THE LESSON OF THE MASTER 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER 
 
 THE MARRIAGES THE PUPIL 
 
 BROOKSMITH 
 THE SOLUTION SIR EDMUND ORME 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY JAMES 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND LONDON 
 1892 
 
 AH rights reserved 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1891, 
 BY MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped January, i8<)2. 
 Reprinted October, i8q2. 
 
 TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. GUSHING & Co., BOSTON, U.S.A. 
 PRESSWORK BY BERWICK SMITH, BOSTON, U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER 1 
 
 THE MARRIAGES 81 
 
 THE PUPIL 123 
 
 BROOKSMITH .180 
 
 THE SOLUTION 202 
 
 SIR EDMUND ORME , 266 
 
 669819 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 I. 
 
 HE had been informed that the ladies were at church, 
 but that was corrected by what he saw from the top of 
 the steps (they descended from a great height in two 
 arms, with a circular sweep of the most charming effect) 
 at the threshold of the door which, from the long, bright 
 gallery, overlooked the immense lawn. Three gentle 
 men, on the grass, at a distance, sat under the great 
 trees ; but the fourth figure was not a gentleman, the 
 one in the crimson dress which made so vivid a spot, 
 told so as a " bit of colour " amid the fresh, rich green. 
 The servant had come so far with Paul Overt to show 
 him the way and had asked him if he wished first to go 
 to his room. The young man declined this privilege, 
 having no disorder to repair after so short and easy a 
 journey and liking to take a general perceptive pos 
 session of the new scene immediately, as he always did. 
 He stood there a little with his eyes on the group and 
 on the admirable picture the wide grounds of an old 
 country-house near London (that only made it better,) 
 on a splendid Sunday in June. "But that lady, who is 
 she ? " he said to the servant before the man went away. 
 
 " I think it s Mrs. St. George, sir." 
 
 A 1 Copyright, i8qi, by Macmfllan <5r> Co. 1 
 
THE MASTER. 
 
 the distinguished 
 
 Then Paul Overt checked himself , doubting whether the 
 footman would know. 
 
 " Yes, sir probably, sir," said the servant, who ap 
 peared to wish to intimate that a person staying at 
 Summersoft would naturally be, if only by alliance, dis 
 tinguished. His manner, however, made poor Overt feel 
 for the moment as if he himself were but little so. 
 
 "And the gentlemen? " he inquired. 
 
 " Well, sir, one of them is General Fancourt." 
 
 " Ah yes, I know ; thank you." General Fancourt was 
 distinguished, there was no doubt of that, for something 
 he had done, or perhaps even had not done (the young 
 man could not remember which) some years before in 
 India. The servant went away, leaving the glass doors 
 open into the gallery, and Paul Overt remained at the 
 head of the wide double staircase, saying to himself that 
 the place was sweet and promised a pleasant visit, while 
 he leaned on the balustrade of fine old ironwork which, 
 like all the other details, was of the same period as the 
 house. It all went together and spoke in one voice a 
 rich English voice of the early part of the eighteenth 
 century. It might have been church-time on a summer s 
 day in the reign of Queen Anne ; the stillness was too 
 perfect to be modern, the nearness counted so as distance 
 and there was something so fresh and sound in the 
 originality of the large smooth house, the expanse of 
 whose beautiful brickwork, which had been kept clear 
 of messy creepers (as a woman with a rare complexion 
 disdains a veil,) was pink rather than red. When Paul 
 Overt perceived that the people under the trees were 
 noticing him he turned back through the open doors into 
 the great gallery which was the pride of the place. It 
 traversed the mansion from end to end and seemed 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 3 
 
 with its bright colours, its high panelled windows, its 
 faded, flowered chintzes, its quickly-recognised portraits 
 and pictures, the blue and white china of its cabinets 
 and the attenuated festoons and rosettes of its ceiling 
 a cheerful upholstered avenue into the other century. 
 
 The young man was slightly nervous; that belonged 
 in general to his disposition as a student of fine prose, 
 with his dose of the artist s restlessness ; and there was 
 a particular excitement in the idea that Henry St. George 
 might be a member of the party. For the younger writer 
 he had remained a high literary figure, in spite of the 
 lower range of production to which he had fallen after 
 his three first great successes, the comparative absence 
 of quality in his later work. There had been moments 
 when Paul Overt almost shed tears upon this ; but now 
 that he was near him (he had never met him,) he was 
 conscious only of the fine original source and of his own 
 immense debt. After he had taken a turn or two up 
 and down the gallery he came out again and descended 
 the steps. He was but slenderly supplied with a certain 
 social boldness (it was really a weakness in him,) so 
 that, conscious of a want of acquaintance with the four 
 persons in the distance, he indulged in a movement as to 
 which he had a certain safety in feeling that it did not 
 necessarily appear to commit him to an attempt to join 
 them. There was a fine English awkwardness in it 
 he felt this too as he sauntered vaguely and obliquely 
 across the lawn, as if to take an independent line. For 
 tunately there was an equally fine English directness in 
 the way one of the gentlemen presently rose and made 
 as if to approach him, with an air of conciliation and 
 reassurance. To this demonstration Paul Overt instantly 
 responded, though he knew the gentleman was not his 
 host. He was tall, straight and elderly, and had a pink. 
 
4 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 smiling face and a white moustache. Our young man 
 
 met him half way while he laughed and said : " A 
 
 Lady Watermouth told us you were coming ; she asked 
 me just to look after you." Paul Overt thanked him 
 (he liked him without delay,) and turned round with 
 him, walking toward the others. " They ve all gone to 
 church all except us," the stranger continued as they 
 went ; " we re just sitting here it s so jolly." Overt 
 rejoined that it was jolly indeed it was such a lovely 
 place ; he mentioned that he had not seen it before it 
 was a charming impression. 
 
 "Ah, you ve not been here before?" said his com 
 panion. " It s a nice little place not much to do, you 
 know." Overt wondered what he wanted to " do " he 
 felt as if he himself were doing a good deal. By the 
 time they came to where the others sat he had guessed 
 his initiator was a military man, and (such was the turn 
 of vert s imagination,) this made him still more sym 
 pathetic. He would naturally have a passion for activity 
 for deeds at variance with the pacific, pastoral scene. 
 He was evidently so good-natured, however, that he 
 accepted the inglorious hour for what it was worth. 
 Paul Overt shared it with him and with his companions 
 for the next twenty minutes ; the latter looked at him 
 and he looked at them without knowing much who they 
 were, while the talk went on without enlightening him 
 much as to what it was about. It was indeed about 
 nothing in particular, and wandered, with casual, point 
 less pauses and short terrestrial flights, amid the names 
 of persons and places names which, for him, had no 
 great power of evocation. It was all sociable and slow, 
 as was right and natural on a warm Sunday morning. 
 
 Overt s first attention was given to the question, pri 
 vately considered, of whether one of the two younger 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 5 
 
 men would be Henry St. George. He knew many of his 
 distinguished contemporaries by their photographs, but 
 he had never, as it happened, seen a portrait of the great 
 misguided novelist. One of the gentlemen was out of 
 the question he was too young ; and the other scarcely 
 looked clever enough, with such mild, undiscriminating 
 eyes. If those eyes were St. George s the problem pre 
 sented by the ill-matched parts of his genius was still 
 more difficult of solution. Besides, the deportment of 
 the personage possessing them was not, as regards the 
 lady in the red dress, such as could be natural, towards 
 his wife, even to a writer accused by several critics of 
 sacrificing too much to manner. Lastly, Paul Overt had 
 an indefinite feeling that if the gentleman with the sight 
 less eyes bore the name that had set his heart beating- 
 faster (he also had contradictory, conventional whiskers 
 the young admirer of the celebrity had never in a 
 mental vision seen his face in so vulgar a frame), he 
 would have given him a sign of recognition or of friend 
 liness would have heard of him a little, would know 
 something about Ginistrella, would have gathered at 
 least that that recent work of fiction had made an im 
 pression on the discerning. Paul Overt had a dread of 
 being grossly proud, but it seemed to him that his self- 
 consciousness took no undue license in thinking that the 
 authorship of Ginistrella constituted a degree of identity. 
 His soldierly friend became clear enough; he was "Fan- 
 court," but he was also the General ; and he mentioned 
 to our young man in the course of a few moments that 
 he had but lately returned from twenty years service 
 abroad. 
 
 " And do you mean to remain in England ? " Overt 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh yes, I have bought a little house in London." 
 
6 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 " And I hope you like it," said Overt, looking at Mrs. 
 St. George. 
 
 " Well, a little house in Manchester Square there s 
 a limit to the enthusiasm that that inspires." 
 
 " Oh, I meant being at home again being in London." 
 
 " My daughter likes it that s the main thing. She s 
 very fond of art and music and literature and all that 
 kind of thing. She missed it in India and she finds it 
 in London, or she hopes she will find it. Mr. St. George 
 has promised to help her he has been awfully kind to 
 her. She has gone to church she s fond of that too 
 but they ll all be back in a quarter of an hour. You 
 must let me introduce you to her she will be so glad 
 to know you. I dare say she has read every word you 
 have written." 
 
 " I shall be delighted I haven t written very many," 
 said Overt, who felt without resentment that the General 
 at least was very vague about that. But he wondered a 
 little why, since he expressed this friendly disposition, 
 it did not occur to him to pronounce the word which 
 would put him in relation with Mrs. St. George. If it 
 was a question of introductions Miss Fancourt (appar 
 ently she was unmarried,) was far away and the wife of 
 his illustrious confrere was almost between them. This 
 lady struck Paul Overt as a very pretty woman, with a 
 surprising air of youth and a high smartness of aspect 
 which seemed to him (he could scarcely have said why,) 
 a sort of mystification. St. George certainly had every 
 right to a charming wife, but he himself would never 
 have taken the important little woman in the aggressively 
 Parisian dress for the domestic partner of a man of 
 letters. That partner in general, he knew, was far from 
 presenting herself in a single type : his observation had 
 instructed him that she was not inveterately, not neces- 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 7 
 
 sarily dreary. But he had never before seen her look so 
 much as if her prosperity had deeper foundations than 
 an ink-spotted study-table littered with proof-sheets. 
 Mrs. St. George might have been the wife of a gentleman 
 who " kept " books rather than wrote them, who carried 
 on great affairs in the City and made better bargains 
 than those that poets make with publishers. With this 
 she hinted at a success more personal, as if she had been 
 the most characteristic product of an age in which 
 society, the world of conversation, is a great drawing- 
 room with the City for its antechamber. Overt judged 
 her at first to be about thirty years of age ; then, after a 
 while, he perceived that she was much nearer fifty. But 
 she juggled away the twenty years somehow you only 
 saw them in a rare glimpse, like the rabbit in the con 
 jurer s sleeve. She was extraordinarily white, and 
 everything about her was pretty her eyes, her ears, 
 her hair, her voice, her hands, her feet (to which her 
 relaxed attitude in her wicker chair gave a great pub 
 licity,) and the numerous ribbons and trinkets with which 
 she was bedecked. She looked as if she had put on her 
 best clothes to go to church and then had decided that 
 they were too good for that and had stayed at home. 
 She told a story of some length about the shabby way 
 Lady Jane had treated the Duchess, as well as an anec 
 dote in relation to a purchase she had made in Paris (on 
 her way back from Cannes,) for Lady Egbert, who had 
 never refunded the money. Paul Overt suspected her of 
 a tendency to figure great people as larger than life, 
 until he noticed the manner in which she handled Lady 
 Egbert, which was so subversive that it reassured him. 
 He felt that he should have understood her better if he 
 might have met her eye ; but she scarcely looked at him. 
 " Ah, here they come all the good ones ! " she said at 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 last ; and Paul Overt saw in the distance the return of 
 the churchgoers several persons, in couples and threes, 
 advancing in a flicker of sun and shade at the end of a 
 large green vista formed by the level grass and the 
 overarching boughs. 
 
 "If you mean to imply that we are bad, I protest," 
 said one of the gentlemen " after making oneself 
 agreeable all the morning ! " 
 
 "Ah, if they ve found you agreeable ! " Mrs. St. George 
 exclaimed, smiling. "But if we are good the others are 
 better." 
 
 " They must be angels then," observed the General. 
 
 " Your husband was an angel, the way he went off at 
 your bidding," the gentleman who had first spoken said 
 to Mrs. St. George. 
 
 " At my bidding ? " 
 
 " Didn t you make him go to church ? " 
 
 " I never made him do anything in my life but once, 
 when I made him burn up a bad book. That s all ! " At 
 her " That s all ! " Paul broke into an irrepressible laugh ; 
 it lasted only a second, but it drew her eyes to him. His 
 own met them, but not long enough to help him to under 
 stand her ; unless it were a step towards this that he felt 
 sure on the instant that the burnt book (the way she 
 alluded to it !) was one of her husband s finest things. 
 
 " A bad book ? " her interlocutor repeated. 
 
 "I didn t like it. He went to church because your 
 daughter went," she continued, to General Fancourt. " I 
 think it my duty to call your attention to his demeanour 
 to your daughter." 
 
 "Well, if you don t mind it, I don t," the General 
 laughed. 
 
 " II s> attache & ses pas. But I don t wonder she s so 
 charming." 
 
THE LESSOX OF THE MASTER. 
 
 " I hope she won t make him burn any books ! " Paul 
 Overt ventured to exclaim. 
 
 " If she would make him write a few it would be more 
 to the purpose," said Mrs. St. George. " He has been of 
 an indolence this year ! " 
 
 Our young man stared he was so struck with the 
 lady s phraseology. Her " Write a few " seemed to him 
 almost as good as her " That s all." Didn t she, as the 
 wife of a rare artist, know what it was to produce one 
 perfect work of art ? How in the world did she think 
 they were turned off ? His private conviction was that 
 admirably as Henry St. George wrote, he had written 
 for the last ten years, and especially for the last five, 
 only too much, and there was an instant during which he 
 felt the temptation to make this public. But before he 
 had spoken a diversion was effected by the return of the 
 absent guests. They strolled up dispersedly there were 
 eight or ten of them and the circle under the trees 
 rearranged itself as they took their place in it. They 
 made it much larger; so that Paul Overt could feel (he 
 was always feeling that sort of thing, as he said to him 
 self,) that if the company had already been interesting 
 to watch it would now become a great deal more so. He 
 shook hands with his hostess, who welcomed him with 
 out many words, in the manner of a woman able to trust 
 him to understand conscious that, in every way, so 
 pleasant an occasion would speak for itself. She offered 
 him no particular facility for sitting by her, and when 
 they had all subsided again he found himself still next 
 General Fancourt, with an unknown lady on his other flank. 
 
 "That s my daughter that one opposite," the General 
 said to him without loss of time. Overt saw a tall girl, 
 with magnificent red hair, in a dress of a pretty grey- 
 green tint and of a limp silken texture, in which every 
 
10 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 modern effect had been avoided. It had therefore some 
 how the stamp of the latest thing, so that Overt quickly 
 perceived she was eminently a contemporary young lady. 
 
 " She s very handsome very handsome," he repeated, 
 looking at her. There was something noble in her head, 
 and she appeared fresh and strong. 
 
 Her father surveyed her with complacency ; then he 
 said : " She looks too hot that s her walk. But she ll 
 be all right presently. Then I ll make her come over 
 and speak to you." 
 
 " I should be sorry to give you that trouble ; if you 
 were to take me over there " the young man murmured. 
 
 " My dear sir, do you suppose I put myself out that 
 way ? I don t mean for you, but for Marian," the Gen 
 eral added. 
 
 " I would put myself out for her, soon enough," Overt 
 replied ; after which he went on : " Will you be so good 
 as to tell me which of those gentlemen is Henry St. 
 George ? " 
 
 " The fellow talking to my girl. By Jove, he is mak 
 ing up to her they re going off for another walk." 
 
 " Ah, is that he, really ? " The young man felt a cer 
 tain surprise, for the personage before him contradicted 
 a preconception which had been vague only till it was 
 confronted with the reality. As soon as this happened 
 the mental image, retiring with a sigh, became substantial 
 enough to suffer a slight wrong. Overt, who had spent 
 a considerable part of his short life in foreign lands, made 
 now, but not for the first time, the reflection that whereas 
 in those countries he had almost always recognised the 
 artist and the man of letters by his personal " type," the 
 mould of his face, the character of his head, the expres 
 sion of his figure and even the indications of his dress, in 
 England this identification was as little as possible a 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 11 
 
 matter of course, thanks to the greater conformity, the 
 habit of sinking the profession instead of advertising it, 
 the general diffusion of the air of the gentleman the 
 gentleman committed to no particular set of ideas. More 
 than once, on returning to his own country, he had said 
 to himself in regard to the people whom he met in society : 
 " One sees them about and one even talks with them ; but 
 to find out what they do one would really have to be a 
 detective." In respect to several individuals whose work 
 he was unable to like (perhaps he was wrong) he found 
 himself adding, "Xo wonder they conceal it it s so bad ! " 
 He observed that oftener than in France and in Germany 
 his artist looked like a gentleman (that is, like an English 
 one,) while he perceived that outside of a few exceptions 
 his gentleman didn t look like an artist. St. George was 
 not one of the exceptions ; that circumstance he defi 
 nitely apprehended before the great man had turned his 
 back to walk off with Miss Fancourt. He certainly 
 looked better behind than any foreign man of letters, and 
 beautifully correct in his tall black hat and his superior 
 frock coat. Somehow, all the same, these very garments 
 (he wouldn t have minded them so much on a weekday,) 
 were disconcerting to Paul Overt, who forgot for the 
 moment that the head of the profession was not a bit 
 better dressed than himself. He had caught a glimpse 
 of a regular face, with a fresh colour, a brown moustache 
 and a pair of eyes surely never visited by a fine frenzy, 
 and he promised himself to study it on the first occasion. 
 His temporary opinion was that St. George looked like 
 a lucky stockbroker a gentleman driving eastward 
 every morning from a sanitary suburb in a s*nart dog 
 cart. That carried out the impression already derived 
 from his wife. Paul Overt s glance, after a moment, 
 travelled back to this lady, and he saw that her own had 
 
12 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 
 
 followed her husband as he moved off with Miss Fancourt. 
 Overt permitted himself to wonder a little whether she 
 were jealous when another woman took nim away. Then 
 he seemed to perceive that Mrs. St. George was not glar 
 ing at the indifferent maiden her eyes rested only on 
 her husband, and with unmistakable serenity. That was 
 the way she wanted him to be she liked his conven 
 tional uniform. Overt had a great desire to hear more 
 about the book she had induced him to destroy. 
 
 II. 
 
 As they all came out from luncheon General Fancourt 
 took hold of Paul Overt and exclaimed, "I say, I want 
 you to know my girl ! " as if the idea had just occurred 
 to him and he had not spoken of it before. With the 
 other hand he possessed himself of the young lady and 
 said : " You know all about him. I ve seen you with 
 his books. She reads everything everything ! " he 
 added to the young man. The girl smiled at him and 
 then laughed at her father. The General turned away 
 and his daughter said : 
 
 "Isn t papa delightful? " 
 
 " He is indeed, Miss Fancourt." 
 
 " As if I read you because I read { everything ! " 
 
 " Oh, I don t mean for saying that," said Paul Overt. 
 " I liked him from the moment he spoke to me. Then 
 he promised me this privilege." 
 
 " It isn t for you he means it, it s for me. If you 
 flatter yourself that he thinks of anything in life but me 
 you ll find you are mistaken. He introduces every one 
 to me. He thinks me insatiable." . 
 
 " You speak like him," said Paul Overt, laughing. 
 
 "Ah, but sometimes I want to," the girl replied, col- 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 13 
 
 ouring. " I don t read everything I read very little. 
 But I have read you." 
 
 "Suppose we go into the gallery," said Paul Overt. 
 She pleased him greatly, not so much because of this 
 last remark (though that of course was not disagreeable 
 to him,) as because, seated opposite to him at luncheon, 
 she had given him for half an hour the impression of 
 her beautiful face. Something else had come with it 
 a sense of generosity, of an enthusiasm which, unlike 
 many enthusiasms, was not all manner. That was not 
 spoiled for him by the circumstance that the repast had 
 placed her again in familiar contact with Henry St. 
 George. Sitting next to her he was also opposite to our 
 young man, who had been able to observe that he mul 
 tiplied the attentions which his wife had brought to the 
 General s notice. Paul Overt had been able to observe 
 further that this lady was not in the least discomposed 
 by these demonstrations and that she gave every sign of 
 an unclouded spirit. She had Lord Mash am on one side 
 of her and on the other the accomplished Mr. Mulliner, 
 editor of the new high-class, lively evening paper which 
 was expected to meet a want felt in circles increasingly 
 conscious that Conservatism must be made amusing, and 
 unconvinced when assured by those of another political 
 colour that it was already amusing enough. At the end 
 of an hour spent in her company Paul Overt thought her 
 still prettier than she had appeared to him at first, and 
 if her profane allusions to her husband s work had not 
 still rung in his ears he should have liked her so far 
 as it could be a question of that in connection with a 
 woman to whom he had not yet spoken and to whom 
 probably he should never speak if it were left to her. 
 Pretty women evidently were necessary to Henry St. 
 George, and for the moment it was Miss Fancourt who 
 
14 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 was most indispensable. If Overt had promised himself 
 to take a better look at him the opportunity now was of 
 the best, and it brought consequences which the young 
 man felt to be important. He saw more in his face, and 
 he liked it the better for its not telling its whole story 
 in the first three minutes. That story came out as one 
 read, in little instalments (it was excusable that Overt s 
 mental comparisons should be somewhat professional,) 
 and the text was a style considerably involved a lan 
 guage not easy to translate at sight. There were shades 
 of meaning in it and a vague perspective of history which 
 receded as you advanced. Of two facts Paul Overt had 
 taken especial notice. The first of these was that he 
 liked the countenance of the illustrious novelist much 
 better when it was in repose than when it smiled ; the 
 smile displeased him (as much as anything from that 
 source could,) whereas the quiet face had a charm which 
 increased in proportion as it became completely quiet. 
 The change to the expression of gaiety excited on 
 Overt s part a private protest which resembled that of 
 a person sitting in the twilight and enjoying it, when 
 the lamp is brought in too soon. His second reflection 
 was that, though generally he disliked the sight of a 
 man of that age using arts to make himself agreeable to 
 a pretty girl, he was not struck in this case by the ugli 
 ness of the thing, which seemed to prove that St. George 
 had a light hand or the air of being younger than he 
 was, or else that Miss Fancourt showed that she was not 
 conscious of an anomaly. 
 
 Overt walked with her into the gallery, and they 
 strolled to the end of it, looking at the pictures, the 
 cabinets, the charming vista, which harmonised with the 
 prospect of the summer afternoon, resembling it in its 
 long brightness, with great divans and old chairs like 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 15 
 
 hours of rest. Such a place as that had the added merit 
 of giving persons who came into it plenty to talk about. 
 Miss Faneourt sat down with Paul Overt on a flowered 
 sofa, the cushions of which, very numerous, were tight, 
 ancient cubes, of many sizes, and presently she said : 
 " I m so glad to have a chance to thank you." 
 " To thank me ? " 
 
 "I liked your book so much. I think it s splendid." 
 She sat there smiling at him, and he never asked him 
 self which book she meant ; for after all he had written 
 three or four. That seemed a vulgar detail, and he was 
 not even gratified by the idea of the pleasure she told 
 him her bright, handsome face told him he had 
 given her. The feeling she appealed to, or at any rate 
 the feeling she excited, was something larger some 
 thing that had little to do with any quickened pulsation 
 of his own vanity. It was responsive admiration of the 
 life she embodied, the young purity and richness of which 
 appeared to imply that real success was to resemble that, 
 to live, to bloom, to present the perfection of a fine type, 
 not to have hammered out headachy fancies with a bent 
 back at an ink-stained table. While her grey eyes rested 
 on him (there was a wideish space between them, and 
 the division of her rich-coloured hair, which was so thick 
 that it ventured to be smooth, made a free arch above 
 them,) he was almost ashamed of that exercise of the 
 pen which it was her present inclination to eulogise. He 
 was conscious that he should have liked better to please 
 her in some other way. The lines of her face were those 
 of a woman grown, but there was something childish in 
 her complexion and the sweetness of her mouth. Above 
 all she was natural that was indubitable now more 
 natural than he had supposed at first, perhaps on account 
 of her aesthetic drapery, which was conventionally uncon- 
 
16 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 ventional, suggesting a tortuous spontaneity. He had 
 feared that sort of thing in other cases, and his fears 
 had been justified; though he was an artist to the 
 essence, the modern reactionary nymph, with the bram 
 bles of the woodland caught in her folds and a look as if 
 the satyrs had toyed with her hair, was apt to make him 
 uncomfortable. Miss Fancourt was really more candid 
 than her costume, and the best proof of it was her sup 
 posing that such garments suited her liberal character. 
 She was robed like a pessimist, but Overt was sure she 
 liked the taste of life. He thanked her for her appre 
 ciation aware at the same time that he didn t appear 
 to thank her enough and that she might think him un 
 gracious. He was afraid she would ask him to explain 
 something that he had written, and he always shrank 
 from that (perhaps too timidly,) for to his own ear the 
 explanation of a work of art sounded fatuous. But he 
 liked her so much as to feel a confidence that in the long 
 run he should be able to show her that he was not rudely 
 evasive. Moreover it was very certain that she was not 
 quick to take offence ; she was not irritable, she could be 
 trusted to wait. So when he said to her, " Ah ! don t 
 talk of anything I have done, here; there is another 
 man in the house who is the actuality ! " when he uttered 
 this short, sincere protest, it was with the sense that she 
 would see in the words neither mock humility nor the 
 ungraciousness of a successful man bored with praise. 
 
 " You mean Mr. St. George isn t he delightful ? " 
 
 Paul Overt looked at her a moment ; there was a 
 species of morning-light in her eyes. 
 
 "Alas, I don t know him. I only admire him at a 
 distance." 
 
 "Oh, you must know him he wants so to talk to 
 you," rejoined Miss Fancourt, who evidently had the 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 17 
 
 habit of saying the things that, by her quick calcula 
 tion, would give people pleasure. Overt divined that 
 she would always calculate on everything s being simple 
 between others. 
 
 " I shouldn t have supposed he knew anything about 
 me," Paul said, smiling. 
 
 "He does then everything. And if he didn t, I 
 should be able to tell him." 
 
 " To tell him everything ? " 
 
 "You talk just like the people in your book!" the 
 girl exclaimed. 
 
 "Then they must all talk alike." 
 
 "Well, it must be so difficult. Mr. St. George tells 
 me it is, terribly. I ve tried too and I find it so. I ve 
 tried to write a novel." 
 
 "Mr. St. George oughtn t to discourage you," said 
 Paul Overt. 
 
 " You do much more when you wear that expression." 
 
 " Well, after all, why try to be an artist ? " the young 
 man went on. " It s so poor so poor ! " 
 
 " I don t know what you mean," said Marian Fancourt, 
 looking grave. 
 
 " I mean as compared with being a person of action 
 as living your works." 
 
 " But what is art but a life if it be real ? " asked the 
 girl. " I think it s the only one everything else is so 
 clumsy ! " Paul Overt laughed, and she continued : "It s 
 so interesting, meeting so many celebrated people." 
 
 So I should think ; but surely it isn t new to you." 
 
 " Why, I have never seen any one any one : living 
 always in Asia." 
 
 "But doesn t Asia swarm with personages ? Haven t 
 you administered provinces in India and had captive 
 rajahs and tributary princes chained to your car ? " 
 
 B 
 
18 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 "I was with my father, after I left school to go out 
 there. It was delightful being with him we are alone 
 together in the world, he and 1 but there was none of 
 the society I like best. One never heard of a picture 
 never of a book, except bad ones." 
 
 "Never of a picture ? Why, wasn t all life a picture ? " 
 
 Miss Fancourt looked over the delightful place where 
 they sat. "Nothing to compare with this. I adore 
 England ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 "Ah, of course I don t deny that we must do some 
 thing with it yet." 
 
 " It hasn t been touched, really," said the girl. 
 
 "Did Henry St. George say that ? " 
 
 There was a small and, as he felt it, venial intention 
 of irony in his question ; which, however, the girl took 
 very simply, not noticing the insinuation. "Yes, he 
 says it has not been touched not touched compara 
 tively," she answered, eagerly. "He s so interesting 
 about it. To listen to him makes one want so to do 
 something." 
 
 " It would make me want to," said Paul Overt, feeling 
 strongly, on the instant, the suggestion of what she said 
 and of the emotion with which she said it, and what an 
 incentive, on St. George s lips, such a speech might be. 
 
 " Oh, you as if you hadn t ! I should like so to hear 
 you talk together," the girl added, ardently. 
 
 " That s very genial of you ; but he would have it all 
 his own way. I m prostrate before him." 
 
 Marian Fancourt looked earnest for a moment. " Do 
 you think then he s so perfect ? " 
 
 "Far from it. Some of his later books seem to me 
 awfully queer." 
 
 "Yes, yes he knows that." 
 
 Paul Overt stared. " That they seem to me awfully 
 queer ? " 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 19 
 
 " Well yes, or at any rate that they are not what they 
 should be. He told me he didn t esteem them. He has 
 told me such wonderful things he s so interesting." 
 
 There was a certain shock for Paul Overt in the knowl 
 edge that the fine genius they were talking of had been 
 reduced to so explicit a confession and had made it, in 
 his misery, to the first comer ; for though Miss Fancourt 
 was charming, what was she after all but an immature 
 girl encountered at a country-house ? Yet precisely this 
 was a part of the sentiment that he himself had just 
 expressed; he would make way completely for the poor 
 peccable great man, not because he didn t read him clear, 
 but altogether because he did. His consideration was 
 half composed of tenderness for superficialities which he 
 was sure St. George judged privately with supreme 
 sternness and which denoted some tragic intellectual 
 secret. He would have his reasons for his psychology 
 d, fleur cle peau, and these reasons could only be cruel 
 ones, such as would make him dearer to those who 
 already were fond of him. " You excite my envy. I 
 judge him, I discriminate but I love him," Overt said 
 in a moment. " And seeing him for the first time this 
 way is a great event for me." 
 
 " How momentous how magnificent ! " cried the girl. 
 " How delicious to bring you together ! " 
 
 " Your doing it that makes it perfect," Overt 
 responded. 
 
 " He s as eager as you," Miss Fancourt went on. "But 
 it s so odd you shouldn t have met." 
 
 "It s not so odd as it seems. I ve been out of England 
 so much repeated absences during all these last years." 
 
 " And yet you write of it as well as if you were always 
 here." 
 
 "It s just the being away perhaps. At any rate the 
 
20 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 best bits, I suspect, are those that were done in dreary 
 places abroad." 
 
 " And why were they dreary ? " 
 
 " Because they were health-resorts where my poor 
 mother was dying." 
 
 " Your poor mother ? " the girl murmured, kindly. 
 
 " We went from place to place to help her to get better. 
 But she never did. To the deadly Riviera (I hate it !) 
 to the high Alps, to Algiers, and far away a hideous 
 journey to Colorado." 
 
 " And she isn t better ? " Miss Fancourt went on. 
 
 " She died a year ago." 
 
 " Really ? like mine ! Only that is far away. 
 Some day you must tell me about your mother," she 
 added. 
 
 Overt looked at her a moment. " What right things 
 you say ! If you say them to St. George I don t wonder 
 he s in bondage." 
 
 "I don t know what you mean. He doesn t make 
 speeches and professions at all he isn t ridiculous." 
 
 " I m afraid you consider that I am." 
 
 "No, I don t," the girl replied, rather shortly. "He 
 understands everything." 
 
 Overt was on the point of saying jocosely: "And I 
 don t is that it ? " But these words, before he had 
 spoken, changed themselves into others slightly less 
 trivial : " Do you suppose he understands his wife ? " 
 
 Miss Fancourt made no direct answer to his question ; 
 but after a moment s hesitation she exclaimed: "Isn t 
 she charming ? " 
 
 " Not in the least ! " 
 
 " Here he comes. Now you must know him," the girl 
 went on. A small group of visitors had gathered at the 
 other end of the gallery and they had been joined for 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. ^1 
 
 a moment by Henry St. George, who strolled in from a 
 neighbouring room. He stood near them a moment, not, 
 apparently, falling into the conversation, but taking up 
 an old miniature from a table and vaguely examining it. 
 At the end of a minute he seemed to perceive Miss Fan- 
 court and her companion in the distance ; whereupon, 
 laying down his miniature, he approached them with the 
 same procrastinating air, with his hands in his pockets, 
 looking to right and left at the pictures. The gallery 
 was so long that this transit took some little time, espe 
 cially as there was a moment when he stopped to admire 
 the fine Gainsborough. "He says she has been the 
 making of him," Miss Fancourt continued, in a voice 
 slightly lowered. 
 
 " Ah, he s often obscure ! " laughed Paul Overt. 
 
 " Obscure ? " she repeated, interrogatively. Her eyes 
 rested upon her other friend, and it was not lost upon 
 Paul that they appeared to send out great shafts of 
 softness. " He is going to speak to us ! " she exclaimed, 
 almost breathlessly. There was a sort of rapture in her 
 voice ; Paul Overt was startled. " Bless my soul, is she 
 so fond of him as that is she in love with him?" he 
 mentally inquired. " Didn t I tell you he was eager ? " 
 she added, to her companion. 
 
 " It s eagerness dissimulated," the young man rejoined, 
 as the subject of their observation lingered before his 
 Gainsborough. " He edges toward us shyly. Does he 
 mean that she saved him by burning that book ? " 
 
 " That book ? what book did she burn ? " The girl 
 turned her face quickly upon him. 
 
 " Hasn t he told you, then ? " 
 
 ; Not a word." 
 
 " Then he doesn t tell you everything ! " Paul Overt 
 had guessed that Miss Fancourt pretty much supposed 
 
22 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 he did. The great man had now resumed his course 
 and come nearer ; nevertheless Overt risked the profane 
 observation : " St. George and the dragon, the anecdote 
 suggests ! " 
 
 Miss Fancourt, however, did not hear it ; she was 
 smiling at her approaching friend. "He is eager he 
 is ! " she repeated. 
 
 " Eager for you yes." 
 
 The girl called out frankly, joyously : " I know you 
 want to know Mr. Overt. You ll be great friends, and 
 it will always be delightful to me to think that I was 
 here when you first met and that I had something to do 
 with it." 
 
 There was a freshness of intention in this speech which 
 carried it off ; nevertheless our young man was sorry for 
 Henry St. George, as he was sorry at any time for any 
 one who was publicly invited to be responsive and de 
 lightful. He would have been so contented to believe 
 that a man he deeply admired attached an importance to 
 him that he was determined not to play with such a pre 
 sumption if it possibly were vain. In a single glance of 
 the eye of the pardonable master he discovered (having 
 the sort of divination that belonged to his talent,) that 
 this personage was full of general good-will, but had not 
 read a word he had written. There was even a relief, a 
 simplification, in that : liking him so much already for 
 what he had done, how could he like him more for having 
 been struck with a certain promise ? He got up, trying 
 to show his compassion, but at the same instant he found 
 himself encompassed by St. George s happy personal art 
 a manner of which it was the essence to conjure away 
 false positions. It all took place in a moment. He was 
 conscious that he knew him now, conscious of his hand 
 shake and of the very quality of his hand ; of his face, 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 23 
 
 seen nearer and consequently seen better, of a general 
 fraternising assurance, and in particular of the circum 
 stance that St. George didn t dislike him (as yet at 
 least,) for being imposed by a charming but too gushing 
 girl, valuable enough without such danglers. At any 
 rate no irritation was reflected in the voice with which 
 he questioned Miss Fancourt in respect to some project 
 of a walk a general walk of the company round the 
 park. He had said something to Overt about a talk 
 " We must have a tremendous lot of talk ; there are so 
 many things, aren t there ? " - but Paul perceived that 
 this idea would not in the present case take very imme 
 diate effect. All the same he was extremely happy, even 
 after the matter of the walk had been settled (the three 
 presently passed back to the other part of the gallery, 
 where it was discussed with several members of the 
 party,) even when, after they had all gone out together, 
 he found himself for half an hour in contact with Mrs. 
 St. George. Her husband had taken the advance with 
 Miss Fancourt, and this pair were quite out of sight. It 
 was the prettiest of rambles for a summer afternoon 
 a grassy circuit, of immense extent, skirting the limit of 
 the park within. The park was completely surrounded 
 by its old mottled but perfect red wall, which, all the 
 way on their left, made a picturesque accompaniment. 
 Mrs. St. George mentioned to him the surprising number 
 of acres that were thus enclosed, together with numer 
 ous other facts relating to the property and the family, 
 and its other properties : she could not too strongly urge 
 upon him the importance of seeing their other houses. 
 She ran over the names of these and rang the changes on 
 them with the facility of practice, making them appear 
 an almost endless list. She had received Paul Overt 
 very amiably when he broke ground with her by telling 
 
24 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 her that he had just had the joy of making her husband s 
 acquaintance, and struck him as so alert and so accommo 
 dating a little woman that he was rather ashamed of his 
 mot about her to Miss Fancourt ; though he reflected that 
 a hundred other people, on a hundred occasions, would 
 have been sure to make it. He got on with Mrs. St. 
 George, in short, better than he expected ; but this did 
 not prevent her from suddenly becoming aware that she 
 was faint with fatigue and must take her way back to 
 the house by the shortest cut. She hadn t the strength 
 of a kitten, she said she was awfully seedy; a state of 
 things that Overt had been too preoccupied to perceive 
 preoccupied with a private effort to ascertain in what 
 sense she could be held to have been the making of her 
 husband. He had arrived at a glimmering of the answer 
 when she announced that she must leave him, though 
 this perception was of course provisional. While he was 
 in the very act of placing himself at her disposal for the 
 return the situation underwent a change ; Lord Masham 
 suddenly turned up, coming back to them, overtaking 
 them, emerging from the shrubbery Overt could scarcely 
 have said how he appeared, and Mrs. St. George had pro 
 tested that she wanted to be left alone and not to break 
 up the party. A moment later she was walking off with 
 Lord Masham. Paul Overt fell back and joined Lady 
 Watermouth, to whom he presently mentioned that Mrs. 
 St. George had been obliged to renounce the attempt to 
 go further. 
 
 " She oughtn t to have come out at all," her ladyship 
 remarked, rather grumpily. 
 
 " Is she so very much of an invalid ? " 
 
 "Very bad indeed." And his hostess added, with 
 still greater austerity : " She oughtn t to come to stay 
 with one ! " He wondered what was implied by this, 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 25 
 
 and presently gathered that it was not a reflection on 
 the lady s conduct or her moral nature : it only repre 
 sented that her strength was not equal to her aspirations. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE smoking-room at Summersoft was on the scale of 
 the rest of the place ; that is it was high and light and 
 commodious, and decorated with such refined old carv 
 ings and mouldings that it seemed rather a bower for 
 ladies who should sit at work at fading crewels than a 
 parliament of gentlemen smoking strong cigars. The 
 gentlemen mustered there in considerable force on the 
 Sunday evening, collecting mainly at one end, in front of 
 one of the cool fair fireplaces of white marble, the entab 
 lature of which was adorned with a delicate little Italian 
 "subject." There was another in the wall that faced it, 
 and, thanks to the mild summer night, there was no fire 
 in either ; but a nucleus for aggregation was furnished 
 on one side by a table in the chimney-corner laden with 
 bottles, decanters and tall tumblers. Paul Overt was an 
 insincere smoker ; he puffed cigarettes occasionally for 
 reasons with which tobacco had nothing to do. This was 
 particularly the case on the occasion of which I speak ; 
 his motive was the vision of a little direct talk with 
 Henry St. G-eorge. The " tremendous " communion of 
 which the great man had held out hopes to him earlier 
 in the day had not yet come off, and this saddened him 
 considerably, for the party was to go its several ways 
 immediately after breakfast on the morrow. He had, 
 however, the disappointment of finding that apparently 
 the author of Shadowmere was not disposed to prolong 
 his vigil. He was not among the gentlemen assembled 
 in the smoking-room when Overt entered it, nor was he 
 
26 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 one of those who turned up, in bright habiliments, during 
 the next ten minutes. The young man waited a little, 
 wondering whether he had only gone to put on some 
 thing extraordinary ; this would account for his delay as 
 well as contribute further to Overt s observation of his 
 tendency to do the approved superficial thing. But he 
 didn t arrive he must have been putting on something 
 more extraordinary than was probable. Paul gave him 
 up, feeling a little injured, a little wounded at his not 
 having managed to say twenty words to him. He was 
 not angry, but he puffed his cigarette sighingly, with the 
 sense of having lost a precious chance. He wandered 
 away with his regret, moved slowly round the room, 
 looking at the old prints on the walls. In this attitude 
 he presently felt a hand laid on his shoulder and a 
 friendly voice in his ear. "This is good. I hoped I 
 should find you. I came down on purpose." St. George 
 was there, without a change of dress and with a kind 
 face his graver one to which Overt eagerly re 
 sponded. He explained that it was only for the Master 
 the idea of a little talk that he had sat up and that, 
 not finding him, he had been on the point of going to bed. 
 
 "Well, you know, I don t smoke my wife doesn t let 
 me," said St. George, looking for a place to sit down. 
 " It s very good for me very good for me. Let us take 
 that sofa." 
 
 " Do you mean smoking is good for you ? " 
 
 "!N"o, no, her not letting me. It s a great thing to 
 have a wife who proves to one all the things one can do 
 without. One might never find them out for oneself. 
 She doesn t allow me to touch a cigarette." 
 
 They took possession of the sofa, which was at a 
 distance from the group of smokers, and St. George went 
 on : " Have you got one yourself ? " 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 27 
 
 " Do you mean a cigarette ? " 
 
 "Dear no ! a wife." 
 
 " Xo ; and yet I would give up my cigarette for one." 
 
 " You would give up a good deal more than that," said 
 St. George. "However, you would get a great deal in 
 return. There is a great deal to be said for wives," he 
 added, folding his arms and crossing his outstretched 
 legs. He declined tobacco altogether and sat there with 
 out returning tire. Paul Overt stopped smoking, touched 
 by his courtesy ; and after all they were out of the fumes, 
 their sofa was in a far-away corner. It would have been 
 a mistake, St. George went on, a great mistake for them 
 to have separated without a little chat ; " for I know all 
 about you," he said, "I know you re very remarkable. 
 You ve written a very distinguished book." 
 
 " And how do you know it ? " Overt asked. 
 
 " Why, my dear fellow, it s in the air. it s in the 
 papers, it s everywhere," St. George replied, with the 
 immediate familiarity of a confrere a tone that seemed 
 to his companion the very rustle of the laurel. " You re 
 on all men s lips and, what s better, you re on all women s. 
 And I ve just been reading your book." 
 
 " Just ? You hadn t read it this afternoon," said 
 Overt. 
 
 " How do you know that ? " 
 
 "You know how I know it," the young man answered, 
 laughing. 
 
 " I suppose Miss Fancourt told you." 
 
 " ]STo, indeed ; she led me rather to suppose that you 
 had." 
 
 "Yes ; that s much more what she would do. Doesn t 
 she shed a rosy glow over life ? But you didn t believe 
 her ? " asked St. George. 
 
 " No, not when you came to us there." 
 
28 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 " Did 1 pretend ? did I pretend badly ? " But without 
 waiting for an answer to this St. George went on : " You 
 ought always to believe such a girl as that always, 
 always. Some women are meant to be taken with allow 
 ances and reserves ; but you must take her just as she is." 
 
 " I like her very much," said Paul Overt. 
 
 Something in his tone appeared to excite on his com 
 panion s part a momentary sense of the absurd ; perhaps 
 it was the air of deliberation attending this judgment. 
 St. George broke into a laugh and returned: "It s the 
 best thing you can do with her. She s a rare young 
 lady ! In point of fact, however, I confess I hadn t read 
 you this afternoon." 
 
 " Then you see how right I was in this particular case 
 not to believe Miss Fancourt." 
 
 " How right ? how can I agree to that, when I lost 
 credit by it ? " 
 
 " Do you wish to pass for exactly what she represents 
 you ? Certainly you needn t be afraid," Paul said. 
 
 " Ah, my dear young man, don t talk about passing 
 for the likes of me ! I m passing away nothing else 
 than that. She has a better use for her young imagina 
 tion (isn t it fine?) than in representing in any way 
 such a weary, wasted, used-up animal ! " St. George 
 spoke with a sudden sadness which produced a protest 
 on Paul s part ; but before the protest could be uttered 
 he went on, reverting to the latter s successful novel : 
 " I had no idea you were so good one hears of so many 
 things. But you re surprisingly good." 
 
 " I m going to be surprisingly better," said Overt. 
 
 " I see that and it s what fetches me. I don t see so 
 much else as one looks about that s going to be sur 
 prisingly better. They re going to be consistently worse 
 most of the things. It s so much easier to be worse 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 29 
 
 heaven knows I ve found it so. I m not in a great 
 glow, you know, about what s being attempted, what s 
 being done. But you must be better you must keep it 
 up. I haven t, of course. It s very difficult that s the 
 devil of the whole thing ; but I see you can. It will be 
 a great disgrace if you don t." 
 
 " It s very interesting to hear you speak of yourself ; 
 but I don t know what you mean by your allusions to 
 your having fallen off," Paul Overt remarked, with par 
 donable hypocrisy. He liked his companion so much 
 now that it had ceased for the moment to be vivid to 
 him that there had been any decline. 
 
 " Don t say that don t say that," St. George replied 
 gravely, with his head resting on the top of the back of 
 the sofa and his eyes on the ceiling. " You know per 
 fectly what I mean. I haven t read twenty pages of 
 your book without seeing that you can t help it." 
 
 "You make me very miserable," Paul murmured. 
 
 " I m glad of that, for it may serve as a kind of warn 
 ing. Shocking enough it must be, especially to a young, 
 fresh mind, full of faith, the spectacle of a man meant 
 for better things sunk at my age in such dishonour." 
 St. George, in the same contemplative attitude, spoke 
 softly but deliberately, and without perceptible emotion. 
 His tone indeed suggested an impersonal lucidity which 
 was cruel cruel to himself and which made Paul lay 
 an argumentative hand on his arm. But he went on, 
 while his eyes seemed to follow the ingenuities of the 
 beautiful Adams ceiling : " Look at me well and take my 
 lesson to heart, for it is a lesson. Let that good come 
 of it at least that you shudder with your pitiful impres 
 sion and that this may help to keep you straight in the 
 future. Don t become in your old age what I am in 
 mine the depressing, the deplorable illustration of the 
 worship of false gods ! " 
 
30 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 " What do you mean by your old age ? " Paul Overt 
 asked. 
 
 " It has made me old. But 1 like your youth." 
 
 Overt answered nothing they sat for a minute in 
 silence. They heard the others talking about the gov 
 ernmental majority. Then, "What do you mean by 
 false gods ? " Paul inquired. 
 
 "The idols of the market money and luxury and 
 the world/ placing one s children and dressing one s 
 wife everything that drives one to the short and easy 
 way. Ah, the vile things they make one do ! " 
 
 "But surely one is right to want to place one s 
 children." 
 
 "One has no business to have any children," St. 
 George declared, placidly. "I mean of course if one 
 wants to do something good." 
 
 " But aren t they an inspiration an incentive ? " 
 
 " An incentive to damnation, artistically speaking." 
 
 " You touch on very deep things things I should 
 like to discuss with you," Paul Overt said. "I should 
 like you to tell me volumes about yourself. This is a 
 festival for me ! " 
 
 " Of course it is, cruel youth. But to show you that 
 I m still not incapable, degraded as I am, of an act of 
 faith, I ll tie my vanity to the stake for you and burn it 
 to ashes. You must come and see me you must come 
 and see us. Mrs. St. George is charming ; I don t know 
 whether you have had any opportunity to talk with her. 
 She will be delighted to see you ; she likes great celebri 
 ties, whether incipient or predominant. You must come 
 and dine my wife will write to you. Where are you 
 to be found ? " 
 
 " This is my little address " and Overt drew out his 
 pocketbook and extracted a visiting-card. On second 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 31 
 
 thoughts, however, he kept it back, remarking that he 
 would not trouble his friend to take charge of it but 
 would come and see him straightway in London and 
 leave it at his door if he should fail to obtain admittance. 
 
 " Ah ! you probably will fail ; my wife s always out, 
 or when she isn t out she s knocked up from having been 
 out. You must come and dine though that won t do 
 much good either, for my wife insists on big dinners. 
 You must come down and see us in the country, that s 
 the best way ; we have plenty of room, and it isn t bad." 
 
 " You have a house in the country ? " Paul asked, 
 enviously. 
 
 " Ah, not like this ! But we have a sort of place 
 we go to an hour from Euston. That s one of the 
 reasons." 
 
 " One of the reasons ? " 
 
 " Why my books are so bad." 
 
 " You must tell me all the others ! " Paul exclaimed, 
 laughing. 
 
 St. George made no direct rejoinder to this ; he only 
 inquired rather abruptly : " Why have I never seen you 
 before ? " 
 
 The tone of the question was singularly flattering to 
 his new comrade ; it seemed to imply that he perceived 
 now that for years he had missed something. " Partly, 
 I suppose, because there has been no particular reason 
 why you should see me. I haven t lived in the world 
 in your world. I have spent many years out of England, 
 in different places abroad." 
 
 "Well, please don t do it any more. You must do 
 England there s such a lot of it." 
 
 " Do you mean I must write about it ? " Paul asked, 
 in a voice which had the note of the listening candour 
 of a child. 
 
32 THE LESSOX OF THE MASTER. 
 
 "Of course you nrnst. And tremendously well, do 
 you mind ? That takes off a little of my esteem for this 
 thing of yours that it goes on abroad. Hang abroad ! 
 Stay at home and do things here do subjects we can 
 measure. 7 
 
 " I ll do whatever you tell me," said Paul Overt, deeply 
 attentive. " But excuse me if I say I don t understand 
 how you have been reading my book," he subjoined. 
 "I ve had you before me all the afternoon, first in that 
 long walk, then at tea on the lawn, till we went to dress 
 for dinner, and all the evening at dinner and in this 
 place." 
 
 St. George turned his face round with a smile. "I 
 only read for a quarter of an hour." 
 
 " A quarter of an hour is liberal, but I don t under 
 stand where you put it in. In the drawing-room, after- 
 dinner, you were not reading, you were talking to Miss 
 Fancourt." 
 
 "It comes to the same thing, because we talked about 
 Ginistrella. She described it to me she lent it to me." 
 
 " Lent it to you ? " 
 
 " She travels with it." 
 
 " It s incredible," Paul Overt murmured, blushing. 
 
 " It s glorious for you ; but it also turned out very 
 well for me. When the ladies went off to bed she 
 kindly offered to send the book down to me. Her maid 
 brought it to me in the hall and I went to my room with 
 it. I hadn t thought of coining here, I do that so little. 
 But I don t sleep early, I always have to read for an 
 hour or two. I sat down to your novel on the spot, with 
 out undressing, without taking off anything but my coat. 
 I think that s a sign that my curiosity had been strongly 
 roused about it. I read a quarter of an hour, as I tell you, 
 and even in a quarter of an hour I was greatly struck." 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 33 
 
 " Ah, the beginning isn t very good it s the whole 
 thing ! " said Overt, who had listened to this recital with 
 extreme interest. And you laid down the book and 
 came after me ? " he asked. 
 
 " That s the way it moved me. I said to myself, I 
 see it s off his own bat, and he s there, by the way, and 
 the day s over and I haven t said twenty words to him. 
 It occurred to me that you would probably be in the 
 smoking-room and that it wouldn t be too late to repair 
 my omission. I wanted to do something civil to you, so 
 I put on my coat and came down. I shall read your 
 book again when I go up." 
 
 Paul Overt turned round in his place he was ex 
 ceedingly touched by the picture of such a demonstra 
 tion in his favour. " You re really the kindest of men. 
 Cela s est passe comme $a? and I have been sitting here 
 with you all this time and never apprehended it and 
 never thanked you ! " 
 
 u Thank Miss Fancourt it was she who wound me 
 up. She has made me feel as if I had read your novel." 
 
 " She s an angel from heaven ! " Paul Overt exclaimed. 
 
 " She is indeed. I have never seen anyone like her. 
 Her interest in literature is touching something quite 
 peculiar to herself; she takes it all so seriously. She 
 feels the arts and she wants to feel them more. To 
 those who practise them it s almost humiliating her 
 curiosity, her sympathy, her good faith. How can any 
 thing be as fine as she supposes it ? " 
 
 " She s a rare organisation," Paul Overt sighed. 
 
 "The richest I have ever seen an artistic intelli 
 gence really of the first order. And lodged in such a 
 form!" St. George exclaimed. 
 
 " One would like to paint such a girl as that," Overt 
 continued. 
 
 C 
 
34 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 " Ah, there it is there s nothing like life ! When 
 you re finished, squeezed dry and used up and you think 
 the sack s empty, you re still spoken to, you still get 
 touches and thrills, the idea springs up out of the lap 
 of the actual and shows you there s always something 
 to be done. But I shan t do it she s not for me ! " 
 
 " How do you mean, not for you ? " 
 
 " Oh, it s all over she s for you, if you like." 
 
 "Ah, much less!" said Paul Overt. "She s not for 
 a dingy little man of letters ; she s for the world, the 
 bright rich world of bribes and rewards. And the world 
 will take hold of her it will carry her away." 
 
 "It will try; but it s just a case in which there may 
 be a fight. It would be worth fighting, for a man who 
 had it in him, with youth and talent on his side." 
 
 These words rang not a little in Paul vert s con 
 sciousness they held him silent a moment. " It s a 
 wonder she has remained as she is giving herself away 
 so, with so much to give away." 
 
 "Do you mean so ingenuous so natural? Oh, she 
 doesn t care a straw she gives away because she over 
 flows. She has her own feelings, her own standards ; 
 she doesn t keep remembering that she must be proud. 
 And then she hasn t been here long enough to be spoiled ; 
 she has picked up a fashion or two, but only the amusing 
 ones. She s a provincial a provincial of genius; her 
 very blunders are charming, her mistakes are interesting. 
 She has come back from Asia with all sorts of excited 
 curiosities and unappeased appetites. She s first-rate 
 herself and she expends herself on the second-rate. She s 
 life herself and she takes a rare interest in imitations. 
 She mixes all things up, but there are none in regard to 
 which she hasn t perceptions. She sees things in a per 
 spective as if from the top of the Himalayas and 
 
THE LESSOX OF THE MASTER. 35 
 
 she enlarges everything she touches. Above all she 
 exaggerates to herself, I mean. She exaggerates you 
 and me ! " 
 
 There was nothing in this description to allay the 
 excitement produced in the mind of our younger friend 
 by such a sketch of a fine subject. It seemed to him to 
 show the art of St. George s admired hand, and he lost 
 himself in it, gazing at the vision (it hovered there 
 before him,) of a woman s figure which should be part of 
 the perfection of a novel. At the end of a moment he 
 became aware that it had turned into smoke, and out of 
 the smoke the last puff of a big cigar proceeded the 
 voice of General Fancourt, who had left the others and 
 come and planted himself before the gentlemen on the 
 sofa. " I suppose that when you fellows get talking you 
 sit up half the night." 
 
 " Half the night ? jamais de la vie ! I follow a 
 hygiene," St. George replied, rising to his feet. 
 
 " I see, you re hothouse plants," laughed the General. 
 "That s the way you produce your flowers." 
 
 " I produce mine between ten and one every morning ; 
 I bloom with a regularity ! " St. George went on. 
 
 "And with a splendour!" added the polite General, 
 while Paul Overt noted how little the author of Shadow- 
 mere minded, as he phrased it to himself, when he was 
 addressed as a celebrated story-teller. The young man 
 had an idea that he should never get used to that it 
 would always make him uncomfortable (from the sus 
 picion that people would think they had to,) and he 
 would want to prevent it. Evidently his more illustrious 
 congener had toughened and hardened had made him 
 self a surface. The group of men had finished their 
 cigars and taken up their bedroom candlesticks ; but 
 before they all passed out Lord Watermouth invited St. 
 
36 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 G-eorge and Paul Overt to drink something. It happened 
 that they both declined, upon which General Fancourt 
 said-: " Is that the hygiene ? You don t sprinkle the 
 flowers ? " 
 
 " Oh, I should drown them ! " St. George replied ; but 
 leaving the room beside Overt he added whimsically, for 
 the latter s benefit, in a lower tone : " My wife doesn t 
 let me." 
 
 "Well, I m glad I m not one of you fellows!" the 
 General exclaimed. 
 
 The nearness of Summersoft to London had this con 
 sequence, chilling to a person who had had a vision of 
 sociability in a railway-carriage, that most of the com 
 pany, after breakfast, drove back to town, entering their 
 own vehicles, which had come out to fetch them, while 
 their servants returned by train with their luggage. 
 Three or four young men, among whom was Paul Overt, 
 also availed themselves of the common convenience ; but 
 they stood in the portico of the house and saw the others 
 roll away. Miss Fancourt got into a victoria with her 
 father, after she had shaken hands with Paul Overt and 
 said, smiling in the frankest way in the world "I must 
 see you more. Mrs. St. George is so nice : she has prom 
 ised to ask us both to dinner together." This lady and 
 her husband took their places in a perfectly-appointed 
 brougham (she required a closed carriage,) and as our 
 young man waved his hat to them in response to their 
 nods and nourishes he reflected that, taken together, they 
 were an honourable image of success, of the material 
 rewards and the social credit of literature. Such things 
 were not the full measure, but all the same he felt a lit 
 tle proud for literature. 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 87 
 
 IV. 
 
 BEFORE a week had elapsed Paul Overt met Miss 
 Fancourt in Bond Street, at a private view of the works 
 of a young artist in -black and white " who had been so 
 good as to invite him to the stuffy scene. The drawings 
 were admirable, but the crowd in the one little room was 
 so dense that he felt as if he were up to his neck in a 
 big sack of wool. A fringe of people at the outer edge 
 endeavoured by curving forward their backs and pre 
 senting, below them, a still more convex surface of re 
 sistance to the pressure of the mass, to preserve an 
 interval between their noses and the glazed mounts of 
 the pictures ; while the central body, in the comparative 
 gloom projected by a wide horizontal screen, hung under 
 the skylight and allowing only a margin for the day, 
 remained upright, dense and vague, lost in the contem 
 plation of its own ingredients. This contemplation sat 
 especially in the sad eyes of certain female heads, sur 
 mounted with hats of strange convolution and plumage, 
 which rose on long necks above the others. One of the 
 heads, Paul Overt perceived, was much the most beau 
 tiful of the collection, and his next discovery was that 
 it belonged to Miss Fancourt. Its beauty was enhanced 
 by the glad smile that she sent him across surrounding 
 obstructions, a smile which drew him to her as fast as 
 he could make his way. He had divined at Summer- 
 soft that the last thing her nature contained was an 
 affectation of indifference ; yet even with this circum 
 spection he had a freshness of pleasure in seeing that 
 she did not pretend to await his arrival with composure. 
 She smiled as radiantly as if she wished to make him 
 hurry, and as soon as he came within earshot she said to 
 him, in her voice of joy : "He s here he s here he s 
 coining back in a moment ! " 
 
38 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 "Ah, your father?" Paul responded, as she offered 
 him her hand. 
 
 " Oh dear no, this isn t in my poor father s line. I 
 mean Mr. St. George. He has just left me to speak to 
 some one he s coming back. It s he who brought me 
 
 wasn t it charming ? " 
 
 " Ah, that gives him a pull over me I couldn t have 
 brought you, could I? " 
 
 " If you had been so kind as to propose it why not 
 you as well as he ? " the girl asked, with a face which 
 expressed no cheap coquetry, but simply affirmed a 
 happy fact. 
 
 " Why, he s a p&re defamille. They have privileges," 
 Paul Overt explained. And then, quickly : " Will you 
 go to see places with me ? " he broke out. 
 
 "Anything you like!" she smiled. "I know what 
 you mean, that girls have to have a lot of people 
 She interrupted herself to say : " I don t know ; I m 
 free. I have always been like that," she went on ; " I 
 can go anywhere with any one. I m so glad to meet you," 
 she added, with a sweet distinctness that made the peo 
 ple near her turn round. 
 
 " Let me at least repay that speech by taking you out 
 of this squash," said Paul Overt. "Surely people are 
 not happy here ! " 
 
 " No, they are mornes, aren t they ? But I am very 
 happy indeed, and I promised Mr. St. George to remain 
 in this spot till he comes back. He s going to take me 
 away. They send him invitations for things of this sort 
 
 more than he wants. It was so kind of him to think 
 of me." 
 
 "They also send me invitations of this kind more 
 
 than I want. And if thinking of you will do it ! " 
 
 Paul went on. 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 39 
 
 "Oh, 1 delight in them everything that s life 
 everything that s London ! " 
 
 "They don t have private views in Asia, I suppose. 
 But what a pity that for this year, in this fertile city, 
 they are pretty well over." 
 
 " Well, next year will do, for I hope you believe we 
 are going to be friends always. Here he comes ! " Miss 
 Fancourt continued, before Paul had time to respond. 
 
 He made out St. George in the gaps of the crowd, and 
 this perhaps led to his hurrying a little to say : " I hope 
 that doesn t mean that I m to wait till next year to see 
 you." 
 
 " No, no ; are we not to meet at dinner on the 25th ? " 
 she answered, with an eagerness greater even than his own. 
 
 " That s almost next year. Is there no means of see 
 ing you before ? " 
 
 She stared, with all her brightness. "Do you mean 
 that you would co??ie?" 
 
 " Like a shot, if you ll be so good as to ask me ! " 
 
 " On Sunday, then this next Sunday ? " 
 
 " What have I done that you should doubt it ? " the 
 young man demanded, smiling. 
 
 Miss Fancourt turned instantly to St. George, who had 
 now joined them, and announced triumphantly: "He s 
 coming on Sunday this next Sunday ! " 
 
 " Ah, my day my day too ! " said the famous novel 
 ist, laughing at Paul Overt. 
 
 " Yes, but not yours only. You shall meet in Manches 
 ter Square ; you shall talk you shall be wonderful ! " 
 
 "We don t meet often enough," St. George remarked, 
 shaking hands with his disciple. "Too many things 
 ah, too many things ! But we must make it up in the 
 country in September. You won t forget that you ve 
 promised me that ? " 
 
40 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 " Why, he s coining on the 25th ; you ll see him then/ 
 said Marian Fancourt. 
 
 " On the 25th ? " St. George asked, vaguely. 
 
 " We dine with you ; I hope you haven t forgotten. 
 He s dining out," she added gaily to Paul Overt. 
 
 "Oh, bless me, yes; that s charming! And you re 
 coming ? My wife didn t tell me," St. George said to 
 Paul, " Too many things too many things ! " he re 
 peated. 
 
 " Too many people too many people ! " Paul ex 
 claimed, giving ground before the penetration of an 
 elbow. 
 
 " You oughtn t to say that ; they all read you." 
 
 "Me ? I should like to see them ! Only two or three 
 at most," the young man rejoined. 
 
 " Did you ever hear anything like that ? he knows 
 how good he is ! " St. George exclaimed, laughing, to Miss 
 Fancourt. "They read me, but that doesn t make me 
 like them any better. Come away from them, come 
 away ! " And he led the way out of the exhibition. 
 
 "He s going to take me to the Park," the girl said, 
 with elation, to Paul Overt, as they passed along the 
 corridor which led to the street. 
 
 " Ah, does he go there ? " Paul asked, wondering at 
 the idea as a somewhat unexpected illustration of St. 
 George s moeurs. 
 
 " It s a beautiful day ; there will be a great crowd. 
 We re going to look at the people, to look at types," the 
 girl went on. " We shall sit under the trees ; we shall 
 walk by the Row." 
 
 " I go once a year, on business/ said St. George, who 
 had overheard Paul s question. 
 
 " Or with a country cousin, didn t you tell me ? I m 
 the country cousin ! " she went on, over her shoulder, to 
 
THE LESSOX OF THE MASTER. 41 
 
 Paul, as her companion drew her toward a hansom to 
 which he had signalled. The young man watched them 
 get in ; he returned, as he stood there, the friendly wave 
 of the hand with which, ensconced in the vehicle beside 
 Miss Fancourt, St. George took leave of him. He even 
 lingered to see the vehicle start away and lose itself in 
 the confusion of Bond Street. He followed it with his 
 eyes ; it was embarrassingly suggestive. " She s not for 
 me ! " the great novelist had said emphatically at Sum- 
 mersoft ; but his manner of conducting himself toward 
 her appeared not exactly in harmony with such a convic 
 tion. How could he have behaved differently if she had 
 been for him ? An indefinite envy rose in Paul Overt s 
 heart as he took his way on foot alone, and the singular 
 part of it was that it was directed to each of the occu 
 pants of the hansom. How much he should like to rattle 
 about London with such a girl ! How much he should 
 like to go and look at " types " with St. George ! 
 
 The next Sunday, at four o clock, he called in Man 
 chester Square, where his secret wish was gratified by his 
 finding Miss Fancourt alone. She was in a large, bright, 
 friendly, occupied room, which was painted red all over, 
 draped with the quaint, cheap, florid stuffs that are repre 
 sented as coming from southern and eastern countries, 
 where they are fabled to serve as the ^counterpanes of 
 the peasantry, and bedecked with pottery of vivid hues, 
 ranged on casual shelves, and with many water-colour 
 drawings from the hand (as the visitor learned,) of the 
 young lady, commemorating, with courage and skill, the 
 sunsets, the mountains, the temples and palaces of India. 
 Overt sat there an hour more than an hour, two hours 
 and all the while no one came in. Miss Fancourt was 
 so good as to remark, with her liberal humanity, that it 
 was delightful they were not interrupted ; it was so rare 
 
42 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 in London, especially at that season, that people got a 
 good talk. But fortunately now, of a fine Sunday, half 
 the world went out of town, and that made it better for 
 those who didn t go, when they were in sympathy. It 
 was the defect of London (one of two or three, the very 
 short list of those she recognised in the teeming world- 
 city that she adored,) that there were too few good chances 
 for talk ; one never had time to carry anything far. 
 
 "Too many things too many things!" Paul Overt 
 said, quoting St. George s exclamation of a few days 
 before. 
 
 "Ah yes, for him there are too many; his life is too 
 complicated." 
 
 "Have you seen it near? That s what I should like 
 to do ; it might explain some mysteries," Paul Overt went 
 on. The girl asked him what mysteries he meant, and 
 he said : " Oh, peculiarities of his work, inequalities, 
 superficialities. For one who looks at it from the artistic 
 point of view it contains a bottomless ambiguity." 
 
 " Oh, do describe that more it s so interesting. There 
 are no such suggestive questions. I m so fond of them. 
 He thinks he s a failure fancy ! " Miss Fancourt added. 
 
 "That depends upon what his ideal may have been. 
 Ah, with his gifts it ought to have been high. But till 
 
 one knows what he really proposed to himself Do you 
 
 know, by chance ? " the young man asked, breaking off. 
 
 "Oh, he doesn t talk to me about himself. I can t 
 make him. It s too provoking." 
 
 Paul Overt was on the point of asking what then he 
 did talk about ; but discretion checked this inquiry, and 
 he said instead : " Do you think he s unhappy at home ? " 
 
 "At home?" 
 
 "I mean in his relations with his wife. He has a 
 mystifying little way of alluding to her." 
 
THE LESSOX OF THE MASTER. 43 
 
 "Not to me/ said Marian Fancourt, with her clear 
 eyes. "That wouldn t be right, would it?" she asked, 
 seriously. 
 
 "Not particularly; so I am glad he doesn t mention 
 her to you. To praise her might bore you, and he ha.s 
 no business to do anything else. Yet he knows you bet 
 ter than me." 
 
 "Ah, but he respects you! 7 the girl exclaimed, envi 
 ously. 
 
 Her visitor stared a moment ; then he broke into a 
 laugh. " Doesn t he respect you ? " 
 
 " Of course, but not in the same way. He respects 
 what you ve done he told me so, the other day." 
 
 " When you went to look at types ? " 
 
 " Ah, we found so many he has such an observation 
 of them ! He talked a great deal about your book. He 
 says it s really important." 
 
 "Important! Ah! the grand creature," Paul mur 
 mured, hilarious. 
 
 "He was wonderfully amusing, he was inexpressibly 
 droll, while we walked about. He sees everything ; he 
 has so many comparisons, and they are always exactly 
 right. C est d un trouve! as they say." 
 
 " Yes, with his gifts, such things as he ought to have 
 done ! " Paul Overt remarked. 
 
 "And don t you think he has done them ? " 
 
 He hesitated a moment. "A part of them and of 
 course even that part is immense. But he might have 
 been one of the greatest ! However, let us not make this 
 an hour of qualifications. Even as they stand, his writ 
 ings are a mine of gold." 
 
 To this proposition Marian Fancourt ardently re 
 sponded, and for half an hour the pair talked over the 
 master s principal productions. She knew them well 
 
44 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 she knew them even better than her visitor, who was 
 struck with her critical intelligence and with something 
 large and bold in the movement in her mind. She said 
 things that startled him and that evidently had come to 
 her directly ; they were not picked-up phrases, she placed 
 them too well. St. George had been right about her 
 being first-rate, about her not being afraid to gush, not 
 remembering that she must be proud. Suddenly some 
 thing reminded her, and she said : " I recollect that he 
 did speak of Mrs. St. George to me once. He said, & 
 propos of something or other, that she didn t care for 
 perfection." 
 
 " That s a great crime, for an artist s wife," said Paul 
 Overt. 
 
 "Yes, poor thing!" and the young lady sighed, with 
 a suggestion of many reflections, some of them mitigat 
 ing. But she added in a moment, " Ah, perfection, per 
 fection how one ought to go in for it ! I wish I could." 
 
 "Every one can, in his way," said Paul Overt. 
 
 "In his way, yes; but not in hers. Women are so 
 hampered so condemned ! But it s a kind of dishonour 
 if you don t, when you want to do something, isn t it ? " 
 Miss Fancourt pursued, dropping one train in her quick 
 ness to take up another, an accident that was common 
 with her. So these two young persons sat discussing 
 high themes in their eclectic drawing-room, in their Lon 
 don season discussing, with extreme seriousness, the 
 high theme of perfection. And it must be said, in ex 
 tenuation of this eccentricity, that they were interested 
 in the business; their tone was genuine, their emotion 
 real ; they were not posturing for each other or for some 
 one else. 
 
 The subject was so wide that they found it necessary 
 to contract it ; the perfection to which for the moment 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 45 
 
 they agreed to confine their speculations was that of 
 which the valid work of art is susceptible. Miss Fan- 
 court s imagination, it appeared, had wandered far in that 
 direction, and her visitor had the rare delight of feeling 
 that their conversation was a full interchange. This 
 episode will have lived for years in his memory and even 
 in his wonder ; it had the quality that fortune distils in 
 a single drop at a time the quality that lubricates en 
 suing weeks and months. He has still a vision of the 
 room, whenever he likes the bright, red, sociable, talk 
 ative room, with the curtains that, by a stroke of success 
 ful audacity, had the note of vivid blue. He remembers 
 where certain things stood, the book that was open on 
 the table and the particular odour of the flowers that 
 were placed on the left, somewhere behind him. These 
 facts were the fringe, as it were, of a particular conscious 
 ness which had its birth in those two hours and of which 
 perhaps the most general description would be to men 
 tion that it led him to say over and over again to him 
 self : " I had no idea there was any one like this I had 
 no idea there was any one like this ! " Her freedom 
 amazed him and charmed him it seemed so to simplify 
 the practical question . She was on the footing of an in 
 dependent personage a motherless girl who had passed 
 out of her teens and had a position, responsibilities, and 
 was not held down to the limitations of a little miss. 
 She came and went without the clumsiness of a chaperon ; 
 she received people alone and, though she was totally 
 without hardness, the question of protection or patron 
 age had no relevancy in regard to her. She gave such 
 an impression of purity combined with naturalness that, 
 in spite of her eminently modern situation, she suggested 
 no sort of sisterhood with the " fast " girl. Modern she 
 was, indeed, and made Paul Overt, who loved old colour, 
 
46 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 the golden glaze of time, think with some alarm of the 
 muddled palette of the future. He couldn t get used 
 to her interest in the arts he cared for ; it seemed too 
 good to be real it was so unlikely an adventure to 
 tumble into such a well of sympathy. One might stray 
 into the desert easily that was on the cards and that 
 was the law of life ; but it was too rare an accident to 
 stumble on a crystal well. Yet if her aspirations seemed 
 at one moment too extravagant to be real, they struck 
 him at the next as too intelligent to be false. They were 
 both noble and crude, and whims for whims, he liked 
 them better than any he had met. It was probable 
 enough she would leave them behind exchange them 
 for politics, or " smartness," or mere prolific maternity, 
 as was the custom of scribbling, daubing, educated, flat 
 tered girls, in an age of luxury and a society of leisure. 
 He noted that the water-colours on the walls of the room 
 she sat in had mainly the quality of being natives, and 
 reflected that na ivete in art is like a cipher in a number : 
 its importance depends upon the figure it is united with. 
 But meanwhile he had fallen in love with her. 
 
 Before he went away he said to Miss Fancourt : " I 
 thought St. George was coming to see you to-day but 
 he doesn t turn up." 
 
 For a moment he supposed she was going to reply, 
 " Comment done ? Did you come here only to meet 
 him ? " But the next he became aware of how little such 
 a speech would have fallen in with any flirtatious element 
 he had as yet perceived in her. She only replied : "Ah 
 yes, but I don t think he ll come. He recommended me 
 not to expect him." Then she added, laughing: "He 
 said it wasn t fair to you. But I think I could manage 
 two." 
 
 "So could I." Paul Overt rejoined, stretching the 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 47 
 
 point a little to be humorous. In reality his apprecia 
 tion of the occasion was so completely an appreciation 
 of the woman before him that another figure in the 
 scene, even so esteemed a one as St. George, might for 
 the hour have appealed to him vainly. As he went away 
 he wondered what the great man had meant by its not 
 being fair to him ; and, still more than that, whether he 
 had actually stayed away out of the delicacy of such an 
 idea. As he took his course, swinging his stick, through 
 the Sunday solitude of Manchester Square, with a good 
 deal of emotion fermenting in his soul, it appeared to 
 him that he was living in a world really magnanimous. 
 Miss Fancourt had told him that there was an uncer 
 tainty about her being, and her father s being, in town 
 on the following Sunday, but that she had the hope of a 
 visit from him if they should not go away. She prom 
 ised to let him know if they stayed at home, then he could 
 act accordingly. After he had passed into one of the 
 streets that lead out of the square, he stopped, without 
 definite intentions, looking sceptically for a cab. In a 
 moment he saw a hansom roll through the square from 
 the other side and come a part of the way toward him. 
 He was on the point of hailing the driver when he per 
 ceived that he carried a fare ; then he waited, seeing him 
 prepare to deposit his passenger by pulling up at one of 
 the houses. The house was apparently the one he him 
 self had just quitted ; at least he drew that inference as 
 he saw that the person who stepped out of the hansom 
 was Henry St. George. Paul Overt turned away quickly, 
 as if he had been caught in the act of spying. He 
 gave up his cab he preferred to w r alk ; he would go 
 nowhere else. He w r as glad St. George had not given 
 up his visit altogether that would have been too absurd. 
 Yes, the world was magnanimous, and Overt felt so too 
 
48 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 as, on looking at his watch, he found it was only six 
 o clock, so that he could mentally congratulate his suc 
 cessor on having an hour still to sit in Miss Fancourt s 
 drawing-room. He himself might use that hour for an 
 other visit, but by the time he reached the Marble Arch 
 the idea of another visit had become incongruous to him. 
 He passed beneath that architectural effort and walked 
 into the Park till he got upon the grass. Here he con 
 tinued to walk ; he took his way across the elastic turf 
 and came out by the Serpentine. He watched with a 
 friendly eye the diversions of the London people, and 
 bent a glance almost encouraging upon the young ladies 
 paddling their sweethearts on the lake, and the guards 
 men tickling tenderly with their bearskins the artificial 
 flowers in the Sunday hats of their partners. He pro 
 longed his meditative walk ; he went into Kensington 
 Gardens he sat upon the penny chairs he looked at 
 the little sail-boats launched upon the round pond he 
 was glad he had no engagement to dine. He repaired 
 for this purpose, very late, to his club, where he found 
 himself unable to order a repast and told the waiter to 
 bring whatever he w r ould. He did not even observe 
 what he was served with, and he spent the evening in 
 the library of the establishment, pretending to read an 
 article in an American magazine. He failed to discover 
 what it was about ; it appeared in a dim way to be about 
 Marian Fan court. 
 
 Quite late in the week she wrote to him that she was 
 not to go into the country it had only just been settled. 
 Her father, -she added, would never settle anything he 
 put it all on her. She felt her responsibility she had 
 to and since she was forced that was the way she had 
 decided. She mentioned no reasons, which gave Paul 
 Overt all the clearer field for bold conjecture about 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 49 
 
 them. In Manchester Square, on this second Sunday, 
 he esteemed his fortune less good, for she had three or 
 four other visitors. But there were three or four com 
 pensations ; the greatest, perhaps, of which was that, 
 learning from her that her father had, after all, at the 
 last hour, gone out of town alone, the bold conjecture I 
 just now spoke of found itself becoming a shade more 
 bold. And then her presence was her presence, and the 
 personal red room was there and was full of it, whatever 
 phantoms passed and vanished, emitting incomprehensi 
 ble sounds. Lastly, he had the resource of staying till 
 every one had come and gone and of supposing that this 
 pleased her, though she gave no particular sign. When 
 they were alone together he said to her : " But St. G-eorge 
 did come last Sunday. I saw him as I looked back." 
 
 " Yes ; but it was the last time." 
 
 " The last time ? " 
 
 " He said he would never come again." 
 
 Paul Overt stared. " Does he mean that he wishes to 
 cease to see you ? " 
 
 "I don t know what he means," the girl replied, smil 
 ing. " He won t, at any rate, see me here." 
 
 " And, pray, why not ? " 
 
 " I don t know," said Marian Fancourt ; and her vis 
 itor thought he had not yet seen her more beautiful than 
 in uttering these unsatisfactory words. 
 
 V. 
 
 "On, I say, I want you to remain," Henry St. George 
 said to him at eleven o clock, the night he dined with the 
 head of the profession. The company had been numerous 
 and they were taking their leave ; our young man, after 
 bidding good-night to his hostess, had put out his hand 
 
 D 
 
50 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 in farewell to the master of the house. Besides eliciting 
 from St. George the protest I have quoted this movement 
 provoked a further observation about such a chance to 
 have a talk, their going into his room, his having still 
 everything to say. Paul Overt was delighted to be asked 
 to stay ; nevertheless he mentioned jocularly the literal 
 fact that he had promised to go to another place, at a 
 distance. 
 
 " Well then, you ll break your promise, that s all. You 
 humbug ! " St. George exclaimed, in a tone that added to 
 vert s contentment. 
 
 " Certainly, I ll break it; but it was a real promise." 
 " Do you mean to Miss Fancourt ? You re following 
 her ? " St. George asked. 
 
 Paul Overt answered by a question. " Oh, is she going ? " 
 " Base impostor ! " his ironic host went on ; " I ve 
 treated you handsomely on the article of that young lady : 
 I won t make another concession. Wait three minutes 
 I ll be with you." He gave himself to his departing 
 guests, went with the long-trained ladies to the door. It 
 was a hot night, the windows were open, the sound of the 
 quick carriages and of the link men s call came into the 
 house. The company had been brilliant; a sense of festal 
 things was in the heavy air : not only the influence of 
 that particular entertainment, but the suggestion of the 
 wide hurry of pleasure which, in London, on summer 
 nights, fills so many of the happier quarters of the com 
 plicated town. Gradually Mrs. St. George s drawing-room 
 emptied itself ; Paul Overt was left alone with his hostess, 
 to whom he explained the motive of his waiting. " Ah 
 yes, some intellectual, some professional, talk," she smiled ; 
 " at this season doesn t one miss it ? Poor dear Henry, 
 I m so glad I " The young man looked out of the window 
 a moment, at the called hansoms that lurched up, at the 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 51 
 
 smooth broughams that rolled away. When he turned 
 round Mrs. St. George had disappeared; her husband s 
 voice came up to him from below he was laughing and 
 talking, in the portico, with some lady who awaited her 
 carriage. Paul had solitary possession, for some minutes, 
 of the warm, deserted rooms, where the covered, tinted 
 lamplight was soft, the seats had been pushed about and 
 the odour of flowers lingered. They were large, they 
 were pretty, they contained objects of value ; everything 
 in the picture told of a " good house." At the end of five 
 minutes a servant came in with a request from Mr. St. 
 George that he would join him downstairs ; upon which, 
 descending, he followed his conductor through a long 
 passage to an apartment thrown out, in the rear of the 
 habitation, for the special requirements, as he guessed, 
 of a busy man of letters. 
 
 St. George was in his shirt-sleeves in the middle of a 
 large, high room a room without windows, but with a 
 wide skylight at the top, like a place of exhibition. It 
 was furnished as a library, and the serried bookshelves 
 rose to the ceiling, a surface of incomparable tone, pro 
 duced by dimly-gilt " backs," which was interrupted here 
 and there by the suspension of old prints and drawings. 
 At the end furthest from the door of admission was a tall 
 desk, of great extent, at which the person using it could 
 only write standing, like a clerk in a counting-house; 
 and stretching from the door to this structure was a large 
 plain band of crimson cloth, as straight as a garden-path 
 and almost as long, where, in his mind s eye, Paul Overt 
 immediately saw his host pace to and fro during his hours 
 of composition. The servant gave him a coat, an old 
 jacket with an air of experience, from a cupboard in the 
 wall, retiring afterwards with the garment he had taken 
 off. Paul Overt welcomed the coat ; it was a coat for 
 
52 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 talk and promised confidences it must have received 
 so many and had pathetic literary elbows. " Ah, we re 
 practical we re practical ! " St. George said, as he saw 
 his visitor looking the place over. " Isn t it a good big 
 cage, to go round and round ? My wife invented it and 
 she locks me up here every morning." 
 
 " You don t miss a window a place to look out ? " 
 
 "I did at first, awfully; but her calculation was just. 
 It saves time, it has saved me many months in these ten 
 years. Here I stand, under the eye of day in London 
 of course, very often, it s rather a bleared old eye walled 
 in to my trade. I can t get away, and the room is a fine 
 lesson in concentration. I ve learned the lesson, I think; 
 look at that big bundle of proof and admit that I have." 
 He pointed to a fat roll of papers, on one of the tables, 
 which had not been undone. 
 
 "Are you bringing out another ?" Paul Overt 
 
 asked, in a tone of whose deficiencies he was not conscious 
 till his companion burst out laughing, and indeed not 
 even then. 
 
 " You humbug you humbug ! Don t I know what 
 you think of them ? " St. George inquired, standing 
 before him with his hands in his pockets and with a new 
 kind of smile. It was as if he were going to let his 
 young votary know him well now. 
 
 "Upon my word, in that case you know more than I 
 do ! " Paul ventured to respond, revealing a part of the 
 torment of being able neither clearly to esteem him nor 
 distinctly to renounce him. 
 
 " My dear fellow," said his companion, " don t imagine 
 I talk about my books, specifically ; it isn t a decent sub 
 ject il ne manquerait phis que ca I m not so bad as 
 you may apprehend ! About myself, a little, if you like ; 
 though it wasn t for that I brought you down here. I 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 53 
 
 want to ask you something very much indeed I value 
 this chance. Therefore sit down. We are practical, but 
 there is a sofa, you see, for she does humour me a little, 
 after all. Like all really great administrators she knows 
 when to." Paul Overt sank into the corner of a deep 
 leathern couch, but his interlocutor remained standing 
 and said : " If you don t mind, in this room this is my 
 habit. From the door to the desk and from the desk to 
 the door. That shakes up my imagination, gently; and 
 don t you see what a good thing it is that there s no win 
 dow for her to fly out of ? The eternal standing as I 
 write (I stop at that bureau and put it down, when any 
 thing comes, and so we go on,) was rather wearisome at 
 first, but we adopted it with an eye to the long run; 
 you re in better order (if your legs don t break down !) 
 and you can keep it up for more years. Oh, we re prac 
 tical we re practical!" St. George repeated, going to 
 the table and taking up, mechanically, the bundle of 
 proofs. He pulled off the wrapper, he turned the papers 
 over with a sudden change of attention which only made 
 him more interesting to Paul Overt. He lost himself a 
 moment, examining the sheets of his new book, while 
 the younger man s eyes wandered over the room again. 
 
 " Lord, what good things I should do if I had such a 
 charming place as this to do them in ! " Paul reflected. 
 The outer world, the world of accident and ugliness was 
 so successfully excluded, and within the rich, protecting 
 square, beneath the patronising sky, the figures projected 
 for an artistic purpose could hold their particular revel. 
 It was a prevision of Paul Overt s rather than an obser 
 vation on actual data, for which the occasions had been 
 too few, that his new friend would have the quality, the 
 charming quality, of surprising him by flashing out in 
 personal intercourse, at moments of suspended, or perhaps 
 
54 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 even of diminished expectation. A happy relation with 
 him would be a thing proceeding by jumps, not by trace 
 able stages. 
 
 " Do you read them really ? " he asked, laying down 
 the proofs on Paul s inquiring of him how soon the work 
 would be published. And when the young man answered, 
 " Oh yes, always," he was moved to mirth again by some 
 thing he caught in his manner of saying that. " You go 
 to see your grandmother on her birthday and very 
 proper it is, especially as she won t last for ever. She 
 has lost every faculty and every sense ; she neither sees, 
 nor hears, nor speaks ; but all customary pieties and 
 kindly habits are respectable. But you re strong if you 
 do read em ! /couldn t, my dear fellow. You are strong, 
 I know; and that s just a part of what I wanted to say 
 to you. You re very strong indeed. I ve been going 
 into your other things they ve interested me exceed 
 ingly. Some one ought to have told me about them 
 before some one I could believe. But whom can one 
 believe ? You re wonderfully in the good direction 
 it s extremely curious work. Now do you mean to keep 
 it up ? that s what I want to ask you." 
 
 " Do I mean to do others ? " Paul Overt asked, looking 
 up from his sofa at his erect inquisitor and feeling partly 
 like a happy little boy when the schoolmaster is gay and 
 partly like some pilgrim of old who might have con 
 sulted the oracle. St. George s own performance had 
 been infirm, but as an adviser he would be infallible. 
 
 " Others others ? Ah, the number won t matter ; 
 one other would do, if it were really a further step a 
 throb of the same effort. What I mean is, have you it 
 in your mind to go in for some sort of little perfection ? " 
 
 " Ah, perfection ! " Overt sighed, " I talked of that the 
 other Sunday with Miss Fancourt." 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 55 
 
 "Oh yes, they ll talk of it, as much as you like! But 
 they do mighty little to help one to it. There s no obli 
 gation, of course; only you strike me as capable," St. 
 George went on. " You must have thought it all over. 
 I can t believe you re without a plan. That s the sensa 
 tion you give me, and it s so rare that it really stirs up 
 one ; it makes you remarkable. If you haven t a plan 
 and you don t mean to keep it up, of course it s all right, 
 it s no one s business, no one can force -you, and not more 
 than two or three people will notice that you don t go 
 straight. The others all the rest, every blessed soul 
 in England, will think you do will think you are keep 
 ing it up : upon my honour they will ! I shall be one of 
 the two or three who know better. Now the question 
 is whether you can do it for two or three. Is that the 
 stuff you re made of ? " 
 
 " I could do it for one, if you were the one." 
 
 "Don t say that I don t deserve it; it scorches me," 
 St. George exclaimed, with eyes suddenly grave and glow 
 ing. "The one is of course oneself one s conscience, 
 one s idea, the singleness of one s aim. I think of that 
 pure spirit as a man thinks of a woman whom, in some 
 detested hour of his youth, he has loved and forsaken. 
 She haunts him with reproachful eyes, she lives for ever 
 before him. As an artist, you know, I ve married for 
 money." Paul stared and even blushed a little, con 
 founded by this avowal ; whereupon his host, observing 
 the expression of his face, dropped a quick laugh and 
 went on : "You don t follow my figure. I m not speaking 
 of my dear wife, who had a small fortune, which, however, 
 was not my bribe. I fell in love with her, as many other 
 people have done. I refer to the mercenary muse whom 
 I led to the altar of literature. Don t do that, my boy. 
 She ll lead you a life ! " 
 
 " Haven t you been happy ! " 
 
56 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 " Happy ? It s a kind of hell." 
 
 " There are things I should like to ask you," Paul Overt 
 said, hesitating. 
 
 " Ask me anything in all the world. I d turn myself 
 inside out to save you." 
 
 " To save me ? " Paul repeated. 
 
 " To make you stick to it to make you see it through. 
 As I said to you the other night at Summersoft, let my 
 example be vivid to you." 
 
 " Why, your books are not so bad as that," said Paul, 
 laughing and feeling that he breathed the air of art. 
 
 " So bad as what ? " 
 
 " Your talent is so great that it is in everything you do, 
 in what s less good as well as in what s best. You ve 
 some forty volumes to show for it forty volumes of life, 
 of observation, of magnificent ability." 
 
 " I m very clever, of course I know that," St. George 
 replied, quietly. " Lord, what rot they d all be if I hadn t 
 been ! I m a successful charlatan I ve been able to pass 
 off my system. But do you know what it is ? It s car- 
 ton-pierre" 
 
 " Carton-pierre ? " 
 
 " Lincrusta- Walton ! " 
 
 " Ah, don t say such things you make me bleed ! " 
 the younger man protested. "I see you in a beautiful, 
 fortunate home, living in comfort and honour." 
 
 " Do you call it honour ? " St. George interrupted, with 
 an intonation that often comes back to his companion. 
 " That s what I want you to go in for. I mean the real 
 thing. This is brummagaem." 
 
 " Brummagaem ? " Paul ejaculated, while his eyes 
 wandered, by a movement natural at the moment, over 
 the luxurious room. 
 
 " Ah, they make it so well to-day ; it s wonderfully 
 deceptive ! " 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 57 
 
 " Is it deceptive that I find you living with every 
 appearance of domestic felicity blessed with a devoted, 
 accomplished wife, with children whose acquaintance I 
 haven t yet had the pleasure of making, but who must be 
 delightful young people, from what I know of their 
 parents ? " 
 
 " It s all excellent, my dear fellow heaven forbid I 
 should deny it. I ve made a great deal of money ; my 
 wife has known how to take care of it, to use it without 
 wasting it, to put a good bit of it by, to make it fructify. 
 I ve got a loaf on the shelf; I ve got everything, in fact, 
 but the great thing 
 
 " The great thing ? " 
 
 " The sense of having done the best the sense, which 
 is the real life of the artist and the absence of which is 
 his death, of having drawn from his intellectual instru 
 ment the finest music that nature had hidden in it, of 
 having played it as it should be played. He either does 
 that or he doesn t and if he doesn t he isn t worth 
 speaking of. And precisely those who really know don t 
 speak of him. He may still hear a great chatter, but 
 what he hears most is the incorruptible silence of Fame. 
 I have squared her, you may say, for my little hour 
 but what is my little hour ? Don t imagine for a moment 
 I m such a cad as to have brought you down here to abuse 
 or to complain of my wife to you. She is a woman of 
 very distinguished qualities, to whom my obligations are 
 immense; so that, if you please, we will say nothing 
 about her. My boys my children are all boys are 
 straight and strong, thank God ! and have no poverty 
 of growth about them, no penury of needs. I receive, 
 periodically, the most satisfactory attestation from Har 
 row, from Oxford, from Sandhurst (oh, we have done 
 the best for them !) of their being living, thriving, con 
 suming organisms." 
 
58 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 " It must be delightful to feel that the son of one s 
 loins is at Sandhurst," Paul remarked enthusiastically. 
 
 "It is it s charming. Oh, I m a patriot ! " 
 
 " Then what did you mean the other night at Sum- 
 mersoft by saying that children are a curse ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow, on what basis are we talking ? " St. 
 George asked, dropping upon the sofa, at a short dis 
 tance from his visitor. Sitting a little sideways he 
 leaned back against the opposite arm with his hands 
 raised and interlocked behind his head. "On the sup 
 position that a certain perfection is possible and even 
 desirable isn t it so ? Well, all I say is that one s 
 children interfere with perfection. One s wife inter 
 feres. Marriage interferes." 
 
 " You think then the artist shouldn t marry ? " 
 
 "He does so at his peril he does so at his cost." 
 
 "Not even when his wife is in sympathy with his 
 work ? " 
 
 " She never is she can t be ! Women don t know 
 what work is." 
 
 " Surely, they work themselves," Paul Overt objected. 
 
 "Yes, very badly. Oh, of course, often, they think 
 they understand, they think they sympathise. Then it 
 is that they are most dangerous. Their idea is that you 
 shall do a great lot and get a great lot of money. Their 
 great nobleness and virtue, their exemplary conscien 
 tiousness as British females, is in keeping you up to 
 that. My wife makes all my bargains with my publishers 
 for me, and she has done so for twenty years. She does 
 it consummately well ; that s why I m really pretty well 
 off. Are you not the father of their innocent babes, and 
 will you withhold from them their natural sustenance ? 
 You asked me the other night if they were not an im 
 mense incentive. Of course they are there s no doubt 
 of that ! " 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 59 
 
 " For myself, I have an idea I need incentives/ Paul 
 Overt dropped. 
 
 " Ah well, then, n en parlous plus ! " said his companion, 
 smiling. 
 
 "You are an incentive, I maintain," the young man 
 went on. " You don t affect me in the way you appar 
 ently would like to. Your great success is what I see 
 the pomp of Ennismore Gardens ! " 
 
 " Success ? do you call it success to be spoken of as 
 you would speak of me if you were sitting here with an 
 other artist a young man intelligent and sincere like 
 yourself ? Do you call it success to make you blush 
 as you would blush if some foreign critic (some fellow, 
 of course, I mean, who should know what he was talking 
 about and should have shown you he did, as foreign 
 critics like to show it !) were to say to you : * He s the 
 one, in this country, whom they consider the most per 
 fect, isn t he ? Is it success to be the occasion of a 
 young Englishman s having to stammer as you would 
 have to stammer at such a moment for old England ? 
 No, no ; success is to have made people tremble after 
 another fashion. Do try it ! " 
 
 "Try it?" 
 
 "Try to do some really good work." 
 
 " Oh, I want to, heaven knows ! " 
 
 " Well, you can t do it without sacrifices ; don t believe 
 that for a moment," said Henry St. George. " I ve made 
 none. I ve had everything. In other words, I ve missed 
 everything." 
 
 " You ve had the full, rich, masculine, human, general 
 life, with all the responsibilities and duties and burdens 
 and sorrows and joys all the domestic and social initia 
 tions and complications. They must be immensely sug 
 gestive, immensely amusing." 
 
60 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 " Amusing ? " 
 
 "For a strong man yes." 
 
 " They ve given me subjects without number, if that s 
 what you mean ; but they ve taken away at the same time 
 the power to use them. I ve touched a thousand things, 
 but which one of them have I turned into gold ? The 
 artist has to do only with that he knows nothing of 
 any baser metal. I ve led the life of the world, with my 
 wife and my progeny ; the clumsy, expensive, material 
 ised, brutalised, Philistine, snobbish life of London. 
 We ve got everything handsome, even a carriage we 
 are prosperous, hospitable, eminent people. But, my 
 dear fellow, don t try to stultify yourself and pretend 
 you don t know what we haven t got. It s bigger than 
 all the rest. Between artists come ! You know as 
 well as you sit there that you would put a pistol-ball into 
 your brain if you had written my books ! " 
 
 It appeared to Paul Overt that the tremendous talk 
 promised by the master at Sunimersoft had indeed come 
 off, and with a promptitude, a fulness, with which his 
 young imagination had scarcely reckoned. His com 
 panion made an immense impression on him and he 
 throbbed with the excitement of such deep soundings 
 and such strange confidences. He throbbed indeed with 
 the conflict of his feelings bewilderment and recogni 
 tion and alarm, enjoyment and protest and assent, all 
 commingled with tenderness (and a kind of shame in 
 the participation,) for the sores and bruises exhibited by 
 so fine a creature, and with a sense of the tragic secret 
 that he nursed under his trappings. The idea of his 
 being made the occasion of such an act of humility made 
 him flush and pant, at the same time that his perception, 
 in certain directions, had been too much awakened to con 
 ceal from him anything that St. George really meant. 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 61 
 
 It had been his odd fortune to blow upon the deep waters, 
 to make thei^ surge and break in waves of strange elo 
 quence. He launched himself into a passionate contra 
 diction of his host s last declaration ; tried to enumerate 
 to him the parts of his work he loved, the splendid things 
 he had found in it, beyond the compass of any other 
 writer of the day. St. George listened awhile, courte 
 ously ; then he said, laying his hand on Paul Overt s : 
 
 "That s all very well: and if your idea is to do noth 
 ing better there is no reason why you shouldn t have 
 as many good things as I as many human and material 
 appendages, as many sons or daughters, a wife with as 
 many gowns, a house with as many servants, a stable 
 with as many horses, a heart with as many aches." He 
 got up when he had spoken thus, and then stood a 
 moment near the sofa, looking down on his agitated 
 pupil. " Are you possessed of any money ? " it occurred 
 to him to ask. 
 
 " None to speak of." 
 
 " Oh, well, there s no reason why you shouldn t make 
 a goodish income if you set about it the right way. 
 Study me for that study me well. You may really 
 have a carriage." 
 
 Paul Overt sat there for some moments without speak 
 ing. He looked straight before him he turned over 
 many things. His friend had wandered away from him, 
 taking up a parcel of letters that were on the table where 
 the roll of proofs had lain. " What was the book Mrs. St. 
 George made you burn the one she didn t like ? " he 
 abruptly inquired. 
 
 "The book she made me burn how did you know 
 that ? " St. George looked up from his letters. 
 
 " I heard her speak of it at Summersoft." 
 
 " Ah, yes ; she s proud of it. I don t know it was 
 rather good." 
 
62 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 "What was it about?" 
 
 " Let me see." And St. George appeared to make an 
 effort to remember. " Oh, yes, it was about myself." 
 Paul Overt gave an irrepressible groan for the disappear 
 ance of such a production, and the elder man went on : 
 " Oh, but you should write it you should do me. There s 
 a subject, my boy : no end of stuff in it ! " 
 
 Again Paul was silent, but after a little he spoke. 
 " Are there no women that really understand that can 
 take part in a sacrifice ? " 
 
 " How can they take part ? They themselves are the 
 sacrifice. They re the idol and the altar and the flame." 
 
 " Isn t there even one who sees further ? " Paul con 
 tinued. 
 
 For a moment St. George made no answer to this ; 
 then, having torn up his letters, he stood before his dis 
 ciple again, ironic. " Of course I know the one you 
 mean. But not even Miss Fancourt." 
 
 " I thought you admired her so much." 
 
 " It s impossible to admire her more. Are you in love 
 with her ? " St. George asked. 
 
 "Yes," said Paul Overt. 
 
 " Well, then, give it up." 
 
 Paul stared. " Give up my love ? " 
 
 "Bless me, no; your idea." 
 
 "My idea?" 
 
 "The one you talked with her about. The idea of 
 perfection." 
 
 " She would help it she would help it ! " cried the 
 young man. 
 
 "For about a year the first year, yes. After that 
 she would be as a millstone round its neck." 
 
 "Why, she has a passion for completeness, for good 
 work for everything you and I care for most." 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 63 
 
 " You and I is charming, my dear fellow ! She has 
 it indeed, but she would have a still greater passion for 
 her children ; and very proper too. She would insist upon 
 everything s being made comfortable, advantageous, pro 
 pitious for them. That isn t the artist s business." 
 
 " The artist the artist ! Isn t he a man all the 
 same ? " 
 
 St. George hesitated. " Sometimes I really think not. 
 You know as well as I what he has to do : the concentra 
 tion, the finish, the independence that he must strive for, 
 from the moment that he begins to respect his work. 
 Ah, my young friend, his relation to women, especially 
 in matrimony, is at the mercy of this damning fact 
 that whereas he can in the nature of things have but one 
 standard, they have about fifty. That s what makes 
 them so superior," St. George added, laughing. "Fancy 
 an artist with a plurality of standards," he went on. 
 " To do it to do it and make it divine is the only thing 
 he has to think about. Is it done or not ? is his only 
 question. Xot * Is it done as well as a proper solicitude 
 for my dear little family will allow ? He has nothing 
 to do with the relative, nothing to do with a dear little 
 family!" 
 
 " Then you don t allow him the common passions and 
 affections of men ? " 
 
 " Hasn t he a passion, an affection, which includes all 
 the rest? Besides, let him have all the passions he 
 likes if he only keeps his independence. He must 
 afford to be poor." 
 
 Paul Overt slowly got up. "Why did you advise me 
 to make up to her, then ? " 
 
 St. George laid his hand on his shoulder. " Because 
 she would make an adorable wife ! And I hadn t read 
 you then." 
 
64 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 " I wish you had left me alone ! " murmured the young 
 man. 
 
 " I didn t know that that wasn t good enough for you," 
 St. George continued. 
 
 " What a false position, what a condemnation of the 
 artist, that he s a mere disfranchised monk and can pro 
 duce his effect only by giving up personal happiness. 
 What an arraignment of art ! " Paul Overt pursued, with 
 a trembling voice. 
 
 "Ah, you don t imagine, by chance, that I m defend 
 ing art ? Arraignment, I should think so ! Happy the 
 societies in which it hasn t made its appearance; for 
 from the moment it comes they have a consuming ache, 
 they have an incurable corruption in their bosom. As 
 suredly, the artist is in a false position. But I thought 
 we were taking him for granted. Pardon me," St. George 
 continued ; " Ginistrella made me ! " 
 
 Paul Overt stood looking at the floor one o clock 
 struck, in the stillness, from a neighbouring church- 
 tower. "Do you think she would ever look at me?" 
 he asked at last. 
 
 "Miss Fancourt as a suitor? Why shouldn t 1 
 think it ? That s why I ve tried to favour you I have 
 had a little chance or two of bettering your opportunity." 
 
 " Excuse my asking you, but do you mean by keeping 
 away yourself ? " Paul said, blushing. 
 
 " I m an old idiot my place isn t there," St. George 
 replied, gravely. 
 
 "I m nothing, yet; I ve no fortune ; and there must be 
 so many others." 
 
 "You re a gentleman and a man of genius. I think 
 you might do something." 
 
 "But if I must give that up the genius ? " 
 
 " Lots of people, you know, think I ve kept mine." 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 65 
 
 " You have a genius for torment ! v Paul Overt ex 
 claimed ; but taking his companion s hand in farewell as 
 a mitigation of this judgment. 
 
 " Poor child, I do bother you. Try, try, then ! I think 
 your chances are good, and you ll win a great prize." 
 
 Paul held the other s hand a minute ; he looked into 
 his face. " No, I am an artist I can t help it ! " 
 
 "Ah, show it then!" St. George broke out "let me 
 see before I die the thing I most want, the thing I yearn 
 for a life in which the passion is really intense. If 
 you can be rare, don t fail of it ! Think what it is 
 how it counts how it lives ! " They had moved to the 
 door and St. George had closed both his own hands over 
 that of his companion. Here they paused again and 
 Paul Overt ejaculated "I want to live ! " 
 
 " In what sense ? " 
 
 " In the greatest sense." 
 
 "Well then, stick to it see it through." 
 
 " With your sympathy your help ? " 
 
 " Count on that you ll be a great figure to me. 
 Count on my highest appreciation, my devotion. You ll 
 give me satisfaction ! if that has any weight with you." 
 And as Paul appeared still to waver, St. George added : 
 " Do you remember what you said to me at Summer- 
 soft?" 
 
 " Something infatuated, no doubt ! " 
 
 " * I ll do anything in the world you tell me. You said 
 that." 
 
 "And you hold me to it ? " 
 
 " Ah, what am I ? " sighed the master, shaking his 
 head. 
 
 "Lord, what things I shall have to do!" Paul almost 
 moaned as he turned away. 
 
66 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 VI. 
 
 " IT goes on too much abroad hang abroad ! " These, 
 or something like them, had been St. George s remark 
 able words in relation to the action of Ginistrella; and 
 yet, though they had made a sharp impression on Paul 
 Overt, like almost all the master s spoken words, the 
 young man, a week after the conversation I have nar 
 rated, left England for a long absence and full of pro 
 jects of work. It is not a perversion of the truth to say 
 that that conversation was the direct cause of his depart 
 ure. If the oral utterance of the eminent writer had the 
 privilege of moving him deeply it was especially on his 
 turning it over at leisure, hours and days afterward, that 
 it appeared to yield its full meaning and exhibit its ex 
 treme importance. He spent the summer in Switzerland, 
 and having, in September, begun a new task, he deter 
 mined not to cross the Alps till lie should have made a 
 good start. To this end he returned to a quiet corner 
 that he knew well, on the edge of the Lake of Geneva, 
 within sight of the towers of Chillon : a region and a 
 view for which he had an affection springing from old 
 associations, capable of mysterious little revivals and 
 refreshments. Here he lingered late, till the snow was 
 on the nearer hills, almost down to the limit to which 
 he could climb when his stint was done, on the shorten 
 ing afternoons. The autumn was fine, the lake was blue, 
 and his book took form and direction. These circum 
 stances, for the time, embroidered his life, and he suf 
 fered it to cover him with its mantle. At the end of six 
 weeks he appeared to himself to have learned St. George s 
 lesson by heart to have tested and proved its doctrine. 
 Nevertheless he did a very inconsistent thing: before 
 crossing the Alps he wrote to Marian Fancourt. He 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 67 
 
 was aware of the perversity of this act, and it was only 
 as a luxury, an amusement, the reward of a strenuous 
 autumn, that he justified it. She had not asked any such 
 favour of him when he went to see her three days before 
 he left London three days after their dinner in Ennis- 
 more Gardens. It is true that she had no reason to, for 
 he had not mentioned that he was on the eve of such an 
 excursion. He hadn t mentioned it because he didn t 
 know it ; it was that particular visit that made the mat 
 ter clear. He had paid the visit to see how much he 
 really cared for her, and quick departure, without so 
 much as a farewell, was the sequel to this inquiry, the 
 answer to which had been a distinct superlative. AVhen 
 he wrote to her from Clarens he noted that he owed her 
 an explanation (more than three months after !) for the 
 omission of such a form. 
 
 She answered him briefly but very promptly, and gave 
 him a striking piece of news : the death, a week before, of 
 Mrs. St. George. This exemplary woman had succumbed, 
 in the country, to a violent attack of inflammation of the 
 lungs he would remember that for a long time she had 
 been delicate. Miss Fancourt added that she heard her 
 husband was overwhelmed with the blow ; he would miss 
 her unspeakably she had been everything to him. 
 Paul Overt immediately wrote to St. George. He had 
 wished to remain in communication with him, but had 
 hitherto lacked the right excuse for troubling so busy a 
 man. Their long nocturnal talk came back to him in 
 every detail, but this did not prevent his expressing a 
 cordial sympathy with the head of the profession, for 
 had not that very talk made it clear that the accom 
 plished lady was the influence that ruled his life ? What 
 catastrophe could be more cruel than the extinction of 
 such an influence ? This was exactly the tone that St. 
 
68 THE LESSON OF THE .MASTER. 
 
 George took in answering his young friend, upwards of a 
 month later. He made no allusion, of course, to their 
 important discussion. He spoke of his wife as frankly 
 and generously as if he had quite forgotten that occasion, 
 and the feeling of deep bereavement was visible in his 
 words. " She took every thing off my hands off my 
 mind. She carried on our life with the greatest art, the 
 rarest devotion, and I was free, as few men can have 
 been, to drive my pen, to shut myself up with my trade. 
 This was a rare service the highest she could have 
 rendered me. Would I could have acknowledged it more 
 fitly ! " 
 
 A certain bewilderment, for Paul Overt, disengaged 
 itself from these remarks : they struck him as a contra 
 diction, a retractation. He had certainly not expected 
 his correspondent to rejoice in the death of his wife, and 
 it was perfectly in order that the rupture of a tie of more 
 than twenty years should have left him sore. But if she 
 was such a benefactress as that, what in the name of 
 consistency had St. George meant by turning him upside 
 down that night by dosing him to that degree, at the 
 most sensitive hour of his life, with the doctrine of renun 
 ciation ? If Mrs. St. George was an irreparable loss, 
 then her husband s inspired advice had been a bad joke 
 and renunciation was a mistake. Overt was on the point 
 of rushing back to London to show that, for his part, he 
 was perfectly willing to consider it so, and he went so far 
 as to take the manuscript of the first chapters of his new 
 book out of his table-drawer, to insert it into a pocket of 
 his portmanteau. This led to his catching a glimpse of 
 some pages he had not looked at for months, and that 
 accident, in turn, to his being struck with the high 
 promise they contained a rare result of such retrospec 
 tions, which it was his habit to avoid as much as possible. 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 69 
 
 They usually made him feel that the glow of composition 
 might be a purely subjective and a very barren emotion. 
 On this occasion a certain belief in himself disengaged 
 itself whimsically from the serried erasures of his first 
 draft, making him think it best after all to carry out his 
 present experiment to the end. If he could write as well 
 as that under the influence of renunciation, it would be a 
 pity to change the conditions before the termination of 
 the work. He would go back to London of course, but 
 he would go back only when he should have finished his 
 book. This was the vow he privately made, restoring 
 his manuscript to the table-drawer. It may be added 
 that it took him a long time to finish his book, for the 
 subject was as difficult as it was fine and he was literally 
 embarrassed by the fulness of his notes. Something 
 within him told him that he must make it supremely 
 good otherwise he should lack, as regards his private 
 behaviour, a handsome excuse. He had a horror of this 
 deficiency and found himself as firm as need be on the 
 question of the lamp and the file. He crossed the Alps 
 at last and spent the winter, the spring, the ensuing 
 summer, in Italy, where still, at the end of a twelve 
 month, his task was unachieved. " Stick to it see it 
 through : " this general injunction of St. George s was 
 good also for the particular case. He applied it to the 
 utmost, with the result that when in its slow order, the 
 summer had come round again he felt that he had given 
 all that was in him. This time he put his papers into his 
 portmanteau, with the address of his publisher attached, 
 and took his way northward. 
 
 He had been absent from London for two years two 
 years which were a long period and had made such a 
 difference in his own life (through the production of a 
 novel far stronger, he believed, than Ginistrella} that he 
 
70 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 turned out into Piccadilly, the morning after his arrival, 
 with an indefinite expectation of changes, of finding that 
 things had happened. But there were few transforma 
 tions in Piccadilly (only three or four big red houses 
 where there had been low black ones), and the brightness 
 of the end of June peeped through the rusty railings of 
 the Green Park and glittered in the varnish of the roll 
 ing carriages as he had seen it in other, more cursory 
 Junes. It was a greeting that he appreciated ; it seemed 
 friendly and pointed, added to the exhilaration of his 
 finished book, of his having his own country and the 
 huge, oppressive, amusing city that suggested everything, 
 that contained everything, under his hand again. " Stay 
 at home and do things here do subjects we can meas 
 ure," St. George had said ; and now it appeared to him 
 that he should ask nothing better than to stay at home 
 for ever. Late in the afternoon he took his way to 
 Manchester Square, looking out for a number he had not 
 forgotten. Miss Fancourt, however, was not within, so 
 that he turned, rather dejectedly, from the door. This 
 movement brought him face to face with a gentleman 
 who was approaching it and whom he promptly perceived 
 to be Miss Fancourt s father. Paul saluted this person 
 age, and the General returned his greeting with his 
 customary good manner a manner so good, however, 
 that you could never tell whether it meant that he placed 
 you. Paul Overt felt the impulse to speak to him ; then, 
 hesitating, became conscious both that he had nothing 
 particular to say and that though the old soldier remem 
 bered him he remembered him wrong. He therefore 
 passed on, without calculating on the irresistible effect 
 that his own evident recognition would have upon the 
 General, who never neglected a chance to gossip. Our 
 young man s face was expressive, and observation seldom 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 71 
 
 let it puss. He had not taken ten steps before he heard 
 himself called after with a friendly, semi-articulate " A 
 I beg your pardon ! " He turned round and the Gen 
 eral, smiling at him from the steps, said: "Won t you 
 come in ? I won t leave you the advantage of me ! " 
 Paul declined to come in, and then was sorry he had 
 done so, for Miss Fancourt, so late in the afternoon, 
 might return at any moment. But her father gave him 
 no second chance ; he appeared mainly to wish not to 
 have struck him as inhospitable. A further look at the 
 visitor told him more about him, enough at least to enable 
 him to say " You ve come back, you ve come back ? " 
 Paul was on the point of replying that he had come back 
 the night before, but he bethought himself to suppress 
 this strong light on the immediacy of his visit, and, giv 
 ing merely a general assent, remarked that he was 
 extremely sorry not to have found Miss Fancourt. He 
 had come late, in the hope that she would be in. " I ll 
 tell her I ll tell her," said the old man ; and then he 
 added quickly, gallantly, " You ll be giving us something 
 new ? It s a long time, isn t it ? " Now he remembered 
 him right. 
 
 "Rather long. I m very slow," said Paul. "I met 
 you at Summersoft a long time ago." 
 
 " Oh, yes, with Henry St. George. I remember very 
 
 well. Before his poor wife General Fancourt 
 
 paused a moment, smiling a little less. " I daresay you 
 know." 
 
 " About Mrs. St. George s death ? Oh yes, I heard at 
 the time." 
 
 " Oh no ; I mean I mean he s to be married." 
 
 " Ah ! I ve not heard that." Just as Paul was about 
 to add, " To whom ? " the General crossed his intention 
 with a question. 
 
72 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 "When did you come back? I know you ve been 
 away from my daughter. She was very sorry. You 
 ought to give her something new." 
 
 " I came back last night," said our young man, to 
 whom something had occurred which made his speech, 
 for the moment, a little thick. 
 
 " Ah, most kind of you to come so soon. Couldn t you 
 turn up at dinner ? " 
 
 " At dinner ? " Paul Overt repeated, not liking to ask 
 whom St. George was going to marry, but thinking only 
 of that. 
 
 "There are several people, I believe. Certainly St. 
 George. Or afterwards, if you like better. I believe my 
 daughter expects - ." He appeared to notice some 
 thing in Overt s upward face (on his steps he stood 
 higher) which led him to interrupt himself, and the 
 interruption gave him a momentary sense of awkward 
 ness, from which he sought a quick issue. "Perhaps 
 then you haven t heard she s to be married." 
 
 " To be married ? " Paul stared. 
 
 " To Mr. St. George it has just been settled. Odd 
 marriage, isn t it?" Paul uttered no opinion on this 
 point : he only continued to stare. " But I daresay it 
 will do she s so awfully literary ! " said the General. 
 
 Paul had turned very red. " Oh, it s a surprise very 
 interesting, very charming ! I m afraid I can t dine 
 so many thanks ! " 
 
 " Well, you must come to the wedding ! " cried the 
 General. " Oh, I remember that day at Summersoft. 
 He s a very good fellow." 
 
 "Charming charming! " Paul stammered, retreating. 
 He shook hands with the General and got off. His face 
 was red and he had the sense of its growing more and 
 more crimson. All the evening at home he went 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 73 
 
 straight to his rooms and remained there dinnerless 
 his cheek burned at intervals as if it had been smitten. 
 He didn t understand what had happened to him, what 
 trick had been played him, what treachery practised. 
 " None, none," he said to himself. " I ve nothing to do 
 with it. I m out of it it s none of my business." But 
 that bewildered murmur was followed again and again 
 by the incongruous ejaculation " Was it a plan was 
 it a plan ? " Sometimes he cried to himself, breathless, 
 " Am I a dupe am I a dupe ? " If he was, he was an 
 absurd, and abject one. It seemed to him he had never 
 lost her till now. He had renounced her, yes ; but that 
 was another affair that was a closed but not a locked 
 door. Now he felt as if the door had been slammed in 
 his face. Did he expect her to wait was she to give 
 him his time like that : two years at a stretch ? He didn t 
 know what he had expected he only knew what he 
 hadn t. It wasn t this it wasn t this. Mystification, 
 bitterness and wrath rose and boiled in him when he 
 thought of the deference, the devotion, the credulity 
 with which he had listened to St. George. The evening 
 wore on and the light was long ; but even when it had 
 darkened he remained without a lamp. He had flung 
 himself on the sofa, and he lay there through the hours 
 with his eyes either closed or gazing into the gloom, in 
 the attitude of a man teaching himself to bear some 
 thing, to bear having been made a fool of. He had made 
 it too easy that idea passed over him like a hot wave. 
 Suddenly, as he heard eleven o clock strike, he jumped 
 up, remembering what General Fancourt had said about 
 his coming after dinner. He would go he would see 
 her at least ; perhaps he should see what it meant. He 
 felt as if some of the elements of a hard sum had been 
 given him and the others were wanting : he couldn t do 
 his sum till he was in possession of them all. 
 
74 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 He dressed quickly, so that by half-past eleven he was at 
 Manchester Square. There were a good many carriages 
 at the door a party was going on ; a circumstance which 
 at the last gave him a slight relief, for now he would 
 rather see her in a crowd. People passed him on the 
 staircase ; they were going away, going " on," with the 
 hunted, herdlike movement of London society at night. 
 But sundry groups remained in the drawing-room, and it 
 was some minutes, as she didn t hear him announced, be 
 fore he discovered her and spoke to her. In this short 
 interval he had perceived that St. George was there, talk 
 ing to a lady before the fireplace ; but he looked away 
 from him, for the moment, and therefore failed to see 
 whether the author of Shadowmere noticed him. At all 
 events he didn t come to him. Miss Fancourt did, as 
 soon as she saw him ; she almost rushed at him, smiling, 
 rustling, radiant, beautiful. He had forgotten what her 
 head, what her face offered to the sight ; she was in 
 white, there were gold figures on her dress, and her hair 
 was like a casque of gold. In a single moment he saw 
 she was happy, happy with a kind of aggressiveness, of 
 splendour. But she would not speak to him of that, she 
 would speak only of himself. 
 
 "I m so delighted; my father told me. How kind of 
 you to come ! " She struck him as so fresh and brave, 
 while his eyes moved over her, that he said to himself, 
 irresistibly : " Why to him, why not to youth, to strength, 
 to ambition, to a future ? Why, in her rich young capac 
 ity, to failure, to abdication, to superannuation ? " In 
 his thought, at that sharp moment, he blasphemed even 
 against all that had been left of his faith in the pecca 
 ble master. "I m so sorry I missed you," she went on. 
 " My father told me. How charming of you to have come 
 so soon ! " 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 75 
 
 " Does that surprise you ? " Paul Overt asked. 
 
 " The first day ? Xo, from you nothing that s nice." 
 She was interrupted by a lady who bade her good-night, 
 and he seemed to read that it cost her nothing to speak 
 to one in that tone ; it was her old bounteous, demon 
 strative way, with a certain added amplitude that time 
 had brought ; and if it began to operate on the spot, at 
 such a juncture in her history, perhaps in the other days 
 too it had meant just as little or as much a sort of 
 mechanical charity, with the difference now that she was 
 satisfied, ready to give but asking nothing. Oh, she was 
 satisfied and why shouldn t she be? Why shouldn t 
 she have been surprised at his coming the first day 
 for all the good she had ever got from him ? As the 
 lady continued to hold her attention Paul Overt turned 
 from her with a strange irritation in his complicated ar 
 tistic soul and a kind of disinterested disappointment. 
 She was so happy that it was almost stupid it seemed 
 to deny the extraordinary intelligence he had formerly 
 found in her. Didn t she know how bad St. George 
 could be. hadn t she perceived the deplorable thin 
 ness / If she didn t she was nothing, and if she did 
 why such an insolence of serenity ? This question ex 
 pired as our young man s eyes settled at last upon the 
 genius who had advised him in a great crisis. St. George 
 was still before the chimney-piece, but now he was alone 
 (fixed, waiting, as if he meant to remain after every one), 
 and he met the clouded gaze of the young friend who was 
 tormented with uncertainty as to whether he had the 
 right (which his resentment would have enjoyed,) to 
 regard himself as his victim. Somehow, the fantastic 
 inquiry I have just noted was answered by St. George s 
 aspect. It was as fine in its way as Marian Fancourt s 
 it denoted the happy human being ; but somehow it 
 
76 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 represented to Paul Overt that the author of Shadowmere 
 had now definitively ceased to count ceased to count 
 as a writer. As he smiled a welcome across the room he 
 was almost banal, he was almost smug. Paul had the 
 impression that for a moment he hesitated to make a 
 movement forward, as if he had a bad conscience ; but 
 the next they had met in the middle of the room and 
 had shaken hands, expressively, cordially on St. George s 
 part. Then they had passed together to where the elder 
 man had been standing, while St. George said : " I hope 
 you are never going away again. I have been dining 
 here ; the General told me." He was handsome, he was 
 young, he looked as if he had still a great fund of life. 
 He bent the friendliest, most unconfessing eyes upon 
 Paul Overt ; asked him about everything, his health, his 
 plans, his late occupations, the new book. "When will 
 it be out soon, soon, I hope ? Splendid, eh ? That s 
 right ; you re a comfort ! I ve read you all over again, 
 the last six months." Paul waited to see if he would tell 
 him what the General had told him in the afternoon, and 
 what Miss Fancourt, verbally at least, of course had not. 
 But as it didn t come out he asked at last : " Is it true, 
 the great news I hear, that you re to be married ? " 
 
 " Ah, you have heard it then ? " 
 
 " Didn t the General tell you ? " Paul Overt went on. 
 
 "Tell me what?" 
 
 " That he mentioned it to me this afternoon ? " 
 
 "My dear fellow, I don t remember. We ve been in 
 the midst of people. I m sorry, in that case, that I lose 
 the pleasure, myself, of announcing to you a fact that 
 touches me so nearly. It is a fact, strange as it may ap 
 pear. It has only just become one. Isn t it ridiculous ? " 
 St. George made this speech without confusion, but on 
 the other hand, so far as Paul could see, without latent 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 77 
 
 impudence. It appeared to his interlocutor that, to talk 
 so comfortably and coolly, he must simply have forgot 
 ten what had passed between them. His next words, 
 however, showed that he had not, and they had, as an 
 appeal to Paul s own memory, an effect which would 
 have been ludicrous if it had not been cruel. "Do you 
 recollect the talk we had at my house that night, into 
 which Miss Fancourt s name entered ? I ve often thought 
 of it since." 
 
 "Yes no wonder you said what you did," said Paul, 
 looking at him. 
 
 "In the light of the present occasion ? Ah ! but there 
 was no light then. How could I have foreseen this 
 hour?" 
 
 " Didn t you think it probable ? " 
 
 " Upon my honour, no," said Henry St. George. " Cer 
 tainly, I owe you that assurance. Think how my situa 
 tion has changed." 
 
 " I see I see," Paul murmured. 
 
 His companion went on, as if, now that the subject had 
 been broached, he was, as a man of imagination and tact, 
 perfectly ready to give every satisfaction being able to 
 enter fully into everything another might feel. "But it s 
 not only that for honestly, at my age, I never dreamed 
 
 a widower, with big boys and with so little else ! It 
 has turned out differently from any possible calculation, 
 and I am fortunate beyond all measure. She has been so 
 free, and yet she consents. Better than any one else 
 perhaps for I remember how you liked her, before you 
 went away, and how she liked you you can intelli 
 gently congratulate me." 
 
 " She has been so free ! " Those words made a great 
 impression on Paul Overt, and he almost writhed under 
 that irony in them as to which it little mattered whether 
 
78 THE LESSON OF THE MASTEK. 
 
 it was intentional or casual. Of course she had been 
 free and, appreciably perhaps, by his own act; for was 
 not St. George s allusion to her having liked him a part 
 of the irony too ? "I thought that by your theory you 
 disapproved of a writer s marrying." 
 
 " Surely surely. But you don t call me a writer ? " 
 
 "You ought to be ashamed," said Paul. 
 
 " Ashamed of marrying again ? " 
 
 "I won t say that but ashamed of your reasons." 
 
 "You must let me judge of them, my friend." 
 
 "Yes ; why not ? For you judged wonderfully of mine." 
 
 The tone of these words appeared suddenly, for Henry 
 St. George, to suggest the unsuspected. He stared as if 
 he read a bitterness in them. " Don t you think I have 
 acted fair ? " 
 
 " You might have told me at the time, perhaps." 
 
 " My dear fellow, when I say I couldn t pierce futur 
 ity ! " 
 
 " I mean afterwards." 
 
 St. George hesitated. " After my wife s death ? " 
 
 "When this idea came to you." 
 
 "Ah, never, never! I wanted to save you, rare and 
 precious as you are." 
 
 " Are you marrying Miss Fancourt to save me ? " 
 
 "iNot absolutely, but it adds to the pleasure. I shall 
 be the making of you," said St. George, smiling. "I was 
 greatly struck, after our talk, with the resolute way you 
 quitted the country and still more, perhaps, with your 
 force of character in remaining abroad. You re very 
 strong you re wonderfully strong." 
 
 Paul Overt tried to sound his pleasant eyes; the 
 strange thing was that he appeared sincere not a mock 
 ing fiend. He turned away, and as he did so he heard 
 St. George say something about his giving them the proof. 
 
THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 79 
 
 being the joy of his old age. He faced him again, taking 
 another look. "Do you mean to say you ve stopped 
 writing ? " 
 
 "My dear fellow, of course I have. It s too late. 
 Didn t I tell you?" 
 
 " I can t believe it ! " 
 
 " Of course you can t with your own talent ! No, 
 no ; for the rest of my life I shall only read you." 
 
 " Does she know that Miss Fancourt ? " 
 
 "She will she will." Our young man wondered 
 whether St. George meant this as a covert intimation 
 that the assistance he should derive from that young 
 lady s fortune, moderate as it was, would make the dif 
 ference of putting it in his power to cease to work, un 
 gratefully, an exhausted vein. Somehow, standing there 
 in the ripeness of his successful manhood, he did not 
 suggest that any of his veins were exhausted. " Don t 
 you remember the moral I offered myself to you that 
 night as pointing?" St. George continued. "Consider, 
 at any rate, the warning I am at present." 
 
 This was too much he was the mocking fiend. Paul 
 separated from him with a mere nod for good-night ; the 
 sense that he might come back to him some time in the 
 far future but could not fraternise with him now. It 
 was necessary to his sore spirit to believe for the hour 
 that he had a grievance all the more cruel for not be 
 ing a legal one. It was doubtless in the attitude of hug 
 ging this wrong that he descended the stairs without 
 taking leave of Miss Fancourt, who had not been in view 
 at the moment he quitted the room. He was glad to get 
 out into the honest, dusky, unsophisticating night, to 
 move fast, to take his way home on foot. He walked a 
 long time, missing his way, not thinking of it. He was 
 thinking of too many other things. His steps recovered 
 
80 THE LESSON OF THE MASTER. 
 
 their direction, however, and at the end of an hour he 
 found himself before his door, in the small, inexpensive, 
 empty street. He lingered, questioning himself still, be 
 fore going in, with nothing around and above him but 
 moonless blackness, a bad lamp or two and a few far 
 away dim stars. To these last faint features he raised 
 his eyes ; he had been saying to himself that there would 
 have been mockery indeed if now, on his new foundation, 
 at the end of a year, St. George should put forth some 
 thing with his early quality something of the type of 
 Shadowmere and finer than his finest. Greatly as he 
 admired his talent Paul literally hoped such an incident 
 would not occur; it seemed to him just then that he 
 scarcely should be able to endure it. St. George s words 
 were still in his ears, "You re very strong wonderfully 
 strong." Was he really ? Certainly, he would have to 
 be ; and it would be a sort of revenge. Is he ? the reader 
 may ask in turn, if his interest has followed the per 
 plexed young man so far. The best answer to that per 
 haps is that he is doing his best but that it is too soon 
 to say. When the new book came out in the autumn 
 Mr. and Mrs. St. George found it really magnificent. 
 The former still has published nothing, but Paul Overt 
 does not even yet feel safe. I may say for him, however, 
 that if this event were to befall he would really be the 
 very first to appreciate it : which is perhaps a proof that 
 St. George was essentially right and that Nature dedi 
 cated him to intellectual, not to personal passion. 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 i. 
 
 "Wox T you stay a little longer?" the hostess said, 
 holding the girl s hand and smiling. " It s too early for 
 every one to go ; it s too absurd." Mrs. Churchley in 
 clined her head to one side and looked gracious ; she held 
 up to her face, in a vague, protecting, sheltering way, an 
 enormous fan of red feathers. Everything about her, to 
 Adela Chart, was enormous. She had big eyes, big teeth, 
 big shoulders, big hands, big rings and bracelets, big 
 jewels of every sort and many of them. The train of 
 her crimson dress was longer than any other ; her house 
 was huge ; her drawing-room, especially now that the 
 company had left it, looked vast, and it offered to the 
 girl s eyes a collection of the largest sofas and chairs, 
 pictures, mirrors, and clocks that she had ever beheld. 
 Was Mrs. Churchley s fortune also large, to account for 
 so many immensities ? Of this Adela could know noth 
 ing, but she reflected, while she smiled sweetly back at 
 their entertainer, that she had better try to find out. 
 Mrs. Churchley had at least a high-hung carriage drawn 
 by the tallest horses, and in the Row she was to be seen 
 perched on a mighty hunter. She was high and expan 
 sive herself, though not exactly fat ; her bones were big, 
 
 1 Copyright, i8qi, by Maonillan &= Co. 
 
 F 81 
 
82 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 her limbs were long, and she had a loud, hurrying voice, 
 like the bell of a steamboat. While she spoke to his 
 daughter she had the air of hiding from Colonel Chart, a 
 little shyly, behind the wide ostrich fan. But Colonel 
 Chart was not a man to be either ignored or eluded. 
 
 "Of course every one is going on to something else," 
 he said. "I believe there are a lot of things to-night." 
 
 "And where are you going?" Mrs. Churchley asked, 
 dropping her fan and turning her bright, hard eyes on 
 the Colonel. 
 
 "Oh, I don t do that sort of thing!" he replied, in a 
 tone of resentment just perceptible to his daughter. She 
 saw in it that he thought Mrs. Churchley might have 
 done him a little more justice. But what made the 
 honest soul think that she was a person to look to for a 
 perception of fine shades? Indeed the shade was one 
 that it might have been a little difficult to seize the 
 difference between "going on "-and coming to a dinner 
 of twenty people. The pair were in mourning; the 
 second year had not lightened it for Adela, but the Colo 
 nel had not objected to dining with Mrs. Churchley, any 
 more than he had objected, at Easter, to going down to 
 the Millwards , where he had met her, and where the girl 
 had her reasons for believing him to have known he 
 should meet her. Adela was not clear about the occasion 
 of their original meeting, to which a certain mystery at 
 tached. In Mrs. Churchley s exclamation now there was 
 the fullest concurrence in Colonel Chart s idea ; she didn t 
 say, " Ah, yes, dear friend, I understand ! " but this was 
 the note of sympathy she plainly wished to sound. It 
 immediately made Adela say to her, " Surely you must 
 be going on somewhere yourself." 
 
 " Yes, you must have a lot of places," the Colonel ob 
 served, looking at her shining raiment with a sort of 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 83 
 
 invidious directness. Adela could read the tacit impli 
 cation : " You re not in sorrow, in desolation." 
 
 Mrs. Churchley turned away from her at this, waiting 
 just a moment before answering. The red fan was up 
 again, and this time it sheltered her from Adela. " I ll 
 give everything up for you" were the words that 
 issued from behind it. " Do stay a little. I always think 
 this is such a nice hour. One can really talk," Mrs. 
 Churchley went on. The Colonel laughed; he said it 
 wasn t fair. But their hostess continued, to Adela, " Do 
 sit down ; it s the only time to have any talk." The girl 
 saw her father sit down, but she wandered away, turning 
 her back and pretending to look at a picture. She was 
 so far from agreeing with Mrs. Churchley that it was an 
 hour she particularly disliked. She was conscious of 
 the queerness, the shyness, in London, of the gregarious 
 flight of guests, after a dinner, the general sanve qui pent 
 and panic fear of being left with the host and hostess. 
 But personally she always felt the contagion, always con 
 formed to the flurry. Besides, she felt herself turning 
 red now, flushed with a conviction that had come over 
 her and that she wished not to show. 
 
 Her father sat down on one of the big sofas with Mrs. 
 Churchley ; fortunately he was also a person with a pres 
 ence that could hold its own. Adela didn t care to sit 
 and watch them while they made love, as she crudely 
 formulated it, and she cared still less to join in their con 
 versation. She wandered further away, went into an 
 other of the bright, "handsome," rather nude rooms 
 they were like women dressed for a ball where the 
 displaced chairs, at awkward angles to each other, 
 seemed to retain the attitudes of bored talkers. Her 
 heart beat strangely, but she continued to make a pre 
 tense of looking at the pictures on the walls and the or- 
 
84 THE MARKIAGES. 
 
 naments on the tables, while she hoped that, as she 
 preferred it, it would be also the course that her father 
 would like best. She hoped "awfully," as she would 
 have said, that he wouldn t think her rude. She was a 
 person of courage, and he was a kind, an intensely good- 
 natured man ; nevertheless, she was a good deal afraid of 
 him. At home it had always been a religion with them to 
 be nice to the people he liked. How, in the old days, her 
 mother, her incomparable mother, so clever, so unerring, 
 so perfect how in the precious days her mother had 
 practiced that art ! Oh, her mother, her irrecoverable 
 mother ! One of the pictures that she was looking at 
 swam before her eyes. Mrs. Churchley, in the natural 
 course, would have begun immediately to climb stair 
 cases. Adela could see the high bony shoulders and the 
 long crimson tail and the universal coruscating nod 
 wriggle their business-like way through the rest of the 
 night. Therefore she must have had her reasons for de 
 taining them. There were mothers who thought every 
 one wanted to marry their eldest son, and the girl asked 
 herself if she belonged to the class of daughters who 
 thought every one wanted to marry their father. Her 
 companions left her alone ; and though she didn t want 
 to be near them, it angered her that Mrs. Churchley 
 didn t call her. That proved that she was conscious of 
 the situation. She would have called her, only Colonel 
 Chart had probably murmured, "Don t." That proved 
 that he also was conscious. The time was really not 
 long ten minutes at the most elapsed when he cried 
 out, gayly, pleasantly, as if with a little jocular reproach, 
 " I say, Adela, we must release this dear lady ! " He 
 spoke, of course, as if it had been Adela s fault that they 
 lingered. When they took leave she gave Mrs. Church- 
 ley, without intention and without defiance, but from 
 
THE MAKRIAGES. 85 
 
 the simple sincerity of her anxiety, a longer look into 
 the eyes than she had ever given her before. Mrs. 
 Churchley s onyx pupils reflected the question; they 
 seemed to say : " Yes, I am, if that s what you want to 
 know ! " 
 
 What made the case worse, what made the girl more 
 sure, was the silence preserved by her companion in the 
 brougham, 011 their way home. They rolled along in the 
 June darkness from Prince s Gate to Seymour Street, 
 each looking out of a window in conscious dumbness ; 
 watching without seeing the hurry of the London night, 
 the flash of lamps, the quick roll on the wood of hansoms 
 and other broughams. Adela had expected that her father 
 would say something about Mrs. Churchley ; but when 
 he said nothing, it was, strangely, still more as if he 
 had spoken. In Seymour Street he asked the footman if 
 Mr. Godfrey had come in, to which the servant replied that 
 he had come in early and gone straight to his room. 
 Adela had perceived as much, without saying so, by a 
 lighted window in the third story ; but she contributed 
 no remark to the question. At the foot of the stairs her 
 father halted a moment, hesitating, as if he had some 
 thing on his mind ; but what it amounted to, apparently, 
 was only the dry " Good-night" with which he pres 
 ently ascended. It was the first time since her mother s 
 death that he had bidden her good-night without kiss 
 ing her. They were a kissing family, and after her 
 mother s death the habit had taken a fresh spring. She 
 had left behind her such a general passion of regret that 
 in kissing each other they seemed to themselves a little 
 to be kissing her. Xow, as, standing in the hall, with 
 the stiff watching footman (she could have said to him 
 angrily, " Go away ! ") planted near her, she looked with 
 unspeakable pain at her father s back while he mounted, 
 
86 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 the effect was of his having withheld from other and 
 still more sensitive lips the touch of his own. 
 
 He was going to his room, and after a moment she 
 heard his door close. Then she said to the servant, 
 "Shut up the house" (she tried to do everything her 
 mother had done, to be a little of what she had been, 
 conscious only of mediocrity), and took her own way up 
 stairs. After she had reached her room she waited, lis 
 tening, shaken by the apprehension that she should hear 
 her father come out again and go up to Godfrey. He 
 would go up to tell him, to have it over without delay, 
 precisely because it would be so difficult. She asked her 
 self, indeed, why he should tell Godfrey when he had not 
 taken the occasion their drive home was an occasion 
 to tell herself. However, she wanted no announcing, no 
 telling ; there was such a horrible clearness in her mind 
 that what she now waited for was only to be sure her 
 father wouldn t leave his room. At the end of ten min 
 utes she saw that this particular danger was over, upon 
 which she came out and made her way to Godfrey. Ex 
 actly what she wanted to say to him first, if her father 
 counted on the boy s greater indulgence, and before he 
 could say anything, was, " Don t forgive him ; don t, 
 don t ! " 
 
 He was to go up for an examination, poor fellow, and 
 during these weeks his lamp burned till the small hours. 
 It was for the diplomatic service, and there was to be 
 some frightful number of competitors; but Adela had 
 great hopes of him she believed so in his talents, and she 
 saw, with pity, how hard he worked. This would have 
 made her spare him, not trouble his night, his scanty 
 rest, if anything less dreadful had been at stake. It was 
 a blessing, however, that one could count upon his cool 
 ness, young as he was his bright, good-looking discre- 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 87 
 
 tion. Moreover he was the one who would care most. 
 If Leonard was the eldest son he had, as a matter of 
 course, gone into the army and was in India, on the staff, 
 by good luck, of a governor-general it was exactly this 
 that would make him comparatively indifferent. His 
 life was elsewhere, and his father and he had been in a 
 measure military comrades, so that he would be deterred 
 by a certain delicacy from protesting ; he wouldn t have 
 liked his father to protest in an affair of his. Beatrice 
 and Muriel would care, but they were too young to speak, 
 and this was just why her own responsibility was so 
 great. 
 
 Godfrey was in working-gear shirt and trousers and 
 slippers and a beautiful silk jacket. His room felt 
 hot, though a window was open to the summer night ; 
 the lamp on the table shed its studious light over a for 
 midable heap of text books and papers, and the bed 
 showed that he had flung himself down to think out a 
 problem. As soon as she got in she said to him : 
 " Father s going to marry Mrs. Churchley ! " 
 
 She saw the poor boy s pink face turn pale. " How 
 do you know ? " 
 
 " I ve seen with my eyes. We ve been dining there 
 we ve just come home. He s in love with her she s in 
 love with him ; they ll arrange it." 
 
 " Oh, I say ! " Godfrey exclaimed, incredulous. 
 
 " He will, he will, he will ! " cried the girl ; and with 
 this she burst into tears. 
 
 Godfrey, who had a cigarette in his hand, lighted it 
 at one of the candles on the mantelpiece as if he were 
 embarrassed. As Adela, who had dropped into his arm 
 chair, continued to sob, he said, after a moment : " He 
 oughtn t to he oughtn t to." 
 
 " Oh, think of mamma think of mamma!" the girl 
 went on. 
 
88 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 " Yes, he ought to think of mamma ; " and Godfrey 
 looked at the tip of his cigarette. 
 
 " To such a woman as that, after her ! " 
 
 " Dear old mamma ! " said Godfrey, smoking. 
 
 Adela rose again, drying her eyes. "It s like an in 
 sult to her ; it s as if he denied her." Now that she 
 spoke of it, she felt herself tremendously exalted. "It s 
 as if he rubbed out at a stroke all the years of their 
 happiness." 
 
 " They were awfully happy," said Godfrey. 
 
 "Think what she was think how no one else will 
 ever again be like her ! " the girl cried. 
 
 "I suppose he s not very happy now," Godfrey con 
 tinued vaguely. 
 
 " Of course he isn t, any more than you and I are ; and 
 it s dreadful of him to want to be." 
 
 " Well, don t make yourself miserable till you re sure," 
 the young man said. 
 
 But his sister showed him confidently that she was 
 sure, from the way the pair had behaved together and 
 from her father s attitude on the drive home. If 
 Godfrey had been there he would have seen everything ; 
 it couldn t be explained, but he would have felt. When 
 he asked at what moment the girl had first had her sus 
 picion, she replied that it had all come at once, that even 
 ing ; or that at least she had had no conscious fear till 
 then. There had been signs for two or three weeks, but 
 she hadn t understood them ever since the day Mrs. 
 Churchley had dined in Seymour Street. Adela had 
 thought it odd then that her father had wished to invite 
 her, in the quiet way they were living ; she was a person 
 they knew so little. He had said something about her 
 having been very civil to him, and that evening, already, 
 she had guessed that he had been to Mrs. Churchley s 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 89 
 
 oftener than she had supposed. To-night it had come to 
 her clearly that he had been to see her every day since 
 the day she dined with them ; every afternoon, about the 
 hour she thought he was at his club. Mrs. Churchley 
 was his club, she was just like a club. At this God 
 frey laughed ; he wanted to know what his sister knew 
 about clubs. She was slightly disappointed in his laugh, 
 slightly wounded by it, but she knew perfectly what she 
 meant : she meant that Mrs. Churchley was public and 
 florid, promiscuous and mannish. 
 
 "Oh, I dare say she s all right," said Godfrey, as if 
 he wanted to get on with his work. He looked at the 
 clock on the mantelshelf ; he would have to put in an 
 other hour. 
 
 " All right to come and take darling mamma s place 
 to sit where she used to sit, to lay her horrible hands on 
 her things?" Adela was appalled all the more that 
 she had not expected it at her brother s apparent ac 
 ceptance of such a prospect. 
 
 He coloured ; there was something in her passionate 
 piety that scorched him. She glared at him with her 
 tragic eyes as if he had profaned an altar. " Oh, I mean 
 nothing will come of it." 
 
 " Not if we do our duty," said Adela. 
 
 " Our duty ? " 
 
 " You must speak to him tell him how we feel ; that 
 we shall never forgive him, that we can t endure it." 
 
 " He ll think I m cheeky," returned Godfrey, looking 
 down at his papers, with his back to her and his hands 
 in his pockets. 
 
 " Cheeky, to plead for her memory ? " 
 
 " He ll say it s none of my business." 
 
 "Then you believe he ll do it ? " cried the girl. 
 
 "Not a bit. Go to bed!" 
 
90 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 "/ ll speak to him," said Adela, as pale as a young 
 priestess. 
 
 " Don t cry out till you re hurt ; wait till he speaks to 
 you." 
 
 "He won t, he won t!" the girl declared. "He ll do 
 it without telling us." 
 
 Her brother had faced round to her again ; he started 
 a little at this, and again, at one of the candles, lighted 
 his cigarette, which had gone out. She looked at him a 
 moment ; then he said something that surprised her. 
 
 " Is Mrs. Churchley very rich ? " 
 
 " I haven t the least idea. What has that to do with 
 it?" 
 
 Godfrey puffed his cigarette. " Does she live as if she 
 were ? " 
 
 " She has got a lot of showy things." 
 
 "Well, we must keep our eyes open," said Godfrey. 
 " And now you must let me get on." He kissed his sis 
 ter, as if to make up for dismissing her, or for his failure 
 to take fire ; and she held him a moment, burying her 
 head on his shoulder. A wave of emotion surged through 
 her ; she broke out with a wail : 
 
 " Ah, why did she leave us ? Why did she leave us ? " 
 
 " Yes, why indeed ? " the young man sighed, disengag 
 ing himself with a movement of oppression. 
 
 II. 
 
 ADELA was so far right as that by the end of the week, 
 though she remained certain, her father had not made 
 the announcement she dreaded. What made her certain 
 was the sense of her changed relations with him of 
 there being between them something unexpressed, some 
 thing of which she was as conscious as she would have 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 91 
 
 been of an unhealed wound. When she spoke of this to 
 Godfrey, he said the change was of her own making, 
 that she was cruelly unjust to the governor. She suf 
 fered even more from her brother s unexpected perver 
 sity ; she had had so different a theory about him that 
 her disappointment was almost an humiliation and she 
 needed all her fortitude to pitch her faith lower. She 
 wondered what had happened to him and why he had 
 changed. She would have trusted him to feel right 
 about anything, above all about such a matter as this. 
 Their worship of their mother s memory, their recogni 
 tion of her sacred place in their past, her exquisite influ 
 ence in their father s life, his fortunes, his career, in the 
 whole history of the family and welfare of the house ac 
 complished, clever, gentle, good, beautiful and capable as 
 she had been, a woman whose soft distinction was univer 
 sally proclaimed, so that on her death one of the Prin 
 cesses, the most august of her friends, had written Adela 
 such a note about her as princesses were understood very 
 seldom to write : their hushed tenderness over all this was 
 a kind of religion, and also a sort of honour, in falling 
 away from which there was a semblance of treachery. 
 This was not the way people usually felt in London, she 
 knew ; but, strenuous, ardent, observant girl as she was, 
 with secrecies of sentiment and dim originalities of atti 
 tude, she had already made up her mind that London 
 was no place to look for delicacies. Remembrance there 
 was hammered thin, and to be faithful was to be a bore. 
 The patient dead were sacrificed ; they had no shrines, 
 for people were literally ashamed of mourning. When 
 they had hustled all sensibility out of their lives, they 
 invented the fiction that they felt too much to utter. 
 Adela said nothing to her sisters ; this reticence was part 
 of the virtue it was her system to exercise for them, 
 
92 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 She was to be their mother, a direct deputy and repre 
 sentative. Before the vision of that other woman parad 
 ing in such a character, she felt capable of ingenuities 
 and subtleties. The foremost of these was tremulously 
 to watch her father. Five days after they had dined to 
 gether at Mrs. Churchley s he asked her if she had been 
 to see that lady. 
 
 " No indeed, why should I ? " Adela knew that he 
 knew she had not been, since Mrs. Churchley would have 
 told him. 
 
 " Don t you call on people after you dine with them ? " 
 said Colonel Chart. 
 
 " Yes, in the course of time. I don t rush off within 
 the week." 
 
 Her father looked at her, and his eyes were colder 
 than she had ever seen them, which was probably, she 
 reflected, just the way her own appeared to him. " Then 
 you ll please rush off to-morrow. She s to dine with us 
 on the 12th, and I shall expect your sisters to come 
 down." 
 
 Adela stared. " To a dinner party ? " 
 
 " It s not to be a dinner party. I want them to know 
 Mrs. Churchley." 
 
 " Is there to be nobody else ? " 
 
 " Godfrey, of course. A family party." 
 
 The girl asked her brother that evening if that was not 
 tantamount to an announcement. He looked at her 
 queerly, and then he said, " / ve been to see her." 
 
 " What on earth did you do that for ? " 
 
 "Father told me he wished it." 
 
 "Then he Jias told you ? " 
 
 " Told me what ? " Godfrey asked, while her heart 
 sank with the sense that he was making difficulties for 
 her. 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 93 
 
 " That they re engaged, of course. What else can all 
 this mean ? " 
 
 " He didn t tell me that, but I like her." 
 
 " Like her ! " the girl shrieked. 
 
 " She s very kind, very good." 
 
 " To thrust herself upon us when we hate her ? Is 
 that what you call kind ? Is that what you call decent ? " 
 
 "Oh, / don t hate her," Godfrey rejoined, turning 
 away as if his sister bored him. 
 
 She went the next day to see Mrs. Churchley, with a 
 vague plan of breaking out to her, appealing to her, say 
 ing, " Oh, spare us ! have mercy on us ! let him alone ! 
 go away ! " But that was not easy when they were face 
 to face. Mrs. Churchley had every intention of getting, 
 as she would have said she was perpetually using the 
 expression into touch; but her good intentions were 
 as depressing as a tailor s misfits. She could never 
 understand that they had no place for her vulgar charity ; 
 that their life was filled with a fragrance of perfection 
 for which she had no sense fine enough. She was as un- 
 domestic as a shop-front and as out of tune as a parrot. 
 She would make them live in the streets, or bring the 
 streets into their lives it was the same thing. She 
 had evidently never read a book, and she used intona 
 tions that Adela had never heard, as if she had been an 
 Australian or an American. She understood everything 
 in a vulgar sense ; speaking of Godfrey s visit to her and 
 praising him according to her idea, saying horrid things 
 about him that he was awfully good-looking, a perfect 
 gentleman, the kind she liked. How could her father, 
 who was after all, in everything else, such a dear, listen 
 to a woman, or endure her, who thought she was pleasing 
 when she called the son of his dead wife a perfect gentle 
 man ? What would he have been, pray ? Much she 
 
94 THE MAKRIAGES. 
 
 knew about what any of them were ! When she told 
 Adela she wanted her to like her, the girl thought for an 
 instant her opportunity had come the chance to plead 
 with her and beg her off. But she presented such an im 
 penetrable surface that it would have been like giving a 
 message to a varnished door. She wasn t a woman, said 
 Adela ; she was an address. 
 
 When she dined in Seymour Street, the " children," as 
 the girl called the others, including Godfrey, liked her. 
 Beatrice arid Muriel stared shyly and silently at the 
 wonders of her apparel (she was brutally overdressed !) 
 without, of course, guessing the danger that tainted the 
 air. They supposed her, in their innocence, to be amus 
 ing, and they didn t know, any more than she did herself, 
 that she patronised them. When she was upstairs with 
 them, after dinner, Adela could see her looking round 
 the room at the things she meant to alter ; their mother s 
 things, not a bit like her own and not good enough for 
 her. After a quarter of an hour of this, our young 
 lady felt sure she was deciding that Seymour Street 
 wouldn t do at all, the dear old home that had done for 
 their mother for twenty years. Was she plotting to 
 transport them all to her horrible Prince s Gate ? Of 
 one thing, at any rate, Adela was certain : her father, at 
 that moment, alone in the dining-room with Godfrey, 
 pretending to drink another glass of wine to make time, 
 was coming to the point, was telling the news. When 
 they came upstairs, they both, to her eyes, looked 
 strange : the news had been told. 
 
 She had it from Godfrey before Mrs. Churchley left 
 the house, when, after a brief interval, he followed her 
 out of the drawing-room on her taking her sisters to bed. 
 She was waiting for him at the door of her room. Her 
 father was then alone with his fiancee (the word was 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 95 
 
 grotesque to Aclela) ; it was already as if it were her 
 home. 
 
 " What did you say to him ? " the girl asked, when her 
 brother had told her. 
 
 "I said nothing." Then he added, colouring (the ex 
 pression of her face was such), "There was nothing to 
 say." 
 
 " Is that how it strikes you ? " said Adela, staring at 
 the lamp. 
 
 " He asked me to speak to her," Godfrey went on. 
 
 "To speak to her?" 
 
 " To tell her I was glad." 
 
 " And did you ? " Adela panted. 
 
 " I don t know. I said something. She kissed me." 
 
 "Oh, how could you?" shuddered the girl, covering 
 her face with her hands. 
 
 " He says she s very rich," said Godfrey simply. 
 
 " Is that why you kissed her ? " 
 
 " I didn t kiss her. Good-night," and the young man, 
 turning his back upon her, went out. 
 
 When her brother was gone Adela locked herself in, 
 as if with the fear that she should be overtaken or in 
 vaded, and during a sleepless, feverish, memorable night 
 she took counsel of her uncompromising spirit. She 
 saw things as they were, in all the indignity of life. 
 The levity, the mockery, the infidelity, the ugliness, lay 
 as plain as a map before her ; it was a world pour rire, 
 but she cried about it, all the same. The morning dawned 
 early, or rather it seemed to her that there had been no 
 night, nothing but a sickly, creeping day. But by the 
 time she heard the house stirring again she had deter 
 mined what to do. When she came down to the break 
 fast-room her father was already in his place, with news 
 papers and letters ; and she expected the first words he 
 
96 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 would utter to be a rebuke to her for having disappeared, 
 the night before, without taking leave of Mrs. Church- 
 ley. Then she saw that he wished to be intensely kind, 
 to make every allowance, to conciliate and console her. 
 He knew that she knew from Godfrey, and he got up 
 and kissed her. He told her as quickly as possible, to 
 have it over, stammering a little, with an " I ve a piece 
 of news for you that will probably shock you," yet look 
 ing even exaggeratedly grave and rather pompous, to in 
 spire the respect he didn t deserve. When he kissed her 
 she melted, she burst into tears. He held her against 
 him, kissing her again and again, saying tenderly, " Yes, 
 yes, I know, I know." But he didn t know, or he could 
 never have done it. Beatrice and Muriel came in, 
 frightened when they saw her crying, and still more 
 scared when she turned to them with words and an air that 
 were terrible in their comfortable little lives: "Papa s 
 going to be married ; he s going to marry Mrs. Church- 
 ley ! " After staring a moment and seeing their father 
 look as strange, on his side, as Adela, though in a differ 
 ent way, the children also began to cry, so that when the 
 servants arrived, with tea and boiled eggs, these function 
 aries were greatly embarrassed with their burden, not 
 knowing whether to come in or hang back. They all 
 scraped together a decorum, and as soon as the things 
 had been put on the table the Colonel banished the men 
 with a glance. Then he made a little affectionate speech 
 to Beatrice and Muriel, in which he assured them that 
 Mrs. Churchley was the kindest, the most delightful, of 
 women, only wanting to make them happy, only wanting 
 to make him happy, and convinced that he would be if 
 they were and that they would be if he was. 
 
 " What do such words mean ? " Adela asked herself. 
 She declared privately that they meant nothing, but she 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 97 
 
 was silent, and every one was silent, on account of the 
 advent of Miss Flynn, the governess, before whom Colo 
 nel Chart preferred not to discuss the situation. Adela 
 recognized on the spot that, if things were to go as he 
 wished, his children would practically never again be 
 alone with him. He would spend all his time with Mrs. 
 Churchley till they were married, and then Mrs. Church- 
 ley would spend all her time with him. Adela was 
 ashamed of him, and that was horrible all the more 
 that every one else would be, all his other friends, every 
 one who had known her mother. But the public dis 
 honour to that high memory should not be enacted ; he 
 should not do as he wished. 
 
 After breakfast her father told her that it would give 
 him pleasure if, in a day or two, she would take her 
 sisters to see Mrs. Churchley, and she replied that he 
 should be obeyed. He held her hand a moment, look 
 ing at her with an appeal in his eyes which presently 
 hardened into sternness. He wanted to know that she 
 forgave him, but he also wanted to say to her that he 
 expected her to mind what she did, to go straight. She 
 turned away her eyes ; she was indeed ashamed of him. 
 
 She waited three days, and then she took her sisters 
 to see Mrs. Churchley. That lady was surrounded with 
 callers, as Adela knew she would be ; it was her "day" 
 and the occasion the girl preferred. Before this she had 
 spent all her time with her sisters, talking to them about 
 their mother, playing upon their memory of her, mak 
 ing them cry and making them laugh, reminding them 
 of certain hours of their early childhood, telling them 
 anecdotes of her own. None the less she assured 
 them that she believed there was no harm at all in Mrs. 
 Churchley, and that when the time should come she 
 would probably take them out immensely. She saw with 
 
 G 
 
98 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 smothered irritation that they enjoyed their visit in 
 Prince s Gate; they had never been at anything so 
 " grown up," nor seen so many smart bonnets and bril 
 liant complexions. Moreover, they were considered with 
 interest, as if, as features of Mrs. Clmrchley s new life, 
 they had been described in advance and were the heroines 
 of the occasion. There were so many ladies present that 
 Mrs. Churchley didn t talk to them much ; but she called 
 them her "chicks" and asked them to hand about tea 
 cups and bread and butter. All this was highly agree 
 able and indeed intensely exciting to Beatrice and Muriel, 
 who had little round red spots in their cheeks when they 
 came away. Adela quivered with the sense that her 
 mother s children were now Mrs. Churchley s " chicks " 
 and features of Mrs. Churchley s life. 
 
 It was one thing to have made up her mind, however ; 
 it was another thing to make her attempt. It was when 
 she learned from Godfrey that the day was fixed, the 
 20th of July, only six weeks removed, that she felt the 
 importance of prompt action. She learned everything 
 from Godfrey now, having determined that it would be 
 hypocrisy to question her father. Even her silence was 
 hypocritical, but she couldn t weep and wail. Her father 
 showed extreme tact ; taking no notice of her detach 
 ment, treating her as if it were a moment of bonder ie 
 which he was bound to allow her and which would pout 
 itself away. She debated much as to whether she should 
 take Godfrey into her confidence ; she would have done 
 so without hesitation if he had not disappointed her. He 
 was so strange and so perversely preoccupied that she 
 could explain it only by the high pressure at which he 
 was living, his anxiety about his "exam." He was in a 
 fidget, in a fever, putting on a spurt to come in first ; 
 skeptical moreover about his success and cynical about 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 99 
 
 everything else. He appeared to agree to the general 
 axiom that they didn t want a strange woman thrust into 
 their home, but he found Mrs. Churchley "very jolly as a 
 person to know. He had been to see her by himself; 
 he had been to see her three times. He said to his sis 
 ter that he would make the most of her now ; he should 
 probably be so little in Seymour Street after these days. 
 What Adela at last determined to say to him was that 
 the marriage would never take place. When he asked 
 her what she meant and who was to prevent it, she re 
 plied that the interesting couple would give it up them 
 selves, or that Mrs. Churchley at least would after a week 
 or two back out of it. 
 
 " That will be really horrid then," Godfrey rejoined. 
 "The only respectable thing, at the point they ve come 
 to, is to put it through. Charming for poor father to 
 have the air of being l chucked. " 
 
 This made her hesitate two days more, but she found 
 answers more valid than any objections. The many- 
 voiced answer to everything it was like the autumn 
 wind around the house was the backward affront to 
 her mother. Her mother was dead, but it killed her 
 again. So one morning, at eleven o clock, when Adela 
 knew her father was writing letters, she went out quietly 
 and, stopping the first hansom she met, drove to Prince s 
 Gate. Mrs. Churchley was at home, and she was shown 
 into the drawing-room with the request that she would 
 wait five minutes. She waited, without the sense of 
 breaking down at the last, the impulse to run away, 
 which was what she had expected to have. In the cab 
 and at the door her heart had beat terribly, but now, sud 
 denly, with the game really to play, she found herself 
 lucid and calm. It was a joy to her to feel later that 
 this was the way Mrs. Churchley found her; not con- 
 
100 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 fused, not stammering nor prevaricating, only a little 
 amazed at her own courage, conscious of the immense 
 responsibility of her step and wonderfully older than her 
 years. Her hostess fixed her at first with the waiting 
 eyes of a cashier, but after a little, to Adela s surprise, 
 she burst into tears. At this the girl cried herself, but 
 with the secret happiness of believing they were saved. 
 Mrs. Churchley said she would think over what she had 
 been told, and she promised Adela, freely enough and 
 very firmly, not to betray the secret of her visit to the 
 Colonel." They were saved they were saved : the words 
 sung themselves in the girl s soul as she came down 
 stairs. When the door was opened for her she saw her 
 brother on the step, and they looked at each other in 
 surprise, each finding it on the part of the other an odd 
 hour for Prince s Gate. Godfrey remarked that Mrs. 
 Churchley would have enough of the family, and Adela 
 answered that she would perhaps have too much. None 
 the less the young man went in, while his sister took her 
 way home. 
 
 III. 
 
 ADELA CHART saw nothing of her brother for nearly 
 a week ; he had more and more his own time and 
 hours, adjusted to his tremendous responsibilities, and 
 he spent whole days at his crammer s. When she 
 knocked at his door, late in the evening, he was not in 
 his room. It was known in the house that he was 
 greatly worried ; he was horribly nervous about his or 
 deal. It was to begin on the 23d of June, and his father 
 was as worried as himself. The wedding had been ar 
 ranged in relation to this ; they wished poor Godfrey s 
 fate settled first, though it was felt that the nuptials 
 would be darkened if it should not be settled right. 
 
THE MARRIAGFS. 101 
 
 Ten days after her morning visit to Mrs. Churchley 
 Aclela began to perceive that there was a difference in 
 the air: but as yet she was afraid to exult. It was not 
 a difference for the better, so that there might be still 
 many hours of pain. Her father, since the announce 
 ment of his intended marriage, had been visibly pleased 
 with himself, but that pleasure appeared to have under 
 gone a check. Adela had the impression which the pas 
 sengers on a great steamer receive when, in the middle of 
 the night, they hear the engines stop. As this im 
 pression resolves itself into the general sense that 
 something serious has happened, so the girl asked 
 herself what had happened now. She had expected 
 something serious ; but it was as if she couldn t keep 
 still in her cabin she wanted to go up and see. On 
 the 20th, just before breakfast, her maid brought her a 
 message from her brother. Mr. Godfrey would be 
 obliged if she would speak to him in his room. She 
 went straight up to him. dreading to find him ill, broken 
 down on the eve of his formidable week. This was not 
 the case, however, inasmuch as he appeared to be already 
 at work, to have been at work since dawn. But he was 
 very white, and his eyes had a strange and new expres 
 sion. Her beautiful young brother looked older; he 
 looked haggard and hard. He met her there as if he 
 had been waiting for her, and he said immediately : 
 " Please to tell me this, Adela : what was the purpose of 
 your visit, the other morning, to Mrs. Churchley the 
 day I met you at her door ? " 
 
 She stared she hesitated. " The purpose ? What s 
 the matter ? Why do you ask ? " 
 
 "They ve put it off they ve put it off a month." 
 
 " Ah, thank God ! " said Adela. 
 
 " Why do you thank God ?" Godfrey exclaimed roughly. 
 
102 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 His sister gave a strained, intense smile. " You know 
 I think it s all wrong." 
 
 He stood looking at her up and down. " What did you 
 do there? How did you interfere? " 
 
 " Who told you I interfered? " she asked, flushing. 
 
 "You said something you did something. I knew 
 you had done it when I saw you come out." 
 
 "What I did was my own business." 
 
 " Damn your own business ! " cried the young man. 
 
 She had never in her life been so spoken to, and in 
 advance, if she had been given the choice, she would 
 have said that she would rather die than be so spoken to 
 by Godfrey. But her spirit was high, and for a moment 
 she was as angry as if some one had cut at her with a 
 whip. She escaped the blow, but she felt the insult. 
 " And your business, then ? " she asked. " I wondered 
 what that was when I saw you" 
 
 He stood a moment longer frowning at her ; then, with 
 the exclamation " You ve made a pretty mess ! " lie 
 turned away from her and sat down to his books. 
 
 They had put it off, as he said ; her father was dry and 
 stiff and official about it. " 1 suppose I had better let 
 you know that we have thought it best to postpone our 
 marriage till the end of the summer Mrs. Churchley 
 has so many arrangements to make : " he was not more 
 expansive than that. She neither knew nor greatly 
 cared whether it was her fancy or a reality that he 
 watched her obliquely, to see how she would take these 
 words. She flattered herself that, thanks to Godfrey s 
 preparation, cruel as the form of it had been, she took 
 them very cleverly. She had a perfectly good conscience, 
 for she was now able to judge what odious elements Mrs. 
 Churchley, whom she had not seen since the morning in 
 Prince s Gate, had already introduced into their relations 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 103 
 
 with each other. She was able to infer that her father 
 had not concurred in the postponement, for he was 
 more restless than before, more absent, and distinctly 
 irritable. There was of course still the question of how 
 much of this condition was to be attributed to his solici 
 tude about Godfrey. That young man took occasion to 
 say a horrible thing to his sister : " If I don t pass it will 
 be your fault." These were dreadful days for the girl, 
 and she asked herself how she could have borne them if 
 the hovering spirit of her mother had not been at her 
 side. Fortunately, she always felt it there, sustaining, 
 commending, sanctifying. Suddenly her father announced 
 to her that he wished her to go immediately, with her sis 
 ters, down to Overland, where there was always part of 
 a household and where for a few weeks they would be 
 sufficiently comfortable. The only explanation he gave 
 of this desire was that he wanted them out of the way. 
 " Out of the way of what ? " she queried, since, for the 
 time, there were to be no preparations in Seymour Street. 
 She was willing to believe that it was out of the way of 
 his nerves. 
 
 She never needed urging, however, to go to Overland, 
 the dearest old house in the world, where the happiest 
 days of her young life had been spent and the silent 
 nearness of her mother always seemed greatest. She 
 was happy again, with Beatrice and Muriel and Miss 
 Flynn, and the air of summer, and the haunted rooms, 
 and her mother s garden, and the talking oaks and the 
 nightingales. She wrote briefly to her father, to give 
 him, as he had requested, an account of things ; and he 
 wrote back that, since she was so contented (she didn t 
 remember telling him that), she had better not return to 
 town at all. The rest of the season was not important 
 for her, and he was getting on very well. He mentioned 
 
104 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 that Godfrey had finished his exam ; but, as she knew, 
 there would be a tiresome wait before they could learn 
 the result. Godfrey was going abroad for a month with 
 young Sherard he had earned a little rest and 
 a little fun. He went abroad without a word to 
 Adela, but in his beautiful little hand he took a chaffing 
 leave of Beatrice. The child showed her sister the letter, 
 of which she was very proud and which contained no 
 message for Adela. This was the worst bitterness of 
 the whole crisis for that young lady that it exhibited 
 so strangely the creature in the world whom, after her 
 mother, she had loved best. 
 
 Colonel Chart had said he would " run down " while 
 his children were at Overland, but they heard no more 
 about it. He only wrote two or three times to Miss 
 Flynn, upon matters in regard to which Adela was sur 
 prised that he should not have communicated with her 
 self. Muriel accomplished an upright little letter to 
 Mrs. Churchley her eldest sister neither fostered nor dis 
 couraged the performance to which Mrs. Churchley re 
 plied, after a fortnight, in a meagre and, as Adela 
 thought, illiterate fashion, making no allusion to the ap 
 proach of any closer tie. Evidently the situation had 
 changed ; the question of the marriage was dropped, at 
 any rate for the time. This idea gave the girl a singular 
 and almost intoxicating sense of power ; she felt as if 
 she were riding a great wave of responsibility. She had 
 chosen and acted, and the greatest could do no more than 
 that. The grand thing was to see one s results, and what 
 else was she doing ? These results were in important and 
 opulent lives ; the stage was large on which she moved 
 her figures. Such a vision was exciting, and as they had 
 the use of a couple of ponies at Overland she worked off 
 her excitement by a long gallop. A day or two after 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 105 
 
 this, however, came news of which the effect was to re 
 kindle it. Godfrey had come back, the list had been 
 published, he had passed first. These happy tidings pro 
 ceeded from the young man himself; he announced them 
 by a telegram to Beatrice, who had never in her life be 
 fore received such a missive and was proportionately 
 inflated. Adela reflected that she herself ought to 
 have felt snubbed, but she was too happy. They were 
 free again, they were themselves, the nightmare of the 
 previous weeks was blown away, the unity and dignity 
 of her father s life were restored, and, to round off her 
 sense of success, Godfrey had achieved his first step 
 toward high distinction. She wrote to him the next day, 
 as frankly and affectionately as if there had been no es 
 trangement between them ; and besides telling him that 
 she rejoiced in his triumph, she begged him in charity to 
 let them know exactly how the case stood with regard to 
 Mrs. Churchley. 
 
 Late in the summer afternoon she walked through the 
 park to the village with her letter, posted it and came 
 back. Suddenly, at one of the turns of the avenue, half 
 way to the house, she saw a young man looking toward 
 her and waiting for her a young man who proved to 
 be Godfrey, on his march, on foot, across from the sta 
 tion. He had seen her, as he took his short cut, and if 
 he had come down to Overland it was not, apparently, 
 to avoid her. There was none of the joy of his triumph 
 in his face, however, as he came a very few steps to meet 
 her ; and although, stiffly enough, he let her kiss him and 
 say, " I m so glad I m so glad ! " she felt that this 
 tolerance was not quite the calmness of the rising diplo 
 matist. He turned toward the house with her and 
 walked on a short distance, while she uttered the hope 
 that he had come to stay some days. 
 
106 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 " Only till to-morrow morning. They are sending me 
 straight to Madrid. I came down to say good-by ; there s 
 a fellow bringing my portmanteau." 
 
 " To Madrid ? How awfully nice ! And it s awfully 
 nice of you to have come," Adela said, passing her hand 
 into his arm. 
 
 The movement made him stop, and, stopping, he 
 turned on her, in a flash, a face of something more than 
 suspicion of passionate reprobation. " What I really 
 came for you might as well know without more delay 
 is to ask you a question." 
 
 " A question ? " Adela repeated with a beating heart. 
 
 They stood there, under the old trees, in the lingering 
 light, and, young and fine and fair as they both were, 
 they were in complete superficial accord with the peace 
 ful English scene. A near view, however, would have 
 shown that Godfrey Chart had not come down to Over 
 land to be superficial. He looked deep into his sister s 
 eyes and demanded : " What was it you said that morn 
 ing to Mrs. Churchley ? " 
 
 Adela gazed at the ground a moment; then, raising 
 her eyes: "If she has told you, why do you ask?" 
 
 "She has told me nothing. I ve seen for myself." 
 
 "What have you seen? " 
 
 "She has broken it oft everything s over father s 
 in the depths." 
 
 "In the depths?" the girl quavered. 
 
 "Did you think it would make him jolly?" asked her 
 brother. 
 
 "He ll get over it; he ll be glad." 
 
 "That remains to be seen. You interfered, you in 
 vented something, you got round her. I insist on know 
 ing what you did." 
 
 Adela felt that she could be obstinate if she wished, 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 107 
 
 and that if it should be a question of organizing a de 
 fense she should find treasures of perversity under her 
 hand. She stood looking down again a moment, and 
 saying to herself, "I could be dumb and dogged if I 
 chose, but I scorn to be." She was not ashamed of what 
 she had done, but she wanted to be clear. "Are you 
 absolutely certain it s broken off?" 
 
 "He is, and she is; so that s as good." 
 
 "What reason has she given?" 
 
 "Xoneatall or half a dozen; it s the same thing. 
 She has changed her mind she mistook her feelings 
 she can t part with her independence; moreover, he has 
 too many children." 
 
 "Bid he tell you this?" said Adela. 
 
 "Mrs. Ohurchley told me. She has gone abroad for a 
 year. " 
 
 " And she didn t tell you what I said to her?" 
 
 "Why should I take this trouble if she had?" 
 
 " You might have taken it to make me suffer," said 
 Adela. "That appears to be what you want to do." 
 
 "No, I leave that to you; it s the good turn you ve 
 done me ! " cried the young man, with hot tears in his eyes. 
 
 She stared, aghast with the perception that there was 
 some dreadful thing she didn t know; but he walked on, 
 dropping the question angrily and turning his back to 
 her as if he couldn t trust himself. She read his disgust 
 in his averted face, in the way he squared his shoulders 
 and smote the ground with his stick, and she hurried 
 after him and presently overtook him. She accompanied 
 him for a moment in silence; then she pleaded: "What 
 do you mean? What in the world have I done to you? " 
 
 " She would have helped me ; she was all ready to do 
 it," said Godfrey. 
 
 " Helped you in what? " She wondered what he meant ; 
 
108 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 if he had made debts that he was afraid to confess to his 
 father and of all horrible things had been looking to 
 Mrs. Churchley to pay. She turned red with the mere 
 apprehension of this and, on the heels of her guess, 
 exulted again at having perhaps averted such a shame. 
 
 "Can t you see that I m in trouble? Where are your 
 eyes, your senses, your sympathy, that you talk so much 
 about? Haven t you seen these six months that I ve a 
 cursed worry in my life?" 
 
 She seized his arm, she made him stop, she stood look 
 ing up at him like a frightened little girl. " What s the 
 matter, Godfrey what is the matter?" 
 
 " You ve vexed me so I could strangle you ! " he 
 growled. This idea added nothing to her dread; her 
 dread was that he had done some wrong, was stained with 
 some guilt. She uttered it to him with clasped hands, 
 begging him to tell her the worst; but, still more pas 
 sionately, he cut her short with his own cry: "In God s 
 name, satisfy me! W T hat infernal thing did you do? " 
 
 " It was not infernal; it was right. I told her mamma 
 had been wretched, " said Adela. 
 
 " Wretched? You told her such a lie? " 
 
 "It was the only way, and she believed me." 
 
 " Wretched how wretched when wretched where ? " 
 the young man stammered. 
 
 " I told her papa had made her so, and that she ought 
 to know it. I told her the question troubled me un 
 speakably, but that I had made up my mind it was my 
 duty to initiate her." Adela paused, with the light of 
 bravado in her face, as if, though struck while she 
 phrased it, with the monstrosity of what she had done, 
 she was incapable of abating a jot of it. " I notified her 
 that he had faults and peculiarities that made mamma s 
 life a long worry a martyrdom that she hid wonder- 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 109 
 
 fully from the world, but that we saw and that I had 
 often pitied. I told her what they were, these faults 
 and peculiarities; I put the dots on the i s. I said it 
 wasn t fair to let another person marry him without a 
 warning. I warned her; I satisfied my conscience. She 
 could do as she liked. My responsibility was over." 
 
 Godfrey gazed at her; he listened, with parted lips, 
 incredulous and appalled. " You invented such a tissue 
 of falsities and calumnies, and you talk about your con 
 science? You stand there in your senses and proclaim 
 your crime ? " 
 
 " I would have committed any crime that would have 
 rescued us." 
 
 "You insult and defame your own father?" Godfrey 
 continued. 
 
 "He ll never know it; she took a vow she wouldn t 
 tell him." 
 
 "I ll be damned if /won t tell him! " Godfrey cried. 
 
 Adela felt sick at this, but she flamed up to resent the 
 treachery, as it struck her, of such a menace. " I did 
 right I did right!" she vehemently declared. "I 
 went down on my knees to pray for guidance, and I 
 saved mamma s memory from outrage. But if I hadn t, 
 if I hadn t" she faltered for an instant "I m not 
 worse than you, and I m not so bad, for you ve done 
 something that you re ashamed to tell me." 
 
 Godfrey had taken out his watch; he looked at it with 
 quick intensity, as if he were not hearing nor heeding 
 her. Then, glancing up with his calculating eye, he 
 fixed her long enough to exclaim, with unsurpassable 
 horror and contempt : " You raving maniac ! " He turned 
 away from her; he bounded down the avenue in the di 
 rection from which they had come, and, while she 
 watched him, strode away across the grass, toward the 
 short cut to the station. 
 
110 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 IV. 
 
 GODFREY S portmanteau, by the time Adela got home, 
 had been brought to the house, but Beatrice and Muriel, 
 who had been informed of this, waited for their brother 
 in vain. Their sister said nothing to them about having 
 seen him, and she accepted, after a little, with a calm 
 ness that surprised herself, the idea that he had returned 
 to town to denounce her. She believed that would make 
 no difference now she had done what she had done. 
 She had somehow a faith in Mrs. Churchley. If Mrs. 
 Churchley had broken off she wouldn t renew. She was 
 a heavy-footed person, incapable of further agility. 
 Adela recognised too that it might well have come over 
 her that there were too many children. Lastly the girl 
 fortified herself with the reflection, grotesque under the 
 circumstances and tending to prove that her sense of 
 humor was not high, that her father, after all, was not 
 a man to be played with. It seemed to her, at any rate, 
 that if she had prevented his marriage she could bear 
 anything bear imprisonment and bread and water, bear 
 lashes and torture, bear even his lifelong reproach. 
 What she could bear least was the wonder of the incon 
 venience she had inflicted on Godfrey. She had time 
 to turn this over, very vainly, for a succession of days 
 days more numerous than she had expected, which 
 passed without bringing her from London any summons 
 to come up and take her punishment. She sounded the 
 possible, she compared the degrees of the probable; feel 
 ing however that, as a cloistered girl she was poorly 
 equipped for speculation. She tried to imagine the 
 calamitous things young men might do, and could only 
 feel that such things would naturally be connected either 
 with money or with women. She became conscious that 
 
THE MARRIAGES. Ill 
 
 after all she knew almost nothing about either subject. 
 Meanwhile there was no reverberation from Seymour 
 Street only a sultry silence. 
 
 At Overland she spent hours in her mother s garden, 
 where she had grown up, where she considered that she 
 was training for old age, for she meant not to depend 
 upon whist. She loved the place as, had she been a good 
 Catholic, she would have loved the smell of her parish 
 church; and indeed there was in her passion for flowers 
 something of the respect of a religion. They seemed to 
 her the only things in the world that really respected 
 themselves,, unless one made an exception for Nutkins, 
 who had been in command all through her mother s time, 
 with whom she had had a real friendship, and who 
 had been affected by their pure example. He was the 
 person left in the world with whom, on the whole, she 
 could talk most intimately about her mother. They 
 never had to name her together they only said "she; " 
 and Xutkins freely conceded that she had taught him 
 everything he knew. When Beatrice and Muriel said 
 "she" they referred to Mrs. Churchley. Adela had 
 reason to believe that she should never marry, and that 
 some day she should have about a thousand a year. This 
 made her see in the far future a little garden of her own, 
 under a hill, full of rare and exquisite things, where she 
 would spend most of her old age 011 her knees, with an 
 apron and stout gloves, a pair of shears and a trowel, 
 steeped in the comfort of being thought mad. 
 
 One morning, ten days after her scene with Godfrey, 
 upon coming back into the house shortly before lunch, 
 she was met by Miss Flynn with the notification that 
 a lady in the drawing-room had been waiting for her for 
 some minutes. " A lady " suggested immediately Mrs. 
 Churchley. It came over Adela that the form in which 
 
112 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 her penalty was to descend would be a personal explana 
 tion with that misdirected woman. The lady had not 
 given her name, and Miss Flyim had not seen Mrs. 
 Churchley; nevertheless the governess was certain that 
 Adela s surmise was wrong. 
 
 "Is she big and dreadful?" the girl asked. 
 
 Miss Flynn, who was circumspection itself, hesitated 
 a moment. "She s dreadful, but she s not big." She 
 added that she was not sure she ought to let Adela go 
 in alone; but this young lady felt throughout like a 
 heroine, and it was not for a heroine to shrink from any 
 encounter. Was she not, every instant, in transcendent 
 contact with her mother? The visitor might have no 
 connection whatever with the drama of her father s 
 frustrated marriage; but everything, to-day, to Adela, 
 was a part of that. 
 
 Miss Fly nil s description had prepared her for a con 
 siderable shock, but she was not agitated by her first 
 glimpse of the person who awaited her. A youngish, 
 well-dressed woman stood there, and silence was between 
 them while they looked at each other. Before either 
 of them had spoken, however, Adela began to see what 
 Miss Flynn had intended. In the light of the drawing- 
 room window the lady was five-and-thirty years of age 
 and had vivid yellow hair. She also had a blue cloth 
 suit with brass buttons, a stick-up collar like a gentle 
 man s, a necktie arranged in a sailor s knot, with a 
 golden pin in the shape of a little lawn-tennis racket, 
 and pearl-grey gloves with big black stitch ings. Adela s 
 second impression was that she was an actress ; her third 
 was that no such person had ever before crossed that 
 threshold. 
 
 "I ll tell you what I ve come for," said the apparition. 
 "I ve come to ask you to intercede." She was not an 
 actress; an actress would have had a nicer voice. 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 113 
 
 " To intercede? " Adela was too bewildered to ask her 
 to sit down. 
 
 "With your father, you know. He doesn t know, but 
 he ll have to." Her " have " sounded like " ave." She 
 explained, with many more such sounds, that she was 
 Mrs. Godfrey, that they had been married seven mortal 
 months. If Godfrey was going abroad she must go with 
 him, and the only way she could go with him would be 
 for his father to do something. He was afraid of his 
 father that was clear; he was afraid even to tell him. 
 What she had come down for was to see some other 
 member of the family face to face (" fice to fice " Mrs. 
 Godfrey called it), and try if he couldn t be approached 
 by another side. If no one else would act, then she 
 would just have to act herself. The Colonel would have 
 to do something that was the only way out of it. 
 
 What really happened Adela never quite understood; 
 what seemed to be happening was that the room went 
 round and round. Through the blur of perception 
 accompanying this effect the sharp stabs of her visitor s 
 revelation came to her like the words heard by a patient 
 " going off " under ether. She denied passionately, 
 afterwards, even to herself, that she had done anything 
 so abject as to faint; but there was a lapse in her con 
 sciousness in relation to Miss Flynn s intervention. 
 This intervention had evidently been active, for when 
 they talked the matter over, later in the day, with bated 
 breath and infinite dissimulation for the schoolroom 
 quarter, the governess had more information, and still 
 stranger, to impart than to receive. She was at any 
 rate under the impression that she had athletically con 
 tended, in the drawing-room, with the yellow hair, after 
 removing Adela from the scene and before inducing Mrs. 
 Godfrey to withdraw. Miss Flynn had never known 
 
 H 
 
114 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 a more thrilling day, for all the rest of it too was 
 pervaded with agitations and conversations, precautions 
 and alarms. It was given out to Beatrice and Muriel 
 that their sister had been taken suddenly ill, and the 
 governess ministered to her in her room. Indeed Adela 
 had never found herself less at ease ; for this time she 
 had received a blow that she couldn t return. There 
 was nothing to do but to take it, to endure the humilia 
 tion of her wound. 
 
 At first she declined to take it; it was much easier to 
 consider that her visitor was a monstrous masquerader. 
 On the face of the matter, moreover, it was not fair to 
 believe till one heard; and to hear in such a case was to 
 hear Godfrey himself. Whatever his sister had tried 
 to imagine about him she had not arrived at anything so 
 belittling as an idiotic secret marriage with a dyed and 
 painted hag. Adela repeated this last word as if it gave 
 her some comfort; and indeed where everything was so 
 bad fifteen years of seniority made the case little worse. 
 Miss Flynn was portentous, for Miss Flynn had had it 
 out with the wretch. She had cross-questioned her and 
 had not broken her down. This was the most important 
 hour of Miss Flynn s life; for whereas she usually had 
 to content herself with being humbly and gloomily in 
 the right, she could now be magnanimously and showily 
 so. Her only perplexity was as to what she ought to 
 do write to Colonel Chart or go up to town to see him. 
 She bloomed with alternatives, never having known the 
 like before. Toward evening Adela was obliged to 
 recognise that Godfrey s worry, of which he had spoken 
 to her, had appeared bad enough to consist even of a low 
 wife, and to remember that, so far from its being in 
 conceivable that a young man in his position should 
 clandestinely take one, she had been present, years be- 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 115 
 
 fore, during her mother s lifetime, when Lady Molesley 
 declared gayly, over a cup of tea, that this was precisely 
 what she expected of her eldest son. The next morning 
 it was the worst possibilities that seemed the clearest; 
 the only thing left with a tatter of dusky comfort being 
 the ambiguity of Godfrey s charge that his sister s action 
 had "done " for him. That was a matter by itself, and 
 she racked her brains for a connecting link between Mrs. 
 Churchley and Mrs. Godfrey. At last she made up her 
 mind that they were related by blood; very likely, 
 though differing in fortune, they were cousins or even 
 sisters. But even then what did her brother mean? 
 
 Arrested by the unnatural fascination of opportunity, 
 Miss Flynn received before lunch a telegram from 
 Colonel Chart an order for dinner and a vehicle; he 
 and Godfrey were to arrive at six o clock. Adela had 
 plenty of occupation for the interval, for she was pitying 
 her father \vhen she was not rejoicing that her mother 
 had gone too soon to know. She flattered herself she 
 discerned the providential reason of that cruelty now. 
 She found time however still to wonder for what pur 
 pose, under the circumstances, Godfrey was to be brought 
 down. She was not unconscious, it is true, that she had 
 little general knowledge of what usually was done with 
 young men in that predicament. One talked about the 
 circumstances, but the circumstances were an abyss. She 
 felt this still more when she found, on her father s 
 arrival, that nothing, apparently, was to happen as she 
 had taken for granted it would. There was a kind of 
 inviolable hush over the whole affair, but no tragedy, no 
 publicity, nothing ugly. The tragedy had been in town, 
 and the faces of the two men spoke of it, in spite of 
 themselves; so that at present there was only a family 
 dinner, with Beatrice and Muriel and the governess, and 
 
116 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 almost a company tone, the result of the desire to avoid 
 publicity. Adela admired her father; she knew what 
 he was feeling, if Mrs. Godfrey had been at him, and 
 yet she saw him positively gallant. He was very gentle, 
 he never looked at his son, and there were moments 
 when he seemed almost sick with sadness. Godfrey was 
 equally inscrutable and therefore wholly different from 
 what he had been as he stood before her in the park. 
 If he was to start on his career (with such a wife! 
 wouldn t she utterly blight it?) lie was already profes 
 sional enough to know how to wear a mask. 
 
 Before they rose from table the girl was wholly 
 bewildered, so little could she perceive the effects of 
 such large causes. She had nerved herself for a great 
 ordeal, but the air was as sweet as an anodyne. It was 
 constantly plain to her that her father was deadly sad 
 as pathetic as a creature jilted. He was broken, but he 
 showed no resentment; there was a weight on his heart, 
 but he had lightened it by dressing as immaculately as 
 usual for dinner. She asked herself what immensity of 
 a row there could have been in town to have left his 
 anger so spent. He went through everything, even to 
 sitting with his son after dinner. When they came out 
 together he invited Beatrice and Muriel to the billiard- 
 room ; and as Miss Flynn discreetly withdrew Adela was 
 left alone with Godfrey, who was completely changed 
 and not in a rage any more. He was broken, too, but 
 he was not so pathetic as his father. He was only very 
 correct and apologetic; he said to his sister, "I m 
 awfully sorry you were annoyed; it was something I 
 never dreamed of." 
 
 She couldn t think immediately what he meant; then 
 she grasped the reference to the yellow hair. She was 
 uncertain, however, what tone to take; perhaps his fa- 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 117 
 
 ther had arranged with him that they were to make 
 the best of it. But she spoke her own despair in the 
 way she murmured: "0 Godfrey, Godfrey, is it true?" 
 
 " I ve been the most unutterable donkey you can say 
 what you like to me. You can t say anything worse 
 than I ve said to myself. 
 
 " My brother, my brother ! " his words made her moan. 
 He hushed her with a movement, and she asked, " What 
 has father said?" 
 
 Godfrey looked over her head. "He ll give her six 
 hundred a year." 
 
 "Ah, the angel!" 
 
 " On condition she never comes near me. She has 
 solemnly promised; and she ll probably leave me alone, 
 to get the money. If she doesn t in diplomacy I m 
 lost. " The young man had been turning his eyes vaguely 
 about, this way and that, to avoid meeting hers; but after 
 another instant he gave up the effort, and she had the 
 miserable confession of his glance. "I ve been living 
 in hell," he said. 
 
 " My brother, my brother ! " she repeated. 
 
 "I m not an idiot; yet for her I ve behaved like one. 
 Don t ask me you mustn t know. It was all done in a 
 day, and since then, fancy my condition fancy my 
 work!" 
 
 " Thank God you passed ! " cried Adela. 
 
 "I would have shot myself if I hadn t. I had an 
 awful day yesterday with father; it was late at night 
 before it was over. I leave England next week. He 
 brought me down here for it to look well so that the 
 children sha n t know." 
 
 "He s wonderful!" she murmured. 
 
 "He s wonderful! " said Godfrey. 
 
 "Did she tell him?" the girl asked. 
 
118 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 " She came straight to Seymour Street from here. 
 She saw him alone first; then he called me in. That 
 luxury lasted about an hour." 
 
 Adela said, "Poor, poor, father!" to this; on which 
 her brother remained silent. Then, after he had re 
 marked that it had been the scene he had lived in terror 
 of all through his cramming, and she had stammered 
 her pity and admiration at such a mixture of anxieties 
 and such a triumph of talent, she demanded : " Have you 
 told him?" 
 
 "Told him what?" 
 
 "What you said you would what /did." 
 
 Godfrey turned away as if at present he had very little 
 interest in that inferior tribulation. " I was angry with 
 you, but I cooled off. I held my tongue." 
 
 Adela clasped her hands. " You thought of mamma! " 
 
 "Oh, don t speak of mamma," said the young man 
 tenderly. 
 
 It was indeed not a happy moment; and she mur 
 mured : " Xo ; if you had thought of her " 
 
 This made Godfrey turn back at her, with a little 
 flare in his eyes. "Oh, then it didn t prevent. I 
 thought that woman was good. I believed in her." 
 
 "Is she very bad?" his sister inquired. 
 
 "I shall never mention her to you again," Godfrey 
 answered, with dignity. 
 
 "You may believe that / won t speak of her. So 
 father doesn t know?" she added. 
 
 "Doesn t know what?" 
 
 "That I said that to Mrs. Churchley." 
 
 "I don t think so, but you must find out for yourself." 
 
 "I shall find out," said Adela, "But what had Mrs. 
 Churchley to do with it?" 
 
 "With my misery? I told her. I had to tell some 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 11.9 
 
 "Why didn t you tell me?" 
 
 Godfrey hesitated. "Oh, you take things so beastly 
 hard you make such rows." Adela covered her face 
 with her hands, and he went on : " What I wanted was 
 comfort not to be lashed up. I thought I should go 
 mad. I wanted Mrs. Churchley to break it to father, 
 to intercede for me and help him to meet it. She was 
 awfully kind to me; she listened and she understood; 
 she could fancy how it had happened. Without her I 
 shouldn t have pulled through. She liked me, you 
 know, " Godfrey dropped. " She said she would do what 
 she could for me ; she was full of sympathy and resource ; 
 I really leaned on her. But when you cut in, of course 
 it spoiled everything. That s why I was so angry with 
 you. She couldn t do anything then." 
 
 Adela dropped her hands, staring; she felt that she had 
 walked in darkness. " So that he had to meet it alone? " 
 
 " Dame ! " said Godfrey, who had got up his French 
 tremendously. 
 
 Muriel came to the door to say papa wished the two 
 others to join them, and the next day Godfrey returned 
 to town. His father remained at Overland, without an 
 intermission, the rest of the summer and the whole of 
 the autumn, and Adela had a chance to find out, as she 
 had said, whether he knew that she had interfered. But 
 in spite of her chance she never found out. He knew 
 that Mrs. Churchley had thrown him over and he knew 
 that his daughter rejoiced in it, but he appeared not to 
 have divined the relation between the two facts. It was 
 strange that one of the matters he was clearest about 
 Adela s secret triumph should have been just the thing 
 which, from this time on, justified less and less such a 
 confidence. She was too sorry for him to be consistently 
 glad. She watched his attempts to wind himself up on 
 
120 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 the subject of shorthorns and drainage, and she favoured 
 to the utmost of her ability his intermittent disposition 
 to make a figure in orchids. She wondered whether they 
 mightn t have a few people at Overland; but when she 
 mentioned the idea her father asked what in the world 
 there would be to attract them. It was a confoundedly 
 stupid house, he remarked, with all respect to her clever 
 ness. Beatrice and Muriel were mystified; the prospect 
 of going out immensely had faded so utterly away. They 
 were apparently not to go out at all. Colonel Chart was 
 aimless and bored; he paced up and down and went back 
 to smoking, which was bad for him, and looked drearily 
 out of windows, as if on the bare chance that something 
 might arrive. Did he expect Mrs. Churchley to arrive, 
 to relent? It was Adela s belief that she gave no sign. 
 But the girl thought it really remarkable of her not 
 to have betrayed her ingenious young visitor. Adela s 
 judgment of human nature was perhaps harsh, but she 
 believed that many women, under the circumstances, 
 would not have been so forbearing. This lady s concep 
 tion of the point of honour presented her as rather a 
 higher type than one might have supposed. 
 
 Adela knew her father found the burden of Godfrey s 
 folly very heavy to bear and was incommoded at having 
 to pay the horrible woman six hundred a year. Doubt 
 less he was having dreadful letters from her; doubtless 
 she threatened them all with a hideous exposure. If 
 the matter should be bruited Godfrey s prospects would 
 collapse on the spot. He thought Madrid very charming 
 and curious, but Mrs. Godfrey was in England, so that 
 his father had to face the music. Adela took a dolorous 
 comfort in thinking that her mother was out of that 
 it would have killed her; but this didn t blind her 
 to the fact that the comfort for her father would perhaps 
 
THE MARRIAGES. 121 
 
 have been greater if he had had some one to talk to about 
 his trouble. He never dreamed of doing so to her, and 
 she felt that she couldn t ask him. In the family life he 
 wanted utter silence about it. Early in the winter he 
 went abroad for ten weeks, leaving her with her sisters 
 in the country, where it was not to be denied that at this 
 time existence had very little savour. She half expected 
 that her sister-in-law would descend upon her again; but 
 the fear was not justified, and the quietude of such a 
 personage savoured terribly of expense. There were sure 
 to be extras. Colonel Chart went to Paris and to Monte 
 Carlo and then to Madrid to see his boy. Adela won 
 dered whether he would meet Mrs. Churchley somewhere, 
 since, if she had gone for a year, she would still be on 
 the Continent. If he should meet her perhaps the affair 
 would come on again : she caught herself musing over 
 this. Her father brought back no news of her, and 
 seeing him after an interval, she was struck afresh with 
 his jilted and wasted air. She didn t like it; she re 
 sented it. A little more and she would have said that 
 that was no way to treat such a man. 
 
 They all went up to town in March, and on one of the 
 first days of April she saw Mrs. Churchley in the park. 
 She herself remained apparently invisible to that lady 
 she herself and Beatrice and Muriel, who sat with her in 
 their mother s old bottle-green landau. Mrs. Churchley, 
 perched higher than ever, rode by without a recognition; 
 but this didn t prevent Adela from going to her before 
 the month was over. As on her great previous occasion 
 she went in the morning, and she again had the good 
 fortune to be admitted. But this time her visit was 
 shorter, and a week after making it the week was a 
 desolation she addressed to her brother at Madrid a 
 letter which contained these words : 
 
122 THE MARRIAGES. 
 
 "I could endure it no longer T confessed and re 
 tracted; I explained to her as well as I could the falsity 
 of what I said to her ten months ago and the benighted 
 purity of my motives for saying it. I besought her to 
 regard it as unsaid, to forgive me, not to despise me too 
 much, to take pity on poor perfect papa and come back 
 to him. She was more good-natured than you might 
 have expected; indeed, she laughed extravagantly. She 
 had never believed me it was too absurd; she had 
 only, at the time, disliked me. She found me utterly 
 false (she was very frank with me about this), and she 
 told papa that she thought I was horrid. She said she 
 could never live with such a girl, and as I would cer 
 tainly never marry I must be sent away; in short she 
 quite loathed me. Papa defended me, he refused to 
 sacrifice me, and this led practically to their rupture. 
 Papa gave her up, as it were, for me. Fancy the angel, 
 and fancy what I must try to be to him for the rest of 
 his life! Mrs. Churchley can never come back she s 
 going to marry Lord Dovedale." 
 
THE PUPIL. 1 
 
 i. 
 
 THE poor young man hesitated and procrastinated : it 
 cost him such an effort to broach the subject of terms, 
 to speak of money to a person who spoke only of feel 
 ings and, as it were, of the aristocracy. Yet he was 
 unwilling to take leave, treating his engagement as 
 settled, without some more conventional glance in that 
 direction than he could find an opening for in the man 
 ner of the large, affable lady who sat there drawing a 
 pair of soiled gants de SuMe through a fat, jewelled 
 hand and, at once pressing and gliding, repeated over 
 and over everything but the thing he would have liked 
 to hear. He would have liked to hear the figure of his 
 salary ; but just as he was nervously about to sound that 
 note the little boy came back the little boy Mrs. Mo 
 reen had sent out of the room to fetch her fan. He 
 came back without the fan, only with the casual obser 
 vation that he couldn t find it. As he dropped this 
 cynical confession he looked straight and hard at the 
 .candidate for the honour of taking his education in 
 hand. This personage reflected, somewhat grimly, that 
 the first thing he should have to teach his little charge 
 would be to appear to. address himself to his mother 
 
 1 Copyright, /#<?/, by Macmillan & Co. 
 
 123 
 
124 THE PUPIL. 
 
 when he spoke to her especially not to make her such 
 an improper answer as that. 
 
 When Mrs. Moreen bethought herself of this pretext 
 for getting rid of their companion, Pemberton supposed 
 it was precisely to approach the delicate subject of his 
 remuneration. But it had been only to say some things 
 about her son which it was better that a boy of eleven 
 shouldn t catch. They were extravagantly to his advan 
 tage, save when she lowered her voice to sigh, tapping her 
 left side familiarly : " And all overclouded by tlds, you 
 know all at the mercy of a weakness ! " Pemberton 
 gathered that the weakness was in the region of the 
 heart. He had known the poor child was not robust: 
 this was the basis on which he had been invited to treat, 
 through an English lady, an Oxford acquaintance, then 
 at Nice, who happened to know both his needs and those 
 of the amiable American family looking out for some 
 thing really superior in the way of a resident tutor. 
 
 The young man s impression of his prospective pupil, 
 who had first come into the room, as if to see for him 
 self, as soon as Pemberton was admitted, was not quite 
 the soft solicitation the visitor had taken for granted. 
 Morgan Moreen was, somehow, sickly without being 
 delicate, and that he looked intelligent (it is true Pem 
 berton wouldn t have enjoyed his being stupid), only 
 added to the suggestion that, as with his big mouth and 
 big ears he really couldn t be called pretty, he might be 
 unpleasant. Pemberton was modest he was even 
 timid ; and the chance that his small scholar might prove 
 cleverer than himself had quite figured, to his nervous 
 ness, among the dangers of an. untried experiment. 
 He reflected, however, that these were risks one had to 
 run when one accepted a position, as it was called, in a 
 private family; when as yet one s University honours 
 
THE PUPIL. 125 
 
 had, pecuniarily speaking, remained barren. At any 
 rate, when Mrs. Moreen got up as if to intimate that, 
 since it was understood he would enter upon his duties 
 within the week she would let him oft now, he succeeded, 
 in spite of the presence of the child, in squeezing out a 
 phrase about the rate of payment. It was not the fault 
 of the conscious smile which seemed a reference to the 
 lady s expensive identity, if the allusion did not sound 
 rather vulgar. This was exactly because she became 
 still more gracious to reply: "Oh! I can assure you that 
 all that will be quite regular." 
 
 Pemberton only wondered, while he took up his hat, 
 what " all that" was to amount to people had such 
 different ideas. Mrs. Moreen s words, however, seemed 
 to commit the family to a pledge definite enough to elicit 
 from the child a strange little comment, in the shape of 
 the mocking, foreign ejaculation, " Oh, la-la ! * 
 
 Pemberton, in some confusion, glanced at him as he 
 walked slowly to the window with his back turned, his 
 hands in his pockets and the air in his elderly shoulders 
 of a boy who didn t play. The young man wondered if 
 he could teach him to play, though his mother had said it 
 would never do and that this was why school was impos 
 sible. Mrs. Moreen exhibited no discomfiture; she only 
 continued blandly : " Mr. Moreen will be delighted to 
 meet your wishes. As I told you, he has been called to 
 London for a week. As soon as he comes back you shall 
 have it out with him." 
 
 This was so frank and friendly that the young man 
 could only reply, laughing as his hostess laughed : " Oh ! 
 I don t imagine we shall have much of a battle." 
 
 They ll give you anything you like," the boy re 
 marked unexpectedly, returning from the window. " We 
 don t mind what anything costs we live awfully well." 
 
126 THE PUPIL. 
 
 "My darling, you re too quaint!" his mother ex 
 claimed, putting out to caress him a practiced but 
 ineffectual hand. He slipped out of it, but looked with 
 intelligent, innocent eyes at Pemberton, who had already 
 had time to notice that from one moment to the other his 
 small satiric face seemed to change its time of life. At 
 this moment it was infantine ; yet it appeared also to be 
 under the influence of curious intuitions and knowledges. 
 Pemberton rather disliked precocity, and he was disap 
 pointed to find gleams of it in a disciple not yet in his 
 teens. Nevertheless he divined on the spot that Morgan 
 wouldn t prove a bore. He would prove on the contrary 
 a kind of excitement. This idea held the young man, 
 in spite of a certain repulsion. 
 
 " You pompous little person ! We re not extravagant ! 
 Mrs. Moreen gayly protested, making another unsuccess 
 ful attempt to draw the boy to her side. "You must 
 know what to expect," she went on to Pemberton. 
 
 "The less you expect the better!" her companion 
 interposed. "But we are people of fashion." 
 
 " Only so far as you make us so ! " Mrs. Moreen mocked, 
 tenderly. " Well, then, on Friday don t tell me you re 
 superstitious and mind you don t fail us. Then you ll 
 see us all. I m so sorry the girls are out. I guess you ll 
 like the girls. And, you know, I ve another son, quite 
 different from this one." 
 
 "He tries to imitate me," said Morgan to Pemberton. 
 
 "He tries? Why, he s twenty years old! " cried Mrs. 
 Moreen. 
 
 "You re very witty," Pemberton remarked to the 
 child a proposition that his mother echoed with enthu 
 siasm, declaring that Morgan s sallies were the delight of 
 the house. The boy paid no heed to this; he only in 
 quired abruptly of the visitor, who was surprised after- 
 
THE PUPIL. 127 
 
 wards that he hadn t struck him as offensively forward : 
 " Do you want very much to come? " 
 
 " Can you doubt it, after such a description of what I 
 shall hear? " Pemberton replied. Yet he didn t want to 
 come at all; he was coming because he had to go some 
 where, thanks to the collapse of his fortune at the end 
 of a year abroad, spent on the system of putting his tiny 
 patrimony into a single full wave of experience. He 
 had had his full wave, but he couldn t pay his hotel bill. 
 Moreover, he had caught in the boy s eyes the glimpse 
 of a far-off appeal. 
 
 "Well, I ll do the best I can for you," said Morgan; 
 with which he turned away again. He passed out of 
 one of the long windows; Pemberton saw him go and 
 lean on the parapet of the terrace. He remained there 
 while the young man took leave of his mother, who, on 
 Pemberton s looking as if he expected a farewell from 
 him, interposed with : "Leave him, leave him; he s so 
 strange ! " Pemberton suspected she was afraid of some 
 thing he might say. " He s a genius you ll love him," 
 she added. "He s much the most interesting person in 
 the family." And before he could invent some civility 
 to oppose to this, she wound up with: "But we re all 
 good, you know ! " 
 
 "He s a genius you ll love him! " were words that 
 recurred to Pemberton before the Friday, suggesting, 
 among other things that geniuses were not invariably 
 lovable. However, it was all the better if there was an 
 element that would make tutorship absorbing: he had 
 perhaps taken too much for granted that it would be 
 dreary. As he left the villa after his interview, he looked 
 up at the balcony and saw the child leaning over it. 
 " We shall have great lurks ! " he called up. 
 
 Morgan hesitated a moment; then he answered, laugh- 
 
128 THE PUPIL. 
 
 ing : " By the time you come back I shall have thought 
 of something witty ! " 
 
 This made Pemberton say to himself: "After all he s 
 rather nice." 
 
 II. 
 
 Ox the Friday he saw them all, as Mrs. Moreen had 
 promised, for her husband had come back and the girls 
 and the other son were at home. Mr. Moreen had a white 
 moustache, a confiding manner and, in his buttonhole, 
 the ribbon of a foreign order bestowed, as Pemberton 
 eventually learned, for services. For what services he 
 never clearly ascertained: this was a point one of a 
 large number that Mr. Moreen s manner never con 
 fided. What it emphatically did confide was that he 
 was a man of the world. Ulick, the firstborn, was in 
 visible training for the same profession under the 
 disadvantage as yet, however, of a buttonhole only 
 feebly floral and a moustache with no pretensions to type. 
 The girls had hair and figures and manners and small fat 
 feet, but had never been out alone. As for Mrs. Moreen, 
 Pemberton saw 011 a nearer view that her elegance was 
 intermittent and her parts didn t always match. Her 
 husband, as she had promised, met with enthusiasm 
 Pemberton s ideas in regard to a salary. The young 
 man had endeavoured to make them modest, and Mr. 
 Moreen confided to him that lie found them positively 
 meagre. He further assured him that he aspired to be 
 intimate with his children, to be their best friend, and 
 that he was always looking out for them. That was 
 what he went off for, to London and other places to 
 look out; and this vigilance was the theory of life, as 
 well as the real occupation, of the whole family. They 
 all looked out, for they were very frank on the subject 
 
THE PUPIL. 129 
 
 of its being necessary. They desired it to be understood 
 that they were earnest people, and also that their for 
 tune, though quite adequate for earnest people, required 
 the most careful administration. Mr. Moreen, as the 
 parent bird, sought sustenance for the nest. Ulick 
 found sustenance mainly at the club, where Pemberton 
 guessed that it was usually served on green cloth. The 
 girls used to do up their hair and their frocks them 
 selves, and our young man felt appealed to to be glad, in 
 regard to Morgan s education, that, though it must nat 
 urally be of the best, it didn t cost too much. After a 
 little he teas glad, forgetting at times his own needs in 
 the interest inspired by the child s nature and education 
 and the pleasure of making easy terms for him. 
 
 During the first weeks of their acquaintance Morgan 
 had been as puzzling as a page in an unknown language 
 altogether different from the obvious little Anglo- 
 Saxons who had misrepresented childhood to Pember 
 ton. Indeed the whole mystic volume in which the boy 
 had been bound demanded some practice in translation. 
 To-day, after a considerable interval, there is something 
 phantasmagoric, like a prismatic reflection or a serial 
 novel, in Pemberton s memory of the queerness of the 
 Moreens. If it were not for a few tangible tokens a 
 lock of Morgan s hair, cut by his own hand, and the 
 half-dozen letters he get from him when they were 
 separated the whole episode and the figures peopling 
 it would seem too inconsequent for anything but dream 
 land. The queerest thing about them was their success 
 (as it appeared to him for a while at the time), for he had 
 never seen a family so brilliantly equipped for failure. 
 Wasn t it success to have kept him so hatefully long ? 
 Wasn t it success to have drawn him in that first morn 
 ing at dfyeuner, the Friday he came it was enough to 
 
 I 
 
130 THE PUPIL. 
 
 make one superstitious so that lie utterly committed 
 himself, and this not by calculation or a mot d ordre, but 
 by a happy instinct which made them, like a band of 
 gipsies, work so neatly together ? They amused him as 
 much as if they had really been a band of gipsies. He 
 was still young and had not seen much of the world 
 his English years had been intensely usual; therefore 
 the reversed conventions of the Moreens (for they had 
 their standards), struck him as topsyturvy. He had 
 encountered nothing like them at Oxford ; still less had 
 any such note been struck to his younger American ear 
 during the four years at Yale in which he had richly 
 supposed himself to be reacting against Puritanism. 
 The reaction of the Moreens, at any rate, went ever so 
 much further. He had thought himself very clever 
 that first day in hitting them all off in his mind with the 
 term " cosmopolite." Later, it seemed feeble and colour 
 less enough confessedly, helplessly provisional. 
 
 However, when he first applied it to them he had a 
 degree of joy for an instructor he was still empirical 
 as if from the apprehension that to live with them 
 would really be to see life. Their sociable strangeness 
 was an intimation of that their chatter of tongues, their 
 gaiety and good humour, their infinite dawdling (they 
 were always getting themselves up, but it took forever, 
 and Pemberton had once found Mr. Moreen shaving in 
 the drawing-room), their French, their Italian and, in 
 the spiced fluency, their cold, tough slices of American. 
 They lived on macaroni and coffee (they had these arti 
 cles prepared in perfection), but they knew recipes for 
 a hundred other dishes. They overflowed with music 
 and song, were always humming and catching each other 
 up, and had a kind of professional acquaintance with 
 continental cities. They talked of " good places " as if 
 
THE PUPIL. 131 
 
 they had been strolling players. They had at Xice a 
 villa, a carriage, a piano and a banjo, and they went to 
 official parties. They were a perfect calendar of the 
 " days " of their friends, which Pemberton knew them, 
 when they were indisposed, to get out of bed to go to, 
 and which made the week larger than life when Mrs. 
 Moreen talked of them with Paula and Amy. Their 
 romantic initiations gave their new inmate at first an 
 almost dazzling sense of culture. Mrs. Moreen had trans 
 lated something, at some former period an author whom 
 it made Pemberton feel burn6 never to have heard of. 
 They could imitate Venetian and sing Neapolitan, and 
 when they wanted to say something very particular they 
 communicated with each other in an ingenious dialect 
 of their own a sort of spoken cipher, which Pember 
 ton at first took for Yolapuk, but which he learned to 
 understand as he would not have understood Volapuk. 
 
 "It s the family language Ultramoreen, " Morgan 
 explained to him drolly enough; but the boy rarely con 
 descended to use it himself, though he attempted collo 
 quial Latin as if he had been a little prelate. 
 
 Among all the " days " with which Mrs. Moreen s 
 memory was taxed she managed to squeeze in one of her 
 own, which her friends sometimes forgot. But the house 
 derived a frequented air from the number of fine people 
 who were freely named there and from several mysterious 
 men with foreign titles and English clothes whom Morgan 
 called the princes and who, on sofas with the girls, talked 
 French very loud, as if to show they were saying noth 
 ing improper. Pemberton wondered how the princes 
 could ever propose in that tone and so publicly : he took 
 for granted cynically that this was what was desired of 
 them. Then he acknowledged that even for the chance 
 of such an advantage Mrs. Moreen would never allow 
 
132 THE PUPIL. 
 
 Paula and Amy to receive alone. These young ladies 
 were not at all timid, but it was just the safeguards that 
 made them so graceful. It was a houseful of Bohemians 
 who wanted tremendously to be Philistines. 
 
 In one respect, however, certainly, they achieved no 
 rigour they were wonderfully amiable and ecstatic 
 about Morgan. It was a genuine tenderness, an artless 
 admiration, equally strong in each. They even praised 
 his beauty, which was small, and were rather afraid of 
 him, as if they recognised that he was of a finer clay. 
 They called him a little angel and a little prodigy and 
 pitied his want of health effusively. Pemberton feared 
 at first that their extravagance would make him hate 
 the boy, but before this happened he had become extrav 
 agant himself. Later, when he had grown rather to 
 hate the others, it was a bribe to patience for him that 
 they were at any rate nice about Morgan, going on tiptoe 
 if they fancied he was showing symptoms, and even 
 giving up somebody s "day " to procure him a pleasure. 
 But mixed with this was the oddest wish to make him 
 independent, as if they felt that they were not good 
 enough for him. They passed him over to Pemberton 
 very much as if they wished to force a constructive 
 adoption on the obliging bachelor and shirk altogether a 
 responsibility. They were delighted when they per 
 ceived that Morgan liked his preceptor, and could think 
 of no higher praise for the young man. It was strange 
 how they contrived to reconcile the appearance, and 
 indeed the essential fact, of adoring the child with their 
 eagerness to wash their hands of him. Did they want to 
 get rid of him before he should find them out ? Pember 
 ton was finding them out month by month. At any rate, 
 the boy s relations turned their backs with exaggerated 
 delicacy, as if to escape the charge of interfering. See- 
 
THE PUPIL. 133 
 
 ing in time how little he had in common with them (it 
 was by them he first observed it they proclaimed it 
 with complete humility), his preceptor was moved to 
 speculate on the mysteries of transmission, the far jumps 
 of heredity. Where his detachment from most of the 
 things they represented had come from was more than 
 an observer could say it certainly had burrowed under 
 two or three generations. 
 
 As for Pemberton s own estimate of his pupil, it was 
 a good while before he got the point of view, so little 
 had he been prepared for it by the smug young barbarians 
 to whom the tradition of tutorship, as hitherto revealed 
 to him, had been adjusted. Morgan was scrappy and 
 surprising, deficient in many properties supposed com 
 mon to the genus and abounding in others that were the 
 portion only of the supernaturally clever. One day 
 Pemberton made a great stride : it cleared up the ques 
 tion to perceive that Morgan ivas supernaturally clever 
 and that, though the formula was temporarily meagre, 
 this would be the only assumption on which one could 
 successfully deal with him. He had the general quality 
 of a child for whom life had not been simplified by 
 school, a kind of homebred sensibility which might have 
 been bad for himself but was charming for others, and 
 a whole range of refinement and perception little 
 musical vibrations as taking as picked-up airs begot 
 ten by wandering about Europe at the tail of his migra 
 tory tribe. This might not have been an education to 
 recommend in advance, but its results with Morgan 
 were as palpable as a fine texture. At the same time 
 he had in his composition a sharp spice of stoicism, 
 doubtless the fruit of having had to begin early to bear 
 pain, which produced the impression of pluck and made 
 it of less consequence that he might have been thought 
 
134 THE PUPIL. 
 
 at school rather a polyglot little beast. Pemberton 
 indeed quickly found himself rejoicing that school was 
 out of the question : in any million of boys it was prob 
 ably good for all but one, and Morgan was that millionth. 
 It would have made him comparative and superior it 
 might have made him priggish. Pemberton would try 
 to be school himself a bigger seminary than five 
 hundred grazing donkeys; so that, winning no prizes, 
 the boy would remain unconscious and irresponsible and 
 amusing amusing, because, though life was already in 
 tense in his childish nature, freshness still made there 
 a strong draught for jokes. It turned out that even 
 in the still air of Morgan s various disabilities jokes 
 flourished greatly. He was a pale, lean, acute, unde 
 veloped little cosmopolite, who liked intellectual gym 
 nastics and who, also, as regards the behaviour of 
 mankind, had noticed more things than you might sup 
 pose, but who nevertheless had his proper playroom of 
 superstitions, where he smashed a dozen toys a day. 
 
 III. 
 
 AT Nice once, towards evening, as the pair sat resting 
 in the open air after a walk, looking over the sea at the 
 pink western lights, Morgan said suddenly to his com 
 panion : " Do you like it you know, being with us all in 
 this intimate way?" 
 
 "My dear fellow, why should I stay if I didn t?" 
 
 "How do I know you will stay? I m almost sure you 
 won t, very long." 
 
 " I hope you don t mean to dismiss me, " said Pember 
 ton. 
 
 Morgan considered a moment, looking at the sunset. 
 "I think if I did right I ought to." 
 
THE PUPIL. 135 
 
 " Well, I know I m supposed to instruct you in virtue ; 
 but in that case don t do right." 
 
 "You re very young fortunately," Morgan went on, 
 turning to him again. 
 
 " Oh yes, compared with you ! " 
 
 " Therefore, it won t matter so much if you do lose a 
 lot of time." 
 
 "That s the way to look at it," said Pemberton ac 
 commodatingly. 
 
 They were silent a minute; after which the boy asked: 
 "Do you like my father and mother very much?" 
 
 "Dear me, yes. They re charming people." 
 
 Morgan received this with another silence; then, unex 
 pectedly, familiarly, but at the same time affectionately, 
 he remarked: "You re a jolly old humbug! " 
 
 For a particular reason the words made Pemberton 
 change colour. The boy noticed in an instant that he 
 had turned red, whereupon he turned red himself and 
 the pupil and the master exchanged a longish glance 
 in which there was a consciousness of many more things 
 than are usually touched upon, even tacitly, in such a 
 relation. It produced for Pemberton an embarrassment; 
 it raised, in a shadowy form, a question (this was the first 
 glimpse of it), which was destined to play as singular 
 and, as he im.igined, owing to the altogether peculiar con 
 ditions, an unprecedented part in his intercourse with 
 his little companion. Later, when he found himself 
 talking with this small boy in a way in which few small 
 boys could ever have been talked with, he thought of 
 that clumsy moment on the bench at ]Nice as the dawn 
 of an understanding that had broadened. What had 
 added to the clumsiness then was that he thought it his 
 duty to declare to Morgan that he might abuse him 
 (Pemberton) as much as he liked, but must never abuse 
 
136 THE PUPIL. 
 
 his parents. To this Morgan had the easy reply that he 
 hadn t dreamed of abusing them; which appeared to be 
 true : it put Pemberton in the wrong. 
 
 " Then why am I a humbug for saying / think them 
 charming?" the young man asked, conscious of a certain 
 rashness. 
 
 "Well they re not your parents." 
 
 " They love you better than anything in the world 
 never forget that," said Pemberton. 
 
 "Is that why you like them so much?" 
 
 "They re very kind to me," Pemberton replied, eva 
 sively. 
 
 "You are a humbug!" laughed Morgan, passing an 
 arm into his tutor s. He leaned against him, looking 
 oft at the sea again and swinging his long, thin legs. 
 
 "Don t kick my shins," said Pemberton, while he re 
 flected: "Hang it, I can t complain of them to the 
 child!" 
 
 "There s another reason, too," Morgan went on, keep 
 ing his legs still. 
 
 "Another reason for what?" 
 
 "Besides their not being your parents." 
 
 "I don t understand you," said Pemberton. 
 
 " Well, you will before long. All right ! " 
 
 Pemberton did understand, fully, before long; but he 
 made a fight even with himself before he confessed it. 
 He thought it the oddest thing to have a struggle with 
 the child about. He wondered he didn t detest the 
 child for launching him in such a struggle. But by the 
 time it began the resource of detesting the child was 
 closed to him. Morgan was a special case, but to know 
 him was to accept him on his own odd terms. Pember 
 ton had spent his aversion to special cases before arriv 
 ing at knowledge. When at last he did arrive he felt 
 
THE PUPIL. 137 
 
 that he was in an extreme predicament. Against every 
 interest he had attached himself. They would have 
 to meet things together. Before they went home that 
 evening, at Nice, the boy had said, clinging to his arm : 
 
 "Well, at any rate you ll hang on to the last." 
 
 "To the last?" 
 
 "Till you re fairly beaten." 
 
 " You ought to be fairly beaten ! " cried the young 
 man, drawing him closer. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A YEAR after Pemberton had come to live with them 
 Mr. and Mrs. Moreen suddenly gave up the villa at Nice. 
 Pemberton had got used to suddenness, having seen it 
 practiced on a considerable scale during two jerky little 
 tours one in Switzerland the first summer, and the 
 other late in the winter, when they all ran down to 
 Florence and then, at the end of ten days, liking it 
 much less than they had intended, straggled back in 
 mysterious depression. They had returned to Nice 
 "for ever," as they said; but this didn t prevent them 
 from squeezing, one rainy, muggy May night, into a 
 second-class railway-carriage you could never tell by 
 which class they would travel where Pemberton helped 
 them to stow a\vay a wonderful collection of bundles and 
 bags. The explanation of this manoeuvre was that they 
 had determined to spend the summer " in some bracing 
 place ; " but in Paris they dropped into a small furnished 
 apartment a fourth floor in a third-rate avenue, where 
 there was a smell on the staircase and the pot-tier was 
 hateful and passed the next four months in blank in 
 digence. 
 
 The better part of this baffled sojourn was for the pre- 
 
138 THE PUPIL. 
 
 ceptor and his pupil, who, visiting the Invalides and 
 Xotre Dame, the Conciergerie and all the museums, took 
 a hundred remunerative rambles. They learned to know 
 their Paris, which was useful, for they came back an 
 other year for a longer stay, the general character of 
 which in Pemberton s memory to-day mixes pitiably and 
 confusedly with that of the first. He sees Morgan s 
 shabby knickerbockers the everlasting pair that didn t 
 match his blouse and that as he grew longer could only 
 grow faded. He remembers the particular holes in his 
 three or four pair of coloured stockings. 
 
 Morgan was dear to his mother, but he never was bet 
 ter dressed than was absolutely necessary partly, no 
 doubt, by his own fault, for he was as indifferent to his 
 appearance as a German philosopher. " My dear fellow, 
 you are coming to pieces," Pembertoii would say to him 
 in sceptical remonstrance; to which the child would 
 reply, looking at him serenely up and down: "My dear 
 fellow, so are you ! I don t want to cast you in the 
 shade." Pemberton could have no rejoinder for this 
 the assertion so closely represented the fact. If how 
 ever the deficiencies of his own wardrobe were a chapter 
 by themselves he didn t like his little charge to look 
 too poor. Later he used to say : " Well, if we are poor, 
 why, after all, shouldn t we look it ? " and he consoled 
 himself with thinking there was something rather elderly 
 and gentlemanly in Morgan s seediness it differed from 
 the untidiness of the urchin who plays and spoils his 
 things. He could trace perfectly the degrees by which, 
 in proportion as her little son confined himself to his 
 tutor for society, Mrs. Moreen shrewdly forbore to re 
 new his garments. She did nothing that didn t show, 
 neglected him because he escaped notice, and then, as 
 he illustrated this clever policy, discouraged at home his 
 
THE PUPIL. 139 
 
 public appearances. Her position was logical enough 
 those members of her family who did show had to be 
 showy. 
 
 During this period and several others Pemberton was 
 quite aware of how he and his comrade might strike peo 
 ple ; wandering languidly through the Jardin des Plantes 
 as if they had nowhere to go, sitting, on the winter days, 
 in the galleries of the Louvre, so splendidly ironical to 
 the homeless, as if for the advantage of the color i fere. 
 They joked about it sometimes : it was the sort of joke 
 that was perfectly within the boy s compass. They 
 figured themselves as part of the vast, vague, hand-to- 
 mouth multitude of the enormous city and pretended they 
 were proud of their position in it it showed them such 
 a lot of life and made them conscious of a sort of demo 
 cratic brotherhood. If Pemberton could not feel a sym 
 pathy in destitution with his small companion (for after 
 all Morgan s fond parents would never have let him 
 really suffer), the boy would at least feel it with him, 
 so it came to the same thing. He used sometimes to 
 wonder what people would think they were fancy they 
 were looked askance at, as if it might be a suspected case 
 of kidnapping. Morgan wouldn t be taken for a young 
 patrician with a preceptor he wasn t smart enough; 
 though he might pass for his companion s sickly little 
 brother. Now and then he had a five-franc piece, and 
 except once, when they bought a couple of lovely neckties, 
 one of which he made Pemberton accept, they laid it out 
 scientifically in old books. It was a great day, always 
 spent on the quays, rummaging among the dusty boxes 
 that garnish the parapets. These were occasions that 
 helped them to live, for their books ran low very soon 
 after the beginning of their acquaintance. Pemberton 
 had a good many in England, but he was obliged to write 
 
140 THE PUPIL. 
 
 to a friend and ask him kindly to get some fellow to 
 give him something for them. 
 
 If the bracing climate was untasted that summer the 
 young man had an idea that at the moment they were 
 about to make a push the cup had been dashed from their 
 lips by a movement of his own. It had been his first 
 blow-out, as he called it, with his patrons; his first suc 
 cessful attempt (though there was little other success 
 about it), to bring them to a consideration of his impossi 
 ble position. As the ostensible eve of a costly journey 
 the moment struck him as a good one to put in a signal 
 protest to present an ultimatum. Ridiculous as it 
 sounded he had never yet been able to compass an unin 
 terrupted private interview with the elder pair or with 
 either of them singly. They were always flanked by 
 their elder children, and poor Pemberton usually had his 
 own little charge at his side. He was conscious of its 
 being a house in which the surface of one s delicacy got 
 rather smudged; nevertheless he had kept the bloom of 
 his scruple against announcing to Mr. and Mrs. Moreen 
 with publicity that he couldn t go on longer without a 
 little money. He was still simple enough to suppose 
 Ulick and Paula and Amy might not know that since his 
 arrival he had only had a hundred and forty francs ; and 
 he was magnanimous enough to wish not to compromise 
 their parents in their eyes. Mr. Moreen now listened to 
 him, as he listened to every one and to everything, like 
 a man of the world, and seemed to appeal to him 
 though not of course too grossly to try and be a little 
 more of one himself. Pemberton recognised the impor 
 tance of the character from the advantage it gave Mr. 
 Moreen. He was not even confused, whereas poor Pem 
 berton was more so than there was any reason for. 
 Neither was he surprised at least any more than a 
 
THE PUPIL. 141 
 
 gentleman had to be who freely confessed himself a little 
 shocked, though not, strictly, at Pemberton. 
 
 "We must go into this, mustn t we, dear ? " he said to 
 his wife. He assured his young friend that the matter 
 should have his very best attention; and he melted into 
 space as elusively as if, at the door, he were taking an 
 inevitable but deprecatory precedence. When, the next 
 moment, Pemberton found himself alone with Mrs. 
 Moreen it was to hear her say: "I see, I see," stroking 
 the roundness of her chin and looking as if she were only 
 hesitating between a dozen easy remedies. If they 
 didn t make their push Mr. Moreen could at least dis 
 appear for several days. During his absence his wife 
 took up the subject again spontaneously, but her con 
 tribution to it was merely that she had thought all the 
 while they were getting on so beautifully. Pemberton s 
 reply to this revelation was that unless they immedi 
 ately handed him a substantial sum he would leave them 
 for ever. He knew she would wonder how he would get 
 away, and for a moment expected her to inquire. She 
 didn t, for which he was almost grateful to her, so little 
 was he in a position to tell. 
 
 "You won t, you know you won t you re too inter 
 ested, " she said. " You are interested, you know you 
 are, you dear, kind man ! " She laughed, with almost 
 condemnatory archness, as if it were a reproach (but 
 she wouldn t insist), while she flirted a soiled pocket- 
 handkerchief at him. 
 
 Pemberton s mind was fully made up to quit the house 
 the following week. This would give him time to get an 
 answer to a letter he had despatched to England. If he 
 did nothing of the sort that is, if he stayed another 
 year and then went away only for three months it was 
 not merely because before the answer to his letter came 
 
142 THE PUPIL. 
 
 (most unsatisfactory when it did arrive), Mr. Moreen 
 generously presented him again with all the precau 
 tions of a man of the world three hundred francs. He 
 was exasperated to find that Mrs. Moreen was right, that 
 he couldn t bear to leave the child. This stood out 
 clearer for the very reason that, the night of his des 
 perate appeal to his patrons, he had seen fully for the 
 first time where he was. Wasn t it another proof of 
 the success with which those patrons practiced their arts 
 that they had managed to avert for so long the illumi 
 nating flash? It descended upon Pemberton with a lurid- 
 ness which perhaps would have struck a spectator as 
 comically excessive, after he had returned to his little 
 servile room, which looked into a close court where a 
 bare, dirty opposite wall took, with the sound of shrill 
 clatter, the reflection of lighted back-windows. He had 
 simply given himself away to a band of adventurers. 
 The idea, the word itself, had a sort of romantic horror 
 for him he had always lived on such safe lines. Later 
 it assumed a more interesting, almost a soothing, sense : 
 it pointed a moral, and Pemberton could enjoy a moral. 
 The Moreens were adventurers not merely because they 
 didn t pay their debts, because they lived on society, 
 but because their whole view of life, dim and confused 
 and instinctive, like that of clever colour-blind animals, 
 was speculative and rapacious and mean. Oh! they 
 were "respectable," and that only made them more im- 
 mondes. The young man s analysis of them put it at 
 last very simply they were adventurers because they 
 were abject snobs. That was the completest account of 
 them it was the law of their being. Even when this 
 truth became vivid to their ingenious inmate he re 
 mained unconscious of how much his mind had been 
 prepared for it by the extraordinary little boy who had 
 
THE PUPIL. 148 
 
 now become such a complication in his life. Much less 
 could he then calculate on the information he was still to 
 owe to the extraordinary little boy. 
 
 V. 
 
 BUT it was during the ensuing time that the real prob 
 lem came up the problem of how far it was excusable 
 to discuss the turpitude of parents with a child of 
 twelve, of thirteen, of fourteen. Absolutely inexcusable 
 and quite impossible it of course at first appeared; and 
 indeed the question didn t press for a while after Pem- 
 berton had received his three hundred francs. They 
 produced a sort of lull, a relief from the sharpest press 
 ure. Pemberton frugally amended his wardrobe and 
 even had a few francs in his pocket. He thought the 
 Moreens looked at him as if he were almost too smart, 
 as if they ought to take care not to spoil him. If Mr. 
 Moreen hadn t been such a man of the world he would 
 perhaps have said something to him about his neckties. 
 But Mr. Moreen was always enough a man of the world 
 to let things pass he had certainly shown that. It was 
 singular how Pemberton guessed that Morgan, though 
 saying nothing about it, knew something had happened. 
 But three hundred francs, especially when one owed 
 money, couldn t last for ever; and when they were gone 
 the boy knew when they were gone Morgan did say 
 something.- The party had returned to Nice at the 
 beginning of the winter, but not to the charming villa. 
 They went to an hotel, where they stayed three months, 
 and then they went to another hotel, explaining that 
 they had left the first because they had waited and 
 waited and couldn t get the rooms they wanted. These 
 apartments, the rooms they wanted, were generally very 
 
144 THE PUPIL. 
 
 splendid; but fortunately they never could get them 
 fortunately, I mean, for Pemberton, who reflected always 
 that if they had got them there would have been still 
 less for educational expenses. What Morgan said at 
 last was said suddenly, irrelevantly, when the moment 
 came, in the middle of a lesson, and consisted of the 
 apparently unfeeling words : " You ought to filer, you 
 know you really ought. " 
 
 Pemberton stared. He had learnt enough French 
 slang from Morgan to know that to filer meant to go 
 away. "Ah, my dear fellow, don t turn me off! " 
 
 Morgan pulled a Greek lexicon toward him (he used a 
 Greek-German), to look out a word, instead of asking it 
 of Pemberton. "You can t go on like this, you know." 
 
 "Like what, my boy?" 
 
 "You know they don t pay you up," said Morgan, 
 blushing and turning his leaves. 
 
 " Don t pay me ? " Pemberton stared again and feigned 
 amazement. "What on earth put that into your head? " 
 
 "It has been there a long time," the boy replied, con 
 tinuing his search. 
 
 Pemberton was silent, then he went on : "I say, what 
 are you hunting for ? They pay me beautifully." 
 
 "I m hunting for the Greek for transparent fiction," 
 Morgan dropped. 
 
 " Find that rather for gross impertinence, and disabuse 
 your mind. What do I want of money?" 
 
 "Oh, that s another question!" 
 
 Pemberton hesitated he was drawn in different ways. 
 The severely correct thing would have been to tell the 
 boy that such a matter was none of his business and bid 
 him go on with his lines. But they were really too 
 intimate for that; it was not the way he was in the habit 
 of treating him; there had been no reason it should be. 
 
THE PUPIL. 145 
 
 On the other hand Morgan had quite lighted on the truth 
 
 he really shouldn t be able to keep it up much longer; 
 therefore why not let him know one s real motive for 
 forsaking him? At the same time it wasn t decent to 
 abuse to one s pupil the family of one s pupil; it was 
 better to misrepresent than to do that. So in reply to 
 Morgan s last exclamation he just declared, to dismiss 
 the subject, that he had received several payments. 
 
 " I say I say ! " the boy ejaculated, laughing. 
 
 "That s all right," Pemberton insisted. "Give me 
 your written rendering." 
 
 Morgan pushed a copybook across the table, and his 
 companion began to read the page, but with something 
 running in his head that made it no sense. Looking up 
 after a minute or two he found the child s eyes fixed 
 on him, and he saw something strange in them. Then 
 Morgan said: "I m not afraid of the reality." 
 
 "I haven t yet seen the thing that you are afraid of 
 
 I ll do you that justice ! " 
 
 This came out with a jump (it was perfectly true), and 
 evidently gave Morgan pleasure. "I ve thought of it 
 a long time," he presently resumed. 
 
 "Well, don t think of it any more." 
 
 The child appeared to comply, and they had a comfort 
 able and even an amusing hour. They had a theory that 
 they were very thorough, and yet they seemed always to 
 be in the amusing part of lessons, the intervals between 
 the tunnels, where there were waysides and views. Yet 
 the morning was brought to a violent end by Morgan s 
 suddenly leaning his arms on the table, burying his head 
 in them and bursting into tears. Pemberton would have 
 been startled at any rate; but he was doubly startled 
 because, as it then occurred to him, it was the first time 
 he had ever seen the boy cry. It was rather awful. 
 
 k 
 
146 THE PUPIL. 
 
 The next day, after much thought, he took a decision 
 and, believing it to be just, immediately acted upon it. 
 He cornered Mr. and Mrs. Moreen again and informed 
 them that if, on the spot, they didn t pay him all they 
 owed him, he would not only leave their house, but would 
 tell Morgan exactly what had brought him to it. 
 
 "Oh, you haven t told him?" cried Mrs. Moreen, with 
 a pacifying hand on her well-dressed bosom. 
 
 "Without warning you? For what do you take me?" 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Moreen looked at each other, and Pem- 
 berton could see both that they were relieved and that 
 there was a certain alarm in their relief. "My dear 
 fellow," Mr. Moreen demanded, "what use can you 
 have, leading the quiet life we all do, for such a lot of 
 money?" an inquiry to which Pemberton made no 
 answer, occupied as he was in perceiving that what 
 passed in the mind of his patrons was something like : 
 "Oh, then, if we ve felt that the child, dear little angel, 
 has judged us and how he regards us, and we haven t 
 been betrayed, lie must have guessed and, in short, 
 it s general!" an idea that rather stirred up Mr. and 
 Mrs. Moreen, as Pemberton had desired that it should. 
 At the same time, if he had thought that his threat 
 would do something towards bringing them round, he 
 was disappointed to find they had taken for granted (how 
 little they appreciated his delicacy !) that he had already 
 given them away to his pupil. There was a mystic un 
 easiness in their parental breasts, and that was the way 
 they had accounted for it. None the less his threat did 
 touch them ; for if they had escaped it A\ r as only to meet 
 a new danger. Mr. Moreen appealed to Pemberton, as 
 usual, as a man of the world ; but his wife had recourse, 
 for the first time since the arrival of their inmate, to a 
 line hauteur, reminding him that a devoted mother, with 
 
THE PUPIL. 147 
 
 her child, had arts that protected her against gross mis 
 representation. 
 
 " I should misrepresent you grossly if I accused you 
 of common honesty ! " the young man replied ; but as he 
 closed the door behind him sharply, thinking he had not 
 done himself much good, while Mr. Moreen lighted 
 another cigarette, he heard Mrs. Moreen shout after 
 him, more touchingly: 
 
 "Oh, you do, you do, put the knife to one s throat! " 
 The next morning, very -early, she came to his room. 
 He recognised her knock, but he had no hope that she 
 brought him money; as to which he w r as wrong, for she 
 had fifty francs in her hand. She squeezed forward in 
 her dressing-gown, and he received her in his own, be 
 tween his bath-tub and his bed. He had been tolerably 
 schooled by this time to the " foreign ways " of his hosts. 
 Mrs. Moreen was zealous, and when she was zealous she 
 didn t care what she did ; so she now sat down on his 
 bed, his clothes being on the chairs, and, in her preoccu 
 pation, forgot, as she glanced round, to be ashamed of 
 giving him such a nasty room. What Mrs. Moreen was 
 zealous about on this occasion was to persuade him that 
 in the first place she was very good-natured to bring him 
 fifty francs, and, in the second, if he would only see it, 
 he was really too absurd to expect to be paid. Wasn t 
 he paid enough, without perpetual money wasn t he 
 paid by the comfortable, luxurious home that he enjoyed 
 with them all, without a care, an anxiety, a solitary 
 want? Wasn t he sure of his position, and wasn t that 
 everything to a young man like him, quite unknown, 
 with singularly little to show r , the ground of whose 
 exorbitant pretensions it was not easy to discover? 
 Wasn t he paid, above all, by the delightful relation he 
 had established with Morgan quite ideal, as from 
 
148 THE PUPIL. 
 
 master to pupil and by the simple privilege of know 
 ing and living with so amazingly gifted a child, than 
 whom really she meant literally what she said there 
 was no better company in Europe? Mrs Moreen herself 
 took to appealing to him as a man of the world; she 
 said " Voyons, mon cher," and "My dear sir, look here 
 now ; " and urged him to be reasonable, putting it before 
 him that it was really a chance for him. She spoke as 
 if, according as he should be reasonable, he would prove 
 himself worthy to be her son s tutor and of the extraor 
 dinary confidence they had placed in him. 
 
 After all, Pemberton reflected, it was only a difference 
 of theory, and the theory didn t matter much. They 
 had hitherto gone on that oi: remunerated, as now they 
 would go on that of gratuitous, service ; but why should 
 they have so many words about it? Mrs. Moreen, how 
 ever, continued to be convincing; sitting there with her 
 fifty francs she talked and repeated, as women repeat, 
 and bored and irritated him, while he leaned against the 
 wall with his hands in the pockets of his wrapper, 
 drawing it together round his legs and looking over the 
 head of his visitor at the grey negations of his window. 
 She wound up with saying: "You see I bring you a 
 definite proposal." 
 
 "A definite proposal?" 
 
 " To make our relations regular, as it were to put 
 them on a comfortable footing." 
 
 I S ee it s a system," said Pemberton. " A kind of 
 blackmail." 
 
 Mrs. Moreen bounded up, which was what the young 
 man wanted. 
 
 "What do you mean by that? " 
 
 "You practice on one s fears one s fears about the 
 child if one should go away." 
 
THE PUPIL. 149 
 
 " And, pray, what would happen to him in that event? " 
 demanded Mrs. Moreen, with majesty. 
 
 "Why, he d be alone with you" 
 
 "And pray, with whom should a child be but with 
 those whom he loves most? " 
 
 "If you think that, why don t you dismiss me?" 
 
 " Do you pretend that he loves you more than he loves 
 us?" cried Mrs. Moreen. 
 
 "I think he ought to. I make sacrifices for him. 
 Though I ve heard of those youmsike, I don t see them." 
 
 Mrs. Moreen stared a moment; then, with emotion, 
 she grasped Pemberton s hand. " Will you make it 
 the sacrifice ? " 
 
 Pemberton burst out laughing. "I ll see I ll do 
 what I can I ll stay a little longer. Your calculation 
 is just I do hate intensely to give him up; I m fond of 
 him and he interests me deeply, in spite of the incon 
 venience I suffer. You know my situation perfectly; I 
 haven t a penny in the world, and, occupied as I am with 
 Morgan, I m unable to earn money." 
 
 Mrs. Moreen tapped her undressed arm with her 
 folded bank-note. "Can t you write articles? Can t 
 you translate, as /do?" 
 
 "I don t know about translating; it s wretchedly 
 paid." 
 
 "I am glad to earn what I can," said Mrs. Moreen 
 virtuously, with her head high. 
 
 " You ought to tell me who you do it for." Pemberton 
 paused a moment, and she said nothing; so he added: 
 "I ve tried to turn off some little sketches, but the 
 magazines won t have them they re declined with 
 thanks." 
 
 " You see then you re not such a phoenix to have 
 such pretensions," smiled his interlocutress. 
 
150 THE PUPIL. 
 
 "I haven t time to do things properly," Pemberton 
 went on. Then as it came over him that he was almost 
 abjectly good-natured to give these explanations he 
 added : " If I stay on longer it must be on one condition 
 that Morgan shall know distinctly on what footing I 
 am." 
 
 Mrs. Moreen hesitated. " Surely you don t want to 
 show off to a child? " 
 
 "To show you off, do you mean? 
 
 Again Mrs. Moreen hesitated, but this time it was to 
 produce a still finer flower. "And you talk of black 
 mail!" 
 
 "You can easily prevent it," said Pemberton. 
 
 "And you talk of practicing on fears," Mrs. Moreen 
 continued. 
 
 "Yes, there s no doubt I m a great scoundrel." 
 
 His visitor looked at him a moment it was evident 
 that she was sorely bothered. Then she thrust out her 
 money at him. " Mr. Moreen desired me to give you 
 this on account." 
 
 "I m much obliged to Mr. Moreen; but we have no 
 account." 
 
 "You won t take it?" 
 
 "That leaves me more free," said Pemberton. 
 
 " To poison my darling s mind? " groaned Mrs. Moreen. 
 
 "Oh, your darling s mind! " laughed the young man. 
 
 She fixed him a moment, and he thought she was going 
 to break out tormentedly 5 pleadingly. "For God s sake, 
 tell me what is in it! " But she checked this impulse 
 another was stronger. She pocketed the money the 
 crudity of the alternative was comical and swept out 
 of the room with the desperate concession : " You may 
 tell him any horror you like ! " 
 
THE PUPIL. 151 
 
 VI. 
 
 A COUPLE of days after this, during which Pemberton 
 had delayed to profit by Mrs. Moreen s permission to 
 tell her son any horror, the two had been for a quarter 
 of an hour walking together in silence when the boy 
 became sociable again with the remark: "I ll tell you 
 how I know it; I know it through Zenobie." 
 
 " Zenobie? Who in the world is she?" 
 
 " A nurse I used to have ever so many years ago. 
 A charming woman. I liked her awfully, and she liked 
 me." 
 
 "There s no accounting for tastes. What is it you 
 know through her ? " 
 
 "Why, what their idea is. She went away because 
 they didn t pay her. She did like me awfully, and she 
 stayed two years. She told me all about it that at 
 last she could never get her wages. As soon as they saw 
 how much she liked me they stopped giving her any 
 thing. They thought she d stay for nothing, out of de 
 votion. And she did stay ever so long as long as she 
 could. She was only a poor girl. She used to send 
 money to her mother. At last she couldn t afford it any 
 longer, and she went away in a fearful rage one night 
 I mean of course in a rage against them. She cried over 
 me tremendously, she hugged me nearly to death. She 
 told me all about it," Morgan repeated. "She told me 
 it was their idea. So I guessed, ever so long ago, that 
 they have had the same idea with you." 
 
 "Zenobie was very shrewd," said Pemberton. "And 
 she made you so." 
 
 "Oh, that wasn t Zenobie; that was nature. And ex 
 perience!" Morgan laughed. 
 
 "Well, Zenobie was a part of your experience." 
 
152 THE PUPIL. 
 
 "Certainly I was a part of hers, poor dear! " the boy 
 exclaimed. "And I m a part of yours." 
 
 " A very important part. But I don t see how you 
 know that I ve been treated like Zenobie." 
 
 "Do you take me for an idiot?" Morgan asked. 
 " Haven t I been conscious of what we ve been through 
 together?" 
 
 "What we ve been through?" 
 
 "Our privations our dark days." 
 
 "Oh, our days have been bright enough." 
 
 Morgan went on in silence for a moment. Then he 
 said: "My dear fellow, you re a hero! " 
 
 "Well, you re another !" Pemberton retorted. 
 
 "No, I m not; but I m not a baby. I won t stand it 
 any longer. You must get some occupation that pays. 
 I m ashamed, I m ashamed! " quavered the boy in a lit 
 tle passionate voice that was very touching to Pember 
 ton. 
 
 "We ought to go off and live somewhere together," 
 said the young man. 
 
 "I ll go like a shot if you ll take me." 
 
 "I d get some work that would keep us both afloat," 
 Pemberton continued. 
 
 "So would I. Why shouldn t /work? I ain t such 
 a cretin ! " 
 
 " The difficulty is that your parents wouldn t hear of 
 it," said Pemberton. "They would never part with 
 you; they worship the ground you tread on. Don t you 
 see the proof of it? They don t dislike me; they wish 
 me no harm; they re very amiable people; but they re 
 perfectly ready to treat me badly for your sake." 
 
 The silence in which Morgan received this graceful 
 sophistry struck Pemberton somehow as expressive. 
 After a moment Morgan repeated : " You are a hero ! " 
 
THE PUPIL. 153 
 
 Then he added : " They leave me with you altogether. 
 You ve all the responsibility. They put me off on you 
 from morning till night. Why, then, should they object 
 to my taking up with you completely? I d help you." 
 
 " They re not particularly keen about my being helped, 
 and they delight in thinking of you as theirs. They re 
 tremendously proud of you." 
 
 " I m not proud of them. But you know that," Morgan 
 returned. 
 
 "Except for the little matter we speak of they re 
 charming people," said Pemberton, not taking up the 
 imputation of lucidity, but wondering greatly at the 
 child s own, and especially at this fresh reminder of 
 something he had been conscious of from the lirst the 
 strangest thing in the boy s large little composition, a 
 temper, a sensibility, even a sort of ideal, which made 
 him privately resent the general quality of his kinsfolk. 
 Morgan had in secret a small loftiness which begot an 
 element of reflection, a domestic scorn not imperceptible 
 to his companion (though they never had any talk about 
 it), and absolutely anomalous in a juvenile nature, espe 
 cially when one noted that it had not made this nature 
 "old-fashioned," as the word is of children quaint or 
 wizened or offensive. It was as if he had been a little 
 gentleman and had paid the penalty by discovering that 
 he was the only such person in the family. This com 
 parison didn t make him vain; but it could make him 
 melancholy and a trifle austere. When Pemberton 
 guessed at these young dimnesses he saw him serious 
 and gallant, and was partly drawn on and partly checked, 
 as if with a scruple, by the charm of attempting to sound 
 the little cool shallows which were quickly growing 
 deeper. When he tried to figure to himself the morn 
 ing twilight of childhood, so as to deal with it safely, he 
 
154 THE PUPIL. 
 
 perceived that it was never fixed, never arrested, that 
 ignorance, at the instant one touched it, was already 
 flushing faintly into knowledge, that there was nothing 
 that at a given moment you could say a clever child 
 didn t know. It seemed to him that he both knew too 
 much to imagine Morgan s simplicity and too little to 
 disembroil his tangle. 
 
 The boy paid no heed to his last remark ; he only went 
 on : "I should have spoken to them about their idea, as 
 I call it, long ago, if I hadn t been sure what they would 
 say." 
 
 "And what would they say?" 
 
 " Just what they said about what poor Zenobie told 
 me that it was a horrid, dreadful story, that they had 
 paid her every penny they owed her. " 
 
 "Well, perhaps they had," said Pemberton. 
 
 "Perhaps they ve paid you! " 
 
 "Let us pretend they have, and n en parlons plus." 
 
 "They accused her of lying and cheating," Morgan 
 insisted perversely. " That s why I don t want to speak 
 to them." 
 
 "Lest they should accuse me, too?" 
 
 To this Morgan made no answer, and his companion, 
 looking down at him (the boy turned his eyes, which had 
 filled, away), saw that he couldn t have trusted himself 
 to utter. 
 
 " You re right. Don t squeeze them," Pemberton pur 
 sued. "Except for that, they are charming people." 
 
 "Except for their lying and their cheating?" 
 
 " I say I say ! " cried Pemberton, imitating a little 
 tone of the lad s which was itself an imitation. 
 
 "We must be frank, at the last; we must come to an 
 understanding," said Morgan, with the importance of 
 the small boy who lets himself think he is arranging 
 
THE PUPIL. 155 
 
 great affairs almost playing at shipwreck or at Indians. 
 I know all about everything," he added. 
 
 I daresay your father has his reasons," Pemberton 
 observed, too vaguely, as he was aware. 
 
 For lying and cheating? " 
 
 " For saving and managing Mid turning his means to 
 the best account. He has plenty to do with his money. 
 You re an expensive family." 
 
 "Yes, I m very expensive," Morgan rejoined, in a 
 manner which made his preceptor burst out laughing. 
 
 " He s saving for you," said Pemberton. " They think 
 of you in everything they do." 
 
 He might save a little The boy paused. 
 
 Pemberton waited to hear what. Then Morgan brought 
 out oddly: "A little reputation." 
 
 " Oh, there s plenty of that. That s all right! " 
 
 " Enough of it for the people they know, no doubt. 
 The people they know are awful." 
 
 " Do you mean the princes? We mustn t abuse the 
 princes." 
 
 "Why not? They haven t married Paula they 
 haven t married Amy. They only clean out Ulick." 
 
 "You do know everything! " Pembertoii exclaimed. 
 
 "Xo, I don t, after all. I don t know what they live 
 on, or how they live, or wliy they live ! What have they 
 got and how did they get it? Are they rich, are they 
 poor, or have they a modeste aisance? Why are they 
 always chiveying about living one year like ambassa 
 dors and the next like paupers? Who are they, any 
 way, and what are they? I ve thought of all that 
 I ve thought of a lot of things. They re so beastly 
 worldly. That s what I hate most oh, I ve seen it! 
 All they care about is to make an appearance and to pass 
 for something or other. What do they want to pass for? 
 What do they, Mr. Pemberton?" 
 
156 THE PUPIL. 
 
 " You pause for a reply, " said Pemberton, treating the 
 inquiry as a joke, yet wondering too, and greatly struck 
 with the boy s intense, if imperfect, vision. "I haven t 
 the least idea." 
 
 "And what good does it do? Haven t I seen the way 
 people treat them the "nice" people, the ones they 
 want to know? They ll take anything from them 
 they ll lie down and be trampled on. The nice ones 
 hate that they just sicken them. You re the only 
 really nice person we know." 
 
 "Are you sure? They don t lie down for me! " 
 
 "Well, you shan t lie down for them. You ve got to 
 go that s what you ve got to do," said Morgan. 
 
 " And what will become of you? " 
 
 " Oh, I m growing up. I shall get off before long. 
 I ll see you later." 
 
 "You had better let me finish you," Pemberton urged, 
 lending himself to the child s extraordinarily competent 
 attitude. 
 
 Morgan stopped in their walk, looking up at him. He 
 had to look up much less than a couple of years before 
 he had grown, in his loose leanness, so long and high. 
 "Finish me?" he echoed. 
 
 "There are such a lot of jolly things we can do to 
 gether yet. I want to turn you out I want you to do 
 me credit." 
 
 Morgan continued to look at him. "To give you 
 credit do you mean? " 
 
 "My dear fellow, you re too clever to live." 
 
 " That s just what I m afraid you think. No, no; it 
 isn t fair I can t endure it. We ll part next week. 
 The sooner it s over the sooner to sleep." 
 
 "If I hear of anything any other chance, I promise 
 to go," said Pemberton. 
 
THE PUPIL. 157 
 
 Morgan consented to consider this. "But you ll be 
 honest/ he demanded; "you won t pretend you haven t 
 heard?" 
 
 "I m much more likely to pretend I have." 
 
 " But what can you hear of, this way, stuck in a hole 
 with us ? You ought to be on the spot, to go to England 
 you ought to go to America." 
 
 " One would think you were my tutor ! " said Pern- 
 be rt on. 
 
 Morgan walked on, and after a moment he began again : 
 " Well, now that you know that I know and that we look 
 at the facts and keep nothing back it s much more 
 comfortable, isn t it?" 
 
 " My dear boy, it s so amusing, so interesting, that it 
 surely will be quite impossible for me to forego such 
 hours as these." 
 
 This made Morgan stop once more. "You do keep 
 something back. Oh, you re not straight Jam ! " 
 
 "Why am I not straight?" 
 
 "Oh, you ve got your idea!" 
 
 "My idea?" 
 
 "Why, that I probably sha n t live, and that you can 
 stick it out till I m removed." 
 
 " You are too clever to live ! " Pemberton repeated. 
 
 "I call it a mean idea," Morgan pursued. "But I 
 shall punish you by the way I hang on." 
 
 "Look out or I ll poison you!" Pemberton laughed. 
 
 "I m stronger and better every year. Haven t you 
 noticed that there hasn t been a doctor near me since 
 you came?" 
 
 "I m your doctor," said the young man, taking his 
 arm and drawing him on again. 
 
 Morgan proceeded, and after a few steps he gave a 
 sigh of mingled weariness and relief. " Ah, now that we 
 look at the facts, it s all right! " 
 
158 THE PUPIL. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THEY looked at the facts a good deal after this; and 
 one of the first consequences of their doing so was that 
 Peinbertoii stuck it out, as it were, for the purpose. 
 Morgan made the facts so vivid and so droll, and at the 
 same time so bald and so ugly, that there was fascina 
 tion in talking them over with him, just as there would 
 have been heartlessness in leaving him alone with them. 
 Xow that they had such a number of perceptions in com 
 mon it was useless for the pair to pretend that they 
 didn t judge such people ; but the very judgment, and the 
 exchange of perceptions, created another tie. Morgan 
 had never been so interesting as now that he himself 
 was made plainer by the sidelight of these confidences. 
 What came out in it most was the soreness of his charac 
 teristic pride. He had plenty of that, Peinbertoii felt 
 so much that it was perhaps well it should have had 
 to take some early bruises. He would have liked his 
 people to be gallant, and he had waked up too soon to 
 the sense that they were perpetually swallowing humble- 
 pie. His mother would consume any amount, and his 
 father would consume even more than his mother. He 
 had a theory that Ulick had wriggled out of an " affair " 
 at Xice : there had once been a flurry at home, a regular 
 panic, after which they all went to bed and took medi 
 cine, not to be accounted for on any other supposition. 
 Morgan had a romantic imagination, fed by poetry and 
 history, and he would have liked those who "bore his 
 name " (as he used to say to Peinbertoii with the humour 
 that made his sensitiveness manly), to have a proper 
 spirit. But their one idea was to get in with people 
 who didn t want them and to take snubs as if they were 
 honourable scars. Why people didn t want them more 
 
THE PUPIL. 159 
 
 he didn t know that was people s own affair; after all 
 they were not superficially repulsive they were a 
 hundred times cleverer than most of the dreary grandees, 
 the " poor swells " they rushed about Europe to catch up 
 with. "After all, they are amusing they are!" Mor 
 gan used to say, with the wisdom of the ages. To 
 which Pemberton always replied: "Amusing the great 
 Moreen troupe? Why, they re altogether delightful; 
 and if it were not for the hitch that you and I (feeble 
 performers!) make in the ensemble, they would carry 
 everything before them." 
 
 What the boy couldn t get over was that this particu 
 lar blight seemed, in a tradition of self-respect, so unde 
 served and so arbitrary. No doubt people had a right 
 to take the line they liked; but why should his people 
 have liked the line of pushing and toadying and lying 
 and cheating? What had their forefathers all decent 
 folk, so far as he knew done to them, or what had he 
 done to them? Who had poisoned their blood with the 
 fifth -rate social ideal, the fixed idea of making smart 
 acquaintances and getting into the monde chic, especially 
 when it was foredoomed to failure and exposure? They 
 showed so what they were after; that was what made 
 the people they wanted not want them. And never a 
 movement of dignity, never a throb of shame at looking 
 each other in the face, never any independence or resent 
 ment or disgust. If his father or his brother would only 
 knock some one down once or twice a year! Clever as 
 they were they never guessed how they appeared. They 
 were good-natured, yes as good-natured as Jews at the 
 doors of clothing-shops! But was that the model one 
 wanted one s family to follow? Morgan had dim mem 
 ories of an old grandfather, the maternal, in New York, 
 whom he had been taken across the ocean to see, at the 
 
160 THE PUPIL. 
 
 age of five : a gentleman with a high neckcloth and a 
 good deal of pronunciation, who wore a dress-coat in the 
 morning, which made one wonder what he wore in the 
 evening, and had, or was supposed to have, " property " 
 and something to do with the Bible Society. It couldn t 
 have been but that he was a good type. Pemberton him 
 self remembered Mrs. Clancy, a widowed sister of Mr. 
 Moreen s, who was as irritating as a moral tale and had 
 paid a fortnight s visit to the family at Nice shortly 
 after he came to live with them. She was " pure and re 
 fined," as Amy said, over the banjo, and had the air of 
 not knowing what they meant and of keeping something 
 back. Pemberton judged that what she kept back was 
 an approval of many of their ways ; therefore it was to 
 be supposed that she too was of a good type, and that 
 Mr. and Mrs. Moreen and Ulick and Paula and Amy 
 might easily have been better if they would. 
 
 But that they wouldn t was more and more perceptible 
 from day to day. They continued to "chivey," as Mor 
 gan called it, and in due time became aware of a variety 
 of reasons for proceeding to Venice. They mentioned a 
 great many of them they were always strikingly frank, 
 and had the brightest friendly chatter, at the late foreign 
 breakfast in especial, before the ladies had made up 
 their faces, when they leaned their arms on the table, had 
 something to follow the demi-tasse, and, in the heat of 
 familiar discussion as to what they "really ought" to do, 
 fell inevitably into the languages in which they could 
 tutoyer. Even Pemberton liked them, then ; he could en 
 dure even Ulick when he heard him give his little flat 
 voice for the " sweet sea-city." That was what made him 
 have a sneaking kindness for them that they were so 
 out of the workaday world and kept him so out of it. 
 The summer had waned when, with cries of ecstasy, they 
 
THE PUPIL. 161 
 
 all passed out on the balcony that overhung the Grand 
 Canal; the sunsets were splendid the Dorringtons had 
 arrived. The Dorringtons were the only reason they 
 had not talked of at breakfast ; but the reasons that they 
 didn t talk of at breakfast always came out in the end. 
 The Dorringtons, on the other hand, came out very lit 
 tle ; or else, when they did, they stayed as was natural 
 
 for hours, during which periods Mrs. Moreen and the 
 girls sometimes called at their hotel (to see if they had 
 returned) as many as three times running. The gondola 
 was for the ladies; for in Venice too there were "days," 
 which Mrs. Moreen knew in their order an hour after 
 she arrived. She immediately took one herself, to which 
 the Dorringtons never came, though on a certain occasion 
 when Pemberton and his pupil were together at St. Mark s 
 
 where, taking the best walks they had ever had and 
 haunting a hundred churches, they spent a great deal of 
 time they saw the old lord turn up with Mr. Moreen 
 and Ulick, who showed him the dim basilica as if it be 
 longed to them. Pemberton noted how much less, 
 among its curiosities, Lord Dorrington carried himself 
 as a man of the world ; wondering too whether, for such 
 services, his companions took a fee from him. The 
 autumn, at any rate, waned, the Dorringtons departed, 
 and Lord A r erschoyle, the eldest son, had proposed 
 neither for Amy nor for Paula. 
 
 One sad November day, while the wind roared round 
 the old palace and the rain lashed the lagoon, Pemberton, 
 for exercise and even somewhat for warmth (the Moreens 
 were horribly frugal about fires it was a cause of suf 
 fering to their inmate), walked up and down the big bare 
 sala with his pupil. The scagliola floor was cold, the 
 high battered casements shook in the storm, and the 
 stately decay of the place was unrelieved by a particle 
 
 L 
 
162 THE PUPIL. 
 
 of furniture. Pemberton s spirits were low, and it came 
 over him that the fortune of the Moreens was now even 
 lower. A blast of desolation, a prophecy of disaster 
 and disgrace, seemed to draw through the comfortless 
 hall. Mr. Moreen and Ulick were in the Piazza, looking 
 out for something, strolling drearily, in mackintoshes, 
 under the arcades; but still, in spite of mackintoshes, 
 unmistakable men of the world. Paula and Amy were 
 in bed it might have been thought they were staying 
 there to keep warm. Pemberton looked askance at the 
 boy at his side, to see to what extent he was conscious 
 of these portents. But Morgan, luckily for him, was 
 now mainly conscious of growing taller and stronger 
 and indeed of being in his fifteenth year. This fact was 
 intensely interesting to him it was the basis of a pri 
 vate theory (which, however, he had imparted to his 
 tutor) that in a little while he should stand on his own 
 feet. He considered that the situation would change 
 that, in short, he should be "finished," grownup, produ 
 cible in the world of affairs and ready to prove himself 
 of sterling ability. Sharply as he was capable, at times, 
 of questioning his circumstances, there were happy hours 
 when he was as superficial as a child; the proof of 
 which was his fundamental assumption that he should 
 presently go to Oxford, to Pemberton s college, and, 
 aided and abetted by Pemberton, do the most wonderful 
 things. It vexed Pemberton to see how little, in such a 
 project, he took account of ways and means : on other 
 matters he was so sceptical about them. Pemberton tried 
 to imagine the Moreens at Oxford, and fortunately failed; 
 yet unless they were to remove there as a family there 
 would be no modus vivendi for Morgan. How could he 
 live without an allowance, and where was the allowance 
 to come from? He (Pemberton) might live on Morgan; 
 
THE PUPIL. 163 
 
 but how could Morgan live on him? What was to become 
 of him anyhow? Somehow, the fact that he was a big 
 boy now, with better prospects of health, made the 
 question of his future more difficult. So long as he was 
 frail the consideration that he inspired seemed enough 
 of an answer to it. I>ut at the bottom of Pemberton s 
 heart was the recognition of his probably being strong 
 enough to live and not strong enough to thrive. He him 
 self, at any rate, was in a period of natural, boyish 
 rosiness about all this, so that the beating of the tem 
 pest seemed to him only the voice of life and the chal 
 lenge of fate. He had on his shabby little overcoat, 
 with the collar up, but he was enjoying his walk. 
 
 It was interrupted at last by the appearance of his 
 mother at the end of the sala. She beckoned to Morgan 
 to come to her, and while Pemberton saw him, compla 
 cent, pass down the long vista, over the damp false 
 marble, he wondered what was in the air. Mrs. Moreen 
 said a word to the boy and made him go into the room 
 she had quitted. Then, having closed the door after 
 him, she directed her steps swiftly to Pemberton. There 
 ivas something in the air, but his wildest flight of fancy 
 wouldn t have suggested what it proved to be. She 
 signified that she had made a pretext to get Morgan out 
 of the way, and then she inquired without hesitation 
 if the young man could lend her sixty francs. While, 
 before bursting into a laugh, he stared at her with sur 
 prise, she declared that she was awfully pressed for the 
 money; she was desperate for it it would save her life. 
 
 "Dear lady, c est trop fort!" Pemberton laughed. 
 " Where in the world do you suppose I should get sixty 
 francs, du train clont vous allez?" 
 
 " I thought you worked wrote things ; don t they 
 pay you?" 
 
164 THE PUPIL. 
 
 ":N T otapenny." 
 
 "Are you such a fool as to work for nothing? " 
 
 "You ought surely to know that." 
 
 Mrs. Moreen stared an instant, then she coloured a 
 little. Pemberton saw she had quite forgotten the 
 terms if " terms " they could be called that he had 
 ended by accepting from herself; they had burdened her 
 memory as little as her conscience. "Oh, yes, I see 
 what you mean you have been very nice about that; 
 but why go back to it so often? " She had been perfectly 
 urbane with him ever since the rough scene of explana 
 tion in his room, the morning he made her accept his 
 "terms" the necessity of his making his case known 
 to Morgan. She had felt no resentment, after seeing 
 that there was no danger of Morgan s taking the matter 
 up with her. Indeed, attributing this immunity to the 
 good taste of his influence with the boy, she had once 
 said to Pemberton: " My dear fellow ; it s an immense 
 comfort you re a gentleman." She repeated this, in 
 substance, now. "Of course you re a gentleman 
 that s a bother the less! " Pemberton reminded her that 
 he had not "gone back" to anything; and she also re 
 peated her prayer that, somewhere and somehow, he 
 would find her sixty francs. He took the liberty of 
 declaring that if he could find them it wouldn t be to 
 lend them to her as to which he consciously did himself 
 injustice, knowing that if he had them he would cer 
 tainly place them in her hand. He accused himself, at 
 bottom and with some truth, of a fantastic, demoralised 
 sympathy with her. If misery made strange bedfellows 
 it also made strange sentiments. It was moreover a part 
 of the demoralisation and of the general bad effect of 
 living with such people that one had to make rough 
 retorts, quite out of the tradition of good manners. 
 
THE PUPIL. 165 
 
 " Morgan, Morgan, to what pass have I come for you? " 
 he privately exclaimed, while Mrs. Moreen floated volu 
 minously down the sala again, to liberate the boy; 
 groaning, as she went, that everything was too odious. 
 
 Before the boy was liberated there came a thump at 
 the door communicating with the staircase, followed by 
 the apparition of a dripping youth who poked in his 
 head. Pemberton recognised him as the bearer of a 
 telegram and recognised the telegram as addressed to 
 himself. Morgan came back as, after glancing at the 
 signature (that of a friend in London), he was reading 
 the words : * Found jolly job for you engagement to 
 coach opulent youth on own terms. Come immediately." 
 The answer, happily, was paid, and the messenger 
 waited. Morgan, who had drawn near, waited too, and 
 looked hard at Pemberton ; and Pemberton, after a mo 
 ment, having met his look, handed him the telegram. 
 It was really by wise looks (they knew each other so 
 well), that, while the telegraph -boy, in his waterproof 
 cape, made a great puddle on the floor, the thing was 
 settled between them. Pemberton .wrote the answer with 
 a pencil against the frescoed wall, and the messenger 
 departed. When he had gone Pemberton said to 
 Morgan : 
 
 "I ll make a tremendous charge; I ll earn a lot of 
 money in a short time, and we ll live on it." 
 
 " Well, I hope the opulent youth will be stupid he 
 probably will " Morgan parenthesised, " and keep you 
 a long time." 
 
 " Of course, the longer he keeps me the more we shall 
 have for our old age." 
 
 " But suppose they don t pay you ! " Morgan awfully 
 suggested. 
 
 " Oh, there are not two such ! " Pemberton paused, 
 
166 THE PUPIL. 
 
 he was on the point of using an invidious term. Instead 
 of this he said "two such chances." 
 
 Morgan flushed the tears came to his eyes. " Dites 
 toujours, two such rascally crews! " Then, in a different 
 tone, he added: "Happy opulent youth! " 
 
 "Not if he s stupid!" 
 
 " Oh, they re happier then. But you can t have every 
 thing, can you? " the boy smiled. 
 
 Pemberton held him, his hands on his shoulders. 
 "What will become of you, what will you do?" He 
 thought of Mrs. Moreen, desperate for sixty francs. 
 
 "I shall turn into a man." And then, as if he recog 
 nised all the bearings of Pemberton s allusion: "I shall 
 get on with them better when you re not here." 
 
 "Ah, don t say that it sounds as if I set you against 
 them ! " 
 
 "You do the sight of you. It s all right; you know 
 what I mean. I shall be beautiful. I ll take their 
 affairs in hand; I ll marry my sisters." 
 
 "You ll marry yourself!" joked Pemberton; as high, 
 rather tense pleasantry would evidently be the right, or 
 the safest, tone for their separation. 
 
 It was, however, not purely in this strain that Morgan 
 suddenly asked : " But I say how will you get to your 
 jolly job? You ll have to telegraph to the opulent youth 
 for money to come on." 
 
 Pemberton bethought himself. " They won t like that, 
 will they?" 
 
 "Oh, look out for them!" 
 
 Then Pemberton brought out his remedy. "I ll go to 
 the American Consul; I ll borrow some money of him 
 just for the few days, on the strength of the telegram." 
 
 Morgan was hilarious. "Show him the telegram 
 then stay and keep the money ! " 
 
THE PUPIL. 167 
 
 Pemberton entered into the joke enough to reply that, 
 for Morgan, he was really capable of that ; but the boy, 
 growing more serious, and to prove that he hadn t meant 
 what he said, not only hurried him off to the Consulate 
 (since he was to start that evening, as he had wired to 
 his friend), but insisted on going with him. They 
 splashed throng] i the tortuous perforations and over the 
 humpbacked bridges, and they passed through the Piazza, 
 where they saw Mr. Moreen and Ulick go into a jeweller s 
 shop. The Consul proved accommodating (Pemberton 
 said it wasn t the letter, but Morgan s grand air), and on 
 their way back they went into St. Mark s for a hushed 
 ten minutes. Later they took up and kept up the fun 
 of it to the very end ; and it seemed to Pemberton a part 
 of that fun tha,t Mrs. Moreen, who was very angry when 
 he had announced to her his intention, should charge 
 him, grotesquely and vulgarly, and in reference to the 
 loan she had vainly endeavoured to effect, with bolting 
 lest they should "get something out" of him. On the 
 other hand he had to do Mr. Moreen and Ulick the jus 
 tice to recognise that when, on coming in, they heard the 
 cruel news, they took it like perfect men of the world. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 WHEN Pemberton got at work with the opulent youth, 
 who was to be taken in hand for Balliol, he found him 
 self unable to say whether he was really an idiot or it 
 was only, on his own part, the long association with an 
 intensely living little mind that made him seem so. 
 From Morgan he heard half-a-dozen times : the boy wrote 
 charming young letters, a patchwork of tongues, with 
 indulgent postscripts in the family Volapuk and, in little 
 squares and rounds and crannies of the text, the drollest 
 
168 THE PUPIL. 
 
 illustrations letters that he was divided between the 
 impulse to show his present disciple, as a kind of wasted 
 incentive, and the sense of something in them that was 
 profanable by publicity. The opulent youth went up, 
 in due course, and failed to pass ; but it seemed to add 
 to the presumption that brilliancy was not expected of 
 him all at once that his parents, condoning the lapse, 
 which they good-naturedly treated as little as possible 
 as if were Pemberton s, should have sounded the rally 
 again, begged the young coach to keep his pupil in hand 
 another year. 
 
 The young coach was now in a position to lend Mrs. 
 Moreen sixty francs, and he sent her a post-office order 
 for the amount. In return for this favour he received a 
 frantic, scribbled line from her : "Implore you to come 
 back instantly Morgan dreadfully ill. " They were on 
 the rebound, once more in Paris often as Pemberton 
 had seen them depressed he had never seen them crushed 
 and communication was therefore rapid. He wrote 
 to the boy to ascertain the state of his health, but he 
 received no answer to his letter. Accordingly he took 
 an abrupt leave of the opulent youth and, crossing the 
 Channel, alighted at the small hotel, in the quarter of 
 the Champs Ely sees, of which Mrs. Moreen had given 
 him the address. A deep if dumb dissatisfaction with 
 this lady and her companions bore him company : they 
 couldn t be vulgarly honest, but they could live at hotels, 
 in velvety entresols, amid a smell of burnt pastilles, in 
 the most expensive city in Europe. When he had left 
 them, in Venice, it was with an irrepressible suspicion 
 that something was going to happen; but the only thing 
 that had happened was that they succeeded in getting 
 away. "How is he? where is he? "he asked of Mrs. 
 Moreen; but before she could speak, these questions were 
 
THE PUPIL. 169 
 
 answered by the pressure round his neck of a pair of 
 arms, in shrunken sleeves, which were perfectly capable 
 of an effusive young foreign squeeze. 
 
 " Dreadfully ill I don t see it! " the young man cried. 
 And then, to Morgan: "Why on earth didn t you re 
 lieve me? Why didn t you answer my letter?" 
 
 Mrs. Moreen declared that when she wrote he was very 
 bad, and Pemberton learned at the same time from the 
 boy that he had answered every letter he had received. 
 This led to the demonstration that Pemberton s note had 
 been intercepted. Mrs. Moreen was prepared to see the 
 fact exposed, as Pemberton perceived, the moment he 
 faced her, that she was prepared for a good many other 
 things. She was prepared above all to maintain that she 
 had acted from a sense of duty, that she was enchanted 
 she had got him over, whatever they might say; and 
 that it was useless of him to pretend that he didn t 
 know, in all his bones, that his place at such a time was 
 with Morgan. He had taken the boy away from them, 
 and now he had no right to abandon him. He had 
 created for himself the gravest responsibilities; he must 
 at least abide by what he had done. 
 
 "Taken him away from you?" Pemberton exclaimed 
 indignantly. 
 
 " Do it do it, for pity s sake ; that s just what I want. 
 I can t stand this and such scenes. They re treacher 
 ous ! " These words broke from Morgan, who had inter 
 mitted his embrace, in a key which made Pemberton turn 
 quickly to him, to see that he had suddenly seated him 
 self, was breathing with evident difficulty and was very 
 pale. 
 
 "Now do you say he s not ill my precious pet?" 
 shouted his mother, dropping on her knees before him 
 with clasped hands, but touching him no more than if 
 
170 THE PUPIL. 
 
 he had been a gilded idol. " It will pass it s only for 
 an instant; but don t say such dreadful things! " 
 
 "I m all right all right," Morgan panted to Pem- 
 berton, whom he sat looking up at with a strange smile, 
 his hands resting on either side on the sofa. 
 
 "Xow do you pretend I ve been treacherous that 
 I ve deceived?" Mrs. Moreen flashed at Pemberton as 
 she got up. 
 
 "It isn t lie says it, it s I! " the boy returned, appar 
 ently easier, but sinking back against the wall; while 
 Pemberton, who had sat down beside him, taking his 
 hand, bent over him. 
 
 " Darling child, one does what one can ; there are so 
 many things to consider/ urged Mrs. Moreen. "It s 
 his place his only place. You see you think it is now." 
 
 "Take me away take me away," Morgan went on, 
 smiling to Pemberton from his white face. 
 
 "Where shall I take you, and how oh, hoic, my 
 boy?" the young man stammered, thinking of the rude 
 way in which his friends in London held that, for his 
 convenience, and without a pledge of instantaneous 
 return, he had thrown them over; of the just resentment 
 with which they would already have called in a successor, 
 and of the little help as regarded finding fresh employ 
 ment that resided for him in the flatness of his having 
 failed to pass his pupil. 
 
 "Oh, we ll settle that. You used to talk about it," 
 said Morgan. "If we can only go, all the rest s a 
 detail." 
 
 " Talk about it as much as you like, but don t think 
 you can attempt it. Mr. Moreen would never consent 
 it would be so precarious," Pemberton s hostess explained 
 to him. Then to Morgan she explained: "It would 
 destroy our peace, it would break our hearts. Now that 
 
THE PUPIL. 171 
 
 lie s back it will be all the same again. You ll have 
 your life, your work and your freedom, and we ll all be 
 happy as we used to be. You ll bloom and grow per 
 fectly well, and we won t have any more silly experi 
 ments, will we? They re too absurd. It s Mr. Pem- 
 berton s place every one in his place. You in yours, 
 your papa in his, me in mine n est-ce pas, cheri? We ll 
 all forget how foolish we ve been, and we ll have lovely 
 times." 
 
 She continued to talk and to surge vaguely about the 
 little draped, stuffy salon, while Pembertou sat with 
 the boy, whose colour gradually came back; and she 
 mixed up her reasons, dropping that there were going to 
 be changes, that the other children might scatter (who 
 knew? Paula Imd her ideas), and that then it might be 
 fancied how much the poor old parent-birds would want 
 the little nestling. .Morgan looked at Pemberton, who 
 wouldn t let him move; and Pemberton knew exactly 
 how he felt at hearing himself called a little nestling. 
 He admitted that he had had one or two bad days, but 
 he protested afresh against the iniquity of his mother s 
 having made them the ground of an appeal to poor Pem 
 berton. Poor Pemberton could laugh now, apart from 
 the comicality of Mrs. Moreen s producing so much 
 philosophy for her defence (she seeemd to shake it out 
 of her agitated petticoats, which knocked over the light 
 gilt chairs), so little did the sick boy strike him as qual 
 ified to repudiate any advantage. 
 
 He himself was in for it, at any rate. He should 
 have Morgan on his hands again indefinitely; though 
 indeed he saw the lad had a private theory to produce 
 which would be intended to smooth this down. He was 
 obliged to him for it in advance; but the suggested 
 amendment didn t keep his heart from sinking a little, 
 
172 THE PUPIL. 
 
 any more than it prevented him from accepting the 
 prospect on the spot, with some confidence moreover 
 that he would do so even better if he could have a little 
 supper. Mrs. Moreen threw out more hints about the 
 changes that were to be looked for, but she was such a 
 mixture of smiles and shudders (she confessed she was 
 very nervous), that he couldn t tell whether she were in 
 high feather or only in hysterics. If the family were 
 really at last going to pieces why shouldn t she recognise 
 the necessity of pitching Morgan into some sort of life 
 boat? This presumption was fostered by the fact that 
 they were established in luxurious quarters in the capi 
 tal of pleasure; that was exactly where they naturally 
 ivould be established in view of going to pieces. More 
 over didn t she mention that Mr. Moreen and the others 
 were enjoying themselves at the opera with Mr. Granger, 
 and wasn t that also precisely where one would look for 
 them on the eve of a smash? Pemberton gathered that 
 Mr. Granger was a rich, vacant American a big bill 
 with a nourishy heading and no items; so that one of 
 Paula s " ideas " was probably that this time she had 
 really done it, which was indeed an unprecedented blow 
 to the general cohesion. And if the cohesion was to 
 terminate what was to become of poor Pemberton? He 
 felt quite enough bound up with them to figure, to his 
 alarm, as a floating spar in case of a wreck. 
 
 It was Morgan who eventually asked if no supper had 
 been ordered for him; sitting with him below, later, at 
 the dim, delayed meal, in the presence of a great deal 
 of corded green plush, a plate of ornamental biscuit and 
 a languor marked on the part of the waiter. Mrs. 
 Moreen had explained that they had been obliged to 
 secure a room for the visitor out of the house; and Mor 
 gan s consolation (he offered it while Pemberton re- 
 
THE PUPIL. 173 
 
 fleeted on the nastiness of lukewarm sauces), proved to 
 be, largely, that this circumstance would facilitate their 
 escape. He talked of their escape (recurring to it often 
 afterwards), as if they were making up a "boy s book 5 
 together. But he likewise expressed his sense that there 
 was something in the air, that the Moreens couldn t keep 
 it up much longer. In point of fact, as Pemberton was 
 to see, they kept it up for five or six months. All the 
 while, however, Morgan s contention was designed to 
 cheer him. Mr. Moreen and Ulick, whom he had met 
 the day after his return, accepted that return like per 
 fect men of the world. If Paula and Amy treated it 
 even with less formality an allowance was to be made 
 for them, inasmuch as Mr. Granger had not come to the 
 opera after all. He had only placed his box at their 
 service, with a bouquet for each of the party; there was 
 even one apiece, embittering the thought of his profusion, 
 for Mr. Moreen and Ulick. "They re all like that," 
 was Morgan s comment; "at the very last, just when we 
 think we ve got them fast, we re chucked! " 
 
 Morgan s comments, in these days, were more and 
 more free ; they even included a large recognition of the 
 extraordinary tenderness with which he had been treated 
 while Pemberton was away. Oh, yes, they couldn t do 
 enough to be nice to him, to show him they had Mm on 
 their mind and make up for his loss. That was just 
 what made the whole thing so sad, and him so glad, after 
 all, of Pemberton s return he had to keep thinking of 
 their affection less, had less sense of obligation. Pem 
 berton laughed out at this last reason, and Morgan 
 blushed and said : " You know what I mean. " Pemberton 
 knew perfectly what he meant; but there were a good 
 many things it didn t make any clearer. This episode 
 of his second sojourn in Paris stretched itself out wea- 
 
174 THE PUPIL. 
 
 rily, with their resumed readings and wanderings and 
 maunderings, their potterings on the quays, their haunt- 
 ings of the museums, their occasional lingerings in the 
 Palais Royal, when the first sharp weather came on and 
 there was a comfort in warm emanations, before Chevet s 
 wonderful succulent window. Morgan wanted to hear 
 a great deal about the opulent youth he took an im 
 mense interest in him. Some of the details of his opu 
 lence Pemberton could spare him none of them evi 
 dently intensified the boy s appreciation of all his friend 
 had given up to come back to him; but in addition to the 
 greater reciprocity established by such a renunciation he 
 had always his little brooding theory, in which there 
 was a frivolous gaiety too, that their long probation was 
 drawing to a close. Morgan s conviction that the Moreens 
 couldn t go on much longer kept pace with the unex 
 pended impetus with which, from month to month, they 
 did go on. Three weeks after Pemberton had rejoined 
 them they went on to another hotel, a dingier one than 
 the first; but Morgan rejoiced that his tutor had at least 
 still not sacrificed the advantage of a room outside. He 
 clung to the "romantic utility of this when the day, or 
 rather the night, should arrive for their escape. 
 
 For the first time, in this complicated connection, 
 Pemberton felt sore and exasperated. It was, as he had 
 said to Mrs. Moreen in Venice, trop fort everything 
 was trop fort. He could neither really throw off his 
 blighting burden nor find in it the benefit of a pacified 
 conscience or of a rewarded affection. He had spent all 
 the money that he had earned in England, and lie felt- 
 that his youth was going and that he was getting nothing 
 back for it. It was all very well for Morgan to seem to 
 consider that he would make up to him for all inconven 
 iences by settling himself upon him permanently there 
 
THE PUPIL. 175 
 
 was an irritating flaw in such a view. He saw what the 
 boy had in his mind; the conception that as his friend 
 had had the generosity to come back to him he must 
 show his gratitude by giving him his life. But the poor 
 friend didn t desire the gift what could he do with 
 Morgan s life? Of course at the same time that Peni- 
 berton was irritated he remembered the reason, which 
 was very honourable to Morgan and which consisted sim 
 ply of the fact that he was perpetually making one 
 forget that he was after all only a child. If one dealt 
 witli him on a different basis one s misadventures were 
 one s own fault. So Pemberton waited in a queer con 
 fusion of yearning and alarm for the catastrophe which 
 was held to hang over the house of Moreen, of which he 
 certainly at moments felt the symptoms brush his cheek 
 and as to which he wondered much in what form it would 
 come. 
 
 Perhaps it would take the form of dispersal a fright 
 ened saure qui _?)?/, a scuttling into selfish corners. 
 Certainly they were less elastic than of yore ; they were 
 evidently looking for something they didn t find. The 
 Dorringtons hadn t reappeared, the princes had scat 
 tered; wasn t that the beginning of the end? Mrs. 
 Moreen had lost her reckoning of the famous "days;" 
 her social calendar was blurred it had turned its face 
 to the wall. Pemberton suspected that the great, the 
 cruel, discomfiture had been the extraordinary behaviour 
 of Mr. Granger, who seemed not to know what he wanted, 
 or, what was much worse, what they wanted. He kept 
 sending flowers, as if to bestrew the path of his retreat, 
 which was never the path of return. Flowers were all 
 very well, but Pemberton could complete the proposi 
 tion. It was now positively conspicuous that in the 
 long run the Moreens were a failure; so that the young 
 
176 THE PUPIL. 
 
 man was almost grateful the run had not been short. 
 Mr. Moreen, indeed, was still occasionally able to get 
 away on business, and, what was more surprising, he 
 was also able to get back. Ulick had no club, but you 
 could not have discovered it from his appearance, which 
 was as much as ever that of a person looking at life 
 from the window of such an institution: therefore Pem- 
 berton was doubly astonished at an answer he once heard 
 him make to his mother, in the desperate tone of a man 
 familiar with the worst privations. Her question Pem- 
 berton had not quite caught; it appeared to be an appeal 
 for a suggestion as to whom they could get to take Amy. 
 "Let the devil take her! " Ulick snapped; so that Pern- 
 be rton could see that not only they had lost their amia 
 bility, but had ceased to believe in themselves. He 
 could also see that if Mrs. Moreen was trying to get 
 people to take her children she might be regarded as 
 closing the hatches for the storm. But Morgan would 
 be the last she would part with. 
 
 One winter afternoon it was a Sunday he and the 
 boy walked far together in the Bois de Boulogne. The 
 evening was so splendid, the cold lemon-coloured sunset 
 so clear, the stream of carriages and pedestrians so 
 amusing and the fascination of Paris so great, that they 
 stayed out later than usual and became aware that they 
 would have to hurry home to arrive in time for dinner. 
 They hurried accordingly, arm-in-arm, good-humoured 
 and hungry, agreeing that there was nothing like Paris 
 after all and that after all, too, that had come and gone 
 they were not yet sated with innocent pleasures. When 
 they reached the hotel they found that, though scanda 
 lously late, they were in time for all the dinner they 
 were likely to sit down to. Confusion reigned in the 
 apartments of the Moreens (very shabby ones this 
 
THE PUPIL. 177 
 
 time, but the best in the house), and before the inter 
 rupted service of the table (with objects displaced almost 
 as if there had been a scuffle, and a great wine stain 
 from an overturned bottle), Pemberton could not blink 
 the fact that there had been a scene of proprietary mu 
 tiny. The storm had come they were all seeking 
 refuge. The hatches were down Paula and Amy were 
 invisible (they had never tried the most casual art upon 
 Pemberton, but he felt that they had enough of an eye 
 to him not to wish to meet him as young ladies whose 
 frocks had been confiscated), and Ulick appeared to have 
 jumped overboard. In a word, the host and his staff 
 had ceased to " go on " at the pace of their guests, and 
 the air of embarrassed detention, thanks to a pile of gap 
 ing trunks in the passage, was strangely commingled 
 with the air of indignant withdrawal. 
 
 When Morgan took in all this and he took it in very 
 quickly he blushed to the roots of his hair. He had 
 walked, from his infancy, among difficulties and dangers, 
 but he had never seen a public exposure. Pemberton 
 noticed, in a second glance at him, that the tears had 
 rushed into his eyes and that they were tears of bitter 
 shame. He wondered for an instant, for the boy s sake, 
 whether he might successfully pretend not to understand. 
 M"ot successfully, he felt, as Mr. and Mrs. Moreen, 
 dinnerless by their extinguished hearth, rose before him 
 in their little dishonoured salon, considering apparently 
 with much intensity what lively capital would be next 
 on their list. They were not prostrate, but they were 
 very pale, and Mrs. Moreen had evidently been crying. 
 Pemberton quickly learned however that her grief was 
 not for the loss of her dinner, much as she usually en 
 joyed it, but on account of a necessity much more tragic. 
 She lost no time in laying this necessity bare, in telling 
 
 M 
 
178 THE PUPIL. 
 
 him how the change had come, the bolt had fallen, and 
 how they would all have to turn themselves about. 
 Therefore cruel as it was to them to part with their dar 
 ling she must look to him to carry a little further the in 
 fluence he had so fortunately acquired with the boy to 
 induce his young charge to follow him into some modest 
 retreat. They depended upon him, in a word, to take 
 their delightful child temporarily under his protection 
 it would leave Mr. Moreen and herself so much more 
 free to give the proper attention (too little, alas! had 
 been given), to the readjustment of their affairs. 
 
 "AVe trust you we feel that we can," said Mrs. Mo 
 reen, slowly rubbing her plump white hands and looking, 
 with compunction, hard at Morgan, whose chin, not to 
 take liberties, her husband stroked with a tentative 
 paternal forefinger. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; we feel that we can, We trust Mr. Pem- 
 berton fully, Morgan, " Mr. Moreen conceded. 
 
 Pemberton wondered again if he might pretend not to 
 understand; but the idea was painfully complicated bv 
 the immediate perception that Morgan had understood. 
 
 "Do you mean that he may take me to live with him 
 for ever and ever?" cried the boy. "Away, away, 
 anywhere he likes?" 
 
 "For ever and ever? Comme rous-y-allez! " Mr. Moreen 
 laughed indulgently. " For as long as Mr. Pemberton 
 may be so good." 
 
 "We ve struggled, we ve suffered," his wife went on; 
 "but you ve made him so your own that we ve already 
 been through the worst of the sacrifice." 
 
 Morgan had turned away from his father he stood 
 looking at Pemberton with a light in his face. His blush 
 had died out, but something had come that was brighter 
 and more vivid. He had a moment of boyish joy, 
 
THE PUPIL. 179 
 
 scarcely mitigated by the reflection that, with this unex 
 pected consecration of his hope too sudden and too 
 violent; the thing was a good deal less like a boy s book 
 the "escape "was left on their hands. The boyish 
 joy was there for an instant, and Pembertoii was almost 
 frightened at the revelation of gratitude and affection 
 that shone through his humiliation. When Morgan 
 stammered " My dear fellow, what do you say to that?" 
 lie felt that he should say something enthusiastic. But 
 he was still more frightened at something else that im 
 mediately followed and that made the lad sit down 
 quickly on the nearest chair. He had turned very white 
 and had raised his hand to his left side. They were all 
 three looking at him, but Mrs. Moreen was the first to 
 bound forward. "Ah, his darling little heart!" she 
 broke out; and this time, on her knees before him and 
 without respect for the idol, she caught him ardently in 
 her arms. " You walked him too far, you hurried him 
 too fast!" she tossed over her shoulder at Pember 
 toii. The boy made no protest, and the next instant his 
 mother, still holding him, sprang up with her face con 
 vulsed and with the terrified cry "Help, help! he s 
 going, he s gone!" Pembertoii saw, with equal horror, 
 by Morgan s own stricken face, that he was gone. He 
 pulled him half out of his mother s hands, and for a 
 moment, while they held him together, they looked, in 
 their dismay, into each other s eyes. " He couldn t stand 
 it, with his infirmity," said Pembertoii "the shock, 
 the whole scene, the violent emotion." 
 
 " But I thought he icanted to go to you ! " wailed Mrs. 
 Moreen. 
 
 "I told you he didn t, my dear," argued Mr. Moreen. 
 He was trembling all over, and he was, in his way, as 
 deeply affected as his wife. But, after the first, he took 
 his bereavement like a man of the world. 
 
BROOKSMITH. 
 
 WE are scattered now, the friends of the late Mr. 
 Oliver Offorcl; but whenever we chance to meet I think 
 we are conscious of a certain esoteric respect for each 
 other. "Yes, you too have been in Arcadia," we seem 
 not too grumpily to allow. When I pass the house in 
 Mansfield Street T remember that Arcadia was there. I 
 don t know who has it now, and I don t want to know; 
 its enough to be so sure that if I should ring the bell 
 there would be no such luck for me as that Brooksmith 
 should open the door. Mr. Oft ord, the most agreeable, 
 the most lovable of bachelors, was a retired diplomatist, 
 living on his pension, confined by his infirmities to his 
 fireside and delighted to be found there any afternoon in 
 the year by such visitors as Brooksmith allowed to come 
 up. Brooksmith was his butler and his most intimate 
 friend, to whom we all stood, or I should say sat, in the 
 same relation in which the subject of the sovereign finds 
 himself to the prime minister. By having been for 
 years, in foreign lands, the most delightful Englishman 
 any one had ever known, Mf . Offord had, in my opinion, 
 rendered signal service to his country. But I suppose 
 he had been too much liked liked even by those who 
 didn t like it so that as people of that sort never get 
 
 1 Copyright, iBqi, by Macmillan &> Co. 
 180 
 
BROOKSMITH. 181 
 
 titles or dotations for the horrid things they have not 
 done, his principal reward was simply that we went to 
 see him. 
 
 Oh, we went perpetually, and it was not our fault 
 if he was not overwelmed with this particular honour. 
 Any visitor who came once came again to come merely 
 once was a slight which nobody, I am sure, had ever put 
 upon him. His circle, therefore, was essentially com 
 posed of habitues, who were habitues for each other as 
 well as for him, as those of a happy salon should be. I 
 remember vividly every element of the place, down to the 
 intensely Londonish look of the grey opposite houses, in 
 the gap of the white curtains of the high windows, and 
 the exact spot where, on a particular afternoon, I put 
 down my tea-cup for Brooksmith, lingering an instant, 
 to gather it up as if he were plucking a flower. Mr. 
 Otford s drawing-room was indeed Brooksmith s garden, 
 his pruned and tended human parterre, and if we all 
 flourished there and grew well in our places it was 
 largely owing to his supervision. 
 
 Many persons have heard much, though most have 
 doubtless seen little, of the famous institution of the 
 salon, and many are born to the depression of knowing 
 that this finest flower of social life refuses to bloom where 
 the English tongue is spoken. The explanation is usually 
 that our women have not the skill to cultivate it the 
 art to direct, between suggestive shores, the course of the 
 stream of talk. My affectionate, my pious memory of 
 Mr. Offord contradicts this induction only, I fear, more 
 insidiously to confirm it. The very sallow and slightly 
 smoked drawing-room in which he spent so large a por 
 tion of the last years of his life certainly deserved the 
 distinguished name ; but on the other hand it could not 
 be said at all to owe its stamp to the soft pressure of the 
 
182 BROOKSMITH. 
 
 indispensable sex. The dear man had indeed been 
 capable of one of those sacrifices to which women are 
 deemed peculiarly apt; he had recognised (under the 
 influence, in some degree, it is true, of physical infirm 
 ity), that if you wished people to find you at home you 
 must manage not to be out. He had in short accepted 
 the fact which many dabblers in the social art are slow 
 to learn, that you must really, as they say, take a line 
 and that the only way to be at home is to stay at home. 
 Finally his own fireside had become a summary of his 
 habits. Why should he ever have left it? since this 
 would have been leaving what was notoriously pleasantest 
 in London, the compact charmed cluster (thinning away 
 indeed into casual couples), round the fine old last cen 
 tury chimney-piece which, with the exception of the 
 remarkable collection of miniatures, was the best thing 
 the place contained. Mr. Offord was not rich; he had 
 nothing but his pension and the use for life of the some 
 what superannuated house. 
 
 When I am reminded by some uncomfortable contrast 
 of to-day how perfectly we were all handled there I ask 
 myself once more what had been the secret of such 
 perfection. One had taken it for granted at the time, 
 for anything that is supremely good produces more ac 
 ceptance than surprise. I felt we were all happy, but I 
 didn t consider how our happiness was managed. And 
 yet there were questions to be asked, questions that 
 strike me as singularly obvious now that there is nobody 
 to answer them. Mr. Offord had solved the insoluble ; 
 he had, without feminine help (save in the sense that 
 ladies were dying to come to him and he saved the lives 
 of several), established a salon; but I might have guessed 
 that there was a method in his madness a law in his 
 success. He had not hit it off by a mere fluke. There 
 
BROOKSMITH. 183 
 
 was an art in it all, and how was the art so hidden? 
 Who, indeed, if it came to that, was the occult artist? 
 Launching this inquiry the other day, I had already got 
 hold of the tail of my reply. I was helped by the very 
 wonder of some of the conditions that came back to me 
 those that used to seem as natural as sunshine in a fine 
 climate. 
 
 How was it, for instance, that we never were a crowd, 
 never either too many or too few, always the right peo 
 ple with the right people (there must really have been no 
 wrong people at all), always coming and going, never 
 sticking fast nor overstaying, yet never popping in or 
 out with an indecorous familiarity? How was it that 
 we all sat where we wanted and moved when we wanted 
 and met whom we wanted and escaped whom we wanted ; 
 joining, according to the accident of inclination, the 
 general circle or falling in with a single talker on a con 
 venient sofa? Why were all the sofas so convenient, 
 the accidents so happy, the talkers so ready, the listeners 
 so willing, the subjects presented to you in a rotation 
 as quickly fore-ordained as the courses at dinner? A 
 dearth of topics would have been as unheard of as a lapse 
 in the service. These speculations couldn t fail to lead 
 me to the fundamental truth that Brooksmith had been 
 somehow at the bottom of the mystery. If he had not 
 established the salon at least he had carried it on. 
 Brooksmith, in short, was the artist! 
 
 We felt this, covertly, at the time, without formulat 
 ing it, and were conscious, as an ordered and prosperous 
 community, of his evenhanded justice, untainted with 
 nunkeyism. He had none of that vulgarity his touch 
 was infinitely fine. The delicacy of it was clear to me 
 on the first occasion my eyes rested, as they were so 
 often to rest again, on the domestic revealed, in the 
 
184 BKOOKSMITH. 
 
 turbid light of the street, by the opening of the house - 
 door. I saw 011 the spot that though he had plenty of 
 school he carried it without arrogance he had remained 
 articulate and human. L Ecole Anglaisej Mr. Offord 
 used to call him, laughing, when, later, it happened 
 more than once that we had some conversation about 
 him. But I remember accusing Mr. Offord of not doing 
 him quite ideal justice. That he was not one of the 
 giants of the school, however, my old friend, who really 
 understood him perfectly and was devoted to him, as I 
 shall show, quite admitted; which doubtless poor Brook- 
 smith had himself felt, to his cost, when his value in the 
 market was originally determined. The utility of his 
 class in general is estimated by the foot and the inch, 
 and poor Brooksmith had only about five feet two to put 
 into circulation. He acknowledged the inadequacy of 
 this provision, and I am sure was penetrated with the 
 everlasting fitness of the relation between service and 
 stature. If lie had been Mr. Offord he certainly would 
 have found Brooksmith wanting, and indeed the laxity 
 of his employer on this score was one of many things 
 which he had had to condone and to which he had at last 
 indulgently adapted himself. 
 
 I remember the old man s saying to me : " Oh, my ser 
 vants, if they can live with me a fortnight they can live 
 with me for ever. But it s the first fortnight that tries 
 em." It was in the first fortnight, for instance, that 
 Brooksmith had had to learn that he was exposed to 
 being addressed as "my dear fellow" and "my poor 
 child." Strange and deep must such a probation have 
 been to him, and he doubtless emerged from it tempered 
 and purified. This was written to a certain, extent in 
 his appearance; in his spare, brisk little person, in his 
 cloistered white face and extraordinarily polished hair, 
 
BBOOKSMITH. 185 
 
 which told of responsibility, looked as if it were kept 
 up to the same high standard as the plate ; in his small, 
 clear, anxious eyes, even in the permitted, though not 
 exactly encouraged tuft on his chin. "He thinks me 
 rather mad, but I ve broken him in, and now he likes 
 the place, he likes the company," said the old man. I 
 embraced this fully after I had become aware that Brook- 
 smith s main characteristic was a deep and shy refine 
 ment, though I remember I was rather puzzled when, 
 on another occasion, Mr. Offord remarked: "What he 
 likes is the talk mingling in the conversation." I was 
 conscious that I had never seen Brooksmith permit him 
 self this freedom, but I guessed in a moment that what 
 Mr. Offord alluded to was a participation more intense 
 than any speech could have represented that of being 
 perpetually present on a hundred legitimate pretexts, 
 errands, necessities, and breathing the very atmosphere 
 of criticism, the famous criticism of life. "Quite an 
 education, sir, isn t it, sir?" he said to me one day at 
 the foot of the stairs, when he was letting me out; and I 
 have always remembered the words and the tone as the 
 first sign of the quickening drama of poor Brooksmith s 
 fate. It was indeed an education, but to what was this 
 sensitive young man of thirty -five, of the servile class, 
 being educated? 
 
 Practically and inevitably, for the time, to compan 
 ionship, to the perpetual, the even exaggerated reference 
 and appeal of a person brought to dependence by his 
 time of life and his infirmities and always addicted more 
 over (this was the exaggeration) to the art of giving you 
 pleasure by letting you do things for him. There were 
 certain things Mr. Offord was capable of pretending he 
 liked you to do, even when he didn t, if he thought you 
 liked them. If it happened that you didn t either (this 
 
186 BKOOKSMITH. 
 
 was rare, but it might be), of course there were cross- 
 purposes; but Brooksmith was there to prevent their 
 going very far. This was precisely the way he acted as 
 moderator: he averted misunderstandings or cleared 
 them up. He had been capable, strange as it may ap 
 pear, of acquiring for this purpose an insight into the 
 French tongue, which was often used at Mr. Offord s; 
 for besides being habitual to most of the foreigners, and 
 they were many, who haunted the place or arrived with 
 letters (letters often requiring a little worried considera 
 tion, of which Brooksmith always had cognisance), it 
 had really become the primary language of the master 
 of the house. I don t know if all the malentendus were 
 in French, but almost all the explanations were, and this 
 didn t a bit prevent Brooksmith from following them. 
 I know Mr. Oft ord used to read passages to him from 
 Montaigne and Saint-Simon, for he read perpetually 
 when he was alone when they were alone, I should say 
 and Brooksmith Avas always about. Perhaps you ll 
 say no wonder Mr. Offord s butler regarded him as 
 " rather mad." However, if I m not sure what lie 
 thought about Montaigne I m convinced he admired 
 Saint-Simon. A certain feeling for letters must have 
 rubbed off on him from the mere handling of his mas 
 ter s books, which he was always carrying to and fro and 
 putting back in their places. 
 
 I often noticed that if an anecdote or a quotation, 
 much more a lively discussion, was going forward, he 
 would, if busy with the fire or the curtains, the lamp or 
 the tea, find a pretext for remaining in the room till the 
 point should be reached. If his purpose was to catch it 
 you were not discreet to call him off, and I shall never 
 forget a look, a hard, stony stare (I caught it in its 
 passage), which, one day when there were a good many 
 
BROOKSMITH. 187 
 
 people in the room, he fastened upon the footman who 
 was helping him in the service and who, in an under 
 tone, had asked him some irrelevant question. It was 
 the only manifestation of harshness that I ever observed 
 on Brooksmith s part, and at first I wondered what was 
 the matter. Then I became conscious that Mr. Offord 
 was relating a very curious anecdote, never before per 
 haps made so public, and imparted to the narrator by an 
 eye-witness of the fact, bearing upon Lord Byron s life 
 in Italy. Nothing would induce me to reproduce it 
 here; but Brooksmith had been in danger of losing it. 
 If I ever should venture to reproduce it I shall feel 
 how much I lose in not having my fellow-auditor to 
 refer to. 
 
 The first day Mr. Offord s door was closed was there 
 fore a dark date in contemporary history. It was rain 
 ing hard and my umbrella was wet, but Brooksmith took 
 it from me exactly as if this were a preliminary for 
 going upstairs. I observed however that instead of put 
 ting it away he held it poised and trickling over the rug, 
 and then I became aware that he was looking at me with 
 deep, acknowledging eyes his air of universal respon 
 sibility. I immediately understood; there was scarcely 
 need of the question and the answer that passed between 
 us. When I did understand that the old man had given 
 up, for the first time, though only for the occasion, I 
 exclaimed dolefully: "What a difference it will make 
 and to how many people ! " 
 
 "I shall be one of them, sir!" said Brooksmith; and 
 that was the beginning of the end. 
 
 Mr. Offord came down again, but the spell was broken, 
 and the great sign of it was that the conversation was, 
 for the first time, not directed. It wandered and stum 
 bled, a little frightened, like a lost child it had let go 
 
188 BKOOKSMITH. 
 
 the nurse s hand. "The worst of it is that now we shall 
 talk about my health c estlafin de tout," Mr. Offord 
 said, when he reappeared; and then I recognised what a 
 sign of change that would be for he had never tolerated 
 anything so provincial. The talk became ours, in a 
 word not his; and as ours, even when he talked, it 
 could only be inferior. In this form it was a distress to 
 Brooksmith, whose attention now wandered from it al 
 together: he had so much closer a vision of his master s 
 intimate conditions than our superficialities represented. 
 There were better hours, and he was more in and out of 
 the room, but I could see that he was conscious that the 
 great institution was falling to pieces. He seemed to 
 wish to take counsel with me about it, to feel responsi 
 ble for its going on in some form or other. When for 
 the second period the first had lasted several days 
 he had to tell me that our old friend didn t receive, I 
 half expected to hear him say after a moment : " Do you 
 think I ought to, sir, in his place?" as he might have 
 asked me, with the return of autumn, if I thought he 
 had better light the drawing-room fire. 
 
 He had a resigned philosophic sense of what his guests 
 our guests, as I came to regard them in our colloquies 
 would expect. His feeling was that he wouldn t abso 
 lutely have approved of himself as a substitute for the 
 host; but he was so saturated with the religion of habit 
 that he would have made, for our friends, the necessary 
 sacrifice to the divinity. He would take them on a lit 
 tle further, till they could look about them. I think 
 I saw him also mentally confronted with the opportunity 
 to deal for once in his life with some of his own 
 dumb preferences, his limitations of sympathy, weeding 
 a little, in prospect, and returning to a purer tradition. 
 It was not unknown to me that he considered that toward 
 
BROOKSMITH. 189 
 
 the end of Mr. Offord s career a certain laxity of selec 
 tion had crept in. 
 
 At last it came to be the case that we all found the 
 closed door more often than the open one; but even when 
 it was closed Brooksmith managed a crack for me to 
 squeeze through; so that practically I never turned 
 away without having paid a visit. The difference simply 
 came to be that the visit was to Brooksmith. It took 
 place in the hall, at the familiar foot of the stairs, and 
 we didn t sit down at least Brooksmith didn t; more 
 over it was devoted wholly to one topic and always had 
 the air of being already over beginning, as it were, at 
 the end. But it was always interesting it always gave 
 me something to think about. It is true that the sub 
 ject of my meditation was ever the same ever "It s all 
 very well, but what will become of Brooksmith?" Even 
 my private answer to this question left me still unsatis 
 fied. Xo doubt Mr. Offord would provide for him, but 
 ichat would he provide? that was the great point. He 
 couldn t provide society; and society had become a 
 necessity of Brooksmith s nature. I must add that he 
 never showed a symptom of what I may call sordid 
 solicitude anxiety on his own account. He was rather 
 livid and intensely grave, as befitted a man before whose 
 eyes the " shade of that which once was great " was pass 
 ing away. He had the solemnity of a person winding 
 up, under depressing circumstances, a long established 
 and celebrated business; he was a kind of social execu 
 tor or liquidator. But his manner seemed to testify ex 
 clusively to the uncertainty of our future. I couldn t in 
 those days have afforded it I lived in two rooms in 
 Jermyn Street and didn t "keep a man;" but even if 
 my income had permitted I shouldn t have ventured 
 to say to Brooksmith (emulating Mr. Offord), " My dear 
 
190 BROOKSMITH. 
 
 fellow, I ll take you on." The whole tone of our inter 
 course was so much more an implication that it was / 
 who should now want a lift. Indeed there was a tacit 
 assurance in Brooksmith s whole attitude that he would 
 have me on his mind. 
 
 One of the most assiduous members of our circle had 
 been Lady Kenyon, and I remember his telling me one 
 day that her ladyship had, in spite of her own infirmi 
 ties, lately much aggravated, been in person to inquire. 
 In answer to this I remarked that she would feel it more 
 than any one. Brooksmith was silent a moment; at the 
 end of which he said, in a certain tone (there is no re 
 producing some of his tones), "I ll go and see her." I 
 went to see her myself, and I learned that he had waited 
 upon her; but when I said to her, in the form of a joke 
 but with a core of earnest, that when all was over some 
 of us ought to combine, to club together to set Brook- 
 smith up on his own account, she replied a trifle disap 
 pointingly : " Do you mean in a public-house? " I looked 
 at her in a way that I think Brooksmith himself would 
 have approved, and then I answered : " Yes, the Offord 
 Arms." What I had meant, of course, w r as that, for the 
 love of art itself, we ought to look to it that such a 
 peculiar faculty and so much acquired experience should 
 not be wasted. I really think that if we had caused a 
 few black-edged cards to be struck off and circulated 
 "Mr. Brooksmith will continue to receive on the old 
 premises from four to seven ; business carried on as usual 
 during the alterations " the majority of us would have 
 rallied. 
 
 Several times he took me upstairs always by his own 
 proposal and our dear old friend, in bed, in a curious 
 flowered and brocaded casaque which made him, espe 
 cially as his head was tied up in a handkerchief to 
 
BROOKSMITH. 191 
 
 match, look, to my imagination, like the dying Vol 
 taire, held for ten minutes a sadly shrunken little salon. 
 I felt indeed each time, as if I were attending the last 
 coucher of some social sovereign. He was royally whim 
 sical about his sufferings and not at all concerned 
 quite as if the Constitution provided for the case 
 about his successor. He glided over our sufferings 
 charmingly, and none of his jokes it was a gallant 
 abstention, some of them would have been so easy 
 were at our expense. Now and again, I confess, there 
 was one at Brooksmith s, but so pathetically sociable as 
 to make the excellent man look at me in a way that 
 seemed to say : " Do exchange a glance with me, or I 
 shaVt be able to stand it. \Vhat he was not able to 
 stand was not what Mr. Offord said about him, but 
 what he wasn t able to say in return. His notion of 
 conversation, for himself, was giving you the convenience 
 of speaking to him ; and when he went to " see " Lady 
 Kenyon, for instance, it was to carry her the tribute of 
 his receptive silence. Where would the speech of his 
 betters have been if proper service had been a manifesta 
 tion of sound? In that case the fundamental difference 
 would have had to be shown by their dumbness, and many 
 of them, poor things, were dumb enough without that 
 provision. Brooksmith took an unfailing interest in the 
 preservation of the fundamental difference ; it was the 
 thing he had most on his conscience. 
 
 What had become of it, however, when Mr. Offord 
 passed away like any inferior person was relegated to 
 eternal stillness like a butler upstairs? His aspect for 
 several days after the expected event may be imagined, 
 and the multiplication by funereal observance of the 
 things he didn t say. When everything was over it 
 was late the same day I knocked at the door of the 
 
192 BROOKSMITH. 
 
 house of mourning as I so often had done before. I 
 could never call on Mr. Offord again, but I had come, 
 literally, to call on Brooksmith. I wanted to ask him if 
 there was anything I could do for him, tainted with 
 vagueness as this inquiry could only be. My wild dream 
 of taking him into my own service had died away: my 
 service was not worth his being taken into. My offer to 
 him could only be to help him to find another place, and 
 yet there was an indelicacy, as it were, in taking for 
 granted that his thoughts would immediately be fixed on 
 another. I had a hope that he would be able to give his 
 life a different form though certainly not the form, 
 the frequent result of such bereavements, of his setting 
 up a little shop. That would have been dreadful; for I 
 should have wished to further any enterprise that he 
 might embark in, yet how could I have brought myself 
 to go and pay him shillings and take back coppers over 
 a counter? My visit then was simply an intended com 
 pliment. He took it as such, gratefully and with all the 
 tact in the world. He knew I really couldn t help him 
 and that I knew he knew I couldn t; but we discussed 
 the situation with a good deal of elegant generality 
 at the foot of the stairs, in the hall already dismantled, 
 where I had so often discussed other situations with 
 him. The executors were in possession, as was still 
 more apparent when he made me pass for a few minutes 
 into the dining-room, where various objects were muffled 
 up for removal. 
 
 Two definite facts, however, he had to communicate; 
 one being that he Avas to leave the house for ever that 
 night (servants, for some mysterious reason, seem al 
 ways to depart by night), and the other he mentioned 
 it only at the last, with hesitation that he had already 
 been informed his late master had left him a legacy of 
 
BROOKSMITH. 193 
 
 eighty pounds. "I m very glad, 1 I said, and Brook- 
 smith rejoined: "It was so like him to think of me." 
 This was all that passed between us on the subject, and 
 I know nothing of his judgment of Mr. Offord s me 
 mento. Eighty pounds are always eighty pounds, and 
 no one has ever left me an equal sum ; but, all the same, 
 for Brooksmith, I was disappointed. I don t know what 
 I had expected in short I was disappointed. Eighty 
 pounds might stock a little shop a very little shop; 
 but, I repeat, I couldn t bear to think of that. I asked 
 my friend if he had been able to save a little, and he re 
 plied: "Xo, sir; I have had to do things." I didn t 
 inquire what things he had had to do; they were his 
 own affair, and I took his word for them as assentingly as 
 if he had had the greatness of an ancient house to keep 
 up; especially as there was something in his manner 
 that seemed to convey a prospect of further sacrifice. 
 
 "I shall have to turn round a bit, sir I shall have 
 to look about me," he said; and then he added, indul 
 gently, magnanimously : " If you should happen to hear 
 of anything for me 
 
 I couldn t let him finish; this was, in its essence, too 
 much in the really grand manner. It would be a help 
 to my getting him off my mind to be able to pretend I 
 could rind the right place, and that help he wished to 
 give me, for it was doubtless painful to him to see me 
 in so false a position. I interposed with a few words to 
 the effect that I was well aware that wherever he should 
 go, whatever he should do, he would miss our old friend 
 terribly miss him even more than I should, having 
 been with him so much more. This led him to make the 
 speech that I have always remembered as the very text 
 of the whole episode. 
 
 "Oh, sir, it s sad for you, very sad, indeed, and for a 
 N 
 
194 BROOKSMITH. 
 
 great many gentlemen and ladies; that it is, sir. But 
 for me, sir, it is, if I may say so, still graver even than 
 that: it s just the loss of something that was every 
 thing. For me, sir," he went on, with rising tears, 
 "he was just a#, if you know what I mean, sir. You 
 have others, sir, I daresay not that I would have you 
 understand me to speak of them as in any way tanta 
 mount. But you have the pleasures of society, sir; if 
 it s only in talking about him, sir, as I daresay you do 
 freely for all his blessed memory has to fear from it 
 with gentlemen and ladies who have had the same 
 honour. That s not for me, sir, and I have to keep my 
 associations to myself. Mr. Offorcl was my society, and 
 now I have no more. You go back to conversation, sir, 
 after all, and I go back to my place," Brooksmith stam 
 mered, without exaggerated irony or dramatic bitter 
 ness, but with a flat, unstudied veracity and his hand 
 on the knob of the street-door. He turned it to let me 
 out and then he added: "I just go downstairs, sir, again, 
 and I stay there." 
 
 "My poor child," I replied, in my emotion, quite as 
 Mr. Offord used to speak, "my dear fellow, leave it to 
 me; we ll look after you, we ll all do something for 
 you." 
 
 "Ah, if you could give me some one like him! But 
 there ain t two in the world," said Brooksmith as we 
 parted. 
 
 He had given me his address the place where he 
 would be to be heard of. For a long time I had no occa 
 sion to make use of the information; for he proved 
 indeed, on trial, a very difficult case. In a word the 
 people who knew him and had known Mr. Offord, didn t 
 want to take him, and yet I couldn t bear to try to thrust 
 him among people who didn t know him. I spoke to 
 
BEOOKSMITH. 195 
 
 many of our old friends about him, and I found them all 
 governed by the odd mixture of feelings of which I 
 myself was conscious, and disposed, further, to entertain 
 a suspicion that he was "spoiled," with which I then 
 would have nothing to do. In plain terms a certain 
 embarrassment, a sensible awkwardness, when they 
 thought of it, attached to the idea of using him as a 
 menial : they had met him so often in society. Many 
 of them would have asked him, and did ask him, or rather 
 did ask me to ask him, to come and see them ; but a mere 
 visiting-list was not what I wanted for him. He was 
 too short for people who were very particular; neverthe 
 less I heard of an opening in a diplomatic household 
 which led me to write him a note, though I was looking 
 much less for something grand than for something human. 
 Five days later I heard from him. The secretary s wife 
 had decided, after keeping him waiting till then, that 
 she couldn t take a servant out of a house in which there 
 had not been a lady. The note had a P.S. : " It s a good 
 job there wasn t, sir, such a lady as some." 
 
 A week later he came to see me and told me he was 
 u suited " committed to some highly respectable people 
 (they were something very large in the City), who lived 
 on the Bayswater side of the Park. " I daresay it will 
 be rather poor, sir," he admitted; "but I ve seen the 
 fireworks, haven t I, sir? it can t be fireworks every 
 night. After Mansfield Street there ain t much choice." 
 There was a certain amount, however, it seemed ; for the 
 following year, going one day to call on a country cousin, 
 a lady of a certain age who was spending a fortnight in 
 town with some friends of her own, a family unknown 
 to me and resident in Chester Square, the door of the 
 house was opened, to my surprise and gratification, by 
 Brooksmith in person. When I came out I had some 
 
196 BROOKSMITH. 
 
 conversation with him, from which I gathered that he 
 had found the large City people too dull for endurance, 
 and I guessed, though he didn t say it, that he had found 
 them vulgar as well. I don t know what judgment he 
 would have passed on his actual patrons if my relative 
 had not been their friend ; but under the circumstances 
 he abstained from comment. 
 
 None was necessary, however, for before the lady in 
 question brought her visit to a close they honoured me 
 with an invitation to dinner, which I accepted. There 
 was a largeish party on the occasion, but I confess I 
 thought of Brooksmith rather more than of the seated 
 company. They required no depth of attention they 
 were all referable to usual, irredeemable, inevitable types. 
 It was the world of cheerful commonplace and conscious 
 gentility and prosperous density, a full-fed, material, 
 insular world, a world of hideous florid plate and ponder 
 ous order and thin conversation. There was not a word 
 said about Byron. Nothing would have induced me to 
 look at Brooksmith in the course of the repast, and I 
 felt sure that not even my overturning the wine would 
 have induced him to meet my eye. We were in intel 
 lectual sympathy we felt, as regards each other, a 
 kind of social responsibility. In short we had been in 
 Arcadia together, and we had both come to this! No 
 wonder we were ashamed to be confronted. When he 
 helped on my overcoat, as I was going away, we parted, 
 for the first time since the earliest days in Mansfield 
 Street, in silence. I thought he looked lean and wasted, 
 and I guessed that his new place was not more " human " 
 than his previous one. There was plenty of beef and 
 beer, but there was no reciprocity. The question for 
 him to have asked before accepting the position would 
 have beeij not "How many footmen are kept?" but 
 " How much imagination ? " 
 
BEOOKSMITH. 197 
 
 The next time I went to the house I confess it was 
 not very soon I encountered his successor, a personage 
 who evidently enjoyed the good fortune of never having 
 ([iiitted his natural level. Could any be higher? he 
 seemed to ask over the heads of three footmen and 
 even of some visitors. He made me feel as if Brook- 
 smith were dead; but I didn t dare to inquire I 
 couldn t have borne his "I haven t the least idea, sir." 
 I despatched a note to the address Brooksmith had 
 given me after Mr. Offord s death, but I received no 
 answer. Six months later, however, I was favoured 
 with a visit from an elderly, dreary, dingy person, who 
 introduced herself to me as Mr. Brooksmith s aunt and 
 from whom I learned that he was out of place and out of 
 health and had allowed her to come and say to me that 
 if I could spare half-an-hour to look in at him he would 
 take it as a rare honour. 
 
 I went the next day his messenger had given me a 
 new address and found my friend lodged in a short sor 
 did street in Marylebone, one of those corners of London 
 that wear the last expression of sickly meanness. The 
 room into which I was shown was above the small estab 
 lishment of a dyer and cleaner who had inflated kid gloves 
 and discoloured shawls in his shop-front. There was a 
 great deal of grimy infant life up and down the place, 
 and there was a hot, moist smell within, as of the " boil 
 ing" of dirty linen. Brooksmith sat with a blanket 
 over his legs at a clean little window, where, from behind 
 stiff bluish-white curtains, he could look across at a 
 huckster s and a tinsmith s and a small greasy public- 
 house. He had passed through an illness and was con 
 valescent, and his mother, as well as his aunt, was in 
 attendance on him. I liked the mother, who was bland 
 and intensely humble, but I didn t much fancy the aunt, 
 
198 BKOOKSMITH. 
 
 whom I connected, perhaps unjustly, with the opposite 
 public-house (she seemed somehow to be greasy with the 
 same grease), and whose furtive eye followed every move 
 ment of my hand, as if to see if it were not going into my 
 pocket. It didn t take this direction I couldn t, un 
 solicited, put myself at that sort of ease with Brook- 
 smith. Several times the door of the room opened, and 
 mysterious old women peeped in and shuffled back again. 
 I don t know who they were ; poor Brooksmith seemed 
 encompassed with vague, prying, beery females. 
 
 He was vague himself, and evidently weak, and much 
 embarrassed, and not an allusion was made between us 
 to Mansfield Street. The vision of the salon of which 
 he had been an ornament hovered before me, however, 
 by contrast, sufficiently. He assured me that he was 
 really getting better, and his mother remarked that he 
 would come round if he could only get his spirits up. 
 The. aunt echoed this opinion, and I became more sure 
 that in her own case she knew where to go for such a 
 purpose. I m afraid I was rather weak with my old 
 friend, for I neglected the opportunity, so exceptionally 
 good, to rebuke the levity which had led him to throw 
 up honourable positions fine, stiff, steady berths, with 
 morning prayers, as I knew, attached to one of them 
 in Bayswater and Belgravia. Very likely his reasons had 
 been profane and sentimental; he didn t want morning 
 prayers, he wanted to be somebody s dear fellow; but I 
 couldn t be the person to rebuke him. He shuffled these 
 episodes out of sight I saw that he had no wish to dis 
 cuss them. I perceived further, strangely enough, that 
 it would probably be a questionable pleasure for him to 
 see me again: he doubted now even of my power to 
 condone his aberrations. He didn t wish to have to ex 
 plain; and his behaviour, in future, was likely to need 
 
BROOKSMITH. 199 
 
 explanation. When I bade him farewell he looked at 
 me a moment with eyes that said everything : " How can 
 I talk about those exquisite years in this place, before 
 these people, with the old women poking their heads in? 
 It was very good of you to come to see me it wasn t 
 my idea; she brought you. We ve said everything; it s 
 over; you ll lose all patience with me, and I d rather you 
 shouldn t see the rest." I sent him some money, in a 
 letter, the next day, but I saw the rest only in the light 
 of a barren sequel. 
 
 A whole year after my visit to him I became aware 
 once, in dining out, that Brooksmith was one of the 
 several servants who hovered behind our chairs. He 
 had not opened the door of the house to me, and I had 
 not recognised him in the cluster of retainers in the hall. 
 This time I tried to catch his eye, but he never gave me 
 a chance, and when he handed me a dish I could only be 
 careful to thank him audibly. Indeed I partook of two 
 entrees of which I had my doubts, subsequently converted 
 into certainties, in order not to snub him. He looked 
 well enough in health, but much older, and wore, in an 
 exceptionally marked degree, the glazed and expression 
 less mask of the British domestic de race. I saw with 
 dismay that if I had not known him I should have taken 
 him, on the showing of his countenance, for an extrava 
 gant illustration of irresponsive servile gloom. I said 
 to myself that he had become a reactionary, gone over to 
 the Philistines, thrown himself into religion, the reli 
 gion of his "place," like a foreign lady sur le retour. I 
 divined moreover that he was only engaged for the even 
 ing he had become a mere waiter, had joined the band 
 of the white-waistcoated who " go out." There was some 
 thing pathetic in this fact, and it was a terrible vulgar 
 isation of Brooksmith. It was the mercenary prose of 
 
200 BROOKSMITH. 
 
 butlerhood; he had given up the struggle for the poetry. 
 If reciprocity was what he had missed, where was the 
 reciprocity now? Only in the bottoms of the wine 
 glasses and the five shillings (or whatever they get), 
 clapped into his hand by the permanent man. However 
 I supposed he had taken up a precarious branch of his 
 profession because after all it sent him less downstairs. 
 His relations with London society were more superficial, 
 but they were of course more various. As I went away, 
 on this occasion, I looked out for him eagerly among the 
 four or five attendants whose perpendicular persons, 
 fluting the walls of London passages, are supposed to 
 lubricate the process of departure; but he was not on 
 duty. I asked one of the others if he were not in the 
 house, and received the prompt answer: "Just left, sir. 
 Anything I can do for you, sir?" I wanted to say 
 "Please give him my kind regards; " but I abstained; I 
 didn t want to compromise him, and I never came across 
 him again. 
 
 Often and often, in dining out, I looked for him, some 
 times accepting invitations on purpose to multiply the 
 chances of my meeting him. But always in vain; so 
 that as I met many other members of the casual class 
 over and over again, I at last adopted the theory that he 
 always procured a list of expected guests beforehand and 
 kept away from the banquets which he thus learned I 
 was to grace. At last I gave up hope, and one day, at 
 the end of three years, I received another visit from his 
 aunt. She was drearier and dingier, almost squalid, and 
 she was in great tribulation and want. Her sister, Mrs. 
 Brooksmith, had been dead a year, and three months 
 later her nephew had disappeared. He had always 
 looked after her a bit since her troubles ; I never knew 
 what her troubles had been and now she hadn t so 
 
BROOKSMITH. 201 
 
 much as a petticoat to pawn. She had also a niece, to 
 whom she had been everything, before her troubles, but 
 the niece had treated her most shameful. These were 
 details; the great and romantic fact was Brooksmith s 
 final evasion of his fate. He had gone out to wait one 
 evening, as usual, in a white waistcoat she had done up 
 for him with her own hands, being due at a large party 
 up Kensington way. But he had never come home 
 again, and had never arrived at the large party, or at 
 any party that any one could make out. No trace of 
 him had come to light no gleam of the white waistcoat 
 had pierced the obscurity of his doom. This news was 
 a sharp shock to me, for I had my ideas about his real 
 destination. His aged relative had promptly, as she 
 said, guessed the worst. Somehow and somewhere he 
 had got out of the way altogether, and now I trust that, 
 with characteristic deliberation, he is changing the plates 
 of the immortal gods. As my depressing visitant also 
 said, he never had got his spirits up. I was fortunately 
 able to dismiss her with her own somewhat improved. 
 But the dim ghost of poor Brooksmith is one of those 
 that I see. He had indeed been spoiled. 
 
THE SOLUTION. 1 
 
 "On yes, you may write it down every one s dead." 
 I profited by my old friend s permission and made a note 
 of the story, which, at the time he told it to me, seemed 
 curious and interesting. Will it strike you in the same 
 light? Perhaps not, but I will run the risk and copy it 
 out for you as I reported it, with just a little amplifica 
 tion from memory. Though every one is dead, perhaps 
 you had better not let it go further. My old friend is 
 dead himself, and how can I say how I miss him? He 
 had many merits, and not the least of them was that he 
 was always at home. The infirmities of the last years 
 of his life confined him to London and to his own house, 
 and of an afternoon, between five and six o clock, I 
 often knocked at his door. He is before me now, as 
 he leans back in his chair, with his eyes wandering round 
 the top of his room as if a thousand ghostly pictures 
 were suspended there. Following his profession in 
 many countries, he had seen much of life and knew 
 much of men. This thing dropped from him piece by 
 piece (one wet, windy spring afternoon, when we hap 
 pened to be uninterrupted), like a painless belated con 
 fession. I have only given it continuity. 
 
 1 Copyright, /<?<?/, by Maonillan &* Co, 
 
 202 
 
THE SOLUTION. 203 
 
 I. 
 
 IT was in Koine, a hundred years ago, or as nearly so 
 as it must have been to be an episode of my extreme 
 youth. I was just twenty-three, and attached to our 
 diplomatic agency there ; the other secretaries were all 
 my seniors. Is it because I was twenty-three, or be 
 cause the time and the place were really better, that 
 this period glows in my memory with all sorts of poetic, 
 romantic lights? It seems to me to have consisted of 
 live winters of sunshine without a cloud ; of long excur 
 sions on the Campagna and in the Alban and Sabine 
 hills; of joyous artists feasts, spread upon the warm 
 stones of ruined temples and tombs ; of splendid Catholic 
 processions and ceremonies; of friendly, familiar even 
 ings, prolonged very late, in the great painted and tapes 
 tried saloons of historic palaces. It was the slumberous, 
 pictorial Rome of the Popes, before the Italians had 
 arrived or the local colour departed, and though I have 
 been back there in recent years it is always the early 
 impression that is evoked for me by the name. The 
 yellow steps, where models and beggars lounged in the 
 sun, had a golden tone, and the models and beggars 
 themselves a magnificent brown one, which it looked 
 easy to paint showily. The excavations, in those days, 
 were comparatively few, but the " subjects " - 1 was an 
 incorrigible sketcher were many. The carnival lasted 
 a month, the flowers (and even the flower-girls) lasted 
 for ever, and the old statues in the villas and the galler 
 ies became one s personal friends. 
 
 Of course we had other friends than these, and that is 
 what I am coming to. I have lived in places where the 
 society was perhaps better, but I have lived in none 
 where I liked it better, in spite of the fact that it was 
 
204 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 considerably pervaded by Mrs. Goldie. Mrs. Goldie was 
 an English lady, a widow with three daughters, and her 
 name, accompanied not rarely, I fear, with an irreverent 
 objurgation, was inevitably on our lips. She had a 
 house on the Pincian. Hill, from winter to winter; she 
 came early in the season and stayed late, and she formed, 
 with her daughters Rosina, Veronica and Augusta 
 an uncompromising feature of every entertainment. As 
 the principal object in any view of Rome is the dome of 
 St. Peter s, so the most prominent figure in the social 
 prospect was always the Honourable Blanche. She was 
 a daughter of Lord Bolitho, and there were several 
 elderly persons among us who remembered her in the 
 years before her marriage, when her maiden designa 
 tion was jocosely I forget what the original joke had 
 been in people s mouths. They reintroduced it, and 
 it became common in speaking of her. There must have 
 been some public occasion when, as a spinster, she had 
 done battle for her precedence and had roared out her 
 luckless title. She was capable of that. 
 
 I was so fond of the place that it appeared to be natural 
 every one else should love it, but I afterwards wondered 
 what could have been the source of Mrs. Goldie s inter 
 est in it. She didn t know a Raphael from a Caravaggio, 
 and even after many years could not have told you the 
 names of the seven hills. She used to drive her daugh 
 ters out to sketch, but she would never have done that 
 if she had cared for the dear old ruins. However, it has 
 always been a part of the magic of Rome that the most 
 dissimilar breasts feel its influence ; and though it is, or 
 rather it was, the most exquisite place in the world, 
 uncultivated minds have been known to enjoy it as mudi 
 as students and poets. It has always touched alike the 
 raffine and the barbarian. Mrs. Goldie was a good deal 
 
THE SOLUTION. 205 
 
 of a barbarian, and she had her reasons for liking the 
 Papal city. Her mind was fixed on tea-parties and 
 the u right people to know." She valued the easy soci- 
 iability, the picnics, the functions, the frequent oppor 
 tunities for producing her girls. These opportunities 
 indeed were largely of her own making; for she was 
 highly hospitable, in the simple Koman fashion, and 
 held incessant receptions and conversazioni. Dinners 
 she never gave, and when she invited you to lunch, al 
 fresco, in the shadow of the aqueducts that stride across 
 the plain, she expected you to bring with you a cold 
 chicken and a bottle of wine. Xo one, however, in those 
 patriarchal times, was thought the worse of in Rome for 
 being frugal. That was another reason why Mrs. Goldie 
 had elected to live there ; it was the capital in Europe 
 where the least money and she had but little would 
 go furthest in the way of grandeur. It cost her nothing 
 to produce her girls, in proportion to the impressiveness 
 of the spectacle. 
 
 I don t know what we should have done without her 
 house, for the young men of the diplomatic body, as well 
 as many others, treated it almost as a club. It was 
 largely for our benefit that the Misses Goldie were pro 
 duced. I sometimes wondered, even in those days, if 
 our sense of honour was quite as fine as it might have 
 been, to have permitted us to amuse ourselves at the 
 expense of this innocent and hospitable group. The 
 jokes we made about them were almost as numerous as 
 the cups of tea that we received from the hands of the 
 young ladies; and though I have never thought that 
 youth is delicate (delicacy is an acquired virtue and 
 comes later), there was this excuse for our esoteric 
 mirth, that it was simply contagious. We laughed at 
 the airs of greatness the Honourable Blanche gave her- 
 
206 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 self and at the rough-and-ready usage to which she sub 
 jected the foreign tongues. It even seemed to us droll, 
 in a crowd, to see her push and press and make play 
 with her elbows, followed by the compact wedge of 
 Kosina, Veronica and Augusta, whom she had trained to 
 follow up her advantages. We noted the boldness with 
 which she asked for favours when they were not offered 
 and snatched them when they were refused, and we 
 almost admired the perpetual manoeuvres and conspira 
 cies, all of the most public and transparent kind, which 
 did not prevent her from honestly believing that she 
 was the most shrinking and disinterested of women. 
 She was always in a front seat, always flushed with the 
 achievement of getting there, and always looking round 
 and grimacing, signalling and telegraphing, pointing to 
 other places for other people, waving her parasol and 
 fan and marshalling and ordering the girls. She was 
 tall and angular, and held her head very high; it was 
 surmounted with wonderful turbans and plumages, and 
 indeed the four ladies were caparisoned altogether in a 
 manner of their own. 
 
 The oddest thing in the mother was that she bragged 
 about the fine people and the fine things she had left 
 behind her in England; she protested too much, and 
 if you had listened to her you would have had the grav 
 est doubts of her origin and breeding. They were 
 genuinely "good," however, and her vulgarity was as 
 incontestable as her connections. It is a mistake to sup 
 pose it is only the people who would like to be what 
 they are not who are snobs. ^ That class includes equally 
 many of those who are what the others would like to be. 
 I used to think, of old, that Thackeray overdid his ridi 
 cule of certain types; but 1 always did him justice when 
 I remembered Mrs. Goldie. I don t want to finish her 
 
THE SOLUTION. 207 
 
 off by saying she was good-natured; but she certainly 
 never abused people, and if she was very worldly she 
 was not the only one. She never even thought of the 
 people she didn t like, much less did she speak of them, 
 for all her time was given to talking about her favour 
 ites, as she called them, who were usually of princely 
 name (princes in Koine are numerous and (Vun commerce 
 facile), and her regard for whom was not chilled by the 
 scant pains they sometimes took to encourage it. What 
 was original in her was the candour and, to a certain 
 extent, the brutality with which she played her game. 
 
 The girls were not pretty, but they might have been 
 less plain if they had felt less oppressively the responsi 
 bility of their looks. You could not say exactly whether 
 they were ugly or only afraid, on every occasion, that 
 their mother would think them so. This expression was 
 naturally the reverse of ornamental. They were good 
 creatures, though they generally had the air of having 
 slept in their clothes in order to be ready in time. 
 Rosina and Augusta were better than Veronica : we had 
 a theory that Veronica had a temper and sometimes 
 " stood up " to her mother. She was the beauty, she had 
 handsome hair, she sang, alas she quavered out Eng 
 lish ditties beneath the Roman lambris. She had pre 
 tensions individually, in short; the others had not even 
 those that their mother had for them. In general, how 
 ever, they were bullied and overpowered by their stern 
 parent; all they could do was to follow her like fright 
 ened sheep, and they lived with their eyes fixed on her, 
 so as to execute, at a glance from her, the evolutions in 
 which they had been drilled. We were sorry for them, 
 for we were sure that she secretly felt, with rage, that 
 they were not brilliant and sat upon them for it with all 
 her weight, which of course didn t tend to wake them 
 
208 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 up. None the less we talked of them profanely, and 
 especially of Veronica, who had the habit of addressing 
 us indiscriminately, though so many of us were English, 
 in incomprehensible strange languages. 
 
 When I say " we " I must immediately except the 
 young American secretary, with whom we lived much 
 (at least I did, for I liked him, little as the trick I 
 played him may have shown it), and who never was pro 
 fane about anything: a circumstance to be noticed the 
 more as the conversation of his chief, the representative 
 of the United States prbs du Saint- P^re at that time, 
 was apt (though this ancient worthy was not " bearded 
 like the pard, " but clean-shaven once or twice a week) 
 to be full of strange oaths. His name was Henry Wil- 
 merding, he came from some northern State (I am speak 
 ing now of the secretary, not of the minister), and he 
 was as fresh and sociable a young fellow as you could 
 wish to see. The minister was the drollest possible 
 type, but we all delighted in him ; indeed I think that 
 among his colleagues he was the most popular man in 
 the diplomatic body. He was a product of the Caro- 
 linas and always wore a dress-coat and a faded, super 
 annuated neckcloth; his hat and boots were also of a 
 fashion of his own. He talked very slowly, as if he 
 were delivering a public address, used innumerable 
 "sirs," of the forensic, not in the least of the social kind, 
 and always made me feel as if I were the Speaker of the 
 American Congress, though indeed I never should have 
 ventured to call him to order. The curious part of his 
 conversation was that, though it was rich in expletives, 
 it was also extremely sententious : he uttered them with 
 a solemnity which made them patriarchal and scriptural. 
 He used to remind me of the busts of some of the old 
 dry-faced, powerful Roman lawgivers and administrators. 
 
THE SOLUTION. 209 
 
 He spoke no language but that of his native State, but 
 that mattered little, as we all learned it and practiced it 
 for our amusement. We ended by making constant use 
 of it among ourselves : we talked it to each other in his 
 presence and under his nose. It seems to me, as I look 
 back, that we must have been rare young brutes ; but he 
 was an unsuspecting diplomatist. Indeed they were a 
 pair, for I think Wilmerding never knew he had such 
 a western bloom of his own. 
 
 Wilmerding was a gentleman and he was not a fool, 
 but he was not in the least a man of the world. I 
 couldn t fancy in what society he had grown up; I could 
 only see it was something very different from any of our 
 milieux. If he had been turned out by one of ours he 
 couldn t have been so innocent without being stupid or 
 so unworldly without being underbred. He was full 
 of natural delicacy, worse luck: if he hadn t been I 
 shouldn t be telling you this little story of my own 
 shame. He once mentioned to me that his ancestors 
 had been Quakers, and though he was not at all what 
 you call a muff (he was a capital rider, and in the exal 
 tation of his ideas of what was due to women a very 
 knight of romance), there was something rather dove- 
 like in his nature, suggestive of drab tints and the smell 
 of lavender. All the Quakers, or people of Quaker 
 origin, of whom I ever heard have been rich, and Wil 
 merding, happy dog, was not an exception to the rule. I 
 think this was partly the reason why we succumbed to 
 temptation: we should have handled him more tenderly 
 if he had had the same short allowance as ourselves. 
 He never talked of money (I have noticed Americans 
 rarely do it s a part of their prudery), but he was free 
 handed and extravagant and evidently had a long purse 
 to draw upon. He used to buy shocking daubs from 
 O 
 
210 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 those of his compatriots who then cultivated "arrt" 
 (they pronounced the word so oddly), in Borne, and I 
 knew a case where he let a fellow have his picture back 
 (it was certainly a small loss), to sell it over again. His 
 family were proprietors of large cotton-mills from which 
 banknotes appeared to flow in inexhaustible streams. 
 They sent him the handsomest remittances and let him 
 know that the question of supplies was the last he need 
 trouble himself about. There was something so envi 
 able, so ideal in such a situation as this that I daresay 
 it aggravated us a little, in spite of our really having 
 such a kindness for him. 
 
 It had that effect especially upon one of our little band 
 a young French attache, Guy de Montaut, one of the 
 most delightful creatures I have ever known and cer 
 tainly the Frenchman I have met in the world whom I 
 have liked best. He had all the qualities of his nation 
 and none of its defects he was born for human inter 
 course. He loved a joke as well as I, but his jokes as 
 a general thing were better than mine. It is true that 
 this one I am speaking of, in which he had an equal 
 hand, was bad enough. We were united by a community 
 of debt we owed money at the same places. Montaut s 
 family was so old that they had long ago spent their 
 substance and were not in the habit of pressing unso 
 licited drafts upon his acceptance. Neither of us quite 
 understood why the diplomatic career should be open to 
 a young Quaker, or the next thing to it, who was a 
 cotton-spinner into the bargain. At the British estab 
 lishment, at least, no form of dissent less fashionable 
 than the Catholic was recognised, and altogether it was 
 very clear to me that the ways of the Americans were 
 not as our ways. Montaut, as you may believe, wa.s as 
 little as possible of a Quaker; and if he was considerate 
 
THE SOLUTION. 211 
 
 of women it was in a very different manner from poor 
 Wilmerding. I don t think he respected them much, 
 but he would have insisted that he sometimes spared 
 them. I wondered often how Wilmerding had ever 
 come to be a secretary of legation, as at that period, in 
 America (I don t know how much they have changed it), 
 such posts were obtained by being begged for and 
 "worked" for in various crooked ways. It was impossi 
 ble to go in less for haughtiness ; yet with all Wilmer- 
 ding s mildness, and his being the model of the nice 
 young man, I couldn t have imagined his asking a 
 favour. 
 
 He went to Mrs. Goldie s as much as the rest of us, but 
 really no more, I think no more, certainly, until the 
 summer we all spent at Frascati. During that happy Sep 
 tember we were constantly in and out of her house, and 
 it is possible that when the others were out he was some 
 times in. I mean that he played backgammon in the 
 loggia of the villa with Rosy and Gussie, and even 
 strolled, or sat, in the dear old Roman garden with 
 them, looking over Veronica s shoulder while her pencil 
 vainly attempted a perspective or a perpendicular. It 
 was a charming, sociable, promiscuous time, and these 
 poor girls were more or less gilded, for all of us, by it. 
 The long, hot Roman summer had driven the strangers 
 away, and the native society had gone into villeggiatura. 
 My chief had crossed the Alps, on his annual leave, and 
 the affairs of our house they were very simple matters, 
 no great international questions were in the hands of 
 a responsible underling. I forget what had become of 
 Montaut s people; he himself, at any rate, was not to 
 have his holiday till later. We were in the same situa 
 tion, he and I, save that I had been able to take several 
 bare rooms, for a couple of months, in a rambling old 
 
212 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 palace in a fold of the Alban hills. The few survivors 
 of our Roman circle were my neighbours there, and I 
 offered hospitality to Montaut, who, as often as he was 
 free, drove out along the Appian Way to stay with me 
 for a day or two at a time. I think he had a little per 
 sonal tie in Rome which took up a good deal of his time. 
 
 The American minister and his lady she was easily 
 shocked but still more easily reassured had fled to 
 Switzerland, so that Wilmerding was left to watch over 
 the interests of the United States. He took a furnished 
 villa at Frascati (you could have one for a few scudi a 
 month), and gave very pleasant and innocent bachelor 
 parties. If he was often at Mrs. Goldie s she returned 
 his visits with her daughters, and I can live over 
 lovely evenings (oh youth, oh memory!) when tables 
 were set for supper in the garden and lighted by the 
 fireflies, when some of the villagers such voices as one 
 heard there and such natural art! came in to sing for 
 us, and when we all walked home in the moonlight with 
 the ladies, singing, ourselves, along the road. I am not 
 sure that Mrs. Goldie herself didn t warble to the 
 southern night. This is a proof of the humanising, 
 poetising conditions in which we lived. Mrs. Goldie 
 had remained near Rome to save money; there was also 
 a social economy in it, as she kept her eye on some of 
 her princesses. Several of these high dames were in 
 residence in our neighbourhood, and we were a happy 
 family together. 
 
 I don t quite know why we went to see Mrs. Goldie 
 so much if we didn t like her better, unless it be that my 
 immediate colleagues and I inevitably felt a certain 
 loyalty to the principal English house. Moreover we 
 did like the poor lady better in fact than we did in 
 theory and than the irreverent tone we took about her 
 
THE SOLUTION. 213 
 
 might have indicated. Wilmerding, all the same, re 
 mained her best listener, when she poured forth the ex 
 ploits and alliances of her family. He listened with 
 exaggerated interest he held it unpardonable to let 
 one s attention wander from a lady, however great a 
 bore she might be. Mrs. Goldie thought very well of 
 him, on these and other grounds, though as a general 
 thing she and her daughters didn t like strangers unless 
 they were very great people. In that case they recog 
 nised their greatness, but thought they would have been 
 much greater if they had been English. Of the great 
 ness of Americans they had but a limited sense, and they 
 never compared them with the English, the French or 
 even the Romans. The most they did was to compare 
 them with each other; and in this respect they had a 
 sort of measure. They thought the rich ones much less 
 small than the others. 
 
 The summer I particularly speak of, Mrs. Goldie s 
 was not simply the principal English house but really 
 the only one that is for the world in general. I knew 
 of another that I had a very different attachment to and 
 was even presumptuous enough to consider that I had an 
 exclusive interest in. It was not exactly a house, how 
 ever; it was only a big, cool, shabby, frescoed sitting- 
 room in the inn at Albano, a huge, melancholy mansion 
 that had come down in the world. It formed for the 
 time the habitation of a charming woman whom I fondly 
 believed to be more to me than any other human being. 
 This part of my tale is rather fatuous, or it would be if 
 it didn t refer to a hundred years ago. Not that my 
 devotion was of the same order as my friend Montaut s, 
 for the object of it was the most honourable of women, 
 an accomplished English lady. Her name was Mrs. 
 Rushbrook, and I should be capable at this hour of tell- 
 
214 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 ing you a great deal about her. The description that 
 would be most to the purpose, I confess (it puts the 
 matter in a word), is that I was very far gone about her. 
 I was really very bad, and she was some five years my 
 elder, which, given my age, only made my condition more 
 natural. She had been in Rome, for short visits, three 
 or four times during my period there : her little girl was 
 delicate, and her idea was to make a long stay in a 
 southern climate. 
 
 She was the widow of an officer in the navy ; she spoke 
 of herself as very poor, but I knew enough of her rela 
 tions in England to be sure that she would suffer no real 
 inconvenience. Moreover she was extravagant, careless, 
 even slightly capricious. If the "Bohemian" had been 
 invented in those days she might possibly have been one 
 a very small, fresh, dainty one. She was so pretty that she 
 has remained in my mind the pretty woman among those 
 I have known, who, thank heaven, have not been few. 
 She had a lovely head, and her chestnut hair was of a 
 shade I have never seen since. And her figure had such 
 grace and her voice such a charm ; she was in short the 
 woman a fellow loves. She was natural and clever 
 and kind, and though she was five years older than I she 
 always struck me as an embodiment of youth of the 
 golden morning of life. We made such happy discov 
 eries together when first I knew her : we liked the same 
 things, we disliked the same people, we had the same 
 favourite statues in the Vatican, the same secret prefer 
 ences in regard to views on the Campagna. We loved 
 Italy in the same way and in the same degree ; that is 
 with the difference that I cared less for it after I knew 
 her, because I cared so much more for her than for any 
 thing else. She painted, she studied Italian, she col 
 lected and noted the songs of the people, and she had 
 
THE SOLUTION. 215 
 
 the wit to pick up certain bibelots and curiosities lucky 
 woman before other people had thought of them. It 
 was long ago that she passed out of my ken, and yet I 
 feel that she was very modern. 
 
 Partly as a new-comer (she had been at Sorrento to 
 give her little girl sea-baths), and partly because she 
 had her own occupations and lived to herself, she was 
 rather out of our circle at Frascati. Mrs. Goldie had 
 gone to see her, however, and she had come over to two 
 or three of our parties. Several times I drove to Albano 
 to fetch her, but I confess that my quest usually ended 
 in my remaining with her. She joined more than one of 
 our picnics (it is ridiculous how many we had), and she 
 was notably present on an important occasion, the last 
 general meeting before our little colony dispersed. This 
 was neither more nor less than a tea-party a regular 
 five o clock tea, though the fashion hadn t yet come in 
 on the summit of Monte Cavo. It sounds very vulgar, 
 but I assure you it was delightful. We went up on foot, 
 on ponies, or donkeys : the animals were for the conven 
 ience of the ladies, and our provisions and utensils were 
 easily carried. The great heat had abated; besides, it 
 was late in the day. The Campagna lay beneath us like a 
 haunted sea (if you can imagine that the ghosts of dead 
 sentries walking on the deep) and the glow of the after 
 noon was divine. You know it all the way the Alban 
 mount slopes into the plain and the dome of St. Peter s 
 rises out of it, the colour of the Sabines, which look so 
 near, the old grey villages, the ruins of cities, of nations, 
 that are scattered on the hills. 
 
 Wilmerding was of our party, as a matter of course, 
 and Mrs. Goldie and the three girls and Montaut, con 
 found him, with his communicative sense that everything 
 was droll. He hadn t in his composition a grain of 
 
216 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 respect. Fortunately he didn t need it to make him 
 happy. We had our tea, we looked at the view, we chat 
 tered in groups or strolled about in couples: no doubt 
 we desecrated sufficiently a sublime historic spot. We 
 lingered late, but late as it was we perceived, when we 
 gathered ourselves together to descend the little moun 
 tain, that Veronica Goldie was missing. So was Henry 
 Wilmerding, it presently appeared; and then it came out 
 that they had been seen moving away together. We 
 looked for them a little ; we called for them ; we waited 
 for them. We were all there and we talked about them, 
 Mrs. Goldie of course rather more loudly than the rest. 
 She qualified their absence, I remember, as a " most ex 
 traordinary performance." Montaut said to me, in a 
 lowered voice: "Diable, diable, diable!" I remember 
 his saying also: "You others are very lucky. What 
 would have been thought if it was I?" We waited 
 in a small, a very small, embarrassment, and before 
 long the young lady turned up with her companion. I 
 forget where they had been; they told us, without con 
 fusion: they had apparently a perfectly good conscience. 
 They had not really been away long; but it so happened 
 that we all noticed it and that for a quarter of an hour 
 we thought of it. Besides, the dusk had considerably 
 deepened. As soon as they joined us we started home 
 ward. A little later we all separated, and Montaut and 
 I betook ourselves to our own quarters. He said to me 
 that evening, in relation to this little incident : " In my 
 country, you know, he would have to marry her." 
 
 "I don t believe it," I answered. 
 
 "Well, he would believe it, I m sure." 
 
 "I don t believe that." 
 
 "Try him and you ll see. He ll believe anything." 
 
 The idea of trying him such is the levity of youth 
 
THE SOLUTION. 217 
 
 took possession of me; but at the time I said nothing. 
 Montaut returned to Rome the next day, and a few days 
 later I followed him my villeggiatura was over. Our 
 afternoon at Monte Cavo had had no consequences that 
 I perceived. When I saw Montaut again in Rome one 
 of the first things he said to me was : 
 
 "Well, has Wilmerding proposed?" 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 "Didn t you tell him he ought?" 
 
 "My dear fellow, he d knock me down." 
 
 "Never in the world. He d thank you for the hint 
 he s so candid." I burst out laughing at this, and he 
 asked if our friend had come back. When I said I had 
 left him at Frascati he exclaimed: "Why, he s compro 
 mising her more ! " 
 
 I didn t quite understand, and I remember asking: 
 "Do you think he really ought to offer her marriage, as 
 a gentleman?" 
 
 "Beyond all doubt, in any civilised society." 
 
 "What a queer thing, then, is civilisation! Because^ 
 I m sure he has done her no harm." 
 
 "How can you be sure? However, call it good if you 
 like. It s a benefit one is supposed to pay for the priv 
 ilege of conferring." 
 
 "He won t see it." 
 
 "He will if you open his eyes." 
 
 " That s not my business. And there s no one to make 
 him see it," I replied. 
 
 "Couldn t the Honourable Blanche make him? It 
 seems to me I would trust her." 
 
 "Trust her then and be quiet." 
 
 "You re afraid of his knocking you down," Montaut 
 said. 
 
 I suppose I replied to this remark with another equally 
 
218 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 derisive, but I remember saying a moment later: "I m 
 rather curious to see if he would take such a representa 
 tion seriously." 
 
 "I bet you a louis he will!" Montaut declared; and 
 there was something in his tone that led me to accept the 
 bet. 
 
 II. 
 
 IN Rome, of a Sunday afternoon, every one went over 
 to St. Peter s; I don t know whether the agreeably 
 frivolous habit still prevails : it had little to do, I fear, 
 with the spirit of worship. We went to hear the music 
 the famous vesper-service of the Papal choir, and also 
 to learn the news, to stroll about and talk and look at 
 each other. If we treated the great church as a public 
 promenade, or rather as a splendid international salon, 
 the fault was not wholly our own, and indeed practically 
 there was little profanity in such an attitude. One s 
 attitude was insignificant, and the bright immensity of 
 the place protected conversation and even gossip. It 
 struck one not as a particular temple, but as formed by 
 the very walls of the faith that has no small pruderies to 
 enforce. One early autumn day, in especial, we crossed 
 the Tiber and lifted the ponderous leather curtain of the 
 door to get a general view of the return of our friends to 
 Borne. Half an hour s wandering lighted up the ques 
 tion of who had arrived, as every one, in his degree, 
 went there for a solution of it. At the end of ten 
 minutes I came upon Henry Wilmerding; he was stand 
 ing still, with his head thrown back and his eyes raised 
 to the far-arching dome as if he had felt its spell for the 
 first time. The body of the church was almost clear of 
 people ; the visitors were collected in the chapel where 
 service was held and just outside of it; the splendid 
 
THE SOLUTION. 219 
 
 chant and the strange high voices of some of the choris 
 ters came to us from a great distance. Before Wilmer- 
 ding saw me I had time to say to him : " I thought you 
 intended to remain at Frascati till the end of the week." 
 
 "I did, but I changed my mind." 
 
 "You came away suddenly, then?" 
 
 "Yes, it was rather sudden." 
 
 "Are you going back?" I presently asked. 
 
 "There s nothing particular to go back for." 
 
 I hesitated a moment. " Was there anything particular 
 to come away for?" 
 
 "My dear fellow, not that I know of," he replied, 
 with a slight flush in his cheek an intimation (not 
 that I needed it), that I had a little the air of challeng 
 ing his right to go and come as he chose. 
 
 "Not in relation to those ladies?" 
 
 "Those ladies?" 
 
 "Don t be so unnaturally blank. Your dearest 
 friends." 
 
 "Do you mean the Goldies?" 
 
 "Don t overdo it. Whom on earth should I mean?" 
 
 It is difficult to explain, but there was something 
 youthfully bland in poor Wilmerding which operated 
 as a provocation: it made him seem imperturbable, 
 which he really was not. My little discussion with 
 Montaut about the success with which he might be made 
 to take a joke seriously had not, till this moment, borne 
 any fruit in my imagination, but the idea became prolific, 
 or at least it became amusing, as I stood face to face 
 with him on those solemn fields of marble. There was 
 a temptation to see how much he would swallow. He 
 ivas candid, and his candour was like a rather foolish 
 blank page, the gaping, gilt-edged page of an album, 
 presenting itself for the receipt of a quotation or a 
 
220 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 thought. Why shouldn t one write something on it, to 
 see how it would look? In this case the inscription 
 could only be a covert pleasantry an impromptu con 
 taining a surprise. If Wilmerding was innocent, that, 
 no doubt, ought to have made one kind, and I had not 
 the faintest intention of being cruel. His blandness 
 might have operated to conciliate, and it was only the 
 turn of a hair that it had the other effect. That hair, 
 let me suppose, was simply the intrinsic brutality or 
 call it the high animal-spirits of youth. If after the 
 little experiment suggested by Montaut had fixed itself 
 in my fancy I let him off, it would be because I pitied 
 him. But it was absurd to pity Wilmerding we envied 
 him, as I have hinted, too much. If he was the white 
 album-page seductive to pointed doggerel he was unmis 
 takably gilt-edged. 
 
 " Oh, the Goldies," he said in a moment "I wouldn t 
 have stayed any longer for them. I came back because 
 I wanted to I don t see that it requires so much expla 
 nation." 
 
 "No more do I!" I laughed. "Come and listen to 
 the singing." I passed my hand into his arm and we 
 strolled toward the choir and the concourse of people 
 assembled before the high doorway. We lingered there 
 a little : till this hour I never can recall without an ache 
 for the old days the way the afternoon light, taking the 
 heavenly music and diffusing it, slants through the 
 golden recesses of the white windows, set obliquely in 
 the walls. Presently we saw Guy de Montaut in the 
 crowd, and he came toward us after having greeted us 
 with a gesture. He looked hard at me,, with a smile, as 
 if the sight of us together reminded him of his wager 
 and he wanted to know whether he had lost or won. I 
 let him know with a glance that he was to be quiet or 
 
THE SOLUTION. 221 
 
 he would spoil everything, and he was as quiet as he 
 knew how to be. This is not saying much, for he always 
 had an itch to play with fire. It was really the desire 
 to keep his hands off Wilmerding that led me to deal 
 with our friend in my own manner. I remember that 
 as we stood there together Montaut made several humor 
 ous attempts to treat him as a great conqueror, of which 
 I think Wilmerding honestly failed to perceive the drift- 
 It was Montaut s saying " You ought to bring them back 
 we miss them too much, that made me prepare to 
 draw our amiable victim away. 
 
 "They re not my property," Wilmerding replied, 
 accepting the allusion this time as to the four English 
 ladies. 
 
 "Ah, all of them, mon cher I never supposed!" the 
 Frenchman cried, with great merriment, as I broke up 
 our colloquy. I laughed, too the image he presented 
 seemed comical then and judged that we had better 
 leave the church. I proposed we should take a turn on the 
 Pincian, crossing the Tiber by the primitive ferry which 
 in those days still plied at the marble steps of the Ripetta, 
 just under the back- windows of the Borghese palace. 
 
 "Montaut was talking nonsense just then, but have 
 they refused you?" I asked as we took our way along 
 the rustic lane that used to wander behind the castle of 
 St. Angelo, skirting the old grassy fortifications and 
 coming down to the Tiber between market-gardens, vine 
 yards and dusty little trellised suburban drinking-shops 
 which had a withered bush over the gate. 
 
 "Have ivho refused me?" 
 
 "Ah, you keep it up too long! " I answered; and I was 
 silent a little. 
 
 "What s the matter with you this afternoon?" he 
 asked. "Why can t you leave the poor Goldies alone?" 
 
222 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 "Why can t you, my dear fellow that seems to me 
 the natural inquiry. Excuse my having caught Mon- 
 taut s tone just now. I don t suppose you proposed for 
 all of them." 
 
 "Proposed? I ve proposed for none of them! " 
 
 "Do you mean that Mrs. Goldie hasn t seemed to 
 expect it? " 
 
 "I don t know what she has seemed to expect." 
 
 "Can t you imagine what she would naturally look 
 for? If you can t, it s only another proof of the differ 
 ent way you people see things. Of course you have a 
 right to your own way." 
 
 "I don t think I know what you are talking about," 
 said poor Wilmerding. 
 
 " My dear fellow, I don t want to be offensive, dotting 
 my i s so. You can so easily tell me it s none of my 
 business." 
 
 " It isn t your being plain that would be offensive 
 it s your kicking up such a dust." 
 
 "You re very right," I said; "I ve taken a liberty 
 and I beg your pardon. We ll talk about something 
 else." 
 
 We talked about nothing, however; we went our Avay 
 in silence and reached the bank of the river. We 
 waited for the ferryman without further speech, but I 
 was conscious that a bewilderment was working in my 
 companion. As I relate my behaviour to you it strikes 
 me, at this distance of time, as that of a very demon. 
 All I can say is that it seemed to me innocent then : youth 
 and gaiety and reciprocity, and something in the sophisti 
 cating Roman air which converted all life into a pleasant 
 comedy, apologised for me as I went. Besides, I had 
 no vision of consequences: my part was to prove, as 
 against the too mocking Montaut, that there would be no 
 
THE SOLUTION. 223 
 
 consequences at all. I remember the way Wilmerding, 
 as we crossed, sat on the edge of the big flat boat, looking 
 down at the yellow swirl of the Tiber. He didn t meet 
 my eye, and he was serious ; which struck me as a promise 
 of further entertainment. From the Ripetta we strolled 
 to the Piazza del Popolo, and then began to mount one of 
 the winding ways that diversify the slope of the Pincian. 
 Before we got to the top Wilmerding said to me : " What 
 do you mean by the different way we people see things? 
 Whom do you mean by us people?" 
 
 " You innocent children of the west, most unsophisti 
 cated of Yankees. Your ideas, your standards, your 
 measures, your manners are different." 
 
 "The ideas and the manners of gentlemen are the 
 same all the world over." 
 
 "Yes I fear I can t gainsay you there," I replied. 
 
 "I don t ask for the least allowance on the score of 
 being a child of the west. I don t propose to be a bar 
 barian anywhere." 
 
 "You re the best fellow in the world," I continued; 
 " but it s nevertheless true I have been impressed with 
 it on various occasions that your countrypeople have, 
 in perfect good faith, a different attitude toward women. 
 They think certain things possible that we Europeans, 
 cynical and corrupt, look at with a suspicious eye." 
 
 "What things do you mean? " 
 
 "Oh, don t you know them? You have more freedom 
 than we." 
 
 " Ah, never ! " my companion cried, in a tone of con 
 viction that still rings in my ears. 
 
 "What I mean is that you have less," I said, laugh 
 ing. "Evidently women, chez vous, are not so easily 
 compromised. You must live, over there, in a state of 
 Arcadian, or rather of much more than Arcadian inno- 
 
224 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 cence. You can do all sorts of things without commit 
 ting yourselves. With a quarter of them, in this 
 uncomfortable hemisphere, one is up to one s neck in 
 engagements." 
 
 "In engagements?" 
 
 " One has given pledges that have in honour to be re 
 deemed unless a fellow chooses to wriggle out of them. 
 There is the question of intentions, and the question of 
 how far, in the eyes of the world, people have really 
 gone. Here it s the fashion to assume, if there is the 
 least colour for it, that they have gone pretty far. I 
 daresay often they haven t. But they get the credit of 
 it. That s what makes them often ask themselves or 
 each other why they mayn t as well die for sheep as 
 for lambs." 
 
 "I know perfectly well what you mean: that s pre 
 cisely what makes me so careful," said Wilmerding. 
 
 I burst into mirth at this I liked him even better 
 when he was subtile than when he was simple. " You re 
 a dear fellow and a gentleman to the core, and it s all 
 right, and you have only to trust your instincts. There 
 goes the Boccarossa," I said, as we entered the gardens 
 which crown the hill and which used to be as pleasantly 
 neglected of old as they are regulated and cockneyfied 
 to-day. The lovely afternoon was waning and the good- 
 humoured, blast crowd (it has seen so much, in its time) 
 formed a public to admire the heavy Roman coaches, 
 laden with yellow principessas, which rumbled round 
 the contracted circle. The old statues in the shrubbery, 
 the colour of the sunset, the view of St. Peter s, the 
 pines against the sky on Monte Mario, and all the roofs 
 and towers of Rome between these things are doubt 
 less a still fresher remembrance with you than with me. 
 I leaned with Wilmerding against the balustrade of one 
 
THE SOLUTION. 225 
 
 of the terraces and we gave the usual tribute of a gaze to 
 the dome of Michael Angelo. Then my companion broke 
 out, with perfect irrelevance : 
 
 "Don t you think I ve been careful enough?" 
 
 It s needless it would be odious to tell you in 
 detail what advantage I took of this. I hated (I told 
 him) the slang of the subject, but I was bound to say 
 he would be generally judged in any English, in any 
 French circle to have shown what was called marked 
 interest. 
 
 " Marked interest in what? Marked interest in whom? 
 You can t appear to have been attentive to four women 
 at once." 
 
 " Certainly not. But isn t there one whom you may 
 be held particularly to have distinguished? " 
 
 "One?" Wilmerding stared. "You don t mean the 
 old lady?" 
 
 " Commediante I Does your conscience say absolutely 
 nothing to you? " 
 
 "My conscience? What has that got to do with it?" 
 
 " Call it then your sense of the way that to effete 
 prejudice the affair may have looked. " 
 
 "The affair what affair?" 
 
 "Honestly, can t you guess? Surely there is one of 
 the young ladies to whom the proprieties point with a 
 tolerably straight ringer." 
 
 He hesitated; then he cried: "Heaven help me you 
 don t mean Veronica? " 
 
 The pleading wail with which he uttered this question 
 was almost tragic, and for a moment his fate trembled 
 in the balance. I was on the point of letting him off, as 
 I may say, if he disliked the girl so much as that. It 
 was a revelation I didn t know how much he did dis 
 like her. But at this moment a carriage stopped near 
 
 P 
 
226 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 the place where we had rested, and, turning round, 1 
 saw it contained two ladies whom I knew. They greeted 
 me and prepared to get out, so that I had to go and help 
 them. But before I did this I said to my companion : 
 "Don t worry, after all. It will all blow over." 
 
 " Upon my word, it will have to ! " I heard him ejacu 
 late as I left him. He turned back to the view of St. 
 Peter s. My ladies alighted and wished to walk a little, 
 and I spent five minutes with them ; after which, when 
 I looked for Wilmerding, he had disappeared. The last 
 words he had spoken had had such a sharp note of im 
 patience that I was reassured. I had ruffled him, but 
 I had won my bet of Montaut. 
 
 Late that night (I had just come in I was never at 
 home in the evening) there was a tinkle of my bell, and 
 my servant informed me that the signorino of the 
 "American embassy" wished to speak to me. Wilmer- 
 ding was ushered in, very pale, so pale that I thought 
 he had come to demand satisfaction of me for having 
 tried to make a fool of him. But he hadn t, it soon ap 
 peared; he hadn t in the least: he wanted explanations, 
 but they were quite of another kind. He only wished to 
 arrive at the truth to ask me two or three earnest ques 
 tions. I ought of course to have told him on the spot 
 that I had only been making use of him for a slight 
 psychological experiment. But I didn t, and this omis 
 sion was my great fault. I can only declare, in extenua 
 tion of it, that I had scruples about betraying Montaut. 
 Bes ides, I did cling a little to my experiment. There 
 was something that fascinated me in the idea of the 
 supreme sacrifice he \vas ready to make if it should be 
 come patent to him that lie had put upon an innocent 
 girl, or upon a confiding mother, a slight, a disappoint 
 ment even purely conventional. I urged him to let me 
 
THE SOLUTION. 227 
 
 lay the ghost I had too inconsiderately raised, but at 
 the same time I was curious to see what he would do if 
 the idea of reparation should take possession of him. 
 He would be consistent, and it would be strange to see 
 that. I remember saying to him before he went away: 
 "Have you really a very great objection to Veronica 
 Goldie?" I thought he was going to reply"! loathe 
 her ! " But he answered : 
 
 "A great objection? I pity her, if I ve deceived her." 
 
 "Women must have an easy time in your country," I 
 said; and I had an idea the remark would contribute to 
 soothe him. 
 
 Nevertheless, the next day, early in the afternoon, 
 being still uneasy, I went to his lodgings. I had had, 
 by a rare chance, a busy morning, and this was the first 
 moment I could spare. Wilmerding had delightful 
 quarters in an old palace with a garden an old pal 
 ace with old busts ranged round an old loggia and an old 
 porter in an old cocked hat and a coat that reached to 
 his heels leaning against the portone. From this func 
 tionary I learned that the signorino had quitted Eome in 
 a two-horse carriage an hour before : he had gone back 
 to Frascati he had taken a servant and a portmanteau. 
 This news did not confirm my tranquillity in exactly the 
 degree I could have wished, and I stood there looking, 
 and I suppose feeling, rather blank while I considered it. 
 A moment later I was surprised in this attitude by Guy 
 de Montaut, who turned into the court with the step of 
 a man bent on the same errand as myself. We looked 
 at each other he with a laugh, I with a frown and 
 then I said: "I don t like it he s gone." 
 
 "Gone? to America?" 
 
 "On the contrary back to the hills." 
 
 Montaut s laugh rang out, and he exclaimed: "Of 
 
228 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 course you don t like it! Please to hand me over the 
 sum of money that I have had the honour of winning 
 from you." 
 
 " Not so fast. What proves to you that you ve won it? " 
 
 "Why, his going like this after the talk I had with 
 him this morning." 
 
 "What talk had you with him this morning?" 
 
 Montaut looked at the old porter, who of course 
 couldn t understand us, but, as if he scented the drift 
 of things, was turning his perceptive Italian eye from 
 one of us to the other. " Come and walk with me, and 
 I ll tell you. The drollest thing!" he went on, as we 
 passed back to the street. " The poor child has been to 
 see me." 
 
 "To propose to you a meeting?" 
 
 "Not a bit to ask my advice." 
 
 "Your advice?" 
 
 "As to how to act in the premises. II est impayable." 
 
 "And what did you say to him?" 
 
 "I said Veronica was one of the most charming 
 creatures I had ever seen." 
 
 " You ought to be ashamed of yourself. " 
 
 " Tadieu, man cher, so ought you, if you come to that ! " 
 Montaut replied, taking his hand out of my arm. 
 
 "It s just what I am. We re a pair of scoundrels." 
 
 " Speak for yourself. I wouldn t have missed it for 
 the world." 
 
 "You wouldn t have missed what?" 
 
 " His visit to me to-day such an exhibition ! " 
 
 "What did he exhibit?" 
 
 " The desire to be correct but in a degree ! You re a 
 race apart, vous autres." 
 
 "Don t lump him and me together," I said: "the im 
 measurable ocean divides us. Besides, it s you who 
 
THE SOLUTION. 229 
 
 were stickling for correctness. It was your insistence 
 to me on what he ought to do on w r hat the family 
 would have a right to expect him to do that was the 
 origin of the inquiry in which (yesterday, when I met 
 him at St. Peter s,) I so rashly embarked." 
 
 " My dear fellow, the beauty of it is that the family 
 have brought no pressure: that s an element I was 
 taking for granted. He has no claim to recognise, be 
 cause none has been made. He tells me that the Honour 
 able Blanche, after her daughter s escapade with him, 
 didn t open her mouth. Ces Anglaises!" 
 
 "Perhaps that s the way she made her claim," I sug 
 gested. "But why the deuce, then, couldn t he be 
 quiet?" 
 
 "It s exactly what he thinks that she may have 
 been quiet out of delicacy. He s inimitable! " 
 
 " Fancy, in such a matter, his wanting advice ! " I 
 groaned, much troubled. We had stopped outside, under 
 the palace windows ; the sly porter, from the doorway, 
 was still looking at us. 
 
 "Call it information," said Montaut. 
 
 "But I gave him lots, last night. He came to me." 
 
 " He wanted more he wanted to be sure ! He wanted 
 an honest impression; he begged me, as a favour to him, 
 to be very frank. Had he definitely, yes or no, accord 
 ing to my idea, excited expectations? I told him, defi 
 nitely, yes according to my idea! " 
 
 "I shall go after him," I declared; "I shall overtake 
 him I shall bring him back." 
 
 "You ll not play fair, then." 
 
 "Play be hanged! The fellow mustn t sacrifice his 
 life." 
 
 "Where s the sacrifice? she s quite as good as he. 
 I don t detest poor Veronica she has possibilities, and 
 
230 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 also very pretty hair. What pretensions can he have? 
 He s touching, but he s only a cotton-spinner and a block 
 head. Besides, it offends an aimable Frangais to see 
 three unmated virgins withering in a row. You people 
 don t mind that sort of thing, but it violates our sense 
 of form of proper arrangement. Girls marry, que 
 cHable!" 
 
 "I notice they don t marry you! " I cried. 
 
 "I don t go and hide in the bushes with them. Let 
 him arrange it I like to see people act out their char 
 acter. Don t spoil this it will be perfect. Such a 
 story to tell!" 
 
 " To tell? We shall blush for it for ever. Besides, 
 we can tell it even if he does nothing." 
 
 " Not I I shall boast of it. I shall have done a good 
 action, I shall have assur6 un sort to a portionless girl." 
 Montaut took hold of me again, for I threatened to run 
 after Wilmerding, and he made me walk about with him 
 for half an hour. He took some trouble to persuade me 
 that further interference would be an unwarranted injury 
 to Veronica Goldie. She had apparently got a husband 
 I had no right to dash him from her lips. 
 
 "Getting her a husband was none of my business." 
 
 "You did it by accident, and so you can leave it." 
 
 "I had no business to try him." 
 
 "You believed he would resist." 
 
 "I don t find it so amusing as you," I said, gloomily. 
 
 "What s amusing is that he has had no equivalent," 
 Montaut broke out. 
 
 "No equivalent?" 
 
 "He s paying for what he didn t have, I gather, eh? 
 L imbecile! It s a reparation without an injury." 
 
 "It s an injury without a provocation!" I answered, 
 breaking away from him. 
 
THE SOLUTION". 231 
 
 I went straight to the stables at which I kept my horse 
 we all kept horses in Ixome, in those days, for the 
 Campagna was an incomparable riding-ground and 
 ordered the animal to be brought immediately to Porta 
 San Giovanni. There was some delay, for I reached 
 this point, even after the time it took me to change my 
 dress, a good while before he came. When he did 
 arrive I sprang into the saddle and dashed out of the 
 gate. T soon got upon the grass and put the good beast 
 to his speed, and I shall never forget that rich after 
 noon s ride. It seemed to me almost historic, at the 
 time, and I thought of all the celebrated gallops, or those 
 of poetry and fiction, that had been taken to bring good 
 news or bad, to warn of dangers, to save cities, to stay 
 executions. I felt as if staying an execution were now 
 the object of mine. I took the direction of the Appian 
 Way, where so many panting steeds, in the succession 
 of ages, had struck fire from the stones; the ghostly 
 aqueducts watched me as I passed, and these romantic 
 associations gave me a sense of heroism. It was dark 
 when I strained up the hill to Frascati, but there were 
 lights in the windows of Wilmerding s villa, toward 
 which I first pressed my course. I rode straight into 
 the court, and called up to him there was a window 
 open ; and he looked out and asked in unconcealed sur 
 prise what had brought me from Rome. "Let me in 
 and I ll tell you," I said; and his servant came down and 
 admitted me, summoning another member of the estab 
 lishment to look after my horse. 
 
 It was very well to say to Wilmerding that I would 
 tell him what had brought me : that was not so easy 
 after I had been introduced into his room. Then I saw 
 that something very important had happened: his whole 
 aspect instantly told me so. He was half undressed 
 
232 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 he was preparing for dinner he was to dine at Mrs. 
 Goldie s. This he explained to me without any ques 
 tion of mine, and it led me to say to him, with, I sus 
 pect, a tremor in my voice : " Then you have not yet seen 
 her?" 
 
 " On the contrary : I drove to their villa as soon as 1 
 got here. I ve been there these two hours. I promised 
 them to go back to dine I only came round here to tidy 
 myself a little." I looked at him hard, and he added: 
 "I m engaged to be married." 
 
 "To which of them?" I asked; and the question 
 seemed to me absurd as soon as I had spoken it. 
 
 "Why, to Veronica." 
 
 "Any of them would do," I rejoined, though this was 
 not much better. And I turned round and looked out of 
 the window into the dark. The tears rose to my eyes 
 I had ridden heroically, but I had not saved the city. 
 
 "What did you desire to say to me?" Wilmerding 
 went on. 
 
 " Only that I wish you all the happiness you deserve, " 
 I answered, facing him again. 
 
 " Did you gallop out here for that ? " he inquired. 
 
 " I might have done it for less ! " I laughed, awkwardly ; 
 but he was very mild he didn t fly at me. They had 
 evidently been very nice to him at the other house 
 well they might be ! Veronica had shaken her hair in 
 his eyes, and for the moment he had accepted his fate. 
 
 "You had better come back and dine with me," he 
 said. 
 
 " On an occasion so private so peculiar when you 
 want them all to yourself? Never in the world." 
 
 "What then will you do here alone?" 
 
 "I ll wash and dress first, if you ll lend me some 
 things." 
 
THE SOLUTION. 233 
 
 "My man will give you everything you need." 
 
 His kindness, his courtesy, his extraordinary subjec 
 tion to his unnecessary doom filled me with a kind of 
 anguish, and I determined that I would save him even 
 yet. I had a sudden inspiration it was at least an 
 image of help. " To tell the, truth, I didn t ride from 
 Rome at such a rate only to be the first to congratu 
 late you. I ve taken you on the way; but a consid 
 erable part of my business is to go and see Mrs. Rush- 
 brook." 
 
 "Mrs. Rushbrook? Do you call this on your way? 
 She lives at Albano." 
 
 "Precisely; and when I ve brushed myself up a bit 
 and had a little bread and wine I shall drive over there." 
 
 "It will take you a full hour, in the dark." 
 
 "I don t care for that I want to see her. It came 
 over me this afternoon." 
 
 Wilmerding looked at me a moment without any 
 visible irony and demanded, with positive solemnity : 
 "Do you wish to propose to her? " 
 
 "Oh, if she d marry me it would suit me! But she 
 won t. At least she won t yet. She makes me wait too 
 long. All the same, I want to see her." 
 
 "She s very charming," said Wilmerding, simply. 
 He finished dressing and went off to dine with Veronica, 
 while I passed into another room to repair my own dis 
 order. His servant gave me some things that would 
 serve me for the night; for it was my purpose, at 
 Albano, to sleep at the inn. I was so horrified at what 
 I had done, or at what I had not succeeded in undoing, 
 that I hungered for consolation, or at least for advice. 
 Mrs. Rushbrook shone before me in the gloom as a gen 
 erous dispenser of that sort of comfort. 
 
234 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 III. 
 
 THERE was nothing extraordinary in my going to see 
 her, but there was something very extraordinary in my 
 taking such an hour for the purpose. I was supposed to 
 be settled in Rome again, but it was ten o clock at night 
 when I turned up at the old inn at Albano. Mrs. Bush- 
 brook had not gone to bed, and she greeted me with a 
 certain alarm, though the theory of our intercourse was 
 that she was always glad to see me. I ordered supper 
 and a room for the night, but I couldn t touch the repast 
 before I had been ushered into the vast and vaulted apart 
 ment which she used as a parlour, the florid bareness of 
 which would have been vulgar in any country but Italy. 
 She asked me immediately if I had brought bad news, 
 and I replied: "Yes, but only about myself. That s 
 not exactly it," I added; "it s about Henry Wilmer- 
 ding." 
 
 "Henry Wilmerding?" She appeared for the moment 
 not to recognise the name. 
 
 "He s going to marry Veronica Goldie." 
 
 Mrs. Eushbrook stared. " Que me contez-vous lei? 
 Have you come all this way to tell me that?" 
 
 "But he is it s all settled it s awful! " I went on. 
 
 "What do I care, and what do you mean?" 
 
 " I ve got into a mess, and I want you to advise me 
 and to get me out of it, " I persisted. 
 
 "My poor friend, you must make it a little clearer 
 then," she smiled. "Sit down, please and have you 
 had your dinner?" 
 
 She had been sitting at one end of her faded saloon, 
 where, as the autumn night was fresh at Albano, a fire 
 of faggots was crackling in. the big marble-framed cavern 
 of the chimney. Her books, her work, her materials 
 
THE SOLUTION. 235 
 
 for writing and sketching, were scattered near : the place 
 was a comfortable lamplit corner in the general blankness. 
 There was a piano near at hand, and beyond it were the 
 doors of further chambers, in one of which my hostess s 
 little daughter was asleep. There was always something 
 vaguely annoying to me in these signs of occupation and 
 independence : they seemed to limit the ground on which 
 one could appeal to her for oneself. 
 
 "I m tired and I m hungry," I said, "but I can t 
 think of my dinner till I ve talked to you." 
 
 "Have you come all the way from Home?" 
 
 "More than all the way, because I ve been at Fras- 
 cati." 
 
 "And how did you get here? " 
 
 " I hired a chaise and pair at Frascati the man drove 
 me over." 
 
 "At this hour? You wereirt afraid of brigands?" 
 
 "Xot when it was a question of seeing you. You 
 must do something for me you must stop it." 
 
 "What must I do, and what must I stop?" said Mrs. 
 Kushbrook, sitting down. 
 
 "This odious union it s too unnatural." 
 
 "I see, then. Veronica s to marry some one, and you 
 want her for yourself." 
 
 "Don t be cruel, and don t torment me I m sore 
 enough already. You know well enough whom I want 
 to marry ! " I broke out. 
 
 " How can I stop anything? " Mrs Eushbrook asked. 
 
 " When I see you this way, at home, between the fire 
 and the lamp, with the empty place beside you an 
 image of charming domesticity do you suppose I have 
 any doubt as to what I want? " 
 
 She rested her eyes on the fire, as if she were turning 
 my words over as an act of decent courtesy and of pretty 
 
236 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 form. But immediately afterwards she said: "If you ve 
 come out here to make love to me, please say so at once, 
 so that we may have it over on the spot. You will gain 
 nothing whatever by it. " 
 
 "I m not such a fool as to have given you such a 
 chance to snub me. That would have been presumptuous, 
 and what is at the bottom of my errand this evening is 
 extreme humility. Don t therefore think you ve gained 
 the advantage of putting me in my place. You ve done 
 nothing of the sort, for I haven t come out of it except, 
 indeed, so far as to try a bad joke on Wilmerding. It 
 has turned out even worse than was probable. You re 
 clever, you re sympathetic, you re kind." 
 
 "What has Wilmerding to do with that?" 
 
 "Try and get him off. That s the sort of thing a 
 woman can do." 
 
 " I don t in the least follow you, you know r . Who is 
 Wilmerding? " 
 
 "Surely you remember him you ve seen him at 
 Frascati, the young American secretary you saw him 
 a year ago in Eome. The fellow who is always opening 
 the door for you and finding the things you lose." 
 
 "The things I lose?" 
 
 " I mean the things women lose. He went with us the 
 other day to Monte Cavo." 
 
 "And got himself lost with the girl? Oh yes, I recall 
 him," said Mrs. Rush brook. 
 
 "It was the darkest hour of his life or rather of 
 mine. I told him that after that the only thing he could 
 do was to marry Veronica. And he has believed me." 
 
 "Does he believe everything you tell him?" Mrs. 
 Rushbrook asked. 
 
 "Don t be impertinent, because I feel very wretched. 
 He loathes Veronica." 
 
THE SOLUTION. 237 
 
 "Then why does he marry her?" 
 
 "Because I worked upon him. It s comical yet it s 
 dreadful." 
 
 "Is he an idiot can t he judge for himself ?" said 
 Mrs. Rushbrook. 
 
 " He s marrying her for good manners. I persuaded 
 him they require it." 
 
 " And don t they, then ? " 
 
 "Not the least in the world! " 
 
 "Was that your idea of good manners? Why did you 
 doit?" 
 
 "I didn t I backed out, as soon as I saw he believed 
 ine. But it was too late. Besides, a friend of mine had 
 a hand in it he went further than I. I may as well 
 tell you that it s Guy de Montaut, the little Frenchman 
 of the embassy, whom you ll remember he was of our 
 party at Monte Cavo. Between us, in pure sport and 
 without meaning any harm, we have brought this thing 
 on. And now I m devoured with remorse it wasn t a 
 creditable performance." 
 
 "What was the beauty of the joke?" Mrs. Rushbrook 
 inquired, with exasperating serenity. 
 
 "Don t ask me now I don t see it! It seems to me 
 hideous." 
 
 "And M. de Montaut has he any compunction?" 
 
 " Not a bit he looks at it from the point of view of 
 the Goldies. Veronica is a fille sans dot, and not gen 
 erally liked; therefore with poor prospects. He has put 
 a husband in her way a rich, good-natured young man, 
 without encumbrances and of high character. It s a 
 service, where a service was needed, of which he is posi 
 tively proud." 
 
 Mrs. Rushbrook looked at me reflectively, as if she 
 were trying to give me her best attention and to straighten 
 out this odd story. 
 
238 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 "Mr. Wilmerding is rich?" she asked in a moment. 
 
 "Dear me, yes very well off." 
 
 "And of high character?" 
 
 " An excellent fellow without a fault. " 
 
 "I don t understand him, then." 
 
 "No more do I!" 
 
 "Then what can we do? How can we interfere?" my 
 companion went on. 
 
 "That s what I want you to tell me. It s a woman s 
 business that s why I ve tumbled in on you here. 
 You must invent something, you must attempt some 
 thing." 
 
 "My dear friend, what on earth do I care for Mr. 
 Wilmerding? " 
 
 "You ought to care he s a knight of romance. Do 
 it for me, then." 
 
 " Oh, for you ! " my hostess laughed. 
 
 "Don t you pity me doesn t my situation appeal to 
 you? " 
 
 " Not a bit ! It s grotesque. " 
 
 "That s because you don t know." 
 
 "What is it I don t know?" 
 
 "Why, in the first place, what a particularly shabby 
 thing it was to play such a trick on Wilmerding a 
 gentleman and a man that never injured a fly ; and, in 
 the second place, how miserable he ll be and how little 
 comfort he ll have with Veronica." 
 
 "What s the matter with Veronica is she so bad?" 
 
 "You know them all one doesn t want to marry 
 them. Fancy putting oneself deliberately under Mrs. 
 Goldie s heel! The great matter with Veronica is that, 
 left to himself, he would never have dreamed of her. 
 That s enough." 
 
 "You say he hasn t a fault," Mrs. Bushbrook replied. 
 "But isn t it rather a fault that he s such a booby? " 
 
THE SOLUTION. 239 
 
 " I don t know whether it s because I m rather exalted, 
 rather morbid, in my reaction against my momentary 
 levity, that he strikes me as so far from being a booby 
 that I really think what he has engaged to do is very 
 fine. If without intending it, and in ignorance of the 
 social perspective of a country not his own, he has ap 
 peared to go so far that they have had a right to expect 
 he would go further, he s willing to pay the penalty. 
 Poor fellow, he pays for all of us." 
 
 "Surely he s very meek," said Mrs. Kushbrook. 
 "He s what you call a muff." 
 
 " Que voulez-vous? He s simple he s generous." 
 
 "I see what you mean I like that." 
 
 " You would like him if you knew him. He has acted 
 like a gallant gentleman from a sense of duty." 
 
 "It is rather fine," Mrs. Rushbrook murmured. 
 
 "He s too good for Veronica," I continued. 
 
 " And you want me to tell her so? " 
 
 " Well, something of that sort. I want you to arrange 
 it." 
 
 "I m much obliged that s a fine large order!" my 
 companion laughed. 
 
 " Go and see Mrs. Goldie, intercede with her, entreat 
 her to let him go, tell her that they really oughtn t to 
 take advantage of a momentary aberration, an extrava 
 gance of magnanimity." 
 
 "Don t you think it s your place to do all that?" 
 
 " Do you imagine it would do any good that they 
 would release him?" I demanded. 
 
 " How can I tell? You could try. Is Veronica very 
 fond of him? " Mrs. Rushbrook pursued. 
 
 " I don t think any of them can really be very fond of 
 any one who isn t smart. They want certain things 
 that don t belong to Wilmerding at all to his nation- 
 
240 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 ality or his type. He isn t at all smart, in their 
 sense." 
 
 "Oh yes, their sense: I know it. It s not a nice 
 sense!" Mrs. Rushbrook exclaimed, with a critical 
 sigh. 
 
 "At the same time Veronica is dying to be married, 
 and they are delighted with his money. It makes up 
 for deficiencies," I explained. 
 
 "And is there so much of it? " 
 
 "Lots and lots. I know by the way he lives." 
 
 "An American, you say? One doesn t know Amer 
 icans." 
 
 "How do you mean, one doesn t know them? " 
 
 "They re vague to me. One doesn t meet many." 
 
 "More s the pity, if they re all like Wilmerding. But 
 they can t be. You must know him I m sure you ll 
 like him." 
 
 "He comes back to me; I see his face now," said Mrs. 
 Eushbrook. " Isn t he rather good-looking? " 
 
 "Well enough ; but I ll say he s another Antinous if 
 it will interest you for him. " 
 
 "What I don t understand is your responsibility," my 
 friend remarked after a moment. "If he insists and 
 persists, how is it your fault? " 
 
 " Oh, it all comes back to that. I put it into his head 
 I perverted his mind. I started him on the fatal 
 course I administered the primary push." 
 
 "Why can t you confess your misdemeanour to him, 
 then?" 
 
 "I have confessed that is, almost. I attenuated, I 
 retracted, when I saw how seriously he took it; I did 
 what I could to pull him back. I rode after him to-day 
 and almost killed my horse. But it was no use he 
 had moved so abominably fast." 
 
THE SOLUTION. 241 
 
 "How fast do you mean?" 
 
 "I mean that he had proposed to Veronica a few 
 hours after I first spoke to him. He couldn t bear it a 
 moment longer I mean the construction of his behav 
 iour as shabby." 
 
 "He is rather a knight! " murmured Mrs. Rushbrook. 
 
 "11 est impayable, as Montaut says. Montaut practiced 
 upon him without scruple. I really think it was Mon 
 taut who settled him." 
 
 " Have you told him, then, it was a trick? " my hostess 
 demanded. 
 
 I hesitated. "Xo, not quite that." 
 
 "Are you afraid he ll cut your throat?" 
 
 " Not in the least. I would give him my throat if it 
 would do any good. But he would cut it and then cut 
 his own. I mean he d still marry the girl." 
 
 "Perhaps he does love her," Mrs. Rushbrook sug 
 gested. 
 
 "I wish I could think it!" 
 
 She was silent a moment; then she asked: "Does he 
 love some one else?" 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 "Well then," said Mrs. Rushbrook, "the only thing 
 for you to do, that I can see, is to take her off his hands." 
 
 "To take Veronica off ?" 
 
 " That would be the only real reparation. Go to Mrs. 
 Goldie to-morrow and tell her your little story. Say : 
 I want to prevent the marriage, and I ve thought of the 
 most effective thing. If /will take her, she will let him 
 go, won t she? Therefore consider that I ivill take 
 her. " 
 
 " I would almost do that ; I have really thought of it, " 
 I answered. "But Veronica wouldn t take me." 
 
 "How do you know? It s your duty to try." 
 
 Q 
 
242 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 "I ve no money." 
 
 "No, but you re smart. And then you re charming." 
 
 "Ah, you re cruel you re not so sorry for me as I 
 should like ! " I returned. 
 
 " I thought that what you wanted was that I should 
 be sorry for Mr. Wilmerding. You must bring him to 
 see me," said Mrs. Rushbrook. 
 
 "And do you care so little about me that you could be 
 witness of my marrying another woman? I enjoy the 
 way you speak of it ! " I cried. 
 
 "Wouldn t it all be for your honour? That s Avhat I 
 care about," she laughed. 
 
 "I ll bring Wilmerding to see you to-morrow: he ll 
 make you serious," I declared. 
 
 "Do; I shall be delighted to see him. But go to Mrs. 
 Goldie, too it is your duty." 
 
 "Why mine only? Why shouldn t Montaut marry 
 her?" 
 
 "You forget that he has no compunction." 
 
 "And is that the only thing you can recommend?" 
 
 "I ll think it over I ll tell you to-morrow," Mrs. 
 Rushbrook said. " Meanwhile, I do like your American 
 
 he sounds so unusual." I remember her exclaiming 
 further, before we separated: "Your poor Wilmerding 
 
 he is a knight! But for a diplomatist fancy! " 
 
 It was agreed between us the next day that she should 
 drive over to Frascati with me; and the vehicle which 
 had transported me to Albano and remained the night at 
 the hotel conveyed us, before noon, in the opposite sense, 
 along the side of the hills and the loveliest road in the 
 world through the groves and gardens, past the monu 
 ments and ruins and the brown old villages with feudal 
 and papal gateways that overhang the historic plain. If 
 I begged Mrs. Rushbrook to accompany me there was 
 
THE SOLUTION. 243 
 
 always reason enough for that in the extreme charm of 
 her society. The day moreover was lovely, and a drive 
 in those regions was always a drive. Besides, I still 
 attached the idea of counsel and aid to Mrs. Rushbrook s 
 presence, in spite of her not having as yet, in regard to 
 my difficulty, any acceptable remedy to propose. She 
 had told me she would try to think of something, and 
 she now assured me she had tried, but the happy idea 
 that would put everything right had not descended upon 
 her. The most she could say was that probably the 
 marriage wouldn t really take place. There was time 
 for accidents ; I should get off with my fright ; the girl 
 would see how little poor Wilmerding s heart was in it 
 and wouldn t have the ferocity to drag him to the altar. 
 [ endeavoured to take that view, but through my magni 
 fying spectacles I could only see Veronica as ferocious, 
 and I remember saying to Mrs. Rushbrook, as we jour 
 neyed together: "I wonder if they would take money." 
 
 " Whose money yours ? " 
 
 "Mine what money have I? I mean poor Wilmer 
 ding s." 
 
 " You can always ask them it s a possibility," my 
 companion answered ; from which I saw that she quite 
 took for granted I would intercede with the Honourable 
 Blanche. This was a formidable prospect, a meeting on 
 such delicate ground, but I steeled myself to it in pro 
 portion as I seemed to perceive that Mrs. Kushbrook held 
 it to be the least effort I could reputably make. I desired 
 so to remain in her good graces that I was ready to do 
 anything that would strike her as gallant I didn t want 
 to be so much less of a "knight" than the wretched 
 Wilmerding. What I most hoped for secretly, how 
 ever, clinging to the conception of a clever woman s tact 
 as infinite was that she would speak for me either to 
 
244 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 Mrs. Goldie or to Veronica herself. She had powers of 
 manipulation and she would manipulate. It was true 
 that she protested against any such expectation, declar 
 ing that intercession on her part would be in the worst 
 possible taste and would moreover be attributed to the 
 most absurd motives : how could I fail to embrace a truth 
 so flagrant? If she was still supposed to be trying to 
 think of something, it was something that / could do. 
 Fortunately she didn t say again to me that the solution 
 was that I should "take over" Veronica; for I could 
 scarcely have endured that. You may ask why, if she 
 had nothing to suggest and wished to be out of it, if above 
 all she didn t wish, in general, to encourage me, she 
 should have gone with me on this occasion to Frascati. 
 I can only reply that that was her own affair, and I was 
 so far from quarrelling with such a favour that as we 
 rolled together along the avenues of ilex, in the exqui 
 site Roman weather, I was almost happy. 
 
 I went straight to Mrs. Goldie s residence, as I should 
 have gone to a duel, and it was agreed that Mrs. Kush- 
 brook should drive on to the Villa Mondragone, where I 
 would rejoin her after the imperfect vindication of my 
 honour. The Villa Mondragone you probably remem 
 ber its pompous, painted, faded extent and its magnifi 
 cent terrace was open to the public, and any lover of 
 old Borne was grateful for a pretext for strolling in its 
 picturesque, neglected, enchanted grounds. It had been 
 a resource for all of us at Frascati, but Mrs. Rushbrook 
 had not seen so much of it as the rest of us, or as she 
 desired. 
 
 I may as well say at once that I shall not attempt to 
 make my encounter with the terrible dowager a vivid 
 scene to you, for to this day I see it only through a blur 
 of embarrassment and confusion, a muddle of difficulties 
 
THE SOLUTION. 245 
 
 suspended like a sort of enlarging veil before a mon 
 strous Gorgon face. What I had to say to Mrs. Goldie 
 was in truth neither easy nor pleasant, and my story 
 was so abnormal a one that she may well have been ex 
 cused for staring at me, with a stony refusal to compre 
 hend, while I stammered it forth. I was even rather 
 sorry for her, inasmuch as it was not the kind of appeal 
 that she had reason to expect, and as her imagination 
 had surely never before been led such a dance. I think 
 it glimmered upon her at first, from my strange manner, 
 that I had come to ask for one of the other girls ; but 
 that illusion cannot have lasted long. I have no idea 
 of the order or succession of the remarks that we ex 
 changed; I only recall that at a given moment Mrs. 
 Goldie rose, in righteous wrath, to cast me out of her 
 presence. Everything was a part of the general agita 
 tion; for the house had been startled by the sudden de 
 termination of its mistress to return to Rome. Of this 
 she informed me as soon as I presented myself, and she 
 apprised me in the same breath, you may be sure, of the 
 important cause. Veronica s engagement had altered all 
 their plans; she was to be married immediately, absence 
 and delay being incompatible with dear Henry s official 
 work (I winced at " dear Henry "), and they had no time 
 to lose for conference with dressmakers and shopkeepers. 
 Veronica had gone out for a walk with dear Henry ; and 
 the other girls, with one of the maids, had driven to 
 Kome, at an early hour, to see about putting to rights 
 the apartment in Via Babuino. It struck me as charac 
 teristic of the Honourable Blanche that she had remained 
 on the spot, as if to keep hold of dear Henry. 
 
 These announcements gave me, of course, my open 
 ing. "Can t you see he is only going through with 
 it as a duty? Do you mean to say you were not 
 
246 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 very much surprised when he proposed?" I fearlessly 
 demanded. 
 
 I maintained that it was not a duty that Wilmerding 
 had a morbid sense of obligation and that at that rate 
 any one of us might be hauled up for the simple sociabil 
 ity, the innocent conviviality of youth. I made a clean 
 breast of it and tried to explain the little history of my 
 unhappy friend s mistake. I am not very proud of any 
 part of my connection with this episode ; but though it 
 was a delicate matter to tell a lady that it had been a 
 blunder to offer marriage to her daughter, what I am on 
 the whole least ashamed of is the manner in which 1 
 fronted the Honourable Blanche. I was supported by 
 the sense that she was dishonest in pretending that she 
 had not been surprised that she had regarded our 
 young man as committed to such a step. This was rub 
 bish her surprise had been at least equal to her satis 
 faction. I was irritated by her quick assumption, at 
 first, that if I wanted the engagement broken it was 
 because I myself was secretly enamoured of the girl. 
 
 Before I went away she put me to the real test, so 
 that I was not able to say afterwards to Mrs. Eushbrook 
 that the opportunity to be fully heroic had not been 
 offered me. She gave me the queerest look I had ever 
 seen a worldly old woman give, and proffered an obser 
 vation of which the general copious sense was this : 
 
 " Come, I do see what you mean, and though you have 
 made a pretty mess with your French monkey-tricks, it 
 may be that if dear Henry s heart isn t in it it simply 
 isn t, and that my sweet, sensitive girl will in the long 
 run have to pay too much for what looks now like a 
 tolerably good match. It isn t so brilliant after all, 
 for what do we really know about him or about his ob 
 scure relations in the impossible country to which he 
 
THE SOLUTION. 247 
 
 may wish to transplant my beloved? He has money, or 
 rather expectations, but he has nothing else, and who 
 knows about American fortunes? Nothing appears to 
 be settled or entailed. Take her yourself and you may 
 have her I ll engage to make it straight with Mr. 
 Wilmerding. You re impecunious and you re disagree 
 able, but you re clever and well-connected; you ll rise 
 in your profession you ll become an ambassador." 
 
 All this (it was a good deal), Mrs. Goldie communi 
 cated to me in the strange, prolonged, confidential leer 
 with which she suddenly honoured me. It was a good 
 deal, but it was not all, for I understood her still to sub 
 join: "That will show whether you are sincere or not 
 in wishing to get your friend out of this scrape. It s 
 the only condition on which you can do it. Accept this 
 condition and I will kindly overlook the outrage of your 
 present intrusion and your inexpressible affront to my 
 child." 
 
 ISTo, I couldn t tell Mrs. Rushbrook that I had not 
 had my chance to do something fine, for I definitely ap 
 prehended this proposition, I looked it well in the face 
 and I sadly shook my head. I wanted to get Wilmer 
 ding off, but I didn t want to get him off so much as that. 
 
 " Pray, is he aware of your present extraordinary pro 
 ceeding?" Mrs. Goldie demanded, as she stood there to 
 give me my conge. 
 
 "He hasn t the faintest suspicion of it." 
 
 " And may I take the liberty of inquiring whether it is 
 your design to acquaint him with the scandalous manner 
 in which you have betrayed his confidence?" She was 
 wonderfully majestic and digne. 
 
 "How can I?" I asked, piteously. "How can I, with 
 out uttering words not respectful to the young lady he 
 now stands pledged to marry? Don t you see how that 
 has altered my position?" I wailed. 
 
248 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 "Yes, it has given you a delicacy that is wondrous 
 indeed!" cried my hostess, with a laugh of derision 
 which rang in my ears as I withdrew which rings in 
 my ears at this hour. 
 
 I went to the Villa Mondragone, and there, at the end 
 of a quarter of an hour s quest, I saw three persons 
 two ladies and a gentleman coming toward me in the 
 distance. I recognised them in a moment as Mrs. Rush- 
 brook, Veronica Goldie, and Wilmerding. The combina 
 tion amused and even gratified me, as it fell upon my 
 sight, for it immediately suggested that, by the favour 
 of accident, Mrs. Rushbrook would already have had the 
 advantage of judging for herself how little one of her 
 companions was pleased with his bargain, and be pro 
 portionately stimulated to come to his rescue. Wil 
 merding had turned out to spend a perfunctory hour 
 with his betrothed; Mrs. Rushbrook, strolling there 
 and waiting for me, had met them, and she had remained 
 with them on perceiving how glad they were to be re 
 lieved of the grimness of their union. I pitied the mis- 
 mated couple, pitied Veronica almost as much as my more 
 particular victim, and reflected as they came up to me 
 that unfortunately our charming friend would not always 
 be there to render them this delicate service. She 
 seemed .pleased, however, with the good turn she had 
 already done them and even disposed to continue the 
 benevolent work. I looked at her hard, with a percep 
 tible headshake, trying to communicate in this way the 
 fact that nothing had come of my attack on Mrs. Goldie; 
 and she smiled back as if to say : " Oh, no matter; I dare 
 say I shall think of something now." 
 
 Wilmerding struck me as rather less miserable than I 
 had expected; though of course I knew that he was the 
 man to make an heroic effort not to appear miserable. 
 
THE SOLUTION. 249 
 
 He immediately proposed that we should all go home 
 with him to luncheon; upon which Veronica said, hesi 
 tating with responsibility: "Do you suppose, for me, 
 mamma will mind?" Her intended made no reply to 
 this; his silence was almost a suggestion that if she 
 were in doubt she had perhaps better go home. But 
 Mrs. Rushbrook settled the question by declaring that it 
 was, on the contrary, exactly what mamma would like. 
 Besides, was not she, Mrs. Rushbrook, the most satis 
 factory of duennas? We walked slowly together to Wil- 
 merding s villa, and I was not surprised at his allowing 
 me complete possession of Veronica. He fell behind us 
 with Mrs. Rushbrook and succeeded, at any rate, in 
 shaking off his gloom sufficiently to manifest the proper 
 elation at her having consented to partake of his hospi 
 tality. As I moved beside Veronica I wondered whether 
 she had an incipient sense that it was to me she owed 
 her sudden prospect of a husband. I think she must 
 have wondered to what she owed it. I said nothing to 
 awaken that conjecture : I didn t even allude to her en 
 gagement much less did I utter hollow words of con 
 gratulation. She had a right to expect something of that 
 sort, and my silence disconcerted her and made her stiff. 
 She felt important now, and she was the kind of girl 
 who likes to show the importance that she feels. I was 
 sorry for her it was not h er fault, poor child but I 
 couldn t flatly lie to her, couldn t tell her I was "de 
 lighted." I was conscious that she was waiting for me 
 to speak, and I was even afraid that she would end by 
 asking me if I didn t know what had happened to her. 
 Her pride, however, kept her from this, and I continued 
 to be dumb and to pity her to pity her the more as I 
 was sure her mystification would not be cleared up by 
 any revelation in regard to my visit to her mother. 
 Mrs. Goldie would never tell her of that. 
 
250 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 Our extemporised repast at Wilmerding s was almost 
 merry; our sociability healed my soreness and I forgot 
 for the moment that I had grounds of discomposure. 
 Wilmerding had always the prettiest courtesy in his own 
 house, with pressing, preoccupied, literal ways of play 
 ing the master, and Mrs. Rushbrook enjoyed anything 
 that was unexpected and casual. Our carriage was in 
 waiting, to convey us back to Albano, and we offered our 
 companions a lift, as it was time for Wilmerding to take 
 Veronica home. We put them down at the gate of Mrs. 
 Goldie s villa, after I had noticed the double-dyed 
 sweetness with which Mrs. Kushbrook said to Veronica, 
 as the carriage stopped : " You must bring him over to 
 Albano to return my visit." This was spoken in my 
 interest, but even then the finished feminine hypocrisy 
 of it made me wince a little. I should have winced 
 still more had I foreseen what was to follow. 
 
 Mrs. Rushbrook was silent during much of the rest of 
 our drive. She had begun by saying : " Now that I see 
 them together I understand what you mean " ; and she 
 had also requested me to tell her all I could about poor 
 Wilmerding his situation in life, his character, his 
 family, his history, his prospects since, if she were 
 really to go into the matter, she must have the facts in 
 her hand. When I had told her everything I knew, she 
 sat turning my instructions over in her mind, as she 
 looked vaguely at the purple Campagna : she was lovely 
 with that expression. I intimated to her that there was 
 very little time to lose : every day that we left him in 
 his predicament he would sink deeper and be more diffi 
 cult to extricate. 
 
 "Don t you like him don t you think he s worthy to 
 marry some woman he s really fond of ? " I remember 
 asking. 
 
THE SOLUTION. 251 
 
 Her answer was rather short: "Oh yes, he s a good 
 creature." But before we reached Albano she said to 
 me: "And is he really rich?" 
 
 " I don t know what you call l really - 1 only wish I 
 had his pocket-money." 
 
 "And is he generous free-handed?" 
 
 "Try him and you ll see." 
 
 "How can I try him?" 
 
 "Well then, ask Mrs. Goldie." 
 
 "Perhaps he d pay to get off," mused Mrs. Kushbrook. 
 
 "Oh, they d ask a fortune! " 
 
 "Well, he s perfect to her." And Mrs. Rushbrook 
 repeated that he was a good creature. 
 
 That afternoon I rode back to Rome, having reminded 
 my friend at Albano that I gave her carte-blanche and 
 that delay would not improve matters. We had a little 
 discussion about this, she maintaining, as a possible 
 view, that if one left the affair alone a rupture would 
 come of itself. 
 
 "Why should it come when, as you say, he s perfect?" 
 
 "Yes, he s very provoking," said Mrs. Rushbrook: 
 which made rne laugh as I got into the saddle. 
 
 IV. 
 
 IN Rome I kept quiet three or four days, hoping to 
 hear from Mrs. Rushbrook; I even removed myself as 
 much as possible from the path of Guy de Moiitaut. I 
 observed preparations going forward in the house occu 
 pied during the winter by Mrs. Goldie, and, in passing, 
 I went so far as to question a servant who was tinkering 
 a flower-stand in the doorway and from whom I learned 
 that the padrona was expected at any hour. Wilmer- 
 ding, however, returned to Rome without her; I perceived 
 
252 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 it from meeting him in the Corso he didn t come to see 
 me. This might have been accidental, but I was willing 
 to consider that he avoided me, for it saved me the 
 trouble of avoiding him. I couldn t bear to see him 
 it made me too uncomfortable; I was always thinking 
 that I ought to say something to him that I couldn t say, 
 or that he would say something to me that he didn t. 
 As I had remarked to Mrs. Goldie, it was impossible 
 for me now to allude in invidious terms to Veronica, and 
 the same licence on his side would have been still less 
 becoming. And yet it hardly seemed as if we could go 
 on like that. He couldn t quarrel with me avowedly 
 about his prospective wife, but he might have quarrelled 
 with me ostensibly about something else. Such subtle 
 ties however (I began to divine), had no place in his 
 mind, which was presumably occupied with the con 
 scientious effort to like Veronica as a matter of duty 
 since he was doomed to spend his life with her. Wil- 
 merding was capable, for a time, of giving himself up to 
 this effort: I don t know how long it would have lasted. 
 Our relations were sensibly changed, inasmuch as after 
 my singular interview with Mrs. Goldie, the day fol 
 lowing her daughter s betrothal, I had scruples about 
 presenting myself at her house as if on the old foot 
 ing. 
 
 She came back to town with the girls, immediately 
 showing herself in her old cardinalesque chariot of the 
 former winters, which was now standing half the time 
 before the smart shops in the Corso and Via Condotti. 
 Wilmerding perceived of course that I had suddenly 
 begun to stay away from his future mother-in-law s; but 
 he made no observation about it a reserve of which I 
 afterwards understood the reason. This was not, I may 
 say at once, any revelation from Mrs. Goldie of my un- 
 
THE SOLUTION. 253 
 
 mannerly appeal to her. Montaut amused himself with 
 again taking up his habits under her roof; the enter 
 tainment might surely have seemed mild to a man of 
 his temper, but he let me know that it was richer than 
 it had ever been before poor Wilmerding showed such 
 a face there. When I answered that it was just his face 
 that I didn t want to see, he declared that I was the 
 best sport of all, with my tergiversations and supersti 
 tions. He pronounced Veronica tr&s-embellie and said 
 that he was only waiting for her to be married to make 
 love to her himself. I wrote to Mrs. Rushbrook that 
 I couldn t say she had served me very well, and that 
 now the Goldies had quitted her neighbourhood I was 
 in despair of her doing anything. She took no notice 
 of my letter, and I availed myself of the very first Sun 
 day to drive out to Albano and breakfast with her. 
 Elding across the Campagna now suddenly appeared to 
 me too hot and too vain. 
 
 Mrs. Rushbrook told me she had not replied to me 
 because she was about to return to Rome : she expected 
 to see me almost as soon as, with the Holy Father s pos 
 tal arrangements, a letter would be delivered to me. 
 Meanwhile she couldn t pretend that she had done any 
 thing for me ; and she confessed that the more she thought 
 of what I wanted the more difficult it seemed. She added 
 however that she now had a project, which she declined 
 to disclose to me. She contradicted herself a little, for 
 she said at one moment that she hadn t the heart to spoil 
 poor Veronica s happiness and at the next that it was 
 precisely to carry out her device (such a secret as it was, 
 even from the girl !) that she had decided to quit Albano 
 earlier than she had intended. 
 
 " How can you spoil Veronica s happiness when she 
 won t have any happiness? How can she have any 
 
254 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 happiness with a man who will have married her in such 
 absurd conditions?" 
 
 "Oh, he s charming, Mr. Wilmerding everything 
 you told me of him is true: it s a case of pure chivalry. 
 He ll be very kind to her he ll be sorry for her. Be 
 sides, when once lie takes her away from her mother 
 Veronica will be all right. Seeing more of them that 
 way, before they left Frascati, I became ever so much 
 interested in them. There s something in Veronica; 
 when once she s free it will come out." 
 
 "How will she ever be free? Her mother will be on 
 top of them she ll stick to them she ll live with 
 them." 
 
 "Why so, when she has her other daughters to work 
 for?" 
 
 "Veronica will be rich I m sure Mrs. Goldie will 
 want to enjoy that." 
 
 "They ll give her money Mr. Wilmerding won t 
 haggle!" 
 
 "How do you know have you asked him?" 
 
 "Oh, I know," smiled Mrs. Rushbrook. "You know 
 I saw them again. Besides," she added, "he ll escape 
 with his wife he ll take her to America." 
 
 "Veronica won t go she ll hate that part of it." 
 
 "Why will she hate it?" 
 
 "Oh, it isn t smart. " 
 
 "So much the better. I should like to go there." 
 
 "Very good," said I. " I daresay I shall be sent there 
 by the Foreign Office some day. I ll take you over." 
 
 "Oh, I don t want to go with 2/ow," said Mrs. Hush- 
 brook, plainly. And then she added that she should try 
 to get back to Rome by the Thursday. 
 
 "How was it you saw so much of them before they 
 went away? " I suddenly inquired. 
 
THE SOLUTION. 255 
 
 " Why, they returned my visit the queer young 
 couple. Mr. Wilmerding brought her over to see me 
 the day after we breakfasted with him. They stayed 
 three or four hours they were charming." 
 
 "Oh, I see; he didn t tell me." 
 
 Mrs. Rushbrook coloured a little. " You say that in 
 a tone! / didn t ask him not to." 
 
 "I didn t say you did. However, he has had very 
 little chance: we ve scarcely spoken since that day/ 
 
 "You re very wrong he s such a good fellow." 
 
 " I like the way you give me information about him, 
 because you ve seen him three times." 
 
 "I ve seen him four I ve seen him five," Mrs. Rush- 
 brook protested. " After they had been here I went over 
 to Mrs. Goldie s." 
 
 "Oh, to speak to her? I cried, eagerly. 
 
 " I spoke to her, of course it was to bid her good 
 bye. Mr. Wilmerding was there that made another 
 time. Then he came here once again. In fact, the next 
 day Mrs. Rushbrook continued. 
 
 "He came alone?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment. " Yes, he walked over. He 
 said he was so nervous." 
 
 "Ah, to talk it over, you mean?" I exclaimed. 
 
 "To talk it over?" 
 
 "Your interference, your rescue." 
 
 Mrs. Rushbrook stared; then she burst into merriment. 
 "You don t suppose we ve spoken of that! Imagine his 
 knowing it! " 
 
 I stood corrected I perceived that wouldn t have 
 done. "But what then did he come for? " I asked. 
 
 "He came to see me as you do." 
 
 " Oh, as I do ! " I laughed. 
 
 "He came because he feels so awkward with the girl." 
 
256 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 "Did he tell you that?" 
 
 " You told me yourself ! We never spoke of Veronica. " 
 
 " Then what did you speak of? " 
 
 " Of other things. How you catechise ! " 
 
 "If I catechise it s because I thought it was all for 
 me." 
 
 "For you and for him. I went to Frascati again," 
 said Mrs. Eushbrook. 
 
 "Lord, and what was that for? " 
 
 "It was for you," she smiled. " It was a kindness, if 
 they re so uncomfortable together. I relieve them, 1 
 know I do! " 
 
 "Gracious, you might live with them! Perhaps that s 
 the way out of it." 
 
 "We took another walk to Villa, Mondragone," my 
 hostess continued. "Augusta Goldie went with us. It 
 went off beautifully." 
 
 "Oh, then it s all right," I said, picking up my hat. 
 
 Before I took leave of her Mrs. Eushbrook told me 
 that she certainly would move to Rome on the Thursday 
 or on the Friday. She would give me a sign as soon 
 as she was settled. And she added : " I daresay I shall 
 be able to put my idea into execution. But I shall tell 
 you only if it succeeds." 
 
 I don t know why I felt, at this, a slight movement of 
 contrariety; at any rate I replied: "Oh, you had better 
 leave them alone." 
 
 On the Wednesday night of that week I found, on 
 coming in to go to bed, Wilmerding s card on my table, 
 with "Good-bye I m off to-morrow for a couple of 
 months " scrawled on it. I thought it an odd time for 
 him to be "off" I wondered whether anything had 
 happened. My servant had not seen him; the card had 
 been transmitted by the porter, and I was obliged to 
 
THE SOLUTION. 257 
 
 sleep upon my mystification. As soon as possible the 
 next morning I went to his house, where I found a post- 
 chaise, in charge of one of the old vetturini and prepared 
 for a journey, drawn up at the door. While I was in the 
 act of asking for him Wilmerding came down, but to my 
 regret, for it was an obstacle to explanations, he was 
 accompanied by his venerable chief. The American 
 Minister had lately come back, and he leaned affection 
 ately on his young secretary s shoulder. He took, or 
 almost took, the explanations off our hands ; he was ora- 
 torically cheerful, said that his young friend wanted to 
 escape from the Eoman past to breathe a less tainted 
 air, that he had fixed it all right and was going to see 
 him off, to ride with him a part of the way. The Gen 
 eral (have I not mentioned that he was a general?) 
 climbed into the vehicle and waited, like a sitting Cicero, 
 while Wilmerding gave directions for the stowage of two 
 or three more parcels. I looked at him hard as he did 
 this and thought him flushed and excited. Then he put 
 out his hand to me and I held it, with my eyes still on 
 his face. We were a little behind the carriage, out of 
 sight of the General. 
 
 "Frankly what s the matter?" I asked. 
 
 "It s all over they don t want me." 
 
 "Don t want you?" 
 
 "Veronica can t she told me yesterday. I mean she 
 can t marry me," Wilmerding explained, with touching 
 lucidity. "She doesn t care for me enough." 
 
 " Ah, thank God ! " I murmured, with great relief, 
 pressing his hand. 
 
 The General put his head out of the chaise. " If there 
 was a railroad in this queer country I guess we should 
 miss the train." 
 
 "All the same, I m glad," said Wilmerding. 
 R 
 
258 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 "I should think you would be." 
 
 "I mean I m glad I did it." 
 
 "You re a preux chevalier." 
 
 "No, I ain t." And, blushing, he got into the car 
 riage, which rolled away. 
 
 Mrs. Rushbrook failed to give me the " sign " she 
 promised, and two days after this I went, to get news 
 of her, to the small hotel at which she intended to 
 alight and to which she had told me, on my last 
 seeing her at Albano, that she had sent her maid to 
 make arrangements. When I asked if her advent had 
 been postponed the people of the inn exclaimed that 
 she was already there she had been there since the 
 beginning of the week. Moreover she was at home, 
 and on my sending up my name she responded that 
 she should be happy to see me. There was some 
 thing in her face, when I came in, that I didn t like, 
 though I was struck with her looking unusually pretty. 
 I can t tell you now why I should have objected to that. 
 The first words I said to her savoured, no doubt, of 
 irritation: "Will you kindly tell me why you have been 
 nearly a week in Rome without letting me know? " 
 
 " Oh, I ve been occupied I ve had other things to do." 
 
 "You don t keep your promises." 
 
 "Don t I? You shouldn t say that," she answered, 
 with an amused air. 
 
 "Why haven t I met you out in this place where 
 people meet every day? " 
 
 "I ve been busy at home I haven t been running 
 about." 
 
 I looked round me, asked about her little girl, congrat 
 ulated her on the brightness she imparted to the most 
 banal room as soon as she began to live in it, took up her 
 books, fidgeted, waited for her to say something about 
 
THE SOLUTION. 259 
 
 Henry Wilmerding. For this, however, I waited in 
 vain ; so that at last I broke out : " I suppose you know 
 he s gone? " 
 
 "Whom are you talking about?" 
 
 "Veronica s promesso sposo. He quitted Rome yester 
 day." 
 
 She was silent a moment; then she replied "I didn t 
 know it." 
 
 I thought this odd, but I believed what she said, and 
 even now I have no doubt it was true. "It s all off," I 
 went on : " I suppose you know that. " 
 
 " How do you know it? " she smiled. 
 
 " From his own lips ; he told me, at his door, when I 
 bade him good-bye. Didn t you really know he had 
 gone? " I continued. 
 
 "My dear friend, do you accuse me of lying? " 
 
 "Jamais de la vie only of joking. I thought you 
 and he had become so intimate." 
 
 "Intimate in three or four days? We ve had very 
 little communication." 
 
 "How then did you know his marriage was off? " 
 
 "How you cross-examine one! I knew it from Ve 
 ronica." 
 
 "And is it your work? " 
 
 "Ah, mine call it rather yours: you set me on." 
 
 "Is that what you ve been so busy with that you 
 couldn t send me a message? " I asked. 
 
 "What shall I say? It didn t take long." 
 
 "And how did you do it? " 
 
 "How shall I tell you how shall I tell?" 
 
 " You said you would tell me. Did you go to Mrs. 
 Goldie?" 
 
 "No, I went to the girl herself." 
 
 "And what did you say? " 
 
260 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 "Don t ask me it s my secret. Or rather it s hers." 
 
 "Ah, but you promised to let me know if you suc 
 ceeded." 
 
 "Who can tell? It s too soon to speak of success." 
 
 "Why so if he s gone away? " 
 
 "He may come back." 
 
 "What will that matter if she won t take him? " 
 
 " Very true she won t." 
 
 "Ah, what did you do to her?" I demanded, very 
 curious. 
 
 Mrs. Kushbrook looked at me with strange, smiling 
 eyes. "I played a bold game." 
 
 "Did you offer her money? " 
 
 "I offered her yours." 
 
 "Mine? I have none. The bargain won t hold." 
 
 "I offered her mine, then." 
 
 "You might be serious you promised to tell me," I 
 repeated. 
 
 " Surely not. All I said was that if my attempt didn t 
 succeed I wouldn t tell yoa." 
 
 "That s an equivocation. If there was no promise 
 and it was so disagreeable, why did you make the at 
 tempt? " 
 
 " It was disagreeable to me, but it was agreeable to you. 
 And now, though you goaded me on, you don t seem 
 delighted." 
 
 "Ah, I m too curious I wonder too much! " 
 
 "Well, be patient, said Mrs. Kushbrook, "and with 
 time everything will probably be clear to you." 
 
 I endeavoured to conform to this injunction, and my 
 patience was so far rewarded that a month later I began 
 to have a suspicion of the note that Mrs. Kushbrook had 
 sounded. I quite gave up Mrs. G oldie s house, but 
 Montaut was in and out of it enough to give me occa- 
 
THE SOLUTION. 261 
 
 sional news of ces dames. He had been infinitely puzzled 
 by Veronica s retractation and Wilmerding s departure: 
 he took it almost as a personal injury, the postponement 
 of the event that would render it proper for him to make 
 love to the girl. Poor Montaut was destined never to 
 see that attitude legitimated, for Veronica Goldie never 
 married. Mrs. Rushbrook, somewhat to my surprise, 
 accepted on various occasions the hospitality of the 
 Honourable Blanche she became a frequent visitor at 
 Casa Goldie. I was therefore in a situation not to be 
 ignorant of matters relating to it, the more especially as 
 for many weeks after the conversation I have last related 
 my charming friend was remarkably humane in her 
 treatment of me kind, communicative, sociable, encour 
 aging me to come and see her and consenting often to 
 some delightful rummaging Roman stroll. But she 
 would never tolerate, on my lips, the slightest argu 
 ment in favour of a union more systematic; she once 
 said, laughing: "How can we possibly marry when 
 we re so impoverished? Didn t we spend every penny 
 we possess to buy off Veronica? " This was highly fan 
 tastic, of course, but there was just a sufficient symbolism 
 in it to minister to my unsatisfied desire to know what 
 had really taken place. 
 
 I seemed to make that out a little better when, before 
 the winter had fairly begun, I learned from both of my 
 friends that Mrs. Goldie had decided upon a change of 
 base, a new campaign altogether. She had got some 
 friends to take her house off her hands ; she was quitting 
 Rome, embarking on a scheme of foreign travel, going 
 to ^Naples, proposing to visit the East, to get back to 
 England for the summer, to promener her daughters, in 
 short, in regions hitherto inaccessible and unattempted. 
 This news pointed to a considerable augmentation of 
 
262 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 fortune on the part of the Honourable Blanche, whose 
 conspicuous thrift we all knew to be funded on slender 
 possessions. If she was undertaking expensive journeys 
 it was because she had " come into " money a reflection 
 that didn t make Mrs. Eushbrook s refusal to enlighten 
 my ignorance a whit less tormenting. When I said to 
 this whimsical woman, as I did several times, that she 
 really oughtn t to leave me so in the dark, her reply was 
 always the same, that the matter was all too delicate 
 she didn t know how she had done, there were some 
 transactions so tacit, so made up of subtle sousentendus, 
 that you couldn t describe them. So I groped for the 
 missing link without finding it the secret of how it 
 had been possible for Mrs. Rushbrook to put the key of 
 Wilmerding s coffers into Mrs. Goldie s hand. 
 
 I was present at the large party the latter lady gave 
 as her leave-taking of her Roman friends, and as soon as 
 I stood face to face with her I recognised that she had had 
 much less " feeling " than I about our meeting again. I 
 might have come at any time. She was good-natured, 
 in her way, she forgot things and was not rancorous : it 
 had now quite escaped her that she had turned me out of 
 the house. The air of prosperity was in the place, the 
 shabby past was sponged out. The tea was potent, the 
 girls had all new frocks, and Mrs. Goldie looked at me 
 with an eye that seemed to say that I might still have 
 Veronica if I wanted. Veronica was now a fortune, but 
 I didn t take it up. 
 
 Wilmerding came back to Rome in February, after 
 Casa Goldie, as we had known it, was closed. In his 
 absence I had been at the American Legation on vari 
 ous occasions no chancellerie in Europe was steeped 
 in dustier leisure and the good General confided to me 
 that he missed his young friend as a friend, but so far as 
 
THE SOLUTION. 263 
 
 missing him as a worker went (there was no work), 
 " Uncle Sam " might save his salary. He repeated that 
 he had fixed it all right : Wilinerding had taken three 
 months to cross the Atlantic and see his people. He had 
 doubtless important arrangements to make and copious 
 drafts to explain. They must have been extraordinarily 
 obliging, his people, for Mrs. Goldie (to finish with her), 
 was for the rest of her days able to abjure cheap capitals 
 and follow the chase where it was doubtless keenest 
 among the lordly herds of her native land. If Veronica 
 never married the other girls did, and Miss Goldie, dis 
 encumbered and bedizened, reigned as a beauty, a good 
 deal contested, for a great many years. I think that 
 after her sisters went off she got her mother much under 
 control, and she grew more and more to resemble her. 
 She is dead, poor girl, her mother is dead I told you 
 everyone is dead. Wilmerding is dead his wife is 
 dead. 
 
 The subsequent life of this ingenious woman was 
 short : I doubt whether she liked America as well as she 
 had had an idea she should, or whether it agreed with 
 her. She had put me off my guard that winter, and she 
 put Wilmerding a little off his, too, I think, by going 
 down to Xaples just before he came back to Home. She 
 reappeared there, however, late in the spring though 
 I don t know how long she stayed. At the end of May, 
 that year, my own residence in Rome terminated. I 
 was assigned to a post in the north of Europe, with 
 orders to proceed to it with speed. I saw them together 
 before I quitted Italy, my two good friends, and then 
 the truth suddenly came over me. As she said herself 
 for I had it out with her fearfully before I left I 
 had only myself to thank for it. I had made her think of 
 him, I had made her look at him, I had made her do 
 
264 THE SOLUTION. 
 
 extraordinary things. You won t be surprised to hear 
 they were married less than two years after the service 
 I had induced her to render me. 
 
 Ah, don t ask me what really passed between them 
 that was their own affair. There are " i s " in the matter 
 that have never been dotted, and in later years, when my 
 soreness had subsided sufficiently to allow me a certain 
 liberty of mind, I often wondered and theorised. T was 
 sore for a long time and I never even thought of marry 
 ing another woman: that "i" at least I can dot. It 
 made no difference that she probably never would have 
 had me. She fell in love with him, of course with the 
 idea of him, secretly, in her heart of hearts the hour 
 I told her, in my distress, of the beau trait of which he 
 had been capable. She didn t know him, hadn t seen 
 him, positively speaking; but she took a fancy to the 
 man who had that sort of sense of conduct. Some 
 women would have despised it, but I was careful to pick 
 out the one to whom it happened most to appeal. I 
 dragged them together, I kept them together. When 
 they met he liked her for the interest he was conscious 
 she already took in him, and it all went as softly as 
 when you tread on velvet. Of course I had myself to 
 thank for it, for I not only shut her up with Wilmer- 
 ding I shut her up with Veronica. 
 
 What she said to Veronica in this situation was no 
 doubt that it was all a mistake (she appealed to the girl s 
 conscience to justify her there), but that he would pay 
 largely for his mistake. Her warrant for that was 
 simply one of the subtle sousentendus of which she spoke 
 to me when I attacked her and which are the medium of 
 communication of people in love. She took upon herself 
 to speak for him she despoiled him, at a stroke, in 
 advance, so that when she married him she married a 
 
THE SOLUTION. 265 
 
 man of relatively small fortune. This was disinterested 
 at least. There was no bargain between them, as I 
 read it it all passed in the air. He divined what she 
 had promised for him and he immediately performed. 
 Fancy how she must have liked him then! Veronica 
 believed, her mother believed, because he had already 
 given them a specimen of his disposition to do the hand 
 some thing. I had arranged it all in perfection. My 
 only consolation was that I had done what I wanted; 
 but do you suppose that was sufficient? 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 1 
 
 THE statement appears to have been written, though 
 the fragment is undated, long after the death of his wife, 
 whom I take to have been one of the persons referred to. 
 There is, however, nothing in the strange story to 
 establish this point, which is, perhaps, not of impor 
 tance. When I took possession of his effects I found 
 these pages, in a locked drawer, among papers relating 
 to the unfortunate lady s too brief career (she died in 
 childbirth a year after her marriage), letters, memo 
 randa, accounts, faded photographs, cards of invitation. 
 That is the only connection I can point to, and you may 
 easily and will probably say that the tale is too extrava 
 gant to have had a demonstrable origin. I cannot, I 
 admit, vouch for his having intended it as a report of 
 real occurrence I can only vouch for his general ve 
 racity. In any case it was written for himself, not for 
 others. I offer it to others having full option pre 
 cisely because it is so singular. Let them, in respect to 
 the form of the thing, bear in mind that it was written 
 quite for himself. I have altered nothing but the names. 
 
 IF there s a story in the matter I recognise the exact 
 moment at which it began. This was on a soft, still 
 
 Copyright, i8qi, by Macmillan & Co. 
 266 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 267 
 
 Sunday noon in November, just after church, on the 
 sunny Parade. Brighton was full of people ; it was the 
 height of the season, and the day was even more re 
 spectable than lovely which helped to account for the 
 multitude of walkers. The blue sea itself was decorous; 
 it seemed to doze, with a gentle snore (if that be deco 
 rum), as if nature were preaching a sermon. After 
 writing letters all the morning I had come out to take 
 a look at it before luncheon. I was leaning over the rail 
 which separates the King s Road from the beach, and I 
 think I was smoking a cigarette, when I became con 
 scious of an intended joke in the shape of a light walk 
 ing-stick laid across my shoulders. The idea, I found, 
 had been thrown off by Teddy Bostwick, of the Rifles 
 and was intended as a contribution to talk. Our talk 
 came oif as we strolled together he always took your 
 arm to show you he forgave your obtuseness about his 
 humour and looked at the people, and bowed to some 
 of them, and wondered who others were, and differed in 
 opinion as to the prettiness of the girls. About Charlotte 
 Marden we agreed, however, as we saw her coming 
 toward us with her mother; and there surely could have 
 been no one who wouldn t have agreed with us. The 
 Brighton air, of old, used to make plain girls pretty and 
 pretty girls prettier still I don t know whether it 
 works the spell now. The place, at any rate, was rare 
 for complexions, and Miss Marden s was one that made 
 people turn round. It made us stop, heaven knows at 
 least, it was one of the things, for we already knew the 
 ladies. 
 
 We turned with them, we joined them, we went where 
 they were going. They were only going to the end and 
 back they had just come out of church. It was another 
 manifestation of Teddy s humour that he got immediate 
 
268 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 possession of Charlotte, leaving me to walk with her 
 mother. However, I was not unhappy; the girl was 
 before me and I had her to talk about. We prolonged 
 our walk, Mrs. Harden kept me, and presently she said 
 she was tired and must sit down. We found a place on 
 a sheltered bench we gossiped as the people passed. 
 It had already struck me, in this pair, that the resem 
 blance between the mother and the daughter was won 
 derful even among such resemblances the more so that 
 it took so little account of a difference of nature. One 
 often hears mature mothers spoken of as warnings 
 signposts, more or less discouraging, of the way daugh 
 ters may go. But there was nothing deterrent in the 
 idea that Charlotte, at fifty-five, should be as beautiful, 
 even though it were conditioned on her being as pale and 
 preoccupied, as Mrs. Harden. At twenty-two she had 
 a kind of rosy blankness and she was admirably hand 
 some. Her head had the charming shape of her mother s, 
 and her features the same fine order. Then there were 
 looks and movements and tones (moments when you 
 could scarcely say whether it were aspect or sound), 
 which, between the two personalities, were a reflection, a 
 recall. 
 
 These ladies had a small fortune and a cheerful little 
 house at Brighton, full of portraits and tokens and 
 trophies (stuffed animals on the top of bookcases, and 
 sallow, varnished fish under glass), to which Mrs. Mar- 
 den professed herself attached by pious memories. Her 
 husband had been " ordered " there in ill-health, to spend 
 the last years of his life, and she had already mentioned 
 to me that it was a place in which she felt herself still 
 under the protection of his goodness. His goodness ap 
 peared to have been great, and she sometimes had the air 
 of defending it against mysterious imputations. Some 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 269 
 
 sense of protection, of an influence invoked and cherished, 
 was evidently necessary to her; she had a dim wistful- 
 ness, a longing for security. She wanted friends and 
 she had a good many. She was kind to me on our first 
 meeting, and I never suspected her of the vulgar pur 
 pose of "making up" to me a suspicion, of course, un 
 duly frequent in conceited young men. It never struck 
 me that she wanted me for her daughter, nor yet, like 
 some unnatural mammas, for herself. It was as if they 
 had had a common deep, shy need and had been ready to 
 say: "Oh, be friendly to us and be trustful! Don t be 
 afraid, you won t be expected to marry us." " Of course 
 there s something about mamma; that s really what 
 makes her such a dear!" Charlotte said to me, confi 
 dentially, at an early stage of our acquaintance. She 
 worshipped her mother s appearance. It was the only 
 thing she was vain of; she accepted the raised eyebrows 
 as a charming ultimate fact. " She looks as if she were 
 waiting for the doctor, dear mamma," she said on 
 another occasion. "Perhaps you 7 re the doctor; do you 
 think you are?" It appeared in the event that I had 
 some healing power. At any rate when I learned, for 
 she once dropped the remark, that Mrs. Marden also 
 thought there was something " awfully strange " about 
 Charlotte, the relation between the two ladies became 
 extremely interesting. It was happy enough, at bottom; 
 each had the other so much on her mind. 
 
 On the Parade the stream of strollers held its course, 
 and Charlotte presently went by with Teddy Bostwick. 
 She smiled and nodded and continued, but when she 
 came back she stopped and spoke to us. Captain Bost 
 wick positively declined to go in, he said the occasion 
 was too jolly : might they therefore take another turn? 
 Her mother dropped a " Do as you like, " and the girl 
 
270 SIR EDMUND OKME. 
 
 gave me an impertinent smile over her shoulder as they 
 quitted us. Teddy looked at me with his glass in one 
 eye; but I didn t mind that; it was only of Miss Marden 
 I was thinking as I observed to my companion, laughing: 
 
 "She s a bit of a coquette, you know." 
 
 "Don t say that don t say that! " Mrs. Marden mur 
 mured. 
 
 " The nicest girls always are just a little, " I was 
 magnanimous enough to plead. 
 
 "Then why are they always punished?" 
 
 The intensity of the question startled me it had 
 come out in such a vivid flash. Therefore I had to think 
 a moment before I inquired : " What do you know about 
 it?" 
 
 "I was a bad girl myself." 
 
 " And were you punished? " 
 
 "I carry it through life," said Mrs. Marden, looking 
 away from me. "Ah!" she suddenly panted, in the 
 next breath, rising to her feet and staring at her daugh 
 ter, who had reappeared again with Captain Bostwick. 
 She stood a few seconds, with the queerest expression 
 in her face^ then she sank upon the seat again and I saw 
 that she had blushed crimson. Charlotte, who had ob 
 served her movement, came straight up to her and, tak 
 ing her hand with quick tenderness, seated herself on 
 the other side of her. The girl had turned pale she 
 gave her mother a fixed, frightened look. Mrs. Marden, 
 who had had some shock which escaped our detection, 
 recovered herself; that is she sat quiet and inexpres 
 sive, gazing at the indifferent crowd, the sunny air, the 
 slumbering sea. My eye happened to fall, however, on 
 the interlocked hands of the two ladies, and I quickly 
 guessed that the grasp of the elder one was violent. 
 Bostwick stood before them, wondering what was the 
 
SIR EDMUND OEMB. 271 
 
 matter and asking me from his little vacant disk if / 
 knew; which led Charlotte to say to him after a 
 moment, with a certain irritation : 
 
 "Don t stand there that way, Captain Bostwick; go 
 away please go away." 
 
 I got up at this, hoping that Mrs. Harden wasn t ill; 
 but she immediately begged that we would not go away, 
 that we would particularly stay and that we would pres 
 ently come home to lunch. She drew me down beside 
 her and for a moment I felt her hand pressing my arm 
 in a way that might have been an involuntary betrayal 
 of distress and might have been a private signal. What 
 she might have wished to point out to me I couldn t 
 divine : perhaps she had seen somebody or something 
 abnormal in the crowd. She explained to us in a few 
 minutes that she was all right; that she was only liable 
 to palpitations they came as quickly as they went. It 
 was time to move, and we moved. The incident was 
 felt to be closed. Bostwick and I lunched with our 
 sociable friends, and when I walked away with him he 
 declared that he had never seen such dear kind creatures. 
 
 Mrs. Harden had made us promise to come back the 
 next day to tea, and had exhorted us in general to come 
 as often as we could. Yet the next day, when at five 
 o clock I knocked at the door of the pretty house, it was 
 to learn that the ladies had gone up to town. They had 
 left a message for us with the butler : he was to say that 
 they had suddenly been called were very sorry. They 
 would be absent a few days. This was all I could ex 
 tract from the dumb domestic. I went again three days 
 later, but they were still away ; and it was not till the 
 end of a week that I got a note from Hrs. Harden, 
 saying "We are back; do come and forgive us." It was 
 on this occasion, I remember (the occasion of my going 
 
Sill EDMUND OKME. 
 
 just after getting the note), that she told me she had 
 intuitions. I don t know how many people there were 
 in England at that time in that predicament, but there 
 were very few who would have mentioned it; so that 
 the announcement struck me as original, especially as 
 her point was that some of these uncanny promptings 
 were connected with me. There were other people pres 
 ent idle Brighton folk, old women with frightened 
 eyes and irrelevant interjections and I had but a few 
 minutes talk with Charlotte; but the day after this I 
 met them both at dinner and had the satisfaction of 
 sitting next to Miss Harden. I recall that hour as the 
 hour on which it first completely came over me that she 
 was a beautiful, liberal creature. I had seen her per 
 sonality in patches and gleams, like a song sung in 
 snatches, but now it was before me in a large rosy glow, 
 as if it had been a full volume of sound I heard the 
 whole of the air. It was SAveet, fresh music- I was 
 often to hum it over. 
 
 After dinner I had a few words with Mrs. Marden; it 
 was at the moment, late in tho evening, when tea was 
 handed about. A servant passed near us with a tray, I 
 asked her if she would have a cup, and, on her assenting, 
 took one and handed it to her. She put out her hand for 
 it and I gave it to her, safely as I supposed ; but as she 
 was in the act of receiving it she started and faltered, so 
 that the cup and saucer dropped with a crash of porcelain 
 and without, on the part of my interlocutress, the usual 
 woman s movement to save her dress. I stooped to pick 
 up the fragments and when I raised myself Mrs. Marden 
 was looking across the room at her daughter, who looked 
 back at her smiling, but with an anxious light in. her 
 eyes. " Dear mamma, what on earth is the matter with 
 you?" the silent question seemed to say. Mrs. Marden 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 273 
 
 coloured, just as she had done after her strange move 
 ment on the Parade the other week, and I was therefore 
 surprised when she said to me with unexpected assur 
 ance : " You should really have a steadier hand! " I had 
 begun to stammer a defence of my hand when I became 
 aware that she had fixed her eyes upon me with an in 
 tense appeal. It was ambiguous at first and only added 
 to my confusion; then suddenly I understood, as plainly 
 as if she had murmured "Make believe it was you 
 make believe it was you." The servant came back to 
 take the morsels of the cup and wipe up the spilt tea, 
 and while I was in the midst of making believe Mrs. 
 Marden abruptly brushed away from me and from her 
 daughter s attention and went into another room. I 
 noticed that she gave no heed to the state of her dress. 
 I saw nothing more of either of them that evening, 
 but the next morning, in the King s Road, I met 
 Miss Marden with a roll of music in her muff. She told 
 me she had been a little way alone, to practice duets 
 with a friend, and I asked her if she would go a little 
 way further in company. She gave me leave to attend 
 her to her door, and as we stood before it I inquired if 
 I might go in. "Xo, not to-day I don t want you," 
 she said, candidly, though not roughly ; while the words 
 caused me to direct a wistful, disconcerted gaze at one 
 of the windows of the house. It fell upon the white 
 face of Mrs. Marden, who was looking out at us from the 
 drawing-room. She stood there long enough for me to 
 see that it was she and not an apparition, as I had 
 thought for a second, and then she vanished before her 
 daughter had observed her. The girl, during our walk, 
 had said nothing about her. As I had been told they 
 didn t want me I left them alone a little, after which cir 
 cumstances supervened that kept us still longer apart. I 
 
 S 
 
274 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 finally went up to London, and while there I received a 
 pressing invitation to come immediately down to Tran- 
 ton, a pretty old place in Sussex belonging to a couple 
 whose acquaintance I had lately made. 
 
 I went to Tranton from town, and on arriving found 
 the Hardens, with, a dozen other people, in the house. 
 The first thing Mrs. Marden said was: "Will you for 
 give me?" and when I asked what I had to forgive she 
 answered: "My throwing my tea over you." I replied 
 that it had gone over herself; whereupon she said: "At 
 any rate I was very rude ; but some day I think you ll 
 understand, and then you ll make allowances for me." 
 The first day I was there she dropped two or three of 
 these references (she had already indulged in more than 
 one), to the mystic initiation that was in store for me; 
 so that I began, as the phrase is, to chaff her about it, 
 to say I would rather it were less wonderful and take it 
 out at once. She answered that when it should come to 
 me I would have to take it out there would be little 
 enough option. That it icoukl come was privately clear 
 to her, a deep presentiment, which was the only reason 
 she had ever mentioned the matter. Didn t I remember 
 she had told me she had intuitions? From the first time 
 of her seeing me she had been sure there were things 
 I should not escape knowing. Meanwhile there was noth 
 ing to do but wait and keep cool, not to be precipitate. 
 She particularly wished not to be any more nervous than 
 she was. And I was above all not to be nervous myself 
 one got used to everything. I declared that though 
 I couldn t make out what she was talking about I was 
 terribly frightened ; the absence of a clue gave such a 
 range to one s imagination. I exaggerated on purpose; 
 for if Mrs. Marden was mystifying I can scarcely say 
 she was alarming. I couldn t imagine what she meant, 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 275 
 
 but 1 wondered more than I shuddered. I might have 
 said to myself that she was a little wrong in the upper 
 story; but that never occurred to me. She struck me 
 as hopelessly right. 
 
 There were other girls in the house, but Charlotte 
 Harden was the most charming; which was so generally 
 felt to be the case that she really interfered with the 
 slaughter of ground game. There were two or three 
 men, and I was of the number, who actually preferred her 
 to the society of the beaters. In short she was recog 
 nised as a form of sport superior and exquisite. She 
 was kind to all of us she made us go out late and come 
 in early. I don t know whether she flirted, but several 
 other members of the party thought they did. Indeed, 
 as regards himself, Teddy Bostwick, who had come over 
 from Brighton, was visibly sure. 
 
 The third day I was at Tranton was a Sunday, and 
 there was a very pretty walk to morning service over 
 the fields. It was grey, windless weather, and the bell 
 of the little old church that nestled in the hollow of the 
 Sussex down sounded near and domestic. We were a 
 straggling procession, in the mild damp air (which, as 
 always at that season, gave one the feeling that after the 
 trees were bare there was more of it a larger sky), 
 and I managed to fall a good way behind with Hiss Har 
 den. I remember entertaining, as we moved together 
 over the turf, a strong impulse to say something intensely 
 personal, something violent and important important 
 for me, such as that I had never seen her so lovely, or 
 that that particular moment was the sweetest of my life. 
 But always, in youth, such words have been on the lips 
 many times before they are spoken ; and I had the sense, 
 not that I didn t know her well enough (I cared little for 
 that), but that she didn t know me well enough. In the 
 
276 SIR EDMUND OKME. 
 
 church, where there were old Tranton tombs and brasses, 
 the big Tranton pew was full. Several of us were scat 
 tered, and I found a seat for Miss Marden, and another 
 for myself beside it, at a distance from her mother and 
 from most of our friends. There were two or three 
 decent rustics on the bench, who moved in further to 
 make room for us, and I took my place first, to cut oft 
 my companion from our neighbours. After she was 
 seated there was still a space left, which remained empty 
 till service was about half over. 
 
 This at least was the moment at which I became aware 
 that another person had entered and had taken the seat. 
 When I noticed him he had apparently been for some 
 minutes in the pew, for he had settled himself and put 
 down his hat beside him, and, with his hands crossed on 
 the nob of his cane, was gazing before him at the altar. 
 He was a pale young man in black, with the air of a 
 gentleman. I was slightly startled on perceiving him, 
 for Miss Marden had not attracted my attention to his 
 entrance by moving to make room for him. After a few 
 minutes, observing that he had no prayer-book, I reached 
 across my neighbour and placed mine before him, on the 
 ledge of the pew ; a manoeuvre the motive of which was 
 not unconnected with the possibility that, in my own 
 destitution, Miss Marden would give me one side of her 
 velvet volume to hold. The pretext, however, was des 
 tined to fail, for at the moment I offered him the book 
 the intruder whose intrusion I had so condoned rose 
 from his pla:e without thanking me, stepped noiselessly 
 out of the pew (it had no door), and, so discreetly as to 
 attract no attention, passed down the centre of the 
 church. A few minutes had sufficed for his devotions. 
 His behaviour was unbecoming, his early departure even 
 more than his late arrival; but he managed so quietly 
 
SIK EDMUND OKME. 277 
 
 that we were not incommoded, and I perceived, on turn 
 ing a little to glance after him, that nobody was disturbed 
 by his withdrawal. I only noticed, and with surprise, 
 that Mrs. Marden had been so affected by it as to rise, 
 involuntarily, an instant, in her place. She stared at 
 him as he passed, but he passed very quickly, and she 
 as quickly dropped down again, though not too soon to 
 catch my eye across the church. Five minutes later I 
 asked Miss Marden, in a low voice, if she would kindly 
 pass me back my prayer-book I had waited to see if 
 she would spontaneously perform the act. She restored 
 this aid to devotion, but had been so far from troubling 
 herself about it that she could say to me as she did so : 
 " Why on earth did you put it there ? " I was on the 
 point of answering her when she dropped on her knees, 
 and I held my tongue. I had only been going to say : 
 " To be decently civil." 
 
 After the benediction, as we were leaving our places, 
 I was slightly surprised, again, to see that Mrs. Marden, 
 instead of going out with her companions, had come up 
 the aisle to join us, having apparently something to say 
 to her daughter. She said it, but in an instant I ob 
 served that it was only a pretext her real business was 
 Avith me. She pushed Charlotte forward and suddenly 
 murmured to me : " Did you see him ? " 
 
 " The gentleman who sat down here ? How could I 
 help seeing him ? " 
 
 " Hush ! " she said, with the intensest excitement ; 
 " don t speak to her don t tell her ! " She slipped her 
 hand into my arm, to keep me near her, to keep me, it 
 seemed, away from her daughter. The precaution was 
 unnecessary, for Teddy Bostwick had already taken 
 possession of Miss Marden, and as they passed out of 
 church in front of me I saw one of the other men close 
 
278 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 up on her other hand. It appeared to be considered that 
 I had had my turn. Mrs. Harden withdrew her hand 
 from my arm as soon as we got out, but not before I felt 
 that she had really needed the support. " Don t speak 
 to any one don t tell any one! " she went on. 
 
 " I don t understand. Tell them what? " 
 
 "Why, that you saw him." 
 
 " Surely they saw him for themselves." 
 
 " Not one of them, not one of them. " She spoke in a 
 tone of such passionate decision that I glanced at her 
 she was staring straight before her. But she felt the 
 challenge of my eyes and she stopped short, in the old 
 brown timber porch of the church, with the others well 
 in advance of us, and said, looking at me now and in a 
 quite extraordinary manner: "You re the only person, 
 the only person in the world." 
 
 "But you, dear madam?" 
 
 "Oh me of course. That s my curse!" And with 
 this she moved rapidly away from me to join the body 
 of the party. I hovered on its outskirts on the way 
 home, for I had food for rumination. Whom had I seen 
 and why was the apparition it rose before my mind s 
 eye very vividly again invisible to the others? If 
 an exception had been made for Mrs. Harden, why did it 
 constitute a curse, and why was I to share so question 
 able an advantage? This inquiry, carried on in my own 
 locked breast, kept me doubtless silent enough during 
 luncheon. After luncheon I went out on the old terrace 
 to smoke a cigarette, but I had only taken a couple of 
 turns when I perceived Mrs. Harden s moulded mask at 
 the window of one of the rooms which opened on the 
 crooked flags. It reminded me of the same flitting pres 
 ence at the window at Brighton the day I met Charlotte 
 and walked home with her. But this time my ambigu- 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 279 
 
 ous friend didn t vanish; she tapped on the pane and 
 motioned me to come in. She was in a queer little 
 apartment, one of the many reception-rooms of which 
 the ground-floor at Tranton consisted; it was known as 
 the Indian room and had a decoration vaguely Oriental 
 bamboo lounges, lacquered screens, lanterns with long 
 fringes and strange idols in cabinets, objects not held to 
 conduce to sociability. The place was little used, and 
 when I went round to her we had it to ourselves. As 
 soon as I entered she said to me : " Please tell me this ; 
 are you in love with my daughter? " 
 
 I hesitated a moment. " Before I answer your ques 
 tion will you kindly tell me what gives you the idea? I 
 don t consider that I have been very forward." 
 
 Mrs. Mardeii, contradicting me with her beautiful 
 anxious eyes, gave me no satisfaction on the point I 
 mentioned ; she only went on strenuously : 
 
 "Did you say nothing to her on the way to church?" 
 
 "What makes you think I said anything?" 
 
 "The fact that you saw him." 
 
 "Saw whom, dear Mrs. Harden?" 
 
 " Oh, you know, " she answered, gravely, even a little 
 reproachfully, as if I were trying to humiliate her by 
 making her phrase the unphraseable. 
 
 " Do you mean the gentleman who formed the subject 
 of your strange statement in church the one who came 
 into the pew ? " 
 
 " You saw him, you saw him ! " Mrs. Harden panted, 
 with a strange mixture of dismay and relief. 
 
 "Of course I saw him; and so did you." 
 
 " It didn t follow. Did you feel it to be inevitable? " 
 
 I was puzzled again. "Inevitable?" 
 
 "That you should see him?" 
 
 "Certainly, since I m not blind." 
 
280 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 "You might have been; every one else is." I was 
 wonderfully at sea, and I frankly confessed it to my 
 interlocutress ; but the case was not made clearer by her 
 presently exclaiming: "I knew you would, from the 
 moment you should be really in love with her! I knew 
 it would be the test what do I mean? the proof." 
 
 " Are there such strange bewilderments attached to that 
 high state?" I asked, smiling. 
 
 "You perceive there are. You see him, you see him! " 
 Mrs. Marden announced, with tremendous exaltation. 
 "You ll see him again." 
 
 "I ve no objection; but I shall take more interest in 
 him if you ll kindly tell me who he is." 
 
 She hesitated, looking down a moment; then she said, 
 raising her eyes: "I ll tell you if you ll tell me first 
 what you said to her on the way to church." 
 
 "Has she told you I said anything?" 
 
 "Do I need that?" smiled Mrs. Marden. 
 
 " Oh yes, I remember your intuitions ! But I m sorry 
 to see they re at fault this time; because I really said 
 nothing to your daughter that was the least out of the 
 way." 
 
 "Are you very sure?" 
 
 " On my honour, Mrs. Marden." 
 
 "Then you consider that you re not in love with 
 her?" 
 
 "That s another affair! " I laughed. 
 
 " You are you are ! You wouldn t have seen him if 
 you hadn t been." 
 
 "Who the deuce is he, then, madam? " I inquired with 
 some irritation. 
 
 She would still only answer me with another question. 
 "Didn t you at least want to say something to her 
 didn t you come very near it?" 
 
SIR EDMUND OliME. 281 
 
 The question was much to the point; it justified the 
 famous intuitions. "Very near it it was the turn of 
 a hair. I don t know what kept me quiet." 
 
 "That was quite enough," said Mrs. Harden. "It 
 isn t what you say that determines it; it s what you 
 feel. That s what he goes by." 
 
 I was annoyed, at last, by her reiterated reference to 
 an identity yet to be established, and I clasped my hands 
 with an air of supplication which covered much real 
 impatience, a sharper curiosity and even the first short 
 throbs of a certain sacred dread. "I entreat you to tell 
 me whom you re talking about." 
 
 Sh^ threw up her arms, looking away from me, as if 
 to shake off both reserve and responsibility. "Sir 
 Edmund Orme." 
 
 "And who is Sir Edmund Orme?" 
 
 At the moment I spoke she gave a start. "Hush, 
 here they come." Then as, following the direction of 
 her eyes, I saw Charlotte Marden on the terrace, at the 
 window, she added, with an intensity of warning: 
 " Don t notice him never ! " 
 
 Charlotte, who had had her hands beside her eyes, 
 peering into the room and smiling, made a sign that she 
 was to be admitted, on which I went and opened the long 
 window. Her mother turned away, and the girl came in 
 with a laughing challenge : " What plot, in the world are 
 you two hatching here? " Some plan I forget what 
 was in prospect for the afternoon, as to which Mrs. Mar- 
 den s participation or consent was solicited my adhe 
 sion was taken for granted and she had been half over 
 the place in her quest. I was flurried, because I saw 
 that Mrs. Marden was flurried (when she turned round 
 to meet her daughter she covered it by a kind of ex 
 travagance, throwing herself on the girl s neck and 
 
282 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 embracing her), and to pass it off I said, fancifully, to 
 Charlotte : 
 
 "I ve been asking your mother for your hand." 
 "Oh, indeed, and has she given it?" Miss Harden 
 answered, gayly. 
 
 "She was just going to when you appeared there." 
 "Well, it s only for a moment I ll leave you free." 
 "Do you like him, Charlotte?" Mrs. Marden asked, 
 with a candour I scarcely expected. 
 
 "It s difficult to say it before him isn t it?" the girl 
 replied, entering into the humour of the thing, but look 
 ing at me as if she didn t like me. 
 
 She would have had to say it before another person as 
 well, for at that moment there stepped into the room 
 from the terrace (the window had been left open), a 
 gentleman who had come into sight, at least into mine, 
 only within the instant. Mrs. Marden had said " Here 
 they come, " but he appeared to have followed her daughter 
 at a certain distance. I immediately recognised him as 
 the personage who had sat beside us in church. This 
 time I saw him better, saw that his face and his whole 
 air were strange. I speak of him as a personage, be 
 cause one felt, indescribably, as if a reigning prince had 
 come into the room. He held himself with a kind of 
 habitual majesty, as if he were different from us. Yet 
 he looked fixedly and gravely at me, till I wondered 
 what he expected of me. Did he consider that I should 
 bend my knee or kiss his hand? He turned his eyes in 
 the same way on Mrs. Marden, but she knew what to do. 
 After the first agitation produced by his approach she 
 took no notice of him whatever; it made me remember 
 her passionate adjuration to me. I had to achieve a 
 great effort to imitate her, for though I knew nothing 
 about him but that he was Sir Edmund Orme I felt his 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 283 
 
 presence as a strong appeal, almost as an oppression. 
 He stood there without speaking young, pale, hand 
 some, clean-shaven, decorous, with extraordinary light 
 blue eyes and something old-fashioned, like a portrait 
 of years ago, in his head, his manner of wearing his 
 hair. He was in complete mourning (one immediately 
 felt that he was very well dressed), and he carried his 
 hat in his hand. He looked again strangely hard at me, 
 harder than any one in the world had ever looked before ; 
 and I remember feeling rather cold and wishing he would 
 say something. Xo silence had ever seemed to me so 
 soundless. All this was of course an impression intensely 
 rapid; but that it had consumed some instants was 
 proved to me suddenly by the aspect of Charlotte Mar- 
 den, who stared from her mother to me and back again 
 (he never looked at her, and she had no appearance of 
 looking at him), and then broke out with: "What on 
 earth is the matter with you? You ve such odd faces! " 
 I felt the colour come back to mine, and when she went 
 on in the same tone : " One would think you had seen a 
 ghost ! " I was conscious that I had turned very red. 
 Sir Edmund Orme never blushed, and I could see that 
 he had no capacity for embarrassment. One had met 
 people of that sort, but never any one with such a grand 
 indifference. 
 
 "Don t be impertinent; and go and tell them all that 
 I ll join them," said Mrs. Harden with much dignity, 
 but with a quaver in her voice. 
 
 " And will you come you 9 " the girl asked, turning 
 away. I made no answer, taking the question, somehow, 
 as meant for her companion. But he was more silent 
 than I, and when she reached the door (she was going out 
 that way), she stopped, with her hand on the knob, and 
 looked at me, repeating it. T assented, springing for- 
 
284 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 ward to open the door for her, and as she passed out she 
 exclaimed to me mockingly : " You haven t got your wits 
 about you you sha n t have my hand! " 
 
 I closed the door and turned round to find that Sir 
 Edmund Orme had during the moment my back was 
 presented to him retired by the window. Mrs. Harden 
 stood there and we looked at each other long. It had 
 only then as the girl flitted away come home to me 
 that her daughter was unconscious of what had happened. 
 It was that, oddly enough, that gave me a sudden, sharp 
 shake, and not my own perception of our visitor, which 
 appeared perfectly natural. It made the fact vivid to 
 me that she had been equally unaware of him in church, 
 and the two facts together now that they were over 
 set my heart more sensibly beating. I wiped my fore 
 head, and Mrs. Harden broke out with a low distressful 
 wail : " Now you know my life now you know my life ! " 
 
 "In God s name who is he tvhat is he?" 
 
 "He s a man I wronged." 
 
 "How did you wrong him?" 
 
 "Oh, awfully years ago." 
 
 "Years ago? Why, he s very young." 
 
 "Young young?" cried Mrs. Harden. "He was 
 born before / was ! " 
 
 "Then why does he look so?" 
 
 She came nearer to me, she laid her hand on my arm, 
 and there was something in her face that made me shrink 
 a little. " Don t you understand don t you feel 9 " she 
 murmured, reproachfully. 
 
 "I feel very queer! " I laughed; and I was conscious 
 that my laugh betrayed it. 
 
 "He s dead!" said Mrs. Harden, from her white face. 
 
 " Dead? " I panted. " Then that gentleman was ? " 
 I couldn t even say the word. 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 285 
 
 "Call him what you like there are twenty vulgar 
 names. He s a perfect presence." 
 
 "He s a splendid presence!" I cried. "The place is 
 haunted haunted ! " I exulted in the word as if it rep 
 resented the fulfilment of my dearest dream. 
 
 " It isn t the place more s the pity ! That has noth 
 ing to do with it ! " 
 
 "Then it s you, dear lady?" I said, as if this were 
 still better. 
 
 " Xo, nor me either I wish it were ! " 
 
 "Perhaps it s me," I suggested with a sickly smile. 
 
 "It s nobody but my child my innocent, innocent 
 child! " And with this Mrs. Marden broke down she 
 dropped into a chair and burst into tears. I stammered 
 some question I pressed on her some bewildered ap 
 peal, but she waved me off, unexpectedly and passion 
 ately. I persisted couldn t I help her, couldn t I 
 intervene? "You have intervened," she sobbed; "you re 
 in it, you re in it." 
 
 "I m very glad to be in anything so curious," I boldly 
 declared. 
 
 "Glad or not, you can t get out of it." 
 
 "I don t want to get out of it it s too interesting." 
 
 "I m glad you like it. Go away." 
 
 " But I want to know more about it. " 
 
 "You ll see all you want go away! " 
 
 "But I want to understand what I see." 
 
 " How can you when I don t understand myself? " 
 
 "We ll do so together we ll make it out." 
 
 At this she got up, doing what she could to obliterate 
 her tears. "Yes, it will be better together that s why 
 I ve liked you." 
 
 "Oh, we ll see it through! " I declared. 
 
 " Then you must control yourself better. " 
 
286 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 "I will, I will with practice." 
 
 "You ll get used to it," said Mrs. Marden, in a tone 
 I never forgot. "But go and join them I ll come in a 
 moment." 
 
 I passed out to the terrace and I felt that I had a part 
 to play. So far from dreading another encounter with 
 the "perfect presence," as Mrs. Marden called it, I was 
 filled with an excitement that was positively joyous. I 
 desired a renewal of the sensation I opened myself 
 wide to the impression, I went round the house as quickly 
 as if I expected to overtake Sir Edmund" Orme. I didn t 
 overtake him just then, but the day was not to close 
 without my recognising that, as Mrs. Marden had said, 
 I should see all I wanted of him. 
 
 We took, or most of us took, the collective sociable 
 walk which, in the English country-house, is the conse 
 crated pastime on Sunday afternoons. We were restricted 
 to such a regulated ramble as the ladies were good for; 
 the afternoons, moreover, were short, and by five o clock 
 Ave were restored to the fireside in the hall, with a sense, 
 on my part at least, that we might have done a little 
 more for our tea. Mrs. Marden had said she would join 
 us, but she had not appeared; her daughter, who had 
 seen her again before we went out, only explained that 
 she was tired. She remained invisible all the after 
 noon, but this was a detail to which I gave as little heed 
 as I had given to the circumstance of my not having 
 Miss Marden to myself during all our walk. I was too 
 much taken up with another emotion to care; I felt 
 beneath my feet the threshold of the strange door, in 
 my life, which had suddenly been thrown open and out of 
 which unspeakable vibrations played up through me like 
 a fountain. I had heard all my days of apparitions, but 
 it was a different thing to have seen one and to know 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 287 
 
 that I should in all probability see it familiarly, as it 
 were, again. I was on the look-out for it, as a pilot for 
 the flash of a revolving light, and I was ready to gener 
 alise on the sinister subject, to declare that ghosts were 
 much less alarming and much more amusing than was 
 commonly supposed. There is no doubt that I was ex 
 tremely nervous. I couldn t get over the distinction 
 conferred upon me the exception (in the way of mystic 
 enlargement of vision), made in my favour. At the 
 same time I think I did justice to Mrs. Marden s absence; 
 it was a commentary on what she had said to me " Now 
 you know my life." She had probably been seeing 
 Sir Edmund Orme for years, and, not having my firm 
 fibre, she had broken down under him. Her nerve was 
 gone, though she had also been able to attest that, in a 
 degree, one got used to him. She had got used to break 
 ing down. 
 
 Afternoon tea, when the dusk fell early, was a friendly 
 hour at Tranton; the firelight played into the wide, 
 white last-century hall; sympathies almost confessed 
 themselves, lingering together, before dressing, on deep 
 sofas, in muddy boots, for last words, after walks; and 
 even solitary absorption in the third volume of a novel 
 that was wanted by some one else seemed a form of ge 
 niality. I watched my moment and went over to Char 
 lotte Marden when I saw she was about to withdraw. 
 The ladies had left the place one by one, and after I had 
 addressed myself particularly to Miss Marden the three 
 men who were near her gradually dispersed. We had a 
 little vague talk she appeared preoccupied, and heaven 
 knows /was after which she said she must go: she 
 should be late for dinner. I proved to her by book that 
 she had plenty of time, and she objected that she must 
 at any rate go up to see her mother : she was afraid she 
 was unwell. 
 
288 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 " On the contrary, she s better than she has been for a 
 long time I ll guarantee that, " I said. " She has found 
 out that she can have confidence in me, and that has 
 done her good." Miss Harden had dropped into her 
 chair again. I was standing before her, and she looked 
 up at me without a smile with a dim distress in her 
 beautiful eyes ; not exactly as if I were hurting her, but 
 as if she were no longer disposed to treat as a joke what 
 had passed (whatever it was, it was at the same time 
 difficult to be serious about it), between her mother and 
 myself. But I could answer her inquiry in all kindness 
 and candour, for I was really conscious that the poor 
 lady had put off a part of her burden on me and was 
 proportionately relieved and eased. "I m sure she has 
 slept all the afternoon as she hasn t slept for years," I 
 went on. " You have only to ask her." 
 
 Charlotte got up again. "You make yourself out very 
 useful." 
 
 "You ve a good quarter of an hour," I said. "Haven t 
 I a right to talk to you a little this way, alone, when 
 your mother has given me your hand?" 
 
 "And is it your mother who has given me yours? I m 
 much obliged to her, but I don t want it. I think our 
 hands are not our mothers they happen to be our 
 own ! " laughed the girl. 
 
 " Sit down, sit down and let me tell you ! " I pleaded. 
 
 I still stood before her, urgently, to see if she wouldn t 
 oblige me. She hesitated a moment, looking vaguely 
 this way and that, as if under a compulsion that was 
 slightly painful. The empty hall was quiet we heard 
 the loud ticking of the great clock. Then she slowly 
 sank down and I drew a chair close to her. This made 
 me face round to the fire again, and with the movement 
 I perceived, disconcertedly, that we were not alone. 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 289 
 
 The next instant, more strangely than I can say, my dis 
 composure, instead of increasing, dropped, for the person 
 before the fire was Sir Edmund Orme. He stood there 
 as I had seen him in the Indian room, looking at me 
 with the expressionless attention which borrowed its 
 sternness from his sombre distinction. I knew so much 
 more about him now that I had to check a movement of 
 recognition, an acknowledgment of his presence. When 
 once I was aware of it, and that it lasted, the sense that 
 we had company, Charlotte and I, quitted me ; it was 
 impressed on me on the contrary that I was more in 
 tensely alone with Miss Harden. She evidently saw 
 nothing to look at, and I made a tremendous and very 
 nearly successful effort to conceal from her that my own 
 situation was different. I say "very nearly," because 
 she watched me an instant while my words were 
 arrested in a way that made me fear she was going to 
 say again, as she had said in the Indian room : " What 
 on earth is the matter with you?" 
 
 What the matter with me was I quickly told her, for 
 the full knowledge of it rolled over me with the touch 
 ing spectacle of her unconsciousness. It was touching 
 that she became, in the presence of this extraordinary 
 portent. What was portended, danger or sorrow, bliss 
 or bane, was a minor question; all I saw, as she sat 
 there, was that, innocent and charming, she was close to 
 a horror, as she might have thought it, that happened to 
 be veiled from her but that might at any moment be dis 
 closed. I didn t mind it now, as I found, but nothing 
 was more possible than she should, and if it wasn t 
 curious and interesting it might easily be very dreadful. 
 If I didn t mind it for myself, as I afterwards saw, this 
 was largely because I was so taken up with the idea of 
 protecting her. My heart beat high with this idea, on 
 
 T 
 
290 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 the spot ; I determined to do everything I could to keep 
 her sense sealed. What I could do might have been 
 very obscure to me if I had not, in all this, become more 
 aware than of anything else that I loved her. The way 
 to save her was to love her, and the way to love her was 
 to tell her, now and here, that I did so. Sir Edmund 
 Orme didn t prevent me, especially as after a moment he 
 turned his back to us and stood looking discreetly at the 
 fire. At the end of another moment he leaned his head 
 on his arm, against the chimney piece, with an air of 
 gradual dejection, like a spirit still more weary than 
 discreet. Charlotte Harden was startled by what I said 
 to her, and she jumped up to escape it; but she took no 
 offence my tenderness was too real. She only moved 
 about the room with a deprecating murmur, and I 
 was so busy following up any little advantage that I 
 might have obtained that I didn t notice in what man 
 ner Sir Edmund Orme disappeared. I only observed 
 presently that he had gone. This made no difference 
 he had been so small a hindrance; I only remember 
 being struck, suddenly, with something inexorable in 
 the slow, sweet, sad headshake that Miss Harden gave 
 me. 
 
 "I don t ask for an answer now," I said; "I only want 
 you to be sure to know how much depends on it." 
 
 " Oh, I don t wan t to give it to you, now or ever ! " 
 she replied. " I hate the subject, please I wish one 
 could be let alone." And then, as if I might have found 
 something harsh in this irrepressible, artless cry of 
 beauty beset, she added quickly, vaguely, kindly, as she 
 left the room: "Thank you, thank you thank you so 
 much!" 
 
 At dinner I could be generous enough to be glad, for 
 her, that T was placed on the same side of the table with 
 
SIR EDMUND OKME. 291 
 
 her, where she couldn t see me. Her mother was nearly 
 opposite to me, and just after we had sat down Mrs. 
 Marden gave me one long, deep look, in which all our 
 strange communion was expressed. It meant of course 
 "She has told me," but it meant other things beside. 
 At any rate I know what my answering look to her con 
 veyed: "I ve seen him again I ve seen him again!" 
 This didn t prevent Mrs. Marden from treating her 
 neighbours with her usual scrupulous blandness. After 
 dinner, when, in the drawing-room, the men joined the 
 ladies and I went straight up to her to tell her how I 
 wished we could have some private conversation, she 
 said immediately, in a low tone, looking down at her fan 
 while she opened and shut it : 
 
 "He s here he s here." 
 
 "Here?" I looked round the room, but I was disap 
 pointed. 
 
 "Look where she is," said Mrs. Marden, with just the 
 faintest asperity. Charlotte was in fact not in the main 
 saloon, but in an apartment into which it opened and 
 which was known as the morning-room. I took a few 
 steps and saw her, through a doorway, upright in the 
 middle of the room, talking with three gentlemen whose 
 backs were practically turned to me. For a moment my 
 quest seemed vain; then I recognised that one of the 
 gentlemen the middle one was Sir Edmund Orme. 
 This time it was surprising that the others didn t see 
 him. Charlotte seemed to be looking straight at him, 
 addressing her conversation to him. She saw me after 
 an instant, however, and immediately turned her eyes 
 away. I went back to her mother with an annoyed sense 
 that the girl would think I was watching her, which 
 would be unjust. Mrs. Marden had found a small sofa 
 a little apart and I sat down beside her. There 
 
292 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 were some questions I had so wanted to go into that I 
 wished we were once more in the Indian room. I pres 
 ently gathered, however, that our privacy was all-suffi 
 cient. We communicated so closely and completely now, 
 and with such silent reciprocities, that it would in every 
 circumstance be adequate. 
 
 "Oh, yes, he s there," I said; "and at about a quar 
 ter-past seven he was in the hall." 
 
 " I knew it at the time, and T was so glad ! " 
 
 "So glad?" 
 
 " That it was your affair, this time, and not mine. It s 
 a rest for me." 
 
 "Did you sleep all the afternoon?" I asked. 
 
 "As I haven t done for months. But how did you 
 know that?" 
 
 " As you knew, I take it, that Sir Edmund was in the 
 hall. We shall evidently each of us know things now 
 where the other is concerned." 
 
 "Where lie is concerned," Mrs. Harden amended. 
 "It s a blessing, the way you take it," she added, with 
 a long, mild sigh. 
 
 "I take it as a man who s in love with your daughter." 
 
 "Of course of course." Intense as I now felt my 
 desire for the girl to be, I couldn t help laughing a little 
 at the tone of these words; and it led my companion 
 immediately to say: "Otherwise you wouldn t have seen 
 him." 
 
 "But every one doesn t see him who s in love with her, 
 or there would be dozens." 
 
 "They re not in love with her as you are." 
 
 "I can, of course, only speak for myself; and I found 
 a moment, before dinner, to do so." 
 
 "She told me immediately." 
 
 " And have I any hope any chance? " 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 298 
 
 "That s what /long for, what I pray for. 1 
 
 " Ah, how can I thank you enough?" I murmured. 
 
 "I believe it will all pass if she loves you," Mrs. 
 Harden continued. 
 
 "It will all pass?" 
 
 "We shall never see him again." 
 
 "Oh, if she loves me I don t care how often I see 
 him!" 
 
 "Ah, you take it better than I could," said my com 
 panion. "You have the happiness not to know not to 
 understand." 
 
 "I don t indeed. What on earth does he want?" 
 
 "He wants to make me suffer." She turned her wan 
 face upon me with this, and I saw now for the first time, 
 fully, how perfectly, if this had been Sir Edmund 
 Orme s purpose, he had succeeded. "For what I did to 
 him," Mrs. Harden explained. 
 
 " And what did you do to him? " 
 
 She looked at me a moment. "I killed him." As I 
 had seen him fifty yards away only five minutes before 
 the words gave me a start. "Yes, I make you jump; be 
 careful. He s there still, but he killed himself. I broke 
 his heart he thought me awfully bad. We were to 
 have been married, but I broke it off just at the last. 
 I saw some one I liked better; I had no reason but that. 
 It wasn t for interest, or money, or position, or any 
 thing of that sort. All those things were his. It was 
 simply that I fell in love with Captain Harden. When 
 I saw him I felt that I couldn t marry any one else. I 
 wasn t in love with Edmund Orme my mother, my 
 elder sister had brought it about. But he did love me. 
 I told him I didn t care that I couldn t, that I wouldn t. 
 L threw him over, and he took something, some abomi 
 nable drug or draught that proved fatal. It was dreadful, 
 
294 SIK EDMUND ORME. 
 
 it was horrible, he was found that way he died in 
 agony. I married Captain Harden, but not for five 
 years. I was happy, -perfectly happy; time obliterates. 
 But when my husband died I began to see him." 
 
 I had listened intently, but I wondered. "To see 
 your husband?" 
 
 " Never, never that way, thank God ! To see him, with 
 Chartie always with Chartie. The first time it nearly 
 killed me about seven years ago, when she first came 
 out. Never when I m by myself only with her. 
 Sometimes not for months, then every day for a week. 
 I ve tried everything to break the spell doctors and 
 regimes and climates; I ve prayed to God on my knees. 
 That day at Brighton, on the Parade with you, when 
 you thought I was ill, that was the first for an age. And 
 then, in the evening, when I knocked my tea over you, 
 and the day you were at the door with Charlotte and I 
 saw you from the window each time he was there." 
 
 "I see, I see." I was more thrilled than I could say. 
 
 "It s an apparition like another." 
 
 "Like another? Have you ever seen another?" 
 
 "No, I mean the sort of thing one has heard of. It s 
 tremendously interesting to encounter a case." 
 
 "Do you call me a case ?" Mrs. Harden asked, with 
 exquisite resentment. 
 
 "I mean myself." 
 
 "Oh, you re the right one!" she exclaimed. "I was 
 right when I trusted you." 
 
 "I m devoutly grateful you did; but what made you 
 doit?" 
 
 " I had thought the whole thing out I had had time 
 to in those dreadful years, while he was punishing me 
 in my daughter." 
 
 "Hardly that," I objected, "if she never knew." 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 295 
 
 "That has been my terror, that she will, from one 
 occasion to another. I ve an unspeakable dread of the 
 effect on her." 
 
 "She shaVt, she sha n t! " I declared, so loud that 
 several people looked round. Mrs. Marden made me get 
 up, and I had no more talk with her that evening. The 
 next day I told her I must take my departure from 
 Trantoii it was neither comfortable nor considerate to 
 remain as a rejected suitor. She was disconcerted, but 
 she accepted my reasons, only saying to me out of her 
 mournful eyes : " You ll leave me alone then with my 
 burden? " It was of course understood between us that 
 for many weeks to come there would be no discretion in 
 " worrying poor Charlotte " : such were the terms in 
 which, with odd feminine and maternal inconsistency, 
 she alluded to an attitude on my part that she favoured. 
 I was prepared to be heroically considerate, but it seemed 
 to me that even this delicacy permitted me to say a word 
 to Miss Marden before I went. I begged her, after 
 breakfast, to take a turn with me on the terrace, and as 
 she hesitated, looking at me distantly, I informed her 
 that it was only to ask her a question and to say good 
 bye I was leaving Trantoii for her. 
 
 She came out with me, and we passed slowly round 
 the house three or four times. Nothing is finer than this 
 great airy platform, from which every look is a sweep of 
 the country, with the sea on the furthest edge. It might 
 have been that as we passed the windows we were con 
 spicuous to our friends in the house, who would divine, 
 sarcastically, why I was so significantly bolting. But I 
 didn t care; I only wondered whether they wouldn t 
 really this time make out Sir Edmund Orme, who joined 
 us on one of our turns and strolled slowly on the other 
 side of my companion. Of what transcendent essence 
 
296 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 he was composed I knew not; I have no theory about 
 him (leaving that to others), any more than I have one 
 about such or such another of my fellow-mortals whom 
 I have elbowed in life. He was as positive, as individ 
 ual, as ultimate a fact as any of these. Above all he 
 was as respectable, as sensitive a fact; so that I should 
 no more have thought of taking a liberty, of practicing 
 an experiment with him, of touching him, for instance, 
 or speaking to him, since he set the example of silence, 
 than I should have thought of committing any other 
 social grossness. He had always, as I saw more fully 
 later, the perfect propriety of his position had always 
 the appearance of being dressed and, in attitude and 
 aspect, of comporting himself, as the occasion demanded. 
 He looked strange, incontestably, but somehow he always 
 looked right. I very soon came to attach an idea of 
 beauty to his unmentionable presence, the beauty of an 
 old story of love and pain. What I ended by feeling 
 was that he was on my side, that he was watching over 
 my interest, that he was looking to it that my heart 
 shouldn t be broken. Oh, he had taken it seriously, his 
 own catastrophe he had certainly proved that in his day. 
 If poor Mrs. Harden, as she told me, had thought it out, 
 I also subjected the case to the finest analysis of which 
 my intellect was capable. It was a case of retributive 
 justice. The mother was to pay, in suffering, for the 
 suffering she had inflicted, and as the disposition to jilt 
 a lover might have been transmitted to the daughter, 
 the daughter was to be watched, so that she might be 
 made to suffer should she do an equal wrong. She might 
 reproduce her mother in character as vividly as she did 
 in face. On the day she should transgress, in other 
 words, her eyes would be opened suddenly and unpit- 
 iedly to the "perfect presence," which she would have 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 297 
 
 to work as she could into her conception of a young 
 lady s universe. I had 110 great fear for her, because I 
 didn t believe she was, in any cruel degree, a coquette. 
 We should have a good deal of ground to get over before 
 I, at least, should be in a position to be sacrificed by her. 
 She couldn t throw me over before she had made a little 
 more of me. 
 
 The question I asked her 011 the terrace that morning 
 was whether I might continue, during the winter, to 
 come to Mrs. Marden s house. I promised not to come 
 too often and not to speak to her for three months of the 
 question I had raised the day before. She replied that 
 T might do as I liked, and on this we parted. 
 
 I carried out the vow I had made her; I held my tongue 
 for my three months. Unexpectedly to myself there 
 were moments of this time when she struck me as capa 
 ble of playing with a man. I wanted so to make her 
 like me that I became subtle and ingenious, wonderfully 
 alert, patiently diplomatic. Sometimes I thought I had 
 earned my reward, brought her to the point of saying : 
 " Well, well, you re the best of them all you may speak 
 to me now." Then there was a greater blankness than 
 ever in her beauty, and on certain days a mocking light 
 in her eyes, of which the meaning seemed to be: "If 
 you don t take care, I will accept you, to have done with 
 you the more effectually." Mrs. Marden was a great 
 help to me simply by believing in me, and I valued her 
 faith all the more that it continued even though there 
 was a sudden intermission of the miracle that had been 
 wrought for me. After our visit to Tranton Sir Edmund 
 Orme gave us a holiday, and I confess it was at first a 
 disappointment to me. I felt less designated, less con 
 nected with Charlotte. " Oh, don t cry till you re out 
 of the wood," her mother said; "he has let me off some- 
 
298 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 times for six months. He ll break out again when you 
 least expect it he knows what he s about." For her 
 these weeks were happy, and she was wise enough not 
 to talk about me to the girl. She was so good as to 
 assure me that I was taking the right way, that I looked 
 as if I felt secure and that in the long run women give 
 way to that. She had known them do it even when the 
 man was a fool for looking so or was a fool on any 
 terms. For herself she felt it to be a good time, a sort 
 of St. Martin s summer of the soul. She was better than 
 she had been for years, and she had me to thank for it. 
 The sense of visitation was light iipon her she wasn t 
 in anguish every time she looked round. Charlotte con 
 tradicted me very often, but she contradicted herself 
 still more. That winter was a wonder of mildness, and 
 we often sat out in the sun. I walked up and down with 
 Charlotte, and Mrs. Harden, sometimes on a bench, 
 sometimes in a bath-chair, waited for us and smiled at 
 us as we passed. I always looked out for a sign in her 
 face "He s with you, he s with you" (she would see 
 him before I should), but nothing came; the season had 
 brought us also a sort of spiritual softness. Toward the 
 end of April the air was so like June that, meeting my 
 two friends one night at some Brighton sociability an 
 evening party with amateur music I drew Miss Mar- 
 den unresistingly out upon a balcony to which a window 
 in one of the rooms stood open. The night was close and 
 thick, the stars were dim, and below us, under the cliff, 
 we heard the regular rumble of the sea. We listened 
 to it a little and we heard mixed with it, from within the 
 house, the sound of a violin accompanied by a piano a 
 performance which had been our pretext for passing out. 
 "Do you like me a little better?" I asked, abruptly, 
 after a minute. "Could you listen to me again?" 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 299 
 
 I had no sooner spoken than she laid her hand quickly, 
 with a certain force, on my arm. "Hush! isn t there 
 some one there?" She was looking into the gloom of the 
 far end of the balcony. This balcony ran the whole 
 width of the house, a width very great in the best of 
 the old houses at Brighton. We were lighted a little by 
 the open window behind us, but the other windows, cur 
 tained within, left the darkness undiminished, so that I 
 made out but dimly the figure of a gentleman standing 
 there and looking at us. He was in evening dress, like 
 a guest I saw the vague shine of his white shirt and 
 the pale oval of his face and he might perfectly have 
 been a guest who had stepped out in advance of us to 
 take the air. Miss Harden took him for one at first 
 then evidently, even in a few seconds, she saw that the 
 intensity of his gaze was unconventional. What else 
 she saw I couldn t determine ; I was too taken up with 
 my own impression to do more than feel the quick contact 
 of her uneasiness. My own impression was in fact the 
 strongest of sensations, a sensation of horror; for what 
 could the thing mean but that the girl at last saw? I 
 heard her give a sudden, gasping " Ah ! " and move 
 quickly into the house. It was only afterwards that I 
 knew that I myself had had a totally new emotion my 
 horror passing into anger, and my anger into a stride 
 along the balcony with a gesture of reprobation. The 
 case was simplified to the vision of a frightened girl 
 whom I loved. I advanced to vindicate her security, 
 but I found nothing there to meet me. It was either 
 all a mistake or Sir Edmund Orme had vanished. 
 
 I followed Miss Harden immediately, "but there were 
 symptoms of confusion in the drawing-room when I 
 passed in. A lady had fainted, the mu^ic had stopped; 
 there was a shuffling of chairs and a pressing forward, 
 
300 Sill EDMUND OUME. 
 
 The lady was not Charlotte, as I feared, but Mrs. Mar- 
 den, who had suddenly been taken ill. I remember the 
 relief with which I learned this, for to see Charlotte 
 stricken would have been anguish, and her mother s con 
 dition gave a channel to her agitation. It was of 
 course all a matter for the people of the house and for 
 the ladies, and I could have no share in attending to my 
 friends or in conducting them to their carriage. Mrs. 
 Marden revived and insisted on going home, after which 
 I uneasily withdrew. 
 
 I called the next morning to ask about her and was 
 informed that she was better, but when I asked if Miss 
 Marden would see me the message sent down was that 
 it was impossible. There was nothing for me to do all 
 day but to roam about with a beating heart. But toward 
 evening I received a line in pencil, brought by hand 
 "Please come; mother wishes you." Five minutes 
 afterward I was at the door again and ushered into the 
 drawing-room. Mrs. Marden lay upon the sofa, and as 
 soon as I looked at her I saw the shadow of death in her 
 face. But the first thing she said was that she was better, 
 ever so much better; her poor old heart had been behav 
 ing queerly again, but now it was quiet. She gave me 
 her hand and I bent over her with my eyes in hers, and 
 in this way I was able to read what she didn t speak 
 "I m really very ill, but appear to take what I say ex 
 actly as I say it." Charlotte stood there beside her, 
 looking not frightened now, but intensely grave, and 
 not meeting my eyes. " She has told me she has told 
 me! " her mother went on. 
 
 " She has told you? " I stared from one of them to the 
 other, wondering if Mrs. Marden meant that the girl 
 had spoken to her of the circumstances on the balcony. 
 
 "That you spoke to her again that you re admirably 
 faithful." 
 
SIR EDMUND ORME. 301 
 
 I felt a thrill of joy at this; it showed me that that 
 memory had been uppermost, and also that Charlotte 
 had wished to say the thing that would soothe her mother 
 most, not the thing that would alarm her. Yet I now 
 knew, myself, as well as if Mrs. Harden had told me, 
 that she knew and had known at the moment what her 
 daughter had seen. "I spoke I spoke, but she gave 
 me no answer," I said. 
 
 " She will now, won t you, Chartie ? I want it so, I 
 want it! " the poor lady murmured, with ineffable wist- 
 fulness. 
 
 "You re very good to me," Charlotte said to me, seri 
 ously and sweetly, looking fixedly on the carpet. There 
 was something different in her, different from all the 
 past. She had recognised something, she felt a coer 
 cion. I could see that she was trembling. 
 
 " Ah, if you would let me show you how good I can 
 be ! " I exclaimed, holding out my hands to her. As I 
 uttered the words I was touched with the knowledge that 
 something had happened. A form had constituted itself 
 on the other side of the bed, and the form leaned over 
 Mrs. Harden. My whole being went forth into a mute 
 prayer that Charlotte shouldn t see it and that I should 
 be able to betray nothing. The impulse to glance toward 
 Mrs. Harden was even stronger than the involuntary 
 movement of taking in Sir Edmund Orme ; but I could 
 resist even that, and Hrs. Harden was perfectly still. 
 Charlotte got up to give me her hand, and with the defi 
 nite act she saw. She gave, with a shriek, one stare of dis 
 may, and another sound, like a wail of one of the lost, fell 
 at the same instant on my ear. But I had already sprung 
 toward the girl to cover her, to veil her face. She had 
 already thrown herself into my arms. I held her there 
 a moment bending over her, given up to her, feeling 
 
302 SIR EDMUND ORME. 
 
 each of her throbs with my own and not knowing which 
 was which; then, all of a sudden, coldly, I gathered 
 that we were alone. She released herself. The figure 
 beside the sofa had vanished; but Mrs. Harden lay in 
 her place with closed eyes, with something in her still 
 ness that gave us both another terror. Charlotte ex 
 pressed it in the cry of " Mother, mother!" with which 
 she flung herself down. I fell on my knees beside her. 
 Mrs. Harden had passed away. 
 
 Was the sound I heard when Chartie shrieked the 
 other and still more tragic sound I mean the despair 
 ing cry of the poor lady s death-shock or the articulate 
 sob (it was like a waft from a great tempest), of the 
 exorcised and pacified spirit ? Possibly the latter, for 
 that was, mercifully, the last of Sir Edmund Orme. 
 
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 satire. The time has passed to ignore or undervalue Mr. Kipling. He has won his spurs 
 and taken his prominent place in the arena. This, as the legitimate edition, should be 
 preferred to the pirated ones by all such as care for honesty in letters. Churchman, 
 New York. 
 
 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. LIFE S HANDICAP. 
 
 BY AMY LEVY. 
 
 REUBEN SACHS. 
 
 BY M. McLENNAN. 
 
 MUCKLE JOCK, AND OTHER STORIES. 
 3 
 
BY THOMAS HUGHES. 
 
 TOM BROWN S SCHOOLDAYS. | RUGBY, TENNESSE. 
 Illustrated. 
 
 BY ROLF BOLDREWOOD. 
 
 Mr. Boldrewood can tell what he knows with great point and vigour, and there is no 
 better reading than the adventurous parts of his books. Saturday Review. 
 
 ROBBERY UNDER ARMS. NEVERMORE. 
 SYDNEY-SIDE SAXON. 
 
 BY SIR HENRY CUNNINGHAM, K.C.I.E. 
 
 Interesting as specimens of romance, the style of writing is so excellent scholarly 
 and at the same time easy and natural that the volumes are worth reading on that 
 account alone. But there is also masterly description of persons, places, and things; 
 skilful analysis of character; a constant play of wit and humour; and a happy gift of 
 instantaneous portraiture. St. James s Gazette. 
 
 THE CCERULEANS: A VACATION IDYLL. 
 
 BY GEORGE GISSING. 
 
 We earnestly commend the book for its high literary merit, its deep bright interest, 
 and for the important and healthful lessons that it teaches. Boston Home Journal. 
 
 DENZIL QUARRIER. 
 
 BY W. CLARK RUSSELL. 
 
 The descriptions are wonderfully realistic . . . and the breath of the ocean is over 
 and through every page. The plot is very novel indeed, and is developed with skill and 
 tact. Altogether one of the cleverest and most entertaining of Mr. Russell s many 
 works. Boston Times. 
 
 A STRANGE ELOPEMENT. 
 
 BY THE HON. EMILY LAWLESS. 
 
 It is a charming story, full of natural life, fresh in style and thought, pure in tone, and 
 refined in feeling. Nineteenth Century. 
 
 A strong and original story. It is marked by originality, freshness, insight, a rare 
 graphic power, and as rare a psychological perception. It is in fact a better story than 
 " Hurrish," and that is saying a good deal. New York Tribune. 
 
 GRANIA : THE STORY OF AN ISLAND. 
 
 4 
 
BY A NEW AUTHOR. 
 
 We should not be surprised if this should prove to be the most popular book of the 
 present season ; it cannot fail to be one of the most remarkable. Literary World. 
 
 TIM : A STORY OF SCHOOL LIFE. 
 
 BY LANOE FALCONER. 
 
 (Author of " Mademoiselle Ixe.") 
 
 It is written with cleverness and brightness, and there is so much human nature in it 
 that the attention of the reader is held to the end. . . . The book shows far greater 
 powers than were evident in " Mademoiselle Ixe," and if the writer who is hidden behind 
 the nom de guerre Lanoe Falconer goes on, she is likely to make for herself no incon 
 siderable name in fiction. Boston Courier. 
 
 CECILIA DE NOEL. 
 
 BY THE REV. PROF. ALFRED J. CHURCH. 
 
 Rev. Alfred J. Church, M.A., has long been doing valiant service in literature in 
 presenting his stories of the early centuries, so clear is his style and so remarkable his 
 gift of enfolding historical events and personages with the fabric of a romance, enter 
 taining and oftentimes fascinating. . . . One has the feeling that he is reading an accu 
 rate description of real scenes, that the characters are living so masterly is Professor 
 Church s ability to reclothe history and make it as interesting as a romance. Boston 
 Times. 
 
 Just ready. 
 
 STORIES FROM THE 
 
 GREEK COMEDIANS. 
 
 ARISTOPHANES. PHILEMON. 
 
 DIPHILUS. MENANDER. APOLLODORUS. 
 
 With Sixteen Illustrations after the Antique. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE ILIAD. 
 With Coloured Illustrations. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE ODYSSEY. 
 With Coloured Illustrations. 
 
 THE BURNING OF ROME. 
 
 5 
 
BY 
 
 MISS CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. 
 AN OLD WOMAN S OUTLOOK. 
 
 (Just ready.} 
 
 THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE. Illus 
 trated. 
 
 HEARTSEASE ; OR, THE BROTHER S 
 WIFE. Illustrated. 
 
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 PILLARS OF THE HOUSE ; OR, UN 
 DER WODE UNDER RODE. 2 Vols. Illus 
 trated. 
 
 THE YOUNG STEPMOTHER. Illus 
 trated. 
 
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 MY YOUNG ALCIDES. Illustrated. 
 
 THE CAGED LION. Illustrated. 
 
 THE DOVE IN THE EAGLE S NEST. 
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 THE CHAPLET OF PEARLS. Illus 
 trated. 
 
 LADY HESTER, AND THE DAN- 
 VERS PAPERS. Illustrated. 
 
 MAGNUM BONUM. Illustrated. 
 
 LOVE AND LIFE. Illustrated. 
 
 UNKNOWN TO HISTORY. A Story 
 of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland. 
 
 STRAY PEARLS. Memoirs of Mar 
 garet de Ribaumont, Viscountess of 
 Belaise. 
 
 THE ARMOURER S PRENTICES. 
 
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 SHIELD. 
 
 NUTTIE S FATHER. 
 
 SCENES AND CHARACTERS ; OR, 
 EIGHTEEN MONTHS AT BEECHCROFT. 
 
 CHANTRY HOUSE. 
 
 A MODERN TELEMACHUS. 
 
 BEECHCROFT AT ROCKSTONE. 
 
 WOMANKIND, A Book for Mothers and 
 Daughters. 
 
 A REPUTED CHANGELING; OR, 
 THREE SEVENTH YEARS, Two CEN 
 TURIES AGO. 
 
 THE TWO PENNILESS PRINCESSES. 
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 land. 
 
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 SIR THOMAS BROWNE S RE- 
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 LETTERS OF WILLIAM COW- 
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