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 COLLKCTION 
 
 OF 
 
 BEITISII AUTHORS 
 
 TAUCIIXTTZ EDITION. 
 VOL. 305(). 
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. BY F. C. PHILIPS. 
 
 IN ONE VOLUME. 
 
 x->^
 
 TAUCHNITZ EDITION. 
 By F. C. Philips, 
 
 AS IN A LOOKING GLASS i vol. 
 
 THE DEAN AND HIS DAUGHTER . . . . i vol. 
 
 THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF LUCY SMITH i vol. 
 
 A LUCKY YOUNG WOMAN i vol. 
 
 JACK AND THREE JILLS i vol. 
 
 LITTLE MRS. MURRAY i vol. 
 
 YOUNG MR. AINSLLE'S COURTSHIP . . . . i vol. 
 
 SOCIAL VICISSITUDES I vol. 
 
 EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES & A FRENCH 
 
 MARRIAGE i vol. 
 
 MORE SOCIAL VICISSITUDES i vol. 
 
 CONSTANCE 2 vols. 
 
 THAT WICKED MAD'JIOISELLE, ETC. ... I vol. 
 
 A DOCTOR IN DIFFICULTIES i vol. 
 
 BLACK AND WHITE i vol. 
 
 "ONE NEVER knows" 2 vols. 
 
 OF COURSE I vol. 
 
 MISS ORMEROD'S PROTEGE i vol. 
 
 MY LITTLE HUSBAND i vol. 
 
 MRS. BOUVERIE i vol. 
 
 By F. C. Philips and C. J. Wills, 
 
 THE FATAL PHRYNE I vol. 
 
 THE SCUDAMORES . . . . . . . . . i vol. 
 
 A MAIDEN FAIR TO SEE i vol. 
 
 SYBIL ROSS'S MARRIAGE i vol. 
 
 By F. C. Philips and Percy P'ondall, 
 
 A DAUGHTER'S SACRIFICE i vol. 
 
 MARGARET BYNG I vol.
 
 QUESTION OF COLOUR 
 
 AND OTHER STORIKS. 
 
 F. C. PHILIPS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "AS IN A LOOKING GLASS," ETC. 
 
 COPYRIGHT EDITION- 
 
 LEIPZIG 
 BERN HARD T A U C 11 N .1 T Z 
 
 1895- 
 
 -i
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 A Question ov Cor.ouR 7 
 
 "It's a vilky wisk Ciiii.d ihai' knows" . . . . 115 
 
 SiMILlA SlMll.IlU;S CUKANTUR I3I 
 
 A DANGKKOUS EXPERIMENT 1 43 
 
 A Woman ok no .Reputation 157 
 
 The Minx 171 
 
 An undeserving Woman 199 
 
 A Woman with a Heart 225 
 
 It's funny iiuw I^eopi.e forget 239 
 
 "For one Night only" 253
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR.
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "Do you think you are wise to become en- 
 gaged?" 
 
 "I don't know al)out benig wise, but if you saw 
 her—" 
 
 No argument was possible witli a man in Col- 
 lier's condition. He was wildly, irreclaimably in love, 
 and, as was the habit with liim, he had chosen 
 Hartley as the confidant of his emotions. This was 
 in the Spring of . . 80. 
 
 Of course he had begun by "asking advice." 
 Collier always did that on principle, as do most 
 people. It was a mere form. 
 
 "I want your opinion," he had commenced, drop-
 
 lO A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 ping into tlie only comfortable armchair, and slowly 
 filling his pipe; "I want your opinion on rather a 
 delicate matter, Hartley. You know my position 
 about as well as 1 know it myself — I am doing no- 
 thing at the Bar, and I see no immediate prospect 
 of my doing any more. Well, I want to ask a 
 certain lady to be my wife." 
 
 Hartley was forty years of age, and wise in his 
 generation. In other words he was perfectly aware 
 of the futility of dissuading a dramatic aspirant from 
 wooing fame and fortune on the stage, and of at- 
 tempting to convince a lover that he had better not 
 propose. For these two purposes breath is wasted. 
 But he had a sincere affection for Collier, and, 
 though he knew he was making a fool of himself, he 
 still remonstrated. 
 
 "My dear Jack," he said, "assuming that the lady 
 accepts you, what do you reckon to live upon?" 
 
 Collier blew a dense cloud, and shuffled im- 
 patiently. 
 
 "I knew you would say that," he replied, as if 
 it had been something especially shortsighted and
 
 A QUESTION OF COI.OUR. I I 
 
 silly; "naturally I don'l look to many to-morrow or 
 next week. My idea is to ask her to wait for me." 
 
 "Humph!" 
 
 "I suppose you don't imagine I shall be such a 
 penniless duffer all my life, do you." 
 
 "No," declared Hartley, (luite truthfully, "you'll 
 probably make a little headway by degrees. Someday 
 I think you will be doing well. But 1 fancy it will 
 be a long time off, Jack, and a good deal longer 
 than most fiancees would care to wait." 
 
 "Mamie is unlike most girls." 
 
 "Mamie is a very pretty name, who is she?" 
 
 The other let loose a flood of eloquence, and 
 Hartley learnt that she lived in Eightgates, this 
 divinity who had ujiset his friend's equilibrium. She 
 was the eldest of a large family, and her i)arents did 
 not appear to be particularly well off. 
 
 "She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen 
 in my life," Collier asserted. "More than that, she 
 is the most beautiful girl that you have ever seen. 
 She has made a sensation in the place, I can tell 
 you — they only moved to Eightgates a few months
 
 12 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 ago. I saw her the day after I went down there, 
 and — and I've seen her most days since." 
 
 Collier and Hartley were both pretty well at 
 home at Eightgates, and the latter regretted that the 
 star of the Siren had not risen in a more inaccessible 
 locality. 
 
 "Are the — I don't know what you said their 
 name was — are the family in the swim? The right 
 set?" 
 
 "Their name is Bruton. Which is the right set 
 at Eightgates? — I've never been able to settle the 
 point yet? They don't visit a great deal; there has 
 recently been a bereavement, or something of the 
 kind, and they are living very quietly. The governor 
 called on them shortly after their arrival, and Mamie 
 and her sisters often drop in on the Mater to tea. 
 It was at tea that- — " 
 
 "That you first fell victim, I understand! Your 
 governor is my ideal of a Church of England parson, 
 and your mother is the most amiable woman in the 
 world; but what I meant was are they taken up by
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. I3 
 
 the Manor people, ;uid llic Haughlons, and thai 
 lot?" 
 
 "Bah," said Collier, scornfully, "you don't mean 
 to say you're developing into a snob in your middle- 
 age? 1 tell you they are in mourning, and don't 
 care about dinners and junkettings just now. Be- 
 sides if you had seen Miss Bruton, you would under- 
 stand that Mama Haughton is hardly likely to ask 
 her into competition with her daughters — every girl 
 in the place is green with jealousy of her." 
 
 He filled his bull-dog again — it was hot, but he 
 did not seem to mind that, and stared at the empty 
 grate meditatively for several seconds. 
 
 "If she accepted me, Phil," he said at last, "I 
 should chuck the Bar, and go abroad." 
 
 Hartley was startled out of his habitual com- 
 posure. 
 
 "Then," he exclaimed, "I fervently hope she 
 won't!" 
 
 "Thank you for your good wishes," growled Col- 
 lier. "And why?" 
 
 "Because, my dear Jack, however slowly you may
 
 14 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 be getting on at the Bar, your prospects are a good 
 deal better at that than at anything else." 
 
 "I should throw professions overboard altogether," 
 said Jack Collier, hotly, "I should go to the Cape — 
 to Kimberley — where a man may make a large for- 
 tune in a few years. With a few hundred pounds 
 in my pocket when I landed, and a cool head, I 
 might come back a hundred thousand to the good 
 in no time." 
 
 "Is a hundred thousand pounds the amount 
 necessary to Miss Mamie Bruton's happiness?" 
 
 "I am putting it down large. Now you want to 
 infer she is mercenary. You seem prejudiced against 
 her without ever having set eyes on the poor girl. 
 I don't know what to make of you." 
 
 "I am," said Hartley, "prejudiced against your 
 playing ducks and drakes with your life — not against 
 Miss Bruton or anybody else," 
 
 "What shall I do here?" 
 
 "Go on working." 
 
 "< Working'! One brief a month — for a guinea 
 that I can't get. Fine work!"
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. I 5 
 
 "Well,"' rci)licd Hartley, "if Miss Bruton cares 
 about you, I fancy you'll find that her own advice to 
 you tallies witli mine. She will hardly counsel you 
 to throw up your profession, and go to the world's 
 end on such a wild-goose-chase as you seem to con- 
 template." 
 
 "A moment ago you found that the Bar offered 
 me no chance for matrimony." 
 
 "Not immediately. But it seems to me to offer 
 a speedier chance than the Diamond Fields, old 
 chap." 
 
 "Well," said Collier, "she hasn't accepted me 
 yet, so all this discussion is a trifle premature." 
 
 Hartley shrugged his shoulders, and Collier after 
 a feeble attempt to sustain a conversation personally 
 less interesting, rose, and said good night. 
 
 But whetlier he talked of the matter or not, it 
 was rarely absent from his mind. He had done no 
 more than justice to her attractions, and Mamie 
 Bruton's face came between him and his occupations 
 with bewildering pertinacity. He had reason to sup- 
 pose his love for her was returned, and his precou-
 
 1 6 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 ceived determination never to engage himself to 
 marry until he was a Q.C. and in receipt of a large 
 income had gone the way of many other excellent 
 resolutions. 
 
 Hartley saw little of him for a week or so, and 
 then he dropped in casually one evening, and 
 announced that he was the happiest man in the 
 world. 
 
 "Congratulate me, old chap," he exclaimed, "I 
 have proposed, and been accepted!" 
 
 The elder man extended a doubtful hand, and 
 his visitor shook it heartily. 
 
 "She is the sweetest and dearest girl on earth," 
 Jack went on breathlessly. "She knows exactly how 
 I stand, and is prepared to wait until things shape 
 themselves a bit. I want you to run down with me 
 on Saturday, and be introduced." 
 
 "Did you tell her I dissuaded you from marry- 
 ing?" 
 
 "No, scarcely!" 
 
 "Ah, you will later. Well, while she is willing
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. I 7 
 
 to say 'how d'ye do' to me I sliall be very glad to 
 make the lady's ac([uaintance." 
 
 He was rather eager to do so if the truth be 
 told, though he shrank from admitting sueh a weak- 
 ness to himself. He and Collier had struck up a 
 friendship years before, and, in the way of men who 
 have been constantly together, they had got into the 
 habit of arguing much alike on many points. He 
 was curious to see the girl who had proved so sub- 
 versive an influence, and brought an especially 
 sensible fellow to the verge of idiocy. 
 
 "What do your people say?" he inquired after a 
 pause. 
 
 "They are quite agreeable. The Mater wept a 
 little — that was to be expected; but they both like 
 Mamie, and haven't made any objections." 
 
 "And your notion of giving up the Bar?" 
 
 "Oh, that is not touched on just at present. I 
 shall thresh that out later." 
 
 "Have you mentioned it to Miss Bruton?" 
 
 "I spoke of it incidentally to her. She had no 
 decided opinion to offer on the subject off hand." 
 
 A Question of Colour. 2
 
 1 8 A QUESTION OF COT.OUR. 
 
 "I do trust," said Hartley earnestly, "that you'll 
 consider such a step very carefully before you make 
 it. It is not as if you had any attractive alternative, 
 remember — you'll simply be giving up a bird in the 
 hand for the proverbial two in the bush. But of 
 course it is a matter on which you must decide for 
 yourself. Don't do anything in a hurry, that's 
 all." 
 
 "There's only one thing I'm in a cast-iron hurry 
 about," answered Collier laughing, "and that is to 
 marry her. Whether I do it by one means or an- 
 other I'm not particular. Her parents would natur- 
 ally uisist upon the man they gave her to being in a 
 position to support her, however indifferent to the 
 consideration of the pounds and the shillings she 
 might be herself. On Saturday you'll understand 
 and sympathise with my impatience." 
 
 "I hope I'm not unsympathetic now?" 
 
 "Well, you aren't what one would call ardent 
 just yet, but wait, that's all — wait till you know her, 
 and if you don't say I'm the luckiest fellow you 
 know, I'm a Dutchman!"
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 1 9 
 
 There was no curbing his liigli sjiirils to-night, 
 nor getting him to view any matter save from the 
 stand-point of a lover. Hartley, perceiving that 
 common-sense would be thrown away on him, 
 resigned himself to the position, and after listening 
 to rhapsodies which extended over half an hour, at 
 length took him out to supper in self-defence.
 
 20 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The following Saturday both men went down to 
 Eightgates together, with their portmanteaux stored 
 underneath the seat. Though Hartley had relations 
 in the place with whom he often stayed, it was 
 arranged that on this occasion he should be "put 
 up" by Collier's people. They had left by an earlier 
 train than the one originally decided on, and when 
 they reached the station there was no one there to 
 meet them. The parsonage, however, was but a 
 short distance off, and, the weather being fine, the 
 walk there was agreeable enough. 
 
 Mrs. Collier was one of those sweet old ladies of 
 the type that one sees more and more rarely now — 
 the type that is called "old-fashioned." She welcomed 
 Hartley warmly, and after kissing her son, alluded 
 playfully to his engagement. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Collier," smiled Phil, "you can't say
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 2 1 
 
 that I am to blame. He was in your cliarge when 
 the accident happened, and I knew notliing about it 
 till it was over!" 
 
 Jack apparently did not relish the matter being- 
 referred to as a catastrophe even in joke, and, per- 
 ceiving as much, the elder man hastened to add: 
 
 "But I am awfully anxious to be introduced to 
 Miss Bruton; when may I expect to see her?" 
 
 "Ask Jack," said his mother gaily; "arrangements 
 like that are in his hands." 
 
 "I thought we might saunter over after luncheon," 
 the /ia?ice declared. "Where's the Governor, mother?" 
 
 Mr. Collier senior came in as he spoke, and 
 shortly after his arrival lunch was served. 
 
 When it was concluded, and Hartley had lighted 
 a cigar, the two young men sallied forth in the 
 direction of Powis Lodge, the name of the house 
 which the Brutons had leased. 
 
 It was a pretty little villa, with a small garden 
 in the rear, and placing himself under Jack's guidance. 
 Hartley was conducted to the lawn at once. 
 
 Two girls, sitting in deck chairs under the trees,
 
 22 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 rose at their approach, the taller of the two with an 
 exclamation of pleasure. Hartley instantly observed 
 that Collier had not exaggerated her fascinations. 
 She was peerlessly, defiantly beautiful. Under 
 straight dark brows her glorious gray eyes gazed 
 proudly out of a face whose transparent fairness 
 resembled the texture of the roses which she wore 
 drooping loosely on her breast. Her loveliness was 
 such that momentarily he did not wish her to speak; 
 curiosity as to her voice was forgotten in admiration 
 of her presence. She was superb. 
 
 "Let me introduce my best friend, Mamie. Mr. 
 Hartley, Miss Bruton." 
 
 "I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Hartley; 
 Jack has spoken of you to me very often." 
 
 Her tones matched her features. Superficially 
 at least Jack Collier's fiancee was perfection. 
 
 "And of you to me. Miss Bruton," he answered; 
 "I am very happy to meet you at last." 
 
 He was presented to her sister, and in the con- 
 versation that followed took opportunities of judg-
 
 A OUESTION OK COLOUR. 2^ 
 
 ing how for Jack Collier's infoUiation was recipro- 
 cated. 
 
 It was not, however, easy to determine, remem- 
 bering that Miss Bruton was not the kind of girl to 
 parade any adoration she might feel in public. In- 
 deed he was puzzled to say why he gradually felt 
 the conviction stealing over him that Jack's engage- 
 ment was not destined to have a happy ending. 
 She was amiable, she expressed no uncomfortable 
 views, and he more than once intercepted a de- 
 cidedly intoxicating glance in his companion's direc- 
 tion. And yet, notwithstanding all this, there seemed 
 to him something lacking in Miss Mamie Bruton's 
 demeanour. 
 
 If the onlooker was critical, though. Collier him- 
 self was satisfied to the full. It was early days yet 
 for him to find shortcomings in his fiancee''-, at- 
 titude, and when they all returned to the drawing- 
 room, and tea was in circulation, he contrived to 
 secure a ten minutes tete-a-tete. 
 
 "Well darling!" he said. "How good it is to 
 get you to oneself again!"
 
 24 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 "Is it?" she asked. "Why?" 
 
 "'Why'!" He feh. it rather difficult to define 
 the reason in so many words, and put his arm round 
 her waist instead. "Look, sweetheart," he said, "I 
 have brought you your ring. Do you hke it?" 
 
 It was a half hoop of sapphires and diamonds. 
 Her fiice flushed as she held out her hand for him 
 to slip it on the third finger. 
 
 "It is lovely," she said. "You dear extravagant 
 boy, you know you have half ruined yourself to get 
 me a ring like that!" 
 
 "Nonsense," returned Jack, promptly. "Besides, 
 I should not care to see you wearing some trumpery 
 turquoise thing. You were made for nice things, 
 Mamie, and nice things were made for you," 
 
 "I don't see many of them," she murmured a 
 little disconsolately. "Jack, do you think it horrid 
 of me when I say that I hate being poor? Theo- 
 retically of course, everyone hates to be poor, but in 
 my case I mean it literally — I hale being poor, I 
 hate it with all my heart."
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 2$ 
 
 "Not a// your heart, dearest," he said; "a piece 
 of it is occupied with me — you told me so?" 
 
 "Well, with the 'rest of my heart' then. Poverty 
 is abominable; I believe I would do anything to 
 escape it. It makes you look old, and worried, and 
 gives you lines in the forehead, and — and it's loath- 
 some!" she concluded comprehensively, with a charm- 
 ing laugh. 
 
 Collier looked about him a trifle ruefully. "But 
 I say, baby," he remonstrated, "if you call this 
 'poverty' what will you say to the sort of thing that 
 / shall be able to offer you. I don't see how I'm to 
 better this to begin with, I don't indeed." 
 
 She put her little roseleaf of a hand over his 
 mouth imperiously : 
 
 "My dear boy," she said, "you take me too 
 seriously^ — why you are positively glum! Besides, 
 it isn't the house that makes the home; it's what 
 goes on inside. We are a big family, and it's all 
 contriving and managing from one year's end to the 
 other. I have heard of nothing but the need of 
 money ever since I can remember myself. If it has
 
 26 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 made me seem rather bitter, Jack, you must make 
 excuses for me, and teach me to be nicer." 
 
 How would any man have answered such an 
 appeal! Jack took her in his arms and kissed her, 
 and vowed she was an Angel, and that, for that 
 matter, he would be a millionaire yet. A little 
 warmth crept into her face under his caresses, and 
 her hands clung to him. 
 
 "I do like you. Jack," she whispered rapidly, "I 
 do, or we should never have been engaged to-day! 
 I had a harder fight than you knew of to make my 
 people see it in the right light. I was always meant 
 to marry a 'prince' you know, and — " 
 
 "And it took them a long time to make up their 
 minds to admit a penniless barrister into the family 
 instead, eh?" said Jack. "You ought to have mar- 
 ried a prince, Mamie — though I'm not sorry you 
 didn't — but I do wish your family had not set the 
 golden calf up quite so high in this house; it's from 
 hearing them worship it so incessantly that you've 
 picked up your — what shall I call them — your 
 slightly discontented views of life in certain aspects."
 
 A QUKSTION OF COLOUR. 2"] 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders: 
 
 "Possibly; but I believe they are somewhat the 
 nature of the 'animal' too." 
 
 "We shall change all that," affiruied Jack with 
 the happy optimism of a young man first engaged. 
 "I'm rather a philosopher. I've an idea, and I'll prove 
 to you that one can be jolly enough without an in- 
 come in five figures. Not that I mean you to put 
 up with two frocks a year, darling — don't think 
 that; on the coiUrary, you know I have already con- 
 sidered a shorter cut to fortune than the Bar — but 
 we ca]i make ourselves comfortable without a house 
 in Queen's Gate and a carriage-and-pair, and, you 
 take my word for it, we'll do it." 
 
 "Papa," said Mamie, after a pause, "approved 
 your suggestion of going to the Cape." 
 
 "Oh, did he?" Jack answered. "I did not know 
 you had put it to him. Well, we must talk it over. 
 Of course in a way it is burning my ships, but I'd 
 burn a whole navy to win you, my Love, and I think 
 you know it." 
 
 "He means to discuss the matter with you while
 
 2 8 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 you are down here this time. You won't be angry, 
 dear, if he seems a Httle unsympathetic? You see," 
 she went on, "he lias the notion that if you remain 
 in London as you are, our engagement might con- 
 tinue for years without its coming to anything at the 
 end. You will be patient?" 
 
 "I'll be patient enough," he promised. "I 
 shan't be sorry myself to make a clean sweep of 
 the thing — though it means leaving you!" he added 
 gloomily. "You will have to write me tremendously 
 long letters, Mamie, if I go. The only thing I shall 
 have to look forward to out there will be the arrival 
 of the mail." 
 
 She lifted her face to him, and he kissed her 
 again, preparatory to joining the others. 
 
 When he went back to the Parsonage, with an 
 arrangement to dine with the Brutons the following 
 night. Hartley saw there was the suspicion of a 
 cloud on his brow, and rightly conjectured that it 
 menaced something disagreeable to communicate. 
 In truth, despite all his assertions to the contrary. 
 Collier knew very well that for him to renounce his
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 2g 
 
 profession for so very intangible a prospect as South 
 Africa offered was about as serious a step as he 
 could commit. He had first suggested the folly in 
 the flush of his love-suit, and, though he was not 
 the man to eat his words, he perfectly understood 
 that it would give his father grave cause for com- 
 plaint. The possibility of a scene with him was in 
 his mind as the two sauntered down the lane on 
 their way home; but deciding that the thought was 
 premature as yet, he at length succeeded in banish- 
 ing it, and broke in upon the other's reverie with a 
 question. 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Well," said Hartley, "she is magnificent!" 
 
 "Ah," said Collier, "I knew you would say so! 
 And she is as good as she is exquisite." 
 
 "Bravo!" 
 
 "You doubt me?" 
 
 "Not at all. You have at least had more oppor- 
 tunity of judging than I." 
 
 "And yet your tone — " 
 
 "My dear fellow, I tell you (and tell you
 
 30 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 honestly) that Miss Bruton is 'magnificent'. You in- 
 form me that her mental qualities are as perfect as 
 her features; I answer I do not dispute the fact, 
 and yet you are not satisfied. What do you want?" 
 
 "I don't want anything," returned Collier, a 
 trifle sulkily; "I am glad you agree with me." 
 
 "And I," said Hartley, "am more than glad of 
 the information, for it sets at rest all the anxiety I 
 felt on your account. If Miss Bruton is only half 
 as good as you say, I am quite sure she will never 
 consent to your latching up your career in the in- 
 sane fashion that you projected."
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 3 I 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Bruton perc broached the fLiteful subject after 
 dinner next evening, when ColHer and he were left 
 to the discussion of the claret. He was a stout and 
 rather vulgar person, or at least what Collier would 
 have called a vulgar person if he had not been 
 Mamie's papa. 
 
 "Now look here, Collier," he said, "you and the 
 girl have taken nie a bit by surprise in this affair of 
 yours. I don't say that I've any wish to draw back, 
 but I've been thinking things over, and, to put it 
 plainly, I don't see where the wedding is coming in 
 as matters stand." 
 
 "You mean," said Collier, "you object to 
 the Bar?" 
 
 "I don't object to the Bar as the Bar, nor to 
 the Bar for a young fellow who has got only him- 
 self to think of, and who can afford to bide his time.
 
 2,2 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 But that isn't your case. You are proposing to 
 marr}' Mamie, and, from what you tell me about 
 your income, I don't see how you are going to give 
 her a home out of your profession." 
 
 Collier fingered his glass with a shade of em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 "I am quite willing — even anxious — to do what- 
 ever you advise," he said. "As you know, I sug- 
 gested realising what I could, and going out to the 
 Cape. The Cape is a country where a man may be 
 a beggar to-day and a Croesus next week. I have 
 a friend out there — an old college chum — who 
 would put me in the w^ay of things, and give me 
 the benefit of his experience." 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Bruton, "yes." 
 
 "Do you approve of the idea?" 
 
 "It's like this," observed his host, "I don't 
 advise one way, and I don't advise the other — I 
 couldn't take the responsibility — but I am bound to 
 say that without an improvement in your present 
 prospects, I shouldn't be fulfilling my duties as a
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. ;i^ 
 
 father if I countenanced your engagement to my 
 daughter." 
 
 "Do I understand you to mean that, if I remain 
 at the Bar, you recjuire me to withdraw my pre- 
 tensions to her hand?" incjuired Colher, in a voice 
 that shook a httle. 
 
 "I don't want to be unfeeHng, but that is what 
 it amounts to; I can't have her engaged to you for 
 four or five years perhaps, and then very hkely left 
 on the shelf at the end. Oh, you need not look so 
 indignant" — as Collier seemed about to speak — "I 
 don't suggest that you would get tired of her, and 
 want to back out; what I mean is that, in such a 
 profession as yours, the chances are you'd be no 
 better off at the end of five years than you are now. 
 No, Mr. Collier, if you think you can do anything 
 for yourself — at the Cape or anywhere else — I'm 
 quite agreeable to give you and the girl a couple of 
 years' grace so to speak! But you 7/iusi do some- 
 thing — something practical — and that's the long and 
 the short of it." 
 
 "I shall go out to the Cape at the end of the 
 
 A Question of Colour. 3
 
 34 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 month!" said Collier. "I quite understand your 
 point of view; and I may as well say that I think it 
 a perfectly fair one." 
 
 His manner had lost some of its gaiety never- 
 theless, and Mamie commented on it when they 
 went upstairs. She was sitting by the piano, where 
 she had been playing, and as he crossed the room 
 to her side, she lifted her face inquiringly; 
 
 "A bad quarter of an hour?" she asked in a 
 low voice; Collier shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "It's settled that I go," he said; "I shall sail in 
 three weeks' time." 
 
 "Poor boy! Am I worth all that?" 
 
 "Mamie! I hate to leave you, that's all." 
 
 "I wish I were quite sure of it," she murmured; 
 "I mean 'sure that that is all'. I should loathe to 
 feel that you were being persuaded to give up your 
 career against your will. Tell me you aren't. Jack!" 
 
 "Of course I'm not," he said positively; "you 
 know it was my own idea in the first instance." 
 
 "It seems a sacrifice; I don't like you to make 
 a sacrifice for me."
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 35 
 
 "A 'sacrifice' of twopence a year!" he rejoined 
 lightly. "My dearest, I haven't the slightest doubt 
 that it will be the salvation of me. Under ordinary 
 conditions I should have doddered on here doing 
 nothing to the end of time. With the stimulus of 
 your love I shall be a 'Diamond King' or something 
 of the kind in a little while. Really I ought to say 
 thanksgivings that I met you, for every consideration. 
 By the bye, your father said something about 'two 
 years ', sweetheart." 
 
 "For you and me?" 
 
 "He said he would let you wait for me for a 
 couple of years, Mamie." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Supposing in a couple of years — you know I'm 
 going to do my utmost; it may be mxich sooner — 
 but supposing in a couple of years I am still not 
 able to marry you—?" 
 
 "Then we'll wait three, Jack," said Miss Bruton 
 decidedly, "and if you are not ready in three, 
 we'll wait four!" The servant entered with coffee, 
 and she stirred her cup intently, with her eyes fixed 
 
 3"
 
 30 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 on the Apostle spoon. "I mean to be as good and 
 true to you as you deserve, Jack. I appreciate what 
 you are doing for me very much, and I'll wait for 
 you to come home however long it may be." 
 
 Collier, with an apprehensive glance at the further 
 corner of the room, squeezed her hand. 
 
 "You don't know how fond I am of you," he 
 exclaimed under his breath, "I have never been able 
 to tell you. You are everything to me! Sometimes 
 when I look at you, it seems to me too wonderful to 
 be true that you will ever be my wife. I can't 
 realise it— it seems incredible. Are you a woman, 
 Mamie, or a goddess?" 
 
 "I believe I'm very much a woman, with all a 
 woman's failings — more than my share perhaps." 
 
 "You are perfection!" he asseverated. 
 
 "I am glad you thmk so," she said; "and then 
 sometimes I'm sorry. Can you understand? I like 
 you to have an enormous opinion of me, because it's 
 nice to know people have an enormous opinion of 
 one, and because you're you. But then the thought 
 comes to me that you are bound to find me out one
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 37 
 
 day — that I shan't be able to keep up your illusion 
 all my life; and then I'm miserable." 
 
 "My darling!" 
 
 She nodded gravely. 
 
 "I know what T mean, though I can't explain. 
 It is as if I were two persons, and you had only met 
 one of them — 'Miss Dr. Jekyll'. Every now and 
 then the dread crosses my mind tliat you'll be hor- 
 ribly startled when you see 'Miss Hyde'." 
 
 Collier looked at her attentively. Her face had 
 paled, and, quickly as she was speaking, it almost 
 appeared that she was doing so by an effort. Though 
 he felt she was talking hyper-sensitive rubbish, he 
 had a certain sense of being suddenly nearer to her 
 than he had ever been before. 
 
 "I'll risk the appearance of Miss Hyde!" he said, 
 cheerfully. "Why, my dear girl, I declare you are 
 taking yourself seriously!" 
 
 "I atn," she said; "in half an hour, I'll laugh at 
 myself, but now I am taking myself seriously. I feel, 
 Jack, sometimes, that I am capable of awful things, 
 {awful meannesses and things) and at other times.
 
 38 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 as a moment ago when I promised to wait for you, 
 I seem to myself so good that I expect the wings to 
 grow. Really I'm two persons, only I'll always try 
 to let you see the nice one." She rose, and they 
 joined the group by the window, where Collier's 
 intended departure was announced and commented 
 on. He rather liked the good-humoured chaff, and 
 jocular prophecies of fortune with which it was 
 greeted. The reception the news would get at the 
 Parsonage would be grave enough to strike the ba- 
 lance. 
 
 At eleven o'clock, he declared that he must go, 
 and Mamie followed him down into the hall. He 
 took her in his arms, and kissed her "good-night," 
 and then walking briskly homeward, mentally re- 
 hearsed the explanation that lay in store. 
 
 Hartley was leaning over the gate with his pipe 
 between his lips when the house hove in sight, and, 
 not sorry for a respite, Collier paused and chatted 
 with him. In the uncertain light Jack's countenance 
 was not distinct, but Hartley knew his tones well 
 enough to comprehend that something was amiss.
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 39 
 
 "Had a pleasant evening?" he asked. "But 
 there, of course you have. What a question to put 
 to a man who has been dining in the society of his 
 inamorata!" 
 
 "I have had a very jjleasant evening," answered 
 Colher, "but I don't anticipate a very pleasant scene 
 inside." 
 
 "Halloa there! What is it?" 
 
 "Look here, Hartley, 1 know your opinion, and 
 I suppose it is useless for me to try to change it, 
 but I've settled to chuck the Bar, old man, and, 
 whatever you may think about the step yourself, I 
 want you to help me to smoothe it over to my people 
 when I break it to them. What do you say?" 
 
 "You've had a jaw with your future papa-in-law, 
 I suppose? One of the features of the 'pleasant 
 evening'!" 
 
 "I have. He made it a condition to the en- 
 gagement." 
 
 "And you accepted without a struggle?" 
 
 "What else could I do under the circumstances!" 
 
 "Humph! What does Miss Bruton say?"
 
 40 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 "Miss Bruton," responded Collier, "is naturally 
 guided by my own views; with which, when all is 
 said and done, her father only agrees." 
 
 The smoker ejaculated "humph" again, and for 
 a few seconds both men mused in silence. 
 
 "Well," remarked Hartley breaking the pause 
 with something like a groan, "you have chosen your 
 own line, and I suppose nobody has the right to 
 obtrude any more advice upon you, old chap. I'll 
 be as cheerful as I can over the matter inside there, 
 and I wish you luck." 
 
 "But of course you still consider I'm making a 
 big mistake?" asked Collier rashly. 
 
 Hartley refrained from a direct reply however. 
 He knocked his pipe out on the gate, and replaced 
 it in his pocket. 
 
 "Nobody can foretell events — you may 'strike 
 oil' and come back with letters of credit for a mil- 
 lion," he said. "Let's go in, and get it over."
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 4 1 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Thk most genuine of friendships has its Umita- 
 tions, and Phil Hartley was more than a little re- 
 lieved when Monday morning broke, and permitted 
 him to leave Eightgates for Town. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Collier had declined to be consoled by platitudes, 
 and both had privately appealed to him to use his 
 influence to restrain their son from the action he 
 contemplated. 
 
 Nor would either be content with the carefully 
 guarded utterances that he allowed himself. His 
 "After all every man must judge for himself," and 
 "Nobody can take the responsibility of advice in 
 such a matter" only provoked the inquiry whether 
 he considered that Jack was doing right. He could 
 not go the length of asserting that he did, and tied 
 by his promise, it was impossible for him to confess
 
 42 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 that he thought lie was making a terrible mess of 
 his hfe. 
 
 Then, too, Mi's. ColHer openly bewailed to him 
 that the yomig man had got engaged at all. Hartley, 
 who had been inwardly bewailing the fact ever since 
 its accomplishment, found himself in much sympathy 
 with her over this, and was on the horns of a dilemma 
 accordingly, torn between his duty to his friend, and 
 his desire to be candid with the mother. 
 
 He had seldom left a place with greater glad- 
 ness, and when he stepped into the train after break- 
 fast, and found himself whirling up to the Metropolis, 
 it was with the profound resolve to give Eightgates 
 the widest of wide berths for some weeks to come. 
 
 He could not, however, escape Jack Collier, 
 who followed him later in the day, and commenced 
 to unbosom himself of a variety of plans without 
 waste of time. For at least a fortnight Hartley suf- 
 fered all the inconveniences of intended emigration 
 himself The sale of the furniture, the booking of 
 the passage, a hundred and one things, small in 
 themselves, but irritating as a whole, were forced on
 
 A QUF.STION OF COLOUR. 43 
 
 his attention morning, noon, and night. To be con- 
 sulted upon the details of a step of which he dis- 
 approved in its entirety was peculiarly aggravating 
 he felt. 
 
 "I shall write you every mail," said Collier, "and 
 keep you posted. You might run down to Eight- 
 gates as often as you can, old fellow, while I'm away, 
 and tell me how Mamie looks, you know. They will 
 always be glad to see you, and I should like to hear 
 the truth about her — if she is ill, or anything like 
 that. She is sure to write to me hopefully herself, 
 whether she is in good spirits or not." 
 
 Hartley agreed to go as often as he was able, 
 and at last the day came when he was to accom- 
 pany Jack to Plymouth. 
 
 It was a dull, drizzling morning, and neither of 
 the pair felt very gay, as they stepped off the wet 
 pavement into the luggage-laden cab. Collier had 
 been down with \\v~> fiancee and his people to make his 
 adieiiXy and it had been arranged that he should 
 return the previous evening in time for a farewell 
 supper. He had not, however, put in an appearance
 
 44 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 until this morning, declaring that he had found it 
 impossible to get away, and, though he explained it 
 under the head of filial obligations, Hartley felt that 
 their separation on his friend's last night in England 
 was another thing that he owed to Miss Bruton. 
 
 Both men were rather taciturn on the way down. 
 Hartley had nothing agreeable to say, and Collier at 
 last seemed to be talked out. They arrived only 
 half an hour before the ship sailed, and, after seeing 
 the impedimenta safely brought aboard, stood together 
 on the sloppy deck, each seeking for some comfort- 
 able parting place. 
 
 The bell rang before either had discovered what 
 he wished to say, and clasping hands they looked at 
 each other in hasty embarrassment. 
 
 "Well, old chap," said Hartley, "take care of 
 yourself. Don't forget to write." 
 
 "Good-bye, old man," said Collier. "You'll have 
 to meet me here when I come back." 
 
 He lit a cigar, and watched the other's disap- 
 pearance in the crowd. There was an interval of 
 noisy confusion, and then the thud of the engines
 
 A QUESTION OV COLOUR. 45 
 
 made themselves heard, and, ahiiost imperceptibly at 
 first, the shore began to recede. 
 
 He leant aft till it was a smear in the distance. 
 Doubt whether, after all, he had done well, deter- 
 mination to make a success of the venture now at 
 any hazard, lu\e lor the girl for wliose sake he was 
 leaving, all these feelings filled his mind in turn. 
 He looked round to see if he was unobserved; de- 
 cided that he was not, and went down to his cabin, 
 there to gaze his fill upon her likeness that he car- 
 ried. 
 
 Why describe a nineteen days' voyage! Collier 
 was too engrossed by his own thoughts either to find 
 it very amusing, or to be a very amusing acquisition 
 to the passenger-list. He yawned through a couple 
 of hours ashore at Madeira, which he blessed only 
 because it permitted him to post eight closely written 
 pages to Miss Bruton. He smoked a great deal of 
 tobacco, and walked many miles per diem up and 
 down the deck in reverie. Then, at length, when it 
 had begun to ai)pear to him that the passage would 
 never end, he woke up one day to see the boat
 
 46 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 floating alongside the qnay at Cape Town, and 
 stepped ashore among a crowd of coolies, and Malay- 
 women of gorgeous headgear, and white hansoms, 
 and the general bustle of a foreign dock. 
 
 He spent only six hours in Cape Town, travel- 
 ling up to Beaufort West by the next train. From 
 there he journeyed by mule-wagon, which took him 
 a week — a week of painful jolting through tracts of 
 level country, where he saw, save at rare intervals, 
 neither tree nor house, nothing save the skeletons 
 of fallen animals, picked by the asphogels, and 
 bleached by the sun. These, and sunsets which 
 out-Turnered Turner, were all that he had to 
 look at. 
 
 It was the tiffin hour when the "coach" drew 
 up before the Queen's Hotel in Kimberley. Collier 
 stretched his cramped legs on the pavement, and 
 gazed about him. 
 
 He was outside a one -storied iron building, 
 shed-shape, before which a crowd of waistcoatless 
 men were lounging limply. At the summons of a 
 bell, which a Kaffir boy presently came forward to
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 47 
 
 ring violently, the men forsook the stocf), however, 
 and trooped inside. Their action suggested to 
 Collier that he was extremely hungry, and that he 
 had not had anything decent to eat for seven days. 
 
 Following the crowd, he engaged a bedroom, 
 and took a seat at one of the many tables that were 
 ranged down the shed-shaped interior. Tiien pick- 
 ing up the bill of fare, was agreeably surprised to 
 ascertain that he was about to discuss a civilized 
 meal again. 
 
 Some soup, a cut of venison, and a sweet 
 omelette, washed down by a bottle of l^ass, and 
 succeeded by a coffee and a liqueur, made him feel 
 considerably better, and strolling out to the Bar to 
 see if his luggage had been taken in he decided he 
 might do worse than patronise the Queen's as long 
 as fate ordained him to reside on the Fields. 
 
 He was surprised to find that tobacco was not 
 esteemed one of the things it was essential to pur- 
 chase here. A box filled with the precious herb 
 stood on the counter, and the men as they came 
 out filled their pipes from it. Trying it, he found
 
 48 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 it extremely nasty — though when you get accustomed 
 to the growth it is the most dehcious to smoke in 
 the world. 
 
 He had not heard from the friend whom he in- 
 tended to look up for several months, though before 
 leaving he had written to him announcing his in- 
 tended departure. The address he had was the 
 Du Toits Pan Club, and making inquiries, he learnt 
 that Du Toits Pan was three miles distant — another 
 camp — to go to which it was necessary to take a 
 cart. 
 
 A cart — so called — was presently conveying him 
 there, but on reaching the place, he heard that 
 St. George would not drop in till evening, — about 
 six o'clock to dinner. 
 
 There were either four or five hours to dispose 
 of, or he must track St. George to his lair. The 
 barman informed him that Mr. St. George was at 
 his claims, and after a multiplicity of directions. 
 Collier presently found himself approaching a big, 
 bearded fellow in a loose shirt, and Bedford cords.
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 49 
 
 whom he recognised despite the alteration in com- 
 plexion and attire as the man he sought. 
 
 "Halloa, my boy," exclaimed the digger, "so 
 you have actually turned up here! Well, I'm 
 blessed. What do you think of the diamond fields, 
 eh?" 
 
 "Well, I haven't seen much of them as yet," 
 said Collier. "And I certainly haven't seen any 
 diamonds." 
 
 St. George thrust a bronzed hand into a breeches 
 pocket with a laugh. 
 
 "There's one for a beginning!" he said. "What's 
 it worth?" 
 
 "Twenty pounds," said Collier, "fifty— goodness 
 knows." 
 
 "Come into the Market with me to-morrow, and 
 see me sell it. You and your twenty pounds!" 
 
 "It is valuable, eh?" 
 
 "Worth almost a couple of hundred if I've got 
 the weight right — I haven't been to the scales yet. 
 Would you care to go to the claims?" 
 
 "I thought I was in the claims." 
 
 A Question of Colour. 4
 
 50 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 "No, Tenderfoot; these are the floors — those are 
 the claims down in the mine where you see negro 
 nudity engaged in the pursuit known as 'breaking- 
 up.' When did you get in?" 
 
 "Only this morning. I've come to make my 
 fortune, St. George. How am I to do it?" 
 
 "I never was good at conundrums," St. George 
 answered. "You've dropped out of the running 
 then for the Woolsack?" 
 
 "Yes, thrown the Law overboard; the process is 
 too slow when a fellow's in a hurry as I am. The 
 'Law's delays,' you know! That's Shakespeare, if 
 you haven't forgotten who he was out in these wilds." 
 
 "We don't see him at all events. They play 
 burlesque here when they play anything — and such 
 burlesque! Gad, what I'd give for a night in Lon- 
 don again, my boy, — a stall at the Gaiety, and a 
 supper at the Continental afterwards with a pretty 
 woman. They had a way of serving a hot lobster 
 — or was that at the East Room? I forget. Is 
 Piccadilly still in the same place, and do they yet 
 light the lamps in the Haymarket? Heigho, and
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 5 I 
 
 you've come to this infernal hole to 'pick up gold 
 and silver,' eh? Poor beggar, won't you wish your- 
 self out of it again in six months' time!" 
 
 "I haven't come with the expectation of enjoy- 
 ment at any rate," said Collier. "I want to make 
 money." 
 
 "Laudable desire! There are a few thousand 
 more here suffering from the same complaint. 
 Rather a rash thing, wasn't it, to give up a certainty 
 at Home?" 
 
 "A 'certainty' you call it! Besides I suppose I 
 stand just as good a chance as anybody else." 
 
 "It depends what you propose to go in for. 
 What do you?" 
 
 "Well, mining, I conclude. I imagine that is 
 the shortest cut to the filthy lucre?" 
 
 St. George laughed: 
 
 "Regular Tom Tiddler's ground you think you're 
 in, don't you? I fancy you'd have done a great 
 deal better to have remained in England, and stuck 
 to the Bar."
 
 52 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Collier found it very disagreeable to be greeted 
 with what seemed ahnost an echo of the remon- 
 strances of Hartley, and he said as much without 
 disguise. 
 
 "You're a lively sort of Job's comforter," he re- 
 marked; "I prefer the 'nothing venture, nothing 
 have,' kind of theory." 
 
 "Oh, as to that," said St. George, "if it's specu- 
 lation you want, you have come at the right time 
 for it. We are all going Company-mad here just 
 now, and the share market is likely to be consider- 
 ably lively in the course of the next few months. 
 There was a Syndicate sounding me about my 
 ground last week, and, if you've got a few hundred 
 pounds you might do worse than buy a small lot 
 that they are sure to want to take in too if the
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 53 
 
 scheme comes off. Bui we can talk lliaL over to- 
 night. You'll dine with me, of course." 
 
 "I shall be very glad," said Collier; "where?" 
 
 "Oh, the club. I've got the wash-up to do now, 
 and on second thoughts I should have more time to 
 take you down the claims to-morrow. Meet me at 
 six at the Club, my boy, and w^e'll feed." 
 
 Collier perceiving he was in the way at present, 
 took his departure, and in view of what the other 
 had said about buying some ground immediately, 
 felt the sense of activity essential to his peace of 
 mind. It would have been too dreadful to have 
 found no outlet for his energy until he had been 
 here weeks or months. The delay would have 
 driven him mad, burning as he was to make a com- 
 mencement. Now there seemed a chance of his 
 doing something right off. 
 
 He resolved to keep St. George up to the mark 
 on the subject, and was even impatient for the 
 dinner-hour to bring a renewal of their conversation. 
 
 On returning to the Club as six o'clock was 
 striking, he found the dinner-toilette decidedly in-
 
 54 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 formal, many of the men mounting the steps with 
 their dusty jackets under their arms. They moved 
 by a common impulse to the bar, and had long 
 drinks; adjourned and washed their hands; and then 
 either lounged on the stoep, or knocked the balls 
 about in the billiard-room till the bell rang. St. 
 George appeared punctually to his appointment, and 
 after the meal was over. Collier led him round to 
 the matter again. 
 
 "About that suggestion of yours," he said, "buy- 
 ing some ground? Do you advise it?" 
 
 "I should do it myself if I had the ready money," 
 said St. George; "I can't say more than that." 
 
 "What would the price be?" 
 
 "You'd get it fairly cheap just now I happen to 
 know. But mind, for working purposes you would 
 do better to let it alone, because you would require 
 a manager, and that would make your expenses too 
 heavy." 
 
 "Couldn't 1 work it myself?" 
 
 "My dear chap, you know nothing about the 
 gear. You'd be bound to get a manager, or else a
 
 A quf:stion of coi.our. 55 
 
 paxlnei" wlio is a practical digger, and I don't know 
 anybody at the moment who is in a position to join 
 you. No, if you don't sell it to the Syndicate later, 
 it will be a bad investment for you; if you do, it will 
 be a very good deal." 
 
 "Well," said Collier, "I propose to risk il on 
 what you say, providing the figure is within my 
 means. When can I see you again?" 
 
 "Where are you stopping?" 
 
 "The Queen's." 
 
 "Oh, in the Rush. Well, as I told you, I am 
 going up to the Market to-morrow morning. Meet 
 me there at eleven — the Diamond Market I mean of 
 course, not the Market Place — and we'll see what 
 can be done. Have a drink." 
 
 Collier remained chatting with him until twelve 
 o'clock, and then springing into a cart, was driven 
 home to his hotel. The click of billiard balls, and 
 the sounds of laughter from many a brightly-lighted 
 corner met his ears as he was rattled through the 
 iron-roofed streets, but he felt no temptation to in- 
 vestigate their sources. The fever of money-making
 
 56 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 was in his veins, and, tired as he was, it was some 
 time after reaching his room that he fell asleep. 
 
 When he did, he dreamt that he was still in the 
 coach on the way up from Beaufort West. And then 
 the coach was quite empty save for him and Mamie 
 Bruton. She had on a thick veil, and he was per- 
 suading her that, in the suffocating heat, she was 
 condemning herself to unnecessary discomfort by 
 wearing it. All his arguments were ineffectual how- 
 ever, and just as he was putting out his hand to 
 raise it by force, she stopped him by saying, "I can- 
 not let you look at me, because you can never re- 
 spect me any more." 
 
 He awoke, and found the sunshine streaming into 
 the room. The impression of the dream was so 
 powerfully upon him that for a moment or two he 
 found it difficult to realise where he was. Then he 
 remembered his conversation with St. George the 
 previous evening and the appointment that had been 
 made. 
 
 He leapt out of bed, and a few minutes vigorous
 
 A QUES'J'ION OK COT.OUK. 57 
 
 exercise willi the clubs successfully dispelled the 
 traces of the nightmare. 
 
 Breakfast over, he found himself with a couple 
 of hours to spare, and utilised them by taking a 
 stroll about the Camp. 
 
 The place struck him as sufficiently dull. The 
 shops were for the most i)art very poor-looking, and 
 even from the buffets luxurious suggestions were con- 
 spicuously absent. Very few women were to be 
 seen in the streets, and those whom he encountered 
 were chiefly coloured ones. At intervals stinging 
 clouds of dust swept, hissing, through the roads, 
 darkening the air, and blinding the eyes. Nobody 
 appeared to walk here for pleasure, but all moved 
 rapidly as if to gain some destination. When the 
 dust came, they bent their heads, or covered their 
 faces, but continued to push on, as if such visitations 
 were of too common occurrence for it to be worth 
 while to stand still. 
 
 When it was eleven o'clock Collier proceeded to 
 the Diamond Market. He discovered St. George 
 almost as he entered the narrow street. The
 
 58 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 digger was very jubilant, having disposed of his 
 week's wash-up, inchiding the stone he had displayed 
 yesterday, to his entire satisfaction. 
 
 Linking his arm in Collier's he led him to a 
 neighbouring office, and there the business of the 
 transfer was put in train— not without many drinks, 
 the concomitant to all business on the Fields. 
 
 After a few days Collier found himself to all in- 
 tents and purposes a full-blown miner, in enjoyment, 
 that is to say, of a miner's privileges. Mindful of 
 St. George's warning, he did not at first attempt to 
 work the ground, but contentedly smoked his pipe 
 about the place with the proud air of a proprietor, 
 and waited for the opportunity to sell again at a 
 profit. 
 
 The agent for the Syndicate, however, took no 
 steps to acquire the property, and as the weeks went 
 by Jack began to feel considerable impatience. He 
 had written to Mamie acquainting her with his spe- 
 culation by the first mail that went out after his 
 arrival, and it chagrined him in his succeeding letters 
 to have no further news by which to supplement the
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 59 
 
 intelligence. He resolved to find a partner possess- 
 ing the requisite knowledge, and to "go in at the 
 thing", as he termed it, just as if the speedy prospect 
 of a sale did not exist. 
 
 Friendships are very (luickly made in such a 
 community, and by this time he was on intimate 
 terms with most of the members of the club, for 
 which he had been proposed by St. George a few 
 days after the evening of their dinner there. 
 
 The man who had seconded him was an Irishman 
 named Costelloe; he had recently been obliged to 
 retire from the claims he was working owing to a 
 heavy fall of reef, which he lacked the essential 
 capital to haul out. He was now spending his en- 
 tire day in the club, silently brooding over his ill- 
 fortune until the approach of midnight, when under 
 the influence of many brandies-and-sodas, his native 
 buoyancy of disposition returned, and he foresaw 
 millions loquaciously. 
 
 Collier suspected that he would be glad enough 
 to join him, if no capital were required, and he were 
 offered a share of the profits for his services. It
 
 6o A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 would be a very good arrangement for both the Irish- 
 man and himself, and one afternoon when they were 
 alone in the reading-room together he broached the 
 subject. 
 
 As he had expected, the other leapt at the offer, 
 and since he had the reputation of being one of the 
 most experienced diggers on the Fields, Collier felt 
 that he had done an excellent thing in securing 
 him. 
 
 "It is very good ground you have there," said 
 Costelloe. "It hasn't yielded very well of late be- 
 cause those muddlers didn't know what they were 
 about, but three years ago the output was splendid. 
 Have you got the money to sink a shaft?" 
 
 "I haven't the vaguest idea what a 'shaft' would 
 cost. Is it necessary?" 
 
 The pair went into figures, and then drove 
 round to the edge of the claims to inspect them. In 
 result it was decided that Costelloe should engage 
 a gang of "boys", and that they should start work on 
 the following Monday morning. 
 
 It was a severe change from life in the Temple.
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 6 I 
 
 When Monday came, he rose before the sun, and 
 was astonished to find how cold the early morning 
 was here. Plodding over the uneven ground in the 
 raw grey hght he shivered dismally. The Kaffirs 
 greeted him as "Baas", and Costelloe, whom he met 
 on the Floors, was technical and bad-tempered. 
 Collier, to whom the constant allusions to "gear", 
 were as incomprehensible as the language in which 
 the niggers shouted to one another, felt for the first 
 time that he was really deserving Miss Bruton. He 
 had attired himself in the sort of costume necessary 
 to the work in hand, and his clothes and boots were 
 equally uncomfortable. In a couple of hours, during 
 which he had done nothing but Iramp drearily from spot 
 to spot, useless and angry with himself for being so, he 
 was dead tired. Whether the preparations in hand 
 were going well or the reverse he could only surmise 
 from the Irishman's manner, and when the latter 
 swore most violently he suffered dreadful misgivings 
 that he was about to be told the mysterious machinery 
 had all fallen to pieces. 
 
 At last, however, Costelloe drew a breath of
 
 62 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 relief, and explained that they might commence to 
 "break up" about midday. This Collier gathered, 
 rather by his tone than his words, was to be re- 
 garded as good news, and he said "oh, come now!" 
 with as close an approach to cheerfulness as he 
 could contrive. 
 
 Breakfast was to be sent out to them over hot- 
 water cans, and presently a nigger from the hotel 
 was seen with it wending his way towards them be- 
 tween the "blue." Collier sat down wearily on a 
 lump of stone, and raised the tin of coffee to his 
 lips. There were nine hours to be gone through 
 before he could hope to see an armchair again, and 
 he already felt as if he had been up for a week.
 
 A QUESTION OF COI.OUR. 63 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 While Jack Collier was unhappy for want of 
 money, there was at this time resident in London a 
 man who, albeit enormously rich, was unhappier 
 still. This man's name was Ian Umgazi, and he 
 was about thirty years of age. 
 
 He had been educated in England, in fact lived 
 in it since his childhood, if one excepts intervals of 
 Continental travel, and wlien he left the University, 
 it had been with a very respectable degree. 
 
 He had no friends, though he boasted many 
 acquaintances — men who came to his rooms, and 
 ate his suppers, and drove on his drag to the races. 
 These spoke of him as "poor devil" behind his 
 back, but nobody really understood that he was 
 miserable, and none would have cared a sixpence if 
 they had. The reason of his wretchedness was that 
 he was very sensitive, and a negro. Indeed his
 
 64 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 history was a remarkable one. His father had been 
 King of one of the most powerful of the South 
 African tribes, and Ian could still recall dimly the 
 naked savages, and mud kraals of his youth. The 
 King, savage as he was, had had ambitions towards 
 civilization (implanted in him by an adventurous 
 missionary), and the little black Ian when he was 
 seven years old was sent to England to receive the 
 benefit of European influences. 
 
 His wealth had come to him in the form of 
 diamonds, stolen in the first instance, it is to be 
 feared, by the Monarch's loyal subjects at the 
 Diggings, and laid at their Sovereign's feet on their 
 return as tribute. As these were brought to Ian in 
 England by the faithful missionary himself, however, 
 after the King's decease, they might be said to have 
 received the sanction of the Church. Sanctioned 
 or not, they represented when realised a colossal 
 fortune, and Ian Umgazi, then twenty-one, found 
 himself among the wealthiest men in London. Every- 
 thing that money could buy was at his disposal. His 
 horses, his pictures — his tastes were very refined —
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 65 
 
 all his surroundings were princely. . . . He lacked 
 only one thing — sympathy — and at first he was 
 scarcely conscious of it. 
 
 It was as the years went on, and the novelty of 
 his position wore off, that he grew to feel the loneli- 
 ness of his condition, grew to understand tJiat his 
 colour condemned him as long as he lived to be 
 solitary in the midst of a crowd. 
 
 He had seen little of the society of women, but 
 insensibly he hungered for a woman's comprehension; 
 it was of all things the one from which he felt him- 
 self to be most remote. It is not too much to say 
 that Ian Umgazi, with the habits and thoughts of 
 an Englishman, and the skin of a negro, envied the 
 poorest of the clerks whom he passed behind his 
 thousand-guinea bays. To them marriage and a 
 home were possibilities — to himself they were as un- 
 attainable as a white face. 
 
 This was his frame of mind when something 
 happened, the danger of which he had never fore- 
 seen; something that made him despair, and curse 
 
 A Question of Colour. 5
 
 66 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 the day when he had left the country of his birth. 
 He feh in love. 
 
 He was in Brighton when he saw her— a girl 
 with the carriage of an empress, and a face that 
 made him catch his breath. She was coming with 
 an older woman, probably her mother, out of one 
 of the smaller hotels, and as his phaeton blocked 
 the way, she glanced up at him, and said something 
 to her companion with a smile. 
 
 His cheeks grew hot as he marked her amuse- 
 ment. The next instant, however, she lifted her 
 head again, and regarded him with interest. He 
 understood that she had been told how tremendously 
 rich he was, and he saw in the glorious eyes a 
 reflection of the feeling that was in his own when 
 he watched a shopboy kissing his sweetheart under 
 the trees in the Parks. He knew she was envying 
 him. 
 
 This was the first of many meetings, for he 
 passed her half-a-dozen times a day. Each time he 
 thoufrht her more beautiful than the last, and each
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 67 
 
 time he noticed tluit the same expression was on 
 her face. 
 
 He hated it, Inil she fascinated him so strongly 
 that it yet hurt him less than her indifference would 
 have done. He found to his surprise that the 
 thought of her haunted liini, and that he drove each 
 afternoon willi the expectation of seenig her again. 
 Even he began to re-pass the hotel where she was 
 staying more often than was necessary in the hope 
 that she might come out or go in as he went by. 
 
 At the end of a week he knew that he had con- 
 ceived a violent passion for a girl with whom he had 
 never exchanged a word. He was not in love with 
 her at that period, but it amounted to the same 
 thing. He was restless, eager, the prey to sensations 
 that he had never experienced before. So far from 
 detesting the thought that she was attracted by his 
 wealth now, he found strange comfort in it. It 
 seemed to take him nearer to her, and he felt once, 
 as they came face to face, that he would have given 
 her twenty thousand pounds for the right to kiss 
 
 her hand. 
 
 5*
 
 68 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 He sent his valet to the hotel with the order to 
 engage a suite of rooms, and removed to it the same 
 evening. He was on fire to descend to the table 
 d'hote in order to look at her, but, divining that she 
 would have heard of his arrival, judged it wiser to 
 pique her curiosity awhile by dining upstairs. 
 
 He sustained this programme until the following 
 night, and then taking his seat at the table, found 
 himself placed next to her mother. It could scarcely 
 have happened more fortunately. As he had ex- 
 pected, before the dinner was half finished, the lady 
 turned to him with some courteous commonplace. 
 He talked well, and in the course of the next half 
 hour had done full justice to his opportunity. 
 
 When the company rose, he followed them to the 
 drawing-room, and here he was enabled to enter 
 into conversation with the daughter herself. Her 
 voice was as exquisite as her features. In her gaze 
 there was a suggestion of restraint, but her words 
 came freely enough, and, if she inwardly wondered 
 to find herself discussing Shakespeare and the
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 69 
 
 musical glasses with a negro, it was at all events not 
 apparent by any verbal awkwardness. 
 
 "Brighton is delightful," she said, "I don't know 
 any watering-place to comi)arc with it. And yet so 
 many people run it down. Don't you agree with 
 me?" 
 
 "I like it very much," answered Ian. "Have 
 you been staying here long?" 
 
 "Only since a week. And you?" 
 
 "About the same time. I lia\c often seen you 
 on the front." 
 
 "Have you?" she said; "I didn't know." 
 
 "This is a very comfortable hotel, is it not," 
 remarked her mother; "and the cooking is really 
 quite good. We always come here; 1 find the people 
 so attentive." 
 
 He had the tact not to obtrude himself upon 
 them. After ten minutes of such small-talk he left 
 them with some murmured reference to an appoint- 
 ment, but his heart was beating exultantly, and his 
 mind wms full of the morrow when it would be 
 possible to approach the girl again.
 
 70 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 When he had quitted the room, Mrs. Bruton 
 turned to her daughter with a smile; 
 
 "He is a most gentlemanly person," she said, 
 "the nigger! But what a wicked shame that such 
 heaps of money should be wasted on him!" 
 
 Mamie yawned; 
 
 "I believe he does me the honour to admire 
 me," she said. "What did you introduce him for?" 
 
 "He won't hurt you if he does admire you," 
 replied the elder lady a shade tartly. "It ought to 
 be an agreeable novelty to you to talk to a man 
 who isn't a beggar if he is black." 
 
 "My dear mother, in the present condition of 
 society a girl's circle of acquaintances depends upon 
 the position of her parents. If I have never known 
 any rich men, it hasn't been because I have declined 
 the pleasure of receiving them." 
 
 "Your parents did not advise you to tie yourself 
 down to wait for a penniless barrister at any rate. 
 What is the latest news of your Mr. Jack Collier, 
 may I ask?" 
 
 "Mr. Collier is still working the claims that he
 
 A QUESTION OK COLOUR. 7 I 
 
 bought," answered Miss Brutou calmly. "There is 
 no further news." 
 
 "No, and there never will be. I wish to good- 
 ness you had never seen the fellow!" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "'Why'? Don't be so idiotic, Mamie." 
 
 "I ask 'why'. I'm not aware that 1 have re- 
 ceived any better proposal than Mr. Collier's." 
 
 "But supposing you did," said her mother eagerly, 
 "should you consider yourself pledged by that very 
 impulsive understanding then? Remember that Jack 
 Collier may take years to make anything like a com- 
 petency and you're too good-looking to be buried in 
 a stucco villa in Clapham, my dear, anyhow. I was 
 talking to your father about the matter only the night 
 before we came away. I told him he ought never 
 to have given his consent to it. It was abominable!" 
 
 Miss Bruton rose impatiently, and went over to 
 the window, drumming her fingers against the glass. 
 
 "I hate this talk about money!" she exclaimed. 
 "Money, money, money! it has been dinned into my ears 
 ever since I can remember. Is inclination nothinef,
 
 72 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 or doesn't love count in marriage? I wish^I wish 
 with all my soul — that Jack had had enough to give 
 me the tiniest of stucco villas — yes I do, a villa with 
 one servant, and at the corner of a brickfield! — I 
 should have respected myself then; 1 could have 
 made sure of myself, and been happy." 
 
 "I presume you can respect yourself now?" said 
 Mrs. Bruton; "I am at a loss to know why not. Do 
 you mean — ?" 
 
 "I don't know what I mean! 1 only know that 
 he shouldn't have left me~he ought to have married 
 me, if he took me to an attic; I am not fit to be left 
 — everything is against me." 
 
 Mrs. Bruton shrugged her shoulders, and retired 
 behind the Visitors' List. She saw many desirable 
 names in it, and was more than ever of the opinion 
 that a season in Brighton ought to drive "that Mr. 
 Collier's" image from her daughter's thoughts.
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 73 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 UmgAZI stayed in Ihighlon I()iiij;cr than he luid 
 intended. To love a beautiful womaii, and to be 
 free to i)ass many hours a day in her society was a 
 form of intoxication to him too subtle to be re- 
 nounced. 
 
 That she knew he loved her he was perfectly 
 aware, but he did not for a long time, and then only 
 in his maddest moments, permit himself to suppose 
 that she meant to encourage him. She accepted his 
 devotion, he told himself, so long as it remained un- 
 spoken, but should he speak — ah! he shivered. He 
 foresaw the look of amazement that she would cast 
 upon him, the disdainful tones by which she would 
 convey he had insulted her. 
 
 And it ivoiild be an insult he felt in his saner 
 intervals — a profanation, a blasphemy. To put his 
 discoloured lips upon her would be a defilement.
 
 74 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 He would not linger here; he would forsake this 
 mental drunkenness while he had the strength. But 
 then she smiled again, or answered with a glance 
 that thrilled him, and his resolution failed him 
 afresh. 
 
 Instinctively — though he shrank from acknow- 
 ledging it — he knew that such power as he might 
 indeed possess over her was due to the largeness 
 of his fortune, and he lived here now with the 
 prodigality of an Emperor. Carriages and saddle- 
 horses, were at her and her mother's disposal when- 
 ever they chose to command them. He spent money 
 like water in the endeavour to dazzle her, and it 
 is not to be denied that he succeeded. No woman 
 can be insensible to a fortune practically laid at her 
 feet; a woman who has hungered for the flesh-pots 
 all her life least of all. Though Ian Umgazi suf- 
 fered tortures, it is not an exaggeration to assert that 
 Miss Bruton's sufferings at the present stage were 
 fully equal to them in intensity. They sprang from 
 a baser cause of course, but they were quite as 
 keen. She knew that by lifting a finger she could
 
 A QUESTION OF COf.OUR. 75 
 
 win this man as easily as slie could call a cab, and 
 there were moments when she set her teeth, and 
 vowed that she would do it. The repugnance that 
 his touch occasioned her would pass away, she as- 
 sured herself. People might talk, but their whisper- 
 ings would be due to jealousy. She would be rich, 
 inordinately rich, rich as a Sultana in the Arabian 
 Nights. Aladdin's palace itself would pale before 
 the splendours she might boast — the si)lendours that 
 were actually within her grasp. The price — . Her 
 exquisite face blanched, and her eyes closed. The 
 price was the rub certainly. And yet — and yet — I 
 
 Her mother would approve of course. She was 
 dropping hints and innuendoes already. Could she 
 be strong enough to go through with it? Not strong 
 enough to be false to Jack; there was no cpiestion 
 in her mind about that. She knew that if Umgazi 
 were a European she would throw Jack over for him 
 without an instant's hesitation. No, her doubts were 
 limited to allying herself to a negro, not to being 
 false to anyone. 
 
 She lay awake at night sometimes swearing that
 
 76 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 she would let him propose to her next morning. 
 But when the morning came, and they met, her in- 
 tention gave place to horror. Both were resolving 
 and breaking resolutions, together; Umgazi determin- 
 ing to bid her good-bye; she determining to become 
 his wife. 
 
 Mrs. Bruton, who was watching the development 
 of affairs vulture-eyed, was at length unable to re- 
 frain from discussing the matter. The disgust at the 
 notion which she herself had felt was long since 
 overcome, and she was now painfully eager to ascer- 
 tain whether her daughter purposed being 'sensible' 
 or not. She had not reconciled herself to the idea 
 of giving her child to a negro without considerable 
 vacillation, but since it was not she herself who would 
 have to pay the cost, the process had been far more 
 rapid with her than with Mamie. 
 
 "My dear,'' she said gaily, one afternoon as Ian 
 left them, "that/oor fellow!" 
 
 "How?" inquired her daughter indifferently. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Umgazi to be sure! The man adores 
 you — I am so sorry for him."
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 77 
 
 "I do not lliiiik he rciiuires any pity. He ap- 
 pears to me in fairly robust health." 
 
 "My dear Mamie," said Mrs. Bruton, putting 
 down her book with a bang, "it is not the sUghtest 
 use affecting to misunderstand me. You eitlier intend 
 to accept the man, or you don't. As your mother 
 I have the right to inquire which it is." 
 
 "As a mother? You in([uire whether I — / am 
 going to marry a negro?" 
 
 "There is no necessity to get on stilts. You are 
 not a child, nor am I. Besides I might answer that, 
 as your mother, I inquire whether you intend to 
 accept a man whom you have been deliberately en- 
 couraging." 
 
 "We need not quarrel. I was wrong — I have 
 given you the right to ask the question; and I sup- 
 pose I have forfeited the right to be ashamed when 
 it is put. . Well, no, mother, I do 710L intend to ac- 
 cept him." 
 
 "Then I am very sorry to hear it." 
 
 "You — you are — sorry to hear it? Oh, my 
 God!" She l)urst out laughing, and rocked herself
 
 78 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 to and fro, covering her face with her hands. "What 
 a wonder I am what I am, when I come from such 
 a stock! You are 'sorry to hear it'? Well then, I 
 have come sufficiently near your standard of perfec- 
 tion to lie awake considering it- — you will praise me 
 for that at least. I have been very good — I have 
 tried to act as you would wish. But I can't do it, I 
 can't — my Heaven, it would drive me mad ! It is too 
 revolting — it is loathsome!" 
 
 "My dear girl, you will do as you please natur- 
 ally. But as a woman of experience, I may tell you 
 frankly that if you refuse Mr. Ian Umgazi, you will 
 only regret it once, and that will be all your 
 life." 
 
 "Do you think that aiiy white woman would 
 marry him — any woman in the world?" 
 
 "With such a position as his is, I think that few 
 would be found mad enough to reject him." 
 
 "But he is a nigger. Doesn't it make your blood 
 run cold, or don't you understand?" 
 
 "I think your point of view most wicked," 
 responded Mrs. Bruton decidedly, "most wicked and
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 79 
 
 irreligious. Yes, 'irreligious,' Mamie, that is what it 
 is. In the sight of Heaven all our souls are e([ual, 
 remember, and it is not because a man has — er — a 
 dark skin that we should regard him as a wild 
 beast." 
 
 Her daughter smiled finely, and sat with folded 
 hands and wide-opened eyes, without replying. 
 
 "An excellent fellow, a gentleman," continued 
 Mrs. Bruton piously, "a man of the widest education, 
 who has distinguished himself at Oxford — or Cam- 
 bridge — and is, I am given to understand a 'senior 
 Wrangler' or a 'Double First' — or both — and 'pulled' 
 — er — something very fine indeed in the University 
 gang, or team, or whatever they call it! I am 
 shocked at you, Mamie!" 
 
 "Your arguments are certainly very strong, 
 Mother," said the girl ironically. 
 
 "I trust you will think them over! And if you 
 follow my advice, I am certain you will thank me for 
 it one day. It is surprising how quickly one gets 
 accustomed to any Ittle peculiarity like Mr. Umgazi's," 
 added the old lady rcminiscently. "I remember a
 
 8o A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 school-fellow of mine who married a negro gentle- 
 man; and after six months, she assured me positively 
 that she had grown so used to his individuality that 
 she never noticed he was black at all." 
 
 Mamie got up, and terminated the conversation. 
 The creation of the "school-fellow" was the last 
 straw. 
 
 Nevertheless, firmly as she had declared her in- 
 tentions, she knew that her decision was not definite 
 in fact. To assist herself in subduing the tempta- 
 tion that she loathed, she re-read the latest of Jack 
 Collier's letters; but the aid was very weak, and her 
 safest course, she felt, lay in avoiding Ian during 
 the remainder of her visit. She wished passionately 
 that he would go away, and remove the temptation 
 from her path, but Ian, who had recently gone 
 through another struggle on his own account, and 
 ignominiously succumbed, was in one of his desperate 
 moods, and in no frame of mind to leave her. 
 
 She had never looked more lovely than when she 
 descended to the drawing-room a couple of hours 
 after the foregoing altercation with her mother. The
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 8 I 
 
 traces of her tears had disappeared, and her pallor 
 only served to intensify the brilliance of her eyes. 
 Umgazi, who stole glances at her throughout dinner, 
 felt a violent impulse seize him to put his fate to 
 the test once and for all. It seemed to him that it 
 would be something to have once said to her 'I love 
 you,' though he were ordered out of her presence 
 afterwards like a dog. 
 
 She, too, appeared to be possessed by a sudden 
 recklessness, and when at the conclusion of dessert, 
 they moved together into the conservatory where 
 coffee was served, there was a challenge in her gaze 
 that was new to him. 
 
 "You are very quiet?" she said, half defiantly. 
 
 "I am quiet," answered Umgazi, with his heart 
 in his throat, "because I dare not speak." 
 
 "You are frightened of me?" 
 
 "Very!" 
 
 "Oh, tell me how!" she exclaimed. "I was never 
 frightened myself — what does it feel like?" 
 
 Tan leant towards her till his lips almost touched 
 her ear. 
 
 A Question of Colour. O
 
 82 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 "Mamie," he said, "I love you." 
 
 He felt her start; and the cup that she was hold- 
 ing lurched in her hand. He took it from her quite 
 quietly, put it down, and resumed his seat by her 
 side. 
 
 "I love you," he repeated, "you are more to me 
 than Heaven and Earth. You may strike me across 
 the face if you like — I have told you because I 
 couldn't help it." 
 
 The pause that followed seemed to him to last 
 two hours. He had not the courage to look at her; 
 he dreaded what he might see. He sat waiting for 
 her voice, and understanding, with a feeling of hot 
 shame that she was struggling to find it. 
 
 "You have done me a great honour," she said 
 at last in harsh dry tones. 
 
 "Hush!" he said, "hush! I know the difference 
 between us. If you have the slightest regard for me, 
 speak plainly. Spare me phrases at least." 
 
 "I am not prepared," she continued after an- 
 other silence, "to answer you to-night, — not, not now^.
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 83 
 
 that is. Later— in an hour, — if you will allow me I 
 will speak to you." 
 
 "I shall be here." 
 
 He bowed, and left her. The hall swam before 
 him as if he were drunk, and outside the gas-lamps 
 and the stars rocked together in confusion. The 
 girl sat quite motionless; she did not stir till it was 
 close ui)on the time for his return. Then she got 
 up mechanically, and slowly mounted the stairs to 
 her room. A flask of Eau de Cologne stood on the 
 dressing-table, and she emptied it into a goblet, and 
 drained the glass at a draught. 
 
 When Umgazi re-entered the conservatory she 
 met him steadily. 
 
 "You have paid me the compliment of asking 
 whether I will be your wife," she said. "I answer 
 'yes.'" 
 
 6*
 
 84 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 This was six months from the morning that 
 Colher sailed. She had not taken long to play him 
 false, she told herself bitterly. And now she must 
 write him her intention, and send back his ring; and 
 she could offer no excuses, find no refuge in the 
 prescribed formula of having 'mistaken her own 
 heart.' Even by the most liberal allowance of poetic 
 license her "heart" could scarcely be introduced into 
 such a communication as the one she had to 
 make. 
 
 Umgazi pleaded strenuously for a brief engage- 
 ment, and she consented almost with relief The 
 less time she were given to meditate upon the step 
 that she had pledged herself to take the better, she 
 felt. The thing was to be done — she meant to do 
 it — and it were well that it were done quickly. 
 
 Perhaps Umgazi divined something of her
 
 A QUESTION OK COLOUR. Q-, 
 
 thoughts, for her promise once given, he obtruded 
 liiniself upon her as little as possible. It was the 
 discretion of cowardice, but it showed, nevertheless, 
 considerable self-control. It was now October, and 
 it was arranged that the marriage should take place 
 at the end of the ensuing month. In the intervening 
 weeks he displayed his adoration by a profusion of 
 the richest presents — more often than not sending 
 them to her, instead of bringing them in person — 
 and her jewels were temporarily the amazement of 
 Eightgates, where such rubies and pearls as those 
 with which he loaded her had never before been 
 seen. 
 
 She had returned there with her mother soon 
 after the night of the proposal, but she speedily de- 
 clared that the place was insufferable to her, and, 
 humouring her whim, the family removed to a 
 furnished house in Town. At the final moment she 
 had found it impossible to confess to Collier the race 
 of the man for whom she had jilted him; but she 
 knew he would learn it from his parents, and sur- 
 mised the comments that would accompany the in-
 
 86 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 formation by the expression of their faces when she 
 passed them one morning in the Eightgate lanes. It 
 was the day after this rcjiconlre that she insisted that 
 Eightgates was unbearable to her, and that she must 
 stay in London until the wedding. 
 
 When her letter reached Jack Collier, it lacked 
 a little less than four weeks to the date fixed for 
 the ceremony. He read it at first in a kind of 
 stupor; though he understood that she was bidding 
 him "good-bye," he scarcely realised it. The pain 
 did not wake m him at once, he was only dazed. 
 
 He crushed it in his hand, and sat down heavily 
 in one of the tobacco-scented chairs — his mail had 
 been delivered at the Du Toits Pan Club — feeling 
 as if he had just received a crushing blow across 
 the head. 
 
 Mamie had thrown him over! It was all at an 
 end between them. There was no appeal, no scope 
 for remonstrance — she had changed her mind, and 
 done with him! The ring that she had returned 
 had slipped from the envelope, and he sat dumbly
 
 A QUESTION or C(~)l,OUK. 87 
 
 Staring at it, recalling the afternoon that he had 
 bought it for her, and contrasting that day with the 
 sequel. After all — after all her tenderness, and 
 vows of fidelity — she was going to marry someone 
 else. Mamie was going to marry someone else! 
 Whom? It occurred to him that she had not men- 
 tioned that — or had he overlooked the name? It 
 did not matter to him — it was a detail, insignificant 
 — but still he would read the note again, and see if 
 it was given. 
 
 No, she did not say. It even seemed as if she 
 omitted the name intentionally. Why should she 
 have done that? Did she suppose he would seek 
 his rival out, and shoot him? It was strange, the 
 reserve which re-perusal enal)Ied him to detect. 
 
 Presently he remembered that the mail had also 
 brought him a letter from his mother, and mechani- 
 cally he opened it. He read the beginning list- 
 lessly, and then an exclamation of horror that he 
 could not restrain startled all the men in the room. 
 He sprang to his feet wildly; he felt as if he were 
 choking, and there was blood in his eyes. If he
 
 00 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 did not have air, he should suffocate — he now under- 
 stood the suppression of her lover's name. 
 
 Costelloe, leaping off the sofa, followed him to 
 the stoep. 
 
 "Not bad news, I trust, old man," he said. 
 
 "I must go Home," said Collier, "I am obliged 
 to leave by the next coach! I am all to pieces, 
 Cos, — help me think!" 
 
 "The coach goes to-morrow morning," answered 
 his partner promptly. "How long need you stay?" 
 
 "I don't know — not long perhaps. Only I must 
 get there in time to prevent something — something 
 iniquitous. If I start at once I can hope to do it. 
 
 1 shall go and get my traps together now." 
 
 He wrung the Irishman's hand, and hurried round 
 to his room. He was resolved that this abominable 
 marriage should never take place. Lost to himself 
 or not, she had been— she was — too dear to him 
 for him to stand by and see so foul an act com- 
 mitted. "She is mad," he said to himself, "or her 
 people are selling her as absolutely as if she were a
 
 A QUESTION OK COLOUR. 8g 
 
 slave! I'll slop if — if I have to beat the nigger's 
 brains out in tlic ( "hurdi ! 
 
 Nearly a thousand pounds was standing to his 
 credit at the local Bank, for under Costelloe's super- 
 intendence the claims were commencing to pay well, 
 and the shutters were scarcely down next morning 
 when Collier presented himself in the manager's 
 office, 
 
 Costelloe acconii)anicd him, in(|uiring into his 
 wishes en route ; 
 
 "The work will go on during your absence," he 
 said, "and I'll send you reports if you leave me an 
 address. Shall I remit, or bank for you." 
 
 "Bank for me. And, I say Cos, we shall have 
 to make a fresh arrangement now. Your present 
 share in the concern will be hardly good enough 
 under the circumstances." 
 
 Almost before he realised it, he had taken his 
 seat in the coach and the other was bidding him 
 adieu. Impatient as he was, the preliminaries had 
 been conducted so briefly that when the wheels re- 
 volved, and the mules began to scatter the dust
 
 go A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 under their hoofs, it seemed strange to find himself 
 on the way to the Colony. 
 
 It was only towards afternoon that the fever in 
 his veins began to fret him. The tedious journey, 
 the knowledge that he must resign himself to such 
 inactivity for days, maddened him, and, with nothing 
 to do but think, his horror of the impending sacrifice 
 grew insupportable. 
 
 Beaufort West, and the change to a more rapid 
 system of locomotion, calmed him a little. It was a 
 relief to travel quickly albeit there were hysterical 
 moments when he felt a violent longing to spring 
 from the train, and exhaust himself by physical 
 exertion. Still to view the landscape flying past 
 him was welcome after the dreary jog-trot of the 
 jaded mules; he felt at last that he was covering 
 some ground— that he was really travelling, and 
 should be in time. 
 
 He had engaged a passage by the "Hawarden 
 Castle" before leaving Kimberley, and, arriving at 
 Cape Town at length, he drove at once to the quay. 
 The boat, he learnt, was to sail at three o'clock
 
 ^ A QUESTION OF COLOUR. QI 
 
 that afternoon, and it was now one. The two liours 
 appeared to him an age. The passengers strolhng 
 leisnrely aboard exasperated him beyond endurance, 
 seeming as they did a reminder of tlie length of 
 time that liad to elapse before he would begin to 
 travel again. He looked at his watch repeatedly, 
 convinced that there had been a delay, and on each 
 occasion replaced it in his pocket with an anathema 
 on his stupidity. 
 
 When a man is burning with the desire to reach 
 his destination nothing more tormenting than a sea 
 voyage exists. Every hour seems half a day; the 
 days lag like weeks; the weeks are an indescribable 
 term of suffering in which he grasps for the first 
 time the significance of Eternity. But it has an 
 end, though he may be worn out before it comes, 
 and early one morning the "Hawarden Castle" 
 touched English shores. 
 
 The Customs and another railway journey made 
 it twilight when with the sensation of having been 
 travelling for a hundred years, Collier stood again 
 on the pavements of London. A fine rain was
 
 gZ A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 falling; his feet slipped on the greasy flagstones; 
 and the news-boys were yelling out the evening 
 editions. He directed the cabman to drive to 
 Hartley's rooms in Grays Inn, and on running up 
 the dirty stairs found to his chagrin that he was 
 out. The door, however, was ajar, and he had 
 the luggage removed from the cab, and brought in- 
 side. 
 
 The lamp on the desk was burning brightly, 
 from which he argued that the other would not be 
 long. He endeavoured to occupy himself by glancing 
 at one of the newspapers with which the desk was 
 strewn, but his attention would not be gained by it, 
 and, abandoning journalism as futile, he dropped it 
 to the floor, and began to pace impatiently up and 
 down. 
 
 Presently he heard footsteps, and going over to 
 the door he threw it open, and waited for his friend's 
 entrance. 
 
 Momentarily Harlley did not recognise him in 
 the obscurity of the landing. Then he gave a quick 
 halloa.
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 93 
 
 "Collier, my dear fellow. This is good in- 
 deed!" 
 
 "I have been making myself at home you see," 
 said Collier, "I hoped you would be in -I came 
 here at once." 
 
 "You have only just arrived." 
 
 "I landed at Plymouth this morning." 
 
 Hartley hesitated an instant, in doubt whether 
 to refer to the subject which he understood was re- 
 sponsible for their unexpected meeting, or to wait 
 until Collier introduced it himself. Tlie latter, how- 
 ever, settled the point a second later. 
 
 "You know, of course?" he said, "You've heard 
 the news?" 
 
 "You mean about Miss Bruton?" 
 
 "Yes. Hardey, it — it is damnable! Not about 
 me, not that; she has thrown me over — well, she 
 could easily marry a better fellow. But to — to take 
 a negro! The word sticks in my throat. I started 
 the moment the letters reached me. I'm going to 
 l)revcnt it — that's what I've come for. I've made 
 up my mind to stop it by fair means or foul."
 
 94 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 Hartley put his hand on his shoulder awk- 
 wardly. 
 
 "Look here, old chap, I wouldn't bother if I 
 were you," he stammered. "After all it is no affair 
 of yours now, and — well, you'd better give up your 
 idea of interfering in it." 
 
 His tone said more than his words. Collier 
 grew pale as death, and his breath came and went 
 unevenly." 
 
 "Let's have it straight from the shoulder," he 
 asked huskily. "Do you mean that I'm too late?" 
 
 Hartley pointed to the newspaper on the ground, 
 and nodded. 
 
 "Miss Bruton was married to Ihe nigger yester- 
 day," he answered; "you might have seen the an- 
 nouncement in the 'Post'."
 
 A QUESTION OK COLOUR. 95 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 It was twenty minutes before either of the men 
 spoke again. (x)lHer sat (luite still in the armchair, 
 staring at the ground, and Hartley, who understood 
 that the kindest thing he could do was to affect to 
 pay no attention to Iiini, pretended to busy liimself 
 at his desk. When the silence was broken it was 
 by Collier. 
 
 "I'm danmed hungry," he remarked; "what's the 
 time? We might go to dinner, and turn in some- 
 where afterwards, ch?" 
 
 "By all means," said Hartley, cheerfully, "an 
 evening together is the very thing I would suggest. 
 Where shall we go?" 
 
 They drove to a restaurant, and dined, Collier 
 making a valiant effort to appear at ease. It was, 
 though, so obvious an effort that anything like com- 
 fort was out of the cjuestion, and his companion felt
 
 96 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 a discussion of the tacitly tabooed subject would 
 be infinitely less distressing than such shallow 
 gaiety. 
 
 The same at the Music Hall. Collier seemed to 
 have laid down a line of conduct for himself, and con- 
 tinued to stick to it persistently. No further allusion 
 to Miss Bruton escaped his lips. He spoke of his 
 experiences in the Cape, of his intended return, he 
 said he should run down to Eightgates on the fol- 
 lowing morning to see his parents, but of the matter 
 that was plainly engrossing him not another syllable. 
 It was as if he hoped to silence his thoughts by 
 denying them expression — or to deceive his friend, 
 if he could not deceive himself 
 
 A week later he proposed a visit to the con- 
 tinent. 
 
 "We might have a fortnight in Paris," he said, 
 "and run down to Monte Carlo. To tell you the 
 truth, I'm hipped, old man; I don't know what to do 
 with myself If you won't come, I shall go alone, 
 but I shall be tremendously dull, and your company 
 will be of real service to me."
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 97 
 
 Hartley, who felt a sincere sympathy for him — 
 the greater, on the whole perhaps, because he had 
 not bored him with lamentations — consented at 
 once, 
 
 "I can't get away for a couple of days," he re- 
 plied, "but if you'll wait for me as long as that, I 
 shall be very glad to join you. Between ourselves I 
 think it will be an excellent prescription for you — 
 especially a little excitement at the Tables." 
 
 "The fellow is in positive danger of going me- 
 lancholy mad," he added to himself; "if he isn't 
 roused by some means, he'll end in an asylum." 
 
 And he did his best to rouse him with Paris. 
 Few men knew it better than Phil Hartley, and he 
 put his knowledge of the frivolous capital to good 
 account. Collier, who had believed the City could 
 hold little new to him, found to his surprise that he 
 had landed in a terra incognita. The details of the 
 prescription might not possibly have commended 
 themselves to a severe moralist, but in view of the 
 complaint for which they were designed, they were 
 to be approved. In a week Jack's artificial com- 
 
 A Qitesiion of Colour. 7
 
 9 8 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 posure had broken down, and, between his hours of 
 oblivion, it became the custom for him to dehver 
 himself freely of the jealousy and scorn that con- 
 sumed him. The outbursts were so big a step in 
 the direction of improvement, and plainly relieved 
 him so much, that Hartley encouraged them, listen- 
 ing sleepily ^^^th every now and then a sympathetic 
 word, to confidences that generally began in the 
 small hours, and lasted until day-break. 
 
 When the pair left Paris for Monaco, Collier was 
 on the highway to recovery. He had developed into 
 an almost unbearable egotist; he was convinced that 
 nobody had ever suffered such perfidy as Miss Bruton 
 had shown himself; and he found a morbid satis- 
 faction in discussing his wretchedness. Hartley pro- 
 posed to continue his regimen for a week more, and 
 then , figuratively speaking, to wash his hands of his 
 patient. "For", said that philosopher meditatively, 
 "when a Johnnie makes a practice of keeping you up 
 all night to tell you how infernally miserable he is, he 
 may really be considered out of danger." 
 
 In Monte Carlo they chose the best hobtel, and,
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. QQ 
 
 after dining there on the evening of tlieir arrival, 
 repaired to the Casino. Hartley, who was not in 
 the mood for play, left Collier at the Tables, and 
 lounged out into the grounds for a quiet cigar. He 
 was absent perhaps for half an hour, but when he 
 returned to the place the other had gone. Almost 
 as he found this was so, and wondered what had 
 become of him. Jack reappeared, and caught him by 
 the arm, evidently in a state of excitement. 
 
 "She is here," he muttered, "with her husband! 
 They are staying at our hotel — I have just been 
 talking to her." 
 
 "The devil you have?" said Hartley, "I should 
 hardly have thought you would have been eager for 
 a conversation!" 
 
 "She is miserable — she was persuaded into the 
 thing by her people! You mayn't believe me, but 
 upon my soul I am sorry for the girl." 
 
 "In other words she has been telling you what 
 is an obvious lie — that she cared for you all the 
 while!" said Hartley. "Now look here, my good fel- 
 low, I know you — I've had you on my hands for
 
 lOO A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 three weeks — and I'll tell you what you're going to 
 do: you're going to pack your bag, and leave Monte 
 Carlo with me to-morrow morning. I am just pulling 
 you through this bout — and a nice job you've been. 
 If you think I'm going to have all my work upset at 
 the moment you're recovering, you are making a very 
 considerable mistake ! " 
 
 Collier sighed irresolutely, and looked at him 
 with a pale face. "I believe you're right," he said; 
 "let's go and get a drink!" 
 
 He was thoroughly unhinged by the rencontre, 
 and a mmiber of drinks were found to be necessary 
 to pull him together. Hartley, who cared nothing if 
 he got intoxicated, providing he consented to the 
 plan of flight, offered no opposition, and by the time 
 they turned their steps homeward, it was definitely 
 arranged. 
 
 The next morning Phil Hartley was awakened by 
 the violent opening of his door, and raising himself 
 in bed, found the intruder was Collier. That he 
 had further news to communicate of Mrs. Umgazi 
 was immediately apparent, he might even have
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. ID I 
 
 changed his mind, and the elder man prepared him- 
 self for the worst. Me was not, however, expectant 
 of quite so startling an order of intelligence as that 
 which was to come. 
 
 "He is dead," said Collier with trembling lips; 
 "it is awful! He shot himself in his room yesterday 
 evening; they found him there at ten o'clock last 
 night — he was dead when we came upstairs." 
 
 "You mean Miss Bruton's husband, I suppose?" 
 said Hartley. "Well, a suicide is hardly a unique 
 occurrence in Monte Carlo. I suppose he had ruined 
 himself at the Tables." 
 
 "It is awful!" repeated Collier. "She is quite 
 alone here, and they say the shock has shattered her 
 completely. You will understand that I can't leave 
 to-day after this, old chap — it is out of the question, 
 under the circumstances!" 
 
 Hartley lost his temper with him for the first 
 time. 
 
 "Am I to gather that you propose to constitute 
 yourself the lady's consoler?" he demanded. " What 
 circumstances — xvhy is it out of the question? What
 
 I02 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 the devil, anyhow, have the affairs of the negro, 
 and the woman who jiUed you for him to do with 
 you?" 
 
 "hi such distress," said Colher stiffly, "it would 
 be inhuman of me to leave her in the place without 
 a friend. After meeting her last night I couldn't 
 do it." 
 
 "More fool you then!" retorted Hartley. "If you 
 have no more rot to talk at the moment, I'll go to 
 sleep." 
 
 Collier looked at him indignantly, but he was 
 in no mood to continue the discussion. The other's 
 action irritated him more than he chose to confess. 
 It seemed to argue less pride, even less decency of 
 feeling, than he had credited him with possessing, 
 and he had the aggravation also of feeling that the 
 efforts he had been putt nig forth to restore him to 
 a healthier frame of mind were now entirely thrown 
 away. The consciousness of it grew stronger within 
 him as the days went by. The suicide, he learnt, 
 was not, as he had at first assumed, to be attributed 
 to monetary losses, and the young widow, so mysteri-
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. IO3 
 
 ously bereaved, was the most conspicuous figure in 
 the principality. After the funeral, she left for Eng- 
 land, and Collier casually announced one evening 
 that she had invited him to call upon her when he 
 returned there. 
 
 "And you mean to go?" incjuired Hartley. 
 
 "I don't know," Collier answered weakly; "pos- 
 sibly I may do so once." 
 
 Whether he had determined to accept the in- 
 vitation or not, he displayed after her departure a 
 sudden restlessness to be gone, and a month from 
 the date of their starting on their Continental trip 
 the two friends returned to London. 
 
 For the next few weeks they rarely met, and 
 Hartley drew ominous conclusions from the fact. 
 It needed no abnormal powers of divination to 
 understand that now her husband was dead, and 
 she found herself a wealthy woman, Mrs. Umgazi 
 hoped to gratify her inclinations by marrying her for- 
 mer lover, and trusted to the strength of his infatuation 
 for her to subdue his scruples. That Collier him- 
 self frankly meditated the alliance — or that she had
 
 I04 'A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 openly suggested it to him at so early a stage-^he 
 did not suppose, but if Jack could dally with temp- 
 tation in the way he was doing, he might eventually 
 succumb to it. 
 
 How right these conjectures had been he was 
 speedily to learn. 
 
 "Hartley," said Collier, striding into his rooms 
 one night without knock or preface, "I want to 
 speak to you. I need not say it is in confidence — I 
 know I can trust you." 
 
 He threw his hat on the table, and flung him- 
 self into a chair. 
 
 "I loved that woman," he exclaimed abruptly, 
 "as I shall never love another woman in the world! 
 When I met her again— you saw what it did to me ! 
 I couldn't resist her; I despised myself, but I was 
 mad — she did what she liked with me. She hinted 
 that if I knew the truth, I should judge her less 
 harshly. I believed her — because I wanted to be- 
 lieve. She asked me to go and see her in Town — 
 I tried to think I shouldn't go; but I did. I went
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. • IO5 
 
 again; for the last two months I have gone con- 
 stantly. What do you say to that?" 
 
 "I was prepared to hear it," said Phil Hartley; 
 "but I am sorry." 
 
 "Mind there was no word of love between us — 
 nothing of the kind! I was supposed to have for- 
 given her treachery — to be her friend. Nothing 
 worse — don't think me lower than I am — there was 
 no suggestion of — of our resuming our old relations 
 until last night. Then, I swear to you, it horri- 
 fied me!" 
 
 "Until last night," said Hartley, "I understand! 
 Her husband has been dead about nine weeks. 
 Go on." 
 
 "Well, I had dined with her, and we were talk- 
 ing of her life with him. She cried, and told me 
 how bitterly she repented such a marriage after it 
 was too late." 
 
 "I thought she was 'coerced' into it?" 
 
 "She repented obeying! I did my best to con- 
 sole her. And then, somehow or other, it came 
 out that she cared for me still, and that if I were
 
 I06 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 willing to take her, she was ready to be my wife 
 next year." 
 
 "Oh, 'if you were willing'?" repeated Hartley, 
 "Ian Umgazi's widow perceived that there might be 
 some doubt about that?" 
 
 "You are mistaken in what you suppose," said 
 Collier, earnestly; "■/ was mistaken too until to-day. 
 In proof of the fact, she has sent me the dead man's 
 diary, which he kept under lock and key. It is a 
 revelation, and yet — and yet — its effect upon me 
 is very strange! The pages that touch upon the 
 matter of their marriage are marked. Perhaps you 
 may care to read them?" 
 
 He took the book from his pocket, and pushed 
 it across the desk. Hartley opened it at the place 
 indicated, and read.
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. IO7 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 "She will many me. I can scarcely realise my 
 happiness as I write it! Mamie, how I love you; 
 what accentuated agony my life has been since we 
 met! Shall I ever tell her this? Will marriage — 
 that thing I have always believed impossible for me 
 — give me a companion in whom I shall be able to 
 confide, a friend to whom I can pour out the miseiy 
 that education has made me suffer? Heaven knows; 
 I doubt even while I hope! No, it is false; I do 
 not doubt; I shut my eyes, and refuse to see! She 
 likes, but she does not love me. She forgets my 
 race in moments; I remind her of it every time I 
 touch her hand. If I were poor, or if she were not, 
 there would be no Mamie for me. What a fool I 
 am; I am preparing a hell for us both, and I have 
 not the strength to resist. I am buying her, buying 
 her just as I should have bought wives in Zululand
 
 I08 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 if 1 had been reared in the country of my birth. 
 Isn't it loathsome to contemplate? That girl — pay- 
 ing gold for her instead of cattle — it is the only dif- 
 ference! But she will marry me! Oh God, let my 
 eyes keep shut, preserve the weakness that closes 
 them! I do not seek to see. Mamie has promised 
 
 to be my wife!" 
 
 ***** 
 
 "I have kissed her — I felt her shudder! I think 
 she saw that I perceived its effect upon her, for 
 she was very kind and tender afterwards. But her 
 mother is more attentive to me than she. It is the 
 mother who is responsible, she and the swarm of 
 sisters. What a beast of a woman to persuade her 
 child to do this thing — to sell her to a negro — 
 Mamie! And I — ? Oh, yes, my faithful conscience, 
 I know, I know! But I won't listen, do you hear? 
 You may shriek, but I won't listen. I shall be so 
 good to her that I shall teach her to love me. She 
 will grow used to my colour. What alarms her? 
 It is the strangeness! In time, in a year — two 
 years — she will forget, she must forget; it is not in
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. ICQ 
 
 nature that she should remember. The wedding- 
 day is fixed for the last of the month. She is more 
 to me than heaven or earth, and 1 will say my 
 
 prayers to her at her feet." 
 
 ***** 
 
 "I asked her this morning if she was sure, if 
 she had no wish to draw back. 
 
 "'Mamie, 1 said, 'I don't feel as if you had 
 shown me your mind very clearly, and 1 know 1 
 could woo you much better by letter. Are you (juite 
 certain?' 
 
 "'Certain'? she repeated tremulously. 
 
 "'Certain that you don't regret? That you 
 aren't — aren't frightened, my own! Oh, my dearest, 
 I am so fond of you, such a coward, that I am 
 anxious to help you to set your instincts at defiance. 
 Don't do it; be braver than I. Make me hear the 
 truth whether I like it or not.' 
 
 "She hesitated a moment, and then she gave 
 me her hand; 'I am pretending nothing', she 
 answered; 'I have determined to do my duty as 
 your wife.'
 
 no A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 "No word of tenderness, no pi'essure in the cold 
 slim fingers that I held! 
 
 "'I am not demonstrative by disposition,' she 
 continued after a little pause, 'and you, I've an 
 idea, are hyper-sensitive! You are inclined to 
 imagine the existence of what you dread. You fear 
 I may be — what was your expression — 'afraid', and 
 so you fancy that I am so. That is really very 
 foolish. I am hardly a girl any longer, you know; 
 most of the romance, the extravagant ideals, of the 
 teens, I have outgrown. While their loss gives you 
 less of the conventional courtship than you look for, 
 console yourself by reflecting that it also argues less 
 — less timidity.' " 
 
 "'I understand,' I said, 'quite.' I understood 
 that she was lying. 
 
 '"Have you then,' I inquired, 'never cared for 
 any man before me? Have you never been in love, 
 Mamie, as I am in love with you?' 
 
 " ' Once,' she replied in a low voice. 
 
 " 'And — forgive me, perhaps I pain you?'
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. I I I 
 
 "'It is past,' she murmured, 'I am resolved 
 never to think of it again.' 
 
 "'He is dead?' 
 
 "'The episode is dead; please don't let us talk 
 of it' 
 
 "I desisted as she begged. How long has it 
 been dead I wonder; was it the temptation of my 
 wealth that buried it? Oh, she is right, I harrow 
 myself unnecessarily! Only another fortnight, and 
 
 then—" 
 
 ***** 
 
 "We were married yesterday. My God, why was 
 I born! Why was she not honest in time, or why 
 couldn't she conceal her horror to the end! May 
 no man ever suffer as I have suffered ; may she never 
 suspect the torture that has wrung my soul! It 
 shall be as she wishes, but it were better had I died 
 before we went to the altar — better for both of us. 
 To what can she look forward, or can I? To live 
 with this woman, to see her daily, to yearn as I 
 yearn, and to be divided by the wall of her abhor- 
 rence, is to foretaste the fires of the damned. To-
 
 112 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. 
 
 day I have scarcely the courage to address her; I 
 
 shun her, and I can see it is a rehef to her to be 
 
 shunned." 
 
 ****** 
 
 "No consideration that I show her decreases her 
 repulsion. What a maniac I was to suppose she 
 would ever grow used to me; her life is a nightmare 
 that no sacrifice I make can decrease. I have ruined 
 her peace, but 1 have spared her reason. Oh, thank 
 God, I have spared her reason. 'You will find me 
 insane, you will find me insane' — shall I ever 
 get her cry out of my ears? She might be a 
 little gentler to me, she might remember! I have 
 done all I can except die — and I am tempted 
 to do that! If I had had a revolver I should 
 have blown my brains out any day these two 
 months. There are moments when, with her gaze 
 upon me, I feel mad, when it seems to me that 
 death holds the only relief I can look for. Then I 
 could kiss her glove, and pull the trigger in despair. 
 Mamie, my beloved, you will never know what you 
 are doing to me. You push me nearer to suicide
 
 A QUESTION OF COLOUR. I 1 3 
 
 each time I catch your frightened eyes upon my 
 
 face." 
 
 ****** 
 
 There was no entry in the book after that. 
 Hartley closed it slowly, and as he did so, Collier 
 lifted his head with an unspoken question. 
 
 "If you want to know what I think," murmured 
 the former, "the only sentiment this diary awakens 
 in me is a profound compassion for the negro." 
 
 "That is precisely the case with me," said Collier, 
 "though it was hardly the purpose for which the 
 lady lent it to me. I am writing her that I return 
 to the Cape by the next boat." 
 
 A Question of Colour.
 
 "IT'S A VERY WISE CHILD THAT 
 KNOWS." 
 
 8*
 
 'IT'S A VERY WISE CHILD THAT 
 KNOWS." 
 
 Ralph Seyisk^ur's marriage turned out miserably 
 from the commencement. In tlie fust place, it had 
 been an improvident one, and in the second, the 
 husband and wife were badly suited to each other. 
 He was at the Bar when he met her; making a 
 hundred and fifty a year when he was lucky, and 
 poring half the night over his desk to earn a guinea. 
 She was an actress, playing in the provinces for 
 thirty shillings a week when fortune smiled, and run- 
 ning into debt with an accommodating landlady be- 
 tween her engagements. Neither possessed any 
 marked ability; neither boasted any prospects. Their 
 poverty and their mediocrity were the only things 
 they had in common. Yet they married. He was
 
 ii8 "it's a very wise child that knows." 
 
 thirty-five at the time — old enough, when comphca- 
 tions ensued, to feel he should have known better; 
 she was twenty — young enough, when they began to 
 quarrel, to complain that she had sacrificed a future. 
 It was into this atmosphere that their only child — a 
 girl — was born. 
 
 When Lucy was four years of age the ill-assorted 
 union came to an end. The actress left her husband 
 and child, and returned to the stage. Twelvemonths 
 later Ralph Seymour obtained a divorce. 
 
 He was now doing little, if any, better from a 
 pecuniary point of view than he had done at the 
 date of his wedding, but after the years of bickering 
 and disagreements, it seemed to the man a haven of 
 peace to which he removed at this period with his 
 daughter. The affection between the two was of the 
 strongest, and as time went on, and the child grew 
 to girlhood, he even came to be thankful for the 
 marriage which had procured him so great a bless- 
 ing for his middle-age. Of his quondam wife he 
 had ceased to hear. He was ignorant whether she 
 had adopted a new 7iom de theatre, or whether she
 
 "it's a very wise child that knows." II g 
 
 had died, nor was he interested to make inquiries. 
 He told the child that her mother was in her grave, 
 regarding it as the kindest thing he could say, and 
 on the day he was gathered to his rest after a 
 short illness, Lucy believed herself doubly an 
 orphan. 
 
 She found herself provided for only to the amount 
 of a couple of hundred pounds, and when she rallied 
 from the first great shock of his loss, she realised 
 that it behoved her to earn her own living hence- 
 forward in whatever capacity she could essay. 
 
 Her education did not fit her for a governess, 
 and the thought of such a career repelled her be- 
 sides. She could not open a shop, because her 
 capital was absurd in such a connection, otherwise 
 she thought a millinery business in a street off one 
 of the West-end Squares would have been fairly 
 tolerable. She did not know what she could do, 
 but her fancy drifted strongly in the direction of the 
 stage. It was a natural tendency enough in the 
 daughter of an actress, but wholly unconscious that 
 her mother had been an actress, it seemed to the
 
 I20 "it's a very wise child that knows." 
 
 girl silly and unpractical, and she condemned her 
 folly for considering the vocation. 
 
 This was really a veiy interesting mental condi- 
 tion. On the one hand hereditary forces were im- 
 pelling her towards the foot-lights; on the other, the 
 staidness of her environment had caused her to re- 
 gard the theatrical life as something fantastic and 
 impossible to people like herself, so that she was, as 
 it were, two entities, one of which marvelled with 
 amusement at the temptations of the other. 
 
 How her indecision would have ended — whether 
 the element of philistinism or art would have gained 
 the day — it is difficult to determine had she been 
 left to fight the battle out between her two selves. 
 Almost the only friend of her father's who came to 
 her assistance, however, was a barrister who occa- 
 sionally dabbled in dramatic work, and when she 
 asked this gentleman's opinion on the subject, he 
 advised her promptly to go on the Stage, and supple- 
 mented the advice by offering his services towards 
 obtaining her an engagement. 
 
 She answered gratefully that she was very much
 
 "it's a very wise child that knows.'' 12 1 
 
 obliged; and she would have been infinitely more 
 obliged had her ignorance of her chosen calling been 
 a shade less i)rofound tlian it was, for without the 
 dramatist's influence she would probably never have 
 managed to secure a "part" in twelvemonths. 
 
 As it was he got her a line and a half to speak 
 at one of the minor West-end houses in a very few 
 weeks. She was cast for a parlour-maid, who had 
 to come on and say, "A note for you, madam. The 
 boy is waiting for an answer." She was paid a 
 pound a week for this, and she felt that fortune was 
 within her grasp, and a dramatic career the most 
 lucrative and delicious upon earth. It had only 
 needed a glimpse of the theatrical world to develop 
 the instincts of the actress in her, and long before 
 the piece had terminated its run she felt it was ab- 
 solutely impossible for her to exist out of the cou- 
 lisses again. 
 
 Fortunately her little stock of money enabled her 
 to pay her way between her engagements, and though 
 she speedily recovered from her delusion that she 
 had entered a profession by which it was easy to
 
 122 "it's a very wise CHILD THAT KNOWS." 
 
 live, she was not forced, as are so many aspirants, 
 to renounce it in favour of a regular wage. 
 
 She went on tour after a while, and gathered 
 more experience than the parts of parlour-maids with 
 a line and a half will furnish. Indeed she was 
 astonished to find how quickly she did acquire the 
 technique. She called herself "Miss Lucy Main- 
 waring," and when she had been an actress a couple 
 of years "Miss Lucy Mainwaring" was playing the 
 ingenue roles, and getting complimented on her 
 ability by the provincial press. Certainly she was 
 not in very fashionable companies as yet, and the 
 salary she secured was Avoefully disproportionate from 
 a pound for a line and a half in London, but she 
 was advancing indisputably, and she felt she would 
 be a very discontented girl if she were not satisfied 
 with her progress in so short a time. 
 
 One Spring she settled with Messrs. Halifax and 
 Jordan for their "Ladder of Life" Company. She 
 had been "resting" — in theatrical parlance — some 
 months, and the resumption of work, and the renewal 
 of two pounds a week, was very welcome to her.
 
 "it's a very wise child that knows." 123 
 
 The tour was to open in Middlesborough , and 
 when she reached the depressing town she made 
 her way to the theatre, just in time for the first 
 "calh" The Company were collected on the Stage; 
 they were all strange to her, and she was conscious, 
 as she always was on such occasions, of a nervous- 
 ness that did not affect her later. To act at rehearsals 
 — and as a comparative novice she was required 
 to act — invariably proved more difficult to her than 
 to face an audience, when the scene was set, and 
 everybody around her was acting too. 
 
 However, after exchanging a few words with the 
 stage-manager, she made her entrance, and com- 
 menced. Her principal scenes were with the "Ad- 
 venturess" of the play, and she speedily conceived 
 a dislike for the actress who was engaged for that 
 part. 
 
 She was a large, showy woman of a type very 
 common in the provinces — a woman who, disap- 
 pointed with her own progress, is inclined to make 
 herself extremely disagreeable to her juniors. Before 
 Lucy had been on the stage with her five minutes,
 
 124 IT^ ^ VERY WISE CHILD THAT KNOWS. 
 
 Miss Ada Fitz-James had complained of "amateurish- 
 ness" and "ignorance of the business" in tones that 
 reached to the furthest extremity of the wings, and, 
 Lucy, who had had no experience of the geuKs 
 Fitz-James, was ready to cry with mortification. 
 
 She knew, as she hurried away to hunt for 
 lodgings that the present tour was not going to be 
 as comfortable a one as her others, and she looked 
 forward to the ensuing rehearsals with painful mis- 
 givings. If Miss Fitz-James had been so unpleasant 
 at the first "call" when everybody was more or less 
 on her best behaviour, what would she be on further 
 acquaintance. She was, moreover, evidently a power 
 in the Company, and the girl had had so many 
 "vacations" since she adopted the profession that 
 her little nest-egg was almost exhausted. The 
 thought that she might be ousted from the engage- 
 ment by the other's ill-humoured complaints was 
 dreadful to her. 
 
 And it did not wear away, even after the first 
 performance had passed off without catastrophe. 
 The male members of the "Ladder of Life" Com-
 
 "it's a very wise child that knows." 125 
 
 pany remarked among themselves that "old Fitz- 
 James was jealous of the. little one," and, though 
 Lucy was too modest to attribute her cavillings to 
 such a cause herself, it was very obvious that this 
 was so. The girl's acting, her appearance, her 
 manners, her voice, were all objects of comment by 
 the "Heavy T^ady." She would entertain the other 
 occupants of her dressing-room by mimicking her, 
 and once, unseen by the audience, she mimicked 
 her to her face on the stage, and Lucy forgot her 
 hues, and nearly died of shame. 
 
 The ways in which one actress can make herself 
 objectionable to another are inexhaustible, and Miss 
 Fitz-James, too, was an ingenious woman. Lucy's 
 life became so painful to her at last that, important 
 as the salary was, she often seriously considered 
 sending in her notice, and terminating her martyr- 
 dom by flight. She went so far one morning as to 
 draft the letter, and then sat staring at it miserably 
 alternately calling herself a coward, and vowing to 
 rise to dizzy heights beneath which her enemy should 
 grovel marvelling.
 
 126 "it's a very wise child that knows." 
 
 Her desk was lying before her on the table. It 
 had been her father's, and because she was wretched, 
 and was instinctively conscious that a good fit of 
 sobbing would do her good, she took out and un- 
 tied the letters he had written her on the rare oc- 
 casions on which they had been divided. There 
 were childish scribbles of her own to him; a faded 
 photograph, taken years before she could remember 
 him distinctly; some flowers off his grave — all the 
 souvenirs that she cherished most. She looked at 
 them with wet eyes. Then she turned to the door, 
 and saw that she was honoured by a visit from 
 Miss Fitz-James. 
 
 The "Heavy Lady" had come to inform her 
 that she had to play the part she was understudying 
 that night, and the scorn with which she made the 
 announcement was profound. 
 
 "Miss Belmore is taken ill," she exclaimed. 
 "The Lord knows how you'll do it, but you'll have 
 to go on for 'Lilian' this evening! I said, as I was 
 living in the street, I'd look in and tell you. 
 What's the matter with you, eh, you great baby?"
 
 "it's a very wise child that knows." 127 
 
 Lucy started to her feet, and gazed at her in 
 amazement. 
 
 "I am to play 'liHan,' — I?" 
 
 "Yes, you — and a nice mess you'll make of it 
 upon my word! I don't suppose you even know the 
 lines?" 
 
 "Yes, I do," answered the girl, "I've studied 
 them." 
 
 "Oh, you have? Well, I hope you'll remember 
 to speak them. As to playmg the part, that's hope- 
 less! Only such a Management as this would ever 
 have given you the 'Understudy.' But it's too late 
 to talk about that now — you'll have to do the best 
 you can." 
 
 She dropped into the chair the other had vacated, 
 and sighed gloomily. 
 
 "In my young days girls had to learn their busi- 
 ness, I can tell you. There was no chance for 
 amateurs and 'prize -packets' then. I don't know 
 what's come to the profession, upon my soul I don't, 
 A lot of conceited children, calling themselves ac- 
 tresses, who have never spoken a line of the Legi-
 
 128 "it's a very wise child that knows." 
 
 timate in their lives, and don't know a border from 
 a T-piece. It makes me sick! When / was your 
 age I had played seventeen parts a week for eight 
 years, and thought myself lucky to get a pound a 
 week. I was in a stock company. I daresay you 
 don't know what a stock company is! I'll wager 
 you don't! Go on for the same part for six months, 
 no change, no experience, no — . What's that?" 
 Her voice was hoarse. She pointed to Ralph Sey- 
 mour's photograph. The blood had all left her 
 cheeks, and the rouge on them showed in two ugly 
 spots. 
 
 "That is a likeness of my father," said Lucy; 
 "he is dead." 
 
 "Your mother?" 
 
 "My mother died long before — when I was a 
 child." 
 
 The answer was given abstractedly. Her thoughts 
 had taken a fresh turn, stimulated by the startling 
 news. She was to play 'Lilian' to-night — by far the 
 finest part that had ever fallen to her — and if she 
 made a success, it might prove the crisis of her life.
 
 "it's a very wise child that knows." I2Q 
 
 A delicious excitement took possession of her, and 
 she wished only that her visitor would go away, and 
 leave her to herself. There were the dresses to try 
 on, perhaps some accessories in the shape of shoes 
 or gloves to obtain. Then, too, she would like to 
 run through a few of the scenes with the leading- 
 man. She trembled in anticipation of the ordeal 
 before her. 
 
 "You won't want me now," said Miss Fitz-James, 
 rising after a long pause, "I understand! Don't 
 be nervous; I — I'm sure you'll do it very nicely, 
 dear." 
 
 A Question of Colour.
 
 SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR.
 
 SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR. 
 
 "Have you had any callers to-day?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Not Mrs. Westbrook?" 
 
 "No one." 
 
 "I thought you expected Mrs. Westbrook?" 
 
 "She didn't come. It rained." 
 
 "Then I suppose you didn't go out?" 
 
 "No, I read." 
 
 "Ah well, darling, you always manage to amuse 
 yourself somehow!" 
 
 She strangled a sigh, and, turning a lath of the 
 Venetian blind impatiently, stared out into the dark- 
 ness of the silent little street. A hysterical impulse 
 to smash something was upon her, but her husband
 
 134 SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR. 
 
 did not suspect it. He filled his briar-root, and 
 stretching forth his slippered feet to the fender, con- 
 tinued to be conversational. 
 
 "I answered Tommy's letter from the Office this 
 afternoon," he said. 
 
 "Did you. What did you say?" 
 
 "I told him I was convinced that the school was 
 an excellent one, and he mustn't make complaints. 
 Schoolboys will always grumble if one listens lo 
 them. It would be a needless expense to send him 
 anywhere else. We should have to pay for a new 
 set of books, you know — none of the ones he has 
 would do." 
 
 "Wouldn't they?" 
 
 "One school will never use another school's books. 
 What are you looking out of the window for?" 
 
 "I don't know," she murmured. "Would you 
 like me to sit down?" 
 
 "Well yes; it's cosier." 
 
 "As you please, dear." 
 
 She took the inevitable chair, by the inevitable 
 lamp, on the inevitable green table-cover. How long
 
 SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR. I 35 
 
 had she sat here every evenuig, looking al ]icr hus- 
 band's shppers and the smoke curUng from his pipe? 
 A Hfetime it seemed to her sickness of soul! And 
 presently he would take the pipe out of his mouth, 
 and, smiUng complacently, observe what a "pretty 
 room they had made of it," and that the rent was 
 "unusually cheap" for the best part of Croydon. 
 She knew it all by heart, the evening programme. 
 And once — ■! Once her evenings had been passed 
 in the theatre; there had been the chatter of the 
 dressing-rooms, and applause and excitement to 
 sustain her. A lifetime? Nonsense — a hundred 
 years at least! Surely it must be a hundred years 
 since George looked romantic to her eyes, and a 
 "dear little home of their own", was a phrase sound- 
 ing like music in her ears? Yet Tommy the dis- 
 satisfied was but twelve years old. Great Heavens, 
 the monotony of it all, the deadly, dreary calm ! 
 
 She lay awake in the night, rebelling against it 
 furiously. The nostalgia of the footlights, a loathing 
 of the suburban gentility, was upon her, just as it 
 had been long ago, when the novelty of her married
 
 136 SIMILIA SBIILIBUS CURANTUR. 
 
 life had worn awa}' and left her restless first. Then, 
 however, the discontent had passed; she had re- 
 pressed it. There had been her child, the interests 
 of maternity. But now the child was a boy at 
 boarding-school in Brighton, and she was alone, 
 save when he had his holidays, as completely as 
 before his birth. George was in the city all day. 
 What companion was he to her — or she to him? 
 
 She did not sleep; she watched the daylight 
 filtering through the blinds, and touching with grey 
 the gloom of the familiar furniture. To George each 
 piece of their furniture was a monument to success. 
 He recalled the circumstances of its purchase, the 
 joy he had felt when it had come home from the 
 shop; but she — how weary of it all she was! How 
 abominably tired of everything! She found it dif- 
 ficult to realise that there had been a time when 
 she, too, had contemplated washstands and tables 
 with delight, discussing, altering, and re-arranging 
 with interest and laughter. In him the pride of 
 possession survived; in her it was as dead as Queen 
 Anne.
 
 SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR. I 37 
 
 There was a butter-dish on the breakfast-table 
 that had cost seven-and-sixpence, and at eight 
 o'clock, when they went downstairs, George remarked, 
 as it was his habit to do three times a week, that 
 he was glad they had bought it, though it seemed 
 an extravagance at the time. 
 
 "The difference in the price of things is only felt 
 at the moment, and if one gets the belter article, 
 one has the pleasure of it always, eh dear?" 
 
 "Yes; that is so," she answered. 
 
 "See how nice it looks; and we don't miss the 
 money any more to-day than if we had bought one 
 for ninepence-halfpenny, do we?" 
 
 "As you say; one only feels the outlay at the 
 time." 
 
 She was reflecting that after this morning she 
 would never look at the butter-dish any more; nor 
 lie awake in the ghastly bed-room; nor sob out her 
 soul and beat her hands under the oppression of the 
 lonely parlour. She would end it all ; she would go 
 back to her old life — she had determined it. This 
 was the last time that she and George would ever
 
 138 SIMILIA SIAITLIDUS CURANTUR. 
 
 sit together at breakfast; after this morning he would 
 never see her again — when he returned from the city 
 she would be gone. 
 
 He would not miss her much, and as for herself, 
 she would be free. She caught her breath in a fore- 
 taste of rapture — Free! They were not, they never 
 had been, suited to each other. What could her 
 loss mean to him? A strangeness, perhaps even a 
 discomfort, just at first; but that would soon wear 
 off, and then he would drop into a jog-trot way of 
 life every bit as contented as his jog-trot now. 
 
 He kissed her, and took himself off, with his 
 newspaper, and his little bustling air she had learnt 
 to know so well. As his lips touched her, she 
 faltered in her purpose, but only for an instant. 
 
 When the front-door had closed behind him, she 
 went up to the bed-room again, and carefully packed 
 a few things. While she was engaged in this fashion, 
 the cook knocked, and asked her for orders for 
 lunch and dinner. She replied that she should not 
 require any. The woman was retiring when she re- 
 membered that George would be here, and gave in-
 
 SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR. 139 
 
 stnictions that a chop should be bought in readmess 
 for him, when he came in. He would want his 
 dinner, of course, though they would have begun 
 their separate lives by then. 
 
 There was an up-train due in about five minutes 
 she learnt, upon reaching the station; and she bought 
 a third-class ticket, because in her life of independ- 
 ence it would be more than ever necessary to 
 economise. She waited with feverish impatience, 
 fearful, even though she smiled at the fear, that 
 something would happen at the last minute to 
 frustrate her purpose, and detain her. 
 
 The train was punctual, however, and she sprang 
 in with a gasp of thanksgiving. She had not the 
 compartment to herself, though she would have pre- 
 ferred a vacant one; she saw there was a boy in the 
 further corner. Still it might have been worse; she 
 might have found herself travelling up with some of 
 their neighbours, who would have pestered her with 
 their small-talk and interrogatories. 
 
 "But what was the matter with the boy?" 
 
 She turned her eyes to him, attracted by certain
 
 140 SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR. 
 
 spasmodic movements he was making — contortions 
 suggesting an anxiety to escape observation even 
 greater on his part tlian her own. Merciful Powers, 
 the boy was Tommy! 
 
 "Tommy," she said severely, "what does this 
 mean?" 
 
 He did not cry; he returned her gaze with 
 something of defiance. 
 
 "I — I am running away," he said; "where are 
 )'ozi going. Mother?" 
 
 "Running away?" she echoed. "How could 
 you do such a wicked thing!" 
 
 "I hate it," he returned, "it's so beastly. I'm 
 going to London to be a cabin-boy. Are you going 
 to send me back?" 
 
 She broke into a shoit laugh that ended in a 
 sob. The similarity of their situation had its humour 
 and its pathos. 
 
 "Don't be frightened of me," she murmured 
 gently; "tell me all about it, Tommy. Why aren't 
 you happy at school?" 
 
 "It's beastly," he repeated, "I wanted to be put
 
 SIMILIA SLMILIBUS CURANTUR. I4I 
 
 somewhere-else, and you and father wouldn't do it. 
 I made up my mind to run away wlien the Doctor 
 caned me this morning. He read father's letter out 
 loud, before all the class, and then he called me up 
 to his desk, and ladled me. I'm going to sea — I'm 
 sick of my life." 
 
 She changed her seat, and put her arms round 
 him, kissing him, and drawing his head down upon 
 her bosom. 
 
 "We all have to put up with things. Tommy," 
 she said, "all of us; even 'father' and I do. But 
 you shouldn't have run away, little man, only 
 cowards run away from trouble; the brave people 
 grin and bear it." 
 
 "Do they?" he asked. "Do you?" 
 
 "You shall go to another school," she said, 
 evading the inquiry, "if you aren't happy at 
 Dr. Barnett's. Or you shall have a tutor till you're 
 older." 
 
 The train was speeding towards its destination 
 swiftly, but its progress was not more rapid than the 
 workintrs of her mind. She and her son were both
 
 142 SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR. 
 
 "running away"; was it possible the schemes of the 
 one were as idle as the other's? The grievances as 
 visionary? She did not know; she could not de- 
 cide, but a feeling of shame possessed her strangely 
 new. 
 
 In the silence that had fallen between them, 
 Tommy meditated, looking sideways at her grave 
 face. 
 
 "If I go back to the Doctor's first," he pointed 
 out abruptly, "I shall be ladled harder than ever." 
 
 "You shall never go back to the Doctor's any 
 more," she promised him. "We'll go and have 
 lunch at a confectioner's in Regent Street, Tommy; 
 and then you'll go home with me, and we'll talk to 
 father. Oh, and Tommy! I'm not angry with you 
 a bit — only very glad we happened to meet."
 
 A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT.
 
 A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT. 
 
 "My dear Jimmy," she said, "you are a very 
 nice boy, and I am very fond of you, of course; but 
 if your father wouldn't consent, what on earth is the 
 use of our talking about it!" 
 
 James Brennan Esquire, only son of Sir Chris- 
 topher Brennan of Brennan Court, Hants, struggled 
 with his eyeglass, and was understood to mumble 
 something to the effect of his having a couple of 
 hundred a year of his own. 
 
 Miss Belle Mercutio laughed. 
 
 "And do you suggest we should marry on two 
 hundred a year? No, my Jim, you must 'always 
 find a sister in me', as they say ui the Comics. If 
 I give up the Stage at all, it won't be for love in a 
 cottage, and bread and kisses. I am not that kind 
 
 A Question of Colour. lO
 
 146 A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT. 
 
 of girl — or perhaps I don't care about you enough. 
 Anyhow the prospect doesn't attract me, and that's 
 the long and the short of it, old man." 
 
 "I love you," said Jimmy. "I — I can't live 
 without you. Belle. Say you like me a little bit, 
 do!" 
 
 "Certainly, I like you very much. I — for good- 
 ness' sake don't look so woebegone! — I'd marry you 
 to-morrow if it were possible; it isn't — you must see 
 it isn't! You say your father wouldn't agree; you 
 say it yourself. How can I help that!" 
 
 "People have married on a couple of hundred a 
 year," murmured Jim feebly. 
 
 "Ah, but I tell you I'm not made that way. I'm 
 too selfish, too mercenary — what you please! Now 
 finish your tea, dear boy, and say good-bye to me. 
 The longer you look at it, the less you'll like it, and 
 the thing has got to be done." 
 
 "I don't want any tea." He picked up his hat, 
 and stood contemplating it ruefully. "If the governor 
 could be brought to consent — ?" he questioned.
 
 A DANGKROUS EXPERIMENT. I 47 
 
 "Belle Mercutio is yours; perhaps you may con- 
 trive to persuade him! Now go away, or I'll never 
 bow to you again — I've got to be at the Agent's at 
 six, and I want to trim a hat, to fascinate him, be- 
 fore I go," 
 
 She held up her cheek, and he kissed it. After 
 all they had not parted finally. The thought 
 sustained him, as he turned out into the shabby 
 little street, and made his way Westward, medita- 
 ting ways and means. 
 
 No, she was not unmercenary. Even as her 
 lover, he was bound to admit that in the case of 
 Miss Mercutio the leaven of the practical was car- 
 ried a shade too far. Not because she perceived 
 the dangers of matrimony upon the very slender in- 
 come he could boast apart from the parental al- 
 lowance, oh no! But because — AIi well, it was 
 her life no doubt, the struggle of it, that had caused 
 her to place the pecuniary before the poetical with 
 a persistence that jarred at times. He could not 
 blame her, it was natural — and only a veneer, most 
 probably, too. Under more favourable circumstances
 
 148 A DANGEROUS EXPERBIENT. 
 
 he would never have noticed the discordant note. 
 Good Lord, if only his fother would be amiable 
 and benevolent, how happy they would be together! 
 
 They had met, these young people, at the re- 
 hearsals of the Macready Club — the distinguished 
 Amateur Dramatic Society of which James Brennan 
 was so brilliant a member. The ladies who assisted 
 were recruited from the professional ranks, and six 
 months ago Miss Macready had come, been seen, 
 and conquered. 
 
 Jimmy fell wildly in love with her at first sight, 
 and truth to tell she had appeared at an earlier 
 stage to reciprocate his sentiments more ardently 
 than when it transpired he was to all intents and 
 purposes dependent on Sir Christopher's good-will. 
 Things had come to a crisis within the last few 
 weeks, when Jimmy, who had become a constant 
 visitor at the Bayswater lodgings, had made her a 
 formal offer of marriage, and been refused. To a 
 secret marriage she vowed she would never agree, 
 and as to obtaining his father's sanction, the suitor 
 was hopeless.
 
 A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT. 149 
 
 Sir Christopher was quite the last man hkcly to 
 smile on such a union; in fact, he was almost the 
 last man likely to smile on any courtship of his 
 son's whatever. He regarded him as a boy, a cal- 
 low youth, when he could be said to regard him at 
 all. For the most part his observation was limited 
 to his books, and his coins, and his ponderous MS. 
 on which he worked in his library all day, and 
 which, if it would never fulfil any other purpose, 
 had at least served to provide a lady-amanuensis 
 with thirty shillings a week for nearly as many years 
 as Jimmy could recall. It was reported, with good- 
 humoured exaggeration, that since the death of his 
 wife (when Jimmy was in knickerbockers) his secre- 
 tary was the only member of the opposite sex with 
 which the baronet had held a conversation. But 
 be this as it may, he was a lonely, gloomy, and 
 ascetic personage, and James could no more imagine 
 himself going into his presence, and talking about 
 marrying an actress, than — than he was even able to 
 conceive a simile. The stiffest whisky-peg ever com- 
 posed would have been an insufficient stimulant, and
 
 150 A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT. 
 
 he had an attack of the nerves even to think of 
 such a thing. 
 
 But he thought of something else as he lounged 
 in his arm-chair in the Club that night, and it 
 came nearer to being an inspiration than was usual 
 with James Brennan's ideas. He thought he saw his 
 way. 
 
 The following afternoon he was in Miss Mer- 
 cutio's parlour — again, and proceeded to unbosom 
 himself. 
 
 "Belle," he said, "you had an appointment at 
 your Agent's yesterday. Have you settled an 
 engagement?" 
 
 She shook her head: "No good." 
 
 "I am glad to hear it, because I have come to 
 offer you one. I wonder if you can play the part? 
 Look here, darling, do you think if I worked things 
 so that you were brought into daily contact with the 
 governor, you could make a conquest of him, and 
 thaw his asperity with the radiant sunshine of your 
 smile?"
 
 A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT. I 5 I 
 
 "You mean make him consent to our marry- 
 ing?" 
 
 "I do — after he has taken to you, you see! 
 Listen to my phm. He has a secretary; I propose 
 to make that secretary depart pro lem , and to send 
 you to the house as her substitute. All you will 
 have to do is to write from dictation. It will be 
 very easy — dreadfully tedious — but easy as possible. 
 Miss Wilkins — that's the secretary — is elderly and 
 frumpish. Need I point out what a delightful change 
 the old gentleman will find her 'cousin'! You will 
 descend like a goddess from Olympus." 
 
 "I am to be her 'cousin', am I? And how do 
 you propose to manage it?" 
 
 "By raising the maiden-lady's salary a pound a 
 week, and requiring nothing of her in exchange but 
 a note for you to deliver when you present yourself. 
 What do you say?" 
 
 "It sounds rather fun — like a situation belonging 
 to a farce — but I'm sure I don't mind trying; and Sir 
 Christopher will pay me, too, I su})pose?"
 
 152 A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT. 
 
 "Thirty bob a week is the 'pecuniary emolu- 
 ment', to quote Micawber the Immortal." 
 
 "Only thirty shillings! Why I thought the old 
 gentleman rolled in riches?" 
 
 "He does, but he likes to keep 'em to roll in. 
 Thirty bob is the price, but remember the stakes 
 you will be playing for." 
 
 "Well," she acknowledged, "it's better than 
 'resting', anyhow, and, as you say, we stand to make 
 something worth having out of the game. I don't 
 believe it will be any use, but I'll do it if you like, 
 so if you can manage the preliminaries, let me 
 know." 
 
 "The preliminaries," said Jimmy, "will be effected 
 this evening. I'll catch 'the Wilkins' as she goes 
 home, and put it to her. I'll be with you after 
 breakfast, to let you hear the result. Give me a 
 kiss, sweetheart, and cheer up. You will be 'Mrs. 
 James Brennan' yet; take my word for it!" 
 
 And he repeated the assurance in the morning. 
 Miss Wilkins had not proved averse to accepting
 
 A DANGKKOUS EXPERIMENT, I 53 
 
 two-pounds-ten a week, and indulging in two or three 
 months' hohday by the sea. She had written a 
 charming and apologetic note, regretting that "family 
 affairs of a private nature' would compel her to 
 discontinue her duties at the baronet's for some 
 time; to inconvenience him as little as possible, how- 
 ever, she ventured to introduce the bearer, her 
 cousin, whom Sir Christopher would find highly 
 capable and intelligent. 
 
 "Highly capable and intelligent one," cried 
 Jimmy, "go in and win! I'll drive you to the corner 
 of the street myself." 
 
 The cab was at the door, and half an hour later 
 the applicant pulled the bell of the gaunt-looking 
 mansion, and Jim, from the hansom watched the 
 door open, and close. 
 
 He waited a quarter of an hour, and she 
 did not come out. He chuckled, and slapped 
 his knee. "So far, so good," he mused; "the 
 'cousin' has got the post, and the trumps are all in 
 her own pretty little hands. We'll have a couple
 
 154 ^ DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT. 
 
 of Stalls somewhere to-night and a jolly good 
 supper on the strength of it! Brave Belle." 
 
 When they were driving to the theatre, she told 
 him all that had happened. Sir Christopher had 
 been very disagreeable indeed at first, and she 
 had feared he was going to send her away. But 
 by degrees he thawed surprisingly, and had ended 
 by being most courteous and genial. 
 
 "He doesn't seem half a bad old buffer," she 
 said, "and his sherry was A. i." 
 
 "Did he give you sherry?" exclaimed Jimmy, 
 "not — no/ with a yellow seal?" 
 
 "I don't know about the seal," said Miss 
 Mercutio, "but it had a flavour that clung, 
 and lasted, my boy, and the sandwiches were /oze 
 gras." 
 
 "Well, you've done the trick, and no mistake," 
 gasped her lover, staring; "I hear our wedding-bells 
 already ! " 
 
 Nor did her reports grow less encouraging as 
 the weeks went by. Sir Christopher had com-
 
 A DANGEROUS EXPERIAIENT. I 55 
 
 plimented lier on her 'quick appreciation'; Sir 
 Christopher had declared slie was an improvement 
 on licr predecessor; Sir Christopher had said lie 
 really did not know what he should do without her. 
 Jimmy was of the opinion that the time had come 
 to confess the truth, but Miss Mercutio considered it 
 would be premature just yet, and, rather than lose 
 everything through impatience, he agreed to wait a 
 little longer. 
 
 When the masquerade had lasted three months, 
 however, he began to feel that it should either have 
 proved effectual or ineffectual after a trial so long as 
 this, and he resolved to say as much to her definitely. 
 That he never did was due to the (iici that at the 
 moment he arrived at the decision, the servant came 
 in with a telegram. 
 
 The telegram was despatched from Dover, and 
 ran: 
 
 "Your father and I were married this morning. 
 He took to me so much he was anxious to make 
 the contract permanent. Don't grieve, dear boy, 
 but buck up — Stepmother."
 
 ^56 A DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT. 
 
 And the only tiling that can be said in mitiga- 
 tion of her offence is that Lady Brennan never bore 
 
 a son.
 
 A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION.
 
 A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION. 
 
 He had run through some thirty or forty thou- 
 sand pounds. He had dropped money on the turf, 
 at the Tables, and made a fool of himself in various 
 ways; but the fellows who knew him best were all 
 of a mind that "dear old Harry" had never before 
 made such a fool of himself as he did in converting 
 little Myra Bromley into Mrs. Henry Capel. 
 
 Nevertheless it was a matter of opinion. In the 
 theatre — in the dressing-rooms — there were not 
 wanting ladies of Miss Bromley's own profession who 
 considered that the girl was getting a good deal the 
 worse of the bargain. 
 
 "My dear," said the girl who played the Amazon 
 chief in the highly successful burlesque which had 
 just entered the second year of its run; "my dear,
 
 l6o A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION. 
 
 take my advice, and never many a gentleman! 
 Marry a mummer for choice, or a shopkeeper, or a 
 shoebhick, or best of all, don't marry anyone. But 
 a gentleman's fatal — and a gentleman without any 
 money — good Lord!" Words failed her; she threw 
 up her hands warningly, and a small chorus of ap- 
 proval showed that the house was with her. 
 
 All the same little Myra Bromley did many Mr. 
 Harry Capel. For one thing, he was the first man 
 who had ever asked her to be his wife; and for an- 
 other, she was very genuinely in love with him in- 
 deed. - 
 
 She migrated from her 'combined room' in the 
 Kennington cjuarter to furnished apartments in Mad- 
 dox Street, and here, on the first floor of a lodging 
 house, the ill-assorted couple started housekeeping. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to say she left the stage. 
 Some things are inevitable, and one of them is that 
 an actress always leaves the stage when she marries, 
 and as invariably returns to it sooner or later. 
 
 She did not want to leave it, for she knew her 
 husband's position, and understood that the five
 
 A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION. l6l 
 
 pounds a week salary that she was drawing would 
 be very useful to them, but Mr. Capel insisted. 
 
 "My dear child," he said, "is it likely I would 
 allow you to remain! We may not be very flush 
 just at present, l)ut I am sure we shall be comfort- 
 able, and I should not know a moment's peace if 
 you continued at the 'Audacity' as my wife. No, 
 no, we'll live quietly here for awhile until I drop 
 into something, and presently, take my word for it, 
 you will forget you ever were an actress at all!" 
 
 As a matter of fact the conclusion was somewhat 
 irrelevant, for her desire had been prompted far less 
 by any yearnings for histrionic triumphs than by the 
 wish to augment their slender income. But she 
 obeyed, as a wife should, and for six months or 
 more her only visits to the theatre were made in the 
 dress-circle or the stalls. Sometimes she got orders, 
 and sometimes Mr. Capel paid. At first it was very 
 good fun — the unaccustomed position on the other 
 side of the foot-lights. She enjoyed the novelty of 
 it, her gloved hands folded, and the lorgnette by 
 her side, but by degrees both of the pair began to 
 
 A Qtiesfion of Colour. I I
 
 1 62 A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION. 
 
 sigh for the past they had rehnquished. The girl's 
 thoughts followed the players to the dressing-rooms 
 between the acts, and the man began to reflect 
 moodily that the matrimonial blisses were a shade slow 
 compared with the bachelor frolics of auld lang syne. 
 
 And he did not "drop into" anything, and their 
 capital ran v'cry low. The gingerbread began to 
 show through the gilt, and it was stale gingerbread 
 moreover, at least to the man. 
 
 Little Mrs. Capel was neglected by her husband, 
 and bored by her meditations. He took to going 
 out alone in the evening now. He said that if he 
 was to get hold of any post, it was necessary to 
 meet fellows, and keep in the swim. There may 
 have been something in it, but it was not lively for 
 the woman staring at the clock, and the re-read 
 periodicals, or the scaffolding of the houses that were 
 undergoing repairs on the opposite side of the way. 
 
 She told him so once ; it was the prelude to the crisis. 
 
 He had been out all day, and only returned at 
 dinner-time, to hastily swallow the meal, and retire 
 to his room in order to dress.
 
 A WOISIAN OF NO REPUTATION. 1 63 
 
 When he re-entered the parlour, she inquired 
 where he was going. 
 
 "Is it essential," she said ironically, "to come in 
 at all? Your visits are so brief that it seems to me 
 you must find it an inconvenience to make them." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean," said Mrs. Capel, "that I am moping 
 myself to death. I married you for your society, 
 Harry, and I need not remind you that I am not 
 getting much of it." 
 
 He was hipped, angry, out of sorts. He had 
 lost a pony at a race-meeting that day, and a pony 
 to him now was as a monkey a little while ago. 
 
 "I am sorry," he said savagely, "that you regret 
 my marrying you; if you were single again, you may 
 take my word for it, I wouldn't!" 
 
 It was the first occasion that anything like plain- 
 speaking on the subject had occurred between them. He 
 seized his hat, and left the house in a rage ; Myra sat 
 still \vith the tears in her eyes and mutiny in her soul. 
 
 Why should she be left to eat out her heart like 
 this, she demanded of herself. Better the distrac-
 
 164 A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION. 
 
 tions of her old life a thousand times. He regretted 
 their marriage, and she, too, regretted it. Well, 
 then, he could lead his own life, and she would lead 
 hers. She would go to the "Audacity" the very 
 next morning, and try for a re-engagement. She 
 would go to-night — now! The sooner, the wiser. 
 They were preparing for a new piece. To-morrow 
 might be too late. 
 
 She ran into the bedroom her husband had just 
 vacated, and hastily proceeded to don her cloak and 
 hat. In fastening the latter, she dropped the pin, 
 and, stooping for it, found that it had fallen on the 
 jacket he had exchanged for a dress-coat. 
 
 She picked them both up together, and a note 
 fell out of the jacket-pocket — a note in a woman's 
 handwriting, which began "My Ducky." 
 
 She was not a heroine, only a very natural girl, 
 and she read the note through from the address to 
 the signature. When she had finished the perusal, 
 she took the cloak and hat off again, and sat down 
 in the armchair, thinking, until Mr. Capel returned. 
 It was one o'clock when the street-door was unlocked.
 
 A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION. 1 65 
 
 and his steps were lieard ascending the stairs. Mrs. 
 Capel stood up, with the note in her hand. 
 
 "You should be more careful," she said; "or 
 perhaps since you regretted your marriage so deeply, 
 you were anxious I should assist you to regain your 
 freedom. I promise you to do my best." 
 
 "Are you mad?" 
 
 "No," she said, "I am very sane. We have both 
 made a desperate mistake, and my eyes are opened 
 to it. Six months ago I should have l)een prostrate 
 with misery to find you false to me. To-day I thank 
 Heaven for my chance of escape. I can divorce 
 you, and I mean to do it." 
 
 "You are mistaken," he answered sullenly. "I 
 am sorry to dispel an illusion, but you cannot divorce 
 me. I may have been false to you, but I have 
 never been cruel. You are my wife, and you will 
 have to continue so." 
 
 "I will not live with you another day!" 
 
 "Oh, that may be, but my wife you are, and will 
 remain. Any lawyer will tell you as much." 
 
 She broke down then, and wept passionately;
 
 I 66 A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION. 
 
 and clumsily, because he was ashamed of himself, 
 he strove to console her. His efforts, however, were 
 quite unavailing, and after abandoning the attempt 
 in despair, and seeking refuge in a pipe, he left her 
 to herself, and turned into bed. 
 
 When he woke the next morning, she was gone. 
 He must have slept soundly, for her box was packed, 
 and her preparations liad not disturbed him. 
 
 A letter lay on the table beside him, and, read- 
 ing it, he saw that she had left him for ever. On 
 the whole, he was relieved to learn it, and he was 
 not surprised in the course of three or four days to 
 see her name announced as a member of the forth- 
 coming "Audacity" burlesque. Well, the episode 
 was over. He had tried most things, and found 
 them a failure before essaying matrimony, and mar- 
 riage had proved as empty as the rest. There was 
 nothing now to prevent him resuming without re- 
 strictions the more unfettered life he had forsaken 
 at the temptation of little Myra Bromley's pretty 
 face. He would clear out of the Maddox Street 
 lodging, and take a couple of rooms somewhere eji
 
 A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION. 1 67 
 
 gar^on. He balanced his cash, and decided that lie 
 was justified in treating himself to a well-chosen 
 little dinner, and a music-hall afterwards. As for 
 Myra, he did not want any more to do with her. 
 She had left him, and he did not intend to think of 
 her again. It was his "reward" he told himself 
 bitterly for marrying her — her recriminations and 
 desertion. He felt that he had been guilty of a 
 certain King Cophetua nobility in making her his 
 wife at all when — . No, he could not dupe himself 
 about that; she had been honest enough, but it had 
 been very generous of him notwithstanding! He 
 could not exactly determine why, but it had been a 
 mesalliance, and when a man made a mesalliance the 
 least he had a right to look for in return was grati- 
 tude and devotion. Bah, if he were wise, he would 
 go down to the theatre, and box her ears in the 
 presence of a witness or two, and let her get her 
 divorce after all. On the whole he thought he 
 would! Let the account close — wipe it out — ob- 
 literate it. Hang her! 
 
 Whether he would, or would not have done so
 
 1 68 A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION. 
 
 in the ordinary course of events, however, there is no 
 means of determining. He did not, as things turned 
 out, because while he was still considering it, Myra 
 Bromley made a sudden and unexpected leap into 
 public favour, and commanded in the course of a 
 very few months a salary of first twenty-five, next 
 thirty, and then fifty pounds a week. Mr. Capel, 
 his ire exhausted, perceived that in ridding himself 
 of a wife on whom he had a right to levy handsome 
 contributions he would be (to use an expressive 
 vulgarism) pulling his nose to spite his fiice. 
 
 His circumstances, thanks to the illness of the 
 "principal" into whose shoes the fortunate little 
 "understudy" had stepped, were now vastly im- 
 proved. He took very cosy chambers indeed; called 
 on his tailor; and was no longer ashamed to sun 
 himself in Piccadilly between the hours of three and 
 five. His correspondence with the goose who laid 
 the golden eggs was rare and brief; but sometimes, 
 when his allowance had failed to suffice for his 
 weekly requirements, he dropped a polite request 
 for an additional "tenner", and, as Myra herself was
 
 A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION. I 69 
 
 living quite cheaply, she always had it to spare, and 
 sent it to him. This state of things continued for 
 three years, and then — as might have been foreseen 
 — Mrs. Henry Capel fell in love with an actor. 
 
 He was ready, and anxious, to marry her, but 
 she explained her position to him, and told him, 
 without disguising her love, that they could never be 
 anything more than they were to each other while 
 her husband lived. She was, as she had always 
 been, as straight as a die, and no breath of scandal 
 had touched her. Charlie Eames, who was a 
 thoroughly good fellow, did not attempt to shake 
 her resolution. He only pondered miserably, and 
 then, arriving at a plan of action, went to her at 
 last, and suggested it. 
 
 "This blackguard of yours is in Society, isn't 
 he?" he said. "Knows lots of swell people, and 
 they all know he is married to you? Well, look 
 here, Myra darling, you can't divorce him — compel 
 liiyn to divorce you. If you are known to be openly 
 living with me, he won't be able to help himself — 
 he daren't let it be said, that he refuses to divorce 
 you because he makes you keep him out of your
 
 lyO A WOMAN OF NO REPUTATION. 
 
 salary, and there coitld be no other explanation of 
 his attitude! For very shame he'll have to proceed, 
 and I swear to you on all my gods I'll make you 
 my wife the moment the decree nisi is made abso- 
 lute. What do you say?" 
 
 She demurred a long time, but she ended by 
 saying what most women similarly circumstanced 
 would have said. She said she trusted her lover, 
 and that her husband was a scoundrel. She con- 
 sented, and Mr. Capel to his egregious disgust found 
 his hand forced beyond remonstrance. 
 
 Myra Capel is Mrs. Charlie Eames to-day, and a 
 very happy wife. Mr. Henry Capel is borrowing 
 fivers, and drifting so rapidly towards a subsistence 
 derived from the billiard-rooms that he already re- 
 grets his concession to appearances. Such a number 
 of people knew the true inwardness of the undefended 
 case Capel v. Capel and Eames that to many this 
 narrative of it will be dull reading. It is written for 
 the larger public who knew nothing that did not 
 appear ui the newspaper, and who wasted such a 
 great deal of unnecessary sympathy on the petitioner.
 
 THE MINX.
 
 THE MINX. 
 
 The seventeentli of July, 1875, was the day on 
 which Dr. Everard Tighe arrived at the conclusion 
 that he ought to marry. The question was — whom? 
 A girl without money would simply add to his em- 
 barrassments; and a lady witli it — where was she to 
 be found? 
 
 He filled his pipe, and stared out at the little 
 sunny street moodily. He was a young man, not 
 yet thirty, and he had been established in Paddleton- 
 on-Sands three years now. He regretted extremely 
 that he had ever come to it. He had bought a poor 
 practice, partly because the purchase-money was 
 small, and partly because he was under the impres- 
 sion that the small income it produced was due to 
 the advanced age of the gentleman whom he displaced.
 
 I 7 4 THE MINX. 
 
 His residence in the town, however, so far from con- 
 firming him in the latter idea, had shown him that 
 it was due far more to the fact that in Paddleton 
 people were seldom ill. 
 
 While he was meditating, a knock came at the 
 street-door. 
 
 "If you please, sir," said the little maid, putting 
 her head into the room, "will you step round to No. 7 
 in the Crescent?" 
 
 "No. 7," he repeated; "they let apartments there, 
 don't they?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; it is a lady from London who is ill, 
 and wants to see you, sir — ISIi's. Tenterden." 
 
 He took up his hat, and went round at once. 
 
 "Mrs. Tenterden?" 
 
 "Upstairs, sir; will you come this way?" 
 
 He followed the servant to the first floor, and 
 was ushered into the drawing-room, where a lady 
 was lying on the sofa. At his entrance she turned 
 languidly: 
 
 "Ah, Dr. Tighe, how good of you to come so
 
 THE MINX. 175 
 
 quickly!" she murmured. "I only arrived here last 
 nighl, and I am suffering terribly." 
 
 "In what way?" he inquired, drawing a chair to 
 the couch, and placing his finger on her pulse. 
 
 "My nerves," she said; "I suffer wretchedly with 
 my nerves — I am a perfect martyr to them. I was 
 advised to try the quietest place I could find, and 
 then somebody suggested Paddleton. I have left 
 town, and broken half a hundred engagements. It 
 is most irritating." 
 
 It did not take him long to perceive that there 
 was nothing the matter with her; nothing, that is to 
 say, that quiet and regular hours would not speedily 
 set right. 
 
 She was a pretty woman, a very pretty woman, 
 though he could not be blind to the fact that she 
 owed something to her toilette. The dead-white 
 skin that her long, dark lashes swept so bewitchingly 
 was blanc de perk, he knew; and the clustering 
 golden curls upon her forehead — were they not dyed? 
 He fancied that they were. But the effect was charm-
 
 176 THE MINX. 
 
 ing; and, as she appeared to have plenty of money 
 to waste in fees, she was a godsend in every way, 
 
 "Under whom were you in town, Mrs. Tenter- 
 den?" he asked. 
 
 She named one of the most fashionable physi- 
 cians of the day. 
 
 "Did he send you to me?" 
 
 This was pure bounce; for the fashionable phy- 
 sician, he was perfectly aware, had never so much 
 as heard his name. 
 
 "He did not know I was coming here," answered 
 Mrs. Tenterden. "Paddleton was an impulse of my 
 own. I hope I sha'n't regret it." 
 
 "I don't think you need have any fear of that," 
 he said professionally; "a few weeks' rest and care 
 will set you up again, I trust. I will write you a 
 prescription." 
 
 He ordered her a simple tonic and left her, with 
 profuse instructions as to the diet she was to adopt. 
 
 "At nine a plain breakfast," he said; "eggs, 
 boiled fish, and tea, not to be infused more than 
 three minutes (or cocoa, if you prefer it), dry toast
 
 THE MINX. 177 
 
 or brown bread and butter — the bread of the day 
 previous, if you please. A gentle walk, from half an 
 hour to three-quarters, at twelve, if you feel capable 
 of it, or a drive otherwise. Dinner at one o'clock, 
 madam: fish, plain roast or boiled meat, and a 
 farinaceous pudding. High tea: eggs, chicken, and 
 so on; and to bed at ten. In a month you will be 
 a new woman, Mrs. Tenterden. May I ask if you 
 expect your husband to join you here?" 
 
 "I am a widow," she said. "Thank you, and 
 good morning, Dr. Tighe." 
 
 He went downstairs, and rubbed his hands. If 
 he knew anything of human nature, she was good 
 for a daily visit as long as she remained in the place. 
 
 He was with her at eleven the following day, 
 and contemplated her with attention. 
 
 "You have not been taking your medicine regu- 
 larly?" he said. 
 
 "I missed one dose," she admitted penitently. 
 
 "I knew it. Please be careful. I never write 
 prescriptions for the fun of the thing, and it is es- 
 sential that they should be followed exactly," 
 
 A Question of Colour. I 2
 
 lyS THR I\I1NX. 
 
 She marvelled at his penetration — the "penetra- 
 tion" that had divined she would either have for- 
 gotten a dose or taken it late. 
 
 "I feel myself better already, though," she de- 
 clared. 
 
 "You would have been better still if you had 
 obeyed me fully," he replied, gravely. "Still, I can 
 detect an improvement." 
 
 He saw also that she had another tea-gown on, 
 and that she admired him. He did her the honour 
 to be flattered by the notice she accorded him. 
 
 Every morning for a fortnight Dr. Tighe presented 
 himself at No. 7 in the Crescent now, varying the 
 tonic occasionally by giving her bark instead of iron, 
 or by prescribing quinine in pills. He even remained 
 after the professional visit was paid, indulging in con- 
 versation with his fair patient. 
 
 "You are wasted in Paddleton, Dr. Tighe," she 
 told him one day; "you ought to be in town." 
 
 He sighed. "I can't afford it, Mrs. Tenterden." 
 It will be seen they had become quite confidential in 
 their conferences.
 
 THE MINX. 179 
 
 "Not afford it?" slie repealed. "But you would 
 make heaps of money there, I am sure!" 
 
 "I should first have to make the practice." 
 
 "I understand. But with introductions " 
 
 "From whom?" 
 
 "From me. I know everybody that is worth 
 knowing; I could send you shoals of people, and I 
 would." 
 
 "It is extremely kind of you to think of such a 
 thing," he said; "but I fear, all the same, that it 
 would be a dangerous experiment, licsides — w^ell, 
 I need not bore you with details." 
 
 "You wouldn't bore me at all," i^be replied softly. 
 "Please go on." 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Tenterden, to avail myself properly 
 of the plan you are good enough to suggest, I should 
 need a fiishionable address. 'Dr. Tighe of Netting 
 Hill or Bermondsey' would stand no chance at all. 
 I should require to establish myself in Berkeley Street, 
 or Grosvenor Street, or somewhere in the neighbour- 
 hood of the West End squares, and the rent would 
 ruin me in six months."
 
 1 8o THE MINX. 
 
 "Not if Loudon flocked to you, Doctor!" 
 "You could promise so much as that?" 
 "Practically," said Mrs. Tenterden, "yes! Think 
 it over. Dr. Tighe. I've a selfish motive, I confess 
 it, for I am afraid of finding myself out of your 
 hands again; but you need not imagine I shall be 
 your only patient if you come, for all that!" 
 
 Of course, he did think it over. It was impos- 
 sible to avoid it. The temptation was huge, and, 
 though the risk was commensurate, he could not 
 help asking himself in moments if this was not the 
 "tide" in his affairs which demanded to be taken at 
 the flood. If Mrs. Tenterden were not exaggerating 
 her influence and position, there was no doubt that 
 she would make him — make him! He thrilled. She 
 certainly appeared to be wealthy. Though she was 
 staying in a cheap place, her style of living, her 
 maid, and her costumes all bespoke the woman of 
 fashion. It was really an extraordinary piece of 
 luck that had befiillen him, and one that was not 
 to be lightly dismissed. 
 
 However, when at the end of six weeks Mrs.
 
 TFIK MINX. I 8 I 
 
 Tentcrden returned to London, fully restored to 
 health, he had still not arrived at a decision in the 
 matter. He slipped a little packet of bank-notes in 
 his waistcoat-pocket, and bade her adieu with a 
 smile. 
 
 "I must go on Ihiiiking it over," he declared. 
 "It is too big a thing to determine all at once." 
 
 "Let me know what you do determine," she 
 said. "I promise you a capital practice in six 
 months; for six months you say you can last. Ah 
 revoir, Dr. Tighc!" 
 
 When she had been gone awhile he was sorry 
 he had hesitated. The scantiness of his practice in 
 Paddleton emphasised itself more persistently upon 
 him now that his one good patient had left it. He 
 told himself he had been a cowardly idiot. It had 
 been his chance in life, and he had let it slip. He 
 was half a dozen times upon the point of writing to 
 her to the address in Mayfair that she had given 
 him, but was on each occasion deterred by the 
 thought that with her removal ffom his presence her 
 impulse to serve him might have died. To write
 
 152 THE MINX. 
 
 and tell her he embraced her kind offer, and to re- 
 ceive no reply, would be too humiliating. While he 
 was upbraiding himself for his earlier vacillation he 
 had a letter from her. 
 
 She wrote begging him to send her the last of 
 his prescriptions over again. It had done her so 
 much good, and she had mislaid it. She had been 
 forced to see Sir Everard Dulcimer (the fashionable 
 physician) since her return. "But after you, dear 
 Dr. Tighe, I find him so futile and banal. Have 
 you made up your mind to follow my suggestion? 
 How I wish you would answer 'yes'! 'Dr. Everard 
 Tighe has been summoned to the distinguished 
 patient's residence.' 'By the advice of his friends, 
 the eminent statesman has resolved to place himself 
 in the hands of Dr. Everard Tighe.' Ah, me! a pet 
 dream of mine; but will it ever be more?" Kindest 
 regards followed, and she was "his very truly, 
 Geraldine Tenterden." 
 
 He replied the same day, sending her the pre- 
 scription she asked for, and telling her that flesh- 
 and-blood was too weak to resist the picture she
 
 THE MINX. 183 
 
 had drawn. He thought it pohtic to imply that not 
 the least attractive feature of the irresistible "im- 
 pression" was the fact that lie would again have the 
 pleasure of being near her. He would, he said, at- 
 tempt to make the necessary arrangements im- 
 mediately; and he, with warmest gratitude, was "hers 
 very truly, Everard Tighe." 
 
 Now that the resolution was reached he lost no 
 time in commencing preliminaries. He wrote to an 
 agent at once, informing him of his desire to dispose 
 of his practice, and incpiiring if he knew of any pos- 
 sible purchaser. He quoted the returns for the past 
 three years, and begged that he might be com- 
 municated with as speedily as possible. Nevertheless, 
 some months necessarily elapsed before anything de- 
 finite was done. 
 
 Christmas was at hand by the time the agent 
 had found him a purchaser, and it was J.inuary be- 
 fore Dr. Tighe was free to shake the sand of Pad- 
 dleton from his shoes and depart with a third-class 
 ticket for the Metropolis. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that there had been no
 
 184 THE ISIINX. 
 
 correspondence all this while between him and Mrs. 
 Tenterden; on the contrary, several letters had passed, 
 and he was to lunch with her the day after his arrival. 
 
 I have not said that Dr. Tighe was a very hand- 
 some young man; hut he possessed that valuable 
 advantage. He had, as a matter of fact, never looked 
 better when he presented himself next morning at 
 Mrs. Tenterden's. His clear-cut features, brilliant 
 grey eyes, and wavy hair — worn sufficiently long to 
 be longer than most men's — all combined to give 
 him an air of distinction; and now the flush of ex- 
 pectancy upon his face lent him a suggestion of 
 buoyancy which was ordinarily missing. 
 
 Mrs. Tenterden welcomed him cordially, and 
 over luncheon, "I am delighted to see you!" she 
 declared. "I hope you have no misgivings? You 
 must let me know the moment you have an address, 
 and then I will begin to send people to you. Where 
 do you think of settling — any idea yet? There must 
 be nothing mean about it, you know. Make a big 
 splash, and you shall come up with your arms full 
 of fish."
 
 Tnrc MINX. 185 
 
 "T think Grosvenor Street," lie said; and she 
 nodded approval. 
 
 "Excellently chosen! Go and see about rooms 
 there at once; and, if I may advise yon, have a man- 
 servant. Men-servants are more impressive! With 
 a man-servant, and a good supply of the best pe- 
 riodicals, and mc, Dr. Tighc, you ought to set the 
 Thames on fire." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 "I shall never forget your kind interest, at any 
 rate," he returned; and as he answered he became 
 aware that the eyes of her "companion," a young 
 lady who made the third at the luncheon party, were 
 fixed on him with singular attention. 
 
 She had been introduced to him as Miss Marshall. 
 
 "May I hope to have you as one of my patients, 
 Miss Marshall," he asked, "supposing you are ever 
 so unfortunate as to need a doctor?" 
 
 "I shall never be a very lucrative one," she said. 
 "My health is so unromantically robust; but, such as 
 I am, count upon me." 
 
 Mrs. Tenterden smiled at her affectionately.
 
 I 86 THE MINX. 
 
 "No, Lydia is delightfully strong," she said; "she 
 and I are the antithesis of each other, and I believe 
 that was what first drew us together. Her constitu- 
 tion is just as magnificent as my own is weak." 
 
 Nevertheless, Miss Marshall did find occasion to 
 consult Dr. Tighe, and more than once; indeed, as 
 the months went on, she became, on one pretext or 
 another, a frequent caller at the rooms in Grosvenor 
 Street that he had leased. Nor was she by any 
 means his only patient. Mrs. Tenterden proved as 
 good as her word, and by degrees he found himself 
 acquiring a practice that astonished him. 
 
 He felt, as was natural, the warmest gratitude 
 for the woman who had done so much for him, the 
 more so that he saw she had a sincere liking for 
 him. Why euphemise? He saw that Mrs. Tenterden 
 had fallen in love with him, and, albeit he was no 
 more mercenary than his neighbours, it was impos- 
 sible for him to avoid the reflection that her position 
 made her in every way the most desirable of wives. 
 
 But it must not be supposed that her wealth was 
 her only attraction in Everard Tighe's eyes. Grati-
 
 THE MINX. 187 
 
 tilde is capable of many developments, and, when 
 the woman to whom one is grateful is extremely 
 good-looking, it demands no extraordinary effort to 
 feel a tenderer sentiment for her also. 
 
 He began to seriously consider the idea of pro- 
 posing to her. He was a constant visitor at her 
 house, and one afternoon when he was announced 
 he found her alone. 
 
 "How are you getting on?" she inciuired. "Come, 
 have you ever regretted taking my advice?" 
 
 "Indeed, no," he rejoined; "you have done won- 
 ders for me, Mrs. Tenterden. I was looking at my 
 books only this morning. You have been a friend 
 indeed." 
 
 "And I am more glad than I can say," she an- 
 swered. "I made up my mind to be of service to you, 
 and if I had f:iiled it would have broken my heart." 
 
 She said it so earnestly that it sounded more 
 than a graceful phrase; it made him feel that her 
 heart had truly been concerned in the matter. 
 
 "How can I ever show my gratitude?" he asked. 
 "You have placed me under a lifelong debt to you."
 
 158 THE MINX. 
 
 "Oh, it is nothing!" she murmured. "Between 
 friends — what would not one do to serve a friend!" 
 
 An offer of marriage rose to his Hps, and in an- 
 otlier moment lie would have uttered it. At this 
 juncture, however, the door opened, and Miss Marshall 
 entered. 
 
 She shot a quick glance from him to Mrs. Ten- 
 terden, and he thought she looked suspicious. 
 
 "Ah, Dr. Tighe!" she said. "I did not know 
 that you were here." 
 
 She had rather a hard voice by nature, Init when 
 she addressed him it always softened surprisingly. 
 He was not conceited, and the fact of Mrs. Tenterden 
 having fallen in love with him engrossed him too 
 much for him to be very observant of the manner of 
 her companion. Had it been otherwise, he might 
 have remarked that the widow was not the only 
 woman who found his society attractive; he might 
 have questioned, too, what had brought Miss Mar- 
 shall so often to consult him — she who had boasted 
 on their introduction of her vigorous constitution, her 
 robust health.
 
 THK MINX. 189 
 
 "Have you had lea, Geraldine?" 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Tenterden, "not yet. You might 
 ring, dear, if you don't mind." 
 
 The footman came in with the tea equipage in 
 a few minutes, and the personal character of the 
 conversation was exchanged for the Hghtest of small 
 talk. The doctor sat in a low chair by the window, 
 and by the table sat the two women who had fallen 
 in- love with him — mistress and "companion" — each 
 inwardly conscious of the other's passion, and each 
 striving to rival the other in his attentions. 
 
 Something Tighe had said — some chance remark 
 — brought up the subject of feminine beauty; and 
 its value was discussed, much after the fashion of 
 the question one puts to the children: "Would you 
 rather be good and plain, or naughty and beautiful?" 
 
 "You, Doctor, set a great store upon women's 
 appearances, I should say," remarked Miss Marshall; 
 "you are a great admirer of exterior charms!" 
 
 "I acknowledge it," said Tighe. "Beauty may 
 be only 'skin deep,' but it is very fascinating, and 
 even a medical man is made of flesh and blood ! "
 
 IQO THE MINX. 
 
 Mrs. Tenlcrdcn smiled. 
 
 "When you many, it won't be a plain girl, then, 
 Dr. Tighe?" 
 
 "No," he said; "if I marry, it zvon't be a plain 
 girl. I should like to see loveliness in my home. 
 Do you blame me for it?" 
 
 "Not at all," she returned; "1 think it is very 
 nice of you. They may say that we women simply 
 dress for one another, but I am quite sure that if 
 men ceased to notice whether we looked well or not, 
 we should all become deplorably careless in no 
 time." 
 
 "But 'dress' and 'beauty'?" said Miss Marshall, 
 with a rather spiteful laugh. "You will lead Dr. 
 Tighe to assume we put on our comeliness at the 
 toilet-table!" 
 
 Mrs. Tenterden flushed. 
 
 "I meant nothing of the kind, of course. At 
 the same time, nobody looks her best in a dowdy 
 frock, or in a last year's bonnet." 
 
 "True loveliness needs not the foreign aid of 
 ornament," began Tighe perfunctorily; and then he
 
 THE MINX. 19 I 
 
 stopped, rcmeniLcfing thai his liosless did not dis- 
 dain to heighten her cliarms by the secret aid of 
 cosmetics. "Well, I must be going?" he declared, 
 rising, and holding out his hand. The hands of 
 both women lingered in it. As she said "good-bye," 
 Miss Marshall's gaze met his in an almost direct 
 avowal, and for the fust time he began to have 
 suspicions of the truth. 
 
 Should he marry Mrs. Tenterden, or not? Her 
 position need not weigh with him a grain, for he 
 was practically inde[)endent and on the highway to 
 success. Nor, to be candid, was he so desperately 
 enamoured of her that she was essential to his 
 happiness. He was fond of her — she had behaved 
 splendidly to him. The whole matter was comprised 
 by this. Miss Marshall, on the contrary, ran in his 
 head strangely after that parting glance she had 
 flashed at him. She was a handsome girl, a curious 
 girl — did she like him? She was much younger 
 than Mrs. Tenterden, and of healthier stock; as a 
 medical man the latter reflection had weight with 
 him. Really, he would think of Miss Marshall,
 
 192 THE MINX. 
 
 He was, as a matter of fact, thinking of her next 
 morning, when his servant brought in her name; 
 she was continually coming to him — it admitted of 
 only the one explanation! He smiled consciously, 
 and ordered the man to show her in. 
 
 "Good morning. Miss Marshall." 
 
 "Good morning. Dr. Tighe. 1 have been forced 
 to take advantage of your kindness again; I passed 
 so shocking a night." 
 
 "Indeed!" he said, simulating concern. 
 
 "I really believe I suffer from insomnia." 
 
 "I do not think you have insomnia, Miss Mar- 
 shall. Is there any mental worry? You young 
 ladies are romantic, I know! Are you not possibly 
 in love?" 
 
 "In love! I have no time for such nonsense," 
 she said scornfully. "I leave that for others." 
 
 "Others, Miss Marshall?" 
 
 She looked at him slily under her half-closed lids: 
 
 "For Mrs. Tenterden, for one!" 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Tenterden is in love, is she? And 
 with whom?"
 
 THE MINX. 193 
 
 "Oh, I'm sure I can't say that! lint I think 
 she's in love. Perhaps you can guess the gentle- 
 man?" 
 
 "Why should I be able to guess his name?" 
 asked Tighe. "I do not know half Mrs. Tenter- 
 den's friends. Anyhow, he is a lucky man." 
 
 "You think so?" 
 
 "Why not? Young, charming, amiable " 
 
 "And rich!" 
 
 "And rich," he agreed, "what man might not 
 be proud to call her his wife?" 
 
 "Yes, it is a fact," Miss Marshall acknowledged, 
 "she has a host of advantages. And I'm sure I 
 should offer her the sincerest of congratulations, 
 no matter whom she married, so long as she were 
 happy." 
 
 She said this so bitterly that it was the veriest 
 pretence on the man's part when he bowed as if he 
 credited her assertion. 
 
 "Well, as regards yourself," he continued, "I will 
 give you a composing mixture. Let me know if 
 you fail to derive benefit from it. But I think it 
 
 A Quest ion of Colour. 1 3
 
 I 9 4 THE MINX. 
 
 will do you good, Miss Marshall; indeed I am certain 
 of it." 
 
 He Avrote her a prescription, and, after she was 
 gone, sat down and mused. He would have mused 
 more deeply still could he have seen her face as she 
 turned into the street. 
 
 "He loves her!" she muttered fiercely. "I'll 
 swear it! Does he fancy he took me in with his 
 affected ignorance? But I'll spoil your chance yet, 
 Mrs. Tenterden — I will — whatever I may have to do 
 to stop him marrying you!" 
 
 All her veins were on fire with jealousy and 
 hatred. How to prevent Dr. Everard Tighe pro- 
 posing to Mrs. Tenterden, how to win him for her- 
 self, was her only thought. It looked almost im- 
 possible to her sometimes, and no plan suggested 
 itself to her, meditate as she might. She had fallen 
 in love with him at first sight, and day by day she 
 had seen him subjugated still further by the painted 
 fascinations of her mistress. Those golden curls 
 Mrs. Tenterden's own? Not they — she knew better! 
 Nor the eyebrows, nor the rose-bloom on the cheeks.
 
 THE MINX, 195 
 
 She could divine how the hidy looked in early 
 morning. Oh, if Dr. Tighe could only l)e l)roughl 
 to look upon her thus! How exquisite it would be! 
 
 The thousand kindnesses, the many instances of 
 generosity, that Mrs. Tenterden had shown her did 
 not weigh with her a scrap. Her jealousy took no 
 heed of such things. The thought that she might, 
 if only an opportunity occurred, disenchant the 
 Doctor and humiliate her mistress past endurance 
 thrilled her with a savage exultation. 
 
 And one day, about a fortnight later, an oppor- 
 tunity did occur. The two women were sitting 
 reading in the drawing-room. It was intensely, suf- 
 focatingly hot, and Mrs. Tenterden, who had been 
 complaining of a headache, suddenly exclaimed that 
 she felt faint. The next moment she was in a 
 swoon. 
 
 It was the chance of her "companion's" hfe. 
 
 Before attempting to revive her she pulled 
 violently at the bell. 
 
 "Take a hansom and drive to Dr. Tighe's this 
 instant!" she exclaimed to the servant. "Mrs. Ten- 
 
 13*
 
 ig6 THE MINX. 
 
 terden is ill. Bring him back with you; don't let 
 him waste a moment!" 
 
 The servant hastily withdrew; and then with 
 nimble fingers Miss Marshall proceeded to attend 
 upon the sufferer. The golden curls came off; she 
 took out the hairpins and tossed the fringe with 
 artistic carelessness upon the table. There was a 
 "frame" under the knot at the back, and, lo! the 
 knot was woven with a "tail"! Bay rum is notably 
 reviving, and nothing could be more reasonable 
 with a fainting person than to apply this liquid to 
 the face; but Miss Marshall, moistening her hand- 
 kerchief with it, rubbed very carefully at Mrs. Ten- 
 terden's eyebrows and cheeks, and when the cambric 
 was sufficiently soiled with smears of brown and 
 red, she threw it on the table to keep the curls 
 company. 
 
 Almost as the poor woman stirred the hansom 
 was heard returning, and, from the window, her 
 "companion" saw Tighe spring out. 
 
 She ran into the hall to meet him: 
 
 "Oh, Doctor, thank Heaven you were at home!
 
 THE MINX. I 97 
 
 Mrs. Tenterden is unconscious. 1 can't bring her to. 
 Pray go in!" 
 
 She motioned him through the o[)cn door; 
 watched his start of horror, and then, as she saw 
 her victim's eyes reopen, closed it gently behind from 
 the outside, and hstened. 
 
 She could at first detect only the faintest mur- 
 mur — Mrs. Tenterden was presumably saying how 
 unwell she felt. The Doctor's voice sounded in 
 reply; and then there was a pause. Next there 
 came a sharp exclamation; a shriek that made her 
 wring her hands together in ecstasy; a second 
 shriek, and a fit, it was evident, of the wildest hys- 
 terics. "Oh," said Miss Marshall to herself, "this is 
 heavenly ! " 
 
 Five minutes passed away, during which the 
 screams grew less, and presently they subsided alto- 
 gether. The murmur of voices in colloquy was 
 heard again, and this continued — how long? Half 
 an hour; three-quarters! What could they be talk- 
 ing of all this while? Miss Marshall's limbs began 
 to ache with the discomfort of her position. Was
 
 198 THE MINX. 
 
 Mrs. Tenterden seeking for impossible explanations; 
 was Dr. Tighe attempting to assuage her distress? 
 What was the meaning of it? She removed her ear 
 from the keyhole, and rose to her feet, prior to 
 taking a turn or two about the hall. 
 
 As she did so, Dr. Tighe opened the door, and 
 came out. 
 
 "Is she better. Doctor?" she gasped. 
 
 "A good deal!" he said, with an odd expression 
 in his eyes that made her shiver. "Be very gentle 
 with her, Miss Marshall, she deserves it. A nobler- 
 hearted woman doesn't live; and, besides, I have a 
 personal interest in the matter: I have just asked her 
 to be my wife!"
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN.
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 On a wet Oclol)er morning, when the season and 
 the rain made London an even more depressing place 
 to hve in than usual, a young woman sat in the 
 Coffee-room of a Temperance Hotel near the British 
 Museum attentively studying her bill. 
 
 She was a pretty woman, though twelvemonths of 
 anxiety had left a mark upon her; and her mourn- 
 ing was well-made, though another woman might 
 have remarked economies that a man would miss. 
 Yes, she was pretty, and altogether charming, and 
 not even the frown with which she sat contemplating 
 a disagreeable total was able to hide the facts that 
 the eyes she bent upon it were singularly blue, and 
 that the brow she puckered was low and fiiir. 
 
 As a matter of fact her charms were her mis-
 
 202 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 fortune, and they had stood in the way of her ob- 
 taining employment more than once. If she had 
 been plainer, she might — as the widow of the Rev. 
 Aubrey Tenterden — have secured a situation as 
 governess or companion with comparative ease, but 
 being as she was, it had proved a difficult matter, 
 and, with the collapse of the prospect which had 
 brought her up to town, nothing remained between 
 Anna Tenterden and destitution but twenty-three 
 shillings and elevenpence half-penny. 
 
 The objectionable bill, however, which repre- 
 sented a night's lodging and two frugal meals 
 amounted to less than half a sovereign, and her 
 return-ticket to Thornton Heath was in her pocket. 
 
 In Thornton Heath she had occupied two little 
 rooms for some months, paying the rent regularly 
 out of her diminishing capital, and answering ad- 
 vertisements with unvarying want of success. To 
 Thornton Heath it behoved her now to return; she 
 could not pay there regularly any longer, but for the 
 present at all events it bore a nearer approach to 
 "home" than anywhere else.
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 203 
 
 First, though, slie might as well look at the 
 papers. 
 
 "Waiter!" 
 
 The shuffling travesty of evening dress, the 
 yellow shirt front wandered over to her weakly. 
 
 "Bring me the morning papers please." 
 
 "Yes, 'm." 
 
 She picked up the top one abstractedly, and as 
 she did so her eyes fell on an advertisement suf- 
 ficiently curious for her to read it througli. 
 
 "The friends of Sholto Barkasset of the Criterion 
 Bank, Cape Town, who died of an accident received 
 in the Football Field will greatly oblige Professor 
 Barkasset, who has just returned from Egypt, by 
 calling on or corresponding with him during his 
 short stay at the Langham Hotel." 
 
 Her first emotion was a feeling of compassion 
 for the bereaved father — her second a vague chagrin 
 that she, who knew Cape Town so well, had never 
 numbered Mr. Sholto Barkasset among her acquaint- 
 ances. It might have been a very good thing for 
 her, but she had never seen him, never heard of
 
 204 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 him — probably she had left the Colony before he 
 arrived. It was seven years at least since she came 
 home. She had lost her mother since then, and 
 married, and buried her husband, and — heigho! She 
 stifled a sigh, and turned to the wanted columns. 
 
 But the suggestion of Mr. Sholto Barkasset con- 
 tinued to obtrude itself — she could not put it away. 
 Who could say what a helping hand the old man 
 might not have extended to her had she been able 
 to give him intimate accounts of this son he had 
 loved? And — it was so irritating — in Cape Town of 
 all places, where she had lived! If it had been 
 Cairo or Constantinople or Kamschatka, the thought 
 would probably never have recurred to her, but 
 Cape Town! 
 
 "Wanted a young person" — "A mndow dresser," 
 — "Somebody to pay ten shillings a week, and do 
 the work of a housemaid, in exchange for a com- 
 fortable home." She skimmed the columns moodily 
 — they were conventional, unpromising. Despite her 
 efforts to concentrate her attention on them, the 
 picture of an eager welcome from the "Professor
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 205 
 
 lately returned from Egypt" insisted iii)on disturbing 
 her. "What need prevent my saying that 1 knew 
 him," she murmured at length, "why shouldn't I? 
 What harm would it do? I zvilll" 
 
 If she had given herself time to reflect, the mad- 
 ness of the scheme would have deterred her from 
 endeavouring to put it into execution, but she did 
 not. She put on her bonnet at once, and, as if 
 fearful that her courage might take flight under the 
 tedium of an omnibus drive, she hailed a passing 
 hansom, and directed tlie man to drive to the 
 Langham Hotel. She would have added "Drive 
 quickly," but she only intended to give him a 
 shilling, and was timid with the consciousness. She 
 was embarking on an imposture that might have 
 daunted the rashest adventuress in London, but she 
 shrank from a quarrel with a cabman. 
 
 "Is Professor Barkasset in?" 
 
 "I'll inquire, madam. What name?" 
 
 "Mrs. Tenterden — of Cape Town." 
 
 She was committed to it now, and inwardly she 
 quailed a little as she stood waiting beside the hotel
 
 206 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 clerk's window. The difficulties in the way of her 
 sustaining the pretence manifested themselves to her 
 understanding more clearly than they had hitherto 
 done, and the doubt of there being any substantial 
 benefit to be reaped, even if she succeeded, op- 
 pressed her too. She felt for the first time that she 
 was about to do a wicked thing — to sport with an 
 old man's affection for the dead — she was ashamed 
 of herself. 
 
 She cast a furtive glance at the clerk to see if 
 she was observed — he was bending over some 
 accounts, and nobody in the hall was watching her. 
 There was time to withdraw after all. She moved 
 towards the door, slowly, so as not to attract atten- 
 tion, intending to make a hurried escape as soon as 
 the steps were gained. But she was too late. The 
 servant who had vanished with her card, now re- 
 appeared, and accosted her: "Will you come up- 
 stairs, madam?" She started, and attempted to look 
 composed. Then taking her courage in both hands, 
 she followed where he led. 
 
 The occupant of the room was a thin, bent, little
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 207 
 
 old man with quite white hair, and tlie sweetest 
 voice, she thought, that she had ever heard. 
 
 "Mrs, Tenterden?" he said, gently, "I cannot 
 say, madam, how grateful I am for the kindness of 
 your visit." 
 
 "Oh," she said, nervously, "it is nothing — I am 
 very glad." 
 
 "Won't you be seated?" 
 
 She sank on to the couch, and played with the 
 buttons of her glove. 
 
 "I saw your advertisement just now," she mur- 
 mured, "and as I am leaving Town to-day I thought 
 you would excuse so early a call." 
 
 "I cannot thank you for it enough," repeated the 
 Professor. "I was despairing of obtaining any result 
 from my appeal, and my boy was so dear to me, 
 Mrs. Tenterden, so dear." 
 
 "Your only son, I believe?" she said. 
 
 "Yes," he answered, "I had but one child — and 
 he is gone!" 
 
 "So I understood," she averred. "He often 
 spoke to me of his home, and you."
 
 208 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 The Professor shook his head sadly. 
 
 "He was very headstrong," he said. "If he had 
 not been, we miglit liave been together now." 
 
 "I think," said Mrs. Tenterden, "he often regretted 
 his liastiness, often regretted that he left England." 
 
 "I daresay. Poor lad, poor lad!" 
 
 There was a moment's pause. The Professor 
 wiped away a tear, and Mrs. Tenterden repressed a 
 tendency towards hysterics. 
 
 "Were you with him at— at the end, madam?" 
 
 "No," she replied, firmly. "He was quite well 
 when T left the Colony. He was among the friends 
 who saw me and my poor husband off. The news," 
 she faUered, "the news of his death was a terrible 
 shock to me; I shall never forget it — -never." 
 
 "You are a widow — you yourself have lost one 
 who was dear to you?" 
 
 She bowed her head. 
 
 "We have both suffered," said the Professor, 
 sympathetically. "It is another way of saying we 
 have both lived. But tell me — how long is it since 
 you last saw him?"
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 20g 
 
 The question was an awkward one, but con- 
 jecturing that he had died recently she answered 
 boldly: 
 
 "It is more than a year. Since then I have 
 been in England." 
 
 Her hearer nodded, and she breathed freely 
 again, 
 
 "You corresponded with him after your de- 
 parture?" he inquired. 
 
 "Frequently, but I fear very much that none of 
 his letters to me are in existence. I will have a 
 search made, though, if you wish it, and gladly send 
 you any lines of his that I may find." 
 
 "You are more than good. To me who parted 
 with the poor boy eight years ago, it is a greater 
 pleasure than I can express, to talk to one who 
 knew him so recently. I should have found him 
 much changed, I have no doubt, much changed?" 
 
 "Older certainly; one changes rapidly at that 
 age." 
 
 "I have a likeness of him here," said the Pro- 
 fessor, taking his note-case from the breast pocket 
 
 A Questioft of Colour. 1 4
 
 2IO AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 of his smoking-jacket, "which he sent me two years 
 before his death. You find it good of him?" 
 
 "Excellent," said Mrs. Tenterden, "I should 
 have recognised it immediately." 
 
 It was the photograph of a frank manly-looking 
 young fellow of twenty-five or so, and the sight of 
 it sent home to the woman more forcibly than ever 
 the baseness of the dissimulation she was practising. 
 
 "Excellent," she repeated, returning it hastily. 
 "He looks a man, Professor Barkasset, a man that 
 any father might be proud of." 
 
 "He was. Would you not say so yourself from 
 your own knowledge of him? Ah, I besiege you 
 with questions — I am impolite — it is not possible in 
 one interview for me to ask, or for you to tell, one 
 half of what I long to know! Mrs. Tenterden," — 
 the old, sweet voice shook painfully — "for years I 
 lived only with one hope — to have my boy back 
 with me again. And now that he is taken — how 
 can I make you understand — there is not an inci- 
 dent in his life, however trivial, that does not assume 
 pathetic and gigantic proportions to me. I used
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 2 I I 
 
 harsh words to huii, and these hard words come 
 back to me now, and torture me in the night. I 
 see him as he was as a child — then a schoolboy— I 
 remember his face the day he ran in to my study 
 with his first prize — I trace all his life through in 
 my memory up to one point — the hour when I 
 drove him away — to die, to die abroad!" 
 
 He covered his face with his hands, and sobbed 
 without disguise. The woman's pity for him had 
 grown as intense as her disgust for herself. 
 
 "You should not say that," she murmured, piti- 
 fully; "there were faults on both sides I am sure! 
 And — and — if you could have heard him speak of 
 you, you would know how dear he held you, how 
 much he respected and loved you always. That 
 likeness says little, but I — I who know — I tell you, 
 sir, that your son loved you as dearly as you your- 
 self could have desired. He may have written in- 
 different letters, young men do not write ardently, 
 excepting to women, but / hioiv. He was a good 
 son, he could not say enough about you!" 
 
 She would have given the contents of her purse, 
 
 14*
 
 212 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 and her credit at Tliornton Heath, never to have 
 come. 
 
 "Those years," quavered the old man, "those 
 years away from me! You cannot reahse how I 
 envy you who knew him in them! I envy you with 
 all my heart. You saw him constantly — frequently 
 at all events. You saw the house he lived in per- 
 haps, you knew his habits, his pleasures, I, his 
 father, am a stranger to it all. I was in Egypt when 
 I heard the news — you see what it has done for 
 me, I am feeble, ill. When I get stronger, Mrs. 
 Tenterden, do you know what I am going to do? 
 I am going to Cape Town, to visit the scenes in 
 which my poor boy lived." 
 
 "What can I say to you!" she exclaimed. 
 "What comfort can I offer!" 
 
 He rose, and smoothed his trembling hands 
 across his eyes. 
 
 "Come and see me again," he begged. "Come 
 and see me, and talk to me of him. Is it too 
 much to ask?"
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 2 I 3 
 
 "I— I fear—" she stammered; "I am leaving 
 London." 
 
 "You do not live here?" 
 
 "I Hve nowhere for the moment; I am a bird of 
 passage, my movements are uncertain." 
 
 The Professor looked at her eagerly. 
 
 "If all places are alike to you," he said, "if for 
 a few days you could spare the time — ? Mis. Ten- 
 terden, I am an old man, too old for you to hesitate 
 from motives of convention; to-morrow I am going 
 home — I have a house in Worthing — will you — dare 
 I ask you — to be my guest?" 
 
 She was always glad to remember that she de- 
 clared it was impossible. It soothed her conscience 
 to reflect that she refused an invitation which looked 
 little short of salvation to her. 
 
 "I have so much business to attend to. Pro- 
 fessor," she said, "that I am hardly a free agent 
 just now. Later on perhaps I may be able to in- 
 dulge in a holiday. If so — " 
 
 "If so," he said, anxiously, "you will wiite me, 
 will you not? You will give an old man a great
 
 214 ^^ UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 happiness? In the meantime, Mrs. Tenterden, I 
 should hke to keep your card — that I may remind 
 you of your promise, if need be?" 
 
 She gave him the address of her lodgings, men- 
 tally questioning how long it would be before the 
 landlady turned her out. 
 
 "May I offer you anything," he inquired, "coffee, 
 wine? You will not go without some refreshment?" 
 
 "Nothing, thanks, really. I have just break- 
 fasted." 
 
 But he had already rung the bell. 
 
 "Champagne?" he said, persuasively, "Cham- 
 pagne and a biscuit — you mil not decline that? 
 I know ladies always love a glass of champagne — it 
 is so pretty to look at." 
 
 So she drank a couple of glasses of champagne, 
 and felt branded for life as a thief — a wretch who 
 obtained wine, and biscuits, and invitations by false 
 pretences. The Professor did little more than set 
 his lips to his glass, and after a few minutes she 
 put out her hand, and bade him farewell. 
 
 "Remember your son loved you," she said; and
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 215 
 
 he answered: "God bless you! You liave done me 
 good, Mrs. Tenterden." 
 
 She went out into the street more abaslied than 
 ever she had been in lier Hfe. She strove to con- 
 sole herself by recollecting that at least her visit 
 had cheered the old man; that, if she had duped 
 him, the deception had been productive of good 
 results and not of harm. She repeated to herself 
 that she might have gone as his guest to Worthing 
 and that she had refused the offer. She said that in 
 calling at the hotel she had done a stupid thing on 
 impulse, and regretted it. It was not a bad thing 
 — it was a stupid one. If she had been callous — if 
 she had really meant to be wicked — she would have 
 behaved altogether differently. The invitation she 
 had declined was the greatest stroke of fortune that 
 the most sanguine mind could have expected the 
 interview to yield. She would, then, had she been 
 wicked, have gone to Worthing with delight, and 
 lo! here she was walking down Regent Street with 
 the prospect absolutely waived. She was going back 
 to the dingy little Temperance Hotel, and thence to
 
 2l6 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 the railway-station. "Poor me!" mused Mrs. Ten- 
 terden forlornly; "I'm very glad I had the grace to 
 be ashamed of myself I'm sure, but what on earth 
 is to become of me, goodness only knows ! " 
 
 She reached Thornton Heath about dinner-time, 
 and the landlady expressed pleasure at her return. 
 It is something to be welcomed by a landlady — if 
 we come to think of it, there are many thousands 
 of persons in London alone who are never wel- 
 comed by anybody else. The landlady served her 
 up a fried chop in a little greasy water — there are 
 also many thousands of people in London who de- 
 liberately and avowedly cook chops and steaks in a 
 frying pan — and after Mrs. Tenterden had finished 
 this repast, and watched the little maid-of-all-work 
 clear the table, she lighted a cigarette, and slowly 
 and gratefully puffed it in silent meditation. 
 
 It was not rose-coloured, her reverie, nor did 
 affairs improve with her during the next few days. 
 As the reader cognisant with the state of her ex- 
 chequer will divine, a week from the day of her in- 
 trusion upon Professor Barkasset saw her in the
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 2 I 7 
 
 landlady's debt, and unal)le to settle. The news- 
 papers showed her no solution to her difficulties, 
 and what the end would have been it is i^ainful to 
 conjecture, had she not at length received a letter, 
 which, if it did not offer her an engagement, at all 
 events offered a temporary respite from worries of a 
 monetary nature. 
 
 The Professor wrote that since his return to 
 Worthing his health had been failing fast, and he 
 begged Mrs. Tenterden again to come and cheer 
 what might easily be the last few months he had 
 left to live. 
 
 By the same post was delivered a note from the 
 medical man who was attending him. He urged 
 Mrs. Tenterden — to whom, he understood. Professor 
 Barkasset was practically a stranger — to humour the 
 sick man's longing if it were in her power to do so. 
 Without committing himself to the statement in so 
 many words, he made it plain that he considered 
 her refusal would be his patient's death-warrant. 
 
 Humane considerations, if nothing else, forbade 
 her to hesitate. She answered, saying that she
 
 2 I 8 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 would arrive next day, and set to work to de- 
 termine how she was to obtain the necessary cash. 
 
 The fare itself she might procure by pauiiing 
 her watch-chain, but the money raised thus would 
 be quite inadequate to discharge the claim of the 
 landlady, aud she doubted strongly whether she 
 could propose to depart wthout defraying it. 
 
 However Mi'S. Tubbs proved amenable. Suf- 
 ficient of her wardrobe was left behind to ensure 
 her return, and the following morning she stepped 
 into the train, a third-class passenger to Worthing. 
 
 She found the Professor much changed. His 
 face was paler, his movements feebler, and his voice 
 was ominously weak. 
 
 He welcomed her nevertheless with enthusiasm. 
 The house was a small one, for excepting the two 
 maid servants, and a housekeeper, he lived alone. 
 He told her he had no relations to concern them- 
 selves about him, and declared that her visit would 
 do more to restore him to health than all the Col- 
 lege of Physicians. The doctor, too, made much the
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 2 I 9 
 
 same assurance when he called in the afternoon, and 
 was introduced to her: 
 
 "Professor Barkasset was so eager to see you 
 that I could write no less than I did, madam," he 
 nun-mured; "I am rejoiced that you saw your way 
 to obliging him." 
 
 She replied that she could do no less, but when 
 she retired that night to the cosy apartment that 
 had been prepared for her, she asked herself to 
 what new complications her regrettable impulse had 
 led her. She was here for the express purpose of 
 dilating to a father on the characteristics and perfec- 
 tions of a son whom she had never met. It was awful. 
 
 Her imagination had not exaggerated the un- 
 pleasantness. When she came down in the morn- 
 ing, she was informed that the Professor no longer 
 left his room before luncheon, and she breakfasted 
 alone, and took the opportunity of rambling on the 
 esplanade, and inhaling a whiff of the sea, but she 
 had scarcely reached the house again, when her 
 host joined her, and the ordeal to which she had 
 pledged herself began.
 
 220 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 "I am further off than ever from undertaking a 
 voyage to the Cape, Mrs. Tenterden," said the Pro- 
 fessor, with a wistful smile playing over the thin 
 features; "further off than I was when I saw you 
 last." 
 
 "But you will be better soon, remember," she 
 responded brightly, "and then the trip will do you 
 all the good in the world." 
 
 "I hope so," he said, "I hope so. Tell me: 
 what manner ol' house was it where he lodged- — 
 comfortable?" 
 
 "Quite!" she answered, resolved that though all 
 her intelligence was false, it should at least be cheer- 
 ing; "comfortable, and charming. It is a beautiful 
 climate, you know, and he had nothing to complain 
 of, so far as I know." 
 
 "I am glad of that," said the Professor faintly, 
 "I should not like to think that he had had hard- 
 ships to endure." 
 
 "And indeed you must not!" cried Mrs. Ten- 
 terden. "He was very popular you know, and — 
 and — well, things were made very easy for him al-
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 221 
 
 most from the first. To use his own expression, he 
 fell on his feet soon after he landed." 
 
 "He wrote me so seldom, — and his letters were 
 so short. Tell me some of his experiences, I beg 
 you. When he arrived there, a stranger, what did 
 he do?" 
 
 Thereupon Mrs. Tenterden moistened her dry 
 lil)S, and recounted inspiring fiction, while the sick 
 man watched her happily, and she abominated her 
 fluency, and called herself names. 
 
 But it could not last — the strain upon her was 
 too strong. After about a week of this kind of 
 thing, she felt she could stand it no longer, and that 
 a confession was inevitable. She drew the doctor 
 aside one day, and with scarlet cheeks, stammered 
 out an explanation that was something like the 
 truth. She said that she had arrived at the con- 
 clusion that the Mr. Barkasset she had known in the 
 Colony was not Professor Barkasset's son at all. 
 She added that she had not the courage to dis- 
 appoint the Professor by telling him so, but that she 
 intended to return to London forthwith, and the
 
 222 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 truth must be communicated to the patient by the 
 doctor himself. 
 
 "The conviction has been growing upon me for 
 days, and now I am sure of it. You will see I have 
 no alternative but to leave." 
 
 "I see nothing of the sort," said Dr. Thornby, 
 firmly; "it is unfortunate, but to deal such a shock 
 to a sinking man would be criminal. Mrs. Ten- 
 terden, you must go on talking to him about his 
 son just as you have done." 
 
 "'A sinking man'?" she echoed with dismay. 
 
 "One to whom such a blow would be fatal!" he 
 rejoined. "Speaking as a medical man, madam, I 
 absolutely forbid you to cause any excitement to 
 the Professor. I care nothing about your scruples, 
 my business is my patient's health. If he recovers, 
 you may do as you please; for the present you will 
 kindly obey my orders." 
 
 And so it befell that day after day, almost hour 
 after hour, little Mrs. Tenterden sat beside the in- 
 valid's couch, loyally lying, and expiating her mo-
 
 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 2 2;^ 
 
 ment's folly by weeks of penitence. As the man's 
 condition grew more critical, his temper became 
 more tryijig, and sometimes he would rebuke her 
 sharply for a lapse of memory, some contradiction, 
 trivial in itself, but which to him, upon so grave a 
 topic, was of immeasurable importance. Indeed it 
 often seemed now that he forgot she was his guest, 
 and had grown to regard her as his nurse. Oc- 
 casionally she would hurry from the room, and burst 
 into tears upon the stairs. 
 
 Afterwards, in looking back, she found it hard 
 to decide at which times she had suffered more — 
 when he was irritable and impatient, or grateful 
 and affectionate. To see him smiling at her, to 
 feel him pat her hand in the recital of some 
 abominable falsehood to which he listened with 
 pathetic interest was perhaps harder to bear than 
 his ill humour. 
 
 And it continued, this state of affairs, into the 
 new year, when he died. She had been sitting in 
 his room, telling him a long story of his son's 
 bravery — an account of a gallant rescue he had
 
 2 24 AN UNDESERVING WOMAN. 
 
 made — and Dr. Thornby had just come in for the 
 second time that day. 
 
 The old man opened his eyes, and spoke: 
 "Tell him," he said to her feebly, "how my boy 
 saved his friend's life — tell the doctor!" Then he 
 seemed to sleep again, and two hours afterwards his 
 heart ceased to beat. 
 
 When the Will was read, it was found that, with 
 the exception of some trifling legacies, he had left 
 all he possessed to Anna Tenterden. It amounted 
 to some seven thousand pounds, and, though she 
 would have found few to put faith in the assertion, 
 she felt in her soul that the bitterest punishment 
 possible had overtaken her. She had no further 
 need of a situation, however, and she made a 
 voyage to Cape Town, where there is to-day in 
 the Cemetery a tomb so exquisite, so marvellous, 
 that strangers are enjoined by the guide-books to 
 visit it. It bears the name of Sholto Barkasset, and 
 sets forth to questioning eyes that it was: 
 
 "Raised by an Undesen-ing Woman 
 "To Testify a Father's Love."
 
 A WOMAN WITH A HEART 
 
 A Question of Colour. ' S
 
 A WOINIAN WITH A HEART. 
 
 I REMEMBER my mood — the sentiment of the 
 hour which led to my seeing her — perfectly. I had 
 gone out for a ramble; the room had cooped me. 
 It was unendurably stuffy that night. I had tossed 
 my book down; but the impression of it still lurked. 
 I had been reading "Mademoiselle de Maupin" and 
 through the open windows the voices of the passers- 
 by — sometimes a girl's gay laughter — floated up to 
 me as if in contrast to my loneliness. 
 
 I went out with no other purpose than to rid 
 myself of a vague dissatisfaction. I was a stranger 
 to the neighbourhood in which I lodged, and 
 presently I found myself in a common thorough- 
 f;ire, lined with costermongers' stalls, and noisy 
 with traffic in flowers, comestibles, and second-hand 
 
 15*
 
 2 2Q A WOMAN WITH A HEART. 
 
 clotliing; brilliant with the flare of gaslight and 
 paraffin lamps. 
 
 Somehow the bustle entertained me, and I made 
 no effort to escape from the locale. I wandered 
 on; and then I came upon a girl in soiled white 
 satin and tumbled lace, lounging in a door-way, her 
 face framed, Spanish-wise, in a mantilla. 
 
 She was beautiful. I will not, even in retro- 
 spect, set her down as "pretty": she was beautiful, 
 with her luminous dark eyes and careless profusion 
 of hair. Her mouth was too wide — too sensual. 
 Her lips were reddened, and her cheeks were not 
 innocent of rouge. And yet, as she leant there, in 
 the opening of the "penny-gaff," with feigned indif- 
 ference to the homage of the dirty crowd collected 
 about her, she would have compelled the admiration 
 of the most critical. 
 
 I stopped, and read a placard which announced 
 in blue chalk that "A Thrilling Drama with Sen- 
 sational Ghost Effects" would be represented here 
 every evening during the week. 
 
 As I lifted my head from the perusal of this
 
 A WOMAN WITH A HEART. 2 2Q 
 
 home-made advertisement tlie girl's eyes met my 
 own. There was a grain of interest in her gaze, I 
 fiincied. She appeared curious to sec wlietlier or 
 not I should be tempted to enter, and I was dis- 
 agreeably conscious that my silk hat made me a con- 
 spicuous figure in the group of loafers and street-arabs. 
 
 While I hesitated a barrel-organ inside started 
 to play, and a man, attired in top boots and a 
 scarlet flannel shirt, striding to the door, shouted 
 to us all that the performance was "just-a-goin' to 
 begin." 
 
 "Just-a-goin' to begin," he bawled; "the grandest 
 show on earth! Now's your time, ladies and gentle- 
 men — walk in, walk in, walk in." 
 
 Well, I would make one of the audience, I de- 
 cided. I paid my penny and passed inside. 
 
 The room was little better than a semi-dark 
 shed. Half a dozen rough benches were ranged 
 from wall to wall, and in front of these a rope 
 divided the auditorium from a stage which looked 
 scarcely more than double the size of the arena 
 occupied by Mr. Punch. The curtain had not gone
 
 230 A WOMAN WITH A HEART. 
 
 up yet, but I imagined the scenery from the foot- 
 Hghts, consisting of four oil-k\mps, and from the 
 orchestra, which was the barrel-organ I had heard 
 outside, turned perfunctorily in a corner by a de- 
 plorably dirty youth, smoking a short clay pipe. 
 
 The girl still stood at the door, and though the 
 individual who had joined her continued to shout 
 his declaration that the entertainment was "just-a- 
 goin' to begin," I saw no signs of his assurance 
 being fulfilled. Certainly, with the exception of a 
 knot of children huddled together on the front 
 bench, I had the "theatre" to myself at present, but 
 if I had remained there until the patronage proved 
 adequate, I foresaw that I might wait a long time. 
 
 At the end of five minutes I lit a cigar and 
 made to depart. To do this I had to request the 
 girl to move, and, as I addressed her, she turned 
 and flashed a look full in my face. 
 
 "Don't go," she said; "it will begin in a minute 
 — straight." 
 
 Her words were more vulgar than her tone, or, 
 to be precise at the risk of being tedious, there was
 
 A WOMAN WITH A HEART. 23 I 
 
 in the slight vulgarity of her voice a certain at- 
 traction. 
 
 "Why should you mind my going if I like?" 
 I replied; "I've paid my i)enny. Don't you want me 
 to go?" 
 
 "No," she said, "slop and see the show." 
 
 "I'll stop if you come inside and talk to me 
 while I'm wailing. I can't wait for half an hour with 
 nothing to do." 
 
 She drew back a few paces behind the canvas 
 that concealed the interior from the street, and 
 smiled at me, her hands clasped behind her waist. 
 
 "What do you want to talk to me about?" 
 
 "I'm not particular. Yourself say! Is that man 
 there your husband?" 
 
 "No," she said, "I'm not married. What made 
 you think that? You've never been to see us before, 
 have you?" 
 
 "Never. Have you been with the — the company 
 long?" 
 
 She nodded. "We go to Whitechapel on Mon- 
 day — the High Street; and from there to Kentish
 
 2^,2 A WOMAN WITH A HEART. 
 
 Town, and so on. We've a different pitch every 
 week. Perliaps you'll come again?" 
 
 "Perhaps I shall," I said. "Do you make much 
 money?" 
 
 "It's shares you know," she answered. "Billy 
 Davis — him you thought was my husband — takes 
 half, and me and Sam whacks the rest. We get a 
 boy to turn the organ for twopence a night. Sam 
 and me pay the boy." 
 
 "The gentleman you call 'Bill' does best out of 
 the concern, I gather?" 
 
 "Oh, well. Bill got the show up, you know. He 
 bought the props. 
 
 "And are you satisfied? Don't you ever want 
 anything better than a life like this? You are hand- 
 some enough for a regular theatre." 
 
 "I know," she said; "but the show'd go to 'ell 
 if I left it. It's me that gets the tin in. This is a 
 bad 'house' — you mustn't go by this. You should 
 see us in some of the pitches — and we get half a 
 dozen 'houses' every night."
 
 A WOMAN WITH A HEART. 233 
 
 "You are popular? — I mean the people like your 
 acling?" 
 
 "I don't know about 'acting', Init I'm good- 
 looking, and I look fetching got up in this 'ere dress. 
 You see I stand at the door, and the boys are 
 'took,' just as you were. That's how the trick's 
 done." 
 
 "Oh you — you knew I was 'took' did you?" 
 
 "I saw it in a jiffy. I hoped you'd come in." 
 
 The liar on the pavement was again asserting 
 vociferously that the curtain was about to rise. 
 
 "Is that Bill or Sam?" I enquired, with a back- 
 ward jerk of the head, "I'm still a little mixed." 
 
 "That's Bill," she said. — "Bill! Sam's too weak 
 for that part of the business. He's a" — her painted 
 lips twitched, and for a moment she turned aside — 
 "he's a cripple, Sam is. Bill wrote the part 'spressly' 
 for 'im. If we left 'ere, I don't know what we'd do, 
 I'm sure." 
 
 "We?" I echoed. 
 
 "Me and Sam. That's why I haven't never tried 
 to get into a regular theatre. I couldn't earn
 
 2 34 ^ WOMAN WITH A HEART. 
 
 enough for both of us, and Bill 'd give him the sack 
 if it wasn't for me." 
 
 There was a moment's silence between us while 
 I meditated upon the suggestion in what I had 
 heard. Evidently she read my unspoken question 
 in my looks, for she answered it quite frankly. 
 
 "Yes," she said. 
 
 "It's funny." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "I'm fond of him," she declared. 
 
 There was a silence again. 
 
 "How much do you suppose I could earn?" she 
 asked abruptly. 
 
 "x\t the theatres?" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "I haven't seen you act yet. Do you sing or 
 dance?" 
 
 "No, only act." 
 
 "Well, I'll answer your question after the show. 
 You would like to get out of this, then?" 
 
 "Rather! There, the rag's going up now for 
 certain. You'll be here when I come off?"
 
 A WOMAN WITH A HEART. 235 
 
 "I'll be here," I said; and she disappeared kiss- 
 ing her hand to me coquetlishly, and flirting her skirt. 
 
 I perceived thai the ri)om had half filled while 
 we had been talking. The benches were occupied, 
 the remainder of the spectators standing, like myself, 
 or leaning against the walls. The youth had sus- 
 pended his operations with the organ-handle, and a 
 few seconds later my enchantress made her entrance 
 on the stage, followed by a wretched little hunch- 
 back who, I understood, was the referred to "Sam." 
 As far as I remember, the play turned upon his 
 "loathsome persecution" of the heroine, who loved 
 "another," and eventually killed herself, to appear 
 again as a ghost, at sight of which the cripple died 
 of terror. 
 
 I was, however, chiefly concerned with the girl's 
 assumption of the part, and this I am somewhat at 
 a loss to describe. To say it was amateurish or 
 even puerile is inadequate to convey an idea of it. 
 She was hopeless — impossible. Seemingly she could 
 never have been inside a theatre in her life, for it 
 was difficult to imagine anyone who had ever wit-
 
 236 A WOIVIAN WITH A HEART. 
 
 nessed acting being so wholly painful. It was a 
 relief to my nerves when the dreadful exhibition 
 came to an end, and, but for my promise to remain, 
 I should have made an immediate escape. 
 
 This, though, was not to be. The audience filed 
 out — to tell the truth they looked complacent enough 
 —and presently I waited alone. 
 
 "Well?" she said, rejoining me. 
 
 "Do you want the truth," I asked. 
 
 "Yes, of course, no kid." 
 
 "You are not an actress. I do not think that 
 you would ever make one." 
 
 "Oh!" she ruminated. "^Vhat could I do on the 
 stage?" 
 
 "Walk on, nothing better." 
 
 "Humph, that wouldn't be much good. What 
 would the pay be." 
 
 "I can't say. Of course, with a lot of these 
 girls the salary is the least thing." 
 
 "I must stop where I am, that's very plain," she 
 said, with a sigh. "To me the salary would be the 
 long and the short of it."
 
 A WOMAN WITH A HEART. 237 
 
 She had told me enough for me to understand 
 that it was not tlie ethics of the matter tliat weighed 
 with her; it was evidently a question of the affec- 
 tions. 
 
 "Because of Sam?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes," she said, "because of Sam." 
 
 "Oh!" I answered, and that was all. There Avas 
 food for reflection in her rei)ly, I thought— a 
 morality in her abandoimient. But it was queer. I 
 felt as if I had stumbled on a sermon among a 
 bundle of "Gil Bias." I wished her "Good-night," 
 and made my way out into the street. As I pro- 
 ceeded the cry of the man in the scarlet shirt 
 reached me afresh: "Just-a-goin' to begin," walk in, 
 walk in, walk in!" he shouted, and turning, I had a 
 last glimpse of the girl, standing at the door in her 
 tumbled lace and satin, the cynosure of the dirty 
 crowd.
 
 IT'S FUNNY HOW PEOPLE 
 FORGET.
 
 IT'S FUNNY now PEOPLE FORCxET. 
 
 Theirs was a love-matcli if ever a marriage was! 
 The engagement had lasted more than five years, 
 and been entered into when matrimony looked as 
 unattainable a prospect as a house in Lancaster 
 Gate, a carriage-and-pair, and a retinue of servants. 
 
 Nor did they ever reside in Lancaster Gate. It 
 was a humble little wedding enough when the event- 
 ful day did dawn, and they took up their abode in 
 a tiny house in Highgate, where, as a matter of fact, 
 they were as happy as the day was long. 
 
 The day was long — the phrase is not a common- 
 place — for the young husband went to his clerk's 
 stool in the city directly after breakfast, and it was 
 not till seven o'clock in the evening that Ethel saw 
 him again. Both declared that the hours of their 
 separation appeared interminable. 
 
 A Question of Colour. 1 6
 
 242 it's funny how people forget. . 
 
 But llicy had their hopes,, it should be under- 
 stood. Paul was not made to be a clerk all his 
 life — a young man named Paul could not be! There 
 was something incongruous about a "Paul" totting 
 up columns in a ledger and saying "sir" to an em- 
 ployer — "Paul" suggests Art, or Literature, a calling 
 ni Bohemia, and Mr. Paul Weguelin intended to be 
 a playwright. 
 
 He had had a couple of dramas, which Ethel 
 vowed were beautiful, declined by every Manager in 
 London already, and, undeterred by the non-success 
 of these, was meditating a third. In the evening 
 after supper, when Ethel sat beside the fire working, 
 he would light his pipe, and proceed to weave for 
 their encouragement fancy-pictures of the night when 
 he should be called before the curtain by frantic 
 cries of "Author — Author," and drive home, with 
 his little wife's hand in his, a made man. Ethel 
 would nod her head approvingly, and if such con- 
 versations did not do much to advance his ambitions 
 they were certainly amusing. 
 
 Some months before their child was to be born.
 
 it's funny how people forget. 243 
 
 however, a scenario was definitely laid down. They 
 had gone to work in quite a professional manner, 
 these two young people, and chosen the theatre they 
 would favour, and then Paul had mapped out a plot 
 to suit the Company. 
 
 "That is what is always done, dearest," he 
 declared; "I've gathered as much as that from the 
 papers. You see, with the other plays, I made the 
 mistake of writing to please myself instead of study- 
 ing the requirements of a particular management. 
 Now we'll go in and win." 
 
 A clerk's life is not conducive to the pursuit of 
 literature, and Paul Weguelin frequently felt dis- 
 inclined to go from one desk to another, but he 
 persevered in his self-appointed task nobly. When 
 Ethel had gone to bed he would sit up writing until 
 he was compelled to lay down the pen from sheer 
 exhaustion. And after a fair start was made, too, his 
 interest in the thing grew. His characters appeared 
 to gain life — to be more real — and Ethel spurred 
 him on by her appreciation and prophecies of suc- 
 cess. 
 
 16*
 
 244 JT-S FUNNY HOW PEOPLE FORGET. 
 
 She did not complain that her evenings were 
 now as lonely as her days; they were entirely one, 
 she and her husband. She felt that the play was 
 as much hers as his, and she would read it, and 
 criticise, and suggest, every bit as enthralled in its 
 development as he was. 
 
 It was finished at last, and they posted it to- 
 getlier with a little note begging for its consideration; 
 and every evening for the next few weeks listened 
 with tense nerves each time the postman's knock 
 sounded in the street. 
 
 No communication about it came, however, and 
 then Paul was given a son, and for awhile even the 
 thought of his play was banished from his mind by 
 reason of Ethel's illness. 
 
 She was very ill, indeed, poor girl, but it was 
 not often absent from her recollection — the drama 
 from which they hoped so much — and she talked of 
 it in her delirium, and repeated lines from it till 
 Paul thought his heart would break with pain and 
 terror. 
 
 In the terrible time that followed he had but
 
 it's funny how people forget. 245 
 
 one small consolation; she was conscious before she 
 died. He will always be able to recall every in- 
 cident of their good-bye, down to the smallest de- 
 tails. He sat on the edge of the bed, holding her 
 hands, and praying dumb, futile prayers while he 
 endeavoured to reassure her, and choke down his 
 sobs. The lamp on the mantelpiece had gone out, 
 and the flame of the candles on the toilet-table was 
 the only light in the room. Her eyes were dread- 
 fully big, and the whiteness of her face shocked 
 him. Her voice quivered pathetically, and vaguely 
 he wished in moments that she would not speak; it 
 was her voice, the pathos of the poor weak voice, 
 that endangered his self-control, and twisted his throat 
 in knots. 
 
 "I shall never see the play, Paul," she murmured. 
 "I did want to see the play so. Don't cry. Poor 
 boy, you mustn't cry! Darling — -darling — " 
 
 Somebody said something to him — the doctor, 
 or the nurse — he did not know. He sat staring at 
 the dying girl blindly through his tears, and a few 
 minutes later he realised that she would never speak
 
 246 it's funn\' how people forget. 
 
 to him again. The mysterious borderland was 
 passed. 
 
 And she was buried. He sat amid the un- 
 famiharity of the famihar room, dazed and stupefied. 
 There was the chair where she always sat at this 
 hour; there her workbasket or her book should have 
 been lying; there were the plants perishing for water 
 — how vexed she would have been could she have 
 seen them! Mechanically he took up the water 
 caraffe and moistened the dry soil in the pots just 
 as she had been wont to do; instantaneously it 
 seemed to him that to neglect them would be a 
 slight to the wishes of the dead. 
 
 He remembered that he must send the announce- 
 ment of her death to the papers. It was horrible 
 to write such lines here where everything spoke her 
 name. "The dearly beloved wife of Paul Weguelin" 
 — he had done it, and every year he would send an 
 In Memoriam notice — every year on the anniversary 
 of her loss. 
 
 The child was no comfort to him. The baby 
 seemed to the husband's grief responsible for what
 
 it's funny how people foroet. 247 
 
 had happened. He left it to the rare of the nurse, 
 and often when he returned from tlie city and the 
 httle cliap was asleep he did not go upstairs to look 
 at him. 
 
 Yes indeed, it had been a love-match, and Paul's 
 heart seemed buried in Ethel's grave. For months 
 he lived the life of an automaton, performing his 
 duties mechanically, thinking of nothing, caring for 
 nothing, but the past which could never be re- 
 kindled, or revived. 
 
 Once when he came home he found that the 
 play had been sent back by the manager as useless 
 to him. He scarcely noticed it. He glanced at the 
 rejection-form indifferently, and tossed the manu- 
 script into a drawer among the limbo of forgotten 
 things. 
 
 One day was so like another, the months so void 
 of event, that it came upon him with a shock one 
 night to realise that Ethel would soon have been 
 dead a year. Was it possible — twelvemonths ago! 
 Yes, on the twenty-second, and it was now the
 
 248 it's funny how people forget. 
 
 twenty-first. He went heavily to his desk, just where 
 lie liad sat before, and wrote the In Memorlam 
 notice he had vowed to write. "TIic dearly beloved 
 wife of Paul Weguelin"! The tears ran down his 
 face. "Every year, sweetheart," he muttered huskily, 
 "every year till we meet each other again!" 
 
 People commented on his faithfulness to a Me- 
 mory — so few men are faithful to the living. In 
 the office he was sometimes invited to spend an 
 evening at a friend's house or at a theatre. He in- 
 variably declined. He still wore deep mourning. . . 
 Acquaintances began to call it affectation, but they 
 wronged him. He had but one relaxation, and that 
 had come to him rather than been sought. As the 
 boy grew, an affection that surprised himself awoke 
 in Paul Weguelin's breast, and the only hours in 
 which he regained something of his former cheer- 
 fulness were when he was playing Avith his child. 
 
 From one step to another. When the youngster 
 was two years old, Paul came by chance upon the 
 play he had thrown aside in despair. He took it 
 up, and re-read it. It was good — good. A little of
 
 it's funny how people forget. 249 
 
 his old interest in it sprang into being again. Sup- 
 posing he were to submit it somewhere else? 
 
 He forwarded it to a theatre the following day. 
 It came back a montli later, but he was in earnest 
 again now, and he sent it to yet another house. 
 
 The latest Management was a long time replying, 
 but when an answer did come, it was to some ex- 
 tent favourable. Assuming that certain alterations 
 were made in it, the drama might possibly be 
 put on. 
 
 He was not excited; he was dismayed at him- 
 self in perceiving how dull and inert the prospect 
 left him. He contrasted his absence of emotion 
 ■with what he would have felt at the time when 
 Ethel was with him — Ethel who had died crying 
 that she would not live to see the play produced. 
 
 Nevertheless he went to see the Manager, and 
 had the suggested amendments definitely explained. 
 They took several weeks to effect, and when they 
 were completed, some changes in the managerial 
 intentions left the fate of the play doubtful still.
 
 250 ITS FUNNY HOW PEOPLE FORGET. 
 
 It remained doubtful while summer merged into 
 autumn, and autumn turned to winter snows. And 
 then at last it was accepted absolutely. Paul 
 Weguelin's name began to creep into the news- 
 papers. The drama went into rehearsal. The 
 author's pulses beat a shade more quickly, and liis 
 fellow-clerks wrung his hand, and asked for 'orders' 
 with astonishment 'writ large' on their counten- 
 ances. 
 
 "Great Scot, old fellow! You a dramatist! You 
 did keep it close. Well, I congratulate you I'm 
 sure. I suppose you'll be chucking the city directly, 
 and be a heavy swell up West?" 
 
 It was pleasant. He could not deny that he 
 enjoyed it- — he had hoped for it so long. He 
 walked more buoyantly; his tobacco tasted better to 
 him; he knew at last what it was to be excited 
 again. " The rehearsals, when he was able to attend 
 them, even banished the memory of Ethel from his 
 mind. But this distressed him when he observed 
 it, and he made a pilgrimage to her grave which 
 was for the first time perfunctory.
 
 it's funny how people forget. 251 
 
 When the curtain went up on tlie first nighl, lie 
 stood at the back of the dress-circle witli ashen 
 cheeks, and a heart tliat tluuiiped as if it would 
 suffocate him. His lines — Jiis lines! — were being 
 spoken on the stage, and the audience laughed and 
 clapped their hands at them. The Act-drop fell; it 
 rose; the applause grew more vociferous. The piece 
 was a success, an unmistakcable triumph. He was 
 called at the end, and loudly cheered. 
 
 He asked no more of Fate, his cup was full. 
 
 Someone insisted on carrying him off witli a 
 party to supper. There was champagne and merri- 
 ment. He made a speech; it was a witty speech; 
 everybody banged the table. Perhaps he had drunk 
 a little more than he was accustomed to, but — what 
 did it matter. The champagne was good — the 
 speech was good; and the play was good too! By 
 Jove they were all good — all good fellows together. 
 Just as he made the last remark, his tone changed, 
 and with a brief word he sat down hastily. 
 
 It had occurred to him at this moment that the
 
 252 it's funny how people forget. 
 
 date was the twenty-second. The third "In Me- 
 moriam" announcement should have appeared that 
 morning, and he had forgotten to send it.
 
 "FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY.
 
 'FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY." 
 
 I HAVE only told Uirec people in my life that I 
 once played "Lead" to Madame Reclame in New 
 York, and those three gentlemen — intimate friends — 
 have impugned my veracity. Had they accepted 
 my assertion in the spirit in which it was offered, 
 this narrative of my only appearance in the capacity 
 of an actor would never have exceeded the bounds 
 of a smoking-room confidence. They disbelieved 
 me, and I now make the statement publicly, that 
 the scoffers may blush. 
 
 I was romantic, seven-and-twenty, and hopelessly 
 stage-struck the night that I saw Madame Reclame 
 first. Figure to yourself Reclame in her zenith 
 brought to bear on such a combination! I need 
 not describe what she was at thirty-five; all the 
 world knows. Her beauty, her eccentricities, and
 
 256 "for one night only." 
 
 caprices were household-words. It is enough to say 
 that when I had taken my seat in the Parquette, 
 my one ambition had been to be an actor; when I 
 turned out on to the frosty sidewan<.s of Broadway, 
 I asked nothing else of the Fates than to become 
 Rosa Reclame's lover. Her genius, and the en- 
 chantment of her marvellous voice had gone to my 
 brain like so much wine, and I was verily bewitched. 
 Could anything sound more hopeless than to be in 
 love with the most famous actress of the day when 
 one is seven-and-twenty, and draws a salary in a 
 down-town office of thirty dollars a week? Nothing. 
 I defy you to contradict it; I say "nothing"! 
 
 My "chum" did not contradict it. I lived in a 
 boarding-house in West 15th Street, and when I 
 reached home, and we had lighted our bedroom 
 cigarettes, I imparted my heartburnings to him. I 
 vowed that I was not going to rest day or night 
 until I knew her. He inquired how I proposed to 
 accomplish my desire, and I reminded him that 
 (after a fashion) I spoke French. Unsympathetic 
 for the first tmie in my experience, he laughed.
 
 "for one night only." 257 
 
 He said he fancied llial my Frcncli was scarcely 
 sufficient for the purpose. A mutual friend would 
 be more valuable! Who on eartli, among the fel- 
 lows I knew, was able to present me to Madame 
 Reclame? "Why, my dear chap," he said, "don't 
 be a fool! You will go to the Lyceum, and spend 
 your money, and clap the skin off your hands. 
 But as to supposing that you will ever speak to 
 Rosa Reclame, you are just as likely to be elected 
 President. She will finish her season, and go back 
 to Europe without being aware that you exist." 
 
 "She will, will she?" I said; " Enfiii, you will 
 see! I shall live to tell you that you were mis- 
 taken." 
 
 And I did. I fulfilled my boast, and did tell 
 him so. He was one of the three sceptics who de- 
 clined to believe. 
 
 To an extent, certainly, his prophecy came true. 
 I went to the Lyceum, and spent my money, and 
 clapped my hands every night for a week. At the 
 fall of the curtain I used to hurry round to the 
 stage-passage, and wait there, one of the attendant 
 
 A Question of Colour. 17
 
 258 "for one ntght only." 
 
 crowd, to see her drive away. I bought her photo- 
 graph, and copies of such of her plays as were pro- 
 curable. I committed in fact every extravagance 
 appropriate to the circumstances, but at the end of 
 the week I was as far from approaching my divinity 
 as ever. How was an interview to be obtained? I 
 racked my brains to devise a plan. A letter? — she 
 would not answ^er it. Verses? — she was probably 
 inundated with verses; and besides I was doubtful 
 whether my French was equal to the demands of 
 rhyme. Evidently there was nothing to be done but 
 to force myself upon her, and trust to my eloquence 
 afterwards to avert the catastrophe of summary dis- 
 missal. Had I the pluck for such a thing? The 
 notion occurred to me in the theatre one evening, 
 and I felt that if it were to be adopted at all, it 
 could be adopted only on the effervescence of it. 
 In other words I was conscious that I must either 
 pronounce my pretensions a failure, or go to her 
 hotel the same night, directly the performance 
 finished. 
 
 I sat watching the conclusion of the fifth Act
 
 "for one niout only." 
 
 259 
 
 with a heart that beat as if it must suflocate me. 
 She seemed to me more graceful, more exquisite 
 than ever. The thought that in half an hour I might 
 be pouring out my adoration at her feet shook mc 
 in my chair. My pulses throbbed tumultuously; my 
 lips and throat were dry as parchment; my luuids 
 trembled so - violently that I endeavoured to hide 
 them from my neighbours' view. Ten minutes later 
 "Frou Frou" was dead, and the house was rocking 
 with applause. 
 
 I did not pause to think; I was veritably insane. 
 It was only as I sped along Fifth Avenue, and 
 neared the hotel, that I remembered the improb- 
 ability of the servants allowing me to enter her 
 rooms, and then for a moment I halted irresolutely. 
 Should I wait at the door, and beg the privilege of 
 a conversation as she returned? No; she would re- 
 gard me as a madman and pass me by. I must 
 get in before her, and await her arrival. It was too 
 late to retreat; I would summon all the audacity I 
 possessed, and deceive the clerk by sheer "swagger" 
 and address.
 
 2 6o "for one night only." 
 
 I strode into the hall, and presented myself at 
 his desk. 
 
 "Madame Reclame," I exclaimed authoritatively; 
 "she is expecting me — I have an appointment." 
 
 To my surprise he bowed afiiibly. 
 
 "Madame said would you kindly wait, if you 
 called before she came back," he replied. "Here, 
 John! — Madame Reclame." 
 
 I stepped into the elevator; was borne rapidly to 
 the second floor; and, almost before I caught my 
 breath, found myself ushered into a comfortable 
 little sitting-room where a supper-table was laid 
 for two. 
 
 I had been mistaken for someone-else, and, un- 
 less the expected guest appeared before her, I was 
 sure of my tete-a-lete. "Good Lord," I muttered in 
 a kind of stupor, "good Lord!" 
 
 The timepiece on the mantelshelf pointed to a 
 quarter past eleven, and it was useless for me to at- 
 tempt to occupy myself with any of the illustrated 
 papers that were scattered about. Even the many 
 likenesses of Rosa Reclame that I saw failed to
 
 "for one night only." 261 
 
 rivet my alleiition. I could only sit staring at the 
 clock, praying that it might be she who came in 
 first — praying, too, that if she had me kicked out of 
 her room, her friend might not have arrived to jeer 
 at my humiliation. There were footsteps approach- 
 ing — were they hers or his? I turned eyes that 
 could scarcely see upon the opening door. It was 
 she — and she was alone. My tongue stuck to the 
 roof of my mouth as I rose. 
 
 "Madame — " I said humbly, advancing. I 
 waited the avalanche. 
 
 "Oh," she cried, "this is very good of you. How 
 I hope you have not bored yourself! I am very 
 pleased to meet you, monsieur. Let me take off my 
 cloak, and then we can talk." 
 
 She ran into the adjoining room, leaving me 
 speechless with amazement. She had, then, never 
 seen the person for whom I was taken. Should I 
 confess at once, or bask awhile in the sunshine of 
 her delusion! Common sense, expedience, and in- 
 clination all said "bask." When she came back in a 
 ravishing demi-toilette, I sat down to supper with her.
 
 262 "for one night only." 
 
 "You surprise me — you are so young," she said, 
 sipping her second glass of champagne. "But then 
 in this country, mon Dieji, everybody is young! Let 
 me see, 'January' you wrote, did you not?" 
 
 "January?" I faltered. 
 
 "Why yes! Or am I mistaken? I have your 
 letter here. Well, we can go into all that pre- 
 sently." 
 
 "By all means," I agreed. "Let us for the pre- 
 sent talk about yourself" I found her even more 
 adorable than I had supposed, but the situation had 
 its drawbacks. 
 
 She gave me permission to light a cigarette, in- 
 deed she offered me one from her own cabinet, and 
 we puffed the scented tobacco together. 
 
 What did we not discuss in that charming 
 solitude a deux with the champagne bottle between 
 us! The wine and the magic of her presence 
 stimulated my fancy, and my imagination ran riot. 
 Criticism, philosophy, and epigram — all more or less 
 shallow and cheap, I daresay, but good enough to 
 be amusing under the circumstances — fell from me
 
 "for one nioht onia'." 263 
 
 without effort, so tliat I was astonished at my own 
 brilHance. She told me some anecdote of her career. 
 We had more cigarettes — more champagne. I vowed 
 she was the greatest actress that had ever Hved. My 
 gaze said that I thought her also the most beautiful 
 woman. When she was sad at some momentary 
 reminiscence, my breast ached for her. When she 
 was merry, my laughter out-pealed her own. Would 
 it could have lasted for ever! but it did not. 
 
 Presently she said. "Well, monsieur, and now 
 to business. That odious business, how it obtrudes 
 itself in life!" 
 
 "It does," I assented, growing pale. "I hate 
 business. Art is everything — enchanting Art!" 
 
 "But let us arrange if we can, and get it over. 
 What is it you propose?" 
 
 I inhaled a deep breath from my cigarette, and 
 prepared myself to meet the worst. 
 
 "Madame," I replied, "I propose nothing. I only 
 throw myself on your mercy." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "I don't know for whom you take me; I don't
 
 264 "FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY." 
 
 know why I was admitted to your rooms. I only 
 know I asked for you because I was mad with ad- 
 miration for your genius and your loveUness — be- 
 cause I felt I must speak to you or die! Ever since 
 you came to New York I have been moving Heaven 
 and Earth to secure an introduction to you. To- 
 night I left the theatre like one insane. I- came to 
 your hotel, and I was shown up here. I have be- 
 haved like a scoundrel, I know it. My only excuse 
 is that when the opportunity of spending an hour 
 with you presented itself, the temptation was too 
 powerful for me to resist. Now you may call the 
 servants, and give me into custody for obtaining a 
 supper under false pretences. Even then I shall 
 have known the happiest hour of my life!" 
 
 As I began to speak, a quick frown of anger 
 gathered itself on her brow, and more than once she 
 made an impatient gesture. When I finished, and 
 stood before her, waiting her sentence, she regarded 
 me with furious eyes. 
 
 "Do you know, monsieur, that your impudence 
 has caused me serious annoyance?" she said at last.
 
 "for one night only." 265 
 
 "T was to have discussed witli a great eiilreprcncnr 
 a tour in South America, and understanding he had 
 arrived, I gave orders that no one else who asked 
 for me should be admitted. Doubtless he has been 
 sent away now — after I had made the appointment 
 — and through your insensate folly!" 
 
 "What can I say!" I stammered, "1 would not 
 have done you an injury for all the wealth of the 
 Indies. I hate myself; and yet, to have been with 
 you as I have! if you knew what it has meant to 
 me!" 
 
 "You rich men here, you think you can do any- 
 thing!" she said, biting her lips. "I suppose you 
 bribed the portier." 
 
 "Madame," I asserted, "the servants are ab- 
 solutely innocent, and I am a clerk with an income 
 of thirty dollars a week." 
 
 She looked at me in momentary incredulity; then 
 the frown melted, and she began to laugh. 
 
 "Oh, but that is too funny!" she murmured. 
 "There, my child, don't look as if you were going 
 to cry." (It is a fact that I had felt like it.) "I am
 
 2 66 "for one night only." 
 
 not going to box your ears, though you richly de- 
 serve some such thing. Where are the cigarettes — 
 I must smoke!" 
 
 I brouglit the box to her off the table; lighted a 
 cedar s])ill; and received the burnt end from her 
 hand. 
 
 "Sit down," she said; "presently I shall be in a 
 good humour again." 
 
 Perhaps five minutes passed, while she wandered 
 about the room, humming, and once or twice steal- 
 ing a glance at me. For myself, my eyes never left 
 her in that interval. 
 
 "Well," she exclaimed, suddenly stopping, and 
 speaking ui almost caressing tones, "and have I dis- 
 appointed you?" 
 
 "I am only disappointed in myself," I answered. 
 "I have not behaved as a gentleman towards you. 
 All that there is left for me to do is to take my 
 leave, and beg you to accept my apology to- 
 morrow." 
 
 The "apology" I projected was a week's salary 
 spent on flowers; but she would not allow me to
 
 "for one nioht only." 267 
 
 depart. As she liad promised, Ikt ill-humour luid 
 quite vanished. She was even more radiant than 
 before — "Frou Fruu" in [he first Act. 
 
 "Tell me all!" she demanded. "You are a 
 clerk — that is really true?" 
 
 "It is the miserable truth; but not 'all'," 1 
 responded. "I am a clerk who longs to be an 
 actor — a French actor — to act the lovers to your- 
 self." 
 
 "That would be so hard a task to you!" she 
 said slyly. "Well, and in what part would you 
 prefer to make love to me?" 
 
 I drew out my note-case, and handed lier my 
 card. 
 
 "Merci, monsieur! I will keep it as a souvenir," 
 she smiled. "And in what dramatic role?" 
 
 "Armand!" I said boldly. 
 
 "I call a rehearsal!" she cried. "Come, choose 
 your Act, and make your entrance. Wait, first you 
 must be scene shifter, and move the table. Quick, 
 quick, I am on fire to begin!" 
 
 I dragged the table to the wall, pitched my
 
 2 68 "for one night only." 
 
 cigarette into the grate, and stood before her 
 panting. 
 
 "Act two!" I exclaimed. 
 
 "That Act is all mine," she said; "Armand has 
 nothing to do!" 
 
 "I choose Act two, Madame," I repeated; "from 
 his last entrance to the end!" 
 
 "Ahl" she murmured, nodding demurely. "Very- 
 well then. You know the lines? Commence!" 
 
 The Act that I had selected terminated with 
 her throwing herself into my arms. I took a step 
 forward, and spoke as naturally as I could: "'Mar- 
 guerite, can you ever forgive me?'" 
 
 Was this woman who turned to me, wretched, 
 trembling, tearful, she who had been laughing in my 
 face like a schoolgirl a moment since! Involun- 
 tarily I started. She spoke; I scarcely recognised 
 her voice. 
 
 "'Do you deserve it? Why did you write me 
 that cruel letter? You have made me ill' " 
 
 "'What would you have me to do?'" 1 went 
 on with the part, lamely at first, appalled at my own
 
 "for one NIC.HT ONLY." 269 
 
 audacity at uttering the lines to Rosa Reclame. But 
 in a few minutes my self-consciousness wore off. A 
 nervous exaltation took its place, and when I came to 
 the speech beginning "Marguerite, are you mad? I 
 love you, and my love is not one of those passions 
 that can easily fade," I was as insensible to all save 
 the emotions we were representing as if I had been 
 an artist of repute. 
 
 Shall I ever forget the scene! The space cleared 
 among the furniture, to serve as stage: Reclame in 
 a sort of lea gown, playing as magnificently as only 
 she could play when she was in the vein, and I — 
 stage struck I — -x jetine premier at last! 
 
 Suddenly she changed her tone, and spoke as 
 the waiting-maid: 
 
 "'A letter. Mademoiselle.'" 
 
 "'Who sent it?'" 
 
 " 'The Comte de Varville.' " 
 
 It was my cue — the cue for all! 
 
 "'The Comte de Varville! Now Marguerite, 
 this is the touchstone of your worth. My life — 
 your honour, hang upon your answer!'" I thun-
 
 270 "for one night only." 
 
 dered out the lines for all Ihey were worth , and 
 waited. 
 
 "'There is no answer!'" 
 
 My arms opened, and the next instant she lay 
 upon my breast. Her face, intoxicating, bewilder- 
 ing, was upturned to me, and carried away by 
 enthusiasm, I bent my head. I kissed Rosa Re- 
 clame and she let me do it. 
 
 Then she drew herself from me, and extended 
 her hand: 
 
 "Monsieur," she said, "the rehearsal is finished. 
 Your acting has certainly sincerity! Good night." 
 
 Excepting across the foot-lights I never saw her 
 again. 
 
 THE END.
 
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