4^ ' 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
 i i > N . 
 f' A GUI*. _A PER ANNUM & UPWARDS.
 
 (Rita
 
 Heroines and Others
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 Second Impression. 
 SAINTS, SINNERS, AND THE USUAL PEOPLE. 
 
 " An event in a season's publishing." Daffy Telegraph. 
 
 " Worth reading again and again." Times. 
 
 " An oasis in the desert of print." Scotsman. 
 
 " There is such a thing as laughter in the world. There cer- 
 tainly is even in literature; even too in the art of fiction. It is 
 to be found, for instance, in the work of Mr St John Lucas ; 
 laughter not thin and hollow, but sound and deep."- Observer. 
 
 "As good as anything of the kind in English." Punch. 
 
 Second Impression. 
 THE LADY OF THE CANARIES. 
 
 " The real thing." Atheneeum. 
 
 "Abundant humour and craftsmanship of the best." Pall 
 Mall Gazette. 
 
 " There is laughter, gay, ironic, well-bred, which keeps every 
 story sparkling with life." Times. 
 
 " Humour, especially humour of the refined and sub-acid 
 flavour that St John Lucas knows how to infuse into his 
 books, is a rare and welcome element in current literature." 
 Scotsman. 
 
 ' ' Very genial comedy Laughter and pathos in delight- 
 ful proportions." Punch. 
 
 " His gaiety and his distinction give his work an uncommon 
 value, and he has never been lighter, gayer, or more profound." 
 Observer. 
 
 "There is no more refined and artistic craftsman in the art 
 of the short story in Britain to-day than St John Lucas." 
 Glasgow News. 
 
 " Stories of rare and delightful merit which no one who loves 
 good literary work should allow himself to miss." Irish Times. 
 
 THE FIRST ROUND. 
 Third Edition.
 
 Heroines and Others 
 
 BY 
 
 ST JOHN LUCAS 
 
 William Blackwood and Sons 
 
 Edinburgh and London 
 
 1914 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 MMB 
 
 MISS AMELIA 1 
 
 MARIA ....... 55 
 
 THE PHANTOM 185 
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 
 
 I. HISTORY OF RTDOLFO . . .215 
 
 II. JEMIMA IN HEAVEN . . . .223 
 
 FRAGMENTS FROM THE DIARY OF MR 
 
 SEPTIMUS JERVOISE, FELLOW OF 
 
 COLLEGE 247 
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO AND MARIA ASSUNTA 311
 
 MISS AMELIA
 
 MISS AMELIA. 
 
 I. 
 
 FOR the Londoner, a walk across his own 
 city from any one point to any other is a 
 cheap and easy method of adventure. Late 
 in the afternoon of a Saturday in October 
 which I had spent in the vain endeavour to 
 obtain a sight of some rare birds reported as 
 visitors to Hampstead Heath, I decided to 
 return in a straight line from that too- 
 populous Paradise to the Temple. Gospel 
 Oak and Kentish Town were merely romantic 
 names to me, and of Camden Town itself, 
 famous in art and song, I possessed only a 
 dim and gloomy idea which I owed to the 
 works of Mr Walter Sickert. 
 
 I had not gone far before I began to share 
 all the sensations of the unfortunate poet
 
 4 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 who looked on smoky dwarf houses and felt 
 his soul oppressed by a vague dejection. 
 Gospel Oak, instead of being a vast and 
 heaven-pointing tree, was a labyrinth of ugly 
 streets in which I lost myself until I came 
 to the tram-lines, and there were no orchards 
 in Kentish Town. Instead, there were grimy 
 tenements with a great quantity of dis- 
 honourable underclothing hanging from their 
 balconies ; a rabble of infants, mostly anaemic, 
 and all dirty, and a large percentage of 
 persons with "faces whose like one is not 
 glad to find." More depressing, even, than 
 the squat houses and the gaunt tenements 
 were the rows of frowsy villas, with untidy 
 creepers hanging in dank festoons from their 
 peeling stucco, and sombre little gardens in 
 which grimy laurels and mouldering statues 
 drooped in mournful decadence pathetic 
 remnants of a decayed gentility, they seemed 
 to have given up in despair the struggle to 
 be respectable, and to be wearily waiting for 
 the advent of the housebreaker who would 
 eliminate them from a scene where their 
 presence was no longer decent. Many of 
 them were to let, and I was able to observe, 
 on the boards which announced this fact, 
 various examples of the unfailing optimism
 
 MISS AMELIA 5 
 
 of the house agent. This one was commo- 
 dious, that one desirable ; another, distin- 
 guished from its fellows by a tottering 
 trellised balcony on the ground floor, was 
 elegant ; yet another, a sinister abode fit 
 only for owls and troglodytes, was actually 
 delightful. None of the villas which were 
 inhabited betrayed any symptom of a sense 
 of life's amenities on the part of its occupants, 
 unless the presence of abandoned straw 
 hats, outworn boots, and empty sardine tins 
 could be regarded as evidence of a certain 
 luxury. Occasionally the inhabitants of these 
 drab houses regarded me from their windows, 
 and though I felt sorry for them, their 
 aspect was sinister and I loved them not. 
 They seemed all to be women ; I saw no 
 vestige of the other sex. 
 
 I pursued my way, wondering vaguely why 
 England should have been especially cursed, 
 both materially and spiritually, by this plague 
 of the genteel gone to rot and ruin, and 
 attributing the curse, as I like to attribute 
 most things evil in our social system, to the 
 deadly early- Victorian passion for class dis- 
 tinction and worship of a respectability that 
 was for the most part sham, showiness, and 
 score-off-my-neighbonr-ness. In the midst of
 
 6 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 these highly original reflections, and whilst 
 I was passing yet another row of villa resi- 
 dences, I was confronted with a singular 
 spectacle. 
 
 The street was deserted, except for a group 
 of errand-boys and children who were con- 
 gregated round a figure that seemed to be 
 clinging to the rusty railings in front of one 
 of the houses. As I approached, the figure 
 resolved itself into an old woman who was 
 dressed in black, and wore a small bonnet 
 which would have been fashionable, I sup- 
 pose, in the epoch of the crinoline. She had 
 dropped her umbrella, and was clutching the 
 railings with both hands; apparently she 
 was trying to drag herself along, but her 
 feet refused to move. The cluster of children 
 watched her with apathetic interest ; the 
 errand-boys were grinning and making re- 
 marks in their own horrible dialect. 
 
 I pushed my way through the little crowd, 
 and saw that though she was bent, she was 
 a very tall woman, and, to judge by the lines 
 on her face, extremely old. Her eyes were 
 closed, and she was terribly pale. When I 
 asked her if she was ill she did not seem to 
 hear me. One of the errand-boys, however, 
 responded for her.
 
 MISS AMELIA 7 
 
 "Garn, gavner!" he said cheerfully, "she 
 ynt ill. She's bawmy, that's wot she is. 
 Orterbe run in by the pleece." 
 
 I ignored this youthful moralist, and spoke 
 again to the old woman. She suddenly 
 opened her eyes, which were astonishingly 
 brilliant, and looked at me. 
 
 "I'm afraid I fainted," she said, in a very 
 low voice but quite coherently. " It's nothing 
 results of influenza. If you would be so 
 kind as to give me your arm I live at 
 number eighty-two this road. Very sorry 
 to be a nuisance." 
 
 Even the effort of uttering these few words 
 was too much for her. She closed her eyes 
 again, released her grasp of the railings, and 
 would have fallen if I had not caught her. 
 I put my arm round her waist an action 
 which gave huge delight to the errand-boys 
 and then questioned the children as to the 
 whereabouts of number eighty -two. They 
 stared at me in solemn silence, but at length 
 a little girl who wore painfully obvious pink 
 flannel underclothing withdrew her thumb 
 from her mouth and held it, pointing back- 
 wards, over her shoulder. I scowled like a 
 thunder-cloud at the errand-boys, and began 
 to propel the old woman forward in the
 
 8 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 direction indicated. She could only just 
 manage to walk, and our progress was very 
 slow and had possibly a comical aspect ; the 
 errand-boys, at any rate, agreed to appreciate 
 the humour of the situation. 
 
 The old lady seemed to become feebler 
 with each step that we took ; I began to 
 despair of arriving at number eighty-two, and 
 had almost decided to take her into the 
 next house that we reached, when a welcome 
 ally appeared on the scene. A quiet-eyed, 
 decently-dressed woman of about fifty sud- 
 denly confronted us, and without wasting 
 time in speech, placed the old lady's right 
 arm round her neck and supported her with 
 a method far more practical than my own. 
 This reinforcement entirely altered the posi- 
 tion of affairs ; we proceeded steadily down 
 the street, and in a few minutes had reached 
 the gate of number eighty -two. I helped 
 to carry the old lady up the steps, and when 
 she was safely at the front door I asked the 
 woman if there was any one in the house 
 who would look after her. 
 
 " She is my mistress, sir," said the woman, 
 producing a latchkey. "She often has these 
 fainting fits. She oughtn't to go anywhere 
 by herself, but sometimes when I'm upstairs
 
 MISS AMELIA 9 
 
 she slips out. If you'll just help me with 
 her into her room, she'll be all right in a 
 minute." 
 
 We passed into a dingy little hall: the 
 floor was covered with frayed linoleum, and 
 the paper on the walls was dark with age, 
 but it was spotlessly clean, and there were 
 some good artists' proofs of various Academ- 
 ical pictures. Whilst the maid was shutting 
 the door and I was supporting the old lady, 
 I noticed a number of tweed caps and hats, 
 several fishing-rods and a cricket-bat, on a 
 rack fixed to the wall ; evidently there were 
 young people in the house, and it was not, 
 as I had imagined for no particular reason, 
 the abode of a desolate spinster. The maid 
 opened a door on the right of the hall. 
 
 "This is her room, sir," she said. "We'll 
 bring her right in and put her on the 
 sofa." 
 
 As we lifted the old lady on to that piece 
 of furniture I noticed how terribly emaciated 
 she was ; I seemed to be holding a skeleton 
 in female apparel. The maid went to a cup- 
 board, returning in a moment with some 
 brandy in a wine-glass, which she poured 
 into the old lady's mouth. Its effect was 
 immediate ; the old lady made a very wry
 
 10 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 face and opened her eyes. She stared for 
 a few seconds at the ceiling, then she sud- 
 denly sat bolt upright. Her eyes were extra- 
 ordinarily vivid, and her lips took a comical 
 twist. 
 
 "Jane," she cried, "what were you doing 
 out of doors at this time of day?" 
 
 The woman watched her intently. " What 
 were you doing there, Miss Amelia?" she 
 said, speaking, however, very quietly and 
 respectfully. The old lady looked guilty. 
 
 "I only went to meet Master Dick on his 
 way from the station," she explained. "And 
 then I had another of those tiresome fainting 
 fits. I'm growing like those silly girls in 
 that book you read to me Miss Ferrier's, 
 wasn't it ? " Her eyes wandered to me. 
 " Mercy ! I forgot ! " she cried, almost briskly ; 
 " that young gentleman gave me his arm 
 and I never thanked him ! I'm very much 
 obliged to you, Mr Stranger, I'm sure. If 
 my nephew had found me fainting in the 
 road I don't know what he would have said. 
 He's always telling me not to go about by 
 myself. He'll be here in a moment ; you'll 
 stay to see him he'll want to thank you, 
 and you'll have some tea. Jane, tea ! and 
 the Spode cups."
 
 MISS AMELIA 11 
 
 I looked at Jane ; Jane looked at me, and 
 made an almost imperceptible movement of 
 warning. I liked Jane's aspect : she had an 
 old-fashioned air of dogged faithfulness that 
 was not too common amongst her tribe, and 
 I took the hint at once. I thanked the old 
 lady, and said I was certain that she ought 
 to rest after her adventure. I added that I 
 would call to inquire how she was on the 
 following day. She smiled and nodded. " I 
 shall be delighted, that's charming of you," 
 she said. " But I believe you're running 
 away now because you're afraid of Jane. 
 Jane's a dragon aren't you, Jane?" 
 
 Jane smiled discreetly. " You know you 
 ought to rest, Miss Amelia ! " she said. Miss 
 Amelia heaved a comic sigh. 
 
 " Well, well ! " she murmured, leaning back 
 on her cushions. Then she turned again 
 towards me. "Do come to-morrow, if you 
 
 care to, but I can't promise " she broke 
 
 off abruptly. "You don't live in this awful 
 place ? " she cried after a moment. 
 
 I explained that I lived in the Temple. 
 " The Temple ! " she said. " I knew it forty, 
 no, fifty years ago, when my brother was 
 a young barrister, hardly a barrister ; not 
 full fledged. He became a big-wig after-
 
 12 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 wards ; I expect you have heard of him, 
 though he's been dead these many years. 
 Dick's father was his son. Lord Arlesfont 
 was his name he was only a law lord, of 
 course, and invented it himself. How we 
 used to laugh at him about it ! " 
 
 I had heard much of the late Lord Aries- 
 font, and, in particular, that he had died 
 worth several hundred thousand pounds. It 
 occurred to me as odd that his sister should 
 be living in an undesirable villa residence 
 near Kentish Town. I glanced round the 
 room : the furniture was old and for the 
 most part ugly, but there were some good 
 pieces of oak, many books, and a number 
 of framed photographs which were mainly 
 portraits of army officers in uniform and 
 young women in bridal or presentation 
 dresses. All these things were superfluous 
 evidence of a fact which I had already 
 realised, that the old woman had nothing 
 whatever in common with those of her 
 neighbours whom I had seen as I wandered 
 through the drab streets. Though she was 
 wizened and bony, she had a tremendous 
 distinction, she was as one felt that the 
 male originals of the photographs would 
 have forcibly asserted every inch a lady,
 
 MISS AMELIA 13 
 
 with a breezy and vigorous personality 
 which age and illness had been unable to 
 tame. There was breeding in every line of 
 her : in her broad brow, her queer long nose, 
 her mouth with its deeply furrowed corners, 
 and the way in which she wore her shabby 
 old black silk dress. 
 
 "You're looking at my photographs," she 
 said. " Plenty of soldiers, aren't there ? We're 
 a fighting family ; one of us has been in every 
 big battle since Ramillies to a certainty, and 
 probably since Crecy or Agincourt. I'm proud 
 of it; I'd have been a soldier myself if I'd 
 been a man. Dick laughs at me when I boast 
 about them all, but there's no doubt it's in 
 our blood. Jane will tell you that I'm quite 
 silly about them ; when I was stronger I used 
 to walk to Whitehall just to look at those fine 
 big fellows standing sentry on their black 
 horses ; but I can't manage the journey now, 
 and there are no soldiers here only the 
 Salvation Army, poor things ! " 
 
 " Do you like living here ? " I asked. The 
 old lady laughed, but not bitterly. 
 
 " I abominate the place," she said emphatic- 
 ally; "but there are several good reasons 
 why I live here. One of them is that Dick 
 would be miserable in the country, and likes
 
 14 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 an out-of-the-way part of London where he 
 won't meet " She checked herself sud- 
 denly ; the aspect of her face changed. " I'm 
 a garrulous old woman ; I'm not going to 
 weary you with my affairs," she concluded 
 after a moment, and set her lips resolutely. 
 
 I went over to her and pressed her bony 
 fingers. "Then I may call to-morrow?" I 
 asked. 
 
 She nodded briskly. "That's very gallant 
 of you," she said. "I wouldn't let you come 
 all this way just to see a worn-out old 
 woman, but I really believe that when I tell 
 Dick all about you he'll want to thank you 
 and talk to you. I can't promise, of course ; 
 he's very shy, poor boy." She thanked me 
 herself once again, in graceful phrases, for 
 helping her in the street, and waved a hand 
 to me as I went out of the room. "I shall 
 call you my preux chevalier 1 " she cried. 
 
 The faithful Jane came to open the front 
 door for me. She, too, thanked me quietly 
 and without any effusiveness. I took my 
 hat from the rack, and as I did so I saw 
 the fishing-rods and the cricket-bat. 
 
 "I see that Mr Dick is fond of sport," I 
 said. 
 
 "Yes, sir," answered Jane. There was a
 
 MISS AMELIA 15 
 
 queer note in her voice that made me look 
 swiftly at her, and then I realised that she 
 was regarding me with the keenest scrutiny 
 that my very mild personality had ever 
 undergone. Next moment she turned and 
 opened the door. I wished her good evening, 
 and walked down the steps, wondering if she 
 regarded me as a possible burglar. Yet there 
 was no suspicion, I thought, in her eyes ; 
 nothing but an intense desire to read my 
 secret soul. I concluded, as I walked away 
 down avenues of gas lamps, that Jane was 
 merely a keen student of human character; 
 but it was a long time before I forgot her 
 expression. 
 
 II. 
 
 There was no trace of it, however, in her 
 broad, honest face when I went to call on 
 the Sunday afternoon. She seemed really 
 pleased to see me. But when I made in- 
 quiries about Miss Amelia's health her smile 
 faded, and she admitted that she was anxious. 
 The old lady had fainted again several times, 
 and her usually strong recuperative energy 
 seemed to have deserted her. I expressed a
 
 16 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 fear that my visit would tire Miss Amelia, but 
 Jane alleged that it would have a beneficent 
 effect if I did not stay too long. 
 
 "You mustn't mind if some of the things 
 she says seem a bit queer, sir," she added. I 
 thought privately that Jane tended to under- 
 rate the mental faculties of her mistress. 
 There had been nothing "queer" about Miss 
 Amelia on the previous day ; for an old 
 woman who had just recovered from an 
 attack of faintness her mental clarity had 
 been distinctly remarkable. I said something 
 of the kind to Jane, who made no reply, but 
 opened the door of Miss Amelia's room and 
 announced me. 
 
 Miss Amelia was lying on the sofa, she 
 looked amazingly gaunt and white, and her 
 eyes shone with unnatural brilliance. As 
 soon as she eaw me she smiled and held out 
 her hand. 
 
 "This is very kind of you, Mr preux 
 chevalier," she said. " I revise my theories 
 on the manners of modern young men. But, 
 oh dear ! " she continued with a comical 
 grimace, "some young men certainly aren't 
 like you, and, after all, I've lured you here 
 for nothing." 
 
 "What do you mean by for nothing?" I
 
 MISS AMELIA 17 
 
 demanded when I had shaken her hand 
 and found a chair. She laughed rather 
 ruefully. 
 
 "I mean that what I was afraid of has 
 happened," she explained. "That naughty 
 boy Dick is too shy to meet you and has 
 gone off for a long walk all by himself. 
 It's really too bad of him, and I shall give 
 him a good scolding when he comes back. 
 As I said to him, it isn't as if you were one 
 of his relations." 
 
 I expressed a polite regret that I had 
 frightened the elusive nephew away. " Doesn't 
 Mr Dick like his relations ? " I asked. 
 
 The old lady pursed up her lips and looked 
 mysterious. 
 
 " He has very good reasons for not liking 
 them," she said. " But I know that he would 
 like you, and he ought to have a man friend. 
 It's very lonely for him here." 
 
 "What does he do?" I asked. "I mean, 
 has he a profession ? " Miss Amelia shook 
 her head. 
 
 "He's not doing anything just at present," 
 she answered. " Of course, he'll find some- 
 thing soon. Then he'll be happier. Poor 
 Dick ! he used to be such a happy boy, 
 always laughing and making absurd jokes. 
 
 B
 
 18 
 
 And he was just the same, I believe, in his 
 regiment." 
 
 " He was in the Army ?" I inquired. 
 
 "Yes, in the Thirty-fourth," she replied. 
 " But he left it last year, wasn't it last year ? 
 Time runs on, time runs on so fast." She 
 became silent abruptly and the light in her 
 eyes faded. 
 
 "What a pity!" I said after a while. 
 She turned her head swiftly. "Eh?" she 
 cried. 
 
 "A pity that he left the Service," I ex- 
 plained. " He is very young, isn't he ? And 
 from what you said about him I imagine that 
 he liked soldiering." 
 
 She nodded slowly. 
 
 "He's only twenty - four," she answered. 
 " Oh ! he loved the life ! And he was getting 
 on so well ; he was so smart and popular. 
 The Colonel admitted that." Her eyes 
 brightened ; she looked at me with some- 
 thing of the kind of scrutiny to which Jane 
 had subjected me on the previous afternoon. 
 " I feel certain you're a sympathetic person ! " 
 she said, smiling very queerly. Then her ex- 
 pression changed; she frowned, and looked 
 as if she were troubled by some baffling train 
 of thought. "If I told him that you knew
 
 MISS AMELIA 19 
 
 everything and sympathised," she said after a 
 pause, "he would like you." 
 
 I made the not very subtle deduction that 
 the military career of the elusive Dick had 
 ended painfully or scandalously. "Wouldn't 
 it be better to wait before you tell me any- 
 thing intimate about him?" I suggested. 
 " I'm only a stranger, after all, and he might 
 resent it now." 
 
 She thought over this suggestion. "Per- 
 haps," she said, "but I should like you to 
 hear the truth. You will know his name, 
 and I expect people are still telling lies about 
 him everywhere. It happened so short a time 
 ago. His name, you know, is Welburn ex- 
 Lieutenant Richard Welburn." 
 
 She leant forward and stared at me. I ran- 
 sacked my memory in vain for any history 
 connected with the name. When I informed 
 Miss Amelia of this she looked slightly in- 
 credulous. 
 
 "Dear me, very odd!" she said. "But 
 perhaps you don't read the newspapers. 
 Well ! If you really haven't heard the lies, 
 perhaps there's no particular point in tell- 
 ing you the truth at present. Later, when 
 you have met him and see what a fine 
 manly fellow they have ruined but here
 
 20 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 comes Jane with the tea. Jane, Mr preux 
 chevalier says that it's no use your protesting ; 
 you really are the most perfectly finished 
 specimen of a dragon. As for you," she went 
 on, turning to me, " you're to give your whole 
 attention to admiring the Spode tea-service. 
 It's only produced on solemn occasions. Have 
 you brought an extra cup in case Mr Dick 
 comes back, Jane?" 
 
 " Yes, Miss Amelia," said Jane. 
 
 The bony old hand which poured out my 
 tea was very tremulous that afternoon, and 
 the wonderful Spode, which I duly admired, 
 had several narrow escapes. But though 
 Miss Amelia was so weak physically, and 
 certainly ought to have been in bed, her spirit 
 was undaunted, and she proved herself a most 
 charming conversationalist. She catechised 
 me concerning my tastes, my aims and am- 
 bitions, and afterwards she told me a great 
 deal of her history. In her youth she had 
 travelled widely, and I found that her passion 
 for Italy was at least as warm as my own ; 
 she spoke of old pictures and old books with 
 knowledge and enthusiasm ; she had a real 
 sense of humour and was refreshingly free 
 from prejudice. I found myself thinking 
 very soon that the blighted Mr Dick, if he
 
 MISS AMELIA 21 
 
 had any appreciation of personality, was not 
 greatly to be pitied ; if he had experienced 
 ill fortune in the Army he had certainly been 
 lucky beyond the wont of man in the com- 
 panionship of his aunt. In earlier days she 
 had known a great number of interesting 
 people, and she had remembered countless 
 anecdotes, not one of them dull ; her rem- 
 iniscences, however, did not include the 
 last quarter of a century, a period which, I 
 decided, she had spent in retirement that 
 was enforced by unexpected poverty. Oddly 
 enough, she seemed to have no sense of the 
 length of this later stage in her life, and 
 spoke of the time when she had suffered a 
 serious financial reverse as if it were merely 
 a few months before. 
 
 Mr Dick did not appear, and I am afraid 
 that I was scarcely troubled by his absence. 
 At the end of the hour allotted to me by 
 Jane I felt that I had really found a delight- 
 ful friend, and I was well on the road to be- 
 lieving that if he had joined us I should have 
 been capable of experiencing a genuine sensa- 
 tion of jealousy. There was no doubt of Miss 
 Amelia's devotion to her nephew ; whenever 
 a footstep sounded in the street outside she 
 would listen for a moment and then shake
 
 22 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 her head. " Not his step. Not springy 
 enough ! " she would murmur with a regret- 
 ful smile. She reverted to him again shortly 
 before I went away, told me various amusing 
 anecdotes of his boyhood he seemed to have 
 been a really jolly scapegrace and produced 
 photographs of him in frocks, in Etons, and 
 in uniform. The last showed him to be a 
 good-looking, frank-eyed young fellow, with 
 a weak mouth ; the uniform seemed oddly 
 old-fashioned, I thought ; but my ignorance 
 of things military is gigantic, and I made 
 no comment to that effect. 
 
 The sight of the photograph of Dick in his 
 tunic evidently produced a great emotional 
 effect on her ; she murmured some incoherent 
 words and there were tears in her eyes. 
 Next moment, however, she was looking at 
 me almost defiantly. 
 
 " I am a foolish old woman ! " she cried. 
 " He isn't done yet. He's only beginning his 
 life, his real life. Very soon all that went 
 before all the misery will be like a for- 
 gotten dream." Her voice became splendid ; 
 it rang a challenge to the whole world. 
 " Look at his face," she concluded, thrusting 
 the photograph into my hands ; " look at 
 him, and tell me if you think he's done ! "
 
 MISS AMELIA 23 
 
 She was like an inspired and bony prophet- 
 ess, and her enthusiasm was really infectious. 
 " Of course he's not done ! " I said. " His real 
 life is all before him, as you say. I only wish 
 that I could be of some use to him," I added, 
 rather feebly. " If you think he has been 
 badly treated, I'm prepared to assert it every- 
 where." 
 
 She smiled and put her hand on my arm. 
 
 " You can be of use to him," she said. " Be 
 his friend." 
 
 " If he'll aUow it," I said. " I feel as if I 
 were his friend already. You'll let me come 
 again." 
 
 " Oh, of course we are friends ! " cried Miss 
 Amelia. I thought that it was a very grace- 
 ful answer to my demand. A few minutes 
 later the watchful Jane entered the room 
 and drove me forth. 
 
 III. 
 
 Nearly a week had passed before I was 
 able to pay another visit to Miss Amelia. I 
 found her very feeble and somewhat an- 
 noyed because her eyes had failed, and she 
 could not read, or even play Patience. " Jane
 
 24 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 reads to me," she explained, " but she never 
 will learn the difference between a comma 
 and a semicolon, and always says ' hem ! ' 
 every other minute." She was in good 
 spirits, however, and gave me a warm wel- 
 come. " I've a nice surprise for you to day," 
 she said, after she had answered or parried 
 my questions about her health. " The doctor 
 came this morning Jane quite absurdly in- 
 sisted on sending for him and I told him all 
 about you and Dick's stupid shyness. He's a 
 vulgar little man, but he has a great liking 
 for Dick, and he promised to talk to him 
 seriously about you. I don't know how 
 he managed it but Dick told me this 
 afternoon that he would be glad to see 
 you." 
 
 "Good!" I cried. "If he had avoided me 
 much longer I should have begun to think 
 that he was a myth." 
 
 Miss Amelia laughed. " Oh ! Dick is sub- 
 stantial enough," she said ; " though I wish 
 he would eat more. It's my belief that he 
 smokes far too much ; I expect that when 
 you go into his room you'll find a dense 
 blue fog. But it's his only luxury, so I never 
 say anything to him about it." 
 
 "I'm a great smoker myself," I said, "so
 
 MISS AMELIA 25 
 
 I'm afraid that I shan't set him a good ex- 
 ample. Where is his room, by the way?" 
 
 "At the top of the house," answered Miss 
 Amelia. "The door is on the right at the 
 head of the stairs. I wish I could go up 
 with you, but I'm afraid that's out of the 
 question. However, the dragon shall show 
 you the way when you've told me all the 
 news." 
 
 " I won't trouble the dragon," I said. " I'll 
 steal up and burst upon him unannounced. 
 That'll be more informal and jolly." 
 
 Miss Amelia nodded approval. " I thought 
 at first that he had better come down and 
 meet you here," she went on; "but I'm sure 
 that you would both prefer to be alone to- 
 gether and smoke your pipes and cigars. 
 Dear me ! I feel quite excited about it ! It's 
 rash to prophesy, but I don't mind telling 
 you in confidence that you're perfectly cer- 
 tain to get on together splendidly. You're 
 not unlike each other; when I first set eyes 
 on you I do believe that if I hadn't heard 
 your voice just before, I should have mistaken 
 you for him. But your mouth is weaker than 
 his." I could not help smiling as I remem- 
 bered my unuttered criticism of Dick's photo- 
 graph. " You're much the same build, and
 
 26 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 nearly the same height ; at least if you had 
 been in the Army, and had to hold yourself 
 properly, you would have looked nearly as 
 tall. I like tall fellows ; and, would you be- 
 lieve it, when I was young the only men 
 who fell in love with me were little niminy- 
 piminies. I laughed at them all ; a nice 
 figure of fun I should have made with a 
 beau as high as my elbow, shouldn't I ? So 
 here I am a poor old maid, and no one'll 
 marry me now. Don't look alarmed, Mr 
 preux chevalier; I'm not trying to catch 
 you" 
 
 "I only wish you would," I replied. "I 
 wasn't looking alarmed ; I was looking sulky, 
 because first of all you said that I resembled 
 your wonderful nephew, and then you pro- 
 ceeded to explain that I was in all respects 
 his inferior. I believe that really I'm far 
 better and wiser and equally beautiful." 
 
 She leant forward and smiled. "I'll tell 
 you one thing," she said, "in which you 
 resemble him exactly. I can't tell your 
 footsteps apart. Each time that I've heard 
 yours outside the room I've thought that 
 you were Dick." 
 
 "Oh, I shall supplant him yet," I said. 
 "And now I shall go to call on him. You
 
 MISS AMELIA 27 
 
 look tired," I added ; " I had better say good- 
 bye to you." 
 
 " No, no ! " she cried. " You must come 
 back and tell me all about it. I expect Dick 
 will come down with you, and we'll all have 
 tea together." 
 
 " Jane will have something to say about 
 that ! " I said. Miss Amelia looked naughtily 
 defiant. 
 
 " Bother Jane ! " she remarked. 
 
 As I went upstairs I found myself wonder- 
 ing what kind of a reception I should be 
 given by the recluse in the attic. In spite 
 of the pseans that Miss Amelia had sung in 
 his praise, I was tolerably certain that Master 
 Dick was rather a bear, and disapproved of 
 my intrusions ; otherwise he would at least 
 have had the grace to thank me for rescuing 
 his aunt from the regardant errand-boys. I 
 was conscious of a sensation which had 
 scarcely visited me since my school-days, 
 a sensation produced by a summons from 
 a master to visit his study for reasons un- 
 known or gloomily suspected. This was 
 ridiculous, I told myself ; I was without re- 
 proach, and if any one had behaved badly, 
 it was the morose Dick ; yet the fact re-
 
 28 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 mained that as I climbed the last flight of 
 stairs I was strangely nervous, and when I 
 halted outside the door on the right, I felt 
 that nothing but my affection for Miss Amelia 
 would have forced me to face the ordeal of 
 knocking on its panel. 
 
 I did knock, however, but heard no voice 
 that summoned me to enter. I waited for a 
 moment, then knocked again, equally fruit- 
 lessly. Probably, I thought, Mr Dick, like 
 most bears, was indulging in a protracted 
 siesta. Once more I heartily thumped the 
 panels, and then I turned the handle, opened 
 the door and entered the room. 
 
 I found myself in a large attic that was 
 comfortably furnished in ordinary masculine 
 taste ; there were large leather arm - chairs 
 and an oak table ; stags' heads looked mildly 
 down from the walls, and the few pictures 
 were of a sporting character. Mr Dick, un- 
 like his aunt, evidently did not care for 
 photographs ; there was only one in the room, 
 and that was the portrait of a girl in the 
 costume, I think, of the late seventies or early 
 eighties ; she wore a jersey and a pleated 
 skirt, and her hair was frizzed like a Zulu's. 
 I observed these details after I had realised 
 that the owner of the room was absent. Mr
 
 MISS AMELIA 29 
 
 Dick had evidently avoided me once again ; 
 the only trace that remained of him was a 
 strong smell of stale tobacco smoke. 
 
 I was annoyed when I found that, after 
 all, I might have spared myself my doubts 
 and fears on the staircase, and after I had 
 waited for five minutes, I made uncompli- 
 mentary remarks concerning Mr Dick's 
 methods of behaviour, and decided to return 
 for another talk with Miss Amelia. Then it 
 occurred to me that she would be very much 
 worried when she heard that my errand was 
 fruitless ; so I planted myself in one of the 
 arm-chairs and resolved to await my absent 
 host until midnight, if necessary. He had 
 made an appointment with me, after all, and 
 it would be an uncommon pleasure to put 
 him to shame when he tardily appeared. 
 
 The stags' heads contemplated me with 
 mild and respectful interest, and I stared at 
 them, at the pictures, and at the lady in the 
 jersey for about twenty minutes. I was 
 beginning to feel heartily bored when I heard 
 the sound of feet that ascended the stairs. 
 At last, I thought, I was to meet the mys- 
 terious nephew, who, by the way, seemed 
 even then to be in no particular hurry. I 
 rose, and by the time the door opened had
 
 30 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 prepared a neat speech which would heap 
 coals of fire on his perfidious head. But it 
 was lost labour, for no male figure appeared 
 on the threshold. Instead, I was confronted 
 by the sturdy shape of Jane. 
 
 Though she had walked so leisurely up- 
 stairs she seemed slightly out of breath, and 
 looked at me in a peculiar manner. Once 
 again I had a momentary idea that she re- 
 garded me as a burglar ; but before I could 
 explain my presence in the room her words 
 showed that she knew what had happened. 
 
 "Miss Amelia has just told me that you 
 were here, sir," she said quietly. "I'm afraid 
 from what she said that you've been waiting 
 for some time." 
 
 "For nearly half an hour, Jane," I an- 
 swered, in the tone of a patient martyr. 
 "She arranged with Mr Dick that I should 
 meet him here, but he seems to have dis- 
 covered a subsequent engagement." 
 
 I sat down again in one of the arm-chairs. 
 Jane stood regarding me with the same in- 
 tent expression for some moments, then she 
 entered the room, closed the door, and walked 
 deliberately towards me. 
 
 " I think it's high time that you were told 
 something, sir," she said, halting in front of
 
 MISS AMELIA 31 
 
 me. "I would have done it before, but I 
 thought perhaps you would find out for 
 yourself, like the doctor did. You've heard 
 a lot about meeting Mr Dick. I'd better tell 
 you once and for all that you'll never meet 
 him." 
 
 She spoke firmly, but I could see that she 
 was agitated. 
 
 "Do you mean," I asked, "that Mr Dick 
 refuses to have anything to do with me 
 that he doesn't like my coming to the 
 house ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Oh, sir ! " she said slowly, " haven't you 
 seen it all? There is no Mr Dick." 
 
 I gazed at her with intense astonishment. 
 
 " No Mr Dick ! " I echoed. " Do you 
 mean " She cut me short. 
 
 "I mean that he's all imagination," she 
 said. "The real Mr Dick died more than 
 twenty years ago. Whether his ghost haunts 
 this house or not is more than I can say, 
 but I've never seen it, at any rate. Some- 
 times I wish I could, for to hear Miss Amelia 
 talking and listening to some one you can't 
 hear or see is a great strain on the nerves. 
 I'd have borne it for no one else but her." 
 
 I gasped. I had formed so complete an
 
 32 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 idea of the personality of the nephew, I had 
 felt the sense of his actual presence in the 
 place so strongly, that for a moment I was 
 visited with a wild suspicion that he had 
 suborned Jane into collaborating with him 
 in a mad joke at my expense. But the 
 aspect of that faithful retainer's face was 
 enough to explode this theory. 
 
 " Well, it's extraordinary ! " I said feebly. 
 "And how long has he has this state of 
 things existed?" 
 
 "More than twenty years, sir," answered 
 Jane. Her agitation seemed to have passed 
 away, and she spoke calmly. "It's twenty- 
 two, I think, since I first began to pretend 
 he was still here." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that 
 you've managed to to keep it up ; to go on 
 pretending for all those years?" 
 
 Jane nodded. "Yes, sir," she answered. 
 "It wasn't very difficult, with poor Miss 
 Amelia always seeing him and imagining 
 that he talked to her. I knew very soon 
 that if I didrit pretend she would get miser- 
 able and perhaps come to her senses." 
 
 I stared again at this remarkable woman. 
 
 "But why didn't you want her to come to 
 her senses?" I cried.
 
 MISS AMELIA 33 
 
 Jane looked at me almost pitifully. 
 
 "Don't you see, sir," she explained, "that 
 if she'd come to her senses she'd have real- 
 ised that Mr Dick wasn't there, and she'd 
 just have died of grief? It was far better 
 to keep up the pretence and leave her happy. 
 The doctor said just the same ; he pretends 
 he's a friend of Mr Dick's and comes here 
 to have a talk with him whenever he 
 calls." 
 
 " Ah ! " I said, " that accounts for the smell 
 of smoke." 
 
 "Yes, sir," replied Jane. "Though when 
 he didn't come I often burnt some tobacco 
 on a tray. Any little thing like that, or 
 leaving the room untidy, just as Mr Dick 
 used to, helps to keep Miss Amelia happy, 
 and keep her from doubting that he is still 
 here." 
 
 For some moments I meditated silently 
 over Jane's astounding revelation. "By this 
 time you must almost feel that he is still 
 here," I said. 
 
 "Sometimes I do, sir," Jane answered. 
 " And in a kind of a way he really is here ; 
 he lives on, you might say, in Miss Amelia's 
 heart. I don't think that any one quite dies 
 when they're remembered as she remembers 
 
 c
 
 34 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Mr Dick. But if he knows, and does live 
 here in spirit, I haven't seen him." 
 
 "Then Miss Amelia has forgotten all about 
 his death ? " I asked. 
 
 Jane smoothed her apron with both hands. 
 
 "Thank God for that, sir," she said simply. 
 " After the news came she was at death's door 
 herself for two months, and when she was 
 better we found that she remembered nothing 
 later than the time before he died, when he 
 was living with her. Sometimes, on one of 
 her bad days, she'll have a dim sort of idea 
 that she has had dreadful news from Paris 
 Mr Dick died in Paris and she'll be miser- 
 able, but as soon as she sees his things lying 
 about in this room she begins to imagine 
 that he's back here again. It's at times like 
 that when I have to be extra careful to keep 
 up the pretence. I've even told her that I 
 thought Mr Dick looked well, or tired. Those 
 were lies, I suppose, and I don't know what 
 you'll think of me, but I do believe, sir, you'd 
 have done just the same if you'd been in my 
 place. It all helped to give my mistress a 
 happy old age." 
 
 "Was Mr Dick's death sudden?" I asked. 
 Jane replied that he had been found drowned 
 in the Seine. His history, of which she gave
 
 MISS AMELIA 35 
 
 me an outline, was apparently as follows. 
 He had been obliged to leave the Army 
 because he had become involved in some 
 discreditable gambling affair. Whether he 
 had been accused of cheating, or whether 
 he was the scapegoat of others, I do not 
 know ; but at any rate there was a vast 
 scandal, and at the time when he resigned 
 his commission he owed very large sums to 
 money - lenders. His relatives, who were 
 furious that he had disgraced a name famous 
 in the military annals of England, refused 
 to have anything more to do with him, 
 except Miss Amelia, who quarrelled with 
 them all on his account, realised most of 
 her capital in order to pay his debts, and 
 buried herself with him in the obscure street 
 where I had met her. 
 
 They lived together for about a year ; Dick 
 attempted in vain to find any employment, 
 and became, I imagine, more and more miser- 
 able. At last he went to Paris ; a fortnight 
 later his body was recognised in the Morgue 
 by a former brother officer who was engaged 
 in visiting the artistic attractions of the city. 
 
 Jane concluded his history with a gesture 
 in the direction of the young woman in a 
 jersey.
 
 36 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "That was his young lady, sir," she ex- 
 plained. " We thought her pretty and good, 
 but she threw him over, like all the rest of 
 them. Miss Amelia won't have anything to 
 do with any of the family," she went on. 
 " ' If Dick's not good enough for them I'm 
 not good enough,' she says. She's a lady of 
 great spirit, sir, as I expect you've seen." 
 
 I did not answer. I was engaged in reflect- 
 ing that my idea of Kentish Town and Gospel 
 Oak as places where only unimportant 
 persons dwelt and only drab and sordid 
 events happened was singularly foolish. For 
 me, Miss Amelia and her Jane shone with 
 all the splendour of heroines of romance, 
 and the dark little house became radiant 
 with a fine light of love and devotion. 
 
 "So this," I said at last, "was why you 
 looked at me so queerly that day when Miss 
 Amelia fainted in the street ? " 
 
 Jane smiled. " I didn't know what sort of 
 a person you might be, sir, and I heard Miss 
 Amelia ask you to come again and meet Mr 
 Dick. I didn't know whether you'd be able 
 to do as the doctor does. He's very kind 
 about it, though of course he looks on it all 
 as a joke, and pretends that Mr Dick is fond 
 of ladies and a gay life." She paused for a
 
 MISS AMELIA 37 
 
 moment, looking at me almost anxiously. 
 " You will be able to do it, I hope, sir ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 "You mean to keep up the pretence?" I 
 said. 
 
 "That's it," said Jane. "It's got to be 
 done," she added firmly. 
 
 I was silent for a short time. In the ex- 
 citement of hearing her story I had ignored 
 the new complication that was created by 
 my visit to Dick's room. " It will be rather 
 difficult, won't it?" I asked. 
 
 Jane's expression instantly became stern. 
 
 " Difficult or not, it has to be done," she said 
 quickly. "You must make up your mind to 
 that, sir. If you can't do it, if your conscience 
 won't let you " she paused. 
 
 " If I can't do it I mustn't come here again, 
 you mean," I said. 
 
 Jane made a grave gesture of assent. 
 
 "Never again," she said. "And that would 
 be hard on Miss Amelia. She's taken to you, 
 one can see." She looked at me steadily and 
 then she smiled. " Oh ! you'll do it ! " she 
 cried suddenly. 
 
 And at that instant I certainly felt that I 
 would do anything for Miss Amelia and for 
 Jane. " I believe you're a witch ! " I said, and
 
 38 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 held out my hand. We stood there for a 
 moment like two conspirators swearing some 
 infernal pact. " I'll have a try, at any rate," 
 I said. 
 
 " I knew you would, sir," said Jane. " But 
 don't go to see her now. She's tired, and it 
 would be difficult for you. Next time you 
 come I don't think you'll find it hard." 
 
 "Jane," I said, "you're a treasure among 
 women." 
 
 "I've done my duty," said Jane briefly, 
 " though it has been one long lie." 
 
 I am almost ashamed to add that, after 
 forming this alliance in duplicity, I sneaked 
 past Miss Amelia's door with the utmost 
 caution, and drew a deep breath of relief 
 when I was safely in the street. As I walked 
 home I began to realise the difficulty of the 
 task to which I had pledged myself, and I 
 confess that I quailed before it. Nevertheless, 
 Jane was right ; nothing should be allowed 
 to disturb Miss Amelia's illusions. I told 
 myself that if I proved incapable of playing 
 my part decently, my obvious duty would be 
 to retire from the stage altogether. But this, 
 now that I was deeply in love both with Miss 
 Amelia and with Jane, was a thoroughly 
 impossible prospect.
 
 MISS AMELIA 39 
 
 IV. 
 
 Five or six days passed, I think, before I 
 was able to present myself again at Miss 
 Amelia's door. I had still some doubt as to 
 whether I should be able to take a successful 
 part in Jane's conspiracy, but none concerning 
 the morality of joining it ; the more I thought 
 about it the more I was convinced that this 
 was the only possible course for me to follow. 
 My role, I knew, would be more difficult than 
 that of Jane ; it was easy for her, a servant, 
 to keep silence when Miss Amelia was talking 
 to the invisible presence of her nephew ; but 
 I should be obliged to join in such conver- 
 sations, a proceeding that would demand 
 intense tact. 
 
 In spite of this imminent difficulty, and in 
 defiance of a yellow fog that brooded over 
 Kentish Town, I was in high spirits when I 
 knocked at Miss Amelia's door; the prospect 
 of seeing her again really was wonderfully 
 elating. When Jane opened the door I 
 beamed on her with the utmost benevolence, 
 and was surprised to observe that she received 
 me without a smile. Her honest face looked 
 drawn and anxious, and there were dark 
 semicircles below her eyes.
 
 40 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "Oh, sir," she said, "Miss Amelia can't see 
 you to-day. She's in bed, and I'm afraid she's 
 very bad indeed. She's never been like this 
 before. But please to come in." 
 
 I followed her into Miss Amelia's room. 
 There was no fire, and in the jaundiced light 
 of the foggy afternoon the place was depress- 
 ing and shabby. 
 
 " How long has she been ill ? " I asked. Jane 
 waited for a moment before answering. 
 
 " Ever since you went away on Saturday," 
 she said. "And the doctor doesn't like her 
 looks at all. She doesn't recognise any one ; 
 her sight's nearly gone, but I'm afraid that 
 it's not only because of that. She's dreadfully 
 miserable ! " Poor Jane ended with almost a 
 groan, and for a moment I thought that she 
 was about to break down. 
 
 "Miserable?" I echoed. "What is making 
 her miserable ? Does she think that some- 
 thing is wrong with him with Mr Dick?" 
 
 Jane nodded, looking very grave. 
 
 "Yes," she said. "That's what's the matter. 
 On Saturday, just after you had gone, she 
 thought that he came to talk to her, and she 
 got the idea that he didn't like you, that he 
 was kind of jealous of you, and that he was 
 going away to Paris. Her memory seemed
 
 MISS AMELIA 41 
 
 to come back, partly at least, and she has 
 been in a dreadful state, crying and talking 
 about bodies being found in a river." 
 
 The tears were running down her cheeks 
 as she finished speaking. I stared at her 
 blankly, feeling a heavy weight growing 
 above my heart. 
 
 " Then it's all my fault," I said. " I oughtn't 
 to have come here again. But can't you 
 persuade her that Dick has returned?" 
 
 She shook her head. " I've tried and tried," 
 she answered, " but it's no good ; it only 
 makes her angry. She's quite certain that 
 he's in Paris and that he's in some danger. 
 I'm dreading every moment that she'll realise 
 he's dead ; several times to-day she's remem- 
 bered things that have happened just before 
 she got the news of his body being found." 
 
 "And if she realises that he is dead?" I asked. 
 
 " It'll kill her this time," replied Jane. " The 
 doctor says so. When a person has been 
 queer like that for so long and becomes right 
 in the head again suddenly, it means that 
 it's the end. And a miserable end too, poor 
 thing ! I'd always thought that she would die 
 happy, thinking that Mr Dick was with her 
 to the last." 
 
 I inquired if the doctor came often. " He's
 
 42 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 very good," Jane answered; "he conies twice 
 a-day, and he sat up for a long time the other 
 night. The sleeping-draught couldn't calm 
 her. He made me have a nurse, but she's a 
 giggling thing and mad about play-actors. 
 She talks to me about Lewis Waller, or some 
 such name, until I could turn her out of the 
 house. She's upstairs now trying on a new 
 bonnet. Miss Amelia's asleep for once." 
 
 Silence fell upon us. The fog had thickened, 
 and the room was almost dark. Outside, some 
 sparrows were twittering disconsolately in the 
 bedraggled shrubs. I felt wretched, and re- 
 viled myself for not having discovered earlier 
 that Miss Amelia's nephew was a hallucina- 
 tion, and that my visits to the haunted house 
 were likely to have a troublesome result. Yet 
 how could I have known ? Jane was certainly 
 not to blame ; she had warned me as soon 
 as she perceived that I had realised nothing 
 and that my visits were likely to be frequent. 
 The whole affair was a most unfortunate 
 accident, though, for a moment, I felt almost 
 inclined to believe that Dick had been actually 
 present in the spirit, as Jane expressed it 
 and had behaved exactly as he would have 
 done if I had put in an appearance at his 
 aunt's house during the time of his trouble.
 
 MISS AMELIA 43 
 
 "Do you think it would be of any use," I 
 asked at last, " if I went up to see her when 
 she is awake, and told her that there isn't 
 any truth in her idea that Dick doesn't like 
 me?" 
 
 Jane dismissed this suggestion at once. 
 
 " She wouldn't know you," she said. " And 
 if she did, she wouldn't believe you. And, 
 anyhow, it would make no difference. What's 
 worrying her is that she thinks he has gone 
 to Paris." 
 
 "But if I could persuade her," I said, 
 "that he has just gone for a holiday and 
 not because he is annoyed at my coming 
 here, wouldn't things be better?" 
 
 Jane shook her head. 
 
 "You wouldn't be able to persuade her," 
 she answered. "You see, she thinks he has 
 told her all about it. It's your word 
 against his." 
 
 Once again I felt a sharp sense of the 
 reality of Dick. 
 
 " Confound him ! " I murmured. 
 
 Jane overheard me, and I saw, much to 
 my surprise, that she was regarding me 
 sympathetically. 
 
 "I've often felt like that too, sir," she 
 said. "Times and times it's seemed as if he
 
 44 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 was really there and was just being aggra- 
 vating on purpose. But it doesn't do, I 
 found, to let oneself think that. If I hadn't 
 made up my mind not to believe in him I 
 don't know what would have happened to 
 my head." 
 
 I looked at her. "I suppose he wasn't 
 really there, Jane?" I said. 
 
 Jane made an almost violent gesture with 
 her hands. 
 
 "Lord save us, sir!" she cried. "Don't 
 you begin to believe in him ! " She was 
 silent for a moment, then continued : " It's 
 only in Miss Amelia's memory that he lives, 
 as I told you before. But the funny thing 
 is that she remembers him so well his 
 character, I mean. His ghost, as you might 
 say, behaves exactly as he would have be- 
 haved if he had been alive and remained a 
 young man of four -and -twenty. He wasn't 
 always a nice gentleman, was Mr Dick ; 
 after he left the Army his temper was 
 very queer, and his ghost you know what 
 I mean when I say ghost is just the 
 same. I've often heard Miss Amelia talking 
 as if he were in a dreadful rage, and she 
 was trying to calm him down. It was just 
 like him like the real Mr Dick, I mean,
 
 MISS AMELIA 45 
 
 sir to go off in a huff because you were 
 coming to the house." 
 
 "But did he do that when other people 
 came?" I asked. 
 
 " No other people did come," Jane answered. 
 "LadySoames, Miss Amelia's sister, tried to, 
 a great many times ; but he couldn't bear 
 her, and made Miss Amelia tell her to keep 
 away. Oh dear ! oh dear ! " she cried sud- 
 denly. "There we go again!" 
 
 "What is the matter?" I demanded. 
 
 " It seems as if we neither of us could 
 help talking as if he really existed," said 
 Jane. " And I won't do it ! " she concluded 
 almost violently. 
 
 I rose to go, telling Jane I would call 
 again very soon for news of her mistress. 
 " And if I can be of any use," I added, 
 giving her a card, " telegraph to this ad- 
 dress. I'm nearly always in, and I'll come 
 at once." 
 
 Jane thanked me rather perfunctorily. 
 Evidently she was convinced that for the 
 present I could be of no use whatever. I 
 went back to the Temple and attempted to 
 work, but I could think of nothing but Miss 
 Amelia. Of course it was absurd, but try 
 as I would, I was unable to dispel the idea
 
 46 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 that the long -dead Dick was a real and 
 malignant entity who was compelling her, 
 merely from spiteful motives, to endure 
 again all the anguish that his suicide had 
 caused her twenty-two years before. 
 
 V. 
 
 I called at the house every afternoon dur- 
 ing the following week, and on each occasion 
 I was confronted by a white and anxious 
 Jane who had no good news to impart. 
 Miss Amelia was terribly weak ; she con- 
 tinued to recognise no one, and lived en- 
 tirely in a painful world of her imagination. 
 The one consoling fact about her malady 
 was that she was convinced that Dick was 
 alive, though absent, and she seemed to 
 have forgotten about his suicide. But she 
 was terribly worried because he did not 
 return, and lay listening for his footstep 
 all day and for most of the night. She 
 was almost blind, and it was nearly impos- 
 sible to persuade her to take any food. I 
 was not allowed, of course, to see her, for 
 she still, apparently, regarded me as the
 
 MISS AMELIA 47 
 
 cause of Dick's absence, and spoke of my 
 intrusion with warm resentment. 
 
 On the tenth day of her illness I found 
 Jane in a state of deep despondency ; Miss 
 Amelia had sunk into a comatose condition, 
 from which she only awoke at long intervals 
 to demand if her nephew had returned. To 
 soothe her, Jane had tried to pretend that 
 he was in the house ; but Miss Amelia, after 
 sitting up in bed and staring at the ceiling 
 with sightless eyes for some moments, had 
 shaken her head wistfully, and then, falling 
 back on her pillows, relapsed into torpor. 
 The doctor, Jane added, took a gloomy view 
 of her condition, and asserted that unless 
 she could be induced to believe that Dick 
 had returned safely, there was only the 
 slightest hope of her recovery. 
 
 I had gone back to my room each day 
 feeling more and more depressed, and Jane's 
 latest bulletin made me sick at heart. Poor 
 Miss Amelia ! If any one deserved a peace- 
 ful death, she was the person ; her long 
 devotion to her nephew's memory seemed, 
 whenever I thought of it, both noble and 
 beautiful, and if she had been mad, there 
 were many worse things in the world than
 
 48 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 a madness which took the form of single- 
 hearted loyalty to an unfortunate boy. I 
 reproached myself for having returned to 
 the little house, and reviled the fate which 
 had led me to explore Kentish Town on 
 that Saturday afternoon. I was the cause 
 although a quite innocent cause of all 
 Miss Amelia's later sufferings ; if she died 
 I should be indirectly responsible for her 
 death, and I could do nothing but wait. It 
 was a singularly disheartening position. 
 
 I sat by a dying fire for an hour, the prey 
 of most melancholy foreboding ; then, I sup- 
 pose, I went to sleep, and dreamt that I 
 was back in Miss Amelia's room, for I re- 
 member that a loud knocking at my door 
 made me spring up from my chair and 
 stand staring about me in stupid bewilder- 
 ment. There was another series of tre- 
 mendous knocks, and I opened the door, to 
 discover a small telegraph - boy, who thrust 
 a yellow -brown envelope into my hand. I 
 tore it open. The telegram which it con- 
 tained was very brief : Come at once. Jane 
 was all that it said. I told the boy that 
 there was no answer, and that light-hearted 
 bearer of evil tidings departed whistling. 
 That the tidings were evil I had no doubt;
 
 MISS AMELIA 49 
 
 Jane would not have telegraphed unless 
 Miss Amelia was worse. I ran up Middle 
 Temple Lane, colliding with various belated 
 barristers, and found a cab opposite the 
 Law Courts. Twenty minutes later I stood 
 once more on the steps of the little house. 
 
 Jane opened the door before I had rung 
 the bell ; evidently she had been on the 
 look-out for me. Without speaking, she led 
 me into Miss Amelia's sitting - room. Her 
 face was dreadfully haggard, and her lips 
 were set in a tense line. 
 
 " How is she ? " I asked in a low voice. 
 
 "Very, very bad," Jane answered in the 
 same tone. "It's the end, I'm afraid. The 
 doctor says so ; he's with her now. She's 
 fretting and fretting." 
 
 " Does she think that he is dead ? " I 
 demanded. 
 
 " No," said Jane. " She's expecting him to 
 come back every minute, and worrying be- 
 cause he doesn't come. It seems almost as 
 if she were too weak to imagine him any 
 more to trick herself into seeing him and 
 hearing him, I mean. She does nothing but 
 moan, except when she stops to listen. I 
 feel now a kind of certainty that he won't 
 come, that he's disappeared for ever, poor 
 
 D
 
 50 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Mr Dick. And that's why I sent for 
 you." 
 
 " You think she won't dislike me now ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 Jane shook her head. "It isn't that," she 
 said. She looked at me once more with her 
 strange penetrating scrutiny, and went on : 
 " She won't know you. She's nearly blind, 
 and no one exists for her except him. 
 That's why I want you to go up to see 
 her." 
 
 I stared at her, hopelessly bewildered by 
 this obscure speech. She continued to re- 
 gard me with intensely solemn eyes. "You 
 understand, don't you ? " she said, after a 
 moment. 
 
 I shook my head. " Oh ! don't you see," 
 she cried sharply, "that I'd do anything for 
 her to die in peace, even trick her and 
 deceive her ? It's only a chance, of course ; 
 she may find it all out at once, like she did 
 before when I pretended he was in the 
 house ; only she's much weaker now. There's 
 only one thing that you've got to remember, 
 you mustn't speak. Whatever she says, 
 remember that she hears the answer in her 
 mind." 
 
 I realised then what Jane meant.
 
 MISS AMELIA 51 
 
 "You want me to be him?" I said. 
 
 She nodded eagerly. " Don't say you can't 
 do it, sir ! " she cried. " It's the last chance, 
 and whatever you may think about it, I 
 know it's right. You've heard of doctors 
 giving dying people drugs to keep off the 
 pain, well, this is like giving a drug ; one 
 wouldn't do it except to stop her suffering, 
 and let her die in peace." 
 
 I felt very uncomfortable. No doubt Jane 
 was right as usual, yet there was something 
 dreadful in playing any kind of trick on one 
 who was dying. " I'll come up," I said ; " but 
 I won't promise anything except that I'll 
 not speak. And you mustn't tell her that 
 I am Dick." 
 
 An expression of deep relief came over 
 Jane's face. " I won't do that, sir," she 
 answered. "For one thing," she added, "it 
 wouldn't be any use." 
 
 After we had ascended one flight of stairs, 
 I heard Miss Amelia's voice. She was moan- 
 ing on one note, like a child in pain. The 
 sound sent a chill to my heart, and for a 
 moment I felt that I would give every- 
 thing that I possessed to be able to rush 
 out of the house. As we reached the door 
 of her bedroom, however, the sound ceased
 
 52 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 with an abruptness that was almost shock- 
 ing. Jane knocked at the door, waited for 
 a moment, and then opened it. 
 
 The scene that met my eyes will haunt 
 me until I have lost all power to think. 
 Miss Amelia was sitting up in bed, leaning 
 forward. She was thinner than I had imag- 
 ined it possible for a living creature to be ; 
 her shoulders were like knife-blades beneath 
 her night-gown, her hands, which gripped 
 the bedclothes, had become yellow claws, 
 and her neck was like twisted parchment. 
 But the splendour of her face was indescrib- 
 able; her eyes were two burning stars, and 
 her smile had an unearthly sweetness that 
 recalled all the pictures which one had ever 
 seen of saints in ecstasy. She held out both 
 her wasted hands with a wonderful gesture. 
 
 "Dick, dear Dick," she said loudly, trium- 
 phantly. " I knew your step ! You've come 
 at last ! And I know that you'll never leave 
 me any more." I stood there, torn between 
 wonder at her face and shame at the part 
 that I was playing. It seemed impossible 
 that those brilliant eyes could not see me, 
 or, if they saw me, transfigured me to a 
 vision of the dead. The doctor, who was 
 standing by the bed, made an emphatic sign 
 to me ; I went forward and took Miss
 
 MISS AMELIA 53 
 
 Amelia's hands. She kissed me, and then 
 sank back on her pillows. 
 
 "Now I can sleep," she said, with a deep 
 sigh, and closed her eyes. 
 
 The peace in her face was the most beauti- 
 ful thing that I have ever seen. I sat by 
 her bedside for an hour holding one of her 
 hands. When I went away she was still 
 lost in deep slumber. 
 
 Was it a disgraceful trick to play? She 
 died without pain three days afterwards, 
 perfectly happy, convinced that her nephew 
 was with her to the last. I attended the 
 funeral, which was honoured by the presence 
 of several of her distinguished relatives. They 
 were truly magnificent types of aristocracy, 
 and their demeanour, whilst exquisitely cor- 
 rect, betrayed no hint of inward grief. 
 
 When it was all over, and the tawny 
 earth was being shovelled on the plain 
 coffin that contained Miss Amelia's worn-out 
 body, I walked out of the cemetery with 
 Jane. Jane was calm once more, though 
 she had broken down at the graveside, and 
 seriously interrupted the somewhat perfunc- 
 tory periods of the chilly curate who con- 
 ducted the service. I questioned her about 
 her future ; she informed me that she was 
 to live with her sister in Birmingham a
 
 54 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 town which she seemed, Cockney that she 
 was, to regard as the most rural of retreats, 
 and that she had saved sufficiently to as- 
 sure herself a comfortable old age. We did 
 not speak of Miss Amelia until we were 
 about to part at the cemetery gates. 
 
 "You won't forget her, will you, sir?" 
 she asked me, as we shook hands. I replied 
 that Miss Amelia's memory would be with 
 me always. Jane gave me one of her grave, 
 slow nods. 
 
 "That's right," she said. "When that 
 happens people don't really die. All this," she 
 made a gesture indicating the cemetery, "all 
 this is nothing. It's in other people's hearts 
 that one really lives. She taught me that." 
 
 I felt suddenly inclined to choke. " Poor 
 thing, poor thing ! " I said. 
 
 But Jane corrected me with her usual 
 wisdom. 
 
 "Don't think of her like that, sir," she 
 said. "She lived happy, except for that one 
 great trouble, and she died happy too. It's 
 a funny world," she added after a moment. 
 "I sometimes think that the people it likes 
 to call mad have all the best of things, and 
 aren't the worst in it either." 
 
 And with this profound sentiment Jane 
 went out of my life.
 
 MARIA
 
 MARIA. 
 
 i. 
 
 I MET Maria first in the early nineties, when 
 she was twenty-five and I was still a school- 
 boy. Even in that remote epoch, with its 
 placid Victorian air yet unshaken by the 
 mild thunder of ' The Second Mrs Tanqueray ' 
 and ' The Heavenly Twins,' it seemed strange 
 that she should have been endowed with so 
 sampleresque a name ; and stranger that 
 she was invariably addressed by it. I re- 
 member that on the occasion of our first 
 meeting I decided instantly that she should 
 have been a Muriel, a Mabel, or a Margaret, 
 like all the rest of the dear creatures who 
 were chattering and playing tennis and eat- 
 ing ices in a large suburban garden that 
 has long been the prey of the jerry-builder,
 
 58 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 probably, indeed, of several successive jerry- 
 builders. Also, I remember, I decided in- 
 stantly that she was far the prettiest girl 
 in the garden, if not in the world. I am 
 not at all certain that I didn't fall in love 
 with her. Sensibility had not wholly de- 
 cayed in the Victorian twilight; romance 
 was mildly rampant at garden parties in 
 spite of the curates, and Maria was really 
 very charming. She wore large sleeves like 
 legs of mutton, and didn't become purple in 
 the neck when she played tennis. She had 
 very bright brown eyes and a sharp small 
 nose and a complexion like a rose-leaf. Of 
 course, one was sorry that she wasn't like 
 Lorna Doone Lorna Doone was a feminine 
 ideal that one would never, all one's life, be 
 able to get away from but still, in her way, 
 she was almost as jolly, and knew how to 
 talk to boys probably better than Lorna. 
 . . . We discovered that we were distant 
 cousins, but that, said Maria, didn't matter; 
 we would contrive to be friends in spite of 
 the relationship. The remark, I remember, 
 bothered me a good deal at the time. When 
 I asked Thicknesse major about it in the 
 following term, he explained that it was a 
 paradox and that I was an ass. (Thicknesse
 
 MARIA 59 
 
 major was the fellow in my house who was 
 afterwards nearly expelled because he took 
 in the Yellow Book.) 
 
 Maria's friendliness was flattering to a shy 
 youth, who was not, however, too shy to 
 perceive that she was extremely popular ; 
 the suburban swains hovered round her like 
 butterflies about a flower, and she seemed 
 to be on terms of extreme intimacy with 
 their sisters and parents. The swains were 
 decent fellows on the whole; they played 
 tennis with immense gravity and were pro- 
 fuse in apologies to their partners ; some of 
 them wore scarlet sashes with their flannels, 
 for which, if they had been at my school, 
 they would have been beaten and kicked. 
 The girls I contrived to avoid very neatly, 
 except when I had to play tennis with them. 
 I remember nothing about them except that 
 they called me Mr Lane an innovation 
 which was immensely dignifying. 
 
 Late in the afternoon Maria's mother, a 
 small but stately lady with a notable gift 
 of silence and a bonnet adorned with enor- 
 mous cherries and forget-me-nots, came out 
 of the house and contemplated the tennis 
 with the air of a High Priestess of Vestals 
 at a gladiatorial show. I was led up to her,
 
 60 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 and she talked to me about relatives who, I 
 have every reason to believe, had been dead 
 for some considerable time. She also spoke 
 disparagingly of tennis and favourably of 
 croquet, but in spite of this error in taste, 
 I felt that she was kind. Maria's brother 
 was not present ; he was supposed to be 
 managing a branch of the family business 
 "in the East"; but Maria's sister, the eldest 
 of the family, appeared for a moment, sur- 
 veyed the scene with a kind of nervous con- 
 tempt, shook hands hurriedly with a few 
 people, and then vanished. She was fifteen 
 years older than Maria, unmarried, and an 
 inveterate frequenter of churches. Large 
 and stout, with dull eyes, she gave me the 
 impression of being unsympathetic and quite 
 unpleasantly unlike any one whom I had ever 
 met before. A fatal passion for sermons, I 
 discovered afterwards, had possessed her from 
 her earliest years. Her name was Ellen. I 
 met her again when Maria took me to see 
 the house ; Ellen, apparently, was house- 
 keeper, and Maria announced to her that 
 I was to stay to dinner. Ellen stared at 
 me as if I were a new kind of beast, moved 
 her lower jaw slowly up and down without 
 opening her mouth, and at last remarked :
 
 MARIA 61 
 
 "Arthur won't like staying to dinner if he 
 hasn't his evening clothes. And you know 
 that mother is very particular." 
 
 I felt horribly crushed, but Maria put 
 her hand on my shoulder and spoke with 
 startling sharpness. " Nonsense ! " she said. 
 " Mother doesn't mind a bit, and of course 
 Arthur won't. Mr Walem is coming too. 
 He'll be in his tennis things, so you needn't 
 be shy, Arthur." 
 
 "Euh!" said Ellen, and sniffed. I looked 
 at Maria, and was astonished to see that her 
 pretty face was twitching with irritation. 
 She screwed up her mouth to the thinnest 
 possible line and marched me out of the 
 room. I ventured some blundering apology 
 for not possessing the needful garments, but 
 she interrupted me. " It's all right," she said, 
 rather breathlessly ; " Cousin Ellen's always 
 like that. She doesn't mean it." She con- 
 tinued to look extremely cross. 
 
 The house, like everything in it, was large 
 and solid. So was the dinner, when we sat 
 beneath a portrait of Maria's defunct father, 
 a ponderous gentleman with whiskers, a 
 frilled shirt - front, and taper fingers that 
 seemed too elegant to be true. It was long 
 before I freed myself from a vague notion
 
 62 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 that this picture was the result of some 
 mechanical process, though in reality it was 
 the work of a prominent, if not eminent, 
 painter who flourished in the fifties and 
 sixties. I disliked the picture, however, for 
 reasons personal rather than artistic ; the 
 late Mr Bastable had a pair of shrewd little 
 blue eyes, which always looked as if he had 
 just made a very successful and satirical joke 
 at my expense. Whether making jokes was 
 really a habit of his during his life, I never 
 ascertained ; but he certainly made an im- 
 mense quantity of money, and there was 
 substantial proof of his success in the gold 
 plate which gleamed on table and sideboard, 
 the statues of Innocence, Purity, Faith, Mod- 
 esty, and other delightful virtues in the hall, 
 and two large and ugly Landseers in the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 His widow spoke very little during dinner, 
 and the grim Ellen was mute ; Maria atoned 
 for their silence with an incessant stream of 
 talk, addressing herself rather to me than to 
 Mr Walem, who was a heavy young man 
 with a red face, a protruding lower lip, and 
 blue-black hair. I thought her prettier than 
 ever ; she had put on a white silk dress 
 trimmed with blue ribbons, there was a
 
 MARIA 63 
 
 diamond star in her fluffy hair, and her eyes 
 were brighter than the diamonds. She looked 
 delightfully fresh, neat, and gay ; one felt, 
 somehow, that she would always be happy, 
 and diffuse happiness around her ; one knew 
 at once that she was so tremendously kind ! 
 Nevertheless, her methods of speech were 
 bewildering to a shy youth ; she had very 
 strongly the aspect of a bright bird, and 
 the methods were bird -like ; she was per- 
 petually hopping from one conversational 
 twig to another, and I, personally, felt far 
 too heavy to follow her airy track success- 
 fully. Mr Walem, who was painfully literal, 
 apparently didn't try. " Oh, I say, you know ! 
 What's that got to do with it ? " was his fre- 
 quent remonstrance. Maria would look at 
 him with her little eyes gleaming more 
 brightly than ever. "You're so slow!" she 
 would chirp in an extremely high note. "I 
 can't think why men are so slow ! " When- 
 ever she said this, or something else to much 
 the same effect, Mrs Bastable would giggle 
 silently and look at Mr Walem obliquely 
 with a quizzical eye. Mr Walem would look 
 at his plate and frown. 
 
 Maria asked me many questions about Win- 
 chester; she was, I decided, strangely ignor-
 
 64 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 ant, seeming to think that it was a school for 
 little kids, like one of those beastly private 
 places where the master's wife tucked you 
 up in bed, and gave you Gregory powder and 
 other filth. Towards the end of dinner, just 
 as I was beginning my second portion of pine- 
 apple, Mrs Bastable and Ellen rose and with- 
 drew to the drawing-room. Walem, Maria, 
 and I stayed for some time in the dining- 
 room and ate peaches, but when I was about 
 to take a bunch of grapes, she said to me, 
 "Now, little boy, you must trot along and 
 talk to mother." I had to go, of course, and 
 she stayed with Walem. When I entered the 
 drawing-room a vast place, all gilding and 
 crimson curtains Mrs Bastable looked at me 
 with her funny quizzical eyes, and inquired 
 where Maria might be. When I answered, 
 she said " Oh ! " very gently. Ellen said 
 " Euh ! " I talked to Mrs Bastable about her 
 dog, an obese Skye terrier, which gnawed me 
 with its toothless gums when I tried to pat 
 it ; and then, as soon as Maria and Mr Walem 
 came in, I went away. Maria made me 
 promise to play tennis with her frequently. 
 I had no difficulty in keeping my promise, 
 for I was staying in an adjacent suburb with 
 a kind great-aunt who made no urgent de-
 
 MARIA 65 
 
 mands on my attention, and was anxkms-that 
 I should not be dull. I saw Maria nearly 
 every day for the next three weeks, and 
 became wholly her slave, if one could be 
 the slave of such a jolly, sympathetic friend. 
 She seemed more delightful every time I met 
 her ; she was so splendidly alive, so immensely 
 interested in everything ! We explored Lon- 
 don together, and I discovered, to my vast 
 surprise, that she had never scaled the ar- 
 duous Monument or visited Madame Tus- 
 saud's dreadful temple of the thrilling. We 
 had wonderful teas together in dusky oriental 
 rooms that smelt of freshly ground coffee 
 and were full of mysterious fretwork lattices 
 and peacock feathers in brass pots, teas 
 during which I was torn between sensations 
 of pleasure and guilt ; for I had no pocket- 
 money, and my father had always told me 
 that to allow a woman to pay for one was 
 a social crime ; we encouraged the bears at 
 the Zoological Gardens to hideous excess in 
 the matter of buns, and we met romance 
 face to face in gondolas at the Earl's Court 
 Exhibition. She enjoyed it all even more 
 than I did, I think, for I had experienced 
 it before ; she talked and laughed all day 
 long. Once, when I tried to thank her, she 
 
 E
 
 66 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 put her finger on my mouth and said, with 
 a funny kind of gasp which I couldn't under- 
 stand, " You silly boy ! Don't you see that 
 I've never had any one to take me about 
 before?" I think it dawned on me then, 
 though dimly, that she might have been 
 lonely, and that even the happiest tempera- 
 ment in the world might become tired of 
 Ellen and Ellen's everlasting Euhs. I must 
 have become almost crazily devoted to her, 
 for I actually wrote a letter of eight pages 
 to Thicknesse major without a word of any- 
 thing except her charm, though I knew per- 
 fectly well that my cynical friend would 
 laugh immoderately when he received it, 
 recite it to other humourists, and make my 
 life a burden throughout the ensuing term. 
 That didn't matter; I felt that I had to 
 write about her, and I didn't keep a diary, 
 only accounts. 
 
 On our last evening together I felt dread- 
 fully low-spirited. We sat in the garden, 
 and I expressed a faltering but fervent hope 
 that I should see her again. I was some- 
 what surprised when she hesitated for a 
 moment before replying. (She was wearing 
 the white dress and looked, I decided, like 
 a princess in a fairy tale.)
 
 MARIA 67 
 
 " Of course we shall meet very soon," she 
 said. She paused again, then put her hand 
 on my sleeve. " Arthur," she said, " don't 
 think me horrid. I had better tell you now. 
 I can't ask you to stay here." 
 
 I couldn't understand her at all. I had 
 never considered the question of staying at 
 Ravensholme that was the name of their 
 house. Her pretty face was full of trouble 
 and I felt very uncomfortable. I grunted 
 or growled that it was all right. 
 
 "It's not all right. It's horrid!" she said 
 vehemently. " But it's no use ! I can't ask 
 you, and I can't tell you why." 
 
 "I know. It's cousin Ellen," I said. 
 
 "No, it's not," she said. "She likes you. 
 I can't tell you. Only it's the place, the 
 house ; not cousin Ellen, remember that." 
 
 " It's a beautiful house," I said. She rose 
 and stared at the dim pompous outline of 
 Ravensholme. 
 
 "It's a " she began, almost with a 
 
 scream. I was tremendously startled, as she 
 noticed next moment. "I've frightened you, 
 Arthur," she said. She gave a little laugh and 
 added, "You must think us all awfully queer?" 
 
 " No, I don't," I said, feeling wretchedly 
 out of my depth.
 
 68 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "I suppose I oughtn't to have said any- 
 thing," she went on after a while, " but I 
 hated the idea of your thinking that I could 
 ask you, and didn't. You understand, don't 
 you? It's not because I won't, it's because 
 I can't." 
 
 " Oh yes, I see," I said, wishing fervently 
 that she would stop. My experience of 
 women was infinitesimal, but I realised that 
 something had made her quite unlike herself, 
 and I felt the unpleasant sinking sensation 
 that seizes a child when a familiar person 
 or thing becomes suddenly strange. Next 
 moment, however, she was standing in front 
 of me, looking absolutely as she always 
 looked, trim, smiling, and gay. She held out 
 her hands and shook both of mine. " So that's 
 all settled, isn't it ? " she said. " And now 
 I'll tell you something ; a great secret. In 
 about a year I'm going to marry Mr Walem, 
 and then you can come and stay with us as 
 long as ever you like." 
 
 I seized the opportunity to behave like the 
 rude little brute that I really was. "If you 
 marry that sickening ass," I announced, " I'll 
 never speak to you again." 
 
 She seemed surprised but not annoyed. 
 " Oh, well ! we're not married yet," she said.
 
 MARIA 69 
 
 " At any rate I, shall be able to see you next 
 holidays. Then we can discuss Mr Walem." 
 I was too young to perceive that this 
 utterance was extraordinary. We arranged 
 to meet in London, for lunch, on the first 
 day of the Christmas holidays. But the 
 gods mock the careful pledges of mortals. 
 I did not see her again for several years. 
 
 II. 
 
 My father died suddenly two months after 
 I had parted from Maria ; I was obliged to 
 leave Winchester, and spent the next four 
 years with an aunt who had married a 
 Frenchman and lived near Dinard. When 
 I was eighteen I went to Paris and managed 
 to find employment in the office of an illus- 
 trated paper. I devoted every spare moment 
 to drawing, and after a couple of years of 
 drudgery I was given regular work as an 
 illustrator, and was able to afford a long 
 course of study in several ateliers on the 
 Rive Grauche. At first I had neither the 
 time nor the money necessary for a visit 
 to England, and perhaps, after a while, the 
 inclination was lacking ; I developed a
 
 70 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 passion for Paris and made many friends 
 amongst my contemporaries in the Quartier. 
 For two or three years I kept up a desultory 
 correspondence with Maria; she wrote most 
 affectionate letters, but said nothing about 
 herself and a great deal about people un- 
 known to me who lived near her. Once, 
 when she was going to Biarritz, she came 
 to Dinard to see me, bringing with her as 
 her travelling companion a strong-minded 
 female called Miss Pole, who bicycled in 
 knickerbockers and organised charity. Maria 
 was as pretty as ever, talked execrable 
 French, and was always losing every portion 
 of her luggage as soon as Miss Pole's wary 
 eye was off it. A short time afterwards she 
 added as a postscript to one of her letters 
 that her engagement to Mr Walem was 
 broken off. It was the last letter that I 
 received from her, a short note, evidently 
 written very hurriedly, and in her usual 
 dot-and-dash method. After that I heard 
 no more of her, and I am afraid that amid 
 the thousand interests of youth in a strange 
 and, to me, most delightful country, she faded 
 very soon to a dimly pleasant memory. 
 
 It was in 1908, I think, that Grove, the 
 water-colour man, who had always urged
 
 MARIA 71 
 
 me to return to England, bequeathed me 
 his little white house and studio in St John's 
 Wood. At first the white house seemed 
 likely to be a white elephant; I was doing 
 fairly well in Paris and was quite happy, 
 so I decided to let the place ; then it occurred 
 to me that six months in London would be 
 an easy experience, for Grove had left me 
 his furniture with the house, and there was 
 nothing to prevent me from taking over my 
 servant and occupying it at once. I had 
 only been in London for three months when 
 my usual dislike of change seized me once 
 more ; I was able to sell my work, and found 
 a number of friends whom I had known in 
 Paris during my student days. So I re- 
 mained in St John's Wood, and see no 
 probability of ever leaving its tranquil 
 groves. 
 
 I am afraid that it was some time before 
 I thought of Maria. Fifteen years, when 
 one is under forty, seems a lifetime, and I had 
 relegated her to the dim army of phantoms 
 who had been the associates of my earliest 
 infancy. When I did think of her I decided 
 that she was married such a pretty, charm- 
 ing, sensible girl would not have escaped 
 and was doubtless the mother of many
 
 72 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 healthy children and the wife of some one 
 more prepossessing than the vanished Walem. 
 The memory of her returned sharply, how- 
 ever, one spring day when I visited a friend 
 in a southern suburb not far from where 
 she had lived, and when I left my friend 
 after luncheon I decided that it would be 
 amusing to try to find Ravensholme once 
 more. Of course Maria would be gone, but 
 Ellen, I felt certain, was eternal, and might 
 have mellowed with age. 
 
 When I reached the road where the house 
 had formerly stood I discovered no trace of 
 it or of its shady garden ; the place was a 
 chaos of vile brick and mortar, a sanctuary 
 of nothing but the cheap genteel. The name 
 alone survived dishonourably in a yellow 
 block of flats which was called Ravensholme 
 Mansions, where slatternly young women 
 nursed babies and gossiped on narrow Art 
 nouveau balconies. I retreated, thinking how 
 the city merchants who had lived there in 
 old days would groan if they could review 
 the site of their old abode ; their houses 
 were usually pompous and dreary, but at 
 any rate they possessed the instinct of 
 home. 
 
 After this melancholy experience Maria
 
 MARIA 73 
 
 departed once more into the dim limbo of 
 the lost, and I suppose that I was in London 
 for a year without anything occurring to 
 recall her. Then, one wet evening, a face 
 seen for a second in a cab that passed as 
 I stood near a flaring shop-window set me 
 racking my brains for a name to fit it, and 
 at last, after a few futile attempts, the name 
 flashed on me : Mrs Bastable, Maria's mother. 
 
 A moment later I was smiling at the 
 absurdity of my idea. Mrs Bastable, if she 
 were alive, would be nearly eighty, and it 
 was most improbable that she would be 
 driving alone about London at night in a 
 cab. The resemblance, however, made me do 
 something which I might have done before, 
 I looked for the name in a London Directory. 
 I could not find it in the section that is 
 called, so remarkably, the Court Guide, and 
 when I searched in the commercial list I 
 was also disappointed. The firm of Bastable 
 & Company had vanished as definitely as 
 Maria, Ellen, and their mother. 
 
 I renounced all hope of finding them, and 
 was greatly astonished, some three months 
 later, to receive a letter from Maria an- 
 nouncing that she was living with Ellen in 
 Bayswater and asking me to call. The letter
 
 74 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 was delightful ; Maria still employed the 
 dot-and-dash method, and her manner of 
 writing implied emphatically that she still 
 regarded me as a small boy. I smiled as 
 I thought of the shock that my bearded 
 middle-age would cause her. She, I felt 
 certain, was quite unaltered. But it was 
 strange that she had not married. 
 
 III. 
 
 The windows of the huge drawing-room 
 were shrouded with long lace curtains, and 
 the light, even on a July afternoon, was grey 
 and cold. When the door opened and a 
 female figure advanced towards me I ex- 
 perienced a deep thrill of surprise, and for a 
 moment was almost certain that, in spite of 
 the absence of the fruit-festooned cap, Mrs 
 Bastable was still in the flesh and had come 
 to receive me. When she spoke, however, 
 the voice was the voice of Maria, a crisp, 
 high voice, full of sudden emphasis, under- 
 lining words, if I may so express it, with a 
 sound not far distant from a squeak. She 
 took my hand and stood looking up at me 
 with very bright eyes ; her lips were set in a
 
 MARIA 75 
 
 thin line. Then she turned away abruptly. 
 I realised that she was intensely nervous. 
 
 " You've grown ! " she said, sinking into a 
 chair and clasping her hands across her knee. 
 I was almost shocked by her smallness ; in my 
 memory she had always seemed tall rather 
 than short, and very straight ; I found her 
 tiny, with a slight stoop. When she sat 
 down her body seemed instantly to lose all 
 elasticity, to collapse into a tired curve. I 
 noticed also that she was very thin, and that 
 her face was worn, time - beaten. The re- 
 semblance to her mother and the lack of 
 resemblance to her former self impressed me 
 continually. 
 
 " You haven't grown," I retorted, rather 
 heavily. " You're just just as you were." I 
 regretted the stupid phrase as soon as I had 
 said it, for Maria's face twitched nervously. 
 
 " Oh yes ; of course ! " she said with an 
 awkward irony that seemed to me pathetic. 
 I realised then that she knew what the years 
 had done with her and was sensitive on the 
 subject. That, somehow, seemed unlike the 
 Maria whom I had known. But after we 
 had talked for some time and I had told her 
 all my history, the original Maria, the Maria 
 who had been moved to ecstasy by Madame
 
 76 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Tussaud and the Crown Jewels, returned ; she 
 displayed an intense and flattering interest 
 in my very mild adventures, and discussed 
 my future with a funny air of regarding her- 
 self as the arbitress of my destiny. " You 
 can't ever go back ; I shan't let you go ! " she 
 announced. "You'll have to regard yourself 
 as one of the family." 
 
 I made inquiries about its other members. 
 Her mother, she told me, had died twelve 
 years before, and her brother had retired 
 from business and lived in Scotland with an 
 impossible wife. 
 
 " And cousin Ellen ? " I asked. Maria 
 wriggled. 
 
 "Oh, Ellen is here," she answered. "She's 
 just the same as ever." Her glance wandered 
 restlessly round the room. 
 
 " Still a passionate amateur in sermons ? " 
 I said. 
 
 " M'm," responded Maria with a sharp nod. 
 She declined resolutely to expand on the 
 subject of Ellen. I told her of my visit to 
 the dishonoured site of Ravensholme. "We 
 had to leave," she said, " when they built all 
 round us. But I always regret it. Of course 
 this is a very good house, but we see no one. 
 A few of our old friends come sometimes, but
 
 MARIA 77 
 
 it's very far for them. It sounds funny, but 
 we hardly know a soul in London. Except 
 Mr Letchsky, of course ; he conies. However, 
 one has got used to it by now." 
 
 I looked at the huge, comfortless room, and 
 thought of the gay garden parties of Ravens- 
 holme ; then I studied Maria's face and decided 
 promptly that she hadn't " got used to it " in 
 the least. She was a person with a genius 
 for friendship, and she had been pining in 
 solitude with Ellen for more than ten years. 
 But why had it happened ? She had been 
 young she was only a little over thirty 
 when her mother died, she had been pretty, 
 charming, eminently sensible, and not at all 
 clever, and she must have had at least a 
 thousand a-year of her own. The migration 
 from the ancestral suburb had possibly been 
 a mistake, but the advent of the jerry-builder 
 must have forced many of her friends to 
 share it. Had the morose Ellen frightened 
 them all away? The Maria whom I had 
 known would certainly not have allowed 
 that to happen, but this new, tired, crushed 
 Maria when did she begin to exist? 
 
 These thoughts passed through my mind 
 very quickly. My curiosity was keenly 
 aroused, but I resolved to postpone for
 
 78 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 the present any attempt to elucidate the 
 mystery. 
 
 " Who is Mr Letchsky ? " I demanded. 
 
 Maria looked at me for a moment before 
 answering, and I imagined I could read in 
 her face that she was speculating whether 
 Mr Letchsky and I would like each other 
 or not. 
 
 " Oh ! he's only Paul," said Maria, as if 
 that explained everything. I pressed for 
 further details, and was informed that his 
 real name was not Letchsky, but he had 
 assumed that romantic title because people 
 thought more of you if you sounded foreign. 
 Subsequently I made out that Mr Letchsky 
 played the piano and was about to embark on 
 a career of the utmost brilliancy. He came 
 round, Maria informed me, two or three times 
 a-week, because his own rooms were too small 
 to contain a grand piano. She had met him 
 at a Charity Concert in the East End. Work- 
 ing in the East End, she added, was her only 
 form of dissipation. I noticed that when she 
 spoke of the mysterious Letchsky she looked 
 at me with a queer kind of defiance. 
 
 "You seem to have had a pretty lonely 
 time," I said. 
 
 She smiled rather faintly. " I've had a
 
 MARIA 79 
 
 better time than many people," she answered. 
 "And, after all, one makes one's own life. 
 I chose to come here and live in this way, 
 and it's no use grumbling." 
 
 I stared at her. 
 
 " You chose ! " I echoed. " Then you didn't 
 want to see people?" 
 
 She bit her lip and shook her head slowly, 
 an old habit that I remembered. "No," she 
 said. 
 
 " I don't believe it," I cried. " I know the 
 reason, and you're too loyal to tell me." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " she asked. 
 
 "I'll tell you," I said. "I know perfectly 
 well why you've been living in this absurd 
 way. It's all that sermon-hunting old kill-joy 
 Ellen!" 
 
 I was quite unprepared for the effect of 
 this outburst. Maria sprang up from her 
 chair and confronted me with a set face and 
 clenched hands. 
 
 " It isn't, it isn't ! " she cried. She began to 
 tremble. "How can you say such things," 
 she added, speaking very rapidly. "You 
 know nothing about us." She stood looking 
 at me for a moment, then gave an extra- 
 ordinary laugh, exactly like the sound made 
 by a bagatelle ball beginning to settle into
 
 80 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 one of the holes on the board. I was dis- 
 mayed ; I had heard that kind of laugh 
 before and knew that it meant hysteria. I 
 managed to smile, however, and to convince 
 her that I was not making any serious 
 accusation against Ellen. I felt more and 
 more bewildered. 
 
 "What I said about the house being too 
 far away was nonsense. If people don't 
 come it's because I don't wish them to come," 
 she said after a moment. "It's practically 
 my house ; Ellen lets me do whatever I 
 like." 
 
 "But why don't you wish them to come?" 
 I asked. She thought for a moment before 
 replying. 
 
 "It's dull for them," she said. "There are 
 no men." 
 
 "There weren't any at Ravensholme," I re- 
 torted. "But you had crowds of people 
 there." She only murmured that while her 
 mother was alive everything had been 
 different. I dropped the subject, announcing 
 that they would in future have at any rate 
 one man to keep them company. " Oh, you 
 may come ! " she said, and again I seemed to 
 behold the old Maria. 
 
 " I shall ! " I said. " I mean to plant myself
 
 MARIA 81 
 
 upon you and put old Professor Letchsky's 
 nose out of joint." 
 
 She laughed. "All the king's horses and 
 all the king's men couldn't do that ! " she said. 
 
 She regained her self-control as soon as we 
 dropped the subject of Ellen. For some time 
 she talked of Letchsky and his ambitions and 
 difficulties ; then she spoke of her mother, 
 to whom she had been devoted, and of her 
 work in the East End. The fact that im- 
 pressed me most about her was the way in 
 which she had retained her girlish point of 
 view. There was something infinitely touch- 
 ing in her ignorance of life, in the innumerable 
 manifestations that she gave of an arrested 
 experience. As I watched her I saw that she 
 looked actually old, older than her years ; 
 her hair was abundantly streaked with grey, 
 and there were hard lines at the corners of 
 her lips and eyes ; but when she smiled the 
 oddly young sound of her voice and her 
 almost childish simplicity of diction did not 
 seem incongruous. 
 
 After another half-hour I rose to go. "I 
 suppose Ellen is at church ? " I said as I shook 
 her hand. 
 
 She smiled very faintly. "No, she's some- 
 where about," she answered. " Do you want
 
 82 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 to see her ? " I intimated that I had a sense 
 of duty, and after we had descended the stairs 
 she knocked at a door on the ground floor. 
 There was no answer; we stood there waiting. 
 
 "Do you always have to knock at Ellen's 
 door before you go in?" I asked. "One 
 would think that she composed sermons on 
 her own account." She frowned, and made 
 signs that I was to be silent. 
 
 After knocking again she went into the 
 room, leaving me in the hall. I heard a 
 sound of voices in the room, and then she 
 came out and told me to enter it. 
 
 Ellen was darning a sock probably a cleri- 
 cal sock by a fire which blazed in fierce 
 competition with the July sun. I expected 
 her to greet me with an Euh, but she went 
 to the length of wishing me good afternoon. 
 She hadn't altered noticeably ; she was fatter 
 and flabbier, and her eyes were more fishlike ; 
 molluscs, I suppose, never change much in 
 appearance after they reach maturity. I 
 don't think that she remembered having met 
 me ; at any rate, she displayed no emotion. 
 Very soon she relapsed into silence and stared 
 heavily at the buttons on my waistcoat. 
 Maria babbled nervously about nothing in 
 particular, and Ellen took up her sock and
 
 MARIA 83 
 
 resumed her labour of love. I noticed then 
 that her hands were not very clean, and was 
 suddenly filled with a rage of almost inex- 
 plicable intensity. Poor Maria ! 
 
 The room was stifling, and I left as soon as 
 decency permitted. In the hall Maria stood 
 close to me and looked at me keenly. 
 
 " She hasn't altered, has she ? " she asked, 
 I signed an impatient negative. "Not a 
 bit," I said. "Worse luck!" I did not add 
 my conviction that Ellen was largely re- 
 sponsible for making other people alter, and 
 that I regarded her as the finest specimen 
 of a bloodthirsty old vampire. I went away, 
 promising to dine with them in the following 
 week to meet the mysterious Mr Letchsky, 
 and firmly resolved to contrive that Maria 
 should, at any cost, be rewarded for her 
 dozen years of dulness with a future both 
 happy and eventful. How this was to be 
 managed was a severe problem ; the first 
 move, certainly, would have to be a per- 
 manent deportation of Ellen to Margate or 
 Cheltenham or the Cannibal Islands.
 
 84 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 IV. 
 
 I arrived early at the house in Bayswater 
 and found one lonely little figure in the 
 big drawing-room. It belonged to Maria; 
 Ellen, I was informed, had retired to her 
 bed, a refuge which she invariably sought 
 when Mr Letchsky came to play. 
 
 I was trying to fix a date on which Maria 
 could visit the studio when he was announced. 
 Maria left me instantly and made for the 
 door. 
 
 " Here you are ! " she cried. A very tall, 
 thin young man entered the room and 
 replied in rather sepulchral tones that there 
 he was. Then he realised my presence, 
 and stood staring at me with the frankest 
 amazement. 
 
 " Why, there's a real, live man ! " he said. 
 Maria gave a shrill laugh, and was apparently 
 far too excited to introduce us to each other. 
 I gave him a smile and a nod, and he gave me 
 a very low bow. 
 
 " Well, wonders will never cease ! " said 
 Mr Letchsky. 
 
 I thought that this insistence on his as- 
 tonishment at finding another guest in
 
 MARIA 85 
 
 Maria's house was in very poor taste, but 
 Maria did not seem to mind. She beamed 
 at the young man and began to besiege him 
 with questions about a concert which he in- 
 tended to give. During this fusillade I had 
 leisure to examine him. He was, I suppose, 
 about twenty-five, but he had an immature, 
 unformed figure which contrasted oddly with 
 his remarkably sagacious face ; his nose was 
 large and aquiline, his eyes boldly prominent, 
 and he had a firmly-set jaw. Altogether he 
 gave me the impression of combining a 
 plentiful amount of worldly wisdom with a 
 strongly predatory temperament ; his nostrils 
 and lips were almost greedy, but the whole 
 face was redeemed by a remarkably fine 
 forehead. His rather long yellow hair was 
 brushed back, giving him the air of a blend 
 between a seraph and a German professor ; 
 his hands were very slender and pale, and 
 when he spoke he waved them slowly in the 
 air as if he was repelling the advances of 
 invisible insects. He was dressed in a thread- 
 bare black suit, and wore a large black silk 
 scarf instead of a collar. 
 
 He stood in a drooping attitude whilst 
 Maria talked to him, and seemed scarcely to 
 be listening to her, though he smiled at
 
 86 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 intervals, a smile of the lips, not of the eyes. 
 Maria, on the other hand, was radiant ; she 
 beamed upon him wonderfully, and waited 
 with rapt eagerness for his rather vague 
 answers. I noticed that she wore a very 
 smart frock and a fine diamond necklace ; her 
 hair was neatly dressed, her eyes were bright, 
 and altogether she seemed a different person 
 from the Maria whom I had met in the 
 previous week. She was evidently very inti- 
 mate with the young musician, and I decided 
 that though I didn't care much for Letchsky's 
 appearance, it was a good thing for her to 
 have an interest in any one. The present 
 interest, by the way, was sufficiently absorb- 
 ing to make her forget my existence com- 
 pletely for five minutes. 
 
 At dinner we drank champagne it was 
 certain to be bad, Maria asserted, for she 
 herself only drank lemonade, and Ellen was 
 a devotee of barley-water. Bad or good, two 
 or three glasses inspired Letchsky to deliver 
 a monologue on his art. I am a keen, though 
 somewhat ignorant lover of music, and very 
 soon I felt, whilst he talked with a rapidity 
 that made interruption impossible, as if I lay 
 gagged and bound in a temple whilst an 
 energetic young vandal knocked off the heads
 
 MARIA 87 
 
 of all my favourite gods. If to be modern is 
 to cherish a complete contempt for all things 
 ancient, Mr Letchsky was hors concours the 
 child of the hour. He declaimed against all 
 " pattern music " a compendious phrase 
 which, I presently discovered, included Bach, 
 Beethoven, Mozart, and every master of the 
 romantic school except Chopin, whom he re- 
 garded (very unjustly, I thought) as a wild im- 
 pressionist born too soon. Wagner he praised 
 faintly ; Tschaikowsky he called a dyspeptic 
 charlatan. His admiration was reserved for 
 the modern French school, Debussy, Ravel, 
 and a great number of persons whose names 
 I had never heard. 
 
 He talked with extreme fluency, with a 
 great deal of the gesture and intonation of 
 the professional lecturer. At that time I had 
 not met many of his particular sect (I have 
 suffered since) and I found him amusing ; he 
 was much less amusing, however, than the 
 face of Maria. A saint contemplating of a 
 beatific vision would have been nowhere 
 beside her; she gazed at her young oracle 
 with a melting tenderness, and registered her 
 assent to his monstrous doctrines with a suc- 
 cession of jerky nods. I seemed to remember 
 that in the old days of our friendship Maria
 
 88 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 had a hearty dislike of music, due princi- 
 pally to Ellen's interpretation of Gregorian 
 chants on a vast and villainous pianoforte, 
 and couldn't have distinguished between a 
 fife and a foghorn ; now, however, she had 
 developed under Letchsky's influence, and 
 during a brief pause in the monologue she 
 asserted emphatically that Beethoven was 
 dull and Wagner rather noisy, though she 
 confessed to a liking for Tannhauser. I 
 attempted a defence of my favourite masters, 
 but Letchsky annihilated me instantly. "It 
 can't be argued about," he said. "You 
 either know or you don't know, you feel or 
 don't feel. If you don't feel that nowadays 
 there's a new spirit in life which is missing 
 in all that old stuff you're an antiquary ; like 
 all antiquaries, you're dead to your own time." 
 He spoke with calm conviction. I protested ; 
 he shook his head, smiled quite kindly, and 
 asked for a second helping of ice - cream. 
 Maria made emphatic signals to the servants. 
 
 "He eats nothing!" she said to me. "I 
 can't think how he lives!" Personally I 
 thought that the way in which Letchsky 
 managed to combine the gratification of a 
 hearty appetite with an incessant flow of 
 eloquence was hardly remote from the
 
 MARIA 89 
 
 miraculous. Long before he had finished his 
 ice-cream he had launched forth again, pro- 
 claiming the fact that we were all on the 
 brink of a great upheaval and dispersion of 
 worn-out institutions, principles, and values ; 
 democracy (which he seemed to confuse 
 with the ultimate results of anarchy) was 
 abolishing crowns, armies, and hereditary 
 honours and wealth ; the flaming torch of 
 revolution was already applied to the mould- 
 ering temples of the Conventional and the 
 Academic ; the golden dawn of liberty 
 liberty in love, in art, in ah 1 life was 
 gigantic in the East. He scorned my humble 
 request that in such an epoch of freedom I 
 might well be allowed to admire Beethoven 
 and not to become a disciple of Gaugin ; all 
 old things old music, old painting, old 
 poetry would go, would become completely 
 obsolete, would vanish, simply because they 
 had no message for the new race of men. 
 Of course it was the crudest possible stuff; 
 but he was mightily eloquent, and probably 
 sincere. I have little faith in the instant 
 and glorious effect of revolutions, but I am 
 prepared to admit that the revolutionary 
 spirit is a necessary adjunct to human 
 progress.
 
 90 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 When he had finished the second mono- 
 logue, Maria gave an ecstatic sigh. " That's 
 just what I think," she said, " only I never 
 can say things." The idea of Maria as a 
 champion of revolution nearly upset my 
 gravity, and I half expected the portrait 
 of the bulky merchant, her father, which 
 hung over the mantelpiece, to come to life 
 and assail us with a volley of early Victorian 
 profanity. In spite of her modest disclaimer, 
 however, Maria did begin to "say things," 
 and I am bound to add that all her remarks 
 were wonderfully inept and irrelevant. 
 Letchsky can hardly have avoided sharing 
 my opinion, but he listened to her with a 
 decent attention which made me like him 
 better. I don't remember all that Maria 
 said ; her utterances, I think, were mainly 
 to the effect that the poor had a dreadful 
 time, that the rich lived entirely for pleasure, 
 that married women were slaves and un- 
 married women had no outlet for their 
 energies ; and finally, that the sooner the 
 whole brazen abomination of Society, as it 
 was constituted at present, went into the 
 melting-pot, the better it would be for every 
 one. This, at any rate, was a definite point 
 of view; but when she began to support it
 
 MARIA 91 
 
 with argumentative detail she lapsed into 
 the wildest and most illogical nonsense. 
 Matched with her theories, those of Letchsky 
 seemed calm and philosophic ; she was more 
 Catholic than the Pope. I felt irritated with 
 him for having taught her this trick of pour- 
 ing out the cheap street - corner jargon of 
 the Socialist ; it went so incongruously with 
 my memories of the original Maria, and ob- 
 viously it excited her far too much ; her 
 hands trembled, and she spoke in a shrill 
 staccato. Once, when I ventured to object 
 mildly to some fantastic idea of hers, she 
 snapped at me like a dragon and seemed 
 on the verge of losing control of herself 
 altogether. It was a relief when the ser- 
 vants created a diversion by bringing 
 coffee and cigarettes. 
 
 We did not renew the discussion in the 
 drawing - room, for as soon as we reached 
 that unpleasantly palatial apartment Letchsky 
 went to the piano. Maria chose a high 
 chair, and sat on it with her hands clasped, 
 gazing intently at his face ; I found a com- 
 fortable couch at the other end of the room, 
 and reclined there watching the group that 
 they made. Whatever flaws there might be 
 in Letchsky's theory of music, there were
 
 92 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 few in his practice : he played magnificently, 
 with all the masterly sureness and strength 
 of a born pianist. The music was very 
 modern full of explosive discords and in- 
 terminable tinklings, it represented, I think, 
 jets d'eau and poissons d'or and frissons d'Avril 
 but some of it was fine and most of it was 
 pretty. I noticed that whilst he was playing 
 his face lost its hard lines and assumed a 
 keenly concentrated expression which lent it 
 actual beauty. 
 
 He played for more than an hour, with 
 only momentary pauses, and terminated the 
 performance with a wild bacchanalian dance 
 of his own composition. Then he sat for 
 some moments with his forehead resting on 
 the top of the piano. I rose, and sauntered 
 over to Maria. She looked up at me with 
 a startled air as I approached, and I saw 
 then that her bright eyes were blurred with 
 tears. 
 
 "Oh dear! I call that beautiful," she said 
 with a gulp. 
 
 I nodded, and after a moment she called to 
 Letchsky, who had apparently fallen asleep. 
 "Mayn't we have a little more, dear?" she 
 demanded. I was somewhat startled by this 
 intimate mode of address ; but Letchsky,
 
 MARIA 93 
 
 when he looked up, displayed no symptoms 
 of surprise. 
 
 "No more to-night," he said emphatically, 
 rising from the piano. " If we do, all the 
 doors will begin to bang." And he grinned 
 widely. 
 
 "Now what does he mean by that?" I 
 asked. 
 
 Maria frowned. 
 
 " Oh ! only that when Ellen thinks he has 
 played enough she comes out of her room 
 and opens and shuts all the doors upstairs," 
 she explained. 
 
 I made no comment on Ellen's behaviour, 
 but Letchsky tapped his skull. "A dead 
 brain," he explained ; " never awakened. But 
 the New Spirit will alter all that. There 
 won't be any more Ellens." 
 
 "Well, let us hope that they'll all be 
 Marias," I said. 
 
 He looked at Maria, then at me. "I'm 
 not so sure that there will be any Marias 
 either," he said, with another grin. 
 
 Maria made funny gestures of mock in- 
 dignation. "Brute!" she cried in a high 
 treble. Letchsky held out his hand towards 
 her, and she took it in both of her own. 
 " You'll come to-morrow ?" she asked eagerly.
 
 94 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 He nodded. "Yes, if I can," he answered, 
 looking as if he were slightly bored by her 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 She turned to me. " I can't bear it when 
 I think of him going about alone," she ex- 
 plained. " He's always in a dream. It's 
 horrible ! I know that he'll go and get 
 minced by a motor omnibus ! " 
 
 I said that, in my opinion, Mr Letchsky 
 was sufficiently wide-awake an artless re- 
 mark which made Letchsky scrutinise me 
 for some moments with all the force of his 
 deep eyes. Then he asked me abruptly 
 where I lived. I gave him my address, and 
 expressed a hope that he would find his way 
 there. He uttered no superfluous thanks. 
 
 "Right; I shall," he said. He looked hard 
 at me again, gave me an odd bow, half curt, 
 half formal, and then took up his music 
 and departed, followed by feverish injunc- 
 tions from Maria about preserving his in- 
 valuable person from accident. 
 
 When he had gone, Maria stood staring 
 at the fireplace in silence for some time. 
 Then she turned slowly towards me. "I 
 think he likes you," she observed. 
 
 I made an ironical inclination. 
 
 "Much obliged to him," I said. "I notice
 
 MARIA 95 
 
 with jealous anguish that you don't worry 
 about whether I like him." 
 
 Maria made an absurdly childish grimace. 
 "You do, don't you?" she asked, with an 
 artful note of indifference. 
 
 I laughed. " Some one else does, at any 
 rate ! " I said. 
 
 Maria blushed vividly. 
 
 " He's perfect perfect ! " she said in a 
 queer muffled voice. 
 
 I strode across the room and inspected a 
 terrible Victorian picture of a child who was 
 trying to feed a large collie with chocolate. 
 It was called Dear Doggie. When I turned 
 sadly away from it, Maria was again gazing 
 into the fireplace. I risked a cyclone and 
 spoke my mind. 
 
 "He's a brilliant pianist and a very con- 
 ceited young man," I said. "I don't mind 
 his manners, but I loathe his necktie ; and 
 as for his theories, they're as crude as raw 
 garlic." 
 
 There was no cyclone ; but, instead, a hor- 
 rible thing happened. Maria burst into tears. 
 Feeling a complete brute, I went to her and 
 began to stammer apologies. She sobbed for 
 a minute, then recovered herself with a 
 mighty effort.
 
 96 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "It's all right!" she gasped. "I'm a fool; 
 only I can't bear any one coming here who 
 doesn't like him who can't appreciate him. 
 It makes me hate them ! " She came close 
 to me and put her hand on my sleeve. " You 
 will try to like him for my sake, won't 
 you?" she said, blinking up at me. "He 
 has so few friends he doesn't seem to care 
 about anything but music, and he's wretch- 
 edly poor ; only a year or two ago he nearly 
 starved. I suppose," she added with a 
 feeble smile, " you think me very silly a 
 sentimental old maid? But I can't help it. 
 One must like somebody." 
 
 I shook her hand. "I think you're the 
 kindest person in the world," I said with 
 conviction, " and if Mr Letchsky thinks so 
 too, I'm prepared absolutely to adore him." 
 
 " That's just about what I do ! " said the 
 shameless Maria. " Of course," she added 
 vaguely after a moment, " there's no earthly 
 reason why Paul should think anything of 
 that kind about me." 
 
 " Not the least in the world," I agreed. 
 " And now, will you kindly explain why 
 your name isn't in the London Directory, 
 or the Red Book, or the telephone book 
 enfin, in any guide to the abodes of the fair
 
 MARIA 97 
 
 and fashionable ? If^you hadn't found me, 
 I might have spent my whole life trying to 
 find you." 
 
 Maria stared at me. " Surely it's in them 
 all?" she said. Then a thought struck her. 
 " You foolish person ! " she cried. " You 
 looked for our name my name. Of course, 
 the house is taken in Ellen's name. So like 
 a man ! " 
 
 " In Ellen's name ! " I echoed. " But Ellen's 
 name is your name." 
 
 She stared at me again. "Do you mean 
 to say," she said, " that you never heard of 
 Ellen's marriage ? " I was greatly astonished. 
 " Never," I answered. " And you'll find it 
 very difficult," I added irreverently, " to make 
 me believe that anything of the kind ever 
 happened to her." 
 
 Maria looked grave. 
 
 " It's perfectly true, all the same," she said. 
 " She was married to a man who lived near us 
 a Mr Winbolt very soon after mother 
 died. It wasn't a success ; I'm afraid that 
 he only wanted her money. They had to 
 separate, and now he is dead. It was 
 a dreadful shock to her the separation, I 
 mean." She paused for a moment and 
 looked at me very solemnly. " That's why 
 
 G
 
 98 
 
 she is so queer in some ways partly," she 
 concluded. 
 
 " I see," I murmured, controlling a strong 
 desire to ask all kinds of questions concern- 
 ing the late Winbolt. Maria was apparently 
 disposed to offer no further information, and 
 I wished her good-night. As I walked home 
 I became more and more alive to the almost 
 ludicrous irony of the situation, that Maria, 
 who had been supremely fitted to be a happy 
 wife and mother, should have remained a 
 spinster; whilst Ellen, the impossible Ellen 
 
 ! I could form no high opinion of Mr 
 
 Winbolt's taste, unless, indeed, he also had 
 been an amateur in sermons. That the mar- 
 riage and its subsequent train of woe had 
 produced any effect on Ellen I did not be- 
 lieve for a moment. She was exactly as she 
 always had been, and all the revolutions and 
 cataclysms so ardently prophesied by Letch- 
 sky would not have had the faintest effect 
 on her. 
 
 V. 
 
 During the weeks that followed, Maria and 
 I once again went sight-seeing, and effected 
 a visitation of London that recalled the ad-
 
 MARIA 99 
 
 ventures of our youth, except that the 
 National Gallery and Hertford House were 
 substituted for Madame Tussaud's and the 
 Monument, and that we paid tribute to our 
 own antiquity with an extensive patronage 
 of taxi-cabs. No third person came to mar 
 these expeditions ; Ellen, as far as I could 
 observe, never put her nose outside Bays- 
 water though she had a strong propensity 
 for prowling about the shop windows of that 
 district, and Letchsky was always busy 
 during the day. 
 
 One fact about Maria was very soon obvious 
 to me ; she had not lost her former almost 
 omnivorous interest in life and its duly en- 
 shrined products. She inspected mummies at 
 the British Museum with the same fervid 
 attention that she bestowed on the latest 
 eccentricity of feminine apparel at the Carl- 
 ton or the Ritz ; she was wildly eager to fly 
 in an aeroplane an ambition which it was 
 then impossible to gratify ; she insisted on 
 being escorted to all kinds of lectures on 
 political economy, where I suffered severely, 
 and to the Strangers' Gallery of the House 
 of Commons, where I suffered even more. 
 It was in the same year, I think, that the 
 more turbulent hordes of female self-emanci-
 
 100 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 pators first became uncomfortably active, 
 and for a while Maria was inclined to 
 listen to the song of the sirens ; some- 
 thing that happened, however, was it 
 that they ensnared the Home Secretary's 
 poodle and dyed him with indecent col- 
 ours ? totally averted her sympathy, and 
 ever after, when they were mentioned, she 
 hoisted her small nose in the air and said 
 that they were silly. She was quite incap- 
 able of perceiving that they were really 
 translating into action some of Letch sky's 
 much-admired and oft-repeated theories. Of 
 the Arts, painting seemed to give her most 
 pleasure ; she would manage to look at a 
 miraculous number of pictures in an hour, 
 and would remember many of them clearly 
 afterwards ; music, I believe, she only en- 
 dured, except when Letchsky played, though 
 she insisted on attending a great many con- 
 certs and operas. We went to the Ring at 
 Covent Garden, dressing at wonderful hours 
 in order not to miss a note of that mighty 
 sequence of drama ; but after the end of the 
 Gotterdammerung she confided to me that 
 though she had enjoyed parts of each per- 
 formance, she would never have the courage 
 to sit through the whole work again. Letch-
 
 MARIA 101 
 
 sky, by the way, was ribald concerning this 
 pious orgy. 
 
 On several occasions she visited the studio, 
 inspected my work, uttered the funniest criti- 
 cisms, and met various painter friends. I 
 imagine that they had never in the course 
 of their experience encountered any one 
 remotely resembling her, but they liked her ; 
 no one except a pedantic fool could help 
 liking Maria; her naivet was sublime and 
 wholly lovable. She had a conviction and 
 perhaps there is much to be said for it 
 that specialists ought always to be " drawn 
 out " on their own subject, and her invari- 
 able method of attaining this result with 
 artists was to air some highly metaphysical 
 theory of the meaning of Art which she 
 had learnt from Letchsky. The effect of 
 this treatment on certain solid, stolid prac- 
 tical painters was always worth watching. 
 
 Letchsky, as I said, seldom appeared during 
 the day ; but it is no over- statement to assert 
 that he was with us continually in spirit. She 
 was always thinking of him ; when we went 
 shopping she was a vague but ardent shopper 
 she would see some object a kettle, a rug, 
 a hot-water bottle which would, she imag- 
 ined, be useful to him, and she would promptly
 
 102 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 send it off to his rooms. She had a theory 
 that he was very delicate a theory which 
 I did not share and if Letchsky had duti- 
 fully swallowed all the meat lozenges, cough 
 cures, and quintessences of beef which she de- 
 spatched to his address whenever she entered 
 a chemist's shop, he would either have died or 
 have accumulated more vitality than Herakles. 
 She talked of him continuously, always with 
 the eager thrill in her voice, telling me of his 
 future triumphs and past hardships over and 
 over again in exactly the same phrases. 
 
 Letchsky came to visit me at St John's 
 Wood about a fortnight after I had first 
 met him. I liked him better during the first 
 half-hour of this occasion ; he inspected my 
 pictures carefully, and told some amusing and 
 malicious stories about a gang of sentimental- 
 religious painters that he had known in Ger- 
 many. He didn't trouble to conceal from me 
 that he thought my work old-fashioned, but 
 he seemed to find indications that I was pro- 
 gressing towards a state of grace, and actu- 
 ally praised one or two of the unfinished 
 portraits. When he had finished his tour 
 of inspection, he flung himself at full length 
 on my old sofa, and sang a paean to Picasso, 
 whom he admired fervently.
 
 MARIA 103 
 
 I interrupted the paean by asking him if 
 he had seen Maria. He looked at me for a 
 moment. " Oh yes ! I'm always seeing her," 
 he answered. He placed his hands behind 
 his head and stared at the ceiling for some 
 moments, then abruptly he raised his long 
 serpentine body from the sofa, and sat bolt 
 upright, regarding me with very keen eyes. 
 
 "Have you known her very long?" he 
 asked. I told him of my ancient devotion to 
 Maria. "You're a relation, aren't you ?" was 
 his next demand. Soon afterwards he had 
 another question for me. "Does she tell 
 you all about herself ? " 
 
 I didn't understand what this purported. 
 " Oh, I suppose so," I answered, " more or 
 less. I seem to be the only old friend that 
 she possesses." Letchsky continued to stare 
 at me with his strange black eyes. "And 
 she tells you all about me ? " he said. I 
 smiled. 
 
 " Certainly she talks about you," I answered. 
 "I know all your past history and I know 
 that you are going to be immensely famous." 
 He waved his hands irritably. " I don't 
 mean that ! " he said. " Does she tell you 
 all about me now?" I stared at him, and 
 in some way my puzzled air seemed to
 
 104 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 answer his question. He resumed his former 
 attitude of repose. 
 
 "She's an odd little thing," he remarked 
 airily. 
 
 "She's the kindest person on earth," I 
 affirmed with extreme gruffness. "And any 
 one who becomes a friend of hers may think 
 himself extremely lucky." 
 
 "Ah! a friend?" said the strange young 
 man. " Now our relations, my relations 
 with her can scarcely be called a friendship. 
 I like her, of course ; she's a most amusing 
 study and as impressionable as wax, but I'd 
 no more think of trusting her, of confiding 
 in her, than of pouring my inmost secrets 
 into a telephone. She's far too bavarde ; 
 but of course she becomes deeply offended 
 if she imagines that I don't confide every- 
 thing to her. So I've pretended to do it, 
 and I'm afraid the result has been rather 
 awkward." 
 
 "What result?" I asked curtly. He waved 
 a lean hand in the air. 
 
 " She's in love with me," he said. " It's not 
 exactly a result, but it comes very largely 
 from my having let her assume the existence 
 of an intimacy between us which isn't really 
 there."
 
 MARIA 105 
 
 "That is a very beautiful sentence," I said, 
 "and like a great many beautiful sentences, 
 has nothing whatever to do with the truth. 
 She isn't in love with you ; she loves you 
 like a mother, that's all, and the way you 
 talk about her makes me sincerely regret 
 her waste of affection." 
 
 Letchsky looked at me with a calm smile. 
 "She's in love with me," he repeated. 
 "Please don't imagine," he went on, "that 
 I'm so archaic or idiotic as to be boasting. 
 That kind of vanity has died out, I should 
 think, by now. But when one knows a 
 thing for a fact an awkward fact, it's 
 ludicrous to turn from it with a blush, and 
 say, ' she cannot love so base a soul as mine,' 
 or some Tennysonian rot of that kind. Isn't 
 it better to look at it from the modern point 
 of view, to recognise that her life has been 
 warped and stunted, that she has reached 
 I'age dangereux, that she's suffering from 
 congenital or acquired hysteria, and that I 
 was the first man she had met for years?" 
 His air of god-like aloofness and his calm 
 voice irritated me intensely. "It may be 
 better to look at it like that," I said, "but 
 I see no excuse for talking about it." 
 He stared at me with patient wonder.
 
 106 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "Why?" he asked. "Do you mean," he 
 continued after a moment, "that you really 
 believe in reticence in tactful disregard of 
 anything that is likely to make any one un- 
 comfortable? If you do I disagree with you 
 absolutely ; I believe that things were made 
 to be talked about ; that all reticence is 
 essentially morbid. And a thing that is 
 obvious to every one ! " 
 
 I mingled several quite incongruous paints 
 on a palette. "It wasn't obvious to me," I 
 said rather feebly. I was beginning to be 
 torn between a sense that our conversation 
 was entirely improper and a desire to hear 
 him ascending to further heights of the 
 fatuous. Letchsky grinned. " You must be 
 painfully inattentive," he said, "for it's 
 obvious even to old Ellen to Mrs Winbolt. 
 She actually took the trouble to send for 
 me and to tell me that there was no hope 
 of Maria ever marrying, because she was 
 entirely wrapped up in her East End work. 
 I hadn't the remotest wish to marry Maria, 
 but I made Ellen think that I had, and 
 she worked herself up into an extraordin- 
 ary state ; she behaved exactly as if she 
 were drunk. I've shocked you again, I 
 see."
 
 MARIA 107 
 
 "I think you're talking perfect nonsense," 
 I said. 
 
 "Call it what you like," said Letchsky. 
 "If you think it nonsense you're convicted 
 as grossly unobservant." He lit a cigarette, 
 leant back on the sofa, and blew the smoke 
 high in the air. After a while he asked me 
 suddenly if I had to live by my painting. 
 I replied that I did, and was quite prepared 
 to hear him demand exact particulars of my 
 income. He spared me, however. " I live 
 by my music," he said. " The year before 
 last I made forty pounds ; last year I made 
 fifty; this year, so far, I've made thirty- 
 eight pounds fourteen shillings and four- 
 pence. England doesn't exactly lavish her 
 billions on the budding genius, does she?" 
 
 I suggested that he ought to give lessons, 
 and he replied that he would prefer to starve. 
 "It won't last; money will come," he said. 
 " But until it comes, I feel that I have a 
 perfect right even to pick pockets, to commit 
 highway robbery. The world seems at 
 present to be damnably in my debt. My 
 fondest dream is to catch a swollen financier, 
 a rich Jew, an African diamond merchant, 
 and to squeeze him to bankruptcy. Don't you 
 believe that an artist who does good work
 
 108 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 and can't make enough to live on is justified 
 in taking money wherever he finds it ? " 
 
 I replied that this theory doubtless enjoyed 
 the support of various eminent burglars. 
 By this time I was thoroughly weary of 
 Letchsky and his confidences ; his remarks 
 about Maria seemed to me, when I recovered 
 from the first shock of surprise, coldly 
 impudent, and I had an uncomfortable 
 feeling that he was saying all manner of 
 absurdities mainly with the purpose of 
 annoying me. I managed, however, to keep 
 my temper. 
 
 "I don't know how on earth you live," 
 I said. "You must contrive to earn a little 
 more money." 
 
 He made a magnificent gesture. 
 
 " Oh ! when one is absorbed by one's art," 
 he said, "one can get along with bread and 
 water. But I am a little tired of it." 
 
 At any other time, I believe, I would have 
 tried to make him accept a loan, but at that 
 particular moment I felt far from benevolent. 
 Apparently, however, he had no design of 
 that kind if he had wanted money at once 
 I am certain that he would have no scruples 
 about asking for it and after he had smoked 
 in silence for five minutes, whilst I painted
 
 MARIA 109 
 
 wildly and atrociously, he rose from the sofa 
 and took up his broad-brimmed hat. 
 
 " I suppose I shall have to marry money," 
 he remarked meditatively. Then he looked 
 at me with his queer smile. "I wonder 
 what Maria will do when I marry ! " 
 
 "She'll be as devoted to your wife as she 
 is to you," I retorted. "You appear to me 
 to have very little perception into the minds 
 of people who are really fine." 
 
 He did not seem in the least offended, but 
 continued to smile. 
 
 "It'll make an awful difference," he said. 
 He laughed suddenly, and came towards me. 
 " It's funny, but I feel a kind of responsibility 
 about Maria," he explained. "As a rule, 
 people don't matter to me in the least." 
 
 "I'm glad you've some glimmerings of 
 gratitude," I growled. He looked at me 
 very intently. " Gratitude ? " he said, with 
 a note of slight surprise. "Isn't that rather 
 a big word ? Our friendship if you like to 
 call it that was an affair of mutual give- 
 and-take, like all friendships. I can't feel 
 that I'm under any kind of obligation." 
 
 "Then you ought to," I said. "She has 
 devoted herself to you absurdly." 
 
 He was silent for a moment, still look-
 
 110 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 ing at me. Then he gave me a brilliant 
 smile. 
 
 " Ah, you mean the hot - water bottles ! " 
 he cried. And with this final insolence he 
 departed. Afterwards I decided that he was 
 the most offensive person that I had ever 
 met, but long meditation failed to show 
 me why he had chosen a comparative 
 stranger as the recipient of confidences 
 which should have been intimate. Was 
 he merely an ill - bred cub, or was he a 
 thoroughly malicious student of human 
 nature who had discovered the best method 
 of irritating me? Of course, he was right 
 about Maria ; she was completely in love 
 with him ; but that he should have no 
 feeling for the necessity of decent reticence 
 was really disgusting. 
 
 VI. 
 
 I did not see him again until after my 
 summer holiday in North Italy, though I 
 dined with Maria twice a-week during the 
 latter part of July and the first half of 
 August Though I had decided to dislike 
 him, I found myself regretting that he did
 
 MARIA 111 
 
 not come to dinner, since his absence meant 
 the presence of Ellen, who was the worst of 
 all wet blankets. She scarcely spoke, and 
 always avoided my eye ; but she had a trick 
 of watching Maria with a craftily stupid ex- 
 pression that both puzzled and irritated me ; 
 sometimes, too, when Maria was excited and 
 pitched her voice higher and higher, Ellen 
 would suddenly begin to imitate her, a per- 
 formance which would have been ludicrous to 
 the last degree if it hadn't been, somehow, 
 extremely sinister. When Maria mentioned 
 Letchsky, Ellen invariably snorted like a 
 savage pig. It was not difficult to see that 
 her snorts infuriated Maria, who, however, 
 contrived as a rule to suppress her anger ; on 
 one occasion it flashed out, not altogether to 
 my sorrow, instantly reducing Ellen to a 
 maudlin and tear - sodden pulp which was 
 removed by the stalwart parlour-maid. Sub- 
 sequently Maria showed such alarming symp- 
 toms of nervous exhaustion that I felt 
 reluctant to leave her alone in the grim and 
 silent house. 
 
 After this outburst she never mentioned 
 her protege when Ellen was present; I noticed, 
 too, that she was less inclined than of old to 
 sing his glories when I was alone with her.
 
 112 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 He was staying, I learned, with some people 
 to whom Maria darkly alluded as "his grand 
 friends," and of whom it was not difficult to 
 perceive she was wildly jealous, though she 
 reiterated, when she hinted that Letchsky 
 was living amid a blaze of coronets, brilliant 
 conversation, and feminine splendour, that it 
 was all " so good for Paul." He loved luxury, 
 poor boy, and had never enjoyed a glimpse 
 of it since his family lost all their money ; he 
 had a passion for riding which he was at last 
 able to indulge without merely hiring horses 
 from a livery stable. 
 
 My face must have astonished her. " Do 
 you really mean to tell me he did that rode 
 in London ? " I asked. 
 
 Maria drew in her lower lip and nodded 
 slowly. 
 
 "Of course he had to have exercise," she 
 said. I was about to retort that persons with 
 incomes under a hundred a-year were usually 
 compelled to rely for exercise on their own 
 legs, when she added, " So nice ! He made 
 fifty pounds the night before last. He wrote 
 to tell me about it." 
 
 " Did he give a concert to all his countesses 
 and send round the collection plate ? " I asked. 
 Maria frowned.
 
 MARIA 113 
 
 " I think you're rather silly," she said. " He 
 doesn't do music for money. He made it at 
 Bridge." She looked at me with challenging 
 eyes, and was too evidently prepared to resent 
 any criticism of Letchsky's pleasures. I con- 
 tented myself with saying, " Oh, indeed ! " and 
 decided privately that Letchsky had either lied 
 to me about his income for some unknown 
 reason or that he was well on the way to perdi- 
 tion. The sojourn at the house of his " grand 
 friends " would probably end in his borrowing 
 the fare back to London from their butler. 
 
 "If he cultivates such expensive tastes the 
 only thing for him to do will be to marry 
 one of the countesses," I said. Maria looked 
 at me quickly, then turned away. 
 
 "You know, Arthur," she said, after a 
 moment, "I should hate it if he were to 
 marry." She gave one of her funny gasps. 
 "Oh dear! I suppose I'm a fool," she added. 
 "Tell me all about your new picture." 
 
 It was very soon after this new ray had 
 been shed on the character of Letchsky that I 
 departed for the Val Camonica. I did not 
 return to England until October, when I was 
 disgusted to find that Maria's holiday had 
 consisted of three weeks with Ellen in some 
 dull hydropathic in Yorkshire. Ellen, it ap-
 
 114 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 peared, imagined herself to be encompassed 
 with all kinds of physical and spiritual perils 
 as soon as she emerged from the fastnesses of 
 Bayswater. I scolded Maria, and informed her 
 that she ought to find a companion for Ellen ; 
 she retorted, with more bitterness of accent 
 than I had ever heard her employ, that no 
 one in their senses would dream of retaining 
 that position for more than forty-eight hours. 
 When I inquired about Letchsky she flushed, 
 and said that she had seen very little of him, 
 that he had been in the country. I thought 
 that she looked intensely tired. 
 
 A few days later an event happened which 
 I shall always regard as the great surprise of 
 my life. I was working in my studio one 
 afternoon when my French servant came to 
 announce that a lady, whose name seemed to 
 be Vimple, desired to see me. I directed that 
 she should be shown in, and to my immense 
 astonishment, the ample and unpleasing Ellen 
 appeared in the doorway, and after favouring 
 me with the brief smirk that was her invari- 
 able form of greeting, waddled towards a 
 chair. She wore a voluminous garment of 
 rusty black silk with, apparently, as many 
 petticoats as an old-fashioned pen- wiper; on 
 her head was a much - beflowered bonnet
 
 MARIA 115 
 
 which was, I decided, an heirloom descended 
 from the late Mrs Bastable, and her hands 
 were protected by seedy black cotton gloves 
 that were several sizes too large. Altogether, 
 with her grey flabby face, which always gave 
 me the impression that if she held her breath 
 it would expand into some monstrous panto- 
 mime mask, and the strange combination of 
 vastness and limpness which it was polite to 
 call her figure, she was a remarkable object, 
 not venerable, but in some shocking way 
 almost antediluvian. 
 
 She seemed quite indifferent to her sur- 
 roundings. She never looked at my pictures ; 
 she didn't look, for a long time, even at me, 
 but she stared at her own stubby feet and 
 dug pits in the carpet with her umbrella, 
 which she had insisted on retaining. When 
 I assailed her with the usual commonplaces 
 about the weather, her health, and Maria, she 
 did not answer, but continued solemnly to 
 prod the carpet. After a few minutes spent 
 in watching her so employed, I was visited 
 with an almost overpowering desire to assert 
 as my opinion that all sermons were wiles of 
 the Devil, and to offer her a brandy and soda 
 and a cigar ; I managed, however, to restrain 
 myself, and to remark in a loud voice that
 
 116 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 it was very good of her to come and see 
 me. 
 
 Ellen wriggled faintly if such a verb can 
 be applied to the movements of a body usually 
 so heavily inert. Then, for the first time, she 
 looked up at me. Her lips moved without 
 sound for a moment, but ultimately she 
 spoke. 
 
 "There's a reason," she murmured. 
 
 I had a thrill of foreboding. "There's 
 nothing wrong with Maria?" I asked. 
 
 The pantomime mask moved slowly for- 
 ward, then retreated a little way. "That's 
 it," she murmured. " That's it. Maria." The 
 voice was thick and indistinct ; I drew up a 
 chair. "She isn't ill?" I demanded. Ellen 
 did not seem to hear me. 
 
 "Something wrong with Maria," she re- 
 peated as if she were reciting a lesson. Her 
 eyelids drooped ; she opened and closed her 
 fat hands. 
 
 When I spoke I was startled to find myself 
 shouting. " What is it ? " I cried. Ellen 
 made a nervous movement, looked at me, 
 then produced a dusky handkerchief and blew 
 her nose carefully. 
 
 "She's not behaved properly." The words 
 seemed to ooze very slowly from her. I felt
 
 MARIA 117 
 
 a great relief mingled with an equal irrita- 
 tion. Why on earth had the old monster 
 chosen me as the repository of her imaginary 
 grievances ? 
 
 "I'm. glad to hear it," I said. "She has 
 behaved far too properly all her life. She's 
 lived absolutely for others. I hope to see her 
 break loose before she's too old, and fling her 
 bonnet over every mill that she can find. 
 She's been starved and asphyxiated; any 
 doctor would tell you that what she wants 
 is a long course of joy, peaches, champagne, 
 Italian sun, lovers, babies, and Paris frocks. 
 She looks as tired as a nun at the end of Lent- 
 I believe you've been reading her all your 
 sermons." 
 
 This singular outburst had no effect on 
 Ellen. She continued to excavate my carpet. 
 After a while she opened her mouth again. 
 
 " What I say is," she observed, " it's my 
 money as well as hers, and she hadn't any right. 
 Thinks she's the head of the family, and she's 
 not. That's what I say." She looked up at 
 me, and suddenly the pantomime mask became 
 alive alive with an expression of terror. 
 The mouth wavered loosely, then spoke. 
 
 "We'll go beggared to our graves," it said 
 with an indescribable emphasis.
 
 118 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 I began to feel then that something was 
 really wrong. I urged her to be more explicit, 
 but she seemed about to lapse into her usual 
 torpor. 
 
 " Beggared to our graves," she repeated, but 
 this time the words only seemed to soothe her 
 pleasantly. I spoke loudly and sternly. 
 
 " Pull yourself together," I said. She looked 
 up at me with a heavy air of wonder, as if I 
 had suggested her performing some impos- 
 sible gymnastic feat. "Pull yourself together," 
 I repeated, trying not to laugh, " and tell 
 me what is the matter. I suppose you came 
 here for my advice." 
 
 Her face was illumined with a sudden 
 crafty smile. 
 
 "I'll have legal advice," she said. "I'll go 
 to the lawyers. What I say is that it isn't 
 right, it isn't honest, to treat an invalid like 
 that. Just because I trusted her. Never 
 trust any one, I always said ; never trust a 
 living soul or they'll make you pay for it. 
 I've paid ! " She uttered the last two words 
 with absolute ferocity. 
 
 " Whom do you mean by her? Maria?" I 
 asked. She nodded like a china figure. 
 
 " Yes," she said. " Maria. Clever little 
 Maria, who was always telling me what I
 
 MARIA 119 
 
 ought not to do, and giving herself airs. 
 Pah ! And never went to church even on 
 Sunday mornings since mother died. What 
 
 / say " I cut her short. " For heaven's 
 
 sake let me hear what this grievance is ! " I 
 cried. 
 
 Ellen's emotions seemed to succeed each 
 other with miraculous rapidity. She stared 
 at me for a moment and then began to 
 whimper. 
 
 " You've no right to speak to me like that ! " 
 she said. " I'll go ; I'll go away ! I'll go to 
 the lawyers. I oughtn't to have come. I 
 knew you'd take her side." And she mopped 
 her eyes with the dusky handkerchief. 
 
 " I'm very sorry," I said, " if I annoyed you, 
 but do try to explain to me exactly what is 
 her side, and what is yours. I'm completely 
 in the dark at present, and I'm rather tired 
 of being there." 
 
 My apology seemed to appease the facile 
 Ellen. She blew her nose once more, then 
 drew herself up in her chair and said, in a 
 low voice full of religious horror, "That 
 young man is getting all our money." 
 
 She looked at me steadily, and in her 
 blurred features I observed the dawn of a 
 strange complacent expression. Did she for
 
 120 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 the first time in her life feel that she was 
 saying something significant, something of 
 tremendous importance ? The expression 
 grew and grew, in exact proportion, I sup- 
 pose, to my own air of astonishment. 
 
 " Whom do you mean ? " I asked. 
 
 " Oh, you know ! " retorted Ellen, in exactly 
 the same tone that a person of inferior social 
 standing would have employed in saying, " Go 
 hon ! " " There's only one young man that it 
 could be," continued Ellen, " even if I hadn't 
 seen the cheques. The very first time I saw 
 him, what I said was that he wasn't a gentle- 
 man. No gentleman would dress like that 
 or play the piano like that. And now we see 
 who's right ! " she trumpeted triumphantly. 
 
 "You mean Mr Letchsky," I said. "Has 
 Maria been lending him money?" 
 
 " Lending ! " echoed Ellen. She had now 
 become completely articulate, and was rapidly 
 tending towards eloquence. " She's known 
 him for two years and he's had hundreds, 
 hundreds, and pianos, and pins for his ties, 
 and rings for his fingers, and fur coats, and 
 seats at the opera all through the summer. 
 She paid for him to go to Germany for six 
 months and have the best lessons he could 
 find the cheque for that was three hundred,
 
 MARIA 121 
 
 and she was always sending him ten-pound 
 notes ; I'm certain of that, because they were 
 always about in her desk, and what 'd she 
 want ten -pound notes for except to send 
 them to him? And I say it isn't right, it 
 isn't decent !" 
 
 " It's thoroughly decent," I answered, " of 
 Maria ; though Mr Letchsky's behaviour is a 
 different matter. Still, after all, Mr Letchsky 
 is a very brilliant musician, lots of people 
 would call him a genius, why shouldn't 
 Maria have the pleasure of helping him at 
 the beginning of what will be, I'm certain, a 
 remarkable career ? It's a very obvious form 
 for her kindness to take." 
 
 " Euh ! " said Ellen. Her face quivered ; she 
 moved her hands with a gesture of despair. 
 "She's helping him with my money," she 
 wailed. 
 
 I treated this assertion with scorn, pointing 
 out that Maria was quite rich enough to 
 finance half a dozen struggling musicians 
 without putting an undue strain on her 
 resources. 
 
 Ellen ignored my protestations. " It's my 
 money," she reiterated. " I said to myself 
 all along that there was something queer 
 going on, and I knew that Maria was quite
 
 122 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 silly off her head about that young man. 
 Then the other day she left a letter on the 
 breakfast table from her bank to say that 
 her account was overdrawn. ' Oh ho, Miss ! ' 
 I said, and that afternoon I went to her desk 
 and had a look at her bank-book." 
 
 " I congratulate you ! " I said. " You really 
 become more interesting every moment." 
 
 " Oh, the desk wasn't locked," remarked Ellen 
 sublimely. "And it was just as I thought. 
 Her account ivas overdrawn several hundred 
 pounds." 
 
 "Well, that's her own affair," I said gruffly. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," retorted Ellen. " It's 
 my affair ; that's what / say. She's spent all 
 her own money and now she's spending mine. 
 It's all paid into another bank in her name ; we 
 began to do that a long time ago when I had 
 a very serious illness, and we've gone on ever 
 since because it was convenient. She paid 
 me out what I wanted and took a certain 
 amount for the house, and then she invested 
 all the rest at the end of the year. It saved 
 me trouble. I found her other bank-book 
 the one for my money and I saw as soon 
 as I looked at it that she'd drawn out a lot 
 extra ever since about a year ago. It's down- 
 right robbery, / say, and it's my belief that
 
 MARIA 123 
 
 she's not merely giving away money that 
 she's no right to, but she's actually investing 
 capital to keep that young man in luxury 
 all his days. He's had hundreds and hun- 
 dreds ! But I'll put a stop to it ; I'll see the 
 lawyers ; I'll take my lady to court ! " She 
 paused, panting. 
 
 I insisted that there was no legal question 
 involved ; that she had made over her money 
 to Maria to be used as Maria pleased. I was 
 really convinced that the whole affair was 
 the product of Ellen's distorted imagination, 
 but when I hinted this she became extremely 
 angry and threatened to depart immediately 
 to her lawyer, therefore it seemed wiser to 
 meet her, so to speak, on her own visionary 
 ground. That Maria was financing Letchsky 
 I had already suspected, but that Maria had 
 done so with Ellen's superfluous wealth I 
 found impossible to believe. I looked upon 
 Ellen, I'm afraid, with a pharisaical eye; it 
 was disgusting that she should have conceived 
 these suspicions, and more than disgusting 
 that she should have read Maria's letters 
 and pried into her desk. Meanwhile, Ellen, 
 now fairly launched on the rapid waters of 
 rhetoric, held forth on the bitterness of her 
 lot ; laying great stress on the fact that she
 
 124 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 was a married woman and the elder of Maria, 
 who had always treated her as if she were 
 a child or an imbecile since the death of 
 Mrs Bastable, snubbing her, spying on her, 
 et patati patata. I hardly listened to her, 
 yet I was filled with an aching sense of de- 
 pression as I realised that this was the kind 
 of thing which poor Maria had been obliged 
 to endure for a dozen years. It was not 
 wonderful that she had fled for refuge to 
 the artificial paradise of sentimentalism. 
 
 One fact was obvious Ellen was sincerely 
 convinced that she had been wronged ; this 
 was the single clear idea in her poor muddled 
 brain ; and she was at present in a thoroughly 
 venomous condition. "I feel as if I could 
 kill her ! " was a choice sample of her remarks. 
 I managed to persuade her that to pour out 
 her absurd story to a lawyer would be singu- 
 larly futile, and to extract a half -promise 
 from her that she would say nothing to 
 Maria or to any one else I had a horrid 
 suspicion that she might confide in the 
 servants until she had seen me again. 
 
 She became calm at last, and allowed me 
 to give her some tea. A moment before 
 she departed in a cab she said to me, almost 
 imperiously, "You must make her repay
 
 MARIA 125 
 
 every penny of it ! " Evidently she regarded 
 me as an ally in the imminent conflict with 
 Maria. I exhorted her once again to keep 
 her suspicions to herself, and she drove away 
 with an air which told me plainly that at 
 last she was able to regard herself as com- 
 pletely mistress of a situation. 
 
 When she had gone I sat down to consider 
 the affair. Of course, I thought it was all 
 ridiculous the mere hallucination of a weak- 
 witted old woman, yet when I recalled 
 Ellen's fiercely vindictive expression I could 
 not avoid the fear that she might create 
 some stupid scandal, and for a moment I 
 had the impulse to telephone a warning to 
 Maria. Reflection, however, soon showed 
 that this would be a foolish act ; Ellen 
 might be able to convince the more credu- 
 lous of her clerical friends that her story 
 was true ; but her lawyer, knowing Maria, 
 would be sceptical, and there was always 
 the hope that if she held her tongue, as she 
 had half promised to do, for a little while, 
 the whole affair would become lost in the 
 darkness of her befogged brain. There was 
 no point in troubling Maria unless Ellen 
 became actively venomous. That Ellen 
 should have taken the trouble to come to
 
 126 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 St John's Wood with the object of enlisting 
 me as her champion, and now regarded that 
 object as successfully accomplished, was an 
 amusing corollary to her fantastic theorem. 
 I felt mildly sorry for her ; her woeful 
 imagination had evidently caused her some 
 real suffering ; but I was firmly determined 
 that she should not annoy her sister. For 
 Maria to be accused as a thief by the 
 person for whose sake she had cut herself 
 off from the gay world and endured twelve 
 years' interment in Bayswater, would really 
 snap the last sound fibres of an already 
 overstrained temperament. I decided, finally, 
 to say nothing to Maria about Ellen's won- 
 derful visit. Ellen, I thought, would not 
 divulge it ; the novel delight of being en- 
 gaged in a conspiracy against her sister and 
 of doing things on her own account would 
 probably suffice to keep her quiet. 
 
 It was with a distinct thrill of apprehen- 
 sion, therefore, that I recognised the accents 
 of Maria in an ear - splitting blast which 
 issued from the telephone late on the same 
 evening (Maria's treatment of the telephone 
 always suggested the methods of a trom- 
 bone player in the prelude to the third act of 
 Lohengrin), demanding an interview with
 
 MARIA 127 
 
 me at ten o'clock next morning. I agreed 
 to the arrangement, and asked if anything 
 was wrong. Maria shouted " What ? " three 
 or four times, and then, after she had ap- 
 parently heard my question, was silent. A 
 moment later she cried, " See that there's 
 no one with you when I come. Good-night," 
 and I heard her replace the receiver with a 
 bang. I went to bed, dismally fearful that 
 Ellen had lost her temper and hurled her 
 infamous accusations at Maria's head when 
 they met at dinner. Yet, perhaps a violent 
 climax of this kind might be a blessing in 
 travesty; Maria would realise that it would 
 be impossible to live in an atmosphere of 
 perpetual suspicion ; she would break free 
 at last, and some unfortunate lady of 
 mature years would be dedicated, or rather 
 doomed, to the companionship of Ellen. 
 Anything, even a violent and public 
 squabble, would be preferable to a further 
 term of that self-imposed servitude. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Next morning Maria arrived half an hour 
 before the appointed time. I saw at once 
 that she was agitated; she dropped all her
 
 128 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 money when she was trying to pay the 
 cabman, and she tripped and almost fell as 
 she was ascending the few steps that led to 
 my front door. We went into the studio, 
 and then she relinquished her parasol and 
 sank into an arm - chair. I asked her at 
 once if anything was wrong. 
 
 She did not answer, but peered about the 
 studio, with the queer bird -like movement 
 of her head that I knew so well. At last 
 she turned a pair of feverishly bright eyes 
 towards me, gave a nervous laugh, and 
 observed, "It really is rather funny!" 
 
 I inquired what particular event seemed 
 to her an occasion for mirth. She rose, 
 went quickly across the studio and looked 
 at a sketch which she had seen a dozen 
 times, then turned and came slowly up 
 to me. 
 
 '* Didn't you think it funny?" she asked. 
 The smile that was on her lips died sud- 
 denly; she looked up at me with the air of 
 a solemn child. 
 
 "You mean ?" I said. She nodded slowly. 
 
 "Her coming here," she answered. "Oh 
 
 dear! One would never have thought . 
 
 She really is a queer old thing." She bit 
 her lower lip and sat down again. I was
 
 MARIA 129 
 
 still uncertain if she knew the reason of 
 Ellen's visit. 
 
 " She was quite brilliant yesterday," I said. 
 " She fairly gushed with eloquence. I feel 
 now that I was always unjust to her; I 
 never knew her before, and I never sus- 
 pected that she possessed an imagina- 
 tion." 
 
 Maria looked slightly puzzled, but spoke 
 with conviction. " Oh, she's no imagination 
 whatever," she said. She smiled again. "I 
 wish I could have seen you when she came 
 in ! " she cried suddenly. I replied that 
 during that poignant moment my behaviour 
 had been irreproachable. 
 
 "Rather amusing," said Maria. "Rather 
 amusing ! And she really came to try to set 
 you against me ! When silly people become 
 cunning they do choose such odd ways, don't 
 they?" 
 
 "How did you know that she had come?" 
 I asked. 
 
 " Oh, she let it all out after dinner," 
 answered Maria. She paused for a moment, 
 then added, "She always lets everything out 
 sooner or later. She's worse in that way 
 even than I am." 
 
 I hesitated for a moment. "Then you 
 i
 
 130 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 know," I said at length, "why she came 
 that she has some imaginary grievance?" 
 
 "Didn't you just hear me say that she 
 had no imagination?" cried Maria. "Her 
 grievance is genuine, in its way. You know 
 she always hated Paul and was horribly 
 rude to him." 
 
 "So she told you what she said to me?" 
 I demanded. Maria shook her head slowly, 
 peering at me from under the brim of her 
 enormous hat. 
 
 "No," she said. "She flew into a dreadful 
 rage. ... I couldn't hear half that she said. 
 But she told me that she had seen you, and 
 seemed to imagine that you took her side." 
 
 " Of course you knew I didn't," I responded. 
 " I knew she was under some absurd de- 
 lusion ; but I wanted to keep her quiet." 
 
 Maria looked scornful. 
 
 "You needn't bother about that," she said. 
 " Haven't I a perfect right to do what I like 
 with my own money? I suppose you think 
 that I've been very silly about Paul, but I 
 don't care ; I had to do it ; and for once I 
 was able to give things away to some one who 
 didn't feel any sense of being under an obliga- 
 tion of having to pay me back somehow."
 
 MARIA 131 
 
 I smiled rather sourly as I remembered 
 Letchsky's remarks on the nature of obliga- 
 tion. "You were perfectly in the right," I 
 said, "but I think you gave him rather too 
 much. I don't know that it was altogether 
 good for him." 
 
 " You mean, I suppose," snapped Maria, 
 "that I oughtn't to have sent him money 
 when he lost at cards. I don't care a bit ; 
 to me it was just a case of a person whom 
 I liked being in trouble and of my being 
 able to help him out. I didn't stop to think 
 of consequences. And when all's said and 
 done the only consequences '11 be that he'll 
 be famous all over the world, and that I 
 shall be able to remember that I was some 
 use to him. I'm furious that you and Ellen 
 know about it, but now that you do know 
 it'll go on just the same. I've quite enough 
 money for both of us." 
 
 She was trembling with excitement. I 
 went to her and put a hand on her shoulder. 
 " Do whatever you like, my dear Maria," I 
 said, "but don't forget to keep an eye on 
 old Ellen." 
 
 She stared at me. " Why, I always keep 
 an eye " she began. She paused ; then,
 
 132 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 still staring, she exclaimed, " I wonder how 
 Ellen knew ! It's really extraordinary ; gen- 
 erally she notices nothing, and she never saw 
 Paul ; she always went to bed when he came. 
 There was no one who could tell her; the 
 servants might have known that I sent him 
 things, but they wouldn't talk to her about 
 it. I suppose she just guessed. It was really 
 rather clever of her." 
 
 " Ellen's a miser at heart, probably," I 
 suggested, " and misers can smell money, 
 and detect its absence by the use of the 
 same process. All the same, I'm going to 
 give you a hint which you will probably 
 think very impertinent. Keep your desk 
 locked, and don't leave letters about." 
 
 Maria uttered a sharp cry. "Oh! What 
 do you mean ? " she gasped. 
 
 I suppose that I was guilty of treachery 
 towards Ellen, but the thought of all that 
 Maria had been obliged to endure was strong 
 upon me, and the pious hope that this final 
 revelation might result in a definite split 
 between the sisters made me fling aside 
 discretion. 
 
 " She read your letter from your bank," I 
 said, " and then she got hold of your pass- 
 books. And " I did not finish the sen-
 
 MARIA 133 
 
 tence. An amazing change was happening 
 in Maria's face. 
 
 " My pass-books ! " she cried very quickly ; 
 " do you mean to say that Ellen took them 
 out of my desk, Ellen the Christian Ellen ? " 
 She said the last words with a scorn that was 
 melodramatic, and at any other time I should 
 have been unable to resist smiling. At that 
 moment, however, her expression really 
 frightened me ; her face was extraordinarily 
 contorted ; she looked as if she were on the 
 verge of hysteria, and I loathe hysteria. " It's 
 no use being angry," I said. "Ellen's not 
 quite like other people. Her brain is sick 
 with a surfeit of sermons. What you ought 
 to do is to decide calmly and finally that it's 
 impossible to go on living with her ; you must 
 find some comfortable kind of asylum for 
 Pious Prowlers and Suspicious Sniffers, and 
 you must keep her in luxury there till she 
 dies. Probably she will outlive you ; her 
 heart's as dry as summer dust." 
 
 Maria gave no attention to this eloquent 
 appeal. Evidently she was still astonished 
 at my unmasking of Ellen. After some time 
 spent in staring at the carpet she looked up 
 at me. " Did she say anything to you about 
 the pass-books?" she asked.
 
 134 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 " She said a large quantity of frantic non- 
 sense," I answered after a moment. " I don't 
 imagine that figures are exactly Ellen's forte. 
 She has got an absurd idea I may as well 
 tell you everything now that I've begun, 
 she has an absurd idea that you have spent 
 all your own money, and are using hers for the 
 benefit of Letchsky. She'll continue to think 
 so I know my Ellen and the situation will 
 be quite intolerable. I've a ' Times ' in the 
 other room ; we'll hunt up a luxurious asylum 
 for her at once." 
 
 Maria contemplated me with very solemn 
 eyes. 
 
 " Do you really think that it was such an 
 absurd idea ? " she asked slowly. 
 
 To say that I was startled would be a feeble 
 account of my sensations. I gazed at Maria 
 with wild wonder, and I think I demanded 
 what on earth she meant. Maria's eyes 
 wavered no more ; she looked at me with 
 unusual steadiness. 
 
 " The funny thing is that it happens to 
 be true," she said. 
 
 I made a violent effort. " My dear Maria ! " 
 I cried, " don't, please, poke fun at a poor 
 stupid man like that. It makes my flesh
 
 MARIA 135 
 
 creep. Be a sweet kind lady, and say it's 
 all a joke." 
 
 Maria looked almost scornful. " Don't be 
 silly," she said. " You know I never make 
 jokes. It's quite true that when I found I 
 hadn't enough money, I took Ellen's income, 
 of course, not capital. I suppose I shall pay 
 her back on quarter-day if I can, but I really 
 don't know if I shall be able to, and I really 
 don't care if I can't. You may well look 
 shocked ; I'm a burglar, I suppose ; an em- 
 bezzler, don't you call it? morally if not 
 legally; and I don't mind a bit. The one 
 thing that annoys me is Ellen finding out." 
 She paused, looking the image of defiance, 
 and was obviously as unrepentant as she 
 declared. Indeed, I regret to have to chron- 
 icle that during her extraordinary confession 
 she suddenly acquired all the air of a heroine ; 
 her face glowed, her eyes flashed, and she 
 looked wonderfully dignified. 
 
 " Of course," I said feebly, " the money was 
 paid to you for you to do as you liked with 
 it." 
 
 " I should have done just the same if it 
 hadn't been," declared Maria vehemently. 
 " I should have got at it somehow." I at-
 
 136 
 
 tempted to hint my disbelief in this lawless 
 assertion, and then she flamed out at me 
 like a lamp that had been shaken. " I would, 
 I would f " she cried. " What can Ellen do 
 with money ? Nothing ; the little she draws 
 for herself she throws into she fritters 
 away. The rest has gone on accumulating 
 for years, and it will all be mine when she 
 dies. It's no use to her ; but to Paul it means 
 life and health and beautiful things ; he's an 
 artist, a poet, a genius ; he wants the whole 
 world, and I'd give it him if I could, and care 
 about as much for what the other people said 
 and thought as I care for Ellen's wallowing 
 and wailing over her pass-book. Ellen has 
 never done anything in her life," she con- 
 tinued, her voice rising, " that anybody with 
 the wildest imagination could call useful ; 
 she's been nothing but a burden a burden 
 and a scourge/" She fairly flung the last 
 word at me, and I believe that I stepped 
 backwards as if it were an actual missile. 
 
 " My dear Maria ! " I began. 
 
 Maria regained some of her self-control. 
 "Oh, well, I'm sorry I said that," she went 
 on in a quieter voice ; " it's very shocking, 
 I suppose, but it's true, quite true, as perhaps 
 you'll know some day. Are you really horri-
 
 MARIA 137 
 
 fied," she asked, with a faint smile, "to find 
 I'm a genuine burglar ? It's funny ; when I 
 came here and thought that you might have 
 guessed something was queer, I felt quite up- 
 set ; and when you spoke about the pass- 
 books I thought I should faint ; but now that 
 you know everything I don't care a bit. 
 We're a nice family, aren't we ? Ellen 
 prowling round Maria's desk, and Maria 
 embezzling Ellen's money. Paul would say 
 that we were the regular result of Victoria 
 and Suburbia. He often said that in fun ; 
 but I usen't to be quite sure what he meant." 
 She laughed, rather hysterically. " Well, won't 
 you ever speak to me again ? " she demanded. 
 " Do you think I'm really very wicked ? " 
 
 I was far too bewildered to attempt to 
 answer this difficult question. I believe that 
 I displayed a thoroughly craven spirit, im- 
 ploring her to repay Ellen at once, and to 
 stop her from going to a solicitor by any 
 kind of wile. Maria heard me with calm 
 indifference. 
 
 " She may do whatever she likes," she 
 remarked. "And I shall go on making the 
 best use of her money that it could possibly 
 be put to. And really, in a way, she owes 
 it to me ; often I didn't touch a penny of
 
 138 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 hers for months, and ran the house and 
 everything by myself. She owes it to the 
 world, too; none of the clergymen at the 
 churches that she goes to could ever get a 
 brass farthing out of her. I consider," added 
 Maria finally and triumphantly, " I consider 
 that I'm only performing an act of common 
 justice, and I mean to go on ! " 
 
 "Well, it's your affair," I said at length. 
 " But don't forget the possibility of Ellen 
 going to some wicked attorney and brewing 
 trouble. I don't imagine that she's a very 
 accurate person, and she has a grievance, or 
 thinks she has. Even though she can't hurt 
 you legally, she may cause you no end of 
 bother." 
 
 Maria shook her head with great decision. 
 "She won't really do anything," she said. 
 "She knows that if she did I should refuse 
 to live with her any longer, and that 
 wouldn't suit her at all. She won't be very 
 pleasant for the next month or so, but after 
 that she'll begin to realise that if I mean 
 her to help Paul with her money she'll have 
 to do it. What else could she do with it?" 
 "Perhaps she wants to leave it all to 
 charities," I suggested. 
 Maria sniffed scornfully.
 
 MARIA 139 
 
 "That's very likely!" she remarked. "And 
 anyhow, duty conies before charity. When 
 two old maids find a man of genius whom 
 they can help, they're absolutely bound to 
 do everything they can for him." 
 
 "Yes, but poor old Ellen didn't find him," 
 I protested weakly. 
 
 " Never mind ! I saved her the trouble," 
 retorted Maria. 
 
 "And you really mean to go on living 
 with her?" I asked. 
 
 Maria nodded. "Yes," she answered. A 
 humorous light began to shine in her eyes ; 
 she looked at me with a really wicked smile. 
 
 "If I don't, you see," she explained, "per- 
 haps I shouldn't be able to get at her money. 
 No, I shan't desert your poor old Ellen. I 
 read in a book the other day about the way 
 ants keep some other insect aphises aren't 
 they called? in their homes. That's exactly 
 our case. I'm the ant and Ellen's the aphis." 
 
 She was now or seemed completely at 
 her ease. I waved a threatening forefinger 
 towards her. 
 
 "Don't you try to take me in," I said, 
 "with your ants and your aphises. You're 
 sticking to Ellen merely from a sense of 
 duty. Maria, I implore you to let me find
 
 140 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 that asylum. If you don't there'll be wigs 
 on the green you won't be able to see the 
 green for wigs. You must pack her off." 
 
 Maria rose and stood looking at me whilst 
 she buttoned her gloves. 
 
 " Oh, you don't understand," she said after 
 a moment. "There's something that you 
 don't know. I'll never tell you . . . but I 
 thought perhaps you might have guessed." 
 She continued to stare, and seemed to be 
 on the brink of further speech. Then, 
 abruptly, she turned her back on me. 
 "Where's my parasol?" she demanded. 
 
 I gave it to her. She held my hand for 
 a moment. " I'm glad you aren't really 
 shocked at my being a burglar ! " she said. 
 
 "I think you're the most amazing woman!" 
 I exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh no," Maria answered modestly. " Any 
 one with any sense of decency would have 
 done just the same. May I have a taxi ? " 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The melodramatic revelations of Maria 
 rendered the prospect of a morning's work 
 quite intolerable. After a futile attempt to
 
 MARIA 141 
 
 paint I hurled away my brushes, seized a 
 hat, and made for Regent's Park. There, 
 seated on a bank above the romantic though 
 fuliginous canal, I tried to review the situ- 
 ation dispassionately. 
 
 I felt vaguely that I owed it to myself to 
 condemn Maria as a criminal ; I was, I 
 believe, secretly ashamed to find that I 
 couldn't regard her misdemeanour with cold 
 aversion, but could only look on it as one 
 looks on the fantastic act of a wilful child. 
 My interest in character, as usual, was a 
 narcotic to my moral sense ; Maria might 
 be wicked ; it was of much more importance 
 that she was wonderful. She had risen in 
 arms against all the prejudices of her early 
 environment Victoria plus Suburbia, as the 
 epigrammatic Letchsky phrased it and had 
 deliberately defied conventional morality 
 with a calm conviction that she was per- 
 fectly in the right. This, for an elderly 
 spinster who had been cribbed and cabined 
 for more than forty years, was, spectacularly, 
 good work. 
 
 When my thoughts turned towards the 
 future, however, I felt somewhat uncom- 
 fortable. It was true that Maria imagined 
 she possessed some mysterious hold upon
 
 142 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Ellen, but it was also true that she had not 
 realised how sharp a sense of injury Ellen 
 was nursing ; she had not enjoyed the privi- 
 lege of overhearing that strange conversa- 
 tion in my studio. If Ellen went to a 
 solicitor with her grievance there would 
 probably be no legal sequel except that of 
 her obtaining control of her own income ; 
 but if, as was probable, she poured her tale 
 of woe into the sympathetic ear of one of 
 her parsons, the result, unless he were a 
 man of tact, might be scandal and much 
 annoyance to Maria. I found myself quite 
 incapable of regarding the affair from any 
 point of view but that of Maria's interest. 
 I suppose that I had succumbed to the 
 poison of her morally specious arguments, 
 for I did not feel the faintest twinge of 
 sympathy for poor Ellen, who was really 
 pathetic, and it was merely practical pru- 
 dence which made me decide that Maria 
 must in future renounce her control of 
 Ellen's income and promise to pay back all 
 that she had borrowed. To decide this 
 was easy; to persuade Maria to performance 
 would be a different matter. At present 
 Maria was engaged in the exhilarating 
 pastime of defying an unconscious world
 
 MARIA 143 
 
 from her pinnacle of bravado : it remained 
 to be seen whether, when the world moved 
 in its slumber and began to growl, the old 
 conventionalism in her blood would re- 
 assert itself and she would come down with 
 a run. I felt doubtful about this desirable 
 sequel ; a woman who has found a means 
 of self-realisation, of self-expression it may 
 take the form of a lover, a baby, or a bad 
 novel will usually cling to it as ivy clings 
 to the oak ; and also, Maria was profoundly 
 convinced that her dubious proceedings had 
 a secure basis of personal integrity. But at 
 any rate it was my mission to pull her 
 down from the pinnacle, though I realised 
 the fact with regret she looked so splendid 
 on the summit ! The process of removal 
 could not be delayed ; perhaps at that very 
 moment Ellen was encamped in the chaste 
 shade of some clerical study, sowing in a 
 fertile soil the dragon's teeth that would 
 presently spring up as armed imps of mis- 
 chief. 
 
 Having resolved on the part I was to 
 play in the affair, I lit a cigar, put my feet 
 on a chair, and was about to abandon 
 myself to sensuous enjoyment of the purely 
 dramatic aspect of late events, when I heard
 
 144 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 a voice which called me by name. I turned 
 and saw, in the road which was close to 
 my retreat, a tall young man on a white 
 horse. It was Letchsky. He waved his 
 whip, and I rose and went towards him. 
 His lanky figure was seen at its best on 
 horseback. He was still dressed somewhat 
 unconventionally ; his hat brim was broader 
 and his clothes looser than was customary, 
 but certainly he looked picturesque even 
 graceful. My capacity for appreciating the 
 points of a horse is about as large as my 
 knowledge of deep-sea vegetation or Hertz- 
 ian waves, but even my pedestrian intelli- 
 gence was able to grasp the fact that he 
 was riding a very beautiful Arab a real 
 aristocrat of horses, worthy of the burden 
 of Zayn-al-Aynim or the Princess Badroul- 
 badour. 
 
 He was in high spirits, and rallied me on 
 my method of passing the working hours. 
 I retorted in kind. "You seem to be living 
 entirely for pleasure," I said ; " I hear that 
 you hire a horse and ride abroad every 
 morning. Did you hire this one in Damas- 
 cus, or did a Djinn bring him with your 
 shaving water?" 
 
 Letchsky clapped the Arab's curving neck.
 
 MARIA 145 
 
 " He's no hireling," he answered. " Are you, 
 my beauty ? He's a pure-bred Arab, belongs 
 to Sir Julius Steinmann. They're friends of 
 mine ; I often sing at their house. It's that 
 big one with the columns over there." He 
 seemed about to say something more, then 
 he closed his mouth and contemplated me 
 with an amused eye. 
 
 I waited for him to speak, but he con- 
 tinued to look at me as if I were an animal 
 about to perform a trick. At length I 
 demanded the reason of his mirth. 
 
 He grinned broadly. "Weren't you hugely 
 surprised when she turned up?" he said. 
 
 " Who turned up ? " I demanded, with an 
 air of innocence. 
 
 Letchsky drew a grotesque shape in the 
 air with his whip. 
 
 "Old Ellen," he said. "I call it scandal- 
 ous." 
 
 "Oh! you know about that already, then?" 
 I cried. He nodded vigorously. " I was there 
 last night, playing the piano and waiting for 
 Maria," he said. " Ellen came in, snorted, 
 sniffed, growled, barked, and went for me 
 like a jaguar. 1 really thought she would 
 bite me. She told me that she hated me 
 and ordered me out of the house ; she added 
 
 K
 
 146 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 that she had seen you and that you had 
 sworn to help her to exterminate me. She 
 called me all sorts of names ; I'd no idea 
 she had such a command of nervous English. 
 Of course I knew what was the matter, and 
 I continued to play soothing melodies on the 
 piano, but she wasn't soothed. Then Maria 
 came back and there was a dreadful rumpus, 
 and the end of it was that Ellen was taken 
 to bed, breathing fire and brimstone and 
 shouting your name. I congratulate you on 
 being chosen as her champion ; la Belle 
 Alliance, quoil" 
 
 I ignored his taunts. "Ellen's a preposter- 
 ous old imbecile," I remarked. "But you 
 said just now that you knew what was the 
 matter with her? Is that true?" 
 
 Letchsky looked at me keenly for a 
 moment. 
 
 " Perfectly," he answered. " It's pretty ob- 
 vious, isn't it ? At least it was pretty obvious 
 last night. Didn't you know ? " 
 
 "No," I said. "I'd suspected it for some 
 time, though. And I must take this oppor- 
 tunity, my young friend," I added in a 
 really grand manner, "of impressing on you 
 most solemnly that it can't go on that it 
 must stop at once."
 
 MARIA 147 
 
 Letchsky stared at me as if I had suddenly 
 become a lunatic. 
 
 "Stop!" he echoed. "What do you mean? 
 How on earth can I stop it? I've nothing 
 to do with her ; I'm not a parson or a 
 doctor." He paused for a moment, survey- 
 ing me with wide eyes. "What on earth 
 are you talking about?" he cried. 
 
 I imagined that he was trying to bluff 
 me. "You can stop it," I said impressively, 
 " by one very simple act. You can make 
 up your mind not to take another penny 
 from Maria. You've had far too much al- 
 ready ; it's not good for you, for your self- 
 respect, to be living on the bounty of a 
 friend, and it has got her into this sordid 
 muddle. You'll be very poor, I daresay, for 
 a time ; make up your mind to face it, to 
 plunge into work, to give up all this kind 
 of thing. You'll be glad, and probably the 
 world will be glad of the renunciation, ten 
 years hence." 
 
 Letchsky 's expression of astonishment con- 
 tinued to deepen during my delivery of this 
 truly noble exhortation ; then it cleared away 
 suddenly, and he smiled again. 
 
 "I always thought you didn't understand," 
 he said pleasantly.
 
 148 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 I began to feel extremely irritated. 
 
 "At any rate, I understand that you have 
 been playing cards for high stakes and re- 
 lying on Maria to pay your debts," I said. 
 " It's one thing to let her help you with 
 your work, your career I've no doubt she 
 paid for those concerts at Queen's Hall, 
 and it's another thing to get into a fast set 
 and make Maria pay your footing amongst 
 a lot of people to whom you don't intro- 
 duce her. Plain persons call that kind of 
 behaviour by a very ugly and expressive 
 name." 
 
 Letchsky's smile remained. " What name ? " 
 he inquired calmly. 
 
 " Cadging," I replied savagely. 
 
 Letchsky seemed to be determined not to 
 take offence at anything that I said. He 
 rubbed the ears of his horse very gently 
 with his whip. 
 
 "I don't imagine it's any good our argu- 
 ing," he said, "and I believe I explained my 
 theory about the use a struggling artist 
 may make of other people's money a long 
 time ago. And you can't deny that it gave 
 Maria the greatest pleasure of her life. If 
 I hadn't realised that I believe I would have 
 stopped taking her presents, for I like her;
 
 MARIA 149 
 
 I wouldn't merely make use of her as I 
 would of some people. It isn't as if there 
 were any question of her not being able to 
 afford it. She's enormously rich." 
 
 I felt a premature thrill of triumph. 
 
 " I see that it's you who don't under- 
 stand," I said. "You certainly didn't listen 
 to Ellen attentively enough. Maria has been 
 overdrawing her account at the bank ever 
 since she knew you, and she has been taking 
 Ellen's money embezzling, as she calls it 
 for your sake. Perhaps you didn't know 
 that she had control of it all." 
 
 Letchsky did not seem at all shocked by 
 this revelation, but he was certainly amused. 
 He dropped the reins, threw back his head, 
 and laughed aloud. 
 
 "It's really funny, isn't it," he said, "to 
 think of pious old Ellen paying my debts 
 at Bridge ? It's the best thing I ever heard. 
 Maria really is fine ! " He laughed again ; 
 there was no mistaking the honesty of his 
 amusement. I began to think that every 
 one in the world must have contrived to 
 get rid of all moral sense. 
 
 "It may seem funny to you," I said 
 severely, "but it isn't much fun for poor 
 old Ellen."
 
 150 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Letchsky turned towards me a face that 
 was still contorted with laughter. 
 
 " Oh ! I don't care a penny curse about 
 poor old Ellen!" he cried. "Now that I 
 
 know it isn't Maria's money " He paused, 
 
 looking at me with mirthful eyes. " It was 
 weak of you to mention Ellen," he said. 
 " You ought to have made up a story 
 about Maria being ruined by my extrava- 
 gance. Of course I shall be worse than ever 
 now." 
 
 He certainly was an amazingly impudent 
 young man. His frank delight in the present 
 situation seemed to me in the worst taste, 
 and I had a dim idea that I myself was 
 affording him food for laughter. My fears 
 and scruples, of course, seemed to him 
 merely old - fashioned nonsense. After a 
 while, however, he leant towards me. 
 
 "You look dreadfully uncomfortable," he 
 said. " To relieve your feelings, I don't 
 mind telling you that perhaps the process 
 won't last very long." 
 
 "The process?" I repeated. 
 
 " The process of Ellen - squeezing," he ex- 
 plained. " I daresay that I shan't have to 
 finish her off completely. If you find that, 
 after all, Ellen remains comparatively rich,
 
 MARIA 151 
 
 you can, of course, put it down to your 
 own powers of persuasion." 
 
 "I certainly intend to persuade Maria not 
 to give you another penny," I snapped. 
 
 He smiled blandly. " Oh ! you won't make 
 any impression on Maria," he said. " But, 
 joking apart, it's extremely probable that I 
 shan't need any money from her very soon." 
 
 " I suppose there's another victim in the 
 background," I remarked. 
 
 He did not seem to hear my bitter com- 
 ment ; he was looking fixedly down the road. 
 My glance followed his, and I saw that a 
 woman on horseback was approaching us. 
 Letchsky watched her, and then turned to me. 
 
 " Not exactly in the background," he said, 
 with one of his uncanny grins. He turned 
 his horse ; at the same moment the lady 
 touched hers with the whip, and cantered 
 over the soft earth by the side of the road 
 to the spot where we stood. 
 
 " You bad boy ! " she cried to Letchsky. 
 " I've been looking for you all over the 
 Park ! So much for your promises to meet 
 expectant females at half -past ten ! " 
 
 She was a very large young woman, hand- 
 some in the bravura style, with jet black 
 hair and a brilliant complexion. She was
 
 152 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 dressed with almost excessive smartness, and 
 rode astride. In spite of it being obvious 
 that she enjoyed radiant health, she had an 
 oddly languorous air perhaps it was caused 
 by her very long, slanting eyelids, and one 
 felt that she would show to greater advan- 
 tage in artificial light. In the mild autumnal 
 sunshine she seemed inappropriate, jarring ; 
 she was like some vivid exotic flower that 
 had escaped from a hothouse. 
 
 Whilst I was thus mentally condemning the 
 poor lady to an indoor existence, Letchsky 
 had exchanged a few words with her; then 
 he presented me. Her name, I discovered, 
 was Ada Steinmann, and she was a daughter 
 of the philanthropist who had lent Letchsky 
 his Arab steed. Miss Steinmann surveyed me 
 curiously, but was good enough to remark 
 that she was glad to meet any friend of 
 Paul's. Then she asked me if I were any 
 relation of Mr Lane the artist ; and when I 
 replied that I was that celebrity visible in 
 the flesh, she became suddenly gracious. Her 
 father, who lived entirely for pictures and 
 music, possessed many examples of my work 
 which he had bought in Paris. She herself, 
 too, loved pictures, and had been painted by 
 Sargent. " Very clever, of course," she said,
 
 MARIA 153 
 
 " but he gave me such a grin ! just like 
 this." She stretched her full wide mouth 
 extensively, displaying two rows of large 
 and very brilliant teeth. Then she turned 
 abruptly to Letchsky. "What about our 
 ride?" she exclaimed, and smote the Arab's 
 hindquarters emphatically with her whip. 
 That king of animals tossed his proud head 
 indignantly and started forward, and a 
 moment later the two riders were cantering 
 away from me. Letchsky turned to look at 
 me as they went, and I saw, or fancied I 
 saw, that his eyes were positively lambent 
 with mockery. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Late in that afternoon I went to see 
 Maria. I found her seated at the bureau in 
 her own little room a piece of furniture 
 which usually served as a dumping-ground 
 for postage stamps, old letters, abortive wool- 
 work, and toys for the East End children. 
 For once, she did not look particularly 
 pleased to see me ; she had a tired and 
 troubled aspect, and was suffering, I sup- 
 posed, from the reaction that followed on 
 the excitement of the morning.
 
 154 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "I hope you haven't come to argue," she 
 said. "Just now I really don't feel that I 
 could." 
 
 This was unpromising, but my heart was 
 hot within me, and I was convinced that any 
 postponement of the discussion was perilous 
 to Maria. I summoned up all my rhetorical 
 resources and urged her to refrain from 
 financing Letchsky. I had no new argu- 
 ments to offer. I could only reiterate my 
 old cry that it was bad for his work, that 
 it encouraged him to be idle and dissipated, 
 that it would lead to perpetual friction with 
 Ellen. Maria set her lips and watched me 
 with irritated eyes, but said nothing until 
 I asserted my belief that her cutting off 
 supplies would not really inconvenience him, 
 that he had hinted the prospect of other 
 resources. Then the sharp lines showed sud- 
 denly on her face, and for a moment she 
 seemed to struggle vainly for speech. 
 
 "What do you mean?" she cried. "He 
 won't make money with his work for years." 
 
 " Well, from what he said this morning " 
 
 I began. She interrupted me with a cry. 
 
 "Did you see him this morning after you 
 saw me?" she demanded. I answered her 
 question. She looked at me like an angry
 
 MARIA 155 
 
 little inquisitor. "You didn't say anything 
 about it about the money?" she said quickly. 
 I replied that I had revealed everything to 
 Letchsky. She clasped her hands and pressed 
 them against her lips. 
 
 " I'm sorry," she said, " but just now I feel 
 as if I never wanted to speak to you again. 
 Can't men ever keep secrets?" She was 
 silent for some time, and stared at the mis- 
 cellaneous collection of rubbish on her desk. 
 "Oh, Arthur, how could you?" she said at 
 length. "Don't you see how difficult you've 
 made it for me? The poor boy will refuse 
 to touch a penny." 
 
 I laughed this fantastic idea to scorn. 
 
 " Refuse ! Not he ! " I cried crudely. " He 
 said so himself ; he shares all your theory 
 about the use to which Ellen's money should 
 be put. He's the most astute young person ! 
 But he certainly intimated that he had other 
 resources, so you needn't be afraid that he 
 will starve. In fact, he's cut out for success ; 
 I see him in my mind's eye for the next 
 twenty years riding from glory to glory on 
 a thoroughbred Arab. I never met any one 
 more completely capable of taking the good 
 things of life when he finds them." 
 
 Maria contemplated me fixedly.
 
 156 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 " I wonder what he meant," she murmured, 
 frowning. Then she demanded suddenly, 
 "Was he riding when you met him?" 
 
 "The finest horse that I ever saw," I 
 answered. 
 
 "Was any one with him?" asked Maria. 
 
 " He was torn from me," I explained, " by 
 a young lady of the most opulent and oriental 
 type of beauty." Maria moved her shoulders 
 swiftly. 
 
 "Yes, they're Jews," she said through her 
 set teeth. She looked at me again, and I 
 was amazed by her face ; it was actually 
 lurid. "That's what he meant," she said 
 slowly, " and I hate it, I hate it ! " 
 
 "Do you mean that he and Miss Stein- 
 mann " I began. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know!" cried Maria. "Only 
 he's always with them ; I never see him, 
 and he rides their horses. And he asked if 
 he might bring her here to dinner next week. 
 I had to say yes, of course ; but I've seen 
 her, and I know she's just the kind of girl I 
 dislike. She's Bad Style ! " she concluded, 
 with an angry sniff. 
 
 "She seemed good-natured, and she's very 
 rich," I said. Maria remarked that good- 
 natured people didn't interest her. " She's
 
 MARIA 157 
 
 not good - natured, really," she continued. 
 She's just fast, and she's got everything she 
 wants. She's self-satisfied. She's exactly the 
 kind of person who is bad for Paul; she'll 
 drag him down ; she'll make him lazy about 
 his music and fond of cards and riding and 
 eating. You'll have to come to dinner to 
 meet her." 
 
 I promised to do so, secretly hoping that 
 Maria's suspicions might prove correct, and 
 that Miss Steinmann would support Letchsky 
 in luxury for the remainder of his days. Then 
 I inquired after Ellen. Maria made a gesture 
 of contempt. 
 
 "I haven't seen her," she said. "She's 
 locked herself in her room." She paused and 
 looked at me as if she regretted having said 
 this, I could not imagine why. "She hasn't 
 tried to see a solicitor to make a fuss?" I 
 asked. Maria shrugged her shoulders an 
 action which intimated, I suppose, that she 
 was completely indifferent to any move on 
 the part of Ellen. She manifested an equal 
 indifference to any remarks that I made ; it 
 was obvious that she was in a very bad 
 temper, and regarded me with feelings that 
 were anything but amiable. 
 
 " It wasn't your business ; you oughtn't to
 
 158 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 have interfered," she said several times, after 
 I had tried to make her see that I had 
 been impelled by the noblest possible motives 
 in admonishing Letchsky. " People too often 
 mistake curiosity for sympathy," was another 
 of her remarks a decidedly clever one, I 
 thought afterwards. "You know nothing, 
 really, about things about my life," she had 
 added obscurely. 
 
 At length I rose to go. She gave me her 
 hand, which was feverish, but she vouch- 
 safed me no farewell smile. Instead, she 
 looked up at me with very bright, irascible 
 eyes. " Oh, I'm so cross ! " she said. She 
 turned away and began to open and shut 
 the little drawers in her bureau, but before 
 I reached the door she called to me. 
 
 "Arthur," she said without looking at me, 
 " please understand that it's quite useless to 
 discuss that subject you know what I mean 
 any more. I'd sell the clothes off my 
 back I'd pawn Ellen's only bonnet if it 
 would be any use to Paul. As I said before, 
 it's nothing to do with you. People are too 
 fussy, and imagine things far too much." 
 
 I departed, with dignity, I hope, but 
 feeling that my mission had so far enjoyed 
 the scantiest success. Maria's remarks about
 
 MARIA 159 
 
 Miss Steimnann, however, were balm unto 
 my wounded spirit; Letchsky had intimated 
 to me some time before that he would 
 probably marry money ; his union with the 
 daughter of the magnificent Sir Julius would 
 effectively put an end to Maria's philanthropic 
 crimes. I felt a real relief as I went down- 
 stairs. 
 
 I was accustomed to let myself out of the 
 house, and I was putting on my coat when 
 I became aware of a strange sound which 
 proceeded, apparently, from behind the closed 
 door of Ellen's sitting-room, nicknamed the 
 Holy of Holies by the profane Letchsky. The 
 sound seemed to alternate between wailing 
 and laughter ; but fell, at intervals, to a long- 
 drawn crooning note. I listened for a few 
 moments, wondering whether Ellen had become 
 completely mad or was holding a revivalist 
 meeting, when there was a sudden crash of 
 splintering glass, followed immediately by a 
 succession of truly blood - chilling yells. I 
 rushed to the door ; it was locked ; I ham- 
 mered vehemently on the panels, and the 
 shrieks subsided to a rapid sequence of 
 groans. Nature and a fairly athletic life 
 have endowed me with a generous portion 
 of brute force ; I took a step backward and
 
 160 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 then hurled myself against the door. It 
 yielded suddenly, and I hurtled headlong into 
 Ellen's bower. 
 
 On the details of the scene which met my 
 eyes when I had picked myself up it is well 
 to draw a decent veil. Ellen lay on the floor ; 
 for one moment I thought that she was 
 dying ; in the next I realised that she was 
 in the last stage of intoxication. ... I stood 
 there staring at her, stupidly helpless ; then 
 I heard a sound behind me, and turned to 
 find that Maria had entered the room. She 
 gave one glance at Ellen, then looked at me. 
 I shall never forget the aspect of her face 
 at that moment. We remained confronting 
 each other in silence for a space of time 
 that seemed to me an age, but at last she 
 spoke. 
 
 " So now you know ! " she said, with a kind 
 of triumphant bitterness in her voice. "It's 
 been like this for ten years." Her face 
 twitched horribly. She covered it with her 
 hands and sank on to a chair. The miserable 
 Ellen began to sing a hymn.
 
 MARIA 161 
 
 X. 
 
 I stayed with Maria, after Ellen had been 
 hidden away, until nearly midnight. For a 
 long time she would not speak, but sat star- 
 ing into vacancy with haunted eyes ; at last 
 she began to tell me the wretched history in 
 vague, disconnected sentences, and speech 
 brought her the further relief of tears. Ellen, 
 it appeared, had become addicted to secret 
 drinking some time before Mrs Bastable's 
 death, and since that event the vice had 
 dominated her completely; even during the 
 first years of her married life she had been 
 a slave to it. Maria had fought it from the 
 first steadily and fruitlessly ; Ellen had all 
 the craftiness of the female degenerate ; she 
 would bribe the servants, she would employ 
 tradesmen who made a fine art of smuggling 
 alcohol into the house in all manner of in- 
 genious disguises ; she would smuggle it 
 herself the device would have been laugh- 
 able in any other connection by means of 
 rubber hot- water bottles concealed under her 
 clothes. Maria had done everything possible 
 to prevent her from obtaining it, but with 
 no success; the "attacks," as she called 
 
 L
 
 162 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 them, occurred once a fortnight with mono- 
 tonous regularity. It was wonderful that 
 Maria should have concealed them from the 
 world, and that Ellen had aroused no 
 suspicion in her clerical friends for so long 
 a period ; but Ellen, it seemed, had still the 
 grace to be ashamed of herself at the end of 
 each orgy, and was deeply anxious that her 
 failing should remain a secret. Her detesta- 
 tion of Letchsky, Maria said, was partly due 
 to a suspicion that either he had guessed the 
 existence of her weakness or that Maria had 
 confided in him. 
 
 Actually, Maria had confided in no one. 
 For twelve years since her mother's death 
 she had kept the grim secret by the simple 
 process of refusing to see all her former 
 friends and declining to make new ones. 
 It was some time after she had known 
 Letchsky that she decided to let him come 
 to the house, and I discovered that she had 
 been aware of my existence in London for 
 several months before she wrote to me. Of 
 the price that she had paid for her pride 
 her face was only too eloquent a witness, 
 and as I thought of that long nightmare of 
 self-imposed imprisonment I felt sick with 
 pity. I tried, very clumsily, to express my
 
 MARIA 163 
 
 sympathy, but she cut me short. "What's 
 the use of living if one doesn't see things 
 through?" she said. "Facts are facts, and 
 one has to face them." I was absolutely 
 determined that the present fact had been 
 faced, in all its sordid ugliness, far too long ; 
 I felt that I would contrive to uproot and 
 banish the disastrous Ellen even if I had to 
 kidnap her by night in a sack ; but I knew 
 that it would be worse than futile to confide 
 this resolution to Maria. 
 
 Now that the long hidden secret was out 
 she seemed to find comfort in telling me all 
 the details connected with it. The story was 
 not a beautiful one, and I found myself 
 wondering more and more how she had 
 found strength to fulfil her self-appointed 
 duty ; I am not remarkably sensitive, but I 
 know that if I had been caught in such a 
 sinister tangle of circumstances I should 
 either have become a lunatic or have fled 
 irrevocably. We are all very wise nowadays 
 in our analysis of the feminine temperament ; 
 every one of us can generalise cheerfully 
 concerning its passions, its prejudices, its 
 rapid instincts and amazing blindnesses, but 
 has any just and sagacious estimate ever 
 been made of the patient courage of women ?
 
 164 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 She would have willingly continued to talk, 
 I believe, throughout the night ; several times, 
 when I tried to depart, she begged me to 
 remain. At midnight I insisted on her going 
 to bed, and she came with me down the wide 
 stairs to the front door. The house was 
 absolutely silent and, I realised almost with 
 a shudder, oppressively sinister; in the dim 
 light the various pieces of Victorian furniture 
 seemed to crouch like a slumbering herd of 
 heavy beasts. I went into the dining-room 
 to find a cigarette, and switched on the lights. 
 From above the mantelpiece the shrewd little 
 blue eyes of old Mr Bastable watched me in- 
 tently, with the air, more than ever, of having 
 made a successful and satirical jest at my 
 expense. . . . 
 
 I passed the greater part of the next day 
 in a fruitless endeavour to concoct some 
 scheme which would result in the banish- 
 ment of Ellen; I could find no argument 
 which would be likely to overrule Maria's 
 determination to stand by her sister to the 
 end. Therefore it was with hearty relief that 
 I heard her voice on the telephone late that 
 evening, announcing the stupendous news 
 that Ellen had gone away had fled to a 
 hotel on the south coast in company with
 
 MARIA 165 
 
 the stalwart maid who usually attended her. 
 These were very joyful tidings ; even a tem- 
 porary respite for Maria was most desirable, 
 and I gave free rein to my astonishment and 
 satisfaction. 
 
 Maria did not seem to share, the first of 
 these emotions. " I thought she might want 
 to go away," she said. I demanded her 
 reason for expecting so unwonted an activity 
 on the part of Ellen ; she replied that it was 
 impossible for her to tell me on the telephone, 
 but added immediately afterwards, " She 
 knows that you saw her yesterday and it 
 worries her. She's very sensitive about 
 some things ; she can't bear the thought of 
 meeting you." I announced that if this was 
 a fact I should immediately settle in Bays- 
 water. Maria ignored this threat. "I don't 
 know that I ought to have let her go," she 
 said, " but Mary Ann, who was with us at 
 Ravensholme, will try to look after her, and 
 I felt after talking to you that I'd give any- 
 thing to have the house to myself for a 
 week. My nerve seems to have gone com- 
 pletely now that I've confided in some one." 
 At this moment a dreadful buzzing and 
 gurgling began in the telephone and she 
 rang off.
 
 166 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 My astonishment at Ellen's possessing a 
 sense of shame was almost forgotten in my 
 delight at her departure. She was out of 
 the house ; the next thing was to prevent 
 her return. I had wild thoughts of 
 begging her sister to send her a large sum 
 of money and all her parsonic socks, in the 
 hope that the combination of affluence, her 
 usual labours, and the air of the south coast 
 would prove lastingly attractive; I thought, 
 too, of imploring Maria to advertise instantly 
 for a companion and to go abroad for a year. 
 When I saw her again my hopes began to 
 multiply ; Maria, after the shock of Ellen's 
 abrupt exodus had passed away, was really 
 enjoying her solitude. It was actually the 
 first time, I discovered, that she had been 
 separated from Ellen since the latter came 
 to live with her after that luckless matri- 
 monial experiment. We celebrated the 
 occasion duly ; I dined with her nearly every 
 evening, and we went to every theatre that 
 was open and to all kinds of music halls ; I 
 gave tea-parties in the studio, during which 
 Maria sat with her finger pressed, so to 
 speak, on the very pulse of modern art ; we 
 shopped enormously, we visited Hampton 
 Court and Kew and Richmond, and we never
 
 MARIA 167 
 
 mentioned Ellen. Maria improved in appear- 
 ance rapidly ; the tired lines, at times, seemed 
 almost to have vanished from her face, and 
 as I regarded the tonic effect of Ellen's 
 absence, I felt a wicked yearning for that 
 dreadful person to be visited, during her 
 sojourn on the south coast, with an uncon- 
 trollable impulse to swim far across the 
 baths of ocean and never to come back 
 any more. 
 
 There was another change in Maria which 
 I viewed with complacency. She scarcely 
 spoke of Letchsky, and when I mentioned 
 him she dropped the subject very soon. He 
 did not appear in Bayswater during the first 
 fortnight of Ellen's absence ; and afterwards, 
 when he came in one evening to play, she 
 snapped at him and contradicted everything 
 that he said. Letchsky was at first plainly 
 amused at this display of the primitive 
 feminine emotions, and lured her on to 
 further extravagance ; subsequently, to my 
 astonishment, he became irritated, answered 
 her loudly and rudely, and then detached 
 himself from our society and wandered round 
 the room looking gloomily at the late Mr 
 Bastable's painful collection of pictures. 
 Later, when I went downstairs with him, he
 
 168 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 confided to me that there were moments in 
 his life when he vowed that he would never 
 enter the house again. "It's a hopelessly 
 unreal atmosphere," he said; "it makes me 
 pant." I remarked that he had made this 
 discovery rather late in the day. The way 
 in which he glowered at me showed that he 
 understood the innuendo. He went out with 
 a loud banging of the door. 
 
 When I re-entered the drawing-room Maria 
 made no allusion to him, but spoke for the 
 first time of Ellen. She had received from 
 the faithful Mary Ann a letter informing her 
 that Ellen was contented with the south 
 coast, and that no unseemly event had 
 occurred. "Mary Ann has managed to keep 
 everything from her," she added. I answered 
 her, I suppose, brutally. "Oh! give her 
 everything she wants," I cried, "if only she'll 
 stay away!" Maria was shocked. "I won't 
 let you talk like that," she said. After a 
 moment she added pensively, " Poor Ellen ! 
 I sometimes feel very sorry. I'm not sure 
 that I shan't go down to her soon." 
 
 I rose, disgusted. " Oh ! your fatal sense 
 of duty ! " I cried, as I took her hand. 
 
 " It's not ! " snapped Maria indignantly.
 
 MARIA 169 
 
 XI. 
 
 It was a week later, I think, that the 
 dinner-party took place. Maria had adjured 
 Letchsky to make Miss Steinmann expect 
 only the simplest entertainment, but the 
 feast in reality recalled to my mind all the 
 heavy splendours of Ravensholme ; the gold 
 plate gleamed ; there was a profusion of hot- 
 house flowers, and merely the sight of the 
 menu made me feel like a Roman Emperor 
 of the decadence. Mr Bastable's brownest 
 sherry, Mrs Bastable's sweetest champagne, 
 had been disinterred from the cellar where 
 they had languished so long in darkness ; 
 there was a liqueur, I believe, after every 
 course I remember distinctly being offered 
 one with the partridges and when the 
 banquet was only half finished there were 
 sorbets and cigarettes. 
 
 Miss Steinmann, as I had foreseen, looked 
 magnificent beneath Maria's too brilliant 
 electric lights. She wore a dress of shimmer- 
 ing purple, which was certainly not designed 
 to conceal the contours of her fine figure 
 she had the most beautiful arms and 
 shoulders that I had ever seen and she
 
 170 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 moved with the deliberate majesty of some 
 splendid animal. Maria, who had put on 
 her best frock and too many diamonds, 
 looked grey and shrunken beside her, yet 
 kept an odd little air of neat distinction 
 which formed the quaintest contrast with 
 the opulent, almost aggressive beauty of the 
 girl. Physically, Miss Steinmann was exactly 
 at her zenith ; a little more flesh, a few 
 coarse lines about her mouth, would ruin 
 her charm and make her look like an over- 
 blown peony ; but for the moment she was 
 a glorious type : I felt that I would give a 
 good deal to paint her in a scarlet dress 
 with a dead-white rose in her hair. 
 
 Besides her beauty, there was another ob- 
 vious fact about her : she was tremendously 
 in love with Letchsky. Her affection was 
 not manifested in her speech she addressed 
 him with brusque camaraderie but when 
 she looked at him there was the unmistak- 
 able light in her eyes, the steadfast fire that 
 has no counterfeit and wakes irritation or 
 envy in the heart of the luckless male who 
 observes but does not evoke it. It had the 
 same effect, apparently, on a female heart ; 
 we had only been seated at the dinner-table 
 for a very short time when I realised that
 
 MARIA 171 
 
 Maria was in the worst of tempers, though 
 at first she made a moderately successful 
 attempt to be polite. Before dinner she had 
 informed me that she regretted her remarks 
 concerning Miss Steinmann, and had made 
 up her mind to like her. It was plain, very 
 soon to me, if not to the others, that she 
 had set herself a task beyond her powers. 
 In fact, she was at her worst ; she fidgeted 
 nervously, watched Letchsky, who was as 
 garrulous as ever, with a strained expression, 
 and kept on breaking into the conversation 
 with shrill, emphatic utterances, which 
 plainly showed that she had not listened to 
 a word that the previous speaker had said. 
 On several occasions she contradicted some 
 very inoffensive remark with quite un- 
 necessary vehemence, and once she said 
 something to Miss Steinmann which was 
 nothing less than a severe snub. I must 
 record that Miss Steinmann behaved very 
 well ; after a while, however, I saw her look 
 at Maria with a long, meditative stare, and 
 thenceforth she addressed herself almost 
 entirely to Letchsky and me. Evidently she 
 had decided that Maria was exactly what she 
 appeared to be at the moment a waspish 
 and virulent old maid. Some queer telepathy
 
 172 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 must exist between women ; Maria plainly re- 
 alised that her guest had summed up against 
 her, and she became more irritable than ever. 
 Personally, I liked Miss Steinmann. She 
 was a modern type ; slangy but intelligent, 
 with almost superabundant vitality and a 
 distinctly humorous trick of speech. I 
 suspect that throughout her life she had 
 managed to get everything she wanted ; but 
 she was not arrogant, only calmly self- 
 confident, and her tolerance of Maria's rude- 
 ness there is really no other word for it 
 did her great credit. They made, as I said, 
 the most acute contrast ; but towards the 
 end of that sumptuous and uncomfortable 
 repast I caught myself thinking treacherously 
 that one quality which formed a conspicuous 
 virtue in women was wholly lacking in Maria 
 a natural ease in dealing with difficult 
 situations. As soon as Maria's nerves were 
 upset she became as primitive as a Poly- 
 nesian ; she cast off the garments of civility 
 and laid about her mentally, so to speak, 
 with a wild and inconsequent hatchet. In 
 essential things in kindness and whole- 
 hearted devotion, in breeding even she was 
 doubtless immeasurably superior to Miss Stein- 
 mann, but there was no doubt, also, which
 
 MARIA 173 
 
 of them on any given occasion would have 
 the first prize for behaviour. The girl's easy 
 manner was remarkable, especially when 
 one was certain that she was yearning at 
 heart for the moment when she would be 
 safely outside the front door. Her self- 
 possession was complete enough to prevent 
 one from being sorry for her, but I felt 
 angry with Maria, who seemed to find a 
 vicious pleasure in showing her really admir- 
 able self to the greatest possible disadvantage. 
 Letchsky was, I think, the only member 
 of the party who derived enjoyment from 
 the situation ; he discoursed to us, as usual, 
 with abundant eloquence, and ate and drank 
 as if he had been starving for a week 
 instead of lunching at the Carlton with his 
 fiancee. At intervals, when Maria had been 
 lured by him to further excesses of vitriolic 
 speech, he looked at me with eyes that were 
 charged with malicious intelligence. Maria 
 scarcely spoke directly to him ; but once, 
 when she addressed him by his Christian 
 name, she turned abruptly to Miss Stein- 
 mann. "You don't mind my calling him 
 that, do you?" she demanded. Miss Stein- 
 mann displayed complete unconcern. "Why 
 on earth should I ? " she said calmly, and
 
 174 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Maria winced. Obviously she had hoped 
 that Miss Steinmann would mind ; she saw 
 herself, poor sentimental Maria, as a possible 
 rival. " I don't know, only people are so 
 funny about things ! " she murmured. I 
 remarked drearily that every one seemed to 
 call every one else by his Christian name 
 nowadays, and Maria replied that it was a 
 stupid habit unless people were really fond 
 of each other. No jealous fires appeared to 
 burn in Miss Steinmann's truly magnificent 
 bosom ; she smiled pleasantly and continued 
 to eat her pfche Melba. 
 
 It was a great relief to me when the feast 
 came to an end with coffee and more liqueurs. 
 Maria in reality disliked tobacco ; when she 
 smoked a cigarette she always had the air 
 of a child pretending to enjoy its first 
 clandestine whiff ; on that evening, however, 
 she managed to dispose of two, and then 
 she made a signal to me. " We'll go up- 
 stairs," she said, and turning to the others, 
 added, " You children may go into my room 
 and have another cigarette." Miss Stein- 
 mann seemed surprised and also rose. " Oh 
 no, thanks," she answered. "We'll come 
 upstairs with you and Paul shall play." 
 
 Paul played, I suppose, for nearly an hour.
 
 MARIA 175 
 
 Miss Steinmann sat in a deep arm-chair and 
 contemplated the fire ; her heavy eyelids 
 drooped ; I am not certain that she did not 
 indulge in a brief slumber. Maria sat bolt 
 upright on a sofa near her, watching Letch- 
 sky, whose yellow mane kept on falling over 
 his eyes. He played finely, as usual, but 
 Maria did not seem to be deriving enjoyment 
 from his performance ; indeed, from her 
 expression one would have imagined that he 
 was causing her to suffer almost excruciating 
 anguish. I found myself becoming annoyed 
 with her ; it really was ridiculous that she 
 should take this very ordinary event so 
 much to heart and treat the unoffending 
 Miss Steinmann as if she were a wily sup- 
 planter. . . . After all, Letchsky wasn't her 
 only friend. . . . Soon afterwards she for- 
 sook her sofa and came to sit near me. I 
 saw then that the tears had started to her 
 eyes, but I am afraid that even this harrow- 
 ing spectacle left me cold ; she really was, 
 I thought, too absurdly sentimental. I pre- 
 tended not to observe her emotion, and kept 
 my eyes fixed on Letchsky with an expression 
 of intelligent interest. Presently I felt Maria 
 touch my sleeve. 
 
 "Do you think I was very rude?" she
 
 176 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 asked in a whisper. "Fairly," I answered, 
 still gazing at Letchsky. Maria sniffed. " I 
 know, I know!" she said. "But I couldn't 
 help it. I felt as if I had a sort of malicious 
 devil inside me. Something seemed to make 
 me go on giving her chances to score off 
 me all round. And she did, didn't she?" 
 
 I glanced apprehensively at Miss Stein- 
 mann, but that beautiful person was appar- 
 ently lost in slumber or drowsy meditation. 
 
 "She behaved properly," I said. 
 
 "And I didn't, you mean," retorted Maria. 
 " I suppose I was dreadful, but I don't really 
 care. It's the end, anyhow, and it may as 
 well come now as later on. It was bound 
 to come, wasn't it?" 
 
 " The end of what ? " I inquired. Maria 
 made an impatient movement. "You know 
 what I mean," she said. " She hates me." 
 
 " Oh, nonsense ! " 
 
 "She hates me," repeated Maria. "And 
 as soon as they go to - night she'll make 
 him promise never to come here again. I 
 saw it in her face when she looked at him. 
 Then, of course, I didn't care what I said," 
 she concluded with another sniff. 
 
 " It's all a fuss about nothing," I said. 
 " You'll all be very good friends. What's
 
 MARIA 177 
 
 the use of being tragic?" Maria looked 
 offended. " I feel tragic ! " she said. Even 
 as she made this declaration, Letchsky rose 
 from the piano. " If you people are going 
 to talk, I may as well stop," he said cheer- 
 fully. Miss Steinmann opened her eyes, 
 looked at him, and then rose slowly and 
 gracefully and walked to where Maria was 
 sitting. " I hope you will come to see me 
 some day," she said. I saw Maria screw up 
 her eyes and bite her lips, and I felt unhappy. 
 
 " You know you don't really want me ! " 
 she cried. Miss Steinmann looked at her 
 for a moment, smiling vaguely, as a polite 
 but critical person smiles at a bad joke ; 
 then, without speaking, she shook hands 
 with me and sailed nobly out of the room. 
 Remorse, I suppose, must have seized Maria, 
 for she murmured something about Miss 
 Steinmann's cloak and started in pursuit. 
 Letchsky and I lingered for a moment out- 
 side the drawing-room door talking. 
 
 " I may as well tell you," said Letchsky, 
 " that we're going to be married very soon. 
 It's a farcical ceremony, but old Sir Julius 
 seems to want it in a church, you know, 
 with patent-leather boots, and parsons, and 
 the dreadful thing from ' Lohengrin.' " 
 
 M
 
 178 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "I congratulate you very heartily," I said. 
 " Miss Steinmann is both beautiful and wise." 
 
 " Oh, she's more sense than most of 'em," 
 said this devout lover airily. " By the way, 
 do you remember my telling you that I 
 should have to marry money? I suppose 
 you think I'm doing that now. Well, I'm 
 not. I fell in love with her before I knew 
 she had a farthing. That's partly why she 
 likes me. But of course you don't believe 
 that, do you?" 
 
 Letchsky had his defects, but he was not 
 a liar. There was a luminous candour in 
 his dark eyes, and I believed him at once. 
 At the same time I felt greatly amused at 
 this characteristic parade of his own virtue. 
 " You were born lucky," I said ; " you've 
 increased your self-respect and gained ma- 
 terial rewards as well." He grinned. 
 
 "Old Sir Julius is pretty nearly a million- 
 aire," he said, "and Ada's his only child. I 
 expect you'll have to paint my portrait now. 
 Do you think you could manage to break the 
 news gently to Maria ? " 
 
 I was about to reply, when a peculiar 
 sequence of sounds arose from the hall. I 
 heard voices raised in sharp altercation, a 
 heavy shuffling of feet, and then an ugly
 
 MAEIA 179 
 
 kind of strangled cry. A bell rang violently, 
 and there were more footsteps. Letchsky 
 and I looked a tone another and made for 
 the stairs. As we reached the angle of the 
 balustrade we heard the sound of a closing 
 door. Maria came towards us. " It's all 
 right," she said; "it's nothing!" Her face 
 was a direct contradiction to the words. 
 Miss Steinmann was standing near the hall 
 door wrapped in a shimmering opera cloak ; 
 she was looking extremely startled, but she 
 said nothing. She made an imperious signal 
 to Letchsky ; he shook hands with Maria, and 
 a moment later they had vanished into the 
 night. 
 
 " What has happened ? " I asked. Maria 
 stood close to me, trembling. For some time 
 she seemed unable to speak. 
 
 " She has come back," she said at last in 
 a low voice. 
 
 "Ellen?" I cried. She nodded. I noticed 
 that the pupils of her eyes were widely 
 dilated ; she was white, and looked almost 
 ghastly. " You mean that she came just 
 now? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes," she answered. " She came in just 
 before we went down. She was alone; she 
 got away from Mary Ann. Oh, Arthur!"
 
 180 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 she cried suddenly ; " she was dreadful, per- 
 fectly dreadful!" 
 
 "You mean " I began. She nodded 
 
 slowly. " Worse than ever," she said. " She 
 insulted Miss Steinmann, and said horrible 
 words to me. Luckily she didn't see Paul. 
 One of the servants took her away almost 
 had to carry her." Her lips quivered ; she 
 looked at me with desperate eyes. " This 
 really is the end ! " she said. 
 
 " It must be," I agreed. " If you let her 
 stay here you'll have cheerful scenes of this 
 kind happening every day. Give her her 
 money and shoot her off; it's dangerous to 
 have her in the house." 
 
 " I didn't mean that," said Maria. She 
 walked into the dining - room and stood 
 looking for some moments at the picture of 
 old Mr Bastable. Then she sank into a 
 chair and pressed her hands against her 
 temples. 
 
 "Oh, I'm tired, tired!" she cried. Her 
 body seemed to shrink into itself ; she looked 
 pitiably small and frail. " One can't go on 
 fighting for ever, can one?" she added, after 
 another interval. 
 
 " There's no need to try," I said. " You 
 kept the secret for a long time, but it's out
 
 MARIA 181 
 
 now ; we all know, and we know how brave 
 you've been. Give it up ; don't go on making 
 your own life a hell when everything can be 
 arranged so simply. Any doctor would insist 
 on your living apart." 
 
 Maria nodded slowly. 
 
 " Yes, I give it up," she said. " Everything 
 can be arranged." 
 
 Even in the midst of my depression at 
 seeing her so miserable from this disgust- 
 ing contretemps, I was conscious of a com- 
 fortable thrill of relief. Maria had yielded ; 
 she would strive no more ; she would find 
 peace at last. " You won't change your 
 mind to-morrow?" I said sternly. 
 
 A wan smile flickered for a moment over 
 her face. 
 
 "No, not to-morrow. Never any more," 
 she answered. 
 
 XII. 
 
 I walked along the edge of the park, and 
 the fine night lured me into making the rest 
 of my journey on foot. I reached my house 
 just before midnight, and was taking off my 
 coat when the telephone bell rang. I placed 
 the receiver at my ear and heard an excited
 
 182 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 voice asking me to return at once to the 
 house in Bayswater. The mistress was ill, 
 very ill, it said. For a moment my thoughts 
 jumped towards Maria ; then I realised that, 
 of course, it was Ellen who was ill; retribu- 
 tion for her long depravity had seized her 
 at last. I felt no kind of sympathy with 
 Ellen, but fear that she had become violent 
 and was terrifying Maria made me ring up 
 a cab-stand at once, and five minutes later 
 I was whirling down the Edgware Road. 
 When I reached the house a tearful maid 
 opened the door. Her tears surprised me, 
 until I remembered that emotion for emo- 
 tion's sake is the first doctrine of her tribe. 
 "Is she very ill?" I asked. The maid held 
 her apron to her eyes. " Oh, sir," she said ; 
 " it was all over a half -hour ago, only we 
 didn't like to tell you on the telephone. She 
 had something for when she couldn't sleep, 
 and the doctor says she took too much. She 
 went straight to her room, and then we heard 
 her fall. She was dead before the doctor 
 could come." 
 
 So everything was solved at last. I hardly 
 care to state what I felt at that moment. " Is 
 he here still?" I asked. The maid stifled a 
 sob. "Yes, sir," she said; "he's upstairs in
 
 MARIA 183 
 
 the drawing - room, waiting for you. He 
 asked if there was any one sensible we could 
 send for." I took off my coat. "Where's 
 Miss Maria ? " I demanded. 
 
 The maid she was a pretty, round-cheeked 
 creature of about eighteen stared at me for 
 a long moment as if I were a spectre, then 
 she uttered a stifled cry. 
 
 " Oh, sir, didn't you understand ? " she 
 said. 
 
 I felt a horrible sensation of sickness. 
 
 " What ! you don't mean ? " I began. She 
 
 nodded, still staring at me with appalled 
 eyes. The lights in the hall seemed to 
 swing like a thousand censers. I took a 
 step forward, trembling violently. At that 
 moment, from behind the door of Ellen's 
 room, a voice rose, a raucous yet cheerful 
 voice, which sang emphatically 
 
 You ask me why I love, when love should be 
 A thing unheard of, DEAD, 'twixt you and me. 
 
 A wild burst of laughter followed, then 
 silence. The little servant forgot that she 
 was a servant and clung to my arm. She 
 was shivering with terror and sobbed loudly. 
 " Oh, sir," she cried ; " if only our Lord had 
 seen fit ! If only it had been her that was
 
 184 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 taken ! " I shook her from my arm and ran 
 past that accursed door. As I rushed up- 
 stairs I heard the noise of her sobs mingled 
 with the song of Ellen. . . . The doctor must 
 have thought me a madman. . . .
 
 THE PHANTOM
 
 THE PHANTOM. 
 
 As he went down the narrow staircase he 
 encountered a group of women who were 
 talking too loudly and had the peculiar, 
 slightly defiant air of independence which 
 is occasionally to be observed in ladies' 
 clubs. They stared at him for a moment ; 
 the New Epoch was not large, and they 
 were all aware that he was engaged to the 
 eccentric young woman who invariably took 
 possession of the lilac boudoir and glared 
 like a Medusa at any one who ventured to 
 look in at the door. Their voices became 
 less noisy as he passed them a change 
 which he felt dimly, and perhaps unjustly, 
 to be only another symptom of their dis- 
 gusting manners and he noticed that one
 
 188 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 of them, a stout lady with short white hair, 
 gold-rimmed spectacles, and an aspect half- 
 pugilistic, half - prof essorial, observed him 
 with a look of pity. No doubt, he thought, 
 she was one of those modern monsters who 
 reviled marriage, and regarded any one who 
 was "engaged" as a lost soul. However, 
 there was no reason for her to worry. 
 Afterwards it seemed to him extraordinary 
 that these thoughts had come into his mind 
 at such a moment. He passed the group of 
 talkers and continued to descend the stairs, 
 still hoping that he might hear a door 
 above open suddenly and the sound of swift 
 feet that followed him, as had so often hap- 
 pened. . . . Through the glass panels of the 
 smoking - room he was able to see various 
 young women who lounged or lay in more 
 or less unconventional attitudes ; they wore 
 very tight skirts and most apparent stock- 
 ings ; they smoked cigarettes and read re- 
 grettable illustrated magazines. The sight 
 of these fairly inoffensive young persons 
 depressed him yet more, and, in the usual 
 manner of the short - sighted male, he 
 promptly assigned them to a class from 
 which, in all probability, they were per- 
 fectly remote. Bachelor women ! The hate-
 
 THE PHANTOM 189 
 
 ful phrase, the vile contradiction in terms, 
 rang in his brain like the trumpet of an 
 ignorant host that had taken up arms 
 against nature and was ravening amid the 
 ruins of ancient beauty and simplicity ; ac- 
 counting motherhood a burden and marriage 
 a bore, and generally upsetting a thoroughly 
 nice man's notions of their functions in the 
 scheme of life. And these were the com- 
 panions whom Edith was to join; this was 
 the environment in which, as she phrased 
 it, she would feel free to expand ! He 
 turned in disgust from the spectacle of 
 those happily unconscious ladies, took his 
 hat and stick from the hall - porter, who 
 always had the air of a man suffering from 
 a large overdose of female society, and went 
 out into the chilly November twilight. 
 
 When he entered his room in the tiny 
 house in Barton Street which she was to 
 have shared with him, he sat down at his 
 writing - table and stared, not at Edith's 
 photograph, but at the portrait of a defunct 
 female relative which hung on the wall 
 above it. His old aunt had been right she 
 was always right ; she had invariably pro- 
 phesied that if the ship of his life were 
 wrecked the fatal rock would be a passion
 
 190 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 for a woman. Her fine, ironical old eyes 
 looked down on him from the picture with 
 an expression that seemed almost trium- 
 phant; her firm lips seemed about to part 
 and to say, " I warned you, I warned you ; 
 with your temperament what else could 
 you expect?" His temperament that was 
 the root of the evil! Edith was not to 
 blame ; she had been passionately devoted 
 to him ; it was his fatal critical propensity 
 that had ruined everything, his idiotic habit 
 of comparing her mentally with any woman 
 whom he happened to meet, and of feeling 
 annoyed because she did not possess certain 
 qualities which he detected, or imagined that 
 he detected, in the new acquaintance. Could 
 any attitude have been more insulting ? And 
 yet he had loved her intensely, and, now that 
 the blow had fallen, felt as if all his life- 
 blood had been drained away. He thought 
 of her, and in the midst of his pain felt a 
 strange thrill of pity for her in her loneli- 
 ness ; she had seemed to depend on him so 
 absolutely, with so beautiful a self-surrender! 
 That she had broken off the engagement 
 was nothing, he knew ; it was his own be- 
 haviour which had rendered the final rupture 
 inevitable, and it mattered very little whose
 
 THE PHANTOM 191 
 
 hand actually severed the formal tie. She 
 would perhaps find it difficult to live with- 
 out him, but he had made her realise, 
 through his folly, that it would be harder 
 to live with him. Looking backward with 
 the sharpened vision of despair, he told him- 
 self that the curse of his life had been that 
 perverted idealism, that propensity to think, 
 in his old aunt's words, that whatever wasn't 
 was right. He had grown so accustomed to 
 regret that Edith didn't possess certain imag- 
 inary virtues of dignity or reticence, that he 
 had lost all capacity for realising how her 
 candid joy in their love, and her complete 
 self-abandonment to him, were divine quali- 
 ties, treasures for which a man might search 
 from end to end of the earth and yet return 
 empty-handed. The thought of his last vision 
 of her face made him feel as if he had hurled 
 her to the ground and trampled on her slender 
 throat. What a brute he had been through- 
 out their engagement ! A clumsy, surly, 
 stupid brute and she had been so gay, so 
 dainty, so like a happy child ! He had cor- 
 rected her, and contradicted her, and over- 
 whelmed her with inept and unwieldy irony, 
 and she had never shown any resentment. 
 " Please notice me ! " was her only rebuke
 
 192 
 
 when he was more than usually sullen. He 
 had snubbed her, too, just because she was 
 ignorant of a great number of stupid and 
 tedious facts which boys are taught at 
 school, but really she was much cleverer 
 than he was ; he had snorted with im- 
 patience when she flattened her small nose 
 against shop windows, and then he had 
 dragged her for miles to hunt up some 
 ugly piece of furniture. So his thoughts 
 ran on, with the grotesque and the tragic 
 weirdly intermingled ; and meanwhile, Edith, 
 having cried heartily for half an hour, dried 
 her eyes, blew her nose, put on her hat, and 
 wrote to her dearest friend to announce that 
 she had broken off her engagement ; that it 
 was much the best thing that could possibly 
 happen ; that everything was entirely her 
 own fault; that she was perfectly miserable, 
 and had firmly decided to become a nun, 
 from which we may conclude that her al- 
 leged desire for freedom to expand was 
 merely a fiction uttered from motives of 
 pride or of kindness.
 
 THE PHANTOM 193 
 
 II. 
 
 A fortnight passed slowly, and at the end 
 of it he was more miserable than ever. He 
 shunned his friends, and the life of complete 
 loneliness that he led was certainly not a 
 remedy for his aching heart. He tried to 
 work, but the effort resulted in failure ; he 
 could only sit, pen in hand, thinking of the 
 past two years, and feeling at the end of 
 each dreary day that one more barrier had 
 come between them. Gradually her person- 
 ality which, during their engagement, had 
 often seemed misty and unreal when he was 
 not actually with her, became almost super- 
 naturally complete to him ; he recalled all 
 the varying light and shade of her expres- 
 sion, all her gestures, and realised the sig- 
 nificance of a thousand utterances which 
 had formerly seemed meaningless. Some- 
 times he felt that some ironical god had 
 dowered him, from truly godlike motives of 
 malice, with the power of understanding, 
 with an unerring appreciation of her fine- 
 ness ; on other occasions he would tell 
 himself that he was a waverer, a senti- 
 mental fool, and would try to remember 
 
 N
 
 194 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 her defects : how she had irritated him, how 
 she had laughed at people whom he thought 
 important, and behaved like a frivolous 
 butterfly when he was as solemn as a high 
 priest. The attempt, however, brought him 
 little consolation ; her defects, from his 
 present point of view, seemed to have 
 undergone some magical change ; one and 
 all of them had blossomed into actual 
 qualities. As time went on, another tor- 
 ment began to haunt him : the desire for 
 her physical presence became almost in- 
 tolerable; he remembered her kisses, her 
 clinging hands, the perfume of her hair, 
 her breath upon his face. . . . When he 
 closed his eyes he was able to conjure up 
 a dim illusion of her figure in the coloured 
 darkness of his brain. 
 
 He endured these tortures for another 
 week, and then he wrote her a letter in 
 which he called himself all black names and 
 implored her forgiveness. When he had sent 
 it he found that the load on his heart was 
 greatly lightened ; after all, he thought, there 
 was still a chance that she would relent; it 
 must seem as impossible to her as it was to 
 him that so deep an intimacy should cease 
 for ever with such brutal abruptness. And
 
 THE PHANTOM 195 
 
 if she relented, how he would atone for all 
 his folly, his bearishness, his superior airs ! 
 The thought of that willing penance made 
 him almost happy, but when a week went 
 by without bringing any answer to his letter, 
 he relapsed into a condition of gloom. For 
 a while he felt a certain lively resentment 
 which kept him from brooding very deeply, 
 and then the obsession of her memory returned 
 with a doubled force, blotting out everything 
 actual, haunting him like his own shadow. 
 In the silence of night he would seem to 
 listen to her voice, and see her eyes gleam- 
 ing in the darkness. Often, as he sat in 
 his lonely room, he would hear a sound 
 like the noise of rapid feet on the stair, 
 and he would rush to the door, fling it open, 
 and stand breathlessly waiting. But as yet 
 she did not come. 
 
 III. 
 
 He was sitting in his room on a wild 
 December evening, when the wind was 
 howling round the Barton Street chimney- 
 pots, and flaws of rain were driving against 
 his window. By that time he had progressed
 
 196 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 from a state of dim wonder as to whether 
 life would ever be worth living to one of 
 savage certainty that it wouldn't; he had 
 become, his friends observed, permanently 
 morose, and shunned human intercourse like 
 a leper. His fire had gone out, and the room 
 was very cold, but he was past caring for 
 such commonplace discomfort, and crouched 
 at his desk, staring at a sheet of paper and 
 holding in his chilly fingers a pen on which 
 the ink had dried. 
 
 Suddenly, without any warning, the miracle 
 happened. He had been thinking, as usual, 
 of Edith, adding up, for the hundredth time, 
 the sum of her vanished virtues and cursing 
 his own folly, when he felt an abrupt con- 
 viction that he was no longer alone. He 
 turned swiftly, and saw that Edith was 
 sitting in the arm-chair that was drawn close 
 to the dead fire. 
 
 For a full minute he sat motionless, staring 
 at her. His heart seemed to cease beating, 
 and there was a suffocating pain in his throat. 
 Then he rose from his chair, trembling. She 
 did not turn her head, but remained in an 
 attitude that was intensely characteristic 
 leaning forward and holding out both hands 
 towards the dead embers. Even when he
 
 THE PHANTOM 197 
 
 made a step towards her she did not move. 
 He gave a stifled cry, and then his tumultuous 
 sensations found relief in grotesque common- 
 place. 
 
 "Edith! How on earth did you come in?" 
 he said falteringly, absurdly. He was per- 
 fectly convinced that she was there in the 
 flesh ; he had always scoffed at the spiritualism 
 in which she believed. She turned her head 
 slowly, and when he saw her eyes he felt a 
 sudden thrill of something not remote from 
 fear. They were strangely large and bright 
 and preternaturally solemn. Then, very 
 gradually, she disappeared, fading to a thin 
 mist which kept her shape until his eyes 
 could discern it no longer. He uttered a cry 
 and held out his hands. "Come back, come 
 back ! " he groaned. For a moment the mist 
 returned, showing him the dim mirage of her 
 face ; then it vanished completely. 
 
 He Avalked with uncertain steps to his desk 
 and sat there with his head resting on his 
 hands. For some time the shock produced 
 by the apparition seemed to have slain all 
 his power of thought, but gradually he re- 
 covered his self - control and was able to 
 regard the staggering event from a rational 
 standpoint. Of course it was the result of a
 
 198 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 morbid condition of his own brain ; it was 
 one of those hallucinations which he had 
 formerly believed to afflict only persons 
 neurotic to the verge of imbecility ; it was 
 a definite warning from Nature that he was 
 succumbing to the influence of a fixed idea. 
 Yet why, since it was merely a composite 
 image of his idea of Edith, had there been 
 that strange expression in its eyes an ex- 
 pression which, as he now realised, had been 
 absolutely different from any aspect of the 
 real Edith ? It had a beauty that was wholly 
 unearthly ; it had awakened in him, he felt, 
 a breathless sense of awe. He meditated over 
 this problem for a long while, and then, 
 suddenly, the mystery became clear. The 
 vision which he had seen was not merely a 
 composite image of his idea of her personality; 
 it was the presentment of his own ideal, of 
 all that he had imagined her to be since he 
 had lost her. Certainly this theory was not 
 precisely flattering to the real Edith, but it 
 accounted excellently for the strange and 
 splendid perfection of the apparition. He 
 watched the chair by the fireplace for several 
 hours, and at frequent intervals he made 
 violent efforts to will the return of the 
 phantom, but without any success. He even
 
 THE PHANTOM 199 
 
 went to his desk and, sitting in the exact 
 attitude which had been his when the vision 
 arrived, tried to fall into the train of thought 
 which had preceded that appearance. This, 
 too, proved fruitless ; and at last, feeling ut- 
 terly worn out by a long and nerve- wracking 
 vigil, he went to bed. Just before he turned 
 out the light, he took up Edith's photograph 
 and looked at it closely. He had not been 
 wrong ; the vision had been absolutely dif- 
 ferent, more dignified, more gracious, finer 
 in every respect. The photograph reproduced 
 with great fidelity Edith's characteristic air 
 of slightly sophisticated gaminerie ; there had 
 been no trace of that in the grave and 
 splendid eyes of the phantom. He put down 
 the photograph, and realised next moment 
 with a thrill of almost guilty surprise that 
 he had been wondering how he should feel 
 if now, after this amazing event, the other 
 Edith, the one whom he had regarded as the 
 real Edith, came back to him. Would she 
 be the real Edith any more?
 
 200 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 IV. 
 
 She returned next day, the phantom Edith, 
 at almost the same time in the evening. 
 He was sitting at his desk when he again 
 became conscious of her presence, and turning, 
 he saw her in the arm-chair by the fire. There 
 was a loud singing in his ears and a burning 
 pain in his temples, but he felt perfectly calm. 
 Since she was merely, he thought, the creation 
 of his own brain, it was probable that by a 
 strong effort of will he could prevent her 
 from disappearing, for a whiJe at any rate. 
 He remained rigidly quiet, watching her. 
 
 She sat in the same attitude that she had 
 taken on the previous day, curved towards the 
 fire, which was burning brightly. He noticed 
 that against the flames her fingers seemed 
 opaque, or, at any rate, not more transparent 
 than a delicate human hand. She wore a 
 black dress which he did not know, and this 
 seemed to him remarkable ; apparently he 
 possessed the power of inventing new clothes 
 for her as well as a new expression. Her face 
 was strangely sad, and thinner than he had 
 ever known it. It was not pale, however, but 
 had the rich colour that he remembered so
 
 THE PHANTOM 201 
 
 well. As he gazed at her, he was more and 
 more astonished at the wonderful complete- 
 ness of the hallucination ; she was no dim 
 wraith, but apparently a tangible creature 
 of flesh and blood ; her clothes were actual 
 in every detail ; he looked in vain for any 
 sign that his imagination had failed ; he 
 could even see the rise and fall of her breast 
 as she breathed. He was visited by an almost 
 overwhelming desire to rush to her and take 
 her in his arms, but he managed to restrain 
 himself, remembering that on the previous 
 day she had begun to vanish as soon as he 
 moved. 
 
 He had watched her, it seemed to him, 
 for half an hour before she turned her face 
 slowly towards him. During that time he 
 was conscious of a deep sensation of peace, 
 an ineffable pleasure in being near to her, 
 in contemplating her new, tranquil loveliness. 
 When she turned she seemed to look through 
 rather than at him, as if he were the spirit 
 and she the blind mortal ; her eyes were again 
 widely open and darkly unfathomable ; her 
 lips were parted slightly. The sad beauty 
 of that exquisite face thrilled him like perfect 
 music ; he leant towards it slowly, staring 
 into those mysterious eyes, and then his
 
 202 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 self-control broke down ; he flung himself 
 towards her, crying her name, groping with 
 feverish hands. In a moment she vanished, 
 leaving him kneeling on the floor and clutch- 
 ing the empty air. 
 
 Several minutes passed before he rose, and 
 went slowly to his chair, pressing his hands 
 to his throbbing temples. He sat down, 
 feeling absolutely bewildered, and wondering 
 if madness were indeed come upon him. 
 Only an instant had passed between his 
 sudden movement and the disappearance of 
 the phantom, but he was certain that during 
 the instant his hands had touched a living 
 body, that there was warm breath in the lips 
 which had almost met his own. If this was 
 another hallucination, it implied a serious 
 condition of mental disorder ; he remembered 
 his old theory that people who believed in 
 the materialisation of spirits usually died 
 mad. The thing had gone too far ; he must 
 adopt strong measures to fight a malady 
 that was nothing but the result of ill-health 
 and trouble ; he must destroy his fixed idea, 
 But could he destroy it? The thought of 
 the face which had touched his own made 
 his brain reel ; he was assailed with a suc- 
 cession of acute nervous tremors, and felt
 
 THE PHANTOM 203 
 
 wretchedly weak. To banish that, even if 
 its banishment were in his power, would 
 life be worth living without it? 
 
 In the cold light of morning, however, the 
 strange event seemed to have a distinctly 
 morbid aspect ; he felt tired and ill, and 
 resolved to avoid, if possible, any repetition 
 of the experience for several days. He went 
 for long walks and shunned his room during 
 the hours of early evening, returning late 
 at night when he was thoroughly sleepy. 
 His health very soon improved, and though 
 his heart was heavy with the old trouble, 
 he no longer felt the intolerable yearning 
 which, no doubt, had produced the hallucin- 
 ation. Indeed, as he became more healthy 
 in body and mind, the whole affair seemed 
 to him most unpleasantly abnormal, and he 
 began actually to dread its recurrence. More 
 than once, as he ascended the stairs, he felt 
 that the phantom might be in his room, and 
 he went out again and tramped the streets 
 until he was half-dead with fatigue. Gradu- 
 ally, however, the dread that he was haunted 
 became rarer, and at length he was able to 
 enter his room without a thrill of the heart. 
 It was only when he was possessed by a 
 definite conviction of the apparition having
 
 204 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 left him for ever that he began, almost un- 
 consciously, to desire that it should reappear. 
 The real Edith, meanwhile, had not answered 
 his letter. 
 
 About a fortnight later he returned to 
 his house at night, after being haunted all 
 day by an indefinable sense of uneasiness 
 which drove him to tramp many miles of 
 pavement. As soon as he entered his room, 
 where the single gas jet was turned low, 
 he realised that some one was in it ; but a 
 firm conviction that the intruder was a living 
 person seemed in some strange way to ex- 
 clude all fear that his hallucination had 
 returned. Then, next moment, a wave of 
 terrifying ecstasy seemed to sweep over him, 
 leaving him trembling and gasping for 
 breath ; he fell back against the wall. In 
 the dim light he saw her cross the room 
 swiftly, silently, then she was in his arms ; 
 her hair touched his brow, her breath was 
 on his face ; he could feel her hands pressed 
 hard upon his breast. He drew her close 
 and kissed her warm lips again and again. . . . 
 
 Afterwards, he supposed, he fainted, for 
 several hours later he found himself lying 
 on the floor in the empty room. An intense 
 languor oppressed him ; he was only able to
 
 THE PHANTOM 205 
 
 drag himself to his bedroom and to lie down, 
 fully clothed, on his bed. He fell instantly 
 into profound sleep. 
 
 V. 
 
 Next morning he awoke very late; and 
 lay for some time drowsily wondering why 
 he was so tired. Then, as memory of the 
 night's event returned, he felt real terror, 
 and rose, hoping that the act of dressing 
 would dissipate some part of his gloomy 
 forebodings. It was plain, he thought, that 
 he was in imminent danger of losing his 
 reason ; the old obsession had returned, 
 tremendously reinforced ; even in that 
 commonplace hour of morning he felt that 
 his power of resistance had gone ; and in 
 spite of his conviction that it would kill 
 him, or do worse, he felt that the desire 
 for a repetition of his last experience was 
 smouldering at the back of his brain, ready 
 to blaze forth at any moment in fatal flame. 
 There was only one thing that could save 
 him, and that one thing was, apparently, 
 impossible. 
 
 Yet it was characteristic of his strange
 
 206 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 capacity for wavering that, when he went 
 downstairs and saw a letter from Edith 
 lying on the table, he began to wonder if, 
 in the event of her relenting, a life spent 
 with her whilst the memory, or even the 
 actual presence, of the ideal Edith was 
 haunting him, would not be worse than his 
 present condition. How trivial her chatter 
 would seem after the silence of the phantom 
 that spoke only with those most eloquent 
 eyes ; how should he endure her pertness, 
 her frivolity, when his ideal was near him, 
 the beautiful wraith that had her physical 
 aspect, but was yet so different, so far aloof ? 
 With a great effort he broke from the coil 
 of such thoughts, and told himself that he 
 must regard the affair from Edith's point of 
 view ; that it was his gentlemanly duty to 
 obey her if she wished him to return, and 
 to try to make her happy. Then he opened 
 the letter. 
 
 It contained only a few lines. Edith, it 
 seemed, had been ill ; she was better, and 
 thanked him for writing. She would like 
 to see him ; until they had met he must 
 understand that she could decide nothing. 
 Would he come that afternoon? 
 
 He put down the letter and stared out of
 
 THE PHANTOM 207 
 
 the window for several minutes ; then he 
 wrote a telegram and rang for his servant. 
 He felt a thrill of excitement when the 
 message had gone, but this was succeeded 
 very soon by a strange sense of guilt. It 
 actually seemed to him that he had been 
 false to the lovely soul of his ideal, and he 
 dreaded the moment when he should meet 
 Edith, and realise the difference, the ghastly 
 difference. 
 
 She kept him waiting for some time in the 
 sitting-room of her little flat the Bachelor 
 Woman's flat and when, at last, she ap- 
 peared, she was very pale, and her face was 
 thinner than when they had parted. He 
 noticed that she kept her eyes turned away 
 from his own. As he looked at her a great 
 pity overwhelmed him. Poor girl, poor 
 girl ! if only she had written before this 
 change had happened in his life ! She sat 
 down by the fire with her back almost 
 turned to him, and stared into the grate. 
 The sight of her in this attitude afflicted 
 him oddly; a burning memory of the other, 
 the ideal, returned to him, and made him 
 feel that it was all impossible, that he could 
 never live with this Edith ; that madness, 
 if it were indeed madness, would be prefer-
 
 208 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 able. But he made a last immense effort, and 
 began to say what he conceived to be the right 
 thing, the gentlemanly thing. She listened for 
 some time and then she interrupted him. 
 
 "Don't say any more," she said. "I under- 
 stand." 
 
 He echoed the last word. 
 
 "Oh yes, I see it all," she said. "You ought 
 not to have written. You were lonely, and 
 made the mistake of thinking that you 
 wanted me. You've realised it now, but 
 feel that you can't tell me." 
 
 He attempted to protest. She interrupted 
 him again. 
 
 " I know exactly what has happened," she 
 said ; "I feel it. Since you wrote you have 
 met some one else." 
 
 At this he could not restrain a startled 
 exclamation. She moved her hands with a 
 quick, convulsive gesture. "It's true, isn't 
 it?" she said. 
 
 He did not answer for several moments. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "it's true in a sense. But 
 it wasn't any one real," he went on. "It 
 was I can't explain. You wouldn't under- 
 stand; you would think I was mad." 
 
 She stared at the fire ; he saw with amaze- 
 ment that she had begun to tremble.
 
 THE PHANTOM 209 
 
 "Who was it?" she asked in an almost 
 inaudible voice. 
 
 He made a feeble attempt at a laugh. 
 " You'll say it's absurd," he said. " I sup- 
 pose I was ill or mad. It was a hallucina- 
 tion a spirit, if you like. It came again 
 and again, and now " 
 
 "Well?" she said. 
 
 "It's grown more real to me than any- 
 thing in the world. Of course it's absurd. 
 Any doctor would tell you so. But to me 
 it's a fact ; a fact in in flesh and blood." 
 
 He blurted out the last words with extra- 
 ordinary emphasis. She shivered violently. 
 
 " Flesh and blood ! " she cried. Then she 
 turned to him, and for the first time he 
 saw her eyes closely. The sight made his 
 heart stop beating for what seemed an age ; 
 he stared at her with wild amazement, and 
 all power of speech seemed to leave him. 
 At last he uttered a strangled kind of cry. 
 
 " Why, it was you ! " he said. " It was 
 you all the time ! " 
 
 She looked at him solemnly without speak- 
 ing. Then she nodded very slowly. He sprang 
 up and went to her. 
 
 "What is it? What has happened? 
 You've changed ! There's something quite 
 
 o
 
 210 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 new " he gasped. There was wild wonder 
 
 in his eyes. He attempted to take her 
 hands ; she pointed to a chair. 
 
 "Wait," she said. "Let us find out all 
 the truth about this. How many times did 
 it happen?" 
 
 She was trembling still, but her voice was 
 calm. He sat down in the chair. 
 
 " Three times," he answered. " Twice at 
 half -past six and once at night." He paused 
 for a moment. "The last time was last 
 night," he said in a low voice. She turned 
 abruptly towards the fire. He uttered an- 
 other cry. "Why, that's the very dress that 
 you wore ! " he almost shouted. 
 
 "Listen," she said. "I'm going to tell you 
 something that you may believe or not as 
 you like ; to me it is absolute truth. Twice, 
 when I was very tired, I went to sleep in 
 the evening, and woke up to find myself 
 sitting with you in Barton Street. Each 
 time I felt like a spirit. I saw myself and 
 you dimly, as one sees people sometimes in 
 
 dreams ; but the last time " She broke 
 
 off suddenly. " It's extraordinary, it's extra- 
 ordinary ! " she said. " And the strangest part 
 of it all is that you seemed different from 
 what you used to be, and to-day you seem
 
 THE PHANTOM 211 
 
 different still. And you feel that about me, 
 don't you?" 
 
 He nodded. Then he rose and took her 
 hands. "Did I seem worse than ever?" he 
 asked gently. 
 
 She smiled. " No," she answered. " Only 
 well, different." 
 
 Then he knelt beside her. "Dear," he 
 said, " don't you think that we aren't really 
 different that we weren't different when 
 we met in that wonderful way but that we 
 have each found out the other's real self? 
 At any rate, I found out yours found out 
 that it is far finer than my stupid idea of 
 it in the old days. If you feel anything of 
 the same kind about me, there's obviously 
 only one thing to be done. We can't, you 
 know," he concluded, " continue to haunt 
 one another for the rest of our lives." 
 
 "No, I suppose not," said Edith. "It 
 would be very inconvenient." 
 
 So, for once, the ideals of two persons 
 were actually realised. It seems a pity that 
 neither of them, after being granted such 
 a truly magnificent experience, should take 
 any further interest in spiritualism. Per- 
 haps they are too happy to worry about
 
 212 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 what is, at best, a nerve-wracking business. 
 Edith, at any rate, is most materially con- 
 cerned with babies. Her husband is once 
 again a sceptic, though he is ready to ad- 
 mit that even the wisest and best of men 
 may become the dupe of their own hallu- 
 cinations, and that no estimate can be too 
 high of the rapport that exists between all 
 true lovers. At intervals he is still worried 
 by a doubt as to whether he was faithful 
 or wholly treacherous to Edith during that 
 strange time. Concerning this the initiated 
 shall decide.
 
 TWO GROTESQUES
 
 TWO GROTESQUES. 
 
 I. 
 HISTORY OF RIDOLFO. 
 
 RIDOLFO'S father began life low down in the 
 soap trade, but subsequently rose to great 
 eminence in politics, and invested his money 
 wisely. He was regarded as a real states- 
 man by the more enthusiastic members of 
 his Party, and conspired with bishops against 
 the disestablishment of Churches in countries 
 which did not want them. He married a 
 daughter of the Earl of Llanpumpsaint, and 
 Ridolfo was their only child. 
 
 From his earliest years Ridolfo was blessed 
 with an almost miraculous sense of class- 
 distinctions and an equally vivid conviction 
 of his own importance in the scheme of his
 
 216 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Creator. Indeed, when he was only three 
 years old, and was compelled by force to 
 attend a reception given by his father to 
 the school children of his constituency, he 
 smiled benignantly at the little ones when 
 they stood in a group and raised the war- 
 song of the Primrose League ; but when 
 they were brought up to him one by one, 
 he put out his tongue at them, and in- 
 formed them, in the patois of the nursery, 
 that they were dirty little brats. At the 
 age of six he knew the difference between 
 a marchioness and a countess, and was cold 
 to the latter if the former were present ; and 
 at twelve, when he went to his public 
 school, he was the most accomplished little 
 snob that ever wore Eton collars. 
 
 He had not been there many days, how- 
 ever, before the behaviour of the masters 
 and the conversations of the boys made him 
 realise that he was breathing an atmosphere 
 in which a new standard of values held 
 good. Important persons, instead of being 
 dukes and marchionesses, owed their emi- 
 nence to the fact either that they were 
 athletic heroes, or that they had a great 
 deal of pocket - money and lordly palaces 
 where one went to stay during the holi- 
 days. Ridolfo cultivated the acquaintance
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 217 
 
 of these celebrities with artistic care. Be- 
 ginning with those of lesser importance, he 
 rapidly ascended the social scale ; and as he 
 was moderately athletic, and had a father 
 who was on the way to becoming a great 
 man, and a mother who wore a coronet at 
 the Coronation, he experienced no great diffi- 
 culty in the glorious task which he had set 
 himself to accomplish. It is true that certain 
 rude athletes resolutely refused to become in- 
 timate with him, and that quiet and scholarly 
 boys disliked his conversation ; but as these 
 misguided persons were usually the sons of 
 colonels or clergymen whose names seldom 
 or never appeared in the papers, or suffered 
 transmutation to something new and strange 
 in the Birthday Honours, they really did not 
 matter to Ridolfo. Nor did he commit the 
 vulgar error of hunting for popularity ; 
 essentially an aristocrat, he held that friend- 
 ships should be few but firm, and should 
 follow by careful substitution rather than 
 by additions which were apt to make social 
 existence complicated. His theory of life 
 was well expressed by the poet who wrote 
 
 " I hold it true with him who sings 
 To one clear harp in divers tones, 
 That men should rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their best friends to higher things."
 
 218 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Therefore when Ridolfo, through his inti- 
 macy with the Honourable Bill Crossbones, 
 had grown acquainted with his elder brother 
 the Earl of Hatchment, and had realised that 
 the patrician charm of a younger son was 
 more highly developed in the heir to an 
 earldom, he became a valuable friend to 
 Hatchment, who disliked his brother, and 
 he dropped the Honourable Bill like a hot 
 potato. This was the one error in his career, 
 for Hatchment, shortly afterwards, succumbed 
 to a surfeit of green apples and sardines, 
 and the Honourable Bill became heir, and 
 remained cold to Ridolfo's subsequent ad- 
 vances for some time. 
 
 Long before he had left school, Ridolfo 
 became an adept in the art of judiciously 
 avoiding persons whom he had known in- 
 timately, but whose further acquaintance a 
 wider knowledge of the world taught him 
 would be useless and indeed detrimental to 
 his career. Of course he did not commit the 
 error of actually cutting them unless they 
 had turned out to be hopelessly humble, un- 
 popular, or unfortunate; usually he passed 
 them with a bright smile and a nod when 
 he was in the company that he had chosen, 
 but if he met them alone he became his old
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 219 
 
 delightful self, and very soon made them 
 begin to suspect that his coldness existed 
 only in their imaginations. Such procedure 
 was easy enough at school, but when he 
 went to the University of Oxford he found 
 that his task became more delicate ; young 
 men who had acquiesced in his desire that 
 they should drop into the background be- 
 came suddenly prominent, and appeared to 
 imagine that they were once again on terms 
 of equality with him. Ridolfo realised very 
 soon that there was only one mode of treat- 
 ment for these tactless dolts ; he began to cut 
 them in the street. In order to convince the 
 world of his impartiality, he chose the former 
 Honourable Bill, now Lord Hatchment, as his 
 first subject, and when that august personage, 
 who had advanced towards him with out- 
 stretched hand, stood staring at him blankly 
 as he moved majestically away, he realised 
 for the first time that cutting people was 
 not merely a duty that one owed to one's 
 career; it was an active, healthy pleasure. 
 Very soon he was engaged in cutting all his 
 old schoolfellows except a small and select 
 band who were persons of the utmost 
 promise ; then he cut nearly all the under- 
 graduates of his College ; then the Dons ; and
 
 220 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 when at last he cut the Master of the same 
 society in the High Street, he felt that there 
 was nothing in the world to compare with 
 the delight of possessing a truly eclectic 
 spirit. He bought a University Calendar 
 and marked off all the men whom he had 
 decided to avoid ; whole colleges came under 
 the ban of his ostracism, and by the end of 
 his second year he was able to reflect with 
 honest pride that his system had worked 
 admirably ; he did not possess a single friend 
 who was not titled or celebrated or rich or 
 influential. So magnificent were the finest 
 of his habitual companions that he was 
 compelled from time to time to cast off the 
 less glorious among his intimates, but he 
 always managed to concoct a very good 
 reason for doing so. When Beery de 
 Lancey de Vere (his real Christian name was 
 Adolphus) suddenly gave up hunting and 
 waistcoats and took to Socialism and a red 
 tie, Ridolfo, realising that Beery 's friendship 
 would be of no use to him in politics, engaged 
 him in theological argument, and afterwards 
 went about declaring that Beery had been 
 a good fellow but was now an atheist and 
 impossible as a friend. Beery was in reality 
 no more an atheist than Ridolfo was a 
 Christian, but Ridolfo's attitude created a
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 221 
 
 great impression and won him the friendship 
 of two evangelical peers and a bishop. 
 
 Although Ridolfo had cut the Dons who set 
 his papers, he took a good class in the schools, 
 and became private secretary to his uncle the 
 second Earl of Llanpumpsaint, who was after- 
 wards so terribly mangled by the militant 
 suffragists. Ridolfo's rooms in Half -Moon 
 Street were the meeting -place of the most 
 brilliant young stalwarts of his Party ; he 
 joined a club which had a great reputation 
 for blackballing baronets, and found it un- 
 necessary to cut more than twenty of the 
 members. Thenceforward his career was 
 amazingly successful ; he married his cousin, 
 the heiress of Llanpumpsaint, and, as one of 
 the most active opponents of every form of 
 progress, was a great success in the first 
 Parliament of this century. He cut pro- 
 Boers, Church Disestablishes, Nonconform- 
 ists, Catholics, Socialists, Mr Belloc, Mr 
 Bernard Shaw, Mr Lloyd George, Mr Keir 
 Hardie, but not Mr Winston Churchill and 
 Lord Rosebery, both of whom he regarded 
 as men with a future. Of course by this 
 time he had soared into regions far above 
 those inhabited by the friends of his boyhood 
 and adolescence, and when he met any of 
 these lowly persons he showed no signs of
 
 222 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 remembering them. He became intensely 
 hated, but the haters, he knew, had no power 
 to thwart his career, and the pleasure of 
 ignoring every one who fell below his 
 superlative standard became more and more 
 intoxicating. In 1908 he cut his paternal 
 uncle, in 1909 his father-in-law, and in 1910 
 his father, who had behaved like a very 
 great fool over the Old Age Pension ques- 
 tion. It was not until 1911, however, that 
 people began to think something was wrong. 
 Ridolfo, at a public banquet, ostentatiously 
 ignored the Leader of his own Party. Now 
 the Leader was not only the most charming 
 person in England ; he possessed a great deal 
 of influence, and no one could understand 
 the reason of Ridolfo's action. Ridolfo did 
 not trouble to explain that for several years 
 he had been irritated by the fact that no 
 one had ever cut the Leader, and had lusted 
 after this unique achievement. The melan- 
 choly climax came soon afterwards : Ridolfo, 
 after cutting all his friends, his valet, his 
 butler, his mistress, and lastly his wife, went 
 to a reception at which a Very Exalted 
 Personage was present. He began opera- 
 tions by cutting his hostess ; this might have 
 passed for absence of mind ; but soon after- 
 wards the Very Exalted Personage saw him,
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 223 
 
 and advancing with the genial smile of 
 Royalty, extended his hand. Ridolfo cut 
 him dead. 
 
 Ridolfo is now in a luxurious private 
 asylum. He cuts the matron, the doctors, 
 the nurses, the visitors, and the patients. 
 The only person to whom he will condescend 
 to speak is a half-witted old man who is 
 usually employed in carting dung. Ridolfo, in 
 his earlier days, was an agnostic, but there is 
 no doubt that his views have changed and 
 that he regards this aged imbecile as a kind 
 of Supreme Being. He gives no trouble, and 
 walks about the garden for most of the day 
 with his eyes fixed on the sky. Visitors to 
 the asylum are always greatly impressed by 
 the superhuman majesty of his deportment. 
 
 II. 
 JEMIMA IN HEAVEN. 
 
 Miss Jemima Smith was a spinster, and 
 I am afraid that no one found the fact 
 strange. She was stringy and bony and 
 tough ; and though she performed a great 
 number of charitable exercises, she had an
 
 224 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 air of inquisitorial virtue that chilled her 
 beneficiaries to their marrows. Very early 
 in her life she had made up her mind about 
 everything in Heaven or on earth, and she 
 gave the erring and straying sojourners on 
 the latter planet a very uncomfortable time 
 whenever she met them. She wore a coal- 
 scuttle bonnet and elastic - sided boots, and 
 she delivered lectures on hygienics in a 
 dark mission - room where people caught 
 influenza. 
 
 Miss Julia Smith was a very different 
 person. Although she bore the same famous 
 name she was unrelated to Miss Jemima, 
 as that lady would frequently proclaim with 
 something like a snort. Miss Julia was also 
 addicted to the performance of charitable 
 acts, though you would hardly have sus- 
 pected it when you looked at her. She 
 wore bright clothes and large hats, and her 
 boots never had elastic sides. She had the 
 j oiliest face imaginable, and she was always 
 laughing and making quite amusing jokes ; 
 in fact, she enjoyed life immensely. Every 
 one liked her except Miss Jemima, who 
 shook her head whenever she was men- 
 tioned, and said that she had no talent for 
 organisation. Children adored her, and she
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 225 
 
 returned the compliment; her house was 
 always full of all shapes and sizes of them, 
 and she taught them wonderful games and 
 told them beautiful stories, and allowed them 
 (said Miss Jemima) to behave like little sav- 
 age heathens. She was perfectly splendid 
 with sick people, and unlucky people, and 
 crushed and cowed people ; merely to look 
 at her face and to hear her laugh would 
 make a Trappist monk feel jolly, and though 
 she was no good at organisation she had a 
 natural tact in dealing with all kinds of 
 people that was just as useful. In short, 
 she was a perfectly delightful person, and 
 I can think of no one in the world with a 
 charm equal to hers, except Miss Ellen 
 Terry, whom she strongly resembled. And 
 if this is impertinence, I don't care. 
 
 Now it befell that, in the town which was 
 adorned by the presence of these two illus- 
 trious ladies, a grievous pestilence arose owing 
 to the pettifogging behaviour of the Town 
 Councillors about a poisonous sewer. Many 
 persons died (but none of the Town Coun- 
 cillors, for they unanimously agreed to 
 migrate as soon as the epidemic began), 
 and the children of the place especially suf- 
 fered. Miss Jemima and Miss Julia toiled 
 
 p
 
 226 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 among the sick with equal devotion, if not 
 with equal success ; Miss Jemima never 
 shirked a duty, and Miss Julia, even in the 
 midst of suffering, could not help being 
 happy in having an overwhelming amount 
 of work to do. They nursed and visited 
 and organised and consoled for three weeks, 
 and at the end of that time, when the 
 plague had abated, they both fell ill. 
 
 Observe another instance of the senseless 
 ingratitude of humanity, and of its total 
 incapacity to appreciate patient merit when 
 its eyes have been dazzled by radiant per- 
 sonal charm. Every one went to inquire 
 about Miss Julia, and sent her flowers, and 
 soups, and tracts, and patent medicines, but 
 only a faithful few troubled their heads 
 about poor Miss Jemima, who was really 
 extremely ill. Miss Jemima pretended not 
 to feel aggrieved at this neglect, and when 
 her confidential maid gave her a full account 
 of all the gifts offered by the townsfolk to 
 Miss Julia she snorted as loudly as her 
 debilitated condition permitted, and said 
 that some people had a mania for currying 
 favour with fools. But in reality she was 
 deeply resentful of her rival's success, and 
 brooded over it continually. Nothing, she
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 227 
 
 reflected, went unrewarded except real 
 merit ; and as the reports of Miss Julia's 
 triumphs reached her day by day, she began 
 to form a resolution that as soon as she 
 recovered she would no longer devote her- 
 self to the ungrateful human species, but 
 would found a colony of cats, and lavish 
 on them all her formerly misplaced affec- 
 tions. 
 
 Everything, indeed, seemed to go wrong 
 with poor Miss Jemima. On the very day 
 when the doctor had pronounced her out 
 of danger, a nasty rude man in a flying 
 machine whizzed over her house and fright- 
 ened her terribly; her morning paper, as 
 soon as she was once again able to read, 
 informed her that her favourite bishop had 
 abolished wax-lights on the altar and taken 
 to playing hockey ; and lastly, when she 
 really seemed quite well, she died and went 
 to Heaven and then came back again on 
 the same day. At least, Miss Jemima stoutly 
 asserts that this happened ; unsympathetic 
 and material persons hold that she was 
 merely the dupe of a strange dream. Dream 
 or reality, the experience, though unpleasant 
 and even alarming, had a most salutary effect 
 on Miss Jemima's character.
 
 228 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 One afternoon, whilst she was sadly read- 
 ing an account of the exploits of Miss Julia 
 in the parish magazine (which was a fraud, 
 for it consisted of two outside sheets, written 
 by the vicar, that masked a tedious periodical 
 called 'Joyful Tidings,' the work of profes- 
 sional religious writers), she became con- 
 scious that she was growing remarkably 
 cold and stiff. She dropped the stately 
 prose of the vicar and attempted to sit up 
 in bed, but a moment later she fell back 
 unconscious. She was not, I am informed 
 by the curate, the only person to whom the 
 vicar's classic periods had brought oblivion, 
 but she was certainly the first who passed 
 directly from his lists of births, deaths, 
 marriages and churchings - of - women to 
 contemplate a celestial scene. 
 
 She was aroused from her slumber or 
 swoon by a mighty, roaring sound, which 
 became louder every moment, and at length 
 seemed to remain stationary outside her 
 window. She peered over the edge of the 
 bedclothes, and perceived that a large aero- 
 plane was moving backwards and forwards 
 in front of her house. In it sat a person- 
 age of most unusual exterior. He wore no 
 goggles and no leather suit ; his head was
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 229 
 
 bare, and he was clad only in a skimpy and 
 diaphanous white robe. The aeroplane sud- 
 denly ceased to roar, and the personage 
 addressed Miss Jemima. 
 
 "I am instructed to call for Miss J. Smith 
 of this town," he said. " Please be quick," 
 he added. "You needn't bring a bag. You 
 will find everything that you want when 
 you arrive." 
 
 Miss Jemima, to her own amazement, found 
 herself arising from her bed and marching 
 firmly to the window, clad merely in blame- 
 lessness and a long night-gown. 
 
 " Pray, what does all this mean ? " she 
 demanded. 
 
 " It means," said the aeronaut with slight 
 impatience, " that your hour has come. This," 
 he added, indicating the aeroplane, "is the Car 
 of Death." 
 
 " And a very good name for it too," snapped 
 Miss Jemima ; " nasty, break - neck things ! 
 You won't find me inside it, I can assure you." 
 
 " You will find yourself there, at any rate," 
 said the aeronaut cheerfully. And even as he 
 spoke, Miss Jemima was conscious of being 
 wafted like a dead leaf towards the window. 
 She made a futile attempt to resist. "Mercy ! 
 what does this mean ? " she cried.
 
 230 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 " I told you that your hour had come," said 
 the aeronaut with weary patience. And just 
 at that moment Miss Jemima looked back 
 at her bed and saw herself lying there white 
 and rigid. 
 
 "Do you mean that I'm dead?" she cried. 
 The aeronaut nodded. " That's what you are 
 pleased to call it on earth," he answered. 
 
 " And I have to go in that thing ? " shrieked 
 Miss Jemima. The aeronaut bowed silently. 
 
 " Well, I never ! " said Miss Jemima. 
 " Young man," she went on after a moment, 
 " before I trust myself to you, I insist on 
 hearing where you imagine that you are 
 going to take me." 
 
 " To Heaven, if you don't mind," answered 
 the aeronaut. 
 
 "Heaven? That is quite satisfactory," said 
 Miss Jemima. " But how am I to know that 
 you won't drop me on the way?" 
 
 " You will be perfectly safe," said the 
 aeronaut. " You couldn't fall out if you 
 tried. The laws of gravity no longer apply 
 to you." 
 
 " That sounds scarcely respectable," said 
 Miss Jemima. "May I ask what your name 
 is?" 
 
 " My name is Death," said the aeronaut.
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 231 
 
 Miss Jemima uttered a faint cry. " Come, 
 madam," said the aeronaut, familiarly but 
 kindly ; " you have faced me without flinch- 
 ing for the sake of others on many occa- 
 sions in your life ; you surely are not going 
 to show fear now?" 
 
 " Not I ! " cried Miss Jemima, tossing her 
 head, and next moment she was seated be- 
 hind Death in the aeroplane. "Mind you 
 drive carefully, Mr Death," she said. 
 
 Concerning the details of the voyage, Miss 
 Jemima remembered very little except that, 
 as soon as the aeroplane was in motion, a 
 thick darkness descended upon them, and 
 the roaring of the engine made her deaf to 
 all other sound. Though she only wore her 
 night-gown she was not cold, and she noticed 
 that the white robe of Death never once 
 fluttered in the wind. For a while she felt 
 a queer kind of yearning after the body 
 which she had left, but this sensation soon 
 passed away. After they had travelled at 
 immense speed for what seemed to her a 
 very long time, she became conscious of a 
 tiny point of light, like a star, in the black- 
 ness in front of them. This point increased 
 in size very slowly, until at last it had 
 swelled to a wonderful rosy dawn which
 
 232 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 overspread the sky like an immense flower. 
 Its loveliness was amazing, and Miss Jemima 
 gazed at it with enchanted eyes. 
 
 "Well, I call that pretty!" she said. 
 
 Not long afterwards, when the rosy light 
 was all round her, she saw that the aero- 
 plane was approaching a land that was dim 
 with mist, and presently the aeronaut let it 
 descend gently on a kind of quay of white 
 and green marble. Jemima looked about 
 the quay, but saw no one, and felt slightly 
 disappointed, for she had expected an en- 
 thusiastic reception. As she floated out of 
 the aeroplane, however, a large old gentle- 
 man with a white beard appeared suddenly 
 in front of her. He seemed benevolent, but 
 slightly worried, and waved a huge sheet 
 of paper fussily. 
 
 " Yes, yes ! Who is it now ? " he demanded. 
 
 " Miss J. Smith," explained the aeronaut, 
 and Miss Jemima favoured the old gentle- 
 man with one of her sharp nods. The old 
 gentleman ran his finger rapidly down his 
 list, then pressed an electric bell in the wall. 
 Instantly a very handsome and well-devel- 
 oped angel appeared. 
 
 " Number eight, B, 42," said the old gentle- 
 man. Then he bowed to Miss Jemima and
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 233 
 
 vanished. When she looked about her she 
 found that the aeronaut had vanished also. 
 The angel took her hand. 
 
 "Where are we off to now?" demanded 
 Jemima. 
 
 " We are going," said the angel in a soft 
 voice, " to the special Heaven that is await- 
 ing you." Miss Jemima felt flattered. 
 
 "Do I have a special Heaven?" she asked. 
 
 " Yes," replied the angel. " Every one 
 has." Jemima felt a slight disappointment. 
 "Every one," continued the angel, "has a 
 Heaven arranged according to their record 
 and their ideals on earth. Your career was 
 remarkable because of the good works that 
 you performed amongst the sick and the 
 needy ; you will find your Heaven absol- 
 utely suited to all your tastes, and peopled 
 by those whom you loved and helped on 
 earth." 
 
 "Oh!" said Jemima, looking very much 
 astonished. " I hope some of them will have 
 learnt to wash their faces. And, you know," 
 she went on, " I assure you that I didn't love 
 all those whom I helped. Quite the contrary. 
 But I've a sense of duty." 
 
 The angel frowned. "A sense of duty is 
 all nonsense," he said. " Our instructions tell
 
 234 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 us that you loved every one you met. I trust 
 that the voyage here has not had some strange 
 effect upon your temper." 
 
 Jemima shrugged her shoulders and sniffed, 
 deciding privately that the angel was inclined 
 to give himself airs. Meanwhile they were 
 walking, or rather gliding, through a great 
 park that was planted with towering trees 
 and bright with a thousand strange flowers, 
 and presently they came to a tall golden 
 gate. The angel produced a key which was 
 labelled J. Smith and opened the gate, and 
 Jemima entered. She found herself in a 
 small village, exactly like an old-fashioned 
 country village in England, set in the midst 
 of fields where many persons were congre- 
 gated, some in white raiment and some in 
 no raiment at all. As soon as these persons 
 perceived Jemima, they began to run towards 
 her. Jemima recognised most of them at 
 once ; they all came from the town where 
 she had passed her life in piety and exhorta- 
 tion. But when they were quite near, she 
 saw a face at the back of the group which 
 had been hidden from her, and then she 
 turned to the angel. 
 
 "This won't do," she said firmly. "I can't 
 stay here."
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 235 
 
 " Why not ? " asked the angel, with a smile. 
 
 Jemima became excited. 
 
 " I don't want to be uncharitable," she said, 
 " but really you can't expect me to meet that 
 girl. She was my housemaid, and the less 
 said about her the better. Why, I do de- 
 clare she has actually the effrontery to go 
 about carrying her baby ! " 
 
 "Why not?" said the angel. "Heaven 
 wouldn't be Heaven to her without it. I'm 
 afraid you haven't quite grasped the way 
 in which things are managed up here." 
 
 "But she wasn't married!" cried Jemima. 
 
 "Tut-tut," said the angel, gracefully re- 
 pressing a yawn. " At any rate, she was a 
 devoted mother. Probably she is here on 
 that account." 
 
 "You can't be a mother unless you're 
 married," said Miss Jemima firmly. 
 
 "I have so little experience of these 
 matters," said the angel apologetically. 
 " But perhaps some of the other people will 
 please you more." 
 
 " They don't please me at all," said Jemima. 
 "I see those dirty little ragamuffins who 
 used to throw stones outside my house, and 
 old Dick the poacher, and the horrid man 
 who went about with a barrel-organ and a
 
 236 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 monkey, and the blind fiddler who used to 
 drink too much beer. Really, it seems as 
 if some one had purposely collected all the 
 reprobates of the place for my benefit. I 
 call it perfectly insulting ! " 
 
 She spoke with extreme vehemence. The 
 angel looked at her with a perplexed air. 
 " I'm afraid there must be something wrong," 
 he said. 
 
 "Wrong!" cried Miss Jemima "I should 
 think it is wrong ! I must say that I never 
 expected this kind of thing." 
 
 "Let me explain," said the angel. "This 
 is the place where all noble earthly ideals 
 are realised. This poor girl's ideal was to 
 love her child eternally, to keep it always 
 with her. Yours was to direct all these 
 poor people, and unlucky people, and weak 
 people to Heaven. You see the realisa- 
 tion of all this before you ; doesn't that 
 fill you with an immense and permanent 
 
 joy?" 
 
 Jemima was about to utter a tart response, 
 when her glance fell on first one and then 
 another of the faces around her. Each of 
 them wore a wonderful expression of mingled 
 peace and happiness ; they were strangely 
 transfigured from their earthly aspect, and
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 237 
 
 shone towards her like the faces of friends. 
 No one had ever before regarded poor Miss 
 Jemima in that way, and she felt a sudden 
 and almost painful thrill at her heart, as if 
 something icy which hemmed it in had 
 melted. Next moment, to her own amaze- 
 ment, she found herself running with out- 
 stretched hands towards the girl who had 
 been her housemaid, and she persists in 
 asserting that she had every intention of 
 kissing Dick the poacher. This affecting 
 scene, however, was prevented by the sudden 
 appearance of the old man with a white 
 beard, who seemed to be in a state of 
 considerable excitement. 
 
 " There's been a mistake ! " he cried. " It's 
 all the fault of Death. This is the hundredth 
 time that he's brought the wrong person." 
 
 Jemima's heart sank into her bare toes. 
 Here she was, she told herself, just beginning 
 to feel all the joys of Heaven, and to yearn 
 for the society of these dear people whom 
 she had shrunk from only a few moments 
 before, and now this stupid old man had 
 come to spoil everything. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " she demanded 
 gloomily. 
 
 " A bad mistake," reiterated the old man.
 
 238 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "Madam, you must go away. This is not 
 your Heaven ; it belongs to another Miss 
 Smith, to Miss Julia Smith, who is now on 
 her way here. It all comes of that wretched 
 secretary not taking the trouble to write 
 out names in full." 
 
 " Julia ! " cried Jemima. " Is she in Heaven 
 too?" But at this moment the door flew 
 open and in rushed Miss Julia, radiant, 
 laughing, an entirely adorable figure. 
 
 "Dear people, this is delightful!" she cried, 
 kissing her hands to the housemaid and the 
 children and Dick the poacher. Then she 
 ran straight to Jemima. "I'm so glad to 
 see you, you dear thing ! " she cried. " And 
 I've heard all about it the mistake, I mean, 
 and I absolutely insist that you stay here 
 with me. Heaven won't be Heaven without 
 you. You will stay? That's right; that's 
 all settled. And now I can talk to all my 
 friends ! " 
 
 But the old gentleman with the beard 
 looked very grave. " I'm afraid that can't 
 be done," he said. "Your idea of Heaven 
 never contained Miss Jemima, and Miss 
 Jemima's idea never included you. Miss 
 Jemima must go away." 
 
 " What, are you going to send me back to
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 239 
 
 earth?" cried Miss Jemima, clutching Miss 
 Julia's arm, which was round her waist. 
 The old man smiled. 
 
 " Things are not as bad as all that," he 
 answered. " But you must go to your own 
 Heaven, which is full of all your earthly 
 ideals. It is not such a bad Heaven, really," 
 added the old man. "I have seen many 
 worse." 
 
 " We shall come to see you often ! " said 
 Miss Julia, kissing Jemima. Then the angel 
 touched Jemima's shoulder, and she was 
 conscious of being wafted away from that 
 happy scene. She felt strongly inclined to 
 weep. 
 
 In a very short time they came to another 
 gate, which the angel opened with a key 
 that the old man had given to him. As 
 soon as they had entered Jemima glanced 
 round her, and saw that, compared with 
 Miss Julia's Heaven, her own was indeed a 
 barren spot. There were no flowers and 
 bright meadows ; there was no pleasant 
 village ; but instead, there were platforms 
 where grim personages made long and dreary 
 speeches, and a church, from the door of 
 which came the strains of melancholy hymns 
 and psalms about Hell ; and a great quantity
 
 240 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 of well-ordered soup - kitchens and charity 
 organisation committee - rooms. The whole 
 place smelt powerfully of disinfectants. 
 Jemima observed it all with dismay, yet she 
 was conscious that if it had been on earth 
 and she had been still alive she would 
 have loved it. A few dim and gloomy 
 persons were walking slowly to and fro 
 near her; they had a strangely spectral 
 aspect, and she demanded the reason of this 
 peculiarity. 
 
 " I suppose," answered the angel, " that 
 when you were on earth you didn't really 
 care much for people, but only for things. 
 The committee -rooms and disinfectants are 
 real enough, and the hymns and speeches 
 never stop. It's all right, of course ; but 
 it's a pity you didn't think more about 
 sunshine and pleasant sights. I find it dis- 
 tinctly chilly and depressing. And that kind 
 of thing, for instance, is insisted on rather 
 too much." He pointed to several of the 
 buildings, which bore on their front the 
 words DUTY AND JUSTICE and ETERNAL 
 PUNISHMENT in large letters. " Duty and 
 Justice are excellent words," said the angel, 
 " but I rather think that our enthusiastic 
 friend, from whom we have lately parted,
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 241 
 
 would sometimes have written Joy and Mercy 
 instead of them." 
 
 As he finished speaking, one of the per- 
 sons who had been walking up and down 
 approached Miss Jemima. She recognised 
 him as a curate for whom she had always 
 cherished a profound admiration, regarding 
 him, indeed, as a saint on earth. He had 
 not changed at all ; he smiled at her mourn- 
 fully, rolled his eyes, and uttered some 
 sepulchral words that seemed meaningless. 
 In former days she had been always greatly 
 impressed by this performance, but now she 
 felt merely irritated. He was followed by 
 a fat grocer who had been a violent teetotal 
 advocate ; she was always overcome by this 
 gentleman's eloquence and would never be- 
 lieve that he put sand in his sugar, as was 
 the fact. Now, however, she detested his 
 whole aspect, and saw the hypocrisy in his 
 little watery eyes. 
 
 "He oughtn't to be here," she said to the 
 angel. 
 
 " He doesn't want to be," explained the angel. 
 " His right place is somewhere else. But as he 
 was a hypocrite in life he has no real identity, 
 and is bound to appear where a stronger 
 personality than his own wishes to see him." 
 
 Q
 
 242 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 " I don't wish to see him," said Jemima ; 
 and immediately she had spoken the fat 
 grocer vanished with a little click, like a 
 bursting bubble. "And I don't want the 
 curate," added Jemima. The curate also dis- 
 appeared. Jemima raised her fist in the air. 
 "I don't want any of it," she cried violently. 
 "It isn't a Heaven at all. I've realised now 
 what Heaven ought to be like. When I was 
 on earth I was an idiot. Julia was the only 
 person who had any sense." 
 
 As soon as she had spoken, the committee- 
 rooms and the soup-kitchens and the church 
 and the persons who were making speeches 
 all vanished with a faint but audible series 
 of reports, and Miss Jemima and the angel 
 were left standing in the midst of chaos. 
 
 "You've done it now!" said the angel. 
 
 " I don't care ! " said Jemima. " I'm glad ! 
 I'll go back to Julia." 
 
 "You can't do that!" the angel cried. He 
 stood for some moments looking at Jemima. 
 " Really, this is very perplexing," he said. 
 "No one has ever behaved in that way before. 
 You have placed me in a very awkward 
 position, Jemima ; I do think you might have 
 put up with the curate and all the rest of 
 them."
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 243 
 
 "Smug knaves!" cried Jemima, who felt 
 strangely elated, and was actually enjoying 
 the angel's embarrassment. At this moment 
 the old gentleman appeared once again. 
 
 "What's the matter now?" he demanded 
 testily. 
 
 The angel explained. " And it really seems," 
 he concluded, "as if there's no place where 
 she can go ! " 
 
 "There's no place where I want to go," 
 said Jemima, " unless I can go to Julia and 
 all her delightful young friends. If you can't 
 allow that you had better send me back to 
 earth. Then I can live as Julia lived, and 
 come to her kind of Heaven when I die." 
 
 The old man looked at the angel. 
 
 "It's unusual," said the old man. "In fact, 
 it's almost startling ; but it's not a bad idea. 
 Her presence here whilst she is in this transi- 
 tional state would really be very embarrassing. 
 And the aeroplane is at the door." 
 
 "Suppose we call Death," suggested the 
 angel. 
 
 A moment later Death stood among them. 
 He was very much annoyed, at first, to hear 
 that he had made a journey for nothing ; but 
 ultimately he admitted that he ought to have 
 been more careful, and that Jemima really
 
 244 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 had a legitimate right to go back to earth if 
 she found Heaven unsuitable to her present 
 condition. The old man and the angel em- 
 braced Jemima, and she floated gracefully 
 into the back seat of the aeroplane. 
 
 " Home ! " said Jemima calmly, just as if 
 she were the wife of the Mayor leaving a 
 Mothers' Meeting. 
 
 She awoke in her bed half an hour after- 
 wards, but she was quite convinced that her 
 strange journey was real, and not a mere 
 dream. Even when she heard that Miss Julia 
 was still alive her conviction was unshaken. 
 At any rate, the experience, whether it was 
 real or imagined, produced the most remark- 
 able change in her temperament. She re- 
 covered from her illness almost immediately, 
 became a close friend to Miss Julia, and for- 
 getting all about Duty and Justice and 
 Eternal Punishment, she devoted the rest of 
 her life to making other people happy. As 
 she was always with Miss Julia, whom she 
 adored, you may imagine what a jolly time 
 she had. She threw away her bonnet and 
 her elastic-sided boots, and gave no more 
 lectures ; but she became a great expert in 
 games for children (with whom, indeed, she
 
 TWO GROTESQUES 245 
 
 romps quite disgracefully), and in cheering 
 the gloomy and inspiriting the feeble and 
 cowed. She looks gay and jovial, and every 
 one wonders why in the world she never 
 married. Miss Julia is more than ever like 
 Miss Ellen Terry ; and when she and Miss 
 Jemima return to Heaven, as they obviously 
 will, it is certain that arrangements will have 
 to be made for them to share the same 
 garden. It is equally certain that the curate 
 and the teetotal grocer will not be there.
 
 FRAGMENTS FROM THE DIARY 
 OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE, 
 
 FELLOW OF COLLEGE.
 
 FRAGMENTS FROM THE DIARY 
 
 OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE, 
 
 FELLOW OF COLLEGE. 
 
 June 1st. 
 
 FLORENCE once more ! I arrived last even- 
 ing, having travelled without a halt from 
 London, and once again the Fates were kind. 
 There was no rain, the horde of tourists 
 (quorum pars . . . ) had certainly thinned, 
 and the last fires of a superb sunset died 
 magnificently beyond the purple hills. As I 
 leaned from my window on the Lung' Arno 
 and looked across the tawny water to the 
 homely and well-beloved dome of San Fre- 
 diano, the memory of my first vision of that 
 incomparable scene came back to me sharply, 
 and with it a faint renewal of my old sen- 
 sations the dimness in the eyes and aching 
 at the heart which possessed me as I took my
 
 250 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 first deep draught of the wonderful, wistful 
 beauty of an Italian evening. I was in my 
 third year at Oxford (a place which I now 
 think as beautiful as Florence ; how I should 
 have scorned such an idea then!), and I had 
 come south at the end of the summer term, in 
 defiance of the warnings of travelled friends, 
 to find a city purged of barbarians and golden 
 all day long. Undergraduates are most rarely 
 rich at the end of the summer term, and it 
 was only by practising strict economy that 
 I was able to stay for three weeks three 
 weeks of Heaven for a ten-pound note ! I 
 remember how selfishly glad I was to be 
 alone, and to discover one lovely aspect of 
 the place after another without owing my 
 perceptions to the indiscreet finger of a com- 
 panion; I remember I was even glad that I 
 spoke no Italian ; my ignorance of all that 
 people around me were saying seemed to 
 emphasise my remoteness from everyday life, 
 and leave me free to think of nothing but 
 beauty. What a time it was, and how one 
 changes in five-and-twenty years ! Then I 
 lived in spirit with Dante, with Lorenzo de 
 Medici and Machiavelli, and bitterly resented 
 the banalities of well-meaning parsons and 
 well-informed old ladies ; now I find pleasure
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 251 
 
 in prattling commonplaces both in Italian and 
 English ; I take a lively interest in the fluctu- 
 ating amenities of hotels, and become restive 
 if I cannot see the Corriere delta Sera every 
 day. I am, alas ! no longer like the youth 
 of the legend, dumb before a Botticelli, but 
 often grossly argumentative ; in fact, like 
 most middle - aged amateurs, I have grown 
 terribly at ease in Zion, and often detect 
 myself in the act of speaking quite kindly 
 of the gods before whom I was formerly 
 prostrate. I like the modern Italians even 
 when they display a startling ignorance of 
 their own pictures or churches, and I take a 
 benevolent interest in their progressive spirit. 
 I doubt if I would walk three miles in the 
 rain to see a Delia Robbia, and I drink tea 
 every afternoon. But though the first fine 
 raptures the honeymoon ardours have 
 passed away, they have left behind them a 
 steady affection, a tranquil love of the 
 country, the people, the noble relics, which, 
 one is thankful to think, is far too solid to 
 suffer change. Italy will be my mistress 
 until I die, and as I looked on one of her 
 fairest aspects last evening, whilst the moon 
 rose above San Miniato and a melodious vaga- 
 bond twanged a guitar below my window, I
 
 252 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 felt more than happy in meeting her again 
 after a long separation. I felt also a slight 
 regret that I had promised to visit old Mr 
 Rutherford and listen to more of his eternal 
 lucubrations on Petrarch. Old Mr Rutherford 
 is a delightful person, and so, I suppose, was 
 Petrarch though I am almost certain that 
 he bored Laura, but I should prefer to be 
 alone for a few blissful days. However, I 
 promised that I would call at the Villa Val- 
 chiusa to-morrow, and I imagine that at the 
 present moment Mr Rutherford is preparing 
 whole battalions of manuscript to parade 
 before me. . . . 
 
 June %nd. 
 
 I set out at ten o'clock this morning for 
 the Uffizii, but the sunshine was too delight- 
 ful, and I loafed away some happy hours on 
 the Lung' Arno and the Ponte Vecchio. I 
 lunched at a little restaurant near the Badia, 
 nor do I blush to record that I ate cuttle- 
 fish, artfully prepared, and drank several 
 glasses of the country wine, an excellent 
 vintage which always puts one out of 
 patience with the bottled acerbity provided 
 by the Florentine hotel-keepers. Afterwards 
 I wandered in the cool galleries till four
 
 DIAEY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 253 
 
 o'clock, and then I took a carriage in the 
 Piazza and was driven to Mr Rutherford's 
 villa through the Porta Romana. 
 
 I found him looking exactly as he did 
 when I had met him at Ravenna; he still 
 wore his brown velvet coat, his prodigious 
 necktie, his enormous intaglio ring, and his 
 tortoise-shell spectacles ; his Olympian head 
 of hair was still covered by a broad black 
 sombrero. He received me with stately 
 courtesy, alluding to the villa as "my poor 
 house." The villa, as a matter of fact, is 
 charming, though slightly decayed a much 
 pleasanter abode, I think, than any of the 
 grandiose American palaces of the Viale 
 Machiavelli, and the garden is a perfect 
 paradise of roses. Its owner led me into 
 a room full of harpsichords and hammer- 
 claviers and old armour the typical shrine 
 of a cultured dabbler in all the arts and 
 began to talk at once of his pictures, which 
 seemed good of their kind, but for the most 
 part belonged to the post-Michelangelesque 
 epoch. I do him the justice to say that he 
 kept off the subject of Petrarch for at least 
 a quarter of an hour. 
 
 Of course, though, the ideal portrait of 
 Laura by some wicked disciple of Guido
 
 254 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Reni which hung over the fireplace set him 
 going, and he was fairly under way his 
 eyes were beginning to gleam and his hands 
 to wave when the door opened and a 
 woman entered. Mr Rutherford stared at 
 her absently for a moment as if he were 
 trying to remember who she was, and then 
 introduced her to me as his daughter. We 
 shook hands, she uttered some kind of greet- 
 ing, and then she stood looking at me whilst 
 her father continued his discourse. 
 
 Descriptions of the aspect of ladies and 
 landscapes are equally out of place in a 
 diary, and I need only record very briefly 
 the impression that Miss Rutherford made 
 on me. It was an impression of intensely 
 wistful softness ; everything about her her 
 mild eyes, her dull brown hair, her long 
 pale hands, her gentle voice, the lines, even, 
 of her grey dress was, so to speak, in the 
 same tone, in the most placid of neutral 
 tints. She is, I suppose, between thirty-five 
 and forty, and by this time, poor lady, if 
 she is ignorant of everything else, should 
 know all about Petrarch; whilst her father 
 was talking she had the air of a semi- 
 animate image of Patience. When he fussed 
 away to find some manuscript her face
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 255 
 
 brightened a little, and she asked me if I 
 would care to go out on the verandah and 
 look at the view. 
 
 It was, of course, exquisite, like every 
 aspect of Florence seen from the hills. I 
 uttered the obvious commonplace, and added 
 that I envied persons who had the great 
 good fortune to live in so delectable a spot. 
 She looked at me with her grave, grey eyes. 
 
 "I always feel that it is wrong to live 
 here, I mean," she said. I protested. "All 
 this beauty," she went on, " this soft air 
 and this sunshine and the dreaming hills 
 they're enervating, at any rate to English 
 people ; they're like a drug. When I think 
 of London I feel guilty; I feel that I've 
 shirked all responsibilities, like some one 
 who deserts his country when it's in danger 
 and lolls at ease abroad. Here one seems 
 to live entirely for beauty." She spoke with 
 perfect simplicity. 
 
 "I don't think England is in much danger," 
 I said. "And, after all, if you have a passion 
 for beautiful things it would possess you in 
 London just as it does in Florence. What 
 exactly are the responsibilities that you 
 imagine yourself to have shirked?" 
 
 She did not answer me directly. "When 
 
 \
 
 256 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 I think of London," she said after a moment, 
 " and of all the suffering and want in those 
 dark streets, I'm haunted by that dreadful 
 line in the Bible you remember about the 
 people who were fast bound in misery and 
 iron. One ought to be there; one ought to 
 be working to free them, instead of basking 
 in sunshine and painting little pictures. I 
 have the deepest contempt," she concluded, 
 "for the English who live in Italy." 
 
 I retorted that a great number of the 
 English who lived in England were far 
 more contemptible, and that I had always 
 found the British colonies in Rome and 
 Florence to contain a number of delightful 
 persons. Miss Rutherford frowned slightly. 
 
 " Oh yes, they're delightful," she said ; 
 "what the world calls delightful, at least. 
 They paint, or they know Dante, and the 
 museums, and the galleries, and the customs 
 of the contadini. But they don't live ; they're 
 all spectators. They just dabble in life." 
 
 " Well, it makes them happy," I said feebly. 
 Miss Rutherford shook her head. 
 
 "We aren't here to be happy," she explained 
 very gently. "We're here to live." 
 
 At this moment, when our conversation had 
 attained these exalted philosophical heights,
 
 Mr Rutherford returned with his manu- 
 scripts, and his daughter, after bidding me 
 farewell, vanished into the house. A senti- 
 mentalist, I suspect, but a thoroughly good 
 creature. No doubt Petrarch is responsible 
 for most of her philanthropic yearnings. I 
 suppose she plays the harpsichord and the 
 hammer - clavier. Her instantaneous plunge 
 into confidential depths was startling but 
 rather attractive. (The female passion for 
 platitude traceable to the instinct of sexual 
 self -protection ?) 
 
 June 3rd. 
 
 Mr Rutherford has invited me to stay at 
 the Villa Valchiusa. He is expecting a 
 nephew a young painter from Paris called 
 Garth whom he wants me to meet. I have 
 accepted the invitation, and go to the Villa 
 to-morrow evening. I met Miss Rutherford 
 in the Via Tornabuoni this afternoon, and 
 expressed my pleasure at the prospect of 
 staying with them ; she stared at me for 
 a moment with blank astonishment, and 
 then smiled. Her father had omitted to 
 warn her that I was coming. "I'm afraid 
 you will find us very quiet," she said, "but 
 Louis may arrive at any moment; he never 
 
 R
 
 258 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 lets us know beforehand." Louis, apparently, 
 is Mr Garth's Christian name. I walked back 
 with her as far as the Porta Romana. We 
 talked about Browning, whom her father 
 had known intimately. Distinctly an intelli- 
 gent woman, shy, but has a certain dignity. 
 
 June 8th. 
 
 When I arrived at the Villa there was 
 doubt in my soul; I was well on the way 
 to regretting that I had accepted the in- 
 vitation and renounced the sweets of liberty. 
 Twenty - four hours with the Rutherf ords, 
 however, were enough to make me feel 
 ashamed of that state of mind. Old Mr 
 Rutherford is merely pleasantly eccentric ; 
 his reminiscences are delightful, and Petrarch 
 turns out, after all, to be only one of his 
 many interests. As for his daughter, I shrink 
 from attempting the analysis of her gentle 
 temperament ; one can't define her charm, 
 yet it seems to pervade the house like some 
 quiet, soothing, eminently satisfying harmony 
 of colour. She is absolutely simple and sin- 
 cere, and candidly ignorant of the wiles and 
 wickednesses of life ; but she is the reverse 
 of the mentally anaemic type of saintly 
 female ; she has personality, she has a sense
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 259 
 
 of humour; enfin, she has charm. In addi- 
 tion to these virtues, she is a celebrated 
 artist. I made this surprising discovery 
 yesterday, when she was showing me her 
 father's pictures. Mr Rutherford's collection 
 consists entirely, as I wrote before, of not 
 particularly masterly old masters of the late 
 sixteenth and early seventeenth century ; but 
 his daughter's room, a bare and modest 
 apartment, was hung with water - colours 
 which I recognised at once as the work of 
 Alethea Stanhope. They were admirable 
 examples, and I congratulated Miss Ruther- 
 ford on possessing them. She looked at 
 me with a slight smile, and then blushed 
 beautifully. 
 
 "So you know her work?" she said. 
 
 "I'm one of her most ancient devotees," 
 I answered. "I appreciated her fifteen years 
 ago, long before she was famous. By the 
 way," I added, "doesn't she live in Florence? 
 or is it Siena? Do you know her?" 
 
 Miss Rutherford seemed really embarrassed. 
 She gave a little nervous laugh and said, 
 " Oh yes, she lives in Florence." Then she 
 turned away abruptly. "I am Alethea 
 Stanhope," she said. I uttered a foolish 
 exclamation.
 
 260 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "Are you really?" I cried. "How jolly! 
 But why do you call yourself Stanhope? I 
 never heard before of a painter assuming a 
 fictitious name. And why didn't Mr Ruther- 
 ford tell me that I was going to meet a lady 
 of genius ? " 
 
 Miss Rutherford laughed. "Father has no 
 illusions about my genius, as you're pleased 
 to call it," she said. " He hates all modern 
 painting, and when I began to exhibit he 
 insisted on my concealing my name his 
 name. So I used my mother's ; she was a 
 Stanhope. Alethea is my own name, though 
 he always calls me Laura. Laura is my 
 second name ; he gave it me because of 
 Petrarch's Laura, I believe. He always has 
 disliked my pictures ; he thinks, poor dear, 
 that painting came to a lurid end with 
 Caravaggio ; but when my work grew well 
 known he was sorry that he had insisted on 
 my taking another name. However, it was 
 too late to change then, and I'm always 
 Alethea Stanhope in the catalogues." 
 
 I made no comment on Mr Rutherford's 
 behaviour, but I decided privately that he 
 sometimes pushed eccentricity a great deal 
 too far, and I hoped that since his daughter 
 had made a big reputation he felt properl
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 261 
 
 ashamed of himself. It is more than likely, 
 however, that he doesn't realise how famous 
 she has become ; he is absolutely ignorant 
 of modern art movements, has never heard 
 a Wagner opera, and astounded me the other 
 day, when we were in the portrait -room of 
 the Uffizii, by asking if Sargent was a well- 
 known painter. 
 
 There is a rickety apology for a studio in 
 the garden, but Miss Rutherford rarely uses 
 it, preferring to paint in her own room, which 
 has a good light. At present the studio is 
 being swept and garnished for Mr Garth, who 
 will have to work under an umbrella in rainy 
 weather, for the roof is as full of holes as 
 a pepper-pot. The whole structure, indeed, 
 looks as if it might collapse at any moment, 
 but Mr Rutherford refuses to repair it 
 another instance, I suppose, of his passion 
 for the antique. A brief examination of the 
 works which adorned its mouldering walls 
 confirmed my ancient theory that Alethea 
 Stanhope, if she had not specialised in water- 
 colour landscape, might have been one of the 
 finest portrait painters of our time ; a care- 
 fully finished full length of her father 
 painted, she told me, entirely "out of her 
 head," for, of course, the old man wouldn't sit
 
 262 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 for her, was really marvellous, and a rough 
 study of a very beautiful girl, a broad-browed, 
 deep-bosomed Madonna who lay in a low 
 wicker chair with her hands clasped behind 
 her head, seemed to me equally brilliant. 
 
 "I did that last winter in Rome," she said, 
 as I was examining the latter picture. " You 
 know who she is, of course." 
 
 I asserted my ignorance of the sitter's 
 identity, and added that it was the loveliest 
 face that I had seen for ages. Miss 
 Rutherford nodded gravely. " She is very 
 beautiful," she said. "Her name is Mary 
 Vernon." 
 
 " The famous Miss Vernon ! " I cried. 
 
 " I don't know ; is she ? " answered Miss 
 Rutherford vaguely. "Her mother was a 
 friend of father's ; she was a great singer. 
 They lived in Rome. Mary still lives there, 
 for half the year at least. Princess Scarpa 
 has given her a set of rooms in her palazzo. 
 It must be an odd life, but it suits Mary. 
 She is odd." 
 
 I am afraid that the curiosity with which 
 I regarded the picture was not wholly artistic. 
 I had heard much in Rome of Miss Mary 
 Vernon, though I had never had the good 
 fortune to see her, and I had come to think
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 263 
 
 of her as the incarnation, or rather, the re- 
 incarnation of Christina Light in Henry 
 James's admirable 'Roderick Hudson.' The 
 Roman tea-parties buzzed with strange tales 
 of her wilfulness, her caustic wit, her superb 
 disregard for the prejudices of ordinary 
 persons, and her ever - shifting matrimonial 
 prospects ; she had broken the susceptible 
 heart of a Russian Grand Duke ; she had 
 nursed infectious children in Trastevere, and 
 had flirted disgracefully with a Cardinal ; she 
 was like one of those splendid women of the 
 Renaissance ; she was a heartless coquette, 
 and so on. None of the legends that I had 
 heard seemed appropriate to the serene and 
 noble face of the picture except the story of 
 her exploits in Trastevere, and I was so much 
 astonished to find Mary Vernon looking good 
 as well as beautiful that I had the temerity 
 to ask Miss Rutherford if she thought the 
 portrait an accurate one. 
 
 Miss Rutherford smiled. " Why do you ask 
 that ? " she demanded. I explained that my 
 idea of Miss Yernon's personality had been 
 very different. She looked at the picture 
 for a short time. "You're quite right," she 
 said. "As a portrait, it's a failure. It's an 
 idealisation ; it's how she ought to look. I
 
 264 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 have seen her with that expression, but very 
 seldom, too seldom. She didn't like the 
 picture, she said that I had made her like 
 one of those placid, stupid Luini Madonnas. 
 So I never finished it. She is very strange. 
 Can you imagine any one disliking Luini ? " 
 She murmured all this in her low, sweet 
 voice, still staring at the picture. Then she 
 went to the table, took up a palette and 
 brushes. "I'm going to show you a trick," 
 she said, squeezing out some paints. She 
 selected a very fine brush, and after she had 
 mixed some colours she came back to the 
 picture. She made the point of the brush 
 hover for a moment round the eyes, touched 
 the canvas twice with it almost imperceptibly, 
 and then put down the palette. " Look at it 
 now," she said. I obeyed, and saw that the 
 whole expression had altered ; the serene 
 nobility had vanished ; it was restless, ner- 
 vous, almost peevish. I was immensely 
 startled ; I looked closely at the picture, but 
 I was absolutely unable to detect any new 
 mark on the canvas ; I suppose that she 
 merely made the tiniest alteration to the 
 light in the eyes. I protested that magic 
 of this kind made me uncomfortable, and 
 begged her to restore the original expression ;
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 265 
 
 she smiled, but did not take up the brush. 
 " We'll wait until you have seen the original," 
 she said. "Mary Vernon is coming to stay 
 here in a few days. She visits us every year 
 on her way North." 
 
 I expressed my gratification at this news, 
 but I wondered, and am wondering still 
 whether the famous beauty will adapt her- 
 self to our placid life at the Villa, or whether 
 she will utterly demoralise and upset us all. 
 I hope sincerely for the mood of the Luini 
 Madonna ; but I feel a dismal premonition 
 that she will behave like the spoilt child that 
 she almost certainly is, and will be caustic 
 and petulant or hard and indefatigable. (How 
 I hate women who are never tired !) On the 
 whole, I wish that she wasn't coming. Life 
 here at present is delightful ; Mr Rutherford 
 has deserted Petrarch for the moment, and 
 plays beautiful old music on faint claviers 
 all the evening, whilst his daughter and I sit 
 on the verandah and watch the lights of 
 Florence making long reflections in the 
 Arno. All day we follow our own sweet 
 wills ; Miss Rutherford paints, old Rutherford 
 writes, and I sit in the garden waiting for the 
 spark from Heaven to fall. It doesn't fall, so 
 I am happily idle.
 
 266 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Miss Rutherford allows me to watch her 
 at work. . . . 
 
 June Qth. 
 
 Mr Rutherford has ceased to play the 
 clavier, and produces asthmatic sounds from 
 a kind of bagpipe with a voice like a hen. 
 Mercifully, he only plays this infernal instru- 
 ment during the evening ; in the daytime he 
 is occupied in writing a treatise on the tire 
 perdue process of bronze-casting. It is strange 
 to think that the whole of his long life has 
 been passed in this perpetual flitting from 
 one art to another, but it has at least (except 
 for the matter of the bagpipe) been an in- 
 nocent business, and though he is fussy he is 
 never ill-tempered. I wish, however, that he 
 didn't treat his daughter's existence quite so 
 much as a matter of course. Her personality 
 is certainly the finest of his treasures. Her 
 painting is wonderful, but quite apart from 
 that, her refinement, her gentleness, her 
 delicate humour make her perfectly adorable. 
 She has read my books. She seems to have 
 read everything except the novels of 
 D'Annunzio, who offends her. . . . 
 
 June \2th. 
 
 We were sitting on the verandah this
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 267 
 
 morning when the bell rang, and a moment 
 later I heard the sound of an unknown 
 masculine voice. It was not unknown to 
 Miss Rutherford, however, who rose with a 
 glad cry of " That must be Louis ! " and went 
 into the house. It was the first occasion 
 when I had seen her in a hurry. She re- 
 turned after a short time followed by a 
 young man of about thirty, whom she in- 
 troduced as Mr Louis Garth. 
 
 Her cousin is tall and strongly built; his 
 shoulders are herculean, and make an odd 
 contrast with his small closely-cropped head 
 and his thin, clear-cut, and eminently sagaci- 
 ous face. He has something of the air of a 
 Pierrot ; his expression is at once sentimental 
 and malicious, candid and melancholy. Like 
 most Englishmen who have spent several 
 years in the company of velvet - breeched 
 ruffians in Paris, he has extremely pleasant, 
 easy manners ; and though I am tolerably 
 certain that he was intensely surprised to 
 find a stranger at the Villa, he greeted me 
 as if my presence were the most natural 
 thing in the world. He wears rather old, 
 loose clothes of soft grey stuff, which some- 
 how suit his long figure excellently; his 
 hands he has fine hands are disgracefully
 
 268 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 stained with cigarette smoking. I liked him 
 at once ; he seemed so agreeably deficient in 
 the solid British qualities of stiffness, grumpi- 
 ness, self-consciousness, or shyness. As soon 
 as he had sat down cross - legged on the 
 verandah near Miss Rutherford's chair, he 
 began to discourse to us with a kind of airy 
 gaiety that was singularly pleasant ; he has 
 all the charm of a clever boy who is not 
 self-assertive, combined with the easy inde- 
 pendence of a man who has seen a great 
 deal of the world and toiled hard and suc- 
 cessfully at his chosen craft. He confirms 
 my old theory which asserts that though 
 some artists are base beasts, the really de- 
 lightful ones are the pleasantest fellows 
 alive. 
 
 He has been wandering in the Pyrenees, 
 where he fell in with and painted a colony 
 of Basques, the members of which he de- 
 scribed as easily the greasiest set of ruffians 
 that ever polluted the fairness of earth. He 
 produced a portfolio full of sketches in sup- 
 port of this assertion, and the Basques were 
 certainly a most ferocious crew. His work 
 seemed to me very clever, vivid, and full 
 of humour, light, and freshness; he has a 
 beautiful line. I felt this is the most dread-
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERYOISE 269 
 
 f ul kind of perverted criticism ! I felt that it 
 reflected his debonair personality just as fully 
 as Miss Rutherford's drawings express her 
 own tranquil and beautiful spirit. But, of 
 course, he is a long way below her ; though 
 I haven't seen any of his larger things, I 
 am certain of that. 
 
 They are obviously very old friends ; it is 
 easy to see that she thinks him one of the 
 finest creatures in the world, and he is charm- 
 ing to her. This morning she laughed like a 
 girl of twenty at his absurdities, and really 
 caught the infection of his gaiety ; I had 
 never realised that she had such a gift of 
 merriment. We were all infected ; when old 
 Mr Rutherford came out he instantly began 
 to perpetrate the most amazing puns, and 
 I, even I, was monstrously jocose. Garth 
 professed himself delighted at the prospect 
 of Miss Vernon's arrival. He has seen her 
 several times, and wants to paint her. Mean- 
 while, he has roughed in a life-sized head of 
 Miss Rutherford which promises well, though 
 at present he has not quite succeeded in 
 rendering the soft light in her eyes. He 
 began it on the verandah after lunch, but 
 he intends to work in the dilapidated studio, 
 where he has already arranged his canvases
 
 270 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 and paint-boxes. I noticed, when I went there 
 with him, that Miss Rutherford had removed 
 her portrait of Miss Vernon. 
 
 June 
 
 There is really nothing to record except 
 that we have all attained the most pleasant 
 intimacy, and that Miss Vernon is expected 
 to arrive to-morrow. The head of Alethea is 
 coming on very well, and the gifted painter 
 is evidently pleased with it and with life in 
 general. Yesterday afternoon he accom- 
 panied me to the Belle Arti, and afterwards 
 insisted on my embarking with him in a 
 crazy craft which he hired from some fisher- 
 men below the waterfall. Our voyage was 
 swift and hazardous, except when we stuck 
 in the mud ; but the sunset was magnificent. 
 We went about two miles beyond the end 
 of the Cascine, and returned on foot. 
 
 As we were walking through the garden, 
 Garth suddenly asked me if I didn't like his 
 cousin enormously. I responded with appro- 
 priate superlatives, and he nodded approval, 
 asserting, almost with emotion, that she was 
 the kindest and best person alive. . . . He 
 spoke so fervently that I was assailed with 
 sudden suspicion. Has he, I wonder, come
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 271 
 
 here to ask her to marry him ? I don't 
 think that she would refuse him ; her de- 
 votion to him, as I noted before, is obvious ; 
 and though she is seven or eight years the 
 elder, he would be a very fortunate person. 
 I await developments I feel almost certain 
 that they will come with interest. I don't 
 know what will happen to old Mr Ruther- 
 ford, but no doubt he will contrive to be 
 happy with his Petrarch and his Caravaggio, 
 and probably Garth and Alethea will make 
 him live with them. By the way, I am to 
 call her Alethea; that was arranged yester- 
 day morning, in spite of Mr Rutherford, who 
 moved an amendment for Laura, and was 
 out-voted by three to one. It is really flat- 
 tering that a middle-aged fogey like myself 
 should have been received into cordial friend- 
 ship by such charming people. I begin to 
 imagine that I am not such an old bear as 
 I thought. 
 
 To-night Mr Rutherford, in his scarlet 
 smoking - cap, played Bach on the harpsi- 
 chord by the light of a few candles he has 
 a head that Tintoretto should have made 
 immortal. Alethea turned the pages of the 
 music for him ; she wore a gown of dove- 
 coloured silk, and in the mellow light her
 
 272 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 hair was like an aureole of faint gold. I 
 could think of no painter who would be 
 worthy of her as his subject, except per- 
 haps Botticelli. Or Leonardo ; but Leonardo 
 would have over-subtilised the almost child- 
 ish sweetness of her lips and eyes. She 
 looked absurdly young to-night. Garth sat 
 watching her all the evening, smoking cigar- 
 ette after cigarette. ... I notice that when 
 they talk he, with his easy, copious flow of 
 words, and she, with her gentle, hesitating 
 precision, they each manage to give out 
 surprisingly good things in the simplest 
 way; Garth, for instance, can embody a 
 really penetrating and subtle piece of criti- 
 cism in a few words of picturesque jargon. 
 I make a sad contrast; whenever I join in 
 their talk, I seem to utter dreadful platitudes 
 in the most pompous manner possible. It 
 really is very good of them to suffer me so 
 gladly. (Is there anything in life more de- 
 pressing than the dull vacancy which over- 
 whelms the pedantic mind when it conies in 
 contact with imagination, with swift intu- 
 ition, with the white heat of genius? But 
 at all events the punishment is appro- 
 priate. . . .) 
 
 I am really absurdly happy.
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 273 
 
 June 
 
 After all, I recant; diaries are meant to 
 contain descriptions of women ! Miss Vernon 
 arrived this evening with a tiny Italian maid 
 and a large assortment of luggage. She cer- 
 tainly is a glorious creature ; tall, with a 
 beautiful figure, magnificent dark eyes and 
 hair, and a profile absolutely Greek. This 
 sounds as if she were the heroine of a sen- 
 sational novel, but I am still slightly be- 
 wildered by her beauty, her deep slow voice, 
 and her enigmatic expression, and I find it 
 difficult to write of her with critical calm. 
 I only know that I was conscious all the 
 evening of an ever-deepening conviction that 
 she is several sizes too large for the Villa ; 
 positively she makes us all dwindle to dwarfs. 
 She appeared at dinner in a black dress that 
 displayed the finest arms and shoulders ever 
 beheld by my monkish eyes ; I never saw any- 
 thing in the world like the poise of her head. 
 Her complexion is dark her mother was a 
 Venetian but without a hint of sallowness, 
 and her hair is raven-black. I must confess, 
 however, that she is not in the least like a 
 Madonna ; Alethea's picture is a failure as a 
 portrait. Miss Vernoii's face, when in'repose, 
 is almost inscrutable, but, as far as I could 
 
 s
 
 274 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 judge, it is never absolutely tranquil ; if it 
 ever is, its calm is sardonic, not happy. 
 Often her eyes glow with a distinctly iron- 
 ical light, and sometimes they become, in an 
 instant, blank and expressionless as dead 
 coal. Her self - possession is complete ; sev- 
 eral times during the evening I found that 
 she was regarding me with a calm, intent 
 scrutiny, as if she were wondering quite 
 kindly, not at all contemptuously whence 
 her friends had exhumed me ; and when my 
 eyes met hers she continued to look at me as 
 if she were unconscious that I was alive. She 
 has an amusing but slightly indolent method 
 of speech, and moves her hands beautifully 
 whilst she talks. She can laugh, and though 
 she says caustic things, she is not, I feel cer- 
 tain, ill-natured. Yet in spite of her splendid 
 vitality and loveliness, I cannot escape from 
 feeling that something has happened to em- 
 bitter her, that she is really without illusions, 
 and that she regards herself as the spectator 
 of a life in which she seems to be playing so 
 brilliant a part. After dinner she sang old 
 Italian folk - songs. Perhaps her voice a 
 mezzo - soprano is too powerful for the 
 genre; at any rate, it was too loud for the 
 room ; and though her control of it was
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 275 
 
 perfect, I did not enjoy the elaborate treat- 
 ment of airs which I have so often heard 
 children sing in Tuscany and Umbria. Mr 
 Rutherford accompanied her, frowning dis- 
 approval at the music, but playing it with 
 admirable delicacy. Afterwards she sang 
 Puccini, playing for herself, as Mr Ruther- 
 ford fiercely refused to aid and abet in the 
 reproduction of such modern abominations. 
 She is, I think, a born dramatic singer; the 
 airs from La Tosca and La Boheme suit her 
 perfectly, and her rendering of them was 
 really fine, full of power and dan, but never 
 noisy or cheaply theatrical. Splendid though 
 her voice was, however, it astonished me less 
 than the passionate energy in her face whilst 
 she sang ; her indolently ironical air had 
 completely vanished, and she looked like an 
 ecstatic seraph. She sings without an ap- 
 parent effort ; of course she has a superb 
 physique, and she doesn't make ugly grim- 
 aces. Alethea watched her with a rapt, and 
 Mr Rutherford with an agonised expression. 
 Garth sat with his chin supported on his 
 fists, staring at her profile ; her beauty is 
 certainly enough to steal away the soul of 
 any poet or painter. 
 
 Garth, by the way, was less talkative than
 
 276 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 usual during dinner, though when he spoke 
 he was as amusing as ever. After the ladies 
 and Mr Rutherford had gone to bed we 
 smoked cigars on the verandah, and I ven- 
 tured to hint that Miss Vernon's beauty sur- 
 passed all my expectations. Garth did not 
 join in my paean of praise, but briefly agreed 
 that she was fine, and changed the subject. 
 I am tempted to believe that he does not 
 wholly rejoice in Miss Vernon's advent; I 
 suppose selfish beast ! he wanted Alethea 
 all to himself. 
 
 June Wth. 
 
 This morning Alethea and Miss Vernon 
 braved the heat and went to the Pitti ; I 
 worked with Mr Rutherford, and Garth shut 
 himself up in the studio with Alethea's por- 
 trait. At noon I went to see how he was 
 progressing, and found that he had turned 
 Alethea's face to the wall and had begun a 
 life - size study of a woman that it was 
 already easy to recognise as a portrait of 
 Miss Vernon. 
 
 For once he seemed to be in a silent mood, 
 and when I rallied him (in my usual ponder- 
 ous manner) on his fickleness he did not 
 reply, but frowned at his new picture. I
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 277 
 
 looked at it over his shoulder; he had 
 merely roughed in the figure in raw umber, 
 and the face was a blank; but already I 
 was able to realise that he had made an 
 admirable beginning. Miss Vernon was sit- 
 ting in precisely the same attitude which 
 Alethea had chosen for her picture, except 
 that her hands lay in her lap. 
 
 He painted away for some time in silence, 
 then he turned towards me suddenly. "Not 
 so bad, is it, considering that I haven't had 
 a sitting yet?" he said. 
 
 I replied appropriately. He looked at me ; 
 there was a funny gleam in his eyes half- 
 penetrating, half-mischievous. 
 
 "She doesn't know that I've done this," 
 he added. 
 
 I remarked that Miss Vernon ought to 
 feel flattered. 
 
 He shrugged his big shoulders and blew a 
 cloud of cigarette-smoke. " Oh, I think not," 
 he said. "Every one has tried to paint her. 
 They're all failures, though, thank Heaven." 
 
 "Even Alethea?" I asked. 
 
 He stared at me. "Has Alethea done 
 her?" he demanded. 
 
 "Haven't you seen it?" said I. 
 
 He shook his head. "Beastly secretive of
 
 278 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Alethea," he said. "Now hers might be a 
 success. If she had gone in for portraits 
 she'd have beaten every one. The Luxem- 
 bourg would have bought her portrait of 
 her father if he hadn't refused to allow it 
 to be hung there. You remember it? It 
 was called Le Collectioneur.' It ought 
 to have been stuck up alongside the 
 Whistler ; it was as fine it was, really. 
 We must ask Alethea where it is now; 
 probably my uncle has given it away, or 
 put it at the back of his bookshelves to 
 keep out the damp." 
 
 "It was here before you came," I said. 
 "Alethea took away all her pictures then." 
 
 "She can't bear to hear me praise them," 
 said Garth. "She knows that she ought 
 to be doing portraits. She's a wicked old 
 woman ! " He painted for several minutes, 
 then, without looking at me, he murmured, 
 "If only we could persuade her to have 
 another shot at Miss Vernon ! " 
 
 "The first shot was good enough for me," 
 I said. 
 
 He shook his head. "The second would 
 be better," he retorted. "You never really 
 see any one until you've painted them once 
 a woman especially. There are only two
 
 ways to get to know women ; one is to 
 paint them, and the other is to live with 
 them. If you don't know a woman really, 
 and try to paint her, you get nothing but 
 her outside ; all the character escapes you. 
 I don't believe that the Monna Lisa was 
 Leonardo's first shot at that lady; but any- 
 how, I know that my first shot at Miss 
 Vernon won't be a success. It'll be a jolly 
 picture, but I shan't really get her ; she's 
 too subtle, and as yet I don't know her at 
 all. When it's finished I shall, though." 
 
 "Your theory that painting a portrait re- 
 veals the whole character of the subject to 
 the painter seems to me to add a new horror 
 to life," I said. 
 
 Garth smiled wickedly. "They like it," he 
 said. "The subjects, I mean. That's why 
 they all flocked to Sargent. Being painted 
 by a fellow of his insight he's a real clair- 
 voyant as regards character had all the 
 fascination of the confessional." 
 
 "But do you think he always had two 
 shots?" I asked. 
 
 "Perhaps not," said Garth. "But for 
 Leonardo and myself they're absolutely 
 necessary. You wait for my second shot at 
 Miss Vernon," he added.
 
 280 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "I wonder if she will wait?" I murmured. 
 The two -shot theory certainly seems hard 
 luck on the sitter. . . . 
 
 Miss Vernon, when she returned with 
 Alethea after a long morning amongst the 
 Fra Angelicos, summarily disposed of the 
 problem by refusing to sit at all. She was 
 utterly weary, she asserted, of being painted. 
 Every artist in Rome seemed to look on her 
 as a superior kind of model, and to glare at 
 her with hungry eyes ; her only wonder was 
 that she had not been approached by cine- 
 matograph proprietors and dealers in picture 
 post-cards. She informed Garth that he could 
 sketch her when she sat in the verandah if 
 he cared to do so, but she flatly declined to 
 pose for him. 
 
 Garth acquiesced at once. "You needn't 
 think about it at all," he said. "If I can 
 look at you now and then it will be enough. 
 When you aren't talking you are absolutely 
 still." 
 
 Miss Vernon laughed. "I warn you that 
 I shall talk as much as ever," she said. " I 
 strongly advise you not to paint me, Mr 
 Garth. I'm a fatal subject. Dozens of 
 people have tried, and in every case the 
 result was disaster."
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 281 
 
 "Well, it won't be in my case," said Garth, 
 quickly. 
 
 Alethea put her hand on her friend's 
 arm. "That isn't very nice to me, dear!" 
 she murmured. 
 
 Miss Vernon stroked her hand for a 
 moment, and then uttered a remarkable 
 sentence. "Oh, you, Alethea!" she said. 
 "You're a woman!" 
 
 Now, if any other person of Miss Vernon's 
 sex had said these words, I should have con- 
 demned her instantly as silly and vulgar. Per- 
 haps I am bewitched by her beauty ; perhaps 
 it was the absolute simplicity of her voice that 
 made me imagine that they had a meaning 
 other than the apparently obvious one. I 
 suppose that I stared at her for some time, 
 for presently I became conscious that she 
 was looking at me with calm, slightly 
 ironical eyes. 
 
 "I've become a problem to a philosopher," 
 she said. "Mr Jervoise, Alethea is the only 
 person in the world who really knows me. 
 She painted a picture which was an exact 
 portrait, and then she couldn't bear it, and 
 made me into a Luini Madonna. Didn't 
 you, Alethea?" 
 
 I looked at Alethea and saw that she
 
 282 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 had flushed to crimson. Miss Vernon gave 
 a short laugh and sank into an arm-chair. 
 
 "You mean that no male artist can under- 
 stand the subtleties of your character?" I 
 asked, and hated myself next moment for 
 the pompous sentence. 
 
 Her face dimpled. " No male artist, and no 
 philosopher," she retorted. "And no female 
 artist either, except Alethea. Alethea, un- 
 fortunately, knows me through and through. 
 It's a great sorrow to her, of course, for she 
 likes to pretend that every one in the world 
 is good and beautiful and true. I believe 
 she still clings to the hope that I shall be- 
 come like her Luini Madonna. But, of 
 course, I never shall. It would make life 
 so very dull." 
 
 " Mary, you're talking perfect nonsense ! " 
 said Alethea. 
 
 Garth, who had been watching Miss 
 Vernon with very intent eyes, looked at 
 Alethea for a moment. 
 
 "You know it isn't nonsense," he said 
 quietly. "And I'm quite certain that I shall 
 understand Miss Vernon." 
 
 "Not a bit of it," retorted that young lady 
 cheerfully. "You'll paint your own idea of 
 me, and it'll be quite wrong. You'll make
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 283 
 
 me either a Madonna or a devil. And I'm 
 both ! " she concluded. 
 
 "Every one's both," was my fatuous com- 
 ment. 
 
 Miss Vernon looked at me with a sweet 
 smile and said, "Are you?" And this ab- 
 surdity killed the discussion. 
 
 I don't know much about Miss Vernon's 
 character, but I am rapidly arriving at the 
 conclusion that she thinks me a majestic 
 ass. 
 
 There were still a few minutes before 
 luncheon, and I strolled down the garden 
 with Alethea, who wanted to gather roses. 
 The flowers set us talking of an Oxford 
 garden that we both knew and loved, 
 and it was only when we were return- 
 ing towards the Villa that I asserted my 
 hope of Garth's picture proving to be a 
 masterpiece. Alethea looked at me gravely, 
 then shook her head. 
 
 "It is certain to be beautiful," she said. 
 " But Mary was quite right. It won't be a 
 true portrait not that that really matters. 
 Louis has the soul of a poet ; he idealises 
 every one and everything." She paused for 
 a moment. "I'm not certain," she went on, 
 "that it wouldn't be better if he did under-
 
 284 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 stand her really know her. Only, then he 
 wouldn't finish the picture." 
 
 " Oh ! " I cried. " Do you mean that he 
 would lose all interest in her?" 
 
 Alethea frowned, and seemed to be wrest- 
 ling with a thought that refused to formu- 
 late itself in words. "Not exactly that," she 
 said. She was silent again, then she spoke 
 abruptly and almost sharply. "Don't you 
 see," she said, "he's one of the best people 
 on earth. He's good really good!" 
 
 I stared at her. "Do you mean to imply 
 that she isn't, Alethea?" I asked. 
 
 She shook her head almost vehemently- 
 "Oh, she's good too," she explained, "but 
 good in a very different way. However," 
 she concluded with a sudden laugh, "we 
 mustn't discuss them ! " And she closed her 
 lips resolutely. We marched up to the Villa 
 in silence. Garth had begun already to fix 
 up an easel on the verandah. 
 
 June 18th. 
 
 A singularly oppressive day ; even on the 
 hill it was too hot for even a short walk. 
 Nothing to record except that Miss Vernon 
 sits in the verandah reading French novels 
 whilst Garth paints her. The picture is
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 285 
 
 coming on well. There has been a severe 
 earthquake in Siena, but fortunately no 
 damage has been done to any historical 
 buildings. If the Mangia tower were to fall ! 
 It is said that several slight shocks were 
 felt in Florence, but they certainly passed 
 unperceived at the Villa Valchiusa. Miss 
 Vernon sang to us in the evening. Alethea 
 went to bed early with a headache. 
 
 June Vdth. 
 
 This morning, when I entered the study, 
 I discovered old Mr Rutherford lying in an 
 arm-chair smoking his enormous meerschaum 
 and staring at the ceiling, on which is painted 
 a revel of portly nymphs. It is most unusual 
 to find him idle at that hour, and I ventured 
 to ask if the heat of yesterday had upset 
 him. He shook his shaggy head and waved 
 me, with a princely gesture, towards a chair 
 by his side. 
 
 " I am not unwell," he replied, " but I am 
 a shade perplexed." He paused for a moment 
 and looked at me rather keenly. "We have 
 become so intimate, my dear Jervoise," he 
 went on, "that I really believe I should be 
 justified in or let me say pardoned for 
 asking your counsel in an affair of some
 
 286 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 delicacy and importance. The disparity of 
 our ages must be my excuse if I bore you 
 with a family matter. But if you would 
 prefer that I say nothing, do not hesitate ; 
 la parole, cher Monsieur, est a vous." And 
 he made me a magnificent bow. I expressed 
 my wish to serve him in any possible way. 
 He bowed again. " I am troubled," he said, 
 "as all fathers of a motherless girl must be 
 troubled. The inevitable day must come for 
 all of us ; la vita fugge e non starrest' uri ora, 
 and I am an old man ; five-and-fif ty years 
 have passed since I first, a mere stripling, 
 stood by the Arno. You know, I presume, 
 that my little Laura found her Francesco a 
 year ago?" 
 
 I gaped at the dear old windbag. "No," 
 I said; "I know nothing of the kind. She 
 never spoke about it." He shook his head 
 vaguely. " Curious ! I thought I told you 
 myself," he said. "She was betrothed to 
 her cousin, to the boy Louis. There was no 
 formal agreement; no one was told, and 
 now that I come to think of it, I believe 
 that neither Laura nor I have mentioned the 
 subject since, but as far as I recollect it 
 was arranged that he should come to claim 
 her after his year in Paris."
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 287 
 
 " He's a very fortunate fellow," I said. 
 
 " No doubt, no doubt," agreed Mr Ruther- 
 ford. " But the odd part of the affair is that 
 though he has been here for some time 
 there has been nothing said to me about 
 this marriage. I only realised this fact this 
 morning whilst I was looking up the Floren- 
 tine law of dowries. That they should have 
 said nothing to you is even more curious. 
 Why, bless me ! " he added suddenly, peering 
 at me through his tortoise-shell spectacles, 
 "you might have fallen in love with her 
 yourself ! " 
 
 "I suppose they realised that I was in- 
 capable of such an act of presumption," I 
 said tartly. I felt I can't account for the 
 sensation, I felt really irritated by the 
 secretive behaviour of Alethea and Louis. 
 Mr Rutherford continued to peer at me ; 
 then he said, " I find myself in a position 
 of considerable difficulty. I am naturally 
 anxious to know that Laura will not be 
 left alone in the world after my death, but 
 I do not wish to be indiscreet, to ply her 
 or Louis with embarrassing questions. There 
 may have been a lover's quarrel ; I may 
 have attached too much importance to 
 Laura's very fragmentary confidences of a
 
 288 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 year ago. Therefore, my dear Jervoise, I 
 want you if you can conscientiously do so 
 to let me know if they tell you anything, 
 or if you are able ^to draw any deductions 
 from their attitude." 
 
 I protested that he treated the matter 
 with too much delicacy, and asserted that 
 he had far better speak to Alethea. He 
 shook his head, and there was real terror in 
 his eyes. "No, no!" he said. "The truth 
 is, my dear friend, I daren't risk a scene, an 
 uncomfortable mal-entendu. You, as a man 
 of the world, will soon realise how matters 
 stand. The simple scholar is pathetically 
 helpless in these crucial moments." 
 
 I had a strong suspicion that the simple 
 scholar was merely pathetically lazy. I 
 agreed, however I hope I am not becoming 
 a base conspirator to let him know if 
 Alethea or Garth favoured me with informa- 
 tion concerning themselves. The old man 
 brightened at once, and then, obviously dis- 
 missing the matter altogether from his mind, 
 began to hold forth on Tuscan jurists of the 
 Quattro-cento. 
 
 So my suspicions were correct. I ought, 
 I suppose, to be very glad that this delight- 
 ful pair are to form a union, but like Mr
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 289 
 
 Rutherford, I feel that I want some definite 
 knowledge of their plans before I give them 
 my amicable blessing. It is odd that neither 
 of them told me of the engagement, but 
 probably each assumed that the other had 
 done so. Of course it is possible that they 
 may have decided not to marry ; but Alethea, 
 I am certain, is in love with her cousin, and 
 I know that he admires her immensely. I 
 wonder, by the way, if she has confided in 
 Miss Vernon? 
 
 June 20th. 
 
 She hasn't. I found Miss Vernon alone on 
 the verandah this morning, reading 'Du 
 Sang, de la Volupte et de la Mort ' (odd that 
 Barres, the eclectic, the ironical, should have 
 chosen so blatant a title), and she interrupted 
 me when I began to speak of the patriotic 
 novels by the same famous writer. They 
 bored her, she said ; she knew they were 
 brilliant, but she really couldn't feel any 
 interest in Boulanger and the Panama 
 scandals ; the history of the day before 
 yesterday always seemed squalid. Then she 
 asked me why I wasn't in love with Alethea. 
 I replied jocularly that it had never occurred 
 to me that I wasn't; she frowned slightly, 
 
 T
 
 290 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 and looked at me with an air of indolent 
 disapproval. 
 
 "It's a pity that you are so strange," 
 she said. "Alethea," she went on, "is one 
 of the few women who ought to marry ; it 
 wouldn't ruin her, it wouldn't make her an 
 4goiste a deux. Of course you're not nearly 
 good enough for her, but you're decent, and 
 kind in your own dreary way. She might 
 reform you. You're the only man she knows 
 who is possible for her." 
 
 " Oh, indeed ? " I retorted. " I imagine 
 that she doesn't think so." 
 
 Miss Vernon did not appreciate this re- 
 mark. "I'm afraid not," she said. "I'm 
 afraid that she'll never marry now." She 
 fanned herself slowly with her book. 
 
 " Since we have embarked on this subject," 
 I said, "not that I think we should have 
 done so, why shouldn't she marry her 
 cousin? They're tremendous friends." 
 
 Miss Vernon closed her eyes. When she 
 does this she really looks like a Madonna. 
 
 "That will never happen," she said slowly. 
 
 "How do you know?" I demanded. She 
 opened her eyes and looked at me calmly. 
 "I should prevent it," she said. "It would 
 be quite fatal for both of them."
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 291 
 
 Her manner irritated me intensely. "Oh, 
 that's nonsense ! " I cried. 
 
 "You would think so," said Miss Vernon 
 pleasantly; "but as the subject doesn't seem 
 to be a fortunate one, suppose we drop it." 
 And she began to talk about an opera which 
 we saw a night or two ago. She really is 
 a most amazing person. Result, I suppose, 
 of cosmopolitan life ; I certainly never met 
 any one like her at Oxford. Of course it is 
 very bad form. . . . Odd, too, that she should 
 have spoken about Alethea's marriage just 
 after old Rutherford favoured me with his 
 confidence. If she were any one else I should 
 be certain that she was jealous of Alethea ; 
 but I don't feel that. Perhaps she dis- 
 approves of first cousins marrying ; perhaps 
 she was merely amusing herself by trying 
 to shock me. But she didn't impress me as 
 being amused ; in fact, her eyes, after I had 
 made that remark about Garth and Alethea, 
 were rather extraordinary. 
 
 Garth, by the way, had retired from the 
 world to the privacy of the old studio, where 
 I retreated after my brief interview with 
 Miss Vernon. I found him looking worried 
 and nervous, but he greeted me with his 
 accustomed cheerfulness. He was contem-
 
 292 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 plating the portrait of Miss Vernon, which 
 was more than half - finished. I inquired 
 how he was getting on. He flung out one 
 of his long hands with a comically desperate 
 gesture. "Look at the damned thing!" he 
 cried. 
 
 I looked, and at first saw nothing remark- 
 able. Closer inspection, however, under his 
 guidance, revealed the fact that Miss Vernon, 
 in the picture, wore a distinctly feline ex- 
 pression. " I can't get rid of it that sort 
 of I'd-bite-if-I-liked-but-I'm-lazy look," he ex- 
 plained. "She never looks like that." I 
 remembered Miss Vernon's expression of a 
 few minutes before ; Garth had reproduced 
 it perfectly. 
 
 "Perhaps she does sometimes," I said, 
 " and you've subconsciously noticed it." 
 Garth poured scorn on this suggestion. 
 
 "And even if she ever did look like that 
 it wasn't characteristic, it wasn't really her," 
 he wound up. "I made sure yesterday that 
 I had got her face perfectly, and then when 
 I came in here this morning the thing was 
 all wrong again. It's perfectly maddening ; 
 she will have to sit to me, really to sit." 
 
 "How about Alethea?" I asked. Garth 
 swung round sharply and stared at me.
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 293 
 
 "What about Alethea?" he demanded. I 
 realised that he was looking at me almost 
 defiantly. 
 
 " Her picture, I mean," I explained. " Have 
 you finished it ? " He replied that he could do 
 so at any time, but Miss Vernon was leaving 
 in a few days. Then he began to stipple away 
 at the eyes of the picture, and made a dread- 
 ful mess of them, and swore. I thought it 
 wise to leave him. . . . 
 
 June 23rd. 
 
 Only three days have passed since I made 
 the last entry, and already a depressing 
 change has taken place in the former peace- 
 ful atmosphere of the Villa. I suspected 
 that Mary Vernon would stir us all up, and 
 she has emphatically done so. For the whole 
 of the three days she has flirted energetically 
 there is no other phrase for the process 
 with Louis Garth. She insisted on really 
 sitting for her portrait ; she talks to him 
 and looks at him exclusively, and she goes 
 off under the moon with him for hours after 
 dinner. No doubt she is very attractive and 
 Garth is an artist, but I think that his be- 
 haviour he has fallen an easy victim, as 
 far as one can judge is less than decent,
 
 294 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 when one considers that he was practically 
 engaged to Alethea. That poor lady, who 
 began by congratulating herself that Louis 
 and Mary had "got on together" so well, 
 now looks the reverse of happy, though of 
 course she pretends to observe nothing, and 
 even tries to make their behaviour appear 
 to be usual by taking me into the garden 
 in another direction after dinner. During 
 these nocturnal excursions she speaks very 
 little, and even when I fall into flower-beds 
 she does not smile. 
 
 The accursed portrait meanwhile proceeds 
 apace, though it is far too amiable for 
 Mary Vernon. I wish to Heaven she would 
 go away; I would go myself to Siena, in 
 spite of the earthquakes if I didn't hate 
 the thought of leaving Alethea alone with 
 these wicked people. Mr Rutherford, of 
 course, is sublimely indifferent to all that 
 is happening. I feel strongly inclined to 
 usurp his neglected privilege of talking 
 to Louis like a father. He would probably 
 pull my nose, but I might at least partially 
 awaken the sense of decency which at present 
 slumbers profoundly in his soul. I suppose 
 that the young idiot feels flattered because 
 this girl who has refused grand dukes and
 
 DIARY OF MB SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 295 
 
 millionaires shows, or pretends to show, a 
 preference for him. I don't believe that 
 really she cares for him deeply; the more 
 I watch her face when she talks to him, the 
 more I feel that she is merely amusing her- 
 self. It is extraordinary that he cannot 
 arrive at the same conclusion ; my only hope 
 is that his picture may teach him as he 
 asserted that it would something about her 
 character. 
 
 Of course I really know nothing about 
 her! But when I think of poor Alethea. . . . 
 
 June 24:th. 
 
 This morning Louis announced his inten- 
 tion of taking a holiday from the art of 
 portraiture and of going to sketch old houses 
 near the Ponte Vecchio. Mary Vernon, who 
 sketches quite cleverly, at once decided to 
 go with him. I saw Louis look at Alethea, 
 but that lady shook her head, and declared 
 that she would stay at home and make a 
 drawing of me. Mary Vernon, after gazing 
 meditatively I think at my bald patch, 
 remarked that if we went on painting and 
 drawing each other at this rate, every one 
 would accuse us of belonging to a mutual 
 admiration society of the worst kind, and
 
 296 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 begged Alethea to make me look like one 
 of Luini's saints. 
 
 We watched them as they departed down 
 the garden path. They certainly made a 
 fine pair, physically speaking ; Mary Vernon 
 walks like a goddess, and Louis, with his 
 bronzed cheeks, his broad shoulders, and his 
 easy, swinging stride, was a worthy attend- 
 ant. Half-way down the garden she appeared 
 to imagine that they had forgotten some- 
 thing, for I saw her halt and put her hand 
 on his sleeve a gesture that implied in- 
 timacy. Apparently he reassured her, for 
 they proceeded on their way without looking 
 round. 
 
 When they had gone Alethea bent over 
 her drawing materials. "They look well 
 together, don't they?" she asked. 
 
 The soft tones of her voice the very music 
 of resignation made me feel angry. "Very 
 well," I assented gruffly; "but I rather wish 
 they weren't together quite so frequently." 
 
 I expected Alethea to utter a conventional 
 protest against this remark. Instead, how- 
 ever, after drawing a line very carefully on 
 her Bristol board, she looked up at me and 
 nodded gravely. " So do I," she said. I 
 uttered a slight exclamation of surprise. She
 
 DIARY OF MB SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 297 
 
 bent again over the drawing. " I suppose 
 it sounds disloyal," she said, keeping her 
 eyes fixed on the paper, "but I can't help 
 that. It is what I feel, and it's no use 
 pretending, is it?" 
 
 "You mean that she is really like the 
 amended picture?" I asked. She looked up 
 at me with a frankly bewildered air. "The 
 picture you painted of her it's like her 
 since you altered the eyes," I explained. She 
 smiled faintly. 
 
 "I had forgotten about that," she said. 
 " Yes ; it's like her, as she is sometimes, 
 with some people." 
 
 "With Louis?" I demanded. She did not 
 answer. "Do you mean that she is not to 
 be trusted, that she's dangerous ? " I asked 
 after a moment. 
 
 "/ would trust her," Alethea answered. 
 
 "But Louis will be wise if he doesn't?" I 
 persisted. 
 
 "Louis doesn't understand her," she said. 
 " If this drawing isn't to be a failure, you 
 must keep quite still." I ignored this in- 
 junction. 
 
 "You mean he doesn't realise that she is 
 merely amusing herself," I said. " But per- 
 haps she isn't. She may really like him."
 
 298 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 " She does like him," Alethea replied. " But 
 no man should trust her. She's quite differ- 
 ent from other women." 
 
 I stared at Alethea. " Translated into plain 
 brutal English," I said, "that is a fairly strong 
 indictment." 
 
 Alethea looked up again. There was a 
 strange brightness in her eyes. 
 
 "It's true," she said, almost vehemently. 
 " It's not her fault. She has had great 
 troubles ; they've warped her." She paused 
 for a moment, then cried, "How funny, your 
 remembering about the picture ! " 
 
 I ignored this exclamation. "Alethea," I 
 said, "are you afraid that she'll marry him?" 
 To my great astonishment, Alethea gave a 
 really bitter laugh. 
 
 " She won't marry him ! " she declared em- 
 phatically. "If she would I shouldn't care 
 so much. She won't marry any one. She 
 hates all that kind of thing." 
 
 "If that is so," I remarked, "he ought to 
 be warned." Alethea laughed again, a 
 chilling sound. 
 
 "Don't you see that it's impossible for me 
 to warn him?" she cried. 
 
 "Well, I might try," I said. "I'm much
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 299 
 
 older than he is." Alethea looked at me 
 with alarm. 
 
 "For Heaven's sake, don't!" she said. "It 
 would do no good ; it would only make things 
 worse, and he would think that I had sent 
 you. If only," she cried with real passion 
 in her voice, "if only I could make him 
 realise, make him see her ! " 
 
 " You had better show him your picture," 
 I said rather brutally. I was irritated by 
 the foolishness of the whole situation. " Per- 
 haps," I added, "when he has finished 
 painting her he'll know all about her true 
 character which is more than I know. He 
 has an absurd theory that painting a portrait 
 always results in that kind of revelation." 
 
 Alethea looked at me gravely. "There's a 
 good deal in that," she said ; " if only his 
 picture could show him the truth ! But it 
 won't ; it'll only reflect his idea of her, his 
 false idea." 
 
 "Miss Vernon must be very bad indeed," 
 I said. 
 
 "No, she isn't," Alethea retorted. "But 
 she's bad for him." 
 
 She declined flatly to continue the dis- 
 cussion. I am still in the dark as to Miss
 
 300 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Vernon. I presume that she is a dangerous 
 philanderer, but Alethea's accusations are so 
 indefinite that, if any one else had uttered 
 them, I should have counted them nothing 
 more than the whirling language of jealousy. 
 I am quite certain, however, that Alethea is 
 not jealous, but only afraid that her adored 
 cousin has fallen head over ears in love with 
 a beautiful, heartless creature, who will forget 
 him as soon as she leaves the Villa Valchiusa. 
 Yet is her estimate of Miss Vernon a just one? 
 I find it difficult to believe that a woman who 
 is physically so splendid and complete should 
 be deficient in the vital instincts of humanity, 
 should be content to philander when she 
 seems, outwardly at any rate, the very ideal 
 of a passionate lover. This, of course, is the 
 wild language of ignorance. Her type, as I 
 observed before, is most rare in Oxford 
 society. I concluded yesterday that she was 
 merely amusing herself with Louis, but now 
 that Alethea has talked to me I am not so 
 sure. Would Alethea be concerned about a 
 mere flirtation ? I swim in unknown waters. 
 At any rate, it seems as if I should have 
 to report to Mr Rutherford that the idea of 
 an engagement between Alethea and Louis 
 has been definitely abandoned. . . .
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 301 
 
 June 27th. 
 
 There is little to record except that Louis 
 and Mary Vernon have spent the greater part 
 of the last two days in each other's company, 
 that there has been a slight earthquake at 
 Empoli, and that Alethea looks grey and 
 worried. She had a long talk with Louis in 
 the garden this morning, and looked more 
 miserable than ever when it was finished. 
 Luckily old Mr Rutherford has forgotten all 
 about the engagement, and has asked me no 
 questions. Miss Vernon, who was to leave for 
 England yesterday, is staying on until the 
 whole party disperses on the first of July. 
 
 Later. 
 
 I write this after midnight, having been to 
 dine with the Mounseys, who have an apparti- 
 mento close to Casa Guidi. The Villa was in 
 darkness when I returned, but as I passed 
 the dilapidated studio I saw a light shining 
 through some chinks in the wall. Fearing 
 that burglars might have broken in, I applied 
 my eyes to one of these apertures, and saw 
 Alethea. She was sitting on a camp - stool 
 before the portrait of Mary Vernon, and 
 staring fixedly at that work of art. I with- 
 drew as noiselessly as possible. . . .
 
 302 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 June 28th. 
 
 An extraordinary day. 
 
 This morning I went down to the Lauren- 
 tian Library. Shortly before my departure 
 Mary Vernon announced that the studio was 
 too hot, and that she intended to sit on the 
 verandah. She established herself, with a 
 novel and many cushions, on her usual long 
 chair, and presently Louis came out of the 
 studio with his easel and paint-box. I was glad 
 that Alethea was not present to see him as 
 he bent over Mary and arranged her cushions. 
 When this was done it took an abominably 
 long time he went back to the studio for the 
 picture. Mary Vernon turned towards me. 
 
 "You look very cross this morning," she 
 said. "Are you anxious about him?" 
 
 "About whom?" I demanded. She waved 
 a hand in the direction of the retreating 
 Louis. 
 
 "You needn't be anxious," she went on. 
 "I am looking after him very carefully." 
 
 Her voice made me lose all self-control. 
 "You're doing your best to ruin his life," I 
 said. She smiled indulgently. 
 
 "Perhaps I am not as bad as you and 
 Alethea think," she said. "Suppose I told 
 you that I had saved him?"
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 303 
 
 " Saved him from what ? " I said. It seems 
 to be my fate to do nothing but ask these 
 stupid questions. 
 
 " From Alethea," she answered. " And 
 Alethea from him. Don't looked so dis- 
 gusted. I have really done it. They will 
 never marry." 
 
 "I hope they will marry as soon as you 
 go," I said. "She's devoted to him, and he'll 
 realise it when you are out of the way. 
 And now that we are on the subject, let me 
 inform you that I don't believe a word of 
 what you told me about their being unfitted 
 for each other, and I know that you don't 
 either. You've merely been amusing your- 
 self." 
 
 I half expected to see Miss Vernon look 
 annoyed, or even ashamed, but I was quite 
 unprepared for the actual effect of my speech. 
 She sprang up suddenly and stood in front 
 of me ; her eyes blazed, and her face was 
 contorted with anger. "You think I'm that 
 kind of person ! " she cried. Words seemed 
 to fail her for a moment, then she regained 
 her self-control. " I don't know why I should 
 trouble to answer you," she said slowly, " but 
 I'll tell you this. " He's the only man in the 
 world that I ever liked, but if he and Alethea
 
 304 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 had been in love with each other I would 
 have gone away as soon as I realised it. As 
 it is, I've stayed, and when I go away on the 
 first of July Louis will go with me." She 
 stared at me defiantly. I must reluctantly 
 chronicle that she looked magnificent, and 
 that I felt microscopic. 
 
 " So you're going to marry him after all," I 
 said, rather feebly. At that moment Louis 
 came out of the studio and began to walk 
 up the garden. Miss Vernon glanced towards 
 his still distant figure, and then looked at me 
 very calmly. 
 
 " Marry him ! " she said. " Certainly not ! " 
 
 This extraordinary assertion finished me off 
 altogether. I could only conclude that she 
 was mad. She returned to her chair. A few 
 moments later Louis joined us. He was 
 staring hard at his picture. 
 
 "It's very funny," he said, placing it on 
 the easel. "Yesterday I thought that I had 
 really got the expression right, and now, 
 this morning, it's all wrong. As soon as 
 the paint dries something seems to happen 
 to the high lights. To-day," he went on, 
 looking critically at the canvas, "to-day it 
 looks like a sort of Carmen. What do you 
 think of it, Jervoise?"
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 305 
 
 I was too much overwhelmed by Miss 
 Vernon's last remark to attempt any coherent 
 criticism. "It's a fine painting," I answered. 
 Louis threw away the end of his cigarette 
 almost angrily. 
 
 "I know that," he said, "but it's a deuced 
 bad portrait. It's the eyes that go wrong. I 
 believe these paints are putrid," he concluded 
 fiercely. "Mary, I've made you into an 
 absolute witch ! " 
 
 "Mr Jervoise thinks I am one," said Miss 
 Vernon. 
 
 " So you are, but not this kind," said Louis, 
 still gazing into the picture. " And yesterday 
 it seemed so good. It's downright uncanny. 
 I believe there's the ghost of an old master in 
 that studio." He began to paint. ... I re- 
 mained sitting there, staring at him foolishly. 
 So this was why Alethea had gone to the 
 studio at midnight ! At first I felt inclined 
 to laugh wildly, but after a moment the 
 pathetic folly of her behaviour dawned on 
 me, and I rose and walked down the garden, 
 feeling perfectly distracted. . . . Decidedly, I 
 was not meant to associate with cosmopolitans 
 and artists ; I have gone about all day with a 
 haunting sense a sense which I have not ex- 
 perienced since I was a child that I have lost 
 
 u
 
 306 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 the safe and commonplace atmosphere of 
 ordinary life and move and breathe in the 
 fantastic realms of nightmare. Even now, 
 as I write this note in the Laurentian Library, 
 I can hardly believe that those astonishing 
 persons are really up at the Villa ; that Mary 
 Vernon has made up her mind to run away 
 with her friend's fianctf, but is determined not 
 to marry him ; that Alethea is tampering with 
 Garth's portrait of Mary in the mad hope, I 
 suppose, that he will learn from its amended 
 aspect to see the original as she really is ; 
 and that in the midst of all this old Mr 
 Rutherford is sitting, sublimely unconscious, 
 poring over his books or playing his infernal 
 bagpipe. Of course, Mary Vernon may not 
 have been serious ! Yet I cannot escape from 
 a conviction that she meant every word she 
 uttered. That Alethea has been touching up 
 the picture I feel no doubt. . . . 
 
 June 29th. 
 
 Almost intolerably hot. Nothing new has 
 happened. Garth and Mary are still always 
 together and Alethea has remained in her own 
 room. I had no opportunity of speaking to 
 Louis, and if I had found one I don't see that 
 it would have been of any use. I can't ask
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 307 
 
 him if he intends to elope with Mary Vernon, 
 and if I did he wouldn't answer truthfully. I 
 worked for most of the day with Mr Ruth- 
 erford. Alethea appeared at dinner, and 
 outwardly, everything was as usual ; we 
 made music and had a long discussion about 
 the real significance of the Zauberflote. 
 Mary Vernon contemplates me at intervals 
 with the most candid amusement; I suppose 
 that my appearance is slightly frenzied. Louis 
 looks worried and pale ; he was, I noticed, 
 unusually attentive to Alethea. 
 
 July 3rd. 
 
 I am too sick at heart to write more than 
 a brief note of the catastrophe. On the 
 night of the 29th I had been reading in my 
 room, I think for about ten minutes, when 
 the convent bell struck twelve. I closed my 
 book and was about to undress when I heard 
 a low, rumbling noise, and became conscious 
 that the floor was sloping away from me, and 
 that all the furniture in the room was stand- 
 ing at odd angles. I realised that this was 
 my first experience of an earthquake, but 
 before I had time to feel any alarm the noise 
 ceased and the room assumed its normal 
 aspect. I opened my door and, looking out,
 
 308 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 I saw Louis coining down the passage ; he 
 was in pyjamas and smoking a cigarette. I 
 was about to go to meet him when I heard 
 outside the Villa a sound like the prolonged 
 rending of a large piece of rotten wood half- 
 breaking, half-tearing followed by a series 
 of heavy thuds. Louis uttered a cry. 
 
 " Hullo ! that's the old studio," he said. 
 " It's down at last ! I wonder what has 
 happened to my poor pictures." He ran 
 down the stairs and unlocked the window 
 that opened on the verandah. I followed 
 him into the garden ; it was pitch-dark ; the 
 moon had set. 
 
 I heard him stumbling about the flower- 
 beds near the studio, then he uttered a shout. 
 "Bring a light! there's some one here!" I 
 rushed towards him and struck a match. 
 Alethea was lying on the ground about five 
 yards away from the ruins of the studio. 
 There was blood on her forehead and her eyes 
 were closed. Afterwards we realised that she 
 must have been struck by a falling beam just 
 as she had reached the door, and had managed 
 to stagger on for a few steps. We carried 
 her into the house. I believe that she was 
 dead then ; I don't know. Louis told me 
 afterwards that she spoke to him. Of the
 
 DIARY OF MR SEPTIMUS JERVOISE 309 
 
 horrors that followed the frenzied old man 
 tearing his white hair, the wailing servants, 
 Garth's face as he bent over her I cannot 
 yet bear to think. She had a palette and 
 brushes in her hand when we found her, and 
 her dress was smeared hideously with paint 
 and blood. ... If she had stayed in the studio 
 she would, in all probability have escaped ; 
 the interior was only slightly damaged, and 
 Garth's picture of Mary Vernon was intact. 
 I ought to say that Miss Vernon behaved 
 splendidly. She stayed in the Villa until 
 after the funeral, then she left for England. 
 Louis remains with old Mr Rutherford. 
 
 Alethea was buried in the beautiful 
 cemetery beyond San Marco. Poor, gentle 
 lady, may she rest in peace. . . . 
 
 I return to Oxford to-morrow for the 
 University Extension Summer Course. . . .
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO AND 
 MARIA ASSUNTA
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO AND 
 
 MARIA ASSUNTA. 
 
 OF the many unsympathetic personages that 
 are encountered by the student of ecclesiastical 
 history during the course of his researches, 
 not the least offensive are the hard fathers of 
 dogma who were wont to inhabit stinking 
 caves, mud huts, and vacant sepulchres, and 
 to devote their leisure entirely to working 
 out their own salvation in an insanitary 
 gloom. In pleasant contrast to these de- 
 pressing troglodytes, each glowering in the 
 darkness like a peevish dog over his own 
 particular bone of private salvation, shine 
 the names of those saints and good men 
 who, for all their pre-eminent merit, did not 
 despise the homely tasks of everyday exist- 
 ence, but transfigured into deathless examples 
 the most ordinary affairs, such as the slaying
 
 314 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 of dragons and the taming of savage hearts 
 in bears and in wolves by means of their own 
 excellent virtue. Nor are those worthy men 
 a whit less admirable who (whether from 
 their physical disability or from a wise pro- 
 pensity on the part of the monsters to shun 
 conflicts in which they invariably suffered 
 decapitation) were unable to wage war 
 against gryphons and horned serpents, yet 
 did not disdain the sweet and humble services 
 of life, and performed the meanest labours 
 with a cheerful heart ; teaching kindness and 
 tolerance, helping the needy, living in the 
 open air, and forgetting all about Arians and 
 Pelagians and the flames that ravened for 
 the damned. It was in such a spirit, one 
 likes to think, that Sant' Antonio Abate kept 
 a fatherly eye on all poor beasts of burden, 
 being especially the patron of mules ; it was 
 in such a spirit that San Juan of Tarragona 
 watched over the morals of young persons 
 engaged in the vinegar trade, and San Filippo 
 Neri founded his immortal institution, the 
 Pleasant Sunday Afternoon ; it was in this 
 spirit, finally, that San Cristoforo turned 
 himself into a human ferry-boat and, many 
 centuries afterwards, gave a sign unto the 
 faithful, vindicated the innocent, and punished 
 the guilty in the most practical possible man-
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 315 
 
 ner. His beautiful legend is known to every 
 one, but the later prodigy that he wrought 
 may possibly have escaped the reader's atten- 
 tion, since it does not, as yet, appear in official 
 biographies of the holy man. 
 
 It happened in Italy, at a small city called 
 Acquacasciante. You will search Baedeker, by 
 the way, in vain for Acquacasciante, though 
 it was once a walled stronghold of some 
 importance ; it lies far away from the track 
 of the tourist, in the beautiful country south 
 of Ancona, within sight of the Monte Conero. 
 I myself, who brag freely concerning my 
 knowledge of Italy, discovered it by accident. 
 I was travelling in the slowest train ever 
 devised by the naughtiness of railway com- 
 panies, when, at a wayside station, a telegram 
 was handed to the engine-driver. He read it, 
 and without a word, descended from the 
 antique machine that he had urged, and 
 vanished utterly from our midst. On inquir- 
 ing the reason of this unusual action, I was 
 told that he had received information of a 
 strike which he felt himself bound to join. 
 No one in the station knew how to drive an 
 engine, so I, too, descended from the train, 
 and perceiving a picturesque little town on 
 the slopes of a hill about a mile away, 
 shouldered my nick-sack and set out for it.
 
 316 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 It was hoped, though hardly expected, that 
 an expert on engines would arrive in three or 
 four hours ; but I decided that, if I could find a 
 passable inn, I would stay the night at Acqua- 
 casciante, for I had begun to regard the train 
 as the most offensive of my natural enemies. 
 
 I was amply rewarded for my enterprise ; 
 Acquacasciante proved to be a very pleasant 
 little city. Its walls were apparently of 
 immense antiquity ; their base, I imagine, 
 was Etruscan. The Palazzo Comunale and 
 the Cathedral were thirteenth-century build- 
 ings with their exteriors agreeably un- 
 restored. But, alas ! although these edifices 
 dated from so interesting an epoch, the only 
 house of entertainment which a somewhat 
 wild imagination might have dignified with 
 the name of an inn was an absolutely con- 
 servative relic of some remote age when 
 civilisation was not, and men lived like 
 vermin in the rocks. I withdrew from it, 
 shuddering, and made for the Cathedral, 
 feeling, as I crossed the piazza, the scornful 
 stare of the padrona, a lady of aggressively 
 masculine aspect with a black moustache, 
 burning a hole through my nick-sack to my 
 shoulder-blades. 
 
 The interior of the Cathedral, except that 
 it afforded sanctuary from the hirsute female,
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 317 
 
 was disappointing ; it was whitewashed and 
 bare except for its tawdry altars, which 
 were decorated with a great number of 
 cherubim belonging to what might be called 
 the pneumatic period of fleshly art. There 
 were a few pictures in the same style over 
 the altars, but one, which hung from a 
 column in the nave, made amends for them 
 all an admirably realised and painted scene 
 of the great event in St Christopher's life. 
 It was a small panel, about two feet by 
 eighteen inches in size, and it was somewhat 
 dark, but a brief inspection convinced me 
 that it was the work, if not of one of the 
 greatest masters, at any rate of an original 
 and powerful artist. In many respects it 
 reminded me strongly of the highly realistic 
 method of Antonio Pollaiuolo. The firmly 
 planted figure of Christopher, a robust and 
 muscular old man, expressed wonderfully his 
 twofold effort to sustain the superhuman 
 burden on his shoulders and to find secure 
 foothold in the swirling yellow waters ; 
 perfectly balanced, he was leaning slightly 
 forward and testing the bed of the stream 
 with a huge, knotted staff. He was of 
 gigantic stature, and his bearded face had 
 a peculiarly attractive expression of passion- 
 ate energy.
 
 318 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 I noticed that the lower part of the 
 column to which the picture had been fixed 
 was covered with a multitude of votive 
 inscriptions, ranging from an ordinary black- 
 edged visiting-card, with a San Cristoforo 
 JB" 10 mille grazie written on it in a large 
 round hand, to ugly tinsel hearts and crowns 
 with the initials of the donor inscribed on 
 a scroll below them. Evidently San Cristo- 
 foro was a person of importance in Acqua- 
 casciante. I tried to obtain some information 
 about the picture from an aged and decrepit 
 crone who was pretending to wash the choir 
 stalls, but her teeth had gone the way of all 
 teeth, and I could not understand anything 
 that she mumbled, beyond the fact that 
 San Cristoforo was a gran santo and 
 had wrought miracles. As an art critic 
 she was a failure, but she was no fool ; 
 I presented her with a lira, and had 
 the felicity, as I departed, of hearing 
 her test its quality on the altar steps. 
 
 On my return to the station I found that 
 there was no prospect of the train starting 
 for two hours. My few fellow -passengers 
 had vanished, and the only living things in 
 the place were the stationmaster, a gnarled 
 and antique porter, and half a dozen dusty 
 hens. The stationmaster, a corpulent and
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 319 
 
 cheerful person, seemed hugely amused by 
 the engine-driver's escapade, but condoled 
 politely with me on my position, and inquired 
 if I had enjoyed my visit to the little city. 
 I discovered that he was a native of Acqua- 
 casciante, and very proud of his birthplace, 
 though he lamented that, socially speaking, 
 it lacked excitement. The only occasion on 
 which it became festive, he added, was during 
 the week of the great pilgrimage. 
 
 I revealed my ignorance of this important 
 event, and he favoured me with a graphic 
 description of the vast army of pilgrims 
 which invaded Acquacasciante once a year ; 
 of their festivities, their quaint customs, 
 their glorious squabbles and dramatic re- 
 conciliations. The town authorities, ap- 
 parently, were hard put to it to find them 
 lodging ; the inn kept by the lady with the 
 moustache was filled by them (I heard this 
 with feelings of pity and horror) from cellar 
 to attic; they dwelt in the stables with the 
 cows and on the roofs with the cats. The 
 Cathedral, with all its lamps and candles 
 blazing, was open all night long, and many 
 of the poorest pilgrims actually lived in it 
 for the holy week. The great majority of 
 these votaries consisted of contadini from 
 the surrounding districts, and they, said the
 
 320 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 stationmaster, behaved noisily but excel- 
 lently ; it was only the strangers from 
 farther south who were maleducati, and 
 occasionally alleviated the monotony of re- 
 ligious exercises by practical demonstrations 
 of their skill with the knife. Altogether, a 
 gay time for peaceful Acquacasciante. He 
 advised me strongly to visit the city during 
 the celebrations ; the procession of the Holy 
 Picture was alone well worth seeing, with 
 all the contadini in their different costumes, 
 and the children of the city carrying gar- 
 lands of flowers. 
 
 I remembered then the votive offerings 
 in the Cathedral. "The Holy Picture?" I 
 said. "Which picture is that?" 
 
 The stationmaster looked surprised and 
 almost hurt. "Did you not see it, signore?" 
 he asked. "The picture of the saint which 
 hangs on the column in the Cathedral?" 
 
 "Ah! San Cristoforo?" I said. 
 
 He nodded vehemently. "Without doubt," 
 he answered. " It is for him that they make 
 the pilgrimage. They are always hoping 
 that he will come out again, but as yet he 
 has not done so." 
 
 "Come outj'again?" I echoed. The station- 
 master looked at me with pity.
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 321 
 
 " Is it possible, signore," he demanded, 
 " that you have not heard of the miracle of 
 Acquacasciante ? " 
 
 " Not a word," said I, feeling grossly 
 ignorant. 
 
 He contemplated me for a moment, then 
 glanced round the station. It was empty ; 
 even the antique facchino had disappeared. 
 He looked at his watch. 
 
 "There is more than an hour," he said. 
 "If it will not weary you, signore, I will 
 tell you the story. I was in the city when 
 the miracle happened, and know all the 
 facts. Indeed, who but I should know them 
 so thoroughly? Signore, Maria Assunta is 
 now my wife." 
 
 "And who in the world is Maria Assunta?" 
 I demanded, bewildered. This time the 
 stationmaster seemed really hurt, but he 
 recovered after a moment. 
 
 " Ah ! I forgot that you know nothing," 
 he said nobly. Then he waved his hand 
 towards a door which was labelled Capo 
 Stazione. " If you will be so kind as to 
 come in here," he added, "you shall hear 
 all all." 
 
 That was how I learnt about San Cristo- 
 foro his remarkable reappearance and con- 
 
 x
 
 322 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 founding of the wicked. If only, instead of 
 my cold prose, I could give it you in the 
 words of the stationmaster, and convey 
 some hint of his gestures, his mimicry, the 
 varying intonations of his fat, jolly voice, 
 his manner of rolling his black eyes ! But 
 even if this were possible his speech would 
 lose all charm in translation, and it is better 
 for me to tell you the story as I remember 
 it. I forgot to say that the stationmaster 
 held that the picture was painted, not by 
 Pollaiuolo, but by some angel whose name I 
 cannot recall. 
 
 Maria Assunta was twelve years old, tall 
 and straight and as brown as a ripe filbert. 
 She lived with and drudged for her uncle 
 by marriage, Aurelio Zappi, who had a base 
 and greedy soul, and her Aunt Giannina, 
 a woman conspicuously wanting in personal 
 charm. Slappings, strappings, and curses 
 were the portion of Maria Assunta ; Aunt 
 Giannina had a theory that to send her 
 supperless to bed was an excellent tonic for 
 her digestion ; and Uncle Aurelio, when he 
 returned from talking politics at the Croce 
 Bianca, would playfully use her as a target 
 for all the pots and pans in the kitchen.
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 323 
 
 Fortunately his eye to employ the language 
 of athletics was slow, and Maria Assunta 
 soon became an adept in the arts of dodg- 
 ing, running, and taking cover. 
 
 Shortly before the time when this history 
 begins Uncle Aurelio had been appointed 
 pro - sacristan to the Cathedral the real 
 sacristan, to whom he had long been under- 
 study, having retired to his bed with a per- 
 manent rheumatism. Aurelio was a pro- 
 found believer in the modern creed that 
 every woman should be educated to work, 
 and consequently Maria Assunta led an ener- 
 getic life of step - washing, altar -scrubbing, 
 saint-and-cherub-dusting, and gained an ex- 
 tensive acquaintance with the interior of the 
 old church ; Aurelio, meanwhile, talked on 
 religious subjects with the official char- 
 woman, to the great disgust of Aunt Gian- 
 ni na. 
 
 Maria Assunta, on the whole, was fairly 
 miserable, though there were great consol- 
 ing days when she played truant and ran 
 barefooted along the hot, dusty roads, or 
 lay on the sun-dried slope of the hillside 
 and tried to tame grasshoppers. Such ex- 
 cursions brought in their revenges, but Maria 
 Assunta's slender body had become remark-
 
 324 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 ably hardened to straps and sticks, and when 
 she laid her aching limbs to rest she invari- 
 ably decided that the crime was more than 
 worth the chastisement, and that she would 
 escape again on the first opportunity. Eva- 
 sion, however, was difficult; often, when she 
 seemed to have given Aurelio the slip, a 
 heavy hand would descend on her shoulder, 
 squeeze it like a vice, and shake her till her 
 teeth made a noise like the castanets rattled 
 by little boys in the streets. At first, after 
 this happened, Maria Assunta had wept 
 loudly and invoked the aid of Heaven and 
 the neighbours ; but latterly she would en- 
 dure the onslaught in sullen silence, and 
 then bite Uncle Aurelio's fingers with her 
 strong little teeth. Uncle Aurelio would 
 subsequently beat her; but on two occasions 
 she made him howl and dance with pain, 
 which caused her extreme delight. She real- 
 ised dimly that her existence, contrasted with 
 the lives of other children whom she met in 
 the streets, was not an ideal one, and twice, 
 when Aunt Giannina had been more than 
 usually deficient in personal charm, she had 
 attempted to run away for good and all. On 
 the first occasion she had walked until she
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 325 
 
 was overcome with hunger and fatigue, and 
 had been brought back by a well-meaning 
 contadino in a painted cart ; on the second, 
 she had met an old man in a lonely place 
 who had at first seemed kind, but after- 
 wards had kissed her and fondled her and 
 frightened her out of her wits. She ran all 
 the way home, and, for once in her life, found 
 genuine pleasure in beholding Aunt Giannina 
 again. Such adventures produced in her a 
 grim distrust of the world in general, and 
 of old men in particular. Children of her 
 own age she avoided : the little girls were 
 apt to laugh at her bare legs, and the little 
 boys threw stones at the homeless cats which 
 she befriended ; grown-up people, even if they 
 seemed kind, she regarded as possible Uncle 
 Aurelios and Aunt Gianninas. Her affection 
 for cats, however, went to practical lengths ; 
 she managed, in some strange way, more or 
 less to maintain a small colony of them in a 
 disused yard at the back of the Cathedral, 
 whence they nightly sang the Bishop to sleep. 
 They were ungovernable beasts, savage and 
 quick to scratch ; but she preferred their 
 society to that of her own species. When 
 one of them died she wept, and afterwards
 
 326 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 religiously exposed the corpse in the Bishop's 
 garden, where it lay in state until the gar- 
 dener found it. 
 
 It chanced that one day she was ordered 
 by Aurelio to clean some brass candlesticks 
 in the lumber-room adjoining the sacristy, 
 whilst that eminent politician went (for with- 
 out discussion the intellectual life is but a 
 barren affair) to hold great argument at the 
 Croce Bianca. The day was hot, Maria As- 
 sunta was weary, and when Aurelio returned 
 he found the candlesticks still tarnished and 
 Maria Assunta fast asleep with her chin 
 buried in her bosom. The virtuous soul of 
 Aurelio waxed hot within him when he be- 
 held this disgusting spectacle ; he aroused the 
 sleeper with a hearty box on the ear, which 
 made her imagine for a moment that the 
 entire Cathedral had fallen, gave a vivid 
 account of all the devils who were waiting 
 to torture idle little girls for all eternity, 
 and then locked her in the lumber-room and 
 departed majestically. Maria Assunta, I re- 
 gret to say, kicked and beat the door, and 
 uttered a large quantity of evil words which 
 she had learnt from Aunt Giannina ; but 
 finding that he did not return, she instantly 
 became tranquil, knocked the candlesticks
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 327 
 
 one by one to the floor with neatly directed 
 blows from her strong little fists, and began 
 to explore the room for a means of escape. 
 It was a dusty, vault-like chamber, festooned 
 with cobwebs, and dimly lit by one high 
 grimy window. She was able to see, how- 
 ever, as she went round the walls, that they 
 were hung with pictures, which were for the 
 most part frameless and black with age. Her 
 trained eye for she had so often been a pris- 
 oner soon told her that there was no pos- 
 sible means of escape, and after a short time 
 she began to wile away her captivity with the 
 contemplation of these works of art. 
 
 Formerly she had scarcely glanced at the 
 altar-pieces in the Cathedral, they all had 
 the same subject, and seemed exactly to 
 resemble one another ; but the pictures in 
 the lumber-room were much more interest- 
 ing ; there was one which depicted an ener- 
 getic and cheerful crowd of black demons 
 with scarlet eyes and teeth, all engaged in 
 thrusting an old gentleman, whose face bore 
 a pleasing resemblance to that of Uncle 
 Aurelio, into a pair of huge gaping jaws ; 
 another showed a kneeling saint in the act 
 of neatly catching his own head, which had 
 just been cut off by a handsome executioner
 
 328 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 who wore too few clothes ; yet another a 
 delightful conception, represented a con- 
 course of purple elephants, green giraffes, 
 blue baboons, smiling tigers, nervous rabbits, 
 and bright -hued birds stalking, with a de- 
 liciously self - important air, into the cele- 
 brated Ark of Noah. Maria Assunta was 
 fascinated by this picture, and gazed at it 
 for a long while. Noah, she decided, looked 
 worried and cross ; one felt that, if he had 
 dared, he would have taken a stick and 
 chased all the animals away, for it was 
 obviously quite impossible to fit more than 
 a dozen of them into the ark ; Signora Noah, 
 however, was smiling politely at them from 
 one of the windows, and seemed a much 
 pleasanter kind of person than Aunt Gian- 
 nina, for instance. 
 
 But in spite of the varied hues of the birds 
 and animals, it was not this picture but the 
 next which really stole away Maria Assunta's 
 heart. It was labelled San Cristoforo, and 
 represented an old man with very strong 
 bare legs and a big staff in the act of carry- 
 ing a small child across an angry river; the 
 child clung very tightly to the neck of the 
 old man, who was proceeding warily and 
 with difficulty. Maria Assunta knew noth-
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 329 
 
 ing of the legend which the picture illus- 
 trated ; to her it was merely an actual scene 
 from everyday life, but for some obscure 
 reason it delighted her: perhaps she had 
 seen, and unconsciously envied, the child's 
 expression of tranquil trust in his bearer 
 when mothers carrying their babies had 
 passed her in the street; perhaps it was the 
 charm of the episode that touched her, the 
 idea that a large old man with a beard should 
 trouble to carry a little boy across those un- 
 comfortable waters. Probably, however, it 
 was the face of San Cristoforo which at- 
 tracted her, even in the first moment when 
 she saw it; he was so completely different 
 from the horrible old men whom she had 
 known; from Uncle Aurelio and the satyr 
 who had kissed her. He seemed so strong, 
 yet so kind ; he would not beat the little 
 boy, even if the little boy pulled his beard 
 and hurt him, as seemed probable. He 
 looked, too, as if he would understand little 
 girls as well as little boys, and would be 
 sorry for them when all their bones ached 
 and their feet felt like lead. Altogether, 
 Maria Assunta decided, he was a person 
 whom it would be a real pleasure to 
 meet.
 
 330 HEROINES AND OTHEBS 
 
 She looked at the rest of the pictures, but 
 found that they were quite uninteresting, and 
 very soon she returned to contemplate the 
 old man. He was very nearly alive, she 
 thought ; when she moved from one side of 
 the picture to the other his eyes seemed to 
 follow her, whereas Signora Noah, his only 
 possible rival in Maria Assunta's heart, smiled 
 steadily at the green giraffes. Like many 
 other lonely children, she had acquired 
 the habit of talking to dumb or inanimate 
 things : when her cats misbehaved she would 
 treat them to a highly moral lecture con- 
 taining a large amount of bad language, in 
 the best manner of Aunt Giannina, and when 
 she washed the saints and cherubim in the 
 Cathedral she would tell them the gossip of 
 the town exactly as it was retailed by the 
 same high authority ; but she had always felt 
 that cats and cherubim were equally in- 
 different to her eloquence ; the cats would 
 leave the lecture-room in a marked manner 
 when her discourse had scarcely begun, and 
 the cherubs would stare at her vacantly with 
 their stupid goggle eyes. When she began to 
 talk to San Cristoforo, however, affairs were 
 different ; he really seemed interested in what 
 she was saying, though he did not answer
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 331 
 
 when she asked him why he was carrying the 
 little boy across the river, but looked at her 
 steadily with his watchful, friendly eyes. She 
 liked him more and more, and paid, I regret 
 to say, no sort of attention to the little boy, 
 beyond noticing that he resembled young 
 Marco Evangelista, the chorister, but was 
 much cleaner, and probably less fond of 
 throwing stones at cats. She talked to the 
 old man for a long time, and found that his 
 face grew more and more sympathetic. She 
 thought, even, that he frowned when she told 
 him about Uncle Aurelio's strap, and there 
 was absolutely no doubt that his eyes twinkled 
 when he heard how Aunt Giannina, after 
 having poured forth a savage torrent of in- 
 vective for ten minutes, stepped back and sat 
 down with great violence in a large washing- 
 tub that was full of very warm water. 
 He looked gratified, too, when she collected 
 the scattered candlesticks and began to clean 
 them, still talking to him ; so that, for the 
 first time in her life, she had an almost be- 
 wildering sensation of doing work that gave 
 pleasure to some one. By the time that Uncle 
 Aurelio returned she felt that she had made a 
 friend for life, and it was with great reluct- 
 ance that she left the old man alone amongst
 
 332 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 the cobwebs. Of course she said nothing 
 about the picture to Aurelio. 
 
 Throughout that summer she went every 
 day to talk with San Cristoforo. The door 
 of the lumber - room was always unlocked, 
 and as soon as she had finished her work, 
 which she performed with a surprising vigour, 
 she would slip through the sacristy and sit 
 on a tall rickety stool in front of the 
 picture. Though San Cristoforo's lips never 
 moved and no sound issued from them, she 
 knew perfectly well all that he was saying ; 
 she heard him with the ear of her mind. 
 He was sorry when she was beaten, and he 
 took a great interest in cats. He didn't feel 
 cold from standing in the water for so 
 long, and he didn't think that people with 
 shoes and stockings were so very much more 
 important than people who went barefoot. 
 He thought it rather a pity that she flew 
 into such terrific rages, but certainly Aunt 
 Giannina was enough to ruin the temper of 
 an archangel. Trying to tame grasshoppers, 
 he imagined, must be fun. No, he didn't 
 suffer from chilblains. Their conversations, it 
 will be seen, were slightly formal in the 
 early days of the friendship, but as soon as 
 their first shyness had passed away they be-
 
 SAN CEISTOFORO& MARIA ASSUNTA 333 
 
 came wonderfully intimate, discussed every 
 subject under the sun, from macaroni to 
 wicked old men, and told each other splen- 
 did stories. San Cristoforo's language was 
 always eloquent and sometimes extremely 
 forcible ; it was his invariable habit to allude 
 to Uncle Aurelio as that Beastly Old Devil. 
 Aunt Giannina he tersely named The Hag. 
 
 Their friendship continued without inter- 
 ruption until the autumn. Maria Assunta 
 felt certain that it would continue for ever, 
 and had firmly decided that she would never 
 leave Acquacasciante. She kept it secret ; this 
 was easy, for Aurelio went very seldom into 
 the lumber-room, and he was probably the 
 only person except herself who knew of the 
 existence of the pictures. Therefore she was 
 tremendously startled when she entered the 
 room early on a November morning to find 
 that a stranger had managed to penetrate 
 there, and was inspecting the pictures very 
 closely through a large pair of eyeglasses. 
 
 He did not hear her come in, and she stood 
 for some moments staring at him. He was 
 a short, fat man, with a bald head that 
 gleamed in the dim light like a skull ; he 
 had an immense hooked nose, thick lips, and
 
 334 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 a receding chin. Maria Assunta watched him 
 as he peered at the pictures with his nose 
 almost touching them, and heard him mut- 
 tering to himself, but could not catch what 
 he was saying. She felt a fierce resentment 
 of his presence, and was wondering if he 
 would go away if she hid behind a cup- 
 board and screamed like a fiend, when the 
 intruder stepped back from the picture which 
 he had been examining and saw her. He 
 seemed surprised, but not frightened, though 
 Maria Assunta glared at him with all the 
 fury that her black eyes could express. Then 
 he smiled, so that his face looked like a 
 squeezed orange, but his eyes watched her 
 keenly all the while. Maria Assunta did 
 not like his looks, and remained near the 
 door. 
 
 "My little signorina," he said, "I thought 
 you were a ghost or an angel." He spoke 
 Italian with a snarling accent, and chuckled 
 as if he had said something very funny. 
 Maria Assunta looked at him steadily. 
 
 "I thought you were the devil," she re- 
 marked. The intruder chuckled again. 
 
 " Some one has taught you pretty manners," 
 he said. "But perhaps I am the devil after 
 all." He fumbled in his pocket and produced
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 335 
 
 a soldo, which he held up between his fat 
 finger and thumb. "For how much," he 
 asked with a leer, "for how much will you 
 sell me your pretty little soul ? " 
 
 Maria Assunta put her hands behind her 
 back and did not answer. She knew per- 
 fectly well that he was not the devil; the 
 devil would be much too sensible to appear 
 in a church where all kinds of indignant 
 saints might get hold of him ; and also, he 
 would not be so foolish as to offer one 
 wretched halfpenny for a real live soul. 
 The intruder, she knew, was a foreigner ; 
 possibly one of the Tedeschi who had killed 
 her father and left her to the tender mercies 
 of the non-combatant Uncle Aurelio. To 
 think that he should dare to rub his ugly 
 nose against her beloved picture! 
 
 The stranger did not appear to be at all 
 affected by her angry silence ; he continued 
 to grin at her, and after a moment he 
 spoke again. 
 
 "Listen, carina mia," he said. "You need 
 not sell your precious soul for the soldo ; 
 to earn it you need merely tell me the name 
 of the person who owns these pictures." 
 
 Maria Assunta's heart began to thump. 
 She stood for some time scratching the
 
 336 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 ankle of one of her feet with the big toe 
 of the other an elegant gesture which in- 
 variably denoted that she was enduring an 
 acute mental crisis. Then she replied slowly 
 and emphatically, " God." 
 
 The stranger stared for a moment, then 
 laughed noisily. " Good child," he cried, 
 " good child ! you have been better brought 
 up than I imagined." He tossed the coin 
 towards her; Maria Assunta allowed it to 
 drop on the floor. " What ? too proud ? " 
 said the stranger. "You will never wear 
 boots and shoes, egregious signorina." He 
 stooped with some difficulty, picked up the 
 soldo, and put it carefully in his pocket. 
 "Pray do not let me detain you from your 
 doubtless important business," he added with 
 another leer. He turned away and continued 
 to examine the pictures. 
 
 Maria Assunta scratched her ankle for 
 another moment, then she ran home as fast 
 as she could and informed Uncle Aurelio 
 that there was a stranger in the lumber- 
 room. At first that worthy person refused 
 to believe her, but when she repeated that 
 the stranger was a forestiere who wanted 
 to take away the pictures he became inter- 
 ested, and departed for the Cathedral after
 
 making sundry mysterious signs to Aunt 
 Giannina. The latter promptly set Maria 
 Assunta to work in the kitchen, whilst she 
 herself became immersed in the study of a 
 highly sensational work of fiction. 
 
 About an hour later Aurelio returned in 
 an unusually good temper; but he did not 
 forget to rebuke Maria Assunta for being 
 rude to a foreigner of wealth and distinc- 
 tion. He went out again shortly afterwards, 
 this time in the direction of the Croce Bianca. 
 Maria Assunta, as soon as she had cleaned 
 her pots and pans, evaded Aunt Giannina, 
 who was nodding over her novel, and sped 
 like an arrow to the Cathedral, eager to 
 console San Cristoforo. But when she had 
 passed through the sacristy she found, to 
 her intense annoyance, that the door of 
 the lumber-room was locked. She listened 
 outside it for several minutes, but no sound 
 came from within ; then she called to San 
 Cristoforo, but he did not answer. Finally, 
 after hunting vainly all over the sacristy 
 for the key, she departed in the worst of 
 tempers. She nearly decided to go to the 
 Croce Bianca and to attempt to pick Uncle 
 Aurelio's pocket while he was in the act of 
 delivering a passionate political harangue, 
 
 Y
 
 338 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 but fortunately she realised in time that 
 such a course would be futile. Her heart 
 was heavy with foreboding ; she felt certain 
 that some evil was menacing her beloved 
 saint, and racked her brains to discover how 
 she might help him. If she could only ob- 
 tain the key, she thought, he would be safe 
 for a time, at any rate ; Uncle Aurelio 
 would not be able to have another made 
 for a day or two. But probably the wicked- 
 looking forestiere would know how to break 
 open the door. 
 
 She haunted the Cathedral like a restless 
 little brown spirit for the whole afternoon, 
 hoping that Aurelio would return ; but 
 Aurelio had found that to drink unlimited 
 quantities of new red wine at the expense 
 of a stranger was an even more delightful 
 occupation than to discuss religious subjects 
 with charwomen. Her temper grew worse 
 as time went on; she had a fierce alterca- 
 tion with the alleged blind beggar who sat 
 at the door of the Cathedral, and annoyed 
 him so seriously that he began to throw 
 stones at her with extraordinarily accurate 
 aim ; she teased the colony of cats until it 
 migrated en masse to the Bishop's garden, 
 in which sacred grove its members, pre-
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 339 
 
 cariously perched on an old ilex-tree, uttered 
 remarks of the most astounding and regret- 
 table profanity ; and when a number of dear 
 little babies were brought to the baptistery 
 at dusk and christened by the light of two 
 tall candles, she stood close to the priest 
 and put out her tongue at them until they 
 roared with terror. Eventually she was 
 ejected, with many slaps, by an indignant 
 godmother. 
 
 When she returned home she found that 
 a most unusual atmosphere of festivity pre- 
 vailed there. Aunt Giannina was engaged in 
 concocting a savoury mess of cuttle-fish and 
 mussels fried in oil, and Uncle Aurelio, who 
 was slightly flushed, was watching her with 
 a beaming eye, and indulging in frequent 
 bursts of cheerful song. He hailed Maria 
 Assunta with a shout, and pretending that 
 she was some grand Duchessa who had come 
 to call, made her a number of profuse bows, 
 complimented her on her distinguished ap- 
 pearance, and actually concluded this brilliant 
 example of his skill in burlesque by offer- 
 ing her a whole lira. Maria Assunta was 
 so greatly astounded by this behaviour that 
 she stared at him until he became annoyed 
 and asked her if she thought that he was
 
 340 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 mad. Maria Assunta replied truthfully that 
 she did not know, and then he boxed her 
 ears. Afterwards, however, he became genial 
 again, and allowed her a small share of the 
 cuttle-fish and mussels. They were excel- 
 lent, but she did not notice their flavour, 
 being wholly preoccupied with the problem 
 of obtaining the key of the lumber-room. 
 Aurelio, before he began his supper, had 
 taken off his boots and his coat; the latter 
 garment he hung over the back of his chair, 
 and as he did so Maria Assunta heard the 
 heavy keys rattle in one of the pockets. It 
 was hopeless, she knew, to attempt to get 
 them at present, and she sat, grimly silent, 
 with her thick eyebrows meeting in a heavy 
 scowl. Her elders paid no attention to her, 
 but ate very fast and noisily, drank great 
 quantities of wine and became extremely 
 amiable to each other. Their faces grew 
 more and more red, and she hated them, 
 and yearned for San Cristoforo. Her heart 
 was heavy with an indefinable sense of 
 disaster. 
 
 Fortune was kind to her, however. Aurelio, 
 with many nods and winks to his wife, drank 
 an enormous draught to the health of some 
 one whom he did not name, and then an-
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 341 
 
 nounced his intention of finishing the even- 
 ing at the Croce Bianca. On hearing this, 
 Aunt Giannina pouted beautifully and began 
 to grumble at being left alone. The gallant 
 Aurelio instantly invited her to accompany 
 him, and when she pointed to all the dirty 
 plates, he declared that it was disgraceful 
 for a woman of her beauty and charm to 
 waste the precious hours in menial tasks ; 
 the ragazza, he added, would wash up the 
 dishes. He put on his boots and then his 
 coat; Maria Assunta watched him eagerly, 
 and at last, to her great joy, saw him 
 take the keys from his pocket and hang 
 them on a hook near the door. 
 
 As soon as the revellers had departed, and 
 almost before the sound of their footsteps 
 had ceased to echo in the quiet street, she 
 went swiftly to the bunch of keys. She saw 
 instantly that the key of the lumber-room 
 was amongst them, it was much more rusty 
 than the others, and when she had de- 
 tached it from the ring she waited for a 
 few moments to avoid any possibility of 
 meeting her relatives, blew out the lamp, 
 and peered into the street. The coast was 
 clear; next moment she was running helter- 
 skelter towards the Cathedral.
 
 342 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 It was nearly eight o'clock, and the night 
 was dark. She knew that the great west 
 doors were closed and the side doors also ; 
 but she had discovered another entrance into 
 the church through the Bishop's private door, 
 which was always unlocked and was reached 
 by climbing his garden wall. The Bishop, 
 very discourteously, had covered the top of 
 the wall with broken bottles, but she had 
 removed a great number of these in order 
 to allow dignified passage for the funeral 
 corteges of her cats. 
 
 A stong wind was blowing, and when she 
 reached the foot of the wall she paused for 
 a moment to look up at the Cathedral, which 
 seemed, she thought, like a great grey ship 
 sailing swiftly through the dark sky. Then 
 she climbed the wall in a manner which 
 made the cats regard her with the eye of 
 envy, dropped lightly down on the farther 
 side, and in another moment had glided noise- 
 lessly through the door. 
 
 Inside, the darkness seemed to wrap her 
 round and press on her like an enormous 
 velvet pall, but when she had groped her 
 way to the choir she saw a faint light on 
 the high altar, and was able to steer her 
 course to the sacristy without difficulty. She
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 343 
 
 could hear her footsteps echoing all over the 
 Cathedral, and wondered vaguely if the saints 
 would be angry if she disturbed their holy 
 slumbers. It was not easy to find the key- 
 hole of the lumber-room door, but at last 
 she pushed it open, and began to grope along 
 the wall towards the pictures. 
 
 When she reached the first of them she 
 remembered that it depicted the devils finally 
 disposing of the old gentleman who resembled 
 Uncle Aurelio, and she shivered; but really, she 
 thought, there was nothing to be frightened 
 of ; if they behaved in that way to Uncle 
 Aurelios they were certainly good devils and 
 wouldn't hurt her. Then she came to Noah 
 and the animals, and passed it quickly ; 
 the next picture, she knew, was San 
 Cristoforo, and she felt a thrill of delight 
 and called to him. But this time there was 
 no answer inside her soul, and when she 
 reached the part of the wall where he should 
 have been she found no picture, only an 
 empty space. She gave a cry, and went 
 swiftly to and fro along the wall, groping 
 everywhere, but it was no use. He was 
 nowhere to be found ; he had been dragged 
 away by evil men ; he had gone from her 
 for ever.
 
 344 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 r When she had made quite certain of the 
 dreadful truth she sank down on the cold 
 stones and began to sob. But her tears only 
 lasted for a few moments ; a violent passion 
 of hatred for Aurelio swept over her ; she 
 sprang up, determined to confront him, to 
 make him restore the picture to her, to kill 
 him if he refused. She realised everything 
 now : this was why he had found the fores- 
 tiere so amiable, and had wallowed in cuttle- 
 fish and mussels ! Her teeth chattered with 
 rage, she shook her fists savagely in the 
 darkness, and shouted broken sentences in a 
 voice husky with passion. Then the paroxysm 
 passed away suddenly, leaving her with a 
 queer sensation of having grown, in an 
 instant, old and wise and very calm. She 
 must act immediately, she knew but what 
 was the best thing to be done ? At first she 
 thought of going to the Bishop, but she 
 soon realised that even if she were allowed 
 to see him, he would probably not believe 
 her story, or would regard the picture as 
 rubbish which Aurelio had a perfect right 
 to sell. It would be better to confront 
 Aurelio at once, to accuse him before every 
 one at the Croce Bianca, and, if necessary, 
 to bite him till he was dead.
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 345 
 
 Two minutes later she had scaled the 
 Bishop's wall once again, and was walking 
 rapidly across the Piazza del Duomo. It 
 was bitterly cold; the wind blew directly 
 from the snow -covered mountains, and she 
 was barefooted. But she felt warm with 
 the glow of her tremendous purpose ; she 
 would rescue San Cristoforo if she had to 
 go alone over the snows to find him. 
 
 Half - way across the Piazza she heard a 
 strange and terrible sound, like the noise of 
 many railway accidents combined in one un- 
 ending roar. She halted, and saw that the 
 single omnibus which the city possessed was 
 labouring towards her over the cobble-stones. 
 Although Maria Assunta was an athlete, she 
 was also an Italian, and would not walk a 
 yard if she had a chance of being carried. 
 The omnibus, she knew, passed close to the 
 Croce Bianca, and the old driver, who was 
 one of her few friends, would always allow 
 her to ride on the step and to open the 
 door for his patrons at the end of the jour- 
 ney. She took up a position under one of 
 the lamps of the Piazza, and when the 
 mouldering vehicle was close to her she 
 waved to the driver, who recognised her 
 and responded with a motion of his whip ;
 
 346 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 then, as soon as it had passed, she ran after 
 it and sprang on to the step. 
 
 At first she thought that there was no one 
 inside the omnibus, but very soon she per- 
 ceived, by the feeble light of a strong-smelling 
 oil-lamp, that it contained one closely-muffled 
 figure. She stared at the solitary traveller, 
 but could not recognise him ; he, for his part, 
 seemed to be unconscious of her presence, 
 and did not turn to look at her. The omni- 
 bus bumped and bounded merrily over the 
 stones, and very soon Maria Assunta saw 
 the lights of the Croce Bianca shining on 
 the wind - swept pavement. She was pre - 
 paring to jump off when an extraordinary 
 sound arose from the interior of the vehicle, 
 a sound which was audible for a moment 
 above the rattle and roar of the wheels. 
 Maria Assunta's heart began to bound like 
 the omnibus ; she had heard that chuckle 
 before. Without a second's hesitation she 
 thrust her head in at the window and 
 shouted with all the strength of her lungs. 
 
 " Good evening, signore ! " she cried. 
 
 Next moment she saw that she had made 
 no mistake with regard to the identity of 
 the owner of the chuckle. The traveller
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 347 
 
 turned towards her, revealing the huge nose 
 and heavy lips of the mysterious stranger 
 who had invaded the lumber - room. He 
 seemed much startled by her sudden shout, 
 but after staring at her for a moment he 
 grinned. The lights of the Croce Bianca 
 showed him her face. 
 
 " Ha, it's the little savage," he said, " the 
 little savage of the Cathedral who sent the 
 sacristan to eject me. And what do you 
 want, little savage?" he went on. "Are 
 you coming with me to Rome, or are you 
 regretting that soldo ? " 
 
 Maria Assunta gathered her wits together. 
 At any rate, it was something to know that 
 he was going to Rome, though she had no 
 intention of giving him a chance of taking 
 San Cristoforo with him. That the picture 
 was in the omnibus she had not the slightest 
 doubt ; in her soul she could hear the voice 
 of the Saint asking her to be kind enough 
 to do him the favour of rescuing him at 
 once, and she almost shouted to him not to 
 be afraid. Instead, however, she managed 
 to answer the fat man. 
 
 "I am coming to help the signore to carry 
 his luggage to the train," she said.
 
 348 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "Molto gentile," responded the fat man gal- 
 lantly. " You shall have two soldi, and I will 
 give you a kiss on the platform." 
 
 "Thank you, signore," said Maria Assunta, 
 putting out her tongue and making other 
 atrocious grimaces in the darkness. "The 
 stationmaster is my friend, and allows me 
 to help with the luggage when Beppo the 
 porter has his pain in the inside." 
 
 " Ha ! " said the stranger. He looked at 
 her for a moment and then asked : " Did 
 your excellent father the sacristan send 
 
 you?" 
 
 "Certainly, signore," replied the shameless 
 Maria Assunta. "But he is not my father, 
 for which be thanks to the Holy Virgin and 
 all the Blessed Saints." 
 
 "You don't like the gentleman?" inquired 
 the stranger. 
 
 "He is a very great fool, signore," replied 
 Maria Assunta with vigour. The stranger 
 laughed heartily. 
 
 "He is not such a fool as he looks, sig- 
 norina," he said. " He can drive a bargain 
 with the best. And talking of the Blessed 
 Saints, my little one, there will be a saint 
 the less in Acquacasciante to-night." 
 
 Maria Assunta's heart thumped and
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 349 
 
 bounded more fiercely than ever, but she 
 controlled her voice. "The signore doubt- 
 less refers to his own departure," she said. 
 She felt a real contempt for the fat man's 
 stupidity; any one, she thought, with the 
 least atom of sense would have refrained 
 from revealing his secret in that absurd 
 way. She was unacquainted with the in- 
 toxication that the finding of a treasure 
 produces in the soul of the picture - dealer. 
 The fat man, meanwhile, was clapping his 
 horrid hands and chuckling over her answer. 
 
 "Very good, very good!" he cried. "You 
 are a young person of wit. I suspected it 
 from the first moment when I met you. 
 Continue, and you shall have four soldi, 
 nothing less." 
 
 He asked her various impertinent questions 
 about herself, to which she responded with 
 spirit. She would be amply avenged very 
 soon, she knew, for any amount of insol- 
 ence from him. Then he looked at his watch 
 nervously, and expressed his fear of missing 
 the night train to Ancona, but she reassured 
 him with the information that the train al- 
 ways waited for Beppo, even when, as fre- 
 quently happened, the omnibus broke down. 
 At length they reached the station, and
 
 350 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Maria Assunta, after shouting to Beppo that 
 there was no need for him to descend from 
 his crazy perch, flung open the door. 
 
 The stranger's luggage consisted of two 
 handbags and a brown paper parcel. Maria 
 Assunta looked eagerly at the parcel, but he 
 retained it, requesting her to carry the bags. 
 They were small but not light, and Maria 
 Assunta made remarks through her clenched 
 teeth as she staggered into the station. The 
 young stationmaster was in the booking- 
 office ; he was a genial soul, and the only 
 person in Acquacasciante who took off his 
 hat to her. 
 
 " Be quick, signorina," he cried. " The train 
 has waited for Beppo as usual and the 
 travellers grow impatient." 
 
 " Hurry, signore, or they will leave you 
 behind," said Maria Assunta to the fat man. 
 The fat man puffed and snorted and began 
 a frenzied search in his pockets, holding the 
 brown paper parcel between his knees. He 
 looked uncommonly foolish, she thought, 
 with his great ugly hands and his gross 
 red face. It would be fun to hit him hard 
 across the eyes, snatch the parcel and rush 
 away with it into the night ; but some in- 
 stinct seemed to restrain her from this
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 351 
 
 dramatic course ; she felt certain that a 
 better opportunity of rescuing San Cristoforo 
 would be afforded her by Heaven. 
 
 The stationmaster, after talking to her for 
 a moment, had left the booking-office in the 
 charge of a motherly-looking lady who was 
 slightly deaf. After some altercation, the 
 fat man extracted a ticket from her, and 
 rushed to the platform, followed by Maria 
 Assunta, who was bent double beneath the 
 weight of the bags. His appearance was 
 greeted with an ironical cheer from some 
 of the passengers. The stationmaster in- 
 formed him that the first-class compartments 
 were in the front of the train; he did not, 
 however, offer to carry one of the bags ; 
 stationmasters in Italy are not in the habit 
 of performing that kind of service. He re- 
 mained at the rear of the train whilst the 
 fat man and Maria Assunta pursued their 
 frenzied course up the platform. 
 
 They had nearly reached the first-class 
 coach when the engine-driver blew an im- 
 patient blast on his whistle. The fat man 
 charged desperately forward, and Maria As- 
 sunta had a dreadful moment of terror ; if 
 once he managed to enter the train with his 
 parcel her chance would be gone. She racked
 
 352 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 her brain to think of some way of keeping 
 him on the platform, and then, even as he 
 turned and shouted savagely, inspiration 
 came. She glanced round; they were far 
 away from the stationmaster ; the first-class 
 carriages were all empty. She uttered a 
 loud groan and dropped the bags. 
 
 " Signore," she wailed, " pardon me, but 
 they are too heavy; I cannot carry them 
 another inch." She sat down on one of the 
 bags abruptly. The fat man snarled. 
 
 "Little animal !" he cried. " You will make 
 me lose the train ; you will cost me a million 
 lire ! " He ran back to her and seized one of 
 the bags. " Pig of a girl," he said, " bring the 
 other one instantly ! " 
 
 Maria Assunta pretended to make an effort 
 to lift the remaining bag, and then let it 
 drop. 
 
 " Pardon, signer e," she said calmly ; " it is 
 impossible. Something has broken in my 
 poor back." 
 
 " May the devil carry it away ! " said the 
 fat man ; alluding, it is to be presumed, to 
 Maria Assunta's dorsal region and not to 
 his luggage. " Quick, take this ! " he cried 
 furiously, thrusting the parcel into her arms. 
 He seized the two bags and ran like a mad
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 353 
 
 bull towards the train. He had just reached 
 the door of one of the first-class compart- 
 ments when Maria Assunta lifted up her 
 voice. 
 
 " Pronto ! " she shouted, with all the force 
 of her lungs. There was an answering 
 shout from the other end of the station ; a 
 horn blew, the whistle sounded again, and 
 the train gave a jerk forward. The fat 
 man, who had been obliged to drop one of 
 the bags while he opened the door, had 
 managed to scramble with the other up the 
 steep steps, and fell heavily into the carriage. 
 But he was on his feet again in a moment, 
 and rushed to the door. 
 
 " The rest of the luggage ! " he shouted to 
 Maria Assunta. 
 
 " Sissignore ! " replied that astute young 
 woman, laying the brown paper parcel on 
 the platform and running to the bag which 
 he had dropped. She hoisted it slowly and 
 painfully from step to step. The fat man 
 grabbed it savagely and hauled it into the 
 carriage. " The other, little fool ! " he 
 yelled. 
 
 Next moment the train began to move in 
 good earnest. The fat man danced up and 
 down in the carriage like a demon imprisoned 
 
 z
 
 354 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 in a bottle. "The other, the other!" he 
 repeated furiously. Maria Assunta walked 
 slowly back to the parcel and picked it up. 
 Then she began to run by the side of the 
 train. The fat man slammed the door and 
 leant out of the window with both his arms 
 extended towards the parcel. Maria Assunta 
 looked up at him. 
 
 " You are mistaken, signore," she said. 
 "This does not belong to you." Then she 
 smiled brilliantly and, ceasing to run, waved 
 him farewell with her free hand. The fat 
 man stared at her for an instant; his face 
 worked convulsively, his arms moved like 
 the arms of a marionette. 
 
 " Little devil ! " he cried, and half opened 
 the carriage door. For one awful moment 
 Maria Assunta thought that he would jump 
 out, but by this time the train was moving 
 rapidly and the fat man was neither athletic 
 nor brave. He shut the door again, and 
 leant far out of the window. 
 
 "Stop, stop!" he shouted. But there was 
 no one to hear him except Maria Assunta, 
 for the stationmaster had departed to the 
 stove in the booking - office. In another 
 moment his distorted countenance had 
 vanished from her sight.
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 355 
 
 " We did that very well," said Maria 
 Assunta calmly to the brown paper parcel. 
 
 She went straight to the stationmaster 
 and informed him that the stranger had left 
 a parcel behind which her Uncle Aurelio 
 had given to him. The stationmaster agreed 
 with her at once that the parcel ought to 
 be returned to Aurelio, who, it was pre- 
 sumed, would know the address of the 
 stranger. He informed her that there was 
 no train from Ancona to Acquacasciante 
 until the following morning, that she had 
 the most delightful eyes he had ever seen, 
 and that he was very soon coming to take 
 her away from her beloved uncle for ever. 
 Maria Assunta told him that he was a 
 ridiculous old man (he was very nearly 
 thirty), but she kissed her hand to him as 
 she departed from the station. 
 
 She ran home as fast as possible, and, to 
 her great joy, found when she arrived that 
 her uncle and aunt were still revelling at 
 the Croce Bianca. She whirled the parcel 
 up to the dismal attic where she slept and 
 tore off the paper cover. Her inner sense 
 had not played her false : it was really San 
 Cristoforo whom she had rescued. Her joy 
 at seeing him again was indescribable, and
 
 356 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 there is no doubt that the face of the Saint 
 wore a distinct expression of pleasure, though 
 he still had the air of looking firmly yet 
 warily ahead. When questioned, he deposed 
 that it had been abominably hot inside the 
 parcel, and he applied a great number of 
 opprobrious terms to the stranger. The only 
 sympathetic personage whom he had met in 
 the course of his travels was the station- 
 master, whom he thought an excellent fellow. 
 It was perhaps a pity, he opined, that Maria 
 Assunta had not been able to rescue him 
 without being recognised by the stranger, 
 and he agreed with her that the best course 
 would be to obtain an interview with the 
 Bishop early the next morning and to tell 
 him the whole story. It would be awkward 
 for Aurelio, but that could not be helped. 
 
 Further discussion of the state of affairs 
 was rendered impossible by the return of her 
 uncle and aunt. They made a terrible scene 
 when they saw that all the plates and dishes 
 were still unwashed, but Maria Assunta, with 
 San Cristoforo safe and snug beneath the 
 mattress of her bed, would have cheerfully 
 faced a horde of ravening tigers. She actu- 
 ally sang as she cleared away the remains 
 of the feast, and laughed when she tried to
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 357 
 
 imagine the sensations of the stranger during 
 his cold journey to Ancona. She went to rest 
 at last with a blissful sensation that one day 
 in her life, at any rate, had been conspicuously 
 successful. 
 
 She woke early next morning, and almost 
 believed, until she put her hand under the 
 mattress, that she had dreamt all the events 
 of the previous night. Then she hauled out 
 the picture, and with an agreeable lack of 
 decorum talked to San Cristoforo while she 
 put on her scanty clothes. In order to do 
 honour to the Bishop she added the skeletons 
 of an old pair of stockings to her usual 
 toilette, and twisted her hair into a tight 
 coil on the top of her head. She felt ex- 
 tremely happy ; the autumn sunshine poured 
 in at the window, the air was warm and 
 fresh, and San Cristoforo regarded her with 
 a smile of sincere affection. For a moment 
 the thought of parting from him depressed 
 her, but she was firmly convinced that it 
 was impossible for him to remain in the 
 house. The foreigner was certain to return, 
 and, after all, the Bishop was a good man 
 and would doubtless allow them to meet 
 very often. She made San Cristoforo promise
 
 358 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 that if the Bishop proved, as even bishops 
 will, to be a bore, he would tell her and she 
 would rescue him again. 
 
 She found his powers of conversation so 
 enthralling that she continued to talk to 
 him for some time after she had dressed, 
 telling herself that there was no fear 
 for the present of the foreigner's return. 
 Thus, the very frailties of our human nature 
 are employed by the saints as a starting-point 
 for their glorious achievements ; for if Maria 
 Assunta had not self-indulgently communed 
 with San Cristoforo when she ought to have 
 been taking him to the Vescovado, she would 
 never have been captured by the foreigner, 
 a great miracle would have remained un- 
 wrought, and Aurelio would never have re- 
 formed and ceased to drink new or old wine. 
 
 Eight o'clock had sounded from the cam- 
 panile of the Cathedral before she decided 
 to start. Uncle Aurelio and Aunt Giannina, 
 who slept in the room below, still snored 
 loudly; but the Bishop, she knew, would be 
 awake, and probably, as it was a fine morn- 
 ing, would be reading his breviary in the 
 garden. She wrapped up the picture in the 
 sheets of brown paper and flung an old shawl 
 over the parcel ; then she crept downstairs
 
 on tiptoe and noiselessly opened the front 
 door. She peered out for a moment, closed 
 the door, passed swiftly down the street, 
 turned down a narrow alley, and, as she 
 emerged in the Piazza del Duomo, ran 
 straight into the arms of the fat man. 
 
 She uttered a loud cry and he gave a 
 shout ; she tried to push him away and to 
 escape down the alley, but he caught hold 
 of the coil of her hair with one hand and 
 her wrist with the other. There was no one 
 in the Piazza to observe this singular meeting 
 except one small and dirty boy, who watched 
 it with tranquil interest. Maria Assunta 
 wriggled like an eel, the fat man puffed and 
 blew, but he retained his hold on her, and 
 squeezed her wrist until she thought it 
 would break. 
 
 "Little devil!" said the fat man. "Off- 
 spring of a thousand hogs ! " said Maria 
 Assunta. She placed her foot against his 
 stomach and pushed very hard. The small 
 boy almost applauded this method of resist- 
 ance, but it was fruitless. The fat man 
 shifted his grip from her hair to her neck, 
 swung her round so that her back was turned 
 towards him, and began to propel her rapidly 
 down the alley.
 
 360 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 " We will now pay a morning call on your 
 venerable uncle," he said, panting, but with 
 dignity. " He, unless I am mistaken, has 
 devoted a good deal of care to your educa- 
 tion. I propose to stamp on his face, your 
 face, and the face of his wife, and then I will 
 go away with my picture." And he squeezed 
 her neck until she gasped with pain. Next 
 moment, however, she perceived the aged 
 mother of Guglielmo, the greengrocer, who 
 was in the act of taking down his shutters. 
 Maria Assunta howled to her for help. 
 
 "This gentleman is assassinating me," she 
 exclaimed. 
 
 The aged mother of the greengrocer turned, 
 set her arms akimbo, and stared apathetically 
 at Maria Assunta and the fat man. 
 
 "What has the little good-for-nothing done 
 now, signore ? " she inquired. 
 
 "She has merely stolen an object of art 
 worth fifty thousand lire, dear lady," replied 
 the fat man, continuing to propel Maria 
 Assunta. 
 
 " Ah ! Then she will be hanged like a cat," 
 said the mother of the greengrocer with 
 great satisfaction, displaying an ignorance 
 of the penal laws of her country which the 
 fat man did not trouble to enlighten. She
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 361 
 
 continued to take down her shutters, whilst 
 Maria Assunta and her enemy danced a pas- 
 deux in syncopated time until they reached 
 Aurelio's house. Without releasing her, the 
 fat man kicked furiously on the door, and 
 after a few moments the head of Aurelio, in 
 a blue cotton nightcap, appeared at the 
 window. When he saw the strange scene 
 below he uttered a shout of surprise. 
 
 "Mother of the Saints, signore," he cried, 
 "what has happened?" 
 
 The fat man regarded him with a frightful 
 grin. 
 
 " I will tell you that later," he answered 
 pleasantly. "What is going to happen is, 
 briefly, this : I am about to pound your 
 head and the heads of your nearest rela- 
 tions into a sanguinary paste. Kindly 
 descend and open the door." 
 
 Aurelio was evidently impressed by this 
 statement of the stranger's intentions. He 
 thrust his nightcap upwards and scratched 
 his head slowly. 
 
 " But, most excellent signore " he 
 
 began. 
 
 " Open the door, old filthiness, or I break 
 it in," said the stranger. Aurelio shut the 
 window hurriedly and retired to confer with
 
 362 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 Aunt Giannina, whose scared face had ap- 
 peared for a moment behind his shoulder. 
 After a brief delay the door opened slowly, 
 and the stranger and Maria Assunta hurtled 
 into the kitchen. Aurelio, blinking with 
 amazement, followed them, whilst Aunt 
 Giannina occupied a strategical position at 
 the head of the stairs. 
 
 The first act of the fat man was to snatch 
 the parcel from Maria Assunta's hands and 
 to tear off the brown paper. As soon as he 
 had uncovered the picture he examined it 
 carefully, and then placed it on the high 
 chimneypiece, where it was out of Maria 
 Assunta's reach. 
 
 "Now explain," he said to Aurelio, "why 
 you were euch an old fool as to send your 
 accomplice to steal the picture from me. 
 You knew that I had seen her, that I should 
 recognise her and come back by the first 
 train." 
 
 Aurelio looked hopelessly bewildered. " I 
 don't understand," he said. "The ragazza 
 may the devil annoy her ! the ragazza knew 
 nothing of the picture. Without doubt she 
 was merely stealing a parcel from you on 
 general principles, signore." 
 
 Maria Assunta spoke out, in spite of the
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 363 
 
 pain in her throat. "I took the picture 
 because it was mine," she said. "I knew 
 that he had it inside the brown paper. He 
 had no right to take away my friend, and 
 you had no right to sell it. And," she con- 
 cluded, " I shall tell the whole story to the 
 Bishop, and the big policeman, and the 
 stationmaster, and to every one. They will 
 believe me ; they will lock you all up in 
 the prison, and I shall come twice a -day to 
 make faces at you through the window, 
 and to tell you how much I regret hav- 
 ing thieves and dirty persons for my 
 relations." 
 
 Aurelio glared at her with intense fury, 
 and shook his fist at her. "Wait a moment, 
 my dear child," he murmured. Then he 
 turned to the stranger. 
 
 "You hear, signore?" he said. "She stole 
 it herself; I had nothing to do with the 
 affair, and my personal honour is greatly 
 wounded by the affront that has been 
 offered. However, let that pass ; the affair 
 has terminated fortunately, and nothing re- 
 mains but for you to take away the picture 
 as soon as possible." 
 
 Maria Assunta drew herself up like a 
 serpent about to strike. " He shall not
 
 364 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 take it!" she shouted. "If he does, he shall 
 kill me first." 
 
 The stranger looked hard at her. "That 
 is not a bad suggestion," he said slowly. "As 
 a matter of fact, it would be better if she 
 were dead ; that accursed tongue of hers 
 will wag." 
 
 Uncle Aurelio nodded wisely. "But it 
 would wag in vain," he said, "if she were 
 strapped to a chair for two or three days. 
 At the end of that time, signore, you would 
 be far away and I should have hung another 
 picture in place of the one that has gone. 
 No one would believe her story. All my 
 friends are aware that she has proved her- 
 self on every occasion to be a most abandoned 
 little liar." 
 
 " She is liar, thief, cat, snake, and scorpion, 
 and she makes the soft eyes at the station- 
 master," said Aunt Giannina, who had de- 
 scended in a yellow dressing - gown to the 
 kitchen. " But have no fear, signore ; we 
 will tie her up like the mad beast that she 
 is and I will watch her continually." 
 
 Maria Assunta glanced from one to another 
 of the three evil faces, and then she decided 
 that her only hope of saving San Cristoforo 
 lay in her finding the Bishop before the
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 365 
 
 stranger had time to take another train. 
 She made a desperate rush for the door, but 
 her enemies were too quick for her ; the 
 stranger caught her arm, and Aunt Giannina 
 began to pummel her unmercifully. She 
 broke away from them only to find herself 
 confronted by Uncle Aurelio, who had armed 
 himself with a thick stick. He struck at her 
 with all his might, nearly knocking all the 
 breath out of her body, but she managed to 
 run in and seize one of his legs. Uncle 
 Aurelio, shouting curses, began to totter. 
 
 " The head ! aim at the head ! " shrieked 
 Aunt Giannina, trying to pull her away. 
 Aurelio kicked himself free and raised the 
 stick in both his hands. 
 
 "If I kill her it is her fault," he said 
 solemnly. "You are witnesses of that." 
 
 He gave the stick a preliminary whirl in 
 the air. 
 
 There are three distinct accounts of the 
 event which happened during the following 
 moments, that of Maria Assunta, that of 
 Aurelio, and that of Giannina. Of these, 
 the present historian prefers to follow Maria 
 Assunta's, though Giannina's story is very 
 slightly dissimilar, the latter lady having
 
 366 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 been scared into speaking some part of the 
 truth for once in her life. Aurelio's state- 
 ment differs entirely from that of the other 
 two witnesses, and never obtained any credit. 
 The fat man did not remain to testify. 
 
 . According to Maria Assunta, the heavy 
 stick was in the very act of descending on 
 her head, when there was a strange rushing 
 sound in the air, a brilliant light shone in 
 the room, and an enormous old man with a 
 white beard and very large bare legs appeared 
 suddenly at her side, broke Aurelio's stick 
 into half a dozen fragments with one blow 
 from a huge staff, and smote that too zealous 
 guardian of infancy such a hearty thwack on 
 his hinder parts that Aurelio, with a poignant 
 yell, leapt the entire breadth of the room and 
 knocked over the stranger like a nine-pin. 
 The old man then proceeded to administer 
 a thrashing of the most finished description 
 to Aurelio and the fat man, who writhed and 
 rolled on the floor, and howled for quarter at 
 the pitch of their voices. At first they as- 
 sumed the most fantastic shapes in their 
 efforts to escape the terrible flail that rained 
 blows upon them ; but after a very short 
 time they ceased to move, and lay like dying 
 pigs, groaning piteously. The old man ad-
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 367 
 
 ministered a few more artistic blows to their 
 prostrate bodies, and then he went over to 
 Aunt Giannina, who fell on her knees and 
 wailed for mercy. 
 
 San Cristoforo for of course Maria Assunta 
 had recognised him at once was too perfect 
 a gentleman to strike even Aunt Giannina. 
 He contented himself merely with looking at 
 her. Exactly what kind of expression he 
 wore Maria Assunta could never explain ; 
 his halo suddenly became very bright, and 
 dazzled her eyes. The effect on Aunt Gian- 
 nina, however, was remarkable ; she cowered 
 on the floor, cried out that she was a wicked 
 sinner, and begged him to strike her dead 
 rather than to regard her again with those 
 terrible eyes. Afterwards Aunt Giannina 
 denied that she had called herself wicked, 
 but there is no doubt of her having become 
 an altered woman from that moment. Hav- 
 ing accomplished this excellent work, San 
 Cristoforo smiled at Maria Assunta, pointed 
 to the door, and gradually vanished, return- 
 ing, she supposed, into the picture. At any 
 rate he was there, wading as usual in the 
 river, a moment afterwards. 
 
 For some time Maria Assunta was too be- 
 wildered to move a limb, but stood staring
 
 368 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 like a person in a trance at the spot from 
 which the saint had vanished. Then a new 
 chorus of groans from the vanquished aroused 
 her; she seized a chair, and placing it under 
 the chimneypiece, climbed on it and took 
 down the picture. Next moment she was 
 out of the house and running to the Vesco- 
 vado : simultaneously Aunt Giannina sprang 
 suddenly from the floor and bounded into 
 the street, yellow dressing - gown and all. 
 Outside, she began to rush up and down 
 like one pursued by an army of hornets. 
 
 " Miracolo, miracolo ! un santo, un gran 
 santo ! " she screamed. Though a cruel 
 woman, she had always been extremely pious, 
 and the affair had no doubt a great effect 
 on her superstitious temperament. A crowd 
 collected instantly, and Giannina, with much 
 gasping and gurgling, began to give her 
 version of all that had happened. Her ex- 
 citement was so intense that she did not 
 attempt to screen Aurelio ; perhaps this fact, 
 as well as her extremely disordered state, 
 impressed the crowd ; at any rate, a number 
 of the people began to take up her cry, 
 and very soon she was staggering at the 
 head of an enthusiastic procession towards 
 the Vescovado, where Maria Assunta was
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 369 
 
 already enjoying an audience with the 
 Bishop. 
 
 That good man had received the girl in his 
 garden. He listened to her tale in silence, 
 looking absently at the picture which she 
 had thrust into his hands. When she had 
 told him everything he stared at her very 
 keenly for some time with his shrewd, black 
 old eyes, and then turned to his chaplain, a 
 handsome young priest in a very smart 
 soutaue, who was standing behind him. 
 
 "What do you think of this, Gioacchino?" 
 he demanded. 
 
 The chaplain shrugged his shoulders and 
 smiled. " She does not look like a liar," he 
 said, after contemplating Maria Assunta ; " all 
 little girls who tell lies turn in their toes. 
 But perhaps another witness would be de- 
 sirable." 
 
 " But, Monsignore, there are three others !" 
 cried Maria Assunta, and then she paused. 
 She knew too well that Aurelio, as soon as 
 he recovered from his fright, would concoct 
 some amazing story which would certainly 
 not corroborate her own, and she was not, 
 of course, aware of the spiritual change 
 which had come to pass in the soul of Aunt 
 Giannina. The stranger, too, would prob- 
 2A
 
 370 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 ably support Aurelio. After a moment of 
 thought she looked appealingly at the 
 Bishop. 
 
 " If Monsignore would only come now," she 
 said, "and see the bruises that the holy saint 
 condescended to imprint on their bodies, I 
 think that he would believe me." 
 
 The Bishop smiled. "That is not a bad 
 idea," he said. " The spectacle should be 
 interesting ; and as I have known for some 
 time that our dear Aurelio is a conspicuous 
 rogue, this will be a most suitable occasion 
 for giving him some ghostly advice. You 
 shall show us the way, little one." 
 
 " With pleasure, Monsignore," said Maria 
 Assunta, " if Monsignore will forgive the 
 appearance of my stockings." 
 
 " My child, the eye of the Church is blind 
 to that kind of apparel," replied Gioacchino 
 very solemnly. 
 
 " Sicuro, sicuro!" added the Bishop, but he 
 gave a little choking laugh which was like 
 a puppy's bark, thought Maria Assunta. 
 Then they locked up the picture in the 
 Vescovado and set out for Aurelio's house : 
 the Bishop, who walked very fast, was in 
 the middle, with tall Father Gioacchino on 
 one side of him and Maria Assunta on the
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 371 
 
 other. She thought that it would be more 
 decorous for her to run on in front of these 
 holy men, but the Bishop pretended to want 
 to talk to her, and Gioacchino said that when 
 people walked in front of him it made him 
 feel like a poor relation. 
 
 They had only gone a short distance when 
 they met Giannina at the head of her pro- 
 cession. Giannina, as soon as she saw them, 
 uttered an ecstatic howl, and rushing towards 
 Maria Assunta, enfolded her in a violent em- 
 brace ; the crowd, cheering noisily, surrounded 
 them. Then Giannina flung herself at the 
 feet of the Bishop, who was staring with 
 amazed eyes at the yellow dressing-gown. 
 
 " Behold her, Monsignore ! " she cried. " Be- 
 hold the little friend of the Blessed Saints, 
 who become visible in this very place in 
 order to protect her from wicked persons 
 of the other sex ! I saw him myself, Mon- 
 signore, with these eyes : he was enormous, 
 enormous as the Duomo tower, and his face 
 was like the red sun coming through a mist." 
 Her voice rose to a shrill shriek, and she fell 
 flat on the ground, writhing. Gioacchino 
 picked her up, and gave her into the custody 
 of some women who were standing at the 
 door of their house.
 
 372 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 "This becomes interesting," said the Bishop. 
 "Let us hear what those wicked persons of 
 the other sex have to say for themselves. My 
 dears," he added, turning to the crowd, "your 
 rejoicings betray an excellent spirit, but let 
 us beware of premature enthusiasm." 
 
 " Yes, yes, Monsignore ! " shouted the crowd. 
 
 Probably none of its members had the 
 faintest idea what he meant. It followed 
 him at a respectful distance to Aurelio's 
 house, where it grouped itself round the 
 door and cheered until it was hoarse. Aurelio 
 did not appear at the window to acknowledge 
 the cheering, and when the Bishop and his 
 two companions had entered the kitchen 
 they found him and the fat man propped 
 up against the wall in the attitude of persons 
 in the stocks. Aurelio's groans, when he 
 recognised his visitors, became terrible. 
 
 The Bishop spoke to him sternly. "Aurelio," 
 he said, " cease to utter those unmusical and 
 disturbing sounds, collect your few wits, and 
 tell us exactly what has happened." 
 
 Aurelio rolled his eyes dreadfully. "Mon- 
 signore," he said, " on my word of honour as a 
 gentleman and a member of the oldest family 
 in the contrado, this is what befell. A great
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 373 
 
 demon with fiery eyes and flaming hair was 
 brought here by the art of that girl who 
 dares to stand near your sacred presence, 
 and is, as all the world knows, a witch in 
 league with the devil. Because I refused to 
 allow her to steal a holy picture from the 
 Duomo which is sacrilege, as your Eminence 
 knows she bade the demon beat me until I 
 was dead ; and this he would certainly have 
 done if I had not at the last moment contrived 
 to exorcise him by saying two Paters and 
 twenty Aves. Accept the word of one who 
 is probably a dying man, Monsignore ; that 
 is the simple truth." 
 
 The Bishop looked at him with a severe 
 countenance, and then turned to the fat man, 
 who had risen slowly and painfully. 
 
 " Is that your version of the story, signore ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 But the fat man was in a state of mental 
 collapse. " I don't know what happened," he 
 said. "I'm a materialist. I don't believe in 
 saints and ghosts and all your hocus-pocus ; 
 but if ever I come to this accursed place 
 again you may dress me up in a yellow 
 shirt and shave my head and lock me in 
 an asylum for mad monks. My earnest
 
 374 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 wish," he concluded, "is that the devil may 
 take you all, and especially that young lady 
 and this old sink of all iniquity." 
 
 Having uttered these pious sentiments he 
 limped out of the house, and a moment 
 later they heard him making shocking re- 
 marks to the crowd outside. He never 
 returned to Acquacasciante. 
 
 Now concerning the sequel to the miracle 
 how the Bishop improved the occasion 
 with Aurelio, how Giannina became a 
 monster of piety, and how the fame of 
 the picture from which, it was believed, 
 San Cristoforo had actually emerged, spread 
 far and wide over the district, and re- 
 sulted in the great annual pilgrimage 
 you will have a full account when you 
 go to Acquacasciante and talk to the 
 stationmaster. My task of giving you an 
 impartial history of the event may well 
 end, as all good histories should, with the 
 discomfiture of the wicked and the justifica- 
 tion of the worthy. I may add, however, 
 that Maria Assunta and San Cristoforo re- 
 mained firm friends ; and if he did not 
 again appear visibly on earth as her cham-
 
 SAN CRISTOFORO & MARIA ASSUNTA 375 
 
 pion, it was merely because there was no 
 need for him to do so, for the good Bishop 
 removed her from the tutelage of Aunt 
 Giannina, and finding that she was greatly 
 harassed by the attentions of the faithful, 
 who were always following her about in the 
 hope that the Saint would suddenly appear, 
 he sent her to an excellent school in Rome, 
 where she passed five happy years, and grew 
 into a beautiful young woman. Then she 
 returned to Acquacasciante and married the 
 stationmaster, and put up a tombstone to 
 Uncle Aurelio and Aunt Giannina, who had 
 ended their venerable lives in the holiest 
 possible manner. She is extremely famous 
 throughout the district, and is regarded as 
 a kind of saint, though she shocked a great 
 number of foolish persons by refusing to 
 adopt an actively religious career, preferring 
 to live quietly and happily with her station- 
 master and her babies. Such an existence, 
 after all, is probably the one which San 
 Cristoforo, who is, as we have seen, a 
 thoroughly sensible and practical person, 
 would himself have chosen for her. San 
 Cristoforo, by the way, often complains to 
 her that he feels idle. There has certainly
 
 376 HEROINES AND OTHERS 
 
 never been any occasion for him to beat 
 the stationmaster. His picture occupies an 
 honourable position in the Cathedral, and 
 he will doubtless be much interested in 
 learning the name of the artist to whom 
 you assign it. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 Educational Works. 45 
 
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 46 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
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 Educational Works. 51 
 
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 Educational Works. 55 
 
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 THE Home of Abraham Into Africa- 
 Joseph in Egypt The Children of Israel 
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 Socrates The Story of Romulus and Remus 
 HowHoratius kept the Bridge Coriolanus 
 Alexander the Great King of Macedonia 
 The Conquest of India Alexander's 
 City The Roman Fleet The Adventures of 
 Hannibal The End of Carthage The 
 Triumph of Rome Julius Csesar The 
 Flight of Pompey The Death of Caesar. 
 
 BOOK II. THE DISCOVERY OF NEW WORLDS. Is. 6d. 
 
 THE Roman World The Tragedy of Nero 
 The Great Fire in Rome The Destruction 
 of Pompeii Marcus Aurelius Christians to 
 the Lions A New Rome The Armies of 
 the North King Arthur and his Knights 
 How the Northmen conquered England 
 The First Crusade Frederick Barbarossa 
 The Third Crusade The Days of Chivalry 
 Queen of the Adriatic The Story of 
 Marco Polo Dante's Great Poem The 
 
 Maid of Orleans Prince Henry, the Sailor 
 The Invention of Printing Vasco da Gama's 
 Great Voyage Golden Goa Christopher 
 Columbus The Last of the Moors Dis- 
 covery of the New World Columbus in 
 Chains Discovery of the Pacific Magel- 
 lan's Straits Montezuma Siege and Fall of 
 Mexico Conquest of Peru A Great 
 Awakening. 
 
 BOOK III. THE AWAKENING OF EUROPE. Is. 6d. 
 Colonial Edition, Is. 9cL 
 
 STORY of the Netherlands The Story of 
 Martin Luther The Massacre of St Bar- 
 tholomewThe Siege of Leyden William 
 the Silent Drake's Voyage round the 
 World The Great Armada Virginia Story 
 of the Revenge Sir Walter Raleigh The 
 ' Fairy Queen 'First Voyage of the East 
 India Company Henry Hudson Captain 
 John Smith The Founding of Quebec 
 The Pilgrim Fathers Thirty Years of War 
 The Dutch at Sea Van Riebeek's Colony 
 
 Oliver Cromwell Two Famous Admirals 
 De Ruyter The Founder of Pennsyl- 
 vania The ' Pilgrim's Progress ' William's 
 Invitation The Struggle in Ireland The 
 Siege of Vienna by the Turks The Story of 
 the Huguenots The Battle of Blenheim- 
 How Peter the Great learned Shipbuilding 
 Charles XII. of Sweden The Boyhood of 
 Frederick the Great Anson's Voyage round 
 the World Maria Theresa The Story of 
 Scotland.
 
 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE WORLD continued. 
 
 BOOK IV. THE STRUGGLE 
 
 THE Story of the Great Mogul Robert 
 Olive The Black Hole of Calcutta The 
 Struggle for North America George Wash- 
 ingtonHow Pitt saved England The Fall 
 of Quebec "The Great Lord Hawke" 
 The Declaration of Independence Captain 
 Cook's Story James Bruce and the Nile 
 The Trial of Warren Hastings Maria 
 Antoinette The Fall of the Bastile 
 Napoleon Bonaparte Horatio Nelson The 
 Adventures of Mungo Park The Travels of 
 Baron Humboldt The Battle of the Nile 
 
 FOR SEA POWER. Is. 9d. 
 
 Copenhagen Napoleon Trafalgar The 
 Death of Nelson The Rise of Wellington 
 The First Australian Colony Story of the 
 Slave Trade The Defence of Saragoza Sir 
 John Moore at Corunna The Victory of 
 Talavera The Peasant Hero of the Tyrol 
 The "Shannon" and the "Chesapeake" 
 Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow Welling- 
 ton's Victories in Spain The Fall of the 
 Empire Story of the Steam Engine Water- 
 looThe Exile of St Helena. 
 
 BOOK V. GROWTH OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 2s. 
 
 How Spain lost South America The Greek 
 War Victoria, Queen of England The 
 Great Boer Trek The Story of Natal The 
 Story of Canada The Winning of the West 
 A Great Arctic Expedition Discoveries in 
 Australia The Last King of France--Louis 
 Kossuth and Hungary The Crimean War 
 The Indian Mutiny King of United Italy 
 Civil War in America The Mexican Re- 
 volution Founding the German Empire 
 The Franco -German War The Dream of 
 Cecil Rhodes The Dutch Republics in 
 
 South Africa Livingstone's discoveries in 
 Central Africa China's Long Sleep Japan, 
 Britain's Ally Russia The Annexation of 
 Burma The Story of Afghanistan The 
 Empire of India Gordon, the Hero of 
 Khartum The Redemption of Egypt The 
 Story of British West Africa The Story of 
 Uganda The Founding of Rhodesia 
 British South Africa The Dominion of 
 Canada Australia The New Nation 
 Freedom for Cuba Reign of Queen Victoria 
 Welding the Empire Citizenship. 
 
 Also in 2 volumes, at 3s. 6d. each net, suitable as prize books. 
 
 Uniform with this Series. 
 
 THE WORLD'S CHILDHOOD. 
 
 With numerous Illustrations by Brlnsley Le Fanu. 
 
 10. 
 
 I. STORIES 
 
 Lit-tle Red Ri-ding Hood. 
 
 The Three Bears. 
 
 The Snow-Child. 
 
 Tom Thumb. 
 
 The Ug-ly Duck-ling. 
 
 Puss in Boots. 
 
 The Lit-tle Girl and the Cats. 
 
 Jack and the Bean-Stalk. 
 
 Gol-dy. 
 
 Cin-der-el-la Part I. 
 
 OP THE FAIRIES. lOd. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 11. Cin-der-el-la Part II. 
 
 12. The Lost Bell. 
 
 13. Jack the Gi-ant Kill-er. 
 
 14. Star-bright and Bird-ie. 
 
 15. Beau-ty and the Beast. 
 
 16. Peach-Dar-ling. 
 
 17. In Search of a Night's Rest. 
 
 18. Dick Whit-ting-ton and his Cat. 
 
 19. The Sleep-ing Beau-ty. 
 
 II. STORIES OF THE GREEK QODS AND HEROES. lod. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 1. A-bout the Gods. 
 
 2. The Names of the Gods. 
 
 3. Turn-ed in-to Stone. 
 
 4. The Shin-ing Char-i-ot. 
 
 5. The Laur-el Tree. 
 
 6. A Horse with Wings. 
 
 7. The Cy-press Tree. 
 
 8. The Fruits of the Earth. 
 
 9. Cu-pid's Gold-en Ar-rows. 
 
 10. Pan's Pipe. 
 
 11. A Long Sleep. 
 
 12. The Re-ward of Kind-ness. 
 
 13. At-a-lan-ta's Race. 
 
 14. The Stor-y of Al-ces-tis. 
 
 15. The Snow- White Bull. 
 
 16. The Spi-der and his Web. 
 
 17. I-o the White Cow. 
 
 18. The Three Gold-en Ap-ples. 
 
 19. The Ol-ive Tree. 
 
 20. A Boy Her-o of Old. 
 
 21. The Thread of Ar-i-ad-ne. 
 
 22. The Boy who tried to Fly. 
 
 23. The Gold-en Harp. 
 Teacher's Appendix.
 
 Educational Works. 59 
 
 "If history can be given a form likely to make it palatable to yoong folks, "F" 
 has succeded in doing so in these ' Stories of the English.' It is no exaggeration to 
 say that the book represents not only a masterpiece la literature for children, 
 but a work of no slight value for the national good." Scotsman. 
 
 STORIES OF THE ENGLISH 
 FOR SCHOOLS. 
 
 By F. 
 
 FOR JUNIOR SCHOLARS. 
 VOL. I. PROM THE COMING OP THE ENGLISH TO THE ARMADA. 1 s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. The coming of the White Horse The coming of the Cross The Fight 
 with the Raven Alfred the Great Edward the Confessor William the Conquerer The 
 Kings of the Golden Broom Richard Lion-Heart King John and Magna Charta Earl 
 Simon the Righteous Edward the Englishman Bannockburn and Berkeley The Lions 
 and the Lilies A King dethroned Prince Hal King Harry The Wars of the Roses- 
 Henry VIII. and the Revolt from Rome Edward VI. and Mary Elizabeth, the Great 
 Queen : (1) English Adventurers and the Cruise of the Pelican ; (2) Mary, Queen of Scots ; 
 (3) Papist Plots and the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew ; (4) The Armada. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. Dover Castle The Pharos, Dover Norsemen Homes of our 
 Ancestors Chateau Gaillard Tomb of a Crusader (Gervase Alard), Winchelsea Church 
 Carnarvon Castle Coronation Chair, Westminster Abbey Knights of the Fourteenth 
 Century Edward the Third The Battle of Cressy Tomb of Edward the Third, West- 
 minster Abbey Tomb of the Black Prince, Canterbury Cathedral Richard II. on his 
 voyage to Ireland Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster Abbey Henry V. with Military 
 Attendants Henry V. addressing his Army Joan of Arc The Crowning of Henry VII. 
 on Bosworth Field Henry VIII. Wolsey Sir Thomas More taking leave of his Daughter 
 Calais during the Sixteenth Century Queen Elizabeth The Armada Drake Mary, 
 Queen of Scots Drake playing Bowls with his Captains Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 
 FOR SENIOR SCHOLARS. 
 VOL. II. THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER AND GREATER ENGLAND. Is. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. The First of the Stuarts The Struggle for Power The Puritan Tyranny 
 The Second Struggle for Power : Charles II. The Revolution The Fight with France : 
 The Dutch King Queen Anne and Maryborough Greater England The Story of Anson 
 The Story of Wolfe The Story of Captain Cook The Story of Clive The War of American 
 Independence The great French War The Story of Nelson The Story of the Great Duke 
 The End of the Stories. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. James I. Bacon Charles I. A Cavalier Oliver Cromwell The 
 Great Fire of London The Seven Bishops going to the Tower Landing of William of 
 Orange in England Marlborough Gibraltar Chatham Fight between the Centurion and 
 the Manila Ship General Wolfe The Death of Captain Cook Washington Pitt- 
 Napoleon Bonaparte Nelson H.M.S. Victory, Portsmouth Harbour Duke of Wellington 
 Napoleon on board the Bdlerophon. 
 
 Molra O'Neill, Author of ' Songs of the Glen of Antrim,' writing to Mr Black wood, 
 says : " F.'s ' Stories of the English ' was written for my little daughter Susan. The 
 child is quite fascinated by it, but equally so are all the grown-up friends to whom 
 I have shown it. I lent it once to a sailor uncle, and he sat up to all hours of that 
 night with it, and afterwards told me that he could hardly believe that such an 
 account of Nelson's great battles had been written by a woman, because it was 
 technically accurate. And a soldier friend and critic used almost the same words 
 about the account of Marlborough's campaigns. Y. is the most patient and faithful 
 student of history that I know. She has such a strong literary sense that she simply 
 could not write anything except in a literary form, and combined with it she has 
 that rare thing, a judicial mind. This, I think, gives her work a quite peculiar 
 value."
 
 60 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 Standard Readers. 
 
 Revised Edition. With Supplementary Pages, consisting of ' ' Spelling 
 Lists," "Word -Building," "Prefixes and Suffixes," &c. Profusely Illus- 
 trated with Superior Engravings. 
 
 BOOK I. 40 Lessons 8d. 
 
 BOOK II. 40 Lessons 9d. 
 
 BOOK III. 60 Lessons . . . .Is. Od. 
 
 BOOK IV. 60 Lessons . . . .Is. 3d. 
 
 BOOK V. 60 Lessons . . . .Is. 4d. 
 
 BOOK VI. 60 Lessons . . . .Is. 6d. 
 
 Schoolmaster. "We strongly recommend these books Children will be 
 
 sure to like them; the matter is extremely suitable and interesting, the print 
 very distinct, and the paper a pleasure to feel." 
 
 Infant Series. 
 
 FIRST PICTURE PRIMER . . Sewed, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 SECOND PICTURE PRIMER . . Sewed, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 PICTURE READING SHEETS. 
 
 IST SKRIBS. | 2ND SERIES. 
 
 Each containing 16 sheets, unmounted, 3s. 6d. Mounted on 8 boards, 
 with cloth border, price 14s. ; varnished, 3s. 6d. per set extra. 
 
 Or the 16 sheets laid on linen, varnished, and mounted on a roller, 
 17s. 6d. 
 
 THE INFANT PICTURE READER. With numerous Illustrations. 
 Cloth, limp, 6d. 
 
 Educational News. "Teachers will find these Primers a useful introduction 
 to the art of reading. We consider them well adapted to their purpose." 
 
 Geographical Readers. 
 
 With numerous Maps, Diagrams, and Illustrations. 
 
 GEOGRAPHICAL PRIMER. (For Stand. I.) 96 pp. 9d. 
 
 BOOK I. (For Stand. II.) 96pp. . . 9d. 
 
 BOOK II. (For Stand. III.) 156 pp. . . Is. Od. 
 
 BOOK III. (For Stand. IV.) 192 pp. . . Is. 3d. 
 
 BOOK IV. (For Stand. V.) 266 pp. . . Is. 6d. 
 
 BOOK V. (For Stand. VI.) 256 pp. . . Is. 6d. 
 
 BOOK VI. (For Stand. VII.) 256 pp. . . Is. 9d. 
 
 Schoolmaster. " This is a really excellent series of Geographical Readers. 
 The volumes have, in common, the attractiveness which good paper, clear type, 
 effective woodcuts, and durable binding can present ; whilst their contents, both 
 as to quality and quantity, are so graded as to be admirably adapted to the 
 several stages of the pupil's progress."
 
 Educational Works. 61 
 
 Historical Readers. 
 
 With numerous Portraits, Maps, and other Illustrations. 
 
 SHORT STORIES FROM ENGLISH 
 
 HISTORY 160 pp. Is. Od. 
 
 FIRST HISTORICAL READER . . . 160pp. Is. Od. 
 
 SECOND HISTORICAL READER . . .224 pp. Is. 4d. 
 
 THIRD HISTORICAL READER . . .256 pp. Is. 6d. 
 
 Schoolmaster. "These new Historical Readers have been carefully compiled. 
 The facts are well selected ; the story is well told in language most likely to 
 impress itself in the memory of young children ; and the poetical pieces are 
 fitting accompaniments to the prose." 
 
 School Board Chronicle. "The treatment is unconventional, but always 
 in good taste. The volumes will meet with much favour generally as lively, 
 useful, high-toned Historical Readers." 
 
 Standard Authors. 
 
 Adapted for Schools. 
 
 HAWTHORNE'S TANGLEWOOD TALES. With Notes and Illustra- 
 tions. 160 pp. Is. 2d. 
 
 Aytoun's Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers. 
 
 With Introduction, Notes, and Life of the Author, for Junior Classes. 
 
 EDINBURGH AFTER FLODDEN . 32 pages, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 
 THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE . 32 pages, 2d. ; cloth, 3$d. 
 
 THE BURIAL-MARCH OF DUNDEE 32 pages, 2d. ; cloth, 3^d. 
 
 THE ISLAND OF THE SCOTS . . 32 pages, 2d. ; cloth, s|d. 
 
 Teachers' Aid. "Capital annotated editions Beautifully clear and 
 
 painstaking ; we commend them heartily to our brother and sister teachers." 
 
 Educational News. "Useful issues of well-known poems The notes 
 
 are exceedingly appropriate, and leave nothing in doubt. For class purposes 
 we can specially recommend these little books." 
 
 School Recitation Books. 
 
 BOOK I. 32 pages 2d. 
 
 BOOK II. 32 pages . . . 2d. 
 
 BOOK III. 48 pages . . . .3d. 
 
 BOOK IV. 48 pages .... 3d. 
 
 BOOK V. 64 pages . . . 4d. ' 
 
 BOOK VI. 64 pages . . . 4d. 
 
 Schoolmistress. " These six books are a valuable contribution to school 
 literature. The poems for each standard are judiciously chosen, the explanatory 
 notes and questions at the end of every lesson are very suitable."
 
 62 
 
 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 Grammar and Analysis. 
 
 BOOK II. 24 pages . 
 
 BOOK HI. 24 pages . 
 
 BOOK IV. 48 pages . 
 
 BOOK V. 64 pages . 
 
 BOOK VI. 64 pages . 
 
 BOOK VII. 64 pages . 
 
 Paper, l$d. ; cloth, 2d. 
 Paper, IJd. ; cloth, 2d. 
 Paper, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 Paper, 3d. ; cloth, 4d. 
 Paper, 3d. ; cloth, 4d. 
 Paper, 3d. ; cloth, 4d. 
 
 Schoolmaster. "This is a series of good practical books whose merits ought 
 to ensure for them a wide sale. Among their leading merits are simplicity in 
 definitions, judicious recapitulation, and abundance of well-selected exercises 
 for practice." 
 
 Teachers' Aid. "For thoroughness, method, style, and high -class work, 
 
 commend us to these little text-books A practical hand has impressed 
 
 every line with individuality We are determined to use them in our o :i 
 
 department." 
 
 Arithmetical Exercises. 
 
 BOOK I. ... Paper, ld. ; cloth, 2|d. 
 BOOK II. Paper, lfcd. ; cloth, 2d. 
 BOOK III. . . . Paper, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 BOOK IV. . . Paper, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 BOOK V. ... Paper, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 BOOK VL Paper, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 BOOK VII. . . . Paper, 3d. ; cloth, 4d. 
 HIGHER ARITHMETIC for Ex-Standard and Continua- 
 tion Classes. 128 pp. . . Paper, 6d. ; cloth, 8d. 
 
 ** ANSWERS may be had separately, and are supplied direct 
 to Teachers only. 
 
 Schoolmaster. "We can speak in terms of high praise respecting this series 
 of Arithmetical Exercises. They have been carefully constructed. They are 
 
 well graduated, and contain a large and varied collection of examples We 
 
 can recommend the series to our readers." 
 
 Schoolmistress. " Large quantity, excellent quality, great variety, and good 
 arrangement are the characteristics of this set of Arithmetical Exercises." 
 
 Elementary Grammar and Composition. 
 
 Based on the ANALYSIS OP SENTENCES. With a Chapter on WORD-BUILDING 
 and DERIVATION, and containing numerous Exercises. New Edition. Is. 
 
 Schoolmaster. "A very valuable book. It is constructive as well as analytic, 
 and well-planned exercises have been framed to teach the young student how to 
 
 use the elements of his mother-tongue A junior text-book that is calculated 
 
 to yield most satisfactory results. " 
 
 Educational Times. "The plan ought to work well A decided advance 
 
 from the old-fashioned practice of teaching."
 
 Educational Works. 63 
 
 Grammar and Analysis. 
 
 Scotck Code. 
 
 STANDARD II. 24 pages. Paper, lfcd. ; cloth, 2$d. 
 
 STANDARD III. 32 pages. Paper, ld. ; cloth, 2Jd. 
 
 STANDARD IV. 56 pages. Paper, 2%d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 
 STANDARD V. 56 pages. Paper, 2d. ; cloth, 3Jd. 
 
 STANDARD VI. 64 pages. Paper, 3d. ; cloth, 4d. 
 
 Teachers' Aid. " These are thoughtfully written and very practically con- 
 ceived little helps They are most exhaustive, and brimming with examples." 
 
 New Arithmetical Exercises. 
 
 Scotch Code. 
 
 STANDARD I. 32 pages . Paper, l.Jd. ; cloth, 2d. 
 STANDARD II. 32 pages . Paper, l|d. ; cloth, 2$d. 
 STANDARD III. 56 pages . Paper, 2d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 STANDARD IV. 64 pages . Paper, 3d. ; cloth, 4d. 
 STANDARD V. 80 pages . Paper, 4d. ; cloth, 6d. 
 STANDARD VI. 80 pages . Paper, 4d. ; cloth, Gd. 
 HIGHER ARITHMETIC for Ex-Standard and Continua- 
 tion Classes 128 pages . Paper, 6d. ; cloth, 3d. 
 
 ** ANSWERS may be had separately, and are supplied direct 
 to Teachers only. 
 
 Educational News. "The gradation of the exercises is perfect, and the 
 examples, which are very numerous, are of every conceivable variety. There is 
 ample choice for the teacher under every head. We recommend the series as 
 excellent School Arithmetics." 
 
 Merit Certificate Arithmetic. 
 
 96 pp. Paper cover, 6d. cloth, 8d. 
 
 Mensuration. 
 
 128 pp., cloth, Is. Also in Two Parts. Pt. I., Parallelograms and 
 Triangles. 64 pp. Paper, 4d. ; cloth, 6d. Pt. II., Circles and Solids. 
 64 pp. Paper, 4d. ; cloth, 6d. Anstoers may he had separately, price 
 2d. each Part. 
 
 Educational Times. "The explanations are always clear and to the point, 
 while the exercises are so exceptionally numerous that a wide selection is 
 offered to the students who make use of the book." 
 
 A First Book on Physical Geography. 
 
 For Use in Schools. 64 pp. 4d. 
 
 Journal of Education. "This is a capital little book, describing shortly 
 and clearly the geographical phenomena of nature."
 
 64 William Blackwood & Sons' List. 
 
 Manual Instruction Woodwork. DESIGNED TO MEET THE 
 REQUIREMENTS OF THE MINUTE OP THE SCIENCE AND ART DEPARTMENT 
 ON MANUAL INSTRUCTION. By GEORGE ST JOHN, Undenominational 
 School, Handsworth, Birmingham. With 100 Illustrations. Is, 
 
 Blackwoods' Simplex Civil Service Copy Books. 
 
 By JOHN T. PEARCE, B.A., Leith Academy. Price 2d. each. 
 
 CONTENTS OF THE SERIES. 
 No. 1. Elements, Short Letters, Words. 
 n 2. Long Letters, Easy Words, 
 ii 3. Capitals, Half-line Words. 
 n 4. Text, Double Ruling, Sentences, 
 n 5. Half-Text, Sentences, Figures, 
 n 6. Small Hand, Double Ruling, 
 n 7. Intermediate, Transcription, &c. 
 n 8. Small Hand, Single Ruling. 
 The Headlines are graduated, up-to-date, and attractive. 
 
 Blackwoods' Universal Writing Books. 
 
 Have been designed to accompany the above series, and teachers will find it 
 advantageous to use them as Dictation Copies, because by them the learner 
 is kept continually writing at the correct slope, &e. No 1. is adapted for 
 LOWER CLASSES, No. 2 for HIGHER CLASSES. Price 2d. each. 
 
 Practical Teacher. "Our readers would do well to write for a specimen of 
 this book, and of the blank exercise-books ruled on the same principle. They 
 are worth careful attention." 
 
 School World. "Those teachers who are anxious to train their pupils to 
 write in the style associated with Civil Service Competitions should find the 
 copy-books designed by Mr Pearce very useful. The writing is certainly simple ; 
 it may, in fact, be reduced to four elements, in which the pupil is rigorously 
 exercised in the earlier books before proceeding in later numbers to continuous 
 writing." 
 
 Schoolmaster. "Those of our readers in search of new books should see 
 these." 
 
 Journal of Education. "Aids the eye and guides the hand, and thus 
 checkmates any bias towards error in the slope." 
 
 UNIVERSITY CALENDARS. 
 
 St Andrews University Calendar. 
 
 Printed and Published for the Senatus Academicus. Crown 8vo, 2s. 6d. net. 
 
 St Andrews University L.L.A. Calendar. 
 
 Printed and Published for the Senatus Academicus. Crown 8vo, Is. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 
 2/14.
 
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