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3:23
B474–
4 drºv
| g 73
VOL. I.
D O DO
£7
And far out, drifting helplessly on that grey, angry sea,
I saw a small boat at the mercy of the winds and waves. And
my guide said to me, “Some call the sea “Falsehood,” and
that boat “Truth,” and others call the sea “Truth,” and
the boat “Falsehood;” and, for my part, I think that one is
right as the other.’—The Professor of Ignorance.
D O D O
A ZOAZ ZTA // OF 7TAZAZ /OA V
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E} * B E N S ON
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
APO U R T H E D / 7"I O W
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tº © º ©
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§tiethuen amb (lo.
18 BURY STREET, W.C.
L O N DO N
1893
// -1/- 4%
C O AV 7TAZ AV 7"S
—0— —
CHAPTER I.,
J CHAPTER II., .
*:
CHAPTER III., .
§
CHAPTER IV., .
CHAPTER V.,
s
CHAPTER VI., .
CHAPTER VII., .
CHAPTER VIII.,
CHAPTER IX., .
CHAPTER X., . p º º *
PAGE
23
42
6o
96
I2 I
135
I55
I7o
190
D O DO
D O D O.
C H A P T E R I.
Poers of all ages and of all denominations
are unanimous in assuring us that there was
once a period on this grey earth known as the
Golden Age. These irresponsible bards describe it
in terms of the vaguest, most poetic splendour, and,
apart from the fact, upon which they are all agreed,
that the weather was always perfectly charming, we
have to reconstruct its characteristics in the main for
ourselves. Perhaps if the weather was uniformly de-
lightful, even in this nineteenth century, the golden
age might return again. We all know how perceptibly
our physical, mental and spiritual level is raised by a
few days of really charming weather; but until the
A
2 DODO.
weather determines to be always golden, we can
hardly expect it of the age. Yet even now, even
in England, and even in London, we have every year -
a few days which must surely be waifs and strays
from the golden age, days which have fluttered
down from under the hands of the recording angel,
as he tied up his reports, and, after floating about
for years in dim, interplanetary space, sometimes drop
down upon us. They may last a week, they have
been known to last a fortnight; again, they may
curtail themselves into a few hours, but they are
never wholly absent.
At the time at which this story opens, London was
having its annual golden days; days to be associated
with cool, early rides in the crumbly Row, with sitting
on small, green chairs beneath the trees at the corner
of the Park; with a general disinclination to exert
oneself, or to stop smoking cigarettes; with a temper
distinctly above its normal level, and a corresponding
absence of moods. The crudeness of spring had dis-
appeared, but not its freshness; the warmth of summer
had come, but not its Sultriness; the winter was de-
finitely over and past, and even in Hyde Park the
voice of the singing bird was heard, and an old gentle-
DODO. 3
man, who shall be nameless, had committed his annual
perjury by asserting in the Morning Post that he had
heard a nightingale in the elm-trees by the Ladies'
Mile, which was manifestly impossible.
The sky was blue; the trees, strange to say, were
green, for the leaves were out, and even the powers
of soot which hover round London had not yet had
time to shed their blackening dew upon them. The
season was in full swing, but nobody was tired of it
yet, and ‘all London’ evinced a tendency to modified
rural habits, which expressed themselves in the way
of driving down to Hurlingham, and giving water
parties at Richmond.
To state this more shortly, it was a balmy, breezy
day towards the middle of June. The shady walks
that line the side of the Row were full of the usual
crowds of leisurely, well-dressed people who constitute
what is known as London. Anyone acquainted with
that august and splendid body would have seen at
once that something had happened; not a famine in
China, nor a railway accident, nor a revolution, 11OT 3.
war, but emphatically “something.” Conversation
was a thing that made time pass, not a way of
passing the time. Obviously the larger half of
4 DODO.
London was asking questions, and the smaller half
was enjoying its superiority, in being able to give
answers. These indications are as clear to the
practised eye as the signs of the weather appear
to be to the prophet Zadkiel, To the amateur one
cloud looks much like another cloud; the prophet,
on the other hand, lays a professional finger on
one and says “Thunder,’ while the lurid bastion,
which seems fraught with fire and tempest to the
amateur, is dismissed with the wave of a con-
temptuous hand.
A tall, young man was slowly making his way
across the road from the arch. He was a fair
specimen of ‘the exhausted seedlings of our effete
aristocracy’ — long-limbed, clean-shaven, about six
feet two high, and altogether very pleasant to look
upon. He wore an air of extreme leisure and free-
dom from the smallest touch of care or anxiety, and
it was quite clear that such was his normal atmo-
sphere. He waited with serene patience for a large
number of well-appointed carriages to go past, and
then found himself blocked by another stream going
in the opposite direction. However, all things come
to an end, even the impossibility of crossing from the
AMODO. 5
arch at the entrance of the Park to the trees on a fine
morning in June, and on this particular morning I
have to record no exception to the rule. A horse
bolting on to the Row narrowly missed knocking
him down, and he looked up with mild reproach at
its rider, as he disappeared in a shower of dust and
soft earth.
This young gentleman, who has been making his
slow and somewhat graceful entrance on to our stage,
was emphatically “London,’ and he too saw at once
that something had happened. He looked about for
an acquaintance, and then dropped in a leisurely
manner into a chair by his side.
“Morning, Bertie, he remarked ; “what's up?’
Bertie was not going to be hurried. He finished
lighting a cigarette, and adjusted the tip neatly with
his fingers.
“She's going to be married,’ he remarked.
Jack Broxton turned half round to him with a
quicker movement than he had hitherto shown.
‘Not Dodo?’ he said.
‘Yes,’
Jack gave a low whistle.
‘It isn't to you, I suppose?”
6 AXODO.
Bertie Arbuthnot leaned back in his chair with
extreme languor. His enemies, who, to do him
justice, were very few, said that if he hadn't been
the tallest man in London, he would never have been
there at all.
‘No, it isn’t to me.’
“Is she here?” said Jack, looking round.
‘No, I think not ; at least I haven’t seen her.’
“Well, I'm—" Jack did not finish the sentence.
Then as an after-thought he inquired : ‘Whom to ?’
“Chesterford, returned the other.
Jack made a neat little hole with the ferrule of his
stick in the gravel in front of him, and performed a
small burial service for the end of his cigarette. The
action was slightly allegorical.
‘He's my first cousin, he said. “However, I may
be excused for not feeling distinctly sympathetic with
my first cousin. Must I congratulate him P’
‘That's as you like,' said the other. “I really don't
see why you shouldn't. But it is rather overwhelm-
ing, isn't it? You know Dodo is awfully charming,
but she hasn’t got any of the domestic virtues. Be-
sides, she ought to be an empress,’ he added loyally.
“I suppose a marchioness is something, said Jack.
ANO/OO. 7
“But I didn't expect it one little bit. Of course he is
hopelessly in love. And so Dodo has decided to
make him happy.”
‘It seems so, said Bertie, with a fine determination
not to draw inferences.
“Ah, but don't you see—’ said Jack.
‘Oh, it's all right,” said Bertie. ‘He is devoted to
her, and she is clever and stimulating. Personally I
shouldn’t like a stimulating wife. I don't like stimul-
ating people, I don’t think they wear well. It would
be like sipping brandy all day. Fancy having brandy
at five o'clock tea. What a prospect, you know.
Dodo's too smart for my taste.’
“She never bores one,’ said Jack.
‘No, but she makes me feel as if I was sitting
under a flaming gas-burner, which was beating on to
what Nature designed to be my brain-cover.’
‘Nonsense,” said Jack. “You don’t know her.
There she is. Ah!”
* 'A dog-cart had stopped close by them, and a girl
got out, leaving a particularly diminutive groom at
the pony's head. If anything she was a shade more
perfectly dressed than the rest of the crowd, and she
seemed to know it. Behind her walked another girl,
8 ANODO.
who was obviously intended to walk behind, while
Dodo was equally obviously made to walk in front.
Just then Dodo turned round and said over her
shoulder to her, t
‘Maud, tell the boy he needn't wait. You needn't
either unless you like.’
Maud turned round and went dutifully back to the
dog-cart, where she stood irresolutely a few moments
after giving her message.
Dodo caught sight of the two young men on the
chairs, and advanced to them. The radiant vision
was evidently not gifted with that dubious quality,
shyness.
“Why, Jack, she exclaimed in a loudish voice,
“here I am, you see, and I have come to be congratul-
ated | What are you and Bertie sitting here for like
two Patiences on monuments P Really, Jack, you
would make a good Patience on a monument. Was
Patience a man P I never saw him yet. I would
come and sketch you if you stood still enough.
What are you so glum about? You look as if you
were going to be executed. I Ought to look like that
much more than you. Jack, I’m going to be a
married woman, and stop at home, and mend the
AXODO. 9
socks, and look after the baby, and warm Chesterford's
slippers for him. Where's Chesterford P. Have you
seen him P Oh, I told Maud to go away. Maud,’
she called, ‘come back and take Bertie for a stroll:
I want to talk to Jack. Go on, Bertie; you can come
back in half an hour, and if I haven’t finished talking
then, you can go away again—or go for a drive, if
you like, with Maud round the Park. Take care of
that pony, though ; he's got the devil of a temper.”
“I suppose I may congratulate you first?’ asked
Bertie.
‘That's so dear of you,' said Dodo graciously, as if
she was used to saying it. Good-bye; Maud's waiting,
and the pony will kick himself to bits if he stands
much longer. Thanks for your congratulations.
Good-bye.”
Bertie moved off, and Dodo sat down next Jack.
‘Now, Jack, we're going to have a talk. In the
first place you haven't congratulated me. Never
mind, we'll take that as done. Now tell me what
you think of it. I don't quite know why I ask you,
but we are old friends.’
“I’m surprised, said he candidly; “I think it's very
odd.’
IO DODO.
Dodo frowned.
‘John Broxton, she said solemnly, “don’t be
nasty. Don't you think I'm a very charming girl,
and don't you think he's a very charming boy?’
Jack was silent for a minute or two, then he
said,…
‘What is the use of this, Dodo? What do you
want me to say?’
“I want you to say what you think. Jack, old
boy, I’m very fond of you, though I couldn't marry
you. Oh, you must see that. We shouldn’t have
suited. We neither of us will consent to play second
fiddle, you know. Then, of course, there's the ques-
tion of money. I must have lots of money. Yes, a
big must and a big lot. It's not your fault that you
haven't got any, and it wouldn't have been your fault
if you'd been born with no nose; but I couldn't
marry a man who was without either.’
“After all, Dodo,” said he, “you only say what every
one else thinks about that. I don’t blame you for it.
About the other, you're wrong. I am sure I should
not have been an exacting husband. You could have
had your own way pretty well.’
‘Oh, Jack, indeed no,' said she —‘we are wandering
AXO/OO. II
from the point, but I’ll come back to it presently. My
husband must be so devoted to me that anything I
do will seem good and charming. You don't answer
that requirement, as I’ve told you before. If I can't
get that—I have got it, by the way—I must have a
man who doesn’t care what I do. You would have
cared, you know it. You told me once I was in
dreadfully bad form. Of course that clinched the
matter. To my husband I must never be in bad
form. If others did what I do, it might be bad form,
but with me, no. Bad form is one of those qualities
which my husband must think impossible for me,
simply because I am I. Oh, Jack, you must see that
—don't be stupid And then you aren't rich enough.
It's all very well to call it a worldly view, but it is
a perfectly true one for me. Don't you see I must
have everything I want. It is what I live on, all
this, she said, spreading her hands out. “All these
people must know who I am, and that they should do
that, I must have everything at my command. Oh,
it's all very well to talk of love in a cottage, but just
wait till the chimney begins to smoke.’
Dodo nodded her head with an air of profound
wisdom.
I2 AXODO.
‘It isn’t for you that I’m anxious,” said Jack, ‘it’s
for Chesterford. He's an awfully good fellow. It is
a trifle original to sing the husband's praise to the
wife, but I do want you to know that. And he isn't
one of those people who don't feel things because
they don't show it—it is just the other way. The
feeling is so deep that he can’t. You know you like
to turn yourself inside out for your friend's benefit,
but he doesn't do that. And he is in love with you.’
‘Yes, I know, she said, “but you do me an injus-
tice. I shall be very good to him. I can't pretend
that I am what is known as being in love with him—
in fact I don’t think I know what that means, except
that people get in a very ridiculous state, and write
sonnets to their mistress's front teeth, which reminds
me that I’m going to the dentist to-morrow. Come
and hold my hand—yes, and keep withered flowers
and that sort of thing. Ah, Jack, I wish that I really
knew what it did mean. It can't be all nonsense,
because Chesterford's like that, and he is an honest
man if you like. And I do respect and admire him
very much, and I hope I shall make him happy, and
I hear he's got a delightful new yacht; and, oh! do
look at that Arbuthnot girl opposite with a magenta
AXODO. I3
hat. It seems to me inconceivably stupid to have a
magenta hat. Really she is a fool. She wants to
attract attention, but she attracts the wrong sort.
Now she is in bad form. Bertie doesn’t look after
his relations enough.”
‘Oh, bother the Arbuthnot girl,” said Jack angrily,
“I want to have this out with you. Don't you see
that that sort of thing won't do with Chesterford. He
is not a fool by any means, and he knows the differ-
ence between the two things.’
“Indeed he doesn't,' said Dodo. “The other day
he was talking to me, and I simply kept on Smiling
when I was thinking of something quite different,
and he thought I was adorably sympathetic. And,
besides, I am not a fool either. He is far too happy
for me to believe that he is not satisfied.’
‘Well, but you'll have to keep it up,” said Jack.
‘Don’t you see I’m not objecting to your theory of
marriage in itself—though I think it's disgusting—but
it strikes me that you have got the wrong sort of man
to experiment upon. It might do very well if he
was like you.’
‘Jack, you sha’n’t lecture me,’ said Dodo ; ‘I shall
do precisely as I like. Have you ever known me
I 4 ANOYOO.
make a fool of myself? Of course you haven't. Well,
if I was going to make a mess of this, it would be
contrary to all you or anyone else knows of me. I'm
sorry I asked your opinion at all. I didn't think you
would be so stupid.”
‘You told me to tell you what I thought,” said
Jack in self-defence. “I offered to say what you
wanted, or to congratulate or condole or anything
else; it's your own fault, and I wish I’d said it was
charming and delightful, and just what I’d always
hoped.’
Dodo laughed.
“I like to see you cross, Jack, she remarked, “and
now we'll be friends again. Remember what you
have said to-day—we shall see in time who is right,
you or I. If you like to bet about it you may—only
you would lose. I promise to tell you if you turn out
to be right, even if you don't see it, which you must
if it happens, which it won't, so you won't,' she added
with a fine disregard of grammar.
Jack was silent.
‘Jack, you are horrible, said Dodo impatiently, ‘you
don’t believe in me one bit. I believe you are jealous
of Chesterford ; you needn’t be.’
AXODO. 15
Then he interrupted her quickly.
“Ah, Dodo, take care what you say. When you
Say I needn't be, it implies that you are not going to
do your share. I want to be jealous of Chesterford,
and I am sorry I am not. If I thought you loved him,
or would ever get to love him, I should be jealous.
I wish to goodness I was. Really, if you come to think
of it, I am very generous. I want this to be entirely
a success. If there is one man in the world who
deserves to be happy it is Chesterford. He is not
brilliant, he does not even think he is, which is the
best substitute. It doesn’t much matter how hard
you are hit if you are well protected. Try to
make him conceited—it is the best you can do for
him.’
He said these words in a low tone, as if he hardly
wished Dodo to hear. But Dodo did hear.
‘You don’t believe in me a bit, she said. “Never
mind, I will force you to. That's always the way—
as long as I amuse you, you like me well enough, bu
you distrust me at bottom. A woman's a bore when
she is serious. Isn't it so P Because I talk nonsense
you think I am entirely untrustworthy about things
that matter.’
I6 AXODO.
Dodo struck the ground angrily with the point of
her parasol.
‘I have thought about it. I know I am right, she
went on. “I shall be immensely happy as his wife,
and he will be immensely happy as my husband.’
‘I don’t think it's much use discussing it,” said he.
“But don’t be vexed with me, Dodo. You reminded
me that we were old friends at the beginning of this
extremely candid conversation. I have told you
that I think it is a mistake. If he didn’t love you it
wouldn't matter. Unfortunately he does.'
“Well, Jack,' she said, ‘I can't prove it, but you
Ought to know me well enough by this time not to
misjudge me so badly. It is not only unjust but
stupid, and you are not usually stupid. However, I
am not angry with you, which is the result of my
beautiful nature. Come, Jack, shake hands and wish
me happiness.’
She stood up, holding out both her hands to him.
Jack was rather moved.
‘Dodo, of course I do. I wish all the best wishes
that my nature can desire and my brain conceive, .
both to you and him, him too; and I hope I shall be
outrageously jealous before many months are over.’
ZOODO. 17
He shook her hands, and then dropped them. She
stood for a moment with her eyes on the ground,
looking still grave. Then she retreated a step or two,
leaned against the rail, and broke into a laugh.
‘That's right, Jack, begone dull care. I suppose
you'll be Chesterford's best man. I shall tell him you
must be. Really he is an excellent lover; he doesn’t
say too much or too little, and he lets me do exactly as
I like. Jack, come and see us this evening; we're hav-
ing a sort of Barnum's Show, and I’m to be the white
elephant. Come and be a white elephant too. Oh,
no, you can't; Chesterford's the other. The elephant
is an amiable beast, and I’m going to be remarkably
amiable. Come to dinner first, the Show begins
afterwards. No, on the whole, don’t come to dinner,
because I want to talk to Chesterford all the time,
and do my duty in that state of life in which it has
pleased Chesterford to ask me to play my part.
That's profane, but it's only out of the Catechism
Who wrote the Catechism P I always regard the
Catechism as only a half-sacred work, and so pro-
fanity doesn't count, at least you may make two pro-
fane remarks out of the Catechism, which will only
count as one. I shall sing, too. Evelyn has taught me
B
I8 DODO.
two little nigger minstrel songs. Shall I black my:
face P I’m not at all sure that I shouldn't look rather
well with my face blacked, though I suppose it would
frighten Chesterford. Here are Maud and Bertie
back again. I must go. I'm lunching somewhere, I
can't remember where, only Maud will know. Maud,
where are we lunching, and have you had a nice
drive, and has Bertie been making love to you?
Good-bye, Jack. Remember to come this evening.
You can come, too, Bertie, if you like. I’ve had a
very nice talk with Jack, and he has been remarkably
rude, but I forgive him.'
Jack went with her to her dog-cart, and helped
her in.
‘This pony's name is Beelzebub, she remarked, as
she took the reins, “because he is the prince of the
other things. Good-bye.”
Then he went back and rejoined Bertie.
“There was a scene last night,” said Bertie, ‘Maud
told me about it. She came home with Dodo and
Chesterford, and stopped to open a letter in the hall,
and when she went upstairs into the drawing-room,
she found Dodo sobbing among the sofa cushions, and
Chesterford standing by, not quite knowing what to do.
ANODO. I9
It appeared that he had just given her the engagement
ring. She was awfully pleased with it, and said it
was charming, then suddenly she threw it down on
the floor, and buried her face in the cushions. After
that she rushed out of the room, and didn't appear
again for a quarter of an hour, and then went to the
Foreign Office party, and to two balls.’
Jack laughed hopelessly for a few minutes. Then
he said,
* It is too ridiculous. I don’t believe it can be all
real. That was drama, pure spontaneous drama.
But it's drama for all that. I’m sure I don’t know
why I laughed, now I come to think of it. It really
is no laughing matter. All the same I wonder why
she didn't tell me that. But her sister has got no
business to repeat those kind of things. Don't tell
anyone else, Bertie.”
Then after a minute he repeated to himself, ‘I
wonder why she didn't tell me that.
‘Jack,” said Bertie after another pause, ‘I don't
wish you to think that I want to meddle in your
concerns, and so don't tell me unless you like, but
was anything ever up between you and Dodo P
Lie freely if you would rather not tell me, please.’
2O ANODO.
‘Yes,’ he said simply. ‘ I asked her to marry me
last April, and she said “No.” I haven't told any-
one till this minute, because I don't like it to be
known when I fail. I am like Dodo in that. You
know how she detests not being able to do any-
thing she wants. It doesn't often happen, but when
it does, Dodo becomes damnable. She has more
perseverance than I have though. When she can't
get anything, she makes such a fuss that she usually
does succeed eventually. But I do just the other
thing. I go away, and don't say anything about
it That was a bad failure. I remember being very
much vexed at the time.”
Jack spoke dreamily, as if he was thinking of
something else. It was his way not to blaze abroad
anything that affected him deeply. Like Dodo he
would often dissect himself in a superficial manner,
and act as a kind of showman to his emotions;
but he did not care to turn himself inside out
with her thoroughness. And above all, as he had
just said, he hated the knowledge of failure; he
tried to conceal it even from himself. He loved
to show his brighter side to the world. When
he was in Society he always put on his best mental
ANOZXO. 2I
and moral clothes, those that were newest and
fitted him most becomingly ; the rags and tatters
were thrown deep into the darkest cupboard, and
the key sternly turned on them. Now and then,
however, as on this occasion, a friend brought
him the key with somewhat embarrassing openness,
and manners prevented him from putting his back
to the door. But when it was unlocked he adopted
the tone of ‘Yes, there are some old things in
there, I believe. May you see? Oh, certainly; but
please shut it after you, and don’t let anyone else
in. I quite forget what is in there myself, it's so
long since I looked.”
Bertie was silent. He was on those terms of
intimacy with the other that do not need ordinary
words of condolence or congratulation. Besides,
from his own point of view, he inwardly congratul-
ated Jack, and this was not the sort of occasion on
which to tell him that congratulation rather than
sympathy was what the event demanded. Then
Jack went on, still with the air on a spectator than
of a principal character,
‘Dodo talked to me a good deal about her
marriage. I am sorry about it, for I think that
22 AXODO.
Chesterford will be terribly disillusioned. You
know he doesn’t take things lightly, and he is
much too hopelessly fond of Dodo ever to be con-
tent with what she will grant him as a wife. But
we cannot do anything. I told her what I thought,
not because I hoped to make any change in the
matter, but because I wished her to know that for
once in her life she has made a failure—a bad,
hopeless mistake. That has been my revenge.
Come, it's after one, I must go home. I shall go
there this evening; shall I see you?'
C H A P T E R II.
ACK went home meditating rather bitterly on
J things in general. He had a sense that Fate was
not behaving very prettily to him. She had dealt him
rather a severe blow in April last, which had knocked
him down, and, having knocked him down, she now
proceeded in a most unsportsmanlike way to kick him.
Jack had a great idea of fair play, and Fate certainly
was not playing fair. He would have liked to have a
few words with her on the subject. The world had
been very kind on the whole to him. He had always
been popular, and his life, though perhaps rather aim-
less, was at least enjoyable. And since the world had
been kind to him, he was generous to the world
in general, and to his friends in particular. It
had always held a high opinion of him as a
thoroughly healthy-minded and pleasant companion,
and he was disposed to hold a similar opinion of
23
24 AXODO.
it. Consequently, when Dodo had refused him that
spring, he had not thought badly of her. He did not
blame her, or get bitter about it; but though he had
flattered himself that he was used to Dodo's ways,
and had always recognised her capabilities in the way
of surprising her friends, he had not been quite pre-
pared for the news of her engagement. In fact,
he was surprised, and also rather resentful, chiefly
against the general management of mundane affairs,
but partly also against Dodo herself. Dodo had not
told him of her engagement; he had been left to find
it out for himself. Then, again, she was engaged to a
man who was hopelessly and entirely in love with
her, and for whom, apart from a quiet, unemotional
liking, she did not care two straws, except in so far as
he was immensely rich, and had a title, two golden keys
which unlocked the most secret doors of that well-fur-
nished apartment known as Society, which constituted
Dodo's world. Hitherto her position had been pre-
carious : she had felt that she was on trial. Her
personality, her great attractiveness and talents, had
secured for herself a certain footing on the very dais
of that room; but she had always known that unless
she married brilliantly she would not be sure of her
AXO/OO. 25
position. If she married a man who would not be
always certain of commanding whatever money and
position—for she would never have married a
wealthy brewer—could command, or, worst of all, if
in her unwillingness to accept anything but the best
she could get, she did not marry at all, Dodo knew
that she never would have that unquestioned position
that she felt was indispensable to her. Jack knew
all this perfectly well—in fact Dodo had referred
to it that morning—and he accepted it philosophi-
cally, as being inevitable. But what he did not like
was being told that he would not have done on general
grounds, that he was too fond of his own way, that
he would not have given Dodo rein enough. He had
known Dodo too long and too well, when he proposed
to her, to have any of a lover's traditional blindness
to the faults of his love. He knew that she was,
above all things, strongly dramatic, that she moved
with a view to effect, that she was unscrupulous in
what she did, that her behaviour was sometimes in
questionable taste; but this he swallowed whole, so
to speak. He was genuinely attached to her, and felt
that she possessed the qualities that he would most
like to have in his wife. Bertie had said to him
26 AXODO.
that morning that she was stimulating, and would
not wear well. Stimulating she certainly was—what
lovable woman is not—and personally he had known
her long, and she did wear well. The hidden
depths and unsuspected shallows were exactly what
he loved her for; no one ever fell in love with a canal ;
and though the shallows were commoner than the
depths, and their presence was sometimes indicated
by a rather harsh jarring of the keel, yet he believed,
fully and sincerely, in the dark, mysterious depths for
love to lose itself in. Besides, a wife, whose actions
and thoughts were as perfectly calculable and as
accurately calculated as the trains in a Bradshaw,
was possessed of sterling qualities which, however
estimable, were more suited to a housekeeper than a
mistress.
These reflections were the outcome of an intimate
knowledge of Dodo in the mind of a man who was
in the habit of being honest with himself and the
object of his love, a quality rare enough whether the
lover is rejected or accepted.
He had had time to think over the matter quietly
to himself. He knew, and had known now for many
weeks, that Dodo was out of his reach, and he sat
ANO/OO. 27
down and thought about the inaccessible fruit, not
with the keen feelings of one who still hoped to
get it, but with a resignation which recognised that
the fruit was desirable, but that it must be regarded
from a purely speculative point of view.
And to do him justice, though he was very sorry
for himself, he was much more sorry for Chesterford.
Chesterford was his cousin, they had been brought
up together at Eton and Oxford, and he knew him
with that intimacy which is the result of years alone.
Chesterford's old friends had all a great respect and
liking for him. As Dodo had said, “He was an honest
man if you like.' Slight acquaintances called him
slow and rather stupid, which was true on purely
intellectual grounds. He was very loyal, and very
much devoted to what he considered his duty, which
consisted in being an excellent landlord and J.P. of
his county, in voting steadily for the Conservative
party in the House of Lords, in giving largely and
anonymously to good objects, in going to church on
Sunday morning, where he sang hymns with fervour,
and read lessons with respect, in managing a hunt in
a liberal and satisfactory manner, and in avoiding
any introspection or speculation about problems of
28 t ANODO.
life and being. He walked through the world with
an upright gait, without turning his eyes or his steps
to the right hand or the left, without ever concerning
himself with what was not his business, but directing
all his undoubtedly sterling qualities to that. He
had a perfect genius for doing his duty. Nobody
had ever called him shallow or foolish, but no-
body on the other hand had ever called him either
deep or clever. He had probably only made one
real mistake in his life, and that was when he asked
Dodo to marry him ; and we have seen that Jack,
who knew Dodo well, and whose opinion might be
considered to be based on good grounds, thought
that Dodo had committed her first grand error in
accepting him. The worst of the business certainly
was that he was in love with Dodo. If he had been a
different sort of man, if he had proposed to Dodo
with the same idea that Dodo had, when she accepted
him, if he had wanted a brilliant and fascinating
woman to walk through life with, who could not fail
to be popular, and who would do the duties of a
mistress of a great house in a regal fashion, he could
not have chosen better. But what he wanted in a
wife was someone to love. He loved Dodo, and
AXODO. 29
apparently it had not entered his calculations that
she, in accepting him, might be doing it from a
different standpoint from his own in proposing to
her. Dodo had smiled on him with the air of a
benignant goddess who marries a mortal, when he
offered her his hand and heart, and he had taken that
smile as a fulfilment of his own thought. Decidedly
Jack might have justification for feeling appre-
hensive.
Jack's only hope lay in that vein which did exist
in Dodo, and which she had manifested in that out-
burst of tears the night before. He put it down to
her dramatic instincts to a large extent, but he knew
there was something beside, for Dodo did not care
to play to an empty house, and the presence of her
future husband alone, constituted anything but a
satisfactory audience. Jack had always had a con-
siderable belief in Dodo : her attractiveness and
cleverness were, of course, beyond dispute, and re-
quired proof no more than the fact that the sun
rose in the morning, but he believed in something
deeper than this, which prompted such actions as
these. He felt that there was some emotion that she
experienced at that moment, of which her tears were
3o IXODO.
the legitimate outcome, and, as he thought of this,
there occurred to him the remark that Dodo had
made that morning, when she expressed her regret
at never having felt the sort of love that she knew
Chesterford felt for her.
Mrs Vane was perhaps perfectly happy that
night. Was not her daughter engaged to a marquis
and a millionaire? Was not her house going to be
filled with the brightest and best of our land P She
had often felt rather resentful against Dodo, who
alternately liked and despised people whom Mrs
Vane would have given her right hand to be in a
position to like, and both hands to be in a posi-
tion to despise. Dodo was excellent friends with
‘London,’ only ‘London’ did not come and seek her
at her own house, but preferred asking her to theirs.
Consequently, on Mrs Vane and Maud devolved the
comparatively menial duty of leaving their cards and
those of Dodo, and attending her in the capacity of
the necessary adjunct. They would be asked to the
same houses as Dodo, but that was all ; when they
got there they had the privilege of seeing Dodo per-
forming her brilliant evolutions, but somehow none
of Dodo's glory got reflected on to them. To be
AXOZOO. 31
the mirror of Dodo was one of Mrs Vane's most
cherished ideas, and she did not recollect that there
are many substances whose nature forbids their act-
ing as such to the most brilliant of illuminations.
Mr Vane was kept still more in the background.
It was generally supposed that he was looking after
his affairs in the country, while the rest of the family
were amusing themselves in London. It was well
known that he was the proprietor of a flourishing
iron foundry somewhere in Lancashire, and appar-
ently the iron needed special care during the months
of May, June and July. In any case he was a
shadow in the background, rather than a skeleton
at the banquet, whom it was not necessary to ignore,
because he never appeared in a position in which
he could be ignored. Mrs Vane had two principal
objects in life, the first of which was to live up to
Dodo, and the second to obtain, in course of time,
a suitably brilliant son-in-law. The latter of these
objects had been practically obtained by Dodo her-
self, and the first of them was in a measure realised
by the large and brilliant company who assembled
in her rooms that night. -
Mrs Vane was a large, high-coloured woman of
32 -- AXODO.
about forty, whose dress seemed to indicate that she
would rather be thirty, but that, of course, may only
have been the fault of the dressmaker. She had an
effusive manner, which sometimes made her guests
wonder what they could have done, to have made
her so particularly glad to see them. She con-
stantly lamented Mr Vane's absence from London,
and remarked, with a brilliant smile, that she felt
quite deserted. Mrs Vane's smile always suggested
a reformed vampire, who had permanently renounced
her blood-thirsty habits, but had not quite got out
of the way of gloating on what would have been
her victims in the unregenerate days. It is only
fair to say that this impression was due to the im-
mensity of her Smile, which could hardly be honestly
accounted for by this uncharitable world. She was
busily employed in receiving her guests when Jack
came, and was, perhaps, more stupendously cordial
than ever. -
“So kind of you to come, she was just saying to
a previous arrival when Jack came in. “I know
Dodo was dying to see you and be congratulated.
Darling, she said, turning to Maud, ‘run and tell
Dodo that Lord Burwell has arrived. So good of
AXODO. 33
you to come. And how do you do, dear Mr
Broxton P Of course Dodo has told you of our
happiness. Thanks, yes—we are all charmed with
her engagement. And the Marquis is your cousin,
is he not? How nicel May I tell Maud she may
call you Cousin Jack? Such a pleasure to have you !
Dodo is simply expiring to see you. Did she see
you this morning P Really she never told me of
it, and my sweet child usually tells me every-
thing.’
Dodo was playing the amiable white elephant to
some purpose. She was standing under a large
chandelier in the centre of the room, with Chester-
ford beside her, receiving congratulations with the
utmost grace, and talking nonsense at the highest
possible speed. Jack thought to himself that he
had never seen anyone so thoroughly charming and
brilliant, and almost wondered whether he had not
been doing her an injustice all day. He saw it was
impossible to get near her for the present, so he
wandered off among other groups, exchanging greet-
ings and salutations. He had made the circuit of
the room, and was standing about near the door
feeling a little lonely, when Dodo came quickly
C
34 AXODO.
towards him. She was looking rather white and
impatient.
‘Come away out of this, Jack, she said; “this is
horrible. We've dome our duty, and now I want to
talk. I've been Smiling and grinning till my cheeks
are nearly cracked, and everyone says exactly the
same thing. Come to my room—come.” She turned
round, beckoning to him, and found herself face to
face with Chesterford. ‘Dear old boy, she said to
him, ‘I’m not going to bore you any more to-night.
I shall bore you enough after we're married. Jack
and I are going away to talk, and he's going to tell
me to be a good girl, and do as his cousin bids me.
Good-night; come again to-morrow morning.’
‘I came here on purpose to congratulate you,' said
Jack, grasping Chesterford's hand, ‘and I wish you
all joy and prosperity.’
‘Come, Jack,” said Dodo. ‘Oh, by the way,
Chesterford, ask Jack to be your best man. You
couldn't have a better, and you haven't got any
brother, you know.’
“I was just going to,' said Chesterford, ‘Jack, you
will be, won't you? You must.’
“Of course I will,’ said Jack. “All the same we're
AXODO. 35
all awfully jealous of you, you know, for carrying
Dodo off.”
“So you ought to be,” said he enthusiastiglly.
“Why, I’m almost jealous of myself. But now go
and talk to Dodo, if she wants you.
The sight of Chesterford with Dodo made Jack
groan in spirit. He had accepted Dodo's rejection
of him as quite final, and he never intended to open
that closed book again. But this was too horrible.
He felt a genuine impulse of pure compassion for
Chesterford, and an irritated disgust for Dodo.
Dodo was an admirable comrade, and, for some,
he thought, an admirable wife. But the idea of
her in comradeship with Chesterford was too absurd,
and if she could never be his comrade, by what
perversity of fate was it that she was going to
become his wife P Jack's Serenity was quite gone,
and he wondered what had become of it. All he
was conscious of was a chafing refusal to acquiesce
just yet, and the anticipation of a somewhat intimate
talk with Dodo. He felt half inclined to run away
from the house, and not see her again, and as he
followed her up to her room, he began to think that
his wisdom had followed his serenity. After all, if
36 DODO.
he asked her again about her resolution to marry
Chesterford, what was he doing but continuing the
conversation they had in the Park that morning, in
which Dodo herself had taken the initiative. ‘These
things are on the knees of the gods, thought Jack to
himself piously, as the door of Dodo's room closed
behind him. Dodo threw herself down in a low arm-
chair with an air of weariness.
“Go on talking to me, Jack, she said. “Interest
me, soothe me, make me angry if you like. Chester-
ford's very nice. Don't you like him immensely P
I do.’
Jack fidgeted, lit a match and blew it out again.
Really it was not his fault that the conversation was
going to be on this subject. He again laid the re-
sponsibility on the knees of the gods. Then he said,
‘Dodo, is this irrevocable P Are you determined
to marry this man P I swear I don't ask you for
any selfish reasons, but only because I am sincerely .
anxious for your happiness and his. It is a con-
founded liberty I am taking, but I sha'n't apologise
for it. I know that it isn't any business of mine,
but I risk your displeasure.’
Dodo was looking at him steadily. Her breath
ZOOZ)O. 37
came rather quickly, and the look of weariness had
left her face.
‘Jack, she said, ‘don't say this sort of thing to me
again. You are quite right, it is a confounded liberty,
as you say, I shall do as I please in this matter.
Ah, Jack, don’t be angry with me,’ she went on as
he shrugged his shoulders, and half turned away. “I
know you are sincere, but I must do it. I want to
be safe. I want to be married. Chesterford is very
safe. Jack, old boy, don't make me quarrel with
you. You are the best friend I have, but I’m sure
you're wrong about this.’
She rose and stood by him, and laid one hand
on his as it lay on the mantelpiece. He did not
answer her. He was disappointed and baffled.
Then she turned away from him, and suddenly
threw up her arms.
‘Oh, my God, she said, ‘I don't know what to
do. It isn't my fault that I am made like this. I
want to know what love is, and I can't—I can’t.
You say I shall make him unhappy, and I don't
want to do that. I don't believe I shall. Jack,
why did you come here suggesting these horrible
things?’
38 700 DO.
There was a great anger in her voice, and she
stood trembling before him. -
Just then the door opened, and a middle-aged lady
walked in. She did not seem at all surprised. No-
body who had known Dodo long was often surprised.
She walked up to Dodo and kissed her.
‘I came late, she said, ‘and your mother said you
were in your room, so I came up to congratulate you
with all my heart.’
‘Thank you very much,' said Dodo, returning the
kiss. “Jack, do you know Mrs Vivian P — Mr
Broxton.’
Mrs Vivian bowed, and Jack bowed, and then
nobody seemed quite to know what to say next.
Mrs Vivian recovered herself first.
“I wish you would show me the necklace Lord
Chesterford has given you,' she said to Dodo. “Mrs
Vane said the diamonds were magnificent.’
“Certainly, I will fetch it,” said Dodo, with unusual
docility. “Don’t go away, Jack.’
Dodo left the room, and Mrs Vivian turned to
Jack. -
‘My dear young man,’ she said, ‘I am old enough
to be your mother, and you mustn't mind what I am
ANODO. 39
going to say. This sort of thing won't do at all. I
know who you are perfectly well, and I warn you
that you are playing with fire. You were at liberty
to do so before Dodo was engaged, and I daresay
you have burned your fingers already. Several
young men have—but now it won’t do. Besides
that, it isn't fair on either Chesterford or Dodo
herself.”
Jack wanted to think ‘what an impertinent old
woman,’ but there was something in her manner
that forbade it.
“I believe you are right, he said simply; “but it
wasn't wholly my fault.”
Then he felt angry with himself for having
shifted any of the blame on to Dodo.
* Hong soit,” said the other ambiguously. “I don't
mean that— Ah, here is Dodo.’
The diamonds were duly shown and admired,
and the three went downstairs again.
Mrs Vivian took her leave shortly. She was
very gracious to Jack, and as they parted she
said,
‘Come and see me at any time; I should like
to talk to you. Here is my address.’
4O DODO.
Jack sought Mrs Vane to inquire who Mrs
Vivian was. Mrs Vane was even more effusive
than usual.
‘Cº. she is quite one of our leading people, she
said. “She has not been in London, or, in fact, in
England for two years. She was unhappily married.
Her husband was a scamp, and after his death she
suddenly left London, and has only just returned.
She is quite an extraordinary woman—everyone
used to rave about her. She never gave herself airs,
but somehow she was more looked up to than
anyone else. Quite royal in fact. I feel immensely
honoured by her presence here. I hardly dared to
ask her—so fascinating, and so clever.’
Dodo came up to Jack before he left.
‘Jack, she said, ‘I was angry with you, and I
am sorry. Don't bear me malice. If Mrs Vivian
had not come in, I should have said something
abominable. I am afraid of her. I don't quite
know why. She always seems to be taking stock
of one, and noticing how very small one is. Don't
forget to-morrow. We're all going on a water-party
at Richmond. Mind you come.’
“I think I had better not,’ said Jack bluntly.
ANODO. 41
Dodo lifted her eyebrows in surprise that may
have been genuine.
‘Why not?’ she asked.
Jack had no reasonable answer to give her.
‘What did Mrs Vivian say to you?’ asked Dodo
suddenly.
Jack paused.
‘A few polite nothings,’ he said ; “and half the
royal motto. Mrs Vane said she was quite royal,
which, of course, explains it.’
‘I can’t conceive what you're talking about,’ re-
marked Dodo. ‘It seems to me to be sheer non-
sense.’
- Jack smiled.
‘On the whole, I think it is sheer nonsense,” he
said. “Yes, I’ll come.’
Dodo swept him the prettiest little curtsey.
‘How good of you,' she said. ‘Good-night, Jack
Don't be cross, it really isn't worth while, and you
can behave so prettily if you like. Oh, such a nice
gentleman l’
‘No, I expect it isn't worth while, said Jack.
C H A P T E R III.
HERE is a particular beauty about the Thames
valley for which you may search for years else-
where, and not find ; a splendid lavishness in the way
that the woods are cast down broadcast along the river,
and a princely extravagance of thick lush hayfields,
that seem determined not to leave a spare inch of
1and between them and the water. The whole scene
has been constructed with a noble disregard of
expense, in the way of water, land and warm wood-
land air. The tall, clean-limbed beech-trees have
room to stretch their great, lazy arms without being
prosecuted for their clumsy trespasses, and the
squirrels that chatter at you from their green houses
seem to have a quite unusual sleekness about them,
and their insolent criticisms to each other about your
walk, and general personal unattractiveness, are in-
spired by a larger share of animal spirits than those
42
ZOOZOO. - 43
Df other squirrels. As you row gently up in the
middle of the stream, you may see a heron standing in
the shallows, too lazy to fish, too supremely confident
to mind the approach of anything so inferior as your-
self, and from the cool shadow of the woods, you may
hear an old cock pheasant talking to himself, and not
troubling to practise a new and original method of
rocketing in June, for he knows that his time is not
yet.
At this time of year, too, you need not trouble to
look round, to see if there are large boats full of noisy
people bearing down on you; like the pheasant, their
time is not yet. But now and then the long strings of
creamy bubbles appearing on the deep, quiet water,
and a sound rich in associations of cool plunges into
frothy streams, warns you that a lock is near. And
above you may see Some small village clustering down
to the river's edge, to drink of its sweet coolness, or a
couple of shaggy-footed cart-horses, looking with mild
wonder at this unexpected method of locomotion,
lifting their dripping noses from the bright gravelly
shallows to stare at you, before they proceed to finish
their evening watering.
Dodo was very fond of the Thames valley, and
44 DODO.
she really enjoyed giving up a day of June in London
to the woods and waters. They were to start quite
early in the morning, Dodo explained, and everyone
was to wear their very oldest clothes, for they were
going to play ducks and drakes, and drink milk in
dairies, and pick buttercups, and get entirely covered
with freckles. Dodo herself never freckled, and she
was conscious of looking rather better for a slight
touch of sun, and it would be very dear of Mrs
Vivian if she would come too, if she didn't mind
being silly all day; and, if so, would she call for them,
as they were on her way. Chesterford, of course, was
going, and Jack, and Maud and her mother; it was
quite a small party; and wasn't Jack a dear?
Mrs Vane had got hold of a certain idea about Mrs
Vivian, distinctly founded on fact. She was one of
those women who cannot help making an impression.
How it is done, or exactly what it is, one would be
puzzled to define, but everyone noticed when she
came into a room, and was aware when she went out.
It was not her personal appearance, for she was short
rather than tall, stout rather than graceful, and cer-
tainly middle-aged rather than young. Dodo has
mentioned the effect she produced on her, and many
AJO/OO. 45
people felt in the same way that Mrs Vivian was
somehow on a higher plane than they, that her mind
was cast in a larger mould. Happily for Our peace
of mind such people are not very common ; most of
our fellow-men are luckily much on the same level,
and they are not more than units among units. But
Mrs Vivian was much more than a unit. Dodo had
said of her that she was two or three at least. And
evidently nothing was further from Mrs Vivian's
wishes than trying to make an impression, in fact, the
very impressive element was rather due to her ex-
treme naturalness. We are most of us so accustomed
to see people behave, and to behave ourselves, in a
manner not quite natural, that to see anyone who
never does so, is in itself calculated to make one
rather nervous.
Mrs Vivian evidently intended to take her life up
again at the point where she had left off, so to
speak—in other words, at the period before her
marriage. Of her husband, perhaps, the less said
the better. He died, owing to an accident, after ten
years of married unhappiness, and left Mrs Vivian
poorer than she had been before. After his death
she had travelled abroad for two years, and then
46 PODO.
returned to England to live with her sister, who
had married a rich judge and kept house rather
magnificently in Prince's Gate. Mrs Fuller had
always disapproved of her sister's marriage, and she
was heartily glad to see her well quit of her hus-
band, and, on her return to England, received her
with open arms, and begged her, on behalf of her
husband and herself, to make their home hers. Mrs
Vivian accordingly settled down in the “extremely
commodious’ house in Prince's Gate, and, as I said,
took up her life where it had left off. A standing
grievance that her husband had had with her was,
that she interested herself in the poor, and in the
East End slums, that she went to cabmen's shelters,
and espoused the cause of overdriven factory girls.
He had told her that it was meddling with other
people's business; that nothing was so objectionable
as an assumption of charitable airs; that a woman
who went to balls and dinner-parties was a hypocrite
if she pretended to care about the state of the poor,
and that she only did it because she wished to ap-
pear unlike other people. But he altogether failed
to perceive that her actions were entirely uninfluenced
by the impression they were to make, and mistook
DODO. 47
her extreme naturalness for the subtlest affectation.
However, Mrs Vivian resolutely banished from her
mind the remembrance of those ten years, and
being unable to think of her husband with tender-
ness or affection, she preferred to forget her married
life altogether. The Vanes had been their neigh-
bours in the country for many years, and she had
known Dodo since she was a child. Dodo had
once asked to accompany her in her visits to the
East End, and had been immensely struck by what
she saw, and determined to be charitable too. This
sort of thing seemed extremely chic to Dodo's
observant mind. So she took up a factory of
miserable match-girls, and asked them all to tea,
and got Mrs Vivian to promise her help ; but when
the afternoon came, Dodo particularly wished to
go to a morning concert, and on Mrs Vivian's
arrival she found, indeed, plenty of match-girls, but
no Dodo. Dodo came back later and made herself
extremely fascinating. She kissed the cleanest of
the girls, and patted the rest on the shoulder, and
sang several delightful little French songs to them
to her own accompaniment on the banjo, and
thanked Mrs Vivian for being ‘such a dear about
48 DODo.
the slums’ But on the next occasion when she
had nothing to do, and called on Mrs Vivian
to ask to be taken to another of those ‘darling
little slums,' Mrs Vivian hinted that, though she
would be charmed to take her, she thought
that Dodo had perhaps forgotten that the Four-
in-hand Club met that day in Hyde Park. Dodo
liad forgotten it, and, as she had bespoken the
box seat on one of her friends’ coaches, she
hurried home again, feeling it freshly borne in
upon her that Mrs Vivian thought she was very
contemptible indeed. - ~.
Altogether Mrs Vivian knew Dodo well, and when
she went home that evening, she thought a good deal
about the approaching marriage. She was glad to
have had that occasion of speaking to Jack, he seemed
to her to be worth doing it for. She knew that she
ran the risk of being told, in chillingly polite English,
that she was stepping outside her province, and that
Jack did not belong to the East End class who
welcomed any charitable hand; but she had a remark-
ably keen eye, and her intuitive perception told her
at once that Jack's sense of the justice of her remark
would stifle any feeling he might have that she was
I)ODO. 49
officious and meddlesome, and the event had justified
her decision.
In the course of the next few days she met Jack
several times. They both went to the water-party
Dodo spoke of, and she took the opportunity to
cultivate his acquaintance.
They were sitting on the bank of the river below
the Cliveden woods, a little apart from the others,
and she felt that as he had behaved so well, she
owed him some apology.
‘It was very nice of you, Mr Broxton, she said, ‘to
be so polite to me last night. To tell you the truth, I
did know you, though you didn't know me. I was
an old friend of your mother's, but I hadn't time to
explain that, and you were good enough to take me
without explanations. I always wonder what our
attitude towards old friends of our mothers ought to
be. I really don't see why they should have any
claim upon one.’
Jack laughed.
‘The fact was that I knew you were right as
soon as you spoke to me, though I wanted to
resent it. I had been putting it differently to myself;
that was why I spoke to Dodo.’
D
5O DODO.
“Tell me more, she said. “From the momen-
tary glance I had of you and her, I thought you
had been remonstrating with her, and she had been
objecting. I don't blame you for remonstrating in
the general way. Dodo's conduct used not to be
always blameless. But it looked private, and that
was what I did object to. I daresay you think
me a tiresome, impertinent, old woman.’
Jack felt more strongly than ever that this woman
could not help being well-bred in whatever she did.
‘It sounds disloyal to one's friends, I know, he said,
“but it was because I really did care for both of them
that I acted as I did. What will happen will be that
he will continue to adore her, and by degrees she will
begin to hate him. He will not commit suicide, and
I don’t think Dodo will make a scandal. Her regard
for appearances alone would prevent that. It would
pe a confession of failure.”
Mrs Vivian looked grave.
‘Did you tell Dodo this?’
More or less, he replied. ‘Except about the
scandal and the Suicide.’
Mrs Vivian's large, grey, serious eyes twinkled with
some slight amusement.
f ANO/OO. 5 I
I think while I was about it I should have told her
that too, she said; “that's the sort of argument that
appeals to Dodo. You have to scream if you want
her to listen to what she doesn’t want to hear. But I
don’t think it was quite well judged of you, you
know.’
“I think she ought to know it,” said Jack, ‘though I
realise I ought to have been the last person to tell
her, for several reasons.”
Mrs Vivian looked at him inquiringly.
“You mean for fear of her putting a wrong construc-
cion on it? I see, she said.
Jack felt it could not have been more delicately
done.
‘How did you know?’ he asked.
* Oh, she said, ‘that is the kind of intuition which
is the only consolation we women have for getting
old. We are put on the shelf, no doubt, after a certain
age, but we get a habit of squinting down into the
room below. That is the second time I have shown
myself a meddling old woman, and you have treated
me very nicely both times. Let us join the others.
I see tea is ready.’
Dodo meanwhile had walked Chesterford off
52 AXODO.
among the green, cool woods that bordered the
river. She had given Jack's remarks a good deal
of consideration, and, whether or no she felt that
he was justified in them on present data, she de-
termined that she would make the event falsify his
predictions. Dodo had an unlimited capacity for
interfering in the course of destiny. She devoted
herself to her aims, whatever they might be, with a
wonderful singleness of purpose, and since it is a
fact that one usually gets what one wants in this
world, if one tries hard enough, it followed that up
to this time she had, on the whole, usually got her
way. But she was now dealing with an unknown
quantity, which she could not gauge. She had
confessed to Jack her inability to understand what
love meant, and it was with a certain sense of mis-
giving that she felt that her answers for the future
would be expressed in terms of that unknown
quantity ‘x.' To Dodo's concrete mind this was
somewhat discouraging, but she determined to do
her best to reduce things to an equation in which
the value of ‘x’ could be found in terms of some
of those many symbols which she did know.
Dodo had an inexhaustible fund of vivacity, which
PODO. 53
was a very useful instrument to her; like a watch-
key that fits all watches, she was able to apply it
as required to very different pieces of mechanism.
When she wished to do honour to a melancholy
occasion, for instance, her vivacity turned any slight
feeling of sorrow she had into hysterical weeping;
when the occasion was joyful, it became a torrent
of delightful nonsense. To-day the occasion was
distinctly joyful. She had a large sense of success.
Chesterford was really a very desirable lover; his
immense wealth answered exactly the requirements
of Dodo's wishes. Furthermore, he was safe and
easily satisfied; the day was charming; Jack was
there ; she had had a very good lunch, and was
shortly going to have a very good tea; and Chester-
ford had given orders for his yacht to be in readi-
ness to take them off for a delightful honeymoon,
directly after their marriage—in short, all her cir-
cumstances were wholly satisfactory. She had
said to him after lunch, as they were sitting on
the grass, ‘Come away into those delicious woods,
and leave these stupid people here, and he was
radiant in consequence, for, to tell the truth, she
had been rather indulgent of his company than
54 DODO.
eager for it the last day or two. She was in the
highest spirits as they strolled away.
“Oh do give me a cigarette, she said, as soon
as they had got out of sight. “I didn't dare
smoke with that Vivian woman there. Chester-
ford, I am frightened of her. She is as bad as the
Inquisition, or that odious man in Browning who
used to walk about, and tell the king if anything
happened. I am sure she puts it down in a book
whenever I say anything I shouldn't. You know
that's so tantalising. It is a sort of challenge to
be improper. Chesterford, if you put down in a
book anything I do wrong, I swear I shall go to
the bad altogether.’
To Chesterford this seemed the most attractive
nonsense that ever flowed from female lips.
“Why, you can't do anything wrong, Dodo, he
said simply ; “at least not what I think wrong.
And what does it matter what other people
think?’
Dodo patted his hand, and blew him a kiss
approvingly.
‘That’s quite right, she said ; “bear that in
mind and we shall never have a quarrel. Chester-
ANO DO. 55
ford, we won't quarrel at all, will we ? Everybody
else does, I suppose, now and then, and that proves
it's vulgar. Mrs Vivian used to quarrel with her
husband, so she's vulgar. Oh, I’m so gººd she's
vulgar. I sha'n't care how much she looks at me
now. Bother | I believe it was only her husband
who used to swear at her. Never mind, he must
have been vulgar to do that, and she must have
vulgar tastes to have married a vulgar person. I
don’t think I’m vulgar, do you? Really, it's a
tremendous relief to have found out that she's
vulgar. But I am afraid I shall forget it when I
see her again. You must remind me. You must
point at her and say V, if you can manage it. Or
are you afraid of her too?’
* Oh, never mind Mrs Vivian,’ said he, “she can
wait.’
‘That's what she's always doing,' said Dodo. “Wait-
ing and watching with large serious eyes. I can't
think why she does it, for she doesn’t make use of it
afterwards. Now when I know something discredit-
able of a person, if I dislike him, I tell everybody
else, and if I like him, I tell him that I know all
about it, and I am so sorry for him. Then he thinks
56 DODO.
you are charming and sympathetic, and you have a
devoted admirer for life.’
Chesterford laughed. He had no desire to in-
terrupt this rapid monologue of Dodo's. He was
quite content to play the part of the Greek
chorus.
“I’m going to sit down here, continued Dodo.
“Do you mind my smoking cigarettes ? I’m not
sure that it is in good form, but I mean to make 1t
so. I want to be the fashion. Would you like your
wife to be the fashion P’
He bent over her as she sat with her head back,
Smiling up at him.
‘My darling, he said, ‘do you know, I really don't
care a straw whether you are the fashion or not, as
long as you are satisfied. You might stand on your
head in Piccadilly if you liked, and I would come and
stand too. All I care about is that you are you, and
that you have made me the happiest man on God's
earth.”
Dodo was conscious again of the presence of this
unknown quantity. She would much prefer striking
it out altogether; it seemed to have quite an un-
reasonable preponderance.
DODO. 57
Chesterford did not usually make jokes, in fact she
had never heard him make one before, and his remark
about standing on his head, seemed to be only ac-
counted for by this perplexing factor. Dodo had
read about love in poems and novels, and had seen
something of it, too, but it remained a puzzle to her.
She hoped her calculations might not prove distress-
ingly incorrect owing to this inconvenient factor.
But she laughed with her habitual sincerity, and
replied,
‘What a good idea; let's do it to-morrow morning.
Will ten suit you? We can let windows in all the
houses round. I’m sure there would be a crowd to
see us. It really would be interesting, though per-
haps not a very practical thing to do. I wonder if
Mrs Vivian would come. She would put down a
very large bad mark to me for that, but I shall tell
her it was your suggestion.’
Chesterford laughed with pure pleasure.
‘Dodo, he said, ‘you are not fair on Mrs Vivian.
She is a very good woman.’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt that,’ said Dodo, “but you see
being good doesn't necessarily make one a pleasant
companion. Now, I’m not a bit good, but you must
58 AXO/OO.
confess you would rather talk to me than to the
Vivian.’
‘Oh, you are different,” said he rapturously. “You
are Dodo.’
Dodo smiled contentedly—this man was so easy to
please. She had felt some slight dismay at Jack's
ill-omened prophecies, but Jack was preposterously
wrong about this.
They rejoined the others in course of time. Dodo
made fearful ravages on the eatables, and after tea
she suddenly announced,
‘Mrs Vivian, I’m going to smoke a cigarette. Do
you feel dreadfully shocked P’
Mrs Vivian laughed.
‘My dear Dodo, I should never venture to be
shocked at anything you did. You are so complete
that I should be afraid to spoil you utterly, if I tried
to suggest corrections.”
Dodo lit a cigarette with a slightly defiant air.
Mrs Vivian's manner had been entirely sincere, but
she felt the same sort of resentment that a prisoner
might feel if the executioner made sarcastic remarks
to him. She looked on Mrs Vivian as a sort of walk-
ing Inquisition.
ZOODO. 59
‘My darling Dodo, murmured Mrs Vane, ‘I do
so wish you would not smoke, it will ruin your teeth
entirely.’
Dodo turned to Mrs Vivian.
‘That means you think it would be very easy to
spoil me, as you call it.’
“Not at all,” said that lady. “I don't understand
you, that's all, and I might be pulling out the key-
stone of the arch unawares. Not that I suppose your
character depends upon your smoking.’
Dodo leaned back and laughed.
‘Oh, this is too dreadfully subtle, she exclaimed,
“I want to unbend my mind. Chesterford, come and
talk to me, you are deliciously unbending.”
C H A P T E R IV.
ORD and Lady Chesterford were expected home
on the 6th of December. The marriage took
place late in August, and they had gone off on the
yacht directly afterwards, in order to spend a few
warm months in the Mediterranean. Dodo had written
home occasionally to Mrs Vane, and now and then to
Jack. To Jack her letters had never been more than
a word or two, simply saying that they were enjoying
themselves enormously, and that Jack had been hope-
lessly wrong. Mrs Vane also had much reason to be
satisfied. She had spent her autumn in a variety of
fashionable watering-places, where her dresses had
always been the awe and wonder of the town; she
had met many acquaintances, to whom she had
poured out her rapture over Dodo's marriage; had
declared that Chesterford was most charming, and
that he and Dodo were quite another Adam and Eve
6o
ZOOZ)O. 61
in Paradise, and that she was really quite jealous of
Dodo. When they left England, they had intended
to spend the winter abroad and not come back till
February, but early in December a telegram had
arrived at Winston, Lord Chesterford's country
house, saying that they would be back in ten days.
About the same time Jack received a letter, saying
that their change of plans was solely owing to the
fact that Dodo was rather tired of the sea, and the
weather was bad, and that she had never been so
happy in her life. Dodo's eagerness to assure Jack
of this struck him as being in rather bad taste. She
ought to have entirely ignored his warnings. The
happiness of a newly-married woman ought to be so
absorbing, as to make her be unaware of the exist-
ence of other people ; and this consciousness in
Dodo of her triumphant superiority of knowledge,
led him to suppose he was right rather than wrong.
He was unfeignedly sorry not to be sure that she
had been right. When he told Dodo that he wished
to be jealous of Chesterford, he was quite sincere.
Since he could not have Dodo himself, at any rate
let her make someone happy. Dodo also informed
him that they were going to have a house-party that
62 ANO DO.
Christmas and that he must come, and she had
asked Mrs Vivian, to show that she wasn't afraid of
her any longer, and that Maud was coming, and she
wished Jack would marry her. Then followed a
dozen other names belonging to Dodo's private and
particular set, who had all been rather disgusted at
her marrying what they chose to call a Philistine.
It had been quite hoped that she would marry Jäck.
Jack was not a Philistine at all, though the fact of
his having proposed to her remained a secret.
Maud, on the other hand, was a Philistine; and it
was one of Dodo's merits that she did not drop
those who originally had claims on her, when she
became the fashion. She was constantly trying to
bring Maud into notice, but Maud resisted the
most well-meant shoves. She had none of Dodo's
vivacity and talents; in fact, her talents lay chiefly in
the direction of arranging the places at a dinner-
party, and in doing a great deal of unnecessary
worsted work. What happened to her worsted work
nobody ever knew. It was chiefly remarkable for
its predominance of dropped stitches, and a sugges-
tion of damaged goods about it, in consequence of
much handling. To Dodo it seemed an incredible
Z)ODO. - 63
stupidity that anyone should do worsted work, or,
if they did do it, not do it well. She used to tell
Maud that it was done much more cheaply in shops,
and much better. Then Maud would drop it for
a time, and take to playing the piano, but that was
even more oppressively stupid to Dodo's mind than
the worsted work. Maud had a perfect genius for
not letting her right hand know what her left hand
was doing, a principle which was abhorrent to Dodo
in every application. The consequence of all this
was that Dodo was apt to regard her sister as
a failure, though she still, as in the present instance,
liked giving Maud what she considered a helping
hand. It must be confessed that Dodo's efforts
were not altogether unselfish. She liked her en-
vironment to be as great a success as herself, as it
thus added to her own completeness, just as a
picture looks better in a good frame than in a
shabby one. Maud, however, had no desire to be
a success. She was perfectly happy to sit in the
background and do the worsted work. She longed
to be let alone. At times she would make her escape
to the iron works and try to cultivate the domestic
virtues in attending to her father. She thought
64 DODO.
with a kind of envy of the daughters of country
clergymen, whose mediocre piano-playing was in-
valuable to penny readings and village concerts,
and for whose worsted work there was a constant
demand, in view of old women and alms-houses.
She had hoped that Dodo's slumming experiences
would bring her into connection with this side of
life, and had dispensed tea and buns with a kind
of rapture on the occasion of Dodo's tea-party, but
her sister had dropped her slums, as we have seen, at
this point, and Maud was too shy and uninitiative to
take them up alone. She had an excellent heart,
but excellent hearts were Out of place in Mrs Vane's
establishment. Dodo had confessed her inability to
deal with them.
Dodo's general invitation to Jack was speedily
followed by a special one from Winston, naming the
first week in January as the time of the party. Jack
was met on his arrival by Chesterford, and as they
drove back the latter gave him particulars about
the party in the house.
‘They are chiefly Dodo's friends,’ he said. “Do
you know, Jack, except for you, I think I am rather
afraid of Dodo's friends, they are so dreadfully clever,
ZDO/OO. 65
you know. Of course they are all very charming,
but they talk about character. Now I don't care to
talk about character. I know a good man when I
see him, and that's all that matters as far as I can
judge. Dodo was saying last night that her potenti-
ality for good was really much stronger than her
potentiality for evil, and that her potentiality for evil
was only skin deep, and they all laughed, and said
they didn't believe it. And Dodo said, “Ask Ches-
terford if it isn't,” and God only knows what I said.’
Jack laughed.
“Poor old fellow, he said, ‘you and I will go to the
smoking-room, and talk about nothing at all subtle.
I don’t like subtleties either.’
“Ah, but they expect great things of you,' said
Chesterford ruefully. “Dodo was saying you were
an apostle. Are you an apostle, Jack P’
‘Oh, that's only a nickname of Dodo's,’ he said,
smiling. “But who are these dreadfully clever
people?”
‘Oh, there's Ledgers, you know him, I suppose, and
a Miss Edith Staines, and a girl whom I don’t know,
called Miss Grantham, whom Ledgers said, when she
was out of the room last night, that he had “discovered.”
E
66 ANO DO.
What he meant Heaven knows. Then there's Maud,
who is a nice girl. She went round to the keeper's
with me this afternoon, and played with the baby.
Then there's Bertie Arbuthnot, and I think that's all.’
Jack laughed.
‘I don't think we need mind them, he said.
‘We’ll form a square to resist cavalry.”
“Bertie's the best of the lot,” said Chesterford, ‘and
they laugh at him rather, I think. But he is quite
unconscious of it.’
They drove on in silence a little way. Then
Chesterford said,
‘Jack, Dodo makes me the happiest of men. I
am afraid sometimes that she is too clever, and
wishes I was more so, but it makes no differ-
ence. Last night, as I was in the smoking-room
she sent to say she wanted to see me, and I
went up. She said that she wanted to talk to me,
now she had got rid of all those tiresome people, and
said so many charming things that I got quite con-
ceited, and had to stop her. I often wonder, Jack,
what I have done to deserve her. And she went on
talking about our yachting, and those months in
London when we were first engaged, and she told
ANODO. 67
me to go on smoking, and she would have a cigar-
ette too. And we sat on talking, till I saw she was
tired, and then I went away, though she would
hardly let me.’
This communication had only the effect of making
Jack rather uncomfortable. Knowing what he did,
he knew that this was not all genuine on Dodo's part.
It was obviously an effort to keep it up, to use a
vulgar term. And since it was not all genuine, the
doubt occurred as to whether any of it was. Jack
had a profound belief in Dodo's dramatic talents.
That the need for keeping it up had appeared
already was an alarming symptom, but the real
tragedy would begin on that day when Dodo
first failed to do so. And from that moment Jack
regarded his prophecy as certain to be fulfilled.
The overture had begun, and in course of time
the curtain would rise on a grim performance.
They drove up to the door, and entered the
large oak-panelled hall, hung all round with por-
traits of the family. The night was cold, and
there was a fire Sparkling in the wide, open grate.
As they entered, an old collie, who was enjoying
the fruits of a well-spent life on the hearthrug
\
68 PODO.
stretched his great, tawny limbs, and shoved a
welcoming nose into Chesterford's hand. This
produced heart-burnings of the keenest order in
the mind of a small fox-terrier pup, who con-
sisted mainly of head and legs, which latter he
evidently considered at present more as a pre-
ventive towards walking, than an aid. Being un-
able to reach his hand the puppy contented himself
with sprawling over his boots and making vague
snaps at the collie. It was characteristic of
Chesterford that all animals liked him. He had
a tender regard for the feelings of anything that
was dependent on him. Dodo thought this almost
inexplicable. She disliked to see animals in pain,
because they usually howled, but the dumb anguish
of a dog who considers himself neglected, conveyed
nothing to her. From within a door to the right,
came sounds of talking and laughter.
There was something pathetic in the sight of this
beautiful home, and its owner standing with his
loack to the fire, as Jack divested himself of his coat.
Chesterford was so completely happy, so terribly
unconscious of what Jack felt sure was going on. -
He looked the model of the typical English gentle-
ANODO. 69
man, with his tall stature and well-bred face.
Jack remembered passing on the road a labourer
who was turning into his cottage. The firelight
had thrown a bright ray across the snow-covered
road, and inside he had caught a momentary
glimpse of the wife with a baby in her arms,
and a couple of girls laying the table-cloth. He
remembered afresh Dodo's remark about waiting
until the chimney smoked, and devoutly hoped
that the chimney of this well-appointed house was
in good order.
Chesterford led the way to the drawing - room
door, and pushed it open for Jack to enter. Dodo
was sitting at the tea-table, talking to some half-
dozen people who were grouped round her.
As Jack entered, she rose and came towards him
with a smile of welcome.
“Ah, Jack, she said, ‘this is delightful; I am
tremendously glad to see you ! Let's see, whom do
you know? May I introduce you to Miss Grantham P
Mr Broxton. I think you know everybody else.
Chesterford, come here and sit by me at once.
You've been an age away. I expect you've been
getting into mischief.” She wheeled a chair up for
7o AXODO.
him, and planted him down in it. He looked radi-
antly happy.
‘Now, Jack, she went on, “tell us what you've been
doing all these months. It's years since we saw you.
I think you look all right. No signs of breaking
down yet. I hoped you would have gone into a rapid
consumption, because I was married, but it doesn't
seem to have made any difference to anybody except
Chesterford and me. Jack, don't you think I shall
make an excellent matron P I shall get Maud to
teach me some of her crochet-stitches. Have you
ever been here before ? Chesterford, you shut it up,
didn't you, for several years, until you thought of
bringing me here P Sugar, Jack P. Two lumps P
Chesterford, you mustn't eat sugar, you're getting
quite fat already, You must obey me, you
know. You promised to love, honour and obey.
Oh, no; I did that. However, sugar is bad for
you.’
‘Dodo keeps a tight hand on me you see,' said
Chesterford, from the depths of his chair. “Dodo,
give me the Sugar, or we shall quarrel.”
Dodo laughed charmingly.
‘He would quarrel with his own wife for a lump of
ZOODO. 71
sugar,’ said Dodo dramatically; “but she won't quarrel
with him. Take it then l’
She glanced at Jack for a moment as she said this,
but Jack was talking to Miss Grantham, and either
did not see, or did not seem to. Jack had a pleasant
impression of light hair, dark grey eyes and a very
fair complexion. But somehow it produced no more
effect on him, than do those classical profiles which
are commoner on the lids of chocolate boxes than
elsewhere. Her ‘discoverer’ was sitting in a chair
next her, talking to her with something of the air of
a showman exhibiting the tricks of his performing
bear. His manner seemed to say, ‘See what an intel-
ligent animal.’ The full sublimity of Lord Ledgers'
remark had not struck him till that moment.
Miss Grantham was delivering herself of a variety
of opinions in a high, penetrating voice.
‘Oh, did you never hear him sing last year?’ she
was saying to Lord Ledgers. “Mr Broxton, you
must have heard him. He has the most lovely voice.
He simply sings into your inside. You feel as if
someone had got hold of your heart, and was stroking
it. Don't you know how some Sounds produce that
effect? I went with Dodo once. She simply wept
72 AMO DO.
floods, but I was too far gone for that. He had put
a little stopper on my tear-bottle, and though I was
dying to cry, I couldn't.'
‘I always wonder how sorry we are when we cry,'
said Lord Ledgers in a smooth, low voice. “It
always strikes me that the people who don't cry
probably feel most.’
‘Oh, you are a horrid, unfeeling monster, remarked
Miss Grantham ; ‘ that's what comes of being a man.
Just because you are not in the habit of crying your-
self, you think that you have all the emotions, but
stoically repress them. Now I cultivate emotions.
I would walk ten miles any day in order to have an
emotion. Wouldn't you, Mr Broxton P’
“It obviously depends on what sort of emotion I
should find when I walked there,” said Jack. “There
are some emotions that I would walk further to avoid.’
‘Oh, of course, the common emotions, “the litany
things,” as Dodo calls them,' said Miss Grantham,
dismissing them lightly with a wave of her hand.
“But what I like is a nice, little, sad emotion that
makes you feel so melancholy you don't know what
to do with yourself. I don't mean deaths and that
sort of thing, but seeing someone you love being
ANO/OO. 73
dreadfully unhappy and extremely prosperous at the
same time.”
“But it's rather expensive for the people you love,’
said Jack.
‘Oh, we must all make sacrifices,’ said Miss
Grantham. “It’s quite worth while if you gratify your
friends. I would not mind being acutely unhappy,
if I could dissect my own emotions and have them
photographed and sent round to my friends.’
‘What a charming album we might all make,” said
Lord Ledgers. ‘Page I. Miss Grantham's heart in
the acute stage. Page 2. Mortification setting in.
Page 3. The lachrymatory gland permanently closed
by a tenor voice.’
“Poor old Chesterford,’ thought Jack, ‘this is rather
hard on him.’
But Chesterford was not to be pitied just now.
Dodo was devoting her exclusive conversation to him
in defiance of her duties as hostess. She was re-
counting to him how she had spent every moment of
his absence at the station. Certainly she was keep-
ing it up magnificently at present.
‘And Mrs Vivian comes to-morrow, she was just
saying, ‘You like her, don't you, Chesterford P You
74 PODO.
must be awfully good to her, and take her to see all
the drunken idlers in the village. That will be dear
of you. It's just what she likes. She has a sort of
passion for drunken cabmen, who stamp on their
wives. If you stamped on me a little every evening,
she would cultivate you to any extent. Shall I lie
down on the floor for you to begin?’
Chesterford leant back in his chair in a kind of
ecstasy.
“Ah, Dodo, he said, ‘you are wonderfully good to
me. But I must go and write two notes before
dinner; and you must amuse your guests. I am very
glad Jack has come. He is a very good chap. But
don’t make him an apostle.’
Dodo laughed.
“I shall make a little golden hoop for him
like the apostles in the Arundels, and another
for you, and when nobody else is there, you can
take them off, and play hoops with them. I ex-
pect the apostles did that when they went for
a walk. You couldn't wear it round a hat,
could you?”
Miss Grantham instantly annexed Dodo.
‘Dodo, she said, ‘come and take my part.
ZJO/OO. 75
These gentlemen say that you shouldn't cultivate
emotions.”
‘No, not that quite,’ corrected Jack. “I said
it was expensive for your friends if they had to
make themselves miserable, in order to afford
food for your emotions.”
‘Now, isn't that selfish?” said Miss Grantham,
with the air of a martyr at the stake. ‘Here
am I ready to be drawn and quartered for any-
one's amusement, and you tell me you are sorry
for your part, but that it costs too much. Maud,
come off that sofa, and take up the daggers for a
too unselfish woman.’
'I expect I don't know much about these things,’
said Maud.
“No ; Maud would not go further than wrapping
herself in a winding-sheet of blue worsted, remarked
Dodo incisively.
Maud flushed a little.
‘Oh, Dodo !' she exclaimed deprecatingly.
‘It’s no use hitting Maud,” said Dodo pensively.
‘You might as well hit a feather bed. Now, if
you hit Jack, he will hit back.’
‘Well, I'd prefer you hit me,’ said Jack, ‘than
76 PODO.
that you should hit anyone who can't hit
back.’
‘Can't you see that I have determined not to
hit feather beds,’ said Dodo in a low tone. “Really,
Jack, you do me an injustice.”
Jack looked up at her quickly.
“Do you say that already ?’ he asked.
‘Oh, if you are going to whisper, I shall whisper
too,”
remarked Miss Grantham calmly. ‘Lord
Ledgers, I want to tell you a secret.’
“I was only telling Jack he was stupid,” said
Dodo. “I thought I would spare him before you
all, but I see I have to explain. Have you seen
Bertie yet, Jack? He's in the smoking-room, I
think. Edith Staines is probably there too. She
always smokes after tea, and Chesterford doesn't
like it in the drawing-room. You know her, don't
you? She's writing a symphony or something, and
she's no use except at meal-times. I expect she
will play it us afterwards. We must make Bertie
sing too. There's the dressing-bell. I’m going
to be gorgeous to-night in honour of you, Jack.’
Jack found himself making a quantity of reflec-
tions, when he retired to his room that night. He
ZDO DO. 77
became aware that he had enjoyed himself more
that evening, than he had done for a very long
time. He questioned himself as to when he had
enjoyed himself so much, and he was distinctly
perturbed to find that the answer was, when he
had last spent an evening with Dodo. He had
formed an excellent habit of being exactingly
honest with himself, and he concluded that Dodo's
presence had been the cause of it. It was a
very unpleasant blow to him. He had accepted
her refusal with an honest determination to get
over it. He had not moped, nor pined, nor
striven, nor cried. He had no intentions of dying
of a broken heart, but the stubborn fact remained
that Dodo exercised an unpleasantly strong influ-
ence over him. He could have repeated without
effort all she had said that night. She had not
said anything particularly remarkable, but somehow
he felt that the most striking utterances of other
men and women would have not produced any
such effect on him. It really was very inconvenient.
Dodo had married a man who adored her, for
whom she did not care two pins' heads, and this
man was one of his oldest friends. Decidedly
78 AXODO.
there was something left-handed about this particu-
lar disposition of destiny. And the worst of it was
that Chesterford was being hopelessly duped. About
that he felt no doubt. Dodo's acting was so remark-
ably life-like, that he mistook it at present for reality.
But the play must end sometime, and the sequel
was too dark and involved to be lightly followed
out. He could not conceive why this elaborate
drama on Dodo's part did not disgust him more.
He wished he had been deceived by it himself, but
having been behind the scenes, he had seen Dodo,
as it were, in the green-room, putting on the rouge
and powder. But failing that, he wished that a
wholesome impulse of disgust and contempt had
superseded his previous feelings with regard to
her. But he believed with her that under the
circumstances it was the best thing to do. The
marriage was a grand mistake, true, but given that,
was not this simply so many weeks of unhappiness
saved P Then he had an immense pity for Dodo's
original mistake. She had told him once that she was
no more responsible for her philosophy than for the fact
that she happened to be five foot eight in height, and
had black eyes and black hair. ‘It was Nature's doing,'
AO/OO. 79
she had said ; ‘go and quarrel with her, but don't
blame me. If I had made myself, I should have
given myself a high ideal; I should have had some-
thing to live up to. Now, I have no ideal. The
whole system of things seems to me such an im-
mense puzzle, that I have given up trying to find a
solution I know what I like, and what I dislike.
Can you blame me for choosing the one, and avoiding
the other ? I like wealth and success, and society
and admiration. In a degree I have secured them,
and the more I secure them the more reason I
have to be satisfied. To do otherwise would be
like putting on boots that were too large for me
—they are excellent for other people, but not
for me. I cannot accept ideals that I don't feel.
I can understand them, and I can sympathise with
them, and I can and do wish they were mine;
but, as Nature has denied me them, I must make
the best of what I have.”
Jack felt hopeless against this kind of reasoning,
and angry with himself for letting this woman
have such dominion over him. In a measure he
felt himself capable of views bounded by a horizon
not so selfishly fatalistic, and the idea of the
8o AMO DO.
smoking chimney in the cottage did not seem to
matter, provided that Dodo was sitting on the
other side of the hearthrug. He would willingly
have sacrificed anything else, to allow himself to
give full reins to his thought on this point. But
the grand barrier which stood between him and
Dodo, was not so much her refusal of him, but
the existence of her husband. At this Jack pulled
himself up sharp. There are certain feelings of
loyalty, that still rank above all other emotions.
Miss Grantham would certainly have classed such
among the litany things. There was nothing
heroic about it. It simply consisted in a sturdy
refusal to transgress, even in vaguest thought, a code
which deals with the most ordinary and common-
place virtues and vices. There is nothing heroic
in a street boy passing by the baker's cart with-
out a grab at the loaves, and it sounds almost
puritanical to forbid him to cast a glance at them,
or inhale a sniff of their warm fragrance. “Certainly
this side of morality is remarkably dull,' thought
Jack; and the worst of it is, that it is not only
dull but difficult. With practice most of us could
become a Simeon Stylites, provided we are gifted
IXO/OO. 81
with a steady head, and a constitution that defies
showers. It is these commonplace acts of loyalty,
the ordinary and rational demands of friendship
and society, that are so dreadfully taxing to most
of us who have the misfortune not to be born
saints. Then Jack began to feel ill-used. “Why
the deuce should Chesterford be born a marquis
and not I? What has he done to have a title
and a fortune and Dodo that I have been given
the chance to do?’ It struck him that his re-
flections were deplorably commonplace, and that
his position ought to be made much more of
He wondered whether this sort of situation was
always so flat. In novels there is always a touch
of the heroic in the faithful friend who is loyal to
his cousin, and steadily avoids his cousin's wife;
but here he was in identically the same situation,
feeling not at all heroic, but only discontented
and quarrelsome with this ill- managed world.
Decidedly he would go to bed.
Owing to a certain habit that he had formed
early in life he slept soundly, and morning found
him not only alive, but remarkably well and hearty,
and with a certain eagerness to follow up what
F
82 JDODO.
he had thought out on the previous night. He
was in an excellently-managed household, which
imposed no rules on its inhabitants except that
they should do what they felt most inclined to
do; he was in congenial company, and his digestion
was good. It is distressing how important those
material matters are to us. The deeper emotions
do but form a kind of background to our coarser
needs. We come down in the morning feeling
rather miserable, but we eat an excellent break-
fast and, in spite of ourselves, we are obliged to
confess that we feel distinctly better.
As Jack crossed the hall, he met a footman
carrying a breakfast-tray into the drawing-room.
The door was half open, and there came from
within the Sounds of vigorous piano-playing, and
now and then a bar or two of music sung in a
rich, alto voice. These tokens seemed to indicate
that Miss Edith Staines was taking her breakfast
at the piano. Jack found himself Smiling at the
thought; it was a great treat to find anyone so
uniformly in character as Miss Staines evidently
was. He turned into the dining - room, where he
found Miss Grantham sitting at the table alone.
AMODO. 83
Dodo was lolling in a great chair by the fire, and
there were signs that Lord Chesterford had already
breakfasted. Dodo was nursing a little Persian
kitten with immense tenderness. Apparently she
had been disagreeing with Miss Grantham on some
point, and had made the kitten into a sort of
arbitrator.
‘Oh, you dear kitten,' she was saying, ‘you must
agree with me, if you think it over. Now, Sup-
posing you were very fond of a tom-cat that had
only the woodshed to lie in, and another very
presentable tom belonging to the Queen came—
Ah, Jack, here you are. Chesterford's breakfasted,
and there's going to be a shoot to-day over the
home covers. Edith is composing and breakfast-
ing. She says she has an idea. So Grantie and
I are going to bring you lunch to the keeper's
cottage at half-past one.’
‘And Bertie P’ asked Jack.
‘Oh, you must get Edith to tell you what
Bertie's going to do. Perhaps she'll want him to
turn over the pages for her, or give her spoonfuls
of egg and bacon, while she does her music. He's
in the drawing-room now. Edith's appropriated
84 AXO/OO.
him. She usually does appropriate somebody. We
told Chesterford to get Bertie to come if possible,
but Edith's leave is necessary. Maud is going to
meet Mrs Vivian, who comes this afternoon, and,
as she has some shopping to do, she will lunch
in Harchester, and drive out afterwards; Ledgers
has had a telegram, and has made a blasphemous
departure for town. He comes back this evening.’
‘Well, Dodo, remarked Miss Grantham, ‘now
let's go on with what we were discussing. Mr
Broxton will make a much better umpire than that
kitten.’
‘Oh, shut up, Grantie,’ said Dodo, with fine
candour, “Jack agrees with neither of us.”
“Tell me what it is,” said Jack, ‘and then I'll
promise to agree with somebody.' .
‘I don't care about your agreeing with me,’ said
Miss Grantham. “I know I’m right, so it doesn't
signify what anybody else thinks.’
Miss Grantham, it may be noticed, showed some
signs of being ruffled.
‘Oh, now, Grantie's angry,’ said Dodo. ‘Grantie,
do be amiable. Call her Grantie, Iack, she added
with feeling. -
ANO/OO. 85
‘Dodo, darling,” said Miss Grantham, ‘you’re
really foolish now and then. I’m perfectly amiable.
But, you know, if you don't care for a man at
all, and he does care for you a great deal, it's sure
to be a failure. I can’t think of any instance just
now, but I know I’m right.” e
Dodo looked up and caught Jack's eye for a
moment. Then she turned to Miss Grantham.
‘Dear Grantie, please shut up. It's no use trying
to convince me. I know a case in point just the
other way, but I am not at liberty to mention it.
Am I, Jack P’
“If you mean the same as the case I’m thinking
of, certainly not,’ said Jack.
‘Well, I’m sure this is very pleasant for me,’ said
Miss Grantham, in high, cool tones.
At this moment a shrill voice called Dodo from
the drawing-room.
‘Dodo, Dodo, it cried, ‘the man's brought me
two tepid poached eggs | Do send me something
else. Is there such a thing as a grilled bone P’
These remarks were speedily followed up by
the appearance of Miss Staines at the dining-room
door. In one hand she held the despised eggs,
86 DODO.
in the other a half-finished score. Behind her
followed a footman with her breakfast-tray, in
excusable ignorance as to what was required of
him.
‘Dear Dodo, she went on, “you know when
I’m composing a symphony I want something more
exciting than two poached eggs. Mr Broxton, I
know, will take my side. You couldn't eat poached
eggs at a ball—could you ? They might do very
well for a funeral march or a nocturne, but they
won’t do for a symphony, especially for the scherzo.
A brandy-and-soda and a grilled bone is what one
really wants for a scherzo, only that would be quite
out of the question.’
Edith Staines talked in a loud, determined voice,
and emphasised her points with little dashes and
flourishes of the dish of poached eggs. At this
moment one of them flew on to the floor and ex-
ploded. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody
any good, and at any rate this relieved the footman
from his state of indecision. His immediate mis-
sion was clearly to remove it.
Dodo threw herself back in her chair with a
peaſ of laughter.
A)O/OO. 87
“Go on, go on,' she cried, ‘you are too splendid.
Tell us what you write the presto on.’
‘I can't waste another moment,” said Edith. “I’m
in the middle of the most entrancing motif, which
is working out beautifully. Do you mind my
smoking in the drawing-room P I am awfully
sorry, but it makes all the difference to my work.
Burn a little incense there afterwards. Do send
me a bone, Dodo. Come and hear me play the
scherzo later on. It's the best thing I’ve ever done.
Oh, by the way, I telegraphed to Herr Truffen to
come to-morrow—he's my conductor, you know.
You can put him up in the village or the coal-hole,
if you like. He's quite happy if he gets enough
beer. He's my German conductor, you know. I
made him entirely. I took him to the Princess
the other day when I was at Aix, and we all
had beer together in the verandah of the Beau
Site. You'll be amused with him.’
‘Oh, rather,’ said Dodo; “that will be all right.
He can sleep in the house. Will he come early
to-morrow P Let's see—to-morrow's Sunday. Edith,
I’ve got an idea. We'll have a dear little service
in the house—we can't go to church if it snows—
88 DODO.
and you shall play your mass, and Herr What's-
his-name shall conduct, and Bertie, and Grantie,
and you and I will sing. Won't it be lovely P
You and I will settle all that this afternoon.
Telegraph to Truffler, or whatever his name is,
to come by the eight-twenty. Then he'll be
here by twelve, and we'll have the service at a
quarter past.’
‘Dodo, that will be grand, said Edith. “I can't
wait now. Good-bye. Hurry up my breakfast—
I’m awfully sharp-set.’
Edith went back to the drawing-room, whistling
in a particularly shrill manner.
‘Oh, did you ever !’ said Dodo, who was laughing
feebly in her chair. “Edith really is splendid. She
is so dreadfully sure of herself, and she tells you so.
And she does talk so loud—it goes right through
your head like a chirping canary. Chesterford
can’t bear her.’
Jack laughed
“She was giving him advice about the manage-
ment of his kennels at dinner last night,’ he said.
‘I heard her say to him impressively, as she left
the room, “Try brimstone.” It took Chesterford
ZOO/OO. 89
at least five minutes to recover. He was dreadfully
depressed.’
“He must take Mrs Vivian in to-night,” said Dodo.
“You’ll hear them talking about slums, and over-
Crowding, and marriage among minors, and the
best cure for dipsomaniacs. The other night they
were talking about someone called “Charlie,” affec-
tionately but gravely, and I supposed they meant
your brother, Jack, but it was the second laundress's
young man. Oh, they shook their heads over
him.’ we
‘I don't think common people are at all in-
teresting,” said Miss Grantham. “They only think
about things to eat, and heaven, and three acres,
and funerals.’
She had by this time finished her breakfast, and
stood warming her back in a gentlemanly manner
by the fire.
The door opened and Lord Chesterford came
in.
“Morning, Jack, he said, ‘what a lazy chap you
are. It's half-past ten, and you're still breakfast-
ing. Dodo, what a beastly smell of smoke.’
‘Oh, it's Edith,' remarked Dodo. “You mustn't
90 AXODO.
mind her, dear. You know she's doing a symphony,
and she has to smoke to keep the inspiration
going. Dear old boy, you are so sweet about
these things; you've never made a fuss since I
knew you first. You look very nice this morning.
I wish I could dress in a homespun Norfolk jacket
and knickerbockers. Grantie and I are going to
bring you lunch. What should you like P You'd
better have some champagne. Don't step in that
egg, dear; it will make your nice, brown boots
all beastly. It's awfully cold. You'd better have
two bottles. Tell Raikes to send you two. Chester-
ford, I wish you'd tell Raikes to cut off the end of
his nose. I’m always afraid he'll hit me with it when
he hands things. He might have it grafted into
his chin, you know ; he hasn't got any chin. Jack,
have you finished P Yes, you'd better start. We'll
meet you at the bothy. I'll go and ask Edith if
she can spare Bertie.’
‘What does she want Bertie for P’ said Chester-
ford.
‘Oh, I expect she'll let him come, remarked
Dodo; “she's really busy this morning. She's
been composing since a quarter past eight.”
DO/OO. 91
Dodo went across the hall and opened the draw-
ing-room door. Edith was completely absorbed in
her work. The grilled bone lay untouched on a
small table by the piano. Bertie was sitting before
the fire.
“Bertie,’ said Dodo, “are you coming shooting P’
This woke Edith up.
‘Oh, it's splendid,” she said. “Dodo, listen to
this.’
She ran her hands over the piano, and then
broke out into a quick, rippling scherzo. The
music flew on, as if all the winds of heaven were
blowing it; then it slowed down, halted a moment,
and repeated itself till Dodo burst out: “Oh, Edith,
it's lovely I want to dance.' She wheeled a table
out of the way, kicked a chair across the room, and
began turning and twisting with breathless rapidity.
Her graceful figure looked admirable in the quick
movements of her impromptu dance. Bertie thought
he had never seen anything so deliciously fresh.
Dodo danced with peculiar abandon. Every inch
of her moved in perfect time and harmony to the
music.
She had caught up a thin, Indian shawl from
92 AMOZ)O.
one of the sofas, and passed it behind her back,
round her head, this way and that, bending, till
at one moment it swept the ground in front of her,
and at another flew in beautiful curves high above
her head, till at last the music stopped, and she
threw herself down exhausted in an arm-chair.
‘Oh, that was glorious,” she panted. Edith, you
are a genius. I never felt like that before. I didn't
dance at all, it was the music that danced, and
pulled me along with it.’
‘That was the best compliment my music has
ever received,” said Edith. ‘That scherzo was meant
to make you want to dance. Now, Dodo, could I
have done that after eating two poached eggs P’
‘You may have grilled bones seven times a day,’
said Dodo, “if you'll compose another scherzo.’
“I wanted a name for the symphony,’ said Edith,
‘and I shall call it the “ Dodo.” That's a great
honour, Dodo. Now, if you only feel miserable
during the “Andante,” I shall be satisfied. But
you came about something else, I forget what.'
‘Oh, about Bertie. Is he coming shooting 2'
‘I wish it was right for women to shoot,” said
Edith. “I do shoot when I’m at home, and there's
AO/OO. 93
no one there. Anyhow I couldn't to-day. I must
finish this. Dodo, if you are going to take lunch
to them, I'll come with you, if you don't go too
early. You know this music makes me perfectly
wild, but it can’t be done on poached eggs. Now
set me down at the Handel Festival, and I’ll be
content with high tea, cold meat and muffins, you
know. Handel always reminds me of high tea,
particularly the muffins. He must have written the
“Messiah” between tea and dinner on Sunday
evening, after an afternoon service in summer.
I’ve often thought of taking the Salvation Army
hymn-book and working the lines up into fugual
choruses, and publishing them as a lost work of
Handel's, Noah, or Zebedee's children, or the Five
Foolish Virgins. I don't believe anyone would
know the difference.”
Dodo was turning over the leaves of Edith's score
book.
“I give it up, she said at last; ‘you are such
a jumble of opposites. You sit down and write a
Sanctus, which makes one feel as if one wants to
be a Roman Catholic archbishop, and all the time
you are smoking cigarettes and eating grilled bone.’
94 DODO.
‘Oh, everyone's a jumble of opposites,’ said Edith,
‘when you come to look at them. It's only because
my opposites are superficial, that you notice them.
A Sanctus is only a form of expression for thoughts
which everyone has, even though their tastes appear
to lie in the music - hall line ; and music is an in-
telligible way of expressing those thoughts. Most
people are born dumb with regard to their emotions,
and you therefore conclude that they haven't got
any, or that they are expressed by their ordinary
actions.”
‘No, it's not that,’ said Dodo. “What I mean is
that your Sanctus emphasises an emotion I should
think you felt very little.’
“I l’ said Edith with surprise. ‘My dear Dodo,
you surely know me better than that. Just because
I don't believe that grilled bones are necessarily
inconsistent with deep religious feeling, you assume
that I haven't got the feeling.’
Dodo laughed.
“I suppose one associates the champions of religion
with proselytising, she said. “You don't proselytise,
you know.’
* No artist does,’ said Edith ; “it’s their business
DODO. 95
to produce—to give the world an opportunity of
forming conclusions, not to preach their own con-
clusions to the world.’
‘Yes ; but your music is the expression of your
conclusions, isn't it?’
‘Yes; but I don’t argue about it, and try to
convert the world to it. If someone says to me,
“I don't know what you mean I Handel seems to
me infinitely more satisfactory,” I can understand
him, I simply say, “For Heaven's sake, then,
why don't you go to hear Handel? Why leave
a creed that satisfies you ?” Music is a conviction,
but Handel's music has nothing to do with my
convictions, nor mine with Handel’s.’
Edith sat down sternly, and buried herself in
her convictions.
C H A P T E R V.
T was a perfect winter's day, and when, two hours
afterwards, Dodo and the others drove off to
meet the shooting - party, the grass in the shadow
was still crisp with the light, hoar frost, but where
the sun had touched it, the fields were covered with
a moist radiance. It had just begun to melt the
little pieces of ice that hung from the bare,
pendulous twigs of the birch-trees, and send them
shivering to the ground. Through the brown
bracken you could hear the startled scuttle of the
rabbit, or the quick tapping of a pheasant, who had
realised that schemes were on foot against him. A
night of hard frost had turned the wheel-ruts into
little waves and billows of frozen mud, which the
carriage wheels levelled as they passed over them.
They caught up the shooting - party shortly
before lunch, and, as it was cold, Edith and Dodo
got out, leaving Miss Grantham, who preferred
96
PODO. 97
being cold to walking under any circumstances,
to gather up the extra rugs round her.
‘See that there's a good fire, Grantie, called
Dodo after her, “and tell them to have the
champagne opened.’
The sight of abundant game was too much for
Edith, and, as Lord Chesterford fell out of line
to join Dodo, she asked him if she might have a
couple of shots.
The keeper's face expressed some reasonable
surprise when he observed Edith snapping the
cartridges into her gun with a practised hand. His
previous views with regard to women in connection
with guns were based upon the idea that most
women Screamed, when they saw a gun, and con-
sidered it a purely unaccountable weapon, which
might go off without the least encouragement or
warning, and devastate the country for miles
round. He was still more surprised when
he saw her pick off a couple of pheasants with
precision and deadliness of aim. She gave
her gun back to Lord Chesterford as they
neared the lodge, and volunteered to join them
after lunch for an hour, if they didn't mind
G
f
.#
98 AXO/OO.
Chesterford stole an appealing glance at Dodo,
who, however, only gave him a half-amused, half-
pitying look, and nodded assent.
‘The worst of it is,” said Edith, ‘I care for such
lots of things. There's my music, and then there's
any sort of game—have you ever seen me play
tennis P – and there isn't time for everything. I
am a musician, and a good shot, and an excellent
rider, and a woman, and heaps of other things.
It isn't conceit when I say so—I simply know it.’
Dodo laughed. º
“Well, you know, Edith, you're not modest.
Your worst enemies don't accuse you of that. I
don't mean to say that I am, for that matter.
Did you ever play the game of marking people
for beauty, and modesty, and cleverness, and so
on P. We played it here the night before you
came, and you didn't get a single mark from
anybody for modesty. I only got eleven, and
five of those were from Chesterford, and six from
myself. But I don't believe your husband will
ever give you five. You see, Bertie didn't give
you any, if you're thinking of marrying him.’
‘Oh, I’m not going to marry anybody,” said
ANO/OO. 99
Edith. “You know I get frightfully attached to
someone about three times a week, and after that
never think of any of them again. It isn’t that
I get tired of them, but somebody else turns up,
and I want to know him too. There are usually
several good points about everyone, and they show
those to new acquaintances first; after that, you
find something in them you don't like, so the best
thing is to try somebody else.”
‘Oh, that depends on the people,’ said Dodo
meditatively. “Some people wear well, you know,
and those improve on acquaintance. Now I don't.
The first time a man sees me, he usually thinks
I’m charming, and sympathetic, and lively. Well,
so I am, to do myself justice. That remains all
through. But it turns out that I’ve got a bad
temper, that I Smoke and swear, and only amuse
myself. Then they begin to think they rated me
too high at first, and if they happen to be people
who wear well themselves, it is just then that yon
begin to like them, which is annoying. So one
goes on, disgusting the people one wants to like,
and pleasing people whom one doesn't like at all,
It's fate I suppose.
IOO AXODO.
Dodo plucked a piece of dead bracken,
and pulled it to bits with a somewhat serious
air.
‘You oughtn't to complain, Dodo,” said Edith.
‘You’re married to a man who, I am sure, wears
well, as you call it, though it's a dreadfully coarse
expression, and he doesn’t seem to get tired of
you. I always wonder whether it's really worth
while trotting oneself out or analysing one's nature
in this way. I don't think it is. It makes one feel
small and stupid.”
“Ah, but it's better to do it yourself, than to
feel that other people think you small and stupid,'
said Dodo. “That's disagreeable if you like. Wait
till Mrs Vivian comes, and she'll do it for you.
She's the only person who makes me feel really
cheap — about three halfpence a dozen, including
the box.’
‘Oh, but she won't make me feel small,” said
Edith coolly, “because I’m not small really. It’
only myself that makes me feel small.’
‘I don't think I should call you morbidly modest,
said Dodo, “But here's the keeper's cottage. I'm
awfully hungry. I hope they've brought some
ANODO. IOI
pété. Don't you like pâté? Of course one's very
sorry for the poor, diseased goose with a bad in-
side, but there are so many other things to think
about besides diseased geese, that it doesn't signify
much. Come on, Chesterford, they can count the
dead things afterwards. Grantie's waiting. Jack,
pick up that pheasant by you. Have you shot
well? Look at the sun through those fir-trees—
isn't it lovely? Edith, why aren't we two nice,
little simple painters who could sit down, and
be happy to paint that, instead of turning our-
selves inside out? But, after all, you know, one
is much more interesting than anybody or any-
thing else, at least I am. Aren't you? What
a blessing it is one didn't happen to be born a
fool l’
Dodo was sitting alone late in the afternoon.
The shooting-party had come back, and dispersed
to their rooms to wash and dress. “You all look
remarkably dirty and funny,' Dodo had said when
they came in, ‘and you had better have tea sent
up to you. Does shooting bring on the inspira-
tion, Edith ? Take a bath.’
Edith had gone up to her room, after insisting
I O2 AXO/OO.
on having two of Dodo's bottles of eau-de-cologne
in her hot bath... “There is nothing so refreshing,
she said, ‘and you come out feeling like a goddess.’
Certainly Edith looked anything like a goddess just
now. Her hat was pushed rakishly on to the side
of her head, there was a suggestion of missing
hair-pins about her hair; she wafted with her
about the room a fine odour of tobacco and
gunpowder; she had burned her dress with a
fusee head that had fallen off; her boots were
large and unlaced, and curiously dirty, and her
hands were black with smoke and oil, and had
a sort of trimming in the way of small feathers
and little patches of blood. Decidedly, if she
came out feeling or looking like a goddess, the
prescription ought to want no more convincing
testimonial. But she insisted she had never en-
joyed herself so much, she talked, and screamed,
and laughed as if nothing serious had occurred
since breakfast. As Dodo sat in the drawing-
room, opening a few letters and skipping all
except the shortest paragraphs in the Times,
she heard the noise of wheels outside, and hurried
into the hall to meet Mrs Vivian. Somehow she
AODO. Io3
looked forward to Mrs Vivian's coming with a
good deal of pleasure and interest. She was
aware that another strain in the house might
be advisable. Bertie and Jack, and Miss Gran-
tham and Edith, were all somewhat on the same
lines. Personally she very much preferred those
lines; and it was chiefly for her husband's
sake, that she wanted the new arrival. Lord
Chesterford had done his duty nobly, but Dodo's
observant eye saw how great an effort it was to
him ; at lunch he had been silent, at tea even
more so. Dodo acknowledged that Edith had
relieved the party from any sense of the neces-
sity of supporting conversation, but it was ob-
vious to her that Chesterford was hopelessly out
of his element, and she felt a keen desire to
please him. She had sat by him after lunch, as
they smoked and talked, before resuming the
shooting, and Dodo had patted his hand and
called him a “dear old darling’ when nobody
happened to be listening, but she had a distinct
sense of effort all day in attending to him, and
enjoying the company of the others as much as
she wished. There was certainly a want of bal-
IO4. A)OA)O.
ance in the party, and Mrs Vivian's weight
would tend to keep things even. Dodo had
even aroused herself to a spasmodic interest in
the new curate, but Lord Chesterford had exhibited
such unmistakable surprise at this new departure,
that she at once fell back on the easier and
simpler expedient of blowing smoke rings at him,
and drinking out of the same glass by mistake.
Mrs Vivian was extremely gracious, and appar-
ently very much pleased to see Dodo. She kissed
her on both cheeks, and shook both her hands,
and said what a pleasant drive she had had with
dear Maud, and she hoped Lord Chesterford was
as well and happy as Dodo appeared to be, and
they both deserved to be.
‘And you must have a great talk with me,
Dodo,” she said, ‘and tell me all about your
honeymoon.’
Dodo was pleased and rather flattered. Appar-
ently Mrs Vivian had left off thinking she was
very small. Anyhow, it was a good thing to
have her. Lord Chesterford would be pleased to
see her, and he was building some charming alms-
houses for old women, who appeared to Dodo to
AXO/OO. IOS
be supremely uninteresting and very ugly. Dodo
had a deep-rooted dislike of ugly things, unless
they amused her very much. She could not bear
babies. Babies had no profile, which seemed to
her a very lamentable deficiency, and they were
not nearly so nice to play with as kittens, and
they always howled, unless they were eating or
sleeping. But Mrs Vivian seemed to revel in ugly
things. She was always talking to drunken cab-
men, or workhouse people, or dirty little boys who
played in the gutter. Dodo's cometic interest in
the East End had been entirely due to her. That
lady had a masterly and efficient way of manag-
ing, that won Dodo's immediate admiration, and
had overcome for the moment her distaste for the
necessary ugliness. Anything masterly always
found a sympathetic audience in Dodo. Success
was of such paramount importance in her eyes,
that even a successful organiser of days in the
country for match-girls was to be admired, and
even copied, provided the other circumstances of
success were not too expensive.
Mrs Vivian was a complete and immediate suc-
cess on this occasion. Dodo made a quantity of
Ioé AXO/OO.
mental notes on the best way to behave, when you
have the misfortune to become middle-aged and
rather plain. Everyone who already knew her
seemed to consider her arrival as the last drop in
their cup of happiness. Lord Chesterford, on enter-
ing the room, had said, ‘My dear Mrs Vivian,
this is too delightful of you. We are all charmed
to see you, and he had sat down by her, and
quite seemed to forget that Dodo was sitting on
the other side of the fire. Jack also had,
so to speak, flown into her arms. Dodo im-
mediately resolved to make a friend of her; a
person who could be as popular among the
aristocracy, as she was among cabmen was dis-
. tinctly a person to cultivate. She decidedly wanted
the receipt.
“It is 'so good of you, Dodo, to ask me like
this,” said Mrs Vivian, when Dodo went and sat by.
her. ‘It always seems to me a great compliment to
ask people quietly to your house when only a few
friends are there. If you have a great houseful
of people, it does not matter much whom you
ask, but I mean to take this as a sign that you
consider me an old friend.'
AXODO. 1o'7
Dodo was always quick at seeing what was
required of her.
“Of course I do,” she answered. “Who are my
old friends if you are not P’
‘That is so nice of you,' said Mrs Vivian. “I
want to have a long talk with you, and learn all
about you. I am going to stay with your mother
next week, and she will never forgive me unless
I give a full and satisfactory account of you.
Satisfactory it cannot help being.” She looked
across at Lord Chesterford, who was talking to
Miss Grantham, and laughing politely at her
apostolic jokes. ‘Oh, Dodo, you ought to be
very happy l’
Dodo felt that this was rather like the ten
minutes before dinner. She had a vague idea
of telling Chesterford to sound the gong, but she
was skilled at glances with meaning, and she
resorted to this method.
‘Lord Chesterford tells me you have Miss
Staines with you,” continued Mrs Vivian. “I am
so anxious to meet her. She has a wonderful
gift for music, I hear.’
At this moment the sound of hurrying feet was
108, ANO DO.
heard in the hall. The drawing-room door flew
open and Edith entered. Dodo laughed inwardly
and hopelessly. Edith began to talk at the top
of her voice, before she was fairly inside the
1’OOTY).
‘Dodo, Dodo,” she screamed, ‘we must settle
about the service at once. I have heard from
Herr Truffen, and he will be here by twelve ; and
we must have everything ready, and we’d better
do my Mass in G flat; on the whole it's the easiest.
I suppose you couldn't hire four or five French
horns in the village. If you could we might do the
one in A ; but we must have them for the Gloria.
We must have a practice to-night. Have you got
any musical footmen or housemaids?’
‘Mrs Vivian, Miss Edith Staines, remarked Dodo
sweetly.
There was a moment's silence, and then Dodo
broke down.
‘Oh, Edith, you are a good chap; isn't she, Mrs
Vivian P Mrs Vivian was just talking about you,
and you came in so opportunely that, until you
began talking about masses, I really thought you -
must be the other thing. Oh, Chesterford, I
ANODO. Io9
haven't told you. We're going to have a , de-
licious little service in the drawing-room to-morrow
morning, and we are going to sing a Mass. Grantie
can't possibly go to church in this weather, and
Jack and Bertie are not as good about it as they
might be, so you see it would be really remov-
ing the temptation of not going to church, if we
have church here, and can you sing, Mrs Vivian P
Will you come, Chesterford P You might go to
church first, and then come in here afterwards;
that will be two services. How dreadfully unbear-
ably conceited you will be all the afternoon. You
might read the second lesson for us; no, I think
I shall read both. Yes, Edith, I’ll come in a few
minutes. I don't know of any musical footmen.
You might have them up one by one and make
them sing scales, and Jack can try the housemaids’
voices. I’m awfully glad Herr Truffen is coming.
He's a tremendous German swell, Mrs Vivian, and
conducts at the Crystal Palace, and St James's, and
St Paul's and everywhere.”
‘That will be charming, said Mrs Vivian. “I
shall certainly avail myself of it, Dodo, if I may,
only I think I shall go to church first with Lord
I IO DODO.
Chesterford. He has promised to show me all his
schemes for the village. I think Maud means
to go too. But if you will let me, I will go to
my room, and write a few letters, and then you
will be free to practise. It will be a great pleasure
to hear your Mass, Miss Staines; I am very for-
tunate in coming just in time.”
“Really, Dodo,” said Edith, ‘you ought to cultivate
the musical talents of your establishment. Last
winter I was in the Pyrenees, and there was only
an old sexton, who was also a charcoal burner,
and my maid, and Charlie and his valet and his
wife, but we had magnificent music, and a mid-
night service on New Year's Eve. Charlie took
tenor, and Sybil treble, and I alto, and the sexton
bass. You have no idea of the trouble it was
to get the sexton to learn his part. I had to hunt
him up in those little brutal sheds, and thrust
the book into his hand, and forbid him to eat
chestnuts, and force him to drink porter and Spanish
liquorice. Come on ; let's begin.’
The practice went off satisfactorily, and Edith
expressed herself as pleased. She and Dodo then
had a talk to arrange what Dodo called the ‘Play-
AXO/OO. III
bill.” Dodo had settled to read the lessons, and
wished to make a small selection of prayers, but
there Edith had put her foot down.
‘No, Dodo, she said, ‘you’re taking a wrong
idea of it. I don't believe you're serious. Now
I am. I want to do this Mass because I believe
we can do it well, but I haven’t the least confidence
in your reading prayers well, or caring at all about
them. I am rather in doubt about the lessons,
but I suppose we can have those.’
It was distinctly news to Dodo that Edith was
serious. For herself she had only wished to have
a nice little amusement for Sunday morning, which,
in Dodo's experience, was rather a tiresome time
if you stopped at home, but on the whole preſer-
able there than at a country church. But Edith
was really in earnest whatever she did, whether it
was shooting, or music, or playing lawn - tennis.
Frivolity was the one charge she could not brook
for a moment. Her amusements might, indeed, be
frivolous, but she did them with all her heart. So
the service was arranged to consist of a lesson, a
Mass, and another lesson. The choice of lessons
was left to Dodo. Accordingly, next morning
II 2 DODO.
:
Lord Chesterford and Mrs Vivian drove off with
Maud to eleven o'clock church, leaving the others
still at breakfast. After that meal was over Dodo
announced she was going to get the drawing-room
ready. .
‘We must move, all the sofas out of the room,
because they don’t look religious, she said; “and
I shall cover up the picture of Venus and Adonis.
I have got the sweetest little praying-table up-
stairs, and a skull. Do you think we'd better have
the skull, Edith ? I think it makes one feel Sunday-
like. I shall put the praying-table in the window,
and shall read the lessons from there. Perhaps
the skull might frighten old Truffler. I have
found two dreadfully nice lessons. I quite forgot
the Bible was such a good book. I think I shall
go on with it. One of them is about the bones
in Ezekiel, which were very dry—you know it—
and the other is out of the Revelations. I
think—'
‘Dodo, broke in Edith, ‘I don't believe you're
a bit serious. You think it will be rather amus-
ing, and that's all. If you're not serious I sha'n't
come.’
APODO. II 3
“Dear Edith, said Dodo demurely, ‘I’m perfectly
serious. I want it all to be just as nice as it
can be. Do you think I should take all the
trouble with the praying - table and so on, if I
wasn't P’
‘You want to make it dramatic,’ said Edith de-
cidedly. “Now, I mean it to be religious. You are
rather too dramatic at times, you know, and this
isn't an occasion for it. You can be dramatic
afterwards, if you like. Herr Truffen is awfully
religious. I used to go with him to Roman
Catholic services, and once to confession. I nearly
became a Roman Catholic.’
‘Oh, I should like to be a nice little nun,’ said
Dodo; “those black and white dresses are awfully
becoming, with a dear trotty rosary, you know, on
one side, and a twisty cord round one's waist, and
an almsbox. But I must go and arrange the
drawing-room. Tell me when your conductor
comes. I hope he isn't awfully German. Would
he like some beer first? I think the piano is in
tune. I suppose he'll play, won't he? Make him
play a voluntary, when we come in. I'm afraid
we can't have a procession though. That's a pity
H
II4 AMODO.
Oh, I’m sorry, Edith. I’m really going to be quite
serious. I think it will be charming.’
Dodo completed her arrangements in good time,
and forbore to make any more frivolous allusions
to , the service. She was sitting in the drawing-
room, regarding her preparations with a satisfied
air, when Herr Truffen was announced. Dodo
greeted him in the hall as if it was the most
natural thing in the world that he should be called
upon to accompany Edith's Mass.
‘We’re going to have service directly, if you're
ready. We want you to accompany Miss Staines's
Mass in G flat, but you mustn't take the Kyrie too
quick, if you don't mind. Bertie Arbuthnot's sing-
ing tenor, and he's not very quick—are you, Bertie?
Oh, by the way, this is Bertie. His other name
is Mr Arbuthnot.’
Herr Truffen was most gratified by so charm-
ing an arrangement, and so great a musical treat.
When Edith came down she greeted him effu-
sively.
‘My dear Professor, this is delightful, she said. .
‘It’s quite like old times, isn't it? We're going
to do the Mass in G flat. I wanted the one in A,
AO/OO. II 5
only there are no French horns in the village
—isn't that benighted? And would you believe it,
Lady Chesterford has positively got not one musical
footman.’
Herr Truffen was a large, spectacled German,
who made everyone else look unnecessarily under-
sized.
He laughed and fitted his fingers together with
great nicety.
‘Are we to begin at once P’ he asked. “The
congregation—haf they arrived P’
‘Oh, there is no congregation, explained Dodo;
“we are all performers. It is only a substitute for
going to church. I hope you aren't shocked ; it
was such a disgusting morning.’
‘Lady Chesterford is surely a congregation in
herself,’ remarked Herr Truffen, with elephantine
elegance.
‘Lord Chesterford is coming by-and-by, continued
Dodo. “He has gone to church. I don't know
whether he will be in time for the Mass.’
‘Then you haf all the service in a little chapel
here, no doubt,” said the Professor.
“Oh no,' said Dodo ; “we’re going to have two
II6 - AXODO.
lessons and the Mass, and there isn't a chapel, it's
only in the drawing-room. I’m going to read the
lessons.”
Herr Truffen bowed with undiminished composure,
and Dodo led the way back into the drawing-
TOOII].
Miss Grantham and Jack were introduced,
and Dodo took her place at the praying-
table, and Herr Truffen at the piano. Dodo
gave out the lesson, and read the chapter
through.
‘Oh, it is nice l’ she exclaimed, ‘Sha'n't I go
on to the next chapter? No, I think I won't.
“It would spoil the delightful impression of the
very dry bones?’ interrogated Herr Truffen from
the piano. “Ah, that is splendid; but you should
hear it in the Fatherland tongue.’
‘Now, Dodo, come here,' said Edith. ‘We must
go on with this. You can discuss it afterwards.
On the third beat. Will you give us the time,
Professor?’
The Mass had scarcely begun when Lord Chester-
ford came in, followed by Mrs Vivian and Maud.
The Professor, who evidently did not quite under-
ANODO. 117
stand that he was merely a sort of organist, got up
and shook hands all round with laboured cordiality.
Edith grew impatient.
‘Come, she said, ‘you mustn't do that. Re-
member you are practically in church, Professor.
Please begin again.”
“Ah, I forgot for the moment, remarked the
Professor; “this beautiful room made me not re-
member. Come—one, two. Ah, we must begin
better than that. Now, please.’
This time the start was made in real earnest.
Edith's magnificent voice, and the Professor's playing,
would alone have been sufficient to make it effec-
tive. The four performers knew their parts well,
and when it was finished, there followed that silence
which is so much more appreciative than applause.
Then Herr Truffen turned to Edith.
“Ah, how you have improved, he said. “Who
taught you this? It is beyond me. Perhaps you
prayed and fasted, and then it came to you.’
As Edith had chiefly written the Mass while
Smoking cigarettes after a hearty breakfast, she
merely said, t
‘How does anything come to one P It is part of
II 8 DODO.
oneself, as much as one's arms and legs. But the
service is not over yet.'
Dodo meanwhile had gone back to the praying-
table. t
‘I can’t find it, she said, in a distracted whisper.
‘It’s a chapter in the Revelation about a grey horse
and a white horse.’
‘Dodo,” said Edith, in an awful voice.
‘Yes, dear,’ said Dodo. “Ah, here it is.’
Dodo read the chapter with infinite feeling in her
beautiful clear, full voice.
Chesterford was charmed. He had not seen this
side of Dodo before. After she had finished, he
came and sat by her, while the others got up and
began talking among themselves.
‘Dodo, he said, ‘I never knew you cared about
these things. What an unsympathetic brute I
must seem to you. I never talked to you about
such things, because I thought you did not care.
Will you forgive me?’
‘I don’t think you need forgiveness much,” said
3.
Dodo softly. “If you only knew— she stopped
and finished her sentence by a smile.
‘Dodo, he said again, ‘I’ve often wanted to
AXODO, II9
suggest something to you, but I didn't quite like
to. Why don't we have family prayers here? :
might build a little chapel.”
Dodo felt a sudden inclination to laugh. Her
aesthetic pleasure in the chapter of Revelations
was gone. She felt annoyed and amused at this
simple-minded man, who thought her so perfect,
and ascribed such fatiguingly high interpretations
to all her actions. He really was a little stupid
and tiresome. He had broken up all her little
pleasant thoughts.
‘Oh, family prayers always strike me as rather
ridiculous, she said, with a half yawn. A row of
gaping servants are not conducive to the emotions.”
She got up and joined the other groups, and
then suddenly became aware that, for the first
time, she had failed in her part. Jack was watch-
ing her, and saw what had happened. Chester-
ford had remained seated in the window, pulling
his long, brown moustache, with a very percep-
tible shade of annoyance on his face. Dodo felt
a sudden impulse of anger with herself at her
stupidity. She went back to Chesterford.
‘Dear old boy, she said, ‘I don't know why I
I2O PODO,
said that. I was thinking of something else.
I don't know that I like family prayers very
much. We used to have them at home, when
my father was with us, and it really was a trial
to hear him read the Litany. I suppose it is
that which has made me rather tired of them.
Come and talk to the Professor.”
Then she went across to Jack.
‘Jack, she said, in a low voice, “don’t look as
if you thought you were right.”
C H A P T E R V I.
THE same afternoon Chesterford took Mrs Vivian
off to see ‘almshouses and drunkards, as
Dodo expressed it to Jack. She also told him
that Edith and her Herr were playing a sort of
chopsticks together in the drawing- room. Maud
had, as usual, effaced herself, and Bertie was con-
suming an alarming number of cigarettes in the
smoking-room, and pretending to write letters.
It was natural, therefore, that when Jack strolled
into the hall, to see what was going on, he
should find Dodo there with her toes on the
fender of the great fireplace, having banished the
collie to find other quarters for himself. Dodo was
making an effort to read, but she was not being
very successful, and hailed Jack's entrance with
evident pleasure.
M2I
I22 AXODO.
‘Come along, she said; “I sent the dog off, but
I can find room for you. Sit here, Jack.’
She moved her chair a little aside, and let him
paSS.
‘I can't think why a merciful providence sends
us a day like this,” she said. “I want to know
whom it benefits to have a thick snowfall.
Listen at that, too, she added, as a great gust of
wind swept round the corner of the house, and
made a deep, roaring sound up in the heart of the
chimney.
“It makes it all the more creditable in Chester-
ford and Mrs Vivian to go to see the drunkards,”
remarked Jack.
‘Oh, but that's no credit,” said Dodo. “They
like doing it, it gives them real pleasure. I don't
see why that should be any better, morally speak-
ing, than sitting here and talking. They are
made that way, you and I are made this. We
weren't consulted, and we both follow our in-
clinations. Besides, they will have their reward,
for they will have immense appetites at tea.’
“And will give us something to talk about
now, remarked Jack lazily.
AXO/OO. I23
‘Don’t you like Grantie, Jack?’ asked Dodo
presently. “She and Ledgers are talking about
life and being in my room. I went to get a
book from here, and the fire was so nice that I
stopped.’
‘I wish Ledgers wouldn't treat her like a men-
agerie, and put her through her tricks, said Jack.
“I think she is very attractive, but she belongs
too much to a class.’
‘What class P’ demanded Dodo.
‘Oh, the class that prides itself on not being
of any class—the all things to all men class.’
‘Oh, I belong to that,’ said Dodo.
‘No, you don't,' said he. “You are all things
to some men, I grant, but not to all.’
‘Oh, Jack, that's a bad joke,” said Dodo re-
provingly.
“It’s quite serious all the same,’ said he.
“I’m all things to the only man to whom it
matters that I should be,” said Dodo complacently.
Jack felt rather disgusted.
‘I wish you would not state things in that cold-
blooded way,’ he said. “Your very frankness to me
about it, shows that you know that it is an effort.’
I 24 . DODO.
‘Yes,’ she said, “it is an effort sometimes, but
I don't think I want to talk about it. You take
things too ponderously. Don't be ponderous; it
doesn't suit you in the least. Besides, there's
nothing to be ponderous about.’
Dodo turned in her chair and looked Jack full
in the face. Her face had a kind of triumph
about it.
“I want to say something more,' said jack.
‘Well, I'm magnanimous to-day,” said Dodo.
“Go on.’
“All you are doing,” said he gravely, ‘is to keep
up the original illusion he had about you. It is
not any good keeping up an illusion, and think-
ing you're doing your whole duty.’
‘Jack, that's enough,' said Dodo, with a certain
finality in her tone. “If you go on, you may
make me distrust myself. I don't mean that
as a compliment to your powers, but as a con-
fession to a stupid superstitious weakness in my-
self. I am afraid of omens.’
They sat silent a minute or two, until a door
at the far end of the hall opened and Miss Gran-
tham came through, with her showman in tow.
ANO/OO. I25
‘Lord Ledgers and I were boring each other
So,' said Miss Grantham, ‘that we came to bore
someone else. When you are boring people you
may as well do it wholesale. What a pity it is
that one hasn’t got a tail like a dog, that cannot
help wagging if its owner is pleased, and which
stops wagging when he isn't.”
“I shall certainly buy a tail,” said Dodo, with
grave consideration. “One or two, in case the
first gets out of order. Must you wag it when-
ever you are pleased, Grantie? Is it to be an
honest tail P Supposing you only think you are
pleased, when you are not really, what does the
tail do then P Oh, it’s very complicated.’
‘The tail shares the same illusions as the dog,”
said Miss Grantham.
‘Jack and I were talking about illusions,’ said
Dodo.
‘I’m going to get a quantity of illusions,’ said
Miss Grantham. “In any case what did you find
to say about them P’
‘Jack said it was a bad thing to keep an illusion
up,” said Dodo broadly.
Miss Grantham was staring pensively at the fire.
I26 DODO.
“I saw two boys sitting on a gate yesterday,’
she said, ‘and they pushed each other off, and
each time they both roared with laughter. I’m
sure it was an illusion that they were amused.
I would go and sit on a gate with pleasure and
get my maid to push me off, if I thought it
would amuse either of us. Mr Broxton, would
you like me to push you off a gate P’
‘Oh, I'm certain that the people with many
illusions are the happiest,” said Dodo. “Conse-
quently, I wouldn't willing destroy any illusion
anyone held about anything.’
‘What a lot of anys,’ said Miss Grantham.
Lord Ledgers was leaning back in his chair
with a sense of pleased proprietorship. It really
was a very intelligent animal. Jack almost ex-
pected him to take a small whip from his pocket,
and crack it at her. But his next remark, Jack felt,
was a good substitute; at any rate he demanded
another performance.
“What about delusions, Miss Grantham P’ he
said.
‘Oh, delusions are chiefly unpleasant illusions,’
she said. “Madmen have delusions that somebody
AXO/OO. a' I27
wants to kill them, or that they want to kill
Somebody, or that King Charles's head isn't really
cut off, which would be very unsettling now.’
‘Grantie, I believe you're talking sheer, arrant
nonsense,” said Dodo. “It’s all your fault, Tommy.
When one is asked a question one has to answer
it somehow or other in self-defence. If you asked
me about the habits of giraffes I should say some-
thing. Edith is the only really honest person I
know. She would tell you she hadn't any idea
what a giraffe was, so would Chesterford, and you
would find him looking up giraffes in the Encyclo-
padia afterwards.’
Lord Ledgers laughed a low, unpleasant laugh.
“A very palpable hit,” he murmured.
The remark was inaudible to all but Jack. He
felt quite unreasonably angry with him, and got
up from his chair.
Dodo saw something had happened, and looked
at him inquiringly. Jack did not meet her eye,
but whistled to the collie, who flopped down at
his feet.
“I really don't know where I should begin if
I was going to turn honest,” said Miss Grantham.
I28 PODO.
‘I don't think I like honest people. They are
like little cottages, which children draw, with a
door in the middle, and a window at each side,
and a chimney in the roof with smoke coming
out. Long before you know them well, you are
perfectly certain of all that you will find inside
them. They haven't got any little surprises, or
dark passages, or queer little cupboards under
the stairs.”
“Do you know the plant called honesty, Grantie?’
asked Dodo. “It’s very bright purple, and you can
see it a long way off, and it isn't at all nicer
when you get close, than it looks from a distance.”
‘Oh, if you speak of someone as an honest
man,’ said Miss Grantham, “it implies that he's
nothing particular besides. I don’t mind a little
mild honesty, but it should be kept in the back-
ground.’
“I’ve got a large piece of honesty somewhere
about me,’ said Jack. “I can't always lay my
hand on it, but every now and then I feel it like
a great lump inside me.’
‘Yes,’ said Dodo, “I believe you are fundament-
ally honest, Jack. I've always thought that.”
PODO. 129
“Does that mean that he is not honest in ordinary
matters?’ asked Miss Grantham. “I’ve noticed
that people who are fundamentally truthful, seldom
tell the truth.”
“In a way it does,’ said Dodo. “But I’m sure
Jack would be honest in any case where it
really mattered.’
‘Oh, I sha’n’t steal your spoons, you know,'
said Miss Grantham.
‘That's only because you don't really want
them, remarked Dodo. “I can conceive you
stealing anything you wanted.’
‘Trample on me,’ said Miss Grantham serenely.
“Tell us what I should steal.”
‘Oh, you'd steal lots of things,’ said Dodo. “You’d
steal anyone's self-respect if you could manage to,
and you couldn't get what you wanted any other way.
Oh, yes, you'd steal anything important. Jack
wouldn't. He'd stop just short of that ; he would
never be really disloyal. He'd finger things to
any extent, but I am pretty sure that he would
drop them at the last minute.’
‘How dreadfully unpleasant I am really,” said Miss
Grantham meditatively. ‘A kind of Eugenie Aram.’
I
I3o ZXODO.
Jack was acutely uncomfortable, but he had
the satisfaction of believing that what Dodo said
about him was true. He had come to the same
conclusion himself two nights ago. He believed
that he would stop short of any act of disloyalty,
but he did not care about hearing Dodo give him
so gratuitous a testimonial before Miss Grantham
and the gentleman whom he mentally referred to
as ‘that ass of a showman.’
The front door opened, and a blast of cold wind
came blustering round into the inner hall where
they were sitting, making the thick tapestry portière
belly and fill like a ship's sail, when the wind first
catches it. The collie pricked his ears, and thumped
his tail on the floor with vague welcome.
Mrs Vivian entered, followed by Lord Chesterford.
He looked absurdly healthy and happy.
“It’s a perſectly beastly day, he said cheerfully,
advancing to the fireplace. ‘Mrs Vivian, let Dodo
send you some tea up to your room. You must
be wet through. Surely it is tea-time, Dodo.’
‘ſ told you so, said Dodo to Jack.
“Has Jack been saying it isn't tea-time?’ asked
Chesterford.
ZPOZXO. I31
‘No,' said Dodo. “I only said that your virtue
in going to see almshouses, would find its immediate
reward in an appetite for tea.’
Mrs Vivian laughed.
‘You mustn't reduce our virtues to the lowest
terms, as if we were two vulgar fractions.”
“Do you suppose a vulgar fraction knows how
vulgar it is P’ asked Miss Grantham.
“Vulgar without being funny,' said Jack, with
the air of helping her out of a difficulty.
‘I never saw anything funny in vulgar frac-
tions, remarked Lord Ledgers. “Chesterford and
I used to look up the answers at the end of the
book, and try to make them correspond with the
questions.”
Dodo groaned.
‘Oh, Chesterford, don't tell me you're not honest
either.’
‘What do you think about honesty, Mrs Vivian?’
asked Miss Grantham.
Mrs Vivian considered.
“Honesty is much maligned by being called
the best policy, she said, “it isn't purely com-
mercial. Honesty is rather fine sometimes.’
I32 AXODO.
‘Oh, I’m sure Mrs Vivian's honest, murmured
Miss Grantham. “She thinks before she tells you
her opinion. I always give my opinion first, and
think about it afterwards.’
“I’ve been wanting to stick up for honesty all
afternoon,’ said Dodo to Mrs Vivian, “only I
haven’t dared. Everyone has been saying that it
is dull and obtrusive, and like labourers’ cottages.
I believe we are all a little honest, really. No
one has got any right to call it the best policy.
It mkes you feel as if you were either a kind of
life assurance, or else a thief.'
Chesterford looked a trifle puzzled.
Dodo turned to him.
“Poor old man,’ she said, ‘did they call him
names P Never mind. We'll go and be labelled
“Best policy. No others need apply.”
She got up from her chair, and pulled Chester-
ford's moustache.
‘You look so abominably healthy, Chesterford,”
she said. “How's Charlie getting on P Tell him if
he beats his wife any more, I shall beat you. You
wouldn't like that, you know. Will you ring for
tea, dear? Mrs Vivian I command you to go to
ANODO I33
your room. I had your fire lit, and I’ll send tea
up. You're a dripping Sop.”
Mrs Vivian pleaded guilty and vanished. Sounds
of music still came from the drawing-room. “It’s
no use telling Edith to come to tea, remarked
Dodo. “She said the other day that if anyone
ever proposed to her, whom she cared to marry,
she will feel it only fair to tell him that the
utmost she can offer him, is to play second fiddle
to her music.’
Edith's music was strongly exciting, and in
the pause that followed, Dodo went to the door
and opened it softly, and a great tangle of melody
poured out and filled the hall. She was playing
the last few pages of the overture to an opera
that she had nearly completed. The music was
gathering itself up for the finale. Note after note
was caught up, as it were, to join an army of
triumphant melody overhead, which grew fuller
and more complete every moment, and seemed to
hover, waiting for some fulfilment. Ah, that was
it. Suddenly from below crashed out a great
kingly motif, strong with the strength of a man
who is pure and true, rising higher and higher,
I34 PODO.
till it joined the triumph overhead, and moved
away, strong to the end.
There was a dead silence; Dodo was standing
by the door, with her lips slightly parted, feeling
that there was something in this world better and
bigger, perhaps, than her own little hair-splittings
and small emotions. With this in her mind, she
looked across to where Chesterford was standing.
The movement was purely instinctive, and she
could neither have accounted for it, nor was she
conscious of it, but in her eyes there was the
suggestion of unshed tears, and a look of question-
ing shame. Though a few bars of music cannot
change the nature of the weakest of us, and Dodo
was far from weak, she was intensely impression-
able, and that moment had for her the germ of
a possibility which might—who can say it could
not?—have taken root in her and borne fruit.
The parable of the mustard seed is as old and as .
true as time. But Chesterford was not musical ;
he had taken a magazine from the table, and
was reading about grouse disease,
C H A P T E R V II.
ODO was sitting in a remarkably easy-chair
in her own particular room at the house in
Eaton Square. As might have been expected, her
room was somewhat unlike other rooms. It had
a pale orange-coloured paper, with a dado of a
rather more intense shade of the same colour, an
orange-coloured carpet and Orange-coloured curtains.
Dodo had no reason to be afraid of orange colour
just yet. It was a room well calculated to make
complete idleness most easy. The tables were
covered with a mass of albums, vases of flowers,
and a quantity of entirely useless knick-knacks.
The walls were hung with several rather clever
sketches, French prints and caricatures of Dodo's
friends. A small bookcase displayed a quantity of
flaring novels, and a large tune hymn-book, and
in a conspicuous corner was Dodo's praying-table,
I35
136 ZDODO.
on which the skull regarded its surroundings with a
mirthless and possible contemptuous grin. The
mantelpiece was entirely covered with photographs,
all signed by their prototypes. These had found
their quarters gradually becoming too small for them,
and had climbed half way up the two sides of a
Louis Quinze mirror, that formed a sort of over-
mantel. The photographs were an interesting
study, and included representatives from a very
wide range of classes. No one ever accused Dodo
of being exclusive. In the corner of the room
were a heap of old cotillion toys, several hunting-
whips, and a small black image of the Virgin, which
Dodo had picked up abroad. Above her head a
fox's mask grinned defiantly at another fox's
brush opposite. On the writing-table there was
an inkstand made of the hoof of Dodo's favourite
hunter, which had joined the majority shortly
after Christmas, and the ‘Dodo’ symphony, which
had just come out with great éclat at the Albert
Hall, leant against the wall. A banjo case and
a pair of castanets, with a dainty silver monogram
on them, perhaps inspired Dodo when she sat
down to her writing-table.
Z)ODO. 137
Dodo's hands were folded on her lap, and she
was lazily regarding a photograph of herself which
stood on the mantelpiece. Though the afternoon
was of a warm day in the end of May, there was a
small fire in the hearth which crackled pleasantly.
Dodo got up and looked at the photograph more
closely. “I certainly look older, she thought to
herself, ‘and yet that was only taken a year
ago. I don't feel a bit older, at least I sha'n't
when I get quite strong again. I wish Jack could
have been able to come this afternoon. I am
rather tired of seeing nobody except Chesterford
and the baby. However, Mrs Vivian will be
here soon.’
Todo had made great friends with Mrs Vivian
during the last months. Her sister and brother-
in-law had been obliged to leave England for a
month at Easter, and Dodo had insisted that Mrs
Vivian should spend it with them, and to-day was
the first day that the doctor had let her come
down, and she had written to Jack and Mrs
Vivian to come and have tea with her.
A tap was heard at the door, and the nurse
entered, bearing the three weeks' old baby. Dodo
138 PODO.
was a little disappointed ; she had seen a good
deal of the baby, and she particularly wanted
Mrs Vivian. She stood with her hands behind
her back, without offering to take it. The baby
regarded her with large wide eyes, and crowed at
the sight of the fire. Really it was rather attrac-
tive, after all.
“Well, Lord Harchester,’ remarked Dodo, ‘ how
is your lordship to-day ? Did it ever enter your
very pink head that you were a most important
personage? Really you have very little sense of
your dignity. Oh, you are rather nice. Come
here, baby.”
She held out her arms to take it, but his lord-
ship apparently did not approve of this change. He
opened his mouth in preparation for a decent protest.
“Ah, do you know, I don't like you when you
howl,” said Dodo; “you might be an Irish member
instead of a piece of landed interest. Oh, do stop.
Take him please, nurse; I’ve got a headache, and I
don’t like that noise. There, you unfilial scoundrel,
you're quiet enough now.’
Dodo nodded at the baby with the air of a
slight acquaintance.
ANOAXO. I39
“I wonder if you’ll be like your father, she
said; ‘you’ve got his big blue eyes. I rather
wish your eyes were dark. Do a baby's eyes
change when he gets older P Ah, here's your
godmother. I am so glad to see you,' she went
on to Mrs Vivian. “You see his lordship has
come down to say how do you do.’
‘Dear Dodo,” said Mrs Vivian, “you are looking
wonderfully better. Why don't they let you go out
this lovely day P’
‘Oh, I’ve got a cold,” said Dodo, “at least I’m
told so. There—good-bye, my lord. You'd better
take him upstairs again, nurse. I am so delighted
to see you,' she continued, pouring out tea. “I’ve
been rather dull all day. Don't you know how,
when you particularly want to see people, they
never come. Edith looked in this morning, but
she did nothing but whistle and drop things. I
asked Jack to come, but he couldn't.'
“Ah,’ said Mrs Vivian softly, “he has come back,
has he P’
‘Yes,’ said Dodo, ‘ and I wanted to see him.
Did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous as his
going off in that way. You know he left England
I4O AXODO.
directly after his visit to us in January, and he's
only just back. It's too absurd for Jack to pretend
he was ill. He swore his doctor had told him to
leave England for three months. Of course that's
nonsense. It was very stupid of him.’
Mrs Vivian sipped her tea reflectively without
answering. .
“Chesterford is perfectly silly about the baby,'
Dodo went on. ‘He's always afraid it's going to
be ill, and he goes up on tiptoe to the nursery,
to see if it's all right. Last night he woke me up
about half-past ten, to say that he had heard it
cough several times, and did I think it was the
whooping cough.” -
Mrs Vivian did not seem to be listening. -
‘I heard from Mr Broxton once, she said ; “he
wrote from Moscow, and asked how you were, and
three weeks ago he telegraphed, when he heard of
the birth of the baby.'
‘I don't know what's the matter with Jack,” said
- Dodo rather petulantly. ‘He wrote to me once,
the silliest letter you ever saw, describing the
Cremlin, and Trêves Cathedral, and the falls of
the Rhine. The sort of letter one writes to one's
AXODO. I41.
great-aunt. Now I’m not Jack's great-aunt at
all.”
There was another tap at the door.
‘That's Chesterford, remarked Dodo, “he always
raps now, and if I don't answer, he thinks I’m asleep,
and then he goes away. You just see.'
The tap came again, and after a moment's interval
the door opened.
‘Jack l’exclaimed Dodo.
She got up from her chair and went quickly to-
wards him. Jack was pale, and his breath came
rather short, as if he had been running.
“Why, Dodo,” he cried, ‘I thought I couldn't come,
and then I thought I could, so I did.”
He broke off rather lamely, and greeted Mrs Vivian.
‘Dear old Jack,' said Dodo, ‘it does me good
to see you. Your face is so nice and familiar, and
I’ve wanted you awfully. Jack, what do you mean
by writing me such a stupid letter? especially when
I'd written to you so nicely. Really, I am not your
grandmother yet, though I am a mother. Have
you seen the baby? It isn't particularly interesting
at present, though of course it's rather nice to think
, /
hat that wretched little morsel of flesh and bones is
I42 DODO.
going to be one of our landed proprietors. He'll
be much more important than you will ever be,
Jack. Aren't you jealous P’
Dodo was conscious of quite a fresh tide of
interest in her life. Her intellectual faculties, she
felt, had been neglected. She could not conceive
why, because she had a husband and baby, she
should be supposed not to care for other interests
as well. Chesterford was an excellent husband with
a magnificent heart, but Dodo had told herself so
often that he was not very clever, that she had
Ceased trying to take an intellectual pleasure in
his society, and the baby could not be called in-
tellectual by the fondest parent at present. There
were a quantity of women who were content to pore
on their baby's face for hour after hour, with no
further occupation than saying ‘Didums' occasion-
ally. Dodo had given what she considered a fair
trial to this treatment, and she found it bored her
to say ‘Didums’ for an indefinite period, and she
did not believe it amused the baby. She had a
certain pride in having given birth to the son and
heir of one of the largest English properties, and she
was extremely glad to have done so, and felt a
ZXO/OO. I43
certain pleased sort of proprietorship in the little
pink morsel, but she certainly had experienced none
of the absorbing pleasures of maternity. She had
& used to not being in love with her husband,
and she accepted as part of this same deficiency
the absence of absorbing pleasure in the baby. Not
that she considered it a deficiency, it was merely
another type turned out of Nature's workshop.
Dodo laid all the blame on Nature. She shrugged
her shoulders and said: “You made me so without
consulting me. It isn't my fault l’ But Dodo was
aware that Nature had given her a brain, and she
found a very decided pleasure in the company of
clever people. Perhaps it was the greatest pleas-
ure of her life to be admired and amused by clever
people. Of course Chesterford always admired
her, but he was in love with her, and he was not
clever. Dodo had felt some difficulty before her
marriage in dealing with this perplexing unknown
quantity, and she had to confess it puzzled her still.
The result was, that when it occurred, she had
to admit her inability to tackle it, and as soon as
possible to turn to another page in this algebra of
life.
I44. AO/OO.
But she still felt that her marriage had been
a great success. Chesterford had entirely fulfilled
what she expected of him : he was immensely rich,
he let her do as she liked, he adored her. Dodo
quite felt that it was better that he should adore
her. As long as that lasted, he would be blind to
any fault of hers, and she acknowledged that, to a
man of Chesterford's character, she must seem far
from faultless, if he contemplated her calmly. But
he was quite unable to contemplate her calmly. For
him she walked in a golden cloud that dazzled and
entranced him. Dodo was duly grateful to the
golden cloud.
But she felt that the element which Jack, and Mrs
Vivian, and other friends of hers brought, had been
conspicuously absent, and she welcomed its return
with eagerness.
‘You know we haven't been leading a very in-
tellectual life lately, Dodo continued. ‘Chesterford
is divinely kind to me, but he is careful not to
excite me. So he talks chiefly about the baby,
and how he lost his umbrella at the club; it is
very soothing, but I have got past that now. I
want stimulating. Sometimes I go to sleep, and
ANO/OO. I45
then he sits as still as a mouse till I wake again.
Pity me, Jack, I have had a dull fortnight; and
that is worse than anything else. I really never
remember being bored before l’
Dodo let her arms drop beside her with a little
hopeless gesture.
‘I know one has got no business to be bored,
and it is one's own fault as a rule if one is, she
went on. “For instance, that woman in the moated
Grange ought to have swept away the blue fly that
buzzed in the pane, and set a mouse trap for the
mouse that shrieked, and got the carpenter to
repair the mouldering wainscot, and written to the
Psychical Research, how she had heard her own
sad name in corners cried, and it couldn't have
been the cat, or she would have caught the shriek-
ing mouse. Oh, there was a thousand things she
might have done, before she sat down and said,
“He cometh not.” But I have had a period
of enforced idleness. If I had set a trap for the
mouse, the doctor would have told me not to exert
myself so much. I used to play Halma with
Chesterford, only I always beat him ; and then
nobody ever cried my name in sad corners, that
IC
I46 AMODO.
I remember; it would have been quite interest-
ing.’
Jack laughed.
‘What a miserable story, Dodo, he said. “I
always said you had none of the domestic virtues,
and I am right it seems.’
‘Oh, it isn't that,' said Dodo, “but I happen to
have a brain as well, and if I don't use it, it decays,
and when it decays, it breeds maggots. I’ve got
a big maggot in my head now, and that is, that
the ineffable joys of maternity are much exag-
gerated. Don't look shocked, Geraldine. I know
it's a maggot, and simply means that I haven't
personally experienced them, but the maggot says,
“You are a woman, and if you don't experience
them, either they don't exist, or you are abnormal.”
Well, the maggot lies. I know it, I believe they do
exist, and I am sure I am not abnormal. Ah, this
is unprofitable, isn't it. You two have come to
drive the maggot out.’
Mrs Vivian felt a sudden impulse of anger which
melted into pity.
“Poor Dodo, she said, “leave the maggot alone,
and he will die of inanition. At present give me
AXODO. I47
some more tea. This really is very good tea, and
you drink it the proper way, without milk or sugar,
and with a little slice of lemon.’
‘Tea is such a middle-aged thing any other
way,’ said Dodo, pouring out another cup. “I feel
like an old woman in a workhouse if I put milk
and sugar in it. Besides, you should only drink
tea at tea. It produces the same effect as tobacco,
a slight soothing of the nerves. One doesn’t want
to be soothed at breakfast, otherwise the tedious
things we all have to do in the morning are
impossible. Chesterford has a passion for the
morning. He quoted something the other day
about the divine morning. It isn’t divine, it is
necessary; at least you can't get to the evening
without a morning, in this imperfect world. Now
if it had only been “the evening and the evening
were the first day,” what a difference it would have
made.”
Mrs Vivian laughed.
‘You always bring up the heavy artillery to de-
fend a small position, Dodo,” she said. “Keep
your great guns for great occasions.”
‘Oh, I always use big guns,’ said Jack, ‘They do
148 DODO.
the work quicker. Besides, you never can tell that
the small position is not the key to the large.
The baby, for instance, that Dodo thinks very
extremely insignificant now, may be horribly im-
portant in twenty years.’
‘Yes, I daresay Chesterford and I will quarrel
about him,' said Dodo. “Supposing he falls in
love with a curate's daughter, Chesterford will
say something about love in a cottage, and I shall
want him to marry a duke's daughter, and I shall
get my way, and everybody concerned will be
extremely glad afterwards.’
“Poor baby,' said Mrs Vivian, “you little think
'what a worldly mother you have.’
‘Oh, I know I am worldly, said Dodo. “I don’t
deny it for a moment. Jack and I had it out
before my marriage. But I believe I am capable
of an unworldly action now and then. Why, I
should wish Maud to marry a curate very much.
She would do her part admirably, and no one
could say it was a worldly fate. But I like giv-
ing everybody their chance. That is why I have
Maud to stay with me, and let her get a good
look at idle worldly people like Jack. After a
AODO. I49
ſ
girl has seen every sort, I wish her to choose,
and I am unworldly enough to applaud her choice,
if it is unworldly; only I shouldn't do it myself.
I have no ideal; it was left out.’
Jack was conscious of a keen resentment at
Dodo's words. He had accepted her decision, but
he didn’t like to have it flaunted before him in
Dodo's light voice and careless words. He made
an uneasy movement in his chair. Dodo saw it.
‘Ah, Jack, I have offended you, she said; “it
was stupid of me. But I have been so silent and
lonely all these days, that it is such a relief to
let my tongue wag at all, whatever it says. Ah,
here's Chesterford. What an age you have been.
Here am I consoling myself as best I can. Isn't
it nice to have Jack again?’
Chesterford saw the fresh light in her eyes, and
the fresh vivaciousness in her speech, and he was
so unfeignedly glad to see her more herself again,
that no thought of jealousy entered his heart. He
thought without bitterness, “How glad she must
be to have her friends about her again. She looks
better already. Decidedly I am a stupid old fellow,
but I think Dodo loves me a little.’
I 5o ZXO/OO.
He shook hands with Jack, and beamed de-
lightedly on Dodo.
‘Jack, it is good of you to come so soon, he
said ; “Dodo has missed you dreadfully. Have
you seen the boy P Dodo, may I have him
down P’
‘Oh, he's been down,” said she, “and has only
just gone up again. He's rather fractious to-day :
I daresay it's teeth. It's nothing to bother about ;
he's as well as possible.”
Lord Chesterford looked disappointed, but ac-
quiesced.
“I should like Jack to see him all the same,’
he remarked. ‘May he come up to the nursery P’
‘Oh, Jack doesn't care about babies, said Dodo,
“even when they belong to you and me. Do
you, Jack? I assure you it won't amuse you a
bit.”
‘I can't go away without seeing the baby,' said
Jack, “so I think I'll go with Chesterford, and
then I must be off. Good-bye, Dodo. Get well
quickly. May I come and see you to-morrow P’
‘I wish Chesterford wouldn't take Jack off in
that way,' said Dodo, rather querulously, as they
ZOO Z)O. I 51
left the room. ‘Jack came to see me, and I wanted
to talk more to him—I’m very fond of Jack. If
he wasn't so fearfully lazy, he'd make no end of a
splash. But he prefers talking to his friends to
talking to a lot of Irish members. I wonder why
he came after he said he wouldn't. Jack usually
has good reasons.”
Dodo lay back in her chair and reflected.
‘You really are the most unnatural mother,’
said Mrs Vivian, with a laugh. “I am glad Mr
Broxton went with your husband, or he would
have been disappointed, I think.’
Dodo looked a little anxious.
‘He wasn’t vexed, was he?’ she asked. “I hate
vexing people, especially Chesterford. But he really
is ridiculous about the baby. It is absurd to sup-
pose it is interesting yet.’
‘I don't suppose he would call it interesting,” said
Mrs Vivian. “But you know there are other things
beside that.”
Dodo grew a trifle impatient.
“Ah, that’s a twice-told tale, she said. “I consider
I have done my duty admirably, but just now I
confess I am pining for a little amusement. I have
152 200 DO.
been awfully dull. You know one can't exist on
pure love.’
Mrs Vivian rose to go.
“Well, I must be off, she said. “Good-night, Dodo ;
and remember this, if ever anything occurs on which
you want advice or counsel, come to me for it.
You know I have been through all this ; and—
and remember Lord Chesterford loves you very
deeply.”
Dodo looked up inquiringly.
‘Yes, of course, I know that, she said, ‘and we
get on magnificently together. In any case I should
always ask you for advice. You know I used to be
rather afraid of you.’
Mrs Vivian stood looking out of the window.
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears.
“Ah, my dear, don't be afraid of me,’ she said.
Dodo wondered, when she had gone, what made her
so suddenly grave. Her own horizon was singularly
free from clouds. She had been through an experi-
ence which she had looked forward to with some-
thing like dread. But that was over; she and the
baby were both alive and well. Chesterford was
more devoted than ever, and she P-well, she was
ZXO/OO. * I53
thoroughly satisfied. And Jack had come back,
and all was going delightfully.
“They all talk about love as if it were some-
thing very dreadful, she thought. “I’m sure it isn't
dreadful at all. It is rather a bore sometimes;
at least one can have enough of it, but that is a
fault on the right side.”
The door opened softly, and Chesterford came in.
‘I am glad to find you alone, darling,” he said,
‘I haven't seen you all day. You are looking much
better. Get Jack to come and see you again as
soon as he can.”
Dodo smiled benignantly on him.
“The baby really is wonderful, he continued.
‘It was sitting up with its bottle just now,
and I really believe it winked at me when it saw
me. Do you think it knows me?’
‘Oh, I daresay it does,’ said Dodo ; “it sees enough
of you anyhow.’
‘Isn't it all wonderful,” he went on, not noticing
her tone. “Just fancy. Sometimes I wonder
whether it's all real.”
‘It’s real enough when it cries,” said Dodo. “But
it is rather charming, I do think.’
I 54 ANOADO.
“It's got such queer little fists, said he, “with
nice pink nails.’ -
Dodo laughed rather wearily.
‘Are you a little tired, darling?” he said. “Won't
you go to bed P You know you've been up
quite a long time. Perhaps you'd like to see
the baby before you go.”
‘Oh, I said good-night to the baby,' said
Dodo. “I think I will go to bed. I wish you'd
send Wilkins here.”
He bent over her and kissed her forehead
softly. -
“Ah, my darling, my darling, he whispered.
Dodo lay with half shut eyes.
* Good-night, dear, she said languidly.
C H A P T E R V III.
THE questions about which a man is apt to say
that he alone can judge, are usually exactly
those questions in which his judgment is most
likely to be at fault, for they concern him very
intimately—a truth which he expresses by say-
ing that he alone can judge about them, and
for that very reason his emotions are apt to
colour what he considers his sober decision.
Jack was exactly in this position when he
left the Chesterfords' door that afternoon. It
was only six o'clock when he went away, and
he wished to be alone, and to think about it.
But the house seemed stuffy and unsuggestive,
and he ordered a horse, and sat fuming and
frowning till it came round. It fidgeted and
edged away from the pavement, when he tried
to mount it, and he said, “Get out, you brute,
I55
I 56 IXODO.
with remarkable emphasis, and asked the groom
whether he hadn't yet learned how to hold a
horse quiet. This was sufficient to show that he
was in a perturbed frame of mind.
The Row was rather empty, for a great race
meeting was going on, and Jack cantered quickly
up to the end, and cursed his stupidity for not
having gone to Sandown. Then he put his
horse to a quiet pace, and determined to think
the matter out.
He had left the Chesterfords in January with
a full realisation of his position. He was in love
with Dodo, perhaps more deeply than ever, and
Dodo was hopelessly, irrevocably out of his reach.
The only thing left to be done was to get over
it; but his ordinary circle, and its leisurely duties
were quite impossible just at present, and he
adopted the traditional English method of travel-
ling, and shooting unoffending animals. Whether
the absence of faith was responsible, is an open
question; at any rate the remedy did not result
in a cure. He was intensely bored with foreign
countries; they were quite as distasteful as
England, and, on the whole had less to offer. And
ZOODO. I 57
he came back to London again as suddenly as
he had left it. He only remembered one incident
in his four months abroad, which gave him any
pleasure; that was when he received a letter from
Dodo at Berlin, which said nothing particular,
and wound up with a little mild chaff on the
absurdity of his going abroad at all. “I hope
you're really better,’ wrote Dodo, “though I didn't
know that you were in any immediate danger
of breaking down when you left us. Anyhow
come back. London is particularly wholesome,
and, to tell you the truth, it's just a wee bit dull.
Don’t be conceited.’
Of course he came back; it was no good remain-
ing abroad, and yawning in front of the Sistine
Madonna, who, in her impossible Serene mildness,
had no message whatever for him. He wanted to
see Dodo; why on earth shouldn't he? She was
the only thing he really cared about, and she was
quite out of his reach. Where was the harm P
For two days after his arrival in London he
was still undecided, and made no effort to see her,
and on the third day her note came. London was
as bad as Dresden, and again, where was the harm P
158 AXODO.
He wrote a note saying he would come, then he
tore that up and sent a refusal, offering no excuse.
and after all, he had gone, and parted from her
with the words that he would come again the next
day. But ah, how sweet it was to see her again
Such were the facts upon which Jack wished to
form a conclusion. All this indecision was really
too annoying. What was the use of a conscience
that took the sugar out of your tea, and yet could
not prevent you from drinking it? It was not
strong enough to prevent him going to see Dodo,
and it took the malicious line of making the visit
as little enjoyable as possible. Well, it must be
settled one way or the other.
The problem obviously depended on one ques-
tion. Did his desire for Dodo grow stronger with
seeing her? He decided that it did not make
much difference to the quality or degree of his
longing, but, on the other hand, her society gave
him an inestimable pleasure. When she had refused
him a year ago, he had gone on seeing her day
after day, without the horrible, unsatisfied empti-
ness that he had felt abroad. That absorbing craving
for her, he remembered, began when she was on
AO/OO. - I 59
her wedding tour. Then why not see her freely
and frequently P No harm could possibly come
out of it. Dodo, he thought, cared for him only
as she cared for a dozen other friends, why should
he, then, who cared so deeply for her, cut himself
off from her? Again his deep-rooted affection and
respect for her husband was an immense safeguard.
Quixotism was a doubtful virtue at the best, and
decidedly out of date, and besides, what would
Dodo think if she suddenly found that one of
her best friends invariably declined to meet her
under any circumstances P She would certainly
guess the reason, and if there was one possible
solution of this stupid problem more undesirable
than another, it was that. And Jack made up his
mind.
Well, that was settled, and here was Bertie
1iding down upon him. He felt as if he wished
to record a deliberate and sober conclusion. They
joined forces and rode up together.
Then Jack said suddenly,–
“Bertie, I have been making a fool of myself, but
I am better now.’ -
‘That's good,' said Bertie placidly.
I6o AXODO,
There was something indefinably soothing about
Bertie's manner. Jack determined to be more
explicit. It is often a relief to tell a friend one's
own resolutions, especially if one does not expect
unseasonable objections.
‘It’s about Dodo, he said. “You see I’m dread-
fully in love with her. Awkward, isn't it?’
‘Devilish,” said Bertie, without a shade of emotion
passing over his face.
“And the less I see of her, said Jack, ‘the worse
I get, so I’ve determined that the more I see of
her in the ordinary way, the better. It sounds
an unusual treatment, I know, but you must
acknowledge I gave the other method a fair
chance. I went and killed pigs in Austria, and
climbed the Matterhorn, but it wouldn’t do.’
They rode on a little time in silence. Then
Bertie said, -
“Do you want my advice?’
“Well, yes,” said Jack rather dubiously.
“Then I'm dashed if I like it, Jack, he said.
“It's too dangerous. Just think—'
But Jack broke in,
‘Don’t you see my friendship for Chesterford
DODO. * I6I
is an absolute safeguard. Dodo gives me more
pleasure than anyone I know, and when I can't
see her, life becomes unbearable. Chesterford is
one of those men to whom one couldn’t do a
mean thing, and, furthermore, Dodo doesn't love
me. If those two facts don't ensure safety, I
don't know what would. Besides, Bertie, I’m not
a rascal.’
‘I can't like it,” said Bertie. “If one has a
propensity for falling into the fire, it's as well to
keep off the hearthrug. I know you're not a
rascal, but this is a thing one can't argue about
It is a matter of feeling.’
“I know,” said Jack, ‘I’ve felt it too. But I
think it's outweighed by other considerations. If
I thought any mischief could come of it, I should
deserve to be horse-whipped.’
‘I don't like it,' repeated Bertie stolidly.
Jack went to see Dodo the next afternoon, and
for many afternoons during the next fortnight he
might have been seen on Chesterford's doorstep,
either coming or going. Her husband seemed
almost as glad as Dodo that Jack should come
often. His visits were obviously very pleasant
L
I62 * AXODO.
to her, and she had begun to talk nonsense again
as fluently as ever. With Jack, however, she had
some rather serious talks ; his future appeared to
be exercising her mind somewhat. Jack's life at
this time was absolutely aimless. Before he had
gone abroad he had been at the Bar, and , had
been called, but his chambers now knew him no
more. He had no home duties, being, as Dodo
expressed it, “a poor little orphan of six foot two,
and he had enough money for an idle bachelor
life. Dodo took a very real interest in the career
of her friends. It was part of her completeness,
as I have said before, to be the centre of a set
of successful people. Jack could do very well,
she felt, in the purely ornamental line, and she
by no means wished to debar him from the orna-
mental profession, but yet she was vaguely dis-
satisfied. She induced him one day to state
in full, exactly the ideas he had about his own
future.
‘You dangle very well indeed,” she said to
him, ‘and I’m far from wishing you not to dangle,
but, if it's to be your profession, you must do
it more systematically. Lady Wrayston was here
ZDO/OO. 163
yesterday, and she said no one ever saw you now.
That's lazy; you're neglecting your work.’
Jack was silent a few minutes. The truth of
the matter was that he was becoming SO preoccu-
pied with Dodo, that he was acquiring a real
distaste for other society. His days seemed to
have dwindled down to an hour or two hours
each, according to the time he passed with Dodo.
The interval between his leaving the house one
day, and returning to it the next, had got to be
merely a tedious period of waiting, which he would
gladly have dispensed with. In such intervals
society appeared to him not a distraction, but a
laborious substitute for inaction, and labour at
any time was not congenial to him. His life, in
fact, was a series of conscious pulses with long-
drawn pauses in between. He was dimly aware
that this sort of thing could not go on for ever.
The machine would stop, or get quicker or slower,
and there were endless complications imminent in
either case.
‘I don't know that I really care for dangling,
said Jack discontentedly. “At the same time it is
the least objectionable form of amusement.’
I64 AMODO.
‘Well, you can't dangle for ever in any case,'
said Dodo. “You ought to marry and settle down.
Chesterford is a sort of apotheosis of a dangler.
By performing, with scrupulous care, a quantity of
little things that don't matter much, like being
J.P., and handing the offertory plate, he is in a
way quite a busy man, to himself at least, though
nothing would happen if he ceased doing any or
all of these things; and the dangler, who thinks
himself busy, is the happiest of men, because he
gets all the advantages of dangling, and none of
the disadvantages, and his conscience — have you
got a conscience, Jack P−so far from pricking him,
tells him he's doing the whole duty of man. Then
again he's married — to me, too. That's a pro-
fession in itself.”
“Ah, but I can't be married to you too, re-
marked Jack.
‘You’re absurd, said Dodo; “but really, Jack,
I wish you'd marry someone else. I sha’n’t think
you unfaithful.’
‘I don't flatter myself that you would,” said
Jack, with a touch of irritation.
Dodo looked up rather surprised at the hard
PODO. p I65
ring in his voice. She thought it wiser to ignore
this last remark.
‘I never can quite make out whether you are
ambitious or not, she said. “Now and then you
make me feel as if you would rather like to go
and live in a small cathedral town—
“And shock the canons P’ suggested Jack.
“Not necessarily; but cultivate sheer domesticity.
You're very domestic in a way. Bertie would do
admirably in a cathedral town. He'd be dread-
fully happy among dull people. They would all
think him so brilliant and charming, and the
bishop would ask him over to dine at the palace,
whenever anyone came down from London.’
‘I’m not ambitious in the way of wanting to
score small successes,’ said Jack. “Anyone can
score them. I don't mind flying at high game
and missing. If you miss of course you have
to load again, but I’d sooner do that than make
a bag of rabbits. Besides, you can get your
rabbits sitting, as you go after your high game.
But I don’t want rabbits.”
‘What is your high game?’ asked Dodo.
Jack considered.
I66 DO/OO.
‘It’s this,' he said, ‘You may attain it, or a
anyrate strive after it, by doing nothing, or work-
ing like a horse. But, anyhow, it's being in the
midst of things, it's seeing the wheels go round,
and forming conclusions as to why they go round,
it's hearing the world go rushing by like a river
in flood, it's knowing what everyone thinks about,
it's guessing why one woman falls in love with
one man, and why another man falls in love with
her. You don't get that in cathedral towns.
The archdeacon's daughter falls in love with the
dean's son, and nobody else is at all in love
with either of them. The world doesn’t rattle
in cathedral towns, they take care to oil it; the
world doesn't come down in flood in cathedral
towns, there is nothing so badly regulated as that.
I don't know why I should choose cathedral towns
particularly to say these things about. I think
you suggested that I should live in one. If you
like you can plunge into the river in flood and
go down with it—that's what they call having a
profession — but it's just as instructive to stand
on the bank and watch it; more instructive, per-
haps, because you needn't swim, and can give
DODO. 167
your whole attention to it. On the whole, that
is what I mean to do.’
‘That's good, Jack,' said Dodo; “but you're not
consistent. The fact that you haven’t been going
out lately, shows that you're standing with your
back to it, with your hands in your pocket. After
all, what you say only comes to this, that you
are interested in the problem of human life. Well,
there's just as much human life in your cathedral
town.”
“Ah, but there's no go about it,” said he. “It’s
no more like life than a duck pond is to the
river in flood.’
‘Oh, you're wrong there,' said Dodo. “It goes
on just the same, though it doesn't make such
a fuss. But in any case you are standing with
your back to it now, as I said.’
‘I’m going into details, just at present, said
Jack.
‘How do you mean P’
“I’m watching a little bit of it.”
“I suppose you mean Chesterford and me. Dc
you find us very interesting?’ demanded Dodo.
“Very.’
I68 AXODO.
Jack was rather uncomfortable. He wanted to
Say more, and wished he hadn't said so much.
He wondered how Dodo would take it.
Dodo did not take it at all. She was, for the
time at anyrate, much more interested in Jack's
prospects as they concerned him, than as they
bore on herself. 4.
‘What is the upshot of all your observations?”
2he asked.
Jack hardly knew whether to feel relieved or
slighted. Was Dodo's apparent unconsciousness
of the tenor of what he had said, genuine or
affected P. On that he felt a great deal depended.
But whether it was genuine or not, the matter
was closed for the present. Dodo repeated her
question.
“My observations on you, or on the world in
general P’ he asked.
“Either will do,” said Dodo; “we’re very normal,
Any conclusion you have formed about the rest
of the world will apply to us.”
‘My conclusion is that you are not quite normal,”
said he.
Dodo laughed.
PODO. 169
‘Oh, I’m dreadfully normal, she said; “all my
inconsistencies lie on the surface—I’m married, I’ve
got a baby, I'm honest, I’m lazy. I'm all I
should and shouldn't be. And Chesterford—
‘Oh, then Chesterford's normal too,” said Jack.
C H A P T E R IX.
UNE was drawing to a close in a week of
J magnificent weather. It was too hot to do'
much during the middle of the day, and the Park
was full of riders every morning from eight till ten.
Dodo was frequently to be seen there, usually
riding a vicious black mare, that plunged and
shied more than Lord Chesterford quite liked.
But Dodo insisted on riding it.
“The risks one runs every moment of one's
life, she told him, “are so many, that one or two
more really don't matter. Besides, I can manage
the brute.’
On this particular morning Dodo descended the
stairs feeling unusually happy. The period of en-
forced idleness was over, and she was making up
for lost time with a vengeance. They had given
I7O
DODO. 171
a dance the night before, and Dodo had not gone
to bed till after four; but for ail that she was
down again at half-past eight, and her mare was
waiting for her. She turned into the dining-room
to have a cup of tea before starting, and waited
somewhat impatiently for Lord Chesterford to join
her. He came in, in the course of a few minutes,
looking rather worried.
‘You look as if you had not gone to bed for
a week,” said Dodo, ‘and your hair is dreadfully
untidy. Look at me now. Here I am a weak
little woman, and I feel fit to move mountains,
and you look as if you wanted quinine and iron.
Don't come, if you'd rather not. Stop at home
and play with the baby.”
“I’m all right,” said he, “but I’m rather worried
about the boy. The nurse says he's not been
sleeping much all night, but kept waking and
crying, and he looks rather flushed. I think I'll
send for the doctor.”
Dodo felt a little impatient.
‘He's as right as possible, she said. “You
shouldn't worry so, Chesterford. You've wanted
to send for the doctor a hundred times in the
172 DODO.
last month, either for him or me. But don't
come if you'd rather not. Vivy is coming to
breakfast at half-past nine; I quite forgot that.
If you feel inclined to stop, you might give her
breakfast, and I’ll lengthen my ride. I shall
be back by half-past ten. She's going to take
me to see Wainright's new Turner.’
‘Are you sure you don't mind, Dodo?” said he,
still wavering. ‘If you don't, I really think I
will stop, and perhaps see the doctor about him.
The nurse says she would like to have the doctor
here.”
“Just as you like,' said Dodo. “You’ll have to
pay a Swinging bill anyhow. Good-bye, old boy.
Don't worry your silly old head. I’m sure it's
all right.”
Dodo went off perfectly at ease in her mind.
Chesterford was rather fussy, she thought, and
she congratulated herself on not being nervous.
“A pretty pair we should make if I encouraged
him in his little ways,’ she said to herself. “We
should one of us live in the nursery.” She put
her horse into a quick trot, and felt a keen enjoy-
ment in managing the vicious animal. The streets
DODO. I73.
were somewhat crowded even at this hour, and
Dodo had her work cut out for her.
However, she reached the Park in safety, and
went up the Row at a swinging gallop, with her
horse tearing at the rein and tossing its head.
After a time the brute grew quieter, and Dodo
joined a well-known figure who was riding some
way in front of her.
* Good old Jack, she cried, ‘isn't it splendid
I had no idea how I loved motion and exercise
and dancing and all that till I began again.
Didn't you think our ball went off rather well?
Did you stop till the end ? Oh, of course you
did. That silly dowager What's - her - name was
quite shocked at me, just because we had the
looking - glass figure in the Cotillion. It's the
prettiest of the lot, I think. Old Major Ewart
gave me a pair of ivory castanets with silver
mountings last night, the Sweetest things in the
world. I really think he is seriously gone on me,
and he must be sixty if he's an hour. I think
I shall appeal to Chesterford for protection. What
fun it would be to make Chesterford talk to him
gravely like a grandson. He stopped at home this
I74 DODO.
morning to look after the baby. I think I shall
get jealous of the nurse, and pretend that he's
sweet on her, and that's why he goes to the
nursery so much.”
Jack laughed.
“Between you, you hit the right average pretty
well, he said. “If it wasn't for Chesterford, the
baby would certainly have fallen downstairs half
a dozen times. You don't half realise how im-
portant he is.’ t
‘Oh, you're entirely wrong, Jack,” said Dodo
calmly. ‘It’s just that which I do recognise; what
I don't recognise is that I should be supposed to
find ineffable joys in watching it eat and sleep
and howl. You know one baby is very much
iike another.’
“In other words, supposing the boy had no ex-
pectations,’ said Jack, ‘and was not the heir-
apparent of half Staffordshire, you would find
him much less interesting.’ t
‘Would you think me very heartless if I said
“Yes”?’ asked Dodo. ;
“Well, I never held a very high opinion of
your heart, you know,' said Jack, laughing, “ and
ZOODO. I75
I don't know that I think much worse of it
now.’ *
‘You judge so stupidly,” said Dodo ; “you elevate
matrimony into a sacrament. Now I don't. It
is a contract for mutual advantage. The husband
gives wealth, position and all that, and the wife
gives him a housekeeper, and heirs to his pro-
perty. Don't frown, Jack. That's my eminently
common-sense view of the question. It answers
excellently, as I find by experience. But, of course,
there are marriages for love. I suppose most of
the lower middle - class marry for love, at least
they haven't got any position or wealth to marry
for. But we, the disillusioned and unromantic
upper classes, see beyond that. I daresay our
great grandfathers married for love, but the fact
that so many of us don't, shows that ours is
the more advanced, and probably correct view.
You know all wine-tasters agree on the superiority
of one wine, and the inferiority of another. That's
the result of education. The amateur thinks they
are all more or less alike, and very probably pre-
fers some sweet bad kind. That's the middle-class
view of love - marriages. The more I think of it,
176 DODO.
the more I feel that love is an illusion. Think
of all the people who marry for love, and get
eternally tired of each other afterwards. They
can't keep it up. The lovers grow into friends,
and the friends into enemies. Those are the
enviable ones who remain friends; but it is better
to marry as a friend than as a lover, because in
the latter case there is a reaction and a disap-
pointment, which may perhaps ruin the friendship.
Aren't I a wise woman, Jack P I think I shall set
up a general advice office.’
Jack was rather pale, and his fingers twitched
nervously at his reins.
“Have you never felt that illusion ?’ he asked, in
a low voice.
“Really, Jack,' said Dodo, ‘you behave as if you
were the inquisition. But I don't see why I
shouldn’t tell you. For Chesterford I never have.
He is the most excellent husband, and I esteem
and admire him immensely, Don't make your
horse so fidgety, Jack. As I was saying, I don't
see why I shouldn't tell you, considering you
proposed to me once, and confessed to the same
illusion yourself. Have you got over it, by the
AMODO. 177
way P If I had married you, you certainly would
have by this time.’
There was a long pause. Then Jack said,
‘No, Dodo, I have never got over it.’
The moment after he had said it, he would have
given his right hand to have it unsaid. Dodo
was silent for a moment, and Jack found himself
noticing the tiny, trivial things about him. He
observed a fly trying to alight on his horse's ear,
but the animal always flicked it off with a little
jerk, before it got fairly settled. He wondered
whether the fly had illusions about that ear, and
whether it imagined that it would be happy for
ever and ever, if it could once settle there.
‘You know we are saying the most frightfully
unconventional things to each other,’ said Dodo.
‘I am very Sorry for you, Jack, and I will
administer consolation. When I said “No” to you,
I did it with real regret, with quite a different sort
of feeling to that which I should have had, if I
had said “No” to Chesterford. It was quite an
unreasonable feeling, I couldn't define it, but I
think it must have been because—’
Then Jack recovered his self- respect in a
M
178 DODO.
moment, by one of those strange contradictions
in our nature, which urged him to stop his ears
to what, a week before, he had been almost tempt-
ing her to say.
“Ah, stop, stop,' he said, ‘you don't know what
you are saying. Dodo, this won't do. Think of
Chesterford.” \
‘Chesterford and the baby,' said Dodo softly.
“I believe you are right, Jack. This is unprofit-
able. But, Jack, since we renounce that, let us
still be friends. Don't let this have made any
difference to us. Try and realise that it is all
an illusion.’
Dodo half turned towards him, with a long
glance of her brown eyes, and a little smile play-
ing about her mouth.
‘Yes, yes,” said Jack, laughing nervously. “I’
told Bertie so the other day. I have been a
madman for half an hour, but that is over. Shall
we turn ?”
They wheeled their horses round, and cantered
down the Row. +
‘Oh, this beautiful world !’ exclaimed Dodo,
‘You’ve no idea what it is to me to come out
AMODO. 179
of the house again, and ride and dance and sing.
I really believe, Jack, that I enjoy things more
than anyone else I know. Everything that en-
joys itself appeals to me. Jack, do enjoy yourself,
although we settled you mustn't appeal to me.
Who is that girl standing there with the poodle P
I think I shall get Chesterford to buy me a
poodle. There's a woman next her awfully like
Vivy, do you see, shading her eyes with her hand.
It is Vivy.”
Dodo's face suddenly grew grave and frightened.
She reined her horse in opposite to where Mrs
Vivian was standing.
‘Quick, quick, she said, “tell me what has
happened l’
Mrs Vivian looked up at Dodo with infinite
compassion in her eyes.
‘Dodo, darling,” she said, ‘give your horse to
the groom. Please help her to dismount, Mr
Broxton.’ -
Dodo got off, and Mrs Vivian led her to
a seat. Dodo had a sudden flash of remem-
brance of how she had sat here with Jack a
year ago.
I8o ZDODO.
“Tell me quickly, she said again.
‘My poor Dodo,” said Mrs Vivian, softly strok-
ing the back of Dodo's hand. “You will be
brave, won't you? It is worth while being brave.
It is all over. The baby died this morning, half
an hour after you had gone.’
Dodo's first feeling was one of passionate anger
and resentment. She felt she had been duped
and tricked in a most unjustifiable manner. Fate
had led her to expect some happy days, and
she had been cruelly disappointed. It was not
fair; she had just been released from two tedious
months of inactivity, only to be caught again.
It was like a cat playing with a mouse. She
wanted to revenge herself on something.
‘Oh, it is too awful,” she said. “Vivy, what can
I do? It is cruel.” Then her better nature came
to her aid. “Poor Chesterford, poor dear old
boy, she said simply.
Mrs Vivian's face grew more tender.
‘I am glad you thought of him, she said. “His
first thought was for you. He was there all the
time. As soon as it was over he said to himself,
“Please, God, help Dodo to bear it.” You
ZDO/OO. *. 181
bear it very well, dear. Come, the carriage is
waiting.’
‘Oh, I can't, I can't,' said Dodo passionately;
‘let me sit here a little while, and then go away
somewhere else. I can bear it better alone. I
can't see Chesterford.”
‘No, Dodo, she said, ‘you must not be cowardly.
I know it is the worst part of it for you. But
your duty lies with him. You must comfort him.
You must make him feel that he has got you
left. He is terribly broken, but he will be brave
for your sake. Be brave for his.’
Dodo sighed wearily.
“I suppose you are right, she said; “I will come.’
She turned and looked round on to the gay
scene. The Row was full of riders, and bright
with the flooding sunlight.
‘Oh, it is cruel, she said. “I only wanted to
be happy, and I mayn't even be that. What is
the good of it all, if I mayn't enjoy it? Why
was the baby ever born ? I wish it never had
been. What good does it do anyone that I
should suffer?”
Mrs Vivian felt horribly helpless and baffled.
I82 AXODO.
How could she appeal to this woman, who looked
at everything from only her own standpoint?
“Come, Dodo,” she said.
They drove back in silence. Chesterford was
standing in the hall as they entered, waiting for
them. He came forward to meet Dodo.
‘My poor, poor darling, he said, “it is very hard
on you. But we can bear it together, Dodo.’
Dodo turned from him passionately, and left
him standing there.
Dodo was sitting in the window of her morning-
room late on the same afternoon. She and Lord
Chesterford had been together to look at the
baby as it lay there, with the little features that
had been racked and distorted with pain, calm
and set again, as if it only slept ; and Dodo had
at that moment one real pang of grief. Her first
impulse, as we have seen, was one of anger and
impatience at the stupidity of destiny. She had
been enjoying herself, in a purely animal way so
intensely, at that moment when she saw Mrs
Vivian waiting for her under the trees. She was
just released from a tedious period of inactivity,
Z)ODO. 183
and inactivity was to Dodo worse than anything
in the Inferno.
‘I daresay I should get accustomed to being
roasted,” she had said once to Miss Grantham.
“It really would be rather interesting seeing your
fingers curling up like fried bacon, but imagine
being put in a nicely-furnished room with nobody
to talk to, and a view over Hyde Park one side,
and Melton Mowbray the other, and never being
able to get out! The longer that lasted, the worse
it would become.’ And so she had felt the sort
of rapture with which ‘the prisoner leaps to loose
his chains’ when she had gone out that morning,
and again knew the infinite delight of feeling
a fine horse answer to her hand, under a sort of
playful protest. Then this had come upon her,
and Dodo felt that language failed her to express
her profound contempt and dislike for the destiny
that shapes our ends,
But her generosity and sense of fair play had
come to her aid. She was not alone in this matter,
and she quite realised that it was worse for
Chesterford than herself.
Chesterford had evinced the most intense interest
Ib4 , ZOODO.
in the baby in itself. Dodo, on the other hand, had
frankly declared that the baby's potentialities
possessed a far greater attraction for her than its
actualities. But she had voluntarily linked her
life with his, and she must do her part—they
had had a great loss, and he must not feel that
he bore it alone. Dodo shook her head hopelessly
Over the unknown factor, that made her so much
to him, and left him so little to her, but she
accepted it as inevitable. Almost immediately
after she had left him in the hall, she felt angry
with herself for having done so, just as she had
been vexed at her reception of his proposal of
family prayers, and a few minutes afterwards she
sent for him, and they had gone together to see
the baby. And then, because she was a woman,
because she was human, because she was genuinely
sorry for this honest, true man who knelt beside
her and sobbed as if his heart was broken, but
with a natural instinct turned to her, and sorrowed
more for her than for himself, her intense self-
centredness for the time vanished, and with a true
and womanly instinct, she found her consolation
in consoling him.
ANO/OO. 185
Dodo felt as if she had lived years since this
morning, and longed to cut the next week out of
her life, to lose it altogether. She wanted to get
away out of the whole course of events, to begin
again without any past. From a purely worldly
point of view she was intensely vexed at the
baby's death; she had felt an immense pride in
having provided an heir, and it was all no use,
it was over, it might as well never have been born.
And, as the day wore on, she felt an overwhelming
disgust of all the days that were to follow, the
darkened house, the quieted movements, the enforced
idleness. If only no one knew, Dodo felt that she
would fling herself at once, this very minute, into the
outside world again. What was the use of all this
retirement? It only made a bad job worse. Surely,
when misfortune comes on one, it is best to forget
it as soon as possible, and Dodo's eminently
practical way of forgetting anything, was to absorb
herself in something else. ‘What a sensible man
David was, she thought, ‘He went and oiled him-
self, which, I suppose, is the equivalent of putting
on one's very best evening dress.” She felt an
inward laughter, more than half hysterical, as to
I86 PODO.
what would happen if she went and oiled Chester-
ford.
She got up and went languidly across to the
window. Lord Chesterford's room was on the
story below, and was built on a wing by itself,
and a window looked out on her side of the house
Looking down she saw him kneeling at his
table, with his face buried in his hands. Dodo
was conscious of a lump rising in her throat, and
she went back to her chair, and sat down
again.
‘He is such a good, honest, old boy, she thought
‘and somehow, in a dim-lit way, he finds consola
tion in that. It is a merciful arrangement.’
She walked downstairs to his study, and went in.
He had heard her step, and stood near the door
waiting to receive her. Dodo felt infinitely sorry
for him. Chesterford drew her into a chair, and
knelt down beside her.
‘You’ve no idea what a help you have been
to me, darling,' he said. “It makes me feel as
if I was an awful coward, when I see you so
brave.’
Dodo stroked his hand.
ZDODO. 187
‘Yes, yes,” she said, ‘we must both be brave,
we must help one another.”
“Ah, my own wife,’ he said, ‘what should I have
done if it had been you? and I was dreadfully
afraid at one time ! You know you are both the
baby and yourself to me now, and yet I thought
before you were all you could be.’
Dodo felt horribly uncomfortable. She had been
aware before that there had been moments when,
as Jack expressed it, she was ‘keeping it up, but
never to this extent.’
“Tell me about it, Chesterford,” she said.
“It was only half an hour after you went,” he
said, “that he suddenly got worse. The doctor
came a few minutes after that. It was all practic-
ally over by then. It was convulsions, you know.
He was quite quiet, and seemed out of pain for a
few minutes before the end, and he opened his eyes,
and put out his little arms towards me. Do you
think he knew me, Dodo P’
‘Yes, dear, yes,” said Dodo softly.
“I should be so happy to think he did,” said
Lord Chesterford. “Poor little chap, he always
took to me from the first, do you remember? I
I88 ZOODO.
hope he knew me then. Mrs Vivian came very
Soon after, and she offered to go for you, and met
you in the Park, didn't she P’
‘Yes,’ said Dodo ; ‘Jack and I were together.
She is very good to us, Would you like to see
her to-night?'
“Ah no, Dodo, he said, ‘I can't see anyone but
your dear self. But make her come and see you
if you feel inclined, only come and talk to me
again afterwards.’
‘No, dear,’ said Dodo ‘I won't have her, if
you feel against it.’
“Then we shall have an evening together again,
Dodo, he said. “I seem to have seen you so
little, since you began to go about again,’ he added
wistfully.
‘Oh, it must be so, said Dodo ; you have one
thing to do, and I have another. I’ve seen so
many different people this last week, that I feel
as if I had seen no one person.’
‘You are so active,’ he said, ‘you do half a dozen
things while I am doing one.’
* Oh, but you do great important man things,”
said Dodo, “and I do silly little woman things.”
AMOZ).O. 189
She felt the conversation was becoming much
more bearable.
Chesterford smiled. Dodo seized on it as a
favourable omen.
“I like seeing you smile, old boy, she said; “you
look more yourself than you did two hours ago.’
He looked at her earnestly.
‘Dodo, you will not think me preaching or being
priggish, will you, darling P You know me too well
for that. There is one way of turning this into
a blessing. We must try and see why this
was sent us, and if we cannot see why, we
must take it in faith, and go on living our
lives simply and straightforwardly, and then, per-
haps, we shall know sometime. Ah, my darling,
it has taught me one thing already, for I never
knew before how much I loved you. I loved you
all I could before this, but it has somehow given
me fresh power to love. I think the love I had
for the boy has been added to the love I had for
you, and it is yours, darling, all of it, always.”
C H A P T E R X.
HAT same evening Edith Staines and Miss
Grantham were seated together in a box at
the opera. The first act was just over, and Edith,
who had mercilessly silenced every remark Miss
Grantham had made during it, relaxed a little. Miss
Grantham's method of looking at an opera was to
sit with her back to the stage, so as to command a
better view of the house, and talk continuously.
But Edith would not stand that. She had before
her a large quarto containing the full score, and
she had a pencil in her hand with which she
entered little corrections, and now and then she
made comments to herself.
“I shall tell Mancinelli of that,' she murmured.
“The whole point of the motif is that rapid run
with the minim at the end, and he actually allowed
that beast to make a rallentando.’
I90
AMODO. 191
But the act was over now, and she shut the
book with a bang.
‘Come outside, Grantie, she, said, ‘it’s so fear-
fully hot. I had to hurry over dinner in order
to get here in time. The overture is one of the
best parts. It isn't like so many overtures that
give you a sort of abstract of the opera, but it
hints at it all, and leaves you to think it out.’,
‘Oh, I didn’t hear the overture,” said Miss
Grantham. “I only got here at Mephistopheles'
appearance. I think Edouard is such a dear. He
really looks a very attractive devil. I suppose
it's not exactly the beauty of holiness, but extremes
meet, you know.’
“I must open the door,’ said Edith. “I want to
sit in a draught.'
‘There's Mr Broxton,” remarked Miss Grantham.
“I think he sees us. I hope he'll come up. I
think it's simply charming, to see how devoted he
still is to Dodo. I think he is what they call
faithful.”
“I think it's scandalous,” said Edith hotly. ‘He's
got no business to hang about like that. It's very
weak of him—I despise weak people. It's no use
.#
192 Z)ODO.
being anything, unless you're strong as well, it's
as bad as being second-rate. You may be of good
quality, but if you're watered down, it's as bad as
being inferior.”
Jack meantime had made his way up to the
box.
‘We’ve just been saying all sorts of nice things
about you, remarked Miss Grantham sweetly. ‘Have
you seen Dodo to-day?'
“Haven't you heard?' asked Jack.
Edith frowned.
“No ; what?’ she asked.
‘Their baby died this morning,” he said.
Edith's score fell to the ground with a crash.
* Good heavens ! is it true?” she asked. “Who told
you?”
“I was riding with Dodo this morning,” said he,
‘and Mrs Vivian met Dodo and told her. I knew
something had happened, so I went to inquire. No
one has seen either of them again.”
‘Did you try and see her P’ said Edith severely.
‘Yes, I went this evening.’
“Ah !’ Edith frowned again. “How does he
take it?’ she asked.
DO/OO. I93
‘I don't know,” he said ; “no one has seen them
since.’
Edith picked up her score.
‘Good-night, Grantie, she said. ‘Good-night,
Mr Broxton. I must go.”
Miss Grantham looked up in astonishment. Edith
was folding her opera cloak round her. Jack offered
to help her.
‘Thanks, I can do it, she said brusquely.
‘What are you going for P’ asked Miss Grantham,
in surprise.
‘It’s all right,” said Edith. “I’ve got to see
someone. I shall come back, probably.’
The door closed behind her.
“Of course it's awfully sad,” remarked Miss
Grantham, “but I don't see why Edith should go
like that. I wonder where she's gone. Don't
you adore the opera, Mr Broxton P I think it's
simply lovely. It's so awfully sad about Marguerite,
isn't it? I wish life was really like this. It would
be so nice to sing a song whenever anything
important happened. It would smooth things so.
Oh, yes, this is the second act, isn't it P It's
where Mephisto sings that song to the village
N
I94 DODO.
people. It always makes me feel creepy. Poor
Dodo l’
‘I am more sorry for him, said Jack; ‘you know
he was simply wrapped up in the baby.'
‘Dodo certainly finds consolation quickly,' said
Miss Grantham. “I think she's sensible. It really
is no use crying over spilt milk. I suppose she
won't go out again this season. Dear me, it's
Lady Bretton's ball the week after next, in honour
of Lucas's coming of age. Dodo was to have led
the cotillion with Lord Ledgers. That was a
good note. Isn't the scene charming P’
‘I don't know what Dodo will do,” said Jack.
, I believe they will leave London, only—only—’
Miss Grantham looked at him inquiringly.
‘You see Dodo has to be amused,’ said Jack.
‘I don’t know what she would do, if she was to
have to shut herself up again. She was frightfully
bored after the baby's birth.’
Miss Grantham was casting a roving London
eye over the occupants of the stalls.
“There's that little Mr Spencer, the clergyman
at Kensington, she said. “I wonder how his con-
science lets him come to see anything so immoral.
ANO/OO. I95
Isn't that Maud next him P Dear me, how interest-
ing. Bring them up here after the act, Mr
Broxton. I suppose Maud hasn't heard P’
‘I think she's been with her father somewhere
in Lancashire,’ said Jack. “She can only have
come back to-day. There is Mrs Vane, too. Dodo
can't have telegraphed to them.’
‘Oh, that's so like Dodo, murmured Miss Gran-
tham ; “it probably never occurred to her. Dear
me, this act is over. I am afraid we must have
missed the “Virgo.” What a pity. Do go, and
ask them all to come up here.”
“So charmed, murmured Mrs Vane, as she
rustled into the box. ‘Isn't it a lovely night?
Dear Prince Waldenech met me in the hall, and
he asked so affectionately after Dodo. Charming,
wasn’t it? Yes. And do you know Mr Spencer,
dear Miss Grantham P. Shall we tell Miss Gran-
tham and Mr Broxton our little secret, Maud P
Cupid has been busy here,” she whispered, with a
rich elaborateness to Miss Grantham. “Isn't it
charming P. We are delighted. Yes, Mr Spencer,
Miss Grantham and Mr Broxton, of course—Mr
Spencer.’
I96 AXO/OO.
Mr Spencer bowed and smiled, and conducted
himself as he should. He was a fashionable rector
in a rich parish, who had long felt that the rich
deserved as much looking after as the poor, and
had been struck with Maud's zeal for the
latter, and thought it would fit in very well
with his zeal for the former, had won Maud's
heart, and now appeared as the happy accepted
lover.
Mrs Vane was anxious to behave in the way
it was expected that she should, and, finding that
Miss Grantham sat with her back to the stage
and talked, took up a corresponding attitude her-
self. Miss Grantham quickly decided that she
did not know about the death of Dodo's baby,
and determined not to tell her. In the first place,
it was to be supposed that she did not know
either, and in the second, she was amused by the
present company, and knew that to mention it
was to break up the party.
Mr Spencer had a little copy of the words,
with the English on one side, and the Italian on
the other. When he came to a passage that he
thought indelicate, he turned his attention to the
DODO. 197
Italian. Maud sat between him and Miss
Grantham.
‘I am so delighted, Maud,' Miss Grantham was
saying, ‘and I am sure Dodo will be charmed.
She doesn't know yet, I suppose? When is it
to be P’
‘Oh, I don't quite know, said Maud confusedly.
‘Algy, that is Mr Spencer, is going to leave
London, you know, and take a living at Gloucester.
I shall like that. There is a good deal of poverty
at Gloucester.’
Miss Grantham Smiled sympäthetically.
‘How sweet of you, she said ; “and you will go
and work among the poor, and give them soup
and prayer-books, won't you? I should love to
do that. Mrs Vivian will tell you all about those
things, I suppose?’
‘Oh, she took me to an awful slum before we
left London,’ said Maud, in a sort of rapture—‘you
know we have been away at Manchester for a
week with my father—and I gave them some things
I had worked. I am doing a pair of socks for
Dodo's baby.'
Miss Grantham turned her attention to the stage.
198 AXODO.
‘The Jewel song is perfectly lovely, she re-
marked. ‘I wish Edith was here. Don't you
think that girl sings beautifully? I wonder who
she is.’
At that moment the door of the box opened,
and Edith entered. She grasped the situation
at once, and felt furiously angry with Miss Gran-
tham and Jack. She determined to put a stop
to it.
‘Dear Mrs Vane, you can't have heard. I
only knew this evening, and I suppose Mrs
Vivian's note has missed you somehow. I have
just left her, and she told me she had written to
you. You know Dodo's baby has been very ill,
quite suddenly, and this morning—yes, yes—’
Mrs Vane started up distractedly.
‘Oh, my poor Dodo, she cried, ‘I never knew
And here I am enjoying myself, when she-Maud,
did you hear? Dodo's baby—only this morning.
My poor Dodo'
She began crying in a helpless sort of way.
Maud turned round with a face full of horror.
‘How awful! Poor Dodo I Come, mother, we
must go.'
AO/OO. I99
Mr Spencer dropped his English and Italian
version.
‘Let me see you to your carriage,’ he said. “Let
me give you an arm, Mrs Vane.’
Maud turned to Jack, and for once showed
some of Dodo's spirit.
“Mr Broxton, she said, ‘I have an idea you
knew, Perhaps I am wrong. If I am, I beg your
pardon; if not, I consider you have behaved in a
way I didn't expect of you, being a friend of
Dodo's. I think—' she broke off, and followed
the others. Jack felt horribly uncomfortable.
He and Edith and Miss Grantham stood in
silence for a moment.
“It was horrible of you, Grantie,’ said Edith,
“to let them sit here, and tell them nothing
about it.’
‘My dear Edith, I could do nothing else,” said
Miss Grantham, in an even, calm voice. ‘There
would have been a scene, and I can't bear scenes.
There has been a scene as it is, but you are re-
sponsible for that. You are rather jumpy to-night.
Where have you been P’
‘I have been to see Mrs Vivian,’ said Edith.
2OO AXO/OO.
“I wanted to know about this. I told her I was
coming back here, and she gave me this for you,
Mr Broxton.’
She handed him a note. Then she picked up
her big score, and sat down again with her
pencil.
The note contained only two lines, requesting
Mr Broxton to come and see her in the II].OTIn-
ing. Jack read it and tore it up. He felt unde-
cided how to act. Edith was buried in her score,
and gave no sign. Miss Grantham had resumed
her place, and was gazing languidly at the box
opposite. He picked up his hat, and turned to
leave. Edith looked up from her score.
“I think I ought to tell you, she said, ‘that
Mrs Vivian and I talked about you, and that note
is the result. I don't care a pin what you
think.’
Jack opened his eyes in astonishment. Edith
had always struck him as being rather queer, and
this statement seemed to him very queer indeed.
Her manner was not conciliatory.
He bowed.
“I feel complimented by being the subject of
AMODO. 2OI
your conversation,’ he replied with well-bred
insolence, and closed the door behind him.
Miss Grantham laughed. A scene like this
pleased her; it struck her as pure comedy.
“Really, Edith, you are very jumpy; I don't
understand you a bit. You are unnecessarily
rude. Why did you say you did not care a pin
what he thought?'
‘You won't understand, Grantie,” said Edith.
‘Don’t you see how dangerous it is all becoming?
I don't care the least whether I am thought
meddlesome. Jack Broxton is awfully in love
with Dodo, anyone can see that, and Dodo
evidently cares for him; and that poor, dear,
honest fool Chesterford is completely blind to it
all. It was bad enough before, but the baby's
death makes it twice as bad. Dodo will want to
be amused ; she will hate this retirement, and
she will expect Mr Broxton to amuse her. Don't
you see, she is awfully bored with her husband,
and she will decline to be entirely confined to
his company. While she could let off steam by
dancing and riding and so on, it was safe ; she
only met Mr Broxton among fifty other people.
2O2 ZOODO.
But decency, even Dodo's, will forbid her to
meet those fifty other people now. And each
time she sees him, she will return to her husband
more wearied than before. It is all too horrible.
I don't suppose she is in love with Jack Broxton,
but she finds him attractive, and he knows it,
and he is acting disgracefully in letting himself
see her so much. Everyone knows he went abroad
to avoid her—everyone except Dodo, that is, and
she must guess. I respected him for that, but
now he is playing the traitor to Chesterford.
And Mrs Vivian quite agrees with me.’
‘Oh, it's awfully interesting if you're right,'
said Miss Grantham reflectively; “but I think
you exaggerate. Jack is not a cad. He doesn't
mean any harm. Besides, he is a great friend of
Chesterford’s.’
‘Well, he's got no business to play with fire,’
said Edith. “His sense of security only increases
the real danger. If Chesterford knew exactly how
matters stood it would be different, but he is
so simple-hearted that he is only charmed to
see Jack Broxton, and pleased that Dodo likes
2
him.
ZDO/OO. 2O3
‘Oh, it's awfully interesting, murmured Miss
Grantham.
‘I could cry when I think of Chesterford,” said
Edith. ‘The whole thing is such a fearful tragedy.
If only they can get over this time safely, it may
all blow over. I wish Dodo could go out again
to her balls and concerts. She finds such frantic
interest in everything about her, that she doesn't
think much of any particular person. But it is
this period, when she is thrown entirely on two
or three people, that is so dangerous. She really
is a frightful problem. Chesterford was a bold
or a blind man to marry her. Oh, I can't attend
to this opera to-night. I shall go home. It's
nearly over. Faust is singing hopelessly out of tune.’
She shut her book, and picked up her fan and
gloves.
“Dear Edith, said Miss Grantham languidly,
“I think you mean very well, but you are rather
overdrawing things. Are you really going? I
think I shall come too.”
Jack meantime was finding his way home in a
rebellious and unchristian frame of mind. In
the first place, he had just lost his temper, which
2O4. AXO/OO.
always seemed to him to be a most misdirected
effort of energy; in the second place, he resented
Edith’s interference with all his heart and soul;
and in the third, he did not feel so certain that
she was wrong. Of course he guessed what
Mrs Vivian's wish to see him meant, for it had
occurred to him very vividly what conscquences
the death of the baby would have on him and
Dodo : and he anticipated another period like
that which had followed the birth. Jack could
hardly dare to trust himself to think of that
time. He knew it had been very pleasant to him,
and that he had enjoyed Dodo's undisturbed
company during many days in succession, but
it was with a certain tingling of the ears that he
thought of the events of the morning, and his
mad confession to her. “I have a genius for
spoiling things,’ thought Jack to himself. “Every-
thing was going right ; I was seeing Dodo enough
to keep me happy, and free from that hateful
feeling of last autumn, and then I spoilt it all
by a stupid remark that could do no good, nor
help me in any conceivable way. How will
Dodo have taken it P’
ZOODO. 2O5
But he was quite sure of one thing—he would
not go and see Mrs Vivian. He was, he felt,
possessed of all the facts of the case, and he was
competent to form a judgment on them—at any
rate Mrs Vivian was not competent to do it for
him: No, he would give it another chance. He
would again reason out the pros and cons of
the case, he would be quite honest, and he would
act accordingly.
That he should arrive at the same conclusion
was inevitable. The one thing in the world that
no man can account for, or allow for, is change
in himself. If Jack had been able to foresee,
when he went abroad, that he would be acting
thus with regard to Dodo, he would have thought
himself mad, and it would have been as impossible
for him to act thus then, as it was inevitable for
him to act thus now. If we judge by our own
standards, and our own standards alter, we cannot
expect our verdicts to remain invariable. Under
a strong attachment a man drifts, and he cannot
at any One moment allow for, or feel the force of
the current, for he is moving in it, though he
thinks himself at rest. The horrible necessities of
2O6 AXODO.
cause and effect work in us, as well as around us.
As Edith had said, his sense of security was his
danger, for his standard of security was not the
same as it had been.
He sat down and wrote a note to Mrs Vivian,
saying that he regretted being unable to call on
her to-morrow, and purposely forebore to give
any reason. He had considerable faith in her
power of reading between the lines, and the fact,
baldly stated, was an unnecessary affront to her
intellect.
Mrs Vivian read the note with very little sur-
prise, but with a good deal of regret. She was
genuinely sorry for him, but she had other means
at her disposal, though they were not so pleasant
to use. They involved a certain raking up of old
dust-heaps, and a certain awakening of disagree-
able memories. But it never occurred to her to
draw back. Naturally enough she went to see
Dodo next morning, and found her alone. Mrs
Vivian had her lesson by heart, and she was only
waiting for Dodo to tell her to begin, so to speak.
Dodo hailed her with warmth; she had evidently'
found matters a little tedious.
DO/OO. 2O7
‘Dear Vivy,' she said, ‘I’m so glad you've
come ; and Chesterford told me to ask you to see
him, before you went away, in case you called. So
you will, won't you? But I must have you for a
long time first.’
‘How is he P’ asked Mrs Vivian.
‘Oh, he's quite well,” said Dodo, “but he feels
it frightfully. But he is fortunate, he has spiritual
consolation as his aid. I haven’t, not one atom.
It's a great nuisance, I know, but I don’t see
how to help it. Can the Ethiopian change his
skin P’
“Ah, Dodo,” said she, with earnestness in her
tone, ‘you have a great opportunity—I don't
think you realise how great.’
“Why, what do you mean P’ said Dodo.
“Of course I know what you feel,” said Mrs
Vivian, “and it is necessary that with your grief
there must be mixed up a great deal of vexation
and annoyance. Isn't it so?'
‘Yes, yes,” said Dodo. “You don't despise me
for feeling that?’
‘Despise you!” said Mrs Vivian. “You know me
better than that. But you must not dwell on it.
2C8 ZOODO.
There is something more important than the can.
celling of your smaller engagements. You have a big
engagement, you know, which must not be cancelled.’
Dodo rose from her chair with wide eyes.
“Ah, Vivy, she said, “you have guessed it, have
you? It is quite true. Let me tell you all about
it. It is just that which bothers me. These days
when I only see Chesterford bore me more than I
can say. I don't know why I tell you this; it
isn't want of loyalty to him, but I want help. I
don’t know how to deal with him. Yes, he bores
me. I always foresaw this, but I hoped I
shouldn’t mind. I was wrong and Jack was right.
He warned me of it, but he must never know he
was right. Of course you see why. I think I
did not expect that Chesterſord's love for me
would last. I thought he would cease being my
lover, and I am terribly wrong. It gets stronger
and stronger. He told me so last night, and I
felt a brute. But I comforted him and deceived
him again. Ah, what could I do? I don't love
him. I would give anything to do so. I think I
felt once what love was, but only once, and not
for him.’
f ANOZ).O. 209
Mrs Vivian looked up inquiringly.
‘No, I sha’n’t tell you about that,’ said Dodo,
speaking rapidly and excitedly; “it would be a
sort of desecration. There is something divine
about Chesterford's feeling for me. I know it,
but it doesn’t really touch me. I am not capable
of it, and what happens is that I continue to
amuse myself on my own lines, and all that goes
over my head. But I make him believe I
understand. It makes him happy. And I know,
I know, that when I am out of this, I shall go
on just as usual, except that I shall feel like a
prisoner escaped, and revel in my liberty. I know
I shall. Sometimes I almost determine to make
some sacrifice for him in a blind sort of way, like
a heathen sacrificing to what he fears, yes, fears,
but then that mood passes and I go on as usual.
I long to get away from him. Sometimes I am
afraid of hating him, if I see him too much or
too exclusively.’
‘Yes, Dodo, I know, I know,” said Mrs Vivian.
‘I don't see how you are to learn it, unless it
comes to you ; but what you can do, is to act as
if you felt it, not only in little tiny ways, like
O
2 IO - ANODO,
calling him an “old darling,” but in living for him
more.’ - -
“Ah, those are only words,’ said Dodo im-
patiently. “I realise it all, but I can’t do it.’
There was a long silence. Then Mrs Vivian
said, -
‘Dodo, I am going to tell you what I have
never told anyone before, and that is the story
of my marriage. I know the current version
very well, that I married a brute who neglected
me. That he neglected me is true, but that is
not all. Like you, I married without love, with-
out even liking. There were reasons for it, which
I need not trouble you with. I used to see a
good deal of a man with whom I was in love,
when I married Mr Vivian. He interested me
and made my life more bearable. My husband
grew jealous of him, almost directly after my
marriage. I saw it, and, God forgive me, it
amused me, and I let it go on—in fact, I
encouraged it. That was my mistake, and I
paid dearly for it. I believe he loved me at
first ; it was my fault that he did not continue to
do so. Then my baby was born, and, a month
AXODO. 2II
afterwards, somehow or other we quarrelled, and
he said things to me which no woman ever
forgets. He said it was not his child. I never
forgot it, and it is a very short time ago since
I forgave it. For two years after his death,
as you know, I travelled abroad, and I fought
against it, and I believe, before God, that I have
forgiven him. Then I came back to London.
But after that day when he said those things to
me, we grew further and further apart. I interested
myself in other things, in the poor, and so on, and
he took to drinking. That killed him. He was
run over in the street, as he came back from
somewhere where he had been dining. But he was
run over because he was dead drunk at the time.
When I was abroad I came under the influence
of a certain Roman Catholic priest. He did not
convert me, nor did he try to, but he helped me
very much ; and one day, I remember the day
very well, I was almost in despair, because . I
could not forgive the wrong my dead husband
had done me, somehow a change began in
me. I can tell you no more than that a change
comes, and it is there. It is the grace of God.
2 I 2 AXODO.
There, Dodo, that is my history, and there is
this you may learn from it, that you must be on
your guard against making a mistake. You
must never let Chesterford know how wide the
gulf is between you. It will be a constant effort,
I know, but it is all you can do. Set a watch on
yourself ; let your indifference be your safeguard,
your warning.’
Mrs Vivian stood up. Her eyes were full of
tears, and she laid her hands on Dodo's shoulders.
Dodo felt comfort in the presence of this strong
woman, who had wrestled and conquered.
Dodo looked affectionately at her, and, with
one of those pretty motions that came so naturally
to her, she pressed her back into her chair, and
knelt beside her.
‘Dear Vivy, she said, “my little troubles have
made you cry. I am so Sorry, dear. You are
very good to me. But I want to ask you one
thing. About that man your husband was
jealous of '
‘No, no,' said Mrs Vivian quickly; ‘that was
only one of the incidents which I had to tell
you to make the story intelligible.’
DODO. 2 I 3
Dodo hesitated.
‘You are sure you aren't thinking of anyone
in my case—of Jack, for instance?’ she suddenly
said.
Mrs Vivian did not answer for a moment. Then
she said,
‘Dodo, I am going to be very frank with you
He is an instance—in a way. I don't mean to
suppose for a moment that Chesterford is jealous
of him, in fact, I know he can’t be—it isn’t in him ;
but he is a good instance of the sort of thing that
makes you tend to neglect your husband.’
“But you don't think he is an instance in par-
ticular P’ demanded Dodo. “I don't mean to bind
myself in any way, but I simply want to know.’
Mrs Vivian went straight to the point.
‘That is a question which you can only decide
for yourself, she said. “I cannot pretend to .
judge.’
Dodo smiled.
“Then I will decide for myself,' she said. “You
see, Jack is never dull. I daresay you may think
him. So, but I don’t. He always manages to amuse
me, and, on the whole, the more I am amused
214 ANODO.
the less bored I get in the intervals. He tides
me over the difficult places. I allow they are
difficult.” -
“Ah, that is exactly what you mustn't allow,'
said Mrs Vivian. “You don't seem to realise any
possible deficiency in yourself.”
‘Oh, yes, I do,” said Dodo, as if she was an-
nouncing the most common-place fact in the world.
‘I know I am deficient. I don't appreciate devo-
tion, I don't appreciate the quality that makes one
gaze and gaze, as it says in the hymn. It is
rather frog-like that gazing; what do you call it—
batrachian. Now, Maud is batrachian. I daresay
it is a very high quality, but I don't quite live
up to it. There are, of course, heaps of excellent
things one doesn't live up to, like the accounts of
the Stock Exchange in the Times. I fully under-
stand that the steadiness of stockings makes a
difference to somebody, only it doesn't make any
difference to me.’
‘Dodo, you are incorrigible,” said Mrs Vivian,
laughing in spite of herself. “I give you up—only,
do the best you can. I believe, in the main, you
agree with me. And now I must be off. You
AO/OO. 215
said Lord Chesterford wished to see me. I sup-
pose he is downstairs.'
“I think I shall come too,” said Dodo.
So they went down together. Lord Chester-
ford was in his study.
“Do you know what Mrs Vivian has been say-
ing to me?’ remarked Dodo placidly, as she laid
her hand on his shoulder. “She has been telling
me I did not love you enough — isn't she
ridiculous P’
Mrs Vivian for the moment was nonplussed,
but she recovered herself quickly.
‘Dodo is very naughty to-day, she said. “She
misconstrues everything I say.”
‘I don’t think it's likely you said that,' said he,
capturing Dodo's hand, ‘because it isn't true.”
‘I am certainly de trop, murmured Mrs Vivian,
turning to go.
Dodo's hand lay unresistingly in his.
“She has been so good and brave,’ said Lord
Chesterford to Mrs Vivian, “she makes me feel
ashamed.’
Mrs Vivian felt an immense admiration for him.
“I said you deserved a very great deal,” she
216 DODO.
said, putting out her hand to him. “I must go
my carriage has been waiting an hour.’
He retained Dodo's hand, and they saw her to
the door.
The footman met them in the hall.
“Mr Broxton wants to know whether you can
see him, my lady,’ he said to Dodo.
‘Would you like to see Jack P’ she asked
Chesterford.
‘I would rather you told him you can't,' he
said.
“Of course I will, she answered. She turned to
the footman. “Say I am engaged, but he may
come again to-morrow and I will see him. You
don’t mind my seeing him, do you, Chesterford P’
‘No, no, dear,’ he said.
Dodo and Chesterford turned back to the draw-
ing-room. Jack was on the steps.
‘I thought you were engaged at this hour, Mrs
Vivian said to him.
“So I was, he answered. ‘Dodo asked me to
come and see her.’
END OF VOL. I.
COLSTON AND COMPANY, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
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