doggedly.</p> - -<p>“You might as well say that the sovereign can cure the -king’s evil!”</p> - -<p>“Well, they say she <i>can</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear mother! Can you live in the world and -keep such superstitions?”</p> - -<p>“You’ve no belief in you!”</p> - -<p>“I at least believe enough in true nobility to hold that -it is a gift of race and breeding beyond purchase, and uncreatable -by any formula.”</p> - -<p>“If the Queen makes your father a lord, a lord he will -be with the best of them.”</p> - -<p>“She can make him a lord; she cannot make him either -noble or gentle. His nobility will be a lie, as his armorial -bearings are already.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a cruel thing to say, Kathleen!”</p> - -<p>“It is the truth.”</p> - -<p>“Why do I try to reason with her?” she thought.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[349]</span> -“One might as well try to persuade the stone supporters -on the gateway?”</p> - -<p>But Margaret Massarene, although she would not allow -it, did, in her own mind, think that her man was soaring -too high in his aspirations. To look up where he meant -to rise to, made her feel giddy and afraid.</p> - -<p>“They’ll never give it to ye, William,” his wife ventured -timidly to say one day, by “it” meaning his peerage.</p> - -<p>He smiled grimly.</p> - -<p>“Why not? ’Cos I ain’t a Radical turncoat? ’Cause -I ain’t a Birmingham sweater? ’Cause I ain’t a Hebrew -broker? They’ll give it me, old woman, or I’ll know -the reason why. You’ll be ‘my Lady,’ if you live.”</p> - -<p>He devoutly hoped she would not live; but if she did -live, she should be Lady Cottesdale.</p> - -<p>He had decided on his title, which he intended to take -from a little property that he had purchased in the Midlands, -and he had already ordered a dinner-service of gold -plate, with a coronet on all its pieces, which was to be a -work of art, and would take some years to finish. Before -it would be ready for him he would be ready for it, with -his baron’s crown to put on everything, from the great -gates to the foot-baths.</p> - -<p>Any man who is very rich can become an English peer -if he has kept clear of scandals and dabbled a little in -public life. And who was richer than he? Nobody -this side the herring-pond. The Conservatives were in -office. The Flying Boats of the fair, to which he had once -irreverently compared the two political parties, had made -their see-sawing journey, and the one was temporarily up -and the other temporarily down. The owner of Vale -Royal was beginning to make them feel that they would -lose him if they did not please him, and that they could -not afford to lose him. He had a forty-horse power of -making himself dangerous and disagreeable.</p> - -<p>“A very dreadful person,” said Lord Greatrex always, -when in the bosom of his family; but he knew that it was -precisely this kind of person who must be conciliated and -retained by a Prime Minister on the eve of the twentieth -century. A chief of government has only a certain -quantity of good things in his gift, and he does not waste<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[350]</span> -them on those who, being neglected, will not avenge -themselves. William Massarene worried the heads of his -party extremely; they were well aware that if he did not -get what he wanted from them, he would rat and make -terms with the enemy. Governments are accustomed to -John Snob, whom nothing will pacify, except to become -Lord Vere de Vere; but John Snob is never beloved by -them.</p> - -<p>William Massarene did not care whether they loved -him or hated him. The time had long passed when a -“How do?” in the Lobby from one of them could thrill -him with pleasure and pride; or a careless nod in the -dusk on the Terrace send him to dinner with a joyously-beating -heart. He could corner the gentlemen of the -Carlton as easily as he had cornered a company in other -days in Dakota. You could not buy society as you -bought a corporation or a department in the States; the -matter required more dressing-up and glossing over. -Still, the principle of purchase remained the same, and -Massarene recuperated himself for what he spent so -largely in Belgravia by his commercial successes and -financial fame in the City.</p> - -<p>In the freemasonry of business he had been at once -recognized in the City as a Grand Master. Many a -London gold broker, railway contractor, and bank chairman -felt himself a mere child, a mere neophyte, when -this silent, squat, keen-eyed man from the Northwest -came down into the precincts of Mincing Lane and -Threadneedle Street.</p> - -<p>In the City he knew his power, and made it felt. He -united the American rapidity, daring, and instinct in business -with the Englishman’s coldness, reserve, and prudence. -The union was irresistible. He had quaked and -crouched before fine ladies; but when he met the directors -of the Bank of England he felt like Napoleon at Tilsit.</p> - -<p>He was a magnate in the City, whilst he was still a -neophyte in the great world. But his ambitions were of -another kind than those which the City gratifies. They -were social and political. He meant to die a Cabinet -Minister and a Peer. He went to Walmer one Easter<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[351]</span> -and looked at the portraits of the Wardens. “Guess -mine’ll hang there one day,” he said to himself.</p> - -<p>Everything in his new life was still, in reality, most -uncomfortable to him; the very clothes he had to wear -were tight and oppressive; he had to drink hocks and -clarets, when he longed for gin and beer; he had to eat -<i>salmis</i> and <i>relevés</i> when he hungered for bread and cheese -and salted pork; he longed to spit on his own carpets, and -dared not; he was in awe of his own servants; he was -awkward and ill at ease in his own houses; he quailed -before the contemptuous eye of his own secretary; and -he could not read the bill of fare of his own dinners; and -yet, though he pined to be once more in his shirt-sleeves, -with a clay pipe in his mouth and a glass of hot grog at -his elbow, he was happy in his misery, for he “had -arrived.”</p> - -<p>Not arrived at the apex as yet; but in full view of it, -and within an ace of planting his flag on the summit. -And so in all probability he would have done in the opening -years of the new century but for one of those small, -very small, mistakes, which upset the chariot of successful -life as the loose rivet, the weak plank, the uncovered -valve destroys the stately steamship, the colossal scaffolding, -the rushing and thundering steam-engine.</p> - -<p>One day in the autumn of the year the American -Consul-General in London received a letter from his -“great country” which, although ill-spelt, ill-writ, and -signed by a poor workingman, startled his secretary so -considerably by its contents that he brought the epistle -direct to his chief for instructions.</p> - -<p>This letter ran thus:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<i>’Onored ’Xcellence, theer’s a-living in London town a -man as is callt Willum Massarene; ’e was known in this ’ere -township as Blasted Blizzard. B. B. made a big pile an’ -went ’ome, and they says as ’e’s a swell an’ kings an’ lords -mess wi’ him. That’s neither ’ere nor theer. But theer’s a -pore fellar arsts me to writ this, ’cos he hev hisself no larnin’, -an’ ’e hev workt many a year on Massarene’s line—Kerosene, -Issoura, and Chicago Main Trunk—an’ he’s a -platelayer an’ hev allus bin ’onest an’ ’ard-workin’, an’ ’ad<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[352]</span> -his left arm cut hoff two summers ago by a goods-train, and -hev arskt for ’Elp an’ got no ’Elp ’cos ’e be a non-Union man, -and the Line say as how ’twas ’is own fault ’cos ’e ’ad gone -to sleep on the metals. Now this ’ere man, sir—name as is -Robert Airley, native o’ Haddington, N.B.—says as ’ow he -’ud be a rich un now but ’e med a mistek: ’e sold a claim to a -bit ’o ground as ’ad tin in it to this ’ere Massarene when he -was young an’ starving an’ ’is wife in pains o’ labor. -Robert Airley ’e say he found some sparkles sticking to roots -o’ grass, an’ didn’t know wot ’twas, an’ show it to Massarene, -who was thin kippen a drink and play saloon in Kerosene, -and Massarene bought his claim to the land for thirty dollars -and ever arterwards dared Robert to prove it, and prove he -couldn’t, but says as how ’tis God Amighty’s truth as he -owned the tin and sold ’is rights un-be-known as I tell ye. -Bein’ allus very pore he couldn’t git away from Kerosene, -and went on Main Trunk as platelayer, an’ now he arsks -yer ’Onor to see Blasted Blizzard and tell ’im as ’ow ’e can -work no more and ’e must be purvided for. I writt this for -’im ’cos Robert can’t writt ’isself an’ I be your ’Onor’s -’umble servant</i>,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright2">“<span class="smcap">George Mathers</span>,</span><br> -“<i>Lamp-cleaner on K.I.C. Line.    <br> -“Written in engine-house.</i></p> - -<p>“<i>Native o’ Sudbury, Suffolk, England, and out in this -damned country sore agen his will. Direct Robert Airley, -Post Office, Kerosene City, North Dakota, U. S. A.</i>”</p> -</div> - -<p>The Consul-General read this letter twice through very -carefully, for its spelling and its blots made it difficult of -comprehension. It did not astonish him, for he knew a -good deal about the antecedents of the owner of Harrenden -House and Vale Royal. He had never alluded to -them in English society, because if American consuls -once began to tell what they know, society in Europe -would be decimated at once.</p> - -<p>The letter did not astonish him but it made him very -uncomfortable. He was a person of amiable disposition -and he felt that it would be unkind to wholly neglect so -pitiful and just an appeal. Yet to address the owner of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[353]</span> -Harrenden House and Vale Royal, on such a subject was -an extremely unpleasant task, one which he was not disposed -for a moment to accept. To tell Solomon in all his -glory that he had kept a drink and play saloon, and -cheated about a placer-claim, demanded a degree of audacity -which is not required by governments from those excellent -public servants who sit in consular offices and in -chancelleries to indite reports which are to be pigeon-holed -unread, and throw oil on the troubled waters of international -commerce.</p> - -<p>He had no doubt whatever that the statements of the -letter were true; he remembered having heard it said by -some members of Congress in Washington a score of years -before that the Penamunic Tin Mine had been obtained -by Massarene through a chance more fortunate than -honest, and nothing which anyone could have told him -of the past of Blasted Blizzard would have ever found -him incredulous. He knew too well on what foundations -the fortunes of such men are built.</p> - -<p>“This is very dreadful,” he said to the Vice-Consul, -when the latter had read the letter. “But you see the -man is a native of Haddington. I cannot admit that he -should apply to us. We are clearly only here to assist -American subjects. If it were a matter of a kind on -which I could approach Mr. Massarene as <i>amicus curiæ</i>, I -would do so. But on such a matter as this it would be -impossible to speak to him without offence. Will you be -so good as to write to the man Mathers, and tell him that -our office is not the channel through which his friend—er—what -is his name?—Robert Airley, can apply; tell him -he should address the English Consul-General in New -York.”</p> - -<p>“Poor devils!” said the Vice-Consul, who knew well -what is meant by the dreary and interminable labyrinth -of official assistance and interference.</p> - -<p>“You know Massarene very well,” he ventured to add. -“Couldn’t you suggest to him——”</p> - -<p>“Certainly not,” said his chief decidedly. “Massarene -is an English subject. So is Robert Airley. So is George -Mathers. We have nothing to do with any of them. -They have never been naturalized. The application is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[354]</span> -entirely irregular. Return the letter and tell them to -address the English Consul-General at New York.”</p> - -<p>The Vice-Consul did so; and in due time a similar -letter was sent to the English Consul-General at New -York by George Mathers, who added to it that the wife -of Robert Airley had died a week earlier of pneumonia -brought on by want of food.</p> - -<p>The English Consul-General returned the letter addressed -to him, and informed the writer that he could not -interfere between employer and employed, or in any private -quarrel at any time; the matter was not within his -competence.</p> - -<p>Then the Suffolk man, who worked in the engine-house -and cleaned railway lamps, wrote direct to William Massarene, -London. This address was of course sufficient. -The letter found its way in due course to Harrenden -House and arrived there a week after the opening of Parliament, -amongst many coroneted envelopes, appeals for -subscriptions, and political pamphlets. It was candid, -simple, ingenuous, but it was certainly not politic, and -was extremely impolite. It began abruptly:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<i>William Massarene, Sir—Blasted Blizzard, as we used -to call yer—you’ll remember Robert Airley, though they say -you figger as a swell now in Lonnon town. We’ve wrote to -Consuls and They won’t do nought, so I write this for Robert -to you. You bought Robert’s claim; you knew ’twas tin, yet -ye niver giv ’im nought but thetty dollars. Robert has workd -on yer Line twenty year if One, an’ ’e can work no More. -’Is wife she ded last Month, ’cos she were out o’ food, an’ ’is -Son be ded too—rin over on yer Line. Ye’re Bound to give -’im enuff to kip ’is life in him. Not to speak o’ the placer-claim -as ye took and found yer mine in it. Robert’s a ole -servant on the Line, an’ ye be bound to kip life in ’im. Ye -was allus close-fisted an’ main ’ard, and a Blackgud in all -ways, but they ses as ’ow ye be a swell now, an’ it won’t Become -ye to let a ole servant starve as was allus God-fearin’ -an’ law-abidin’, an’ ’ave workt as ’ard as a ’oss, an’ never -brott the tin claim agen ye, tho’ ye cheated so bad.</i>”</p> -</div> - -<p>The letter was signed as that to the Consul had been, -and Massarene read it from the first line to the last.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[355]</span>He had two secretaries at this time, young men of good -family and university education, of whom he stood in perpetual -awe; but he never allowed these youths to see his -correspondence until it had been examined by himself. -He received too many letters menacing and injurious, containing -too many references to his past existence, for the -bland and supercilious young gentlemen to be trusted -with their perusal. Therefore the letter from the two -railway men in North Dakota came direct into his own -hands as he sat in his library before a table covered with -papers and blue books, and surrounded by well-filled -book-shelves off which he never removed a volume. -When he had read it his face was terrible to behold. One -of his footmen coming in to look at the fire was frightened -at its black savage terrible scowl. It is hard for any man -to find his past always rising up like Banquo’s ghost -against him; to William Massarene it was insupportable.</p> - -<p>He had a long memory; he never forgot a face or a -name. He remembered all about Robert Airley the moment -his eyes fell on the letter. It was thirty years before -that the Lowland Scotch emigrant, who had none of -the proverbial canniness of his race, but was a simple and -trustful lad of some twenty-four years old, had come into -Kerosene City, one of a wagon-full of weary folks; there -were no railways then within a thousand miles. But he -did not trust only to memory. He had brought with him -to England all his old ledgers, account books, folios of -every kind filling many cases, and all now filed, docketed, -and arranged in locked cases in a small study of which he -kept the key on his watch-chain. He went to this little -room now, and, with the precise and orderly recollection -for which his brain was conspicuous, went straight to the -books which referred to the tenth year of his residence in -Dakota. It took him some forty minutes to find the -entry which he required, but he did find it.</p> - -<p>“Paid Robert Airley the sum of one dollar for specimens -of tin ore.” “Paid Robert Airley the sum of thirty -dollars for his claim at Penamunic.” The transaction -was perfectly legitimate and legal. Appended were the -receipts of the said Airley and the deed which transferred -the land. Twenty-nine years had gone by and the ink<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[356]</span> -had rusted and the paper grown yellow, but the record -was there.</p> - -<p>The fool had sold his bit of prairie land out and out -and the tin under the soil of it. He had done it with his -eyes open. Who could complain of free contract?</p> - -<p>To Robert Airley it had seemed a poor bit of soil, good -for naught in husbandry, and his young wife had been -ailing and her first delivery at hand; and he had been -glad to get the dollars to buy her what she wanted. -Many men were in the settlement who could have told -him not to sell his placer-claim for a mess of pottage, but -there was no one who cared to go against Blasted Blizzard, -and, in new townships where shooting-irons are arguments, -men mind their own business.</p> - -<p>William Massarene locked up the ledger and the case -containing it, and went back to his library. He then sat -down and wrote a cypher telegram to his manager in -Kerosene City: “Tell platelayer Airley he won’t get a -red cent from me. Accident was due to his own carelessness.”</p> - -<p>He wrote this because he was in a towering rage at the -manner in which he had been addressed. Perhaps at -some other moment, or if addressed more humbly, he -might have bought off these men as he had previously -bought off others; but this letter had come to him in an -hour when he was filled with vainglory and self-satisfaction. -Only the previous day he had been at a banquet -given him by the Conservatives of the county he represented. -His blood was still warm, his vanity still fermenting -like yeast, at the memory of the compliments -paid to him by the great personages present; the praises -of his glorious self-made position, the homage offered to -him in the name of Great Britain. The Leader of the -House had given him to understand that when there was -next any vacancy or change he would be offered a place -in the administration; the great county folks at the -county banquet had heaped adulation upon him, for they -wanted him to make a new short-route railway line to -London; the <i>Times</i> newspaper had had a leader consecrated -to himself and to his admirable promise as a future -chief in the political world. And in such a moment of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[357]</span> -supreme distinction a platelayer and a lamp-cleaner dared -to write to him that he had been always a “blackgud”!</p> - -<p>Acute as his mind was, and vast as had been the sums -which he had expended in shipping his own and his wife’s -people to Australia, so as not to be annoyed by their demands -or vicinity, he should have been willing to spend -the insignificant sum which would have pensioned and -quieted Robert Airley; he should also have given something -to the Suffolk lamp-cleaner and thanked him; both -men would have praised him in the city where his fortune -had been first made. But the wrath which was in him -for once clouded his keen perception; he would not have -given either of the poor devils a crust of bread to save -their life or his own.</p> - -<p>The survival of the strongest was the law of nature; he -had heard a sociologist say so. Even beasts in the woods -followed that rule; the bison and the opossum and the -jaguar and the bear deferred to that law. How should -men defy or dare to demur to it?</p> - -<p>Because a weak sawney of a long-limbed emigrant had -not owned brains enough to see what was under the soil -which had been given him, could he blame a keener and -stronger man, already on the soil, for having had the wit -to know what ore was hidden under the rank grass and -the juniper scrub? Clearly, no. Fortune favored those -who helped themselves.</p> - -<p>“A blackgud in all ways”!</p> - -<p>Did a wretched railway hand dare to write this to a -colossus of finance whose brain was shrewder and whose -pile was bigger than those of any man on the Corporation -of London? William Massarene felt as a Burmese Buddha, -hung with gold and jewels, may be supposed to feel -when a Cook’s tourist pokes at him with the brass ferule -of an umbrella.</p> - -<p>On a man of breeding the insults of inferiors fall without -power to wound; but to a man of low origin and -enormous pretension they are the most intolerable of -offences. For one brief moment all his greatness seemed -to him as ashes in his mouth if these workingmen out in -North Dakota did not bow down before his glory. It was -delightful to be called “my dear friend” by the proud<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[358]</span> -Premier of England; it was delightful to be complimented -on his stables and his dinners by royal princes; it was -delightful to be consulted as a financial authority by the -Governor of the Bank of England; but all these delights -seemed nothing at all if a platelayer and a lamp-cleaner -could refuse to acknowledge his godhead. He knew if -he drove through Kerosene City next month the whole -population of it would turn out in his honor; the governor -of the State, the mayor of the town, the sheriff of -the county, the members it sent to Congress, its senators, -its solicitors, its merchants, its manufacturers, its hotel-keepers, -its white men and its black men, would all be in -the streets to cheer and welcome him, to feast and flatter -him, to hang out the Union Jack and the star-spangled -banner side by side in the oily, sooty, reeking air from the -ten-storied houses and the towering factories. But in the -background there would be two grimy railway hands who -would shout “Blackgud!”</p> - -<p>This passing weakness was brief; he was not a man of -sentiment. The two railway hands might scream what -libellous rubbish they liked. Nobody would listen to -them. Curses many, loud and deep, had followed him -throughout his career; but they were a chorus which attested -the success of that career. What he heard now -were the cheers of the House of Commons.</p> - -<p>His sense of humiliation was momentary; his sense of -his fury was lasting. He would have strangled the two -men with his own hands if they had been in sight.</p> - -<p>Many bones must whiten in the building of a pyramid, -and William Massarene had but done what the Pharaohs -did. Only their structure was of brick, and his of bullion.</p> - -<p>The letter had only moved him to a momentary sense -of fear; it passed almost as soon as roused; but his bitter -wrath remained, a fire unquenchable.</p> - -<p>Temper is always a bad adviser. It advised him badly -now. A very small annuity would have quieted Robert -Airley, who knew that he had no legal claim, and had not -long to live, for he had a tumor in his stomach. But -when the manager of the Main Trunk Line gave the reply -of its owner to the platelayer, he, who was a gentle and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[359]</span> -patient man, worn-out with hard work and sorrow, felt a -devil enter into him and seize his very soul.</p> - -<p>He said nothing, but the manager thought, “The boss -might have given the poor fellow a few dollars a week. -After all, the Penamunic ore was found on his claim, and -he’s been on this line ever since the metals were laid.”</p> - -<p>But the manager cared too well to keep his own post, -and knew William Massarene too well to venture to express -this opinion.</p> - -<p>“My dear child, something has riled your father dreadful,” -said Mrs. Massarene after luncheon that day; “he’s -got his black cap on; oh, I always calls it his black cap -when he looks thunder and lightning like, as he do to-day, -and swallers his food without a word.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps the Prince is not coming on the tenth,” said -her daughter, with that inflection of contempt which she -knew was unfilial, and which they told her was disloyal.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene shook her head.</p> - -<p>“The Prince always comes <i>here</i>. He don’t get better -dinners nowhere; and he’s a deal o’ use for your father in -many ways. ’Tisn’t that. I am afeared ’tis some of the -folks out in Dakota as bothers him.”</p> - -<p>“He must have so many who hate him!” said Katherine.</p> - -<p>“Well, yes, my dear, no doubt,” said his wife mournfully. -“Did you ever see a hogshead o’ molasses without -wasps? He have a very big fortune, has your father.”</p> - -<p>Katherine was silent.</p> - -<p>“Do you know, if he were to die, what he would do -with it?” she said after awhile.</p> - -<p>“Why, leave it to you, my dear. Who else should -have it?”</p> - -<p>“I hope he would not. I am sure he would not. I -have displeased and opposed him too often. I think he -will bequeath it in such a manner that it shall be a perpetual -monument to himself.”</p> - -<p>“He’ll leave it to you, my dear. Nature is nature, even -in a man like your father.”</p> - -<p>Katherine shuddered.</p> - -<p>“If I thought there was any fear of that I would speak -to him about it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[360]</span>“Oh, good gracious me, child, don’t dream of such a -thing!” said Mrs. Massarene, in trepidation. “’Twould -be firing dynamite! In the first place, you’d never turn -him—nobody ever could—his mind’s made up, you may -be sure, and nothing you could say would change it; but, -oh Lord! if you was to hint to him that he must die one -day, he’d never forgive it; he’s one o’ them as thinks he -can square Almighty God. ’Twouldn’t be decent either, -you know. ’Twould look as if you was counting on his -going and wishing for his pile.”</p> - -<p>“If you think it would look like that I will say nothing. -But I should beg him to leave me out of his will altogether.”</p> - -<p>“He wouldn’t believe you meant it,” said her mother. -“He wouldn’t believe anybody could mean it. He would -think you was trying to find out how much he’s worth -and how much you’ll get.”</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene sighed and abandoned the argument. -She went to ride in the Park with a heavy and -anxious spirit. The season was odious to her; all which -to most women of her age would have been delightful -was, to her, tedious and oppressive beyond description. -The sense that she was always being pointed out as William -Massarene’s daughter destroyed such pleasure as she -might have taken in the music, the art, the intellectual -and political life of London. The sense that she was continually -on show shut up her lips and gave her that slighting -contempt and coldness of manner which repelled both -men and women. The many offers for her hand which -were made were addressed to her father; no one was bold -enough to address them to herself. Everybody, except a -few aged people, thought her a most disagreeable young -woman.</p> - -<p>“Refuse every offer made to you—I do not mean to -marry,” she had said once to him; and he had replied:</p> - -<p>“You will marry when I order you to do so.”</p> - -<p>But there was something in her regard which restrained -him from ordering her, though he received various proposals -which tempted him. What he wished for, however, -was an English duke if a royal one was not to be had, and -there was no duke in the market, they were all married or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[361]</span> -minors. So for the present he left her in peace concerning -her settlement in life.</p> - -<p>Her heart was heavy as she rode over the tan, her -thoroughbred mare dancing airily beneath her. She was -a fine rider and quite fearless; but she hated park-riding -amongst a mob of other people with a staring crowd at -the rails. “A circus would be better,” she thought. She -passed Hurstmanceaux, who was riding a young Irish -horse; he lifted his hat slightly with a very cold expression -on his face.</p> - -<p>Jack was with him, promoted to a Welsh pony of fourteen -hands, Tom Tit having passed to the use of his -brother Gerald. Jack and Boo had been sent for by their -mother, who had again the loan of the Wisbeach house, -her sister being this year in Nebraska for shooting.</p> - -<p>Jack was feeling quite a man, his pretty long curls had -been cut off, he had a tutor chosen by Lord Augustus, he -had a hunting-watch in his pocket, and he was wondering -when he should be allowed to smoke. Manhood was not -all roses. He never heard anything of Harry, and he did -not see much of Boo.</p> - -<p>Jack looked after Katherine Massarene and her beautiful -mare.</p> - -<p>“That’s the daughter of the old fat man who gives -mammy such a lot of money,” he said, as he rode onward.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” said Hurstmanceaux, startled -and stern.</p> - -<p>Jack was frightened.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” repeated his uncle.</p> - -<p>“Old man is made of money,” he said evasively; his -uncle, very high above him, very erect and severe, looking -down with sternly searching eyes, was an object of fear to -Jack.</p> - -<p>“But why do you say your mother has his money? You -must have some reason. Answer,” said Ronald, in a tone -which did not admit of refusal.</p> - -<p>“The—the—person who told me knew. But I can’t -tell you who it was,” said Jack, with a resolute look on -his face.</p> - -<p>The “person” had been Boo. Hurstmanceaux placed -a great effort on himself to desist from further enquiry.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[362]</span>“You are right not to betray your friends,” he said. -“But you would do better still not to repeat their falsehoods.”</p> - -<p>Jack did not reply, but from the expression on his face -it was plain that he did not think he had repeated falsehoods.</p> - -<p>Ronald was about to say something to him about his -obligation to protect his mother from such calumnies, but -it was not the time or place for lectures on duty; and he -was painfully conscious that, the older Jack grew, the less -esteem would he entertain for his mother and the more -true would such statements be likely to seem to him. -What the child had said was like a thorn in his own flesh. -He had thought better of his sister since her surrender of -the Otterbourne jewels, and he had tried to persuade himself -that all her previous faults and follies had been due -to the wrongdoing of her husband. The boy’s unfortunate -speech was like a bolt in a clear sky. For it was -certain that Jack could not have had such an idea himself -without suggestion from others, and though it was probably -the mere garbage of the servants’ hall, it was nevertheless -miserably certain that some such story must be in -circulation.</p> - -<p>He continued his ride in great anxiety.</p> - -<p>He knew nothing of the affair with Beaumont, but -many other things rose to his memory; the sale of Vale -Royal, the sale of Blair Airon, her incessant patronage of -the Massarenes, the persuasion used by her to induce great -and royal persons to go to their houses—all this recurred -to him in damning confirmation of the suspicions raised by -Jack’s words. He felt that he must not question the child -further; he could not in honor put her little son in the -witness-box against her; but the charge contained in -Jack’s words seemed so horrible to him that as he rode -past Harrenden House he was tempted to stop and enter, -and take the owner of it by the throat, and force the truth -out of him.</p> - -<p>He remembered how much money she had spent that -he had never been able to account for; how large her expenditure -had been, despite the slenderness of her jointure -since the death of Cocky; how obstinately Roxhall had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[363]</span> -always refused to tell him anything whatever about the -conditions of the sale of Vale Royal, alleging that it was a -thing he was ashamed of and of which he would never -speak; and Roxhall he knew had always been in love -with her, and turned by her at her will round her little -finger.</p> - -<p>Something of this kind he had long ago suspected and -feared, but the truth had never been visible to him in its -naked venality before this morning ride with Jack. So -long as Cocky had been alive, although it had been disgraceful -enough, it had not seemed so utterly abominable -as it did now to know that his sister obtained her luxuries -by such expedients. What to do he could not tell. She -did not acknowledge his authority in any way, and set -the law at defiance as far as she could, even as concerned -his jurisdiction over her children. He could not accuse -her without proof, and he had none; accusation also was -useless—she was wholly indifferent to his opinion and -censure. Her position in the world remained intact, and -it was not her brother’s place to proclaim her unworthy -to occupy it. That which he longed to do—to take William -Massarene by the throat and shake the truth out of -him—was impossible by reason of his own habits, manners, -and social sphere, in which all such brawling was -considered only fit for cads.</p> - -<p>“How very angry he looks!” thought Jack, and was -glad when he had got away and changed his riding-clothes, -and run upstairs to Boo. It was not very often now that -he was allowed to scamper up to the children’s tea and -daub himself with honey and marmalade, and pile sugar -on hot buttered toast. The servants called him “sir,” and -Boo’s governess called him “M. le Duc.” It was all -deadly dull, and Jack envied the hall-boy.</p> - -<p>“You will have a great stake in the country,” said his -tutor.</p> - -<p>“A beefsteak?” said saucy Jack, and was set to write -out a line fifty times, which was very hard work to a little -man who could only move a pen with extreme slowness -and stiffness in letters an inch high, for his education had -been extremely neglected.</p> - -<p>He admired his uncle Ronald because Hurstmanceaux<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[364]</span> -was the kind of man whom boys always do admire; but -he was afraid of him, and he sighed for his beloved Harry. -There was nobody like Harry in all the wide world, and -where had his idol gone?</p> - -<p>“Not ever to write!” said Jack to himself, with tears -in his eyes. He did not say anything about his anxiety -even to Boo, for Boo was at no time sympathetic, and was -at this moment delirious with town joys, having gone to a -morning performance, some <i>tableaux vivants</i>, and a water-color -exhibition all in one day, wearing a marvelous picture-hat -and a new bracelet-watch.</p> - -<p>Except by Jack, Brancepeth was wholly forgotten, consigned -to that oblivion which society spreads like a pall -over even the memories of the absent. His father and -mother heard from him at intervals; no one else. He -was one of the many who have gone too fast, who pull up -perforce, and drop off the course: such non-stayers interest -no one. The men with whom he had gone out to the -South Pole, and later to the Cape, returned, and said they -had left him there. That was all. He had spoken of exploration. -They supposed that meant he had gone “on -the make.” He had been a very popular man, but popularity -is a flame which must be kept alight by the fuel of -contact and of conversation: absence extinguishes it -instantly.</p> - -<p>Jack thought about a great many things, especially when -he was shut up for his sins all alone, an event which occurred -frequently.</p> - -<p>The sum of his thoughts were not favorable to his -mother.</p> - -<p>“Mother has driven Harry away,” he said to himself.</p> - -<p>Why?</p> - -<p>Perhaps because Harry had come to an end of his -money? Perhaps Harry had finished it all buying that -Punch which his mother had taken from him?</p> - -<p>“If I was sure of that, and if I knew where he was, I’d -walk all the world over till I found him,” thought Jack; -and wondered how he could make out where Harry was -gone. No one ever even spoke of Harry. Who could he -ask? He asked his groom one morning when he had -halted under a tree very early in the Park.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[365]</span>“I have no idea, sir, where Lord Brancepeth is,” said -the groom, who was a miracle of discretion.</p> - -<p>“Couldn’t you ask?” said Jack.</p> - -<p>“I don’t think I could, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Wherever he is, he’s got Cuckoopint.”</p> - -<p>“Has he indeed, sir?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; because he promised. He always keeps a -promise.”</p> - -<p>“That’s a very good quality, sir.”</p> - -<p>“He’s all good,” said Jack solemnly.</p> - -<p>The discreet groom smothered a smile.</p> - -<p>“I’ll give you five shillings, Philips, if you can find him -and Cuckoopint,” said Jack, pulling two half-crowns out -of his knickerbockers.</p> - -<p>“Make it ten, sir, and I’ll do it,” said the virtuous -groom.</p> - -<p>“I’ll make it ten,” said Jack. “But it must be next -week, for I’ve spent all they give me except this.”</p> - -<p>“Next week will do, sir,” said the groom, slipping the -half-crowns in his waistcoat pocket.</p> - -<p>Jack did not speak of this transaction to anyone, not -even to Boo. He loved his sister, but he had discovered -of late years that Boo, to “get in with mammy” and get -taken to a garden party or a pastoral play or a picture -exhibition, would not hesitate to betray him and his -confidences.</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t ever betray <i>you</i>,” he said once in reproach.</p> - -<p>“Then you’d be a silly not to, if you’d get anything -by it,” said Boo, with her little chin in the air and her -big eyes shut up into two slits, which was her manner of -expressing extreme derision.</p> - -<p>“You’re so dishon’able ’cause you’re a girl,” said Jack, -with more sorrow than anger.</p> - -<p>Every day for a week Jack asked Philips breathlessly, -“Well?” but Philips prudently would not admit any -knowledge until the next week arrived, when Jack entered -into his month’s allowance and produced the third -and fourth half-crowns.</p> - -<p>“If you please, your Grace,” then said this prudent -person, “the cob as is called Cuckoopint is down at -Market Harborough, in Lord Brancepeth’s box there.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[366]</span>“He did buy him, then?”</p> - -<p>“Yessir.”</p> - -<p>“And he—Harry?”</p> - -<p>“His lordship, sir, went to the South Pole the summer -before last with Lord Tenby and Sir Francis Yorke and -two other gentlemen; his lordship have left the Service -altogether, sir.”</p> - -<p>“Left the Guards!”</p> - -<p>Jack was dumbfounded. He had always been so -pleased to see Harry riding down Portland Place or Kensington -Road with all those beautiful horses and cuirasses -and jackboots.</p> - -<p>“Where’s the South Pole?” he asked piteously. Of -the North Pole he had heard.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know, sir,” said Philips, much bored; he had -had enough of a subject which only brought him in four -half-crowns.</p> - -<p>Jack had to wait till his ride was over and he could go -in the house and get down his atlas and look for the -South Pole; he did not make the position out to his satisfaction -in the atlas and he turned to the terrestrial -globe; then indeed he realized how many weary leagues -divided him from his friend. He leaned on the great -globe and put his head down on it and cried bitterly. Oh, -how he hated his mother! It was his mother who had -sent Harry away!</p> - -<p>“’Cause he’d done all his money!” he thought indignantly. -But how good it was of Harry with no money -to keep his word and buy Cuckoopint!</p> - -<p>His tutor came in and found him crying; poor Jack -had the penalty of position—he was never left alone.</p> - -<p>The tutor asked in a rather dry tone what was the -matter. Jack, ashamed of his grief, brushed the hot -tears from his eyelashes and tried to check his sobs.</p> - -<p>“It is quite a personal matter,” he said with much -dignity as he steadied his sobs. “It doesn’t concern -anybody but me. Please don’t ask.”</p> - -<p>The tutor, though a severe man, had some tact and -judgment; he did not ask, but took a volume from one -of the shelves and went out of the room.</p> - -<p>To his mother it was convenient and agreeable that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[367]</span> -Brancepeth was out of London. She was not sensitive, -but still it had been disagreeable to her to see him there -when she had broken with him. Ruptures have always -this unpleasantness, that people notice them.</p> - -<p>But he was away at the other end of the world, where -they all went when they were in trouble, and where they -were as good as dead—somewhere distant and barbarous—and -in being so he showed more tact than usual, for -with that loveliest and most useful of all qualities he -had not been gifted. When she thought of his parting -words to her she wished a lion or a bison to make an end -of him.</p> - -<p>She had been fond of him certainly a good many years, -but in women of her disposition a wound to self-esteem is -the death of affection. Their love is rooted in their vanity, -and you cannot offend the latter without killing that -which springs from it. At times she wished that he were -there that she could make him murder William Massarene; -but then murder was unknown in her world, and she -could not have told him what made her wish the brute -stuck in the throat like a Pyrenean boar; and so things -were best as they were.</p> - -<p>Poor Harry; if he had remained in England, he would -only have been an additional complication. He would -have seen, as this horrible brute saw, that shame and disgust -and terror were ageing her fast and painfully.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[368]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXX.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">One</span> afternoon there landed from an American liner, at -a Liverpool wharf, a tall, bony, haggard-looking man, -roughly and shabbily dressed, with a long, tangled, grey -beard, and dark, wide-open, wistful eyes; he had lost his -left arm. He had been a steerage passenger of the poorest -class, and had been moody and silent on the voyage, -giving no offence, but making no friends or acquaintances, -and saying nothing of whence he came or of whither he -was bound; others talked of the little village they were -going to return to, of the old parents who were longing -to welcome them, of the graves left behind them or the -health and youth lost for ever, of their cheated hopes -and broken fortunes or their modest gains and longed-for -rest; but he said nothing whatever; he had interested -no one as he had offended no one; no one noticed or -cared where he went when he landed.</p> - -<p>He did not stop to eat or drink, but took his third-class -ticket for London, and when that was paid had only two -dollars remaining in his pocket as his share of the goods -of this earth.</p> - -<p>He was wedged up between rough navvies in an overfilled -compartment, and had a slow, tedious, uncomfortable -journey in the parliamentary train. But he did not -heed these minor troubles; his mind was engrossed in one -overwhelming, all-engrossing thought which sat on his -breast and gnawed at his vitals like a vampire.</p> - -<p>“I guess I’ll find him soon, even in that great city, if -he’s as big a man as they say,” he muttered to himself as -he got out of the train and passed into the mirk and noise -and hurry of the London streets.</p> - -<p>He looked at his little bit of money, hesitated, walked -through several streets, then entered a modest eating-house, -which proclaimed its calling by eggs and cheese and -rounds of beef ticketed with their prices in the window.</p> - -<p>He ordered a cup of coffee and a fried rasher of bacon,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[369]</span> -and when he had drunken and eaten these paid his small -reckoning and said to the person who had served him:</p> - -<p>“Can you tell me where a rich man called William -Massarene, who came over from the States some years ago, -lives in this city of yours?”</p> - -<p>“No, I can’t,” said the woman. “There’s no rich folks -in these here parts. But next door at the wine shop -they’ve got a ‘Directory’; I’ll go and get it for you.”</p> - -<p>In a few minutes she returned with the huge red volume -under her arm and laid it open on the table.</p> - -<p>“What trade’s your Ameriky man?” she asked.</p> - -<p>Airley smiled grimly.</p> - -<p>“A gentleman. Money makes gentlefolks.”</p> - -<p>“Here you are, then,” she said, turning over the leaves -to the West-end division of the book. “You can look out -the name yourself.”</p> - -<p>“No, I can’t,” he answered. “I can’t read.”</p> - -<p>“Lord, man, you are behind the time o’ day!” said the -woman. “Well, tell me the name agen and I’ll look it -out for you.”</p> - -<p>He repeated it slowly three times over:</p> - -<p>“Massarene—Massarene—William Massarene.”</p> - -<p>She whirled the leaves about for a few minutes, and -then she said triumphantly:</p> - -<p>“Here you are!</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<i>William Massarene, M. P.; Harrenden House, Gloucester -Gate; Carlton Club; Vale Royal, South Woldshire -Cottesdale Grange, Salop; Blair Airon, Caithness, N. B.</i></p> -</div> - -<p>“That’s your friend, isn’t it? My, he must be a -swell!”</p> - -<p>“Which of all them places is in this city?” asked the -man.</p> - -<p>“Why, Carlton Club and Gloucester Gate, of course, -you gaby!”</p> - -<p>“Where’s Gloucester Gate?” said Airley heavily, without -resenting her epithet.</p> - -<p>She told him how to get to it. He bade her good-day, -murmured a hoarse and tardy “thank ye,” and went out -of her doorway.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[370]</span>The woman looked after him with some misgiving in her -mind.</p> - -<p>“I wish I hadn’t give him the address,” she thought; -“he looks like an anarchist, he do.”</p> - -<p>She was tempted for the moment to go and tell the -policeman at the corner to keep an eye on this stranger, -but there were no serious grounds for doing so, and the -police were not beloved by those who work for their living -in great cities.</p> - -<p>So Robert Airley went on his way unnoticed, one of -the many ill-fed, ill-clad, gaunt, and weary-looking men -who may be counted by tens of thousands in the London -streets, and who sometimes are ill-bred and disrespectful -enough to die on their pavements. He was not an anarchist, -but had been always a strictly law-abiding and long-suffering -man, and was by nature very patient and tender-hearted. -But a direful purpose had entered into him now, -and worked havoc in his gentle breast, and changed his -very nature. He walked on through the maze of many -streets which divided the humble eating-house from the -precincts of Hyde Park. It was four in the afternoon, -and the traffic was great and the carriages were countless. -But he scarcely noticed them except to get out of their -way, and he went on steadily down Piccadilly with its -close-packed throngs, and onward past Apsley House and -the French Embassy, until he approached what a cabman -standing on the curbstone told him were Gloucester Gate -and Harrenden House. When he saw its magnificent -frontage, its gilded gates, its stately portals, he looked up -at them all, and a bitter fleeting smile crossed his face for -an instant.</p> - -<p>Blasted Blizzard dwelt there!</p> - -<p>He rang in his ignorance at the grand gateway’s bell. -A magnificent functionary bade him begone without even -deigning to ask why he had come. He realized that those -gilded gates did not open to the like of him. He did not -insist or entreat; he shrank away like a starved dog which -is refused admittance and dreads a kick, and went into -the opposite Park and mingled with the pedestrians, feeling -giddy for a moment as the great stream of horses and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[371]</span> -carriages and persons swept past him in the pale London -sunset light.</p> - -<p>He was a poor, unnoticeable, humble figure, with his -battered hat pulled down to shade his eyes and his red -bundle under his one arm. Every now and then he put -his hand in his breast-pocket to make sure that something -which he carried there was safe.</p> - -<p>He went onward till he found a secluded part of the -Park where he could smoke his pipe in peace, and as he -smoked could meditate how best to do that which he -had come across the Atlantic to accomplish: wild justice, -of which the fascination held him fast in its hypnotism.</p> - -<p>He took his pipe out of his pocket and lighted it, where -he sat on a bench under a tree. His tobacco was strong -and vulgar in its smell. A young lady, probably a governess, -who sat on the same bench with two well-dressed -small children, put her handkerchief to her nostrils and -looked appealingly at a constable who stood near. The -policeman touched him on the shoulder.</p> - -<p>“We can’t have that stench ’ere, my good man. Leddies -don’t like it!”</p> - -<p>“Aren’t this a public park?” said Airley.</p> - -<p>“Don’t cheek me, or I’ll run you in as if you was a -dawg,” said the guardian of law and order.</p> - -<p>Airley put out his pipe. His mind was filled with one -memory, one intention, one desire; these left no room in -it for resentment at petty annoyances. He got up and -moved away amongst the well-dressed sauntering people. -“Thanks,” said the pretty governess who sat beside the -children, with a smile to the constable.</p> - -<p>Robert Airley walked along slowly with his felt hat -drawn down over his eyes. The policeman looked after -him suspiciously.</p> - -<p>“One of the unemployed?” said the governess, with -another smile.</p> - -<p>“Calls himself so, mum, I dessay,” replied the policeman -with impatient contempt. “Them wagabonds ought -to be took up like dawgs,” he added; he had just beaten -a little terrier to death with his truncheon.</p> - -<p>Robert Airley’s mind was filled with one memory—that -of the day on which he had first showed William<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[372]</span> -Massarene the shining bits of “sparkles” at the roots of -the long grass. “It’s silver, ain’t it?” he had said to the -keeper of that house of entertainment where Margaret -Massarene fried sausages for the rough men who drank -her husband’s strong waters and hot brews.</p> - -<p>William Massarene had looked at the shining particles -on the grass-roots and had known immediately what it -was. “’Tis a rubbishy slate there is in these parts,” he -said, with great presence of mind. “Where that slate’s -found ground’s always poor and no good for man or -beasts.”</p> - -<p>Robert Airley had believed him; he was a young man -of good faith and weak brain.</p> - -<p>In the winter which followed on that conversation all -things went ill with him: his cow died, his two pigs -strayed into the scrub and were never recovered, his -young wife was pregnant and ill; the violent blasts of -those parts unroofed his shingle house and terrified her -almost out of her wits. He took her down into the township -of Kerosene and timidly asked Massarene to lend him -a little money on his ground.</p> - -<p>“I won’t lend on it,” said Massarene. “I told you ’tis -all shale and slate. I’ll buy it for thirty dollars. Not a -cent more nor less. The slate’s the only good thing on it, -and that must be quarried, and you haven’t means to -quarry.”</p> - -<p>Robert Airley knew that this was the truth as regarded -his fortunes, he had not a cent in his pocket; he had -nothing to get food or lodging; his young wife in her -first labor pains was moaning that she would never go -back to that wilderness. He was so tormented and worried -and out of heart that he closed with Massarene’s offer -and sold his claim to the bit of land out and out, and settled -in the township as a mechanic, which he had been at -home.</p> - -<p>Three years later he heard that mining had been begun -on his old claim and that a fine vein of tin had been -found.</p> - -<p>“You cheated me,” he said to William Massarene.</p> - -<p>“Not I,” said the fortunate speculator. “I bought -your waste land on spec.; I’ve a right to what I find<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[373]</span> -there. And,” he added, with his blackest scowl, stepping -close to Airley’s ear, “if you dare say a word o’ that sort -ever again in all your years, I’ll put two bullets in your -numskull of a noddle sure as my name’s Massarene. I -aren’t a good un to rouse.”</p> - -<p>Robert Airley was not a coward, but he was miserably -poor, and poverty is apt to be cowardice when it is not -desperation.</p> - -<p>He held his tongue while the ore of the Penamunic -mine was being brought to the surface. He loved his -young wife, who was miserable away from the friendly -faces and merry little shops of her native town, and he -adored the rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed, noisy boy to whom -she had given birth; life was sweet to him despite his -poverty; he did not dare provoke William Massarene, who -was already lord of Kerosene township and of much else -besides. It was bitter to him to think that had he only -possessed enough wit to know what that shining dust on -the grass-roots had meant he would have been a rich and -fortunate man. But he could not retrieve his foolish unhappy -error; and when William Massarene made the -Main Trunk Line from Kerosene by way of Issouri to -Chicago, over four thousand miles of swamp and scrub, -he meekly accepted the place of platelayer on the new -railway which was offered him at the great man’s instigation.</p> - -<p>“You see I don’t forget old friends,” said Massarene -with a cynical grin.</p> - -<p>But for his wife and his little boy at home dependent on -himself for their bread, Robert Airley would have killed -him then and there.</p> - -<p>From that day he had never been able to get away from -that vile city of Kerosene, which spread and spread in its -brick and mortar hideousness between him and the -country, which multiplied its churches and its counting-houses, -which had its gambling hells next door to its -Methodist chapels, which was black and stinking and -smoke-befouled, and filled all day and all night with the -oaths of men and the cries of beasts, the throbbing of -engines, the shrieking of steam, the bleating of sheep, -the screaming of women, the lowing of tortured oxen, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[374]</span> -howling of kidnapped dogs—that thrice-accursed cancer -on the once fair breast of the dear earth!</p> - -<p>What he would have given that he had never pulled up -that grass with those shining atoms in the earth at its -roots, but had lived, ever so hardly, on his own ground, -at Penamunic, under the rough winds and the torrid -suns and the driving snows, toiling like the oxen, hungering -like the swine, chased by forest fires, pursued by rolling -floods, but free at least in the untainted air, and away -from that infernal curse which men dare to call civilization.</p> - -<p>Absorbed in his own thoughts, he walked on now along -the footpath which runs parallel with the Ladies’ Mile; -jostling the smart people he passed, who drew away from -his contact as though he had been a leper. He was wondering -if he could trust his nerve, and rely on his hand, -to do what he had come to do.</p> - -<p>William Massarene was at that moment in the lobby -of the House of Commons conversing with the Conservative -Whip.</p> - -<p>He was beginning to be appreciated by the Unionist, -and he had always been feared. Of course they still -ridiculed him to themselves for his accent, his ambitions, -his antecedents, and his snobbism, but they knew that he -was valuable to them, and he had a hard sound grip of -certain practical questions which made members, and -ministers too, listen when he was on his legs. In public -life of any kind he showed always a certain rude power -in him which enabled him to hold his own with the men -who surrounded him, whoever they might be.</p> - -<p>He was grievous and terrible to the patricians of the -Party, but the patricians have learned in the last twenty -years that they must pocket their pride to keep their -heads above water; politically and socially, Tory democracy -has to lie down with strange bed-fellows.</p> - -<p>They knew, too, very well that he would exact his full -price, that they would have to give him office in some -small way at some future time, that they would have to -put him on the next batch of new baronets, and that -eventually he would have to be hoisted into the Lords in -company with the brewers and iron-masters, and wool-staplers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[375]</span> -and chemists, who now adorn the Upper Chamber.</p> - -<p>They knew that if they did not please him to the fullest -measure of his demands, he would rat without scruple; -and there are so many questions in this immediate day -about which it is so easy for a man to have a sudden -awakening of conscience if he is not obtaining all he -wants in the shape he wishes. They knew that, and they -hated the thought of it, but they could not afford to -alienate and offend him. He had not only money, he had -a sledge-hammer power in him, and in a marvellously -short time had got his grasp on the attention of the -House. He was a common man, a vulgar man, an uneducated -man; but he was a man of great ability and absolute -unscrupulousness such as no government or opposition -can afford in these days to despise.</p> - -<p>All the ambitions which he had brought with him from -the Northwest were certain of fruition if he lived.</p> - -<p>Of death he had no fear; his physician told him that -his heart was sound, his lungs were sound, and that he -had no tendency to gout or any other malady.</p> - -<p>At eight o’clock as he drove home to dinner he felt very -content with himself as he rested his short squab figure -and massive shoulders against the soft cushions of his -brougham. The Whip had consulted him, the Premier -had complimented him; the great person who headed a -committee of which he was a member had thanked him -for his industry and assistance. On the whole, he was -on excellent terms with himself. He had done what he -had come home to do. He had made himself a power in -the land. Even with that merciless rodent who had eaten -so far into his fortune he was even now; he was her -master now. She was horribly, cruelly, unspeakably -afraid of him. He kept her nose to the grindstone, in his -own phraseology, mercilessly and with brutal relish. He -paid her off for every one of her insults, for every one of her -jests, for every one of the moments in which she had -called him Billy. He had no feeling for her left except -delight in her humiliation, he gloried in her shrinking -hatred of him, in her abject fear. If she wanted to marry -again—ah!—he chuckled in his grimmest mirth when he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[376]</span> -thought of the pull-up he would give to this thoroughbred -mare if she tried to cut any capers. She should die in a -garret abroad, and whistle for her fine friends and her -lovers in vain!</p> - -<p>Yes, all went well with him. Everybody was afraid of -him all round. It was the triumph which he had always -craved. They might hate him as much as they liked -provided only they feared him, and let him go step by -step, step by step, over their silly heads up his golden -ladder.</p> - -<p>“I said I’d do it and I’ve done it,” he said to himself, -with his hands clasped on his broad belly and his long -tight lips puffed out with a smile of content.</p> - -<p>The carriage stopped at that moment before the open -gates; he seldom drove through the gates when alone, -for he felt some unacknowledged fear of his carriage-horses -when driven by such butter-fingered fools as he -considered English coachmen to be, and he preferred to -alight in the street. The white brilliancy of the electric -lamps of the courtyard was streaming out into the dusky -misty night.</p> - -<p>He got out of the brougham slowly, for he was a heavy -man, his figure plainly visible in the bright light from the -open portals, his footman obsequiously aiding him, and -the wide-open entrance of the great house glowing with -light in front of him. A dark figure unperceived came -out of the shadow and drew close to him; there was a -flash, a report, and the joys and ambitions of William -Massarene were ended for ever and aye.</p> - -<p>He fell forward on the marble steps of his great mansion, -stone dead, with a bullet through his heart.</p> - -<p>“’Tis too good for him, the brute! Too short and too -sweet!” thought Robert Airley as he turned away, unseen -by anyone, and mingled with the traffic behind the -dead man’s house.</p> - -<p>The vengeance he had taken seemed to him a poor -thing after all.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[377]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Katherine Massarene</span> was coming down the staircase -under the smiling gaze of Clodion’s falconer, dressed -for the evening and about to dine out, when she heard the -shot, muffled as it was by the sounds of the traffic; in -another moment she heard a great outcry and understood -that something unusual must have taken place; she descended -the stairs more quickly, and was crossing the hall -when the inner and outer doors were thrown open, and -the servants within hurried up to her.</p> - -<p>“Don’t go, madam! Don’t look!”</p> - -<p>“What has happened?” she said to them. “An accident? -To whom? Tell me at once.”</p> - -<p>“Mr. Massarene’s murdered, madam,” said a young footman, -who had hated his employer and relished the telling -of the tale. “Don’t look, madam; they’re bringing him -in.”</p> - -<p>She put them aside and went to the open doors. There -she met the body of her father, which was carried across -the threshold by four men, his arms hanging down, his -head leaning toward one shoulder; behind, in the bright -electric light, were curious lookers-on, thrust back by constables. -And above, on the head of the staircase, the falconer -of Clodion looked down and smiled at the vanity of -human ambitions.</p> - -<p>Throughout fashionable London people were dressing -for dinner, or were sitting at dinner-tables, or were driving -to dinner-parties, when the strange rumor ran through the -streets and spread from mouth to mouth, and was whispered -in ghostly speed through the telephonic tubes of club-houses, -that William Massarene had been shot as he had -alighted from his carriage at the gate of Harrenden -House.</p> - -<p>“There <i>is</i> a God above us!” said Lord Greatrex to his -nephew.</p> - -<p>To him it was an immense relief; it was as though an -octopus had loosed its tentacles.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[378]</span>But as the news ran through the town, and was received -at first with incredulity and then with consternation, a -keen anxiety succeeded to astonishment in the breasts of -many—so many of these great people owed him money!</p> - -<p>He was assassinated at eight of the clock. By ten in -the evening newspapers were issued with the startling intelligence -printed in large type. The journals sold by -millions; people snatched them from each other’s hands -and read them in the streets, in the cabs and carriages, -under the noses of the horses, in the lobby and on the terrace -of St. Stephen’s.</p> - -<p>He had what answers in modern cities to the Triumph -of the Romans. The town talked solely of his end.</p> - -<p>That evening the Duchess of Otterbourne was dining -<i>en intime</i> with a familiar friend at a house in Cadogan -Square. They were all congenial and pleasant acquaintances -at the little banquet, and after it they sat down to -play poker, a game which makes up in excitement what it -lacks in intellectuality.</p> - -<p>Cadogan Square is somewhat distant from those central -haunts where news first circulates, and the poker-players -were uninterrupted by the intelligence of the tragedy -which was being discussed all around the Parliament -House and in the great clubs of the West. They neither -heard it by telephone, or by the shouting of newsboys, -and when at midnight a young nephew of the hostess, who -was also a member of the Conservative party, came into -the drawing-room he saw at a glance that the tidings he -had brought with him had not been forestalled.</p> - -<p>“Oh, I say!” he cried, as he came up behind his aunt’s -chair. “Oh, I say! Such a piece of news! Who do you -think has been shot?”</p> - -<p>The players went on with their game unheeding.</p> - -<p>“Don’t bother, Dick!” said the lady of the house. -“Who cares who’s shot?”</p> - -<p>“Somebody in Ireland, of course,” said another lady, -with impatience, “Somebody at the Castle?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, but I say, Duchess,” said the young man, staring -at her from behind his aunt’s chair, which was opposite to -hers, “it’s your friend, you know. The fellow that bought -Roxhall’s place. The member for South Woldshire, that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[379]</span> -you are so fond of. He’s been shot dead as he got out of -his brougham. It was telephoned to the House as we -were all coming away for dinner.”</p> - -<p>Mouse was standing up to draw a card; she dropped -down on her chair as if she too had been shot; her knees -shook under her, she gasped for breath. The shock was -one of joy, not of grief; but it was so violent that it seemed -to take her very life away in the immense relief.</p> - -<p>“Dear me, I’m sorry,” murmured the young man, greatly -surprised. “Had no idea you cottoned to the cad so -much.”</p> - -<p>All eyes were turned on her.</p> - -<p>“Shot? When? Where? Who shot him?” she said, -in quick short gasps of broken speech.</p> - -<p>No one had ever seen her strongly moved before.</p> - -<p>“Who, nobody knows. But he was shot dead as a door-nail -at his own gate this evening.”</p> - -<p>“How deeply she must be in debt to him!” thought her -hostess, while she laughed and scolded her nephew for -coming to disturb them with such eerie tales.</p> - -<p>Mouse recovered herself in a few moments, and as soon -as she could steady her voice asked again, as the others -were asking, “Who told you? Are you sure?”</p> - -<p>The young man answered, rather sulkily, that he was -quite sure; everybody was talking of it in the House; it -was attributed to the anarchists.</p> - -<p>“They are good for something, then,” said the hostess.</p> - -<p>“Don’t,” said Mouse, conscious that she must account -for the emotion she had shown. “Please don’t, Pussie. -He was a rough, common, ridiculous man, but he was very -kind in his way, really kind, to poor Cocky and to me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear, what a liar you are!” thought her friend.</p> - -<p>“Are you sure he is dead?” Mouse asked of the young -member again. “He might be only wounded, and not -dead, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Dead as a door-nail,” answered the youthful legislator, -resenting the doubt thrown on his news. “He was shot -through the heart from behind. He died before they -could carry him into the house.”</p> - -<p>Mouse drew a deep sigh of contentment which sounded -like one of regret.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[380]</span>“Who did it?”</p> - -<p>“They don’t know. Nobody saw how it was done.”</p> - -<p>“He must have had numbers of enemies.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no doubt.”</p> - -<p>“Who will have all his money?” asked the lady of the -house.</p> - -<p>“His daughter, of course,” said her nephew. “It will -be a lucky dog who marries her.”</p> - -<p>“Try and be that dog,” said the lady. “And now don’t -you think we’ve chanted Mr. Massarene’s requiem long -enough? He wasn’t an attractive person. Let us play -again.”</p> - -<p>But her guests did not accept her invitation; they were -all more or less excited by the news. Who could tell -what scandals might not come to the surface when the -dead man’s papers were unsealed? Meantime they made -as much scandal as they could themselves—raking up old -stories, computing how much this, that, or the other owed -him, whose debts of honor he had paid, and what personages, -crowned and uncrowned, were in his hands.</p> - -<p>“What tremendous sport his daughter will have,” said -one of the ladies. “If I were she I should bring all the -bigwigs into court for principal and interest. But she -doesn’t look as if she liked fun.”</p> - -<p>Mouse was on thorns as she listened. For the first time -in her life people seemed to her odiously heartless. This -event mattered so enormously to her that she wondered -the earth did not stand still. For the first time in her life -she felt the chill of that indifference in others which is at -times so hard to bear. Her hostess, who was one of the -many pretty women who kissed and caressed her, and -hated her, watched her with suspicious amusement. “I -never saw Sourisette so upset in her life,” she thought. -“Did the man pay her an annuity of twenty thousand a -year which dies with him?”</p> - -<p>It appeared to her that nothing less than some great -pecuniary loss could possibly thus affect the nerves of her -friend.</p> - -<p>Mouse went away from the card-party early.</p> - -<p>“One would think the dead cad had held a lot of her -‘bad paper,’” said the lady with a cruel little laugh, as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[381]</span> -she returned from embracing her guest affectionately on -the head of the staircase.</p> - -<p>“I dare say he did,” answered her nephew. “I wonder -what he’ll cut up for? Twelve million sterling, they say, -not counting the house and the estates.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t believe that,” said his aunt. “However -rich he might be when he came over, Mouse has had the -running of him, you know, ever since!”</p> - -<p>The friend of whom she spoke thus kindly, as she drove -the distance which separated Cadogan Square from Portman -Square, heard the shouting of the newspaper vendors: -“Murder of Mr. Massarene! Assassination of the Member -for South Woldshire! Awful crime by anarchists at -Gloucester Gate! Member of Parliament shot dead! -Millionaire murdered on his own doorstep! Murder! -Murder! Murder!”</p> - -<p>There was still immense excitement in the streets. The -papers were being sold as fast as they could be supplied. -Men of all classes stopped under street lamps or before -the blaze of shop windows to read the news. William -Massarene had the apotheosis which he would have desired. -All London was in agitation at the news of his death. -There could scarcely have been more interest displayed if -a German army had landed at Southsea or a French flotilla -bombarded Dover. The crime was a sensational one; -the mystery enshrouding it added to its tragedy; and the -victim had that power over the modern mind which only -capitalists now hold.</p> - -<p>The horror which was in the atmosphere was in herself, -and yet what an ecstasy of relief came with it!</p> - -<p>When she reached her sister’s house she hurried up the -stairs and shut herself in her bedchamber, dismissing her -maid for the moment. She walked up and down the room -in breathless excitation. She longed, oh! how she longed, -to see the brute lying dead! How she would have liked -to take a knife and cut and slash the lifeless body, and -box the deaf ears, and strike the soundless mouth. She -understood how people in revolution had sated their -hatred in the mutilation and the outrage of dead men and -women. She would have liked to tear his corpse limb -from limb and fling his flesh to starving hounds.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[382]</span>Who was the assassin? How she would have rewarded -him had it been in her power for that straight, sure, -deadly shot! She would have had him fed from gold and -silver, and clad in purple and fine linen for all the rest of -his days. She would have kissed the barrel of the revolver -that had done the deed, she would have cradled the -weapon between her white breasts, like a sucking child!</p> - -<p>No one, she thought, had ever hated another human -being as she had hated William Massarene.</p> - -<p>And who could tell whether she was wholly freed from -him by his death?</p> - -<p>Was it such entire release as she had thought?</p> - -<p>She shuddered as she remembered that he had never -given her back her own receipt about Beaumont, or Beaumont’s -to him. He had kept them no doubt locked in his -iron safe as witnesses against her. There, of course, his -lawyers or executors would find them, and they would -pass into his daughter’s possession with all other documents -eventually.</p> - -<p>There was, possibly, the hope that he might have provided -for their transmission to herself, but she did not -think so; it would not be in keeping with his brutality -and his greed to have provided for her safety after his -decease. If he had not left those signatures to herself -they would be inevitably discovered by his men of business, -and be made public as a part of monies due to him. -All the unutterable torment which she had sold herself to -the Minotaur to escape would again be her portion. She -would be at Katherine Massarene’s mercy!</p> - -<p>For she had no doubt that his daughter would inherit -the whole of his wealth, and with his wealth his hold over -his debtors. She knew little or nothing of business, but -she knew that she, like all the princes and lords who had -been his debtors, would see her financial relations with -him exposed to the light of day; unless he had had mercy -enough in him to provide for her safety, which was not -probable.</p> - -<p>She passed the hours miserably, though having summoned -her women she had taken her bath and had tried -to sleep.</p> - -<p>She could get no rest even from chloral. When some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[383]</span> -semi-unconsciousness came over her she saw in her dreams -the ghost of Massarene with a smile upon his face. “Here -I am again!” his shade said, like a clown in a pantomime. -“Here I am again, my pretty one!”—and he laid his icy -grip on her and grinned at her with fleshless skeleton -jaws.</p> - -<p>Early in the morning she was awakened from a late and -heavy slumber by the cries of the newspaper boys passing -down the street and shouting, as their precursors had done -on the previous evening: “Murder of a Member of Parliament! -Assassination by an Anarchist! Awful crime -at the gates of Harrenden House!”</p> - -<p>Then it was true, and not a nightmare, which the day -could dissipate!</p> - -<p>She felt torn in two between relief and apprehension; -with her breakfast they brought her the morning papers, -which announced the ghastly event in large capital letters. -There were no details given because there were none to -give; the papers said that there was great activity at -Scotland Yard, but at present nothing had transpired to -account for the crime.</p> - -<p>Later in the day she drove to Harrenden House and -left two cards for the widow and the daughter.</p> - -<p>On that for Margaret Massarene she had written:</p> - -<p>“My whole heart is with you. So shocked and grieved -for the loss of my good friend.”</p> - -<p>“That’s very sweet of her!” said Mrs. Massarene with -tremulous lips and red eyelids.</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene took the cards and tore them in -two.</p> - -<p>“Why do you do that, Kathleen?” said her mother between -her sobs. “Your poor dear father was always so -good to her. ’Tis only pretty of her to sorrow for him.”</p> - -<p>Katherine did not reply.</p> - -<p>The man who killed him was not discovered. No one -had noticed the lean bent dark figure which had mingled -with the crowd behind Harrenden House.</p> - -<p>“But, oh! for certain sure ’twas one of the many as he -wronged,” said his wife, with the tears running down her -pale cheeks. “I allus thought, though I didn’t dare to -say so, that this was how your father would end some day,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[384]</span> -my dear. He always thought as he was God Almighty, -did your poor father, my dear, and he never gave a back -glance, as ’twere, to the tens and hundreds and thousands -as he’d ruined.”</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene, very calm, very grave, listened -and did not dissent. “What he might have done!” she -murmured. “Oh, what he might have done!—how much -good, how much kindness!—what blessings might have -gone with him to his grave!”</p> - -<p>She had felt a great shock, a great horror, at the fate of -her father, but she could not feel sorrow, such as the affections -feel at death. It was unspeakably terrible that -he should have died like this, without a moment of preparation, -without a single word or glance to reconcile him -with the humanity which he had outraged, but this was -all that she could feel. Between her and her father there -had always been in life an impassable gulf; death could -not bridge that gulf.</p> - -<p>“Am I made of stone?” she said to herself in remorse; -but it was of no use; she felt horror, but sorrow she could -not feel. She was too sincere to pretend it to herself or -others. She seemed to her mother, to the household, to -the official persons who came in contact with her, unnaturally -chill and silent; they thought it the coldness of -indifference.</p> - -<p>The grief of Margaret Massarene was violent and genuine, -but its safety-valve was in its hysterical garrulity. -She suffered extremely, for she had loved her husband despite -his brutality, and had honored him despite all his -faults. She had always believed in him with a pathetic -devotion which no ill-treatment changed.</p> - -<p>“He was a great man, was William,” she said again and -again between her convulsive sobs, as she sat by the bed -on which his body had been laid after the autopsy. “He -was a great man, and God knows what heights he wouldn’t -have riz to if he’d lived a few years longer. For he’d -took the measure of ’em all. He said he’d die a peer, and -he would have died a peer if this cruel bullet hadn’t cut -him down like a bison on the plains. Lord, to think of all -he had gone through by flood and by fire, in storm and in -quarrel, by the hand of God and by the hand of man; and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[385]</span> -when he comes here to enjoy his own and get his just reward, -he is struck just like any poor Texan steer pithed in -the slaughter place! The ways o’ the Almighty are past -finding out indeed.”</p> - -<p>Then she took his dead hand between both her own and -held it tenderly and kissed it.</p> - -<p>His princes and his lords, his fine ladies and fair -favorites, were all far away from him now; he was all her -own in his dead loneliness; her own man as he had been -when they had walked across the green fields of Kilrathy -on their marriage-day, with all their worldly goods put -up in a bundle hung upon a stick. In her grief and her -despair there was a thrill of jealous joy; he was once -again all her own as he had been on that soft wet midsummer -morning when they had walked through the -grass man and wife.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[386]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">We’ll</span> give him the grandest buryin’ that money can -get,” she said to her daughter.</p> - -<p>Katherine could not oppose her wishes, alien as they -were to her own tastes and desires. She felt that the -wish would have been also her father’s. The tragic suddenness -of his end had startled and impressed London -society; the evidences of sympathy and condolence were -innumerable and seemed sincere; very many were extremely -grieved that the hospitalities of Harrenden House -had ceased in the height of the season; and the more -personal and secret anxieties in those who were his -debtors found natural expression in delicate attentions -which took much of the sting of her bereavement out of -his wife’s heart. A very great personage even called -himself, and pressed her hand, and murmured his regret.</p> - -<p>“You can’t say as your father ain’t honored in his -end,” she said reproachfully to her daughter.</p> - -<p>Katherine was silent. Everything that passed was -sickeningly, odiously, intolerably offensive to her. The -week which followed on his death, during which he was, -as it were, lying in state, seemed to her as though it were -ten years in length. When it came to a close, the body -in its bier (a triple coffin of lead and oak and silver) was -taken by rail from London into the southern portion of -the county which he had represented, and solemnly deposited -at the station of that rural capital town where he -had once written down the sum of his subscriptions to -the church and to “the dogs.” A very imposing gathering -of county notables and borough dignitaries, of noblemen -and gentlemen and municipal councilmen and clerical -luminaries, were all assembled at the station ready to -do him the last honors in their power, and sincerely -affected by his loss, for the sad and general conviction -was that, without his patronage as a fulcrum, the short-route -railway would never now be made.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[387]</span>The blinds were drawn down in the houses of his supporters, -and the bells of the churches tolled mournfully -as the dismal procession wended on its way through the -old-fashioned streets. There were eight black horses harnessed -to the hearse with black plumes at their ears and long -black velvet housings, and equerries in black walking at -their heads, and carriages innumerable followed in slow -and stately measure the leading equipages of the Sheriff, -the Lord-Lieutenant, and the Mayor, who was a Viscount.</p> - -<p>“A prince couldn’t be buried more beautiful,” murmured -his widow, as she followed in a mourning-carriage -with four black horses. She derived a strange consolation -from this pageantry; it made her feel as if she were -doing all she could for his soul, and as if she were keeping -her marriage vows righteously. She was pleased, too, -to see the drawn blinds, the closed shops, the steady, silent, -respectful country crowds, the flag which hung half-mast -high on the keep of the ancient town-castle.</p> - -<p>“They could scarce do more if ’twas a royal prince. -’Tis consoling to see such respect and such lamentation,” -she murmured, looking out furtively from the handkerchief -in which her face appeared buried. The part of her -character which had taken pleasure in the great folk and -the great houses, and the great successes of their English -life, thrilled with pride to think that her “man,” her own -man, with whom she had toiled and moiled so many, many -years, was being honored in his obsequies thus. Even -English Royalty was represented at the funeral by a -small slim young gentleman with an eye-glass, who belonged -to the Household and brought with him an enormous -wreath of gardenia and Bermuda lilies.</p> - -<p>Her daughter, whose eyes were dry, and who had no -handkerchief even in her hand, did not answer, but she -thought: “The respect and the lamentation are bought -like the crape and the horses’ plumes, like the lies on the -silver coffin-plate and the stolen place in the Roxhall -crypt!”</p> - -<p>“That darter o’ Massarene’s a hard woman,” said a -cooper of the town to a wheelwright. “Not a drop o’ -water in her eye for her pore murdered dad.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[388]</span>“One don’t pipe one’s eye when one comes into a -fortun’,” said the wheelwright, winking his own. “And -such a fortun’! For my part I respect her; she don’t -pretend nought.”</p> - -<p>“No, she don’t pretend. But one likes to see a little -’uman feelin’,” said the more tender-hearted cooper, -watching the tails of the black horses sweep the stones of -the High Street. That was the general public sentiment -in Woldshire against Katherine Massarene. She was a -hard young woman. The county foresaw that she would -draw her purse-strings very tight, and be but of little use -to it. “A hard young woman,” they all thought, as they -saw her straight delicate profile, like a fine ivory intaglio, -through the glass of her equipage.</p> - -<p>It was a fine day in early summer and the sun shone on -the green cornfields, the sheep in the meadows, the cows -under the pollards, the whirling sails of windmills, the -tall yellow flags in the ditches, the hamlets dotting the -level lands, the village children climbing on stiles to see -the pageant pass.</p> - -<p>Katherine looked out at the simple landscape and the -soft dim blue of the sky, and felt sick at heart.</p> - -<p>“Am I a monster,” she thought, “that I can feel no -common ordinary sorrow, no common natural regret even, -nothing but a burning humiliation?”</p> - -<p>The solemn and stately procession went on its way -decorously and tediously, along the country roads which -separated the county town from the park of Vale Royal. -Everybody in the carriages which one by one followed -the widow’s were excruciatingly bored; but they all wore -long faces, and conversed under their breath of the Goodwood -meeting, of the prospect of the hay harvest, of -quarter sessions, of pigeon matches, of drainage, of ensilage, -and of the promise of the young broods in the -coverts.</p> - -<p>“I think death is made more of a nuisance than it need -be really,” said the slender young gentleman who represented -Royalty to the <i>Custos Rotulorum</i> who replied with -a groan, “Oh, Lord, yes! If one could only smoke!”</p> - -<p>For two miles and more the roads had been lined by -rural folks waiting respectfully for the pageant to pass<span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">[389]</span> -by; but as they drew near Vale Royal and entered on -what had been Roxhall’s lands, all the cottages which -they passed were shut up; not a man, woman, or child -was visible in the little gardens or in the fields beyond.</p> - -<p>“I suppose the cottagers are all gone on to the churchyard,” -said a plump rector in one of the carriages, as he -looked out of his window.</p> - -<p>The town clerk, who was beside him, said in a whisper: -“You won’t see a man-jack of Roxhall’s old tenants or -peasantry show their noses to-day. They neither forget -nor forgive.”</p> - -<p>“How very un-Christian!” said the plump rector, with -a sigh.</p> - -<p>“Fidelity’s its own religion,” said the town clerk, who -had been born on a farm on Roxhall’s land, and had hated -to see the old homesteads and the familiar fields pass to -the man from Dakota.</p> - -<p>He was a true prophet. None of the peasantry or of -the tenantry were visible on the roads or at the church of -Vale Royal, which was within the park gates and surrounded -by yew-trees and holly hedges; they were loyal -to their lost lord. Princes and nobles and ministers might -truckle to the wealth of the dead man, but these men of -the soil were faithful to the old owners of the soil. They -despised the newcomer, living or dead.</p> - -<p>The bishop of the diocese was awaiting the body, surrounded -by minor clergy, in the little, dusky, venerable -church, with its square Saxon tower and its moss-grown -tombstones standing about it in the long grass (like those -of Staghurst and of many an English God’s-acre) under the -yews, which were of vast size and unknown age. The -coffin of William Massarene was placed in the middle of -the aisle, as Carnot’s in the Panthéon, and the wreaths -were heaped round it in the grotesque and odious manner -dear to the close of the most vulgar of all centuries. One -of them, made of gloxinias, rose and white, had the card -of the Duchess of Otterbourne attached to it. The sun -shone mild and serene; the birds sang above the black -figures of the mourners; the voice of the venerable prelate -droned on like a bumble-bee buzzing on a window-pane; -selections from Weber in E flat were played and vocalized<span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[390]</span> -with exquisite taste by admirable artistes; all the gentlemen -present stood bareheaded and solemn of countenance, -trying to look affected and only succeeding in looking -bored. The daughter of the dead man assisted at the -ceremony with revolted taste and aching heart. To her -it was one long sickening penance, painfully ludicrous in -its mockery and hypocrisy and folly. Every word of the -burial service sounded on her ear like the laughter of -some demon. Her father’s life had been a long black -crime, none the less, but the greater because one of those -crimes which are not punished but rewarded by men; and -he was bidden to enter into the joy of his Lord!</p> - -<p>“Kathleen may say what she likes, but that pretty -creature has shown a deal of heart,” thought Margaret -Massarene, kneeling under her overwhelming masses of -crape before the heaps of gummed and nailed and wired -flowers which were considered emblematic of the Christian -religion and her lost William’s soul. The pretty creature -represented by the garland of gloxinias had written her a -most affecting and even affectionate note on the previous -evening, saying how grieved she was that a touch of -bronchitis kept her confined to her room, as it prevented -her attendance at the committal to earth of the remains -of her kind and valued friend. That note Margaret Massarene -had not shown to her daughter, but had wept over -it and shut it up in her dressing-box.</p> - -<p>“Kathleen’s that hard,” she had thought, as the crowds -of South Woldshire were thinking it, “she wouldn’t be -made to believe in the Duchess’s sorrow if the angels -descended from the clouds to swear to it!”</p> - -<p>Outside the church there were two brakes filled with -wreaths from less distinguished givers piled one on another, -as if they were garbage; for these there had been -no room in the church. The savages who carry scalps -and weapons to a dead chief’s grave are considerably in -advance of <i>fin-de-siècle</i> England in sense of fitness and -consistency in funeral rites.</p> - -<p>From the church, when the burial service was over, the -body was borne to a mausoleum of granite, gloomy, dark -and solemn, which had been the place of sepulchre of the -Roxhall family for many centuries. The building above<span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">[391]</span> -ground was of the eighteenth century, but the crypt -beneath it was as old as the days of the great oak in the -park which was called King Alfred’s. Its subterranean -vaults were spacious and spread far under arched ceilings, -supported by short Doric pillars; here there were many -knights lying in effigy on their tombs; many shields hung -to the columns, many banners drooping in the gloom; here -an ancient, gallant, chivalrous race had placed its dead in -their last rest for a thousand years. The latest made -grave was a little child’s, a three-year-old daughter of -Roxhall’s, with a white marble lily carved on the marble -above her, for her name had been Lillias, and she had died -from a fall. The coffin of William Massarene was placed -beside this little child’s.</p> - -<p>The keeper of a gambling den lay with the fair children, -the pure women, and the brave men of an honored race.</p> - -<p>To Katherine the desecration of the place seemed blasphemous.</p> - -<p>How could Roxhall have sold the very graves of his -race? She thought of his cousin Hurstmanceaux; <i>he</i> -would have died sooner. As the choir sang the <i>Benedictus</i> -of Gounod, and the sweet spiritual melodies warbled -softly over the still open vault, she felt sick with the satire -and the derision of the whole scene. The Lord-Lieutenant, -who stood on her right, looked at her with anxiety.</p> - -<p>“Do you feel faint?” he asked. “Is it too much for -you? Ladies should not go through such trying ceremonies.”</p> - -<p>“I am quite well, thanks,” she replied coldly; and he -too thought what an uncivil and unfeeling person she -was.</p> - -<p>“I suppose she is not sure to inherit, and so is worried,” -thought the gentleman; he could imagine no other possible -motive for so much coldness and so much evidently -painful emotion.</p> - -<p>“Well, ’tis all over,” thought the dead man’s widow. -“But ’tis strange to think as so masterful a man as poor -dear William is gone where he won’t never have his own -way any more!”</p> - -<p>Her ideas of a future state were vague, but so far as -they were formulated, they always represented immortal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[392]</span> -life to her as a kind of perpetual Sunday school, with -much music and considerable discipline. She felt that -William would be very uncomfortable with such limited -opportunities for “making deals” and swinging his stock-whip, -as it were, around him. She was a devoutly religious -woman, but her common sense made her piety a -difficult matter, as common sense is apt to do to many -pious persons. She could not bring her mind into any -actual conception of her dead husband as powerless to assert -his will, or gone whither his banking-books would be -useless to buy him a warm place.</p> - -<p>When the service was over and the bishop had spoken -some beautiful impressive words, during the delivery of -which everyone present looked rapt and divided between -ecstasy and anguish (Katherine alone having her usual -expression of reserve and indifference), all the mourners -and officials flocked across the park to the great house to -enjoy, in their several places, according to their rank, the -magnificent luncheon which was destined to be the last -effort of Richemont in the Massarene service.</p> - -<p>Katherine and her mother were, during the banqueting, -closeted with the solicitors and administrators to hear the -reading of the will. The executors were two solid and -sagacious city magnates, for in business matters the testator -had only trusted business-men.</p> - -<p>His daughter was undisturbed; she felt quite certain -that he would have disinherited her. He would, she felt -sure, have disposed of his millions in some splendid, public, -and sensational way. His widow was visibly nervous and -anxious.</p> - -<p>“I never saw an inch into his mind in this matter,” she -thought. “’Tis quite likely as he’ll cut us both off with -a shilling.”</p> - -<p>To dispute his will, whatever it might be, never occurred -as possible to one who had been his obedient slave nigh -forty years.</p> - -<p>She listened in strained and painful attention as she -sat in the library with her daughter, and the great London -solicitor, who had been the person chiefly trusted by Massarene, -opened the momentous document and laid it before -him, and, resting his hand upon it, said to the two women:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[393]</span>“My dear ladies, there is no later will than that made -ten years ago, which, with your permission, I will now -proceed to read to you. It is to be presumed that the -deceased always remained in the same dispositions of -mind and feeling, since he has never even added a codicil -to this document.”</p> - -<p>With that preamble he turned toward the light and -read aloud a testament of much simplicity considering the -enormous fortune of which it disposed. It left everything -unreservedly to his only child, Katherine Massarene, -and provided only that she should pay to her mother the -annual sum of a thousand pounds a year. It left nothing -whatever directly to his wife, not even jewels, and with the -exception of a few bequests to hospitals and executors, provided -for nothing else than the transmission of his entire -property to his daughter, for her own absolute and unrestricted -possession on the attainment of her majority: -that age she had now passed by four years.</p> - -<p>The envied inheritor of this envied and enormous wealth -showed no emotion which they could construe into either -surprise or exultation; her features might have been of -marble for any change they displayed. An immense consternation -paralyzed her. She had hoped that the dislike -her father had conceived for her, and the disappointment -she had caused him, would have led to his leaving away -from her some very large portion of his wealth. She -would not have been surprised, and she would have been -infinitely relieved, if he had left her nothing at all. That -she could by any possibility become sole mistress of this -immense property which was so loathsome to her had -never for a moment occurred to her. Royal legatees, -public institutions, churches, endowments, asylums, any -one of the many means by which the dead glorify their -memory and purchase a brief respite from the cruelty of -oblivion, would, she had imagined, have preceded her in -her father’s bequests.</p> - -<p>She had forgotten the fact that to such men as William -Massarene the continuation of their own blood in alliance -with their wealth is absolutely necessary to their ambition. -For that reason, although he had often thought of -leaving his fortune to the Prince of Wales, or to the Nation,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[394]</span> -he had never actually brought himself to revoke the -will in his only living child’s favor.</p> - -<p>Her mother sat still for a moment, a deep purple flush -covering her big and pallid face. Then for the solitary -time in all her life she rose with dignity to the exigency -of a trying hour.</p> - -<p>“Gentlemen,” she said, in a firm voice to those present, -“what is my child’s is the same as though ’twere mine, -and she is learned and a true lady, and she’ll grace all she -gets. But my husband should hev thought twice before -he put such a slight upon me, his partner for nigh forty -year, who worked with him in cold and heat, in mud and -sweat, in hunger and in sorrow. Still the pile was his -own to do as he liked with, and never think, gentlemen, -as I dream o’ putting forward any contrary claim.”</p> - -<p>The gentlemen present heard in respectful silence. -The fat, homely, vulgar woman was transfigured by the -noble endurance of a great wrong.</p> - -<p>On reflection men deride such sentiments, but their -first impulse is to respect them and to salute them with -respect. First thoughts are often best.</p> - -<p>Katherine looked at her with deep sorrow in her eyes; -but she sat quite still with no expression on her face, at -least, none that the men present could construe.</p> - -<p>The lawyers and executors timidly began to offer -their congratulations; they were afraid of this stately, -cold, mute, young woman, who gave no sign either of exultation -or of mourning; it seemed to them, as it always -seemed to everyone, as if she could not possibly bear any -relation to the dead millionaire.</p> - -<p>She stopped their felicitations with a gesture, and rose.</p> - -<p>“You will excuse me, sirs, if I cannot converse with -you, and if I leave you now. After to-day I shall be -always at your disposition for any business that may require -me. Meantime, consider this house yours. Come, -my dear mother.”</p> - -<p>She took her mother’s hand and forced her to rise; then -made a low formal curtsey to the men present and passed -out of the room, leading her mother with her.</p> - -<p>“Well, I never,” said one of the city gentlemen.</p> - -<p>“She knows the time o’ day,” said the other.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[395]</span>“I think she’ll be near,” said the country lawyer.</p> - -<p>“She’s mighty grand and distant,” said the first -speaker.</p> - -<p>The London solicitor said nothing. He admired her. -But he felt that she would not be an easy client if she -left the affairs in his hands. She would want to know the -why and the wherefore of everything. No man of law -likes that.</p> - -<p>Katherine, when she was alone with her mother in her -own rooms, bent down and kissed Mrs. Massarene’s pale -face.</p> - -<p>“Oh, my dear mother, what a shame to you, what an -injustice and insult! Oh, if I had only known what he -had done when he was living! Why would you never -let me speak to him of his will?”</p> - -<p>Her voice shook with deep-rooted anger and exceeding -pain. She was indignant to be made the instrument of -her mother’s humiliation.</p> - -<p>“My dear, you wouldn’t have altered him,” said her -mother, between her sobs. “He wished to lay me low, -and he’s done it. But he was a great man, was poor William, -all the same. It’s a bitter pill to swallow,” she continued, -between her sobs, “and I don’t deserve it from -him, for I toiled day and night for him, and with him, -when neither of us had more than the clothes we stood up -in, and ’twas just what I made by washing and cooking -as kept us on our legs for the first year in that blackguard -township. Of course I was in the way of late years. He -would have liked to take a young wife with a great name, -and have sons and that like. ’Twas only natural, perhaps; -I was but a clog upon him. But he forgot all the -early years we toiled together.”</p> - -<p>“It is an infamy! His will is the greatest crime of an -abominable life!” said Katherine, with deep wrath shining -in her eyes and quivering on her lips.</p> - -<p>“Hush! He was your father,” said his wife. “And -he was a great man; there’s excuse for men as is great—they -can’t be tied down like common folks.”</p> - -<p>Then, poor soul, she leaned her head on her hands and -wept bitterly.</p> - -<p>This will, so short and simple in comparison with the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">[396]</span> -enormous wealth it disposed of, had been the only one -signed amongst the various testaments he had caused to -be written. It had been made on his arrival in England -when Katherine had been fourteen years old, when his -ambitions had all centred in her, and on her head he had -in imagination seen resting the circlet of some ducal coronet -or princely crown.</p> - -<p>Moreover he had always loathed the thought of death; -to this man of iron strength and constant success the idea -of something which was stronger than himself, and which -would put an end to his success, was horrible.</p> - -<p>The slight to his wife he would always have caused: he -could not forgive her for not having died long before in -Kerosene City. He went as near to hatred of her as a -man of sluggish blood, and superstitious respect for custom -and conventionality, could allow himself to do. She -was a great burden, a drawback and disfigurement; she -was stupid and tactless; she had no powers of assimilation; -and in all her grandeur and glory she remained the -Margaret Hogan of Kilrathy. He paid her out for her -persistency in living on and being as incongruous in his -fine houses as a dish of pigs’ trotters would have been at -one of his dinners for Royal Highnesses.</p> - -<p>She had toiled hard with and for him in the Northwest; -she had laid the first modest foundations on which he had -subsequently been able to raise his golden temple; and -for that very reason he detested her and cut her off with -a meagre legacy, and recalled to her that her jewels even -had been only lent to her, never given.</p> - -<p>Philosophers and psychologists when they reason on -human nature do not realize the enormous place which -pure spite occupies in its motives and actions.</p> - -<p>All the use she had been to him, all her industry, patience, -affection, and self-denial had all counted for nothing -with him; she was a blot on his greatness, a ridiculous -figure in his houses, and her existence had stood in -the way of his marrying some fair young virgin of noble -race who might have given him an heir, and let him cut -off his daughter with a shilling. He did not therefore -make a new will, because he could not make up his mind -to disinherit his only living representative; besides that,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">[397]</span> -he felt that he had at least another score of years to live; -and probably he would have reached his fourscore and -ten and died an earl, as he intended to do, had not the -bullet of Robert Airley cut short his career.</p> - -<p>But the vengeance of a poor Scotch workingman had -put an end to all, and his wife had survived him and was -sobbing into her handkerchief whilst his daughter became -sole inheritrix of his millions and estates.</p> - -<p>He had made many other dispositions of his property, -but as these others were all unsigned they were worth -nothing at all in the sight of the law. His daughter was -the richest woman in Great Britain, and all those whose -offers of marriage had been rejected by her cursed her -with the heartiest unanimity.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile she herself felt as though an avalanche had -fallen on her and overwhelmed her.</p> - -<p>“That creature has got everything!” said the Duchess -of Otterbourne, as she read the synopsis of the will in the -newspapers. “Oh, why did Ronnie not make himself -pleasant and marry her!” The soiled linen which she was -conscious of having piled up against herself in the dead -man’s hand would at least have been washed <i>en famille</i>!</p> - -<p>By the solicitor’s and executors’ request, Katherine who -seemed to all who surrounded her the most favored mortal -under the sun went to London on the day following the -funeral. Her mother would not go with her.</p> - -<p>“I’ll never set foot in that house no more,” she said; -its gilded gates and marble staircase with the smiling nude -boy of Clodion had become hateful to her. She was not -physically ill, but she was nervous, depressed, cried for -hours, and wished incessantly that she had never left the -dairy and the pastures of Kilrathy. “I’m Humpty -Dumpty tumbled off the wall,” she said more than once. -“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t put -me together again.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it is shameful, shameful!” said Katherine between -her teeth. “And to make me the instrument to wound -you! What cynical cruelty!”</p> - -<p>She implored her mother to resist the will, to dispute it -in court; to claim a proper share of a fortune which she -had largely contributed to gain.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">[398]</span>But her mother would not hear of such a thing. “I -ain’t going to put good gold and silver in attorneys’ -pockets,” she said resolutely. “I wouldn’t bring William’s -will into litigation, no, not if I was starvin’ on the -streets. He was a great man when all’s said and -done, and it won’t be me as dishonors him.” For she was -very proud of him now he was gone and lying under his -marble slab in the Roxhall’s crypt; he had stuck a knife -in her, as it were, but she did not complain of the wound; -he had been the “bull-dozing boss” to the last and he had -had a right to be it.</p> - -<p>The natural bitterness she felt did not turn against -him, but against her daughter.</p> - -<p>“You’ll marry very high <i>now</i>,” murmured Margaret -Massarene. “Lord! There’s nothing you may not get if -you wish it.”</p> - -<p>“I shall never marry,” said Katherine; and through her -memory passed the simile of the hangman’s daughter.</p> - -<p>She felt crushed to earth with the weight of this loathsome -inheritance. It was odious to her as blood-money. -Where could she go, what could she do, to escape from -the world, which would see in her a golden idol whilst to -herself only the clay feet standing in mud would be -visible?</p> - -<p>Outside Harrenden House there was the incessant movement -of the London season at its perihelion; the gaiety, -the haste, the press, the excitement, the display of a -capital in its most crowded hour. Within all was -gloom, silence, mournings. Only the boy of Clodion still -laughed.</p> - -<p>The weary work of examination, verification, classification, -began; all the wearisome formalities which follow on -the death of a rich man. The executors, the solicitors, -and the household all alike felt awe and dread of the -new owner of the fortune. Her silence seemed to them unnatural. -She was always at the command of the men of -business, and she was always perfectly courteous to every -one, but they were afraid of her. She broke all the seals -herself in the presence of those who had a right to be with -her, and examined, herself alone, all the mass of documents -left by her father. She had a presentiment that there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">[399]</span> -must be much left behind him that would dishonor his -memory, and disgrace still more grossly his debtors. She -despised from the depths of her soul all those illustrious -persons whose names figured on the secret ledgers with -their Bramah locks which he had kept as rigidly as he had -used to keep his books in Kerosene City when it was but -an embryo township. But she wished to screen them -from the publicity with which it was in her power to ruin -them all; and shortly afterwards several great persons -were at once infinitely relieved, embarrassed, and humiliated -by having their obligations returned to them.</p> - -<p>Strangely as it seemed to her, almost one of the first -things she saw in a drawer of her father’s bureau was an -envelope with the superscription:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“To be sent to the Earl of Hurstmanceaux immediately -on my demise. W. M.”</p> -</div> - -<p>It was a small envelope and thin.</p> - -<p>It seemed odd to her that her father should have left a -missive for a man with whom he had no acquaintance and -from whom he had received only insults. But she concluded -that the communication must regard the affairs of -Hurstmanceaux’s sister. She gave the letter at once to a -confidential servant to be taken to Hurstmanceaux’s -London address.</p> - -<p>In half an hour the servant returned.</p> - -<p>“His lordship has rooms in Bruton Street, madam; but -he is out of town, they do not know where. He is yachting -in the north of Ireland, they think; I left the letter -to be given as soon as he arrives.”</p> - -<p>“Quite right,” said Katherine; but she felt afraid that -she ought to have sent it through some surer channel; by -the superscription it was probably of importance, and no -doubt treated of the Duchess of Otterbourne’s affairs. -She thought, too late, that it would have been wiser to -have sent it to Faldon Castle, where she remembered he -had said that he passed most part of the year.</p> - -<p>In the same afternoon she received a note on black-edged -paper with a duchess’s coronet on the envelope. -It said:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">[400]</span>“<span class="smcap">Dear Miss Massarene.</span>—<i>I could not tell you how grieved -I have been at the appalling tragedy. I have thought so much -of you in your bereavement, and of your poor mother. If I -had not suffered from bronchitis I should have come in person -to the funeral. I hope your mother received my note? It is -all so dreadful and sudden one cannot realize it. Did my -kind good friend leave no letter or message for me? You -know how I trusted him in all my affairs, and the loss of his -experience and his advice is to me an immeasurable misfortune. -He was so wonderfully clever, and so willing to counsel -and to aid! His loss can never be made up to any of us. In -sincere sympathy I remain</i>,</p> - -<p class="right">“<i>Ever yours affectionately</i>,    <br> -“<span class="smcap">Clare Otterbourne</span>.”</p> -</div> - -<p>Katherine read the note twice over. She profoundly -mistrusted the writer. It read very naturally, very unaffectedly; -but it was wholly impossible that the writer -could be sincere.</p> - -<p>She was about to reply and say that her father had left -a letter for Hurstmanceaux; but on second thoughts she -doubted if she had a right to do so; the matter belonged -to the person to whom the letter was addressed, who -would tell his sister of its contents or not, as he chose.</p> - -<p>She wrote, instead, a few brief polite distant words -saying that she had as yet found no communication for the -Duchess amongst her father’s papers, and thanking her -for her expressions of sorrow and sympathy.</p> - -<p>“Why should she expect any remembrance from him?” -she wondered. “Did she expect to be named in his will?”</p> - -<p>She felt regret that Hurstmanceaux was out of town. -She thought his sister quite capable of going to Bruton -Street and intercepting the letter if she got wind of it. -Perhaps, she thought, there was money in it; it had borne a -large seal, bearing the newly-found arms of the Massarenes.</p> - -<p>“Did my father ever speak to you of the Duchess of -Otterbourne?” she asked his solicitor that afternoon.</p> - -<p>“Never!” said the lawyer, with a passing smile.</p> - -<p>“Did you ever hear that he helped her in monetary -affairs?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said the solicitor, with the same demure suggestive -smile hovering on his lips. “But everyone knows -that Mr. Massarene was a great admirer of that lady.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">[401]</span>Katherine asked him no more. She lighted a match -and burnt the sympathetic little note.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile her own note was like lead on the heart of -its recipient, who had made sure that some message, some -bequest, would come to her from William Massarene. She -knew the man so little, despite her intelligence and worldly -wisdom, that she had actually believed that he might provide -for the restoration to her, at his death, of her own -and Beaumont’s signatures, or would leave her some -assurance that they were destroyed. As it was, in the -absence of any indication, she could not tell that they -might not at any moment be found by his daughter or his -executors. Every moment of these weeks was a torture -to her. She could not sleep an hour at night without -anodynes.</p> - -<p>It was now the beginning of July: the height of the -season. She had to act in pastoral plays, keep stalls at -bazaars, go to garden-parties, dinner-parties, marriages, -<i>déjeuners</i>, flower-shows, Primrose gatherings, and be seen -once at least at a Drawing-room. She did not dare give -in, or go away, or pretend to be ill, because she was afraid -that the world might suspect that she was worried by the -consequences of Massarene’s death. These days during -which she knew that his heiress must be searching -amongst his papers, reading his memoranda, and sorting -his correspondence, were the most horrible of her life. -She felt stretched on a rack from morning till night. -Outwardly she was lovely, impertinent, careless, gay, as -ever, and people wondered whom she would marry; but -her mental life was one of the most restless conjecture, the -most agonized dread.</p> - -<p>As the days became weeks, and she heard nothing of -any discovery made at Harrenden House, she began to -grow quieter, she began to feel reassured. The signatures -no doubt had been burnt. She persuaded herself -that they had certainly been burnt. She did not dream -that Beaumont’s receipt and the type-written lines she -herself had signed had been enclosed, without a word, in -the sealed letter which was lying awaiting her brother at -his rooms in Bruton street.</p> - -<p>The same night that he had returned from Paris, William<span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">[402]</span> -Massarene, who never left till to-morrow that which -should be done to-day, had put them in that envelope, had -addressed and sealed them. “Now if I die my lady will -remember me,” he had thought. “She’ll wish she hadn’t -called me Billy, and told me lies about the Bird rooms.”</p> - -<p>In his own way at that time he was fiercely in love with -her; but his passion did not make him forget or forgive. -It was a posthumous vengeance which he thus arranged; -but it was a diabolical and ingenious one.</p> - -<p>Every week from that night until the night before his -murder he had looked at that letter and thought, with an -inward chuckle, that if he fell down in a fit, or died of a -carriage accident, his retaliation was safely arranged to -smite her when he should be in his grave. In a rough -vague way he believed in a God above him. Most successful -persons do. But he did not choose to leave his -revenge to the hands of deity. “Always load your rifle -yourself,” was his maxim in death as in life.</p> - -<p>He knew that her brother was the one person on earth -whom she feared. And the shell he thus filled to burst -after his death would hit hard Hurstmanceaux himself, -that damnable swell who would not speak to him even in -a street or a club-house, and who had refused his heiress’s -hand before it was actually offered to him! “My lord’ll -sing small when he learns as his sister was saved from a -criminal charge by Billy’s dirty dollars,” he had thought -as he had prepared that envelope which his heiress now -found in the hush and gloom of Harrenden House. He -might have made his vengeance still more cruel. He -might have left arrows still more barbed behind him to -rankle in the breast of that proud man, of that penniless -peer, who would never know him. But he had always -attached great importance to reputation for chastity; he -felt ashamed to admit in his mature years that he too had -felt the temptation of a fair face and of a lovely form. He -did not like to confess, even posthumously, his own frailties.</p> - -<p>So he had only enclosed her signature and Beaumont’s. -They spoke for themselves. They were enough; they -would leave to himself the glory of a generous action, and -to her the shame of a mean one.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">[403]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was no one in London of the world which had -been William Massarene’s highest heaven. The August -sun shone on the flower-beds of the parks in all their glory, -and the poor forgotten plants which drooped in the balconies -before shuttered windows, and the cats, forgotten -also, mewed vainly in closed kitchens and behind iron -railings, and the dogs, abandoned to servants and grooms, -moped sadly in stable or basement yards, or, straying out -into the streets and mews, were lassoed by the police or -coaxed to their doom by the agents of experimental institutes. -Katherine Massarene, all alone, stayed on at Harrenden -House, absorbed in the enormous work of examining -her late father’s papers. Her mother remained in the -country, whither Katherine went from Saturday to Monday -to see her. But all the other days of the week the -inheritress of Mr. Massarene’s wealth spent in tracing the -sources of that poisoned and blood-stained Pactolus.</p> - -<p>He, like many another successful and masterful man, -had never taken death into account, or he would have -destroyed many of those written witnesses against him. -As it was, he had kept everything, partly from the sense -of power which it gave him to do so, partly from the -prudent sharpness of a business man which made him -never lose a letter, however insignificant, or destroy a signature, -however unneeded. She could not understand all -the meaning of these papers, but she understood much: -enough to make her heart sick with shame, frozen with -horror. She had always known, vaguely, that his fortunes -had been obtained mainly through crimes which in the -successful man society has agreed to let pass as virtues; -but she could now name, measure, analyze those crimes -and see them in all their entity, as drops of blood are seen -under a microscope.</p> - -<p>Thus she became acquainted with all the steps which -had conducted him from the straw of the cattle-shed to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">[404]</span> -the carpets of Harrenden House. That small study, in -which he had kept locked all his ledgers, folios, banking-books, -and documents of every kind, seemed like a very -charnel-house to its new visitant. She had read very -widely; she had thought a great deal; and to her clear -and cultured intelligence the true aims and objects of her -father’s life seemed as sordid and miserable as those of the -ragged men whom she had seen in her childhood greedily -washing river sand in tin pannikins in the hope of finding -some gleam of gold, and ready to murder their bosom -friend to secure a grain of the coveted metal.</p> - -<p>Among those papers was the letter written by the Suffolk -emigrant for Robert Airley. She read it, and it -flashed across her mind that Robert Airley had come to -England and had killed her father. There was nothing -to suggest it, nothing to prove it; but she had no more -doubt of it than if she had heard the confession of the -assassin. She telegraphed to Kerosene City to inquire -where Robert Airley was. It was telegraphed back to her -that he had sailed for Liverpool on the 30th of May: her -father had been shot on the night of the 17th of June: she -had no doubt after this that her inference had been correct. -And it had not been murder, but justice! Justice -red-handed and rude—the <i>lex talionis</i>, but justice nevertheless.</p> - -<p>Through suggestions from the American police, and -Massarene’s manager, the same suspicions were entertained -by Scotland Yard. But Robert Airley was lost -sight of on his arrival in London, and, as the woman of -the eating-house held her peace and kept her own counsel, -he remained untraced.</p> - -<p>She said nothing of what she found and thought to her -mother, and lived on in that state of isolated reflection -and regret which can only be supported by those who are -strong in character and independent of sympathy, but -from which even they suffer greatly. She did not try to -trace Robert Airley. When she heard that he was suspected -of the crime but could not be found, she was relieved -to think that he was lost to sight; his seizure and -trial would have been agony to her. The horror of her -discoveries and the shame of them filled her with a feeling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">[405]</span> -as of personal guilt. She looked worn, unwell, aged; she -had nothing in her regard, in her manner, in her thoughts, -of the sense of freedom and power which all would have -expected her to feel in such an accession to immense -wealth, in entire liberty. She had no one to whom she -could speak of anything which she felt. Lord Framlingham -was in India, and he was the only person to whom -she could have confided something of her anxieties, her -shame, her uncertainty what to do and how to bear the -burden laid upon her. She knew that she must carry all -her knowledge shut up in her own breast as long as she -lived. It lay like a stone upon her, as did the inheritance -of all this ill-gotten wealth.</p> - -<p>One day, when she was as usual in the little study poring -over an old ledger, one of the servants brought her a -card. On it was printed, “Earl of Hurstmanceaux.” She -was surprised, much surprised, but she remembered the -letter her father had addressed to him. She hesitated some -moments: if he came on his sister’s business could he not -go to the lawyer?</p> - -<p>“Ask Lord Hurstmanceaux to be so good as to see the -solicitors,” she said to the servant, who returned in a few -minutes with the reply that Lord Hurstmanceaux desired -the favor of a personal interview.</p> - -<p>“Show him into the library then,” she said, much surprised. -“I will come to him there.”</p> - -<p>She put back the ledger in its place, closed the case -which held it, and left the room, locking the door with -that safety-key which had never quitted her father’s -watch-chain in his lifetime, and which she carried now -always on hers.</p> - -<p>She did not go to her room to see how she looked, as -most women would have done; she did not even glance -at one of the mirrors in the rooms through which she -passed. She went as she was, looking very white, very -worn, very stern in her close black gown, to the other end -of the house where the library was.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux was standing in the middle of the -room; the light from one of the windows shone on his -fair hair. She saw that he too was very pale and appeared -distressed and embarrassed.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">[406]</span>“You wished to see me, Lord Hurstmanceaux,” she said -coldly. “Would not the solicitors have done equally -well?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Hurstmanceaux—his voice was harsh and -unsteady. “I venture to beg of you not to make my -errand known to your solicitors.”</p> - -<p>She was silent; she sat down and motioned to him to -do the same, but he remained standing.</p> - -<p>“You sent me a letter from your late father—Mr. -Massarene?” he said—his voice seemed strangled in his -throat.</p> - -<p>“I enclosed one some time ago, yes.”</p> - -<p>“I have only now received it. I have been away -yachting. Nothing was forwarded.” His words came -with difficulty; he spoke like a man to whom what he is -obliged to say is torture.</p> - -<p>“It does not concern me,” she said coldly. “I have -no wish to know what it contained.”</p> - -<p>“You must know,” said Ronald. “It contained a -signature of my sister of Otterbourne, who, it appears -from another paper enclosed with it, owed to your father -the enormous sum of twelve thousand pounds.”</p> - -<p>Katherine was silent: she thought that probably the -Duchess of Otterbourne had owed very much more than -that to her father.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux breathed heavily: he was overwhelmed -with shame at what he was forced to say.</p> - -<p>“Apparently,” he continued, “she owed this amount -to Beaumont, the jeweler in the Rue de la Paix. Your -father sent me Beaumont’s receipt to him, and my sister’s -acknowledgment of her debt to him, for the payment to -Beaumont. She is now in Norway with the Bassenthwaites; -but the two signatures make the matter quite -clear. There is no necessity for any inquiry.”</p> - -<p>He paused, struggling with an emotion which he feared -would get the better of his manhood.</p> - -<p>Katherine saw that, and it affected her keenly.</p> - -<p>“He sent you those signatures!” she said, as a sense -of her father’s cruelty dawned on her. “What a brutal, -what an infamous thing to do! What a message from -the grave!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">[407]</span>“Mr. Massarene was quite within his rights,” said -Ronald stiffly: “wholly within them. As my sister’s -husband is dead, I am the person to whom her creditors -should apply. I blame him for lending her such a sum, -without my knowledge, in his lifetime. It is impossible -to say to you what I suffer in finding her—in finding -her——”</p> - -<p>His voice broke down; for an instant he walked away -to the window nearest him, and looked out in silence.</p> - -<p>Katherine did not reply.</p> - -<p>She was thinking of the many times, in her father’s -private account books, in which Lady Kenilworth’s name -was written, the many slips in the old check-books in -which there was also written, in her father’s hand: -“Drawn self: passed to Lady K.”</p> - -<p>What could she say? It seemed to her nothing, yet -she felt acute sorrow for this proud, sensitive, honorable -gentleman, who had the cruel humiliation of such a discovery -and such a confession, after all his pride, his scorn, -and his avoidance of her and of her parents.</p> - -<p>In another moment he turned back from the window -and walked toward her.</p> - -<p>“I came to ask you, if you can, not to let your men of -business know of this,” he said more calmly. “I do not -think there is any necessity for them to know. I regret -unspeakably that I cannot repay this sum at once, but I -am a poor man. In a month’s time I hope to be able to -do so. Meanwhile, if you can keep my sister’s wretched -secret, I shall be very grateful to you.”</p> - -<p>Katherine rose and looked at him, with some indignation -and much sympathy shining in her large dark eyes.</p> - -<p>“Do you think, because I am his daughter, that I have -neither decency nor honor? Do not take this matter so -deeply to heart. If my father lent the duchess money, -she was, on her part, of great use to him. He owed his -social position almost entirely to her assistance. I grieve -more than I can say that he should have stabbed you from -his grave like this. Nor can I imagine why he did so, -unless to avenge himself for your persistent refusal to be -acquainted with us; a mean motive, indeed, if it was his -motive. Pray believe me, Lord Hurstmanceaux. Your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_408">[408]</span> -sister’s name is safe for ever with me; and as for repaying -this money, do not think of it. The debt is not yours.”</p> - -<p>“Of my payment of it there must be no dispute,” said -Ronald quickly. “It was a strictly business matter. -Your father was a business man. I would not ask even a -day’s delay were I not forced. I thank you for your -promise of silence; it is more than I have deserved.”</p> - -<p>He tried to put the matter on a business footing, to -endeavor to treat his sister’s receipt of money from Massarene -as though it had been a mere affair of agreement -and mutual interest; but he was too frank to play a part, -and he was conscious that he showed the shame, the disgust, -the loathing which he felt for the false position of a -woman so near to him.</p> - -<p>“Do not speak of money to me,” said Katherine, with -an intensity of feeling which surprised him. “I have -passed nearly every day since my father’s death in seeing -how the riches he loved were put together. I loathe so -utterly all he has left to me, that I envy every work-girl -who sews for daily bread in her garret. You said rightly -on the road in Woldshire that such a fortune as ours is -only amassed by wickedness, and cruelty, and fraud. If I -could cast it from me as a toad its skin, I would not pause -a moment before I did so, and fled from it for ever.”</p> - -<p>She was carried out of herself by the forces of feeling, -which, for an instant, broke down her reserve, and hurried -her into eloquent and unstudied speech.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux, at any other time, would have been -moved to sympathy with her; but now he was too absorbed -in his own humiliation and pain to have any perception -of hers.</p> - -<p>“You will soon get reconciled to your burden, madam,” -he said, with a slight and bitter smile. “Do not fear. -The world will help you to get rid of it. Allow me once -more to thank you for your promise of silence. I am -conscious that both I and she are unworthy of your clemency.”</p> - -<p>Katherine’s soul shrank within her. She felt all the -recoil, the embarrassment, the revulsion of feeling of a -reserved nature, which has unbent and revealed itself, and -finds its expansion unresponded to and misunderstood.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">[409]</span> -She felt that he did not believe in what she had said in -the least.</p> - -<p>“You have not heard your sister’s defence,” she said, -after a pause.</p> - -<p>“My sister’s fables? I do not want to hear them. Her -signature speaks for her. Besides, I can have the whole -facts of the transaction from the jeweler. No ingenuity -of hers can ever explain them away.”</p> - -<p>“You are very harsh.”</p> - -<p>“I am far from harsh. And of my harshness or my -mildness you cannot be the judge.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?”</p> - -<p>“Because you are the daughter of a man who knew -nothing of honor, or of its exactions, and that instinct is -not acquired in a single generation.”</p> - -<p>“Have twenty-three generations of nobility bequeathed -it to your sister?” was the retort which sprang to her -lips, but she generously and valorously kept it unspoken.</p> - -<p>Her white skin flushed hotly and painfully at the insult, -which was to her what a blow would have been to a man.</p> - -<p>She did not resent, but she suffered intensely. What -he had said was so completely the reflection of her own -feelings that it seemed to burn itself into her brain like a -branding-iron.</p> - -<p>Oh, to have come of some stainless and valiant race, -with traditions of a past great and pure! What she -would have given for that heritage of barren honor, -which would have been, in her keeping, virgin and puissant, -as a kingdom guarded against every foe!</p> - -<p>For an instant she was tempted to go and unlock the -drawer in which all the memoranda of his sister’s other -debts were lying, and put them before him and say: -“Did a thousand years of nobility teach honor and -honesty to her?” But she resisted the temptation.</p> - -<p>He was humiliated and embittered, and this insolence -of his speech was, she thought, to be forgiven to him. -She said nothing in protest or defence; but there was -that in her expression which touched him to repentance -for his utterance. He felt that she had deserved better -at his hands, though he could not bend his pride to say so.</p> - -<p>He was silent some moments, so was she—a silence of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">[410]</span> -pain and of embarrassment. At length, with a great -effort, he forced himself to say to her:</p> - -<p>“I should not have said that. I beg your pardon. It -was offensive.”</p> - -<p>She made a slight inclination of the head, as if to accept -the apology.</p> - -<p>“You said what is generally true, I believe. But there -may be exceptions.”</p> - -<p>His apology could not efface the impression of his -speech, which seemed like vitriol thrown in her face. -The impression of pain which his speech left on her was -so poignant that she felt as if it would never pass away.</p> - -<p>He was violently and bitterly prejudiced against her; -he was incapable of being just to her; she seemed to him -steeped in the villainy of all that ill-gotten gold in which -she had her being; but he could not but acknowledge the -dignity and simplicity of her attitude under insult, and -he was conscious that he had insulted her grossly. After -all, the disgrace of his sister was no fault of hers.</p> - -<p>She might be wholly in earnest when she said that she -abhorred the wealth of which she was the sole possessor. -He was tempted to believe that she was entirely sincere; -but she was the daughter of William Massarene. She -was <i>anathema maranatha</i>.</p> - -<p>She bowed to suggest to him that his interview had -lasted long enough.</p> - -<p>“Good-day to you,” she said coldly.</p> - -<p>“Good-day,” repeated Hurstmanceaux. “In a month’s -time you will hear from me. Meanwhile, forget if you can.”</p> - -<p>Then he left the library.</p> - -<p>She remained standing beside the heavy table laden -with choice octavos and the reviews of the month.</p> - -<p>She had been tempted out of her habitual silence, and -had opened a little window into her heart. And she regretted -that she had done so, as, alas! we always do; for -there is nothing which we regret so bitterly, and pay for -so heavily, as the confidence we give. She was vexed -with herself, also, that she had dismissed him so soon and -so abruptly, that she had not endeavored to atone for -that brutal action after death, that cruel legacy which her -father had left in vengeance. She felt that he would pay<span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">[411]</span> -the money back, if to do so he had to sell every rood of -land he possessed, and she hated herself for having sent -him, however innocently on her part, that barbed legacy -of the dead. She understood how deep a wound it must -have given to a man of the principles, the temperament, -and the pride of Hurstmanceaux.</p> - -<p>“But he is unjust to me—unjust and hard!” she said -half aloud, in her solitude.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile he, who had only returned to London an -hour previously, took the tidal train to Paris, where he -went forthwith to Beaumont.</p> - -<p>“What would you, milord?” said Beaumont the following -morning. “Madame la duchesse sent that old, -fat, common man to pay in her name, and he paid. It -was no matter to me who paid. I wanted my money -back. Yes; I lent it on the big jewel and the others. -Illegal! Oh, ta-ta-ta, milord! Of course all dealings -with those pretty married ladies are great risks. We -know that in business. That is why I was anxious to get -back my money. If I had not had it, I should have gone -to law. Perhaps my title to it was unsound, as you say. -Perhaps it was. But <i>madame, votre sœur</i>, had had the -money from me—she could not have denied that in a law -court—and great families do not like scandals which -touch them. Ah, no, milord! <i>noblesse oblige</i> we know!”</p> - -<p>And Beaumont smiled softly, with a very sweet, sub-ironic, -inflection of the voice, as he sat handling some -uncut stones in his bureau which looked on the garden.</p> - -<p>From him Hurstmanceaux obtained the certainty of -what he had suspected from the moment that he had received -Massarene’s posthumous letter: that his sister had -not had the Otterbourne jewels in her possession when he -had asked her for them.</p> - -<p>Heaven and earth! the duplicity of women!—he -thought as he passed along the sunny Paris streets with a -heart as heavy as lead in his breast. His sister, his blue-eyed -Sourisette, his favorite from her nursery days, was -no better than a thief! No better than any wretched -woman of the streets whose <i>souteneur</i> might strike him -with a knife in the gloaming that evening!</p> - -<p>From Beaumont’s he went to Boussod et Valadon’s,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">[412]</span> -and after an interview with that famous firm, returned to -his favorite place of Faldon, where he had a small collection -of old Flemish and Dutch pictures brought together -in the previous century by his great-grandfather. -They were not in the entail, and he had always been at -liberty to sell them, but he had never been tempted to do -so, for he was attached to the paintings and he liked to -see them hanging in the oval room with a north light, -where they had been for over a hundred years. He abhorred -selling things, all his economies had been effected -without selling anything: only by refraining from buying, -which is an unpopular method. Dilettanti and dealers -had all alike hinted to him that those pictures were -worth a great deal, and that it was a pity to keep them in -a secluded country place on the edge of the Atlantic. -But he had always turned a deaf ear to such suggestions.</p> - -<p>Now, he said to himself, the pictures must go. He had -nothing else in his possession which would fetch a tenth -part of his sister’s debt to William Massarene. He was -even afraid that the pictures would fail to realize the -whole amount. But he asked for that amount and after -some demur the price was accepted, the pictures were -well known, and the money would be paid down, on their -delivery in Ireland, to the agent of the great Paris house.</p> - -<p>It was a matter easily concluded; but one which cut -him to the quick.</p> - -<p>However rapidly and privately it had been arranged -the facts of the sale would not, he knew, be kept out of -the newspapers. Paragraphs would appear in all the -social and artistic journals to the effect that Lord Hurstmanceaux -had sold his Dutch and Flemish collections of -<i>petits maîtres</i>.</p> - -<p>Every misfortune is nowadays doubled and trebled by -the publicity given to it in the press, which turns the -knife in our wounds and pours petroleum on our burning -roof-tree. He would also be unable to explain to his -friends why he sold them. He would appear like any -other of the spendthrifts and idiots who sent to the hammer -their libraries and pictures. No pressure would ever -have forced him to make such a sale for his own pleasures -or his own necessities.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_413">[413]</span>To a sensitive and proud man the comment which it -would excite was worse to endure than all the blows of -adversity.</p> - -<p>“So you have sold your pictures after all!” a thousand -tongues would say to him; and society would say that -Ronnie had become like other people at last.</p> - -<p>They are so silly, so unutterably silly, those flippant -sneers of our acquaintances, and yet they irritate and -wound like mosquitos.</p> - -<p>But he accepted these inevitable consequences and he -went to Faldon, and saw them packed with his own eyes, -and with his own hands placed in its wooden case with -tender care a little flaxen-haired maiden spinning, of Mieris, -which when he had been a child he had always called the -portrait of his wife.</p> - -<p>It was a cruel sacrifice to an unworthy object when the -pictures went from their places, and the red sunset light -coming over the Atlantic billows shone on the blank walls -from which they had been torn.</p> - -<p>Truly have the Rosny spoken of the <i>semi-humanité des -choses</i>! the sympathetic companionship which we feel in -those cherished things of our homes, wound as they are -about the roots of our fondest memories, of our longest -associations.</p> - -<p>Two days later Katherine Massarene received a check -on Coutts’s, signed Hurstmanceaux, for the amount which -her father had paid the jeweler <i>plus</i> the interest at five -per cent. for two years.</p> - -<p>It was enclosed with the compliments of the sender. A -week later she saw in an art journal the announcement of -the sale, to the Paris dealers, of the Dutch and Flemish -collection of Faldon Castle.</p> - -<p>It seemed to her as if her father’s spirit rose from the -tomb in malignant power for evil.</p> - -<p>She put the check in one of the iron safes in the little -study and turned the key on it.</p> - -<p>He might send her the money in what way he would. -He could not make her take it. But she had forgotten -that this stubbornness might equal, and even exceed her -own.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">[414]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the month of August Lord Roxhall, who was at -Arcachon with his wife, ostensibly for health, in reality to -cut short the expenses of a season in town, received -amongst his correspondence a letter in a black-edged envelope -addressed in a clear firm handwriting which was -unknown to him, and bearing the postmark of his own -country town, that town which William Massarene’s funeral -had recently passed through in such pomp and glory.</p> - -<p>The letter astonished him, and he read it twice, incredulous -of its meaning and wondering vaguely if it were -genuine.</p> - -<p>It was dated from Vale Royal and worded thus:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Lord Roxhall</span>,</p> - -<p>“<i>Pardon me that I have not earlier replied to your very -kind letter of condolence on the terrible death of my father. -Under his will I unfortunately become sole owner of all he -possessed. He purchased this estate of Vale Royal of you, and -I inherit it with the rest. I do not think we have done any -harm here; we have perhaps done some material good, but the -people on the estate dislike us and despise us. I quite understand -and do not blame their feeling. I like and respect it. -They are as faithful to you as Highlanders to Charles Edward. -I cannot remain here, for neither my mother nor I care to reside -amongst a justly disaffected population. My poor father -bought your estate at a fair price no doubt; but it will never -be morally or righteously ours. There are some things of -which no amount of money can legalize the sale to a sensitive -conscience. Will you do me a favor? Will you buy it back? -I should only require half the purchase-money, and should be -much obliged to you to let the other half remain on mortgage -on the estate. I believe the value of land is decreased since he -bought it, and of course you would have a valuation taken. Or -I should be happy to comply with any other conditions which -might be more suitable to you. In any way if you will take it -off my hands as soon as the law permits me to dispose of it, I -shall be greatly indebted and relieved of a heavy burden; for -no one can do any good on a property where all the occupants<span class="pagenum" id="Page_415">[415]</span> -of the soil are their enemies. So entirely is my mother, as well -as myself, convinced of this fact that we shall leave the place, -never to return to it, in a few days’ time, and the house will -remain closed. I hope that you will before long go back to it.</i></p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“<i>I remain, sincerely yours</i>,</span><br> - -“<span class="smcap">Katherine Massarene</span>.”</p> -</div> - -<p>He was breakfasting under the pine trees, his wife was -opposite to him at a small round table. The letter astonished -him and affected him, he discerned the generosity -which was ill-concealed under its effort to make the offer -seem to the advantage of the writer. When he had pondered -over it for some minutes he passed it over the table -to his companion.</p> - -<p>“She would give it to us if she dared,” he said as his -wife took it. She read it quickly at a glance, as women -do read, and looked up, the color rising in her face, her -eyes radiant with hope.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Gerald! Can you do it?”</p> - -<p>“Do you care so much?” said Roxhall; his own voice -was unsteady.</p> - -<p>Lady Roxhall leaned her elbow on the table and covered -her eyes with her hand to hide her emotion from the -passers-by in the hotel garden.</p> - -<p>“I could not tell you all I have suffered; I tried to -conceal it; if it were only to have left the grave of Lillias -to strangers——”</p> - -<p>“You good little thing, to have been so silent!” said -Roxhall, touched and grateful.</p> - -<p>“Shall we go back, Gerald?” his wife murmured, her -heart beating with mingled fear and hope.</p> - -<p>“I think I could do it,” answered Roxhall. “At least, -if it is fair to take her offer. One must not come over -this young woman because she is generous. Yes; I think -with great pinching we could do it.”</p> - -<p>“I would live on bread and water all my life to go -back!” said his wife with a force he had never known in -her.</p> - -<p>“I ought never to have sold it,” said Roxhall, his -thoughts reverting to his cousin’s wiles. He took up the -letter and read it again.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_416">[416]</span>“She would like to give it to us,” he said a second time. -“How very odd that such an unutterable cad as that man -Massarene was should have such a daughter. I think I -had better go to London to-night and see our lawyers. I -will get the old place back somehow, if it’s fair to her.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, one must be fair to her,” said his wife, and added -with remorse, “And to think how rude I have always -been to her! I turned my back on them all three at the -late State concert, just a week before the man was assassinated.”</p> - -<p>Roxhall laughed and got up to go and look at the railway -time-table, and she rose too, and to avoid her many -acquaintances went to walk by herself in the woods and -commune with her own heart, and her longing to return to -Vale Royal, and her wistful memories of her little dead -child, Lillias. She was a gentle, brave, tender-hearted -woman who had suffered much and concealed her sufferings -courageously from both her husband and her world.</p> - -<p>At the end of that month Katherine Massarene had -ceased for a time her painful self-imposed task and gone -down to Bournemouth, where she had taken a house for -the autumn and winter; a villa in a pine-wood which -looked on to the sea. It was a pretty place but to her -mother it seemed a poor nutshell after the spaciousness -and splendor of Harrenden House and Vale Royal. The -diminished establishment, the comparatively empty stables, -the loss of Richemont and his satellites, were at once a -relief and an offence to her.</p> - -<p>“One would think poor William had been sold up and -we was livin’ on my savings,” she said in indignation.</p> - -<p>“My dear mother, you could not keep up this place -under three thousand a year,” said her daughter.</p> - -<p>“And what’s that to us as had millions?” asked her -mother.</p> - -<p>Katherine thought of the primary plank hut at Kerosene -City, but she saw that her mother was in no mood to remember -those primitive times.</p> - -<p>The Bournemouth residence was really pretty and had -a simple elegance in it which was due to a great painter -whose whim and pleasure it had been; and it was a fitting -retreat for two women in deep mourning. But Margaret<span class="pagenum" id="Page_417">[417]</span> -Massarene chose to consider it as a mixture of workhouse -and prison. Her fretfulness and incessant lamentation -made her companionship very trying, for it was the kind -of obstinate discontent with which no arguments can -struggle with any chance of success. One fine dim balmy -morning, when the smell of the sea blended strongly with -the scent from the pine-woods, Katherine was alone in the -large room which had been the painter’s studio and was -now set aside for her own use, reading the still voluminous -correspondence from her agents and solicitors. A -young footman, who had not the perfect training which -Mr. Winter had exacted in his underlings, opened the -door and ushered in unannounced a tall fair man, who -stood in hesitation on the threshold. “Lord Hurstmanceaux, -ma’am,” said the young servant, and shut the door -behind the visitor’s back.</p> - -<p>Katherine looked up from her heavily-laden writing-table, -and was vexed to feel that she changed color.</p> - -<p>“My mother and I do not receive——” she said with -some embarrassment.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux came across the room and stood on the -other side of the table.</p> - -<p>“You have not drawn the check which I sent to you -on Coutts’s,” he said abruptly.</p> - -<p>She answered merely “No.”</p> - -<p>“And why not?”</p> - -<p>“Because I do not choose to take that money.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux’s face grew red and very stern.</p> - -<p>“You insult me, Miss Massarene.”</p> - -<p>“I do not mean to do so,” said Katherine gently. “I -begged you not to send it to me. My father, I am certain, -never expected the duchess to repay it.”</p> - -<p>“That is very singular language. Do you mean that -your father was on terms with my sister which would -justify him in making her such gifts?”</p> - -<p>She was silent; that was her meaning but she could not -say so.</p> - -<p>“If you do think it, you must cease to think it,” said -Ronald. “If there were any man in your family——”</p> - -<p>Katherine looked him straight in the eyes.</p> - -<p>“Pray do not let the fact of my sex influence you. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_418">[418]</span> -dare say I have many male relatives, but they are, I believe, -navvies, and colliers, and laborers, and the like, who -would not be foemen worthy of your patrician steel.”</p> - -<p>She spoke with a certain cold and careless contempt -which brought the blood to his cheeks.</p> - -<p>“You have full right to condemn my sister, but not to -suppose what you do not know,” he said with some embarrassment. -“The debt was a matter of business, as a -matter of business I treat it, and refund the money to -you, who are the sole living representative of the dead -creditor.”</p> - -<p>“There are many debts due to him. I have cancelled -them all. They are all due from persons of your great -world. He thought their suffrages worth buying. I do not. -And I think the people who sell oranges and apples in -the streets are superior to those who sell their prestige, -their patronage, or their company.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux winced as he heard her, like a high-mettled -horse flicked with the whip.</p> - -<p>“I am wholly of your opinion,” he said coldly. “But -in this instance the debt is paid so far as a debt ever can -be; and you are bound to take the payment of it. You -are not bound to preserve silence on the matter, but if -you do so you will make me grateful.”</p> - -<p>“I have told you that you may be certain of my silence,” -she said, with some impatience. “That is elementary -honor which even I, low-born as I am, can understand!”</p> - -<p>“Honor does not require silence of you,” said Hurstmanceaux. -“But such silence will be a charity to us.”</p> - -<p>“Call it what you will,” she replied curtly, “you may -count on it.”</p> - -<p>“If you are a gentlewoman, madam,” he added, in his -coldest and most courteous manner, “you must also understand -that you render my position insupportable unless -you accept that money.”</p> - -<p>She did not immediately reply. She had not thought -of the matter from his point of view. She reflected a -little while, not looking at him, then she said, briefly:</p> - -<p>“Very well. It shall be as you wish.”</p> - -<p>“I thank you,” he said, with embarrassment; and after -a pause added, “I thank you exceedingly.” Then he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_419">[419]</span> -bowed distantly, and left her without any additional -words.</p> - -<p>She sat in the same place for many minutes looking out -over the grey sea which gleamed between the stems of the -pines. Then she rose and went to a dispatch-box, in -which she had placed all his sister’s letters to her father, -all proof of sums received by her, and all William Massarene’s -counterfoils of checks passed to her, and also the -worthless bills of Cocky.</p> - -<p>She put all these together in a large envelope, sealed it -carefully, and sent it registered to the Duchess of Otterbourne -at the post office of Bergen, where she knew that -the steam-yacht in which that lady had gone to Norway -was at anchor.</p> - -<p>She thus put it out of her own power for ever, and out -of the power of any who might come after her, to prove -the shame of Hurstmanceaux’s best-beloved sister. “He -will never be dishonored through us,” she thought.</p> - -<p>The voice of her mother startled her and jarred on her.</p> - -<p>“That’s a handsome man as is gone out just now,” said -Mrs. Massarene. “’Tis the duchess’s brother, ain’t it?”</p> - -<p>Katherine assented.</p> - -<p>“He’s his sister’s good looks,” said Mrs. Massarene. -“But he never would know poor William. May one ask -what he come about, my dear?”</p> - -<p>“Only some business of his sister’s,” replied her daughter.</p> - -<p>“He was always mighty high,” said Mrs. Massarene. -“I hope you’re stand off too. Let him feel as you’re your -father’s daughter.”</p> - -<p>Katherine shuddered in the warm, pine-scented, sea-impregnated -air.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Massarene, since the tyranny under which she had -been repressed so long had been removed from her, was a -more self-asserting and self-satisfied person. Her deep -crape garments lent her in her own eyes majesty and importance, -despite the slur which the will had cast upon -her. She was William’s widow, a position which seemed -to her second to none in distinction. Death did for her -lost spouse in her eyes what it often does for the dead with -tender-hearted survivors; it made his cruelties dim and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_420">[420]</span> -distant, it made his memory something which his life certainly -had never been. That burial by peers and princes -had been as a cloud of incense which was for ever rising -about his manes. Royalty would not have sent even its -youngest and smallest officer of the Household to represent -it at any funeral which had not been the wake of all -the virtues. Those towering heaps of wreaths had been -in her view as a cairn burying out of sight all her husband’s -misdeeds and brutalities.</p> - -<p>As ill-luck would have it, Daddy Gwyllian, who was -staying at Cowes, crossed over to Bournemouth that -morning to see an invalid friend. He was sauntering -along in his light grey clothes, his straw hat, and his -yachting shoes, when as he passed the garden gateway of -the villa which Mrs. Massarene had hired, he encountered -Ronald coming out of it.</p> - -<p>“Ah! dear boy,” he cried, in his pleasantest manner. -“Making it up with the heiress, eh? Quite right. Quite -right. Pity you’ve been so stiff-necked about it all these -years.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux was extremely annoyed at this undesirable -meeting. But he had nothing that he could say -which would not have made matters worse.</p> - -<p>“Where did you spring from, Daddy?” he said impatiently. -“You are always appearing like a Jack in a -box.”</p> - -<p>“I make it a rule to be where my richest and laziest -fellow-creatures most congregate,” replied Daddy. “And -that in the month of August is the Solent. But come, -Ronnie, let out a bit; you know I’m a very old friend. -What are you doing down here if you’re not paying court -to Miss Massarene?”</p> - -<p>“I am certainly not paying court to Miss Massarene,” -replied Hurstmanceaux, very distantly. “I was obliged -to see her on business.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! Business is a very good antechamber to marriage,” -said Daddy, with a chuckle.</p> - -<p>“It may be. I remain in the antechamber.”</p> - -<p>“Tut, tut! Of course you say so. You are really becoming -like other people, Ronnie. I see you have sold -your pictures!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_421">[421]</span>“Is that anyone’s affair but mine?”</p> - -<p>“Well, yes, I think so. A sale is everybody’s affair. -There’s nothing sacred about it. I always told you they -were wasted at Faldon. Nobody saw ’em but spiders and -mice.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux was silent.</p> - -<p>“What an uncommunicative beggar he is,” thought -Daddy. “When one thinks that I’ve known him ever -since he was in knickerbockers with his hair down to his -waist!”</p> - -<p>“Is it true that Roxhall buys back Vale Royal?” he -asked.</p> - -<p>“Ask Roxhall,” said Hurstmanceaux, “and I fear I -must leave you now and walk on faster to the station.”</p> - -<p>But Gwyllian held him by the lappet of his coat.</p> - -<p>“They do say,” he whispered, “that she’s almost given -it to him. You must know. Now do be frank, Ronnie.”</p> - -<p>“Frankness does not necessitate the discussion of other -people’s affairs. Ask Roxhall’s wife; she is at Cowes; -or go in and ask Miss Massarene; you know her.”</p> - -<p>He disengaged himself with some difficulty from the -clinging hold of Gwyllian’s white wrinkled fingers, and -went onward to the station to go to Southampton, where -his yawl was awaiting him. Daddy looked at the gate of -the villa. Should he ring? No, he thought not. She -was an unpleasant woman to tackle, hedgehoggy and impenetrable; -she would be capable of saying to him, as -Hurstmanceaux had done, that Roxhall’s affairs were no -business of his. She was one of those unnatural and -offensive persons who, having no curiosity themselves, regard -curiosity in others without sympathy, and even with -disapproval. Daddy, feeling ill-used and aggrieved, -turned down a lane bordered by rhododendrons and -eucalyptus, and went to lunch with his sick friend, to -whom he imparted <i>sotto voce</i> the fact that he thought -Ronald would come round and marry Miss Massarene.</p> - -<p>“He’s always been such a crank,” added Daddy. “But -he’s begun to sell. That looks like coming to his senses—doing -like other people.”</p> - -<p>“It is certainly doing like many other people,” said his -sick friend with a sad smile, for he had seen his own collections<span class="pagenum" id="Page_422">[422]</span> -go to the hammer. When Gwyllian, a few hours -later, went comfortably back over the water in a steam-launch -to East Cowes, he reflected as he glided along on -what he had heard. Being a sagacious person, he connected -the sale of the Faldon pictures with the visit to -Katherine Massarene. “He’s either paying some debt of -his sister’s or he’s helping Roxhall to buy back the place. -He’s such a confounded fool, he’d give his head away; -and I dare say the young woman is sharp about money; -wouldn’t be her father’s daughter if she wasn’t.” So he -came very nearly to the truth in his own mind as he sat -in the launch, whilst it wound in and out among the craft -in the roads.</p> - -<p>It was no business of his, but Daddy Gwyllian had -always found that guessing what hands other people held -was the most amusing way of playing the rubber of life; -at least, when you are old, and only a looker-on at the -tables.</p> - -<p>“They do say she’s almost given it to him.” The words -rang in Ronald’s ears as he went on board his old yawl, -the <i>Dianthus</i>, and crossed to the island. Roxhall had not -spoken to him of the matter; he only knew what was, by -that time, table-talk, that Vale Royal was to return to its -original owner so soon as the law permitted Katherine -Massarene to dispose of any portion of her inheritance. -Meantime, the house was closed. Roxhall had not sought -him on the subject, and he felt that if they discussed it, -they would probably quarrel, their views would be so -different. It was very bitter to him that any member of -his family should again be indebted to the Massarene fortune. -It seemed as if the very stars in their courses -fought against his will. Why had not Roxhall simply replied -to her overtures, as he himself would have replied, -that the sale of the estates, once having been made, could -not be annulled?</p> - -<p>As it was, all the world was talking of her generosity. -It was intolerable! She had meant well, no doubt, but -Roxhall should have taught her, as he had taught her, -that men who respect themselves cannot receive that kind -of favors.</p> - -<p>“Why did you let him accept the return of the property,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_423">[423]</span> -Elsie?” he said to Lady Roxhall, whom he saw on -the club terrace at Cowes as soon as he landed there.</p> - -<p>Lady Roxhall colored a little.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps we ought not to have done so. But, oh, my -dear Ronald, I shall be so rejoiced to go back! It was -very good of Miss Massarene to offer its release,” she -added, “so rude as we have all of us been to her.”</p> - -<p>“You cannot be rude any more,” said Hurstmanceaux. -“You have sold your freedom of choice for a mess of pottage. -You have accepted this lady’s favors. You must -embrace her in return if she exacts it.”</p> - -<p>“How irritable Ronald has grown,” thought Lady -Roxhall. “He used to be so kind and sweet-tempered. -I suppose it is his having to sell his pictures that sours -him. I wonder why he did sell them?”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux, before he went on board to sleep that -night, wrote a letter at the R. Y. S. Club, which it cost -him a great effort to write.</p> - -<p>“But it’s not fair for all the generosity to be on her -side,” he thought. “We must look like a set of savages -to her. We have not even the common decency to thank -her.”</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Madam</span>,—</p> - -<p>“<i>Circumstances, on which it is needless for me to -dwell, make it impossible for me to have the honor of any intercourse -with you in the future. But do not think that I -am, for that reason, insensible to the nobility, generosity, and -kindness which you have displayed in your dealings with -more than one member of my family, and the forbearance -you have shown to one wholly unworthy of it. For the silence -you have kept in the past, and have offered to preserve -in the future, I pray you to accept my sincere gratitude. I -beg to remain, Madam</i>,</p> - -<p class="right"><span class="indentright">“<i>Your obedient servant</i>,</span><br> - -“<span class="smcap">Hurstmanceaux</span>.”</p> -</div> - -<p>This letter brought tears to the eyes of the woman to -whom it was addressed, although she was but very rarely -moved to such emotion. “Why should we be strangers,” -she thought, “because of the sins or the crimes of others?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_424">[424]</span>She drew the check which he had sent her on his -bankers, but she gave, at the same time, a commission to -a famous art agent in Paris to buy back the Dutch and -Flemish pictures of the Faldon Collection from the dealers -who had purchased them, and on no account to let her -name appear in connection with the purchase.</p> - -<p>Why should an honest and gallant gentleman lose heirlooms -because his sister had been as venal as any courtezan -of ancient Rome or modern Paris? How she would -be able ever to restore them to him she did not know; -meantime, she saved them from the hammer.</p> - -<p>She thought that she would leave them to him by will, -in case of her own death, with reversion to the National -Gallery if he refused to accept them, and to restore them -to their places at Faldon.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_425">[425]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">At</span> the head of a Norwegian fjord, where the tents of a -gay and aristocratic party of travellers had been pitched -on the green sward for a merry month or two of fishing -and shooting and canoeing, the postbags were brought up -the valley on the back of a stout mountain pony one fine -cold day at the end of the sporting season. Sir Henry -Bassenthwaite, leader and host of the expedition, was a -newly-made baronet, a very rich brewer, one of those persons -who bear with them a trail of electric light and a -cloud of gold dust as they rush through unsophisticated -lands which they annoy by their impertinence, and console -by their expenditure.</p> - -<p>Sir Henry took the letter-bags, untied them, unsealed -them, and distributed their contents to his party.</p> - -<p>“A round dozen for you, Duchess!” he cried gaily, as -he held them above his head.</p> - -<p>The Duchess of Otterbourne, who was seated on the -turf leaning against a boulder, grey with lichens, amongst -the cloud-berry with her rod and kreel beside her, and -a little court of men round her, received her letters with -that quickening of the pulse under apprehension which -was frequent with her since she had been taught to tremble -by William Massarene. The dread of a posthumous -retaliation was always upon her: she never now saw a -closed envelope without an inward shiver of apprehension.</p> - -<p>Instinctively she rose and walked to a little distance -with her back to her companions, and stood still on the -edge of the foaming, crystal-clear, noisy river into which -a little while before she had been throwing her line.</p> - -<p>She broke the seals with unsteady fingers. She hastily -scanned assurances from Whiteleaf that the children were -well. Then she took up the rest of the correspondence, -and her heart stood still as she saw a large packet sealed -with six large black seals and addressed to her in a handwriting -which she knew at a glance to be Katherine Massarene’s.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_426">[426]</span> -There must be some message from the dead at -last!</p> - -<p>Out of the linen-lined envelope there fell many letters -in her own writing, and the counterfoils of many checks -made out to her own name and signed “W. M.,” and many -others marked, “Drawn self, passed to Lady K.”; there -were also bills signed by Cocky. Then she understood.</p> - -<p>The daughter of William Massarene knew all, or at least -knew much, and must guess what she did not know. She -turned cold with fear; the whirling water made her giddy; -she gasped for breath and clutched the stem of a young -rowan-tree.</p> - -<p>She, who had but scanty belief in generosity, wondered -how many signatures of hers might not have been kept -back by the sender?</p> - -<p>Of all these things of the past she had, herself, but the -most confused recollection. In the early time, when Billy -had been as Pactolus to her insatiable thirst, she had -never kept any account of all she drew from him directly -or indirectly.</p> - -<p>But whether all which compromised her were restored -or not, the main fact remained the same: his daughter -must <i>know</i>.</p> - -<p>And the signatures concerning the diamonds—where -were they? Katherine Massarene might or might not -have restored all the rest; but she had not sent her those.</p> - -<p>Where were they? Those which mattered most of all? -It was mere mockery of her fears to send her back all -these others and withhold from her the proofs of the transaction -with Beaumont.</p> - -<p>It was cruelty, odious, tantalizing, cat-like cruelty, playing -with her only to humiliate and degrade her more!</p> - -<p>“I always tried to be pleasant with her, and she never -would respond,” she thought, with that sense of never being -the least in fault herself, which so happily consoled -and sustained her at all times.</p> - -<p>She heard steps approaching and she tore with frantic -haste in little bits all her own letters and receipts and -Massarene’s counterfoils, and flung them with the black-sealed -envelope into the boiling stream, which eddying -amongst its rocks swallowed them under spray and foam.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_427">[427]</span> -The trout leaped up alarmed from the upper water, the -field-fares and redwings flew up frightened from the cloud-berry -bushes. The camp-ponies tethered near whinnied -nervously.</p> - -<p>“What a destruction of correspondence!” said the -voice of Sir Henry. “What have the writers done to -you, Duchess?”</p> - -<p>With that marvellous power of self-command which the -habit of the world teaches, she turned to him and laughed -a little.</p> - -<p>“All advertisements!—and six sheets from Fraulein -Heyse about the children. Such a disappointment, the -envelope looked so imposing.”</p> - -<p>“For a clever liar at a pinch commend me to Cocky’s -widow,” he thought.</p> - -<p>When, a few days later, the whole party, warned by a -snowstorm, rode down the mountains and through the -meadows to Bergen to rejoin Sir Henry’s schooner, which -was in harbor there, she, who was the gayest and noisiest -amongst them, thought of nothing but of those two missing -signatures.</p> - -<p>To have had the others returned was useless whilst -these two were out of her hands and in the power of someone -unknown. She felt anxious to get to England, though -what to do when she should be there in this matter she -could not tell: tell the truth for once, perhaps—that last -refuge of the desperate—in an appeal to Katherine Massarene’s -mercy.</p> - -<p>When she went on board the Bassenthwaite boat—a -fine vessel which had gone all round the world—Sir Henry -met her cheerfully; he had preceded the party by two -hours.</p> - -<p>“Here’s a pleasant surprise, Duchess,” he cried. “Your -brother’s yacht’s in the roads; she was signalled this -morning.”</p> - -<p>“The <i>Dianthus</i>?” she asked, startled and dismayed.</p> - -<p>“The <i>Dianthus</i>—yes,” he replied. “You will have some -message, no doubt, soon. It is a surprise, eh?”</p> - -<p>“A very great surprise,” she answered. “I thought -Hurstmanceaux was in the Irish Channel.”</p> - -<p>Bassenthwaite was astonished at her evident vexation.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_428">[428]</span> -Under the plea of fatigue she went to her cabin. She was -alarmed beyond expression. That intuition which does -duty for wisdom in many women told her that her brother -had the missing signatures—that it was on their account -that he had come into the North seas.</p> - -<p>William Massarene was dead: would the ghost from -his grave never cease from pursuing her? She felt chilly -and ill-used.</p> - -<p>It was dinner-time: she was obliged to laugh and talk -and look her best; the German Emperor’s yacht was in -the harbor; there were fireworks, illumination of the -shipping, bands played; the Bassenthwaite schooner was -a blaze of light and fire; there was dancing on deck; the -Kaiser came on board and was very pleasant.</p> - -<p>She had to appear to enjoy it all, while her heart grew -sick as she gazed past the lights outward to the darkness -of the offing to where they said that the <i>Dianthus</i> was -riding at anchor.</p> - -<p>Early next morning they announced to her that a message -had come for her: one of her brother’s men had -brought a note. It was extremely brief, and requested -her to come to him by the boat he sent.</p> - -<p>She wrote in answer: “The Bassenthwaites hope you -will come and lunch. We weigh anchor at three o’clock. -I cannot come to you.”</p> - -<p>When Hurstmanceaux received this answer by his -sailor’s hands, he was pacing his deck in great anger to -see his boat returning without her.</p> - -<p>He did not know the Bassenthwaites; he did not wish -to know them; and at this moment of all others he could -not have endured to meet her before strangers.</p> - -<p>He wrote again: “I desire you to come in my boat. I -am here only to see you. I have your signature and -Beaumont’s”—and sent his sailors back to Bassenthwaite’s -schooner.</p> - -<p>It was no more than she had expected, but she felt as if -all the ice of the Pole were drifting down and closing on -her when she saw his men returning. She dare not disobey -the summons. She went in the boat from the <i>Dianthus</i>.</p> - -<p>“I wonder what she’ll hear when she gets there,” said -Bassenthwaite to his wife.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_429">[429]</span>“Nothing pleasant, I suspect. He is an odious man,” -said his wife. “He thinks the Courcys of Faldon were -made before Adam.”</p> - -<p>The despatch of the letters and receipts from Katherine -Massarene had, in a measure, prepared her for worse to -come. She had not for a moment attributed the sending -of them to a movement of generosity. She had supposed -that “Billy’s daughter” took that form of vengeance as -the simplest and the easiest, and she did not hope for an -instant that the secrets contained in that packet would be -respected. Therefore she was the less surprised, though -the more alarmed, when the curt command of Hurstmanceaux -was brought to her.</p> - -<p>She immediately concluded that Katherine Massarene -had been his informant against her.</p> - -<p>She was not an instant alone after his message came to -reflect on what course she should pursue, and could only -trust to her usual good fortune to bear her through this -crisis, as it had borne her through many another. But as -the boat threaded its course through the craft in the roads, -she felt a sharper terror than she had ever known, even in -the presence of William Massarene, as she saw across the -water the well-known lines of the old yawl.</p> - -<p>When she reached the yacht at the entrance of the -roads, she found, to her surprise, that Hurstmanceaux -was not on deck to receive her.</p> - -<p>“Is my brother unwell?” she asked of his skipper.</p> - -<p>“No, madam,” answered the old man. “I was to ask -your Grace to be so good as to go below.”</p> - -<p>She went down the companionway. Hurstmanceaux -rose in silence, and closed the door on her of his cabin -when she had entered. He had felt it impossible to force -himself to meet her before his crew.</p> - -<p>She endeavored to laugh.</p> - -<p>“How very tragic you are!” she said, mastering the -great fear which froze her blood; “and how extremely -rude!”</p> - -<p>“I have your signatures,” he said, as he stood before her -in the plain little cabin of which the only ornaments were -two large photographs of Faldon and a sketch by Watts -of his mother.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_430">[430]</span>“I suppose, if you have them, you have thrown away a -great deal of good money in getting them; and you -might have spent it better,” she replied with airy nonchalance.</p> - -<p>He was so astounded at her levity, indifference, and insolence, -that for some moments he was mute.</p> - -<p>“I don’t like being ordered about like this,” she continued. -“It looks very odd to the Bassenthwaites. Why -didn’t you come to luncheon? You could have talked -to me afterwards on deck. When did you see the children?”</p> - -<p>A great oath broke from his lips.</p> - -<p>“Have you no decency? No conscience? Do you not -understand? Amongst his papers a letter of Massarene’s -was found to me; it contained your signature to him for -twelve thousand pounds plus interest, and another signature -to Beaumont, the jeweler with whom you placed the -Otterbourne jewels in pawn.”</p> - -<p>His words said all: he expected to see her overwhelmed -by shame. But she preserved her equanimity.</p> - -<p>“You might have sent them to me without coming out -to Bergen,” she said with impatience. She spoke with her -usual tone, a little more impertinently than usual; but -her lips were very pale.</p> - -<p>“What did Billy tell you?” she added between her -teeth. She felt sick with fear.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Massarene told me nothing. Beaumont, whom I -saw subsequently, told me everything.”</p> - -<p>She breathed more freely. Billy might have done worse -than he had done. Beaumont of course knew nothing, -except the fact of this debt and its payment. She sat -down in a low reclining chair and leaned back in it, and -put her coat with its big gold buttons and wild-rose perfume -on the cabin table.</p> - -<p>“Did you come out here only to say this?” she asked -in a very bored tone; she wondered why she had so terrified -and tortured herself: whatever Ronald knew he -would not say to others.</p> - -<p>Her attitude, her tone, her surpassing insolence and -coolness broke the bonds of his patience, the storm of his -wrath and of his scorn burst; he spoke as had never<span class="pagenum" id="Page_431">[431]</span> -thought to speak to any woman. All the pain and humiliation -he had suffered through her, of which he had been -able to say no word to any living soul, found outlet in a -flood of furious reproach.</p> - -<p>She listened, indifferent, taking a cigarette off the cabin -table and lighting it from a fusee box which she carried in -the breast-pocket of her serge jacket. The whole thing -was odious to her in its recollection; but it was past and -Massarene was in his grave, and had taken her secrets -with him except as regarded her debts. Ronald might -rave as he would; he would not kill her, and he would -not expose her to other people. It was a wretched scene -to have to go through, but after all scenes only take it -out of one. One doesn’t die of them. So she sat still, -swaying gently to and fro, and smoking, while the bitter -shame and suffering, which her brother expressed, rolled -like a tempest over her head and left her unmoved, unrepentant.</p> - -<p>“To think that you come of my blood—that you had -my name!” he said with hot tears scorching his eyes. -“To think that you were once a little innocent child whom -I carried about in my arms at Faldon! You are a mass -of lies, a tissue of infamy; your very breath is falsehood. -You have not even such common shame and honesty as -we may find in the poorest women of the streets. Poor -Otterbourne said once to me that your influence was a -moral phylloxera. How true, good God! how true! They -tear up and burn the tainted vines. We ought to slay -such women as you!”</p> - -<p>She laughed a little, but her eyes flashed fire.</p> - -<p>“A moral phylloxera! I never knew poor Poodle say -anything so clever. How long is this scene to last? I -really see no good in it. It seems to relieve your feelings, -but it offends my taste. You appear to forget that -though you are my children’s guardian you are not mine.”</p> - -<p>“I am the head of your family and your trustee.”</p> - -<p>“I know; and you can annoy me in any way about -money, as you always have done; but there your power -ends. I should not have been obliged to have recourse to -others if you had showed more feeling for my position. -But you never showed me any sympathy. I saw in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_432">[432]</span> -English papers that you had sold the <i>petits maîtres</i>. -Why did you not sell them before, and give the proceeds -to me?”</p> - -<p>He looked at her in silence.</p> - -<p>“It was the same thing with the jewels,” she continued. -“You could have induced the others to leave them -with me until Jack’s majority. But instead of that you -talked high-flown stuff about the law and your duties, -and you cared nothing at all what injury and difficulty -you caused to me.”</p> - -<p>He was still silent; she took another cigarette, lighted -it, and again continued:</p> - -<p>“You blame me for what I did. I did what I could. -When the hare runs for her life she doesn’t look where she -goes. The diamonds are none the worse for being with -Beaumont. They were quite safe with him. If my husband -had lived, nobody would have known anything about -the transaction. His death, immediately on his succession, -was disastrous in every way.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean that your husband was aware of this -loan?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, certainly,” she said a moment later, without hesitation, -for Cocky could not contradict her. “It was his -idea first of all.”</p> - -<p>“It could not have been his idea to borrow of Mr. -Massarene, for that transaction took place two months and -a half after his death at Staghurst.”</p> - -<p>“He would have thought it a very good idea if he had -been alive!” she said with her short, satirical little laugh: -she was afraid of little now, for she saw that her brother -knew nothing beyond the mere fact of the loan. “As for -the reproduction of the jewels in paste, which you seem -to think a crime, several women I know wear imitations -of their jewels for safety in these days of ingenious thefts, -and leave the originals in deposit at their bankers.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux looked at her in silence, wondering why -a creature so fair should be born without a conscience. -Was she really without one, or was this indifference only -a part of the attitude she assumed? Was there something -still worse which he did not know?</p> - -<p>He felt that despair which overcomes a brave man before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_433">[433]</span> -the shamelessness of a woman. What could he do? -He could not kill her. He could not disgrace her. To -awaken any conscience in her was hopeless. If she did -feel any humiliation she would not show it. For a moment -a red mist swam before his eyes and a nervous tremor -passed along his muscles; he longed to stamp the life out -of her and bruise her accursed beauty into nothingness -as a man of Shoreditch, or Montmartre, or the Calle of -Venice might have done under such provocation as was -his. The moment passed, of course. He could only -realize his own powerlessness. There is nothing on earth -so powerless as the impotence of a man of honor before -the vileness of a woman who is dear to him.</p> - -<p>He moved a step nearer to her and gazed down on her -with a look which made her lower her sunny audacious -eyes.</p> - -<p>“You had more money than this from Massarene?”</p> - -<p>Regaining her courage, and remembering that Katherine -Massarene had probably sent her all her other signatures, -she rose and faced him, throwing her fresh cigarette -on the table.</p> - -<p>“I do not admit that you have the smallest right to -interrogate me. There is no one living who has. Marry -his daughter, and you and she can look over his old -check-books together. You are my children’s keeper, -but you are not mine, and I entirely refuse to answer -your insults.”</p> - -<p>It was clear, she reflected, that Massarene had told him -nothing except the facts concerning the diamonds. He -might flounder about in a sea of conjecture, and make -himself as wretched as ever he pleased; she was not so -simple as to confess to him.</p> - -<p>He stood above her, and his hands fell heavily on her -shoulders and held her as in a vice.</p> - -<p>“You had more money than this from Massarene?”</p> - -<p>She was silent.</p> - -<p>He still held her motionless, and a thrill of intense -physical fear passed through her.</p> - -<p>“You gave yourself to that brute for lucre?”</p> - -<p>She was silent.</p> - -<p>“If I wrong you, look me in the face and say so.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_434">[434]</span>He waited; still holding her motionless.</p> - -<p>She tried to lift her eyes and look at him; she had -never before quailed before any duplicity, never before -been unequal to the demands which any necessity for -falsehood put upon her. But now, for once, she dared -not meet the eyes of this man whose lifelong affection -she had abused, and whose family she had dishonored. -For once she could not lie; for once her defiant audacity -failed her; for once, for a brief passing moment, she saw -herself as he would see her could he know all. Standing -before him, in his grasp, her head drooped, her whole form -trembled, her eyelids closed; she dared not meet his gaze.</p> - -<p>He understood.</p> - -<p>He released and thrust her from him.</p> - -<p>“Would to God our mother had never borne you!”</p> - -<p>He grew pale as ashes; for the moment he had difficulty -to restrain himself from striking to the ground this -woman who had dishonored his race.</p> - -<p>She took her coat off the table and turned away.</p> - -<p>“Take me to the boat,” she said imperiously. “I -scarcely suppose you want your crew to see that we have -quarrelled?”</p> - -<p>He opened the door of the cabin. “Be so good as to -accompany the duchess, Mr. Evans,” he said to his skipper; -and he went back into the cabin and closed and -bolted the door.</p> - -<p>The faint, sweet scent of wild-rose essence was on the -air and on the table where her coat had been lying. -He dropped into the chair where she had sat, and, leaning -his head on his hands, sobbed like a child.</p> - -<p>She went back over the harbor-water talking pleasantly -with Evans. “My brother grows such a hermit,” -she said to him. “It is a great pity that he avoids -society. He is becoming quite morose.”</p> - -<p>“Morose? No, your Grace,” said the old man, who -adored his owner. “But it is certain his lordship leads a -lonesome life. When we’re in any port, he don’t go -ashore o’ nights to sup and play and lark as other gentlemen -do. But there aren’t his equal for goodness and -kindness, madam, anywhere; no, not in the ’varsal -world.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_435">[435]</span>“It is very nice of you to say so,” she replied, buttoning -the big gold buttons of her coat; her spirits had -risen; she was not afraid of her brother any longer; he -had said his worst and she had made him feel his impotence. -After all it did not really matter what he knew -or guessed, he would not talk.</p> - -<p>“My poor darling, has he worried you?” said Lady -Bassenthwaite, full of sympathy, when she returned.</p> - -<p>“Worried me? I should think so!” she answered. -“He insists on my shutting myself up at Whiteleaf, and -says Boo is to have no more Paris frocks. Pray give me -some tea, I am worn out with being lectured!”</p> - -<p>Lady Bassenthwaite’s sympathy did not include credulity.</p> - -<p>“He can’t have come out all the way from Cowes to -Bergen only to talk about Boo’s frocks,” she said later in -the evening to her husband.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_436">[436]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXVI.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Katherine Massarene</span> was as unhappy as it is possible -for a person to be who has no personal crime on their -conscience, and has all their personal wants supplied. She -was incessantly haunted by the sense of her father’s -wickedness. True he had never gone to windward of the -law; he had never done anything which would have enabled -the law to call him to account. But his actions -seemed to her all the worse because of that cold-blooded -caution which had kept him carefully justified legally in -all which he did. His own advancement had always been -his governing purpose; and he had been too shrewd to -imperil this by any excess in overreaching others, such as -might have made him liable to law. He had dealt with -men so that they were always legally in the wrong: for -moral right he cared nothing. To his heiress all his -wealth seemed blood-stained and accursed. She seemed -to herself blood-stained in keeping or using it. Some -part might possibly have been gained by industry, frugality, -and self-denial; but the main portion of it had been -built up on the ruin of others. In any case she would -have felt thus, but the words of Hurstmanceaux had been -like electric light shed on a dark place where murdered -bodies lie. His scorn cut her to the heart. She did not -resent it; she admired it; but it cut her to the quick.</p> - -<p>This was how all men of honor and honesty must -regard the career of William Massarene; if the world in -general had not done so it was only because the world -is corrupt and venal itself and always open to purchase; -the world it may roughly be said does not quarrel with -its bread and butter. But what Hurstmanceaux felt was, -she knew, that which every person of high principle -would feel with regard to the vast ill-gotten wealth which -she had inherited. She did not even quarrel with the -patrician temper which had insulted herself; it was so -much better and worthier than the general disposition of -the times to condone anything to wealth.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_437">[437]</span>She suffered under it, but she did not resent it. Individually, -to herself, it was unjust; but she could not -expect him to know that or to believe in it.</p> - -<p>It did not help her on her difficult road; but it made -her see only one issue to it.</p> - -<p>This she saw clearly.</p> - -<p>She walked slowly one day through the wood which -was a portion of the little property; between the pine -stems the grey water of the Channel was seen, dreamy, -misty, and dull in a sunless day. Some colliers and a -fishing-lugger with dingy canvas were drifting slowly -through the windless air, under the low clouds. Her -thoughts were not with the landscape, and she paced absently -the path, strewn with fir-needles, which led to the -cliff. She was roused by a little dog bustling gaily -through the underwood and jumping upon her in recognition, -whilst her own dog, whom she called Argus, immediately -investigated the stranger’s credentials. A moment -or two later pleasant cherry tones, which she had -last heard on the deck of the steamer leaving Indian -shores, reached her ear. “Hello, Miss Massarene! -Whisky knows old friends. How are you, my dear? I -was coming up to your house.”</p> - -<p>She turned and saw Lord Framlingham, with great -pleasure: she had heard that he was in England for a few -weeks, but had scarcely hoped to meet him unless she -went up to town for the purpose.</p> - -<p>“Did you really come down here only to see me? That -is very good of you,” she said gratefully.</p> - -<p>“The goodness is to myself. Besides, I could not show -my face to my girls if I went back without having a chat -with you. No thanks. I have lunched. If you are going -for a walk, Whisky and I will go with you.</p> - -<p>“Is this big rough fellow yours?” he added, looking at -Argus. “I dare say he’s very devoted, but I can’t say -much for his breeding.”</p> - -<p>Katherine laughed slightly. “How like an Englishman! -Why are ‘humans’ the only animals in whom you -do not exact breeding?”</p> - -<p>They went on through the woods talking of his family, -who had remained in India, and of the political matters<span class="pagenum" id="Page_438">[438]</span> -which had brought him home for a personal conference -with the Home Government. When they came out on -to the head of the cliff they sat down in sight of the sea.</p> - -<p>“How homelike it all looks! That brown lugger, -those leaden clouds, that rainy distance.”</p> - -<p>He was silent a minute or two, touched to the vague -sadness of the exile. Then he turned to her.</p> - -<p>“Now tell me of yourself; I have thought much of -you since your father’s death. It was a frightful end.”</p> - -<p>“It was.”</p> - -<p>“Do you remember our long talk under the magnolias? -How little we thought then that his ambitions would so -soon be over! You don’t look well. It must have been -a great shock.”</p> - -<p>She gave a gesture of assent.</p> - -<p>“And you are sole mistress of everything?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“That is an immense burden.”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“You must get someone to bear it with you. Pardon -me, but I am as interested in your future as if you were -one of my daughters. I saw something in a society paper -about you this morning. I devoutly hope it is true.”</p> - -<p>“What was it?”</p> - -<p>“That you were about to marry Lord Hurstmanceaux.”</p> - -<p>“What!”</p> - -<p>She rose from her seat as if a snake had bitten her, her -colorless skin grew red as a rose, her eyes blazed with an -indignation for which her companion was puzzled to account. -“Whoever dare—whoever dare——” she said -breathlessly.</p> - -<p>Framlingham was astonished. “Come, come, my dear; -there’s nothing in the report to put your back up like -that. I don’t know him personally, but I have always -heard that he is a very fine fellow—poor—but that -wouldn’t matter to you; on my word, I don’t think you -could possibly do better. You might get much higher -rank, of course, but then you don’t care about rank. -Pray be seated and calm yourself.”</p> - -<p>“How could such a falsehood possibly be put in -print?” she said nervously.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_439">[439]</span>“You might be more astonished if you saw a truth in -print,” said Framlingham with a chuckle. “So it’s no -foundation, eh? Do you know him?”</p> - -<p>“Slightly. He called on me on business a few weeks -since. But he is the very last person on earth of whom -a statement of that kind could ever possibly be true.”</p> - -<p>“Humph!” said Framlingham, and he threw a dead -stick for Whisky to fetch.</p> - -<p>“His sister played fast and loose with your father’s -money, didn’t she?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“I would prefer not to speak of her.”</p> - -<p>“All right,” said Framlingham rather disappointed. -“But because you don’t like the sister that is no reason -to refuse the brother. I have always heard that she is a -thorn in his side.”</p> - -<p>“There could be no question of refusal or acceptance,” -said Katherine, exceedingly annoyed. “Lord Hurstmanceaux -and I scarcely know each other; and there is no -one who more thoroughly despises myself and my origin -than he does.”</p> - -<p>Framlingham was very astonished, and sent Whisky -after another stick.</p> - -<p>“He can scarcely have told you so?” he said. “Hie—good -dog—bring it!”</p> - -<p>“He has told me so in most unmistakable terms. Pray -don’t think that I blame him for a moment; but you will -understand that, knowing this, such a report as you speak -of in the papers is incomprehensible to me and most -odious.”</p> - -<p>“Necessarily,” said Framlingham, as he looked at her -with his keen sagacious grey eyes and thought to himself, -“It is well to begin with a little aversion. He may be -odious to her, but I doubt if he is indifferent.”</p> - -<p>Katherine was silent; the momentary color had faded -out of her face; her gaze followed the grimy canvas of -the collier as it sailed slowly to westward.</p> - -<p>“Well, I’m sorry,” said her friend, as he patted his -skye-terrier. “He’s a good man, and I should like to -know you were in the hands of a good man, my dear. -You will have all the royal and noble blackguards in -Europe after you, and you have nobody I think to advise<span class="pagenum" id="Page_440">[440]</span> -you, except your lawyers, who are all very well in their -way, but——”</p> - -<p>Katherine smiled a little, rather scornfully.</p> - -<p>“The royal and noble people cannot marry me by force, -and I should suppose they will understand a plain ‘No’ -if they don’t often hear one. Besides, if I do what I -meditate I shall soon lose all attraction for them.”</p> - -<p>“Good Lord, what’s that? You alarm me. I remember -you expressed very revolutionary ideas in India.”</p> - -<p>“I will tell you after dinner. You will dine with us, -won’t you, and stay a day or two?”</p> - -<p>“I will dine with pleasure, and sleep the night. But I -must be back in town by the first morning train. I have -to go down to Windsor at noon. What on earth can you -be thinking of doing? Buying a kingdom in the South -Seas, or finishing the Panama?”</p> - -<p>“Something that you will perhaps think quite as eccentric. -Let us talk of other things. The day is a real -English day to welcome you, so dim, so sad, so still; the -weather you sigh for in India.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Framlingham, falling in with her mood. -“One thinks of Lytton’s verses:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="indent2">“‘Wandering lonely, over seas,</div> -<div class="verse">At shut of day, in unfamiliar land,</div> -<div class="verse">What time the serious light is on the leas,</div> -<div class="verse">To me there comes a sighing after ease</div> -<div class="verse">Much wanted, and an aching wish to stand</div> -<div class="verse">Knee-deep in English grass, and have at hand</div> -<div class="verse">A little churchyard cool, with native trees</div> -<div class="verse">And grassy mounds, thick laced with osier-bands,</div> -<div class="verse">Wherein to rest at last, nor farther stray.</div> -<div class="verse">So, sad of heart, muse I at shut of day,</div> -<div class="verse">On safe and quiet England, till thought ails</div> -<div class="verse">With inward groanings deep for meadows grey,</div> -<div class="verse">Grey copses, cool with twilight, shady dales,</div> -<div class="verse">Home-gardens, full of rest, where never may</div> -<div class="verse">Come loud intrusion, and what chiefly fails</div> -<div class="verse">My sick desire, old friendships fled away.</div> -<div class="verse">I am much vexed with loss. Kind Memory, lay</div> -<div class="verse">My head upon thy lap and tell me tales.’</div> -</div></div> - -<p>“He was a very young man when he wrote these lines,” -said Framlingham, “and the only criticism I would offer, -is, that I should prefer ‘close’ of day to ‘shut’ of day. -What say you?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_441">[441]</span>After dinner that evening, when Mrs. Massarene had -retired to her room not to offend a governor, who was -spoken of as a future governor-general, by the sight of -her nodding and dozing, Katherine turned to her guest -and said briefly—</p> - -<p>“I will tell you now what my wishes are, and what my -one doubt is.”</p> - -<p>“I am all attention,” said Framlingham, lifting the -sleepy Whisky on to his knee.</p> - -<p>“I have found out,” she continued, “that the money -got together by my late father was nearly all gained in -bad ways, cruel ways, dishonest ways.”</p> - -<p>“That does not surprise me,” said Framlingham. “Most -self-made men are made by questionable means. Go on.”</p> - -<p>“If he had his deserts he would have been spurned by -everyone,” said Katherine, whose voice shook and was -very low. “I have reason to believe that the man who -killed him had been cheated by him out of a tin mine. -I traced that man. He was driven wild by want. His -blood is on us and on the money.”</p> - -<p>“I thought no one knew who killed Massarene?”</p> - -<p>“No one does know. I found letters. I traced their -writer. There would be no use in publicity. His case -was not worse than that of others. But he was miserable -and alone. He took his revenge. At least I believe so. -I have gone through all my father’s documents, and -ledgers, and records. His whole life was one course of -selfish, merciless, unprincipled gain. His earlier economies -were made out of the navvies, and miners, and -squatters who frequented a low gambling den which he -kept in what was then the small township of Kerosene. -All his money is accursed. It is all blood-money. I cannot -spend a sixpence of it without shame.”</p> - -<p>She spoke still in low tones and gently, but with intense -though restrained feeling.</p> - -<p>Framlingham scarcely knew what to say. He had no -doubt that she was perfectly right as to the sources of her -father’s wealth, and he was sorry that she had been able -to arrive at such knowledge.</p> - -<p>“These are your views,” he said as she paused. “Now -let me hear your projects.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_442">[442]</span>“They can be told in very few words,” she replied. “I -desire—I think I may say I intend to free myself of the -whole burden of the inheritance. Alas! I cannot undo -its curse.”</p> - -<p>“You mean to beggar yourself!” exclaimed her companion -in amaze and consternation.</p> - -<p>“If you call it so. I must leave my mother her yearly -income which is given her under the will; but I can do -as I please with all the rest, and I shall restore it as far -as possible to those from whom he gained it. Of course -few of his victims will be traceable; but some may be, so -at all events the money shall go back to the poor from -whom it was drained.”</p> - -<p>Framlingham stared at her in silent stupefaction.</p> - -<p>“You cannot be serious,” he said at last.</p> - -<p>“I am sorry you look at it in that way. I thought I -should have had your sympathy.”</p> - -<p>“My sympathy!”</p> - -<p>“Certainly. You are a man of honor.”</p> - -<p>Framlingham was silent.</p> - -<p>“Cannot you pity my dishonor?” she said in the same -hushed, grave tones.</p> - -<p>“My dear girl,” said her friend, “I pity acutely what -you feel, and I can imagine nothing more painful to a -sensitive nature than such a discovery as you have made. -But you may have exaggerated your censure and your -conclusions. The age we live in is lenient to such deeds -when they are successful. Your father was a rude man -dwelling in rough society. You must not judge him by -the standard of your own high ethics. As for what you -propose to do, it is simply madness.”</p> - -<p>“I am sorry you take that view.”</p> - -<p>“How can I take any other? What man or woman of -the world would take any other? You hold a magnificent -position. You have the means of leading a life of -extreme usefulness and beauty. You can marry and have -children to whom your property can pass. If it has been -defiled at its source, it will be purified in passing through -your hands. Foul water going through a porcelain filter -comes out clear. You are not responsible for what your -father did. His crimes, if he committed any, lie buried<span class="pagenum" id="Page_443">[443]</span> -with him. Neither God nor man can call you to account -for them.”</p> - -<p>“I call myself.”</p> - -<p>“This is midsummer madness in midwinter! If you -put your project into execution, you would be rooked, -robbed, ruined on every side, and you would raise a hornet’s -nest of swindlers around you. No one would be -grateful to you. All would turn you into ridicule and -environ you with intrigue. My dear, you have had -Aladdin’s lamp given to you. For Heaven’s sake use it -for your own happiness and that of others. Do not break -it because there is a flaw in the glass. There is your -mother also to be considered,” he added after a pause. -“What right have you to cause her such change of circumstance, -such possible mortification as your abandonment -of your inheritance would bring with it?”</p> - -<p>“In that perhaps you may be right,” said Katherine -wearily, “but in that only, and perhaps not even in that. -You speak with the view of the world, and wisely no -doubt. But I am sorry you see it so. I should have -hoped you would have understood me better.”</p> - -<p>He strove to turn her and to argue with her for more -than two hours, but he failed to bring home his own convictions -to her mind.</p> - -<p>“Marry, marry, marry!” he said. “It is the only cure -for distempered dreams.”</p> - -<p>“I shall not marry,” replied Katherine, “and I do not -dream. What I have said to you are facts. What I -mean to do is expiation.”</p> - -<p>Framlingham shook his head.</p> - -<p>“When a woman is once started on the road of self-sacrifice, -an eighty-horse power would not hold her back -from pursuing it. Good-night, my dear.”</p> - -<p>He went up the staircase to his own room, and when -there opened one of the windows and looked out; the -night was dark, but he could hear the swell of the sea, -and the homely smell of wet grass, of rotting leaves, of -falling rain, was agreeable to him because it was that of -the country of his birth.</p> - -<p>“What she wants to do is really very fine and very -honorable,” he thought. “It is midsummer madness, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_444">[444]</span> -most honorable sentiments are. It is a pity that one’s -worldly wisdom obliges one to throw cold water on such -a scheme.”</p> - -<p>The next morning, very early, he went back to town.</p> - -<p>He left an additional sense of depression and uncertainty -behind him in Katherine’s mind. He had not -altered her opinion, but he had increased her perplexities. -If this was how a sagacious and experienced man of the -world looked at her project, it was possible that there -were obstacles in the way of its accomplishment which -escaped her own sight. She had expected to have Framlingham’s -comprehension and concurrence, for in India he -had felt so much sympathy with her revolt against her -father’s wealth. The worldly wisdom which he esteemed -it his duty to preach chilled her with its egotism and its -coldness. There was only one person living who would -have understood her scruples and desires, and to that one -person she would certainly never speak again.</p> - -<p>There had been a wall between them before this mendacious -report of which Framlingham had spoken; since -that report there was an abyss. She felt that if she met -Hurstmanceaux on a public road, they would by tacit -mutual consent pass each other without visible recognition.</p> - -<p>Had her mother not been living, she would have had no -hesitation in going straight to the end she had in view. -But her mother constituted a duty of another and opposite -kind.</p> - -<p>The rights of his wife had been almost entirely ignored -by William Massarene; but her daughter could not ignore -them morally, if the law would have allowed her (as -it did) to do so legally. More than once she attempted to -approach the subject, and was arrested by her own natural -reserve, and by the slow comprehension to take a -hint of her mother.</p> - -<p>Moreover, the memory of William Massarene was quite -different to what his presence had been to the wife, whom -his last testament had insulted. With his coffin in the -Roxhall crypt, all his offences had been buried in her -eyes; a man to whose funeral princes had sent wreaths -and a silver stick could not in her sight be other than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_445">[445]</span> -assoilzied. Her heart was much warmer than her mind -was strong, and she was accessible to those charms of social -greatness to which her daughter was wholly invulnerable. -She had suffered in the great world, but she -had liked it.</p> - -<p>“Would you mind being poor again?” Katherine asked -her once, tentatively.</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene was unpleasantly startled.</p> - -<p>“There aren’t anything wrong about the money, is -there?” she said anxiously. “I’m always afraid, now -your dear father aren’t here, to hold it all together.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, it is all solid enough!” replied Katherine, with -some bitterness. “I merely asked you, would you dislike -being poor if you were so?”</p> - -<p>“Well, my dear,” replied Mrs. Massarene, crossing her -hands on her lap, “I can’t say as I should like it. When -I went over to Kilrathy I did wish as how I’d stayed -milkin’ all my days. But that’s neither here nor there, -and the past is spilled milk as nobody can lap up, not -even a cat. But, to be honest with ye, I think there’s a -good deal of pleasantness about money, and living well, -and being warm in winter and cool in summer, and seein’ -everybody hat in hand as ’twere. No, my dear, I -shouldn’t like to be poor; and you wouldn’t either, if -you’d ever known what ’twas.”</p> - -<p>Katherine was silent. She had not expected any other -answer, yet she was disappointed.</p> - -<p>“But,” she said, after a few moments—“but, my dear -mother, I think you know, I think you must know, that -this vast amount of money and possessions which we -inherit——”</p> - -<p>“Which you inherit,” said Mrs. Massarene with a little -asperity. “I’m struck out——”</p> - -<p>“You or I, it is the same thing,” said Katherine. “You -must know, I think, that—that—it was not very creditably -gained. You must, I suppose, have known many -things and many details of my father’s life in Kerosene; -of his early life, at any rate; of the foundations of his -wealth.”</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I did and perhaps I didn’t,” said her mother -rather sullenly. “Your good father never consulted me,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_446">[446]</span> -my dear, and if I’d put myself forward he’d have locked -me up in the coal cellar, and left me there.”</p> - -<p>“No doubt he never consulted you,” said Katherine. -“But it is impossible that living with him, and working -for him as you have often told me you did, you can have -been wholly ignorant of the beginning of his rise to -wealth. You must know very much of the ways by which -he first acquired it.”</p> - -<p>Her mother was moved by divided feelings, of which, -however, vexation was the chief. She was embarrassed -because she was a very honest woman; but at the same -time her buried lord was purified and exalted in her eyes. -Had not a bishop laid him in his grave?</p> - -<p>“’Tis neither here nor there what I may have known, -or leastways may have guessed,” she said sullenly and -with some offence. “Your father never did nothing as -the police could have laid hold of—never!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, mother!” cried Katherine. “Is that your standard -of morality, of virtue?”</p> - -<p>The indignation in her voice increased her mother’s -annoyance.</p> - -<p>“I don’t see, anyhow,” she said very angrily, “that it is -the place of a daughter to try and rake up things against -her father. William was in a new country, where the -morals is new, and maybe he did like his neighbors. But -the first people in the old country thought much of him. -He’d hev died a lord if he’d lived a year more. The -Prince sent a wreath and a gentleman. When he’s laid -in his grave with all that pomp and honor, what for do -you, his own child, go and try to throw mud on his coffin? -I think it shame of you, Kathleen; and if that’s all your -fine eddication has taught you, well ’twas money ill spent, -and you’d better look at the fifth commandment.”</p> - -<p>With a sigh her daughter rose and walked through the -veranda into the gardens beyond, and thence into the -pine-woods. She felt the utter impossibility of ever -bringing her mother’s mind into any unison with her own. -It was wholly useless to attempt to reach and touch a -chord which did not exist. If she pursued the course -which she thought right, she must do so in spite of her -mother, and alone in her choice.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_447">[447]</span>Margaret Massarene loved her daughter, but she -thought Katherine was a “crank.” She could see no reason -why they should not both of them enjoy the good -things poor William had left behind him.</p> - -<p>She was a good and honest woman; but in Kerosene -City the moral feelings lose their sensitiveness, and she -could not follow Katherine’s reasonings; she considered -them high-flown, and a pack of nonsense. “As for fortunes -being made honest,” said Margaret Massarene to -herself, “’tis a pack of stuff to dream of it. You can’t -no more make a big fortune with clean hands than you -can stack a dung heap.”</p> - -<p>But when the fortune, however accumulated, was made, -it seemed to her flying in the face of an all-seeing -Providence to quarrel with it, and to “climb down.” -Whoever did climb down if they could help it?</p> - -<p>“You would not like to visit America, mother?” -Katherine said to her a few days later.</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene gasped.</p> - -<p>“America? The States?”</p> - -<p>“The States, yes—Dakota.”</p> - -<p>“Ropes shouldn’t drag me,” replied her mother with -unusual firmness. “Oh, Lord! The food served all -higgledy-piggledy, sour and sweet all running amuck; -the trains a-peering in at your sixth floor window; the -men hanging on to hooks in the crowd of the cars; the -spittle all over the place; the rush and the crush and the -pother never still. Go back there? No; you should kill -me first!”</p> - -<p>She was roused to unusual self-assertion and emphasis.</p> - -<p>“Only for a visit,” said Katherine timidly.</p> - -<p>“And what for—for a visit?” repeated Mrs. Massarene. -“Now I’ve got back, I’ll stay where I am. Many and -many a night I’ve lain awake in that hell; for hell ’tis, -with the railways a-shrieking and rumbling past the windows, -and the furnace chimneys a-bellowing fire and smoke, -and the whistles a-screaming, and the pistons a-thumping; -and I’ve thought of the old home and cried till I was -blind, and said to myself, if ever a good God let me go -back, I’d stay at home if I swept the streets for a living. -<i>I</i> don’t fly in the face of Providence, Katherine.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_448">[448]</span>“But your home was in Ulster!”</p> - -<p>“You don’t want to be throwing that in my teeth. I -wasn’t brought up a fine English lady like you. But -Europe’s Europe and the States is the States; and I -won’t cross that grey, wild water again; no, not if you -kill me!”</p> - -<p>“Of course, my dear mother, you shall do as you -wish.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you’re very soft-spoken, but you’re that obstinate! -What do you want with the States? You’re so -mighty pitiful of the poor—almost a socialist, as one may -say. Well, I can tell you there’s harder lines there between -rich and poor than there is in these old countries, -and more hatred too. There aren’t nowhere,” continued -Margaret Massarene, her pale face growing warm, “where -the luxury’s more overdone, and the selfishness crueller, -and the spending of money wickeder, than in the States. -Nowhere on earth where the black man is loathed and the -poor white is scorned as they are in that canting ‘free’ -country!”</p> - -<p>Katherine sighed.</p> - -<p>“So I have always understood. But it only makes it a -greater duty.”</p> - -<p>“What a greater duty?”</p> - -<p>Katherine hesitated.</p> - -<p>“To go there. To see for oneself. To try and restore -what one can.”</p> - -<p>“Duty never lies at home, my dear, we know,” said -Mrs. Massarene with sarcastic acerbity. “I suppose -you’ll write to me once a month; and if anything happens -to me while you’re away, you’ll give orders as they’ll lay -me by your poor dear father, whom you’re ashamed on.”</p> - -<p>Her daughter felt that her path of duty, whether at -home or abroad, was one which it was not easy to discern -in the gloaming of a finite humanity, through the tangled -brush-wood of conflicting demands and principles.</p> - -<p>“Won’t you, can’t you understand, mother?” she said, -with a wistful supplication in her voice.</p> - -<p>“No,” replied her mother sternly. “I could hev understood -if you’d held your head high, and married high, -and had a lot of nice little children; but a freak as will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_449">[449]</span> -make you the laughing-stock of all the respectable newspapers -on this side and the other, I don’t understand and -don’t want to understand; and ’tis an insult to poor -William in his grave.”</p> - -<p>“I’m not speaking for myself, my dear,” she added; -“it’s very good of you not to hev put me in the workhouse.”</p> - -<p>Katherine felt that, though duty may be bracing and -fortifying, it strongly resembles a cold salt bath when the -thermometer is below zero.</p> - -<p>She spent many solitary hours walking in the little wood -which led to the sea, or sitting where she had sat with -Framlingham, thinking over the immense task which lay -before her, and wondering how it was best to execute it. -She searched her heart relentlessly for any selfish or unworthy -motive which might lurk in it. All alone under -the pine trees as she was, she felt herself flush with consciousness -as she asked herself: was she moved by any -personal desire? She felt that she would be glad to vindicate -herself in the eyes of Hurstmanceaux—to force him -to acknowledge that one basely born might act well and -with honor. She longed to show him that she could shake -off the ill-gotten wealth which he despised and which the -world adored. Something of this might move her—so -much her conscience compelled her to admit—but with -perfect honesty she could also feel that, had she never seen -him, she would none the less have desired to undo, as far -as should be in her power, the evil which her father had -done to the poor and helpless.</p> - -<p>Again, was she wronging her mother? Was she leaving -the real duty, which lay close at hand, for the imaginary -duty, which lay far away? She knew that many a -dreamer did so; that many an enthusiast left his own garden -to weed and drought, whilst he went to sow in strange -lands. She held in horror the religion which taught that -the soul should be saved, however the hearth and home -were deserted.</p> - -<p>These days of indecision and mental conflict were days -of infinite pain, for her own nature was resolute and not -wavering, and to such a temper irresolution seems a form -of cowardice. Moreover she, who had read widely and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_450">[450]</span> -thought deeply, knew that it is easier to move the mountains -or to arrest the tides than it is to do any real good -to the mass of mankind. She had none of the illusions of -the socialist, none of the distorted idealism of revolutionists -and philanthropists; she was not sustained by any erroneous -idolatry of humanity; she did not expect the seed -she would sow to bring forth any fruit which would change -the face of Nature; but the impulse to cast from her the -wealth acquired by fraud, by violence, and by usury, was -too strong in her for her to be able to resist it.</p> - -<p>She knew that what she wished to do was fraught with -innumerable difficulties, and that might, unless well done, -cause more evil than good. She had hoped to find in -Framlingham some guidance, some help; but she saw that -she must rely on no one but herself. It saddened her to -know that it was so, but it did not entirely discourage her. -Conscience is a lamp which burns low in the press of the -world, but lights clearly enough the path of the solitary.</p> - -<p>In the autumn of that year, sixteen months after the -death of William Massarene, she sailed from Southampton -for that dread Northwest, which remained in the memories -of her earliest childhood as a place of horror, whose -summer meant sandstorms, and drought, and sunstroke, -and the whirling of the mad tornado, and the scorching -billows of the forest fires, and winter meant the pall of -snow on hill and plain, the driving of the dreadful blizzard, -the lowing of starved cattle, the mourning of famished -wolves, the shapeless heaps upon the ice which were the -bodies of frozen travelers and foundered caravans.</p> - -<p>It was terrible to her to return there, and behold all -which she must see there; but it was more terrible to her -to remain possessor of the millions which had been acquired -in that hell.</p> - -<p>“Why can that young woman be gone to America?” said -Daddy Gwyllian.</p> - -<p>“Gone to look after her property, I presume,” said -Hurstmanceaux, whom he addressed.</p> - -<p>“It is a <i>joli denier</i> to look after. That cad was second -only to Vanderbilt and Pullman.”</p> - -<p>“Why will you always talk about money, Daddy? It -is a very vulgar habit.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_451">[451]</span>“Money’s like robust health,” said Daddy. “Vulgar if -you like, but deuced comfortable to those who have -got it.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux, as he walked down Pall Mall a few -moments later, felt irrationally disappointed that she had -gone to America. No doubt she had gone to look after -her property there, but he did not think that the person -he had seen, with her large, dark, calm eyes and her -stately grace, ought to care whether those millions of acres -and billions of dollars diminished or increased. If her attitude -and expressions in his presence had been real, and -not affected, she could not care. He regretted that he had -written that letter to her from Cowes. It had been written -from his heart on a generous impulse; and he knew -life well enough to know that our generous impulses are -the costliest of all our indulgences.</p> - -<p>When he thought also of all which she might know—which -she certainly must suspect—of the sister whom he -had loved so well, he suffered as only a man of tender -heart and sensitive honor can suffer when wounded in his -family pride and his natural affections.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_452">[452]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXVII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">With</span> the following March London saw once more the -Duchess of Otterbourne carrying her graceful presence to -Court and salon and theatre, having recovered her beauty -and with it her spirits. One of those fortunate incidents -of which life is prodigal to its favorites had happened. An -old aunt had died and left her a legacy of a few thousands; -enough thousands to make a year at least pass smoothly, -without too much self-denial.</p> - -<p>She was pleased to have a little ready money, indisputably -her own, which had come to her in a most respectable -manner, and could be squandered just as she chose, without -the interference of anybody. Millions do not really -afford you the smallest satisfaction if somebody stands -over you to see how you spend them.</p> - -<p>The insolence and the courage of her character brought -her back to the scene of her slavery to William Massarene. -She felt that it was necessary to show her brother that she -did not care a straw for his condemnation, and to prove to -society in general that her position was unshaken. Who -could tell how that young woman, who had sent her the -counterfoils and the acceptances, might not have talked? -Besides, she wished to see her children. Her affection for -them was genuine. It was not profound or unselfish, it -was not tender or ideal, but it was a real affection in its -way; and, besides, she was proud of them. They were -the handsomest little people in England; always well and -always strong. Against Jack she bore a grudge—unreasoningly -and unkindly—but still, she wished to have him -with her in London. The presence of the little duke and -his brothers and sister in her new house would prove to -people that her conduct had always been perfectly correct.</p> - -<p>“One does miss one’s children so cruelly,” she said to -her sister Carrie, who answered: “Yes, one does; it is -like losing one’s dressing-bag.”</p> - -<p>She fully expected Hurstmanceaux to forbid their coming -to her, but he left the matter to the Ormes’s decision;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_453">[453]</span> -he was at Faldon, and gave no opinion one way or the -other. To her intimate friends she attributed her rupture -with him to his extreme severity and unkindness about -the Otterbourne diamonds and her own financial affairs; -and, as she was always a popular person, and he never -was, her version was accepted and circulated, and the -opinion of the world was indulgent to her.</p> - -<p>She took a pretty, furnished house in Eaton Place, and -resumed the life which she had led when Cocky, like a -ministering angel, had been behind her, to excuse her imprudence -and share her extravagance. The Blenheims -were left down at Whiteleaf, but Jack and his brothers -and sister were brought to town.</p> - -<p>Boo, wild with delight, raced upstairs to a bedroom on -the third floor, and thought that altitude a seventh heaven. -Jack was dull; he loved the country and hated London, -hated it doubly now that he had lost Harry, and he felt -sure that his mother was the cause of Harry’s disappearance. -When he saw the Life Guards ride down through -the Park to Knightsbridge, the sight made him very sad, -for there were no kind dark eyes looking at him with a -smile in them from under the shining helmet.</p> - -<p>His mother, who was not harassed by such regrets, was -very pleased to be in London again with a little money at -her back. She was very tenacious of her social position, -and she knew that it was necessary to be respectable now -and then. She attended the first Drawing-room; went -to the first receptions of some tiresome <i>gros bonnets</i> whom -she called old dowdies; and reascended a social throne -which for a moment had shaken under her. The Chapel -Royal saw her every Sunday, and she began to think of -making a pleasant second marriage before Katherine Massarene -(who might spoil one) should return to society.</p> - -<p>Harrenden House was shut up; its porter alone, stripped -of his gorgeous vestments, dwelt behind the gates looking -no more like himself than a grub looks like a butterfly. -There was a hatchment above the door, large, imposing, -majestic; it was there by Margaret Massarene’s wish beyond -the usual time to have it shown. All the great people -and the smart people who had dined at that house, -and pocketed cotillon presents, and drunk rare wines, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_454">[454]</span> -borrowed money and paid it by insolent jokes, now drove -past in the sunshine or the fog, in the north wind or the -east, had found other dupes and other butts for their -needs and their jests, and did not even give a thought to -“Billy.”</p> - -<p>He was gone, and there were always new people coming -in from the States or the Colonies, or even homemade, -who were the natural manure wherewith to nourish starving -genealogical trees.</p> - -<p>“I say, Sourisette, how was it you got nothing under -Billy’s will?” said her cousin Roxhall to her one day as -they rode in the Park.</p> - -<p>“My dear Gerald,” she answered with dignity, “<i>I</i> had -not sold him an ancestral estate. If I had done so I -should not have taken it back as a gift from his daughter -as you have done!”</p> - -<p>“Oh I say,” muttered Roxhall. “That’s a nasty one, -but it isn’t the fact. I’ve paid back half the purchase -price and the other half is on the land, and it’s not you, -Mousie, who have the right to say such things.”</p> - -<p>Roxhall’s mind reverted to the sale of Vale Royal at -Homburg, when he had never looked too closely into the -percentage received by the fair negotiatress of the sale. -They were speaking as they rode down Rotten Row, and -at that moment her mare became fidgety and carried her -out of earshot. He rode after her.</p> - -<p>“You think you can say those things to me,” he said, -leaning a little toward her, “because I am a relative, and -because I have always been a fool about you; but don’t -you put people’s backs up like that, my dear, or you’ll get -more than you like some day.”</p> - -<p>“My dear Gerald,” said Mouse between her teeth, “fall -back a little, please; I don’t care to be seen riding with a -person who has taken alms from Miss Massarene, even if -he <i>is</i> my cousin.”</p> - -<p>She was not afraid to be insolent to him; Roxhall would -be no use any more to her, for he could never sell Vale -Royal twice.</p> - -<p>Roxhall checked his horse and let her groom pass him. -This was the woman for whom he had nearly broken his -wife’s heart, and more than nearly ruined himself!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_455">[455]</span>“What a confounded ass I was!” he thought. “She -isn’t worth the tan that her mare kicks up; and yet—and -yet—oh, Lord, if she whistled me I should run to her like -a dog, I know I should!”</p> - -<p>He was a clever if careless man of the world, and he -was sincerely attached to his wife, but he had been as wax -in the hands of his cousin Mouse, and would be so again, -he felt, if she cared to make him so. Neither philosophy -nor psychology can explain fascination or the power it exercises -in the teeth of common sense and to the root of -conscience.</p> - -<p>She, who believed and disbelieved in a Higher Power, -as most people do according to the favor or the frown -which they consider the Higher Power gives them, was at -this moment in the full fervor of belief, as she had money -enough to let her do as she liked for a year or two. Roxhall -could not touch her conscience; Hurstmanceaux -could not rouse her shame; the sight of the closed gates -of Harrenden House could not disturb that serenity which -she had regained so successfully; but something did occur -which momentarily disturbed and almost afflicted her.</p> - -<p>Jack had been usually kept down at Whiteleaf with his -brothers; and a remote Northamptonshire country house -amongst farmsteads, streams, and orchards, is not a centre -of news. No word or sign had come to him of his friend, -and in his occasional visits to town he had heard nothing -of him. Though years had passed since Harry had bade -him good-bye under the elm-tree, and children are usually -forgetful, with little minds like sieves, Jack did not cease -to lament his lost friend. If he had been sure where -Harry had gone, he would have tried to get on board a -ship and work his way out to the same place, like the -cabin-boys he read of in story-books. But the South Pole -was a vague destination; and he once heard some men saying, -who had been Harry’s friends, that he was now in -Uganda or Rhodesia. It was all so vague that it was -impossible to plan any wanderings and voyages on such -data.</p> - -<p>Mammy must know, he thought; but he could not bring -himself to ask her. He had a vague but positive sense that -Harry’s exile and disappearance were due to her; that she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_456">[456]</span> -had been unkind and had hurt Harry in some way or another -in some incurable and unmerciful manner.</p> - -<p>When Jack saw all the London life going on just the -same—the Life Guards prancing, the ladies cycling or -riding, the traffic filling up the streets, the carriages flashing -toward the Park—his young heart ached with a dull -painful sense of the heartlessness of things. Harry had -always been there in that movement and glitter and rush; -and now he was no more seen, and no one cared, not even -his troop. Once he went up to Harry’s late colonel, whom -he knew by sight, and asked straight out for news of him. -The colonel looked surprised, for a long time had elapsed. -“My dear boy, I don’t know at all where he is; he’s gone -on the make somewhere, I believe. Out of sight, out of -mind, you know, more shame for us.”</p> - -<p>What unkind, indifferent people they all were, thought -Jack.</p> - -<p>But in the middle of June, when he was on his visit to -his mother, there was a telegram in a morning paper which -disinterred the buried name so dear to him. It said, in -the usual niggard brevity, “Lord Brancepeth said to have -been severely wounded fighting in Loomalia.”</p> - -<p>Now Harry’s late colonel was startled by that telegram -as he sat at luncheon in his club; and as he walked an -hour later across the Green Park he chanced to meet Jack -and his tutor.</p> - -<p>“Look here, my boy,” he said, holding out the newspaper. -“You asked me once about this friend of yours—”</p> - -<p>Jack read the two lines through starting tears.</p> - -<p>“Thanks very much,” he said in a low tone, and took -off his hat to the colonel; then he said to Mr. Lane, “If -you please, we will go home.”</p> - -<p>“That child’s a good plucked one,” thought the colonel. -“It’s hit him hard.”</p> - -<p>By that time many people in fashionable London had -read the telegram, and were talking of it.</p> - -<p>“Who is this gentleman about whom you are so unhappy?” -asked his tutor, who knew nothing of fashionable -society and its rumors and traditions.</p> - -<p>Jack felt himself color. He could not have exactly -analyzed what he felt.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_457">[457]</span>“He’s Harry,” he said in a low tone. “He was always -very kind to us; kinder than anyone.”</p> - -<p>The Colonial Office was applied to for information, and -the Minister for the Colonies buttonholed in the Lobby. -The Minister was chill and careful; he remarked that -Lord Brancepeth was acting as an amateur, on his own -responsibility—entirely on his own responsibility; he -could not approve his action; the Loomalis were in insurrection; -the Boers were the allies of England; there -were treaties; treaties must be respected, however individuals -might suffer; the Government could not be responsible -for any adventurous gentleman fighting on his -own hand.</p> - -<p>A similar answer was returned to Lord Inversay when -he, a weary and infirm old man, came up to town, and -went to the Colonial Office and to the Premier.</p> - -<p>A little later, fuller particulars were telegraphed from -the newspaper correspondents at Capetown, and then -everybody began again to talk of Harry at the dinner-tables, -and club-houses, and pleasure places in which he -had been once such a familiar figure.</p> - -<p>The Boers had, as usual, made an excuse of an imaginary -transgression of boundary, to attack a friendly tribe, -of which they were bound to respect the neutrality. They -had harried and ravaged the country, carried off herds -and flocks, burned villages, and borne off to servitude old -men, women and children, with all those excesses of barbarous -brutality which invariably characterize the introduction -of civilization anywhere. This especial tribe was -blameless, willing to be at peace, and contented to live in -a simple and natural manner with the harvests of a bountiful -soil. But that soil their neighbors wanted; it is the -story of every war.</p> - -<p>Brancepeth had gone as a traveler, only to look on; -but he was soon disgusted by the cruelty of the white -men, touched by the helplessness of the natives, alienated -by the avarice and violence of the former, and moved by -the rights and sufferings of the latter. He had gone with -no intention of taking a share in the strife; but when he -saw the flaming kraals, the ravaged flocks, the fettered -women, the starved and hunted old people and young<span class="pagenum" id="Page_458">[458]</span> -children, the blood of a soldier grew hot in him; the sense -of justice uprose in him; the generosity of a manly -temper impelled him to take part with the weak, the oppressed, -the natural owners of the vast plains, the solemn -mountains, the trackless hills, the immense waters. He -drew his sword on their side. He led them more than -once to victory. If he had had a single troop of the men -he had commanded at home, he would have driven the -Dutchmen back over their own veldt, and forced them to -relinquish their prey. But the poor Loomalis had been -already exhausted, demoralized, hopelessly weakened, -when he had first come into their land. They could not -second his efforts or comprehend his tactics. Had he arrived -a month earlier, he might perhaps have saved them. -As it was, he could only die with them.</p> - -<p>He had fought side by side with their chief, Mahembele, -hewing down the Boers with a sabre when the last shots -had been fired from his revolver, and not a single cartridge -had been left.</p> - -<p>“It is not your cause; go, while you have life,” said the -African to him.</p> - -<p>“I’ll be damned if I will,” said Brancepeth. “Right -is right, and the right is on your side.”</p> - -<p>So he fought like a knight of old, knee-deep in the heap -of dead he had slain, and he fell at last as the sun went -down, pierced by a score of wounds, and Mahembele -dropped, shot through the forehead, across his body.</p> - -<p>The Boers retreated down the hillside—for he had -mauled them terribly—and a few of the Loomalis ventured -to carry off the body of their chief for burial; and -as they removed it, they saw that the white leader was -not dead quite, and in gratitude they bore him away to a -cavern in the rocks, where their women tended him, until -months afterwards some English travelers, hearing of his -deeds and of his fate, sought him out, and had him carried -down the river to their camp, many miles away. Thus it -became known who he was, and how he had given away -his life for these poor and persecuted people.</p> - -<p>The story moved his own London world when it was -told in the columns of the great daily papers. Poor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_459">[459]</span> -Harry! He had lived like a fool, but he had ended his -life like a hero.</p> - -<p>For ended it surely was; he might rally, he might even -live through a few months, a few years, but he had been -shot and slashed like a desert animal slaughtered and -maimed by a hundred hands; he would never breathe -without pain, never move without help, never stand upright -again. So the surgeon who was with him telegraphed -to his father; and the Governor at Capetown to -the Government at home.</p> - -<p>And for ten minutes, in guardroom, in clubroom, in -drawing-room, his old friends were sorry and spoke of him -in a hushed voice. Only the Colonial Office was annoyed, -because it had been pledged to protect the Loomalis and -had broken its word, and failed them in their need; and -the fact that one English gentleman had stood by these -poor Africans to the last disagreeably emphasized by contrast -the bad faith and pusillanimity of England as an -empire.</p> - -<p>The Duchess of Otterbourne, like the Colonial Office, -was much shocked and displeased. It was odious to have -all London talking of Harry; it would, she knew, make -people remember his relations with herself.</p> - -<p>When a woman has ordered a man out of her life she -prefers him to efface himself from other people’s lives. -Harry had effaced himself and gone docily into oblivion, -which was quite right, but that now from that nether -world he should have sent a clarion blast echoing over the -seas, as if he were one of Wagner’s heroes, was distinctly -irritating. Do what she would, too, she could often not -sleep for thinking of him with his body hacked to pieces -and his blood staining the yellow grass. To be sure she -could take chloral, but she was very prudent as regarded -health, and she knew that chloral has two faces, one beneficent -and the other malevolent, and is not a deity to -be too frequently invoked.</p> - -<p>Meantime he was coming home; every day the vessel -drew nearer and nearer, whether it brought him living or -brought him dead. It was too dreadfully irritating when -she had been relieved from the incubus of William Massarene -to have this revival of an old scandal.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_460">[460]</span>If his mother had said a word to her eldest son about -their old friend, he would have laid his head on her lap -and sobbed his heart out, and asked her why she had sent -him to Africa. But she said not a word. He saw her always -going out here, there, and everywhere, beautifully -dressed and gay and bright; and Jack hated her for her -heartlessness and avoided her, which was easy to do, for -she seldom asked for him. Boo she had frequently with -her, and his little brothers were sometimes taken in her -carriage; but for Jack she scarcely ever inquired. He -was left to the care of Mr. Lane. Once she told him to -go as a page to a cousin’s wedding, the daughter of Mrs. -Cecil Courcy, and Jack bluntly refused.</p> - -<p>“I won’t be dressed up like a boy in a pantomime,” he -said to Boo, who brought him the order; and he was -steadfast in his refusal, for how could he know that Harry -might not be already dead?</p> - -<p>“You’d get a diamond pin,” said Boo.</p> - -<p>“What do I want with pins?” replied Jack with scorn. -“I won’t be made a guy of; I’d sooner be a <i>real</i> page and -help to clean the plate.”</p> - -<p>“You are such a low boy, Jack,” said Boo with disdain. -“Mammy always says so.”</p> - -<p>Jack’s brows clouded at his mother’s name. Was he a -low boy? he wondered. He did not think so, but then -his tutor had told him that no one has any knowledge of -themselves. He liked real things, he liked people who -told the truth; he hated being called “your Grace”; he -loved dogs and horses; he detested fine ladies and all their -perfumes and pranks and pastimes; perhaps he was a very -low boy indeed.</p> - -<p>Jack, after the colonel had shown him that telegram, -bought up all the newspapers he could (when he was not -watched), and read them with difficulty where the words -were long, and understood that his friend had been behaving -like a knight of old. How his heart ached, and how his -blood thrilled! One thing too added greatly to his pain; -the news was more than four months old. Intelligence -traveled slowly from the land of the Loomalis, and people -did so also. He could not tell at all how his friend was -on these especial days when he, himself seated on his own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_461">[461]</span> -bed to be undisturbed, devoured the chronicles from Capetown -in one London journal after another. Jack had -heard enough about wounds from shot and sabre to know -that they were often mortal, and that recovery, if it -ensued, was terribly tedious and slow, and often too uncertain.</p> - -<p>In his ignorance and unhappiness he took a bold step. -He wrote to Harry’s father, whom he did not know. He -composed a letter “all out of his own head.”</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<i>The Duke of Otterbourne presents his compliments to -Lord Inversay and wishes very much if you would tell him -where Harry is, and if it is true that he is hurt amongst -black men. I am so very very anxious, and I want you please -to tell me, and no one knows that the Duke of Otterbourne is -writing to you, so please don’t say, and excuse these blots; -please answer soon, and I am your very affectionate Jack.</i>”</p> -</div> - -<p>When he had read it over it seemed to him not altogether -right; he was afraid it was ungrammatical, but he -could not tell where the mistakes were, and he put it in -an envelope and addressed it to the Marquis of Inversay, -looking out the address in the big red book so dear to -Mrs. Massarene, and sealing it with a seal lent him by his -friend Hannah, bearing the device of two doves and a -rose.</p> - -<p>The little note would have gone to the heart of Harry’s -father, and would have certainly been answered, but, as -Jack’s unlucky star would have it, his mother espied his -letter lying on the hall table with her own, and seeing the -address in the big childish caligraphy, took it, opened it, -and consigned it in atoms to the waste-paper basket.</p> - -<p>She was agitated and irritated in an extreme degree -by its perusal. What would old Inversay think if he -got such a note? He would actually think that Jack -<i>knew</i>! She was beyond measure annoyed and alarmed to -see this impudent little fellow daring to act and to write -all by himself.</p> - -<p>In her own way she was herself worried about Harry, -although she concealed her worry successfully; it pained -her to think of his wounds and his danger; her anxiety<span class="pagenum" id="Page_462">[462]</span> -did not prevent her from going to theatres and operas, -and pastoral plays and dinner-parties, and State concerts -and all the rest of it; but still the thought of him hurt -her, and no doubt he would come home and be made a -pet of by everybody, and be sent for to Windsor, and it -would all be rather worrying, and <i>malapropos</i>, and perhaps -some woman would get hold of him—women are always -mad about heroes—and then that woman would -make him talk of herself.</p> - -<p>She said nothing about his letter to Jack, who, after -watching with eagerness for the post in vain for a week, -sadly decided that Lord Inversay must have been -offended with a stranger for writing to him. He did not -say anything about his disappointment to anyone, for Jack -had already learned that our sorrows only bore other people. -But he got all the newspapers he could and searched -through them every day. Once he saw that Lord Brancepeth -had been brought down from the interior, and had -been carried on board a homeward bound steamer at -Capetown, and although very weak and shattered, it was -considered possible the voyage might save him, and that -he might rally on reaching his native air.</p> - -<p>Through all those weeks of uncertainty Jack was perpetually -punished by Mr. Lane for inattention, for disobedience, -for neglected tasks, for unlearnt lessons, for -bad spelling, for saying that two and three made seven, -and that Caractacus was Julius Cæsar’s brother. The -child’s thoughts were far away on the big green rollers of -the ocean on which the vessel which bore his friend homeward -was rocking and panting. What sort of weather -was it? were the winds kind and the waves gentle? were -the hot calms he had read of very trying? did Harry -suffer when the ship pitched? Those were the questions -he was always asking himself, and to which he could have -no answer; and he began to grow thin and pale and -seemed a hopelessly naughty and unteachable little boy -to Mr. Lane, who could beat nothing whatever into his -head, and who, being a very conscientious person, wrote -to Hurstmanceaux that he feared he should be obliged to -relinquish his charge.</p> - -<p>“Don’t encourage the duke in his fancies for Africa,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_463">[463]</span> -Mr. Lane, or we shall have him Africa mad like them all, -and running off to Cecil Rhodes,” his mother said once -jestingly to his tutor; and although that gentleman was -not used to smart ladies and their way of talking <i>au bout -des levres</i>, he understood that the subject of the Black -Continent was disagreeable to her. But the time came -when she was forced to think about Africa herself.</p> - -<p>One day, rather early in the forenoon, when she was -alone, they brought in to her the card of Lord Inversay. -She was extremely astonished and somewhat embarrassed. -Harry’s father had never set foot in her house—she did -not even know him to speak to; he had always obstinately -avoided both her and her husband; he was poor and -unfashionable, a man seldom seen in the smart world, and -who lived almost all the year round on his estates on the -Border.</p> - -<p>For the moment she was inclined not to receive him, -then curiosity conquered the vague apprehension which -moved her. Moreover, she recollected with a chill that -the newspapers had spoken of Harry as returning home; -was it possible that he had sent her a message?</p> - -<p>Inversay entered her presence without ceremony; he -was a weary-looking man about sixty, and the expression -of his face was cold and greatly troubled; he declined -with a gesture her invitation to a seat beside her, and -continued standing. She looked at him with the sense of -apprehension weighing more heavily upon her.</p> - -<p>“To what am I indebted?” she began.</p> - -<p>“Madam,” said Inversay very coldly, though his voice -was husky and almost inaudible, “I bring you a request -from my son; he has come home to die.”</p> - -<p>“To die? Harry?”</p> - -<p>She grew very pale; there were genuine horror and -emotion in the cry, if there was also some personal terror -of a baser kind; dying men are so garrulous sometimes!</p> - -<p>She was not unprepared for such a statement, but its -clear and hard expression, as of an unalterable fact, gave -her a great shock.</p> - -<p>Poor silly Harry!</p> - -<p>“Madam,” said his father, “you may be quite sure that -nothing short of the greatest extremity would have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_464">[464]</span> -brought me to your house. He is dying, I repeat. I -doubt if he can live an hour longer; that he can live a -day is impossible.”</p> - -<p>“How very horrible!” she said nervously; she trembled -visibly, she felt that Inversay intended to insult her, -and she had not courage to resent and reprove it. Harry -dying! Such a possibility had presented itself to her, -and she had thoughts, even when she had read in the -papers that he was coming home wounded, that perhaps -he would be better—safer—dead; but now that the actual -tragedy of his end was brought home to her, it seemed to -her extremely dreadful.</p> - -<p>Poor Harry!</p> - -<p>He was only a year older than herself!</p> - -<p>Inversay looked at her with loathing and hatred. But -for her what a happy and simple life his boy might -have led!</p> - -<p>“I have a favor from you to ask for in his name,” he -said huskily; “nothing less could have made me leave -him. But he cannot die in peace if he cannot see your -son, the eldest boy; he would like to see all the children.”</p> - -<p>She checked the nervous tremor in her limbs and -braved herself to combat and composure; she felt all that -the stern eyes of the old man said to her while his lips -limited themselves to those few harmless words.</p> - -<p>“He was always very fond of the children,” she said -quite naturally, with marvellous self-possession. “But I -don’t think I can send them to see him; it would look so -very odd; and a deathbed frightens small boys so much; -Jack was ill for weeks after seeing his father die.”</p> - -<p>This tremendous falsehood glided smoothly off her lips -in the purposed introduction of her husband’s name.</p> - -<p>Inversay moved a step nearer to her, and the scathing -scorn of his gaze would have struck to the earth a woman -less sure of herself, less safe in the surety of duplicity, -less confident in the silence of the dying man who had her -reputation in his hands.</p> - -<p>“Madam,” he said with a bitter scorn and wrath unspoken, -“my son may breathe his last whilst you make -me dawdle here. Let your eldest boy come with me at -once—at once—do you hear?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_465">[465]</span>“Lord Brancepeth was very fond of all children,” she -said again, a little nervously, “but it will seem very odd -to people——”</p> - -<p>“He loved <i>yours</i>, madam,” said Inversay curtly; the -three words cut her pride like a sword; seemed to bear -down through all her hypocrisies and falsehoods and -devices as she had seen the sabres of Harry’s troopers cut -through a veil of gauze and sever a lemon in two.</p> - -<p>“Send for your son,” he said with stern passion. “Send -at once, madam; do you hear me?”</p> - -<p>She was awed, and quailed under his fixed gaze. She -did not dare to refuse his command, strange as the thing -would look. She rang, and to the servant who entered -said:</p> - -<p>“Tell Mr. Lane to come to me, and to bring his -Grace.”</p> - -<p>A moment or two later the tutor came into the room, -and Jack also.</p> - -<p>“Jack, you are to go with this gentleman where he -wishes to take you. Mr. Lane, will you be so good as to -accompany the duke and bring him home?”</p> - -<p>“Where are we going to?” asked Jack, as they went -downstairs; he did not know who Lord Inversay was, but -he was a little afraid of the strained stern look on the -old man’s face; he felt that he was in the presence of some -great grief, and his thoughts flew to Harry, vaguely hoping -and fearing he knew not what.</p> - -<p>“You will soon know,” said Inversay, whose voice was -choked in his throat as he looked at the handsome child -with the soft black eyes, so like the eyes of another boy -of the same age who, twenty years or so before this day, -had run beside him over the sunny lawns of his old home; -the old home was mortgaged to its last sod, and the boy -had come home in the flower of his manhood to die—ruined -by a woman.</p> - -<p>They were driven quickly to the door of a well-known -hotel; Inversay begged the tutor to wait below in the -reading-room, and went alone upstairs with Jack, who -caught his breath and felt his heart quake a little.</p> - -<p>A vague terror had seized him; he recalled all the papers -had said of the fighting in Loomalia.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_466">[466]</span>Was it, perhaps——? The child’s warm blood turned -cold.</p> - -<p>Before the closed door of a bedroom Inversay paused.</p> - -<p>“It is someone you like who is very ill,” he said in a -broken voice. “Don’t be frightened and don’t cry out, -for heaven’s sake.”</p> - -<p>He opened the door and motioned to the boy to precede -him and enter.</p> - -<p>There were two bay windows in the chamber, they were -open, and the light shone on to the bed where an emaciated -form was lying, a hand wasted and bony lay on the -coverlid, a face, which had a ghastly beauty in it, was -like marble on the snow of the pillows; some women, his -mother and sisters, were kneeling beside the bed.</p> - -<p>“Harry!” cried the child with a shrill scream, and swift -as the wind he sprang across the room and leaped on the -bed and covered the cold still face with kisses.</p> - -<p>“Oh, Harry, Harry, wake up!” he sobbed. “Oh, speak -to me, Harry. Look at me. It’s Jack, it’s Jack, that’s -here!”</p> - -<p>His voice found its way to the fading memories of the dying -man; Harry’s closed eyes opened and smiled at him.</p> - -<p>“You dear little beggar!” he murmured. “How you’re -grown! I’m glad——”</p> - -<p>His strengthless hands tried to clasp the child and draw -him closer.</p> - -<p>“I’ve left you Cuckoopint, Jack,” he said faintly. -“Don’t forget—what I told you—in the Park. Try and -grow like your uncle Ronnie. He’ll help you to keep -straight.”</p> - -<p>His voice was scarce louder than a breath; his feeble -heart was straining to force the blood through its vessels, -the tired eyelids fell, and closed once more.</p> - -<p>They gave him oxygen and he revived slightly, enough -to know that Jack’s head was lying on the pillow by his -own and that Jack’s arm was round his throat.</p> - -<p>“Don’t cry,” he murmured. “Kiss the others for me. -They never cared as you did.”</p> - -<p>There was a long silence, only broken by the passionate -sobbing of the child and the subdued weeping of those -present.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_467">[467]</span>“Keep clear of women, Jack,” he said huskily, painfully, -as he tried to draw the boy still closer. “Tell your -mother—no—never mind. Thank her for letting you -come. Where are you, dear? I can’t see you. Kiss me -again.”</p> - -<p>Then his mouth opened, gasping, and his last breath -passed out into the summer air.</p> - -<p>He had died, silent, as a gentleman must.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_468">[468]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> Jack entered his mother’s house that afternoon -he looked as if he had left boyhood behind him for ever. -His face was drawn and pinched, his eyes were swollen -with weeping, his rosy mouth was pale and compressed.</p> - -<p>“His Grace is to go to the duchess at once, and alone, -if you please, sir,” said one of the servants.</p> - -<p>“Go upstairs to your mother,” said Mr. Lane to the -child.</p> - -<p>But Jack stood irresolute, his hands clenched involuntarily, -his breath was uneven.</p> - -<p>“Go,” repeated his tutor.</p> - -<p>Jack obeyed, and mounted the staircase with slow, unwilling -steps; his heart was aching as it had never ached -in his life.</p> - -<p>“It’s hit him hard, hasn’t it, sir?” said the servant to -the tutor, and smiled a discreet but eloquent smile.</p> - -<p>Mr. Lane seemed not to hear, and went into the study; -the boy passed out of sight amongst the heaths and poinsettias -on the staircase, a stray pale London sunbeam -following his golden head. His mother was alone.</p> - -<p>She was seated at the other end of the room with her -back to the little light there was. She looked haggard -and apprehensive.</p> - -<p>“Is he dead?” she said in a low, awed tone; she knew -he was by the face of her little son. “Is he dead, dear?”</p> - -<p>Jack looked at her in silence; his eyes had a seriousness -in them which was rather a man’s than a child’s, -stern, scornful, reproachful.</p> - -<p>“Jack, don’t stare like that! Speak to me! Is Harry -dead?”</p> - -<p>As she spoke she crossed the distance between them and -tried to take the child in her embrace; she was alarmed -and nervous. What had the dying man said?</p> - -<p>Jack recoiled from her outstretched arms and continued -to look at her with the gaze she sought to evade.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_469">[469]</span>His expression terrified her extremely; what could the -boy know that he was old enough to understand?</p> - -<p>“Jack, darling, speak to me,” she said faintly.</p> - -<p>“I—I—don’t know much,” said the child slowly in a -voice which seemed no more his own. “I don’t—know—much; -but I think you are a wicked, wicked, wicked -woman. And you killed him.”</p> - -<p>Then, without waiting for any answer or remonstrance, -Jack turned his back on her and went slowly to the door.</p> - -<p>His mother was agitated beyond expression; she was -for the moment paralyzed and could think of nothing -which she could do or say. She let her son pass out of -the room without censure or inquiry or punishment. She -threw herself down upon the cushions of a couch and wept.</p> - -<p>Her sorrow was real for the moment. As far as she -had ever really cared for anyone in a sense of tenderness, -she had loved Harry. But it was not long before her -grief gave way to violent indignation. How ungenerous, -how ungentlemanlike, it had been of him to speak ill of -her to her child!</p> - -<p>She had no doubt that he had done so, for it never occurred -to her that Jack’s active mind had unaided arrived -at its just estimate of herself, and that the instincts -of the boy had made him see in her the true assassin of -his dear dead friend.</p> - -<p>The bitterness of her anger dried the well springs of -her grief. When she felt herself injured, she always -thought that the whole world should rise up and do battle -for her. For a man base enough to set her son against -her there could be no occasion to mourn; especially when -to mourn would compromise her before others. She had -no anxiety about what correspondence Harry might have -left behind him, for when he had gone to Africa he had -sent her all her letters and other mementoes. She ordered -her carriage and drove into the Park as usual; then -she dined early at a club with some friends, and did a -theatre, and went afterward with a merry party to supper -at the Papillons Club.</p> - -<p>That is how Helen mourns for Paris nowadays.</p> - -<p>The obligation to laugh a little louder than usual for fear -people should suppose you are sorry; a little shiver of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_470">[470]</span> -regret when you are coming home alone in your brougham; -a few drops more chloral than usual when you do -get home—these are the only sacrifices that need to be -made on the funeral pyre of the lover of to-day.</p> - -<p>Jack did not sleep all night. He had sobbed himself -into a heavy, agitated slumber as the day dawned, and -his tutor had given orders that he should not be disturbed. -When he had risen, had bathed, and been dressed, it was -eleven o’clock in the forenoon, and he slipped out of sight -of his servant, and instead of going to breakfast with Mr. -Lane ran out of the house and came to seek his uncle -Ronald, who happened to be in town on business; he -was seldom in town for anything else. As Hurstmanceaux -opened the hall door of his rooms to go down into -the street, he saw with surprise the figure of a boy in -sailor clothes standing on the head of the stairs.</p> - -<p>“Is that you, Jack?” he said, recognizing his nephew. -“You don’t look well. Is anything the matter?”</p> - -<p>“May I speak to you?” said Jack, standing on the -threshold with his sailor hat in his hand.</p> - -<p>“Certainly—come in,” replied Hurstmanceaux, surprised -to see the boy unaccompanied. “Are you alone?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Jack; and he came and stood before his -uncle; his face was grave, his eyes had dark circles under -them; he looked very still, pale, and spiritless.</p> - -<p>“Harry is dead,” he said heavily, with a strange hopeless -tone in his voice.</p> - -<p>“I have heard so,” replied Ronald, coldly and unfeelingly, -as he felt. “Is that what you have come to say?”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Jack. “I have come to tell you I will not -live with my mother any longer.”</p> - -<p>It was the first time he had called her formally mother. -Hurstmanceaux looked at him in great surprise.</p> - -<p>“That is a very grave statement,” he said at last. -“Don’t you know that you have no will of your own? -You are a minor.”</p> - -<p>Jack was silent, but his face grew very resolute; his -uncle saw that he was in earnest.</p> - -<p>“You wish to live no longer with your mother?” said -Ronald slowly. “May I ask your reasons?”</p> - -<p>“I shall not tell my reasons,” said Jack haughtily,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_471">[471]</span> -with the color coming back into his face, hotly and painfully.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux appreciated the answer; it did not anger -him as it would have done most men.</p> - -<p>“Did you see Lord Brancepeth before he died?” he -asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Did he tell you to say this?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>Jack’s lips quivered, but he manfully strove not to cry.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux was perplexed. He dimly perceived -the workings of the boy’s mind, and he sympathized with -them; but he could not let his sympathy be shown.</p> - -<p>“Put me down in the country somewhere,” said Jack, -seeing his auditor was with him. “I don’t want grooms, -and watches, and dressing-cases, and rubbish; I want to -be alone down in the country.”</p> - -<p>“My dear child,” said Ronald, “what is this new idea? -Why do you want to bury yourself in a hermitage at your -age? I am not your only guardian, Jack. There’s Lord -Augustus.”</p> - -<p>“Then send me to school,” said Jack desperately. -“People as young as I go to schools. I tell you,” he -added, and his teeth were shut tight as he said it, “I tell -you, I will not live with <i>her</i>.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux was silent, extremely perplexed, but -moved to more feeling for the boy than he had ever felt.</p> - -<p>“I will not live with <i>her</i>,” Jack repeated between his -teeth. “I know I am a minor at present and that you -can lock me up, and all that sort of thing, but if you -make me live with her I will kill myself. A quite little -boy, littler than I, killed himself the other day, only because -his <i>pensum</i> was too hard. It was put in the papers. -It is quite easy, and it doesn’t hurt—much.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux was still silent. Other men would -have seized the occasion to point out the unlawfulness of -suicide, but he refrained from any rebuke. He saw that -the boy was in that kind of mood when nothing which is -said in censure can pierce through the heavy fog of a dull -despairing sorrow: the fog can only be penetrated by the -sunshine of sympathy.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_472">[472]</span>“You don’t like me, do you, Jack?” he said at last.</p> - -<p>Jack was silent through truthfulness and courtesy.</p> - -<p>“If you did,” said Hurstmanceaux, “I would take you -to live with me at Faldon, and give you an Oxford friend -of mine for a tutor; I don’t like the man you have. -This is of course subject to Lord Augustus’s approval. -Would Faldon suit you, if he did not disapprove?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Jack rather coldly. “He told me to try -and grow up like you; so I suppose he would have liked -me to live with you.”</p> - -<p>“Who said that?”</p> - -<p>“He did—Harry.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux felt an embarrassment which Jack was -quick to perceive.</p> - -<p>He moved a little nearer to his uncle with the first impulse -of confidence he had ever shown in him.</p> - -<p>“He gave me Cuckoopint,” he said, with the tears -gushing from his eyes. “The cob Cuckoopint. May he -go to Faldon? But I’ll groom him myself, if you please. -I want to be a man, not a fool. He told me to——”</p> - -<p>Then Jack’s voice broke down with a great sob in his -throat.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon,” he said in a suffocated voice, and -turned that Hurstmanceaux should not see his grief.</p> - -<p>“I think you will be a man,” said Hurstmanceaux as he -laid his hand on the child’s shoulder. “Don’t sob so. It -will vex your friend—if he knows.”</p> - -<p>“Yes; but will he know?” cried Jack wildly. “Will -anyone tell him I remember? Oh, I loved him!” cried -the boy with a piteous wail. “And she killed him; she -killed him, I am sure!”</p> - -<p>“Hush!” said Hurstmanceaux. “You are not old -enough to judge of these things. I am very sorry for you, -for you are too young to have so much pain. Look, -Ossian, too, is sorry. He is coming up to you. Lie down -on that bear-skin, and try to compose yourself. I will do -all I can for you. You do not like me, I know, but I -think you feel you can trust me.”</p> - -<p>Jack made a sign of assent; his face was hidden in his -hands.</p> - -<p>“My poor boy, I am very, very sorry,” said Hurstmanceaux,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_473">[473]</span> -whose own voice was unsteady. “Whatever Lord -Brancepeth’s life may have been, its end was that of a -hero. Think of that, dear, always. You cannot have -better or truer consolation.”</p> - -<p>Alberic Orme, whom Hurstmanceaux always consulted, -approved the project, and Lord Augustus had found that -the easiest way for his own convenience of discharging -his duties to his wards was to say in a benign ecclesiastical -manner: “My dear Hurstmanceaux, I have every -confidence in your judgment. Whatever you decide I -shall ratify, secure that in such acquiescence will lie my -best provision for the welfare of my poor nephew’s children.”</p> - -<p>Therefore he made but little difficulty in allowing -Jack’s residence to be moved to Faldon, and a new tutor -substituted for the learned gentleman who had on his part -found the little duke insupportable. Cuckoopint went -also to Faldon; and Jack, by his own wish, was instructed -in the stable science of bedding, feeding, grooming and -watering.</p> - -<p>Of course Jack was only a boy, and his spirits came -back to him in time, and his laugh rang through the old -oak hall of his uncle’s house, but he did not forget. He -never forgot.</p> - -<p>When he had been left alone for the night he got up in -his bed, and knelt on it, and said in a whisper, for fear his -servant who slept in the next room should hear:</p> - -<p>“Please God, be good to Harry, and tell him I remember.”</p> - -<p>O fair illusion; fair, however false! Happy is the -dead soul which has left its image enshrined in the tender -heart of a child!</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_474">[474]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XXXIX.</h2> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">We</span> are here,” wrote Boo to her eldest brother half a -year later. “It’s quite hot: one wants summer frocks. -There are no end of Germans and Russes to play with; -but I don’t like them. Mammy’s got a new man made -of millions, or rather she has not got him and it makes -her cross. He gave me a gold Cupid seal—so pretty. -She took it away from me, and sent it as a wedding-present -to Daisy Ffiennes. Wasn’t that like mammy? She -never speaks of you. She says uncle Ronnie has made -you a bad boy.”</p> - -<p>The letter was dated from Cannes.</p> - -<p>Jack had good sense enough to put the note in the -roaring fire of old salt-encrusted ship logs which was -burning on the great hearth of Faldon’s central hall, before -which he and many dogs were lying in the gloom of -the December afternoon. He did not envy his sister the -roses and mimosa and white lilac of Cannes. His mother -had gone there because everybody in the winter does go -there, or to Egypt, or to India; but she was out of temper -with Fate, as her little daughter had said. She did not -wish for more adventures. She dreaded other tyrants. -She wanted to have two things in one: liberty and money. -Of marriage she was afraid. Where find another Cocky?</p> - -<p>Still in her moments of sober reflection she knew that -she must marry, or risk drifting into an insecure, shifty, -and discreditable position. Liaisons, however agreeable -and amusing, are not sheet-anchors. Besides, she had -been on the verge of losing her reputation—she knew -what the danger feels like; and to become one of the -throng of people who live on their knees outside the -gates which once opened wide to them would have been -infinitely more odious to her than an over dose of chloral. -She was Duchess of Otterbourne, but she was very much -more in her own sight and that of her family; she was a -Courcy of Faldon.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_475">[475]</span>That memory had been powerless to keep her feet -straight in the path of honor; but it was strong enough -to make her feel that she would die sooner than go down -in the dust amongst the discrowned—the discrowned who -live in Pyrenean watering-places, or second-rate Italian -cities, or German baths out of their season, and are made -much of at the hands of consuls’ wives and British chaplains, -and who sneak back to their people’s country house -in England, and are received there as a family obligation, -and never more are seen in London between Easter and -Goodwood. Such an existence she would no more have -led than she would have worn a three-guinea ready-made -gown bought at an annual sale. She had always led the -first flight in the hunting-field or out of it.</p> - -<p>She had, though a very unpoetic personage, this in common -with poets and grasshoppers, that she seldom looked -beyond the immediate day. But now the immediate day -frowned on her, grey and ugly; and, grasshopper-like, she -began to feel the shiver and the rime of frost.</p> - -<p>Her income under settlement was enough, as her -brother had more than once told her, to enable her to live -very quietly at her dower-house, or at any quiet rural -place with her children. But as she would infinitely have -preferred a fatal dose of chloral to such an existence her -future vaguely terrified her. It was no longer possible to -rely upon Ronald, and she found bankers and lenders -were all fully alive to the fact that the widowed Duchess -of Otterbourne with only her jointure was a very different -person to Lady Kenilworth, who had always had the -money potentialities of her lord’s future inheritance behind -her, and had also had the ingenious ability in matters -financial of Cocky at her back.</p> - -<p>Poor Cocky! Whoever would have thought that she -would have so sincerely missed his support as she now -did?</p> - -<p>Her aunt’s legacy was well-nigh finished; she had -spent it recklessly. When it had come to her it had -seemed inexhaustible, but it actually dissolved as fast as -a water-ice in a ballroom. She was much tormented by -the sense of her poverty. She felt that she could not afford -to run any more risks in supplying the deficiencies<span class="pagenum" id="Page_476">[476]</span> -in her exchequer. She knew that her brother was now -aware of her tendency to replace resources by ingenious -intrigue; and any step which would compromise her -afresh she was afraid to take.</p> - -<p>What on earth could she do?</p> - -<p>What a wretch William Massarene had been not to -leave her some portion of his immense wealth! She -thought about it until she persuaded herself that she had -been deeply wronged. After torturing her as he had -done surely he should have left her at peace for the rest -of her actual life! She really thought so. If he had -only left his fortune to his wife she could have mesmerized -that dull, simple soul into anything. But the fortune -had all gone to the woman she hated the most in the -world, that stately, lily-like, silent person who had considered -that her own songs were not good enough to be -sung at the Harrenden House concerts; and who had -sent her all those receipts and counterfoils without even -her compliments, just as you might send her boxes after a -dismissed maid!</p> - -<p>She had no inclination to write good or bad music now; -she was absorbed in the discords of her life. Her tradespeople -in Paris and London were no longer pliant; they -even wrote rudely; Beaumont no doubt had talked. -Meanwhile she wanted money every moment as a plant -wants air.</p> - -<p>There was a man near her in Cannes who was made of -money and of whom she had often thought: Adrian Vanderlin. -But how to reach him she did not know. He -was a hermit. He had a beautiful place three miles from -Cannes, and was at that moment in residence there; so -much she learned from an archduke who had been to see -him, but the rest was not easy even to her audacity. -Vanderlin, who had divorced his wife and was a financier, -would scarcely, she reasoned, be an <i>ingénu</i>. If she could -see him—well, she had few doubts as to the effect she -produced on those who saw her. Experience had justified -her optimism.</p> - -<p>One day she drove through the olive-woods which were -on his estate and through which a drive had been cut -which was open to the public. She saw the château at a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_477">[477]</span> -distance; it was built in the style of François Premier, -and was at once elegant and stately; it had long terraces -which looked out on to the sea. It was precisely the sort -of place to which she would like to come when east winds -were blowing down Piccadilly and north winds down the -Champs Elysées.</p> - -<p>“How could that woman be so stupid as to separate -from him?” she said to the Archduke in whose carriage -she was. That gentleman smiled.</p> - -<p>“As to give him any cause to separate from her? Well, -no one knows the rights of the drama. She was very -young and extremely beautiful. Many suppose that she -was sacrificed to intrigues of her father’s.”</p> - -<p>“But there must have been evidence against her,” said -Mouse, who had a great dislike to this woman whom she -had never seen.</p> - -<p>“There is such a thing as suborned witnesses,” replied -the Archduke. “Besides, in German courts divorce is -given on slight grounds. Myself, I think Vanderlin regrets -it, or else I do not know why a man of his years and -his wealth should shut himself up away from the world as -he does.”</p> - -<p>“But he must be seen in Paris?”</p> - -<p>“By men of business; scarcely anyone else. He never -goes into society.”</p> - -<p>“But you see him, sir?”</p> - -<p>“On business, on business.”</p> - -<p>“Could you not show me the château?”</p> - -<p>“I grieve to refuse you, but I should not venture. I -should look like Mephisto leading a temptress of the -Venusberg to disturb an anchorite in a Paraclete.”</p> - -<p>“What a fool he must be!” said Mouse with sincere -conviction.</p> - -<p>The Archduke laughed.</p> - -<p>“Dear Duchess, there are people, even men, to whom, -when the affections go wrong, life seems worthless. Of -course you do not understand that. Your mission is to -inspire despairing passions, not to feel them.</p> - -<p>“You are a charming creature,” he thought as he spoke. -“But you are as keen after gold as a stoat after poultry. -I shall not put you on the track of Vanderlin’s. He is a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_478">[478]</span> -great capitalist; but such women as you would eat up the -treasure of an empire and still cry ‘Give!’—daughter of -the horse-leech as you are, with your innocent eyes and -your childlike smile.”</p> - -<p>Mouse said no more on the subject, but she carefully -surveyed the approaches of the château and the shore which -stretched immediately beneath its terraces. She had a -plan in her fertile mind.</p> - -<p>She was as at home in the water as a fish; the family at -Faldon had always lived half their days in the sea.</p> - -<p>Early the next morning she rowed herself out in a small -rowing-boat which belonged to one of her friends; she had -Boo with her.</p> - -<p>“We will go and have a bathe in deep water,” she said -to the child. They frequently did so. But she did not -go out very far, and she steered eastward where the woods -of Vanderlin’s château rose above the shore. In front of -the house, and in sight of it, she took advantage of a moment -in which Boo was busy clapping her hands at some -gulls to pull up the plug in the bottom of the boat. It -began to leak and then to fill. She gave a cry as the -water welled up over her ankles, and drawing the child to -her rapidly pulled off Boo’s clothes, leaving her in her -chemise and drawers.</p> - -<p>“Jump on my back and put your arms round my throat. -Don’t hold too hard to choke me. Don’t be frightened—I -will take you to shore.”</p> - -<p>With the little girl on her shoulders she cleared herself -of the boat as it filled to its edges, and let herself go into -the sea, which was quite calm and not very cold in the -noontide. Boo, who had her mother’s high spirit, and was -used to dance about in sea surf, was not nervous and did -not cling too closely. Mouse struck out toward the beach -somewhat embarrassed by her clothing, but swimming -with the skill which she had acquired in childish days in -the rougher waters of the Irish Channel.</p> - -<p>She knew that if anyone was looking through a binocular -on the terraces above she must make a very effective -picture—like Venus Aphrodite bearing Eros. Boo, who -was amused, rode triumphant, keeping her golden hair -and her black Gainsborough hat out of the water. Some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_479">[479]</span> -men who were on the beach holloaed and ran to get a boat -out of a boathouse lower on the shore, but before they -could launch it Mouse and her little daughter had come -ashore laughing and dripping like two playfellows. Their -little skiff, turned keel upward, was floating away to the -eastward as the wind drove it.</p> - -<p>“There will be several napoleons to pay for that,” she -thought, as she saw the derelict going fast out of sight. -“Never mind if one gets into the enchanted castle.”</p> - -<p>At that moment of her landing, whilst she stood shaking -the salt water off her on to the sand, a voice addressed her -from the marble sea-wall above:</p> - -<p>“Have you had an accident, madam? You have displayed -great courage. Pray come up those steps; my -house is at your disposal.”</p> - -<p>“God helps those who help themselves,” thought -Mouse, as she looked up and saw a man above who, she -felt certain, must be Adrian Vanderlin. “I shall be glad -to dry my little daughter’s clothes,” she said, as she began -to ascend the stone steps. “The plug of the boat was rotten; -it filled before one could call out even. If you have -any outhouse you can put us in—we are as wet as two -Newfoundlands.”</p> - -<p>Boo, feeling that it would be more interesting to do so, -had begun to tremble a little and cry, looking a very pretty -watery baby-syren.</p> - -<p>“Don’t cry, Boo,” said her mother. “You know you’re -not frightened a bit, only cold.”</p> - -<p>“I have sent to my women servants to bring you -cloaks,” said the owner of the château as he came down -the steps to meet her, unconscious of the comedy which -had been acted for him. “It was very venturesome,” he -added, “to come in a rowing-boat with no one to aid -you.”</p> - -<p>“It was very stupid of me not to examine the condition -of the boat,” she replied. “As for danger there was none. -I kept close to land, and my child and I swim like fish.”</p> - -<p>“So I have seen; but the Mediterranean, if only a salt-water -lake as some say, can be a very turbulent one.”</p> - -<p>At that moment his servants came, bringing wraps in -which they hastened to enfold the lady and her little girl,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_480">[480]</span> -who were beginning to feel really chilly. They went up -to the house, over whose façade the appreciative eyes of -Mouse ranged enviously.</p> - -<p>“Pray consider everything here at your disposal,” he -said courteously. “My housekeeper will take you upstairs, -and if you will allow me to advise you, you will go -to bed. Meantime, can I send to inform your people?”</p> - -<p>She thanked him gracefully, not too warmly, and gave -him her address in Cannes.</p> - -<p>“If you could get my maid over with some clothes I -should be glad,” she said, as she went up the staircase -looking, as no other woman would have looked, lovely -despite the thick wraps and the soaked hair.</p> - -<p>“But you have not told me your name?”</p> - -<p>“Duchess of Otterbourne,” she called back to him, -whilst she went up the stairs followed by Boo, who by this -time had grown cold and equally cross.</p> - -<p>She was taken into a beautiful bedchamber of the Louis -Quinze style, with silver dogs on the hearth where a wood -fire already blazed.</p> - -<p>“It was really very well done,” she thought with self-complacency. -“I only hope to goodness Boo will not -take cold. That man must be Vanderlin himself. He is -more good-looking than I expected; and for an anchorite -he is civil.”</p> - -<p>“They’re silver,” said Boo, surveying the andirons, -whilst two maids were rubbing dry her rosy limbs. “So’s -the mirror,” she added as she looked around her after -drinking a cup of hot milk; after which she allowed herself -to be put to bed and soon fell fast asleep.</p> - -<p>Her mother sat by the fire wrapped in blankets and -eider-down.</p> - -<p>Even to Boo’s busy and suspicious intelligence it did -not occur that the plug had been pulled out on purpose. -The little secret was quite safe in her mother’s own -brain.</p> - -<p>“This is a very nice house,” said Boo with condescension -to the owner of it when, three hours later, the maid -and the clothes having arrived from Cannes, they went -downstairs with no trace in either of their late immersion -in salt water, and saw their host in his library.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_481">[481]</span>“I am honored by your approval,” said Vanderlin.</p> - -<p>“Boo is a great connoisseur,” said her mother.</p> - -<p>Vanderlin was a tall and slender man, with a handsome -face, spoiled by melancholy and fatigue; his eyes were -dreamy and gentle, his manner was grave and gave the -impression that his thoughts were not greatly in what he -was saying; he at all times spoke little.</p> - -<p>He smiled at the child indulgently. “I hope she has -felt no ill effects,” he said to her mother. “Nor yourself?”</p> - -<p>“They took too good care of us,” replied Mouse. “It -is so very kind of you to have been so hospitable to two -drowned rats.”</p> - -<p>“I am happy to have been of use.” He said it with perfect -politeness, but the tone suggested to her that he would -be grateful if she went away and left him to his solitude.</p> - -<p>The indifference stimulated her vanity.</p> - -<p>“You have not told me who you are,” she said with -that abruptness which in her was graceful. “But I think -I know. You are Baron Vanderlin.”</p> - -<p>He assented.</p> - -<p>“Why do you not see people?” she asked brusquely. -“Why do you shut yourself up all alone in this beautiful -place?”</p> - -<p>“I come here for rest.”</p> - -<p>“But even in Paris or London or Berlin you shun society?”</p> - -<p>“I do not care for it.”</p> - -<p>“What a pity!”</p> - -<p>“Do you think so?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly I do. No one should live alone who is not -old and blind and poor.”</p> - -<p>He smiled slightly.</p> - -<p>“If one were old and blind and poor, one would be -probably left alone, <i>malgré soi</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, you are a pessimist! I am not. I think the -world very delightful and people very good.”</p> - -<p>“Your experiences have been fortunate—and brief.”</p> - -<p>He looked vaguely round the room as if he looked for -somebody to take her away.</p> - -<p>Boo, who had been examining the library, came up to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_482">[482]</span> -him with a little agate Cupid, a paper weight; the Cupid -had gold wings and quiver, and was a delicate work of art. -“It’s pretty,” she said; “will you let me have it?”</p> - -<p>“Pray keep it,” said Vanderlin. Her mother scolded -her and protested, she was indeed considerably annoyed -at the child’s effrontery; but Boo kept tight hold on the -Cupid.</p> - -<p>“Gentleman don’t want it,” she said. “He’s too old -for toys.”</p> - -<p>He laughed. He had not laughed for a long time.</p> - -<p>“Have you any children?” asked Boo.</p> - -<p>“No, my dear.”</p> - -<p>“Why haven’t you?”</p> - -<p>“They are treasures not accorded to all.”</p> - -<p>“Treasure is great anxiety, whether it is your kind of -treasure or mine, M. Vanderlin,” said Boo’s mother. -“You have been very kind to this naughty little girl; and -we have trespassed too long on your hospitality. Yet, if -it wouldn’t bore you too much, I should so like to see -something of the house before I go. I have often wished -to enter as I sallied past it or drove through your olive -woods.”</p> - -<p>He assented to her wish with a reluctance which she -ignored; and he showed her over the chief part of his -château, which contained much which was beautiful and -rare. Boo, wishing for everything she saw but warned by -her mother’s eyes not to ask for anything more, went -jumping and running through the rooms, her hat in her -hand and the light on her golden head.</p> - -<p>“You have several children, I think,” said Vanderlin -to her mother.</p> - -<p>“Four,” replied Mouse; and she felt that she would -have preferred for this hermit to know nothing about her -by reputation.</p> - -<p>“Are they all with you?”</p> - -<p>“No; they are little boys; their guardians have more -to do with them than I.”</p> - -<p>There was a sadness in her tone which made him look -at her with a certain interest.</p> - -<p>“Law is very hard on women,” she added. “Especially -as regards their offspring.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_483">[483]</span>She was, to men of serious temper, most interesting in -her maternal feeling, and it was genuine in a sense though -used with artifice. Vanderlin looked at her with less indifference -and unwillingness, but she made little way in -his intimacy; he remained distant in his courtesy, and as -she drove away with baskets of roses for herself and of -fruit for her little daughter she felt discontentedly that -she had gone through the trouble of her invention, and -spent the money which the lost boat would cost, for small -purpose.</p> - -<p>Boo turned and looked back at the turrets of the -château already distant above its woods.</p> - -<p>“That’s a nice man,” she said decidedly. “Won’t -you marry him, mammy?”</p> - -<p>Her mother colored at such unexpected divination of -her own projects.</p> - -<p>“What odious things you say, Boo,” she answered; -“and how odiously you behaved, asking for things in that -bare-faced way. I have told you fifty times never to -ask.”</p> - -<p>“I shouldn’t have got it else,” replied Boo, calmly and -unmoved, taking the Cupid out of the pocket of her fur -paletôt, and contemplating it with satisfaction. She had -improved in the science of looting since the day when her -mother had made her give back the gold box to Mrs. -Massarene.</p> - -<p>As the carriage drove along the sea-road Vanderlin returned -to the solitude of his library.</p> - -<p>It had been unwelcome to him to be obliged to entertain -them, and yet now that they were gone he momentarily -missed them, the gay bright presence of the child -and the graceful nonchalance in speech and movement of -the woman. It was years since either child or woman had -been in the rooms of Les Mouettes.</p> - -<p>The days passed and brought her no recompense whatever -for her self-inflicted immersion in the cold January -waves. The boat had been found and restored to its -owner, so it did not cost her very much. But the sense -of failure irritated her exceedingly. Boo importuned her -several times to return to the château of the silver dogs, -but only encountered a sharp reprimand and was scolded<span class="pagenum" id="Page_484">[484]</span> -for effrontery. The Cupid had been taken away from her -and found its home in her mother’s dispatch-box till it was -sent as a wedding-gift to somebody who was being married -in the fog in Belgravia. Boo resented the injustice -bitterly and meditated compensation or revenge. More -than once she was on the point of starting by herself for -Les Mouettes, but it was far off, her feet would not take -her there, and she could not get away in a boat because -her governess or her maid was always after her. “If I -could only get there alone he’d give me a lot of things,” -she thought; she could see the promontory on which it -stood some five miles off to westward. But she had to -stay in Cannes, and be walked out by her women, and -play stupid games with little Muscovite princesses, pale -and peevish, and little German countesses, rustic and -rosy. Mammy took little notice of her. “She’s always -nasty when she’s got no money,” reflected Boo.</p> - -<p>Boo knew that there was a scarcity of money.</p> - -<p>One day, as she was walking with her governess, which -she hated, she saw two gentlemen on the other side of a -myrtle hedge. She kissed her hand to one of them and -rushed headlong to where a break in the hedge enabled -her to join them.</p> - -<p>“Good morning!” she cried, rapturously throwing her -arms about Vanderlin. He looked down at her, surprised -at such a welcome.</p> - -<p>“Is it you, my little friend? How is your mother?”</p> - -<p>“Why haven’t you been to see us?” asked Boo.</p> - -<p>He smiled.</p> - -<p>“I am remiss in those matters. I need education.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll tell you what to do,” said Boo. “I know what -people ought to do. Come and see mammy now.”</p> - -<p>“Not now, my dear. I have other engagements.”</p> - -<p>Boo’s brows knit together.</p> - -<p>“People break engagements when I tell them,” she -said with hauteur.</p> - -<p>“Mine are business engagements.”</p> - -<p>“Come!” she said with a stamp of one small foot.</p> - -<p>“No, my dear, I will call on you at three if you wish -it so much.”</p> - -<p>“That is a rude way to speak.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_485">[485]</span>“I am not a courtier, my dear. Run away now. I am -occupied. I will call on you at three.”</p> - -<p>Boo was forced to be content with this compromise; -she looked after him as he walked on with his companion, -a prime minister.</p> - -<p>“He’s made of millions,” she said to her governess, and -her little face had a reverential look upon it.</p> - -<p>Her mother was at home at three o’clock in the pretty -room with its windows opening on to a flower-filled balcony -which cost so much in the first hotel in Cannes. She -was reading, and Boo, at a table, was dabbling with some -water-color paints, when he who was “made of millions” -entered, being faithful to his word.</p> - -<p>“Your little daughter reminded me that I have been to -blame in not earlier doing myself this honor,” he said as -he bent over her hand: she thought that he did not look -either honored or enthusiastic.</p> - -<p>She had a vague sense of hostility to her in him which -stimulated her interest and her intentions.</p> - -<p>“You owed no duty to two shipwrecked waifs whom -you entertained only too amiably,” she said with a charming -smile. “I am surprised that you have given us a -thought.”</p> - -<p>He had scarcely given her a thought, but he could not -tell her so.</p> - -<p>He remained with her half an hour, talking in a somewhat -absent manner of French literature and of German -music.</p> - -<p>“What’ll you give me, mammy?” said Boo when he -had taken his leave, as she dropped down at her mother’s -feet.</p> - -<p>“Give you? What do you mean?” said Mouse, who -was irritated that he had not invited her to his château.</p> - -<p>“What’ll you give me, mammy?” repeated Boo; and -her upraised saucy imperious eyes said plainly, “Reward -me for bringing the person you wanted or I shall tell him -you’ve sent his Cupid—my Cupid—as a wedding-present -to Daisy Ffiennes.”</p> - -<p>“I will give you a kiss first,” said Mouse with apparent -ignorance of the meaning of the upraised eyes, “and then -I will give you a drive. Run away.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_486">[486]</span>To Boo the recompense seemed small besides the greatness -of the service rendered. But her short years of life -had been long enough to convince her that people were -not grateful.</p> - -<p>“Man’s made of millions,” she said dreamily when she -was seated by her mother’s side in the victoria and Vanderlin, -driving a pair of horses on his homeward way, -passed them.</p> - -<p>“I believe he is,” said her mother. “But his millions -are nothing to us.”</p> - -<p>Boo turned her head away that she might grin unrepressed, -showing all her pretty teeth to an eucalyptus tree -on the road.</p> - -<p>Her mother did not like Vanderlin. His grave abstracted -manner, his visible indifference to herself, his -somewhat ceremonious words bored her, chilled her; she -felt in his presence very much as she did when in church.</p> - -<p>But she intended him to marry her. She fancied he -was weak and unintelligent; she thought she would do as -she liked with him and the millions which were undoubtedly -his. On his part he would benefit, for he wanted -rousing and being reconciled to the world. What was the -use of the millions if there were nobody to spend them? -She knew that no one could distance her in the art of -making money fly about and diffuse itself.</p> - -<p>She would much sooner have married Wuffie.</p> - -<p>Wuffie was His Serene Highness Prince Woffram of -Karstein-Lowenthal; he was twenty-four years old, very -good-looking, very mirthful and pleasure-loving, very -popular and sociable; he was extremely in love with her, -and would have given her all he possessed with rapture. -But, alas! that all was represented by a rank which was -negotiable in the marriage market, and bills which were -not negotiable anywhere. He was a fourth son, and his -parents were so poor that Daddy Gwyllian declared he -knew for a fact that, when they were dining alone, they -had the <i>Volkzeitung</i> outspread for a tablecloth to save their -palatial damask. Wuffie was charming, but matrimonially -he was impossible.</p> - -<p>Wuffie was then at Cannes, floating himself in the best -society, as penniless princes of his Fatherland alone can<span class="pagenum" id="Page_487">[487]</span> -do. She liked him; she had even more than liking for -him, but she kept him at a respectful distance, for he did -not accord with the grave intentions with which she had -swum toward the terraces of Les Mouettes. In racing -parlance, she did not dare put her money on him for any -big event.</p> - -<p>“Why am I out in the cold, darling?” he asked sorrowfully -of Boo, who was always consulted by her mother’s -admirers as an unfailing aneroid.</p> - -<p>Boo shook her head and pursed up her lips.</p> - -<p>“Why?” insisted the poor prince. “You know everything, -Boo.”</p> - -<p>This appeal to her omniscience prevailed.</p> - -<p>“You’re very pretty, Wuffie,” she said, caressing his -golden hair, which was as bright as her own. “You’re -very pretty, and you’re great fun. But you know, poor, -poor Wuffie, you haven’t got a pfennig to spend.”</p> - -<p>“Come and see, Boo,” said Wuffie, stung by such a -statement into mad expenditure, which resulted in the -purchase for Boo of a toy opera-house, with orchestra, -costumes, and personages complete, which had, for three -days, been the object of her ardent desires in a shop -window in Nice.</p> - -<p>“I’ll sing all the parts myself,” she said rapturously.</p> - -<p>“You must give the tenor’s to me,” said the purchaser -of it, with a double meaning.</p> - -<p>“Tenors is always spitted,” said Boo solemnly. “They’re -always spitted—or poisoned.”</p> - -<p>Her mother passed some days in perplexed meditation. -She felt that all the charms of her ever-irresistible sorcery -would be thrown away on the owner of that delicious sea-palace, -and that, as matters now stood, there was not a -shadow of reason for the threat of Prince Khristof to be -put into execution. But she was tenacious, and did not -like to acknowledge herself beaten. She could not readily -believe that Vanderlin was so different to other men that -he could in the end remain wholly uninfluenced by her. -The great difficulty was to approach him, for she felt that -she had already committed herself to more than was wise -or was delicate in her advances to him in his solitude. -She cast about her for some <i>deus ex machina</i> that she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_488">[488]</span> -could set in motion, and decided on the old Austrian -Archduke.</p> - -<p>The Archduke was an old man in years, but not in temperament, -and he was highly sensible of her attractions; -she did very much as she pleased with him, and he, sternest -of martinets and harshest of commanding officers, was -like a ball of feathers in her hands. With great adroitness, -and the magnetism which every charming woman exercises, -she so interested him by her descriptions of Les -Mouettes, that he was inspired by a desire of seeing the -place for himself, and was induced to overcome both his -well-bred dislike to intruding on a recluse, and his imperial -reluctance to cross the threshold of a man not noble. -In the end, so well did she know how to turn men and -things to her own purposes, that, despite the mutual reluctance -of both the guest and the host, Vanderlin did, -taken at a disadvantage one day, when he met them all -three together, invite the old general to breakfast, and invited -also herself and her little girl, and the invitations -were promptly accepted. It was impossible to be more -perfectly courteous than Vanderlin was on the occasion, -or to show more urbanity and tact than he did in his reception -of them; but even she, who could easily persuade -herself of most things which she wished to believe, could -not fail to see that the entertainment was a weariness to -him—a concession, and an unwilling one, to the wishes of -an aged prince with whom his banking-house had, for -many years, had relations.</p> - -<p>No one was ever, she thought, so gracefully courteous -and so impenetrably indifferent as her host was. The -child alone seemed to interest him; and Boo, who had -taken her cue unbidden from her mother, was charming, -subdued, almost shy, and wholly bewitching. She had a -genuine respect for the man made of millions.</p> - -<p>The Archduke, after the luncheon, tired by his perambulations -over the large house, and having eaten and -drunk largely, fell asleep on a sofa with some miniatures, -which he was looking at, lying on his knees; he was sunk -in the heavy slumber of age and defective digestion. Not -to disturb him, Vanderlin and she conversed in low tones -at some distance from him, whilst the gentleman of his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_489">[489]</span> -household, who had accompanied him, discreetly played a -noiseless game of ball with Boo on the terrace outside the -windows.</p> - -<p>She, who was greatly daring, thought that now or never -was the moment to find out what her host’s feelings were -toward the woman whom he had divorced. It was difficult, -and she knew that it was shockingly ill-bred to invade -the privacy of such a subject, but she felt that it was -the only way to get even with Khris Kar.</p> - -<p>They were in a room consecrated to the portraits of -women—a collection made by Vanderlin’s father—chiefly -portraits of the eighteenth century, some oils, some pastels, -some crayons, and most of them French work, except -a Romney or two and several Conway miniatures. -She had looked, admired, criticised them with that superficial -knowledge of the technique and jargon of art which -is so easily acquired in the world by people to whom art, -<i>quâ</i> art, is absolutely indifferent. She said the right thing -in the right place, displaying culture and accurate criticism, -and looking, as she always did, like a brilliant Romney -herself, very simply attired with a white gown, a blue -ribbon round her waist, and a straw hat, covered with -forget-me-nots, on her hair.</p> - -<p>The room was in shade and silence, full of sweetness -from great china bowls of lilies of the valley; the old -man slept on with his chin on his chest; the sound of the -sea and the smothered ripple of childish laughter came -from without. Now or never, she thought, and turned to -Vanderlin.</p> - -<p>“What an exquisite place this is! What a pity you -are all alone in it.”</p> - -<p>“Solitude has its compensations, if not its distractions,” -he answered; he was profoundly distrustful of her simple, -natural, friendly manner, which seemed to him more dangerous -than any other; he believed it to be assumed on -purpose to put him off his guard. He thought the Circe -who now endeavored to beguile him one of the loveliest -women he had ever seen, and he felt convinced that she -was also one of the most dangerous. But she aroused -neither interest nor curiosity in him, though his mind -acknowledged her potent charms.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_490">[490]</span>“Do you never regret?” she asked abruptly.</p> - -<p>“Who can outlive youth without regret?” he replied. -He was hostile to her in his mind. He felt her charm, -but he resented her approaches. He could not but perceive -her desire to draw him into confidential conversation, -and the reserve which was natural to him increased -in proportion to her persistent endeavor to overcome it.</p> - -<p>In herself, she was irritated and discouraged; but she -concealed both feelings, and summoned all her courage.</p> - -<p>“Is there a portrait of your wife here?” she asked -abruptly, turning and facing him.</p> - -<p>He grew pale to his lips, and an expression of intense -pain passed over his countenance.</p> - -<p>“Madame,” he said very coldly, “that lady’s name -must not be mentioned to me.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, you know, I am a very impertinent person!” she -answered lightly. “Perhaps you will say I am a very -ill-bred one. But her story has always had a fascination -for me. They say she is such a very beautiful person.”</p> - -<p>He said nothing; he retained his composure with difficulty; -this audacious stranger probed a wound which he -would not have allowed his most intimate friend to touch.</p> - -<p>“I know her father very well,” she continued, disregarding -the visible offence and suffering with which he -heard her; “he has sometimes spoken of her to me. He -is not very scrupulous. Don’t you think there may have -been some misunderstanding, some misrepresentation, -some intentional mischief?”</p> - -<p>Vanderlin, with increasing difficulty, controlled his -anger and his emotion.</p> - -<p>“I do not discuss these matters,” he said with great -chillness. “Allow me, madame, to remind you that the -privilege of your acquaintance is to me a very recent -honor.”</p> - -<p>“And you think me very intrusive and insupportable? -Oh! I quite understand that. But I have heard things—and -it seems a pity—you are not old enough to mope all -by yourself like this; and if there was any mistake?”</p> - -<p>“There was none.”</p> - -<p>He said it between his teeth; the recollections she -evoked were fraught for him with intolerable torture, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_491">[491]</span> -he could have taken this intruder by her shoulders and -thrust her out of his presence if he had not been restrained -by the habits and self-command of a man of the world.</p> - -<p>“But she ruins your life. You do not forget her?” -said his unwelcome visitant.</p> - -<p>“I shall not replace her, madame,” replied Vanderlin -curtly, weary of the cross-examination, and wondering, -half divining, what the scope of it might be.</p> - -<p>“Ah, there you are so right!” Mouse murmured. -“How can the ruling of a judge undo what is done, efface -what is written on the heart, or make the past a <i>tabula -rasa</i>? You think me an impertinent, tiresome person, I -am sure, but I must say to you how glad, how very glad -I should be, if I could ever prove to you that you wronged -the Countess zu Lynar.”</p> - -<p>“Why do you speak of such things?” said Vanderlin, -his self-control momentarily deserting him. “Does one -put out the light of one’s life, of one’s soul, on mere suspicion? -You do not know what you are saying. You -torture me. You will make me forget myself. Be silent, -I tell you; be silent!”</p> - -<p>She looked at him, very sweetly, without offence.</p> - -<p>“I understand. You love this woman still. She was -the mother of your dead child. I understand—oh! so -completely! Well, if ever I can prove to you that I am -right and you are wrong, I shall be very glad, for I am -quite sure that you will never care for any other person. -It may seem to you very impertinent, but I have an idea—an -idea—— Never mind, if there be any grounds for -it, time will show.”</p> - -<p>“You speak very strangely, madame,” said Vanderlin, -agitated to a degree which it was hard for him to conceal, -yet extremely suspicious of her motives.</p> - -<p>“I dare say I do,” she answered without offence, “for I -know nothing whatever, and I conjecture a great deal; -very feminine that, you will say. Hush! the Archduke -is stirring.”</p> - -<p>At that moment the Archduke awoke from his slumber, -astonished to find himself where he was, and looking -round for his missing gentleman. Vanderlin hastened, of -course, to his side, and the <i>tête-à-tête</i> was over, but it had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_492">[492]</span> -lasted long enough for her to be certain that it would be -as easy to raise the sunken galleys of Carthage from the -violet seas beyond the windows as to revive passion in the -heart of her host.</p> - -<p>She hastened to leave him and go out on to the terrace -to tell Boo to be quiet, for she had, as she had truly said, -no knowledge whatever, and merely some vague impressions -suggested by the visit and the warning of Prince -Khris. But she had gleaned two certainties from her conversation -with Vanderlin—one, that he had never ceased -to regret his divorced wife, the other that it would be as -much use to woo a marble statue as to attempt to fascinate -this man, whose heart was buried in the deep sea -grave of a shipwrecked passion. She had read of such -passions, and seen them represented on the stage, but she -had never before believed in their existence. Now that -she did believe in them, such a waste of opportunities -seemed to her supremely idiotic. The idea of a financier, -a man of the world, a Crœsus of Paris and Berlin, sitting -down to weep for the broken jug of spilt milk, for the -shattered basket of eggs, like the farm-girl in the fable! -What could be sillier or less remunerative? But she remembered -she had often heard that the cleverest men in -public business were always the greatest fools in private -life.</p> - -<p>She drove away in the radiance of the late afternoon in -the Archduke’s carriage, Boo sitting opposite to her holding -disconsolately a bouquet of orchids, of which the -rarity did not compensate to her for not having got anything -else.</p> - -<p>“What a pity that man does not marry again,” said the -old gentleman, as they passed through the olive and ilex -woods of the park.</p> - -<p>“I believe he is in love with his lost wife,” said Mouse.</p> - -<p>“Very possibly,” replied the Archduke. “I remember -her as a young girl; her beauty was quite extraordinary; -it was her misfortune, for it was the cause of his jealousy.”</p> - -<p>“Jealous! That serene impassive man?”</p> - -<p>“The serenity is acquired, and the impassiveness is an -armor. He is a person of strong passions and deep affections.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_493">[493]</span> -He adored his wife, and I have always supposed -that his susceptibilities were played upon by some Iago.”</p> - -<p>“But what Iago? And why?”</p> - -<p>“Her father, perhaps, and out of spite. But I really -know nothing,” said the Archduke, recollecting himself, -the good wines of Les Mouettes having loosened his -tongue to unusual loquacity.</p> - -<p>“He didn’t give me anything to-day!” said Boo woefully -from the front seat; she was unrewarded for her -painful goodness, for her sweetly-imitated shyness, for the -self-denial with which she had held her tongue, and bored -herself to play ball noiselessly with that stout, bald, florid -aide-de-camp.</p> - -<p>The Archduke laughed.</p> - -<p>“Giving is a delightful privilege,” he said; “but when -we know that all the world is expecting us to give, the -pastime palls. Adrian Vanderlin has felt that from the -time he was in his nursery. You must allow me to -remedy his omission in this instance, my charming little -friend.”</p> - -<p>Mouse went home sorely out of temper; it seemed to -her quite monstrous that two persons, like this man and -Billy’s daughter, should each have had command given -them of a vast fortune by which they were each only -bored, whilst she who would have spent such a fortune so -well, and with so much enjoyment, was left a victim to -the most sordid anxieties. There was certainly something -wrong in the construction of the universe. She felt almost -disposed to be a socialist.</p> - -<p>As she went up the staircase of her hotel she was roused -from her meditations by Boo’s voice, which was saying -plaintively again, “He didn’t give me anything to-day!”</p> - -<p>“I am very glad he did not,” said her mother. “You -are a greedy, shameless, gobbling little cat.”</p> - -<p>“You’re the cat and I’m your kitten,” thought her -young daughter, but Boo, saucy and bold as she was, -never dared to be impudent to her mother.</p> - -<p>When they had left him Vanderlin went up to his bedchamber, -unlocked a drawer in a cabinet, and took out of -it two portraits, one of his divorced wife, the other of her -dead child.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_494">[494]</span>He looked at them long with slow, hot tears welling up -into his eyes.</p> - -<p>He would have given all the millions which men envied -him to have had the child playing at his side, and the -mother with her hand in his.</p> - -<p>A sorrow of the affections may not affect the health, the -strength, the mind, the occupations, or the general life of -a man, but it embitters it as a single drop of wormwood -can embitter the whole clearness and brightness of a bowl -of pure water; the bowl may be of silver, may be of gold, -but the water in it is spoilt for ever; and he who must -drink from it envies the peasant the wooden cup which he -fills and refills at a purling stream.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_495">[495]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XL.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Prince Khris</span> of Karstein was at Monte Carlo playing -continuously, losing almost always, living in a miserable -lodging over a small shop, and devoting, to that blind -goddess with a thousand hands who is called Play, his -clothes, his sustenance, his last rings and shirt studs. He -did this every winter, and every spring he was supplied -afresh through his daughter’s means, and went to Spa or -Luchon and did the same. From Germany he was -banned.</p> - -<p>One day at the Casino he saw the Duchess of Otterbourne -stretching out her slender hand between a Jew -broker and a Paris cocotte to put some gold upon the red.</p> - -<p>“Ah! blonde devil! blonde devil!” he thought to himself, -and wished he might see her lose her last farthing -and crawl under a hedge to drink her last dose of morphia. -But this he knew he was not likely to see, nor anyone else, -for she was not the kind of person who kills herself, and -at play she generally won, for she kept quite cool at it and -never let it run away with her judgment.</p> - -<p>He hated her intensely; he had never liked her, but -when she had shut Harrenden House to him, she had excited -and merited his most bitter detestation. She had -not played fair, and Prince Khris, though he might cheat, -abhorred being cheated; he felt it an insult to his intelligence. -He had discovered the Massarenes before she had -done so; they had been his placer-claim, his treasure isle, -his silver mine; she had come after him and profited and -plundered. This he might have pardoned if she had kept -faith with him and gone shares. But she had acted -treacherously. She had mined the ground under his feet. -She had taught these ignorant people to know him as he -was. She had made them understand that they must drop -him, shake him off; that to be seen with him did them -social harm, not good. She had annexed them and made -them hers; she had created a monopoly in them for herself.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_496">[496]</span> -She had taken them with her into spheres the entrance -into which had long been forfeited by himself. -And all this had been done so skilfully, with so much -coolness and acumen, that he had been powerless to oppose -it. The dinners of Harrenden House had become to -him things of the past; the Clodion falconer which he -had found for them saw him no more pass up their staircase; -they were ungrateful like all low-bred people, and -she triumphed.</p> - -<p>“The blonde devil! the blonde devil!” he said with a -curse.</p> - -<p>But for her they would in all likelihood have remained -unknown to immaculate society, and would to the end of -time have believed in himself as a semi-royal divinity, -knowing nothing of the stains on his purples, nothing of -the cankered breast which rotted under the ribbons of his -orders.</p> - -<p>She had not been so clever as the groom of the chamber -at Harrenden House had thought her; she had not -gone shares fairly with her predecessor in the exploitation -of the Massarene vein.</p> - -<p>She had made an enemy of him. She thought his -enmity was of no consequence because he was a person -wholly discredited and despised, but in this she was -greatly mistaken; because water is muddy it is not therefore -incapable of drowning you.</p> - -<p>Khris Kar, who was a person of extreme intelligence, -guessed all her motives and all her modes of action, and -divined exactly all she said against him.</p> - -<p>It is always a dangerous and difficult thing to “drop -people,” and neither the master nor the mistress of Harrenden -House had tact and experience enough to do it in -the least offensive manner. Indeed, Massarene himself -enjoyed doing it offensively; it made him feel a greater -swell than ever to be able to be rude and slighting to a -person of the original rank of Prince Khris. It afflicted -the tenderer heart of his wife, but she did not dare to disobey -orders, and despite his rage the old prince could not -be otherwise than amused to note the elaborate devices -with which she shifted her parasol so as not to see him in -the Park, and fumbled with her handkerchief or her fan<span class="pagenum" id="Page_497">[497]</span> -as he approached at a concert or a theatre to avoid offering -him her hand.</p> - -<p>He read his fair foe’s tactics in the stiff and frightened -manner of the Massarenes toward him; he saw that they -had been warned he was a bird of prey, that they were -afraid to say anything to his face, and could only clumsily -draw away from him. He was used to this treatment -from his equals, but in these low creatures it stung him -painfully; he felt like a disabled hawk having its eyes -pecked out by a crow. As he watched, as time went on, -the upward progress of these people into that higher -world for ever closed to himself, he knew that she had -done for them what he had lost all power of doing for -them or for anyone. He acknowledged her superiority, -but her treachery he intended to repay at the earliest -opportunity. One does not pull a ferret out of a rabbit-burrow -without being bitten.</p> - -<p>As it chanced there came into his hands a weekly -journal published at Nice which contained such items of -social intelligence as it was thought would interest the -visitors to the Riviera, and amongst these was a paragraph -which spoke of the boating accident to the Duchess of -Otterbourne and the coolness and courage displayed by -that lady; it mentioned that the accident had happened -off the terraces of the Mouettes. As he read, he thought -he saw between the lines; he suspected the accident was -one of design; he suspected the rescue of the child by -her mother was a brilliant <i>coup de théâtre</i>, done with intention -to arouse the interest of a solitary.</p> - -<p>He made a few careful discreet inquiries; he found that -Vanderlin had been to see her at her hotel; he learned -that the circumstances of the fair swimmer were embarrassed, -which did not surprise him; he heard some gossiper -laugh and say that she was intending to marry the -great banker; he saw as completely into her mind and -soul as if he had been Mephistopheles.</p> - -<p>He promised himself that she should not succeed.</p> - -<p>Some remorseful regret occasionally stirred in him -when he thought of his daughter’s lonely life, and when -he remembered the passionate love which had been ruptured -when she and Vanderlin had parted. He was a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_498">[498]</span> -bad old man with a shrivelled heart and a numbed conscience, -but he was human.</p> - -<p>Mouse was at that time especially irritated and depressed. -There had come to Cannes that week a young -beauty, a mere child, but of extreme loveliness and wonderful -coloring, very much what Boo would be in a few -more years. This young girl, an Austrian just married to -a Russian thrice her age, had turned all heads and occupied -all tongues at Cannes, and Mouse, for the first time -in her life, had the uncomfortable sensation of being -eclipsed, of being rather out of it, as she would have said, -in her own phraseology.</p> - -<p>It was a dull and unpleasant feeling which filled her -with resentment, and made her stare into her mirror with -an anxiety and uncertainty wholly new to her.</p> - -<p>She was in this kind of mood when Prince Khris -walked up the steps of her hotel.</p> - -<p>She had come in from driving, fretful and disposed to -think that life was more trouble than it was worth, when -they brought her a card, and said the gentleman who -owned it was waiting downstairs.</p> - -<p>“Khris Kar! What can he possibly want with me?” -she wondered. She was disposed to let him remain downstairs, -and she was in no mood for visitors, especially those -who could be of no possible use or amusement to her.</p> - -<p>Then she reflected that she had not behaved very well -to him, that he had at one time been very intimate at -Harrenden House, and also that he had been the father-in-law, -at all events for a few years, of the master of Les -Mouettes.</p> - -<p>“Show him up,” she said irritably to her servant. In -another minute the old man entered, frailer, thinner, with -the gold dye on his hair more visible, but bland and -polished as before, and with the same keen, intent gleam -in his pale-blue eyes. She welcomed him sweetly, suppressing -a yawn, and seemed as if it were the most -natural thing in the world to receive a man against whom -society had long closed all its doors.</p> - -<p>Who could tell what old Khris might know? She was -well aware that she had ousted him out of Harrenden -House.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_499">[499]</span>“You are not looking well, Prince,” she said with solicitude, -offering him her little silver tray of cigarettes.</p> - -<p>“Old age, old age!” said Prince Khris airily, as he took -a cigarette and lighted it. “How happy are you, Duchess, -who are in all the wonder-blossoming of your youth!”</p> - -<p>“That is a nasty one,” thought Mouse, for she knew -that when your children are growing up speeches of this -kind have a sub-acid flavor which it is intended should be -distinctly tasted by you.</p> - -<p>He settled himself comfortably in the lounging-chair he -occupied, and blew the perfumed smoke into the air.</p> - -<p>“I am especially fortunate to find you alone,” he said. -“May I at once mention the purport of my visit, for I -know how rare it is to be favored by a <i>tête-à-tête</i> with you -when one is, alas, old and uninteresting!”</p> - -<p>“Pray say anything you like,” she replied, the sweetness -beginning to go out of her manner and the softness -out of her voice, for she felt that whatever his purpose -might be it was not amiable.</p> - -<p>“Allow me, then,” said the old man very suavely, “to -ask you if it be true what people say in these places—that -you intend to marry my ex-son-in-law, Adrian -Vanderlin?”</p> - -<p>She was silent from astonishment and annoyance. She -did not want to have the keen eyes of this old gambler -watching her cards.</p> - -<p>“There is not the smallest authority for such a statement,” -she answered with hauteur, “and I think you -might phrase your inquiry more courteously.”</p> - -<p>He smiled and made a little gesture with the cigarette, -indicative of apology or derision, as she chose to take it.</p> - -<p>“Why should not either or both of them marry -again?” she asked, her anxiety on the matter getting the -better of her prudence and good taste.</p> - -<p>“Dear lady,” replied Prince Khris, “it seems incredible -to properly constituted minds, but there are actually persons -so disposed by nature that they only love once! It -is a lamentable limitation of what was intended to be our -most agreeable and varied pastime; but so it is. You -know there are some persons who take everything seriously, -and drink sparkling Moselle with a long face.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_500">[500]</span>“Perhaps they will re-marry each other? It is not -against the law, I believe.”</p> - -<p>“No; it is not against the law, probably because no -lawmakers ever thought such a case possible.”</p> - -<p>“How he dislikes them both!” she thought. “Perhaps -because they didn’t give him enough money, or perhaps -because they are maintaining him now.”</p> - -<p>It seemed to her experienced mind that you would -naturally hate anybody who maintained you.</p> - -<p>“I heard of a boat upset beneath the terraces of Les -Mouettes, of an intrepid <i>sauvetage</i> of your lovely little -girl on your own fair shoulders,” murmured Prince Khris. -“I hope the master of the château was grateful, but I -doubt it; men of business are sceptical rather than impressionable. -I hope you took no cold?”</p> - -<p>“None whatever,” said Mouse crossly and curtly, for -she felt herself <i>dévinée</i>, and this sensation is never soothing -to the nerves.</p> - -<p>“I am charmed to hear it. But is it true that you have -an intention to render still richer than he is the singularly -ungrateful person who is called the Christian Rothschild?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know what you mean,” she said sullenly; -“and I don’t know what this man, Christian or Jew, can -matter to you. He divorced your daughter.”</p> - -<p>It was more than a rude thing, it was an ill-bred thing -to say, and she knew that it was so; but her temper got -the better of her prudence, as it had done in her interview -with Beaumont.</p> - -<p>Prince Khris remained unmoved.</p> - -<p>“That is matter of history,” he said serenely. “The -man, as you call him (who is unquestionably a Christian), -may have been touched by that heroic spectacle of a -modern Aphrodite battling with the waves. No doubt it -was intended that he should be touched. All that I wish -to say, dear Duchess, is this, that if the report be true -that you intend to marry him—and it may be, for millionaires -are the only men worth marrying—I merely venture -to say that I—well, in a word, I should prevent it. That -is all.”</p> - -<p>She stared at him in unaffected amazement, and her -anger was as real as her surprise.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_501">[501]</span>“How dare you say such things to me?” she said in -great offence. “You would venture to imply that the -boat was upset on purpose!”</p> - -<p>He laughed a little softly.</p> - -<p>“The unaided <i>à propos</i> is rarely of occurrence in this -life. But perhaps M. Vanderlin was impressed by the -accident; men of finance are sometimes children in matters -outside their counting-houses. However, all I desired, -Duchess, is to intimate to you that if you have any -intention of marrying the man who, as you remarked, -divorced my daughter, I shall not permit the marriage to -take place.”</p> - -<p>“How can you prevent it?”</p> - -<p>“That is my affair. Rest assured only that I can and -that I shall.”</p> - -<p>She was silent, intensely irritated and uncertain how to -treat him; she was aware that there was something -ludicrous and undignified in her position; she could not -allege that Vanderlin had any intention to marry her; -she had been taken off her guard and placed in a position -of absurd embarrassment.</p> - -<p>What could this old man mean? He was too keen and -experienced a person to menace what he had not the -ability to carry out. Had he known anything of her relations -with Massarene?</p> - -<p>She knew that he had a long score against her to pay -off, that he must hate her and would make her feel its -hatred if he could; but he was not a man to indulge in -unprofitable rancor.</p> - -<p>She said between her teeth: “Do you suppose, if I -wished to marry any man, I shouldn’t do it?”</p> - -<p>“It is impossible to say,” murmured Prince Khris. -“There are some persons so perverted that they do not -like new-mown hay or early strawberries. There may be -also persons so dead to beauty and to virtue that they do -not appreciate the exquisite qualities of the Duchess of -Otterbourne.”</p> - -<p>“You old wretch!” she thought, with difficulty controlling -herself from ordering him out of the room. “I -had not the remotest intention of annexing your <i>ci-devant</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_502">[502]</span> -son-in-law,” she said aloud; “but as you have put the -idea in my head, perhaps I shall do it.”</p> - -<p>“Are you sure it is I who put it there?” said Prince -Khris, smiling. “Then allow me to take it out again. I -do not intend you to marry Adrian Vanderlin.”</p> - -<p>“What business would it be of yours if I did? He -disgraced your daughter before all Europe.”</p> - -<p>His face remained impassive. “You cannot wonder, -then, if only out of vengeance I shall deny him the -paradise of your embrace! Be my motive what it will, -dear lady, take this for certain: I shall not allow you to -carry out your present scheme.”</p> - -<p>“Sir!” Anger flashed from her sapphire eyes, her -voice was stifled by rage. Her “scheme”!—as if she -were an intriguing horizontale, a nameless adventuress!</p> - -<p>He laid down the cigarette which he had appreciated -and finished.</p> - -<p>“Remember,” he said serenely—“I can say that to -Vanderlin which will prevent him from marrying you or -any other woman.”</p> - -<p>“I shall tell him that is your boast.”</p> - -<p>“You can tell him if you like. He will not believe you, -and he certainly will not question me.”</p> - -<p>“But what could his marriage, were there any question -of it, matter to you?” Her curiosity got the better of -her rage.</p> - -<p>“That is my affair,” he replied. “To be quite frank -with you, it does not matter to me in the least, but I do -not intend you to step into my daughter’s place. She is -my daughter, though many years have passed since I saw -her; and you, madame, shall not sit where she sat, love -where she loved, sleep where she slept; you shall not do -her that injury. A sentimentalism, you think. No, I am -not sentimental, though I come of the land of Werther. -But a few years ago you did me a bad turn when I was -weak enough to trust you, and I do not forget easily. I -can prevent you from reaching the Canaan of Vanderlin’s -wealth, and I intend to do so. I know what you would -do; you would entice him with exquisite skill, and it is -possible that you would make him your dupe; in finance -he is clever, but in the affections he is a child. Well, take<span class="pagenum" id="Page_503">[503]</span> -warning; let him alone, for if you attempt to succeed -with him, I shall intervene. That is all. I have told you -to desist because I am not desirous of approaching the -man who, as you observed, dishonored my daughter before -all Europe. But if you do not listen to good counsels I -shall do so, for I repeat I do not intend you ever to reach -the Canaan of his riches.”</p> - -<p>Then, without waiting for any reply from her, he rose, -bowed with the courtly grace which to the last distinguished -him, and left her presence walking with that -feebleness which infirmity and years entailed, but with a -pleased smile upon his face and as much alacrity as he -could command, for he was in his haste to return to the -tables of Monte Carlo.</p> - -<p>She remained in a sort of stupor, staring at the smoked-out -cigarette which he had left behind him on the ash -tray.</p> - -<p>She had been so utterly astonished, humiliated, and -disgusted that she had not had presence of mind enough -to charge him with having brought about his daughter’s -ruin by his own intrigues and falsehoods.</p> - -<p>Unfortunately too she knew so little, so very little, only -what the Archduke Franz had hinted to her, and with that -weak weapon of mere conjecture she could not have discomfited -so skilled and accomplished a master of fence as -was Prince Khristopher of Karstein.</p> - -<p>How she wished, oh! how she wished that she had let -him have his fair share of the spoils of Harrenden House! -There are few things more utterly painful than to have -done mean, ungenerous, and dishonorable acts, and find -them all like a nest of vipers torpid from cold which -have been warmed on your hearth and uncurl and hiss at -you.</p> - -<p>“My greatuncle came to call on you!” said young -Prince Woffram with astonishment and curiosity. “I -saw him in the hall; I don’t speak to him, you know—we -none of us do. But I felt sorry——”</p> - -<p>“So do I whenever I see him,” said Mouse in her -frankest and sweetest manner. “I have always stood by -him, you know. He is so courtly and charming and now -so old. It is horribly cruel, I think, to shut one’s doors on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_504">[504]</span> -a man of that age. He may have been all they say—I -suppose he has—but his sins must have been over before -we were born, and when anybody is so old as that I, for -one, really cannot be unkind.”</p> - -<p>What an angel she was! thought the young grandnephew -of Prince Khris; an angel of modern make, with -wings of chiffon, which would not perhaps stand a shower -of rain or a buffet of wind, but still an angel!</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_505">[505]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XLI.</h2> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Lord!</span> my dear Ronnie,” exclaimed Daddy Gwyllian, -“what poor short-sighted creatures we are with all our -worldly wisdom! To think that I ever advised you to do -such a thing! Lord! I might have ruined you!”</p> - -<p>His astonishment and repentance were so extreme and -sincere that Hurstmanceaux was bewildered.</p> - -<p>“What did you ever advise me to do,” he asked, “that -would have ruined me?”</p> - -<p>“I told you to marry her.”</p> - -<p>“To marry whom?”</p> - -<p>“Massarene’s daughter.”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux’s face changed. “I believe you did,” -he said stiffly. “I am glad you see the impropriety of -telling a poor man to marry a rich woman.”</p> - -<p>“But she isn’t a rich woman!” cried the poor matchmaker -in almost a shriek of remorse. “I might have led -you to your ruin. She has gone and given it all away!”</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux turned quickly to him with animation.</p> - -<p>“What do you say? Given what away? Her father’s -fortune?”</p> - -<p>“Read that,” said Gwyllian. “Oh, Lord, that fools -should ever have money, and sensible folks be worn into -their graves for want of it!”</p> - -<p>What he gave Ronald to read was a column in a leading -journal of Paris and New York; an article adorned by -a woodcut which was labelled a portrait of Katherine -Massarene, and resembled her as much as it did a Burmese -idol or a face on a door-knocker. The article, which was -long, abounded in large capital letters and startling italics. -Its hyperbolic and hysterical language, being translated -into the language of sober sense, stated that the daughter -of the “bull-dozing boss,” so well known in the States as -William Massarene, having inherited the whole of his vast -wealth, had come over to America <i>incognita</i>, had spent -some months in the study of life as seen in the city of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_506">[506]</span> -Kerosene, and the adjacent townships and provinces, and -having made herself intimately acquainted with the people -and the institutions, had divided two-thirds of her inheritance -between those who had shared in any way in the -making of that wealth, or whose descendants were in -want.</p> - -<p>She had devoted another large portion of it to the -creation of various asylums and institutions and provision -for human and animal needs in both Great Britain and -Ireland, whilst the valuable remainder had been divided -amongst many poor families of County Down. The journal -said, in conclusion, that she had purchased an annuity -for her mother, which would give that lady double the -annual income allotted to her under William Massarene’s -will; and that for herself she had kept nothing, not a red -cent. The editor added a personal note stating that Miss -Massarene had certainly made no provision for her own -maintenance, since she had forgotten to endow a lunatic -asylum!</p> - -<p>The column closed with the total in plain figures of the -enormous property which had been thus broken up and -distributed. Hurstmanceaux read it in silence from the -first line to the last; then in silence returned it to Daddy -Gwyllian.</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it heaven’s mercy you didn’t marry her!” cried -Daddy. “To be sure you would have prevented this. -She must be stark staring mad, you know; the paper -hints as much.”</p> - -<p>“If she had consulted the Seven Sages and the Four -Evangelists, she could not have been advised by them to -act more wisely or more well,” replied Hurstmanceaux -with emphasis. “Good-bye, Daddy. Leave off match-making, -or you may burn your fingers at it.”</p> - -<p>He went away without more comment, and Daddy stood -staring after him with round, wide-open eyes. Was it -possible that anybody lived who could consider such a -course of action praiseworthy or sane?</p> - -<p>“But Ronnie was always as mad as a hatter himself,” -he thought sorrowfully as he buttonholed another friend, -and displayed his Parisian-American paper.</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes—frightful insanity!” said the newcomer.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_507">[507]</span> -“I’ve just seen it in <i>Truth</i>. It was wired. Enough to -make old Billy get up out of his grave, don’t you think? -<i>Sic transit gloria mundi.</i>”</p> - -<p>“Damned socialistic thing to do,” said a third who -joined them and who also had seen <i>Truth</i>. “Horrible bad -example! If property isn’t inviolate to your heirs, where -are you? If there isn’t solidarity amongst the holders -of property, what can keep back the nationalization of -property?”</p> - -<p>No one could say what would.</p> - -<p>“This is what comes of young women reading Herbert -Spencer and Goldwin Smith,” said a fourth.</p> - -<p>“These men are not communists,” said the previous -speaker. “This lady’s act is rank communism.”</p> - -<p>“Can’t one do what one likes with one’s own?” asked -another.</p> - -<p>“Certainly not,” replied the gentleman who dreaded -the nationalization of property. “We should first consider -the effect of what we do on the world at large. This -young woman (I never liked her) has said practically to -the many millions of operatives all the world over that -capital is a crime.”</p> - -<p>“Capital, acquired as Billy’s was, is uncommonly near -a crime,” murmured the first speaker.</p> - -<p>“Capital by its mere consolidation becomes purified,” -said the other angrily, “as carbon becomes by crystallization -a diamond. This young woman has practically told -every beggar throughout both hemispheres that he has a -right to grind the diamonds into dust.”</p> - -<p>“I always thought her plain,” said a more frivolous -listener.</p> - -<p>“Fine eyes, fine figure, but plain,” said another, “and -she was always so rude to the Prince.”</p> - -<p>“Rude to everybody, and always looked bored,” said a -person whose hand she had rejected.</p> - -<p>“Subversive,” said the upholder of property. “Very -odd: her father was so sound in all his views.”</p> - -<p>“I think Billy’ll wake and walk!” said the gentleman -who had before expressed this opinion; “all his pile split -up into match wood!”</p> - -<p>Daddy Gwyllian felt so vexed that he left them discussing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_508">[508]</span> -the matter and went home. Why could not Ronnie -have made himself agreeable to her before this horrible -socialistic idea had come into her head, and so have held -all that marvellously solid fortune together? It made -him quite sad to think of these millions of good money -frittered away in asylums and refuges and the dirty hands -of a lot of hungry people.</p> - -<p>Even Harrenden House was sold, they said, just as it -stood, with all its admirable works of art, and the beckoning -falconer of Clodion at the head of the staircase.</p> - -<p>At the same moment the Duchess of Otterbourne was -also reading this article in the Paris-New York journal. -She thought it a hoax; a yarn spun by some mischievous -spinner of sensational stories. When she heard however -from all sides that it was true, she felt a kind of relief.</p> - -<p>“Nobody will know her now,” she thought. “So she -won’t be able to talk. It is really enough to wake that -brute in his grave. I always considered her odious, but -I should never have supposed she was mad.”</p> - -<p>“What do you think of it?” she asked Vanderlin, whom -she met the day she had read of this amazing piece of folly. -He had not heard of it: she described the salient features -of the narrative.</p> - -<p>“I know nothing of the lady or of the sources of the -fortune she has broken up,” he replied, “so I cannot -judge. But if she wishes to be at peace she has acted -very wisely for herself.”</p> - -<p>Mouse heard with an impatience which she could not -conceal.</p> - -<p>“Do you mean,” she asked point-blank, “that you would -like to lose your fortune?”</p> - -<p>“One must never say those things aloud, madame,” he -replied. “For the <i>boutade</i> of a discontented moment may -be repeated in print by these Paul Prys of the Press as -the serious conviction of a lifetime.”</p> - -<p>“How I loathe your diplomatic answers!” she thought, -much irritated at her perpetual failure to entice him out -of his habitual reserve. “One can’t talk at all unless one -says what one thinks,” she answered impatiently.</p> - -<p>He smiled slightly again.</p> - -<p>“I should rather have supposed that the chief necessity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_509">[509]</span> -in social intercourse was to successfully repress one’s sincerity: -is it not so?”</p> - -<p>“You are a very tantalizing person to talk to!” she -said with a chagrin which was real.</p> - -<p>“Why insist on talking to me then?” thought Vanderlin, -and he let the conversation drop; it was too personal -for his taste.</p> - -<p>Her verdict, more or less softened, was the verdict of -the world in general on Katherine Massarene’s action.</p> - -<p>The action was insane, and to English and American -society offensive.</p> - -<p>The world considered it had warmed an adder in its -breast. Everybody had known her only because of her -money, and now she had stripped herself of her money, -and would expect to know them just the same!</p> - -<p>Besides, what a shocking example! Ought big brewers, -instead of ascending to the celestial regions of the Upper -House, to strip themselves of their capital and build inebriate -asylums? Ought big bankers, instead of going to -court and marrying dukes’ daughters, to live on bread -and cheese, and give their millions in pensions and bonuses? -Ought big manufacturers, instead of receiving -baronetcies, and having princes at their shooting parties, -to go in sackcloth and ashes, and spend all their profits in -making the deadly trades healthy? Were all the titled -railway directors to pull off their Bath ribbons, and melt -down the silver spades with which they had cut the sods -of new lines, in order to give all they possess to maimed -stokers, or dazed signalmen, or passengers who had lost -their legs or their arms in accidents?</p> - -<p>Forbid it, heaven!</p> - -<p>Society shook on its very foundations. Never had -there been set precedent fraught with such disastrous example. -It was something worse than socialism; they -could not give it a name. Socialism knocked you down -and picked your pocket: but this act of hers was a voluntary -eating of dust. She, who had supposed that she -would be able to do what she choose with her inheritance -unremarked, was astonished at the storm of indignation -raised by the intolerable example she was considered to -have set. American capitalists were as furious as English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_510">[510]</span> -aristocracy and plutocracy, and the chief organs of the -American press asked her if she could seriously suppose -that anybody would take the trouble to put money together -if they had to give it away as soon as they got it?</p> - -<p>The publicity and hostility roused in two nations by an -act which she had endeavored to make as private as possible -disconcerted her exceedingly, and the encomiums -she received from anonymous correspondents were not -more welcome.</p> - -<p>What most annoyed her were the political deductions -and accusations which were roused by her action and -roared around it. She was claimed by the Collectivists, -praised by the Positivists, seized by the Socialists, and -admired by the Anarchists. She was supposed to belong -to every new creed to which the latter years of the nineteenth -century has given birth, and such creeds are multitudinous -as ants’ eggs in an ant-hill. A ton weight of -subversive literature and another ton weight of begging -letters were sent to her, and she was requested to forward -funds for a monument to Jesus Ravachol and Harmodius-Caserio.</p> - -<p>The Fabian philosophers wept with joy over her; but -the upholders of property said that nothing more profoundly -immoral than this dispersion of wealth had ever -been accomplished since Propriété Nationale was written -on the façade of the Tuileries. Tolstoi dedicated a work -to her; Cuvallotti wrote her an ode; Brunetière consecrated -an article to her, Mr. Mallock stigmatized her action -as the most immoral of the age, whilst Auberon Herbert -considered it the most admirable instance of high -spirited individualism; Mr. Gladstone wrote a beautiful -epistle on a postcard, and Mr. Swinburne a poem in which -her charity was likened to the sea in a score of magnificent -imageries and rolling hexameters.</p> - -<p>She was overwhelmed with shame at her position and -was only sustained in the pillory of such publicity by the -knowledge that the world forgets and discards as rapidly -as it adores and enthrones. She felt that she deserved as -little the praises of those who lauded her generosity as -she did the censure of others who blamed her for subversive -designs and example. Her strongest motive power<span class="pagenum" id="Page_511">[511]</span> -had been the desire to atone, in such measure as possible, -for the evil her father had done, and to rid herself of an -overwhelming burden. Deep down in her soul, too, -scarcely acknowledged to herself, was the desire that the -Duchess of Otterbourne’s brother should know that, if she -could not understand the finer gradations of honor as old -races can do, she yet had nothing of that mercenary -passion which a woman of his own race showed so unblushingly.</p> - -<p>She longed, with more force than she had ever wished -for anything, that Hurstmanceaux should be justified in -that higher appreciation of her which his letter had expressed.</p> - -<p>“Why should I care what that man thinks?” she had -asked herself as the steamship glided over the moonlit -waters of the Atlantic. “I shall never speak to him -again as long as our lives last.”</p> - -<p>But she did care.</p> - -<p>This result of her acts annoyed, harassed, and depressed -her, for she was afraid that in trying to do well she had -only done ill. “But our path is so steep and our light is -so dim,” she thought, “we can only go where it seems -right to us to go, and if we fail in our aims we must not -mind failure if our intent was good.</p> - -<p class="center">“‘’Tis not in mortals to command success.’”</p> - -<p>But her heart was sometimes heavy, and she felt the -want of sympathy and comprehension.</p> - -<p>Only one message soothed and reassured her: it was a -telegram from Framlingham.</p> - -<p>“Now the thing is done, I may venture to tell you that -I both approve and admire what I considered it my duty -theoretically to oppose.”</p> - -<p>It was the only sympathy she received. From her -mother, although she had met no active opposition, she -felt that she had no forgiveness because she had no comprehension.</p> - -<p>“You’ve done what you chose, and I hope you’ll never -regret it. You’ve your poor father’s dogged will, and -your poor father’s hard heart,” said Margaret Massarene,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_512">[512]</span> -very unkindly, on the day that her daughter landed at -Southampton.</p> - -<p>If she had had an attack of diphtheria or had broken -her arm no one would have been kinder and more devoted -than her mother; but, for the sorrows of the soul, the -maladies of the mind, the nervousness of conscience, her -mother had no compassion, because she had no comprehension. -To such troubles as those of Katherine least -of all; because to the practical views of Margaret Massarene -it seemed that her daughter was moon-struck, nothing -less; just like poor Ophelia, for whom she had wept -at the Lyceum. To be sure Katherine was not at all -strange in her ways: she dressed like other people, -walked, ate, spoke, and behaved like other people; but -she could not be altogether in her proper mind to give -away right and left all the fruits of poor William’s many -years of toil and of self-denial. The pile might have been -got together by questionable means, but that was not for -William’s heiress to think or to judge; she had nothing -to do but to be grateful. Her mother watched anxiously -for straws in her hair and rosemary “that’s for remembrance” -in her hand.</p> - -<p>Yet she was almost reconciled to her daughter’s acts by -this uproar over them.</p> - -<p>“Well!” she said with a certain dogged satisfaction—“well, -Kathleen, you meant to degrade your father, and -to spite him, and to undo all he’d done, and to drag his -memory through the mud; but it’s all turned to his honor -and glory. ’Tis of him they must think when they talk -of you.”</p> - -<p>But in the middle of the night, after this utterance, -Katherine was awakened by the entrance into her chamber -of her mother, who came up to the side of her bed in silence.</p> - -<p>“Are you ill?” said Katherine, starting up from her -pillow.</p> - -<p>“No, my dear,” said Mrs. Massarene, sitting down -heavily on a low chair and putting aside the volumes -which were upon its cushions. “No, my dear, but I -couldn’t let the night go on without telling you, my dear, -as how you’re right and I’m wrong, and I beg your pardon -for my temper, and the lies I told ye.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_513">[513]</span>“Oh, mother, pray don’t!” said her daughter infinitely -distressed. “I’m sure you never said anything which you -did not think it your duty to say.”</p> - -<p>“Well, my dear, we dress up many bad passions and -vanities as duty, but that’s neither here nor there,” said -Margaret Massarene, a white, cumbrous, shapeless figure -enveloped in Chuddah shawls. “I’ve been wrong to be -out of temper with you, and to deny to you as your -father’s money was ill got. Ill got it was; and all the -princes and nobles in the world can’t alter that, though it -did seem to me as how they did when I see ’em all -a-kneeling and a-sighing round his coffin. Ill got it was, -and may be you’ve done well to get rid of it, though most -folks will call it a pack of stuff to scatter away millions -as if ye were scattering barley to chicks. No; hear me -out; I shouldn’t hev done this thing myself, and I think -’twould hev been better to do it more gradual like and -less high falutin, for it has set all the world gossiping and -grubbing in the past; but ’tis done, and I won’t let it be -a bone of contention between you and me.”</p> - -<p>“I thank you very much,” said Katherine humbly, the -tears rising to her eyes.</p> - -<p>“There aren’t anything to thank me for,” said her -mother. “I’m an ignorant body and you’re a learned fine -lady—a ‘blue stocking,’ as people say; and your ways of -looking at things I can’t follow. I suppose you’ve found -’em in your Greek books. But when I told ye I didn’t -know as your poor father’s pile was ill got I told you a -lie; for many and many’s the night I’ve been kep’ awake -thinkin’ o’ the poor souls as he’d turned out of house and -home. He was a hard man—smart, as they say over -there: and he bought the lawyers right and left, and nobody -ever did nought to him—till that man shot him at -Gloucester Gate.”</p> - -<p>“Mother,” said Katherine in a hushed voice, “I have -learned who that man was. Did ever you know Robert -Airley?”</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene reflected a minute or two.</p> - -<p>“Yes, my dear. I mind him well: a long, thin man, -soft-spoken and harmless, with a pretty young wife; they -came from the North. Your father bought his bit o’ land,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_514">[514]</span> -his ‘placer-claim,’ as they say out there, and found tin on -it, and ’tis now in full work is that lode—’tis called the -Penamunic mine.”</p> - -<p>“I know,” said Katherine, and she told her mother how -she had learned the request of Robert Airley and what -she believed to have been his errand to England.</p> - -<p>Her mother listened without surprise.</p> - -<p>“I mind him well,” she said again. “He must have -been driven desperate indeed, for he was a gentle soul and -wouldn’t hev hurt a fly when I knew him. I always -thought, my dear, as how your father would lose his life -through some of those he’d injured; but he’d never no fear -himself. He was a great man in many ways, Katherine.”</p> - -<p>“As modern life measures greatness,” said Katherine.</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene was crying noiselessly.</p> - -<p>“’Tis so dreadful to think as he got his death through -one he wronged,” she murmured between her sobs.</p> - -<p>“Yes, mother,” said Katherine gravely; “and that is -why I told you all the money was blood-money and I could -not keep it. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps you are -right that I should have done this thing more gradually, -more wisely, more secretly, but I acted for the best. I -felt as if a curse were on me so long as I did nothing in -atonement.”</p> - -<p>“I won’t say no more against it, my dear,” said Margaret -Massarene with a heavy sense of resignation. “But -you haven’t left yourself a jointure even, and who will -ever marry you now?”</p> - -<p>Katherine smiled.</p> - -<p>“Do not let that vex you. I will live with you, and -you will give me twenty pounds a year for my clothes, -and it will be wholesome discipline for me, and I shall be -able to have a new gown once a year, which ought to be -quite enough.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, Katherine, how can you jest?” said her mother, -with fresh tears; for, though the great world had laughed -at her, worried her, tortured her, robbed her, harassed her, -she had been pleased and proud to be in it, and now she -was to “climb down,” and be nobody in particular, and -have a penniless daughter who talked of dressing on -twenty pounds a year and who would never marry!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_515">[515]</span>“We will be very happy together, mother,” said Katherine -with a caressing tenderness of tone, rare in her, as -she took her mother’s hand, which was resting on the -eider-down coverlet of the bed. “I may have done this -thing too quickly and not wisely, but I breathe freely and -am content.”</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene sighed.</p> - -<p>“My dear, you won’t be happy. You’ll repent. ’Tis -a pity you weren’t made like the Duchess of Otterbourne. -<i>She</i> wouldn’t have quarrelled with your father’s pile.”</p> - -<p>“Certainly she would not,” said Katherine bitterly, -“and I am sorry you wish me like her, mother.”</p> - -<p>Margaret Massarene reflected a moment, drying her -tears.</p> - -<p>“My dear, ’twould be better for you. People only call -you odd and queer. You see, Kathleen,” she added with -that shrewdness which early life had taught her, “in what -you’ve done, you’ve as good as said to all other people -that they’re knaves: it’s very bad to be thought above -one’s generation, my dear. Jesus cleared the Temple -with a scourge; but they paid him out for it, my dear—they -paid him out for it on Calvary.”</p> - -<p>The excitement which had sustained her throughout -her arduous and self-imposed task had subsided and left, -as all spent forces do, a sense of lassitude and weariness -behind them. A fatigued impression of failure and of -loneliness was on her.</p> - -<p>She had done what had seemed to her right in the best -way which had been open to her. But she could not be -sure of the result. She had used great volition, great -energy, great resistance in her late work, and her strength -had for the time spent itself. It had left a solitude round -her in which her personal <i>ego</i> seemed to awake and cry -like a lost child in the dark.</p> - -<p>Her future wore no smile and offered her no companionship. -Whilst her mother lived she felt that she must -not leave her; and Margaret Massarene was strong and -hale, and likely to live long. Whilst her mother lived -she could never herself attempt to lead any other existence -than that which she led now. True, in it she could study -as much as she pleased, but study in this moment of depression<span class="pagenum" id="Page_516">[516]</span> -did not seem to her the Alpha and Omega of life -as it always had done.</p> - -<p>All that she had heard, seen, and learned of brutal -practical appetites and needs within the past twelve months -haunted her; she had cast from her her father’s wealth, -but she could not shake off the shadow of his sins. His -memory pursued her like a ghost.</p> - -<p>It was a morbid and exaggerated idea, she knew that; -no one shunned her, no one execrated her—at the utmost -people thought her an absurd quixotic young woman, absolutely -uninteresting now that she had divested herself -of her golden ornaments: she knew that. But she felt -herself in spirit and in destiny like the hangman’s daughter, -as Hurstmanceaux had said, who, through no fault of -her own, was shunned by all, and execrated by all, merely -because she was the hangman’s daughter!</p> - -<p>One day, soon after her return, she was walking again -through that pine-wood on the little estate in which, nearly -a year earlier, she had been greeted by Framlingham. -She had a reefer’s jacket on her arm, and held a white -sunshade over her head, for the air was very mild. Her -gown was of that pale silvery grey which she often wore; -there were a few Malmaison roses and a ruffle of old lace -at her throat. She walked slowly and with no energy -suggested in her movements; in truth, she felt weary and -spiritless. For many months both her intelligence and -her volition had been stretched like a bent bow, and now -that they were spent the inevitable reaction set in with -both her will and her mind. She had accomplished her -great task; it was done and could not be undone; she -had no illusions about its success, she could only hope -that it might bear good fruit.</p> - -<p>The grey, still, windless day was without a sound. -Even the sea was voiceless. The weather and the landscape -seemed languid and mournful, like herself. She -could not regain her lost energy. She felt as if she had -given it away with her father’s fortune.</p> - -<p>As regarded her own future she had no illusions either. -She expected nothing agreeable from it. She knew that -her mother had said quite rightly—she would never be -happy. Her nature was proud and everything connected<span class="pagenum" id="Page_517">[517]</span> -with her caused her shame. Her affections would have -been strong, but they had no object. Her talents were -unusual, but they were out of harmony with her destiny -and her generation. It seemed to her that she had been -only created to carry on in her own soul a mute and barren -revolt against all the received opinions and objects of -the world in general. Was the world right, and was she -wrong? Had she been presumptuous and vain-glorious -in opposing her own single opinion to the vast serried -masses of human prejudice and custom?</p> - -<p>She made her way slowly through the pine trees and -the rhododendrons to the bench where she had sat with -Framlingham, from which the sea was seen and the shores -of Tennyson’s island were visible. It was a fine calm day, -with diaphanous mists in the silvery offing. She thought -of the line in the “Prometheus,” and of Lecomte de Lisle’s -beautiful rendering of it: “<i>Le sourire infini des flots -marins.</i>”</p> - -<p>Some fishing cobles were half a mile off, trawling; in -the offing a white-winged vessel—a yacht, no doubt—was -bearing toward the island; inland, some church bells were -ringing far away, but sweet as a lark’s song. She sat still -and wished that she could feel as poets felt, which was -perhaps being more near them than she knew. She had -sat there some time, the roses faded in the light, and she -was so motionless that some wrens in the pine boughs -over her head picked larvæ off the branches without heeding -her.</p> - -<p>She had been there an hour or more, Argus sometimes -chasing imaginary rabbits, sometimes lying at her feet, -when steps crushing the carpet of pine needles behind her -made her turn her head.</p> - -<p>A tall man wearing yachting clothes was coming -through the shadow of the trees; he uncovered his -head as he approached, evidently knowing that she was -there.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon,” he said vaguely, with some embarrassment; -then he came behind her and stood still—it -was Hurstmanceaux.</p> - -<p>She was so much surprised that she said nothing. He -came round the trees and stood in front of the bench on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_518">[518]</span> -which she was sitting. The light shone on his fair hair -and the color rose slightly in his face.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon,” he said again. “I am an intruder -on your privacy, but I have come here on purpose to -say to you——” He hesitated, then continued—“To -say to you how much admiration and esteem I feel for -your noble action.”</p> - -<p>She was still too surprised to reply, and almost too -troubled by various conflicting and obscure emotions to -comprehend him. She could not believe her own ears, -and the memory of that false report of which Framlingham -had spoken seemed buzzing and stinging about her -like a swarm of bees.</p> - -<p>“I do not suppose you can care for my approval,” he -added as she remained silent, “but such as it is worth you -command it—and my most sincere respect.”</p> - -<p>“Everyone thinks me mad,” she said, with a passing -smile as she strove to recover her composure.</p> - -<p>“Do swine see the stars?” he said, with impatient contempt. -“Of course it looks madness to the world. May -I ask one thing—does your mother’s income die with -her?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” replied Katherine, more and more surprised, and -vaguely offended at the unceremonious interrogation.</p> - -<p>“Then if she died to-morrow you would be penniless?”</p> - -<p>“What a very odd question!” she said, recovering her -self-possession. “Certainly I should be so; but I could -maintain myself.”</p> - -<p>“What would you do?”</p> - -<p>“I really cannot say at this moment. Play at concerts -perhaps, or teach Latin or Greek to children. I do not -see that it can concern anyone except myself.”</p> - -<p>His questions, which seemed to her rude and intrusive, -had restored her to her natural calmness, though her -heart beat a little nervously against the Malmaison roses. -The sun was in her eyes and she did not look at him, or -she would have understood the expression in his own. -He came nearer to her; his head was still uncovered.</p> - -<p>“I am afraid I have forgotten my Greek. Will you -teach it to me?”</p> - -<p>“I really cannot understand you,” she replied, vaguely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_519">[519]</span> -annoyed and much astonished; if he had been any other -man, she would have thought he had taken too much wine -at luncheon.</p> - -<p>“I must speak more clearly, then,” said Ronald with -some embarrassment. “Will you marry me?”</p> - -<p>“How can you jest?”</p> - -<p>“I should scarcely jest on such a subject,” said Hurstmanceaux. -“I mean absolutely what I say. I admire -you more than I could tell you. Your memory has -haunted me ever since that winter walk in the snow. But -I, of course, could have never told you so if your father -had lived, or if, he being dead, you had kept his money.”</p> - -<p>She was silent; she breathed with difficulty; a tremor -shook her from head to foot.</p> - -<p>She was so utterly amazed, so thunderstruck and -stunned, that the light, and the sea, and the stems of trees, -and the green woodland shadows, all went round her in -dizzy circling mists.</p> - -<p>“Why are you so surprised? You must have heard -many men before now express the same wish as mine.”</p> - -<p>“Oh! only for one reason.”</p> - -<p>“That reason exists no longer. In putting away from -you your father’s wealth, you at least acquire the certainty -of being sought for yourself.”</p> - -<p>“You speak in derision, or in compassion.”</p> - -<p>“Derision? Who could dare deride you? Your worst -enemy, if you have one, must admire you. As for compassion, -if there be any in the desire I have ventured to -express to you, it is for myself.”</p> - -<p>She was still silent. She was so violently startled and -shocked that a sensation of faintness came over her; her -lips lost color, her sight was troubled.</p> - -<p>“It is utterly impossible,” she said, after long silence, -in a low, hoarse voice. “You cannot mean it. You must -be out of your mind.”</p> - -<p>“I always mean what I say. And I cannot see what -there is to surprise you so greatly. True, you know me -very little, and the few times I have seen you I have been -rude to you.”</p> - -<p>“I cannot believe you! It is wholly impossible.”</p> - -<p>“It may seem so to you because our only previous interviews<span class="pagenum" id="Page_520">[520]</span> -have been stormy and cold, and my expressed -opinions were offensive, though you were generous enough -to say that you agreed with them. But from those interviews -I bore away an impression against which I contended -in vain. As long as you were the heiress or holder -of Mr. Massarene’s fortune, my lips were sealed. But -now that you stand in voluntary and honorable poverty, -looking forward to work for your living when your -mother dies, I see nothing to prevent my saying to you -what I have said.”</p> - -<p>“I am not less my father’s daughter.”</p> - -<p>“No, and I will not say what is untrue. I wish that -you were the daughter of any other man. But in the -East I have seen beautiful lilies growing out of heaps of -potsherds. You are the lily which I wish to gather. -Your purity and stately grace are your own; your fine -temper and you unsullied character are your own. William -Massarene is dead. Let his sins be buried with him. -After all, he was not worse than the great world which -flattered and plundered him. You have done all you -could to atone for his crimes. Do not let his ghost -arise to stand between you and me. That is, at least, if -you could care for me. Perhaps it is impossible.”</p> - -<p>She breathed heavily; she felt faint; her sight was -obscured.</p> - -<p>“You say this to me, to me, to the daughter of William -Massarene?”</p> - -<p>“I will not lie to you; I wish to Heaven you were the -daughter of any other man. But his vileness cannot -affect your honor. You know me very slightly, and I insulted -you when we did meet. But there are sympathies -which overstep time and efface all injuries. As long as -you held your father’s fortune I could say nothing to -you; but now there is no barrier between us unless it -exist in your own will.”</p> - -<p>“But there is your sister!”</p> - -<p>His face darkened.</p> - -<p>“If you mean the Duchess of Otterbourne, I have no -acquaintance with her.”</p> - -<p>“But all your family?”</p> - -<p>“I have long borne all the burdens of my family; I am<span class="pagenum" id="Page_521">[521]</span> -not disposed to consult them on a matter which concerns -myself alone. My wife will be respected by all of them. -Do not fear otherwise. And,” he added, with a smile, -“we will not sell our game to Leadenhall or send our -Shetland ponies to the mines.”</p> - -<p>The allusion to their walk through the snowy lanes -made the absolute reality of what he was saying break in -on her like a burst of light, light bewildering and unbearable.</p> - -<p>“You must be out of your mind,” she said, in a broken -voice, “or you are playing a cruel comedy.”</p> - -<p>“I am not a comedian. And why should you suppose -it unlikely for a man to love you and respect you?”</p> - -<p>“But you!—I am his daughter. You said once—it was -like being the hangman’s daughter. I am low-born, low-bred; -I am utterly unworthy in my own sight.”</p> - -<p>She was painfully agitated. She could not control her -emotion. Her heart beat tumultuously, her lips were -white and trembled.</p> - -<p>“Madam,” said Hurstmanceaux, very gravely and with -extreme grace, “you are the woman that I love. If you -accept what I offer, I swear to you that my family and the -world will receive and reverence my wife. I can say no -more. My future is in your hands.”</p> - -<p>It was impossible for her to doubt his sincerity; she was -silent, overcome by emotion. She did not look at him as -she answered.</p> - -<p>“I am deeply touched,” she said, in a low tone. “I -am honored——”</p> - -<p>He gave an impatient movement.</p> - -<p>“Yes—honored,” she repeated, and her lips quivered.</p> - -<p>She paused a moment to steady her voice.</p> - -<p>“I appreciate your generosity and your confidence,” she -added. “But I cannot wrong either. I cannot do what -you say.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Why? For innumerable reasons, for reasons as countless -as those sands.”</p> - -<p>“One will do! Do you dislike me? Do you resent?”</p> - -<p>She shook her head.</p> - -<p>“No. Oh, no!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_522">[522]</span>“Do you think you would not be happy with me?”</p> - -<p>“I am certain that you would be miserable, and I so too -to know that I had caused your misery.”</p> - -<p>“Allow me to judge for myself. There could be no -question of misery for either.”</p> - -<p>She made the same gesture of protest and dissent.</p> - -<p>“What fantastic folly comes between us!” he said -angrily, for he was not a patient man. “You must surely -allow me to know my own mind.”</p> - -<p>“No doubt you think you know it. I am sure you are -wholly sincere. I tell you—you honor me. But the -future you wish for would make you wretched. You -think you would forget my origin, but you could not do -so. You would reproach yourself for having brought base -blood into your race; you are prouder than you know—justly -proud, I think. You would be too kind to show it, -but you would regret every hour of your life. And I—I -could not live to see that and know myself the cause.”</p> - -<p>“You must think me a poor, weak, flickering fool!”</p> - -<p>“Not at all. But you are speaking on impulse, and in -cold blood you would lament your impulse.”</p> - -<p>“I am not speaking on impulse. I come here in deliberate -choice after long reflection.”</p> - -<p>“And can you say that when you thus reflected you did -not feel that marriage with me would sully your race?”</p> - -<p>He was silent. He could not and would not lie to her.</p> - -<p>“You are nobility and purity yourself,” he answered, -after that silence. “You are not responsible for the sins -of your father.”</p> - -<p>She smiled a little, very sadly.</p> - -<p>“Nevertheless, I am the hangman’s daughter; and a -Courcy of Faldon must not wed with me. Go! God be -with you. I thank you for the trust you have shown in -me, and I do not abuse it.”</p> - -<p>“That is your last word?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it must be so.”</p> - -<p>He grew very white, and his eyes darkened with anger; -he was annoyed and indignant; an immense offence was -his first and dominant feeling. He was misunderstood, -doubted, rejected, when he had in the fullness of his heart -brought and laid at her feet the greatest gift he could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_523">[523]</span> -offer. He did not stoop to plead with an ingrate. He -bowed low to her, and in perfect silence turned away. -The sound of his steps on the fallen fir-needles made a -faint crackling noise on the still air.</p> - -<p>She stood looking seaward, but of sea and of sky seeing -nothing.</p> - -<p>Her dog whined wistfully in sympathy, knowing that -her motionless serenity was sorrow.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_524">[524]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XLII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">About</span> two weeks from the time of the unwelcome visit -to her of Prince Khris, the Duchess of Otterbourne, descending -the terrace steps of her hotel, met, as he ascended -them, young Woffram of Karstein.</p> - -<p>“How dull you look!” she said to him. “What on -earth is the matter? Are you going to enliven us with a -sensational suicide?”</p> - -<p>The young man smiled, but with no mirth in his smile.</p> - -<p>“Something horrible has happened, though not a suicide,” -he answered sadly. “My poor granduncle Khris, -the one who came to you the other day, has fallen down -in a fit at the rouge-et-noir table yonder.”</p> - -<p>With a gesture toward the east he indicated Monte -Carlo, which lay in the distant curves of the coast.</p> - -<p>“Is he dead?” she said eagerly.</p> - -<p>“No. But he is dying. Hugo von Börn told me. He -has just come from there. He saw it.”</p> - -<p>“You seem singularly afflicted!” said Mouse with a -little laugh to conceal the impression which the news -made on herself.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Prince Woffram with embarrassment, -“the death of a good man, you know, isn’t half so shocking -as the death of a bad one.”</p> - -<p>“Indeed?” said Mouse. “I should have thought just -the contrary. But then I don’t see things by the light of -the Lutheran religion! Where did Prince Khris live? -Who had he with him? Who will look after him?”</p> - -<p>“I fear he is past looking after. Where his lodgings -were I don’t know; they were something very poor, for -all his money went at the tables. I think—don’t you -think?—I ought to go and see if I can do anything for -him?”</p> - -<p>“But your people don’t know him, you say?”</p> - -<p>“No; but when an old man is dying things seem different. -I think I ought to go.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_525">[525]</span>“Telegraph for your father’s permission,” said Mouse, -leaning against the balustrade and playing with her long -gold muff chain. She was thinking of many things: she -was certain in her own mind that the man now stricken -down at Monte Carlo could tell much about his daughter’s -divorce, if he could not, which she thought possible, tell -that which would reunite his daughter and Vanderlin. It -would never do to let his grandnephew, who was simplicity -and veracity incarnate, get to the bedside and hear -what might be the deathbed confessions. She wished to -do that herself, for knowledge is always power.</p> - -<p>The complete security with which Khris of Karstein had -told her that he would prevent her schemes as to Vanderlin -ever bearing fruition, must certainly point to one thing -only, that he had the means to clear the character of his -daughter to her divorced husband.</p> - -<p>She hastily reasoned that, however odd it might look to -others, she must see the old man before he died. After -all, her visit to him could be put upon charity; poor -Charity has borne many heavier and uglier burdens than -the rosy children with which Correggio loaded her.</p> - -<p>She felt moreover that she would like to see him, lying -speechless, paralyzed, impatient; he had been so odiously -rude!</p> - -<p>Still playing with the long gold chain, she turned her -eyes on young Woffram, dazzling him with their azure -light.</p> - -<p>“I feel like a brute to do nothing for him,” said the -good-natured young cuirassier. “As to telegraphing to -my father it would be a mere waste of money; he would -never bear his uncle Khristof’s name mentioned.”</p> - -<p>“Then I think you would do very foolishly to go near -the old man,” said his friend. “It would embroil you -with your people, and go against you at Berlin. I told -you the other day that I am not afraid of compromising -myself by being kind to people who are under a cloud. -I will go and see after Prince Khris if you like; I was -going to Monte Carlo to-morrow—I will go to-day instead. -There is a train in an hour. I will telegraph you word -how he is.”</p> - -<p>The young man stared at her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_526">[526]</span>It seemed very angelic, but he was not accustomed to -see her in such an angelic light, though he adored her. -Simple and unsuspecting though he was he could not help -seeing that there must be some interest in this offered -charity beyond the benevolence visible on the surface.</p> - -<p>“It would be wonderfully good of you,” he said with -hesitation. “But would it not look rather odd?”</p> - -<p>“I never care what a thing looks,” she replied with impatience, -“and really, my dear Wuffie, I don’t believe -even an international jury of British and German matrons -would put a scandalous interpretation on a visit to a dying -man of seventy-eight years of age!”</p> - -<p>“He’s only sixty-eight,” murmured his grandnephew. -“But of course, if you don’t mind, it would be exceedingly -kind of you, and—and——”</p> - -<p>“Where is Prince Khris living—do you know?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I can soon find out when I get there. He won’t -be far from the Casino.”</p> - -<p>The young soldier was surprised. He had not thought -charity abode within the white bosom of his enchanting -friend. He could not easily imagine her sitting by a discarded -and despised old sinner’s deathbed. He had seen -her in many characters but never in that of the ministering -angel when pain and anguish wring the brow.</p> - -<p>“What on earth is she up to?” he thought, and said a -little awkwardly:</p> - -<p>“He didn’t win much, I think; he’d just got on a run -of the rouge when he dropped——”</p> - -<p>“My dear Wuffie, I’m not going to steal his winnings!” -said Mouse with her pretty crystal-clear laugh. “I’ve -known him a long time, poor old man, and it’s only human -to go and look after him. People at Monte Carlo are wild -beasts, and they didn’t look off the tables I dare say, when -he fell, and I am sure none of them will go near him. I -shall take the two o’clock train; you can come over on -Sunday as we agreed.”</p> - -<p>Prince Woffram meekly acquiesced. He felt that there -was something which he did not understand in the air; -although not very quick of perception, and although very -much enamored, he vaguely suspected that his unknown<span class="pagenum" id="Page_527">[527]</span> -greatuncle must possess letters or papers or knowledge -which might compromise this ministering angel if she did -not get to the bedside before somebody else. He adored -her, but he had no illusions about her, the few he had ever -had, like roses rudely shaken, had fallen before the merciless -revelations of his friend Boo.</p> - -<p>Boo and her governess accompanied her that day on her -mission of mercy. She knew too well the value as social -shield of her little daughter’s presence. She was genuinely -fond of the child; but if she had not been fond of her, she -would nevertheless have appreciated and utilized the safety -which lies in such an accompaniment. As for the governess, -she was discretion itself, saw nothing, heard nothing, -that she was not to see and hear, and was easily purchased -for all eternity by a bracelet at Christmas or a ring at -Easter.</p> - -<p>As the train ran through the beautiful coast scenery, so -familiar to her that she had ceased even to look at it, she -had such a vague titillation of curiosity and excitement as -a young panther may feel who for the first time smells a -human footprint on the grass. She liked intrigue and -comedy for their own sakes; even if they had no consequences -they passed the time amusingly and lent a sense -of ability and power. The combinations of life are like -those of whist or chess—they exercise the intelligence, -they flatter the consciousness of skill.</p> - -<p>She was more convinced than ever that Prince Khris -had the power to reunite his daughter and her divorced -husband. The idea of a <i>femme tarée</i> reigning over the -beautiful Les Mouettes was odious to her and ridiculous. -She had a most profound contempt for women who were -compromised. She felt for them what the head of the -herd is said to feel for the lamed and stricken deer. She -had indeed no patience with them, for it was they, the -silly demonstrative creatures, who set society’s back up -and made things uncomfortable for wiser persons. A -woman like Olga zu Lynar who had married into all this -money and had not known how to keep it seemed to her -perfectly idiotic. She felt that if she herself had acquired -all these millions her own conduct would have been perfectly -exemplary; at all events wholly unattackable.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_528">[528]</span>But she desired intensely to know the truth about this -unworthy <i>divorcée</i>, since until she did know it she could -not make her own plans with any chance of success. As -the train swung on through the tunnels her pity for herself -was extreme; it was cruelly hard that she should -always be driven to do all kinds of unpleasant and dubious -things because other people were so inconsiderate and annoying.</p> - -<p>Why could not old Khris have had his fit before coming -to interfere about Vanderlin? She could not really be -sure that he had not already seen Vanderlin; the latter -had been impenetrable, and clearly on his guard that day -of the breakfast at Les Mouettes. She felt that she was -playing a dangerous game in the dark—playing lawn-tennis -blindfolded. But it therefore interested her the more.</p> - -<p>It was the merest chance that she would gain anything -by visiting the old man; but, on the other hand, she would -not lose anything, and she would look amiable; it seemed -to her also clever to have remembered the few words about -him which had been spoken by the Archduke. It is just -such <i>à propos</i> remembrance, such connection of trifles, -which make clever detectives and successful spies. As the -train ran on she apparently listened to the chatter of Boo -over a big sack of bonbons and a big bouquet of lilies of -the valley, but in herself she was thinking that her ingenuity -and intelligence had merited a better fate than -that of having to worry about hotel bills and scheme to -marry a banker. She did not like the idea of marrying -Vanderlin, she did not think he would be facile, though he -had the reputation of being generous; she did not think -that he would be likely to let her make ducks and drakes -of European finance as it would have diverted her to do -in his place; he looked grave, he was serious and sad, and -he bored her. Besides, she would have preferred to marry -no one. But there was nothing else that she could do, or -at least nothing else which promised so well, which offered -so much solidity and comfort for the future. Therefore -she went on through the olive-woods and by the edge of -the blue sea to Monte Carlo.</p> - -<p>When Boo and the bouquets and bonbons were left in -safety at the Hotel de Paris, she caused herself to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_529">[529]</span> -dressed in the simplest black gown she possessed, put a -grey golfing-cloak over that, and with a felt hat and a -thick veil went out all alone; hoping to pass unperceived -in this place which was filled with hundreds of men and -women of her world, and hundreds also of worlds of -which hers knew nothing.</p> - -<p>She had learned that Prince Khris was to be found in a -house out of the town, where he had a modest chamber, -whither he had been carried speechless and apparently -unconscious on the previous night, when he had dropped, -huddled and bent like a collapsed marionette, amidst a -crowd of gamblers who scarcely turned their heads to see -what had happened.</p> - -<p>It was a small poor chamber over a grocer’s shop in the -outskirts, in which there lay dying the man who had seen -sentinels present arms when he had passed as a young -child in his donkey chaise, with a lady of his father’s -Court in charge of him, across the Platz of the small -ducal city.</p> - -<p>She felt a sense of pain as she ascended the narrow uncarpeted -stair in the close unpleasant atmosphere.</p> - -<p>“Has he not even a valet?” she said to the old woman -who left the shop to show her the way upstairs.</p> - -<p>“No, madame,” answered the woman. “We look after -the poor old gentleman as well as we can; there is -only me and my sister; and one of us must attend to the -business.”</p> - -<p>Mouse shivered a little as she heard; it was a realization -of indigence by which she had never been before -confronted. Want of money she had known, and debt -and great anxiety; but she had never been without servants, -up a rickety stair, above a smelly little shop. It -shocked her to see a man of this rank, of her own world, -thus utterly abandoned like any beggar who had fallen by -the roadside.</p> - -<p>The frightful callousness of human nature when it is -not softened by deference to wealth and self-interest -struck her with its chill brutality like a handful of ice -flung in her face. She was no kinder herself; still the -realization of the rough and jeering egotism of the world -momentarily hurt her. She thought of Buckingham dying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_530">[530]</span> -alone in the garret. There was the solidarity of class -between her and the fallen prince; and there was also the -possibility that she herself might some day, in some far -away old age, be no better off than he.</p> - -<p>The woman opened a low door as she spoke, and -Mouse saw into the room—a poor place with grey walls, -a brick floor, spare furniture, and a narrow bed, whereon -lay what was left of the once courtly and elegant person -of Prince Khristof of Karstein. There was one window -through which the slope of an olive-covered hill was visible.</p> - -<p>He was conscious, though motionless and speechless; -he opened his eyes at the unclosing of the door, but he -did not recognize his visitor through her thick veil. His -features were twisted and drawn, his hands lay supinely -on the rough woollen coverlet; he looked almost already -a corpse: there was only life in the steel-blue, watching, -apprehensive eyes, into which at her appearance there -came a gleam of wonder, perhaps of hope.</p> - -<p>“It is very horrible!” she said, with a thrill of genuine -distress.</p> - -<p>“Are you a relation, madame?” said the woman of the -house.</p> - -<p>“Only a friend. Does the doctor come often? What -does he say?”</p> - -<p>“He comes but little,” replied the woman. “He knows -he will never be paid, and he knows nothing will be of -any use.”</p> - -<p>“Is it quite hopeless?”</p> - -<p>“It is only a question of hours.”</p> - -<p>“Why did you not send for a <i>sœur</i>?”</p> - -<p>“We did, but they are all out. Will you be at the -charge of the burial, madame?”</p> - -<p>“Send for another,” said Mouse; “there are scores of -them.”</p> - -<p>“Will madame guarantee all expenses?” asked the -woman.</p> - -<p>Mouse hesitated; she did not wish to have her visit -there known or her name given.</p> - -<p>“I am sure the family of the prince will repay everything,” -she answered. “They are great people.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_531">[531]</span>The woman smiled dubiously. “Is he really a prince, -madame? They are all princes here, but they pawn their -shirts all the same.”</p> - -<p>“He is really a prince—a serene highness; he is allied -by blood to one imperial house and two royal houses.”</p> - -<p>The woman looked dubious still; a napoleon would -have better eased her doubts.</p> - -<p>“That is nothing, madame,” she said with contempt; -“those people pay less willingly than anybody.”</p> - -<p>During this colloquy the eyes of Prince Khris watched -intently; his brain was not clear, and his ears seemed -stuffed up and filled with buzzing noises, but he understood -that they were talking of him. She had put back -her veil and he had recognized her. Why was the blonde -devil there? Why was not Olga there instead? He had -forgotten time, he had only a confused notion of -things; he had recognized the blonde devil and he was -afraid she should get at his papers, but all the rest was -mist and confusion. His memory of his daughter was of -her as a little child—a little child in a white frock, with a -pearl necklace and great brown eyes and a cloud of dark -soft hair. When she had been a little child he had never -done her any harm.</p> - -<p>The old dame retired, well pleased to see a lady take -her place, and she, left alone, came up to the bedside forcing -herself to conquer her natural aversion to painful and -unlovely scenes: she was vaguely afraid of that mute, -paralyzed figure. She dreaded intensely lest the doctor -should arrive before she should have been able to do what -she desired; but for that reason she deemed it prudent to -seem anxious for his presence. No one bent on a dubious -errand would ever endeavor to hasten a doctor’s arrival. -The motionless figure on the bed looked entirely unlike -the man whom she had known as Khris Kar: entirely unlike -except for those steel-blue eyes which were staring at -her without recognition, but with challenge and inquiry, -for his brain was still conscious. That gaze frightened -her. After all, what business had she to be there? She -was momentarily unnerved; but she had courage and -audacity, and she controlled her nerves and looked away<span class="pagenum" id="Page_532">[532]</span> -not to see those searching eyes in the lean, waxen, distorted -face.</p> - -<p>She went to the window and closed the wooden blinds, -for the setting sun was strong though winter was scarce -past. Then she took off her hat and veil, and moved -about the small chamber putting it in order as she had -seen nurses do in sick-rooms, and filling a glass with fresh -water from a pitcher which stood on the floor. The place -was horrible to her; its air was close, its scent bad, its -floor was not clean, the chairs were rush-bottomed, the -table was deal; but there was one thing which belonged -to a different sphere, one thing which attracted her and -seemed to suggest that her errand might not be fruitless—it -was a despatch-box of Russian leather, with initials -and the crown of a serene highness in gold or silver gilt -above its lock. If there were any papers of consequence -in the room, that box, much battered by frequent travel, -contained them. Moreover, when she approached and -dusted it, she saw the eyes of the man on the bed dilate -with menace. She left it at once and cut a lemon into -the glass of water and went to the bedside with the -drink. The shaded light fell across the bed. She saw -the eyes of the paralytic stare upward at her. Then into -them came a ray of comprehension—a flash of hate.</p> - -<p>“It <i>is</i> the blonde devil,” thought the still conscious -brain, which had lost all power to communicate its -thoughts to the lips and tongue.</p> - -<p>“Dear Prince, do you know me?” said his visitor very -softly. “I am so sorry to find you here, and so ill. I -should like to be of some use.”</p> - -<p>The kind, soft words found their way to the dulled, -imprisoned brain; she saw that by the expression of the -eyes; for the eyes in answer said to her: “I am half -dead—I am almost wholly dead; but I am not so utterly -dead yet that I can be fooled by you. Blonde devil, -what is it that you come here to seek?”</p> - -<p>She observed that his eyes, leaving her face, turned -anxiously in the direction where the despatch-box was; -she saw also that round his throat was a steel chain with -a small gold key. In that box was there any message for -his daughter, or for Vanderlin, or any proof that he had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_533">[533]</span> -brought about their separation? It was evident that he -was afraid the box should be touched. This interested -her. She was pleased that her instinct had led her right. -She did not dare to act in any way; he might not be entirely -paralyzed as the people said; he might not be so -absolutely sure to die, or to remain speechless until his -death; she knew nothing about his malady, except that -he had dropped down suddenly when punting at Monte -Carlo.</p> - -<p>She felt that he suspected her, that he would, if he had -use of his voice, have ordered her out of the room; she -read all that in his regard. Prudence necessitated the -continuance of the very tiresome <i>rôle</i> of ministering -angel. She dared do nothing until the doctor should -have confirmed the hopelessness of his state. She was -excruciatingly bored, and somewhat frightened. The -horrible spectre on the bed looked like a ghoul so lean, so -colorless, so distorted, so motionless. She had nothing to -do, she felt a palpitating terror lest he should recover the -power of speech; she believed that people struck down -by hemiplegia did so recover it sometimes. She held a -spoonful of lemonade to his shut lips; but he did not -open them, he only glared at her. The spoon was of a -common white metal, ugly, yellow, discolored; she hated -to touch it.</p> - -<p>At that moment a heavy step was heard on the stair -and a broad, bearded, rough-looking man entered with his -hat on his head; it was the doctor.</p> - -<p>“<i>Sapristi!</i>” he shouted very angrily; “what do you -send for again and again and again. The man is as -good as dead. All the science in the world could not -save him. You waste my time. You——”</p> - -<p>Catching sight then of a lady in the room he pulled off -his hat and muttered his excuses: he was very busy, he -had many sick people, people who were curable, the man -on the bed could not recover.</p> - -<p>“Oh, pray do not say so!” said Mouse with much apparent -feeling. “Do they not recover sometimes? I -think I have heard——”</p> - -<p>“A man of that age cannot recover,” said the doctor -impatiently. “He is practically dead already. He will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_534">[534]</span> -not live through the night, if you can call him still living. -You are a relation?”</p> - -<p>“No. But I have known him in other years, when he -was less—less fortunate; and I know all his people.”</p> - -<p>“The lady says they are royal,” murmured the woman -of the house.</p> - -<p>“Royal!” echoed the doctor with scorn. “If they -were the consul would be after him like a dog after a -bone.”</p> - -<p>The consul! Mouse remembered with a shock that such -a person might indeed arrive at any moment. She had -not thought of this possibility.</p> - -<p>The doctor had gone up to the bed, turned down the -bedclothes, placed his stethoscope over the heart, and -listened.</p> - -<p>“He will die in three or four hours,” he said, as he -turned again from the bed. “The heart is exhausted; it -has lost almost all power of propulsion. Let me hear -when all is over. Madame, your servant.”</p> - -<p>He hurried out of the room, clapping his hat on his -head and noisily clattering down the stairs.</p> - -<p>“You may go,” said Mouse to the woman of the house. -“I will stay a few hours here. Meantime try and get a -<i>Sœur de Charité</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Who will pay for all this expense, madame?” said the -woman. “Who will pay for the burial and all the rest?”</p> - -<p>“You must send to the German consul—he will tell you,” -said Mouse. “I ought to have thought of it before. I -cannot stay here much longer, but I will stay till someone -in authority comes. Go; send at once to the consulate.”</p> - -<p>“You talk very glibly of sending here and there and -everywhere,” said the woman rather rudely.</p> - -<p>Mouse put ten francs into the woman’s hand, wishing -to make a friend of her. “And send for the consul at -once that I may speak to him,” she added, for she always -remembered appearances.</p> - -<p>It was growing dark. By her watch it was a quarter -to six. All light had faded off the olive-clad slope in -front of the window. She had had no afternoon tea. She -began to want her dinner, and, after all, she might be -boring herself to no purpose, on a mere fool’s errand.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_535">[535]</span>The woman came in with a petroleum lamp smelling -atrociously.</p> - -<p>“Send for a nun,” said Mouse, who only desired to get -rid of her. “Send for another doctor. The Prince cannot -lie like this.”</p> - -<p>“Very well, madame,” said the woman. “But errands -cost money. People won’t run messages for nothing.”</p> - -<p>Mouse gave her some more silver and bade her find a -messenger. She was anxious to be rid of her, for in her -presence it was impossible to open the box. She was resolved -to open it. It was not a pleasant thing to do, but -she had an intuitive sense that it was worth doing.</p> - -<p>She was glad that neither the woman nor the doctor had -asked her who she was. She summoned all her fortitude -to her assistance and approached the bed.</p> - -<p>She saw that he was, as the doctor said, very nearly -lifeless. His breathing was labored and painful, his heart -scarcely beat any longer. His eyes were closed. They -had ceased to stare at her. How could she sever the -little steel chain round his throat? He could not cry out -or raise his hand to oppose her; she leaned over him and -took hold of the key. She shrank in all her nerves from -the horror of touching him, but she put a strong pressure -on herself and tried to wrench the key from the ring on -which it hung. He seemed insensible and unaware of -what she was doing. But suddenly, as she succeeded in -wrenching open the ring, breaking her shell-like fingernails -in doing so, his eyelids were lifted and consciousness -once more glared at her from his regard. She felt herself -turn white with terror and disgust, but she did not loosen -her hold and she pulled the key off the ring. His eyes -cursed her, but his curse was impotent.</p> - -<p>She hurried to the leather box, fitted the key in its -lock, and opened it. She did not even look back at the -bed. She was in haste lest the consul or someone else -should come up the stairs. In the box there was nothing -but papers. There were the diplomas of orders; there -were certificates of marriage and birth; there were some -old letters; and there was a large sealed packet addressed -to Vanderlin. There was nothing else. Whatever it -might once have held of value had been removed previously<span class="pagenum" id="Page_536">[536]</span> -by himself, and the stars of the orders had been -pawned and lost.</p> - -<p>She took out the packet addressed to Vanderlin, laid -the other documents in order, locked the box and returned -to the bedside to put back the key on the chain.</p> - -<p>Then she saw a change which it was impossible to misread. -He was dead. The cerebral excitement, caused -by his recognition of her and of her endeavor to seize the -key, had killed him. He was dead and could never bear -witness against her. She fastened the little key on its -ring, drew the sheet up over his breast, and with a shudder -left the bedside. Then she opened the bodice of her -gown and put the packet against her corset; it was bulky, -but when she put on her golfing-cloak it did not show.</p> - -<p>When the German consul mounting the stairs opened -the door of the chamber he saw a lady in black and grey, -who kneeled by the side of the bed, the lamplight illumining -the golden coils of her hair. He was greatly touched -and impressed. She rose from her knees and addressed -him with a sweet, sad gravity.</p> - -<p>“My poor old friend expired but a moment ago,” she -said softly. “I am so glad I came. He would otherwise -have died in solitude. Oh, how harsh and cruel is the -world!”</p> - -<p>Then she gave him her name and address, said that she -had known the dead man from her childhood, and had -come to nurse him because she had understood that he -was all alone.</p> - -<p>The consul, a simple sturdy man of business, was deeply -moved. When he had executed the few formalities necessary, -and affixed his seal to the despatch-box, he begged -this charming and compassionate stranger to allow him -the honor of driving her back to her hotel.</p> - -<p>“Why was not his daughter with him?” she said to -the consul. “Oh, I know why—they have quarrelled; -but it is such a sacred tie! Surely——”</p> - -<p>“The Countess Olga has always been most generous to -her father, madame,” replied the gentleman. “But it -was of no use. It was pouring money into sieve. I have -telegraphed to her. She will probably come in person, but -she cannot be here before another day at the least.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_537">[537]</span>“How fortunate I had the start of her!” thought the -ministering angel of this deathbed, as she watched the -consul affix his seals to the old despatch-box, of which the -only contents of any value were lying safe against the -satin and lace of her stays. She would have infinitely -preferred slipping away unseen from that sorry house, and -finding her way as she could, on foot or by cab, back to -her hotel unseen by anyone. But her mind quickly -grasped all the points of a question, and she immediately -perceived that her visit to be creditable must be unconcealed, -and when the fascinated official offered to drive -her back to her hotel, she accepted the offer, realizing all -the solidity, veracity, and respectability which his countenance -of her conferred. She left the woman of the -house in charge of the dead body, and with an aureole of -virtue round her head descended the stair which she had -ascended on so questionable an errand.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_538">[538]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XLIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">When</span> she reached the hotel, everyone was already gone -to the concert at the Casino; it was Thursday night; she -got to her own rooms unperceived, and told her maid that -she had lost her way in the olive-woods, was terribly tired, -and only wished for some hot soup and a cutlet, she was -indeed fatigued and worn out; she had found the good -consul’s cab dreadfully slow and rickety; his great coat -had smelt unpleasantly of very coarse tobacco, and the -night was cold and the way into the town seemed endless.</p> - -<p>She did not venture to look at the packet she had stolen -until she was safely in the warmth of her bed, with a reading -lamp beside her, and an eider-down quilt over her. -She did not feel at ease, and she was haunted by vague -terrors. The steel-blue eyes of the dying man haunted -her. Hatred, powerless, but only the more intense for its -impotency, had stared at her with a look which she felt -that she would never forget if she lived for a hundred -years. Moreover, she knew that she had committed a -crime, or what people would call a crime if they knew of -it. She knew that it had been an ugly thing to do; the -kind of thing which people who are well-born and well-bred -do not do. There is a class of sins which are well-bred; -there is another class which is caddish. She knew -that this act of hers belonged to the latter category.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, she opened the packet when she was quite -safe from interruption, whilst the mellowed light of her -reading lamp shed its soft radiance on her pillow, and the -billets of olive-wood were burning fragrantly upon the -hearth. Her pulses beat unevenly as she opened it, for it -was very possible that she had gone through all this agitation -and danger quite uselessly. There might be nothing -in it whatever of interest or value.</p> - -<p>She undid it with great care so as to leave the seals unbroken. -Oddly enough, there recurred to her at that moment -the memory of her little son looking at her with his -sorrowful angry eyes and saying:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_539">[539]</span>“I don’t know much, but I think—I think—I think -you are a wicked, wicked woman!”</p> - -<p>Was she a wicked woman?</p> - -<p>It was a very unpleasant, vulgar kind of thing to be! -She had always thought that wicked women belonged exclusively -to the lower classes. The idea that she might -be wicked was disagreeable to her; it was as though she -had been forced to wear a cheap gown or carry a cotton -umbrella.</p> - -<p>The stare of the dying man had brought the same charge -against her. She did not think the charge was true. She -was only a woman, all alone, in difficult circumstances, -who tried to help herself; that was all. The fault was -clearly with those who had placed her in those circumstances; -with Cocky first of all, with Ronald next, and, -above all, with that dreadful brute whose bones lay in the -crypt at Vale Royal.</p> - -<p>The documents were all in German, but she knew that -language well and read them easily. There was nothing -dubious in them. They were the confession of Khris of -Karstein of the wickedness he had done in bringing -about the separation of his daughter from Adrian Vanderlin, -and the proofs of the false testimony he had caused to -be brought against her. They were indisputably genuine, -attested, and positive. They had been lying in his despatch-box -for years; perhaps his remorse had not been -strong enough to impel him to condemn himself, or perhaps -he had reserved them for still greater stress of want -when he could use then to obtain subsidies, or perhaps, -seeing nothing of Vanderlin, he had been in doubt as to -how far they would be welcome. She who had now possessed -herself of them did know how precious they would -be esteemed. But would she dare to give them to either -Vanderlin or Olga zu Lynar? What history could she -invent, plausible enough, probable enough, to account -naturally for her possession of them? Would she, if she -could think of one—would she have the courage (some -people would call it the effrontery) to carry through such -a piece of comedy?</p> - -<p>Her nerve had been shaken by all she had suffered from -William Massarene. She was no longer as sure of her own<span class="pagenum" id="Page_540">[540]</span> -audacity and dexterity as she once had been. She would -have burnt these papers without the slightest hesitation if -burning them would have done her any good; but their -disposal, unburnt, cost her much torturing indecision, and -she could not forget the glare of old Khris’s dying eyes, -so full of impotent hatred.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, as they were genuine, and bore internal -evidence of their <i>bonâ fides</i>, there could not be any -doubt thrown on their accuracy, nor on the unblemished -motives of her intervention. No one could blame her for -giving documents to the person to whom they were addressed. -She understood that they were worth many -millions to the man made of millions, as Boo called him. -She read them all twice over to be sure that she had made -no mistake in her perusal and estimate of them. No! She -had made none. Their meaning was clear as crystal. -There could not be two constructions of their text and -import.</p> - -<p>What should she do with them? She was uncertain.</p> - -<p>Where was Vanderlin?</p> - -<p>In Paris, they said.</p> - -<p>Burn them, and continue her scheme of marriage?</p> - -<p>Tell him, and withhold them until she got what she -wanted?</p> - -<p>Either choice had its drawbacks. She was conscious -that both were what people would call discreditable. She -endeavored to think of something which should not be -discreditable, yet should be profitable.</p> - -<p>Sitting up against her pillows with a pink plush dressing-jacket -trimmed with swansdown on her shoulders, and -her bright hair rolled closely round her head, she looked -a charming, innocent, poetic picture in the warm and -fragrant atmosphere of her chamber.</p> - -<p>Painful emotions were odious to her; tragic events still -more so; she liked her life to be all dressing and dining -and flirting, doing theatres, leading cotillons, hunting with -the best horses, laughing and being amused, the whole -sprinkled intrigue and stimulated by exciting much passion -and feeling a little.</p> - -<p>But anything serious she detested, anything painful -annoyed her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_541">[541]</span>She wished she had let the despatch-box alone. She -was alarmed and discouraged. The papers were all which -she had expected to find them, but she had not courage to -use them. She was like a person who steals jewels and -then is afraid to sell them, or pawn them, or wear them, -for fear of inquiry. She cried a little from the wretched -tension of her nerves and over-fatigue. She took a few -drops of chloral and put the documents under her pillow -and decided to try and go to sleep. Night brings counsel.</p> - -<p>In the morning, after her bath and her coffee, things -wore a different aspect. She did not see the old man’s -dying stare, nor the boy’s reproachful sad eyes, any longer. -She made up her mind suddenly; she said to her maid, -“Pack up a day gown and an evening gown—I am going -away for two days.” And said to Boo’s governess, “Take -care of Lady Beatrix, and don’t let her get into mischief; -and take care nobody lets her go to the Casino.”</p> - -<p>She wrote a telegram to Wuffie at Cannes: “So -thankful I came. I could soothe his dying hours, and persuaded -him to a tardy repentance. I go to Paris on his -errand. The consul is charged with his burial. Will explain -on return.”</p> - -<p>The consul’s name looked well, she thought, in this -message.</p> - -<p>The young cuirassier did not recognize his correspondent -in this mood; but he was simple and sentimental by temperament, -and he was in love. He put the note in his -pocket with a photograph of her which he had carried for -three months next his heart, and went to the golfing-ground. -He could not resist speaking of her there to a -cousin, a very big cousin, no less a person than the gentleman -with the glassy eyes whom Katherine Massarene once -had snubbed.</p> - -<p>“Is it not good of her?” he said enthusiastically to this -very big cousin.</p> - -<p>“Extremely good,” replied that gentleman. “So very -good, indeed, that I have difficulty in picturing the -duchess in such a <i>rôle</i>. But women are protean.”</p> - -<p>Wuffie pondered on the reply and failed to understand -it.</p> - -<p>She, meanwhile, of whom the great personage spoke so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_542">[542]</span> -irreverently, was rushing swiftly across Central France, -her strength sustained by a well-filled tea-basket of the -latest invention, and most extensive resources. With her -traveled the dead man’s papers. She was alone nearly all -the way; at that season everyone was coming southward, -few were going northward, except some English members -leaving Monte Carlo play and pigeon-shooting for the -opening of Parliament, rueful and gloomy at their lot.</p> - -<p>Her mind was filled with unformed plans and conflicting -projects. She formed a fresh one every minute. She -could not decide what would be the surest wisdom, and -she felt so afraid of her own indecision that Paris was -reached all too soon for her.</p> - -<p>She went to her favorite hotel and had a night’s rest. -There was snow in Paris and on the surrounding country. -The temperature seemed very low after that of the Alpes -Maritimes, and her spirits sank with the mercury. But in -the morning she had herself dressed becomingly with -sable furs which enhanced the beauty and delicacy of her -complexion and the golden gleam of her hair, and went -out of the Cour d’honneur of the great caravanserai on -foot. It was not very far from the end of the Rue de Rivoli -in which there was situated the vast and imposing building -called the Maison Vanderlin, where ministers were -suppliants and kings were debtors. Her heart quaked -within her as she ascended its broad white steps.</p> - -<p>Even yet she had not decided what it would be best to -say; but inside her muff were the documents which she -had taken from the despatch-box.</p> - -<p>“Is M. Vanderlin in Paris?” she asked the stately -functionary who waited beside the inner glass doors.</p> - -<p>“Yes, madame,” he answered.</p> - -<p>“Is he in the bank this morning?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, madame.”</p> - -<p>She passed within. She gave her card.</p> - -<p>“I require to see him alone,” she said to the officials -who received her.</p> - -<p>“It will be impossible,” they answered her. “M. Vanderlin -sees no one except by appointment.”</p> - -<p>“Try,” she urged on them. “Take my card. Say that -I come on an urgent matter.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_543">[543]</span>“It is impossible, madame,” they reiterated. “He never -receives anyone without previous arrangement, often weeks -in advance. At this moment the Minister of Foreign -Affairs is with him.”</p> - -<p>“Gaulois? Oh, I know him well! Show me to a -private room, and when M. Gaulois comes out, bring him -to me.”</p> - -<p>The officials were moved by the beauty and grace of -the suppliant, and consented to let her wait in a small -apartment warmed as all the building was by hot air, and -looking on an inner court where a fountain played.</p> - -<p>The time that she waited was not more than twenty -minutes, but it seemed to her to be hours. At last the -minister was ushered into her presence; an agreeable, -sagacious, unscrupulous man of the south of France, who -had begun life as an advocate in the town of Dax.</p> - -<p>He was her humble servant; he was at her feet; he -would move heaven and earth to do her bidding; but if -it were a question of seeing Vanderlin, that was impossible; -he regretted it profoundly, but it was impossible; -two ambassadors, a nuncio, an Orleans prince, and an -English banker were all waiting their turn of audience.</p> - -<p>“One would think that he was a king!” she said -irritably, while tears of rage and disappointment started -to her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Alas! madame, he exercises the only sovereignty truly -potent in modern life—that of wealth,” said the minister. -“He is greatly occupied, and the rules which regulate -his interviews are rigorously observed. May I ask if you -know him?”</p> - -<p>“I know him, yes.” She added, after a moment’s hesitation, -“I require to see him. Prince Khristof of Karstein-Lowenthal -is dead.”</p> - -<p>Gaulois was astonished.</p> - -<p>“That was the father of the lady he divorced? His -death can have nothing to do with Vanderlin?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it has; I require to see him.”</p> - -<p>Gaulois was perplexed. At last he reluctantly consented -to return to Vanderlin’s room, and inform him of -her presence and her desire. She was again left alone; -the rippling of the fountain the only sound on the silence.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_544">[544]</span> -She had burnt her boats; she could not turn back now. -The time again appeared to her interminable, though it -was not more than eight minutes before the minister -returned.</p> - -<p>“Dearest lady, I have done my uttermost, but it is impossible -that he can receive you here. If you will leave -word where you are staying, he will have the honor of -waiting on you at four o’clock. Alas! men of business are -insensible and <i>farouches</i>! Allow me, duchess, to profit -by Vanderlin’s austerity, and enjoy the felicity of driving -you home.”</p> - -<p>There was nothing else to be done. She was forced to -let the loquacious and amiable Gaulois conduct her to his -<i>coupé</i>, and was obliged to laugh and talk with him, and -consent to be carried by him to breakfast with his wife at -his official residence on the Quay d’Orsay. Since William -Massarene had passed out of her life, she had never found -it so hard to counterfeit the gaiety and interest which are -necessary in social intercourse.</p> - -<p>“Did you tell M. Vanderlin of Prince Khristof’s death?” -she asked of Gaulois as he accompanied her downstairs -after breakfast.</p> - -<p>“<i>Ah, mon Dieu, non!</i>” exclaimed the minister. “Who -speaks to any man of a divorced wife’s family?”</p> - -<p>“I was wondering if he had any feeling at all for the -poor old man,” she said with much pathos.</p> - -<p>“I should think none; very pardonably,” replied the -minister. “The poor old man drew an allowance of a -thousand francs a month from Vanderlin and it all went -in play.”</p> - -<p>“But the poor prince had some conscience?”</p> - -<p>“Had he indeed? He concealed it very carefully -throughout a long life.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Ma belle</i> Sourisette!” he thought, “what secret have -you got hold of that you are going to try to sell to -Vanderlin?”</p> - -<p>He had been a lawyer, he was now a statesman; despite -his loquacity he was very discreet; he told no one that he -had met her at the great banking-house in the Rue de -Rivoli.</p> - -<p>By the time breakfast was over it was nearly three<span class="pagenum" id="Page_545">[545]</span> -o’clock, and when she returned to her hotel she gave an -hour to her toilette. She was conscious that she looked -what Parisians call <i>défaite</i>. She was nervous and undecided, -and she dreaded the visit of Vanderlin whilst she -desired it. It was only a little after three when she went -into her <i>salon</i> which looked on the Rue Rouget de Lisle; -and sat down to wait for him vainly trying to read the -morning journals.</p> - -<p>She always dressed in accordance with the character she -assumed, and she wore a rather sombre loose gown of -grey velvet trimmed with chincilla and old Mechlin lace, -a kind of gown that Vittoria Colonna or Blanche of -Castille might have worn. Her own personality only revealed -itself in the diamond arrow run through the coils -of her hair and the little bouquet of heliotrope at her -throat. She was melancholy but she was preëminently -seductive.</p> - -<p>Punctually as the timepiece struck four Vanderlin was -announced. He entered and saluted her with his usual -grave and distant courtesy.</p> - -<p>“You desired to see me, madame? I am at your commands, -of course. I hope Mr. Gaulois explained that it -was impossible for me to receive you this morning.”</p> - -<p>No one could have been more courteous, but she felt -that he was on his guard against her and that he saw her -desire to see him singular; the perception of that did not -decrease the embarrassment she felt. She was Venus, -but he would never be Tannhäuser.</p> - -<p>After all, she did not want him to be Tannhäuser: she -only wanted some small share of his million, some little -mouse-like nibbling at his golden store.</p> - -<p>“You must have been much surprised at my request,” -she said as she motioned to him to be seated. “But -I have a communication to make to you. I was present -at the death of Prince Khristof of Karstein.”</p> - -<p>The expression of Vanderlin’s features grew very cold.</p> - -<p>“The fact of that death was telegraphed to me,” he -replied. “It cannot concern me in any way.”</p> - -<p>“Are you sure of that?”</p> - -<p>“Perfectly sure. Nor can I conceive why you, a total -stranger, were with him.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_546">[546]</span>“I was not a stranger to him. I have known him many -years; and I am about to marry his grandnephew. He -was altogether abandoned; he had not even a servant or -a nurse; I did what I could.”</p> - -<p>Vanderlin was silent; he, like the royal person on the -golfing-ground, had difficulty in imagining her in these -circumstances. He wondered what she was aiming at—what -she desired.</p> - -<p>“I did what I could,” she repeated; “he suffered -greatly; he was completely paralyzed; but for a few moments -he recovered his speech a little, and he made me -understand—various things.”</p> - -<p>She paused, hoping to excite his curiosity, wishing to -induce him to interrogate her. But he remained mute; -he was used to listening in silence whilst people revealed -to him their necessities, described their projects, or endeavored -to awaken his sympathies.</p> - -<p>She was discouraged and embarrassed. Changing her -manner she said with her natural abruptness.</p> - -<p>“You were much attached to your wife, were you -not?”</p> - -<p>She had the pleasure of seeing his composure rudely -disturbed; an expression of extreme pain, a flush of extreme -offence, came on his face: an unhealed wound had -been roughly touched.</p> - -<p>“On that subject,” he said briefly, “I allow no one to -speak to me. I told you so at Les Mouettes.”</p> - -<p>“But I am going to speak to you!” said Mouse with -her more natural manner, “whether you allow it or -whether you don’t. As I tell you, I will be quite frank -with you,” she continued with a graceful embarrassment -which became her infinitely. “I had wished to know -you, to attract you if I could. Say it was vanity, necessity, -love of money—what you will; I admit that I had -that idea when I was so hospitably received by you.”</p> - -<p>A gesture of impatience escaped him; she was telling -him nothing that he did not know.</p> - -<p>“But,” she pursued, “when I had that brief conversation -with you after luncheon at your house, I understood -that your heart was closed to all except one memory. -With the prior knowledge I possessed of your wife’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_547">[547]</span> -father, and the recollection of certain hints he had given -me, I conceived the idea that he could if he chose establish -her innocence. I determined to try and persuade -him to do so if he possessed the power as I thought. I -went for that purpose to Monte Carlo; and on reaching -there I learned that he had been struck down by hemiplegia -at the tables.”</p> - -<p>He was now listening to her with great intentness, his -eyes dwelling on her with a searching interrogation which -did not make her part the easier to play. They were -eyes trained to read the minds and penetrate the falsehoods -of others.</p> - -<p>“I found the poor old Prince all alone in a miserable -room with a bear of a doctor, and not a nun even present -to see to his wants. I am not a very susceptible person, -but it hurt me to think of what he was, and all he might -have been. I did what little I could for him, and he -recognized me, and was pleased; one could see that by -his eyes. I sent all over the place for nurses, for physicians, -for the German consul, for the Lutheran pastor, -but no one came until the end—too late. He had lodgings -in an out-of-the-way country road; I suppose he -could not afford any better—everything went at the tables. -Well, he recovered his faculties a little, and he made me -understand that he was repentant and wretched because -he had wronged his daughter and separated her from you. -He was almost inarticulate but I managed to make out his -meaning; I know German very well. I gathered that -your wife was innocent; that she was the victim of -suborned witnesses, and that her father had been the chief -fabricator of the testimony which ruined her.”</p> - -<p>Vanderlin with difficulty controlled his emotion. He -was used to conceal his thoughts, but for once his reserve -broke down, and he was unable to conceal his anxiety.</p> - -<p>“Go on! Go on!” he said in a breathless vein. “Are -there any proofs of what you say?”</p> - -<p>“Hear me out,” she said with some impatience. -“What Khris said was mumbled, incoherent, rambling, -his tongue moved with difficulty. But I understood so -much as this. That the lady they call the Countess Olga -zu Lynar, and whom as you gave me to understand you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_548">[548]</span> -have never ceased to regret, is absolutely innocent of any -offence against you. Your jealousy was wickedly aroused -and your credulity abused.”</p> - -<p>“These are words!” cried Vanderlin. “I want proof! -What proof did he give you? He was always a knave -and a comedian.”</p> - -<p>“Poor old Khris!” said Mouse softy and sadly. “He -was sincere on his deathbed, at any rate, for he confessed -to sins which no one would wittingly assume.” Then -she added with a certain embarrassed but graceful -<i>câlinerie</i>, “I have proof, proof positive; his attestation -and those of his bribed witnesses. But what will you -give me for them? I am a very poor woman, M. Vanderlin, -and you are a very rich man!”</p> - -<p>Vanderlin rose impetuously; he looked twenty years -younger; the mask of impassive coldness which he had -worn so long dropped; his natural expression was revealed, -his eyes shone with the light of hope and expectation.</p> - -<p>“I will give you anything you wish!” he answered. -“Anything! Of what use is wealth without happiness?”</p> - -<p>She changed her tactics, for she knew that to make any -demand was dangerous and unseemly; and she realized -that this man’s gratitude would be boundless and his -generosity as great.</p> - -<p>“It was only my jest,” she said with a smile. “I am -not a <i>cabrioleuse</i>. Here are the documents. I am, of -course, not a very good judge of such things, but they -seem to me quite indisputable.”</p> - -<p>Then risking everything on one chance she gave him -the packet.</p> - -<p>He turned away from her and went to one of the -windows and stood so that she could not see his countenance, -whilst he examined the papers with the swift but unerring -perusal of a man accustomed every day of his life -to examine and adjudicate upon important documents.</p> - -<p>It seemed to her years that he stood thus, the curtain -falling so that she could not see his face. Her anxiety -was terrible. If the papers should not satisfy him? If -he did not desire reunion with his wife? If her own acts -should appear to him, as they well might do, effrontery,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_549">[549]</span> -interference, attempt at extortion? Above all, if he -should not believe the description she had given him of the -last moments of Khristof of Karstein? She was safe from -all risk of contradiction. The doctor could not declare -that the dying man had not recovered speech during his -absence. The consul had only arrived when he was -already dead. The woman of the house could testify to -the presence of the foreign lady in the chamber from -early afternoon to late evening. Her narrative was absolutely -safe from any discovery of its falsity. But still, -she felt afraid of Vanderlin. Since she had seen the interior -of that great establishment of the Rue de Rivoli, -and had heard of all those great personages waiting in his -antechamber, he seemed a much more imposing individuality -to her than had seemed the sad and solitary master -of Les Mouettes. But her conscience was clear. If she -had cheated him in the manner, she had not cheated him -in the matter, of her revelations. The papers were -genuine. That was her great point. The one solid and -indisputable truth which underlay like a rock of safety -her whole impudent fabric of lies.</p> - -<p>After what seemed to her a century of silence and suspense -he left the embrasure of the window and turned -toward her. His face was still pale and grave, but there -was the light of a great happiness upon it, of an immense -relief; the frozen snows of an endless sorrow had melted -in a moment, the sun shone on his path once more.</p> - -<p>“Madame, I thank you,” he said in a low voice which -had a tremor in it. “For eight years I have not lived. -You have given me back to life.”</p> - -<p>She had the supreme tact, the supreme self-control, to -dismiss him as though she had had no other purpose in her -action than to do simply what was natural and kind in -obedience to a dead sinner’s trust.</p> - -<p>“I am very glad,” she said simply, with that perfect -intuition which had so often served her purpose so well: -“and now go. I am sure you must wish to be alone. I -am very, very glad to have been of use to you and glad -that the poor old man did make some true atonement -at the last.”</p> - -<p>Profoundly touched, Vanderlin kissed her hands.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_550">[550]</span>“I will return to-morrow at this hour; you must tell -me your embarrassments and employ my resources as -you will. Command my friendship as long as my life -lasts.” He hesitated a moment, then added with an infinite -tenderness of tone: “I am sure you will also command -that of Olga.”</p> - -<p>Left alone, as the door closed on him, she buried her -face on the sofa cushions and cried and laughed hysterically, -for the strain on her nerves had been very great. -Then she threw her tear-wet handkerchief into the air and -played ball with it. What fools men were! Oh, what -fools! Taking their passions and affections so seriously -and tragically, and letting a love and its loss spoil all -the gains of the world to them. Then pride in her own -genius and success danced like a band of elves before her -eyes. Sarah Bernhardt herself could not have played that -part with more exquisite art.</p> - -<p>She touched the electric bell, bade them telephone for a -<i>coupé</i> and a box at the Gymnase, and then had herself -put in visiting trim, and when the <i>coupé</i> pulled up by -the peristyle went out to see some friends of the Faubourg -St. Germain whose day for afternoon reception it happened -to be.</p> - -<p>In the circles of the old aristocracy she was sure not to -meet the republican minister, Gaulois. She did not wish -to see him. She felt as if he would read in her eyes that -she had triumphed in her interview with Vanderlin. She -was a little ashamed of what she had done; not much, -for success and shame are not sisters, but a little.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_551">[551]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XLIV.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Two</span> days later Olga zu Lynar was seated by her fireside -in the home of her choice in the Swabian Alb, where -the March day had none of the sunlight and fragrance of -Monte Carlo. Snow was still deep in the passes of the -hills, and blocks of ice were breaking up on all the rivers. -The great oak and pine-woods were black against heavy -storm clouds, and enclosed the landscape on all sides save -one, where they were cleft abruptly by a narrow gorge, -which alone gave access to the world beyond.</p> - -<p>The news of her father’s end at Monte Carlo had intensified -the melancholy of her thoughts. She had -always hoped whilst he lived that some revelation, some -atonement, might come from him.</p> - -<p>He was dead; and death carries with it its own depression, -its own hopelessness. Death in her father’s case -seemed to her intensified in horror, because it was the end -of a base, valueless, miserable life. It filled her with the -same sort of despair which Hurstmanceaux had felt on -hearing that Cocky was dying at Staghurst.</p> - -<p>Nothing could be undone; nothing could be atoned -for; nothing could be explained: he was dead in a gambling -place; and had left no message for her. The German -consul had telegraphed to her that there had been -no papers found anywhere except the official declarations -of his birth and rank.</p> - -<p>She had never expected anything, and yet now that he -was dead, in unforgiving and unconfessing silence, she felt -as if some added hopelessness settled down on her. She -was still young in years, she had the kind of beauty -which never wholly passes away, she had wealth, and she -could have found many who would have willingly aided -her to forget and make her life anew. But she had no -wish to do so. She was proud, and she would not have -returned to the world on sufferance, to be pointed out and -whispered about. She preferred the sombre, mediæval<span class="pagenum" id="Page_552">[552]</span> -loneliness of her Swabian solitude, where the household -honored and the peasantry loved her. To them she was -the Countess Olga zu Lynar, whom they had served and -cherished and admired ever since she had been a young -child riding through the forests and climbing up the braes. -For them she was the daughter of their dear and revered -lady; of Prince Khris they had known little. Their affection -and respect were feudal; and if any stranger had -said an injurious word of her in the woods round Schloss -Lynar, he would have found a deep and a sure grave in -the rushing waters of their mountain streams.</p> - -<p>Here, if she did not find peace, she found what most -resemble it: security, repose, and uninterrupted thought.</p> - -<p>The death of her father rudely disturbed that calmness, -because it awakened the passion and sorrows of the past -as a single rifleshot would wake all the sleeping echoes of -the hills and woods.</p> - -<p>She sat beside the hearth, a boarhound stretched out in -the warmth at her feet; the dull grey day seeming evening -as its light came through the panes of the deep mullioned -windows. Where she sat was the old Rittersaäl of -the castle, with the armor, the shields, and the banners of -a hundred forgotten battles ranged down the oaken walls. -She had touched nothing. She had left it all as her grandfather -had found and left it. It was gloomy, but she -liked the gloom. It hurt her less than light and movement -and modern luxuries, which were in such cruelly -ironical mockery of her own sorrow.</p> - -<p>As she sat thus, her long cloth fur-bordered skirts falling -about her feet, and the fire light shining on her face, -the dog sprang up with a loud rolling bark and rushed -from the hall. She heard wheels on the rarely used and -lonely drive, which passed round under the trees to the -chief entrance on the other side of the house.</p> - -<p>Who could it be? No one ever came there except -some man of business. No doubt it was some consul, or -some lawyer, come to speak of Prince Khristof’s funeral, -and be paid for it.</p> - -<p>But she heard a voice say in the outer hall beyond in -speaking to the dog:</p> - -<p>“What Oscar, good Oscar, have you not forgotten?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_553">[553]</span>The sound of the voice made her heart stand still.</p> - -<p>It was eight long years since she had heard it. Was -she sane? Was she in her senses? Did she only dream, -awake, as she had so often dreamed in sleep all vainly?</p> - -<p>She stood in the centre of the great dark hall and saw, -as through a mist, a person enter. She saw him put back -the servants with a gesture, she saw him turn and close -the door and remain motionless, the dog leaping upon -him; but she saw it all as in a cloud, as though many, -many miles away, and she felt that it was only a vision -which would fade and pass, like so many other visions of -her lonely nights.</p> - -<p>He who had entered hesitated still some moments; then -he drew nearer.</p> - -<p>“Olga,” he said timidly: “Olga, can you forgive?”</p> - -<p>She fell forward insensible into his outstretched arms.</p> - -<p>She had dreamed vainly of reunion for so long; and at -last the dream had come true.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_554">[554]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XLV.</h2> -</div> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">I’ll</span> marry you, Wuffie,” said Mouse, three days later -as she walked along a secluded alley of the Casino gardens, -whilst the sun sparkled on marble balustrades and -glossy orange leaves. “No; pray spare me those ecstasies, -and for goodness sake don’t use German endearments; -it sets my nerves on edge. Listen; there is a condition; -perhaps you’ll set your back up at it, and if you do I shall -marry somebody else. <i>Il n’y a que l’embarras du choix.</i>”</p> - -<p>She only cared for Woffram’s consent because he was -the only one amongst her adorers who could be brought -with decent reason to accept Vanderlin’s money; the only -one also who combined the poverty which could be bought -with the high rank which would conceal the sale.</p> - -<p>Besides, he was, as she said, a very pretty boy, with a -Cupidon’s face and a grenadier’s frame, and she thought -that he would make <i>bon ménage</i>, <i>i.e.</i>, do exactly as he was -told to do.</p> - -<p>She knew society too well not to know that an English -duchess is a really much greater person than a German -Serenissime, but she was tired of being Duchess of Otterbourne -on twopence-halfpenny a year, and being under -tutelage and coercion; and there were one or two royal -princesses whom she especially detested to whom it would -be amusing to be cousin by marriage, she could scratch -them so deftly with the softest of velvet paws.</p> - -<p>On the whole, she thought it was the best thing to do, -so she spoke coldly and rudely to the young prince as he -walked beside her. It was the way she managed her men, -and it had always succeeded—except once.</p> - -<p>“Every wish of yours is law,” said Prince Woffram, -radiant and submissive, for he was extremely in love and -had never seen any way of inducing his syren to accept -his sword and his title, which were all he possessed in the -world. She had always told him that he was a nice-looking -boy and wore a pretty uniform, and might follow her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_555">[555]</span> -about and carry her wraps, but was good for nothing more -serious.</p> - -<p>“Let us walk a little quicker, and don’t keep kissing -my hand. It is ridiculous,” she said, with some acerbity, -for when you are going to marry a man it is always best -not to be too civil to him. “Now listen here. Your -greatuncle Khris is dead. I was with him when he died. -I persuaded him to do an act of very tardy justice to his -daughter. I knew the whole story long ago, and that was -why I went to see him. I wanted to try and persuade -him to undo the harm he had done.”</p> - -<p>The young man was silent. He was surprised and -could not grasp her meaning, for he knew that it must be -something other than what her mere words expressed.</p> - -<p>“You never knew Olga, did you?” he said, rather -stupidly.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Mouse, keeping both hands in her muff. “I -never knew her, but I have always pitied her profoundly, -and I knew her wicked old father could set things right -if he chose, for once he almost confessed as much to me. -But all this does not matter to you. It is an old story, -and they are now going to live happy ever afterwards like -people in a fairy-tale. That is their idea of felicity; it -wouldn’t be mine. If you would believe it, that man has -never cared about anybody else. It seems impossible, but -it is so. I suppose men of business are not like other -people.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand,” said the young prince humbly, -and in great perplexity. “Who are going to live happily -for ever? Who are you speaking of? Please tell me -more.”</p> - -<p>“Nobody wants you to understand—you are to listen,” -said Mouse, with her brilliant eyes flashing on him above -her sable collar. “I tell you I was with your greatuncle -when he died, and he gave me his confession to take to -Adrian Vanderlin, and the proof of the false witness which -he had bribed people to bear against his daughter, because -he was so angry that she did so little to get her husband’s -money for him (when you think of it, that was natural -enough, for one don’t give one’s daughter into the <i>bourgeoise</i> -without expecting to be paid for it). He played<span class="pagenum" id="Page_556">[556]</span> -Iago’s part, you know, and Vanderlin was jealous, and -your cousin Olga was too proud to clear herself, and so -they were made very miserable and separated. Well, this -is what he did and what he confessed, and if I had not -been there he would have had the papers burned, for he -was a bad, vindictive old man to the last.”</p> - -<p>This she said with great sincerity and emphasis, for she -saw in memory the glare of those steel-blue eyes in the -yellow, drawn face.</p> - -<p>“But why should you have been the intermediary?” -asked the young man, bewildered. “Why did not poor -old Khris send to my uncle Ernst (his nephew, you know), -who has always remained a devoted friend of Olga’s?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know <i>why</i> he didn’t. I know he did not,” she -replied irritably, for she was not disposed to submit to -cross-examination, and she had by this time come to believe -in her narrative as actual fact. “I was there; and -he was mortally ill. I doubt if anyone else would have -had patience to unravel his confused confessions.”</p> - -<p>“Well?” said the young prince anxiously.</p> - -<p>“Well, I have done Vanderlin an enormous service,” -she continued. “That is to say, with his peculiar ideas -of fidelity, he thinks it enormous. It is the ‘one man one -vote’ theory, don’t you know. ‘One life, one love’—that -sort of thing. One has read of it. Great bosh, but -still—no, pray don’t go on like that or you will bore me -to extinction. Listen. You and I can’t marry as we are. -We are as poor as church mice. My people won’t and -your people can’t do anything for us. But Vanderlin will.”</p> - -<p>“Vanderlin!” exclaimed Wuffie. He was dismayed -and horrified; he was a young man of easy principles, but -there are some scruples which women dance over like a -stool at a cotillon, and which men jib at violently as their -hunters do at brick walls.</p> - -<p>“If your pater ordered you to marry a royal schoolgirl, -you’d take her dower fast enough,” she continued; “and -yet what disgraceful sources it would come from—opium-taxes, -and gin-palace-taxes, and dog-taxes, and poor men’s -sixpences and shillings, and nailmakers’ and glassworkers’ -pennies, and real coinage, as one may say, out of vice and -misery and want.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_557">[557]</span>“You can’t be a republican—a socialist?” cried Prince -Woffram in horror.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know whether I am or not. I dare say I may -be. Anybody would be to see a little German princeling, -with twopence-halfpenny a year, and whose granduncle -has just died without money to pay his doctor’s bill, giving -himself airs as if he were somebody.”</p> - -<p>“How dreadfully unkind you are,” murmured the -young man.</p> - -<p>“If you don’t like home-truths, you can go and amuse -yourself anywhere you like,” she replied, in a severe tone, -her hands folded inside her muff, and her coldest and most -resolute expression on her face.</p> - -<p>His heart sank into his boots. He walked on beside -her, crestfallen and conquered.</p> - -<p>“I was quite frank with Cocky beforehand, and I am -quite frank with you. It is much the best way. There -are no disappointments and no recriminations.”</p> - -<p>Prince Woffram did not reply. He did not care to fill -the <i>rôle</i> which had suited Cocky so admirably, and he -was, moreover, blindly in love with her. Men in love do -not like to be mere lay-figures. But he was weak by -disposition, and both his poverty and passion made him -weaker still.</p> - -<p>“Vanderlin will do whatever we wish,” said Mouse -sharply, with an accent of inflexible authority. “He is -made of millions, as Boo says, and he is immensely grateful -to me. He wants to give me half his fortune, but of -course he can’t give it to me, so I told him that I was going -to marry you, and that he might give it you; quite -secretly, you understand, and you will always consider -that it is mine. That must be very distinctly understood.”</p> - -<p>The young man was silent; he was, indeed, overwhelmed -with astonishment and confusion. It seemed odd to hear -that another man had been told of her intention to marry -him before he himself had been informed of his future -happiness; moreover, there was something about the projected -arrangement which struck jarringly on his not very -sensitive conscience and appalled him, and his proposed -benefactor had divorced a woman of his race!</p> - -<p>He stammered some German phrases, embarrassed and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_558">[558]</span> -apprehensive of her displeasure, for he was afraid of her, -keenly and childishly afraid.</p> - -<p>“Don’t use that ridiculous language!” said Mouse, with -a boundless scorn for the mother tongue of Goethe and of -Kant. “Have you understood all I have been saying? -If you accept what Vanderlin will do for us—and he will -do a great deal—I will marry you. If you won’t, I shall -never see you any more. Pray make no mistake about -that.”</p> - -<p>“But if you love me——”</p> - -<p>“I never said I loved you. I don’t love people. I like -you in a way, and I will marry you on certain conditions, -but I will not marry you, my good Wuffie, to live on an -empty title and the pay of a German lieutenant of cuirassiers. -Not if I know it! I won’t even enter Germany, -except for the month at Homburg when everybody’s there. -Thanks—I have seen your father’s court, once in the duchy -of Karstein-Lowenthal, and very often in the duchy of -Gerolstein!”</p> - -<p>She laughed cruelly, not relaxing her quick elastic step -over the smooth gravel between the palms and the orange-trees. -She intended to marry him, and she had no doubt -whatever about the result of the conversation. Men were -like horses. Ride them with a firm hand and you could -put them at any timber you chose.</p> - -<p>Prince Woffram’s face flushed painfully; the jeer at -his father’s court hurt him. As far as he could feel -offence with her he felt it then, as her clear unkind -laughter rippled on the wintry air.</p> - -<p>“You are very rough on me,” he said, humbly, in English. -“I am poor—we are poor—I know that; but honorable -poverty——”</p> - -<p>Mouse turned her face to him, withering scorn flashing -from her sapphire eyes upon him.</p> - -<p>“Honorable poverty has just died in the person of Prince -Khristof of Karstein-Lowenthal, and he had not a penny -to pay his laundress, and his lodging, and his doctor, and -his grave! Adrian Vanderlin paid for all of them.”</p> - -<p>She said it cruelly, triumphantly, with her silvery laugh -sounding shriller than usual.</p> - -<p>The young man grew redder still with anger and shame<span class="pagenum" id="Page_559">[559]</span> -commingled. His eyes were downcast. He had no reply -ready as he walked beside her down the lonely alley.</p> - -<p>She saw that she had wounded and offended him.</p> - -<p>“Come, Wuffie, be reasonable,” she said, in another -tone. “You know well enough that I shall no more -marry you to remain penniless than I shall marry one of -the croupiers in the Casino. If you were going to ally -yourself with a royal princess, you would see nothing degrading -in living on her allowance allotted to her by what -is called the State, that is, taken out of the taxes paid by -the public on their sugar, and tea, and cheese, and clothing, -and yet, when you come to analyze it, that is not very -creditable. It is much more creditable to take what an -immensely rich financier never will miss, and offers, <i>de -bon cœur</i>, to acquit himself of a debt of gratitude; and -since you are so fond of your family, he is your cousin by -marriage—at least he was and he will be again, for he -means to re-marry his lost angel. My dear Wuffie, pray -don’t mind my saying so, but German princes are living -on their wives’ dowers all over the world by the hundred. -It is their <i>métier</i>.”</p> - -<p>He still did not answer. He looked on the ground as -he walked. There was sufficient truth in what she said -for his national and family pride to wince under it. He -knew that if he looked at her he should consent to -this abominable, indefensible, unworthy act to which she -tempted him. He kept his eyes on the ground; the color -burnt hotly in his cheeks. She was silent too a few moments. -Then she stopped short in her walk, forcing him -to stop also, and faced him, her hands in her muff and her -face very resolute and insolent, with a contemptuous smile -on her lips.</p> - -<p>“My dear Wuffie,” she said with sovereign contempt, -“you can’t suppose that I was going to marry you for -yourself, do you?”</p> - -<p>The young man colored, much mortified. He had supposed -so.</p> - -<p>“You are a very pretty boy, but one doesn’t marry for -good looks,” she said in the same tone. “One marries for -bread and butter. Neither you nor I have got it; but together -we can get it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_560">[560]</span>“But—but——” stammered Prince Woffram; he knew -that he was being tempted to what was disgraceful; to -what, judged by any court of honor, would brand him as -unworthy to wear his sword.</p> - -<p>“Can you really think, my dear boy,” she said with a -cruel, slighting little laugh, “that I shall marry you for -the mere sake of going, as the wife of the sixth son of a -six-hundredth-time-removed cousin of the emperor, in the -<i>défiler-cour</i> at Berlin? I can assure you that such a prospect -would not attract me for a moment. I have no desire -to figure in the Salle once in ten years, and make jam and -knit stockings like a true German fürstin all the rest of -my life. ‘<i>Kuche, kirche, kinder</i>,’ was not said by your Imperial -relative of me. If you accept my conditions I will -become your wife, but if you do not there are many others -who will. I like you very much, Wuffie, but I can live -extremely well without you, my dear boy.”</p> - -<p>He strove to keep his eyes away from her face. He -looked at the trees, at the clouds, at the sea, then at the -ground again. He knew that he was being led to his own -undoing, to his disgrace in his own eyes, to the abandonment -of self-respect and independence and manhood; he -knew that he would become Vanderlin’s pensioner and her -slave, that he would fall in his own sight to a lower place -than was held by one of the croupiers raking in gold at -the tables yonder. He tried to keep his eyes from her -face. He had had a pious mother; he prayed for strength.</p> - -<p>“Look at me, Wuffie!” she said imperiously.</p> - -<p>The delicate scent of the perfumed muff was wafted to -his nostrils like a puff of incense from the altars of the -Venusberg. He lifted his eyes and saw hers, with their -challenge, their mockery, their malice, their command. -He was lost.</p> - -<p>A few minutes later Boo, who had been playing near, -ran down the alley at a headlong pace toward them, and -lifted her rosebud mouth to be kissed.</p> - -<p>“You are going to be my new pappy, Wuffie!” she said, -in her sweetest and most innocent manner. “I’ve had -two; but they’re both dead, and I shall like you the best -of the three, because you’re so pretty, Wuffie.”</p> - -<p>And she sprang up into his arms, and laughed and beat<span class="pagenum" id="Page_561">[561]</span> -him about the eyes with a bunch of violets, and so dazzled -and blinded him that he had no time to ask himself—who -had been the <i>two</i> of whom she spoke?</p> - -<p>Jack had a letter a month later which astonished and -annoyed him. He read it sitting in a favorite nook in one -of the embrasures of the hall windows at Faldon, with -dogs between his knees, at his feet, under his arms, and -behind his back; young frolicsome foolish dogs, big and -little, who were the object of Ossian’s deepest scorn.</p> - -<p>The letter was from Boo, and dated from a fashionable -hotel in the Rue Castiglione.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<i>Mammy says you are to come over</i>,” the note began abruptly. -“<i>She’s writing to your gardjens. She is going to -marry Wuffie. Wuffie is nicer than anybody as was before. -He has such a beautiful white coat, and is all chaines, and -orders, and swords that clatter, that is when he puts ’em on; -when they’re off he don’t look more nor any other man; but -she means to make him give up soldiering. She says you -are to come over. You won’t carry her traine ’cos people as -are widders don’t have traines when they marry, and besides -you’re too old. But that don’t matter. I shall have a beautiful -frock and Wuffie has gived me a tuckoiss belt. Don’t -fret about your dress. They’ll dress you here. It’s on the -third. Mammy sends you one hundred thousand kisses; me -too. Au revoir. Auf weidersehn.</i>”</p> -</div> - -<p>For Boo, a true daughter of her time, could write correctly -all languages except her own.</p> - -<p>This letter was painful to its recipient. He sat looking -gloomily out at the glades of the park where wild winds -from St. George’s Channel were swaying the great trees -and driving the Faldon river into scurrying clouds of -brown foam.</p> - -<p>“I’ll take it to him,” he thought. He had learned to -know that his uncle Ronnie was a rock of refuge. He -got up as well as he could for being embraced by all his -dogs at once, and knocked down by a Newfoundland twice -in excess of adoration.</p> - -<p>He found Hurstmanceaux at the other end of the house -engaged in reading his own correspondence of the morning.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_562">[562]</span>“If you please is this true?”</p> - -<p>“Is what true?”</p> - -<p>“That my mother is to marry.”</p> - -<p>He held out his sister’s letter.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know if it means that. If it don’t mean that -I can’t tell what it means,” he added despondently.</p> - -<p>“Your mother marries, yes,” said Hurstmanceaux, taking -the note, “and this letter says you are to go to Paris. -Do you wish to go?”</p> - -<p>Jack’s fair face grew almost stern.</p> - -<p>“I will never go to her,” he said with more decision -than could have been expected from his years.</p> - -<p>“Make no rash vows, my boy,” said Ronald. “But as -regards your appearance at this marriage it is not necessary; -I think you are right not to go.”</p> - -<p>“I would not go if they dragged me with ropes through -the sea from Dublin Bay to Calais,” said Jack; “and up -the Seine,” he added with a geographical afterthought.</p> - -<p>“She killed him, and she has forgotten him,” thought -her son as he went out with his dogs into the bare March -avenues of the park. Jack did not forget.</p> - -<p>So it came to pass that at the brilliant wedding celebrated -at the English and German embassies, and attended -by many great persons of royal and noble families, -there was not present either the eldest brother or the -eldest son of the lady who became H.S.H. Princess Woffram -of Karstein-Lowenthal.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_563">[563]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XLVI.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the following autumn Margaret Massarene caught -cold. It was a slight ailment at first, and if she had been -the woman she had been in North Dakota she would have -soon thrown off the chill. But she had experienced in her -own person the perils with which she had once said her -William was menaced—her love of the good things of the -table had affected her liver and her digestive organs. -She had never stinted herself, as she had expressed it; indeed, -she had overeaten herself continually ever since -that first wondrous day when her man had said to her: -“The pile’s made, old woman; we’ll go home and spend -it.”</p> - -<p>All the guinea-fowls, and pheasants, and oysters, and -turtle, and anchovies, and capons, and grouse, and prawns, -and whitebait which had been immolated on the altar of -her appetite, had their posthumous vengeance. Richemont, -who had loathed her, had helped with his exquisite -inventions to hasten her undoing. She was naturally -very strong and of good constitution, but the incessant eating -which prevails in England, and which kills nine-tenths -of its gentle people, had been too much for her. Annual -visits to German baths, to Carlsbad, and to Vichy had -warded off the evil, but could not wholly avert it. When -she got cold, the over-tasked liver and the failing gastric -juices struck work; the lungs were already feeble; and -before a month was over, after she had felt a chill as she -came from church, she was declared by her attendant -physicians to be beyond their aid.</p> - -<p>She had always been a meek and patient woman, accepting -whatever came to her, the bitter with the sweet, -and she did not rebel now, though the loss of life was -hard to her.</p> - -<p>“Just when I was in the straw-yard, as it were. Comfortable, -like an old horse as is past work and has had a -good owner, not as many on ’em has,” she murmured. It -seemed an unkind disposition of Providence. “But<span class="pagenum" id="Page_564">[564]</span> -there! we don’t know what’s best for us!” she said, with -that submissive obedience to the frown of fate which she -had shown so long to the scowl of William Massarene. -Her daughter was more sad than she.</p> - -<p>“If I had only really loved her once for five minutes!” -she thought. But she had not. She had never felt a -single thrill of those affections of which the world is, or -affects to be, so full.</p> - -<p>She was devotion itself in attendance on her mother—watched -by her night and day, and addressed her with -exquisite gentleness. But it was pity, sorrow, compassion, -regret, all other kind and tender emotions which -moved her, but amongst them there was no love. All the -other gods will come if called, but not love in any of his -guises.</p> - -<p>“Don’t ye try to feign what you don’t feel,” said Margaret -Massarene. “You’ve no feigning in you, my dear, -and why should you try? You was took away from me -when you were a little thing of five, and you was always -kept away to be made a lady of (and that they <i>did</i>). It -stood to reason, as when you see me all them years after, -you couldn’t have no feeling for me. I was nought to you -but a stranger, and I saw as my way of talk hurt you.”</p> - -<p>Katherine wept, leaning her head down on her mother’s -broad, pallid hand.</p> - -<p>“Don’t ye fret, Kathleen! Why should you fret?” -said the sick woman. “You have nothin’ to blame yourself -for—toward me, at any rate. I did think as ’twas -your duty to respect your father more in his life, and to -keep his great work together when he was gone. But -there! you’d your own way of lookin’ at things, and -you’re not to be blamed for that.”</p> - -<p>Then her weak voice failed her, and she lay looking -out, through the branches of an acacia-tree beyond the -window, to the silvery line of the sea.</p> - -<p>“I did according to my light, mother,” said Katherine -in a whisper. “I may have been in error.”</p> - -<p>“Ay, my dear,” said Margaret; “that’s what all you -clever, eddicated people do. You make a law for yourselves, -and then you say you follow it!”</p> - -<p>It might be so.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_565">[565]</span>What had seemed the voice of conscience might have -been the voice of vanity. She could not tell. Perhaps -this poor, simple, vulgar woman had been more in the -right than she.</p> - -<p>Some hours passed; one physician remained in the -house, another came and went; nothing was to be done. -The human machine was worn out; it had been ill-fed -too long and then over-fed; its delicate and intricate -mechanism rebelled, waxed feeble, gave way altogether.</p> - -<p>“I’d hev liked another ten years of it,” she said regretfully. -“’Twas a holiday like, the nice easy life. And -you won’t ever know, my dear, how hard I worked—over -there.”</p> - -<p>Then she cried feebly but sadly, thinking of those wearing -and cruel days in Dakota, in burning heat and freezing -cold, when she had worked so hard, and of this pleasant -“lady’s life” which she had now to leave, which had -come too late to do much more than cause her such regret. -Katherine’s head was bowed down upon the bed.</p> - -<p>“And you had no reward!”</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes, my dear, I <i>had</i> my reward! Don’t ever go -for to say otherwise! I see your father a great man and -shaken by the hand by princes and honored by everybody—except -you.” Then her mind wandered a little, and -she said many things about her man’s renown, and his -virtues, and his attainments, and the height to which he -had risen. “Princes at his own table,” she murmured. -“In his life and his death they honored him. Look at -his grave, piled up with flowers—nothin’ in the Abbey -ever grander.”</p> - -<p>Once she raised herself on her elbow and took hold of -her daughter’s arm.</p> - -<p>“Look you, child—divorce is as easy got out there as -berries in the fields in summer; a rich man can put away -his wife like an old glove, and he never did that—never! -I was an eyesore to him, but he kept me by him, and he -had me dressed and served like a queen. He was a God-fearing -man, was William.”</p> - -<p>All her memory was of him, of the brute who had -scarcely ever thrown her a kind word in all the forty -years that she had dwelt beside him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_566">[566]</span>“He was a great man, a very great man, was your -father,” she repeated. “He’d have died a peer, and I -dare say a minister too, if that shot hadn’t killed him on -his threshold.”</p> - -<p>Her mind was little with her living daughter beside her; -it was almost entirely with the dead man who, when they -had both been young, had stepped out beside her through -the green grass of Kilrathy to conquer the world—and -had done it.</p> - -<p>“He was a great man, was William,” she said as she -closed her eyes. She looked at her worn fingers, on -which the flesh hung in folds, and turned the plain brass -wedding ring feebly round and round; the ring that was -now covered by a diamond guard.</p> - -<p>“’Twas a fine mornin’ as he put it there,” she murmured. -“The sun was shinin’ and the dew sparklin’, and -I mind me of a little tit as sat on a wild bit o’ sweetbriar -against the church door. ’Tis a sweet feelin’, Kathleen, -when ye gives yerself for a man for good. But ye don’t -care about them feelin’s. You’re too high and too cold.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, not cold! Oh, mother—no, not cold!”</p> - -<p>“Well, you’re somethin’ as comes to the same thing,” -said Margaret wearily, and lay still. The light of the intellect -must always seem cold as Arctic light to those -who only know the mellow warmth of the sunshine of the -heart.</p> - -<p>Her daughter remained leaning against the bed upon -her knees. She felt as if so much atonement were due -from her, and yet——? Perhaps she should have remembered -more the excuse which lay in society for the faults -of her father.</p> - -<p>Society says to the successful man: “You have done -well and wisely; you have thought of yourself alone -from your cradle.” Society offers the premium of its -flattery and its rewards to the man who succeeds, without -regard to the means he has employed. Provided he -avoids scandals which become public, there would be obvious -impertinence in any investigation into his methods. -Society is only occupied with the results. When he succeeds -his qualities become virtues, as when a vine bears -fruit the chemicals which it has absorbed during its culture<span class="pagenum" id="Page_567">[567]</span> -become grapes. Public subscriptions will become -accreditated to him as divine charities; if he write his -name down for a large sum at a banquet at which a royal -duke or a lord mayor presides, to enrich a hospital or endow -an asylum, he need fear no demands as to how he -has gained his vast capital. The man who succeeds -knows that his sins will be ignored because he has acquired -greatly, as hers were forgiven to Mary Magdalene -because she had loved greatly. Can we blame a man because -his morality is not higher than that of the world in -general? “Get money, honestly if you can, but get -money,” says society, and when he has got it, if it has -been got in quantities sufficiently large, sovereigns and -princes will visit him and require nothing more from him -than the fact and proof of its possession. Her father had -not created the worship of the golden calf; he had only -availed himself of it; he had only set up the animal in his -own kailyard and opened his gates.</p> - -<p>Great qualities he had undoubtedly possessed; if they -were not lovable or altruistic, or such as pleased the strict -moralist or the poetic philanthropist, they were such as -are alone appreciated in an age which would send the -Nazarene to a treadmill and the Stagyrite to a <i>maison -centrale</i> if they were living now.</p> - -<p>Had she done wrong not to value them more? No; she -could not think so.</p> - -<p>“He was a great man, my dear, and he had a right to -do as he liked with his own,” her mother murmured -again, faithful to the last, like a dog, to the hand which, -though it had struck her many a brutal blow, had been -her master’s.</p> - -<p>“He was a great man, was William,” she said again; -and then her mind wandered away to the green wet pastures -of Kilrathy, and she thought she was a dairy-girl -again with bare feet and kilted skirt, and she called the -cows to the milking: “Come, my pretties, come—Blossom -and Bell and Buttercup. Come; ’tis time.” Then -her hands moved feebly, as though they pulled the udders, -and she smiled a little and would have laughed, but she -had no strength. “I’m home again,” she murmured; and -then life left her.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_568">[568]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XLVII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was a gusty, wild, and cloudy morning at Faldon -some days later, and Hurstmanceaux sat in his library -reading a communication which he had received from the -head of the Government. The epistle, which was written -by the premier himself, offered him the governorship of a -very important colony. The letter was extremely complimentary, -and there was no possible reason to doubt its -sincerity. It urged upon him the sacrifice of his independence -to the welfare of his country, and hinted that as -years passed on it became time to abandon certain eccentricities -of opinion and habits of isolation. Hurstmanceaux -read it with the attention which the position of its -writer demanded; but he did not waste many minutes in -its consideration. It was not the first time that such -offers had been pressed on him. The independence of his -character was so well known, and his principles so much -respected by all men, that his accession to the governing -ranks would have been an increase of strength to those -who were in office. But they had never been able to -tempt him to forsake private for public life. He now -wrote a very courteous but most decided refusal, expressing -his sense of the compliment paid to him, sealed it -with his signet ring, and sat still awhile at his writing-table -thinking.</p> - -<p>“I have never yet been in the scramble for the loaves -and fishes,” he said to himself, “and I shall not begin -now. He will find men enough and to spare who have -outrun the constable, or who want handles to their names, -and who will be delighted to go to the nether world and -play at pseudo-sovereignty. Faldon and my other poor -places are kingdoms enough for me, small ones though -they be; and Jack’s active mind is colony enough to cultivate.”</p> - -<p>Whatever else Jack might be, he was half a Courcy, and -must be brought up to be a man and a gentleman.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_569">[569]</span>At that moment Jack came in followed by his dogs of -all sizes, on whom Ossian, lying in a reading-chair, opened -a contemptuous eye; Jack had permission to run free of -the library as he liked. He had now a morning paper in -his hand which he held out to his uncle.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Adeane wishes me to ask you, please, if this is -true,” he said, pointing to a paragraph marked by his -tutor.</p> - -<p>Hurstmanceaux glanced at it. It announced his acceptance -of the Australian governorship. His brows contracted -in displeasure. “Nothing could be less true,” he -answered. “It is true that the appointment has been offered -to me. But tell Adeane I decline it. Leave the -paper here, dear. I will send a contradiction.”</p> - -<p>Jack went out by one of the windows opening on a terrace -as he had entered, his canine courtiers leaping about -him, and Hurstmanceaux took up the journal to see the -date of the paragraph.</p> - -<p>It was a journal of fashion and politics; the statement -which concerned him was in a column containing other -items of news; the name in one of these caught his eye; -he read that the wife of William Massarene was dead at -her villa at Bournemouth.</p> - -<p>When Katherine Massarene closed her mother’s eyes -she felt both regret and remorse. Why had she not had -patience and penetration enough to do justice to the unrecognized -loyalty and affection in that existence of which -he had only seen the envelope of flesh, only despised the -narrowness and ignorance? She knew that she had never -loved her mother; she felt that she must have often, -very often, caused her pain and humiliation. She had -persistently gazed at her mother’s foolishness and commonness; -she had never tried to be just to her better -qualities.</p> - -<p>Fine temperaments are always cruelly open to such -self-reproach; she never ceased to blame her own heartlessness, -and when she followed her only relative to the -grave she said to herself, with exaggerated self-censure, -that she had rolled more than one stone to her mother’s -cairn.</p> - -<p>She had indeed been indulgent, submissive, kind beyond<span class="pagenum" id="Page_570">[570]</span> -that which many would have thought incumbent upon -her, but she forgot that she had been so; she only remembered -her own lack of feeling, her own intolerance -and antagonism, her own contemptuous isolation; all -which had seemed as cold as Greenland ice to the poor -dead woman.</p> - -<p>As regarded her own future she had made no plans. -She would have liked to take charge of the children’s orphanage -which she had founded in her mother’s name in -County Down; but she thought to do so would look as if -she had been making a refuge for herself in creating the -institution. She wished to gain her own living, without -favor, simply by means of her head or her hands. She -inclined toward music; she was enough of an artist to -make her mark in it; but the publicity necessitated -would, she knew, be very distasteful to her. For the -moment she decided nothing, but when she had buried -her mother in the crypt of Vale Royal, according to her -last request, she returned to the house at Bournemouth -to pass there the few months during which it was still -her own. The Roxhalls had entreated her to remain -with them, but she felt an imperative longing for solitude.</p> - -<p>“You are much too young to live alone,” said Roxhall -to her.</p> - -<p>“I feel a hundred years old,” she answered.</p> - -<p>A great weight of what seemed to her unending regret -lay like lead on her life. She was the more unhappy because -happiness had been offered to her, and she had -been obliged to refuse it, or had thought herself to be so -obliged. It would have been happiness, great and wondrous -happiness, but she tried not to think of it, lest the -memory of what might have been should entirely unnerve -her for the combat of her life to come. For one -thing she was thankful—people had by this time quite -ceased to talk about her. Only a few old friends like the -Framlinghams and Lady Mary Altringham wrote to her. -Nothing is easier than to drop out of people’s recollection -if you wish it; nor is it difficult if you don’t.</p> - -<p>She was a great deal on the sea and by the sea, and -passed much of her time when on shore in the pine-wood<span class="pagenum" id="Page_571">[571]</span> -which belonged to the grounds. It was sheltered, and no -one ever intruded there; and to Argus it was a sylvan -paradise.</p> - -<p>A day or two after her mother’s funeral she was seated -on the same bench where Framlingham and Hurstmanceaux -had found her in an earlier time. She was reading -a letter from one of the poor people whom she had raised -from grinding misery in the States. It was a true and -tender letter, none the less welcome because ill-writ and -ill-spelt. Sometimes these rude letters have more eloquence -in them than lies in Bossuet or John Newman.</p> - -<p>She read it twice, being touched by it, then laid it down -on the bench and looked out seaward.</p> - -<p>It was a November day, but still and bright. In the -west, beyond the heaving expanse of grey water, the sun -was going in rosy mists to his setting; the outline of a -great liner was black against the horizon; midway in the -Channel there were some fishing boats, trawlers, who had -put up lights betimes at their mastheads. Her face looked -very colorless as she sat there, the deep dull black of her -dress made her skin look like snow itself, and her ungloved -hands, as they rested on her lap, might have been -the sculptured hands carved on the marble breast of -some recumbent figure in a crypt.</p> - -<p>“I have often wished to be alone and free,” she thought. -“I have my wish.” And like most wishes in their fulfilment, -this wish of hers was not very sweet.</p> - -<p>“May I speak to you?” said a man’s voice, which -thrilled through the innermost nerves of her being.</p> - -<p>Instinctively she rose. Hurstmanceaux was standing -as he had stood six months before; he had his face to the -sunset; its light shone in his blue eyes; he uncovered his -head; he did not touch her hand.</p> - -<p>“I have come from Faldon to see you,” he said. “I -read of your mother’s death.”</p> - -<p>She was silent; she had no idea what to say in answer.</p> - -<p>“Did she suffer?”</p> - -<p>“No; happily, not much.”</p> - -<p>“You buried her at Vale Royal?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; your cousin Roxhall gave permission.”</p> - -<p>“Of course!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_572">[572]</span>Then silence ensued between them. The dog stood -looking from one to another; the sun sank down beyond -the edge of the far sea.</p> - -<p>“I came to speak to you,” said Hurstmanceaux with -an effort. “I left you in anger and offence, and you had -answered me, I think, in too great haste.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, no——”</p> - -<p>“Pardon me; hear me to the end. I have thought -of little else since we parted. I have not left Faldon. I -have seen scarcely anyone, except my little nephew and -his tutor. I have had full time for reflection. Well, -what I come to say to you is this. Between you and -me there ought not to come, there ought not to exist, -any unworthy misunderstandings born of doubt, or temper, -or suspicion. Such are unworthy of us both.”</p> - -<p>“There was no misunderstanding.”</p> - -<p>“I think there was. You chose to conceive that I desired -what I should regret if I obtained it, and I was too -much in haste and in anger to prove to you your error. -One does not persuade angels to bless one’s life, unless -one wrestles with them. I took you by surprise. Perhaps -I spoke like a coxcomb in too great security. I -should have remembered that all you had ever seen in me -had been intolerable rudeness. I should have sued you -more humbly——”</p> - -<p>“Oh, how can you say such things?”</p> - -<p>“I say the truth. I was too rough, too rash, too confident. -I want you to forget that: to only remember -that in all I said I was entirely sincere, and that in all you -objected in answer you were entirely wrong—absolutely -and utterly mistaken. I once more offer you my name, -my heart, my life. No man can do more. I earnestly entreat -you not to let the world’s conventionalities or your -own imaginations part us.”</p> - -<p>She was profoundly moved by the words; she could not -doubt their truth or their loyalty. Incredible as it seemed -to her, it was clear that this sentiment which had brought -him hither twice was one both deep and lasting. But she -could not and would not allow herself to be persuaded to -his hurt.</p> - -<p>“What did my poor mother say on her deathbed?<span class="pagenum" id="Page_573">[573]</span> -They sent me away from her to be ‘<i>made</i> a lady of.’ -Lord Hurstmanceaux, your wife must be one born, not -made.”</p> - -<p>He was silent; he was the most truthful of men and -he believed intensely in race.</p> - -<p>“Listen to me,” he said at last. “I should be false to -the tenets of my life if I denied the influence of race. But -there are exceptions to all laws. There are beggars whom -a Burleigh fitly mates with; that is, I think, for Burleigh -himself to judge. She cannot judge because, like all -generous persons, if she had the casting vote, she would -vote against herself. Let me speak for once; and only for -once, of a subject which is to me intolerable pain and -shame. My sister, my best-beloved sister, who is thoroughbred -in every pulse of her blood and every fibre of -her being, dropped to the level of a courtezan for sake of -money. She was—there can be no doubt of it—your -father’s mistress; of details I know nothing, but the fact -is beyond doubt.”</p> - -<p>She tried to silence him.</p> - -<p>“Oh, why—oh, why distress yourself thus? He is dead—she -is married again——”</p> - -<p>“Those circumstances alter nothing. The fact must -have been—what I say. You yourself must have learnt -or concluded it from his papers.”</p> - -<p>She made no reply. She could not deny what was -obvious.</p> - -<p>“Now,” said Hurstmanceaux, and his face was white -with pain as he spoke, “race did not keep unsoiled in -her either our name or her own womanhood. I believe -that you would keep both my honor and your own immaculate. -If you could care for me, do not let apprehensions -and doubts and mistrust divide our lives. I love -you; is love so strange a word to you that you cannot -even guess what it wishes and suffers?”</p> - -<p>His eyes rested on hers as he spoke. It seemed as if a -blaze of unbearable light inundated her soul.</p> - -<p>“You love <i>me</i>!” she said in a hushed voice of great -amaze.</p> - -<p>“I love you. What is there so strange in that? I told -you so six months ago.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_574">[574]</span>She threw her arm round a young pine stem near her, -and, leaning her forehead on its rough bark, burst into -tears.</p> - -<p>“Lead me, guide me, take me if you will,” she said -brokenly. “I have trusted to my own wisdom, and perhaps -I have always done wrong.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_575">[575]</span> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XLVIII.</h2> -</div> - -<p><span class="smcap">The</span> château of Les Mouettes was lent for the coming -winter season to the Prince and Princess Woffram of -Karstein by its owners, who, both naturally generous, -and made more generous still by happiness and a sense of -gratitude, were unceasing and inexhaustible in the wideness -of their goodwill. It was always well to oblige persons -who are led away by their feelings, thought the recipient -of their bounties. Such people do not inquire too -minutely or measure too exactly. It is of such as these -that is made that succulent oyster which the wise man or -woman opens with his or her knife, and sucks the juices -thereof.</p> - -<p>Mouse had fully persuaded herself that she had done -an admirable action. She had made two people happy; -if their happiness were idiotic, and to her incomprehensible, -it was none the less to them what their hearts desired: -no one can account for the tastes of others.</p> - -<p>She really admired herself and quite succeeded in -forgetting whatever there might have been a little questionable -or a little disagreeable to explain about her visit -to Prince Khris on his deathbed. The documents had all -been quite genuine; if she had embroidered a little on -the plain facts of how she had obtained them, that mattered -to nobody. Neither Vanderlin nor Olga ever -doubted her narrative, and their gratitude toward her -found incessant expression. If Prince Woffram doubted -it he never said so. He had accepted its results, and his -lips were sealed.</p> - -<p>She was standing on the sea-wall of the Mouettes on a -bright and balmy morning, looking herself as radiant as -the morning, with a great bunch of tea-roses at her breast, -and a gold-headed cane in her hand, when Daddy Gwyllian, -who was staying at Cannes, came to her from the garden -side of the sea-terrace.</p> - -<p>He was looking brimful of news and of amazement; a -white cashmere neckerchief was wound about his throat;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_576">[576]</span> -he was wearing a fur coat and little bunch of fresias at -the buttonhole of it; he was visibly agitated.</p> - -<p>“My dear Princess!” he said, pressing her hands and -quite forgetting that he disliked her. “What you must -suffer! How I sympathize! Who could ever have -thought it! A man of such sense! Perhaps if you had -not left England it would not have happened!”</p> - -<p>“What on earth is the matter, Daddy?” asked Mouse, -astonished and curious. “Have you come to bring me -bad news?”</p> - -<p>“<i>You ask me!</i>” cried Daddy in amaze; then dropping -his voice to a sepulchral moan, he added, “Is it possible—possible—that -you have not heard of your brother’s -fatal act?”</p> - -<p>Over her face a cold and angry shadow passed.</p> - -<p>“Has he killed himself?” she asked. “I don’t think -he’d ever do anything half so agreeable to others.”</p> - -<p>Daddy Gwyllian drew a long breath.</p> - -<p>“I am really grieved to be the bearer of such tidings,” -he said, with the very keenest relish in telling them. -“But Ronnie—stay—you know that the Massarene -woman gave all that immense fortune away to the poor?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mouse impatiently. “I saw all that -rubbish in the papers long ago. What has that to do -with Hurstmanceaux?”</p> - -<p>“He has married her!” ejaculated Daddy. “Now!—now!—when -she hasn’t got a penny! Oh, Lord!”</p> - -<p>“What!” she cried in turn, as she rose impetuously -and stared at him.</p> - -<p>“My dear lady! You may well be incredulous. It -does seem impossible that any man in his senses—— But -he married her yesterday, down at Bournemouth.”</p> - -<p>“You foolish old gossip!” she cried, with a concentrated -fury, which almost stifled her voice. “Can you -think of nothing better than to frighten one with such -preposterous inventions? My brother would never even -look at that creature.”</p> - -<p>“I may be an old gossip, Princess,” said Daddy, with -high offence and some dignity, “but I do not consciously -say what is not true. Will you do me the honor to read -this?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_577">[577]</span>He fumbled beneath his fur coat, his paletôt, and his -morning coat, and brought out a telegram, which he -handed to her. It was dated from Bournemouth, and -addressed to Daddy himself.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<i>You often counselled me to marry the daughter of Mr. -Massarene. I am happy to inform you that I have done so -this morning. The ceremony was private: Alberic Orme -officiated.</i>”</p> -</div> - -<p>It was signed—“Hurstmanceaux.”</p> - -<p>She read the lines in a single glance.</p> - -<p>“You advised him? You advised him to disgrace us -like this!” she cried with a furious gesture, crushing the -dispatch in her hand, whilst her azure eyes poured their -lightning upon him.</p> - -<p>“I advised him to do so when the young woman was -rich. You sent her down to Bedlowes yourself on purpose -to bring it about. Perhaps, if you had not shown -your hand so openly, he might have done it when it would -have been a desirable thing to do. But I am a foolish old -gossip, and I will leave you to digest—er—this extremely -unpleasant fact. I have the honor to wish you good -morning.”</p> - -<p>He took himself off, very huffed, stiff, and alienated; -he had repossessed himself of his telegram.</p> - -<p>Mouse stood still, convulsed with an inward fury, for -which there was no possible outward expression. She -was stunned.</p> - -<p>He had done it on purpose, she was convinced! On -purpose to outrage her!</p> - -<p>“Wherever I meet them first,” she said between her -teeth: “if it be at a Drawing-room—I will cut them both -dead!”</p> - -<p>“What is the matter, Sourisette?” asked one of her -women friends who was staying with her and approached -as Daddy withdrew.</p> - -<p>“You may well ask me. My brother has married the -lowest of low women!”</p> - -<p>“How very dreadful for you!” said the lady with sympathy. -“But are you quite sure? Because when I came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_578">[578]</span> -away from England last week they said he was going to -marry Miss Massarene, the daughter of your good old -friend Billy.”</p> - -<p>Mouse shuddered within herself. She could not hear -the name of William Massarene without a spasm of unbearable -remembrance, and she felt that her attitude of -hostility was difficult to explain.</p> - -<p>“He has married her. That is just the horror of it!” -she said between her teeth. “You know what they all -were, the lowest of the low. As acquaintances while they -had their money, they were all very well: but as a connection—it -is too frightful! I will never speak to her—never, -never, not if I meet her at Osborne or Windsor.”</p> - -<p>A servant at that moment brought her telegrams from -Carrie Wisbeach, and various other members of her family, -all repeating the news and reflecting her own views with -regard to it.</p> - -<p>Such a <i>mésalliance</i>! If the money had been there it -would have been a most admirable alliance, a most suitable -arrangement, a most excellent choice; but when the -money was all gone back to the poor from whom it had -been extracted originally, the union was positively monstrous. -If he had married a pauper out of the county -workhouse, it would have been less insult to them; so -they all agreed.</p> - -<p>There is a kind of cynical frankness about “good society,” -with regard to its love of money, which is, perhaps, -the only candid thing about it. It sticks like a swarm of -bees where money is, and it vanishes like locusts before -the north wind where it is not.</p> - -<p>All the family and all the connections of Hurstmanceaux -viewed his marriage as she viewed it. If he had blown -his brains out they would have been less shocked, for they -would have been able to say that he had had an accident -with a revolver or a repeating-rifle. But it was impossible -for them to explain away this act of insanity; and though -he would probably live down in the country, as people -should do who are ashamed of themselves, still, some time -or other they would have to meet him, and they felt uncomfortably -certain that the head of their house would -compel from them respect and deference toward his wife.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_579">[579]</span>Even those few friends who were sincerely attached to -him felt, like Daddy Gwyllian, that they could not venture -to apologize for a man who had shown such culpable -indifference to his own interests and the world’s opinion.</p> - -<p>“What has disturbed you, my heart’s dearest?” said -Prince Woffram as he came on to the terrace on his return -from a golfing match; he had met Daddy Gwyllian a mile -from the entrance gate, who had driven past him merely -touching his hat.</p> - -<p>“What has disturbed you?” he continued. “Did that -pleasant little old gentleman come to bring you any ill -news?”</p> - -<p>Her answer was to throw the telegrams into his hands; -from them he gleaned some idea of what had passed.</p> - -<p>“Your brother marries? Well, what does that matter?”</p> - -<p>“What?” she echoed, her eyes shining and flashing -with fury. “If he had married a woman off the pavement -of the Haymarket he could not have disgraced us -more utterly! And for Alberic Orme to countenance -such a disgrace! What an infamy!”</p> - -<p>The young man raised his eyebrows and played with -the tea-roses of the balustrade. The placidity of his -temper opposed itself to the violence of hers like a marble -breakwater to the fretting fury of a Venetian lagoon in -December.</p> - -<p>“She will have my eldest son with her to poison his -mind against me!” she added, tears of genuine rage and -grief overflowing her lovely eyes. “Have they not even -taken away my only daughter from my guardianship?”</p> - -<p>The young man was silent; he was not grieved that his -friend Boo had been removed to England.</p> - -<p>“He has married her merely to pass this insult on me!” -she said with tears which burnt her eyes like fire.</p> - -<p>“That is scarcely probable, my beloved,” said Prince -Woffram gently; “the lady is not noble, it is true; but -then you have great license in these matters in Great -Britain. Your Heralds’ Office is practically a box of -puppets.”</p> - -<p>“I cannot see,” he repeated, “why you should be thus<span class="pagenum" id="Page_580">[580]</span> -affected. The lady was much admired in London; she -had great musical talent. I remember my cousins——”</p> - -<p>“Great musical talent!” echoed Mouse bitterly. -“Whilst she had her money, of course, they gave her -every talent under heaven!”</p> - -<p>She heard in memory the harsh, rude voice of Massarene -saying of her own songs:</p> - -<p>“She says yours is bad amatoor music, my lady!”</p> - -<p>Oh, how she hated the creature! And to think she was -now mistress of Faldon!</p> - -<p>Katherine Massarene mistress of Faldon! It seemed to -her an outrage too intolerable to be borne!</p> - -<p>She had never cared to go to Faldon since the time of -her marriage to Cocky; she had always railed against it -as the dullest, wildest, and most out-of-the-way place upon -earth. She would have perished of <i>ennui</i> if she had been -forced to pass a week there between its ancient woods and -its solitary seas; but for all that it was the cradle of her -race, the home of her childhood, the house of her mother. -To think of “Billy’s daughter” as reigning there was an -utterly unendurable insult! And the bust by Dalou and -the portrait by Orchardson were no doubt gone there already, -and were impudently taking their place in the gallery -where the women of her race were portrayed and -where her own portrait as a child, painted by Millais, hung -in the light of the setting sun!</p> - -<p>“I cannot see what it matters,” repeated Prince Woffram, -turning a telescope placed on the balustrade above -the tea-roses on to a distant passing yacht.</p> - -<p>He had become a very philosophic young man since his -marriage.</p> - -<p>The quiet common sense of the words fell like mild rain -on the raging fires of her fierce indignation. Perhaps he -was right and it did not matter. Perhaps he was more -right than he knew and it was even advantageous.</p> - -<p>If Katherine Massarene had not talked before of what -she had found in her father’s papers she certainly would -not talk now. Shameful as Ronnie’s conduct was, he -would not allow his wife to expose his sister. It was a -frightful <i>mésalliance</i>, but it had its serviceable side. A -padlock was on the lips of “Billy’s daughter.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_581">[581]</span>“I will never speak to her if I meet her at Osborne or -Windsor,” she repeated suddenly.</p> - -<p>Prince Woffram looked round from the telescope and -the tea-roses.</p> - -<p>“My angel,” he said very gently, “that would be to -argue yourself unused to royal circles, and it would bring -down on you many—many—oh! many questions.”</p> - -<p>“You would have me make advances to this beggared -wretch—this scum of the earth!”</p> - -<p>“No, no,” said Prince Woffram soothingly. “I would -not suggest to you to make advances. To make advances -is to put oneself in the wrong. I would suggest to you -to await events; and, in the not very probable coincidence -which you imagine, I would beg you to remember that a -great sovereign’s invitation confers a credential which -none can dispute.”</p> - -<p>Since he had trampled on his conscience, as he had put -away his sword, Wuffie had substituted for them much -practical common sense, and in very bland sentences said -things which smote edgeways. His wife at times wondered -how much he guessed, how far he was blinded, and -now and then felt a spasm of fear that this cherub-faced -boy, with his artless, meaningless smile, might, in some -things, prove her master.</p> - -<p>It is dangerous to teach a man, and a very young man, -to sell his soul. Nature will substitute something else for -it, something which you will not like when you learn to -know it well.</p> - -<p>She felt that he had fully determined on two things: -one, that he would be well paid; the other, that he would -not be compromised. So when she went into the house -she tore up the various infuriated telegrams she had written -in answer to her correspondents, and wrote instead -some prettily-worded intimations that, as she had counseled -her brother to make this marriage when the lady -was rich, she could not blame him for making it now the -same lady was poor, and could only hope that the result -would be as fortunate as she sincerely desired for them -both, though circumstances had arisen which unhappily -estranged her from Hurstmanceaux. This way of looking -at the matter was at once so angelic, and so nice and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_582">[582]</span> -temperate, that it suggested an idea, which gradually filtered -down through her intimate correspondents and permeated -society, the impression, vague but general, that -William Massarene’s daughter had jockeyed her out of -some portion of William Massarene’s fortune. No one -could explain how, but everyone thought so. Daddy -Gwyllian did indeed stoutly declare that the impression -was preposterous and untenable, and that if Hurstmanceaux -had broken all relations with his sister he had -doubtless very sound reasons for doing so. But Daddy -was waxing old and society was getting tired of him. -When people live too long they outstay the welcome of -the world.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>With May Harrenden House was again open. The -falconer of Clodion leaned and laughed in silent mirth as -the throngs of society passed up the staircase under his -gaze. The Massarenes were like Malbrouck, <i>morts et -enterrés</i>, and an Australian wool-stapler reigned in their -stead, worshipped where they had worshipped, and was -guarded by their lares and pénates. Across the threshold, -where William Massarene had been carried lifeless, the -great world he had loved flocked, as the water-fowl on the -ponds of the Green Park flock with equal avidity to be -fed, no matter what hand it may be which scatters the -bread.</p> - -<p>Up that well-known staircase, under the eyes of the -nude falconer, there came a beautiful and very fair woman, -who had often been up those stairs before; a fair and slim -and ever blandly-smiling youth was by her side, who had -been told, as children are told in the nursery, to shut his -eyes and open his mouth, and who had done so. He had -been rewarded, for a great many good things had dropped -into his mouth. England had become for him what it is -for so many other German princelings, the Canaan overflowing -with milk and honey where he could enjoy himself -at other people’s expense, and lead the first flight on -other people’s horses. She looked about her as she passed -on through the reception-rooms: nothing was changed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_583">[583]</span> -nothing of any importance, and she herself not very much. -There were still the same florid Pietro di Cortona high -overhead in the effulgence of the electric lamps, still the -same too dark and dubious Mantegna hanging above a -pyramid of Calla lilies and damask roses. There were -only no longer in the alcove where they had been enshrined -the bust by Dalou and the portrait by Orchardson: they -were at Faldon! Insupportable as this idea was to her, -the outrage had its silver side; it meant silence, entire, -absolute, on the part of her brother’s wife.</p> - -<p>“Billy—you brute!—I have been stronger than you!” -she thought as she passed the place where the gold vase -of Leo the Tenth still filled the humble office of a samovàr. -Life had once more become easy and agreeable to her. -Death had been discriminating and Fortune on the whole -not unkind.</p> - -<p>“The poor Massarenes were such dear good friends of -mine, but you have so much more taste than they had,” -she said to the Australian wool-stapler.</p> - -<p>And he, a big burly heavy man, who owned many millions -of sheep on many thousands of pastures, and had as -much taste as one of his wooly wethers, was flattered, and -thrust out his big paunch, and thought to himself, under -the sorcery of her smile, why should he not succeed -wherever William Massarene had succeeded?</p> - -<p>Why not indeed?</p> - -<p class="center">THE END.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="ph3">A Few Press Opinions on</p> - -<p class="ph2">A Living Lie</p> - -<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">By PAUL BOURGET</span></p> - -<p class="center"><i>12 mo, Cloth, $1.25; Paper Covers, 50 cents.</i></p> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><b>Scotsman</b></p> - -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>Mr. de Vallieres’ translation leaves nothing to be desired, and -deserves the thanks of English readers for having rendered accessible -to them a masterpiece of minute analysis of character and -feeling.</p> -</div> - -<p><b>Pall Mall Gazette</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>M. Bourget’s celebrated novel ... it is good to find a translation -of a popular French novel so well done as this is, and the -vivid picture of Parisian life loses nothing of its force or truth in -its English dress.</p> -</div> -<p><b>World</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>“Mensonges” is undoubtedly a clever story, and the present version -is excellent.</p> -</div> -<p><b>Vanity Fair</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>The book itself is an education: the very greatest novel of analysis -and character France has produced since Balzac.</p> -</div> -<p><b>New York Commercial Advertiser</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>“A Living Lie,” published in this country by Fenno, is one of -the earlier works of Paul Burget, and one that shows both the -weakness and strength of his methods. In an introduction written -to the translation, the author speaks of his humble decipleship of -Flaubert and Zola, and perhaps none of Bourget’s novels better -than this recent translation will show better how closely the student -has followed the masters, especially the former. But one -man could write “Madame Bovary,” and that was Flaubert, but -there are portions of “Mensonges” that would lead one to believe -that M. Bourget thought that he might have written it himself. -Madame Bovary’s meeting with her lover in a house of ill-fame -and Rene’s meetings with his mistress might even seem to some -as an illustration of where the pupil had learned his lesson too -well.</p> - -<p>As for the story itself there is no need of rehearsing that. It is -strong, and viewed from the point of fiction is good. But since M. -Bourget aspires to be something more than novelist, to be an analyst, -a psychologist and feminologist, it would be wrong to ignore -what he considers his best labor. Perhaps it would not be -malapropos to quote, in relation to M. Bourget’s study of women -and women’s mind, what Nietzsche has written, that we are puzzled -when we try to probe women’s mind, not because it is so deep, -not because it has no bottom—“it is not even shallow.” Which is -basely cynical, and anyway it was written by a man who is -now in a mad house. But, nevertheless, it is a good sentence to -bear in mind when one is reading the works of a feminologist. -There is no doubt of M. Bourget’s intuitive powers. True, that -too frequently does he affirm with unbecoming and exultant delight -and misplaced passion that two and two are four, but often -this leads to the higher and more complicated problems, such as -four and four are eight. Surely M. Bourget is an analyst, but he -spends too much time analyzing very obvious brick walls.</p> - -<p>But, “A Living Lie” is good fiction, if it is not good literature. -It is well translated.</p> -</div></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="ph3">A Few Press Opinions on</p> - -<p class="ph2">Robert Urquhart</p> - -<p class="ph3">By GABRIEL SETOUN</p> - -<p class="center">12mo, Cloth, Illustrated, $1.00; Paper Covers, 50 Cents</p> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><b>The Outlook</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>“Robert Urquhart,” by Gabriel Setoun, is a Scotch story possessing -a certain degree of strength. Courageous indeed is the writer -to-day who brings his work in contrast with that of Ian Maclaren, -Crockett, and J. M. Barrie. Comparison between these masters and -the lesser lights there cannot be.</p> -</div> -<p><b>Toledo Blade</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>In “Robert Urquhart,” by Gabriel Setoun, the lovers of Scotch -stories will experience a delight the same as felt in the reading of -“The Lilac Sunbonnet,” “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush,” “The -Little Minister,” and other novels and tales in which are found -tender pathos, delicate humor and a dramatic construction. The -character of old Rob cannot fail to impress all readers, winning -their love by his simple kindness; while the schoolmaster’s sturdy -manliness calls forth feeling of liking and respect, with a desire -that he shall gain his heart’s wish. The story is well worth a -reading.</p> -</div> -<p><b>Sunday Times</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>Lovers of a good story, which is at the same time good literature, -and especially lovers of the Scotch atmosphere and temperament, -will enjoy “Robert Urquhart.” This is a new book by Gabriel -Setoun, published by R. F. Fenno & Company. The central character -is a school teacher, not the periwig old goose who has so long -been strutting, conventional to a hair through Scotch stories, but a -man of head and heart endowments which appeal to the head and -the heart for our belief, sympathy and love. If Mr. Setoun had not -the originality to lead the way, he has at least the genius to follow -with highest credit in the paths of Barrie, Maclaren and Crockett, -and who will say it is not as hard to follow creditably in beaten -paths as to charm public fancy with a trifle when it is new?</p> -</div> -<p><b>Times-Union</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>“Robert Urquhart.” This is an entertaining novel, well written, -with a good plot and with many of the essentials of a book of the -highest character. Its pretty binding should also be mentioned, and -in this it suggests itself as a present to a friend. Its author is Gabriel -Setoun. It is a Scotch tale. Its pathos is as sweet, its humor as delicate, -its construction as dramatic and its characters as lovable as any -to be found in the other Scottish stories which have caught the fancy.</p> -</div> -<p><b>Kansas City Journal</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>An American edition of “Robert Urquhart” will attract the attention -of many thousands who have read and enjoyed “The Lilac Sunbonnet,” -“A Galloway Herd,” “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush,” and -“The Little Minister” and they will find within its covers a pathos -as sweet, a humor as delicate a construction as dramatic, and characters -as lovable as are to be found in any of the above-mentioned -works.</p> -</div></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="ph3">A Few Press Opinions on</p> - -<p class="ph2">The Professor’s Experiment</p> - -<p class="ph3">By MRS. HUNGERFORD (The Duchess)</p> - -<p class="center">12mo, Cloth, $1.25; Paper Covers, 50 Cents</p> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><b>The Watchman</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>“The ‘experiment,’ which gives name to the story, is a weird -one and picturesquely presented, reminding one faintly of the old -French story of the ‘Broken Ear.’ It turns the red light briskly on -the hero and heroine, who, having been thus vividly introduced to -us and to each other, proceed to the business of the occasion by falling -in love with each other and entangling themselves in divers nets -of embarrassing circumstances, settling away from the storm to a -peaceful horizon of marriage at last. It has become necessary, in -these days, to indicate the exceptional and welcome fact that this is -a pure story; painting cheery pictures of normal domestic life, and -opening no side doors to encourage the stealthy adventures of a -prurient fancy. It is a novel, strictly speaking, involving neither -sermon nor stump speech. It offers entertainment only, but it gives -what it offers; resting the tired brain and leaving no poison in the -blood.”</p> -</div> -<p><b>Evening Bulletin</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>“It is a capital story of an Irish savant, who, like the magicians of -mediæval days, passed his years in concocting a draught to put his -subjects to sleep. Fortunately a beautiful girl of eighteen is found -insensible on the professor’s doorstep. She becomes his patient, -enters upon a long sleep, and, in the ‘large awakening,’ learns that -she is heiress to an immense fortune and the professor’s granddaughter.”</p> -</div> -<p><b>Indianapolis Journal</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>“‘The Professor’s Experiment’ is the title of a new book by Mrs. -Hungerford (The Duchess). It is of a somewhat more elaborate -and ambitious character than this writer’s recent stories, and shows -a return to her earlier manner. The heroine is the impulsive, -warm-hearted young Irish girl with whom all Mrs. Hungerford’s -readers are well acquainted, but of whom, in her various phases and -reappearances they do not tire.”</p> -</div></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="ph3">A Few Press Opinions on</p> - -<p class="ph2">The Unclassed</p> - -<p class="ph3">By GEORGE GISSING</p> - -<p class="center">12mo, Cloth, Illustrated, $1.25; Paper Covers, 50 Cents</p> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><b>Outlook</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>It shows remarkable powers of observation and realistic -reproduction of certain phases of life. It deals with the -life of the “unclassed” very bluntly, and with unnecessary -detail, but there is no intention to pervert morals.</p> -</div> -<p><b>Boston Post</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>The story is full of strong and telling situations, a -story in which the realism often impinges closely upon -the ideal. In many places the book is absorbing in its -interest.</p> -</div> -<p><b>N. Y. Advertiser</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>It is a story of the struggling ones, struggling against -and for class distinction; struggling to keep from going -down into the “lowest class;” struggling to reach the -class where bread and butter are not the only living -cries.</p> -</div> -<p><b>Buffalo Commercial</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>Mr. Gissing has secured a place in the front rank of -the best English novelists, and any story of which he is -the author will be widely and eagerly read. “The Unclassed” -is a thrilling, intensely dramatic story.</p> -</div> -<p><b>Meadville Stylus</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>Ida Starr is a child of ten years when the story opens. -It closes with her marriage. We are permitted to observe -her character in all the stages of its development -from a childhood all love and gentleness, through a -solitary and defenseless girlhood spent in a desperate -struggle against the poverty that ends in starvation, -through her temptation, her fall, and her redemption -through love. There are, curiously enough, no traces -of the influence of the naturalistic school in Mr. Gissing’s -work. The entire story is planned and wrought -out with the greatest imaginable delicacy.</p> -</div></div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p class="ph3">A Few Press Opinions on</p> - -<p class="ph2">Uncle Scipio</p> - -<p class="ph3"><span class="smcap">By Mrs. JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH</span></p> - -<p class="center"><i>12mo, Cloth, $1.25; Paper Covers, 50 Cents</i></p> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><b>Public Opinion</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>A very effective story of the reconstruction days in Mississippi is -Mrs. Jeannette H. Walworth’s “Uncle Scipio.” It is bright and -healthy, with a well devised plot, full of incident and entertaining. -Stories based on those days of fermentation are not at all rare, but -Mrs. Walworth, being a transplanted Northener, has been able to -take, not a dispassionate view, but that of a warm-hearted, clear-headed -woman. Her novel, however, is by no means a political -argument; the time is in the early seventies, and the situation -which then existed in the South is merely a background for a good -story, which is about the best Mrs. Walworth has written.</p> -</div> -<p><b>Courier</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>Mrs. Walworth’s stories of Southern and negro life are vivaciously -characteristic of people and scenes of that portion of our country, -and they reveal charming pictures of a variety of types, grave and -gay. This is a love story, set in the gay picturesque Mississippi -Valley, describing the conditions that prevailed immediately after -the war of the rebellion. Mrs. Walworth is a Southerner by adoption, -and she is thus enabled to give us a true and sympathetic insight -that is certain to please and at the same time instruct.</p> -</div> -<p><b>Commercial Advertiser</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>Mrs. J. H. Walworth has already some celebrity as a story writer. -“Uncle Scipio,” which has made its appearance fresh from her pen, -is a love tale, set in the picturesque Mississippi Valley. As a Northern -woman the writer finds much in the country of her adoption, -immediately following the civil war, to strike her with peculiar -force. She is thus enabled to give a true and sympathetic insight that -is certain to please and at the same time instruct. “Uncle Scipio,” -the hero of the story, is a dear old negro slave of the Uncle Tom -variety, for whom the reader is bound to form a genuine admiration -and attachment before he lays down the book.</p> -</div> -<p><b>Post</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>A love story set in the Mississippi Valley, describing the conditions -that prevailed immediately after the War of the Rebellion. -Mrs. Walworth is a Southerner by adoption, and she is thus enabled -to give us a true and sympathetic insight that is certain to -please and at the same time instruct. Uncle Scipio is a dear old -negro slave that you are sure to become attached to before the volume -is laid aside.</p> -</div> -<p><b>Plain Dealer</b></p> -<div class="blockquot2"> -<p>Mrs. J. H. Walworth’s “Uncle Scipio” is a story of the South the -time of which is the reconstruction period but the action had its -beginning in the ante-war days and was shaped by the events of -the great struggle. “Uncle Scipio” is the old negro whose reminiscent -gossip with the visiting agent of a Northern land syndicate -brings out the story which Mrs. Walworth narrates with the skill -of a practical novelist.</p> -</div></div> - -<p class="ph1">R. F. FENNO & CO., 112 Fifth Ave., N. Y.</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<div class="transnote"> -<p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -<p>Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.</p> - -<p>Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.</p> - -<p>Dialect and non-English words are transcribed as printed except for obvious errors which have been corrected.</p> -</div></div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MASSARENES ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for -copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very -easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation -of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project -Gutenberg eBooks 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. -</div> - -<div style='margin-top:1em; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE</div> -<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE</div> -<div style='text-align:center;font-size:0.9em'>PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -To protect the Project Gutenberg™ 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™ License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ -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™ electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg™ 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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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™ 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™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the -Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg™ 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™ mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg™ 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™ License when -you share it without charge with others. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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™ work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country other than the United States. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ 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: -</div> - -<blockquote> - <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> - 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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. - </div> -</blockquote> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ 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™ -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ 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™ License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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™ License. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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™ work in a format -other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website -(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™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -provided that: -</div> - -<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ 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.” - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • 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™ - 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™ - works. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • 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. - </div> - - <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> - • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. - </div> -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of -the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set -forth in Section 3 below. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -1.F. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ -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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg™ 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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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™ electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ -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™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ 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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ 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™ 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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -The Foundation’s 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 website -and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread -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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -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 -</div> - -<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Project Gutenberg™ 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. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Most people start at our website which has the main PG search -facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, -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. -</div> - -</div> -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/69446-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/69446-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 31970b2..0000000 --- a/old/69446-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/69446-h/images/coversmall.jpg b/old/69446-h/images/coversmall.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index fbf9407..0000000 --- a/old/69446-h/images/coversmall.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/69446-h/images/i_title.jpg b/old/69446-h/images/i_title.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index abd0f5c..0000000 --- a/old/69446-h/images/i_title.jpg +++ /dev/null |
