HILDA 
 
 A STORY OF CALCUTTA 
 
 BY 
 
 SARAH JEANETTE DUNCAN 
 (MRS. EVERARD COTES) 
 
 I Author of " A Social Departure," " An American Girl in London," 
 
 > »« His Honour and a Lady," " A Voyage of Consolation," 
 
 = « Vernon's Aunt," " A Daughter of To-day," etc 
 
 1r 
 
 NEW YORK 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
I' 
 
 Copyright, 1898 
 By Frbdbrick A. Stokes Company 
 
 3 
 
 87779 
 
 '■ i ' 
 
" 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Miss Howe pushed the portiere aside with a curved 
 hand and gracefully separated fingers ; it was a stac- 
 cato movement, and her body followed it after an in- 
 stant's poise of hesitation, head thrust a little forward, 
 eyes inquiring, and a tentative smile, although she 
 knew precisely who was there. You would have been 
 aware at once that she was an actress. She entered 
 the room, with a little stride, and then crossed it 
 quickly, the train of her morning gown — it cried out 
 of luxury with the cheapest voice — taking folds of 
 great audacity, as she bent her face in its loose mass of 
 hair over Laura Filbert, sitting on the edge of a bam- 
 boo sofa, and said — 
 
 " You poor thing ! Oh, you poor thing ! " 
 
 She took Laura's hand as she spoke, and tried to 
 keep it ; but the hand was neutral, and she let it go. 
 ** It is a hand," she said to herself, in one of those 
 quick reflections that so often visited her ready-made, 
 " that turns the merely inquiring mind away. Noth- 
 ing but passion could hold it." 
 
 Miss Filbert made the conventional effort to rise, 
 but it came to nothing, or to a mere embarrassed ac- 
 cent of their greeting. Then her voice showed this 
 
2 HILDA. 
 
 feeling to be merely superficial, made nothing of it, 
 pushed it to one side. 
 
 " I suppose you cannot see the foolishness of your 
 pity," she said. " Oh, Miss Howe, I am happier than 
 you are — much happier." Her bare feet, as she spoke, 
 nestled into the coarse Mirzapore rug on the floor, and 
 her eye lingered approvingly upon an Owari vase three 
 foot l;iigh, and thick with the gilded landscape of Japan 
 which stood near it, in the cheap magnificence of the 
 squalid room. 
 
 Hilda smiled. Her smile acquiesced in the world 
 she had found, acquiesced with the gladness of an ex- 
 plorer in Laura Filbert as a feature of it. 
 
 " Don't be too sure," she cried ; " I am very happy. 
 It is such a pleasure to see you." 
 
 Her gaze embraced Miss Filbert as a person and 
 Miss Filbert as a pictorial fact ; but that was because 
 she could not help it. Her eyes were really engaged 
 only with the latter Miss Filbert. 
 
 " Much happier than you are," Laura repeated, 
 slowly moving her head from side to side, as if to neg- 
 ative contradiction in advance. She smiled too; it was as 
 if she had remembered a former habit, from politeness. 
 
 " Of course you are — of course ! " Miss Howe ac- 
 knowledged. The words were mellow and vibrant; 
 her voice seemed to dwell upon them with a kind of 
 rich affection. Her face covered itself with serious 
 sweetness. " I can imagine the beatitudes you feel — 
 by your clothes." 
 
 The girl drew her feet under her, and her hand went 
 up to the only semi-conventional item of her attire. 
 It was a brooch that exclaimed in silver letters, " Glory 
 to His Name ! " " It is the dress of the Army in this 
 
 » ■■:> 
 
^ t 
 
 HILDA. 3 
 
 country," she said ; " I would not change it for the 
 wardrobe of any queen.** 
 
 "That's just what I mean." Miss Howe leaned 
 back in her chair with her head among its cushions, 
 and sent her words fluently across the room, straight 
 and level with the glance from between her half-closed 
 eyelids. A fine sensuous appreciation of the indolence 
 it was possible to enjoy in the East clung about her. 
 " To live on a plane that lifts you up like that — so that 
 you can defy all criticism and all convention, and go 
 about the streets like a mark of exclamation at the 
 selfishness of the world — there must be something very 
 consummate in it or you couldn't go on. At least I 
 couldn't." 
 
 " I suppose I do look odd to you." Her voice took 
 a curious soft, uplifted note. " I wear three garments 
 only — the garments of my sisters who plant the young 
 shoots in the rice-fields, and carry bricks for the build- 
 ing of rich men's houses, and gather the dung of the 
 roadways to burn for fuel. If the Army is to conquer 
 India it must march bare-footed and bare-headed all 
 the way. All the way," Laura repeated, with a 
 tremor of musical sadness. Her eyes were fixed in 
 soft appeal upon the other woman's. 
 
 "And if the sun beats down upon my uncovered 
 head, I think, * it struck more fiercely upon Calvary * ; 
 and if the way is sharp to my unshod feet, I say, *At 
 least I have no cross to bear.* ** The last words seemed 
 almost a chant, and her voice glided from them into 
 singing — 
 
 " The blessed Saviour died for me, 
 On the cross ! On the cross ! 
 He bore my sins at Calvary, 
 On the rugged cross ! " 
 
 \ 
 
4 HILDA. 
 
 She sang softly, her body thrust a little forward in 
 a tender swaying — 
 
 " Behold His hands and feet and side, 
 The crown of thorns, the crimson tide. 
 ' Forgive them. Father ! ' loud he cried, 
 On the rugged cross ! " 
 
 " Oh, thank you ! " Miss Howe exclaimed. Then 
 she murmured again, " That's just what I mean." 
 
 A blankness came over the girl's face as a light 
 cloud will cross the moon. She regarded Hilda from 
 behind it with penetrant anxiety. " Did you really 
 enjoy that hymn ? " she asked. 
 
 "Indeed I did." 
 
 " Then, dear Miss Howe, I think you cannot be 
 very far from the kingdom." 
 
 " I ? Oh, I have my part in a kingdom." Her 
 voice caressed the idea. "And the curious thing is 
 that we are all aristocrats who belong to it. Not the 
 vulgar kind, you understand — but no, you dou't un- 
 derstand. You'll have to take my word for it." Miss 
 Howe's eyes sought a red hibiscus flower that looked 
 in at the window half drowned in sunlight, and the 
 smile in them deepened. The flower admitted so 
 naively that it had no business to be there. 
 
 " Is it the Kingdom of God and His righteousness ? " 
 Laura Filbert's clear glance was disturbed by a ray of 
 curiosity, but the inflexible quality of her tone more 
 than counterbalanced this. 
 
 "There's nothing about it in the Bible, if that's 
 what you mean. And yet I think the men who wrote 
 * The time of the singing of birds has come,' and ' I 
 will lift mine eyes unto the hills,' must have belonged 
 to it.'* She paused, with an odd look of discomfiture. 
 
 ■ : 
 
 /' 
 
HILDA. $ 
 
 " But one shouldn't talk about things like that — it 
 takes the bloom off. Don't you feel that way about 
 your privileges now and then ? Don't they look 
 rather dusty and battered to you after a day's ex- 
 posure in Bow Bazaar ? " 
 
 There came a light crunch of wheels on the red 
 kunker drive outside and a switch past the bunch of 
 sword ferns that grew beside the door. The muffled 
 crescendo of steps on the stair and the sound of an 
 inquiry penetrated from beyond the porti6re, and 
 without further preliminary Duff Lindsay came into 
 the room. 
 
 " Do I interrupt a rehearsal ? *' he asked ; but there 
 was nothing in the way he walked across the room to 
 Hilda Howe to suggest that the idea abashed him. 
 For her part, she rose and made one short step to 
 meet him, and then received him, as it were, with both 
 hands and all her heart. 
 
 " How ridiculous you are ! " she cried. " Of course 
 not. And let me tell you it is very nice of you to 
 come this very first day, when one was dying to be 
 welcomed. Miss Filbert came too, and we have been 
 talking about our respective walks in life. Let me 
 introduce you. Miss Filbert — Captain Filbert, of the 
 Salvation Army — Mr. Duff Lindsay of Calcutta. " 
 
 She watched with interest the gravity with which 
 they bowed, and differentiated it ; his the simple 
 formality of his class, Laura's a repressed hostility to 
 such an epitome of the world as he looked, although 
 any Bond street tailor would have impeached his 
 waistcoat, and one shabby glove had manifestly never 
 been on. Yet Miss Filbert's first words seemed to 
 show a slight unbending. " Won't you sit there ? " she 
 
HILDA. 
 
 said, indicating the sofa corner she had been occupy- 
 ing. " You get the glare from the window where you 
 are." It was virtually a command, delivered with a 
 complete air of dignity and authority ; and Lindsay, 
 in some confusion, found himself obeying. "Oh, 
 thank you, thank you," he said. " One doesn't really 
 mind in the least. Do you — do you object to it? 
 Shall I close the shutters ? " 
 
 " If you do," said Miss Howe delightedly, " we 
 shall not be able to see." 
 
 " Neither we should," he assented ; " the others are 
 closed already. Very badly built, these Calcutta 
 houses, aren't they ? Have you been long in India, 
 Miss — Captain Filbert ? " 
 
 " I served a year up-country and then fell ill and 
 had to go home on furlough. The native food didn't 
 suit me. I am stationed in Calcutta now, but I have 
 only just come." 
 
 " Pleasant time of the year to arrive," Mr. Lindsay 
 remarked. 
 
 " Yes ; but we are not particular about that. We 
 love all the times and the seasons, since every one 
 brings its appointed opportunity. Last year, in Mu- 
 gridabad, there were more souls saved in June than in 
 any other month." 
 
 " Really ? " asked Mr. Lindsay ; but he was not 
 looking at her with those speculations. The light 
 had come back upon her face. 
 
 " I will say good-bye now," said Captain Filbert. 
 " I have a meeting at half-past five. Shall we have a 
 word of prayer before I go ? " 
 
 She plainly looked for immediate acquiescence ; but 
 Miss Howe said, " Another time, dear." 
 
 
HILDA. f 
 
 " Oh, why not ? " exclaimed Duff Lindsay. Hilda 
 put the semblance of a rebuke into her glance at him, 
 and said, " Certainly not." 
 
 " Oh," Captain Filbert cried, " don't think you can 
 escape that way ! I will pray for you long and late 
 to-night, and ask my lieutenant to do so too. Don't 
 harden your heart. Miss Howe— the Lord is waiting 
 to be compassionate." 
 
 The two were silent, and Laura walked toward the 
 door. Just where the sun slanted into the room and 
 made leaf-patterns on the floor, she turned and stood 
 for an instant in the full tide of it ; and it set all the 
 loose tendrils of her pale yellow hair in a little flame, 
 and gave the folds of the flesh-coloured sari that fell 
 over her shoulder the texture of draperies so often de- 
 picted as celestial. The sun sought into her face, re- 
 vealing nothing but great purity of line and a clear 
 pallor, except where below the wide, light-blue eyes 
 two ethereal shadows brushed themselves. Under 
 the intentness of their gaze she made as if she would 
 pass out without speaking; and the tender curves of 
 her limbs, as she wavered, could not have been matched 
 out of mediaeval stained glass. But her courage, or 
 her conviction, came back to her at the door, and she 
 raised her hand and pointed at Hilda. 
 
 " She's got a soul worth saving." 
 
 Then the portiere fell behind her, and nothing was 
 said in the room until the pad of her bare feet had 
 ceased upon the stair. 
 
 " She came out in the Bengal with us," Hilda told 
 him — this is not a special instance of it, but she could 
 always gratify Duff Lindsay in advance — " and she 
 was desperately seedy, poor girl. I looked after her 
 
8 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 a little, but it was mistaken kindness, for now she's 
 got me on her mind. And as the two hundred and 
 eighty million benighted souls of India are her con- 
 tinual concern, I seem a superfluity. To think of be- 
 ing the two hundred and eighty-first millionth oppresses 
 one. 
 
 Lindsay listened with a look of accustomed happi- 
 ness. 
 
 "You weren't at that end of the ship!" he de- 
 manded. 
 
 " Of course I was — we all were. And some of us, 
 little Miss Stace, for instance — thankful enough at the 
 prospect ot cold meat and sardines for tea every night 
 for a whole month. And after Suez ices for dinner on 
 Sundays. It was luxury." 
 
 Lindsay was pulling an aggrieved moustache. " I 
 don't call it fair or friendly," he said, " when you know 
 how easily it could have been arranged. Your own 
 sense of the fitness of things should have told you that 
 the second-class saloon was no place for you. For 
 you ! 
 
 Plainly she did not intend to argue the point. She 
 poised her chin in her hand and looked away over his 
 head, and he could not help seeing, as he had seen be- 
 fore, that her eyes were beautiful. But this had been 
 so long acknowledged between them that she could 
 hardly have been conscious that she was insisting on 
 it afresh. Then, by the time he might have thought 
 her launched upon a different m-^^ditation, her mind 
 swept back to his protest, like a whimsical bird. 
 
 " I didn't want to extract anything from the mer- 
 cantile community of Calcutta in advance," she said. 
 " It would be most unbusinesslike. Stanhope has 
 
 ■ 
 
 ■J 
 
 ^ A 
 
HILDA. 
 
 
 been equal to bringing us out ; but I quite see myself, 
 as leading lady, taking round the hat before the end of 
 the season. Then I think," she said with defiance 
 " that I shall avoid you." ' 
 
 "And pray why?" 
 
 "Because you would put too much in. According 
 to your last letters you are getting beastly rich. You 
 would take all the tragedy rut of the situation, and my 
 experience would vanish in your cheque." 
 
 " I don't know why my feelings should always be 
 cuffed out of the way of your experiences," Lindsay 
 said. She retorted, "Oh, yes, you do ; " and they re- 
 garded each other through an instant's silence with 
 visible good fellowship. 
 
 "A reasonably strong company this time^" Lind- 
 say asked. 
 
 "Thank you. 'Company' is gratifying. For a 
 month we have been a 'troupe '-in the first-class end. 
 Fairish. Bad to middling. Fifteen of us. and when 
 we are not doing Hamlet and Ophelia we can please 
 with the latest thing in rainbow chiffon done on 
 mirrors with a thousand candle-power. Bradley and I 
 will have to do most of the serious work. But I have 
 improved-oh, a lot. You wouldn't know my Lady 
 Whippleton." ^ ^ 
 
 It was a fervid announcement, but it carried an im- 
 plication which appeared to prevent Lindsay's kin- 
 dling. 
 
 I* Then Bradley is here too ?" he remarked. * 
 
 " Oh, yes," she said ; and an instinct sheathed itself 
 
 in her face. "But it is much better than it was, 
 
 really. He is hardly ever troublesome now. He un- 
 
 derstands. And he teaches me a great deal more than 
 
10 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 I can tell you. You know," she asserted, with the 
 effect of taking an independent view, " as an artist he 
 has my unqualified respect." 
 
 " You have a fine disregard for the fact that artists 
 are men when they are not women," Duff said. " I 
 don't believe their behaviour is a bit more affected by 
 their artistry than it would be by a knowledge of the 
 higher mathematics." 
 
 She turned indignant eyes on him. " Fancy your 
 saying that ! Fancy your having the impertinence to 
 offer me so absurd a sophistry ! At what Calcutta 
 dinner-table did you pick it up ? " she said derisively. 
 "Well, it shows that one can't trust one's best friend 
 loos*^ among the conventions ! " 
 
 He had decided that it would be a trifle edged to 
 say that such matters were not often discussed at Cal- 
 cutta dinner-tables, when she added, with apparent 
 inconsistei:cy and real dejection, " It is a hideous 
 bore." 
 
 Lindsay saw his point admitted, and even in the 
 way she brushed it aside he felt that she was generous. 
 Yet something in him — perhaps the primitive hunting 
 instinct, perhaps a more sophisticated Scotch impulse 
 to explore the very roots of every matter, tempted 
 him to say, " He gives up a good deal, doesn't he, for 
 his present gratification ? " 
 
 " He gives up everything! That is the disgusting 
 part of it. Leander Morris offered him — but why 
 should I tell you? It's humiliating enough in the 
 very back of one's mind." 
 
 " He is a clever fellow, no doubt." 
 
 " Not too clever to act with me ! Oh, we go beau- 
 tifully — we melt, we run together. He has given me 
 
HILDA. 
 
 II 
 
 some essential things, and now I can give them back 
 to him. I begin to think that is what keeps him now. 
 It must be awfully satisfying to generate artistic life 
 in — in anybody, and watch it grow." 
 
 "Doubtless," said Lindsay, with his eyes on the 
 carpet ; and her eyebrows twitched together, but she 
 said nothing. Although she knew his very moderate 
 power of analysis, he seemed to look, with his eyes on 
 the carpet, straight into the subject, to perceive it 
 with a cynical clearness, and as Hilda watched him a 
 little hardness came atout her mouth. " Well," he 
 said, visibly detaching himself from the matter, " it's 
 a satisfaction to have you back. I have been doing 
 nothing, literally, since you went away, but making 
 money and playing tennis. Existence, as I look back 
 upon it, is connoted by a varying margin of profit and 
 a vast sward." 
 
 She looked at him with eyes in which sy-^pathy 
 stood remotely, considering the advisability of re- 
 turning. " It's a pity you can't act," she said ; " then 
 you could come away and let it all go." 
 
 Lindsay smiled at her across the gulf he saw fixed. 
 " How simple life is to you ! " he said. " But any 
 way, I couldn't act." 
 
 " Oh, no, you couldn't, you couldn't ! You are too 
 intensely absorbent, you are too rigidly individual. 
 The flame in you would never consent, even for an in- 
 stant, to be the flame in anybody else — any of those 
 people who, for the purpose of the stage, are called 
 imaginary. Never ! " 
 
 It seemed a punishment, but all Lindsay said was: 
 " I wish you would go on. You can't think how grat- 
 ifying it is — after the tennis." 
 
12 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 " If I went on I have an idea that I might be dis- 
 agreeable." 
 
 " Oh, then stop. We can't quarrel yet — IVe hardly 
 seen you. Are you comfortable here ? Would you 
 like some French novels ? " 
 
 " Yes, thank you. Yes, please ! " She grew before 
 him into a light and conventional person, apparently 
 on her guard against freedom of speech. He moved 
 a blind and ineffectual hand about to find the spring 
 she had detached herself from, and after failing for a 
 quarter of an hour he got up to go. 
 
 " I shan't bother you again before Saturday," he 
 said. " I know what a week it will be at the theatre. 
 Remember you are to give the man his orders about 
 the brougham. I can get on perfectly with the cart. 
 Good-bye ! Calcutta is waiting tor you." 
 
 " Calcutta is never impatient," said Miss Howe. " It 
 is waiting with yawns and much whiskey and soda." 
 She gave him a stately inclination with her hand, and 
 he overcame the temptation to lay his own on his heart 
 in a burlesque of it. At the door he remembered 
 something, and turned. He stood looking back pre- 
 cisely where Laura Filbert had stood, but the sun was 
 gone. " You might tell me more about your friend of 
 the altruistic army," he said. 
 
 "You saw, you heard, you know." 
 
 *' But " 
 
 " Oh," cried she, disregardingly, " you can discover 
 her for yourself, at the Army Headquarters in Ben- 
 tinck street — you man ! " 
 
 Lindsay closed the door behind him without reply- 
 ing, and half-way down the stairs her voice appealed 
 to him over the bannisters. 
 
HILDA. 
 
 13 
 
 "You might as well forget that. I didn't particu- 
 larly mean it." 
 
 " I know you didn't/' he returned. ** You woman ! 
 But you yourself — you're not going to play with your 
 heavenly visitant ? ' 
 
 Hilda leaned upon the bannisters, her arms dropping 
 over from the elbows. " I suppose I may look at her/' 
 she said ; and her smile glowed down upon him. 
 
 " Do you think it really rewards attention — the 
 type, I mean ? " 
 
 " How you will talk of types ! Didn't you see that 
 she was unique ? You may come back, if you like, for 
 a quarter of an hour, and we will discuss her." 
 
 Lindsay looked at his watch. " I would come back 
 for a quarter of an hour to discuss anything or noth- 
 ing," he replied, " but there isn't time. I am dining 
 with the Archdeacon. I must go to church." 
 
 " Why not be original and dine with the Archdeacon 
 without going to church ? Why not say on arrival : 
 * My dear Archdeacon, your sermon and your mutton 
 the same evening — cest trop ! I cannot so impose 
 upon your generosity. I have come for the mutton ! * " 
 
 Thus was Captain Laura Filbert superseded, as 
 doubtless often before, by an orthodox consideration. 
 Duff Lindsay drove away in his cart ; and still, for an 
 appreciable number of seconds, Miss Howe stood lean- 
 ing over the bannisters, her eyes fixed full of specula- 
 tion on the place where he had stood. She was think- 
 ing of a scene — a dinner with an Archdeacon — and of 
 the permanent satisfaction to be got from it ; and she 
 renounced almost with a palpable sigh the idea of the 
 Archdeacon's asking her. 
 
^ 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Oh, her gift ! " said Alicia 1. ivingstone. " It is the 
 lowest, isn't it-in the scale of human endowment ? 
 Mimicry." 
 
 Miss Livingstone handed her brother his tea as she 
 spoke, but turned her eyes and her delicate chin toward 
 Duff Lindsay with the protest. Lindsay's cup was at 
 his hps, and his eyebrows went up over it as if they 
 would answer before his voice was set at liberty. 
 
 " Mimicry isn't a fair word," he said. " The mimic 
 doesn't interpret. He's a mere thief of expression. 
 You can always see him behind his stolen mask. 
 The actress takes a different rank. This one does 
 anyway." / ' 
 
 *' You're mixing her up with the apes and the mon- 
 keys," remarked Surgeon-Major Livingstone. 
 
 " Mere imitators ! " cried Mrs. Barberry. 
 
 Alicia did not allow the argument to pursue her. 
 She smiled upon their energy, and, so to speak, disap! 
 peared. It was one of her little ways, and since it left 
 seeming conquerors on her track nobody quarrelled 
 with it. 
 
 " I've met them in London," she said. " Oh, I re- 
 member one hot little North Kensington flat full of 
 them, and their cigarettes— and they were always dis- 
 appointing. There seemed to be, somehow, no basis- 
 nothing to go upon." 
 
HILDA. 
 
 IS 
 
 mon- 
 
 Ire- 
 
 ullof 
 s dis- 
 isis — 
 
 She looked from one to the other of her party with 
 a graceful, deprecating movement of her head, a head 
 which people were unanimous in calling more than 
 merely pretty and more than ordinarily refined. 
 That was the cursory verdict, the superficial thing to 
 see and say ; it will do to go on with. From the 
 way Lindsay looked at her as she spoke, he might 
 have been suspected of other discoveries, possible 
 only to the somewhat privileged in this blind world, 
 where intimacy must lend a lens to find out anything 
 at all. 
 
 " You found that they had no selves," he said, and 
 the manner of his words was encouraging and provo- 
 cative. His proposition was obscured to him for the 
 instant by his desire to obtain the very last of her 
 comment, and it might be seen that this was habitual 
 with him. " But Miss Hilda Howe has one." 
 
 " Is she a lady ? " asked Mrs. Barberry. 
 
 " I don't know. She's an individual. I prefer to 
 rest my claim for her on that." 
 
 "Your claim to what?" trembled upon Miss Liv- 
 ingstone's lips, but she closed them instead • and 
 turned her head again to listen to Mrs. Barberry. 
 The turns of Alicia's head had a way of punctuating 
 the conversations in which she was interested, impart- 
 ing elegance and relief. 
 
 " I saw her in A Woman of Honour, last cold weather," 
 Mrs. Barberry said ; " I took a dinner-party of five 
 girls and five subalterns from the Fort, and I said, 
 ' Never again ! * Fortunately the girls were just out, 
 and not one of them understood, but those poor 
 boys didn't know where to look ! And no more did 
 I. So disgustingly real." 
 
' 
 
 
 l\ 
 
 l6 HILDA. 
 
 Alicia's eyes veiled themselves to rest on a ring on 
 her finger, and a little smile, which was inconsistent 
 with the veiling, hovered about her lips. 
 
 " I was in England last year," she said ; " I — I saw 
 A Woman of Honour in London. What could possi- 
 bly be done with it by an Australian scratch company 
 in a Calcutta theatre ! Imagination halts." 
 
 " Miss Howe did something with it," observed Mr. 
 Lindsay. " That and one or two other things carried 
 one through last cold weather. One supported even 
 the gaieties of Christmas week with fortitude, con- 
 scious that there was something to fall back upon. I 
 remember I went to the State ball, and cheerfully." 
 
 " That's saying a good deal, isn't it ? " commented 
 Dr. Livingstone, vaguely aware of an ironical inten- 
 tion. " By Jove, yes." 
 
 "Hamilton Bradley is good, too, isn't he?" Mrs. 
 Barberry said. " Such a magnificent head. I adore 
 him in Shakespeare." 
 
 " He knows the conventions, and uses them with 
 security," Lindsay replied, looking at Alicia ; and she, 
 with a little courageous air, demanded : " Is the story 
 true?" 
 
 " The story of their relations ? I suppose there are 
 fifty. One of them is." 
 
 Mrs. Barberry frowned at Lindsay in a manner 
 which was itself a reminiscence of amateur theatricals. 
 "Their relations! " she murmured to Dr. Livingstone. 
 " What awful things to talk about." 
 
 "The story I mean," Alicia explained, "is to the 
 effect that Mr. Bradley, who is married, but unim- 
 portantly, made a heavy bet, when he met this girl, 
 that he would subdue her absolutely through her 
 

 HILDA. 17 
 
 passion 
 
 for her art — I mean, of course, her afTec- 
 
 tions 
 
 " 
 
 " My clear girl, v/e know what you mean," cried 
 Mrs. Barberry, entering a protest, as it were, on be- 
 half of the gentlemen. 
 
 ** And precisely the reverse happened." 
 
 " One imagines it was something like that," Lind- 
 say said. 
 
 *' Oh, did she know about the bet ? " cried Mrs. 
 Barberry. 
 
 '* That's as you like to believe. I fancy she knew 
 about the man," Lindsay contributed again. 
 
 ** Tables turned, eh ? Dare say it served him right," 
 remarked Dr. Livingstone. " If you really want to 
 come to the laboratory, Mrs. Barberry, we ought to be 
 off." 
 
 " He is going to show me a bacillus," Mrs. Barberry 
 announced with enthusiasm. " Plague, or cholera, or 
 something really bad. He caught it two days ago, 
 and put it in jelly for me — wasn't it dear of him? 
 Good-bye, you nice thing," — Mrs. Barberry addressed 
 Alicia — " Good-bye, Mr. Lindsay. Fancy a live bacil- 
 lus from Hong Kong! I should like it better if it 
 came from fascinating Japan, but still — good-bye." 
 
 With the lady's departure an air of wontedness 
 seemed to repossess the room and the two people who 
 were left. Things fell into their places, one could 
 observe relative beauty, on the walls and on the floor, 
 in Alicia's hair and in her skirt. Little meanings 
 attached themselves — to oval portraits of ladies, evi- 
 dently ancestral, whose muslin sleeves were tied with 
 blue ribbon, to Byzantine-looking Persian paintings, 
 to odd brass bowls and faint-coloured embroideries. 
 
» 
 
 t 
 
 |8 HILDA. 
 
 The air became full of agreeable exhalations, traceable 
 to inanimate objects, or to a rose in a vase of common 
 country glass ; and if one turned to Alicia, one could 
 almost observe the process by which they were ab- 
 sorbed in her and given forth again with a delicacy 
 more vague. Lindsay sometimes thought of the bee 
 and flowers and honey, but always abandoned the 
 simile as a trifle gross and material. Certainly, as she 
 sat there in her grace and slenderness and pale clear 
 tints — there was an effect of early morning about her 
 that made the full tide of other women's sunlight 
 vulgar — anyone would have been fastidious in the 
 choice of a figure to present her in. With suspicion 
 of haughtiness she was drawn for the traditional 
 marchioness ; but she lifted her eyes and you saw that 
 she appealed instead. There was an art in the doing 
 of her hair, a dainty elaboration that spoke of the 
 most approved conventions beneath, yet it was im- 
 possible to mistake the freedom of spirit that lay in 
 the lines of her blouse. Even her gracefulness ran 
 now and then into a downrightness of movement 
 which suggested the assertion of a primitive sincerity 
 in a personal world of many effects. Into her making 
 of tea, for example, she put nothing more sophisticated 
 than sugar, and she ordered more bread and butter in 
 the worst possible Hindustani without a thought 
 except that the bread and butter should be brought. 
 Lindsay liked to think that with him she was particu- 
 larly simple and direct, that he was of those who freed 
 her from the pretty consciousness, the elegant restraint 
 that other people fixed upon her. It must be admitted 
 that this conviction had reason in establishing itself, 
 and it is perhaps not surprising that, in the security of 
 
HILDA. 
 
 X9 
 
 it, he failed to notice occasions when it would not have 
 held, of which this was plainly one. Alicia reflected, 
 with her cheek against the Afghan wolf-skins on the 
 back of the chair. It was characteristic of her eyes 
 that one could usually see things being turned over in 
 them. She would sometimes keep people waiting 
 while she thought. She thought perceptibly about 
 Hilda Howe, slanting her absent gaze between shelter- 
 ing eyelids to the floor. Presently she re-arranged 
 the rose in its green glass vase and said : " Then it's 
 impossible not to be interested." 
 
 " I thought you would find it so." 
 Alicia was further occupied in bestowing small 
 fragments of cress sandwich upon a terrier. " Fancy 
 your being so sure," she said, " that you could present 
 her entertainingly ! " She looked past him toward 
 the soft light that came in at the draped window, and 
 he was not aware that her regard held him fast by the 
 way. 
 
 " Anyone could," he said cheerfully ; " she presents 
 herself. One is only the humblest possible medium. 
 And the most passive." 
 
 Alicia's eyes still rested upon the light from the 
 window. It silhouetted a rare fern from Assam, it 
 certainly rewarded them. 
 
 " I like to hear you talk about her. Tell me some 
 more." 
 
 " Haven't I exhausted metaphor in describing 
 her?" 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Livingstone, with conviction ; 
 " but I'm not a bit satisfied. A few simple facts 
 sometimes — sometimes are better. Wasn't it a little 
 difficult to make her acquaintance ? " 
 
JO 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 " Not in the very least. I saw her in A Woman of 
 Honour and was charmed. Charmed in a new way. 
 Nexi day I discovered her address — it's obscure — and 
 sent up my card for permission to tell her so. I ex- 
 plained to her that one would have hesitated at home, 
 but here one was protected by dustur,* And she re- 
 ceived me warmly. She gave me to understand that 
 she was not overwhelmed with tribute of that kind 
 from Calcutta. The truthful ring of it was pathetic, 
 poor dear." 
 
 " That was in — " 
 
 " In February." 
 
 " In February we were at Nice," Alicia said, mus- 
 ingly. Then she took up her divining-rod again. 
 " One can imagine that she was grateful. People of 
 that kind — how snobbish I sound, but you know what 
 I mean — are rather stranded in Calcutta, aren't they ? 
 They haven't any world here ; " and with the quick 
 glance which deprecated her timid clevernesses, she 
 added, " The arts conspire to be absent." 
 
 "Ah, don't misunderstand. If there was any grati- 
 tude it was all mine. But we met as kindred, if I may 
 vaunt myself so much. A mere theory of life will go 
 a long way, you know, toward establishing a claim of 
 that sort. And, at all events, she is good enough to 
 treat me as if she admitted it." 
 
 "What is her theory of life?" Alicia demanded, 
 quickly. " I should be glad of a new one." 
 
 Lindsay's communicativeness seemed to contract a 
 little, as at the touch of a finger light but cold. 
 
 " I don't think she has ever told me," he said. 
 " No, I am sure she has not." His reflection was, 
 
 * Custom. 
 
 'm: 
 
HILDA. 
 
 21 
 
 " It is her garment — and how could it fit another 
 woman? ** 
 
 " But you have divined it — she has let you do that ! 
 You can give me your impression." 
 
 He recognised her bright courage in venturing upon 
 impalpabilities, but not without a shade of embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 *• Perhaps. But having perceived to pass on — it 
 doesn't follow that one can. I don't seem able to lay 
 my hand upon the signs and symbols." 
 
 The faintest look of disappointment, the slightest 
 cloud of submission, appeared upon Miss Livingstone's 
 face. 
 
 " Oh, I know ! ** she said. " You are making me 
 feel dreadfully out of it, but I know. It surrounds 
 her like a kind of atmosphere, an intellectual atmos- 
 phere. Though I confess that is the part I don't un- 
 derstand in connection with an actress." 
 
 There was a sudden indifference in this last sentence. 
 Alicia lay back upon her wolf-skins like a long-, temmed 
 flower cast down among them, and looked away from 
 the subject at the teacups. Duff picked up his hat. 
 He had the subtlest intimations with women. 
 
 " It's an intoxicating atmosphere," he said. " My 
 continual wonder is that I'm not in love with her. A 
 fellow in a novel, now, in my situation, would be em- 
 broiled with half his female relations by this time, and 
 taking his third refusal with a haggard eye." 
 
 Alicia still contemplated the teacups, but with in- 
 tentness. She lifted her head to look at them ; one 
 might have imagined a beauty suddenly revealed. 
 
 " Why aren't you ? " she said. " I wonder, too.** 
 
 " I should like it enormously," he laughed. " I've 
 
V 
 
 22 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 lam awake a n^hts to'ing to find out why it isn't so. 
 Perhaps you 11 be able .o tell me. I think it must be 
 because she s such a confoundedly good fellow." 
 
 Ahca turned her face toward him sweetly, and the 
 soft grey fur made a shadow on the whiteness of her 
 throat. Her buffeting was over; she was full of an 
 impulse to stand again in the sun. 
 
 " Oh, you mustn't depend on me," she said. " But 
 whyare you going? Don't go. Stay and have an- 
 Other cup of tea. 
 
 •Mb 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 The fact that Stephen Arnold and Duff Lindsay 
 had spent the same terms at New College, and now 
 found themselves again together in the social poverty 
 of the Indian capital, would not necessarily explain 
 their walking in company through the early dusk of a 
 December evening in Bentinck street. It seems de- 
 sirable to supply a reason why any one should be 
 walking there, to begin with, any one, at all events, 
 not a Chinaman or a coolie, a dealer in second-hand 
 furniture or an able-bodied seaman luxuriously fin- 
 gering wages in both trouser pockets, and describing 
 an erratic line of doubtful temper toward the nearest 
 glass of country spirits. Or, to be quite comprehen- 
 sive, a draggled person with a Bulgarian, a Levantine 
 or a Japanese smile, who no longer possessed a carriage, 
 to whom the able-bodied seamen represented the 
 whole port. The cramped, twisting thoroughfare was 
 full of people like this ; they overflowed from the 
 single narrow border of pavement to the left and 
 walked indifferently upon the road among the straw- 
 scatterings and the dung-droppings ; and when the 
 tramcar swept through and past with prodigious 
 whistlings and ringings, they swerved as little as possi- 
 ble aside, for three parts of the tide of them were 
 neither white nor black, but many shades of brown, 
 written down in the census as " of mixed blood " and 
 
H 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 wearing still, through the degenerating centuries, an 
 eyebrow, a nostril of the first Englishmen who came to 
 conjugal ties of Hindustan. The place sent up to the 
 stars a vast noise of argument and anger and laughter, 
 of the rattling of hoofs and wheels ; but the babel was 
 ordered in its exaggeration, the red turban of a police- 
 man here and there denoted little more than a unit in 
 the crowd. There were gas-lamps, and they sent a 
 ripple of light like a sword-thrust along the gutter be- 
 side the banquette, where a pariah dog nosed a dead 
 rat and was silhouetted. They picked out, too, the 
 occasional pair of Corinthian columns, built into the 
 squalid stucco sheer with the road that made history 
 for Bentinck street, and explained that whatever might 
 be the present colour of the little squat houses and the 
 tall lean ones that loafed together into the fog round 
 the first bend, they were once agreeably pink and yel- 
 low, with the magenta cornice, the blue capital, that 
 fancy dictated. There, where the way narrowed with 
 an out-jutting balcony high up, and the fog thickened 
 and the lights grew vague, the multitude of heads 
 passed into the blur beyond with an effect of mystery, 
 pictorial, remote ; but where Arnold and Lindsay 
 walked the squalor was warm, human, practical. A 
 torch flamed this way and that stuck in the wall over 
 the head of a squatting bundle and his tray of three- 
 cornered leaf- parcels of betel, and an oiled rag in a 
 tin pot sent up an unsteady little flame, blue and yel- 
 low, beside a sweetmeat seller's basket, and showed 
 his heap of cakes that they were well-browned and 
 full of butter. From the " Cape of Good Cheer," 
 where many bottles glistened in rows inside, came a 
 braying upon the conch, and a flame of burnt brandy 
 
HILDA. 
 
 as 
 
 I 
 
 danced along the bar to the honour and propitiation of 
 Lakshmi, that the able-bodied seaman might be thirsty 
 when he came, for the " Cape of Good Cheer " did not 
 owe its prosperity, as its name might suggest, to any 
 Providence of Christian theology. But most of the 
 brightness abode in the Chinamen's shoe-shops, where 
 many lamps shone on the hammering and the stitch- 
 ing. There were endless shoe-shops, and they all be- 
 longed to Powson or Singson or Samson, while one 
 signboard bore the broad impertinence, " Macpherson." 
 The proprietors stood in the door, the smell came out 
 in the street — that smell of Chinese personality steeped 
 in fried oil and fresh leather that out-fans even the 
 south wind in Bentinck street. They were responsible 
 but not anxious, the proprietors ; they buried their fat 
 hands in their wide sleeves and looked up and down, 
 stolid and smiling. They stood in their alien petti- 
 coat trousers for the commercial stability of the locality, 
 and the rows of patent-leather slippers that glistened 
 behind them testified to it further. Everything else 
 shifted and drifted, with a perpetual change of com- 
 plexion, a perpetual worsening of clothes. Only Pow- 
 son bore a permanent yoke of prosperity. It lay 
 round his thick brown neck with the low clean line of 
 his blue cotton smock, and he carried it without offen- 
 sive consciousness, looking up and down by no means 
 in search of customers, rather in the exercise of the 
 opaque, inscrutable philosophy tied up in his queue. 
 
 Lindsay liked Bentinck street as an occasional re- 
 lapse from the scenic standards of pillared and veran- 
 dahed Calcutta, and made personal business with his 
 Chinaman for the sake of the racial impression thrown 
 into the transaction. Arnold, in his cassock, waited 
 
26 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 in the doorway with his arms crossed behind him, and 
 his thin face thrust as far as it would go into the air 
 outside. It is possible that some intelligence might 
 have seen in this priest a caricature of his profes- 
 sion, a figure to be copied for the curate of bur- 
 lesque, so accurately did he reproduce the common 
 signs of the ascetic school. His face would have been 
 womanish in its plainness but for the gravity that had 
 grown upon it, only occasionally dispersed by a smile 
 of scholarliness and sweetness which had the effect of 
 being permitted, conceded. He had the long thin 
 nose which looked as if, for preference, it would be 
 for ever thrust among the pages of the Fathers ; and 
 anyone might observe the width of his mouth without 
 perhaps detecting the patience and decision of the 
 upper lip. The indignity of spectacles he did not yet 
 wear, but it hovered over him ; it was indispensable 
 to his personality in the long run. In figure he was 
 indifferently tall and thin and stooping, made to pass 
 unobservedly along a pavement, or with the directness 
 of humble but important business among crowds. At 
 Oxford he had interested some of his friends and 
 worried others by wistful inclinations toward the 
 shelter of that Mother Church which bids her children 
 be at rest and leave to her the responsibility. Lind- 
 say, with his robust sense of a right to exist on the 
 old unmuddled fighting terms, to be a sane and decent 
 animal, under civilised moral governance a miserable 
 sinner, was among those who observed his waverings 
 without prejudice, or anything but an affectionate 
 solicitude that whichever way Arnold went he should 
 find the satisfactions he sought. The conviction that 
 settled the matter was accidental, the work of a 
 
 i 
 
HILDA. 
 
 27 
 
 moment, a free instinct and a thing made with hands 
 — the dead Shelley where the sea threw him and the 
 sculptor fixed him, under his memorial dome in the 
 gardens of University College. Here one leafy after- 
 noon Arnold came so near praying that he raised his 
 head in some confusion at the thought of the profane 
 handicraftsman who might claim the vague tribute of 
 his spirit. Then fell the flash by which he saw, deeply 
 concealed in his bosom and disguised with a host of 
 spiritual wrappings, what he uncompromisingl}' identi- 
 fied as the artistic bias, the aesthetic poinc of view. 
 The discovery worked upon him so that he spent three 
 days without consummated prayer at all, occupied 
 in the effort to find out whether he could yet indeed 
 worship in purity of spirit, or how far the paralysis of 
 the ideal of mere beauty had crept upon his devotions. 
 In the end he cast the artistic bias, the aesthetic point 
 of view, as far from him as his will would carry, and 
 walked away in another direction from which, if he 
 turned his head, he could see the Church of Rome 
 sitting with her graven temptations gathered up in her 
 skirts, looking mournfully after him. He had been a 
 priest of the Clarke Mission to Calcutta, a "Clarke 
 Brother," six years when he stood in the door of 
 Ahsing's little shop in Bentinck street while Lindsay 
 explained to Ahsing his objection to patent-leather 
 toe caps; six years which had not worn or chilled him, 
 because, as he would have cheerfully admitted, he had 
 recognised the facts and lowered his personal hopes of 
 achievement — lowered them with a heroism which 
 took account of himself as no more than a spiritual 
 molecule rightly inspired and moving to the great 
 future, already shining behind coming aeons, of the 
 
28 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 * 
 
 I 
 
 universal Kingdom. Indeed, his humility was scien- 
 tific ; he made his deductions from the granular nature 
 of all change, moral and material. He never talked or 
 thought of the Aryan souls that were to shine with 
 peculiar oriental brightness as stars in the crown of 
 his reward ; he saw rather the ego and the energy of 
 him merged in a wave of blessed tendency in this 
 world, thankful if, in that which is to come, it was 
 counted worthy to survive at all. It should be under- 
 stood that Arnold did not hope to attain the simplicity 
 of this by means equally simple. He held vastly, on 
 the contrary, to fast days and flagellations, to the 
 ministry of symbols, the use of rigours. The spiritual 
 consummation which the eye of faith enabled him to 
 anticipate upon the horizon of Bengal should be has- 
 tened, however imperceptibly, by all that he could do 
 to purify and intensify his infinitesimal share of the 
 force that was to bring it about. Meanwhile he made 
 friends with the fathers of Bengali schoolboys, who 
 appreciated his manners, and sent him with urbanity 
 flat baskets of mangoes and nuts and oranges, pome- 
 granates from Persia, and little round boxes of white 
 grapes in sawdust from Kabul. He seldom dwelt 
 upon the converts that already testified to the success 
 of the mission ; it might be gathered that he had ideas 
 about premature fruition. 
 
 As they stepped out together into the street, Lind- 
 say thrust his hand within Arnold's elbow. It was an 
 impulse, and the analysis of it would show elements 
 like self-reproach, and a sense of value continually re- 
 newed, and a vain desire for an absolutely common 
 ground. The physical nearness, the touch, was some- 
 thing, and each felt it in the remoteness of his other 
 
 f 
 
 I 
 
HILDA. 
 
 29 
 
 world with satisfaction. There was absurdly little in 
 what they had to say to each other ; they talked of the 
 Viceroy's attack of measles and the sanitary improve- 
 ments in the cloth-dealers* quarter. Their bond was 
 hardly more than a mutual decency of nature, niceness 
 of sentiment, clearness of eye. Such as it was, it was 
 strong enough to make both men wish it were stronger, 
 a desire which was a vague impatience on Lindsay's 
 part with a concentration of hostility to Arnold's sou- 
 tane. It made its universal way for them, however, 
 this garment. Where the crowd was thickest people 
 jostled and pressed with one foot in the gutter for the 
 convenience of the padre-sahib. He, with his eyes cast 
 down, took the tribute with humility, as meet, in a way 
 that made Lindsay blaspheme inwardly at the persist- 
 ence of ecclesiastical tradition. 
 
 Suddenly, as they passed, the irrelevant violence of 
 tongues, the broken, half-comprehensible tumult, was 
 smitten and divided by a wave of rhythmic sound. It 
 pushed aside the cries of the sweetmeat sellers, and 
 mounted above the cracked bell that proclaimed the 
 continual auction of Krist, Dass and Friend, dealers in 
 the second-hand. In its vivid familiarity it seemed to 
 make straight for the two Englishmen, to surround and 
 take possession of them, and they paused. The source 
 of it was plain — an open door under a vast white sign- 
 board dingily lettered " The Salvation Army." It 
 loomed through the smoke and the street lights like a 
 discovery. 
 
 " Our peripatetic friends," said Arnold, with his rare 
 
 smile ; and, as if the music seized and held them, they 
 
 stood listening. 
 
 •' I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep 
 Ail day on Sunday, and six days a week ! 
 
30 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 * ' 
 
 If 
 
 I've got a Saviour that's mighty to keep 
 Fifty-two weeks in the year." 
 
 It was immensely vigourous ; the men looked at each 
 other with fresh animation. Responding to the mere 
 physical appeal of it, they picked their steps across the 
 street to the door, and there hesitated, revolted in 
 different ways. Perhaps I have forgotten to say that 
 Lindsay came to Calcutta out of an Aberdeenshire 
 manse, and had a mother before whose name people 
 wrote "The Hon." Besides, the singing had stopped, 
 and casual observation from the street was checked by 
 a screen. 
 
 " I have wondered sometimes what their methods 
 really are," said Arnold. 
 
 Their methods were just on the other side of the 
 screen. A bullet-headed youth, in a red coat with 
 gold letters on the shoulder, fingering a forage-cap, 
 slunk out round the end of this impediment, passing 
 the two men beside the door, and a light, clear voice 
 seemed to call after him — 
 
 " Ah ! don't go away ! " 
 
 Lindsay was visited by a flash of memory and a 
 whimsical speculation whether now, at the week's end, 
 the soul of Hilda Howe was still pursuing the broad 
 road to perdition. The desire to enter sprang up in 
 him ; he was reminded of a vista of some interest 
 which had recently revealed itself by an accident, and 
 which he had not explored. It had almost passed out 
 of his memory ; he grasped at it again with something 
 like excitement, and fell adroitly upon the half-inclina- 
 tion in Arnold's voice. 
 
 " I suppose I can't expect you to go in ? " he said. 
 Precisely why not?" Stephen retorted. "My 
 
 « 
 
 i! t 
 
HILDA. 
 
 31 
 
 a 
 
 ^1 
 
 id, 
 
 
 ad 
 
 ;1 
 
 in 
 
 
 est 
 
 ,/"■•■' 
 
 nd 
 
 
 mt 
 
 1 
 
 ng 
 
 1 
 
 la- 
 
 \ 
 
 id. 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 ly 
 
 
 dear fellow, we make broad our sympathies, not our 
 phylacteries." 
 
 At any other time Lindsay would have reflected 
 how characteristic was the gentle neatness of that, 
 and might have resented with amusement the pulpit 
 tone of the little epigram. But this moment found 
 him only aware of the consent in it. His hand on 
 Arnold's elbow clinched the agreement ; he half 
 pushed the priest into the room, where they dropped 
 into seats. Stephen's hand went to his breast in- 
 stinctively — for the words in the air were holy by 
 association — and stopped there, since even the breadth 
 of his sympathies did not enable him to cross himself 
 before General Booth. Though absent in body, the 
 room was dominated by General Booth ; he loomed 
 so large and cadaverous, so earnest and aquiline and 
 bushy, from a frame on the wall at the end of it. The 
 texts on the other walls seemed emanations from 
 him ; and the man in the short, loose, collarless red 
 coat, with " Salvation Army " in crooked black letters 
 on it, who stood talking in high, rapid tones with his 
 hands folded, had the look of a puppet whose strings 
 were pulled by the personality in the frame above 
 him. It was only by degrees that they observed the 
 other objects in the room — the big drum on the floor 
 in the empty space where the exhorters stood, the 
 dozen wooden benches and the possible score of 
 people sitting on them, the dull kerosene lamps on 
 the walls, lighting up the curtness of the texts. 
 There were half-a-dozen men of the Duke's Own 
 packed in a row like a formation, solid on their 
 haunches ; and three or four unshaven and loose- 
 garmented, from crews in the Hooghly, who leaned 
 
y, 
 
 32 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 well forward, their elbows on their knees, twirling 
 battered straw hats, with a pathetic look of being for 
 the instant off the defensive. One was a Scandina- 
 vian, another a Greek, with earrings. There was a 
 ship's cook, too, a full-blooded negro, very respectable 
 with a plaid tie and a silk hat ; and beside, two East 
 Indian girls of different shades, tittering at the Duke's 
 Own in an agony of propriety ; a Bengali boy, who 
 spelled out the English on the cover of a hymn-book ; 
 and a very clean Chinaman, who greatly appreciated 
 his privilege, since it included a seat, a lamp, and a 
 noise, though his perception of it possibly went no 
 further. The other odds and ends were of the mixed 
 country blood, like the girls, dingy, undecipherable. 
 They made a shadow for the rest, lying along the 
 benches, shifting unnoticeably. 
 
 Three people, two of them women, sat in the open 
 space at the end of the room where the smoky fog 
 from outside thickened and hung visibly in mid-air, 
 and there was the empty seat of the man who was 
 talking. Laura Filbert was one of the women. She 
 might have been flung upon her chair; her head 
 drooped over the back, buried in the curve of one 
 arm. A tambourine hung loosely from the hand 
 nearest her face ; the other lay, palm outward in its 
 abandonment, among the folds that covered her 
 limbs. The folds hung from her waist, and the short 
 close bodice that she wore above them, like a Bengali 
 woman, left visible the narrow gap of flesh which 
 nobody notices when it is brown. Her head covering 
 had slipped and clung only to the knot of hair at the 
 nape of her neck ; she lacked, pathetically, the con- 
 scious hand to draw it forward. She was unaware 
 
HILDA. 
 
 33 
 
 re 
 
 even of the gaze of the Duke's Own, though it had 
 fixity and absorption. 
 
 The man with folded hands went on talking. He 
 seemed to have .caught as a text the refrain of the 
 hymn that had been sung. "Yes indeed," he said, 
 " I can tell every one 'ere this night, h'every one, that 
 the Saviour is mighty to keep. I've got it out 
 of my own personal experience, I *ave. Jesus don't 
 only look after you on a Sunday but six days a week, 
 my friends, six days a week. Fix your eye on Him 
 and He'll keep His eye on you — that's all your part 
 of it. I don't mean to say I don't stumble an* fall 
 into sin. There's times when the Devil will get the 
 upper 'and, but oh, my friends, I ask you each an* every 
 one of you, is that the fault of Jesus? No, it is not 
 'is fault, it is the fault of the person. The person 'as 
 been forgetting Jesus, forgetting 'is Bible an* his 
 prayers ; what can you expect ? And now I ask you, 
 my friends, is Jesus a-keeping you ? And if he is not, 
 oh, my friends, ain't it foolish to put off any longer ? 
 'Ere we are met together to-night ; we may never all 
 meet together again. You and I may never *ear each 
 other speaking again or see each other sitting there. 
 Thank God," the speaker continued, as his eye rested 
 on Arnold and Lindsay, " the vilest sinner may be 
 saved, the respectable sinner may be saved. We've 
 got God's word for that. Now just a little word of 
 prayer from Ensign Sand 'ere — she's got God's ear, 
 the Ensign *as, and she'll plead with 'im for all uncon- 
 verted souls inside these four walls to-night." 
 
 Laura lifted her head at this and dropped with the 
 other exhorters on her knees on the floor. As she 
 moved she bent upon the audience a preoccupied 
 
34 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 gaze, by which she seemed to observe numbers, 
 chances, from a point remote and emotionally involved. 
 Lindsay's impression was that she looked at him as 
 from behind a glass door. Then her eyes closed as 
 the other woman began, and through their lids, as it 
 were, he could see that she was again caught up, 
 though her body remained abased, her hands inter- 
 locked between her knees, swaying in unison with the 
 petition. The Ensign was a little, meagre, freckled 
 woman, whose wisps of colourless hair and tight 
 drawn-down lips suggested that in the secular world 
 she would have been bedraggled and a nagger. She 
 gained an elevation, it was plain, from the Bengali 
 dress ; it kept her away from the temptation of cheap 
 plush and dirty cotton lace; and her business gave 
 her a complacency which was doubtless accepted as 
 sanctification by her fellow-ofificers, especially by her 
 husband, who had announced her influence with the 
 Divine Being, and who was himself of an inferior com- 
 mission. She prayed in a complaining way, and in a 
 strained minor key that assumed a spiritual intimacy 
 with all who listened, her key to hearts. She told 
 the Lord in confidence that however appearances 
 might be against it, every soul before him was really 
 longing to be gathered within His Almighty arms, 
 and when she said this, Laura Filbert, on the floor, 
 threw back her head and cried ** Hallelujah ! " and 
 DufY started. The others broke in upon the Ensign 
 with like exclamations. They had a recurrent, per- 
 functory sound, and passed unnoticed; but when 
 Laura again cried " Praise the Lord ! " Lindsay found 
 himself holding in check a hasty impulse to leave the 
 premises. Then she rose, and he watched with the 
 
 li 
 

 HILDA. 
 
 35 
 
 Duke's Own, to see what she would do next. The 
 others looked at her too, as she stood surprisitit^ly fair 
 and insistant among them, Ensign Sand with huinblc 
 eyes and disapproving lips. As she began to speak 
 the silence widened for her words, the ship's cook 
 stopped shufifling his feet. ** Oh come," she said, 
 " Come and be saved." Her voice seemed to travel 
 from her without effort, and to penetrate every corner 
 and every consciousness. There was a sudden dip in 
 it like the fall of water, that thrilled along the nerves. 
 " Who am I that ask you ? A poor weak woman, ig- 
 norant, unknown. Never mind. It is not my voice, 
 but the voice in your heart that entreats you, * Come 
 and be saved ! ' You know that voice, it speaks in 
 the watches of the night ; it began to speak when you 
 were a little, little child, with little joys and sorrows, 
 and little prayers that you have forgotten now. Oh, 
 it is a sweet voice, a tender voice " — her own had 
 dropped to the cooing of doves — " It is hard to know 
 why all the winds do not carry it, and all the leaves 
 whisper it ! Strange, strange ! But the world is full 
 of the clamour of its own foolishness, and the Voice 
 is lost in it, except in places where people come to 
 pray, as here to-night, and in those night watches. 
 You hear it now in the echo from my lips, ' Come and 
 be saved.* Why must I beg of you ? Why do you 
 not come hastening, running? Are you too wise? 
 But when did the wisdom of this world satisfy you 
 about the next? Are you too much occupied? But 
 in the day of judgment what will you do ? " — 
 
 " When you come to Jordan's flood, 
 How will you do ? How will you do ? " 
 
 It was the voice and tambourine of Ensign Sand, 
 
36 HILDA. 
 
 f 
 
 i 
 
 quick upon her opportunity. Laura gave her no % 
 
 glance of surprise — perhaps she was disciplined to in- 
 terruptions — but caught up her own tambourine, sing- 
 ing, and instantly the chorus was general, the big 
 drum thumping out the measure, all the tambourines 
 shaking together. 
 
 " You who now contemn your God, 
 How will you do ? How will you do ? " 
 
 The Duke's Own sang lustily, with a dogged enjoy- 
 ment that made little of the words. Some of them 
 assumed a vacuity to counteract the sentiment, but 
 most of the sheepish countenances expressed that the 
 tune was the thing, one or two with a smile of jovial 
 cynicism, and kept time with their feet. Through the 
 medley of voices — everybody sang except Arnold and 
 Lindsay and the Chinaman — Laura's seemed to flow, 
 separate and clear, threading the jangle upon melody, 
 and turning the doggerel into an appeal, direct, in- 
 tense. When Lindsay presently saw it addressed to 
 him, in the unmistakable intention of her eyes, he 
 caught his breath. 
 
 " Dcd ': will be a solemn day 
 When rhe soul is forced away, 
 It will oe too late to pray ; 
 
 How will you do ? " 
 
 It was simple enough. All her supreme desire to 
 convince, to turn, to make awfully plain, had centred 
 upon the single person in the room with whom she had 
 the advantage of acquaintance, whose face her own 
 could seek with a kind of right to response. But the 
 sensation DufI Lindsay tried to sit still under was not 
 simple. It had the novelty, the shock, of a plunge 
 into the sea; behind his decorous countenance he 
 
HILDA. 
 
 37 
 
 
 gasped and blinked, with unfamiliar sounds in his ears. 
 His soul seemed shudderingly repelling Laura's, yet 
 the buffets themselves were enthralling. In the 
 strangeness of it he made a mechanical movement to 
 depart, picked up his stick, but Arnold was sitting 
 holding his chin, wrapped in quiet interest, and took 
 no notice. The hymn stopped, and he found a few 
 minutes' respite, during which Ensign Sand addressed 
 the meeting, unveiling each heart to its possessor ; 
 while Laura turnjsd over the leaves of the hymn-book, 
 looking, Lindsay was profoundly aware, for airs and 
 verses most likely to help the siege of the Army to 
 his untaken, sinful citadel. There was time to bring 
 him calmness enough to wonder whether these were 
 the symptoms of emotional conversion, the; sort of 
 thing these people went in for, and he resolved to 
 watch his state with interest. Then, before he knew 
 it, they were all down on their knees again, and Laura 
 was praying ; and he was not aware of the meaning of 
 a single word that she said, only that her voice was 
 threading itself in and out of his consciousness bur- 
 dened with a passion that made it exquisite to him. 
 Her appeal lifted itself in the end into song, low and 
 sweet. 
 
 " Down at the Cross where my Saviour died, 
 Down where for cleansing from s'n I cried, 
 There to my heart was the blood applied, 
 Glory to His name ! " 
 
 They let her sing it alone, even the tempting chorus, 
 and when it was over Lindsay was almost certain that 
 his were not the preliminary pangs of conversion by the 
 methods of the Salvation Army. Deliberately, how- 
 ever, he postponed further analysis of them until after 
 the meeting was over. He would be compelled then 
 
38 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 
 ill 
 it 
 
 to go away, back to the club to dinner, or something ; 
 they would put out the lights and lock the place up ; 
 he thought of that. He glanced at the lamps with a 
 perception of the finality that would come when they 
 were extinguished— she would troop away with the 
 others into the darkness— and then at his watch to 
 see how much time there was left. More exhortation 
 followed and more prayer ; he was only ^ware that she 
 did not speak. She sat with her hand over her eyes, 
 and Lindsay had an excited conviqtion that she was 
 still occupying herself with him. He looked round al- 
 most furtively to detect whether any one else was 
 aware of it, this connection that she was blazoning be- 
 tween them, and then relapsed, staring at his hat, into 
 a sense of ungrammatical iterations beating through a 
 room full of stuffy smells. When Laura spoke again 
 his eye leaped to hers in a rapt effort to tell her that 
 he perceived her intention. That he should be grate- 
 ful, that he should approve, was neither here nor there ; 
 the indispensable thing was that she should know him 
 conscious, receptive. She read three or four sacred 
 verses, a throb of tender longing from the very Christ- 
 heart, " Come unto me ..." The words stole about 
 the room like tears. Then she would ask " all present," 
 she said, to engage for a moment in silent prayer. 
 There was a wordless interval, only the vague street 
 noises surging past the door. A thrill ran along the 
 benches as Laura brought it to an end with sudden 
 singing. She was on her feet as the others raised their 
 heads, breaking forth clear and jubilant. 
 
 " I am so wondrously saved from sin, 
 Jesus so sweetly abides within ; 
 There at the Cross where he took me in, 
 
 Glory to His Name." 
 
 -i 
 
 m^ 
 
 li 
 
HILDA. 
 
 39 
 
 
 She smiled as she sang. It was a happy, confident 
 smile, and it was plain that she longed to believe it 
 the glad reflection of spiritual experience of many who 
 heard her. Lindsay's perception of this was immedi- 
 ate and keen, and when her eyes rested for an instant 
 of glad inquiry upon his in the chartered intimacy of 
 her calling, he felt a pang of compunction. It was a 
 formless reproach, too vague for anything like a 
 charge, but it came nearest to defining itself in the 
 idea that he had gone too far— he who had not left 
 his seat. When the hymn was finished, and Ensign 
 Sand said, " The meeting is now o[- . for testimonies," 
 he knew that all her hope was upon him, though she 
 looked at the screen above his head, and he sat 
 abashed, with a prodigal sense surging through him 
 of what he would rejoice to do for her in compensation. 
 In the little chilly silence that followed he surprised 
 his own eyes moist with disappointment — it had all 
 been so anxious and so vain — and he felt relief and 
 gratitude when the man who beat the drum stood up 
 and announced that he had been saved for eleven 
 years, with details about how badly he stood in need 
 of it when it happened. 
 
 " Hallelujah ! " said Ensign Sand cheerfully, with a 
 meretricious air of hearing it for the first time. "Any 
 more?" And a Norwegian sailor lurched shamefac- 
 edly upon his feet. He had a couple of inches of 
 straggling yellow beard all round his face, and twirled 
 a battered straw hat. 
 
 " I haf to say only dis word. I goin' sdop by 
 Jesus. Long time I subbose I sdop by Jesus. I 
 subbose " 
 
 •* Glory be to God ! " remarked Ensign Sand again, 
 spiking the guns of the Duke's Own, who were in- 
 
40 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 ,M 
 
 clined to be amused. "That will do, thank you. 
 Now, is there nobody else ? Speak up, friends. It'll 
 do you no harm, none whatever ; it'll do you that 
 much good you'll be surprised. Now, who'll be the 
 next to say a word for Jesus?" She was nodding 
 encouragement at the negro cook as if she knew him 
 for a wavering soul, and he, sunk in his gleaming 
 white collar, was aware, in silent, smiling misery, that 
 the expectations of the meeting were toward him. 
 Laura had again hidden her eyes in her hand. The 
 negro fingered his watch-chain foolishly, and the pret- 
 tiest of the East Indian half-castes tried hard to dis- 
 guise her perception that an African, in his best 
 clothes, under conviction of sin, was the funniest thing 
 in the world. The silence seemed to focus itself upon 
 the cook, who fumbled at his coat collar and cleared 
 his voice. It was a shock to all concerned when 
 Stephen Arnold, picking up his hat, got upon his 
 feet instead. 
 
 " I also," he said, " would offer my humble testimony 
 to the grace of God — with all my heart." 
 
 It was as if he had repeated part of the creed in the 
 performance of his ofiRce. Then he turned and bent 
 gravely to Lindsay. "Shall we go now?" he whis- 
 pered, and the two made their way to the door, leaving 
 a silence behind them which Lindsay imagined, on the 
 part of Ensign Sand at least, to be somewhat resent- 
 ful. As they passed out, a voice recovered itself and 
 cried, " Hallelujah ! " It was Laura's. And all the 
 way to the club — Arnold was dining with him there 
 — Lindsay listened' to his friend's analysis of religious 
 appeal to the emotions, but chiefly heard that clear 
 music above a sordid din, " Hallelujah ! " " Hallelu- 
 jah ! " 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 When Alicia Livingstone, almost believing she 
 liked it, drove to Number Three, Lai Behari's Lane 
 and left cards upon Miss Hilda Howe, she was only 
 partially rewarded. Through the plaster gate-posts, 
 badly in want of repair and bearing, sunk in one of 
 them, a marble slab announcing " Residence with 
 Board," she perceived the squalid attempt the place 
 made at respectability, the servants in dirty liveiy 
 salaaming curiously, the over-fed squirrel in a cage in 
 the door, the pair of damaged wicker chairs in the 
 porch suggesting the easiest intercourse after dinner, 
 the general discoloration. She observed with irrita- 
 tion that it was a down-at-heels shrine for such a 
 divinity, in spite of its six dusty crotons in crumbling 
 plaster urns, but the irritation was rather at her own 
 repulsion to the place than at any inconsistency it 
 presented. What she demanded and expected of her- 
 self was that Number Three, Lai Behari's Lane should 
 be pleasing, interesting, acceptable on its merits as a 
 cheap Calcutta boarding-house. She found herself so 
 unable to perceive its merits that it was almost a re- 
 lief to see nothing of Miss Howe either ; Hilda had 
 gone to rehearsal, to the " dance-house," the servant 
 said, eyeing the unusual landau. Alicia rolled back 
 into streets with Christian names distressed by an un- 
 certainty as to whether her visit had been a disappoint- 
 
4a 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 ment or an escape. By the next day, however, she 
 was well pulled together in favour of the former con- 
 clusion — she could nearly always persuade herself of 
 such things in time — and wrote a frank, sweet little 
 note in her picturesque hand — she never joined more 
 than two syllables — to say how sorry she had been, 
 and would Miss Howe come to lunch on Friday. ** I 
 should love to make it dinner," she said to herself, as 
 she sealed the envelope, ** but before one knows how 
 she will behave in connection with the men — I sup- 
 pose one must think of the other people." 
 
 It was Friday, and Hilda was lunching. The two 
 had met among the faint-tinted draperies of Alicia's 
 drawing-room — there was something auroral even 
 about the mantlepiece — a little like diplomatists using 
 a common tongue native to neither of them. Perhaps 
 Alicia drew the conventions round her with the greater 
 fluency; Hilda had more to cover, but was less par- 
 ticular about it. The only thing she was bent upon 
 making imperceptible was her sense of the comedy of 
 Miss Livingstone's effort to receive her as if she had 
 been anybody else. Alicia was hardly aware of what 
 she wanted to conceal, unless it was her impression 
 that Miss Howe's dress was cut a trifle too low in the 
 neck, that she was almost too effective in that cream 
 and yellow to be quite right. Alicia remembered 
 afterwards, to smile at it, that her first ten minutes of 
 intercourse with Hilda Howe were dominated by a 
 lively desire to set Celine at her — with such a founda- 
 tion to work upon, what could Celine not have done ? 
 She remembered her surprise, too, at the ordinary 
 things Hilda said in that rich voice, even in the tem- 
 pered drawing-room tones of which resided a hint of 
 
HILDA. 
 
 43 
 
 the seats nearest the exit under the gallery, and her 
 wonder at the luxury of gesture that went with them, 
 movements which seemed to imply blank verse and to 
 be thrown away upon two women and a little furni- 
 ture. A consciousness stood in the room between 
 them, and their commonplaces about the picturesque- 
 ness of the bazaar rode on long absorbed regards, one 
 reading, the other anxious to read ; yet the encounter 
 was so conventionally creditable to them both that 
 they might have smiled past each other under any 
 circumstances next day and acknowledged no demand 
 for more than the smile. • 
 
 The cutlets had come before Hilda's impression was 
 at the back of her head, her defences withdrawn, her 
 eyes free and content, her elbow on the table. They 
 had found a portrait-painter. 
 
 " He has such an eye," said Alicia, " for the possi- 
 bilities of character." 
 
 " Such an eye that he develops them. I know one 
 man he painted. I suppose when the man was born 
 he had an embryo soul, but in the meantime he and 
 everybody else had forgotten about it. All but Salter. 
 Salter re-created it on the original lines, and brought 
 it up, and gave it a lodging behind the man's wrinkles. 
 I saw the picture. It was fantastic — psychologically." 
 
 " Psychology has a lot to say to portrait-painting, I 
 know," Alicia said. "Do let him give you a little 
 more. It's only Moselle." She felt quite direct, and 
 simple, too, in uttering her postulate. Her eyes had a 
 friendly, unembarrassed look ; there was nothing behind 
 them but the joy of talking intelligently about 
 Salter. 
 
 Hilda did not even glance away. She looked at her 
 
44 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 hostess instead, with an expression of candour so ad- 
 mirable that one might easily have mistaken it to be 
 insincere. It was part of her that she could swim in 
 any current, and it was pleasant enough, for the mo- 
 ment, to swim in Alicia's. Both the Moselle and the 
 cutlets, moreover, were of excellent quality. 
 
 " It's everything to everything, don't you think ? 
 And especially, thank Heaven, to my trade." Her 
 voice softened the brusqueness of this ; the way she 
 said it gave it a right to be said in any terms. That 
 was the case with flagrancies of hers sometimes. 
 
 " To discover motives and morals and passions and 
 ambitions and to make a picture of them with your 
 own body — your face and hands and voice — compare 
 our plastic opportunity with the handling of a brush 
 to do it, or a pen or a chisel ! " 
 
 " I know what you mean," said Alicia. She had a 
 little flush, and an excited hand among the wine- 
 glasses. " No, I don't want any ; please don't bother 
 me ! " to the man at her elbow with something in 
 aspic. " It's much more direct — your way." 
 
 ** And, I think, so much more primitive, so much 
 earlier sanctioned, abiding so originally among the 
 instincts ! Oh, yes ! if we are lightly esteemed it is 
 because we are bad exponents. The ideal has dignity 
 enough. They charge us, in their unimaginable stu- 
 pidity, with failing to appreciate our lines, especially 
 when they are Shakespeare's — with being unliterary. 
 You might — good Heavens! — as well accuse a painter 
 of not being a musician ? Our business lies behind 
 the words — they are our mere medium ! Rosalind 
 wasn't literary — why should I be ? But don't indulge 
 me in my shop, if it bores you," Hilda added lightly, 
 
 [ 
 
HILDA. 
 
 45 
 
 aware as she was that Miss Livingstone was never 
 further from being bored. 
 
 "Oh, please go on! If you only knew," her lifted 
 eyebrows confessed the tedium of Calcutta small-talk. 
 " But why do you say you are lightly esteemed ? 
 Surely the public is a touchstone — and you hold the 
 public in the hollow of your hand ! " 
 
 Hilda smiled. ** Dear old public ! It does its best 
 for us, doesn't it? One loves it, you know, as sailors 
 love the sea, never believing in its treachery in the 
 end. But I don't know why I say we are lightly 
 esteemed, or why I dogmatise about it at all. I've 
 done nothing — I've no right. In ten years perhaps — 
 no, five — I'll write signed articles for the New Review 
 about modern dramatic tendencies. Meanwhile you'll 
 have to consider that the value of my opinions is pros- 
 pective." 
 
 " But already you have succeeded — you have made 
 a place." 
 
 " In Coolgardie, in Johannesburg. I think they 
 remember me in Trichinopoly too, and — yes, it may be 
 so — in Manila. But that wasn't legitimate drama," 
 and Hilda smiled again in a way that coloured her 
 unspoken reminiscence, to Alicia's eyes, in rose and 
 gold. She waited an instant for these tints to ma- 
 terialise, but Miss Howe's smile slid discreetly into her 
 vine-glass instead. 
 
 "There's immense picturesqueness in the Philip- 
 pines," she went on, her look of thoughtful criticism 
 contrasting in the queerest way with her hat. " Real 
 ecclesiastical tyranny with pure traditions. One won- 
 ders what America will do with those friars, when she 
 does take hold there." 
 
46 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 "Do you think she is going to?" asked Alicia, 
 vaguely. It was the merest politeness — she did not 
 wait for a reply. With a courageous air which be- 
 came her charmingly she went on, " Don't you long to 
 submit yourself to London ? I should." 
 
 **0h, I must. I know I must. It's in the path of 
 duty and conscience — it's not to be put off forever. 
 But one dreads the chained slavery of London " — she 
 hesitated before the audacity of adding, '* the sordid 
 hundred nights," but Alicia divined it, and caught 
 her breath as if she watched the other woman make a 
 hazardous leap. 
 
 " You are magnificently sure," she said. Alicia her- 
 self felt curiously buoyed up and capable, conscious 
 of vague intuitions of immediate achievement. The 
 lunch-table still lay between the two, but it had be- 
 come in a manner intangible ; the selves of them had 
 drawn together, and regarded each other with ab- 
 sorbent eyes. In Hilda's there was an instant of 
 consideration before she said : 
 
 " I might as well tell you — you won't misunder- 
 stand — that I am sure. I expect things of myself. I 
 hold a kind of mortgage on my success ; when I fore- 
 close it will come, bringing the long, steady, grasping 
 chase of money and fame, eyes fixed, never a day to 
 live in, only to accomplish, every moment straddled 
 with calculation, an end to all the byeways where one 
 finds the colour of the sun. The successful London 
 actress, my dear — what excursion has she? A 
 straight flight across the Atlantic in a record-breaker, 
 so many nights in New York, so many in Chicago, so 
 many in a Pullman car, and the net result in every 
 newspaper — an existence of pure artificiality infested 
 
HILDA. 
 
 47 
 
 by reporters. It's like living in the shell of your 
 personality. It's the house forever on your back ; at 
 the last you arc buried in it, smirkin<^ in your coffin 
 with a half-open eye on the floral offerings. There 
 never was reward so qualified by its conditions." 
 
 " Surely there would be some moments of splendid 
 compensation? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; and for those in the end we are all will- 
 ing to perish ! But then you know all, you have done 
 all; there is nothing afterwards but the eternal strain 
 to keep even with yourself. I don't suppose I could 
 begin to make you see the joys of a strolling player — 
 they aren't much understood in the proscenium — but 
 there are so many, honestly, that London being at the 
 top of the hill, I'm not panting up. My way of going 
 has twice wound round the world already. But I'm 
 talking like an illustrated interview. You will grant 
 the impertinence of all I've been saying when I tell 
 you that I've never yet had an illustrated interview." 
 
 "Aren't they almost always vulgar? " Alicia asked. 
 " Don't they make you sit the wrong way on a chair, 
 in tights?" 
 
 Hilda threw her head back and laughed almost, 
 Alicia noted, like a man. She certainly did not hide 
 her mouth with her hands or her handkerchief, as 
 woman often do in bursts of hilarity ; she laughed 
 freely, and as much as she wanted to, and it was as 
 clear as possible that tights presented themselves 
 quite preposterously to any discussion of her pro- 
 fession. They were things to be taken for granted, 
 like the curtain and the wings ; they had no relation 
 to clothing in the world. 
 
 Alicia laughed too. After all, they were absurd — 
 
48 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 her outsider's prejudices. She said something like 
 that, and Hilda seemed to soar again for her point of 
 view about the illustrated interviews. ♦' They are 
 atrocities," she said. ** On their merits they ought to 
 be cast out of even the suburbs of art and literature. 
 But they help to make the atmosphere ihat gives us 
 
 power to work, and if they do that, of course " the 
 
 pursed seriousness of her lips gave Alicia the impres- 
 sion that, though the whole world took offence, the 
 expediency of the illustrated interview was beyond 
 discussion. 
 
 The servant brought them coffee. " Shall we smoke 
 here," said Miss Livingstone, " or in the drawing- 
 room ? " 
 
 "Oh, do you want to? Are you quite sure you 
 like it ? Please don't on my account — you really 
 mustn't. Suppose it should make you ill ? " If Hilda 
 felt any tinge of amusement she kept it out of her 
 face. Nothing was there but cheerful concern. 
 
 " It won't make me ill." Alicia lifted her chin with 
 delicate assertiveness. " I suppose you do smoke, 
 don't you?" 
 
 " Occasionally — with some people. Honestly, have 
 you ever done it before?" 
 
 " Four times," said Alicia, and then turned rose- 
 colour with the apprehension that it sounded amateur- 
 ish to have counted them. " I thought it was one of 
 your privileges to do it always, just as you — " 
 
 " Go to bed with our boots on and put ice down 
 the back of some Serene Highness's neck. I suppose 
 it is, but now and then I prefer to dispense with it. 
 In my bath, for instance, and almost always in omni- 
 buses." 
 
HILDA. 
 
 49 
 
 " How absurd you are ! Then we'll stay here." 
 
 Miss Howe softly manipulated her cigarette and 
 watched Alicia sacrifice two matches. 
 
 " There's Rosa Norton of our company," she went 
 on. " Poor dear old Rosy. She's fifty-three — grey 
 hair smooth back, you know, and a kind of look of 
 anxious mamma. And it gets into her eyes and 
 chokes her, poor dear ; but blow her if she won't be 
 as Bohemian as anybody. I've seen her smoke in a 
 bonnet with strings tied under her chin. I got up and 
 went away." 
 
 " But I can't possibly affect you in that way," said 
 Alicia, putting her cigarette down to finish, as an af- 
 terthought, a marron glac^e. " I'm not old and I'm 
 not grotesque." 
 
 " No, but — oh, all right. After you with the 
 matches, please." 
 
 *' I beg your pardon. How thoughtless of me! 
 Dear me, mine has gone out. Do you suppose any- 
 thing is wrong with them ? Perhaps they're damp." 
 
 "Trifle dry, if anything," Hilda returned, with the 
 cigarette between her lips, " but in excellent order, 
 really." She took it between her first and second 
 finger for a glance at the gold letters at the end, 
 leaned back and sent slow, luxurious spirals through 
 her nostrils. It was rather, Alicia reflected, like a 
 horse on a cold day — she hoped Miss Howe wouldn't 
 do it again. But she presently saw that it was Miss 
 Howe's way of doing it. 
 
 " No, you're not old and grotesque," Hilda said, 
 contemplatively; "you're young and beautiful." The 
 freedom seemed bred, imperceptibly and enjoyably, 
 from the delicate cloud in the air. Alicia flushed ever 
 
50 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 so little under it, but took it without wincing. She 
 had less than the common palate for flattery of the 
 obvious kind, but this was something quite different — 
 a mere casual and unprejudiced statement of fact. 
 
 " Fairly," she said, not without surprise at her own 
 calmness ; and there was an instant of silence, during 
 which the commonplace seemed to be dismissed be- 
 tween them. 
 
 *' You made a vivid impression here last year," said 
 Alicia. She felt delightfully terse and to the point. 
 
 "You meah Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay is very im- 
 pressionaL Do you know him well ? " 
 
 Alicia closed her lips, and a faint line graved itself 
 on each side of them. Her whole face sounded a re- 
 treat, and her eyes were cold — it would have annoyed 
 her to know how cold — with distance. 
 
 " He is an old friend of my brother's," she said. 
 Hilda had the sensation of coming unexpectedly, 
 through the lightest loam, upon a hard surface. She 
 looked attentively at the red heart of her cigarette, 
 crisped over with grey, in its blackened calyx. 
 
 " Most impressionable," she went on, as if Alicia had 
 not spoken. *' As to the rest of the people — bah, you 
 can't rouse Calcutt .. It is sunk in its torpid liver, 
 and imagines itself superior. It's really funny, you 
 know, the way pancreatic influences can be idealised — 
 made to serve ennobling ends. But Mr. Lindsay is 
 — different." 
 
 "Yes?" Miss Livingstone's intention was neutral, 
 but, in spite of her, the asking note was in the word. 
 
 " We have done some interesting things together 
 here. He has shown me the queerest places. Yester- 
 day he made me go with him to Wellesley Square to 
 
 

 HILDA. 
 
 SI 
 
 look at his latest enthusiasm standing in the middle of 
 it." 
 
 "A statue?" 
 
 " No, a woman, preaching and warbling to the 
 people. She wasn't new to me — I knew her before he 
 did — but the picture was and the performance. She 
 stood poised on a coolie's basket in the midst of a 
 rabble of all colours, like a fallen angel — I mean a 
 dropped one. Light seemed to come from her hair or 
 eyes or something. I almost expected to see her sail 
 away over the palms into the sunset when it was 
 ended. " 
 
 " It sounds most unusual," Alicia said, with a light 
 smile. Her interest was rather obviously curbed. 
 
 " It happens every day, really, only one doesn't stop 
 and look ; one doesn't go round the corner." 
 
 There was another little silence, full of the unwilling- 
 ness of Miss Livingstone's desire to be informed. 
 
 Hilda knocked the ash of her cigarette into her 
 finger bowl and waited. The pause grew so stiff with 
 embarrassment that she broke it herself. 
 
 "And I regret to say it was I who introduced 
 them," she said. 
 
 " Introduced whom ? " 
 
 " Mr. Lindsay and Miss Laura Filbert of the Salva- 
 tion Army. They met at Number Three; she had 
 come after my soul. I think she was disappointed," 
 Hilda went on tranquilly, *' because I would only lend 
 it to her while she was there." 
 
 " Of the Salvation Army ! I can't imagine why you 
 should regret it. He is always grateful to be amused." 
 
 " Oh, there is no reason to doubt his gratitude. He 
 is rather intense about it. And— I don't know that 
 
52 HILDA. 
 
 my regret is precisely on Mr. Lindsay's account. Did 
 I say so ? ** They were simple, amiable words, and 
 their pertinence was far from insistent ; but Alicia's 
 crude blush — everything else about her was perfectly 
 worked out — cried aloud that it was too sharp a pull 
 up. " Perhaps, though," Hilda hurried on with a pang, 
 <• we generalise too much about the men." 
 
 What Miss Livingstone would have found to say — 
 she had certainly no generalisation to offer about 
 Duff Lindsay — had not a servant brought, her a card 
 at that moment, is embarrassing to consider. The 
 card saved her the necessity. She looked at it blankly 
 for an instant, and then exclaimed, "My cousin, 
 Stephen Arnold ! He's a reverend — a Clarke Mission 
 priest, and he will come straight in here. What shall 
 we do with our cigarettes ? " 
 
 Miss Howe had a pleasurable sense that the situa- 
 tion was developing. 
 
 " Yours has gone out again, so it doesn't much mat- 
 ter, does it ? Drown the corpse in here, and he won't 
 guess it belongs to you." She pushed the finger 
 bowl across, and Alicia's discouraged remnant went 
 into it. 
 
 " Don't ask me to sacrifice mine," she added, and 
 there was no time for remonstrance ; Arnold's voice 
 was lifting itself at the door. 
 
 " Pray may I come in ? " he called from behind the 
 portifere. 
 
 Hilda, who sat with her back to it, smiled in enjoy- 
 ing recognition of the thin, high academic note, the 
 prim finish of the inflection. It reminded her of a 
 man she knew'who " did " curates beautifully. Arnold 
 walked past her with his quick, humble, clerical gait, 
 
HILDA. 
 
 53 
 
 and it amused her to think that he bent over Alicia's 
 hand as if he would bless it. 
 
 " You can't guess how badly I want a cup of coffee." 
 He flavoured what he said, and made it pretty, like a 
 woman. "Let me confess at once, that is what 
 brought me." He stopped to laugh ; there was a hint 
 of formality and self-sacrifice even in that. " It is 
 coffee time, isn't it?" Then he turned and saw 
 Hilda, and she was, at the moment, flushed with the 
 luxury of her sensations, a vision as splendid as she 
 must have been to him unusual. But he only closed 
 his lips and thrust his chin out a little, with his left 
 hand behind him in one of his intensely clerical atti- 
 tudes, and so stood waiting. Hilda reflected after- 
 wards that she could hardly have expected him to ex- 
 claim, " Whom have we here ? " with upraised hands, 
 but she had to acknowledge her flash of surprise at his 
 self-possession. She noted, too, his grave bow when 
 Alicia mentioned them to each other, that there was 
 the habit of deference in it, yet that it waved her 
 courteously, so to speak, out of his life. It was all as 
 interesting as the materialisation of a quaint tradition, 
 and she decided not, after all, to begin a trivial comedy 
 for herself and Alicia, by asking the Reverend Stephen 
 Arnold whether he objected to tobacco. She had an 
 instant's circling choice of the person she would 
 represent to this priest in the little intermingling half- 
 hour of their lives that lay shaken out before them, 
 and dropped unerringly. It really hardly mattered, 
 but she always had such instants. She was aware of 
 the shadow of a regret at the opulence of her personal 
 effect ; her hand went to her throat and drew the laces 
 closer together there. An erectness stole into her 
 
54 HILDA. 
 
 body as she sat, and a look into her eyes that divorced 
 her at a stroke from anything that could have spoken 
 to him of too general an accessibility, too unthinking 
 a largesse. She went on smoking, but almost immedi- 
 ately her cigarette took its proper note of insignifi- 
 cance. Alicia, speaking of it once afterwards to 
 Arnold, found that he had forgotten it. 
 
 " Even in College street you have heard of Miss 
 Howe," Alicia said, and the negative very readable in 
 Arnold's silent brow brought Hilda a flicker of happi- 
 ness at her hostess's expense. 
 
 " I don't think the posters carry us as far as College 
 street," she said, " but I am not difificult to explain, 
 Mr. Arnold. I act with Mr. Stanhope's Company. If 
 you lived in Chowringhee you couldn't help knowing 
 all about me, the letters are so large." The bounty 
 of her well-spring of kindness was in it under the can- 
 dour and the simplicity ; it was one of those least of 
 little things which are enough. 
 
 Arnold smiled back at her, and she saw recognition 
 leap through the armour-plate of his ecclesiasticism. 
 He glanced away again quickly, and looked at the 
 floor as he said he feared they were terribly out of it 
 in College street, for which, however, he had evidently 
 no apology to offer. He continued to look at the 
 floor with a careful air, as if it presented points per- 
 tinent to the situation. Hilda felt herself — it was an 
 odd sensation — too sunny upon the nooked, retiring 
 current that flowed in him. He might have turned to 
 the cool accustomed shadow that Alicia made, but 
 she was aware that he did not, that he was struggling 
 through her strangeness and his shyness for something 
 to say to her. He stirred his coffee, and once or 
 
HILDA. 5S 
 
 twice his long upper lip trembled as if he thought he 
 had found it ; but it was Alicia who talked, making 
 light accusations against the rigours of the Mission 
 House, complaining of her cousin that he was alto- 
 gether given over to bonds and bands, that she per- 
 sonally would soon cease to hold him in affection at 
 all; she saw so little of him it wasn't really worth 
 while. 
 
 This was old fencing ground between them, and 
 Stephen parried her pleasantly enough, but his eyes 
 strayed speculatively to the other end of the table, 
 where, however, they rose no higher than the firm, 
 lightly-moulded hand that held the cigarette. 
 
 ** If I could found a monastic order," Hilda said, " one 
 of the rules should be a week's compulsory retirement 
 into the world four times a year." She spoke with a 
 kind of grave brightness : it was difficult to know 
 whether she was altogether in jest. 
 
 " There would be a secession all over the place," 
 Arnold responded, with his repressed smile. "You 
 would get any number of probationers; I wonder 
 whether you would keep them ! " 
 
 " During that week," Hilda went on, "they should 
 be compelled to dine and dance every night, to read a 
 * Problem * novel every morning before luncheon, to 
 marry and be given in marriage, and to go to all the 
 variety entertainments. Think of the austere bliss 
 of the return to the cloisters ! All joy lies in a suc- 
 cession of sensations, they say. Do you remember 
 how Lord Ormont arranged his pleasures ? Oh, yes, 
 my brotherhood would be popular, as soon as it was 
 understood." 
 
 Alicia hurried in with something palliating — she 
 
$6 HILDA. 
 
 could remember flippancies of her own that had been 
 rebuked — but there was no sigh or token of disapproval 
 in Arnold's face. What she might have observed 
 there, if she had been keen enough in vision, was a 
 slight disarrangement, so to speak, of the placid 
 priestly mask, and something like the original under- 
 graduate looking out from beneath. 
 
 Hilda began to put on her gloves. The left one 
 gaped at two finger-ends; she buttoned it with the 
 palm thrown up and outward, as if it were the dain- 
 tiest spoil of the Avenue de I'Op^ra. 
 
 " Not yet ! " Alicia cried. 
 
 "Thanks, I must. To-night is our last full re- 
 hearsal, and I have to dress the stage for the first act 
 before six o'clock. And after pulling all that furniture 
 about, I shall want an hour or two in bed." 
 
 "You! But it's monstrous. Is there nobody else ?" 
 
 "I wouldn't let anybody else," Hilda laughed. 
 " Don't forget, please, that we are only strolling play- 
 ers, odds and ends of people, mostly from the An- 
 tipodes. Don't confound our manners and customs 
 with anything you've heard about the Lyceum. 
 Good-bye. It has been charming. Good-bye, Mr. 
 Arnold." 
 
 But Alicia held her hand. " The papers say it is to 
 be The Offence of Galilee^ after all," she said. 
 
 "Yes. Hamilton Bradley is all right again, and 
 we've found a pretty fair local Judas — amateur. We 
 couldn't possibly put it on without Mr. Bradley. He 
 takes the part of" — Hilda glanced at the hem of the 
 listening priestly robe — " of the chief character, you 
 know." 
 
 " That was the great Nonconformist success at home 
 
HILDA. 57 
 
 last year, wasn't it ? " Arnold asked ; " Leslie Patullo's 
 play ? I knew him at Oxford. I can't imagine — he's 
 a queer chap to be writing things like that." 
 
 " It works out better than you — than one might 
 suppose," Hilda returned, moving toward the door. 
 " Some of the situations are really almost novel, in 
 spite of all your centuries of preaching." She sent a 
 disarming smile with that, looking over her shoulder 
 in one of her most effective hesitations, one hand 
 holding back the portiere. 
 
 " And next week ? " cried Alicia. 
 
 " Oh, next week we do L Amourette de Giselle — 
 Frank Golding's re-vamp. Good-bye ! Good-bye ! " 
 
 •' I wonder very much what Patullo has done with 
 The Offence of Galilee,'' Arnold said, after she had 
 gone. 
 
 "Come and see, Stephen. We have a box, and 
 there will be heaps of room. It's — suitable, isn't it? " 
 
 " Oh, quite." 
 
 " Then dine with us — the Yardleys are coming — and 
 go on. Why not ?" 
 
 " Thanks, very much indeed. It is sure to reward 
 one. I think I shall be able to give myself that pleas- 
 ure." 
 
 Arnold made a longer visit than usual ; his cup of 
 coffee, indeed, became a cup of tea; and his talk, 
 while he staid, seemed to suffer less from the limita- 
 tions of his Order than it usually did. He was fluent 
 and direct ; he allowed it to appear that he read more 
 than his prayers, that his glance at the world had still 
 a speculation in it ; and when he went away, he left 
 Alicia with flushed cheeks and brightened eyes, mur- 
 muring a vague inward corollary upon her day — 
 
 " It pays ! It pays ! " 
 
CHAPTER V- 
 
 Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's Company was not the 
 only combination that offered itself to the entertain- 
 ment of Calcutta that December Saturday night. The 
 ever-popular Jimmy Finnigan and his "Surprise 
 Party " — he sailed up the Bay as regularly as the Vice- 
 roy descended from the hills — had been advertising 
 " Side-splitting begins at 9 :30. Prices as usual," with 
 reference to this particular evening for a fortnight. 
 In the Athenian Theatre — it had a tin roof, and no- 
 body could hear the orchestra when it rained — the 
 Midgets were presenting the earlier collaborations of 
 Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, every Midget guaranteed 
 under nine years of age. Colonel Pike's Great Occi- 
 dental Circus had been in full blast on the Maidan for 
 a week. It became a great occidental circus when 
 Colonel Pike married the proprietress. They were 
 both staying at the Grand Oriental Hotel at Singapore 
 when she was made a relict through cholera, and he 
 had more time than he knew what to do with, to say 
 nothing of moustaches that predestined him to a box- 
 office. And certainly circumstances justified the 
 lady's complaisance, for while hitherto hers had been 
 but a fleeting show, it was now, in the excusably im- 
 aginative terms of Colonel Pike, an architectural fea- 
 ture of the cold weather. There was the mystic 
 bower, too, in an octagonal tent under a pipal tree, 
 
HILDA. 
 
 59 
 
 which gave you, by an arrangement of looking-glasses, 
 the most unaccountable sensations for one rupee ; and 
 a signboard cried ** Know Thyself ! " where a physio- 
 logical display lurked from the eyes of the police be- 
 hind a perfectly respectable skeleton at one end of 
 Peri Chandra's Gully. Llewellyn Stanhope saw that 
 there was competition, sighed to think how much, as 
 he stood in the foggy vestibule of the Imperial Theatre 
 wrapped in the impressive folds of his managerial 
 cape, and pulled his moustache and watched the occa- 
 sional carriage that rolled his way up the narrow lane 
 from Chowringhee. He thought bitterly, standing 
 there, of Calcutta's recognition of the claims of legiti- 
 mate drama, for the dank darkness was full of the noise 
 of wheels and the flashing of lamps on the way to ac- 
 cord another season's welcome to Jimmy Finnigan. 
 " I might 've learned this town well enough by now," 
 he reflected, "to know that a bally minstrel show's 
 about the size of it." Mr. Stanhope had not Mr. 
 Finnigan's art of the large red lips and the twanging 
 banjo ; his thought was scornful rather than envious. 
 He aspired, moreover, to be known as the pilot of 
 stars, at least in the incipience of their courses, to be 
 taken seriously by association, since nature had ar- 
 ranged that he never could be on his intrinsic merits. 
 His upper lip was too short for that, his yellow mous- 
 tache too curly, while the perpetual bullying he under- 
 went at the hands of leading ladies gave him an air of 
 deference to everybody else which was sometimes 
 painfully misunderstood. The stars, it must be said 
 regretfully, in connection with so laudable an ambition, 
 nearly always betrayed him, coming down with an un- 
 mistakably meteoric descent, stony-broke in the utter- 
 
6o ^ HILDA. 
 
 most ends of the earth, with a strong inclination to 
 bring the cause of that misfortune before the Consular 
 Courts. They seldom succeeded in this design, since 
 Llewellyn was usually able to prove to them in advance 
 that it would be fruitless and expensive, but the patlis 
 of Eastern capitals were strewn with his compromises, 
 in Japanese yen, Chinese dollars, Indian rupees, for 
 salaries which no amount of advertising could wheedle 
 into the box-office. When the climax came Llewellyn 
 usually went to hospital and received the reporters of 
 local papers in pathetic audience there, which coun- 
 teracted the effect of the astounding statements the 
 stars made in letters to the editor, and yet gave the 
 public clearly to understand that owing to its coldness 
 and neglect a number of ladies and gentlc.nen of very 
 superior talents were subsisting in their midst mainly 
 upon brinjals and soda water. *' I'm in hospital," Mr. 
 
 Stanhope would say to the reporters, "and I'm d 
 
 glad of it." — he always insisted on the oath going in, 
 it appealed so sympathetically to the domiciled Eng- 
 lishman grown cold to superiority — " for, upon my 
 soul, I don't know where I'd turn for a crust if I 
 weren't." In the end the talented ladies and gentle- 
 men usually went home by an inexpensive line as the 
 voluntary arrangement of a public to whom plain soda 
 was a ludicrous hardship, and native vegetables an 
 abomination at any price. Then Llewellyn and Rosa 
 Norton — she had a small inalienable income, and they 
 were really married, though they preferred for some 
 inexplicable reason to be thought guilty of more im- 
 proper behaviour — would depart in another direction 
 full of gratification for the present and of confidence 
 for the future. Llewellyn usually made a parting 
 
HILDA. 6l 
 
 statement to the newspapers that, although his aims 
 were unalterably high, he was not above profiting by 
 experience, and that next season he could be relied 
 upon to hit the taste of the community with precision. 
 This year, as we know, he had made a serious effort by 
 insisting that at least a proportion of his ladies and 
 gentlemen should be high kickers, and equal to an im- 
 itation, good enough for the Orient, of most things 
 done by the illustrious Mr. Chevalier. But the fact 
 that Mr. Stanhope had selected The Offence of Galilee 
 to open with tells its own talc. He was convinced, 
 but not converted, and he stood there with his little 
 legs apart, chewing a straw above the three uncut 
 emeralds that formed the chaste decoration of his 
 shirt-front, giving the public of Calcutta one more 
 chance to redeem itself. 
 
 It began to look as if Calcutta were not wholly 
 irredeemable. A ticca-gharry deposited a sea cap- 
 tain ; three carriages arrived in succession ; an indef- 
 inite number of the Duke's Own, hardly any of them 
 drunk, filed in to the rupee seats under the gallery ; 
 an overflow from Jimmy Finnigan, who could no 
 longer give his patrons even standing room. When 
 this occurred, Llewellyn turned and swung indifferently 
 away in the direction of the dressing-rooms. When 
 Jimmy Finnigan closed his doors so early there was 
 no further cause for anxiety. Calcutta was abroad 
 and stirring, and would turn for amusement even to 
 The Offence of Galilee. 
 
 Eventually — that is, five minutes before the curtain 
 rose — the representatives of the leading Calcutta 
 journals decided that they were justified in describing 
 the house as a large and fashionable audience. The 
 
62 HILDA. 
 
 Viceroy had taken a box and sent an /.vide-de-Camp 
 to sit in it, also a pair of M.P.s from the North of 
 England, whom he was expected to attend to in 
 Calcutta, and the governess. The Commander-in- 
 Chief had not been solicited to be present, the 
 theatrical season demanding an economy in such 
 personalities if they were to go round ; but a Judge 
 of the High Court had a party in the front row, and a 
 Secretary to the Bengal Government sat behind him. 
 To speak of unofificials, there must have been quite 
 forty lakhs of tea and jute and indigo in the house, 
 very genial and prosperous, to say nothing of hides 
 and seeds, and the men who sold money and bought 
 diamonds with the profits, which shone in their wives* 
 hair. A duskiness prevailed in the bare arms and 
 shoulders ; much of the hair was shining and abun- 
 dant, and very black. A turn of the head showed a 
 lean Greek profile, an outline bulbous and Armenian, 
 the smooth creamy mask of a Jewess, while here and 
 there glimmered something more opulent and inviting 
 still, which proclaimed, if it did not confess, the re- 
 mote motherhood of the zenana and the origin of the 
 sun. An audience of fluttering fans and wrinkled 
 shirt collars — the evening was warm under the gas- 
 lights — sensuous, indolent, already amused with itself. 
 Not an old woman in it from end to end, hardly a 
 man turned fifty, and those who were had the air and 
 looked to have the habits of twenty-five — an audience 
 that might have got up and stretched itself but for 
 good manners, and walked out in childish boredom at 
 having to wait for the rise of the curtain, but sat on 
 instead, diffusing an atmosphere of affluence and 
 delicate scents, and suggesting, with imperious chins, 
 
HILDA. 63 
 
 the use of quick orders in a world of personal superi- 
 
 ority. 
 
 Thus the stalls—they were spindling cane-bottomed 
 chairs — and the boxes, in one of which the same spind- 
 ling cane-bottomed chairs supported, in more expen- 
 sive seclusion, Surgeon-Major and Miss Livingstone, 
 the Reverend Stephen Arnold, and two or three other 
 people. The Duke's Own sat under the gallery, 
 cheek by jowl with all the flotsam and jetsam of an 
 Eastern port, well on the lookout for any offensive 
 personalities from the men of the ships, and spitting 
 freely. Here, too, was an ease of shoulder and a 
 freedom from the cares of life— at a venture the wives 
 were taking in washing in Brixton, and the children 
 sent to Board School at the expense of the nation. 
 And in a climate like this it was a popular opinion 
 that a man must either enjoy himself or commit 
 suicide. 
 
 The Sphinx on the crooked curtain looked above 
 and beyond them all. It was a caricature of the 
 Sphinx, but could not confine her gaze. 
 
 Hilda's audience that night knew all about The 
 Offence of Galilee from the English illustrated papers. 
 The illustrated papers had a great way of ministering 
 to the complacency of Calcutta audiences; they con- 
 tained photographs of almost every striking scene, 
 composed at the leisure of the cast, but so vividly sup- 
 plemented with descriptions of the leading lady's 
 clothes that it hardly required any effort of the imagi- 
 nation to conjure up the rest. The postures and the 
 chief garments of Pilate — he was eating pomegranates 
 when the curtain rose and listening to scandal from 
 his slave maidens about Mary Magdalene — were at 
 
] 
 
 64 HILDA. 
 
 once recognised in their resemblance to those of the 
 photographs, and in the thrill of this satisfaction any 
 discrepancies in cut and texture passed generally un- 
 observed. A silent curiosity settled upon the house, 
 half reverent, as if with the Bible names came throng- 
 ing a troop of sacred associations to cluster about 
 personalities brusquely torn out of church, and peo- 
 ple listened for familiar sentences with something like 
 the composed gravity with which they heard on Sun- 
 days the reading of the second lesson. But as the 
 stage-talk went on, the slave-maidens announcing 
 themselves without delay comfortably modern and 
 commonplace, and Pilate a cynic and a decadent, 
 though as distinctively from Melbourne, it was possi- 
 ble to note the breaking up of this sentiment. It was 
 plain, after all, that no standard of ideality was to be 
 maintained or struggled after. The relief was palpa- 
 ble ; nevertheless, when Pilate's wife cast a shrewish 
 gibe at him over the shoulder of her exit, the audience 
 showed but a faint inclination to be amused. It was 
 to be a play evidently like any other play, the same 
 coarse fibre, the same vivid and vulgar appeals. It 
 is doubtful whether this idea was critically present 
 to any one but Stephen Arnold, but people uncon- 
 sciously tasted the dramatic substance offered them, 
 and leaned back in their chairs with the usual patient 
 acknowledgment that one mustn't expect too much 
 of a company that found it worth while to come to 
 Calcutta. The house grew submissive and stolid, but 
 one could see half-awakened prejudices sitting in the 
 dress-circle. The paper-chasing Secretary said to the 
 most intelligent of his party that on the whole he 
 liked his theology neat, forgetting that the preference 
 
i 
 
 m 
 
 L? ' 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 65 
 
 belonged to Mr. Andrew Lang in connection with a 
 notable lady novelist; and the most intelligent— it 
 was Mrs. Barberry — replied that it did seem strange. 
 The depths under the gallery were critically attentive, 
 though Llewellyn Stanhope felt them hostile and long- 
 ing for verbal brick-bats; and the Reverend Mr. 
 Arnold shrank into the furthest corner of Surgeon- 
 Major Livingstone's box, and knew all the misery of 
 outrage. Pilate and the slave-maidens, Pilate's fat 
 wife and an unspeakably comic centurion, offered as 
 yet hardly more than a prelude, but the monstrosity 
 of the whole performance was already projected upon 
 Arnold's suffering imagination. This, then, was what 
 PatuUo had done with it. But what other, he asked 
 himself in quiet anger, could Patullo have been ex- 
 pected to do — the fellow he remembered ? Arnold 
 tilted his chair back and stared, with arms folded and 
 sombre brows, at the opposite wall. He looked once 
 at the door, but some spirit of self-torture kept him in 
 his seat. If so much offence could be made with the 
 mere crust and envelope, so to speak, of the sacred 
 story, what sacrilege might not be committed with 
 the divine personalities concerned — with Our Lord 
 and His Mother? He remembered, with the touch of 
 almost physical nausea that assailed him when he saw 
 them, one or two pictures in recent Paris exhibitions 
 where the coveted accent of surprise had been pro- 
 duced by representing the sacred figure in the trivial 
 monde of the boulevards, and fixed '^pon them as the 
 source of Patullo's intolerable inspiration. Certain 
 muscles felt responsive at the thought of Patullo 
 which Arnold had forgotten he possessed ; it was so 
 seldom that a missionary priest, even of athletic tra- 
 
1 
 
 11 
 
 66 HILDA. 
 
 ditions, came in contact with anybody who required 
 to be kicked. 
 
 Alicia was in front with the Yardleys, dropping her 
 unfailing plummet into the evening's experience. 
 Arnold, hesitating over the rudeness of departure, 
 thought she was sufficiently absorbed ; she would 
 hardly mind. The centurion slapped his tin armour, 
 and made a jest about the King of the Jews which 
 reached Stephen over his hostess's shoulder and 
 seemed to brand him where he sat. He looked about 
 for his hat and some excuse that would serve, and 
 while he looked the sound of applause rose from the 
 house. It was a demonstration without great energy, 
 hardly more than a flutter from stall to stall, with a 
 vague, fundamental noise from the gallery ; but it had 
 the quality which acclaimed something new. Arnold 
 glanced at the stage and saw that while Pilate and the 
 hollow-chested slaves and the tin centurion were still 
 on they had somehow lost significance and colour, had 
 faded into the impotent figures of a tapestry, and that 
 all the meaning and the dominance of the situation 
 had gathered into the person of a woman of the East 
 who danced. She was almost discordant in her literal- 
 ness, in her clear olive tints and the kol smudges under 
 her eyes, the string of coi^s in the mass of her fall'^n 
 hair, and her unfettered body. Beside her the slave- 
 girls, crouching, looked liked painted shells. She 
 danced before Pilate in strange Eastern ways, in plastic 
 weavings and gesturings that seemed to be the telling 
 of a tale ; and from the orchestra only one unknown 
 instrument sobbed out to help her. The women of 
 the people have ever bought in Palestine, buy to-day 
 in the Mousky, the course, thick grey-blue cotton that 
 
 4 
 
 A 
 
.V 
 
 I'*^ 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 6; 
 
 fell about her limbs, and there was audacity in the 
 poverty of her beaten silver anklets and armlets. 
 These shone and twinkled with her movements ; but 
 her softly splendid eyes and reddened lips had the im- 
 mobility of the bazaar. People looked at their play- 
 bills to see whether it was really Hilda Howe or some 
 nautch-queen borrowed from a native theatre. By 
 the time she sank before Pilate and placed his foot 
 upon her head a new spirit had breathed upon the 
 house. Under the unexpectedness of the repre- 
 sentation it sat up straight, and there was a keenness 
 of desire to see what would happen next which plainly 
 curtailed the applause, as it does with the children 
 at a pantomime. 
 
 " Have you ever seen anything like it before ? " 
 Alicia asked Captain Yardley ; and he said bethought 
 he had once, in Algiers, but not nearly so well done. 
 Arnold rose again to go, but the Magdalene had begun 
 to use her arts upon Pilate in the well-known scene 
 about which the newspapers reported long afterwards 
 how the Pope had declared that if Miss Howe had not 
 been a Protestant and so impervious he would have 
 excommunicated her — and as he looked his movement 
 imperceptibly changed to afford him a better place. 
 He put an undecided hand upon a prop of the box 
 that rose behind Alicia's shoulder, and so stood lean- 
 ing and looking, more conspicuous in the straight lines 
 and short shoulder-cape of the frock of his Order than 
 he knew. Hilda, in one of those impenetrable regards 
 which she threw straight in front of her while Pilate 
 yawned and posed nearer and nearer the desire of the 
 Magdalene to be admitted to his household, was at 
 once aware of him. Presently he sat down again — it 
 
 
! 
 
 68 HILDA. 
 
 was '-♦^ill the profane, the fabulous, the horrible PatuUo, 
 but a strain of pure gold had come into the fabric 
 worth holding in view, impossible, indeed, to close the 
 eyes upon. Far enough it was from any semblance to 
 historical fact, but almost possible, almost admissible, 
 in the form of the woman, as historical fiction. She 
 dared to sit upon the floor now, in the ungraceful, 
 huddled Eastern fashion, clasping her knees to her 
 breast, with her back half turned to her lord the friend 
 of Caesar, so that he could not see the design that sat 
 behind the mask of her sharp indifference. She rested 
 her chin upon her knees, and let the blankncss of her 
 beauty exclaim upon the subtlety of her replies, plainly 
 measuring the power of her provocation against the 
 impoverished quality that camp and grove, court and 
 schools, might leave upon august Roman sensibilities. 
 It was the old, old sophistication, so perfect in its con- 
 centration behind the >(W-brushed eyes and the brown 
 breasts, the igniting, flickering, raging of an instinct 
 upon the stage. Alicia, when it was over, said to Mrs. 
 Yardley, " How the modern woman goes off upon side 
 issues ? " to which that lady nodded a rather suspicious 
 assent. 
 
 Long before Hilda had begun to act for Arnold, to 
 play to his special consciousness, he was fastened to his 
 chair, held down, so to speak, by a whirlpool of con- 
 flicting impulses. She did so much more than " lift "• 
 the inventive vulgarisation of the Bible story in the 
 common sense ; she inspired and transfused it so that 
 wherever she appeared people irresistibly forgot the 
 matter for her, or made private acknowledgments to 
 the effect that something was to be said even for an 
 impious fantasy which gave her so unique an opportu- 
 
HILDA. 
 
 69 
 
 y-A 
 
 nity. To Arnold her vivid embodiment of an incident 
 in that which was his morning and evening meditation 
 made special appeal, and though it was in a way as if 
 she had thrust her heathen torch into his Holy of Ho- 
 lies, he saw it lighted with fascination, and could not 
 close the door upon her. The moment of her discovery 
 of this came early, and it is only she, perhaps,who could 
 tell how the strange bond wove itself that drew her be- 
 ing — the M. ^dalene's — to the priest who sat behind a 
 lady in swansdown and chiffon in the upper box near- 
 est to the stage on the right. The beginnings of such 
 things are untraceable, but the fact may be considered 
 in connection with this one that Hamilton Bradley, 
 who represented, as we have been told he would, the 
 Chief Character, did it upon lines very recognisably 
 those of the illustrations of sacred books, very correct 
 as to the hair and beard and pictured garment of the 
 Galilean ; with every accent of hollow-eyed pallor and 
 inscrutable remoteness, with all the thin vagueness, 
 too, of a popular engraving, the limitations and the 
 depression. Under it one saw the painful inconsist- 
 ency of the familiar Hamilton Bradley of other present- 
 ations, and realised with irritation, which must have 
 been tenfold in Hilda, how he hated the part. Per- 
 haps this was enough in itself to send her dramatic 
 impulse to another focus, and the strangeness of the ad- 
 venture was a very thing she would delight in. What- 
 ever may be said about it, while yet the hideousness of 
 the conception and display of a woman's natural pas- 
 sion for the man Christ Jesus was receding from 
 Arnold's mind before the exquisite charm and faithful- 
 ness of the worshipping Magdalene, he became aware 
 that in some special way he sat judging and pitying 
 
70 HILDA. 
 
 her. She had hardly lifted her eyes to him twice, yet 
 it was he, intimately he, who responded, as if from afar 
 off, to the touch of her infinite solicitude and abase- 
 ment, the joy and the shame of her love. As he 
 watched and knew his lips tightened and his face 
 paled with the throb of his own renunciation, he 
 folded his celibate arms in the habit of his brotherhood 
 and was caught up into a knowledge and an imitation 
 of how the spotless Original would have looked upon * 
 
 a woman suffering and transported thus. The poverty I 
 
 of the play faded out; he became almost unaware of 
 the pinchbeck and the fustian of Patullo's invention 
 and its insufferable mixture with the fabric of which 
 every thread was precious beyond imagination. He 
 looked down with tender patience and compassion 
 upon the development of the woman's intrigue in the 
 palace, through the very flower of her crafts and 
 guiles, to save him who had transfigured her from the 
 hands of the rabble and the high priests ; he did not 
 even shrink from the inexpressibly grating note of the 
 purified Magdalene's final passionate tendering of her 
 personal sacrifice to the enamoured Pilate as the price of 
 His freedom, and when at the last she wept at His feet, 
 where He was bound waiting for His cross, and wrapped 
 them, in the agony of her abandonment, in the hair 
 of her head, the priest's lips almost moved in words 
 other than those the playwright had given his Christ 
 to say — words that told her he knew the height and the 
 depth of her sacrifice and forgave it, " Neither do I com- 
 demn thee ..." In his exultation he saw what it was 
 to perform miracles, to remit sins. The spark of divin- 
 ity that was in him glowed to a white heat ; the woman 
 on the stage warmed her hands at it in two conscious- 
 
 wm 
 
HILDA. 
 
 71 
 
 nesses. She was stirred through all her artistic sense in 
 a new and delicious way, and wakened in some dormant 
 part of her to a knowledge beautiful and surprising. She 
 felt in every nerve the exquisite quality of that which 
 lay between them, and it thrilled her through all her 
 own perception of what she did, and all the applause at 
 how she did it. It was as if he, the priest, was borne 
 out upon a deep, broad current that made toward 
 solar spaces, toward infinite bounds, and as if she, the 
 actress, piloted him. ... 
 
 The Sphinx on the curtain — it had gone down in the 
 old crooked lines — again looked above and beyond 
 them all. I have sometimes fancied a trace of malig- 
 nancy about her steady eyeballs, but perhaps that is 
 the accident or the design of the scene-painter ; it does 
 not show in photographs. The audience was dispers- 
 ing a trifle sedately ; the performance had been, as 
 Mrs. Barberry told Mr. Justice Home, interesting but 
 depressing. " I hope," said Alicia to Stephen, fasten- 
 ing the fluffy-white collar of the wrap he put round 
 her, " that I needn't be sorry I asked you to come. I 
 don't quite know. But she did redeem it, didn't she? 
 That last scene, where she knows what they are doing 
 to Him " 
 
 " Can you not be silent ? " Arnold said, almost in a 
 whisper; and her look of astonishment showed her 
 that there were tears in his eyes. He left the theatre 
 and walked light-headedly across Chowringhee and 
 out into the starlit empty darkness of the Maidan, 
 where presently he stumbled upon a wooden bench 
 under a tree. There, after a little, sleep fell upon his 
 amazement, and he lay unconscious for an hour or 
 two, while the breeze stole across the grass from the 
 
72 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 river, and the masthead lights watched beside the 
 city He woke chilled and normal, and when he 
 reached the Mission House in College street his ser- 
 vant was surprised at the unusual irritation of a neces- 
 sary rebuke. 
 
 MHw 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 While Alicia Livingstone fought with her imagina- 
 tion in accounting for Duff Lindsay's absence from 
 the theatre on the first night of a notable presentation 
 by Miss Hilda Howe, he sat with his knees crossed on 
 the bench furthest back in the corner obscurest of the 
 Salvation Army Headquarters in Bentinck street. It 
 had become his accustomed place ; sitting there he 
 had begun to feel like the adventurer under Niagara, 
 it was the only spot from which he could observe, try 
 to understand, and cope with the torrential nature of 
 his passion. Nearer to the fair charm of her pres- 
 ence in the uncertain flare of the kerosene lamp and 
 the sound of the big drum, he grew blind, lost count, 
 was carried away. His persistent refusal of a better 
 place also profited him in that it brought to Ensign 
 Sand and the other "officers" the divination that he 
 was one of those shyly anxious souls who have to be 
 enticed into the Kingdom of Heaven with wariness, 
 and they made a great pretence of not noticing him, 
 going on with the exercises just as if he were not 
 there, a consideration which he was able richly to en- 
 liance when the plate came round. After his first 
 contribution Mrs. Sand regarded his spiritual interests 
 with almost superstitious reverence, according them 
 the fullest privacy of which she was capable. The 
 gravity which the gentleman attached to his situation 
 
74 
 
 HILDA.. 
 
 was sufficiently testified by the " amount ** ; Mrs. Sand 
 never wanted better evidence than the amount. Even 
 Laura, acting doubtless under instructions, seemed 
 disposed to hold away from him in her prayers and 
 exhortations ; only a very occasional allusion passed 
 her lips which Duff could appropriate. These, when 
 they fell, he gathered and set like flowers in his ten- 
 (lerest consciousness, to visit and water them after the 
 sun went down and for twenty-four hours he would 
 not see her again. Her intonation went with them 
 and her face, they lived on that. They stirred him, I 
 mean, least of all in the manner of their intention. 
 After the first quarter of an hour it is to be feared 
 Lindsay suffered no more apprehensions on the score 
 of emotional hypnotism. He recognised his situation 
 plainly enough, and there was no appeal in it of which 
 the Reverend Stephen Arnold for example could 
 properly suspect the genuineness or the permanence. 
 
 On this Saturday night he sat through the meeting 
 as he had sat through other meetings, absorbed in his 
 exquisite experience, which he meditated mostly with 
 his eyes on the floor. His attitude was one quite 
 adapted to deceive Ensign Sand ; if he had been oc- 
 cupied with the burden of his transgressions it was 
 one he might very well have fallen into. When Laura 
 knelt or sang he sometimes looked at her, at other 
 times he looked at the situation in the brightness of 
 her presence at the other end of the room. She gave 
 forth there, for Lindsay, an illumination by which he 
 almost immediately began to read his life, and it was 
 because he thought he had done this with accuracy 
 and intelligence that he came up behind her that 
 evening when the meeting was over as she followed 
 
 i 
 
 ^, 
 
HILDA. 
 
 f$ 
 
 the rest, with her sari drawn over her head, out into 
 the darkness of Bentinck street, and said with direct- 
 ness, " I should like to come and see you. When may 
 I ? Any time that suits you. Have you half an hour 
 to spare to-morrow ? " 
 
 It was plain that she was tired, and that the bright- 
 ness with which she welcomed his advance was a trifle 
 taught and perfunctory. Not the frankness, though, 
 or the touch of " Now we are getting to business," 
 that stood somehow in her expression. She looked 
 alert and pleased. 
 
 "You would like to have a little talk, wouldn't 
 you?" she said. Her manner took Lindsay a trifle 
 aback, it suggested that she conferred this privilege so 
 freely. " To-morrow — let me see, we march in the 
 morning, and I have an open-air at four in the after- 
 noon — the Ensign takes the evening meeting. Yes, I 
 could see you to-morrow about two or about seven, 
 after I get back from the Square." It was not unlike 
 a professional appointment. 
 
 Lindsay considered. " Thanks," he said, " I'll come 
 at about seven — if you are sure you won't be too ex- 
 hausted to have me after such a day." 
 
 He saw that her lids as she raised them to answer 
 were slightly reddened at the edges, testifying to the 
 acridity of Calcutta's road dust, and a dry crack crept 
 into the silver voice with which she said matter-of- 
 factly, " We are never too exhausted to attend to our 
 Master's business." 
 
 Lindsay's face expressed an instant's hesitation, he 
 looked gravely the other way. "And the address?" 
 he said. 
 
 "Almost next door — we all live within bugle-call. 
 
;6 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 The entrance is in Crooked lane. Anybody will tell 
 you." 
 
 At the door Ensign Sand was conspicuously wait- 
 ing. Arnold said " Thanks " again and passed out — 
 she seemed to be holding it for him — and picked his 
 way over the gutters to the shop of his Chinaman op- 
 posite. From there he watched the little company 
 issue forth and turn into Crooked lane, where the en- 
 trance was. It gave him a sense that she had her 
 part in this squalor, which was not altogether distress- 
 ful in that it also localised her in the warm, living, 
 habitable world, and helped to make her thinkable 
 and attainable. Then he went to his room at the 
 club and found there a note from Miss Howe, written 
 apparently to forgive him in advance, to say that she 
 had not expected him. " Friendly creature ! " he said 
 as he turned out the lamp, and smiled in the dark to 
 think that already there was one who guessed, who 
 knew. 
 
 One gropes in Crooked lane after the lights of 
 Bentinck street have done all that can be expected of 
 them. There are various things to avoid, washer- 
 men's donkeys and pariah dogs, unyoked ticca- 
 gharries, heaps of rubbish, perhaps a leprous beggar. 
 Lindsay, when he had surmounted these, found him- 
 self at the entrance to a quadrangle which was 
 positively dark. He waylaid a sweeper slinking out, 
 and the man showed him where an open staircase ran 
 down against the wall in one corner. It was up there, 
 he said, that the " tamasho-mems *' * lived. There 
 were three tamasho-mems, he continued, responding 
 to Arnold's trivial coin, and one sahib, but this was 
 
 * Festival-making women. 
 
 1 
 
' 
 
 I HILDA. ^^ 
 
 •y< 
 
 not the time for the tamasho — it was finished. 
 Lindsay mounted the first flight by faith, and paused 
 at the landing to avoid collision with a heavy body 
 descending. He inquired Miss Filbert's whereabouts 
 from this person, who providentially lighted a cigar, 
 disclosing himself a bald Armenian in tusser silk 
 trousers and a dirty shirt, presumably, Lindsay 
 thought, the landlord. At all events, he had the 
 information. Lindsay was to keep straight on ; it was 
 the third story, ** and a lovclie airie flat, too, sir, for 
 this part of the town." Duff kept straight on in a 
 spirit of caution and just missed treading upon the 
 fattest rat in the heathen parish of St. John's. At 
 the top he saw a light and hastened ; it shone from 
 an open door at the side of a passage. The partition 
 in which the door was came considerably short of the 
 ceiling, and from the top of it to the window opposite 
 !|^ stretched a line of garments to dry, of pungent odour 
 
 and infantile pattern. Lindsay dared no further, but 
 lifted up his voice in the Indian way to summon a 
 servant. " Qui hai ! " * he called ; " Qui hai ! " 
 
 He heard somewhere within the noise of a chair 
 pushed back, and a door further down the passage 
 opened outwards, disclosing Laura Filbert with her 
 hand upon the handle. She made a supple, graceful 
 picture. " Good evening, Mr. Lindsay," she said as 
 he advanced. " Won't you come in?" She clung to 
 the handle until he had passed into the room, then 
 she closed the door after him. " I was expecting 
 you," she said. " Mr. Harris, let me make you 
 acquainted with Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Lindsay, Mr. 
 Harris." 
 
 •" Whoever is there ! " 
 
1 
 
 78 HILDA. 
 
 Mr. Harris was sitting sideways on one of the three 
 cane-bottomed chairs. He was a clumsily built 
 youth, and he wore the private's garb of the Salva- 
 tion Army. It was apparent that he had been reading 
 a newspaper ; he had a displeasing air of possession. 
 At Laura's formula he looked up and nodded without 
 amiability, folded his journal the other side out and 
 returned to it. 
 
 " Please take a seat," Laura said, and Lindsay took 
 one. He had a demon of self-consciousness that 
 possessed him often, here he felt dumb. Nor did he 
 in the very least expect Mr. Harris. He crossed his 
 legs in greater discomfort than he had dreamed possi- 
 ble, looking at Laura, who sat down like a third 
 stranger, curiously detached from any sense of hospi- 
 tality. 
 
 " Mr. Lindsay is anxious about his soul, Mr. Harris," 
 she said pleasantly. " I guess you can tell him what 
 to do about it as well as I can." 
 
 "Oh!" Lindsay began, but Mr. Harris had the 
 word. "Is he?" said Mr. Harris, without looking 
 up from his paper. " Well, what I've got to siy on 
 that subject I say at the evenin' meetin', which is a 
 proper an* a public plac» He can hear it there any 
 day of the week." 
 
 " I think I have already heard," remarked Lindsay, 
 " what you have to say." 
 
 "Then that's all right," said Mr. Harris, with his 
 eyes still upon his newspaper. He appeared to de- 
 vour it. Laura looked from one to the other of them 
 and fell upon an exped'ent. 
 
 " If you'll excuse me," she said, " I'll just get you 
 that bicycle story you were kind enough to lend me. 
 
m 
 
 4 
 
 HILDA. 79 
 
 Mr. Harris, and you can take »^ with you. The 
 Ensign's got it," and she left t; , :oom. Lindsay 
 glanced round and promptly announced to himself 
 that he could not" come there again. It was taking 
 too violent an advantage. The pursuit of an angel does 
 not imply that you may trap her in her corner under 
 the Throne. The place was divided by a calico cur- 
 tain, over which plainly showed the top of a mosquito 
 curtain — she slept in there. On the walls were all 
 tender texts about loving and believing and bearing 
 others* burdens, interspersed with photographs, mostly 
 of women with plain features and enthusiastic eyes, 
 dressed in some strange costume of the Army in 
 Madras, Ceylon, China. A little wooden table stood 
 against the wall holding an album, a Bible and hymn- 
 books, a work-basket and an irrelevant Japanese doll 
 which seemed to stretch its absurd arms straight 
 out In a gay little ineffectual heathen protest. There 
 was another more embarrassing table ; it had a coarse 
 cloth and was garnisHed with a loaf and butter-dish, a 
 plate of plantains and a tin of marmalade, knives and 
 tea-cups for a meal evidently impending. It was 
 atrociously, sordidly intimate, with its core in Harris, 
 who when Miss Filbert had well gone from the room 
 looked up. " If you're here on private business," he 
 said to Lindsay, fixing his eyes, however, on a point 
 awkwardly to the left of him, " maybe you ain't aware 
 that the Ensign " — he threw his head back in the direc- 
 tion of the next room — " is the person to apply to. 
 She's in command here. Captain Filbert's only under 
 her." 
 " Indeed ? " said Lindsay. " Thanks." 
 "It ain't li)<e it is in the Queen's army," Harris 
 
So 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 volunteered, still searching Lindsay's vicinity for a 
 point upon which his eye could permanently rest, 
 "where, if you remember, ensigns are the smallest 
 officer we have." 
 
 " The commission is, I think, abolished," replied 
 Lindsay, trying to govern a deep and irritated frown. 
 
 " Maybe so. This Army don't pretend to pattern 
 very close on the other — not in discipline, anyhow," 
 said Mr. Harris with ambiguity. " But you'll find 
 Ensign Sand very willing to do anything she can for 
 you. She's a hard-working officer." 
 
 A sharp wail smote the air from a point suspiciously 
 close to the lath and canvas partition on the other 
 side, followed by hasty bushings and steps in the oppo- 
 site direction. It enabled Lindsay to observe that Mr. 
 Sand seemed at present to be sufficiently engaged, at 
 which Mr. Harris shifted one heavy limb over the 
 other and lapsed into silence, looking sternly at an 
 advertisement. The air was full of their mutual an- 
 noyance, although Duff tried to feel amused. They 
 were raging as primitively, under the red flannel shirt 
 and the tan-coloured waistcoat with white silk spots, as 
 two cave-men on an Early British coast ; their only 
 sophistication lay in Harris's newspaper and Lindsay's 
 idea that he ought to find this person humourous. 
 Then Laura came back and resolved the situation. 
 
 " Here it is," she said, handing the volume to Mr. 
 Harris ; " we have all enj.^yed it. Thank you very 
 much." There was in it the oddest mixture of the su- 
 preme feminine and the superior officer, Harris, as he 
 took the book, had no alternative. 
 
 " Good-evening, then. Captain," said he, and went 
 stumbling at the door. 
 
HILDA. 
 
 8i 
 
 •* Mr. Harris," said Laura, equably, " found salvation 
 about a month ago. He is a very steady young man 
 — foreman in one of the carriage works here. He is 
 now struggling with the tobacco habit, and he often 
 drops in in the evening." 
 
 " He seems to be a — a member of the corps," said 
 Lindsay. 
 
 " He would be, only for the carriage wcrks. He 
 says he doesn't find himself strong enough in grace to 
 give up his situation yet. But he wears the uniform 
 at the meetings to show his sympathy, and the Ensign 
 doesn't think there's any objection." 
 
 Laura was sitting straight up in one of the cane- 
 bottomed chairs, her sart drawn over her head, her 
 hands folded in her lap. The native dress clung to 
 her limbs in sculpturable lines, and her consecrated 
 ambitions seemed more insistent than ever. She had 
 nothing to do with anything else, nothing to do with 
 her room or its arrangements, nothing, Lindsay felt 
 profoundly, to do with him. Her personal zeal for 
 him seemed to resolve itself, at the point of contact, 
 into something disappointingly thin; he saw that she 
 counted with him altogether as a unit in a glorious to- 
 tal, and that he himself had no place in her knowledge 
 or her desire. This brought him, with something like 
 a shock, to a sense of how far he had depended on her 
 interest for his soul's sake to introduce her to a wider 
 view of him. 
 
 '* But you have come to tell me about yourself," she 
 said, suddenly, it seemed to Lindsay, who was wrapped 
 in the contemplation of her profile. ** Well, is there 
 any special stumbling-block?" 
 
 " There are some things I should certainly like you 
 
82 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 to know," replied Lindsay ; " but you can't think how 
 difficult " he glanced at the lath and plaster parti- 
 tion, but she, to whom publicity was a condition salu- 
 tary, if not essential, to spiritual experience, naturally 
 had no interpretation for that. 
 
 " I know it's sometimes hard to speak," she said ; 
 '• Satan ties our tongues." 
 
 The misunderstanding was almost absurd, but he 
 saw only its difificulties, knitting his brows. 
 
 " I fear you will find my story very strange and very 
 mad," he said. " I cannot be sure that you will even 
 listen to it." 
 
 " Oh," Laura said, simply, ** do not be afraid ! I 
 have heard confessions ! I work at home, you see, 
 a good deal among the hospitals, and — we do not 
 ishrink, you know, in the Army from things like that." 
 
 "Good God!" he exclaimed, staring, "you don't 
 think — you don't suppose " 
 
 *' Ah ! don't say that ! It's so like swearing." 
 
 As he sat in helpless anger, trying to formulate 
 something intelligible, the curtain parted, and a 
 sallow little Eurasian girl of eighteen, also in the 
 dress of tlie Army, came through from the bedroom 
 part. She smiled in a conscious, meaningless way, 
 as she sidled past them. At the door her smile 
 broadened, and as she closed it after her she gave 
 them a little nod. 
 
 " That's my lieutenant," said Laura. 
 
 " The place is like a warren," Lindsay groaned. 
 " How can we talk here ? " 
 
 Laura looked at him gravely, as one making a 
 diagnosis. " Do you think," she said, " a word of 
 prayer would help you ? " 
 
HILDA. 
 
 83 
 
 •' No," said Lindsay. " No, thank you. What is 
 making me miserable," he added quietly, ** is the 
 knowledge that we are being overheard. If you go 
 into the next room, I am quite certain you will find 
 Mrs. Sand listening by the wall." 
 
 "She's gone out ! She and the Captain and Miss 
 De Souza, to take the evening meeting. Nobody is 
 in there except the two children, and they are asleep." 
 Her smile, bethought, made a Madonna of her. " In- 
 deed, wc are quite alone, you and I, in the flat now. 
 So please don't be afraid, Mr. Lindsay ! Say what- 
 ever is in your heart, and the mere saying " 
 
 "Oh," Lindsay cried, "stop! Don't, for Heaven's 
 sake, look at me in that light any longer. I'm not peni- 
 tent. I'm not — what do you call it ? — a soul under con- 
 viction. Nothing of the sort." He waited with con- 
 siderateness for this to have its efTect upon her ; he 
 could not go on until he saw her emerge, gasping, 
 from the inundation of it. But she was not even 
 staggered by it. She only looked down at her folded 
 hands with an added seriousness and a touch of sor- 
 row. 
 
 " Aren't you ? " she said. " But at least you feel 
 that you ought to be. I thought it had been accom- 
 plished. But I will go on praying." 
 
 " Shall you be very angry if I tell you that I'd 
 rather you didn't? I want to come into you" life 
 differently — sincerely." 
 
 She looked at him with such absolute biankness 
 that his resolution was swiftly overturned, and showed 
 him a different face. 
 
 " I won't tell you anything about what I feel and 
 what I want to-night except this — I find t* at you are 
 
 f 
 
I 
 
 84 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 influencing all my thoughts and all my days in what 
 is to me a very new and a very happy way. You 
 hear as much as that often, and from many people, 
 don't you ? So there is nothing in it that need startle 
 you or make you uncomfortable." He paused, and 
 she nodded in a visible effort to follow him. 
 
 " So I am here to-night to ask you to let me do 
 something for you just for my own pleasure — there 
 must be some way of helping you, and being your 
 friend " 
 
 " As Mr. Harris is," she interrupted. " I do influ- 
 ence Mr. Harris for good, I know. He says so." 
 
 " Influence me," he begged, " in any way you like." 
 
 " I will pray for you," she said. " I promise that." 
 
 " And you will let me see you sometimes ? " he 
 asked, conceding the point. 
 
 '* If I thought it would do you any good " — she 
 looked at him doubtfully, clasping and unclasping her 
 hands — ** I will see ; I will ask for guidance. Perhaps 
 it is one of His own appointed ways. If you have no 
 objection, I will give you this little book, Almost 
 Persuaded. I am sure you are almost persuaded. 
 Above all, I hope you will go on coming to the 
 meetings." 
 
 And in the course of the next two or three moments 
 Lindsay found himself, somewhat to his astonishment, 
 again in the night of the staircase, dismissed exactly 
 as Mr. Harris had been, by the agency of a printed 
 volume. Only in his case a figure of much angelic 
 beauty stood at the top, holding a patent kerosene 
 lamp high to illumine his way. He refrained from 
 looking back lest she should see something too 
 human in his face and vanish, leaving him in darkness 
 which would be indeed impenetrable. 
 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 There was a panic in Dhurrumtolla; a "ticca- 
 gharry " — the shabby oblong box on wheels, dignified 
 in municipal regulations as a hackney carriage — was 
 running away. Coolie mothers dragged naked chil- 
 dren up on the pavement with angry screams ; driv- 
 ers of ox-carts dug their lean beasts in the side and 
 turned out of the way almost at a trot; only the 
 tram-car held on its course in conscious invincibility. 
 A pariah tore along beside the vehicle barking; crows 
 flew up from the dung in the road by half-dozens, pro- 
 testing shrilly ; a pedlar of blue bead necklaces just 
 escaped being knocked down. Little groups of ba- 
 boos* and bunniasf stood looking after, laughing and 
 speculating ; a native policeman, staring also, gave 
 them sharp orders to disperse, and they said to him, 
 " Peace, brother." To each other they said, " Behold, 
 the driver is a *mut-wallah,* " (or drunken person); 
 and presently, as the thing whirled further up the 
 emptied perspective, " Lo ! the syce has fallen." The 
 driver was certainly very drunk; his whip circled per- 
 petually above his head ; the syce clinging behind was 
 stiff with terror, and fell off like a bundle of rags. In- 
 side, Hilda Howe, with a hand in the strap at each 
 side and her feet against the opposite seat, swayed 
 
 •Clerks. 
 
 t Small dealers. 
 
86 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 violently, and waited for what might happen, breath- 
 ing short. Whenever the gharry thrashed over the 
 tram-lines, she closed her eyes. There was a point 
 near Cornwallis street where she saw the off front wheel 
 make sickeningly queer revolutions ; and another, 
 electrically close, when two tossing roan heads with 
 pink noses appeared in a gate to the left, heading 
 smartly out, all unawares, at precisely right angles to 
 her own derelict equipage. That was the juncture of 
 the Reverend Stephen Arnold's interference, walking 
 and discussing with Amiruddin Khan, as he was, the 
 comparative benefits of Catholic and Mohammedan 
 fasting. It would be easy to magnify what Stephen 
 did in that interruption of the considerate hearing he 
 was giving to Amiruddin. The ticca-gharry ponies 
 were almost spent, and any resolute hand could have 
 impelled them away from the carriage-pole with which 
 the roans threatened to impale their wretched sides. 
 The front wheel, however, made him heroic, going off 
 at a tangent into a cloth-merchant's shop, and precipi- 
 tating a clash while he still clung to the reins. The 
 door flew open on the under side and Hilda fell 
 through, grasping at the dust of the road ; while the 
 driver, discovering that his seat was no longer horizon- 
 tal, entered suddenly upon sobriety and clamoured 
 with tears that the cloth-merchant should restore his 
 wheel — was he not a poor man ? Hilda, struggling 
 with her hat-pins, felt her dress brushed by various lean 
 hands of the bazaar, and observed herself the central 
 figure in yet another situation. When she was in a 
 condition to see, she saw Arnold soothing the ponies ; 
 Amiruddin, before the possibility of vague police com- 
 plication, having slipped away. Stephen had believed 
 
HILDA. 
 
 «; 
 
 the gharry empty. The sight of her, in her disordered 
 draperies, was a revelation and a reproach. 
 
 " Is it possible ? " he exclaimed, and was beside her. 
 " You are not hurt ? " 
 
 " Only scraped, thanks. I am lucky to get off with 
 this." She held up her right palm, broadly abraded 
 round the base, where her hand had struck the road. 
 Arnold took it delicately in his own thin fingers to 
 examine it ; an infinity of contrast rested in the touch. 
 He looked at it with anxiety so obviously deep and 
 troubled that Hilda silently smiled. She who had 
 been battered, as she said, twice round the world, 
 found it disproportionate. 
 
 '* It's the merest scratch," she said, grave again to 
 meet his glance. 
 
 " Indeed, I fear not.** The priest made a solicitous 
 bandage with his handkerchief, while the circle about 
 them solidified. " It is quite unpleasantly deep. 
 You must let me take you at once to the nearest 
 chemist's and get it properly washed and dressed, or it 
 may give you a vast amount of trouble — but I am 
 walking." 
 
 " I will walk, too," Hilda said, readily. " I should 
 prefer it, truly." With her undamaged hand she pro- 
 duced a rupee from her pocket, where a few coins 
 chinked casually, looked at it, and groped for another. 
 '• I really can't afford any more," she said. " He can 
 get his wheel mended with that, can't he ? " 
 
 " It is three times his fare," Arnold said, austerely, 
 " and he deserved nothing — but a fine, perhaps." The 
 man was suppliant before them, cringing, salaaming, 
 holding joined palms open. Hilda lifted her head and 
 looked over the shoulders of the little rabble, where 
 
1 
 
 88 HILDA. 
 
 the sun stood golden upon the roadside and two 
 naked children played with a torn pink kite. Some- 
 thing seemed to gather into her eyes as she looked, 
 and when she fixed them softly upon Arnold, to speak, 
 
 II as it had spoken before. 
 
 Jl " Ah," she said. " Our deserts." 
 
 It was the merest echo and she had done it on 
 purpose, but he could not know that, and as she dropped 
 the rupees into the craving hands and turned and 
 walked away with him, he had nothing to say. There 
 was nothing, perhaps, that he wanted to talk of more 
 than of his experience at the theatre ; he longed to 
 have it simplified and explained ; yet in that space of 
 her two words the impossibility of mentioning it had 
 sprung at him and overcome him. He hoped, with 
 instant fervour, that she would refrain from any 
 allusion to The Offence of Galilee. And for the 
 time being she did refrain. She said, instead, that her 
 hand was smarting absurdly already, and did Arnold 
 suppose the chemist would use a carbolic lotion? 
 Stephen, with a guarded look, said very possibly not 
 but one never knew ; and Hilda, thinking of the far-off 
 day when the little girl of her was brought tactfully 
 to disagreeable necessities, covered a preposterous 
 , impulse to cry with another smile, 
 
 A thudding of bare feet overtook them. It was the 
 syce, with his arms full of thin paper bags, the kind 
 that hold cheap millinery. " Oh, the good man ! " 
 Hilda exclaimed, "My parcels!" and looked on 
 equably, while Arnold took them by their puckered 
 ends. "I have been buying gold lace and things from 
 Chunder Dutt for a costume," she exclaimed. The 
 bags dangled helplessly from Arnold's fingers ; he 
 
 i 
 
 !:; 
 
 
HILDA. 
 
 ■9 
 
 I 
 
 looked very much aware of them. •• Let me carry at 
 least one," she begged. " I can perfectly with my 
 parasol hand ; " but he refused her even one. " If I 
 may be permitted to take the responsibility," he said, 
 happily, and she rejoined, " Oh, I would trust you 
 with things more fragile." At which, such is the dis- 
 cipline of these orders, he looked steadily in front of 
 him and seemed deaf with modesty. 
 
 "But are you sure," said Hilda, suddenly con- 
 siderate, " that it looks well ? " 
 
 •' Is the gold lace, then, so very meretricious ? " 
 
 ** It goes doubtfully with your cloth," she laughed, 
 and instantly looked stricken with the conviction that 
 she might better have said something else. But 
 Arnold appeared to take it simply and to see no gibe 
 in it, only a pleasant commonplace. 
 
 " It might look queer in Chowringhee," he said, 
 " but this is not a censorious public." Then, as if to 
 palliate the word, he added, " They will think me no 
 more mad to carry paper bags than to carry myself, 
 when it is plain that I might ride — and they see me 
 doing that every day." 
 
 All the same the paper bags swinging beside the 
 girdled black skirt did impart a touch of comedy, 
 which was in a way a pity, since humour goes so far to 
 destroy the picturesque. Hilda without the paper 
 bags would have been vastly enough for contrast. 
 She walked — one is inclined to dwell upon her steps 
 and face the risk of being unintelligible — in a wide- 
 sleeved gown of peach-coloured silk, rather frayed at 
 the seams, a trifle spent in vulnerable places, sur- 
 mounted by an extravagant collar and a Paris hat. 
 The dress was of artistic intention, inexpensively 
 
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90 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 carried out, the hat had an accomplished chic, it 
 had fallen to her in the wreck and ruin of a too 
 ambitious draper of Coolgardie. As a matter of fact 
 it was the only one she had. The wide sleeves ended 
 a little below the elbow, and she carried in compen- 
 sation a pair of long suMe gloves, a compromise 
 which only occasionally discovered itself buttonless, 
 and a most expensive umbrella, the tribute of a gen- 
 tleman in that line of business in Cape Town, whose 
 standing advertisement is now her note of appreciation. 
 Arnold in his unvarying gait paced beside her; he 
 naturally shrank, so close to her opulence, into some- 
 thing less impressive than he was ; a mere intelligence 
 he looked, in a quaint uniform, with his long lip drawn 
 down and pursed a little in /lis accomplishment of 
 duty, and his eyes steadily in front of him. Hilda's 
 lambent observation was everywhere but most of all 
 on him ; a fleck of the dust from the road still lay 
 upon the warm bloom of her cheek, a perpetual happy 
 curve clung about her mouth. So they passed in 
 streets of the thronging people, where yards of new 
 dyed cotton, purple and yellow, stretched drying in 
 the sun, where a busy tom-tom called the pious to leave 
 coppers before a blood-red, goldened-tongued Kali, 
 half visible through the door of a mud hut — where all 
 the dealers in brass dishes and glass armlets, nine-yard 
 turban cloths, blue and gold, and silver gilt stands for 
 the comfortable hubble-bubble, squatted in line upon 
 their thresholds and accepted them with indifference. 
 So they passed, worthy of a glance from that 
 divinity who shapes our ends. 
 
 They talked of the accident. " You stopped the 
 horses, didn't you ? " Hilda said, and the speculation 
 
HILDA. 91 
 
 in her eyes was concerned with the extent to which a 
 muscular system might dwindle, in that climate, under 
 sacerdotal robes worn every day. 
 
 " I told them to stop, poor things," Arnold said ; 
 " they had hardly to be persuaded." 
 
 " But you didn't save my life or anything like that, 
 did you ? " she adventured, like a vagrant in the sun. 
 The blood was warm in her. She did not weigh her 
 words. " I shouldn't like having my life saved. The 
 necessity for feeling such a vast emotion — I shouldn't 
 know how to cope with it." 
 
 " I will claim to have saved your other hand," he 
 smiled. " You will be quite grateful enough for that." 
 
 She noted that he did not hasten, behind pyramidal 
 blushes, into the shelter of a general disavowal. The 
 cassock seemed to cover an obligation to acknowledge 
 things. 
 
 " I see," she said, veer .ig round. "You are quite 
 right to circumscribe ♦^e. There is nothing so boring 
 as the gratitude that will out. It is only the absence 
 of it, too plainly expressed, that is unpleasant. But 
 you won't find that in me either." She gave him a 
 smile as she lowered her parasol to turn into the shop 
 of Lahiri Dey, licensed to sell European drugs, that 
 promised, infinite possibilities of friendship ; and he, 
 following, took pleased and careful possession of it. 
 
 An hour later, as they approached No. 3, Lai Be- 
 hari's Lane, Miss Howe looked pale, which is not sur- 
 prising, since they had walked and talked all the way. 
 Their talk was a little strenuous, too ; it was as if they 
 had fallen upon an opportunity, and mutually, con- 
 sciously, made the most of it. 
 
 "You must have some tea immediately," Arnold 
 
92 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 said, before the battered urns and the dusty crotons 
 of her dwelling. 
 
 " A little whiskey and soda, I think. And you will 
 come up, please, and have some, too. You must." 
 
 " Thanks," he said, looking at his watch. " If I 
 do—" 
 
 ** You'll have the soda without the whiskey ! All 
 right ! " she laughed, and led the way. 
 
 " This is vicious indulgence," Arnold said of his 
 beverage, sitting under the inverted Japanese um- 
 brellas. " I haven't been pitched out of a ticca- 
 gharry." 
 
 It is doubtful whether the indulgence was altogether 
 in the soda, which is, after all, ascetic in its quality, 
 and only suitably effervescent, like ecclesiastical hu- 
 mour. It may very probably be that there was no 
 indulgence ; indeed one is convinced that the word, 
 like so many words, says too much. The springs of 
 Arnold's chair were bursting through the bottom, and 
 there were stains on its faded chintz-arms, but it was 
 comfortable, and he leaned back in it, looking up at 
 the paper umbrellas. You know the room ; I took 
 you into it with Duff Lindsay, who did not come 
 there from rigidities and rituals, and who had a qual- 
 ified pleasure in it. But there were lines in the folds 
 of the flowered window curtains dragging half a yard 
 upon the floor which seemed to disband Arnold's 
 spirit, and a twinkle in the blue bead of a bamboo 
 screen where the light came through that released it 
 altogether. The shabby, violent-coloured place en- 
 compassed him like an easy garment, and the lady, 
 with her feet tucked up in a sofa and a cushion under 
 her tumbled head, was an unembarrassing invitation 
 
HILDA. 
 
 93 
 
 to the kind of happy things he had not said for years. 
 
 1 hey sat in the coolness of the room for half an hour 
 
 and then, after a little pause, Hilda said suddenly, ' 
 
 " I am glad you saw me in The Offence of Galilee on 
 Saturday night. We shall not play it again." 
 
 " It has been withdrawn ? " 
 
 "Yes. The rights, you know, really belong to Mr. 
 iJradley ; and he can't endure his part." 
 
 " Is there no one else to—" 
 
 tolfher°^''Th,f '"''°"!. '■''• ^' ^'"^^^"y P'^y 
 together. This was inadvertent, but Stephen had 
 
 no reason to imagine that she contracted her eyebrows 
 r^eT'^' '"""'°"- "I^'-natrocioJpiec:- 
 
 "Is it?" he said, absently, and then, "Yes, it is an 
 atrocious piece. But I am gi.d, too, that I saw you " 
 He looked away from her, reddening deeply and 
 
 f m°e. "'• . """."'"'^ '^" "P°" "'•■" ^^-". ^^ '-d'e her 
 hurried She only half rose to give him her un- 
 
 a;i"thouS?;ir ^'^" '^ '''' '°"' ''' -"' '-' 
 
I 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " I HAVE outstayed all the rest," Lindsay said, with 
 his hat and stick in his hand, in Alicia Livingstone's 
 drawing-room, " because I want particularly to talk 
 to you. They have left me precious little time," he 
 added, glancing at his watch. 
 
 She had wondered when he came, early in the formal 
 Sunday noon hour for men's calls, since he had more 
 casual privileges ; and wondered more when he sat on 
 with composure, as one who is master of the situation, 
 while Major-Generals and Deputy Secretaries came 
 and went. There was a mist in her brain as she talked 
 to the Major-Generals and Deputy Secretaries — it did 
 not in the least obscure what she found to say — and in 
 the midst of it the formless idea that he must wish to 
 attach a special importance to his visit. This took 
 shape and line when they were alone, and he spoke of 
 outsitting the others. It impelled her to walk to the 
 window and open it. " You might stay to lunch," she 
 said, addressing a pair of crows in altercation on the 
 verandah. 
 
 " There is nearly half-an-hour before lunch," he 
 said. " Can I convince you, in that time, I wonder, 
 that I am not an absolute fool." 
 
 Alicia turned and came back to her sofa. She may 
 have had a prevision of the need of support. " I 
 hardly think," she said, drawing the long breath with 
 
1 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 9S 
 
 which we try to subdue a tempest within, "that it 
 would take so long." She tried to look at him, but 
 her eyes would not carry above the violets in his but- 
 ton-hole. 
 
 " I've had a supreme experience," he said, " very 
 strange and very lovely. I am living in it, moving in 
 it, speaking in it," he added quickly, watching her 
 face ; " so don't, for God's sake, touch it roughly." 
 
 She lifted her hand in nervous, involuntary depreca- 
 tion. " Why should you suppose I would touch it 
 roughly ? " There was that in her voice which cried 
 out that she would rather not touch it at all ; but 
 Lindsay, on the brink of his confidence, could not 
 suppose it — did not hear it. He knew her so well. 
 
 " A great many people will," he said. " I can't bear 
 the thought of their fingers. That is one reason that 
 brings me to you." 
 
 She faced him fully at this ; her eyelids quivered, 
 but she looked straight at him. It nerved her to be 
 brought into his equation, even in the form which 
 should finally be eliminated. She contrived a smile. 
 
 " I believe you know already," Lindsay cried. 
 
 " I have heard something. Don't be alarmed — not 
 from people, from Miss Howe." 
 
 " Wonderful woman ! I haven't told her." 
 
 " Is that always necessary ? She has intuitions. 
 In this case," Alicia went on, with immense courage, 
 " I didn't believe them." 
 
 " Why ? " he asked, enjoyingly. Anything to 
 handle his delight — he would even submit it to 
 analysis. 
 
 She hesitated — her business was in great waters, 
 the next instant might engulf her. " It's so curiously 
 
1 I 
 
 * t 
 
 ' I 
 
 96 HILDA. 
 
 unlike you," she faltered. " If she had been a duchess 
 — a very exquisite person, or somebody very clever — 
 remember I haven't seen her." 
 
 "You haven't, so I must forgive you invidious 
 comparisons." Lindsay visaged the words with a 
 smile, but they had an articulated hardness. 
 
 Alicia raised her eyebrows. 
 
 *' What do you expect one to imagine ? " she asked, 
 with quietness. 
 
 " A miracle," he said, sombrely. 
 
 " Ah, that's difficult ! " 
 
 There was silence for a moment between them, 
 then she added, perversely, 
 
 " And, you know, faith is not what it was." 
 
 Duff sat biting his lips. Her dryness irritated 
 him. He was accustomed to find in her fields of 
 delicately blooming enthusiasms, and running water- 
 courses where his satisfactions were ever reflected. 
 Suddenly she seemed to emerge to her own con- 
 sciousness, upon a summit from which she could look 
 down upon the turmoil in herself and beyond it, to 
 where he stood. 
 
 "Don't make a mistake," she said, "don't." She 
 thrust her hand for a fraction of an instant toward 
 him, and then swiftly withdrew it, gathering herself 
 together to meet what he might say. 
 
 What he did say was simple, and easy to hear. 
 " That's what everybody will tell me ; but I thought 
 you might understand." He tapped the toe of his 
 boot with his stick as if he counted the strokes. She 
 looked down and counted them too. 
 
 " Then you won't help me to marry her," he said 
 definitely, at last. 
 
HILDA. 97 
 
 " What could I do ? " She twisted her sappi ..e 
 ring. " Ask somebody else." 
 
 " Don't expect me to believe there is nothing you 
 could do. Go to her as my friend. It isn't such a 
 monstrous thing to ask. Tell her any good you know 
 of me. At present her imagination paints me in all 
 the lurid colours of the lost." 
 
 The face she turned upon him was all little sharp 
 white angles, and the cloud of fair hair above her 
 temples stood out stiffly, suggesting Celine and the 
 curling tongs. She did not lose her elegance ; the 
 poise of her chin and shoulders was quite perfect, but 
 he thought she looked too amusedly at his difficulty. 
 Her negative, too, was more unsympathetic than he 
 had any reason to expect. 
 
 "No," she said; "it must be somebody else. 
 Don't ask me. I should become involved — I might 
 do harm." She had surmounted her emotion ; she 
 was able to look at the matter with surprising clear- 
 ness and decision. " I should do harm," she repeated. 
 
 " You don't count with her effect on you." 
 
 "You can't possibly imagine her effect on me. 
 I'm not a man." 
 
 " But won't you take anything — about her — from 
 me ? You know I'm really not a fool — not even very 
 impressionable." 
 
 "Oh, no!" she said impatiently, "no— of course 
 not." 
 
 "Pray, why?" 
 
 "There are other things to reckon with." She 
 looked coldly beyond him out of the window. " A 
 man's intelligence when he is in love — how far can one 
 count on it ? " 
 
 i 
 
i 
 
 98 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 There was nothing but silence for that or perhaps 
 the murmured " Oh, I don't agree," with which Lind- 
 say met it. He rode down her logic with a simple 
 appeal. ** Then after all," he said, ** you're not my 
 friend." 
 
 It goaded her into something like an impertinence. 
 " After you have married her," she said, " you'll see." 
 
 •' You will be hers then," he declared. 
 
 " I will be yours." Her eyes leaped along the pros- 
 pect and rested on a brass-studded Tartar shield at the 
 other end of the room. 
 
 *' And I thought you broad in these views," Lindsay 
 said, glancing at her curiously. Her opportunity for 
 defense was curtailed by a heavy step in the hall, and 
 the lifted portiere disclosed Surgeon-Major Living- 
 stone, looking warm. He, whose other name was the 
 soul of hospitality, made a profound and feeling remon- 
 strance against Lindsay's going before tiffin, though 
 Alicia, doing something to a bowl of nasturtiums, did 
 not hear it. Not that her added protest would have 
 detained Lindsay, who took his perturbations away 
 with him as quickly as might be. Alicia saw the 
 cloud upon him as he shook hands with her, and found 
 it but slightly consoling to reflect that his sun would 
 without doubt re-emerge in all effulgence on the 
 other side of the door. 
 
 ;l 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 That same Sunday Alicia had been able to say to 
 Lindsay about Hilda Howe, " We have not stood 
 still — we know each other well now," and when he 
 commented with some reserve upon this, to follow it 
 up. " But these things have so little to do with mere 
 length of time or numb^jr of opportunities," she de- 
 clared. " One springs at some people." 
 
 A Major-General, interrupting, said he wished he 
 had the chance ; and they talked about something 
 else. But perhaps this is enough to explain a note 
 which went by a messenger from the Livingstones* 
 pillared palace in Middleton street to No. 3, La Be- 
 hari's Lane on Monday morning. It was a short note, 
 making a definite demand with an absence of colour 
 and softness and emotion which was almost elaborate. 
 Hilda, at breakfast, tore off the blank half sheet, and 
 wrote in pencil — 
 
 " I think I can arrange to get her here about five 
 this afternoon. No rehearsal — they're doing some- 
 thing to the gas-pipes at the theatre, so you will find 
 me, anyway. And I'll be delighted to see you." 
 
 She twisted it up and addressed it, reconsidered 
 that, and made the scrap more secure in a yellow en- 
 velope. It had an embossed post-ofifice stamp, which 
 she sacrificed with resignation. Then she went back 
 to an extremely uninteresting vegetable curry, with 
 
I 
 
 100 HILDA. 
 
 the reflection, " Can she possibly imagine that one 
 doesn't see it yet ? ** 
 
 Alicia came before five. She brought a novel of 
 Gissing's, in order apparently that they might without 
 fail talk about Gissing. Hilda was agreeable ; she 
 would talk about Gissing, or about anything, tipped 
 on the edge of her bed — Alicia had surmounted that 
 degree of intimacy at a bound by the declaration that 
 she could no longer endure the blue umbrellas — and 
 clasping one knee, with an uncertain tenure of a 
 chipped bronze slipper deprived of its heel. Wonder- 
 ful tusser silk draperies fell about her, with ink-spots 
 on the sleeves ; her hair was magnificent. 
 
 "It's so curious to me," she was saying of the novel, 
 j '* that any one should learn all that life as you do, at a 
 
 I distance, in a book. It's like looking at it through 
 
 the little end of an opera-glass/' 
 I " I fancy that the most desirable way," said Alicia, 
 
 glancing at the door. 
 I " Don't you believe it. The best way is to come 
 
 I out of it, to grow out of it. Then all the rest has the 
 
 charm of novelty and the value of contrast, and the 
 distinction of being the best. You, poor dear, were 
 born an artificial flower in a cardboard box. But you 
 couldn't help it." 
 
 " Everybody doesn't grow out of it." The concen- 
 tration in Alicia's eyes returned again with vacillating 
 wings. 
 i " She can't be here for a quarter of an hour yet.'* 
 
 The slipper dropped at this point, and Hilda stooped 
 to put it on again. She kept her foot in her hands 
 and regarded it pensively. 
 
 " Shoes are the one thing one shouldn't buy in the 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 
HILDA. 
 
 lOI 
 
 "At all events, ready- 
 ■** Alicia ended abruptly 
 
 Are you quite sure he wants to 
 
 native quarter," she said; 
 made." 
 
 " You have an audacity — 
 in a wan smile. 
 
 "Haven't I? 
 marry her ? " 
 
 " I know it." 
 
 "From him?" 
 
 " From him." 
 
 "Oh" — Hilda deliberated a moment, nursing her 
 slipper — " Really ? Well, we can't let that happen." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 "You have a hardihood! Is no reason plain to 
 you ? Don't you see anything? " 
 
 Alicia smiled again painfully, as if against a tension 
 of her lips. " I see only one thing that matters — he 
 wants it," she said. 
 
 " And won't be happy till he gets it ? Rubbish, my 
 dear! We are an intolerably self-sacrificing sex." 
 Hilda felt around for pillows, and stretched her length 
 along the bed. " They've taught us well, the men ; it's 
 a blood disease now, running everywhere in the female 
 line. You may be sure it was a barbarian princess 
 that hesitated between the lady and the tiger. A 
 civilised one would have introduced the lady and 
 given her a dot^ and retired to the nearest convent. 
 Bah ! It's a deformity, like the dachshund's legs." 
 
 Alicia looked as if this would be a little troublesome, 
 and not quite worth while to follow. 
 
 " The happiness of his whole life is involved," she 
 said, simply. 
 
 " Oh dear yes — the old story ! And what about the 
 happiness of yours ? Do you imagine it's laudable, 
 
I 
 
 It 
 
 ft 
 
 102 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 !i 
 
 »■ ,ii 
 
 
 admirable, this attitude ? Do you see yourself in it 
 with pleasure ? Have you got a sacred satisfaction of 
 self-praise?" 
 
 Contempt accumulated in Miss Howe's voice and 
 sat in her eyes. To mark her climax, she kicked her 
 slipper over the end of the bed. 
 
 " It is idiotic — it's disgusting," she said. 
 
 Alicia caught a flash from her. " My attitude ! " 
 she cried. '* What in the world do you mean ? Do 
 you always think in poses ? I take no attitude. I care 
 for him, and in that proportion I intend that he shall 
 have what he wants — so far as I can help him to it. 
 You have never cared for anybody — what do you 
 know about it ? " 
 
 Hilda took a calm, unprejudiced view of the ceiling. 
 " I assure you I'm not an angel," she cried. " Haven't 
 I cared ? Several times." 
 
 " Not really — not lastingly." 
 
 " I don't know about really ; certainly not lastingly. 
 I've never thought the men should have a monopoly 
 of nomadic susceptibilities. They entail the prettiest 
 experiences." 
 
 ** Of course, in your profession " 
 
 " Don't be nasty, sweet lady. My affections have 
 never taken the opportunities of our profession. They 
 haven't even carried me into matrimony, though I 
 remember once, at Sydney, they brought me to the 
 brink. Quelle escape ! We must contrive one like it 
 for Duff Lindsay." 
 
 "You assume too much — a great deal too much. 
 She must be beautiful — and good." 
 
 ** Give me a figure. She's a lily, and she draws the 
 kind of beauty that lilies have from her personal 
 
HILDA. 
 
 103 
 
 chastity and her religious enthusiasm. Touch those 
 things and bruise them, as — as marriage would touch 
 and bruise them — and she would be a mere fragment 
 of stale vegetation. You want him to clasp that to 
 his bosom for the rest of his life? " 
 
 " I won't believe you. You're coarse and you're 
 cruel." 
 
 Tears flashed into Miss Livingstone's eyes with 
 this. Hilda, still regarding the ceiling, was aware of 
 them, and turned an impatient shoulder while they 
 should be brushed undetected away. 
 
 " I'm sorry, dear," she said. " I forgot. You are 
 usually so intelligent, one can be coarse and cruel 
 with comfort, talking to you. Go into the bath-room 
 and get my salts— they're on the washhand-stand— will 
 you ? I'm quite faint with all I'm about to undergo." 
 
 Laura Filbert came in as Alicia emerged with the 
 salts. Ignoring the third person with the bottle, she 
 went directly to the bedside and laid her hand on 
 Hilda's head. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Howe, I am so sorry you are sick — so 
 sorry," she said. It was a cooing of professional con- 
 cern, true to an ideal, to a necessity. 
 
 " I am not very bad," Hilda improvised. " Hardly 
 more than a headache." 
 
 " She makes light of everything, " Miss Filbert said, 
 smiling toward Alicia, who stood silent, the prey of 
 her impression. Discovering the blue salts bottle, 
 Laura walked over to her and took it from her hands. 
 
 "And what," said the barefooted Salvation Army 
 girl, " might your name be ? " 
 
 There was an infinite calm interest in it—it was like 
 a conventionality of the other world, and before its 
 assurance Alicia stood helpless. 
 
104 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 " Her name is Livingstone," called Hilda from the 
 bed, "and she is as good as she is beautiful. You 
 needn't be troubled about her soul — she takes Com- 
 munion every Sunday morning at the Cathedral." 
 
 " Hallelujah ! " said Captain Filbert, in a tone of 
 dubious congratulation. 
 
 " Much better," said Hilda, cheerfully, " to take it 
 at the Cathedral, you know, than nowhere." 
 
 Miss Filbert said nothing to this, but sat down upon 
 the edge of the bed, looking serious, and stroked 
 Hilda's hair. 
 
 "You don't seem to have much fever," she said. 
 " There was a poor fellow in the Military Hospital 
 this morning with a temperature of 107. I could 
 hardly bear to touch him." 
 
 "What was the matter?" asked Hilda idly, oc- 
 cupied with hypotheses about the third person in the 
 room. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know exactly. Some complication, I 
 suppose, of the wages the body pays to sin." 
 
 " Divinest Laura ! " Hilda exclaimed, drawing her 
 head back. " Do take a chair. It will be even more 
 soothing to see you comfortable." 
 
 Captain Filbert spoke again to Alica, as she obeyed. 
 " Miss Howe is more thoughtful for others than some 
 of our converted ones," she said, with vast kindness. 
 " I have often told her so. I have had a long day." 
 
 " It may improve me in that character," Hilda 
 said, " to suggest that if you will go about such peo- 
 ple, a little carbolic disinfectant is a good thing, or a 
 crystal or two of permanganate of potash in your 
 bath. Do you use those things? " 
 
 Laura shook her head. " Faith is better than disin- 
 
 ££LSE33SlSEa 
 
HILDA. 
 
 105 
 
 fectants. I never get any harm. My Master protects 
 me. 
 
 "My goodness!" Hilda said. And in the silence 
 that occurred, Captain Filbert remarked that the only 
 thing she used carbolic acid for was a decayed tooth. 
 Presently Alicia made a great effort. She laid hands 
 on Hilda's previous references as a tangibility that re- 
 mained with her. 
 
 " Do you ever go to the Cathedral ? " she said. 
 
 The faintest shade of dogmatism crossed Captain 
 Filbert's features, as when, on a day of cloud fleeces, 
 the sun withdraws for an instant from a flower. Since 
 her sect is proclaimed beyond the boundaries of 
 dogma it may have been some other obscurity, but my 
 appraisement fails. 
 
 " No, I never go there. We raise our own Ebene- 
 zer; we are a tabernacle to ourselves." 
 
 "Isn't it exquisite — her way of speaking!" cried 
 Hilda from the bed, and Laura glanced at her with a 
 deprecating, reproachful smile, in reproof of an offence 
 admittedly incorrigible. But she went on as if she 
 were conscious of a stimulus. 
 
 " Wherever the morning sky bends or the stars 
 cluster is sanctuary enough," she said; "a slum at 
 noonday is as holy for us as daisied fields ; the Name 
 of the Lord walks with us. The Army is His Army. 
 He is Lord of our hosts." 
 
 "A kind of chant," murmured Hilda, and Miss 
 Livingstone became aware that she might if she liked 
 play with the beginnings of magnetism. Then that 
 impression was carried away, as it were, on a puff of 
 air, and it is hardly likely that she thought of it again. 
 
 " I suppose all the dite go to the Cathedral," Laura 
 
io6 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 said. The sanctity of her face was hardly disturbed, 
 but a curiosity rested upon it, and behind the curios- 
 ity a far-off little leaping tongue of some other thing. 
 Hilda on the bed named it the constant feminine and 
 narrowed her eyes. 
 
 " Dear me, yes," she said for Alicia. " His Excel- 
 lency, the Viceroy, and all his beautiful A.D.C.'s, no 
 end of military and their ladies. Secretaries to the 
 Government of India in rows, fully choral, Under Sec- 
 retaries so thick they're kept in the vestibule till the 
 bell stops. ' A nd make thy chosen people joyful ! * " she 
 intoned. "Not forgetting Surgeon-Major and Miss 
 Alicia Livingstone, who occupy the fourth pew to the 
 right of the main aisle, advantageously near the pulpit." 
 
 *' You know already what a humbug she is ! " Alicia 
 said, but Captain Filbert's inner eye seemed retained 
 by that imaginary congregation. 
 
 " Well, it would not be any attraction for me," she 
 said, rising to go through the little accustomed function 
 of her departure. " I'll be going now, I think. Ensign 
 Sand has fever again and I have to take her place at the 
 Believers' Meeting." She took Hilda's hand in hers 
 and held it for an instant. " Good-bye, and God bless 
 you — in the way you most need," she said, and turned 
 to Alicia, for whose ears Hilda's protests against the 
 girl's going broke meaninglessly about the room. 
 " Good-bye. I am glad to know that we will be one 
 in the glad hereafter, though our paths may diverge " 
 — her eye rested with acknowledgment upon Alicia's 
 embroidered sleeves — " in this world. To look at you 
 I should have thought you were of the bowed down 
 ones, not yet fully assured, but perhaps you only want 
 a little more oxygen in the blood of your religion. 
 
HILDA. 
 
 107 
 
 Remember the word of the Lord — * Rejoice ! again I 
 say unto you, rejoice ! ' Good-bye." 
 
 She drew her head-covering further forward and 
 moved to the door. It sloped to her shoulders ad 
 made them droop : her native clothes clung about her 
 breast and her hips, disclosing, confessing, insisting 
 upon her sex in the cringing oriental way. Miss Howe 
 looked after her guest with a curl of the lip as uncon- 
 trollable as it was unreasonable. " A saved soul, per- 
 haps. A woman — oh, assuredly," she said in the 
 depths of her hair. 
 
 The door had almost closed upon Captain Filbert 
 when Alicia made something like a dash at an object 
 about to elude her. " Oh," she exclaimed, " Wait a 
 minute. Will you come and see me ? I think — I 
 think you might do me good. I live at No. 10, Mid- 
 dleton street. Will you come ? " 
 
 Laura came back into the room. There was a little 
 stiffness in her air, as if she repressed something. 
 
 " I have no objection," she said. 
 
 " To-morrow afternoon — at five ? Or — my brother 
 is dining at the club — would you rather come to din- 
 ner?" 
 
 " Whichever is agreeable to you will suit me." She 
 spoke carefully, after an instant's hesitation. 
 
 " Then do come and dine — at eight," Alicia said ; 
 and it was agreed. 
 
 She stood staring at the door when Laura finally 
 closed it, and only turned when Hilda spoke. 
 
 " You are going to have him to meet her," she said. 
 " May I come too ? " 
 
 "Certainly not." Alicia's grasp was also by this 
 time on the door handle. 
 
io8 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 " Are you going too ? You daren't talk about her ! " 
 Hilda cried. 
 
 " I'm going too. I've got the brougham. I'll drive 
 her home," said Alicia, and went out swiftly. 
 
 " My goodness ! " Hilda remarked again. Then she 
 got up and found her slippers and wrote a note, which 
 she addressed to the Reverend Stephen Arnold, 
 Clarke Mission House, College street. ♦' Thanks im- 
 mensely," it ran, " for your delightful offer to in- 
 troduce me to Father Jordan and persuade him to 
 show me the astronomical wonders he keeps in his 
 tower at St. Simeon's. An hour with a Jesuit is an 
 hour of milk and honey, and belonging to that charm- 
 ing Order he won't mind my coming on a Sunday 
 evening — the first clear one." 
 
 Miss Howe signed her note and bit consideringly 
 at the end of her pen. Then she added : " If you 
 have any influence with Duff Lindsay, it may be news 
 to you that you can exert it with advantage to keep 
 him from marrying a cheap, ethereal little religieuse of 
 the Salvation Army named Filbert. It may seem 
 more fitting that you should expostulate with her, but 
 I don't advise that." 
 
CHAPTER X.. 
 
 The door of Ensign Sand's apartment stood open 
 with a purposeful air when Captain Filbert reached 
 headquarters that evening ; but in any case it is likely 
 that she would have gone in. Mrs. Sand walked the 
 floor, carrying a baby, a pale, sticky baby with blotches, 
 which had inherited from its maternal parent a con- 
 spicuous lack of buttons. Mrs. Sand's room was also 
 ornamented with texts, but they had apparently been 
 selected at random, and they certainly hung that way. 
 The piety of the place seemed at the control of an 
 oldei infant, who sat on the floor and played with his 
 father's regimental cap. On the other side of the 
 curtain Captain Sand audibly washed himself and 
 brushed his hair. 
 
 " What kind of meetin' did you have ? " asked Mrs. 
 Sand. " There — there now ; he shall have his bottle, 
 so he shall ! " 
 
 "A beautiful meeting. Abraham Lincoln White, 
 the Savannah negro, you know, came as a believer for 
 the first time, and so did Miss Rozario from White- 
 way and Laidlaw's. We had such a happy time." 
 
 " What sort of collection ? " 
 
 Laura opened a knotted handkerchief and counted 
 out some copper coins. 
 
 " Only seven annas three pice ! And you call that 
 a good meeting ! I don't believe you exhorted them 
 to give ! ** 
 
1 10 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 " Oh, I think I did ! " Laura returned mechanically. 
 
 " Seven annas and three pice ! And you know what 
 the Commissioner wrote out about our last quarter's 
 earnings I What did you say ? " 
 
 " I said — I said the collection would now be taken 
 up," Laura faltered. 
 
 "Oh dear! oh dear! Leopold, stop clawing me! 
 Couldn't you think of anythin' more tellin' or more 
 touchin' than that ? Fever or no fever, it does not do 
 for me to stay away from the regular meetin's. One 
 thing is plain — he wasn't there ! " 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Well, you've never told me his name, but I ex- 
 pect you've got your reasons." Mrs. Sand's tone was 
 not arch, but slightly resentful. " I mean the gentle- 
 man that attends so regular and sits behind, under the 
 window. A society man, I should say, to look at him, 
 though the officers of this Army are no respecters of 
 persons, and I don't suppose the Lord takes any no- 
 tice of his clothes." 
 
 " His name is Mr. Lindsay. No, he wasn't there." 
 
 The girl's tone was distant and cold. The rebuke 
 about the collection had gone home to a place raw 
 with similar reproaches. 
 
 " I hope you haven't been discouraging him ?" 
 
 Captain Filbert looked at her superior officer with 
 astonishment. 
 
 "I have entreated him to come to the meetings. 
 But he never attends a Believers' Rally. Why should 
 he?" 
 
 " What's his state of mind ? He came to see you, 
 didn't he, the other night ? " 
 
 " Yes, he did. I don't think he's altogether care- 
 less." 
 
HILDA. 
 
 Ill 
 
 "Ain't he seeking?" 
 
 " He wouldn't admit it, but he may not know him- 
 self. The Lord has different ways of working. Whac 
 else should bring him night after night ? " 
 
 Mrs. Sand glanced meaningly at a point on the 
 floor, with lifted eyebrows, then at her officer, and 
 finally hid a badly-disciplined smile behind her baby's 
 head. When she looked back again Laura had flushed 
 all over, and an embarrassment stood between them, 
 which she felt was absurd. 
 
 " My ! " she said — scruples in breaking it could 
 hardly perhaps have been expected of her — " you do 
 look nice when you've got a little colour. But if you 
 can't see that it's you that brings him to the meetin's 
 you must be blind, that's all." 
 
 Captain Filbert's confusion was dispelled, as by the 
 wave of a wand. 
 
 " Then I hope I may go on bringing him," she said. 
 " He couldn't come to a better place." 
 
 "Well, you'll have to be careful," said Mrs. Sand, as 
 if with severe intent. " But I don't say discourage 
 him ; I wouldn't say that. You may be an influence 
 for good. It may be His will that you should be 
 pleasant to the young man. But don't make free with 
 him. Don't, on any account, have him put his arm 
 round your waist." 
 
 " Nobody has done that to me," Laura replied aus- 
 terely, " since I left Putney, and so long as I am in 
 the Army nobody will. Not that Mr. Lindsay " (she 
 blushed again) " would ever want to. The class he be- 
 longs to look down on it." 
 
 "The class he belongs to do worse things. The 
 Army doesn't look down on it. It's only nature, and 
 
112 HILDA. 
 
 the Army believes in working with nature. If it was 
 Mr. Harris that wanted such a thing, I wouldn't say 
 a word — he marches under the Lord's banner." 
 
 Captain Filbert listened without confusion; her 
 expression was even slightly complacent. 
 
 ** Well," she said, " I told Mr. Harris last evening 
 that the Lieutenant and I couldn't go on giving him 
 so much of our time, and he seemed to think he'd 
 been keeping company with me. I had to tell him I 
 hadn't any such idea." 
 
 " Did he seem much dir-appointed ? " 
 
 " He said he thought he would have more of the 
 feeling of belonging to the Army if he was married in 
 it ; but I told him he would have to learn to walk 
 alone." 
 
 Mrs. Sand speculatively bit her lip. Some faint re- 
 flection of the interview with Mr. Harris made her, as 
 far as possible, button up her dressing-gown. 
 
 " I don't know but what you did right," she said. 
 " By the grace of God you converted him, and he 
 hadn't ought to ask more of you. But I have a kind 
 of feeling that Mr. Lindsay'll be harder to convince." 
 
 " I dare say." 
 
 " It would be splendid, though, to garner him in. 
 He might be willing to march with us and subscribe 
 half his pay, like poor Captain Corby, of the Queen's 
 Army, did in Rangoon." 
 
 " He might be proud to." 
 
 " We must all try and bring sin home to him," Mrs. 
 Sand remarked with rising energy ; " and don't you 
 go saying anything to him hastily. If he's gone on 
 you " 
 
 " Oh, Ensign ; let us hope he is thinking of higher 
 
HILDA. 113 
 
 things! Let us both pray for him. Let Captain 
 Sand pray for him, too, and I'll ask the Lieutenant. 
 Now that she's got Miss Rozario safe into the Kingdom, 
 I don't think she has any special object." 
 
 " Oh, yes, we'll pray for him," Ensign Sand re- 
 turned, as if that might have gone without saying, 
 " but you " 
 
 " And give me that precious baby. You must be 
 completely worn out. I should enjoy taking care of 
 him ; indeed I should." 
 
 " It's the first — the very first — time she ever took 
 that draggin' child out of my arms for an instant," the 
 Ensign remarked to her husband and next in com- 
 mand later in the evening, but she resigned the infant 
 without protest at the time. Laura carried him into 
 her own room with something like gaiety, and there 
 repeated to him more nursery rhymes, dating from 
 secular Putney, than she would have believed she re- 
 membered. 
 
 The Believers' Rally, as will be understood, was a 
 gathering of some selectness. If the Chinaman came, 
 it was because of the vagueness of his reception of the 
 privileges he claimed ; and his ignorance of all tongues 
 but his own left no medium for turning him out. 
 Qualms of conscience, however, kept all Miss Rozario's 
 young lady friends away, and these also, doubtless, 
 operated to detain Duff Lindsay. One does not 
 attend a Believers' Rally unless one's personal faith 
 extends beyond the lady in command of it, and one 
 specially refrains if one's spiritual condition is a deli- 
 cate and debatable matter with her. In Wellesley 
 square, later in the evening, the conditions were differ- 
 ent. It would not be easy to imagine a scene that 
 
114 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 suggested greater liberality of sentiment. The moon 
 shed her light upon it, and the palms threw fretted 
 shadows down. Beyond them, on four sides, lines of 
 street-lamps shone, and tram-drivers whistled bullock 
 carts off the lines, and street pedlars lifted their cries. 
 A torch marked the core of the group of exhorters ; it 
 struck pale gold from Laura's hair, and made glorious 
 the buttons of the man who beat the drum. She 
 talked to the people in their own language ; the " open 
 air " was designed for the people. ** Kiko ! Kiko ! " 
 (Why ! Why !) Lindsay heard her cry, where he stood 
 in the shadow, on the edge of the crowd. He looked 
 down at a coolie woman with shrivelled breasts 
 crouched on her haunches upon the ground, bent with 
 the bricks of half a century, and back at the girl beside 
 the torch. '* Do not delay until to-morrow ! " Laura 
 besought them. " Ktil ka dart imit karo ! " A sensa- 
 tion of disgust assailed him ; he turned away. Then, 
 in an impulse of atonement — he felt already so re- 
 sponsible for her — he went back and dropped a coin 
 into the coolie creature's lap. But he grew more 
 miserable as he stood, and finally walked deliberately 
 to a wooden bench at a distance, where he could not 
 hear her voice. Only the hymn pursued him ; they 
 sang presently a hymn. In the chorus the words 
 were distinguishable, borne in the robust accents of 
 Captain Sand — 
 
 " Us ki ho tarif, 
 Us ki ho tariff " 
 
 The strange words, limping on the familiar air, made 
 a barbarous jangle, a discordance of a special intoler- 
 able sort. 
 
 Lindsay wondered, with a poignancy of pity. 
 
HILDA. 115 
 
 whether the coolie woman were singing too, and found 
 something like relief in the questionable reflection 
 that if she wasn't, in view of the rupee, she ought to 
 be. 
 
 " Glory to His name ! " " Glory to His name ! " 
 
 His " Good evening ! " when the meeting was over 
 was a cheerful, general salutation, and the familiarity 
 of the sight of him was plain in the response he got, 
 equally general and equally cheerful. Lieutenant Da 
 Cruz's smile was even further significant, if he had 
 thought of interpreting it, and there was overt amiabil- 
 ity in the manner in which Ensign Sand put her 
 hymn-books together and packed everybody, includ- 
 ing her husband, whose arm she took, out of the way. 
 
 " Wait for me," Laura said, to whom a Eurasian 
 beggar made elaborate appeal, as they moved off. 
 
 " I guess you've got company to see you home," 
 Mrs. Sand called out, and they did not wait. As 
 Lindsay came closer, the East Indian paused in his 
 tale of the unburied wife for whom he could not 
 afford a coflfin, and slipped away. 
 
 " The Ensign knows she oughtn't to talk like that," 
 Laura said. Lindsay marked with a surge of pleasure 
 that she was flushed and seemed perturbed. 
 
 " What she said was quite true," he ventured. 
 
 " But — anybody would think " 
 
 "What would anybody think? Shall we keep to 
 this side of the road? It's quieter. What would 
 anybody think ? " 
 
 " Oh, silly things." Laura threw up her head with 
 a half laugh. " Things I needn't mention." 
 
 Lindsay was silent for an instant. Then " Between 
 us ? " he asked, and she nodded. 
 
ii6 HILDA. 
 
 Their side of the street, along the square, was 
 nearly empty. He found her hand and drew it 
 through his arm. " Would you mind so very much," 
 he said, " if those silly things were true ? " He 
 spoke as if to a child. His passion was never more 
 clearly a single object to him, divorced from all com- 
 plicating and non-essential impressions of her. " I 
 would give all I possess to have it so," he told her, 
 catching at any old foolish phrase that would serve. 
 
 *' I don't believe you mean anything like all you 
 say, Mr. Lindsay." Her head was bent and she kept 
 her hand within his arm. He seemed to be a cir- 
 cumstance that brought her reminiscences of how one 
 behaved sentimentally toward a young man with whom 
 there was no serious entanglement. It is not sur- 
 prising that he saw only one thing, walls going down 
 before him, was aware only of something like invita- 
 tion. Existence narrowed itself to a single glowing 
 point ; as he looked it came so near that he bounded 
 to meet it. 
 
 " Dear," he said, " you can't know — there is no way 
 of telling you — what I mean. I suppose every man 
 feels the same thing about the woman he loves ; but 
 it seems to me that my life had never known the sun 
 until I saw you. I can't explain to you how poor it 
 was, and I won't try ; but I fancy Gcd sends every 
 one of us, if we know it, some one blessed chance, 
 and He did more for me — He lifted the veil of my 
 stupidity and let me see it, passing by in its halo, 
 trailing clouds of glory. I don't want to make you 
 understand, though — I want to make 5'^ou promise. I 
 want to be absolutely sure from to-night that you'll 
 marry me. Say that you'll marry me — say it before 
 
HILDA. 
 
 117 
 
 we get to the crossing. Say it, Laura." She listened 
 to his first words with a little half-controlled smile, 
 then made as if she would withdraw her hand, but he 
 held it with his own, and she heard him through, 
 walking beside him formally in her bare feet, and 
 looking carefully at the asphalt pavement as they do 
 in Putney. 
 
 "I don't object to your calling me by my given 
 name," she said when he had done, " but it can't go 
 any further than that, Mr. Lindsay, and you ought 
 not to bring God into it— indeed you ought not. 
 You are no son or servant of His — you are among 
 those whose very light is darkness, and how great is 
 your darkness ! " 
 
 " Don't," he said shortly, " never mind about that 
 — now. You needn't be afraid of me, Laura— there 
 are decent chaps, you know, outside the Kingdom of 
 Heaven, and one of them wants you to marry him, 
 that's how it is. Will you ? " 
 
 "I don't wish to judge you, Mr. Lindsay, and I'm 
 very much obliged, but I couldn't dream of it." 
 
 " Don't dream of it ; consider it, accept it. Why, 
 darling, you are half mine already— don't you feel 
 that ? " 
 
 Her arm was certainly warm within his and he had 
 the possession of his eyes in her. Her tired body 
 even clung to him. " Are you quite sure you haven't 
 begun to think of loving me ?" he demanded. 
 
 " It isn't a question of love, Mr. Lindsay, it's a ques- 
 tion of the Army. You don't seem to think the Army 
 counts for anything." 
 
 One is convinced that it wasn't a question of love, 
 the least in the world ; but Lindsay detected an eva- 
 
ii8 HILDA. . 
 
 sion in what she said, and the flame in him leaped 
 up. 
 
 " Sweet, when love is concerned there is no other 
 question." 
 
 " Is that a quotation ? " she asked. She spoke 
 coldly, and this time she succeeded in withdrawing her 
 hand. " I dare say you think the Army very common, 
 Mr. Lindsay, but to me it is marching on a great and 
 holy crusade, and I march with it. You would not 
 ask me to give up my life-work ? " 
 
 " Only to take it into another sphere," Duff said, 
 unreflectively. He was checked but not discouraged, 
 impatient, but in no wise cast down. She had not 
 flown, she walked beside him placidly. She had no 
 intention of flight. He tried to resign himself to the 
 task of beating down her trivial objections, curbing his 
 athletic impulse to leap over them. 
 
 " Another sphere " — he caught a subtle pleasure in 
 her enunciation. " I suppose you mean high society ; 
 but it would never be the same." 
 
 •* Not quite the same. You would have to drive 
 to see your sinners in a carriage and pair, and you 
 might be obliged to dine with them in — what do ladies 
 generally dine in ? — white satin and diamonds, or pearls. 
 I think I would rather see you in pearls." He was 
 aware of the inexcusableness of the points he made, 
 but he only stopped to laugh inwardly at their im- 
 pression, watching the absorbed turn of her head. 
 
 " We might think it well to be a little select in our 
 sinners — most of them would be on Government House 
 list, just as most of your present ones are on the lists 
 of the charitable societies or the district magistrates. 
 But you would find just as much to do for them." 
 
 
HILDA. 119 
 
 ** I should not even know how to act in such com- 
 pany." 
 
 •* You can go home for a year, if you like, to be 
 taught, to some people I know ; delightful people, who 
 will understand. A year! You will learn in three 
 months— what odds and ends there are to know. I 
 couldn't spare you for a year." 
 
 Lindsay stopped. He had to. Captain Filbert was 
 murmuring the cadences of a hymn. She went through 
 two stanzas, and covered her eyes for a moment with 
 her hand. When she spoke it was in a quiet, level, 
 almost mechanical way. "Yes," she said. "The 
 Cross and the Crown, the Crown and the Cross. 
 Father in Heaven, I do not forget Thy will and Thy 
 purpose, that I should bring the word of Thy love to 
 the poor and the lowly, the outcast and those despised. 
 And what I say to this man, who offers me the gifts 
 and the gladness of a world that had none for Thee, is 
 the answer Thou hast put in my heart— that the work 
 IS Thine and that I am Thine, and he has no part or 
 lot in me, nor can ever have. Here is Crooked lane. 
 Good-night, Mr. Lindsay." 
 
 She had slipped into the devious darkness of the 
 place before he could find any reply, before he quite 
 realised, indeed, that they had reached her lodging. 
 He could only utter a vague "Good-night " after her, 
 formulating more definite statements to himself a few 
 minutes later in Bentinck street. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Miss Howe was walking in the business quarter of 
 Calcutta. It was the business quarter, and yet the air 
 was gay with the dimpling of piano notes, and looking 
 up one saw the bright sunlight fall on yellow stuccoed 
 flats above the shops and the offices. There the 
 pleasant north wind blew banners of muslin curtains 
 out of wide windows, and little gardens of palms in 
 pots showed behind the balustrades of the flat roofs 
 whenever a story ran short. Everywhere was a subtle 
 contagion of momentary well-being, a sense of lifted 
 burden. The stucco streets were too slovenly to be 
 purely joyous, but a warm satisfaction brooded in 
 them, the pariahs blinked at one genially, there was a 
 note of cheer even in the cheeling of the kites where 
 they sat huddled on the roof-cornices or circled against 
 the high blue sky. It was enjoyable to be abroad, in 
 the brushing fellowship of the pavements, in touch 
 with brown humility, half-clad and going afoot, since 
 even brown humility seemed well affected toward the 
 world, alert and content. The air was full of the com- 
 fortable flavour of food-stuffs and spiced luxuries and 
 the incense of wayside trees ; it was as if the sun laid 
 a bland compelling hand upon the city, bidding strange 
 flowers bloom and strange fruits increase. Brokers' 
 gharries rattled past, each holding a pale young man 
 preoccupied with a note-book; where the bullock- 
 
HILDA. 121 
 
 carts gathered themselves together and blocked the 
 road the pale young men put excited heads out of the 
 gharry windows and used remarkable imprecations. 
 One of them, as Hilda turned into the compound of 
 the Calcutta Chronicle^ leaned out to take off his hat, 
 and sent her up to the office of that journal in the 
 pleasant reflection of his infinite interest in life. 
 " Upon my word," she said to herself, as she ascended 
 the stairs behind the lean legs of a Mussulman servant 
 in a dirty shirt and an embroidered cap, "he's so light- 
 hearted, so general, that one doubts the very tre- 
 mendous effect even of a failure like the one he 
 contemplates." 
 
 She sent her card in to the manager-sahib by the 
 lean Mussulman, and followed it past the desks of two 
 or three Bengali clerks, who hardly lifted their well- 
 oiled heads from their account-books to look at her — 
 so many memsahibs to whose enterprises the Chronicle 
 gave prominence came to see the manager-sahib and 
 they were so much alike. At all events they carried 
 a passport to indifference in the fact that they all 
 wanted something, and it was clear to the meanest 
 intelligence that they appeared to be more magnifi- 
 cent than they were, visions in dazzling complexions 
 and long kid gloves, rattling up in third-class ticca- 
 gharries, with a wisp of fodder clinging to their skirts. 
 It was less interesting still when they belonged to the 
 other class, the shabby ladies, nearly always in black, 
 with husbands in the Small Cause Court, or sons 
 before the police magistrate, who came to get it, if 
 possible, " kept out of the paper." Successful or not, 
 these always wept on their way out, and nothing 
 could be more depressing. The only gleam of enter- 
 
 __ 
 
122 HILDA. 
 
 tainment to be got out of a lady visitor to the man- 
 ager-sahib occurred when the female form enshrined 
 the majestic personality of a boarding-house madam, 
 whose asylum for respectable young men in leading 
 Calcutta firms had been maliciously traduced in the 
 local columns of the Chronicle — a lady who had never 
 known what a bailiiff looked like in the lifetime of 
 her first husband, or her second either. Then at the 
 sound of a pudgy blow upon a table or high abusive 
 accents in the rapid, elaborate cadences of the domi- 
 ciled East Indian tongue, Hari Babu would glance at 
 Gobind Babu with a careful smile, for the manager- 
 sahib who dispensed so much galli * was now receiv- 
 ing the same, and defenceless. 
 
 The manager sat at his desk when Hilda went in. 
 He did not rise — he was one of those highly sagacious 
 little Scotchmen that Dundee exports in such large 
 numbers to fill small posts in the East, and she had 
 come on business. He gave her a nod, however, 
 and an affectionate smile, and indicated with his blue 
 pencil a chair on the other side of the table. He had 
 once made three hundred rupees in tea shares, and 
 that gave him the air of a capitalist and speculator 
 gamely shrewd. Tapping the table with his blue 
 pencil, he asked Miss Howe how the world was using 
 her. 
 
 " Let me see," said Hilda, a trifle absent-mindedly, 
 " were you here last cold weather — I rather imagine 
 you were, weren't you ? " 
 
 " I was ; I had the pleasure of — " 
 
 " To be sure. You got the place in December, 
 when that poor fellow Baker died. Baker was a 
 
 • Abuse. 
 
HILDA. 
 
 133 
 
 country-bred, I know, but he always kept his contracts, 
 while you got your p6-lish in Glesca, and your name 
 is Macphairson— isn't it ? " 
 
 " I was never in Glasscow in my life, and my name 
 is Macandrew," said the manager, putting with some 
 aggressiveness a paper-weight on a pile of bills. 
 
 •' Never mind," said Hilda, again wrapped in 
 thought, ''don't apologise— it's near enough. Well, 
 Mr. Macandrew "—her tone came to a point — "what 
 is the Stanhope Company's advertisement worth a 
 month to the Chronicle}'' 
 
 "A hundred rupees, maybe— there or thereabouts," 
 and Mr. Macandrew, with a vast show of indifference, 
 picked up a letter and began to tear at the end of it. ' 
 " One hundred and fifty-five, I think, to be precise. 
 That communication will wait, won't it? What is 
 it— Kally Nath Mitter's paper and stores bill ? You 
 won't be able to pay it any quicker if we withdraw 
 our advertisement." 
 
 "Why should ye withdraw it? " 
 " It was given to you on the understanding that no- 
 tices should appear of every Wednesday and Saturday's 
 performance. For two Wednesdays there has been 
 no notice, and last Saturday night you sent a fool." 
 
 "So Muster Stanhope thinks o' withdrawin' his 
 advertisement ? " 
 
 " He is very much of that mind." 
 The manager put his thumbs in the armholes of his 
 waistcoat, leaned back in his chair, and demonstrated 
 the principle that had given him a gold watch 
 chain—" Never be bluffed." 
 
 "Ye can withdraw it," he said, with a warily 
 experimental eye upon her. 
 
r 
 
 124 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 " How reasonable of you not to make a fuss ! We'll 
 have the order to discontinue in writing, please If 
 you give me a pen and paper— thanks-and I'll keen 
 a copy." '^ 
 
 " Stanhope has wanted to transfer it to the Market 
 Gazette for some time," she went on as she wrote, 
 therl" *' "°^ ^ newspaper. You'll get no notices 
 
 '• Cheaper on that account, probably " 
 " They charge like the very deevil. D'ye know the 
 rates of them ? . 
 
 "I can't say I do." 
 
 "There's a man on our staff that doesn't like your 
 show We 11 be able to send him every night now." 
 When we withdraw our advertisement ? " 
 "Just then." 
 
 "All right," said Hilda. " It will be interesting to 
 pomt out in the Indian Empire the remarkable growth 
 of mdependent criticism in the Chronicle since Mr 
 Stanhope no longer uses the space at his disposal I 
 hope your man will be very nasty indeed. You might 
 as well hand over the permanent passes— the gentle- 
 man will expect, I suppose, to pay." 
 
 "They'll be in the yeditorial department," said Mr 
 Macandrew, but he did not summon a messenger to 
 go for them. Instead he raised his eyebrows in a man- 
 ner that expressed the necessity of making the best of 
 It, and humourously scratched his head. 
 
 " We have four hundred pounds of new type coming 
 out m the Alinora~^\i€^ due on Thursday," he said 
 " Entirely for the advertisements. We'll have a fine 
 display next week. It's grand type-none of your 
 Calcutta-made stuff." 
 
HILDA. 
 
 125 
 
 •11 
 If 
 
 -P 
 et 
 
 "Pays to bring it out, does it?" asked Hilda, in- 
 attentively, copying her letter. 
 
 "Pays the advertisers." There were ingratiating 
 qualities in the managerial smile. Hilda insDected 
 them coldly. 
 
 "There's your notice of withdrawal," she said. 
 " Good-morning." 
 
 " Think of that new type, and how lovely Jimmy 
 Finnigan's ad. will look in it." 
 
 " That's all right. Good-morning." Miss Howe 
 approached the door, the blue glance of Macandrew 
 pursuant. 
 
 " No notices for two Wednesdays, eh ? We'll have 
 to see about that. I was thinkin' of transferrin' your 
 space to the third page; it's a more advantageous 
 position— and no extra charge— but ye'll not mention 
 it to Jimmy." 
 
 Miss Howe lifted an arrogant chin. " Do I under- 
 stand you'll do that, and guarantee regular notices, if 
 we leave the advertisement with you ? " 
 
 Mr. Macandrew looked at her expressively and tore, 
 with a gesture of moderated recklessness, the notice 
 of withdrawal in two. 
 
 "Rest easy," he said, « I'll see about it. I'd go the 
 en th of attendin' myself to-night, if ye could spare 
 three extra places." 
 
 " Moderate Macandrew ! " 
 
 " Moderate enough. I've got some frien's stayin' in 
 the same place with me from Behar-indigo people. 
 I was thinkin' I'd give them a treat, if three places c'd 
 be spared next to the Chronicle seats." 
 ^ "We do Lady Whippleton to-night and the book- 
 ing s been heavy. Five is too many, Mr. Macandrew, 
 
'2^ HILDA. 
 
 even if you promise not to write the notice your. 
 
 "I might pay for one-" Macandrew drew red 
 cartwheels on his blotting-pad. 
 
 "Those seats are sure to be gone. I'll send you a 
 box. Stanhope s as bad as he can be with dysentery 
 -you might make a local out of that. Be sure to 
 mention he can t see anybody-it's absurd the way 
 i-alcutta people want to be paid." 
 
 "A box'll be grand," said Mr. Macandrew. "I'll 
 see ye get plenty of ancores. Can ye manage the 
 door? Good-day, then." b ^ 
 
 ^li^^a stepped out on the landing. The heavy, reg- 
 ular thud of the presses came up from below. They 
 were pnntmg the edition that took the world's news 
 o p anters bungalows in the jungle of Assam and the 
 lonely policemen on the edge of Manipore. The 
 smell of the newspaper of to-day and of yesterday and 
 ot a year ago stood in the air ; through an open door 
 she saw the dusty, uneven piles of them, piled on 
 the floor. Three or four messengers squatted beside 
 the wall, with slumbrous heads between their knees. 
 Occasionally a shout came from the room inside, and 
 oneof them, crying "/j^^-wr/" with instant alacrity, 
 stretched himself mightily, loafed upon his feet and 
 went in, emerging a moment later carrying written 
 sheets, with which he disappeared into the regions be- 
 low. The staircase took a lazy curve and went up ; 
 under it, through an open window, the sun glistened 
 upon the shifting white and green leaves of a pipal tree 
 and a crow sat on the sill and thrust his grey head in 
 with caws of indignant expostulation. A Govern- 
 ment peon in scarlet and gold ascended the stair at 
 
HILDA. 
 
 127 
 
 his own pace, bearing a packet with an official seal. 
 The place, with its ink-smeared walls and high ceilings, 
 spoke between dusty yawns of the langour and the 
 leisure which might attend the manipulation of the 
 business of life, and Hilda paused for an instant to 
 perceive what it said. Then she walked behind her 
 card into the next room, where a young gentleman, 
 reading proofs in his shirt-sleeves, flung himself upon 
 his coat and struggled into it at her approach. He 
 seemed to have the blackest hair and the softest eyes 
 and the neatest moustache available, all set in a com- 
 plexion frankly olive, amiable English cut, in amiable 
 Oriental colour, and the whole illumined, when once 
 the coat was on and the collar perfectly turned down, 
 by the liveliest, most engaging smile. Standing with 
 his head slightly on one side and one hand resting on 
 the table while the other saw that nothing was disar- 
 ranged between collar and top waistcoat button, he 
 was an interjection-point of imitation and attention. 
 , " The editor of the Chronicle ? " Hilda asked with 
 diffident dignity, and very well informed to the con- 
 trary. 
 
 " Not the editor — I am sorry to say." The confes- 
 sion was delightfully vivid — in the plentitude of his 
 candour it was plain that he didn't care who knew 
 that he was sorry he was not the editor. " In journalis- 
 tic parlance the sub-editor," he added. " Will you 
 be seated. Miss Howe ? " and with a tasteful silk pocket 
 handkerchief he whisked the bottom of a chair for her. 
 
 "Then you are Mr. Molyneux Sinclair," Hilda de- 
 clared. " You have been pointed out to me on sev- 
 eral first nights. Oh, I know very well where the 
 Chronicle seats are ! " 
 
128 HILDA. 
 
 Mr. Sinclair bowed with infinite gratification and 
 tucked the silk handkerchief back so that only a fold 
 was visible. " We members of the Fourth Estate are 
 fairly well known, I'm afraid, in Calcutta," he said. 
 *• Personally, I could sometimes wish it were other- 
 wise. But certainly not in this instance." 
 
 Hilda gave him a gay little smile. " I suppose the 
 editor," she said, with a casual glance about the 
 room, " is hammering out his leader for to-morrow's 
 paper. Does he write half and do you write half, or 
 how do you manage? " 
 
 A seriousness overspread Mr. Sinclair's countenance, 
 which he nevertheless irradiated, as if he could not 
 help it, with beaming eyes. " Ah, those are the 
 secrets of the prison-house, Miss Howe. Unfortu- 
 nately, it is not etiquette for me to say in what pro- 
 portion I contribute the leading articles of the ChronU 
 cle. But I can tell you in confidence that if it were 
 not for the editor's prejudices — rank prejudices — it 
 would be a good deal larger." 
 
 "Ah, his prejudices! Why not be quite frank, Mr. 
 Sinclair, and say that he is just a little tiny bit jealous 
 of his staff. All editors are, you know." Miss Howe 
 shook her head in philosophical deprecation of the 
 peccadillo, and Mr. Sinclair cast a smiling, embarrassed 
 glance at his smart brown leather boot. The glance 
 was radiant with what he couldn't tell her as a sub- 
 editor of honour about those cruel prejudices, but he 
 gave it no other medium. 
 
 "I'm afraid you know the world, Miss Howe," he 
 said, with a noble reserve, and that was all. 
 
 " A corner of it here and there. But you are re- 
 sponsible for the whole of the dramatic criticism " — 
 
 . 
 
HILDA. 
 
 129 
 
 Hilda charged him roundly—" the editor can't claim 
 any of that'' 
 
 An inquiring brown face under an embroidered cap 
 appeared at the door ; a brown hand thrust in a bunch 
 of printed slips. Mr. Sinclair motioned both away, 
 and they vanished in silence. 
 
 •• That 1 can't deny," he said. " It would be useless 
 if I wished to do so— my style betrays me— I must 
 plead guilty. It is not one of my legitimate duties— 
 if I held this position on the Times or, say, the Daily 
 Telegraph, our London contemporaries, it would not 
 be required of me. But in this country everything is 
 piled upon the sub-editor. Many a night, Miss Howe, 
 I send down the last slips of a theatre notice at mid- 
 night and am here in this chair " — Mr. Sinclair brought 
 his open palm down upon the arm of it — " by eleven 
 the following day ! " Mr. Sinclair's chin was thrust 
 passionately forward, moisture dimmed the velvety 
 brightness of those eyes which, in more dramatic mo- 
 ments, he confessed to have inherited from a Nawab 
 great grandfather. " But I don't complain," he said, 
 and drew in his chin. It seemed to bring his argu- 
 ment to a climax, over which he looked at Hilda in 
 warm, frank expansion. 
 
 " Overworked, too, I dare say," she said, and then 
 went on a trifle hurriedly : " Well, I must tell you, 
 Mr. Sinclair, how kind your criticism always is, and 
 how much I personally appreciate it. None of the 
 little points and effects one tries to make seem to es- 
 cape you, and you are always generous in the matter 
 of space too." 
 
 Molyneux impartially slapped his leg. " I believe 
 in it ! " he exclaimed. " Honour where honour is due, 
 
130 HILDA. 
 
 Miss Howe, and the Stanhope Company has given me 
 some very enjoyable evenings. And you'll hardly be- 
 lieve me, but it is a fact, I assure you ; I seldom get a 
 free hand with those notices. Suicidal to the interests 
 r f the paper as it is, the editor insists as often as not 
 on cutting down my theatre copy ! " 
 
 "Cuts it down, does he? The brute!" said Miss 
 Howe. 
 
 " I've known him sacrifice a third of it for an indigo 
 market report. Now, I ask you, who reads an indigo 
 market report ? Nobody. Who wants to know how 
 Jimmy Finnigan's— how the Stanhope Company's 
 latefit novelties went off? Everybody. Of course, 
 when he does that sort of thing, I make it warm for 
 him next morning." 
 
 The door again opened and admitted a harassed 
 little Babu in spectacles, bearing a sheaf of proof slips, 
 who advanced timidly into the middle of the room 
 and paused. 
 
 "In a few minutes, Babu," said Mr. Sinclair; "I 
 am engaged." 
 
 " It iss the Council isspeech of the Legal Mciuber, 
 sir, and it iss to go at five p. m. to his house for last 
 correction." 
 
 "Presently, Babu. Don't interrupt. As I was 
 saying. Miss Howe, I make it warm for him till he 
 apologises. I must say he always apologises, and I 
 don't often ask more than that. But I was obliged to 
 tell him the last time that if it happened again one of 
 us would have to go." 
 
 " Vv^hat did he say to that ? " 
 
 " I don't exactly remember. But it had a tremen- 
 dous effect— tremendous. We becanriC good friends 
 almost immediately." 
 
HII,DA. ,31 
 
 "Quite so. We miss you when you don't come 
 Mr. Smclair— last Saturday night, for example." 
 
 " I had to go to the Surprise Party. Jimmy came 
 here with tears m his eyes that morning. ' My show 
 is tumbling to pieces,' he said. ' Sinclair, you Ve got 
 to come to-night.' Made me dine with him-wouldn't 
 let me out of his sight. We had to send a reporter to 
 you and Llewellyn that night." 
 
 " Mr. Sinclair, the notice made me weep." 
 
 " I know. All that about the costumes.' But what 
 can you expect ? The man is as black as your hat." 
 
 "We have to buy our own costumes," said Hilda 
 with a glance at the floor, " and we haven't any too 
 much, you know, to do it on." 
 
 " The toilettes in Her Second Son were simply ma^- 
 nificent. Not to be surpassed on the boards of the 
 Lyceum in tasteful design or richness of material. 
 They xvcre ne plus ultra / " cried Mr. Sinclair. " You 
 will remember I said so in my critique." 
 
 " I remember. If I were you I wouldn't go so far 
 
 another time. There'*? a Inf r.( ^^ , 
 
 ic. ineres a lot of cotton velvet and 
 
 satin about it, you know, between ourselves, and Fin- 
 n.gan s people will be getting the laugh on us. That's 
 one of the things I wanted to mention. Don't be 
 quite so good to us. See? Otherwise-well, you 
 know how Calcutta talks, and what a pretty girl Beryl 
 Stacey IS, for example. Mrs. Sinclair mightn't like it 
 and I don't blame her." ' 
 
 wo'rld." ^ '"'"^ ^'^''''' ^^"" ^°^'' y°" ^"°^ the 
 
 Mr. Sinclair replied with infinite mellow humour, 
 and as Miss Howe had risen, he rose too, pulling down 
 his waistcoat. s ^^wii 
 
 I 
 
132 HILDA. 
 
 " There was just one other thing," Hilda said, hold- 
 ing out her hand. " Next Wednesday, you know, 
 Rosa Norton takes her benefit. Rosy's as well known 
 here as the Ochterlony monument ; she's been coming 
 every cold weather for ten years, poor old Rosy. 
 Don't you think you could do her a bit of an inter- 
 view for Wednesday's paper? She'll write up very 
 well— get her on variety entertainments in the Aus- 
 tralian bush." 
 
 Mr. Molyneux Sinclair looked pained to hesitate. 
 ** Personally," he said, confidentially, '• I should like 
 it immensely, and I dare say I could get it past the 
 editor. But we're so short-handed." 
 
 Miss Howe held up a forefinger which seemed lumi- 
 nous with solution. " Don't you bother," she said, 
 " I'll do it for you ; I'll write it myself. My 'prentice 
 hand I'll try on Rosy, and you shall have the result 
 ready to print on Tuesday morning. Will that do ? " 
 
 That would do supremely. Mr. Sinclair could not 
 conceal the admiration he felt for such a combination 
 of talents. He did not try ; he accompanied it to the 
 door, expanding and expanding until it seemed more 
 than ever obvious that he found the sub-editorial sphere 
 unreasonably contracted. Hilda received his final 
 bow from the threshold of what he called his " sanc- 
 tum," and had hardly left the landing in descent when 
 a square-headed, collarless, red-faced male in shirt- 
 sleeves came down, descending, as it seemed, in 
 bounds from parts above. " Damn it, Sinclair," she 
 heard as he shot into the apartment she had left, 
 ** here's the whole council-meeting report set up and 
 waiting three-quarters of an hour— press blocked ; and 
 the printer-Babu says he can get nothing out of you. 
 
HILDA. 
 
 133 
 
 . If the dak's* missed again, by 
 
 paid to converse with itinerant 
 
 seven columns . . . infernal 
 
 What the devil, 
 thunder! . . 
 females . , 
 idiocy." 
 
 Hilda descended in safety and at leisure, reflecting 
 with some amusement as she made her way down that 
 Mr. Sinclair was doubtless waiting until his lady visitor 
 was well out of earshot to make it warm for the 
 editor. 
 
 •Country post. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 I FIND myself wondering whether Calcutta would 
 have found anything very exquisitely amusing in the 
 satisfactions which exchanged themselves between Mr 
 Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady and the Reverend 
 Stephen Arnold, had it been aware of them, and I 
 conclude reluctantly that it would not. Reluctantly 
 because such imperviousness argues a lack of per- 
 ception, of flair, in directions which any continental 
 centre would recognise as vastly tickling, regrettable 
 in a capital of such vaunted sophistication as that 
 which sits beside the Hooghly. It may as well be 
 shortly admitted, however, that to stir Calcutta's 
 sense of comedy you must, for example, attempt to 
 corner, by shortsightedness or faulty technical equip, 
 ment, a civet cat in a jackal hunt, or, coming out from 
 England to assume ofificial duties, you must take a 
 larger view of your dignities than the clubs are ac- 
 customed to admit. For the sex that does not hunt 
 jackals it is easier— you have only to be a little 
 frivolous and Calcutta will invent for you the most 
 side-shaking nickname, as in the case of three ladies 
 known in a viceroyalty of happy legend as the World 
 the Flesh and the Devil. I should be sorry to give the 
 impression that Calcutta is therefore a place of gloom. 
 The source of these things is perennial, and the noise 
 of laughter is ever in the air of the Indian capital. 
 
HILDA. 
 
 135 
 
 Between the explosions, however, it is natural enough 
 that the affairs of a priest of College street and an 
 actress of no address at all should slip unnoticed, 
 especially as they did not advertise it. Stephen 
 mostly came, on afternoons when there was no re- 
 hearsal, to tea. He, Stephen, had a perception of con- 
 trasts which answered fairly well the purposes of a sense 
 of humour, and nobody could question hers ; it 
 operated obscurely to keep them in the house. 
 
 She told him buoyantly once or twice that he had 
 been sent to her to take the place of Duff Lindsay, 
 who had fallen to the snare of beauty, although she 
 mentioned herself that he took it with a difference, 
 a vast temperamental difference which she was aware of 
 not having yet quite sounded. The depths of his faith, 
 of course— there she could only scan and hesitate, but 
 this was a brink upon which she did not often find 
 herself, away from which, indeed, he sometimes gently 
 guided her. The atmospheres of their talk were the 
 more bracing ones of this world, and it was here that 
 Hilda looked when she would make him a parallel for 
 Lindsay, and here that she found her measure of dis- 
 appointment. He warmed himself and dried his wings 
 in the opulence of her spirit, and she was not, on the 
 whole, the poorer by any exchange they made, but she 
 was sometimes pricked to the reflection that the free- 
 masonry between them was all hers, and the things 
 she said to him had still the flavour of adventure. She 
 found herself inclined— and the experience was new — 
 to make an effort for a reward which was problematical 
 and had to be considered in averages, a reward put 
 out in a thin and hesitating hand under a sacerdotal 
 robe, with a curious, concentrated quality and a strange 
 
136 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 flavour of incense and the air of cold churches. There 
 was also the impression— was it too fantastic — of words 
 carried over a medium, an invisible wire which brought 
 the soul of them and left the body by the way. Duff 
 Lindsay, so eminently responsive and calculable, 
 came running with open arms ; in his rejoiceful eye- 
 beam one saw almost a midwife to one's idea. But 
 the comparison was subtly irritating, and after a time 
 she turned from it. She awoke once in the night, 
 moreover, to declare to the stars that she was less 
 worried by the consideration of Arnold's sex than she 
 would have thought it possible to be — one hardly 
 paused to consider that he was a man at all ; a reflection 
 which would certainly not have occurred to her about 
 poor dear Duff. With regard to Stephen Arnold, it 
 was only, of course, another way of saying that she 
 was less oppressed, in his company, by the consider- 
 ation of her own. Perhaps it is already evident that 
 this was her grievance with life, when the joy of it left 
 her time to think of a grievance, the attraction of her 
 personal curves, the reason of the hundred fetiches 
 her body claimed of her and found her willing to 
 perform ; the fact that it meant more to her, for all 
 her theories, that she should be looking her best when 
 she got up in the morning than was justifiable from 
 any point of view except the biological. She had no 
 heroic quarrel with these conditions — her experience 
 had not been upon that plan — but she bemoaned 
 them with sincerity as too fundamental, too all-per- 
 vading ; one came upon them at every turn, grinning 
 in their pretty chains. It was absurd, she construed, 
 that a world of mankind and womankind with vastly 
 interesting possibilities should be so essentially sub- 
 
HILDA. 
 
 137 
 
 jected to a single end. So primitive, it was, she argued 
 in her vivid candour, and so interfering — so horribly 
 interfering ! Personally she did not see herself one of 
 the fugitive half of the race ; she had her defences ; 
 but the necessity of using them was matter for com- 
 plaint when existence might have been so delightful a 
 boon without it, full of affinities and communities in 
 every direction. She had not, I am convinced, any of 
 the notions of a crusader upon this popular subject, 
 nor may I portray her either shocked or revolted, only 
 rather bored, being a creature whom it was unkind to 
 hamper; and she would have explained quite in these 
 simple terms the reason why Stephen Arnold's saving 
 neutrality of temperament was to her a pervasive 
 charm of his society. 
 
 She had not yet felt at liberty to tell him that she 
 could not classify him, that she had never known any 
 one like him before ; and there was in this no doubt a 
 vague perception that the confession showed a limita- 
 tion of experience on her part for which he might be 
 inclined to call her to account, since cultured young 
 Oxonians with an altruistic bias, if they do not exactly 
 abound, are still often enough to be discovered if one 
 happens to belong to the sphere which they haunt, 
 they and their ideals. Not that any such considera- 
 tion led her to gloss or to minimise the disabilities of 
 her own. She sat sometimes in gravest wonder, 
 pinching her lips, and watched the studiously modi- 
 fied interest of his glance following her into its queer 
 by-ways— her sphere's— full of spangles and lime- 
 light, and the first-class hysteria of third-class rival 
 artistry. There was a fascination in bringing him out 
 of his remoteness near to those things, a speculation 
 
'38 HILDA. 
 
 ZratlfieH'? 1 '" "^'^ ^^ "^'^^^ ^^- ^his remained 
 ungratified, for he never did anything. He only let it 
 
 saTwLt^h ""' '^'^'"^^ ^'^"^ P°-^b^^ that he 
 saw vyhat she saw, peering over his paling, and she in 
 
 the picturesque tangle outside found it enough 
 
 He was there when she came back from the Or.;//- 
 
 c/e office patient under the blue umbrellas; he had 
 
 brought her a book, and they had told him she vvould 
 
 not be long in returning. He had gone so far as to 
 
 'Make it '-T ' '"'J' "^^ ^^"^^^"^ '^'''^ ^^^-• 
 Make it she commanded; "why haven't you had 
 
 some already .>" and while he bent over the battered 
 Britannia metal spout she sank into the nearest seat 
 and let her hat make a frame for her face against the 
 back of It. She was too tired, she said, to move, and 
 her hands lay extended, one upon each arm of her 
 chair, with the air of being left there to be picked up 
 at her convenience. Arnold, over the tea-pot, agreed 
 that walking in Calcutta was an insidious pleasure- 
 one gathered a lassitude-and brought her cup. She 
 looked at him for an instant as she took it. 
 
 " But I am not too tired to hear what you have on 
 your mind,'- she said. " Have Kally Nath Hitter's 
 relations prevailed over his convictions ? Won't your 
 landlord let you have your oratory on the roof after 
 
 _ "You get these things so out of perspective" 
 Stephen said, " that I don't think I should tell you if 
 they were so. But they're not. Kally Nath is to be 
 baptised to-morrow. We are certain to get our 
 oratory." 
 
 " I am very glad," Hilda interrupted. " When one 
 prays for so long a time together it must be better to 
 
HILDA. 139 
 
 have fresh air. It will certainly be better for Brother 
 Colquhoun. He seems to have such a weak chest." 
 
 " It will be better for us all." Arnold seemed to 
 reflect, across his tea-cup, how much better it would 
 be. Then he added, " I saw Lindsay last night." 
 
 " Again ? And " 
 
 " I think it is perfectly hopeless. I think he is mak- 
 ing way." 
 
 " Sickening ! I hoped you would not speak to him 
 again. After all — another man — it's naturally of no 
 use!" 
 
 " I spoke as a priest ! " 
 
 " Did he swear at you ? " 
 
 " Oh dear no ! He was rather sympathetic. And I 
 went very far. But I could get him to see nothing — 
 to feel nothing." 
 
 " How far did you go ? " 
 
 "I told him that she was consecrated, that he 
 proposed to commit sacrilege. He seemed to think 
 he could make it up to her." 
 
 " If anyone else had said that to me I should have 
 laughed — you don't suspect the irony in it," Hilda 
 said. " Pray who is to make it up to him ? " 
 
 " I suppose there is that point cf view." 
 
 " I should think so, indeed ! But taking it, I 
 despair with you. I had her here the other day and 
 tried to make the substance of her appear before him. 
 I succeeded, too — he gave me the most uncomfortable 
 looks — but I might as well have let it alone. The 
 great purpose of nature," Hilda went on, putting 
 down her cup, " reasonable beings in their normal 
 state would never lend themselves to. So she invents 
 these temporary insanities. And therein is nature 
 
HO HILDA. 
 
 cruel, for they might just as well be permanent. 
 That s a platitude, I know," she added, - but it's 
 irresistibly suggested." 
 
 Stephen looked with some fixedness at a point on 
 the other side of the room. The platitude brought 
 him, by some process of inversion, the vision of a 
 drawing-room in Addison gardens, occupied by his 
 mother and sisters, engaged with whatever may be 
 Kensington's substitutes at the moment for the spinet 
 and the tambour frame; and he had a disturbed sense 
 that they might characterise such a statement differ- 
 ently, if, mdeed, they would consent to characterise it 
 at all. He looked at the wall as if, being a solid and 
 steadfast object, it might correct the qualm—it was 
 really something like that—which the wide sweep of 
 her cynicism brought him. 
 
 " From what he told me last week I thought we 
 shouldn't see it. He seemed determined enough, but 
 depressed and not hopeful. I fancied she was being 
 upheld— I thought she would easily pull through. In- 
 deed, I wasn't sure that there was any great tempta- 
 tion. Somebody must be helping him." 
 
 "The Devil, no doubt," Hilda replied, concisely; 
 
 "and with equal certainty, Miss Ahcia Livingstone."' 
 
 Arnold gave her a look of surprise. "Surely not 
 
 my cousin ! " he protested. " She can't understand." 
 
 "Oh, I beg of you, don't speak to her! I think " 
 she understands. I think she's only too tortuously in- 
 telligent." 
 
 Stephen kept an instant of nervous silence. " May 
 I ask ? " he began formally. 
 
 " Oh, yes! It is almost an indecent thing to say of 
 anyone so exquisitely self-contained, but your cousin 
 
 
HILDA. 
 
 141 
 
 is very much in love with Mr. Lindsay herself. It 
 seems almost a liberty, doesn't it, to tell you such a 
 thing about a member of your family ? " she went on, 
 at Arnold's blush ; " but you asked me, you know. 
 And she is making it her ecstatic agony to bring this 
 precious union about. I think she is taking a kinder- 
 garten method with the girl — having her there con- 
 stantly, and showing her little scented, luxurious bits 
 of what she is so possessed to throw away. People in 
 Alicia's condition have no sense of immorality." 
 
 " That makes it all the more painful," said Arnold ; 
 but the interest in his tone was a little remote, and his 
 gesture, too, which was not quite a shrug, had a rele- 
 gating effect upon any complication between Alicia 
 and Lindsay. He sat for a moment without saying 
 more, covering his eyes with his hand. 
 
 "Why should you care so much?" Hilda asked 
 gently. "You are at the very antipodes of her sect. 
 You can't endorse her methods— you don't trust her 
 results." 
 
 " Oh, all that ! It's of the least consequence." He 
 spoke with a curious, governed impulse coming from 
 beneath his shaded eyes. *' It's seeing another ideal 
 pulled down, gone under, something that held, as best 
 it could, a ray from the source. It's another glimpse 
 of the strength of the tide— terrible. It's a cruel hint 
 that one lives above it in the heaven of one's own 
 hopes, by some mere blind accident. To have set 
 one's feeble hand to the spiritualising of the world, 
 and to feel the possibility of that " 
 
 "I see," said Hilda, and perhaps she did. But his 
 words oppressed her. She got up with a movement 
 which almost shook them off, and went to a promiscu. 
 
H2 HILDA. 
 
 ous looking-glass to remove her hat. She was re- 
 freshed and vivified— she wanted to talk of the warm 
 world. She let a decent interval elapse, however; she 
 waited till he took his hand from his eyes. Even 
 then, to make the transition easier, she said, " You 
 ought to be lifted up to-day, if you are going to bap- 
 tise Kally Nath to-morrow." 
 
 "The Brother Superior will do it. And I don't 
 know— I don't know. The young woman he is to 
 marry withdraws, I believe, if he comes over to us " 
 
 "The young woman he is to marry! Oh, my dear 
 and reverend friend ! Avcc ccs gens Ih / I have had a 
 most amusing afternoon," she went on, quickly. " I 
 have taken off my hat, now let me remove your halo." 
 She was safe with her conceit ; Arnold would always 
 smile at any imputation of saintship. He held him- 
 self a person of broad indulgences, and would point 
 openly to his consumption of tea cakes. But this 
 afternoon a miasm hung over him. Hilda saw it and 
 bent herself, with her graphic recital, to dispel it, per- 
 ceived it thicken and settle down upon him, and went 
 bravely on to the end. Mr. Macandrew and Mr. 
 Molyneux Sinclair lived and spoke before him. It 
 was comedy enough, in essence, to spread over a 
 matinee. 
 
 "And that is the sort of thing you store up and 
 value," he said, when she had finished. "These per- 
 sons will add to your knowledge of life." 
 
 " Extremely," she replied to all of it. 
 
 " I suppose they will in their measure. But per- 
 sonally I could wish you had not gone. Your work 
 has no right to make such demands." 
 
 "Be reasonable," she said, flushing. "Don't talk 
 
HILDA. 
 
 143 
 
 as if personal dignity were within the reach of every- 
 body. It's the most expensive of privileges. And 
 nothing to be so very proud of — generally the product 
 of somebody else's humiliations, handed down. But 
 the humiliations must have been successful, handed 
 down in cash. My father drove a cab and died in 
 debt. His name was Murphy. I shall be dignified 
 some day — some day ! But you see I must make it 
 possible myself, since nobody has done it for me." 
 
 " Well, then, I'll alter my complaint. Why should 
 you play with your sincerity ? " 
 
 " I didn't play with it," she flashed ; " I abandoned 
 it. I am an actress." 
 
 They often permitted themselves such candours; 
 to all appearance their discussion had its usual equable 
 quality, and I am certain that Arnold was not even 
 aware of the tension upon his nerves. He fidgeted 
 with the tassel of his ceinture, and she watched his 
 moving fingers. Presently she spoke, quietly, in a 
 different key. 
 
 "I sometimes think," she said, " of a child I knew 
 in the other years. She had the simplest nature, the 
 finest instincts. Her impulses, within her little limits, 
 were noble — she was the keenest, loyalist little person ; 
 her admirations rather made a fool of her. When I 
 look at the woman as she is now I think the uses of 
 life are hard, my friend — they are hard." 
 
 He missed the personal note ; he took what she 
 said on its merits as an illustration. 
 
 " And yet," he replied, " they can be turned to ad- 
 mirable purpose." 
 
 *' I wonder ! " Hilda exclaimed brightly. She had 
 turned down the leaf of that mood. " But we are not 
 
144 HILDA. 
 
 cheerful — let us be cheerful. For my part, I am re- 
 joicing as I have not rejoiced since the first of De- 
 cember. Look at this! ** 
 
 She opened a small black leather bag and poured 
 money out of it, notes and currency, into her lap. 
 
 " Is it a legacy?" 
 
 " It's pay," she cried, with pleasure dimpling about 
 her lips. " I have been paid — we have all been paid ! 
 It's so unusual — it makes me feel quite generous. Let 
 me see. I'll give you this, and this, and this" — she 
 counted into her open palm ten silvt 'upees — "all 
 those I will give you for your mission. Prends I " 
 and she clinked them together and held them out to 
 him. 
 
 He had risen to go, and his face looked grey and 
 small. Something in him had mutinied at the levity, 
 the quick change of her mood. He could only draw 
 into his shell ; doubtless he thought that a legitimate 
 and inoffensive proceeding. 
 
 "Thanks, no," he said, " I think not. We desire 
 people's prayers, rather than their alms." 
 
 He went away immediately, and she glossed over 
 his scandalous behaviour and said farewell to him as 
 usual, in spite of the unusual look of consciousness in 
 her eyes. Then she went to her room and deliber- 
 ately loosened her garments and lay down upon her 
 bed, first to sob like that little child she remembered, 
 and afterwards to think, until the world came and 
 knocked at her door and bade her come out of herself 
 and earn money. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The compulsion which took Stephen Arnold to 
 Crooked lane is hardly ours to examine. It must have 
 been strong, since going up to Mrs. Sand involved 
 certain concessions, doubtless intrinsically trifling, 
 but of exaggerated discomfort to the mind spiritually 
 cloistered, whatever its other latitude. Among them 
 was a distinctly necessary apology, difficult enough to 
 make to a lady of rank so superior and authority so 
 voyant in the Church Militant, by a mere fighting soul 
 without such straps and buttons as might compel 
 recognition upon equal terms. It is impossible to 
 know how far Stephen envisaged the visit as a duty — 
 the pricfitly horizon is perhaps not wholly free from 
 mirage — or to what extent he confessed it an indul- 
 gence. He was certainly aware of a stronger desire 
 than he could altogether account for that Captain 
 Filbert should not desert her post. The idea had an 
 element of irritation oddly personal ; he could not 
 bear to reflect upon it. It may be wondered whether 
 in any flight of venial imagination Arnold saw himself 
 in a parallel situation with a lady. I am sure he did 
 not. It may be considered, however, that among 
 mirages there are unaccountable resemblances — re- 
 semblances without shape or form. He might fix his 
 gaze, at all events, upon the supreme argument that 
 those who were given to holy work, under any condi- 
 
146 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 tion, in any degree, should make no rededication of 
 themselves. This had to support him as best it could 
 against the conviction that had Captain Filbert been 
 Sister Anastasia, for example, of the Baker Institu- 
 tion, and Ensign Sand the Mother Superior of its 
 Calcutta branch, it was improbable that he would 
 have ventured to announce his interest in the matter 
 by his card, or In any other way. 
 
 It was a hesitating step, therefore, that carried him 
 up to the quarters, and a glance of some nervous dis- 
 tress that made him aware, as he stood bowing upon 
 her threshold, clasping with both hands his soft felt 
 hat to his breast, that Mrs. Sand was not displeased 
 to see him. She hastened, indeed, to give him a chair ; 
 she said she was very glad he'd dropped in, if he 
 dir'n't mind the room being so untidy — where there 
 were children you could spend the whole day picking 
 up. They were out at present, with Captain Sand, in 
 the perambulator — not having more servants than 
 they could help. A sweeper and a cook they did 
 with ; it would surprise the people in this country, who 
 couldn't get along with less than twenty, she often said. 
 
 Mrs. Sand's tone was casual; her manner had a 
 quality somewhat aggressively democratic. It said 
 that under her welcome lay the right to criticise, 
 which she would have exercised with equal freedom 
 had her visitor been the Lord Bishop John Calcutta 
 himself ; and it made short work of the idea that she 
 might be over-gratified to receive Holy Orders in any 
 form. She was not unwilling, however, to show, as 
 between Ensign and man, reasonable satisfaction ; 
 presently, in fact, she went so far as to say, still 
 vaguely remarking upon his appearance there, that 
 
HILDA. 
 
 147 
 
 she often thought there ought to be more sociability 
 between the different religious bodies; it would be 
 better for the cause. There was nothing narrow, she 
 said, about her, nor yet about Captain Sand. And 
 then, with the distinct intimation that that would do, 
 that she had gone far enough, she crossed her hands 
 in her lap and waited. It became her to have it un- 
 derstood this visit need have no further object than an 
 exchange of amiabilities ; but there might be another, 
 and Mrs. Sand's folded hands seemed to indicate that 
 she would not necessarily meet it with opposition. 
 
 Stephen made successive statements of assent. He 
 sat grasping his hat between his knees, his eyes fixed 
 upon an infant's sock which lay upon the floor immedi- 
 ately in front of him, looking at Mrs. Sand as seldom 
 and as briefly as possible, as if his glance took rather 
 an unfair advantage, which he would spare her. 
 
 " Yes, yes," he said. " Yes, certainly," revolving 
 his hat in his hands. And when she spoke of the 
 fraternity that might be fostered by surh visits, he 
 looked for an instant as if he had found an opening, 
 which seemed, however, to converge and vanish in Mrs. 
 Sand's folded hands. He flushed to think afterwards, 
 that it was she who was obliged to bring his resolution 
 to a head, her scent of his embarrassment sharpening 
 her curiosity. 
 
 " And is there anything we Army officers can do 
 for you, Mr. Arnold ? " she inquired. 
 
 There was a hint in her voice that, whatever it was, 
 they would have done it more willingly if she had not 
 been obliged to ask. 
 
 " I am afraid," he said ; " my mission is not quite so 
 simple. I could wish it were. It is so easy to show 
 
148 HILDA. 
 
 our poor needs to one another ; and I should have con- 
 fidence " he paused, amazed at the duplicity that 
 
 grinned at him in his words. At what point more re- 
 mote within the poles was he likely to show himself 
 with a personal request ? 
 
 " I have nothing to ask for myself," he went on, 
 with concentration almost harsh. " I am here to see 
 if you will consent to speak with me about a matter 
 which threatens your — your conimunity — about your 
 possible loss of Miss Filbert." 
 
 Mrs. Sand looked blank. " The Captain isn't leavin* 
 us, as far as I know," she said. 
 
 " Oh— is it possible that you are not aware that — 
 that very strong efforts are being made to induce her 
 to do so?" 
 
 Mrs. Sand looked about her as if she expected to 
 find an explanation lying somewhere near her chair. 
 Light came to her suddenly and brought her a con- 
 scious smile ; it only lacked force to be a giggle. She 
 glanced at her lap as she smiled ; her air was depre- 
 cating and off-putting, as if she had detected in what 
 Arnold said some suggestion of a gallant nature aimed 
 at herself. Happily, he was not looking. 
 
 "You mean Mr. Lindsay," she exclaimed, twisting 
 her wedding-ring and its coral guard. 
 
 " I hope — I beg— that you will not think me med- 
 dlesome or impertinent. I have the matter very much 
 at heart. It seems to lie in my path. I must see it. 
 Surely you perceive some way of averting the disaster 
 in it!" 
 
 ** I'm sure I don't know what you refer to." Mrs. 
 Sand's tone was prudish and offended. " She hasn't 
 said a word to me — she's a great one for keeping 
 
HILDA. 
 
 149 
 
 things to herself — but if Mr. Lindsay don't mean mar- 
 riage with her " 
 
 " Why, of course ! " Arnold, startled, turned furi- 
 ously red, but Mrs. Sand in her indignation did not 
 reflect the tint. " Of course ! Is not that," he went 
 on after an instant's pause, *' precisely what is to be 
 lamented — and prevented?" 
 
 Mrs. Sand looked at her visitor with dry suspicion. 
 " I suppose you are a friend of his," she said. 
 
 " I have known him for years. Pray don't mis- 
 understand me. There is nothing against him — noth- 
 ing whatever." 
 
 " Oh, I don't suppose there is, except that he is not 
 on the Lord's side. But I don't expect any of his 
 friends are anxious for him to marry an officer in the 
 Salvation Army. Society people ain't fond of the 
 Army, and never will be." 
 
 " His people — he has only distant relatives living — 
 are all at home," Stephen said, vaguely. The situa- 
 tion had become slightly confused. 
 
 " Then you speak for them, I suppose." 
 
 " Indeed not. I am in no communication with 
 them whatever. I fancy they know nothing about it. 
 I am here entirely — entirely of my own accord. I 
 have come to place myself at your disposition if there 
 is anything I can do, any word I can say, to the end 
 of preventing this catastrophe in a spiritual life so 
 pure and devoted ; to ask you at all events to let 
 me join my prayers to yours that it shall not come 
 about." 
 
 The squalor of the room seemed to lift before his 
 eyes and be suffused with light. At last he had made 
 himself plain. But Mrs. Sand was not transfigured. 
 
t 
 
 il 
 
 I 
 
 150 HILDA. 
 
 f' 
 
 II 
 .1 
 
 She seemed to sit, with her hands folded, in the midst 
 I of a calculation. 
 
 " Then he /tas proposed. I told her he would," she 
 said. 
 
 " I believe he has asked her to marry him and she 
 has refused, more than once. But he is importunate, 
 and I hear she needs help." 
 
 ♦* Mr. Lindsay," said Mrs. Sand, " is a very takin* 
 young man." 
 
 " I suppose we must consider that. There is posi- 
 tion, too, and wealth. These things count — we are all 
 so human— even against the Divine realities into pos- 
 session of which Miss Filbert must have so perfectly 
 entered." 
 
 " I thought he must be pretty well off. Would he 
 be one of them Government officials ? " 
 "He is a broker." 
 
 "Oh, is he indeed?" Mrs. Sand's enlightenment 
 was evidently doubtful. " Well, if they get married 
 Captain Filbert '11 have to resign. It's against the 
 regulations for her to marry outside of the Army." 
 
 " But is she not vowed to her work ; isn't her life 
 turned forever into that channel ? Would jt not be 
 horrible to you to see the world interfere ? " 
 
 " I won't say but what I'd be sorry to see her leave 
 us. But I wouldn't stand in her way either, and 
 neither would Captain Sand." 
 
 " Stand in her way ! In her way to material luxury, 
 poverty of spirit, the shirking of all the high alterna- 
 tives, the common moral mediocrity of the world. I 
 would to God I could be that stumbling block! I 
 have heard her— I have seen the light in her that may 
 so possibly be extinguished * 
 
HILDA. 151 
 
 " I don't deny she has a kind of platform gift, but 
 she's losin' her voice. And she doesn't understand 
 briskin' people up, if you know what I mean." 
 
 "She will be pulled down — she will go under!" 
 Arnold repeated in the depths of his spirit. He stood 
 up, fumbling with his hat. Mrs. Sand and her apart- 
 ment, her children out of doors in the perambulator, 
 and the whole organisation to which she appertained, 
 had grown oppressive and unnecessary. He was 
 aware of a supreme desire to put his foot again in his 
 own world, where things were seen, were understood. 
 He thought there might be solace in relating the 
 affair to Brother Colquhoun. 
 
 " It's a case," said Mrs. Sand, judicially, " where I 
 wouldn't think myself called on to say one word. 
 Such things everyone has a right to decide for them- 
 selves. But you oughtn't to forget that a married 
 woman " — she looked at Arnold's celibate habit as if 
 to hold it accountable for much — "can have a great 
 influence for good over him that she chooses. I am 
 pretty sure Captain Filbert's already got Mr. Lindsay 
 almost persuaded. I shouldn't be at all surprised if 
 he joined the Army himself when she's had a good 
 chance at him." 
 
 Arnold put on his hat with a groan and began the 
 descent of the stairs. " Good-afternoon, then," Mrs. 
 Sand called out to him from the top. He turned 
 mechanically and bared his head. " I beg your par- 
 don," he said, ** Good-afternoon." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Mrs. Sand found it difficult to make up her mind 
 upon several points touching the visit of the Reverend 
 Stephen Arnold. Its purport, of which she could not 
 deny her vague appreciation, drew a cloud across a 
 rosy prospect, and in this light his conduct showed un- 
 pardonable ; on the other hand, it implied a compli- 
 ment to the corps, it made the spiritual position of an 
 officer of the Army, a junior too, a matter of moment 
 in a wider world than might be suspected ; and before 
 this consideration Mrs. Sand expanded. She reflected 
 liberally that salvation was not necessarily frustrated 
 by the laying-on of hands ; she had serene fancies of 
 a republic of the redeemed. She was a prey to further 
 hesitations regarding the expediency of mentioning 
 the interview to Laura, and as private and confiden- 
 tial it ministered for two days to her satisfactions of 
 superior officer. In the end, however, she had to 
 sacrifice it to the girl's imperturbable silence. She 
 chose an intimate and a private hour and shut the 
 door carefully upon herself and her captain, but she 
 had not at all decided, when she sat down on the edge 
 of the bed, what complexion to give to the matter, 
 nor had she a very definite idea, when she got up 
 again, of what complexion she had given it. Laura, 
 from the first word, had upset her by an intense eager- 
 ness, a determination not to lose a syllable. Captain 
 
HILDA. 153 
 
 Filbert insisted upon hearing all before she would ac- 
 knowledge anything ; she hung upon the sentences 
 Mrs. Sand repeated, and joined them together as if 
 they were parts of a puzzle ; she finally had possession 
 of the conversation much as I have already written it 
 down. As Mrs. Sand afterward told her husband, 
 Miss Filbert sat there growing whiter and whiter, 
 more and more worked up, and it was impossible to 
 take any comfort in talking to her. It seemed as if 
 she, the Ensign, might save herself the trouble of giv- 
 ing an opinion one way or the other, and not a thing 
 could she get the girl to say except that it was true 
 enough that the gentleman wanted to marry her, and 
 she was ashamed of having let it go so far. But she 
 would never do it — never. She declared she would 
 write to this Mr. Arnold and thank him, and ask him 
 to pray for her, " and she as much as ordered me to go 
 and do the same," concluded Mrs. Sand with an inflec- 
 tion which made its own comment upon such a subver- 
 sion of discipline. 
 
 Stephen, under uncomfortable compulsion, sent 
 Laura's letter — she did write — to Lindsay. " I can- 
 not allow you to be in the dark about what I am doing 
 in the matter," he explained ; " though if I had not 
 this necessity for writing you might reasonably com- 
 plain of an intrusive and impertinent letter. But I 
 must let you know that she has appealed to me, and 
 that as far as I can I will help her." 
 
 Duff read both communications — Laura's to the 
 priest was brief and very technical — between the busi- 
 ness quarters of Ralli Brothers and the Delhi and 
 London Bank, with his feet in the opposite seat of his 
 office-gharry and his forehead puckered by an immedi- 
 
154 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 ate calculation forward in rupee paper. His irritation 
 spoiled his transaction — there was a distinct edge in 
 the manager's manner when they parted, and it was 
 perhaps a^ pardonable weakness that led him to dash 
 in blue pencil across the page covered with Arnold's 
 minute handwriting, *' Then you have done with pasty 
 compromises — you have gone over to the Jesuits. I 
 congratulate you," and re-addressed the envelope to 
 College street. The brown tide of the crowd brought 
 him an instant messenger, and he stood in the door- 
 way for a moment afterwards frowning upon the yel- 
 low turbans that swung along in the sunlight against 
 the white wall opposite, across the narrow commercial 
 road. The flame of his indignation set forth his fea- 
 tures with definiteness and relief, consuming altogether 
 the soft amused bien-itre which was nearly always 
 there. His lips set themselves together, and Mrs. 
 Sand would have been encouraged in any scheme of 
 practical utility by the lines that came about his 
 mouth. A brother in finance of some astuteness, who 
 saw him scramble into his gharry, divined that with 
 regard to a weighty matter in jute-mill shares pend- 
 ing, Lindsay had decided upon a coup^ and made his 
 arrangements accordingly. He also went upon his 
 way with a fresh impression of Lindsay's undeniable 
 good looks, as sometimes in a coin new from the mint 
 one is struck with the beauty of a die dulled by use 
 and familiarity. 
 
 Stephen Arnold, receiving his answer, composed 
 himself to feel distress, but when he had read it, that 
 emotion was somewhat lightened in him by another 
 sentiment. 
 
 " A community admirable in many ways," he mur- 
 
HILDA. 155 
 
 mured, refolding the page. " Does he think he is in- 
 sulting me! " 
 
 Whatever degree of influence, Jesuitical or other, 
 Lindsay was inclined to concede to Stephen's inter- 
 mediary, he was compelled to recognise without delay 
 that Captain Filbert, in the exercise of her profession, 
 had not neglected to acquire a knowledge of defensive 
 operations. She retired effectively into camp ; the 
 quarters in Crooked lane became her fortified retreat, 
 whence she issued only under escort and upon service 
 strictly obligatory. Succour from Arnold doubtless 
 reached her by the post ; and Lindsay felt it an anom- 
 aly in military tactics that the same agency should 
 bring back upon him with a horrid recoil the letters 
 with which he strove to assault her position. Nor 
 could Alicia induce any sortie to Middleton street. 
 Her notes of invitation to quiet teas and luncheons 
 were answered on blue-lined paper, the pen dipped in 
 reticence and the palest ink, always with the negative 
 of a formal excuse. They loosed the burden of her 
 complicity from Miss Livingstone's shoulders, these 
 notes which bore so much the atmosphere of Crooked 
 lane, and at the same time they formed the indictment 
 against her which was, perhaps, best calculated to 
 weigh upon her conscience. She saw it, holding them 
 at arm's length, in enormous characters that ever 
 stamped and blotted out the careful, taught-looking 
 writing, and the invariable " God bless you, yours 
 truly," at the end. They were all there, aridly com- 
 plete, the limitations of the lady to whom she was 
 helping Lindsay to bind himself without a gleam of pos- 
 sibility of escape or a rift through which tiniest hope 
 could creep to emerge smiling upon the other side. 
 
156 HILDA. 
 
 When she saw him, in fatalistic reverie, going about 
 ten years hence attached to the body of this petrifac- 
 tion, she was almost satisfied to abandon the pair, to 
 let them take their wretched chance. But this was a 
 climax which did not occur often ; she returned, in 
 most of her waking moments, to devising schemes by 
 which Laura might be delivered into the hands she 
 was so likely to encufnber. The new French poet, the 
 American novelist of the year, and a work by Mr. John 
 Morley lay upon Alicia's table many days together for 
 this reason. She sometimes remembered what she ex- 
 pected of these volumes, what plein air sensations, or 
 what profound plunges, and did not quite like her in- 
 difference as to whether her expectations were fulfilled. 
 She discovered herself intellectually jaded — there had 
 been tiring excursions — and took to daily rides which 
 carried her far out among the rice-fields, and gave her 
 sound nights to sustain the burden of her dreaming 
 days. She had ideas about her situation ; she believed 
 she lived outside of it. At all events, she took a line ; 
 the new Arab was typical, and there were other meas- 
 ures which she arranged deliberately with the idea 
 that she was making a physical fight. Life might 
 weigh one down with a dragging ball and chain, but 
 one could always measure the strength of one's 
 opinions against these things. She made it her sorry 
 and remorseless task to separate from her impulses 
 those that she found lacking in philosophy, hinting of 
 the foolish woman, and to turn a cruel heel upon 
 them. She stripped her meditations of all colour and 
 atmosphere ; she would not accept from her grief the 
 luxury of a rag to wrap herself in. If this gave her a 
 skeleton to live with, she had what gratification there 
 
HILDA. 157 
 
 was in observing that it was anatomically as it should be. 
 The result that one saw from the outside was chiefly 
 a look of delicate hardness, of tissue a little frayed, but 
 showing a quality in the process. We may hope that 
 some unconfessed satisfaction was derivable from her 
 continued reception of Duff's confidences, her unflinch- 
 ing readiness to consult with him ; granting the ana- 
 lytic turn we may almost suppose it. Starvation is so 
 monotonous a misery that a gift of personal diagnosis 
 might easily lend attraction to poisoned food as an 
 alternative, if one may be permitted a melodramatic 
 simile in a case which Alicia kept conventional enough. 
 She did not even abate the usual number of Duff's in- 
 vitations to dinner, when there was certainly nothing 
 to repay her for regarding him across a gulf of flowers 
 and silver and a tide of conversation about the season's 
 paper-chasing except the impoverished complexion 
 which people acquire who sit much in Bentinck street, 
 desirous and unsatisfied. 
 
 It may very well be that she regretted her be- 
 haviour in this respect, for it was effectively after one 
 of these parties that Surgeon-Major Livingstone, press- 
 ing upon his departing guest in the hall the usual 
 whiskey and soda, found it necessary instead to give 
 him another kind of support, and to put him im- 
 mediately and authoritatively to bed. Lindsay was 
 very well content to submit ; he confessed to fever off 
 and on for four and five days past, and while the world 
 went round the pivotal staircase, as Dr. Livingstone 
 gave him an elbow up, he was indistinctly convinced 
 that the house of a friend was better than a shelf at 
 the club. The next evening's meeting saw his place 
 empty under the window of the hall in Crooked lane, 
 
158 HILDA. 
 
 noticeably for the first time in weeks of these ex- 
 ercises. The world shrank, for Laura, to the compass 
 of the kerosene lamps; there was no gaze from its 
 wider sphere against which she must key herself to in- 
 difference. When on the second and third evenings 
 she was equally undisturbed, it was borne in upon her 
 that either she or Mr. Arnold, or both, had prevailed, 
 and she offered up thanks. On the fourth she re- 
 flected recurrently and anxiously that it was not after 
 all a very glorious victory if the Devil had carried off 
 the wounded ; if Lindsay, after all the opportunities 
 that had been his, should slip back without profit to 
 the level from which she had striven — they had all 
 striven — to lift him. Mrs. Sand, not satisfied to be 
 buffeted by such speculations, sent a four-anna bit to 
 the head bearer at the club on her own account and 
 obtained information. 
 
 Alicia saw no immediate privilege in the complica- 
 tion, though the circumstances taken together did 
 present a vulgar opportunity which Mrs. Barberry 
 came for hours to take advantage of. There were the 
 usual two nurses as well as Mrs. Barberry ; Alicia 
 could take the Arab further afield than ever, and she 
 did. One can imagine her cantering fast and far with 
 a sense of conscious possession in spite of Mrs. Bar- 
 berry and the two nurses. There may be a certain 
 solace in the definite and continuous knowledge avail- 
 able about a person hovering on the brink of typhoid 
 under your own roof tree. It was as grave as that ; 
 Surgeon-Major Livingstone could not make up his 
 mind. Alicia knew only of this uncertainty ; other 
 satisfactions were reserved for the nurses and Mrs. 
 Barberry. She could see that her brother was anxious, 
 
HILDA. 159 
 
 he was so uniformly cheerful, so brisk and fresh and 
 good-tempered coming from Lindsay's room in the 
 morning, to say at breakfast that the temperature was 
 the same, liadn't budged a point, must manuge to get 
 it down somehow in the next twenty-four hours, and 
 forthwith to envelop himself in the newspapers. 
 Those arbitrary and obstinate figures, which stood for 
 apprehension to the most casual ear, stamped them- 
 selves on most things as the day wore on, and at tea- 
 time Mrs. Harbcrry gave her other details, thinking 
 her rather cold in the reception of them. But she 
 plainly preferred to be out of it, avoiding the nurses 
 on the stairs, refraining from so much as a glance at 
 the boiled-milk preparations of the butler. "And you 
 know," said Mrs. Barberry, recountant, *' how these 
 people have to be watched." To Mrs. Barberry she 
 was really a conundrum, only to be solved on the 
 theory of a perfectly preposterous delicacy. There 
 was so little that was preposterous in Miss Living- 
 stone's conduct as a rule that it is not quite fair to 
 explain her attitude either by this exaggeration or by 
 an equally hectic scruple about her right to take care 
 of her guest, such a right dwindling curiously when it 
 has been given in the highest to somebody else. 
 These pangs and penalties may have visited her in 
 their proportion, but they did not take the im- 
 portance of motives. She rather stood aside with 
 folded hands, and in an infinite terror of prejudicing 
 fate, devoured her heart by way of keeping its beating 
 normal. Perhaps, too, she had a vision of a final al- 
 ternative to Lindsay's marriage, and one can imagine 
 her forcing herself to look at it. 
 
 Remove herself as she chose, Alicia could not avoid 
 
i6o 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 passing Lindsay's room, for her own lay beyond it. 
 In the seven o'clock half light of a February evening, 
 in the middle of the week, she went along the matted 
 upper hall on tip-toe, and stumbled over a veiled form 
 squatted in the native way, near his door, profoundly 
 asleep. " Ayah ! " she exclaimed, but the face that 
 looked confusedly up at her was white, whiter than 
 common, Captain Filbert's face. Alicia drew her 
 hand away and made an imperceptible movement in 
 the direction of her skirts. She stood silent, stricken 
 in the dusk with fear and wonder, but the sense that 
 was strongest in her was plainly that of having made 
 a criminal discovery. Laura stumbled upon her feet, 
 and the two faced each other for an instant ; words 
 held from them equally by the authority of the sick- 
 room door. Then Alicia beckoned as imperiously as 
 if the other had in fact been the servant she took her 
 for, and Laura followed to where, further on, a bed- 
 room door stood open, which presently closed upon 
 them both. It was a spacious room, with pale, high- 
 hung draperies, a scent of flowers, such things as an 
 etching of Greuze, an ivory and ebon crucifix over the 
 bed. Captain Filbert remembered the crucifix after- 
 ward with a feeling almost intense, also some silver- 
 backed brushes on the toilet table. Across the open 
 window a couple of bars of sunset glowed red and 
 gold, and a tall palm of the garden cut all its fronds 
 sharply against the light. 
 
 " Well ? " said Alicia, when the door was shut. 
 
 Captain Filbert put out a deprecating hand. 
 
 " I intended to ask if you had any objection, miss, 
 but you had gone out. And the nurse was in the 
 room ; I couldn't get to her. There was nobody but 
 the servants about." 
 
HILDA. 
 
 i6i 
 
 " Objection to what ? " 
 
 " To my being there. I came to pray for Mr. Lind- 
 say." 
 
 " Did you make any noise ? " 
 
 Miss Filbert looked professionally touched. "It 
 was silent prayer, of course," she said. 
 
 Alicia, standing with one hand upon the toilet table, 
 had an air of eagerness, of successful capture. The 
 yellow sky in the window behind her made filmy 
 lights round her hair and outlined her tall figure in 
 the gracefulness of which there was a curious crisped 
 effect, like a conventional pose taken easily, from 
 habit. Laura Filbert thought she looked like a prin- 
 cess. 
 
 " I seem to hear of nothing but petitions," she said. 
 " Isn't somebody praying for you ? " 
 
 The blood of any saint would have risen in false 
 testimony at such a suggestion. Laura blushed so 
 violently that for an instant the space between them 
 seemed full of the sound of her protest. 
 
 " I hope so, miss," she said, and looked as if for 
 calming over Alicia's shoulder away into the after- 
 sunset bars along the sky. The colour sank back out 
 of her face, and the light from the window rested on it 
 etherealb The beautiful mystery drew her eyes to 
 seek, and their blue seemed to deepen and dilate, as 
 if the old splendour of the uplifted golden gates re- 
 warded them. 
 
 "Why do you use that odious word ?" Alicia ex- 
 plained. " You are not my maid ! Don't do it again 
 — don't dream of doing it again ! " 
 
 " I — I don't know." The girl was still plainly cov- 
 ered with confusion at being found in the house unin- 
 
i62 HILDA. 
 
 vited. " I suppose I forget. Well, good -vening," and 
 she turned to the door. 
 
 " Don't go," Alicia commanded. *' Don't. You 
 never come to see me now. Sit down." She dragged 
 a chair forward and almost pushed Laura into it. " I 
 will sit down, too — what am I thinking of?" 
 
 Laura reflected for a moment, looking at her folded 
 hands. " I might as well tell you," she said, " that I 
 have not been praying that Mr. Lindsay should get 
 better. Only that he should be given time to find 
 salvation and die in Jesus." 
 
 " Don't — don't say those things to me. How light 
 you are— it's wicked!" Alicia returned with vehe- 
 mence, and then, as Captain Filbert stared, half compre- 
 hending, " Don't you care? " she added curiously. 
 
 It was so casual that it was cruel. The girl's eyes 
 grew wider still during the instant she fixed them 
 upon Alicia in the effort of complete understanding. 
 Then her lip trembled. 
 
 " How can I care ? " she cried, " how can I ? " and 
 burst into weeping. She drew her sari over her face 
 and rocked to and fro. Her dusty bare foot pro- 
 truded from her cotton skirt. She sat huddled to- 
 gether, her head in its coverings sunk between weak, 
 shaking shoulders. Alicia considered her for an in- 
 stant as a pitiable and degraded spectacle. Then she 
 went over and touched her. 
 
 " You are completely worn out," she said, " and it 
 is almost dinner time. The ayah will bring you a hot 
 bath and then you will come down and have some 
 food quietly with me. My brother is dining out 
 somewhere. I will go away for a little while and then 
 I know you will feel better. And after dinner," she 
 
 
 ■ 
 
HILDA. 163 
 
 added gently, " you may come up if you like and pray 
 again for Mr. Lindsay. I am sure he would " 
 
 The faintest break in her own voice warned her, 
 and she hurried out of the room. 
 
 It was a foolish thing and the Livingstones' old 
 Karim Bux much deplored it, but the Miss-sahib had 
 forgotten to give information that the dinner of eight 
 commanded a fortnight ago would not take place — 
 hence everything was ready in its sequence for this 
 event, with a new fashion of stuffing quails and the 
 first strawberries of the season from Dinapore. The 
 feelings of Karim Bux in presenting these things to a 
 woman in the dress of a coolie are not important ; 
 but Alicia, for some reason, seemed to find the trivial 
 incident gratifying. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Under the Greek porch of No. lo, Middleton 
 street, in the white sunlight between the shadows of 
 the stucco pillars, stood a flagrant ticca-gharry. The 
 driver lay extended on the top of it, asleep, the syce 
 squatted beneath the horse's nose and fed it per- 
 functorily with hay from a bundle tied under the 
 vehicle behind. A fringe of palms and ferns in pots 
 ran between the pillars, and orchids hung from above, 
 shutting out the garden, where heavy scents stood in 
 the sun and mynas chattered on the drive. The air 
 was full of ease, vfdLYm./retillante, abandoned to the 
 lavish energy of growing things; beyond the dis- 
 coloured wall of the compound rose the tender cloud 
 of a leafing tamaris' against the blue. A long time 
 already the driver tiad slept immovably, and the horse, 
 uncomplaining but uninterested, had dragged at the 
 wisps of hay. 
 
 Inside there was no longer a hint of Mrs. Barberry, 
 even a dropped handkerchief agreeably scented. The 
 night nurse had realised herself equally superfluous 
 and had gone, the other, a person of practical views, 
 could hardly retain her indignation at being kept 
 from day to day to see her patient fed and hand him 
 books and writing materials. She had not even the 
 duty of debarring visitors, but sat most of the time in 
 the dressing-room, where echoes fell about her of the 
 
HILDA. 
 
 165 
 
 stories with which riotous young men, in tea and 
 wheat and jute, hastened Mr. Lindsay's convalescence. 
 There she tapped her energetic fat foot on the floor 
 in vain, to express her views upon such waste of 
 scientific training. She had Surgeon-Major Living- 
 stone's orders, and he on this occasion had his 
 sister's. 
 
 There was an air of relief, of tension relaxed, be- 
 tween the two women in the drawing-room ; it was 
 plain that Alicia had comrfiunicated these things to 
 her visitor, in their main import. Hilda was already 
 half-disengaged from the subject, her eye wandered as 
 if in search for the avenue to another. By a sudden 
 inclination Alicia began the story of Laura Filbert on 
 her knees at Lindsay's door. She told it in a quiet, 
 steady, colourless way, pursuing it to the end — it 
 came with the ease of frequent private rehearsals — 
 and then with her elbows on her knees and her chin in 
 her palms she stopped and gazed meditatively in front 
 of her. There was something in the gaze to which 
 Hilda yielded an attention unexpectedly serious, some- 
 thing of the absolute in character and life impervious 
 to her inquiry. Yet to analysis it was only the grey 
 look of eyes habited to regard the future with penetra- 
 tion and to find nothing there. 
 
 "Have you told him?" Hilda asked after an 
 instant's pause, during which she conceded some- 
 thing, she hardly knew what ; she meant to find out 
 later. 
 
 " I haven't seen him. But I will tell him, I promise 
 you." 
 
 " I have no doubt you will ! But don't promise 
 me. I won't even witness the vow ! " Hilda cried. 
 
i66 HILDA. 
 
 " What does it matter? I shall certainly tell him." 
 The words fell definitely like pebbles. Hilda thought- 
 fully picked them up. 
 
 " On the whole," she said, " perhaps it would be as 
 well. Yes, it is my advice. It is quite likely that he 
 will be revolted. It may be curative." 
 
 Alicia turned away her head to hide the faint frown 
 that nevertheless crept into her voice. " I don't 
 think so," she said. " How you do juggle with 
 things! I don't know why I talk to you about this— 
 this matter. I am sure I ought not." 
 
 "I was going to say," pursued Hilda, indifferent to 
 her scruple, "that I shouldn't be at all surprised if his 
 illness leaves him quite emotionally sane. The poison 
 has worked itself out of his blood— perhaps the pas- 
 sion and the poison were the same. In such a case 
 it's all so physical. It must be." 
 
 " I wonder ! " Alicia said. She said it mechanically, 
 as the easiest comment. 
 
 "When I knew you first your speculation would 
 have been more active, my dear. You would have 
 looked into the possibility and disputed it. What has 
 become of your modernity ? " 
 
 It was the tenderest malice, but it obtained no con- 
 cessive sign. Alicia seemed to weigh it. "I think I 
 like theories better than illustrations," she said in de- 
 fence. 
 
 •' One can look at theories as one looks at the sky, 
 but an illustration wants a careful point of view. For 
 this one perhaps you are a little near." 
 
 " Perhaps," Alicia assented, "I am a little near." 
 She glanced quickly down as she spoke, but when she 
 raised her eyes they were dry and clear. 
 
HILDA. 167 
 
 " I can see it better," Hilda went on, with immense 
 audacity, " much better." 
 
 " Isn't it safer to feel ? " 
 
 ^^ Jamais de la vie ! The nerves lie always." 
 
 They were on the edge of the vortex of the old dis- 
 pute. Alicia leaned back among the cushions and re- 
 garded the other with an undecided eye. 
 
 " You are not sure," said Hilda, " that you won't ask 
 me, at this point, to look at the pictures in that old 
 copy of the Persian classic — I forget its lovely name — 
 or inquire what sort of house we had last night. Well, 
 don't be afraid of hurting my feelings. Only, you 
 know, between us, as between more doubtful people, 
 the door must be either open or shut. I fancy you 
 take cold easily ; perhaps you had better shut the 
 door." 
 
 " Not for worlds," Alicia said, with promptitude. 
 Then she added rather cleverly, " That would be 
 my spoiling my one view of life." 
 
 Hilda smiled. " Isn't there any life where you 
 live?" She glanced round her, at the tapestried 
 elegance of the room, with sudden indifference. 
 " After all," she said, " I don't know what I am doing 
 here, in your affairs. As the world swings no one 
 could be more remote from them or you. I belong to 
 its winds and its highways — how have you brought 
 me here, a tramp-actress, to your drawing-room ? " 
 
 Alicia laid a detaining hand upon Miss Howe's 
 skirt. ** Don't go away," she said. Hilda sat at the 
 other end of the sofa ; there was hardly a foot between 
 them. She went on with a curious excitement. 
 
 " My kind of life is so primitive, so simple ; it is one 
 pure pulse, you don't know. One only asks the 
 

 i68 HILDA. 
 
 things that minister— one goes and finds and takes 
 them ; one's feet in the straw, one's head under any 
 roof. What difference docs it make? The only thing 
 that counts, that rules, is the chance of seeing some- 
 thing else, feeling something more, doing something 
 better." 
 
 Alicia only looked at her and tightened the grasp of 
 her fingers on the actress's skirt. Hilda made the slight- 
 est, most involuntary movement. It comprehended 
 the shaking off of hindrance, the action of flight. 
 Then she glanced about her again with a kind of ap- 
 praisement, which ended with Alicia and embraced 
 her. What she realised seemed to push her, I think, 
 in some weak place of her sex, to go on intensely, 
 almost fiercely. 
 
 '* Everything here is aftermath. You are a gleaner, 
 Alicia Livingstone. We leave it all over the world for 
 people of taste, like you, in the glow of their illusions. 
 I couldn't make you understand our harvest ; it is of 
 the broad sun and the sincerity of things." 
 
 " I know I must seem to you dreadfully out of it," 
 Alicia said, wearing, as it were, across her heaviness a 
 lighter cloud of trouble. 
 
 But the other would not be stayed ; she followed 
 by compulsion her impulse to the end. "Shall I be 
 quite candid ? " she said. " I find the atmosphere 
 about you, dear, a trifle exhausted." 
 
 Alicia, with a face of astonishment, made a half- 
 movement toward the window before she understood. 
 There was some timidity in her glance at Hilda and 
 in her mechanical smile. "Oh," she said, "I see what 
 you mean ; and I don't wonder. I am so literal — I 
 have so little imagination." 
 
HILDA. 
 
 169 
 
 *' Don't talk of it as if it were money or fabric — 
 something you could add up or measure," Hilda cried 
 remorselessly. ** You have none ! " 
 
 As if something slipped from her Alicia threw out 
 locked hands. "At least I had enough to know you 
 when you came ! " she cried. " I felt you, too, and 
 it's not my fault if there isn't enough of me to — to re- 
 spond properly. And I can't give you up. You 
 seem to be the one valuable thing that I can have — 
 the only permanent fact that is left." 
 
 Hilda had a rebound of immense discomfort. " Who 
 said anything about giving up?" she interrupted. 
 
 " Why, you did! But I'm quite willing to believe 
 you didn't mean it, if you say so." She turned the 
 appeal of her face and saw a sudden pitiful considera- 
 tion in Hilda's, and, as if it called them forth, two tears 
 sprang to her eyes and fell, as she lowered her delicate 
 head, upon her lap. 
 
 '• Dear thing ! I didn't indeed. If I meant any- 
 thing it was that I'm overstrung. I've been horribly 
 harried lately." She possessed herself of one of 
 Alicia's hands and stroked it. Alicia kept her head 
 bent for a moment and then let it fall, in sudden 
 abandonment, upon the other woman's shoulder. Her 
 defences crumbled so utterly that Hilda felt guilty of 
 using absurdly heavy artillery. They sat together for 
 a moment or two in silence with only that superven- 
 ing sense of successful aggression between them, and 
 the humiliation was Hilda's. Presently it grew heavy, 
 embarrassing. Alicia got up and began a slow, rest- 
 less pacing up and down before the alcove they sat in. 
 Hilda watched her — it was a rhythmic progress — and 
 when she came near with a sound of brushing silk and 
 
170 HILDA. 
 
 a faint fragrance which seemed a personal emanation, 
 drew a long breath, as if she were an essence to be in- 
 haled, and so, in a manner, obtained, assimilated. 
 
 "Oh, yes," Miss Livingstone said, rehabilitating 
 herself with a smile, " I must keep you. I'll do any- 
 thing you like to make myself more — worth while. 
 I'll read for the pure idea. I think I'll take up model- 
 ling. There's rather a good man here just now." 
 
 "Yes," Hilda assented. " Read for the pure idea — 
 take up modelling. It is most expedient, especially 
 if you marry. Women who like those things some- 
 times have geniuses for sons. But for me, so far as I 
 count — oh, my dear, do nothing more. You are 
 already an achieved effect — a consummation of the ex- 
 quisite in every way. Generations have been chosen 
 among for you ; your person holds the inheritance of 
 all that is gracious and tender and discriminating in a 
 hundred years. You are as rare as I am, and if there 
 is anything you would take from me, I would make 
 more than one exchange for the mere niceness of your 
 fibre — the feeling you have for fine shades of morality 
 and taste — all that makes you a lady, my dear." 
 
 " Such niminy piminy things," said Alicia, contra- 
 dicting the light of satisfaction in her eyes. The 
 sound of a step came from the room overhead, and the 
 light died out. " And what good do they do me ! " she 
 cried in soft misery. " What good do they do me ! " 
 
 "Considerably less than they ought. Why aren't 
 you up there now ? What more simple, honest opportu. 
 nity do you want than a sick room in your own 
 house ? " 
 
 Alicia, with a frightened glance at the ceiling, flew 
 to her side. " Oh, hush ! " she cried. " Go on ! " 
 
HILDA. 171 
 
 " It ought to be there beside him, the charm of you. 
 The room should be full of cool refreshing hints of 
 what you are. Your profile should come between him 
 and the twilight with a scent of violets." 
 
 *• It sounds like a plot." Alicia murmured. 
 
 "It/Vaplot. Why quibble about it? If you smile 
 at him it's a plot. If you put a rose in your hair it's a 
 deep-laid scheme, deeper than you perceive — the 
 scheme the universe is built on. We wouldn't have 
 lent ourselves to the arrangement, we women, if we 
 had been consulted ; we're naturally too scrupulous, 
 but nobody asked us. 'Without our aid He did us 
 make,' you know." 
 
 "But — deliberately — to go so far! I couldn't, I 
 couldn't, even if I could." 
 
 Hilda leaned back in her corner with her arms ex- 
 tended along the back and the end of the sofa. Her 
 hands drooped in their vigour, her knees were crossed, 
 and her skirts draped them in long simple lines. In 
 her symmetry and strength and the warm cloud of her 
 hair and the soul that sat behind the shadows of her 
 eyes Vedder might have drawn her as a tragic symbol 
 for the poet who sang in the King's garden of wine 
 and death and roses. 
 
 " I would go further," she said, and looked as if 
 some other thing charged with sweetness had come 
 before her. 
 
 ** And even if one gained, one would never trust 
 one's success," Alicia faltered. 
 
 "Ah, if one gained one would hold," Hilda said; 
 and while she smiled on her pupil in the arts of life, 
 the tenderness grew in her eyes and came upon her 
 lips. As if she knew her betrayal already complete, 
 " I wish I had such a chance," she said. 
 
i;2 HILDA. 
 
 Alicia looked at her as they might have looked, 
 across the desert, at a mirage of the Promised Land. 
 
 " Then after all he has prevailed," she said. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Hamilton Bradley." 
 
 Hilda laughed— the laugh was full and light and 
 spontaneous, as if ail the training of the notes of her 
 throat came unconsciously to make it beautiful. 
 
 " How you will hold me to my metier^' she said. 
 " Hamilton Bradley has given up trying." 
 
 "Then " 
 
 "Then think! Be clever. Be very clever." 
 
 Alicia dropped her head in the joined length of her 
 hands. A turquoise on one of them made them 
 whiter, more transparent than usual. Presently she 
 drew her face up from her clinging fingers and searched 
 the other woman with eyes that nevertheless refused 
 confirmation for their astonishment. 
 
 "Well?" said Hilda. 
 
 " I can think of no one — there is no one — except 
 
 oh, it's too absurd! Not Stephen — poor de^r 
 Stephen!" 
 
 The faintest shadow drifted across Hilda's face, as if 
 for an in::tant she con'ccmplated a thing inscrutable. 
 Then the light came back, dashed with a gravity, a 
 gentleness. 
 
 ' I admit the absurdity. Stephen — poor dear 
 Stephen. How odd it seems," she went on, while 
 Alicia gazed, " the announcement of it— like a thing 
 born. But it is that— a thing bLrn." 
 
 "I don't understand — in the least," Alicia ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " Neither do L I don't, indeed. Sometimes I feel 
 
HILDA. 
 
 173 
 
 like a creature with its feet in a trap. The insane, 
 
 insane improbability of it ! " She laughed again. It 
 
 was delicious to hear her. 
 " But— he is a priest ! " 
 " Much more difficult. He is a saint." 
 Alicia glanced at the floor. The record of another 
 
 lighter moment twitched itself out of a day that was 
 
 forgotten. 
 
 •• Are you quite certain ? " she said. " You told me 
 once that— that there had been other times." 
 
 "They are useful, those foolish episodes. They ex- 
 plain to one the difference." The tone of this was 
 very even, very usual, but Alicia was aware of a sug- 
 gestion in it that accused her of aggression, that 
 almost ranged her hostile. She hurried out of that 
 position. 
 
 " If it were possible," she said, frowning at her 
 embarrassment. "I see nothing— nothing really— 
 against it." 
 
 " I should think not ! Can't you conceive what I 
 could do for him ? " 
 
 "And what could he do for you?" Alicia asked, 
 with a flash of curiosity. 
 
 " I don't think I cm let you ask me that." 
 
 "There are such strange things to consider! 
 Would he withdraw from the Church? Would you 
 retire from the stage? I don't know which seems the 
 more impossible ! " 
 
 Hilda got up. 
 
 " It would be a criminal choice, wouldn't it ? " she 
 said. " I haven't made it out. And he, you know, 
 still dreams only of Bengali souls for redemption, 
 never of me at all." 
 
174 HILDA. 
 
 A servant of the house, with the air of a messenger, 
 brought Alicia a scrap of paper. She glanced at it, 
 and then, with hands that trembled, began folding it 
 together. 
 
 '• He has been allowed to get up and sit in a chair," 
 she murmured, " and he wants me to come and talk 
 to him." 
 
 " Well," said Hilda, " come." 
 
 She put her arm about Alicia and drew her out of 
 the room to the foot of the stairs. They went in 
 silence, saying nothing even when they parted, and 
 Alicia, of her own accord, began to ascend. Half 
 way up she paused and looked down. Hilda turned 
 to meet her glance, and something of primitive puis- 
 sance passed, conscious, comprehended, between the 
 eyes of the two women. 
 
 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 For three days there had certainly been, with the 
 invalid, no sign of anything but convalescence. An 
 appetite to cry out upon, a chartered tendency to 
 take small liberties, to make small demands ; such in- 
 dications offered themselves to the eye that looked 
 for other betrayals. There had been opportunities- 
 even the day nurse had gone and Lindsay came to 
 tea m the drawing-room— but he seemed to prefer to 
 talk about the pattern in the carpet, or the corpulence 
 of the khansamah, or things in the newspapers. 
 Alicia once, at a suggestive point, put almost a visible 
 question into a silent glance, and Lindsay asked her 
 for some more sugar. Surgcon-Major Livingstone, 
 coming into his office unexpectedly one morning, 
 found his sister in the act of replacing a volume upo'^n 
 Its professional shelf. It was somebody on the pa- 
 thology of Indian fevers. Hilda's tlicory lacked so 
 little to approve it— only technical corroboration. It 
 might also be considered that, although Laura had 
 expressly received the freedom of the city for intcr- 
 cessional or any other purpose, slic did not come 
 agam. They may have heard in Crooked lane that 
 Duff was better. We may freely imagine that Mrs. 
 Sand was informed ; it looked as if the respite to dis- 
 interested anxiety afforded by his recovery had been 
 taken advantage of. Lindsay was to be given time 
 
176 HILDA. 
 
 for more dignified repentance ; they might now very 
 well hand him over, Alicia thouglit, smiling, to the 
 Archdeacon. ^ 
 
 As a test, as something to reckon by, the revelation 
 to Lindsay, still in prospect, of the single visit Captain 
 Filbert did make was perhaps lacking in essentials. 
 It would be an experiment of some intricacy, it might 
 very probably work out in shades. So much would 
 infallibly have to be put down for surprise and so 
 much reasonably for displeasure, without any prejudice 
 to the green hope budding underneath ; the key to 
 Hilda's theory might very well be lost in contingen- 
 cies. Nevertheless, Alicia postponed her story from 
 day to day and from hour to hour. If her ideas about 
 it — she kept them carefully in solution — could have 
 been nrecipitated they might have appeared in a for- 
 mu uvourite with her brother, the Surgeon-Major, 
 who often talked of giving nature a chance. 
 
 She told him finally on the morning of his first 
 drive. They went together and alone, Alicia taking 
 her brother's place in the carriage at a demand for 
 him from the hospital. It was seven o'clock, and the 
 morning wind swept soft and warm from over the 
 river. There was a white light on all the stucco par- 
 apets, and their shadows slanted clear and delicately 
 purple to the west. The dust slept on the broad 
 roads of the Maidan, only a curling trace lifted itself 
 here and there at the heel of a cart-bullock, and noth- 
 ing had risen yet of the lazy tumult of the streets 
 thp*- knotted themselves in the city. From the river, 
 curving past the statue of an Indian administrator, 
 came a string of country people with baskets on their 
 heads. The sun struck a vivid note with the red and 
 
HILDA. 177 
 
 the safifron they wore, turned them into an ornamenta- 
 tion, in the profuse Oriental taste, of the empty ex- 
 panse. There was the completest freedom in the 
 wide, tree-dotted spaces round which the city gathered 
 her shops and her palaces, the fullest invitation to dis- 
 burden any heaviness that might oppress, to give the 
 wings of words to any joy that might rebel in prison. 
 The advantage of the intimacy of the landau for pur- 
 poses of observation was so obvious that one imagines 
 Alicia must have been aware of it, though, as a matter 
 of fact, when she told Lindsay she did not look at him 
 at all, but beyond the trees of the Eden Gardens, 
 where the yellow dome of the Post Office swelled 
 against the morning sky, and so lost it. 
 
 He heard without exclamation, but stopped her 
 now and then with a question. On what day pre- 
 cisely ? And how long ? And afterward ? The yel- 
 low dome was her anchor; she turned her head a 
 little, as the road trended the other way, to keep her 
 eyes upon it. There was an endless going round of 
 wheels, and trees passed them in mechanical succes- 
 sion ; a tree, and another tree ; some of them had 
 flowers on them. When he broke the silence after- 
 ward, she started as if in apprehension, but it was only 
 to say something that anybody might have said, about 
 the self-sacrificing energy of the organisation to which 
 Miss Filbert belonged. Her assent was little and 
 meagre ; nothing would help her to expand it. The 
 Salvation Army rose before her as a mammoth skele- 
 ton, without a suggestive bone. 
 
 Presently he said in a different way, as if he uttered 
 an unguarded thought, " I had so little to make me 
 think she cared." There was in it that phantom of 
 
II 
 
 • I 
 
 II 
 II 
 
 II 
 
 178 HILDA. 
 
 speculation and concern which a sick man finds under 
 pressure, and it penetrated Alicia that he abandoned 
 himself to his invalid's privileges as if he valued them. 
 He lay extended beside her among his cushions and 
 wraps ; she tried to look at him, and got as far as the 
 hand nearest her, ungloved and sinewy, on the plaid 
 of the rug. 
 
 ** She told me it was not for your life she had been 
 praying — only that if you died you might be saved 
 first." Her eyes were still on his hand, and she saw 
 the fingers close into the palm as if by an impulse to 
 some kind of action. Then they relaxed again, and 
 he said, " Oh, well," and smiled at the balancings of a 
 crow drinking at a city conduit. 
 
 That was all. Alicia made an effort, odd and im- 
 possible enough, to postpone her impressions, even 
 her emotions. In the meantime it was something to 
 have got it over, and she was able at a bound to talk 
 about the commonplaces of the roadside. In her 
 escape from this oppression, she too gathered a fresh- 
 ness, a convalescent pleasure in what they saw ; every- 
 thing had in some way the likeness of the leafing teak 
 trees, tender and curative. In the broad early light 
 that lay over the tanks there was a vague allurement, 
 almost a presage, and the wide spaces of the Maidan 
 made room for hope. She asked Lindsay presently if 
 he would mind driving to the market; she wanted 
 some flowers for that night. I think she wanted some 
 flowers for that hour. Her thought broke so easily 
 into tlie symbol of a rose. 
 
 They turned into Chowringhee, where the hibiscus 
 bushes showed pink and crimson over the stucco 
 walls, and at the gates of the pillared houses servants 
 
 I 
 
HILDA. 
 
 179 
 
 with brown and shining backs sat on their haunches 
 in the sun and were shaved. Where the street ran 
 into shops there was still a shuttered biankness, but 
 here and there a citirivan* yawned and stretched him- 
 self before an open door, and a sweeper made a cloud 
 of dust beneath a commercial verandah. The first 
 boarding in a side street announced the appearance of 
 Miss Hilda Howe for one night only as Lady Macbeth, 
 under the kind patronage of His Excellency the Vice- 
 roy, with Jimmy Finnigan in the close proximity of 
 professional jealousy, advertising five complete novel- 
 ties for the same evening. It made a cheerful note 
 which appealed to them both ; it was a pictorial com- 
 bination, Hilda and Jimmy Finnigan and the Viceroy ; 
 there was something of gay burlesque in the metro- 
 politan poster against the crumbling plaster of the 
 outer mosque wall where Mussulmans left their shoes. 
 Talking of Hilda, they smiled ; it was a way her 
 friends had, a testimony to the difference of her. In 
 Alicia's smile there was a satisfaction rather subtle 
 and in a manner superior ; she knew of things. 
 
 The life of the market, the bazaar, was all awake 
 and moving. They rolled up though a crowd of in- 
 ferior vehicles, empty for the moment and abandoned, 
 where the leisurely crowd, with calculation under its 
 turbans, swayed about the market-house, and the pots 
 of a palm-dealer ran out of bounds and made a little 
 grove before the stall of the man who sold pith 
 helmets. The warm air held the smell of all sorts of 
 commodities : there was a great hum of small transac- 
 tions, clink of small profits. •* It makes one feel im- 
 mensely practical and acquisitive," DufT said, looking 
 
 •Doorkeeper. 
 
 ' / 
 
i8o HILDA. 
 
 at the loaded baskets on the coolies* heads ; and he 
 insisted on getting out. "I am dying to buy an 
 enormous number of desirable things very cheap. But 
 not combs or shirt-buttons, thank you, nor any rib- 
 bons or lace — is that good lace, Miss Livingstone ? 
 Nor even a live duck — really I am difficult. We 
 might inquire the price of the duck, though." 
 
 The sense of being contributory to his holiday 
 satisfaction reigned in her. She abandoned herself 
 to it with a little smile that played steadily about her 
 lips, as if it would tell him, without her sanction, 
 how continually she rejoiced in his regained well- 
 being. They made their way slowly toward the 
 flower-corner ; there were so many things he wanted 
 to stop before as they went, leaning on his stick to 
 examine them and delighting in opportunities for 
 making himself quite ridiculous. The country to- 
 bacco-dealer laughed too, squatting behind his basket ; 
 it was a mad sahib, but not madder than the rest, 
 and there was no hurry. Alicia saw the pink glow of 
 the roses beyond, where the sun struck across them 
 over the shoulders of the crowd, and was content to 
 reach them by degrees. They would be in their 
 achieved sweetness a kind of climax to the hour's 
 experience, and after that she was not entirely sure 
 j ' that the day would be as grey as other days. 
 
 !' This was the flood-time of roses and it was ex- 
 
 ^' quisite in the flower-corner with the soft wind picking 
 
 \\ up their fragrance and squares of limpid sunlight 
 
 standing on the wet flagstones. Some of the stall- 
 keepers had little glass cases, and in these there was 
 room only for the Gloire de Dijons and the La 
 Frances and the velvety Jacks, the rest over-ran the 
 
 I 
 
 « ' 
 
 . 
 
HILDA. i8i 
 
 tables and the floor in anything that would hold them. 
 The place rioted with the joy and the passion of 
 roses, for buying and selling. There were other 
 flowers, nasturtiums, cornbottles, mignonette, but 
 they had a diminished, insignificant look in their tied- 
 up bunches beside the triumph of the roses. Further 
 on, beyond the cage of the money-changer, the coun- 
 try people were hoarse with crying their vegetables, 
 in two green rows, and beyond that, where the jost- 
 ling crowd divided, shone a glimpse of oranges and 
 pomegranates. In this part there were many comers 
 and goers, lean Mussulman table servants and fat 
 Eurasian ladies who kept boarding-houses, Armenian 
 women with embroidered shawls drawn over their 
 heads, sailors of the port. They came to pass that 
 way, through the sweetness of it, and this made a 
 coign of vantage for the men with trays, who were 
 very persecuting there. Lindsay and Alicia stood 
 together beside the roses, her hands were deep in 
 them ; he perceived with pleasure that their glow was 
 reflected in her face. " No," she exclaimed with dainty 
 aplomb to the man who sat cross-legged in muslin 
 draperies on the table. " These are certainly of 
 yesterday. There is no scent left in them — and look ! '* 
 she held up the bunch and shook it. A shower of pink 
 petals and drops of water fell upon the round of her arm 
 above the wrist, where the laces of her sleeve slipped 
 back. Lindsay had something like a poetic apprecia- 
 tion of her, observing her put the bunch down ten- 
 derly, as if she would not, if she could help it, find 
 fault with any rose. The dealer drew out another 
 and handed it to her ; a long-stemmed, wide-open, 
 perfect thing, and it was then that her glance of 
 
182 HILDA. 
 
 delight, wandering, fell upon Laura Filbert. Lindsay 
 looked instantly, curiously, in the same direction, 
 and Alicia was aware that he also saw. There ensued 
 a terse moment with a burden of silence and the 
 strangest misj;ivings, in which he may have imagined 
 that he had his part alone, but which was the heavier 
 for her because of him. These two had seen the girl 
 before only under circumstances that suggested pro- 
 tection, that made excuse, on a platform receiving 
 the respect of attention, marching with her fellows 
 under common conventions, common orders. Here, 
 alone, slipping in and out among the crowd, she 
 looked abandoned ; the sight of her in her bare white 
 feet and the travesty of her dress was a wound. Her 
 humility screamed its violation, its debasement of her 
 race; she woke the impulse to screen her and hurry 
 her away as if she were a woman walking in her 
 sleep. She had on her arm a sheaf of the PVar Cry. 
 This was another indignity ; she offered them right 
 and left, and no one had a pice for her except one 
 man, a sailor who refused the paper. When he re- 
 joined his companions there was a hoarse laugh, and 
 the others turned their heads to look after her. 
 
 The flower-dealer eyed his customers with contemp- 
 tuous speculation, seeing what had claimed their eyes. 
 There was nothing new, the " mem " passed every day 
 at this hour. She did no harm and no good. He, 
 too, looked at her as she came closer, offering her pa- 
 per to Alladiah Khan, a man impatient in his religion, 
 who refused it, mumbling in his beard. With a ges- 
 ture of appeal she pressed it on him, saying some- 
 thing. Then Alladiah's green turban shook, his beard, 
 dyed red in Mecca, waggled ; he raised his arm, and 
 
HILDA. 
 
 183 
 
 Laura, in white astonishment, darted from under it 
 They seldom did that. 
 
 Alicia caught at the stall table and clung to it as 
 Lindsay made his stride forward. She saw him twist 
 his hand in the beard of Mecca and fling the man into 
 the road ; she was aware of a vague thankfulness that 
 it ended there, as if she expected bloodshed. More 
 plainly she saw the manner of Duff's coming back to 
 the girl, and the way in which, with a look of half- 
 frightened satisfaction, Laura gave herself up to him. 
 He was hurrying her away without a word. Her sur- 
 render was as absolute and final as if she had been 
 one of those desirable things he said he wanted to buy. 
 Alicia intercepted, as it were, the indignity of being 
 forgotten, stepping up to them. " Take her home in 
 the carriage," she said to Duff, ** and send it back for 
 me. I shall be here a long time still — quite a long 
 time." She stared at Captain Filbert as she spoke, 
 but made no answer to the "Good-morning! God 
 bless you ! " with which the girl perfunctorily ad- 
 dressed her. When they left her she looked down at 
 the long-stemmed rose, the perfect one, and drove a 
 thorn of it deep into her palm, as other creatures will 
 sometimes hurt themselves more to suffer less. It was 
 not in the least fantastic of her, for she was not aware 
 that she still held it, but that was the only rose she 
 brought away. 
 
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CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Hilda left the road, with a trace of its red dust on 
 the hem of her skirt, and struck out into the Maidan. 
 It spread before her green where the slanting sun 
 searched through the short blades, brown and yellow 
 in the distance, where the light lay on the top of the 
 withered grass. It was like a great English park, with 
 something of the village common, only the trees, for 
 the most part, made avenues over it, running an arbi- 
 trary half-n"'i3 this way or that, with here and there a 
 group dot A about in the open ; and the brimming 
 tank-ponds were of India and of now! 're else in the 
 world. The sun was dipping behind the masts that 
 showed where the straight border of the river ran, and 
 the shadows of the pipals and the banyans were richly 
 purple over the roads. The light struck on the stuc- 
 coed upper verandahs of the houses in Chowringhee 
 which made behind their gardens the other border, and 
 seemed to push them back, to underline their scattered 
 insignificance, hinting that the Maidan at its pleasure 
 might surge over them altogether. Calcutta, the 
 teeming capital, lived in the streets and gullies behind 
 that chaste frontage and quarrelled over drainage 
 schemes; but out here cattle grazed in quiet compa- 
 nies, and squirrels played on the boles of the trees. 
 Calcutta, the capital, indeed, was superimposed ; one 
 felt that always at this time, when the glow came and 
 stood in the air among the tamarinds, and there was 
 
HILDA. 185 
 
 nothing anywhere but luminous space and indolent 
 stillness, and the wrangling and winging of crows. 
 What persisted, then, under the span of the sky was 
 the old India of rich traditions, and a thinking bullock 
 beneath the yoke, jogging through the evening to his 
 own place where the blue haze hid the little huts on 
 the rim of the city, the real India, and the rest was fic- 
 tion and fabrication. 
 
 The grass was crisp and pleasant. Hilda deliberately 
 sought its solace for her feet, letting their pressure 
 linger. All day long the sun had been drawing the 
 sweetness and the life out of it, and now the air had a 
 sweet, warm, and grateful scent, like that of harvests. 
 The crickets had been at it since five o'clock, and 
 though the city rose not half a mile across the grass, it 
 was the crickets she heard and listened to. In making 
 private statements of things, the crickets offered a 
 chorus of agreement and they never interrupted. Not 
 that .^e had much to consider, poor girl, which lent it- 
 self to a difference of opinion. One might have thought 
 her, to meet a situation at any point like her own, not 
 badly equipped. She had all the arguments — which 
 is like saying all the arms — and the most accurate un- 
 derstanding ; but the only practical outcome of these 
 things had been an intimate object-lesson in the small 
 value of the intelligence, that flavoured her state with 
 cynicism and made it more piquant. She did not al- 
 together scorn her own intelligence at the result, 
 because i': had always admitted the existence of 
 dominating facts that belonged to life and not to 
 reason ; it was only the absurd unexpectedness of com- 
 ing across one herself. One might think round such a 
 fact and talk round it — there were less exquisite satis- 
 
i86 HILDA. 
 
 factions — but it was not to be cowed or abated, and in 
 the end the things one said were only words. 
 
 Out there in the grassy spaces she let her thoughts 
 flow through her veins, with her blood, warm and free. 
 The primitive things she saw helped her to a fulness 
 of life ; the south wind brought her profound sweet 
 presciences. A coolie woman, carrying a basket on 
 her head, stopped and looked at her with full, glisten- 
 ing eyes ; they smiled at each other and passed on. 
 She found herself upon a narrow path, worn smooth 
 by other barefooted coolie-folk ; it made in its devious 
 way toward the rich mists where the sun had gone 
 down and Hilda followed it, breasting the glow and 
 the colour and wide, flat expanse, as if in the India of it 
 there breathed something exquisitely sensuous and 
 satisfying. It struck sharp on her senses ; she almost 
 consciously thanked heaven for such a responsive set 
 of nerves. Always and everywhere she was intensely 
 conscious of what she saw, and of how she saw it ; and it 
 was characteristic of her that she found in that saffron 
 February evening, spreading to a purple rim with 
 wandering points of colour in a soldier's coat or a 
 coachman's turban, an atmosphere and a mise en sckne 
 for her own complication. She could take a tenderly 
 artistic view of that, more soothing a good deal than 
 any result that came of examining it in other lights. 
 And she did, aware, with smiling eyes, of how colour- 
 able, how dramatic it was. 
 
 Nevertheless, she had hardly closed with it; any 
 material outcome seemed a great way off, pursuable 
 by conjecture when there was time for that. For the 
 present, there on the Maidan with the south wind, she 
 took it with her head thrown up, in her glad, free fash- 
 
HILDA. 
 
 1 8; 
 
 ion, as something that came in the way of life — the 
 delightful way of life — with which it was absurd to 
 quarrel because of a slight inconvenience or incongru- 
 ity, things which helped, after all, to make existence 
 fascinating. 
 
 A marigold lay in the path, an orange-coloured 
 scrap with a broken stem, dropped from some coolie's 
 necklace. Hilda picked it up and drew in the crude, 
 warm pungency of its smell. She closed her eyes and 
 drifted on the odour, forgetting her speculations, los- 
 ing her feet. All India and all her passion was in 
 that violent, penetrating fragrance ; it brought her, as 
 she gave her senses up to it, a kind of dual perception 
 of being near the core, the throbbing centre of the 
 world's meaning. 
 
 Her awakened glance fell upon Duff Lindsay. He 
 hastened to meet her, in his friendly way; and she 
 was glad of the few yards that lay between them, and 
 gave transit to her senses from that other plane. 
 They encountered each other in full recognition of the 
 happiness of the accident, and he turned back with her 
 as a matter of course. It was a kind of fruition of all 
 that light and colour and passive delight that they 
 should meet and take a path together, he at least was 
 aware. Hilda asked him if he was quite all right now, 
 and he said " Absolutely " with a shade of emphasis. 
 She charged him with having been a remarkable case, 
 and he piled up illustrations of what he felt able to do 
 in his convalescence. There was something in the way 
 he insisted upon his restoration which made her 
 hasten to take her privilege of intimacy. 
 
 "And I hear I may congratulate you," she said. 
 " You have got what you wanted." 
 
I88 HILDA. 
 
 " Someone has told you," he retorted, " who is not 
 friendly to it." 
 
 " On the contrary, someone who has given it the 
 most cordial support — Alicia Livingstone." 
 
 He mused upon this for an instant, as if it presented 
 Alicia for the first time under such an aspect. 
 
 " She has been immensely kind," he asserted, " but 
 she wasn't at first. At first she was hostile, like you, 
 only that her hostility was different, just as she is dif- 
 ferent. She had to be converted," he went on hope- 
 fully, " but it was less difficult than I imagined. I think 
 she takes a kind of pride in conquering her prejudices, 
 and being true to the real breadth of her nature." 
 
 " I am sure she would like her nature to be broad. 
 She might very well be content that it is charming. 
 And what is the difference between her hostility and 
 mine? " 
 
 "The main difference," Lindsay said, with a gay 
 half round upon her, " is that hers has sweetly van- 
 ished, while yours" — he made a dramatic gesture — 
 "walks between us." 
 
 " I know. I tried to stiffen her. I appealed to the 
 worst in her on your behalf. But it wasn't any use. 
 She succumbed, as you say, to her nobler instincts." 
 
 Hilda stabbed a great crisp fallen teak leaf with her 
 parasol, and spent the grimness of this in twirling it. 
 
 " One can so easily get an affair of one's own out of 
 all proportion — " Duff said. " And I should be sorry 
 — do you really want me to talk about this ? " 
 
 " Don't be stupid. Of course." 
 
 He took her permission with plain avidity. 
 
 " Well, it grew plain to Miss Livingstone, as it will 
 to everybody else who knows or cares," he said ; " I 
 
HILDA. 
 
 189 
 
 mean chiefly Laura's, tremendous desirability. Her 
 beauty would go for something anywhere, but I don't 
 want to insist on that. What marks her even more is 
 the wonderful purity and transparency of her mind ; 
 one doesn't find it often now, women's souls are so 
 clouded with knowledge. I think that sort of thing 
 appeals especially to me because my own design isn't 
 in the least esoteric. I'm only a man. Then she was 
 so ludicrously out of her element. A creature like 
 that should be surrounded by the softest refinement 
 in her daily life. That was my chance. I could offer 
 her her place. It's not much to counterbalance what 
 she is, but it helps, roughly speaking, to equalise mat- 
 ters." 
 
 Hilda looked at him with sudden critical interest, 
 missing an emanation from him. It was his enthusi- 
 asm. A cheerfulness had come upon him instead. 
 Also what he said had something categorical in it, 
 something crisp and arranged. He himself received 
 benefit from the consideration of it, and she was aware 
 that if this result followed, her own " conversion " 
 was of very secondary importance. 
 
 " So ! " she said meditatively, as they walked. 
 
 " After it happens, when it is an accomplished fact, 
 it will be so plainly right that nobody will think twice 
 about it," Duff went on in an encouraged voice. 
 " It's odd how one's ideas materialise. I want her 
 drawing-room to be white and gold, with big yellow 
 silk cushions." 
 
 " When is it to happen ? " 
 
 " Beginning of next cold weather — in not quite a 
 year." 
 
 " Ah ! then there will be time. Time to get the 
 
190 HILDA. 
 
 white and gold furniture. It wouldn't be my taste 
 quite. Is it Alicia's?" 
 
 " It's our own at present, Laura's and mine. We 
 have talked it over together. And I don't think she 
 would ask Miss Livingstone. In matters of taste 
 women are rather rivals, aren't they ? " 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" Hilda exclaimed, and bit her lip. 
 " Where is Miss Filbert now? " 
 
 "At No. 10, Middleton street." 
 
 "With the Livingstones? " 
 
 " Is it so astonishing? Miss Livingstone has been 
 most practical in her kindness. I have gone back, of 
 course, to my perch at the club, and Laura is to stay 
 with them until she sails." 
 
 "She sails?" 
 
 " In the Sutlej, next Wednesday. She's got three 
 months' leave. She really hasn't been well, and her 
 superior officer is an accommodating old sort. She 
 resigns at home, and I'm sending her to some dear old 
 friends of mine. She hasn't any particular people of 
 her own. She's got a notion of taking lessons of 
 some kind— perfectly unnecessary, but if it amuses 
 her — during the summer. And of course she will have 
 to get her outfit together." 
 
 "And in December," said Hilda, "she comes out 
 and marries you." 
 
 " Not a Calcutta wedding. I meet her in Madras 
 and we come up together." 
 
 "Ideal," said Hilda; "and is Calcutta much scan- 
 dalised ? " 
 
 " Calcutta doesn't know. If I had had my way in 
 the beginning I fancy I would have trumpeted it. 
 But now I suppose it's wiser — why should one offer 
 her up at their dinner-tables?" 
 
HILDA. 
 
 191 
 
 " Especially when they wo .ad make so little of 
 her," said Hilda absently. 
 
 The coolie-track had led them into the widest part 
 of the Maidan, where it slopes to the south, and the 
 huts of Bovvanipore. There was nothing about them 
 but a spreading mellowness and the baked turf under- 
 foot. The cloudy yellow twilight disclosed that a 
 man a little way off was a man and not a horse but 
 did hardly more. " I'm tired," Hilda said suddenly, 
 " let us sit down," and sank comfortably on the 
 fragrant grass. Lindsay dropped beside her and they 
 sat for a moment in silence. A cricket chirped 
 noisily a few inches from them. Hilda put out her 
 hand in that direction and it ceased. Sounds wan- 
 dered across from the encircling city, evening sounds, 
 softened in their vagrancy, and lights came out, topaz 
 points in the level glow. 
 
 " She is making a tremendous sacrifice," Lindsay 
 went on ; "I seem to see its proportions more clearly 
 now." 
 
 Hilda glanced at him with infinite kindness. " You 
 are an awfully good sort. Duff," she said, " I wish you 
 were out of Asia." 
 
 " Oh, a magnificent sort." The irony was contem- 
 plative, as if he examined himself to see. 
 
 " You can make her life delightful to her. The 
 sacrifice will not endure, you know." 
 
 " One can try. It will be worth doing." He said 
 it as if it were a maxim, and Hilda, perceiving this, 
 had no answer ready. As they sat without speaking, 
 the heart of the after-glow drew away across the river 
 and left something chill and empty in the spaces about 
 them. Things grew hard of outline, the Maidan be- 
 
192 ^ HILDA. 
 
 came an unlimited expanse of commonplace, grey and 
 unyielding ; the lines of gas-lamps on the roads came 
 very near. " What a difference it makes ! " Lindsay 
 exclaimed, looking after the vanished light, " and how 
 suddenly it goes! " 
 
 Hilda turned concerned eyes upon him, and then 
 looked with keen sadness far into the changed land- 
 scape. " Ah, well, my dear," she said with apparent 
 irrelevance, "we must take hold of life with both 
 hands." She made a movement to rise, and he, jump- 
 ing to his feet, helped her. As if the moment had 
 some special significance, something to be underlined, 
 he kept her hand while he said, "You will always 
 represent something in mine. I can depend upon 
 you — I shall know that you are there." 
 
 "Yes," she said, sincerely, "Yes, indeed ;" and it 
 seemed to her that he looked thin and intense as he 
 stood beside her — unless it was only another efTect of 
 atmosphere. " After all," she said, as they turned to 
 walk back again across the withered grass, "your 
 fever has taken a good deal out of you." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Finally the days of Laura Filbert's sojourn under 
 the Livingstones' roof followed each other into the 
 past that is not much pondered. Alicia at one time 
 valued the impression that life in Calcutta disappeared 
 entirely into this kind of history, that one's memory 
 there was a rubbish heap of which one naturally did not 
 trouble to stir up the dust. It gave a soothing wist- 
 fulness to discontent to think this, which a discerning 
 glance might often have seen about her lips and eye- 
 brows as she lay back among her carriage cushions 
 under the flattery of the south wind in the course of 
 her evening drive. She had ceased latterly, however, 
 to note particularly that or any impression. Such 
 things require range and atmosphere, and she seemed 
 to have no more command over these; her outlook 
 was blocked by crowding, narrowing facts. There 
 was certainly no room for perceptions creditable to 
 one's intellect or one's taste. Also it may be doubted 
 whether Alicia would have tried the days of her 
 hospitality to Captain Filbert by her general standard 
 of worthlessness. She turned away from them more 
 actively than from the rest, but it was because they 
 bristled, naturally enough, with dilemmas and dis- 
 tresses which she made a literal effort to forget. As 
 a matter of fact, there were not very many days, and 
 they were largely filled with millinery. Even the 
 
194 HILDA. 
 
 dilemmas and distresses, when they asserted them- 
 selves, were more or less overswept, as if for the sake 
 of decency, by billows of spotted muslin, with which 
 Celine, who felt the romance of the situation, made 
 herself marvellously clever. Celine, indeed, was 
 worth in this exigency many times her wages. 
 Alicia hastened to " lend " her to the fullest extent, 
 and she spent hours with Miss Filbert contriving and 
 arranging, a kind of conductor of her mistress's be- 
 neficence. It became plain that Laura preferred the 
 conductor to the source, and they stitched together 
 while she, with careful reserves, watched for the casual 
 sidelights upon modes and manners that came from 
 the lips of the maid. At other times she occupied 
 herself with her Bible — she had adopted, as will be 
 guessed, the grateful theory of Mrs. Sand, that she 
 had only changed the sphere of her ministrations. 
 She had several times felt, seated beside Celine, how 
 grateful she ought to be that her spiritual paths for 
 the future would be paths of such pleasantness, though 
 Celine herself seemed to stand rather far from their 
 border, probably because she was a Catholic. Mrs. 
 Sand came occasionally to upbuild her, and after that 
 Laura had always a fresh remembrance of how much 
 she had done in giving so generous a friend as Duff 
 Lindsay to the Army in Calcutta. It was reasonable 
 enough that there should be a falling off in Mr. Lind- 
 say's attendance just now in Laura's absence, but when 
 they were united, Mrs. Sand hoped there would be 
 very few evening services when she, the Ensign, would 
 miss their bright faces. Lindsay himself came every 
 afternoon, and Laura made his tea for him with pre- 
 cision, and pressed upon him, solicitously, everything 
 
HILDA. 195 
 
 there was to eat. He found her submissive and wish- 
 ful to be pleasant. She sat up straight and said it 
 was much hotter than they had it this time of year up- 
 country but nothing at all to complain of yet. He 
 also discovered her to be practical ; she showed him 
 the bills for the muslins, and explained one or two 
 bargains. She seemed to wish to make it clear to him 
 that it need not be, after all, so very expensive to take a 
 wife. In the course of a few days one of the costumes 
 was completed, and when he came she had it on, ap- 
 pearing before him for the first time in secular dress. 
 The stays insisted a little cruelly on the lines of her 
 figure, and the tight bodice betrayed her narrow- 
 chested. Above its frills her throat protruded un- 
 usually, with a curve outward like that of some wading 
 birds, and her arms, in their unaccustomed sleeves, 
 hung straight at her sides. She had put on a hat 
 that matched : it was the kind of pretty, disorderly 
 hat with waving flowers that demands the shadow of 
 short hair along the forehead, and she had not 
 thought of that way of making it becoming. Among 
 these accessories the significance of her face retreated 
 to a point vague and distant ; its lightly-pencilled lines 
 seemed half erased. She made no demand upon him 
 for admiration on this occasion, she seemed sufficiently 
 satisfied with herself ; but after a time, when they 
 were sitting together on the sofa, and he still pursued 
 the lines of her garment with questioning eyes, she 
 recalled him to the conventionalities of the situation. 
 
 " You needn't be afraid of mussing it," she said. 
 
 The ship she took her departure in sailed from its 
 jetty in the river at six o'clock in the morning. Prep- 
 arations for her comfort had been completed over 
 
196 HILDA. 
 
 night ; indeed, she slept on board, and Duff had only the 
 duty and the sentiment of actual parting in the morn- 
 ing. He found her in a sequestered corner of the fresh- 
 swabbed quarter-deck. She wore her Anr.y clothes — 
 she had come on board in one of the muslins — and she 
 was softly crying. From the jetty on the other side 
 of the ship arose, amid tramping feet and shouted or- 
 ders and the creaking of the luggage-crane, the over- 
 ruling sound of a hymn. Ensign Sand and a company 
 had come apparently to pay the last rites to a fellow- 
 officer whom they should no more meet on earth, 
 bearing her heavenly commission. 
 
 " Farewell, faithful friend, we must now bid adieu 
 To those joys and pleasures we've tasted with you. 
 We've laboured together, united in heart, 
 But now we must close, and soon we must part." 
 
 They had said good-bye to her and God bless you, 
 all of them, but they evidently meant to sing the ship 
 out of port. Lindsay sat down beside the victim of 
 the demonstration and quietly took her hand. There 
 was a consciousness newly guilty in his discomfort, 
 which he owed perhaps to a ghost of futility that 
 seemed to pace up and down before him, between the 
 ranks of the steamer-chairs. Nevertheless, as she 
 presently turned a calmed face to him with her pale 
 apology, he had the sensation of a rebound toward the 
 ideal that had finally perished in the spotted muslin, 
 and when a little later he watched the long backward 
 trail of smoke as the steamer moved down the clear 
 morning river, he remembered that it was a satisfac- 
 tion to have prevailed. 
 
 The Su^/ej had gone far on her tranquil course by 
 
HILDA. 
 
 19; 
 
 the evening of a dinner in Middleton street, at which 
 the guests, it was understood, were to proceed later to 
 a party given at Government House by his Excellency 
 the Viceroy. Alicia, when she included Duff in her 
 invitations, felt an assurance that the steamer must by 
 that time have reached Aden, and rose almost with 
 buoyancy to the illusion you can make, if you like, with 
 the geographical mile. She could hardly have left 
 him out in any case — he could almost have demanc ^d 
 an explanation — since it was one of those parties 
 which she gave every now and then, undiscouraged, 
 with the focus of Hilda Howe. It had to be every 
 now and then, because Calcutta society was so Httle 
 adapted to appreciate meeting talented actresses — 
 there were so many people whom Alicia had to con- 
 sider as to whether they would "mind." Hilda mar- 
 velled at the sanguine persistence of Miss Livingstone's 
 efforts in this direction, the results were so fragment- 
 ary, so dislocated and indecisive, but she also rejoiced. 
 She took life, as may have appeared, at a broad and 
 generous level, it quite comprehended the salient 
 points of a Calcutta dinner party ; and it was seldom 
 that she failed, metaphorically speaking, to carry away 
 a bone from the feast. If you found this reprehensi- 
 ble, she would have told you she had observed that 
 they do it in Japan, where manners are the best in the 
 world. 
 
 Doubtless Hilda would have dwelt longer upon such 
 a dinner-party than I, with no consolatory bone to 
 gnaw in private, find myself inclined to do. To me it 
 is depressing, and a little cruel, to be compelled to be- 
 tray the inadequacy of the personal element at Alicia's 
 banquets, especially in connection with the conspicuous 
 
198 HILDA. 
 
 excellence of the cooking. A poverty of cuisine would 
 have provoked no constrast, and one irony the less 
 would have been offered up to the ^ods that season. 
 The limitations of her resources were, of course, arbi- 
 trary, that is plain in the fact that she asked such a 
 person as the Head of the Department of Education, 
 with no better reason than that he had laid almost the 
 whole of Shelley under critical notes for the benefit of 
 Calcutta University, and the necessary item, his wife, 
 who did even less harm by making exquisite lamp- 
 shades. There was a civilian who had written a few ' 
 years before an article in the Nineteenth Century about 
 the aboriginal tribes of Madras, and the lady attached 
 to him, who had been at one time the daughter of a 
 Lieutenant-Governor. The Barberrys were there be- 
 cause Mrs. BarberrjMoved meeting anybody that was 
 clever, admired brains beyond anything ; and an Aide- 
 de-Camp who had to be asked because Mrs. Barberry 
 was, and Captain Salter Symmes, who took leading 
 male parts in Mr. Pinero's plays when they were pro- 
 duced in Simla, and was invariably considered up 
 there to have done them better than any professional 
 they have at home, though he was even more success- ^ 
 
 ful as a contortionist when the entertainment hap- 
 pened to be a burlesque. Taking Hilda and Lindsay 
 and Stephen Arnold as a basis, Alicia had built up 
 her party, with the contortionist, as it were, at the 
 apex, on his head. The Livingstones had family con- 
 nection with a leading London publishing firm, and 
 Alicia may possibly have reflected, as she surveyed her 
 completed work, how much better than capering cap- 
 tains she could have done in Chelsea, though it cannot 
 be admitted likely that she would harbour, at that par- 
 
HILDA. 
 
 199 
 
 ticular instant, so ungracious a thought. And indeed 
 it was a creditable party ; it would almost unanimously 
 call itself, next day, a delightful one. Miss Howe 
 made the most agreeable excitement — you might al- 
 most have heard the heart-beats of the wife of the 
 literary and on one occasion current civilian, as she 
 just escaped being introduced, and so availed herself 
 of the dinner's opportunity for intimate observation 
 without letting herself in a particle — most clever. 
 Mrs. Barberry, of course, rushed upon the spear, as she 
 always did, and made a gushing little speech, with 
 every eye upon her, in the middle of the room, with- 
 out a thought of consequences. The Aide-de-Camp 
 was also empress^, one would have thought that he 
 was acting himself, the way he bowed and picked up 
 Hilda's fan — a grace lingered in it from the minuet he 
 had danced the week before, in rufifles and patches, 
 with the daughter of the Commander-in-Chief. Duff 
 got out of the way to enable the newly-introduced 
 Head of the Department of Education to inform Miss 
 Howe that he never went to the theatre in Calcutta 
 himself, it was much too badly ventilated ; and Stephen 
 Arnold, arriving late, shot like an embarrassed arrow 
 through the company to Alicia's side, and was still 
 engaged there in grieved explanation when dinner was 
 announced. 
 
 There were pink water-lilies, and Stephen said grace 
 — those were the pictorial features. Half of the peo- 
 ple had taken their seats when he began ; there was a 
 hasty scramble, and a decorous, half-checked smile. 
 Hilda, at the first word of the brief formula, blushed 
 hotly ; then she stood while he spoke, with bowed 
 head and clasped hands, like a reverently inclining 
 
200 HILDA. 
 
 statue. Her long lashes brushed her cheek ; she dr.^w 
 a kind of isolation from the way her manner under- 
 lined the office. The civilian's wife, with a side-glance, 
 settled it off-hand that she was absurdly affected ; and, 
 indeed, to an acuter intelli^^ence it might have looked 
 as if she tool:, with the artistry of habit, a cue that 
 was not offered. 
 
 That was the one instant, however, in which the civil- 
 ian's wife, observing the actress, was gratified ; and it 
 was so brief that she complained afterward that Miss 
 Howe was disappointing. She certainly went out of 
 her way to be normal. Since it was her daily busi- 
 ness to personate exceptional individuals, it seemed 
 to be her pleasure that night to be like everybody else. 
 She did it on opulent lines ; there was a rirhness in 
 her agreement that the going was as hard as iron on 
 the Ellenborough course, and a soft ingenuousness in 
 her inquiries about punkahs and the brain-fever bird 
 that might have aroused suspicion, but after a brief 
 struggle to respond to the unusualness she ought to 
 have represented, Alicia's guests gratefully accepted 
 her on their own terms instead. She expanded in the 
 light and the glow and the circumstance ; she looked 
 with warm pleasure at the orchids the men wore and 
 the jewelled necks of the women. The social essence 
 of Alicia's little dinner-party passed into her, and she 
 moved her head like the civilian's wife. She felt the 
 champagne investing her chatter and the chatter of 
 the Head of the Department of Education with the 
 most satisfying qualities, which were only very slightly 
 dashed when she glanced over the brim of her glass at 
 Stephen, sitting at the turn of the oval, giving a 
 gravely humble but perfunctory attention to Mrs. 
 
HILDA. 201 
 
 Barberry and drinking water. The occasion grew be- 
 fore her into a gorgeous flower, living, pulsating, and 
 in the heart of its light and colour the petals closed 
 over her secret, over him, the unconscious priest with 
 the sloping shoulders, thinking of abstinence and lis- 
 tening to Mrs. Barberry. 
 
 It transpired, when the men came up, that there was 
 no unanimity about going to Government House. 
 The Livingstones craved the necessity of absence, if 
 anyone would supply it by staying on ; it would be a 
 boon, they said, and cited the advancement of the 
 seaion. " One gets to bed so much earlier," Surgeon- 
 Major Livingstone urged, at which Alicia raised her 
 eyebrows and everybody laughed. Lindsay elected 
 to gratify them, with the proclaimed purpose of seeing 
 how long Livingstone could be kept up, and the 
 civilian pair agreed, apparently from an inert tendency 
 to remain seated. The Aide-de-Camp had, of course, 
 to go; duty called him; and he declared a sense of 
 slighted hospitality that anybody should remain be- 
 hind. " Besides," he cried, with ingenuous privilege, 
 " who's goin* to chaperone Miss Howe ? " 
 
 Hilda stood In the midst. Tall in violet velvet, she 
 had a flush that made her magnificent ; her eyes were 
 deep and soft. It was patent that she was out of 
 proportion to the other women, body and soul ; there 
 was altogether too much of her ; and it was only the 
 men, when Captain Corby spoke, who looked silently 
 responsive. 
 
 " We're coming away so early," said Mrs. Barberry, 
 buttoning her glove. Hilda had begun to smile, and, 
 indeed, the situation had its humour, but there was 
 also behind her eyes an appreciation of another sort. 
 
202 HILDA. 
 
 " Don't," she said to Alicia, in the low, quick reach of 
 her prompting tone, as if the other had mistaken her 
 cue, but the moment hardly permitted retreat, and 
 Alicia turned an unflinching, graceful front to the lady 
 in the Department of Education. " Then I think I 
 must ask you," she said. 
 
 The educational husband was standing so near 
 Hilda that she got the very dregs of the glance of 
 consternation his little wife gave him as she replied, 
 a trifle red and stiff, that she was sure she would be 
 delighted. 
 
 " Nobody suggests me ! " exclaimed Captain Corby, 
 resentfully. They were gathered in the hall, the car- 
 riages were driving to the open door, the Barberrys* 
 glistening brougham whisking them off, and then the 
 battered vehicle in Hilda's hire. It had an air of 
 ludicrous foriornity, with its damaged paint and its 
 tied-up harness. Hilda, when its door closed upon 
 the purple vision of her, might have been a modern 
 Cinderella in mid-stage of backward transformation. 
 
 " I could chaperone you all ! " she cried gaily back 
 at them as she passed down the steps ; and in the re- 
 lief of the general exclamation it seemed reasonable 
 enough that Stephen Arnold should lean into the 
 gharry to see that she was quite comfortable. The 
 unusual thing, which nobody else heard, was that he 
 said to her then with shamed discomfort, " It doesn t 
 matter — it doesn't matter," and that Hilda, driving 
 away, found herself without a voice to answer the 
 good-nights they chorussed after her. 
 
 Arnold begged a seat in Captain Corby's dog-cart, 
 and Hilda, with her purple train in her lap, heard the 
 wheels following all the way. She re-encountered the 
 
^ HILDA. 203 
 
 lady to whom she had been entrusted, whose name it 
 occurs to me was Winstick, in the cloak-room. They 
 were late ; there was hardly anybody else but the at- 
 tendants ; and Mrs. Winstick smiled freely and said 
 she loved the colour of Hilda's dress ; also that she 
 would give worlds for an invisible hair-pin — oh, thank 
 you ! — and that it was simply ducky of her Excellency 
 to have pink powder as well as white put out. She 
 did hope Miss Howe would enjoy the evening — they 
 would meet again later on ; she must not forget to 
 look at the chunam pillars in the ball-room — perfectly 
 lovely. So she vanished ; but Hilda went with cer- 
 tainty into the corridor to find Arnold pacing up and 
 down the red strip of carpet, with his hands clasped 
 behind him and his head thrust forward, waiting for 
 her. 
 
 They dropped together into the crowd and walked 
 among well-dressed woman, men in civilian black and 
 men in uniform, up and down the pillared spaces of 
 the ball-room. People had not been asked to dance, 
 and they seemed to walk about chiefly for observation. 
 There was, of course, the opportunity of talking and 
 of listening to the band which discoursed in a corner 
 behind palms, but the distraction which is the social 
 Nemesis of bureaucracy was in the air, visibly increas- 
 ing in the neighbourhoods of the Viceroy and the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, and made the commonplaces people 
 uttered to each other disjointed and fragmentary, while 
 it was plain that few were aware whether music was be- 
 ing rendered or not. Anyone sensitive to pervading 
 mental currents in gatherings of this sort would have 
 found the relief of concentration and directness only 
 near the buffet that ran along one side of the room, 
 
204 HILDA. 
 
 where the natural instinct played, without impediment, 
 upon soup and sandwiches. 
 
 They did not look much at Hilda, even on the arm 
 of her liveried priest. She was a strange vessel, sail- 
 ing in from beyond their ken, and her pilot was almost 
 as novel, yet they were incurious. Their interests 
 were not in any way diffused : they had one straight 
 line and it led upward, pausing at the personalities 
 clerked above them, with an ultimate point in the 
 head of a department. The Head of the Department 
 was the only person unaware, when addressed, of a 
 travelling eye in search over his shoulder of somebody 
 with whom it would be more advantageous to con- 
 verse. Yet there were a few people apparently not 
 altogether indifferent to the presence of Miss Howe. 
 She saw them here and there, and when Arnold said, 
 " It must seem odd to you, but I know hardly any- 
 body here. We attempt no social duties," she singled 
 out this one and that, whom Alicia had asked to meet 
 her, and mentioned them to him with a warm pleasure 
 in implying one of the advantages of belonging to the 
 world rather than to the cloister. Stephen knew their 
 names and their dignities. He received what she said 
 with suitably impressed eyebrow and nods of consid- 
 erate assent. Hilda carried him along, as it were, in 
 their direction. She was full that night of a trium- 
 phant sense of her own vitality, her success and value 
 as a human unit. There was that in her blood which 
 assured her of a welcome ; it had logic in it, with the 
 basis of her rarity, her force, her distinction among 
 other women. She pressed forward to human fellow- 
 ship with a smile on her lips, as a delightful matter of 
 course, going toward the people who were not indif- 
 
HILDA. 205 
 
 ferent to the fact that she was there, who could not be 
 entirely, since they had some sort of knowledge of 
 her. 
 
 In no case did they ignore her, but they were 
 so cheerfully engaged in conversation that they were 
 usually quite oblivious of her. She encountered this 
 animated absorption two or three times, then, turning, 
 she found that the absorbed ones had changed their 
 places — were no longer in her path. One lady put 
 herself at a safe distance and then bowed with much 
 cordiality. It was extraordinary in a group of five 
 how many glistening backs would be presented, quite 
 without offence, to her approach. Mrs. Winstick had 
 hidden behind the Superintendent of Stamps and 
 Stationery, to whom she was explaining, between 
 spoonfuls of strawberry ice, her terrible situation. 
 And from the lips of another lady, whose face she 
 knew, she heard after she had passed, " Don't you 
 think it's rather an omnium gatherum ? " 
 
 It was like Hilda Howe to note at that moment, 
 with serious interest, how the little world about them 
 had the same negative attitude for the missionary 
 priest beside her, presenting it with a hardly percepti- 
 ble difference. Within its limits there was plainly no 
 room for him either. His acquaintances — he had a 
 few — bowed with the kind of respect which implies 
 distance, and in the wandering eyes of the others it 
 was plain that he did not exist. She saw, too, with a 
 very delicate pleasure, that he carried himself in his 
 grave humility untouched and unconscious. Expect- 
 ing nothing, he was unaware that he received nothing. 
 It was odd, and in its way charming, that she who saw 
 and knew drew from their mutual grievance a sense 
 
 . 
 
2o6 HILDA. 
 
 of pitiful protection for him, the unconscious one. 
 For herself, the tide that bore her on was too deep to 
 let these things hurt her ; she looked down and saw 
 the soreness and humiliation of them pictorially, at 
 the bottom, gliding smoothly over. They brought no 
 stereotype to her smile, no dissonance to what she 
 found to say. When at last she and Arnold sat down 
 together her standpoint was still superior, and she 
 herself was so aloof from it all that she could talk 
 about it without bitterness, divorcing the personal 
 Peng from a social manifestation of some dramatic 
 value. In offering up her egotism that way she really 
 only made more subtle sacrifices to it, but one could 
 hardly expect such a consideration, just then, to give 
 her pause. She anointed his eyelids, she made him 
 see, and he was relieved to find in her light comment 
 that she took the typical Mrs. Winstick less seriously 
 than he had supposed when they drove away from the 
 Livingstones'. It could not occur to him to correct 
 the impression he had then by the sound of his own 
 voice uttering sympathy. 
 
 " But I know now what a wave feels like dashing 
 against a cliff," she said. " Fancy my thinking I 
 could impose myself! That is the wave's reflection." 
 
 " It goes back into the sea, which is its own ; and 
 there," said the priest, whom nature had somehow 
 cheated by the false promise of high moralities out of 
 an inheritance of beauty, " and there, I think, is depth 
 and change and mystery, with joy in the obedience 
 of the tides and a full beating upon many shores " 
 
 "Ah, my sea! I hear it calling always, even," she 
 said half-reflectively, " when I am talking to you. 
 But sometimes I think I am not a wave at all, only a 
 
HILDA. 207 
 
 shell, to be stranded and left, always with the calling 
 in my ears " — she seemed to have dropped altogether 
 into reverie, and then looked up suddenly, laughing, 
 because he could not understand. 
 
 " After all," she said practically, " what has that to 
 do with it ? One doesn't blame these people. They 
 are stupid — that's all. They want the obvious. The 
 leading lady of Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope — without the 
 smallest diamond — who does song and dance on Sat- 
 urday nights — what can you expect. If I were famous 
 they would be pleased enough to see me. It is one 
 of the rewards of the fame." She was silent for a mo- 
 ment, and then she added, " They are very poor." 
 
 " Those rewards ! I have sometimes thought," 
 Arnold said, " that you were not devoured by thirst 
 for them." 
 
 " When we are together, you and I," she answered 
 simply, "I never am." 
 
 He took it at its face value. They had had some 
 delightful conversations. If her words awakened any- 
 thing in him it was the remembrance of these. The 
 solace of her companionship presented itself to him 
 again, and her statement gave their mutual confidence 
 another seal ; that was all. They sat where they were 
 for half an hour, and something like antagonism and 
 displeasure toward the secretaries* wives settled upon 
 them, for which Hilda, interrupting a glance or two 
 from the ladies purring past, drew suspicion. " I am 
 going now," she said. " It — it isn't quite suitable 
 here," and there was just enough suggestion in the 
 point of her fan to make him think of his frock. " It 
 is an unpardonable truth that if we stay any longer I 
 shall make people talk about you." 
 
208 HILDA. 
 
 He turned astonished eyes upon her, eyes in which 
 she remembered afterward there was absolutely noth- 
 ing but a literal and pained apprehension of what she 
 said. " You are a good woman," he exclaimed. 
 *' How could such a thing be possible?" 
 
 The faintest embarrassment, the merest suggestion 
 of distress, came into her face and concentrated in her 
 eyes, which she fixed upon him as if she would bring 
 his words to the last analysis and answer him as she 
 would answer a tribunal. 
 
 " A good woman ? " she repeated. " I don't know — 
 isn't that a refinement of virtue? No, standing on 
 my sex, I make no claim, but as people go I am good. 
 Yes, I am good." 
 
 " In my eyes you are splendid," he replied, content, 
 and gave her his arm. They went together through 
 the reception-rooms, and the appreciation of her grew 
 in him. If in the bright and silken distance he had 
 not seen his Bishop it might have glowed into a cordial- 
 ity of speech with his distinctive individual stamp on 
 it. But he saw his Bishop, his ceinture tightened on 
 him, and he uttered only the trite saying about the 
 folly of counting on the sensibility of swine. 
 
 " Yes," she laughed into her good-night to him, 
 "but I'm not sure that it isn't better to be the pig 
 than the pearl." 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 "Not long ago," said Hilda, "I had a chat with 
 him. We sat on the grass in the middle of the 
 Maidan, and there was nothing to interfere with my 
 impressions?" 
 
 " What were your impressions ? No ! " Alicia cried 
 "No ! Don't tell me. It is all so peaceful now, and 
 simple, and straightforward. You think such extra- 
 ordinary things. He comes here quite often, to talk 
 about her. He is coming this afternoon. So I have 
 impressions too— and they are just as good." 
 
 "All right." Hilda crossed her knees more com- 
 (ortMy^ J^ma^ did you say the Surgeon-Major 
 paid for those Teheran tiles ? " 
 
 " Something absurd-IVe forgotten. He writes to 
 her regularly, diary letters, by every mail." 
 " Do you tell him what to put into them > " 
 " Hilda, sometimes-you're positively coarse " 
 " I dare say, my dear. You didn't come out of a 
 cab, and you never are. I like being coarse, I feel 
 nearer to nature then, but I don't say that as an ex- 
 cuse. I hke the smell of warm kitchens and the talk 
 of bus-drivers, and bread and herrings for my tea-all 
 the low satisfactions appeal to me. Beer, too, and 
 hand-organs. 
 
 " I don't know when to believe you. He talks 
 about her quite freely, and-and so do I. She is 
 really interesting in her way." 
 
2IO HILDA. 
 
 " And in perspective." 
 
 " Don't be odiously smart. He and Stephen "—her 
 glance was tentative—" have made it up." 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 "He admits now that Stephen was justified, from 
 his point of view. But of course that is easy enough 
 when you have come off best." 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 " Hilda, what do you M/«/& ? " 
 
 " Oh, I think it's damnable— you have always known 
 what I think. Have you seen him lately— I mean 
 your cousin ? " 
 
 " He lunched with us yesterday. He was more 
 enthusiastic than ever about you." 
 
 " I wish you could tell me that he hadn't mentioned 
 my name. I don't want his enthusiasm. The pit 
 gives one that." 
 
 " Hilda, tell me ; what is your idea of— of what it 
 ought to be ? What is the principal part of it ? Not 
 enthusiasm — adoration ? " 
 
 " Goodness, no ! Something quite different and 
 quite simple— too simple to explain. Besides, it is a 
 thing tii7t requires the completest ignorance to dis- 
 cuss coix f ortably. Do you want me to vivisect my 
 soul? You yourself, can you talk about what most 
 possesses you?" 
 
 " Oh," . -t-ested Alicia, " I wasn't thinking about 
 myself," i ad at the same moment the door opened 
 and Hilda said, "Ah, Mr. Lindsay! " 
 
 There was a hint of the unexpected in Duff's re- 
 sponse to Miss Howe's greeting, and a suggestion in 
 the way he sat down that this made a difference, and 
 that it would be necessary to find other things to say. 
 
 
 , 
 
HILDA. 
 
 211 
 
 He found them with facility, while Hilda decided 
 that she would finish her tea before she went. Alicia, 
 busy with the urn, seemed satisfied to abandon them 
 to each other, to take a decorative place in the con- 
 versation, interrupting it with brief inquiries about 
 cream ind sugar. Alicia waited ; it was her way ; she 
 sank almost palpably into the tapestries until some 
 reviving circumstance should bring her out again, a 
 process which was quite compatible with her little 
 laughs and comments. She waited, offering repose, 
 and unconscious even of that. You know Hilda 
 Howe as a creature of bold reflections. Looking at 
 Alicia Livingstone behind the tea-pot, the conviction 
 visited her that a sex three-quarters of this fibre ex- 
 plained the monastic clergy. 
 
 " It is reported that you have performed the won- 
 derful, the impossible," Lindsay said ; ** that Llewellyn 
 Stanhope goes home solvent." 
 
 " I don't know how he can help it now. But I 
 have to be very firm with him. He's on his knees to 
 me to do Ibsen. I tell him I will if he'll combine 
 with Jimmy Finnigan and bring the Surprise Party 
 on between the acts. The only way it would go, in 
 this capital." 
 
 "Oh, do produce Ibsen," Alicia exclaimed. "I've 
 never seen one of his plays — doesn't it sound terri- 
 ble ? " 
 
 " If people will elect to live upon a coral strand — 
 oh, I should like to, for you and Duff here, but Ibsen 
 is the very last man to deliver to a scratch company. 
 He must have equal merit, or there's no meaning. 
 You see, he makes none of the vulgar appeals. It 
 would be a tame travesty — nobody could redeem it 
 
212 HILDA. 
 
 alone. You must keep to the old situations, the reli- 
 able old dodges, when you play in any part of Asia." 
 " I never shall cease to regret that I didn't see you 
 in The Reproach of Galilee,'' Duff said; "everyone 
 who knows the least bit about it said you were mar- 
 vellous in that." 
 
 " Marvellous," said Alicia. 
 
 Hilda gazed straight before her for an instant with- 
 out speaking. The others looked at her absent eyes. 
 "A bazaar trick or two helped me," she said, and 
 glanced with vivacity at any other subject that might 
 be hanging on the wall or visible out of the window. 
 
 "And are you really invincible about not putting it 
 on again in Calcutta? " Duff asked. 
 
 " Not in Calcutta, or anywhere. The rest hate it — 
 nobody has a chance but me," Hilda said, and got 
 up. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," Alicia began, but Miss Howe 
 was already half way out of the discussion in the 
 direction of the door. There was often a brusqueness 
 in her comings and goings, but she usually left a 
 flavour of herself behind. One turned with facility 
 to talk about her, this being the easiest way of apply, 
 ing the stimulus that came of talking to her. It was 
 more conspicuous than either of these two realised 
 that they accepted her retreat without a word, that 
 there was even between them a consciousness of satis- 
 faction that she had gone. 
 
 " This morning's mail," said Alicia, smiling brightly 
 at him, " brought you a letter, I know." It was ex- 
 traodinary how detached she was from her vital per- 
 sonal concern in him. It seemed relegated to some 
 background of her nature while she occupied herself 
 
 
HILDA. 
 
 213 
 
 with the play of ch'cumstances or was lost in her 
 observation of him. 
 
 " How kind of you to think of it," Lindsay said. 
 ** This was the first by which I could possibly hear 
 from England." 
 
 "Ah, well, now you will have no more anxiety. 
 Letters from on board ship are always difficult to 
 write and unsatisfactory," Alicia said. Miss Filbert's 
 had been postcards, with a wide unoccupied margin 
 at the bottom. 
 
 " The Sutlej seems to have arrived on the 3rd ; 
 that's a day later, isn't it, than we made out she would 
 be?" 
 
 Alicia consulted her memory and found she couldn't 
 be sure. Lindsay was vexed by a similar uncertainty, 
 but they agreed that the date was early in the month. 
 
 " Did they get comfortably through the Canal ? I 
 remember being tied up there for forty-eight hours 
 once." 
 
 " I don't think she says, so I fancy it must have 
 been all right. The voyage is bound to do. her good. 
 I've asked the Simpsons to watch particularly for any 
 sign of malaria later, though. One can't possibly 
 know what she may have imported from that slum in 
 Bentinck street." 
 
 "And what was it like after Gibraltar?" Alicia 
 asked, with a barely perceptible glance at the envelope 
 edges showing over his breast pocket. 
 
 " I'll look," and he sorted one out. It was pink 
 and glossy, with a diagonal water-stripe. Lindsay 
 drew out the single sheet it contained, and she could 
 see that every line was ruled and faintly pencilled. 
 " Let me see," said he. "To begin at the beginning; 
 
214 HILDA. 
 
 * We arrived home on the 3rd ' — you see it was the 3rd 
 — ' making very slow progress the last day on account 
 of a fog in the Channel '—ah, a fog in the Channel !— 
 
 * which was a great disappointment to some on board 
 who were impatient to meet their loved ones. One 
 lady had not seen her family of five for seven years. 
 She said she would like to get out and swim, and you 
 could not wonder. She was my s — stable companion.' " 
 
 " Quaint ! " said Alicia. 
 
 *• She has picked up the expression on board. * So 
 — so she told me this.' Oh, yes. * Now that it is all ^ 
 over I have written the voyage down among my mer- 
 cies in spite of three days' sickness, when you could 
 keep nothing on ' — What are these two words, Miss 
 Livingstone ? I can't quite make them out." 
 
 " * Your * — cambric ? — stom — * stomach ' — ' your 
 stomach.'" 
 
 " Oh, quite so. Thanks ! — * in the Bay of Biscay.' 
 You see, it was rough after Gib. * Everybody was ' — 
 Yes. * The captain read Church of England prayers 
 on Sunday mornings, in which I had no objection to 
 join, and we had mangoes every day for a week after 
 leaving Ceylon.* " 
 
 " Miss Filbert was so fond of mangoes," Alicia said. 
 
 " Was she ? * The passengers got up two dances, 
 and quite a number of gentlemen invited me, but I 
 declined with thanks, though I would not say it is 
 wrong in itself.'" Lindsay seemed to waver; her 
 glance went near enough to him to show her that his 
 face had a red tinge of embarrassment. He looked at 
 the letter uncertainly, on the point of folding it up. 
 
 "You see she hasn't danced for so long," Alicia 
 put in quickly ; " she would naturally hesitate about 
 
HILDA. 
 
 215 
 
 beginning again with anybody but you. I shouldn't 
 wonder," she added gently, " if she never does, with 
 anybody else." 
 
 " I know it's an idea some women have," he replied, 
 gratefully attributing it to her of whom they spoke. 
 " I think it's rather — nice." 
 
 " And her impressions of the Simpsons — and Plym- 
 outh ? " 
 
 "She goes on to that." He re-consulted the letter. 
 " * Mr. and Mrs. Simpson met me as expected and 
 welcomed me very affably.' She has got hold of a 
 wrong impression there, I fancy ; the Simpsons 
 couldn't be * affable.' * They seem very kind and 
 pleasant for such stylish people, and their house is 
 lovely, with electric light in the parlour and hot and 
 cold water throughout. They seem very earnest peo- 
 ple and have family prayers regularly, but I have not 
 yet been asked to lead. Four servants come in to 
 prayers. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson are deeply interested 
 in the work of the Army, though I think Plymouth, as 
 a whole, is more taken up with the C. M. S. ; but we 
 cannot have all things.' Dear me, yes ! I remember 
 those evangelical teas and the disappointment that I 
 could not speak more definitely about the work among 
 the Sontalis." 
 
 " Fancy her having caught the spirit of the place 
 already ! " exclaimed Alicia. He went on : " * Mr. and 
 Mrs. Simpson have a beautiful garden and grow most 
 of their own vegetables. We sit in it a great deal and 
 I think of all that has passed. I hope ever that it has 
 been for the best and pray for you always. Oh, that 
 your feet may be set in the right path and that we 
 may walk hand in hand upon the way to Zion ! * " 
 

 2'6 HILDA. 
 
 Lindsay lowered his voice and read the last sentences 
 rapidly, as if the propulsion of the first part of the let- 
 ter sent him through them. Then he stopped abruptly, 
 and Alicia looked up. 
 
 " That's all, only," he added with an awkward smile, 
 " the usual formula." 
 
 " ' God bless you '? " she asked, and he nodded. 
 
 " It has a more genuine ring than most formulas," 
 she observed. 
 
 " Yes, hasn't it ? May I have another cup ? " He 
 restored the pink sheet to its pink envelope and both 
 to his breast pocket while she poured out the other 
 cup, but Miss Filbert was still present with them. 
 They went on talking about her, and entirely in the 
 tone of congratulation— the suitability of the Simp- 
 sons, the suitability of Plymouth, the probability that 
 she would entirely recover, in its balmy atmosphere, 
 her divine singing voice. Plymouth certainly was in 
 no sense a tonic, but Miss Filbert didn't need a tonic ; 
 she was too much inclined to be strung up as it was. 
 What she wanted was the soothing, quieting influence 
 of just Plymouth's meetings and just Plymouth's teas. 
 The charms that so sweetly and definitely character- 
 ised her would expand there; it was a delightful 
 flowery environment for them, and she couldn't fail to 
 improve in health. Devonshire's visitors got tre- 
 mendously well fed, with fish items of especial excel- 
 lence. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Nobody could have been more impressed with 
 Hilda's influence upon Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope's com- 
 mercial probity than Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope himself. 
 He was a prey to all noble feelings ; they ruled his 
 life and spoiled his bargains ; and gratitude, when it 
 had a chance, which was certainly seldom in connec- 
 tion with leading ladies, dominated him entirely. He 
 sat in the bar of the Great Eastern Hotel with tears 
 in his eyes, talking about what Miss Howe had done 
 for him, and gave unnecessary backsheesh to coolies 
 who brought him small bills— so long, that is, as they 
 were the small bills of this season. When they had 
 reference to the liabilities of a former and less pros- 
 perous year he waved them away with a bitter levity 
 which belonged to the same period. His view of his 
 obligations was strictly chronological, and in taking it 
 he counted, like the poet, only happy hours. The 
 bad debt and the bad season went consistently to- 
 gether to oblivion ; the sun of to-day's remarkable re- 
 ceipts could not be expected to penetrate backwards. 
 He had only one fault to find with Miss Howe— she 
 had no artistic conscience, none whatever, and he 
 found this with the utmost leniency, basking in the 
 consciousness that it made his own more conspicuous. 
 She was altogether in the grand style, if you under- 
 stood Mr. Stanhope, but nothing would induce her to 
 
2i8 HILDA. 
 
 do herself justice before Calcutta; she seemed to have 
 taken the measure of the place and to be as indiffer- 
 ent ! Try to ring in anything worth doing and she 
 was off with the bit between her teeth, and you simply 
 had to put up with it. The second lead had a great 
 deal more ambition, and a very good little woman in 
 her way, too, but of course not half the talent. He 
 was obliged to confess that Miss Howe wasn't game 
 for risks, especially after doing her Rosalind the night 
 the circus opened to a twenty-five rupee house. It 
 was monstrous. She seemed to think that nothing 
 mattered so much as that everybody should be paid 
 on the first of the month. There was one other griev- 
 ance, which Llewellyn mentioned only in confidence 
 with a lowered voice. That was Bradley. Hilda 
 wasn't lifting a finger to keep Bradley. Result was, 
 Bradley was crooking his elbow a great deal too often 
 lately and going off every way. He, Llewellyn, had 
 put it to her if that was the way to treat a man the 
 Daily Telegraph had spoken about as it had spoken 
 about Hamilton Bradley. Where was she — where 
 was he — going to find another ? No, he didn't say 
 marry Bradley ; there were difficulties, and after all 
 that might be the very way to lose him. But a wo- 
 man had an influence, and that influence could never 
 be more fittingly exercised than in the cause of dra- 
 matic art, based on Mr. Stanhope's combinations. Mr. 
 Stanhope expressed himself more vaguely, but it came 
 to that. 
 
 Perhaps if you pursued Llewellyn, pushed him, as it 
 were, along the track of what he had to put up with^ 
 you would have come upon the further fact that as a 
 woman of business Miss Howe had no parallel for 
 
HILDA. 
 
 219 
 
 procrastination. Next season was imminent in his 
 arrangements, as Christmas numbers are imminent to 
 publishers at midsummer, and here she was shying at 
 a contract as if they had months for consideration. It 
 wasn't, either, as if she complained of anything in the 
 terms — that would be easy enough fixed — but she said 
 herself that it was a bigger salary than he, Llewellyn, 
 would ever be able to pay unless she went round with 
 the hat. Nor had she any objection to the tour — a 
 fascinating one — including the Pacific Slope and Hono- 
 lulu. It stumped him, Llewellyn, to know what she 
 did object to and why she couldn't bark it out at 
 once, seeing she must understand perfectly well it was 
 no use his going to Bradley without first settling with 
 her. 
 
 Hilda, alone in her own apartment — it was difficult 
 to keep Llewellyn Stanhope away from even that door 
 in his pursuit of her signature— considered the vagary 
 life had become for her, it was so whimsical, and the 
 mystery of her secret which was so solely hers. Alicia 
 knew, of course ; but that was much as if she had 
 written it down on a sheet of perfect notepaper and 
 locked it up in a drawer. Alicia did not speculate 
 about it, and the whole soul of it was tangled now in 
 a speculation. There had been a time filled with the 
 knowledge and the joy of this new depth in her, like a 
 buoyant sea, and she had been content to float in it, 
 imagining desirable things. Stanhope's waiting con- 
 tract made a limit to the time — a limit she brought up 
 against without distress or shock, but with a kind of 
 recognising thrill in contact at last with the necessity 
 for action, decision, a climax of high heart-beats. 
 She saw with surprise that she had lived with her pas- 
 
220 HILDA. 
 
 sion these weeks and months half consciously expect- 
 ing that a crucial moment would dissolve it, like a per- 
 son aware that he dreams and will presently awake. 
 She had not faced till now any exigency of her case. 
 But the crucial moment had leapt upon her, pointing 
 out the subjection of her life, and she, undefended, 
 sought only how to accomplish her bonds. 
 
 Certainly she saw no solution that did not seem 
 monstrous ; yet every pulse in her demanded a solu- 
 tion ; there was no questioning the imperious need. 
 She had the fullest, clearest view of the situation, and 
 she looked at it without flinching and without compro- 
 mise. Above all, she had true vision of Stephen Arnold, 
 glorifying nowhere, extenuating nothing. It was 
 almost cruel to be the victim of such circumstance 
 and be denied the soft uses of illusion ; but if that 
 note of sympathy had been offered to Hilda she 
 would doubtless have retorted that it was precisely 
 because she saw him that she loved him. His figure, 
 in its poverty and austerity, was always with her ; she 
 made with the fabric of her nature a kind of shrine for 
 it, enclosing, encompassing, and her possession of him, 
 by her knowledge, was deep and warm and protect- 
 ing. I think the very fulness of it brought her a kind 
 of content with which, but for Llewellyn and his con- 
 tract, she would have been willing to go on indefinitely. 
 It made him hers in a primary and essential way, be- 
 side which any mere acknowledgment or vow seemed 
 chiefly decorative, like the capital of a pillar firmly 
 rooted. There may be an appearance that she took a 
 good deal for granted ; but if there is, I fear that in the 
 baldness of this history it has not been evident how 
 much and how variously Arnold depended on her, in 
 
 "' / 
 
 < 
 
HILDA. 
 
 331 
 
 how many places her colour and her vitality patched 
 out the monkish garment of his soul — this with her 
 enthusiasm and her cognisance. It may be remem- 
 bered, too, that there was in the very tenderness of her 
 contemplation of the priest in her path an imperious 
 tinge born of the way men had so invariably melted 
 there. Certainly they had been men and not priests; 
 but the little flickering doubt that sometimes leaped 
 from this source through the glow of her imagination 
 she quenched very easily with the reflection that such 
 a superficies was after all a sophistry, and that only its 
 rudiments were facts. She proposed, calmly and lov- 
 ingly* to deal with the facts. 
 
 She told herself that she would not be greedy about 
 the conditions under which she should prevail ; but 
 her world had always, always shaped itself answering 
 her hand, and if she cast her eyes upon the ground 
 now, and left the future, even to-morrow, undevisaged, 
 it was because she would not find any concessions 
 among its features if she could help it. It was a trick 
 she played upon her own consciousness ; she would 
 not look, but she could see without looking. She saw 
 that which explained itself to be best, fittest, most 
 reasonable, and thus she sometimes wandered with 
 Arnold anticipatively, on afternoons when there was 
 no matinee, through the perfumed orange orchards of 
 Los Angeles, on the Pacific slope. 
 
 She would not search to-morrow ; but she took 
 toward it one of those steps of vague intention, at the 
 end of which we beckon to possibilities. She wrote 
 to Stephen and asked him to come to see her then. 
 She had not spoken to him since the night of the 
 Viceroy's party, when she put her Bohemian head out 
 
222 HILDA. 
 
 of the ticea-gharry to wish him good-night, and he 
 walked home alone under the stars, trying to remember 
 a line of Horace, a chaste one, about woman's beauty. 
 She sent the note by post. There was no answer but 
 that was as usual ; there never was an answer unless 
 something prevented him ; he always came, and ten 
 minutes before the time. Hilda sat under the blue 
 umbrellas when the hour arrived, devising with full 
 heart-beats what she would say, creating fifty different 
 forms of what he would say, while the hands slipped 
 round the clock past the moment that should have 
 brought his step to the door. Hilda noted it and com- 
 pared her watch. A bowl of roses stood on a little 
 table near a window ; she got up and went to it, bend- 
 ing over and rearranging the flowers. The light fell 
 on her and on the roses ; it was a beautiful attitude, 
 and when at a footfall she looked up expectantly it 
 was more beautiful. But it was only another boarder 
 — a Mr. Gonzalves, with a highly-varnished complex- 
 ion, who took off his hat elaborately as he passed the 
 open door. Hilda became conscious of her use of the 
 roses and abandoned them. Presently she sat down 
 on a Bentwood rocking-chair and swayed to and fro, 
 aware of an ebbing of confidence. Half an hour later 
 she was still sitting there. Her face had changed, 
 something had faded in it ; her gaze at the floor was 
 profoundly speculative, and when she glanced at the 
 empty door it was with timidity. Arnold had not 
 come and did not come. 
 
 The evening passed without explanation, and next 
 morning the post brought no letter. It was simplest 
 to suppose that her own had not reached him, and 
 Hilda wrote again. The second letter she sent by 
 
HILDA. 223 
 
 hand, with a separate sheet of paper addressed for 
 signature. The messenger brought back the sheet of 
 paper with strange initials, "J. L. for S. A.," and 
 there was no reply. There remained the possibility 
 of absence from Calcutta, of illness. That he should 
 have gone away was most unlikely, that he had fallen 
 ill was only too probable. Hilda looked from her 
 bedroom window across the varying expanse of 
 parapeted flat roofs and mosque bubbles that lay 
 between her and College street, and curbed the im- 
 pulse in her feet that would have resulted in the 
 curious spectacle of Llewellyn Stanhope's leading lady 
 calling in person at a monastic gate to express a kind 
 of solicitude against which precisely it was barred. 
 A situation, after all, could be too pictorial, looked at 
 from the point of view of the Order, a consideration 
 which flashed with grateful humour across htr 
 anxiety. Alicia would have known ; but both the 
 Livingstones had gone for a short sea change to 
 Ceylon with Duff Lindsay and some touring people 
 from Surrey. They were most anxious, Hilda remem- 
 bered, that Arnold should accompany them. Could 
 he in the end have gone? There was, of course, the 
 accredited fount and source of all information, the 
 Brother Superior; but with what propriety could 
 Hilda Howe apply for it? Llewellyn might write for 
 her : but it was glaringly impossible that the situation 
 should lay itself so far open to Llewellyn. Looking 
 in vain for resources she came upon an expedient. 
 She found a sheet of cheap note-paper, and made it a 
 little greasy. On it she wrote with red ink in the 
 cramped hand of the bazaar Kerani : * 
 
 * Hired writer. 
 
224 HILDA. 
 
 " Sir :— Will you please to inform to me if Mr. 
 Arnold has gone mofussil or England as I have some 
 small business with him. Yours obedient servant, 
 
 " WuN Sing." 
 
 " It can't be forgery," she reflected, " since there 
 isn't a Wun Sing," and added an artistic postscript, 
 " Boots and shoes verry much cheap for cash." She 
 made up the envelope to match and addressed it, with 
 consistent illiteracy, to the head of the mission. The 
 son of the Chinese basketmaker, who dwelt almost 
 next door, spoke neither English nor Hindustani, 
 but showed an easy comprehension of her promise of 
 backsheesh when he Liould return with an answer. 
 She had a joyful anticipation, while she waited, of 
 the terms in which she should tell Arnold how she 
 passed, disguised as a Chinese shoemaker, before the 
 receptive and courteous consciousness of his spiritual 
 senior ; of how she penetrated, in the suggestion of a 
 pig-tail and an unpaid bill, within the last portals that 
 might be expected to recei' e her in the form under 
 which, for example, certair Mack and yellow posters 
 were presenting her to the Calcutta public at that 
 moment. She saw his scruples go swiftly down be- 
 fore her laughter and the argument of her tender 
 anxiety, which she was quite prepared to learn foolish 
 and unnecessary. There was even an adventurous 
 instant in which she leaped at actual personation, and 
 she looked in rapture at the vivid risk of the thing 
 before she abandoned it as involving too much. She 
 sent no receipt-form this time — that was not the 
 practice of the bazaar — and when, hours after, her 
 messenger returned with weariness and dejection 
 
HILDA. 225 
 
 wr.Lten upon him in the characters of a perfunctory 
 Chinese smile, she could only gather from his negative 
 head and hands that no answer had been given him, 
 and that her expedient had failed. 
 
 Hilda stared at her dilemma. Its properties were 
 curiously simple. His world and hers, with the same 
 orbit, had no point of contact. Once swinging round 
 their eastern centre, they had come close enough for 
 these two, leaning very far out, to join hands. When 
 they loosed it seemed they lost. 
 
 The more she gazed at it the more it looked a 
 preposterous thing that in a city vibrant with human 
 communication by all the methods which make it easy, 
 it should be possible for one individual thus to drop 
 suddenly and completely from the knowledge of an- 
 other — a mediaeval thing. Their isolation as Euro- 
 peans of course accounted for it ; there was no medium 
 in the brown population that hummed in the city 
 streets. Hilda could not even bribe a servant without 
 knowing how to speak to him. She ravaged the 
 newspapers ; they never were more bare of reference 
 to consecrated labours. The nearest approach to one 
 was a paragraph chronicling a social evening given by 
 the Wesleyans in Sudder street, with an exhibition of 
 the cinematograph. In a moment of defiance and de- 
 termination she sent a telegram studiously colourless. 
 " Unable find you wish communicate please inform. 
 A. Murphy." He had never forgotten the incongruity 
 she was born to : in occasional scrupulous moments he 
 addressed her by it ; he would recognise and under- 
 stand. There was no reply. 
 
 The enigma pressed upon her days, she lived in the 
 heaviness of it, waiting. His silence added itself up, 
 
226 HILDA. 
 
 brought her a kind of shame for the exertions she had 
 made. She turned with obstinacy from the further 
 schemes her ingenuity presented. Out of the sum of 
 her unsuccessful efforts grew a reproach of Arnold ; 
 every one of them increased it. His behaviour she 
 could forgive, arbitrarily putting against it twenty po- 
 tential explanations, but not the futility of what she 
 had done. Her resentment of that undermined all the 
 fairness of her logic, and even triumphed over the 
 sword of her suspense. She never quite gave up the 
 struggle, but in effect she passed the week that inter- 
 vened pinioned in her unreason — bands that vanished 
 as she looked at them, only to tie her thrice in another 
 place. 
 
 Life became a permanent interrogation-point. Wait- 
 ing under it, with a perpetual upward gaze, perhaps 
 she grew a little dizzy. The sun of March had been 
 increasing, and the air that Saturday afternoon had 
 begun to melt and glow and hang in the streets with a 
 kind of inertia, like a curtain that had to be parted to 
 be penetrated. Hilda came into the house and faced 
 the stairs with an inclination to leave her body on the 
 ground floor and mount in spirit only. When she 
 glanced in at the drawing-room door and saw Arnold 
 sitting under the blue umbrellas, a little paler, a 
 thought more serene than usual, she swept into the 
 room as if a tide carried her, and sank down upon a foot- 
 stool close to him, as if it had dropped her there. He 
 had risen at her appearance. He was all himself but 
 rather more the priest ; his face of greeting had exactly 
 its usual asking intelligence, but to her the fact that he 
 was normal was lost in the fact that he was near. He 
 held out his hand, but she only sought his face speech- 
 less, hugging her knees. 
 
HILDA. 227 
 
 "You are overcome by the sun/' he said. "Lie 
 down for a moment," and again he offered her a hand 
 to help her to rise. She shook her head but took his 
 hand, enclosing it in both of hers with a sort of happy 
 deliberation, and drew herself up by it, while her eyes, 
 shining like dark surfaces of some glorious conscious- 
 ness within, never left his face. So she stood beside 
 him with her head bowed, still dumb. It was her su- 
 preme moment ; life never again brought her anything 
 like it. It was not that she confessed so much as that 
 she asserted, she made a glowing thing plain, cried out 
 to him, still standing silent, the deep-lying meaning of 
 the tangle of their lives. She was shakci. by a pure 
 delight, as if she unclosed her hand to show him a 
 strange jewel in her palm, hers and his for the looking. 
 The intensity of her consciousness swept round him and 
 enclosed him, she knew this profoundly, and had no 
 thought of the insulation he had in his robe. The in- 
 stant passed ; he stood outside it definitely enough, yet 
 some vibration in it touched him, for there was sur- 
 prise in his involuntary backward step. 
 
 "You must have thought me curiously rude," he 
 said, as if he felt about for an explanation, "but 
 your letters were only given to me an hour ago. We 
 have all been in retreat, you know." 
 
 ''In retreat/'' Hilda exclaimed. "Ah, yes. How 
 foolish I have been! In retreat," she repeated, 
 softly, flicking a trace of dust from his sleeve. "Of 
 course." 
 
 " It was held in St. Paul's College," Stephen went 
 on, "by Father Neede. Shall we sit down? And of 
 course at such times no communications reach us, no 
 letters or papers." 
 
228 HILDA. 
 
 " No letters or papers," Hilda said, looking at him 
 softly, as it were, through the film of the words. 
 They sat down, he on the sofa, she on a chair very 
 near it. There was another placed at a more usual 
 distance, but she seemed incapable of taking the step 
 or two toward it, away from him. Stephen gave him- 
 self to the grateful sense of her proximity. He had 
 come to sun himself again in the warmth of her fel- 
 lowship; he was stirred by her emphasis of their 
 separation and reunion. " And what, please," he 
 asked, " have you been doing ? Account to me for 
 the time?" 
 
 " While you have been praying and fasting ? Won- 
 dering what you were at, and waiting for you to finish. 
 Waiting," she said, and clasped her knees with her 
 intent look again, swaying a little to and fro in her 
 content, as if that which she waited for had already 
 come, full and very desirable. 
 
 " Have you been reading ? " 
 
 " Oh, I have been reading nothing ? You shall 
 never go into retreat again," she went on, with a 
 sudden change of expression. " It is well enough for 
 you, but I am not good at fasting. And I have an 
 indulgence," she added, unaware of her soft, bright 
 audacity, " that will cover both our cases." 
 
 His face uttered aloud his reflection that she was 
 extravagant, that it was a pity, but that what was not 
 due to her profession might be ascribed to the simple, 
 clear impulse of her temperament — that temperament 
 which he had found to be a well of rare sincerity. 
 
 " I am not to go any more into retreat ? " he said, 
 in grave interrogation ; but the hint of rebuke in his 
 voice was not in his heart, and she knew it. 
 
HILDA. 
 
 229 
 
 " No ! " she cried. "You shall not be hidden away 
 like that. You shall not go alive into the tomb and 
 leave me at the door. Because I cannot bear it." 
 
 She leaned toward him, and her hand fell lightly on 
 his knee. It was a claiming touch, and there was 
 something in the unfolded sweetness of her face that 
 was not ambiguous. Arnold received the intelligence. 
 It came in a vague, grey, monitory form, a cloud, a por- 
 tent, a chill menace ; but it came, and he paled under 
 it. He seemed to lean upon his own hands, pressed 
 one on each side of him to the seat of the sofa for 
 support, and he looked in fixed silence at the shapely 
 white thing on his knee. His face seemed to wither, 
 new lines came upon it as the impression grew in him ; 
 and the glamour faded out of hers as she was sharply 
 reminded, looking at him, that he had not traversed 
 the waste with her, that she had kept her vigils alone. 
 Yet it was all said and done, and there was no repent- 
 ance in her. She only gathered herself together, and 
 fell back, as it were, upon her magnificent position. 
 As she drew her hand away, he dropped his face into 
 the cover of his own, leaning his elbow on his knee, 
 and there was a pulsing silence. The instant pro- 
 longed itself. 
 
 "Are you praying?" Hilda asked, with much gen- 
 tleness, almost a child-like note ; and he shook his 
 head. There was another instant's pause, and she 
 spoke again. 
 
 "Are you so grieved, then," she said, "that this 
 has come upon us?" 
 
 Again he held his eyes away from her, clasping his 
 hands and looking at the thing nearest to him, while 
 at last blood from the heart of the natural man in 
 
230 HILDA. 
 
 him came up and stained his face, his forehead under 
 the thin ruffling of colourless hair, his neck above the 
 white band that was his badge of difference from 
 other men. 
 
 "I_fear— I hardly understand," he said. The 
 words fell cramped and singly, and his lip twitched. 
 " It-— it is impossible to think " 
 
 His eyes went in her direction, but lacked courage 
 to go all the way. He looked as if he dared not lift 
 his head. 
 
 One would not say that Hilda hesitated, for there 
 was no failing in the wings of her high confidence, 
 but she looked at him in a brave silence. Her crlance 
 had tender investigation in it ; she stood on the brink 
 of her words just long enough to ask whether they 
 would hurt him. Seeing that they would, she never- 
 theless plunged, but with infinite compassion and 
 consideration. She spoke like an agent of Fate, con- 
 scious and grieved. 
 
 " /understand," she said simply. " Sometimes, you 
 know, we are quicker. And you in your cell, how 
 should you find out ? That is why I must tell you, be- 
 cause, though I am a woman, you are a priest. Partly 
 for that reason I may speak, partly because I love 
 you, Stephen Arnold, better and more ardently 
 than you can ever love me, or anybody, I think, ex- 
 cept, perhaps, your God. And I am tired of keeping 
 silence." 
 
 She was so direct, so unimpassioned, that half his 
 distress turned to astonishment, and he faced her as if 
 a calm and reasoned hand had been laid upon the con- 
 fusion in him. Meeting his gaze, she unbarred a 
 flood-gate of happy tenderness in her eyes. 
 
HILDA. 
 
 231 
 
 " Love ! •' he gasped in it, J* I have nothing to do 
 with that." 
 
 " Oh," she said, " you have everything to do with it." 
 Something leaped in him without asking his per- 
 mission, assuring him that he was a man, until then a 
 placid theory with an unconscious basis. It was 
 therefore a blow to his saintship, or it would have 
 been, but he warded if off, flushed and trembling. It 
 was as if he had been ambuscaded. He had to hold 
 himself from the ignominy of flight ; he rose to cut 
 his way out, making an effort to strike with precision. 
 "Some perversity has seized you," he said. The 
 muscles about his mouth quivered, giving him a 
 curious aspect. " You mean nothing of what you say." 
 " Do you believe that?" 
 
 " I — I cannot think anything else. It is the only 
 way I can — I can — make excuse." 
 
 "Ah, don't excuse me!" she murmured, with an 
 astonishing little gay petulance. 
 
 " You cannot have thought "—in spite of himself 
 he made a step toward the door. 
 
 "Oh, I did think— I do think. And you must not 
 go." She, too, stood up and stayed him. " Let us at 
 least see clearly." There was a persuading note in 
 her voice ; one would have thought, indeed, that she 
 was dealing with a patient, or a child. " Tell me," 
 she clasped her hands behind her back and looked at 
 him in marvellous, simple candour, "do I really an- 
 nounce this to you ? Was there not in yourself any- 
 where—deep down— any knowledge of it ? ** 
 " I did not guess— I did not dream ! " 
 " And— now ? " she asked. 
 A heavenly current drifted from her, the words 
 
232 HILDA. 
 
 rose and fell on it with the most dazing suggestion in 
 their soft hesitancy. It must have been by an in- 
 stinct of her art that her hand went up to the cross 
 on Arnold's breast and closed over it, so that he 
 should see only her. The familiar vision of her stood 
 close, looking things intolerably new and different. 
 Again came out of it that sudden liberty, that unpre- 
 meditated rush and shock in him. He paled with 
 indignation, with the startled resentment of a woman 
 wooed and hostile. His face at last expressed some- 
 thing definite — it was anger. He stepped back and 
 caught at his hat. ** I am sorry " he said, " I am 
 sorry. I thought you infinitely above and beyond all 
 that." 
 
 Hilda smiled and turned away. If he choose, it was 
 his opportunity to go, but he stood regarding her, 
 twirling his hat. She sat down, clasping her knees, 
 and looked at the floor. There was a square of sun- 
 light on the carpet, and motes were rising in it. 
 
 " Ah well, so did I," she said meditatively, without 
 raising her eyes. Then she leaned back in the chair 
 and looked at him, in her level simple way. 
 
 " It was a foolish theory," she said, " and — now — I 
 can't understand it at all. I am amazed to find that 
 it even holds good with you." 
 
 It was so much in the tone of their usual dis- 
 cussions that Arnold was conscious of a lively relief. 
 The instinct of flight died down in him, he looked at 
 her with something like inquiry. 
 
 " It will always be to me curious," she went on, 
 " that you could have thought your part in me so 
 limited, so poor. That is enough to say. I find it 
 hard to understand, anybody would, that you could 
 
HILDA. 
 
 233 
 
 take so much pleasure in me and not — so much more." 
 She opened her lips again, but kept back the words. 
 " Yes," she added, '* that is enough to say." 
 
 But for her colourless face and the tenseness 
 about her lips it might have been thought that she 
 definitely abandoned what she had learned she could 
 not have. There was a note of acquiescence and re- 
 gret in her voice, of calm reason above all ; and this 
 sense reached him, induced him to listen, as he gen- 
 erally listened, for anything she might find that would 
 explain the situation. His fingers went from habit, 
 as a man might play with his watch-chain, to the sym- 
 bol of his faith ; her eyes followed them, and rested 
 mutely on the cross. There was a profundity of feel- 
 ing in them, wistful, acknowledging, deeply specula- 
 tive. ** You could not forget that ? " she said, and 
 shook her head as if she answered herself. He looked 
 into her upturned face and saw that her eyes were 
 swimming, 
 
 " Never ! " he said, " Never," but he walked to the 
 nearest chair and sat down. He seemed suddenly 
 aware that he need not go away, and his head, as it 
 rose in the twilight against the window, was grave 
 and calm. Without a word a great tenderness filled 
 the space betvveen them ; an interpreting compassion 
 went to and (ro. Suddenly a new light dawned in 
 Hilda's eyes; she leaned forward and met his in an 
 absorption which caught them out of themselves into 
 some space where souls wander, and perhaps embrace. 
 The moment died away, neither of them could have 
 measured it, and when it had finally ebbed — they were 
 conscious of every subsiding throb — a silence came in- 
 stead, like a margin for the beauty of it. After a 
 
234 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 time the woman spoke. " Once before," she besan 
 but he put up his hand and she stopped. Then, aH 
 she would no longer be restrained, "That is all I 
 want," she whispered. "That is enough " 
 
 For a time they said very little, looking back upon 
 the.r d.v.ne moment ; the shadows gathered in^he 
 corners of the room and made quiet conversat on 
 wh,ch was almost audible in the pauses. Then H da 
 began to speak steadily, calmly. You, too, wol 
 
 Arnold Th'" '" '°"^ '" ""^^ ^"^ '°""^ »° -y s 
 Arnold did ; you, too, would have drawn faith and 
 
 courage from her face. One would not be irreverent, 
 but f this woman were convicted of the unforgivable 
 t^pard^ ''''''"' " ^"^ °^'^'" iustificationUt 
 
 " Then I may stay .' " she said at the end. 
 
 " I am satisfied— if a way can be found." 
 
 " I will find a way," she replied 
 
 After which he went back through the city streets 
 to his disciples in new humility and profounder joy, 
 knowing that virtue had gone out of him. She in h« 
 room where she lodged also considered the miracle 
 twice wonderful in that it asked no faith of her 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 It is difficult to be precise about such a thing, but I 
 should think that Hilda gave herself to the marvellous 
 aspect of what had come and gone between them for 
 several hours after Arnold left her. It was not for 
 some time, at all events, that she arrived at the con- 
 sideration— the process was naturally downward— that 
 the soul of the marvel lay in the exact moment of its 
 happening. Nothing could have been more heaven- 
 sent than her precious perception, exactly then, that 
 before the shining gift of Arnold's spiritual sympathy, 
 all her desire for a lesser thing from him must creep 
 away abashed for ever. Even when the lesser thing, 
 by infinitely gradual expansion, again became th^e 
 greater, it rjmaiii-d permanently leavened and lifted 
 in her by the strange and lovely incident that had 
 taken, for the moment, such command of her and of 
 him. She would not question it or reason about it, 
 perhaps with an instinct to avert its destruction ; she 
 simply drew it deeply into her content. Only its 
 sweet deception did not stay with her, and she let 
 that go with open hands. She wanted, more than 
 ever, the whole of Stephen Arnold, all that was so 
 openly the Mission's and all that was so evidently 
 God's. It will be seen that she felt in no way com- 
 pelled to advise him of this, her backsliding. I doubt 
 whether such a perversion of her magnificent course 
 
i; 
 
 n 
 
 236 HILDA. 
 
 of action ever occurred to her. It was magnificent, 
 for it entailed a high disregarding stroke ; it implied a 
 sublime confidence of what the end would be, a ca- 
 pacity to wait and endure. She smiled buoyantly, in 
 the intervals of arranging it, at the idea that Stephen 
 Arnold stood beyond her ultimate possession. 
 
 There were difficulties, but the moment was favour- 
 able to her, more favourable than it would have been 
 the year before, or any year but this. Before ten days 
 had passed she was able to write to Arnold describing 
 her plan, and she was put to it to keep the glow of 
 success out of her letter. She kept it out, that, and 
 everything but a calm and humble statement — any 
 Clarke Brother might have dictated it — of what she 
 proposed to do. Perhaps the intention was less ob- 
 vious than the desire that he should approve it. 
 
 The messenger waited long by the entrance to the 
 Mission House for an answer, exchanging, sitting on 
 his feet, the profane talk of the bazaar with the gate- 
 keeper of the Christians. Stephen was in chapel. 
 There was no service ; he had half an hour to rest in 
 and he rested there. He was speculating, in the 
 grateful dimness, about the dogma — he had never 
 quite accepted it, though Colquhoun had — of the in- 
 tercessory power of the souls of saints. A converted 
 Brahmin, an old man, had died the day before. 
 Arnold luxuriated in the humility of thinking that he 
 would be glad of any good word dear old Nourcndra 
 Lai could say for him. The chapel was deliciously re- 
 fined. The scent of fresh-cut flowers floated upon the 
 continual presence of the incense ; a lily outlined its 
 head against the tall carved altar-piece the Brothers 
 had brought from Damascus. The seven brass lamps 
 
HILDA. 
 
 237 
 
 that hung from the rafters above the altar rails were 
 also Damascene, carved and pierced so that the light in 
 them was a still thing like a prayer; and the place 
 breathed vague meanings which did not ask under- 
 standing. It was a refuge from the riot and squalor 
 of the vvhitewashed streets with a double value and a 
 treble charm, I. H. S. among plaster gods, a sanctuary 
 in the bazaar. Stephen sat in it motionless, with his 
 lean limbs crossed in front of him, until the half hour 
 was up ; then he bent his knee before the altar and 
 went out to meet a servant at the door with Hilda's 
 letter. The chapel opened upon an upper verandah ; 
 he crossed it to get a better light and stood to read 
 with his back half turned upon the comers and goers. 
 
 It was her first communication since they parted, and 
 in spite of its colourlessness, it seemed to lay strong, 
 eager hands upon him, turning his shoulder that way, 
 upon the world, bending his head over the page. He 
 had not dwelt much upon their strange experience in 
 the days that followed. It had retreated for him be- 
 hind the veil of tender mystery with which he shrouded, 
 even from his own eyes, the things that lay between his 
 soul and God. The space from that day to this had 
 been more than usually full of ministry ; its pure uses 
 had fallen like snow, blotting and deadening the sud- 
 den wonder that blossomed then. Latterly he had 
 hardly thought of it. 
 
 So far was he removed, so deeply drawn again 
 within his familiar activities, that he regarded Hilda's 
 letter for an instant with a lip of censure, as if, for 
 some reason, it should not have been admitted. It 
 was, in a manner, her physical presence, the words 
 expanded into her, through it she walked back into 
 
!'! 
 
 238 HILDA. 
 
 his life, with an interrogation. Standing there by the 
 pillar he became gradually aware of the weight of the 
 interrogation. 
 
 f\ A passing Brother cast at him the sweet smile of the 
 
 cloister. Arnold stopped him and transferred an im- 
 11' mediate duty, which the other accepted with a slightly 
 
 I exaggerated happiness. They might have been girls 
 
 j||i|, together, with their apologies and protestations. The 
 
 ' other Brother went on in a little glow of pleasure, Ar- 
 
 j nold turned back into the chapel, carrying, it seemed 
 
 |l|||i to him, a woman's life in his hand. 
 
 He took his seat an ' 'olded his arms almost eagerly ; 
 llill there was a light of concentration in his eye and a line 
 
 of compression about his lips which had not marked 
 I his meditation upon Nourendra Lai. The vigour in 
 
 his face suggested that he found a kind of athletic 
 luxury in what he had to think about. Brother Col- 
 quhoun, with his flat hat clasped before his breast, 
 passed down the aisle. Stephen looked up with a 
 trace of impatience. Presently he rose hurriedly, as if 
 he remembered something, and went and knelt before 
 r, one of several paintings that hung upon the chapel 
 
 II : walls. They were old copies of great works, discol- 
 
 oured and damaged. They had sailed round the Cape 
 to India when the century was young, and a lady 
 friend of the Mission had bought them at the sale of the 
 effects of a ruined Begum. Arnold was one of those 
 who could separate them from their incongruous his- 
 tory and consecrate them over again. He often found 
 them helpful when he sought to lift his spirit, and in 
 any special matter a special comfort. He bent for ten 
 minutes before a Crucifixion, and then hastened back 
 to his place. Only one reflection corrected the vigour- 
 
 II li 
 
 1 1' 1 
 
 I'r 
 
HILDA. 
 
 339 
 
 
 ous satisfaction with which he thought out Hilda's 
 proposition. That disturbed him in the middle of it, 
 and took the somewhat irrelevant form of a specula- 
 tion as to whether the events of their last meeting 
 should have had any place in his Thursday confession. 
 He was able to find almost at once a conscientious 
 negative for it, and it did not recur again. 
 
 He got up reluctantly when the-Mission bell sounded, 
 and indeed he had come to the end of a very absorb- 
 ing interest. His decision was final against Hilda's 
 scheme. His worn experience cried out at the sacrifice 
 in it without the illumination — which it would cer- 
 tainly lack — of religious faith. She confessed to the 
 lack, and that was all she had to say about her motive, 
 which, of course, placed him at an immense disadvan- 
 tage in considering it. But the question then de- 
 scended to another plane, became merely a doubt as to 
 the most useful employment of energy, and that doubt 
 nobody could entertain long, nobody of reasonable 
 breadth of view, who had ever seen her expressing the 
 ideals of the stage. Arnold did his best to ward off all 
 consideration which he could suspect of a personal 
 origin, but his inveterate self-sacrifice slipped in and 
 counted, naturally enough, under another guise, 
 counted against her staying. 
 
 He went to his room and wrote to Hilda at once, 
 the kindest, simplest of letters, but conveying a defi- 
 nitely negative note. He would have been perhaps 
 more guarded, but it was so plainly his last word to 
 her ; Llewellyn Stanhope was proclaiming the depar- 
 ture of his people in ten days' time upon every blank 
 wall. So he gave himself a little latitude, he let in an 
 undercurrent of gentle reminiscence, of serious assur- 
 
 . 
 
240 HILDA. 
 
 ance as to the difference she had made. And when he 
 had finally bade her begone to the light and fulness of 
 her own life and fastened up his letter, he deliberately 
 lifted it to his lips, and placed a trembling, awkward 
 kiss upon it, like the kiss of an old man, perfunctory, 
 yet bearing a tende** intention. 
 
 The Livingstones and Duff Lindsay had come back, 
 the people from Surrey having been sped upon their 
 way to the Far East. Stephen remembered with 
 more than his usual relish an engagement to dine that 
 evening in Middleton street. He involuntarily glanced 
 at his watch. It was half-past one. The afternoon 
 looked arid, stretching between. Consulting his 
 tablets, he found that he had nothing that was really 
 of any consequence to do. There were items, but 
 they were unimportant, transferable. He had dis- 
 missed Hilda Howe, but a glow from the world she 
 helped to illumine showed seductively at the end of 
 his day. He made an errand involving a long walk, 
 and came back at an hour which left nothing but 
 evensong between him and eight o'clock. 
 
 He was suddenly aware, as he talked to her later, of 
 a keener edge to his appreciation of the charm of 
 Alicia Livingstone. Her voyage, he assured her, had 
 done her all the good in the world. Her delicate 
 bloom had certainly been enhanced by it, and the 
 graceful spring of her neck and her waist seemed to 
 lljl have its counterpart in a freshened poise of the agree- 
 
 j! able things she found to say. It was delightful the 
 
 way she declared herself quite a different being and 
 the pleasure with which she moved, dragging fascinat- 
 ing skirts behind her, about the room. She made 
 more of an impression upon him on the aesthetic side 
 
HILDA. 
 
 241 
 
 
 than she had ever done before ; she seemed more 
 highly vitalised, her fineness had greater relief and 
 her charm more freedom. Lindsay was there, and 
 Arnold glanced from one to the other of them, first with 
 a start, then with a smile, at the recollection of Hilda's 
 conception of their relations. If this were a type and 
 instance of hopeless love he had certainly misread all 
 the songs and sayings. He kept the idea in his mind 
 and went on regarding her in the light of it with a 
 pondering smile, turning it over and finding a lively 
 pleasure in his curious acumen in such an unwonted 
 direction. It was a very flower of emotional naivetdy 
 though a moment later he cast it from him as a weed, 
 grown in idleness ; and indeed it might have abashed 
 him to say what concern it had in the mind of the 
 Order of St. Barnabas. It was gratifying, neverthe- 
 less, to have his observation confirmed by the way in 
 which Alicia leaned across him toward Lindsay with 
 occasional references to Laura Filbert, apparently full 
 of light-heartedness, references which Duff received in 
 the square-shouldered, matter-of-course fashion of his 
 countrymen approaching their nuptials in any quarter 
 of the globe. It was gratifying, and yet it enhanced 
 in Stephen this evening the indrawing of his under- 
 lip, a plaintive twist of expression which spoke upon 
 the faces of quite half the Order of patience under 
 privation. 
 
 The atmosphere was one of congratulation ; the 
 week's Gazette had transformed Surgeon-Major Liv- 
 ingstone into Surgeon-LicLitcnant-Colonel. The 
 officer thus promoted, in a particularly lustrous shirt 
 bosom — he had them laundried in England and sent 
 out with the mails — made a serious social effort to 
 
ill; 
 
 !■: 
 
 242 HILDA. 
 
 correspond, and succeeded in producing more than 
 one story of the Principal Medical Officer with her 
 Majesty's forces in India which none of them heard 
 before. They were all delighted at Herbert's step, 
 he was just the kind of person to get a step, and to 
 get it rather early ; a sense of the propriety of it 
 mingled with the general gratification. There was a 
 feeling of ease among them, too, of the indefeasibly 
 won, which the event is apt to bring even when the 
 surgeon-lieutenant-colonelcy is most strikingly de- 
 served. With no strain imaginable one could see the 
 relaxation. 
 
 " We can't do much in celebration," Lindsay was 
 saying, " out I've got a box at the theatre, if you'll 
 come. Our people had some pomfret and oysters 
 over on ice from Bombay this morning, ^nd I've sent 
 my share to Bonsard to see what he can do with it for 
 supper. Jack Cummins and Lady Dolly are coming. 
 By the way, what do you think the totalizator paid 
 Lady Dolly on Saturday — six thousand!" 
 
 "Rippin*," Herbert agreed. "We'll all come — at 
 least — I don't know. What do you say, Arnold ?" 
 
 "Of course Stephen will come," Alicia urged. 
 "Why not?" It was putting him and his gown at 
 once beyond the operation of vulgar prejudice, intimat- 
 ing that they quite knew him for what he was. 
 
 " What's the piece ? " Herbert inquired. 
 
 " Oh, the piece isn't up to much, I'm afraid, only 
 that Hilda Howe is worth seeing in almost anything." 
 lii " Thanks," Stephen put in, " but I think, thanks 
 
 ' very much, I would rather not." 
 
 " I remember," Alicia said, "you were with us the 
 night she played in The Reproach of Galilee. I don't 
 
HILDA. 243 
 
 wonder that you do not wish to disturb that im- 
 pression." 
 
 Stephen fixed his eyes upon a small pyramid of 
 crystallized cherries immediately in front of him and 
 appeared to consider, austerely, what form his reply 
 should take. There was an instant's perceptible 
 pause, and then he merely bowed toward Alicia as if 
 vaguely to acknowledge the kindness of her recollec- 
 tion. " I think," he said again, " that I will not ac- 
 company you to-night, if you will be good enough to 
 excuse me." 
 
 "You must excuse us both," Alicia said, definitely, 
 " I should much rather stay at home and talk to 
 Stephen." 
 
 At this they all cried out, but Miss Livingstone 
 would not change her mind. " I haven't seen him for 
 three weeks," she said, with gentle effrontery, making 
 nothing of his presence, "and he's much more im- 
 proving than either of you. I also shall choose the 
 better part." 
 
 "How you can call it that, with Hilda in the bal- 
 ance " Duff protested. 
 
 " But then you've invited Lady Dolly. After win- 
 ning six thousand there will be no holding Lady 
 Dolly. She'll be capable of cat-calls ! How I should 
 love," Alicia went on, " to have Hilda meet her. She 
 would be a mine to Hilda." 
 
 " For pity's sake," cried her brother, " stop asking 
 Hilda and people who are a mine to Hilda ! It's too 
 perceptible, the way she digs in them." 
 
 " You dear old thing, you're quite clever to-night ! 
 What difference does it make ? They never know — 
 they never dream! I wish I could dig." Alicia 
 
244 HILDA. 
 
 looked pensively at the olive between her finger and 
 thumb. 
 
 " Thank heaven you can't," Duff said warmly. It 
 was a little odd, the personal note. Alicia's eyes re- 
 mained upon the olive. 
 
 " It's all she lives for." 
 
 " Well," Duff declared, " I can imagine higher ends." 
 
 " You're not abusing Hilda ! " Alicia said, address- 
 ing the olive. ^ 
 
 " Not at all. Only vindicating y©u." 
 
 It did single them out, this fencing. Herbert and 
 Arnold sat as spectators, pushed, in a manner, aside. 
 
 " I suppose she will be off soon," Livingstone said. 
 
 "Oh, dreadfully soon. On the 15th. I had a note 
 from her to-day." 
 
 "Did she say she was going?" Stephen asked 
 quickly. 
 
 "She mentioned the company — she is the com- 
 pany, surely." 
 
 " Oh, undoubtedly. May I — might I ask for a little 
 more soda-water, Alicia?" He made the request so 
 formally that she glanced at him with surprise. 
 ii; . " Please do — but isn't it very odious, by itself, that 
 
 way? I suppose we shouldn't leave out Hamilton 
 Bradley — he certainly counts." 
 
 " For how much ? " inquired her brother. " He's 
 going to pieces." 
 
 " Hilda can pull him together again," Lindsay said 
 incautiously. 
 
 " Has she an influence for good — over him ? " 
 Stephen inquired and cleared his throat. He caught 
 a glance exchanged and frowned. 
 
 " Oh, yes," Duff said, " I fancy it is for good. For 
 
 11' • 
 
HILDA. 
 
 245 
 
 good, certainly. The odd part of it is that he began 
 by having an influence over her which she declares 
 improved her acting. So that was for good, too, as it 
 turned out. I think she makes too much of him. To 
 my mind, he speaks like a bit of consecrated stage 
 tradition and looks like a bit of consecrated stage fur- 
 niture — he, and his thin nose, and his thin lips, and 
 his thin eyebrows. Personally, I'm sick of his eye- 
 brows." 
 
 " They'll end by marrying," said Surgeon-Lieuten- 
 ant-Colonel Livingstone. 
 
 " Herbert ! How little you know her ! " 
 " It's possible enough," Duff said, '♦ especially if 
 she finds him in any way necessary to her production 
 of herself. Hilda has knocked about too much to 
 have many illusions. One is pretty sure she would 
 place that first." 
 
 " You are saying a thing which is monstrous ! " 
 cried Alicia. 
 
 Unperturbed, her brother supported his conviction. 
 " She'll have to marry him to get rid of him," he said. 
 " Fancy the opportunities of worrying her the brute 
 will have in those endless ocean voyages ! " 
 
 " Oh, if you think Hilda could be ivorriedm\.o any- 
 thing ! " Miss Livingstone exclaimed derisively. " If 
 the man were irritating, do you suppose she wouldn't 
 arrange— wouldn't find means—? " 
 
 " She would have him put in irons, no doubt," 
 Herbert retorted, " or locked up with the other sad 
 dogs, in charge of the ship's butcher." 
 
 The three laughed immoderately, and Stephen, 
 looking up, came in at the end with a smile. Alicia 
 pronounced her brother too absurd, and unfitted by 
 
11: 
 
 246 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 J 
 
 (I ■'1 
 
 nature to know anything about creatures like Hilda 
 Howe. "A mere man to begin with," she said 
 " You haven't the ghost of a temperament, Herbert 
 you know you haven't." ' 
 
 " He's got a lovely bedside manner," Lindsay re- 
 marked, " and that's the next thing to it." 
 
 " Rubbish ! I don't want to hurry you," Alicia 
 glanced at the watch on her wrist, " but unless you 
 and Herbert want to miss half the first act you had 
 better be off. Stephen and I will have our coffee 
 comfortably in the drawing-room and find what ex- 
 cuses we can for you." 
 
 But Stephen put out his hand with a movement of 
 slightly rigid deprecation. 
 
 " If it is not too vacillating of me," he said, "and 
 I may be forgiven, I think I will change my mind and 
 go. I have no business to break up your party, and 
 besides, I shall probably not have another oppor- 
 tunity—I should rather like to go. To the theatre, of 
 course, that is. Not to Bonsard's, thanks very much." 
 "Oh, do come on to Bonsard's," Lindsay said, and 
 Alicia protested that he would miss the best of Lady 
 Dolly, but Stephen was firm. Bonsard's was beyond 
 the limit of his indulgence. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 Only the Sphinx confronted them, after all, when 
 they arrived at the theatre, the Sphinx and Lady Dolly. 
 The older feminine presentment sent her belittling gaze 
 over their heads and beyond them from the curtain ; 
 Lady Dolly turned a modish head to greet them from 
 the front of the box. Lady Dolly raised her eyes but 
 not her elbows, which were assisting her a good deal 
 with the house in exploring and being explored, en- 
 abling Colonel John Cummins, who sat by her side, to 
 observe how very perfect and adorable the cut of her 
 bodice was. Since Colonel Cummins was accustomed 
 to say in moments when his humour escaped his dis- 
 cretion, that there was more in a good fit than meets 
 the eye, the rdle of Lady Dolly's elbows could hardly 
 be dismissed as unimportant. Moreover, the husband 
 attached to the elbows belonged to the Department of 
 which Colonel John was the head, so that they rested, 
 one may say, upon a very special plane. 
 
 Alicia disturbed it with the necessity of taking 
 , Colonel Cummins' place, which Lady Dolly accepted 
 with admirable spirit, assuring the usurper, with the 
 most engaging candour, that she simply ought never 
 to be seen without turquoises. " Believe it or not as 
 you like, but I like you better every time I see you in 
 that necklace." Lady Dolly clasped her hands, with 
 her fan in them, in the abandonment of her affection, 
 
248* 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 and " love you better " floated back and dispersed 
 itself among the men. Alicia smiled the necessary 
 acknowledgment. All the women she knew made 
 compliments to her ; it was a kind of cult among 
 them. The men had sometimes an air of envying 
 their freedom of tongue. " Don't say that," she re- 
 turned lightly, "or Herbert will never give me any 
 diamonds." She, too, looked her approval of Lady 
 Dolly's bodice but said nothing. It was doubtless 
 precisely because she distained certain forms of femi- 
 nine barter that she got so much for nothing. 
 
 "And where," demanded Lady Dolly, in an electric 
 whisper, *' did you find that dear, sweet little priest ? 
 Do introduce him to me — at least, bye and bye, when 
 I've thought of something to say. Let me see, wasn't 
 it Good Friday last week ? I'll ask him if he had hot- 
 cross buns — or do people eat those on Boxing Day ? 
 Pancakes come in somewhere, if one could only be 
 sure ! " 
 
 Stephen clung persistently to the back of the box. 
 His senses were filled for the moment by its other 
 occupants, the men in the fresh correctness of their 
 evening dress, whose least gesture seemed to spring 
 from an indefinite fulness of life, the two women in 
 front, a kind of lustrous tableau of what it was possi- 
 ble to choose and to enjoy. They were grouped and 
 shut off in a high light which seemed to proceed 
 partly from the usual sources and partly from their 
 own personalities ; he saw them in a way which under- 
 lined their significance at every point. It seemed to 
 Stephen that in a manner he profaned this temple of 
 what he held to be poorest and cheapest in life, a 
 paradox of which he was but dimly aware in his dejec- 
 
HILDA. 
 
 249 
 
 tion. A sharp impression of his physical inferiority 
 to the other men assailed him ; his appreciation of 
 their muscular shoulders had a rasp in it. For once 
 the poverty of spirit to which he held failed to offer 
 him a refuge. His eye wandered restlessly as if attempt- 
 ing futile reconciliations, and the thing most present 
 with him was the worn-all-day feeling about the neck 
 of his cassock. He fixed his attention presently in 
 a climax of passive discomfort on the curtain, where, 
 unconsciously, his gaze crept with a subtle interroga- 
 tion in it to the wide eye-balls of the Sphinx. 
 
 The stalls gradually filled, although it was a second 
 production in the middle of the week, and although 
 the gallery and rupee seats under it were nearly empty. 
 The piece accounted for both. When Duff Lindsay 
 said at dinner that it wasn't " up to much," he spoke, 
 I fancy, from the nearest point of view he could take 
 to that of the Order of St. Barnabas. As a matter of 
 fact, The Victim of Virtue was up to a very great 
 deal, but its points were so delicate that one must 
 have been educated rather broadly to grasp them, 
 which is again, perhaps, a foolish contrariety of terms. 
 At all events, they carried no appeal to the theatre- 
 goers from the sailing ships in the river or the regi- 
 ments in the fort, who turned as one man that night to 
 Jimmy Finnigan. 
 
 Stephen was aware, in the abstract, of what he 
 might expect. He savoured the enterprises of the 
 London theatres weekly in the Saturday Review ; he 
 had cast a remotely observing eye upon the produc- 
 tions of this particular playwright through that 
 medium for a long time. They formed a manifesta- 
 tion of the outer world fit enough to draw a glance of 
 
250 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 speculation from the inner ; their author was an attro- 
 bat of ideas. Doubtless we are all clowns in the eyes 
 of the angels, yet we have the habit of supposing thit 
 they sometimes look down upon us. It was thus, if 
 the parallel is not exaggerated, that Arnold regarded 
 the author of The Victim of Virtue. His attitude 
 was quite taken before the orchestra ceased playing ; 
 it was made of negation rather than criticism, on the 
 basis that he had no concern with, and no knowledge 
 of, such things. Deliberately he gave his mind a sur- 
 face which should shed promiscuous invitation, and 
 folded his lips, as it were, against the rising of the cur- 
 tain. He thought of Hilda separately, and he looked 
 for her upon the boards with the naivete of a desire to 
 see the woman he knew. 
 
 When finally he did see her she made before him 
 a picture that was to remain with him always as his 
 last impression of an art from which in all its manifes- 
 tations on that night he definitely turned. From the 
 aigrette in her hair to the paste buckle on her shoe 
 she was mondaine. Her dress, of some indefinite, 
 slight white material, clasped at the waist with a belt 
 that gave the beam of turquoises and the gleam of 
 silver, ministered as much to the capricious ideal of 
 the moment as to the lines and curves of the person it 
 adorned. The set was the inevitable modern drawing- 
 room, and she sat well out on a sofa with her hands, 
 in long black gloves, resting stiffly, palm downward, on 
 each side of her. It was as if she pushed her body 
 forward in an impulse to rise : her rigid arms thrust 
 her shoulders up a little and accented the swell of her 
 bosom. It was a vivid, a staccato attitude. It ex- 
 pressed a temperament, a character, fifty other things. 
 
HILDA. 
 
 251 
 
 t 
 
 but especially epitomised the restraints and the 
 licenses of a world of drawing-rooms. In that first 
 brief mute instant of disclosure she was all that she 
 presently, by voice and movement, proclaimed herself 
 to be, so dazzling and complete that Stephen literally 
 blinked at the revelation. He made an effort, for a 
 moment or two, to pursue and detect the woman who 
 had been his friend ; then the purpose of his coming 
 gradually faded from his mind, and he stood with 
 folded arms and absorbed eyes watching the other, 
 the Mrs. Halliday on the sofa, setting about the fulfil- 
 ment of a purple destiny. 
 
 The play proceeded and Stephen did not move — 
 did not wince. When Mrs. Halliday, whose mate was 
 exacting, exclaimed, "The greatest apostle of expe- 
 diency was St. Paul. He preached ' wives, love your 
 husbands,' " he even permitted himself the ghost of a 
 smile. At one point he wished himself familiar with 
 the plot ; it was when Hamilton Bradley came jauntily 
 on as Lord Ingleton, assuring Mrs. Halliday that im- 
 morality was really only shortsightedness. Lady 
 Dolly, in front, repeated Lord Ingleton's phrase with 
 ingenuous wonder. " I know it's clever,' she insisted, 
 " but what does it mean ? Now that other thing — 
 what was it ? — * Subtract vice, and virtue is what is 
 left ' — that's an easy one. Write it down on your 
 cuff for me, will you. Colonel Cummins? I shall be 
 so sick if I forget it." 
 
 Stephen was perhaps the only person in the box 
 quite oblivious of Lady Dolly. He looked steadily 
 over her animated shoulders at the play, wholly in- 
 volved in an effort which the author would doubtless 
 have resented, to keep its current and direction through 
 
252 HILDA. 
 
 the floating d^'bris of constrained sayings with which it 
 was encumbered, to know in advance whither it was 
 carrying its Mrs. Halliday, and how far Lord Ingleton 
 would accompany. Wiien Lord Ingleton paused, as it 
 were, to beg four people to " have nothing to do with 
 sentiment — it so often leads to conviction," and the 
 house murmured its amusement, Arnold shifted his 
 shoulders impatiently. '* How inconsistent," Lord 
 Ingleton reproached Mrs. Halliday a moment later, 
 " to wear gloves on your hands and let your thoughts 
 go candid." Arnold turned to Duff. "There's no ex- 
 cuse for that," he said, but Lindsay was hanging 
 upon Hilda's rejoinder and did not hear him. 
 
 At the end of the first act, where, after introducing 
 Mrs. Halliday to her husband's divorced first wife, 
 Lord Ingleton is left rubbing his hands with gratifica- 
 tion at having made two such clever women "aware 
 of each other," Stephen found himself absolutely un- 
 willing to discuss the piece with the rest of the party. 
 As he left the box to walk up and down the corridor 
 outside where *t was cooler, he heard the voice of 
 Colonel Cummins lifted in further quotation : "'To 
 be good and charming — what a sinful superfluity ! ' 
 I'm sure nobody ever called you superfluous. Lady 
 Dolly," and was vividly aware of the advisability of 
 taking himself and his Order out of the theatre. He 
 had not been gratified, or even from any point ap- 
 pealed to. Hilda's production of Mrs. Halliday was so 
 perfect that it failed absolutel}' to touch him, almost 
 to interest him. He had no means of measuring or of 
 valuing that kind of woman, the restless brilliant type 
 that lives upon its emotions and tilts at the problems 
 of its sex with a curious comfort in the joust. He 
 
HILDA. 
 
 253 
 
 was too far from the circle of her modern influence to 
 consider her with anything but impatience if he had 
 met her original person, and her reflection, her repro- 
 duction, seemed to him frivolous and meaningless. If 
 he went then, however, he would go as he came, in so 
 far as the play was concerned ; the first act, relying al- 
 together upon the jugglery of its dialogue, gave no 
 clue to anything. He owed it to Hilda, after all, to see 
 the piece out. It was only fair to give her a chance 
 to make the best of it. He decided that it was worth 
 a personal sacrifice to give it her and went back. 
 
 He was sufficiently indignant with the leading idea 
 of the play, and sufficiently absorbed in its progress, 
 at the end of the second act, to permit Lady Dolly to 
 capture him before it occurred to him that he had the 
 use of his legs. Her enthusiasm was so great that it 
 reduced him to something like equivocation. She 
 wanted to know if anything could be more splendid 
 than Mr. Bradley as Lord Ingleton ; she confided to 
 Stephen that that was what she called rrrt'/ wickedness, 
 the kind that did the most harm, and invited him, by 
 inference, to a liberal judgment of stupid sinners. 
 He sat emitting short unsmiling sentences with eyes 
 nervously fugitive from Lady Dolly's too proximate 
 opulence until the third act began. Then he gave 
 place with embarrassed alacrity to Colonel Cummins, 
 and folded his arms again at the back of the box. 
 
 Before it was finished he had the gratification of 
 recognising at least one Hilda that he knew. The 
 newspapers found in her interpretation the deve.jp^ 
 ment of a soul, and one remembered, reading them, 
 that a cliche' is a valuable thing in a hurry. A phrase 
 which spoke of a soul bruised out of life and rushing 
 
254 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 to annihilation would have been more precise. The 
 demand upon her increased steadily as the ?ict went 
 on, and as she met it, there slipped into her acting 
 some of her own potentialities of motive and of pas- 
 sion. She offered to the shaping circumstance rich 
 material and abundant plasticity, and when the per- 
 secution of her destiny required her to throw herself 
 irretrievably away, she did it with a splendid apprecia- 
 tion of large and definite movements that was es- 
 sentially of herself. 
 
 The moment of it had a bold gruesomeness that 
 caught the breath — a disinterment on the stage in 
 search of letters that would prove the charge against 
 the second year of Mrs. Halliday's married life, her 
 letters buried with the poet. It was an advantage 
 which only the husband of Mrs. Halliday would have 
 claimed to bring so helpless a respondent before even 
 the informal court at the graveyard ; but it gave Hilda 
 a magnificent opportunity of wild, mad apostrophe to 
 the skull, holding it tenderly with both hands, while 
 Lord Ingleton smiled appreciatively in advance of the 
 practical benevolence which was to sustain the lady 
 through the divorce court and in the final scene offer 
 to her and to the prejudices of the British public the 
 respectability of his name. 
 
 It was over with a rush at the end, leaving the au- 
 dience uncertain whether, after all, enough attention 
 had been paid to that tradition of the footlights 
 which insists on so nice a sense of opprobrium and 
 compensation, but convinced of its desire to applaud. 
 Duff Lindsay turned, as the wave of clapping spent 
 itself, to say to Stephen that he had never respected 
 Hamilton Bradley's acting so much. He said it to 
 
HILDA. 
 
 255 
 
 Herbert Livingstone instead ; the priest had disap- 
 peared. 
 
 The outgoers looked at Arnold curiously as he made 
 his way among them in a direction which was not that 
 of the exit. He went with hurried purpose, in the face 
 of them all, toward the region, badly lighted and im- 
 perfectly closed, which led to the rear of the stage. 
 He opened doors into dark closets, and one which 
 gave upon the road, retraced his unfamiliar steps and 
 asked a question, to which — it was so unusual from 
 one in his habit — he received a hesitating but correct 
 reply. A moment later he passed Mr. Llewellyn Stan- 
 hope, who stood in his path with a hostile stare and 
 got out of it with a deferential bow, and knocked at a 
 door upon which was pasted the name, in large red 
 letters cut from a poster, of Miss Hilda Howe. It 
 was a little ajar, so he entered, when she cried, "Come 
 in ! " with the less hesitation. Hilda sat on the single 
 chair the place contained in the dress and make-up of 
 the last scene. A Mohammedan servant, who looked 
 up incuriously, was unlacing her shoes. Various gar- 
 ments hung about on nails driven into the unpainted 
 walls, others overflowed from a packing-box in one 
 corner. A common teak-wood dressing-table held 
 make-up saucers and powder-puffs and some remnants 
 of cold fowl which had not been partaken of, ap- 
 parently, with the assistance of a knife and fork. A 
 candle stood in an empty soda-water bottle on each 
 side of the looking-glass, and there was no other light. 
 On the floor a pair of stays, old and soiled, sprawled 
 with unconcern. The place looked sordid and mis- 
 erable, and Hilda, sitting in the middle of it, still in 
 the yellow wig and painted face of Mrs. Halliday, all 
 
256 HILDA. 
 
 wrong at that range, gave it a note of false artifice, 
 violent and grievous. Stephen stood in the doorway 
 grasping the handle, saying nothing, and an instant 
 passed before she knew with certainty, in the wretched 
 light, that it was he. Then she sprang up and made 
 a step toward him as if toward victory and reward, but 
 checked herself in time. " Is it possible ? " she ex- 
 claimed. " I did not know you were in the theatre." 
 
 "Yes," he said, with moderation, " I have seen this 
 — this damnable play." 
 
 "Damnable? Oh! " 
 
 " It has caused me," he went on, " to regret the sub- 
 stance of my letter this morning. I failed to realise 
 that this was the kind of work you devote your life to. 
 I now see that you could not escape its malign in- 
 fluence — that no woman could. I now think that the 
 alternative that has been revealed to you, of remaining 
 in Calcutta, is a chance of escape offered you by God 
 himself. Take it. I withdraw my foolish, ignorant 
 opposition." '* 
 
 " Oh," she cried, " do you really think " 
 
 " Take it," he repeated and closed the door. 
 
 Hilda sat still for some time after the servant had 
 finished unlacing her shoes. A little tender smile 
 played oddly about her carmined lips. " Dear heart," 
 she said aloud, " I was going to." 
 
 I 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 " I WOULD simply give anything to be there/* 
 Miss Livingstone said, with a look of sincere desire. 
 
 " I should love to have you, but it isn't possible. 
 You might meet men you knew who had been in- 
 vited by particular lady friends among the company." 
 
 " Oh, well, that of course would be odious." 
 
 "Very, I should think," Hilda agreed. "You must 
 be satisfied with a faithful report of it. I promise 
 you that." 
 
 " You have asked Mr. Lindsay," Alicia complained. 
 
 " That's quite a different thing — and if I hadn't 
 Llewellyn Stanhope would. Stanhope cherishes Duff 
 as he cherishes the critic of the Chronicle. He refers 
 to him as a pillar of the legitimate. Whenever he 
 begs me to turn the Norwegian crank, he says, ' I'm 
 sure Mr. Lindsay would come.'" 
 
 Miss Howe was at the top of the staircase in 
 Middleton street, on the point of departure. It was 
 to be the night of her last appearance for the season 
 and her benefit, followed by a supper in her honour, 
 at which Mr. Stanhope and his company would take 
 leave of those whose acquaintance, as he expressed it, 
 business and pleasure had given them during the 
 months that were past. It was this function that 
 Alicia, at the top of the staircase, so ardently desired 
 to attend. 
 
258 HILDA. 
 
 •' No, I won't kiss you," Hilda said, as the other 
 put her cool cheek forward ; " I'm so divinely happy 
 — some of it might escape." 
 
 Alicia's voice pursued her as she ran down stairs. 
 " Remember," she said, " I don't approve. I don't 
 at all agree either with my reverend cousin or with 
 you. I think you ought to find some other way or 
 let it go. Go home instead ; go straight to London 
 and insist on your chance. After six weeks you will 
 have forgotten the name of his Order." 
 
 Hilda looked back with a smile. Her face was 
 splendid with the dawn and promise of success. 
 "Don't blaspheme," she cried. Alicia, leaning down, 
 was visited by a flash of quotation. *' Well," she 
 said, " * nothing in this life becomes you like the 
 leaving of it,' ' and went back to her room to write 
 to Laura Filbert in Plymouth. She wrote often to 
 Miss Filbert, at Duff's request. It gratified her that 
 she was able, without a pang, to address four pages of 
 pleasantly colourless communication to Mr. Lindsay's 
 fiancee. Her letters stood for a medicine surprisingly 
 easy to take, aimed at the convalescence which she 
 already anticipated in the future immediately beyond 
 Duff's miserable marriage. If that event had prom- 
 ised fortuitously she would have faced it, one fancies, 
 with less sanguine anticipations for herself ; but the 
 black disaster that rode on with it brought her cer- 
 tain aids to the spirit, certain hopes of herself. 
 Laura's prompt replies, with their terrible margins 
 and painstaking solecisms, came to be things Miss 
 Livingstone looked forward to. She read them with 
 a beating heart in the unconscious apprehension of 
 some revelation of improvement. She was quite 
 
HILDA. 
 
 259 
 
 unaware of it, but she entertained toward the 
 Simpsons an attitude of misgiving in this regard. 
 
 Hilda went on about her business. As usual, her 
 business was important and imperative ; nothing was 
 lightened for her this last day. She drove about 
 from place to place in the hot, slatternly city, putting 
 more than her usual vigour and directness into all she 
 did. It seemed to her that the sunlight burning on 
 the tiles, pouring through the crowded streets, had 
 more than ever a vivid note; and so much spoke to 
 her, came to her, from the profuse and ingenuous life 
 which streamed about her, that she leaned a little 
 forward to meet it with happy eyes and tender lips 
 that said, " I know. I see." She was living for the 
 moment which should exhale itself somewhere about 
 midnight, after the lights had gone out on her last 
 appearance, living for it as a Carmelite might live for 
 the climax of her veil and her vows if it were conceiv- 
 able that beyond the cell and the grating she saw the 
 movement and the colour and the passion of a wider life. 
 All Hilda's splendid vitality went into her intention, 
 of which she was altogether mistress, riding it and 
 reining it in a straight course through the encumbered 
 hours. It keyed her to a finer and more eager 
 susceptibility ; and the things she saw stayed with her, 
 passing into a composite day which the years were 
 hardly to dim for her. 
 
 She could live like that, for the purposes of a 
 period, wrought up to immense keenness of sense and 
 brilliancy of energy, making steadily for some point 
 of feeling or achievement flashing gloriously on the 
 horizon. It is already plain, perhaps, that she re- 
 joiced in such strokes, and that life as she found it 
 worth living was marked by a succession of them. 
 
26o HILDA. 
 
 She nad kept, even from Lindsay, what she meant 
 to do. When she stepped from his brougham, flushed 
 after the indubitable triumph of the evening, with her 
 arms full of real bouquets from Chatterjee's — no eight- 
 anna bazaar confections edged with silver tinsel — it 
 occurred to her that this reticence was not altogether 
 fair to so constant a friend. He was there, keen and 
 eager as ever in all that concerned her, foremost with 
 his congratulations on the smiling fringe of the party 
 assembled to do her honour. It was a party of some 
 brilliance in its way, though its way was diverse; 
 there was no steady glow. Fillimore said of the com- 
 pany that it comprised all the talent, and Fillimore, 
 editor of the Indian Sportsman and Racing Gazette^ 
 was a judge. He said it to Hagge, of the Bank of 
 Hindustan, who could hardly have been an owner on 
 three hundred rupees a month without conspicuous 
 ability disconnected with his ledgers ; and Hagge 
 looked gratified. Though so promising, he was young. 
 Lord Bobby was there from Government House. Lord 
 Bobby always accompanied the talent, who were 
 very kind to him. He was talking, when Hilda 
 arrived, to the editor of the Indian Empire^ who 
 wanted to find out the date of Her Excellency's fancy- 
 dress party for children, in order that he might make 
 a leaderette of it ; but Lord Bobby couldn't remember 
 — had to promise to drop him a line. Gianacchi was 
 there, trying to treat Fillimore with coldness because 
 the Sportsman had discovered too many virtues in his 
 Gadfly^ exalted her, indeed, into a favourite for Satur- 
 day's hurdle race, a notability for which Gianacchi 
 felt himself too modest. " They say," Fillimore had 
 written, " that the Gadfly has been seen jumping by 
 
HILDA. 261 
 
 moonlight " — the sort of the thing to spoil any book. 
 Fillimore was an acute and weary-looking little man 
 with a peculiarly sweet smile and an air of cynicism 
 which gave to his lightest word a dangerous and 
 suspicious air. It was rumoured in official circles 
 that he had narrowly escaped beheading for pointing 
 out too ironically the disabilities of a Viceroy who 
 insisted on reviewing the troops from a cushioned 
 carriage with the horses taken out. Fillimore seemed 
 to think that if nature had not made such a nobleman 
 a horseman, the Queen-Empress should not have 
 made him Governor-General of India. Fillimore was 
 full of prejudices. Gianacchi, however, found it im- 
 possible to treat him coldly. His smoothness of 
 temperament stood in the way. Instead, he imparted 
 the melodious information that the Gadfly had pecked 
 badly twice at Tollygunge that morning, and smiled 
 with pathetic philosophy. " Always let *em use their 
 noses," said Fillimore, and there seemed to be satire 
 in it. Fillimore certainly had a flair, and when Beryl 
 Stace presently demanded of him, "What's the dead 
 bird going to be on Saturday, Filly?" he put it' gener- 
 ously at her service. Among the friends of Mr. 
 Stanhope and his company were also several gentle- 
 men, content, for their personal effect, with the lustre 
 they shed upon the Stock Exchange — gentlemen of 
 high finance, who wrote their names at the end of 
 directors* reports, but never in the visitors* book at 
 Government House, who were little more to the 
 Calcutta world than published receipts for so many 
 lakhs, except when they were seen now and then driv- 
 ing in fleet dog-carts across the Maidan toward com- 
 fortable suburban residences where ladies were not 
 
262 HILDA. 
 
 entertained. They were extremely, curiously de- 
 voted to business ; but if they allowed themselves any 
 amusement other than company promoting it was the 
 theatre, of which their appreciation had sometimes an 
 odd relation to the merits of performance. This 
 supper, on the part of Miss Beryl Stace and one or 
 two other of Mr. Stanhope's artistes, might have been 
 considered a return of hospitality to these gentlemen, 
 since the suburban residences stood lavishly open to 
 the profession. 
 
 Altogether, perhaps, there were fifty people, and an 
 eye that looked for the sentiment, the pity of things, 
 would have distinguished at once on about half the 
 faces, especially those of the women, the used under- 
 lined look that spoke of the continual play of muscle 
 and forcing of feeling. It gave them a shabbily com- 
 plicated air, contrasting in a strained and sorry way 
 even with the countenances of the brokers and 
 bankers, where nature had laid on a smooth wash and 
 experience had not interfered. They were all gay 
 and enthusiastic as Miss Howe entered ; they loafed 
 forward, broad shirt-fronts lustrous, fat hands in 
 financial pockets, with their admiration, and Fillimore 
 put out his cigarette. Hilda came down among them 
 from the summit of her achievement, clasping their 
 various hands. They were all personally responsible 
 for her success, she made them feel that, and they 
 expanded in the conviction. She moved in a kind of 
 tide of infectious vitality, subtly drawing from every 
 human flavour in the room the power to hold and 
 show something akin to it in herself, a fugitive 
 assimilation floating in the lamplight with the odour 
 of the flowers and the soup, to be extinguished with 
 
HILDA. 
 
 263 
 
 the occasion. They looked at her up and down the 
 table with an odd smiling attraction ; they told each 
 other that she was in great form. Mr. Fillimore was 
 of the opinion that she couldn't be outclassed at the 
 Lyceum, and Mr. Hagge responded with vivacity that 
 there were few places where she wouldn't stretch the 
 winner's neck. The feast was not, after all, one of 
 great bounty, Mr. Stanhope justly holding that the 
 opportunity, the little gathering, was the thing, and it 
 was not long before the moment of celebration arrived 
 for which the gentlemen of the Stock Exchange, to 
 judge from their undrained glasses, seemed to be re- 
 serving themselves. There certainly had been one 
 tin of pat6, and it circulated at that end ; on the other 
 hand, the ladies had all the fondants. So that when 
 Mr. Llewellyn Stanhope rose with the sentiment of the 
 evening, he found satisfaction, if not repletion, in the 
 regards turned upon him. 
 
 Llewellyn got up with modest importance, and ran 
 a hand through his yellow hair, not dramatically, but 
 with the effect of collecting his ideas. He leaned a 
 little forward ; he was extremely, happily conspicuous. 
 The attention of the two lines of faces seemed to 
 overcome him, for an instant, with dizzy pleasure ; 
 Hilda's beside him was bent a little, waiting. 
 
 ** Ladies and gentlemen," said Mr. Stanhope, look- 
 ing with precision up and down the table to be still 
 more inclusive, *' we have met together to-night in 
 honour of a lady who has given this city more pleasure 
 in the exercise of her profession than can be said of 
 any single performer during the last twenty years. 
 Cast your eye back over the theatrical record of Cal- 
 cutta for that space of time, and you yourselves will 
 
264 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 admit that there has been nobody that could be said to 
 have come within a mile of her shadow, if I may use 
 the language of metaphor. [Applause, led by Mr. Filli- 
 more.] I would ask you to remember, at the same 
 time, that this pleasure has been of a superior class. 
 I freely admit that this is a great satisfaction to me 
 personally. Far be it from me to put myself forward 
 on this auspicious occasion, but, ladies and gentlemen, 
 if I have one ambition more than another, it is to pro- 
 mote the noble cause of the unfettered drama. To 
 this I may say I have been vowed from the cradle, by 
 a sire who was well known in the early days of the 
 metropolis of Sydney as a pioneer in the great move- 
 ment which has made the dramatic talent of Australia 
 what it is. To-day a magnificent theatre rises on the 
 site forever consecrated to me by those paternal la- 
 bours, but — but I can never forget it. In Miss Hilda 
 Howe I have found a great coadjutor, and one who is 
 willing to consecrate her royal abilities in the same 
 line as myself, so that we have been able to maintain 
 a high standard of production among you, prices re- 
 maining as usual. I have to thank you, as represent- 
 ing the public of the Indian capital, for the kind 
 support which has been so encouraging to Miss Howe, 
 the company, and myself personally, during the past 
 season. Many a time ladies and gentlemen of my 
 profession have said to me, 'Mr. Stanhope, why do 
 you go to Calcutta? That city is a death-trap for 
 professionals,* and now the past season proves that I 
 was right and they were wrong; and the magnificent 
 houses, the enthusiasm, and the appreciation that have 
 greeted our efforts, especially on the Saturday even- 
 ing performances, show plain enough that when a 
 
HILDA. 
 
 265 
 
 good thing is available, the citizens of Calcutta won't 
 be happy till they get it. Ladies and gentlemen, I 
 invite you to join me in drinking the health, happi- 
 ness, and prosperity of Miss Hilda Howe." 
 
 "Miss Howe!" "Miss Howe!" "Miss Hilda 
 Howe!" In the midst of a pushing back of chairs 
 and a movement of feet, the response was quick and 
 universal. Hilda accepted their nods and becks and 
 waving glasses with a slow movement of her beautiful 
 eyes and a quiet smile. In the subsidence of sound 
 Mr. Stanhope's voice was heard again : " We can hardly 
 expect a speech from Miss Howe, but perhaps Mr. 
 Hamilton Bradley, whose international reputation need 
 hardly be referred to, will kindly say a few words on 
 her behalf." 
 
 Then, with deliberate grace, Hilda rose from her 
 chair, a tall figure among them, looking down with a 
 hint of compassionateness on the little man at her left. 
 She stood for an instant without speaking, as if the 
 flushed silence, the expectation, the warm magnetism 
 that drew all their eyes to her were enough. Then 
 out of something like reverie she came to the matter. 
 She threw up her beautiful face with one of the supreme 
 gestures which belonged to her. " I think," she said, 
 with a little smiling bow in his direction, "that I will 
 not trouble my friend Mr. Bradley. He has rendered 
 me so many kind services already that I am sure I 
 might count upon him again, but this is a thing I should 
 like to do for myself. I would not have my thanks 
 chilled by even the passage from my heart to his." 
 There was something like bravado in the glance that 
 rested lightly on Bradley with this. One would have 
 said that parley of hearts between them was not a 
 thing that as a rule she courted. " I can only offer you 
 
266 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 my thanks, poor things to which we can give neither 
 life nor substance, yet I beg that you will somehow 
 take them and remember them. It is to me, and will 
 always be, a kind of crowning satisfaction that you 
 were pleased to come together to-night to tell me I 
 had done well. You know yourselves, and I know, 
 how much too flattering your kindness is, but perhaps 
 it will hurt nobody if to-night 1 take it as it is gener- 
 ously offered, and let it make me as happy as you in- 
 tend me to be. At all events, no one could disturb 
 me in believing that in obtaining your praise and your 
 good wishes I have done well enough." 
 
 For a few seconds she stopped speaking, but she 
 held them with her eyes from the mistake of suppos- 
 ing she had done. Lindsay, who was watching her 
 closely and hanging with keen pleasure on the sweet- 
 ness and precision of what she found to say, noted a 
 swift constriction pass upon her face, and was ready to 
 swear to himself in astonishment that tears were in her 
 eyes. There was a half-tone of difference, too, in her 
 voice when she raised it again, a firmer vibration, as if 
 she passed, deliberate and aware, out of one phase into 
 another. 
 
 *'■ No," she went on, ** I am nots on this occasion ; 
 indeed, I feel that I should like to keep your eyes 
 upon me for a long time to-night, and go on talk- 
 ing far past your patience or my wit. For I cannot 
 think it likely that our ways will cross again." Mere 
 her words grew suddenly low and hurried. '* If I may 
 tresspass u^ on yqur interest so much further, I have to 
 tell you that my connection with the stage closes with 
 this evening's performance. Tomorrow I join the 
 Anglican Order of the Sisters of St. Paul — the Baker 
 Institution — in C?lcutta, as a novice. They have ta- 
 
HILDA. 
 
 267 
 
 ken me without much question because — because the 
 plague hospitals of this cheerful country " — she ' • 
 trived a smile — " have made a great demand upon 
 their body. Tiiat is all. I have nothing more to say." 
 It was, after all, ineffective, the denouement, or per- 
 haps it was too effective. In any case it was received 
 in silence, the applause that was ready falling back on 
 itself, inconsistent and absurd. The incredulity of 
 Llewellyn Stanhope might have been electric had it 
 found words, but that gentleman's protests were made 
 in violent whispers, to which Hilda, who sat playing 
 with a faded rose, seemed to pay no attention what- 
 ever. One might have thought her more overcome 
 than anyone, she seemed to make one or two unsuc- 
 cessful efforts to raise her head. There was a mo- 
 ment of waiting for someone to reply : eyes were 
 turned toward Mr. Bradley, and when it became plain 
 that no one would, broken murmurs of talk began 
 with a note of deprecation and many shakes of the 
 head. The women especially looked tragically at 
 their neighbours with very wide-cpen eyes. Presently 
 a chair was drawn back, then another, and people be- 
 gan to filter, in slow embarrassment, toward the door. 
 Lindsay came up with Hilda's cloak. "You won't 
 mind my coming with you," he said ; '* I should like to 
 hear the details." Beryl Stace made as if to embrace 
 her, pouring out abusive ilisbelief, but Hilda waved 
 her away with a gesture almost of irritation. Some 
 of the others said a perfunctory word or two and went 
 away with lingering backward looks. I*^ a quarter of 
 an hour Mr. Lindsay's brou^^ham had followed the 
 other vehicle into the lamp-lit ways of Calcutta and 
 ovily the •native table servant-^ remained in somewhat 
 resentful possession of what was left. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 If Duff Lindsay had apprehended that the reception 
 of Miss Filbert by the Simpsons would involve any 
 strain upon the affection his friends bore him, the event 
 must have relieved him in no small degree. He was 
 soon mrde aware of its happy character and constantly 
 kept assured. Indeed, it seemed that whenever Mrs. 
 Simpson had nothing else to do she laid her pen to the 
 task of telling him once again how cherished a satisfac- 
 tion they found in Laura and how reluctant they would 
 be to lose it. She wrote in that strain of facile sym- 
 pathy which seems part ot an Englishwoman's educa- 
 tion, and often begged him to believe that the more she 
 knew of their sweet and heavenly-minded guest the 
 more keenly she realised how dreary for him must have 
 been the pang of parting and how arid the months of 
 separation. Mrs. Simpson herself was well acquainted 
 with these trials of the spirit. She and her husband 
 had been divided by those wretched thousands of 
 miles of ocean for three years, one week, and five days, 
 all told, during their married life ; she knew what it 
 meant. But if Duff could only see how well and 
 blooming his beloved one was — she had gained twelve 
 pounds already — Mrs. Simpson was sure the timj of 
 waiting would pass less heavily. For herself, it was 
 cruel, but she smiled upon the deferred reunion oF 
 hearts : she would keep Laura till the very last day, 
 
HILDA. 
 
 269 
 
 and hoped to establish a permanent claim on her. 
 She was just the daughter Mrs. Simpson would have 
 liked, so unspotted, so pure, so wrapped in high ideals, 
 and then the page would reflect something of the 
 adoring awe in which Mrs. Simpson would have held 
 such a daughter. It will be seen that Mrs. Simpson 
 knew how to express herself, but there was a fine sin- 
 cerity behind the mask of words; Miss Filbert had 
 entered very completely into possession. 
 
 It had its abnormal side, the way she entered into 
 possession. Everything about Laura Filbert had its 
 abnormal side, none the less obvious because it was 
 inward and invisible. Nature, of course, worked with 
 her — one might say that nature really did it, since in 
 the end she was practically unconscious, except for 
 the hope that certain souls had been saved, that any- 
 thing of the sort had happened. She conquered the 
 Simpsons and their friends chiefly by the simple im- 
 possibility that they should conquer her, walking im- 
 mobile among them even while she admired Mr. 
 Simpson's cauliflowers and approved the quality of 
 Mrs. Simpson's house linen. It must be confessed 
 that nothing in her surroundings spoke to her more 
 loudly or more subtly than these things. In view of 
 what happened, poor dear Alicia Livingstone's antici- 
 pation that the Simpsons and their circle would have 
 a radical personal effect upon Laura Filbert, became 
 ludicrous. They had no effect at all. She took no 
 tint, no curve. She appeared not to see that these 
 precious things were to be had fo/ the assimilation. 
 Her grace remained exclusively that of holiness and 
 continued to fail to have any relation to the common 
 little things she did and said. 
 
270 HILDA. 
 
 The Simpsons were more plastic. Laura had been 
 with them hardly a week before Mrs. Simpson, with 
 touching humility, was trying to remodel her spiritual 
 nature upon the form so fortuitously, if the word is 
 admissible, presented. The dear lady had never before 
 realised, by her own statement, how terribly her re- 
 ligious feelings were mingled with domestic and social 
 considerations, how firmly her spiritual edifice was based 
 upon the things of this world. She felt that her soul 
 was honeycombed — that was her word — with conven- 
 tionality and false standards, and she made confessions 
 like these to Laura, sitting in the girl's bedroom in 
 the twilight. They were very soothing, these con- 
 fessions. Laura would take Mrs. Simpson's thin, 
 veined, middle-aged hand in hers and seem to charge 
 herself for the moment with the responsibility of the 
 elder lady's case. She did not attempt to conceal her 
 pity or even her contempt for Mrs. Simpson's state of 
 grace : she made short work of special services and 
 ladies' Bible classes. The world was white with har- 
 vest, and Mrs. Simpson's chief activity was a recreation 
 society for shop-girls. But it was something, it was 
 everything, to be uneasy, to be unsatisfied, and they 
 would uplift themselves in prayer, and Laura would 
 find words of such touching supplication in which to 
 represent the matter that the burden of her friend and 
 hostess would at once be lessened by the weight of 
 tears. Mrs. Simpson had never wept so much with- 
 out perceived cause for grief as since Laura arrived, 
 and this alone would testify, such was the gentle para- 
 dox of her temperament, how much she enjoyed Miss 
 Filbert's presence. 
 
 Laura's room was a temple, for which the gardener 
 
HILDA. 
 
 271 
 
 daily gave \\p his choicest blooms, the tenderest inter- 
 est watched upon her comings and goings, and it was 
 the joy of both the Simpsons to make little sacrifices 
 for her, to desert their beloved vicar on a Sunday 
 evening, for instance, and accompany her to the fire- 
 men's halls and skating rinks lent to the publishing of 
 the Word in the only manner from which their guest 
 seemed to derive benefit. 
 
 With all this, the Simpsons were sometimes troubled 
 by the impression that they could not claim to be 
 making their angel in the house completely happy. 
 The air, the garden, the victoria, the turbot and the 
 whitebait, these were all that had been vaunted, and 
 even to the modesty of the Simpsons it was evident 
 that the intimacy they offered their guest should 
 count for something. There were other friends, too, 
 young friends who tried to teach her to play tennis, 
 robust and silent young persons who threw shy, flushed 
 glances at her in the pauses of the games, and wished 
 supremely, without daring to hint it, that she would 
 let fall some word about her wonderful romance — a 
 hope ever renewed, ever to be disappointed. And 
 physically Laura expanded before their eyes. The 
 colour that came into her cheek gave her the look of 
 a person painted by Bouguereau. That artist would 
 have found in her a model whom he could have repre- 
 sented with sincerity. Yet something was missing to 
 her, her friends were dimly aware. Her desirable sur- 
 roundings kindled her to but a perfunctory interest in 
 life : the electric spark was absent. Mrs. Simpson re- 
 lied strategically upon the wedding preparations and 
 hurried them on, announcing in May that it was quite 
 time to think about various garments of which i.«ie 
 
2/2 HILDA. 
 
 fashion is permanent, but the issue was blank. No 
 ripple stirred the placid waters, unless, indeed, we take 
 that way of describing Laura's calm demand, when the 
 decision lay between Valenciennes and Torchon for 
 under-bodies, to hear whether Mrs. Simpson had ever 
 known Duff Lindsay to be anxious about his eternal 
 future. The girl continued to give forth a mere pale 
 reflection of her circumstances, and Mrs. Simpson was 
 forced into the deprecation that perhaps one would 
 hardly call her a joyous Christian. 
 
 But for the Zenana Mission Society this impression 
 of Miss Filbert might have deepened. The committee 
 of that body was almost entirely composed of Mrs. 
 Simpson's friends, and naturally came to learn much 
 about her guest. The matter was vastly considered, 
 but finally Miss Filbert was asked to speak at one of 
 the monthly meetings the ladies held among them- 
 selves to keep the society "in touch " with the cause. 
 Laura brought them, as one would imagine, surpris- 
 ingly in touch. She made pictures for them, letting 
 her own eyelashes close deliberately while they stared. 
 She moved these ladies, inspired them, carried them 
 away, and the fact that none of them found them- 
 selves able afterward to quote the most pathetic pas- 
 sages seemed rather to add to the enthusiasm with 
 which they described the address. The first result 
 was a shower of invitations to tea, occasions when 
 Laura was easily led into monologue. Miss Filbert 
 became a cult of the evangelistic drawing-rooms, and 
 the same kind of forbearance was extended to her 
 little traces of earlier social experiences as is offered, 
 in salons of another sort, to the eccentricities of 
 persons of genius. Very soon other applications had 
 
HILDA. 
 
 273 
 
 to be met and considered, and Mrs. Simpson freely 
 admitted that Laura would not be justified in refusing 
 to the Methodists and Baptists what she had given 
 elsewhere. She reasserted her platform influence over 
 audiences that grew constantly larger, and her world 
 began to revolve again in that great relation to the 
 infinities which it was her life to perceive and point 
 out. Mrs. Simpson charged her genially with having 
 been miserable in Plymouth until she was allowed to 
 do good in lier own way, and saw that she had beef- 
 tea after every occasion of doing it. She became, in a 
 way, of public character, and a lady journalist sent an 
 account of her, with a photograph, to a well-known 
 London fashion-paper. Perhaps the strongest effect 
 she made was as the voice of the Purity Association, 
 when she delivered an address, in the picturesque 
 costume she had abandoned, attacking measures con- 
 templated by Government for the protection of the 
 health of the army in India. This was reported in full 
 in the local paper, and Mr. Simpson sent a copy to 
 Duff Lindsay, who received it, I regret to say, with an 
 unmistakable imprecation. But Lau.a rejoiced. De- 
 prived of her tambourine she nevertheless rejoiced 
 exceedingly. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Sister Superior had a long upper lip, which she 
 was in the habit of drawing still further down ; it gave 
 her an air of great diplomatic caution, almost of casuis- 
 try. Her face was pale and narrow. She had eyes that 
 desired to be very penetrating, and a flat little stoop- 
 ing figure with a suggestion of extreme neutrality 
 within her voluminous draperies. She carried about 
 with her all the virtues of a monastic order, patience 
 was written upon her, and repression, discipline and 
 the love of administration, written and underlined, so 
 that the Anglican Sister whom no Pope blessed was 
 more priestly in her personal effect than any Jesuit. 
 It was diflficult to remember that she had begun as a 
 woman ; she was now a somewhat anaemic formula 
 making for righteousness. Sister Ann Frances, who 
 in her turn suggested the fat capons of an age of 
 friars more indulgent to the flesh, and whose speech 
 was of the crispest in this world, where there was so 
 much to do, thought poorly of the executive ability of 
 the Sister Superior, and resented the imposition, as 
 it were, of the long upper lip. Out of this arose the 
 only irritations that vexed the energetic flow of duty 
 at the Baker Institution, slight official raspings which 
 the Sister Superior immediately laid before Heaven 
 at great length. She did it with publicity, too, 
 kneeling on the chunam floor of the chapel for an 
 
HILDA. 
 
 275 
 
 hour at a time explaining matters. The bureaucracy 
 of the country was reflected in the Baker Institution : 
 it seemed to Sister Ann Frances that her superior 
 officer took undue advantage of her privilege of direct 
 communication with the Supreme Authority, giving 
 any colour she liked to the incident. And when the 
 Sister Superior's lumbago came on in direct conse- 
 quence of the cold chunam, the annoyance of Sister 
 Ann Frances was naturally not lessened. 
 
 There were twenty or thirty of them, with their 
 little white caps tied close under their chins, their 
 long veils and their girdled black robes. Tliey were 
 the most self-sacrificing women in Asia, the most 
 devout, the most useful. Government gave hospitals 
 and doctors into their hands; they took the whole 
 charge of certain schools. They differed in com- 
 plexion, some of the newly arrived being delightfully 
 fresh and pink under their starched bandeaux. But 
 they were all official, they all walked discreetly and 
 directly about their business, with a jangle of keys in 
 the folds of their robes, immensely organised, im- 
 mensely under orders. Hilda, when she had time, 
 had the keenest satisfaction in contemplating them. 
 She took the edge off the fact that she was not quite 
 one, in aim and method, with these dear women, as 
 they supposed her to be, with the reflection that, 
 after all, it might be worth while to work out a solu- 
 tion of life in those terms, standing aside from the 
 world — the world was troublesome — and keeping an un- 
 faltering eye upon the pity of things, an unfaltering 
 hand at its assuagement. It was simple and fine and 
 indisputable, this work of throwing the clear shadow 
 of the Cross upon the muddy sunlight of the world. 
 
 
2;6 HILDA. 
 
 It carried the boon of finality in itself. One might be 
 stopped and put away at any moment, and nothing 
 would be spoiled, broken, unfinished; and it absolutely 
 barred out such considerations as were presented by 
 Hamilton Bradley. There was a time early in her 
 probation when she thought seriously that if it were 
 not Stephen Arnold it should be this. 
 
 She begged to be put on hospital work and was 
 sent for her indiscretion to teach in the Orphanage 
 for Female Children of British Troops. The first 
 duty of a novice was to be free of preference, to obey 
 without a sigh of choice. On the third day, however, 
 Sister Ann Frances, supervising, stopped at the open 
 schoolroom door to hear the junior female orphans 
 repeating in happy chorus after their instructress the 
 statement that seven times nine were fifty-six. I 
 think Hilda saw Sister Ann Frances in the door. 
 That couldn't go on, even in the name of discipline, 
 and Miss Howe was placed at the disposal of the chief 
 nursing Sister at the General Hospital next day. 
 Sister Ann Frances was inclined to defend Hilda's im- 
 perfect acquaintance with primary arithmetic. 
 
 "We all have our gifts," she said. " Miss Howe's 
 is not the multiplication table, but neither is mine 
 stage-acting." At which the upper lip lengthened 
 further into an upward-curving smile, and the Sister 
 Superior remarked cautiously that she hoped Miss 
 Howe would develop one for making bandages, other- 
 wise 
 
 The depth of what was unusual in Hilda's relation 
 with Alicia Livingstone — perhaps it has been plain 
 that they were not quite the ordinary feminine liens 
 — seems to me to be sounded in the tacit acceptance 
 
HILDA. 
 
 277 
 
 of Hilda's novitiate on its merits that fell between the 
 two women. The full understanding of it was an 
 abyss between them, across which they joined hands, 
 looking elsewhere. Even in the surprise of Hilda's 
 announcement Alicia had the instinct to glance away, 
 lest her eyes should betray too many facts that bore 
 upon the situation. It had never been discussed, but 
 it had to be accepted and occasionally referred to ; 
 and the terms of acceptance and reference made no 
 implication of Stephen Arnold. In her inmost privacy 
 Alicia gazed breathless at the conception as a whole ; 
 she leaped at it, and caught it, and held it to look, 
 with a feverish comparison of possibilities. It was 
 not strange, perhaps, that she took a vivid personal 
 interest in the essentials that enabled one to execute 
 a flank movement like Hilda's nor that she should 
 conceive the first of them to be that one must come 
 out of a cab. She dismissed that impression with 
 indignation as ungenerously cynical, but it always 
 came back for redismissal. It did not interfere in the 
 least, however, with her deliberate invitations to 
 Stephen to come to 10, Middleton street on afternoons 
 or evenings when Hilda was there. She was like one 
 standing denied in the Street of Abundance ; she had 
 an avidity of the eye for even love's reflection. 
 
 That was a little later. At first there was the 
 transformation to lament, the loss, the break. 
 
 "You look," cried Miss Livingstone, the first time 
 Hilda arrived in the dress of the novice, a kind of 
 understudy of the Sisters' black and white, "you look 
 like a person in a book, full of salient points, and yet 
 made so simple to the reader. If you go on wearing 
 those things I shall end by understanding you per- 
 fectly." 
 
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 HILDA. 
 
 " };f you don't understand me," Hilda said, dropping 
 into the corner of a sofa, " Cela queje men doute^ it's 
 because you look for too much elaboration. I am a 
 simple creature, done with rather a broad brush — voila 
 tout ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, Miss Livingstone's was a happy im- 
 pression. The neutrality of her hospital dress left 
 Hilda in a manner exposed : one saw in a special way 
 the significance of lines and curves; it was an as- 
 tonishingly vigourous human expression. 
 
 Alicia leaned forward, her elbow on the arm of her 
 chair, her chin tucked into her palm, and looked at it. 
 The elbow bent itself in a light blue muslin sleeve of 
 extreme elegance, trimmed with lace. The colour 
 found a wistful echo in the eyes that regarded Miss 
 Howe, who was accustomed to the look and met it 
 with impenetrable commonplace, being made impa- 
 tient by nothing in this world so much as by futility, 
 however charming. 
 
 " Just now," Alicia said, " the shadows under your 
 eyes are brushed too deep." 
 
 " I don't believe I sleep well in a dormitory." 
 
 " Horrible ! All the little privacies of life — don't 
 you miss them ? " 
 
 " I never had them, my dear — I never had them. 
 Life has never given me the luxury of curtains — I 
 don't miss them. An occasional blind — a closed door 
 — and those we got even at the Institution. The 
 decencies are strictly conserved, believe me." 
 
 " One imagines that kind of place is always clean." 
 
 " When I have time I think of Number Three, Lai 
 Behari's Lane, and believe myself in Paradise. The 
 repose is there, the angels also — dear commanding 
 
HILDA. 
 
 27a 
 
 things — and a perpetual incense of cheap soap. And 
 there is some good in sleeping in a row. It reminds 
 one that after all one is very like other women." 
 
 " It wouldn't convince me if I were you. And how 
 did the Sisters receive you — with the harp and the 
 psaltery?" 
 
 "That was rather," said Hilda gravely, "what I ex- 
 pected. On the contrary, they snubbed me — they 
 really did. There were two of them. I said, ' Rev- 
 erend ladies, please be a little kind. Convents are 
 strange to me ; I shall probably commit horrible sins 
 without knowing it. Give me your absolution in ad- 
 vance — at least your blessing." 
 
 "Hilda, you didn't!" 
 
 " It is delightful to observe the Mother Abbess, or 
 whatever she is, disguising the fact that she takes any 
 interest in me. Such diplomacy — funny old thing." 
 
 " They must be devoured with curiosity ! " 
 
 "Well, they ask no questions. One sees an ever- 
 lasting finger on the lip. It's a little boring. One 
 feels inclined to speak up and say, * Mesdames, enteiu 
 dez — it isn't so bad as you think.* But then their 
 fingers would go into their ears." 
 
 "And the rules, Hilda? I can't imagine you, some- 
 how, under rules." 
 
 " I am attached to the rules ; I think about them all 
 day long. They make the thing simple and — possible. 
 It is a little like living for the first time in a house all 
 right angles after — after a life-long voyage in a small 
 boat." 
 
 " Isn't the house rather empty ? ** 
 
 " Oh, well ! " 
 
 Alicia put out her hand and tucked an irrelevant 
 
2So 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 bit of lace into Hilda s bosom. " I can tell you who 
 is interested," she cried. "The Archdeacon — the 
 Archdeacon and Mrs. Barberry, They both dined 
 here last night ; and you lasted from the fish to the 
 pudding. I got so bored with you, my dear, in your 
 new capacity." 
 
 A new ray of happiness came into the smile of the 
 novice. " What did they say ? Do tell me what they 
 said." 
 
 "There was a difference of opinion. The Arch- 
 deacon held that with God all things were possible. 
 He used an expression more suitable to a dinner-party, 
 but I think that is what he meant. Mrs. Barberry 
 thought it wouldn't last. Mrs. Barberry was very 
 cynical. She said anyone could see that you were 
 as emotional as ever you could be." 
 
 The eyes of the two women met and they laughed 
 frankly. A sense of expansion came between them, 
 in which for an instant they were silent. 
 
 " Tell me about the hospital," Alicia said presently. 
 
 " Ah, the hospital ! " Hilda's face changed. There 
 came into her eyes the moved look that always waked 
 a thrill in Alicia Livingstone, as if she were suddenly 
 aware that she had stepped upon ground where feet 
 like hers passed seldom. 
 
 "There is nothing to tell you that is not — sad. 
 Such odds and ends of life, thrown together ! " 
 
 " Have you had any experiences yet ? " 
 
 Hilda stared for a moment absently in front of her, 
 and then turned her head aside to answer as if she 
 closed her eyes on something. 
 
 "Experiences? Delightful Alicia, speaking your 
 language, no. You are thinking of the resident sur- 
 
y 
 
 HILDA. 281 
 
 geon, the medical student, the interesting patient. 
 My resident surgeon is fifty years old ; the medical 
 student is a Bengali in white cotton and patent- 
 leather shoes. I am occupied in a ward full of deck 
 hands. For these I hold the bandage and the basin ; 
 they are hardly aware of me." 
 
 " You are sure to have them," Alicia said. " They 
 crop up wherever you go in this world, either before 
 you or behind you." 
 
 Hilda fixed her eyes attentively upon her compan- 
 ion. " Sometimes," she said, " you say things that are 
 extremely true in their general bearing. A fortune- 
 teller with cards gives one the same shock of surprise. 
 Well, let me tell you, I have been promoted to tem- 
 peratures. I took thirty-five to-day. Next week I 
 am to make poultices ; the week after baths and 
 fomentations." 
 
 " What are the others Hke — the other novices?" 
 
 ** Nearly all Eurasians, one native, a Hindu widow 
 — the Sisters are almost demonstrative to her — and 
 one or two local European girls ; the Commissariat- 
 Sergeant class, I should think." 
 
 " They don't sound attractive and I am glad. You 
 will depend the more upon me." 
 
 Hilda looked thoughtfully at Miss Livingstone. 
 " I will depend," she said, " a good deal upon you." 
 
 It was Alicia's fate to meet the Archdeacon again 
 that evening at dinner. " And is she really throwing 
 her heart into the work ? " asked thai: dignitary, re- 
 ferring to Miss Howe. 
 
 " Oh, I think so," Alicia said ; " Yes." 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 The labours of the Baker Institution and of the 
 Clarke Mission were very different in scope, so much 
 so that if they had been secular bodies working for 
 profit there would have been hardly a point of contact 
 between them. As it was, they made one, drawing 
 together in affiliation for the comfort of mutual sup- 
 port in a heathen country where all the other English- 
 men wrote reports, drilled troops, or played polo, with 
 all the other Englishwomen in the corresponding fe- 
 male parts. Doubtless the little communities prayed 
 for each other. One may imagine, not profanely, 
 their petitions rising on either side of the heedless, 
 multitudinous, idolatrous city, and meeting at some 
 point in the purer air above the yellow dust-haze. I 
 am not aware that they held any other mutual duty 
 or privilege, but this bond was known and enabled 
 people whose conscience pricked them in that direction 
 to give little garden teas to which they invited Clarke 
 Brothers and Baker Sisters, secure in doing a benevo- 
 lent thing and at the same time embarrassing nobody, 
 except, possibly, the Archdeacon, who was officially 
 exposed to being asked as well and had no right to 
 complain. The affiliation was thus a so-ial conven- 
 ience, since it is unlikely that without it anybody 
 would have hit upon so ingenious a way of killing, as 
 it were, a Baker Sister and a Clarke Brother with one 
 stone. It is not surprising that this degree of intelli- 
 
HILDA. 283 
 
 gence should fail to see the profound official difference 
 between Baker Sisters and Baker Novices. As the 
 Sister Superior said, it did not seem to occur to peo- 
 ple that there could be, in connection with a religious 
 body, such words as discipline and subordination, 
 which were certainly made ridiculous for the time be- 
 ing, where she and Sister Ann Frances were asked to 
 eat ices on the same terms with Miss Hilda Howe. It 
 must have been more than ever painful to these ladies, 
 regarded from the official point of view, when it be- 
 came plain, as it usually did, that the interest of the 
 afternoon centred in Miss Howe, whether or not the 
 Archdeacon happened to be present. Their displeas- 
 ure was so clear, after the first occasion, that Hilda 
 felt obliged, when the next one came, to fall back on 
 her original talent, and ate her ice abashed and silent, 
 speaking only when she was spoken to, and then in 
 short words and long hesitations. Thereupon the 
 Sisters were of opinion that, after all, poor Miss Howe 
 could not help her unenviable note — she was perhaps 
 more to be pitied on account of it than anything 
 else. It came to this, that Sister Ann Frances even 
 had an exhibitor's pride in her, and Hilda knew the 
 sensations of a barbarian female captive in the bonds 
 of the Christians. But she could not afford to risk 
 being cut off from those little garden teas. All told, 
 they were few ; ladies disturbed by ideas of social du- 
 ties toward missionaries being so uncommon. 
 
 She told Stephen so, frankly, one afternoon when he 
 charged her with being so unlike herself, and he heard 
 her explanation with a gravity which contained an ele- 
 ment of satisfaction. " It is, of course, a pleasure to 
 us to meet," he said, " a pleasure to us both." That 
 
284 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 was part of the satisfaction, that he could meet her 
 candour with the same openness. He was not even 
 afraid to mention to her the stimulus she gave him al- 
 ways and his difficulty in defining it, and once he told 
 her how, after a talk with her, he had lain awake until 
 the small hours unable to stop his excited rush of 
 thought. He added that he was now personally arid 
 selfishly glad she had chosen as she did three months 
 before ; it made a difference to him, her being in Cal- 
 cutta, a sensible and material difference. He had 
 better hope and heart in his work. It was the last 
 luxury he would ever have dreamed of allowing him- 
 self, a woman friend ; but since life had brought it in 
 the oddest way, the boon should be met with no 
 grudging of gratitude. A kind of sedate cheerfulness 
 crept into his manner which was new to him ; he went 
 about his duties with the look of a man to whom life 
 had dictated its terms and who found them acceptable. 
 His blood might have received some mysterious chemi- 
 cal complement, so much was his eye clearer, his voice 
 firmer, and the things he found to say more decisive. 
 Nor did any consideration of their relations disturb 
 him. He never thought of the oxygen in the air he 
 breathed, and he seldom thought of Hilda. 
 
 They were walking toward the Institution together 
 the day he explained to her his gratification that she 
 had elected to remain. Sister Ann Frances and Sister 
 Margaret led; Arnold and Hilda came behind. He 
 had an errand to the Sister Superior — he would go all 
 the way. It was late in May and late in the afternoon ; 
 all the tree-tops on the Maidan were bent under the 
 sweep of the south wind, blowing a caressing coolness 
 from the sea. It spread fragrances about and shook 
 
HILDA. 
 
 285 
 
 down blossoms from the gold-mohur trees. One could 
 see nothing anywhere so red and yellow as they were 
 except the long coat of a Government messenger, a 
 point of scarlet moving in the perspective of a dusty 
 road. The spreading acres of turf were baked to every 
 earth colour. Wherever a pine dropped needles and an 
 old woman swept them up, a trail of dust ran curling 
 along the ground like smoke. The little party was 
 unusual in walking; ; glances of uncomprehending pity 
 were cast at them from victorias and landaus that 
 rolled past. Even the convalescent British soldiers 
 facing each other in the clumsy drab cart drawn by 
 humped bullocks, and marked Garrison Dispensary^ 
 stared at the black skirts so near the powder of the 
 road. The Sisters in front walked with their heads 
 slighdy bent toward one another ; they seemed to be 
 consulting. Hilda reflected, looking at them, that 
 they always seemed to be consulting: it was the 
 normal attitude of that long black veil that flowed 
 behind, 
 
 Arnold walked beside his companion, his hands 
 loosely clasped behind him, with the air of semi-de- 
 tachment that young clergymen sometimes have with 
 their wives. Whether it was that, or the trace of 
 custom his satisfaction carried, the casual glance might 
 easily have taken them for a married pair. 
 
 " There is a kind of folly and stupidity in saying 
 it," he said, " but you have done — you do — a great 
 deal for me." 
 
 She turned her tired face upon him with a wistful, 
 measuring look. It searched his face for an instant 
 and came back baffled. Arnold spoke with so much 
 kindness, so much appreciation. 
 
 " Very little," she said mechanically, looking at the 
 
286 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 fresh footprints of Sister Ann Frances and Sister 
 Margaret. 
 
 '• But I know. And can't you tell me — it would 
 make me so very happy — that I have done something 
 for you too — something that you value ? " 
 
 Hilda's eyes lightened curiously, reverie came into 
 them, and a smile. She answered as if she spoke to 
 herself, " I should not know how to tell you." 
 
 Then, scenting wonder in him, she added, " You were 
 thinking of something — in particular." 
 
 " You have sometimes made me believe," Stephen 
 returned, " that I may account myself, under God, the 
 accident which induced you to take up your blessed 
 work. I was thinking of that." 
 
 " Oh," she said, " of that ! " and seemed to take 
 refuge in silence. 
 
 " Yes," Arnold said, with infinite gentleness. 
 
 " Oh, you were profoundly the cause ! I might say 
 you are, for without you I doubt whether I should 
 have the — courage " 
 
 " Oh, no ! Oh, no ! He who inspired you in the 
 beginning will sustain you to the end. Think that. 
 Believe that." 
 
 " Will He ? " Her voice was neutral, as if it would 
 not betray too much, but there was a listlessness that 
 spoke louder in the bend of her head, the droop of 
 her shoulder. 
 
 " For you perhaps," Arnold said, thoughtfully, 
 " there is only one assurance of it — the satisfaction 
 your vocation brings you now. That will broaden 
 and increase," he went on, almost with buoyancy, 
 " growing more and more your supreme good as the 
 years go on." 
 
 " How much you'give me credit for ! " 
 
 / 
 
HILDA. 
 
 287 
 
 " Not nearly enough — not nearly. Who is there 
 like you ?" he demanded, simply. 
 
 His words seemed a baptism. She lifted up her 
 face after them, and the trace of them was on her eyes 
 and lips. " I have passed two examinations, at all 
 events," she informed him, with sudden gaiety, " and 
 Sister Ann Frances says that in two or three months 
 I shall probably get through the others. Sister Ann 
 Frances thinks me more intelligent than might be 
 expected. And if I do pass those examinations I 
 shall be what they call a quick-time probationer. I 
 shall have got it over in six months. Do you think," 
 she asked, as if to please herself, " that six months 
 will be long enough ? " 
 
 " It depends. There is so much to consider." 
 
 "Yes — it depends. Sometimes I think it will be, 
 but oftener I think it will take longer." 
 
 " I should be inclined to leave it entirely with the 
 Sisters." 
 
 " I am so undisciplined," murmured Hilda. " I 
 fear I shall cling to my own opinion. Now we must 
 overtake the others and you must walk the rest of the 
 way with Sister Ann — no, Sister Margaret, she is 
 senior." 
 
 " I don't at all see the necessity," Stephen pro- 
 tested. He was wilful and wayward ; he adopted a 
 privileged air, and she scolded him. In their dispute 
 they laughed so imprudently that Sister Ann Frances 
 turned her draped head to look back at them. Then 
 they quickened their steps and joined the elder ladies, 
 and Stephen walked with Sister Margaret to the door 
 of the Institution. She mentioned to the Sister 
 Superior afterward that young Mr. Arnold was really 
 a delightful conversationalist. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 They talked a great deal in Plymouth about the 
 way the time was passing in Calcutta during those last 
 three months before Laura should return, the months 
 of the rains. "Now," said Mrs. Simpson, early in 
 July, "it will be pouring every day, with great 
 patches of the Maidan under water, and rivers, my 
 dear, rivers^ in the back streets," and Laura had a 
 reminiscence about how, exactly at that time, a green 
 mould used to spread itself fresh every morning on 
 the matting under her bed in Bentinck street. Later 
 on they would agree that perhaps by this time there 
 was a " break in the rains," and that nothing in the 
 world was so trying as a break in the rains, the sun 
 grilling down and drawing up steam from every 
 puddle. In September, things, they remembered, 
 would be at their very worst and most depressing : 
 one had hardly the energy to lift a finger in Septem- 
 ber. Mrs. Simpson looked back upon the discomfort 
 she had endured in Bengal at this time of year with a 
 kind of regret that it was irretrievably over; she 
 lingered upon a severe illness which had been part of 
 the experience. She seemed to think that with a 
 little judicious management she might have spent 
 more time in that climate and less in England. 
 There was in her tone a suggestion of gentle envy of 
 Laura, going forth to these dismal conditions with 
 
HILDA. 
 
 289 
 
 her young life in her hands, all tricked out for the 
 sacrifice, which left Duf! Lindsay and his white and 
 gold drawing-room entirely out of consideration. Any 
 sacrifice to Mrs. Simpson was alluring; she would be 
 killed all day long, in a manner, for its own sake. 
 
 The victim had taken her passage early in October, 
 and during the first week of that month Plymouth 
 gathered itself into meetings to bid her farewell. A 
 curiously sacred character had fastened itself upon 
 her. It was not in the least realised that she was going 
 out to be married to an altogether secular young 
 broker moving in fashionable circles in one of the 
 gayest cities in the world. One or two reverend per- 
 sons, in the course of commending their young 
 sister to the protection of the Almighty in her ap- 
 proaching separation from the dear friends who sur- 
 rounded her in Plymouth, made references implying 
 that her labours would continue to the glory of God, 
 taking it as a matter of course. Miss Filbert was by 
 this time very much impregnated with the idea that 
 they would, she did not know precisely how, but that 
 would open itself out. Duff had long been assimilated 
 as part of the programme. All that money and 
 humility could contribute should be forthcoming from 
 him ; she had a familiar dream of him as her standard- > 
 bearer, undistinguished but for ever safe. 
 
 Yet it was with qualified approval that Mrs. Simp- 
 son, amid the confusion of the Coromandets prepara- 
 tions for departure at London Docks, heard the familiar 
 strains of the Salvation Army rising aft. Laura im- 
 mediately cried, " I shall have friends among the pas- 
 sengers," and Mrs. Simpson so far forgot herself as to 
 say, " Yes, if they are nice." The ladies were sitting 
 
290 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 on deck beside the pile of Laura's very superior cabin 
 luggage. Mrs. Simpson glanced at it as if it offered a 
 kind of corroboration of the necessity of their being 
 nice. " There are always a few delightful Christian 
 people, if one takes the trouble to find them out, at 
 this end of the ship," she said, defensively. " I have 
 never failed to find it so." 
 
 " I don't think much of Christians who are so hard 
 to discover," Laura said, with decision, and Mrs. 
 Simpson, rebuked, thought of the mischievous nature 
 of class prejudices. Laura herself — had she not been 
 drawn from what one might call distinctly the other 
 end of the ship ; and who, among those who vaunted 
 themselves ladies and gentlemen, could compare with 
 Laura ? The idea that she had shown a want of sym- 
 pathy with those dear people who were so strenuously 
 calling down a blessing on the Corotnandel somewhere 
 behind the smoke-stacks, embittered poor Mrs. Simp- 
 son's remaining tears of farewell, and when the bell 
 rang the signal for the last good-bye she embraced her 
 young friend with the fervent request, "Do make 
 friends with them, dear one — make friends with them 
 at once ; " and Laura said, " If they will make friends 
 with me." 
 
 By the time the ship had well got her nose down 
 the coast of Spain, Miss Filbert had created her at- 
 mosphere and moved about in it from end to end of 
 the quarter-deck. It was a recognisable thing, her 
 atmosphere; one never knew when it would discharge a 
 question relating to eternity. And persons unprepared 
 to give satisfaction upon this point — one fears there 
 are always many on a ship bound east of Suez — found 
 it blighting. They moved their long chairs out of the 
 
HILDA. 
 
 291 
 
 way, they turned pointedly indifferent backs, the lady 
 who shared Miss Filbert's cabin — she belonged to a 
 smart cavalry regiment at Mhow — went about saying 
 things with a distinct edge. Miss Filbert exhausted 
 all the means. She attempted to hold a meeting for- 
 ward of the smoking cabin, standing for elevation on 
 one of the ship's quoit buckets to preach, but with 
 this the Captain was reluctantly compelled to inter- 
 fere on behalf of the whist-players inside. In the 
 evening after dinner she established herself in a 
 sheltered corner and sang. Her recovered voice lifted 
 itself with infinite pathetic sweetness in songs about 
 the poverty of the world and the riches of Heaven. 
 The notes mingled with the churning of the screw and 
 fell in the darkness beyond the ship's lights abroad 
 upon the sea. The other passengers listened aloof. 
 The Coromandel was crowded, but you could have 
 drawn a wide circle round her chair. On the morning 
 of the fourth day out — she had not felt quite well 
 enough for adventures before — she found her way to 
 the second-class saloon, being no doubt fully justified 
 of her conscience in abandoning the first to the flip- 
 pancies of its preference. 
 
 In the second-class end the tone was certainly more 
 like that of Plymouth. Laura had a grateful sense of 
 this in coming, almost at once, upon a little group 
 gathered together for praise and prayer, of which four 
 or five persons of both sexes, labelled " S. A.," natur- 
 ally formed the centre. They were not only praying 
 and praising without discouragement, they had at- 
 tracted several other people who had brought their 
 chairs into near and friendly relation, and even joined 
 sometimes in the chorus of the hymns. There was a 
 
292 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 woman in mourning who cried a good deal — her tears 
 seemed to refresh the Salvationists and inspired them 
 to louder and more cheerful efforts. There was a man 
 in a wide, soft felt hat with the malaria of the Terai in 
 the hollows under his eyes; there was a Church 
 Missionary with an air of charity and forbearance, and 
 the bushy-eyed colonel of a native regiment, looking 
 vigilant against ridicule, with his wife, whose round, 
 red little face continually waxed and waned in a smile 
 of true contentment. It was not till later that Laura 
 came to know them all so very well, but her eye 
 rested on them one after another with approval as 
 she drew near. Without pausing in his chant — it 
 happened to be one of triumph — without even looking 
 at her, the leader indicated an empty chair. It was 
 his own chair. " Colonel Markin, S. A.," was printed 
 in black letters on its striped canvas back; Laura 
 noticed that. 
 
 After it was over, the little gathering. Colonel Mar- 
 kin specially distinguished her. He did it delicately. 
 " I hope you won't mind my expressin' my thanks for 
 the help you gave us in the singin'," he said. " Such 
 a voice I've seldom had the pleasure to join with. 
 May I ask where you got it trained ? " 
 
 He was a narrow-chested man with longish sandy 
 hair and thin features. His eyes were large, blue, and 
 protruding, his forehead very high and white. There 
 was a pinkness about the root of his nose and a 
 scanty yellow moustache upon his upper lip, while his 
 chin was partly hidden by a beard equally scanty and 
 even more yellow. He had extremely long white 
 hands : one could not help observing them as they 
 clasped his book of devotion. 
 
HILDA. 293 
 
 Laura looked at him with profound appreciation of 
 these details. She knew Colonel Markin by reputa- 
 tion — he had done a great work among the Cingalese. 
 " It was trained," she said, casting down her eyes, " on 
 the battlefields of our Army." 
 
 Colonel Markin attempted to straighten his shoulders 
 and to stiffen his chin. He seemed vaguely aware of 
 a military tradition which might make it necessaiy for 
 him, as a very senior officer indeed, to say something. 
 But the impression was transitory. Instead of using 
 any rigour he held out his hand. Laura took it rever- 
 ently, and the bones shut up, like the sticks of a fan, 
 in her grasp. " Welcome, comrade ! " he said, and 
 there was a pause, as there should be after such an 
 apostrophe. 
 
 " When you came among us this afternoon," Colonel 
 Markin resumed, " I noticed you. There was some- 
 thing about the way y i put your hand over your 
 eyes when I addressed our Heavenly Father in prayer 
 that spoke to me. It spoke to me and said, * Here we 
 have a soul that knows what salvation means — there's 
 no doubt about that.' Then when you raised a 
 Hallelujah, I said to myself, 'That's got the right ring 
 to it.' And so you're a sister in arms ! " 
 
 ** I was," Laura murmured. 
 
 " You was — you were. Well, well — I want to hear 
 all about it. It is now," continued Colonel Markin, 
 as two bells struck and a steward passed them with a 
 bugle, '* the hour for our dinner, and I suppose that 
 you, too," he bent his head respectfully toward the 
 other half of the ship, " partake of some meal at this 
 time. But if you v/ill seek us out again at the meet- 
 ing between four and five I shall be at your service 
 
294 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 afterward, -^nd pleased," he took her hand again, 
 ^'pleased to see you." 
 
 Laura went back to the evening meeting, and after 
 that missed none of these privileges. In due course 
 she was asked to address it, and then her position be- 
 came enviable from all points of view, for people who 
 did not draw up their chairs and admire her inspira- 
 tions sat at a distance and admired her clothes. Very 
 soon, at her special request, she was allowed to resign 
 her original place at the table and take a revolving 
 chair at the nine o'clock breakfast, one o'clock dinner, 
 and six o'clock tea which sustained the second saloon. 
 Daily ascending the companion-ladder to the main- 
 deck aft, she gradually faded from cognisance forward. 
 There they lay back in their long cabin chairs and 
 sipped their long drinks, and with neutral eyes and lips 
 they let the blessing go. 
 
 In the intervals between the exercises Miss Filbert 
 came and went in the cabin of three young Salvation- 
 ists of her own sex. They could always make room 
 for her, difficult as it may appear ; she held for them|an 
 indefinite store of fascination. Laura would extend 
 herself on a top berth beside the round-eyed Norwe- 
 gian to whom it belonged, with the cropped head of 
 the owner pillowed on her sisterly arm, and thus they 
 passed hours, discussing conversions as medical stu- 
 dents might discuss cases, relating, comparing. They 
 talked a great deal about Colonel Markin. They said 
 it was a beautiful life. More beautiful, if possible, had 
 been the life of Mrs. Markin, who was his second wife, 
 and who had been " promoted to glory " six months 
 before. She had gained promotion through jungle 
 fever, which had carried her off in three days. The 
 
HILDA. 
 
 295 
 
 first Mrs. Markin had died of drink — that was what 
 had sent the Colonel into the Army, she, the first Mrs. 
 Markin, having willed her property avay from him. 
 Colonel Markin had often rejoiced publicly that the 
 lady had been of this disposition, the results to him 
 had been so blessed. Apparently he spoke without 
 reserve of his domestic affairs in connection with his 
 spiritual experiences, using both the Mrs. Markins 
 when it was desirable as " illustrations." The five had 
 reached this degree of intimacy by the time the Coro- 
 mandel was nearing Port Said, and every day the hem- 
 ispheres of sea and sky they watched through the 
 port-hole above the Norwegian girl's berth grew bluer. 
 From the first Colonel Markin had urged Miss Fil- 
 bert's immediate return to the Army. He found her 
 sympathetic to the idea, willing, indeed, to embrace it 
 with open arms, but there were difficulties. Mr. 
 Lindsay, as a difficulty, was almost inseparable to 
 anything like a prompt step in that direction. Colonel 
 Markin admitted it himself. He was bound to admit 
 it, he said, but nothing, since he joined the Army, had 
 ever been so painful to him. " I wish I could deny 
 it," he said with frankness, " but there is no doubt 
 that for the present your first duty is toward your 
 gentleman, toward him who placed that ring upon 
 your finger." There was no sarcasm in his describing 
 Lindsay as a gentleman ; he used the term in a kind 
 of extra special sense, where a person less accustomed 
 to polite usages might have spoken of Laura's young 
 man. " But remember, my child," he continued, " it 
 is only your poor vile body that is yours to dispose of. 
 Your soul belongs to God Almighty, and no earthly 
 husband, especially as you say he is still in his sins, is 
 
296 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 going to have the right to interfere." This may seem 
 vague as the statement of a position, but Laura found 
 it immensely fortifying. Tliat and similar arguments 
 built her up in her determination to take up what 
 Colonel Markin called her life-work again at the 
 earliest opportunity. She had forfeited her rank, that 
 she accepted humbly as a proper punishment, ardently 
 hoping it would be found sufficient. She would go 
 back as a private, take her place in the ranks, and 
 nothing in her married life should interfere with the 
 things that cried out to be done in Bentinck street. 
 Somehow she had less hope of securing Lindsay as a 
 spiritual companion in arms since she had confided 
 the affair to Colonel Markin. As he said, they must 
 hope for the best, but he could not help admitting 
 that he took a gloomy view of Lindsay. 
 
 " Once he has secured you," the Colonel said, with 
 an appreciative glance at Laura's complexion, "what 
 will he care about his soul ? Nothing." 
 
 Their enthusiasm had ample opportunity to expand, 
 their mutual bond to strengthen, in the close confines 
 of life on board ship, and as if to seal it and sanctify 
 it permanently, a conversion took place in the second 
 saloon, owning Laura's agency. It was the maid of 
 the lady in the cavalry regiment, a hardened heart, as 
 two stewards and a bandmaster on board could testify. 
 Wlien this occurred, the time that was to elapse be- 
 tween Laura's marriage and her return to the ranks 
 was shortened to one week. " And quite long 
 enough," Colonel Markin said, "considering how 
 much more we need you than your gentleman does, 
 my dear sister." 
 
 It was plain to them all that Colonel Markin had 
 
HILDA. 
 
 297 
 
 very special views about his dear sister. The other 
 dear sisters looked on with pleasurable interest, ad- 
 mitting the propriety of it, as Colonel Markin walked 
 up and down the deck with Laura, examining her 
 lovely nature, " drawing her out " on the subject of 
 her faith and her assurance. It was natural, as he told 
 her, that in her peculiar situation she should have 
 doubts and difficulties. He urged her to lay bare her 
 heart, and she laid it bare. One evening — it was 
 heavenly moonlight on the Indian Ocean, and they 
 were two days past Aden on the long southeast run 
 to Ceylon — she came and stood before him with a 
 small packet in her hand. She was all in white, and 
 more like an angel than Markin expected ever to see 
 anything in this world, though as to the next his an- 
 ticipations may have been extravagant. 
 
 " Now I wonder," said he, " where you are going to 
 sit down ? " 
 
 A youngster in the Police got up and pushed his 
 chair forward, but Laura shook her head. 
 
 " I am going out there," she said, pointing to the 
 furthermost stern, where passengers were not en- 
 couraged to sit, " and I want to consult you." 
 
 Markin got up. ** If there's anything pressin* on 
 your mind," he said, " you can't do better." 
 
 Laura said nothing until they were alone with the 
 rushing of the screw, two Lascars, some coils of rope, 
 and a couple of brass compasses. Then she opened 
 the packet. " These," she said, " these are pressing on 
 my mind." 
 
 She held out a string of pearls, a necklace of pearls 
 and turquoises, a heavy band bracelet, studded, Delhi 
 fashion, with gems, and one or two lesser fantasies. 
 
298 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 " Jewelry I " said Markin. " Real or imitation ? " 
 
 " So far as that goes, they are good. Mr. Lindsay 
 gave them to me. But what have I to do with jewels, 
 the very emblem of the folly of the world, the desire 
 that itches in palms that crucify Him afresh daily, the 
 price of sin ? " She leaned against the masthead as 
 she spoke. The wind blew her hair and her skirt out 
 toward the following seas. With that look in her 
 eyes she seemed a creature who had alighted on the 
 ship but who could not stay. 
 
 Colonel Markin held the pearls up in the moonlight. 
 
 " They must have cost something to buy," he said. 
 
 Laura was silent. 
 
 " And so they're a trouble to you. Have you taken 
 them to the Lord in prayer ? " 
 
 " Oh, many times." 
 
 "Couldn't seem to hear any answer?" 
 
 " The only answer I could hear was, * So long as you 
 have them I will not speak with you.' " 
 
 " That seems pretty plain and clear. And yet," 
 said the Colonel, fondling the turquoises, " nobody can 
 say there's any harm in such things, especially if you 
 don't wear them." 
 
 " Colonel, they are my great temptation. I don't 
 know that I wouldn't wear them. And when I wear 
 them I can think of nothing sacred, nothing holy. 
 When they were given to me I used — I used to get up 
 in the night to look at them." 
 
 " Shall I lay it before the Almighty ? That brace- 
 let's got a remarkably good clasp." 
 
 " Oh no — no ! I must part with them. To-night I 
 can do it, to-night " 
 
 " There's nobody on this ship that .v ill give you any 
 price for them." 
 
HILDA. 
 
 299 
 
 " I would not t!iink of selling them. It would be 
 sending them from my hands to do harm to some 
 other poor creature, weaker than I ! " 
 
 " You can't return them to-night." 
 
 " I wouldn't return them.- That would be the same 
 as keeping them." 
 
 " Then what— oh, I see—" exclaimed Markin. " You 
 want to give them to the Army ! Well, in my capac- 
 ity, on behalf of General Booth " 
 
 " No," cried Laura, with sudden excitement, " not 
 that either. I will give them to nobody. But this is 
 what I will do ! " She seized the bracelet and flung 
 it far out into the opaline track of the vessel, and the 
 smaller objects, before her companion could stop her, 
 followed it. Then he caught her wrist. 
 
 ** Stop ! " he cried. " You've gone off your head — 
 you've got fever. You're acting wicked with that 
 jewelry. Stop and let us reason it out together." 
 
 She already had the turquoises, and with a jerk of 
 her left hand she freed it and threw them after the 
 rest. The necklace caught the handrail as it fell, and 
 Markin made a vain spring to save it. He turned and 
 stared at Laura, who stood fighting the greatest puis- 
 sance of feeling she had known, looking at the pearls. 
 As he stared, she kissed them twice, and then, leaning 
 over the ship's side, let them slowly slide out of her 
 fingers and fall into the waves below. The moonlight 
 gave them a divine gleam as they fell. She turned to 
 Markin with tears in her eyes. " Now," she faltered, 
 " I can be happy again. But not to-night." 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 While the Coromandel was throbbing out her reg- 
 ulation number of knots toward Colombo, October 
 was passing over Bengal. It went with lethargy, 
 the rains were too close on its heels ; but at the end 
 of the long hot days, when the resplendent sun struck 
 down on the glossy trees and the over-lush Maidan, 
 there often stole through Calcutta a breath of the 
 coming respite of December. The blue smoke of the 
 people's cooking fires began to hang again in the 
 streets, the pungent smell of it was pleasant in the still 
 air. The south wind turned back at the Sunder- 
 bunds ; instead of it, one met around corners a sudden 
 crispness that stayed just long enough to be recog- 
 nised and melted damply away. A week might have 
 two or three of such promises and foretastes. 
 
 Hilda Howe, approaching the end of her probation 
 at the Baker Institution, threw the dormitory window 
 wide to them, went out to seek them. They brought 
 her a new stirring of vitality, something deep within 
 her leaped up responding to the voucher the evenings 
 brought that presently they would bring something 
 new and different. She vibrated to an irrepressible 
 pulse of accord with that: it made her hand strong 
 and her brain clear for the unimportant matters that 
 remained within the scope of the monotonous mo- 
 
HILDA. 
 
 301 
 
 ment. Her spirits gained an enviable lightness, she 
 began again to see beautiful, touching things in the 
 life that carried her on with it. She explained to 
 Stephen Arnold that she was immensely happy at 
 having passed the last of her nursing examinations. 
 
 " I hardly dare ask you," he said, " what you are 
 going to do now." 
 
 He looked furtive and anxious; she saw that he 
 did. 
 
 " I hardly dare ask myself," she answered, and was 
 immediately conscious that for the first time in the 
 history of their relations she had spoken to him that 
 which was expedient. 
 
 " I hope the Sisters are not trying to influence 
 you," he said firmly. 
 
 " Fancy ! " she cried irrelevantly. " I heard the 
 other day that Sister Ann Frances had described me 
 as the pride of the Baker Institution ! " She laughed 
 with delight at the humour of it, and he smiled too. 
 When she laughed he seemed nearly always now to 
 have confidence enough to smile too. 
 
 " You might ask for another six months." 
 
 " Heavens, no ! No — I shall make up my mind." 
 
 "Then you may go away," Arnold said. They 
 were standing at the crossing of the wide red road 
 from which they would go in different directions. 
 She saw that the question was momentous to him. 
 She also saw how curiously the sun sallowed him 
 and how many more hollows he had in his face than 
 most people. She had a pathetic impression of the 
 figure he made, in his dusty gown and shoes. " God's 
 wayfarer," she murmured. 
 
 " Come too," she said aloud. " Come and be a Clarke 
 
5oa 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 Brother where the climatic conditions suit you better 
 The world wants Clarke Brothers everywhere." 
 
 He looked at her and tried to smile, but his lips 
 quivered. He opened them in an effort to speak, 
 gave it up, and turned away silently, lifting his hat! 
 Hilda watched him for an instant as he went. His 
 figure took strange proportions through the tears in 
 her eyes, and she marvelled at the lightness with 
 which she had touched, had almost revealed, her 
 heart's desire. 
 
 IjHH 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 " I KNEW it would happen in the end," Hilda said, 
 " and it has happened. The Archdeacon has asked 
 me to tea." 
 
 She was speaking to Alicia Livingstone in the 
 dormitory, changing at the same time for a " turn" at 
 the hospital. It was six o'clock in the afternoon. 
 Alicia's landau stood at the door of the Baker Institu- 
 tion. She had come to find that Miss Howe was just 
 going on duty and could not be taken for a drive. 
 
 "When?" asked Alicia, staring out of the window 
 at the crows in a tamarind tree. 
 
 " Last Saturday. He said he had promised some 
 friends of his the pleasure of meeting me. They had 
 besieged him, he said, and they were his best friends, 
 on all his committees." 
 
 " Only ladies ? " The crows, with a shriek of de- 
 fiance at nothing in particular, having flown away. 
 Miss Livingstone transferred her attention. 
 
 "Bless me, yes. What Archdeacon has dear men 
 friends! And lesquelles pense-tUy mon Dieu ! ** 
 
 " Lesquelles ?'* 
 
 " Mrs. Jack Forrester, Mrs. Fitz — what you may 
 call him up on the frontier, the Brigadier gentleman — 
 Lady Dolly ! " 
 
 " You were well chaperoned." 
 
 " And— my dear—he didn't ask a single Sister ! " 
 
304 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 Hilda turned upon her a face which appeared still to 
 glow with the stimulus of the Archdiaconal function. 
 "And — it was wicked considering the occasion — I 
 dropped the character. I let myself out ! " 
 " You didn't shock the Archdeacon ? " 
 " Not in the least. But, my dear love, did you ever 
 permit yourself the reflection that the Venerable 
 Gambell is a bachelor ? " 
 
 " Hilda, you shall not ! We all love him— you 
 shall not lead him astray ! " 
 
 •* You would not think of — the altar— ? " 
 Miss Livingstone's pale small smile fell like a snow- 
 flake upon Hilda's mood and was swallowed up. 
 "You are very preposterous," she said. "Go on. 
 You always amuse one." Then, as if Hilda s going on 
 were precisely the thing she could not quite endure, 
 she said quickly, "The Coromandel is telegraphed 
 from Colombo to-day." 
 "Ah!" said Hilda. 
 
 " He leaves for Madras to-morrow. The thing is to 
 take place there, you know." 
 
 " Then nothing but shipwreck can save him." 
 " Nothing but— what a horrible idea ! Don't you 
 t link they may be happy ? I really think they may." 
 "There is not one of the elements that give people, 
 wliea they commit the paramount stupidity of marry- 
 ing, reason to hope that they may not be miserable. 
 Not v.rie. If he were a strong man I should pity him 
 less. But he's not. He's immense!/ dependent on 
 his tastes, his friends, his circumstances." 
 
 Alicia looked at Hilda; her glance betrayed an 
 attention caught upon an accidental phrase. She did 
 not repeat it, she turned it over in her mind. 
 
HILDA. 
 
 305 
 
 ' ■! 
 
 You are thinking," Hilda said accusingly. "What 
 are you thinking about ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing. I saw Stephen yesterday, I thought 
 him looking rather wretched." 
 
 A shadow of grave consideration winged ''.uelf across 
 Hilda's eyes. 
 
 "He works so much too hard," she said. " It is an 
 appalling waste. But he will offer himself up." 
 
 Alicia looked unsatisfied. " He brought Mr. Lappe 
 to tea," Miss Howe said. 
 
 The shadow went. " Should you think Brother 
 Lappe," she demanded, " specially fitted for the cure 
 of souls ? Never, never, could I allow the process of 
 my regeneration to come through Brother Lappe. 
 He has such a little nose, and such wide pink cheeks, 
 and such fat, sloping shoulders. Dear succulent 
 Brother Lappe ! ' 
 
 A Sister passed through the dormitory on a visit of 
 inspection. Alicia bowed sweetly and the Sister in- 
 clined herself briefly with a cloistered smile. As she 
 disappeared, Hilda threw a black skirt over her head, 
 making a veil of it flowing backward, and rendered 
 the visit, the noiseless measured step, the little dep- 
 recating movements of inquiry, the benevolent rec- 
 ognition of a visitor from a world where people carried 
 parasols and wore spotted muslins. She even effaced 
 herself at the door on the track of the other to make 
 it perfect, and came back in the happy expansion of 
 an artistic effort to find Alicia's regard penetrated 
 with the light of a new conviction. 
 
 " Hilda," she said, "I should like to know what this 
 last year has really been to you." 
 
 " It has been very valuable," Miss Howe replied. 
 
3o6 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 Then she turned quickly away to hang up the black 
 petticoat, and stood like that, shaking out its folds, so 
 that Alicia might not see anything curious in her face 
 as she heard her own words and understood what they 
 meant. 
 
 A probationer came rapidly along the dormitory to 
 where Hilda stood. She had the olive cheeks and the 
 liquid eyes of the country ; her lips were parted in a 
 
 smile. 
 
 " Miss Howe," she said in the quick, clicking sylla- 
 bles of her race, " Sister Margaret wishes you to come 
 immediately to the surgical ward. A case has come 
 in, and Miss Gonsalvez is there, but Sister Margaret 
 will not be bothered with Miss Gonsalvez. She says 
 you are due by right in five minutes"— the mes- 
 senger's smile broadened irresponsibly, and she put a 
 fondling touch upon Hilda's apron string — "so will 
 you please to make haste? " 
 
 "What's the case?" asked Hilda, "I hope it isn't 
 another ship's-hold accident." But Alicia, a shade 
 paler than before, put up her hand. "Wait till I'm 
 gone," she said, and went quickly. The girl had 
 opened her lips, however, but to say that she didn't 
 know, she had only been seized to take the message, 
 though it must be something serious, since they had 
 sent for both the resident surgeons. 
 
p 
 
 w^ 
 W 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 Doctor Livingstone's concern was personal, that 
 was plain in tlie way he stood looking at the floor of 
 the corridor with his hands in his pockets, before 
 Hilda reached him. Regret was written all over the 
 lines of his pausing figure, with the compressed inita- 
 tion which saved that feeling, in the Englishman's 
 way, from being too obvious. 
 
 " This is a bad business. Miss Howe." 
 
 " I've just come over— I haven't heard. Who is it ? " 
 
 " It's my cousin, poor chap— Arnold, the padre. 
 He's been badly knifed in the bazaar." 
 
 The news passed over her and left her looking with 
 a curious face at chance. It was lifted a little, with 
 composed lips, and eyes which refused to be taken by 
 surprise. There was inquiry in them, also a defence, 
 a retreat. Chance looking back saw an invincible 
 silent readiness and a pallor which might be that of 
 any woman. But the doctor was also looking, so she 
 said, " That is very sad," and moved near enough to 
 the wall to put her hand against it. She was not 
 faint, but the wall was a fact on which one could, for 
 the moment, rely. 
 
 " They've got the man— one of those Cabuli money- 
 lenders. The police had no trouble with him. He 
 said it was the order of Allah— the brute. Stray case 
 of fanaticism, I suppose. It seems Arnold was walk- 
 ing along as usual, without a notion, and the fellow 
 
3o8 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 sprang on him and in two seconds the thing was done. 
 Hadn't a chance, poor beggar." 
 
 " Where is it ? " 
 
 " Root of the left lung. About five inches deep. 
 The artery pretty well cut through, I fancy." 
 
 "Then " 
 
 " Oh no — we can't do anything. The haemorrhage 
 must be tremendous. But he may live through the 
 night. Are you going to Sister Margaret ? " 
 
 His nod took it for granted and he went on. Hilda 
 walked slowly forward, her head bent, with absorbed, 
 uncertain steps. A bar of evening sunlight came be- 
 fore her, she looked up and stepped outside the open 
 door. She was handling this thing that had happened, 
 taking possession of it. It lay in her mind in the 
 midst of a suddenly stricken and tenderly saddened 
 consciousness. It lay there passively ; it did not rise 
 and grapple with her, it was a thing that had happened 
 — in Bura Bazaar. The pity of it assailed her. Tears 
 came into her eyes, and an infinite grieved solicitude 
 gathered about her heart. " So ? " she said to herself, 
 thinking that he was young and loved his work, and 
 that now his hand would be stayed from the use it 
 had found. One of the ugly outrages of life, leaving 
 nothing on the mouth but that brief acceptance. It 
 came to her with a note of the profound and of the 
 supreme. " So," she said, and pressed her lips till 
 they stopped trembling, and went into the hospital. 
 
 She asked a question or two, in search of Sister 
 Margaret and the new case. It was "located," an 
 assistant surgeon told her, in Private Ward Number 2. 
 She went more and more slowly toward Private Ward 
 Number 2. 
 
HILDA. 309 
 
 The door was open. She stood in it for an instant 
 with eyes nerved to receive the tragedy. The room 
 seemed curiously empty of any such thing. A door 
 opposite was also open, with an arched verandah out- 
 side ; the low sun streamed through this upon the 
 floor with its usual tranquillity. Beyond the arches, 
 netted to keep the crows away, it made pictures with 
 the tops of the trees. There was the small iron bed 
 with the confused outline under the bedclothes, very 
 quiet, and the Sister — the whitewashed wall rose sharp 
 behind her black draperies — sitting with a book in her 
 hands. Some scraps of lint were on the floor beside the 
 bed and hardly anything else, except the silence, which 
 had almost a presence, and a faint smell of carbolic 
 acid, and a certain feeling of impotence and abandon- 
 ment and waiting which seemed to be in the air. 
 Arnold moved on the pillow and saw her standing in 
 the door. The bars of the bed's foot were in the way. 
 He tried to lift his head to surmount the obstruction, 
 and the Sister perceived her too. 
 
 " I think absolutely still was our order, wasn't it, 
 Mr. Arnold ? " she said, with her little pink smile. 
 "And I'm afraid Miss Howe isn't in time to be of 
 much use to us, is she ? " It was the bedside pleas- 
 antry that expected no reply, that indeed forbade one. 
 
 " I'm sorry," Hilda said. As she moved into the 
 room she detached her eyes from Arnold's, feeling as 
 she did so that it was like tearing something. 
 
 ** There was so little to do," Sister Margaret said. 
 " Surgeon-Major Wills saw at once where the mis- 
 chief lay. Nothing disagreeable was necessary, was it, 
 Mr. Arnold ? Perfect quiet, perfect rest — that's an 
 easy prescription to take." She had rather prominent, 
 
310 HILDA. 
 
 very blue eyes, and an aquiline nose and a small firm 
 mouth, and her pink cheeks were beginning to be a 
 little pendulous with age. Hilda gazed at her silently, 
 noting about her authority and her flowing draperies 
 something classical. Was she like one of the Fates? 
 She approached the bed to do something to the pillow 
 — Hilda had an impulse to push her away with the 
 cry, " It is not time yet — Atropos ! " 
 
 " I must go now for an hour or so," the Sister went 
 on. " That poor creature in Number 6 needs me ; 
 they daren't give her any more morphia. You don't 
 need it — happy boy ! " she said to Stephen, and at the 
 look he sent her for answer she turned rather quickly 
 to the door. Dear Sister, she was none of the Fates. 
 She was obliged to give directions to Hilda, standing 
 in the door with her back turned. Happily for a de- 
 served reputation for self-command they were few. 
 It was chief and absolute that no one should be 
 admitted. A bulletin had been put up at the hospital 
 door for the information of inquiries ; later on, when 
 the doctor came again, there would be another. 
 
 She went away and they were left alone. The sun 
 on the floor had vanished ; a yellowness stood in its 
 place with a grey background, the background gain- 
 ing, coming on. Always his eyes were upon her, she 
 had given hers back to him and he seemed satisfied. 
 She moved closer to the bed and stood beside him. 
 Since there was nothing to do there was nothing to 
 say. Stephen put out his hand and touched a fold of 
 her dress. 
 
 The room filled itself with something that had not 
 been there before. In obedience to it Hilda knelt 
 down beside the bed and pressed her forehead against 
 
HILDA. 311 
 
 the hand upon the covering, the hand that had so 
 little more to do. Then Arnold spoke. 
 
 " You dear woman ! " he said. " You dear woman ! " 
 
 She kept her head bowed like that and did not an- 
 swer. It was his happiest moment. One might say 
 he had lived for this. Her tears fell upon his hand, a 
 kind of baptism for his heart. He spoke again. 
 
 " We must bear this," he panted. " It is — less 
 cruel — than it seems. You don't know how much it 
 is for the best." 
 
 She lifted her wet face. " You mustn't talk," she 
 faltered. 
 
 " What difference — " he did not finish the sentence. 
 His words were too few to waste. He paused and 
 made another effort. 
 
 " If this had not happened I would have been — 
 counted — among the unfaithful," he said. " I know 
 now. I would have abandoned — my post. And 
 gladly — without regret — for you." 
 
 " Ah ! " Hilda cried with a vivid note of pain, " I 
 am sorry ! I am sorry ! " 
 
 She gazed with a face of real tragedy at the form of 
 her captive, delivered to her in the bonds of death. A 
 fresh pang visited her with the thought that in the 
 mystery of the ordering of things she might have had 
 to do with the forging of those shackles. 
 
 " My God is a jealous God," Arnold said. " He 
 has delivered me — into His own hands — for the hon- 
 our of His name. I acknowledge — I am content." 
 I " No, indeed no ! It was a wicked, horrible chance ! 
 
 Don't charge your God with it." 
 
 His smile was very sweet, but it paid the least pos- 
 sible attention. " You did love me," he said. He 
 spoke as if he were already dead. 
 
312 
 
 HILDA. 
 
 " I did indeed," Hilda replied, and bent her shamed 
 head upon her hands again in the confession. It is 
 not strange that he heard only the affirmation in it. 
 
 He stroked her hair. " It is good to know that," 
 he said, " very good. I should have married you." 
 He went on with sudden boldness and a new note of 
 strength in his voice. " Think of that ! You would 
 have been mine — to protect and work for. We should 
 have gone together to England — where I could easily 
 have got a curacy — easily." 
 
 Hilda looked up. " Would you like to marry me 
 now ? " she asked eagerly, but he shook his head. 
 " You don't understand," he said. " It is the dear sin 
 God has turned my back upon." 
 
 Then it came to her that he had asked for no 
 caress. He was going unassoiled to his God, with the 
 divine indifference of the dying. Only his imagination 
 looked backward and forward. And she thought, " It 
 is a little light flame that I have lit with my own taper 
 that has gone out, and presently the grave will extin- 
 guish that." She sat quiet and sombre in the grow- 
 ing darkness and presently Arnold slept. 
 
 He slept through the bringing of a lamp, the arrival 
 of flowers, subdued knocks of inquirers who would not 
 be stayed by the bulletin — the visit of Surgeon-Major 
 Wills, who felt his pulse without wakening him. 
 " Holding out wonderfully," the doctor said. " Don't 
 rouse him for the soup. He'll go out in about six 
 hours without any pain. May not wake at all." 
 
 The door opened again to admit the probationer 
 come to relieve Miss Howe. Hilda beckoned her into 
 the corridor. " You can go back," she said ; " I will 
 take your turn." 
 
 
HILDA. 
 
 313 
 
 " But the Sister Superior — you know how particular 
 about the rules — ' 
 
 '' Say nothing about it. Go to bed. I am not com- 
 ing." 
 
 "Then, Miss Howe, I shall be obliged to report it." 
 
 " Report and be — report, if you like. There is 
 nothing for you to do here to-night," and Hilda softly 
 closed the door. There was a whispered expostula- 
 tion when Sister Margaret came back, but Miss Howe 
 said, " It is arranged," and with a little silent nod of 
 appreciation the Sister settled into her chair, her finger 
 marking a place in her Church Service. Hilda sat 
 nearer to the bed, her elbow on the table, shading 
 her eyes from the lamp, and watched. 
 
 " Is it not odd ? " whispered Sister Margaret, as the 
 night wore on. "He has refused to be confessed before 
 he goes. He will not see the Brother Superior — or 
 any of them. Strange, is it not? " 
 
 Together they watched the quick, short breathing. 
 It seemed strangely impossible to sleep against such 
 odds. They saw the lines of the face grow sharper 
 and whiter, the dark eye-sockets sink to a curious 
 roundness, a greyness gather about the mouth. 
 There were times when they looked at each other in 
 the last surmise. Yet the feeble pulse persisted — 
 persisted. 
 
 " I believe now," said Sister Margaret, " that he 
 may go on like this until the morning. I am going 
 to take half an hour's nap. Rouse me at once if he 
 wakes," and she took an attitude of casual repose, 
 turning the prayer-book open on her knee for readier 
 use, open at " Prayers for the Dying." 
 
 The jackals had wailed themselves out, and there 
 
314 HILDA. 
 
 was a long, dark period when nothing but the sudden 
 cry of a night bird in the hospital garden came 
 between Hilda and the very vivid perception she had 
 at that hour of the value and significance of the 
 earthly lot. She lifted her head and listened to that ; 
 it seemed a comment. Then a harsh quarrelling of 
 dogs — Christian dogs — arose in the distance and died 
 away, and again there was night and silence. Sud- 
 denly the long singing drone of a steamer's signal 
 came across the city from the river, once, twice, 
 thrice; and presently the sparrows began their 
 twittering in the bushes near the verandah, an unex- 
 pected unanimous bird talk that died as suddenly 
 and as irrelevantly away. A conservancy cart lum- 
 bered past, creaking, the far shrill whistle of an a- 
 wakening factory cut the air from Howrah, the first 
 solitary foot smote through the dawn upon the nearest 
 pavement. The light showed grey beyond the 
 scanty curtains. A noise of something being moved 
 reverberated in the hospital below, and Arnold 
 opened his eyes. They made him in a manner him- 
 self again, and he fixed them upon Hilda as if they 
 could never alter. She leaned nearer him and made 
 a sign of inquiry toward the sleeping Sister, with the 
 farewells, the commendations of poor mortality 
 speeding itself fortk, lying upon her lap. Arnold 
 comprehended, and she was amazed to see the mask 
 of his face change itself with a faint smile as he shook 
 his head. He made a little movement ; she saw 
 what he wanted and took his hand in hers. The 
 smile was still in his eyes as he looked at her and 
 then at the cheated Sister. 
 So in the end he trusted the new wings of his mor- 
 
HILDA. 
 
 3>5 
 
 tal love to bear his soul to its immortality. They 
 carried their burden buoyantly, it was such a little 
 way. The lamp was still holding its own against the 
 paleness from the windows when the meaning finally 
 went out of his clasp of Hilda's hand, without a strug- 
 gle to stay, and she saw that in an instant when she 
 was not looking he had closed his eyes upon the 
 world. She sat on beside him for a long time after 
 that, watching tenderly, and would not withdraw her 
 hand — it seemed an abandonment. 
 
 Three hours later Miss Howe, passing out of the 
 hospital gate, was overtaken by Duff Lindsay, riding, 
 with a look of singular animation and vigour. He 
 flung himself off his horse to speak to her, and as he 
 approached he drew from his inner coat-pocket the 
 brown envelope of a telegram. 
 
 " Good-morning," he said. " You do look fagged. 
 I have a — curious — piece of news." 
 
 " Alicia told me that you were starting early this 
 morning for Madras! " 
 
 " I should have been but for this." 
 
 " Read it to me," Hilda said, " I'm tired." 
 
 " Oh, do you very much mind ? I would rather " 
 
 She took the missive ; it was dated the day before, 
 Colombo, and read : 
 
 " Do not expect me. Was married this morning to 
 Colonel Markin, S. A. We may not be unequally 
 yoked together with unbelievers. Glory be to God. 
 
 "Laura Markin." 
 
 She raised her eyes to his with the gravest, saddest 
 irony. 
 
 " Then you — ^you also are delivered," she said. But 
 
3i6 HILDA. 
 
 he said, "What ?" without special heed ; and I doubt 
 whether he ever took the trouble to understand. 
 
 "One hopes he isn't a brute," Lindsay went on with 
 most impersonal solicitude, "and can support her. I 
 suppose there isn't any way one could do anything for 
 her. I heard a story only yesterday about a girl 
 changing her mind on the way out. By Jove, I didn't 
 suppose it would happen to me ! " 
 
 "If you are hurt anywhere," Hilda said, absently, 
 "it is only your vanity, I fancy." 
 
 "Ah, my vanity is very sore." He paused for an 
 instant, wondering to find so little expansion in her. 
 " I came to ask after Arnold," he said. " How is he ? " 
 
 " He is dead. He died at half-past five this morn- 
 mg. 
 
 She left him with even less than her usual circum- 
 stance, and turned in at the gate of the Baker Institu- 
 tion. It happened to be the last day of her probation. 
 
 There has never been any difficulty in explaining 
 Lindsay's marriage with Alicia Livingstone even to 
 himself. The reasons for it, indeed, were so many and 
 so obvious that he wondered often why they had not 
 struck him before. But it is worth noting, perhaps, 
 that the immediate precipitating cause arose in one 
 evening service at the Cathedral, where it had its birth 
 in the very individual charm of the nape of Alicia's 
 neck, as she knelt upon her hassock in the fitting and 
 graceful act of the responses. His instincts in these 
 matters seem to have had a generous range, consider- 
 ing the tenets he was born to, but it was tp him then 
 a delightful reflection, often since repeated, that in the 
 sheltered garden of delicate perfumes where this sweet 
 
HILDA. 
 
 317 
 
 person took her spiritual pleasure there was no rank 
 vegetation. 
 
 It is much to Miss Hilda Howe's credit that amid 
 the overwhelming distractions of her most successful 
 London season she never quite abandons these two to 
 the social joys that circle round the Ochterlony Monu- 
 ment and the arid scenic consolations of the Maidan 
 Her own experience there is one of the things, I fancy, 
 that make her fond of saying that the stage is the 
 merest cardboard presentation, and that one day she 
 means to eave it, to coax back to her bosom the life 
 wh.ch ,s her heritage in the wider, simpler ways of 
 the world. She never mentions that experience more 
 directly or less ardently. But I fear the promise I 
 have quoted is one that she makes too often