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 3
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY.
 
 BALLANT\NE, HANSON AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON
 
 THE 
 
 GOLDEN BUTTERFLY 
 
 qA J<iOVEL 
 
 WALTER BESANT and JAMES RICE 
 
 // 
 
 LI BEAR y EDITION 
 
 WITH A PORTRAIT OF WALTER BESANT 
 
 ILontion 
 CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1887
 
 TO 
 
 EDMUND YATES, 
 
 EDITOK OF " THE WORLD," 
 
 IN WHICH PAPER "THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY" 
 
 WAS FIRST PUBLISHED, 
 
 ^bis Storg 
 
 IS INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHORS.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE Golden Butterfly, which gives a name to this novel, 
 was seen by an English traveller, two years ago, 
 preserved as a curiosity in a mining city near Sacramento, 
 where it probably still remains. This curious freak of 
 Nature is not therefore an invention of our own. To the 
 same traveller — Mr. Edgar Besant — we are indebted for the 
 description on which is based our account of Empire City. 
 
 The striking of oil in Canada in the manner described by 
 Gilead P. Beck was accomplished — with the waste of millions 
 of gallons of the oil, for want of casks and buckets to receive 
 it, and with the result of a promise of almost boundless 
 wealth — by a man named Shaw, some ten years ago. Shaw 
 speculated, we believe ; lost his money, and died in poverty. 
 
 Names of great living poets and writers have been used 
 in this book in connection with a supposed literary banquet. 
 A critic has expressed surprise that we have allowed Gilead 
 Beck's failure to appreciate Browning to stand as if it were 
 our own. Is a writer of fiction to stop the action of his story 
 in order to explain that it is his character's opinion and not 
 his own, that he states? And it surely is not asking too 
 much to demand of a critic that he should consider first of 
 all the consistency of a character's actions or speeches. Gilead 
 Beck, a man of no education and little reading, but of con- 
 siderable shrewdness, finds Browning unintelligible and 
 harsh. What other verdict could be expected if the whole 
 of Empire City in its palmiest days had been canvassed?
 
 viii PREFACE. 
 
 Moreover, we have never, even from that great writer's most 
 ardent admirers, heard an opinion that he is either easy to 
 read, or musical. The compliments which Mr. Beck paid to 
 the guests who honoured his banquet are of course worded 
 just as he delivered them. 
 
 Gilead Beck's experiences as an editor are taken — with a. 
 little dressing — from the actual experiences of a living 
 Canadian journalist. 
 
 From their Virginian home Jack Dunquerque and Phillis 
 his wife send greetings to those who have already followed 
 their fortunes. She only wishes us to add that Mr. Abraham 
 Dyson was right, and that the Coping Stone of every woman's 
 education is Love. Most people know this, she says, from 
 reading : but she never did read j and the real happiness is 
 to find it out for yourself. 
 
 W. B. 
 J. K. 
 
 March, 1877.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 I. 
 
 WHAT do you tliink, chief? " 
 The speaker, who was leading by half a length, 
 turned in his saddle and looked at his companion. 
 
 " Push on," growled the chief, who was a man of few 
 words. 
 
 "If you were not so intolerably conceited about the value 
 of your words — hang it, man, you are not the Poet Laureate ! 
 — you might give your reasons why we should not camp 
 where we are. The sun will be down in two hours ; the way 
 is long, the wind is cold, or will be soon. This pilgrim has 
 tightened his belt to stave off the gnawing at his stomach ; 
 here is running water, here is wood, here is everything calcu- 
 lated to charm the poetic mind even of Captain Ladds " 
 
 " Road ! " interrupted his fellow-traveller, pointing along 
 the track marked more by deep old wheel- ruts, grown over 
 with grass, than by any evidences of engineering skill. 
 "Roads lead to places; places have beds ; beds are warmer 
 than grass — no rattlesnakes in beds ; miners in hotels — 
 amusing fellows, miners." 
 
 " If ever I go out again after buffaloes, or bear, or 
 mountain-deer, or any other game whatever which this great 
 continent offers, with a monosyllabic man, may I be con- 
 demned to another two months of buffalo steak without 
 Worcester sauce, such as I have had already; may I be
 
 12 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 poisoned with bad Bourbon whisky ; may I never again see 
 the sweet shady side of Pall Mall ; may I " 
 
 Here he stopped suddenly, for want of imagination to com- 
 plete the curse. 
 
 The first speaker was a young man of four and twenty — 
 the age which is to my sex what eighteen is to the other, 
 because at four and twenty youth and manhood meet. He 
 of four and twenty is yet a youth, inasmuch as women are 
 still angels ; every dinner is a feast, every man of higher rank 
 is a demigod, and every book is true. He is a man, inasmuch 
 as he has the firm step of manhood, he has passed through 
 his calf-love, he knows what claret means, and his heart is 
 set upon the things for which boys care nothing. He is a 
 youth, because he can still play a game of football and rejoice 
 amazingly in a boat-race ; he is a man, because he knows 
 that these things belong to the past, and that to concern 
 one's self seriously with athletics, when you can no longer 
 be an athlete in the games, is to put yourself on the level of 
 a rowing coach or the athletic critic of a sporting paper. 
 
 Being only four and twenty, the speaker was in high 
 spirits. He was also hungry. He was always both. What 
 has life better to off"er than a continual flow of animal spirits 
 and a perpetual appetite ? He was a tall, slight, and perhaps 
 rather a weedy youth, a little too long of leg, a little too 
 narrow in the beam, a little spare about the shoulders ; but 
 a youth of a ruddy and a cheerful countenance. To say that 
 the lines of his face were never set to gravity would be too 
 much, because I defy any man to laugh when he is sleeping, 
 eating, or drinking. At all other times this young man was 
 ready to laugh without stopping. Not a foolish cackle of 
 idiotic vacuity such as may be heard in Earlswood Asylum 
 or at a tea-party to meet the curate, but a cheerful bubble of 
 mirth and good-humour, proof that the spirit within took 
 everything joyously, seeing in every misadventure its humor- 
 ous side, and in every privation its absurdity. 
 
 The other who rode beside him was some years older at 
 least. A man of thirty-five, or perhaps more ; a man with a 
 hatchet-face — nose and forehead in one straight line; long
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 13 
 
 chin and long upper lip in another ; face red with health as 
 well as bronzed with the sun — a good honest face, super- 
 naturally grave, grave beyond all understanding; lips that 
 were always tightly closed ; eyes which sometimes sparkled 
 in response to some genial thought, or bubbled over at some 
 joke of his companion, but which, as a rule, were like gimlets 
 for sternness, so that strangers, especially stranger servants 
 — the nigger of Jamaica, the guileless Hindoo of his Indian 
 station, and other members of the inferior human brotherhood 
 — trembled exceedingly when they met those eyes. Captain 
 Ladds was accordingly well served, as cold, reserved men 
 generally are. Mankind take everything unknown j5ro terrihili, 
 for something dreadful, and until we learn to know a man, 
 and think we know him, he is to be treated with the respect 
 due to a possible enemy. Hostis means a stranger, and it is 
 for strangers that we keep our brickbats. 
 
 People who knew Ladds laughed at this reputation. They 
 said the gallant captain was a humbug ; they pretended that 
 he was as gentle as a turtle-dove ; beneath those keen eyes, 
 they said, and behind that sharp hatchet-face, lurked the 
 most amiable of dispositions. At any rate, Ladds was never 
 known to thrash a native servant, or to swear more than is 
 becoming and needful at a syce, while his hatchet-face had 
 been more than once detected in the very act of looking as 
 soft and tender as a young mother's over her first-born. The 
 name of this cavalier was short and simple. It was Thomas 
 Ladds. His intimate friends called him Tommy. 
 
 They were in California, and were not buffalo-hunting now, 
 because there is not a buifalo within five hundred miles of 
 Sacramento. Their bufialo-hunting was over, having been 
 accompanied by such small hardships as have been already 
 alluded to. They rode along a track which was as much like 
 a road as Eichmond Park is like the Forest of Arden. They 
 were mounted on a pair of small nervous mustangs; their 
 saddles were the Mexican saddles used in the country, in 
 front of which was the never-failing horn. Round this was 
 wound the horsehair lariette, which serves the Western Nim- 
 rod for lassoing by day, and for keeping off snakes at night,
 
 14 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 
 
 no snake having ever been known to cross this barrier of 
 bristly horsehair. You might as well expect a burgling 
 coolie, smeared with oil, and naked, to effect his escape by 
 crawling through a hedge of prickly pear. Also, because 
 they were in a foreigTi land, and wished to be in harmony 
 with its institutions, they wore immense steel spurs, inlaid 
 with silver filigree, and furnished with "lobs" attached to 
 them, which jangled and danced to make melody, just as 
 if they formed part of an illustration to a Christmas book. 
 Boots, of course, they wore, and the artistic instinct which, a 
 year before, had converted the younger man into a thing of 
 beauty and a joy for the whole Park in the afternoon, now 
 impelled him to assume a cummerhund of scarlet silk, with 
 white-tasselled fringes, the like of which, perhaps, had never 
 before been seen on the back of Californian mustang. His 
 companion was less ornate in his personal appearance. Both 
 men carried guns, and if a search had been made, a revolver 
 would have been found, either hidden in the belt of each or 
 carried perdu in the trousers-pocket. In these days of Pacific 
 Railways and scampering Globe Trotters, one does not want 
 to parade the revolver; but there are dark places on the 
 earth, from the traveller's as well as from the missionary's 
 point of view, where it would be well to have both bowie and 
 Derringer ready to hand. On the American continent the 
 wandering lamb sometimes has to lie down with the leopard, 
 the harmless gazelle to journey side by side with the cheetah, 
 and the asp may here and there pretend to play innocently 
 over the hole of the cockatrice. 
 
 Behind the leaders followed a little troop of three, con- 
 sisting of one English servant and two "greasers." The 
 latter were dressed in plain unpretending costume of flannel 
 shirt, boots, and rough trousers. Behind each hung his 
 rifle. The English servant was dressed like his master, but 
 " more so ; " his spurs being heavier, the pattern of his check- 
 shirt being larger, his saddle bigger ; only for the silk cum- 
 merbund he wore a leathern strap, the last symbol of the 
 honourable condition of dependence. He rode in advance of 
 the greasers, whom he held in contempt, and some thirty yards
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 15 
 
 behind the leaders. The Mexicans rode in silence, smoking 
 cigarettes perpetually. Sometimes they looked to their guns, 
 or they told a story, or one would sing a snatch of a song in 
 a low voice ; mostly they were grave and thoughtful, though 
 what a greaser thinks about has never yet been ascertained. 
 
 The country was so far in the Far West that the Sierra 
 Nevada lay to the east. It was a rich and beautiful country : 
 there were park-like tracts — supposing the park to be of a 
 primitive and early- settlement kind — stretching out to the 
 left. These were dotted with white oaks. To the right rose 
 the sloping sides of a hill, which were covered with the brush- 
 wood called the chaparelle, in which grew the manzanita and 
 the scrub-oak, with an occasional cedar-pine, not in the least 
 like the cedars of Lebanon and Clapham Common. Hanging 
 about in the jungle, or stretching its arms along the side of 
 the dry water-course which ran at the travellers' feet beside 
 the road, was the wild vine, loaded with its small and pretty 
 grapes, now ripe. Nature, in inventing the wild grape, has 
 been as generous as in her gift of the sloe. It is a fruit of 
 which an American once observed that it was calculated to 
 develop the generosity of a man's nature, " because," he ex- 
 plained, " you would rather give it to your neighbour than 
 eat it yourself" 
 
 The travellers were low down on the western slopes of the 
 Sierra ; they were in the midst of dales and glades — canons 
 and gulches, of perfect loveliness, shut in by mountains which 
 rose over and behind them like friendly giants guarding a 
 troop of sleeping maidens. Pelion was piled on Ossa as peak 
 afber peak rose higher, all clad with pine and cedar, receding 
 farther and farther, till peaks became points, and ridges 
 became sharp edges. 
 
 It was autumn, and there were dry beds, which had in the 
 spring been rivulets flowing full and clear from the snowy 
 sides of the higher slopes ; yet among them lingered the 
 flowers of April upon the shrubs, and the colours of the fading 
 leaves mingled with the hues of the autumn berries. 
 
 A sudden turn in the winding road brought the foremost 
 riders upon a change in the appearance of the country.
 
 i6 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Below tliem to the left stretched a broad open space, where 
 the ground had been not only cleared of whatever jungle once 
 grew upon it, but also turned over. They looked upon the 
 site of one of the earliest surface-mining grounds. The 
 shingle and gravel stood aboat in heaps; the gulleys and 
 ditches formed by the miners ran up and down the face of 
 the country like the wrinkles in the cheek of a baby monkey ; , 
 old pits, not deep enough to kill, but warranted to maim and 
 disable, lurked like man-traps in the open ; the old wooden 
 aqueducts, run up by the miners in the year '52, were still 
 standing where they were abandoned by the " pioneers ; " 
 here and there lay about old washing-pans, rusty and broken, 
 old cradles, and bits of rusty metal which had once belonged 
 to shovels. These relics and signs of bygone gatherings of 
 men were sufficiently dreary in themselves, but at intervals 
 there stood the ruins of a log-house, or a heap which had 
 once been a cottage built of mud. Palestine itself has no 
 more striking picture of desolation and wreck than a desei'ted 
 surface- mine. 
 
 They drew rein and looked in silence. Presently they be- 
 came aware of the presence of life. Right in the foreground, 
 about two hundred yards before them, there advanced a proces- 
 sion of two. The leader of the show, so to speak, was a man. 
 He was running. He was running so hard, that anybody could 
 see his primary object was speed. After him, with heavy 
 stride, seeming to be in no kind of hurry, and yet covering 
 the ground at a much greater rate than the man, there came 
 a bear — a real old grisly. A bear who was " shadowing " the 
 man and meant claws. A bear who had an insult to avenge, 
 and was resolved to go on with the afiair until he had avenged 
 it. A bear, too, who had his enemy in the open, where there 
 was nothing to stop him, and no refuge for his victim but the 
 planks of a ruined log-house, could he find one. 
 
 Both men, without a word, got their rifles ready. The 
 younger threw the reins of his horse to his companion and 
 dismounted. 
 
 Then he stood still and watched. 
 
 The most exhilarating thing in the whole world is allowed
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 17 
 
 to be a hunt. No greater pleasure in life than that of the 
 Shekarry, especially if he be after big game. On this occa- 
 sion the keenness of the sport was perhaps intensified to him 
 who ran by the reflection that the customary position of 
 things was revei'sed. No longer did he hunt the bear ; the 
 bear hunted him. No longer did he waiily follow up the 
 game ; the game boldly followed him. No joyous sound of 
 horns cheered on the hunter ; no shout, such as those which 
 inspirit the fox and put fresh vigour into the hare — not even 
 the short eager bark of the hounds, at the sound of which 
 Reynard begins to think how many of his hundred turns are 
 left. It was a silent chase. The bear, who represented in 
 himself the whole field — men in scarlet, ladies, master, pack, 
 and everything — set to work in a cold unsympathetic way, 
 infinitely more distressing to a nervous creature than the 
 cheerful ringing of a whole field. To hunt in silence would be 
 hard for any man ; to be hunted in silence is intolerable. ' 
 
 Grisly held his head down and wagged it from side to 
 side, while his great silent paws rapidly cleared the ground 
 and lessened the distance. 
 
 " Tommy," whispered the young fellow, " I can cover him 
 now." 
 
 "Wait, Jack. Don't miss. Give Grisly two minutes 
 more. Gad ! how the fellow scuds ! " 
 
 Tommy, you see, obeyed the instinct of nature. He 
 loved the hunt : if not to hunt actively, to witness a hunt. 
 It is the same feeling which crowds the benches at a 
 bull-fight in Spain. It was the same feeling which lit up 
 the faces in the Coliseum when Hermann, formerly of the 
 Danube, prisoner, taken red-handed in revolt, and therefore 
 moriturus, performed with vigour, sympathy, and spirit the 
 role of Actaeon, ending, as we all know, in a splendid chase 
 by bloodhounds ; after which the poor Teuton, maddened by 
 his long flight and exhausted by his desperate resistance, was 
 torn to pieces, fighting to the end with a rage past all acting. 
 It is our modern pleasure to read of pain and sufiering. 
 Those were the really pleasant days to the Roman ladies when 
 they actually witnessed living agony.
 
 i8 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Give Grisly two minutes," said Captain Ladds. 
 
 By this time the rest of the party had come up, and were 
 watching the movements of man and bear. In the plain 
 stood the framework of a ruined wooden house. Man made 
 for log-house. Bear, without any apparent effort, but just to 
 show that he saw the dodge, and meant that it should not 
 succeed, put on a spurt, and the distance between them 
 lessened every moment. Fifty yards ; forty yards. ]\Ian 
 looked round over his shoulder. The log-house was a good two 
 hundred yards ahead. He hesitated ; seemed to stop for a 
 moment. Bear diminished the space by a good dozen yards 
 — and then man doubled. 
 
 " Getting pumped," said Ladds the critical. Then he too 
 dismounted, and stood beside the younger man, giving the 
 reins of both horses to one of the Mexicans. " Mustn't let 
 Grisly claw the poor devil," he murmured. 
 
 " Let me bring him down. Tommy." 
 
 " Bring him down, young un." 
 
 The greasers looked on and laughed. It would have been 
 to them a pleasant termination to the "play" had Bruin 
 clawed the man. Neither hunter nor quarry saw the party 
 clustered together on the rising ground on which the track 
 ran. Man saw nothing but the ground over which he flew ; 
 bear saw nothing but man before him. The doubling 
 manoeuvre was, however, the one thing needed to bring 
 Grisly within easy reach. Faster flew the man, but it was 
 the last flight of despair ; had the others been near enough 
 they would have seen the cold drops of agony standing on his 
 forehead ; they would have caught his panting breath, they 
 would have heard his muttered prayer. 
 
 " Let him have it ! " growled Ladds. 
 
 It was time. Grisly, swinging along with leisurely step, 
 rolling his great head from side to side in time with the 
 cadence of his footfall — one roll to every half-dozen strides, 
 like a fat German over a trois-temps waltz — suddenly lifted 
 his face, and roared. Then the man shrieked ; then the bear 
 stopped, and raised himself for a moment, pawing in the air; 
 then he dropped again, and rushed with quickened step upon
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY, 19 
 
 his foe ; then — but then — ping ! one shot. It has struck 
 Grisly in the shoulder ; he stops with a roar. 
 
 " Good, young un ! " said Ladds, bringing piece to shoulder. 
 This time Grisly roars no more. He rolls over. He is shot 
 to the heart, and is dead. 
 
 The other participator in this chasse of two heard the crack 
 of the rifles. His senses were growing dazed with fear ; he 
 did not stop, he ran on still, but with trembling knees and 
 outstretched hands ; and when he came to a heap of shingle 
 and sand — one of those left over from the old surface-mines 
 — he fell headlong on the pile with a cry, and could not rise. 
 The two who shot the bear ran across the ground — he lay 
 almost at their feet — to secure their prey. After them, at a 
 leisurely pace, strode John, the servant. The greasers stayed 
 behind and laughed. 
 
 " Grisly's dead," said Tommy, pulling out his knife. 
 " Steak ? " 
 
 "No; skin," cried the younger. "Let me take his skin. 
 John, we will have the beast skinned. You can get some 
 steaks cut. Where is the man ? " 
 
 They found him lying on his face, unable to move. 
 
 " Now, old man," said the young fellow cheerfully, " might 
 as well sit up, you know, if you can't stand. Bruin's gone 
 to the happy hunting-grounds." 
 
 The man sat up, as desired, and tried to take a comprehen- 
 sive view of the position. 
 
 Jack handed him a flask, from which he took a long pull. 
 Then he got up, and somewhat ostentatiously began to 
 smooth down the legs of his trousers. 
 
 He was a thin man, about five and forty years of age ; he 
 wore an irregular and patchy kind of beard, which flourished 
 exceedingly on certain square half-inches of chin and cheek, 
 and was as thin as grass at Aden on the intervening spaces. 
 He had no boots, but a sort of moccasins, the lightness of 
 which enabled him to show his heels to the bear for so long: 
 a time. His trousers might have been of a rough tweed, or 
 they might have been black cloth, because grease, many 
 drenchings, the buSetting of years, and the holes into which
 
 20 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 they were worn, had long deprived them of their original 
 colour and brilliancy. Above the trousers he wore a tattered 
 flannel shirt, the right arm of which, nearly torn to pieces, 
 revealed a tattooed limb, which was strong although thin ; 
 the buttons had long ago vanished from the front of the 
 garment ; thorns picturesquely replaced them. He wore a 
 red-cotton handkerchief round his neck, a round felt hat was 
 on his head ; this, like the trousers, had lost its pristine 
 colour, and by dint of years and weather, its stiffness too. To 
 prevent the hat from flapping in his eyes, its possessor had 
 pinned it up with thorns in the front. 
 
 Necessity is the mother of invention : there is nothing 
 morally wrong in the use of thorns where other men use 
 studs, diamond pins, and such gauds ; and the effect is 
 picturesque. The stranger, in fact, was a law unto himself. 
 He had no coat ; the rifle of Californian civilisation was miss- 
 ing ; there was no sign of knife or revolver ; and the only 
 encumbrance, if that was any, to the lightness of his flight 
 was a small wooden bos strapped round tightly, and hanging 
 at his back by means of a steel chain, grown a little rusty 
 where it did not rub against his neck and shoulders. 
 
 He sat up and winked involuntarily with both eyes. This 
 was the effect of present bewilderment and late fear. 
 
 Then he looked round him, after, as before explained, a few 
 moments of assiduous leg-smoothing, which, as stated above, 
 looked ostentatious, but was really only nervous agitation. 
 Then he rose, and saw Grisly lying in a heap a few yards off". 
 He walked over with a grave face, and looked at him. 
 
 When Henri Balafre, Due de Guise, saw Coligny lying 
 dead at his feet, he is said — only it is a wicked lie — to have 
 kicked the body of his murdered father's enemy. When Henri 
 III. of France, ten years later, saw Balafre dead at his feet, 
 he did kick the lifeless body, with a wretched joke. The king 
 was a cur. My American was not. He stood over Bruin 
 with a look in his eyes which betokened respect for fallen 
 greatness and sympathy with bad luck. Grisly would have 
 been his victor, but for the chance which brought him within 
 reach of a friendly rifle.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 21 
 
 " A near thing," he said. " Since I've been in this doggoned 
 country I've had one or two near things, but this was the 
 nearest." 
 
 The greasers stood round the body of the bear, and the 
 English servant was giving directions for skinning the beast. 
 " And which of you gentlemen," he went on with a nasal 
 twang more pronounced than before — perhaps with more 
 emphasis on the word " gentlemen " than was altogether 
 required — " which of you gentlemen was good enough to 
 shoot the critter ? " 
 
 The English servant, who was, like his master, Captain 
 Ladds, a man of few words, pointed to the young man, who 
 stood close by with the other leader of the expedition. 
 
 The man snatched from the jaws of death took off his 
 shaky thorn-beset felt, and solemnly held out his hand. 
 
 " Sir," he said, " I do not know your name, and you do not 
 know mine. If you did you would not be much happier, 
 because it is not a striking name. If you'll oblige me, sir, 
 by touching that " — he meant his right hand — " we shall be 
 brothers. All that's mine shall be yours. I do not ask you, 
 sir, to reciprocate. All that's mine, sir, when I get anything, 
 shall be yours. At present, sir, there is nothing; but I've 
 Luck behind me. Shake hands, sir. Once a mouse helped 
 a lion, sir. It's in a book. I am the mouse, sir, and you 
 are the lion. Sir, my name is Gilead P. Beck." 
 
 The young man laughed and shook hands with him. 
 
 " I only fired the first shot," he explained. " My friend 
 
 here" 
 
 " No ; first shot disabled — hunt finished then — Grisly out 
 of the running. Glad you're not clawed — unpleasant to be 
 clawed. Young un did it. No thanks. Tell us where we are." 
 Mr. Gilead P. Beck, catching the spirit of the situation, 
 told them where they were, approximately. " This," he said, 
 " is Patrick's Camp ; at least, it was. The Pioneers of '49 
 could tell you a good deal about Patrick's Camp. It was here 
 that Patrick kept his store. In those old days — they're gone 
 now — if a man wanted to buy a blanket, that article, sir, was 
 put into one scale, and weighed down with gold-dust in the
 
 22 THE GOLDEN" BUTTERFLY. 
 
 other. Same witli a pair of boots ; same with a pound of 
 raisins. Patrick might have died rich, sir, but he didn't — 
 none of the pioneers did — so he died poor ; and died in his 
 boots, too, like most of the lot." 
 
 " Not much left of the camp." 
 
 " No, sir, not much. The mine gave out. Then they 
 moved up the hills, where, I conclude, you gentlemen are on 
 your way. Prospecting likely. The new town, called Empire 
 City, ought to be an hour or so up the track. I was trying 
 to find my way there when I met with old Grisly. Perhaps 
 if I had let him alone he would have let me alone. But I 
 blazed at him, and, sir, I missed him ; then he shadowed me. 
 And the old rifle's gone at last." 
 
 " How long did the chase last ? " 
 
 " I should say, sir, forty days and forty nights, or near 
 about. And you gentlemen air going to Empire City ? " 
 
 " We are going anywhere. Perhaps, for the present, you 
 had better join us.'* 
 
 II. 
 
 Mr. Gilead p. Beck, partly recovered from the shock caused 
 to his nerves by the revengeful spirit of the bear, and in no 
 way discomfited by any sense of false shame as to his ragged 
 appearance, marched beside the two Englishmen. It was 
 characteristic of his nationality that he regarded the greasers 
 with contempt, and that he joined the two gentlemen as if 
 he belonged to their grade and social rank. An Englishman 
 picked up in such rags and duds would have shrunk abashed 
 to the rear, or he would have apologised for his tattered con- 
 dition, or he would have begged for some garments — any 
 garments — to replace his own. Mr. Beck had no such feel- 
 ing. He strode along with a swinging slouch, which covered 
 the ground as rapidly as the step of the horses. The wind 
 blew his rags about his long and lean figure as picturesquely 
 as if he were another Autolycus. He was as full of talk as 
 that worthy, and as lightsome of spirit, despite the solemn 
 gravity of his face. I once saw a poem — I think in the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 23 
 
 S])ectator — on Artemus Ward, in which the bard apostrophised 
 the light-hearted merriment of the Western American : a 
 very unfortunate thing to say, because the Western American 
 is externally a most serious person, never merry, never witty, 
 but always humorous. Mr. Beck was quite grave, though at 
 the moment as happy as that other grave and thoughtful 
 person who has made a name in the literature of humour — 
 Panurge — when he escaped half-roasted from the Turk's Serai. 
 
 " I ought," he said, " to sit down and cry, like the girl on 
 the prairie." 
 
 " Why ought you to cry ? " 
 
 "I guess I ought to cry because I've lost my rifle and 
 everything except my Luck" — here he pulled at the steel 
 chain — " in that darned long stern chase." 
 
 " You can easily get a new rifle," said Jack. 
 
 "With dollars," interrupted Mr. Beck. "As for them, 
 there's not a dollar left — nary a red cent ; only my Luck." 
 
 " And what is your Luck ? " 
 
 " That," said Mr. Beck, " I will tell you by-and-by. Per- 
 haps it's your Luck, too, young boss," he added, thinking of a 
 shot as fortunate to himself as William Toll's was to his son. 
 
 He pulled the box attached to the steel chain round to the 
 front, and l6oked at it tenderly. It was safe, and he heaved 
 a sigh. 
 
 The way wound up a valley — a road marked only, as has 
 been said, by deep ruts along its course. Behind the 
 travellers the evening sun was slowly sinking in the west ; 
 before them the peaks of the Sierra lifted their heads, 
 coloured purple in the evening light ; and on either hand 
 rose the hill-sides, with their dark foliage in alternate 
 " splashes " of golden light and deepest shade. 
 
 It wanted but a quarter of an hour to sunset when Mr. 
 Gilead P. Beck pointed to a townshij) which suddenly 
 appeared, lying at their very feet. 
 
 " Empire City, I reckon." 
 
 A good-sized town of wooden houses. They were all alike, 
 and of the same build as that affected by the architects of 
 dolls' houses ; that is to say, they were of one story only, had
 
 24 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 a door in tlie middle, and a window on either side. Tliey 
 were so small, also, that they looked veritable dolls' houses. 
 
 There were one or two among them of more pretentious 
 appearance, and of several stories. These were the hotels, 
 billiard-saloons, bars, and gambling-houses. 
 
 " It's a place bound to advance, sir," said Mr. Beck proudly. 
 " Empire City, when I first saw it, which is two years ago, 
 was only two years old. It is only in our country that a 
 great city springs up in a day. Empire City will be the 
 Chicago of the West." 
 
 " I see a city," said Captain Ladds ; " can't see the people." 
 
 It was certainly curious. There was not a soul in the streets ; 
 there was no smoke from the chimneys ; there were neither 
 carts nor horses ; there was not the least sign of occupation. 
 
 Mr. Gilead P. Beck whistled. 
 
 " All gone," he said. " Guess the city's busted up." 
 
 He pushed aside the brambles which grew over what had 
 been a path leading to the place, and hurried down. The 
 others followed him, and rode into the town. 
 
 It was deserted. The doors of the houses were open, and 
 if you looked in you might see the rough furniture which the 
 late occupants disdained to carry away with them. The two 
 Englishmen dismounted, gave their reins to the servants, 
 and began to look about them. 
 
 The descendants of Og, king of Bashan, have left their 
 houses in black basalt, dotted about the lava-fields of the 
 Hauran, to witness how they lived. In the outposts of the 
 desert stations of the East, the Roman soldiers have left their 
 barracks and their baths, their jokes written on the wall, 
 and their names, to show how they passed away the weary 
 hours of garrison duty. So the miners who founded Empire 
 City, and deserted it en masse when the gold gave out, left 
 behind them marks by which future explorers of the ruins 
 should know what manner of men once dwelt there. The 
 billiard-saloon stood open, with swinging doors ; the table 
 was still there, the balls lay about on the table and the floor ; 
 the cues stood in the rack; the green cloth, mildewed, 
 covered the table.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 2$ 
 
 " Tommy," said the younger, " we will have a game 
 to-night." 
 
 The largest building in the place had been an hotel. It 
 had two stories, and was, like the rest of the houses, built of 
 wood, with a verandah along the front. The upper story 
 looked as if it had been recently inhabited ; that is, the shutters 
 were not dropping off the hinges, nor were they flapping to 
 and fro in the breeze. 
 
 But the town was deserted ; the evening breeze blew chilly 
 up its vacant streets ; life and sound had gone out of the 
 place. 
 
 " I feel cold," said Jack, looking about him. 
 
 They went round to the back of the hotel. Old iron cog- 
 wheels lay rusting on the ground with remains of pumps. 
 In the heart of the town behind the hotel stretched an open 
 space of gi-ound covered with piles of shingle and intersected 
 with ditches. 
 
 Mr. Beck sat down and adjusted one of the thorns which 
 served as a temporary shirt-stud. 
 
 "Two years ago," he said, "there were ten thousand 
 miners here ; now there isn't one. I thought we should find 
 a choice hotel, with a little monty or poker afterwards. Now 
 no one left ; nothing but a Chinaman or two." 
 
 " How do you know there are Chinamen ? " 
 
 " See those stones ? " 
 
 He pointed to some great boulders, from three to six feet 
 in diameter. Some operation of a mystical kind had been 
 performed upon them, for they were jagged and chipped as 
 if they had been filed and cut into shape by a sculptor who 
 had been once a dentist and still loved the profession. 
 
 " The miners picked the bones of those rocks, but they 
 never pick quite clean. Then the Chinamen come and finish 
 off. Gentlemen, it's a special Providence that you picked 
 me up. I don't altogether admire the way in which that 
 special Providence was played up to in the matter of the bar ; 
 but a Christian without a revolver alone among twenty 
 Chinamen " 
 
 He stopped and shrugged his shoulders.
 
 26 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " They'd have got my Luck," lie concluded. 
 
 " Chief, I don't like it," said the younger man. " It'a 
 ghostly. It's a town of dead men. As soon as it is dark 
 the ghosts will rise and walk about — play billiards, I expect. 
 What shall we do ? " 
 
 " Hotel," growled the chief " Sleep on floor — sit on 
 chairs — eat off a table." 
 
 They entered the hotel. 
 
 A most orderly bar : the glasses there ; the bright- coloured 
 bottles ; two or three casks of Bourbon whisky ; the counter ; 
 the very dice on the counter with which the bar-keeper used 
 to "2"o" the miners for drinks. How things at once so 
 necessary to civilised life and so portable as dice were left 
 behind, it is impossible to explain. 
 
 Everything was there except the drink. The greasers 
 tried the casks and examined the bottles. Emptiness. A 
 miner may leave behind him the impedimenta, but the real 
 necessaries of life — rifle, revolver, bowie, and cards — he takes 
 with him. And as for the drink, he carries that away too, 
 for greater safety, inside himself. 
 
 The English servant looked round him and smiled superior. 
 
 " No tap for beer, as usual, sir," he said. " These pore 
 Californians has much to learn." 
 
 Mr. Gilead P. Beck looked round mournfully. 
 
 " Everything gone but the fixin's," he sighed. " There 
 used to be good beds, where there wasn't rnore'n two at 
 once in them ; and there used to be such a crowd around this 
 bar as you would not find nearer'n St. Louis City." 
 
 "Hush ! " said Jack, holding up his hand. There were steps. 
 
 Mr. Beck pricked up his ears. 
 
 " Chinamen, likely. If there's a row, gentlemen, give me 
 something, if it's only a toothpick, to chime in with. But 
 that's not a Chinese step ; that's an Englishman's. He wears 
 boots, but they are not miners' boots ; he walks firm and slow, 
 like all Englishmen ; he is not in a hurry, like our folk. And 
 who but an Englishman would be found staying behind in 
 the Empire City when it's gone to pot ? " 
 
 The footsteps came down the stairs.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 27 
 
 "Most unHandsotne of a ghost," said the younger man, 
 " to walk before midnight." 
 
 The producer of the footsteps appeared. 
 
 " Told you he was an Englishman ! " cried Mr. Beck. 
 
 Indeed, there was no mistaking the nationality of the man, 
 in spite of his dress, which was cosmopolitan. He wore boots, 
 but not, as the quick ear of the American told him, the great 
 boots of the miner ; he had on a flannel shirt with a red-silk 
 l)elt ; he wore a sort of blanket thrown back from his shoulders ; 
 and he had a broad felt hat. Of course he carried arms, but 
 they were not visible. 
 
 He was a man of middle height, with clear blue eyes ; the 
 perfect complexion of an Englishman of good stock and in 
 complete health; a brown beard, long and rather curly, 
 streaked with here and there a grey hair ; square and clear- 
 cut nostrils ; and a mouth which, though not much of it was 
 visible, looked as if it would easily smile, might readily 
 become tender, and would certainly find it difficult to be stern. 
 He might be any age, from five and thirty to five and forty. 
 
 The greasers fell back and grouped about the door. The 
 questions which might be raised had no interest for them. 
 The two leaders stood together ; and Mr. Gilead P. Beck, 
 rolling an empty keg to their side, turned it up, and sat down 
 with the air of a judge, looking from one party to the other. 
 
 " Englishmen, I see," said the stranger. 
 
 "Ye-yes," said Ladds, not, as Mr. Beck expected, imme- 
 diately holding out his hand for the stranger to grasp. 
 
 " You have probably lost your way ? " 
 
 " Been hunting. Working round — San Francisco. Followed 
 track ; accident ; got here. Your hotel, perhaps ? Fine situa- 
 tion, but lonely." 
 
 " Not a ghost, then," murmured the other, with a look of 
 temporary disappointment. 
 
 " If you will come upstairs to my quarters, 1 may be able 
 to make you comfortable for the night. Your party will 
 accommodate themselves without our help." 
 
 He referred to the greasers, who had already begun their 
 preparations for spending a happy night. When he led the
 
 28 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY, 
 
 way up the stairs, lie was followed, not only by tlie two gen- 
 tlemen he had invited, but also by the raganiuflSn hunter, 
 miner, or adventurer, and by the valet, who conceived it his 
 duty to follow his master. 
 
 He lived, this hermit, in one of the small bed-rooms of the 
 hotel, which he had converted into a sitting-room. It con- 
 tained a single rocking-chair and a table. There was also a 
 shelf, which served for a sideboard, and a curtain under the 
 shelf, which acted as a cupboard. 
 
 " You see my den," he said. " I came here a year or so 
 ago by accident, like yourselves. I found the place deserted. 
 I liked the solitude, the scenery, whatever you like, and I 
 stayed here. You are the only visitors I have had for a 
 year." 
 
 " Chinamen ? " said Mr. Gilead P. Beck. 
 
 " Well, Chinamen, of course. But only two of them. They 
 take turns, at forty dollars a month, to cook my dinners. 
 And there is a half-caste, who does not mind running down 
 to Sacramento when I want anything. And so, you see, I 
 make out pretty well." 
 
 He opened the window, and blew a whistle. 
 
 In two minutes a Chinaman came tumbling up the stairs. 
 His inscrutable face expressed all the conflicting passions of 
 humanity at once — ambition, vanity, self-respect, humour, 
 satire, avarice, resignation, patience, revenge, meekness, long- 
 suffering, remembrance, and a thousand others. No Aryan 
 comes within a hundred miles of it. 
 
 '' Dinner as soon as you can," said his master. 
 
 " Ayah ! can do," replied the Celestial. " What time you 
 wantchee ? 
 
 " As soon as you can. Half an hour." 
 
 "Can do. My no have got cully-powder. Have makee 
 finish. Have got?" 
 
 " Look for some ; make Achow help." 
 
 "How can? No,b'long his pidgin. Henohelpee. B'longmy 
 pidgin makee cook chow-chow. Ayah ! Achow have go makee 
 cheat over Mexican man. Makee play cards all same euchre." 
 
 In factj on looking out of the window, the other Celestial
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEKFLY. 29 
 
 was clearly visible, manipulating a pack of cards and appar- 
 ently inviting the Mexicans to a friendly game, in which 
 there could be no deception. 
 
 Then Ladds' conscience smote him. 
 
 *'Beg pardon. Should have seen. Made remark about 
 hotel. Apologise." 
 
 " He means," said the other, " that he was a terrible great 
 fool not to see that you are a gentleman." 
 
 Ladds nodded. 
 
 " Let me introduce our party," the speaker went on. " This 
 is our esteemed friend Mr. Gilead P. Beck, whom we caught 
 in a bear-hunt " 
 
 " Bar behind," said Mr. Beck. 
 
 "This is Captain Ladds, of the 35th Dragoons." 
 
 "Ladds," said Ladds. "Nibs, cocoa-nibs — pure aroma — best 
 breakfast-digester — blessing to mothers — perfect fragrance." 
 
 "His name is Ladds; and he wishes to communicate to 
 you the fact that he is the son of the man who made an im- 
 mense fortune — immense. Tommy ? " 
 
 Ladds nodded. 
 
 " By a crafty compound known as * Ladds' Patent Anti- 
 Dyspeptic Cocoa.' This is Ladd's servant, John Bolmer, the 
 best servant who ever put his leg across pig-skin ; and my 
 name is Roland Dunquerque. People generally call me Jack ; 
 I don't know why, but they do." 
 
 Their host bowed to each, including the servant, who 
 coloured with pleasure at Jack's description of him ; but he 
 shook hands with Ladds. 
 
 " One of ours," he said. " My name is Lawrence Colqu- 
 houn. I sold out before you joined. I came here, as you see. 
 And — now, gentlemen, I think I hear the first sounds of 
 dinner. Bolmer — you will allow me, Ladds ? — you will find 
 claret and champagne behind that curtain. Pardon a hermit's 
 fare. I think they have laid out such a table as the wilder- 
 ness can boast in the next room." 
 
 The dinner was not altogether what a man might order at 
 the Junior United, but it was good. There was venison, there 
 was a curry, there was some mountain quail, there was claret,
 
 30 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 and there was cliampagne — both good, especially the claret. 
 Then there was coffee. 
 
 The Honourable Eoland Dunquerque, whom we will call 
 in future, what everybody always called him. Jack, ate and 
 drank like Friar John. The keen mountain air multiplied 
 his normal twist by ten. Mr. Gilead P. Beck, who sat down 
 to dinner perfectly unabashed by his rags, was good as a 
 trencherman, but many plates behind the young Englishman. 
 Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun, their host, went on talking almost 
 as if they were in London, only now and then he found him- 
 self behind the world. It was his ignorance of the last Derby, 
 the allusion to an old and half-forgotten story, perhaps his 
 use of little phrases — not slang phrases, but those delicately- 
 shaded terms which imply knowledge of current things — 
 which showed him to have been out of London and Paris for 
 more than one season. 
 
 " Four years," he said, " since I left England." 
 
 " But you will come back to it again ? " 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 " Better," said Jack, whose face was a little flushed with 
 the wine. " Much better. Robinson Crusoe always wanted 
 to get home again. So did Selkirk. So did Philip Quarles." 
 
 Then the host produced cigars. Later on, brandy -and- water. 
 
 The brandy and water made Mr. Gilead P. Beck, who found 
 himself a good deal crowded out of the conversation, insist on 
 having his share. He placed his square box on the table, and 
 loosed the straps. 
 
 " Let me tell you," he said, " the story of my Luck. I was 
 in Sonora City," he began, patting his box affectionately, 
 " after the worst three months I ever had ; and I went around 
 trying to borrow a few dollars. I got no dollars, but I got 
 free drinks — so many free drinks, that at last I lay down in 
 the street and went to sleep. Wall, gentlemen, I suppose I 
 walked in that slumber of mine, for when I woke up I was 
 lying a mile outside the town. I also entertained angels un- 
 awares, for at my head there sat an Indian woman. She was 
 as wrinkled an old squaw as ever shrieked at a buryin'. But 
 she took an interest in me. She took that amount of interest
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 31 
 
 in me that she told me she knew of gold. And then she led 
 me by the hand, gentlemen, that aged and affectionate old 
 squaw, to a place not far from the roadside ; and there, lying 
 between two rocks, and hidden in the chaparelle, glittering 
 in the light, was this bauble." He tapped his box. " I did 
 not want to be told to take it. I wrapped it in my handker- 
 chief and carried it in my hand. Then she led me back to 
 the road again, ' Bad luck you will have,' she said ; ' but it 
 will lead to good luck so long as that is not broken, sold, 
 given away, or lost.' Then she left me, and here it is." 
 
 He opened the little box. There was nothing to be seen 
 but a mass of white wool. 
 
 " Bad luck I have had. Look at me, gentlemen. Adam 
 was not more destitute when the garden-gates were shut on 
 him. But the good will come, somehow." 
 
 He removed the wool, and, behold, a miracle of nature ! 
 Two thin plates of gold delicately wrought in lines and 
 curious chasing, like the pattern of a butterfly's wing, and of 
 the exact shape, but twice as large. They were poised at the 
 angle, always the same, at which the insect balances itself 
 about a flower. They were set in a small piece of quaintly- 
 marked quartz, which represented the body. 
 
 " A golden butterfly ! " 
 
 "A golden butterfly," said Mr. Beck. "No goldsmith 
 made this butterfly. It came from Nature's workshop. It 
 is my Luck." 
 
 " And if the butterfly fall and break, 
 Farewell the Luck of Gilead Beck," 
 
 said Jack. 
 
 " Thank you, sir. That's very neat, I'll take that, sir, if you 
 will allow me, for my motto, unless you want it for yourself" 
 
 " No," said Jack ; " I have one already." 
 
 " If this golden butterfly fall and break. 
 Farewell the Luck of Gilead P. Beck," 
 
 repeated the owner of the insect. " If you are going on, gentle- 
 men, to San Francisco, I hope you will take me with you." 
 
 " Colquhoun," said Ladds, " you do not mean to stay here 
 by yourself ? Much better come with us, unless, of course '*
 
 32 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Lying on the table was a piece of an old newspaper in 
 which Jack had wrapped something. Ladds saw Colquhoun 
 mechanically take up the paper, read it, and change colour. 
 Then he looked straight before him, seeing nothing, and Ladds 
 stopped speaking. Then he smiled in a strange far-off way. 
 
 " I think I will go with you," he said. 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " cried Jack. " Selkirk returns to the sound 
 of the church-going bell." 
 
 Ladds refrained from looking at the paper in search of 
 things which did not concern himself, but he perceived that 
 Colquhoun had, like Hamlet, seen Something. There loas, 
 in fact, an announcement in the fragment which greatly 
 interested Lawrence Colquhoun : 
 
 " On April 3, by the Eight Eev. the Lord Bishop of Turk's 
 Island, at St. George's, Hanover Square, Gabriel Cassilis, of, 
 etc., to Victoria, daughter of the late Admiral Sir Benbow 
 Pengelley, K.C.B." 
 
 In the morning they started, Mr. Beck being provided 
 with a new rig-out of a rough and useful kind. 
 
 At the last moment one of the Chinamen, Leeching, the 
 cook, besought from his late master, as a parting favour and 
 for the purpose of self-protection, the gift of a pistol, powder, 
 and ball. 
 
 Mr. Colquhoun gave them to him, thinking it a small thing 
 after two years of faithful service. Then Leeching, after load- 
 ing his pistol, went to work with his comrade for an hour or so. 
 
 Presently, Achow being on his knees in the shingle, the 
 perfidious Leeching suddenly cocked his pistol, and fired it 
 into Achow's right ear, so that he fell dead. 
 
 By this lucky accident Leeching became sole possessor of 
 the little pile of gold which he and the defunct Achow had 
 scraped together and placed in a cache. 
 
 He proceeded to unearth this treasure, put together his 
 little belongings, and started on the road to San Francisco 
 with a smile of satisfaction. 
 
 There was a place in the windings of the road where there 
 was a steep bank. By the worst luck in the world a stone
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 33 
 
 slipped and fell as Leeching passed by. The stone, by itself, 
 would not have mattered much, as it did not fall on Leech- 
 ing's head ; but with it fell a rattlesnake, who was sleeping 
 in the warmth of the sun. 
 
 Nothing annoys a rattlesnake more than to be disturbed 
 in his sleep. With angry mind he awoke, looked around, and 
 saw the Chinaman. Illogically connecting him with the fall 
 of the stone, he made for him, and, before poor Leeching knew 
 there was a rattlesnake anywhere near him, bit him in the calf. 
 
 Leeching sat down on the bank and realised the position. 
 Being a fatalist, he did not murmur ; having no conscience, 
 he did not fear ; having no faith, he did not hope ; having 
 very little time, he made no testamentary dispositions. In 
 point of fact, he speedily curled up his legs and died. 
 
 Then the deserted Empire City was deserted indeed, for 
 there was not even a Chinaman left in it. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 JOSEPH AND HIS BRETHEEN. 
 
 THE largest and most solid of all the substantial houses in 
 Carnarvon Square, Bloomsbury,is Number Fifteen, which, 
 by reason of its corner position (Mulgrave Street intersecting 
 it at right angles at this point), has been enabled to stretch 
 itself out at the back. It is a house which a man who wanted 
 to convey the idea of a solid income without ostentation or 
 attempt at fashion would find the very thing to assist his 
 purpose. The ladies of such a house would not desire to be- 
 long to the world farther west ; they would respect the Church, 
 law, and medicine ; they would look on the City with favour- 
 able eyes when it was represented by a partner in an old 
 firm ; they would have sound notions of material comfort ; 
 they would read solid books, and would take their pleasure 
 calmly. One always, somehow, in looking at a house, 
 wonders first of what sort its women are. There were, how- 
 ever, no women at Number Fifteen at all, except the maids. 
 Its occupants consisted of three brothers, all unmarried. They 
 
 C
 
 34 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 were named respectively Cornelius, Humplirey, and Joseph 
 Jagenal. Cornelius and Humplirey were twins. Joseph was 
 their junior by ten years. Cornelius and Humphrey were 
 fifty — Joseph was forty. People who did not know this 
 thought that Joseph was fifty and his brethren forty. 
 
 When the Venerable the Archdeacon of Market Basing, the 
 well-known author of Sermons on the Duty of Tithe-Offerings^ 
 the Leshia of Catullus, and a Treatise on the Rvjht Use of the 
 Ana2Ja;st in Greek Iambic Verse, died, it was found that he had 
 bequeathed his little savings, worth altogether about ;^500 a 
 year, to his three sons in the following proportions : the twins, 
 he said, possessed genius ; they would make their mark in the 
 world, but they must be protected. They received the yearly 
 sum of ;^200 apiece, and it was placed in the hands of trustees 
 to prevent their losing it ; the younger was to have the rest, 
 without trustees, because, his father said, " Joseph is a dull 
 boy and will keep it." It was a wise distribution of the money. 
 Cornelius, then nineteen, left Oxford immediately, and went 
 to Heidelberg, where he called himself a poet, studied meta- 
 physics, drank beer, and learned to fence. Humphrey, for 
 his part, deserted Cambridge — their father having chosen that 
 they should not be rivals — and announced his intention of 
 devoting his life to Art. He took up his residence in Rome. 
 Joseph stayed at school, having no other choice. When the 
 boy was sixteen, his guardians articled him to a solicitor. 
 Joseph was dull, but he was methodical, exact, and endowed 
 with a retentive memory. He had also an excellent manner, 
 and the " appearance of age," as port wine advertisers say, 
 before he was out of his articles. At twenty-five, Joseph 
 Jagenal was a partner ; at thirty, he was the working partner ; 
 at forty, he was the senior partner in the great Lincoln's-Inn 
 firm of Shaw, Fairlight, and Jagenal, the confidential advisers 
 of as many respectable county people as any firm in London. 
 
 When he was twenty-five, and became a partner, thebrethren 
 returned to England simultaneously, and were good enough 
 to live with him and upon him. They had their ;^ 200 a year 
 each, and expensive tastes. Joseph, who made a thousand 
 for his share the first year of his admission to the firm, had no
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 35 
 
 expensive tastes, and a profound respect for genius. He took 
 in the twins joyfully, and they stayed with him. When his 
 senior partner died, and Mr. Fairlight retired, so that Joseph's 
 income was largely increased, they made hirp. move from 
 Torrington Square, where the houses are small, to Carnarvon 
 Square, and regulated his household for him on the broadest 
 and most liberal scale. Needless to say, no part of the little 
 income, which barely served the twins with pocket-money 
 and their mentis plaisirs, went towards the housekeeping. Cor- 
 nelius, poet and philosopher, superintended the dinner and daily 
 interviewed the cook. Humphrey, the devotee of art, who 
 furnished the rooms according to the latest designs of the 
 most correct taste, was in command of the cellar. Cornelius 
 took the best sitting-room for himself, provided it with 
 books, easy-chairs, pipes, and an immense study-table with 
 countless drawers. He called it carelessly his Workshop. 
 The room on the first floor overlooking Mulgrave Street, and 
 consequently with a north aspect, was appropriated by Hum- 
 phrey. He called it his Studio, and furnished it in character, 
 not forgetting the easy^chairs, Joseph had the back room 
 behind the dining-room for himself; it was not called a study 
 or a library, but Mr. Joseph's room. He sat in it alone every 
 evening, at work. There was also a drawing-room, but it 
 was never used. They dined together at half-past six : Cor- 
 nelius sat at the head, and Humphrey at the foot, Joseph at 
 one side. Art and Intellect, thus happily met together an4 
 housed under one roof, talked to each other. Joseph ate his 
 dinner in silence. Art held his glass to the light, and flashed 
 into enthusiasm over the matchless sparkle, the divine hues, 
 the incomparable radiance, of the wine. Intellect, with a 
 sigh, as one who regrets the loss of a sense, congratulated his 
 brother on his vivid passion for colour, and, taking another 
 glass, discoursed on the aesthetic aspects of a vintage wine. 
 Joseph drank one glass of claret, after which he retired to his 
 den, and left the brethren to finish the bottle. After dinner 
 the twins sometimes went to the theatre, or they repaired 
 arm-in-arm to their club — the Renaissance, now past its 
 prime and a little fogyish ; mostly they sat in the Studio or
 
 36 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 
 
 in the Workshop, in two arm-chairs, with a table between 
 them, smoked pipes, and drank brandy and potash-water. 
 They went to bed at any time they felt sleepy — perhaps at 
 twelve, and perhaps at three. Joseph went to bed at half- 
 past ten. The brethren generally breakfasted at eleven, 
 Joseph at eight. After breakfast, unless on rainy days, a 
 uniform custom was observed. Cornelius, poet and philo- 
 sopher, went to the window and looked out. 
 
 Humphrey, artist, and therefore a man of intuitive sym- 
 pathies, followed him. Then he patted Cornelius on the 
 shoulder, and shook his head. 
 
 " Brother, I know your thought. You want to drag me 
 from my work ; you think it has been too much for me lately. 
 You are too anxious about me." 
 
 Cornelius smiled. 
 
 " Not on my own account too, Humphrey ? " 
 
 " True — on your account. Let us go out at once, brother. 
 Ah, why did you choose so vast a subject ? " 
 
 Cornelius was engaged — had been engaged for twenty 
 years — upon an epic poem, entitled the Upheaving of Alfred. 
 The school he belonged to would not, of course, demean 
 themselves by speaking of Alfred. To them Edward was 
 Eadward, Edgar was Eadgar, and old Canute was Knut. In 
 the same way Cicero became Kikero, Virgil was Vergil, and 
 Socrates was spelt, as by the illiterate bargee, with a k. So 
 the French prigs of the ante-Boileau period sought to make 
 their trumpery pedantries pass for current coin. So, too, 
 Chapelain was in labour with the Puccllc for thirty years ; and 
 when it came — But Cornelius Jagenal could not be compared 
 with Chapelain, because he had as yet brought forth nothing. 
 He sat with what he and his called " English " books all 
 round him; in other words, he had all the Anglo-Saxon 
 literature on his shelves, and was amassing, as he said, 
 material. 
 
 Humphrey, on the other hand, was engaged on a painting, 
 the composition of which offered difficulties which, for nearly 
 twenty years, had proved insuperable. lie was painting, he 
 said, the " Birth of the Renaissance." It was a subject which
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 37 
 
 required a great outlay in properties, Venetian glass, Italian 
 jewellery, medieval furniture, copies of paintings — everytliing 
 necessary to make this work a masterpiece — lie bought at 
 Joseph's expense. Up to the present no one had been allowed 
 to see the first rough drawings. 
 
 "Where's C^sar?" Humphrey would say, leading the 
 way to the hall. " Csesar ! Why, here he is. Cassar must 
 actually have heard us proposing to go out." 
 
 Cornelius called the dog Kaysar, and he refused to answer 
 to it ; so that conversation between him and Cornelius was 
 impossible. 
 
 There never was a pair more attached to each other than 
 these twin brethren. They sallied forth each morning at 
 twelve, arm-in-arm, with an open and undisguised admira- 
 tion for each other which was touching. Before them marched 
 Ceesar, who was of mastiff breed, leading the way. Cornelius, 
 the poet, was dressed with as much care as if he were still a 
 young man of five- and-t wen ty, in a semi-youthful and wholly- 
 custhetic costume, in which only the general air, and not the 
 colour, revealed the man of delicate perceptions. Humphrey, 
 the artist, greatly daring, affected a warm brown velvet with 
 a crimson-purple ribbon. Both carried flowers. Cornelius 
 had gloves ; Humphrey a cigar. Cornelius was smooth-faced, 
 save for a light fringe on the upper lip. Humphrey wore a 
 heavy moustache and a full long silky beard of a delicately- 
 shaded brown, inclining when the sun shone upon it to a 
 suspicion of auburn. Both were of the same height, rather 
 below the middle ; they had features so much alike that, but 
 for the hair on the face of one, it would have been diflScult to 
 distinguish between them. Both were thin, pale of face, and 
 both had, by some fatality, the end of their delicately-carved 
 noses slightly tipped with red. Perhaps this was due to the 
 daily and nightly brandy-and-water. And in the airy care- 
 less carriage of the two men, their sunny faces and elastic 
 tread, it was impossible to suppose that they were fifty and 
 Joseph only forty. 
 
 To be sure, Joseph was a heavy man, stout of build, broad 
 in frame, sturdy in the under-jaw ; while his brothers were
 
 38 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 sliglit sliadowy men. And, to be sure, Joseph had worked all 
 his life, while his brothers never did a stroke. They were born 
 to consume the fruits which Joseph was born to cultivate. 
 
 Outside the house the poet heaved a heavy sigh, as if the 
 weight of the epic was for the moment off his mind. The 
 artist looked round with a critical eye on the lights and 
 shadows of the great commonplace square. 
 
 " Even in London," he murmured, " Nature is too strong 
 for man. Did you ever, my dear Cornelius, catch a more 
 brilliant effect of sunshine than that upon the lilac yonder ? " 
 
 Time, end of April ; season forward, lilacs on the point of 
 bursting into flower; sky dotted with swift-flying clouds, 
 alternate withdrawals and bursts of sunshine. 
 
 " I really must," said Humphrey, " try to fix that effect." 
 
 His brother took the arm of the artist and drew him gently 
 away. 
 
 In front marched Ceesar. 
 
 Presently the poet looked round. They were out of the 
 square by this time. 
 
 " Where is Kaysar ? " he said, with an air of surprise. 
 " Surely, brother Humphrey, the dog can't be in the Carnarvon 
 Arms ? " 
 
 " I'll go and see," said Humphrey, with alacrity. 
 
 He entered the bar of the tavern, and his brother waited 
 outside. After two or three minutes, the poet, as if tired of 
 waiting, followed the artist into the bar. He found him with 
 a glass of brandy-and-water cold. 
 
 " I had," he explained, " a feeling of faintness. Perhaps 
 this spring air is chilly. One cannot be too careful." 
 
 " Quite right," said the poet. " I almost think — ^yes, I 
 really do feel — ah ! Thank you, my dear." 
 
 The girl, as if anticipating his wants, set before him a 
 " four " of brandy and the cold water. Perhaps she had seen 
 the face before. As for the dog, he was lying down with his 
 head on his paws. Perhaps he knew there would be no 
 immediate necessity for moving. 
 
 They walked in the direction of the Park, arm-in-arm, 
 affectionately.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 39 
 
 It miglit have been a quarter of an hour after leaving the 
 Carnarvon Arms when the poet stopped and gasped — 
 
 "Humphrey, my dear brother, advise me. What would you 
 you do if you had a sharp and sudden pain like a knife 
 inside you ? " 
 
 Humphrey replied promptly : 
 
 " If I had a sharp and sudden pain like a knife inside me, 
 I should take a small glass of brandy neat. Mind, no spoil- 
 ing the effect with water." 
 
 Cornelius looked at his brother with admiration. 
 
 " Such readiness of resource ! " he murmured, pressing his 
 arm. 
 
 " I think I see — ah, yes — Kaysar — he's gone in before us. 
 The sagacity of that dog is more remarkable than anything 
 I ever read." He took his small glass of brandy neat. 
 
 The artist, looking on, said he might as well have one at 
 the same time. Not, he added, that he felt any immediate 
 want of the stimulant, but he might ; and at all times pre- 
 vention is better than cure. 
 
 It was two o'clock when they returned to Carnarvon 
 Square. They walked arm-in-arm, with perhaps even a 
 greater show of confiding affection than had appeared at 
 starting. There was the slightest possible lurch in their 
 walk, and both looked solemn and heavy with thought. 
 
 In the hall the artist looked at his watch. 
 
 " Pa — pasht two. Corneliush, Work — " 
 
 He marched to the Studio with a resolute air, and, arrived 
 there, drew an easy-chair before the fire, sat himself in it, and 
 went fast asleep. 
 
 The poet sought the Workshop. On the table lay the 
 portfolio of papers, outside which was emblazoned on parch- 
 ment, with dainty scroll-work by the hands of his brother 
 the artist, the title of his poem : 
 
 m}z tlpljcabins of Sclfrcti : 
 an epic poem in twenty-four cantos. 
 By Cornelius Jagenal. 
 He gazed at it fondly for a few minutes ; vaguely took up
 
 40 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 a pen, as if lie intended to finish, the work on the spot ; and 
 then with a sigh, thought being too much for brain, he 
 slipped into his arm-chair, put up his feet, and was asleep 
 in two minutes. At half-past five, one of the maids — they 
 kept no footman in Carnarvon Square — brought him tea. 
 
 " I have been dozing, have I, Jane ? " he asked. " Very 
 singular thing for me to do." 
 
 We are but the creatures of habit. The brethren took 
 the same walk every day, made the same remarks, with an 
 occasional variation, and took the same morning drams ; 
 they spent the middle of the day in sleep, they woke up for 
 the afternoon tea, and they never failed to call Jane's atten- 
 tion to the singularity of the fact that they had been asleep. 
 This day Jane lingered instead of going away when the tea 
 was finished. 
 
 " Did master tell you, sir," she asked, " that Miss Fleming 
 was coming to-day ? " 
 
 It was an irritating thing that, although Cornelius ordered 
 the dinner and sat at the head of the table, although Hum- 
 phrey was in sole command of the wine-cellar, the servants 
 always called Joseph the master. Great is the authority of 
 him who keeps the bag ; the power of the penniless twins 
 was a shadowy and visionary thing. 
 
 The master had told his brothers that Miss Fleming would 
 probably have to come to the house, but no date was fixed. 
 
 " Miss Fleming came this afternoon, sir," said Jane, " with 
 a French maid. She's in Mr. Joseph's room now." 
 
 " Oh, tell Mr. Humphrey, Jane, and we will dress for 
 dinner. Tell Mr. Humphrey also that perhaps Miss Fleming 
 would like a glass of champagne to-day." 
 
 Jane told the artist. 
 
 " Always thoughtful," said Humphrey, with enthusiasm. 
 " Cornelius is for ever thinking of others' comfort. To be 
 sure Miss Fleming shall have a glass of champagne." 
 
 He brought up two bottles, such was his anxiety to give 
 full expression to his brother's wishes. 
 
 When the dinner-bell rang, the brethren emerged simul- 
 taneously from their rooms, and descended the stairs together,
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 41 
 
 arm-m-arm. Perhaps in expectation of dinner, perhaps in 
 anticipation of the champagne, perhaps with pleasure at the 
 prospect of meeting with Joseph's ward, the faces of both 
 were lit with a sunny smile, and their eyes with a radiant 
 light, which looked like the real and genuine enthusiasm of 
 humanity. It was a pity that Humphrey wore a beard, or 
 that Cornelius did not ; otherwise it would have been difficult 
 to distinguish between this pair so much alike — these youth- 
 ful twins of fifty, who almost looked like five-and-twenty. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Phillis is my only joy." 
 
 MY brothers. Miss Fleming ! " 
 Joseph introduced the twins with a pride impossible 
 to dissemble. They were so youthful-looking, so airy, so hand- 
 some, besides being so nobly endowed with genius, that his pride 
 may be excused. Castor and Pollux the wrong side of forty, 
 but slim still and well preserved — these Greek figures do not 
 run tall — might have looked like Cornelius and Humphrey. 
 
 They parted company for a moment to welcome the young 
 lady, large-eyed as Here, who rose to gi'eet them, and then 
 took up a position on the hearthrug, one with his hand on 
 the other's shoulder, like the Siamese twins, and smiled 
 pleasantly, as if, being accustomed to admiration and even awe, 
 they wished to reassure Miss Fleming and put her at ease. 
 
 Dinner being announced, Cornelius, the elder by a few 
 moments, gave his arm to the young lady. Humphrey, the 
 younger, hovered close behind, as if he too was taking his part 
 in the chivalrous act. Joseph followed alone, of course, not 
 counting in the little procession. 
 
 Phillis Fleming's arrival at No. 1 5 Carnarvon Square was 
 in a manner legal. She belonged to the office, not to the shrine 
 of intellect, poesy, and art created by the twin brethren. She 
 was an orphan and a ward. She had two guardians : one of 
 them, Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun, being away from England ; 
 and the other, Mr. Abraham Dyson, with whom she had lived
 
 42 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 since her sixth birthday, having finished his earthly career just 
 before this history begins, that is to say, in the spring of last 
 year. Shaw, Fairlight, and Jagenal were solicitors to both 
 gentlemen. Therefore Joseph found himself obliged to act for 
 this young lady when, Mr. Abraham Dyson buried and done 
 with, it became a question what was to be done with her. 
 There were offers from several disinterested persons on Miss 
 Fleming's bereaved condition being known. Miss Skimpit, of 
 the Highgate Collegiate Establishment for Young Ladies, pro- 
 posed by letter to receive her as a parlour-boarder, and hinted 
 at the advantages of a year's discipline, tempered by Christian 
 kindness, for a young lady educated in so extraordinary and 
 godless a manner. The clergyman of the new district church 
 at Finchley called personally upon Mr. Jagenal. He said that 
 he did not know the young lady except by name, but that, 
 feeling the dreadful condition of a girl brought up without any 
 of the gracious influences of Anglican Ritual and Dogma, he 
 was impelled to offer her a home with his Sisterhood. Here 
 she would receive clear dogmatic teaching, and learn what the 
 Church meant by submission, fasting, penance, and humilia- 
 tion. Mr. Jagenal thought she might also learn how to bestow 
 her fortune on Anglo-Catholic objects when she came of age, 
 and dismissed his reverence with scant courtesy. Two or three 
 widows who had known better days offered their services, 
 which were declined with thanks. Joseph even refused to let 
 ]\Iiss Fleming stay with ]\Irs. Cassilis, the wife of Abraham 
 Dyson's second cousin. He thought that perhaps this lady 
 would not be unwilling to enliven her house by the attraction 
 of an heiress and a d6hutante. And it occurred to him that, 
 for a short time at least, she might, without offending a cen- 
 sorious world, and until her remaining guardian's wishes could 
 be learned, take up her abode at the house of the three bachelors. 
 " I am old, Miss Fleming," he said. " Forty years old ; a 
 great age to you ; and my brothers, Cornelius and Humphrey, 
 who live with me, are older still. Cornelius is a great poet ; he 
 is engaged on a work — The Uj)licaving of Alfred — which will 
 immortalise his name. Humphrey is an artist ; he is working 
 at a group the mere conception of which, Cornelius says, would
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 43 
 
 make even the brain of Michael Angelo stagger. You will be 
 proud, I think, in after-years, to have made the acquaintance 
 of my brothers." 
 
 She came, having no choice or any other wish, accompanied 
 by her French maid and the usual impedimenta of travel. 
 
 Phillis Fleming — her father called her Phillis because she 
 was his only joy — was nineteen. She is twenty now, because 
 the events of this story only happened last year. Her mother 
 died in giving her birth ; she had neither brothers nor sisters, 
 nor many cousins, and those far away. When she was six her 
 father died too — not of an interesting consumption or of a 
 broken heart, or any ailment of that kind. He was a jovial 
 fox-hunting ex-captain of cavalry, with a fair income and a 
 carefully cultivated taste for enjoyment. He died from an 
 accident in the field. By his will he left all his money to his 
 one child and appointed as her trustees his father's old friend, 
 Abraham Dyson of Twickenham and the City, and with him 
 his own friend, Lawrence Colquhoun, a man some ten years 
 younger than himself, with tastes and pursuits very much like 
 his own. Of course, the child was taken to the elder guardian's 
 house, and Colquhoun, going his way in the world, never gave 
 his trust or its responsibilities a moment's thought. 
 
 Phillis Fleming had the advantage of a training quite dif- 
 ferent from that which is usually accorded to young ladies. 
 She went to Mr. Abraham Dyson at a time when that old 
 gentleman, always full of crotchety ideas, was developing a 
 plan of his own for female education. His theory of woman's 
 training having just then grown in his mind to finished pro- 
 portions, he welcomed the child as a subject sent quite provi- 
 dentially to his hand, and proceeded to put his views into 
 practice upon little Phillis. That he did so showed a healthy 
 belief in his own judgment. Some men would have hastened 
 into print with a mere theory. Mr. Dyson intended to wait 
 for twelve years or so, and to write his work on woman's educa- 
 tion when Phillis's example might be the triumphant proof of 
 his own soundness. The education conducted on Mr. Dyson's 
 principles and rigidly carried out was approaching completion 
 when it suddenly came to an abrupt termination. Few things
 
 44 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 in this world quite turn out as we hope and expect. It was 
 on the cards that Abraham Dyson might die before the proof 
 of his theory. This, in fact, happened ; and his chief regret at 
 leaving a world where he had been supremely comfortable, and 
 able to enjoy his glass of port to his eightieth and last year, 
 was that he was leaving tlie girl, the creation of his theory, 
 in an unfinished state. 
 
 " Phillis," he said, on his deathbed, " the edifice is now com- 
 plete, — all but the Coping-stone. Alas, that I could not live 
 to put it on ! " 
 
 And what the Coping-stone was no man could guess. Great 
 would be the cleverness of him who, seeing a cathedral finished 
 save for roof and upper courses, would undertake to put on 
 these, with all the ornaments, spires, lanterns, gargoyles, 
 pinnacles, flying buttresses, turrets, belfries, and crosses drawn 
 in the dead designer's lost plans. 
 
 Abraham Dyson was a wealthy man. Therefore he was 
 greatly respected by all his relations, in spite of certain eccen- 
 tricities, notably those which forbade him to ask any of them 
 to his house. If the nephews, nieces, and cousins wept bitterly 
 on learning their bereavement, deeper and more bitter were 
 their lamentations when they found that Mr. Dyson had left 
 none of them any money. 
 
 Not one penny ; not a mourning-ring ; not a single sign 
 or token of affection to one of them. It was a cruel throwing 
 of cold water on the tenderest affections of the heart, and 
 Mr. Dyson's relations were deeply pained. Some of them 
 swore; others felt that in this case it was needless to give 
 sorrow words, and bore their sufferings in silence. 
 
 Nor did he leave any money to Phillis. 
 
 This obstinate old theorist left it all to found a college for 
 girls, who were to be educated in the same manner as Phillis 
 Fleming, and in accordance with the scheme stated to be 
 fully drawn up and among his papers. 
 
 Up to the present, Joseph Jagenal had not succeeded in 
 finding the scheme. There were several rolls of paper, form- 
 ing portions of the great work, but none were finished, and all 
 pointed to the last chapter, that entitled the " Coping-stone,"
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 45 
 
 Id which, it was stated, would be found the whole scheme 
 with complete fulness of detail. But this last chapter could 
 not be found anywhere. If it never was found, what would 
 become of the will ? Then each one of Mr. Dyson's relations 
 began to calculate what might fall to himself out of the 
 inheritance. That was only natural, and perhaps it was not 
 every one who, like Mr. Gabriel Cassilis, openly lamented 
 the number of Mr. Dyson's collateral heirs. 
 
 Not to be found. Joseph Jagenal's clerks now engaged in 
 searching everywhere for it, and all the relations praying — all 
 fervently and some with faith — that it might never turn up. 
 
 So that poor Phillis is sitting down to dinner with her 
 education unfinished — where is that Coping-stone? Every 
 young lady who has had a finishing year at Brighton may 
 look down upon her. Perhaps, however, as her education 
 has been of a kind quite unknown in polite circles, and she 
 has never heard of a finishing year, she may be calm even in 
 the presence of other young ladies. 
 
 What sort of girl is she ? 
 
 To begin with, she has fifty thousand pounds. Not the 
 largest kind of fortune, but still something. More than most 
 girls have ; more than the average heiress has. Enough to 
 make young Fortunio Hunter prick up his ears, smooth down 
 his moustache, and begin to inquire about guardians ; enough 
 to purchase a roomy cottage where Love may be comfortable ; 
 enough to enable the neediest wooer, if he be successful, to 
 hang up his hat on the peg behind the door and sit down 
 for the rest of his years. Fifty thousand pounds is a sum 
 which means possibilities. It was her mother's, and, very 
 luckily for her, it was so tied up that Captain Fleming, her 
 father, could not touch more than the interest, which, at three 
 per cent., amounts, as may be calculated, to fifteen hundred 
 a year. Really, after explaining that a young lady has fifty 
 thousand, what further praise is wanted, what additional 
 description is necessary ? By contemplation of fifty thousand 
 pounds, ardent youth is inflamed as by a living likeness of 
 Helen. Be she lovely or be she loathly, be she young or old, 
 be she sweet or shrewish — she has fifty thousand pounds.
 
 46 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 With her fifty thousand pounds the gods have given Phillis 
 Fleming a tall figure, the lines of which are as delicately 
 curved as those of any yacht in the Solent or of any statue 
 from Greek studio. She is slight, perhaps too slight ; she 
 has hair of a common dark brown, but it is fine hair, there 
 is a great wealth of it, it has a gleam and glimmer of its own 
 as the sunlight falls upon it, as if there were a hidden colour 
 lying somewhere in it waiting to be discovered; her eyes, 
 like her hair, are brown — they are also large and lustrous ; 
 her lips are full ; her features are not straight and regular, 
 like those of women's beauties, for her chin is perhaps a little 
 short, though square and determined; she has a forehead 
 which is broad and leather low ; she wears an expression in 
 which good temper, intelligence, and activity are more marked 
 than beauty. She is quick to mark the things that she sees, 
 and she sees everything. Her hands are curious, because 
 they are so small, so delicate, and so sympathetic ; while her 
 face is in repose you may watch a passing emotion by the 
 quivering of her fingers, just as you may catch, if you have 
 the luck, the laughter or tears of most girls first in the 
 brightness or the clouding of their eyes. 
 
 There are girls who, when we meet them in the street, 
 pass us like the passing of sunshine on an April day ; who, 
 if we spend the evening in a room where they are, make us 
 understand something of the warmth which Nature intended 
 to be universal, but has somehow only made special ; whom 
 it is a pleasure to serve, whom it is a duty to reverence, who 
 can bring purity back to the brain of a rake, and make a 
 young man's heart blossom like a rose in June. 
 
 Of such is Phillis Fleminff. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PniLLIS'S EDUCATION. 
 
 THE dinner began without much conversation ; partly be- 
 cause the twins were hungry, and partly because they 
 were a little awed by the presence of an unwonted guest in 
 white draperies.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 47 
 
 Phillis noted that, so far as she had learned as yet, things 
 of a domestic kind in the outer world were much like things 
 at Mr. Dyson's ; that is to say, the furniture of the dining- 
 room was similar, and the dinner was the same. I do not 
 know why she expected it, but she had some vague notion 
 that she might be called upon to eat strange dishes. 
 
 " The Bollinger, brother Cornelius," said the artist. 
 
 " Thoughtful of you, brother Humphrey," the poet answered. 
 " Miss Fleming, the Bollinger is in your honour." 
 
 Phillis looked puzzled. She did not understand where 
 the honour came in. But she tasted her glass. 
 
 "It is a little too dry for me," she said, with admirable 
 candour. " If you have any Veuve Clicquot, Mr. Jagenal " — 
 she addressed the younger brother — " I should prefer that." 
 
 All three perceptibly winced. Jane, the maid, presently 
 returned with a bottle of the sweeter wine. Miss Flemino- 
 tasted it critically, and pronounced in its favour. 
 
 " Mr. Dyson, my guardian," she said, " always used to say 
 the ladies Kke their wine sweet. At least, I do. So he used 
 to drink Perier Jouet tres sec, and I had Veuve Clicquot." 
 
 The poet laid his forefinger upon his brow, and looked medi- 
 tatively at his glass. Then he filled it again. Then he drank 
 it off helplessly. This was a remarkable young lady. 
 
 " You have lived a very quiet life," said Joseph, with a 
 note of interrogation in his voice, " with your guardian at 
 Highgate?" 
 
 " Yes, very quiet. Only two or three gentlemen ever came 
 to the house, and I never went out." 
 
 "A fair prisoner, indeed," murmured the poet. "Danae 
 in her tower waiting for the shower of gold." 
 
 " Danae must have wished," said Phillis, " when she was put in 
 the bos and sent to sea, that the shower of gold had never come." 
 
 Cornelius began to regret his allusion to the mythological 
 maid, for his classical memory failed, and he could not at the 
 moment recollect what box the young lady referred to. This, 
 no doubt, came of much poring over Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. 
 But he remembered other circumstances connected with 
 Danae's history, and was silent.
 
 48 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " At least you went out," said Humphrey, " to see the 
 Academy and the Water-colours." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I have never seen a picture-gallery at all. I have not 
 once been outside Mr. Dyson's grounds until to-day, since I 
 was six years old." 
 
 Humphrey supported his nervous system, like his brother, 
 with another glass of the Bollinger. 
 
 "You found your pleasure in reading divine Poetry," said 
 the Maker softly ; " perhaps in writing Poetry yourself." 
 
 " Oh dear no ! " said Phillis. " I have not yet learned to 
 read. Mr. Dyson said that ladies ought not to learn reading 
 till they are of an age when acquiring that mischievous art 
 cannot hurt themselves or their fellow-creatures." 
 
 Phillis said this with an air of superior wisdom, as if there 
 could be no disputing the axiom. 
 
 Humphrey looked oceans of sympathy at Cornelius, who 
 took out his handkerchief as if to wipe away a tear, but as 
 none was in readiness he only sighed. 
 
 " You were taught other things, however ? " Joseph asked. 
 
 " Yes ; I learned to play. My master came twice a week, 
 and I can play pretty well ; I play either by ear or by memory. 
 You see," she added simply, " I never forget anything that I 
 am told." 
 
 Compensation of civilised nature. We read, and memory 
 suffers. Those who do not read remember. Before wander- 
 ing minstrels learned to read and write, the whole Iliad was 
 handed down on men's tongues ; there are Brahmins who 
 repeat all their Sacred Books word for word without slip or 
 error, and have never learned to read ; there are men at Oxford 
 who can tell you the winners of Events for a fabulous period, 
 and yet get plucked for Greats, because, as they will tell you 
 themselves, they really cannot read. Phillis did not know 
 how to read. But she remembered — remembered everything ; 
 could repeat a poem dictated twice if it were a hundred lines 
 long, and never forgot it ; caught up an air and learned how 
 to play it at a sitting. 
 
 She could not read. All the world of fiction was lost to
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 49 
 
 her. All the fancies of poets were lost to lier ; all the records 
 of folly and crime which we call history were unknown to her. 
 
 Try to think what, and of what sort, would be the mind of 
 a person, otherwise cultivated, unable to read. In the first 
 place, he would be clear and dogmatic in his views, not having 
 the means of comparison ; next, he would be dependent on 
 oral teaching and rumour for his information ; he would have 
 to store everything, as soon as learned, away in his mind to 
 be lost altogether, unless he knew where to lay his hand upon 
 it ; he would hear little of the outer world, and very little 
 would interest him beyond his own circle ; he would be in the 
 enjoyment of all the luxuries of civilisation without under- 
 standing how they got there ; he would be like the Moham- 
 medans when they came into possession of Byzantium, in the 
 midst of things unintelligible, useful, and delightful. 
 
 " You will play to us after dinner, if you will be so kind," 
 said Joseph. 
 
 " Can it be. Miss Fleming," asked Humphrey, " that you 
 never went outside the house at all ? " 
 
 " Oh no ; I could ride in the paddock. It was a good large 
 field and my pony was clever at jumping; so I got on pretty 
 well." 
 
 " Would it be too much to ask you how you managed to 
 get through the day ? " 
 
 " Not at all," she replied ; " it was very easy. I had a ride 
 before breakfast ; gave Mr, Dyson his tea at ten ; talked with 
 him till twelve ; we always talked ' subjects,' you know, and 
 had a regular course. When we had done talking, he asked me 
 questions. Then I probably had another ride before luncheon. 
 In the afternoon I played, looked after my dress, and drew." 
 
 " You are, then, an Artist ! " cried Humphrey enthusiasti- 
 cally. " Cornelius, I saw from the first that Miss Fleming 
 had the eye of an Artist." 
 
 " I do not know about that ; I can draw people. I will 
 show you some of my sketches, if you like, to-morrow. They 
 are all heads and figures ; I shall draw all of you to-night 
 before going to bed." 
 
 " And in the evening ? " 
 
 D
 
 50 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 "Mr. Dyson dined at seven. Sometimes he had one or 
 two gentlemen to dine with him ; never any lady. When 
 there was no one, we talked 'subjects' again," 
 
 Never any lady ! Here was a young woman, rich, of good 
 family, handsome, and in her way accomplished, who had never 
 seen or talked with a lady, nor gone out of the house save into 
 its gardens, since she was a child. 
 
 Yet, in spite of all these disadvantages and the strangeness 
 of her position, she was perfectly self-possessed. When she 
 left the table, the two elder brethren addressed themselves to 
 the bottle of Chateau Mouton with more rapidity than was 
 becoming the dignity of the wine. Joseph almost immediately 
 joined his ward. When the twins left the dining-room with 
 its empty decanters, and returned arm-in-arm to the drawing- 
 room, they found their younger brother in animated conversa- 
 tion with the girl. Strange that Joseph should so far forget 
 his usual habits as not to go straight to his own room. The 
 two bosoms which heaved in a continual harmony with each 
 other felt a simultaneous pang of jealousy for which there was 
 no occasion. Joseph was only thinking of the Coping-stone. 
 
 " Did I not feel it strange driving through the streets ? " 
 Phillis was saying. " It is all so strange that I am bewildered 
 — so strange and so wonderful. I used to dream of what it 
 was like ; my maid told me something about it ; but I never 
 guessed the reality. There are a hundred things more than 
 I can ever draw." 
 
 It was, as hinted above, the custom of this young person, 
 as it was that of the Mexicans, to make drawings of every- 
 thing which occurred. She was thus enabled to preserve a 
 tolerably faithful record of her life. 
 
 " Show me," said Joseph — " show me the heads of my 
 brothers and myself, that you promised to do, as soon as they 
 are finished." 
 
 The brethren sat together on a sofa, the Poet in his favourite 
 attitude of meditation, forefinger on brow ; the Artist with 
 his eyes fixed on the fire, catching the effects of colour. Their 
 faces were just a little flushed with the wine they had taken. 
 
 One after the other crossed the room and spoke to their guest.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 51 
 
 Said Cornelius: 
 
 " You are watching my brother Humplirey, Study him, 
 Miss Fleming ; it will repay you well to know that childlike 
 and simple nature, innocent of the world, and aglow with the 
 flame of genius." 
 
 " I think I can draw him now," said Phillis, looking at the 
 Artist as hard as a turnkey taking Mr. Pickwick's portrait. 
 
 Then came Humphrey : 
 
 " I see your eyes turned upon my brother Cornelius. He 
 is a great, a noble fellow, IMiss Fleming. Cultivate him, talk 
 to him, learn from him. You will be very glad some day to 
 be able to boast that you have met my brother Cornelius. 
 To know him is a- Privilege 3 to converse with him is an 
 Education." 
 
 " Come," said Joseph cheerfully, " where is the piano ? 
 This is a bachelor's house, but there is a piano somewhere. 
 Have you got it, Cornelius ? " 
 
 The Poet shook his head, with a soft sad smile. 
 
 " Nay," he said, " is a Workshop the place for music ? Let 
 us rather search for it in the Realms of Art." 
 
 In fact it was in Mr, Humphrey's Studio, whither they re- 
 paired. The girl sat down, and as she touched the keys her 
 eyes lit up and her whole look changed. Joseph was the only 
 one of the three who really cared for music. He stood by the 
 fire and said nothing. The brethren on either side of the 
 performer displayed wonders of enthusiastic admiration, each 
 in his own way — the Poet sad and reflective, as if music 
 softened his soul ; the Artist with an efiervescing gaiety der 
 lightful to behold. Joseph was thinking, '■ Can we " — ha(^ 
 his thoughts taken form of speech — " can we reconstruct from 
 the girl's own account the old man's scheme anew, provided 
 the chapter on the Coping-stone be never found ? Problem 
 given. A girl brought up in seclusion, without intercourse 
 with any of her sex except illiterate servants, yet bred to be 
 a lady ; not allowed even to learn reading, but taught orally, 
 so as to hold her own in talk : required, to discover what the 
 old man meant by it, and what was wanted to finish the
 
 52 
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 structure. Could it be reading and writing ? Could Abraham 
 Dyson have intended to finish where all other people begin ? '' 
 
 This solution mightily commended itself to Joseph, and he 
 went to bed in great good spirits at his own cleverness. 
 
 In the dead of night he awoke in fear and trembling. 
 
 " They will go into Chancery," he thought. " What if the 
 Court refuses to take my view ? " 
 
 At three in the morning the brethren, long left alone with 
 their pipes, rose to go to bed. 
 
 Brandy-and-soda sometimes makes men truthful after the 
 third tumbler, and beguiles them with illusory hopes after 
 the fourth. The twins were at the end of their fourth. 
 
 " Cornelius," said the Artist, " she has i^50,000." 
 
 " She has, brother Humphrey." 
 
 " It is a pity, Cornelius, that we, who have only i^200 a 
 year each, are already fifty years of age." 
 
 " Humphrey, what age do we feel ? " 
 
 " Thirty. Not a month more," replied the Artist, striking 
 out with both fists at an imaginary foe — probably old Time. 
 
 " Eight. Not an hour above the thirty," said the Bard, 
 smiting his chest gently. " As for Joseph, he is too old — " 
 
 " Very much too old — " 
 
 " To think of marrying such a young — " 
 
 " Fresh and innocent — " 
 
 " Engaging and clever girl as Miss Phillis Fleming." 
 
 Did they, then, both intend to marry the young lady ? 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 '• To taste the freshness of the morning air." 
 
 PHILLIS retreated to her own room at her accustomed 
 hour of ten. Her nerves were excited ; her brain was 
 troubled with the events of this day of emancipation. She 
 was actually in the world, the great world of which her 
 guardian had told her, the world where history was made, 
 where wicked kings, as Mr. Dyson perpetually impressed
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 53 
 
 upon her, made war their play and the people their play- 
 thing's. She was in the world where all those things were 
 done of which she had only heard as yet. She had seen the 
 streets of London, or some of them — those streets along which 
 had ridden the knights whose pictures she loved to draw, the 
 princesses and queens whose stories Mr. Dyson had taught her ; 
 where the business of the world was carried on, and where 
 there flowed up and down the ceaseless stream of those whom 
 necessity spurs to action. As a matter of narrow fact, she had 
 seen nothing but that part of London which lies between 
 Highgate Hill and Carnarvon Square ; but to her it seemed 
 the City, the centre of all life, the heart of civilisation. She 
 regretted only that she had not been able to discern the Tower 
 of London. That might be, however, close to Mr. Jagenal's 
 house, and she would look for it in the morning. 
 
 What a day ! She sat before her fire and tried to picture 
 it all over again. Horses, carriages, carts, and people rushing 
 to and fro ; shops filled with the most wonderful exhibition 
 of precious things ; eccentric people with pipes, who trundled 
 carts piled with yellow oranges; gentlemen in bluewith helmets, 
 who lounged negligently along the streets ; boys who ran and 
 whistled ; boys who ran and shouted ; boys who ran and sold 
 papers ; always boys — where were all the girls ? Where were 
 they all going ? and what were they all wishing to do ? 
 
 In the evening the world appeared to narrow itself. It con- 
 sisted of dinner with three elderly gentlemen ; one of whom 
 was thoughtful about herself, spoke kindly to her, and asked 
 her about her past life ; while the other two — and here she 
 laughed — talked unintelligibly about Art and themselves, and 
 sometimes praised each other. 
 
 Then she opened her sketch-book and began to draw the 
 portraits of her new friends. And first she produced a faith- 
 ful effigies of the twins. This took her nearly an hour to draw, 
 but when finished it made a pretty picture. The brethren stood 
 with arms intertwined like two children, with eyes gazing 
 fondly into each other's, and heads thrown back, in the atti- 
 tudeof poetic and artistic meditation which they mostly affected. 
 A clever sketch, and she was more than satisfied when she
 
 54 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 held it up to the light and looked at it, before placing it in 
 her portfolio. 
 
 " Mr. Humphrey said I had the eye of an artist," she mur- 
 mured. " I wonder what he will say when he sees this." 
 
 Then she drew the portrait of Joseph. This was easy. She 
 drew him sitting a little forward, playing with his watch-chain, 
 looking at her with deep grave eyes. 
 
 Then she closed her eyes and began to recall the endless 
 moving panorama of the London streets. But this she could 
 not draw. There came no image to her mindj only a series of 
 blurred pictures running into each other. 
 
 Then she closed her sketch-book, put up her pencils, and 
 went to bed. It was twelve o'clock. Joseph was still think- 
 ing over the terms of Mr. Dyson's will and the chapter on the 
 Coping-stone. The twins were taking their third split soda 
 — it was brotherly to divide a bottle, and the mixture was less 
 likely to be unfairly diluted. 
 
 Phillis went to bed, but she could not sleep* The steps of 
 the passers-by, the strange room, the excitement of the day, 
 kept her awake. She was like some fair yacht suddenly 
 launched from the dock where she had grown slowly to her 
 perfect shape, upon the waters of the harbour, which she takes 
 for the waters of the great ocean. She looked round her bed- 
 room in Carnarvon Square, and because it was not Highgate, 
 thought it must be the vast, shelterless, and unpitying world 
 of which she had so often heard, and at thought of which, 
 brave as she was, she had so often shuddered. 
 
 It was nearly three when she fairly slept, and then she had 
 a strange dream. She thought that she was part of the great 
 procession which never ended all day long in the streets, only 
 sometimes a little more crowded and sometimes a little thinner. 
 She pushed and hastened with the rest. She would have liked 
 to stay and examine the glittering things exhibited — the gold 
 and jewellery, the dainty cakes and delicate fruits, the gorgeous 
 dresses in the windows — but she could not. All pushed on, 
 and she with them ; there had been no beginning of the rush, 
 and there seemed to be no end. Faces turned round and glared 
 at her — faces which she marked for a moment — they were the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 55 
 
 same wliicli she had seen in the morning ; faces hard and faces 
 hungry ; faces cruel and faces forbidding ; faces that were bent 
 on doing something desperate — every kind of face except a 
 sweet face. That is a rare thing for a stranger to find in a 
 London street. The soft sweet faces belong to the country. 
 She wondered why they all looked at her so curiously. Perhaps 
 because she was a stranger. 
 
 Presently there was a sort of hue and cry, and everybody 
 began running, she with them. Oddly enough, they all ran 
 after her. Why ? Was that also because she was a stranger ? 
 Only the younger men ran, but the rest looked on. The twins, 
 however, were both running among the pursuers. The women 
 pointed and flouted at her ; the older men nodded, wagged 
 their heads, and laughed. Faster they ran and faster she fled ; 
 they distanced, she and her pursuers, the crowd behind ; they 
 passed beyond the streets and into country fields, where hedges 
 took the place of the brilliant windows ; they were somehow 
 back in the old Highgate paddock which had been so long her 
 only outer world. The pursuers were reduced to three or four, 
 among them, by some odd chance, the twin brethren ; and as 
 one, but who she could not tell, caught up with her and laid 
 his hand upon hers, and she could run no longer and could 
 resist no more, but fell, not with terror at all, but rather a 
 sense of relief and gladness, into a clutch which was like an 
 embrace of a lover for softness and strength, she saw in front 
 of her dead old Abraham Dyson, who clapped his hands and 
 cried, " Well run, well won ! The Coping-stone, my Phillis, 
 of your education ! " 
 
 She woke with a start, and sat up looking round the room. 
 Her dream was so vivid that she saw the group before her 
 very eyes in the twilight — herself, with a figure, dim and 
 undistinguishable in the twilight, leaning over her ; and a 
 little distance off old Abraham Dyson himself, standing, as 
 she best remembered him, upright, and with his hands upon 
 his stick. He laughed and wagged his head and nodded it 
 it as he said: "Well run, well won, my Phillis; it is the 
 Coping-stone ! " 
 
 This was a very remarkable dream for a young lady of
 
 56 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 nineteen. Had she told it to Joseph Jagenal it might have 
 led his thoughts into a new channel. 
 
 She rubbed her eyes, and the vision disappeared. Then 
 she laid her head again upon the pillow, just a little 
 frightened at her ghosts, and presently dropped off to sleep. 
 
 This time she had no more dreams ; but she awoke soon 
 after it was daybreak, being still unquiet in her new sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 And now she remembered everything with a rush. She 
 had left Highgate ; she was in Carnarvon Square ; she was 
 in Mr. Joseph Jagenal's house ; she had been introduced to 
 two gentlemen, one of whom was said to have a childlike 
 nature all aglow with the flame of genius, while the other 
 was described as a great, a noble fellow, to know whom was 
 a Privilege and to converse with whom was an Education. 
 
 She laughed when she thought of the pair. Like Nebu- 
 chadnezzar, she had forgotten her dream. Unlike that king, 
 she did not care to recall it. 
 
 The past was gone. A new life was about to begin. And 
 the April sun was shining full upon her window-blinds. 
 
 Phillis sprang from her bed and tore open the curtains 
 with eager hand. Perhaps facing her might be the Tower 
 of London. Perhaps the Thames, the silver Thames, with 
 London Bridge. Perhaps St. Paul's Cathedral, " which 
 Christopher Wren built in place of the old one destroyed 
 by the Great Fire." Phillis's facts in history were short and 
 decisive, like the above. 
 
 No Tower of London at all. No St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 No silver Thames. Only a great square with houses all 
 round. Carnarvon Square at dawn. Not, perhaps, a fairy 
 piece, but wonderful in its novelty to this newly emancipated 
 cloistered nun, with whom a vivid sense of the beautiful had 
 grown up by degrees in her mind, fed only in the pictures 
 supplied by the imagination. She knew the trees that grew 
 in Lord Mansfield's park, beyond the paddock ; she could 
 catch in fine days a glimpse of the vast city that stretches 
 itself out from the feet of breezy Highgate ; she knew the 
 flowers of her own garden ; and for the rest — she imagined
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 57 
 
 it. Eiver, lake, mountain, forest, and field, she knew them 
 only by talk with her guardian. And the mighty ocean she 
 knew because her French maid had crossed it when she quitted 
 fair Normandy, and told her again and again of the horrors 
 encountered by those who go down to the sea in ships. 
 
 So that a second garden was a new revelation. Besides, 
 it was bright and pretty. There were the first flowers of 
 spring, gay tulips and pretty things, whose names she did 
 not kuow or could not make out from the window. The 
 shrubs and trees were green with the first sweet chlorine 
 foliage of April, clear and fresh from the broken buds which 
 lay thick upon the ground, the tender leaflets as yet all 
 unsullied by the London smoke. 
 
 The pavement was deserted, because it was as yet too 
 early for any one, even a milk-boy, to be out. The only 
 living person to be seen was a gardener, already at work 
 among the plants. 
 
 A great yearning came over her to be out in the open air 
 and among the flowers. At Highgate she rose at all hours ; 
 worked in the garden ; saddled and rode her pony in the 
 field; and amused herself in a thousand ways before the 
 household rose, subject to no restraint or law but one — that 
 she was not to open the front-door, or venture herself in the 
 outer world. 
 
 "Mr. Jagenal said I was to do as I liked," she said, 
 hesitating. " It cannot be wrong to go out of the front-door 
 now. Besides," reasoning here like a casuist, " perhaps it 
 is the back-door which leads to that garden." 
 
 In a quarter of an hour she was ready. She was not one 
 of those young ladies who, because no one is looking at them, 
 neglect their personal appearance. On the contrary, she 
 always dressed for herself; therefore, she always dressed well. 
 
 This morning she wore a morning costume, all one colour, 
 and I think it was gray, but am not quite certain. It was 
 in the graceful fashion of last year, lying in long curved 
 lines, and fitting closely to her slender and tall figure. A 
 black ribbon was tied round her neck, and in her hat — the 
 hats of last year did not suit every kind of face, but they
 
 58 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 suited the face of Phillis Fleming — she wore one of those 
 bright little birds whose destruction for the purposes of 
 fashion we all deplore. In her hand she carried, as if she 
 were still at Highgate and going to saddle her pony, a small 
 riding- whip. And thus she opened the door, and slid down 
 the stairs of the great silent house as stealthily and almost 
 as fearfully as the Lady Godiva on a certain memorable day. 
 It was a ghostly feeling which came over her when she ran 
 across the broad hall, and listened to the pattering of her 
 own feet upon the oilcloth. The broad daylight streamed 
 through the rdvcrlcre ; but yet the place seemed only half 
 lit up. The closed doors on either hand looked as if dreadful 
 things lurked behind them. With something like a shudder 
 she let down the door-chain, unbarred the bolts, and opened 
 the door. As she passed through she was aware of a great 
 rush across the hall behind her. It was Caesar, the mastiflf. 
 Awakened by a noise as of one burgling, he crept swiftly and 
 silently up the kitchen-stairs, with intent to do a desperate 
 deed of valour, and found to his rapturous joy that it was 
 only the young lady, she who came the night before, and 
 that she was going out for an early morning walk — a thing 
 he, for his part, had not been permitted to do for many, 
 many moons, not since he had been brought — a puppy yet, 
 and innocent — to the heart of London. 
 
 No one out at all except themselves. What joy ! Phillis shut 
 the door very carefully behind her, looked up and down the 
 street, and then running down the steps, seized the happy 
 Cassar by the paws and danced round and round with him 
 upon the pavement. Then they both ran a race. She ran like 
 Atalanta, but Ca?sar led till the finish, when out of a courtesy 
 more than Castilian, he allowed himself to be beaten, and Phillis 
 won by a neck. This result pleased them both, and Phillis 
 discovered that her race had brought her quite to the end of 
 one side of the square. And then, looking about her, she per- 
 ceived that a gate of the garden was open, and went in, followed 
 by Cajsar, now in the seventh heaven. This was better, far 
 better, than leading a pair of twins who sometimes tied knots 
 with their legs. The gate was left open by the under-gardener,
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 59 
 
 who had arisen thus early in the morning with a view to carrying 
 off some of the finer tulips for himself. They raced and chased 
 each other up and down the gravel walks between the lilacs 
 and laburnums bursting into blossom. Presently they came 
 to the under-gardener himself, who was busy potting a selection 
 of the tulips. He stared as if at a ghost. Half-past five in the 
 morning, and a young lady, with a dog, looking at him ! 
 
 He stiffened his upper lip, and put the spade before the 
 flower-pots. 
 
 " Beg pardon, miss. No dogs allowed. On the rules, miss." 
 
 " William," she replied — for she was experienced in under- 
 gardeners, knew that they always answer to the name of 
 William, also that they are exposed to peculiar temptations in 
 the way of bulbs — "William, for whom are you potting those 
 tulips?" 
 
 Then, because the poor youth's face was suffused and his 
 countenance was " unto himself for a betrayal," she whistled — 
 actually whistled — to Csesar, and ran on laughing. 
 
 " Here's a rum start," said William. " A young lady as knows 
 my name, what I'm up to and all, coming here at five o'clock 
 in the blessed morning when all young ladies as I ever heard 
 of has got their noses in their pillowses — else 'tain't no good 
 being a young lady. Ketches me a-disposin' of the toolups. 
 With a dawg, and whistles like a young nobleman." 
 
 He began putting back the flowers. 
 
 " No knowin' who she mayn't tell, nor what she mayn't say. 
 It's dangerous, William." 
 
 By different roads, Montaigne wrote, we arrive at the same 
 end. William's choice of the path of virtue was in this case due 
 to Phillis's early visit. 
 
 CHAPTER V, 
 
 "Te duce, Caesar." 
 
 TIRED of running, the girl began to walk. It was an April 
 morning, when the east wind for once had forgotten to 
 blow. Walking, she whistled one of the ditties that she knew. 
 She had a very superior mode of performing on that natural
 
 6o THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 piccolo-flute, the human mouth : it was a way of her own, not 
 at all like the full round whistle of the street-boy, with as much 
 volume as in a bottle of '5 1 port, as full of unmeaning sound 
 as a later poem of Robert Browning's, and as unmelodious as 
 the instrument on which that poet has always played. Quite 
 the contrary. Phillis's whistle was of a curious delicacy and 
 of a bullfinch-like note, only more flexible. She trilled out an 
 old English ditty, "When Love was young," first simply, and 
 then with variations. Presently, forgetting that she was not 
 in the old paddock, she began to sing it in her fresh young 
 voice, William the under- gardener and Ocesar the dog her only 
 audience. They were diflerently afiected. William grew sad, 
 thinking of his sins. The dog wagged his tail and rushed round 
 and round the singer by way of appreciation. Music saddens 
 the guilty, but maketh glad those who are clear of conscience. 
 
 It was half-past six when she became aware that she was 
 getting hungry. In the old times it was easy to descend to 
 the kitchen and make what Indian people call a cliota hazri, a 
 little breakfast for herself. Now she was not certain whether, 
 supposing the servants were about, her visit would be well re- 
 ceived ; or, supposing they were not yet up, she should know 
 where to find the kettle, the tea, and the firewood. 
 
 She left the garden, followed by Ctesar, who was also growing 
 hungry after his morning walk, and resolved on going straight 
 home. 
 
 There were two objections to this. 
 
 First, she did not know one house from another, and they 
 were all alike. Second, she did not know the number, and 
 could not have read it had she known it. 
 
 Mr. Jagenal's door was painted a dark brown ; so were 
 they all. Mr. Jagenal's door had a knocker; so had they all. 
 Could she go all round the square knocking at every door, 
 and waking up the people to ask if Mr. Jagenal lived there ? 
 She knew little of the world, but it did occur to her that it 
 would seem unconventional for a young lady to "knock in" 
 at six in the morning. She did not, most unfortunately, 
 think of asking William the under-gardener. 
 
 She turned to the doer.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 6l 
 
 " Now, Csesar," she said ; " take me home." 
 
 Csesar wagged his tail, nodded his head, and started off before 
 her at a smart walk, looking round now and then to see that his 
 charge was following. 
 
 " Lucky," said Phillis, " that I thought of the dog." 
 
 Cffisar proceeded with great solemnity to cross the road, 
 and began to march down the side of the square, Phillis 
 expecting him to stop at every house. But he did not. 
 Arrived at the corner where Carnarvon Street strikes off the 
 square he turned aside, and looking round to see that his 
 convoy was steering the same course, he trudged sturdily 
 down that thoroughfare. 
 
 "This cannot be right," thought Phillis. But she was 
 loth to leave the dog, for to lose him would be to lose every- 
 thing, and she followed. Perhaps he knew of a back way. 
 Perhaps he would take her for a little walk, and show her 
 the Tower of London. 
 
 Caesar, no longer running and bounding around her, walked 
 on with the air of one who has an important business on 
 hand, and means to carry it through. Carnarvon Street is 
 long, and of the half dismal, half-genteel order of Blooms- 
 bury. Csesar walked halfway down the street. Then he 
 suddenly came to a dead stop. It was in front of a tavern, 
 the Carnarvon Arms, the door of which, for it was an early 
 house, was already open, and the potboy was taking down the 
 shutters. The fact that the shutters were only half down 
 made the dog at first suspect that there was something wrong. 
 The house, as he knew it, always had the shutters down and 
 the portals open. As, however, there seemed no unlawful- 
 ness of licensed hours to consider, the dog marched into the 
 bar without so much as looking to see if Phillis was following, 
 and immediately lay down with his head on his paws. 
 
 " Why does he go in there ? " said Phillis. " And what is 
 the place ? " 
 
 She pushed the door, which, as usual in such establish- 
 ments, hung half open by means of a leathern strap, and 
 looked in. Nobody in the place but Ceesar. She entered, 
 and tried to understand where she was. A smell of stale beer
 
 62 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 and stale tobacco hanging about tlie room smote lier senses, 
 and made her sick and faint. She saw the bottles and glasses, 
 the taps and the counters, and she understood — she was in a 
 drinking-place, one of the wicked dens of which her guardian 
 sometimes spoke. She was in a tavern, that is, a place where 
 workmen spend their earnings and leave their families to 
 starve. She looked round her with curiosity and a little fear. 
 
 Presently she became aware of the early-risen potboy, who, 
 having taken down the shutters, was proceeding about his 
 usual work behind the bar, when his eyes fell upon the 
 astonishing sight of a young lady, a real young lady, as he 
 saw at once, standing in the Bottle and Jug department. He 
 then observed the dog, and comprehended that she was come 
 there after Caesar, and not for purposes of refreshment. 
 
 " Why, miss," he said, " Csesar thinks he's out with the two 
 gentlemen. He brings them here regular, you see, every morn- 
 ing, and they takes their little glass, don't they, Ceesar ? " 
 
 Probably — thought watchful Phillis, anxious to learn, — 
 probably a custom of polite life which Mr. Dyson had 
 neglected to teach her. And yet he always spoke with such 
 bitterness of public-houses. 
 
 " Will you take a drop of somethink, miss ?" asked the polite 
 assistant, tapping the handles hospitably. "What shall it be ?" 
 
 " I should like " said Phillis, 
 
 "To be sure, it's full early," the man went on, "for a 
 young lady and all. But Lor' bless your 'art, it's never none 
 too early for most, when they've got the coin. Give it a 
 name, miss, and there, the guvnor he isn't hup, and we won't 
 chalk it down to you, nor never ask you for the money. On'y 
 give it a name." 
 
 " Thank you very much," said Phillis. " I should like to 
 have a cup of tea, if I could take it outside." 
 
 He shook his head, a gesture of disappointment. 
 
 " It can't be had here. Tea ! " — as if he had thought 
 better things of so much beauty — " Tea ! Swipes ! After 
 all, miss, it's your way, and no doubt you don't know no 
 better. There's a Early Caufy-'ouse a little way up the street. 
 You must find it for yourself, because the dawg he don't know
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 63 
 
 it ; knows nothink about Tea, that dawg. You go out, miss, 
 and Csesar he'll go to." 
 
 Phillis thanked him again for his attention, and followed 
 his advice, Csesar instantly got up and sallied forth with 
 her. Instead, however, of returning to the square, he went 
 straight on down Carnarvon Street, still leading the way. 
 Turning first to the right and then to the left, he conducted 
 Phillis through what seemed a labyrinth of streets. These 
 were mostly streets of private houses, not of the best, but 
 rather of the seediest. It was now nearly seven o'clock, and 
 the signs of life were apparent. The paper-boy was begin- 
 ning, with the milkman, his rounds ; the postman's foot was 
 preparing for the first turn on his daily treadmill of doorsteps 
 and double knocks. The workmen, paid by time, were stroll- 
 ing to their hours of idleness with bags of tools ; windows 
 were thrown open here and there ; and an early servant might 
 be seen rejoicing to bang her mats at the street-door. Phillis 
 tried to retain her faith in Ceesar, and followed obediently. 
 It was easy to see that the dog knew where he was going, 
 and had a distinct purpose in his mind. It was to be hoped, 
 she thought, that his purpose included a return home as soon 
 as possible, because she was getting a little tired. 
 
 Streets — always streets. Who were the people who lived 
 in them all ? Could there be in every house the family life 
 of which Mr. Dyson used to tell her — the life she had never 
 seen, but which he promised she should one day see — the 
 sweet life where father and mother and children live together 
 and share their joys and sorrows ? She began to look into 
 the windows as she walked along, in the hope of catching a 
 hasty glance at so much of the family life as might be seen 
 so early in the morning. 
 
 She passed one house where the family were distinctly 
 visible gathered together in the front kitchen. She stopped 
 and looked down through the iron railings. The children 
 were seated at the table. The mother was enwagred in some 
 cooking operations at the fire. Were they about to sing a 
 hymn and to have family prayers before their breakfast ? 
 Not at this house apparently, for the woman suddenly turned
 
 64 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 from lier occupation at tlie fire and, without any adequate 
 motive that Phillis could discern, began boxing the children's 
 ears all round. Instantly there arose a mighty cry from 
 those alike who had already been boxed and those who sat 
 expectant of their turn. Evidently this was one of the houses 
 where the family life was not a complete success. The scene 
 jarred on Phillis, upsetting her pretty little Arcadian castle 
 of domestic happiness. She felt disappointed, and hurried on 
 after her conductor. 
 
 It is sad to relate that Caesar presently entered another 
 public-house. This time Phillis went in after him with no 
 hesitation at all. She encountered the landlord in person, 
 who greeted the dog, asked him what he was doing so early, 
 and then explained to Miss Fleming that he was accustomed 
 to call at the house every day about noon, accompanied by 
 two gentlemen, who had their little whack and then went 
 away ; and that she only had to go through the form of 
 coming and departing in order to get Cresar out too. 
 
 " Little whack," thought Phillis. " Little glass ! What a 
 lot of customs and expressions I have to learn ! " 
 
 For those interested in the sagacity of dogs, or in compara- 
 tive psychology, it may be noted as a remarkable thing that 
 when Csesar came out of that second public-house he hesitated, 
 as one struck suddenly with a grievous doubt. Had he been 
 doing right ? He took a few steps in advance, then he looked 
 round and stopped, then he looked up and down the street. 
 Finally he came back to Phillis, and asked for instructions 
 with a wistful gaze. 
 
 Phillis turned round and said, " Home, Csesar." Then, 
 after barking twice, Ca3sar led the way back again with 
 alacrity and renewed confidence. 
 
 He not only led the way home, but he chose a short cut 
 known only to himself. Perhaps he thought his charge 
 might be tired ; perhaps he wished to show her some further 
 varieties of English life. 
 
 In the districts surrounding Bloomsbury are courts which 
 few know except the policeman ; even that dauntless func- 
 tionary is chary of venturing himself into them, except in
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 65 
 
 couples, and then he would rather stay outside, if only out of 
 respect to a playful custom, of old standing, prevalent among 
 the inhabitants. They keep flower-pots on their first and 
 second floors, and when a policeman passes through the court 
 they drop them over. If no one is hm-t, there is no need of 
 an apology ; if a constable receives the projectile on his head 
 or shoulder, it is a deplorable accident which those who have 
 caused it are the first to publicly lament. It was through a 
 succession of these courts that the dog led Phillis. 
 
 Those of the men who had work to do were by this time 
 gone to do it. Those who had none, together with those who 
 felt strongly on the subject of Adam's curse and therefore 
 wished for none, stayed at home and smoked pipes, leaning 
 against the doorposts. The ideal heaven of these noble 
 Englishmen is for ever to lean against doorposts and for ever 
 to smoke pipes in a land where it is always balmy morning, 
 and where there are " houses " handy into which they can 
 slouch from time to time for a drink. 
 
 The ladies, their consorts, were mostly engaged in such 
 household occupations as could be carried on out of doors 
 and within conversation reach of each other. The court was 
 therefore musical with sweet feminine voices. 
 
 The children played together — no ofiicer of the London 
 School Board having yet ventured to face those awful flower- 
 pots — in a continuous stream along the central line of the 
 courts. Phillis observed that the same game was universal, 
 and that the players were apparently all of the same age. 
 
 She also remarked a few things which struck her as worth 
 noting. The language of the men differed considerably from 
 that used by Mr. Dyson, and their pronunciation seemed to her 
 to lack delicacy. The diSerence most prominent at first was 
 the employment of a single adjective to qualify everything — an 
 observance so universal as to arrest at once the attention of a 
 stranger. The women, it was also apparent, were all engaged 
 in singing together a kind of chorus of lamentation, in irregular 
 strophe and antistrophe, on the wicked ways of their men. 
 
 Rough as were the natives of this place, no one molested 
 Phillis. The men stared at her and exchanged criticisms on her 
 
 E
 
 66 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 
 
 personal appearance. These were complimentary, although 
 not poetically expressed. The women stared harder, but said 
 nothing until she had passed by. Then they made remarks 
 which would have been unpleasant had they been audible. 
 The children alone took no notice of her. The immunity from 
 insult which belongs to young ladies in English thoroughfares 
 depends, I feax', more upon force of public opinion than upon 
 individual chivalry. Una could trust herself alone with her 
 lion : she can only trust herself among the roughs of London 
 when they are congregated in numbers. Nor, I think, would 
 the spectacle of goodness and purity, combined with beauty, 
 produce in their rude breasts, by comparison with themselves, 
 those feelings of shame, opening up the way to repentance, 
 which are expected by self-conscious maidens ministering in 
 the paths of Dorcas. 
 
 Phillis walked along with steadfast eyes, watching every- 
 thing and afraid of nothing, because she knew of no cause 
 for fear. The dog, decreasing the distance between them, 
 marched a few feet in advance, right through the middle of 
 the children, who fell back and formed a lane for them to 
 pass. Once Phillis stopped to look at a child — a great-eyed, 
 soft-faced, curly-haired, beautiful boy. She spoke to him, 
 asked him his name, held out her hand to him. The fathers 
 and the mothers looked on and watched for the result, which 
 would probably take the form of coin. 
 
 The boy prefaced his reply with an oath of great fulness 
 and rich flavour. Phillis had never heard the phrase before, 
 but it sounded unmusically on her ear. Then he held out 
 his hand and demanded a copper. The watchful parents and 
 guardians on the door-steps murmured approval, and all the 
 children shouted together like the men of Ephesus. 
 
 At this juncture Cassar looked round. He mastered the 
 situation in a moment, surrounded and isolated his convoy 
 by a rapid movement almost simultaneous in flank and rear ; 
 barked angrily at the children, who threatened to close in en 
 masse and make short work of poor Phillis ; and gave her 
 clearly to understand once for all that she was to follow him 
 with silent and unquestioning docility.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 67 
 
 She obeyed, and they came out of the courts and into the 
 squares. Phillis began to hope that the Tower of London 
 would presently heave in sight, or at least the silver Thames 
 with London Bridge ; but they did not. 
 
 She was very tired by this time. It was nearly eight, and 
 she had been up and out since five. Even her vigorous young 
 limbs were beginning to feel dragged by her three hours' 
 ramble. Quite suddenly Csesar turned a corner, as it seemed, 
 and she found herself once more in Carnarvon Square. The 
 dog, feeling that he had done enough for reputation, walked 
 soberly along the pavement, until he came to No. 15, when 
 he ascended the steps and sat down. 
 
 The door was open, Jane the housemaid assiduously polish- 
 ing the bell-handles. 
 
 " Lor' a mercy, miss ! " she cried, " I thought you was a- 
 bed and asleep. Wherever have you a-bin — with Caesar 
 too?" 
 
 " We went for a walk and lost ourselves," Phillis replied. 
 "Jane, I am very hungry; what time is breakfast?" 
 
 "The master has his at eight, miss. But Mr. Cornelius 
 he told me yesterday that you would breakfast with him and 
 Mr. Humphrey — about eleven, he said. And Mr. Humphrey 
 thought you'd like a little fresh fish and a prawn curry, 
 perhaps." 
 
 " I shall breakfast with Mr. Joseph," said Phillis. 
 
 She went to her room in a little temper. It was too bad 
 to be treated like a child wanting nice things for breakfast. 
 A little more experience taught her that any culinary fore- 
 thought on the part of the Twins was quite sure to be so 
 directed as to secure their own favourite dishes. 
 
 She did breakfast with Joseph : made tea for him, told him 
 all about her morning adventures, received his admonitions 
 in good part, and sent him to his oSice half an hour later 
 than usual. One of his letters bore an American stamp. 
 This he opened, putting the rest in a leather pocket-book. 
 
 " This letter concerns you. Miss Fleming," he apologised, in 
 an old-fashioned way ; " that is why I opened it before you. 
 It comes from your remaining guardian, Mr. Lawrence
 
 68 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Colquboun. Listen to what lie says. He writes from New 
 York : ' I am sorry to hear that my old friend Abraham 
 Dyson is gone. I shall be ready to assume my new respon- 
 sibilities in a fortnight after you receive this letter, as I hope 
 to land in that time at Liverpool. Meantime give my kindest 
 regards to my ward.' So — Lawrence Colquhoun home again ! " 
 
 " Tell me about him : is he grave and old, like Mr. Dyson ? 
 Will he want me to go back to the old life and talk ' subjects ' ? 
 Mr. Jagenal, much as I loved my dear old guardian, I could 
 not consent to be shut up any more." 
 
 " You will not be asked, my dear young lady. Mr. 
 Colquhoun is a man under forty. He is neither old nor 
 grave. He was in the army with your father. He sold out 
 seven or eight years ago, spent a year or two about London, 
 and then disappeared. I am his lawyer, and from time to 
 time he used to send me his address and draw on me for 
 money. That is all I can tell you of his travels. Lawrence 
 Colquhoun, Miss Fleming, was a popular man. Everybody 
 liked him ; especially the — the fair sex." 
 
 " Was he very clever ? " 
 
 "N-no; I should say not very clever. Not stupid. And, 
 now one thinks of it, it is remarkable that he never was 
 known to excel in anything, though he hunted, rode, shot, 
 and did, I suppose, all the other things that young men in 
 the army are fond of. He was fond of reading too, and had 
 a considerable fund of information; but he never excelled 
 in anything." 
 
 Phillis shook her head. 
 
 " Mr. Dyson used to say that the people we like best are 
 the people who are in our own line and have acknowledged 
 their own inferiority to ourselves. Perhaps the reason why 
 Mr. Colquhoun was liked was that he did not compete with 
 the men who wished to excel, but contentedly took a second 
 place." 
 
 This was one of the bits of Dysoniau philosophy with 
 which Phillis occasionally graced her conversation, quoting it 
 as reverently as if it had been a line from Shakespeare, some- 
 times with startling effect.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 69 
 
 " I shall try to like him. I am past nineteen, and at 
 twenty-one I shall be my own mistress. If I do not like him, 
 I shall not live with him any longer after that." 
 
 " I think you will not, in any case, live at Mr. Colqnhoun's 
 residence," said Joseph ; " but I am sure you will like him." 
 
 " A fortnight to wait." 
 
 " You must not be shy of him," Joseph went on ; " you 
 have nothing to be afraid of. Think highly of yourself, to 
 begin with." 
 
 " I do," said Phillis ; " Mr. Dyson always tried to make 
 me think highly of myself. He told me my education was 
 better than that of any girl he knew. Of course that was 
 partly his kind way of encouraging me. Mr. Dyson said that 
 shyness was a kind of cowardice, or else a kind of vanity. 
 People who are afraid of other people, he said, either mis- 
 trust themselves or think they are not rated at their true 
 value. But I think I am not at all afraid of strangers. Do 
 I look like being afraid ? " She drew herself up to her full 
 height and smiled a conscious superiority. "Perhaps you 
 will think that I rate myself too highly." 
 
 " That," said Joseph, with a compliment really creditable 
 for a beginner, — " that would be difficult. Miss Fleming." 
 
 When the Twins prepared to take their morning walk at 
 twelve an unexpected event happened. Ceesar, for the first 
 time on record, and for no reason apparent or assigned, re- 
 fused to accompany them. They went out without him, 
 feeling lonely, unhappy, and a little unprotected. They passed 
 the Carnarvon Arms without a word. At the next halting- 
 place they entered the bar in silence, glancing guiltily at each 
 other. Could it be that the passion for drink, divested of its 
 usual trappings of pretence, presented itself suddenly to the 
 brethren in its horrid ugliness ? They came out with shame- 
 faced looks, and returned home earlier than usual. They 
 were perfectly sober, and separated without the usual cheery 
 allusions to Work. Perhaps the conscience was touched, for 
 when Jane took up their tea she found the Poet in his Work- 
 shop sitting at the table, and the Artist in his Studio standing
 
 70 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 at his easel. Before the one was a blank sheet of paper; 
 before the other was a blank canvas. Both were fractious, 
 and both found fault with the tea. After dinner they took a 
 bottle of port, which Humphrey said, they really felt to want. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " I do not know 
 One of my sex ; no woman's face remember 
 Save, from my glass, mine own," 
 
 IN the afternoon Phillis, who was " writing up " her diary 
 after the manner of the ancient Aztec, received a visitor. 
 For the first time in her life the girl found herself face to 
 face with — a lady. Men she knew — chiefly men of advanced 
 age; they came to dine with Abraham Dyson. Women- 
 servants she knew, for she had a French maid — imported too 
 young to be mischievous ; and there had been a cook at High- 
 gate, with two or three maids. Not one of these virgins 
 possessed the art of reading, or they would never have been 
 engaged by Mr. Dyson. Nor was she encouraged by her 
 guardian to talk with them. Also she knew that in the 
 fulness of time she was to be somehow transferred from the 
 exclusive society of men to that in which the leading part 
 would be taken by ladies — women brought up delicately like 
 herself, but not all, unhappily, on the same sound funda- 
 mental principle of oral teaching. 
 
 Among the loose odds and ends which remained in Mr. 
 Dyson's portfolios, and where lay all that Joseph Jagenal 
 could ever find to help in completing his great system of 
 education, was the following scrap : — 
 
 " Women brought up with women are hindered in their 
 perfect development. Let the girls be separated from the 
 society of their sex, and be educated mostly among men. In 
 this way the receptivity of the feminine mind may be turned 
 to best account in the acquirement of robust masculine ideas. 
 Every girl may become a mother ; let her therefore sit among 
 men and listen." 
 
 Perhaps this deprivation of the society of her own sex was
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 71 
 
 a greater loss to Phillis than her ignorance of reading. Con- 
 sider what it entailed. She grew up without the most rudi- 
 mentary notions of the great art of flirtation ; she had never 
 even heard of looking out for an establishment ; she had no 
 idea of considering every young man as a possible husband ; 
 she had, indeed, no glimmerings, not the faintest streak of 
 dawning twilight in the matter of love ; while as for angling, 
 hooking a big fish and landing him, she was no better than 
 a heathen Hottentot. This was the most important loss, but 
 there were others ; she knew how to dress, partly by instinct, 
 partly by looking at pictures ; but she knew nothing about 
 Making-up. Nature, which gave her the figure of Hebe, made 
 this loss insignificant to her, though it is perhaps the opinion 
 of Mr. Worth that there is no figure so good but Art can im- 
 prove it. But not to hioiv about Making-up is, for a woman, 
 to lose a large part of useful sympathy for other women. 
 
 Again, she knew nothing of the way in which girls pour 
 little confidences, all about trifles, into each other's ears ; she 
 had not cultivated that intelligence which girls can only learn 
 from each other, and which enables them to communicate 
 volumes with a half-lifted eyelid ; she had a man's way of 
 saying out what she thought, and even, so far as her dogmatic 
 training permitted, of thinking for herself. She did not 
 understand the mystery with which women enwrap them- 
 selves, partly working on the imagination of youth, and 
 partly through their love of secluded talk — a remnant of 
 barbaric times, and a proof of the subjection of the sex ; the 
 frou-frou of life was lost to her. And being without mystery, 
 without the art of flirtation, with nothing to hide and no 
 object to gain, Phillis was entirely free from the great vice 
 into which women of the weaker nature are apt to fall — she 
 was perfectly and wholly truthful. 
 
 And now she was about to make acquaintance for the first 
 time with a lady — one of her own sex and of her own station. 
 
 I suppose Phillis must have preserved the characteristic 
 instincts of her womanhood, despite her extraordinary train- 
 ing, because the first thing she observed was that her visitor 
 was dressed in a style quite beyond her power of conception
 
 72 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 and imperfect taste. So she generalised from an individual 
 case, and jumped at tlie notion that here was a very superior 
 woman indeed. 
 
 The superiority was in the "young person " at Melton and 
 Mowbray's, who designed the dress; but that Phillis did 
 not know. 
 
 A more remarkable point with Mrs. Cassilis, Phillis's visitor, 
 than her dress was her face. It was so regular as to be fault- 
 less. It might have been modelled, and so have served for a 
 statue. It was also as cold as a face of marble. Men have 
 prayed — men who have fallen into feminine traps — to be 
 delivered from every species of woman except the cold woman ; 
 even King Solomon, who had gi'eat opportunities, including 
 long life, of studying the sex, mentions her not ; and yet I 
 think that she is the worst of all. Lord, give us tender- 
 hearted wives ! When we carve our ideal woman in marble, we 
 do not generally choose the wise Minerva nor the chaste Diana, 
 but Venus, soft-eyed, lissom, tender — and generally true. 
 
 Mrs, Cassilis called. As she entered the room she saw a 
 tall and beautiful girl, with eyes of a deep brown, who rose 
 to greet her with a little timidity. She was taken by sur- 
 prise. She expected to find a rough and rather vulgar young 
 woman, of no style and unformed manners. She saw before 
 her a girl whose attitude spoke unmistakably of delicacy and 
 culture. Whatever else Miss Fleming might be, she was 
 clearly a lady. That was immediately apparent, and Mrs. 
 Cassilis was not likely to make a mistake on a point of such 
 vital importance. A young lady of graceful figure, most at- 
 tractive face, and, which was all the more astonishing, con- 
 sidering her education, perfectly dressed. Phillis, in fact, 
 was attired in the same simple morning costume in which 
 she had taken her early morning walk. On the table before 
 her were her sketch-book and her pencils. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis was dressed, for her part, in robes which it 
 had taken the highest talent of Regent Street to produce. 
 Her age was about thirty. Her cold face shone for a moment 
 with the wintry light of a forced smile, but her eyes did not 
 soften, as she took Phillis's hand.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 73 
 
 Phillis's pulse beat a little faster, in spite of her courage. 
 
 Art face to face with Nature. The girl just as she left her 
 nunnery, ignorant of mankind, before the perfect woman of 
 the world. They looked curiously in each other's eyes. Now 
 the first lesson taught by the world is the way to dissemble. 
 Mrs. Cassilis said to herself, " Here is a splendid girl. She 
 is not what I expected to see. This is a girl to cultivate and 
 bring out — a girl to do one credit." But she said aloud — 
 
 "Miss Fleming? I am sure it is. You are exactly the 
 sort of girl I expected." 
 
 Then she sat down and looked at her comfortably. 
 
 "I am the wife of your late guardian's nephew — Mr. Gabriel 
 Cassilis. You have never met him yet ; but I hope you will 
 very soon make his acquaintance." 
 
 " Thank you," said Phillis simply. 
 
 " We used to think, until Mr. Dyson died and his prepos- 
 terous will was read, that his eccentric behaviour was partly 
 your fault. But when we found that he had left you nothing, 
 of course we felt that we had done you an involuntary wrong. 
 And the will was made when you were a mere child, and 
 could have no voice or wish in the matter." 
 
 " I had plenty of money," said Phillis ; " why should poor 
 Mr, Dyson want to leave me any more ? " 
 
 Quite untaught. As if any one could have too much money ! 
 
 " Forty thousand pounds a year ! and all going to Female 
 education. Not respectable Female education. If it had 
 been left to Girton College, or even to finding bread-and- 
 butter, with the Catechism and Contentment, for charity 
 girls in poke bonnets, it would have been less dreadful. But 
 to bring up young ladies as you were brought up, my poor 
 Miss Fleming " 
 
 " Am I not respectable ? " asked Phillis, as humbly as a 
 West Indian nigger before emancipation asking if he was not 
 a man and a brother. 
 
 " My dear child, I hear you cannot even read and write." 
 
 " That is quite true," 
 
 " But everybody learns to read and write. All the Sunday- 
 school children even know how to read and write."
 
 74 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Perhaps that is a misfortune for the Sunday-school chil- 
 dren," Phillis calmly observed ; " it would very likely be 
 better for the Sunday-school children were they taught more 
 useful things." Here Phillis was plagiarising — using Mr. 
 Dyson's own words. 
 
 " At least every one in society knows them. Miss Fleming, 
 I am ten years older than you, and, if you will only trust me, 
 I will give you such advice and assistance as I can." 
 
 " You are very kind," said Phillis, with a little distrust, 
 of which she was ashamed, " I know that I must be very 
 ignorant, because I have already seen so much that I never 
 suspected before. If you will only tell me of my deficiencies 
 I will try to repair them. And I can learn reading and 
 writing any time, you know, if it is at all necessary." 
 
 " Then let us consider. My poor girl, I fear you have to 
 learn the very rudiments of society. Of course you are quite 
 ignorant of things that people talk about. Books are out of 
 the question. Music and concerts ; art and pictures ; china 
 — perhaps Mr. Dyson collected ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " A pity. China would be a great help ; the opera and 
 theatres; balls and dancing; the rink" 
 
 " What is the rink ? " asked Phillis. 
 
 " The latest addition to the arts of flirtation and killing 
 time. Perhaps you can fall back upon Church matters. Are 
 you a Ritualist ? " 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 "My dear gix'l" — Mrs. Cassilis looked unutterable horror as 
 a thought struck her — " did you actually never go to church? " 
 
 " No. Mr. Dyson used to read prayers every day. Why 
 should people go to church when they pray ? " 
 
 " Why ? why ? Because people in society all go ; because 
 you must set an example to the lower orders. Dear me ! It 
 is very shocking ; and girls are all expected to take such an 
 interest in religion. But the first thing is to learn reading." 
 
 She had been carrying a little box in her hands all this time, 
 which she now placed on the table and opened. It contained 
 small wooden squares, with gaudy pictures pasted on them.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 75 
 
 " This is a Pictorial Alphabet : an introduction to all edu- 
 cation. Let me show you how to use it. What is this ? " 
 
 She held up one square. 
 
 " It is a very bad picture, abominably coloured, of a hatchet 
 or a kitchen chopper." 
 
 "An axe, my dear — A, x, e. The initial letter A is below 
 in its two forms. And this ? " 
 
 " That is worse. I suppose it is meant for a cow. What 
 a cow ! " 
 
 " Bull, my dear — B, u, L, L, bull. The initial B is below." 
 
 "And is this," asked Phillis, with great contempt, "the 
 way to learn reading ? A kitchen chopper stands for A, and 
 a cow with her legs out of drawing stands for B. Unless I 
 can draw my cows for myself, Mrs. Cassilis, I shall not try to 
 learn reading." 
 
 " You can draw, then ? " 
 
 " I draw a little," said Phillis. " Not so well, of course, 
 as girls brought up respectably." 
 
 " Pardon me, my dear Miss Fleming, if I say that sarcasm 
 is not considered good style. It fails to attract." 
 
 Good style, thought Phillis, means talking so as to attract. 
 
 " Do let me draw you," said Phillis. Her temper was not 
 faultless, and it was rising by degrees, so that she wanted 
 the relief of sileDce. "Do let me draw you as you sit 
 there." 
 
 She did not wait for permission, but sketched in a few 
 moments a profile portrait of her visitor, in which somehow 
 the face, perfectly rendered in its coldness and strength, was 
 without the look which its owner always thought was there 
 — the look which invites sympathy. The real unsympathetic 
 nature, caught in a moment by some subtle artist's touch, 
 was there instead. Mrs. Cassilis looked at it, and an angry 
 flush crossed her face, which Phillis, wondering why, noted. 
 
 "You caricature extremely well. I congratulate you on 
 that power, but it is a dangerous accomplishment — even more 
 dangerous than the practice of sarcasm. The girl who in- 
 dulges in the latter at most fails to attract; but the cari- 
 caturist repels."
 
 76 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Oil ! " said Phillis, innocent of any attempt to caricature, 
 but trying to assimilate this strange dogmatic teaching. 
 
 " We must always remember that the most useful weapons 
 in a girl's hands are those of submission, faith and reverence. 
 Men hate — they hate and detest — women who think for 
 themselves. They positively loathe the woman who dares 
 turn them into ridicule." 
 
 She looked as if she could be one of the few who possess 
 that daring. 
 
 " Fortunately," she went on, " such women are rare. Even 
 among the strong-minded crew, the shrieking sisterhood, 
 most of them are obliged to worship some man or other of 
 their own school." 
 
 " I don't understand. Pardon me, Mrs. Cassilis, that I 
 am so stupid. I say what I think, and you tell me I am 
 sarcastic." 
 
 " Girls in society never say what they think. They assent, 
 or at best ask a question timidly." 
 
 " And I make a little pencil sketch of you, and you tell 
 me I am a caricaturist." 
 
 " Girls who can draw must draw in the conventional 
 manner recognised by society. They do not draw likenesses ; 
 they copy flowers, and sometimes draw angels and crosses. 
 To please men they draw soldiers and horses." 
 
 " But why cannot girls draw what they please ? And 
 why must they try to attract ? " 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis looked at this most innocent of girls with 
 misgcivinof. Could she be so ignorant as she seemed, or was 
 she pretending ? 
 
 " Why ? Phillis Fleming, only ask me that question again 
 in six months' time if you dare." 
 
 Phillis shook her head ; she was clearly out of her depth. 
 
 " Have you any other accomplishments ? " 
 
 " I am afraid not. I can play a little. ]\rr. Dyson liked 
 my playing ; but it is all from memory and from ear." 
 
 " Will you, if you do not mind, play something to me ? " 
 
 Victoria Cassilis cared no more for music than the deaf 
 adder which hath no understanding. By dint of much teach-
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 77 
 
 ing, however, she had learned to execute creditably. The 
 playing of Phillis, sweet, spontaneous, and full of feeling, 
 had no power to touch her heart. 
 
 " Ye-yes," she said, " that is the sort of playing which 
 some young men like : not those young men from Oxford, 
 who ' follow ' Art, and pretend to understand good music. 
 You may see them asleep at afternoon recitals. You must 
 play at small parties only, Phillis. Can you sing ? " 
 
 " I sing as I play," said Phillis, rising and shutting the 
 piano. " That is only, I suppose, for small parties." The 
 colour came into her cheeks, and her brown eyes brightened. 
 She was accustomed to think that her playing gave pleasure. 
 Then she reproached herself for ingratitude, and she asked 
 pardon. " I am cross with myself for being so deficient. Pray 
 forgive me, Mrs. Cassilis. It is very kind of you to take 
 all this trouble." 
 
 " My dear, you are a hundred times better than I expected." 
 
 Phillis remembered what she had said ten minutes before, 
 but was silent. 
 
 " A hundred times better. Can you dance, my dear ? " 
 
 "No. Antoinette tells me how she used to dance with 
 the villagers when she was a little girl at Yport." 
 
 " That can be easily learned. Do you ride ? " 
 
 At any other time Phillis would have replied in the affir- 
 mative. Now she only asserted a certain power of sticking 
 on, acquired on pony-back and in a paddock. Mrs. Cassilis 
 sighed. 
 
 " After all, a few lessons will give you a becoming seat. 
 Nothing so useful as clever horsemanship. But how shall 
 we disguise the fact that you cannot read or write ? " 
 
 "I shall not try to disguise it," Phillis cried, jealous of 
 Mr. Dyson's good name. 
 
 "Well, my dear, we come now to the most important 
 question of all. Where do you get your dresses ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Cassilis ! do not say that my dresses are calculated 
 to repel ! " cried poor Phillis, her spirit quite broken by this 
 time. " Antoinette and I made this one between us. Some- 
 times I ordered them at Highgate, but I like my own best."
 
 78 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis put up a pair of double eye-glasses, because 
 they were now arrived at a really critical stage of the cate- 
 chism. There was something in the simple dress which forced 
 her admiration. It was quite plain, and, compared with her 
 own, as a daisy is to a dahlia. 
 
 " It is a very nice dress," she said critically. " Whether 
 it is your figure, or your own taste, or the material, I do not 
 know ; but you are dressed ^perfectly, Miss Fleming. No 
 young lady could dress better." 
 
 Women meet on the common ground of dress. Phillis 
 blushed with pleasure. At all events, she and her critic had 
 something on which they could agree. 
 
 " I will come to-morrow morning, and we will examine your 
 wardrobe together, if you will allow me ; and then we will go 
 to Melton & Mowbray's. And I will write to Mr. Jagenal, 
 asking him to bring you to dinner in the evening, if you will 
 come." 
 
 " I should like it very much," said Phillis, " But you have 
 made me a little afraid." 
 
 " You need not be afraid at all. And it will be a very small 
 party. Two or three friends of my husband's, and two men 
 who have just come home and published a book, which is said 
 to be clever. One is a brother of Lord Isleworth, Mr. Ronald 
 Dunquerque, and the other is a Captain Ladds. You have 
 only to listen and look interested." 
 
 " Then I will come. And it is very kind of you, Mrs. 
 Cassilis, especially since you do not like me." 
 
 That was quite true, but not a customary thing to be said. 
 Phillis perceived dislike in the tones of her visitor's voice, in 
 her eyes, in her manner. Did Mrs. Cassilis dislike her for her 
 fresh and unsophisticated nature, or for her beauty, or for the 
 attractiveness which breathed from every untaught look and 
 gesture of the girl ? Swedenborg taught that the lower nature 
 cannot love the nobler ; that the highest heavens are open to 
 all who like to go there, but the atmosphere is found con- 
 genial to very few. 
 
 " Not like you ! " Mrs. Cassilis, hardly conscious of any 
 dislike, answered after her kind. " My dear, I hope we shall
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 79 
 
 like each other very much. Do not let fancies get into yonr 
 pretty head. I shall try to be your friend, if you will let me." 
 
 Again the wintry smile upon the lips, and the lifting of 
 the cold eyes, which smiled not. 
 
 But Phillis was deceived by the warmth of the words. She 
 took her visitor's hand and kissed it. The act was a homage 
 to the woman of superior knowledge. 
 
 "Oh yes," she murmured, "if you only will." 
 
 " I shall call you Phillis. My name is Victoria." 
 
 " And you will tell me more about girls in society." 
 
 " I will show you girls in society, which is a great deal 
 better for you," said Mrs. Cassilis. 
 
 " I looked at the girls I saw yesterday as we drove through 
 the streets. Some of them were walking like this." She 
 had been standing during most of this conversation, and now 
 she began walking across the room in that ungraceful pose of 
 the body which was more affected last year than at present. 
 Ladies do occasionally have intervals of lunacy in the matter 
 of taste, but if you give them time they come round again. 
 Even crinolines went out at last, after the beauty of a whole 
 generation had been spoiled by them. " Then there were 
 others, who walked like this." She laid her head on one side, 
 and affected a languid air, which I have myself remarked as 
 being prevalent in the High Street of Islington. Now the 
 way from Highgate to Carnarvon Square lies through that 
 thoroughfare. " Then there were the boys. I never dreamed 
 of such a lot of boys. And they were all whistling. This 
 was the tune." 
 
 She threw her head back, and began to whistle the popular 
 songof last spring. You know what it was. It came between 
 the favourite air from the Fille de Madame Angot and that 
 other sweet melody, " Tommy, make room for your Uncle," 
 and was called " Hold the Fort." It refreshed the souls of 
 Eevivalists in Her Majesty's Theatre, and of all the street- 
 boys in this great Babylon. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis positively shrieked : 
 
 "My dear, dear, dear girl," she cried, "you MUST not 
 whistle ! "
 
 8o THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Is it wrong to whistle ? " 
 
 " Not morally wrong, I suppose. Girls never do anything 
 morally wrong. But it is far worse, Phillis, far worse ; it is 
 unspeakably vulgar." 
 
 " Oh," said Phillis, " I am so sorry ! " 
 
 "And, my dear, one thing more. Do not cultivate the 
 power of mimicry, which you undoubtedly possess. Men are 
 afraid of young ladies who can imitate them. For actresses, 
 authors, artists, and common people of that sort, of course it 
 does not matter. But for us it is different. And now, Phillis, 
 I must leave you till to-morrow. I have great hopes of you. 
 You have an excellent figure, a very pretty and attractive face, 
 winning eyes, and a taste in dress which only wants cultivation. 
 And that we will begin to-mon"ow at Melton & Mowbray's." 
 
 " Oh yes," said Phillis, clapping her hands, " that will be 
 delightful ! I have never seen a shop yet." 
 
 " She has — never — seen — a Shop ! " cried Mrs. Cassilis. 
 " Child, it is hard indeed to realise your Awful condition of 
 mind. That a girl of nineteen should be able to say that she 
 has never seen a Shop ! My dear, your education has been 
 absolutely unchristian. And poor Mr. Dyson, I fear, cut off 
 suddenly in his sins, without the chance of repentance." 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 "Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear." 
 
 JOSEPH JAGENAL and his charge were the last arrivals 
 at Mrs. Cassilis's dinner. It was not a large party. 
 There were two ladies of the conventional type, well dressed, 
 well looking, and not particularly interesting ; with them 
 their two husbands, young men of an almost preternatural 
 solemnity — such solemnity as sometimes results from a too 
 concentrated attention to the Money Market. They were 
 there as friends of Mr. Cassilis, whom they regarded with the 
 reverence justly due to success. They longed to speak to him 
 privately on investments, but did not dare. There were also 
 two lions, newly captured. Ladds, the " Dragoon " of the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 8i 
 
 joint literary venture — " The Little Sphere, by the Dragoon 
 and the Younger Son " — is standing in that contemplative 
 attitude by which hungry men, awaiting the announcement 
 of dinner, veil an indecent eagerness to begin. The other, 
 the " Younger Son," is talking to Mr. Cassilis. 
 
 Phillis remarked that the room was furnished in a manner 
 quite beyond anything she knew. Where would be the dingy 
 old chairs, sofas, and tables of Mr. Dyson's, or the solid 
 splendour of Joseph Jagenal's drawing-room, compared with 
 the glories of decorative art which Mrs. Cassilis had called 
 to her aid ? She had no time to make more than a general 
 survey as she went to greet her hostess. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis, for her pai-t, observed that Phillis was dressed 
 carefully, and was looking her best. She had on a simple 
 white dress of that soft stuff called, I think, Indian muslin, 
 which falls in graceful folds. A pale lavender sash relieved 
 the monotony of the white, and set off her shapely figure. 
 Her hair, done up in the simplest fashion, was adorned with 
 a single white rose. Her cheeks were a little flushed with 
 excitement, but her eyes were steady. 
 
 Phillis stole a glance at the other ladies. They were 
 dressed, she was glad to observe, in the same style as herself, 
 but not better. That naturally raised her spirits. 
 
 Then Mrs. Cassilis introduced her husband. 
 
 When Phillis next day attempted to reproduce her impres- 
 sions of the evening, she had no difficulty in recording the 
 likeness of Mr. Gabriel Cassilis with great fidelity. He was 
 exactly like old Time. 
 
 The long lean limbs, the pronounced features, the stooping 
 figure, the forelock which our enemy will not allow us to take, 
 the head, bald save for that single ornamental curl and a 
 fringe of gray hair over the ears — all the attributes of Time were 
 there except the scythe. Perhaps he kept that at his office. 
 
 He was a very rich man. His house was in Kensington 
 Palace Gardens, a fact which speaks volumes ; its furnishing 
 was a miracle of modern art ; his paintings were undoubted ; 
 his portfolios of water-colours were worth many thousands ; 
 and his horses were perfect. 
 
 F
 
 82 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 
 
 He was a director of many companies — but you cannot 
 live in Kensington Palace Gardens by directing companies — 
 and lie had an office in the City which consisted of three 
 rooms. In the first were four or five clerks, always writing ; 
 in the second was the secretary, always writing; in the third 
 was Mr. Gabriel Cassilis himself, always giving audience. 
 
 He married at sixty-three, because he wanted an establish- 
 ment in his old age. He was too old to expect love from a 
 woman, and too young to fall in love with a girl. He did 
 not marry in order to make a pet of his wife — indeed, he 
 mifflit as well have tried stroking a statue of INIinerva as 
 petting Victoria Pengelley ; and he made no secret of his 
 motive in proposing for the young lady. As delicately as 
 possible he urged that, though her family was good, her 
 income was small ; that it is better to be rich and married 
 than poor and single ; and he offered, if she consented to 
 become his wife, to give her all that she could wish for or 
 ask on the material and artistic side of life. 
 
 Victoria Pengelley, on receipt of the offer, which was com- 
 municated by a third person, her cousin, behaved very 
 strangely. She first refused absolutely ; then she declared 
 that she would have taken the man, but that it was now 
 impossible ; then she retracted the last statement, and, after 
 a week of agitation, accepted the offer. 
 
 " And I must say, Victoria," said her cousin, " that you 
 have made a strange fuss about accepting an offer from one 
 of the richest men in London. He is elderly, it is true ; but 
 the difference between eight and twenty and sixty lies mostly 
 in the imagination. I will write to Mr. Cassilis to-nio-ht." 
 
 Which she did, and they were married. 
 
 She trembled a great deal during the marriage ceremony. 
 Mr. Cassilis was pleased at this appearance of emotion, which 
 he attributed to causes quite remote from any thought in the 
 lady's mind. " Calm to all outward seeming," he said to 
 himself, " Victoria is capable of the deepest passion." 
 
 They liad now been married between two and three years. 
 They had one child — a boy. 
 
 It is only to be added that Mr. Cassilis settled the sum of
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 83 
 
 fifteen thousand pounds upon the wedding-day on his wife, 
 and that they lived together in that perfect happiness which 
 is to be expected from well-bred people who marry without 
 pretending to love each other. 
 
 Their dinners were beyond praise ; the wine was incom- 
 parable ; but their evenings were a little frigid. A sense of 
 cold splendour filled the house — the chill which belongs to 
 new things and to new men. 
 
 The new man thirty years ago was loud, ostentatious, and 
 vulgar. The new man now — there are a great many more of 
 them — is very often quiet, unpretending, and well-bred. He 
 understands art, and is a patron ; he enjoys the advantages 
 which his wealth affords him ; he knows how to bear his 
 riches with dignity and with reserve. The only objection to 
 him is that he wants to go where other men, who were new 
 in the last generation, go, and do what they do, 
 
 Mr. Cassilis welcomed Miss Fleming and Joseph Jagenal, 
 and resumed his conversation with Jack Dunquerque. That 
 young man looked much the same as when we saw him last 
 on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. His tall figure had not 
 filled out, but his slight moustache had just a little increased 
 in size. And now he looked a good deal bored. 
 
 " I have never, I confess," his host was saying, wielding a 
 double eye-glass instead of his scythe, — " I have never been 
 attracted by the manners and customs of uncivilised people. 
 My sympathies cease, I fear, where Banks end." 
 
 " You are only interested in the country of Lombardy ? " 
 
 " Yes ; very good : precisely so." 
 
 " Outside the pale of Banks men certainly carry their money 
 about with them " 
 
 " Which prevents the accumulation of wealth, my dear sir. 
 Civilisation was born when men learned to confide in each 
 other. Modern history begins with the Fuggers, of whom 
 you may have read." 
 
 " I assure you I never did," said Jack truthfully. 
 
 Then dinner was announced. 
 
 Phillis found herself on the right of Mr. Cassilis. Next 
 to her sat Captain Ladds. Mr. Dunquerque was at tbe
 
 84 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 opposite corner of the table — he had given his arm to Mrs. 
 Cassilis. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis, Phillis saw, was watching her by occasional 
 glances. The girl felt a little anxious, but she was not awk- 
 ward. After all, she thought, the customs of society at a 
 dinner-table cannot be very different from those observed and 
 taught her by Mr. Dyson. Perhaps her manner of adjusting 
 things was a little wanting in finish and delicacy — too down- 
 right. Also, Mrs. Cassilis observed she made no attempt to 
 talk with Captain Ladds, her neighbour, but was, curiously 
 enough, deeply interested in the conversation of Mr. Cassilis. 
 
 Ladds was too young for Phillis, despite his five and thirty 
 years. Old men and greybeards she knew. Young men she 
 did not know. She could form no guess what line of talk 
 would be adopted by a young man — one who had a deep bass 
 voice when he spoke, and attacked his dinner with a vigour 
 past understanding. Phillis was interested in him, and a 
 little afraid lest he should talk to her. 
 
 Others watched her too. Jack Dunquerque, his view a little 
 intercepted by the &pcrgne^ lifted furtive glances at the bright 
 and pretty girl at the other end of the table. Joseph Jagenal 
 looked at her with honest pride in the beauty of his ward. 
 
 They talked politics, but not in the way to which she was 
 accustomed. Mr. Dyson and his brother greybeards were like 
 Cassandra, Elijah, Jeremiah, and a good many prophets of the 
 present day, inasmuch as the more they discussed affairs the 
 more they prophesied disaster. So that Phillis had learned from 
 them to regard the dreadful future with terror. Every day 
 seemed to make these sages more dismal. Phillis had not yet 
 learned that the older we get the wiser we grow, and the wiser 
 we grow the more we tremble; that those are most light-hearted 
 who know the least. At this table politics were talked in a very 
 different manner : they laughed where the sages wagged their 
 heads and gi'oaned : they even discussed, with a familiarity 
 which seemed to drive out anxiety, the favourite bugbear of 
 her old politicians, the continental supremacy of Germany. 
 
 The two young City men, who were as solemn as a pair of 
 Home Secretaries, listened to their host with an eager interest
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 85 
 
 and deference whicli the other two, who were not careful about 
 investments, did not imitate. Phillis observed the difference, 
 and wondered what it meant. Then Mr. Cassilis, as if he had 
 communicated as many ideas about Russia as he thought 
 desirable, turned the conversation upon travelling, in the 
 interests of the Dragoon and the younger son. 
 
 " I suppose," he said, addressing Jack, "that in your travels 
 among the islanders you practised the primitive mode of 
 Barter." 
 
 " We did ; and they cheated us when they could. "WTiich 
 shows that they have improved upon the primitive man. I 
 suppose he was honest." 
 
 " I should think not," said the host. " The most honest 
 classes in the world are the richest. People who want to get 
 things always have a tendency to be dishonest. England is 
 the most honest nation, because it is the richest. France 
 is the next. Germany, you see, which is a poor country, 
 yielded to the temptations of poverty and took Sleswick- 
 Holstein Alsace and Lorraine. I believe that men began 
 with dishonesty." 
 
 "Adam, for example," said Ladds, "took what he ought 
 not to have taken." 
 
 " Captain Ladds ! " — this was one of the two ladies, she 
 who had read up the new book before coming to the dinner, 
 and had so far an advantage over the other — " that is just like 
 one of the wicked things, the delightfully wicked things, in the 
 Little Sjyhere. Now we know which of the two did the wicked 
 things." 
 
 " It was the other man," said Ladds. 
 
 " Is it fair to ask," the lady went on, " how von wrote the 
 book?" 
 
 She was one of those who, could she get the chance, would 
 ask Messieurs Erckmann and Chatrian themselves to furnish 
 her with a list of the paragraphs and the ideas due to each in 
 their last novel. 
 
 Ladds looked as if the question was beyond his compre- 
 hension. 
 
 At last he answered slowly —
 
 86 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Steel pen. The other man had a gold pen." 
 
 " No — no ; I mean did you write one chapter and your 
 collaborateur the next, or how ? " 
 
 "Let me think it over," replied Ladds, as if it were a 
 conundrum. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis came to the rescue. 
 
 " At all events," she said, " the great thing is that the book 
 is a success. I have not read it, but I hear there are many 
 clever and witty things in it. Also some wicked things. Of 
 course, if you write wickedness you are sure of an audience. 
 I don't thinkj Mr. Dunquerque," she added, with a smile, " that 
 it is the business of gentlemen to attack existing institutions." 
 
 Jack shook his head. 
 
 "It was not my writing. It was the other man. I did 
 what I could to tone him down." 
 
 " Have you read the immortal work ? " Ladds asked his 
 neighbour. He had not spoken to her yet, but he had eyes in 
 his head, and he was gradually getting interested in the silent 
 girl who sat beside him, and listened with such rapt interest 
 to the conversation. 
 
 This great and manifest interest was the only sign to show 
 that Phillis was not accustomed to dinners in society. 
 
 Ladds thought that she must be some shy maiden from the 
 country — a little " rustical " perhaps. He noticed now that 
 her eyes were large and bright, that her features were clear and 
 delicate, that she was looking at himself with a curious pity, as 
 if, which was indeed the case, she believed the statement about 
 his having written the wicked things. And then he wondered 
 how so bright a girl had been able to listen to the prosy dog- 
 matics of Mr. Cassilis. Yet she had listened, and with pleasure. 
 
 Phillis was at that stage in her worldly education when she 
 would have listened with pleasure to anybody — Mr. Moody, a 
 lecture on astronomy, a penny-reading, an amateur dramatic 
 performance, or an essay in the Edinlmrgli. For everything 
 was new. She was like the blind man who received his 
 sight and saw men, like trees, walking. Every new face was 
 a new world ; every fresh speaker was a new revelation. No 
 one to her was stupid, was a bore, was insincere, was spiteful,
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 87 
 
 was envious, or a humbug, because no one was known. To 
 him who does not know, the inflated indiarubber toj is as 
 solid as a cannon-ball. 
 
 " I never read anything," said Phillis, with a half blush. 
 Not that she was ashamed of the fact, but she felt that it 
 would have pleased Captain Ladds had she read his book. 
 " You see, I have never learned to read." 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 It was rather a facer to Ladds, Here was a young lady, not 
 being a Spaniard, or a Sicilian, or a Levantine, or a Mexican, or 
 a Paraguayan, or a Brazilian, or belonging to any country 
 where such things are possible, who boldly confessed that 
 she could not read. This in England ; this in the year 1875 ; 
 this in a country positively rendered unpleasant by reason 
 of its multitudinous School Boards and the echoes of their 
 wrangling ! 
 
 Jack Dunquerque, in his place, heard the statement and 
 looked up involuntarily, as if to see what manner of young 
 lady this could be — a gesture of surprise into which the in- 
 congruity of the thing startled him. He caught her full face 
 as she leaned a little forward, and his glance rested for a 
 moment on a cheek so fair that his spirit fell. Beauty disarms 
 the youthful squire, and arms him who has won his spurs. I 
 speak in an allegory. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis heard it and was half amused, half angry. 
 
 Mr. Cassilis heard it, opened his mouth, as if to make some 
 remark about Mr. Dyson's method of education, but thought 
 better of it. 
 
 The two ladies heard it and glanced at her curiously. Then 
 they looked at each other with the slightest uplifting of the 
 eyebrow, which meant, " Who on earth can she be ? " 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis noted that too, and rejoiced, because she was 
 going to bring forward a girl who would make everybody 
 jealous. 
 
 Ladds was the only one who spoke. 
 
 " That," he said feebly, " must be very jolly." 
 
 He began to wonder what could be the reason of this 
 singular educational omission. Perhaps she had a crooked
 
 88 THE GOLDEN BUTNERFLY. 
 
 back ; could not sit up to a desk, could not hold a book in 
 her hand ; but no, she was like Petruchio's Kate : 
 
 " Like the hazel twig, 
 As straight and slender." 
 
 Perhaps her eyes were weak ; but no, her eyes were spark- 
 ling with the " right Promethean fire." Perhaps she was 
 of weak intellect ; but that was ridiculous. 
 
 Then the lady who had read the book began to ask more 
 questions. I do not know anything more irritating than to 
 be asked questions about your own book. 
 
 " Will you tell us, Mr. Dunquerque, if the story of the 
 bear-hunt is a true one, or did you make it up ? " 
 
 " We made up nothing. That story is perfectly true. 
 And the man's name was Beck." 
 
 " Curious," said Mr. Cassilis. " An American named Beck, 
 Mr. Gilead P. Beck, is in London now, and has been recom- 
 mended to me. He is extremely rich. I think, my dear, 
 that you invited him to dinner to-day ? " 
 
 " Yes. He found he could not come at the last moment. 
 He will be here in the evening." 
 
 " Then you will see the very man," said Jack, " unless there 
 is more than one Gilead P. Beck, which is hardly likely." 
 
 " This man has practically an unlimited credit," said the 
 host. 
 
 " And talks, I suppose, like — well, like the stage Americans, 
 I suppose," said his wife. 
 
 " You know," Jack explained, " that the stage American is 
 all nonsense. The educated American talks a great deal 
 better than we do. He can string his sentences together; 
 we can only bark." 
 
 " Perhaps our bark is better than their bite," Ladds re- 
 marked. 
 
 " A man who has unlimited credit may talk as he pleases," 
 said ]\Ir. Cassilis dogmatically. 
 
 The two solemn young men murmured assent. 
 
 " And he always did say that he was going to have luck. 
 He carried about a Golden Butterfly in a box."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 89 
 
 " How deeply interesting ! " replied the lady who had read 
 the book. " And is that other story true, that you found an 
 English traveller living all alone in a deserted city ? " 
 
 " Quite true." 
 
 " Eeally ! And who was it ? Anybody one has met ? " 
 
 "I do not know whether you have ever met him. His 
 name is Lawrence Colquhoun." 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis flushed suddenly, and then her pale face 
 became paler. 
 
 " Lawrence Colquhoun, formerly of ours," said Ladds, 
 looking at her. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis read the look to ask what business it was of 
 hers, and why she changed colour at his name. 
 
 " Colquhoun ! " she said softly. Then she raised her voice 
 and addressed her husband : " My dear, it is an old friend of 
 mine of whom we are speaking, Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun." 
 
 " Yes ! " he had forgotten the name. " What did he do ? 
 
 I think I remember " He stopped, for he remembered to 
 
 have heard his wife's name in connection with this man. He 
 felt a sudden pang of jealousy, a quite new and rather curious 
 sensation. It passed, but yet he rejoiced that the man was 
 out of England. 
 
 " He is my guardian," Phillis said to Ladds. " And you 
 actually know him ? Will you tell me something about him 
 presently ? " 
 
 When the men followed, half an hour later, they found the 
 four ladies sitting in a large semicircle round the fire. The 
 centre of the space so formed was occupied by a gentleman 
 who held a cup of tea in one hand and declaimed with the 
 other. That is to say, he was speaking in measured tones, 
 and as if he were addressing a large room instead of four 
 ladies ; and his right hand and arm performed a pump-handle 
 movement to assist and grace his delivery. He had a face so 
 grave that it seemed as if smiles were impossible ; he was 
 apparently about forty years of age. Mrs. Cassilis was not 
 listening much. She was considering, as she looked at her 
 visitor, how far he might be useful to her evenings. Phillis 
 was catching every word that fell from the stranger's lips.
 
 90 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Here ^yas an experience quite new and stai-tling. She knew 
 of America ; Mr. Dyson, born not so very many years after the 
 War of Independence, and while the memory of its humilia- 
 tions was fresh in the mind of the nation, always thought 
 and spoke of Americans as England's hereditary and im- 
 placable enemies. Yet here was one of the race talking 
 amicably, and making no hostile demonstrations whatever. 
 So that another of her collection of early impressions evidently 
 needed reconsideration. 
 
 When he saw the group at the door, Mr. Gilead Beck — 
 for it was he — strode hastily across the room, and putting 
 aside Mr. Cassilis, seized Jack Dunquerque by the hand and 
 wrung it for several moments. 
 
 " You have not forgotten me ! " he said. " You remember 
 that lucky shot ? You still think of that Grisly ? " 
 
 " Of course I do," said Jack ; " I shall never forget him." 
 
 " Nor shall I, sir ; never." And then he went through the 
 friendly ceremony with Ladds. 
 
 " You are the other man, sir ? " 
 
 " I always am the other man," said Ladds, for the second 
 time that evening. " How are you, Mr. Beck, and how is 
 the Golden Butterfly ? " 
 
 " That Inseck, captain, is a special instrument working 
 under Providence for my welfare. He slumbers at my hotel, 
 the Langham, in a fire-proof safe." 
 
 Then he seized Jack Dunquerque's arm, and led him to the 
 circle round the fire. 
 
 " Ladies, this young gentleman is my preserver. He saved 
 my life. It is owing to Mr. Dunquerque that Gilead P. Beck 
 has the pleasure of being in this drawing-room." 
 
 " Mr. Dunquerque," said the lady who had read the 
 book, " that is not in the volume ! " 
 
 " Clawed I should have been, mauled I should have been, 
 rubbed out I should have been, on that green and grassy 
 spot, but for the crack of Mr. Dunquerque's rifle. You will 
 not believe me, ladies, but I thought it was the crack of 
 doom." 
 
 " It was a most charming, picturesque spot in which to be
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 91 
 
 clawed," said Jack, laughing. " You could not have selected 
 a more delightful place for the purpose." 
 
 " There air moments," said Mr. Beck, looking round the 
 room solemnly, and letting his eyes rest on Phillis, who gazed 
 at him with an excitement and interest she could hardly con- 
 trol — " there air moments when the soul is dead to poetry. 
 One of those moments is when you feel the breath of a Grisly 
 on your cheek. Even you, young lady, would, at such a 
 moment, lose your interest in the beauty of Nature." 
 
 Phillis started when he addressed her. 
 
 " Did he save your life ? " she asked, with flashing eyes. 
 
 Jack Dunquerque blushed as this fair creature turned to 
 him with looks of such admiration and respect as the queen 
 of the tournament bestowed upon the victor of the fight. So 
 Desdemona gazed upon the Moor when he spake 
 
 " Of most disastrous chances, 
 Of moving accidents by flood and field." 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis effected a diversion by introducing her hus- 
 band to Mr. Beck. 
 
 " Mr. Cassilis, sir," he said, " I have a letter for you from 
 one of our most prominent bankers. And I called in the 
 City this afternoon to give it you. But I was unfortunate. 
 Sir, I hope that we shall become better acquainted. And I 
 am proud, sir, I am proud of making the acquaintance of a 
 man who has the privilege of life partnership with ]\Irs. Cassilis. 
 That is a great privilege, sir, and I hope you value it." 
 
 " Hum — ^yes ; thank you, Mr. Beck," replied Mr. Cassilis, 
 in a tone which conveyed to the sharp-eared Phillis the idea 
 that he thought considerable value ought to be attached to 
 the fact of having a life partnership with him. " And how 
 do you like our country ? " 
 
 The worst of going to America, if you are an Englishman, or 
 of crossing to England, if you are an American, is that you can 
 never escape that most searching and comprehensive question. 
 
 Said Mr. Gilead Beck : 
 
 " Well, sir, a dollar goes a long way in this country — 
 especially in cigars and drinks."
 
 92 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " In drinks ! " Phillis listened. The other ladies shot glances 
 at each other. 
 
 " Phillis, my dear " — Mrs. Cassilis crossed the room and 
 interrupted her rapt attention — " let me introduce Mr. Ronald 
 Dunquerque. Do you think you could play something ?" 
 
 She bowed to the young hero with sparkling eyes and rose 
 to comply with the invitation. He followed her to the piano. 
 She played in that sweet spontaneous manner which the 
 women who have only been taught hear with despair ; she 
 touched the keys as if she loved them and as if they under- 
 stood her ; she played one or two of the " Songs without 
 Words ; " and then, starting a simple melody, she began to 
 sing, without being asked, a simple old ballad. Her tone 
 was low at first, because she did not know the room, not 
 because she was afraid ; but it gradually rose as she felt her 
 power, till the room was filled with the volumes of her rich 
 contralto voice. Jack Dunquerque stood beside her. She 
 looked up in his face with eyes that smiled a welcome while 
 she went on singing. 
 
 " You told us you could not read," said the young man 
 when she finished, 
 
 " It is quite true, Mr. Dunquerque. I cannot." 
 
 " How, then, can you play and sing ? " 
 
 " Oh, I play by ear and by memory. That is nothing 
 wonderful." 
 
 " Won't you go on playing ? " 
 
 She obeyed, talking in low, measured tones, in time with 
 the air. 
 
 " I think you know my guardian, Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun. 
 Will you tell me all about him ? I have never seen him yet." 
 
 This unprincipled young man saw his chance, and promptly 
 seized the opportunity. 
 
 " I should like to very much, but one cannot talk here 
 before all these people. If you will allow me to call to- 
 morrow, I will gladly tell you all I know about him." 
 
 " You had better come at luncheon-time," she replied, 
 " and then I shall be very glad to see you." 
 
 Mr. Abraham Dyson usually told his friends to come at
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 93 
 
 luncheon-time, so she could not be wrong. Also, she knew 
 by this time that the Twins were always asleep at two o'clock, 
 so that she would be alone ; and it was pleasant to think of a 
 talk, sola cum solo, with this interesting specimen of newly- 
 discovered humanity — a young man who had actually saved 
 another man's life. 
 
 " Is she an outrageous flirt ? " thought Jack, " or is she 
 deliciously and wonderfully simple ? " 
 
 On the way home he discussed the problem with Ladds. 
 
 " I don't care which it is," he concluded, " I must see her 
 again. Ladds, old man, I believe I could fall in love with that 
 girl. ' Ask me no more, for at a touch I yield.' Did you notice 
 her, Tommy ? Did you see her sweet eyes — I must say she 
 has the sweetest eyes in all the world — looking with a pretty 
 wonder at our quaint Yankee friend ? Did you see her try- 
 ing to take an interest in the twaddle of old Cassilis ? Did 
 you " 
 
 " Have we eyes ? " Ladds growled. " Is the heart at five 
 and thirty a log ? " 
 
 " And her figure, tall and slender, lissom and gracieuse. 
 And her face, ' the silent war of lilies and of roses.' How I 
 love the brunette faces ! They are never insipid." 
 
 " Do you remember the half-caste Spanish girl in Manilla ? " 
 
 " Ladds, don't dare to mention that girl beside this adorable 
 angel of purity. I have found out her Christian name — it is 
 Phillis — rhymes to lilies ; and am going to call at her house 
 to-morrow — Carnarvon Square." 
 
 " And I am going to have half an hour in the smoking- 
 room," said Ladds, as they arrived at the portals of the club. 
 
 " So am I," said Jack. " You know what Othello says of 
 Desdemona : 
 
 ' thou weed, 
 Who art so lovely fair, and smell'st so sweet 
 That the sense aches at thee ! ' 
 
 I mean Phillis Fleming, of course, not your confounded 
 tobacco."
 
 94 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " They say if money goes before, all ways do lie open.'' 
 
 " T CALL this kind, boys," said Mr. Gilead P. Beck, welcom- 
 X ing his visitors, Captain Ladds and Jack Dunquerque ; 
 " I call this friendly. I asked myself last night, ' Will those 
 boys come to see me, or will they let the ragged Yankee 
 slide ? ' And here you are." 
 
 " Change," said Ladds the monosyllabic, looking round. 
 " Gold looking up ? " 
 
 There is a certain suite of rooms in the Langham Hotel — 
 there may be a hundred such suites known to the travellers 
 who have explored that mighty hostelry — originally designed 
 for foreign princes, ambassadors, or those wandering kings 
 whom our hospitality sends to an inn. The suite occupied by 
 Mr. Beck consisted of a large reception-room, a smaller apart- 
 ment occupied by himself, and a bedroom. The rooms were 
 furnished in supposed accordance with the tastes of their 
 princely occupants, that is to say, with solid magnificence. 
 Mr. Beck had been in England no more than a week, and as 
 he had not yet begun to buy anything, the rooms were with- 
 out those splendid decorations of pictures, plate, and objects 
 of art generally, with which he subsequently adorned them. 
 They looked heavy and rather cheerless. A fire was burning 
 on the hearth, and Mr. Beck was standing before it with an 
 unlighted cigar in his lips. Apparently he had already pre- 
 sented some letters of introduction, for there were a few cards 
 of invitation on the mantelshelf. He was dressed in a black 
 frock-coat, as a gentleman should be, and he wore it buttoned 
 up, so that his tall stature and thin figure were shown off 
 to full advantage. He wore a plain black ribbon by way of 
 necktie, and was modest in the way of studs. Jack Dun- 
 querque noticed that he wore no jewellery of any kind, which 
 he thought unusual in a man of unlimited credit, a new man 
 whose fortune was not two years old. He was an unmistak- 
 able American. His chin was now close shaven, and without 
 the traditional tuft; but he had the bright restless eye, the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 95 
 
 long spare form, the obstinately straight hair, the thin flexible 
 mouth with mobile lips, the delicately shaped chin, and the 
 long neck, which seem points characteristic with our Trans- 
 atlantic brethren. His grav^e face lit up with a smile of 
 pleasure when he saw Jack Dunquerque. It was a thoughtful 
 face ; it had lines in it, such as might have been caused by 
 the buffets of Fate ; but his eyes were kindly. As for his 
 speech, it preserved the nasal drawl of his New England 
 birthplace ; he spoke slowly, as if feeling for the right words, 
 and his pronunciation was that of a man sprung from the 
 ranks. Let us say at once that we do not attempt to reproduce 
 by an affected spelling, save occasionally, the Doric of the New 
 England speech. He was a typical man of the Eastern States 
 — self-reliant, courageous, independent, somewhat prejudiced, 
 roughly educated, ready for any employment and ashamed of 
 none, and withal brave as an Elizabethan biTCcaneer, sensitive 
 as a Victorian lady, sympathetic as — as Henry Longfellow. 
 
 " There is change, sir " — he addressed himself to Ladds — 
 " in most things human. The high tides and the low tides 
 keep us fresh. Else we should be as stagnant as a Connecticut 
 gospel-grinder in his village location." 
 
 " This is high tide, I see," said Jack, laughing. " I hope 
 that American high tides last longer than ours." 
 
 " I am hopeful, Mr. Dunquerque, that they air of a more 
 abiding disposition. If you should be curious, gentlemen, to 
 know my history since I left you in San Francisco, I will tell 
 it from the beginning. You remember that blessed inseck, 
 the Golden Butterfly ? " 
 
 " In the little box," said Ladds. " I asked you after his 
 welfare last night." 
 
 Jack began to blush. 
 
 " Before you begin," he interposed, " we ought to tell 3'ou 
 that since we came home we have written a book, we two, 
 about our travels." 
 
 " Is that so ? " asked Mr. Beck, with some natural rever- 
 ence for the author of a book. 
 
 " And we have put you into it, with an account of Empire 
 City."
 
 96 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Me — as I was — in rags and without even a gun ? " 
 
 " Yes ; not a jQattering likeness, but a true one." 
 
 " And the lucky shot, is that there too ? " 
 
 " Some of it is there," said Ladds. " Jack would not have 
 the whole story published. Looked ostentatious." 
 
 " Gentlemen, I shall buy that book. I shall take five 
 hundred copies of that book for my people in the Dominion. 
 Just as I was, you say — no boots but moccasins ; not a dollar 
 nor a cent ; running for bare life before a Grisly. Gentlemen, 
 that book will raise me in the estimation of my fellow-country- 
 men. And if you will allow me the privilege, I shall say it 
 was written by two friends of mine." 
 
 Jack breathed freely. He was afraid Mr. Beck might have 
 resented the intrusion of his ragged personality. An English- 
 man certainly would. Mr. Beck seemed to think that the 
 contrast between present broadcloth and past rags reflected 
 the highest credit on himself. 
 
 This part of the work, indeed, which the critics declared to 
 be wildly improbable, was the only portion read by Mr. Beck. 
 And just as he persisted in giving Jack the sole credit of his 
 rescue — perhaps because in his mental confusion he never even 
 heard the second shot which finished the bear — so he steadfastly 
 regarded Jack as the sole author of this stirring chapter, which 
 was Ladd's masterpiece, and was grateful accordingly. 
 
 " And now," he went on, " I must show you the critter 
 himself, the Golden Bug." 
 
 There was standing in a corner, where it would be least 
 likely to receive any rude shocks or collisions, a small heavy 
 iron safe. This he unlocked, and brought forth with great 
 care a glass case which exactly fitted the safe. The frame 
 of the case was made of golden rods ; along the lower part 
 of the front pane, in letters of gold, was the legend : 
 
 " If tins Golden Butterfly fall and break, 
 Farewell the Luck of Gilead P. Beck." 
 
 " Your poetiy, Mr. Dunquerque," said Mr. Beck, pointing 
 to the distich with pride. " Your own composition, sir, and 
 my motto."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 97 
 
 Within the case was the Butterfly itself, but glorified. 
 The bottom of the glass box was a thick sheet of pure gold, 
 OD which was fixed a rose, the leaves, flower, and stalk worked 
 in dull gold. Not a fine work of art, perhaps, but a reason- 
 ably good rose, as good as that Papal rose they show in the 
 Cluny Hotel. The Butterfly was poised upon the rose by 
 means of thin gold wire, which passed round the strip of 
 quartz which formed the body. The ends were firmly welded 
 into the leaves of the flower, and when the case was moved 
 the insect vibrated as if he was in reality alive. 
 
 " There ! Look at it, gentlemen. That is the inseck which 
 has made the fortune of Gilead P. Beck." 
 
 He addressed himself to both, but his eye rested on Jack 
 with a look which showed that he regarded the young man 
 with something more than friendliness. The man who fired 
 that shot, the young fellow who saved him from a cruel death, 
 was his David, the beloved of his soul. 
 
 Ladds looked at it curiously, as if expecting some mani- 
 festation of the supernatural. 
 
 " Is it a medium ? " he asked. " Does it rap, or answer 
 questions, or tell the card you are thinking of? Shall you 
 exhibit the thing in the Egyptian Hall as a freak of Nature ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I shall not. But I will tell you what I did, if you 
 will let me replace him in his box, where he sits and works 
 for Me. No harm will come to him there, unless an airthquake 
 happens. Sit down, general, and you too, Mr. Dunquerque. 
 Here is a box of cigars, which ought to be good, and you will 
 call for your own drink." 
 
 It was but twelve o'clock, and therefore early for revivers 
 of any sort. Finally, Mr. Beck ordered champagne. 
 
 " That drink," he said, " as you get it here, is a compound 
 calculated to inspirit Job in the thick of his misfortunes. But 
 if there is any other single thing you prefer, and it is to be 
 had in this almighty city, name that thing and you shall 
 have it." 
 
 Then he began : 
 
 " I went off", after I left you, by the Pacific Railway — not 
 the first time I travelled up and down that line — and I landed 
 
 G
 
 98 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 in New York, Mr, Colquhoun gave me a rig out, and you, 
 sir " — lie nodded to Jack — " you, sir, gave me the stamps to 
 pay the ticket." 
 
 Jack, accused of this act of benevolence, naturally blushed 
 a guilty acknowledgment. 
 
 Mr. Gilead P, Beck made no reference to the gift either 
 then or at any subsequent period. Nor did he ever offer to 
 repay it, even when he discovered the slenderness of Jack's 
 resources. That showed that he was a sensitive and sympa- 
 thetic man. To offer a small sum of money in repayment of 
 a free gift from an extraordinarily rich man to a very poor one 
 is not a delicate thing to do. Therefore this gentleman of the 
 backwoods abstained from doing it. 
 
 " New York City," he continued, " is not the village I should 
 recommend to a man without dollars in his pocket. London, 
 where there is an institootion, or a charity, or a hospital, or a 
 workhouse, or a hot-soup boiler in every street, is the city for 
 that gentleman. Fiji, p'r'aps, for one who has a yearning after 
 bananas and black civilisation. But not New York. No, 
 gentlemen ; if you go to New York, let it be when you've 
 made your pile, and not before. Then you will find out that 
 there air thirty theatres in the city, with lovely and accom- 
 plished actresses in each, and you can walk into Delmonico's 
 as if the place belonged to you. But for men down on their 
 luck, New York is a cruel place. 
 
 " I left that city, and I made my way North. I wanted to 
 see the old folks I left behind long ago in Lexington ; I found 
 them dead, and I was sorry. Then I went farther Noi'th. 
 P'r'aps I was driven by the yellow toy hanging at my back. 
 Anyhow, it was only six weeks after I left you that I found 
 myself in the city of Limerick on Lake Ontario. 
 
 " You do not know the city of Limerick, I dare say. It was 
 not famous, nor was it pretty. In fact, gentlemen, it was the 
 durndest misbegotten location built around a swamp that 
 ever called itself a city. There were a few delooded farmers 
 trying to persuade themselves that things would look up ; 
 there were a few down-hearted settlers wondering why they 
 ever came there, and how they would get out again ; and there
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 99 
 
 were a few log-houses in a row wbicli called themselves a 
 street. 
 
 " I got there, and I stayed there. Their carf)enter was dead, 
 and I am a handy man ; so I took his place. Then I made a 
 few dollars doing chores around/' 
 
 " What are chores ? " 
 
 "All sorts. The clocks were out of repair; the handles 
 were coming off the pails ; the chairs were without legs ; the 
 pump-handle crank ; the very bell-rope in the meetin'-house 
 was broken. You never saw such a helpless lot. I did not 
 stay among them because I loved them, but because I saw 
 things." 
 
 " Ghosts ? " asked Ladds, still with an eye to the super- 
 natural. 
 
 " No, sir. That was what they thought I saw when I went 
 prowling around by myself of an evening. They thought too 
 that I was mad when I began to buy the land. You could 
 buy it for nothing ; a dollar an acre ; half a dollar an acre ; 
 anything an acre. I've mended a cart-wheel for a five-acre 
 lot of swamp. They laughed at me. The children used to 
 cry out when I passed along, ' There goes mad Beck.' But I 
 bought all I could, and my only regret was that I couldn't 
 buy up the hull township — clear off men, women, and children, 
 and start fresh. Some more champagne, Mr. Dunquerque." 
 
 " What was the Golden Butterfly doing all this time ? " 
 asked Ladds, 
 
 " That faithful inseck, sir, was hanging around my necli:, 
 as when you were first introduced to him. He was whisperin' 
 and eggin' me on, because he was bound to fulfil the old 
 squaw's prophecy. Without my knowing it, sir, that prodigy 
 of the world, who is as alive as you air at this moment, will 
 go on whisperin' till such time as the rope's played out and 
 the smash comes. Then he'll be silent again." 
 
 He spoke with a solemn earnestness which impressed his 
 hearers. They looked at the fire-proof safe with a feeling that 
 at any moment the metallic insect might open the door, fly 
 forth, and, after hovering round the room, light at Mr. 
 Beck's ear, and begin to whisper words of counsel. Did not
 
 loo THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Moliaminecl have a pigeon ? and did not Louis Napoleon at 
 Boulogne have an eagle ? Why should not Mr. Beck have 
 a butterfly. 
 
 " The citizens of Limerick, gentlemen, in that dismal part 
 of Canada where they bewail their miserable lives, air not a 
 people who have eyes to see, ears to hear, or brains to under- 
 stand. I saw that they were walking — no, sleeping — over 
 fields of incalculable wealth, and they never suspected. They 
 smoked their pipes and ate their pork. But they never saw 
 and they never suspected. Between whiles they praised the 
 Lord for sending them a fool like me, something to talk about, 
 and somebody to laugh at. They wanted to know what was 
 in the little box ; they sent children to peep in at my window 
 of an evening and report what I was doing. They reported 
 that I was always doing the same thing ; always with a map 
 of Limerick City and its picturesque and interestin' suburbs, 
 staking out the ground and reckoning up my acres. That's 
 what I did at niofht. And in the morninof I looked about me 
 and wondered where I should begin." 
 
 " What did you see when you looked about ? " 
 " I saw, sir, a barren bog. If it had been a land as fertile as 
 the land of Canaan, that wouldnot have made my heart to bound 
 as it did bound when I looked across that swamp ; for I never 
 was a tiller or a lover of the soil. A barren bog it was. The 
 barrenest, boggiest part of it all was my claim ; when the natives 
 spoke of it they called it Beck's Farm, and then the poor critturs 
 squirmed in their chairs and laughed. Yes, they laughed. 
 Beck's Farm, they said. It was the only thing they had to 
 laugh about. Wall, up and down the face of that almighty bog 
 there ran creeks, and after rainy weather the water stood about 
 on the morasses. Plenty of water, but a curious thing, none 
 of it fit to drink. No living thing except man would set his 
 lips to that brackish, bad-smelling water. And that wasn't all ; 
 sometimes a thick black slime rose to the surface of the marsh 
 and lay there an inch thick ; sometimes you came upon patches 
 of ' gum-beds,' as they called them, where the ground was like 
 tar, and smelt strong. That is what I saw when I looked 
 around, sir. And to think that those poor mean pork-raisers
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. loi 
 
 saw it all tlie same as I did and never suspected ! Only cursed 
 the gifts of the Lord when they weren't laughing at Beck's 
 Farm." 
 
 " And you found — what ? Gold ? " 
 
 " No. I found what I expected. And that was better than 
 gold. Mind, I say nothing against gold. Gold has made many 
 
 a pretty little fortune " 
 
 " Little ! " 
 
 "Little, sir. There's no big fortunes made out of gold. 
 Though many a pretty villa-location, with a tidy flower-garden 
 upand down the States, is built out of the gold-mines. Dimonds 
 again. One or two men likes the name of dimonds ; but not 
 many. There's the disadvantage about gold and dimonds that 
 you have to dig for them, and to dig durned hard, and to dig by 
 yourself mostly. Americans do not love digging. Like the 
 young gentleman in the parable, they cannot dig, and to beg 
 they air ashamed. It is the only occupation that they air 
 ashamed of. Then there's iron, and there's coals ; but you've 
 got to dig for them. Lord ! Lord ! This great airth holds a 
 hundred things covered up for them who know how to look and 
 do not mind digging. But, gentlemen, the greatest gift the 
 airth has to bestow she gave to me — abundant, spontaneous, 
 etarnal, without bottom, and free." 
 
 " And that is " 
 
 " It is ILE." 
 
 Mr. Beck paused a moment. His face was lit with a real and 
 genuine enthusiasm, a pious appreciation of the choicer bless- 
 ings of life ; those, namely, which enable a man to sit down 
 and enjoy the proceeds of other mens' labour. No provision 
 has been made in the prayer-book of any Church for the ex- 
 pression of this kind of thankfulness. Yet surely there ought 
 to be somewhere a clause for the rich. No more blissful repose 
 can fall upon the soul than, after long years of labour and failure, 
 to sit down and enjoy the fruits of other men's labour. A Form 
 of Thanksgiving for publishers, managers of theatres, owners 
 of coal-mines, and such gentlemen as Mr. Gilead P. Beck, might 
 surely be introduced into our Eitual with advantage. It would 
 naturally be accompanied by incense.
 
 102 THE GODDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " It is He, sir." 
 
 He opened another bottle of champagne and took a glass. 
 
 " He. Gold you have to dig, to pick, to wash. Gold means 
 rheumatism and a bent back. He flows, and you become sud- 
 denly rich. You make all the loafers around fill your pails for 
 you. And then your bankers tell you how many millions of 
 dollars you are worth." 
 
 " Millions ! " repeated Jack. " The word sounds very rich 
 and luxurious." 
 
 " It is so, sir. There's nothing like it in the Old Country. 
 England is a beautiful place, and London is a beautiful city. 
 You've got many blessin's in this beautiful city. If you haven't 
 got Joe Tweed, you've got " 
 
 " Hush ! " said Jack ; " it's libellous to give names." 
 
 " And if you haven't got Erie stock and your whisky-rings, 
 you've got your foreign bonds to take your surplus cash. No, 
 gentlemen; London is not, in some respects, much behind 
 New York. But one thing this country has not got, and that 
 is — He. 
 
 "It is nearly a year since I made up my mind to begin my 
 well. I kncio it was there, because I'd been in Pennsylvania and 
 learned the signs ; it was only the question whether I should 
 strike it, and where. The neighbours thought I was digging 
 for water, and figured around with their superior intellecks, 
 because they were certain the water would be brackish. Then 
 they got tired of watching, and I worked on. Boring a well is 
 not quite the sort of work a man would select for a pleasant and 
 variegated occupation. I reckon it's monotonous ; but I worked 
 on. I knew what was coming ; I thought o' that Indian squaw, 
 and I always had my Golden Butterfly tied in a box at my back. 
 I bored and I bored. Day after day I bored. In that lonely 
 miasmatic bog I bored all day and best part of the night. For 
 nothing came, and sometimes qualms crossed my mind that 
 perhaps there would never be anji:hing. But always there was 
 the gummy mud, smelling of what I knew was below, to lead 
 me on. 
 
 " It was the ninth day, and noon. I had a shanty called the 
 farmhouse, about a hundred yards from my well. And there I
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 103 
 
 was taking my dinner. To you two young English aristo- 
 crats " 
 
 " Ladds' Cocoa, the only perfect fragrance." 
 
 " Shut up, Ladds," growled Jack; " don't interrupt." 
 
 " I say, to you two young aristocrats a farmer's dinner in 
 that township would not sound luxurious. Mine consisted, 
 on that day and all days, of cold boiled pork and bread." 
 
 " Ah, yah ! " said Jack Dunquerque, who had a proud 
 stomach. 
 
 " Yes, sir, my own remark every day when I sat down to 
 that simple banquet. But when you are hungry you must 
 eat, murmur though you will for Egyptian flesh-pots. Cold 
 pork was my dinner, with bread. And the water to wash it 
 down with was brackish. In those days, gentlemen, I said 
 no grace. It didn't seem to me that the most straight-walking 
 Christian was expected to be more than tolerably thankful 
 for cold pork. My gratitude was so moderate that it wasn't 
 worth offering." 
 
 "And while you were eating the pork," said Ladds, "the 
 Golden Butterfly flew down the shaft by himself, and struck 
 oil of his own accord." 
 
 " No, sir ; for once you are wrong. That most beautiful crea- 
 tion of Nature in her sweetest mood — she must have got up 
 with the sun on a fine summer morning — was reposing in his 
 box round my neck as usual. He did not go down the shaft 
 at all. Nobody went down. But something came up — up 
 like a fountain, up like the bubbling over of the airth's eternal 
 teapot; a black muddy jet of stuff. Great sun! I think I 
 see it now." 
 
 He paused and sighed. 
 
 '' It was nearly all lie, pure and unadulterated, from the 
 world's workshop. Would you believe it, gentlemen ? There 
 were not enough bar'ls, not by hundreds, in the neighbourhood 
 all round Limerick City, to catch that He. It flowed in a stream 
 three feet deep down the creek ; it was carried away into the 
 lake and lost ; it ran free and uninterrupted for three days and 
 three nights. We saved what we could. The neighbours 
 brought their pails, their buckets, their basins, their kettles ;
 
 104 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 there was not a utensil of any kind tliat was not filled with 
 He, from the pig's trough to the child's pap-bowl. Not one. 
 It ran and it ran. When the first flow subsided we calculated 
 that seven millions of bar'ls had been wasted and lost. Seven 
 millions ! I am a Christian man, and grateful to the Butter- 
 fly, but I sometimes repine when I think of that wasted He. 
 Every bar'l worth nine dollars at least, and most likely ten. 
 Sixty-three millions of dollars. Twelve millions of pounds 
 sterling lost in three days for want of a few coopers. Did 
 you ever think, Mr. Dunquerque, what you could do with 
 twelve millions sterling ? " 
 
 " I never did," said Jack. " My imagination never got 
 beyond thousands." 
 
 " With twelve millions I might have bought up the daily 
 press of England, and made you all republicans in a month. 
 I might have made the Panama Canal ; I might have bought 
 Palesteen and sent the Jews back ; I might have given America 
 fifty ironclads; I might have put Don Carlos on the throne 
 of Spain. But it warn't to be. Providence wants no rivals, 
 meddling and messing. That was why the He ran away and 
 was lost while I ate the cold boiled pork. Perhaps it's an 
 interestin' fact that I never liked cold boiled pork before, and 
 I have hated it ever since. 
 
 " The great spurt subsided, and we went to work in earnest. 
 That well has continued to yield five hundred bar'ls daily. 
 That is four thousand five hundred dollars in my pocket every 
 four and twenty hours." 
 
 " Do you mean that your income is nine hundred pounds 
 a day ? " asked Jack. 
 
 " I do, sir. You go your pile on that. It is more, but I 
 do not know how much more. Perhaps it's twice as much. 
 There are wells of mine sunk all over the place ; the swamp 
 is covered with Gilead P. Beck's derricks. The township of 
 Limerick has become the city of Rockoleaville — my name, that 
 was — and a virtuous and industrious population are all engaged 
 morning, noon, and night in fillin' my pails. There's twenty- 
 five bars, I believe, at this moment. There are three meetin'- 
 houses and two daily papers, and their air fifteen lawyers."
 
 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 105 
 
 " It seems better than Cocoa Nibs," said Ladds. 
 
 " But the oil may run dry." 
 
 " It has run dry in Pennsylvania. That is so, and I do not 
 deny it. But He will not run dry in Rockoleaville. I have 
 been thinking over the geological problem, and I have solved 
 it, all by myself. 
 
 " What is this world, gentlemen ? " 
 
 " A round ball," said Jack, with the promptitude of a Board 
 schoolboy and the profundity of a Woolwich cadet. 
 
 " Sir, it is like a great orange. It has its outer rind, what 
 they call the crust. Get through that crust and what do you 
 find ? " 
 
 " More crust," replied Ladds, who was not a competition- 
 wallah. 
 
 " Did you ever eat pumpkin-pie, sir ? " Mr. Beck replied, 
 more Socrafico, by asking another question. " And if you did, 
 was your pie all crust ? Inside that pie, sir, was pumpkin, 
 apple, and juice. So inside the rind of the earth there may 
 be all sorts of things : gold and iron, lava, dimonds, coals ; 
 but the juice, the pie-juice, is He. You tap the rind and you 
 get the He. This He will run, I calculate, for five thousand 
 and fifty-two years, if they don't sinfully waste it, at an annual 
 consumption of eighteen million bar 'Is. Now that's a low 
 estimate when you consider the progress of civilisation . When 
 it is all gone, perhaps before, this poor old airth will crack up 
 like an empty egg." 
 
 This was an entirely new view of geology, and it required 
 time for Mr. Beck's hearers to grasp the truth thus presented 
 to their minds. They were silent. 
 
 " At Rockoleaville," he went on, " I've got the pipe straight 
 into the middle of the pie, and right through the crust. There's 
 no mistake about that main shaft. Other mines may give 
 out, but my He will run for ever." 
 
 " Then we may congratulate you," said Jack, " on the 
 possession of a boundless fortune." 
 
 " You may, sir." 
 
 " And what do you intend to do ? " 
 
 " For the present I shall stay in London. I like your
 
 io6 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 great city. Here I get invited to dinner and dancin', 
 because I am an American and rich. There they won't have 
 a man who is not thoroughbred. Your friend Mrs. Cassilis 
 asks me to her house — a first-rater. A New York lady turns 
 up her pretty nose at a man who's struck He. ' Shoddy,' 
 she says, and then she takes no more notice. Shoddy it 
 may be. Rough my manners may be. But I don't pretend 
 to anything, and the stamps air real." 
 
 " We always thought ourselves exclusive," said Jack. 
 
 " Did you, sir ? Wall — " He stopped, as if he had intended 
 to say something unpleasantly true. " I shall live in London 
 for the present. I've got a big income, and I don't rightly 
 know what to do with it. But I shall find out some time. 
 
 " That was a lovely young thing with Mrs. Cassilis the 
 other night," he went on meditatively. " A young thing that 
 a man can worship for her beauty while she is young, and 
 her goodness all her life. Not like an American gal. Ours 
 are prettier, but they look as if they would blow away. And 
 their voices are not so full. Miss Fleming is flesh and blood. 
 Don't blush, Mr. Dunquerque, because it does you credit." 
 
 Jack did blush, and they took their departure. 
 
 " Mr. Dunquerque," whispered Gilead P. Beck when Ladds 
 was through the door, "think of what I told you; what is 
 mine is yours. Remember that. If I can do anything for 
 you, let me know. And come to see me. It does me good 
 to look at your face. Come here as often as you can." 
 
 Jack laughed and escaped. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " By my modesty, 
 Tlie jewel in my dower, I would not wish 
 Any companion in the world but you. 
 
 JACK DUNQUERQUE was no more remarkable for shrink- 
 ing modesty than any other British youth of his era ; 
 but he felt some little qualms as he walked towards Blooms- 
 bury the day after Mrs. Cassilis's dinner to avail himself of 
 Phillis's invitation.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEKFLY. 107 
 
 Was it coquetry, or was it simplicity ? 
 
 She said she would be glad to see him at luncheon. Who 
 else would be there ? 
 
 Probably a Mrs. Jagenal — doubtless the wife of the heavy 
 man who brought Miss Fleming to the party ; herself a solid 
 person in black silk and a big gold chain ; motherly with the 
 illiterate Dryad. 
 
 " Houses mighty respectable," he thought, penetrating into 
 Carnarvon Square. " Large incomes ; comfortable quarters ; 
 admirable port, most likely, in most of them ; claret certainly 
 good, too — none of your Gladstone tap ; sherry probably 
 rather coarse. Must ask for Mrs. Jagenal, I suppose." 
 
 He did ask for Mrs. Jagenal, and was informed by Jane 
 that there was no such person, and that, as she presently 
 explained with warmth, no such person was desired by the 
 household. Jack Dunquerque thereupon asked for Mr. 
 Jagenal. The maid asked which Mr. Jagenal. Jack replied 
 in the most irritating manner possible — the Socratic — by 
 asking another question. The fact that Socrates went about 
 perpetually asking questions is quite enough to account for 
 the joy with which an exasperated mob witnessed his judicial 
 murder. The Athenians bore for a good many years with 
 his maddening questions — as to whether they meant this 
 way or that way or how — and finally lost patience. Hence 
 the little bowl of drink. 
 
 Quoth Jack, " How many are there of them ? " 
 
 Jane looked at the caller with suspicion. He seemed a 
 gentleman, but appearances are deceptive. Suppose he came 
 for what he could pick up ? The twins' umbrellas were in 
 the hall, and their great-coats. He laughed, and showed an 
 honest front ; but who can trust a London stranger ? Jane 
 remembered the silver spoons now on the luncheon-table, 
 and began to think of shutting the door in his face. 
 
 " You can't be a friend of the family," she said, " else you'd 
 know the three Mr. Jagenals by name, and not come here 
 showing your ignorance by asking for Mrs. Jagenal. Mrs. 
 Jagenal indeed! Perhaps you'd better call in the evening 
 and see Mr. Joseph."
 
 io8 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " I am not a friend of the family," he replied meekly. 
 " I wish I was. But Miss Fleming expects me at this hour. 
 Will you take in my card ? " 
 
 He stepped into the hall, and felt as if the fortress was 
 won. Phillis was waiting for him in the dining-room, where, 
 he observed, luncheon was laid for two. Was he, then, about 
 to be entertained by the young lady alone ? 
 
 If she looked dainty in her white evening dress, she was 
 far daintier in her half-mourning grey frock, which fitted so 
 tightly to her slender figure, and was set off by the narrow 
 black ribbon round her neck which was her only ornament ; 
 for she carried neither watch nor chain, and wore neither 
 ear-rings nor finger-rings. This heiress was as innocent of 
 jewellery as any little milliner girl of Bond Street, and far 
 more happy, because she did not wish to wear any. 
 
 " I thought you would come about this time," she said, 
 with the kindliest welcome in her eyes ; " and I waited for 
 you here. Let us sit down and take luncheon." 
 
 Mr. Abraham Dyson never had any visitors except for 
 dinner or luncheon ; so that Phillis naturally associated an 
 early call with eating. 
 
 " I always have luncheon by myself," explained the young 
 hostess ; " so that it is delightful to have some one who can 
 talk." 
 
 She sat at the head of the table, Jack taking his seat at 
 the side. She looked fresh, bright, and animated. The 
 sight of her beauty even affected Jack's appetite, although it 
 was an excellent luncheon. 
 
 " This is curried fowl," she went on. " It was made for 
 Mr. Jagenal's brothers ; but they came down late, and were 
 rather cross. We could not persuade them to eat anything 
 this morning." 
 
 " Are they home for the holidays ? " 
 
 Phillis burst out laughing — sucli a fresh, bright, spon- 
 taneous laugh. Jack laughed too, and then wondered why 
 he did it. 
 
 " Home for the holidays ! They are always home, and it 
 is always a holiday with them."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 109 
 
 " Do you not allow them to luncli with you ? " 
 
 She laughed again. 
 
 " They do not breakfast till ten or eleven." 
 
 Jack felt a little fogged, and waited for further information. 
 
 "Will you take beer or claret? No, thank you; no curry 
 for me. Jane, Mr. Dunquerque will take a glass of beer. 
 How beautiful ! " she went on, looking steadily in the young 
 man's face, to his confusion — " how beautiful it must be to 
 meet a man whose life you have saved ! I should like — once 
 — just once — to do a single great action, and dream of it ever 
 after." 
 
 " Bat mine was not a great action. I shot a bear which 
 was following Mr. Beck and meant mischief ; that is all." 
 
 " But you might have missed," said Phillis, with justice. 
 " And then Mr. Beck would have beeo killed." 
 
 Might have missed ! How many V.C.'s we should have 
 but for that simple possibility ! JMight have missed ! And 
 then Gilead Beck would have been clawed, and the Golden 
 Butterfly destroyed, and this history never have reached be- 
 yond its first chapter. Above all, Phillis might never have 
 known Jack Dunquerque. 
 
 " And you are always alone in this great house ? " he asked, 
 to change the subject. 
 
 " Only in the day-time. Mr. Joseph and I breakfast at 
 eight. Then I walk with him as far as his office in Lincoln's- 
 Inn-Fields, now that I know the way. At first he used to 
 send one of his clerks back with me, for fear of my being lost. 
 But I felt sorry for the poor young man having to walk all 
 the way with a girl like me, and so I told him, after the 
 second day, that I was sure he longed to be at his writing, 
 and I would go home by myself." 
 
 " No doubt," said Jack, " he was rejoiced to go back to his 
 pleasant and exciting work. All lawyers' clerks are so well 
 paid, and so happy in their occupation, that they prefer it 
 even to walking with a — a — a Dryad." 
 
 Phillis was dimly conscious that there was more in these 
 words than a literal statement. She was as yet unacquainted 
 with the figures of speech which consist of saying one thing
 
 no THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 and meaning another, and she made a mental note of the fact 
 that lawyers' clerks are a happy and contented race. It adds 
 something to one's happiness to know that others are also 
 happy. 
 
 " And the boys — Mr. Jagenal's brothers ? " 
 
 " They are always asleep from two to six. Then they come 
 down to dinner, and talk of the work they have done. Don't 
 you know them ? Oh, they are not boys at all ! One is 
 Cornelius. He is a great poet. He is writing a long epic 
 poem called the Upheaving of jElfrcd. Humphrey, his 
 brother, says it will be the greatest work of this century. But 
 I do not think very much is done. Humphrey is a great 
 artist, you know. He is engaged on a splendid picture — at 
 least it will be splendid when it is finished. At present 
 nothing is on the canvas. He says he is studying the 
 groups. Cornelius says it will be the finest artistic achieve- 
 ment of the age. Will you have some more beer ? Jane, 
 give Mr. Dunquerque a glass of sherry. And now let us go 
 into the drawing-room, and you shall tell me all about my 
 guardian, Lawrence Colquhoun." 
 
 In the hall a thought struck the girl. 
 
 "Come with me," she said; "I will introduce you to the 
 Poet and the Painter. You shall see them at work." 
 
 Her eyes danced with delight as she ran up the stairs, 
 turning to see if her guest followed. She stopped at a door, 
 the handle of which she turned with great care. Jack 
 mounted the stairs after her. 
 
 It was a large and well-furnished room. Rows of books 
 stood in order on the shelves. A bright fire burned on the 
 hearth. A portfolio was on the table, with a clean inkstand 
 and an unsullied blotting-pad. By the fire sat, in a deep 
 and very comfortable easy-chair, the poet, sound asleep. 
 
 " There ! " she whispered. " In the portfolio is the great 
 poem. Look at it." 
 
 " We ought not to look at manuscripts, ought we ? " 
 
 " Not if there is anything written. But there isn't. Of 
 course, I may always turn over any pages, because I cannot 
 read."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. in 
 
 She turned tliem over. Nothing but blank sheets, white 
 in virgin purity. 
 
 Cornelius sat with his head a little forward, breathing: 
 rather noisily. 
 
 " Isn't it hard work ? " laughed the girl. " Poor fellow, 
 isn't it exhaustive work ? Let me introduce you. Mr. 
 Cornelius Jagenal, Mr. Ronald Dunquerque." Jack bowed 
 to the sleeping bard. " Now you know each other. That is 
 what Mr. Dyson used always to say. Hush ! we might wake 
 him up and interrupt — the Work. Come away, and I will 
 show you the Artist." 
 
 Another room equally well furnished, but in a different 
 manner. There were " properties : " drinking-glasses of a 
 deep ruby red, luminous and splendid, standing on the 
 shelves ; flasks of a dull rich green ; a model in armour ; a 
 lay figure, with a shawl thrown over the head and looped up 
 under the arm ; a few swords hanging upon the walls ; 
 curtains that caught the light and spread it over the room in 
 softened colouring ; and by the fire a couch, on which lay, 
 sleeping, Humphrey with the wealth of silky beard. 
 
 There was an easel, and on it a canvas. This was as blank 
 as Cornelius's sheets of paper. 
 
 "Permit me again," said the girl. "Mr. Humphrey Jagenal, 
 Mr. Ronald Dunquerque. Now you know each other." 
 
 Jack bowed low to the genius. 
 
 Phillis, her eyes afloat with fun, beckoned the young man 
 to the table. Pencil and paper lay there. She sat down and 
 drew the sleeping painter in a dozen swift strokes. Then she 
 looked up, laughing : 
 
 " Is that like him ? " 
 
 Jack could hardly repress a cry of admiration. 
 
 " I am glad you think it good. Please write underneath, 
 'The Artist at work.' Thank you. Is that it? We will 
 now pin it on the canvas. Think what he will say when he 
 wakes up and sees it." 
 
 They stole out again as softly as a pair of burglars. 
 
 " Now you have seen the Twins. They are really very nice, 
 but they drink too much wine, and sit up late. In the morn-
 
 112 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 ing they are sometimes troublesome, when they won't take 
 their breakfast ; but in the evening, after dinner, they are 
 quite tractable. And you see how they spend their day." 
 
 " Do they never do any work at all ? " 
 
 " I will tell you what I think," she replied gravely. " Mr. 
 Dyson used to tell me of men who are so vain that they are 
 ashamed to give the world anything but what they know to 
 be the best. And the best only comes by successive effort. 
 So they wait and wait, till the time goes by, and they cannot 
 even produce second-rate work. I think the Twins belong 
 to that class of people." 
 
 By this time they were in the drawing-room. 
 
 "And now," said Phillis, "you are going to tell me all 
 about my guardian." 
 
 " Tell me something more about yourself first," said Jack, 
 not caring to bring Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun into the conver- 
 sation just yet. " You said last night that you would show 
 me your drawings." 
 
 " They are only pencil and pen-and-ink sketches." Phillis 
 put a small portfolio on the table and opened it. " This morn- 
 ing Mr. Joseph took me to see an exhibition of paintings. 
 ]\Iost of the artists in that exhibition cannot draw, but some 
 can — and then — Oh ! " 
 
 " They cannot draw better than you, Miss Fleming, I am 
 quite sure." 
 
 She shook her head as Jack spoke, turning over the sketches. 
 
 " It seems so strange to be called Miss Fleming. Every- 
 body used to call me Phillis." 
 
 " Was — was everybody young ? " Jack asked, with an im- 
 pertinence beyond his years. 
 
 " No ; everybody was old. I suppose young people always 
 call each other by their christian names. Yours seems to be 
 rather stiff. Ronald, Ronald — I am afraid I do not like it 
 very much." 
 
 " My brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins and 
 kinsfolk — the people who pay my debts and therefore love 
 me most — call me Ronald. But everybody else calls me 
 Jack."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 113 
 
 " Jack ! " she murmured. " What a pretty name Jack is ! 
 ]\Iay I call you Jack ? " 
 
 "If you only would ! " he cried, with a quick flushing of 
 liis cheek. " If you only would ! Not when other people are 
 present, but all to ourselves, when we are together like this. 
 That is, if you do not mind." 
 
 Could the Serpent, when he cajoled Eve, have begun in a 
 more subtle and artful manner ? One is ashamed for Jack 
 Dunquerque. 
 
 " I shall always call you Jack, then, unless when people 
 like Mrs. Cassilis are present." 
 
 " And what am I to call you ? " 
 
 "My name is Phillis, you know." But she knew, because 
 her French maid had told her, that some girls have names of 
 endearment, and she hesitated a little, in hope that Jack would 
 find one for her. 
 
 He did. She looked him so frankly and freely in the face 
 that he took courage, and said with a bold heart : 
 
 " Phillis is a very sweet name. You know the song, ' Phillis 
 is my only joy ? ' I ought to call you Miranda, the Princess 
 of the Enchanted Island. But it would be prettier to call you 
 Phil." 
 
 " Phil ! " Her lips parted in a smile of themselves as she 
 shaped the name. It is a name which admits of expression. 
 You may lengthen it out if you like ; you may shorten it if 
 you like. " Phil ! That is very pretty. No one ever called 
 me Phil before." 
 
 " And we will be great friends, shall we not ? " 
 
 " Yes, great friends. I have never had a friend at all." 
 
 " Let us shake hands over our promise. Phil, say, ' Jack 
 Dunquerque, I will try to like you, and I will be your friend.' " 
 
 "Jack Dunquerque," she placed her hands, both of them, 
 in his, and began to repeat, looking in his face quite earnestly 
 and solemnly, "I will try — that is nonsense, because I do like 
 you very much already ; and I will always be your friend, if 
 you will be mine and will let me." 
 
 Then he, with a voice that shook a little, because he knew 
 that this was very irregular and even wrong, but that the girl 
 
 H
 
 114 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY, 
 
 was altogether lovable, and a maiden to be desired, and a queen 
 among girls, and too beautiful to be resisted, said his say : 
 
 " Phil, I think you are the most charming girl I have ever 
 seen in all my life. Let me be your friend always, Phil. Let 
 me" — here he stopped, with a guilty tremor in his voice — "I 
 hope — I hope — that you will always go on liking me more and 
 more." 
 
 He held both her pretty shapely hands in his own. She was 
 standing a little back, with her face turned up to his, and a 
 bright fearless smile upon her lips and in her eyes. Oh, the 
 eyes that smile before the lips ! 
 
 " Some people seal a bargain," he went on, hesitating and 
 stammering, " after the manner of the — the — early Christians 
 — with a kiss. Shall we, Phil ? " 
 
 Before she caught the meaning of his words he stooped and 
 drew her gently towards him. Then suddenly he released her. 
 For all in a moment the woman within her, unknown till that 
 instant, was roused into life, and she shrank back — without 
 the kiss. 
 
 Jack hung his head in silence. Phil, in silence too, stood 
 opposite him, her eyes upon the ground. 
 
 She looked up stealthily and trembled. 
 
 Jack Dunquerque was troubled as he met her look. 
 
 " Forgive me, Phil," he said humbly. " It was wrong — I 
 ought not. Only forgive me, and tell me we shall be friends 
 all the same." 
 
 " Yes," she replied, not quite knowing what she said ; " I 
 forgive you. But, Jack, please don't do it again." 
 
 Then he returned to the drawings, sitting at the table, 
 while she stood over him and told him what they were. 
 
 There was no diffidence or mock- modesty at all about her. 
 The drawings were her life, and represented her inmost 
 thoughts. She had never shown them all together to a 
 single person, and now she was laying them all open before 
 the young man whom yesterday she had met for the first time. 
 
 It seemed to him as if she were baring her very soul for 
 liim to read. 
 
 " I like to do them," she said, " because then I can recall
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. I15 
 
 everything that I have done or seen. Look ! Here is the 
 dear old house at Highgate, where I stayed for thirteen years 
 without once going beyond its walls. Ah, how long ago it 
 seems, and yet it is only a week since I came away ! And 
 everything is so different to me now." 
 
 " You were happy there, Phil ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but not so happy as I am now. I did not know 
 you then, Jack." 
 
 He beat down the temptation to take her in his arms and 
 Iciss her a thousand times. He tried to sit calmly critical 
 over the drawings. But his hand shook. 
 
 "Tell me about it all," he said softly. 
 
 " These are the sketches of my Highgate life. Stay ; this 
 one does not belong to this set. It is a likeness of you, which 
 I drew last night when I came home." 
 
 " Did you really draw one of me ? Let me have it. Do 
 let me have it." 
 
 " It was meant for your face. But I could do a better one 
 now. See, this is Mr. Beck, the American gentleman ; and 
 this is Captain Ladds. This is Mr. Cassilis." 
 
 They were the roughest unfinished things, but she had 
 seized the likeness in every one. 
 
 Jack kept his own portrait in his hand. 
 
 " Let me keep it." 
 
 " Please, no ; I want that one for myself." 
 
 Once more, and for the last time in his life, a little distrust 
 crossed Jack Dunquerque's mind. Could this girl, after all, 
 be only the most accomplished of all coquettes ? He looked 
 up at her face as she stood beside him, and then abused him- 
 self for treachery to love. 
 
 " It is like me," he said, looking at the pencil portrait ; 
 " but you have made me too handsome." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " You are very handsome, I think," she said gravely. 
 
 He was not, strictly speaking, handsome at all. He was 
 rather an ugly youth, having no regularity of features. And 
 it was a difficult face to draw, because he wore no beard — 
 nothing but a light moustache to help it out.
 
 ii6 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Pliil, if you begin to flatter me you will spoil me ; and I 
 shall not be half so good a friend when I am spoiled. Won't 
 you give this to me ? " 
 
 " No ; I keep my portfolio all to myself. But I will draw a 
 better one, if you like, of you, and finish it up properly, like 
 this." 
 
 She showed him a pencil-drawing of a face which Kembrandt 
 himself would have loved to paint. It was the face of an old 
 man, wrinkled and crows-footed. 
 
 " That is my guardian, Mr. Dyson. I will draw you in the 
 same style. Poor dear guardian ! I think he was very fond 
 of me." 
 
 Another thought struck the young man, 
 
 " Phil, will you instead make me a drawing — of your own 
 face ? " 
 
 " But can you not do it for yourself? " 
 
 " I ? Phil, I could not even draw a haystack." 
 
 " What a misfortune ! It seems worse than not being 
 able to read." 
 
 " Draw me a picture of yourself, Phil." 
 
 She considered. 
 
 " Nobody ever asked me to do that yet. And I never drew 
 my own face. It would be nice, too, to think that you had a 
 likeness of me, particularly as you cannot draw yourself. 
 Jack, would you mind if it were not much like me ? " 
 
 " I should prefer it like you. Please try. Give me yourself 
 as you are now. Do not be afraid of making it too pretty." 
 
 " I will try to make it like. Here is Mrs. Cassilis. She 
 did not think it was very good." 
 
 " Phil, you are a genius. Do you know that ? I hold you 
 to your promise. You will draw a portrait of yourself, and I 
 will frame it and hang it up — no, I won't do that ; I will 
 keep it myself, and look at it when no one is with me." 
 
 " That seems very pleasant," said Phil, reflecting. " I should 
 like to think that you are looking at me sometimes. Jack, 
 I only met you yesterday, and we are old friends already." 
 
 " Yes ; quite old familiar friends, are we not ? Now tell 
 me all about yourself."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 117 
 
 She obeyed. It was remarkable bow readily sbe obeyed 
 the orders of this new friend, and told him all about her life 
 with Mr. Dyson — the garden and paddock, out of which she 
 never went, even to church ; the pony, the quiet house, and 
 the quiet life with the old man who taught her by talking : 
 her drawing and her music ; and her simjsle wonder what life 
 was like outside the gates. 
 
 " Did you never go to church, Phil ? " 
 
 " No ; we had prayers at home ; and on Sunday evenings 
 I sang hymns." 
 
 Clearly her religious education had been grossly neglected. 
 " Never heard of a Ritualist," thought Jack, with a feeling of 
 gladness. " Doesn't know anything about vestments ; isn't 
 learned in school-feasts : and never attended a tea-meetino-. 
 This girl is a Phoenix." Why — why was he a Younger Son ? 
 
 " And is Mr. Cassilis a relation of yours ? " 
 
 " No ; Mr. Cassilis is Mr. Dyson's nephew. All Mr. Dyson's 
 fortune is left to found an institution for educating girls as I 
 was educated " 
 
 " Without reading or writing ? " 
 
 " I suppose so. Only, you see, it is most unfortunate that 
 my own education is incomplete, and they cannot carry out 
 the testator's wishes, Mr. Jagenal tells me, because they have 
 not been able to find the concluding chapters of his book. Mr. 
 Dyson wrote a book on it, and the last chapter was called the 
 ' Coping-stone.' I do not know what they will do about it. 
 Mr. Cassilis wants to have the money divided among the rela- 
 tions, I know. Isn't it odd ? And he has so much already." 
 
 " And I have got none." 
 
 " Jack ! take some of mine — do ! I know I have such a 
 lot somewhere ; and I never spend anything." 
 
 " You are very good, Phil ; but that will hardly be right. 
 But do you know it is five o'clock ? We have been talking 
 for three hours. I must go — alas, I must go ! " 
 
 " And you have told me nothing at all yet about Mr. Col- 
 quhoun." 
 
 " When I see you nest I will tell you what I know of him. 
 Good-bye, Phil."
 
 ii8 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Jack, come and see me again soon." 
 
 " When may I come ? Not to-morrow — tliat would be too 
 soon. The day after. Phil, make me the likeness, and send 
 it to me by post. I forgot ; you cannot write." 
 
 He wrote his address on a sheet of foolscap. 
 
 " Fold it in that, with this address outside, and post it to 
 me. Come again, Phil ? I should like to come every day, 
 and stay all day." He pressed her hand and was gone. 
 
 Phillis remained standing where he left her. What had 
 happened to her ? Why did she feel so oppressed ? Why 
 did the tears crowd her eyes ? Five o'clock. It wanted an 
 hour of dinner, when she would have to talk to the Twin 
 brethren. She gathered up her drawings and retreated to 
 her own room. As she passed Humphrey's door, she heard 
 him saying to Jane : 
 
 " The tea, Jane ? Have I really been asleep ? A most 
 extraordinary thing for me." 
 
 " Now he will see the drawing of the ' Artist at Work,' " 
 thought Phillis. But she did not laugh at the idea, as she 
 had done when she perpetrated the joke. She had suddenly 
 grown graver. 
 
 She began her own likeness at once. But she could not 
 satisfy herself. She tore up half a dozen beginnings. Then 
 she changed her mind. She drew a little group of two. One 
 was a young man, tall, shapely, gallant, with a queer attrac- 
 tive face, who held the hands of a girl in his, and was bending 
 over her. Somehow a look of love, a strange and new ex- 
 pression, which she had never seen before in human eyes, lay 
 in his. She blushed while she drew her own face looking up 
 in that other, and yet she drew it faithfully, and was only 
 half conscious how sweet a face she drew and how like it was 
 to her own. Nor could she understand why she felt ashamed. 
 
 " Come again soon. Jack." 
 
 The words rang in the young man's ears, but they rang 
 like bells of accusation and reproach. This girl, so sweet, so 
 fresh, so unconventional, what would she think when she 
 learned, as she must learn some day, how great was his sin 
 against her ? And what would Lawrence Colquhoun say ? And
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 119 
 
 what would the lawyer say ? And what would the world 
 say? 
 
 The worst was that his repentance would not take the 
 proper course. He did not repent of taking her hands — he 
 trembled and thrilled when he thought of it — he only repented 
 of the swiftness with which the thing was done, and was afraid 
 of the consequences. 
 
 "xind I am only a Younger Son, Tommy" — he made his plaint 
 to Ladds, who received a full confession of the whole — " only a 
 Younger Son, with four hundred a year. And she's got fifty 
 thousand. They will say I wanted her money. I wish slie had 
 none. I wish she had nothing but the sweet grey dress " 
 
 " Jack, don't blaspheme. Goodness sometimes palls ; beauty 
 always fades ; grey dresses certainly wear out ; figures alter 
 for the worse ; the funds remain. I am always thankful for 
 the thought which inspired Ladds' Perfect Cocoa. The only 
 true Fragrance. Aroma and Nutrition." 
 
 Humphrey did not discover the little sketch before dinner, 
 so that his conversation was as animated and as artistic as 
 usual. At two o'clock in the morning he discovered it. And 
 at three o'clock the Twins, after discussing the picture with 
 its scoffing legend in all its bearings, went to bed sorrowful. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " I have in these rough words shaped out a man 
 Whom this beneath world doth embrace and hug 
 With amplest entertainment." 
 
 MR. GABRIEL CASSILIS, who, like Julius Cfssar and 
 other illustrious men, was always spoken of by both 
 his names, stepped from his carriage at the door of the Lang- 
 ham Hotel and slowly walked up the stairs to Mr. Beck's 
 room. He looked older, longer, and thinner in the morning 
 than in the evening. He carried his hands behind him and 
 bore a look of pre-occupation and care. The man of unlimited 
 credit was waiting for him, and, with his first cigar, pacing 
 the room with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 " I got your letter," said Mr. Cassilis, " and telegraphed to
 
 I20 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 you because I was anxious not to miss you. My time is 
 valuable — not so valuable as yours, but still worth something." 
 
 He spread his hands palm downwards, and at right angles 
 to the perpendicular line of his body, had that been erect. 
 But it was curved, like the figure of the man with the forelock. 
 
 " Still worth something," he repeated. " But I am here, 
 Mr. Beck, and ready to be of any service that I can." 
 
 " My time is worth nothing," said the American, " because 
 my work is done for me. When I was paid by the hour, it 
 was worth the hour's pay." 
 
 " But now," Mr. Cassilis interposed, " it is worth at the 
 rate of your yearly income. And I observe that you have 
 unlimited credit — un-lim-it-ed credit. That is what we 
 should hardly give to a Rothschild." 
 
 He wanted to know what unlimited credit really meant. 
 It was a thing hitherto beyond his experience. 
 
 " It is my Luck," said Mr. Beck. " He, as everybody 
 knows, is not to be approached. You may grub for money 
 like a Chinee, and you may scheme for it like a Boss in a 
 whisky-ring. But for a steady certain flow there is nothing 
 like He. And I, sir, have struck He as it never was struck 
 before, because my well goes down to the almighty reservoir 
 of this great world." 
 
 " I congratulate you, Mr. Beck." 
 
 " And I have ventured, sir, on the strength of that intro- 
 ductory letter, to ask you for advice. ' Mr. Cassilis,' I was 
 told, ' has the biggest head in all London for knowledge of 
 money.' And, as I am going to be the biggest man in all 
 the States for income, I come to you." 
 
 " I am not a professional adviser, Mr. Beck. What I could 
 do for you would not be a matter of business. It is true that, 
 as a friend only, I might advise you as to investments. I 
 could show you where to place money and how to use it." 
 
 " Sir, you double the obligation. In America we do nothing 
 without an equivalent. Here men seem to work as hard 
 without being paid as those who get wages. Why, sir, I 
 hear that young barristers do the work of others and get 
 nothing for it ; doctors work for nothing in hospitals ; and
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 12 r 
 
 authors write for publishers and get nothing from them. 
 This is a wonderful country." 
 
 Mr. Cassilis, at any rate, had never worked for nothing. 
 Nor did he propose to begin now. But he did not say so. 
 
 He sat nursing his leg, looking up at the tall American 
 who stood over him. They were two remarkable faces, that 
 thus looked into each other. The American's was grave and 
 even stern. But his eyes were soft. The Englishman's was 
 grave also. But his eyes were hard. They were not stealthy, 
 as of one contemplating a fraud, but they were curious and 
 watchful, as of one who is about to strike and is looking for 
 the fittest place — that is, the weakest. 
 
 " Will you take a drink, Mr. Cassilis ? " 
 
 " A — a — a drink ? " The invitation took him aback alto- 
 gether, and disturbed the current of his thoughts. " Thank 
 you, thank you. Nothing." 
 
 " In the silver-mines I've seen a man threatened with a 
 bowie for refusing a drink. And I've known temperate men 
 anxious for peace take drinks, when they were offered, till 
 their back teeth were under whisky. But I know your 
 English custom, Mr. Cassilis. When you don't feel thirsty 
 you say so. Now let us go on, sir." 
 
 " Our New York friend tells me, Mr. Beck, that you would 
 find it difficult to spend your income." 
 
 Mr. Beck brightened. He sat down and assumed a con- 
 fidential manner. 
 
 " That's the hitch. That's what I am here for. In America 
 you may chuck a handsome pile on yourself. But when you 
 get out of yourself, unless you were to buy a park for the 
 people in the centre of New York City, I guess you would 
 find it difficult to get rid of your money." 
 
 " It depends mainly on the amount of that money." 
 
 "We'll come to figures, sir, and you shall judge as my 
 friendly adviser. My bar'ls bring me in, out of my first 
 well, 2500 dollars, and that's ;^500 a day, without counting 
 Sundays. And there's a dozen wells of mine around, not so 
 good, that are worth between them another £ 800 a day." 
 
 Mr. Cassilis gasped.
 
 122 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Do you mean, Mr. Beck, do you actually mean that you 
 are drawing a profit, a clear profit, of moi-e than ;^I300 a 
 day from your rock-oil shafts ? " 
 
 "That is it, sir — that is the lowest figure. Say _;^i500 
 a day." 
 
 " And how long has this been going on ? " 
 
 " Close upon ten months." 
 
 Mr, Cassilis produced a pencil and made a little calculation. 
 
 " Then you are worth at this moment, allowing for Sundays, 
 at least a quarter of a million sterling." 
 
 " Wal, I think it is near that figure. We can telegraph 
 to New York, if you like, to find out. I don't quite know 
 within a hundred thousand." 
 
 " And a yearly income of ^^500,000, Mr. Beck ! " said Mr. 
 Cassilis, rising solemnly. " Let me — allow me to shake 
 hands with you again. I had no idea, not the slightest idea, 
 in asking you to my house the other day, that I was enter- 
 taining a man of so much weight and such enormous power." 
 
 He shook hands with a mixture of deference and friend- 
 ship. Then he looked again, with a watchful glance, at the 
 tall and wiry American with the stern face, the grave eyes, 
 the mobile lips, and the muscular frame, and sat down and 
 began to soliloquise. 
 
 " We are accustomed to think that nothing can compare 
 with the great landholders of this country and Austria. There 
 are two or three incomes perhaps in Europe, not counting 
 crowned heads, which aj)proach your own, Mr. Beck, but 
 they are saddled. Their owners have great houses to keep 
 up ; armies of servants to maintain ; estates to nurse; dilapi- 
 dations to make good ; farmers to satisfy ; younger sons to 
 provide for ; poor people to help by hundreds ; and local 
 charities to assist. Why, I do not believe, when all has 
 been provided for, that a great man, say the Duke of Berk- 
 shire, with coal-mines and quarries, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, 
 and English estates, has more to put by at the end of the 
 year than many a London merchant." 
 
 " That is quite right," said Mr. Beck ; " a merchant must 
 save, because he may crack up; but the land don't run away.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 123 
 
 When you want stability, you must go to the Airth. Outside 
 there's the fields, the rivers, the hills. Inside there's the 
 mines, and there's lie for those who can strike it." 
 
 " What an income ! " Mr. Cassilis went on. " ISTothing 
 to squander it on. No duties and no responsibilities. No 
 tenants ; no philanthropy ; no frittering away of capital. 
 You cant spend a tenth part of it on yourself. And the 
 rest accumulates and grows — grows — spreads and grows." 
 He spread out his own hands, and a flush of envy came into 
 his cheeks. " Mr. Beck, I congratulate you again." 
 
 " Thank you, sir." 
 
 " I see, Mr. Beck — you are yet an unmarried man, I 
 believe, and without children — I foresee boundless possi- 
 bilities. You may marry and found a great family ; you may 
 lay yourself out for making a fortune so great that it may 
 prove a sensible influence on the course of events. You may 
 bequeath to your race the tradition of good fortune and the 
 habit of making money." 
 
 " My sons may take care of themselves," said Mr. Beck ; 
 " I want to spend money, not to save it." 
 
 It was remarkable that during all this generous outburst 
 of vicarious enthusiasm Mr. Beck's face showed no interest 
 whatever. He had his purpose, but it was not the purpose 
 of Mr. Cassilis. To found a family, to become a Rothschild, 
 to contract loans — what were these things to a man who felt 
 strongly that he had but one life, that he wished to make 
 the most of it, and that the world after him might get on 
 as it could without his posthumous interference ? 
 
 " Listen, Mr. Beck, for one moment. Your income is 
 ^500,000 a year. You may spend on your own simple 
 wants ;^5ooo. Bah ! a trifle — not a quarter of the interest. 
 You save the whole ; in ten years you have three millions. 
 You are still under fifty ? " 
 
 " Forty -five, sir." 
 
 "I wish I was forty-five. You may live and work for 
 another quarter of a century. In that time you ought to be 
 worth twelve millions at least. Twelve millions ! " 
 
 " Nearly as much as ran away and was lost when the He
 
 124 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 was struck," said Mr. Beck. " Hardly wortla wliile to work 
 for five-and- twenty years in order to save what Nature spent 
 in three days, is it ? " 
 
 What, says the proverb, is easily got is lightly regarded. 
 This man made money so easily that he despised the slow, 
 gradual building up of an immense fortune. 
 
 " There is nothing beyond the reach of a man with twelve 
 millions," Mr. Cassilis went on. " He may rule the world, 
 so long as there are poor states with vast armies who want 
 to borrow. Why, at the present moment a man with twelve 
 millions at his command could undertake a loan with Russia, 
 Austria, Turkey, Italy, or Egypt. He could absolutely 
 govern the share market ; he could rule the bank rate " 
 
 Mr. Beck interrupted, quite unmoved by these visions of 
 greatness : 
 
 " Wall, sir, I am not ambitious, and I leave Providence to 
 manage the nations her own way. I might meddle and 
 muss till I busted up the whole concern ; play, after all, 
 into the hands of the devil, and have the people praying to 
 get back to their old original Providence." 
 
 " Or suppose," Mr. Cassilis went on, his imagination fired 
 with the contemplation of possibilities so far beyond his own 
 reach — " suppose you were to buy up land — to buy all that 
 comes into the market. Suppose you were to hand down 
 to your sons a traditional policy of buying land with the 
 established principle of primogeniture. In twenty years you 
 might have great estates in twenty counties " 
 
 " I could have half a state," said Mr. Beck, " if I went out 
 West." 
 
 " In your own lifetime you could control an election, make 
 yourself President, carry your own principles, force your 
 opinions on the country, and become the greatest man 
 in it." 
 
 " The greatest country in the world is the United States 
 of America — that is a fact," said Mr. Beck, laughing; "so 
 the greatest man in it must be the greatest man in the world. 
 I calculate that's a bitter reflection for Prince Bismarck when 
 he goes to bed at night; also for the Emperor of all the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 125 
 
 Russias. And perhaps your Mr. Gladstone would like to feel 
 himself on the same level with General Ulysses Grant." 
 
 "Mr, Beck," cried Mr. Cassilis, rising to his feet in an 
 irrepressible burst of genuine enthusiasm, and working his 
 right hand round exactly as if he was really Father Time, 
 whom he so much resembled — "Mr. Beck, I consider you 
 the most fortunate man in the world. We slowly amass 
 money — for our sons to dissipate. Save when a title or an 
 ancient name entails a conservative tradition which keeps 
 the property together, the process in this country and in 
 yours is always the same. The strong men climb, and the 
 weak men fall. And even to great houses like the Grosvenors, 
 which have been carried upwards by a steady tide of fortune, 
 there will surely one day come a fool, and then the tide will 
 turn. But for you and yours, Mr. Beck, Nature pours out 
 her inexhaustible treasures " 
 
 " She does, sir — in He." 
 
 " You may spend, but your income will always go on in- 
 creasing." 
 
 " To a certain limit, sir — to five thousand and fifty-three 
 years. I have had it reckoned by one of our most distin- 
 guished mathematicians. Professor Hercules Willemott, of 
 Cyprus University, Wisconsin. He made the calculations 
 for me." 
 
 " Limit or not, Mr. Beck, you are now a most fortunate 
 man. And I shall be entirely at your service. I believe," 
 he added modestly, " that I have some little reputation in 
 financial circles." 
 
 " That is so, sir. And now let me put my case." Mr. 
 Beck became once more animated and interested. " Sup- 
 pose, sir, I was to say to you, ' I have more than enough 
 money. I will take the Luck of the Golden Butterfly and 
 make it the Luck of other people.' " 
 
 " I do not understand," said Mr. Cassilis. 
 
 " Sir, what do you do with your own money ? You do not 
 spend it all on yourself?" 
 
 " I use it to make more." 
 
 " And when you have enough?"
 
 126 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " We look at things from a different jDoint of view, Mr. 
 Beck. You have enough ; but I, whatever be my success, 
 can never approach the fourth part of your income. How- 
 ever, let me understand what you want to do, and I will 
 give such advice as I can offer." 
 
 " That's kind, sir, and what I expected of you. It is a 
 foolish fancy, and perhaps you'll laugh ; but I have heard 
 day and night, ever since the He began to run, a Voice 
 which says to me always the same thing — I think it is the 
 voice of my Golden Butterfly : ' What you can't spend, give.' 
 ' What you can't spend, give.' That's my duty, Mr. Cassilis ; 
 that's the path marked out before me, plain and shinin' as 
 the way to heaven. What I can't spend, I must give. I've 
 given nothing as yet. And I am here in this country of 
 giving to find out how to do it." 
 
 " We — I mean the — the " Mr. Cassilis was on the 
 
 point of saying " the Idiots," but refrained in time. " The 
 people who give money send it to charities and institutions." 
 
 " I know that way, sir. It is like paying a priest to say 
 your prayers for you." 
 
 " When the secretaries get the money they pay themselves 
 their own salaries first ; then they pay for the rent, the clerks, 
 and the advertising. What remains goes to the charity." 
 
 " That is so, sir ; and I do not like that method. I want 
 to go right ahead ; find out what to do, and then do it. But 
 I must feel like giving, whatever I do." 
 
 " Your countryman, Mr. Peabodj-, gave his money in trust 
 for the London poor. Would you like to do the same ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; I should not like to imitate that example. Mr. 
 Peabody was a great man, and he meant well ; but I want to 
 work for myself Let a man do all the good and evil he has to 
 do in his lifetime, not leave his work dragging on after he is 
 dead. 'They that go down into the pit cannot hope for the truth.' 
 Do you remember that text, IMr. Cassilis ? It means that you 
 must not wait till you are dead to do what you have to do." 
 
 Mr. Cassilis altered his expression, which was before of a 
 puzzled cheerfulness, as if he failed to see his way, into one of 
 unnatural solemnity. It is the custom of certain Englishmen if
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 127 
 
 the Bible is quoted. He knew no more than Adam what part 
 of the Bible it came from. But he bowed, and pulled out his 
 handkerchief as if he was at a funeral. In fact, this unexpected 
 hurling of a text at his head floored him for the moment. 
 
 Mr. Beck was quite grave and in much earnestness. 
 
 " There is another thing. If I leave this money in trust, 
 how do I know that my purpose will be carried out ? In a 
 hundred years things will get mixed. My bequests may be 
 worth millions, or they may be worth nothing. The lawyers 
 may fight over the letter of the will, and the spirit may be 
 neglected." 
 
 " It is the Dead Hand that you dread." 
 
 " That may be so, sir. You air in the inside track, and 
 you ought to know what to call it. But no Hand, dead or 
 alive, shall ever get hold of my stamps." 
 
 " Your stamps ? " 
 
 " My stamps, sir ; my greenbacks, my dollars. For I've got 
 them, and I mean to spend them. ' Spend what you can, and 
 give what you cannot spend,' says the Voice to Gilead P. Beck." 
 
 " But, my dear sir, if you mean to give away a quarter of 
 a million a year, you will have every improvident and extra- 
 vagant rogue in the country about you. You will have to 
 answer hundreds of letters a day. You will be deluged with 
 prospectuses, forms, and appeals. You will be called names 
 unless you give to this institution or to that " 
 
 " I shall give nothing to any society." 
 
 "And what about the widows of clergymen, the daughters 
 of officers, the nieces of Church dignitaries, the governess 
 who is starving, the tradesman who wants a hundred pounds 
 for a fortnight, and will repay you with blessings and 25 
 per cent., after depositing in your hand as security all his 
 pawn-tickets." 
 
 " Every boat wants steering, but I was not born last 
 Sunday, and the ways of big cities, though they may be 
 crooked, air pretty well known by me. There are not many 
 lines of life in which Gilead P. Beck has not tried to walk." 
 
 " ]\Iy dear sir, do you propose to act the part of Universal 
 Philanthropist and Distributor at large ? "
 
 128 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " No^ sir, I do not. And that puzzles me too. I should 
 like to be quiet over it. There was a man down to Lexington, 
 when I was a boy, who said he liked his religion unostenta- 
 tious. So he took a pipe on a Sunday morning and sat in 
 the churchyard listening to the bummin' and the singin' 
 within. Perhaps, sir, that man knew his own business. 
 Perhaps thoughts came over his soul when they gave out the 
 Psalm that he wouldn't have had if he'd gone inside, to sit 
 with his back upright against a plank, his legs curled up 
 below the seat, and his eyes wandering around among the 
 gells. Maybe that is my case too, Mr. Cassilis. I should 
 like my giving to be unostentatious." 
 
 "Give what you cannot spend," said Mr. Cassilis. "There 
 are at any rate plenty of ways of spending. Let us attend 
 to them first." 
 
 " And there's another thing, sir," Mr. Beck went on, shift- 
 ing his feet and looking uneasy and distressed. " It's on my 
 mind since I met the young gentleman at your house. I 
 want to do something big, something almighty big, for Mr. 
 Eonald Dunquerque." 
 
 " Because he killed the bear ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, because he saved my life. Without that shot 
 the Luck of Gilead P. Beck would have been locked up for 
 ever in that little box where the Golden Butterfly used to live. 
 What can I do for him ? Is the young gentleman rich ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, I do not suppose — his brother is one of 
 the poorest peers in the house — that the Honourable Mr. 
 Pouald Dunquerque is worth ;^500 a year. Really, I should 
 say that ^300 would be nearer the mark." 
 
 " Then he is a gentleman, and I am — well, sir, I hope I am 
 learning what a gentleman should do and think in such a 
 position as the Golden Butterfly has brought me into. But 
 the short of it is that I can't say to him : ' Mr. Dunquerque, 
 I owe you a life, and here is a cheque for so many thousand 
 dollars.' I can't do it, sir." 
 
 " I suppose not. But there are ways of helping a young 
 man forward without giving him money. You can only give 
 money to poets and clergymen."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 129 
 
 " That is so, sir." 
 
 " Wait a little till your position is known and assured. 
 You will then be able to assist Mr. Eonald Dunquerque as 
 much as you please." He rose and took up his gloves. " And 
 now, Mr. Beck, I think I understand you. You wish to do 
 something great with your money. Very good. Do not be 
 in a hurry. I will think things over. Meantime, are you 
 going to let it lie idle in the bank ? " 
 
 " Wal, yes ; I was thinking of that." 
 
 " It would be much better for me to place it for you in good 
 shares, such as I could recommend to you. You would then 
 be able to — to — give away " — he pronounced the words with 
 manifest reluctance — " the interest as well as the principal. 
 Why should the bankers have the use of it ? " 
 
 " That seems reasonable," said Mr. Beck. 
 
 Mr. Cassilis straightened himself and looked him full in 
 the face. He was about to strike his blow. 
 
 " You will place your money," he said quietly, as if there 
 could be no doubt of Mr. Beck's immediate assent, " in my 
 hands for investment. I shall recommend you safe things. 
 For instance, as regards the shares of the George Washington 
 Silver Mine " 
 
 He opened his pocket-book. 
 
 " No, sir," said Mr. Beck with great decision. 
 
 " I was about to observe that I should not recommend such 
 an investment. I think, however, I could place immediately 
 ;^20,000 in the Isle of Man Internal Navigation Company." 
 
 " An English company ? " said Mr. Beck. 
 
 " Certainly. I propose, Mr, Beck, to devote this morning 
 to a consideration of investments for you. I shall advise you 
 from day to day. I have no philanthropic aims, and financing 
 is my profession. But your affairs shall be treated together 
 with mine, and I shall bring to bear upon them the same — 
 may I say insight ? — that has carried my own ventures to 
 success. For this morning I shall only secure you the Isle of 
 ]\Ian shares." 
 
 They presently parted, with many expressions of gratitude 
 from Mr. Gilead Beck. 
 
 I
 
 I30 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 A country where men work for nothing ? Perhaps, when 
 men are young. Not a country where elderly men in the City 
 work for nothing. Mr. Cassilis had no intention whatever 
 of devoting his time and experience to the furtherance of 
 Mr. Beck's affairs. Not at all : if the thoughts in his mind 
 had been written down, they would have shown a joy almost 
 boyish in the success of his morning visit. 
 
 " The Isle of Man Company," we should have read, " is 
 floated. That ;^20,000 was a lucky couix I nearly missed 
 my chances with the silver mine ; I ought to have known 
 that he was not likely to jump at such a bait. A quarter of 
 a million of money to dispose of, and five hundred thousand 
 pounds a year. And mine the handling of the whole. Never 
 before was such a chance known in the City," 
 
 A thought struck him. He turned, and went back hastily 
 to Gilead Beck's rooms. 
 
 " One word more. Mr. Beck, I need hardly say that I do 
 not wish to be known as your adviser at all. Perhaps it 
 would be well to keep our engagements a secret between 
 ourselves." 
 
 That of course was readily promised. 
 
 " Half a million a year ! " the words jangled in his brain 
 like the chimes of St. Clement's. " Half a million a year ! 
 And mine the handling." 
 
 He spent the day locked up in his inner oflice. He saw no 
 one, except the secretary, and he covered an acre or so of 
 paper with calculations. His clerks went away at five ; his 
 secretary left him at six ; at ten he was still at work, 
 feverishly at woi'k, making combinations and calculating 
 result?!. 
 
 " What a chance ! " he murmured prayerfully, putting down 
 his pen at length. " What a blessed chance ! " 
 
 Mr. Gilead Beck would have congratulated himself on the 
 disinterested assistance of his unprofessional adviser had he 
 known that the whole day was devoted to himself. He might 
 have congratulated himself less had he known the thoughts 
 that filled the financier's brains. 
 
 Disinterested ? How could Mr. Cassilis regard any one with
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 131 
 
 money in his hand but as a subject for his skill. And here 
 was a man coming to him, not with his little fortune of a 
 few thousands, not with the paltry savings of a lifetime, not 
 for an investment for widows and orphans, but with a purse 
 immeasurable and bottomless, a purse which he was going to 
 place unreservedly in his hands. 
 
 '' Mine the handling," he murmured as he got into bed. 
 It was his evening hymn of praise and joy. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " Higher she climbed, and far below her stretch'd 
 Hill beyond hill, with lengthening slopes and glades, 
 And a world widening stilL" 
 
 PHILLIS'S world widened daily, like a landscape, which 
 stretches ever farther the higher you mount. Every 
 morning brought her fresh delights, something more wonder- 
 ful than she had seen the day before. Her portfolio of drawings 
 swelled daily ; but with riches came discontent, because the 
 range of subjects grew too vast for her pencil to draw, and 
 her groups became every day more difficult and more com- 
 plicated. Life was a joy beyond all that she had ever hoped 
 for or expected. How should it be otherwise to her ? She 
 had no anxieties for the future ; she had no past sins to 
 repent ; she had no knowledge of evil ; she was young and in 
 perfect health ; the weight of her mortality was as yet unfelt. 
 During these early days of emancipation she was mostly 
 silent, lookino' about and making observations. She sat alone 
 and thought ; she forgot to sing ; if she played, it was as if 
 she were communing confidentially with a friend, and seeking 
 counsel. She had so much to think of: herself, and the new 
 current of thoughts into which her mind had been suddenly 
 diverted ; the connection between the world of Mr. Dyson's 
 teaching and the world of reality — this was a very hard thing ; 
 Mrs. Cassilis, with her hard, cold manner, her kind words, 
 and her eternal teaching that the spring of feminine action 
 is the desire to attract ; finally, Jack Dunquerque. And of 
 him she thought a good deal.
 
 132 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 All the people she met were interesting. She tried to give 
 each one his own individuality, rounded and complete. But 
 she could not. Her experience was too small, and each figure 
 in her mind was blurred. Now, if you listen to the conversa- 
 tion of people, as I do perpetually — in trains especially — you 
 will find that they are always talking about other people. 
 The reason of that I take to be the natural desire to have in 
 j'our brain a clear idea of every man, what he is, and how he 
 is likely to be acted upon. Those people are called interesting 
 who are the most difficult to describe or imagine, and who, 
 perpetually breaking out in new places, disturb the image 
 which their friends have formed. 
 
 None of Phillis's new friends would photogi'aph clear and 
 distinct in her brain. She thought she missed the focus. It 
 was not so, however ; it was the fault of the lens. But it 
 troubled her, because if she tried to draw them there was 
 always a sense of something wanting. Even Jack Dun- 
 querque — and here her eyes brightened — had points about 
 him which she could not understand. She was quiet, 
 therefore, and watched. 
 
 It was pleasant only to watch and observe. She had made 
 out clearly by this time that the Twins were as vain and self- 
 conscious as the old peacock she used to feed at Highgate. 
 She found herself bringing out their little vanities by leading 
 questions. She knew that Joseph Jagenal, whom in their 
 souls the Twins despised, was worth them both ten times over ; 
 and she found that Joseph rated himself far beneath his 
 brothers. Then she gradually learned that their aesthetic talk 
 was soon exhausted, but that they loved to enunciate the 
 same old maxims over and over again, as children repeat a 
 story. And it became one of her chief pleasures to listen to 
 them at dinner, to mark their shallowness, and to amuse 
 herself with their foibles. The Twins thought the young 
 lady was fascinated by their personal excellences. 
 
 " Genius, brother Cornelius," said Humphrey, " always 
 makes its way. I see Phillis Fleming every night waiting 
 upon your words." 
 
 " I think the fascinations of Art are as great, brother
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 133 
 
 Humphrey. At dinner Phillis Fleming watclies your every 
 gesture." 
 
 This was in the evening. In the morning every walk was 
 a new delight in itself; every fresh street was diflferent. 
 Brought up for thirteen years within the same four walls, 
 the keenest joy which the girl could imagine was variety. 
 She loved to see something new, even a new disposition of 
 London houses, even a minute difference in the aspect of a 
 London square. But of all the pleasures which she had yet 
 experienced — even a greater pleasure than the single picture- 
 gallery which she had visited — was the one afternoon of 
 shopping she had had with Mrs. Cassilis at Melton and 
 Mowbray's in Eegent Street. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis took her there first on the morning of her 
 dinner-party. It was her second drive through the streets of 
 London, but an incomparably superior journey to the first. 
 The thoroughfares were more crowded ; the shops were 
 grander ; if there were fewer boys running and whistling, 
 there were picturesque beggars, Punch -and- Judy shows, 
 Italian noblemen with organs, and the other humours and 
 diversions of the great main arteries of London, Phillis looked 
 at all with the keenest delight, calling the attention of her 
 companion to the common things which escape our notice 
 because we see them every day — the ragged broken-down old 
 man without a hat, who has long grey locks, who sells oranges 
 from a basket, and betrays by his bibulous trembling lips 
 the secret history of his downfall; the omnibus full inside 
 and out ; the tall Guardsman swaggering down the street ; 
 the ladies looking in at the windows ; the endless rows of 
 that great and wonderful exhibition which benevolent trades- 
 men show gratuitously to all ; the shopman rubbing his hands 
 at the door; the foreigners and pilgrims in a strange land — 
 he with a cigarette in his mouth, lately from the army of Don 
 Carlos ; he with a bad cigar, a blue-black shaven chin and 
 cheek, and a seedy coat, who once adorned the ranks of 
 Delescluze, Ferr^, Flourens, & Company ; he with the pale 
 face and hard cynical smile, who hails from free and happy 
 Prussia ; the man, our brother, from Sierra Leone, coal-black
 
 134 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 of hue, witli snowy linen and a conviction not to be shaken 
 that all the world takes him for an Englishman ; the booted 
 Belgian, cross between the Dutchman and the Gaul ; the 
 young gentleman sent from Japan to study our country and 
 its laws — he has a cigar in his mouth, and a young lady with 
 yellow hair upon his arm ; the Syrian, with a red cap and 
 almond eyes ; the Parsee, with lofty superstructure, a re- 
 miniscence of the Tower of Babel, which his ancestors were 
 partly instrumental in building ; Cretes, Arabians, men of 
 Cappadocia and Pontus, with all the other mingled nation- 
 alities which make up the strollers along a London street, — 
 Phillis marked them every one, and only longed for a brief 
 ten minutes with each in order to transfer his likeness to 
 her portfolio. 
 
 " Phillis," said her companion, touching her hand, " can 
 you practise looking at people without turning your head or 
 seeming to notice ? " 
 
 Phillis laughed, and tried to sit in the attitude of unobser- 
 vant carelessness which was the custom in other carriages. 
 Like all first attempts it was a failure. Then the great and 
 crowded street reminded her of her dream. Should she pre- 
 sently — for it all seemed unreal together — begin to run^ while 
 the young men, among whom were the Twins, ran after her ? 
 And should she at the finish of the race see the form of dead old 
 Abraham Dyson, clapping his hands and wagging his head, and 
 crying, "Well run ! well won ! Phillis, it is the Coping-stone " ? 
 
 " This is Melton & Mowbray's," said Mrs. Cassilis, as the 
 carriage drew up in front of a shop which contained greater 
 treasures than w^i'e ever collected for the harem of Assyrian 
 king. 
 
 She followed Mrs. Cassilis to some show-rooms, in which lay 
 about carelessly things more beautiful than she had ever con- 
 ceived ; hues more brilliant, textures more delicate, than she 
 knew. 
 
 Phillis's first shopping was an event to be remembered in 
 all her after-life. What she chose, what Mrs. Cassilis chose 
 for her, what Joseph Jagenal thought when the bill came in, 
 it boots not here to tell. Imairine onlv the delif^ht of a girl
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 135 
 
 of deep and artistic feeling, whicli lias hitherto chiefly found 
 vent in the study of form — such form as she could get from 
 engravings and her own limited powers of observation — iu 
 being let loose suddenly in a wilderness of beautiful things. 
 Every lady knows Messrs. IMelton & Mowbray's great shop. 
 Does anybody ever think what it would seem were they to 
 enter it for the first time at the mature age of nineteen ? 
 
 In one thing only did Phillis disgrace herself. There was 
 a young person in attendance for the purpose of showing off 
 all sorts of draperies upon her own back and shoulders. Phillis 
 watched her for some time. She had a singularly graceful 
 figure and a patient face, which struck Phillis with pity. Mrs. 
 Cassilis sat studying the effect through her double eye-glasses. 
 The saleswoman put on and took oflF the things as if the girl 
 were really a lay-figure, which she was, excepting that she 
 turned herself about, a thing not yet achieved by any lay- 
 figure. A patient face, but it looked pale and tired. The 
 ' Duchess " — living lay figures receive that title, in addition 
 to a whole pound a week which Messrs. Melton & Mowbray 
 generously give them — stood about the rooms all day, and 
 went to bed late at night. Some of the other girls envied her. 
 This shows that there is no position in life which has not 
 something beneath it. 
 
 Presently Phillis rose suddenly, and taking the opera-cloak 
 which the Duchess was about to put on, said : 
 
 " You are tired. I will try it on myself. Pray sit down 
 and rest." 
 
 And she actually placed a chair for the shop-girl. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis gave a little jump of surprise. It had never 
 occurred to her that a shopwoman could be entitled to any 
 consideration at all. She belonged to the establishment ; the 
 shop and all that it contained were at the service of those who 
 bought ; the j^crsonnel was a matter for Messrs. Melton and 
 Mowbray to manage. 
 
 But she recovered her presence of mind in a moment. 
 
 " Perhaps it will be as well," she said, " to see how it suits 
 you by trying it on yourself" 
 
 When their purchases were concluded and they were coming
 
 136 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 away, Pbillis turned to the poor Duchess, and asked her if slio 
 was not very tired of trying on dresses, and whether she would 
 not like to take a rest, and if she was happy, with one or two 
 other questions; at which the saleswoman looked a little 
 indignant and the Duchess a little inclined to cry. 
 
 And then they came away. 
 
 "It is not usual, Phillis," said Mrs. Cassilis, directly they 
 were in the carriage, " for ladies to speak to shop-people." 
 
 " Is it not ? The poor gii-l looked pale and tired." 
 
 " Very likely she was. She is paid to work, and work is 
 fatiguing. But it was no concern of ours. You see, my dear, 
 we cannot alter things ; and if you once begin pitying people 
 and talking: to them, there is an end of all distinctions of class." 
 
 " Mr. Dyson used to say that the difficulty of abolishing 
 class distinctions was one of the most lamentable facts in 
 liuman history. I did not understand then what he meant. 
 But I think I do now. It is a dreadful thing, he meant, that 
 one cannot speak to or relieve a poor girl who is ready to 
 drop with fatigue, because she is a shop-girl. How sad you 
 must feel, Mrs. Cassilis, you, who have seen so much of shop- 
 assistants, if they are all like that poor girl ! " 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis had not felt sad, but Phillis's remark made her 
 feel for the moment uncomfortable. Her complacency was dis- 
 turbed. But how could she help herself? She was what her 
 surroundings had made her. As riches increase, particularly 
 the riches which are unaccompanied by territorial obligations, 
 men and women separate themselves more and more : the lines 
 of demarcation become deeper and broader; English castes 
 are divided by ditches constantly widening ; the circles into 
 which outsiders may enter as guests, but not as members, 
 become more numerous ; poor people herd more together ; rich 
 people live more apart ; the latter become like gods in their 
 seclusion, and they grow to hate more and more the sight and 
 rumour of suffering. And tlie first step back to the unpity- 
 ing cruelty of the old civilisations is the habit of looking on 
 the unwashed as creatures of another world. If the gods of 
 Olympus had known sympathy they might have lived till 
 now.
 
 THE GOLDEX BUTTEPiFLY, 137 
 
 This expedition occurred on the day of Pliillis's first dinner- 
 party, and on their way home a singular thing happened. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis asked Phillis how long she was to stay with 
 Mr. Jagenal. 
 
 " Until," said Phillis, " my guardian comes home ; and 
 that will be in a fortnight." 
 
 " Your guardian, child ? But he is dead." 
 
 " I had two, you know. The other is Mr. Lawrence Colqu- 
 houn What is the matter, Mrs. Cassilis ? " 
 
 For she became suddenly pallid, and stared blankly before 
 her, with no expression in her eyes, unless, perhaps, a look 
 of terror. It was the second time that Phillis had noted a 
 change in this cold and passionless face. Before, the face had 
 grown suddenly soft and tender at a recollection ; now, it was 
 white and rigid. 
 
 " Lawrence Colquhoun ! " she turned to Phillis, and hardly 
 seemed to know what she was saying. " Lawrence Colquhoun ! 
 He is coming home — and he promised me — no — he would not 
 promise — and what will he say to me ? " 
 
 Then she recovered herself with an effort. The name, or 
 the intelligence of Lawrence Colquhoun's return, gave her a 
 great shock. 
 
 " Mr. Colquhoun your guardian ! I did not know. And 
 is he coming home ? " 
 
 " You will come and see me when I am staying — if I am 
 to stay — at his house ? " 
 
 " I shall certainly," said Mrs. Cassilis, setting her lips 
 together — " I shall certainly make a point of seeing Mr. 
 Colquhoun on his return, whether you are staying with him 
 or not. Here is Carnarvon Square. No, thank you, I will 
 not get down, even to have a cup of tea with you. Good-bye, 
 Phillis, till this evening. My dear, I think the white dress 
 that you showed me will do admirably. Home at once." 
 
 A woman of steel ? Rubbish ! There is no man or woman 
 of steel, save he who has brooded too long over his own per- 
 fections. A metallic statue, the enemies of Mrs. Cassilis 
 called her. They knew nothing. A woman who had always 
 perfect control over herself, said her husband. He knew
 
 138 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 nothing. A woman wlio turned pale at the mention of a 
 name, and longed, yet feared, to meet a man, thought Phillis. 
 And she knew something, because she knew the weak point 
 in this woman's armour. Being neither curious, nor malig- 
 nant, nor a disciple in the school for scandal, Phillis drew her 
 little conclusion, kept it to herself, and thought no more 
 about it. 
 
 As for the reasons which prompted Mrs. Cassilis to " take 
 up " Phillis Fleming, they were multiplex, like all the springs 
 of action which move us to act. She wanted to find out for 
 her husband of what sort was this system of education which 
 Joseph Jagenal could not discover anywhere. She was 
 interested in, although not attracted by, the character of the 
 girl, unlike any she had ever seen. And she wanted to use 
 Phillis — an heiress, young, beautiful, piqnante, strange — as 
 an attraction to her house. For Mrs. Cassilis was ambitious. 
 She wished to attract men to her evenings. She pictured 
 herself — it is the dream of so many cultured women — as 
 another ]\Iadame Pecamier, Madame du Deffand, or Madame 
 de Eambouillet. All the intellect in London was to be 
 gathered in her salon. She caught lions ; she got hold of 
 young authors ; she made beginnings with third-rate people 
 who had written books. They were not amusing ; they were 
 not witty ; they were devoured by envy and hatred. She let 
 them drop, and now she wanted to begin again. An idle and 
 a futile game. She had not the quick sympathies, the capa- 
 city for hero-worship, the lovableness of the Rucamier. She 
 had no tears for others. She did not know that the woman 
 who aspires to lead men must first be able to be led. 
 
 There was another fatal objection, not fully understood by 
 ladies who have " evenings " and sigh over their empty rooms. 
 In these days of clubs, what man is going to get up after 
 dinner and find his melancholy way from Pall Mall to 
 Kensington Palace Gardens, in order to stand about a draw- 
 ing-room for two hours and listen to "general" talk? It 
 wants a Phillis, and a personal, if hopeless, devotion to a 
 Phillis, to tear the freshest lion from his club, after dinner, 
 even if it be to an altar of adulation. The evenin*? be<rins
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 139 
 
 properly with dinner : and where men dine they love to 
 stay. 
 
 " Jack Dunquerque came to see me to-day," Phillis told 
 Joseph. " You remember Mr. Dunquerque. He was at Mrs. 
 Cassilis's last night. He came at two, to have luncheon and 
 to tell me about Mr. Colquhoun ; but he did not tell me any- 
 thing about him. We talked about ourselves." 
 
 " Is Mr. Dunquerque a friend of yours ? " 
 
 "Yes; Jack and I are friends," Phillis replied readily. 
 There was not the least intention to deceive ; but Joseph was 
 deceived. He thought they had been old friends. Some- 
 how, perhaps, Phillis did not like to talk very much about 
 her friendship for Jack. 
 
 " I want you to ask him to dinner, if you will." 
 
 " Certainly, whenever you please. I shall be glad to make 
 Mr. Dunquerque's acquaintance. He is the brother of Lord 
 Isleworth," said Joseph, with a little satisfaction at seeing a 
 live member of the aristocracy at his own table. 
 
 Jack came to dinner. He behaved extremely well ; made 
 no allusion to that previous occasion when he had been intro- 
 duced to the Twins ; listened to their conversation as if it 
 interested him above all things ; and not once called Phillis 
 by her Christian name. This omission made her reflect ; they 
 were therefore, it was apparent, only Jack and Phil when they 
 were alone. It was her first secret, and the possession of it 
 became a joy. 
 
 She had not a single word with him all the evening. Only 
 before he went he asked her if he might call the next day at 
 luncheon-time. She said him yea. 
 
 " After all these Bloomsbury people," said Cornelius, lightt 
 ing his first pipe, " it does one good, brother Humphrey, to 
 come across a gentleman. Mr. Eonald Dunquerque took the 
 keenest interest in your Art criticisms at dinner." 
 
 " They were general principles only, Cornelius," said Hum- 
 phrey. " He is really a superior young man. A little modest 
 in your presence, brother. To be sure, it is not every day 
 that he finds himself dining with a Poet." 
 
 " And an Artist, Humphrey."
 
 T40 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Thank you, Cornelius. Miss Fleming liad no cliarms for 
 him, I think." 
 
 "Phillis Fleming, brother, is a girl who is drawn more 
 towards, and more attracts, men of a maturer age — men no 
 longer perhaps within the premidre Jeunesse, but still capable 
 of love." 
 
 " Men of our age, Cornelius. Shall we split this potash, 
 or will you take some Apollinaris water ? " 
 
 Jack called, and they took luncheon together as before. 
 Phillis, brighter and happier, told him what things she had 
 seen and what remarks she had made since last they met, a 
 week ago. Then she told him of the things she most wished 
 to see. 
 
 " Jack," she said, " I want to see the Tower of London and 
 Westminster Abbey most." 
 
 "And then, Phil?" 
 
 " Then I should like to see a play." 
 
 " Would Mr. Jagenal allow me to take you to the Tower 
 of London ? Now, Phil — this afternoon ? " 
 
 Phillis's worldly education was as yet so incomplete that 
 she clapped her hands with delight. 
 
 " Shall we go now, Jack ? How delightful ! Of course 
 Mr. Jagenal will allow you. I will be five minutes putting 
 on my hat." 
 
 " Now, that's wrong too," said Jack to himself. " It is as 
 wrong as calling her Phil. It's worse than wanting to kiss 
 her, because the kiss never came off. I can't help it — it's 
 pleasant. What will Colquhoun say when he comes home? 
 Phil is sure to tell liim everything. Jack Dunquerque, my 
 boy, there will be a day of reckoning for yon — Already, Phil ? 
 By Jove ! how nice you look ! " 
 
 " Do I, Jack ? Do you like my hat ? 1 bought it with 
 Mrs. Cassilis the other day." 
 
 " Look at yourself in the glass, Phil. What do you see ? " 
 
 She looked and laughed. It was not for her to say what 
 she saw. 
 
 "There was a little maid of Arcadia once, Phil, and she
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 141 
 
 grew up so beautiful that all tlie birds fell in love with. her. 
 There were no other creatures except birds to fall in love with 
 her, because her sheep were too busy fattening themselves for 
 the Corinthian cattle-market to pay any attention to her. 
 They were conscientious sheep, you see, and wished to do credit 
 to the Arcadian pastures." Jack Dunquerque began to feel 
 great freedom in the allegorical method. 
 
 " Well, Jack ? " 
 
 " Well, Phil, the birds flew about in the woods, singing to 
 each other how lovely she was, how prettily she played, and 
 how sweetly she sang. Nobody understood what they said, 
 but it pleased this little maid. Presently she grew a tall 
 maid, like yourself, Phil. And then she came out into the 
 world. She was just like you, Phil ; she had the same bright 
 eyes, and the same laugh, and the same identical sunlit face ; 
 and Phil^ she had your very same charming ways ! " 
 
 " Jack^ do you really mean it ? Do you like my face, and 
 are my ways really and truly not rough and awkward ? " 
 
 Jack shook his head. 
 
 " Your face is entrancing, Phil ; and your ways are more 
 charming than I can tell you. Well, she came into the world 
 and looked about her. It was a pleasant world, she thought. 
 And then — I think I will tell you the rest of the story another 
 time, Phil." 
 
 " Jack, did other people besides birds love your maid of 
 Arcadia ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid they did," he groaned. " A good many other 
 people — confound them ! " 
 
 Phil looked puzzled. Why did he groan ? Why should 
 not all the world love the Arcadian maid if they pleased ? 
 
 Then they went out. Jack being rather silent. 
 
 " This is a great deal better than driving with Mrs. Cassilis, 
 Jack." said the girl, as she made her first acquaintance with 
 a hansom cab. " It is like sitting in a chair, while all the 
 people move past. Look at the faces, Jack ; how they stare 
 straight before them ! Is work so dear to them that they 
 cannot find time to look at each other ? " 
 
 " Work is not dear to them at all, I think," said Jack.
 
 142 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " If I were a clergyman I should talk nonsense and say that 
 it is the race for gold. As a matter of fact, I believe it is a 
 race for bread. Those hard faces have got wives and children 
 at home, and life is difficult, that is all." 
 
 Phillis was silent again. 
 
 They drove through the crowded City, where the roll of the 
 vehicles thundered on the girl's astonished ears, and the hard- 
 faced crowd sped swiftly past her. Life was too multitudinous, 
 too complex, for her brain to take it in. The shops did not 
 interest her now, nor the press of business ; it was the never- 
 ending rush of the anxious crowd. She tried to realise, if 
 ever so faintly, that every one of their faces meant a distinct 
 and important personality. It was too much for her, and, 
 as it did to the Persian monarch, the multitudes brought 
 tears into her eyes. 
 
 ""Where are all the women? " she asked Jack at length. 
 
 " At home. These men are working for them. They are 
 spendingthe money which their husbands and fathers fight for." 
 
 She was silent again. 
 
 The crowd diminished, but not much ; the street grew 
 narrower. Presently they came to an open space, and beyond 
 — oh, joy of joys ! — the Tower of London, which she knew 
 from the pictures. 
 
 Only country people go to the Tower of London. It would 
 almost seem a kindness to London readers were I to describe 
 this national gaud\--show. But it is better, perhaps, that its 
 splendours should remain unknown, like those of the National 
 Gallery and the British Museum. The solitudes of London 
 are not too many, and its convenient trysting places are few. 
 The beefeater who conducted the flock attached himself 
 specially to Phillis, thereby showing that good taste has 
 found a home among beefeaters. Phillis asked him a thou- 
 sand questions. She was eager to see everything. She 
 begged him to take them slowly down the long line of 
 armoured warriors ; she did not care for the arms, except for 
 such as she had heard about, as bows and arrows, pikes, battle- 
 axes, and spears. She lingered in the room where Sir Walter 
 Paleigh was confined ; she studied the construction of the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 143 
 
 headsman's axe and the block ; she glowed with delight at 
 finding herself in the old chapel of the White Tower. Jack 
 did not understand her enthusiasm. It was his own first 
 visit also to the Tower, but he was unafiected by its historical 
 associations. Nor did he greatly care for the arms and armour. 
 
 Think of Phillis. Her guardian's favourite lessons to her 
 had been in history. He would read her passages at which 
 her pulse would quicken and her eyes light up. Somehow 
 these seemed all connected with the Tower. She constructed 
 an imaginary Tower in her own mind, and peopled it with 
 the ghosts of martyred lords and suffering ladies. But the 
 palace of her soul was as nothing compared with the grim 
 grey fortress that she saw. The knights of her imagination 
 were poor creatures compared with these solid heroes of steel 
 and iron on their wooden chargers ; the dungeon in which 
 Ealeigh pined was far more gloomy than any she had 
 pictured ; the ghosts of slain rebels and murdered pi'inces 
 gained in her imagination a place and surroundings worthy 
 of their haunts. The first sight of London which an American 
 visits is the Tower 5 the first place which the boy associates 
 with the past, and longs to see, is that old pile beside the 
 Thames. 
 
 Phillis came away at length, with a sigh of infinite satis- 
 faction. On the way home she said nothing ; but Jack saw, by 
 her absorbed look, that the girl was happy. She was adjust- 
 ing, bit by bit, her memories and her fancies with the reality. 
 She was trying to fit the stories her guardian had read her 
 so often with the chambers and the courts she had just seen. 
 
 Jack watched her stealthily. A great wave of passion 
 rolled over the heart of this young man whenever he looked 
 at this girl. He loved her ; there was no longer anj^ possible 
 doubt of that ; and she only liked him. What a difference ! 
 And to think that the French have only one word for both 
 emotions ! She liked to be with him, to talk to him, because 
 he was young and she could talk to him. But love ? Cold 
 Dian was not more free from love. 
 
 " I can make most of it out," the girl said, turning to 
 Jack. " All except Lady Jane Grey. I cannot understand
 
 144 THE GOLDEN LUTTEilFLY. 
 
 at all about her. You must lake me again. We will get 
 that dear old beefeater all by himself, and we will spend the 
 whole day there, you and I together, shall we not ? " 
 
 Then, after her wont, she put the Tower out of her mind 
 and began to talk about what she saw. They passed a print- 
 seller's. She wanted to look at a picture in the window, 
 and Jack stopped the cab and took her into the shop. 
 
 He observed, not without dismay, that she had not the 
 most rudimentary ideas on the subject of purchase. She had 
 only once been in a shop, and then, if I remember rightly, 
 the bill was sent to Mr. Joseph Jagenel. Phillis turned over 
 the engravings and photographs, and selected half a dozen. 
 
 Jack paid the bill next day. It was not much over fifteen 
 pounds — a mere trifle to a Younger Son with four hundred a 
 year. And then he had the pleasure of seeing the warm 
 glow of pleasure in her eyes as she took the " Light of the 
 World " from the portfolio. Pictures were her books, and she 
 took them home to read. 
 
 At last, and all too soon, they came back to Carnarvon 
 Square. 
 
 " Good-bye, Phil," said Jack, before he knocked at the 
 door. " You have had a pleasant day ? " 
 
 " Very pleasant. Jack ; and all through you," she replied. 
 " Oh, what a good thing for me that we became friends ! " 
 
 He thought it might in the end be a bad thing for himself, 
 but he did not say so. For every hour plunged the unhappy 
 young man deeper in the ocean of love, and he grew more 
 than ever conscious that the part he at present played would 
 not be regarded with favour by her guardian. 
 
 " Jack," she said, while her hand rested in his, and her 
 frank eyes looked straight in his face with an expression in 
 which there was no love at all — he saw that clearly — but 
 only free and childlike affection, — " Jack — why do you look 
 at me so sadly? — Jack, if I were like — if I were meant for 
 that maiden of Arcadia you told me of " 
 
 " Yes, Phil ? " 
 
 " If other people in the world loved me, you would love me 
 too a little, wouldn't you ? "
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 145 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " Hearken what the inner spirit sings, 
 ' There is no joy but calm.' 
 Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things ? " 
 
 LAWEENCE COLQUHOUN was coming home. Pliillis, 
 counting the days, remembered, with a little prick of 
 conscience, that Jack Dunquerque had never told her a single 
 word concerning her second guardian. He was about forty 
 years of age, as old as Joseph Jagenal. She pictured a grave 
 heavy man, with massive forehead, thick black hair, and a 
 responsible manner. She knew too that there was to be a 
 change in her life, but of what kind she could not tell. The 
 present mode of living was happiness enough for her : a drive 
 with Mrs. Cassilis — odd that Phillis could never remove from 
 herself the impression that Mrs. Cassilis disliked her ; a walk 
 with Joseph to his office and back in the morning ; a day of 
 occasional delight with her best friend, Jack the unscrupulous ; 
 her drawing for amusement and occupation ; and a widely- 
 increased area, so to speak, of dress discussion with her maid. 
 Antoinette, once her fellow-prisoner, now emancipated like 
 herself, informed her young mistress that should the new 
 guardian insist on a return to captivity, she, Antoinette, 
 would immediately resign. Her devotion to Phillis, she ex- 
 plained, was unalterable ; but, contrary to the experience of 
 the bard, stone walls, in her own case, did make a prison. 
 Was Mademoiselle going to resign all these pleasures ? — she 
 pointed to the evening-dresses, the walking-dresses, the riding- 
 habits — was Mademoiselle about to give up taking walks when 
 and where she pleased ? was Mademoiselle ready to let the 
 young gentleman, Monsieur Dunquerque, waste his life in 
 regrets — and he so brave, so good ? Antoinette, it may be 
 observed, had, in the agreeable society of Jane the housemaid, 
 Clarissa the cook, and Victoria Pamela, assistant in either 
 department, already received enlightenment in the usages of 
 London courtship. She herself, a little flirt with the Norman 
 blue eyes and light-brown hair, was already the object of a 
 
 K
 
 146 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 devouring passion on tlie part of a young gentleman who cut 
 other gentlemen's hair in a neighbouring street. Further, 
 did Mademoiselle reflect on the wickedness of burying herself 
 and her beautiful eyes out of everybody's sight ? 
 
 A change was inevitable. Phillis would willingly have 
 stayed on at Carnarvon Square, where the Twins amused her, 
 and the lawyer Joseph was kind to her. But Mrs. Cassilis 
 explained that this was impossible ; that steps would have to 
 be taken with regard to her future ; and that the wishes of 
 her guardian must be consulted till she was of age. 
 
 " You are now nineteen, my dear. You have two years to 
 wait. Then you will come into possession of your fortune, 
 and you will be your own mistress, at liberty to live where 
 and how you please." 
 
 Phillis listened, but made no reply. It was a new thought 
 to her that in two years she would be personally responsible 
 for the conduct and management of her own life, obliged to 
 think and decide for herself, and undertaking all the respon- 
 sibilities and consequences of her own actions. Then she 
 remembered Abraham Dyson's warning and maxims. They 
 once fell unheeded on her brain, which was under strict ward 
 and tutelage, just like exhortations to avoid the sins of the 
 world on the ears of convent girls. Now she remembered 
 them. 
 
 " Life is made up of meeting bills drawn on the future by 
 the improvidence of youth." 
 
 This was a very mysterious maxim, and one which had 
 often puzzled her. Now she began to understand what was 
 meant. 
 
 " The consequences of our own actions are what men call 
 fate. They accompany us like our shadows." 
 
 Hitherto, she thought, she had had no chance of performing 
 any action of her own at all. She forgot how she asked Jack 
 Dunquerque to luncheon and went to the Tower with him. 
 
 "Every moment of a working life may be a decisive 
 victory." 
 
 That would begin in two years' time. 
 
 " Brave men act ; philosophers discuss ; cowards run away.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 147 
 
 The brave are often killed ; the talkers are always left behind ; 
 the cowards are caught and cashiered." 
 
 Better to act and be killed than to run away and be dis- 
 graced, thought Phillis. That was a thing to be remembered 
 in two years' time. 
 
 " AVomen see things through the haze of a foolish education. 
 They manage their affairs badly because they are unable to 
 reason. You, Phillis, who have never learned to read, are the 
 mistress of your own mind. Keep it clear. Get information 
 and remember it. Learn by hearing and watching." 
 
 She was still learning — learning something new every day. 
 
 " It is not in my power to complete your education, Phillis. 
 That must be done by some one else. When it is finished you 
 will understand the w^hole. But do not be in a hurry." 
 
 When would the finisher of her education come ? Was it 
 Lawrence Colquhoun? And how would it be finished? 
 Surely some time in the next two years would complete the 
 edifice, and she would step out into the world at twenty-one, 
 her own mistress, responsible for her actions, equipped at all 
 points to meet the chances and dangers of her life. 
 
 So she waited, argued with herself, and counted the days. 
 
 Meantime her conduct towards the Twins inspired these 
 young men with mingled feelings of uncertainty and pleasure. 
 She made their breakfast, was considerate in the morning, 
 and did not ask them to talk. When the little dialonfue 
 mentioned in an early chapter was finished, she would herself 
 pick out a flower — there were always flowers on the table, in 
 deference to their artistic tastes — for their buttonholes, and 
 despatch them with a smile. 
 
 That was very satisfactory. 
 
 At dinner, too, she would turn from one to the other while 
 they discoursed sublimely on Art in its higher aspects. They 
 took it for admiration. It was in reality curiosity to know 
 what they meant. 
 
 After dinner she would too often confine her conversation 
 to Joseph. On these occasions the brethren would moodily 
 disappear, and retire to their own den, where they lit pipes 
 and smoked in silence.
 
 148 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 In point of fact they were as vain as a brace of peacocks, 
 and as jealous as a domestic pet, if attention were shown by 
 the young- lady to any but themselves. 
 
 Ceesar, it may be observed, quickly learned to distinguish 
 betw^een the habits of Phillis and those of his masters. He 
 never now offered to take the former into a public-house, 
 while he ostentatiously, so to speak, paraded his knowledge 
 of the adjacent bars when convoying the Twins. 
 
 One afternoon Phillis took it into her head to carry up tea 
 to the Twins herself. 
 
 Cornelius was, as usual, sound asleep in an easy-chair, his 
 head half resting upon one hand, and his pale cheek lit up 
 with a sweet and childlike smile — he was dreaming of vintage 
 wines. He looked sweetly poetical, and it was a thousand 
 pities that his nose was so red. On the table lay his blotting- 
 pad, and on it, clean and spotless, was the book destined to 
 receive his epic poem. 
 
 Phillis touched the Divine Bard lightly on the shoulder. 
 
 He thought it was Jane ; stretched, yawned, relapsed, and 
 then awoke, fretful, like a child of five months. 
 
 " Give me the tea," he grumbled. " Too sweet again, I 
 dare say, like yesterday." 
 
 " No sugar at all in it, Mr. Cornelius." 
 
 He sprang into consciousness at the voice. 
 
 " My dear Miss Fleming ! Is it really you ? You have con- 
 descended to visit the Workshop, and you find the Labourer 
 asleep. I feel like a sentinel found slumbering at his post. 
 Pray do not think — it is an accident quite novel to me — the 
 exhaustion of continuous effort, I suppose." 
 
 ►She looked about the room. 
 
 "I see books; I see a table; I see a blotting-pad; and" 
 
 She actually, to the Poet's horror, turned over the leaves of 
 the stitched book, with Humphrey's ornamental title-page. 
 " Not a word written. Where is your work, Mr. Cornelius ? " 
 
 " I work at poesy. That book, Miss Fleming, is for the 
 reception of my great epic w^hen it is completed. Non omnis 
 vioriar. There will be found in that blank book the structure 
 of a lifetime. I shall live by a single work, like Homer."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 149 
 
 " Wliat is it all about ? " asked Phillis. She set tlie tea on 
 the table and sat down, looking np at the Poet, who rose from 
 his easy chair and made answer, walking up and down the 
 room : 
 
 " It is called the U2Jheaving of Alfred. In the darkest 
 moments of yElfred's life, while he is hiding amid the Somer- 
 setshire morasses, comes the Spirit of his Career, and guides 
 him in a vision, step by step, to his crowning triumphs. 
 Episodes are introduced. That of the swineherd and the 
 milkmaid is a delicate pastoral, which I hope will stand side 
 by side with the Daphnis and Chloe. When it is finished, 
 would you like me to read you a few cantos ? " 
 
 " No, thank you very much," said Phillis. " I think I 
 know all that I want to know about Alfred. Disguised as a 
 neatherd, he took refuge in Athelney, where one day, being 
 set to bake some cakes by the woman of the cottage, he 
 
 became so absorbed in his own meditations that 1 never 
 
 thought it a very interesting story." 
 
 " The loves of the swineherd and the milkmaid" the 
 
 Poet began. 
 
 " Yes," Phillis interrupted, unfeelingly. " But I hardly 
 think I care much for swineherds. And if I had been Alfred 
 I should have liked the stupid story about the cakes forgotten. 
 Can't you write me some words for music, Mr. Cornelius ? Do, 
 aud I will sing- them to something^ or other. Or write some 
 verses on subjects that people care to hear about, as Words- 
 worth did. My guardian used to read Wordsworth to me." 
 
 " Wordsworth could not write a real epic," said Cornelius. 
 
 " Could he not ? Perhaps he preferred writing other 
 things. Now I must carry Mr. Humphrey his tea. Good- 
 bye, Mr. Cornelius ; and do not go to sleep again." 
 
 Humphrey, too, was asleep on his sofa. Eafiaelle himself 
 could not have seemed a more ideal painter. The very lights 
 of the afternoon harmonised with the purple hue of his velvet 
 coat, the soft brown silkiness of his beard, and his high pale 
 forehead. Like his brother, Humphrey spoiled the artistic 
 effect by that unlucky redness of the nose. 
 
 The same awakening was performed.
 
 I50 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY, 
 
 " I have just found your brother," said Phillis, " at work 
 on Poetry." 
 
 "Noble fellow, Cornelius!" murmured the Artist, "Always 
 at it. Always with nose to the grindstone. He will overdo 
 it some day." 
 
 "I hoj^e not," said Phillis, with a gleam in her eye, " I 
 sincerely hope not. Perhaps he is stronger than he looks. 
 And what are you doing, Mr. Humphrey ? " 
 
 " You found me asleep. The bow stretched too long must 
 snap or be unbent." 
 
 " Yes," said Phillis ; " you were exhausted with work." 
 
 " My great picture — no, it is not on the canvas," for Phillis 
 was looking at the bare easel. 
 
 " Where is it, then ? Do show it to me." 
 
 " When the groups are complete I will let you criticise 
 them. It may be that I shall learn something from an art- 
 less and unconventional nature like your own," 
 
 " Thank you," said Phillis. " That is a compliment, I am 
 sure. What is the subject of the picture ? " 
 
 " It is the ' Birth of the Eenaissance,' An allegorical 
 picture. There will be two hundred and twenty-three figures 
 in the composition." 
 
 " The ' Birth of the Renaissance,' " Phillis mused, " I 
 think I know all about that, ' On the taking of Constanti- 
 nople in the year 1433, the dispersed Greeks made their way 
 to the kingdoms of the West, carrying with them Byzantine 
 learning and culture, Italy became the chosen home of these 
 exiles. The almost simultaneous invention of printing, 
 coupled with an outburst of genius in painting and poetry, 
 and a new-born thirst for classical knowledge, made up what 
 is known by the name of the Ptenaissance,' That is what 
 my guardian told me one night, I think that I do not want 
 to see any picture on that subject. Sit down now and draw 
 me a girl's face," 
 
 He shook his head, 
 
 " Art cannot be forced," he replied. 
 
 "Mr. Humphrey,"— her eyes began to twinkle, — "when 
 you have time— I should not like to force your Art, but
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 151 
 
 when you have time — paint me a little group : yourself, 
 Mr. Cornelius, and Csesar, in the morning walk. You may 
 choose for the moment of illustration either your going into 
 or your coming out of the Carnarvon Arms ; when you intend 
 to have or when you have had your little whack." 
 
 She laughed and ran away. 
 
 Humphrey sat upright, and gazed at the door through 
 which she fled. Then he looked round helplessly for his 
 brother, who was not there. 
 
 "Little whack !" he murmured, "Where did she learn 
 the phrase ? And how does she know that — Ctesar could 
 not have told her." 
 
 He was very sad all the evening, and opened his heart to 
 his brother when they sought the Studio at nine^ an hour 
 earlier than usual. 
 
 " I wish she had not come," he said ; " she makes un- 
 pleasant remarks." 
 
 " She does ; she laughed at my epic to-day." The Poet, 
 who sat in a dressing-gown, drew the cord tighter round his 
 waist, and tossed up his head with a gesture of indignation. 
 
 " And she laughed at my picture." 
 
 " She is dangerous, Humphrey." 
 
 " She watches people when they go for a morning walk, 
 Cornelius, and makes allusion to the Carnarvon Arms and 
 to afternoon naps." 
 
 " If, Humphrey, we have once or twice been obliged to go 
 to the Carnarvon Arms " 
 
 " Or have been surprised into an afternoon nap, Cor- 
 nelius " 
 
 " That is no reason why we should be ashamed to have 
 the subjects mentioned. I should hope that this young lady 
 would not speak of Us — of You, brother Humphrey, and of 
 Myself — save with reverence." 
 
 " She has no reverence, brother Cornelius." 
 "Jane certainly tells me," said the Poet, "that a short 
 time ago she brought Mr. Ronald Dunquerque, then a com- 
 plete stranger, to my room, when I happened by the rarest 
 accident to be asleep, and showed me to him."
 
 152 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " If one could hope that she was actuated only by respect ! 
 But no, T hardly dare to think that. Then, I suppose, she 
 brought her visitor to the Studio." 
 
 " Brother Humphrey, we always do the same thing at the 
 same time." 
 
 '■^Mutatis mutandis, my dear Cornelius. I design, you 
 write ; I group, you clothe your conceptions in undying 
 words. Perhaps we both shall live. It was on the same 
 day that she drew the sketch of me asleep." Humphrey's 
 mind was still running on the want of respect. " Here 
 it is." 
 
 " Forsitan hoc nomen nostrum miscchitur illis," resumed 
 the Poet, looking at the sketch. " The child has a wonderful 
 gift at catching a likeness. If it were not for the annoyance 
 one might feel pleased. The girl is young and pretty. If 
 our years are double what they should be, our hearts are 
 half our years." 
 
 " They are. We cannot be angry with her." 
 
 " Impossible." 
 
 "Dear little Phillis ! " — she was a good inch taller than 
 either of the Twins, who, indeed, were exactly the same 
 height, and it was five feet four — " she is charming in spite, 
 perhaps on account, of her faults. Her property is in the 
 Funds, you said, Cornelius ? " 
 
 " Three-per-cents. Fifty thousand pounds — fifteen hun- 
 dred a year ; which is about half what Joseph pays income- 
 tax upon. A pleasant income, brother Humphrey." 
 
 " Yes, I dare say." Humphrey tossed the question of 
 money aside. "You and I, Cornelius, are among the few 
 who care nothing about three-per-cents. What is money to 
 us ? what have we to do with incomes ? Art, glorious Art, 
 brother, is our mistress. She pays us, not in sordid gold, 
 but in smiles, in gleams of a heaven not to be reached by 
 the common herd, in skies of a radiance visible only to the 
 votary's eye." 
 
 Cornelius sighed response. It was thus that the brothers 
 kept up the sacred flame of artistic enthusiasm. Pity that 
 they were compelled to spend their working hours in sub-
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 153 
 
 jection to sleep instead of Art. Our actions and our principles 
 are so often at variance that their case is not uncommon. 
 
 Then they had their first split soda ; then they lit their 
 pipes ; for it was ten o'clock. Phillis was gone to bed ; 
 Joseph was in his own room ; the fire was bright and the 
 hearth clean. The Twins sat at opposite sides, with the 
 " materials " on a chess-table between them, and prepared 
 to make the usual night of it. 
 
 " Cornelius," said Humphrey, " Joseph is greatly changed 
 since she came."' 
 
 The Poet sat up and leaned forward, with a nod signifying 
 concurrence. 
 
 " He is, Humphrey ; now you mention it, he is. And you 
 think " . 
 
 "I am afraid, Cornelius, that Joseph, a most thoughtful 
 man in general, and quite awake to the responsibilities of 
 his position " 
 
 " It is not every younger son, brother Humphrey, who has 
 two men like ourselves to maintain in a befitting manner. 
 Posterity will reward him." 
 
 " Quite so. But I fear, brother Cornelius, that Joseph has 
 thought of changing his condition in life." 
 
 Cornelius turned pale. 
 
 " He has her to breakfast with him ; she walks to the office 
 with him ; she makes him talk at dinner. Joseph never used 
 to talk with us. He sits in the drawing-room after dinner. 
 He used to go straight to his own room." 
 
 " This is grave," said the Poet. " You must not, my dear 
 Humphrey, have the gorgeous colouring and noble execution 
 of your groups spoiled by the sordid cares of life. If Joseph 
 marries, you and I would be thrown upon the streets, so to 
 speak. What is two hundred a year ? " 
 
 " Nor must you, my dear brother, have the delicate fancies 
 of your brain shaken up and clouded by mean and petty 
 anxieties." 
 
 " Humphrey," said the Poet, " come to me in half an hour 
 in the Workshop. This is a time for Action." 
 
 It was only half-past ten, and the night was but just
 
 154 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFL7. 
 
 begun. He buttoned his dressing-gown across his chest, 
 tightened the cord, and strode solemnly out of the room. 
 The Painter heard his foot descend the stairs. 
 
 "Excellent Cornelius," he murmured, lighting his second 
 pipe; "he lives but for others." 
 
 Joseph was sitting as usual before a pile of papers. It 
 was quite true that Phillis was brightening up the life of 
 this hard-working lawyer. His early breakfast was a time 
 of pleasure ; his walk to the office was not a solitary one ; 
 he looked forward to dinner; and he found the evenings 
 tolerable. Somehow, Joseph Jagenal had never known any 
 of the little agremeiis of life. From bed to desk, from desk 
 to bed, save when a dinner-party became a necessity, had 
 been his life from the day his articles were signed. 
 
 " You, Cornelius ? " He looked up from his work, and 
 laid down his pen. " This is unexpected." 
 
 " I am glad to find you, as usual, at work, Joseph. We are a 
 hard-working family. You witli law-books ; poor Humphrey, 
 and I with But never mind." 
 
 He sighed and sat down. 
 
 " Why poor Humphrey ? " 
 
 " Joseph, we were happy before this young lady came." 
 
 " What has Phillis done ? Why, we were then old fogies, 
 with our bachelor ways ; and she has roused us up a little. 
 And again, why poor Humphrey ? " 
 
 " We were settled down in a quiet stream of labour, think- 
 ing that there would be no change. I see a great change 
 coming over us now." 
 
 " What change ? " 
 
 " Joseph, if it were not for Humphrey I should rejoice. 
 I should say, ' Take her ; be happy in your own way.' For 
 me, I only sing of love. I might perhaps sing as well in a 
 garret and on a crust of bread, therefore it matters nothing. 
 It is for Humphrey that I feel. How can that delicately- 
 organised creature, to whom warmth, comfort, and ease are 
 as necessary as sunshine to the flower, face the outer world ? 
 For his sake, I ask you, Joseph, to reconsider your project, 
 and pause before you commit yourself."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 155 
 
 Josepli was accustomed to tliis kind of estimate wliich one 
 Twin invariably made of tlie other, but the reason for making- 
 it staggered him. He actually blushed. Being forty years 
 of age, a bachelor, and a lawyer — on all these grounds pre- 
 sumably acquainted with the world and with the sex — he 
 blushed on being accused of nothing more than a mere 
 tendency in the direction of marriage. 
 
 " This is the strangest whim ! " he said. " Why, Cornelius, 
 I am as likely to marry Phillis Fleming as I am to send 
 Humphrey into the cold. Dismiss the thought at once, and 
 let the matter be mentioned no more. Good -night, Cornelius." 
 
 He turned to his papers again with the look of one who 
 wishes to be alone. These Twins were a great pride to him, 
 but he could not help sometimes feeling the slightest possible 
 annoyance that they were not as other men. Still they were 
 his charge, and in their future glory his own name would 
 play an honourable part. 
 
 " Good-night, Cornelius. It is good of you to think of 
 Humphrey first. I shall not marry — either the child Phillis 
 Fleming or any other woman." 
 
 " Good-night, my dear Joseph, You have relieved my 
 mind of a great anxiety. Good-night." 
 
 Five minutes afterwards the door opened again. 
 
 Joseph looked round impatiently 
 
 This time it was Humphrey. The light shone picturesquely 
 on his great brown beard, so carefully trimmed and brushed ; 
 on the velvet jacket, in the pockets of which were his hands ; 
 and on his soft, large, limpid eyes, so full of unutterable 
 artistic perception, such lustrous passion for colour and for 
 form. 
 
 " Well, Humphrey ! " Joseph exclaimed, with more sharp- 
 ness than he was wont to display to his brothers. " Are you 
 come here on the same wise errand as Cornelius ? " 
 
 " Has Cornelius been with you ? " asked the Painter art- 
 lessly. " What did Cornelius come to you for ? Poor fellow ! 
 he is not ill, I trust. I thought he took very little dinner 
 to-day." 
 
 " Tut, tut ! Don't you know why he came here ? "
 
 156 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Certainly not, brotlier Joseph." This was of course 
 strictly true, because Cornelius had not told him. Guesses 
 are not evidence. " And it hardly matters, does it ? " he 
 asked, with a sweet smile. " For myself, I come because 
 I have a thing to say." 
 
 " Well ? Come, Humphrey, don't beat about the bush." 
 
 " It is about Miss — Fleming." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 "You guess already what I have to say, my dear Joseph. 
 It is this : I have watched the birth and growth of your 
 passion for this young lady. In some respects I am not 
 surprised. She is certainly piquante as well as pretty. But, 
 my dear Joseph, there is Cornelius." 
 
 Joseph beat the tattoo on his chair. 
 
 " Humphrey," he groaned, " I know all Cornelius's virtues." 
 
 "But not the fragile nature of his beautifully subtle brain. 
 That, Joseph, I alone know. I tremble to think what would 
 become of that — that delicim viusarum^ were he to be deprived 
 of the little luxuries which are to him necessities. A poet's 
 brain, Joseph, is not a thing lightly to be dealt with." 
 
 Joseph was touched at this appeal. 
 
 " You are really, Humphrey, the most tender-hearted pair 
 of creatures I ever saw. Would that all the world were like 
 you ! Take my assurance, if that will comfort you, that I 
 have no thought whatever of marrying Phillis Fleming." 
 
 " Joseph," — Humphrey grasped his hand, — " this is indeed 
 a sacrifice." 
 
 " Not at all," returned Joseph sharply, " Sacrifice ? Non- 
 sense. And please remember, Humphrey, that I am acting 
 as the young lady's guardian ; that she is an heiress ; that 
 she is intrusted to me ; and that it would be an unworthy 
 breach of trust if I were even to think of such a thing. Be- 
 sides which, I have a letter from Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun, 
 who is coming home immediately. It is not at all likely that 
 the young lady will remain longer under my charge. Good- 
 night, Humphrey." 
 
 " I had a thing to say to Joseph," said HumjDhrey, going 
 up to the Workshop, " and I said it."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 157 
 
 " I too had a tiling to say," said tlie Poet, " and I said it." 
 
 " Cornelius, you are the most unselfish creature in the 
 world." 
 
 " Humphrey, you are — I have always maintained it — too 
 thoughtful, much too thoughtful, for others. Joseph will not 
 marry." 
 
 " I know it ; and my mind is relieved. Brother, shall we 
 split another soda ? It is only eleven." 
 
 Joseph took up his paper. He neither smoked nor drank 
 hrandy-and-soda, finding in his work occupation which left 
 him no time for either. To-night, however, he could not 
 bring his mind to bear upon the words before him. 
 
 He to marry ? And to marry Phillis ? The thought was 
 new and startling. He put it from him ; but it came back. 
 And why not ? he asked himself. Why should not he, as well 
 as the rest of mankind, have his share of love and beauty ? 
 To be sure, it would be a breach of confidence, as he told 
 Humphrey. But Colquhoun was coming: he was a young 
 man — his own age — only forty ; he would not care to have a 
 girl to look after; he would — again he put the thought 
 behind him. 
 
 But all night long Joseph Jagenal dreamed a strange dream, 
 in which soft voices whispered things in his ears, and he 
 thrilled in his sleep at the rustle of a woman's dress. He 
 could not see her face, — dreams are always so absurdly im- 
 perfect — but he recognised her figure, and it was that of 
 Phillis Fleming. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "She never yet was foolish that was fair." 
 
 THE days sped on; but each day, as it vanished, made 
 Phillis's heart sadder, because it brought her guardian 
 nearer, and the second great change in her life, she thought, 
 was inevitable. Think of a girl, brought up a cloistered nun, 
 finding her liberty for a few short weeks, and then ordered 
 back to her whitewashed cell. Phillis's feelings as regards
 
 158 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Lawrence Colqulioun's return were coloured by this fear. It 
 seemed as if, argument and probability notwithstanding, she 
 might be suddenly and peremptorily carried back to prison, 
 without the consolations of a maid, because Antoinette, as we 
 know, would refuse to accompany her, or the kindly society 
 of poor old Abraham Dyson, now lying in a synonymous 
 bosom. 
 
 A short three weeks since her departure from Highgate; a 
 short six weeks since Mr. Dyson's death ; and the world was 
 all so different. She looked back on herself, with her old 
 ideas, contemptuously. " Poor Phillis ! " she thought, " she 
 knew so little." And as happens to every one of us, in every 
 successive stage of life, she seemed to herself now to know 
 everj^thing. Life without the sublime conceit of being up- 
 lifted, by reason of superior inward light and greater outward 
 experience, above other men, would be but a poor thing. 
 Phillis thought she had the Key to Universal Knowledge, 
 and that she was on the high-road to make that part of her 
 life which should begin in two years' time easy, happy, and 
 clear of pitfalls. From the Archbishop of Canterbury to Joe 
 the crossing-sweeper, we all think in exactly the same way. 
 And when the ages bring experience, and experience does 
 not blot out memory, we recall our old selves with a kind of 
 shame — wonder that we did not drop into the snare, and 
 perish miserably ; and presently fall to thanking God that we 
 are rid of a Fool. 
 
 A fortnight. Phillis counted the days, and drew a histori- 
 cal record of every one. Jack came three times : once after 
 Mrs. Cassilis's dinner ; once when he took her to the Tower 
 of London ; and once — I have been obliged to omit this third 
 visit — when he sat for his portrait, and Phillis drew him full 
 length, leaning against the mantelshelf, with his hands in his 
 pockets — not a graceful attitude, but an easy one, and new 
 to Phillis, who thought it characteristic. She caught Jack's 
 cheerful spirit too, and fixed it by a touch in the gleam of his 
 eye. Mrs. Cassilis came four times, and on each occasion took 
 the girl for a drive, bought something for her, and sent the 
 bill to Joseph Jagenal. On each occasion, also, she asked
 
 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 159 
 
 particularly for Lawrence Colquhoun. There were the little 
 events with the Twins which we have recorded ; and there 
 were walks with Cassar about the square. Once Joseph 
 Jagenal took her to a picture-gallery, where she wanted to 
 stay and copy everything ; it was her first introduction to the 
 higher Art, and she was half delighted, half confused. If Art 
 critics were not such humbugs, and did not pretend to feel 
 what they do not, they might help the world to a better under- 
 standing of the glories of painters. As it is, they are the only 
 people, except preachers, to whom unreal gush is allowed by 
 gods and men. After all, as no Art critic of the modern un- 
 intelligible gush-and-conceit school can paint or draw, per- 
 haps if they were not to gush and pile up Alpine heaps of 
 words they would be found out for shallow wind-bags. The 
 ideal critic in Art is the great Master who sits above the fear 
 of rivalry or the imputation of envy; in Literature it is the 
 great writer from whom praise is honoured and dispraise the 
 admonition of a teacher ; in the Drama, the man who himself 
 has moved the House with his words, and can afford to look 
 on a new rising playwright with kindliness. 
 
 Phillis in the Art Gallery was the next best critic to the 
 calm and impartial Master. She was herself artist enough to 
 understand the difficulties of art; she had that intense and real 
 feeling for form and colour which Humphrey Jagenal affected ; 
 and her taste in Art was good enough to overmaster her 
 sympathy with the subject. Some people are ready to weep 
 at a tragical subject, however coarse the daub, just as they 
 weep at the fustian of an Adelphi melodrama ; Phillis was 
 ready to weep when the treatment and the subject together 
 were worthy of her tears. It seems as if she must have had 
 her nature chilled ; but it is not so. 
 
 Time, which ought to be represented as a locomotive engine, 
 moved on, and brought Lawrence Colquhoun at length to 
 London. He went first to Joseph Jagenal's office, and heard 
 that his ward was in safe-keeping with that very safe 
 solicitor. 
 
 " It was difficult," Joseph explained, " to know what to do. 
 After the funeral of Mr. Dyson she was left alone in the place.
 
 i6o THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 with no more responsible person than a housekeeper. So, as 
 soon as the arrangement could be made, I brought her to my 
 own house. Three old bachelors might safely, I thought, be 
 trusted with the protection of a young lady." 
 
 " I am much obliged to you," said Colquhoun. " You have 
 removed a great weight off my mind. What sort of a girl is 
 she ? " 
 
 Joseph began to describe her. As he proceeded he warmed 
 with his subject, and delineated a young lady of such passing 
 charms of person and mind that Colquhoun was terrified. 
 
 " My dear Jagenal, if you were not such a steady old file I 
 should think you were in love with her." 
 
 " My love days are over," said the man of conveyances. 
 "That is, I never had any. But you will find Phillis Fleming 
 everything that you can desire. Except, of course," he added, 
 " in respect to her education. It certainly is awkward that 
 she does not know how to read." 
 
 " Not know how to read ? " 
 
 " And so, you see," said the lawyer, completing the story we 
 know already, " Mr. Dyson's property will go into Chancery, 
 because Phillis Fleming has never learnt to read, and because 
 we cannot find that chapter on the Coping-stone." 
 
 "Hang the Coping-stone!" ejaculated Colquhoun. "I 
 think I will go and see her at once. Will you let me dine 
 with you to-night? And will you add to my obligations 
 by letting her stay on with you till I can arrange something 
 for her ? " 
 
 " What do you think of doing ? " 
 
 " I hardly know. I thought, on the voyage, that I would 
 do something in the very-superior-lady-companion way for her. 
 To tell the truth, I thought it was a considerable bore — the 
 whole thing. But she seems very different from what I ex- 
 pected, and perhaps I could ask my cousin, Mrs. L'Estrange, 
 to take her into her own house for a time. Poor old Dyson ! 
 It is twelve years ago since I saw him last, soon after he took 
 over the child. I remember her then, a solemn little thing, 
 with big eyes, who behaved prettily. She held up her mouth
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. i6i 
 
 to he kissed when she went to bed, but I suppose she won't 
 do that now." 
 
 " You can hardly expect it, I think," said Joseph. 
 
 " Abraham Dyson talked all the evening about his grand 
 principles of Female Education. I was not interested, except 
 that I felt sorry for the poor child who was to be an ex- 
 periment. Perhaps I ought to have interfered as one of her 
 trustees. I left the whole thing to him, you see, and did not 
 even inquire after her welfare." 
 
 " You two were, by some curious error of judgment, as I 
 take it, left discretionary trustees. As he is dead, you have 
 now the care of Miss Fleming's fifty thousand pounds, Mr. 
 Dyson left it in the funds, where he found it. As your legal 
 adviser, Mr. Colquhoun, I strongly recommend you to do the 
 same. She will be entitled to the control and management 
 of it on coming of age, but it is to be settled on herself when 
 she marries. There is no stipulation as to trustees' consent. 
 So that you only have the responsibility of the young lady and 
 her fortune for two years." 
 
 It was twelve o'clock in the day. Colquhoun left the oflSce, 
 and made his way in the direction of Carnarvon Square. 
 
 As he ascended the steps of Number Fifteen, the door opened 
 and two young men appeared. One was dressed in a short frock, 
 with a flower in his buttonhole ; the other had on a velvet 
 coat, and also had a flower : one was shaven ; the other wore 
 a long and silky beard. Both had pale faces and red noses. 
 As they looked at the stranger and passed him down the steps, 
 Colquhoun saw that they were not so young as they seemed to 
 be : there were crowsfeet round the eyes, and their step had 
 lost a little of its youthful buoyancy. He wondered who they 
 were, and sent in his card to Miss Fleming. 
 
 He was come, then, this new guardian. Phillis could not 
 read the card, but Jane, the maid, told her his name. 
 
 He was come ; and the second revolution was about to begin. 
 Instinctively Phillis's first thought was that there would be no 
 more walks with Jack Dunquerque. Why she felt so it would 
 be hard to explain, but she did. 
 
 She stood up to welcome him. 
 
 L
 
 i62 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 She saw a handsome young-looking man, with blue eyes, 
 clear red and white complexion, regular features, a brown 
 beard, and a curious look of laziness in his eyes. They were 
 eyes which showed a repressed power of animation. They 
 lit up at sight of his ward, but not much. 
 
 He saw a girl of nineteen, tall, slight, and shapely ; a girl 
 of fine physique ; a girl whose eyes, like her hair, were 
 brown ; the former were large and full, but not with the ful- 
 ness of short-sight ; the latter was abundant, and was tossed 
 up in the simplest fash ion, which is also the most graceful. 
 Lawrence the lazy felt his pulse quicken a little as this fair 
 creature advanced, with perfect grace and self-possession, to 
 greet him. He noticed that her dress was perfect, that her 
 hands were small and delicate, and that her head was shaped, 
 save for the forehead, which was low and broad, like that of 
 some Greek statue. The Greeks knew the perfect shape of 
 the head, but they made the forehead too narrow. If you 
 think of it, you will find that the Venus of Milo would have 
 been more divine still had her brows been but a little 
 broader. 
 
 " My ward ? " he said. " Let us make acquaintance, and 
 try to like each other. I am your new guardian." 
 
 Phillis looked at him frankly and curiously, letting her 
 hand rest in his. 
 
 " When I saw you last — it was twelve years ago — you 
 were a little maid of seven. Do you remember ? " 
 
 " I think I do ; but I am not quite sure. Are you really 
 my guardian ? " 
 
 " I am indeed. Do I not look like one ? To be sure, it is 
 my first appearance in the character." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Mr. Dyson was so old," she said, " that I suppose I grew 
 to think all guardians old men." 
 
 " I am only getting old," he sighed, " It is not nice to feel 
 yourself going to get old. Wait twenty years, and you will 
 begin to feel the same perhaps. But though I am thirty 
 years younger than Mr. Dyson, I will try to treat you exactly 
 as he did."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 163 
 
 Phillis's face fell, and she drew away her hand sharply. 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried. " But I am afraid that will not do 
 any more." 
 
 " Why, Phillis — I may call you Phillis since I am your 
 guardian, may I not ? — did he treat you badly ? Why did 
 you not write to me ? " 
 
 " I did not write, Mr. Colquhoun — if you call me Phillis, I 
 ought to call you Lawrence, ought I not, because you are not 
 old? — I did not write, because dear old Mr. Dyson treated 
 me very kindly, and because you were away and never came 
 to see me, and because I — I never learned to write." 
 
 By this time Phillis had learned to feel a little shame at 
 not being able to write. 
 
 " Besides," she went on, " he was a dear old man, and I 
 loved him. But you see, Lawrence, he had his views — Joseph 
 Jagenal calls them crotchets — and he never let me go outside 
 the house. Now I am free I do not like to think of being a 
 prisoner again. If you try to lock me up, I am afraid I shall 
 break the bars and run away." 
 
 " You shall not be a prisoner, Phillis. That is quite certain. 
 We shall find something better than that for you. But it 
 cannot be very lively, in this big house, all by yourself" 
 
 " Not very lively ; but I am quite happy here." 
 
 " Most young ladies read novels to pass away the time." 
 
 "I know, poor things." Phillis looked unutterable sym- 
 pathy. " Mr. Dyson used to say that the sympathies which 
 could not be quickened by history were so dull that fiction 
 was thrown away upon them." 
 
 " Did you never — I mean, did he never read you novels ! " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " He said that my imagination was quite powerful enough 
 to be a good servant, and he did not wish it to become my 
 mastei.\ And then there was something else, about wanting 
 the experience of life necessary to appreciate fiction." 
 
 " Abraham Dyson was a wise man, Phillis. But what do 
 you do all day ? " 
 
 " I draw ; I talk to my maid Antoinette ; I give the Twins 
 their breakfast "
 
 i64 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Those were the Twins — Mr, Jagenal's elder brothers — 
 whom I met on the steps, I suppose ? I have heard of them. 
 Aprds, Phillis ? " 
 
 " I play and sing to myself; I go out for a walk in the 
 garden of the square ; I go to Mr. Jagenal's office, and walk 
 home with him ; and I look after my wardrobe. Then I sit 
 and think of what I have seen and heard — put it all away 
 in my memory, or I repeat to myself over again some of the 
 poetry which I learned at Highgate." 
 
 " And you know no young ladies ? " 
 
 " No ; I wish I did. I am curious to talk to young ladies 
 — quite young ladies, you know, of my own age. I want to 
 compare myself with them, and find out my faults. You will 
 tell me my faults, Lawrence, will you ? " 
 
 " I don't quite think I can promise that, Phillis. You see, 
 you might retaliate ; and if you once begin telling me my 
 faults, there would be no end." 
 
 " Oh, I am sorry ! " Phillis looked curiously at her guardian 
 for some outward sign or token of the old Adam. But she 
 saw none. " Perhaps I shall find them out some time, and 
 then I will tell you." 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " he said, laughing. " Now, Phillis, I 
 have been asked to dine here, and I am going to be at your 
 service all day. It is only one o'clock. What shall we do, 
 and where shall we go ? " 
 
 " Anywhere," she replied, " anywhere. Take me into the 
 crowded streets, and let me look at the people and the shops. 
 I like that best of anything. But stay and have luncheon 
 here first." 
 
 They had luncheon. Colquhoun confessed to himself that 
 this was a young lady calculated to do him the greatest 
 credit. She acted hostess with a certain dignity which sat 
 curiously on so young a girl, and which she had learned from 
 presiding at many a luncheon in Mr. Dyson's old age among 
 his old friends, when her guardian had become too infirm to 
 take the head of his own table. There was, it is true, some- 
 thing wanting. Colquhoun's practised eye detected that at 
 once. Phillis was easy, graceful, and natural. But she had
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 165 
 
 not — the man of tlie world noticed what Jack Dunquerque 
 failed to observe — she had not the unmistakable stamp of 
 social tone which can only come by practice and time. The 
 elements, however, were there before him ; his ward was a 
 diamond which wanted but a little polish to make her a gem 
 of the first water. 
 
 After luncheon they talked again ; this time with a little 
 more freedom. Colquhoun told her all he knew of the father 
 who was but a dim and distant memory to her. " You have 
 his eyes," he said, " and you have his mouth. I should know 
 you for his daughter." He told her how fond this straight 
 rider, this ISTimrod of the hunting-field, had been of his little 
 Phillis ; how one evening after mess he told Colquhoun that 
 he had made a will, and appointed him, Lawrence, with 
 Abraham Dyson, the trustees of his little girl. 
 
 " I have been a poor trustee, Phillis," Lawrence concluded. 
 " But I was certain that you were in good hands, and I let 
 things alone. Now that I have to act in earnest, you must 
 regard me as your friend and adviser." 
 
 They had such a long talk that it was past four when they 
 went out for their walk. Phillis was thoughtful and serious, 
 thinking of the father, whom she lost so early. Somehow she 
 had forgotten, at Highgate, that she once had a father. And 
 the word mother had no meaning for her. 
 
 Outside the house Lawrence looked at his companion 
 critically. 
 
 " Am I properly dressed ? " she asked, with a smile, because 
 she knew that she was perfectly dressed. 
 
 At all events, Lawrence thought he would have no occasion 
 to be ashamed of his companion. 
 
 " Let me look again, Phillis. I should like to give you a 
 little better brooch than the one you have put on." 
 
 " My poor old brooch ! I cannot give up my old friend, 
 Lawrence." 
 
 She dropped quite easily into his Christian name, and 
 hesitated no more over it than she did with Jack Dunquerque. 
 
 He took her into a jeweller's shop and bought her a few 
 trinkets.
 
 i66 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " There, Pliillis, you can add tliose to your jewel-bos." 
 
 "I have no jewels." 
 
 " No jewels ! Where are your mother's ? " 
 
 " I believe they are all in the Bank, locked up. Perhaps 
 they are with my money." 
 
 Phillis's idea of her fifty thousand pounds was that the 
 money was all in sovereigns, packed away in a box and put 
 into a bank* 
 
 " Well, I think you ought to have your jewels out, at any 
 rate. Did Mr. Dyson give you any money to spend ? " 
 
 " No ; and if he had I could not have spent it, because I 
 never went outside the house. Lawrence, give me some 
 money, and let me buy something all by myself." 
 
 He bought her a purse, and filled it with two or three 
 sovereigns and a handful of silver. 
 
 " Now you are rich, Phillis. What will you buy ? " 
 
 "Pictures, I think." 
 
 In all this great exhibition of glorious and beautiful objects 
 there was only one thing which Phillis wished to buy — 
 pictures. 
 
 " Well, let us buy some photographs." 
 
 They were walking down Oxford Street, and presently they 
 came to a photograph-shop. Proud of her newly-acquired 
 wealth, Phillis selected about twenty of the largest and most 
 expensive. Colquhoun observed that her taste was good, 
 and that she chose the best subjects. When she had all 
 that she liked, together with one or two which she bought 
 for Jack, with a secret joy surpassing that of buying for 
 herself, she opened her purse and began to wonder how she 
 was to pay. 
 
 " Do you think your slender purse will buy all these 
 views ? " Colquhoun asked. " Put it up, Phillis, and keep it 
 for another time. Let me give you these photographs." 
 
 " But you said I should buy something." The words and 
 action were so childish that Lawrence felt a sort of pity for 
 her. Not to know how to spend money seemed to lazy 
 Lawrence, who had done nothing else all his life, a state of 
 mind really deplorable. It would mean in his own case
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 167 
 
 absolute deprivation of the power of procuring pleasure, 
 either for himself or for any one else. 
 
 " Poor little nun ! Not to know even the value of 
 money." 
 
 " But I do. A sovereign is twenty shillings, and a shilling 
 is twelve pence." 
 
 "That is certainly true. Now you shall show that you 
 know the value of money. There is a beggar. He is going 
 to tell us that he is hungry ; he will probably add that he 
 has a wife and twelve children, all under the age of three, in 
 his humble home, and that none of them have tasted food for 
 a week. What will you give him ? " 
 
 Phillis paused. How should she relieve so much distress ? 
 By this time they were close to the beggar. He was a 
 picturesque rogue in rags and tatters and bare feet. Though 
 it was a warm day he shivered. In his hand he held a single 
 box of lights. But the fellow was young, well fed, and lusty. 
 Lawrence Colquhoun halted on the pavement, and looked at 
 him attentively. 
 
 " This man," he explained to Phillis, " can get for a penny 
 a small loaf; twopence will buy him a glass of ale ; sixpence 
 a dinner; for ten shillings he could get a suit of working 
 clothes — which he does not want because he has no intention 
 of doing any work at all ; a sovereign would lodge and feed 
 him for a fortnight, if he did not drink." 
 
 " I should give him a sovereign," said Phillis. " Then he 
 would be happy for a week." 
 
 " Bless your ladyship," murmured the beggar. " I would 
 get work. Gawd knows, if I could." 
 
 " I remember this fellow," said Colquhoun, " for six years. 
 He is a sturdy rogue. Best give nothing to him at all. Come 
 on, Phillis. We must look for a more promising subject." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " said Phillis, closing her purse. 
 
 They passed on, and the beggar-man cursed audibly. I 
 believe it is Mr. Tupper, in his Provcrhial Philosophy, who 
 explains that what a beggar most wants, to make him feel 
 happier, is sympathy. Now that was just what Phillis gave, 
 and the beggar-man only swore.
 
 i68 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY 
 
 Colqiilioun laughed. 
 
 " You may keep your pity, Pliillis, for some one who 
 deserves it better. Now let us take a cab and go to the 
 Park. It is four years since I saw the Park." 
 
 It was five o'clock. The Park was fuller than when he 
 saw it last. It grows more crowded year after year, as the 
 upward pressure of an enriched multitude makes itself felt 
 more and more. There was the usual throng about the gates 
 of those who come to look for great people, and like to tell 
 whom they recognised, and who were pointed out to them. 
 There were the pedestrians on either side the road : civilians 
 after office hours ; bankers and brokers from the City ; men 
 up from Aldershot ; busy men hastening home ; loungers 
 leaning on the rails; curious colonials gazing at the carriages; 
 Frenchmen trying to think that Hyde Park cannot compare 
 with the Bois de Boulogne ; Germans mindful of their mighty 
 army, their great sprawling Berlin, the gap of a century 
 between English prosperity and Teutonic militarism, and 
 as envious as philosophy permits ; Americans owning that 
 New York, though its women are lovelier, has nothing 
 to show beside the Park at five on a spring afternoon, — 
 all the bright familiar scene which Colquhoun remembered 
 so well. 
 
 " Four years since I saw it last," he repeated to the girl. 
 " I suppose there will be none of the faces that I used to 
 know." 
 
 He was wrong. The first man who greeted him was his 
 old Colonel. Then he came across a man he had known in 
 India. Then one whom he had last seen, a war-correspondent, 
 inside Metz. Then a man with whom he once visited Cash- 
 mere. He shook hands with one, nodded to another, and 
 made appointments with all at his club. And as each passed, 
 he told something about him to his ward. 
 
 " That is my old Colonel — your father's brother-ofiicer. 
 The most gallant fellow who ever commanded a regiment. 
 As soon as you are settled, I should like to bring him to see 
 you. That is Macnamara of the London Herald — a man you 
 can't get except in England. That is Lord Blandish ; we were
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 169 
 
 together up-country in India. He wrote a book about his 
 adventures in Cashmere, I did not." 
 
 It was a new world to Phillis. All these carriages ; these 
 people : this crowd — who were they ? 
 
 " They are not like the faces I see in the streets," she 
 said. 
 
 " No. Those are faces of men who work for bread. These 
 are mostly of men who work not at all, or they work for 
 honour. There are two or three classes of mankind, you 
 know, Phillis." 
 
 " Servants and masters ? " 
 
 " Not quite. You belong to the class of those who need 
 not work — this class. Your father knew all these people. 
 It is a happy world in its way — in its way," he repeated, 
 thinking of certain shipwrecks he had known. " Perhaps it 
 
 is better to have to work. I do not know. Phillis, who " 
 
 He was going to ask who was bowing to her, when he turned 
 pale, and stopped suddenly. In the carriage which was pass- 
 ing within a foot of where they stood was a lady whom he 
 knew — Mrs. Cassilis. He took ofiF his hat, and Mrs. Cassilis 
 stopped the carriage and held out her hand. 
 
 " How do you do, Phillis dear ? Mr. Colquhoun, I am glad 
 to see you back again. Come as soon as you can and see 
 me. If you can spare an afternoon as soon as you are settled, 
 give it to me — for auld lang syne." 
 
 The last words were whispered. Her lips trembled, and 
 her hand shook as she spoke. And Lawrence's face was hard. 
 He took off his hat and drew back ; Phillis did not hear 
 what he said. But Mrs. Cassilis drove on, and left the Park 
 immediately. 
 
 " Mrs. Cassilis trembled when she spoke to you, Lawrence." 
 It was exactly what a girl of six would have said. 
 
 " Did she, Phillis ? She was cold perhaps. Or perhaps 
 she was pleased to see old friends again. So you know 
 her?" 
 
 " Yes. I have dined at her house ; and I have been shop- 
 ping with her. She does not like me, I know j but she is 
 kind. She has spoken to me about you."
 
 I70 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLr. 
 
 " So you know Mrs. Cassilis ? " lie repeated. " She does 
 not look as if she had any trouble on her mind, does she ? 
 The smooth brow of a clear conscience — Phillis, if you have 
 had enough of the Park, I think it is almost time to drive 
 you home." 
 
 Lawrence Colquhoun dined at Carnarvon Square, The 
 Twins dined at their club ; so that they had the evening to 
 themselves, and could talk. 
 
 " I have made up my mind," Lawrence said, " to ask my 
 cousin to take charge of you, Phillis. Agatha L'Estrange is 
 the kindest creature in the world. Will you try to like her 
 if she consents ? " 
 
 " Yes, I will try. But suppose she does not like me ? " 
 
 " Everybody likes you, Miss Fleming," said Joseph. 
 
 " She is sure to like you," said Lawrence. " And I will 
 come over often and see you ; we will ride together if you 
 like. And if you would like to have any masters or lessons 
 in anything " 
 
 " I think I should like to learn reading," Phillis remarked 
 meditatively. " Mr. Abraham Dyson used to say " — she held 
 up her finger, and imitated the manner and fidgety dogmatism 
 of an old man — " ' Reading breeds a restless curiosity, and 
 engenders an irreverent spirit of carping criticism. Any 
 jackanapes who can read thinks himself qualified to judge 
 the affairs of the nation. Reading indeed ! ' But I think I 
 should like, after all, to do what everybody else can do." 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " You bear a gentle mind, and heavenly blessings 
 Follow such creatures," 
 
 HALF a mile or so above Teddington Lock — where you are 
 quite above the low tides, which leave the mud-banks 
 in long stretches and spoil the beauty of the splendid river ; 
 where the stream flows on evenly between its banks, only 
 sometimes swifter and stronger, sometimes slower and more 
 sluggish ; where you may lie and listen a whole summer's
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 171 
 
 day to tlie murmurous wash of the current among the lilies 
 and the reeds, — there stands a house, noticeable among other 
 houses by reason of its warm red brick, its many gables, and 
 its wealth of creepers. Its gardens and lawns slope gently 
 down to the river's edge ; the willows hang over it, letting 
 their long leaves, like maidens' fingers, lie lightly on the cool 
 surface of the water ; there is a boat-house, where a boat used 
 to lie, but it is empty now — ivy covers it over, dark ivy that 
 contrasts with the lighter greens of the sweet May foliage ; 
 the lilacs and laburnums are exulting in the transient glory 
 of foliage and flower ; the westeria hangs its purple clusters 
 like grapes upon the wall ; there are greenhouses and 
 vineries; there are flower-beds bright with the glories of 
 modern gardening ; and there are old-fashioned round plots 
 of ground innocent of bedding-out, where flourish the good 
 old-fashioned flowers, stocks, pansies, boy's-love, sweet-william, 
 and the rest, which used to be cultivated for their perfume 
 and colour long before bedding-out was thought of; an old 
 brick wall runs down to the river's edge as a boundary on 
 either side, thick and warm, with peaches, plums, and apricots 
 trained in formal lines, and crowned with wall-flowers and 
 lonof srrasses, like the walls of some old castle. Behind are 
 rooms which open upon the lawn ; round the windows clamber 
 the roses waiting for the suns of June ; and if you step into 
 the house from the garden, you will enter a dainty drawing- 
 room, light and sunny, adorned with all manner of feminine 
 things, and you will find, besides, boudoirs, studies, all sorts 
 of pretty rooms into which the occupants of the house may 
 retire, what time they feel disposed to taste the joys of 
 solitude. 
 
 The house of a lady. Does any one ever consider what 
 thousands of these dainty homes exist in England? All 
 about the country they stand — houses where women live away 
 their innocent and restful lives, lapped from birth to death in 
 an atmosphere of peace and warmth. Such luxury as they 
 desire is theirs, for they are wealthy enough to purchase all 
 they wish. Chiefly they love the luxury of Art, and fill their 
 portfolios with water-colours. But their passions even for
 
 172 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Art are apt to be languid, and they mostly desire to continue 
 in the warm air, perfumed like the wind that cometh from 
 the sweet south, which they have created round themselves. 
 The echoes of the outer world fall upon their ears like the 
 breaking of the rough sea upon a shore so far ojff that the wild 
 dragging of the shingle, with its long-drawn cry, sounds like 
 a distant song. These ladies know nothing of the fiercer 
 joys of life, and nothing of its pains. The miseries of the 
 world they understand not, save that they have been made 
 picturesque in novels. They have no ambition, and take no 
 part in any battles. They have not spent their strength in 
 action, and therefore feel no weariness. Society is understood 
 to mean a few dinners, with an occasional visit to the wilder 
 dissipations of town ; and their most loved entertainments 
 are those gatherings known as garden-parties. Duty means 
 following up in a steady but purposeless way some line of study 
 which will never be mastered. Good works mean subscrip- 
 tion to societies. Many a kind lady thinks in her heart of 
 hearts that the annual guinea to a missionary society will be 
 of far more avail to her future welfare than a life of purity 
 and innocence. The Christian vii'tues naturally find their 
 home in such a house. They grow of their own accord, like 
 the daisies, the buttercups, and the field convolvulus : Love, 
 Joy, Peace, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Temper- 
 ance, all the things against which there is no law — which of 
 them is not to be seen abundantly blossoming and luxuriant 
 in the cottages and homes of these English ladies ? 
 
 In this house by the river lived Mrs. L'Estrange. Her name 
 was Agatha, and everybody who knew her called her Agatha 
 L'Estrange. When a woman is always called by her Christian 
 name, it is a sign that she is loved and lovable. If a man, 
 on the other hand, gets to be known, without any reason for 
 the distinction, by his Christian name, it is generally a sure 
 sign that he is sympathetic, but blind to his own interests. 
 She was a widow, and childless. She had been a widow so 
 long, her husband had been so much older than herself, her 
 married life had been so short, and the current of her life so 
 little disturbed by it, that she had almost forgotten that she
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 173 
 
 was once a wife. Slie had an ample income ; she lived in the 
 way that she loved ; she gathered her friends about her ; she 
 sometimes, but at rare intervals, revisited society ; mostly 
 she preferred her quiet life in the country. Girls came from 
 London to stay with her, and wondered how Agatha managed 
 to exist. When the season was over, leaving its regrets and 
 its fatigues, with the usual share of hollowness and Dead-Sea 
 fruit, they came again, and envied her tranquil home. 
 
 She was first cousin to Lawrence Colquhoun, whom she 
 still, from force of habit, regarded as a boy. He was very 
 nearly the same age as herself, and they had been brought 
 up together. There was nothing about his life that she did 
 not know, except one thing — the reason of his abrupt dis- 
 appearance four years before. She was his confidante : as a 
 boy he told her all his dreams of greatness ; as a young man 
 all his dreams of love and pleasure. She knew the soft and 
 generous nature, out of which great men cannot be formed, 
 which was his. She saw the lofty dreams die away ; and she 
 hoped for him that he would keep something of the young ideal. 
 He did. Lawrence Colquhoun was a man about town; but 
 he retained his good-nature. It is not usual among the young 
 gentlemen who pursue pleasure as a profession ; it is not ex- 
 pected of them, after a few years of idleness, gambling, and the 
 rest, to have any good-nature surviving, or any thought left 
 at all, except for themselves ; therefore Lawrence Colquhoun's 
 case was unusual, and his popularity proportional. He tired of 
 garrison life ; he sold out ; he remained about town ; the years 
 ran on, and he neither married nor talked of marrying. But 
 he used to go down to his cousin once a week, and talk to her 
 about his idle life. There came a day when he left ofi" coming, 
 or if he came at all, his manner to his cousin was altered. He 
 became gloomy ; and one day she heard, in a brief and unsatis- 
 factory letter, that he was going to travel for a lengthened 
 period. The letter came from Scotland, and was as brief as 
 a dinner invitation. 
 
 He went ; he was away for four years ; during that time he 
 never once wrote to her ; she heard nothing of him or from 
 him.
 
 174 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 One day, without any notice, he appeared again. 
 
 He was very much the same as when he left England — men 
 alter little between thirty and fifty — only a little graver ; his 
 beard a little touched with the grey hairs which belong to the 
 eighth lustrum ; his eyes a little crowsfooted ; his form a little 
 filled out. The gloom was gone, however ; he was again the 
 kindly Lawrence, the genial Lawrence, Lawrence the sympa- 
 thetic, Lawrence the lazy. 
 
 He walked in as if he had been away a week. Agatha heard 
 a step upon the gravel-walk, and knew it. Her heart beat a 
 little — although a woman may be past forty she may have a 
 heart still — and her eyes sparkled. She was sitting at work — 
 some little useless prettiness. On the work-table lay a novel, 
 which she read in the intervals of stitching ; the morning was 
 bright and sunny, with only a suspicion of east wind, and her 
 windows were open ; flowers stood upon her table ; flowers in 
 pots and vases stood in her windows ; such flowers as bloom 
 in May were bright in her garden, and the glass doors of her 
 conservatory showed a wealth of flowers within. A house full 
 of flowers, and herself a flower too — call her a rose fully blown, 
 or call her a glory of early autumn — a handsome woman still, 
 sweet and to be loved, with the softness of her tranquil life in 
 every line of her face, and her warmth of heart in every pass- 
 ing expression. 
 
 She started when she heard his step, because she recognised 
 it. Then she sat up and smiled to herself. She knew how 
 her cousin would come back. 
 
 In fact he walked in at her open window, and held out his 
 hand without saying a word. Then he sat down, and took a 
 single glance at his cousin first and the room afterwards. 
 
 " I have not seen you lately, Lawrence," said Agatha, as if 
 he had been away for a month or so. 
 
 " No ; I have been in America." 
 
 "Eeally! You like America?" She waited for him to 
 tell her what he would. 
 
 "Yes. I came back yesterday. You are looking well, 
 Agatha." 
 
 " I am very well."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 175 
 
 " And you have got a new picture on the wall. Where did 
 you buy this ? " 
 
 "At Agnew's, three years ago. It was in the Exhibi- 
 tion. Now I think of it, you have been away for four years, 
 Lawrence." 
 
 " I like it. Have you anything to tell me, Agatha ? " 
 
 " Nothing that will interest you. The house is the same. 
 We have had several dreadful winters, and I have been in 
 constant fear that my shrubs would be killed. Some of them 
 were. My dog Pheenie is dead, and I never intend to have 
 another. The cat that you used to tease is well. My aviary 
 has increased ; my horses are the same you knew four years 
 ago ; my servants are the same ; and my habits, I am thank- 
 ful to say, have not deteriorated to my knowledge, although 
 I am four years older." 
 
 " And your young ladies — the traps you used to set for me 
 when I was four years younger, Agatha — where are they ? " 
 
 "Married, Lawrence, all of them. What a pity that 
 you could not fix yourself! But it is never too late to mend. 
 At one time I feared you would be attracted by Victoria 
 Pengelley." 
 
 Lawrence Colquhoun visibly changed colour, but Agatha 
 was not looking at him. 
 
 " That would have been a mistake. I thought so then, and 
 I know it now. She is a cold and bloodless woman, Lawrence. 
 Besides, she is married, thank goodness. We must find you 
 some one else." 
 
 " My love-days are over," he said, with a harsh and grating 
 voice. " I buried them before I went abroad." 
 
 " You will tell me all about that some day, when you feel 
 communicative. Meantime, stay to dinner, and enliven me 
 with all your adventures. You may have some tea if you like, 
 but I do not invite you, because you will want to go away again 
 directly afterwards. Lawrence, what do you intend to do, now 
 you are home again ? Are you going to take up the old aim- 
 less life, or shall you be serious ? " 
 
 " I think the aimless life suits me best. And it certainly is 
 the slowest. Don't you think, Agatha, that as we have got to
 
 176 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 get old and presently to die, we may as well go in for making 
 the time go slow ? That is the reason why I have never done 
 anything." 
 
 " I never do anything myself, except listen to what other 
 people tell me. But I find the days slip away all too 
 quickly." 
 
 " Agatha, I am in a difficulty. That is one of the reasons 
 why I have come to see you to-day." 
 
 " Poor Lawrence ! You always are in a difficulty." 
 
 " This time it is not my fault ; but it is serious. Agatha, 
 I have got — a " 
 
 I do not know why he hesitated, but his cousin caught him 
 up With, a little cry. 
 
 " Not a wife, Lawrence ; not a wife without telling me ! " 
 
 "No, Agatha," he flushed crimson, "not a wife. That 
 would have been a great deal worse. What I have got is a 
 ward." 
 
 " A ward ? " 
 
 " Do you remember Dick Fleming, who was killed in the 
 hunting-field about fifteen years ago?" 
 
 " Yes, perfectly. He was one of my swains ever so long 
 ago, before I married my poor dear husband." 
 
 Agatha had used the formula of her " poor dear husband " 
 for more than twenty years; so long, in fact, that it was 
 become a mere collocation of words, and had no longer any 
 meaning, certainly no sadness. 
 
 " He left a daughter, then a child of four or five. And he 
 made me one of that child's guardians. The other was a Mr. 
 Dyson, who took her and brought her up. He is dead, and 
 the young lady, now nineteen years of age, comes to me." 
 
 " But, Lawrence, what on earth are you going to do with 
 a girl of nineteen ? " 
 
 " I don't know, Agatha. I cannot have her with me in 
 the Albany, can I ? " 
 
 " Not very well, I think." 
 
 " I cannot take a small house in Chester Square, and give 
 evening-parties for my ward and myself, can I ? " 
 
 " Not very well, Lawrence."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 177 
 
 " She is staying with my lawyer, Jagenal ; a capital fellow, 
 but his house is hardly the right place for a young lady." 
 
 " Lawrence, what will you do ? This is a very serious re- 
 sponsibility." 
 
 " Very." 
 
 " What sort of a girl is she ? " 
 
 " Phillis Fleming is what you would call, I think, a beauti- 
 ful girl. She is tall, and has a good figure — a delicious 
 figure. Her eyes are brown, and her hair is brown, with lots 
 of it. Her features are small, and not too regular. She has 
 got a very sweet smile, and I should say a good temper, so 
 long as she has her own way." 
 
 " No doubt," said Agatha. " Pray go on ; you seem to have 
 studied her appearance with a really fatherly care." 
 
 " She has a very agreeable voice ; a naivet6 in manner that 
 you would like ; she is clever and well informed." 
 
 " Is she strong-minded, Lawrence ? " 
 
 " NO," said Lawrence, with emphasis, " she is not. She 
 has excellent ideas on the subject of her sex." 
 
 "Always in extremes, of course," said Agatha, meaning 
 something, I suppose, though I am not certain what. 
 
 " She wants, so far as I can see, nothing but the society of 
 some amiable accomplished gentlewoman " 
 
 " Lawrence, you are exactly the same as you always were. 
 You begin by flattery. Now I know what you came here 
 for." 
 
 " An amiable accomplished gentlewoman, who would exer- 
 cise a gradual and steady influence upon her." 
 
 " You want her to stay with me, Lawrence. And you are 
 keeping something back. Tell me instantly. You say she 
 is beautiful. It must be something else. Are her manners 
 in any way unusual ? Does she drop A's, and eat with her 
 knife?" 
 
 " No ; her manners are, I should say, perfect." 
 
 " Temper good, you say ; manner perfect ; appearance 
 graceful. What can be the reserved objection ? My dear 
 cousin, you pique my curiosity. She is sometimes, probably, 
 insane ? " 
 
 M
 
 178 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 "No, Agatlia, not that I know of. It is only tLat Iier 
 guardian brought her up in entire seclusion from the world, 
 and would not have her taught to read and write." 
 
 " How very remarkable ! " 
 
 "On the other hand, she can draw. She draws every- 
 thing and everybody. She has got a book full of drawings 
 which she calls her diary. They are the record of her life. 
 She will show them to you, and tell you all her story. You 
 will take her for a little while, Agatha, will you ? " 
 
 Of course she said "Yes." She had never refused Lawrence 
 Colquhoun anything in her life. Had he been a needy man 
 he would have been dangerous. But Lawrence Colquhoun 
 wanted nothing for himself. 
 
 " My dear Agatha, it is very good of you. You will find 
 the most splendid material to work upon, better than you 
 ever had. The girl is different from any other girl you have 
 ever known. She talks and thinks like a boy. She is as 
 strong and active as a young athlete. I believe she would 
 outrun Atalanta ; and yet I think she is a thorough woman 
 at heart." 
 
 " I should not at all wonder at her being a thorough woman 
 at heart. Most of us are. But, Lawrence, you must not fall 
 in love with your own ward." 
 
 He laughed a little uneasily. 
 
 " I am too old for a girl of nineteen," he replied. 
 
 " At any rate, you have excited my curiosity. Let her 
 come, Lawrence, as soon as you please. I want to see this 
 paragon of girls, who is more ignorant than a charity-school 
 girl." 
 
 " On the contrary, Agatha, she is better informed than 
 most girls of her age. If she is not well read she is well 
 told." 
 
 " But really, Lawrence, think. She cannot read, even." 
 
 " Not if you gave her a basketful of tracts. But that is 
 rather a distinction now. At least, she will never want to 
 go in for what they call the Higher Education, will she ? " 
 
 " She must learn to read j but will she ever master 
 Spelling?"
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 179 
 
 " Very few people do ; they only pretend, I am weak 
 myself in spelling. Phillis does not want to be a certificated 
 Mistress, Agatha." 
 
 " And Arithmetic too." 
 
 " Well, my cousin, of course the Rule of Three is as neces- 
 sary to life as the Use of the Globes, over which the school- 
 mistresses used to keep such a coil. And it has been about as 
 accessible to poor Phillis as an easy seat to a tombstone cherub. 
 But she can count and multiply and add, and tell you how 
 much things ought to come to ; and really when you think of 
 it, a woman does not want much more, does she ? " 
 
 " It is the mental training, Lawrence. Think of the loss 
 of mental training." 
 
 "I feel that too," he said, with a smile of sympathy. 
 " Think of growing up without the discipline of Vulgar Frac- 
 tions or Genteel Decimals. One is appalled at imagining 
 what our young ladies would be without it. But you shall 
 teach her what you like, Agatha." 
 
 " I am half afraid of her, Lawrence." 
 
 " Nonsense, my cousin ; she is sweetness itself. Let me 
 bring her to-morrow ? " 
 
 "Yes ; she can have the room next to mine." Agatha 
 sighed a little. " Suppose we don't get on together after 
 all. It would be such a disappointment, and such a pain to 
 part." 
 
 " Get on, Agatha ? — and with you ? Why, all the world 
 gets on with you. Was there ever a girl in the world that 
 you did not get on with ? " 
 
 " Yes, there was. I never got on with Victoria Pengelley 
 — Mrs. Cassilis. Shall you call upon her, Lawrence ? " 
 
 " No — yes — I don't know, Agatha," he replied hurriedly ; 
 and went away with scant leave-taking. He neither took any 
 tea nor stayed to dinner. 
 
 Then Agatha remembered. 
 
 " Of course," she said. " How stupid of me ! They used to 
 talk about Lawrence and Victoria. Can he think of her still ? 
 Why, the woman is as cold as ice and as hard as steel, besides 
 being married. A man who would fall in love with Victoria
 
 i8o THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Pengelley would be capable of falling in love with a marble 
 statue." 
 
 " My cousin, Lawrence Colquhoun," she told her friends in 
 her letters — Agatha spent as much time letter-writing as 
 Madame du Deffand — "has come back from his travels. He is 
 not at all changed, except that he has a few grey hairs in his 
 beard. He laughs in the same pleasant way ; has the same soft 
 voice ; thinks as little seriously about life ; and is as perfectly 
 charming as he has always been. He has a ward, a young lady, 
 daughter of an old friend of mine. She is named Phillis 
 Fleming. I am going to have her with me for a while, and 
 I hope you will come and make her acquaintance, but not just 
 yet, not until we are used to each other. I hear nothing but 
 good of her." 
 
 Thus did this artful woman gloss over the drawbacks of 
 poor Phillis's education. Her friends were to keep away till 
 such time as Phillis had been drilled, inspected, reviewed, 
 manoeuvred, and taught the social tone. No word, you see, 
 of the little deficiencies which time alone could be expected 
 to fill up. Agatha L'Estrange, in her way, was a woman of the 
 world. She expected, in spite of her cousin's favourable 
 report, to find an awkward, rather pretty, wholly unpresent- 
 able hoyden. And she half repented that she had so easily 
 acceded to Lawrence Colquhoun's request. 
 
 It was nearly six next day when Phillis arrived. Her 
 guardian drove her out in a dog-cart, her maid following behind 
 with the luggage. This mode of conveyance, being rapid, open, 
 and especially adapted for purposes of observation, pleased 
 Phillis mightily ; she even preferred it to a hansom cab. She 
 said little on the road, being too busy in the contemplation of 
 men and manners. Also she was as yet hardly at home with 
 her new guardian. He was pleasant ; he was thoughtful of 
 her ; but she had not yet found out how to talk with him. 
 Now, with Jack Dunquerque — and then she began to think 
 how Jack would look driving a dog-cart, and how she should 
 look beside him. 
 
 Lawrence Colquhoun looked at his charge with eyes
 
 THE GOLDEN" BUTTERFLY. i8l 
 
 of admiration. Many a prettier girl, he tlionglit, might 
 be seen in a London ballroom or in the Park, but not one 
 brighter or fresher. Where did it come from, this piquante 
 way? 
 
 Phillis asked no more questions about Mrs. L'Estrange. 
 Having once made up her mind that she should rebel and 
 return to Mr. Jagenal in case she did not approve of Mr. 
 Colquhoun's cousin, she rested tranquil. To be sure, she was 
 perfectly prepared to like her, being still in the stage of 
 credulous curiosity in which every fresh acquaintance seemed 
 to possess all possible virtues. Up to the present she had 
 made one exception ; I am sorry to say it was that of the only 
 woman she knew — Mrs. Cassilis. Phillis could not help feel- 
 ing as if life with Mrs. Cassilis would after a time become 
 tedious. Rather, she thought, life with the Twins. 
 
 They arrived at the house by the river. Agatha was in 
 the garden. She looked at her visitor with a little curiosity, 
 and welcomed her with both hands and a kiss. Mrs. Cassilis 
 did not kiss Phillis. In fact, nobody ever had kissed her at 
 all since the day when she entered Abraham Dyson's house. 
 Jack, she remembered, had proposed to commence their friend- 
 ship with an imitation of the early Christians, but the proposal, 
 somehow, came to nothing. So when Agatha drew her gently 
 towards herself and kissed her softly on the forehead, poor 
 Phillis changed colour and was confused. Agatha thought 
 it was shyness, but Phillis was never shy. 
 
 " You are in good time, Lawrence. We shall have time 
 for talk before dinner. You may lie about in the garden, 
 if you please, till we come to look for you. Come, my dear, 
 and I will show you your room." 
 
 At Highgate Phillis's room was furnished with a massive 
 four post bedstead and adorned with dusky hangings. Soli- 
 dity, comfort, and that touch of gloom which our grandfathers 
 always lent to their bedrooms, marked the Highgate apart- 
 ment. At Carnarvon Square she had the " spare room," 
 and it was furnished in much the same manner, only that it 
 was larger, and the curtains were of lighter colour. 
 
 She saw now a small room, still with the afternoon sun
 
 1 82 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 
 
 upon it, with a little iron bedstead in green and gold, and 
 white curtains. There was a sofa, an easy-chair, a table at 
 one of the windows, and one in the centre of the room ; there 
 were bookshelves ; and there were pictures. 
 
 Phillis turned her bright face with a grateful cry of 
 surprise. 
 
 " Oh, what a beautiful room ! " 
 
 " I am glad you like it, my dear. I hope you will be 
 comfortable in it." 
 
 Phillis began to look at the pictures on the wall. 
 
 She was critical about pictures, and these did not seem 
 very good. 
 
 " Do you like the pictures ? " 
 
 " This one is out of drawing," she said, standing before a 
 water-colour. " I like this better," moving on to the next ; 
 " but the painting is not clear." 
 
 Agatha remembered what she had paid for these pictures, 
 and hoped the fair critic was wrong. But she was not ; she 
 was right. 
 
 And then, in her journey round the room, Phillis came 
 to the open window, and cried aloud with surprise and 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Mrs. L'Estrange ! is it — is it " she asked, in an 
 
 awestruck voice, turning grave eyes upon her hostess, as if 
 imploring that no mistake should be made on a matter of 
 such importance. " Is it — really — the Thames ? " 
 
 " Why, my dear, of course it is." 
 
 " I have never seen a river. I have so longed to see a 
 river, and especially the Thames. Do you know — 
 
 " ' Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song ' ? 
 And again — Oh, there are swans ! 
 
 " ' With that I saw two swans of goodly hue 
 Come softly swimming down along the lee ; 
 Two fairer birds I never yet did see.' " 
 
 " I am glad you read poetry, my dear." 
 
 " But I do not. I cannot read ; I only remember. Mrs.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 183 
 
 L' Estrange, can we get close to it, quite close to the water? 
 I want to see it flowing." 
 
 Tliey went back into the garden, where Lawrence was 
 lying in the shade, doing nothing. Phillis looked not at 
 the flowers or the spring blossoms; she hurried Agatha 
 across the lawn, and stood at the edge, gazing at the 
 water. 
 
 " I should like," she murmured presently, after a silence — 
 " I should like to be in a boat and drift slowly down between 
 the banks, seeing everything as we passed, until we came to 
 the place where all the ships come up. Jack said he would 
 take me to see the great ships sailing home laden with their 
 precious things. Perhaps he will. But, Mrs. L'Estrange, 
 how sweet it is ! There is the reflection of the tree ; see 
 how the swans sail up and down ; there are the water-lilies ; 
 and look, there are the light and shade chasing each other 
 up the river before the wind." 
 
 Agatha let her stay a little longer, and then led her away 
 to show her the flowers and hothouses. Phillis knew all 
 about these and discoursed learnedly. But her thoughts 
 were with the river. 
 
 Lawrence went away soon after dinner. It was a full 
 moon, and the night was warm. Agatha and Phillis went 
 into the garden again when Lawrence left them. It was 
 still and silent, and as they stood upon the walk, the girl 
 heard the low murmurous wash of the current singing an 
 invitation among the grasses and reeds of the bank. 
 
 " Let us go and look at the river again," she said. 
 
 If it was beautiful in the day, with the evening sun upon 
 it, it was ten times as beautiful by night, when the shadows 
 made great blacknesses, and the bright moon silvered all the 
 outlines and threw a long way of light upon the rippling 
 water. 
 
 Presently they came in and went to bed. 
 
 Agatha, half an hour later, heard Phillis's window open. 
 The girl was looking at the river again in the moonlight. 
 She saw the water glimmer in the moonlight ; she heard the 
 whisper of the waves. Her thoughts — they were the long
 
 1 84 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 thoughts of a child — went np the stream, and wondered 
 through what meadows and by what hills the stream had 
 flowed ; then she followed the current down, and had to 
 picture it among the ships before it was lost in the mighty- 
 ocean. 
 
 As she looked there passed a boat full of people. They 
 were probably rough and common people, but among them 
 was a woman, and she was singing, Phillis wondered who 
 they were. The woman had a sweet voice. As they rowed 
 by the house one of the men lit a lantern, and the light fell 
 upon their faces, making them clear and distinct for a 
 moment, and then was reflected in the black water below. 
 Two of them were rowing, and the boat sped swiftly on its 
 way down the stream. Phillis longed to be with them on 
 the river. 
 
 When they were gone there was silence for a space, and 
 then the night became suddenly musical. 
 
 " Jug, jug, jug ! " It was the nightingale ; but Phillis's 
 brain was excited, and to her it was a song with words. 
 " Come, come, come ! " sang the bird. " Stay with us here 
 and rest — and rest. This is better than the town. Here 
 are sweetness and peace ; this is the home of love and gentle- 
 ness; here you shall find the Coping-stone." 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " But if ye s.aw that which no eyes can see, 
 The inward beauty of her lively spright 
 Garnish'd with heavenly gifts of high degree, 
 
 Much more, then, would you wonder at the sight." 
 
 " T LIKE her, my dear Lawrence," Agatha wrote, a fortnight 
 i- after Phillis's arrival. "I like her not only a great 
 deal better than I expected, but more than any girl I have 
 ever learned to know. She is innocent, bat then innocence 
 is very easily lost ; she is fresh, but freshness is very often 
 a kind of electro-plating, which rubs off and shows the base 
 metal beneath. Still Phillis's nature is pure gold ; of that
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 185 
 
 I am quite certain ; and with sincere people one always feels 
 at ease. 
 
 " We were a little awkward at first, thongli perliaps the 
 awkwardness was chiefly mine, because I hardly knew what 
 to talk about. It seemed as if, between myself and a girl 
 who cannot read or write, there must be such a great gulf 
 that there would be nothing in common. How conceited 
 we are over our education ! Lawrence, she is quite the best- 
 informed girl that I know ; she has a perfectly wonderful 
 memory ; repeats pages of verse which her guardian taught 
 her by reading it to her ; talks French very well, because 
 she has always had a French maid ; plays and sings by ear ; 
 and draws like a Royal Academician. The curious thing, 
 however, is the effect which her knowledge has had upon her 
 mind. She knows what she has been told, and nothing more. 
 Consequently her mind is all light and shade, like a moon- 
 light landscape. She wants atmosphere ; there is no haze 
 about her. I did not at all understand, until I knew Phillis, 
 what a very important part haze plays in our everyday life. 
 I thought we were all governed by clear and definite views 
 of duty, religion, and politics. My poor Lawrence, we are 
 all in a fog. It is only Phillis who lives in the cloudless 
 realms of pure conviction. In politics she is a Tory, with 
 distinct ideas on the necessity of hanging all Radicals. As 
 
 for her religion But that does not concern you, my 
 
 cousin. No doubt you are yourself so hopelessly astray with 
 all the cross-lights of modern scepticism, that the simple 
 creed of an illiterate girl would only make your perplexity 
 worse. Or, perhaps, like most of your class, you never think 
 about religion at all, in which case you would not be in- 
 terested in Phillis's doctrines. 
 
 " I took her to church on Sunday. Before the service I 
 read her the hymns which we were to sing, and after she 
 had criticised the words in a manner peculiarly her own, I 
 read them again, and she knew those hymns. I also told 
 her to do exactly as I did in the matter of uprising and 
 downsitting. 
 
 " One or two things I forgot, and in other one or two she
 
 i86 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 made little mistakes. It is usual, Lawrence, as you may- 
 remember, for worsliippers to pray in silence before sitting 
 down. Phillis was looking about the ckurcli, and therefore 
 did not notice my performance of this duty. Also I had 
 forgotten to tell her that loud speech is forbidden by custom 
 within the walls of a church. Therefore it came upon me 
 with a shock when Phillis, after looking round in her quick 
 eager way, turned to me and said quite aloud, ' This is a 
 curious place ! Some of it is pretty, but some is hideous.' 
 
 " It was very true, because the church has half-a-dozen 
 styles, but the speech caused a little consternation in the 
 place. I think the beadle would have turned us out had he 
 recovered his presence of mind in time. This he did not, 
 fortunately, and the service began. 
 
 " No one could have behaved better during the prayers 
 than Phillis. She knelt, listening to every word. I could 
 have wished that her intensity of attitude had not betrayed 
 a perfect absence of familiarity with church customs. During 
 the psalms she began by listening with a little pleasure in 
 her face. Then she looked a little bored ; and presently she 
 whispered to me, ' Dear Agatha, I really must go out if this 
 tune is not changed.' Fortunately the psalms were not long. 
 
 " She liked the hymns, and made no remark upon them, 
 except that one of the choir-boys was singing false, and that 
 she should like to take him out of the choir herself there and 
 then. It was quite true, and I really feared that her sense 
 of duty might actually impel her to take the child by the 
 ear a:id lead him solemnly out of church. 
 
 " During the sermon, I regret to say that she burst out 
 laughing. You know Phillis's laugh — a pretty rippling 
 laugh, without any malice in it. Oh, how rare a sweet laugh 
 is ! The curate, who was in the pulpit — a very nice young 
 man, and a gentleman, but not, I must own, intellectual ; 
 and I hear he was plucked repeatedly for his degree — 
 stopped, puzzled and indignant, and then went on with his 
 discourse. I looked, I suppose, so horrified that Phillis saw 
 she had done wrong, and blushed. There were no more 
 contrdcm2')S in the church.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 187 
 
 " ' My dear Agatha/ she explained, when we came out, 
 ' I suppose I ought not to have laughed. But I really could 
 not help it. Did you notice the young gentleman in the 
 box ? He was trying to act, but he spoke the words so badly, 
 just as if he did not understand them. And I laughed with- 
 out thinking. I am afraid it was very rude of me.' 
 
 " I tried to explain things to her, but it is diflScult, because 
 sometimes you do not quite know her point of view. 
 
 " Next day the curate called. To my vexation Phillis 
 apologised. Without any blushes she went straight to the 
 point. 
 
 " ' Forgive me,' she said. ' I laughed at you yesterday in 
 church ; I am very sorry for it.' 
 
 "He was covered with confusion, and stammered something 
 about the sacred building. 
 
 " ' But I never was in a church before,' she went on. 
 
 " ' That is very dreadful ! ' he replied. ' Mrs. L'Estrange, 
 do you not think it is a very dreadful state for a young 
 lady?' 
 
 " Then she laughed again, but without apologising. 
 
 " ' Mr. Dyson used to say,' she explained to me, ' that 
 everybody's church is his own heart. He never went to 
 church, and he did not consider himself in a dreadful state 
 at all, poor dear old man ! ' 
 
 " If she can fall back on an axiom of Mr. Abraham Dyson's, 
 there is no further argument possible. 
 
 " The curate went away. He has been here several times 
 since, and I am sure that I am not the attraction. We have 
 had one or two little afternoons on the lawn, and it is pretty 
 to see Phillis trying to take an interest in this young man 
 She listens to his remarks, but they fail to strike her ; she 
 answers his questions, but they seem to bore her. In fact, 
 he is much too feeble for her ; she has no respect for the cloth 
 at all ; and I very much fear that what is sport to her is going 
 to be death to him. Of course, Lawrence, you may be quite 
 sure that I shall not allow Phillis to be compromised by the 
 attentions of any young man — yet. Later on we shall ask 
 your views.
 
 1 88 THE GOLDEN" BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Her guardian must have been a man of great culture. 
 He has taught her very well, and everything. She astonished 
 the curate yesterday by giving him a little historical essay on 
 his favourite Laud. He understood very little of it, but he 
 went away sorrowful. I could read in his face a determination 
 to get up the whole subject, come back, and have it out with 
 Phillis. But she shall not be dragged into an argument, if I 
 can prevent it, with any young man. Nothing more easily 
 leads to entanglements, and we must be ambitious for our 
 Phillis. 
 
 " ' It is a beautiful thing ! ' she said the other day, after 
 I had been talking about the theory of public worship — ' a 
 beautiful thing for the people to come together every week 
 and pray. And the hymns are sweet, though I cannot under- 
 stand why they keep on singing the same tune, and that such 
 a simple thing of a few notes.' 
 
 " The next Sunday I had a headache, and Phillis refused 
 to go to church without me. She spent the day drawing on 
 the bank of the river. 
 
 "Mrs. Cassilis has been to call upon us. Victoria was never 
 a great friend of mine when she was young, and I really like 
 her less now. She was kind to Phillis, and proposed all sorts 
 of hospitalities, which we escaped for the present. I quite 
 think that Phillis should be kept out of the social whirl for 
 a few months longer. 
 
 " Victoria looked pale and anxious. She asked after you 
 in her iciest manner ; wished to know where you were ; said 
 that you were once one of her friends ; and hoped to see you 
 before long. She is cold by nature, but her coldness was 
 assumed here, because she suddenly lost it. I am quite sure, 
 Lawrence, that Victoria Pengelley was once touched, and by 
 you. There must have been something in the rumours about 
 you two four years ago. Lazy Lawrence ! It is a good thing 
 for you that there was nothing more than rumour. 
 
 " We were talking of other things — important things, such 
 as PhilHs's wardrobe, which wants a great many additions — 
 when Victoria, cl propos of nothing, asked me if you were 
 changed at all. I said no, except that you were more con-
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 189 
 
 firmed in laziness. Then Pliillis opened her portfolio, where 
 she keeps her diary after her own fashion, and showed the 
 l^encil sketch she has made of your countenance. It is a good 
 deal better than any photograph, because it has caught your 
 disgraceful indolence, and you stand confessed for what you 
 are. How the girl contrives to put the real person into her 
 portraits, I cannot tell. Victoria took it, and her face suddenly 
 softened. I have seen the look on many a woman's face. I 
 look for it when I suspect that one of my young friends has 
 dropped head over ears in love ; it comes into her eyes when 
 young Orlando enters the room, and then I know and act 
 accordingly. Poor Victoria ! I ought not to have told you, 
 Lawrence, but you will forget what I said. She glanced at 
 the portrait and changed colour. Then she asked Phillis to 
 give it to her. ' You can easily make another,' she said, ' and 
 I will keep this, as a specimen of your skill and a likeness of 
 an old friend.' 
 
 " She kept it, and carried it away with her. 
 
 " I have heard all about the Coping-stone. What a curious 
 story it is ! Phillis talks quite gravely of the irreparable 
 injury to the science of Female Education involved in the 
 loss of that precious chapter. Mr. Jagenal is of opinion that 
 without it the Will cannot be carried out, in which case Mr. 
 Cassilis will get the money. I sincerely hope he will. I am 
 one of those who dislike, above all things, notoriety for women, 
 and I should not like our Phillis's education and its results 
 made the subject of lawyers' wit and rhetoric in the Court of 
 Chancery. Do you know Mr. Gabriel Cassilis ? He is said 
 to be the cleverest man in London, and has made an immense 
 fortune. I hope Victoria is happy with him. She has a 
 child, but does not talk much about it. 
 
 " I have been trying to teach Phillis to read. It is a slow 
 process, but the poor girl is very patient. How we ever 
 managed to ' worry through,' as the Americans say, with 
 such a troublesome acquirement, I cannot understand. We 
 spend two hours a day over the task, and are still in words 
 of one syllable. Needless to tell you that the lesson-book 
 — ' First Steps in Beading ' — is regarded with the most
 
 190 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 profound contempt, and is already covered with innumerable 
 drawings in pencil. 
 
 " Notes in music are easier. Pliillis can already read a 
 little, but tlie difficulty here is, that if she learns the air from 
 the notes, she knows it once for all, and further reading is 
 superfluous. Now, little girls have as much difficulty in 
 playing notes as in spelling them out, so that they have to 
 be perpetually practising the art of reading. I now under- 
 stand why people who teach are so immeasurably conceited. 
 I am already so proud of my superiority to Phillis in being 
 able to read, that I feel my moral nature deteriorating. At 
 least, I can sympathise with all schoolmasters, from the 
 young man who holds his certificated nose high in the air to 
 Dr. Butler of Harrow, who sews up the pockets of his young 
 gentlemen's trousers. 
 
 " Are you tired of my long letter ? Only a few words more- 
 
 " I have got a music and a singing master for Phillis. They 
 are both delighted with her taste and musical powers. Her 
 voice is very sweet, though not strong. She will never be 
 tempted to rival professional people, and will always be sure 
 to please when she sings. 
 
 " I have also got an artist to give her a few lessons in the 
 management of her colours. He is an elderly artist, with a 
 wife and bairns of his own, not one of the young gentlemen 
 who wear velvet coats and want to smoke all day. 
 
 " You must yourself get a horse for her, and then you can 
 come over and ride with her. At present she is happy in the 
 contemplation of the river, which exercises an extraordinary 
 power over her imagination. She is now, while I write, 
 sitting in the shade, singing to herself in solitude. Beside 
 her is the sketch-book, but she is full of thought and happy 
 to be alone. Lawrence, she is a great responsibility, and it is 
 sad to think that the Lesson she most requires to learn is the 
 Lesson of distrust. She trusts everybody, and when any- 
 thing is done or said which would arouse distrust in our- 
 selves, she only gets puzzled and thinks of her own ignorance, 
 Why cannot we leave her in the Paradise of the Innocent, 
 and never let her learn that every stranger is a possible
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 191 
 
 villain ? Alas, that I must teach her this lesson ; and yet 
 one would not leave her to find it out by painful experience ! 
 My dear Lawrence, I once read that it was the custom in 
 savage times to salute the stranger with clubs and stones, 
 because he was sure to be an enemy. How far have we 
 advanced in all these years ? You sent Phillis to me for 
 teaching, but it is I who learn from her. I am a worldly 
 woman, cousin Lawrence, and my life is full of hollow shams. 
 Sometimes I think that the world would be more tolerable 
 were all the women as illiterate as dear Phillis. 
 
 " Do not come to see her for a few days yet, and you 
 will find her changed in those few .things which wanted 
 change." 
 
 Sitting in solitude ? Gazing on the river ? Singing to 
 herself? Phillis was quite otherwise occupied, and much 
 more pleasantly. 
 
 She had been doing all these things, with much content- 
 ment of soul, while Agatha was writing her letters. She sat 
 under the trees upon the grass, a little straw hat upon her 
 head, letting the beauty of the season fill her soul with happi- 
 ness. The sunlit river rippled at her feet ; on its broad 
 surface the white swans lazily floated ! the soft air of early 
 summer fanned her cheek ; the birds darted across the water 
 as if in an ecstasy of joy at the return of the sun — as a matter 
 of fact they had their mouths wide open and were catching 
 files ; a lark was singing in the sky ; there were a blackbird 
 and a thrush somewhere in the wood across the river ; away 
 up the stream there was a fat old gentleman sitting in a punt ; 
 he held an umbrella over his head because the sun was 
 hot, and he supported a fishing-rod in his other hand. Pre- 
 sently he had a nibble, and in his anxiety he stood up the 
 better to manoeuvre his float ; it was only a nibble, and he 
 sat down again. Unfortunately he miscalculated the position 
 of the chair, and sat upon space, so that he fell backwards all 
 along the punt. Phillis heard the bump against the bottom 
 of the boat, and saw a pair of fat little legs sticking up in the 
 most comical manner ; she laughed, and resolved upon draw-
 
 192 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 ing the fat old gentleman's accident as soon as she could 
 find time. 
 
 The afternoon was very still ; the blackbird carolled in the 
 trees, and the " wise thrush " repeated his cheerful philosophy ; 
 the river ran with soft whispers along the bank ; and Phillis 
 began to look before her with eyes that saw not, and from 
 eyelids that, in a little, would close in sleep. 
 
 Then something else happened. 
 
 A boat came slowly up the river, close to her own bank. 
 She saw the bows first, naturally ; and then she saw the back 
 of the man in it. Then the boat revealed itself in full, and 
 Phillis saw that the crew consisted of Jack Dunquerque. Her 
 heart gave a great leap, and she started from the Sleepy 
 Hollow of her thoughts into life. 
 
 Jack Dunquerque was not an ideal oar, such as one dreams 
 of and reads about. He did not " grasp his sculls with the 
 precision of a machine, and row with a grand long sweep 
 which made the boat spring under his arms like a thing of 
 life " — I quote from an author whose name I have forgotten. 
 Quite the contrary ; Jack was rather unskilful than other- 
 wise; the ship in which he was embarked was not one of 
 those crank craft consisting of half a cedar lath with cross- 
 bars of iron ; it was a boat without outriggers, and he had 
 hired it at Richmond. He was not so straight in the back as 
 an Oxford stroke ; and he bucketed about a good deal, but 
 he got along. 
 
 Just as he was nearing Phillis he fell into difficulties, in 
 consequence of one oar catching tight in the weeds. The 
 effect of this was, as may be imagined, to bring her bows on 
 straight into the bank. In fact, Jack ran the ship ashore, 
 and sat with the bows high on the grass just a few inches off 
 Phillis's feet. Then he drew himself upright, tried to dis- 
 entangle the oar, and began to think what he should do 
 next. 
 
 " I wish I hadn't come," he said aloud. 
 
 Phillis laughed silently. 
 
 Then she noticed the painter in the bows, though she did 
 not know it by that name. Painters in London boats are
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 193 
 
 sometimes longish ropes, for convenience of mooring, Pliillis 
 noiselessly lifted the cord and tied it fast round the trunk of 
 a small elder-tree beside her. Then she sat down again and 
 waited. This was much better fun than watching an elderly 
 gentleman tumbling backwards in a punt. 
 
 Jack, having extricated the scull and rested a little, looked 
 at his palms, which were blistering under the rough exercise 
 of rowing, and muttered something inaudible. Then he 
 seized the oars again and began to back out vigorously. 
 
 The boat's bows descended a few inches, and then, the 
 painter being taut, moved no more. 
 
 Phillis leaned forward, watching Jack with a look of 
 rapturous delight. 
 
 " Damn the ship ! " said Jack softly, after three or four 
 minutes' strenuous backing. 
 
 " Don't swear at the boat, Jack," Phillis broke in, with 
 her low laugh and musical voice. 
 
 Jack looked round. There was his goddess standing on the 
 bank, clapping her hands with delight. He gave a vigorous 
 pull, which drove the boat half-way up to shore and sprang 
 out. 
 
 " Jack, you must not use words that sound bad. Oh, how 
 glad I am to see you ! I think you look best in flannels, 
 Jack." 
 
 " You here, Phil ? I thought it was a mile higher up." 
 
 " Did you know where I was gone to ? " 
 
 " Yes, I found out. I asked Colquhoun, and he told me. 
 But he did not offer to introduce me to Mrs. L'Estrange ; and 
 so I thought I would — I thought that perhaps if I rowed up 
 the river, you know, I might perhaps see you." 
 
 " Jack," she replied, touched by this act of friendship, 
 " did you really row up in the hope of seeing me ? I am so 
 glad. Will you come in and be introduced to Agatha — that 
 is, Mrs. L'Estrange? I have not yet told her about you, 
 because we had so many things to say," 
 
 " Let us sit down and talk a little first. Phil, you look 
 even better than when you were at Carnarvon Square. Tell 
 me what you are doing." 
 
 N
 
 194 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 
 
 " I am learning to read for one thing ; and, Jack, a much 
 more important thing, I am taking lessons in water-colour 
 drawing. I have learned a great deal already, quite enough 
 to show me how ignorant I have been. But, Jack, Mr. 
 Stencil cannot draw so well as I can, and I am glad to 
 think so." 
 
 " When shall we be able to go out again for another visit 
 somewhere, Phil ? " 
 
 " Ah, I do not know. We shall stay here all the summer, 
 I am sure ; and Agatha talks of going to the seaside in the 
 autumn. I do not think I shall like the sea so much as I 
 like the river, but I want to see it. Jack, how is ]\Ir. Gilead 
 Beck ? have you seen him lately ? " 
 
 " Yes, I very often see him. We are great friends. But 
 never mind him, Phil ; go on telling me about yourself. It 
 is a whole fortnight since I saw you." 
 
 " Is it really ? Jack ! and we two promised to be 
 friends. There is pretty friendship for you ! I am very 
 happy. Jack. Agatha L'Estrange is so kind that I cannot 
 tell you how I love her. Lawrence Colquhoun is her first 
 cousin. I like my guardian, too, very much ; but I have 
 not yet found out how to talk to him. I am to have a horse 
 as soon as he can find me one ; and then we shall be able 
 to ride together, Jack, if it is not too far for you to come 
 out here." 
 
 " Too far, Phil ? " 
 
 " Agatha is writing letters. Certainly it must be pleasant 
 to talk to your friends when they are away from you. I 
 shall learn to write as fast as I can, and then we will send 
 letters to each other. I wonder if she would mind being 
 disturbed. Perhaps I had better not take you in just 
 yet." 
 
 " Will you come for a row with me, Phil ? " 
 
 ■' In the boat, Jack? on the river? Oh, if you will only 
 take me ! " 
 
 Jack untied the painter, pulled the ship's head round, and 
 laid her alongside the bank. 
 
 " You will promise to sit perfectly still, and not move ? "
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 195 
 
 " Yes, I will not move. Are you afraid for me. Jack ? " 
 
 " A little, Phil. You see, if we were to upset, perhaps you 
 would not trust yourself entirely to me." 
 
 " Yes, I would. Jack. I am sure you would bring me safe 
 to the bank." 
 
 " But we must not upset. Now, Phil." 
 
 He rowed her upstream. She sat in the stern, and enjoyed 
 the situation. As in every fresh experience, she was silent, 
 drinking in the details. She watched the transparent water 
 beneath her, and saw the yellow- green weeds sloping gently 
 downwards with the current ; she noticed the swans, which 
 looked so tranquil from the bank, and which now followed 
 the boat, gobbling angrily. They passed the old gentleman 
 in the punt. He had recovered his chair by this time, and 
 was sitting in it, still fishing. But Phillis could not see 
 that he had caught many fish. He looked from under 
 his umbrella and saw them. " Youth and Beauty ! " he 
 sighed. 
 
 " I like to fed the river," said Phillis softly. " It is 
 pleasant on the bank, but it is so much sweeter here. Can 
 there be anything in the world," she murmured half to her- 
 self, " more pleasant than to be rowed along the river on 
 such a day as this ? " 
 
 There was no one on the river except themselves and the 
 old angler. Jack rowed up stream for half a mile or so, and 
 then turned her head and let her drift gently down with the 
 current, occasionally dipping the oars to keep way on. But 
 he left the girl to her own thoughts. 
 
 " It is all like a dream to me, this river," said Phillis in a 
 low voice. " It comes from some unknown place, and goes 
 to some unknown place." 
 
 " It is like life, Phil." 
 
 " Yes ; we come like the river, trailing long glories 
 behind us — you know what Wordsworth says — but we do 
 not go to be swallowed up in the ocean, and we are not 
 alone. We have those that love us to be with us, and 
 prevent us from getting sad with thought. I have you, 
 Jack."
 
 196 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Yes, Phil." He could not meet her face, which was so 
 full of unselfish and passionless affection, because his own 
 eyes were brimming over with passion. 
 
 " Take me in, Jack," she said, when they reached Agatha's 
 lawn. " It is enough for one day." 
 
 She led him to the morning-room, cool and sheltered, where 
 Agatha was writing the letter we have already read. And 
 she introduced him as Jack Dunquerque, her friend. 
 
 Jack explained that he was rowing up the river, that he 
 saw Miss Fleming by accident, that he had taken her for a 
 row up the stream, and so on — all in due form. 
 
 " Jack and I are old friends," said Phillis. 
 
 Agatha did not ask how old, which was fortunate. But 
 she put aside her letters and sent for tea into the garden. 
 Jack became more amiable and more sympathetic than any 
 young man Mrs. L'Estrange had ever known. So much did 
 he win upon her that, having ascertained that he was a friend 
 of Lawrence Colquhoun, she asked him to dinner. 
 
 Jack's voyage homeward was a joyful one. Many is the 
 journey begun in joy that ends in sorrow ; few are those 
 which begin, as Jack's bucketing up the river, in uncertainty, 
 and end in unexpected happiness. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " Souvent femme varie, 
 Bien fol qui s'y fie." 
 
 LAWRENCE COLQUHOUN was not, in point of fact, 
 devoting much thought to his ward at this time. She 
 was pretty ; she was fresh ; she was unconventional ; but 
 then he was forty. For twenty years he had been moving 
 through a panorama of pretty girls. It was hardly to be ex- 
 pected that a girl whom he had seen but once or twice should 
 move a tough old heart of forty. Phillis pleased him, but lazy 
 Lawrence wanted girls, if that could be managed, to come to 
 him, and she necessarily stayed at Twickenham. Anyhow, 
 she was in good and safe hands. It was enough to know that
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 197 
 
 Agatha had her in safe charge and custody, and when he 
 could find time he would go down and see her again. As he 
 had been thirteen years trying to find time to visit Phillis 
 at Highgate, it was possible that he might be in the same 
 way prevented by adverse circumstances from going to 
 Twickenham. 
 
 He was troubled also by other and graver matters. 
 
 Victoria Cassilis asked him in the Park to call upon her — 
 for auld lang syne. What he replied is not on record, because, 
 if anybody heard, it could only have been the lady. But he 
 did not call upon her. After a day or two there came a letter 
 from her. Of this he took no notice. It is not usual for a 
 man to ignore the receipt of a letter from a lady, but Lawrence 
 Colquhoun did do so. Then there came another. This also 
 he tore in small pieces. And then another. " Hang the 
 woman," said Lawrence ; "I believe she wants to have a row. 
 I begin to be sorry I came home at all." 
 
 His chambers were on the second floor in the Albany, and 
 any one who knows Lawrence Colquhoun will understand that 
 they were furnished in considerable comfort, and even luxury. 
 He did not pretend to a knowledge of Art, but his pictures 
 were good ; nor was he a dilettante about furniture, but his 
 was in good style. China he abhorred, like many other 
 persons of sound and healthy taste. Let us leave a loophole 
 of escape ; there may be some occult reason, unknown to the 
 uninitiated, for finding beauty, loveliness, and desirability 
 in hideous china monsters and porcelain. After all we are 
 but a flock, and follow the leader. "Why should we not go 
 mad for china ? It is as sensible as going mad over rinking. 
 Why should we not buy water-colours at fabulous prices? 
 At least these can be sold again for something, whereas 
 books — an extinct form of madness — cannot ; and besides, 
 present their backs in a mute appeal to be read. 
 
 The rooms of a man with whom comfort is the first thing 
 aimed at. The chairs are low, deep, and comfortable ; there 
 are brackets, tiny tables, and all sorts of appliances for saving 
 trouble and exertion ; the curtains are of the right shade 
 for softening the light; the pictures are of subjects which
 
 198 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 soothe the mind ; the books, if you look at them, are books of 
 travel and novels. The place is exactly such a home as lazy 
 Lawrence would choose. 
 
 And yet when we saw his laziness in the Prologue, he was 
 living alone in a deserted city, among the bare wooden walls 
 of a half- ruined hotel. But Lawrence was not then at home. 
 He took what comfort he could get, even there ; and while 
 he indulged his whim for solitude, impressed into his own 
 service for his own comfort the two Chinamen who consti- 
 tuted with him the population of Empire City. 
 
 But at Empire City he was all day shooting. That makes 
 a difference to the laziest of men. And he would not have 
 stayed there so long had he not been too lazy to go away. 
 If a man does not mind lonely evenings, the air on the lower 
 slopes of the Sierra Nevada is pleasant and the game is 
 abundant. Now, however, he was back in London, where 
 the laziest men live beside the busiest. The sun streamed 
 in at his windows, which were bright with flowers ; and he 
 sat in the shade doing nothing. Eestless men take cigars ; 
 men who find their own thoughts insufficient for the passing 
 hour take books; men who cannot sit still walk about. 
 Lawrence Colquhoun simply lay back in an easy-chair, 
 watching the sunlight upon the flowers with lazy eyes. He 
 had the gift of passive and happy idleness. 
 
 To him there came a visitor — a woman whom he did not 
 know. 
 
 She was a woman about thirty years of age, a hard-featured, 
 sallow-faced woman. She looked in Lawrence's face with a 
 grim curioaity as she walked across the room and handed 
 him a letter. 
 
 " From Mrs. Cassilis, sir." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Lawrence. " And you are " 
 
 " I am her maid, sir." 
 
 " Where is Janet, then ? " 
 
 "Janet is dead. She died three years ago, before Mrs. 
 Cassilis married." 
 
 "Oh, Janet is dead, is she ? Ah, that accounts — I mean, 
 where did Janet die ? "
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 199 
 
 " In lodgings at Ventnor, sir, Mrs. Cassilis — Miss Pen- 
 gelley she was then, as you know, sir," — Lawrence looked 
 up sharply, but there was no change in the woman's impas- 
 sive face as she spoke, — " Miss Pengelley sent me with her, 
 and Janet died in my arms, sir, of consumption." 
 
 " Ah, I am sorry ! And so Mrs. Cassilis has sent you to 
 me with this letter, has she ? " He did not open it. " Will 
 you tell Mrs. Cassilis that I will send an answer by post, if 
 there is any answer required ? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir ; but Mrs. Cassilis told me ex- 
 pressly that if you were in town I was to wait for an answer, 
 if I had to wait all day." 
 
 "In that case I suppose I had better read the letter." 
 
 He opened it, and it seemed as if the contents were not 
 pleasant, because he rose from his chair and began to walk 
 about. The sallow-faced woman watched him all the time, 
 as one who has fired a shot, and wishes to know whether it 
 has struck, and where. 
 
 He held the letter in his left hand, and with his right 
 moved and altered the position of things on the mantelshelf, 
 a sign of mental agitation. Then he turned round brusquely 
 and said — 
 
 " Tell your mistress that I will call upon her in the 
 afternoon." 
 
 " Will you write that, sir ? " 
 
 " No, I will not," he replied fiercely. " Take your answer 
 and begone." 
 
 She went without a word. 
 
 " There will be trouble," she said to herself. " Janet said 
 it would all come up again some day. He's a handsome 
 chap, and missus is a fool. She's worse than a fool ; she's a 
 hard-hearted creature, with no more blood than a stone statue. 
 If there's to be trouble, it won't fall on Ms head, but on 
 hern. And if I was him, I'd go away again quiet, and then 
 maybe no one wouldn't find it out. As for her, she'll blow 
 on it herself." 
 
 Lawrence's thoughts assumed a form something like the 
 following :
 
 200 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Tliree notes from her in rapid succession, each one more 
 vehement than the first. She must see me ; she insists on 
 my calling on her ; she will see me ; she has something im- 
 portant to tell me. It's a marvellous thing, and a great proof 
 of the absence of the inventive faculty in all of them, that 
 when they want to see you they invariably pretend that they 
 have something important to tell you. From the duchess to 
 the nursemaid, by Jove, they are all alike ! And now she is 
 coming here unless I call upon her to-day. 
 
 " It won't do to let her come here. I might go down to 
 the seaside, go into the country, go anywhere, back to 
 America ; but what would be the good of that ? Besides, 
 why should I run away ? 
 
 " I have not done anything to be afraid of or ashamed of, 
 unless a knowledge of a thing is guilt. I have nothing to 
 fear for myself. Remains the question. Ought I not to 
 screen her ? 
 
 "But screen her from whom? No one knows except 
 Janet, and Janet is dead. Perhaps that woman with a face 
 like a horse knows ; that would be awkward for Victoria if 
 she were to offend her, for a more damned unforgiving coun- 
 tenance I never set eyes upon. But Janet was faithful ; I 
 am sure Janet would not split even when she was dying. 
 And then there was very little to split about when she died. 
 Victoria hadn't married Mr. Cassilis. 
 
 " What the deuce does she want to rake up old things 
 for ? Why can't she let things be ? It's the way of women. 
 They can't forget ; and hang me if I don't think she can't 
 forgive me because she has done me a wrong ! Why did I 
 come back from Empire City? There, at all events, one 
 could be safe from annoyance. 
 
 " On a day like this, too, the first really fine day of the 
 season ; and it's spoiled. I might have dined with cousin 
 Agatha and talked to Phillis — the pretty little Phillis ! I 
 might have mooned away the afternoon in the Park and 
 dined at the Club. I might have gone to half-a-dozen places 
 in the evening. I might have gone to Greenwich and re- 
 newed my youth at the Ship. I might have gone to Rich-
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 20 r 
 
 mond with old Evergreen and his party. But Phillls for 
 choice. But now I must have it out with Victoria Cassilis. 
 There's a fate in it. We can't be allowed to rest and be 
 happy. Like the schoolboy's scrag-end of the rolly-polly 
 pudding, it is helped, and must be eaten." 
 
 Philosophy brings resignation, but it does not bring ease 
 of mind. Those unfortunate gentlemen who used to be laid 
 upon the wheel and have their limbs broken might have 
 contemplated the approach of inevitable suffering with resig- 
 nation, but never with happiness. In Colquhoun's mind, 
 Victoria Cassilis was associated with a disagreeable and 
 painful chapter in his life. He saw her marriage in the 
 fragment of Ladd's paper, and thought the chapter closed. 
 He came home and found her waiting for him ready to open 
 it again. 
 
 " I did think," he said, turning over her letter in his 
 fingers, " that, for her own sake, she would have let things 
 be forgotten. It's ruin for her if the truth comes out, and 
 not pleasant for me. A pretty fool I should look explaining 
 matters in a witness-box. But I must see her, if only to 
 bring her to reason. Reason ! When was a woman reason- 
 able?" 
 
 " I am here," he said, standing before Mrs. Cassilis at her 
 own house a few hours later. " I am here." 
 
 A.thos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan would have said 
 exactly the same thing. 
 
 " Me void ! " 
 
 And they would have folded their arms and thrown back 
 their heads with a preliminary tap at the sword-hilt, to make 
 sure that the trusty blade was loose in the scabbard and 
 easy to draw, in case M. le Mari — whom the old French 
 allegorists called Danger — should suddenly appear. 
 
 But Lawrence Coloquhoun said it quite meekly, to a woman 
 who neither held out her hand nor rose to meet him, nor 
 looked him in the face, but sat in her chair with bowed head 
 and weeping eyes. 
 
 A woman of steel ? There are no women of steel. 
 
 It was in Mrs. Cassilis's morning-room, an apartment sacred
 
 202 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 to herself; slie used it for letter- writing, for interviews with 
 dressmakers, for tea with ladies, for all sort of things. And 
 now she received her old friend in it. But why was she 
 crying, and why did she not look up ? 
 
 " I did want to see you, Lawrence," she murmured. " Can 
 you not understand why ? " 
 
 "My name is Colquhoun, Mrs. Cassilis. And I cannot 
 understand why " 
 
 " My name, Lawrence, is Victoria. Have you forgotten 
 that ? " 
 
 " I have forgotten everything, Mrs. Cassilis. It is best to 
 forget everything." 
 
 " But if you cannot ! Lawrence ! " she looked up in his 
 face — " Lawrence, if you cannot ! " 
 
 Her weeping eyes, her tear-clouded face, her piteous 
 gesture, moved the man not one whit. The power which she 
 might once have had over him was gone. 
 
 " This is mere foolishness, Mrs. Cassilis. As a stranger, a 
 perfect stranger, may I ask why you call me by my Christian 
 name, and why these tears ? " 
 
 " Strangers ! it is ridiculous ! " she cried, starting up and 
 standing before him. " It is ridiculous, when all the world 
 knows that we were once friends, and half the world thought 
 that we were going to be something — nearer," 
 
 "Nearer — and dearer, Mrs. Cassilis? What a foolish 
 world it was ! Suppose we had become nearer, and there- 
 fore very much less dear." 
 
 " Be kind to me, Lawrence." 
 
 " I will be whatever you like, Mrs. Cassilis — except what 
 I was — provided you do not call me Lawrence any more. 
 Come, let us be reasonable. The past is gone ; in deference 
 to your wishes I removed myself from the scene; I went 
 abroad ; I transported myself for four years : then I saw the 
 announcement of your marriage in the paper by accident. 
 And I came home again, because of your own free will and 
 accord you had given me my release. Is this true ? " 
 
 " Yes," she replied. 
 
 " Then, in the name of Heaven, why seek to revive the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 203 
 
 past ? Believe me, I have forgotten the few days of madness 
 and repentance. They are gone. Some ghosts of the past 
 come to me, but they do not take the shape of Victoria 
 Pengelley." 
 
 " Suppose we cannot forget ? " 
 
 "Then we must forget, Victoria — Mrs. Cassilis, rouse 
 yourself Think of what you are — what you have made 
 yourself." 
 
 " I do think. I think every day." 
 
 " You have a husband and a child ; you have your position 
 in the world. Mrs. Cassilis, you have your honour." 
 
 " My honour ! " she echoed. " What honour ? And if all 
 were known ! Lawrence, don't you even pity me ? " 
 
 " What is the good of pity ? " he asked rudely. " Pity 
 cannot alter things. Pity cannot make things which are as 
 if they are not. You seem to me to have done what you 
 have done knowing well what you were doing, and knowing 
 what you were going to get by it. You have got one of the 
 very best houses in London ; you have got a rich husband ; 
 you have got an excellent position ; and you have got — Mrs. 
 Cassilis, you have got a child, whose future happiness depends 
 upon your reticence." 
 
 " I will tell you what I have besides," she burst in, with 
 passion. "I have the most intolerable husband, the most 
 maddening and exasperating man in all the world ! " 
 
 "Is he cruel to you ? " 
 
 " No ; he is kind to me. If he were cruel I should know 
 how to treat him. But he is kind." 
 
 "Heroics, Mrs. Cassilis. Most women could very well 
 endure a kind husband. Are you not overdoing it ? You 
 almost make me remember a scene — call it a dream — which 
 took place in a certain Glasgow hotel about four years and a 
 half ago." 
 
 " In the City he is the greatest financier living, I am told. 
 In the house he is the King of Littleness." 
 
 " I think there was — or is — a bishop," said Lawrence 
 meditatively, " who gave his gigantic intellect to a Treatise 
 on the Sinfulness of Little Sins. Perhaps you had better
 
 204 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 buy that work and study it. Or present it to your 
 husband." 
 
 " Very well, Lawrence. I suppose you think you have a 
 right to laugh at me ? " 
 
 " Right ! Good God, Mrs. Cassilis," he cried, in the greatest 
 alarm, " do you think I claim any right — the smallest — over 
 you ? If I ever had a right it is gone now — gone, by your 
 own act, and my silence." 
 
 " Yes, Lawrence," she repeated, with a hard smile on her 
 lips, " your silence." 
 
 He understood what she meant. He turned from her and 
 leaned against the window, looking into the shrubs and laurels. 
 She had dealt him a blow which took effect. 
 
 " My silence ! " he murmured ; " my silence ! What have 
 I to do with your life since that day — that day which even 
 you would find it difficult to forget? Do what you like, 
 marry if you like, be as happy as you like, or as miserable — 
 what does it matter to me ? My silence ! Am I, then, going 
 to proclaim to the world my folly and your shame ? " 
 
 " Let us not quarrel," she went on, pleased with the effect 
 of her words. There are women who would rather stab a 
 man in the heart, and so make some impression on him, than 
 see him cold and callous to what they say or think. " It is 
 foolish to quarrel after four years and more of absence." 
 
 " Absence makes the heart grow fonder," said Lawrence. 
 " Yes, Mrs. Cassilis, it is foolish to quarrel. Still I suppose 
 it is old habit. And besides " 
 
 " When a man has nothing else to say, he sneers." 
 
 "When a woman has nothing else to say, she makes a 
 general statement." 
 
 " At all events, Lawrence, you are unchanged since I left 
 you at that hotel to which you refer so often. Are its memories 
 pleasing to you ? " 
 
 " No ; they are not. Are they to you ? Come, Mrs. Cassilis, 
 this is foolish. You told me you had something to say to 
 me. What is it?" 
 
 " I wanted to say this. When we parted " 
 
 " Oh, hang it ! " cried the man, " why go back to that ? "
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 205 
 
 " Wlien we two parted " — she set her thiu lips together 
 as if she was determined to let him off no single word — 
 "you used bitter words. You told me that I was heartless, 
 cold, and bad-tempered. Those were the words you used." 
 
 " By Gad, I believe they were ! " said Lawrence. " We 
 had a blazing row ; and Janet stood by with her calm Scotch 
 face, and said, ' Eh, sir ! Eh, madam ! ' I remember." 
 
 " I might retaliate on you." 
 
 " You did then, Mrs. Cassilis. You let me have it in a 
 very superior style. No need to retaliate any more." 
 
 " I might tell you now that you are heartless and cold. I 
 might tell you " 
 
 " It seems that you are telling me all this without any use 
 of the potential mood." 
 
 " That if you have any lingering kindness for me, even if 
 you have any resentment for my conduct, you would pity the 
 lonely and companionless life I lead." 
 
 " Your son is nearly a year old, I believe ? " 
 
 " What is a baby ? " 
 
 Lawrence thought the remark wanting in maternal feeling ; 
 but he said nothing. 
 
 "Come, Mrs. Cassilis, it is all no use. I cannot help you. 
 I would not if I could. Hang it ! it would be too ridiculous 
 for me to interfere. Think of the situation. Here we are, 
 we three ; I first, you in the middle, and Mr. Cassilis third. 
 You and I know, and he does not suspect. On the stage, 
 the man who does not suspect always looks a fool. No French 
 novel comes anywhere near this position of things. Make 
 yourself miserable if you like, and make me uncomfortable ; 
 but, for Heaven's sake, don't make us all ridiculous! As 
 things are, so you made them. Tell me — what did you do 
 it for?" 
 
 " Speak to me kindly, Lawrence, and I will tell you all. 
 After that dreadful day I went back to the old life. Janet 
 and I made up something — never mind what. Janet was as 
 secret as the grave. The old life — Oh, how stupid and dull 
 it was ! Two years passed away. You were gone, never to 
 return, as you said. Janet died. And Mr. Cassilis came."
 
 2o6 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Well, I was poor. Witli my little income I had to live 
 with friends, and be polite to people I detested. I saw a 
 chance for freedom ; Mr. Cassilis offered me that, at least. 
 And I accepted him. Say you forgive me, Lawrence." 
 
 " Forgive ? What a thing to ask or to say ! " 
 
 " It was a grievous mistake. I wanted a man who could 
 feel with me and appreciate me." 
 
 " Yes," he said. " I know. Appreciation — appreciation. 
 Perhaps you got it, and at a truer estimate than you thought. 
 I have sometimes found, Mrs. Cassilis, in the course of my 
 travels, people who make themselves miserable because others 
 do not understand their own ideals. If these people could 
 only label themselves with a few simple descriptive sentences, 
 — such as ' I am good ; I am great ; I am full of lofty 
 thoughts ; I am noble ; I am wise ; I am too holy for this 
 world ; ' and so on, — a good deal of unhappiness might be 
 saved. Perhaps you might even now try on this method 
 with Mr. Cassilis." 
 
 " Cold and sneering," she said to herself, folding her hands, 
 and laying her arms straight out before her in her lap. If 
 you think of it, this is a most effective attitude, provided 
 that the head be held well back and a little to the side. 
 
 "What astonishes me," he said, taking no notice of her 
 remark, " is that you do not at all seem to realise the Thing 
 you have done. Do you ? " 
 
 " It is no use realising what cannot be found out. Janet 
 is in her grave. Lawrence Colquhoun, the most selfish and 
 heartless of men, is quite certain to hold his tongue." 
 
 He laughed good-naturedly. 
 
 " Very Avell, Mrs. Cassilis, very well. If you are satisfied, 
 of course no one has the right to say a word. After all, 
 no one has any cause to fear except yourself. For me, 
 I certainly hold my tongue. It would be all so beauti- 
 fully explained by Serjeant Smoothtongue : ' Six years ago, 
 gentlemen of the jury, a man no longer in the bloom of early 
 youth was angled for and hooked by a lady who employed a 
 kind of tackle comparatively rare in English society. She
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 207 
 
 was a femme incomprise. She despised the little ways of 
 women ; she was full of infinite possibilities ; she was going 
 to lead the world if only she could get the chance. And 
 then, gentlemen of the jury, then ' " 
 
 Here the door opened, and Mr. Gabriel Cassilis appeared. 
 His wife was sitting in the window, cold, calm, and im- 
 passive. Some four or five feet from her stood Lawrence 
 Colquhoun; he was performing his imaginary speech with 
 great rhetorical power, but stopped short at sight of M. le 
 Mari, whom he knew instinctively. This would have been 
 a little awkward, had not Mrs. Cassilis proved herself equal 
 to the occasion. 
 
 " ]\Iy dear ! " She rose and greeted her husband with the 
 tips of her fingers. " You are early to-day. Let me introduce 
 Mr. Colquhoun, a very old friend of mine." 
 
 " I am very glad, Mr. Colquhoun, to know you. I have 
 heard of you." 
 
 " Pray sit down, Mr. Colquhoun, unless you will go on with 
 your description. Mr. Colquhoun, who has just returned from 
 America, my dear, was giving me a vivid account of some 
 American trial-scene which he witnessed." 
 
 Her manner was perfectly cold, clear, and calm. She 
 was an admirable actress, and there was not a trace left 
 of the weeping, shamefaced woman who received Lawrence 
 Colquhoun. 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis looked at his visitor with a little pang of 
 jealousy. This, then, was the man with whom his wife's name 
 had been coupled. To be sure, it was a censorious world ; but 
 then he was a handsome fellow, and a quarter of a century 
 younger than himself. However, he put away the thought, 
 and tapped his knuckles with his double-glasses while he 
 talked. 
 
 To-day, whether from fatigue or from care, he was not 
 quite himself; not the self-possessed man of clear business 
 mind that he wished to appear. Perhaps something had 
 gone wrong. 
 
 Lawrence and Mrs. Cassilis, or rather the latter, began 
 talking about days of very long ago, so that her husband found
 
 2oS THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 himself out of the conversation. This made him uneasy, and 
 less useful when the talk came within his reach. But his 
 wife was considerate — made allowances, so to speak, for age 
 and fatigue ; and Lawrence noted that he was fond and proud 
 of her. 
 
 He came away in a melancholy mood. 
 
 " I can't help it," he said. " I wish I couldn't feel anything 
 about it, one way or the other. Victoria has gone off, and I 
 
 wonder how in the world And now she has made a fool of 
 
 herself. It is not my fault. Some day it will all come out. 
 And I am an accessory after the fact. If it were not for that 
 Phillis girl — I must see after her — and she is pretty enough 
 to keep any man in town — I would go back to America again 
 if it were to Empire City." 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " Now you set your foot on shore 
 In Novo Orbe ; here's the rich Peru ; 
 And there, within, sir, are the golden mines, 
 Great Solomon's Ophir." 
 
 UNLIMITED credit ! Wealth without bound ! Power to 
 gratify any desire — all desires ! That was the luck of 
 the Golden Butterfly. No wish within the reach of man that 
 Gilead Beck could not gratify. No project or plan within 
 limits far, far beyond what are generally supposed reasonable, 
 that he could not carry out. Take your own case, brother of 
 mine, struggling to realise the modest ambitions common to 
 cultured humanity, and to force them within the bounds of a 
 slender income. Think of the thousand and one things you 
 want ; think of the conditions of your life you would wish 
 changed ; think of the generous aspirations you would gratify ; 
 think of the revenges, malices, envies, hatreds, which you 
 would be able to satiate — had you the tucalth which gives the 
 power. Then suppose yourself suddenly possessed of that 
 wealth, and think what you would do with it. 
 
 Your brain is feeble ; it falters at a few thousands ; a hun- 
 dred thousand a year is too much for it — it was as much, if
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 209 
 
 I remember riglitly, as even tlie imagination of the elder 
 Dumas attained to. Beyond a paltry twenty thousand or so, 
 one feels oppressed in imagination with a weight of income. 
 Let us suppose you stick at twenty thousand. What would 
 you do with it? What could you not do with it? Your 
 ideal Society — the one thing wanting, only rich men cannot 
 be brought to see it, to regenerate the world — that could in- 
 stantly be put on a sound footing. Your works — those works 
 which you keep locked up in a desk at home — you could pub- 
 lish, and at once step into your right position as a leader of 
 thought, an ava^ avhpwv. Your projects, educational, moral, 
 theatrical, literary, musical, could all together, for they are 
 modest, be launched upon the ocean of public opinion. You 
 could gratify your taste for travel. Like Charles Kingsley, 
 you could stand in the shadow of a tropical forest (it would 
 not be one quarter so beautiful as a hundred glades ten miles 
 from Southampton) and exclaim, " At last ! " You are an 
 archaeologist, and have as yet seen little. You could make 
 that long-desired trip to Naples and see Pompeii ; you could 
 visit the cities of the Midi, and explore the Koman remains 
 you have as yet only read of; you could take that journey to 
 Asia Minor, your dream of twenty years, and sketch the tem- 
 ples still standing, roofed and perfect, unvisited since the last 
 stragglers of the last crusading army died of famine on the 
 steps, scoflSng with their latest breath at the desecrated altar. 
 Their bones lay mouldering in front of the marble columns — 
 silent monuments of a wasted enthusiasm — while the fleshless 
 fingers pointed as if in scorn in the direction of Jerusalem. 
 They have been dust this many a year. Dust blown about 
 the fields ; manure for the crops which the peasant raises in 
 luxuriance by scratching the soil. But the temples stand 
 still, sacred yet to the memory of Mother Earth, the many- 
 breasted goddess of the Ephesians. Why, if you had that 
 ^^"20,000 a year, you would go there, sketch, photograph, and 
 dig. 
 
 What could not one do if one had money ? And then one 
 takes to thinking what is done by those who actually have it. 
 Well, they subscribe — they give to hospitals and institutions — 
 
 o
 
 2IO THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 and they save the rest. Happy for this country that Hon- 
 duras, Turkey, and a few other places exist to plunder the 
 British capitalist, or we should indeed perish of wealth- 
 plethora. Thousands of things all round us wait to be done ; 
 things which must be done by rich men, and cannot be done 
 by trading men, because they would not pay. 
 
 Exempli gratia ; here are a few out of the many. 
 
 1 . They are always talking of endowment for research ; all 
 the men who think they ought to be endowed are clamouring 
 for it. But think of the luxury of giving a man a thousand 
 a year, and telling him to work for the rest of his days with 
 no necessity for doing pot-boilers. Yet no rich man does it. 
 There was a man in Scotland, the other day, gave half a 
 million to the Kirk. For all the luxury to be got out of that 
 impersonal gift, one might just as well drop a threepenny-bit 
 into the crimson bag. 
 
 2. This is a country in which the dramatic instinct is so 
 strong as to be second only to that of France. We want 
 a National Theatre, where such a thing as a 300 nights' 
 run would be impossible, and which should be a school for 
 dramatists as well as actors. A paltry ;^io,cooa year would 
 pay the annual deficit in such a theatre. Perhaj)s, taking 
 year with year, less than half that sum would do. No rich 
 man has yet proposed to found, endow, or subsidise such a 
 theatre. 
 
 3. In this City of London thousands of boys run about the 
 streets ragged and hungry. Presently they become habitual 
 criminals. Then they cost the country huge sums in gaols, 
 policemen, and the like. Philanthropic people catch a few 
 of these boys and send them to places where they are made 
 excellent sailors. Yet the number does not diminish. A 
 small i^i5 a year pays for a single boy. A rich man might 
 support a thousand of them. Yet no rich man does. 
 
 4. In this country millions of women have to work for 
 their living. Everybody who employs those women under- 
 pays and cheats them. Women cannot form trade-unions — ■ 
 they are without the organ of government ; therefore they 
 are downtrodden in the race. They do men's work at a
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 2ii 
 
 quarter of men's wages. No trade so flourishing as that 
 which is worked by women — witness the prosperity of dress- 
 making masters. The workwomen have longer hours, as well 
 as lower pay, than the men. At the best, they get enough 
 to keep body and soul together ; not enough for self-respect ; 
 not enough, if they are young and good-looking, to keep 
 them out of mischief. To give them a central office and 
 a central protecting power might cost a thousand pounds 
 a year. No rich man, so far as I know, has yet come 
 forward with any such scheme for the improvement of 
 women's labour. 
 
 5 . This is a country where people read a great deal. More 
 books are printed in England than in any other country in 
 the world. Reading forms the amusement of half our hours, 
 the delight of our leisure time. For the whole of its reading 
 Society agrees to pay Mudie & Smith from three to ten 
 guineas a house. Here is a sum in arithmetic : house-bills, 
 i^i500 a year; wine-bill, ;^300; horses, ;^500; rent, ^^"400; 
 travelling, ^^"400; dress — Lord knows what; reading — say ^5 ; 
 also, spent at Smith's stalls in two-shilling novels, say thirty 
 shillings. That is the patronage of Literature. Successful 
 authors make a few hundreds a year — successful grocers make 
 a few thousands — and people say, " How well is Literature 
 rewarded ! " 
 
 Mr. Gilead Beck once told me of a party gathered together 
 in Virginia City to mourn the decease of a dear friend cut off 
 prematurely. The gentleman intrusted with the conduct of 
 the evening's entertainment had one-and-forty dollars put 
 into his hands to be laid out to the best advantage. He ex- 
 pended it as follows : — 
 
 Whisky . . . Forty dollars. (40$) 
 
 Bread .... One dollar. (1$) 
 
 Total . . Forty-one dollars. 
 
 "What, in thunder," asked the chairman, "made you 
 waste all that money in bread ? " 
 
 Note. — He had never read Henry IV. 
 
 The modern patronage of Literature is exactly like the
 
 212 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 proportion of bread observed by tlie gentleman of Yirgiuia 
 City. 
 
 Five pounds a year for the mental food of all the house- 
 hold. 
 
 Enough ; social reform is a troublesome and an expensive 
 thing. Let it be done by the societies ; there are plenty of 
 people anxious to be seen on platforms, and plenty of men 
 who are rejoiced to take the salary of secretary. 
 
 Think again of Mr. Gilead Beck's Luck and what it 
 meant. The wildest flights of your fancy never reach to 
 a fourth part of his income. The yearly revenues of a 
 Grosvenor fall far short of this amazing good fortune. Out 
 of the bowels of the earth was flowing for him a continuous 
 stream of wealth that seemed inexhaustible. Not one well, 
 but fifty, were his, and all yielding. When he told Jack 
 Dunquerque that his income was a thousand pounds a day, 
 he was far within the limit. In these Weeks he was clearing 
 fifteen hundred pounds in every twenty-four hours. That 
 makes forty-five thousand pounds a month ; five hundred 
 and forty thousands pounds a year. Can a Grosvenor or a 
 Dudley reach to that ? 
 
 The first well was still the best, and it showed no signs of 
 giving out ; and as Mr. Beck attributed its finding to the 
 direct personal instigation of the Golden Butterfly, he firmly 
 believed that it never would give out. Other shafts had 
 been sunk round it, but with varying success ; the ground 
 was covered with derricks and machinery erected for boring 
 fresh wells and working the old, an army of men were en- 
 gaged in these operations ; a new town had sprung up in 
 the place of Limerick City ; and Gilead P. Beck, its King, 
 was in London, trying to learn how his money might best 
 be spent. 
 
 It weighed heavily upon his mind; the fact that he was, 
 by no effort of his own, through no merit of his own, earning 
 a small fortune every week made him thoughtful. In his 
 rough way he took the wealth as so much trust-money. He 
 was entitled, he thought, to live upon it according to his 
 inclination ; he was to have what his soul craved for ; he was
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 213 
 
 to use it first for liis own purposes ; but he was to devote 
 what he could not spend — that is, the great bulk of it — some- 
 how to the general good. Such was the will of the Golden 
 Butterfly. 
 
 I do not know how the idea came into Gilead Beck's head 
 that he was to regard himself as a trustee. The man's ante- 
 cedents would seem against such a conception of Fortune and 
 her responsibilities. Born in a New England village, educated 
 till the ao-e of twelve in a villaofe school, he had been turned 
 upon the world to make his livelihood in it as best he could. 
 He was everything by turns ; there was hardly a trade that 
 he did not attempt, not a calling which he did not for a while 
 follow. Ill luck attended him for thirty years j yet his courage 
 did not flag. Every fresh attempt to escape from poverty 
 only seemed to throw him back deeper in the slough. Yet 
 he never despaired. His time would surely come. He 
 preserved his independence of soul, and he preserved his 
 hope. 
 
 But all the time he longed for wealth. The desire for 
 riches is an instinct with the Englishman, a despairing dream 
 with the German, a stimulus for hoarding with the French- 
 man, but it is a consuming fire with the American. Gilead 
 P. Beck breathed an atmosphere charged with the contagion 
 of restless ambition. How many great men — presidents, vice- 
 presidents, judges, orators, merchants — have sprung from the 
 obscure villages of the older States ! Gilead Beck started 
 on his career with a vague idea that he was going to be 
 something great. As the years went on he retained the 
 belief, but it ceased to take a concrete form. He did not 
 see himself in the chair of Ulysses Grant; he did not 
 dream of becomingf a statesman or an orator. But he was 
 going to be a man of mark. Somehow he was bound to be 
 great. 
 
 And then came the Golden Butterfly. 
 
 See Mr. Beck now. It is ten in the morning. He has left 
 the pile of letters, most of them begging-letters, unopened 
 at his elbow. He has got the case of glass and gold con- 
 taining the Butterfly on the table. The sunlight pouring in
 
 214 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 at the opened window strikes upon the yellow metal, and 
 lights up the delicately chased wings of this freak of Nature. 
 Poised on the wire, the Golden Butterfly seems to hover of 
 its own accord upon the petals of the rose. It is alive. As 
 its owner sits before it, the creature seems to him endowed 
 with life and motion. That is nonsense, but Mr. Beck thinks 
 so at the moment. 
 
 On the table is a map of his Canadian oil-fields. 
 
 He sits like this nearly every morning, the gilded box 
 before him. It is his way of consulting the oracle. After 
 his interview with the Butterfly he rises refreshed and clear 
 of vision. This morning, if his thoughts could be written 
 down, they might take this form : 
 
 " I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice. I have more 
 than I can spend upon the indulgence of every whim that 
 ever entered the head of sane man. When I have bought 
 all the luxuries that the world has to sell, there still 
 remains to be saved more than any other living man has to 
 spend, 
 
 '•' What am I to do with it ? 
 
 " Shall I lay it up in the Bank ? The Bank might break. 
 That is possible. Or the well might stop. No; that is 
 impossible. Other wells have stopped, but no well has run 
 like mine, or will again ; for I have struck through the crust 
 of the earth into the almighty reservoir. 
 
 "How to work out this trust? Who will help me to 
 spend the money aright ? How is such a mighty pile to be 
 spent ? 
 
 " Even if the Butterfly were to fall and break, who can 
 deprive me of my wealth ? " 
 
 His servant threw open the door : " Mr, Cassilis, sir."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 215 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 " Doubtfully it stood, 
 As two spent swimmers that do cling together 
 And choke their art." 
 
 ONE of Gilead Beck's difScnlties — perhaps liis greatest — 
 was his want of an adviser. People in England who 
 have large incomes pay private secretaries to advise them. 
 The post is onerous, but carries with it considerable influence. 
 To be a Great Man's whisperer is a position coveted by many. 
 At present the only confidential adviser of the American 
 Croesus was Jack Dunqtierque, and he was unsalaried and 
 therefore careless. Ladds and Colquhoun were less ready to 
 listen, and Gabriel Cassilis showed a want of sympathy with 
 Mr. Beck's Trusteeship which was disheartening. As for 
 Jack, he treated the sacred Voice, which was to Gilead Beck 
 what his demon was to Socrates, with profound contempt. 
 But he enjoyed the prospect of boundless spending in which 
 he was likely to have a disinterested share. Next to un- 
 limited " chucking " of his own money, the youthful English- 
 man would like — what he never gets — the unlimited chucking 
 of other people's. So Jack brought ideas, and communicated 
 them as they occurred. 
 
 " Here is one," he said. " It will get rid of thousands ; it 
 will be a Blessing and a Boon for you ; it will make a real 
 hole in the Pile ; and it's Philanthropy itself. Start a new 
 daily." 
 
 Mr. Beck was looking sti^aight before him with his hands 
 in his pockets. His face was clouded with the anxiety of his 
 wealth. Who would wish to be a rich man ? 
 
 " I have been already thinking of it, Mr. Dunquerque," he 
 said. " Let us talk it over." 
 
 He sat down in his largest easy-chair, and chewed the end 
 of an unlighted cigar. 
 
 " I have thought of it," he went on. " I want a paper that 
 shall have no advertisements and no leading articles. If a 
 man can't say what he wants to say in half a column, that man
 
 2i6 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 may go to some other paper, I sliall get only live men to 
 write for me. I will have no long reports of speeches, and 
 the bunkum of life shall be cut out of the paper." 
 
 " Then it will be a very little paper." 
 
 " No, sir. There is a great deal to say, once you get the 
 right man to say it. I've been an editor myself, and I 
 know." 
 
 " You will not expect the paper to pay you ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; I shall pay for that paper. And there shall be 
 no cutting up of bad books to show smart writing. I shall 
 teach some of your reviews good manners." 
 
 " But we pride ourselves on the tone of our reviews." 
 
 " Perhaps you do, sir. I have remarked, that Englishmen 
 pride themselves on a good many things. I will back a first- 
 class British subject for bubbling around against all humanity. 
 See, Mr. Dunquerque, last week I read one of your high-toned 
 reviews. There was an article in it on a novel. The novel 
 was a young lady's novel. "When I was editing the Clearville 
 Roarer I couldn't have laid it on in finer style for the rough 
 back of a AYard Politician. And a young lady ! " 
 
 " People like it, I suppose," said Jack, 
 
 " I dare say they do, sir. They used to like to see a woman 
 ilogged at the cart-tail, I am not much of a company man, 
 Mr. Dunquerque, but I believe that when a young lady sings 
 a song in a drawing-room, if that young lady sings out of 
 tune it is not considered good manners to get up and say so. 
 And it isn't thought polite to snigger and grin. And in my 
 country, if a man was to invite the company to make game 
 of that young lady he would perhaps be requested to take a 
 header through the window. Let things alone, and presently 
 that young lady discovers that she is not likely to get cracked 
 up as a vocaller. I shall conduct my paper on the same 
 polite principles. If a man thinks he can sing and can't sing, 
 let him be for a bit. Perhaps he will find out his mistake. 
 If he doesn't, tell him gently. And if that won't do, get your 
 liveliest writer to lay it on once for all. But to go sneakin 
 and pryin' around, pickin' out the poor trash, and cutting it 
 up to make the people grin — it's mean, Mr, Dunquerque, it's
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 217 
 
 mean. The cart-tail and the cat-o'-nine was no worse than 
 this exhibition. I'm told it's done regularly, and paid for 
 handsomely," 
 
 " Shall you be your own editor ? " 
 
 " I don't know, sir. Perhaps if I stay long enough in this 
 city to get to the core of things, I shall scatter my own 
 observations around. But that's uncertain." 
 
 He rose slowly — it took him a long time to rise — and 
 extended his long arms, bringing them together in a compre- 
 hensive way, as if he was embracing the universe. 
 
 " I shall have central offices in New York and London. 
 But I shall drive the English team first. I shall have corre- 
 spondents all over the world, and I shall have information of 
 every dodge goin', from an emperor's ambition to a tin-pot 
 company bubble." 
 
 He brought his fingers together with a clasp. Jack noticed 
 how strong and bony those fingers were, with hands whose 
 muscles seemed of steel. 
 
 The countenance of the man was earnest and solemn. 
 Suddenly it changed expression, and that curious smile of 
 his, unlike the smile of any other man, crossed his face. 
 
 " Did I ever tell you my press experiences ? " he asked, 
 " Let us have some champagne, and you shall hear them." 
 
 The champagne having been brought he told his story, 
 walking slowly up and down with his hands in his pockets, 
 and jerking out the sentences as if he was feeling for the 
 most telling way of putting them. 
 
 Mr. Gilead Beck had two distinct styles of conversation. 
 Generally, but for his American tone, the length of his sen- 
 tences, and a certain florid wealth of illustration, you might 
 take him for an Englishman of eccentric habits of thought. 
 "When he went back to his old experiences he employed the 
 vernacular — rich, metaphoric, and full — which belongs to the 
 Western States in the rougher period of their development. 
 And this he used now. 
 
 " I was in Chicago. Fifteen years ago. I wanted employ- 
 ment. Nobody wanted me. I spent most of the dollars, and 
 thought I had better dig out for a new location, when I met
 
 2i8 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 one day an old sclioolfellow named liayner. He told me he 
 was part proprietor of a morning paper. I asked liim to take 
 me on. He said he was only publisher, but he would take 
 me to see the Editor, Mr. John B. Van Cott, and perhaps he 
 would set me grinding at the locals. We found the Editor. 
 He was a short active man of fifty, and he looked as cute as 
 he was. Because, you see, Mr. Dunquerque, unless you are 
 pretty sharp on a AVestern paper, you won't earn your mush. 
 He was keeled back, I remember, in a strong chair, with his 
 feet on the front of the table, and a clip full of paper on his 
 knee. And in that position he used to write his leading 
 articles. Squelchers, some of them ; made gentlemen of 
 opposite politics cry, and drove rival editors to polishing 
 shooting-irons. The floor was covered with exchanges. And 
 there was nothing else in the place but a cracked stove, half 
 a dozen chairs standing around loose, and a spittoon. 
 
 " I mention these facts, Mr. Dunquerque, to show that 
 there was good standing-room for a free fight of not more 
 than two. 
 
 " Mr. Van Cott shook hands, and passed me the tobacco- 
 pouch, while Rayner chanted my praises. When he wound 
 up and went away, the Editor began. 
 
 " ' AVal, sir,' he said, ' you look as if you knew enough to 
 go indoors when it rains, and Rayner seems powerful anxious 
 to get you on the paper. A good fellow is Rayner ; as white 
 a man as I ever knew ; and he has as many old friends as 
 would make a good-sized city. He brings them all here, 
 Mr. Beck, and wants to put every one on the paper. To 
 hear him hold forth would make a camp-meeting exhorter 
 feel small. But he's disinterested, is Rayner. It's all pure 
 goodness.' 
 
 " I tried to feel as if I wasn't down-hearted. But I 
 was. 
 
 " ' Any way,' I said, ' if I can't get on here, I must dig out 
 for a place nearer sundown. Once let me get a fair chance 
 on a paper, and I can keep my end of the stick.' 
 
 " The Editor went on to tell me what I knew already, 
 that they wanted live men on the paper, fellows that would
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 219 
 
 do a murder or a prize-fight right up to the handle. Then 
 he came to business ; offered me a triple execution just to 
 show my style ; and got up to introduce me to the other 
 boys. 
 
 "Just then there was a knock at the door. 
 
 " ' That's Poulter, our local Editor,' he said. ' Come in, 
 Poulter. He will take you down for me.' 
 
 " The door opened, but it wasn't Poulter. I knew that 
 by instinct. It was a rough-looking customer with a black- 
 dyed moustache, a diamond pin in his shirt front, and a great 
 gold chain across his vest ; and he carried a heavy stick in 
 his hand. 
 
 " ' Which is the one of you two that runs this machine ? ' 
 he asked, looking from one to the other. 
 
 " ' I am the Editor,' said Mr. Van Cott, ' if you mean 
 that.' 
 
 " ' Then you air the Booster I'm after,' he went on. ' I am 
 John Halkett of Tenth Ward. I want to know what in 
 thunder you mean by printing infernal lies about me and 
 my party in your miserable one-hoss paper.' 
 
 " He drew a copy of the paper from his pocket, and held 
 it before the Editor's eyes. 
 
 " ' You know your remedy, sir,' said Mr. Van Cott, 
 quietly edging in the direction of the table, where there was 
 a drawer. 
 
 " ' That's what I do know. That's what I'm here for. 
 There's two remedies. One is that you retract all the lies 
 you have printed, the other ' 
 
 " ' You need not tell me what the other is, Mr. 
 Halkett.' As he spoke he drew open the drawer; but he 
 hadn't time to take the pistol from it when the ward 
 politician sprang upon him, and in a flash of lightning 
 they were rolling over each other among the exchanges on 
 the floor. 
 
 " If they had been evenly matched, I should have stood 
 around to see fair. But it wasn't equal. Van Cott, you 
 could see at first snap, was grit all through, and as full of 
 fight as a game-rooster. But it was bulldog and terrier.
 
 220 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 So I hitched on to the stranger, and pulled him off by main 
 force. 
 
 " ' You will allow me, Mr. Van Cott,' I said, ' to take 
 this contract off your hands. Choose a back seat, sir, and 
 see fair.' 
 
 " ' Sail in,' cried Mr. Halkett, as cheerful as a coot, ' and 
 send for the coroner, because he'll be wanted. I don't care 
 which it is.' 
 
 " That was the toughest job I ever had. The strength of 
 ward politicians' opinions lies in their powers of bruising, 
 and John Halkett, as I learned afterwards, could fight his 
 weight in wild cats. Fortunately I was no slough in 
 those days. 
 
 " He met my advances halfway. In ten minutes you 
 couldn't tell Halkett from me, nor me from Halkett. The 
 furniture moved around cheerfully, and there was a lovely 
 racket. The sub-editors, printers, and reporters came run- 
 ning in. It was a new scene for them, poor fellows, and 
 they enjoyed it accordingly. The Editor they had often 
 watched in a fight before, but here were two strangers 
 worrying each other on the floor, with Mr. Van Cott out 
 of it himself, dodging around cheering us on. That gave 
 novelty. 
 
 " The sharpest of the reporters had his flimsy up in a 
 minute, and took notes of the proceedings. 
 
 " We fought that worry through. It lasted fifteen 
 minutes. We fought out of the office ; we fought down the 
 stairs ; and we fought on the pavement. 
 
 " When it was over, I found myself arrayed in the tattered 
 remnants of my grey coat, and nothing else. John Halkett 
 hadn't so much as that. He was bruised and bleeding, and 
 he was deeply moved. Tears stood in his eyes as he grasped 
 me by the hand. 
 
 " ' Stranger,' he said, ' will you tell me where you hail 
 from ? ' 
 
 " ' Air you satisfied, Mr. Halkett,' I replied, ' with the 
 editorial management of this newspaper ? ' 
 
 " ' I am,' he answered. ' You bet. This is the very best
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 221 
 
 edited paper that ever ran. Good morning, sir. You have 
 took the starch out of John Halkett in a way that no starch 
 ever was took out of that man before. And if ever you get 
 into a tight place, you come to me,' 
 
 " They put him in a cab, and sent him home for repairs. 
 I went back to the Editor's room. He was going on again 
 with his usual occupation of manufacturing squelchers. 
 The fragments of the chairs lay around him, but he wrote 
 on unmoved. 
 
 " ' Consider yourself permanently engaged,' he said. ' The 
 firm will pay for a new suit of clothes. Why couldn't you 
 say at once that you were fond of fighting ? I never saw 
 a visitor tackled in a more lovable style. Why, you must 
 have been brought up to it. And just to think that one 
 might never have discovered your points if it hadn't been 
 for the fortunate accident of John Halkett's call ! ' 
 
 " I said I was too modest to mention my tastes. 
 
 " ' Most fortunate it is. Blevins, who used to do our 
 fighting — a whole team he was at it — was killed three 
 months ago on this very floor ; there's the mark of his 
 fluid still on the wall. We gave Blevins a first-class 
 funeral, and ordered a two - hundred - dollar monument to 
 commemorate his virtues. We were not ungrateful to 
 Blevins. 
 
 " ' Birkett came nest,' he went on, making corrections 
 with a pencil stump. ' But he was licked like a cur three 
 times in a fortnight. People used to step in on purpose to 
 wallop Birkett, it was such an easy amusement. The paper 
 was falling into disgrace, so we shunted him. He drives a 
 cab now, which suits him better, because he was always 
 gentlemanly in his ways. 
 
 " ' Carter, who followed, was very good in some respects, 
 but he wanted judgment. He's in hospital with a bullet in 
 the shoulder, which comes of his own carelessness. We 
 can't take him on again any more, even if he was our style, 
 which he never was.' 
 
 " ' And who does the work now ? ' I ventured to ask. 
 
 " ' We have had no regular man since Carter was carried
 
 222 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 off on a sliutter. Each one does a little, just as it happens 
 to turn up. But I don't like the irregular system. It's quite 
 unprofessional.' 
 
 " I asked if there was much of that sort of thing. 
 
 " ' Depends on the time of year. It is the dull season 
 just now, but we are lively enough when the fall elections 
 come on. We sometimes have a couple a day then. You 
 won't find yourself rusting. And if you want work, we can 
 stir up a few editors by judicious writing. I'm powerful 
 glad we made your acquaintance, Mr. Beck.' 
 
 " That, Mr. Dunquerque, is how I became connected with 
 the press." 
 
 " xind did you like the position ? " 
 
 " It had its good points. It was a situation of great 
 responsibility. People were continually turning up who dis- 
 liked our method of depicting character, and so the credit of 
 the paper mainly rested on my shoulders. No, sir; I got 
 to like it, except when I had to go into hospital for repairs. 
 And even that had its charms, for I went there so often 
 that it became a sort of home, and the surgeons and nurses 
 were like brothers and sisters." 
 
 " But you gave up the post ? " said Jack. 
 
 "Well, sir, I did. The occupation, after all, wasn't 
 healthy, and was a little too lively. The staff took a pride 
 in me too, and delighted to promote freedom of discussion. 
 If things grew dull for a week or two, they would scarify 
 some ward ruffian just to bring on a fight. They would 
 hang around there to see that ward ruffian approach the 
 office, and they would struggle who should be the man to 
 point me out as the gentleman he wished to interview. 
 They were fond of me to such an extent that they could not 
 bear to see a week pass without a fight. And I will say this 
 of them, that they were as level a lot of boys as ever destroyed 
 a man's character. 
 
 " Most of the business was easy. They came to see Mr. 
 Van Cott, and they were shown up to me. What there is 
 of me, takes up a good deal of the room. And when they'd 
 put their case I used to open the door and point. ' Git/ I
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. • 223 
 
 would say. ' You bet,' was the general reply ; and tliey 
 would go away quite satisfied with the Editorial reception. 
 But once a week or so there would be a put-up thing, and 
 I knew by the look of my men which would take their 
 persuasion fighting. 
 
 "It gradually became clear to me that if I remained 
 much longer there would be a first-class funeral, with me 
 taking a prominent part in the procesh ; and I began to 
 think of digging out while I still had my hair on. 
 
 " One morning I read an advertisement of a paper to be 
 sold. It was in the city of Clearville, Illinois, and it seemed 
 to suit. I resolved to go and look at it, and apprised Mr. 
 Van Cott of my intention. 
 
 " ' I'm powerful sorry,' he said ; ' but of course we can't 
 keep you if you will go. You've hoed your row like a square 
 man ever since you came, and I had hoped to have had your 
 valuable services till the end.' 
 
 " I attempted to thank him, but he held up his hand, and 
 went on thoughtfully. 
 
 " ' There's room in our plat at Rose Hill Cemetery for one 
 or two more ; and I had made up my mind to let you have 
 one side of the monument all to yourself. The sunny side, 
 too — quite the nicest nest in the plat. And we'd have given 
 you eight lines of poetry — Blevins only got four, and none 
 of the other fellows any. I assure you, Beck, though you 
 may not think it, I have often turned this over in my mind 
 when you have been in hospital, and I got to look on it as 
 a settled thing. And now this is how it ends. Life is made 
 up of disappointments.' 
 
 " I said it was very good of him to take such an interest 
 in my funeral, but that I had no yearning at present for 
 Rose Hill Cemetery, and I thought it would be a pity to 
 disturb Blevins. As I had never known him and the other 
 boys, they mightn't be pleased if a total stranger were sent 
 to join their little circle. 
 
 " Mr. Van Cott was good enough to say that they wouldn't 
 mind it for the sake of the paper ; but I had my prejudices, 
 and I resisrned.
 
 224 THE GOLl^EN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " I don't know whether you visited Illinois when you were 
 in America, Mr. Dunquerque ; but if you did, perhaps you 
 went to Clearville. It is in that part of the State which 
 goes by the name of Egypt, and is so named on account of 
 the benighted condition of the natives. It wasn't a lively 
 place to go to, but still 
 
 '• The Cleannlle Boarcr was the property of a Mrs. Scrim- 
 mager, widow of the lately defunct editor. She was a fresh 
 buxom widow of thirty-five, with a flow of language that 
 would drown a town-council or a vestry. I inferred from 
 this that the late Mr. Scrimmager was not probably 
 very sorry when the time came for him to pass in his 
 checks. 
 
 " She occupied the upper flats of a large square building, 
 in the lower part of which were the oflices of the paper. 
 I inspected the premises, and having found that the books 
 and plant were pretty well what the advertisement pretended, 
 I closed the bargain at once, and entered into possession. 
 
 " The first evening I took tea with Mrs, Scrimmager. 
 
 " ' It must be more than a mite lonely for you,' she said, 
 as we sat over her dough-nuts and flipflaps, ' up at the 
 tavern. But you'll soon get to know all the leading people. 
 They're a two-cent lot, the best of them. Scrimmy (we 
 always called him Scrimmy for short) never cottoned to 
 them. He used to say they were too low and common, 
 mean enough to shoot a man without giving him a chance 
 — a thing which Scrimmy, who was honourable from his 
 boots up, would have scorned to do.' 
 
 " I asked if it was long since her husband had taken his 
 departure. 
 
 "'He started,' she said, 'for kingdom come two months 
 ago, if that's what you mean.' 
 
 " ' Long ill ? ' 
 
 " ' 111 ? ' she replied, as if surprised at the question. 
 ' Scrimmy never was ill in his life. He was quite the 
 wrong sort of stuff" for that. Scrimmy was killed.' 
 
 " ' Was he ? ' I asked. ' Railway accident, I suppose ? * 
 
 " Mrs. Scrimmager looked at me resentfully, as if she
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 225 
 
 tliouglit I really ought to have known better. Then she 
 curved her upper lip in disdain. 
 
 " ' Railway accident ! Not much. Scrimmy was shot.' 
 
 " ' Terrible ! ' I ejaculated, with a nervous sensation, be- 
 cause I guessed what was coming. 
 
 " ' Well, it was rough on him,' she said. ' Scrimmy and 
 Huggins of the Scalper — do you know Huggins? Well, 
 you'll meet him soon enough for your health. They hadn't 
 been friends for a long while, and each man was waiting 
 to draw a bead on the other. How they did go for one 
 another! As an ink-slinger, Huggins wasn't a patch on 
 my husband ; but Huggins was a trifle handier with his 
 irons. In fact, Huggins has shot enough men to make a 
 small graveyard of his own; and his special weakness is 
 editors of your paper.' 
 
 " I began to think that Clearville was not altogether the 
 place for peace and rest. But it was too late now. 
 
 "The lady went on : 
 
 " ' Finally, Scrimmy wrote something that riled Huggins 
 awful. So he sent him a civil note, saying that he'd bore 
 a hole in him first chance. I've got the note in my desk 
 there. That was gentlemanlike, so far; but he spoiled 
 it all by the mean sneaking way he carried it through. 
 Scrimmy, who was wonderful careless and never would take 
 my advice, was writing in his office when Huggins crept in 
 quiet, and dropped a bullet through his neck before he had 
 time to turn. Scrimmy knew it was all up; but he was 
 game to the last, and finished his article, giving the Scalier 
 thunder. When he'd done it he came upstairs and died.' 
 
 " ' And Mr. Huggins ? ' 
 
 " ' They tried him ; but. Lord, the jury were all his 
 friends, and they brought it in justifiable homicide. After 
 the funeral Huggins behaved handsome ; he put the Scalper 
 into deep mourning, and wrote a beautiful send-oiF notice, 
 saying what a loss the community had suffered in Scrimmy's 
 untimely end. I've got the article in my desk, and I'll 
 show it to you; but somehow I never could bring myself 
 to be friends with Huggins after it.' 
 
 P
 
 226 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " ' Mr. Scrimmager was perhaps not tlie only editor wlio 
 has fallen a victim in Clearville.' 
 
 " ' The only one ? Not by a long chalk,' she replied. 
 ' The Roarer has had six editors in five years ; they've all 
 been shot except one, and he died of consumption. His was 
 a very sad case. A deputation of leading citizens called to 
 interview him one evening; he took refuge on the roof of 
 the office, and they kept him there all night in a storm. 
 He died in two months after it. But he was a poor nervous 
 critter, quite unfit for his position.' 
 
 " ' And this,' I thought, ' this is the place I have chosen 
 for a quiet life.' 
 
 " I debated that night with myself whether it would be 
 better to blow the roof off my head at once, instead of 
 waiting for Huggins or some other citizen to do it for me. 
 But I resolved on waiting a little. 
 
 " Next day I examined the files of the Roarer, and found 
 that it had been edited with great vigour and force ; there 
 was gunpowder in every article, fire and brimstone in every 
 paragraph. No wonder, I thought, that the men who 
 wrote those things were chopped up into sausage-meat. 
 I read more, and it seemed as if they might as well have 
 set themselves up as targets at once. I determined on 
 changing the tone of the paper; I would no longer call 
 people midnight assassins and highway robbers, nor would 
 I hint that political opponents were all related to sus- 
 pended criminals. I would make the Roarer something 
 pure, noble, and good ; I would take Washington Irving 
 for my model ; it should be my mission to elevate the 
 people. 
 
 " Wal, sir, I began. I wrote for my first number articles 
 as elevating as Kentucky whisky. Every sentence was 
 richly turned ; every paragraph was as gentle as if from the 
 pen of Goldsmith. There was a mutiny among the com- 
 positors; they were unaccustomed to such language, and 
 it made them feel small. One man, after swearing till the 
 atmosphere was blue, laid down his' stick in despair and 
 went and got drunk. And the two apprentices fought
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 227 
 
 over the meaning of a sentence in tlie backyard. One of 
 those boys is now a cripple for life. 
 
 " It would have been better for me, a thousand times 
 better, if I had stuck to the old lines of writing. The 
 people were accustomed to that. They looked for it, and 
 they didn't want any elevating. If you think of it, Mr. 
 Dunquerque, people never do. The Clearville roughs liked 
 to be abused, too, because it gave them prominence and 
 importance. But my pure style didn't suit them, and, as 
 it turned out, didn't suit me either. 
 
 " The City Marshal was the earliest visitor after the issue 
 of my first number. He came to say that, as the chief 
 executive officer of the town, he would not be responsible 
 for the public peace if I persevered in that inflammatory 
 style. I told him I wouldn't change it for him or anybody 
 else. Then he said it would cause a riot, and he washed 
 his hands of it, and he'd done his duty. 
 
 " Next came the Mayor with two town-councillors. 
 
 " ' What, in thunder, do you think you mean, young man,' 
 his honour began, pointing to my last editorial, ' by bringing 
 everlasting disgrace on our town with such mush as that ? ' 
 
 " He called it mush. 
 
 " I asked him what was wrong in it. 
 
 " ' Wrong ? It is all wrong. Of all the mean and miser- 
 able twaddle ' 
 
 " He called it miserable twaddle. 
 
 "'Hold on, Mr. Mayor,' I said; 'we must discuss this 
 article in a different way. Which member of your august 
 body does the heavy business ? ' 
 
 " ' We all take a hand when it's serious,' he replied; 'but 
 in ordinaiy cases it's generally understood that I do the 
 municipal fighting myself.' 
 
 " ' We'll consider this an ordinary case, Mr. Mayor,' I said ; 
 and I went for that chief magistrate. He presently passed 
 through the window — the fight had no details of interest — 
 and then the town-councillors shook hands with me, congra- 
 tulated me on my editorial, and walked out quiet through 
 the door.
 
 228 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Nearly a dozen Egyptians dropped in during the after- 
 noon to remonstrate. I disposed of them in as gentlemanlike 
 a manner as possible. Towards evening I was growing a 
 little tired, and thinking of shutting up for the day, when my 
 foreman, whom the day's proceedings had made young again 
 — such is the effect of joy — informed me that Mr. Huggins of 
 the Scalper was coming down the street. A moment later 
 Mr. Huggins entered. He was a medium-sized man, with 
 sharp, piercing eyes and a well-bronzed face, active as a terrier 
 and tough as a hickory-knot. I was sitting in the wreck of 
 the office-desk, but I rose as he came in. 
 
 " ' Don't stir,' he said pleasantly. ' My name is Huggins ; 
 but I am not going to kill you to-day.' 
 
 " I said I was much obliged to him. 
 
 " ' I see you've been receiving visitors,' he went on, looking 
 at the fragments of the chairs. ' Ours, Mr. Beck, is an active 
 and a responsible profession.' 
 
 " I said I thought it was. 
 
 " ' These people have been pressing their arguments home 
 with unseemly haste,' he said. ' It is unkind to treat a stranger 
 thus. Now as for me, I wouldn't draw on you for your first 
 article, not to be made Governor of Illinois. It would be 
 most unprofessional. Give a man a fair show, I say.' 
 
 " ' Very good, Mr. Huggins.' 
 
 " ' At the same time, Mr. Beck, I do think you've laid 
 yourself open. You are reckless, not to say insulting. Take 
 my case. You never saw me before, and you've had the 
 weakness to speak of me as the gentlemanly editor of the 
 Scalper.' 
 
 " ' I'm sure, Mr. Huggins, if the term is offensive ' 
 
 " ' Offensive ? Of course it is offensive. But as this is our 
 first interview, I must not let my dander rise.' 
 
 " ' Let it rise by all means, and stay as high as it likes. 
 We may find a way of bringing it down again.' 
 
 "'No, no,' he answered, smiling; 'it would be unprofes- 
 sional. Still, I must say that your sneaking, snivelling city 
 way of speaking will not go down, and I have looked in to 
 tell you that it must not be repeated.'
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 229 
 
 " ' It shall not be repeated, Mr. Huggins. I shall never 
 again make the mistake of calling yon a gentleman.' 
 
 " He started up like a flash, and moved his hand to his 
 breast-pocket. 
 
 " ' "What do you mean by that ? ' 
 
 " I was just in time, as I sprang upon and seized him by 
 both arms before he could draw his pistol. 
 
 '"I mean this,' I said; 'you've waked up the wrong 
 passenger this time, Mr. Huggins. You needn't wriggle. 
 I've been chucking people through that window all day, and 
 you shall end the lot. But first I want that shooting-iron ; 
 it might go oflF by accident and hurt some one badly.' 
 
 " It was a long and mighty heavy contract, for he was as 
 supple as an eel and as wicked as a cat. But I got the best holt 
 at last, relieved him of his pistol, and tossed him through the 
 window. 
 
 " ' Jim,' I said to the foreman, as I stretched myself in a 
 corner, panting and bleeding, ' you can shut up. We shan't 
 do any more business to-day.' 
 
 " I issued two more numbers of the Roarer on the same 
 refined and gentlemanly principle, and I fought half the 
 county. But all to no purpose. Neither fighting nor writ- 
 ing could reform those Egyptians. 
 
 " Huggins shot me through the arm one evening as I was 
 going home from the office. I shall carry his mark to the 
 grave. Three nights later I was waited on by about thirty 
 leading citizens, headed by the Mayor. They said they thought 
 Clearville wasn't agreeing with me, and they were come to 
 remove me. I was removed on a plank, escorted by a torch- 
 light procesh of the local fire-brigade. On the platform of 
 the railway-station the ]\Iayor delivered a short address. He 
 said, with tears, that the interests of party were above those of 
 individuals, and that a change of residence was necessary for 
 me. Then he put into my hands a purse with two hundred 
 dollars, and we parted with every expression of mutual esteem. 
 
 " That is how I came out of the land of Egypt, Mr. Dun- 
 querque ; and that is the whole history of my connection 
 with the press."
 
 230 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 " We do not know 
 How she may soften at the sight o' the child." 
 
 IF life was pleasant in Carnarvon Square, it was far more 
 pleasant by the banks of the river. Phillis expanded 
 like a rose in June under the sweet and gracious influences 
 with which Agatha L'Estrange surrounded her. Her straight- 
 forward way of speaking remained — the way that reminded 
 one of a very superior schoolboy who had oiot been made a 
 prig at Engby — but it was rounded off by something more 
 of what we call maidenly reserve. It should not be called 
 reserve at all ; it is an atmosphere with which women have 
 learned to surround themselves, so that they show to the 
 outward world like unto the haloed moon. Its presence was 
 manifested in a hundred little ways — she did not answer 
 quite so readily ; she did not look into the face of a stranger 
 quite so frankly; she seemed to be putting herself more 
 upon her guard — strange that the chief charm of women 
 should be a relic of barbarous times, when the stronger sex 
 were to be feared for their strength and the way in 
 which they often used it. Only with Jack Dunquerque 
 there was no change. With him she was still the frank, 
 free-hearted girl, the friend who opened all her heart, the 
 maiden who, alone of womankind, knew not the meaning 
 of love. 
 
 Phillis was perfectly at home with Agatha L'Estrange. 
 She carolled about the house like a bird ; she played and 
 sang at her sweet will ; she made sketches by thousands ; 
 and she worked hard at the elements of all knowledge. 
 Heavens, by what arid and thirsty slopes do we climb the 
 hills of Learning ! Other young ladies had made the 
 house by the river their temporary home, but none so 
 clever, none so bright, none so entirely lovable as this 
 emancipated cloister-child. She was not subdued, as most 
 young women somehow contrive to become ; she dared to
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 231 
 
 have an opinion and to assert it ; she did not tremble and 
 hesitate about acting before it had been ascertained that 
 action was correct ; she had not the least fear of compromis- 
 ing herself; she hardly knew the meaning of proper and 
 improper; and she who had been a close prisoner all her 
 life was suddenly transformed into a girl as free as any of 
 Diana's nymphs. Her freedom was the result of her ignor- 
 ance; her courage was the result of her special training, 
 which had not taught her the subjection of the sex ; her 
 liberty was not license, because she did not, and could not, 
 use it for those purposes which schoolgirls learn in religious 
 boarding-houses. She could walk with a curate, and often 
 did, without flirting with the holy young man; she could 
 make Jack Dunquerque take her for a row upon the river, 
 and think of nothing but the beauty of the scene, her own 
 exceeding pleasure, and the amiable qualities of her com- 
 panion. 
 
 Of course, Agatha's friends called upon her. Among 
 them were several specimens of the British young lady. 
 Phillis watched them with much curiosity, but she could 
 not get on with them. They seemed mostly to be suffering 
 from feeble circulation of the pulse ; they spoke as if they 
 enjoyed nothing; those who were very young kindled into 
 enthusiasm in talking over things which Phillis knew 
 nothing about, such as dancing — Phillis was learning to 
 dance, but did not yet comprehend its fiercer joys — and 
 sports in which the other sex took an equal part. Their 
 interest was small in painting ; they cared for nothing very 
 strongly ; their minds seemed for the most part as languid 
 as their bodies. This life at low ebb seemed to the girl 
 whose blood coursed freely, and tingled in her veins as it 
 ran, a poor thing ; and she mentally rejoiced that her own 
 education was not such as theirs. On the other hand, there 
 were points in which these ladies were clearly in advance 
 of herself. Phillis felt the cold ease of their manner ; that 
 was beyond her efforts ; a formal and mannered calm was 
 all she could assume to veil the intensity of her interest in 
 things and persons.
 
 232 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " But what do tliey like, Agatha ? " she asked one 
 day, after the departure of two young ladies of the highest 
 type. 
 
 "Well, dear, I hardly know. I should say that they 
 have no strong likings in any direction. After all, Phillis 
 dear, those who have the fewest desires enjoy the greatest 
 happiness." 
 
 " No, Agatha, I cannot think that. Those who want 
 most things can enjoy the most. Oh, that level line ! what 
 can shake them off it ? " 
 
 "They are happier as they are, dear. You have been 
 brought up so differently that you cannot understand. Some 
 day they will marry. Then the equable temperament in 
 which they have been educated will stand them in good 
 stead with their husbands and their sons." 
 
 Phillis was silent, but she was not defeated. 
 
 Of course the young ladies did not like her at all. 
 
 They were unequal to the exertion of talking to a girl 
 who thought differently from all other girls. Phillis to 
 them, as to all people who are weak in the imaginative 
 faculty, was imj^ossihle. 
 
 But bit by bit the social education was being filled in, 
 and Phillis was rapidly becoming ready for the cUhut to 
 which Agatha looked forward with so much interest and 
 pride. 
 
 There remained another kind of education. 
 
 Brought up alone, with only her maid of her own age, and 
 only an old man on whom to pour out her wealth of affec- 
 tion, this girl would, but for her generous nature, have 
 grown up cold and unsympathetic. She did not. The first 
 touch of womanly love which met her in her escajDO from 
 prison was the kiss which Agatha L'Estrange dropped 
 unthinkingly upon her cheek. It was the first of many 
 kisses, not formal and unmeaning, which were interchanged 
 between these two. It is difiicult to explain the great and 
 rapid change the simple caresses of another woman worked 
 in Phillis's mind. She became softer, more careful of what 
 she said, more thoughtful of others. She tried harder to
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 233 
 
 nnderstancl people; she wanted to be to them all what 
 Agatha L'Estrange was to her. 
 
 One day, Agatha, returning from early church, whither 
 Phillis would not accompany her, heard her voice in the 
 kitchen. She was singing and laughing. Agatha opened 
 the door and looked in. 
 
 Phillis was standing in the middle of a group. Her eyes 
 were bright with a sort of rapture ; her lips were parted ; 
 her long hair was tossing behind her; she was singing, 
 talking, and laughing, all in a breath. 
 
 In her arms she held the most wonderful thing to a woman 
 which can be seen on this earth. 
 
 A Baby. 
 
 The child of the butter-woman. The mother stood before 
 Phillis, her pleased red face beaming with an honest pride. 
 Phillis's maid, Antoinette, and Agatha's three servants, sur- 
 rounded these two, the principal figures. In the corner, 
 grinning, stood the coachman. And the baby crowed and 
 laughed. 
 
 " Oh, the pretty thing ! Oh, the pretty thing ! " cried 
 Phillis, tossing the little one-year-old, who kicked and 
 laughed and pulled at her hair. " Was there ever such a 
 lovely child ? Agatha, come and see, come and see ! lie 
 talks, he laughs, he dances ! " 
 
 " Ah, madame ! " said Antoinette, wiping away a sympa- 
 thetic tear. " Dire que ma'amselle n'en a jamais vu ! Mais 
 non, mais non — pas meme des poupees ! "
 
 234 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 " Go seek your fortunes farther than at home." 
 
 LAWRENCE COLQUHOUN returned home to find him- 
 self famous. Do you remember a certain book of travels 
 written four or five years ago by Lord Milton and Dr. 
 Cheadle, in which frequent mention was made of un nomm6 
 Harris, an inquiring and doubting Christian, who wore a 
 pair of one-eyed spectacles and carried a volume of Paley ? 
 If that Harris, thus made illustrious, had suddenly presented 
 himself in a London drawing-room while the book was 
 enjoying his first run, he would have met with much the 
 same success which awaited Lawrence Colquhoun. Harris 
 let his opportunity go, and never showed up ; perhaps he is 
 still wandering in the Rocky Mountains and pondering over 
 Paley. But Colquhoun appeared while the work of the 
 Dragoon and the Younger Son was still in the mouths of 
 men and women. The liveliest thing in that book is the 
 account of Empire City and its Solitary. Everybody whose 
 memory can carry him back to last year's reading will re- 
 member so much. And everybody who knew Colquhoun 
 knew also that he was the Solitary. 
 
 The Hermit ; the man with the Golden Butterfly, now a 
 millionaire; the Golden Butterfly, now in a golden cage — 
 all these actually present, so to speak, in the flesh, and ready 
 to witness if the authors lied. Why, each was an advertise- 
 ment of the book, and if the two Chinamen had been added, 
 probably people might be reading the work still. But they, 
 poor fellows, were defunct. 
 
 It annoyed Lawrence at first to find himself, like Cambus- 
 can, with his tale half told ; and it was monotonous to be 
 always asked whether it was really true, and if he was the 
 original Hermit. But everything wears off; people in a 
 week or two began to talk of something else, and when 
 Colquhoun met a man for the first time after his return 
 he would startle and confuse that man by anticipating his
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 235 
 
 question. He knew the outward signs of its approach. 
 He would watch for the smile, the look of curiosity, and 
 the parting of the lips before they framed the usual 
 words : 
 
 " By the way, Colquhoun, is it actually true that you are 
 the Hermit in Jack Dunquerque's book ? " 
 
 And while the questioner was forming the sentence, think- 
 ing it a perfectly original one, never asked before, Lawrence 
 would answer it for him. 
 
 " It is perfectly true that I was the Hermit. Now talk of 
 something else." 
 
 For the rest he dropped into his old place. Time, matri- 
 mony, good and evil hap, had made havoc among his set; 
 but there were still some left. Club-men come and club- 
 men go ; but the club goes on for ever. 
 
 Colquhoun had the character of being at once the laziest 
 and the most good-natured of men. A dangerous reputation, 
 because gratitude is a heavy burden to bear. If you do 
 a man a good turn he generally finds it too irksome to be 
 grateful, and so becomes your enemy. But Colquhoun cared 
 little about his reputation. 
 
 When he disappeared, his friends for a day or two wondered 
 where he was. Then they ceased to talk of him. Now he 
 was come back they were glad to have him among them 
 again. He was a pleasant addition. He was not altered in 
 the least — his eyes as clear from crows-feet, his beard as 
 silky, and his face as cheerful as ever. Some men's faces 
 have got no sun in them ; they only light up with secret joy 
 at a friend's misfortunes : but that is an artificial fire, so to 
 speak; it burns with a baleful and lurid light. There are 
 others whose faces are like the weather in INIay, being un- 
 certain and generally disagreeable. But Lawrence Colqu- 
 houn's face always had a cheerful brightness. It came from 
 an easy temper, a good digestion, a comfortable income, and 
 a kindly heart. 
 
 Of course he made haste to find out Gilead P. Beck. Jack 
 Dunquerque, who forgot at the time to make any mention 
 of Phillis Fleming, informed him of the Golden Butterfly's
 
 236 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 wonderful Luck. And tliey all four dined together — the 
 Hermit, the Miner, the Dragoon, and the Younger Son. 
 
 Thej ran the Bear Hunt over again ; they talked of Empire 
 City, and speculated on the two Chinamen ; had they known 
 the fate of the two, their speculations might have taken a 
 wider range. 
 
 "It was rough on me that time," said Gilead. "It 
 had never been so rough before, since I began bumming 
 around." 
 
 They waited for more, and presently he began to tell them 
 more. It was the way of the man. He never intruded his 
 personal experiences, being for the most part a humble and 
 even a retiring man ; but when he was among men he knew, 
 be delighted in his recollections. 
 
 " Thirty -three years ago since I began. Twelve years old ; 
 the youngest of the lot. And I wonder where the rest are. 
 Hiram, I know, sat down beside a rattle one morning. He 
 remembered he had an appointment somewhere else, and got 
 up in a hurry. But too late, and his constitution broke up 
 suddenly. But for the rest I never did know what became 
 of them. When I go back with that almighty Pile of mine, 
 they will find me out, I dare say. Then they will bring 
 along all their friends and the rest of the poor relations. 
 The poorer the relations in our country, the more affectionate 
 and self-denying they are." 
 
 " What did you do first ? " asked Ladds. 
 
 " Ean messages ; swept out stores ; picked up trades ; 
 went handy boy to a railway engineer ; read what I could 
 and when I could. When I was twenty I kept a village 
 school at a dollar a day. That was in Ohio. I've been many 
 things in my pilgrimage and tried to like them all, but that 
 was most too much for me. Boys and gells, Captain Ladds. 
 Boys themselves are bad ; but boys and gells mixed, they air 
 — wal, it's a curious and interestin' thing that, ever since 
 that time, when I see the gells snoopin' around with their 
 eyes as soft as velvet and their sweet cheeks the colour of 
 peach, I say to myself, ' Shoddy. It is shoddy. I've seen 
 you at school, and I know you better than you think.' As
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 237 
 
 tlie poet says, 'Let gells delight to bark and bite, for 'tis 
 their nature to.' You believe, Mr. Dunquerque, because you 
 are young and inexperienced, that gells air soft. Air they ? 
 Soft as the shell of a clam. And tender? Tender as a 
 hickory- nut. Air they gentle, unselfish, and yieldin' ? As 
 rattlesnakes. The child is mother to the woman, as the poet 
 says; and school-gells grow up mostly into women. They're 
 sweet to look at; but when you've tended school, you feel 
 to know them. And then you don't yearn after them so 
 much. 
 
 " There was one boy I liked. He was eighteen, stood six 
 foot high in his stocking-boots, and his name was Pete 
 Conkling. The lessons that boy taught me were useful in 
 my after-life. We began it every morning at five minutes 
 past nine. Any little thing set us oflf. He might heave a 
 desk, or a row of books, or the slates of the whole class at 
 my head. I might go for him first. It was uncertain how 
 it began, but the fight was bound to be fought. The boys 
 expected it, and it pleased the gells. Sometimes it took me 
 half an hour, and sometimes the whole morning, to wallop 
 that boy. When it was done, Pete would take his place 
 among the little gells, for he never could learn anything, 
 and school would begin. To see him after it was over 
 sitting alongside of little Hepzibah and Keziah, as meek 
 as if he'd never heard of a black eye, and never seen the 
 human fist, was one of my few joys. I was fond of Pete, 
 and he was fond of me. Ways like his, gentlemen, kinder 
 creep round the heart of the lonely teacher. Very fond 
 of him I grew. But I got restless and dug out for 
 another place ; it was when I went on the boards and 
 became an actor, I think ; and it was close on fifteen years 
 afterwards that I met him. Then he was lying on the 
 slopes of Gettysburg — it was after the last battle — and 
 his eyes were turned up to the sky ; one of them, I noticed, 
 was black; so that he had kept up his fighting to the 
 end. For he was stark dead, with a Confed. bullet in his 
 heart. Poor Pete ! " 
 
 " You fought for the North ? " asked one of his audience.
 
 238 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 "I lixis a Northerner," he replied simply. How could 
 he help taking his part in maintaining undivided that fair 
 realm of America, which every one of his countrymen love 
 as Queen Elizabeth's yeoman loved the realm of England ? 
 We have no yeomen now, which is perhaps one of the 
 reasons why we could not understand the cause of the 
 North. 
 
 " I worried through that war without a scratch. We got 
 wary towards the end, and let the bullets drop into trunks 
 of trees for choice. And when it was over, I was five-and- 
 thirty, and had to begin the world again. But I was used 
 to it." 
 
 " And you enjoyed a wandering life ? " 
 
 " Yes, I believe I did enjoy barking uj) a new tree. There's 
 a breed of Americans who can't keep still. I belong to that 
 breed. We do not like to sit by a river and watch the water 
 flow; we get tired of livin' in the village lookin' in each 
 other's faces while the seasons come round like the hands of 
 a clock. There's a mixture among us of Dutch and German 
 and English to sit quiet and till the ground. They get 
 their heels well grounded in the clay, and there they 
 stick." 
 
 " Where do you get it from, the wandering blood ? " asked 
 Colqiihoun. 
 
 Gilead P. Beck became solemn. 
 
 " There air folk among us," he whispered, " who hold that 
 we are descended from the Ten Tribes. I don't say those 
 folk are right, but I do say that it sometimes looks powerful 
 like as if they were. Descended from the Ten Tribes, they 
 say, and miraculously kept separate from the English among 
 whom they lived. Lost their own language — which, if it 
 was Hebrew, I take it was rather a good thing to be quit of 
 — and speakin' English, like the rest. What were the tribes ? 
 Wanderers, mostly. Father Abraham went drivin' his cows 
 and his camels up and down the country. Isaac went around 
 on the rove, and Jacob couldn't sit still. Very well, then. 
 Didn't their children walk about, tryin' one location after 
 another, for forty years, and always feelin' after a bit as if
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 239 
 
 there must be a softer plank farther on ? And when they'd 
 been settled down for a few hundred years, didn't they get 
 up and disappear altogether ? Mark you, they didn't want 
 to settle. And where are the Ten Tribes now ? For they 
 never went back; you may look Palesteen through and 
 through, and nary a Tribe." 
 
 He looked round asking the question generally, but no 
 one ventured to answer it. 
 
 " Our folk, who have mostly gut religion, point to them- 
 selves. They say, ' Look at us ; we air the real original 
 Wanderers.' Look at us all over the world. What are the 
 hotels full of? Full of Americans. We are everywhere. 
 We eat up the milk and the honey, and we tramp off on the 
 ramble again. But there's more points of gen'ral resem- 
 blance. We like bounce and bunkum ; so did those people 
 down in Syria : we like to pile up the dollars ; so did the 
 Jews : they liked to set up their kings and pull them down 
 again ; we pursue the same generous and confiding policy 
 with our presidents : and if they were stiff-necked and 
 backsliding, we are as stiff-necked and backsliding as any 
 generation among all the lot." 
 
 " A very good case indeed," said Colquhoun. 
 
 " I did not think so, sir, till lately. But it's been borne in 
 upon me with a weight and force that can't be resisted, and 
 I believe it now. The lost Ten Tribes, gentlemen, air now 
 located in the States. I am certain of it from my own case. 
 Do any of you think — I put it to you seriously — that such 
 an inseck as the Golden Butterfly would have been thrown 
 away upon an outsider ? Is it likely that such all-fired Luck 
 as mine would have been wasted on a man who didn't belong 
 bo the Chosen People? No, sir; I am of the children of 
 Israel ; and I freeze to that."
 
 240 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 " Animum pictura, pascit inani." 
 
 WHEN Panurge was in that dreadful difficulty of his 
 about marrying he took counsel of all his friends. 
 Pantagruel, as we know, advised him alternately for and 
 against, according to the view taken at the moment by his 
 versatile dependent. Gilead Beck was so far in Panurge's 
 position that he asked advice of all his friends. Mr. Cassilis 
 recommended him to wait and look about him ; meantime, 
 he took his money for investment ; and, as practice makes 
 perfect, and twice or thrice makes a habit, he found now no 
 difficulty in making Mr. Beck give him cheques without 
 asking their amount or their object, while the American 
 Fortunatus easily fell into the habit of signing them with- 
 out question. He was a Fool ? No doubt. The race is a 
 common one ; especially common is that kind of Fool which 
 is suspicious from long experience, but which, having found, 
 as he thinks, a fellow-creature worthy of trust, places entire 
 and perfect trust in him, and so, like a ship riding at anchor 
 with a single stout cable, laughs at danger even while the 
 wind is blowing, beam on, to a lee shore. Perfect faith ia 
 so beautiful a thing that neither religionists who love to 
 contemplate it, nor sharpers who profit by it, would will- 
 ingly let it die out. 
 
 Lawrence Colquhoun recommended pictures. 
 
 " You may as well spend your money on Artists as on any 
 other people. They are on the whole a pampered folk, and 
 get much too well paid. But a good picture is generally a 
 good investment. And then you will become a patron and 
 form a gallery of your own, the Beck collection, to hand down 
 to posterity." 
 
 " I can't say, Colonel — not with truth — that I know a good 
 picture from a bad one. I once tried sign-painting. But 
 the figures didn't come out right, somehow. Looked easy to 
 do, too. Seems I didn't know about Perspective, and besides.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 241 
 
 the colours got mixed. Sign-painting is not a walk in life 
 that I should recommend from personal experience." 
 
 But the idea took root in his brain. 
 
 Jack Dunquerque encouraged it. 
 
 " You see, Beck," he said, " you may as well form a gallery 
 of paintings as anything else. Buy modern pictures ; don't 
 buy Old Masters, because you will be cheated. The modern 
 pictures will be old in a hundred years, and then your col- 
 lection will be famous." 
 
 "I want to do my work in my own lifetime," said the 
 millionaire. He was a man of many ideas but few convic- 
 tions, the strongest being that man ought to do what he has 
 to do in his own lifetime, and not to devise and bequeath 
 for posthumous reputation. 
 
 "Why, and so you would. You buy the pictures while 
 you are living ; when you go off, the pictures remain." 
 
 A patron of Art. The very name flattered his vanity, 
 being a thing he had read of, and his imagination leaped up 
 to the possibilities of the thing. Why should he not collect 
 for his own country ? He saw himself, like Stewart, return- 
 ing to New York with a shipload of precious Art treasures 
 bought in London ; he saw his agent ransacking the studios 
 and shops of Florence, Naples, Rome, Dresden — wherever 
 painters congregate and pictures are sold ; he imagined rich 
 argosies coming to him across the ocean — the American 
 looks across the ocean for the luxuries and graces of life, his 
 wines, his Art, and his literature. Then he saw a great 
 building, grander than the Capitol at Washington, erected 
 by a grateful nation for the reception of the Gilead P. Beck 
 Collection of Ancient and Modern Paintings. 
 
 Now one of the earliest callers upon Mr. Beck was a certain 
 picture-dealer named Burls. Mr. Burls and his fraternity 
 regard rich Americans with peculiar favour. It is said to 
 have been Bartholomew Burls who invented especially for 
 American use the now well-known " multiplication " dodge. 
 The method is this. You buy a work by a rising artist, one 
 whose pictures may be at some future time, but are not yet, 
 sufficiently known to make their early wanderings matter of 
 
 Q
 
 242 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 notoriety. One of your young men — he must be a safe hand 
 and a secret — makes two, three, or four copies, the number 
 depending on the area, rather than the number, of your 
 clienttlc. You keep the Artist's receipt, a proof of the 
 genuineness of the picture. The copies, name and all, are 
 so well done that even the painter himself would be puzzled 
 to know his own. You then proceed to place your pictures 
 at good distances from each other, representing each as 
 genuine. It is a simple, beautiful, and lucrative method. 
 iSTot so profitable, perhaps, as cleaning old oil-paintings, which 
 takes half an hour apiece and is charged from ten shillings to 
 ten pounds, according to the dealer's belief in yom' power to 
 pay. Nor is it more profitable than the manufacture of a 
 Correggio or a Cuyp for a guileless cotton manufacturer, and 
 there is certainly a glow of pride to be obtained by the suc- 
 cessful conversion of a new into an old picture- by the aid of 
 mastic varnish, mixed with red and yellow lake to tone it 
 down, and the simple shaking of a door-mat over it. But 
 then people have grown wary, and it is difficult to catch 
 a purchaser of a Correggio, for which a large sum has to be 
 asked. The multiplication dodge is the simpler and the 
 safer. 
 
 Mr. Beck, as has been already shown, was by no means 
 deficient in a certain kind of culture. He had read such 
 books as fell in his way during his wandering and adven- 
 turous life. His reading was thus miscellaneous. He had 
 been for a short time an actor, and thus acquired a little 
 information concerning dramatic literature. He had been 
 on a newspaper, one of the rank and file as well as an editor. 
 He knew a good deal about many things, arts, customs, and 
 trades. But of one thing he was profoundly ignorant, and 
 that was of painting. 
 
 He looked up Burls' card, however — " Bartholomew Burls 
 and Co., Church Street, City, Inventors of the only safe and 
 perfect Method of Cleaning Oil Paintings " — and, accom- 
 panied by Jack Dunquerque, who knew about as much of 
 pictures as himself, hunted up the shop, and entered it with 
 the meekness of a pigeon about to be plucked.
 
 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 243 
 
 Tliey stood amid a mass of pictures, the like of which 
 Gilead Beck had never before conceived. They were hang- 
 ing on the walls ; they were piled on the floor ; they were 
 stretched across the ceiling ; they climbed the stairs ; they 
 were hiding away in dark corners ; a gaping doorway lit 
 with gas showed a cellar below where they were stacked in 
 hundreds. Pictures of all kinds. The shop was rather 
 dark, though the sun of May was pouring a flood of light 
 even upon the narrow City streets. But you could make 
 out something. There were portraits in hundreds. The 
 effigies of dead men and women stared at you from every 
 second frame. Your ancestor — Mr. Burls was very par- 
 ticular in ascertaining beyond a doubt that it was your own 
 ancestor, and nobody else's — frowned at you in bright steel 
 armour with a Vandyke beard ; or he presented a shaven 
 face with full cheeks and a Ramillies wig ; or he smirked 
 upon you from a voluminous white scarf and a coat-collar 
 which rose to the top of his head. The ladies of your 
 family — Mr. Burls was very particular, before selling you 
 one, in ascei'taining beyond a doubt that she belonged 
 to your own branch of the house, and none other — smiled 
 upon you with half-closed lids, like the consort of Poti- 
 phar, the Egyptian ; or they frisked as shepherdesses in 
 airy robes, conscious of their charms ; or they brandished 
 full-blown petticoats, compared with which crinolines were 
 graceful ; or they blushed in robes which fell tightly about the 
 figure, and left the waist beneath the arms. Name any knight, 
 or mayor^ or court beauty, or famous toast among your ancestry 
 whose portrait is wanting to your gallery, and Burls, the great 
 genealogical collector, will find you before many weeks that 
 missing link in the family history. Besides the portraits, there 
 were landscapes, nymphs bathing, Venuses asleep, Venuses 
 with a looking-glass, Venuses of all sorts ; scenes from Don 
 Quixote ; Act^eons surprising Dianas ; battle-pieces, sea-pieces, 
 river-pieces ; " bits " of Hampstead Heath, and boats on the 
 Thames. 
 
 Mr. Beck looked round him, stroked his chin, and addressed 
 the guardian of this treasure-house :
 
 244 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " I am going to buy pictures," he began comprehensively. 
 " You air the Boss ? " 
 
 " This gentleman means," Jack explained, " that he wants 
 to look at your pictures with a view to buying some if he 
 approves of them." 
 
 The man in the shop was used to people who would buy 
 one picture after a whole morning's haggling, but he was 
 not accustomed to people who wanted to buy pictures gener- 
 ally. He looked astonished, and then, with a circular 
 sweep of his right hand, indicated that here were pictures, 
 and all Mr. Beck had to do was to go in and buy 
 them. 
 
 " Look round you, gentlemen," he said ; " pray look 
 round you ; and the more you buy, the better we shall 
 like it." 
 
 Then he became aware that the elder speaker was an 
 American, and he suddenly changed his front. 
 
 " Our chicer pictures," he explained, " are up stairs. 
 I should like you to look at them first. Will you step 
 up, gentlemen ? " 
 
 On the stairs, more pictures. On the landing, more 
 pictures. On the stairs mounting higher, more pictures. 
 But they stopped on the first floor. Mr. Burls and his 
 assistants never invited any visitors to the second and 
 third floors, because these rooms were sacred to the manu- 
 facture of old pictures, the multiplication of new, and 
 the sacred processes of cleaning, lining, and restoring. 
 In the first-floor rooms were fewer pictures but more 
 light. 
 
 One large composition immediately caught Mr. Beck's 
 eye. A noble picture ; a grand picture ; a picture whose 
 greatness of conception was equalled by its boldness of 
 treatment. It occupied the whole of one side of the wall, 
 and miglit liave measured twenty feet in length by fourteen 
 in height. The subject was scriptural — the slaying of 
 Sisera by Jael, Heber the Kenite's wife. The defeated 
 general lay stretched on the couch, occupying a good ten 
 feet of the available space. Beside him stood the woman,
 
 THE GOLbEN BUTTEEFLY. 245 
 
 a majestic figure, with a tent-peg and a mallet, about to 
 commit that famous breach of hospitality. The handle 
 of the mallet was rendered most conscientiously, and had 
 evidently been copied from a model. Through the open 
 hangings of the tent were visible portions of the army 
 chasing the fugitives and lopping off their heads. 
 
 " That seems a striking picture," said Mr. Beck. " I 
 take that picture, sir, to represent George Washington after 
 the news of the surrender at Saratoga, or General Jackson 
 after the battle of New Orleans." 
 
 " Grant after Gettysburg," suggested Jack. 
 
 " No, sir. I was at Gettysburg myself ; and the hero 
 asleep on the bed, making every allowance for his fancy 
 dress, which I take to be allegorical, is not at all like 
 General Ulysses Grant, nor is he like General Sherman. 
 The young female, I s'pose, is Liberty, with a hammer in 
 one hand, and a dagger in the other. Too much limb for 
 an American gell, and the flesh is redder than one could 
 wish. But on the hull a striking picture. What may be 
 the value of this composition, mister ? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir. Not Washington, sir, nor 
 General Jackson, though we can procure you in a very 
 short time fine portraits of both these 'eroes. This, gentle- 
 men, is a biblical subject. Cicero, overtaken by sleep while 
 in jail, about to be slain by 'Eber the wife of the Kenite. 
 That is 'Eber, with the 'eavy 'ammer in 'er 'and. The Kenite 
 belonged, as I have always understood — for I don't remem- 
 ber the incident myself — to the opposite faction. That 
 splendid masterpiece, gentlemen, has been valued at five 
 'undred. For a town'all, or for an altar-piece, it would be 
 priceless. To let it go at anything under five 'undred 
 would be a sin and a shame, besides a-throwing away of 
 money. Look at the light and shade. Look at 'Eber's arm 
 and Cicero's leg. That leg alone has been judged by connis- 
 seers worth all the money." 
 
 Mr. Beck was greatly disappointed in the subject and in 
 the price ; even had it been the allegorical picture which he 
 thought, he was not yet sufficiently educated in the prices
 
 246 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 
 
 of pictures to offer five liunclred for it; and when Mr. Burls's 
 assistant spoke of pounds, Mr. Beck thought of dollars. So 
 he replied : 
 
 " Five hundred dollars ? I will give you five-and- twenty." 
 
 " That," interposed Jack Dunquerque, " is a five-pound 
 note." 
 
 " Then, by gad, sir," said the man, with alacrity, " it's 
 yours ! It's been hangin' there for ten years, and never an 
 offer yet. It's yours ! " 
 
 This splendid painting, thus purchased at the rate of rather 
 more than threepence a square foot, was the first acquisition 
 made by Mr. Beck towards his great Gallery of Ancient and 
 Modern Masters. 
 
 He paid for it on the spot, calling Jack to witness the 
 transaction. 
 
 " We will send it up to the hotel to-morrow," said the 
 man. 
 
 " I shall have it fixed right away along the side of my 
 room," said Mr. Beck. " Should it be framed ? " 
 
 " I should certainly have it framed," said Jack. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; we shall we happy to frame it for you." 
 
 " I dare say you would," Jack went on. " This is a job 
 for a house-carpenter, Mr. Beck. You will have to build 
 the frame for this gigantic picture. Have it sent over, and 
 consider the frame afterwards." 
 
 This course was approved ; but, for reasons which will sub- 
 sequently appear, the picture never was framed. 
 
 The dealer proceeded to show other pictures. 
 
 " A beautiful Nicolas Pushing — ' Nymphs and Satyrs in a 
 Bacchanalian Dance ' — a genuine thing." 
 
 " I don't think much of that, Mr. Dunquerque ; do you ? 
 The Nymphs haven't finished dressing; and the gentlemen 
 with the goats' legs may be satires on human natur', but they 
 are not pretty. Let us go on to the next show in the caravan, 
 mister." 
 
 "This is Hetty. In the master's best style. ' Graces sur- 
 prised while Bathing in the River.' Much admired by 
 connisseers."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 247 
 
 "No, sir; not at all," said Mr. Beck severely. ^^ My 
 gallery is going to elevate the morals of our gells and 
 boys. It's a pretty thing too, Mr. Dunquerque, and I some- 
 times think it's a pity morality was ever invented. Now, 
 Boss." 
 
 " Quite so, sir. Hetty is^ as you say, rayther — What do 
 you think of this, now — a lovely Grooze ? " 
 
 " Grooze," said Mr. Beck, " is French, I suppose, for gell. 
 Yes, now that's a real pretty picture ; I call that a picture 
 you ain't ashamed to admire ; there's lips you can kiss ; 
 there's a chin you can chuck " 
 
 " How about the morals ? " asked Jack. 
 
 " Wal, Mr. Dunquerque, we'll buy the picture first, and 
 we'll see how it rhymes with morals afterwards. There's 
 eyes to look into a man's. Any more heads of pretty Groozes, 
 mister ? I'll buy the lot." 
 
 " This is a Courage-oh ! " the exhibitor went on, after 
 expressing his sorrow that he had no more Groozes, and 
 bringing out a Madonna. " Thought to be genuine by the 
 best judges. History of the picture unknown redooces the 
 value." 
 
 " I can't go fooling around with copies in my gallery," said 
 Mr. Beck. " I must have genuine pictures, or none." 
 
 " Then we will not offer you that Madonna, sir. I think 
 I have something here to suit you. Come this way. A 
 Teniers, gentlemen — a real undoubted gem of a Teniers. 
 This is a picture now for any gentleman's collection. It came 
 from the gallery of a nobleman lately deceased, and was 
 bought at the sale by Mr. Burls himself, who knows a picture 
 when he sees one. Mr. Bartholomew Burls, our senior 
 partner, gentlemen. ' The Bagpipe-player.' " 
 
 It was an excellent imitation, but of a well-known picture, 
 and it required consummate impudence to pretend that it 
 was original. 
 
 " Oh," said Jack, " but I have seen this somewhere else. 
 In the Louvre, I believe." 
 
 " Very likely, sir," replied the unabashed vendor. " Teniers 
 painted six hundred pictures. There was a good many ' Bag-
 
 248 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 pipe-players ' among tliem. One is in the Louvre. This is 
 another." 
 
 On the advice of Jack Diinquerque Mr. Beck refrained from 
 buying, and contented himself with selecting, with the option 
 of purchase. When they left the shop, some twenty pictures 
 were thus selected. 
 
 The seller, who had a small interest or commission on 
 sales, as soon as their steps were fairly out of the shop, 
 executed a short dance indicative of joy. Then he called up 
 the stairs, and a man came slowly down. 
 
 A red-nosed bibulous person, by name Critchett. He was 
 manufacturer of old masters in ordinary to Bartholomew 
 Burls and Co. ; cleaned and restored pictures when other 
 orders were slack, and was excellent at " multiplication." 
 He had worked for Burls for a quarter of a century, save 
 for a few weeks, when one Frank Melliship, a young gentle- 
 man then down on his luck, worked in his stead. A trust- 
 worthy and faithful creature, though given to drink; he 
 could lie like an echo ; was as incapable of blushing as the 
 rock on which the echo plays ; and bore cross-examination 
 like a Claimant. 
 
 " Come down, Critchett — come down. We've sold ' Cicero 
 and 'Eber.' " 
 
 " ' Sisera and Jael.' " 
 
 " Well, it don't matter — and I said ' Cicero in Jail.' 
 They're gone for five pounds. The governor he always said 
 I could take whatever was offered, and keep it for myself 
 Five pounds in my pocket ! Your last Teniers — that old 
 bagpipe-party — I tried him, but it was no go. But I've 
 sold the only one left of your Groozes, and you had better 
 make a few more, out of hand. Look here, Critchett : it 
 isn't right to drink in hours, and the guv'nor out and all ; 
 but this is an occasion. This ain't a common day, because 
 I've sold the Cicero. I won't ask you to torse, nor yet to 
 pay ; but I says, ' Critchett, come across the way, my boy, 
 and put your lips to what you like best.' Lord, Lord ! on'y 
 give me an American, and give him to me green ! Never 
 mind your hat, Critchett. ' It's limp in the brim and it's
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 249 
 
 gone in the rim,' as the poet says ; and you look more respect- 
 able without it, Critchett." 
 
 " That's a good beginning," Beck observed, after luncheon. 
 They were in Jack Dunquerque's club, in the smoking-room. 
 " That's a first-rate beginning. How many pictures go to a 
 gallery ? " 
 
 " It depends on the size of it. About five hundred for a 
 moderate-sized one." 
 
 Mr. Beck whistled. 
 
 " Never mind. The lie pays for all. A Patron of Art. 
 Yes, sir, that seems the right end of the stick for a rich 
 man to keep up. But I've been thinking it over. It isn't 
 enough to go to shops and buy pictures. We must go in 
 for sculpting too, and a Patron ought to get hold of a 
 struggling artist, and lend him a helping hand ; he should 
 advance unknown talent. That's my idea." 
 
 " I think I can help you there," said Jack, his eyes twink- 
 ling. " I know just such a man ; an artist unknown, with- 
 out friends, with slender means, of great genius, who has 
 long languished in obscurity." 
 
 " Bring him to me, Mr. Dunquerque. Bring that young 
 man to me. Let me be the means of pushing the young 
 gentleman. Holy thunder ! what is money if it isn't used ? 
 Tell me his name." 
 
 " I think I ought to have spoken to him first," said Jack, 
 in some confusion, and a little taken aback by Mr. Beck's 
 determination. " But, however, you can only try. His 
 name is Humphrey Jagenal. I will, if you please, go and 
 see him to-day. And 1 will ask him to call upon you to- 
 morrow morningf." 
 
 " I would rather call upon him" said Mr. Beck. " It 
 might look like the pride of patronage asking him to call at 
 the Langham. I don't want him to start with a feeling of 
 shame." 
 
 " Not at all ; at least, of coarse it will be patronage, and 
 I believe he will prefer it. There is no shame in taking a 
 commission to execute a picture." 
 
 "Mr. Dunquerque, every day you confer fresh obliga-
 
 250 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 tions upon me. And I can do nothing for you — notliing 
 at all." 
 
 At this time it was Gilead Beck's worst misfortune that 
 he was not taken seriously by any one except Gabriel 
 Cassilis, who literally and liberally interpreted his permis- 
 sion to receive all his money for safe investment. But as 
 for his schemes, vague and shadowy as they were, for using 
 his vast income for some practically philanthropic and 
 benevolent objects, none of his friends sympathised with 
 him, beca,use none of them understood him. Yet the man 
 was deeply in earnest. He meant what he said, and more, 
 when he told Gabriel Cassilis that a voice urged him by day 
 and by night not to save his money, but to use for others 
 what he could not use himself He had been two months 
 in England on purpose to learn a way, but saw no way 
 vet. And every way seemed barred. He would not give 
 money to societies, because they were societies ; he wanted 
 to strike out something new for himself. Nor would he 
 elaborate a scheme to be carried out after his death. Let 
 every man, he repeated every day, do what he has to do in 
 his lifetime. How was he to spend his great revenues ? A 
 Patron of Art? It was the first tangible method that he 
 had struck upon. He would be that to begin with. Art 
 has the great advantage, too, of swallowing up any conceiv- 
 able quantity of money. 
 
 And on the way from the Boris's Depot of Real and 
 Genuine Art, he hit upon the idea of advancing artists 
 as well as Art. He was in thorough earnest when he 
 raised his grave and now solemn eyes to Jack Dunquerque, 
 and thanked him for his kindness. And Jack's conscience 
 smote him. 
 
 " I must tell you," Jack explained, " that I have never 
 seen any of Mr. Humphrey Jagenal's pictures. Miss Fleming, 
 the young lady whom you met at ]\Irs. Cassilis's, told me 
 once that he was a great artist." 
 
 " Bring him to me, bring him to me, and we will talk. 
 I hope that I may be able to speak clearly to him with- 
 out hurting his feelin's. If I brag about my Pile, Mr.
 
 THE GOLDEN BaTTEEFLY. 251 
 
 Dunquerque, you just whisper ' Shoddy,' and 111 sing- 
 small." 
 
 " There will be no hurting of feelings. When you come 
 to a question of buying and selling, an artist is about the 
 same as everybody else. Give him a big commission ; let 
 him have time to work it out ; and send him a cheque in 
 advance. I believe that would be the method employed by 
 patrons whom artists love. At least, I should love such a 
 patron. 
 
 " Beck," he went on after a pause : both were seated in 
 the long deep easy-chairs of the club smoking-room, with 
 the chairs pretty close together, so that they could talk in 
 low tones, — " Beck, if you talk about artists, there's Phil — 
 I mean Miss Fleming. By Jove ! she only wants a little 
 training to knock the heads off half the K.A.s. Come 
 out with me and call upon her. She will show us her 
 sketches." 
 
 " I remember her," said Gilead Beck slowly ; " a tall 
 young lady; a lovely Grooze, as the man who grinds that 
 picture-mill would say ; she had large brown eyes that 
 looked as if they could be nothing but tender and true, and 
 a rosebud mouth all sweetness and smiles, and lips that 
 trembled when she thought. I remember her — a head like 
 a queen's, piled up with her own brown hair and flowers, 
 an' a figure like — like a Mexican half-caste at fourteen." 
 
 " You talk of her as if you were in love with her," said 
 Jack jealously. 
 
 " No, Mr. Dunquerque ; no, sir. That is, I may be. But 
 it won't come between you and her, what I feel. You air 
 a most fortunate man. Go down on your knees when you 
 get home, and say so. For or'nary blessin's you may use 
 the plan of Joshua ]\Iixer, the man who had the biggest 
 claim in Empire City before it busted up. He got his 
 Petitions and his Thanksgivin's printed out neat on a card 
 together, and then he hung that card over his bed. ' My 
 sentiments,' he used to say, jerkin' his thumb to the card 
 when he got in at night. Never omitted his prayers ; never 
 forgot that jerk, drunk or sober. Joshua Mixer was the
 
 252 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 most religious man in all that camp. But for special 
 Providences ; for He ; for a lucky shot ; for a sweet, pure, 
 heavenly, gracious creature like Miss Fleming, — I say, go 
 on your knees and own to it, as a man should. Well, Mr. 
 Dunquerque," he continued, " I wish you success ; and if 
 there's anything I can do to promote your success, let me 
 know. Now there's another thing. What I want to do is 
 to unlock the door which keeps me from the society of men 
 of genius. I can get into good houses ; they all seem open 
 to me because I've got money. London is the most hospitable 
 city in this wide world for those that have the stamps. 
 Eepublican ? Republican ain't the word for it. Do they 
 ask who a man is ? Not they. They ask about his dollars, 
 and they welcome him with smiles. It's a beautiful thing 
 to look at, and it makes an Amer'can sigh when he thinks 
 of his own country, where they inquire into a stranger's 
 antecedents. But there's exceptions, and artists and authors 
 I cannot get to. And I want to meet your great men. Not 
 to interview them, sir. Not at all. They may talk a 
 donkey's hind leg off, and I wouldn't send a single line to 
 the New York papers to tell them what was said nor what 
 they wore. But I should like, just for one evening, to meet 
 and talk with the great writers whom we respect across the 
 water." 
 
 Again Jack Dunquerque's eyes began to twinkle. He 
 could not enter into the earnestness of this man. And an 
 idea occurred to him at which his face lit up with smiles. 
 
 " It requires thinking over. Suppose I was to be able to 
 get together half-a-dozen or so of our greatest writers, how 
 should we manage to entertain them ? " 
 
 "I should like, if they would only come — I should like 
 to give them a dinner at the Langham. A square meal ; 
 the very best dinner that the hotel can serve. I should 
 like to make them feel like being at the Guildhall." 
 
 "I will think about it," said Jack, "and let you know 
 in a day or two what I can do for you."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 253 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 " Ambition should be made of sterner stuff." 
 
 " A PATRON at last, Cornelius," said Humplirey Jagenal, 
 xL partly recovering from the shock of Jack Dunquerque's 
 communication. "A Patron. Patronage is, after all, the 
 breath of life to Art. Let others pander to the vitiated 
 public taste and cater for a gaping crowd round the walls 
 of the Royal Academy. I would paint for a Lorenzo only, 
 and so work for the highest interests of Art. We will call, 
 brother, upon this Mr. Beck to-morrow." 
 
 " We will ! " said Cornelius, with enthusiasm. 
 
 It was in the Studio. Both brothers, simultaneously fired 
 with ardour, started to their feet and threw back their heads 
 with a gesture of confidence and determination. The light 
 of high resolve flashed from their eyes, which were exactly 
 alike. The half- opened lips expressed their delight in the 
 contemplation of immortal fame. Their chance had arrived ; 
 their youth was come back to them. 
 
 True, that Gilead Beck at present only proposed to become 
 a Patron to the Artist; but while it did not enter into 
 Humphrey's head for one moment that he could make that 
 visit unsupported by his brother, so the thought lay in 
 either's brain that a Poet wanted patronage as much as 
 an Artist. 
 
 They were both excited. To Humphrey it was clear that 
 the contemplation of his great work, in which he had basked 
 so many years, was to be changed for days of active labour. 
 No longer could he resolve to carry it into execution the 
 " day after to-morrow," as the Arabs say. This was difiicult 
 to realise, but as yet the thought was like the first shock of 
 ice-coid water, for it set his veins tingling and braced his 
 nei^ves. He felt within him once more the strength felt by 
 every young man at first, which is the strength of Michael 
 Angelo. He saw in imagination his great work, the first 
 of many great works, finished, a glorious canvas glowing
 
 254 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 with the realisation of a painter's dream of colour, crowded 
 with graceful figures, warm with the thought of genius, and 
 rich with the fancy of an Artist-scholar — a work for all time. 
 And he gasped. But for his beard he might have been a 
 boy waiting for the morrow, when he should receive the 
 highest prize in the school; or an undergraduate, the favourite 
 of his year, after the examination, looking confidently to the 
 Senior Wranglership, 
 
 In the morning they took no walk, but retired silently each 
 to his own room. In the Studio the Artist opened his port- 
 folios, and spread out the drawings made years ago when he 
 was studying in Eome. They were good drawings ; there 
 was feeling in every line ; but they were copies. There was 
 not one scrap of original work, and his Conscience began to 
 whisper — only he refused at first to listen — that the skill of 
 hand and touch was gone. Then Conscience, which gets 
 angry if disregarded, took to whispering more loudly, and 
 presently he heard. He took crayon and paper, and began, 
 feverishly and in haste, to copy one of his own old drawings. 
 He worked for a quarter of an hour, and then, looking at the 
 thing he had once done beside the thing he was then doing, 
 he dashed the pencil from him, and tore up the miserable 
 replica in disgust. His spirit, which had flown so high, sank 
 dull and heavy as lead ; he threw himself back in his chair 
 and began to think, gazing hopelessly into space. 
 
 It was the opportunity of Conscience, who presently began 
 to sing as loudly as any skylark, but not so cheerfully. " You 
 are fifty," said that voice which seldom lies ; " you have 
 wasted the last twenty years of life ; you have become a 
 wind-bag and a shallow humbug ; you cannot now paint or 
 draw at all ; what little power was in you has departed. Your 
 brother, the Poet, has been steadily working while you have 
 slept " — it will be perceived that Conscience spoke from im- 
 perfect information. " He will produce a great book, and 
 live. You will die. The grave will close over you, and you 
 will be forgotten." 
 
 It was a hard saying, and the Artist groaned as he listened 
 to it.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 255 
 
 In the Workshop, Cornelius also, startled into action, spread 
 out upon the table a bundle of papers which had been lying- 
 undisturbed in his desk for a dozen years or more. They 
 were poems he had written in his youth, unpublished verses, 
 thoughts in rhyme such as an imaginative young man easily 
 pours forth, reproducing the fashion of the time and the 
 thoughts of others. He began to read these over again with 
 mingled pleasure and pain. For the thoughts seemed strange 
 to him. He felt that they were good and lofty thoughts, but 
 the conviction forced itself upon him that the brain which 
 had produced them was changed. No more of such good 
 matter was left within it. The lines of thought were changed. 
 The poetic faculty, a delicate plant, which droops unless it is 
 watered and carefully tended, was dead within him. 
 
 And the whole of the Epic to be written. 
 
 Not a line done, not a single episode on paper, though to 
 Phillis he claimed to have done so much. 
 
 He seized a pen, and with trembling fingers and agitated 
 brain forced himself to write. 
 
 In half an hour he tore the paper into shreds, and, with a 
 groan, threw down the pen. The result was too feeble. 
 
 Then he too began to meditate, like his brother in the 
 Studio. Presently his guardian angel, who very seldom got 
 such a chance, began to admonish him, even as the dean 
 admonishes an erring undergraduate. 
 
 " You are fifty," said the invisible Censor. '' '\A'hat have 
 you done with yourself for twenty years and more. Your 
 best thoughts have passed away ; the poetical eye is dim ; 
 you will write no more. Your brother, the Artist, is busy 
 with pencil and brain. He will produce a great work, and 
 live for ever. You will do nothing ; you will go down into 
 the pit and be forgotten." 
 
 It was too much for the Poet. His lips trembled, his hand 
 shook. He could no more rest in his chair. 
 
 He walked backwards and forwards, the voice pursuing 
 him. 
 
 " Wasted years ; wasted energies ; wasted gifts ; your 
 chance is gone. You cannot write now."
 
 256 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Poets are more susceptible tlian artists. Tliat is the 
 reason why Cornelius rushed out of the Workshop to escape 
 this torture and sought his brother Humphrey. 
 
 Humphrey started like a guilty person. His face was pale, 
 his eye was restless. 
 
 " Cornelius ? " 
 
 " Do not let me disturb you, my dear brother. You are 
 happy ; you are at work : your soul is at peace," 
 
 " And you, Cornelius ? " 
 
 "I am not at peace. I am restless this morning. I am 
 nervous and agitated." 
 
 " So am I, Cornelius. I cannot work. My pencil refuses 
 to obey my brain," 
 
 " My own case. My pen will not write what I wish. The 
 link between the brain and the nerves is for the moment 
 severed," 
 
 " Let us go out, brother. It is now three. We will walk 
 slowly in the direction of the Langham Hotel," 
 
 As they put on their hats Cornelius stopped, and said re- 
 flectively — 
 
 " The nervous system is a little shaken witli both of us. 
 Can you suggest anything, brother Humphrey ? " 
 
 " The best thing for a shaken nervous system," replied 
 Humphrey promptly, " is a glass of champagne. I will get 
 some champagne for you, brother Cornelius." 
 
 He returned presently with a modest pint bottle, which 
 they drank together, Humphrey remai'king (in italics) that 
 in such a case it is not a question of what a man ivants, so 
 much as of what he needs. 
 
 A pint of champagne is not much between two men, 
 but it produced an excellent effect upon the Twins, 
 J3efore it they were downcast; they looked around with the 
 furtive eyes of conscious imposture ; their hands trembled. 
 After it they raised their heads, laughed, and looked boldly 
 in each other's eyes, assumed a gay and confident air, 
 and presently marched off arm-in-arm to call upon the 
 Patron. 
 
 Gilead Beck, unprepared to see both brethren, welcomed
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 257 
 
 them with, a respect almost overwhelming. It was his first 
 interview with Genius. 
 
 They introduced each other. 
 
 " Mr. Beck," said Cornelias, " allow me to introduce my 
 brother, Humphrey Jagenal. In his case the world is 
 satisfied with the Christian name alone, without the cere- 
 monial prefix. He is, as you know, the Artist." 
 
 If his brother had been Titian or Correggio he could not 
 have said more. 
 
 " Sir," said Mr. Beck, shaking Humphrey's hand warmly, 
 " I am proud indeed to make your acquaintance. I am but 
 a rough man myself, sir, but I respect genius." 
 
 "Then," said Humphrey, with admirable presence of mind, 
 " allow me to introduce my brother. Cornelius Jagnal, as 
 you doubtless know, Mr. Beck, is the Poet." 
 
 Mr. Beck did not know it, and said so. But he shook 
 hands with Cornelius none the less cordially. 
 
 " Sir, I have been knocking about the world, and have not 
 read any poetry since I was a boy. Then I read Alexander 
 Pope. You know Pope, Mr. Jagenal ? " 
 
 Cornelius smiled, as if he might allow some merit to Pope, 
 though small in comparison with his own. 
 
 " I have never met with your poems, Mr. Cornelius 
 Jagenal, or your pictures, Mr. Humphrey, but I hope you 
 will now enable me to do so," 
 
 " My brother is engaged " said Cornelius. 
 
 " My brother is engaged " began Humphrey. " Pardon, 
 
 brother." 
 
 " Sit down, gentlemen. Will you take anything ? In 
 California, up country, we always begin with a drink. Call 
 for what you please, gentlemen. Sail in, as we say." 
 
 They took champagne, for the second time that day, and 
 then their eyes began to glisten. 
 
 Mr. Beck observed that they were both alike — small and 
 fragile-looking men, with bright eyes and delicate features ; 
 he made a mental note to the effect that they would never 
 advance their own fortunes. He also concluded from their 
 red noses, and from the way in which they straightened 
 
 R
 
 258 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 their Lacks after placing themselves outside the champagne, 
 that they loved the goblet, and habitually handled it too often. 
 
 " Now, gentlemen," he began, after making these observa- 
 tions, " may 1 be allowed to talk business ? " 
 
 They both bowed. 
 
 "Genius, gentlemen, is apt to be careless of the main 
 chance. It don't care for the almighty dollar ; it lets 
 fellows like me heap up the stamps. What can we do but 
 ask Genius to dig into our Pile ? " 
 
 Humphrey poured out another glass of champagne for his 
 brother, and one for himself. Then he turned to Cornelius 
 and nodded gravely. 
 
 " Cornelius, so far as I understand him, Mr. Beck speaks 
 the strongest common sense." 
 
 "We agree with you so far, Mr. Beck," said Cornelius 
 critically, because he was there to give moral support to his 
 brother. 
 
 " Why should I have any delicacy in saying to a young 
 man, or a man of any age," he added doubtfully, for the 
 years of the Twins seemed uncertain, " ' You, sir, are an 
 Artist and a Genius. Take a cheque, and carry out your 
 ideas'?" 
 
 " What reason indeed ? " asked Cornelius. " The offer 
 does honour to both." 
 
 " Or to another man, ' You, sir, are a Poet. Why should 
 the cares of the world interfere with your thoughts ? Take 
 a cheque, and make the world rejoice ' ! " 
 
 Humphi'ey clapped his hands. 
 
 " The world lies in travail for such a patron of poetry," 
 he said. 
 
 " Why, then, we are agreed," said Mr. Beck. " Gentle- 
 men, I say to you both, collectively, let me usher into the 
 world those works of genius which you are bound to produce. 
 You, sir, are painting a picture. When can you finish me 
 that picture ? " 
 
 " In six months," said Humphrey, his brain suffused with 
 a rosy warmth of colour which made him see things in an 
 impossibly favourable light.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 259 
 
 " I buy tliat picture, sir, at your own price," said tlie 
 patron. " I shall exhibit it in London, and it shall then go 
 to New York with me. And you, Mr. Cornelius Jagenal, 
 are engaged upon poems. When would you wish to publish 
 your verses ? " 
 
 "My Epic, the UiJheaving of Alfred, will be ready for 
 publication about the end of November," said Cornelius. 
 
 Humphrey felt a passing pang of jealousy as he perceived 
 that his brother would be before the world a month in 
 advance of himself. But what is a month compared with 
 immortality ? 
 
 " I charge myself, sir, if you will allow me," said the 
 American, " with the production of that work. It shall be 
 printed in the best style possible, on the thickest paper 
 made, and illustrated by the best artist that can be 
 found — you, perhaps, Mr. Humphrey Jagenal. It shall 
 be bound in Russian leather ; its exterior shall be worthy 
 of its contents. And as for business arrangements, gentle- 
 men, you will perhaps consider them at your leisure, 
 and let me know what you think. We shall be sure to 
 agree, because, if you will not think it shoddy in me to say 
 so, I have my Pile to dig into. And I shall send you, 
 if you will allow me, gentlemen, a small cheque each in 
 advance." 
 
 They murmured assent and rose to go. 
 
 "If you would favour me further, gentlemen, by dining 
 with me — say this day week — I should take it as a great 
 distinction. I hope, with the assistance of Mr. Dunquerque, 
 to have a few prominent men of letters to meet you. I want 
 to have my table full of genius." 
 
 " Can we, brother Humphrey, accept Mr. Beck's invita- 
 tion?" 
 
 Cornelius asked as if they were weeks deep in engage- 
 ments. As it was, nobody ever asked them anywhere, and 
 they had no engagements at all. 
 
 Humphrey consulted a pocket-book with grave face. 
 
 " We can, Mr. Beck." 
 
 " And if you know any one else, gentlemen, any men of
 
 26o THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Literature and Art who will come too, bring them along 
 with you, and I shall feel it an honour." 
 
 They knew no one connected with Literature and Art, not 
 even a printer's devil, but they did not say so. 
 
 At twelve o'clock, towards the close of this fatiguing day, 
 Cornelius asked Humphrey, with a little hesitation, if he 
 really thought he should have finished his great work in six 
 months. 
 
 " Art cannot be forced, Cornelius," said the Painter airily. 
 " If I am not ready, I shall not hesitate to consider the 
 pledge conditional. My work must be perfect ere it leaves 
 my hands." 
 
 " And mine too," said the Poet. " I will never consent 
 to let a poem of mine go forth unfinished to the world. The 
 work must be polished ad unguem." 
 
 " This is a memorable day, brother. The tumblers are 
 empty. Allow me. And, Cornelius, I really do think that, 
 considering the way in which we have been treated by 
 Phillis Fleming, and her remarks about afternoon work, we 
 ought to call and let her understand the reality of our re- 
 putation." 
 
 " We will, Humphrey. But it is not enough to recover 
 lost ground ; we must advance farther. The fortress shall 
 be made to surrender." 
 
 " Let us drink to your success, brother, and couple with 
 the toast the name of Phillis — Phillis — Phillis Jagenal, 
 brother?" 
 
 They drank that toast, smiling unutterable things.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 261 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 " Call me not fool till Heaven hath sent me fortune." 
 
 WHEN Jack Dunquerque communicated to Lawrence 
 Colquhoun the fact of having made the acquaintance 
 of Miss Fleming, and subsequently that of Mrs. L'E strange, 
 Lawrence expressed no surprise and felt no suspicions. Pro- 
 bably, had he felt any, they would have been at once set 
 aside, because Colquhoun was not a man given to calculate 
 the future chances, and to disquiet himself about possible 
 events. Also at this time he was taking little interest in 
 Phillis, A pretty piquante girl ; he devoted a whole day to 
 her; drove her to Twickenham, and placed her in perfect 
 safety under the charge of his cousin. What more was 
 wanted? Agatha wrote to him twice a week or so, and 
 when he had time he read the letters. They were all about 
 Phillis, and most of them contained the assurance that he 
 had no entanglements to fear. 
 
 " Entanglements ! " he murmured impatiently. " As if a 
 man cannot dine with a girl without falling in love with 
 her. Women are always thinking that men want to be 
 married." 
 
 He was forgetting, after the fashion of men who have 
 gone through the battle, how hot is the fight for those 
 who are just beginning it. Jack Dunquerque was four- 
 and-twenty; he was therefore, so to speak, in the thick 
 of it. Phillis's eyes were like two quivers filled with 
 darts, and when she turned them innocently upon her 
 friend the enemy, the darts flew straight at him, and trans- 
 fixed him as if he were another Sebastian. Colquhoun's 
 time was past; he was clothed in the armour of indiffer- 
 ence which comes with the years, and he was forgetting the 
 past. 
 
 Still, had he known of the visit to the Tower of London, the 
 rowing on the river, the luncheons in Carnarvon Square, it 
 is possible that even he might have seen the propriety of
 
 262 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 requesting Jack Dunquerque to keep out of danger for the 
 future. 
 
 He had no plans for Phillis, except of the simplest kind. 
 She was to remain in charge of Agatha for a year, and then 
 she would come out. He hoped that she would marry well, 
 because her father, had he lived, would have wished it. And 
 that was all he hoped about her. 
 
 He had his private worries at this time — those already 
 indicated — connected with Victoria Cassilis. The ice once 
 broken, that lady allowed him no rest. She wrote to him 
 on some pretence nearly every day ; she sent her maid, the 
 unlovely one, with three-cornered notes all about nothing ; 
 she made him meet her in society ; she made him dine with 
 her; it seemed as if she was spreading a sort of net 
 about him, through the meshes of which he could not 
 escape. 
 
 With the knowledge of what had been, it was an un- 
 righteous thing for Colquhoun to go to the house of Gabriel 
 Cassilis ; he ought not to be there, he felt ; it was the one 
 house in all London in which he had no business. And yet 
 — how to avoid it ? 
 
 And Gabriel Cassilis seemed to like him ; evidently liked 
 to talk to him ; singled him out, this great financier, and 
 talked with him as if Colquhoun too was interested in stock ; 
 called upon him at his chambers, and told him, in a dxy 
 but convincing way, something of his successes and his 
 projects. 
 
 It was after many talks of this kind that Lawrence 
 Colquhoun, forgetful of the past, and not remembering that 
 of all men in the world Gabriel Cassilis was the last who 
 should have charge of his money, put it all in his hands, 
 with power-of-attorney to sell out and reinvest for him. But 
 that was nothing. Colquhoun was not the man to trouble 
 about money. He was safe in the hands of this great and 
 successful capitalist ; he gave no thought to any risk ; he 
 congratulated himself on his cleverness in persuading the 
 financier to take the money for him ; and he continued to see 
 Victoria Cassilis nearly every day.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 263 
 
 They quarrelled when they did meet ; there was not a con- 
 versation between them in which she did not say something 
 bitter, and he something savage. And yet he did not have 
 the courage to refuse the invitations which were almost 
 commands. Nor could she resign the sweet joy of making 
 him feel her power. 
 
 A secret, you see, has a fatal fascination about it. School- 
 girls, I am told, are given to invent little secrets which mean 
 nothing, and to whisper them in the ears of their dearest 
 friends to the exclusion of the rest. The possession of this 
 unknown and invaluable fact brings them together, whisper- 
 ing and conspiring, at every possible moment. Freemasons 
 again — how are they kept together, except by the possession 
 of secrets which are said to have been published over and over 
 again ? And when two people have a secret which means — all 
 that the secret between Colquhoun and Mrs. Cassilis meant, 
 they can no more help being drawn together than the waters 
 can cease to find their own level. To be together, to feel 
 that the only other person in the world who knows that 
 secret is with yon, is a kind of safety. Yet what did it matter 
 to Colquhoun ? Simply nothing. The secret was his as well 
 as hers, but the reasons for keeping it a secret were not his 
 at all, but hers entirely. 
 
 So Pliillis was neglected by her guardian and left to 
 Agatha and Jack Dunquerque, with such results as we 
 
 shall see. 
 
 So Lawrence Colquhoun fell into the power of this man 
 
 of stocks, about the mouth of whose City den the footsteps 
 
 pointed all one way. He congratulated himself; he found 
 
 out Gilead Beck, and they congratulated each other. 
 
 " I don't see," said Colquhoun, who had already enough 
 
 for four bachelors, " why one's income should not be 
 
 doubled." 
 
 "With Mr. Cassilis," said Gilead Beck, "you sign cheques, 
 
 and he gives you dividends. It's like He, because you can 
 
 go on pumping." 
 
 " He understands more than any other living man," said 
 
 Lawrence.
 
 264 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " He is in the inner track, sir," said Mr. Beck. 
 
 " And a man," said Lawrence, " ready to take in his friends 
 with himself." 
 
 " A hiffh-toned and a whole-souled man," said Gilead Beck, 
 with enthusiasm. " That man, sir, I do believe, would take 
 in the hull world," 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 " I had rather hear a brazen candlestick turii'd, 
 Or a dry wheel grate on an axle-tree ; 
 And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, 
 Nothing so much as mincing poetry." 
 
 JACK DUNQUERQUE repaired to the Langham, the 
 day after the call of the Twins, with a face in which 
 cheerful anticipation aud anxiety were curiously blended. 
 He was serious with his lips, but he laughed with his eyes. 
 And he spoke with a little hesitation not often observed in 
 him. 
 
 " I think your dinner will come off next Wednesday," he 
 said. " And I have been getting together your party for 
 you." 
 
 "That is so, Mr. Dunquerque ? " asked Gilead Beck, with 
 a solemnity which hardly disguised his pride and joy. " That 
 is so ? And those great men, your friends, are actually 
 coming ? " 
 
 " I have seen them all, personally. And I put the case 
 before each of them. I said, ' Here is an American gentleman 
 most anxious to make your acquaintance ; he has no letters 
 of introduction to you, but he is a sincere admirer of your 
 genius ; he appreciates you perhaps better than any other 
 living man,' " 
 
 " Heap it up, Mr. Dunquerque," said the Man of Oil. 
 " Heap it up. Tell them I am Death on appreciation." 
 
 " That is in subs^tance what I did tell them. Then I 
 explained that you deputed me, or gave me permission to ask 
 them to dinner, ' The honour,' I said, ' is mutual. On the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 265 
 
 one hand, my friend, Mr. Gilead P. Beck' — I ventured to 
 say, ' my friend, Mr. Gilead P. Beck ' " 
 
 " If you hadn't said that you should have been scalped 
 and gouged. Go on, Mr. Dunquerque ; go on, sir." 
 
 " ' On the one hand, my friend, Mr. Gilead P. Beck ' " 
 
 " That is so — that is so." 
 
 " ' Will feel himself honoured by your company ; on the 
 other hand, it will be a genuine source of pleasure for you to 
 know that you are as well known and as thoroughly appre- 
 ciated on the other side of the water as you are here.' I am 
 not much of a speechmaker, and I assure you that little effort 
 cost me a good deal of thought. However, the end of it is 
 all you care about. Most of the writing swells will come, 
 either on Wednesday next or on any other day you 
 please." 
 
 " Mr. Dunquerque, not a day passes but you load me with 
 obligations. Tell me, if you please, who they are." 
 
 "Well, you will say I have done pretty well, I think." 
 Jack pulled out a paper. " And you will know most of the 
 names. First of all, you would like to see the old Philosopher 
 of Cheyne Walk, Thomas Carlyle, as your guest ? " 
 
 " Carlyle, sir, is a name to conjure with in the States. 
 When I was Editor of the Clcarville Roarer I had an odd 
 volume of Carlyle, and I used to quote him as long as the 
 book lasted. It perished in a fight. And to think that I 
 shall meet the man who wrote that work ! An account of 
 the dinner must be written for the JlocJcoleaville Gazette. 
 We'll have a special reporter, Mr. Dunquerque. We'll get 
 a man who'll do it up to the handle." 
 
 Jack looked at his list again. 
 
 "What do you say of Professor Huxley and Mr. Darwin ? " 
 
 Mr. Beck shook his head. These two writers began to 
 flourish — that is, to be read — in the States after his editorial 
 days, and he knew them not. 
 
 "I should say they were prominent citizens, likely, if I 
 knew what they'd written. Is Professor Huxley a professing 
 Christian ? There was a Professor Habukkuk Huckster once 
 down Empire City way in the Moody and Sankey business.
 
 266 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 with an interest in tlie organs and a percentage on the hymn- 
 books ; but they're not relations, I suj)pose ? Not probable. 
 And the other genius — what is his name — Darwin ? Grinds 
 novels perhaps ? " 
 
 " Historical works of fiction. Great in genealogy is 
 Darwin." 
 
 " Never mind my ignorance, Mr. Dunquerque. And go 
 on, sir. I'm powerful interested." 
 
 ''Ruskin is coming; and I had thought of Robert Browning, 
 the poet, but I am afraid he may not be able to be present. 
 You see. Browning is so much sought after by the younger 
 men of the day. They used to play polo and billiards and 
 other frivolous things till he came into fashion with his light 
 and graceful verse, so simple that all may understand it. 
 His last poem, I believe, is now sung about the streets. 
 However, there are Tennyson and Swinburne — they are both 
 coming. Buchanan I would ask, if I knew him, but I don't. 
 George Eliot, of course, I could not invite to a stag party. 
 Trollope we might get, perhaps " 
 
 " Give me Charles Reade, sir," said Gilead Beck. " He is 
 the novelist they like on our side." 
 
 " I am afraid I could not persuade him to come ; though 
 he might be pleased to see you if you would call at his house, 
 perhaps. However, Beck, the great thing is" — he folded up 
 his list and placed it in his pocket-book — " that you shall 
 have a dinner of authors as good as any that sat down to the 
 Lord INIayor's spread last year. Authors of all sorts, and the 
 very best. None of your unknown little hungry anonymous 
 beggars who write novels in instalments for weekly papers. 
 Big men, sir, with big names. Men you'll be proud to know. 
 And they shall be asked for next Wednesday." 
 
 "That gives only four days. It's terrible sudden," said 
 Gilead Beck. He shook his head with as much gravity as if 
 he was going to be hanged in four days. Then he sat down 
 and began to write the names of his guests. 
 
 "Professor Huxley," he said, looking up. "I suppose I 
 can buy that clergjnnan's sermons ? And the Universal 
 Genius who reels out the historical romances, Mr. Darwin ?
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 267 
 
 I shall get his works, too. And there's Mr. Ruskin, Mr. 
 Robert Browning" 
 
 " What are you going to do ? " 
 
 "Well, Mr. Dunquerque, I am going to devote the next 
 fonr days, from morning till night, to solid preparation for 
 that evening. I shall go out right away, and I shall buy 
 every darned book those great men have written ; and if I 
 sit up every night over the job, I'm bound to read every 
 word." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Jack. " Then I advise you to begin with 
 Robert Browning." 
 
 " The light and graceful verse that everybody can under- 
 stand ? I will," said Gilead Beck. " They shall not find me 
 unacquainted with their poems. Mr. Dunquerque, for the 
 Lord's sake don't tell them it was all crammed up in four 
 days." 
 
 "Not I. But — I say — you know, authors don't like to 
 talk about their own books." 
 
 " That's the modesty of real genius," said the American, 
 with admiration. 
 
 It will be perceived that Jack spoke with a certain rash- 
 ness. Most authors I have myself known do love veiy much 
 to talk about their own books. 
 
 " That is their modesty. But they will talk about eacli 
 other's books. And it is as well to be prepared. What I'm 
 bound to make them feel, somehow, is that they have a man 
 before them who has gone in for the hull lot and survived. 
 A tough contract, Mr. Dunquerque, but you trust me." 
 
 " Very well," said Jack, putting on his hat, " only don't 
 ask them questions. Authors don't like being questioned. 
 Why, I shouldn't wonder if next Wednesday some of them 
 pretended not to know the names of their own books. Don't 
 you know that Shakespeare, when he went down to Stratford, 
 to live like a retired grocer at Leytonstone, used to pretend 
 not to know what a play meant? And when a strolling 
 company came round, and the manager asked permission to 
 play Hamlet, he was the first to sign a petition to the mayor 
 not to allow immoral exhibitions in the borouarh."
 
 268 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 "Istliatso, sir?" 
 
 "It may be so," said Jaclc, "because I never heard it con- 
 tradicted." 
 
 As soon as he was gone, Gilead Beck sought the nearest 
 bookseller's shop and gave an extensive order. He requested 
 to be furnished with all the works of Carlyle, Euskin, Tenny- 
 son, Swinburne, Browning, Buchanan, Huxley, Darwin, and 
 a few more. Then he returned to the Langham, gave orders 
 that he was at home to no one except Mr. Dunquerque, took 
 off his coat, lit a cigar, ordered more champagne, and began 
 the first of the three most awful days he ever spent in all 
 his life. 
 
 The books presently came in a great box, and he spread 
 them on the table with a heart that sank at the mere con- 
 templation of their numbers. About three hundred volumes 
 in all. And only four days to get through them. Seventy- 
 five volumes a day, say, at the rate of fifteen hours' daily 
 work ; five an hour, one every twelve minutes. He laid his 
 watch upon the table, took the first volume of Robert Brown- 
 ing that was uppermost, sat down in his long chair with his 
 feet up, and began. 
 
 The book was Fifine at the Fair. Gilead Beck read cheer- 
 fully and with great ease the first eight or ten pages. Then 
 he discovered with a little annoyance that he understood 
 nothing whatever of the author's meaning. " That comes of 
 too rapid reading," he said. So he turned back to the be- 
 ginning' and began again with more deliberation. Ten minutes 
 clean wasted, and not even half a volume got through. When 
 he had got to the tenth page for the second time, he ques- 
 tioned himself once more, and found that he understood less 
 than ever. Were things right ? Could it be Browning, or 
 some impostor ? Yes ; the name of Robert Browning was on 
 the title-page ; also, it was English. And the words held 
 together, and were not sprinkled out of a pepper-pot. He 
 began a third time. Same result. He threw away his cigar 
 and wiped his brow, on which the cold dews of trouble were 
 gathering thickly. 
 
 " This is the beginning of the end, Gilead P. Beck," he
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 269 
 
 murmured. " The Lord, to try you, sent His blessed He, and 
 you've received it with, a proud stomach. Now you air going 
 off your head. Plain English, and you can't take in a single 
 sentence." 
 
 It was in grievous distress of mind that he sprang to his 
 feet and began to walk about the room. 
 
 " There was no softenin' yesterday," he murmured, trying 
 to reassure himself " Why should there be to-day ? Soften- 
 in' comes by degrees. Let us try again. Great Jehoshaphat ! " 
 
 He stood up to his work, leaning against a window-post, 
 and took two pages first, which he read very slowly. And 
 then he dropped the volume in dismay, because he understood 
 less than nothing. 
 
 It was the most disheartening thing he had ever attempted. 
 
 " I'd rather fight John Halkett over again," he said. " I'd 
 rather sit with my finger on a trigger for a week, expecting 
 Mr. Huggins to call upon me." 
 
 Then he began to construe it line by line, thinking every 
 now and then that he saw daylight. 
 
 It is considered rather a mark of distinction, a separating 
 seal upon the brow, by that poet's admirers, to reverence his 
 later works. Their creed is that because a poem is rough, 
 harsh, ungrammatical, and dark, it must have a meaning as 
 deep as its black obscurity. 
 
 " It's like the texts of a copybook," said Gilead. " Pretty 
 things, all of them, separate. Put them together, and 
 where are they ? I guess this book would read better upsy 
 down." 
 
 He poured cold water on his head for a quarter of an hour 
 or so, and then tried reading it aloud. 
 
 This was worse than any previous method, because he com- 
 prehended no more of the poet's meaning, and the rough hard 
 words made his front teeth crack and fly about the room in 
 splinters. 
 
 "Caesar's ghost!" he exclaimed, thinking what he should 
 do if Eobert Browning talked as he wrote. " The human 
 jaw isn't built that could stand it." 
 
 Two hours were gone. There ought to have been ten
 
 270 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 volumes got tlirougli, and not ten pages finished of a single 
 one. 
 
 He hurled Fifine to the other end of the room, and 
 took up another work by the same poet. It was Ecd Cotton 
 Nightcap Country, and the title looked promising. No 
 doubt a light and pretty fairy story. Also the beginning 
 reeled itself off with a fatal facility which allured the reader 
 onwards. 
 
 When the clock struck six he was sitting among the 
 volumes on the table, with Bed Cotton Nigldcap Country 
 still in his hand. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was 
 pushed ill disorder about his head, his cheeks were flushed, 
 his hands were trembling, the nerves in his face were 
 twitching. 
 
 He looked about him wildly, and tried to collect his facul- 
 ties. Then he arose and solemnly cursed Robert Browning. 
 He cursed him eating, drinking, and sleeping. And then he 
 took all his volumes, and disposing them carefully in the 
 fire-place, he set light to them. 
 
 " I wish," he said, " that I could put the Poet there too." 
 I think he would have done it, this mild and gentle-hearted 
 stranger, so sti'ongly was his spirit moved to wrath. 
 
 He could not stay any longer in the room. It seemed 
 to be haunted with ghosts of unintelligible sentences ; 
 things in familiar garb, which floated before his eyes and 
 presented faces of inscrutable mystery. He seized his hat 
 and fled. 
 
 He went straight to Jack Dunquerque's club, and found 
 that hero in the reading-room. 
 
 " I have a favour to ask you," he began in a hurried and 
 nervous manner. " If you have not yet asked Mr. Robert 
 Browning to the little spread next week, don't." 
 
 " Certainly not, if you wish it. Why ? " 
 
 " Because, sir, I have spent eight hours over his works." 
 
 Jack laughed, 
 
 " And you tliink you have gone off* your head ? I'll tell 
 you a secret. Everybody does at first ; and then we all fall
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 271 
 
 into the dodge, and go about pretending to understand 
 him." 
 
 " But the meaning, Mr. Dunquerque, the meaning ? " 
 
 " Hush ! he hasn't got any. Only no one dares to say so, 
 and it's intellectual to admire him." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Dunquerque, I guess I don't want to see that 
 writer at my dinner, anyhow." 
 
 " Very well then. He shall not be asked." 
 
 " Another day like this, and you may bury me with my 
 boots on. Come with me somewhere, and have dinner as far 
 away from those volumes of Mr. Browning as we can get in 
 the time." 
 
 They dined at Greenwich. In the course of the next three 
 days Gilead Beck read diligently. He did not master the 
 three hundred volumes, but he got through some of the works 
 of every writer, taking them in turn. 
 
 The result was a glorious and inextricable mess. Carlyle, 
 Swinburne, Huxley, Darwin, Tennyson, and all of them, 
 were hopelessly jumbled in his brains. He mixed up the 
 Sartor Itcsartus with the Missing Link, confounded the 
 history of Frederick the Great with that of Queen £lizaheth, 
 and thought that Maud and Atalanta in Calydon were 
 written by the same poet. But time went on, and the 
 Wednesday evening, to which he looked forward with so 
 much anxiety and pride, rapidly drew near. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 " Why, she is cold to all the world." 
 
 AND while Gilead Beck was setting himself to repair in a 
 J-X- week the defects of his early education, Jack Dunquerque 
 was spending his days hovering round the light of Phillis's 
 eyes. The infatuated youth frequented the house as if it 
 was his own. He liked it, Mrs. L'Estrange liked it, and 
 Phillis liked it. Agatha looked with matronly suspicion 
 for indications and proofs of love in her ward's face. She
 
 272 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 saw none, because Phillis was not in love at alL Jack to 
 her was the first friend she made on coming out of her 
 shell. Very far, indeed, from being in love. Jack looked 
 too for any of those signs of mental agitation which accom- 
 pany, or are supposed to accompany, the birth of love. 
 There were none. Her face lit up when she saw him ; 
 she treated him with the frankness of a girl who tells her 
 brother everything ; but she did not blush when she saw 
 him, nor was she ever otherwise than the sweetest and 
 lightest-hearted of sisters. He knew it, and he groaned to 
 think of it. The slightest sign would have encouraged him 
 to speak ; the smallest indication that Phillis felt some- 
 thinsr for him of what he felt for her would have been to 
 him a command to tell what was in his heart. But she 
 made no sign. It was Jack's experience, perhaps, which 
 taught him that he is a fool who gives his happiness to a 
 woman before he has learned to divine her heart. Those 
 ever make the most foolish marriages who are most ignorant 
 of the sex. Hooker the Judicious is a case in point, and 
 many a ghostly man could, from his country parsonage, teU 
 the same tale. 
 
 Jack was not like the Judicious Divine ; he was wary, 
 though susceptible ; he had his share of craft and subtlety ; 
 and yet he was in love, in spite of all that craft, with a girl 
 who only liked him in return. 
 
 Had he possessed greater power of imagination he would 
 have understood that he was expecting what was impossible. 
 You cannot get wine out of an empty bottle, nor reap 
 corn without first sowing the seed ; and he forgot that 
 Phillis, who was unable to read novels, knew nothing, 
 positively nothing, of that great passion of Love which 
 makes its victims half divine. It was always necessary, 
 in thinking of this girl, to remember her thirteen years of 
 captivity. Jack, more than any other person, not excepting 
 Agatha L' Estrange, knew what she would say and think 
 on most things. Only in this matter of love he was at 
 fault. Here he did not know, because here he was selfish. 
 To all the world except Jack and Agatha she was an
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 273 
 
 impossible girl ; she said things that no other girl would 
 have said ; she thought as no one else thought. To all those 
 who live in a tight little island of their own, fortified by 
 triple batteries of dogma, she was impossible. But to those 
 who accepted and comprehended the conditions of Phillis's 
 education she was possible, real, charming, and full of 
 interest. 
 
 Jack continually thought what Phillis would say and 
 what she would think. For her sake he noticed the little 
 things around him, the things among which we grow up 
 unobservant. We see so little for the most part. Things 
 to eat and drink interest us ; things that please the eye ; 
 fair women and rare wine. We are like cattle grazing on 
 the slopes of the Alps. Around us rise the mountains, with 
 their ever-changing marvels of light and colour ; the sun- 
 light flashes from their peaks ; the snow - slopes stretch 
 away and upwards to the deep blues beyond in curves as 
 graceful as the line of woman's beauty ; at our feet is the 
 belt of pines perfumed and warmed by the summer air ; the 
 mountain stream leaps, bubbles, and laughs, rushing from 
 the prison of its glacier cave ; high overhead soars the 
 Alpine eagle ; the shepherds jodel in the valleys ; the rapid 
 echoes roll the song up into the immeasurable silence of the 
 hills, — and amid all this we browse and feed, eyes downward 
 turned. 
 
 So this young man, awakened by the quick sympathies of 
 the girl he loved, lifted his head, taught by her, and tried 
 to catch, he too, something of the childlike wonder, the 
 appreciative admiration, the curious enthusiasm, with which 
 she saw everything. Most men's thoughts are bound by 
 the limits of their club at night, and their chambers or 
 their offices by day ; the suns rise and set, and the out- 
 ward world is unregarded. Jack learned from Phillis to 
 look at these unregarded things. Such simple pleasures 
 as a sunset, the light upon the river, the wild flowers on 
 the bank, he actually tasted with delight, provided that she 
 was beside him. And after a day of such Arcadian joys 
 he would return to town, and find the club a thirsty desert, 
 
 s
 
 274 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 If Pliillis Lad known anything about love, she would have 
 fallen in love with Jack long before ; but she did not. 
 Yet he made headway with her, because he became almost 
 necessary to her life. She looked for his coming; he brought 
 lier things he had collected in his "globe trotting; " he told 
 her stories of adventure ; he ruined himself in pictures ; and 
 then he looked for the love softening of her eyes, and it came 
 not at all. 
 
 Yet Jack was a lovable sort of young man in maidens' 
 eyes. Everybody liked him to begin with. He was, like 
 David, a youth of a cheerful, if not of a ruddy, countenance. 
 Agatha L'Estrange remarked of him that it did her good to 
 meet cheerful young men — they were so scarce. " I know 
 quantities of young men, Phillis my dear; and I assure you 
 that most of them are enough to break a woman's heart even 
 to think of. There is the athletic young man — he is dreadful 
 indeed, only his time soon goes by ; and there is the young 
 man who talks about getting more brain power. To be sure, 
 he generally looks as if he wants it. There is the young man 
 who ought to turn red and hot when the word Prig is used. 
 There is the bad young man who keeps betting- books ; and 
 the miserable young man who grovels and flops in a Ritualist 
 church. I know young men who are envious and backbite 
 their friends; and young men who aspire to be somebody 
 else ; and young men who pose as infidels, and would rather 
 be held up to execration in a paper than not be mentioned 
 at all. But, my dear, I don't know anybody who is so cheer- 
 ful and contented as Jack. He isn't clever and learned, but 
 he doesn't want to be ; he isn't sharp, and will never make 
 money, but he is better without it ; and he is true, 1 am 
 sure." 
 
 Agatha unconsciously used the word in the sense which 
 most women mean when they speak of a man's truth. Phillis 
 understood it to mean that Jack Dunquerque did not habi- 
 tually tell fibs, and thought the remark superfluous. But it 
 will be observed that Agatha was fighting Jack's battle for 
 him. 
 
 After all, Jack might have taken heart had he thought that
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 275 
 
 all these visits and all this interest in himself were but the 
 laying of the seed, which might grow into a goodly tree. 
 
 " If only she would look as if she cared for me. Tommy," 
 he bemoaned to Ladds. 
 
 " Hang it ! can't expect a girl to begin making eyes at you." 
 
 " Eyes ! Phillis make eyes ! Tommy, as you grow older 
 you grow coarser. It's a great pity. That comes of this club 
 life. Always smoking and playing cards." 
 
 Tommy grinned. Virtue was as yet a flower new to Jack 
 Dunquerque's buttonhole, and he wore it with a pride difficult 
 to dissemble. 
 
 "Better go and have it out with Colquhoun," Tommy 
 advised. " He won't care. He's taken up with his old flame, 
 Mrs. Cassilis, again. Always dangling at her heels, I'm told. 
 Got no time to think of Miss Fleming. Great fool, Colquhoun. 
 Always was a fool, I believe. Might have gone after flesh 
 and blood instead of a marble statue. Wonder how Cassilis 
 likes it." 
 
 " There you go," cried Jack impatiently. " Men are worse 
 than women. At Twickenham one never hears this foolish 
 sort of gossip." 
 
 " Suppose not. Flowers and music, muffins, tea, and 
 spoons. Well, the girl's worth it. Jack; the more flowers 
 and music you get the better it will be for you. But go and 
 square it with Colquhoun." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 " A right royal banquet." 
 
 AT seven o'clock on the great Wednesday Gilead Beck was 
 pacing restlessly his inner room, the small apartment 
 which formed his sanctum, waiting to receive his guests. 
 All the preparations were complete : a quartette of singers 
 was in readiness, with a piano, to discourse sweet music after 
 the dinner ; the noblest banquet ever ordered at the Langham 
 was timed for a quarter to eight punctually ; the wine was in
 
 276 THE GODDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 ice ; the waiters were adding the last touches to the artistic 
 decorations of a table which, laid for thirteen only, might 
 have been prepared for the Prince of Wales. In fact, when 
 the bill came up a few days later, even Gilead Beck, man of 
 millions, quailed for a moment before its total. Think of the 
 biggest bill you ever had at Vefour's — for francs read pounds, 
 and then multiply by ten ; think of the famous Lord Warden 
 bill for the Emperor Napoleon when he landed in all his 
 glory, and then consider that the management of the Lang- 
 ham is in no way behind that of the Dover hostelry. But 
 this was to come, and when it did come, was received 
 lightly. 
 
 Gilead Beck took a last look at the dinner-table. The few 
 special injunctions he had given were can-ied out ; they were 
 not many, only that the shutters should be partly closed and 
 the curtains drawn, so that they might dine by artificial 
 light ; that the table and the room should be entirely illu- 
 minated by wax-candles, save for one central lamp, in which 
 should be burning, like the sacred flame of Vesta, his own 
 rock-oil. He also stipulated that the flowers on the table 
 should be disposed in shallow vessels, so as to lie low, and 
 not interfere with the freedom of the eyes across the table. 
 Thus there was no central tower of flowers and fruit. To 
 compensate for this he allowed a whole bower of exotics to 
 be erected round the room. 
 
 The long wall opposite the window was decorated with his 
 famous piece by an unknown master, bought of Bartholomew 
 Burls, known as " Sisera and Jael." As the frame had not 
 yet been made it was wreathed about for its whole length 
 and breadth with flowers. The other pictures, also wreathed 
 with flowers, were genuine originals, bought of the same 
 famous collector. For the end of the room Gilead Beck had 
 himself designed, and partly erected with his own hands, an 
 allegorical trophy. From a pile of books neatly worked in 
 cork, there sprang a jet of water illuminated on either side 
 by a hidden lamp burning rock-oil. He had wished to have 
 the fountain itself of oil, but was overruled by Jack Dunquer- 
 que. Above, by an invisible wire, hovered a golden butter-
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 277 
 
 fly in gilded paper. And on either side hung a flag — that 
 on the right displaying the Stars and Stripes, that on the 
 left the equally illustrious Union Jack. 
 
 At every man's place lay a copy of the menu, in green and 
 gold, elaborately decorated, a masterpiece of illumination. 
 Gilead Beck, after making quite sure that nothing was 
 neglected, took his own, and, retiring to the inner room, 
 read it for the fiftieth time with a pleasure as intense as that 
 of the young author who reads his first proof-sheet. It con- 
 sisted of a large double card. On the top of the left-hand 
 side was painted in colours and gold a butterfly. And that 
 side read as follows (I regret that the splendours of the 
 original cannot be here reproduced) : 
 
 LANGHAM HOTEL, 
 
 Mat 20, 1875. 
 
 Dinner in Honour of Literature, Science, and Art, 
 
 GIVEN BY 
 
 GILEAD P. BECK, 
 
 AN OBSCURE AMERICAN CITIZEN RAISED AT LEXINGTON, 
 
 WHO STRUCK ILE IN A MOST SURPRISING MANNER 
 
 BY THE HELP OF 
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY, 
 
 BUT WHO DESPISES SHODDY AND RESPECTS GENIUS. 
 
 Representatives of Literature, Art, and Science. 
 
 Thomas Caelyle, 
 Alfred Tennyson, 
 John Ruskin, 
 Algernon Swinburne, 
 George Augustus Sala, 
 
 Charles Darwin, 
 Professor Huxley, 
 Frederick Leighton, R.A., 
 Cornelius Jagenal, and 
 Humphrey Jagenal, 
 
 WITH CAPTAIN LADDS, THE HON. RONALD DUNQUERQUE, 
 AND GILEAD P. BECK.
 
 278 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 After tliis preamble, wliicli occupied a whole side of the 
 double card, followed the menu itself. 
 
 I unwillingly suppress this. There are weaker brethren 
 who might on reading it feel dissatisfied with the plain 
 lamb and rhubarb-tart of the sweet spring season. As a 
 present dignitary of the Church, now a colonial bishop, once 
 a curate, observed to me many years ago, d jyrojjos of thirst, 
 university reminiscences, a neighbouring public-house, a 
 craving for tobacco, and the fear of being observed, " These 
 weaker brethren are a great nuisance." 
 
 Let it suffice that at the Langham they still speak of 
 Gilead Beck's great dinner with tears in their eyes. I 
 believe a copy of the green and gold card is framed, and 
 hung in the ofiice so as to catch the eye of poorer men when 
 they are ordering dinners. It makes those of lower nature 
 feel envious, and even takes the conceit out of the nobler 
 kind. 
 
 Gilead Beck, dressed for the banquet, was nervous and 
 restless. It seemed as if, for the first time, his wealth was 
 about to bring him something worth having. His face, 
 always grave, was as solemn as if he were fixing it for his 
 own funeral. From time to time he drew a paper from his 
 pocket and read it over. Then he replaced it, and with lips 
 and arms went through the action of speaking. It was his 
 speech of the evening, which he had carefully written and 
 imperfectly committed to memory. Like a famous American 
 lawyer, the attitude he assumed was to stand bent a little 
 forward, the feet together, the left hand hanging loosely 
 at his side, while he brandished the right above his 
 head. 
 
 In this attitude he was surprised by the Twins, who 
 came a quarter of an hour before the time. They were 
 dressed with great care, having each the sweetest little 
 eighteenpenny bouquet, bought from the little shop at 
 the right hand of the Market as you go in, where the 
 young lady makes it up before your eyes, sticks the wire 
 into it, and pins it at your buttonhole with her own fair 
 hands. Each brother in turn winked at her during the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 279 
 
 operation. A harmless wink, but it suggested no end of 
 possible devilries should these two young gentlemen of 
 fifty find themselves loose upon the town. Those who 
 saw it thought of Mohocks, and praised the Lord for the 
 new police. 
 
 They both looked very nice ; they entered with a jaunty 
 step, a careless backward toss of the head, parted lips, and 
 bright eyes which faced fearlessly a critical but reverent 
 woi'ld. Nothing' but the crow's-feet showed that the first 
 glow of youth was over ; nothing but a few streaks of grey 
 in Humphrey's beard and in Cornelius's hair showed that 
 they were nearing the Indian summer of life. Mr. Beck, 
 seeing them enter so fresh, so bright, and so beaming, was 
 more than ever puzzled at their age. He was waiting for 
 them in a nervous and rather excitable state of mind, as 
 becomes one who is about to find himself face to face with 
 the greatest men of his time. 
 
 "You, gentlemen," he said, "will sit near me, one 
 each side, if you will be so kind, just to lend a helping- 
 hand to the talk when it flags. Phew ! it will be a 
 rasper, the talk of to-day. I've read all their works, if 
 I can only remember them, and I bought the History of 
 English Literattire yesterday to get a grip of the hull subject. 
 No use. I haven't got farther than Chaucer. Do you think 
 they can talk about Chaucer? He wrote the Cantcrlnry 
 Talcs:' 
 
 "Cornelius," said Humphrey, "you will be able to lead 
 the conversation to the Anglo-Saxon period." 
 
 " That period is too early, brother Humphrey," said Cor- 
 nelius. " We shall trust to you to turn the stream in the 
 direction of the Renaissance." 
 
 Humphrey shifted in his seat uneasily. Why this unwill- 
 ingness in either Twin to assume the lead on a topic which 
 had engaged his attention for twenty years ? 
 
 Mr. Beck shook his head. 
 
 " I most wish now," he said, "that I hadn't asked them. 
 But it's a thunderin' great honour. Mr. Dunquerque did it 
 all for me. That young gentleman met these great writers,
 
 2So THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 I suppose, in the baronial halls of his brother, the Earl of 
 Isleworth." 
 
 " Do we know Lord Isleworth ? " asked Cornelius of 
 Humphrey. 
 
 " Lord Isleworth, Cornelius ? No ; I rather think we have 
 never met him," said Humphrey to Cornelius. 
 
 " None of your small names to-night," said Gilead Beck, 
 with serious and even pious joy. " The Lord Mayor may 
 have them at Guildhall. Mine are the big guns. I did 
 want to get a special report for my own Gazette, but Mr. 
 Dunquerque thought it better not to have it. P'r'aps 
 'twould have seemed kind o' shoddy. I ought to be satisfied 
 with the private honour, and not want the public glory of 
 it. What would they say in Boston if they knew, or even 
 in New York ? " 
 
 " You should have a dinner for Poets alone," said Hum- 
 phrey, anxious for his brother. 
 
 " Or for Artists only," said Cornelius. 
 
 " Wal, gentlemen, we shall get on. As there's five minutes 
 to spare, would you like to give an opinion on the wine-list, 
 and oblige me by your advice ? " 
 
 The Twins perused the latter document with sparkling 
 eyes. It was a noble list. Gilead Beck's plan was simple. 
 He just ordered the best of everything. For Sauterne, he 
 read Chateau Iquem ; for Burgundy, he took Chambertin ; 
 for Claret, Chateau Lafitte ; for Champagne, Heidsieck ; for 
 Sherry, Montilla ; a Box Boutel wine for Hock ; and for 
 Port the '34. Never before, in all its experiences of Ameri- 
 cans, Russians, and returned colonials, had the management 
 of the Langham so " thorough " a wine-bill to make out as 
 for this dinner. 
 
 " Is that satisfactory, gentlemen ? " 
 
 " Cornelius, what do you think ? " 
 
 " Humphrey, I think as you do ; and that is, that this 
 princely selection shows I\rr. Pjeck's true appreciation of 
 Literature and Art." 
 
 " It is kind of you, gentlemen, to say so. I talked over 
 the dinner with the chcf^ and I have had the menou printed,
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 281 
 
 as you see it, in gilt and colours, which I am given to under- 
 stand is the correct thing at the Guildhall. Would you like 
 to look at that ? " 
 
 They showed the greatest desire to look at it. Humphrey 
 read it aloud with emphasis. While he read and while his 
 brother listened, Mr. Beck thought they seemed a good deal 
 older than before. Perhaps that was because their faces 
 were turned to the light, and the reflection through an open 
 window of the sinking sun showed up the crow's-feet round 
 their eyes. 
 
 " Humph ! Plovers' eggs. Clear mulligatawny ; clear, 
 Cornelius. Turtle-fins. Salmon — I translate the French. 
 Turbot. Lochleven trout " 
 
 " Very good indeed, so far," said Cornelius, with a palpable 
 smack of his lips. 
 
 " Lamb-cutlets with peas — a simple but excellent dish ; 
 aspic of foie, gras — ah, two or three things which I cannot 
 translate ; a preparation of pigeon ; haunch of venison ; 
 yes " 
 
 " An excellent dinner, indeed," said Cornelius. " Pray go 
 on, Humphrey." 
 
 He began to feel like Sancho in Barataria. So good a 
 dinner seemed really impossible. 
 
 " Duckling ; cabob curry of chicken-liver with Bombay 
 ducks — really, Mr. Beck, this dinner is worth a dukedom." 
 
 " It is indeed," said Cornelius feelingly. 
 
 "Canvas-back — ah! — from Baltimore — Cornelius, this is 
 almost too much ; apricots in jelly, ice-pudding, grated Par- 
 mesan, strawberries, melons, peaches, nectarines (and only 
 May, Cornelius!), pines, West India bananas, custard apples 
 from Jamaica, and dried letchis from China, Cornelius." 
 
 Humphrey handed the document to his brother with a look 
 of appeal which said volumes. One sentence in the volumes 
 was clearly, " Say something appropriate." 
 
 Quoth Cornelius deeply moved — 
 
 " This new Msecenas ransacks the corners of the earth to 
 find a fitting entertainment for men of genius. Humphrey, 
 you shall paint him."
 
 282 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Cornelius, you shall sing Ms praises." 
 
 By a simultaueous impulse the Twins turned to their 
 patron, and presented each a right hand. Gilead Beck had 
 only one right hand to give. He gave that to Cornelius, and 
 the left to Humphrey. 
 
 While this sacrament of friendship was proceeding vras 
 heard a sound as of many men simultaneously stifling much 
 laughter. The door opened, and the other guests anived in 
 a body. They were preceded by Jack Dunquerque, and on 
 entering the room dropped, as if by word of command, into 
 line, like soldiers on parade. Eight of them were strangers, 
 but Captain Ladds brought up the rear. 
 
 They were, as might be expected of such great men, a 
 remarkable assemblage. At the extreme right stood a tall 
 well-set-up old man, with tangled grey locks, long grey eye- 
 brows, and an immense grey beard. His vigorous bearing 
 belied the look of age, and what part of his face could be seen 
 had a remarkably youthful appearance. 
 
 Next to him were other two aged men, one of whom was 
 bent and bowed by the weight of years. They also had large 
 eyebrows and long grey beards; and Mr. Beck remarked 
 at once that so far as could be judged from the brightness 
 of their eyes they had wonderfully preserved their mental 
 strength. The others were younger men, one of them being 
 apparently a boy of eighteen or so. 
 
 Then followed a ceremony like a Icvde. Gilead Beck 
 stood in the centre of the room, the table having been 
 pushed back into the corner. He was supported, right and 
 left, by the Twins, who formed a kind of Court, and above 
 whom he towered grandly with his height of six-feet-two. 
 He held himself as erect, and looked as solemn, as if he 
 were the President of the United States. The Twins, for 
 their part, looked a little as if they were his sons. 
 
 Jack Dunquerque acted as Lord Chamberlain or Master 
 of the Ceremonies. He wore an anxious face, and looked 
 round among the great men whom he preceded^ as soon as 
 they had all filed in, with a glance which might have 
 meant admonition, had that been possible. And, indeed.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 283 
 
 a broad smile, which was hovering like the sunlight upon 
 their venerable faces, disappeared at the frown of this young- 
 gentleman. It was very curious. 
 
 It was in the Grand Manner — that peculiar to Courts — 
 in which Jack Dunquerque presented the first of the dis- 
 tinguished guests to Mr. Beck. 
 
 " Sir," he said, with low and awe-struck voice, " before 
 you stands Thomas Carlyle." 
 
 A thrill ran through the American's veins as he grasped 
 the hand which had written so many splendid things, and 
 looked into the eyes which harboured such splendid thought. 
 Then he said in softened tones, because his soul was moved : 
 " This is a proud moment, sir, for Gilead P. Beck. I never 
 thought to have shaken by the hand the author of the 
 French Revolution and the Stones of Venice." 
 
 (It really was unfortunate that his reading had been so 
 miscellaneous during the four days preceding the dinner.) 
 
 The venerable Philosopher opened his mouth and spake. 
 His tones were deep and his utterance slow. 
 
 " You are proud, Mr. Beck ? The only Pride should be 
 the pride of work. Beautiful the meanest thing that works ; 
 even the rusty and unmusical Meatjack. All else belongs 
 to the outlook of him whom men call Beelzebub. The brief 
 Day passes with its poor paper crowns in tinsel gilt ; Night 
 is at hand with her silences and her veracities. What hast 
 thou done ? All the rest is phantasmal. Work only remains. 
 Say, brother, what is thy work ? " 
 
 " I have struck He," replied Gilead proudly, feeling that 
 his Work (with a capital W) had been well and thoroughly 
 done. 
 
 The Philosopher stepped aside. 
 
 Jack Dunquerque brought up the next. 
 
 " ]\Ir. Beck, Alfred Tennyson, the Poet Laureate." 
 
 This time it was a man with robust frame and strongly- 
 marked features. He wore a long black beard, streaked 
 with grey and rather ragged, with a ragged mass of black 
 hair, looking as he did at Oxford when they made him 
 an honorary D.C.L., and an undergraduate from the
 
 284 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 gallery asked him politely, "Did they wake and call you 
 early?" 
 
 " Mr. Tennyson," said Mr. Beck, " I do assure you, sir, 
 that this is the kindest thing that has been done to me 
 since I came to England. I hope I see you well, sir. I 
 read your Fifine at the Fair, sir — no, that was the other 
 man's — I mean, sir, your Songs leforc Sunrise; and I con- 
 gratulate you. We've got some poets on our side of the 
 water, sir. I've written poetry myself for the papers. We've 
 got Longfellow and Lowell, and take out you and Mr. 
 Swinburne, with them we'll meet your lot." 
 
 Mr. Tennyson opened his mouth to speak, but shut it 
 again in silence, and looking at Jack mournfully as if he 
 had forgotten something, he stepped aside. 
 
 Jack presented another. 
 
 " Mr. John Ruskin." 
 
 A sharp-featured, clever-looking man, with grey locks 
 and shaven face. He seized Mr. Beck by the hand and 
 spoke first, not giving his host time to utter his little 
 set speech. 
 
 "I welcome," he said, "one of our fellow-workers from 
 the other side of the Atlantic. I cannot utter to you what 
 I would. We all see too dimly as yet what are our great 
 world-duties, for we try and outline their enlarging shadows. 
 You in America do not seek peace as Menahem sought it, 
 when he gave the King of Assyria a thousand pieces of 
 silver. You fight for your peace, and you have it. You 
 do not buy what you want ; you take it. That is strength ; 
 that is harmony. You do not sit at home lisping comfort- 
 able prayers ; you go out and work. For many a year 
 to come, sir, the sword of your nation shall be whetted to 
 save and to subdue." 
 
 He stopped suddenly, and closed his lips with a snap. 
 
 Mr. Beck turned rather helplessly to the Twins. He 
 wanted a diversion to this utterly unintelligible harangue. 
 They stared straight before them, and pretended to be 
 absorbed in meditation. 
 
 " jMr. Beck, Mr. Swinburne. Deaf people think Mr.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY, 285 
 
 Browning is musical, sir; but all people allow Mr. Swin- 
 burne to be the most musical of poets." 
 
 It was the very young man. He stood before liis host 
 and laughed aloud. 
 
 " Sir," said Mr. Beck, " I have read some of your verses. 
 I can't say what they were about, but I took to singin' 
 them softly as I read them, and I seemed to be in a green 
 field, lyin' out among the j&owers, while the bees were 
 bummin' around and the larks were liftin' their hymns in 
 the sky." 
 
 Mr. Swinburne laughed again and made way for the 
 next comer. 
 
 "Mr. Beck, let me introduce Mr. George Augustus 
 Sala." 
 
 " This," said the Man of Oil, " is indeed a pleasure. Mr. 
 Sala, when I say that I am an old and personal friend of 
 Colonel Quagg, you will be glad to meet me." 
 
 Contrary to reasonable expectation, the face of Mr. Sala 
 showed no sign of joy at the reminiscence. He only looked 
 rather helplessly at Jack Dunquerque, who turned red, and 
 brought up the rest of his men together, as if to get the 
 introductions over quickly. 
 
 "Mr. Beck, these gentlemen are 'Mr. Darwin, Professor 
 Huxley, and Mr. Frederick Leighton. Ladds you know well 
 enough already. Step up, Tommy." 
 
 Gilead Beck shook hands with each, and then, drawing 
 himself up to his full height, laid his left hand within his 
 waistcoat, brandished his right above his head with a pre- 
 liminary flourish, and began his speech. 
 
 "Gentlemen all," he said, "I am more than proud to 
 make your acquaintance. Across the foaming waves of the 
 mighty Atlantic there is a land whose institootions — known 
 to Mr. Sala — air not unlike your own, whose literature is 
 your own up to a hundred years ago [" Hear, hear ! " from 
 Cornelius], whose language is the same as yours. We say 
 hard things of each other, gentlemen ; but the hard things 
 are said on the low levels, not on the heights where you 
 and your kindred spirits dwell. No, gentlemen," — ^here
 
 286 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 lie raised both arms and prepared for a rlietorical burst, — • 
 "when the American eagle, proudly bearing the stars and 
 stripes " 
 
 " Dinner on the table, sir ! " bawled the head-waiter, 
 throwing open the doors with the grandest flourish and 
 standing in the open doorway. 
 
 "Hear, hear!" cried Humphrey a little late, because he 
 meant the cheer for the speech, and it sounded like a joy- 
 bell ringing for the announcement of dinner. Mr. Beck 
 thought it rather rude, but he did not say so, and vented 
 his wrath upon the waiter. 
 
 " Great Jehoshaphat ! " he cried, " can't you see when a 
 gentleman is on the stump ? Who the devil asked you to 
 shove in ? " 
 
 " Never mind," said Jack irreverently. "Spout the rest 
 after dinner." 
 
 A sigh of relief escaped the lips of all, and the party, 
 headed, after some demur, by the host, who was escorted, 
 one on each side, like a great man with his private secretary, 
 by the Twins, passed into the dining-room. 
 
 Oddly enough, when their host passed on before them, the 
 guests turned to each other, and the same extraordinary 
 smile which Jack Dunquerque checked on their first appear- 
 ance passed from one to the other. Why should Alfred 
 Tennyson look in the face of Thomas Carlyle and laugh ? 
 What secret relationship is there between John Ruskin, 
 Swinburne, and George Augustus Sala, that they should 
 snigger and grin on catching each other's eyes ? And, if 
 one is to go on asking questions, why did Jack Dunquerque 
 whisper in an agitated tone, " For Heaven's sake, Tom, and 
 you fellows, keep it up " ? 
 
 There was some little difficulty in seating the guests, 
 because they all showed a bashful reluctance to sitting near 
 their host, and crowded together to the lower end. At last, 
 however, tliey were settled down. Mr. Carlyle, who, with a 
 modesty worthy of his great name, seized the lowest chair of 
 all — that on the left of Jack Dunquerque, who was to occupy 
 the end of the table — was promptly dragged out and forcibly
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 2S7 
 
 led to the rig-lit of the host. Facing him was Alfred Tenn}-- 
 son. The Twins, one on each side, came next. ]\Ir. Sala 
 faced John Euskin. The others disposed themselves as they 
 pleased. 
 
 A little awkwardness was caused at the outset by the host, 
 who, firm in the belief that Professor Huxley was in the 
 Moody and Sankey line, called upon him to say Grace. The 
 invitation was warmly seconded by all the rest, but the 
 Professor, greatly confused, blushed, and after a few moments 
 of reflection was fain to own that he knew no Grace. It was 
 a strange confession, Gilead Beck thought, for a clergyman. 
 The singers, however — Miss Claribelle, Signers Altotenoro, 
 Bassoprofondo, and Mr. Plantagenet Simpkins — performed 
 Non nohis with great feeling and power, and dinner began. 
 
 It was then that Gilead Beck first conceived, against his 
 will, suspicion of the Twins. So far from being the back- 
 bone and stay of the whole party, so far from giving a lead 
 to the conversation, and leading up to the topics loved by 
 the guests, they gave themselves unreservedly and from the 
 very first to " tucking in." They went at the dinner with 
 the go of a Rugby boy — a young gentleman of Eton very 
 soon teaches himself that the stomach is not to be trifled 
 with. So did the rest. Considering the overwhelming 
 amount of genius at the table, and the number of years 
 represented by the guests collectively, it was really wonderful 
 to contemplate the vigour with which all, including the 
 octogenarian, attacked the courses, sparing none. Could it 
 have been believed by an outsider that the author of Maud 
 was so passionately critical over the wine ? It is sad to be 
 disillusionised, but pleasant, on the other hand, to think 
 that you are no longer an outsider. Individually the party 
 would have disappointed their host, but he did not allow 
 himself to be disappointed. Mr. Beck expected a battery of 
 wit. He heard nothing but laudation of the wine and re- 
 marks upon the cookery. No anecdotes, no criticism, no 
 literary talk, no poetical enthusiasm. 
 
 "In my country, sir," he began, glancing reproachfully 
 at the Twins, whose noses were over their plates, and feeling
 
 2S8 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 his way feebly to a conversation with Carlyle, — " in my 
 country, sir, I hope we know how to appreciate what we 
 cannot do ourselves." 
 
 Mr. Carlyle stared for a moment. Then he replied — 
 
 " Hope you do, Mr. Beck, I'm sure. Didn't know you'd 
 got so good a chef aX the Langham." 
 
 This was disheartening, and for a space no one spoke. 
 
 Presently Mr. Carlyle looked round the table as if he was 
 about to make an utterance. 
 
 Humphrey Jagenal, who happened at the moment to have 
 nothing before him, raised his hand and said solemnly, 
 " Hush ! " Cornelius bent forward in an attitude of respect- 
 ful attention. 
 
 Said the Teacher — 
 
 " Clear mulligatawny's about the best thing I know to 
 begin a dinner upon. Some fellows like Palestine soup. 
 That's a mistake." 
 
 " The greatest minds," said Cornelius to the Poet Laureate, 
 " condescend to the meanest things." 
 
 " 'Gad ! " said Tennyson, " if you call such a dinner as this 
 mean, I wonder what you'd call respectable." 
 
 Cornelius felt snubbed. But he presently rallied and went 
 on again. It was between the courses. 
 
 "Pray, Mr. Carlyle," he asked, with the sweetest smile, 
 " what was the favourite soup of Herr Teufelsdrockh ? " 
 
 " Who ? " asked the Philosopher. " Beg your pardon, 
 Herr how much ? " 
 
 " From your own work, ]\Ir. Carlyle," Jack sang out from 
 his end. It was remarkable to notice how anxiously he 
 followed the conversation. 
 
 " Oh, ah ! quite so," said Mr. Carlyle. " Well, you see, the 
 fact is that — Jack Dunquerque knows." 
 
 This was disconcerting too, and the more because every- 
 body began to laugh. What did they laugh at ? 
 
 The dinner went on. Gilead Beck, silent and grave, sat 
 at the head of the table, watching his guests. He ought, he 
 said to himself, to be a proud man that day. But there were 
 one or two crumpled rose-leaves in his bed. One thing was
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 289 
 
 that he could not for the life of him remember each man's 
 works, so as to address him in honeyed tones of adulation. 
 And he also rightly judged that the higher a man's posi- 
 tion in the world of letters, the more you must pile up the 
 praise. No doubt the late lamented George the Fourth, the 
 Fourteenth Louis, and John Stuart Mill, grew at last to 
 believe in the worth of the praise-painting which surrounded 
 their names. 
 
 And then the Twins were provoking. Only one attempt 
 on the part of Cornelius, at which everybody laughed. And 
 nothing at all from Humphrey. 
 
 Carlyle and Tennyson, for their part, sat perfectly silent. 
 Lower down — below the Twins, that is — Sala, Huxley, and 
 the others were conversing freely, but in a low tone. And 
 when Gilead Beck caught a few words it seemed to him as if 
 they talked of horse-racing. 
 
 Presently, to his relief, John Ruskin leaned forward and 
 spoke to him. 
 
 " I have been studying lately, Mr. Beck, the Art growth 
 of America." 
 
 " Is that so, sir ? And perhaps you have got something to 
 tell my countrymen ? " 
 
 " Perhaps, Mr. Beck. You doubtless know my principle, 
 that Art should interpret, not create. You also know that I 
 have preached all my life the doctrine that where Art is 
 followed for Art's own sake, ther einfallibly ensues a dis- 
 tinction of intellectual and moral principles, while, devoted 
 honestly and self-forgetfully to the clear statement and record 
 of the facts of the universe. Art is always helpful and beneficial 
 to mankind. So much you know, Mr. Beck, I'm sure." 
 
 " Well, sir, if you would not mind saying that over again 
 — slow — I might be able to say I know it." 
 
 " I have sometimes gone on to say," pursued Mr. Ruskin, 
 " that a time has always hitherto come when, having reached 
 a singular perfection, Art begins to contemplate that per- 
 fection and to deduce rules from it. Now all this has nothing 
 to do with the relations between Art and mental development 
 in the United States of America." 
 
 T
 
 290 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " I am glad to liear that, sir," said Gilead Beck, a little 
 relieved. 
 
 He looked for lielp to the Twins, but lie leaned upon a 
 slender reed, for tliey were both engaged upon the duckling, 
 and proffered no help at all. They did not even seem to listen. 
 The dinner was far advanced, their cheeks were red, and their 
 eyes were sparkling. 
 
 "What is it all about ? " llr. Carlyle murmured across the 
 table to Tennyson. 
 
 " Don't know," replied the Maker. " Didn't think he had 
 it in him." 
 
 Could these two great men be jealous of Mr. Euskin's 
 fame ? 
 
 " Your remarks, Mr. Euskin," said the host, " sound very 
 pretty. But I should like to have them before me in black 
 and white, so I could tackle them quietly for an hour. Then 
 I'd tell you what I think. I was reading, last week, all your 
 works." 
 
 " All my works in a week ! " cried Euskin. " Sir, my works 
 require loving thought and lingering tender care. You must 
 get up early in the morning with them, you must watch the 
 drapery of the clouds at sunrise when you read them, you must 
 take them into the fields at spring-time and mark, as you 
 meditate on the words of the printed page, the young leaflets 
 breathing low in the sunshine. Then, as the thoughts grow 
 and glow in the pure ether of your mind — hock, if you please 
 — you will rise above the things of the earth, your wings 
 will expand, you will care for nothing of the mean and 
 practical — I will take a little more duckling — your faculties 
 will be woven into a cunning subordination with the wondrous 
 works of Nature, and all will be beautiful alike, from a blade 
 of grass to a South American forest." 
 
 " There are very good forests in the Sierra Nevada," said 
 Mr. Beck, who just understood the last words ; " we needn't 
 go to South America for forests, I guess." 
 
 " That, Mr. Beck, is what you will get from a study of my 
 works. But a week — a week, ]\Ir, Beck ! " 
 
 He shook his head with a whole library of reproach.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 291 
 
 " My time was limited, Mr. Euskin, and I hope to go 
 tlirougb. your books with more study, now I have had the 
 pleasure of meeting you. What I was going to say was, 
 that I am sorry not to be able to talk with you gentlemen 
 on, the subjects you like best, because things have got 
 mixed, and I find I can't rightly remember who wrote 
 what." 
 
 " Thank goodness ! " murmured Mr. Tennyson, under his 
 breath. 
 
 Presently the diners began to thaw, and something like 
 general conversation set in. 
 
 About the grated Parmesan period, Mr. Beck observed 
 with satisfaction that they were all talking together. The 
 Twins were the loudest. With flushed faces and bright 
 eyes they were laying down the law to their neighbours in 
 Poetry and Art. Cornelius gave Mr. Tennyson some home 
 truths on his later style, which the Poet Laureate received 
 without so much as an attempt to defend himself. Humphrey, 
 from the depth of his Roman experiences, treated Mr. Paiskin 
 to a brief treatise on his imperfections as a critic, and ]Mr. 
 Leighton to some remarks on his paintings, which those 
 great men heard with a polite stare. Gilead Beck observed 
 also that Jack Dunquerque was trying hard to keep the 
 talk in literary grooves, though with small measure of 
 success. For as the dinner went on the conversation 
 resolved itself into a general discussion on horses, events, 
 Aldershot, Prince's, polo, the drama from its lightest point 
 of view, and such topics as might perhaps be looked for at a 
 regimental mess, but hardly at a dinner of Literature. It 
 was strange that the two greatest men among them all, 
 Carlyle and Tennyson, appeared to be as interested as any 
 in this light talk. 
 
 The Twins were out of it altogether. If there was one 
 tiling about which they were absolutely ignorant, it was the 
 Turf Probably they had never seen a race in their lives. 
 They talked fast and a httle at random, but chiefly to each 
 other, because no one, Mr. Beck observed, took any notice of 
 what they said. Also, they drank continuously, and their
 
 292 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 host remarked that to tlie flashed cheeks and the brierht 
 eyes was rapidly being added thickness of speech. 
 
 Mr. Beck rose solemnly, at the right moment, and asked 
 his guests to allow him two or three toasts only. The first, 
 he said, was England and America. He, he said briefly, had 
 not yet been found in the old country, and so far she was 
 behind America. But she did her best ; she bought what 
 she could not dig. 
 
 By special request of the host Mademoiselle Claribelle 
 sang " Old John Brown lies a-mouldering in his grave." 
 
 The next toast, Mr. Beck said, was one due to the peculiar 
 position of himself He would not waste their time in tell- 
 ing his own story, but he would only say that until the 
 Golden Butterfly brought him to Limerick City and showed 
 him He, he was but a poor galoot. Therefore, he asked 
 them to join him in a sentiment. He would give them, 
 " More He." 
 
 Signer Altotenoro, an Englishman who had adopted an 
 Italian name, sang " The Light of other Days." 
 
 Then ]\Ir. Beck rose for the third time and begged the 
 indulgence of his friends. He spoke slowly and with a 
 certain sadness. 
 
 " I am not," he said, " going to orate. You did not come 
 here, I guess, to hear me pay out chin music. Not at all. 
 You came to do honour to an American. Gentlemen, I am 
 an obscure American ; I am half educated ; I am a man 
 lifted out of the ranks. In our country — and I think in 
 yours as well, though some of you have got handles to your 
 names — that is not a thing to apologise for. No, gentle- 
 men. I only mention it because it does me the greater 
 honour to have received you. But I can read and I can 
 think. I see here to-night some of the most honoured 
 names in England, and I can tell you all what I was goin' 
 to say before dinner, only the misbegotten cuss of a waiter 
 took the words out of my mouth : that I feel this kindness 
 greatly, and I shall never forget it. I did think, gentlemen, 
 that you would have been too many for me in the matter of 
 tall talkj but exceptin' Mr. Euskin, to whom I am grateful
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 293 
 
 for his beautiful language, though it didn't all get in, not 
 one of you has made me feel my own uneducated ignorance. 
 That is kind of you, and I thank you for it. It was true 
 feeling, Mr. Carlyle, which prompted you, sir, to give the 
 conversation such a turn that I might join in without 
 bein' ashamed or makin' myself feel or'nary. Gentlemen, 
 what a man like me has to guard against is shoddy. If 
 I talk Literature, it's shoddy. If I talk Art, it's shoddy. 
 Because I know neither Literature nor Art. If I pretend 
 to be what I am not, it's shoddy. Therefore, gentlemen, 
 I thank you for leavin' the tall talk at home, and tellin' 
 me about your races and your amusements. And I'll not 
 ask you, either, to make any speeches ; but if you'll allow 
 me, I will drink your healths. Mr. Carlyle, sir, the English- 
 speaking race is proud of you. Mr. Tennyson, our gells, 
 I'm told, love your poems more than any others in this 
 wide world. What an American gell loves is generally 
 worth lovin*, because she's no fool. Mr. Ruskin, if you'd 
 come across the water you might learn a wrinkle yet in 
 the matter of plain speech. Mr. Sala, we know you already 
 over thar, and I shall be glad to tell the Eeverend Colonel 
 Quagg of your welfare when I see him. Mr. Swinburne, 
 you air young, but you air getting on. Professor Huxley 
 and Mr. Darwin, I shall read your sermons and your 
 novels, and I shall be proud to have seen you at my table. 
 Mr. Cornelius and Mr. Humphrey Jagenal, I would drink 
 your healths too, if you were not sound asleep. This was 
 unfortunately the case ; the Twins, having succumbed to 
 the mixture and quantity of the drinks almost before the 
 wine went round once, were now leaning back in their 
 chairs, slumbering with the sweetest of smiles. " Captain 
 Ladds, you know, sir, that you are always welcome. Mr. 
 Dunquerque, you have done me another favour. Gentlemen 
 all, I drink your health." 
 
 " Jack," whispered Mr. Swinburne, " I call this a burning 
 shame. He's a rattling good fellow this, and you must 
 tell him." 
 
 " I will, some time ; not now," said Jack, looking remorse-
 
 294 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 ful. " I haven't the heart. I thought he would have found 
 us out long ago. I wonder how he'll take it." 
 
 They had coffee and cigars, and presently Gilead Beck 
 began telling about American trotting matches, which was 
 interesting to everybody. 
 
 It was nearly twelve when Mr. Beck's guests de- 
 parted. 
 
 Mr. Cai'lyle, in right of his seniority, solemnly " up and 
 spake." 
 
 "Mr, Beck," he said, "you are a trump. Come down to 
 the Derby with me, and we will show you a race worth 
 twenty of your trotting. Good-night, sir. You've treated 
 us like a prince," 
 
 He grasped his hand with a grip which had all its youth- 
 ful vigour, and strode out of the room with the step of early 
 manhood. 
 
 " A wonderful old man ! " said Mr. Beck. " "Who would 
 have thought it ? " 
 
 The rest shook hands in silence, except Mr. Euskin. 
 
 "I am sorry, Mr. Beck," he said meekly, " that the 
 nonsense I talked at dinner annoyed you. It's always the 
 way if a fellow tries to be clever ; he overdoes it, and makes 
 himself an ass. Good-night, sir, and I hope we shall meet 
 on the racecourse next Wednesday." 
 
 Mr. Beck was left alone with Jack Dunquerque, the 
 waiter, and the Twins still sleeping. 
 
 " What am I to do with these gentlemen, sir ? " asked the 
 waiter. 
 
 Mr. Beck looked at them with a little disdain. 
 
 " Get John, and yank them both to bed, and leave a 
 brandy-and-soda at their elbows in case they're thirsty in 
 the night, Mr, Dunquerque and Caj)tain Ladds, don't go 
 yet. Let us have a cigar together in the little room," 
 
 They sat in silence for a while. Tben Jack said, with a 
 good deal of hesitation : 
 
 " I've got something to tell you. Beck," 
 
 " Then don't tell it to-night," replied the American. 
 " I'm thinking over the evening, and I can't get out of my
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEKFLY. 295 
 
 miucl that I might have made a better speech. Seems as 
 if I wasn't nigh grateful enough. Wal, it's done. Mr. 
 Dunquerque, there is one thing which pleases me. Great 
 authors are like the rest of ns. They are j)owerful fond of 
 racing ; they shoot, they ride, and they hunt ; they know 
 how to tackle a dinner ; and all of 'em, from Thomas Carlyle 
 to young Mr. Swinburne, seem to love the gells alike. 
 That's a healthy sign, sir. It shows that their hearts air in 
 the right place. The world's bound to go on well, somehow, 
 so long as its leaders like to talk of a pretty woman's eyes ; 
 because it's human. And then for me to hear these great 
 men actually doing it ! Why, Captain Ladds, it adds six 
 inches to my stature to feel sure that they like what I like, 
 and that, after all said and done, Alfred Tennyson and 
 Gilead P. Beck are men and brothers." 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 "Greater humanity." 
 
 THE world, largely as it had unfolded itself to Phillis, con- 
 sisted as yet to her wholly of the easy classes. That 
 there were poor people in the country was a matter of 
 hearsay. That is, she had caught a glimpse during a 
 certain walk with Cfesar of a class whose ways were clearly 
 not her ways, nor their manner of thought hers. She had 
 now to learn — as a step to that wider sympathy first 
 awakened by the butter-woman's baby — that there is a kind 
 of folk who arc more dangerous than picturesque, to be pitied 
 rather than to be painted, to be schooled and disciplined 
 rather than to be looked at. 
 
 She learned this lesson through Mrs. L'Estrange, whose 
 laudable custom it was to pay periodical visits to a certain 
 row of cottages. They were not nice cottages, but nasty. 
 They faced an unrelenting ditch, noisome, green, and putrid. 
 They were slatternly and out at elbows. The people who 
 lived in them were unpleasant to look at or to think
 
 296 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFL7. 
 
 of; the men belonged to tlie riverside — tliey were boat- 
 cads and touts ; and if tliere is any one pursuit more 
 demoralising than another, it is that of launching boats 
 into the river, handing the oars, and helping out the 
 crew. 
 
 In the daytime the cottages were in the hands of the 
 wives. Towards nightfall the men returned : those who 
 had money enough were drunk ; those who were sober 
 envied those who were drunk. Both drunk and sober found 
 scolding wives, squalid homes, and crying children. Both 
 drunk and sober lay down with curses, and slept till the 
 morning, when they awoke, and went forth again with the 
 jocund curse of dawn. 
 
 Nothing so beautiful as the civilisation of the period. 
 Half a mile from Agatha L'Estrange and Phillis Fleming 
 were these cottages. Almost within earshot of a house 
 where vice was unknown, or only dimly seen like a ghost 
 at twilight, stood the hovels where virtue was impossible, 
 and goodness a dream of an unknown land. What notion 
 do they have of the gentle life, these dwellers in misery and 
 squalor ? What fond ideas of wealth's power to procure 
 unlimited gratification for the throat do they conceive, these 
 men and women whose only pleasure is to drink beer till 
 they drop ? 
 
 One day Phillis went there with Agatha. 
 
 It was such a bright warm morning, the river was so 
 sjDarkling, the skies were so blue, the gardens were so 
 sunny, the song of the birds so loud, the laburnums so 
 golden, and the lilacs so glorious to behold, that the girl's 
 heart was full of all the sweet thoughts which she had 
 learned of others or framed for herself — thoughts of poets, 
 which echoed in her brain and flowed down the current of 
 her thoughts like the swans upon the river ; happy thoughts 
 of youth and innocence. 
 
 She walked beside her companion with light and elastic 
 tread ; she looked about her with the fresh unconscious grace 
 that belongs to childhood; it was her greatest charm. But 
 the contentment of her soul was rudely shaken — the beauty
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 297 
 
 ■went out of the day — when Mrs. L'Estrange only led her 
 away from the leafy road and took her into her "E,ow." There 
 the long arms of the green trees were changed into protrud- 
 ing sticks, on which linen was hanging out to dry ; the songs 
 of the birds became the cry of children and the scolding of 
 women ; for flowers there was the iridescence on the puddles 
 of soap-suds ; for greenhouse were dirty windows and open 
 doors which looked into squalid interiors. 
 
 " I am going to see old Mrs. Medlicott," said Mrs. 
 L'Estrange cheerfully, picking her accustomed way among 
 the cabbage-stalks, wash-tubs, and other evidences of human 
 habitation. 
 
 The women looked out of their houses and retired hastily. 
 Presently they came out again, and stood every one at her 
 door with a clean apron on, each prepared to lie like an am- 
 bassador for the good of the family. 
 
 In a great chair by a fire there sat an old woman — a 
 malignant old woman. She looked up and scowled at the 
 ladies; then she looked at the fire and scowled; then she 
 pointed to the corner and scowled again. 
 
 " Look at him," she growled in a hoarse crescendo. " Look 
 at him, lying like a pig — like a pig. Do you hear?" 
 
 " I hear." 
 
 The voice came from what Phillis took at first to be a heap 
 of rags. She was right, because she could not see beneath 
 the rags the supine form of a man. 
 
 Mrs. L'Estrange took no notice of the old woman's intro- 
 duction to the human pig. That phenomenon repeated his 
 answer : 
 
 " I hear. I'm her beloved grandson, ladies. I'm Jack-in- 
 the-Water." 
 
 " Get up and work. Go down to your river. Comes 
 home and lies down, he does — yah ! ye lazy pig ; says he's 
 goin' to have the horrors, he does — yah ! ye drunken pig ; 
 prigs my money for drink — yah ! ye thievin' pig. Get up 
 and go out of the place. Leave me and the ladies to talk. 
 Go, I say ! " 
 
 Jack-in-the- Water arose slowly. He was a long-legged
 
 298 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 creature with sliaky limbs, and when he stood upright 
 his head nearly touched the rafters of the low unceiled 
 room. And he had a face at sight of which Phillis shud- 
 dered — an animal face with no forehead; a cruel, bad, 
 selfish face, all jowl and no front. His eyes were blood- 
 shot and his lips were thick. He twitched and trembled 
 all over — his legs trembled ; his hands trembled ; his cheeks 
 twitched. 
 
 " 'Orrors ! " he said in a husky voice. " And should ha' 
 had the 'errors if I hadn't a took the money. Two-and- 
 tuppence." 
 
 He pushed past Phillis, who shrank in alarm, and disap- 
 peared. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Medlicott, and how are we?" asked ]\rrs. 
 L'Estrange in a cheerful voice — she took no manner of notice 
 of the man. 
 
 "Worse. What have you got for me? Money? I want 
 money. Flannel ? I want flannel. Physic ? I want physic. 
 Brandy ? I want brandy very bad ; I never wanted it so bad. 
 What have you got ? Gimme brandy and you shall read me 
 a tract." 
 
 "You forget," said Agatha, " that I never read to you." 
 
 " Let the young lady read, then. Come here, missy. Lord, 
 Lord ! Don'tee be afraid of an old woman as has got no 
 teeth. Come now. Gimme your hand. Ay, ay, ay ! Eh, 
 eh, eh ! Here's a pretty little hand," 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Medlicott, you said you would not do that any 
 more. You know it is all foolish wickedness." 
 
 " Foolish wickedness! " echoed the Witch of Endor. "Never 
 after to-day, my lady. Come, my pretty lass, take off the 
 glove and gimme the hand." 
 
 Without knowing what she did, Phillis drew off the glove 
 from her left hand. The old woman leaned forward in her 
 chair and looked at the lines. She was a fierce and eager 
 old woman. Life was strong in her yet, despite her fourscore 
 years : her eyes were bright and fiery ; her toothless gums 
 chattered without speaking ; her long lean fingers shook as 
 they seized on the girl's dainty palm.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY, 299 
 
 " Ay, ay ! Eh, eli ! The line of life is long. A silent 
 childhood ! a love-knot hindered ; go on, girl — go on, wife 
 and mother; happy life and happy age, but far away — not 
 here — far away ; a lucky lot with him you love ; to sleep by 
 his side for fifty years and more ; to see your children and 
 your grandchildren; to watch the sun rise and set from your 
 door — a happy life, but far away." 
 
 She dropped the girl's hand as quickly as she had seized it, 
 and fell back in her chair mumbling and moaning. 
 
 " Gimme brandy, Mrs. L'Estrange — you are a charitable 
 woman — gimme brandy. And port- wine — ah ! lemme have 
 some port-wine. Tea? Don't forget the tea. And Jack- 
 in-the-Water drinks awful, he does. Worse than his father; 
 worse than his grandfather — my old man ; worse than his 
 great-grandfather — and they all went off at five-and- 
 thirty." 
 
 " I will send you up a basket, Mrs. Medlicott. Come, 
 Phillis, I have to go to the next cottage." 
 
 But Phillis stayed bekind a moment. 
 
 She touched the old woman on the forehead with her 
 fingers and said softly — 
 
 " Tell me, are you happy ? Do you sniffer ? " 
 
 " Happy ? only the rich are happy. Suffer ? of course I 
 suffer. All the pore suffers." 
 
 " Poor thing ! May I come and see you and bring you 
 things ? " 
 
 " 0' course you may." 
 
 " And you will tell me about yourself? " 
 
 " Child, child ! " cried the old woman impatiently. " Tell 
 you about myself? There, there, you're one of them the 
 Lord loves — wife and mother ; happy life and happy death ; 
 childer and grandchilder ; but far away, far away." 
 
 Mrs. ]\Iedlicott gave Phillis her first insight into that life 
 so near and yet so distant from us. She should have been 
 introduced to the ideal cottage, where the stalwart husband 
 supports the smiling wife, and both do honour to the intel- 
 lectual curate with the long coat and the lofty brow. Where 
 are they — lofty brow of priest and stalwart form of virtuous
 
 300 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 peasant ? Remark that Pliillis was a child ; tlie first effect 
 of the years upon a child is to sadden it. Philemon and 
 Baucis in their cot would have rejoiced her ; that of old Mrs. 
 Medlicott set her thinking. 
 
 And while she drew from memory the old fortune-teller 
 in her cottage, certain words of Abraham Dyson's came back 
 to her : 
 
 " Life is a joy to one and a burden to ninety-nine. 
 Remember in your joy as many as you can of the ninety- 
 nine. 
 
 " Learn that you cannot be entirely happy, because of the 
 ninety-nine who are entirely wretched. 
 
 " "When you reach this knowledge, Phillis, be sure that 
 the Coping-stone is not far-off." 
 
 CHAPTER XXYIII. 
 
 '* Non possidentem multa vocaveris 
 Recte beatum." 
 
 THE manner in which Mr. Cassilis conveyed his advice, 
 or rather instructions, to Gilead Beck inspired the 
 American with a blind confidence. He spoke slowly, firmly, 
 and with deliberation. He spoke as one who knew. Most 
 men speak as those who only half know, like the Frenchman 
 who said, " Ce que je sais, je le sais mal ; ce que j 'ignore, 
 je I'ignore parfaitement." 
 
 Mr. Cassilis weighed each word. While he spoke his 
 eyes sought those of his friend, and looked straight in them, 
 not defiantly, but meditatively. He brought Mr. Beck bills, 
 which he made him accept ; and he brought prospectuses, 
 in which the American, finding they were English schemes, 
 invested money at his adviser's suggestion. 
 
 "You have now," said Mr. Cas.silis, "a very large sum 
 invested in different companies ; you must consider now how 
 long to hold the shares — when to sell out, in fact." 
 
 " Can't I sell my shares at once, if I please ? "
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 301 
 
 "You certainly can, and so ruin the companies. Con- 
 sider my undertaking to my friends on the allotment com- 
 mittees." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You forget, Mr. Beck, that you are a wealthy man. We 
 do not manage matters in a hole and comer. The bears 
 have sold on expectation of an allotment. Now as they have 
 not got an allotment, and we have, they must buy. When 
 such men as you buy largely, the effect is to run shares up ; 
 when you sell largely, you run them down." 
 
 Mr. Cassilis did not explain that he had himself greatly 
 profited by this tidal influence, and proposed to profit still 
 more. 
 
 "Many companies, perfectly sound in principle, may be 
 ruined by a sudden decrease in the price of shares ; a panic 
 sets in, and in a few hours the shareholders may lose all. 
 And if you bring this about by selling without concert 
 with the other favoured allottees, you'll be called a black 
 sheep." 
 
 Mr. Beck hesitated. " It's a hard thing " he began. 
 
 His adviser went on : 
 
 "You have thus two things to think of — not to lose 
 your own profit, and not to spread disaster over a number 
 of other people by the very magnitude of your trans- 
 actions." 
 
 This was a new light to Gilead. 
 
 " Then why sell at all ? Why not keep the shares and 
 secure the dividend ? It's a hard hank, all this money." 
 
 And this was a new light for the financier. 
 
 Hold the shares? When they were, scores of them, at 
 16 premium? "You can certainly do that, if you please," 
 he said slowly. " That, however, puts you in the simple 
 position of an investor." 
 
 " I thought I was that, Mr. Cassilis." 
 
 "Not at all, Mr. Beck. The wise man distrusts all 
 companies, but puts his hope in a rise or fall. You are not 
 conversant with the way business is done. A company is 
 formed — the A B C let us say. Before any allotment of
 
 302 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 shares is made, influential brokers, acting in the interest 
 of the promoters, go on to the Stock Exchange, and make 
 a market." 
 
 " How is that, sir ? " 
 
 " They purchase as many shares as they can get. Persons 
 technically called ' bears ' in London or in New York sell 
 these shares on the chance of an allotment." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " To their astonishment they don't get any shares allotted. 
 Millions of money in a year are allotted to clerks, Mr. Beck 
 — to anybody, in fact — a market is established, and our 
 shares figure at a pretty premium. Then begins the game 
 of backing and filling — to and fro, backward and forward — 
 and all this time we are gradually unloading the shares on 
 the public, the real holders of everything." 
 
 " I begin to see," said Mr. Beck slowly. 
 
 " By this time you will perceive," Mr. Cassilis continued, 
 " the bears are at the mercy of the favoured allottees. You 
 — we — are favoured allottees. Then up go the shares : the 
 public have come in. I recollect an old friend of mine who 
 made a fortune on 'Change — small compared with yours, 
 Mr. Beck, but a great fortune — used to say, talking of shai'es 
 in his rather homely style, 'When they rise, the people 
 buys ; when they fa's, they lets 'em goes.' Ha, ha ! it's so 
 true. I have but a very poor opinion of the Isle of Holyhead 
 Inland Navigation Company; but I thought their shares 
 would go up, and I bought for you. You hold twenty out 
 of fifty thousand. Wait till ' the people buys,' and then 
 unload cautiously." 
 
 "And leave the rest in the lurch? No, sir, I can't do 
 that." 
 
 " Then, Mr. Beck, I can advise you no more." 
 
 " I hold twenty thousand shares ; and if I sell out, that 
 company will bust up." 
 
 " I do not say so much. I say that if you sell out at once 
 you will greatly damage the company. If you sell out 
 gradually you take advantage of the premium, and the 
 company is left exactly where it was before you joined, to
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 303 
 
 stand or fall upon its own merits. But if you sell your 
 shares without concert with our colleagues in these com- 
 panies you are in, we shall be very properly called black 
 sheep." 
 
 " Then, Mr. Cassilis," said Gilead, " in God's name, let us 
 have done with companies ! " 
 
 "Very well; as you please. You have only to give me a 
 power of attorney, and I will dispose of all your shares in 
 the best way possible for your interests. Will you give me 
 that power of attorney ? " 
 
 " Sir, I am deeply obliged to you for all the trouble you 
 are taking." 
 
 "A power of attorney conveys large powers. It will put 
 into my hands the management of your great revenues. 
 This' is not a thiug to be done in a moment. Think well, 
 Mr. Beck, before you sign such a document." 
 
 " I have thought, sir," said Gilead, " and I will sign it with 
 gratitude." 
 
 "In that case, I will have the document — it is only a 
 printed form, filled up and sent on to you for signature 
 immediately." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Cassilis." 
 
 "And as for the shares in the various companies which 
 you have acquired by my advice, I will, if you please, take 
 them all over one with another at the price you gave for 
 them, without considering which have gone up and which 
 down." 
 
 They had all gone up, a fact which Mr. Cassilis might 
 have remembered had he given the thing a moment's 
 thought. The companies on paper were doing extremely 
 well. 
 
 " Sir," said Mr. Beck, starting to his feet, "you heap coals 
 of fire on my head. When a gentleman like you advises me, 
 I ought to be thankful, and not go worrying around like a 
 hen in a farmyard. The English nation air the only people 
 who can raise a man like you, sir. Honour is your birth- 
 right. Duty is your instinct. Truth is your nature. We 
 Americans, sir, come next to you English in that respect.
 
 30+ THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 The rest of the world are nowhere." He was walking back- 
 wards and forwards, with his hands in his pockets, while Mr. 
 Cassilis looked at him through his gold eyeglasses as if he 
 was a little amused at the outburst. " Nowhere, sir. Truth 
 lives only among us. The French lie to please you. The 
 Germans lie to get something for themselves. The Russians 
 lie because they imitate the French and have caught the bad 
 tricks of the Germans. Sir, no one but an Englishman 
 would have made me the generous offer you have just 
 made, and I respect you for it, Mr. Cassilis, I respect 
 you, sir." 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis looked a little, a very little, confused at 
 all these comjjliments. Then he held out his hand. 
 
 " My dear friend, the respect is mutual," he said, with a 
 forced smile. " Do not, however, act always upon your 
 belief in the honesty of Englishmen. It may lead you into 
 mischief." 
 
 "As for the shares," said Beck, "they will stay as they 
 are, if you please, or they will be sold, as you will. And no 
 more companies, Mr. Cassilis, for me." 
 
 " You shall have no more," said his adviser. 
 
 In his pocket was a beautiful prospectus, brand new, of a 
 company about to be formed for the purpose of lighting the 
 town of La Concepcion Immaculata on the Amazon Eiver in 
 Brazil with gas. A concession of land had been obtained, 
 engineers had been out to survey the place, and their 
 prospects were most bright. 
 
 Now, he felt, that project must be released. He turned 
 the paper in his fingers nervously round and round, and the 
 muscles of his cheek twitched. Then he looked up and 
 smiled, but in a joyless way. Mr. Beck did not smile. He 
 was growing more serious. 
 
 "You shall have no more shares," said the adviser. 
 " Those that you have already shall be disposed of as soon as 
 possible. Eemains the question. What am I to do with the 
 money ? 
 
 "You have placed yourself," he went on, "in my hands 
 by means of that promised power of attorney. I advised,
 
 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 305 
 
 first of all, certain shares my influence enabled me to get 
 allotted to you. You have scruples about selling shares at 
 a profit. Let us respect your scruples, Mr. Beck. Instead 
 of shares, you shall invest your money in Government 
 stocks." 
 
 " That, sir," said Mr. Beck, " would meet my wishes." 
 
 " I am glad of it. There are two or three ways of invest- 
 ing money in stocks. The first, your way, is to buy in and 
 take the interest. The next, my way, is to buy in when they 
 are low and sell out when they go up." 
 
 " You may buy in low and sell out lower," said the astute 
 Beck. 
 
 " Not if you can afford to wait. This game, Mr. Beck, 
 as played by the few who understand it, is one which calls 
 into play all the really valuable qualities of the human 
 intellect." 
 
 Mr. Cassilis rose as he spoke and drew himself up 
 to his full height. Then he began to walk backwards and 
 forwards, turning occasionally to jerk a word straight 
 in the face of his client, who was now leaning against the 
 window with an uulighted cigar between his lips, listening 
 gravely. 
 
 " Foolish people think it is a game of gambling. So it is — 
 for them. What is it to us ? It is the forecasting of events. 
 It is the pitting of our experience, our sagacity, against 
 what some outsiders call chance and some Providence. We 
 anticipate events; we read the future by the light of the 
 present." 
 
 "Then it isn't true about Malachi," said Mr. Beck. 
 " And he wasn't the last prophet." 
 
 Mr. Cassilis went on without regarding this observation : 
 
 " There is no game in the world so well worth playing. 
 Politics ? You stake your reputation on the breath of the 
 mob. War? You throw away your life at a stockade of 
 savages before you can learn it. Trade? It is the lower 
 branch of the game of speculation. In this game those 
 who have cool heads and iron nerve win. To lose your 
 head for a moment is to lose the results of a lifetime— 
 
 u
 
 3o6 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 unless," lie murmurecl, as if to himself — " unless you can 
 wait." 
 
 " Well, sir," said Gilead, " I am a scholar, and I leani 
 something new every day. Do you wish me to learn this 
 game ? It seems to me " 
 
 " You ? " Contempt that could not be repressed flashed for 
 a moment across the thin features of the speculator. " You ? 
 No. Perhaps, Mr. Beck, I do not interest you." He re- 
 sumed his habitually cold manner, and went on : "I propose, 
 however, to give you my assistance in investing your money, 
 to such advantage as I can, in English and foreign stocks, 
 including railway companies, but not in the shares of newly- 
 formed trading companies." 
 
 " Sir, this is very kind." 
 
 " You trust me, then, Mr. Beck ? " 
 
 Again the joyless smile, which gleamed for a moment on 
 his lips and disappeared. 
 
 " That is satisfactory to both of us," he said. " And I will 
 send up the power of attorney to-day." 
 
 Mr. Cassilis departed. By the morning's work he had 
 acquired absolute control over a quarter of a million of money. 
 Before this he had influence, but he required persuasion for 
 each separate transaction. Now he had this great fortune 
 entirely in his own control. It was to be the same as his 
 own. And by its means he had the power which every 
 financier wants — that of waiting. He could wait. And 
 Gilead Beck, this man of unparalleled sharpness and un- 
 equalled experience, was a Fool. We have been Christians 
 for nearly two thousand years, and yet he who trusts another 
 man is a Fool. It seems odd. 
 
 Mr. Cassilis felt young again. Ho held his head erect as 
 he walked down the steps of the Langham Hotel. He lost 
 his likeness to old Father Time, or at least resembled that 
 potentate in his younger days, when he used to accommodate 
 himself to people, moving slowly for the happy, sometimes 
 sitting down for a few weeks in the case of young lovers, and 
 galloping for the miserable. He strode across the hall with 
 the gait of a Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Chief, and drove
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 307 
 
 off to tlie City with the courage of five and twenty and the 
 wisdom of sixty. 
 
 Before him stretched an endless row of successes, bigger 
 than anything he had ever yet tried. For him the glory of 
 the coup and the profit ; for Gilead Beck the interest on his 
 money. 
 
 In his inner room, after glancing at the pile of letters and 
 telegrams, noting instructions, and reserving a few for private 
 reply, he rang his bell. 
 
 The private secretary of Mr. Gabriel Cassilis did not 
 disdain personally to answer that bell. He was a middle- 
 aged man, with a sleek appearance, and a face which, 
 being fat, shiny, and graced only with a slight fringe 
 of whisker lying well behind, somehow conveyed the 
 impression of a Particular Baptist who was also in the 
 oil-trade. That was not the case, because Mr. Mowll 
 was a member of the Church of England and a sides- 
 man. He lived at Tulse Hill, and was a highly-respect- 
 able man. Mr. Cassilis gave him a fair salary, and a 
 small amount — a very small amount — of his confidence. 
 He also, when anything good in a humble way ofi"ered, 
 tossed the information to his secretary, who was thus 
 enabled to add materially to his salary. 
 
 In the outer world Mr. Mowll was the right-hand man of 
 Gabriel Cassilis, his factotum, and the man, according to 
 some, by whose advice he walked. Gabriel Cassilis walked 
 by no man's advice save his own. 
 
 " For you, Mowll," said his employer briefly. " These I 
 will attend to. Telegraph to — wherever his address is — to 
 the man Wylie — the writing-man " — newspaper people and 
 writers of articles were " writing-men " to Gabriel Cassilis — 
 " I want him at once." 
 
 Then he absorbed himself again in his papers. 
 
 When he was left alone he pulled some piinted documents 
 out of a drawer, and compared them with letters which had 
 the New York post-mark upon them. He read carefully, 
 and made notes at various points with a stump of a blue 
 crayon-pencil. And he was still engaged on them when, half
 
 3o8 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 an hour later, his secretary asked him through a tube 
 whether he would see Mr. Wylie. 
 
 Mr. Wylie was an elderly man — a man of sixty — and he 
 was a man on whose face many years of rum-and-water were 
 beginning to tell. He was a man of letters, as he said him- 
 self j he had some kind of name, in virtue of certain good 
 things he had written in his early manhood, before the rum- 
 and-water period set in. Now he went up and down, doing 
 odd jobs of literary work, such as are always wanting some 
 one to do them in this great city. He was a kind of literary 
 cab. 
 
 " You are free to-day, Mr. Wylie ? " 
 
 " I am, Mr. Cassilis." 
 
 " Good. Do you remember last year writing a short 
 political pamphlet — I think at my suggestion — on the pro- 
 spects of Patagonian bond-holders ? " 
 
 " You gave me all the information, you know." 
 
 " That is, you found the papers in my outer office, to which 
 all the world has access, and on them you based your 
 opinion." 
 
 " Quite so," said the pamphleteer. " I also found five-and- 
 twenty pounds in gold on your secretary's table the day after 
 the pamphlet appeared." 
 
 " Ah ! Possibly — perhaps my secretary had private reasons 
 of his own for " 
 
 " Let us talk business, Mr. Cassilis," said the author a 
 little roughly. " You want me to do something. What 
 isit?" 
 
 " Do you know the affairs of Eldorado ? " 
 
 " I have heard of Eldorado bonds. Of course, I have no 
 bonds either of Eldorado or any other stock." 
 
 " I have here certain papers — published papers — on the 
 resources of. the country," said Mr. Cassilis. " I think it 
 might pay a clever man to read them. He would probably 
 arrive at the conclusion that the Republic, with its present 
 income, cannot hope to pay its dividends " 
 
 " Must smash up, in short." 
 
 " Do not interrupt. But, with any assurance of activity
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 309 
 
 and honesty in the application of its borrowed money, there 
 seems, if this paper is correct — it is published in New York 
 — no doubt that the internal resources would be more than 
 sufficient to carry the State triumphantly through any 
 difficulty." 
 
 " Is it a quick job, or a job that may wait ? " 
 
 " I dislike calling things jobs, Mr. Wylie. I give you a 
 suggestion which may or may not be useful. If it is useful — it 
 is now half-past twelve o'clock — the pamphlet should be adver- 
 tised in to-morrow's papers, in the printer's hand by four, 
 and ready on every counter by ten o'clock in the morning. 
 Make your own arrangements with printers, and call on me 
 to-morrow with the pamphlet. On me, mind, not Mr. 
 Ivlowll." 
 
 " Yes — and — and '' 
 
 " And perhaps, if the pamphlet is clever, and expresses 
 a just view of Eldorado and its obligations, there may be 
 double the sum that you once found on my secretary's 
 table." 
 
 Mr. Wylie grasped the papers and retired. 
 
 The country of Eldorado is one of the many free, happy, 
 virtuous, and enlightened republics of Central America. It 
 was constituted in the year 1839, after the Confederation 
 broke up. During the thirty years which form its history, 
 it has enjoyed the rule of fifteen Presidents. Don Eufiano 
 Grechyto, its present able administrator, a half-blood Indian 
 by birth, has sat upon the chair of state for nearly a year and 
 a half, and approaches the period of two years, beyond which 
 no previous President has reigned. He is accordingly ill at 
 ease. Those who survive of his fourteen predecessors await 
 his deposition, and expect him shortly in their own happy 
 circle, where they sit like Richard IL, and talk of royal mis- 
 fortunes. Eldorado is a richly-endowed country to look at. 
 It has mountains where a few inches of soil separate the feet 
 of the rare wayfarer from rich lodes of silver ; forests of 
 mahogany cover its plains ; indigo and tobacco flourish in its 
 valleys ; everywhere roam cattle waiting to be caught and 
 sent to the London market. Palms and giant tree-ferns rise
 
 3IO THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 
 
 in its woods ; creepers of surpassing beauty hang from tree 
 to tree ; in its silent recesses stand, covered with inscrip- 
 tions which no man can read, the ruins of a perished civilisa- 
 tion. Among these ruius roam the half-savage Indians who 
 form nine-tenths of the population. And in the hot seaboard 
 towns loll and lie the languid whites and half-castes who form 
 the governing class. They never do govern at all ; they never 
 improve ; they never work ; they are a worthless, hopeless race ; 
 they hoard their energies for the excitement of a pronun- 
 ciamiento ; their favourite occupation is a game of monte ; they 
 consider thought a wicked waste of energy, save for purposes 
 of cheating. They ought all, and without exception, to be 
 rubbed out. And it is most unfortunate, in the interests of 
 humanity, that their only strong feeling is an objection to be 
 rubbed out. Otherwise we could plant in Eldorado a colony 
 of Germans ; kill the pythons, alligators, jaguars, and other 
 impediments to free civilisation ; open up the mines, and 
 make of it a country green with sugar-canes and as sweet 
 as Rimmel's shop by reason of its spicy breezes. There are 
 about five thousand of the dominant class ; they possess 
 altogether a revenue of about ;^ 60,000 a year, a good deal 
 less than a first-class fortune in England. As every man of 
 the five thousand likes to have his share of the ;;^ 60,000, there 
 is not much saved in the year. Consequently, when one 
 reads that the Republic of Eldorado owes the people of Great 
 ]jritain and France, the only two European States which 
 have money to lend, the sum of six millions, one feels sorry 
 for the citizens of Eldorado. It must be a dreadful thing for 
 a high-minded republican to have so little and to owe so 
 much. Fancy a man with ;^6oo a year in debt to the tune 
 of ;^ 60,000. 
 
 It all grew by degrees. Formerly the Eldoradians owed 
 nothing. In those days champagne was unknown, claret 
 never seen, and the native drink was rum. Nothing can bo 
 better for the natives than their rum, because it kills them 
 quickly, and so rids tlie earth of a pestilent race. In an evil 
 moment it came into the head of an enterprising Eldoradian 
 President to get up a loan. He asked for a million, which
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 311 
 
 is, of course, a trifle to a nation which has nothing, does 
 nothing, and saves nothing. They got so much of their 
 million as enabled them to raise everybody's salary and the 
 pay of the standing army, also to make the dividend certain 
 for a few years. After this satisfactory transaction, somebody 
 boldly ordered the importation of a few cases of brandy. 
 The descent of Avernus is easy and pleasant. Next year 
 they asked for two millions and a half. They got this small 
 trifle conceded to them on advantageous terms — 10 per cent., 
 which is nothing to a Eepublic with ^6o,000 a year, and the 
 stock at 60. The pay of every official was doubled, the 
 army had new shirts issued, and there were fireworks at San 
 Mercuric, the principal town. They promised to build rail- 
 ways leading from nowhere into continental space, to carry 
 passengers who did not exist, and goods not yet invented. 
 The same innovator who had introduced the brandy now 
 went farther, and sent for claret and champagne. Then they 
 asked for more loans, and went ahead quite like a First-class 
 Power. 
 
 When there was no more money to pay the dividends with, 
 and no more loans to be raised, Eldorado busted up. 
 
 The gallant ofiicers who commanded the standing army 
 are now shirtless and bootless ; the men of the standing 
 army have disappeared ; grass grows around the house 
 of the importer of European luxuries ; but content has not 
 returned to San Mercuric. The empty bottles remain to 
 remind the populace of lost luxuries ; the national taste 
 in drink is hopelessly perverted ; San Mercurio is ill at 
 ease ; and Don Rufiano Grechyto trembles in his marble 
 palace. 
 
 But a year ago the country was not quite played out. 
 There seemed a chance yet to those who had not the materials 
 at hand for a simple sum in Arithmetic. 
 
 The next morning saw the appearance of a pamphlet — a 
 short but telling pamphlet of thirty-two pages — called 
 " Eldorado and her Resources. Addressed to the Holders of 
 Eldorado Stock, by Oliver St. George Wylie." 
 
 The author took a gloomy but not a despairing view.
 
 312 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 He mentioned that where there was no revenue there 
 could be no dividends. Therefore, he said, it behoved 
 Eldorado stock-holders to be sure that something was 
 being done with their money. Then he gave pages of 
 facts and figures which proved the utter insolvency of 
 the State unless something could be done. And he 
 then proceeded to point out the amazing resources of 
 the country, could only a little energy be introduced 
 into its Council. He drew a lively picture of millions 
 of acres, the finest ground in the world, planted with 
 sugar-canes : forests of mahogany ; silver mines worked 
 by contented and laborious Indians; ports crowded with 
 merchant fleets each returning home with rich argosies ; 
 and a luxurious capital of marble made beautiful by 
 countless palaces. 
 
 At eleven Mr. Wylie called on Gabriel Cassilis again. He 
 brought with him his pamphlet. 
 
 " I have read it already," said Mr. Cassilis. " It is 
 on the whole well done, and expresses my own view, 
 in part. But I think you have piled it up too much 
 towards the end." 
 
 " Why did you not give me clearer instructions, then ? " 
 
 " I dare say it will have a success. Meantime," said the 
 financier, pushing over a little bag, "you can count that. 
 There ought to be fifty sovereigns. Good-morning, Mr, 
 Wylie." 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Cassilis. I don't know" — he turned 
 the bag of gold over in his hands — " I don't know ; thirty 
 years ago I should have looked with suspicion on such a job 
 as this ; thirty years ago " 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Wylie." 
 
 " Thirty years ago I should have thought that a man who 
 could afford fifty pounds for a pamphlet " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Well — that he had his little game. And I should have 
 left that man to play it by himself. Good-morning again, 
 Mr. Cassilis. You know my address, I believe, in case of 
 any other little job turning up."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 313 
 
 That afternoon Eldorado stock went down. It was lucky 
 for Mr. Gabriel Cassilis, because he wished to buy in — and 
 did — largely. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 " It is my lady ! Oh, it is my love — 
 Would that she knew she were ! " 
 
 JACK is late," said Phillis. 
 She was making the prettiest picture that painter ever 
 drew, standing in the su alight, with the laburnums and 
 lilacs behind her in their fresh spring glory. Her slender 
 and shapely figure, clad in its black riding-habit, stood out 
 in relief against the light and shade of the newly-born 
 foliage ; she wore one of the pretty hats of last year's fashion, 
 and in her hand she carried the flowers she had just been 
 gathering. Her face was in repose, and in its clear straight 
 lines might have served for a model Diana, chaste and fair. 
 It was habitually rather a grave face; that came of much 
 solitude and long companionship with an old man. And 
 the contrast was all the greater when she lit up with a 
 smile that was like a touch of tender sunshine upon her face 
 and gave the statue a soul. But now she stood waiting, and 
 her eyes were grave. 
 
 Agatha L'Estrange watched her from her shady garden- 
 seat. The girl's mind was full of the hidden possibilities of 
 things — for herself; the elder lady — to whom life had given, 
 as she thought, all it had to give — was thinking of these 
 possibilities too — for her charge. Only they approached the 
 subject from different points of view. To the girl, an eager 
 looking forward to new joys which were yet not the ordinary 
 joys of London maidenhood. Each successive day was to 
 reveal to her more secrets of life ; she was born for happi- 
 ness and sunshine ; the future was brighter in some dim and 
 misty fashion, far brighter than the present ; it was like a 
 picture by Claude, where the untrained eye sees nothing but 
 mist and vapour, rich with gorgeous colour, blurring the out-
 
 314 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 lines which lie behind. But the elder lady saw the present 
 and feared the future. Every man thinks he will succeed 
 till he finds out his own weakness ; every woman thinks she 
 is born for the best of this world's gifts — to happiness, to be 
 lapped in warmth and comfort, to be clothed with the love of 
 husband and children as with a garment. Some women get 
 it. Agatha had not received this great happiness. A short 
 two years of colourless wedded life with a man old enough 
 to be her father, and twenty years of widowhood. It was 
 not the lot she might have chosen ; not the lot she wished 
 for Phillis. And then she thought of Jack Dunquerque. 
 Oddly enough, the future, in whatever shape it was present 
 to the brain of Phillis, was never without the figure of Jack 
 Dunquerque. 
 
 " Jack is late," said Phillis. ' 
 
 " Come here, dear, out of the sun ; we must take a little 
 care of our complexion. Sit down, and let us talk." 
 
 Agatha took Phillis's hand in hers, as the girl sat upon 
 the grass at her feet. 
 
 " Let us talk. Tell me, dear Phillis, don't you think a 
 little too much about Mr. Dunquerque ? " 
 
 " About Jack ? How can I, Agatha ? Is he not my first 
 friend ? " 
 
 She did not blush ; she did not hesitate ; she looked 
 frankly in Agatha's face. The light of love which the elder 
 lady expected was not there yet. 
 
 " Changed as you are, my dear, in some things you are 
 only a child still," said Agatha. 
 
 "Am I only a child?" asked Phillis. "Tell me why 
 you say so now, dear Agatha. Is it because I am fond of 
 Jack ? " 
 
 " No, dear," ]\Irs. L'Estrange laughed. What was to be 
 said to this jcune ingenue ? " Not quite that." 
 
 "I have learned a great deal — oh, a great deal — since I 
 came here. How ignorant I was ! How foolish ! " 
 
 " What have you learned, Phillis ? " 
 
 "Well, about people. They are not all so interesting 
 as they seemed at first. Agatha, it seems like a loss not
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 315 
 
 to think so much of people as I did. Some are foolish, 
 like the poor curate — are all curates foolish, I wonder? — 
 some seem to say one thing and mean another, like Mr. 
 Cassilis ; some do not seem to care for anything in the world 
 except dancing; some talk as if china was the only thing 
 worth living for ; but some are altogether lovely and charm- 
 ing, like yourself, my dear," 
 
 " Go on, Phillis, and tell me more." 
 
 " Shall I ? I am foolish perhaps, but most of our visitors 
 have disappointed me. How can people talk about china 
 as if the thing could be felt, like a picture ? What is it 
 they like so much in dancing and skating-rinks, that they 
 prefer them to music and painting, and — and — the beautiful 
 river r 
 
 " Wait till you come out, dear Phillis," said Agatha. 
 
 For all the things in which young ladies do most delight 
 were to her a vanity and foolishness. She heard them talk 
 and she could not understand. She was to wait till she 
 came out. And was her coming out to be the putting on 
 of the Coping-stone ? 
 
 " Jack is late," said Phillis. 
 
 It was a little expedition. Mrs. L'Estrange and Gilead 
 Beck were to drive to Hampton Court, while Jack and 
 Phillis rode. It was not the first of such expeditions. In 
 late May and early June the Greater London, as the 
 Eegistrar calls it, is a marvel and a miracle of loveliness; 
 in all the world there are no such meadows of buttercups, 
 with fragrant hedges of thorn ; there are no such generous 
 and luxuriant growths of westeria, with purple clusters; 
 there are no such woods of horse-chestnuts, with massive 
 pyramids of white blossom ; there are no such apple-orchards 
 and snow-clad forests of white blossomed plum-trees as 
 are to be seen around this great city of ours. Colonials 
 returned from exile shed tears when they see them, and think 
 of arid Aden and thirsty Indian plains ; the American owns 
 that though Lake George with its hundred islets is lovely, 
 and the Hudson Eiver a thing to dream of, there is nothing 
 in the States to place beside the incomparable result of
 
 3i6 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 wealth and loving care which the outlying suburbs of south 
 and western London show. 
 
 If it was new to Phillis — if every new journey made her 
 pulses bound, and every new place seen was another revela- 
 tion — it was also new to the American, who looked so 
 grave and smiled so kindly, and sometimes made such funny 
 observations. 
 
 Gilead Beck was more silent with the ladies than with 
 Jack, which was natural, because his only experience of 
 the sex was that uncomfortable episode in his life when he 
 taught school and fought poor Pete Conkling. And to 
 this adventurer, this man who had been of all trades — who 
 had roamed about the world for thirty years ; who had 
 habitually consorted with miners and adventurers, whom 
 the comic American books have taught us to regard as 
 a compound of drunkard, gambler, buccaneer, blasphemer, 
 and weeping sentimentalist — his manner of life had not 
 been able to destroy the chivalrous respect for women 
 with which an American begins life. Only he had never 
 known a lady at all until now : never any lady in 
 America. 
 
 In spite of his life, this man was neither coarse nor 
 vulgar. He was modest, knowing his defects, and he 
 was humble. Nevertheless, he had the self-respect which 
 none of his countrymen are without. He was an un- 
 deniable " I'anker," a fact of which he was proud, because, 
 if he had a weakness, it was to regard himself as another 
 Cromwell, singled out and chosen. He had two languages, 
 of one of which he made sparing use, save when he narrated 
 his American experiences. This, as we have seen, was a 
 highly ornamented tongue, a gallery of imagery, a painted 
 chamber of decorative metaphor — the language of wild 
 California, an argot which, on occasions, he handled with 
 astounding vigour. The other was the tongue of the 
 cultivated American. In England we bark : in the States 
 they speak. We fling out our conversation in jerks; the 
 man of the States shapes his carefully in his brain before he 
 speaks. Gilead Beck spoke like a gentleman of Boston,
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 317 
 
 save that his defective education did not allow him to speak 
 so well. 
 
 His great terror was the word Shoddy. He looked at 
 Shoddy full in the face ; he made up his mind what Shoddy 
 was — the thing which pretends to be what it is not, a 
 branch of the great family which has the Prig at one end 
 and the Snob at the other — and he was resolute in avoiding 
 the slightest suspicion of Shoddy. 
 
 If he was of obscure birth, with antecedents which left 
 him nothing to boast of but honesty, he was also soft- 
 hearted as a girl, quick in sympathy, which Adam Smith 
 teaches us is the ground-work of all morals, and refined in 
 thought. After many years, a man's habitual thoughts are 
 stamped upon his face. The face of Gilead Beck was a 
 record of purity and integrity. Such a man in England 
 would, by the power of circumstances, have been forced 
 into taprooms, and slowly dragged downwards into that 
 beery morass in which, as in another Malebolge, the 
 British workman lies stupefied and helpless. Some wicked 
 cynic — was it Thackeray ? — said that below a certain 
 class no English woman knows the meaning of virtue. 
 He might have said, with greater truth, that below a 
 certain class no Englishman knows the meaning of self- 
 respect. 
 
 To go into that orderly house at Twickenham, where the 
 higher uses of wealth were practically illustrated by a refine- 
 ment new to the good ex-miner, was to this American in 
 itself an education, and none the less useful because it came 
 late in life. To be with the ladies, to see the tender graces 
 of the elder and the sweetness of the younger, filled his 
 heart with emotion. 
 
 " The Luck of the Golden Butterfly, Mrs. L'Estrange," he 
 said, " is more than what the old squaw thought. It began 
 with dollars, but it has brought me — this." 
 
 They were sitting in the garden, Agatha and Gilead Beck, 
 while Jack Dunquerque and Phillis were watering flowers, 
 or gathering them, or always doing something which would 
 keep Jack close to the girl.
 
 3i8 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 "If by ' this ' you mean friendship, Mr. Beck," said 
 Agatha, " I am very glad of it. Dollars, as you call money, 
 may take to themselves wings and fly away, but friends 
 do not." 
 
 It will be observed that Agatha L'Estrange had never 
 seen reason to abandon the old-fashioned rules invented by 
 those philosophers who lived before Rochefoucauld. 
 
 "I sometimes think I should like to try," said Gilead 
 Beck. " Poor men have no friends ; they have mates on our 
 side of the water, and pals on yours." 
 
 " Mates and pals ? " cried Phillis, laughing. " Jack, do 
 you know mates and pals ? " 
 
 " I ought to," said Jack, " because I'm poor enough." 
 
 " Friends come to rich folk naturally, like the fruit to 
 the tree, or — or — the flower to the rose," Gilead added 
 poetically. 
 
 " Or the mud to the wheel," said Jack. 
 
 " Suppose all my dollars were suddenly to vamose — I 
 mean, to vanish away," Gilead Beck went on solemnly; 
 " would the friends vanish away too ? " 
 
 " Jack would not," said Phillis promptly, " and Agatha 
 would not. Nor should I," 
 
 She held out her hand in the free frank manner which 
 was her greatest charm. Gilead Beck took the little fingers 
 in his big rough hand, the bones of which seemed to stick 
 out all over it, so rugged and hard it was, and looked in her 
 face with the solemn smile which made Phillis trust in him, 
 and raised her fingers to his lips. 
 
 Then she blushed with a pretty confusion which drove 
 poor Jack to the verge of madness. Indeed, the ardour of 
 his passion and the necessity for keeping silence were 
 together making the young man thin and pale. 
 
 They were gradually exploring, this party of four, the 
 outside gardens, parks, castles, and views of London. Of 
 course, they were as new to Jack and Mrs. L'Estrange as 
 they were to Phillis and the American. Jack knew Green- 
 wich, where he had dined ; and Richmond, where he had 
 dined ; and the Crystal Palace, where he had also dined.
 
 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 319 
 
 revealed to liim one summer evening an unknown stretch of 
 fair country : more than that he knew not. 
 
 Perhajos more exciting pleasures might have been found, 
 but this simple party found their own unsophisticated delight 
 in driving and riding through green lanes. 
 
 " Phillis will have to come out next year," said Agatha, 
 half apologising to herself for enjoying such things. "We 
 must amuse her while we can." 
 
 They went to Virginia Water, where Mr. Beck made 
 some excellent observations on the ruins and on the flight 
 of time, insomuch that it was really sad to discover that 
 they were only, so to speak, new ruins. 
 
 They went to Hampton Court, where they strolled through 
 the picture-galleries and looked at the Lely beauties ; walked 
 up the long avenues, and saw that quaint old medieeval 
 garden which lies hidden away at the side of the Palace, 
 marked by few. Gilead Beck said that if he was the 
 Queen and had such a place he should sometimes live in 
 it, if only for the sake of giving a dinner in the great 
 Hall. But Phillis liked best the gardens, with their old- 
 fashioned flowers, and the peace which reigns perpetually 
 in the quaint old courts. And Gilead Beck asked Jack 
 privately if he thought the Palace might be bought, and if 
 so, for how much. 
 
 They visited Windsor. Mr. Beck said that if he had 
 such a location he should always live there ; he speculated 
 on the probable cost of erecting such a fortress on the 
 banks of the Hudson River ; and then he cast his imagina- 
 tion backwards up the stream of time and plunged into 
 history. 
 
 Phillis allowed him to go on, while he jumbled kings, 
 mixed up cardinals, and tried, by the recovery of old associa- 
 tions, to connect the venerable pile with the past. 
 
 " From one of those windows, I guess," he said, pointing 
 his long arm vaguely round the narrow lattices, " Charles 
 came out to be beheaded, while Oliver Cromwell spurted 
 ink in his face. It was rough on the poor king. Seems 
 to me, kings very often do have a rough time. And
 
 320 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 perhaps, too, that Cardinal Thomas a Beckett, when he 
 told Henry IV. that he wished he'd served his country as 
 well as he'd loved his God, it was on this very terrace. 
 Perhaps " 
 
 " O Mr. Beck ! when did you learn English history ? " 
 cried Phillis. 
 
 Then, like a little pedant as she was, she began to unfold 
 all that she knew about the old fortress and its history. Its 
 history is not so grim as that of the Tower of London, 
 which she had once narrated to Jack Dunquerque ; but it 
 has a picturesque story of its own, which the girl some- 
 how made out from the bare facts of English history — 
 all she knew. But these her imagination converted into 
 living and indisputable truths, pictures whose only fault 
 was that the lights were too bright and the shadows too 
 intense. 
 
 Alas, this is the way with posterity ! The dead are to 
 be judged as they seem from such acts as have remained 
 on record. The force of circumstances, the mixture of 
 motives, the general muddle of good and bad together, are 
 lost in the summing-up ; and histoiy, which after all only 
 does what Phillis did, but takes longer to do it, paints Nero 
 black and Titus white, with the clear and hard outline of an 
 etching. 
 
 Gilead Beck, after the lecture, looked round the place 
 with renewed interest. 
 
 " I am more ignorant than I thought," he said humbly. 
 " But I am trying to read. Miss Fleming." 
 
 " Are you ! " she cried, with a real delight in finding, as 
 she thought, one other person in the world as ignorant of that 
 art as herself. " And how far have you got ? " 
 
 "I've got so far," he said, "that I've lost my way, and 
 shall have to go back again. It was all through Robert 
 Browning. My dear young lady," — he said this in his 
 most impressive tones, — "if you should chance upon one of 
 his books with a pretty title, such as Bed Cotton Nightcap 
 Country, or Fifine at the Fair, don't read it, don't try it. 
 It isn't a fairy story, nor a love story. It's a story without
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 321 
 
 an end, it's a story told npsy-down ; it's like wandering in 
 a forest without a path. It gets into your brain and makes 
 it go round ; it gets into your eyes and makes you see 
 ghosts. Don't you look at that book. 
 
 " Reading in a general way, and if you don't take too 
 much of it, is a fine thing," he continued. " The difiiculty 
 is to keep the volumes separate in your head. Anybody can 
 write a book. I've written columns enough in the Clcar- 
 ville Roarer for a dozen books ; but it takes a man to read 
 one." 
 
 " Ah, but it is different with you," said Phillis. " I am 
 only in words of two syllables. I've just got through the 
 first reading-book. 'The cat has drunk up all the milk.' 
 I suppose I must go on with it, but I think it is better to 
 have some one to read for you. I am sure Jack would read 
 for me whenever I asked him." 
 
 " I never thought of that," said Gilead Beck. " Why 
 not keep a clerk to read for you, and pay out the informa- 
 tion in small chunks ? I should like to tackle Mr. Carlyle 
 that way." 
 
 "Agatha is reading a novel to me now," Phillis went on. 
 " There is a girl in it ; but somehow I think my own life is 
 more interesting than hers. She belongs to a part of the 
 country where the common people say clever things ! — Oh, 
 very clever things ! — and she herself says all sorts of clever 
 things." 
 
 " Mr. Dunquerque," interrupted Gilead Beck, who was 
 not listening, " would read to you all the days of his life, I 
 think, if you would let him." 
 
 Phillis made no reply. As she neither blushed, nor 
 smiled, nor gave any of the ordinary signs of apprehension 
 with which most young ladies would have received this 
 speech, it is to be presumed that she did not take in the 
 full meaning of it. 
 
 "There is one thing about Mr. Dunquerque," Gilead 
 Beck went on, " that belongs, I reckon, to you English 
 people only. He is not a young man " 
 
 " Jack not a young man ? Why, Mr. Beck "
 
 322 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Not what we call a young man. Our young men are 
 sixteen and seventeen, Mr. Dunquerque is five-and-twenty. 
 Our men of five-and-twenty are grave and full of care. 
 Mr. Dunquerque is light-hearted and laughs. That is what 
 I like him for." 
 
 " Yes ; Jack laughs. I should not like to see Jack 
 grave." 
 
 She spoke of him as if he were her own property. To 
 be sure, he was her first and principal friend. She could 
 talk to him as she could talk to no one else. And she loved 
 him with the deep and passionless love, as yet, of a 
 sister. 
 
 " Yes," said Gilead Beck, looking round him, " England 
 is a great country. Its young men are not all mad 
 for dollars; they can laugh and be happy; and the land 
 is one great garden. Miss Fleming, that is the happiest 
 country, I guess, whose people the longest keep their 
 youth." 
 
 She only half understood him, but she looked in his face 
 with her sweet smile. 
 
 " It is like a dream. That I should be walking here 
 with you, such as you, in this grand place — I, Gilead P. 
 Beck. To be with you and Mr. Dunquerque is like getting 
 back the youth I never had : youth that isn't always 
 thinkin' about the next day ; youth that isn't always 
 plannin' for the future ; youth that has time to enjoy the 
 sunshine, to look into a sweet gell's eyes and fall in love — 
 like you, my pretty, and Mr. Dunquerque — who saved my 
 life." 
 
 He added these last words as an after-thought, and as if he 
 was reminded of some duty forgotten. 
 
 Phillis was silent, because his words fell upon her heart 
 and made her think. It was not her youth that was pro- 
 longed ; it was her childliood. And that was dropping 
 from her now like the shell of the chrysalis. She thought 
 liow, somewhere in the world, there were people born to be 
 unhappy, and she felt humiliated when she was selfishly 
 enjoying what they could not. Somewhere in the world —
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 32^ 
 
 and where ? Close to her, in the cottages where Mrs. 
 L'Estrange had taken her. 
 
 For until then the poor, who are always with us, were 
 not unhappy, to Phillis, nor hungry, nor deserving of pity 
 and sympathy ; they were only picturesque. 
 
 They went to St. George's Chapel, after over-ruling 
 Gilead Beck's objections to attending divine service — 
 for he said that he hadn't been to meetin' for more than 
 thirty years; also, that he had not yet "got religion" — 
 and when he stood in the stall under the banner of its 
 rightful owner he looked on from an outsider's point of 
 view. 
 
 The ceremonial of the ancient Church of England was to 
 him a pageant and a scenic display. The picture, however, 
 was very fine : the grand chapel with its splendour of 
 ornamentation ; the banners and heraldry ; the surpliced 
 sweet-voiced boys ; the dignified white-robed clergymen ; 
 the roll of the organ ; the sunlight through the painted 
 glass ; even the young subaltern who came clanking into 
 the chapel as the service began, — there was nothing, he 
 said, in America which could be reckoned a patch upon it. 
 Church in avenue 39, New York, was painted and gilded 
 in imitation of the Alhambra ; that was considered fine, 
 but could not be compared with St. George's, Windsor. 
 And the performance of the service, he said, was so good as 
 to have merited a larger audience. 
 
 Jack Dunquerque, I grieve to say, did not attend to the 
 service. He was standing beside Phillis, and he watched 
 her with hungry eyes. For she was looking before her in 
 a sort of trance. The beauty of the place intoxicated her. 
 She listened with soft eyes and parted lips. All was artistic 
 and beautiful. The chapel was peopled again with mailed 
 knights ; the voices in the anthem sang the greatness 
 and the glory of England ; the sunshine through the 
 painted glass gave colour to the picture in her brain ; 
 and when the service was over she came out with dazed 
 look, as one who is snatched too suddenly from a dream 
 of heaven.
 
 324 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 This, too, like everything else, was part of her educa- 
 tion. She had to learn the beauty of the world and its 
 splendours. She was to see the things she had only 
 dreamed of, but by dreaming had wrapped in a cloud of 
 coloured mist. 
 
 When was it to be completed, her education? Phillis 
 waited for that Coping-stone for which Joseph Jagenal was 
 vainly searching. She laughed when she thought of it, 
 the mysterious completion of Abraham Dj^son's great fabric. 
 What was it ? 
 
 She had not long to wait. 
 
 " I love her, Mrs. L'Estrange," said Jack Dunquerque 
 passionately, on the evening of the last of their expeditions ; 
 " I love her ! " 
 
 " I have seen it for some time," Agatha replied, " And 
 I wanted to speak to you before, but I did not like to. I 
 am afraid I have been very wrong in encouraging you to 
 come here so often." 
 
 " Who could help loving her ? " he cried. " Tell me, 
 Mrs. L'Estrange, you who have known so many, was there 
 ever a girl like Phillis — so sweet, so fresh, so pretty, and so 
 good ? " 
 
 " Indeed, she is all that you say," Agatha acknowledged. 
 
 "And will you be my friend with Colquhoun? I am 
 going to see him to-morrow about it, because I cannot stand 
 it any longer," 
 
 " He knows that you visit me ; he will be prepared in a 
 way. And — Oh, Mr. Dunquerque, why are you in such a 
 hurry ? Phillis is so young and you are so young." 
 
 " I am five-and-twenty, and Phillis is nineteen," 
 
 " Then Phillis is so inexperienced." 
 
 "Yes; she is inexperienced," Jack repeated. "And if 
 experience comes, she may learn to love another man," 
 
 " That is what all the men say. Why, you silly boy, if 
 Phillis were to love you first, do you think a thousand men 
 could make her give you up ? " 
 
 " You are right : but she does not love me ; she only 
 likes me ; she does not know what love means. That
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 325 
 
 is bad enough to think of. But even that isn't the 
 worst." 
 
 " What more is there ? " 
 
 "I am so horribly, so abominably poor. My brother 
 Isleworth is the poorest peer in the kingdom, and I am about 
 the poorest younger son. And Colquhoun will think I am 
 coming after Phillis's money." 
 
 " As you are poor, it will be a great comfort for everybody 
 concerned," said Agatha, with good sense, " to think that, 
 should you marry Phillis, she has some money to help you 
 with. Go and see Lawrence Colquhoun, Mr. Dunquerque, 
 and — and if I can help your cause, I will. There! Now 
 let us have no more." 
 
 "They will make a pretty pair," said Mr. Gilead Beck 
 presently to Mrs. L'Estrange. 
 
 " Mr. Beck, you are all in a plot ! And perhaps after 
 all — and Mr. Dunquerque is so poor." 
 
 " Is that so ? " Mr. Beck asked eagerly. " Will the young 
 lady's guardian refuse the best man in all the world because 
 he is poor ? Now, Mrs. L'Estrange, there's only one way 
 out of this muss, and perhaps you will take that way 
 for me." 
 
 "What is it, Mr. Beck?" 
 
 " I can't say myself to Mr. Dunquerque, ' What is mine 
 is yours.' And I can't say to Mr. Colquhoun — not with the 
 delicacy that you would put into it — that Mr. Dunquerque 
 shall have all I've got to make him happy. I want you to 
 say that for me. Tell him there is no two ways about it 
 — that Mr. Dunquerque tnust marry Miss Fleming. Lord, 
 Lord! why, they are made for each other! Look at him 
 now, Mrs. L'Estrange, leanin' towards her, with a look 
 half respectful and half hungry. And look at her, with 
 her sweet innocent eyes ; she doesn't understand it, she 
 doesn't know what he's beatin' down with all his might: 
 the sti'ong honest love of a man — the best thing he's got 
 to give. Wait till you give the word, and she feels his 
 arms about her waist, and his lips close to hers. It's a 
 beautiful thing, love. I've never been in love myself, but
 
 326 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 I've watched those that were; and I venture to tell you, 
 Mrs. L'Estrange, that from the Queen down to the kitchen- 
 maid, there isn't a woman among them all that isn't the 
 better for being loved. And they know it, too, all of them, 
 except that pretty creature." 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 " Pictoribus atque Poetis 
 Quidlibet audondi semper fuit sequa potestas." 
 
 " TT7ITH commissions " — Cornelius Jagenal spoke as if 
 
 ' » Gilead Beck was a man of multitude, signifying 
 many, and as if one commission was a thousand — " with 
 commissions pouring in as they should. Brother Hum- 
 phrey " 
 
 " And the great Epic, the masterpiece of the century, 
 about to be published in the Grand Style, brother Cornelius, 
 the only style which is worthy of its merits " 
 
 " Something definite should be attempted, Humphrey " 
 
 " You mean, brother " 
 
 " I mean, Humphrey " 
 
 " With regard to " 
 
 " With regard to Phillis Fleming." 
 
 They looked at each other meaningly and firmly. The 
 little table was between them ; it was past twelve o'clock ; 
 already two or three soda-water bottles were lying on it 
 empty ; and the world looked rosy to the poetic pair. 
 
 Humphrey was the first to speak after the young lady's 
 name was mentioned. He removed the pipe from his 
 mouth, threw back his head, stroked his long brown beard, 
 and addressed the ceiling. 
 
 " She is," he said, " she is indeed a charming girl. Her 
 outlines finely but firmly drawn ; her colouring delicate, 
 but strongly accentuated ; the grouping to which she lends 
 herself always differentiated artistically ; her single attitudes 
 designed naturally and with freedom ; her flesh-tints
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEELY. 327 
 
 remarkably pure and sweet ; her draperies falling in artistic 
 folds ; her atmosphere softened as by the perfumed mists of 
 morning ; her hair tied in the simple knot which is the 
 admiration and despair of many painters ; — you agree with 
 my rendering, brother Cornelius " — he turned his reflective 
 gaze from the ceiling, and fixed his lustrous eyes, perhaps 
 with the least little look of triumph, upon his brother — " my 
 rendering of this incomparable Work ? " 
 
 He spoke of the young lady as if she were a picture. 
 This was because, immediately after receiving his commis- 
 sion, he bethought him of reading a little modern criticism, 
 and so bought the Acadcviy for a few weeks. In that clear 
 bubbling fount of modern English undefiled, the Art criti- 
 cisms are done with such entire freedom from cant and 
 aflfectation that they are a pleasure to read ; and from its 
 pages every Prig is so jealously kept out, that the paper is 
 as widely circulated and as popular as Pimch ; thus Hum- 
 phrey Jagenal acquired a new jargon of Art criticism, which 
 he developed and made his own. 
 
 Cornelius had been profiting by the same delightful and 
 genial enemy to Mutual Admiration Societies. He was a 
 little taken aback for a moment by the eloquence and 
 fidelity of his brother's word-picture, but stimulated to 
 rivalry. He made answer, gazing into the black and 
 hollow depths of the empty fireplace, and speaking slowly, 
 as if he enjoyed his words too much to let them slip out 
 too fast — 
 
 " She is all that you say, Humphrey. From your stand- 
 point nothing could be better. I judge her, however, from 
 my own platform. I look on her as one of Nature's sweetest 
 poems ; such a poem as defies the highest effort of the 
 greatest creative genius ; where the cadenced lines are 
 sunlit, and as they ripple on make music in your soul. You 
 are rapt with their beauty; you are saddened with the 
 unapproachable magic of their charm ; you feel the deepest 
 emotions of the heart awakened and beating in responsive 
 harmony. And when, after long and patient watching, the 
 Searcher after the Truth of Beauty feels each verse sink
 
 328 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 deeper and deeper within liim, till it becomes a part of Bis 
 own nature, there arises before him, clad in mystic and 
 transparent Coan robe, the spirit of subtle wisdom, long 
 lying perdu in those magic utterances. She is a lyric ; she 
 is a sonnet ; she is an epigram " 
 
 " At least," interrupted Humphrey unkindly, cutting 
 short his brother's freest flow, "at least she doesn't carry 
 a sting." 
 
 " Then let us say an Idyl " 
 
 " Cornelius, make an Idyl yourself for her," Humphrey 
 interrupted again, because really his brother was taking an 
 unfair advantage of a paltry verbal superiorit}^ "Now that 
 we have both described her — and I am sure, brother," he 
 added, out of the kindness of his heart, "no description 
 could be more poetically true than your own — it would 
 make even a stranger see Phillis standing in a vision 
 before his eyes. But let us see what had better be 
 done." 
 
 " We must act at once, Humphrey. We must call upon 
 her at her guardian's, Mrs. L'Estrange, at Twickenham. 
 Perhaps that lady does not know so many men of genius as 
 to render the accession of two more to her circle anything 
 but a pleasure and an honour. And as for our next steps, 
 they must be guided by our finesse, by our knowledge of the 
 world, our insight into a woman's heart, our — shall I say 
 our power of intrigue, Humphrey ? " 
 
 Then the Artist positively winked. It is not a gesture to 
 be commended from an artistic point of view, but he did it. 
 Then he chuckled and wagged his head. 
 
 Then the Poet in his turn also winked, chuckled, and 
 wagged his head too. 
 
 " We understand each other, Humphrey. We always do." 
 
 "We must make our own opportunity," said the Artist 
 thoughtfully. " Not together, but separately." 
 
 " Surely separately. Together would never do." 
 
 " We will go to bed early to-night, in order to be fresh 
 to-morrow. Have you — did you — can you give me any of 
 your own experiences in this w'ay, Cornelius ? "
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 329 
 
 The Poet shook his head. 
 
 " I may have been wooed," he said. " Men of genius are 
 always run after. But as I am a bachelor, you see it is clear 
 that I never proposed." • 
 
 Humphrey had much the same idea in his own mind, and 
 felt as if the wind was a little taken out of his sails. This 
 often happens when two sister craft cruise so very close along- 
 side of each other. 
 
 " Do not let us be nervous, Humphrey," the elder brother 
 went on kindly. " It is the simplest thing in the world, I 
 dare say, when you come to do it. Love finds out a 
 way." 
 
 " When I was in Eome " Humphrey said, casting his 
 
 thoughts backwards thirty years. 
 
 " When I was in Heidelberg " said Cornelius, in the 
 
 same mood of retrospective meditation. 
 
 "There was a model — a young artist's model" 
 
 " There was a little country girl " 
 
 " With the dai'kest eyes, and hair of a deep blue-black, the 
 kind of colour one seems only to read of or to see in a 
 picture." 
 
 " With blue eyes as limpid as the waters of the Neckar, 
 and light-brown hair which caught the sunshine in a way 
 that one seldom seems to see, but which we poets sometimes 
 sing of." 
 
 Then they both started and looked at each other guiltily. 
 
 " Cornelius," said Humphrey, " I think that Phillis 
 would not like these reminiscences. We must oifer virgin 
 hearts." 
 
 " True, brother," said Cornelius with a sigh, " we must. 
 Yet the recollection is not unpleasant." 
 
 They went to bed early, only concentrating into two hours 
 the brandy-and-soda of four. It was a wonderful thing that 
 neither gave the other the least hint of a separate and indi- 
 vidual preference for Phillis. They were running together, 
 as usual, in double harness, and so far as might be gathered 
 from their conversation they were proposing to themselves 
 that both should marry Phillis.
 
 330 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 They dressed with more than usual care in the morning-, 
 and, without taking their customary walk, sat each in his own 
 room till two o'clock, when Humphrey sought Cornelius in 
 the Workshop. 
 
 They surveyed each other with admiration. They were 
 certainly a remai'kable pair, and, save for that little redness 
 of the nose already alluded to, they were more youthful than 
 one could conceive possible at the age of fifty. Their step 
 was elastic ; their eyes were bright ; Humphrey's beard was 
 as brown and silky, Cornelius's cheek as smooth, as twenty 
 years before. This it is to lead a life unclouded and devoted 
 to contemplation of Art. This it is to have a younger 
 brother, successful, and never tired of working for his 
 seniors. 
 
 " We are not nervous, brother ? " asked Cornelius, with a 
 little hesitation. 
 
 " Not at all," said Humphrey sturdily, " not at all. Still, to 
 steady the system, perhaps" 
 
 "Yes," said Cornelius; "you are quite right, brother. 
 We will." 
 
 There was no need of words. The reader knows already 
 what was implied. 
 
 Humphrey led the way to the dining-room, where he 
 speedily found a pint of champagne. With this modest pick- 
 me-up, which no one surely will grudge the brethren, they 
 started on their way. 
 
 " What we need, Cornelius," said Humphrey, putting him- 
 self outside the last drop — " AVhat we need. Not what we 
 wish for." 
 
 Then lie straightened his back, smote his chest, stamped 
 lustily with his right foot, and looked like a war-horse before 
 the battle. 
 
 Unconscious of tlie approaching attack of these two con- 
 quering heroes, Pliillis and Agatha L'Estrange were sitting 
 in the shade and on the grass : the elder lady with some 
 work, the younger doing nothing. It was a special charac- 
 teristic with her that she could sit for hours doing nothing. So 
 the modern Arabs, the gipsies, niggerdom in general, and all
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 331 
 
 that large section of humanity which has never learned to 
 read and write, are contented to fold their hands, lie down, 
 and think away the golden hours. What they think about, 
 these untutored tribes, the Lord only knows. Whether by 
 degrees, and as they grow old, some faint intelligence of the 
 divine order sinks into their souls, or whether they become 
 slowly enwrapped in the beauty of the world, or whether 
 their thoughts, always turned in the bacon-and-cabbage 
 direction, are wholly gross and earthly, I cannot tell. Phillis's 
 thoughts were still as the thoughts of a child, but as those of 
 a child passing into womanhood : partly selfish, inasmuch as 
 she consciously placed her own individuality, as every child 
 does, in the centre of the universe, and made the sun, the 
 moon, the planets, and all the minor stars revolve around 
 her ; partly unselfish, because they hovered about the forms 
 of the two or three people she loved, and took the shape of 
 devising means of pleasing these people ; partly artistic, 
 because the beauty of the June afternoon cried aloud for 
 admiration, while the sunshine lay on the lawns and the 
 flower-beds, threw up the light leaves and blossoms of the 
 passion-flower on the house-side, and made darker shadows 
 in the gables, while the glorious river ran swiftly at her feet. 
 The river of which she never tired. Other things lost their 
 novelty, but the river never. 
 
 " I wish Jack Dunquerque were here,'' she said at last. 
 
 " I wish so, too," said Agatha. " Why did we not invite 
 him, Phillis ? " 
 
 Then they were silent again. 
 
 " I wish Mr, Beck would call," remarked Phillis. 
 
 " My dear, we do nothing but wish. But here is somebody 
 — two young gentlemen. Who are they, I wonder ? " 
 
 " Agatha, they are the Twins ! " 
 
 Phillis sprang from her seat, and ran to meet them with a 
 most unaffected pleasure. 
 
 " This is Mr. Cornelius Jagenal," she said, introducing 
 them to Agatha. " The Poet, you know." And here she 
 laughed, because Agatha did not know, and Cornelius perked 
 up his head and tried to look unconscious of his fame.
 
 332 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 ' And this is Mr. Humphrey, the Artist." And then she 
 laughed again, because Humphrey did exactly the same as 
 Cornelius, only with an air of deprecation, as one who would 
 say, " Never mind my fame for the present." 
 
 It was embarrassinof for Mrs. L'Estrange, because she 
 could not for her life recollect any Poet or Artist named 
 Jagenal. The men and their work were alike unknown to 
 her. And why did Phillis laugh ? And what did the pair 
 before her look so solemn about ? 
 
 They were solemn partly from vanity, which is the cause 
 of most of the grave solemnity we so much admire in the 
 world, and partly because, finding themselves face to face 
 with Phillis, they became suddenly and painfully aware 
 that they had come on a delicate errand. Cornelius looked 
 furtively at Humphrey, and the Artist glanced at the Poet, 
 but neither found any help from his brother. Their courage, 
 as evanescent as that of Mr. Eobert Acres, was rapidly 
 oozing out at their boots. 
 
 Phillis noted their embarrassment, and tried to put them 
 at their ease. This was difficult ; they were so inordinately 
 vain, so self-conscious, so unused to anything beyond their 
 daily experience, that they were as awkward as a pair 
 of fantoccini. People who live alone get into the habit 
 of thinking and talking about themselves ; the Twins 
 were literally unable to think or speak on any other 
 subject. 
 
 Phillis, they saw, to begin with, was altered. Somehow 
 she looked older. Certainly more formidable. And it was 
 awkward to feel that she was taking them in a manner under 
 her own protection before a stranger. And why did she 
 laugh? The task which they discussed with such an airy 
 confidence over the brandy-and-soda assumed, in the presence 
 of the young lady herself, dimensions quite out of proportion 
 to their midnight estimate. All these considerations made 
 them feel and look ill at ease. 
 
 Also it was vexatious that neither of the ladies turned 
 the conversation upon the subject nearest to each man's 
 heart — his own Work. On the contrary, Phillis asked
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 333 
 
 after Joseph, and sent him an invitation to come and see 
 her ; ]\Irs. L'Estrange talked timidly about the weather, 
 and tried them on the Opera, on the Academy, and on the 
 last volume of Browning. It was odd in so great an Artist 
 as Humphrey that he had not yet seen the Academy, and 
 in so great a Poet as Cornelius that he had not read any 
 recent poetry. Then they tried to talk about flowers. 
 The two city-bred artists knew a wall - flower from a 
 cabbage and a rose from a sprig of asparagus, and that 
 was all. 
 
 Phillis would not help either the Twins or Agatha, so 
 that the former grew more helpless every moment. In fact, 
 the girl was staring at them, and wondering to feel how 
 differently she regarded men and manners since that first 
 evening in Carnarvon Square, when they produced cham- 
 pagne in her honour, and drank it all up themselves. 
 
 She remembered how she had looked at them with awe ; 
 how, after a day or two, this reverence vanished ; how she 
 found them to be mere shallow wind-bags and humbugs, 
 and regarded them with contempt ; how she made fun of 
 them with Jack Dunquerque ; and how she drew their 
 portraits. 
 
 And now — it was a mark of her advanced education — 
 she looked at them with pity. They were so dependent on 
 each other for admiration ; they were so childishly vain ; 
 they were so full of themselves ; and their daily life of 
 sleep, drink, and boastful pretension showed itself to her 
 experienced head as so mean and sordid a thing. 
 
 She came to the help of the whole party, and took the 
 Twins for a walk among the flowers, flattering them, asking- 
 how Work got on, congratulating them on their good looks, 
 and generally making things comfortable for them. 
 
 Presently she found herself on the sloping bank of the 
 river, where she was wont to sit with Jack. Cornelius 
 Jagenal alone was by her side. She looked round, and saw 
 Humphrey standing before Mrs. L'Estrange, and occasion- 
 ally glancing over his shoulder. And she noticed, then, a 
 curiously nervous motion of her companion's hand ; also
 
 334 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 that his cheek was twitching with some secret emotion. 
 He looked older, too, she thought ; perhaps that was the 
 bright sunlight, which brought out the dells and valleys 
 and the crows-feet round his eyes. 
 
 He cleared his voice with an effort, and opened his mouth 
 to speak, but shut it again, silent. 
 
 " You were going to say, Mr. Cornelius ? " 
 
 " Yes. Will you sit down. Miss Fleming ? " 
 
 " He is going to tell me about the Upheaving of JElfrcd^^ 
 thought Phillis. " And how does the Workshop get on ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " Fairly well," he replied modestly. " We publish in the 
 autumn. The work is to be brought out, you will be glad 
 to learn, with all the luxury of the best illustrations, paper, 
 print, and binding that money can procure." 
 
 " So that all you want is the poem itself," said Phillis, 
 with a mischievous light in her eyes. 
 
 "Ye-yes" he winced a little. "As you say, the 
 
 Epic itself alone is wanting, and that advances with mighty 
 strides. My brother Humphrey — a noble creature is 
 Humphrey, Miss Fleming" 
 
 She bowed and smiled. 
 
 " Is he still hard at work ? Always hard at work ? " 
 She laughed as she asked the question. 
 
 " His work is crushing him. Miss Fleming — may I call 
 you Phillis ? " He spoke very solemnly — " His work is 
 crushing him." 
 
 " Of course you may, Mr. Cornelius. We are quite old 
 friends. But I am sorry to hear that your brother is being 
 crushed." 
 
 " Yesterday, Phillis — I feel to you already like a brother," 
 pursued the Poet — "yesterday I discovered the secret of 
 Humphrey's life. May I tell it you ? " 
 
 " If you please." She began to be a little bored. Also 
 she noticed that Agatha wore a look of mute suffering, as 
 if the Artist was getting altogether too much for her. " If 
 you please ; but be quick, because I think Mrs. L'Estrange 
 wants me."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 335 
 
 " I will tell you the secret in a few words. My brother 
 Humphrey adores you with all the simplicity and strength 
 of a noble artistic nature." 
 
 " Does he ? You mean he likes me very much. How 
 good he is ! I am very glad to hear it, Mr. Cornelius, 
 though why it need be a secret I do not know." 
 
 " Then my poor brother — he is all loyalty, and brings you 
 a virgin heart," (0 Cornelius ! and the model with the blue- 
 black hair !) " an unsullied name, and the bright prospects 
 of requited genius — my brother mp^y hope ? " 
 
 Phillis did not understand one word. 
 
 "Certainly," she said; "I am sure I should like to see 
 him hoping." 
 
 "I will tell him, sister Phillis," said Cornelius, nodding 
 with a sunny smile. " You have made two men happy, 
 and one at least grateful." 
 
 His mission was accomplished, his task done. It will 
 hardly be believed that this treacherous bard, growing 
 more and more nervous as he reflected on the uncertainty 
 of the wedded life, actually came to a sudden resolution to 
 plead his brother's cause. Humphrey was the younger. 
 Let him bear off the winsome bride. 
 
 " It will be a change in our lives," he said. " You will 
 allow me to have my share in his happiness ? " 
 
 Phillis made no reply. Decidedly the Poet was gone 
 distraught with overmuch reading and thought. 
 
 Cornelius, smiling, crowing, and laughing almost like a 
 child, pressed her hand and left her, stepping with a 
 youthful elasticity across the lawn. Humphrey, sitting 
 beside Mrs. L'Estrange, was bewildering that good lady 
 with a dessertation on colour a projjos of a flower which he 
 held in his hand. Agatha could not understand this 
 strange pair, who looked so youthful until you came to 
 see them closely, and then they seemed to be of any age 
 you pleased to name. Nor could she understand their 
 talk, which was jDedantic, aflected, and continually involved 
 the theory that the speaker was, next to his brother, the 
 greatest of living men.
 
 336 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 If it was awkward and stupid sitting with Humphrey on 
 a bench while he discoursed on Colour, it was still more 
 awkward when the other one appeared with a countenance 
 wreathed with smiles, and sat on the other side. Nor did 
 there appear any reason why the one with the beard should 
 suddenly break off his oration, turn very red in the face, 
 get up, and walk slowly across the lawn to take his 
 brother's place. But that is what he did, and Cornelius 
 took up the running. 
 
 Humphrey sat down beside Phillis without speaking. 
 She noticed in him the same characteristics of nervousness 
 as in his brother. Twice he attempted to speak, and twice 
 his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. 
 
 " He is going to tell me that Cornelius adores me," she 
 thought. 
 
 It was instinct. That was exactly what Humphrey — 
 the treacherous Humphrey — had determined on doing. 
 Matrimony, contemplated at close quarters and in the 
 presence of the enemy, so to speak, lost all its charms. 
 Humphrey thought of the pleasant life in Carnarvon Square, 
 and determined, at the very last moment, that if either of 
 them was to marry it should not be himself. Cornelius 
 was the elder. Let him be married first. 
 
 " You are peaceful and happy here. Miss Fleming — may 
 I call you Phillis ? " 
 
 " Certainly, Mr. Humphrey. We are old friends, you 
 know. And I am very happy here." 
 
 " I am glad " — he sighed heavily — " I am very glad 
 indeed to hear that." 
 
 " Are you not happy, Mr. Humphrey ? Why do you 
 look so gloomy ? And how is the Great Picture getting 
 on?" 
 
 " The ' Birth of the Renaissance' is advancing rapidly — 
 rapidly," he said. "It is already bought by a rich and 
 generous patron. It will occupy a canvas fourteen feet long 
 by six high." 
 
 "If you have got the canvas, and the frame, and the 
 purchaser, all you want now is the Picture."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 2o7 
 
 " True, as you say, the Picture. It is all that I want. 
 And that is striding — literally striding. / am happy, dear 
 Miss Fleming, dear Phillis, since I may call you by your 
 pretty Christian name. It is of my brother that I think. 
 It is on his account that I feel unhappy." 
 
 " What is the matter with him ? " 
 
 She tried very hard not to laugh, but would not trust 
 herself to look in his face. So that he thought she was 
 modestly guessing his secret. 
 
 "He is a great, a noble fellow. His life is made up of 
 sacrifices and devoted to hard work. No one works so 
 conscientiously as Cornelius. Now, at length, the prospect 
 opens up, and he will take immediately his true position 
 among English poets." 
 
 " Indeed, I am glad of it." 
 
 "Thank you. Yet he is not happy. There is a secret 
 sorrow in his life." 
 
 "Oh, dear!" Phillis cried impatiently, "do let me know 
 it, and at once. Was there ever such a pair of devoted 
 brothers ? " 
 
 Humphrey was disconcerted for the moment, but went on 
 again : 
 
 " A secret which no one has guessed but myself" 
 
 "I know what it is." She laughed and clapped her 
 hands. 
 
 " Has he told you, Phillis ? The secret of his life is that 
 my brother Cornelius is attached to you with all the devo- 
 tion of his grand poetic soul." 
 
 " Whv, that was what I thought you were going to 
 say!" '^ 
 
 "You knew it?" Humphrey was as solemn as an eight- 
 day clock, while Phillis's eyes danced with mirth. " And 
 you feel the response of a passionate nature ? He shall 
 be your Petrarch. You shall read his very soul. But 
 Cornelius brings you a virgin heart, a virgin heart, Phillis " 
 (0 Humphrey ! and after what you know about Gretchen ! ). 
 " May he hope that " 
 
 " Certainly he may hope, and so may you. And now we 
 
 Y
 
 338 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 have had quite enough of devotion and secrets and great 
 poetic souls. Come, Mr. Humphrey." 
 
 She rose from the grass and looked him in the face, laugh- 
 ing. For a moment the thought crossed the Artist's brain 
 that he had made a mess of it somehow. 
 
 " Now," she said, joining the other two, "let us have some 
 tea, and be real." 
 
 Neither of them understood her desire to be real, and the 
 Twins declined tea. That beverage they considered worthy 
 only of late breakfast, and to be taken as a morning pick-me- 
 up. So they departed, taking leave with a multitudinous 
 smile and many tender hand-pressures. As they left the 
 garden together arm-in-arm they straightened their backs, 
 held up their heads, and stuck out their legs like the Knave 
 of Spades. And they looked so exactly like a pair of 
 triumphant cocks that Phillis almost expected them to 
 crow, 
 
 " Au rcvoir" said Cornelius, taking off his hat, with 
 a whole wreath of smiles, for a final parting at the 
 gate. 
 
 '^ Sans dire adieu," said Humphrey, doing the same, 
 with a light in his eyes which played upon his beard like 
 sunshine. 
 
 " Phillis, my dear," said Agatha, " they really are the most 
 wonderful pair I ever saw." 
 
 " They are so funny," said Phillis, laughing, " They sleep 
 all day, and when they wake up they pretend to have been 
 working. And they sit up all night. And, Agatha ! each 
 one came to me just now, and told me he had a secret to 
 impart to me." 
 
 " What was that, my dear ? " 
 
 "That the other one adored me, and might he hope?" 
 
 " But, Phillis, this is beyond a joke. And actually here, 
 before my very eyes ! " 
 
 " I said they might both hope. Though I don't know what 
 they are to hope. It seems to me that if those two lazy 
 men, who never do anything but pretend to be exhausted 
 with work, were only to hope for anything at all it might
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 339 
 
 wake them up a little. Aaid tliey each, said that the other 
 would bring me a virgin heart, Agatha. What did they 
 mean ? " 
 
 Agatha laughed. 
 
 " Well, my dear, it is a most uncommon thing to find 
 in a man of fifty, and I should say, if it were true, which 
 I don't believe, that it argued extreme insensibility. Such 
 an offering is desirable at five and twenty, but very, very 
 rare, my dear, at any age. And at their time of life 
 I should think that it was like an apple in May — kept too 
 long, Phillis, and tasting of the straw. But then you don't 
 understand." 
 
 Phillis thought that a virgin heart might be one of the 
 things to be understood when the Coping-stone was achieved, 
 and asked no more. 
 
 At the Eichmond railway- station the brothers, who had 
 not spoken a word to each other since leaving the house, 
 turned into the refreshment-room by common consent and 
 without consultation. They had, as usual, a brandy-and- 
 soda, and on taking the glasses in their hands they looked 
 at each other and smiled. 
 
 " Cornelius." 
 
 " Humphrey." 
 
 " Shall we " — the Artist dropped his voice, so that the 
 attendant damsel might not hear — " shall we drink the 
 health and happiness of Phillis ? " 
 
 " We will, Humphrey," replied the Poet, with enthusiasm. 
 
 When they got into the train and found themselves alone 
 in the carriage they dug each other in the ribs once, with 
 great meaning. 
 
 " She knows," said the Poet, with a grin woi-thy of 
 Mephistopheles, "that she has found a virgin heart." 
 
 " She does," said Humphrey. " Cornelius, and the 
 little Gretchen and the milkpails ? Byronic Rover ! " 
 
 "Ah, Humphrey, shall I tell her of the contadina, the 
 black-eyed model, and the old wild days in Rome, eh ? Don 
 Giovanni ! " 
 
 Then they both laughed, and then they fell asleep in the
 
 340 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 carriage, because it was long past tlieir regular hour for the 
 afternoon nap, and slept till the guard took their tickets at 
 Vauxliall. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 " This fellow's of exceeding honesty, 
 And knows all qualities." 
 
 IT was the night of the Derby of 1875. The great race 
 had been run, and the partisans of Galopin were trium- 
 phant. Those who had set their affections on other names 
 had finished their weeping, because by this time lamenta- 
 tion, especially among those of the baser sort, was changed 
 for a cheerful resignation begotten of much beer. The 
 busy road was deserted, save for the tramps who plodded 
 their weary way homeward ; the moon, now in its third 
 quarter, looked with sympathetic eye upon the sleeping 
 forms which dotted the silent downs. These lay strewn 
 like unto the bodies on a battle-field — they lay in rows, 
 they lay singly ; they were protected from the night-dews 
 by canvas tents, or they were exposed to the moonlight 
 and the wind. All day long these people had plied the 
 weary trade of amusing a mob ; the Derby, when most 
 hearts are open, is the harvest-day of those who play 
 instruments, those who dance, those who tumble, those 
 who tell fortunes. Among these honest artists sleeps the 
 'prentice who is going to rob the till to pay his debt of 
 honour ; the seedy betting-man in a drunken stupor ; the 
 boy who has tramped all the way from town to pick up a 
 sixpence somehow ; the rustic who loves a race ; and the 
 sharp-fingered lad with the restless eye and a pocketful of 
 handkerchiefs. The holiday is over, and few are the heads 
 which will awake in the morning clear and untroubled 
 with regrets, remorse, or hot coppers. It is two in the 
 morning, and most of the revellers are asleep. A few, still 
 awake, are at the Burleigh Club ; and amoug these are 
 Gilead Beck, Ladds, and Jack Duuquerque.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 341 
 
 They have been to Epsom. On the course the two 
 Englishmen seemed, not unnaturally, to know a good many 
 men. Some, whose voices were, oddly enough, familiar to 
 Gilead Beck, shook hands with him and laughed. One 
 voice — it belonged to a man in a light coat and a white 
 hat — reminded him of Thomas Carlyle. The owner of the 
 voice laughed cheerfully when Beck told him so. Another 
 made him mindful of John Ruskin. And the owner of 
 that voice, too, laughed and changed the subject. They 
 were all cheerful, these friends of Jack Dunquerque ; they 
 partook with affability of the luncheon and drank freely 
 of the champagne. Also there was a good deal of quiet 
 betting. Jack Dunquerque, Gilead Beck observed, was the 
 least adventurous. Betting and gambling were luxuries 
 which Jack's income would not allow him. Most other 
 things he could share in, but betting was beyond him. 
 Gilead Beck plunged and won. It was a part of his Luck 
 that he should win ; but, nevertheless, when Galopin carried 
 his owner's colours past the winning-post, Gilead gave a 
 great shout of triumph, and felt for once the pleasures of 
 the Turf. 
 
 Now it was all over. Jack and he were together in the 
 smoking-room, where half a dozen lingered. Ladds was 
 somewhere in the club, but not with them. 
 
 " It was a fine sight," said Gilead Beck, on the subject 
 of the race generally ; " a fine sight. In the matter of 
 crowds you beat us: that I allow. And the horses were 
 good : that I allow too. But let me show you a trotting- 
 race, where the sweet little winner goes his measured mile 
 in two minutes and a half. That seems to me better 
 sport. But the Derby is a fine race, and I admit it. 
 When I go back to America," he went on, " I shall institute 
 races of my own — with a great National Dunquerque 
 Cup — and we will have an American Derby, with trot- 
 ting thrown in. There's room for both sports. What do 
 you think, Mr. Dunquerque, of having sports from all 
 countries ? " 
 
 " Seems a bright idea. Take your bull-fights from Spain ;
 
 342 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 your fencing from France ; your racing from England — what 
 will you have from Germany ? " 
 
 " Playing at soldiers, I guess. They don't seem to care 
 for any other game." 
 
 " And Russia ? " 
 
 " A great green table with a pack of cards and a roulette. 
 We can get a few Egyptian bonds for the Greeks to exhibit 
 their favourite game with. We may import a band of 
 brigands for the Italian sports. Imitation murder will 
 represent Turkish Delights, and the performers shall camp 
 in Central Park. It wouldn't be bad fun to go out at 
 night and hunt them. Say, Mr. Dunquerque, we'll do it. 
 A permanent Exhibition of the Amusements of all Nations. 
 You shall come over if you like, and show them English fox- 
 hunting. Where is Captain Ladds ? " 
 
 " I left him hovering round the card-tables. I will bring 
 him up." 
 
 Presently Jack returned. 
 
 "Ladds is hard at work at 6cart6 with a villainous- 
 looking stranger. And I should think, from the way 
 Tommy is sticking at it, that Tommy is dropping pretty 
 heavily." 
 
 " It's an American he's playing with," said one of the 
 other men in the room. " Don't know who brought him ; 
 not a member; a Major Hamilton Buggies — don't know 
 what service." 
 
 Mr. Beck looked up quietly, and reflected a moment. 
 Then he said softly to Jack — 
 
 "Mr. Dunquerque, I think we can have a little amuse- 
 ment out of this. If you were to go now to Captain Ladds, 
 and if you were to bring him up to this same identical room 
 with Major Hamilton Ruggles, I think, sir, — I do think you 
 would see something pleasant." 
 
 There was a sweet and winning smile on the face of 
 Mr. Beck when he spoke these words. Jack immediately 
 understood that there was going to be a row, and went at 
 once on his errand, in order to promote it to the best of his 
 power.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 343 
 
 " You know Major Euggles ? " asked the first speaker. 
 
 " No, sir, no — I can hardly say that I know Major 
 Ruggles. But I think he knows me." 
 
 In ten minutes Ladds and his adversary at dcarU came 
 upstairs. Ladds wore the heavy impenetrable look in which, 
 as in a mask, he always played ; the other, who had a limp 
 in one leg and a heavj'- scar across his face, came with him. 
 He was laughing in a high-pitched voice. After them came 
 Jack. 
 
 At sight of Mr. Beck, Major Ruggles stopped suddenly, 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Captain Ladds," he said, " I find I 
 have forgotten my handkerchief," 
 
 He turned to go. But, Jack, the awkward, was in his 
 way, 
 
 " Handkerchief sticking out of your pocket," said Ladds, 
 
 " So it is, so it is ! " 
 
 By a sort of instinct the half-dozen men in the smoking- 
 room seemed to draw their chairs and to close in together. 
 There was evidently something going to happen. 
 
 Mr. Beck rose solemnly — surely nobody ever had so 
 grave a face as Gilead P, Beck — and advanced to Major 
 Ruggles, 
 
 " Major Ruggles," he said, " I gave you to understand, 
 two days ago, that I didn't remember you, I found out 
 afterwards that I was wrong, I remember you perfectly 
 well," 
 
 " You used words, Mr. Beck, which " 
 
 " Ay, ay — I know. You want satisfaction, Major. You 
 shall have it. Sit down now, sit down, sir. We are all 
 among gentlemen here, and this is a happy meeting for both 
 of us. What will you drink ? — I beg your pardon, Mr. 
 Dunquerque, but I thought we were at the Langham. 
 Perhaps you would yourself ask Major Ruggles what he will 
 put himself outside of? " 
 
 The Major, who did not seem quite at his ease, took a 
 seltzer-and-brandy and a cigarette. Then he looked furtively 
 at Gilead Beck. He understood what the man was going 
 to say and why he was going to say it.
 
 344 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Satisfaction, Major ? Wal, these gentlemen shall be 
 witnesses. Yesterday mornin', as I was walkin' down the 
 steps of the Langham Hotel, this gentleman, this high-toned, 
 whole-souled pride of the American army, met me and offered 
 his hand. ' Hope you are well, Mr. Beck,' were his affable 
 words. ' Hope you are quite well. Met you last at Del- 
 monico's, dining with Boss Calderon.' Now, gentlemen, 
 you'll hardly believe me when I tell you that I answered 
 this politeness by askin' the ]\Iajor if he had ever heard 
 of a Banco Steerer, and if he knew the meanin' of a Roper. 
 He did not reply, doubtless because he was wounded in 
 his feelin's — being above all things a man of honour ami 
 the boast of his native country. I then left him with a 
 Scriptural reference, which p'raps he's overhauled since, 
 and now understands what I meant when I said that, if 
 I was to meet him goin' around arm-in-arm with Ananias 
 and Sapphira, I'd say he was in good company." 
 
 Here the Major jumped in his chair, and put his right 
 hand to his shirt-front. 
 
 " No, sir," said Beck, unmoved. " I can tackle more'n 
 one wild cat at once, if you mean fightin,' which you do not. 
 And it's no use, no manner o' use, feelin' in that breast- 
 pocket of yours, because the shootin' irons in this country 
 are always left at home. You sit still. Major, and take it 
 quiet. I'm goin' to be more improvin' presently." 
 
 " Perhaps, Beck," said Jack, " you would explain what 
 a Banco Steerer and a Roper are." 
 
 " I was comin' to that, sir. They air one and the same 
 animal. The Roper or the Banco Steerer, gentlemen, will 
 find you out the morning after jon land in Chicago or 
 Saint Louis. He will accost you — very friendly, wonderful 
 friendly — when you come out of your hotel, by your name, 
 and he will remind you — which is most surprising, con- 
 siderin' you never set eyes on his face before — how you 
 have dined together in Cincinnati, or it may be Orleans, 
 or perhaps Francisco, because he finds out where you 
 came from last. And he will shake hands with you; and 
 he will propose a drink ; and he will pay for that drink.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 345 
 
 And presently he will take you somewhere else, among 
 his pals, and he will strip you so clean that there won't 
 be left the price of a four-cent paper to throw around your 
 face and hide your blushes. In London, gentlemen, they 
 do, I believe, the confidence trick. Perhaps Major Ruggles 
 will explain his own method presently," 
 
 But Major Ruggles preserved silence. 
 
 " So, gentlemen, after I'd shown my familiarity with the 
 Ax of the Apostles, I went down town, thinkin' how mighty 
 clever I was — that's a way of mine, gentlemen, which gene- 
 rally takes me after I've made a durned fool of myself. All 
 of a sudden I recollected the face of Major Ruggles, and 
 where I'd seen him last. Yes, Major, you did know me 
 — you were quite right, and I ought to have kept Ananias 
 out of the muss — you did know me, and I'd forgotten it. 
 Those words of mine. Major, required explanation, as you 
 said just now." 
 
 " Satisfaction, I said," objected the Major, trying to 
 recover himself a little. 
 
 " Sir, you air a whole-souled gentleman ; and your sense 
 of honour is as keen as a quarter-dollar razor. Satisfaction 
 you shall have; and if you are not satisfied when I have 
 done with you, ask these gentlemen around what an 
 American nobleman — one of the noblemen like yourself 
 that we do sometimes show the world — wants more, and 
 that more you shall git. 
 
 "You did know me, IMajor; but you made a little mistake. 
 It was not with Boss Calderon that you met me, because 
 I do not know Boss Calderon; nor was it at Delmonico's. 
 And where it was I am about to tell this company." 
 
 He hesitated a moment. 
 
 " Gentlemen, I believe it is a rule that strangers in your 
 clubs must be introduced by members. I was introduced 
 by my friend Mr. Dunquerque, and I hope I shall not 
 disgrace that introduction. May I ask who introduced 
 Major Ruggles ? " 
 
 Nobody knew. In fact, he had passed in with an 
 acquaintance picked up somehow, and stayed there.
 
 346 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 The Major tried again to get away. "This is fooling," 
 he said. " Captain Ladds, do you wish me to be insulted ? 
 If you do, sir, say so. You will find that an American 
 officer " 
 
 " Silence, sir ! " said Mr. Beck. " An American officer ! 
 Say that again, and I will teach you to respect the name 
 of an American officer. I've been a private soldier myself 
 in that army," he added, by way of explanation. " Now, 
 Major Ruggles, I am going to invite you to remain while 
 I tell these gentlemen a little story — a very little story — 
 but it concerns you. And if Captain Ladds likes when that 
 story is finished, I will apologise to you, and to him, and to 
 all this honourable company." 
 
 " Let us hear the story," said Jack. " Nothing could be 
 fairer." 
 
 " Nothing ! " echoed the little circle of listeners. 
 
 Beck addressed the room in general, occasionally pointing 
 the finger of emphasis at the unfoi'tunate Major. Ilis victim 
 showed every sign of bodily discomfort and mental agitation. 
 First he fidgeted in the chair ; then he threw away his 
 cigarette; then he folded his arms and stared defiantly at 
 the speaker. Then he got up again. 
 
 " What have I to do with you and your story ? Let me 
 go. Captain Ladds, you have my address. And as for you, 
 sir, you shall hear from me to-morrow." 
 
 " Sit down. Major." Gilead Beck invited him to resume 
 his chair with a sweet smile. " Sit down. The night's 
 young. Maybe Captain Ladds wants his revenge." 
 
 " Not I," said Ladds. " Had enough. Go to bed. Not 
 a revengeful man." 
 
 " Then," said Gilead Beck, his face darkening and his 
 manner suddenly changing, " I will take your revenge for 
 you. Sit down, sir! " 
 
 It was an order he gave this time, not an invitation, 
 and the stranger obeyed with an uneasy smile. 
 
 " It is not gambling. Major Ruggles," Beck went on. 
 " Captain Ladds' revenge is going to be of another sort, 
 I reckon."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 347 
 
 He drew close to ]\Iajor Ruggles, and sitting on tlie 
 table, j)laced one foot on a cliair which was between the 
 stranger and the door. 
 
 " Delmonico's, was it, where we met last? And with 
 Joe Calderon — Boss Calderon? Really, Major Euggles, 
 I was a great fool not to remember that at once. But I 
 always am weak over faces, even such a striking face as 
 yours. So we met last when you were dining with Boss 
 Calderon, eh ? " 
 
 Then Mr. Beck began his little story. 
 
 " Six years ago, gentlemen, — long before I found my 
 Butterfly, of which you may have heard, — I ran up and 
 down the Great Pacific Railway between Chicago and 
 Francisco for close upon six months. I did not choose 
 that way of spendin' the golden hours, because, if one 
 had a choice at all, a Pullman's sleeping-car on the Pacific 
 Railway would be just one of the last places you would 
 choose to pass your life in. I should class it, as a per- 
 manent home, with a first-class saloon in a Cunard steamer. 
 No, gentlemen, I was on board those cars in an official 
 capacity. I was conductor. It is not a proud position, 
 not an office which you care to magnify; it doesn't lift 
 your chin in the air and stick out your toes like the proud 
 title of Major does for our friend squirmin' in the chair 
 before us. Squirm on. Major; but listen, because this 
 is interestin'. On those cars and on that railway there 
 is a deal of time to be got through, I am bound to say 
 that time kind of hangs heavy on the hands. You can't 
 be always outside smokin' ; you can't sleep more'n a certain 
 time, because the nigger turns you out and folds up the 
 beds ; and you oughtn't to drink more'n your proper whack. 
 Also, you get tired watchin' the scenery. You may make 
 notes if you like, but you get tired o' that. And you get 
 mortal tired of settin' on end. Mostly, therefore, you stand 
 around the conductor, and you listen to his talk. 
 
 " But six years ago the dulness of that long journey was 
 enlivened by the presence of a few sportsmen like our 
 friend the Major here. They were so fond of the beauties
 
 348 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 of Nature, they were so wrapped up in the pride of bein' 
 American citizens and ownin' the biggest railway in the 
 world, that they would travel all the way from New York 
 to San Francisco, stay there a day, and then travel all the 
 way back again. And the most remarkable thing was, that 
 when they got to New York again they would take a 
 through ticket all the way back to San Fran. This attach- 
 ment to the line pleased the company at first. It did seem 
 as if good deeds was going to meet their recompense at last, 
 even in this world, and the spirited conduct of the gentle- 
 men, when it first became known, filled everybody with 
 admiration. — You remember. Major, the very handsome 
 remarks made by you yourself on the New York plat- 
 form. 
 
 " Lord, is it six years ago ? Why, it seems to me but 
 yesterday, Major Euggles, that I saw you standin' erect 
 and bold — lookin' like a senator in a stove-pipe hat, store 
 boots, and go-to-meetin' coat — shakin' hands with the chair- 
 man. ' Sir,' you said, with tears in your eyes, ' you repre- 
 sent the advance of civilisation. We air now, indeed, ahead 
 of the hull creation. You have united the Pacific and the 
 Atlantic. And, sir, by the iron road ths West and the 
 East may jine hands and defy the tyranny of Europe.' 
 Those, gentlemen, were the noble sentiments of Major 
 Hamilton Ruggles. — Did I say. Major, that I would give 
 you satisfaction? Wait till I have done, and you shall 
 bust with satisfaction." 
 
 The Major did not look, at all events, like being satisfied 
 so far. 
 
 " One day an ugly rumour got about — you know how 
 rumours spread — that the Great Pacific Railroad was a big 
 gamblin' shop. The enthusiastic travellers up and down 
 that line were one mighty confederated gang. They were 
 up to every dodge : they travelled together, and they 
 travelled separate ; they had dice, and those dice were 
 loaded ; they had cards, and those cards were marked ; they 
 played on the square, but behind every man's hand was a 
 confederate, and he gave signs, so that the honest sportsman
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 349 
 
 knew how to play. And by these simple contrivances, 
 gentlemen, they always won. So much did they wIq, that 
 I have conducted a through train in which, when we got to 
 Chicago, there wasn't a five-dollar piece left among the lot. 
 And all the time strangers to each other. The gang never, 
 by so much as a wink, let out that they had met before. 
 And no one could tell them from the ordinary passengers. 
 But I knew; and I had a long conversation with the 
 Directors one day, the result of which — Major Ruggles, 
 perhaps you can tell these gentlemen what was the result 
 of that conversation." 
 
 The man was sallow. His sharp eyes gleamed with 
 an angry light as he looked from one to the other, as if 
 in the hope of finding an associate. There was none. 
 Only Ladds, his late adversary, moved quietly round the 
 room and sat near to Gilead Beck, on the table, but nearer 
 the door. The Major saw this manoeuvre with a sinking 
 heart, because his pockets were heavy with the proceeds of 
 the evening game. 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, a general order came for all the con- 
 ductors. It was ' No play.' We were to stop that. And 
 another general order was — an imperative order. Major, so 
 that I am sure you will not bear malice — ' If they won't 
 leave off, chuck 'em out.' That was the order. Major, 
 ' Chuck 'em out.' 
 
 " It was on the journey back from San Francisco that 
 the first trouble began. You were an upright man to look 
 at then, Major; you hadn't got the limp you've got now, 
 and you hadn't received that unfort'nate scar across your 
 handsome face. You were a most charmin' companion for 
 a long railway journey, but you had that little weakness — 
 that you would play. I warned you at the time. I said, 
 'Cap'en, this must stop.' You were only a Cap'en then. 
 But you would go on. ' Cap'en,' I said, ' if you will not 
 stop, you will be chucked out.' You will acknowledge, 
 Major, that I gave you fair warnin'. You laughed. That 
 was all you did. You laughed and you shuffled the cards. 
 But the man who was playing with you got up. He saw
 
 350 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 reason. Then you drew out a revolver and used bad 
 language. So I made for you. 
 
 " Gentlemen, it was not a fair fight. But orders had to 
 be observed. In half a minute I had his pistol from him, 
 and in two minutes more he was iiyin' from the end of the 
 train. We were goin' twenty miles an hour, and we hadn't 
 time to stop to see if he was likely to get along somehow. 
 And the last I saw of Captain Ruggles — I beg your pardon, 
 Major — was his two heels in the air as he left the end of the 
 train. I s'pose. Major, it was stoppin' so sudden gave you 
 that limp and ornamented your face with that beautiful scar. 
 The ground was gritty, I believe ? " 
 
 Everybody's eyes were turned on the Major, whose face 
 was livid. 
 
 " Gentlemen," Mr. Beck continued, " that aerial flight 
 of Captain Ruggles improved the moral tone of the 
 l*acific Railroad to a degree that you would hardly 
 believe. I don't think there has been a single sports- 
 man chucked out since. — Major Ruggles, sir, you were 
 the blessed means, under Providence and Gilead P. 
 Beck conjiutly, of commencing a new and moral era 
 for the Great Pacific Railroad. 
 
 " And now, Major, that my little story is told, may I ask 
 if you air satisfied ? Because if there is any other satisfac- 
 tion in my power you shall have that too. Have I done 
 enough for honour, gentlemen all ? " 
 
 The men laughed. 
 
 " Now for a word with me," Ladds began. 
 
 "Cap'eu," said Gilead Beck, "let me work through this 
 contract, if you have no objection. — Major Ruggles, you will 
 clear out all your pockets." 
 
 The miserable man made no reply. 
 
 " Clear out eveiy one, and turn them inside out, right 
 away." 
 
 He neither moved nor spoke. 
 
 " Gentlemen," Mr. Beck said calmly, " you will be kind 
 enough not to interfere." 
 
 He pulled a penknife out of his pocket and laid it on a
 
 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 351 
 
 chair open. He then seized Major Ruggles by the collar 
 and arm. The man fought like a wild cat, but Beck's grasp 
 was like a vice. It seemed incredible to the bystanders that 
 a man should be so strong, so active, and so skilled. He 
 tossed, rather than laid, his victim on the table, and then, 
 lidding both his hands in one grip of his own enormous fist, 
 he deliberately ripped open the Major's trousers, waistcoat, 
 and coat pockets, and took out the contents. When he was 
 satisfied that nothing more was left in them he dragged him 
 to the ground. 
 
 On the table lay the things which he had taken posses- 
 sion of. 
 
 " Take up those dice," he said to Ladds. " Try them ; if 
 they are not loaded, I will ask the Major's pardon." 
 
 They were loaded. 
 
 " Look at those cards," he went on. " They are the cards 
 you have been playing with, when you thought you had a 
 new pack of club- cards. If they are not marked, I will ask 
 the Major to change places with me." 
 
 They were marked. 
 
 " And now, gentlemen, I think I may ask Captain Ladds 
 what he has lost, and invite him to take it out of that 
 heap." 
 
 There was a murmur of assent. 
 
 "I lost twenty pounds in notes and gold," said Ladds. 
 " And I gave an I U for sixty more," 
 
 There were other I U's in the heap, and more gold 
 when Ladds had recovered his own. The paper was solemnly 
 torn up, but the coin restored to the Major, who now stood, 
 abject, white, and trembling, but with the look of a devil in 
 his eyes, 
 
 " Such men as you, Major," said Gilead the Moralist, " air 
 the curse of our country. You see, gentlemen, we travel 
 about, we make money fast; we air sometimes a reckless 
 lot; the miners have got pockets full; there's everything 
 to encourage such a crew as Major Euggles belonged to. 
 And when we find them out, we lynch them. — Lynch is 
 the word, isn't it, Major ? — Do you want to know the end
 
 352 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 of this man, gentlemen ? I am not much in the prophetic 
 line, but I think I see a crowd of men in a minin' city, 
 and I see a thick branch with a rope over it. And at 
 the end of that rope is Major Euggles's neck tightened 
 in a most unpleasant and ungentlemanly manner. — It's in- 
 hospitable, but what can you expect, Major? We like play, 
 but we like playin' on the square. Now, Major, you may 
 go. And you may thank the Lord on your knees before 
 you go to sleep that this providential interference has taken 
 place in London instead of the States. For had I told my 
 interestin' anecdote at a bar in any city of the Western 
 States, run up you would have been. You may go. Major 
 Euggles ; and I dare say Cap'en Ladds, in consideration 
 of the damage done to those bright and shinin' store clothes 
 of yours, will forego the British kicking which I see trem- 
 blin' at the point of his toes." 
 
 Ladds did forego that revenge, and the Major slunk away. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIL 
 
 " Nulla fere causa est in qua non feniina litem 
 Moverit." 
 
 WHEN Mr. Wylie, the pamphleteer, left Gabriel Cassilis, 
 the latter resumed with undisturbed countenance his 
 ])revious occupation of reading the letters and telegrams he 
 had laid aside. Among them was one which he took up 
 gingerly, as if it were a torpedo. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " he cried impatiently, tossing it from him. 
 " Another of those anonymous letters. The third." He 
 looked at it with disgust, and then half involuntarily his 
 hand reached out and took it up again. " The third, and all 
 in the same handwriting. ' I have written you two letters, 
 and you have taken no notice. This is the third. Beware ! 
 Your wife was with Mr. Colquhoun yesterday ; she will be 
 with him again to-day and to-morrow. Ask her, if you dare, 
 what is her secret with him. Ask him what hold he has
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 353 
 
 over her, "Watch her, and caution her lest something evil 
 befall you. — Your well-wisher.' 
 
 " I am a fool," he said, " to be disquieted about an anony- 
 mous slauder. What does it matter to me ? As if Victoria — 
 she did know Oolquhoun before her marriage — their names 
 were mentioned — I remember hearing that there had been 
 flirtation — flirtation ! As if Victoria could ever flirt ! She 
 was no frivolous silly girl. No one who knows Victoria could 
 for a moment suspect — suspect ! The word is intolerable. 
 One would say I was jealous." 
 
 He pushed forward his papers and leaned back in his chair, 
 casting his thoughts behind him to the days of his stiff" and 
 formal wooing. He remembered how he said, sitting opposite 
 to her in her cousin's drawing-room — there was no wandering 
 by the riverbank or in pleasant gardens on summer evenings 
 for those two lovers — 
 
 "You bring me fewer springs than I can offer you, 
 Victoria ; " which was his pretty poetical way of telling her 
 that he was nearly forty years older than herself: " but we 
 shall begin life with no trammels of previous attachments on 
 either hand." 
 
 He called it — and thought it — at sixty- five, beginning 
 life ; and it was quite true that he had never before conceived 
 an attachment for any woman. 
 
 " No, Mr. Cassilis," she replied ; "we are both free, quite 
 free ; and the dispai"ity of age is only a disadvantage on my 
 side, which a few years will remedy." 
 
 This cold stately woman conducting a flirtation before her 
 marriage ? This Juno among young matrons causing a 
 scandal after her marriage ? It was ridiculous. 
 
 He said to himself that it was ridiculous so often, that he 
 succeeded at last in persuading himself that it really was. 
 And when he had quite done that, he folded up the anony- 
 mous document, docketed it, and placed it in one of the 
 numerous pigeon-holes of his desk, which was one of those 
 which shut up completely, covering over papers, pigeon- 
 holes, and everything. 
 
 Then he addressed himself again to business, and, but for 
 
 z
 
 354 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 an occasional twinge of uneasiness, like the first throb which 
 presages the coming gout, he got through an important day's 
 work with his accustomed ease and power. 
 
 The situation, as Lawrence Colquhoun told Victoria, was 
 strained. There they were, as he put it, all three — himself, 
 for some reason of his own, put first ; the lady ; and Gabriel 
 Cassilis. The last was the one who did not know. There 
 was no reason, none in the world, why things should not 
 remain as they were, only that the lady would not let sleeping 
 dangers sleep, and Lawrence was too indolent to resist. In 
 other words, Victoria Cassilis, having once succeeded in 
 making him visit her, spared no pains to bring him constantly 
 to her house, and to make it seem as if he was that innocent 
 sort of cicishco whom English society allows. 
 
 Why? 
 
 The investigation of motives is a delicate thing at the best, 
 and apt to lead the analyst into strange paths. It may be 
 discovered that the philanthropist acts for love of notoriety ; 
 that the preacher does not believe in the truths he proclaims ; 
 that the woman of self-sacrifice and good works is consciously 
 posing before an admiring world. This is disheartening, 
 because it makes the cynic and the worldly-minded man to 
 chuckle and chortle with an open joy. St. Paul, who was 
 versed in the ways of the world, knew this perfectly when he 
 proclaimed the insufficiency of good works. It is at all times 
 best to accept the deed, and never ask the motive. And, 
 after all, good deeds are something practical. And as for a 
 foolish or a bad deed, the difiiculty of ascertaining an 
 adequate motive only becomes more complicated with its folly 
 or its villainy. Mrs. Cassilis had everything to gain by 
 keeping her old friend on the respectful level of a former 
 acquaintance; she had everything to lose by treating him as 
 a friend. And yet she forced her friendship upon him. 
 
 Kindly people who find in the affairs of other people 
 sufficient occupation for themselves, and whose activity of 
 intellect obtains a useful vent in observation and comment, 
 watched them. The man was alwavs the same : indolent.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 355 
 
 careless, unmoved by any kind of passion for any other man's 
 wife or for any maid. Tliat was a just conclusion. Lawrence 
 Colqulioun was not in love with this lady. And yet he 
 suffered himself to obey orders ; dropped easily into the 
 position ; allowed himself to be led by her invitations ; went 
 where she told him to go ; and all the time half laughed at 
 himself and was half angry to think that he was thus 
 enthralled by a siren who charmed him not. To have once 
 loved a woman ; to love her no longer ; to go about the town 
 behaving as if you did : this, it was evident to him, was not 
 a position to be envied or desired. Few false positions are. 
 Perhaps he did not know that Mrs. Grundy talked ; perhaps 
 he was only amused when he heard of remarks that had been 
 made by Sir Benjamin Backbite ; and although the brief 
 sunshine of passion which he once felt for this woman was 
 long since past and gone, nipped in its very bud by the lady 
 herself perhaps, he still liked her cold and cynical talk. Col- 
 quhoun habitually chose the most pleasant paths for his 
 lounge through life. From eighteen to forty there had been 
 but one disagreeable episode, which he would fain have for- 
 gotten. Mrs. Cassilis revived it ; but, in her presence, the 
 memory was robbed somehow of half its sting. 
 
 Sir Benjamin Backbite remarked that though the gentle- 
 man was languid, the lady was shaken out of her habitual 
 coldness. She was changed. What could change her, asked 
 the Baronet, but passion for this old friend of her youth ? 
 Why, it was only four years since he had followed her, after 
 a London season, down to Scotland, and everybody said it 
 would be a match. She received his attentions coldly then, 
 as she received the attentions of every man. Now the tables 
 were turned ; it was the man who was cold. 
 
 These social observers are always right. But they never 
 rise out of themselves; therefore their conclusions are 
 generally wrong. Victoria Cassilis was not, as they charit- 
 ably thought, running after Colquhoun through the fancy of 
 a wayward heart. Not at all. She was simply wondering 
 where it had gone — that old power of hers, by which she 
 once twisted him round her finger — and why it was gone.
 
 J3' 
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 A woman cannot believe that she has lost her power over 
 a man. It is an intolerable thought. Her power is born of 
 her beauty and her grace ; these may vanish, but the old 
 attractiveness remains, she thinks, if only as a tradition. 
 When she is no longer beautiful she loves to believe that 
 her lovers are faithful still. Now Victoria Cassilis remem- 
 bered this man as a lover and a slave; his was the only 
 pleading she had ever heard which could make her under- 
 stand the meaning of man's passion ; he was the only suitor 
 whom a word could make wretched or a look happy. For he 
 had once loved her with all his power and all his might. 
 Between them there was the knowledge of a thing which, if 
 any knowledge could, should have crushed out and beaten 
 down the memory of this love. She had made it, by her 
 own act and deed, a crime to remember it. And yet, in 
 spite of all, she could not bring herself to believe that the 
 old power was dead. She tried to bring him again under 
 her influence. She failed, but she succeeded in making him 
 come back to her as if nothing had ever happened. And 
 then she said to herself that there must be another woman, 
 and she set herself to find out who that woman was. 
 
 Formerly many men had hovered — marriageable men, 
 excellent pao-tis — round the cold and statuesque beauty of 
 Victoria Pengelley. She was an acknowledged beauty ; she 
 brought an atmosphere of perfect taste and grace into a 
 room with her; men looked at her and wondered; foolish 
 girls, who knew no better, envied her. Presently the foolish 
 girls, who had soft faces and eyes which could melt in love 
 or sorrow, envied her no longer, because they got engaged 
 and married. And of all the men who came and went, there 
 was but one who loved her so that his pulse beat quicker 
 when she came ; who trembled when he took her hand ; 
 whose nerves tingled and whose blood ran swifter through 
 his veins when he asked her, down in that quiet Scotch 
 village, with no one to know it but her maid, to be his 
 wife. 
 
 The man was Lawrence Colquhoun. The passion had 
 been his. Now love and passion were buried in the ashes of
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 357 
 
 the past. The man was impassable, and the woman, madly 
 kicking against the fetters which she had bound around 
 herself, was angry and jealous. 
 
 It is by some mistake of Nature that women who cannot 
 love can yet be jealous. Victoria Pengelley's pulse never 
 once moved the faster for all the impetuosity of her lover. 
 She liked to watch it, this curious yearning after her beauty, 
 this eminently masculine weakness, because it was a tribute 
 to her power ; it is always pleasant for a woman to feel that 
 she is loved as women are loved in novels — men's novels, not 
 the pseudo-passionate school-girls' novels, or the calmly 
 respectable feminine tales where the young gentlemen and 
 the young ladies are superior to the instincts of common 
 humanity. Victoria played with this giant as an engineer 
 will play with the wheels of a mighty engine. She could do 
 what she liked with it. Samson was not more pliable to 
 Delilah ; and Delilah was not more unresponsive to that 
 guileless strong man. She soon got tired of her toy, how- 
 ever. Scarcely were the morning and the evening the fifth 
 day, when by pressing some unknown spring she smashed it 
 altogether. 
 
 Now, when it was quite too late, when the thing was 
 utterly smashed, when she had a husband and child, she was 
 actually trying to reconstruct it. Some philosopher, probing 
 more deeply than usual the mysteries of mankind, once dis- 
 covered that it was at all times impossible to know what a 
 woman wants. He laid that down as a general axiom, and 
 presented it as an irrefragable truth for the universal use of 
 humanity. One may sometimes, however, guess what a 
 woman does not want. Victoria Cassilis, one may be sure, 
 did not want to sacrifice her honour, her social standing, or 
 her future. She was not intending to go off", for instance, 
 with her old lover, even if he should propose the step, which 
 seemed unlikely. And yet she would have liked him to 
 propose it, because then she would have felt the recovery of 
 her power. Now her sex, as Chaucer and others before him 
 pointed out, love power beyond all other earthly things. 
 And the history of queens, from Semiramis to Isabella,
 
 358 THE GOLDExV BUTTERFLY. 
 
 shows what a mess they always make of it when they do get 
 power. 
 
 A curious problem. Given a woman, no longer in the 
 first bloom of youth, married well, and clinging with the 
 instincts of her class to her reputation and social position. 
 She has everything to lose and nothing to gain. She cannot 
 hope even for the love of the man for whom she is incurring 
 the suspicions of the world, and exciting the jealousy of her 
 husband. Yet it is true, in her case, what the race of evil- 
 speakers, liars, and slanderers say of her. She is running 
 after Lawrence Colquhoun. He is too much with her. She 
 has given the enemy occasion to blaspheme. 
 
 As for Colquhoun, when he thought seriously over the 
 situation, he laughed when it was a fine day, and swore if it 
 was raining. The English generally take a sombre view 
 of things because it is so constantly raining. We proclaim 
 our impotence, the lack of national spirit, and our poverty, 
 until other nations actually begin to believe us. But 
 Colquhoun, though he might swear, made no effort to 
 release himself, when a word would have done it. 
 
 " You may use harsh language to me, Lawrence," said 
 INTrs. Cassilis — he never had used harsh language to any 
 woman — "you may sneer at me, and laugh in your cold 
 and cruelly impassive manner. But one thing I can say 
 for you, that you understand me." 
 
 " I have seen all your moods, ]\Irs. Cassilis, and I have a 
 good memory. If you will show your husband that the 
 surface of the ocean may be stormy sometimes, he will 
 understand you a good deal better. Get up a little breeze 
 for him," 
 
 " I am certainly not going to have a vulgar quarrel with 
 Mr, Cassilis." 
 
 " A vulgar quarrel ? Vulgar ? Ah, vulgarity changes 
 every five years or so. What a pity that vulgar quarrels 
 were in fashion six years ago, Mrs. Cassilis ! " 
 
 " Some men are not worth losing your temper about." 
 
 "Tliank you. I was, I suppose. It was very kind of 
 you, indeed, to remind me of it, as you then did, in a
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 559 
 
 manner at once forcible and not to be forgotten. Mr. 
 Cassilis gets nothing, I suppose, but east wind, with a 
 cloudless sky which has the sun in it, but only the sem- 
 blance of warmth. I got a good sou'-wester. But take 
 care, take care, Mrs. Cassilis! You have wantonly thrown 
 away once what most women would have kept — kept, Mrs. 
 Cassilis! I remember whan I was kneeling at your feet 
 years ago, talking the usual nonsense about being unworthy 
 of you. Eubbish ! I was more than worthy of you, because 
 I could give myself to you loyally, and you — you could 
 only pretend ! " 
 
 " Go on, Lawrence. It is something that you regret the 
 past, and something to see that you can feel, after all." 
 
 She stopped and laughed carelessly. 
 
 "Prick me and I sing out. That is natural. But we 
 will have no heroics. What I mean is, that I am well out 
 of it ; and that you, Victoria Cassilis, are — forgive the plain 
 speaking — a foolish woman." 
 
 " Lawrence Colquhoun has the right to insult me as he 
 pleases, and I must bear it." 
 
 It was in her own room. Colquhoun was leaning on the 
 window ; she was sitting on a chair before him. She was 
 agitated and excited. He, save for the brief moments when 
 he spoke as if with emotion, was languid and calm. 
 
 " I have no right," he replied, " and you know it. Let 
 us finish. Mrs. Cassilis, keep what you have, and be 
 thankful." 
 
 " What I have ! What have I ? " 
 
 " One of the best houses in London. An excellent social 
 position. A husband said to be the ablest man in the City. 
 An income which gives you all that a woman can ask for. 
 The confidence and esteem of your husband — and a child. 
 Do these thing's mean nothingf ? " 
 
 "My husband — Oh, my husband! He is insufierable 
 sometimes, when I remember, Lawrence." 
 
 " He is a man who gives his trust after a great deal of 
 doubt and hesitation. Then he gives it wholly. To take it 
 back would be a greater blow, a far greater blow, than it
 
 36o THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 would ever be to a younger man — to such a man as 
 myself." 
 
 " Gabriel Cassilis only suffers when he loses money." 
 
 " That is not the case. You cannot afford to make 
 another great mistake. Success isn't on the cards after 
 two such blunders, Mrs. Cassilis." 
 
 "What do I want with success? Let me have happi- 
 ness." 
 
 " Take it ; it is at your feet," said Lawrence. " It is in 
 this house. It is the commonest secret. Every simple 
 country woman knows it." 
 
 " No one will ever understand me," she sighed. " No 
 one." 
 
 " It is simply to give up for ever thinking about your- 
 self Go and look after your baby, and find happiness 
 there." 
 
 Why superior women are always so angry if they are 
 asked to look after their babies, I cannot understand. 
 There is no blinking the fact that they have them. The 
 maternal instinct makes women who cannot write or talk 
 fine language about the domestic affections take to the tiny 
 creatures with a passion of devotion which is the loveliest 
 thing to look upon in all this earth. The fcmme incomprise 
 alone feels no anguish if her baby cries, no joy if he laughs, 
 and flies into a divine rage if you remind her that she is a 
 mother. 
 
 " j\Iy baby ! " cried Victoria, springing to her feet. " You 
 see me yearning for sympathy, looking to you as my oldest 
 — once my dearest — friend, for a little — only a little — 
 interest and pity, and you send me to my baby ! The world 
 is all selfish and cold-hearted, but the most selfish man in it 
 is Lawrence Colquhoun ! " 
 
 He laughed again. After all, he had said his say. 
 
 "I am glad you think so, because it simplifies matters. 
 Now, IMrs. Cassilis, we have had our little confidential talk, 
 and I think, under the circumstances, that it had better be 
 the last. So, for a time, we will not meet, if you please. 
 I do take a certain amount of interest in you — that is, I am
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 361 
 
 always curious to see what line you will take next. And if 
 you are at all concerned to have my opinion and counsel, it 
 is this : that you've got your chance ; and if you give that 
 man who loves you and trusts you any unhappiness through 
 your folly, you will be a much more heartless and wicked 
 woman than even I have ever thought you. And, by Gad ! 
 I ought to know." 
 
 He left her. Mrs. Cassilis heard his step in the hall and 
 the door close behind him. Then she ran to the window, 
 and watched him strolling in his leisurely, careless way 
 down the road. It made her mad to think that she could 
 not make him unhappy, and made her jealous to think that 
 she could no longer touch his heart. Not in love with him 
 at all — she never had been ; but jealous because her old 
 power was gone. 
 
 Jealous ? There must be another girl. Doubtless Phillis 
 Fleming. She ordered her carriage and drove straight to 
 Twickenham. Agatha was having one of her little garden- 
 parties. Jack Dunquerque was there with Gilead Beck. 
 Also Captain Ladds. But Lawrence Colquhoun was not. 
 She stayed an hour; she ascertained from Phillis that her 
 guardian seldom came to see her, and went home again in a 
 worse temper than before, because she felt herself on a 
 wrong track. 
 
 Tomlinson, her maid, had a very bad time of it while she 
 was dressing her mistress for dinner. Nothing went right, 
 somehow. Tomlinson, the hard-featured, was long suffering 
 and patient. She made no reply to the torrent which flowed 
 from her superior's angry lips. But when respite came with 
 the dinner-bell, and her mistress was safely downstairs, the 
 maid sat down to the table and wrote a letter very carefully. 
 This she read and re-read, and, being finally satisfied with 
 it, she took it out to the post herself After that, as she 
 would not be wanted till midnight at least, she took a cab 
 and went to the Marylebone Theatre, where she wept over 
 the distresses of a lady, ruined by the secret voice of 
 calumny. 
 
 It was at the end of May, and the season was at its
 
 362 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 height. Mrs. Cassilis had two or three engagements, but 
 she came home early, and was even sharper with the 
 unfortunate Tomlinson than before dinner. But Tomlinson 
 was very good, and bore all in patience. It is Christian 
 to endure. 
 
 Next morning Gabriel Cassilis found among his letters 
 another in the same handwriting as that of the three 
 anonymous communications he had already received. 
 
 He tore it open with a groan. 
 
 "This is the fourth letter. You will have to take notice 
 of my communications, and to act upon them, sooner or 
 later. All this morning Mr. Colquhoun was locked up with 
 your wife in her boudoir. He came at eleven and went 
 away at half-past one. No one was admitted. They talked 
 of many things — of their Scotch secret especially, and how 
 to hide it from you. I shall keep you informed of what 
 they do. At half-past two Mrs. Cassilis ordered the carriage 
 and drove to Twickenham. Mr. Colquhoun has got his 
 ward there. Miss Fleming. So that doubtless she went to 
 meet him again. In the evening she came home in a very 
 bad temper, because she had failed to meet him. She 
 had hoped to see him three times at least this very day. 
 Surely, surely even your blind confidence cannot stand a 
 continuation of this kind of thing. All the world knows it 
 except yourself. You may be rich and generous to her, 
 but she doesn't love you. And she doesn't care for her 
 child. She hasn't asked to see it for three days — think of 
 that ! There is a pretty mother for you ! She ill-treats 
 her maid, who is a most faithful, Jionest person, and devoted 
 to your interests. She is hated by every servant in the 
 house. She is a cold-hearted, cruel woman. And even 
 if she loves Mr. Colquhoun, it can only be through jealousy, 
 and because she won't let him marry anybody else, even 
 if lie wanted to. But things are coming to a crisis. 
 Wait ! " 
 
 Mr. Mowll came in with a packet of papers, and found 
 his master staring straight before him into space. He spoke 
 to him, but received no answer. Then he touched him
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 363 
 
 gently on the arm. ]\Ir. Cassilis started, and looked round 
 hastily. His first movement was to lay his hand upon a 
 letter on the desk. 
 
 " What is it, Mowll — what is it ? I was thinking — I was 
 thinking. I am not very well to-day, Mowll." 
 
 " You have been working too hard, sir," said his secretary. 
 
 " Yes — yes. It is nothing. Now, then, let us look at 
 w^hat you have brought." 
 
 For two hours Mr. Cassilis worked with his secretary. 
 He had the faculty of rapid and decisive work. And 
 he had the eye of a hawk. They were two hours of 
 good work, and the secretary's notes were voluminous. 
 Suddenly the financier stopped — the work half done. It 
 was as if the machinery of a clock were to go wrong without 
 warning. 
 
 " So," he said, with an eifort, " I think we will stop for 
 to-day. Put all these matters at work, Mowll. I shall go 
 home and rest." 
 
 A thing he had never done before in all his life. 
 
 He went back to his house. His wife was at home and 
 alone. They had luncheon together, and drove out in the 
 afternoon. Her calm and stately pride drove the jealous 
 doubts from his troubled mind as the sun chases away the 
 mists of morning-. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 " An excellent play." 
 
 QlUCH things as dinners to Literature were the relaxations 
 y~J of Gilead Beck's serious life. His real business was to 
 find an object worthy of that enormous income of which he 
 found himself the trustee. The most sympathetic man of 
 his acquaintance, although it was difficult to make him 
 regard any subject seriously, was Jack Dunquerque, and 
 to him he confided his anxieties and difiiculties. 
 
 " I can't fix it," he groaned. " I can't fix it anyhow."
 
 364 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Jack knew what he meant, but waited for farther light, 
 like him who readeth an acrostic. 
 
 " The more I look at that growin' pile — there's enough 
 now to build the White House over again — the more I 
 misdoubt myself." 
 
 " Where have you got it all ? " 
 
 "In Government Stocks — by the help of Mr. Cassilis. 
 No more of the unholy traffic in shares which you buy to 
 sell again. No, sir. That means makin' the widow weep 
 and the minister swear; an' I don't know which spectacle 
 of those two is the more melancholy for a Christian man. 
 All in stocks — Government Stocks, safe and easy to draw 
 out, with the interest comin' in regular as the chant of the 
 cuckoo-clock." 
 
 " Well, can't you let it stay there ? " 
 
 " No, Mr. Dunquerque ; I can't. There's the voice of 
 that blessed Inseck in the box there, night and day, in my 
 ears. And it says, plain as speech can make it, ' Do some- 
 thing with the money.' " 
 
 " You have bought a few pictures." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; I have begun the great Gilead P. Beck 
 collection. And when that is finished, I guess there'll be 
 no collection on this airth to show a candle to it. But 
 that's personal vanity. That's not what the Golden Butter- 
 fly wants." 
 
 " Would he like you to have a yacht ? A good deal may 
 be chucked over a yaclit. That is, a good deal for what we 
 Englishmen call a rich man." 
 
 "When I go home again I mean to build a yacht, and 
 sail her over here and race your people at Cowes — all the 
 same as the America, twenty years ago. But not yet." 
 
 " There are a few trifles going about which run away 
 with money. Polo, now. If you play polo hard enough, 
 you may knock up a pony every game. But I suppose 
 that would not be expensive enough for you. You couldn't 
 ride two ponies at once, I suppose, like a circus fellow ? " 
 
 " Selfish luxury, Mr. Dunquerque," said Gilead, with an 
 almost prayerful twang, " is not the platform of the Golden
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 365 
 
 Butterfly. I should like to ride two ponies at once, but 
 it's not to be thought of. And my legs are too long for any 
 but a Kentucky pony." 
 
 " Is the Turf selfish luxury, I wonder ? " asked Jack. " A 
 good deal of money can be got through on the Turf. 
 Nothing, of course, compared with your pile ; but still, you 
 might make a sensible hole in it by judicious backing." 
 
 Gilead Beck was as free from ostentation, vanity, and the 
 desire to have his ears tickled as any man. But still he 
 did like to feel that by the act of Providence, he was sepa- 
 rated from other men. An income of fifteen hundred pounds 
 a day, which does not depend upon harvests, or on coal, 
 or on iron, or anything to eat and drink, but only on the 
 demand for rock-oil, which increases, as he often said, with 
 the march of civilisation, does certainly separate a man 
 from his fellows. This feeling of division saddened him ; 
 it imparted something of the greatness of soul which belongs 
 even to the most unworthy emperors ; he felt himself bound 
 to do something for the good of mankind while life and 
 strength were in him. And it was not unpleasant to know 
 that others recognised the vastness of his Luck. There- 
 fore, when Jack Dunquerque spoke as if the Turf were a 
 gulf which might be filled up with his fortune, while it 
 swallowed, without growing sensibly more shallow, all the 
 smaller fortunes yearly shot into it like the rubbish on the 
 future site of a suburban villa, Gilead Beck smiled. Such 
 recognition from this young man was doubly pleasant to 
 him on account of his unbounded affection for him. Jack 
 Dunquerque had saved his life. Jack Dunquerque treated 
 him as an equal and a friend. Jack Dunquerque wanted 
 nothing of him, and, poor as he was, would accept nothing 
 of him. Jack Dunquerque was the first, as he was also 
 the most favourable, specimen he had met of the class 
 which may be poor, but does not seem to care for more 
 money ; the class which no longer works for increase of 
 fortune. 
 
 " No, sir," said Gilead. " I do not understand the Turf. 
 When I go home I shall rear horses and improve the
 
 366 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 breed. Maybe I may run a horse in a trotting-matcli at 
 Saratoga." 
 
 In the mornings this American, in search of a Worthy 
 Object, devoted his time to making the round of hospitals, 
 London societies, and charities of all kinds. He asked 
 what they did, and why they did it. He made remarks 
 which were generally unpleasant to the employes of the 
 societies; he went away without offering the smallest 
 donation ; and he returned moodily to the Laugham 
 Hotel. 
 
 " The English," he said, after a fortnight of these investi- 
 gations, "air the most kind-hearted people in the hull 
 world. We are charitable, and I believe the Germans, 
 when they are not officers in their own army, are a well- 
 disposed folk. But in America, when a man tumbles 
 down the ladder, he falls hard. Here there's every con- 
 trivance for makin' him fall soft. A man don't feel hand- 
 some when he's on the broad of his back, but it must be 
 a comfort for him to feel that his backbone isn't broke. 
 Lord, Mr. Dunquerque ! to look at the hospitals and 
 refuges, one would think the hull Bible had got nothin' 
 but the story of the Prodigal Son, and that every other 
 Englishman was that misbehaved boy. I reckon if the 
 young man had lived in London, he'd have gone home very 
 slow — most as slow as ever he could travel. There'd be 
 the hospitals, comfortable and warm, when his constitootion 
 had broke down with too many drinks : there'd have been 
 the convalescent home for him to enjoy six months of happy 
 meditation by the seaside when he was pickin' up again; 
 and when he got well, would he take to the swine-herdin', 
 or would he tramp it home to the old man? Not he, sir; 
 he would go back to the old courses and become a Roper. 
 Then more hospitals. P'r'aps when he'd got quite tired, 
 and seen the inside of a State prison, and been without 
 his little comforts for a spell, he'd have gone home at last — 
 just as I did, for I was the prodigal son without the riotous 
 livin' — and found the old man gone, leavin' him his blessin'. 
 The elder one would hand him the blessin' cheerfully, and
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERELY. 367 
 
 stick to the old man's farm. Then the poor broken down 
 sportsman — he'd tramp it back to London, get into an 
 almshouse, with an allowance from a City charity, and die 
 happy. 
 
 " There's another kind o' prodigal," Mr. Beck went on, 
 being in a mood for moralising. " She's of the other sex. 
 Formerly she used to repent when she thought of what 
 was before her. There's a refuge before her now, and kind 
 women to take her by the hand and cry over her. She 
 isn't in any hurry for the cryin' to begin, but it's com- 
 fortable to look forward to ; and so she goes on until 
 she's ready. Twenty years fling, maybe, with nothing to 
 do for her daily bread ; and then to start fair on the 
 same level as the woman who has kept her self-respect and 
 worked. 
 
 " I can't see my way clear, Mr. Dunquerque ; I can't. 
 It wouldn't do any kind of honour to the Golden Butterfly 
 to lay out all these dollars in helpin' up them who are 
 bound to fall — bound to fall. There's only tw^o classes 
 of people in this world — those who are goin' up, and 
 those who are goin' down. It's no use tryin' to stop 
 those who are on their way down. Let them go ; let 
 them slide ; give them a shove down, if you like, and 
 all the better, because they will the sooner get to the 
 bottom, and then go up again till they find their own 
 level." 
 
 It was in the evening, at nine o'clock, when Gilead 
 Beck made this oration. He was in his smaller room, 
 which was lit only by the twilight of the May evening 
 and by the gas-lamp in the street below. He walked 
 up and down, talking with his hands in his pockets, 
 and silencing Jack Dunquerque, who had never thought 
 seriously about these or any other things, by his earnest- 
 ness. Every now and then he went to the window 
 and looked into the street below. The cabs rattled up 
 and down, and on the pavement the customary sight 
 of a West-end street after dark perhaps gave him in- 
 spiration.
 
 368 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Their o^yn level," he repeated it. " Yes, sir, there's 
 a proper level for every one of us somewhere, if only 
 we can find it. At the lowest depth of all there's the 
 airth to be ploughed, the hogs to be drove, and the 
 corn to be reaped. I read the other day, when I was 
 studying for the great dinner, that formerly, if a man 
 took refuge in a town, he might stay there for a year 
 and a day. If then he could not keep himself, they 
 opened the gates and they ran him out on a plank ; 
 same way as I left Clearville City. Back to the soil 
 he went — back to the plough. Let those who are going 
 down hill get down as fast as they can, and go back to 
 the soil, 
 
 " I've sometimes thought," he went on, " that there's 
 a kind of work lower than agriculture. It is to wear 
 a black coat and do copying. You take a boy and you 
 make him a machine ; tell him to copy, that is all. Why, 
 sir, the rustic who feeds the pigs is a Solomon beside 
 that poor critter. Make your poor helpless paupers into 
 clerks, and make the men who've got arms and legs 
 and no brains into farm-labourers. Perhaps I shall build 
 a city and conduct it on those principles." 
 
 Then he stopped because he had run himself down, and 
 they began to talk of Phillis. 
 
 But it seemed to Jack a new and singular idea. The 
 weak must go to the wall ; but they might be helped 
 to find their level. He was glad for once that he had 
 that small four hundred a year of his own, because, as 
 he reflected, his own level might be somewhere on the 
 stage where the manufacture by hand, say, of upper leathers, 
 represents the proper occupation of the class. A good 
 many other fellows, he thought, among his own acquaint- 
 ance, might find themselves accommodated with boards 
 for the cobbling business near himself. And he looked 
 at Gilead Beck with increased admiration as a man 
 who had struck all this, as well as lie, out of his own 
 head. 
 
 Jack Dunquerque suggested educational endowments. Mr.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 369 
 
 Beck made deliberate inquiries into the endowments of 
 Oxford and Cambridge, with a view of founding a grand 
 National American University on the old lines, to be 
 endowed in perpetuity with the proceeds of his perennial 
 oil-fountains. But there were things about these ancient 
 seats of learning which did not commend themselves to 
 him. In his unscholastic ignorance he asked what was the 
 good of pitting young men against each other, like the 
 gladiators in the arena, to fight, like them, with weapons 
 of no earthly modern use. And when he was told of fellow- 
 ships given to men for life as a prize for a single battle, he 
 laughed aloud. 
 
 He went down to Eton. He was mean enough to say 
 of the masters that they made their incomes by overcharg- 
 ing the butchers' and the grocers' bills, and he said that 
 ministers, as he called them, ought not to be grocers ; 
 and of the boys he said that he thought it unwholesome 
 for them that some should have unlimited pocket-money, 
 and all should have unlimited tick. Also some one told 
 him that Eton boys no longer fight, because they funk one 
 another. So that he came home sorrowful and scornful. 
 
 "In my country," he said, "we have got no scholar- 
 ships, and if the young men can't pay their professors 
 they do without them and educate themselves. And in 
 my country the boys fight. Yes, Mr. Dunquerque, you bet 
 they do fight." 
 
 It was after an evening at the Lyceum that Gilead Beck 
 hit upon the grand idea of his life. 
 
 The idea struck him as they walked home. It fell upon 
 him like an inspiration, and for the moment stunned him. 
 He was silent until they reached the hotel. Then he called 
 a waiter. 
 
 " Get Mr. Dunquerque a key," he said. " He will sleep 
 here. That means, Mr. Dunquerque, that we can talk all 
 night if you please. I want advice." 
 
 Jack laughed. He always did laugh. 
 
 " It is a great privilege," he said, " advising Fortunatus." 
 
 " It is a great privilege, Mr. Dunquerque," returned 
 
 2 A
 
 370 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Fortnnatus, " hfiving an adviser wlio wants nothing for 
 himself. See that pile of letters. Every one a begging- 
 letter, except that blue one on the top, which is from a 
 clergyman. He's a powerful generous man, sir. He offers 
 to conduct my charities at a salary of three hundred pounds 
 a year." 
 
 Mr. Beck then proceeded to unfold the great idea which 
 had sprung up, full grown, in his brain. 
 
 " That man, sir," he said, meaning Henry Irving, " is a 
 grand actor. And they are using him up. He wants 
 rest. 
 
 " I was an actor myself once, and I've loved the boards 
 ever since. I was not a great actor. I am bound to say 
 that I did not act like Mr. Henry Irving. Quite the 
 contrary. Once I was the hind legs of an elephant. 
 Perhaps Mr. Irving himself, when he was a 'prentice, was 
 the fore legs. I was on the boards for a month, when 
 the company busted up. Most things did bust up that I 
 had to do with in those days. I was the lawyer in Flowers 
 of the Forest. I was the demon with the keg to Mr. Jeffer- 
 son's Rip Van Winkle. Once I played Horatio. That was 
 when the Mayor of Constantinople City inaugurated his 
 year of office by playin' Hamlet. He'd always been fond 
 of the stage, that Maj^or, but through bein' in the soft- 
 goods line never could find time to go on. So when he got 
 the chance, bein' then a matter of four-and-fifty, of course 
 he took it. And he elected to play Hamlet, just to show 
 the citizens what a whole-souled Mayor they'd got, and the 
 people in general what good play-actin' meant. The cor- 
 poration attended in a body, and sat in the front row of 
 what you would call the dress circle. All in store clothes 
 and go-to-meetin' gloves. It was a majestic and an impos- 
 ing spectacle. Behind them was the fire brigade in uni- 
 form. The citizens of Constantinople and their wives and 
 daughters crowded out the house. 
 
 " Wal, sir, we began. Whether it was they felt jealous, 
 or whether they felt envious, that corporation laughed. They 
 laughed at the sentinels, and they laughed at the moon.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 371 
 
 They laughed at the Ghost, and they laughed at me — 
 Horatio. And then they laughed at Hamlet, 
 
 " I watched the Mayor gettin' gradually riz. Any man's 
 dander would. Presently he rose to that height that he 
 went straight to the footlights, and stood there faciu' his 
 own town council like a bull behind a gate. 
 
 " They left off laughing for a minute, and then they began 
 again. We air a grave people, Mr. Dunquerque, I am told, 
 and the sight of those town councillors all laughin' together 
 like so many free niggers before the war was most too much 
 for any one. 
 
 " The Mayor made a speech that wasn't in the play. 
 
 " ' Hyar,' he said, lookin' solemn. ' You jest gether up 
 your traps and skin out of this. I've got the say about this 
 house, and I arn't a goin' to have the folks incited to make 
 game of their Mayor. So — you — kin — jist— light.' 
 
 " They hesitated. 
 
 " The Mayor pointed to the back of the theatre. 
 
 " ' Git,' he said again. 
 
 " One of the town councillors rose and spoke. 
 
 " ' Mr. Mayor,' he began, ' or Hamlet, Prince of Den- 
 mark ' 
 
 " ' Wal, sir,' said the Mayor. ' Didn't Nero play in his 
 own theaytre ? ' 
 
 " ' Mr. Mayor, or Hamlet, or Nero,' he went on, ' we 
 came here on the presumption that we were paying for our 
 places, and bound to laugh if we were amused at the per- 
 formance. Now, sir, this performance does amuse us con- 
 siderable.' 
 
 " ' You may presump,' said the Mayor, ' what you 
 dam please. But git. Git at once, or I'll turn on the 
 pumps.' 
 
 " It was the Ghost who came to the front with the hose in 
 his hands ready to begin. 
 
 " The town council disappeared before he had time to play 
 on them, and we went on with the tragedy. 
 
 " But it was spoiled, sir, completely spoiled. And I have 
 never acted since then.
 
 372 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " So you see, Mr. Dunquerque, I know somethin' about 
 actin'. 'Tisn't as if I was a raw youngster starting a 
 theatrical idea all at once. I thought of it to-night, 
 while I saw a man actin' who has the real stuff in him, 
 and only wants rest. I mean to try an experiment in 
 London, and if it succeeds I shall take it to New York, 
 and make the American Drama the greatest in all the 
 world." 
 
 " What will you do ? " 
 
 " I said to myself in that theatre : ' We want a place 
 where we can have a different piece acted every week ; 
 we want to give time for rehearsals and for altera- 
 tion ; we want to bring up the level of the second - rate 
 actors ; we want more intelligence ; and we want more 
 care.' Now, Mr. Dunquerque, how would you tackle that 
 problem ? " 
 
 " I cannot say." 
 
 " Then I will tell you, sir. You must have three full 
 companies. You must give up expecting that Theatre to 
 pay its expenses ; you must find a rich man to pay for that 
 Theatre ; and he must pay up pretty handsome." 
 
 " Lord de Molleteste took the Eoyal Hemisphere last 
 year." 
 
 " Had he thi-ee companies, sir ? " 
 
 " No ; he only had one ; and that was a bad one. Wanted 
 to bring out a new actress, and nobody went to see her. Cost 
 him a hundred pounds a week till he shut it up." 
 
 " Well, we will bring along new actresses too, but in a 
 different fashion. They will have to work their way up 
 from the bottom of the ladder. My Theatre will cost me a 
 good deal more than a hundred pounds a week, I expect. 
 But I am bound to run it. The idea's in my head strong. 
 It's the thing to do. A year or two in London, and then for 
 the States. We shall have a Grand National Drama, and 
 the He shall pay for it." 
 
 He took paper and pen, and began to write. 
 
 " Three companies, all complete, for tragedy and comedy. 
 I've been to every theatre in London, and I'm ready with
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 2>73 
 
 my list. Now, Mr. Dunquerque, you listen while I write 
 them down. 
 
 " I say first company ; not that there's any better or worse, 
 but because one must begin with something. 
 
 " In the first I will have Mr. Irving, Mr. Henry Neville, 
 Mr. Willian Farren, Mr. Toole, Mr. Emery, Miss Bateman, 
 and Miss Nelly Farren. 
 
 " In the second, Mr. George Eignold — I saw him in Henry 
 V. last winter in the States — Mr. Hare, Mr. Kendal, Mr. 
 Lionel Brongh, Mrs. Kendal, and that clever little lady, Miss 
 Angelina Claude. 
 
 " In the third I will have Mr. Phelps, Mr. Charles 
 Matthews, Mr. W. J. Hill, Mr. Arthur Cecil, Mr. Kelly, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Bancroft, and Mrs. Scott- Siddons, if you could 
 only get her. 
 
 " I should ask Mr. Alfred Wigan to be stage-manager 
 and general director, and I would give him absolute 
 power. 
 
 " Every company will play for a week and rehearse for a 
 fortnight. The principal parts shall not always be played 
 by the best actors. And I will not have any piece run for 
 more than a week at a time." 
 
 "And how do you think your teams would run together?" 
 
 " Sir, it would be a distinction to belong to that Theatre. 
 And they would be well paid. They will run together just 
 for the very same reason as everybody runs together — for 
 their own interest." 
 
 " I believe," said Jack, " that you have at last hit upon a 
 plan for getting rid even of your superfluous cash." 
 
 " It will cost a powerful lot, I believe. But Lord, Mr. 
 Dunquerque ! what better object can there be than to 
 improve the Stage? Think what it would mean. The 
 House properly managed; no loafin' around behind the 
 scenes ; every actor doing his darn best, and taking time for 
 study and rehearsal ; people comin' down to a quiet evening, 
 with the best artists to entertain them, and the best pieces 
 to play. The Stage would revive, sir. We should hear no 
 more about the decay of the Drama. The Drama decay!
 
 374 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 That's bunkum, sir. That's the invention of the priests and 
 the ministers, who go about down-cryin' what they can't 
 have their own finger in." 
 
 "But I don't see how your scheme will encourage authors." 
 
 " I shall pay them too, sir. I should say to ]\Tr. Byron : 
 ' Sir, you air a clever and a witty man. Go right away, sir. 
 Sit down for a twelvemonth, and do nothin' at all. Then 
 write me a play; put your own jokes in it, not old jokes; 
 put your own situations in it, not old ones. Give me some- 
 thin' better.' Then I should say to Mv. Gilbert : ' Your 
 pieces have got the real grit, young gentleman : but you 
 write too fast. Go away too for six months and do nothin'. 
 Then sit down for six months more, and write a piece that 
 will be pretty and sweet, and won't be thin.' And there's 
 more dramatists behind — only give them a chance. They 
 shall have it at my House." 
 
 "And what will the other houses do ? " 
 
 " The other houses, sir, may go on playing pieces for four 
 hundred nights if they like. I leave them plenty of men 
 to stump their boards, and my Theatre won't hold more than 
 a certain number. I shall only take a small house to begin 
 with, such a house as the Lyceum, and we shall gradually 
 get along. But no profit can be made by such a Stage, and 
 I am ready to give half my He to keep it goin'. Of course," 
 he added, " when it is a success in London I shall carry it 
 away, company and all, to New York." 
 
 He rose in a burst of enthusiasm. 
 
 " Gilead P. Beck shall be known for his collection of 
 pictures. He shall be known for liis Golden Butterfly, and 
 the Luck it brought him. But he shall be best known, Mr. 
 Dunquerque, because he will be the first man to take the 
 Stage out of the mud of commercial enterprise, and raise it 
 to be the great educator of the people. He shall be known 
 as the founder of the Grand National American Drama. 
 And his bust shall be planted on the top of every American 
 staofe."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 375 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 " In such a cause who would not give ? What heart 
 But leaps at such a name ? " 
 
 PEOPLE of rank and position are apt to complain of beg- 
 ging-letters. Surely England must be a bappy country 
 since its ricb people complain mostly of begging-letters ; 
 for tbey are so easily dropped into tbe waste-paper basket. 
 A country squire — any man with a handle to his name and 
 a place for a permanent address — is the natural prey and 
 victim of the beggars. The lithographed letter comes with 
 every post, trying in vain to look like a written letter. 
 And though in fervid sentences it shows the danger to your 
 immortal soul if you refuse the pleading, most men have 
 the courage to resist. The fact is that the letter is not a 
 nuisance at all, because it is never read. On the other hand, 
 a new and very tangible nuisance is springing up. It is 
 that of the people who go round and call. Sir Roger de 
 Coverley in his secluded village is free from the women who 
 give you the alternative of a day with Moody and Sankey, 
 or an eternity of repentance; he never sees the pair of 
 Sisters got up like Roman Catholic nuns, who stand meekly 
 before you, arms crossed, mutely refusing to go without five 
 shillings at least for their Ritualist hot-house. But he who 
 lives in chambers, he who puts up at a great hotel and 
 becomes known, he who has a house in any address from 
 Chester Square to Netting Hill, understands this trouble. 
 
 In some mysterious way Gilead Beck had become known. 
 Perhaps this was partly in consequence of his habit of going 
 to institutions, charities, and the like, and wanting to find 
 out everything. In some vague and misty way it became 
 known that there was at the Langham Hotel an American 
 named Gilead P. Beck, who was asking questions philan- 
 thropically. Then all the people who live on philanthropists, 
 with all those who work for their pleasure among philan- 
 thropists, began to tackle Gilead P. Beck. Letters came in
 
 yje THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 
 
 the morning, which he read but did not answer. Circulars 
 were sent to him, of which he perhaps made a note. Tele- 
 grams were even delivered to him — people somehow rimst 
 read telegrams — asking him for money. Those wonderful 
 people who address the Affluent in the Times and ask for 
 i^300 on the security of an honest man's word ; those 
 unhappy ladies whose father was a gentleman and an officer, 
 on the strength of which fact they ask the Benevolent to 
 help them in their undeserved distress, poor things ; those 
 disinterested advertisers who want a few hundreds, and who 
 will give fifteen per cent, on the security of a splendid piano, 
 a small gallery of undoubted pictures, and some unique 
 china ; those tradesmen who try to stave off bankruptcy by 
 asking the world generally for a loan on the strength of a 
 simple reference to the clergyman of St. Tinpot, Hammer- 
 smith ; those artful dodgers, Mr. Ally Sloper and his friends, 
 when they have devised a new and ingenious method of 
 screwing money out of the rich, — all these people got hold 
 of our Gilead, and pelted him with letters. Did they 
 know, the ingenious and the needy, how the business is 
 overdone, they would change their tactics and go round 
 calling. 
 
 It requires a front of brass, entire absence of self-respect, 
 and an epidermis like that of the rhinoceros for toughness, 
 to undertake this work. Yet ladies do it. You want a 
 temperament off which insults, gibes, sneers, and blank 
 refusals fall like water off a nasturtium-leaf to go the 
 begging-round. Yet women do it. They do it not only for 
 themselves, but also for their cause. From Ritualism down 
 to Atheism, from the fashionable enthusiasm to the nihilism 
 which the British workman is being taught to regard as the 
 hidden knowledge, there are women who will brave anything, 
 dare anything, say anything, and endure anything. They 
 love to be martyred, so long especially as it does not hurt ; 
 they are angry with the lukewarm zeal of their male sup- 
 porters, forgetting that a man sees the two sides of a question, 
 while a woman never sees more than one ; they mistake 
 notoriety for fame, and contempt for jealous admiration.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. yj-j 
 
 And liere, in the very heart of London, was a man who 
 seemed simply born for the Polite Beggar. A man restless 
 because he could not part with his money. Not seeking 
 profitable investments, not asking for ten and twenty per 
 cent. ; but anxious to use his money for the best purposes ; 
 a man who was a philanthropist in the abstract, who con- 
 sidered himself the trustee of a gigantic gift to the human 
 race, and was desirous of exercising that trust to the best 
 advantage. 
 
 In London ; and at the same time, in the same city, thou- 
 sands of people not only representing their individual dis- 
 tresses or their society's wants, but also plans, schemes, and 
 ideas for the promotion of civilisation in the abstract. Do 
 we not all know the projectors ? I myself know at this 
 moment six men who want each to establish a daily paper ; 
 at least a dozen who would like a weekly ; fifty who see a 
 way, by the formation of a new society, to check immorality, 
 kill infidelity once for all, make men sober and women clean, 
 prevent strikes and destroy Eepublicanism. There is one 
 man who would " save " the Church of England by establish- 
 ing a preaching order ; one who knows how to restore Eng- 
 land to her place among the nations without a single addi- 
 tional soldier ; one who burns to abolish bishops' aprons, 
 and would make it penal to preach in a black gown. The 
 land teems with idea'd men. They yearn, pray, and sigh 
 daily for the capitalist who will reduce their idea to practice. 
 
 And besides the projectors, there are the inventors. I 
 once knew a man who claimed to have invented a means 
 for embarking and setting down passengers and goods on 
 a railway without stopping the trains. Think of the con- 
 venience. Why no railways have taken up the invention, 
 I cannot explain. Then there are men who have inventions 
 which \vill reform the whole system of domestic appliances ; 
 there are others who are prepared on encouragement to 
 reform the whole conduct of life by new inventions. There 
 are men by thousands brooding over experiments which 
 they have not money to carry out ; there are men longing to 
 carry on experiments whose previous failure they can now
 
 378 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 
 
 account for. All these men are looking for a capitalist as 
 for a Messiah. Had they known — had they but dimly 
 suspected — that such a capitalist was in June of last year 
 staying at the Langham Hotel, they would have sought that 
 hotel with one consent, and besieged its portals. The world 
 in general did not know Mr. Beck's resources. But they 
 were beginning to find him out. The voice of rumour was 
 spreading abroad his reputation. And the people wrote 
 letters, sent circulars, and called. 
 
 " Twenty-three of them came yesterday morning," Gilead 
 Beck complained to Jack Dunquerque, " Three-and-twenty, 
 and all with a tale to tell. No, sir," — his voice I'ose in 
 indignation — "I did not give one of them so much as a 
 quarter-dollar. The Luck of the Golden Butterfly is not to 
 be squandered among the well-dressed beggars of Great 
 Britain. Three-and-twenty, counting one little boy, who 
 came by himself. His mother was a widow, he said, and 
 he sat on the chair and sniffed. And they all wanted 
 money. There was one man in a white choker who had 
 found out a new channel for doing good — and one man who 
 wished to recommend a list of orphans. The rest were 
 women. And talk? There's no name for it. With little 
 books, and pencils, and bundles of tracts," 
 
 While he spoke there was a gentle tap at the door. 
 
 " There's another of them," he groaned, " Stand by me, 
 Mr, Dunquerque. See me through with it. Come in, come 
 in ! Good Lord ! " he whispered, " a brace this time. Will 
 you tackle the young one, Mr, Dunquerque ? " 
 
 A pair of ladies. One of them a lady tall and thin, stem 
 of aspect, sharp of feature, eager of expression. She wore 
 spectacles ; she was apparently careless of her dress, which 
 was of black silk a little rusty. With her was a girl of about 
 eighteen, perhaps her daughter, perhaps her niece ; a girl of 
 rather sharp but pretty features, marked by a look of deter- 
 mination, as if she meant to see the bottom of this business, 
 or know the reason why. 
 
 " You are Mr. Beck, sir ? " the elder lady began, 
 
 " I am Gilead P. Beck, madam," lie replied.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 379 
 
 He was standing before the fireplace, with his long hands 
 thrust into his pockets, one foot on an adjacent chair, and his 
 head thrown a little back — defiantly. 
 
 " You have received two letters from me, Mr. Beck, 
 written by my own hand, and — how many circulars, child ? " 
 
 " Twenty," said the girl. 
 
 " And I have had no answer. I am come for your answer, 
 Mr. Beck. We will sit down, if you please, while you con- 
 sider your answer." 
 
 Mr. Beck took up a waste-paper basket which stood at his 
 feet, and tossed out the whole contents upon the table. 
 
 " Those are the letters of yesterday and to-day," he said. 
 " What was yours, madam ? Was it a letter asking for 
 money ? " 
 
 " It was." 
 
 " Yesterday there were seventy-four letters asking for 
 money. To-day there are only fifty-two. May I ask, madam, 
 if you air the widow who wants money to run a mangle ? " 
 
 " Sir, I am unmarried. A mangle ! " 
 
 He dug his hand into the pile, and took out one at random. 
 
 "You air, perhaps, the young lady who writes to know if 
 I want a housekeeper, and encloses her carte-de-visite ? No ; 
 that won't do. Is it possible you are the daughter of the 
 Confederate general who lost his life in the cause ? " 
 
 " Really, sir ! " 
 
 " Then, madam, we come to the lady who " — liere he read 
 from another letter — " who was once a governess, and now is 
 reduced to sell her last remaining garments." 
 
 "Sir!" 
 
 There was a withering scorn on the lady's lips. 
 
 " I represent a Cause, Mr. Beck. I am not a beggar for 
 myself. My cause is the sacred one of Womanhood. You, 
 sir, in your free and happy Republic " 
 
 Mr. Beck bowed. 
 
 " Have seen woman partially restored to her proper place 
 — on a level with man." 
 
 "A higher level," murmured the girl, who had far-off eyes and 
 a sweet voice. " The higher level reached by the purer heart."
 
 38o THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Only partially restored at present. But the good work 
 goes on. Here we are only beginning. Mr. Beck, the 
 Cause wants help — your help." 
 
 He said nothing and she went on. 
 
 " We want our rights ; we want suffrage ; we want to be 
 elected for the Houses of Parliament ; we insist on equality 
 in following the professions and in enjoying the endowments 
 of Education. We shall prove that we are no whit inferior 
 to men. We want no privileges. Let us stand by pur- 
 selves." 
 
 " Wal, madam, their air helpers who shove up, and I guess 
 there air helpers who shove down," 
 
 She did not understand him, and went on with increasing 
 volubility. 
 
 " The subjection of the Sex is the most monstrous injustice 
 of all those which blot the fair fame of manhood. What is 
 there in man's physical strength that he should use it to lord 
 over the weaker half of humanity ? Why has not our sex 
 produced a Shakespeare ? " 
 
 " It has, madam," said Mr, Beck gravely. " It has pro- 
 duced all our greatest men." 
 
 She was staggered. 
 
 " Your answer, if you please, Mr. Beck." 
 
 "I have no answer, madam," 
 
 " I have written you two letters, and sent you twenty 
 circulars, urging upon you the claims of the Woman's Rights 
 Association, I have the right to ask for a reply, I expect 
 one. You will be kind enough sir, to give categorically your 
 answer to the several heads. This you will do of your 
 courtesy to a lady. We can wait here while you write it. I 
 shall probably, I ought to tell you, publish it." 
 
 " We can wait," said the young lady. 
 
 They sat with folded hands in silence. 
 
 Mr. Beck shifted his foot from the chair to the carpet. 
 Then he took his hands out of his pockets and stroked his 
 chin. Then he gazed at the ladies steadily. 
 
 Jack Dunquerque sat in the background, and rendered no 
 help whatever.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 381 
 
 "Did you ever, ladies," asked Mr. Beck, after a few 
 moments of reflection, " hear of Paul Deroon of Memphis ? He 
 was the wickedest man in all that city. Which was allowed. 
 He kept a bar where the whisky was straight and the lan- 
 guage was free, and where Paul would tell stories, once you set 
 him on, calculated to raise on end the hair of your best sofa. 
 When the Crusade began — I mean the Whisky Crusade — the 
 ladies naturally began with Paul Deroon's saloon." 
 
 " This is very tedious, my dear," said the elder lady in a 
 loud whisper. 
 
 " How did Paul Deroon behave ? Some barkeepers came 
 out and cursed while the Whisky War went on ; some gave 
 in and povired away the Bourbon ; some shut up shop and 
 took to preachin'. Paul just did nothing. You couldn't tell 
 from Paul's face that he even knew of the forty women around 
 him prayin' all together. If he stepped outside he walked 
 through as if they weren't there, and they made a lane for 
 him. If he'd been blind and deaf and dumb, Paul Deroon 
 couldn't have taken less notice." 
 
 " We shall not keep our appointment, I fear," the younger 
 lady remarked. 
 
 " They prayed, preached, and sang hymns for a whole 
 week. On Sunday they sang eighty strong. And on the 
 seventh day Paul took no more notice than on the first. 
 Once they asked him if he heard the singin'. He said he 
 did ; and it was very soothin' and pleasant. Said, too, that 
 he liked music to his drink. Then they asked him if he 
 heard the prayers. He said he did ; said, too, that it was 
 cool work sittin' in the shade and listenin' ; also that it 
 kinder seemed as if it was bound to do somebody or other 
 good some day. Then they told him that the ladies were 
 waitin' to see him converted. He said it was very kind of 
 them, and, for his own part, he didn't mind meetin' their 
 wishes half way, and would wait as long as they did." 
 
 The ladies rose. Said the elder lady viciously : " You are 
 unworthy, sir, to represent your great country. You are a 
 common scoffer." 
 
 " General Schenck represents my country, madam."
 
 382 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 "You are unwortliy of being associated with a great 
 Cause. We have wasted our time upon you." 
 
 Their departure was less dignified than their entry. 
 
 As they left the room another visitor arrived. It was a 
 tall and handsome man, with a full flowing beard and a 
 genial presence. 
 
 He had a loud voice and a commanding manner. 
 
 "Mr. Beck? I thought so. I wrote to you yesterday, 
 Mr. Beck. And I am come in person — in person, sir — for 
 your reply." 
 
 " You air the gentleman, sir, interested in the orphan 
 children of a colonial bishop ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I am not. Nothing of the kind." 
 
 " Then you air perhaps the gentleman who wi'ote to say 
 that unless I sent him a ten-pound note by return of post he 
 would blow out his brains ? " 
 
 " I am Major Borington. I wrote to you, sir, on behalf of 
 the Grand National JMovement for erecting International 
 Statues." 
 
 " What is that movement, sir ? " 
 
 " A series of monuments to all our^great men, Mr. Beck. 
 America and England, sir, have ancestors in common. We 
 have our Shakespeare, sir, our Milton." 
 
 " Yes, sir, so I have heard. I did not know those ancestors 
 myself, having been born too late, and therefore I do not 
 take that interest in their stone figures as you do." 
 
 " Positively, Mr. Beck, you must join us." 
 
 " It is your idea. Colonel, is it ? " 
 
 " Mine, Mr. Beck. I am proud to say it is my own." 
 
 " I knew a man once. Colonel, in my country, who wanted 
 to be a great man. He had that ambition, sir. He wasn't 
 particular how he got his greatness. But he scorned to die 
 and be forgotten, and he yearned to go down to posterity. 
 His name, sir, was Hiram Turtle. First of all, he ambitioned 
 military greatness. We went into Bull's Run together. And 
 we came out of it together. We came away from that field 
 side by side. We left our guns there too. If we had had 
 shields, we should have left them as well. Ilii-am concluded.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 3S3 
 
 sir, after that experience, to leave military greatness to 
 others." 
 
 Major Borington interposed a gesture. 
 
 " One moment, Brigadier. The connection is coming. 
 Hiram Turtle thought the ministry opened up a field. So he 
 became a preacher. Yes ; he preached once. But he forgot 
 that a preacher must have something to say, and so the 
 elders concluded not to ask Hiram Turtle any more. Then 
 he became clerk in a store while he looked about him. For 
 a year or two he wrote poetry. But the papers in America, 
 he found, were in a league against genius. So he gave up 
 that lay. Politics was his nest move; and he went for 
 stump-orating with the Presidency in his eye. Stumpin' 
 offers amusement as well as gentle exercise, but it doesn't 
 pay unless you get more than one brace of niggers and a 
 bubbly-jock to listen. Wal, sir, how do you think Hiram 
 Turtle made his greatness ? He figured around, sir, with a 
 List, and his own name a-top, for a Grand National Monu- 
 ment to the memory of the great men who fell in the Civil 
 War. They air still subscribing, and Hiram Turtle is the 
 great Patriot. Now, General, you see the connection." 
 
 " If you mean, sir," cried Major Borington, "to imply that 
 my motives are interested " 
 
 " Not at all, sir," said Mr. Beck ; " I have told you a little 
 story. Hiram Turtle's was a remarkable case. Perhaps you 
 might ponder on it." 
 
 " Your language is insulting, sir ! " 
 
 " Colonel, this is not a country where men have to take 
 care what they say. But if you should ever pay a visit out 
 "West, and if you should happen to be about where tar and 
 feathers are cheap, you would really be astonished at the con- 
 sideration you would receive. No, sir, I shall not subscribe 
 to your Grand National Association. But go on. Captain, 
 go on. This is a charitable country, and the people haven't 
 all heard the story of Hiram Turtle. And whatll you take, 
 Major ? " 
 
 But Major Borington, clapping on his hat, stalked out of 
 the room.
 
 384 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 
 
 The visits of the strong-minded female and Major Boring- 
 ton, which were typical, took place on the day which was the 
 first and only occasion on which Phillis went to the theatre. 
 Gilead Beck took the box, and they went — Jack Dunquerque 
 being himself the fourth, as they say in Greek exercise-books 
 — to the Lyceum, and saw Henry Irving play Hamlet. 
 
 Phillis brought to the play none of the reverence with 
 which English people habitually approach Shakespeare, in- 
 somuch that while we make superhuman efforts to under- 
 stand him we have lost the power of criticism. To her, 
 George III.'s remark that there was a great deal of rubbish 
 in Shakespeare would have seemed a perfectly legitimate con- 
 clusion. But she knew nothing about the gi'eat dramatist. 
 
 The house, with its decorations, lights, and crowd, pleased 
 her. She liked the overture, and she waited with patience 
 for the first scene. She was going to see a representation 
 of life done in show. So much she understood. Instead of 
 telling a story the players would act the story. 
 
 The Ghost — perhaps because the Lyceum Ghost was so 
 palpably flesh and blood — inspired her with no terror at all. 
 But gradually the story grew into her, and she watched the 
 unfortunate Prince of Denmark torn by his conflicting emo- 
 tions, distraught with the horror of the deed that had been 
 done and the deed that was to do, with a beating lieart and 
 trembling lip. When Hamlet with that wild cry threw him- 
 self upon his uncle's throne, she gasped and caught Agatha 
 by the hand. When the play upon the stage showed the 
 Kingr how much of the truth was known, she trembled, and 
 looked to see him immediately confess his crime and go out 
 to be hanged. She was indignant with Hamlet for the 
 slaughter of Polonius ; she was contemptuous of Ophelia, 
 whom she did not understand ; and she was impatient when 
 the two Gravediggers came to the front, resolute to spare 
 the audience none of their somewhat musty old jokes and 
 to abate nothing of the stage-business. 
 
 When they left the theatre Phillis moved and spoke as in 
 a dream. War, battle, conspiracy, murder, crime — all these 
 things, of which her guardian had told her, she saw presented
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 3S5 
 
 before her on the stage. She had too much to think of; she 
 had to fit all these new surroundings in her mind with the 
 stories of the past. As for the actors, she had no power 
 whatever of distinguishing between them and the parts they 
 played. Irving was Hamlet; Miss Bateman was Ophelia; 
 and they were all like the figures of a dream, because she 
 did not understand how they could be anything but Hamlet, 
 Ophelia, and the Court of Denmark. 
 
 And this, too, was part of her education. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 " Love in her eyes lay hiding, 
 His time in patience biding." 
 
 " QQUARE it with Colquhoun before you go any farther," 
 
 O said Ladds. 
 
 Square it with the guardian — speak to the young lady's 
 father — make it all right with the authorities : what excellent 
 advice to give, and how easy to follow it up ! Who does not 
 look forward with pleasure, or backward as to an agreeable 
 reminiscence, to that half- hour spent in a confidential talk 
 with dear papa ? How calmly critical, how severely judicial, 
 was his summing up ! With what a determined air did he 
 follow up the trail, elicited in cross-examination, of former 
 sins ! With how keen a scent did he disinter forgotten 
 follies, call attention to bygone extravagances, or place the 
 finger of censure upon debts which never ought to have been 
 incurred, and economies which ought to have been made ! 
 
 Remember his "finally" — a word which from childhood 
 has been associated with sweet memories, because it brings 
 the sermon to an end, but which henceforth will awake in 
 your brain the ghost of that mauvais quart cVheure. In that 
 brief peroration he tore the veil from the last cherished 
 morsel of self-illusion ; he showed you that the furnishing of 
 a house was a costly business, that he was not going to do 
 it for you, that servants require an annual income of con- 
 
 2 B
 
 386 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 siderable extent, that his daughter had been brought up a 
 lady, that lady's dress is a serious affair, that wedlock in 
 due season brings babies, and that he was not so rich as he 
 seemed. 
 
 Well, perhaps he said "Yes" reluctantly, in spite of draw- 
 backs. Then you felt that you were regarded by the rest of 
 the family as the means of preventing dear Annabella from 
 making a brilliant match. That humbled you for life. Or 
 pQi'haps he said "No." In that case you went away sadly 
 and meditated suicide. And whether you got over the fit, 
 or whether you didn't — though of course you did — the chances 
 were that Annabella never married at all, and you are still 
 regarded by the family as the cause of that sweet creature 
 not making tbe exceptionally splendid alliance which, but 
 for you, the disturbing influence, would have been her lot. 
 
 However, the thing is necessary, unless people run away, 
 a good old fashion by which such interviews, together with 
 wedding-breakfasts, wedding-garments, and wedding-pre- 
 sents, were avoided. 
 
 Running away is out of fashion. It would have been the 
 worst form possible in Jack Dunquerque even to propose 
 such a thing to Phillis, and I am not at all certain that he 
 would ever have made her understand either the necessity 
 or the romance of the thing. And I am quite sure that she 
 would never understand that Jack Dunquerque was asking 
 her to do a wrong thing. 
 
 Certainly it was not likely that this young man would 
 proceed farther in the path of irregularity — which leads to 
 repentance — than he had hitherto done. He had now to 
 confess before the young lady's guardian something of the 
 part he had played. 
 
 Looked at dispassionately, and unsoftened by the haze of 
 illusion, this part had, as he acknowledged with groans, an 
 appearance far from pleasing to the Christian moralist. 
 
 He had taken advantage of the girl's total ignorance to 
 introduce himself at the house where she was practically 
 alone for the whole day ; he found her like a child in the 
 absence of the reserve which girls are trained to ; he stepped
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 3S7 
 
 at once into the position of a confidential friend ; lie took 
 her about for walks and drives, a thing which might have 
 compromised her seriously ; he allowed Joseph Jagenal, 
 without, it is true, stating it in so many words, to believe 
 him an old friend of Phillis's ; he followed her to Twickenham 
 and installed himself at Mrs. L'Estrange's as an ami de 
 famille ; he had done so much to make the girl's life bright 
 and happy, he was so dear to her, that he felt there was but 
 one step to be taken to pass from a brother to a lover. 
 
 It was a black record to look at, and it was poor consola- 
 tion to think that any other man would have done the same. 
 
 Jack Dunquerque, like Phillis herself, was changed within 
 a month. Somehow the fun and carelessness which struck 
 Gilead Beck as so remarkable in a man of five-and-twenty 
 were a good deal damped. For the first time in his life he 
 was serious ; for the first time he had a serious and definite 
 object before him. He was perfectly serious in an unbounded 
 love for Phillis. Day by day the sweet beauty of the girl, 
 her grace, her simple faith, her child-like affection, sank into 
 his heart and softened him. Day after day, as he rowed 
 along the meadows of the Thames, or lazied under the hang- 
 ing willows by the shore, or sat with her in the ga.rden, or 
 rode along the leafy roads by her side, the sincerity of her 
 nature, as clear and cloudless as the blue depths of heaven ; 
 its purity, like the bright water that leaps and bubbles and 
 Hows beneath the shade of Lebanon ; its perfect truthfulness, 
 like the midday sunshine in June ; the innocence with which, 
 even as another Eve, she bared her very soul for him to read 
 — these things, when he thought of them, brought the 
 unaccustomed tears to his eyes, and made his spirit rise and 
 bound within him as to unheard-of heights. For love, to an 
 honest man, is like Nature to a poet or colour to an artist — 
 it makes him see great depths, and gives him, if only for once 
 in his life, a Pisgah view of a Land far, far holier, a life far, 
 far higher, a condition far, far sweeter and nobler than any- 
 thing in this world can give us — except the love of a good 
 woman. In such a vision the ordinary course of our life is 
 suspended ; we move on air ; we see men as trees walking,
 
 388 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 and regard them not. Happy the man who once in his life 
 has been so lifted out of the present, and knows not after- 
 wards whether he was in the liesh or out of the flesh. 
 
 Jack, with the influence of this great passion upon him, 
 was transformed. Fortunately for us this emotion had its 
 ebb and flow. Else that great dinner to Literature had never 
 come off. But at all times he was under its sobering influ- 
 ence. And it was in a penitent and humble mood that he 
 sought Lawrence Colquhoun, in the hope of " squaring it " 
 with him as Ladds advised. Good fellow, Tommy ; none 
 better ; but wanting in the higher delicacy. Somehow the 
 common words and phrases of every-day use applied to 
 Phillis jarred upon him. After all, one feels a difficulty in 
 offering a princess the change for a shilling in coppers. If I 
 had to do it, I should fall back on a draught upon the Cheque 
 Bank. 
 
 Lawrence was full of his own annoyances — most of us 
 always are, and it is one of the less understood ills of life 
 that one can never get, even for five minutes, a Monopoly of 
 Complaint. But he listened patiently while Jack — Jack of 
 the Rueful Countenance — poured out his tale of repentance, 
 woe, and prayer. 
 
 "You see," he said, winding up, " I never thought what it 
 would come to. I dropped into it by accident, and then — 
 then " 
 
 " When people come to flirt they stay to spoon," said 
 Lawrence. " In other words, my dear fellow, you are in 
 love. Ah!" 
 
 Jack wondered what was meant by the interjection. In 
 all the list of interjections given by Lindley Murray, or the 
 new light Dr. Morris, such as Pish ! Pshaw ! Alas ! Humph ! 
 and the rest which are in everybody's mouth, there is none 
 which blows with such an uncertain sound as this. Impos- 
 sible to tell whether it means encouragement, sympathy, or 
 cold distrust. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Lawrence. " Sit down and be comfortable, 
 Jack. When one is really worried, nothing like a perfect 
 chair Take my own. Now, then, let us talk it over."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 389 
 
 " It doesn't look well," thought Jack. 
 
 " Always face the situation," said Lawrence (he had got 
 an uncommonly awkward situation of his own to face, and it 
 was a little relief to turn to some one else's). " Nothing 
 done by blinking facts. Here we are. Young lady of 
 eighteen or so — just released from a convent ; ignorant of 
 the world ; pretty ; attractive ways ; rich, as girls go — on 
 the one hand. On the other, you : good-looking, as my 
 cousin Agatha L'Estrange says, though I can't see it ; of a 
 cheerful disposition — aptus ludere, fit to play, cum puclld, 
 all the day " 
 
 " Don't chaff, Colquhoun ; it's too serious." 
 
 But Colquhoun went on : 
 
 " An inflammable young man. Well, with any other girl 
 the danger would have been seen at once ; poor Phillis is so 
 innocent that she is supposed to be quite safe. So you go 
 on calling. My cousin Agatha writes me word that she has 
 been looking for the light of love, as she calls it, in Phillis's 
 eyes ; and it isn't there. She is a sentimentalist, and there- 
 fore silly. Why didn't she look in your eyes. Jack ? That 
 would have been very much more to the purpose." 
 
 " She has, now. I told her yesterday that I — I — loved 
 Phillis." 
 
 " Did she ask you to take the young lady's hand and a 
 blessing at once ? Come, Jack, look at the thing sensibly. 
 There are two or three very strong reasons why it can't be." 
 
 " Why it can't be ! " echoed Jack dolefully. 
 
 " First, the girl hasn't come out. Now, I ask you, would 
 it not be simply sinful not to give her a fair run ? In any 
 case you could not be engaged till after she has had one 
 season. Then her father, who did not forget that he was 
 grandson of a Peer, wanted his daughter to make a good 
 match, and always spoke of the fortune he was to leave her 
 as a guarantee that she would marry well. He never thought 
 he was going to die, of course ; but at all events I know so 
 much of his wishes. Lastly, my dear Jack Dunquerque, 
 you are the best fellow in the world, but, you know — 
 but"
 
 390 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 
 
 "Bat I am not Lord Isleworth." 
 
 " That is just it. You are his lordship's younger brother, 
 with one or two between you and the title. Now don't you 
 see ? Need we talk about it any more ? " 
 
 " I suppose Phil — I mean Miss Fleming — will be allowed 
 to choose for herself. You are not going to make her marry 
 a man because he happens to have a title and an estate, and 
 offers himself?" 
 
 "I suppose," said Lawrence, laughing, "that I am going 
 to lock Phillis up in a tower until the right man comes. 
 No, no, Jack; there shall be no compulsion. If she sets 
 her heart upon marrying you — she is a downright young 
 lady — why, she must do it ; but after she has had her run 
 among the ball-rooms, not before. Let her take a look 
 round first ; there will be other Jack Dunquerques ready to 
 look at, be sure of that. Perhaps she will think them fairer 
 to outward view than you. If she does, you will have to 
 give her up in the end, you know." 
 
 " I have said no word of love to her, Colquhoun, I give 
 you my honour," said Jack hotly. " I don't think she 
 would understand it if I did." 
 
 " I am glad of that at least." 
 
 " If I am to give her up and go away, I dare say," the 
 poor youth went on, with a little choking in his throat, 
 "that she will regret me at first and for a day or two. But 
 she will get over that ; and — as you say, there are plenty of 
 fellows in the world better than myself — and " 
 
 " My dear Jack, there will be no going away. You tell 
 me you have not told her all the effect that her beaux yeux 
 have produced upon you. Well, then — and there has been 
 nothiug to compromise her at all ? " 
 
 " Nothing ; that is, once we went to the Tower in a 
 hansom cab." 
 
 " Oh, that is all, is it ? Jack Dunquerque — Jack 
 Dunquerque ! " 
 
 " And we have been up the river a good many times in a 
 boat." 
 
 "I see. The river is pleasant at this time of the year."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 391 
 
 " And we have been riding together a good deal. Phil 
 rides very well, you know." 
 
 " Does she ? It seems to me, Jack, that my cousin 
 Agatha is a fool, and that you have been having rather a 
 high time in consequence. Surely you can't complain if I 
 ask you to consider the innings over for the present ? " 
 
 " No ; I can't complain, if one may hope " 
 
 " Let us hope nothing. Sufficient for the day. He who 
 hopes nothing gets everything. Come out of it at once, 
 Jack, before you get hit too hard." 
 
 " I think no one was ever hit so hard before," said Jack. 
 " Colquhoun, you don't know your ward. It is impossible 
 for any one to be with her without falling in love with her. 
 
 She is " Here he stopped, because he could not get on 
 
 any farther. Anybody who did not know the manly nature 
 of Jack Dunquerque might have thought that he was stopped 
 by emotion, 
 
 "We all get the fever some time or other. But we 
 worry through. Look at me. Jack. I am forty, and, as you 
 see, a comparatively hale and hearty man, despite my years. 
 It doesn't shorten life, that kind of fever; it doesn't take 
 away appetite; it doesn't interfere with your powers of 
 enjoyment. There is even a luxury about it. You can't 
 remember Geraldine Arundale, now Lady Newladegge, when 
 she came out, of course. You were getting ready for Eton 
 about that time. Well, she and I carried on for a whole 
 season. People talked. Then she got engaged to her 
 present husband, after seeing him twice. She wanted a 
 Title, you see. I was very bad, that journey ; and I 
 remember that Agatha, who was in my confidence, had a 
 hot time of it over the faithlessness of shallow hearts. But 
 I got over the attack, and I have not been dangerously ill, 
 so to speak, since. That is, I have made a contemptible 
 ass of myself on several occasions, and I dare say I shall 
 go on making an ass of myself as long as I live. Because 
 the older you grow, somehow, the sweeter do the flowers 
 smell." 
 
 Jack only groaned. It really is no kind of consolation to
 
 392 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 tell a suffering man that you have gone through it yourself. 
 Gilead Beck told me once of a man who lived in one of the 
 Southern States of America : he was a mild and placid 
 creature, inoffensive as a canary bird, quiet as a mongoose, 
 and much esteemed for his unusual meekness. This harm- 
 less being once got ear-ache — very bad ear-ache. Boy- 
 hood's ear-aches are awful things to remember; but those 
 of manhood, when they do come, which is seldom, are the 
 Devil. To him in agony came a friend, who sat down beside 
 him, like Eliphaz the Temanite, and sighed. This the harm- 
 less being who had the ear-ache put up with, though it was 
 irritating. Presently the friend began to relate how he once 
 had the ear-ache himself Then the harmless creature rose 
 up suddenly, and, seizing an adjacent chunk of wood, gave 
 that friend a token of friendship on the head with such 
 effect that he ceased the telling of that and all other stories, 
 and has remained quite dumb ever since. The jury acquitted 
 that inoffensive and meek creature, who wept when the ear- 
 ache was gone, and often laid flowers on the grave of his 
 departed friend. 
 
 Jack did not heave chunks of wood at Colquhoun. He 
 only looked at him with ineffable contempt. 
 
 " Lady Newladegge ! why, she's five-and-thirty ! and she's 
 fat!" 
 
 " She wasn't always five-and-thirty, nor was she always 
 fat. On the contrary, when she was twenty, and I was in 
 love with her, she was slender, and, if one may so speak of a 
 Peeress, she was cuddlesome ! " 
 
 " Cuddlesome ! " Jack cried, his deepest feelings outraged. 
 " Good Heavens ! to think of comparing Phil with a woman 
 who was once cuddlesome ! " 
 
 Lawrence Colquhoun laughed. 
 
 " In fifteen years, or thereabouts, perhaps you will take 
 much the same view of things as I do. Meantime Jack, let 
 things remain as they are. You shall have a fair chance 
 with the rest ; and you must remember that you have had a 
 much better chance than anybody else, because you have had 
 the first running. Leave off going to Twickenham quite so
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEKFLY. 393 
 
 much ; but don't stop going altogether, or Phillis may be led 
 to suspect. Can't you contrive to slack oflf by degrees ? " 
 
 Jack breathed a little more freely. The house, then, was 
 not shut to him. 
 
 " The young lady will have her first season next year. I 
 don't say I hope she will marry anybody else, Jack, but I 
 am bound to give her the chance. As soon as she really 
 understands a little more of life she will find out for herself 
 what is best for her, perhaps. Now we've talked enough 
 about it." 
 
 Jack Dunquerque went away sorrowful. He expected 
 some such result of this endeavour to " square " it with 
 Colquhoun, but yet he was disappointed. 
 
 " Hang it all. Jack," said Ladds, " what can you want 
 more ? You are told to wait a year. No one will step in 
 between you and the young lady till she comes out. You are 
 not told to discontinue your visits — only not to go too often, 
 and not to compromise her. What more does the man want? " 
 
 "You are a very good fellow, Tommy," sighed the lover ; 
 " a very good fellow in the main. But, you see, you don't 
 know Phil. Let me call her Phil to you, old man. There's 
 not another man in the world that I co^dd talk about her to 
 — not one, by Jove ; it would seem a desecration." 
 
 " Go on. Jack — talk away ; and I'll give you good advice." 
 
 He did talk away ! What says Solomon ? " Ointment 
 and perfume rejoice the soul ; so doth the sweetness of a 
 man's friend by hearty counsel." The Wise Man might 
 have expressed himself more clearly, but his meaning can be 
 made out. 
 
 Meantime Lawrence Colquhoun, pulling himself together 
 after Jack went away, remembered that he had not once 
 gone near his ward since he drove her to Twickenham. 
 
 " It is too bad," said Conscience ; " a whole month." 
 
 " It is all that woman's fault," he pleaded. " I have been 
 dangling about, in obedience to her, like a fool." 
 
 " Like a fool ! " echoed Conscience. 
 
 He went that very day, and was easily persuaded to stay 
 and dine with the two ladies.
 
 394 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 He said very little, but Agatlia observed him watching his 
 ward closely. 
 
 After dinner she got a chance. 
 
 It was a pleasant evening, early in June. They had straw- 
 berries on a garden-table. Phillis presently grew tired of 
 sitting under the shade, and strolled down to the river-side, 
 where she sat on the grass and threw biscuits to the swans. 
 
 " What do you think, Lawrence ? " 
 
 He was watching her in silence. 
 
 " I don't understand it, Agatha. What have you done 
 to her ? " 
 
 " Nothing. Are you pleased ? " 
 
 " You are a witch ; I believe you must have a familiar 
 somewhere. She is wonderful — wonderful ! " 
 
 " Is she a ward to be proud of and to love, Lawrence ? Is 
 she the sweetest and prettiest girl you ever saw ? My dear 
 cousin, I declare to you that I think her faultless. At least, 
 her very faults are attractive. She is impetuous and self- 
 willed, but she is full of sympathy. And that seems to have 
 grown up in her altogether in the last few months." 
 
 " Her manner appears to be more perfect than anything I 
 have ever seen." 
 
 " It is because she has no self-consciousness. She is like 
 a child still, my dear Phillis, so far." 
 
 " I wonder if it is because she cannot read ? Why should 
 we not prohibit the whole sex from learning to read ? " 
 
 " Nonsense, Lawrence. What would the novelists do ? 
 Besides, she is learning to read fast. I put her this morning 
 into the Third Lesson Book — two syllables. And it is not 
 as if she were ignorant, because she knows a great deal." 
 
 " Then why is it ? " 
 
 " I think her sweet nature has something to do with it ; 
 and, besides, she has been shielded from many bad influences. 
 We send girls to school, and — and — well, Lawrence, we can- 
 not all be angels, any more than men. If girls learn about 
 love, and establishments, and flirtations, and the rest of it, 
 why, they naturally want their share of these good things. 
 Then they get self-conscious."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFYY. 395 
 
 "What about Jack Dunquerque?" asked Lawrence 
 abruptly. " He has been to me about her." 
 
 Agatha blushed as prettily as any self-conscious young girl . 
 
 " He loves Phillis," she said ; " but Phillis only regards 
 him as a brother." 
 
 "Agatha, you are no wiser than little Red Riding Hood. 
 Jack Dunquerque is a wolf." 
 
 " I am sure he is a most honourable, good young man." 
 
 " As for good, goodness knows. Honourable no doubt, and 
 a wolf. You are a matchmaker, you bad, bad woman. I 
 believe you want him to marry that young Princess over 
 there." 
 
 " And what did you tell poor Jack ? " 
 
 " Told him to wait. Acted the stern guardian. Won't 
 have an engagement. Must let Phillis have her run. Mustn't 
 come here perpetually trying to gobble up my dainty heiress 
 Think upon that now, Cousin Agatha." 
 
 " She could not marry into a better family." 
 
 " Very true. The Dunquerques had an Ark of their own, I 
 believe, at the Deluge. But then Jack is not Lord Isleworth ; 
 and he isn't ambitious, and he isn't clever, and he isn't rich." 
 
 " Go on, Lawrence ; it is charming to see you in a new 
 character — Lawrence the Prudent ! " 
 
 " Charmed to charm la belle cousine. He is in love, and 
 he is hit as hard as any man I ever saw. But Phillis shall 
 not be snapped up in this hasty and inconsiderate manner. 
 There are lots of better partis in the field." 
 
 Then Phillis came back, dangling her hat by its ribbons. 
 The setting sun made a glory of her hair, lit up the splendour 
 of her eyes, and made a clear outline of her delicate features 
 and tall shapely figure. 
 
 " Come and sit by me, Phillis," said her guardian. " I 
 have neglected you. Agatha will tell you that I am a 
 worthless youth of forty, who neglects all his duties. You 
 are so much improved, my child, that I hardly knew you. 
 Prettier and — and — everything. How goes on the educa- 
 tion ? " 
 
 " Reading and writing," said Phillis, " do not make educa-
 
 396 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 tion. Really, Lawrence, yon ought to know better. A year 
 or two with Mr. Dyson would have done you much good. I 
 am in words of two syllables ; and Agatha thinks I am 
 getting on very nicely. I am in despair about my painting 
 since we have been to picture-galleries. And to think how 
 conceited I was once over it ! But I can draw, Lawrence ; I 
 shall not give up my drawing." 
 
 " And you liked your galleries ? " 
 
 " Some of them. The Academy was tiring. Why don't 
 they put all the portraits in one room together, so that we 
 need not waste time over them ? " 
 
 " What did you look at ? " 
 
 " I looked at what all the other people pressed to see, first 
 of all. There was a picture of Waterloo, with the French 
 and English crowded together so that they could shake 
 hands. It was drawn beautifully ; but somehow it made me 
 feel as if War was a little thing. Mr. Dyson used to say 
 that women always take the grandeur and strength out of 
 Art. Then there was a brown man with a sling on a plat- 
 form. The platform rested on stalks of corn ; and if the 
 man were to throw the stone he would topple over, and 
 tumble off his platform. And there was another one, of a 
 row of women going to be sold for slaves ; a cui'ious picture, 
 and beautifully painted, but I did not like it." 
 
 " What did you like? " 
 
 " I liked some that told their own story, and made me 
 think. There was a picture of a moor — take me to see a 
 moor, Lawrence — with a windy sky, and a wooden fence, and 
 a light upon it. Oh, I liked all the landscapes. I think our 
 artists feel trees and sunshine. But what is my opinion 
 worth ? " 
 
 " Come with me to-morrow, Phillis ; we will go through 
 the pictures together, and you shall teach me what to like. 
 Your opinion worth ? Why, child, all the opinions of all the 
 critics together are not worth yours."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 397 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 " What is it that has been done ? " 
 
 THESE anonymous letters and this fit of jealousy, the 
 more dangerous because it was a new thing, came at 
 an awkward time for Gabriel Cassilis. He had got " big " 
 things in hand, and the eyes of the City, he felt, were on 
 him. It was all-important that he should keep his clearness 
 of vision and unclouded activity of brain. For the first time 
 in his life his operations equalled, or nearly approached, his 
 ambition. For the first time he had what he called a consider- 
 able sum in his hands. That is to say, there was his own 
 money — he was reported to be worth three hundred thousand 
 pounds — Gilead Beck's little pile, with his unlimited credit, 
 and smaller sums placed in his hands for investment by 
 private friends, such as Colquhoun, Ladds, and others. A 
 total which enabled him to wait. And the share-market 
 oscillating. And telegrams in cipher reaching him from all 
 quarters. And Gabriel Cassilis unable to work, tormented 
 by the one thought, like lo by her gad-fly, attacked by fits 
 of giddiness which made him cling to the arms of his chair, 
 and relying on a brain which was active, indeed, because it 
 was filled with a never-ending succession of pictures, in 
 which his wife and Colquhoun always formed the principal 
 figures, but which refused steady work. 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis was a gamester who played to win. His 
 game was not the roulette-table, where the bank holds one 
 chance out of thirty, and must win in the long-run ; it was 
 a game in which he staked his foresight, knowledge of 
 events, financial connections, and calm judgment against 
 greed, panic, enthusiasm, and ignorance. It was his busi- 
 ness to be prepared against any turn of the tide. He would 
 have stood calmly in the Rue Quincampoix, buying in and 
 selling out up to an hour before the smash. And that would 
 have found him without a single share in Law's great 
 scheme. A great game, but a difiicult one. It requires
 
 398 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 many qualities, and when you liave got these, it requires a 
 steady watchfulness and attention to the smallest cloud 
 appearing on the horizon. 
 
 There were many clouds on the horizon. His grand coup 
 was to be in Eldorado Stock. Thanks to Mr. Wylie's 
 pamphlet they went down, and Gabriel Cassilis bought in — 
 bought all he could ; and the Stock went up. There was a 
 fortnight before settling-day. 
 
 They went up higher, and yet higher. El Senor Don 
 Bellaco de la Carambola, Minister of the Eldorado Republic at 
 St. James's, wrote a strong letter to the daily papers in reply 
 to Mr. Wylie's pamphlet. He called attention to the rapid 
 — the enormous — advance made in the State. As no one had 
 seen the place, it was quite safe to speak of buildings, banks, 
 commercial prosperity, and "openings up." It appeared, 
 indeed, from his letter that the time of universal wealth, long 
 looked for by mankind, was actually arrived for Eldorado. 
 
 The Stock went higher. Half the country clergy who had 
 a few hundreds in the bank wanted to put them in Eldorado 
 Stock. Still Gabriel Cassilis made no move, but held on. 
 
 And every day to get another of those accursed letters, 
 with some new fact ; every day to groan under fresh torture of 
 suspicion ; every day to go home and dine with the calm cold 
 creature whose beauty had been his pride, and try to think 
 that this impassive woman could be faithless ! 
 
 This torture lasted for weeks ; it began when Colquhoun 
 first went to his house, and continued through May into 
 June. His mental sufferings were so great that his speech 
 became affected. He found himself saying wrong words, or 
 not being able to hit upon the right word at all. So he grew 
 silent. When he returned home, which was now early, he 
 hovered about the house. Or he crept up to his nursery, and 
 played with his year-old child. And the nurses noticed 
 how, while he laughed and crowed to please the baby, the 
 tears came into his eyes. 
 
 The letters grew more savage. 
 
 He would take them out and look at them. Some of the 
 sentences burned into his brain like fire.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 399 
 
 " Mr. Lawrence Oolqulioiin is the only man slie ever loved. 
 Ask her for the secret. They think no one knows it. 
 
 " Does she care for the child — your child ? Ask Tomlinson 
 how often she sees it. 
 
 " When you go to your office, Mr. Colquhoun comes to your 
 house. When you come home, he goes out of it. Then they 
 meet somewhere else. 
 
 " Ask him for the secret. Then ask her, and compare what 
 they say. 
 
 " Five years ago Mr. Lawrence Colquhoun and Miss 
 Pengelley were going to be married. Everybody said so. 
 She went to Scotland. He went after her. Ask him why. 
 
 " You are an old fool with a young wife. She loves your 
 money, not you ; she despises you because you are a City 
 man ; and she loves Mr. Colquhoun." 
 
 He sat alone in his study after dinner, reading these 
 wretched things, in misery of soul. And a thought came 
 across him. 
 
 " I will go and see Colquhoun," he said. " I will talk to 
 him, and ask him what is this secret." 
 
 It was about ten o'clock. He put on his hat and took a 
 cab to Colquhoun's chambers. 
 
 On that day Lawrence Colquhoun was ill at ease. It was 
 borne in upon him with especial force — probably because it 
 was one of the sultry and thunderous days when Conscience 
 has it all her own disagreeable way — that he was and had 
 been an enormous Ass. By some accident he was acquainted 
 with the fact that he had given rise to talk by his frequent 
 visits to Victoria Cassilis, 
 
 " And to think," he said to himself, " that I only went 
 there at her own special request, and because she likes 
 quarrelling ! " 
 
 He began to think of possible dangers, not to himself, but 
 to her and to her husband, even old stories revived and things 
 forgotten brought to light. And the thing which she had 
 done came before him in its real shape and ghastliness — a 
 bad and ugly thing ; a thing for whose sake he should have 
 fled from her presence and avoided her ; a thing which he
 
 40O THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 
 
 was guilty in hiding. No possible danger to himself? 
 Well, in one sense none; in every other seuse all dangers. 
 He had known of this thing, and yet he sat at her table ; he 
 was conscious of the crime, and yet he was seen with her in 
 public places ; he was almost particeiJS criminis, because he 
 did not tell what he knew ; and yet he went day after day 
 to her house — for the pleasure of quarrelling with her. 
 
 He sat down and wrote to her. He told her that perhaps 
 she did not wholly understand him when he told her that the 
 renewed acquaintance between them must cease ; that, con- 
 sidering the past and with an eye to the future, he was 
 going to put it out of her power to compromise herself by 
 seeing her no more. He reminded her that she had a great 
 secret to keep unknown, and a great position to lose ; and 
 then he begged her to give up her wild attempts at renew- 
 ing the old ties of friendship. 
 
 The letter, considering what the secret really was, seemed 
 a wretched mockery to the writer, but he signed it and sent 
 it by his servant. 
 
 Then he strolled to his club, and read the papers before 
 dinner. But he was not easy. There was upon him the 
 weight of impending misfortune. He dined, and tried to 
 drown care in claret, but with poor success. Then he issued 
 forth — it was nine o'clock and still light — and walked gently 
 homewards. 
 
 He walked so slowly that it was half-past nine when he let 
 himself into his chambers in the Albany. His servant was 
 out, and the rooms looked dismal and lonely. They were 
 not dismal, being on the second floor, where it is light and 
 airy, and being furnished as mediaeval bachelorhood with 
 plenty of money alone understands furniture. But he was 
 nervous to-night, and grim stories came into his mind of 
 spectres and strange visitors to lonely men in chambers. 
 Such things happen mostly, he remembered, on twilight 
 evenings in midsummer. He was quite right. The only 
 ghost I ever saw myself was in one of the Inns of Court, in 
 chambers, at nine o'clock on a June evening. 
 
 He made haste to light a lamp — no such abomination as
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 401 
 
 gas was permitted in Lawrence Colquhoun's chambers; it 
 was one of the silver reading-lamps, good for small tables, 
 and provided with a green shade, so that the light might fall 
 in a bright circle, beyond which was Cimmerian blackness 
 shading off into the sepia of twilight. It was his habit, too, 
 to have lighted candles on the mantelshelf and on a table ; 
 but to-night he forgot them, so that, except for the light 
 cast upwards by the gas in the court and an opposite window 
 illuminated, and for the half-darkness of the June eveninsr, 
 the room was dark. It was very quiet, too. There were no 
 footsteps in the court below, and no voices or steps in the 
 room near him. His nearest neighbour, young Lord Orlebar, 
 would certainly not be home much before one or two, when 
 he might return with a few friends connected with the twin 
 services of the army and the ballet for a little cheerful supper. 
 Below him was old Sir Richard de Counterpane, who was by 
 this time certainly in bed, and perhaps sound asleep. Very 
 quiet — he had never known it more quiet ; and he began to 
 feel as if it would be a relief to his nerves were something or 
 somebody to make a little noise. 
 
 He took a novel, one that he had begun a week ago. 
 Whether the novel of the day is inferior to the novel of 
 Colquhouu's youth, or whether he was a bad reader of fiction, 
 cei'tainly he had been more than a week over the first volume 
 alone. 
 
 Now it interested him less than ever. 
 
 He threw it away and lit a cigar. And then his thoughts 
 went back to Victoria. What was the devil which possessed 
 the woman that she could not rest quiet ? What was the 
 meaning of this madness upon her ? 
 
 " A cold — an Arctic woman," Lawrence murmured. " Cold 
 when I told her how much I loved her ; cold when she engaged 
 herself to me ; cold in her crime ; and yet she follows me 
 about as if she was devoured by the ardour of love, like 
 another Sappho." 
 
 It was not that, Lawrence Colquhoun ; it was the spretce 
 injuria formce, the jealousy and hatred caused by the lost 
 power. 
 
 2 C
 
 402 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 
 
 " I wish," he said, starting to his feet, and walking like 
 the Polar bear across his den and back again, " I wish to 
 heaven I had gone on living in Empire City with my pair of 
 villainous Chinamen. At least I was free from her over there. 
 And when I saw her marriage, by Gad ! I thought it was a 
 finisher. Then I came home again." 
 
 He stopped in his retrospection, because he heard a foot 
 upon the stairs. 
 
 A woman's foot ; a light step and a quick step. 
 
 " May be De Counterpane's nurse. Too early for one of 
 young Orlebar's friends. Can't be anybody for me." 
 
 But it was; and a woman stopped at his doorway, and 
 seeing him alone, stepped in. 
 
 She had a hooded cloak thrown about an evening-dress ; 
 the hood was drawn completely over her face, so that you 
 could see nothing of it in the dim light. And she came in 
 without a word. 
 
 Then Colquhoun, who was no coward, felt his blood run 
 cold, because he knew by her figure and by her step that it 
 was Victoria Cassilis. 
 
 She threw back the hood with a gesture almost theatrical, 
 and stood before him with parted lips and flashing eyes. 
 
 His spirits rallied a little then, because he saw that her 
 face was white, and that she was in a royal rage. Lawrence 
 Colquhoun could tackle a woman in a rage. That is indeed 
 elementary, and nothing at all to be proud of. The really 
 difficult thing is to tackle a woman in tears and distress. 
 The stoutest heart quails before such an enterprise. 
 
 " What is this ? " she began, with a rush as of the liberated 
 whirlwind. "What does this letter mean, Lawrence?" 
 
 " Exactly what it says, Mrs. Cassilis. May I ask, is it 
 customary for married ladies to visit single gentlemen in 
 their chambers, and at night ? " 
 
 "It is not usual for — married — ladies — to visit — single — • 
 gentlemen, Lawrence. Do not ask foolish questions. Tell 
 me what this means, I say." 
 
 " It means that my visits to your house have been too 
 frequent, and that they will be discontinued. In other words,
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 403 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis, the thing has gone too far, and I shall cease to 
 be seen with you. I suppose you know that people will talk." 
 
 " Let them talk. What do I care how people talk ? 
 Lawrence^ if you think that I am going to let you go like 
 this, you are mistaken." 
 
 " I believe this poor lady has gone mad," said Lawi'ence 
 quietly. It was not the best way to quiet and soothe her, 
 but he could not help himself. 
 
 " You think you are going to play fast and loose with me 
 twice in my life, and you are mistaken. You shall not. 
 Years ago you showed me what you are — cold, treacherous, 
 and crafty " 
 
 "Go on, Victoria; I like that kind of thing, because now 
 I know that you are not mad. Quite in your best style." 
 
 " And I forgave you when you returned, and allowed you 
 once more to visit me. What other woman would have acted 
 so to such a man ? " 
 
 " Yet she must be mad," said Lawrence. " How else could 
 she talk such frightful rubbish ? " 
 
 " Once more we have been friends. Again you have drawn 
 me on, until I have learned to look to you, for the second 
 time, for the appreciation denied to me by my — by Mr. 
 Cassilis. No, sir; this second desertion must not and shall 
 not be." 
 
 " One would think," said Lawrence helplessly, " that we 
 had not quarrelled every time we met. Now, Mrs. Cassilis, 
 you have my resolution. What you please, in your sweet 
 romantic way, to call second desertion must be and shall be." 
 
 " Then I will know the reason why." 
 
 " I have told you the reason why. Don't be a fool, Mrs. 
 Cassilis. Ask yourself what you want. Do you want me to 
 run away with you ? I am a lazy man, I know, and I gene- 
 rally do what people ask me to do ; but as for that thing, I 
 am damned if I do it ! " 
 
 " Insult me, Lawrence ! " she cried, sinking into a chair. 
 " Swear at me, as you will." 
 
 " Do you wish me to philander about your house like a 
 ridiculous tame cat, till all the world cries out ? "
 
 404 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 She started to her feet. 
 
 " No ! " she cried. " I care nothing about your coming 
 and going. But I know why — Oh, I know why ! — you 
 make up this lame excuse about my good name — my good 
 name ! As if you ever cared about that ! " 
 
 " JNIore than you cared about it yourself," he retorted. 
 "But pray go on." 
 
 " It is Phillis Fleming ; I saw it from the very first. You 
 began by taking her away from me and placing her with 
 your cousin, where you could have her completely under 
 your own influence. You let Jack Dunquerque hang about 
 her at first, just to show the ignorant creature what was 
 meant by flirtation, and then you send him about his 
 business. Lawrence, you are more wicked than I thought 
 you." 
 
 " Jealousy, by Gad ! " he cried. " Did ever mortal man 
 hear of such a thing ? Jealousy ! And after all that she 
 has done " 
 
 " I warn you. You may do a good many things. You 
 may deceive and insult me in any way except one. But 
 you shall never, never marry Phillis Fleming ! " 
 
 Colquhoun was about to reply that he never thought of 
 marrying Phillis Fleming, but it occurred to him that there 
 was no reason for making that assertion. So he replied 
 nothing. 
 
 " I escaped," she said, " under pretence of being ill. And 
 I made them fetch me a cab to come away in. My cab is 
 at the Burlington Gardens end of the court now. Before I 
 go you shall make me a promise, Lawrence — you used to 
 keep your promises — to act as if this miserable letter had 
 not been written." 
 
 " T shall promise nothing of the kind." 
 
 " "Jlien remember, Lawrence — you sliall never marry 
 Phillis Fleming ! Not if I have to stop it by proclaiming 
 my own disgrace — you shall not marry that girl, or any 
 other girl. I have that power over you, at any rate. Now 
 I shall go." 
 
 "There is some one on the stairs," said Lawrence quietl}'.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 405 
 
 " Perhaps lie is coming here. You had better not be seen. 
 Best go into the other room and wait." 
 
 There was only one objection to her waiting in the other 
 room, and that was that the door was on the opposite side ; 
 that the outer oak was wide open ; that the step upon the 
 stairs was already the step upon the landing ; and that the 
 owner of the step was already entering the room. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis instinctively shrank back into the darkest 
 corner — that near the window. The curtains were of some 
 light-coloured stuff. She drew them closely round her and 
 cowered down, covering her head with the hood, like Guine- 
 vere before her injured lord. For the late caller was no 
 other than her own husband, Gabriel Cassilis. 
 
 As he stood in the doorway the light of the reading-lamp — 
 Mrs. Cassilis in one of her gestures had tilted up the shade — 
 fell upon his pale face and stooping form. Colquhoun noticed 
 that he stooped more than usual, and that his grave face 
 bore an anxious look — such a look as one sees sometimes in 
 the faces of men who have long suffered grievous bodily pain. 
 He hesitated for a moment, tapping his knuckles with his 
 double eyeglasses, his habitual gesture. 
 
 " I came up this evening, Colquhoun. Are you quite alone ? " 
 
 " As you see, Mr. Cassilis," said Colquhoun. He looked 
 hastily round the room. In the corner he saw the dim out- 
 line of the crouching form. He adjusted the shade, and 
 turned the lamp a little lower. The gas in the chambers on 
 the other side of the narrow court was put out, and the 
 room was almost dark. " As you see, Mr. Cassilis. And 
 what gives me the pleasure of this late call from you ? " 
 
 " I thought I would come — I came to say " he stopped 
 
 helplessly, and threw himself into a chair. It was a chair 
 standing near the corner in which his wife was crouching ; 
 and he pushed it back until he might have heard her 
 breathing close to his ear, and, if he had put forth his hand, 
 might have touched her. 
 
 "Glad to see you always, Mr. Cassilis. You came to 
 speak about some money matters ? I have an engagement 
 in five minutes] but we shall have time, I dare say."
 
 4o6 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " An engagement ? Ah ! a lady, perhaps." This with 
 a forced laugh, because he was thinking of his wife. 
 
 " A lady ? Yes — yes, a lady." 
 
 "Young men — young men" said Gabriel Cassilis. 
 
 "Well, I will not keep you. I came here to speak to you 
 about — about my wife." 
 
 " Lord ! " cried Lawrence. " I beg your pardon — 
 about Mrs. Cassilis ? " 
 
 " Yes ; it is a very stupid business. You have known 
 her for a long time." 
 
 " I have, Mr. Cassilis ; for nearly eight years." 
 
 " Ah, old friends ; and ouce, I believe, people thought " 
 
 " Once, Mr. Cassilis, I myself thought — I cannot tell 
 you what I thought Victoria Pengelley might be to me. 
 But that is over long since." 
 
 " One for her," thought Lawrence, whose nerves were 
 steady in danger. His two listeners trembled and shook, 
 but from different causes. 
 
 " Over long since," repeated Gabriel Cassilis. " There 
 was nothing in it, then ? " 
 
 " We were two persons entirely dissimilar in disposition, 
 Mr. Cassilis," Lawrence replied evasively. " Perhaps I was 
 not worthy of her — her calm, clear judgment." 
 
 " Another for her," he thought, with a chuckle. The 
 situation would have pleased him but that he felt sorry for 
 the poor man. 
 
 " Victoria is outwardly cold, yet capable of the deepest 
 emotions. It is on her account, Colquhoun, that I come 
 here. Foolish gossip has been at work, connecting your 
 names. I think the best thing, without saying anything 
 to Victoria, who must never suspect " 
 
 "Never suspect," echoed Colquhoun. 
 
 " That I ever heard this absurdity. But we must guard 
 her from calumny, Colquhoun. Ca3sar's wife, you know; and 
 — and — I think that, perhaps, if you were to be a little less 
 frequent in your calls — and " 
 
 " I quite understand, Mr. Cassilis : and I am not in the 
 least offended. I assure you most sincerely — I wish Mrs.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 407 
 
 Cassilis were here to listen — that I am deeply sorry for hav- 
 ing innocently put you to the pain of saying this. However, 
 the world shall have no further cause of gossip." 
 
 No motion or sign froin the dark comer where the hiding 
 woman crouched. 
 
 Mr. Cassilis rose and tajiped his knuckles with his glasses. 
 " Thank you, Colquhoun. It is good of you to take this most 
 unusual request so kindly. With such a wife as mine jealousy 
 would be absurd. But I have to keep her name from even a 
 breath — even a breath." 
 
 " Quite right, Mr. Cassilis." 
 
 He looked now round the room. 
 
 " Snug quarters for a bachelor — ah ! I lived in lodgings 
 always myself. I thought I heard a woman's voice as I came 
 up-stairs." 
 
 " From Sir Richard de Counterpane's rooms down stairs, 
 perhaps. His nurses, I suppose. The poor old man is get- 
 ting infirm." 
 
 " Ay — ay ; and your bedroom is there, I suppose ? " 
 
 Lawrence took the lamp and opened the door. It was a 
 bare, badly furnished room, with a little camp-bedstead, and 
 nothing else hardly. For Lawrence kept his luxurious habits 
 for the day. 
 
 Was it pure curiosity that made Gabriel Cassilis look all 
 round the room ? 
 
 " Ah, hermit-like. Now, I like a large bed. However, I 
 am very glad I came. One word, Colquhoun, is better than 
 a thousand letters ; and you are sui*e you do not misunder- 
 stand me ? " 
 
 " Quite," said Lawrence, taking his hat. " I am going- 
 out, too." 
 
 " No jealousy at all," said Gabriel Cassilis going down the 
 stairs. 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " Nothing but a desire to — to " 
 
 " I understand perfectly," said Lawrence. 
 
 As they descended, Lawrence heard steps on the stairs 
 behind them. They were not yet, then, out of danger.
 
 4o8 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Very odd," said Mr. Cassilis. " Coming up I heard a 
 woman's voice. Now it seems as if there were a woman's 
 feet." 
 
 " Nerves, perhaps," said Colquhoun. The steps above them 
 stopped. " I hear nothing." 
 
 " Nor do I. Nerves — ah, yes — nerves." 
 
 Mr. Cassilis turned to the left, Colquhoun with him. Be- 
 hind them he saw the cloaked and hooded figure of Victoria 
 Cassilis. At the Burlington Gardens end a cab was waiting. 
 Near the horse's head stood a woman's figure which Lawrence 
 thought he knew. As they passed her this woman, whoever 
 she was, covered her face with a handkerchief And at the 
 same moment the cab drove by rapidly. Gabriel Cassilis saw 
 neither woman nor cab. He was too happy to notice any- 
 tliing. There was nothing in it ; nothing at all except mis- 
 chievous gossip. And he had laid the Ghost. 
 
 " Dear me ! " he said to himself presently, " I forgot to ask 
 about the Secret. But of course there is none. How should 
 there be?" 
 
 Next morning there came another letter. 
 
 " You have been fooled worse than ever," it said. " Your 
 wife was in Mr. Colquhoun's chambers the whole time that 
 you were there. She came down the stairs after you ; she 
 passed through the gate, almost touching you, and she drove 
 past you in a hansom cab. / know the number, and will give 
 it to you when the time comes. Mr. Colquhoun lied to you. 
 How long ? How long ? " 
 
 It should have been a busy day in the City. To begin 
 with, it only wanted four days to settling-day. Telegrams 
 and letters poured in, and they lay unopened on the desk at 
 which Gabriel Cassilis sat, with this letter before him, mad 
 with jealousy and rage.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 409 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 " ' Come now,' the Master Builder cried, 
 ' The twenty years of work are done ; 
 Flaunt forth the Flag, and crown with pride 
 The Glory of the Coping-stone.'" 
 
 TACK DUNQUERQUE was to "slack off" his visits to 
 <J Twickenham. That is to say, as he interpreted the in- 
 junction, he was not wholly to discontinue them, in order not 
 to excite suspicion. But he was not to haunt the house ; he 
 was to make less frequent voyages up the silver Thames ; he 
 was not to ride in leafy lanes side by side with Phillis — 
 without having Phillis by his side he cared little about leafy 
 lanes, and would rather be at the club ; further, by these 
 absences he was to leave off being necessary to the brightness 
 of her life. 
 
 It was a hard saying. Nevertheless, the young man felt 
 that he had little reason for complaint. Other fellows he 
 knew, going after other heiresses, had been quite peremj^torily 
 sent about their business for good, particularly needy young 
 men like himself All that Colquhoun extorted of him was 
 that he should " slack off." He felt, in a manner, grateful, 
 although had he been a youth of quicker perception, he would 
 have remembered that the lover who " slacks off" can be no 
 other than the lover who wishes he had not begun. But 
 nobody ever called Jack a clever young man. 
 
 He was not to give her up altogether. He was not even 
 to give up hoping. He was to have his chance with the rest. 
 But he was warned that no chance was to be open to him 
 until the young lady should enter upon her first season. 
 
 Not to give up seeing her. That was everything. Jack 
 Dunquerque had hitherto lived the life of all young men, 
 careless and itisouciant, with its little round of daily pleasures- 
 He was only different from other young men that he had 
 learned, partly from a sympathetic nature and partly by 
 travel, not to put all his pleasure in that life about town and 
 in country houses which seems to so many the one thing
 
 410 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 which the world has to offer. He who has lived out on the 
 Prairies for weeks has found that there are other pleasures 
 besides the gas-light joys of Town. But his life had been 
 without thought and purposeless — a very chaos of a life. 
 And now he felt vaguely that his whole being was changed. 
 To be with Phillis day after day, to listen to the outpourings 
 of her freshness and innocence, brought to him the same sort 
 of refreshment as sitting under the little cataract of a moun- 
 tain stream brings to one who rambles in a hot West Indian 
 island. Things for which he once cared greatly he now cared 
 for no more ; the club-life, the cards, and the billiards ceased 
 to interest him ; he took no delight in them. Perhaps it was 
 a proof of a certain weakness of nature in Jack Dunquerque 
 that he could not at the same time love things in which 
 Phillis took no part and the things which made the simple 
 pleasures of her every-day life. 
 
 He might have been weak, and yet, whether he was weak 
 or strong, he knew that she leaned upon him. He was so 
 sympathetic ; he seemed to know so much ; he decided so 
 quickly ; he was in his way so masterful, that the girl looked 
 up to him as a paragon of wisdom and strength. 
 
 I think she will always so regard him, because the know- 
 ledge of her respect raises Jack daily in moral and spiritual 
 strength, and so her hero approaches daily to her ideal. 
 What is the highest love worth if it have not the power of 
 lifting man and woman together up to the higher levels, 
 where the air is purer, the sunshine brighter, the vision 
 clearer ? 
 
 But Colquhoun's commands had wrought a further change 
 in him ; that ugly good-looking face of his, which Agatha 
 L'Estrange admired so much, and which was wont to be 
 wreathed with a multitudinous smile, was now doleful. To 
 the world of mankind — male mankind — the chief charm of 
 Jack Dunquerque, the main cause of his popularity — his 
 unvarying cheerfulness — was vanished. 
 
 " You ought to be called Doleful Jack," said Ladds. " Jack 
 of Rueful Countenance." 
 
 " You don't know, Tommy," replied the lover, sorrowfully
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 411 
 
 wagging his head. " I've seen Colquhoun ; and he won't 
 have it. Says I must wait." 
 
 " He's waited till forty. I've waited to five and thirty, and 
 we're both pretty jolly. Come, young un, you may take 
 courage by our examples." 
 
 "You never met Phil when you were five and twenty," 
 said Jack. " Nobody ever saw a girl like Phillis." 
 
 Five and thirty seems so great an age to five and twenty. 
 And at five and thirty one feels so young, that it comes upon 
 the possessor of so many years like a shock of cold water to 
 be reminded that he is really no longer young. 
 
 One good thing — Lawrence Colquhoun did not reproach 
 him. Partly perhaps because, as a guardian, he did not 
 thoroughly realise Jack's flagitious conduct ; partly because 
 he was an easy-going man, with a notion in his head that 
 he had nothing to do with the work of Duennas and 
 Keepers of the Gyngeceum. He treated the confessions of 
 the remorseful lover with a cheery contempt — passed them 
 by ; no great harm had been done ; and the girl was but a 
 child. 
 
 His own conscience it was which bullied Jack so tremen- 
 dously. One day he rounded on his accuser like the poor 
 worm in the proverb, who might perhaps have got safe back 
 to its hole but for that ill-advised turning. He met the 
 charges like a man. He pleaded that, criminal as he had 
 been, nefarious and inexcusable as his action was, this action 
 had given him a very high time ; and that, if it was all to 
 do over again, he should probably alter his conduct only in 
 degree, but not in kind ; that is to say, he would see Phillis 
 oftener and stay with her longer. Conscience knocked him 
 out of time in a couple of rounds ; but still he did have the 
 satisfaction of showing fight. 
 
 Of course he would do the same thing again. There has 
 never been found by duenna, by guardian, by despotic parent, 
 or by interested relation, any law of restraint strong enough 
 to keep apart two young people of the opposite sex and like 
 age, after they have once become attracted towards each 
 other. Prudence and prudery, jealousy and interest, never
 
 412 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 have niucli chance. The ancient dames of duennadom may 
 purse their withered lips and wrinkle their crow's-footed eyes ; 
 Love, the unconquered, laughs and conquers again. 
 
 It is of no use to repeat long explanations about Phillis. 
 Such as she was, we know her — a law unto herself; care- 
 less of prohibitions and unsuspicious of danger. Like Una, 
 she wandered unprotected and fearless among whatever 
 two-legged wolves, bears, eagles, lions, vultures, and other 
 beasts and birds of prey might be anxiously waiting to 
 snap her up. Jack was the great-hearted lion who was to 
 bear her safely through the wistful growls of the meaner 
 beasts. The lion is not clever like the fox or the beaver, 
 but one always conceives of him as a gentleman, and there- 
 fore fit to be entrusted with such a beautiful maiden as 
 Una or Phillis. And if Jack was quietly allowed to carry 
 off his treasure it was Agatha L'Estrange who was chiefly 
 to blame; and she, falling in love with Jack herself, quite 
 in a motherly way, allowed the wooing to go on under her 
 very nose. " A bad, bad woman," as Lawrence Colquhouu 
 called her. 
 
 But such a wooing! Miss Ethel Citybredde, when she 
 sees Amandus making a steady but not an eagerly impe- 
 tuous advance in her direction at a ball, feels her languid 
 pulses beat a little faster. " He is coming after Me," she 
 says to herself, with pride. They snatch a few moments to 
 sit together in a conservatory. He offers no remark worthy 
 of repetition, nor does she ; yet she thinks to herself, " He 
 is going to ask me to marry him ; he will kiss me ; there 
 will be a grand wedding ; everybody will be pleased ; other 
 girls will be envious ; and I shall be delighted. Papa knows 
 that he is well off and well connected. How charming ! " 
 
 Now Phillis allowed her lover to woo her without one 
 thought of love or marriage, of which, indeed, she knew 
 nothing. But if the passion was all on one side, the affection 
 was equally divided. And when Jack truly said that Phillis 
 did not love him, he forgot that she had given him already 
 all that she knew of love ; in that her thoughts, which on her 
 first emancipation leaped forth, bounding and running in all
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 413 
 
 directions with a wild yearning to beliold the Great Unknown, 
 were now returning to herself, and mostly flowed steadily, 
 like streams of electric influence, in the direction of Jack ; 
 inasmuch as she referred unconsciously everything to Jack, 
 as she dressed for him, drew for him, pored diligently over 
 hated reading-books for him, and told him all her thoughts. 
 
 I have not told, nor can I tell, of the many walks and talks 
 these two young people had together. Day after day Jack's 
 boat — that comfortable old tub, in which he could, and often 
 did, cut a crab without spilling the contents into the river — 
 lay moored off Agatha's lawn, or rolled slowly up and down 
 the river. Jack rowing, while Phillis steered, sang, talked, 
 and laughed. This was pleasant in the morning ; but it was 
 far more pleasant in the evening, when the river was so quiet, 
 so still, and so black, and when thoughts crowded into the 
 girl's brain, which fled like spirits when she tried to put 
 them into words. 
 
 Or they rode together along the leafy roads through 
 Richmond Park, and down by that unknown region, far 
 away from the world, where heron rise up from the water's 
 edge, where the wild fowl fly above the lake in flgures which 
 remind one of Euclid's definitions, and the deer collect in 
 herds among great ferns half as high as themselves. There 
 they would let the horses walk, while Phillis, with the slender 
 curving lines of her figure, her dainty dress which fitted it 
 so well, and her sweet face, made the heart of her lover 
 hungry ; and when she turned to speak to him, and he saw 
 in the clear depths of her eyes his own face reflected, his 
 passion grew almost too much for him to bear. 
 
 A delicate dainty maiden, who was yet of strong and healthy 
 2jhysique ; one who did not disdain to own a love for cake and 
 strawberries, cream and ices, and other pleasant things ; who 
 had no young-ladyish affectations ; who took life eagerly, not 
 languidly. And not a coward, as many maidens boast to be : 
 she ruled her horse with rein as firm as Jack Dunquerque, 
 and sat him as steadily ; she clenched her little fingers and 
 set her lips hard when she heard a tale of wrong ; her eyes 
 lit up and her bosom heaved when she heard of heroic gest ;
 
 414 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 she was strong to endure and to do. Not every girl would, as 
 Phillis did, rise in the morning at five to train her untaught 
 eyes and hand over those little symbols by which we read 
 and write ; not every girl would patiently begin at nineteen 
 the mechanical drudgery of the music-lesson. And she did 
 this in confidence, because Jack asked her every day about 
 her lessons, and Agatha L'Estrange was pleased. 
 
 The emotion which is the next after, and worse than that 
 of love, is sympathy. Phillis passed through the stages of 
 curiosity and knowledge before she arrived at the stage of 
 sympathy. Perhaps she was not far from the highest stage 
 of all. 
 
 She learned something every day, and told Jack what it 
 was. Sometimes it was an increase in her knowledge of evil. 
 Jack, who was by no means so clever as his biographer, 
 thought that a pity. His idea was the common one — that a 
 maiden should be kept innocent of the knowledge of evil. I 
 think Jack took a prejudiced, even a Philistine, view of the 
 case. He put himself on the same level as the Frenchman 
 who keeps his daughter out of mischief by locking her up in 
 a convent. It is not the knowledge of evil that hurts, any 
 more than the knowledge of blackbeetles, earwigs, slugs, 
 and other crawling things : the pure in spirit cast it off, just 
 as the gardener who digs and delves among his plants washes 
 his hands and is clean. The thing that hurts is the suspicion 
 and constant thought of evil ; the loveliest and most divine 
 creature in the world is she who neither commits any ill, nor 
 thinks any, nor suspects others of ill — who has a perfect pity 
 for backsliders, and a perfect trust in the people around her. 
 Unfortunate it is that experience of life turns pity into anger, 
 and trust into hesitation. 
 
 Or they would be out upon Agatha's lawn, playing croquet, 
 to which that good lady still adhered, or lawn-tennis, which 
 she tolerated. There would be the curate — he had abandoned 
 that design of getting up all about Laud, but was madly, 
 ecclesiastically madly, in love with Phillis ; there would be 
 occasionally Ladds, who, in his heavy, kindly way, pleased this 
 young May Queen. Besides, Ladds was fund of Jack. There
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 415 
 
 would be Gilead Beck in the straightest of frock-coats, aud 
 on the most careful behaviour ; there would be also two or 
 three young ladies, compared with whom Phillis was as 
 Rosalind at the court of her uncle, or as Esther among the 
 damsels of the Persian king's seraglio, so fresh and so incom- 
 parably fair. 
 
 "Mrs. L'Estrange," Jack whispered one day, "I am going 
 to say a rude thing. Did you pick out the other girls on 
 purpose to set off Phillis ? " 
 
 " "What a shame, Jack ! " said Agatha, who like the rest 
 of the world called him by what was not his Christian name. 
 " The girls are very nice — not so pretty as Phillis, but good- 
 looking, all of them. I call them as pretty a set of girls as 
 you would be likely to see on any lawn this season." 
 
 " Yes," said Jack ; " only you see they are all alike, and 
 Phillis is different." 
 
 That was it — Phillis was different. The girls were grace- 
 ful, pleasant, and well bred. But Phillis was all this, and 
 more. The others followed the beaten track, in which the 
 strength of life is subdued and its intensity forbidden. 
 Phillis was in earnest about everything, quietly in earnest ; 
 not openly bent on enjoyment, like the young ladies who run 
 down Greenwich Hill, for instance, but in her way making 
 others feel something of what she felt herself. Her intensity 
 was visible in the eager face, the mobile flashes of her 
 sensitive lips, and her brightening eyes. And, most unlike 
 her neighbours, she even forgot her own dress, much as she 
 loved the theory and practice of dress, when once she was 
 interested, and was careless about theirs. 
 
 It was not pleasant for the minor stars. They felt in a 
 vague uncomfortable way that Phillis was far more attractive ; 
 they said to each other that she was strange ; one who pre- 
 tended to know more French than the others said that she 
 was farouche. 
 
 She was not in the least farouche^ and the young lady her 
 calumniator did not understand the adjective; hwt farouche 
 she continued to be among the maidens of Twickenham and 
 Richmond.
 
 4i6 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Jack Dunquerque heard the epithet applied on one occa- 
 sion, and burst out laughing. 
 
 Phillis farouche ! Phillis, without fear and without sus- 
 picion ! 
 
 But then they do teach French so badly at girls' schools. 
 And so poor Phillis remained ticketed with the adjectiv^e 
 which least of any belonged to her. 
 
 A pleasant six weeks from April to June, while the late 
 spring blossomed and flowered into summer ; a time to 
 remember all his life afterwards with the saddened joy 
 which, despite Dante's observation, does still belong to the 
 memory of past pleasures. 
 
 But every pleasant time passes, and the six weeks were 
 over. 
 
 Jack was to " slack off." The phrase struck him, applied 
 to himself and Phillis, as simply in bad taste; but the 
 meaning was plain. He was to present himself at Twicken- 
 ham with less frequency. 
 
 Accordingly he began well by going there the very next 
 day. Every new regime has to be commenced somehow, and 
 Jack began his at once. He pulled up in his tub. It was 
 a cloudy and windy day ; drops of rain fell from time to 
 time; the river was swept by sudden gusts which came 
 driving down the stream, marked by broad black patches ; 
 there were no other boats out, and Jack struggled upwards 
 against the current : the exercise at least was a relief to the 
 oppression of his thoughts. 
 
 What was he to do with himself after the " slacking off" 
 had begun — after that day, in fact ? The visits might drop 
 to twice a week, then once a week, and then ? But surely 
 Colquhoun would be satisfied with such a measure of self- 
 denial. In the intervals — say from Saturday to Saturday — 
 he could occupy himself in thinking about her. He might 
 write to her — would that be against the letter of the law ? 
 It was clearly against the spirit. And — another considera- 
 tion — it was no use writing unless he wrote in printed 
 characters, and in words of not more than two syllables. 
 He thought of such a love-letter, and of Phillis gravely
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 417 
 
 spelling it out word by word to Mrs. L'Estrange. For poor 
 Phillis had not as yet accustomed herself to look on the 
 printed page as a vehicle for thought, although Agatha read 
 to her every day. She regarded it as the means of con- 
 veying to the reader facts such as the elementary reading- 
 book delights to set forth ; so dry that the adult reader, if 
 a woman, presently feels the dust in her eyes, and if a 
 man, is fain to get up and call wildly for quarts of bitter 
 beer. No; Phillis was not yet educated up to the reception 
 of a letter. 
 
 He would, he thought, sit in the least-frequented room 
 of his club — the drawing-room — and with a book of some 
 kind before him, just for a pretence, would pass the leaden 
 hours in thinking of Phillis's perfections. Heavens ! when 
 was there a moment, by day or by night, that he did not 
 think of them ? 
 
 Bump! It was the bow of his ship, which knew by 
 experience very well when to stop, and grounded herself 
 without any conscious volition on his part at the accustomed 
 spot. 
 
 Jack jumped out, and fastened the painter to the tree to 
 which Phillis had once tied him. Then he strode across the 
 lawns and flower-beds, and made for the little morning-room, 
 where he hoped to find the ladies. 
 
 He found one of them. Fortune sometimes favours lovers. 
 It was the younger one — Phillis herself 
 
 She was bending over her work with brush and colour- 
 bos, looking as serious as if all her future depended on 
 the success of that particular picture; beside her, tossed 
 contemptuously aside, lay the much-despised Lesson-Book 
 in Reading ; for she had done her daily task. She did not 
 hear Jack step in at the open window, and went on with 
 her painting. 
 
 She wore a dress made of that stuff which looks like 
 brown holland till you come close to it, and then you think 
 it is silk, but are not quite certain, and I believe they call 
 it Indian tussore. Round her dainty waist was a leathern 
 belt set in silver with a chatelaine, like a small armoury of 
 
 2 D
 
 4i8 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 deadly weapons; and for colour she had a crimson ribbon 
 about her neck. To shew that the ribbon was not entirely- 
 meant for vanity, but had its i;ses, Phillis had slung upon 
 it a cross of Maltese silver-work, which I fear Jack had 
 given her himself. And below the cross, where her rounded 
 figure showed it off, she had placed a little bunch of sweet 
 peas. Such a dainty damsel ! Not content with the 
 flower in her dress, she had stuck a white jasamine-blossom 
 in her hair. All these things Jack noted with speechless 
 admiration. 
 
 Then she began to sing in a low voice, all to herself, a 
 little French ballad which Mrs. L'Estrange had taught her 
 — one of the sweet old French songs. 
 
 She was painting in the other window, at a table drawn 
 up to face it. The curtains were partly pulled together, 
 and the blind was half drawn down, so that she sat in a 
 subdued light, in which only her face was lit up, like 
 the faces in a certain kind of photograph, while her hair 
 and figure lay in shadow. The hangings were of some 
 light-rose hue, which tinted the whole room, and threw 
 a warm colouring over the old-fashioned furniture, the 
 pictures, the books, the flowers on the tables, and the ferns 
 in their glasses. Mrs. L'Estrange was no follower after 
 the new school. Neutral tints had small charms for her; 
 she liked the warmth and glow of the older fashion in 
 which she had been brought up. 
 
 It looked to Jack Dunquerque like some shrine dedicated 
 to peace and love, with Phillis for its priestess — or even 
 its goddess. Outside the skies were grey ; the wind swept 
 down the river with driving rain ; here was warmth, colour, 
 and brightness. So he stood still and watched. 
 
 And as he waited an overwhelming passion of love seized 
 him. If the world was well lost for Antony when he threw 
 it all away for a queen no longer young, and the mother of 
 one son at least almost grown up, what would it have been 
 had his Cleopatra welcomed him in all the splendour of her 
 white Greek beauty at sweet seventeen? There was no 
 world to be lost for this obscure cadet of a noble house,
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 419 
 
 but all the world to be won. His world was before his 
 eyes ; it was an unconscious maid, ignorant of her own 
 surpassing worth, and of the power of her beauty. To win 
 her was to be the lord of all the world he cared for. 
 
 Presently she laid down her brush, and raised her head. 
 Then she pushed aside the curtains, and looked out upon 
 the gardens. The rain drove against the windows, and the 
 wind beat about the branches of the lilacs on the lawn. 
 She shivered, and pulled the curtains together again. 
 
 " I wish Jack were here," she said to herself. 
 
 " He is here, Phil," Jack replied. 
 
 She looked round, and darted across the room, catching 
 him by both hands. 
 
 " Jack ! Oh, I am glad ! There is nobody at home. 
 Agatha has gone u]d to town, and I am quite alone. What 
 shall we do this afternoon ? " 
 
 Clearly the right thing for him to propose was that he 
 should instantly leave the young lady, and row himself 
 back to Eichmond. This, however, was not what he did 
 propose. On the contrary, he kept Phillis's hands in his, 
 and held them tight, looking in her upturned face, where 
 he saw nothing but undisguised joy at his appearance. 
 
 " Shall we talk ? Shall I play to you ? Shall I draw 
 you a picture ? What shall we do. Jack ? " 
 
 " Well, Phil, I think — perhaps — we had better talk." 
 
 Something in his voice struck her; she looked at him 
 sharply. 
 
 " What has happened. Jack? You do not look happy." 
 
 "Nothing, Phil — nothing but what I might have ex- 
 pected." But he looked so dismal that it was quite certain 
 he had not expected it. 
 
 "Tell me. Jack." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Jack, what is the good of being friends if you won't tell 
 me what makes you unhappy ? " 
 
 " I don't know how to tell you, Phil. I don't see a way 
 to begin." 
 
 " Sit down, and begin somehow." She placed him com-
 
 420 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 fortably in the largest chair in the room, and then she stood 
 in front of him, and looked in his face with compassionate 
 eyes. The sight of those deep-brown orbs, so full of light 
 and pity, smote her lover with a kind of madness. " What 
 is it makes people unhappy ? Are you ill ? " 
 
 He shook his head, and laughed. 
 
 " No, Phil ; I am never ill. You see, I am not exactly 
 unhappy " 
 
 " But, Jack, you look so dismal." 
 
 "Yes, that it is ; I am a little dismal. No, Phil — no. 
 I am really unhappy, and you are the cause." 
 
 " I the cause ! But, Jack, why ? " 
 
 " I had a talk with your guardian, Lawrence Colquhoun, 
 yesterday. It was all about you. And he wants me — not 
 to come here so often, in fact. And I mustn't come." 
 
 " But why not ? What does Lawrence mean ? " 
 
 " That is just what I cannot explain to you. You must 
 try to forgive me." 
 
 " Forgive you, Jack ? " 
 
 "You see, Phil, I have behaved badly from the begin- 
 ning. I ought not to have called upon you as I did in Car- 
 narvon Square ; I ought not to have let you call me Jack, 
 nor should I have called you Phil. It is altogether improper 
 in the eyes of the world." 
 
 She was silent for a while. 
 
 " Perhaps I have known, Jack, that it was a little 
 unusual. Other girls haven't got a Jack Dunquerque, have 
 they ? Poor things ! That is all you mean, isn't it, Jack ? '' 
 
 " Phil, don't look at me like that ! You don't know — 
 you can't understand — No ; it is more than unusual ; it is 
 quite wrong." 
 
 "I have done nothing wrong," the girl said proudly. 
 " If I had, my conscience would make me unhappy. But 
 I do begin to understand what you mean. Last week 
 Ao-atha asked me if I was not thinking too much about 
 you. And the curate made me laugh because he said, 
 quite by himself in a comer, you know, that Mr. Dun- 
 qucnjue was a happy man : and when I asked him why, he
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 421 
 
 turned very red, and said it was because I had given to 
 liim what all the world would long to have. He meant, 
 Jack " 
 
 " I wish he was here," Jack cried hotly, " for me to wring 
 his neck ! " 
 
 " And one day Laui'a Herries " 
 
 " That's the girl who said you w eve farouche, Phil. Go on.'' 
 
 " Was talking to Agatha about some young lady who had 
 got compromised by a gentleman's attentions. I asked 
 why, and she replied quite sharply that if I did not know, 
 no one could know. Then she got up and went away. 
 Agatha was angry about it, I could see ; but she only said 
 something about understanding when I come out." 
 
 "Miss Hemes ought to have her neck wrung too, as well 
 as the curate," said Jack. 
 
 " Compromise — improper." Phil beat her little foot on 
 the floor. " What does it all mean ? Jack, tell me — what is 
 this wrong thing that you and I have done ? " 
 
 " Not you, Phil ; a thousand times not you." 
 
 "Then I do not care much what other people say," she 
 replied simply. " Do you know, Jack, it seems to me as 
 if we never ought to care for what people, besides people we 
 love, say about us." 
 
 " But it is I who have done wrong," said Jack. 
 
 " Have you, Jack ? Oh, then I forgive you. I think 
 I know now. You should have come to me with an unreal 
 smile on your face, and pretended the greatest deference 
 to my opinion, even when you knew it wasn't worth having. 
 That is what the curate does to young ladies. I saw him 
 yesterday taking Miss Herries's opinion on Holman Hunt's 
 picture. She said it was ' sweetly pretty.' He said, ' Do 
 you really think so?' in such a solemn voice, as if he 
 wasn't quite sure that the phrase summed up the whole 
 picture, but was going to think it over quietly. Don't 
 laugh, Jack, because I cannot read like other people, and 
 all I have to go by is what Mr. Dyson told me, and Agatha 
 tells me, and what I see — and — and what you tell me. 
 Jack, which is worth all the rest to me."
 
 422 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 The tears came into her eyes, but only for a moment, 
 and she brushed them aside. 
 
 " And I forgive you, Jack, all the more because you did 
 not treat me as you would have treated the girls who seem 
 to me so lifeless and languid, and — Jack, it may be wrong 
 to say it, but Oh, so small ! What compliment could you 
 have paid me better than to single me out for joux friend 
 — you who have seen so much and done so much — my friend, 
 mine ? We were friends from the first, were we not ? And 
 I have never since hidden anything from you, Jack, and 
 never will." 
 
 He kept it down still, this mighty yearning that filled 
 his heart, but he could not bear to look her in the face. 
 Every word that she said stabbed him like a knife, because 
 it showed her childish innocence and her utter unconscious- 
 ness of what her words might mean. 
 
 And then she laid her little hand in his. 
 
 " And now you have compromised me, as they would say ? 
 What does it matter, Jack ? We can go on always just the 
 same as we have been doing, can we not ? " 
 
 He shook his head and answered huskily, "No, Phil. 
 Your guardian will not allow it. You must obey him. He 
 says that I am to come here less frequently ; that I must 
 not do you — he is quite right, Phil — any more mischief; 
 and that you are to have your first season in London 
 without any ties or entanglements." 
 
 " My guardian leaves me alone here with Agatha. It 
 is you who have been my real guardian, Jack. I shall do 
 what you tell me to do." 
 
 " I want to do what is best for you, Pliil — but Child " 
 
 — he caught her by the hands, and she half fell, half knelt 
 at his feet, and looked up in his eyes with her face full of 
 trouble and emotion — " child, must I tell you ? Could not 
 Agatha L'Estrange tell you that there is something in the 
 world very different from friendship ? Is it left for me to 
 teach you? They call it Love, Phil." 
 
 He whispered the last words. 
 
 " Love ? But I know all about it, Jack."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 423 
 
 " No, Phil, yon know nothing. It isn't the love that you 
 bear to Agatha that I mean." 
 
 " Is it the love I have for you, Jack ? " she asked in all 
 innocence. 
 
 " It may be, Phil. Tell me only " — he was reckless now, 
 and spoke fast and fiercely — " tell me if you love me as I 
 love you. Try to tell me. I love you so much that I cannot 
 sleep for thinking of you ; and I think of you all day long. 
 It seems as if my life must have been a long blank before 
 I saw you ; all my happiness is to be with you ; to think of 
 going on without you maddens me." 
 
 " Poor Jack ! " she said softly. She did not ofier to with- 
 draw her hands, but let them lie in his warm and tender 
 grasp. 
 
 "My dear, my darling — my queen and pearl of girls — 
 who can help loving you? And even to be with you, to 
 have you close to me, to hold your hands in mine — that 
 isn't enough." 
 
 " What more — Jack, Jack ! what more ? " 
 
 She began to tremble, and she tried to take back her 
 hands. He let them go, but before she could change her 
 position he bent down, threw his arms about her, and held 
 her face close to his while he kissed it a thousand times. 
 
 "What more? My darling, my angel, this — and this! 
 Phil, Phil ! wake at last from your long childhood ; leave 
 the Garden of Eden where you have wandered so many 
 years, and come out into the other world — the world of 
 love. My dear, my dear ! can you love me a little, only 
 a little, in return ? We are all so different from what you 
 thought us; you will find out some day that I am not 
 clever and good at all ; that I have only one thing to give 
 you — my love, Phil, Phil, answer me — speak to me — 
 forgive me ! " 
 
 He let her go, for she tore herself from him and sprang 
 to her feet, burying her face in her hands and sobbing 
 aloud. 
 
 " Forgive me — forgive me ! " It was all that he could say. 
 
 " Jack, what is it ? what does it mean ? Jack ! " — she
 
 424 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 
 
 lifted her face aud looked about lier, with hands outstretched 
 as one who feels in the darkness ; her cheeks were white aud 
 her eyes wild — "what does it mean? what is it you have 
 said ? what is it you have done ? " 
 
 " Phil ! " 
 
 "Yes ! Hush! don't speak to me — not yet. Jack. "Wait 
 a moment. My brain is full of strange thoughts " — she 
 put out trembling hands before her, like one who wakes 
 suddenly in a dreain, and spoke with short, quick breath. 
 " Something seems to have come upon me. Help me, Jack ! 
 Oh, help me ! I am frightened." 
 
 He took her in his arms and soothed aud caressed her 
 like a child, while she sobbed and cried. 
 
 " Look at me, Jack," she said presently. "^ Tell me, am I 
 the same ? Is there any change in me ? " 
 
 " Yes, Phil ; yes, my darling. You are changed. Your 
 sweet eyes are full of tears, like the skies in April ; and 
 your cheeks are pale and white. Let me kiss them till they 
 get their o^m colour again.' 
 
 He did kiss them, and she stood unresisting. But she 
 trembled. 
 
 " I know, Jack, now," she said softly. " It all came 
 upon me in a moment, when your lips touched mine. 
 Jack, Jack ! it was as if something snapped ; as if a veil 
 fell from my eyes. I know now what you meant when you 
 said just now that you loved me." 
 
 " Do you, Phil ? And can you love me, too ? " 
 
 " Yes, Jack. I will tell you when I am able to talk 
 again. Let me sit down. Sit with me. Jack." 
 
 She drew him beside her on the sofa and murmured low, 
 while he held her hands. 
 
 "Do you like to sit just so, holding my hands? Are 
 you better now, Jack ? 
 
 " Do you think. Jack, that I can have always loved you 
 — without knowing it at all — just as you love me ? my 
 poor Jack ! 
 
 " ^ly heart beats so fast. And I am so happy. AVhat 
 have you said to me. Jack, that I should be so happy ?
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 425 
 
 '' See, the sun has come out — and the showers are over 
 and gone — and the birds are singing — all the sweet birds 
 — they are singing for me, Jack, for you and me — Oh, for 
 you and for me ! " 
 
 Her voice broke down again, and she hid her face upon 
 her lover's shoulder, crying happy tears. 
 
 He called her a thousand endearing names ; he told her that 
 they would be always together ; that she had made him the 
 happiest man in all the world ; that he loved her more than any 
 girl ever had been loved in the history of mankind ; that she 
 was the crown and pearl and queen of all the women who ever 
 lived ; and then she looked up, smiling through her tears. 
 
 Ah, happy, happy day ! Ah, day for ever to be remembered 
 even when, if ever, the years shall bring its fiftieth anniversary 
 to an aged pair, whose children and grandchildren stand 
 around their trembling feet! Ah, moments that live for 
 ever in the memory of a life ! They die, but are immortal. 
 They perish all too quickly, but they bring forth the precious 
 fruits of love and constancy, of trust, affection, good works, 
 peace, and joy, which never perish. 
 
 " Take me on the river, Jack," she said presently. " I want 
 to think it all over again, and try to understand it better." 
 
 He fetched cushion and wrapper, for the boat was wet, and 
 placed her tenderly in the boat. And then he began to pull 
 gently up the stream. 
 
 The day had suddenly changed. The morning had been 
 gloomy and dull, but the afternoon was bright ; the strong 
 wind was dropped for a light cool breeze; the swans were 
 cruising about with their lordly pretence of not caring for 
 things external ; and the river ran clear and bright. 
 
 They were very silent now ; the girl sat in her place, look- 
 ing with full soft eyes on the wet and dripping branches or 
 in the cool depths of the stream. 
 
 Presently they passed an old gentleman fishing in a punt; 
 he was the same old gentleman whom Phillis saw one morn- 
 ing — now so long ago — when he had that little misfortune 
 we have narrated, and tumbled backwards in his ark. He 
 saw them coming, and adjusted his spectacles.
 
 426 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 "Youth and Beauty again," lie murmured. "And she's 
 been crying. That young fellow has said something cruel 
 to her. Wish I could break his head for him. The pretty 
 creature ! He 11 come to a bad end, that young man." Then 
 he impaled an immense worm savagely and went on fishing. 
 
 A very foolish old gentleman this. 
 
 "I am trying to make it all out quite clearly, Jack," 
 Phillis presently began. " And it is so difficult." Her eyes 
 were still bright with tears, but she did not tremble now, 
 and the smile was back upon her lips. 
 
 " My darling, let it remain difficult. Only tell me now, 
 if you can, that you love me." 
 
 "Yes, Jack," she said, not in the frank and childish 
 unconsciousness of yesterday, but with the soft blush of a 
 woman who is wooed. "Yes, Jack, I know now that I do 
 love you, as you love me, because my heart beat when you 
 kissed me, and I felt all of a sudden that you were all the 
 world to me." 
 
 " Phil, I don't deserve it. I don't deserve you." 
 
 "Not deserve me? Jack, you make me feel humble 
 when you say that ! And I am so proud. 
 
 "So proud and so happy," she went on, after a pause. 
 " And the girls who know all along — how do they find it 
 ont ? — want every one for herself this great happiness, too. I 
 have heard them talk, and never understood till now. Poor 
 girls ! I wish they had their — their own Jack, not my Jack." 
 
 Her lover had no words to reply. 
 
 "Poor boy! And you went about with your secret so 
 long. Tell me how long, Jack ? " 
 
 " Since the very first day I saw you in Carnarvon Square, 
 Phil." 
 
 " All that time ? Did you love me on that day — not the 
 first day of all, Jack ? Oh, surely not the very first day ? " 
 
 "Yes; not as I love you now — now that I know you so 
 well, my Phillis — mine — but only then because you were 
 so pretty." 
 
 "Do men always fall in love with a girl because she is 
 pretty ? "
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 427 
 
 " Yes, Phil. They begin because she is pretty, and they 
 love her more every day when she is so sweet and so good 
 as my darling Phil." 
 
 All this time Jack had been leaning on his oars, and the 
 boat was drifting slowly down the current. It was now close 
 to the punt where the old gentleman sat watching them. 
 
 " They have made it up," he said. " That's right." 
 And he chuckled. 
 
 She looked dreamy and contented ; the tears were gone 
 out of her eyes, and a sweet softness lay there, like the sun- 
 shine on a field of grass. 
 
 " She is a rose of Sharon and a lily of the valley," said this 
 old gentleman. " That young fellow ought to be banished 
 from the State for making other people envious of his luck. 
 Looks a good-tempered rogue, too." 
 
 He observed with delight that they were thinking of each 
 other while the boat drifted nearer to his punt. Presently — 
 bump — bump ! 
 
 Jack seized his sculls and looked up guiltily. The old 
 gentleman was nodding and smiling to Phillis. 
 
 " Made it up ? " he asked most impertinently. " That is 
 right, that is right. Give you joy, sir, give you joy. Wish 
 you both happiness. Wish I had it to do all over again. 
 God bless you, my dear ! " 
 
 His jolly red face beamed like the setting sun under his 
 big straw hat, and he wagged his head and laughed. 
 
 Jack laughed too ; at other times he would have thought 
 the old angler an extremely impertinent person. Now he 
 only laughed. 
 
 Then he turned the boat's head, and rowed his bride swiftly 
 homewai'ds. 
 
 " Phil, I am like Jason bringing home Medea," he said, 
 with a faint reminiscence of classical tradition. I have ex- 
 plained that Jack was not clever. 
 
 " I hope not," said Phil ; " Medea was a dreadful person." 
 
 " Then Paris bringing home Helen — No, Phil ; only your 
 lover bringing home the sweetest girl that ever was. And 
 worthy five and thirty Helens."
 
 428 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Wlaen tliey landed Agatha L'Estrange was on tlie lawn 
 waiting for them. To her surprise, Phillis, on disembarking, 
 took Jack by the arm, and his hand closed over hers. Mrs. 
 L'Estrange gasped. And in Phillis's tear-bright eyes she 
 saw at last the light and glow of love ; and in Phillis's blush- 
 ing face she saw the happy pride of the celestial Venus who 
 has met her only love. 
 
 " Children — children ! " she said, " what is this ? " 
 
 Phillis made answer, in words which Abraham Dyson used 
 to read to her from a certain Book, but which she never 
 understood till now — made answer with her face upturned to 
 her lover — 
 
 " I am my beloved's, and his desire is toward me." 
 
 They were a quiet party that evening. Jack did not want 
 to talk. He asked Phillis to sing ; he sat by in a sort of 
 rapture while her voice, in the songs she most affected, 
 whispered and sang to his soul not words, but suggestions of 
 every innocent delight. She recovered something of her 
 gaiety, but their usual laughter was hushed as if by some 
 unexpressed thought. It will never come back to her again, 
 that old mirth and light heart of childhood. She felt \vhile 
 she played as if she was in some great cathedral ; the fancies 
 of her brain built over her head a pile more mystic and 
 wonderful than any she had seen. Its arches towered to the 
 sky ; its aisles led far away into dim space. She was walk- 
 ing slowly up the church hand-in-hand with Jack, towards 
 a great rose light in the east. An anthem of praise and 
 thanksgiving echoed along the corridors, and pealed like 
 thunder among the million rafters of the roof. Eound them 
 floated faces which looked and smiled. And she heard the 
 voice of Abraham Dyson in her ear — 
 
 " Life should be twofold, not single. That, Phillis, is the 
 great secret of the world. Every man is a priest ; every 
 woman is a priestess ; it is a sacrament which you have 
 learned of Jack this day. Go on with him in faith and hope. 
 Love is the Universal Church and Heaven is everywhere. Live 
 in it ; die in it ; and dying begin your life of love again."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 429 
 
 " Phil," cried Jack, " what is it ? You look as if you had 
 seen a vision." 
 
 ''I have heard the voice of Abraham Dyson," she said 
 solemnly. " He is satisfied and pleased with us, Jack." 
 
 That was nothing to what followed, for presently there 
 occurred a really wonderful thing. 
 
 On Phillis's table — they were all three sitting in the 
 pleasant morning-room — lay among her lesson-books and 
 drawing materials a portfolio. Jack turned it over care- 
 lessly. There was nothing at all in it except a single sheet 
 of white paper, partly written over. But there had been 
 other sheets, and these were torn off. 
 
 " It is an old book full of writing," said Phillis carelessly. 
 " I have torn out all the leaves to make rough sketches at 
 the back. There is only one left now." 
 
 Jack took it up and read the scanty remnant. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " he cried. " Have you really destroyed 
 all these pages, Phil ? " 
 
 Then he laughed. 
 
 " What is it, Jack ? Yes I have torn them all out, drawn 
 rough things on them, and then burnt them, every one." 
 
 " Is it anything important ? " asked Mrs. L'Estrange. 
 
 " I should think it was important ! " said Jack. " Ho, ho ! 
 Phillis has destroyed the whole of Mr. Dyson's lost chapter 
 on the Coping-stone. And now his will is not worth the 
 paper it is written on." 
 
 It was actually so. Bit by bit, while Joseph Jagenal was 
 leaving no corner unturned in the old house at Highgate in 
 search of the precious document, without which Mr. Dyson's 
 will was so much waste paper, this young lady was con- 
 tentedly cutting out the sheets one by one, and using them 
 up for her first unfinished groups. Of course she could not 
 read one word of what was written. It was a fitting Nemesis 
 to the old man's plans that they were frustrated through the 
 very means by which he wished to regenerate the world. 
 
 And now nothing at all left but a tag end, a bit of the 
 peroration, the last words of the final summing-up. And 
 this was what Jack read aloud —
 
 430 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 "... these provisions and no other. Thus will I have 
 my College for the better Education of Women founded and 
 maintained. Thus shall it grow and develop till the land 
 is full of the gracious influence of womankind at her best 
 and noblest. The Coping-stone of a girl's Education should 
 be, and must be, Love. When Phillis Fleming, my ward, 
 whose example shall be taken as the model for my college, 
 feels the passion of Love, her education is finally completed. 
 She will have much afterwards to learn. But self-denial, 
 sympathy, and faith come best through Love. Woman is 
 born to be loved; that woman only approaches the higher 
 state who has been wooed and who has loved. When 
 Phillis loves, she will give herself without distrust and 
 wholly to the man who wins her. It is my prayer, my 
 last prayer for her, that he may be worthy of her." Here 
 Jack's voice faltered for a moment. " Her education has 
 occupied my whole thoughts for thirteen years. It has 
 been the business of my later years. Now I send her out 
 into the world prepared for all, except treachery, neglect, 
 and ill-treatment. Perhaps her character would pass 
 through these and come out the brighter. But we do 
 not know ; we cannot tell beforehand. Lord, lead her 
 not into temptation ; and so deal with her lover as he 
 shall deal with her." 
 
 " Amen," said Agatha L'Estrange. 
 
 But Phillis sprang to her feet and threw up her arms. 
 
 "I have found it!" she cried. "Oh, how often did he 
 talk to me about the Coping-stone. Now I have nothing 
 more to learn. O Jack, Jack ! " she fell into his arms, and 
 lay there as if it was her proper place, " We have found 
 the Coping-stone — you and I between us — and it is here, it 
 is here ! "
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 431 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 " 'Tis well to be off with the old love, 
 Though you never get on with a new." 
 
 DURING the two or three weeks following their success 
 with Gileacl Beck the Twins were conspicuous, had 
 any one noticed them, for a recklessness of expenditure 
 quite without parallel in their previous history. They 
 plunged as regarded hansoms, paying whatever was asked 
 with an airy prodigality ; they dined at the club every day, 
 and drank champagne at all hours ; they took half-guinea 
 stalls at theatres ; they went down to Greenwich and had 
 fish-dinners ; they appeared with new chains and rings ; 
 they even changed their regular hours of sleep, and some- 
 times passed the whole day broad awake, in the pursuit of 
 youthful pleasures. They winked and nodded at each 
 other in a way which suggested all kinds of delirious 
 delights ; and Cornelius even talked of adding an episode 
 to the Epic, based on his own later experiences, which he 
 would call, he said, the Jubilee of Joy. 
 
 The funds for this fling, all too short, were provided by 
 their American patron. Gilead Beck had no objection to 
 advance them something on account ; the young gentlemen 
 found it so pleasant to spend money, that they quickly 
 overcame scruples about asking for more; perhaps they 
 would have gone on getting more, but for a word of 
 caution spoken by Jack Dunquerque. In consequence of 
 this unkindness they met each other one evening in the 
 Studio with melancholy faces. 
 
 " I had a letter to-day from Mr, Gilead Beck," said Cor- 
 nelius to Humphrey. 
 
 " So had I," said Humphrey to Cornelius. 
 
 " In answer to a note from me," said Cornelius. 
 
 " In reply to a letter of mine," said Humphrey. 
 
 " It is sometimes a little awkward, brother Humphrey," 
 Cornelius remarked, with a little temper, " that our inclina-
 
 432 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 
 
 tions so often prompt us to do the same thing at the same 
 time." 
 
 Said Humphrey, " I suppose then, Cornelius, that you 
 asked him for money ? " 
 
 " I did, Humphrey. How much has the Patron advanced 
 you already on the great Picture ? " 
 
 " Two hundred only. A mere trifle. And now he refuses 
 to advance any more until the Picture is completed. Some 
 enemy, some jealous brother artist, must have corrupted his 
 mind." 
 
 " My case, too. I asked for a simple fifty pounds. It is 
 the end of May, and the country would be delightful if one 
 could go there. I have already drawn four or five cheques 
 of fifty each, on account of the Epic. He says, this mer- 
 cenary and mechanical patron, that he will not lend me any 
 more until the Poem is brought to him finished. Some 
 carping critic has been talking to him." 
 
 " How much of the Poem is finished ? " 
 
 " How much of the Picture is done ? " 
 
 The questions were asked simultaneously, but no answer 
 was returned by either. 
 
 Then each sat for a few moments in gloomy silence. 
 
 " The end of May," murmured Humphrey. " We have 
 to be ready by the beginning of October. June — July — 
 only four months. My painting is designed for many 
 hundreds of figures. Your poem for — how many lines, 
 brother ? " 
 
 " Twenty cantos of about five hundred lines each." 
 
 " Twenty times five hundred is ten thousand." 
 
 Then they relapsed into silence again. 
 
 "Brother Cornelius," the Artist went on, "this has been 
 a most eventful year for us. We have been rudely dis- 
 turbed from the artistic life of contemplation and patient 
 work into which Ave had gradually dropped. We have 
 been hurried — hurried, I say, brother — into Action, perhaps 
 prematurely " 
 
 Cornelius grasped his brother's hand, but said nothing. 
 
 "You, Cornelius, have engaged yourself to be married."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 433 
 
 Cornelius dropped his brother's hand. "Pardon me, 
 Humphrey ; it is you that is engaged to Phillis Fleming." 
 
 " I am nothing of the sort, Cornelius," the other returned 
 sharply. " I am astonished that you should make such a 
 statement." 
 
 " One of us certainly is engaged to the young lady. And 
 as certainly it is not 1. ' Let your brother Humphrey hope,' 
 she said. Those were her very words. I do think, brother 
 that it is a little ungenerous, a little ungenerous of you, after 
 all the trouble I took on your behalf, to try to force this young- 
 lady on me." 
 
 Humphrey's cheek turned pallid. He plunged his hands 
 into his silky beard, and walked up and down the room 
 gesticulating. 
 
 "I went down on purpose to tell Phillis about him. I 
 spoke to her of his ardour. She said she appreciated — 
 said she appreciated it, Cornelius. I even went so far as 
 to say that you offered her a virgin heart — perilling my 
 own soul by those very words — a virgin heart " — he laughed 
 melodramatically. " And after that German milkmaid ! 
 Ha, ha ! The Poet and the milkmaid ! " 
 
 Cornelius by this time was red with anger. The brothers, 
 alike in so many things, differed in this, that, when roused 
 to passion, while Humphrey grew white Cornelius grew 
 crimson. 
 
 "And what did I do for you?" he cried out. The 
 brothers were now on opposite sides of the table, walking 
 backwards and forwards with agitated strides. " I told her 
 that you brought her a heart which had never beat for 
 another — that, after your miserable little Roman model ! 
 An artist not able to resist the charms of his own 
 model ! " 
 
 " Cornelius ! " cried Humphrey, suddenly stopping and 
 bringing his fist with a bang upon the table. 
 
 "Humphrey!" cried his brother, exactly imitating his 
 gesture. 
 
 Their faces glared into each other's ; Cornelius, as usual, 
 wrapped in his long dressing-gown, his shaven cheeks 
 
 2 E
 
 434 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 purple with passion ; Humphrey in his loose velvet jacket, 
 his white lips and cheeks, and his long silken beard trem- 
 bling to every hair. 
 
 It was the first time the brothers had ever quarrelled in 
 all their lives. And like a tempest on Lake Windermere, it 
 sprang up without the slightest warning. 
 
 They glared in a steady way for a few minutes, and then 
 drew back and renewed their quick and angry walk side by 
 side, with the table between them. 
 
 " To bring up the old German business ! " said Cornelius. 
 
 " To taunt me with the Roman girl ! " said Humphrey. 
 
 " Will you keep your engagement like a gentleman, and 
 marry the girl ? " cried the Poet. 
 
 "Will you behave as a man of honour, and go to the 
 Altar with Phillis Fleming ? " asked the Artist. 
 
 " I will not," said Cornelius. " Nothing shall induce me 
 to get married." 
 
 " Nor will I," said Humphrey. " I will see myself drawn 
 and quartered first." 
 
 " Then," said Cornelius, " go and break it to her yourself, 
 for I will not." 
 
 " Break what ? " asked Humphrey passionately. " Break 
 her heart, when I tell her, if I must, that my brother repu- 
 diates his most sacred j^romises ? " 
 
 Cornelius was touched. He relented. He softened. 
 
 " Can it be that she loves us both ? " 
 
 They were at the end of the table, near the chairs, which 
 as usual were side by side. 
 
 " Can that be so, Cornelius ? " 
 
 They drew nearer the chairs ; they sat down ; they turned, 
 )iy force of habit, lovingly towards each other ; and their faces 
 cleared. 
 
 " Brother Humphrey," said Cornelius, " I see that we 
 have mismanaged this affair. It will be a wrench to the poor 
 girl, but it will have to be done. I thought you wanted to 
 marry her." 
 
 " I thought you did." 
 
 " And so we each pleaded the other's cause. And the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 435 
 
 poor girl loves us both. Good heavens ! What a dreadful 
 thing for her." 
 
 " I remember nothing in fiction so startling. To be sure, 
 there is some excuse for her." 
 
 " But she can't marry us both." 
 
 "N — n — no. I suppose not. No — certainly not. Heaven 
 forbid ! And as you will not marry her " 
 
 Humphrey shook his head in a decided manner. 
 
 "And I will not" 
 
 "Marry?" interrupted Humphrey. "What! And give 
 up this ? Have to get up early ; to take breakfast at nine ; 
 to be chained to work ; to be inspected and interfered wath 
 while at work — Phillis drew me once, and pinned the portrait 
 on my easel ; to be restricted in the matter of port ; to have 
 to go to bed at eleven ; perhaps, Cornelius, to have babies ; 
 and beside, if they should be Twins ! Fancy being shaken 
 out of your poetic dream by the cries of Twins ! " 
 
 "No sitting up at night with pipes and brandy-and- 
 water," echoed the Poet. " And, Humphrey " — here he 
 chuckled, and his face quite returned to its brotherly form 
 — " should we go abroad, no flirting with Roman models — 
 eh, eh, eh ? " 
 
 " Ho, ho, ho ! " laughed the Artist melodiously. " And 
 no carrying milk-pails up the Heidelberg hills — eh, eh, eh ? " 
 
 " Marriage be hanged ! " cried the Poet, starting up again. 
 " We will preserve our independence, Humphrey. We will 
 be free to woo, but not to wed." 
 
 Was there ever a more unprincipled Bard ? It is sad to 
 relate that the Artist echoed his brother. 
 
 "We will, Cornelius — we will. Vive la liberie!" He 
 snapped his fingers, and began to sing : 
 
 " Quand on est k Paris 
 On ^crit h, son pere, 
 Qui fait response, ' Brigand, 
 Tu n'en as ' " 
 
 He broke short off, and clapped his hands like a school- 
 boy. " We will go to Paris next week, brother."
 
 436 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " We will, Humphrey, if we can get any more money. 
 And now — how to get out of the mess ? " 
 
 " Do you think ]\Irs. L'Estrange will interfere ? " 
 
 " Or Colquhoun ? " 
 
 " Or Joseph ? " 
 
 "The best way would be to pretend it was all a mis- 
 take. Let us go to-morrow, and cry off as well as we 
 can." 
 
 " We will, Cornelius." 
 
 The quarrel and its settlement made them thirsty, and 
 they drank a whole potash-and-brandy each before pro- 
 ceeding with the interrupted conversation. 
 
 " Poor little Phillis ! " said the Artist, filling his pipe. 
 " I hope she won't pine much." 
 
 " Ariadne, you know," said the Poet ; and then he for- 
 got what Ariadne did, and broke off short. 
 
 "It isn't our fault, after all. Men of genius are always 
 run after. Women are made to love men, and men are 
 made to break their hearts. Law of nature, dear Cornelius 
 — law of Nature. Perhaps the man is a fool who binds 
 himself to one. Art alone should be our mistress — glorious 
 Art ! " 
 
 "Yes," said Cornelius ; "you are quite right. And what 
 about Mr. Gilead Beck ? " 
 
 This was a delicate question, and the Artist's face grew 
 grave. 
 
 " What are we to do, Cornelius ? " 
 
 " I don't know, Humphrey." 
 
 " Will the Poem be finished ? " 
 
 "No. Will the picture?" 
 
 " Not a chance." 
 
 " Had we not better, Humphrey, considering all the 
 circumstances, make up our minds to throw over the 
 engagement ? " 
 
 " Tell me, Cornelius — how much of your Poem remains 
 to be done ? " 
 
 " Well, you see, there is not much actually written." 
 
 " Will you show it to me — what there is of it ? "
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 437 
 
 " It is all in my head, Humphrey. Nothing is written." 
 
 He blushed prettily as he made the confession. But the 
 Artist met him half-way with a frank smile. 
 
 " It is curious, Cornelius, that up to the present I have not 
 actually drawn any of the groups. My figures are still in 
 my head." 
 
 Both were surprised. Each, spending his own afternoons 
 in sleep, had given the other credit for working during 
 that part of the day. But they were too much accustomed 
 to keep up appearances to make any remark upon this 
 curious coincidence. 
 
 "Then, brother," said the Poet, with a sigh of relief, 
 " there really is not the slightest use in leading Mr. Beck 
 to believe that the works will be finished by October, and 
 we had better ask for a longer term. A year longer would 
 do for me." 
 
 " A year longer would, I think, do for me," said Hum- 
 phrey, stroking his beard, as if he was calculating how 
 long each figure would take to put in. " We will go and 
 see Mr. Beck to-morrow." 
 
 " Better not," said the sagacious Poet. 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " He might ask for the money back." 
 
 *' True, brother. He must be capable of that meanness, 
 or he would have given us that cheque we asked for. Very 
 true. We will write." 
 
 " What excuse shall we make ? " 
 
 " We will state the exact truth, Brother. No excuse need 
 be invented. We will tell our Patron that Art cannot — 
 must not — be forced." 
 
 This settled, Cornelius declared that a weight was off 
 his mind, which had oppressed him since the engagement 
 with Mr. Beck was first entered into. Nothing, he said, 
 so much obstructed the avenues of fancy, checked the flow 
 of ideas, and destroyed grasp of language, as a slavish time- 
 engagement. Now, he went on to explain, he felt free; 
 already his mind, like a garden in May, was blossoming 
 in a thousand sweet flowers. Now he was at peace with
 
 438 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 mankind. Before this relief he had been — Humphrey 
 would bear him out — inclined to lose his temper over 
 triiles ; and the feeling of thraldom caused him only that 
 very evening to use harsh words even to his twin brother. 
 Here he held out his hand, which Humphrey grasped with 
 effusion. 
 
 They wrote their letters next day — not early in the day, 
 because they prolonged their evening parliament till late, 
 and it was one o'clock when they took breakfast. But 
 they wrote the letters after breakfast, and at two they 
 took the train to Twickenham. 
 
 Phillis received them in her morning-room. They 
 appeared almost as nervous and agitated as when they 
 called a week before. So shaky were their hands that 
 Phillis began by prescribing for them a glass of wine 
 each, which they took, and said they felt better. 
 
 " We come for a few words of serious explanation," said 
 the Poet. 
 
 " Yes," said Phillis. " Will Mrs. L'Estrange do ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, it is with you that we would speak." 
 
 " Very well," she replied. " Pray go on." 
 
 They were sitting side by side on the sofa, looking as 
 grave as a pair of owls. There was something Gog and 
 Magogish, too, in their proximity. 
 
 Phillis found herself smiling when she looked at them. 
 So, to prevent laughing in their very faces, she changed her 
 place, and went to the open window. 
 
 " Now," she said. 
 
 Cornelius, with the gravest face in the world, began 
 again. 
 
 " It is a delicate and, I fear, a painful business," he said. 
 "Miss Fleming, you doubtless remember a conversation I 
 had with you last week on your lawn ? " 
 
 " Certainly. You told me that your brother, Mr. 
 Humphrey, adored me. You also said that he brought 
 me a virgin heart. I remember perfectly. I did not 
 understand your meaning then. But I do now. I under- 
 stand it now." She spoke the last words with softened
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 439 
 
 voice, because she was thinking of the Coping-stone and 
 Jack Dunquerque. 
 
 Humphrey looked indignantly at his brother. Here was 
 a position to be placed in ! But Cornelius lifted his hand, 
 with a gesture which meant, " Patience ; I will see you 
 through this affair," and went on — 
 
 " You see, Miss Fleming, I was under a mistake. My 
 brother, who has the highest respect, in the abstract, for 
 womanhood, which is the incarnation and embodiment of 
 all that is graceful and beautiful in this fair world of ours, 
 does not — does not — after all " 
 
 Phil lis looked at Humphrey. He sat by his brother, 
 trembling with a mixture of shame and terror. They were 
 not brave men, these Twins, and they certainly drank 
 habitually more than is good for the nervous system. 
 
 She began to laugh, not loudly, but with a little ripple of 
 mirth which terrified them both, because in their vanity 
 they thought it the first symptoms of hysterical grief. Then 
 she stepped to the sofa, and placed both her hands on the 
 unfortunate Artist's shoulder. 
 
 He thought that she was going to shake him, and his soul 
 sank into his boots. 
 
 " You mean that he does not, after all, adore me. Mr. 
 Humphrey, Mr. Humphrey ! was it for this that you offered 
 me a virgin heart ? Is this your gratitude to me for draw- 
 ing your likeness when you were hard at work in the 
 Studio? What shall I say to your brother Joseph, and 
 what will he say to you ? " 
 
 " My dear young lady," Cornelius interposed hastily, 
 " there is not the slightest reason to bring Joseph into the 
 business at all. He must not be told of this unfortunate 
 mistake. Humphrey does adore you — speak, brother — do 
 you not adore Miss Fleming? " 
 
 Humphrey was gasping and panting. 
 
 " I do," he ejaculated, " I do — Oh, most certainly." 
 
 Then Phillis left him and turned to his brother. 
 
 " But there is yourself, Mr. Cornelius. You are not an 
 artist ; you are a poet ; you spend your days in the Work-
 
 440 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 shop, where Jack Dunquerque and I found you rapt in so 
 poetic a dream that your eyes were closed and your mouth 
 open. If you made a mistake about Humphrey, it is impos- 
 sible that he could have made a mistake about you." 
 
 " This is terrible," said Cornelius. " Explain, brother 
 Humphrey. Miss Fleming, we — no, you as well — are victims 
 of a dreadful error." 
 
 He wiped his brow and appealed to his brother. 
 
 Released from the terror of Phillis's hands upon his 
 shoulder, the Artist recovered some of his courage and 
 spoke. But his voice was faltering. "I, too," he said, 
 " mistook the respectful admiration of my brother for some- 
 thing dearer. Miss Fleming, he is already wedded." 
 
 "Wedded? Are yoia a married man, Mr. Cornelius? 
 Oh, and where is the virgin heart ? " 
 
 "Wedded to his art," Humphrey explained. Then he 
 went a little off his head, I suppose, in the excitement of 
 this crisis, because he continued in broken words, " Wedded 
 — long ago — object of his life's love — with milk-pails on the 
 hills of Heidelberg, and light blue eyes — the Muse of Song. 
 But he regards you with respectful admiration." 
 
 " Most respectful," said Cornelius. " As Petrarch regarded 
 the wife of the Count de Sade. Will you forgive us, Miss 
 Fleming, and — and — try to forget us ? " 
 
 " So, gentlemen," the young lady said, with sparkling 
 eyes, " you come to say that you would rather not marry me. 
 I wonder if that is usual with men ? " 
 
 " No, no ! " they both cried together. " Happy is the 
 man " 
 
 " You may be the happy man, Humphrey," said Cornelius. 
 
 " No ; you, brother — you." 
 
 Never had wedlock seemed so dreadful a thing as it did 
 now, with a possible bride standing before them, apparently 
 only waiting for the groom to make up his mind. 
 
 " I will forgive you both," she said ; " so go away happy. 
 But I am afraid I shall never, never be able to forget you. 
 And if I send you a sketch of yourselves just as you look 
 now, so ashamed and so foolish, perhaps you will hang it up
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 441 
 
 in the Workshop or the Studio, to be looked at when you 
 are awake; that is, when you are not at work." 
 
 They looked guiltily at each other and drew a little apart. 
 It was the most cruel speech that Phillis had ever made ; but 
 she was a little angry with this vain and conceited pair of 
 windbags. 
 
 " I shall not tell Mr. Joseph Jagenal, because he is a 
 sensible man and would take it ill, I am sure. And I shall 
 not tell my guardian, Lawrence Colquhoun, because I do 
 not know what he might say or do. And I shall not tell 
 Mrs. L'Estrange; that is, I shall not tell her the whole of 
 it, for your sakes. But I must tell Jack Dunquerque, 
 because I am engaged to be married to Jack, and because I 
 love him and must tell him everything." 
 
 They cowered before her as they thought of the possible 
 consequences of this information. 
 
 " You need not be frightened," she went on ; " Jack will 
 not call to see you and disturb you at your work." 
 
 Her eyes, that began by dancing with fun, now flashed 
 indignation. It was not that she felt angry at what most 
 girls would have regarded as a deliberate insult, but the un- 
 manliness of the two filled her with contempt. They looked 
 so small and so mean. 
 
 " Go," she said, pointing to the door. " I forgive you. 
 But never again dare to offer a girl each other's virgin 
 heart." 
 
 They literally slunk away like a pair of beaten hounds. 
 Then Phillis suddenly felt sorry for them as they crept out 
 of the door, one after the other. She ran after them and 
 called them back. 
 
 " Stop," she cried ; " we must not part like that. Shake 
 hands, Cornelius. Shake hands, Humphrey. Come back 
 and take another glass of wine. Indeed you want it ; you 
 are shaking all over ; come." 
 
 She led them back, one in each hand, and poured out a 
 glass of sherry for each. 
 
 "You could not have married me, you know," she said, 
 laughing, " because I am going to marry Jack. There
 
 442 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 — forgive me for speaking unkindly, and we will remain 
 friends." 
 
 They took lier hand, but they did not speak, and some- 
 thing like a tear stood in their eyes. When they left her 
 Phillis observed that they did not take each other's arm 
 as usual, but walked separate. And they looked older. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 " What is it you see ? 
 A nameless thing — a creeping snake in the grass." 
 
 WHO was the writer of the letters ? The}' were all in one 
 hand, and that a feigned hand. 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis sat with these anonymous accusations 
 against his wife spread out upon the table before him. He 
 compared one with another ; he held them up to the light ; 
 he looked for chance indications which a careless moment 
 might leave behind : there were none — not a stroke of the 
 pen ; not even the name of the shop where the paper was 
 sold. They were all posted at the same place ; but that was 
 nothing. 
 
 The handwriting was large, upright, and perhaps de- 
 signedly ill - formed ; it appeared to be the writing of a 
 woman, but of this Mr. Cassilis was not sure. 
 
 Always the same tale ; always reference to a secret between 
 Colquhoun and his wife. What was that secret ? 
 
 In Colquhoun's room — alone with him — almost under his 
 hand. But where ? He went into the bedroom, which was 
 lighted by the gas of the court ; an open room, furnished with- 
 out curtains ; there was certainly no one concealed, because 
 concealment was impossible. And in the sitting-room — 
 then he remembered that the room was dimly lighted ; 
 curtains kept out the gaslight of the court ; Colquhoun had 
 on his entrance lowered the silver lamp ; there was a 
 heavy green shade on this ; it was possible that she might 
 have been in the room while he was there, and listening to 
 every word.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 443- 
 
 The thought was maddening. He tried to put it all 
 before himself in logical sequence, but could not ; he tried 
 to fence with the question, but it would not be evaded ; he 
 tried to persuade himself that suspicions resting on an anony- 
 mous slander were baseless, but every time his mind fell back 
 upon the voice which proclaimed his wife's dishonour. 
 
 A man on the rack might as well try to dream of soft 
 beds and luxurious dreamless sleep ; a man being flogged 
 at the cart-tail might as well try to transport his thoughts 
 to boyhood's games upon a village green ; a man at the stake 
 might as well try to think of deep delicious draughts of ice- 
 cold water from a shady brook. The agony and shame of the 
 present are too much for any imagination. 
 
 It was so to Gabriel Cassilis. The one thing which he 
 trusted in, after all the villainies and rogueries he had 
 learned during sixty -five years mostly spent among men 
 trying to make money, was his wife's fidelity. It was like 
 the Gospel — a thing to be accepted and acted upon with 
 unquestioning belief. Good heavens ! if a man cannot believe 
 in his wife's honesty, in what is he to believe ? 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis was not a violent man ; he could not 
 find relief in angry words and desperate deeds like a Moor 
 of Venice ; his jealousy was a smouldering fire ; a flame 
 which burned with a dull fierce heat ; a disease which crept 
 over body and mind alike, crushing energy, vitality, and life 
 out of both. 
 
 Everything might go to ruin round him ; he was no 
 longer capable of thought or action. Telegrams and letters 
 lay piled before him on the table, and he left them un- 
 opened. 
 
 Outside, his secretary was in dismay. His employer would 
 receive no one, and would attend to nothing. He signed 
 mechanically such papers as were brought him to sign, and 
 then he motioned the secretary to the door. 
 
 This apathy lasted for four days — the four days most 
 important of any in the lives of himself, of Gilead Beck, 
 and of Lawrence Colquhoun, For the fortunes of all hung 
 upon his shaking it off, and he did not shake it off.
 
 444 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 On the second day, the day when he got the letter telling 
 him that his wife had been in Colquhoun's chambers while 
 he was there, he sent for a private detective. 
 
 He put into his hands all the letters. 
 
 " Written by a womai]," said the oflScer. " Have you any 
 clue, sir?" 
 
 " None — none whatever. I want you to watch. You will 
 watch my wife and you will watch Mr. Colquhoun. Get every 
 movement watched, and report to me every morning. Can 
 you do this? Good. Then go, and spare neither pains nor 
 money." 
 
 The next morning's report was unsatisfactory. Colquhoun 
 had gone to the Park in the afternoon, dined at his club, 
 and gone home to his chambers at eleven. Mrs. Cassilis, 
 after dining at home, went out at ten, and returned early — 
 at half-past eleven. 
 
 But there came a letter from the anonymous corres- 
 pondent. 
 
 " You are having a watch set on them. Good. But 
 that won't find out the Scotch secret. She vms in his 
 room while you were there — hidden somewhere, but I do 
 not know where." 
 
 He went home to watch his wife with his own eyes. He 
 might as well have watched a marble statue. She met his 
 eyes with the calm cold look to which he was accustomed. 
 There was nothing in her manner to show that she was 
 other than she had always been. He tried in her presence 
 to realise the fact, if it was a fact. " This woman," he 
 said to himself, "has been lying hidden in Colquhoun's 
 chambers listening while I talked to him. She was there 
 before I went ; she was there when I came away. What is 
 her secret ? " 
 
 What, indeed ! She seemed a woman who could have no 
 secrets ; a woman whose life from her cradle might have 
 been exposed to the whole world, who would have found 
 nothing but cause of admiration and respect. 
 
 In her presence, under her influence, his jealousy lost 
 something: of its fierceness. He feared her too much to
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 445 
 
 suspect her while in his sight. It was at night, in his 
 office, away from her, that he gave full swing to the bitter- 
 ness of his thoughts. In the hours when he should have 
 been sleeping he paced his room, wrapped in his dressing- 
 gown — a long lean figure, with eyes aflame, and thoughts 
 that tore him asunder; and in the hours when he should 
 have been waking he sat with bent shoulders, glowering at 
 the letters of her accuser, gazing into a future which seemed 
 as black as ink. 
 
 His life, he knew, was drawing to its close. Yet a few 
 more brief years, and the summons would come for him to 
 cross the Eiver. Of that he had no fear ; but it was 
 dreadful to think that his age was to be dishonoured. 
 Success was his ; the respect which men give to success 
 was his ; no one inquired very curiously into the means 
 by which success was commanded ; he was a name and 
 a power. Now that name was to be tarnished; by no act 
 of his own, by no fault of his : by the treachery of the only 
 creature in the world, except his infant child, in whom 
 he trusted. 
 
 He would have, perhaps, to face the publicity of an open 
 court ; to hear his wrongs set forth to a jury ; to read his 
 " case " in the daily papers. 
 
 And he would have to alter his will. 
 
 Oddly enough, of all the evil things which seemed about 
 to fall on him, not one troubled him more than the last. 
 
 His detective brought him no news on the next day. But 
 his unknown correspondent did. 
 
 " She is tired," the letter said, " of not seeing Mr. Colquhoun 
 for three whole days. She will see him to-morrow. There 
 is to be a garden-party at Mrs, L'Estrange's Twickenham 
 villa. Mr. Colquhoun will be there, and she is going, too, 
 to meet him. If you dared, if you had the heart of a 
 mouse, you would be there too. You would arrive late; 
 you would watch and see for yourself, unseen, if possible, 
 how they meet, and what they say to each other. An 
 invitation lies for you, as well as your wife, upon the table. 
 Go!"
 
 446 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 AYliile lie was reading this document his secretary came in, 
 uncalled. 
 
 " The Eldorado Stock," he said, in his usual whisper. 
 " Have you decided what to do ? Settling day on Friday. 
 Have you forgotten what you hold, sir ? " 
 
 " I have forgotten nothing," Gabriel Cassilis replied. 
 " Eldorado Stock ? I never forget anything. Leave me. 
 1 shall see no one to-day ; no one is to be admitted. I am 
 very busy." 
 
 " I don't understand it," the secretary said to himself. 
 "Has he got information that he keeps to himself? Has 
 he got a deeper game on than I ever gave him credit for ? 
 What does it mean ? Is he going off his head ? " 
 
 More letters and more telegrams came. They were sent 
 in to the inner office ; but nothing came out of it. 
 
 That night Gabriel Cassilis left his chair at ten o'clock. 
 He had eaten nothing all day. He was faint and weak ; he 
 took something at a City railway station, and drove home 
 in a cab. His wife was out. 
 
 In the hall he saw her woman, the tall woman with the 
 unprepossessing face. 
 
 " You are Mrs. Cassilis's maid ? " he asked, 
 
 " I am, sir." 
 
 " Come with me." 
 
 He took her to his own study, and sat down. Now he 
 had the woman with him he did not know what to ask her. 
 
 " You called me, sir," she said. " Do you want to know 
 anything ? " 
 
 " How long have you been with your mistress ? " 
 
 "I came to her when her former maid, Janet, died, 
 sir. Janet was with her for many years before she 
 married." 
 
 " Janet — Janet — a Scotch name." 
 
 " Janet was with my mistress in Scotland." 
 
 "Yes — Mrs. Cassilis was in Scotland — yes. And — and 
 — Janet was in your confidence ? " 
 
 " We had no secrets from each other, sir. Janet told 
 me everything."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 447 
 
 " What was there to tell ? " 
 
 " Nothing, sir. What should there be ? " 
 
 This was idle fencing. 
 
 " You may go," he said, " Stay. Let them send 
 me up something — a cup of tea, a slice of meat — any- 
 thing." 
 
 Then he recommenced his dreary walk up and down the 
 room. 
 
 Later on a curious feeling came over him — quite a 
 strange and novel feeling. It was as if, while he thought, 
 or rather while his fancies like so many devils played 
 riot in his brain, he could not find the right words in 
 which to clothe his thoughts. He struggled against the 
 feeling. He tried to talk. But the wrong words came 
 from his lips. Then he took a book ; yes — he could read. It 
 was nonsense; he shook off the feeling. But he shrank 
 from speaking to any servant, and went to bed. 
 
 That night he slept better, and in the morning was less 
 agitated. He breakfasted in his study, and then he went 
 down to his office. 
 
 It was the fourth day since he had opened no letters 
 and attended to no business. He remembered this, and 
 tried to shake off the gloomy fit. And then he thought 
 of the coming coiip, and tried to bring his thoughts back 
 to their usual channel. How much did he hold of Eldorado 
 Stock ? Rising higher day by day. But three days, three 
 short days, before settling-day. 
 
 The largest stake he had ever ventured ; a stake so 
 large that when he thought of it his spirit and nerve came 
 back to him. 
 
 For once — for the last time — he entered his office, hold- 
 ing himself erect, and looking brighter than he had done 
 for days; and he sat down to his letters with an air of 
 resolution. 
 
 Unfortunately, the first letter was from the anonymous 
 correspondent. 
 
 " She wrote to him to-day ; she told him that she could 
 bear her life no longer; she threatened to tell the secret
 
 448 THE GOLDEX BUTTERFLY. 
 
 right out ; slie will have an explanation with him to-morrow 
 at Mrs. L'Estrange's. Do you go down and you will hear 
 the explanation. Be quiet, and be secret," 
 
 He started from his chair, the letter in his hand, and 
 looked straight before him. Was it, then, all true ? Would 
 that very day give him a chance of finding out the secret 
 between Lawrence Colquhoun and his wife ? 
 
 He put up his glasses and read the letter — the last of a 
 long series, every one of which had been a fresh arrow in 
 his heart — again and again. 
 
 Then he sat down and burst into tears. 
 
 A young man's tears may be forced from him by many 
 a passing sorrow, but an old man's only by the reality of a 
 sorrow which cannot be put aside. The deaths of those who 
 are dear to the old man fall on him as so many reminders 
 that his own time will soon arrive; but it is not for such 
 things as death that he laments. 
 
 " I loved her," moaned Gabriel Cassilis. " I loved her, 
 and I trusted her ; and this the end ! " 
 
 He did not curse her, nor Colquhoun, nor himself. It waa 
 all the hand of Fate. It was hard upon him, harder than 
 he expected or knew, but he bore it in silence. 
 
 He sat so, still and quiet, a long while. 
 
 Then he put together all the letters, which the detective 
 had brought back, and placed them in his pocket. Then 
 he dallied and played with the paper and pencils before 
 him, just as one who is restless and uncertain in his 
 mind. Then he looked at his watch — it was past three; 
 the garden-party was for four ; and then he rose suddenly, 
 put on his hat, and passed out. His secretary asked him, 
 as he went through his office, if he would return, and at 
 what time. 
 
 Mr. Cassilis made a motion with his hand, as if to 
 put the matter off for a few moments, and replied nothing. 
 When he got into the street it occurred to him that he 
 could not answer the secretary because that same curious 
 feeling was upon him again, and he had lost the power 
 of speech. It was strange, and he laughed. Then the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 449 
 
 power of speech as suddenly returned to him. He called 
 a cab and told the driver where to go. It is a long 
 drive to Twickenham. He was absorbed in his thoughts, 
 and as he sat back, gazing straight before him, the sensa- 
 tion of not being able to speak kept coming and going in 
 his brain. This made him uneasy, but not much, because 
 he had graver things to think about. 
 
 At half-past four he arrived within a few yards of 
 Mrs. L'Estrange's house, where he alighted and dismissed 
 his cab. The cabman touched his hat and said it was a fine 
 day, and seasonable weather for the time of the year, 
 
 " Ay," replied Gabriel Cassilis mechanically. " A fine day, 
 and seasonable weather for the time of the year." 
 
 And as he walked along under the lime-trees he found 
 himself saying over again, as if it was the burden of a song : 
 
 "A fine day, and seasonable weather for the time of 
 the year." 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 " How green are you and fresh in this old world ! " 
 
 ON the morning of the garden-party Joseph Jagenal called 
 on Lawrence Colquhoun. 
 
 " I have two or three things to say," he began, " if you can 
 give me five minutes." 
 
 " Twenty," said Lawrence. " Now then." 
 
 He threw himself back in his easiest chair and prepared 
 to listen. 
 
 " I am in the way of hearing things sometimes," Joseph 
 said. "And I heard a good deal yesterday about Mr. 
 Gabriel Cassilis." 
 
 " What ? " said Lawrence, aghast ; " he surely has not 
 been telling all the world about it ! " 
 
 " I think we are talking of different things," Joseph 
 answered after a pause. " Don't tell me what yoit mean, but 
 what I mean is that there is an uneasy feeling about Gabriel 
 Cassilis." 
 
 2 F
 
 4SO THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Ay ? In what way ? " 
 
 " Well, they say he is strange ; does not see people ; does 
 not open letters ; and is evidently suffering from some mental 
 distress." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And when such a man as Gabriel Cassilis is in mental 
 distress, money is at the bottom of it." 
 
 " Generally, Not always." 
 
 "It was against my advice that you invested any of your 
 money by his direction." 
 
 " I invested the whole of it ; and all Phillis's, too. Mr. 
 Cassilis has the investment of our little all," Lawrence added, 
 laughing. 
 
 But tlie lawyer looked grave. 
 
 " Don't do it," he said ; " get it in your own hands again ; 
 let it lie safely in the three per cents. What has a pigeon 
 like you to do among the City hawks ? And jNfiss Fleming's 
 money, too. Let it be put away safely, and give her 
 what she wants, a modest and sufScient income without 
 risk." 
 
 " I believe you are right, Jagenal. In fact, I am sure you 
 are right. But Cassilis would have it. He talked me into 
 an ambition for good investments which I never felt before. 
 I will ask him to sell out for me, and go back to the old 
 three per cents, and railway shares — which is what I have 
 been brought up to. On the other hand, you are quite 
 wrong about his mental distress. That is — I happen to 
 know — you are a lawyer and will not talk — it is not due to 
 money matters ; and Gabriel Cassilis is, for what I know, as 
 keen a hand as ever at piling up the dollars. The money is 
 all safe ; of that I am quite certain." 
 
 " Well, if you think so But don't let him keep it," said 
 
 Joseph the Doubter. 
 
 " After all, why not get eight and nine per cent, if you 
 can?" 
 
 " Because it isn't safe, and because you ought not to expect 
 it. What do you want with more money than you have got ? 
 However, I have told you what men say. There is another
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 451 
 
 thing. I am sorry to say that my brothers have made fools 
 of themselves, and I am come to apologise for them." 
 
 " Don't if it is disagreeable, my dear fellow." 
 
 " It is not very disagreeable, and I would rather. They 
 are fifty, but they are not wise. In fact, they have lived so 
 much out of the world that they do not understand things. 
 And so they went down and proposed for the hand of your 
 ward, Phillis Fleming." 
 
 " Oh ! Both of them ? And did she accept ? " 
 
 " The absurd thing is that I cannot discover which of them 
 wished to be the bridegroom, nor which Phillis thought it 
 was. She is quite confused about the whole matter. How- 
 ever, they went away and thought one of them was accepted, 
 which explains a great deal of innuendo and reference to 
 some unknown subject of mirth which I have observed lately. 
 I say one of them, because I find it impossible to ascertain 
 which of them was the man. Well, whether they were 
 conscience-stricken or whether they repented, I do not know, 
 but they went back to Twickenham and solemnly repudiated 
 the engagement." 
 
 "And Phillis?" 
 
 " She laughs at them, of course. Do not fear ; she wasn't 
 in the least annoyed. I shall speak to my brothers this 
 evening." 
 
 Colquhoun thought of the small, fragile -looking pair, 
 and inwardly hoped that their brother would be gentle 
 with them. 
 
 " And there is another thing, Colquhoun. Do you want 
 to see your ward married ? " 
 
 " To Jack Dunquerque ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Not yet. I want her to have her little fling first. Why 
 the poor child is only just out of the nursery, and he wants 
 to marry her oS'-hand — it's cruel. Let her see the world for 
 a year, and then we will consider it. Jagenal, I wish I could 
 marry the girl myself." 
 
 " So do I," said Joseph, with a sigh. 
 
 " I fell in love with her," said Lawrence, " at first sight.
 
 452 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 That is why," he added, in his laziest tones, " I suppose that 
 is why I told Jack Dunquerque not to go there any more. 
 But he has gone there again, and he has proposed to her, I 
 hear, and she has accepted him. So that I can't marry her, 
 and you can't, and we are a brace of fogies." 
 
 " And what have you said to Mr. Dunquerque?" 
 
 "I acted the jealous guardian, and I ordered him not to 
 call on ray ward any more for the present. I shall see how 
 Phillis takes it, and give in, of course, if she makes a fuss. 
 Then Beck has been here offering to hand over all his money 
 to Jack, because he loves the young man." 
 
 " Quixotic," said the lawyer. 
 
 " Yes. The end of it will be a wedding, of course. You 
 and I may shake a leg at it if we like. As for me, I never 
 can marry any one ; and as for you " 
 
 " As for me, I never thought of marrying her. I only 
 remarked that I had fallen in love, as you say, with her. 
 That's no matter to anybody." 
 
 " Well, things go on as they like, not as we like. What 
 nonsense it is to say that man is master of his fate ! Now, 
 what I should like would be to get rid of the reason that 
 prevents my marrying ; to put Jack Dunquerque into the 
 water-butt and sit on the lid ; and then for Phillis to fall 
 in love with me. After that, strawberries and cream with 
 a little champagne for the rest of my Methuselam-like 
 career. And I can't get any of these things. Master of his 
 fate ! " 
 
 " Have you heard of the Coping-stone chapter ? It is 
 found." 
 
 " Agatha told me something, i"n a disjointed way. What 
 is the effect of it ? " 
 
 Joseph laughed. 
 
 "It is all torn up but the last page. A righteous 
 retribution, because if Phillis had been taught to read 
 this would not have happened. Now, I suspect the will 
 must be set aside, and the money will mostly go to Gabriel 
 Cassilis, the nearest of kin, who doesn't want it."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 453 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 •' La langue des femmes est leur 6p6e, et elles ne la laissent pas rouiller." 
 
 THE grounds of the house formed a parallelogram, of which 
 the longer sides were parallel with the river. In the 
 north-east corner stood the house itself, its front facing west. 
 It was not a large house, as has been explained. A con- 
 servatory was built against nearly the whole length of 
 the front. The lawns and flower-beds spread to west and 
 south, sloping down to the river's edge. The opposite 
 angle was occupied by stables, kitchen-garden, and boat- 
 house. Gabriel Cassilis approached it from the east. An 
 iron railing and a low hedge, along which were planted 
 limes, laburnums, and lilacs, separated the place from the 
 road. But before reaching the gate — in fact, at the 
 corner of the kitchen-garden — he could, himself unseen, 
 look through the trees and observe the party. They 
 were all there. He saw Mrs. L'Estrange, Phillis, his 
 own wife — Heavens ! how calm and cold she looked, and 
 how beautiful he thought her ! — with half a dozen other 
 ladies. The men were few. There was the curate. He 
 was dangling round Phillis, and wore an expression of 
 holiness-out-for-a-holiday, which is always so charming 
 in these young men. Gabriel Cassilis also noticed that 
 he was casting eyes of longing at the young lady. There 
 was Lawrence Colquhoun. Gabriel Cassilis looked every- 
 where for him, till he saw him, lying beneath a tree, his 
 head on his hand. He was not talking to Victoria, nor 
 was he looking at her. On the contrary, he was watching 
 Phillis. There was Captain Ladds. He was talking to 
 one of the young ladies, and he was looking at PhiUis. 
 The young lady evidently did not like this. And there 
 was Gilead Beck. He was standing apart, talking to 
 Mrs. L'Estrange, with his hands in his pockets, leaning 
 against a tree. But he, too, was casting furtive glances 
 at Phillis.
 
 454 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 
 
 They all seemed, somehow, looking at the girl. There 
 was no special reason why they sho;ild look at her, except 
 that she was so bright, so fresh, and so charming for the 
 eye to rest upon. The other girls were as well dressed, 
 but they were nowhere compared with Phillis. The lines 
 of their figures, perhaps, were not so fine ; the shape of 
 their heads more commonplace ; their features not so 
 delicate ; their pose less graceful. There are some girls 
 who go well together. Helena and Hermia are a foil 
 to each other ; but when Desdemona shows all other 
 beauties pale like lesser lights. And the other beauties 
 do not like it. 
 
 Said one of the fair guests to another — 
 
 " What do they see in her ? " 
 
 " I cannot tell," replied her friend. " She seems to me 
 vaore farouche than ever." 
 
 For, having decided that farouche was the word to 
 express poor Phillis's distinguishing quality, there was no 
 longer any room for question, and farouclie she continued 
 to be. If there is anything that Phillis never was, it is 
 that quality of fierce shy wildness which requires the 
 adjective /a?'OWcAe. But the word stuck, because it sounded 
 well. To this day — to be sure, it is only a twelvemonth 
 since — the girls say still, " Oh yes ! Phillis Fleming. She 
 was pretty, but extremely /a?'o«c/i<3." 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis stood by the hedge and looked through 
 the trees. He was come all the way from town to attend 
 this party, and now he hesitated at the very gates. For he 
 became conscious of two things : first, that the odd feeling 
 of not finding his words was upon him again ; and secondly, 
 that he was not exactly dressed for a festive occasion. Like 
 most City men who have long remained bachelors, Gabriel 
 Cassilis was careful of his personal appearance. He con- 
 sidered a garden-party as an occasion demanding something 
 special. Now he not only wore his habitual pepper-and-salt 
 suit, but the coat in which he wrote at his ofiice — a comfort- 
 able easy old frock, a little baggy at the elbows. His mind
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 455 
 
 was strung to such an intense pitch, that such a trifling 
 objection as his dress — because Gabriel Cassilis never looked 
 other than a gentleman — appeared to him insuperable. 
 He withdrew from the hedge, and retraced his steps. Pre- 
 sently he came to a lane. He left the road, and turned down 
 the path. He found himself by the river. He sat down 
 under a tree, and began to think. 
 
 He thought of the time when his lonely life was wearisome 
 to him, when he longed for a wife and a house of his own. 
 He remembered how he pictured a girl who would be his 
 darling, who would return his caresses and love him for 
 his own sake. And how, when he met Victoria Pengelley, 
 his thoughts changed, and he pictured that girl, stately 
 and statuesque, at the head of his table. There would be 
 no pettings and caressings from her, that was quite certain. 
 On the other hand, there would be a woman of whom he 
 would be proud — one who would wear his wealth properly. 
 And a woman of good family, well connected all round. 
 There were no caresses, he remembered now; there was 
 the coldest acceptance of him ; and there had been no 
 caresses since. But he had been proud of her ; and as for 
 her honour — how was it possible that the doubt should 
 arise? That man must be himself distinctly of the lower 
 order of men who would begin by doubting or suspecting 
 his wife. 
 
 To end in this : doubt so strong as to be almost cer- 
 tainty ; suspicion like a knife cutting at his heart ; his brain 
 clouded ; and he himself driven to creep down clandestinely 
 to watch his wife. 
 
 He sat there till the June sun began to sink in the west. 
 The river was covered with the evening craft. They were 
 manned by the young City men but just beginning the 
 worship of Mammon, who would have looked with envy 
 upon the figure sitting motionless in the shade by the 
 river's edge had they known who he was. Presently he 
 roused himself, and looked at his watch. It was past seven. 
 Perhaps the party would be over by this time ; he could go 
 home with his wife ; it would be something, at least, to be
 
 456 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 with her, to keep her from that other man He rose, — his 
 brain in a tumult — and repaired once more to his point of 
 vantage at the hedge. The lawn was empty ; there was no 
 one there. But he saw his own carriage in the yard, and 
 therefore his wife was not yet gone. 
 
 In the garden, no one. He crept in softly, and looked 
 round him. No one saw him enter the place ; and he 
 felt something like a burglar as he walked, with a stealthy 
 step which he vainly tried to make confident, across the 
 lawn. 
 
 Two ways of entrance stood open before him. One was 
 the porch of the house, covered with creepers and hung 
 with flowers. The door stood open, and beyond it was the 
 hall, looking dark from the bright light outside. He heard 
 voices within. Another way was by the conservatory, the 
 door of which was also open. He looked in. Among the 
 flowers and the \T.nes there stood a figure he knew — his 
 wife's. But she was alone. And she was listening. On 
 her face was an expression which he had never seen there, 
 and never dreamed of Her features were distorted ; her 
 hands were closed in a tight clutch ; her arms were stifiened 
 — but she was trembling. What was she doing ? To whom 
 was she listening ? 
 
 He hesitated a moment, and then he stepped through 
 the porch into the hall. The voices came from the right ; 
 in fact, from the morning-room, — Phillis's room, — which 
 opened by its single window upon the lawn, and by its 
 two doors into the hall on one side and the conservatory 
 on the other. 
 
 And Gabriel Cassilis, like his wife, listened. He put off 
 his hat, placed his umbrella in the stand, and stood in 
 attitude, in case he should be observed, to push open the 
 door and step in. He was so abject in his jealousy that he 
 actually did not feel the disgrace and degradation of the act. 
 He was so keen and eager to lose no word, that he leaned 
 his head to the half-open door, and stood, his long thin 
 figure trembling with excitement, like some listener in a 
 melodrama of the transpontine stage.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 457 
 
 There were two persons in the room, and one was a 
 woman ; and they were talking together. One was Lawrence 
 Colquhoun, and the other was Phillis Fleming. 
 
 Colquhoun was not, according to his wont, lying on a 
 sofa, nor sitting in the easiest of the chairs. He was stand- 
 ing, and he was speaking in an earnest voice. 
 
 " When I saw you first," he said, " you were little Phillis 
 — a wee toddler of six or seven. I went away, and forgot 
 all about you — almost forgot your very existence, Phillis, — 
 till the news of Mr. Dyson's death met me on my way home 
 again. I fear that I have neglected you since I came home ; 
 but I have been worried." 
 
 " What has worried you, Lawrence ? " asked the girl. 
 
 She was sitting on the music-stool before the piano ; and 
 as she spoke she turned from the piano, her fingers resting 
 silently on the notes. She was dressed for the party, — 
 which was over now, and the guests departed, — in a simple 
 muslin costume, light and airy, which became her well. 
 And in her hair she had placed a flower. There were 
 flowers all about the room, flowers at the open window, 
 flowers in the conservatory beyond, flowers on the bright 
 green lawns beyond. 
 
 " How pretty you are, Phillis ! " answered her guardian. 
 
 He touched her cheek with his finger as she sat. 
 
 " I am your guardian," he said, as if in apology. 
 
 " And you have been worried about things ? " she persisted. 
 " Agatha says you never care what happens." 
 
 " Agatha is right, as a rule. In one case, of which 
 she knows nothing, she is wrong. Tell me, Phillis, is 
 there anything you want, in the world, that I can get 
 for you ? " 
 
 " I think I have everything," she said, laughing. " And 
 what you will not give me I shall wait for till I am 
 twenty-one." 
 
 " You mean '* 
 
 " I mean — Jack Dunquerqne, Lawrence." 
 
 Only a short month ago, and Jack Dunquerque was her 
 friend. She could speak of him openly and freely, without
 
 458 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 change of voice or face. Now slie bluslied, and lier voice 
 trembled as she uttered his name. That is one of the out- 
 ward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual state 
 known to the most elementary observers. 
 
 " I wanted to speak about him. Phillis, you are very 
 young ; you have seen nothing of the world ; you know no 
 other men. All I ask you is to wait. Do not give your pro- 
 mise to this man till you have at least had an opportunity 
 of — of comparing — of learning your own mind." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I have already given my promise," she said. 
 
 " But it is a promise that may be recalled," he urged. 
 " Dunquerque is a gentleman ; he will not hold you to your 
 word when he feels that he ought not to have taken it from 
 you. Phillis, you do not know yourself. You have no idea 
 of what it is that you have given, or its value. How can I 
 tell you the truth ? " 
 
 " I think you mean the best for me, Lawrence," she said. 
 " But the best is— Jack." 
 
 Then she began to speak quite low, so that the listeners 
 heard nothing. 
 
 " See, Lawrence, you are kind, and I can tell you all with- 
 out being ashamed. I think of Jack all day long and all 
 night. I pray for him in the morning and in the evening. 
 When he comes near me I tremble ; I feel that I must obey 
 him if he were to order me in anything. I have no more 
 command of myself when he is with me " 
 
 " Stop, Phillis," Lawrence interposed ; " you must not tell 
 me any more. I was trying to act for the best ; but I will 
 make no further opposition. See, my dear " — he took her 
 hand in his in a tender and kindly way — " if I write to Jack 
 Dunquerque to-day, and tell the villain he may come and see 
 you whenever he likes, and that he shall marry you whenever 
 you like, will that do for you ? " 
 
 She started to her feet, and threw her left hand — Lawrence 
 still holding the right — upon his shoulder, looking him full 
 in the face. 
 
 " Will it do ? Lawrence ! Agatha always said you
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 459 
 
 were the kindest man in the world ; and I — forgive me ! — I 
 did not believe it, I could not understand it. Jack, Jack, 
 we shall be so happy, so happy ! He loves me, Lawrence, as 
 much as I love him." 
 
 The listeners in the greenhouse and the hall craned their 
 necks, but they could hear little, because the girl spoke low. 
 
 "Does he love you as much as you love him, Phillis ? Does 
 he love you a thousand times better than you can understand? 
 Why, child, you do not know what love means. Perhaps 
 women never do quite realise what it means. Only go on 
 believing that he loves you, and love him in return, and all 
 will be well with you." 
 
 " I do believe it, Lawrence ; and I love him too." 
 
 Looking through the flowers and the leaves of the con- 
 servatory glared a face upon the pair strangely out of harmony 
 with the peace which breathed in the atmosphere of the place 
 — a face violently distorted by passion, a face in which every 
 evil feeling was at work, a face dark with rage. Phillis might 
 have seen the face had she looked in that direction, but she 
 did not ; she held Lawrence's hand, and she was shyly press- 
 ing it in gratitude. 
 
 " Phillis," said Lawrence hoarsely, " Jack Dunquerque is a 
 lacky man. We all love you, my dear ; and I almost as 
 much as Jack. But I am too old for you ; and besides, 
 besides" He cleared his throat, and spoke more dis- 
 tinctly. " I do love you, however, Phillis ; a man could not 
 be long beside you without loving you." 
 
 There was a movement and a rustle in the leaves. 
 
 The man at the door stood bewildered. What was it all 
 about ? Colquhoun and a woman — not his wife — talking of 
 love. What love ? what woman ? And his wife in the con- 
 servatory, looking as he never saw her look before, and listen- 
 ing. What did it all mean? what thing was coming over 
 him ? He pressed his hand to his forehead, trying to make 
 out what it all meant, for he seemed to be in a dream ; and, 
 as before, while he tried to shape the words in his mind for 
 some sort of an excuse, or a reassurance to himself, he found 
 that no words came, or, if any, then the wrong words.
 
 46o THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 The house was very quiet ; no sounds came from any part 
 of it, — the servants were resting in the kitchen, the mistress 
 of the house was resting in her room, after the party, — no 
 voices but the gentle talk of the girl and her guardian. 
 
 " Kiss me, Phillis," said Lawrence. " Then let me hold 
 you in my arms for once, because you are so sweet, and — and 
 I am your guardian, you know, and we all love you." 
 
 He drew her gently by the hands. She made no resist- 
 ance ; it seemed to her right that her guardian should kiss 
 her if he wished. She did not know how the touch of her 
 hand, the light in her eyes, the sound of her voice, were 
 stirring in the man before her depths that he thought long 
 ago buried and put away, awakening once more the possi- 
 bilities, at forty, of a youthful love. 
 
 His lips were touching her forehead, her face was close to 
 his, he held her two hands tight, when the crash of a falling 
 flower-pot startled him, and Victoria Cassilis stood before 
 him. 
 
 Panting, gasping for breath, with hands clenched and eyes 
 distended — a living statue of the fcmiiia demens. For a 
 moment she paused to take breath, and then, with a wave of 
 her hand which was grand because it was natural and worthy 
 of Eachel — because you may see it any day among the 
 untutored beauties of Whitechapel, among the gipsy camps, 
 or in the villages where Hindoo women live and quarrel — 
 Victoria Cassilis for once in her life was herself, and acted 
 superbly, because she did not act at all. 
 
 " Victoria ! " The word came from Lawrence. 
 
 Phillis, with a little cry of terror, clung tightly to her 
 guardian's arm. 
 
 " Leave him ! " cried the angry woman. " Do you hear ? 
 — leave him ! " 
 
 " Better go, Phillis," said Lawrence. 
 
 At the prospect of battle the real nature of the man 
 asserted itself He drew himself erect, and met her wild 
 eyes with a steady gaze, which had neither terror nor surprise 
 in it — a gaze such as a mad doctor might practise upon his 
 patients, a look which calms the wildest outbreaks, because
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 461 
 
 it sees in them nothing but what it expected to find, and is 
 only sorry. 
 
 " No ! she shall not go," said Victoria, sweeping her skirts 
 behind her with a splendid movement from her feet ; " she 
 shall not go until she has heard me first. You dare to make 
 love to this girl, this schoolgirl, before my very eyes. She 
 shall know, she shall know our secret ! " 
 
 "Victoria," said Lawrence calmly, "you do not under- 
 stand what you are saying. Our secret ? Say your secret, 
 and be careful." 
 
 The door moved an inch or two ; the man standing be- 
 hind it was shaking in every limb. " Their secret ? her 
 secret ? " He was going to learn at last ; he was going to 
 
 find the truth ; he was going And here a sudden 
 
 thought struck him that he had neglected his affairs of 
 late, and that, this business once got through, he must 
 look into things again ; a thought without words, because, 
 somehow, just then he had no words — he had forgotten 
 them all. 
 
 The writer of the anonymous letters had done mvich 
 mischief, as she hoped to do. People who write anonymous 
 letters generally contrive so much. Unhappily, the begin- 
 ning of mischief is like the boring of a hole in a dam or 
 dyke, because very soon, instead of a trickling rivulet of 
 water, you get a gigantic inundation. Nothing is easier 
 than to have your revenge; only it is so very difficult 
 to calculate the after consequences of revenge. If the 
 writer of the letters had known what was going to happen 
 in consequence, most likely they would never have been 
 written. 
 
 " Their secret ? her secret ? " He listened with all his 
 might. But Victoria, his wife Victoria, spoke out clearly ; 
 he could hear without straining his ears. 
 
 " Be careful," repeated Lawrence. 
 
 "I shall not be careful; the time is past for care. You 
 have sneered and scoffed at me; you have insulted me; you 
 have refused almost to know me, — all that I have borne, but 
 this I will not bear."
 
 462 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Phillis Fleming." She turned to the girl. Phillis did 
 not shrink or cower before her; on the contrary, she stood 
 like Lawrence, calm and quiet, to face the storm, whatever 
 storm might be brewing. " This man takes you in his arms 
 and kisses you. He says he loves you ; he dares to tell you 
 he loves you. No doubt you are flattered. You have 
 had the men round you all day long, and now you have 
 the best of them at your feet, alone, when they are gone. 
 Well, the man you want to catch, the excellent 'j}'^'>'^^ 
 you and Agatha would like to trap, the man who stands 
 there " 
 
 " Victoria, there is still time to stop," said Lawrence 
 calmly. 
 
 " That man is my husband ! " 
 
 Phillis looked from one to the other, understanding nothing. 
 The man stood quietly stroking his great beard with his 
 fingers, and looking straight at Mrs. Cassilis. 
 
 " My husband. We were married six years ago and 
 more. We were married in Scotland, privately; but he is 
 my husband, and five days after our wedding he left me. 
 Is that true ? '"' 
 
 " Perfectly. You have forgotten nothing, except the 
 reason of my departure. If you think it worth while 
 troubling Phillis with that, why " 
 
 " We quarrelled ; that was the reason. He used cruel and 
 bitter language. He gave me back my liberty." 
 
 " We separated, Phillis, after a row, the like of which you 
 may conceive by remembering that ]\Irs. Cassilis was then 
 six years younger, and even more ready for such encounters 
 than at present. We separated ; we agreed that things 
 should go on as if the marriage, which was no marriage, 
 had never taken place. Janet, the maid, was to be trusted. 
 She stayed with her mistress; I went abroad. And then 
 I heard by accident that my wife had taken the liberty I 
 gave her, in its fullest sense, by marrying again. Then I 
 came home, because I thought that chapter was closed ; but 
 it was not, you see ; and for her sake I wish I had stayed in 
 America."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 463 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis listened as if she did not hear a word ; then 
 she went on — ■ 
 
 " He is my husband still. I can claim him when I want 
 him ; and I claim him now. I say, Lawrence, so long as I 
 live you shall marry no other woman. You are mine ; what- 
 ever happens, you are mine." 
 
 The sight of the man, callous, immovable, suddenly seemed 
 to terrify her. She sank weeping at his knees. 
 
 " Lawrence, forgive me, forgive me ! Take me away. I 
 never loved any one but you. Forgive me ! " 
 
 He made no answer or any sign. 
 
 " Let me go with you, somewhere, out of this place ; let 
 us go away together, we two. I have never loved any one 
 but you — never any one but you, but you ! " 
 
 She broke into a passion of sobs. When she looked up, 
 it was to meet the white face of Gabriel Cassilis. He was 
 stooping over her, his hands spread out helplessly, his form 
 quivering, his lips trying to utter something ; but no sound 
 came through them. Beyond stood Lawrence, still with 
 the look of watchful determination which had broken down 
 her rage. Then she sprang to her feet. 
 
 " You here ? Then you know all. It is true ; that is my 
 legal husband. For two years and more my life has been a 
 lie. Stand back, and let me go to my husband ! " 
 
 But he stood between Colquhoun and herself Lawrence 
 saw with a sudden terror that something had happened to 
 the man. He expected an outburst of wrath, but no wrath 
 came. Gabriel Cassilis turned his head from one to the 
 other, and presently said, in a trembling voice — 
 
 " A fine day, and seasonable weather for the time of 
 year." 
 
 "Good God!" cried Lawrence, "you have destroyed his 
 reason ! " 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis shook his head, and began again — 
 
 " A fine day, and seasonable " 
 
 Here he threw himself upon the nearest chair, and buried 
 his face in his hands.
 
 464 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 CHAPTEE XLII. 
 
 " Then a babbled of green fields." 
 
 AND then tliere was silence. Wliich of them was to 
 speak? Not the woman who had wrought this mis- 
 chief ; not the man who knew of the wickedness but had not 
 spoken ; not the innocent girl who only perceived that some- 
 thing dreadful — something beyond the ordinary run of 
 dreadful events — had happened, and that Victoria Cassilis 
 looked out of her senses. Lawrence Colquhoun stood 
 unmoved by her tears : his face was hardened ; it bore a 
 look beneath which the guilty woman cowered. Yet she 
 looked at him, and not at her husband. 
 
 Presently Colquhoun spoke. His voice was harsh, and 
 his words were a command. 
 
 " Go home ! " he said to Victoria. " There is no more 
 mischief for you to do — go ! " 
 
 She obeyed without a word. She threw the light wrapper 
 which she carried on her arm round her slender neck, and 
 walked away, restored, to outward seeming, to all her calm 
 and stately coldness. The coachman and the footman noticed 
 nothing. If any of her acquaintances passed her on the 
 road, they saw no change in her. The woman was impassive 
 and impenetrable. 
 
 Did she love Colquhoun? No one knows. She loved to 
 feel that she had him in her power ; she was driven to a mad 
 jealousy when that power slipped quite away ; and although 
 she had broken the vows which both once swore to keep, she 
 could not bear even to think that he should do the same. 
 And she did despise her husband, the man of shares, com- 
 panies, and stocks. But could she love Colquhoun ? Such 
 a woman may feel the passion of jealousy ; she may rejoice 
 in the admiration which gratifies her vanity ; but she is far 
 too cold and selfish for love. It is an artful fable of the 
 ancients which makes Narcissus pine away and die for the 
 loss of his own image, for thereby they teach the great lesson 
 that he who loves himself destroys himself
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 465 
 
 The carriage wheels crunched over the gravel, and Gabriel 
 Cassilis raised a pale and trembling face — a face with so 
 much desolation and horror, such a piteous gaze of question- 
 ing reproach at Colquhoun, that the man's heart melted 
 within him. He seemed to have grown old suddenly ; his 
 hair looked whiter ; he trembled as one who has the palsy ; 
 and his eyes mutely asked the question, " Is this thing- 
 true ?" 
 
 Lawrence Colquhoun made answer. His voice was low 
 and gentle ; his eyes were filled with teai's. 
 
 " It is true, Mr. Cassilis. God knows I would have spared 
 you the knowledge. But it is true." 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis opened his lips as if to speak. But he 
 refrained, stopping suddenly, because he recollected that he 
 could no longer utter what he wished to say. Then he 
 touched his mouth with his fingers like a dumb man. He 
 was worse than a dumb man, who cannot speak at all, be- 
 cause his tongue, if he allowed it, uttered words which had 
 no connection with his thoughts. Men that have been 
 called possessed of the devil have knelt at altars, uttering 
 blasphemous impieties when their souls were full of prayer. 
 
 " Do you understand me, Mr. Cassilis ? Do you compre- 
 hend what I am saying ? " 
 
 He nodded his head. 
 
 Colquhoun took a piece of notepaper from the "wi'iting- 
 table, and laid it before him with a pencil. Mr. Cassilis 
 grasped the pencil eagerly, and began to write. From his 
 fingers, as from his tongue, came the sentence which he did 
 oiot wish to write — 
 
 " A fine day, and seasonable weather for the time of year." 
 
 He looked at this result with sorrowful heart, and showed 
 it to Colquhoun, shaking his head. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " cried Colquhoun, " his raiud is gone." 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis touched him on the arm and shook his 
 head. 
 
 "He understands you, Lawrence," said Phillis; "but he 
 cannot explain himself Something has gone wrong with 
 him which we do not know." 
 
 2 G
 
 466 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis nodded gratefully to Phillia. 
 
 "Then Mr. Cassilis," Colquhoun began, "it is right that 
 you should know all. Sis years ago I followed Victoria 
 Pengelley into Scotland. We were married privately at a 
 registrar's office, under assumed names. If you ever want 
 to know where and by what names, you have only to ask me, 
 and I will tell you. There were reasons, she said, — I never 
 quite understood what they were, but she chose to be a fille 
 roonanesque at the time, — why the marriage should be kept 
 secret. After the wedding ceremony — such as it was — she 
 left the office with her maid, who was the only witness, and 
 returned to the friends with whom she was staying. I met 
 her every day ; but always in that house and among other 
 people. A few days passed. She would not, for some whim 
 of her own, allow the marriage to be disclosed. We 
 quarrelled for that, and other reasons — my fault, possibly. 
 Good God ! what a honeymoon ! To meet the woman you 
 love — your bride — in society ; if for half an hour alone, then 
 in the solitude of open observation ; to quarrel like people 
 
 who have been married for forty years Well, perhaps it 
 
 was my fault. On the fifth day we agreed to let things be 
 as if they had never been. I left my bride, who was not my 
 wife, in anger. We used bitter words — perhaps I the 
 bitterest. And when we parted, I bade her go back to her 
 old life as if nothing had been promised on either side. I 
 said she should be free ; that I would never claim the power 
 and the rights given me by a form of words ; that she might 
 marry again ; that, to leave her the more free, I would go 
 away and never return till she was married, or till she gave 
 me leave. I was away for four years ; and then I saw the 
 announcement of her marriage in the paper, and I returned. 
 That is the bare history, Mr. Cassilis. Since my return, on 
 my honour as a gentleman, you have had no cause for jealousy 
 in my own behaviour towards — your wife, not mine. Re- 
 member, Mr. Cassilis, whatever else may be said, she never 
 was my wife. And yet, in the eye of the law, I suppose she 
 is my wife still. And with all my heart I pity you." 
 
 He stopped, and looked at the victim of the crime.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 467 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis was staring helplessly from him to Pbillis. 
 Did he understand ? Not entirely, I think. Yet the words 
 which he had heard fell upon his heart softly, and soothed 
 him in his trouble. At last his eyes rested on Phillis, as if 
 asking, as men do in times of trouble, for the quick compre- 
 hension of a woman. 
 
 " What can I do, Mr. Cassilis ? " asked the girl. " If you 
 cannot speak, will you make some sign? Any little sign 
 that I can understand ? " 
 
 She remembered that among her lesson -books was a 
 dictionary. She put that into his hand, and asked him to 
 show her in the dictionary what he wished to say. 
 
 He took the book in his trembling hands, turned over the 
 leaves, and presently, finding the page he wanted, ran his 
 fingers down the lines till they rested on a word. 
 
 Phillis read it, spelling it out in her pretty little schoolgirl 
 fashion. 
 
 " S, I, si ; L, E, N, C, E, lence — silence. Is that what you 
 wish to say, Mr. Cassilis ? " 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " Silence," repeated Lawrence. " For all our sakes it is 
 the best — the only thing. Phillis, tell no one what you have 
 heard ; not even Agatha ; not even Jack Dunquerque. Or, 
 if you tell Jack Dunquerque, send him to me directly after- 
 wards. Do you promise, child ? " 
 
 " I promise, Lawrence. I will tell no one but Jack ; and 
 I shall ask him first if he thinks I ought to tell him another 
 person's secret." 
 
 " Thank you, Phillis. Mr, Cassilis, there are only we 
 three and — and one more. You may trust Phillis when 
 she promises a thing; you may trust me, for my own 
 sake; you may, I hope, trust that other person. And 
 as for me, it is my intention to leave England in a 
 week, I deeply regret that I ever came back to this 
 country." 
 
 A week was too far ahead for Mr. Cassilis to look for- 
 ward to in his agitation. Clearly the one thing in his mind 
 at the moment — the one possible thing — was conceal-
 
 468 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 ment. He took the dictionary again, and found tlie word 
 " Home." 
 
 " Will you let me take you home, sir ? " Lawrence 
 asked. 
 
 He nodded again. There was no resentment in his face, 
 and none in his feeble confiding manner when he took 
 Lawrence's arm and leaned upon it as he crawled out to the 
 carriage. 
 
 Only one sign of feeling. He took Phillis by the hand 
 and kissed her. When he had kissed her, he laid his finger 
 on her lips. And she understood his wish that no one should 
 learn this thing. 
 
 " Not even Agatha, Phillis," said Lawrence. " Forget, if 
 you can. And if you cannot, keep silence." 
 
 They drove into town together, these men with a secret 
 between them. Lawrence made no further explanations. 
 What was there to explain ? The one who suffered the 
 most sat upright, looking straight before him in mute 
 suffering. 
 
 It is a long drive from Twickenham to Kensington 
 Palace Gardens. When they arrived, Mr. Cassilis was too 
 weak to step out of the carriage. They helped him — 
 Lawrence Colquhoun and a footman — into the hall. He 
 was feeble with long fasting as much as from the effects of 
 this dreadful shock. 
 
 They carried him to his study. Among the servants 
 who looked on was Tomlinson, the middle-aged maid with 
 the harsh face. She knew that her bolt had fallen at 
 last ; and she saw, too, that it had fallen upon the wrong 
 person, for up - stairs sat her mistress, calm, cold and 
 collected. She came home looking pale and a little worn ; 
 fatigued, j)erhaps, with the constant round of engage- 
 ments, though the season was little more than half over. 
 She dressed in gentle silence, which Tomlinson could not 
 understand. She went down to dinner alone, and presently 
 went to her drawing-room, where she sat in a window, and 
 thought. 
 
 There Colquhoun found her.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 469 
 
 "I have told him all," he said. "Your words told him 
 only half, and yet too much. You were never my wife, as 
 you know, and never will be, though the Law may make 
 you take my name. Cruel and heartless woman! to 
 gratify an insensate jealousy you have destroyed your 
 husband." 
 
 " Is he — is he — dead ? " she cried, almost as if she wished 
 he were. 
 
 " No ; he is not dead ; he is struck with some fit. He 
 cannot speak. Learn, now, that your jealousy was without 
 foundation. Phillis will marry Dunquerque. As for me, I 
 can never marry, as you know." 
 
 " He is not dead ! " she echoed, taking no notice of the 
 last words. Indeed, Phillis was quite out of her thoughts 
 now. " Does he wish to see me ? " 
 
 " No ; you must not, at present, attempt to see him." 
 
 " What will they do to me, Lawrence ? " she asked again. 
 " What can they do ? I did not mean him to hear. It was 
 all to frighten you." 
 
 " To frighten me ! What they can do, Mrs. Cassilis, is to 
 put you in the prisoner's box and me in the witness box. 
 What he wants to do, so far as we can yet understand, is to 
 keep silence." 
 
 " What is the good of that ? He will cry his wrongs all 
 over the town, and Phillis will tell everybody." 
 
 "Phillis will tell no one, no one — not even Agatha. 
 It was lucky that Agatha heard nothing ; she was up- 
 stairs, lying down after her party. Will you keep 
 silence ? " 
 
 " Of course I shall. What else is there for me to do ? "' 
 
 " For the sake of your husband ; for the sake of your 
 boy " — — 
 
 "It is for my own sake, Lawrence," she interrupted 
 coldly. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I ought to have known by this 
 time that you would have acted for your own sake only. 
 Victoria, it was an evil day for me when I met you ; it was 
 a worse day when I consented to a secret marriage, which
 
 470 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 was no marriage, when there was no reason for any secrecy ; 
 it was the worst day of all when I answered your letter, 
 and came here to see you. Every day we have met has 
 produced more recrimination. That would not have mattered, 
 but for the mischief our meeting has wrought upon your 
 husband. I pray that we may never in this world meet 
 again." 
 
 He was gone, and Victoria Cassilis has not met him since, 
 nor do I think now that she ever will meet him. again. 
 
 The summer night closed in ; the moonlight came up and 
 shone upon the Park before her, laying silvery patches of 
 light in tens of thousands upon the young leaves of the 
 trees, and darkening the shadows a deeper black by way 
 of contrast. They brought her tea and lights ; then they 
 came for orders. There were none ; she would not go out 
 that night. At eleven Tomlinson came. 
 
 "I want nothing, Tomlinson. You need not wait up; 
 I shall not want you this evening." 
 
 " Yes, madam ; no, madam. Mr. Cassilis is asleep, 
 madam." 
 
 " Let some one sit up with him. See to that, Tomlinson ; 
 and don't let him be disturbed." 
 
 " I will sit up with him myself, madam." Tomlinson was 
 anxious to get to the bottom of the thing. What mischief 
 had been done, and how far was it her own doing ? To persons 
 who want revenge these are very important questions, when 
 mischief has actually been perpetrated. 
 
 Then Victoria was left alone. In that great house, with 
 its troop of servants and nurses, with her husband and child, 
 there was no one who cared to know what she was doing. 
 The master was not popular, because he simply regarded 
 every servant as a machine ; but at least he was just, and 
 he paid well, and the house, from the point of view likely 
 to be taken by Mr. Plush and Miss Hairpin, was a comfort- 
 able one. The mistress of the house was unpopular. Her 
 temper at times was intolerable, her treatment of servants 
 showed no consideration; and the womenfolk regarded the 
 necrlect of her own child with the horror of such nearlect
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 471 
 
 in wliicli the Englishwoman of all ranks is trained. So 
 she was alone, and remained alone. The hands of the 
 clock went round and round ; the moon went down, and 
 over the garden lay the soft sepia twilight of June ; the 
 lamp on the little table at her elbow went out ; but she 
 sat still, hands crossed in her lap, looking out of window, 
 and thinking. 
 
 She saw, but she did not feel the wickedness of it, a cold 
 and selfish girl ripening into a cold and selfish woman — 
 one to whom the outer world was as a panorama of moving 
 objects, meaning nothing, and having no connection with 
 herself. Like one blind, deaf, and dumb, she moved among 
 the mobs who danced and sang, or who grovelled and wept. 
 She had no tears to help the suSerers, and no smiles to 
 encourage the happy ; she had never been able to sympathise 
 with the acting of a theatre or the puppets of a novel ; she 
 was so cold that she was not even critical. It seems odd, 
 but it is really true, that a critic may be actually too cold. 
 She saw a mind that, like the Indian devotee, was occupied 
 for ever in contemplating itself; she saw beauty which 
 would have been irresistible had there been one gleam, 
 just one gleam, of womanly tenderness; she saw one man 
 after the other first attracted and then re^Delled; and then 
 she came to the one man who was not repelled. There 
 was once an unfortunate creature who dared to make love 
 to Diana. His fate is recorded in Lempriere's Dictionary; 
 also in Dr. Smith's later and more expensive work. 
 Lawrence Colquhoun resembled that swain, and his fate 
 was not unlike the classical punishment. She went through 
 the form of marriage with him, and then she drove him 
 from her by the cold wind of her own intense selfishness 
 — a very ]\Iistral. When he was gone she began to regret 
 a slave of such uncomplaining slavishness. Well, no one 
 knew except Janet; Janet did not talk. It was rather a 
 struggle, she remembered, to take Gabriel Cassilis — rather 
 a struggle, because Lawrence Colquhoun might come home 
 and tell the story, not because there was anything morally 
 wrong:. She was most anxious to see him when he did come
 
 472 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 home — out of curiosity, out of jealousy, out of a desire to 
 know whether her old power was gone; out of fear, out of 
 that reason which makes a criminal seek out from time 
 to time the scene and accomplices of his crime, and for the 
 thousand reasons which make up a selfish woman's code 
 of conduct. It was three o'clock and daylight when she 
 discovered that she had really thought the whole thing over 
 from the beginning, and that there was nothing more to 
 think about, except the future — a distasteful subject to all 
 sinners, 
 
 "After all," she summed up, as she rose to go to bed, "it 
 is as well. Lawrence and I should never have got along. 
 He is too selfish, much too selfish." 
 
 Down-stairs they were watching over the stricken man. 
 The doctor came and felt his pulse ; he also looked wise, 
 and wrote things in Latin on a paper, which he gave to a 
 servant. Then he went away, and said he would come 
 in the morning again. He was a great doctor, with a title, 
 and quite believed to know everything ; but he did not 
 know what had befallen this patient. 
 
 When Gabriel Cassilis awoke there was some confusion 
 in his mind, and his brain was wandering — at least it 
 appeared so, because what he said had nothing to do with 
 any possible wish or thought. He rambled at large and 
 at length ; and then he grew angry, and then he became 
 suddenly sorrowful, and sighed ; then he became perfectly 
 silent. The confused babble of speech ceased as suddenly 
 as it had come; and since that morning Gabriel Cassilis has 
 not spoken. 
 
 It was at half-past nine that his secretary called, simul- 
 taneously with the doctor. 
 
 He heard something from the servants, and pushed into 
 the room where his chief was lying. The eyes of the sick 
 man opened languidly and fell upon his first officer, but 
 they expressed no interest and asked no question. 
 
 "Ah!" sighed Mr. Mowll, in the impatience of a sym- 
 pathy which has but little time to spare. " Will he recover, 
 doctor ? "
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 473 
 
 "No doubt, no doubt. This ^Yay, ray deai' sir." He 
 led the secretaiy out of the room. " Hush ! he under- 
 stands what is said. This is no ordinary seizure. Has 
 he received any shock ? " 
 
 " Shock enough to kill thirty men," said the secretary. 
 " Where was he yesterday ? Why did he not say some- 
 thing — do something — to avert the disaster ? " 
 
 " Oh ! Then the shock has been of a financial kind ? I 
 gathered from Mr. Colquhoun that it was of a family 
 nature — something sudden and distressing." 
 
 " Family nature ! " echoed the secretary. " Who ever 
 heard of Mr. Cassilis worrying himself about family 
 matters ? No, sir ; when a man is ruined he has no time 
 to bother about family matters." 
 
 " Ruined ? The great Mr. Gabriel Cassilis ruined ? " 
 
 " I should say so, and I ought to know. They say so 
 in the City ; they will say so to-night in the papers. If 
 he were well, and able to face things, there might be — 
 no, even then there could be no hope. Settling-day this 
 very morning ; and a pretty settling it is." 
 
 " Whatever day it is," said the doctor, " I cannot have 
 him disturbed. You may return in three or four hours, 
 if you like, and then perhaps he may be able to speak to 
 you. Just now, leave him in peace." 
 
 What had happened was this : 
 
 When Mr. Cassilis caused to be circulated a certain pam- 
 phlet which we have heard of, impugning the resources of 
 the Eepublic of Eldorado, he wished the stock to go down. 
 It did go down, and he bought in — bought in so largely 
 that he held two millions of the stock. Men in his position 
 do not buy large quantities of stock without affecting the 
 price — Stock Exchange transactions are not secret — and 
 Eldorado Stock went up. This was what Gabriel Cassilis 
 naturally desired. Also the letter of El Seiior Don Bellaco 
 de la Carambola to the Times, showing the admirable way 
 in which Eldorado loans were received and administered, 
 helped. The stock went up from 64, at which price Gabriel 
 Cassilis bought in, to 75, at which he should have sold.
 
 474 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Had lie done so at the right moment, he would have 
 realised the very handsome sum of two hundred and sixty 
 thousand pounds ; but the trouble of the letters came, and 
 prevented him from acting. 
 
 While his mind was agitated by these — agitated, as we 
 have seen, to such an extent that he could no longer think 
 or work, or attend to any kind of business — there arrived 
 for him telegram after telegram, in his own cipher, from 
 America. These lay unopened. It was disastrous, because 
 they announced beforehand the fact which only his corre- 
 spondent knew — the Eldorado bonds were no longer to be 
 paid. 
 
 That fact was now public. It was made known by all 
 the pajoers that Eldorado, having paid the interest out of 
 the money borrowed, had no further resources whatever, 
 and could pay no more. It was stated in leading articles 
 that England should have known all along what a miserable 
 country Eldorado is. The British public were warned too 
 late not to trust in Eldorado promises any more; and the 
 unfortunates who held Eldorado Stock were actuated by 
 one common impulse to sell, and no one would buy. It 
 was absurd to quote Eldorado bonds at anything ; and the 
 great financier had to meet his engagements by finding 
 the difference between stock at 64 and stock at next to 
 nothing for two millions. 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis was consequently ruined. When it be- 
 came known that he had some sort of stroke, people said that 
 it was the shock of the fatal news. He made the one mistake 
 of an otherwise faultless career, they said to each other, in 
 trusting Eldorado, and his brain could not stand the blow. 
 When the secretary, who understood the cipher, came to 
 open the letters and telegrams, he left off talking about 
 the fatal shock of the news. It must have been something 
 else — something he knew nothing of, because he saw the 
 blow might have been averted ; and the man's mind, clear 
 enough when he went in for a great coup, had become un- 
 hinged during the few days before the smash. 
 
 Ruined ! Gabriel Cassilis knew nothinnf about the
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 475 
 
 wreck of liis life, as he lay upon his bed afraid to speak 
 because he would only babble incoherently. All was gone 
 from him — money, reputation, wife. He had no longer 
 anything. The anonymous correspondent had taken all 
 away. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 " This comes of airy visions and the whispers 
 Of demons like to angels. Brother, weep." 
 
 GILEAD BECK, returning from the Twickenham party 
 before the explosion, found Jack Dunquerque waiting 
 for him. As we have seen, he was not invited. 
 
 "Tell me how she was looking ! " he cried. " Did she ask 
 after me ? " 
 
 " Wal, Mr. Dunquerque, I reckon you the most fortunate 
 individual in the hull world. She looked like an angel, and 
 she talked about you like a — like a woman, with pretty 
 blushes ; and yet she wasn't ashamed neither. Seems as if 
 bein' ashamed isn't her strong point. And what has she got 
 to be ashamed of ? " 
 
 " Did Colquhoun say anything ? " 
 
 " We had already got upon the subject, and I had ventured 
 to make him a proposition. You see, Mr. Dunquerque " — he 
 grew confused, and hesitated — " fact is, I want you to look 
 at things just exactly as I do. I'm rich. I have struck He ; 
 that He is the mightiest Special Providence ever given to a 
 single man. But it's given for purposes. And one of those 
 purposes is that some of it's got to go to you." 
 
 "Tome?" 
 
 " To you, Mr. Dunquerque. Who fired that shot ? Who 
 delivered me from the Grisly ? " 
 
 " Why, Ladds did as much as I." 
 
 Mr. Beck shook his head. 
 
 " Captain Ladds is a fine fellow," he said. " Steady as a 
 rock is Captain Ladds. There's nobody I'd rather march 
 under if we'd the war to do all over agfain. But the He isn't
 
 476 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 for Captain Ladds. It isn't for liim that the Golden Butter- 
 fly fills me with yearnin's. No, sir. I owe it all to you. 
 You've saved my life ; you've sought me out, and gone about 
 this city with me ; you've put me up to ropes ; you've taken 
 me to that sweet creature's house and made her my friend. 
 And Mrs. L'Estrange my friend, too. If I was to turn away 
 and forget you, I should desei*ve to lose that precious 
 Inseck." 
 
 He paused for a minute. 
 
 " I said to Mr. Colquhoun, ' Mr. Dunquerque shall have 
 half of my pile, and more if he wants it. Only you let him 
 come back again to ]\Iiss Fleming.' And he laughed in his 
 easy way ; there's no kind of man in the States like that 
 Mr. Colquhoun — seems as if he never wants to get anything. 
 He laughed and lay back on the grass. And then he said, 
 ' My dear fellow, let Jack come back if he likes ; there's no 
 fighting against fate ; only let him have the decency not to 
 announce his engagement till Phillis has had her first season.' 
 Then he drank some cider-cup, and lay back again. Mrs. 
 Cassilis — she's a very superior woman that, but a trifle cold, 
 I should say — watched him whenever he spoke. She's got 
 a game of her own, unless I am mistaken." 
 
 " But, Beck," Jack gasped, " I can't do this thing ; I can't 
 take your money." 
 
 " I guess, sir, you can, and I guess you will. Come, Mr. 
 Dunquerque, say you won't go against Providence. There's 
 a sweet young lady waiting for you, and a little mountain 
 of dollars." 
 
 But Jack shook his head. 
 
 " I thank you all the same," he said, " I shall never for- 
 get your generosity — never. But that cannot be." 
 
 " We will leave it to Miss Fleming," said Gilead. " What 
 Miss Fleming says is to be, shall be " 
 
 He was interrupted by the arrival of two letters. 
 
 The first was from Joseph Jagenal. It informed him that 
 he had learned from his brothers that they had received 
 money from him on account of work which he thought would 
 never be done. He enclosed a cheque for the full amount.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTEEFLY. 477 
 
 with many tlianks for his kindness, and the earnest hope 
 that he would advance nothing more. 
 
 In the letter was his cheque for ;/r400, the amount which 
 the Twins had borrowed during the four weeks of their 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Mr. Beck put the cheque in his pocket and opened the 
 other letter. It was from Cornelius, and informed him that 
 the Poem could not possibly be finished in the time ; that it 
 was rapidly advancing ; but that he could not pledge himself 
 to completing the work by October. Also, that his brother 
 Humphrey found himself in the same position as regarded 
 the Picture. He ended by the original statement that Art 
 cannot be forced. 
 
 Mr. Beck laughed. 
 
 " Not straight men, Mr. Dunquerque. I suspected it first 
 when they backed out at the dinner, and left me to do the 
 talk. Wal, they may be high-toned, whole-souled, and 
 talented ; but give me the man who works. Now, Mr. 
 Dunquerque, if you please, we'll go and have some dinner, 
 and you shall talk about Miss Fleming. And the day after 
 to-morrow — you note that down — I've asked Mrs. L'Estrange 
 and Miss Phillis to breakfast. Captain Ladds is coming, 
 and Mr. Colquhoun. And you shall sit nest to her. Mrs. 
 Cassilis is coming too. When I asked her she wanted to 
 know if Mr. Colquhoun was to be there. I said yes. Then 
 she wanted to know if Phillis was to be there. I said yes. 
 Then she set her lips hard, and said, ' I will come, Mr Beck.' 
 She isn't happy, that lady ; she's got somethin' on her mind." 
 
 That evening Joseph Jagenal had an unpleasant duty to 
 perform. It was at dinner that he spoke. The Twins were 
 just taking their first glass of port. He had been quite silent 
 through dinner, eating little. Now he looked from one to 
 the other without a word. 
 
 They changed colour. Instinctively they knew what was 
 coming. He said with a gulp : 
 
 "I am sorry to find that my brothers have not been 
 acting honourably."
 
 478 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " What is this, brother Humphrey ? " asked Cornelius. 
 
 " I do not know, brother Cornelius," said the Artist. 
 
 "I will tell you," said Joseph, "what they have done. 
 They made a disingenuous attempt to engage the affections 
 of a rich young lady for the sake of her money." 
 
 " If Humphrey loved the girl " began Cornelius. 
 
 " If Cornelius was devoted to Phillis Fleming " began 
 
 Humphrey. 
 
 " I was not, Humphrey," said Cornelius. " No such 
 thing. And I told you so." 
 
 " I never did love her," said Humphrey. " I always 
 said it was you." 
 
 This was undignified. 
 
 " I do not care which it was. It belongs to both. Then 
 you went down to her again, under the belief that she 
 was engaged to — to — the Lord knows which of you — and 
 solemnly broke it off." 
 
 Neither spoke this time. 
 
 "Another thing. I regret to find that my brothers, 
 having made a contract for certain work with Mr. Gilead 
 Beck, and having been partly paid in advance, are not 
 executing the work." 
 
 "There, Joseph," said Humphrey, waving his hand as 
 if this was a matter on quite another footing, "you must 
 excuse us. We know what is right in Art, if we know 
 nothing else. Art, Joseph, cannot be forced." 
 
 Cornelius murmured assent. 
 
 " We have our dignity to stand upon ; we retreat with 
 dignity. We say, ' We will not be forced ; we will give 
 the world our best.' " 
 
 " Good," said Joseph. " That is very well ; but where is 
 the money ? " 
 
 Neither answered. 
 
 "I have returned that money; but it is a large sum, 
 and you must repay me in part. Understand me, brothers. 
 You may stay here as long as I live; I shall never ask 
 more of you than to respect the family name. There was 
 a time when you promised great things, and I believed in
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 479 
 
 you. It is only quite lately that I have learned to my 
 sorrow that all this promise has been for years a pretence. 
 You sleep all day — you call it work. You habitually drink 
 too much at night. You, Cornelius" — the Poet started — 
 "have not put pen to paper for years. You, Humphrey" 
 — the Artist hung his head — "have neither drawn nor 
 painted anything since you came to live with me. I 
 cannot make either of you work. I cannot retrieve the 
 past. I cannot restore lost habits of industry. I cannot 
 even make you feel your fall from the promise of your 
 youth, or remember the hopes of our father. What I can 
 do is to check your intemperate habits by such means as 
 are in my power." 
 
 He stopped ; they were trembling violently. 
 
 "Half of the .^^400 which you have drawn from Mr. 
 Beck will be paid by household saving. Wine will dis- 
 appear from my table; brandy-and-soda will have to be 
 bought at your own expense. I shall order the dinners, 
 and I shall keep the key of the wine-cellar." 
 
 A year has passed. The Twins have had a sad time; 
 they look forward with undisguised eagerness to the return 
 of the years of fatness ; they have exhausted their own little 
 income in purchasing the means for their midnight seances ; 
 and they have run up a frightful score at the Carnarvon 
 Arms. 
 
 But they still keep up bravely the pretence about their 
 work.
 
 4So THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 " So, on the ruins he himself had made, 
 Sat Marius reft of all his former glory." 
 
 " ^^XN you understand me, sir ? " 
 
 \J Gabriel Cassilis sat in liis own study. It was the 
 day after tlie garden-party. He slept through the night, 
 and in the morning rose and dressed as usual. Then he 
 took his seat in his customary chair at his table. Before 
 him lay papers, but he did not read them. He sat upright, 
 his frock-coat tightly buttoned across his chest, and rapped 
 his knuckles with his gold eyeglasses as if he was thinking. 
 
 They brought him breakfast, and he took a cup of tea. 
 Then he motioned them to take the things away. They 
 gave him the Times, and he laid it mechanically at his 
 elbow. But he did not speak, nor did he seem to attend 
 to what was done around him. And his eyes had a far-off 
 look in them. 
 
 " Can you understand me, sir ? " 
 
 The speaker was his secretary. He came in a cab, pant- 
 ing, eager to see if there was still any hope. Somehow 
 or other it was whispered already in the City that Gabriel 
 Cassilis had had some sort of stroke. And there was terrible 
 news besides. 
 
 Mr. Mowll asked because there was something in his 
 patron's face which frightened him. His eyes were changed. 
 They had lost the keen sharp look which in a soldier means 
 victory ; in a scholar, clearness of purjoose ; in a priest, 
 knowledge of human nature and ability to use that know- 
 ledge ; in a financier, the power and the intuition of success. 
 That was gone. In its place an expression almost of childish 
 softness. And another thing — the lips, once set firm and 
 close, were parted now and mobile. 
 
 The other things were nothing. Tliat a man of sixty-five 
 should in a single night become a man of eighty ; that the 
 iron grey hair should become white ; that a steady hand
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 481 
 
 should shake, and straight shoulders be bent. It was the 
 look in the face, the far-off look, which made the secretary 
 ask that question before he went on. 
 
 Mr. Cassilis nodded his head gently. He could under- 
 stand. 
 
 " You left the telegrams unopened for a week and more ! " 
 cried the impatient clerk. " Why — Oh why ! — did you not 
 let me open them ? " 
 
 There was no reply. 
 
 "If I had known, I could have acted. Even the day 
 before yesterday I could have acted. The news came 
 yesterday morning. It was all over the City by three. 
 And Eldorados down to nothing in a moment." 
 
 ]Mr. Cassilis looked a mild inquiry. No anxiety in that 
 look at all. 
 
 " Eldorado won't pay up her interest. It's due next 
 week. Nothing to pay it with. Your agent in New York 
 telegraphed this a week ago. He's been confirming the 
 secret every day since. Lord ! Lord ! And you the 
 only man who had the knowledge, and all that stake in it ! 
 Can't you speak, sir ? " 
 
 For his master's silence was terrible to him. 
 
 " Listen, then. Ten days ago Eldorados went down after 
 Wylie's pamphlet. You told him what to write and you 
 paid him, just as you did last year. But you tried to hide 
 it from me. That was wrong, sir. I've served you faith- 
 fully for twenty years. But never mind that. You bought 
 in at 64. Then the Eldorado minister wrote to the paper. 
 Stock went up to 75. You stood to win, only the day 
 before yesterday, ;^ 260,000; more than a quarter of a 
 million. Yesterday, by three, they were down to 16. 
 This morning they are down to 8. And it's settling-day, 
 and you lose — you lose — your all. Oh, what a day, what 
 a day ! " 
 
 Still no complaint, not even a sigh from the patient man 
 in the Windsor chair. Only that gentle tapping of the 
 knuckles, and that far-off look. 
 
 " The great name of Gabriel Cassilis dragged in the dust !
 
 482 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLr. 
 
 All your reputation gone — the whole work of your life — 
 sir ! can't you feel even that ? Can't you feel the dreadful 
 end of it all — Gabriel Cassilis, the great Gabi-iel Cassilis, a 
 Lame Duck ! " 
 
 Not even that. The work of his life was forgotten with 
 all its hopes, and the great financiei', listening to his clerk 
 with the polite impatience of one who listens to a wearisome 
 sermon, was trying to understand what was the meaning of 
 that black shadow which lay upon his mind and made him 
 uneasy. For the rest a perfect calm in his brain. 
 
 " People will say it was the shock of the Eldorado smash. 
 Well, sir, it wasn't that ; I know so much ; but it's best 
 to let people think so. If you haven't a penny left in 
 the world you have your character, and that's as high as 
 ever. 
 
 " Fortunately," ]\Ir. ]\Iowll went on, " my own little 
 savings were not in Eldorado Stock. But my employ- 
 ment is gone, I suppose. You will recommend me, I hope, 
 sir. And I do think that I've got some little reputation 
 in the City." 
 
 It was not for want of asserting himself that this worthy 
 man failed, at any rate, of achieving his reputation. For 
 twenty years he had magnified his office as confidential 
 adviser of a great City light ; among his friends and in his 
 usual haunts he successfully posed as one burdened with 
 the weight of affairs, laden with responsibility, and at all 
 times oppressed by the importance of his thoughts. He 
 carried a pocket-book which shut with a clasp ; in the 
 midst of a conversation he would stop, become abstracted, 
 rush at the pocket-book, so to speak, confide a jotting to its 
 care, shut it with a snap, and then go on with a smile and 
 an excuse. Some said that he stood in with Gabriel Cassilis; 
 all thought that he shared his secrets, and gave advice when 
 asked for it. 
 
 As a matter of fact, he was a clerk, and had always been 
 a clerk : but he was a clerk who knew a few things which 
 might have been awkward if told generally. He had a 
 fair salary, but no confidence, no advice, and not much
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 483 
 
 more real knowledge of what his chief was doing than 
 any outsider. And in this tremendous smash it was a 
 great consolation to him to reflect that the liabilities re- 
 presented an amount for which it was really a credit to 
 fail. 
 
 Mr. Mowll has since got another place where the tran- 
 sactions are not so large, but perhaps his personal emolu- 
 ments greater. In the evenings he will talk of the great 
 failure. 
 
 " We stood to win," he will say, leaning back with a 
 superior smile, — "we stood to win ^^260,000. We lost a 
 million and a quarter. I told him not to hang on too long. 
 Against my advice he did. I remember — ah, only four 
 days before it happened — he said to me, ' Mowll, my boy,' 
 he said, ' I've never known you wrong yet. But for once I 
 fancy my own opinion. We've worked together for twenty 
 years,' he said, ' and you've the clearest head of any man I 
 ever saw,' he said. ' But here I think you're wrong. And 
 I shall hold on for another day or two,' he said. Ah, little 
 he knew what a day or two would bring forth ! And he 
 hasn't spoken since. Plays with his little boy, and goes 
 about in a Bath-chair. What a man he was ! and what a 
 pair — if I may say so — we made between us among the bulls 
 and the bears ! Dear me, dear me ! " 
 
 It may be mentioned here that everything was at once 
 given up ; the house in Kensington Palace Gardens, with 
 its costly furniture, its carriages, plate, library, and pictures. 
 Mr. Cassilis signed whatever documents were brought for 
 signature without hesitation, provided a copy of his own 
 signature was placed before him. Otherwise he could not 
 write his name. 
 
 And never a single word of lamentation, reproach, or 
 sorrow. The past was, and is still, dead to him ; all the 
 past except one thing, and that is ever with him. 
 
 For sixty years of his life, this man of the City, whose 
 whole desire was to make money, to win in the game which 
 he played with rare success and skill, regarded bankruptcy 
 as the one thing to be dreaded, or at least to be looked
 
 484 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 upon, because it was absurd to dread it, as a thing bring- 
 ing with it the whole of dishonour. Not to meet your 
 engagements was to be in some sort a criminal. And 
 now he was proclaimed as one who could not meet his 
 engagements. 
 
 If he understood what had befallen him he did not care 
 about it. The trouble was slight indeed in comparison 
 with the other disaster. The honour of his wife and the 
 legitimacy of his child — these were gone; and the man 
 felt what it is that is greater tlian money gained or money 
 lost. 
 
 The blow which fell upon him left his brain clear while 
 it changed the whole course of his thoughts and deprived 
 him partially of memory. But it destroyed his power of 
 speech. That rare and wonderful disease which seems to 
 attack none but the strongest, which separates the brain 
 from the tongue, takes away the knowledge and the sense 
 of language, and kills the power of connecting words with 
 things, while it leaves that of understanding what is said 
 — the disease which doctors call Aphasia — was upon Mr. 
 Gabriel Cassilis. 
 
 In old men this is an incurable disease. Gabriel Cassilis 
 will never speak again. He can read, listen, and under- 
 stand, but he can frame no words with his lips nor write 
 them with his hand. He is a prisoner who has free use of 
 his limbs. He is separated from the world by a greater 
 gulf than that which divides the blind and the deaf from 
 the rest of us, because he cannot make known his thoughts, 
 his wants, or his wishes. 
 
 It took some time to discover what was the matter with 
 him. Patients are not often found suffering from aphasia, 
 and paralysis was the first name given to his disease. 
 
 Bnt it was very early found out that Mr. Cassilis under- 
 stood all tliat was said to him, and by degrees they learned 
 what he liked and what he disliked. 
 
 Victoria Cassilis sat up-stairs, waiting for something — 
 she knew not what — ^to happen. Her maid told her that 
 Mr. Cassilis was ill; she made no reply; she did not ask to
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 485 
 
 see liim ; slie did not ask for any further news of liim. She 
 sat in her own room for two days, waiting. 
 
 Then Joseph Jagenal asked if he might see her. 
 
 She refused at first ; but on hearing that he proposed to 
 stay in the house till she could receive him, she gave way. 
 
 He came from Lawrence, perhaps. He would bring her 
 a message of some kind ; probably a menace. 
 
 " You have something to say to me, Mr. Jagenal ? " Her 
 face was set hard, but her eyes were wistful. He saw that 
 she was afraid. When a woman is afraid, you may make 
 her do pretty well what you please. 
 
 " I have a good deal to tell you, Mrs. Cassilis ; and I am 
 sorry to say it is of an unpleasant nature. 
 
 " I have heard," he went on, " from Mr. Colquhoun that 
 5^ou made a remarkable statement in the presence of Miss 
 Fleming, and in the hearing of Mr. Cassilis." 
 
 " Lawrence informed you correctly, I have no doubt," she 
 replied coldly. 
 
 " That statement of course was untrue," said Joseph, 
 knowing that no record ever was more true. "And there- 
 fore I venture to advise " 
 
 " On the part of Lawrence ? " 
 
 " In the name of Mr. Colquhoun, partly ; partly in your 
 own interest " 
 
 "Go on, if you please, Mr. Jagenal." 
 
 " Believing that statement to be untrue," he repeated, " for 
 otherwise I could not give this advice, I recommend to all 
 parties concerned — silence. Your husband's paralysis is 
 attributed to the shock of his bankruptcy " 
 
 "His what?" cried Victoria, who had heard as yet 
 nothing of the City disaster. 
 
 " His bankruptcy. Mr. Cassilis is ruined." 
 
 " Ruined ! Mr. Cassilis ! " 
 
 She was startled out of herself. 
 
 Ruined! The thought of such disaster had never once 
 crossed her brains. Ruined! That Colossus of wealth — 
 the man whom she married for his money, while secretly she 
 despised his power of accumulating money !
 
 486 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY, 
 
 " He is ruined, Mrs. Cassilis, and hopelessly. I have read 
 certain papers which he put into my hands this morning. 
 It is clear to me that his mind has been for some weeks 
 agitated by certain anonymous letters which came to him 
 every day, and accused you — pardon me, Mrs. Cassilis — 
 accused you of — of infidelity. The letters state that there is 
 a secret of some kind connected with your former acquaint- 
 ance with Mr. Colquhoun ; that you have been lately in the 
 habit of receiving him or meeting him every day ; that you 
 were in his chambers one evening when Mr. Cassilis called ; 
 with other particulars extremely calculated to excite jealousy 
 and suspicion. Lastly, he was sent by the writer to 
 Twickenham. The rest, I believe, you know." 
 
 She made no reply. 
 
 " There can be no doubt, not the least doubt, that had your 
 husband's mind been untroubled, this would never have 
 happened. The disaster is due to his jealousy." 
 
 " I could kill her ! " said Mrs. Cassilis, clenching her fist. 
 " I could kill her ! " 
 
 " Kill whom ? " 
 
 " The woman who wrote those letters. It was a woman. 
 No man could have done such a thing. A woman's trick. 
 Go on." 
 
 " There is nothing more to say. How far other people are 
 involved with your husband, I cannot tell. I am going now 
 into the City to find out if I can. Your wild words, Mrs. 
 Cassilis, and your unguarded conduct, have brought about 
 misfortunes on which yon little calculated. But I am not 
 here to reproach you." 
 
 " You are my husband's man of business, I suppose," she 
 replied coldly — "a paid servant of his. What you say has 
 no importance, nor what you think. What did Lawrence 
 bid you tell me ? " 
 
 Joseph Jagenal's face clouded for a moment. But what 
 was the good of feeling resentment with such a woman, and 
 in such a miserable business ? 
 
 " You have two courses open to you," he went on. " You 
 may, by repeating the confession you made in the hearing of
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 487 
 
 Mr. Cassilis, draw upon yourself sucli punisliment as the Law, 
 provided tlie confession be true, can inflict. That will be a 
 grievous thing to yon. It will drive you out of society, and 
 brand you as a criminal ; it will lock you up for two years 
 in prison; it will leave a stigma never to be forgotten or 
 obliterated ; it means ruin far, far worse than what you have 
 brought on Mr. Cassilis. On the other hand, you may keep 
 silence. This at least will secure the legitimacy of your boy, 
 and will keep for you the amount settled on you at your 
 marriage. But you may choose. If the statement you made 
 is true, of course I can be no party to compounding a 
 felony " 
 
 " And Lawrence ? " she interposed. " What does Lawrence 
 say ? " 
 
 " In any case Mr. Oolquhoun will leave England at once." 
 
 " He will marry that Phillis girl ? You may tell him," 
 she hissed out, " that I will do anything and sufiier any- 
 thing rather than consent to his marrying her, or any one 
 else." 
 
 "Mr. Colquhoun informs me further," pursued the crafty 
 lawyei*, "that, for some reason only known to himself, he 
 will never marry during the life of a certain person. Phillis 
 Fleming will probably marry the Honourable Mr. Ronald 
 Dunquerque." 
 
 She buried her head in her hands, not to hide any 
 emotion, for there was none to hide, but to think. Presently 
 she rose, and said, " Take me to — my husband, if you 
 please." 
 
 Joseph Jagenal, as a lawyer, is tolerably well versed in 
 such wickedness and deceptions as the human heart is capable 
 of. At the same time, he acknowledges to himself that the 
 speech made by Victoria Cassilis to her husband, and the 
 manner in which it was delivered, surpassed anything he 
 had ever experienced or conceived. 
 
 Gabriel Cassilis was sitting- in an arm-chair near his 
 table. In his arms was his infant son, a child of a year old, 
 for whose amusement he was dangling a bunch of keys. The 
 nurse was standing beside him.
 
 488 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 "Wlien Ms wife opened the door lie looked up, and tliere 
 crossed liis face a sudden expression of sucli repulsion, indig- 
 nation, and horror, that the lawyer fiiirly expected the lady 
 to give way altogether. But she did not. Then Mrs. Cassilis 
 motioned the nurse to leave them, and Victoria said what 
 she had come to say. She stood at the table, in the attitude 
 of one who commands respect rather than one who entreats 
 pardon. Her accentuation was precise, and her words as 
 carefully chosen as if she had written them down first. But 
 her husband held his eyes down, as if afraid of meeting her 
 gaze. You would have called him a culprit waiting for 
 reproof and punishment. 
 
 "I learn to-day for the first time that you have suffered 
 from certain attacks made upon me by an anonymous writer ; 
 I learn also for the first time, and to my great regret, that 
 you have suffered in fortune as well as in health. I have 
 myself been too ill in mind and body to be told anything. I 
 am come to say at once that I am sorry if any rash words of 
 mine have given you pain, or any foolish actions of mine have 
 given you reason for jealousy. The exact truth is that 
 Lawrence Colquhoun and I were once engaged. The break- 
 ing off" of that engagement caused me at the time the greatest 
 unhappiness. I resolved then that he should never be 
 engaged to any other girl if I could prevent it by any means 
 in my power. My whole action of late, which appeared to 
 you as if I was running after an old lover, was the prevention 
 of his engagement, which I determined to break off", with 
 Phillis Fleming. In the heat of my passion I used words 
 which were not true. They occurred to me at the moment. 
 I said he was my husband. I meant to have said my pro- 
 mised husband. You now know, Mr. Cassilis, the whole 
 secret. I am deeply humiliated in having to confess my 
 revengeful spirit. I am punished in your affliction." 
 
 Always herself; always her own punishment. 
 
 " We can henceforth, I presume, Mr. Cassilis, resume our 
 old manner of life." 
 
 Mr. Cassilis made no answer, but he patted the head 
 of his child, and Joseph Jagenal saw the tears running
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 4S9 
 
 clown liis cheeks. For he knew that the woman lied to 
 him. 
 
 " For the sake of the boy, Mr. Cassilis," the lawyer pleaded, 
 " let things go on as before." 
 
 He made no sign. 
 
 " Will you let me say something for you in the interests 
 of the child?" 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 "Then, Mrs. Cassilis, your husband consents that there 
 shall be no separation and no scandal. But it will be advis- 
 able for you both that there shall be as little intercourse as 
 possible. Tour husband will breakfast and dine by himself, 
 and occupy his own apartments. You are free, provided you 
 live in the same house, and keep up appearances, to do what- 
 ever you please. But you will not obtrude your presence 
 upon your husband." 
 
 Mr. Cassilis nodded again. Then he sought his dictionary, 
 and hunted for a word. It was the word he had first found, 
 and was " Silence." 
 
 " Yes ; you will also observe strict silence on what has 
 passed at Twickenham, here or elsewhere. Should that 
 silence not be observed, the advisers of Mr. Cassilis will 
 recommend such legal measures as may be necessary." 
 
 Again Gabriel Cassilis nodded. He had not once looked 
 up at his wife since that first gaze, in which he concentrated 
 the hatred and loathing of his speechless soul. 
 
 " Is that all ? " asked Victoria Cassilis. " Or have we more 
 arrangements ? " 
 
 " That is all, madam," said Joseph, opening the door with 
 great ceremony. 
 
 She went away as she had come, with cold haughtiness. 
 Nothing seemed to touch her ; not her husband's misery ; 
 not his ruin ; not the sight of her child. One thing only 
 pleased her. Lawrence Colquhoun would not marry during 
 her lifetime. Bah ! she would live a hundred years, and he 
 should never marry at all. 
 
 In her own room was her maid. 
 
 " Tomlinson," said Mrs. Cassilis — in spite of her outward
 
 490 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 calm, her nerves were strung to the utmost, and she felt 
 that she must speak to some one — " Tomlinson, if a 
 woman wrote anonymous letters about you, if those letters 
 brought misery and misfortune, what would you do to that 
 woman ? " 
 
 " I do not know, ma'am," said Tomlinson, whose cheeks 
 grew white. 
 
 "I will kill her, Tomlinson! I will kill her! I will 
 get those letters and prove the handwriting, and find 
 that woman out. I will devote my life to it, and I will 
 have no mercy on her when I have found her. I will kill 
 her — somehow — by poison — by stabbing — somehow ! Don't 
 tremble, woman ; I don't mean you. And, Tomlinson, 
 forget what I have said." 
 
 Tomlinson could not forget. She tottered from the room, 
 trembling in every limb. 
 
 The wretched maid had her revenge. In full and over- 
 flowing measure. And yet she was not satisfied. The 
 exasperating thing about revenge is that it never does 
 satisfy, but leaves you at the end as angry as at the 
 beginning. Your enemy is crushed; you have seen him 
 tied to a stake, as is the pleasant wont of the Red Indian, 
 and stuck arrows, knives, and red-hot things into him. 
 These hurt so much that he is glad to die. But he is 
 dead, and you can do no more to him. And it seems a 
 pity, because if you had kept him alive, you might have 
 thought of other and more dreadful ways of revenge. 
 These doubts will occur to the most revenge-satiated 
 Christian, and they lead to self-reproach. After all, one 
 might just as well forgive a fellow at once. 
 
 Mrs. Cassilis was a selfish and heartless woman. All the 
 harm that was done to her was the loss of her great wealth. 
 And what had her husband done to Tomlinson that he should 
 be stricken ? And what had others done who were involved 
 with him in the gx'eat disaster? 
 
 Tomlinson was so terrified, however, by the loc^k which 
 crossed her mistress's face, that she went away that very 
 evening ; pretended to have received a telegram from Liver-
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY, 491 
 
 pool ; when slie got there wrote for boxes and wages, with 
 a letter in somebody else's writing, for a reason^ to her 
 mistress, and then went to America, where she had 
 relations. She lives now in a city of the Western States, 
 where her brother keeps a store. She is a leader in her 
 religious circle ; and I think that if she were to see 
 Victoria Cassilis by any accident in the streets of that city, 
 she would fly again, and to the farthest corners of the 
 earth. 
 
 So much for revenge; and I do hope that Tomlinson's 
 example will be laid to heart, and pondered by other ladies'- 
 maids whose mistresses are selfish and sharp-tempered. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 "Farewell to all my greatness." 
 
 THE last day of Gilead Beck's wealth. He rose as uncon- 
 scious of his doom as that frolicsome kid whose destiny 
 brought the tear to Delia's eye. Had he looked at the 
 papers he would at least have ascertained that Gabriel 
 Cassilis was ruined. But he had a rooted dislike to news- 
 papers, and never looked at them. He classed the editor of 
 the Times with Mr. Huggins of Clearville or Mr. Yan Cott 
 of Chicago, but supposed that he had a larger influence. 
 Politics he despised; criticism was beyond him; with social 
 matters he had no concern ; and it would wound the national 
 self-respect were we to explain how carelessly he regarded 
 matters which to Londoners seem of world-wide importance. 
 On this day Gilead rose early because there was a good 
 deal to look after. His breakfast was fixed for eleven — a 
 real breakfast. At six he was di-essed, and making, in his 
 mind's eye, the arrangements for seating his guests. Mr. 
 and ]\Irs. Cassilis, Mrs. L'Estrange and Phillis, Lawrence 
 Colquhoun, Ladds, and Jack Dunquerque — all his most 
 intimate friends were coming. He had also invited the 
 Twins, but a guilty conscience made them send an excuse.
 
 492 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 They were now sitting at home, sober by compulsion and in 
 great wretchedness, as has been seen. 
 
 The breakfast was to be held in the same room in which 
 he once entertained the men of genius, but the appointments 
 were different. Gilead Beck now went in for flowers, to 
 please the ladies : flowers in June do not savour of ostenta- 
 tion. Also for fruit : strawberries, apricots, cherries, and 
 grapes in early June are not things quite beyond precedent, 
 and his conscience acquitted him of display which might 
 seem shoddy. And when the table was laid, with its flowers 
 and fruit and dainty cold dishes garnished with all sorts of 
 pretty things, it was, he felt, a work of art which reflected 
 the highest credit on himself and everybody concerned. 
 
 Gilead Beck was at great peace with himself that morning. 
 He was resolved on putting into practice at once some of 
 those schemes which the Golden Butterfly demanded as 
 loudly as it could whisper. He would start that daily paper 
 which should be independent of commercial success; have 
 no advertisements ; boil down the news ; do without long 
 leaders; and always speak the truth, without evasion, 
 equivocation, suppression, or exaggeration. A miracle in 
 journalism. He would run that great National Drama 
 which should revive the ancient glories of the stage. And 
 for the rest he would be guided by circumstances, and when 
 a big thing had to be done he would step in with his Pile, 
 and do that big thing by himself. 
 
 There was in all this perhaps a little over-rating the power 
 of the Pile; but Gilead Beck was, after all, only human. 
 Think what an inflation of dignity, brother De Pauper-et- 
 egens, would follow in your own case on the acquisition of 
 fifteen hundred pounds a day. 
 
 Another thing pleased our Gilead. He knew that in 
 his own country the difficulty of getting into what he 
 felt to be the best society would be insuperable. The 
 society of shoddy, the companionship with the quickly 
 grown rich, and the friendship of the gilded bladder are 
 in the reach of every wealthy man. But Gilead was a 
 man of finer feelings ; he wanted more than this ; he
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 493 
 
 wanted the friendsliip of tliose who were born in the 
 purple of good breeding. In New York he could not have 
 got this. In London he did get it. His friends were 
 ladies and gentlemen ; they not only tolerated him, but 
 they liked him; they were people to whom he could give 
 nothing, but they courted his society, and this pleased 
 him more than any other part of his grand Luck. There 
 was no great merit in their liking the man. Rude as his 
 life had been, he was gifted with the tenderest and kindest 
 heart; lowly born and roughly bred, he was yet a man of 
 boundless sympathies. And because he had kept his self- 
 respect throughout, and was ashamed of nothing, he slipt 
 easily and naturally into the new circle, picking up with- 
 out difficulty what was lacking of external things. Yet 
 he was just the same as when he landed in England ; with 
 the same earnest, almost solemn, way of looking at things ; 
 the same gravity ; the same twang which marked his 
 nationality. He affected nothing and pretended nothing ; 
 he hid nothing and was ashamed of nothing; he paraded 
 nothing and wanted to be thought no other than the man 
 he was — the ex- miner, ex-adventurer, ex-every thing, who 
 by a lucky stroke hit upon He, and was living on the pro- 
 fits. And perhaps in all the world there was no happier 
 man than Gilead Beck on that bright June morning, which 
 was to be the last day of his grandeur. A purling stream 
 of content murmured and babbled hymns of praise in his 
 heart. He had no fears ; his nerves were strong ; he 
 expected nothing but a continuous flow of prosperity and 
 happiness. 
 
 The first to arrive was Jack Dunquerque. Now, if this 
 youth had read the papers he would have been able to 
 communicate some of the fatal news. But he had not, 
 because he was full of Phillis. And if any rumour of the 
 Eldorado collapse smote his ears, it smote them unnoticed, 
 because he did not connect Eldorado with Gilead Beck. 
 What did it matter to this intolerably selfish young man 
 how many British speculators lost their money by the 
 Eldorado smash when he was going to meet Phillis. After
 
 494 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 all, tlie rouud world and all that is therein do really rotate 
 about a pole — of course invisible — which goes through every 
 man's own centre of gravity, and sticks out in a manner 
 which may be felt by him. And the reason why men have 
 so many different opinions is, I am persuaded, this extra- 
 ordinary, miraculous, multitudinous, simultaneous revolution 
 of the earth upon her million axes. Enough for Jack that 
 Phillis was coming — Phillis, whom he had not seen since 
 the discovery — more memorable to him than any made by 
 Traveller or Physicist — of the Coping-stone. 
 
 Jack came smiling and bounding up the stairs with agile 
 spring — a good half-hour before the time. Perhaps Phillis 
 might be before him. But she was not. 
 
 Then came Ladds. Gilead Beck saw that there was some 
 trouble upon him, but forbore to ask him what it was. He 
 bore his heavy inscrutable look, such as that with which he 
 had been wont to meet gambling losses, untoward telegrams 
 from Newmarket, and other buffetings of Fate. 
 
 Then came a letter from Mrs. Cassilis. Her husband was 
 ill, and therefore she could not come. 
 
 Then came a letter from Lawrence Colquhoun. He had 
 most important business in the City, and therefore he could 
 not come. 
 
 " Seems like the Wedding- feast," said Gilead irreverently. 
 He was a little disconcerted by the defection of so many 
 guests ; but he had a leaf taken out of the table, and cheer- 
 fully waited for the remaining two. 
 
 They came at last, and I think the hearts of all three 
 leaped within them at sight of Phillis's happy face. If it 
 was sweet before, when Jack first met her, with the myste- 
 rious look of childhood on it, it was far sweeter now with the 
 bloom and blush of conscious womanhood, the modest light 
 of maidenly joy witli which she met her lover. Jack rushed, 
 so to speak, at her hand, and held it with a ridiculous 
 shamelessness only excusable on the ground that they were 
 almost in a family circle. Then Phillis shook hands with 
 Gilead Beck, with a smile of gratitude which meant a good 
 deal more than preliminary thanks for the coming breakfast.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 495 
 
 Then it came to Ladds' turn. He turned very red — I do not 
 know wliy — and whispered in his deepest bass — 
 
 " Know all about it. Lucky beggar, Jack ! Wish you 
 happiness ! " 
 
 " Thank you, Captain Ladds," Phillis replied, in her fear- 
 less fashion. " I am very happy already. And so is Jack." 
 
 " Wanted yesterday," Ladds went on, in the same deep 
 whisper — " wanted yesterday to oflFer some slight token of 
 regard — found I couldn't — no more money — Eldorado smash 
 — all gone — looked in boxes — found ring — once my mother's. 
 Will you accept it ? " 
 
 Phillis understood the ring, but she did not imderstand 
 the rest of the speech. It was one of those old-fashioned 
 rings set in pearls and brilliants. She was not by any 
 means above admiring rings, and she accepted it with a 
 cheerful alacrity. 
 
 " Sell up," Ladds growled, — " go away — do something — 
 earn the daily crust " 
 
 " But I don't understand " she interrupted. 
 
 "Never mind. Tell you after breakfast. Tell you all 
 presently." 
 
 And then they went to breakfast. 
 
 It was rather a silent party. Ladds was, as might have 
 been expected of a man who had lost his all, disposed to 
 taciturnity. Jack and Phillis were too happy to talk much, 
 Agatha L'Estrange and the host had all the conversation to 
 themselves. 
 
 Agatha asked him if the dainty spread before them was 
 the usual method of breakfast in America. Gilead Beck 
 replied that of late years he had been accustomed to call a 
 chunk of cold pork with a piece of bread a substantial break- 
 fast, and that the same luxuries furnished him, as a rule, 
 with dinner. 
 
 "The old life," he said, "had its points, I confess. 
 For those who love cold pork it was one long round of 
 delirious joy. And there was always the future to look 
 forward to. Now the future has come I like it better. 
 My experience, Mrs. L'Estrange, is that you may divide
 
 496 THE GOLDKX BUTTERFLY. 
 
 men into two classes — those whoVe got a future, and 
 those who haven't. I belonged to the class who had a 
 future. Sometimes we miss it. And I feel like to cry 
 whenever I think of the boys with a bright future before 
 them, who fell in the War at my side, not in tens, but 
 in hundreds. Sometimes we find it. I found it when I 
 struck He. And always, for those men, whether the future 
 come early or whether it come late, it lies bright and shinin' 
 before them, and so they never lose hope." 
 
 " And have women no future as well as men, Mr. Beck ? " 
 asked Phillis. 
 
 " I don't know, Miss Fleming. But I hope you have. 
 Before my Golden Butterfly came to me I was lookin' 
 forward for my future, and I knew it was bound to come in 
 some form or other. I looked forward for thirty years ; my 
 youth was gone when it came, and half my manhood. But 
 it is here." 
 
 " Perhaps, Mr. Beck," said ]\Irs. L'Estrange, who was a 
 little rococo in her morality, " it is well that this great 
 fortune did not come to you when you were younger." 
 
 " You think that, madam ? Perhaps it is so. To fool 
 around New York would be a poor return for the Luck of 
 the Butterfly. Yes ; better as it is. Providence knows 
 very well what to be about ; it don't need promptin' from 
 us. And impatience is no manner of use, not the least use 
 in the world. At the right time the Luck comes; at the 
 right time the Luck will go. Yes," — he looked solemnly 
 round the table, — " some day the Luck is bound to go. 
 When it goes, I hope I shall be prepared for the change. But 
 if it goes to-morrow, it cannot take away, Mrs. L'Estrange, 
 the memory of these few months, your friendship, and yours, 
 JNIiss Fleming. There's things which do not depend upon 
 He ; more things than I thought formerly ; ' things which 
 money cannot do. Moi-e than once I thought my pile ought 
 to find it easy to do somethin' useful before the time comes. 
 But the world is a more tangled web than I used to think." 
 
 " There are always the poor among us," said the good 
 AiJratha.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 497 
 
 "Yes, madam, that is true. And tliere always will be. 
 More you give to the poor, more you make them poor. 
 There's folks goin' up and folks goin' down. You in England 
 help the folks goin' down. You make them fall easy. I 
 want to help the folks goin' up." 
 
 At this moment a telegram was brought for him. 
 
 It was from his London bankers. They informed him that 
 a cheque for a small sum had been presented, but that his 
 balance was already overdrawn ; and that they had received 
 a telegram from New York on which they would be glad to 
 see him. 
 
 Gilead Beck read it, and could not understand it. The 
 cheque was for his own weekly account at the hotel. 
 
 He laid the letter aside, and went on with his exposition 
 of the duties and responsibilities of wealth. He pointed out 
 to Mrs. L'Estrange, who alone listened to him — Jack was 
 whispering to Phillis, and Ladds was absorbed in thoughts 
 of his own — that when he arrived in London he was possessed 
 with the idea that all he had to do, in order to protect, 
 benefit, and advance humanity, was to found a series of 
 institutions ; that, in the pursuit of this idea, he had visited 
 and examined all the British institutions he could hear of; 
 and that his conclusions were that they were all a failure. 
 
 " For," he concluded, " what have you done ? Your citizens 
 need not save money, because a hospital, a church, an alms- 
 house, a dispensary, and a workhouse stand in every parish ; 
 they need not be moral, because there's homes for the re- 
 pentant in every other street. All around they are protected 
 by charity and the State. Even if they get knocked down 
 in the street, they need not fight, because there's a policeman 
 within easy hail. You breed your poor, Mrs. L'Estrange, 
 and you take almighty care to keep them always with you. 
 In my country he who can work and won't work goes to the 
 wall ; he starves, and a good thing too. Here he gets fat. 
 
 "Every way," he went on, "you encourage your people to 
 do nothing. Your clever young men get a handsome income 
 for life, I am told, at Oxford and Cambridge, if they pass one 
 good examination. For us the examination is only the 
 
 2 I
 
 498 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 beginning. Your clergymen get a handsome income for life, 
 whether they do their work or not. Ours have got to go on 
 preachin' well and livin' well ; else we want to know the 
 reason why. You give your subalterns as much as other 
 nations give their colonels ; you set them down to a grand 
 mess every day as if they were all born lords. You keep 
 four times as many naval officers as you want, and ten times 
 as many generals. It's all waste and lavishin' from end to 
 end. And as for your Royal Family, I reckon that I'd find 
 a dozen families in Massachusetts alone who'd run the Royal 
 Mill for a tenth of the money. I own they wouldn't have 
 the same gracious manners," he added. " And your Princess 
 is — wal, if Miss Fleming were Princess, she couldn't do the 
 part better. Perhaps gracious manners are worth paying for." 
 
 Here another telegram was brought him. 
 
 It was from New York. It informed him in plain and 
 intelligible terms that his wells had all run dry, that his 
 credit was exhausted, and that no more bills would be 
 honoured. 
 
 He read this aloud with a firm voice and unfaltering eye. 
 Then he looked round him, and said solemnly — 
 
 " The time has come. It's come a little sooner than I 
 expected. But it has come at last." 
 
 He was staggered, but he remembered something which 
 consoled him. 
 
 "At least," he said, "if the income is gone, the Pile 
 remains. That's close upon half a million of English money. 
 We can do something with that. Mr. Cassilis has got it all 
 for me." 
 
 "Who?" cried Ladds eagerly. 
 
 " Mr. Gabriel Cassilis, the great English financier." 
 
 " He is ruined," said Ladds. " He has failed for two 
 millions sterling. If your money is in his hands " 
 
 " Part of it, I believe, was in Eldorado Stock." 
 
 "The Eldoradians cannot pay their interest. And the 
 stock has sunk to nothing. Gabriel Cassilis has lost all my 
 money in it — at least, I have lost it on his recommendation." 
 
 " Your money all gone, Tommy ? " cried Jack.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 499 
 
 " All, Jack — Ladds' Aromatic Cocoa — Fragrant — Nutritions 
 — no nse now — business sold twenty years ago. Proceeds 
 sunk in Eldorado Stock. Nothing but the smell left." 
 
 And while they were gazing in each other's face with mute 
 bewilderment, a third messenger arrived with a letter. 
 
 It was from Mr. Mowll the secretary. It informed poor 
 Gilead that Mr. Gabriel Cassilis had drawn, in accordance 
 with his power of attorney, upon him to the following extent. 
 A bewildering mass of figures followed, at the bottom of 
 which was the total — Gilead Beck's two million dollars. 
 That, further, Gabriel Cassilis, always, it appeared, acting 
 on the wishes of Mr. Beck, had invested the whole sum in 
 Eldorado Stock. That, &c. He threw the letter on the table 
 half unread. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he rose 
 solemnly, and sought the corner of the room in which stood 
 the safe containing the Emblem of his Luck. He opened it, 
 and took out the box of glass and gold which held it. This 
 was covered with a case of green leather. He carried it to 
 the table. They all crowded round while he raised the 
 leathern cover and displayed the Butterfly. 
 
 " Has any one," he lifted his head and looked helplessly 
 round, — "has any one felt an airthquake ? " 
 
 For a strange thing had happened. The wings of the 
 insect were lying on the floor of the box ; the white quartz 
 which formed its body had slipped from the gold wire which 
 held it up, and the Golden Butterfly was in pieces. 
 
 He opened the box with a little gold key and took out the 
 fragments of the two wings and the body. 
 
 " Gone ! " he said. " Broken ! 
 
 ' If this golden Butterfly fall and break, 
 Farewell the Luck of Gilead P. Beck,' 
 
 Your own lines, Mr. Dunquerque. Broken into little bits it 
 is. The He run dry, the credit exhausted, and the Pile 
 fooled away." 
 
 No one spoke. 
 
 " I am sorry for you most, Mr. Dunquerque. I am power- 
 ful sorry, sir. I had hoped, with the assistance of Miss
 
 Soo THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Fleming, to divide that Pile with you. Now, sir, I've got 
 nothing. Not a red cent left to divide with a beggar. 
 
 " Mrs L'Estrange," he went on, " those last words of mine 
 were prophetic. When I am gone back to America — I sup- 
 pose the odds and ends here will pay my passage — you'll 
 remember that I said the Luck would some day go." 
 
 It was all so sudden, so incomprehensible, tliat no one 
 present had a word to say, either of sympathy or of sorrow. 
 
 Gilead Beck proceeded with his soliloquy : 
 
 " I've had a real high time for three months ; the best 
 three months in my life. Whatever happens more can't 
 touch the memory of the last three months. I've met 
 English ladies and made friends of English gentlemen. 
 There's Amer'cau ladies and Amer'can gentlemen, but I 
 can't speak of them, because I never went into their society. 
 You don't find ladies and gentlemen in Empire City. And 
 in all the trades I've turned my attention to, from school- 
 keepin' to editing, there's not been one where Amer'can 
 ladies cared to show their hand. That means that the Stars 
 and Stripes may be as good as the Union Jack — come to 
 know them." 
 
 He stopped and pulled himself together with a laugh. 
 
 " I can't make it out, somehow. Seems as if I'm in a 
 dream. Is it real ? Is the story of the Golden Butterfly a 
 true story, or is it made up out of some man's brain ? " 
 
 "It is real, Mr. Beck," said Phillis, softly putting her 
 hand in his. "It is real. No one could have invented such 
 a story. See, dear Mr. Beck, you that we all love so much, 
 there is you in it, and I am in it — and — and the Twins. 
 Why, if people saw us all in a book they would say it was 
 impossible. I am the only girl in all the civilised world who 
 can neither read nor write — and Jack doesn't mind it — and 
 you are the only man who ever found the Golden Butterfly. 
 Indeed it is all real." 
 
 "It is all real. Beck," Jack echoed. "You have had the high 
 time, and sorry indeed we are that it is over. But perhaps 
 it is not all over. Surely somctliing out of the two million 
 dollars must have remained."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 501 
 
 Mr, Beck pointed sorrowfully to the three pieces which 
 were the fragments of the Butterfly. 
 
 "Nothing is left," he said. "Nothing except the solid 
 gold that made his cage. And that will go to pay the 
 hotel-bill." 
 
 Mrs. L'Estrange looked on in silence. What was this 
 quiet lady, this woman of even and uneventful life, to say in 
 the presence of such misfortune ? 
 
 Ladds held out his hand. 
 
 "Worth twenty of any of us," he said. "We are in the 
 same boat." 
 
 " And you too. Captain Ladds ! " Gilead cried. " It is 
 worse than my own misfortune, because I am a rough man 
 and can go back to the rough life. No, Mrs. L'Estrange — 
 no, my dear young lady — I can't — not with the same light 
 heart as before — you've spoiled me, I must strike out some- 
 thing new — away from Empire City and He and gold. I'm 
 spoiled. It's not the cold chunk of pork that I am afraid 
 of; it is the beautiful life and the sweetness that I'm going 
 to lose. I said I hoped I should be prepared to meet the fall 
 of my Luck — when it came. But I never thought it would 
 come like this." 
 
 " Stay with us, Mr. Beck," said Phillis. " Don't go back 
 to the old life." 
 
 " Stay with us," said Jack. " We will all live together." 
 
 " Do not leave us, Mr. Beck," said Mrs. L'Estrange. 
 (Women can blush, although they may be past forty.) " Stay 
 here with your friends." 
 
 He looked from one to the other, and something like a tear 
 glittered in his eye. But he shook his head. 
 
 Then he took up the wings of the Butterfly, the pretty 
 golden lamince cut in the perfect shape of a wing, marked 
 and veined by Nature as if, for once, she was determined to 
 show that she too could be an Artist and imitate herself. 
 They lay in his hands, and he looked fondly at them. 
 
 " What shall I do with these ? " he said softly. " They have 
 been very good to me. They have given me the pleasantest 
 hours of my life. They have made me dream of power as if
 
 502 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 I was Autocrat of All the Kussias. Say, Mrs. L'Estrange — 
 since my chief pleasure has come through Mr. Dunquerque 
 — may I offer the broken Butterfly to Miss Fleming ? " 
 
 He laid the wings before her with a sweet sad smile. 
 Jack took them up and looked at them. In the white quartz 
 were the little holes where the wings had fitted. He put 
 them back in their old place — the wings in the quartz. They 
 fitted exactly, and in a moment the butterfly was as it had 
 always been. 
 
 Jack deftly bent round it again the golden wire which held 
 it to the golden flower. Singular to relate, the wire fitted 
 like the wings just the same as before, and the Butterfly 
 vibrated on its perch again, 
 
 " It's wonderful ! " cried Gilead Beck. " It's the Luck 
 I've given away. It's gone to you, ]\Iiss Fleming. But it 
 won't take the form of He." 
 
 " Then take it back, Mr. Beck," cried Phillis. 
 
 " No, young lady. The Luck left me of its own accord. 
 That was shown when the Butterfly fell off the wires. It is 
 yours now, yours ; and you will make a better use of it. 
 
 " I think," he went on, with his hand upon the golden 
 case, — " I think there's a Luck in the world which I never 
 dreamed of, a better Luck than He. Mrs. L'Estrange, you 
 know what sort of Luck I mean ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Beck, I know," she replied. 
 
 Phillis laid her hands on Jack's shoulder, while his arm 
 stole round her waist, 
 
 "It is Love, Mr, Beck," said the girl. " Yes ; that is the 
 best Luck in all the world, and I am sure of it." 
 
 Jack stooped and kissed her. The simplicity and innocence 
 of this maiden went to Gilead Beck's heart. They were a 
 religion to him, an education. In the presence of that guile- 
 less heart all earthly tlioughts dropped from his soul, and he 
 was, like the girl before him, pure in heart and clean in 
 memory. That is indeed the sweet enchantment of inno- 
 cence ; a bewitchment out of which we need never awake 
 unless we like, 
 
 " Take the case and all, ^Miss Fleming," said Gilead Beck.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 503 
 
 But slie would not have the splendid case with its thick 
 plate glass and solid gold pillars. 
 
 Then Gilead Beck brought out the little wooden box, the 
 same in which the Golden Butterfly lay when he ran from 
 the Bear on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. And Phillis 
 laid her new treasure in the cotton-wool and slung the box 
 by its steel chain round her neck, laughing in a solemn 
 fashion. 
 
 While they talked thus sadly, the door opened, and 
 Lawrence Colquhouu stood before them. 
 
 Agatha cried out when she saw him, because he was trans- 
 formed. The lazy insouciant look was gone ; a troubled look 
 was in its place. Worse than a troubled look — a look of 
 misery ; a look of self-reproach ; a look as of a criminal 
 brought to the bar and convicted. 
 
 " Lawrence ! " cried Mrs. L'Estrange. 
 
 He came into the room in a helpless sort of way, his 
 hands shaking before him like those of some half-blind old 
 man. 
 
 " Phillis," he said, in hoarse voice, " forgive me ! " 
 
 " What have I to forgive, Lawrence ? " 
 
 " Forgive me ! "' he repeated humbly. " Nay, you do not 
 understand. Dunquerque, it is for you to speak — for all of 
 you — you all love Phillis. Agatha — you love her — you used 
 to love me too. How shall I tell you ? "' 
 
 " I think we guess," said Gilead. 
 
 "I did it for the best, Phillis. I thought to double your 
 fortune. Cassilis said I should double it. I thought to 
 double my own. I put all your money, child, every farthing 
 of your money, in Eldorado Stock by his advice, and all my 
 own too. And it is all gone — every penny of it gone." 
 
 Jack Dunquerque clasped Phillis tighter by the hand. 
 
 She only laughed. 
 
 "Why, Lawrence," she said, "what if you have lost all 
 my money ? Jack doesn't care. Do you. Jack ? " 
 
 " No, darling, no," said Jack. And at the moment — such 
 was the infatuation of this young man — he really did not 
 care.
 
 504 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 " Lawrence," said Agatha, " you acted for the best. Don't, 
 dear Lawrence, don't trouble too much. Captain Ladds has 
 lost all his fortune, too — and Mr. Beck has lost all his — and 
 we are all ruined together." 
 
 " All ruined together ! " echoed Gilead Beck, looking at 
 Mrs. L'Estrange. " Gabriel Cassilis is a wonderful man. I 
 always said he was a wonderful man." 
 
 In the evening the three ruined men sat together in 
 Gilead's room. 
 
 " Nothing saved, Colquhoun ? " asked Ladds, after a long 
 pause. 
 
 "Nothing. The stock was 70 when I bought in: 70 at 
 10 per cent. It is now anything you like — 4, 6, 8, 16 — what 
 you please — because no one will buy it." 
 
 "Wal," said Gilead Beck, "it does seem rough on us all, 
 and perhaps it's rougher on you two than it is on me. But 
 to think, only to think, that such an almighty Pile should 
 be fooled away on a darned half-caste State like Eldorado ! 
 And for all of us to believe Mr. Gabriel Cassilis a whole- 
 souled, high-toned speculator. 
 
 "Once I thought," he continued, "that we Amer'cans 
 must be the Ten Tribes ; because, I said, nobody but one out 
 of the Ten Tribes would get such a providential lift as the 
 Golden Butterfly. Gentlemen, my opinions are changed 
 since this morning. I believe we're nothing better, not 
 a single cent better, than one of the kicked-out Tribes. I 
 may be an Amalekite, or I may be a Hivite ; but I'm 
 darned if I ever call myself again one of the children of 
 Abraham."
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 505 
 
 CHAPTER THE LAST. 
 
 " Whisper Love, ye breezes ; sigh 
 
 In Love's content, soft air of morn ; 
 Let eve in brighter sunsets die, 
 
 And day with brighter dawn be born." 
 
 IT is a week since the disastrous day. Gilead Beck lias sold 
 the works of art with which he intended to found his Grand 
 National Collection ; he has torn up his great schemes for a 
 Grand National Theatre, a Grand National Paper ; he has 
 ceased to think, for the delectation of the Golden Butterfly, 
 about improving the human race. His gratitude to that 
 prodigy of Nature has so far cooled that he now considers it 
 more in the light of a capricious sprite, a sort of Robin Good- 
 fellow, than as a benefactor. He has also changed his views 
 as to the construction of the round earth, and all that is 
 therein. He, he says, may be found by other lucky adven- 
 turers ; but He is not to be depended on for a permanence. 
 He would now recommend those who strike He to make their 
 Pile as quickly as may be, and devote all their energies to 
 the safety of that pile. And as to the human race, it may 
 slide. 
 
 " What's the good," he says to Jack Dunquerque, " of 
 helpin' up those that are bound to climb ? Let them climb. 
 And what's the good of tryin' to save those that are bound 
 to fall? Let them fall. I'm down myself; but I mean to 
 get up again." 
 
 It is sad to record that Mr. Burls, the picture-dealer, 
 refused to buy back again the great picture of " Sisera and 
 Jael." No one would purchase that work at all. Mr. Beck 
 oflfered it to the Langham Hotel as a gift. The directors 
 firmly declined to accept it. When it was evident that this 
 remarkable effort of genius was appreciated by no one, Gilead 
 Beck resolved on leaving it where it was. It is rumoured 
 that the manager of the hotel bribed the owner of a certain 
 Regent Street restaurant to take it away ; and I have heard 
 that it now hangs, having been greatly cut down, on the wall
 
 5o6 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 of that establishment, getting its tones mellowed day by day 
 with the steam of roast and boiled. As for the other pictures, 
 Mr. Burls expressed his extreme sorrow that temporary 
 embarrassment prevented him purchasing them back at the 
 price given for them. He afterwards told Mr. Beck that the 
 unprincipled picture-dealer who did ultimately buy them, at 
 the price of so much a square foot, and as second-rate copies, 
 was a disgrace to his honourable profession. This, he said, 
 stood high in public estimation for truth, generosity, and fair 
 dealing. None but genuine works came from his own estab- 
 lishment; and what he called a Grooze was a Grooze, and 
 nothing but a Grooze. 
 
 As for the Pile, Gilead's power of attorney had effectually 
 destroyed that. There was not a cent left ; not one single coin 
 to rub against another. All was gone in that great crash. 
 
 He called upon Gabriel Cassilis. The financier smiled 
 upon him with his newly-born air of sweetness and trust ; 
 but, as we have seen, he could no longer speak, and there 
 was nothing in his face to express sorrow or repentance. 
 
 Gilead found himself, when all was wound up, the possessor 
 of that single cheque which Joseph Jagenal had placed in his 
 hands, and which, most fortunately for himself, he had not 
 paid into the bank. 
 
 Four hundred pounds. With that, at forty-five, he was to 
 begin the world again. After all, the majority of mankind 
 at forty-five have much less than four hundred pounds. 
 
 He heard from Canada that the town he had built, the 
 whole of which belonged to him, was deserted again. There 
 was a quicker rush out of it than into it. It stands there 
 now, more lonely than Empire City — its derricks and 
 machinery rusting and dropping to pieces, the houses empty 
 and neglected, the land relapsing into its old condition of 
 bog and marsh. But Gilead Beck will never see it again. 
 
 He kept away from Twickenham during this winding-up 
 and settlement of affairs. It was a week later when, his 
 mind at rest and his conscience clear of bills and doubts, 
 because now there was nothing more to lose, he called at the 
 house where he had spent so many pleasant hours.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 507 
 
 Mrs. L'Estrange received him. She was troubled in look, 
 and the traces of tears were on her face. 
 
 " It is a most onfortunate time," Gilead said sympatheti- 
 cally ; " a most onfortunate time." 
 
 " Blow after blow, Mr. Beck," Agatha sobbed. " Stroke 
 upon stroke." 
 
 " That is so, madam. They've got the knife well in, this 
 time, and when they give it a twist we're bound to cry out. 
 You've thought me selfish, I know, not to inquire before." 
 
 " No, Mr. Beck; no. It is only too kind of you to think 
 of us in your own overwhelming disaster. I have never 
 spent so wretched a week. Poor Lawrence has literally not 
 a penny left, except what he gets from the sale of his horses, 
 pictures, and things. Captain Ladds is the same; Phillis 
 has no longer a farthing ; and now, Oh dear. Oh dear. I am 
 Sfoinof to lose her altoo^ether ! " 
 
 " But when she marries Mr. Dunquerque you will see her 
 often." 
 
 " No, no. Haven't they told you ? Jack has got almost 
 nothing — only ten thousand pounds altogether ; and they 
 have made up their minds to emigrate. They are going to 
 Virginia, where Jack will buy a small estate." 
 
 " Is that so ? " asked Gilead meditatively. 
 
 " Lawrence says that he and Captain Ladds will go away 
 together somewhere ; perhaps back to Empire City." 
 
 " And you will be left alone — ^you, Mrs. L'Estrange — all 
 alone in this country, and ruined. It mustn't be." He 
 straightened himself up, and looked round the room. "It 
 must not be, Mrs. L'Estrange. You know me partly — that 
 is, you know the manner of man I wish to seem and try to 
 be ; you know what I have been. You do not know, because 
 you cannot guess, the things which you have put into 
 my head." 
 
 Mrs. L'Estrange blushed and began to tremble. Could 
 it be possible that he was actually going to 
 
 He was. 
 
 " You and I together, Mrs. L'Estrange, are gone to wreck 
 in this almighty hurricane. I've got one or two thousand
 
 5o8 THE GOLDEN BUTTEKFLY. 
 
 dollars left ; perliaps you will have as much, perhaps not. 
 Mrs. L'Estrange, will you think it presumptuous in a rough 
 American — not an American gentleman by birth and raising 
 — to offer you such protection and care as he can give to the 
 best of women? We, too, will go to Virginia with Mr. 
 Dunquerque and his wife ; we will settle near them, and 
 watch their happiness. The Virginians are a kindly folk, 
 and love the English people, especially if they are of gentle 
 birth. Say, Mrs. L'Estrange." 
 
 " O Mr. Beck ! I am forty years of age ! " 
 
 " And I am five and forty." 
 
 Just then Phillis and Jack burst into the room. They 
 did not look at all like being ruined ; they were wild with 
 joy and good spirits. 
 
 " And you are going to Virginia, Mr. Dunquerque ? " said 
 Gilead. " I am thinking of going too, if I can persuade this 
 lady to go with me." 
 
 " Agatha ! come with us ! " 
 
 " Come with me," corrected Gilead. 
 
 Then Phillis saw how things lay — what a change in 
 Phillis, to see so much ! — and half lauo-hing, but more in 
 seriousness than in mirth, threw her arms round Agatha's 
 neck. 
 
 " Will you come, dear Agatha ? He is a good man, and 
 he loves you ; and we will all live near together and be 
 happy." 
 
 Three short scenes to conclude my story, 
 
 It is little more than a year since Agatha L'Estrange, as 
 shy and blushing as any maiden — much more shy than 
 I'hillis — laid her hand in Gilead's, with the confession, half 
 sobbed out, " And it isn't a mistake you are making , 
 because I am not ruined at all. It is only you and these 
 poor children and Lawrence." 
 
 We are back again in Empire City. It is the early fall, 
 September. The yellow leaves clothe all the forests with 
 brown and gold ; the sunlight strikes upon the peaks and 
 ridges of the great Sierra, lights up the broad belt of wood,
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 509 
 
 making shadows blacker than night, and lies along the grass- 
 grown streets of the deserted Empire City. Two men 
 in hunting-dress are making their way slowly through the 
 grass and weeds that choke the pathway. 
 
 " Don't like it, Colquhoun," says one ; "more ghostly than 
 ever." 
 
 They push- on, and presently the foremost, Ladds, starts 
 back with a cry. 
 
 " What is it ? " asks Colquhoun. 
 
 They push aside the brambles, and behold a skeleton. 
 The body has been on its knees, but now only the bones are 
 left. They are clothed in the garb of the celestial, and one 
 side of the skull is broken in, as if with a shot. 
 
 " It must be my old friend Achow," said Colquhoun 
 calmly. " See, he's been murdered," 
 
 In the dead of night Ladds awakened Colquhoun. 
 
 "Can't help it," he said; "very sorry. Ghosts walking 
 about the stairs. Says the ghost of Achow to the shade of 
 Leeching, ' No your piecy pidgin makee shootee me.' Don't 
 like ghosts, Colquhoun." 
 
 Next morning they left Empire City. Ladds was firm in 
 the conviction that he had heard and seen a Chinaman's 
 ghost, and was resolute against stopping another night in 
 the place. 
 
 Just outside the town they made another discovery. 
 
 " Good Lord ! " cried Ladds, frightened out of sobriety of 
 speech. " It rains skeletons. Look there; he's beckoning ! '" 
 
 And, to be sure, before them was raised, with finger as of 
 invitation, a skeleton hand. 
 
 This, too, belonged to a complete assortment of human 
 bones clad in Chinese dress. By its side lay a rusty pistol. 
 Lawrence picked it up. 
 
 " By Gad ! " he said, " it's the same pistol I gave to 
 Leeching. How do you read this story, Ladds ? " 
 
 Ladds sat down and replied slowly. He said that he never 
 did like reading ghost stories, and since the apparition of the 
 murdered Achow, the night before, he should like them still 
 less. Ghost stories, he said, are all very well until you come
 
 5IO THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 to see and Lear a gliost. Now that he had a ghost story of 
 his own — an original one in pigeon English — he did not 
 intend ever to read another. Therefore Colqiihoun must 
 excuse him if he gave up the story of Leeching's skeleton 
 entirely to his own reading. He then went on to say that 
 he never had liked skeletons, and that he believed Empire 
 City was nothing but a mouldy old churchyard without the 
 church, while, as a cemetery, it wasn't a patch upon High- 
 gate. And the mention of Highgate, he said, reminded 
 him of Phillis ; and he proposed they should both get to 
 Virginia, and call upon Jack and his wife. 
 
 All this took time to explain ; and meanwhile Lawrence 
 was poking the butt-end of his gun about in the grass to 
 see if there was anything more. There was something 
 more. It was a bag of coarse yellow canvas, tied by a string 
 round what had been the waist of a man. Lawrence cut the 
 string, and opened the bag. 
 
 " We're in luck. Tommy. Look at this." 
 
 It was the gold so laboriously scraped together by the 
 two Chinamen, which had caused, in a manner, the death 
 of both. 
 
 "Lift it. Tommy," Colquhoun grew excited at his find. 
 "Lift it — there must be a hundred and fifty ounces, I 
 should think. It will be worth four or five hundred pounds. 
 Here's a find ! " 
 
 To this pair, who had only a year ago chucked away their 
 thousands, the luck of picking up a bag of gold appeared 
 something wonderful. 
 
 " Tommy," said Colquhoun, " I tell you what we will do. 
 We will add this little windfall to what Beck would call 
 your little pile and my little pile. And we'll go and buy 
 a little farm in Virginia, too ; and we will live there close 
 to Jack and Phillis. Agatha will like it too. And there's 
 capital shooting." 
 
 Gabriel Cassillis and his wife reside at Brighton. The 
 whole of the great fortune being lost, they have nothing 
 but Victoria's settlement. That gives them a small income.
 
 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 511 
 
 " Enough to subsist upon," Victoria tells her friends. The 
 old man — he looks very old and fragile now — is wheeled 
 about in a chair on sunny days. When he is not being 
 wheeled about he plays with his child, to whom he talks ; 
 that is, pours out a stream of meaningless words, because 
 he will never again talk coherently. Victoria is exactly 
 the same as ever — cold, calm, and proud. Nor is there 
 anything whatever in her manner to her husband, if she 
 accidentally meet him, to show that she has the slightest 
 sorrow, shame, or repentance for the catastrophe she brought 
 about. Joseph Jagenal is working the great Dyson will 
 case for them, and is confident that he will get the testator's 
 intentions, which can now be only imperfectly understood, 
 set aside, when Gabriel Cassilis will once more become com- 
 paratively wealthy. 
 
 On a verandah in sunny Virginia, Agatha Beck sits 
 quietly working, and crooning some old song in sheer con- 
 tent and peace of heart. Presently she lifts her head as 
 she hears a step. That smile with which she greets her 
 husband shows that she is happy in her new life. Gilead 
 Beck is in white, with a broad straw hat, because it is in 
 hot September. In his hand he has a letter. 
 
 "Good news, wife; good news," he says. "Jack and 
 Phillis are coming here to-day, and will stay till Monday. 
 Will be here almost as soon as the note. Baby coming, too." 
 
 " Of course, Gilead," says Agatha, smiling superior. " As 
 if the dear girl would go anywhere without her little Philip. 
 And sis weeks old to-morrow." 
 
 (Everybody who has appreciated how very far from clever 
 Jack Dunquerque was will be prepared to hear that he com- 
 mitted an enormous etymological blunder in the baptism of 
 his boy, whom he named Philip, in the firm belief that 
 Philip was the masculine form of Phillis.) 
 
 " Here they come ! Here they are ! " 
 
 Jack comes rattling up to the house in his American trap, 
 jumps out, throws the reins to the boy, and hands out his 
 wife with the child. Kisses and greetings.
 
 512 THE GOLDEN BUTTERFLY. 
 
 Pliillis seems, at first, unchanged, except perliaps that 
 the air of Virginia has made her sweet delicacy of features 
 more delicate. Yet look again, and you find that she is 
 changed. She was a child when we saw her first; then we 
 saw her grow into a maiden : she is a wife and a mother 
 now. 
 
 She whispers her husband. 
 
 "All right, Phil dear. — Beck, you've got to shut your 
 eyes for just one minute. No, turn your back so. Now 
 you may look." 
 
 Phillis has hung round the neck of her unconscious baby, 
 by a golden chain, the Golden Butterfly. It seems as strong 
 and vigorous as ever ; and as it lies upon the child's white 
 dress, it looks as if it were poised for a moment's rest, but 
 ready for flight. 
 
 "That Inseck!" said Gilead sentimentally. "Wal, it's 
 given me the best thing that a man can get " — he took 
 the hand of his wife — " love and friendship. You are wel- 
 come, Phillis, to all the rest, provided that all the rest does 
 not take away these." 
 
 "Nay," she said, her eyes filling with the gentle dew of 
 happiness and content ; " I have all that I want for myself. 
 I have my husband and my boy — my little, little Philip ! 
 I am more than happy ; and so I give to tiny Phil all the 
 remaining Luck of the Golden Butterfly." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 32 
 
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