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 I STRUCK SO VIOLENTLY AT THE DISGUSTING FACES 
 NEAREST TO ME"
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 A TRUE STORY 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "THE MARTYRDOM OF 
 AN EMPRESS" 
 
 ILLUSTRA TED 
 
 HARPER r BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 1903
 
 Copyright, 1902, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rights rextrvtd. 
 
 Published November, 1903.
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 I STRUCK SO VIOLENTLY AT THE DISGUSTING 
 
 FACES NEAREST TO ME" Frontispiece 
 
 HE THREW HIS SILK HAT HIGH INTO THE AIR, 
 AND GAVE VENT TO A LOUD AND RESOUND- 
 ING HURRAH" Facing f>. 44 
 
 NIGHT HAD ALREADY FALLEN AS I RODE 
 
 THROUGH THE STREETS OF OLD CAIRO" . " Il6 
 
 ' THROW UP YOUR HANDS, LUIGI EFFENDI ' " " 126 
 
 ' I WILL WREAK SUCH VENGEANCE AS MAY 
 
 WELL BE AN EXAMPLE TO ALL TRAITORS !' " " 158 
 
 I WATCHED THEM WALKING BRISKLY ALONG 
 THE SIDEWALK, SWINGING BETWEEN THEM, 
 BY ITS MASSIVE HANDLES, THE HEAVY 
 BOX " , " 446 
 
 ' CONFOUND IT, SHE'S MY SISTER,' SAID BER- 
 
 TRAND, WRATHFULLY" " 520 
 
 SA MAJESTE BEBE " " 532 
 
 MY AMERICAN HOME" . " 540 
 
 2135894 I
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " Give me no gems, dear heart, I pray," 
 My lady said. " What true love may 
 
 Endure to touch them? Treacherous, cold, 
 Reptilian things, with erime enrolled, 
 Would they their histories betray 1 
 
 " Rubies are blood. Can aught allay 
 Those evil fires that day by day 
 Burn in the opal's heart of gold? 
 Give me no gems ! 
 
 " Emeralds are eyes of hate, men say ; 
 There's dull revenge in sapphires ; gray 
 Sad ghosts would whisper from the mould 
 The pearl's white pestilence, and hold 
 The diamond crafty scheming. Nay, 
 Give me no gems I" M. M. 
 
 THE day was drawing to a close, and the golden 
 twilight fell with infinite softness over the Egyptian 
 landscape. A great, round moon, suffused with the 
 rosy blush of her awakening hour, rose above the palm- 
 trees, casting her magic all over the gardens, where 
 each branch, twig, and leaf was rapidly assuming a 
 sparkle of liquid diamonds. Weary little birds chir- 
 ruped and twittered with a silky sound of ruffled wings 
 as they settled themselves to sleep among the camellia 
 
 i
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 bushes, while in the river-bed the piercing note of the 
 hoopoe and the sobbing voice of a crane were plainly 
 heard in the silence of the advancing night, broken 
 at regular intervals by the call of the Muezzin a har- 
 monious "Allah ho Akbar O O O O Allah ho 
 Akbar " coming in a melancholy wail from over the 
 dark walls of old Cairo. 
 
 With startling suddenness lights appeared behind 
 the many windows of the house, as if the servants, dis- 
 mayed by the gathering gloom within, were swiftly 
 running to and fro to repair a piece of unusual neglect. 
 Surprised and amused by this semi-theatrical display, 
 I reined in, and, signalling my sais to stop his airy 
 flight, I sat in my saddle watching the gleam of oil 
 and wax battling with the now brilliant glow of the 
 Oriental moon and fast-appearing stars. I had been 
 riding during the greater part of the day, and the 
 sight of home produced a briskening effect upon me, 
 with its near vista of bath, tea, and well-earned repose; 
 so in a moment I was off again at a stretching gallop 
 under the transparent shadow of the carob-trees lining 
 the avenue. 
 
 Dismounting at a side entrance I ran up the terrace 
 steps and opened the glass door of the study, where I 
 expected to find my husband sitting by his reading- 
 lamp, as was his invariable custom at that hour. The 
 large, high-ceiled room, however, was untenanted, save 
 by a huge sloughi of preternatural shagginess, who rose 
 to greet me with a lazy yawn and a solemn wag of his 
 feathery tail. A glance at the deserted writing-table 
 showed me the habitual and characteristic litter of 
 papers, flanked by a row of reference -books Whit- 
 taker's Almanac, Debrett's Peerage, an Arab lexicon, 
 etc. in a blue morocco case, and a pile of letters and 
 telegrams, as well as numerous docketed manuscripts
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 lying in little heaps, with a riding-crop and a pair of 
 gloves carelessly flung on top of all. I moved the lamp 
 slightly in order to get a better view of a delicately 
 carved ivory netzk&, purchased a day or two before, and 
 suddenly the light shone upon an object from which 
 brilliant points of color were brutally refracted. With 
 a gasp of astonishment I bent forward and lifted from 
 some crumpled folds of tissue-paper a gorgeous golden 
 band of exquisite workmanship, thickly set with great 
 jewels, a thing to dazzle the eye and make the mouth 
 water with admiration. Rubies of lordly size and 
 color formed a central ring, framed above and below 
 by double rows of immense diamonds, while sapphires 
 of wonderful, velvety, luminous blue, large gleam- 
 ing pearls and flawless emeralds, formed a design of 
 leaves and blossoms encircled by brilliants of rare 
 lustre. Amazed beyond expression, I held this won- 
 derful ornament under the direct rays of the lamp, 
 and contemplated it with something very like awe. 
 As I slowly moved it to and fro, gem after gem 
 burned with living color, like globes lit from within 
 by red, blue, green, and blinding white flames. It was 
 undoubtedly very ancient, the golden setting having 
 acquired a mellowness which no artificer's cunning 
 could have imparted to a modern piece ; moreover, the 
 metal was deeply scratched in several places, and the 
 catch of the clasp worked with the ease of long use. 
 How it came to be there, however, was more than I 
 could imagine, for of course it seemed impossible that 
 Fred should have bought it, even in the mysterious treas- 
 ure-filled booths of the bazaar, as one glance at its 
 almost uncanny and barbarous magnificence sufficed 
 to show that it was of fabulous value certainly not an 
 object to be picked up at a bargain during a morning's 
 idle loitering. Why, also, had so covetable a jewel been 
 
 3
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 left unprotected, at the mercy of any servant happen- 
 ing to enter the room? 
 
 Nothing in my two years' Egyptian experience as 
 the wife of a man engaged on a secret mission offered 
 a clew to the enigma, and I sat down in absolute be- 
 wilderment, trying to puzzle it out. Of a truth, I felt 
 vaguely uneasy, and I am ashamed to say that for a 
 second or two, in the very innermost recesses of my 
 brain, there lurked a sort of superstitious fear. 
 
 Suddenly, from the other side of the river, there rose 
 a dismal, shrill whimper, rising and swelling to a ghast- 
 ly shriek, and ending in a long-drawn, miserable wail, 
 and so ruffled were my nerves that I started to my feet, 
 although I well knew that it was only a jackal "sing- 
 ing " at the moon. 
 
 These were unquiet times. The rebellion of Arabi 
 Pasha had but recently been quelled, and the so-called 
 peace of Egypt was a mere thin crust, barely covering 
 the unrest of Islam. The Khedive was desperately 
 clinging to his tottering throne, and the British army 
 of occupation had become so unpopular that all for- 
 eigners were held in distrust and hatred by natives 
 high and low. Indeed, the whole atmosphere was preg- 
 nant with strife, intrigue, and treachery. 
 
 Through the open casement at my side I gazed ab- 
 sent-mindedly upon the beautiful scene a nocturne 
 in blue and silver of incomparable splendor so calm 
 and quiet and restful ; and yet a few short miles away 
 there lay the savage desert, and all it hid of menace in 
 its tawny folds, while close at hand muttered the spirit 
 of Mohammedan discontent. Snatching the mysteri- 
 ous jewel once more from the table I passed out of 
 the study, followed by my sloughi Ali-Baba. Slowly 
 I crossed the hall and entered my room, the dog at my 
 , and stood gazing around the large apartment as,
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 if I had never seen it before. Indeed, my surroundings 
 seemed curiously strange, and I shuddered slightly in 
 spite of the soft, bright coloring of the draperies, the 
 pictures, the velvety rugs, and the delicately frescoed 
 ceiling, where subtle azures, faint greens, and tender 
 roseate hues were deftly mingled. The windows were 
 latticed with Moucharabieh work of carved sandal- 
 wood, allowing the air to enter freely, but lending to 
 the place a delightful suggestion of repose and peace. 
 The tinkle of the fountain in the adjoining patio a 
 little paradise of flowers, verdure, and lacelike marble 
 traceries fell refreshingly on the ear, and stirred in its 
 delicious coolness the strong perfume of many tropical 
 blossoms. This intoxicating fragrance was blended 
 with the very air one breathed, and was eminently 
 characteristic of this entire portion of the house. Yet 
 even that soothing solitude did not relieve the disquiet 
 of my mind, which whirled in a really tiresome inten- 
 sity of thought. I went to a window, drew aside the 
 curtains, and looked out through the lattice; then, 
 drawing them impatiently to again, I sat down on a 
 couch. I hardly noticed the light of the shaded lamps 
 hanging high from the ceiling, for the whole place to 
 me seemed weirdly illuminated by the dazzling gems in 
 my hand, which appeared to increase and multiply 
 into a vista of brilliancy, such as Aladdin must have 
 seen when he descended into the enchanted cave. 
 Rubies like newly drawn blood, sapphires as pure and 
 brilliant as the sky of an Egyptian night, emeralds 
 similar to the shady forest pools of midsummer, each 
 precious stone alive and instinct with the odors of its 
 native clime the balmy spices of Ceylon, the rose- 
 laden atmosphere of Persia, the dreamy breath of India ! 
 The illusion was so potent, so stupefying, that I flung 
 the jewels among the cushions of the sofa, angry at 
 
 5
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 myself and my unaccountable moodiness. As I did so 
 a rapid step paused at my door, and after a hasty knock, 
 which I had no time to answer, Fred, my husband, 
 looking flushed and disturbed, entered hurriedly. 
 
 " Have you been in my room, and have you noticed 
 some jewels lying on the table?" he said, breathlessly. 
 There were beads of perspiration on his forehead, and 
 his voice had an odd huskiness about it. 
 
 "Yes, I have; but what in the name of wonder is the 
 matter with you?" I exclaimed, in surprise, so dismayed 
 did he look. 
 
 "Sit down here/' I continued, pushing the cushions 
 aside to make room for him, and thus uncovering the 
 splendid circlet lying where I had flung it. With an 
 exclamation of intense relief he caught it up nervously 
 in both hands. 
 
 "Why, Fred, what ails you?" I said, annoyed by 
 this unusual display of agitation. 
 
 "Good God!" he retorted, fretfully; "don't you un- 
 derstand that when I missed this odious thing from my 
 room I thought it was gone for good, which would be 
 nice for me!" 
 
 " Now, my dear boy, you must really tell me what all 
 this fuss is about, and especially by what miraculous 
 dispensation of Providence so regal an ornament came 
 into your possession." 
 
 The strong, naked rays from a lamp in the hall 
 stretched through the open door and touched the gems, 
 piercing them to the very centre, from which rainbow 
 sparks flashed back again. 
 
 "This," said Fred, "was one of the treasures most 
 prized by a long line of sultans until it passed into the 
 possession of Ismail Pasha how and when is not clear- 
 ly known and from his into that of Tewfik. The 
 latter, it appears, wants to dispose of it; in fact, as I 
 
 6
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 am given to understand, it is a matter of almost vital 
 importance that he should do so without delay, for 
 money runs low in his coffers, and money means every- 
 thing to him in the present state of affairs. Mahmoud 
 Bey brought the thing here this afternoon and forgot 
 it on my desk when we left together for Abdeen Palace, 
 where his Highness awaited me." 
 
 "Did Mahmoud Bey expect you to buy this magnif- 
 icent affair?" I interrupted, with mild sarcasm. "Allow 
 me to point out that your explanations lack lucidity." 
 
 Fred got up and lighted a cigarette. 
 
 " Oh, bother \" he exclaimed, impatiently. " Of course 
 I suppose I should have told you that he came here 
 to find out whether I could secretly dispose of it and 
 convey the funds to him. I told him that this is 
 impossible, for the Collier de la Favorite as the 
 blessed nuisance is called is too celebrated among 
 Orientals to admit of its being sold here, or elsewhere 
 in the East, without attracting wide-spread and, under 
 the circumstances, undesirable attention, so all that 
 remains for me to do now is to go and return the 
 'Favorite's necklace' to that feather-brained ass, Mah- 
 moud, who will be wild when he misses it." 
 
 "Stop a minute," I entreated, with a gesture of some 
 irritation. "Am I to understand that you are about 
 to mix yourself up with the private affairs of our esti- 
 mable friend the Viceroy? The stupidity of men truly 
 exceeds all bounds! ... I beg your pardon, by-the 
 way, but for Heaven's sake don't be absurd, Fred, and 
 do not, above all things, object to my telling you plain- 
 ly, and at once, what I think of all this. Mahmoud 
 Bey can wait a little while to recover his treasure 
 serves him right, too, for being so careless . . . ! Can't 
 you see what a dangerous game he is trying to make 
 you play? The position you occupy here as secret
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and unofficial hyphen between England and the Vice- 
 roy, is in all conscience fraught with sufficient diffi- 
 culties, but such as it is we must make the best of 
 it. The moment, however, that you allow your good- 
 heartedness and execrable anxiety to help everybody 
 out of trouble, to drag you into the Khedive's usually 
 more than questionable private interests, you will find 
 yourself in an untenable position." 
 
 "Like Leotard crossing the Danube in a wheelbar- 
 row 1" 
 
 "Don't be funny, and do listen to me! I was about 
 to say and I wish you would give me your undivided 
 attention for a few minutes that such a course of action 
 on your part would be the most sickening folly. You 
 simply cannot afford to have anything to do with it. 
 Let the Honorable Bey and his satellites barter the 
 Viceroy's entire regalia, including the half ton or so 
 of diamonds which lie fallow in the Harim, but the atti- 
 tude of guardian angel to his High-Mightiness is one 
 that cannot be assumed by you or any other honest gen- 
 tleman. You know that Mahmoud is jealous of your 
 influence and confidential position with the Khedive, 
 and that the chances are ten to one that any trans- 
 action managed by him will not stand investigation. 
 Don't you see that if you associate yourself with him 
 you will bear the blame of any questionable dealings 
 on his part? How glad he w r ould be to discredit you; 
 and, for the matter of that, how do you know this is 
 not a plot to do so?" 
 
 That Fred was far from pleased was evident. He 
 flung his half-smoked cigarette brusquely away and 
 remained silent, angrily gnawing his mustache. 
 
 "I suppose you intend to have your own way in this 
 matter?" he said, at length. 
 
 " course I do ! You poor old boy, how you do 
 
 8
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 put your foot in it sometimes! But that's often the 
 way with clever men, and especially with decent ones, 
 when they are dealing with scamps like those forming 
 the entourage of the estimable Tewfik." 
 
 My lord and master's smarting ill-humor was fast 
 evaporating. 
 
 "Oh, well, perhaps you are right," he conceded, 
 almost amiably ; " but how the deuce am I to get out 
 of it now, after half promising Mahmoud to find out 
 whether the thing cannot be sold in Europe?" 
 
 I considered a moment, then, with sudden resolve, 
 said, quickly: "Look here, Fred, leave all that to me. 
 I think I can handle our worthy friend admirably and 
 most effectively. Are you willing, however, to let me 
 manage as I think fit, and not to appear upon the scene 
 when Mahmoud comes to inquire whether he has left 
 here by mistake a little unostentatious trinket worth a 
 couple of millions or so? For, if so, I will see him, neg- 
 ligently return the insignificant bauble, and, what's 
 more, I will put a flea in his ear par-dessus le marche. 
 Please, your Majesty, do not interfere till I ask you to 
 do so!" 
 
 " You dictatorial woman," he said, laughing. " Still, 
 it is rather nice of you, Pussy, to take all that trouble 
 to prevent me from making a fool of myself, as you 
 evidently think I would." 
 
 "Hm " I murmured, and was about to make some 
 conciliatory and soothing remark when the double 
 stroke of the gong announcing visitors frustrated my 
 excellent intentions, and I exclaimed : " Oh, talk of the 
 devil! here surely comes Mahmoud, hot-foot in quest of 
 his lost pledge. " As I spoke my groom of the chambers 
 entered and announced that his Excellency Mahmoud 
 Bey was waiting my pleasure in the drawing-room. 
 
 "Did he ask for me, Sahla?" 
 
 9
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " No, my lady, he asked for my master, but I told his 
 Excellency that your ladyship was alone/' 
 
 Sahla, a pure -bred and exceedingly stately looking 
 Arab, was a remarkably sagacious and well-trained 
 attendant, and possessed a finesse that would have done 
 credit to many a diplomat. In truth, this priceless 
 quality amounted with him to downright intuition, 
 and caused him invariably to do the right thing, un- 
 prompted, at the right moment. 
 
 I nodded, well pleased, and with a gay au revoir to 
 Fred left the room. 
 
 Mahmoud Bey, the Khedive's confidential aide-de- 
 camp, was a youngish man, with a rather handsome, 
 swarthy face, a commanding presence, and a deformed 
 smile. He was, moreover, that unpleasantly cynical and 
 but half -polished individual, a Europeanized Turk, a 
 person thinking ill of all women and of most men, and 
 scenting vice in every nature. He himself was a sin- 
 gularly evil man, who loved to wallow, and had wal- 
 lowed all his life, in foulness, being upheld in this 
 unsavory purpose by a pleasant certainty that his 
 tastes in such matters were shared by all those be- 
 longing to his own lofty and enlightened status! He 
 was, of course, thoroughly unscrupulous; also he was 
 extremely ambitious and greedy, and greatly imbued 
 with a sense of his own pre-eminence, though out- 
 wardly disagreeably obsequious, bland, and suave. 
 Indeed, the mere fact of his claiming to be the Khe- 
 dive's intermediary in the affair of the great jewel 
 made me, ipse facto, look upon it as a dangerous and 
 doubtful business. 
 
 When I entered the drawing-room I found that for 
 once his appearance was disordered and his usually 
 mellifluous voice rough and uncontrolled, and, as he ut- 
 tered the customary words of greeting, I could not help 
 
 10
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 glancing at him with quiet surprise, for all trace of 
 comeliness had fled from his somewhat coarse features, 
 now flushed and agitated. His chest heaved with 
 excitement, and as he dropped into the chair I indicated 
 to him he apparently sought vainly to regain his cus- 
 tomary social air. 
 
 "What ails your Excellency?" I asked, with polite 
 interest. 
 
 He made a very visible effort to master his, under the 
 circumstances, pardonable emotions, and in almost his 
 usual elaborately refined and over-polite voice a voice 
 of intolerable and nauseating oiliness he replied : 
 
 " Thank you, thank you, my dearest lady, for deign- 
 ing to receive me in this unceremonious fashion. I 
 am indeed greatly obliged to you, for I am in trouble, 
 and your good husband being absent, if you will most 
 courteously permit me to do so, I will tell you what 
 brings me here." 
 
 There I recognized Mahmoud, for he had entirely 
 recaptured himself, his meretricious smile, and his 
 customary damning crescendo of extreme gentleman- 
 liness. 
 
 Mahmoud, agitated, brutal, and human, was not. 
 Mahrnoud at all ; but Mahmoud, laboriously polished, 
 carrying himself with military erectness in his well-fit- 
 ting, much-gilded uniform, self-conscious, self-possess- 
 ed, and displaying the swaggering ostentation of de- 
 meanor common to poseurs of his kidney, was an old 
 acquaintance. This catlike ease and softness were 
 among the chief causes of my aversion for him, but at 
 least his present attitude was familiar, while his appear- 
 ance just now had been a surprise to me. I settled 
 myself comfortably on an ottoman, and, lighting a 
 cigarette, said, with a very proper show of sympathy : 
 
 "I am sorry to hear that the world is treating you 
 
 is
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 badly. That seems quite unfair on the part of the 
 world, and I am, I can assure you, more than ready to 
 assist you, if it be in my power to do so!" 
 
 "Thank you, thank you again," he repeated, at- 
 tempting to convey by an impassioned glance of his 
 bold, black eyes all the gratitude which he did not feel, 
 and with a courtly bow continued : 
 
 " The truth is that, intrusted by my gracious master 
 with an errand of some moment, I have been oh, quite 
 unintentionally a trifle careless in its fulfilment, and 
 I am, consequently, a little annoyed and perplexed." 
 
 " Careless, my dear Bey ! You would not have me 
 believe that of you! Pray do not depart from your 
 usual refreshing frankness in thus falsely accusing 
 yourself." 
 
 His fatuity was so monumental that he did not even 
 wince. 
 
 " Indeed, I am quite transparent, as I ever am, my 
 dear lady, for, much to my shame, I have to confess 
 that I mislaid a piece of jewelry which I had been 
 requested to " 
 
 "Have repaired?" I suggested, innocently. 
 
 " Well, no, not precisely that, but which, in short, had 
 been intrusted to me; and as it is of some value, I 
 acknowledge that I am somewhat upset." 
 
 I could hardly repress a smile. "This is unfortu- 
 nate," I remarked, lighting another cigarette and 
 pushing the box invitingly towards him. He looked 
 bored and a little uneasy, declined my delicate atten- 
 tion with a majestic wave of his tightly gloved hand, 
 and, after bowing his renewed thanks, resumed : 
 
 "It will be unfortunate, of course, if my quest is 
 unsuccessful, because, you understand, his Highness 
 attaches a certain value to this jewel principally for the 
 sake of association." 
 
 T2
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 <f A gage d' amour, very likely/' I said, tentatively; 
 "but interested as I always am by anything touching 
 your gracious master, my dear Bey, or even yourself, 
 I fail to see where my usefulness comes in." 
 
 Figuratively speaking, Mahmoud Bey threw up his 
 hands. 
 
 "Well," he said, with some discomposure, "you see 
 I had the jewel with me this afternoon when I called 
 upon your husband. We started rather precipitately 
 together for the palace, and a little while ago I discov- 
 ered that I must either have lost it on the way to Ab- 
 deen which seems difficult, as we drove there in my 
 own carriage or else have left it here in my hurry. 
 Would you, my dearest lady, be therefore so extremely 
 kind as to allow me to search for it in your husband's 
 study. I took it out of its wrappings there, and possi- 
 bly may have dropped it on the floor." 
 
 This time I smiled outright. The situation was be- 
 coming clear to me. 
 
 "Is it a very small object?" I asked, indifferently. 
 
 Mahmoud looked as though he were sitting on thorns. 
 
 "Yes that is, no!" he exclaimed, nervously. "I'm 
 sure I don't remember 1 Please let me go and find out. 
 I will not be a minute," and he rose precipitately. 
 
 I flicked the ashes from my cigarette, and, quite un- 
 moved either by his contradictory statements and pal- 
 pable embarrassment, or by his evident wish to take 
 time by the forelock, I said, speculatively : 
 
 "How very strange; this really is a day of jewelled 
 surprises, for when I came home an hour ago from 
 Helouan a very charming place, by-the-way, and one 
 of my favorite spots in this admirable country of yours 
 I found lying on Fred's desk, among a disgraceful 
 litter of papers, I am bound to state do have a ciga- 
 rette, my dear Bey, they were sent to me this morning 
 
 13
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 by the Khedive, and are really deliciously fresh and 
 fragrant " 
 
 "What did you find?" interrupted my baffled and 
 enraged interlocutor, sitting down again with a smoth- 
 ered groan. 
 
 "Oh, what indeed? I am sure you would never 
 guess. Now, would you?" 
 
 "I am not good at guessing," he answered, stiffly, 
 clearly doing himself the utmost violence not to lay 
 murderous hands on me. 
 
 "I must not keep you longer in suspense, then," I 
 laughed, " and although the matter will, perad venture, 
 be of but small interest, I will tell you that I found, as 
 I was saying, amid my husband's tumbled papers, a 
 marvellous band of dull gold, simply paved with price- 
 less gems, and quite uncommonly perfect both in de- 
 sign, material, and workmanship." 
 
 Here Mahmoud in his agitation half rose from his 
 chair again, but, looking studiously out of the window, 
 I took no notice of this new sign of extreme perturba- 
 tion and proceeded evenly: 
 
 "I cannot imagine what possessed my husband to 
 purchase so costly an object, even though the anni- 
 versary of our marriage, which is to-morrow, would 
 certainly lend color to his extravagance. Un mari 
 tres galant is mine, my dear Bey, quite extraordinarily 
 so, as you no doubt are aware, but still such a jewel is 
 quite out of proportion to the " 
 
 The confidential aide-de-camp could endure no more. 
 He stood up, black and angry, and almost shrieked : 
 
 "What have you done with it?" 
 
 "With what/' I asked, in mild and well-assumed 
 astonishment. 
 
 "With my with his Highness 's I mean with the 
 collar?" 
 
 14
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "What did I do with ? Why, my dear Bey, what 
 on earth can you mean? Oh! oh! oh!" I uttered, in 
 three different tones. "Surely this treasure of treas- 
 ures, this unique and wonderful object, cannot be the 
 little insignificant souvenir intrusted to your care! It 
 really cannot be, else Oriental hyperbole is a myth." 
 
 "That is as your ladyship pleases/' muttered the 
 Excellency, now without a vestige of suavity. "Yet 
 the ornament you found is the self -same one I am 
 looking for. It is a an heirloom, a rather nice one, 
 to be sure," he concluded, as if he were talking of a 
 mislaid gaiter button. 
 
 "Quite nice; yes, you speak truly," I said, with a 
 faint sneer, " almost too much so, one should think, to 
 be negligently carried about during an afternoon call. 
 I am beginning to agree with you that you were 
 what did you call it? ah, a little careless, and so, if 
 you will excuse me, I will fetch from my room where I 
 left it this attractive trinket, for I perceive that it is 
 already a quarter-past eight, and as we dine punctu- 
 ally at nine, I will, as it is, barely have time to dress." 
 
 I got up and, without waiting for the end of a mur- 
 mured apolog} 7 , passed out of the room, leaving the 
 door wide open behind me. 
 
 When I came back carrying the Collier de la Favorite, 
 I detected Mahmoud Bey in the act of surreptitiously 
 arranging his hair before a mirror. All his blandness 
 had suddenly returned, and he greeted me with a beam- 
 ing smile. Singularly enough something in his man- 
 ner suggested the complacence of a man who has ac- 
 complished a purpose ; but the impression passed from 
 my mind, and 1 did not recollect it till long after- 
 wards. 
 
 "I am so very sorry to have troubled you, dearest 
 lady," he purred. "You have been so kind and dear 
 
 15
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 in your patience and forbearance that I cannot suffi- 
 ciently express my gratitude!" 
 
 "Oh, don't mention it, it is always such a pleasure 
 to be of use to you, my dear Bey. But before I give 
 you back this glittering object upon which you set so 
 little value do tell me why you brought it all the way 
 here merely to show to Fred, for naturally I am not 
 exempt from some curiosity in the matter." 
 
 He probably had not bargained for this, and seemed 
 strangely annoyed, all the more so that I was playfully 
 holding the golden band out of his reach and he saw 
 that he had no alternative but to seemingly defer to 
 my wishes. 
 
 " Why, it came about quite naturally. You see, as I 
 happened to have it with me, I thought that it might 
 prove of interest to your husband, who is such a con- 
 noisseur of rare and beautiful things. " Here he bowed, 
 with the evident intention of showing that he had said 
 something excessively complimentary. It was evi- 
 dent, although Fred had not mentioned it, that he had 
 begged him to say nothing of the matter to me, and 
 that he himself would, under no consideration, reveal 
 his motive. I therefore accepted his explanation quite 
 simply, and merely said, with another smile : 
 
 " That being the case, I relinquish the prize into your 
 hands. I am so glad that it was at no time in any 
 danger of being lost. I need not add that I will care- 
 fully guard the secret of your little mishap, for it is 
 delightful to think that our dear Khedive will remain 
 unshaken in his faith, and will continue to entrust you 
 with such small errands as you call them ! He is not 
 always so lucky in his selection of messengers, I as- 
 sure you. I don't know if you have heard about it, 
 but a few weeks ago he confided to a supposedly 
 trustworthy member of the Household a parure of 
 
 16
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 emeralds to be presented to the wife of a distinguished 
 diplomatist, whose good-will the husband's, of course 
 he was seeking. You will be horrified, I am sure, 
 when I tell you that when the jewels reached Countess 
 
 de M o they were minus one bracelet, one pendant, 
 
 and one row of the beautiful collar intended to shine 
 on her lovely neck." 
 
 The aide-de-camp's face was now of a ghastly, ashen 
 hue, and all his new-found assurance had disappear- 
 ed; but I again forebore to look in his direction, es- 
 pecially as a mirror opposite which we stood conven- 
 iently reflected his every change of countenance and 
 left me no doubt as to the potency of the blow I had 
 just dealt him. 
 
 "Your ladyship is well informed/' he said, hoarsely. 
 
 "Not particularly so, though it is always best, I 
 find, to be aware of what is going on when one hap- 
 pens to be the wife of a man whose misfortune it is to 
 be entrusted with the secret interests of two crowned 
 heads. My small knowledge, however, is seldom men- 
 tioned by me, and were you not so sincere and valued 
 a friend, I would not, even with a view of doing you a 
 service, have told you as much as I did. It is natural 
 that I should do so, however, seeing that you are 
 deeply in the Khedive's confidence, and that, know- 
 ing what I have just told you, you may now be in a 
 position to avert such contretemps from him in the 
 future." 
 
 "You have not, I take it, spoken of this a a 
 regrettable incident to his Highness?" said he, in the 
 same low, uncertain voice. 
 
 "No, of course not," I replied, carelessly rearranging 
 
 some roses in a vase on the table before me. " I am not 
 
 an informer, my dear Bey, and do not admire the role ; 
 
 moreover, the person who committed this little faux-pas 
 
 17
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 has until now done nothing sufficiently definite to arouse 
 my enmity. That being the case, it would be entirely 
 gratuitous on my part were I to take any such step, 
 or even to advise the blissfully ignorant Countess that 
 the emeralds of which she is so proud were diminished 
 by half when they reached her hands. And now, my 
 dear Bey, that we have brought to a satisfactory con- 
 clusion our amicable and confidential little chat, let me 
 make use of an old acquaintance's privilege and beg 
 you to let me go and get dressed, so as not to trespass 
 upon the patience of my guests by delaying dinner 
 too long." 
 
 He bent low over the hand I extended to him, and 
 his manner showed an almost servile deference as he 
 backed out of the room, but the ferocious gleam in his 
 crafty eyes was sufficient evidence of his real feelings. 
 
 "Encore un ami que je viens de me faire," I mut- 
 tered, while returning' to my room. It was a necessary 
 evil, nevertheless, for now his Excellency Mahmoud 
 Bey would probably think twice before trying to em- 
 broil the unsuspecting Fred in any of those intrigues 
 from the muddy depths of which he perse veringly fished 
 enormous profits. That he was no friend of ours I 
 had long been aware, but I flattered myself that I had 
 now cut his claws for him. 
 
 We had an interesting dinner-party that evening, 
 for among our guests was Madame Blavatsky, who 
 can be described as the most brilliant, clever, and fas- 
 cinating impostor of the century. She was by no 
 means as the heads of the Psychical Society of Lon- 
 don were pleased to state a vulgar adventuress, but 
 a very well-born, very well-bred, and extraordinarily 
 shrewd woman, of more than average brains, and pos- 
 sessing a truly marvellous knowledge of human nature. 
 She knew more about Buddhism and all its weird and 
 
 18
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 hidden lore than any one else then living, having had 
 access to parchments, manuscripts, and other precious 
 documents which no other European had ever set eyes 
 upon, and having also penetrated farther into Thibet 
 that land of fearful and impenetrable mystery 
 than any man or woman belonging to an alien creed, 
 but still her Theosophy was but a cloak under which 
 she concealed her real object and aim. She was enor- 
 mously stout, and her face was quite painfully plain, 
 yet when once she began to speak she held everybody 
 spellbound, her homeliness was forgotten, and her 
 glorious, dark-blue eyes exactly matching in hue 
 the gigantic sapphire glittering immutably on the 
 third finger of her left hand positively mesmerized 
 her hearers. Nothing, however, was more amusing 
 than to watch the profound and scarcely veiled con- 
 tempt with which in moments of abandon she referred 
 to and even treated her credulous followers, and this 
 alone afforded her intimates a curious insight into the 
 peculiar workings of her mind. A singularly danger- 
 ous political agent, Madame Blavatsky was a sort of 
 Cagliostro in petticoats, and, thanks to the mystic nat- 
 ure of her teachings, which powerfully appealed to the 
 impressionable minds of Hindoo Princes and Rajahs 
 forever striving to attain perfect wisdom and conse- 
 quent happiness by supernatural means she obtained 
 a wellnigh boundless influence over them. Her power 
 was so great that the then Viceroy of India, the Mar- 
 quis of D n and A . a had a close watch set 
 
 upon her every movement, and looked upon her as an 
 enemy whom the British government could not afford 
 to despise. She resided partly at Madras and partly at 
 Simla, and was in constant and intimate correspondence 
 with Prince D ff-K ff, who was the insti- 
 gator of the Asiatic policy of Russia, and also with Mr. 
 
 19
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 S ff , chief of the Asiatic Department of the Foreign 
 
 Office at St. Petersburg, and more feared by the Indian 
 government than perhaps any other Muscovite states- 
 man has ever been. Eventually she exceeded her pow- 
 ers, and in consequence was recalled and unofficially 
 disavowed. Afterwards she made a trip to America, but 
 her great abilities were broken by age, and she attract- 
 ed but little attention while there. The aim of Madame 
 Blavatsky's intrigues in British India would have be- 
 come apparent to intelligent and observing people had 
 they taken into consideration that Russia is within 
 forty miles of Herat, the "Key of India," and that the 
 inhabitants of that city are eager to see Russia assume 
 the government thereof. Persons who consider them- 
 selves well informed and exceedingly sagacious fall fre- 
 quently into the error of believing that the Bear desires 
 to get India into its claws ; but this is by no means the 
 case, for the Czar has neither money nor troops enough 
 to maintain himself there against England, and Rus- 
 sia's object is merely to approach as near as possi- 
 ble to the Indian frontier, so that effective pressure 
 may be put upon Great Britain in case of any 
 serious conflict of international interests arising in 
 Europe. It is to be feared that sooner or later there 
 will be another mutiny in India, and then doubtless 
 the native Princes and Rajahs, having been previously 
 prompted, will appeal to Russia for assistance. In 
 all likelihood the Czar will instantly comply with their 
 request, not with a view to annexing the land, but in 
 order to restore native rule, and thus by weakening 
 England to obtain a free hand as regards Constanti- 
 nople. Of course England, once deprived of her Indian 
 empire, would be shorn of the greater portion of her 
 riches and importance, and would promptly be reduced 
 to the state of a third-rate power. The point at issue 
 
 20
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 for Russia naturally is to obtain control of the Darda- 
 nelles and a free entry to the ^Egean Sea, and were it 
 possible to hold the straits independently of the Bos- 
 porus, the city itself would become a negligible quan- 
 tity ; but as this is not feasible, and as the Dardanelles 
 cannot be held without possession of Constantinople 
 and of the forts that line both sides of the straits, it is 
 clear that Russia will strain every nerve in the effort 
 to seize them. This is the real reason of Russian hos- 
 tility to English interests in Egypt, Abyssinia, and 
 elsewhere, and this is also why Madame Blavatsky's 
 almost hypnotic influence over the Rajahs and native 
 Princes was so eminently desirable. But this is a 
 digression, which may, perchance, be forgiven me, 
 for having, during my numerous trips to the East, 
 devoted considerable attention to occultism, I was 
 much interested by the consummate skill and ability 
 with which this singular woman put her profound 
 knowledge of the subject at the service of her 
 country. 
 
 Another of my guests that evening was Mr. H o, 
 
 Russian Envoy at the Khedivial Court, one of the most 
 charming and delightful men whom it has been my 
 fortune to meet. An illegitimate son of Czar Nicholas 
 the great - grandfather of the present Emperor 
 
 H o was not only a celebrated diplomat, but also 
 
 a thorough grand seigneur, a poet of no mean talent, and 
 a man possessed of such scintillating wit and humor 
 that he was lionized wherever he went. Before being 
 sent to Cairo he had played an important role at Sofia, 
 and when Egypt knew him no more, he was appointed 
 Minister Plenipotentiary at Bucharest, where he ob- 
 tained, thanks to his clever rhymes, such an influence 
 over Queen "Carmen Sylva" that with his customary 
 finesse he was enabled to advance marvellously the 
 
 21
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Pan-Slavist cause, much to the delight of Pobiedonot- 
 soff and of his imperial master. 
 
 Yet another remarkable personage present was that 
 extraordinary individual S . . . r Pasha, in reality 
 
 Count K 1-K y, a nobleman of 
 
 German Poland, whose career had been one of the 
 most romantic that can be imagined. While still a 
 very young man he had killed his colonel in a duel 
 for the sake of a woman, and, having been forced to 
 leave the army, entered the Turkish service, rapidly 
 rose to distinction, and finally, after having embraced 
 the Mohammedan faith, became one of the Sultan's 
 most trusted generals. At the desire of the Padishah, 
 he went to Egypt as master of the horse to Ismail 
 Khedive, during that ruler's palmiest days, and made 
 himself absolutely invaluable to him. His Cairene 
 palace was worthy of the Arabian Nights, and was 
 filled not only with wonderful treasures, but with 
 many lovely wives also. A man of most distinguished 
 and courtly presence, and gifted with extraordinary 
 sawir faire, he, during every summer, used to shake 
 the dust of Egypt from his feet and repair to a mag- 
 nificent chateau near Gratz, in Austria, which he had 
 inherited from a relative, and there, shedding the Ori- 
 ental personality of S . . . r Pasha, be more than ever 
 
 Count K 1-K y. Indeed, the Catholic 
 
 Church could boast .of no more ardent devotee than he ; 
 and his village priest dined regularly every Sunday 
 with him, while the bishop of the diocese made a point 
 of staying at the castle each year during confirmation- 
 time. It goes without saying that these excellent peo- 
 ple were absolutely ignorant of the fact that their host 
 was that self-same S . . . r Pasha whose fame as a 
 sybaritic Turk was world-wide. Serenely did this ver- 
 satile personage continue for six months out of every
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 twelve to play his part as a great Catholic magnate, 
 appearing at church three times every Sunday, and 
 showing himself a true Providence to the poor on and 
 about his estates. Whatever strict moralists may have 
 to say about the elasticity of such a conscience, Count 
 
 K 1-K y, alias S . . . r Pasha, was a 
 
 singularly attractive and pleasant man, a remark- 
 able conversationalist, a superb musician, and shrewd 
 enough, if occasion arose, to sell a carved-ivory ankus 
 to an elephant, as the Hindoo saying goes. 
 
 There were also present one of the Bonaparte princes, 
 a most amusing American, a handsome grandee of 
 Spain, which in itself is a rather remarkable fact, and 
 the celebrated Corney Grain. Surely a sufficiently 
 quaint assemblage to make me eager not to lose a mo- 
 ment of their presence. I, therefore, fairly flew to my 
 dressing-room, and hustled into white laces and pearls 
 with so much disregard for their delicacy of texture and 
 for the feelings of my women that I still had a few min- 
 utes to spare when I emerged from my apartments, rap- 
 idly drawing on my gloves. I pushed open the study 
 door, cry ing : " Well, I think I've done it to some purpose ! " 
 
 Fred was writing, and as I spoke, though he did not 
 look up, his pen ceased travelling. 
 
 "Done what?" he muttered, absent-mindedly. 
 
 I gave him a short description of my interview with 
 Mahmoud, and brought it to a satisfactory conclusion 
 with a frank and unvarnished opinion of the man him- 
 self. 
 
 "Well, he is a cad, but no worse, I think," quoth my 
 lord ; " and, moreover, if one were to know only perfec- 
 tions" and his pen began slowly to move again 
 "indeed, in this wretched country perfection is con- 
 siderably at a premium," he continued, with a shrug 
 of his shoulders. 
 
 23
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Then why not sift our acquaintances more care- 
 fully. Even if we receive less, it will not be a great 
 sacrifice as far as I am personally concerned, at 
 least." 
 
 " We should cause endless talk and gossip, and bring 
 a storm of bitterest execration about our diminished 
 heads were we to do so," he muttered, once more fully 
 absorbed in his writing. 
 
 Provoked by his manner, I took one step towards 
 him and shook him soundly, causing his pen to drop 
 upon his manuscript with disastrous results. 
 
 " You have a very pretty wit," I said, viciously; " but 
 it is high time that you should cease your epigrams 
 and take to your dress-coat, for I hear carriages on j.he 
 drive, and you cannot imagine how ridiculously your 
 knee-breeches and silk stockings go with this odious 
 red-and-blue blazer." 
 
 He burst out laughing, and then, looking ruefully 
 at the sputter of ink upon his half-written page, said, 
 with an unsuccessful attempt at dignified reproach: 
 
 " And to think that this sort of thing is what one gets 
 for being the devoted slave of an autocrat!" 
 
 Leaving him to seek once more his dressing-room 
 and valet, I stepped into the patio, amid the tropical 
 ferns and foliage of which favorite buen retiro I paused. 
 Half hidden among masses of flowers gleamed the 
 rose-hued globes of many glow-worm lamps, and over- 
 head, sharply outlined against the sky, towered grace- 
 ful palms and broad -leaved bananas. The murmur 
 of the fountain gurgling softly through clusters of 
 maidenhair and aspidia was deliciously refreshing, 
 and I watched amusedly the gold and silver fish and 
 azure-tinted Chinese carp, darting swiftly beneath the 
 glassy surface of the water with the restlessness of 
 their kind, until I went to meet my guests. 
 
 24
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 The evening was a success, for we were all in the 
 
 highest of spirits. At dinner Judge D r (a 
 
 most estimable and very wide-awake person, w r ho held 
 a distinguished post on the bench of the International 
 Tribunals), and whom we had irreverently nicknamed 
 "Yankee Doodle," on account of his deliciously amus- 
 ing Americomania, aroused genuine admiration by a 
 strikingly humorous device. He wore, namely, on the 
 left side of his dress-coat a gorgeously bediamonded 
 star, nearly as large as a saucer, and embellished with 
 fantastic enamel scrolls of the most uncompromisingly 
 crude scarlet and blue. In the centre of this astonish- 
 ing ornament was the word "Merit" executed in brill- 
 iants and encircled by a wreath of golden laurel leaves. 
 My curiosity being roused by this novel decoration, 
 I asked him what sovereign had conferred it upon 
 him. 
 
 "Sovereign?" quoth his Honor, airily. "Bah! No 
 need of that! I conferred it upon myself! Do you 
 think that I am minded to go about amid diplomatists 
 and officers all a-glitter with stars and crosses, while 
 my own breast is indecently naked? Not much! I 
 don't intend to put my own country, or my own merit, 
 to shame for the sake of a few hundred dollars! This 
 child's going to be right in the swim! No back seat 
 for me!" Then he concluded, innocently, amid the 
 uncontrollable laughter caused by this astonishing ex- 
 planation : " I am rather proud of the design, by-the- 
 way. It was my own idea, and the man who executed 
 it for me in Paris warmly congratulated me upon its 
 originality!" 
 
 Quite unabashed by the merriment which he had 
 excited, the good judge, then and there, launched him- 
 self into one of his customary eulogiums of American 
 simplicity and democratic principles, which, in the 
 
 25
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 light of the jewelled star decorating his broad bosom, 
 was indeed not without its spice of humor. 
 
 "America, dear lady, is the first country in the uni- 
 verse. Do not think me prejudiced/' said he, with ad- 
 mirable firmness ; " but as a citizen of the United States,, 
 and incidentally of the universe, with a knowledge of 
 both places, I repeat that it is at the head of the pro- 
 cession every time!" 
 
 Here I took my stand in opposition, reluctantly, 
 but from a sense of duty towards the maligned uni- 
 verse. 
 
 "There is nothing like impartiality," I said; "don't 
 you think that your statement is a little too sweep- 
 ing?" 
 
 The judge sighed with the air of a man who meant 
 to carry his point, whatever the consequences to him- 
 self might prove to be. 
 
 "Not at all, not at all!" he exclaimed, gravely. 
 "That's just where you are mistaken! I don't claim 
 nearly as much as I or any of my countrymen unde- 
 niably might. Myself, I abhor partiality; but in all 
 broad-mindedness I think I'm telling the truth. Truth 
 is truth and must out, you know like murder!" 
 
 After which lucid enunciation of principle he sat up 
 very straight in his chair and gazed intently at the 
 pale-blue smoke of his cigarette floating in the evening 
 air. 
 
 A slightly derisive laugh came from H o, seat- 
 ed at my elbow. The citizen of the United States, and 
 incidentally of the universe, frowned impatiently. 
 
 "You cannot deny, Excellency," he said, with 
 warmth, "that our manners, mode of life, customs, 
 and inventive powers are away ahead of any other 
 nation's." 
 
 "Your inventive powers, eh? Oh, certainly, there 
 
 26
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 can be no doubt about them," replied the witty diplo- 
 mat, with delicate irony, casting a sidelong glance at 
 the judge's self-inflicted "Order of Merit." 
 
 "What riles me," continued the imperturbable mag- 
 nate of the courts, " is the way in which we are always 
 misunderstood. Why, for instance, are we Americans 
 continually accused of snobbery, when the puritanical 
 and childlike simplicity of our life is one of its most 
 admirable qualities! Look how easy of access our 
 President is, while the pettiest of your European prince- 
 lets considers it necessary to his dignity to surround 
 himself with a triple row of guards and halberdiers. 
 You may not believe it, but a friend of mine came 
 from the West last year to do Europe, giving him- 
 self three months for the job, and being a hustler, 
 he managed to see everything worth seeing from 
 Glasgow to Constantinople, and from Cherbourg to 
 Warna. He finally reached Vienna, where he swal- 
 lowed double mouthfuls in order to have sufficient 
 leisure to take in the Court and the imperial family 
 before speeding on. Well, of course he was in no mind 
 to wait until an audience could be obtained for him 
 by our minister, so he drove out to Schonbrunn, 
 where the Emperor was villegia-touring, and sent in 
 his card. Not only did Francis- Joseph refuse to see 
 him, but the Court flunkeys actually laughed at him 
 laughed at a man worth fifteen millions of dollars at 
 the lowest estimate, just as if he had been a sweep!" 
 
 "But, my dear sir," interrupted H o, "neither 
 
 can a stranger send in his card to your President and 
 be received without more ado." 
 
 "What's the odds? Our President has his official 
 reception days where everybody can see him face to 
 face, and shake hands, too, in a genial, honest way. 
 That's where our superiority comes in! Who wants 
 
 27
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 to speak with him? Nobody! But it is mightily 
 pleasing to be able to say that one has been received 
 and made welcome by the Chief Magistrate." 
 
 How much longer the loquacious judge might have 
 aired his curious democratic theories it is impossible 
 to guess, had not the hour arrived when we had planned 
 to drive to the railroad station at Boulak in order to 
 witness the departure of Gordon Pasha for his ill-fated 
 and last journey to Khartoum. We saw him enter his 
 train, clad in full evening dress of irreproachable black- 
 ness and solemnity, without even the bright ribbon of 
 an order to enliven it, and carrying as sole hand-lug- 
 gage a bottle of liqueur brandy under one arm and a 
 gigantic box of cigarettes under the other! It was a 
 strange scene, and one that I have always remembered, 
 for, in view of subsequent events, there remained for me 
 a sort of persistent ghastliness attached to it. The bell 
 clanged for departure, and the Pasha leaned out of the 
 window to wave a last farewell to Sir E . . . . n-B . . . . g, 
 the British Envoy, and to the little knot of friends who 
 had come to bid him God-speed, the dazzling Egyptian 
 moonlight illuminating his mild, kindly, but slightly 
 vacant countenance, in which one always faintly di- 
 vined the rapt absorption of a zealot. Twice he raised 
 his hand as the train slowly steamed away, puffing, 
 blowing, and vomiting great white clouds from its 
 smoke-stack, and this was the last we ever saw of 
 Chinese Gordon, one of the most extraordinary char- 
 acters of the age. 
 
 A little saddened, we returned to my house, leaving 
 Fred to go and advise the Viceroy of Gordon Pasha's 
 departure, at the palace of Abdeen. The latter had, 
 until Gordon's arrival at Cairo, a few days before, been 
 greatly wrought up by the fact that the general, while 
 in England, had publicly referred to him as a liar, a 
 
 28
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 coward, and in every way a most contemptible creature. 
 Touched to the quick, Tewfik heaped the most lavish 
 abuse (in private, of course) upon Gordon, but as soon 
 as the British government had selected him, of all peo- 
 ple in the world, to proceed to Khartoum for the pur- 
 pose of effecting its evacuation by all the Europeans of 
 the place England being tired of defending it against 
 the Mahdists the Khedive had made a complete volte- 
 face, and affected to approve in the most unmeasured 
 terms this strange selection ; indeed, he became so en- 
 thusiastic in the praise of his erstwhile bete noire that 
 it was difficult to conceal one's astonishment at so sud- 
 den a change of front. Now, the most mortal enemy 
 of Gordon, Zebehr Pasha, the great slave king of Cen- 
 tral Africa, was then in semi - captivity at Cairo, and 
 thereon hangs a tale. 
 
 I must begin by saying that few men played a more 
 important part in the history of Central Africa than 
 did that spare, bent, and sickly looking man, Zebehr 
 Pasha. As a boy he had obtained a fair education in 
 the missionary schools of Cairo, and his native ability 
 had soon made him a power in the land. His court 
 in the Kordofan, where he sat on a throne of ivory, 
 gold, and precious stones, with chained lions on either 
 side, and surrounded by a weird and barbaric splendor 
 wellnigh unequalled in the annals of the world, would 
 seem a figment of Eastern imagination w r ere there not 
 sober evidence to every detail of its prodigal magnif- 
 icence and antique cruelties from the reports of African 
 explorers who were eye-witnesses thereof. Out-Nero- 
 ing Nero, Zebehr meted out death and torture in their 
 most horrible forms to those who had incurred his dis- 
 pleasure, and so glaring became his excesses that he 
 was finally punished by dethronement and enforced 
 residence at Khartoum. Cursed with a most rest- 
 
 29
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 less and ambitious disposition, he quickly tired of the 
 relatively civilized life of that pestilential city at the 
 juncture of the two Niles, and suddenly disappeared. 
 A few years later he was heard of as an omnipotent 
 slave king, whose name was infinitely more dreaded 
 throughout the length and breadth of Africa than 
 that of the redoubtable Tippoo-Tib. His wild doings, 
 indeed, became a by-word for destruction of property, 
 devastation of immense tracts of country formerly 
 covered by prosperous towns and villages, and en- 
 slavement of such multitudes of innocent men, women, 
 and children that loud execrations arose against him 
 from every corner of the Dark Continent. Not only 
 by reason of his extraordinary career is he an object 
 of peculiar, if grewsome, interest, but because one can- 
 not help thinking that he was in a measure respon- 
 sible for the death of Gordon Pasha. 
 
 From the very moment when Ismail Khedive, at the 
 personal suggestion of King Edward then Prince of 
 Wales appointed the eccentric Gordon as Governor- 
 General of the Soudan, Zebehr recognized in him an 
 arch-enemy. When he became aware of this, the gen- 
 eral tried to persuade the slave king to visit him at 
 Khartoum, promising him safe - conduct, for he had 
 conceived the idea that by means of a personal inter- 
 view he would be able to convert him from its most 
 bitter opponent into an invaluable ally of the Egyp- 
 tian government. Gordon enjoyed among natives a 
 wide-spread reputation for a high sense of honor and 
 scrupulous observance of his engagements ; indeed, his 
 word was considered throughout China and Africa as 
 being as good as his bond. But, alas, the conference 
 between Zebehr and himself was a lamentable failure, 
 and, despairing of succeeding personally in quenching 
 or subduing the old man's hatred for the Egyptians, 
 
 30
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Gordon arranged a meeting at Cairo between him and 
 the Khedive, obtaining a solemn assurance from the 
 latter that all his pledges regarding the old rebel's 
 safe-conduct and liberty should be strictly observed. 
 Hardly, however, had Zebehr set foot in Cairo than, in 
 violation of all guarantees given him by Gordon in 
 the Khedive's name, the latter seized his person and 
 put him under restraint, doing this so craftily, how- 
 ever, that he led Zebehr to believe that his hand had 
 been forced by Gordon and the English government. 
 Shortly afterwards the captive old lion learned that 
 his favorite son, the very apple of his eye, had been 
 caught in the act of slave-raiding and summarily exe- 
 cuted by Gordon. His grief and rage were appalling, 
 and he made no secret among his associates at Cairo 
 of his determination never to rest until he was revenged 
 upon the general for this, and for the quasi-imprison- 
 ment which he naturally attributed to him. It is not 
 generally known that Zebehr Pasha was, de facto, one of 
 the principal lieutenants of El-Senussi, the grand-mas- 
 ter of one of the most powerful religious fraternities 
 of the Mohammedan faith, who had his headquarters 
 at Jerboub, on the Egypto-Tripolitan frontier, the terri- 
 ble Mahdi being really nothing but a mere tool in his 
 hands and those of Zebehr. 
 
 This is all so true that when the French communist, 
 Olivier Pain, left the Egyptian capital to join the Mahdi 
 in his struggle against the English and Egyptians 
 he obtained from Zebehr a safe-conduct, which enabled 
 him to pass unharmed through all the lines of the der- 
 vishes. 
 
 Being aware of all this, my astonishment may be 
 easily imagined when late on this night of Gordon's 
 departure Fred told me, on his return from the palace, 
 that, thanks to the impulsiveness of Mahmoud Bey, 
 
 31
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 who had conducted him to the Viceroy's presence with- 
 out previously taking the latter's pleasure on the sub- 
 ject, he found Zebehr in earnest and most animated 
 conversation with the Khedive. 
 
 " You would have been surprised to see the impassive 
 features of the terrible slave king quite transformed 
 by exultation/' quoth Fred to me ; " he looked positively 
 heroic, and how you would have laughed, too, to witness 
 Tewfik's discomfiture when he became aware of my 
 presence in the room. He hastily muttered something 
 to Zebehr, who slipped off through a side door with a 
 familiarity plainly showing what an habitue 1 of the 
 palace he is; then turned upon his favorite aide-de- 
 camp with a ferocious frown. Friend Mahmoud's con- 
 fusion was extreme, and I would have given some- 
 thing to understand the rasping sentences in Turkish 
 which the Khedive growled at him. Really, it is a pity 
 you were not there, you would have enjoyed it all so 
 much! Tewfik's overpowering amiability to myself 
 was also highly edifying, and when he mentioned 
 Gordon he literally glowed with enthusiasm, although, 
 naturally, such fulsome praise sounded singularly sus- 
 picious to me coming from a man who had but a 
 moment before been evidently engaged in confidential 
 intercourse with Zebehr. It is lamentably true that 
 one cannot put one's faith in princes," concluded my 
 lord and master, with a desperate yawn, as he dis- 
 appeared into the sanctity of his own dressing-room. 
 
 Zebehr remained at Cairo, acting as the Mahdi's 
 secret agent, and to such purpose that this dread per- 
 sonage was informed in ample time of Lord Wolseley's 
 Nile expedition for the relief of Khartoum and the 
 rescue of Gordon, with disastrous results to the Eng- 
 lish forces. This, however, proved to be his political 
 swan song, for the English government, somewhat 
 
 32
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 late in the day, it is true, became convinced of his con- 
 stant communications with the rebels, and decided to 
 isolate him once and for all from his allies. One 
 night, therefore, he was seized while staying in the 
 house of the local chief of the El-Senussi fraternity in 
 Alexandria, was conveyed on board a British man-of- 
 war, which'immediately set sail for Gibraltar, and was 
 there confined until the death of the Mahdi and the 
 practical termination of the Soudanese insurrection. 
 
 Somehow, I have always pitied Zebehr, for, in my 
 humble opinion, he was abominably treated. To begin 
 with, the Anglo - Egyptian government had no right 
 whatsoever to violate the pledges given to him through 
 Gordon, and it is certainly open to question whether 
 England acted with great equity in abducting him, 
 and in detaining him as a prisoner of war for several 
 years without any form of trial or even court-martial. 
 I dare say that my sympathies will meet with very 
 little approval ; but, really, Zebehr was such a pictu- 
 resque old sinner, so frankly barbarous and naively 
 cruel, that one could not withstand a feeling of admira- 
 tion for this merciless warrior whose rocky nature 
 held but one seam of golden ore a passionate love of 
 the children for whose aggrandizement he had so long 
 and bloodily striven.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 I'd like to stake a claim or two along the river Nile, 
 
 Where the niggers go prospectin' after counsellors and kings. 
 
 They find 'em boxed and pickled in a most amazin' style, 
 And clear a handsome profit on their royal crowns and things. 
 
 M. M. 
 
 WE were lotus-eating in the gardens of A s 
 
 during one of our flying trips to Alexandria those gar- 
 dens so beautiful, so peaceful, so inaccessible to the world 
 in general that they well deserve their name of " Little 
 Paradise." Their owner a character who might have 
 been taken from the Arabian Nights, for, beginning 
 life as a stevedore, he died wealthy beyond the dreams 
 of avarice was strangely jealous of this, his most 
 cherished possession, and it was a great privilege, in- 
 deed, to be allowed to wander at one's sweet will amid 
 his incomparable magnolia groves and his superb par- 
 terres. 
 
 The night was magnificent. Above our heads the 
 velvety sky twinkled with myriads of stars, and out- 
 side the verdure-clad walls which encircle all this love- 
 liness one could plainly hear in the solemn silence the 
 weird chants of the boatmen on the Mahmoudieh 
 Canal. 
 
 Fred, myself, our Muscovite friend Monsieur H o, 
 
 dear old "Yankee Doodle/' an Austrian prince who 
 had been wintering in Egypt for the sake of his 
 health, and, lastly, a charming young Bostonian, Roy 
 
 P y, of whom we were all very fond, had come there 
 
 34
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 after dinner with the intention of taking a little in> 
 promptu supper on the edge of the miniature lake which 
 is one of the beauties of the place. Thoroughly had 
 we enjoyed this little al-fresco feast, and afterwards by 
 the brilliant light of the moon we strolled between banks 
 of exquisite flowers and helped ourselves to the golden 
 fruit, which, together with a wealth of fragrant buds 
 and blossoms, nestled among the glossy leaves of orange 
 and lime trees in glorious profusion. 
 
 Seated in the attitude of Buddha on a square basal- 
 tic rock in the midst of trailing passion flowers, which 
 he ruthlessly crushed, and with the high silk hat which 
 he invariably wore tilted on the back of his head, 
 "Yankee Doodle" looked the embodiment of extreme 
 content. In each hand he held a luscious orange, and, 
 with distended cheeks and mellifluous sucking sounds, 
 he attacked first one and then the other with impartial 
 regularity. Prince Frederick, much struck by this 
 lavish procedure, fixed his monocle firmly in his eye 
 in order to better contemplate so graceful a spectacle, 
 and asked, in his quaint, halting English : 
 
 "Ah! but, my friend, why is it you try to eat two 
 oranges at once? Is it not very fatiguing?" 
 
 "Not a bit," replied the courageous one. "It's 
 bully! I'm not turned loose every day in a free gratis 
 orange-grove; I believe in making hay while the sun 
 shines, or rather the moon," he concluded, reflectively, 
 cocking his eye in the direction of Dame Luna. Roy 
 
 P y grinned all over his comely face, while the 
 
 prince, puzzled by the Judge's colloquialisms, plaintively 
 asked what he meant. 
 
 "Oh, don't try to understand him; he's above your 
 comprehension, and quite unintelligible to the com- 
 mon run of aristocrats," said I, laughing. "A dear 
 old fellow, though, as kind as can be, and the very 
 
 35
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 joy of my life in this tiresome country. Dear me, 
 how hot it is getting!" I added, glancing around 
 to ascertain, if possible, whence came the scorching 
 breeze which had arisen without any warning, for 
 the feel of it seemed to indicate the very breath of the 
 lower regions. The atmosphere, which had until then 
 been perfection, was fast becoming singularly thick 
 and murky; the trees rustled nervously, and, to add 
 to the strangeness of the situation, a dismal croaking 
 of frogs made itself heard in every direction. Indeed, 
 one might almost have believed that we were about to 
 witness a second edition of the plagues of Egypt, for 
 in the space of a few short minutes the ground became 
 literally covered with thousands of these little creatures, 
 and not a step could we take without treading upon 
 their slimy, yielding bodies. To run upon this slippery, 
 croaking life was most revolting, but nolens volens we 
 had to do so, as they did not get out of the way, and 
 as it was clear that a khamsin of no ordinary violence 
 was commencing. 
 
 It is by no means a joke to be caught in the open by 
 that fierce African hurricane, laden with clouds of the 
 finest desert sand, which fills eyes, ears, and mouth 
 with intolerable burning, and literally grinds the skin 
 off one's face and hands. We therefore hurriedly gath- 
 ered our portable belongings together and rushed at 
 full speed, despite those plaguey frogs, towards the 
 spot where we had left our carriages. Unfortunately, 
 we missed our way in the swiftly gathering gloom, 
 and brought up in front of a mass of rocks, at the base 
 of which what seemed like the opening of a narrow 
 cave or broad fissure showed up darkly against the 
 luxuriant foliage. Several times the men of the party 
 shouted in stentorian tones, hoping that our kavasses, 
 or at least our coachmen, might hear, but their exer- 
 
 36
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 tions were of no avail, and even the " Hallo-e-e-e-e 
 Hallo-o-o-o," which was the Judge's habitual war-cry, 
 and which he facetiously dubbed "the yowl of the 
 deserted jackal," remained unanswered. In spite of 
 the gravity of the situation I could not help laugh- 
 ing at this lugubrious sound, which invariably herald- 
 ed "Yankee Doodle's" approach wherever and upon 
 whomsoever he called, thereby filling with the utmost 
 consternation butlers, boabs, and grooms of the cham- 
 ber alike. All we could now do was to seek shelter in 
 the narrow cleft that opened before us, but unfortu- 
 nately the face of the rock rose abruptly from a kind 
 of small swamp or marshy pool, covered with lilies 
 and lotus, which looked to us at first very much like 
 an impassable barrier. Necessity, however, is a good 
 teacher, and we were soon skipping, like the frogs 
 themselves, from one to another of some large stones 
 which, as luck would have it, rose here and there 
 above the inky surface of the water, our very speed 
 saving us from losing footing, and thus we reached 
 the welcome cave just in time, for it was becoming dif- 
 ficult to stand against the force of the wind. Mean- 
 while the moon had become obscured by angry-look- 
 ing clouds flitting across its reddened disk, and it was 
 so dark that we felt rather than saw our way under a 
 drooping curtain of waving creepers. Completely out 
 of breath, we sank exhausted on the dry sand which 
 carpeted the little grotto, but as in Egypt such places 
 are generally the favorite resort of snakes, scorpions, 
 and fat-bellied spiders of grewsome hairiness, I felt by 
 no means at my ease. 
 
 "I sincerely hope that we are not keeping house 
 with reptiles and insects!" I said, somewhat hope- 
 lessly. 
 
 "I think I can set your fears at rest on that score/' 
 
 37
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 replied the deep voice of our invaluable legal friend from 
 somewhere behind me, and suiting the action to the 
 words, he drew from his pocket and carefully lit a tiny 
 silver lantern of extreme brilliancy. This little coup- 
 de-the&tre was received with a chorus of "bravos," 
 while the Judge, holding his pocket -lamp before him 
 with as much solemnity as if it were a blessed candle, 
 began to explore every nook and corner, calmly ex- 
 plaining that he never went out at night without this 
 luminary when in uncivilized countries. By its pierc- 
 ing little light we discovered that we had penetrated to 
 a narrow and low-vaulted corridor hewn in the rock, 
 and apparently stretching far into its granite heart. 
 No venomous creatures were found, though numerous 
 bats flapped their leathery wings disagreeably in our 
 faces and some white lizards scurried away terrified 
 at our approach. 
 
 "Well, this takes the whole line of bakers!" muttered 
 the Judge, and then nudging Prince Paul in the ribs 
 after his own deliciously ultra-democratic style, he 
 added : 
 
 "Say, what if we discover the old thief's treasure 
 in this God-forsaken hole? Wouldn't that be gay? 
 Maybe that's the reason the rascal doesn't want his 
 gardens invaded by the pleb!" 
 
 At another time I would have laughed heartily at 
 this unceremonious reference to the lord of the domain, 
 but somehow the dismal screeching of the wind out- 
 side, and the suffocating heat within, had bereft me of 
 much of my usual powers of merriment. 
 
 "Isn't he a jewel," whispered the Bostonian in my 
 ear ; " nobody on earth is half so jolly, I think, or so 
 original!" 
 
 "You are right," I replied. "You know what he 
 told S . . a-D . . o the other day when the latter com- 
 
 38
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 plained in his presence of having been called a bare- 
 faced robber by B . . . r Pasha? 'Oh, well/ quoth our 
 Judge, 'probably in his excitement he did not notice 
 your mustache!"' 
 
 " My word ! isn't that delicious !" laughed Roy. " I 
 am proud of being able to claim him as a compatriot 
 indeed I am!" 
 
 At this juncture " Yankee Doodle's " famous " Hallo- 
 e-e-e-e Hallo-o-o-o," sounded once more, loudly, from 
 the farthest corner of the cave, followed by the sur- 
 prising statement that he had found a flight of steps 
 leading downward. 
 
 "Here's something to do," he cried. "Let's follow 
 it up just for fun and see where it goes to, for if we 
 stay stagnating in this place until the storm is over it 
 would be money in our pockets if we'd never been born. " 
 
 We eagerly agreed to try the staircase, which proved 
 to be but a sorry affair with rough and unequal steps 
 burrowed through the living rock, and so narrow that 
 we had to descend in single file. After some moments 
 of spiral winding through a breathless darkness, traced 
 with occasional gleams from the lantern, we reached 
 a large, rock-hewn chamber, and it needed no second 
 glance to show that we were in the ancient catacombs 
 that underlie the soil in the vicinity of Alexandria. 
 Myriads of human bones were scattered about or piled 
 in mouldy heaps, and as the light was turned from 
 side to side skull after skull grinned dismally at us 
 from the gloomy sepulchral recesses of the walls and 
 floor. 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" fervently ejaculated the Judge, thereby 
 starting up a most ghoulish echo that seemed to go 
 rumbling and grumbling away to a great distance. 
 
 " Sounds rather big," quoth he, holding up the light 
 and peering forward into the gloom. 
 
 39
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Yes, yes, there's a passage opening on the other 
 
 side/' cried Roy P y, craning his neck to look over 
 
 the Judge's shoulder. 
 
 "Ah!" said the Austrian, "I would exceedingly like 
 a little farther to explore. Do you agree, my dear 
 friends?" We did agree, and our judicial lamplighter 
 marched across the vault without further hesitation. 
 
 "Come on," he sang out, waving the lantern invit- 
 ingly to and fro. " Horror ubique aniinos, simul ipse 
 silentia terret ! This is a rich old plantation we've 
 struck, so we may as well see a little more of it, for 
 we might find, perhaps, where they'd set out a whole 
 row of kings. 
 
 Laughing despite the mocking and exasperating 
 echoes, we followed him closely. The gallery was a 
 narrow and winding one, honeycombed with sepulchral 
 niches, and we pressed eagerly forward, full of the enthu- 
 siasm of discovery, not finding anything of particular 
 interest, it is true, unless one counts as such the some- 
 what singular experience of walking over the dry bones 
 of one's predecessors by some twoscore centuries and 
 hearing the smaller parts of their bony anatomy snap 
 under one's feet. But we were lured on by the possibil- 
 ity of finding something at the farther end, if it were 
 only another outlet, for, as " Yankee Doodle " said, 
 "anything was better than sitting at the bottom of a 
 hole twiddling one's thumbs and waiting for the kham- 
 sin to cease." 
 
 As for the farther end, there didn't seem to be any. 
 The tunnel wound away, in an apparently limitless 
 length, unbroken by branch or intersecting passage of 
 any kind. So Fred's repeated injunctions to be on the 
 lookout lest such snares for the unwary should puzzle 
 and confuse us seemed superfluous, and we felt quite 
 secure and at perfect leisure to listen to a learned arch- 
 
 40
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 geological discussion which was waxing fast and furi- 
 ous between the Judge and Monsieur H o. 
 
 My own interest was rather in the speakers them- 
 selves than in their dates and arguments and authori- 
 ties, for I delighted to bring those two together, and 
 never tired of watching them. Each made such a 
 
 complete foil to the other. H o, with his marvellous 
 
 and somewhat sarcastic and caustic wit, and the Ameri- 
 can full of the driest and most entertaining sort of humor, 
 while the Russian's polished courtliness, and "Yan- 
 kee Doodle's" easy colloquial and somewhat slap- 
 dash manner, and especially the total inability of each 
 to comprehend the other's genre, made the combination 
 a most piquant and amusing one. On and on we wan- 
 dered, the time slipping away, thanks to much doubt- 
 less unseasonable mirth, chatter, and repartee, and 
 truly we did not give so much as a thought to the in- 
 creasing distance behind us. Alas for the good things 
 said down there in the blackness of the pit ! I fear we 
 had but short memories for them afterwards. 
 
 At last the atmosphere of the place, both moral and 
 physical, began to pall upon us, and we got a little tired 
 of seeing the darkness withdrawing before us, step by 
 step, only to disclose two interminable parallels of long- 
 dead and mouldering monotony dust and bones, bones 
 and dust, jagged points and rough angles of rock, tomb 
 after tomb, and the most eldritch shadows which now 
 loomed large in front, now slanted far behind, and 
 dodged and flew about in odd corners, like dusky in- 
 habitants of this nether region. We were, therefore, 
 not sorry when our torch-bearer called a halt for rest 
 in a hall-like enlargement of the passage apparently 
 formed by the caving in of a whole block of tombs, and 
 as we sat about on convenient fragments of rock some- 
 body's proposal to return met such eager and unani- 
 
 41
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 rnous acceptance that it became plain that we had all 
 been silently longing for the outer air. 
 
 Just as we rose to go, to my intense surprise I 
 caught sight of a faint roseate suggestion of light 
 which seemed not very far away. I rubbed my eyes 
 yes, it was there still. I lagged a few steps behind 
 the others so as to dispose of the deceptive gleam of 
 the lantern. There was no doubt about it. 
 
 "Look, look!" I cried; and as the others hastily re- 
 traced their steps, "Is this dawn?" I said, stupidly, 
 pointing towards the strange pinkish glow, which cer- 
 tainly resembled that of the rising sun. 
 
 " Daylight in this inferno ?" exclaimed H o. " No, 
 
 it cannot be. But let us see what fresh discovery we 
 are about to make!" And fired with renewed curios- 
 ity we again started forward, literally wading through 
 bones and bone-dust such an agglomeration as I 
 hope never to see again, even in a nightmare. 
 
 Again the passage became narrower, and soon we 
 were travelling through a dream-like effulgence, ap- 
 parently proceeding from an aperture in the rocky 
 walls ahead, and which, as we progressed, grew brighter 
 and brighter until we realized that it was not God's 
 daylight we saw, but the ruddiness of some artificial 
 illumination. We walked in absolute silence, too 
 much amazed and interested to communicate our im- 
 pressions to one another, when presently this inex- 
 plicable radiance of the under-world outlined an arched 
 doorway against the darkness, and, passing a hinged 
 metal grille, which had been partly drawn aside, we 
 emerged into a place of such antique beauty, so unreal 
 in its contrast with our own modernity, that we could 
 not repress gasps of astonishment and admiration. 
 
 We stood within a great oval chamber, of which the 
 polished walls of flesh-tinted marbles met, many feet 
 
 42
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 above our heads, in a dome covered with wonderful 
 interlaced designs most delicately executed. A broad 
 band of dark-green marble formed the base of the wall ; 
 another marked the spring of the dome ; below this an 
 exquisitely sculptured frieze ran around the entire 
 ellipse, and a few feet from the floor a series of carven 
 panels were set at regular intervals, the space between 
 the frieze and the panelling being filled in by relief- 
 work harmonizing with that upon the arching vault 
 above. Lordly lustra of green bronze, much taller than 
 a man, were ranged in regular alternation against the 
 wall, and several yards' distance from it each one a 
 single carved and convoluted shaft, bearing, as the 
 stem bears a flower, a brilliant crimson or purple flame, 
 which burned clear-pointed in the still air, and diffused 
 an odor of rich, penetrating, pungent perfumes. From 
 the intersections of the traceries overhead hung by long 
 chains many lamps of yellow metal. These were of 
 wonderfully beautiful shapes, and evidently very an- 
 cient, but the haste of that moment, of course, precludes 
 my now referring them to any period or style of art. 
 Nor can I recollect the subjects represented in the sculpt- 
 ures, for the central object of all this magnificence 
 claimed our attention, to the exclusion of everything 
 else. 
 
 Upon a pedestal of some highly polished dark-green 
 stone, the greatest wonder of all, a huge sarcophagus 
 of transparent crystal seemingly a solid block, and 
 faceted like a diamond stood poised above its dim 
 reflection in the marble floor. Four of the great lustra 
 stood sentinel over it, two at either side, and through 
 its lucid walls could be seen the figure of a young man 
 of some thirty years, recumbent upon the folds of a long 
 purple cloak. Upon the head was a golden helmet, 
 which framed the sculptural beauty of the features, 
 
 43
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and the straight nose, firm mouth, and rounded chin, 
 of the purest classic mould, the delicately pencilled 
 eyebrows and long, sweeping lashes, gave a wonderful 
 impression of life. The hands were folded over the 
 tunic and corselet of wrought gold upon the hilt of 
 a short, straight sword, great jewels sparkled on 
 the massive golden chains that fell over breast and 
 shoulder, and upon the clasps w r hich fastened the san- 
 dals to the finely modelled feet, w r hile just above the 
 quiet heart lay a small alabaster plaque, inscribed in 
 faint and faded blue with what looked like ancient 
 Greek characters. As we gazed in awe at the sleeper, 
 who had so far withstood the destiny of Caesar as to 
 maintain the person and pomp of royalty during the 
 march of unnumbered generations, the silence was 
 broken by the voice of "Yankee Doodle" crying ex- 
 citedly : 
 
 " Say, do you know what we've struck? This thing 
 is the tomb of Alexander the Great. We've made the 
 biggest archaeological discovery of the century!" 
 
 And, wild with enthusiasm, as well as entirely re- 
 gardless of the sanctity of the place, he threw his silk 
 hat high into the air, and gave vent to a loud and re- 
 sounding hurrah, which drowned the earnest expostu- 
 lations of M. H o, and had scarcely died away 
 
 when a hurried clatter of footsteps was heard coming 
 towards us, apparently from overhead, followed by a 
 clanging of metal doors, and fierce exclamations and 
 yells of surprise and fury. 
 
 "Now you've done it!" said Roy P y. "Here 
 
 comes the whole garde du ' corpse,' priests of Some kind 
 or other, bent on murdering us out of hand, I suppose!" 
 
 I laughed outright. Where we stood, past experi- 
 ence was left behind, and everything seemed so unreal 
 and dreamlike that the idea of danger never even 
 
 44
 
 
 HE THREW HIS SILK HAT HIGH INTO THE AIR, AND GAVE 
 VENT TO A LOUD AND RESOUNDING HURRAH "
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 occurred to me. At that moment I felt a firm clasp 
 upon my arm and heard Fred's voice in my ear, low 
 and earnest. 
 
 "Run!" he said, briefly. 
 
 One look at his set face recalled me to myself and 
 the serious nature of the circumstances, and I ran! 
 
 As we dashed under the arch of the doorway I glanced 
 back, and over the shoulder of the hatless Judge, who 
 was hastily extinguishing the lantern as he ran^caught 
 a glimpse of a troop of fierce-looking men dressed in 
 long robes and brandishing murderous knives, who 
 were pouring out of a door on the other side of the 
 sepulchral chamber. 
 
 Then the blackness swallowed us up. 
 
 The native priest, whether Copt or Moslem, is an 
 ugly customer to tackle when he conceives his sacred 
 shrines to have been polluted by unbelievers, so we 
 made the best time we could, plunging and stumbling 
 forward through darkness truly that of Egypt, with 
 hands outstretched before our faces, and feet raised 
 high to clear the obstacles of the road, dreading at 
 every step to fall into some yawning vault, and listen- 
 ing the while to the steps of our pursuers close behind. 
 
 "Lucky for us," I heard Fred's voice say near me 
 in the thick night enveloping us. " They were in such 
 a hurry to kick us out that they forgot to bring any 
 light along!" 
 
 So indeed it was. Our friends, the enemy, were 
 laboring under the same disadvantages as ourselves, 
 and, what was more, either we were gifted with the 
 proverbial wings of fear, or something occurred to de- 
 lay them, for though at the outset of the race our start 
 was only the width of the great chamber, we seemed 
 to gain on them, and in a few minutes the sounds of 
 the pursuit were perceptibly farther away. 
 
 45
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Presently, as I hurried painfully along, I thought 
 I detected a mass of blacker blackness in front of me, 
 and putting out my hand, it encountered the back of 
 one of my fellow - unfortunates. There was nothing 
 strange about this, as we were all keeping as close 
 together as possible, but the form I touched correspond- 
 ed to the outline of the aforesaid black patch. I could 
 seel 
 
 I hailed the discovery with a joyful exclamation. 
 It might be only a passing adumbration of light, it 
 might be wellnigh too faint to be of use to us, still it 
 was light after a fashion, and our depressed spirits 
 came up with a bound. And it did not pass. Heav- 
 en knows how it reached those caverns, but it grew 
 and grew as we fled on over bones and rocks and pit- 
 falls, until we were surrounded by a grayness through 
 which our accustomed eyes were able to lead us with 
 much less danger to life and limb. Redoubling our 
 exertions, we increased our lead perceptibly, and then 
 our new hopes were suddenly dashed to pieces by a 
 most unforeseen obstacle. 
 
 The path forkedl We had not noticed this on the 
 way in, and, halting, we stared at one another through 
 the heavy Stygian twilight in consternation. Only 
 for an instant, however, did we allow doubt to have the 
 upper hand, for truly there was no time to be lost, so, 
 hastily making a random choice, we hurried on some 
 distance farther, and stopped in utter exhaustion to 
 breathe. Nearer and nearer came the footfalls of our 
 pursuers, and then, to our inexpressible delight, we 
 distinctly heard them rumble away up the other pas- 
 sage. Still this was only a respite, for it was to be 
 supposed that they would soon discover their mistake 
 and return to follow up the proper trail ; and, since it 
 was plain that to continue our headlong flight might 
 
 46
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 land us hopelessly in a cul-de-sac, we dived into a deep 
 recess in the wall which descended below the level of 
 the floor, and covered ourselves completely with a has- 
 tily collected heap of bones. Hardly had we run to 
 earth in this ghastly fashion before we heard the voices 
 once more approaching, and a few moments later the 
 dark figures of the priests rushed past, the noise of their 
 running feet soon dying away in the depths beyond. 
 
 Our ruse had succeeded! It naturally did not occur 
 to them to search the niches of the walls and floor, for 
 there are so many thousands of such pigeon-holes in 
 these vast catacombs that the task would have been 
 indeed like looking for a needle in a haystack. There 
 we lay half smothered by the nauseating tomb dust, 
 afraid to move an inch, and terrified lest the unbearable 
 tickling in our throats and noses should induce coughs 
 or sneezes. An indeterminable time elapsed or at 
 least it seemed so, though afterwards we discovered 
 that it could not have been more than a quarter of an 
 hour and then we heard the guardians of the sepul- 
 chre coming back, their voices loud and angry with 
 disgust at the failure of their search. Through the 
 bony screen I could dimly discern them, and I perceived 
 that their leader carried in his hand what seemed to be 
 the silk hat that "Yankee Doodle" had hurled into 
 the air when we stood before the crystal sarcophagus. 
 Nearly an hour passed by before we ventured to 
 emerge from our wretchedly cramped quarters, and 
 then, shaking ourselves free as silently as we could 
 from the heap of scapulae, tibiae, and femora, under 
 which we had crouched, we resumed our retreat, in 
 sorry doubt as to whether we had taken the right road, 
 and scarcely relishing the prospect of perishing of 
 hunger and thirst in the catacombs of Alexandria. 
 
 Although the halt had renewed our by this time 
 
 47
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 wellnigh exhausted strength, we felt that it would be 
 prudent to proceed at a much slower rate than before, 
 so as not only to avoid accidents by falling over some 
 obstacle or other, but so as to be better able to look for 
 possible landmarks which might guide us on our way. 
 But there seemed to be none of them. There was a 
 horrible sameness throughout these caverns, and es- 
 pecially by that faint earth-light, as I may call it, "it 
 all looked," as the Judge said, " like any other old hole. " 
 
 For an endless time we plodded wearily on, dripping 
 with perspiration, plastered with grime, and faint with 
 thirst, before we deemed it safe to relight our little lan- 
 tern. Never was there anything so beautiful to us as 
 that clear brightness! We could have almost shouted 
 for joy, and, despite all prudence, I am afraid we did do 
 something of the kind when its first rays showed us, 
 glittering on the ground, a diamond clasp that had 
 fastened my sash, and which I must have dropped on 
 the way in. The effect of this guarantee of the road 
 was amazing. All hands straightened up, there was 
 a general squaring of shoulders and inhaling of deep 
 breaths, and a few moments later even some faint and 
 feeble jokes made their appearance in the reawaken- 
 ing conversation, which excited disproportionately en- 
 thusiastic yet guarded merriment. By the time of 
 our next halt for rest we were, barring weariness, al- 
 most ourselves again, and the talk within the golden 
 circle of radiance cast around us by that blessed little 
 lantern was almost lively. 
 
 Suddenly Prince Frederick asked: "Does the lamp 
 as brilliantly as previously burn? How long can it 
 yet endure?" 
 
 "I don't know," growled the Judge. "I've never 
 tested it suffering Moses! it is going down! Come 
 on, people, while it lasts!" 
 
 48
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 We sprang to our feet and travelled a hundred yards 
 or so with galvanic energy, the cold horror of the dark 
 creeping over our hearts the while, then the pungent 
 smell of the expiring wick spread through the air, and 
 in a moment more our little luminary went out with a 
 faint sputter. 
 
 For once the cheery Judge lost his temper, and the 
 things he said amused the sardonic echoes wonder- 
 fully. 
 
 " If you ever catch me fooling around again among 
 the cold ' Hie Jacets' of the dead/' he exclaimed, "you 
 may know that I've gone into the 'hic-ing' business 
 myself, and you can put the 'hie' in parentheses!" 
 
 We laughed over this long afterwards, but then no- 
 body felt sufficiently humorous to do so, though Fred 
 responded with assumed cheerfulness. 
 
 " Oh, well, all we have to do is to sit and wait until 
 our eyes get used to it again." 
 
 We sat and sat, but our eyes didn't " get used to it." 
 Apparently we had passed beyond the region of the 
 inexplicable earth-light, for no kindly ray came to our 
 assistance, and blank, impenetrable blackness ruled 
 over all. This was, indeed, somewhat of a damper, 
 coming so soon after the warm glow of hope. 
 
 "It's a question of match-boxes," I cried, vainly at- 
 tempting to speak as if it were a matter of no great 
 consequence. "Roy, confiscate them all, and walk in 
 front until you've emptied them." 
 
 There was a fumbling in invisible pockets, and Roy 
 P y was heard blunderingly collecting contribu- 
 tions, which luckily were liberal; then, snap! went a 
 wax vesta, and the tiny light leaped up in the face of 
 the giant dark. We followed along behind the dim 
 flicker, thoroughly played out, tripping and stumbling 
 from sheer weariness as often as from any other cause, 
 4 49
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and feeling, like a man who is having a big run at 
 roulette, that fortune was on our side, but oppressed, 
 nevertheless, with a sickly dread that she might at 
 any minute turn against us. Yes, our stake was a 
 big one and we well might be anxious ! 
 
 Thus for another seeming eternity the toilsome way 
 was measured out by the precious little waxen sticks, 
 until just as Roy called out, "Only three left," the 
 Judge, who was immediately behind me, jumped into 
 the air with a terrific war-whoop. 
 
 "Good Heavens!" said I, irritably. "Let me know 
 before you do that again. You nearly carried me off 
 my feet." 
 
 " Why," he cried, " don't you see! Here's the cham- 
 ber we entered first; there's the foot of the staircase! 
 Hurrah, we're out!" 
 
 We were, indeed! All fatigue forgotten, in a final 
 spasm of energy, we fairly tore up the winding stairs, 
 matches or no matches, and saw the blessed light of 
 day filtering through the fringe of verdure that over- 
 hung the entrance of the grotto. 
 
 The sun had risen and was shining brightly with 
 all the radiance of an Eastern morning as, with clothes 
 torn to shreds and faces that looked drawn and pale 
 through their thick coating of grime, we crawled through 
 the dew-laden gardens to the entrance-gates, where, 
 to our extreme delight, we found our carriages waiting 
 for us, the men in charge being nearly beside them- 
 selves with fright, and on the point of returning to 
 Alexandria to advise the police of our extraordinary 
 disappearance. 
 
 My personal sdis, who was devoted to me, actually 
 fell at my feet and cried with delight at seeing me again, 
 poor fellow. And then we had the hoods of the vic- 
 torias raised so that our pitiable condition could be hid- 
 
 50
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 den from view, and drove rapidly back to Alexan- 
 dria. 
 
 Judge D r and the Muscovite Excellency (who 
 
 were both enthusiastic Egyptologists), in spite of all 
 we had gone through, immediately launched into a 
 passionate discussion as to the identity of the person- 
 age who kept his lonely vigil in the gorgeous chamber I 
 have attempted to describe from the brief glimpse I had 
 of it. The Judge argued in favor of his already loudly 
 proclaimed theory. All ancient writers, he said, are 
 agreed that Alexander's corpse was brought in a splen- 
 did golden coffin from Babylon to Alexandria, and 
 there buried under the artificial hill of Soma, on the 
 summit of which now stands the so-called Mosque of 
 Daniel, erected by Mehemet Ali, the first independent 
 ruler of Egypt. 
 
 Beneath this mosque, however, according to Mo- 
 hammedan tradition, repose the remains of the prophet 
 who foretold his doom to the Babylonian king and 
 
 the coming of the Macedonian Empire. M. H o 
 
 argued that the secret of such perfect embalming as 
 that of which we had just seen so magnificent an ex- 
 ample had long been lost at the period of Alexander 
 the Great, and that the body must, therefore, be that of 
 some notable of earlier date perhaps, considering the 
 Mussulman tradition just mentioned, some personage 
 of Daniel's time. 
 
 Be all this as it may, it is a matter of record that the 
 Roman emperor Caligula, when hampered by lack of 
 funds, confiscated the golden sarcophagus of the world 
 conqueror and enclosed the body in a coffin of glass. 
 As long as the Mohammedan religion endures it will 
 probably, however, be impossible to elucidate the mys- 
 tery, for the secret of the tomb was evidently carefully 
 guarded for religious reasons, and, supposing it to
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 underlie the Mosque of Daniel, England has too much 
 at stake in the conciliation of the eighty millions of 
 Moslems subject to her rule to venture upon arousing 
 their anger by profaning what they rightly or wrongly 
 regard as one of the holy places of their faith. 
 
 It goes without saying that we could not take any 
 further steps towards unravelling the secret of our 
 night's adventure, for we would have been exposing 
 ourselves to the vengeance of the Mullahs, or, perchance, 
 Coptic priests, who had witnessed our invasion of their 
 shrine. Indeed, we left Alexandria the next day, sin- 
 cerely hoping that the momentary glimpse which they 
 had of us would not suffice for subsequent identifica- 
 tion. 
 
 Of the discretion of our servants on the subject of 
 our long absence in the "little Paradise," which to us 
 had been nothing short of a "little Hell," we were cer- 
 tain, for, thanks to our well-known espousal of the 
 antislavery cause in Egypt, we enjoyed there a rever- 
 ential admiration among the natives that, I am sorry 
 to say, we have never attracted in any other clime. 
 
 Much has been said and tons of ink have been used 
 in the prosecution of that forlorn hope the abolition 
 of African slavery but the traffic goes merrily on in 
 Egypt to-day as it does in the rest of the Dark Conti- 
 nent. It is hardly necessary for the dealers to be par- 
 ticularly circumspect about it. Under Khedive Ismail, 
 to his credit be it said, the department for the suppres- 
 sion of the slave-trade was a large and well-paid one. 
 In 1885, however, it consisted of one foreign officer and 
 two native sub-inspectors, who were supposed to ferret 
 out all the infractions of the law. The persons they in- 
 dicted were tried before a court-martial of native officers 
 (supposed to be assisted by one Englishman, whose 
 duties generally kept him elsewhere), who were all slave- 
 
 52
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 holders themselves, and thus little inclined to do jus- 
 tice in the matter. The wretched sub-inspectors were 
 poorly supplied with funds, and popular sympathy 
 was all with the malefactors, so that it was almost im- 
 possible for the prosecution to secure evidence, while 
 the most bare-faced perjury was always to the fore in 
 support of the defence. As a result, a conviction even 
 of a man caught red-handed was wellnigh impossible. 
 My husband and myself, in the freshness of youthful 
 enthusiasm, collected a number of documentary proofs 
 of the above state of affairs, which are still in my pos- 
 session. Among the many cases that I might cite, the 
 following is one of the most picturesque, that of a very 
 handsome Circassian slave-girl, who made a deposi- 
 tion before the authorities as follows: 
 
 " I am a Circassian. My name is Ganem. I belong 
 to Princess Adilah Hanem, sister of the late Sultan 
 Abdul Aziz, and residing at Constantinople. Being 
 somewhat out of health, my mistress sent me to the 
 house of her chief physician for special care and 
 treatment. After remaining there for eight months 
 I asked the latter to send me back to my mistress, 
 but he refused. I discovered that he had informed 
 her that I was dead. He then sold me for the sum 
 of $350 to his relative, Hussein Aga-el-Gonyali, a 
 well-known dealer, who brought me to Cairo. After 
 detaining me three days in his house in the Saidah 
 Zenab quarter, which time I spent in tears, imploring 
 to be sent back to my beloved mistress, he informed 
 me that he had sold me to Khalil-Pasha-Yaghen, 
 native commissioner of the Daira-Sanieh at Shoubrah. 
 He put me in a closed carriage and directed the coach- 
 man to the latter's house, but I succeeded in wrench- 
 ing the door open and in jumping out just as the 
 carriage was passing the Abdeen police station, and, 
 
 53
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 falling at the feet of the sentinel on duty, implored his 
 assistance." 
 
 The driver, who was arrested, fully confirmed the 
 latter part of the girl's statement. The dealer disap- 
 peared completely, while the poor woman, who per- 
 sisted in her entreaties to be sent back to her mistress, 
 was, in the first place, intrusted to the tender care of 
 the sub-Governor of Cairo, a merry young spark, who 
 had made himself notorious some years previously as 
 the ring-leader of the mob of officers who attacked a 
 high English official and Nubar Pasha at the Ministry 
 of Finance, beat the latter, and pulled out tufts of the 
 former's beard. After passing on the girl to several of 
 his boon companions in turn, the sub-Governor finally 
 gave her in marriage to a lieutenant of the Egyptian 
 army, who certainly must have been gratified at the 
 gift! 
 
 It would take too much space, and also require too 
 much patience on the part of my readers, to cite here 
 a tenth part of the documentary proof that Fred and I 
 collected at the time, not to mention that which was 
 communicated to me at a much later date, showing 
 that the situation remains practically unchanged to 
 the present day. I think, however, that the above 
 facts speak for themselves, and that much further com- 
 ment is superfluous. There may be many different 
 opinions as to the advisability of abolishing slavery 
 in Mohammedan countries, but' it seems to me that 
 when solemn international conventions and treaties 
 exist, they ought at least to be respected by those in 
 authority. 
 
 That it is the easiest thing in the world to purchase 
 a slave of either sex anywhere in the East I discovered 
 personally in the following way. I pretended that I 
 desired to buy a little Circassian boy to do duty as page, 
 
 54
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and, mentioning my wishes in the matter to a high 
 official of the Khedive's entourage, received from him 
 both verbal and written communications on the sub- 
 ject. A few days later I went to the bazaar to buy 
 some sapphires from an old Turk who kept a most 
 covetable hoard of precious stones in his dusky booth, 
 and while debating prices with that aged iniquity I 
 was surprised by his suddenly peering slyly into my 
 face and offering in guarded words to obtain such a 
 Circassian chattel as he had heard (so he said) I was 
 desirous of purchasing. Of course I pretended not to 
 understand him, and, having now attained my object, 
 I wrote to my friend at court that I had changed my 
 mind and quite given up the idea of buying a slave. 
 
 But to return to my own little story. The end of the 
 Cairene season was approaching. Already great heat- 
 waves were blown in from over the desert's neighbor- 
 ing wastes of burning sand, and many visitors were 
 preparing to leave. I had not seen Mahmoud Bey since 
 the day of the jewel incident,, and there seemed to be a 
 slight improvement in the stormy atmosphere sur- 
 rounding the Khedive and his destiny the lull before 
 the storm, as the future was to prove. 
 
 Diners d'adieux, splendid luncheon parties, dances, 
 and concerts were the order of the day, and when we 
 regained Cairo we found everybody wild with delight 
 at the prospect of a great fte which Tewfik was about 
 to give at his palace of Ismailia, probably with a view 
 to casting dust in the eyes of those who sincerely be- 
 lieved in his inevitable ruin and overthrow. 
 
 News to the effect that Gordon Pasha was suc- 
 cessfully accomplishing his difficult task at Khartoum 
 had been greeted with enthusiasm by English and 
 Egyptians alike, and certainly everything for the mo- 
 ment, at least seemed couleur de rose. Nobody dreamed 
 
 55
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 then that after sending the European women and chil- 
 dren intrusted to his care down the Nile in safety, poor 
 Gordon, when preparing to start himself, with the nuns, 
 priests, and a few white traders and officials who had 
 stayed behind to assist him, would find the way blocked 
 and the city besieged by the insurgent forces. Soon, 
 however, his repeated messages, brought at the risk of 
 their lives by native carriers messages full of ago- 
 nized appeal for relief, not so much for himself as for 
 those with him threw the entire civilized world into a 
 ferment of excitement such as has seldom been wit- 
 nessed. That most remarkable of all Oriental states- 
 men, both past and present, NubaT Pasha, predicted 
 the catastrophe which was to follow, but none heeded 
 him, and I remember well how, on that brilliant gala 
 night at Ismailia to which I just alluded, he looked 
 gloomily at the revellers, and, shaking his handsome 
 head, said ominously: 
 
 "Dance, you fools; laugh and make merry, and 
 take no care for the morrow. Fools! Fools! Fools!" 
 
 Neither have I forgotten the uncanny effect pro- 
 duced upon me by his words, nor the little shudder 
 which ran between my shoulders, as iJ a cold snake 
 had been suddenly thrust upon my flesh. 
 
 Fools! Fools! Fools, indeed!
 
 CHAPTER m 
 
 When you're holdin' of the mirror up to nature 
 'Tis a curious thing that often comes to pass. 
 
 That some spalpeen is disgruntled wid his fatures, 
 And discovers that he's nothin' but an ass. M. M. 
 
 Two days after our return from Alexandria and our 
 terrible night's adventure in the catacombs, I was hav- 
 ing the finishing touches put to my toilet a novel and 
 somewhat startling combination of rose-pink and lemon- 
 yellow, with here and there faint tints of tender ame- 
 thyst and faint azure, which had been inspired to me 
 by an Egyptian winter sunset, and had made me utter 
 an emphatic " Lor' ! " as I realized that Felix had 
 created a veritable chef d'oeuvre upon the lines I had 
 dictatorially laid down to him. Fred, entering by a 
 side door, exclaimed, with a little gasp: 
 
 "Well, Pussy, I am bound to say that even now, 
 after two years of married life, you still sometimes 
 knock me over!" 
 
 This delicate and highly gratifying conjugal com- 
 pliment reassured me as to the fitness of my rainbow 
 venture, and waving away the diamonds and pink 
 pearls which my head woman was offering me to com- 
 plete my personal adornment, I fastened in my hair 
 and clasped round my neck some amethysts and tur- 
 quoises set quaintly in brilliants and black enamel. 
 
 "Thank you! I really think, Fred, that this me- 
 lange of diaphanously ethereal and many-hued gauzes 
 will strike everybody with awe to-night, and Heaven 
 
 57
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 only knows it takes something to do that at our dear 
 Countess's/' I remarked, slipping my bracelets over 
 my gloves. 
 
 He laughed, and, throwing a cloak lined with pink 
 marabout feathers over my shoulders, followed me to 
 the veranda, before which the carriage was waiting to 
 take us to a dinner given by Countess S ... a, in honor 
 of Count T i, the celebrated Russian statesman. 
 
 Hers was one of the pleasantest houses in Cairo. 
 Ma Chaumiere, as she, with proud humility, called that 
 luxurious villa, was planted in the midst of a min- 
 iature and admirably cared- for wilderness of tropical 
 trees and shrubs. Nor was the chaumi&re idea whol- 
 ly lost sight of by its owner, for the large drawing- 
 room and adjoining salons were, one and all, hung and 
 upholstered in flowery French chintz, which, as she 
 frequently remarked, was of course the very acme of 
 rusticity. The rugs covering the floors, nevertheless, 
 had been imported direct from Persia for the Countess, 
 and were of a quality, mellowness, and rareness which 
 made connoisseurs break the tenth commandment 
 the minute they caught sight of their delicate softness 
 and peachlike bloom. Also there were ordinary basket 
 chairs, of unconventional and homely shape, cushioned 
 with gorgeous gold and silver tissues, and lounges of 
 bamboo draped with rare brocades, while the samovar 
 of gold-inlaid Tula silver and champleve enamels stood 
 on a so-called peasant table that could not have cost 
 much less than five hundred guineas, being carved 
 and designed by a celebrated and masterly hand. The 
 rest of the establishment was carried out on similar 
 lines of priceless unostentatiousness, suggesting a 
 parterre of haughty garden flowers coyly hiding their 
 aristocratic beauty under protecting and sober leaves, 
 in emulation of the most modest of violets. 
 
 58
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 All who were weightiest in Cairene society came to 
 Ma Chaumiere, a large number of them to dine, 
 dance, lunch, or sup, and the rest the dessus du pa- 
 nier to gossip around the bright wood -fires which 
 from November to March, whenever the condition of the 
 weather permitted, burned merrily in studiously coun- 
 trified, brick -lined hearths where bronze sphinxes of 
 exquisite workmanship did duty as andirons. 
 
 The diplomacy, the army, both English and Egyp- 
 tian, the Haute Finance, and the numberless distin- 
 guished foreigners wintering in Cairo, nocked thither, 
 like a thirsty caravan around a desert well, for the 
 Countess was consumedly chic and supremely witty; 
 and, moreover, the razor-like sharpness of her tongue 
 was proverbial, and terrified everybody into abject 
 subjection to her slightest whims. On her gala nights 
 there was invariably a coruscation of stars and orders 
 in her reception-rooms, a little first-class music just 
 enough to make conversation possible floating out 
 of the open windows, riotous laughter and decorous 
 apartes equally intermingled, and scores of enviable 
 mortals consuming delicious refreshments served with 
 unimpeachable art upon exquisitely painted egg-shell 
 china and in mousseline crystal embossed with a prince- 
 ly coronet surmounting a humble corn-flower (the lady's 
 favorite blossom). Most irreverently, the Countess 
 was wont to say that her chaumiere on a field-night 
 reminded her of a crate full of ducks and fowls, 
 cackling shrilly in order to recompense themselves for 
 the cruel lack of elbow-room. But nevertheless she 
 cast an occasional proud glance on the interminable 
 double line of carriage-lamps all up and down the street 
 leading to her portals, for at one moment she had seri- 
 ously feared that, to use one of Cecil Rhodes's favorite 
 expressions, her whole social apple-cart had been upset. 
 
 59
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 At the time of which I am writing, Countess S . . . a, 
 a Russian princess by birth, was a power in Cairo, where 
 she had arrived some years before as the wife of a 
 
 wealthy Muscovite nobleman one Count B f, 
 
 to call him by name. The husband \vas old (but not 
 the wife). Monsieur was cantankerous, thinking of 
 nothing but his comforts, his periodical attacks of gout, 
 and his own almighty personality, and finding pleas- 
 ure only in hunting fur and feather wherever he found 
 himself ; while madame, on the contrary, possessed an 
 almost fatiguing gayety, and an admirable capacity 
 for enjoyment. She was decidedly pleasing to look 
 at, in spite of a slightly Kalmuck cast of countenance, 
 for her figure was perfect, and likewise her style. 
 Moreover, she had dash, vim, and brio h revendre, and 
 therefore her union to the " old penguin " as she 
 facetiously called her good husband was an ill-as- 
 sorted one. Shortly after her arrival in Egypt there 
 appeared upon the scene a gay Lothario an Austrian 
 ex -cavalry officer brought up at the celebrated mili- 
 tary school of the Theresianum, but who had left the 
 army for reasons which, as they reflect no credit upon 
 him, it is more charitable and also more advisable to 
 leave unrecorded. In course of time he had drifted to 
 Mexico in the train of that evil -starred Archduke, 
 that preux chevalier who, when about to go and as- 
 sume the reins of imperial power, was so ill-advised 
 as to surround himself with a host of adventurers 
 and blacklegs thanks to his chief of staff, Count 
 B s, who naturally preferred to select subordi- 
 nates and associates of his own kidney rather than to 
 be put to shame by companions resembling his noble- 
 hearted and high-minded imperial master. After the 
 defeat and death of Maximilian at Queretaro, the light- 
 hearted soldier of fortune made his way to Cairo, and, 
 
 60
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 being an excellent horseman, was appointed equerry by 
 Khedive Ismail, after having led, for a comparatively 
 long time, a decidedly precarious, devil-may-care exist- 
 ence in the city of the Mamelukes. The susceptible 
 heart of Countess S . . . a could not resist the all-con- 
 quering influence of his silky mustaches, audacious 
 black eyes, and glittering uniform, and so the chronique 
 scandaleuse became speedily enriched with one more 
 petit bonheur de contrebande, whispered about amid the 
 frou-frou of silken skirts and the cadence of perfumed 
 fans. However, petits bonheur s de contrebande are not 
 always quite satisfactory, and nobody can deny that a 
 bona fide marriage with a wealthy and attractive widow 
 is far more moral and praiseworthy than clandestine 
 kisses, be they ever so sweet. As it was bound to hap- 
 pen, the "old Penguin" and the "gay Lothario" be- 
 came the most intimate and inseparable of friends, with 
 unforeseen and disastrous results to the former. 
 
 The two presented a touching spectacle when play- 
 ing ecarte together, the older man resignedly accept- 
 ing the fact that by some unjust chance the younger 
 should always win (thus belying the proverb about 
 luck and love), or walking arm-in-arm under the 
 poetical shadows of Shoubrah, or yet again, with un- 
 tiring enthusiasm, going a-hunting on the reed-grown 
 banks of the Nile. Alas and alack for those hunt- 
 ing excursions ! One fine evening monsieur the Count 
 
 B f, le pauvre vieux penguin, was brought 
 
 home with broken wings and a masterly shot in the 
 left side, followed by the inconsolable equerry, who 
 carried both guns, one of which (the costliest) had not 
 been discharged. At the subsequent coroner's inquest 
 a fair-minded and unbiased jury, composed of the Count- 
 ess's tradesmen, declared that hunting accidents will 
 happen, and that whether a man's gun has been dis- 
 
 61
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 charged or not, he is perfectly within his rights if he 
 kills himself therewith when breaking through a tan- 
 gle of reeds, that, like as not, interfere with the trig- 
 ger! The grief -stricken widow retired for a time to the 
 seclusion of her Russian estates, and at the expiration 
 of her legal period of mourning once more returned to 
 romantic Cairo, this time as the happy and triumphant 
 wife of Count S . . . a, alias the gay Lothario. 
 
 In stature the Count was but barely above middle 
 height, broad shouldered and slim waisted, and of a 
 strong and almost felinely graceful build. He looked 
 eminently well bred, but a certain uncanny sharpness 
 about his face and flashing eyes suggested a more than 
 needfully unscrupulous Mephisto. His whole aspect 
 warned one at first glance that he would be undesirable 
 as an enemy, but even more to be feared as a friend, 
 and although his reputation as a braggadocio was a 
 well-established one, yet he was by no means a coward, 
 and in the green years of his youth had been known as 
 a reckless duellist. 
 
 This interesting couple never had any children 
 a dispensation of Providence for which they were touch- 
 ingly grateful. They kept open house, and Khedive 
 Ismail's equerry having now blossomed into Khedive 
 Tewfik's chamberlain and aide-de-camp, the insignif- 
 icant cloud no bigger than a man's hand, which had 
 momentarily dulled their skies, swiftly evaporated 
 under the double magic of money and royal favor. 
 
 When Fred and I arrived at Ma ChaumiSre we 
 found many distinguished people assembled there, all 
 of them belonging to the sterner sex, and clustered 
 around their hostess, who, clad in fawn-hued cre~pe-de- 
 chine, embroidered all over with large crimson and sil- 
 ver poppies, was looking her best. There were present, 
 among others, His Excellency Nubar Pasha ; the guest 
 
 02
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 of the evening Count T i, Count de M o, 
 
 Italian Envoy at Cairo; Lord F t, and 
 
 the unfortunate colonel of the Argyle and Sutherland 
 Highlanders, who, six weeks later, had his throat cut 
 from ear to ear while asleep under his tent in the camp 
 before Suakim, his Dervish assassin creeping through 
 triple lines of sentries to accomplish his awful purpose, 
 and, strange as it may appear, completely escaping 
 
 detection. Of course H o was also there, and 
 
 when I congratulated him upon his unusually healthy 
 and happy appearance he greeted me with this loudly 
 declaimed impromptu, much to the amusement of every- 
 body : 
 
 "Elles taient bien fanes, les fleurs de mon printemps, 
 Car j'ai vecu beaucoup, car j'ai vecu longtemps, 
 
 Et les fleurs f a passe si vite 1 
 Mais je les sens revivre et refleurir soudain, 
 Les roses et les pensees ces fleurs d'un temps lointain, 
 
 A I'amiti6 d'une Marguerite I " 
 
 There was a perfect feu roulant of banter and clever 
 repartee during the whole evening, as was generally 
 the case within the hospitable walls of Ma Chaumiere. 
 Merciless wit, a perfect chef, and a good cellar are three 
 factors of social success which rarely fail in their effect, 
 as Madame S . . . a well knew. Her table appointments, 
 always admirable, and every bit as chic and original 
 as herself, were particularly charming on that night. 
 The cloth was bordered and decorated with orange- 
 blossoms, interspersed with tufts of the tiny berries 
 which make the Egyptian pepper-tree look like a fan- 
 tastic growth of scarlet coral, and in lieu of the hack- 
 neyed centre-piece there was a tiny fountain spouting 
 perfumed water upon delicate snowy orchids, clustered 
 in a great bowl of antique Venetian glass, deep ruby 
 
 63
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 in tint, and profusely filigreed and jewelled, after the 
 fashion of the period when the Doges ruled the Adriatic. 
 
 The conversation soon drifted from the usual com- 
 monplaces which generally mark the first course of a 
 meal to local gossip of a more or less acrid but cer- 
 tainly very amusing kind. Much merriment had been 
 caused the night before by an untoward incident which 
 had happened to the French Plenipotentiary, the cele- 
 brated C e-B e, thanks to those shadows 
 
 of his past which still at times flapped his august 
 head with their dusky wings. Everybody knows that 
 
 B e, a worthy grandson of the world - famed 
 
 Bonnet-Rouge of the Reign of Terror, and a son of that 
 hairy patriot who died yelling " La Marseillaise " on a 
 barricade in 1848, had himself during the Commune, 
 as a colonel of Anarcos, offered his broad breast to the 
 bullets of the regulars. His photograph in the full 
 uniform of a communard, en groupe with Eudes and 
 Felix Piat, is, for the matter of that, to the present day 
 kept on record at Paris. Captured and condemned to 
 
 death, B e managed to escape to England, where 
 
 he kept his marvellously rescued body and his prob- 
 lematical soul together by acting as school - master, 
 and finally by extremely brilliant journalistic efforts. 
 At the time of the Constantinople conference he went 
 there as correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, 
 and made the acquaintance of Waddington, who, pa- 
 thetically unconscious of this prepossessing youth's 
 identity, greatly attracted to him, and, moreover, being 
 desirous of engaging a secretary well versed in the 
 English language, selected him to fill that post. 
 
 Shortly before this happy turn in his circumstances, 
 
 B e had fallen violently in love with the daughter 
 
 of a rich Armenian banker of Constantinople, who, in- 
 dignant at such presumption on the part of a penniless 
 
 64
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 journalist, kicked him most unceremoniously out of the 
 house. Deeply hurt in flesh and feelings, the luckless 
 reporter rose to the occasion in both senses of the word, 
 and, facing his wrathful enemy, declared in well-chosen 
 and impressive language that the day would come 
 sooner, perhaps, than he thought when he would 
 rue his unpardonable brutality and be glad enough 
 to reconsider his verdict, and in the light of subsequent 
 events one must take it for granted that the spirit of 
 
 prophecy had for the nonce entered into B e. 
 
 Waddington took his newly appointed secretary to Paris, 
 presented him to Gambetta (for whose paper, the Re- 
 publique Frangaise, he did some remarkable work), 
 and treated him with such paternal kindness that the 
 ex-communard, blushes of shame and regret mantling 
 his cheek, made a clean breast of his past errors to his 
 distinguished patrons, and succeeded in interesting 
 them so much in his cause that they quietly secured 
 his pardon. It is also possible that Waddington, who 
 possessed a keen sense of humor, was amused at, and 
 very likely relished, the idea that he, a high, mighty, 
 and intensely dignified French Plenipotentiary, should 
 actually have brought back in his train from foreign 
 lands a dangerous political criminal to the very beard 
 of those self-same authorities who had condemned him 
 to an ignominious death. 
 
 B e's next upward step on the ladder of fortune 
 
 was his appointment as French representative at the 
 International Danube Commission which assembled at 
 Galatz. He did so well while there that he was pro- 
 moted, first to the rank of Secretary of Embassy, then 
 made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and finally 
 selected as French Envoy to the Court of the Khe- 
 dive. The time had now come when this ex-polit- 
 ical criminal indulged in a revenge which came peri-
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 lously near being a good and worthy deed. Before 
 assuming his post in Egypt he journeyed to Constan- 
 tinople, where he found that his old enemy, the 
 Armenian banker, had lost every cent he possessed. He 
 once more applied for the hand of the wretched man's 
 beautiful daughter, was received it goes without say- 
 ing with open arms, and capped the climax by car- 
 rying the whole family to Egypt, including the broken- 
 down old father, to live in ease and luxury in the 
 lovely house of Gaston de St. Maurice, the prettiest and 
 costliest one in the whole city, and which had been 
 leased for the use of the French Legation. 
 
 But to return to our muttons, for I fear that I am 
 altogether too discursive when launched in old diplo- 
 matic memories. 
 
 The incident which caused so much merriment at 
 the Countess's dinner was as follows : 
 
 B e in the role of full-fledged Plenipotentiary 
 
 was a mightily different personage from the red-sashed 
 anarchist who had screamed himself hoarse at public 
 meetings and in smoke-begrimed brasseries, and was by 
 no means delighted when an old comrade of those would- 
 be-forgotten days turned up and hailed him in the 
 name of I'Egalite, la Fraternite, ou la Mort which 
 last he had so narrowly escaped. This was, however, 
 precisely what happened to him on the very night of 
 the first official ball which he gave at Cairo, a fe"te, more- 
 over, which was signalized by another comical inci- 
 dent, of which more anon. 
 
 Olivier Pain whom I mentioned in the preceding 
 chapter as having subsequently joined the Mahdi, an 
 expedition from which he never returned, for he is said 
 to have been buried alive by that amiable religious 
 maniac arriving in Cairo on the wings of ambition, 
 was delighted to find that his erstwhile accomplice 
 
 66
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and chum had preceded him on the road leading to the 
 shrine of the goddess Fame. He lost no time in calling 
 upon the diplomat, and the interview was, according 
 to a reliable eye-witness, a highly piquant one, His 
 Excellency being in no way disposed to play Roland 
 to this disreputable Oliver, and taking greatly amiss 
 such appellations as ma vieille branche and mon vieux 
 Copain, lavishly conferred upon him in the pardonable 
 enthusiasm and joy of reunion by the effusive citoyen. 
 Nolens-volens, however, and for very shame's sake, he 
 could not refuse him an invitation to that evening's 
 festivity, and haughtily bearing the satiny card upon 
 which his name had been hastily inscribed, Pain re- 
 turned to his lodgings a wiser but by no means a sad- 
 der man. A few hours later he presented himself 
 democratically on foot at the Maison St. Maurice, 
 where the silver-chained and silk-stockinged huissiers 
 de service were inexpressibly shocked by his loud-checked 
 sack-suit, and especially by the aggressively scarlet tie 
 which he sported. Under no consideration would they 
 allow him to pass the portals of the Legation, even re- 
 fusing, in their cold-blooded barbarity, to carry his 
 personal card which, I regret to say, was pencilled on 
 
 the margin of a newspaper to the great B e. 
 
 So enraged was Olivier that, at a loss how to wreak 
 his fury upon the French government in general and 
 its minions in particular, he stalked an aged and 
 solemn pet pelican which, delighted by the fairy- 
 like illumination of the gardens, had forsaken his 
 habitual shadowy resting-place to admire them at 
 closer range and lassoing him with his flaming cravat, 
 with one deft turn of the silk strangled this hapless 
 protege" of France. 
 
 At sunrise, when the much-bediamonded and 
 bestarred company left the salons of Monsieur and 
 
 67
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Madame B e, the limp and lifeless body of the 
 
 great pelican, lying on the rim of a marble fountain, 
 met their horrified gaze, its lack - lustre eyes turned 
 piteously to the blushing sky. The knotted ends of 
 a scarlet cravat, barbarously twisted around its long, 
 silvery throat, fluttered in the breeze, and attached to 
 one of them was the extemporized visiting-card of the 
 murderer, bearing under the letters of his name these 
 simple words: " Mort aux tyransl" 
 
 Can one, after this, deny that the Mahdi's drastic 
 treatment of the citoyen Pain was not a fitting retribu- 
 tion for his blood-thirstiness? 
 
 We laughed heartilv at the remembrance of this haut 
 
 fait, but, as H o plaintively remarked, " There 
 
 is never any knowing what horrible crimes these an- 
 archists will commit when their pride is hurt." , 
 
 " Poor B ..... e!" lamented Countess S . . . a. " How 
 stricken he must feel, especially after the fiasco of his 
 electric plant ! All this is indeed but a poor inaugura- 
 tion for the fetes he intends to give; good people, beware 
 how you accept his next invitations ! These sensational 
 doings are exceedingly disquieting!" she concluded, 
 solemnly. 
 
 The fact of the ,matter was that on the preceding 
 evening, and long before the murder of the pelican, the 
 French Envoy's fair guests had found, on arriving at 
 the Legation, that the pleasant surprise prepared for 
 them by their host, and which took the form of an elec- 
 tric illumination a great novelty in those days by 
 means of countless arc-lights encased in milk-white 
 globes, was to prove as the blades of many daggers 
 buried in their chaste breasts. Whether this innovation 
 had been poorly managed by native artificers, or whether 
 the electricity itself was at fault, is one of those grew- 
 e and baffling secrets which will never be revealed;
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 but when the crude and spasmodic throbs of that dam- 
 nable illumination caught the ladies full in the face, 
 the blanc de perle, the rose de Damas, and the light tint 
 of azure, which added bloom to their innocent cheeks 
 and a seductive languor to their regards, were trans- 
 formed into ghastly shadows and hollows as the fin- 
 ger of famine and pestilence had suddenly touched their 
 velvety loveliness. With exclamations of dismay the 
 pretty ones rushed into the garden, unanimously de- 
 claring that until some radical step had been taken to 
 check such disastrous revelations they would not set 
 foot in the salons so magnificently prepared for their 
 reception. With frenzied haste the Minister's military 
 and civil households, assisted by the flower of the army 
 of occupation and by a multitude of attached and un- 
 attached diplomats, mounted step-ladders, and even 
 kitchen tables insecurely piled upon one another, and 
 with a quantity of rose-colored muslin which the by 
 then almost distracted Madame B e had fortu- 
 nately procured a few days before for the decoration 
 of her dressing-room they ingeniously manufactured 
 an all-enshrouding tent, through which the rays of 
 Mr. Edison's finest invention softly filtered, thus losing 
 Heaven be praised ! all their aggressive potency. 
 
 " Talking of pelicans," suddenly exclaimed Captain 
 
 F e, a young officer of the Guards who had 
 
 dropped in after dinner, and who modestly spoke of 
 himself as the handsomest man in the English army, 
 but who might with justice have added, the most as- 
 tounding ass also " that's the bird for me. Give me 
 a pelican!" 
 
 None of us having such a commodity about our per- 
 sons, we were forced to content ourselves with asking 
 what he wanted with such an inconvenient pet. 
 
 " Oh, I tell you ! " he said, oracularly. " A pelican has 
 
 69
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 more fun in him to the square inch than any other liv- 
 ing beast. A few nights ago we put up the best joke 
 on the old dissenting clergyman who is staying at 
 Shepheard's Hotel that you ever heard of. Bobby, of 
 the Black Watch, two brother officers of mine, and 
 myself, captured the vicious old pelican who struts 
 about the gardens, and, binding him hand and foot, 
 carried him into the Dominie's bed-chamber, while the 
 latter was down-stairs in the coffee-room. In the dark, 
 and with the stealth of conspirators, we slid the bird 
 under the mosquito-curtain and tucked him firmly in, 
 after having partly loosed his bonds, and then care- 
 fully thrust the four free edges of the curtain under 
 the mattress. Of course we knew that the reverend 
 gentleman would creep to bed in the dark for fear 
 of those brutes of mosquitoes, and would never dis- 
 cover his bed -fellow until he had ranged alongside. 
 This is precisely what happened, for a few minutes 
 after his reverence's arrival up-stairs, from the adjoin- 
 ing room where we had concealed ourselves we heard a 
 most appalling racket. Then the door flew open, and 
 you should have seen that fat old parson galumphing 
 down the corridor, with flapping night-robe, hair on 
 end, and face blanched with terror, the pelican, of course, 
 in hot pursuit, clapping his huge beak viciously in his 
 immediate rear. By Jove! but that hotel buzzed out 
 like an overturned beehive to investigate the commo- 
 tion, while we lay on the floor doubled up with an 
 unholy joy. That old man is the greatest fool that 
 ever lived." 
 
 "Don't discourage the others/' put in the Countess, 
 mercilessly. "What chance do you think he had 
 against four, for I do not include the pelican, who seems 
 to have been the only intelligent one of the lot. More- 
 over, that old gentleman is wonderful, and quite in- 
 
 70
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 valuable. He takes a snubbing better than any one else 
 
 I know. That ill-bred fellow, M d, of the French 
 
 Legation, was prevailed upon to dine with him last win- 
 ter when he was keeping house in that tumbled-down 
 old place of Muriad Bey's, and, according to his time- 
 honored custom, arrived late. ' Do you take my house 
 for a restaurant?' quoth the Dominie. ' Not a bit of it/ 
 
 replies M d, with a sneer; ' for then I would not 
 
 need to dine with the proprietor.' Nevertheless they 
 amicably and peacefully sat down to the unpalatable 
 feast set before them, and they are to this day the best 
 of friends." 
 
 "While on the subject of repartee," said Fred, "do 
 you know what Lady X . . y answered to Mrs. L . . . g 
 the other day when the former announced her engage- 
 ment to D t? Mrs. L . . . g, who has, as 
 
 you all know, been on the best terms with D t 
 
 for many moons, said, acidly: 'Oh, engaged to him, 
 are you? Well, your future is my past, for the dear 
 fellow has been one of my most intimate friends.' 
 'Believe me, my dear/ replied Lady X . . y, 'I enter- 
 tained no hope of discovering a man who had not, at 
 some time or another, been your most intimate friend !" 
 
 When the laughter caused by this sally had sub- 
 sided, Count S . . . a murmured, lugubriously : " As far 
 as I am concerned, the thing I dread most on earth is a 
 woman's tongue." 
 
 "He should know something about that," said 
 H o, in my ear, with a glance towards the Counfess. 
 
 " Yes, yes!" continued the Count, " a woman's tongue 
 is more to be feared than a dozen poniards. It makes 
 my flesh creep to think of the execution it can do ; and 
 yet, without undue vanity, I can say that I am not 
 entirely lacking in courage." 
 
 " You have proved it by your distinguished services 
 
 71
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 on both hemispheres/' said the incorrigible Fred, with 
 so innocent and childlike a look that even the Juno- 
 esque Countess did not wince. 
 
 There I felt myself called upon to create a diversion, 
 by mentioning that there was some rumor about a 
 
 return of the celebrated Madame L e, ci-devant 
 
 Duchesse de P y, to the fair land of Egypt, and 
 
 there followed a general outcry, for she was one of the 
 most celebrated mauvaises langues in Europe. 
 
 "Who is she?" said the guileless Captain. 
 
 "What! have you never heard of her? How old are 
 
 you?" queried the Countess. "Madame L e, 
 
 ex-Duchesse de P y, is a woman of singularly 
 
 wide-spread fame, whom even babes and infants like 
 yourself generally know something about more's the 
 pity 1 She is a beauty of some sixty odd summers, who 
 wears a crimson wig, a few layers of chalk and car- 
 mine on her innocent face, has a fearfully and wonder- 
 fully compressed figure, shabby finery, regal jewels, 
 and diffuses a general flavor of extreme frowsiness. 
 She is the daughter of that milliardaire Methuselah in 
 
 petticoats, Madame la Princesse de la M a, and 
 
 was, in days gone by, one of the favorite ladies-in- 
 waiting of Empress Eugenie. At the time of the open- 
 ing of the Suez Canal she accompanied her imperial 
 mistress on the latter's visit to Ismail Khedive, and, as 
 was her time-honored custom, immediately fell ex- 
 travagantly in love. The object of her flame was a 
 young French lawyer, practising here in those days; 
 and so great was her infatuation that she refused to go 
 back to France in spite of Eugenie's entreaties, and 
 even commands, and did not even return when her un- 
 fortunate and long-suffering husband died, which was 
 the best thing he ever did in his life. Moreover, as 
 soon as the law allowed her to do so, she married poor 
 
 72
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 L e, the gullible young aforementioned lawyer. 
 
 This little freak of hers was, you understand, not by 
 any means her coup d'essai, for she had already eloped 
 
 with the Due de G t-C e, and with 
 
 several others in turn, corning back to her husband after 
 each escapade, like a bad penny. That much-to-be- 
 pitied individual should, in justice, have received the 
 crown of martyrdom at his death, and a free seat in the 
 front row of the heavenly orchestra, for if ever a man 
 was handicapped by what is facetiously called his better- 
 half, it was the Duke. When he was Ambassador at 
 the Court of St. James, Madame's giddiness so shocked 
 the Queen that she begged Napoleon to recall his Envoy, 
 and even after her second marriage her 'goings-on/ 
 my dear Captain, to speak familiarly, were something 
 so deliciously out of the common that her young hus- 
 band ftot only lost his practice, but died of sheer wor- 
 riment, consumption, and chagrin. The widow's plight 
 was a sorry one then, for she found herself here pen- 
 niless and almost friendless. She vainly tried to ob- 
 tain a small competenc}^ from her dreadful mother, but 
 it is easier to shave an egg than to extract one sou 
 from those princely coffers, except for their owner's 
 self-gratification and pleasure. Really, one could not 
 help pitying the lawyer's derelict, for she lived with 
 one servant in a little house immediately behind friend 
 Nubar's palace, and it is supposed that she had often 
 not enough to eat, poor old soul ! Our great and tender 
 hearts could not, of course, endure this, and we rallied 
 round her with touching unanimity." 
 
 "I know," chuckled Nubar; "but before that time 
 her slavey, who was on the best of terms with my chef, 
 daily obtained from him some delicacy or other to help 
 keep the wolf from the door ; and later, do you remem- 
 ber, when any of us called how she used always to men- 
 
 73
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 tion a poor widow a fictitious protegee of hers who 
 stood regularly and constantly in need of five pounds." 
 
 "I had to give up calling there/' humbly remarked 
 Count S . . . a. " My wife is not rich enough for me to 
 allow myself such luxuries as visits at one hundred 
 francs apiece." 
 
 " But why did you go?" queried Captain F e, 
 
 his ingenuous blue eyes opened to their widest extent. 
 
 "My dear lad," replied Nubar, " don't be hard on us. 
 That old witch is an embodied chronique scandaleuse, 
 witty as witty can be, excruciatingly amusing, and, 
 besides," he added, naively, "she knows of all our 
 little errors, and failings, and frailties, and also how to 
 put them to the best use in her own interest. I'll never 
 forget that drawing-room of hers, \vith its scanty and 
 rickety furniture, and its dingy walls covered with au- 
 tograph portraits of every sovereign in Europe,* where 
 she sat all day long, and half the night as well, on a 
 dilapidated, cane-bottomed chair, clad in trailing dra- 
 peries of doubtful cleanliness, and retailing scandal by 
 the yard in her own inimitable way. The refresh- 
 ments which she offered her guests were also highly 
 original eau sucree, for the most part; and on great 
 occasions a soul-depressing beverage ma consolation 
 she called it which she manufactured herself from 
 herbs, sugar-cane, unripe oranges, and, horror of hor- 
 rors! funereal-looking black seeds, which floated on 
 the surface like tadpoles. B-r-r-r-r the mere remem- 
 brance makes me shudder!" 
 
 "Her bons-mots were mostly made & I'emporte piece," 
 put in our host. " Do you remember how she asked you 
 whether you had become accustomed to Archbishop 
 S . . . . o's 'odor of sanctity/ adding that his very 
 handshake was an extreme unction? She respects 
 nothing either on earth, in heaven, or the other place." 
 
 74
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "I met her at Spa, just before coming here," said I, 
 laughing; "and in delicate homage to the sovereign 
 of that region she wore, in lieu of a brooch, an enormous 
 portrait of him, surrounded with brilliants. Since 
 she has inherited her mother's vast wealth she has not 
 improved a bit in her dress. She has taken her jewels 
 out of pawn, to be sure, and is proudly exhibiting to 
 the world her latest husband, the distressingly youth- 
 ful Vicomte de S 1. She is deafer than ever, 
 
 takes life as ever lightly, minds not a bit the shame 
 brought upon her red wig by the unsavory conduct of 
 her children, and told me herself, with some unutterably 
 ghastly chuckles, how she and the interesting Vicomte 
 were hissed out of church by an indignant populace on 
 their wedding-day." 
 
 "Well, if she comes back here I'll sell my poor little 
 cottage and pitch a tent elsewhere," exclaimed the 
 Countess. " I cannot bear the contact of that whited 
 sepulchre." 
 
 " Le tombeau desmaris," muttered the Count. 
 
 " ' Yankee Doodle ' says," I began 
 
 "Oh, don't!" cried the Countess. "Don't mention 
 that man to me a wretch who receives people when he 
 is clad in a frock-coat and nothing else." 
 
 "My dear Countess Vera," I ejaculated, "there was 
 also a table-cloth. You forget." 
 
 " A table-cloth?" fairly shrieked Captain F e, 
 
 aghast. "Was he wrapped up in it?" 
 
 "No, no," I replied, laughing. "Do not run away 
 with any mistaken idea about our dear Judge. This 
 is what really happened: When Fred returned his 
 first call he found him seated before a table, the cov- 
 ering of which concealed him from the waist down 
 et pour cause ! What was to be seen of him was clad 
 in a preternaturally correct broadcloth frock-coat, a 
 
 75
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 white waistcoat, an immaculate white shirt, a tie of 
 portentous blackness, and a shiny top-hat for, as he 
 judiciously remarks, the Turks keep their tarbooshes on 
 in-doors out of respect for the house, without even his 
 excellent excuse of premature baldness. Throughout 
 the visit he never stirred, and when Fred rose to take 
 leave he said, airily: 'Excuse my not rising, too; but 
 the fact of the matter is that my man has taken my 
 trousers away to be pressed, and has not brought them 
 back. That's why I remain under cover/ and he grace- 
 fully raised the table-cloth, displaying his somewhat 
 massive extremities, clad in brilliant, cherry- colored 
 silks. Fred was convulsed, and his efforts to repress 
 his emotions made him look so queer that ' Yankee 
 Doodle ' at once offered him stimulants. ' You don't look 
 well/ quoth he. 'Have some champagne. I'll order 
 up some California Imperial Brut. That's the brand 
 for me ; it's so much more fruity than that French stuff, 
 which makes me nervous and keeps me awake nigiits. ' ' 
 
 "You may imagine my feelings," put in Fred. "I 
 fairly fled, and in the middle of the hall I ran into the 
 Judge's man rushing breathlessly up-stairs, three steps 
 at a time, with two pairs of trousers hanging over each 
 arm. ' Too late, my friend/ I called out, to his evident 
 and pardonable amazement, for as I careened past him 
 he gasped: 'Yes, sir; as you please, sir!' in so help- 
 lessly bewildered a fashion that I laughed till my sides 
 ached." 
 
 When the general merriment had subsided, our host- 
 ess suddenly proposed a drive to the Pyramids in order 
 to look up the jackals and hyenas in their lonely haunts, 
 as she put it, the moon being more than usually mag- 
 nificent. "Let us get our little wraps; the fresh air 
 will do us all good after so much scandal-mongering," 
 she said, with a grin. 
 
 76
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "My dear Vera," mildly expostulated her husband, 
 with true conjugal irony, "a little wrap will be quite 
 insufficient in your case." 
 
 " He deserves a big one on the knuckles," was Cap- 
 tain F e's sagacious comment ; and then, in a 
 
 loud whisper, glancing admiringly at the lady's opulent 
 charms : 
 
 " When one doesn't look at her face she's a stunner, 
 I tell you a regular out-and-out stunner ; and S . . . a 
 is imprudent to indulge in such pointed jokes at her ex- 
 pense, especially in public, for she will make him pay 
 dearly for it later on." In which the simple youth 
 for once showed sense, the good Countess not being, 
 as a rule, minded to allow her worthy spouse undue 
 liberties. 
 
 The night was a peerless one, and the transparent 
 air was laden with the perfume of millions of orange- 
 blossoms, jasmines, and gardenias as we entered 
 our respective carriages, and drove in the direction of 
 the Kaser-el-Nil Bridge. Beyond the Ghezireh road 
 the sand-hills stood out boldly against the midnight 
 sky, their gently undulating outline yet further softened 
 and etherealized by the wonderfully luminous moon- 
 light, which clothed everything in unutterable beauty. 
 After the already unpleasant heat of the day the caress- 
 ing coolness of the air was pure delight, and as we 
 advanced under the pellucid heavens, embroidered with 
 blazing constellations, the impressive silence and un- 
 disturbed solitude of the great Sahara were soothing 
 indeed. In those days no enterprising Boniface had 
 as yet desecrated those vast, shadowy reaches of the 
 plain where rise the Pyramids, and slumbers the 
 sphinx, with the painfully vulgar walls of a mod- 
 ern caravansary. Peace reigned supreme over the 
 desert's silky ripples; the limitless distances, grand 
 
 77
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 through the sheer force of their immensity peopled 
 only by poetic-looking caravans, velvet-footed wild 
 creatures, soaring birds, and here and there an encamp- 
 ment of Bedouins had retained their primeval magic, 
 and one seemed nearer to God when wandering at night 
 upon their untraced pathways. 
 
 Alighting in the shadow of the greatest of the three 
 Pyramids, we strolled towards a circle of tents nestling 
 under the broad, dull-hued foliage of a solitary wild 
 fig-tree. A score of camels were munching the fodder 
 laid before them on the spotlessly clean feeding-cloths 
 which they always require before kneeling down to 
 their dinner in the mincing, dainty ; supercilious man- 
 ner peculiar to them; and some Bedouins, wrapped in 
 the fleecy folds of their snowy burnouses, lay on the 
 sand beside them. Rising and salaaming as we drew 
 near, they approached without betraying any imperti- 
 nent curiosity, and with that impressive dignity which 
 characterizes these African gypsies, gazing at us with 
 interest, but no familiarity or impudence. One brawny 
 fellow, handsome in a barbaric way, his white teeth 
 revealed in a frank smile, offered me a long, sweep- 
 ing branch of flowering mimosa, saying, in a guttural 
 but deeply melodious voice: " Enta ghamila zai-el- 
 zambaque!" The poetical and obligatory exaggeration 
 of this Oriental compliment annoyed me, in view of 
 Countess S . . . a's sarcastic look; but the fragrant 
 flowers were a welcome gift, and with a few words of 
 thanks I turned away, leaving the tall, warrior -like 
 figure standing like some magnificent bronze statue 
 under the transparent shadow of the fig-tree. 
 
 "I did not know that you spoke Arabic," murmured 
 Count T i, in my ear, with his habitual air of im- 
 parting state secrets even when he made the most 
 trivial remarks. 
 
 78
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " Oh," I replied, laughing, " I can just speak it enough 
 to make myself disagreeable to natives, or to my own 
 servants." 
 
 "What did that superb caryatid of a man tell you?" 
 he continued. " Whatever it was, it did not please my 
 charming compatriot the Countess." 
 
 "He compared me to the lilies of the field. Very 
 handsome of him, was it not?" 
 
 " Those of Solomon, who neither toil nor spin? That 
 would be very unjust, for if ever a man has found 
 a helpmate in his wife, it is my friend Fred over 
 yonder." 
 
 It was useless to thank this talon-rouge Muscovite 
 for his flattering speeches, for they formed part of his 
 stock in trade, flowed relentlessly from his thin and 
 rather cruel-looking lips like blood from a severed 
 artery, and were not to be checked excepting by the 
 most drastic measures; so, with a deprecating little 
 shrug of the shoulders, I drew near to the rest of the 
 party. Seated in a circle on the exquisitely fine, silvered 
 sand, they were quaffing iced tea, and munching de- 
 licious fruit brought in a specially constructed freezer 
 by the Countess's matchless major-domo. 
 
 " Behold the queen of the desert, the loveliest of the 
 lilies!" sang out that lady in shrill falsetto, quoting 
 from my Bedouin admirer in a most irritating man- 
 ner. "Behold, stars! moon! silent monuments of 
 a glorious past; behold, humble mortals, the em- 
 bodiment of all that is beautiful and perfect ! a being 
 fiery as a flame, daring as a devil, and, alas, mes petits 
 enfants, cold as an icicle, and contemptuous as a god- 
 dess to all who, like us poor mortals, are but made of 
 flesh!" 
 
 This tirade was so unexpected, and so out of keeping 
 with Madame S . . . a 's ordinarily perfect breeding, that 
 
 79
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I made her a present of a stare, and remained other- 
 wise to all intents and purposes completely oblivious 
 of her aggressive tone. I knew that she did not 
 like me, but until then she had been invariably most 
 scrupulously courteous nay, even empressee towards 
 myself and I could not imagine what had set fire to 
 such a mine of sarcasm. I was to experience yet 
 another surprise of the same nature within a few 
 minutes, for I distinctly heard her whisper to Count 
 
 T i : "I can't help it ; she exasperates me ; you 
 
 men are bound to rave over that style, but to me she 
 seems a cross between a block of ice and a steeple- 
 chase Jock." 
 
 The low, delighted laugh which greeted this more 
 than questionable sally gave me reason to reflect upon 
 the great statesman's frankness and loyalty, but of 
 course I gave no sign of having heard that delectable 
 sentence, and remained immovable, seemingly atten- 
 tive to the conversation going on between Fred and 
 Nubar Pasha. 
 
 " Why do you run after her as you do, if you dislike 
 
 her so much?" I heard H o, who, like myself, had 
 
 evidently lost nothing of the Countess's statement, 
 say, in a low tone. 
 
 "She is a dangerous enemy to make for one's self," 
 was the candid and unblushing reply. " Elle a le bras 
 long, and is still tres bien en cour at Vienna and Peters- 
 burg, in spite of her idiotic marriage. Really, few 
 people can afford to anger her." 
 
 Completely edified as to the charming Vera's true 
 feelings and motives, I now rose. " Non vera sed 
 verissima," I murmured to myself, and remarking aloud 
 that as the sun was about to rise the hour had arrived 
 
 for us to go to bed, I made a sign to H o, who 
 
 had asked for a seat in my carriage, to drive back to 
 
 80
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Cairo, took leave of the rest, and, followed by him and 
 by Fred, left that gay company to finish their chat and 
 their tea by the light of the waning moon. 
 
 The sun was rising in good earnest as we passed 
 swiftly under the vault of grand old trees which roof 
 the homeward road. In the middle distance the calm 
 waters of the Nile were still partly shrouded in gauzy 
 folds of pearl-hued mist, tinted here and there with the 
 rosy radiance of morn. Flocks of pink -plumed fla- 
 mingoes arose from the bronze-brown reeds, and just as 
 we reached the bank of the river the golden gates 
 of day opened, to flood the awakening world with 
 dazzling brilliance. Through the tall branches of 
 bamboos outlined sharply against the glory of that 
 peerless dawn, the water showed like a broad azure 
 band, crinkled with interlacing lines of indescribably 
 delicate amethyst and opal. I sighed as we left all 
 this splendor behind us to re-enter the already crowded 
 streets. Early as was the hour, long lines of laden 
 camels, led by blue-robed fellaheen, groups of soldiers 
 wearing the English red jacket or the cerulean of the 
 khedivial troops, and Eastern cavaliers mounted on 
 half-broken Barb steeds, their velvet saddles profusely 
 embroidered with bullion, were passing to and fro, 
 raising clouds of dust which shimmered like finely pow- 
 dered gold. Swiftly my horses trotted through the 
 throng, which fell back at the ringing challenges of the 
 two saises preceding them, and a few minutes later 
 
 stopped to set down H o at the portals of the 
 
 Russian Legation. 
 
 As he bent over my hand he said, meaningly : " You 
 have, I fear, no friend in Madame S . . . a, and she 
 really is a very venomous person, ready to show her 
 teeth at the slightest provocation." 
 
 I laughed a merry, light-hearted laugh; the morn- 
 81
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ing was too faultless to be spoiled by unpleasant 
 thoughts. 
 
 " Que voulez-vous?" I replied, carelessly. "Let her 
 show her teeth, if it pleaseth her! I will show mine, 
 too, then, and the advantage won't be on her side."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 It was a little isle, scarce larger than 
 
 A leaf upon the waters floating free, 
 Quiet it seemed, as all remote from man ; 
 
 The palm, the myrtle, and the orange-tree 
 Grew, with sweet vines in flowery tangles wound. 
 Save but for water-fowl, there was no sound 
 Or murmuring winds, and widely all around 
 
 The heedless river drifted to the sea. M. M. 
 
 MEANWHILE our viceregal friend's situation was 
 becoming more involved and difficult than it had ever 
 been before, and day by day his seat in the saddle of 
 affairs seemed more insecure, thanks to his weak and 
 vacillating character and his lamentable inability to 
 follow a definite policy. His political tactics could not 
 be better described than by the word " silly " ; neither 
 could he be recommended for his frankness, for he 
 made a practice of talking contemptuously and slight- 
 ingly of his countrymen to Europeans, and to the latter 
 in an equally disagreeable manner about the former, 
 pathetically oblivious of the fact that natives and for- 
 eigners subsequently compared notes upon the subject, 
 to the great disparagement of the esteem and respect 
 due to a reigning sovereign. It was extremely amus- 
 ing to hear him abuse the French Plenipotentiary when 
 talking to that functionary's English colleague, and a 
 few moments later to find him bitterly complaining of 
 the British Representative to France's Envoy, while 
 often in the course of the same evening he would seek 
 to ingratiate himself with the German and Russian 
 
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 Ministers by alternately speaking evil of each in con- 
 fidence to the other one. This did not prevent him, it 
 goes without saying, from assembling later on his na- 
 tive cronies around him, and from denouncing to them 
 most violently " those unclean dogs of Christians " whose 
 mothers' graves he piously trusted that the pigs would 
 defile. 
 
 His intrigues were, moreover, so childish, so shallow, 
 and so conveniently transparent, so easily fathomed 
 and thwarted, that he was an invaluable dummy ruler, 
 just exactly, in fact, what the British needed; and it 
 was for this reason, and this reason alone, that they 
 maintained him on his throne in the teeth of much diffi- 
 culty and despite serious opposition from the other great 
 Powers. It was all extremely diverting to persons 
 who, like ourselves, were behind the scenes. Poor 
 Tewfik had the unfortunate habit of stuffing his pock- 
 ets with confidential letters and important secret papers, 
 which practice was both regrettable and imprudent, as 
 his valet an ex-private of one of the English regiments 
 belonging to the army of occupation naturally found 
 them, examined them, and regularly disclosed their con- 
 tents to his bosom friend, a Scotch dentist of great 
 ability in more senses than one, with whom he spent 
 an hour or two every evening. Over a bottle of whis- 
 key, for which these gentlemen had a praiseworthy and 
 patriotic fondness, they would whisper into each other's 
 ears matters of the highest possible interest, and, I may 
 add here en passant, that the amount of attention re- 
 quired by the teeth of the members of the British Le- 
 gation was at that time quite phenomenal. 
 
 Tewfik's perpetual double-dealing would have un- 
 doubtedly ended in his irretrievable ruin had it not 
 been for the restraining and sagacious influence of his 
 wife the shrewd, clever, and eminently common- 
 
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 sense Khediviah a maitresse femme, if ever there was 
 one, of whom her timorous husband stood in mortal 
 awe. 
 
 The Vicereine as she was generally called at Cairo 
 was very different from the popular conception of an 
 Oriental favorite. Extremely wealthy in her own right, 
 courageous, energetic, learned, and withal somewhat 
 overbearing and imperious, she never permitted her 
 husband to take other wives, although, according to 
 the Koran, the true believer is entitled to the generous 
 number of four legitimate spouses, and of as many 
 "unofficial" ones as he cares to assume. 
 
 A woman of remarkable taste and refinement, she 
 made a point of creating for her husband that unspeak- 
 ably priceless home-atmosphere so sadly lacking in 
 Oriental households; indeed, their life together was 
 modelled on that of European rather than of Asiatic 
 royalties, and although the Vicereine's private apart- 
 ments were decorated and furnished with more lavish 
 luxury than those of any empress or queen of my ac- 
 quaintance, yet nothing therein denoted the lazy self- 
 indulgence and emptiness of purpose peculiar to all 
 born and bred occupants of the zenana. Still singu- 
 larly beautiful was Emineh-Hanem at the time I am 
 writing about, although, according to Egyptian ideas, 
 she was already past her youth. Aristocratic to the 
 backbone she was a daughter of that remarkable 
 personage, Prince El-Hamy Pasha she looked rather 
 Spanish than Turkish, and her large, velvety eyes, 
 her lips scarlet like the flower of the camellia, her skin 
 of a creamy whiteness which might well put to despair 
 the very magnolia blossoms in her gardens, formed a 
 tout-ensemble brilliant and lovely, like a Titian or a 
 Rubens premiere maniere, and marred only by a trifle 
 too much embonpoint. She dressed almost invariably 
 
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 tt I'Europeenne, and wore, as a rule, white silken or 
 gauzy tissues profusely trimmed with exquisite laces, 
 and illumined by showers of superb pearls and dia- 
 monds which admirably suited her opulent beauty. 
 Herself she had no special love for jewels, but Tewfik, 
 who was inordinately fond of all pomp and glitter, 
 insisted upon her wearing more gems than would 
 be considered de mise at some great court recep- 
 tion, even when she was clad in a simple neglige; 
 but I am bound to say that the picture she present- 
 ed, thus enwrapped with magnificence, like a pearl in 
 the iridescence of its shell, was a singularly attrac- 
 tive one. 
 
 Possessed of the most delicate tact, intuition, and 
 persuasiveness, she removed from her lord's path many 
 difficulties created by his hopelessly crooked nature, 
 and although she was naturally obliged to remain 
 officially in the background, she nevertheless was, 
 without the possibility of a doubt, the true and only 
 power behind the throne; and had Tewfik followed her 
 dictates more loyally and constantly, he would assuredly 
 have avoided the shoals upon which his political bark 
 so often came near to being irreparably destroyed. 
 
 At any rate, Emineh-Hanem's firm hand and ex- 
 cellent management were traceable throughout the 
 palaces which she in turn graced with her presence, 
 for the customary incongruities of like establishments 
 a combination of Oriental magnificence and Oriental 
 squalor and dirt were not allowed wherever the dainty 
 rule of that charming woman extended. Her table 
 appointments were as complete and recherche as the 
 most fastidious gourmet might desire, and the meals 
 which she took en tete-a-tete with her royal spouse 
 were not, as is invariably the case in harim'liks, com- 
 posed of unpalatably tepid preparations served .on 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Sevres porcelain or gorgeous gold - and - silver plate, 
 handed round by slipshod attendants and eaten with 
 the ringers, but of excellently cooked viands, hand- 
 somely dished up and correctly put on a well-set table 
 by carefully trained servants. Nor were the absolute 
 tidiness, cleanliness, and daintiness of the napery 
 overlooked, while flowers and many pleasing tidbits 
 added to the enjoyment of the menu ordered by this 
 august housekeeper. 
 
 While on this subject I must not forget to mention 
 the Khediviah's great sagacity with regard to the 
 bringing up of her children. Far from entirely relin- 
 quishing all authority over her sons as soon as they 
 reached the fateful age of eight as is customary for 
 mothers to do throughout the East she continued, after 
 a very decided fashion of her own, to preside over their 
 education, their recreations, and especially their hygiene. 
 
 Abbas Pasha Helmy, the present Khedive, was then 
 a little fellow of about ten years old, bright, jolly, in- 
 telligent, and very courteous of manner, who spoke 
 equally well in French and English, and cut a most 
 gallant little figure when galloping his pony at the side 
 of the tall bay stallion ridden by his English tutor, 
 Mr. Butler, an Oxford graduate of much amiability 
 and gentleness of character. He and his brother went 
 daily, accompanied by this invaluable mentor, to attend 
 the Ali School, founded by their father at the urgent 
 instigation of their wise mother, and which is situated 
 on the Abdeen Square, immediately opposite the khe- 
 divial winter palace. Some eighty or a hundred boys 
 belonging to the Egyptian and Turkish aristocracy 
 were taught within the spacious halls of this model 
 establishment, and, strange to relate, entirely gratui- 
 tously, Tewfik Khedive providing for everything, in- 
 cluding tuition, a very luxuriously and bountifully 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 set table, and the prettiest and nattiest little military 
 uniforms which have ever flattered the budding pride 
 of well-born and well-bred lads. There the two prince- 
 lings were placed, according to the commands of their 
 parents, on a footing of absolute equality with their 
 schoolmates, no one being even permitted to address 
 them while there either as " Prince " or " Highness." 
 
 Full of fun and mischief, little Abbas and his younger 
 brother, Mehemet-Ali,were the most winning and comely 
 children imaginable, and nothing could be more touch- 
 ing than the adoring affection which they bestowed 
 upon their parents, especially, be it confessed, upon 
 their father, for " mamma " was sometimes rather strict 
 with them, whereas one of Tewfik's redeeming qualities 
 was his passionate devotion to his offspring, although 
 in this, as in all other respects, he was inclined to be 
 ill-advised "and weak. I had the privilege of reading 
 several letters written by the little Princes during a 
 trip which they took towards the first cataract on 
 the viceregal dahabieh, and was delighted both with 
 the remarkably perfect English in which they were 
 couched, and with the superscriptions of "My dear, 
 dear papa," and "My own beloved mamma/' followed 
 up by such tender and touching expressions of love 
 and respect that these epistles argued well, indeed, 
 for the youthful writers' depth of feeling. 
 
 Their small sister, Princess Kadshat-Hanem, was 
 then the prettiest little fairy that ever was, a diminu- 
 tive houri, with slender, supple, rounded limbs, big 
 black eyes pailletted with gold, and a silky mane of 
 wavy, raven hair tumbling about her dimpled shoul- 
 ders in a superb profusion of sombre silkiness, which 
 in the high lights seemed to irradiate fine strands of 
 spun sunshine. 
 
 Remarkable hair that, and such as is seldom seen for 
 
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 rare quality and texture, and which was often crowned 
 by a tiny scarlet tarboush, thickly embroidered with 
 gold and seed-pearls, and finished off by a jingling 
 tassel of gems. 
 
 This radiant baby was the joy of the viceregal house, 
 and was allowed a far greater amount of liberty and 
 indulgence than fell to the share of her brothers. She 
 was accorded a perpetual free entree to her mother's 
 boudoir a casket worthy of such a jewel the furni- 
 ture of which was of sandal-wood inlaid with pearl, up- 
 holstered with snowy satins painted and worked with 
 pale roses and jasmine, and with treasures of needle- 
 work covering walls and ceiling in the shape of great 
 square panels, whereon clusters of delicate bloom were 
 raised in bold relief from a background of deftly in- 
 terwoven silver threads. 
 
 Whatever Tewfik's faults, he was par excellence a 
 family man, and nothing pleased him better than to be 
 left in the peaceful enjoyment of his home. He had 
 had little enough opportunity to appreciate les joies 
 de la famille before his marriage, poor fellow, for his 
 birth, and the strange timidity and indecision of his 
 character, rendered him an object of cruel aversion to 
 his father. He was the offspring of a mere fellah 
 slave-girl, who had momentarily captivated, and sub- 
 sequently disgusted, Khedive Ismail, and all the lat- 
 ter 's paternal affection was given to Prince Hassan, 
 his accomplished third son, the child of his legitimate 
 and favorite wife, a lady both highly born and won- 
 derfully beautiful. Poor Prince Hassan! He was 
 one of the bravest and kindest of men tall and ex- 
 tremely soldierly in appearance, and displayed the 
 most magnificent gallantry during the Abyssinian 
 War, in which he had the misfortune to be captured. 
 The barbarous warriors of King John were subjecting 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 all the prisoners they made to the most shameful and 
 brutal of mutilations, but when the Prince himself was 
 taken, his orthodox Majesty of Abyssinia showed clem- 
 ency to the extent of merely branding him in the hand 
 with the Christian cross. From that day he was forced 
 to wear a glove in order to conceal this supreme shame 
 from his fellow-Moslems. 
 
 No act of personal courage or bravery was ever im- 
 puted to Tewfik, unless we allow one of a somewhat 
 passive nature, which he performed at the urgent re- 
 quest of his wife namely, his visit to the hospital 
 wards during the cholera epidemic of 1883. Ismail, 
 on the contrary to give the devil his due had pluck 
 and courage d, revendre, and greatly admired people 
 similarly endowed. 
 
 But I fear I am being carried away by those delight- 
 ful memories concerning the intimate side of the Ab- 
 deen Viceregal Court that had for a background the 
 private apartments of the Khedivia. Once one had 
 passed the portals of the harim'lik, and had been ush- 
 ered into her presence by the " Dastour ! dastour!"* 
 of the chief eunuch, and the low salaam of Gulbdyaz, 
 the favorite slave (whose soft name means " white 
 rose").- presto subitto, one received the impression of 
 entering another and far lovelier world than ours. 
 There, coffee and delectable cigarettes awaited one on 
 preciously inlaid koursis (tabourets), and Emineh- 
 Hanem's sweet smile of welcome gave the finishing 
 touch to one's enjoyment. 
 
 How wise Tewfik would have been to confide ab- 
 solutely in his remarkable wife I will show later; but 
 unfortunately, when he felt that he had been seri- 
 ously at fault, and, to put it baldly, that he deserved a 
 
 * A Persian word, meaning " permit me." 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 scolding, he was prone to studiously avoid her uncom- 
 fortably direct questions and clear, penetrating eyes. 
 So he remained tangled in his own toils, which was all 
 the worse for himself, and for others as well. 
 
 The Ramadan came late that year always an un- 
 fortunate circumstance for the Faithful, as the priva- 
 tions imposed upon them during that month of fasting 
 and prayer are far harder to bear in spring or summer 
 than during the colder season. For the non-participants 
 in this strict time of religious enthusiasm this has, how- 
 ever, its advantages, for the bitterness of the long, hot 
 day is compensated by a recrudescence of jollifications, 
 illuminations, and gayeties from sunset to sunrise, and 
 Cairo is never so picturesque as when glittering, orange- 
 hued lampions, shaped like stars, are swung in constel- 
 lations high up in the sky from the tall minarets of the 
 citadel, the mosque of Saida-Zenabe, and other thrice 
 holy sanctuaries. Multitudes of hungry and thirsty 
 people, who in the ardor of their fanaticism have not 
 indulged even in the soothing relief of a single cigarette 
 for twelve weary hours, invade the cafes and restau- 
 rants, or foregather at street corners to engulf fruit, 
 vegetables, sweetmeats, roast mealies, and other deli- 
 cacies for which their exhausted condition furnishes 
 the best of condiments. Everybody is feverish, ner- 
 vous, and amazingly excitable, and all look resentfully 
 at the dazzling moon, which marks with its every change 
 the steps of their Calvary. 
 
 " Be of good cheer, the sullen month will die, 
 And a young moon requite us by-and-by ; 
 Look how the old one, meagre, bent, and wan 
 With age and fast, is fainting from the sky," 
 
 the poor, tortured Moslems seem to be crooning to them- 
 selves in expectation of the joys to come, and one could 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 readily imagine them going nightly "to the potter's 
 house alone" to feel the comforting presence of those 
 "shapes of clay" beloved of Omar. 
 
 That particular Ramadan is very present to my 
 mind, with its cacophonous nights, the greater por- 
 tion of which we spent on the flat roof of our house 
 watching Sirius, ardent and splendid, scintillate might- 
 ily, and Venus, truly "a lamp that outburn'd Can- 
 opus," rising in the pure loveliness of the Occident; 
 while over the big, wakeful city multicolored lights of 
 excessive brightness looked like swarms of fallen stars 
 struggling in the gauzy folds of the enshrouding heat 
 vapors. 
 
 One night especially it was so oppressively and un- 
 seasonably hot that I could not sleep, and at the very 
 first flush of dawn I rose, and, throwing a loose robe 
 over my night-dress, walked down the steps leading 
 to the gardens and made my way to the deep pool of 
 running water which bubbled between glistening 
 walls of pink marble under the interlacing branches 
 of the jasmines and oleanders, and where I loved to 
 go for a dip before breakfast, or at night when the bright 
 African moon lent its silvery beauty to the tiniest leaf- 
 let trembling on the uttermost end of a bough. 
 
 An unsatisfied longing for sleep lingered like cob- 
 webs in drowsy corners of my brain, and it was with a 
 distinct thrill of pleasure that I inhaled the pungent 
 odor of the bay-hedge, which T brushed with the hem 
 of my peignoir, and breathed in the fragrance of the 
 opening flowers from the parterres. The sky had, 
 with the near approach of the sun, assumed the hue of 
 summer roses, shot here and there with amethyst and 
 pearly gray. All was intensely quiet; there was no 
 sound of some unseen gardener raking the gravel of 
 the paths, and even my pet gazelles in their vine-grown 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 enclosure were still asleep on their little beds of fresh 
 hay. At the edge of the pool I stopped, looking ap- 
 preciatively at the transparent, mirror-like surface, 
 where blue and pink lotus cast their delicately tinted 
 reflections. How inviting this broad, clear, clean 
 basin was ! I cast a hasty glance towards the distant 
 house, whereon shreds of fleecy mist still hung like the 
 fringe of a vanishing curtain, but it was apparently un- 
 tenanted save by obdurate sleepers ; and as, after all, a 
 long night-robe is not a bad substitute for a bathing-suit, 
 when one is all alone in nature's dew-washed domain, 
 I cast off my outer draperies, and with arms shot out 
 above my head I sprang from the slippery, rounded 
 edge into ten feet of deliciously cool water. Surely 
 such a plunge is the most perfect of human sensations, 
 and makes one feel wide-awake, fresh, neat, and strange- 
 ly eager to live a pure, faultless life. 
 
 As I shook my dripping hair out of my eyes it seemed 
 to me that I should like above all things to buy some 
 great, sunshiny Eastern kingdom and reign there 
 alone, forgetful of stupid civilization with its big, un- 
 healthful dinners, its blundering politics, and its hid- 
 eous conventionalities. Or, at least, if not a kingdom, 
 some green place of palm-trees, some "chosen plot of 
 fertile land " ringed round by the desert or the sea, 
 which I could shut to all comers, and hold under ab- 
 solute sway in hermit and Corean sovereignty. "A 
 hermit? Yes, that would be my ideal role exactly," I 
 thought, as I lazily floated with my hands behind my 
 head. " Why, dear me! there is one here in the neigh- 
 borhood, and on an island, too! I will go this very 
 day to call on him, and get points about the manage- 
 ment of my future domain!" 
 
 I drew myself forthwith out of the water by means 
 of the lip of the fountain, thrust my feet into my slip- 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 pers, and ran home as swiftly as the clinging, drenched 
 batiste would allow. The person who had so suddenly 
 come to my remembrance was one of the strangest 
 that Egypt has ever known namely, the once cele- 
 brated Due d'A . . . . t, and his hermitage was the poeti- 
 cal river-isle of Rhoda. I had not visited him in his 
 paradisal Thebaide as often as I might have done, more 
 was the pity, and the pleasing prospect of so doing 
 put me at once in the best of humors; indeed, it seemed 
 to me as if I could say, with Titus, that I had already 
 saved my day, and I went through my morning's routine 
 duties with more than usual facility. I dictated a host 
 of long-neglected letters, interviewed the chef, gave the 
 head gardener his orders for the day's table decorations, 
 took my usual round through the stables, and entered 
 the dining-room at lunch-time with a tremendous ap- 
 petite a rare occurrence, especially on a hot day. 
 
 The chill of that early morning plunge had worked 
 wonders, and I felt really satisfied with myself for hav- 
 ing been usefully employed before one o'clock, in the 
 tropics. 
 
 "I am going to ride over to Rhoda this afternoon," 
 I told Fred, unfolding my napkin and helping myself 
 to iced oranges from the dish at my elbow. 
 
 "What on earth are you going to do that for?" he 
 replied, with genuine astonishment. " I thought you 
 were booked for Mme. de M o's garden-party?" 
 
 " So I am, my dearest fellow so I am ; but where 
 would be the use of making an engagement if it was 
 not with a view of breaking it when convenient?" 
 
 " Your views are scandalously unprincipled," he 
 laughed; "but this does not tell me in the least why 
 you contemplate a dusty and blazingly hot ride through 
 old Cairo on such a day as this." 
 
 "Your lack of perspicacity grieves me, Fred," I said, 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 with some gravity. "Cannot you guess that I am 
 longing to have a glimpse of that dear, old, fat hermit- 
 Duke, the uncrowned king of Rhoda?" 
 
 " When did this brilliant idea strike you?" 
 
 "At sunrise, in the middle of the fountain." 
 
 "Oh, come, now," he exclaimed; "please draw it 
 mild." 
 
 " That's precisely what I am doing, for I carry con- 
 sideration for your feelings to such an extreme that I 
 actually spare you the description of the inordinate 
 desire which overcame me at the same moment to 
 purchase some disused Oriental kingdom for my per- 
 sonal gratification and aggrandizement." 
 
 " Well, there certainly is no accounting for what you 
 may want to do next, but in the meanwhile a hurried 
 trip to England is far more probable for us than any 
 further advance towards the Far East." 
 
 "Dear me, what makes you think so? Providence 
 will be acting with downright brutality towards us if 
 this be really the case." 
 
 "I am afraid, nevertheless, that that is just what 
 is in store for us. The Khedive plainly hinted that 
 such were his immediate intentions this morning." 
 
 "Oh, bother the Khedive! I am heartily sick of 
 him. He is the shilly-shalliest wet blanket of a - nui- 
 sance I have ever met with. But still, while on this 
 subject I must warn you that you had better change 
 the cipher, for your present secretary inspires me with 
 unlimited distrust." 
 
 " You are pleased to be severe. Do not lose sight of 
 the fact that he once bore the same relation to King 
 Victor Emmanuel as did the client to his patron, Mae- 
 cenas." 
 
 "Do you mean the one who made the celebrated 
 remark, 'I don't sleep for everybody'?" 
 
 95
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Your erudition does you credit, and you see me 
 proud of it. But why do you distrust Luigi Effendi?" 
 
 "I suspect him of playing a double game, that is 
 all. But I am stalking him, if you will graciously 
 allow me to use so sporting a term, and I will catch 
 him red-handed yet." 
 
 " The code-books are under lock and key. How could 
 he get hold of them, pray?" 
 
 I laughed somewhat derisively, and, lunch being 
 now at an end, rose, and, without replying, made my 
 way to the patio, where I invariably took my daily 
 postprandial siesta. The purple velum which shaded 
 it from morning to night had been tightly drawn to, 
 and a delicious coolness pervaded this favorite retreat 
 of mine. With a little, contented sigh I swung my- 
 self into a hammock slung between two stout lemon- 
 trees and prepared to enjoy a well-earned period of 
 rest, but for a comparatively long time the refreshing 
 sleep I sought evaded me in the most exasperating 
 fashion. The doubts I had mentioned to Fred with 
 regard to the loyalty of his secretary seemed suddenly 
 to acquire tenfold gravity, and I turned over in my 
 mind with fatiguing persistency the best means of 
 convincing myself of the man's treachery. That he 
 was possessed of a singularly elastic conscience was 
 sufficiently proved by the fact that he was quite in- 
 decently proud of the excessively friendly relations 
 which had once existed between his beautiful wife and 
 II R6 Galantuomo, allowing nobody to ignore this 
 honor done to his house, and even sporting a huge 
 breastpin a miniature of her royal lover, encircled 
 with diamonds of the finest water which he was never 
 tired of negligently pointing out as "his late Majesty's 
 last gift to my dear wife." 
 
 A mari complaisant is never a very admirable individ- 
 
 $6
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ual, but the brazenness of that one truly surpassed any- 
 thing ever heard of. Nevertheless he had been warmly 
 recommended to Fred by no less a personage than the 
 Khedive himself, who, through the agency of Mahmoud 
 Bey, had rather pointedly urged him to take him in 
 his employ, and unless he could be caught in ftagrante 
 delicto tampering with state secrets, any interference or 
 advice on my part would be more or less useless. The 
 worst of it all was that I suspected that Turko-Italian 
 scamp of being in league with Mahmoud, whose tene- 
 brous doings were beginning to cause me serious anx- 
 iety. It was naturally of paramount importance that 
 our cipher code should remain inviolate, although this 
 is of a truth always a difficult achievement, for almost 
 every code is an open book to the governments inter- 
 ested in knowing the contents of cipher despatches 
 concerning them. Clever cryptographers are employed 
 by every Foreign Office, and it is wellnigh hopeless to 
 invent a means of communication over the wires which 
 will not be interpreted at some time or other. Ours 
 was a remarkably complicated mixture of numerals 
 and words, and the key-words thereto were invariably 
 difficult ones to guess. Indeed, it would be impossible 
 to conceive a more tiresome and head-splitting piece of 
 work than either to cipher or decipher a despatch of 
 some fifteen hundred or two thousand words nothing 
 short of a veritable Chinese puzzle, and one which sad 
 and wearisome experience had taught me to look for- 
 ward to with the utmost dread. 
 
 Gradually, however, the drowsy murmur of the foun- 
 tain and the soft, purring rustle made by the whir- 
 ring little wings of countless humming-birds chasing 
 each other round and round the patio had their cus- 
 tomary effect, and I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, 
 from which I was aroused at four o'clock by Sahla, 
 7 97
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the soft of foot, who, according to orders as immutable 
 as the laws of the Medes and Persians, came to an- 
 nounce to me that my bath was ready and the horses 
 waiting my pleasure. 
 
 Forty minutes later I was cantering easily and pleas- 
 antly on the road to Rhoda, through the narrow alleys 
 of old Cairo, followed by my Austrian groom and pre- 
 ceded by two azure-and-silver corseletted saises, who 
 used their rods of office vigorously in order to force a 
 way for the horses through the swarming crowds of 
 natives filling every thoroughfare. Crossing the Kha- 
 leeg Canal connecting the Nile to the Red Sea, and 
 said to have been projected by Amru, the leader of the 
 first Moslem invaders a short ride brought me to the 
 banks of the river opposite the classic isle, which has 
 been the location of the Nilometer since the Arabs re- 
 moved it from its primeval site at Memphis. The Ni- 
 lometer always had a fascination for me for its antique 
 associations and the great and mysterious sanctity 
 with which it is endowed. According to a very ancient 
 custom, the fellaheen are to this day forbidden to look 
 at the column while the great river is rising, and the 
 reason for this is to be sought not in superstition, but 
 in politics, for taxes are imposed according to the 
 height of the rise, and the wily Sheyk ul Islam who 
 is under the direction of the Cairene police, and serves 
 the Khedive as the Egyptian hierarchy of old did the 
 Pharaohs is thereby enabled to publish his official 
 statements of the flood from his private Nilometer, 
 which has a depressed zero-point. And by this " pious " 
 fraud he manages to secure, under any circumstances, 
 his full amount of taxes. This piece of sharp practice 
 was brought to light by the engineers of the first French 
 expedition and aroused much virtuous indignation; 
 but, alas! alack! even such a burst of righteous feeling 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 did not prevent matters from remaining exactly as 
 they were before the cat had been let out of the bag. 
 
 On the afternoon I am here recording I was par- 
 ticularly struck with the aspect of the fair island, the 
 pointed green oval of which lies nestled on the broad 
 bosom of the Nile like an oleander leaf, its diadem of 
 svelte palms darkly and delicately pencilled against a 
 sky which seemed made of burnished gold, faintly tinted 
 with palest pink. Nothing could be more poetic than 
 the view which met my eye, and 1 entered into the spirit 
 of the Orient, emanating from every nook of this priv- 
 ileged spot, to the extent of making a detour in order to 
 cast a rapid glance at the sacred and immemorial Man- 
 doorah tree, called by the Arabs Hakeem - Kebir, and 
 which is endowed, according to them, with wonderful 
 nay, with absolutely miraculous curative powers. A 
 strange object and a weird, with its ungainly branches 
 loaded with ex votos in the shape of many-colored 
 rags, strings of beads, crutches, staffs, and a multitude 
 of other incongruous offerings of grateful hearts. 
 
 This extraordinary tree, supposed to have been 
 planted in days of long ago by the fair hands of the 
 Prophet's own daughter Fatima, looked grimmer and 
 gaunter than ever on that occasion, and seemed in sorer 
 need than heretofore of a tear or so from the merciful 
 eye of the Divinity, \vho, according to legend, devotes 
 two in every year to the land of Egypt, one causing the 
 rise of the Nile and the other the enduring vitality of 
 the Mandoorah tree. As I turned my horse away from 
 this sacred spot, two immense flamingoes flew with 
 discordant screeches from the summit of Hakeem-Kebir 
 where, peradventure, they too had been depositing 
 some fitting ex-voto and with a noisy spanning of 
 their rose-colored wings preceded me, like a couple of 
 volunteer saises wonderfully garbed and gifted, up 
 
 99
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the avenue leading to the ponderous gates of the Duke's 
 enchanting domain. 
 
 Whatever eccentricities might be laid at the old noble- 
 man's door, yet one could not refrain from reverencing 
 this stanch Legitimist, who, intensely disgusted by 
 the accession to the throne of France, first of the Roi 
 Bourgeois, and then of that dire adventurer, the Third 
 Napoleon, shook the dust from his sandals upon de- 
 mocratized Paris, and, taking with him all his portable 
 goods, buried himself in this lonely corner of Egypt, 
 where he founded a faithful replica en miniature of 
 old, aristocratic France, and where he remained until 
 the day of his death. 
 
 The white-robed and turbaned boab having thrown 
 the forbidding portals wide, I slackened my pace, and, 
 allowing the reins to droop on Fidelio's glossy neck, I 
 drank in the splendor of the fairy-like park and grounds 
 which I was traversing. 
 
 A row of magnificent eucalypti cast a deep-blue 
 shadow upon broad borders of glowing geraniums and 
 lorded it over fantastic gardens, murmuring fountains, 
 lawns intersected by walls of blossoming shrubs, groves 
 of camellias and azaleas, and delicious groups of bam- 
 boos, the lanceolated foliage of which shivered in the 
 light breeze rising from the river, like supple ribbons of 
 brilliant metallic green. This miniature Vale of Cash- 
 mere merged into a broad, level space of sward, in the 
 midst of which stood a palace of semi-Moorish, semi- 
 European architecture, most picturesquely terraced 
 and balustraded, both walls and balconies being as 
 delicately wrought and fretted as a piece of priceless 
 lace. Behind it the exquisite gardens ran riot again; 
 the green carpet, so soft and refreshing to the eye, was 
 invaded by clumps of luxuriant banana-trees, broad- 
 leaved and eccentric of growth, above which, here and 
 
 100
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 there, a tall dura palm stood sentinel. Farther on the 
 bananas ceased, and were replaced by thickets of red- 
 berried pepper-trees laden with clinging blue, white, 
 and purple passiftora, while some gigantic cedars filled 
 the air with a clean, resinous odor, delightful to inhale 
 as a wholesome change from the cloying fragrance for 
 which a distant orange-orchard w r as responsible. To 
 the left of that dream-palace the rose-garden exhibited 
 specimens of every known variety against a back- 
 ground of almond-trees in full bloom, and to the right 
 a glorious hedge of that extravagant shrub which 
 bears no leaves, but quantities of intense, blinding 
 red blossoms of a ragged, revolutionary aspect, which 
 the Mexicans call La Flor de la Noche Buena, caught 
 the slanting rays of the sun in an absolutely discon- 
 certing orgy of color. Really, no pen can portray, no 
 brush ever hope to reproduce, the effect of the almost 
 incongruous profusion of flowers casting their intox- 
 icating perfumes under the interlacing branches form- 
 ing a natural trellised roof overhead. Pink and white 
 myrtles, golden-hued jonquils, rainbow-tinted chrys- 
 anthemums, white, pink, and purple rhododendrons, 
 tawny, velvet-leaved gilly - flowers, proud irises, lilac, 
 white, and also straw - colored, magnolias, gardenias 
 gladioli, lilies, reseda, heliotrope, and what not else, all 
 perfect of their kind, throve as nowhere else in that 
 crystalline atmosphere which precedes the pitiless 
 Egyptian summer. 
 
 As I approached the marble terrace, the Duke himself 
 came out of one of the porte-f entires and descended the 
 steps, which were laden on each side with rare orchids, 
 raising their glowing petals with tropical gorgeousness 
 from square vases of verdigris bronze. 
 
 My advancing host was then a man well over sev- 
 enty, with delicately chiselled features, which told 
 
 101
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 their tale of high breeding and ancient lineage ; and 
 despite an exceeding corpulence a lingering ease, a 
 remarkable grace of movement, while his punctilious 
 courtesy and haute allure, unimpeachable and abso- 
 lute, stamped him at once for an aristocrat of the old 
 regime. This septuagenarian grand seigneur once a 
 page of Louis XVIII., and who, during the first quar- 
 ter of the nineteenth century, had been a celebrated 
 beau was the inventor of the now universally adopted 
 gala-equipage called after him, Attelage a quatre a la 
 d'A . . . . t, with outriders, postilions, vacant draped 
 box, and footmen in the rumble; and had taken pride 
 in surrounding himself in this terre d'exil with the 
 spirit and the very atmosphere of la vieille France. All 
 his servants were old family retainers, hoary-headed 
 like himself, and, like himself, imbued with ancient 
 traditions and ancient decorum. During the reign of 
 Ismail he had shown much state, and kept open house, 
 delighting in assembling around his hospitable board 
 which groaned under the weight of magnificent antique 
 silver and gold plate, wonderful Sevres and Saxe porce- 
 lains, and wellnigh unique cut-glass the great per- 
 sonages who congregated from all corners of the globe 
 during the balmy Cairene winters; but after the depo- 
 sition of his old friend and the advent of Tewfik, whom 
 he greatly disliked, Monsieur d'A . . . . t ceased to re- 
 ceive any save a very few valued friends, and lived 
 in utter solitude together with his secretary and facto- 
 tum. The latter, a young Frenchman, after his patron's 
 death swore that the Duke had adopted him, and pro- 
 duced a will naming him sole executor and heir to the 
 vast wealth of this last scion of a glorious race. 
 
 His greeting to me was so genuinely one of affection- 
 ate welcome that I could not doubt the sincerity of his 
 pleasure at seeing me, and felt much gratified, for the 
 
 102
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 old nobleman was not a ' suiveur de Joules, and his es- 
 teem and respect were neither easily gained nor by any 
 means granted to all comers. After lingering for a 
 few moments on the terrace we entered a large salon 
 opening on the gardens, a salon hung with admirable 
 Gobelin tapestries, the chairs and couches each a mar- 
 vel of petit point embroidery, the ceiling, around which 
 a carved cedar-wood cornice ran, painted in tempera 
 with the history of Ulysses, and along the walls many 
 cabinets and consoles of astoundingly delicate work- 
 manship, preciously inlaid with brass and silver, while 
 the windo\v-curtains were of the heaviest and richest 
 brocades, and scrupulously matched the various hues 
 of the tapestries. 
 
 "This is exquisite!" I murmured, letting my eyes 
 wander towards the enfilade of other salons opening one 
 into the other by lofty archways, above which gleam- 
 ed the Duke's armorial bearings Louis XIV., Louis 
 XV., Louis XVI. rooms hung with pale satins, ceiled 
 with cedar, and breathing the charm of the epochs 
 which had begotten their loveliness. I moved to one 
 of the great windows and looked out upon the gardens. 
 The chastened, late afternoon light spread over the 
 parterres, touching the verdure of the trees with warm 
 gold, and filling the gorgeous chambers with a rich 
 and sombre splendor. 
 
 "You make a beautiful picture with this red-cedar 
 panel behind you, and the light of the sunset upon 
 your tawny hair, my child," said the Duke. "It is 
 only a young face that can afford such an illumina- 
 tion," he added, with scarcely veiled regret. "Ah, 
 believe me, youth is the greatest of all boons, and the 
 soonest lost so enjoy yours while you can, dum cani- 
 ties abest. The frosts of age are hard to bear harder, 
 perhaps, than any other ill." 
 
 103
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 The bitterness of his tone touched me. Poor, lonely 
 old man, in spite of his immense wealth, of his splen- 
 did surroundings, of his remarkable intellect, he was 
 tasting to the dregs the disappointment of a loveless, 
 lonely life. Could anything be sadder or more pathetic? 
 
 At that moment the servants brought in a tea-equi- 
 page of solid gold, the precious metal being the least 
 costly thing about it, so superb were the chiselling and 
 design of this piece de musee, some tiny Sevres cups of 
 Rose-Dubarry pate tendre, and some rock-crystal bowls 
 filled with cakes and fruit. 
 
 "Really, you have a great deal of the Haroun-al- 
 Raschid about you, my dear, good friend," I said, ap- 
 preciatively. " How do you keep your servants at this 
 point of perfection?" 
 
 "Oh, my servants should be used to my ways by 
 this time ; the youngest of them has been forty years in 
 my service. Surely their apprenticeship is completed. 
 Moreover, although you may think it strange, they 
 love me, poor souls, with a deep and reverential love 
 which I am far from deserving." 
 
 "Don't say that," I replied, earnestly. "You are 
 extremely lovable, and, moreover, that's fishing for 
 compliments, mon ami." 
 
 " How I wish I were half a century younger, so as 
 to listen worthily to such a gratifying speech," he 
 retorted, laughing. "My years and my rheumatism 
 alone prevent me from throwing myself at your feet 
 this very minute." 
 
 I handed him his cup of tea, and, helping myself to 
 fruit, sat down on a low ottoman by an open win- 
 dow. 
 
 "This repast," I remarked, "is worthy of Titania, 
 and almost could it be classed with the enviable diet of 
 Fe"nelon's islanders, fed only by breathing sweet odors. 
 
 104
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I have always wished that our own menus could be 
 modelled more on the same pattern." 
 
 "My poor, dear child/' quoth the Duke, "knowing 
 your tastes to be what they are, I am often puzzled to 
 understand how you can endure any part of the life 
 you are leading amid the foul ooze of political intrigue 
 which ensnares you here in Egypt." 
 
 "Oh, if you want to know the truth, I am heartily 
 tired of it, but having once set my shoulder to the wheel, 
 there is a kind of point d'honneur in persevering, or 
 in at least trying to help get the cart out of the rut." 
 
 "Even you will never accomplish that. I fear it is 
 an impossible feat while Tewfik remains the figure- 
 head of this organization ; his soul is as sick as his body 
 for, believe me, in spite of his healthy appearance 
 he is a doomed man; and, moreover, his ways are not 
 your ways; his civilization is blent with barbarism, 
 and, alas to say the best of him he is but an inju- 
 dicious ruler over the country which an unwise Provi- 
 dence has confided to his care. // veut menager la 
 chvre et le choux, which is always a great folly." 
 
 "Dear me!" I exclaimed, "you do not take a very 
 cheerful view of the situation; gentle of manner and 
 chary of speech as you are, you can, on provocation, 
 pronounce a sentence suggestive of the surgeon's 
 knife." 
 
 " Your pardon, madame ; in general, I am indulgent 
 to follies which I do not share, for I live apart from the 
 world, in which I once was, peradventure, a not alto- 
 gether inconspicuous figure, and therefore I can af- 
 ford to judge it with good nature if not with sympathy; 
 but, on the other hand, there are things before which 
 even the stoutest optimism is powerless. The present 
 situation of this unhappy country is among them. 
 Moreover, it makes me sick to see you mixed up in 
 
 105
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 all this you, a child of the antique French patrician 
 type, perhaps the highest and noblest mould of hu- 
 manity that the world has ever seen, the most capable 
 of true distinction, of loyalty, and of heroism. I shud- 
 der when I think of you, busying your delicate fingers 
 with the tangled web of such tenebrous affairs. " 
 
 Seized by a sudden impulse, I told him of the Collier 
 de la Favorite incident. He listened throughout with 
 an inscrutable face, and even after I ceased speaking 
 remained mute, as if absorbed in deep thought. At 
 last he turned his eyes which, to use a popular simile, 
 had been " looking inward " full upon me, with greater 
 gravity than I should have thought even that situation 
 demanded, and said, dryly : 
 
 " This is an abominably dirty business. You do not 
 quite realize it yet, although intuition warned you 
 against it ; but I think I can put the matter in a different 
 and more glaring light before you, for, as chance will 
 have it, your story explains something very curious 
 which happened to me a few days ago." 
 
 He rose, and, asking me to excuse him for a moment, 
 left the room by a little side-door concealed behind the 
 tapestry, and which communicated with his private 
 apartments, leaving me in a state of mind bordering 
 on mystification. Was he a wizard? Else how, in 
 the name of all past and present wonders, could he 
 explain Mahmoud Bey's conduct with regard to that 
 extraordinary necklace. To speak precisely, I really 
 thought for a second that the good old Duke was hoax- 
 ing me with a view of giving me a little object-lesson. 
 
 " I am not so simple, after all, as he seems to think," 
 I muttered, impatiently; "and, sitting as I do in the 
 midst of a maelstrom, I cannot but know something 
 about the laws of whirlpools." My eyes wandered 
 idly at the aloe and euphorbia grouped beneath the 
 
 1 06
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 parapet of the terrace, and I thought, " What new 
 endiablement now?" Then I shrugged my shoulders, 
 lighted a cigarette, and waited with what patience I 
 could muster for the reappearance of that most inter- 
 esting and puzzling person, my friend the Ducal Philos- 
 opher. In a very few minutes he was back, carrying 
 in his hand a little lacquer box, which he careful!}' 
 opened and handed to me. 
 
 " What do you think of those?" he said, quietly, but 
 with a certain suppressed eagerness which made me 
 gaze curiously into the crimson depths of the costly 
 Chinese toy. 
 
 "Superb!" I cried, in admiration, for on a bed of 
 jeweller's cotton were ranged some of the handsomest 
 rubies and emeralds I had ever seen. 
 
 " Yes, they are almost perfect of their kind," he mur- 
 mured, bending over me to catch the sparkle of the 
 big, deep-hued stones, "and worth a king's ransom. 
 Yet I bought them a few days ago, comparatively speak- 
 ing, for a song." 
 
 " You surprise me," I replied, with feeling, "for, if I 
 may be allowed to say so, I am a bit of a connoisseur 
 in such matters, and I should say that each of them 
 could be easily valued at something well up in the 
 thousands." 
 
 "Quite so; but still, even at the risk of being con- 
 sidered nothing short of a common 'fence/ my lady, I 
 will confide to you privately that I paid for the entire 
 lot less than one of the smallest of them is actually 
 worth." 
 
 1 stared at him amazed, striving in vain to guess the 
 meaning of the sardonic smile which played upon his 
 withered lips. 
 
 In the rose-laurels below a bird was calling loudly 
 to its mate, reminding the truant that the hour for 
 
 107
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 rest was nigh, and so still was the evening that the 
 lapping song of the swiftly rushing river, beyond the 
 scarlet crest of the Flor de la Noche Buena hedge, 
 was plainly audible through the silkiness of the reeds. 
 Slowly a conviction crept upon me that the dazzling 
 gems which I held in the hollow of my hand savored 
 of something seen before, as had the almost uncanny 
 fires of their wicked orbs winked at me with the famili- 
 arity of old acquaintances. 
 
 " How now, Sir Duke," I said at last. " Do you think 
 there is any connection between these and those I spoke 
 of a while ago?" 
 
 "The strongest possible," he replied, grimly. "For 
 I have every reason to believe that they are the self- 
 same ones. They have doubtless been replaced by 
 worthless paste." 
 
 I stared helplessly from the open box to the Duke 
 and back again, while he, lighting a cigarette, walked 
 two or three times up and down the long salon, wait- 
 ing, doubtless, until I should question him anew; but 
 somehow I strove in vain to conquer the blank sense 
 of foolish dread which had suddenly overtaken me. 
 
 " Have you no inquisitiveness?" he finally exclaimed, 
 stopping and scanning me with his calm eyes, strange- 
 ly clear and luminous for so aged a man. 
 
 Shaking off the vague apprehensions with which 
 his words had inspired me, I rose, and, placing the little 
 box and its precious contents on a table near by, said, 
 emphatically : " Yes, I have, and I entreat you to tell 
 me how these rubies and emeralds came to be offered 
 to you for sale ; it is imperative that I should know all 
 about it, for I am beginning greatly to fear that but 
 for a fortunate accident they would have been used to 
 discredit my poor Fred the most honest and loyal of 
 men!" 
 
 1 08
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "That is exactly what I myself believe/' he replied, 
 and then, after a moment's hesitation, he rapidly told 
 me how a merchant from the bazaar, aware of his 
 fondness for collecting rare jewels, had waited on him 
 at dusk, a week before, and offered him those which 
 now blinked and sparkled at my elbow. Struck by 
 their rare purity, lustre, and size, the Duke expected 
 that a very large price should be asked of him, and 
 was astounded when a sum was mentioned so con- 
 spicuously inferior to their value that he immediately 
 scented a mysterious and unavowable cause for such 
 moderation. "I did not know that you were a re- 
 ceiver of stolen goods," he said, sternly, pushing away 
 the tempting bargain as if the mere touch contam- 
 inated him. "Oh, my lord! my lord!'' the Turk made 
 answer. " Indeed, the person from whom I bought them 
 is of too lofty a rank to be accused of committing a theft, 
 but I am afraid of the stones, and will not keep them 
 for fear that they should bring disaster upon me and 
 mine. Here they will be safely hidden, and if you 
 will only take them, my lord, at any price, I will be 
 forever grateful." 
 
 Questions, orders, even threats, alike failed to make 
 the evidently sorely frightened man say more than 
 that, or reveal the name of his illustrious and sus- 
 picious customer ; he merely assured the Duke that he 
 would willingly have refused to buy, in the first in- 
 stance, but that he had been absolutely forced to do 
 so, and concluded by declaring that in case the Duke 
 persisted in refusing to purchase them he would cast 
 the gems with his own hand into the Nile on his way 
 home. Thus adjured, my old friend very rightly de- 
 cided to give the man what he had himself paid for 
 them, and to keep them in his custody until the mys- 
 tery enveloping them should be cleared up. This, he 
 
 109
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 thought, could scarcely fail to happen shortly, such 
 stones being far too rare to disappear totally without 
 causing, sooner or later, some comment. 
 
 Overjoyed, the merchant went away expressing his 
 gratitude in the lavish hyperbole customary to his 
 race, after entreating the Duke's acceptance of a won- 
 derful damascened dagger of Persian workmanship 
 with a cabochon sapphire of great beauty set in the 
 hilt. 
 
 " Here it is," said M. d'A . . . . t, taking from the top 
 of a cabinet a murderous-looking weapon and hand- 
 ing it to me. " Abdullah-Sid-Ibrahim stoutly refused 
 to accept any money for it, and made such a fuss about 
 my taking it that in order to get rid of him I was fain 
 to yield. Keep it," he added. "I think you should 
 have it as a memento of your strange adventure, for 
 you are doubtless now convinced that the high and 
 mighty personage who sold that rascal Ibrahim yon- 
 der gems was none other than your precious friend 
 Mahmoud." 
 
 "There can hardly be two opinions on the sub- 
 ject," I said, wrathfully, my fingers gripping the 
 handle of the dagger with unconscious violence. 
 " The vile, cowardly, thieving wretch ! But, no mat- 
 ter ; I will trap him yet, and make him regret the day 
 when he attempted to make a cat's-paw of my poor 
 boy!" 
 
 Every fibre of my being was thrilled and awake, 
 every nerve of my mind and body strung to its utter- 
 most, and anger such as I had rarely felt ran hot 
 through my veins. 
 
 " You little tigress," said the Duke, laying his hand 
 upon my shoulder. ' ' In doubt, abstain ' ; that is one of 
 the golden sayings of the world's wisdom. 'Act in 
 haste and repent at leisure ' is another. Listen : I 
 
 no
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 have provided you with the means of undoing Mah- 
 moud, if need arise; but do not move save in self- 
 defence, for it would be both dangerous and futile to 
 do so." 
 
 I instantly came to myself, the wise words of this 
 sagacious friend acting as a beneficent cold douche 
 upon my ridiculous outburst of fury. 
 
 "I entreat your forgiveness," I said, penitently. "I 
 have been awfully foolish to speak as I did, but the 
 meanness of the trick which I suspect that fellow of hav-^ 
 ing attempted to play on Fred was almost too much for 
 me. I see it all now. I suppose that he left the collar 
 purposely behind him so as to lay the fraud at my hus- 
 band's door if it was ever discovered, and that his anx- 
 iety and dismay were merely a part of the comedy he 
 played for my benefit." 
 
 "There is no reason whatsoever why he should not 
 still do so," coolly replied the Duke. 
 
 "That is true," I exclaimed. "If he dare! But I 
 may possibly put a spoke or two in his wheels," I con- 
 cluded, regaining my self-control in the face of pos- 
 sible nay, probable danger. 
 
 Outside the birds had ceased to twitter, the short 
 southern twilight was gradually fading into purple 
 shadows, and a galaxy of stars was budding forth in 
 the pale, turquoise-tinted sky, while under the trees, 
 now beginning to look like shapeless masses of sil- 
 vered shadow, the flowers were folding their petals in 
 fragrant slumber. 
 
 M. d'A . . . . t looked at me with a penetrating 
 glance which seemed to read all the secrets of my 
 soul, and said, with all his sweet, suave courtesy, and 
 in his very gentlest manner: 
 
 "You will, I am certain, be more than equal to the 
 task of holding Mahmoud in check; but do not forget, 
 
 in
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 whatever happens, that I was your father's friend and 
 your grandfather's, too and that I would consider it 
 both an honor and a privilege if I could be of service 
 to you in this matter or in any other." 
 
 "Thank you," I murmured, deeply moved. "You 
 were ever kind to me, and you may rest assured that I 
 will not forget. But now I must leave you, for it is 
 late, and they will be looking for me at home." 
 
 "Cannot you dine with me?" he asked, wistfully. 
 
 " I fear not," I replied ; " but if you will let me, I sjhall 
 come back soon and spend a whole day in this paradise 
 of yours. Ah, my dear Duke, how fortunate you are 
 to have left behind all the struggles and miseries of 
 youth youth which you call a boon, but which to 
 me has brought as yet little else than bitterness and 
 strife!" 
 
 "Poor child!" he said, softly; "poor, little, white- 
 pi umaged bird, made to keep aloof from dust and mud ! 
 You think the world a mere mass of affectation, hypoc- 
 risies, timorous shifts, and nauseating squalor. I 
 know! I know! But you are one of those born to 
 conquer, my dear, who can resist, can keep a tight 
 hold upon their own, and to whom honor, loyalty t 
 and duty are not empty words. You have chosen a 
 hard road to travel ; but you, with the blood of old Cru- 
 saders and heroes in your veins, can traverse it with- 
 out soiling your feet and without losing heart." 
 
 After a moment's pause he continued : " Forgive my 
 prosiness, and set it down to the natural loquacity 
 of a very old man and yes, come soon again. You 
 will show, in so doing, true kindness to one whose life 
 is now made up of half shades and of hazy sensations, 
 and whose joys are few and far between." 
 
 With a little, weary sigh he turned away from me 
 to ring the bell. Moved by an impulse, quite irresisti- 
 
 112
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ble in its sincerity, I took his wrinkled hand gently 
 in mine and reverently touched it with my lips, as 
 if he had been the grandfather whom his words had 
 just recalled to me. Then, without a word, I left 
 him. 
 
 As I rode away with a heavy heart and a very anx- 
 ious mind, I turned in my saddle to look at the vast 
 moonlit edifice which borrowed from this chastened 
 illumination a dignity and austerity not its own by 
 daylight, but, remembering the Duke's last words, I 
 straightened myself instinctively, and with a grate^ 
 ful thought for that wise and kind friend, started at a 
 swinging gallop down the flower-lined avenue. 
 
 "Our generation is born tired," I mused. "The 
 preceding ones were happier, for they believed in the 
 possibility of enjoyment; an illusion, no doubt, but 
 mightily cheering, at any rate, and one which helped 
 them to accomplish great and glorious deeds, where- 
 as" here Fidelio shied violently and swerved into a 
 magnificent border of scarlet salvia and wax -belled 
 stephanotis. 
 
 "Soh, boy soh! What's amiss?" I said, patting 
 the frightened horse's neck and extricating him from 
 the wrecked plants. 
 
 "Good-evening," interposed a mellifluous voice, and 
 a tall figure stepped out of the opposite thicket so un- 
 expectedly that I found it difficult to prevent my ner- 
 vous hunter from bolting. 
 
 " Who the devil are you, and what do you mean by 
 playing such pranks?" I cried, irritably, bending for- 
 ward to peer at the unwelcome disturber of my medita- 
 tions. 
 
 "I entreat your ladyship's pardon. I am Mon- 
 seigneur's secretary." 
 
 " Oh, that you, Xavier? Well, all I can say is that for 
 8 113
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 a sportsman of your pretensions you have a very queer 
 way of accosting skittish horses." 
 
 My patience scarcely endured the strain upon it, for 
 that man possessed the gift of exasperating me. He 
 was undoubtedly a very shrewd person slender, smil- 
 ing, plausible, and serene, gifted by fate with a singu- 
 larly keen eye as an offset to a chronically meagre 
 purse, and it was another trump in his hand that he 
 had the outward appearance of a gentleman, and could 
 lie like one, suavely, inscrutably, and stolidly, at a 
 moment's notice. 
 
 "I beg to reiterate my apologies. It was certainly 
 very rash of me to step into your path without warning, 
 but to an equestrienne of your exceptional merit scarce- 
 ly anything can really be dangerous." 
 
 "That's easy for you to say," I grumbled, with in- 
 creasing ill-humor. "And how is it that you are on 
 foot?" I added, absent-mindedly. "I thought you had 
 been to Cairo?" 
 
 " So I have," he replied, rubbing his hands together 
 softly. " I spent the entire afternoon in the bazaar, pric- 
 ing embroideries, ivories, enamels, cloisonnes, and 
 ah, yes! jewels for Monseigneur's collections, and I 
 think that I have struck a fair bargain or two." 
 
 "You always do!" I retorted, with quite unjustifi- 
 able asperity, and was about to pursue my road with a 
 nod, but the young factotum suddenly bent forward, 
 and to my intense surprise placed his hand familiarly 
 on Fidelio's neck. 
 
 "You do not like me, my lady, and yet at present, 
 perchance, I could serve you better than any one else, 
 and would willingly do so if you permitted it," he 
 murmured, looking up in my face with his glittering, 
 steel-blue eyes, which held something very like a men- 
 ace in their metallic depths. 
 
 114
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "My good Xavier," I said, gazing down at him with 
 considerable contempt, "I sincerely dislike mysteri- 
 ous statements of that description. If you have aught 
 of importance which it would be to your liking or in- 
 terest to communicate to me, well and good ; I am listen- 
 ing. But I am not aware of having ever sought your 
 assistance about my private affairs or encouraged 
 you to interest yourself in them, although I am, of 
 course, gratified by your evident desire to do so un- 
 asked." 
 
 "My lady/' dryly rejoined this strange individual, 
 " to you, if a horse be sound, he is sound ; if he is not 
 sound, he is not worth a shot. You do not deign to 
 confuse yourself with any more complex questions 
 than this one, and yet a horse not quite sound may 
 possess multiform qualities." 
 
 " Not in my opinion. My stable doctrines are form- 
 ed on narrower lines than yours. Allow me to prefer 
 mine and to wish you good-evening." 
 
 He drew back stiffly, evidently deeply offended, 
 bowed low, and stood, hat in hand, watching me as I 
 lightly touched Fidelio with the spur and set off at 
 a rapid gait. 
 
 "Ugh!" I said to myself, wrathfully; "you are the 
 kind of being who would kiss a leper's ulcers if that 
 leper could sign a check!" And, thoroughly disgusted, 
 I turned out of the avenue and picked my way along 
 the ill-kept, dusty road leading to the river. 
 
 Night had already fallen as I rode through the 
 streets of old Cairo, and it was very late when I at last 
 reached home. There I found a message left by Fred, 
 to the effect that he had again been summoned to the 
 palace, and would probably not return till late. 
 
 I dressed rapidly, dined with equal despatch, and 
 had just lighted my first cigarette and begun to 
 
 115
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 sip my coffee on the veranda when his carriage 
 drove up. 
 
 "Hello, Pussy!" he called out, jumping out and tak- 
 ing his portfolio from the attending kavass. "You 
 look the picture of comfort and placid enjoyment/' 
 Two steps at a time he ran up in his boyish way to 
 where I sat, and threw himself, more vigorously than 
 gracefully, on a long cane-chair. 
 
 "I have to go to Alexandria to-morrow, worse luck!" 
 he said, plaintively, throwing his head back and me- 
 chanically grasping the long glass, tinkling with ice, 
 which Sahla had slipped into its special receptacle in 
 the arm of the chair as his master approached. 
 
 " Hallo-e-e-e-e-e-Hallo-o-o-o ! " suddenly sounded from 
 far down the rhododendron path, the discordant syl- 
 lables rolling out upon the clear night air with star- 
 tling volume and distinctness. 
 
 " ' Yankee Doodle ' \" I whispered, smothering a laugh, 
 while Fred, on hospitality bent, lustily halloed back, 
 and rose to receive the Chevalier du Merite as I had 
 styled him ever since the decoration incident. Merry 
 and prosperous-looking as ever the Judge appeared, a 
 big palm-leaf fan in one hand, and his eternal high 
 silk hat which looked rather incongruous in conjunc- 
 tion with his evening-dress in the other, together 
 with a horse-tail fly -nicker, which he waved grace- 
 fully to and fro. He lounged against a pillar, and 
 said, truculently : 
 
 " I am going to give you a shock a bona-fide corker 
 of a shock." 
 
 "My dear Judge," I exclaimed, "spare me! I have 
 had already two distinct shocks to-day." 
 
 "Three's a lucky number," he pronounced, oracu- 
 larly, "so here goes: Your cousin Jerry is going to 
 Abyssinia at once!" 
 
 116
 
 NIGHT HAD ALREADY FALLEN AS I RODE THROUGH THE 
 STREETS OF OLD CAIRO"
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Oh, dear, how tiresome! Are you sure of what 
 you say? What on earth can possess him to do that?" 
 I asked, greatly annoyed, for Jerry was a dear, good, 
 lovable fellow, who would be missed, indeed, from our 
 little circle. 
 
 "Certain sure; and you should be glad, too, for he 
 is going to win new distinctions, this lucky and most 
 popular of young diplomats. I envy him his chance, 
 being myself very tired of playing the game of sit-down. 
 Don't look so lugubrious, fair lady, he is coming here 
 presently, and although your present expression of 
 profound dejection would undoubtedly be flattering to 
 his vanity, yet it would hardly cheer him on his way. " 
 
 Jerry or, rather, Gerald P . . . . 1 was a distant 
 cousin of mine, by reason of his being a lineal de- 
 scendant of the Marquis P .... 1 de P r, who 
 
 emigrated to England in 1794. At the time of which 
 I am writing Jerry was occupying the post of secretary 
 of the British Legation, where he was greatly appreci- 
 ated. Within a few months of joining the diplomatic 
 service the lad had found an opportunity of distinguish- 
 ing himself at Alexandria, where, as an attach6 of the 
 then English Envoy, Sir Edward M . . . . t, during the 
 bombardment, and the subsequent Anglo-Egyptian war, 
 he had displayed so much gallantry, discretion, and 
 zeal that at the close of the operations he had received 
 both the British war-medal and the khedivial bronze 
 star. He was now twenty-five years old, athletic, 
 stood six feet two in his stockings, and his high-bred 
 look, irresistible smile, and handsome, slightty aquiline 
 features, lighted by large, almond-shaped eyes of won- 
 derful softness and lustre, made up a more than ordi-. 
 narily attractive tout-ensemble. 
 
 He was also a crack polo-player, and captain of the 
 generally victorious team at the polo-grounds of Ghe- 
 
 117
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 zireh, a fact of which he was far prouder than of all 
 his diplomatic laurels. 
 
 When a few short years later he died miserably of 
 enteric fever, poor fellow, alone in his tent on the burn- 
 ing bosom of the wide desert where duty had once 
 again called him, those who loved him realized the force 
 of the line which says: 
 
 " Un seul etre est mart, et tout est depeuple." 
 
 As he sauntered up that night, his crimson cum- 
 merbund emphasizing the slenderness of his waist and 
 the unusual breadth of his shoulders under his dress- 
 coat, he looked the very embodiment of healthy, strong, 
 young manhood, but in spite of the new honors con- 
 ferred upon him he did not give one the impression of 
 being particularly happy. 
 
 "Good-evening, Jerry," Fred called out, leaning 
 over the balustrade. "You ever-conquering hero, 
 what is that we hear about Abyssinia?" 
 
 He hesitated, looking up with his head uncovered, 
 the moon shining fully upon him as he stood on the 
 gravel path, and showing the frown contracting his 
 straight, dark brows. Then he laughed a short, mirth- 
 less laugh. 
 
 " I see that our good Judge has told you about my 
 unexpected little trip," he said, slowly ascending the 
 broad, shallow steps. 
 
 "I did that same, dear and beloved sir. No offence 
 meant and none taken, I row?" 
 
 Jerry looked at him vacantly as if he had not heard 
 the words, and, bending over my hand in silence, sat 
 down on a pile of cushions at my feet. 
 
 "You do not wear your honors joyfully," quoth the 
 incorrigible Judge, more in sorrow than in reproach. 
 "How sober you look!" 
 
 118
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " There are many reasons for my regretting to leave 
 Cairo," he replied, calmly. "The polo season is not 
 finished, to begin with; and, moreover, my first trip 
 to Abyssinia was not of a nature to make a repetition 
 of it grateful. The journey from the Red Sea coast 
 to the camp of King John on the highlands was some- 
 thing of a treat, I confess, for it had at least the merit 
 of novelty ; but King John himself is not a personage 
 to whom one can get so deeply attached as to make 
 one yearn for a second sight of him." 
 
 " The resource and presence of mind, the endurance 
 and splendid courage which you displayed, should 
 constitute pleasant memories, at least," I said, gently; 
 " but it is realty too bad that you should be sent there 
 again so soon." 
 
 He did not answer, but his eyes dwelt on me for a 
 moment wistfully and sadly, all the merriness so cus- 
 tomary to him gone for the time being. 
 
 At that juncture Fred and the Judge retired to the 
 billiard-room, whence soon the click of the ivory balls 
 faintly reached us. Jerry rose abruptly. He looked 
 very pale, and nervously gnawed his small mustache. 
 
 " I am glad that Fred relieved us of that old donkey's 
 presence," he said, viciously, and with so complete a de- 
 parture from his usual nonchalant, good-natured man- 
 ner of speech that I looked up at him with extreme sur- 
 prise. The expression on his face yet further astonished 
 me, and I hesitated to say what rose to my lips. He 
 had spoken under his breath, leaning back against 
 the wall of the house; his eyes were cold and almost 
 stern, but I noticed that his lips trembled ever so slight- 
 ly. I glanced up at him again under my lashes, and a 
 dawning comprehension of what was going on in his 
 soul, and of his impatience at the momentary weakness 
 thrilling through his nerves, made it quite impossible 
 
 119
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 for me to speak. There was, however, a self-restraint 
 in his whole attitude which commanded my respect, 
 and I sat quietly awaiting his next words. At last he 
 broke a silence which was becoming, to say the least, a 
 little awkward. 
 
 " I am starting to-morrow morning," he said, brusque- 
 ly. " Wounded brutes always get away somewhere to 
 be unseen, and that is why I am, after all, glad to 
 go." 
 
 His tone was low, but absolutely calm and even. I 
 made a little gesture of deprecation, and gazed intently 
 at the tendrils of the Madeira vine swinging lightly in 
 the night breeze from the top of the glass marquise 
 above us, like the silver cordage of some fairy ship. 
 
 "I am afraid that it is selfish of me to say that," he 
 pursued, " for I am leaving you in a difficult, perhaps 
 a dangerous, situation. I fully realize that I am not 
 needed to swell the number of your courtiers, but I 
 had hoped to be of use to you at a moment of peril. 
 However, the choice is not in my hands. I may add 
 that this sudden departure costs me more than you 
 may think." 
 
 He paused a moment, breathing rapidly, and grasped 
 the back of my chair with his strong, sun -burned 
 hands. 
 
 " Listen, Muzzi. I wish you would promise me to be 
 prudent, at least. You .are reckless, and plucky to the 
 verge of folly, and you do not seem to realize that the 
 present state of affairs is not at all reassuring. You 
 know me too well to imagine that I am trying to alarm 
 you without due reason. Indeed, I am very much in 
 earnest, for I see how slender are your chances of thread- 
 ing without hurt the unusually intricate maze of 
 intrigue and treachery which surrounds Tewfik at 
 present." 
 
 120
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 With a sudden change of attitude and manner he 
 dropped on one knee beside me, and, taking my hand 
 in both of his, said, imploringly: 
 
 " Promise me that you will have a care how you rush 
 into danger." All his enforced composure was gone, 
 and his heart beat so loudly that it was positively 
 audible in the stillness around us. Softly I passed my 
 disengaged hand over his short-cropped curls, murmur- 
 ing, soothingly: 
 
 " I will promise, certainly ; but you must do the same, 
 my dear, for you are far more reckless than I am my- 
 self. You will be careful, too; won't you, dear old 
 boy?" 
 
 " I will, of course, if you like, but it matters so little 
 about me," he replied, wearily. 
 
 "It matters a great deal/' I exclaimed, indignantly. 
 " You should not say such things, Jerry." 
 
 He lifted his head, and for a second an expression of 
 doubt flitted over his countenance; then he rose and 
 stood irresolutely before me, as if puzzled what to do 
 next. 
 
 "I will go now," he said at last. "Bid Fred good- 
 night for me. No doubt he will be at the station to see 
 me off to-morrow, he is always so kind. But don't 
 you come. I do not think that I could quite bear it." 
 
 He straightened himself, squaring his shoulders 
 mechanically like a soldier on parade, and I, too, arose, 
 with a strange sensation of expectancy and dread:, fully 
 realizing that on those few last minutes and words 
 depended the possibility of our continuing to be in 
 the future the same good friends and comrades we 
 had been heretofore. Involuntarily I clasped my 
 hands together until the rings cut into the flesh, the 
 slight pain acting as a beneficent tonic to my aching 
 nerves. Light clouds were passing over the face of 
 
 121
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the moon, and, fortunately, it was almost dark where 
 we stood. In the distance the monotonous sound of a 
 taraboucka pulsated like faint, derisive laughter. 
 
 Suddenly he drew me towards him, kissed me hur- 
 riedly, and with a half articulate, "God bless you!" 
 was gone. 
 
 I remained quite motionless until the echo of his 
 footsteps had entirely died away; then I once more sat 
 down among the cushions and allowed my thoughts 
 to drift aimlessly where idle thoughts drift to. 
 
 When Fred and his guest joined me, an hour or so 
 later, I started up in surprise, for I had wellnigh lost all 
 notion of where I was. 
 
 "What has become of Jerry?" cried my lord. " Has 
 he left you all alone?' 
 
 "Yes," I retorted; "he asked me to bid you good- 
 night for him." 
 
 "He is a strange fellow," said the Judge, specula- 
 tively. "Now I would have thought that this emi- 
 nently poetical, flower-laden, moonlit spot, and such 
 company especially, would be enough to mobilize every 
 youngster in Cairo." 
 
 " Yes, he is a strange fellow," I echoed, involuntarily. 
 "He is so very honorable, you see!" 
 
 Fred's dark eyes were turned towards me, and I read 
 plainly in them, " I'm sorry the old chap is so tiresome 
 to-night, but I can't help it." 
 
 "Why did you send him away? Tell us that, dear- 
 est lady. Was he fresh?" pursued "Yankee Doodle." 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders impatiently. Never had 
 the poor Judge so put his foot in it. 
 
 " I did not send him away he went ; and really, my 
 dear Judge, you speak as if he were a counter-jumper 
 on a night's outing." 
 
 He looked at me good-humoredly, with a little, dubi-
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ous smile, and was about to make some further remark 
 when Fred forestalled him by asking if he had ever 
 heard how the Abyssinian King had presented to Jerry, 
 on his arrival at the royal camp, a superb robe of honor 
 made out of some choice material which Jerry himself 
 had brought to Abyssinia among the gifts of the Brit- 
 ish government to the King, and which had been stolen 
 from the baggage of the special embassy on its way 
 up country by some of his dusky Majesty's retain- 
 ers. This tickled the risible muscles of our genial 
 friend so exquisitely that he proceeded to arouse all 
 the discordant echoes that be with his uproarious laugh- 
 ter, but fortunately this outburst formed the grand 
 finale of his visit or, rather, "visitation" and he 
 almost immediately departed, for which dispensation 
 of Providence I was proportionately thankful. 
 
 When Fred came back from taking him to the garden 
 gate he gently put his arm about me. 
 
 "My poor little girl!" he said. 
 
 On the following afternoon Fred left for Alexandria 
 on the Khedive's business, and at eight o'clock in the 
 evening I drove to the Russian Legation, where there 
 were "a few people" to dinner viz., half a hundred 
 distinguished personages crowded into a dining-room 
 which could conveniently hold twenty. The func- 
 tion was a semi-official one in honor of some royalties 
 travelling incognito, else I should have sent excuses, 
 feeling neither very well nor very happy ; but, as it was, 
 I had to submit to partial suffocation and to infinite 
 boredom with as good a grace as I could summon to 
 my assistance, all the more so as His Excellency Mr. 
 
 H o, being a widower, and none of the secretaries 
 
 married, I had been asked to do the honors a circum- 
 stance which by no means increased my pleasurable 
 interest in the occurrences of the evening. 
 
 123
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 As I approached, the unshuttered windows of the 
 house were glistening with light, filtered through thick- 
 ets of pomegranate and myrtle, and shining on the 
 marble perron carpeted with crimson and screened by 
 pink-and-white striped awnings. In another moment 
 
 H o was welcoming me with the genuine pleasure 
 
 which a lonely bachelor naturally feels at shifting his 
 responsibilities upon experienced feminine shoulders 
 upon an occasion of some social interest and public 
 importance. I hastily glanced at the dining-room and 
 salons, inspected the menu, superintended a few trifling 
 alterations, and then joined my host and fellow-sufferer 
 in the drawing-room a few minutes before the arrival 
 of the guests. 
 
 The dinner w r as gay, and even brilliant, but to me it 
 seemed amazingly tedious, and when we rose from 
 table I breathed a fervent inward prayer that all these 
 good people should soon depart and seek the seclusion 
 of their own dwelling-places. About eleven o'clock 
 they finally decided to do so, and I was at liberty 
 to bestow myself and my primrose -and -silver semi- 
 court dress, edged with lilies and gardenias, in my 
 brougham, which I did with a curt order to the coach- 
 man to " drive fast," delivered in a tone he knew so well 
 that the horses fairly flew down one avenue, up an- 
 other, and stopped at my own perron within the mini- 
 mum of possible time. 
 
 The house was silent, and nobody in sight excepting 
 Sahla, waiting in the hall, and my head woman, who, 
 when I entered, rose sleepily from a chair in my dress- 
 ing-room, for I have always disliked to keep the entire 
 household up when I go out, thinking it infinitely pref- 
 erable to return to a quiet, silent home, where carefully 
 shaded lamps burn low, than to a fatiguing^ wide- 
 awake, dazzlingly illuminated place, differing in noth- 
 
 124
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ing from the one just left excepting that it is one's 
 own. 
 
 Once undressed, and robed in a loose gown of China 
 silk, very cool and pleasant, I dismissed Johanna, and, 
 lying on the lounge of the veranda upon which my 
 bedroom opened, turned my attention to a cup of iced 
 tea which she had placed at my elbow. 
 
 The night w r as yet another of those indescribably 
 magnificent Oriental displays of brilliant moonshine 
 and starlight, perfumed breezes, and soothing silence, 
 which it is hopeless to seek anywhere but in the land 
 where the lotus blooms. 
 
 I lay almost motionless, watching the saffron-col- 
 ored roses and belles de nuit garlanding the fluted pil- 
 lars in front of me, as they swayed gently in the caress- 
 ing waves of air blowing over lemon and magnolia 
 groves straight from the limitless desert. 
 
 Not feeling sleepy, and remembering with some 
 compunction that I had not looked at the evening mail, 
 I rose, and, lighting a small lantern, stepped into the 
 central hall and walked towards the chajicellerie a 
 large, low-ceiled room, where Fred's secretary and clerks 
 worked in the mornings and afternoons. For some 
 unexplained reason, instead of following the veranda 
 I took the longer way, which led through the body of 
 the house to the left wing, and my footsteps mak- 
 ing no sound whatever on the thick Persian rugs car- 
 peting every inch of the marble floor, I passed on as 
 silently as a ghost, absorbed in my own thoughts and 
 looking neither to right nor left. 
 
 Suddenly, as I neared the small side-door leading 
 from the private apartments into the chancellerie, a 
 slight metallic click, like the gentle fall of steel upon 
 steel, arrested my attention, and I stopped short, in- 
 stinctively closing the slide of my lantern as I did so. 
 
 125
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 The narrow hall was but faintly illuminated by stray 
 moonbeams filtering through the stained glass of a 
 distant window, and as soon as the clear gleam of the 
 lantern was quenched I perceived a dim streak steadily 
 shining under the little door I had just been on the 
 point of opening. 
 
 "Luigi Effendi!" I muttered, through clinched teeth. 
 
 Noiselessly I ran back to my room, picked up a loaded 
 revolver from a table near the bed, and, returning quick- 
 ly, thrust the door wide. 
 
 Bending over a desk sat the treacherous secretary, 
 his tarboush pushed back from his forehead, upon which 
 the rays of a heavily shaded reading-lamp fell squarely. 
 The iron safe containing all the secret documents stood 
 wide open, a small bunch of keys depending from the 
 lock, the blinds were all carefully drawn over the win- 
 dows, and, excepting for the white circle of light encom- 
 passing the desk and the safe, the vast chamber was 
 filled with gloom. 
 
 So absorbed was the man in his work that he did not 
 notice the slight friction of the door against the carpet, 
 and, bending forward, I saw that he was transcribing 
 with the skill and facility of long habit a ciphered de- 
 spatch, the narrow, blue envelope of which, cleverly 
 opened without leaving a trace of the operation on its 
 glossy surface, being placed as a marker across the 
 code which he was constantly consulting, and which 
 rested against a revolver of large calibre. 
 
 The blood leaped to my face with disgust at the sight. 
 I abhor dramatic situations, but this, such as it was, 
 left no scope for anything but violence, so, levelling 
 the muzzle of my weapon at the head of the unsuspect- 
 ing man, I said, in a low voice: 
 
 "Throw up your hands, Luigi Effendi, and do not 
 move an inch or I will fire at you," 
 
 126
 
 " ' THROW UP YOUR HANDS, LUIGI EFFENDI ' '
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 His hands, I am bound to say, went up with consid- 
 erable promptness, and the face which he had raised 
 convulsively from his writing at my sudden interpella- 
 tion grew absolutely ghastly in its cowardly agony 
 of terror and baffled rage; but he managed to restrain 
 both feelings, and in a cringing voice, which trem- 
 bled sorely in spite of himself, he cried out : 
 
 "Don't shoot! For God's sake, don't shoot I It is all 
 a mistake. I am doing some secret work for my lord 
 nothing but my duty as his confidential secretary. 
 Why should you kill me for it?" 
 
 "You contemptible liar!" I said, losing all patience. 
 "None of that, if you please. I have long suspected 
 you, and I know whose pay you receive for your dirty 
 work. To be shot down like the dog you are is all you 
 deserve. So don't tempt me. " 
 
 "Madame! Madame!" he implored, great beads of 
 perspiration starting on his livid face, "have mercy 
 and I will tell you all. Indeed, indeed, I was forced 
 into this against my will. I dared not disobey. It is 
 the truth, as God hears me." 
 
 "Don't talk of God," I commanded, and, still cover- 
 ing him with my revolver, I stepped up to the table, 
 appropriated his pistol with my disengaged hand, and 
 sat down opposite to him on a high office-stool. " How 
 long have you been pursuing this honorable course?" 
 I continued. "Answer. It is useless to conceal any- 
 thing now, for you are entirely in my power, and I 
 am not minded to show you anything but the strict- 
 est justice." 
 
 The rogue saw that his game was up, and with truly 
 Italian suppleness he then and there made a full con- 
 fession, incriminating his accomplices as much as he 
 could, of course. When he ceased speaking I said, 
 curtly : 
 
 127
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Write down and sign everything you have just 
 told me. When that is done, you will leave the coun- 
 try at once and return to Italy. If you refuse to obey 
 me I will alarm the household and hand you over to 
 the police. Take your choice." 
 
 His decision was a foregone conclusion, and his 
 zeal to obey the first part of my order really admirable. 
 When he had covered several sheets of closely written 
 paper with his splendidly legible chirography and 
 was about to sign his name to them I intervened. " Wait 
 a moment/' I said; "we want a witness to this. You 
 are far too slippery a fish to be trusted in so much as a 
 single particular," and, bending forward, I touched the 
 button of the electric-bell communicating with the room 
 of my confidential Austrian valet de chambre, who for 
 the past eight years had proved to be the trustiest and 
 most loyal of creatures in many trying circumstances. 
 
 During the few minutes which elapsed before he re- 
 sponded to the call a dead silence reigned. Luigi 
 Effendi, still of a cadaverous pallor, leaned his head upon 
 his trembling hand, and with downcast eyes and ner- 
 vously twitching lips looked the picture of abject and 
 degrading submission, while I continued to sit erect on 
 the tall seat I had chosen, facing him, with one revolver 
 in my fist and the other lying across my lap, unpleas- 
 antly conscious of the ridiculous figure I must be cut- 
 ting in my self-appointed r61e of Lord High Execu- 
 tioner. I could not help thinking, too, of the preceding 
 evening, and of dear old Jerry's words about the dan- 
 gers which might come my way. 
 
 " He was right," I mused, " for had that craven half- 
 breed kept his head when I first entered, how easily he 
 might have turned the tables on me." 
 
 These retrospective meditations were here interrupted 
 by the entrance of my good Paul, whose hasty attempt 
 
 128
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 at making himself presentable had produced such an 
 incongruous combination of bright pink pyjamas and 
 swallow-tail coat that I could hardly repress a burst of 
 unseasonable merriment. When he caught sight of the 
 scene before him, however, he changed with surprising 
 quickness from the ludicrous to the tragic, and his 
 well-cut, somewhat stern features, at first almost petri- 
 fied by the extremity of his astonishment, assumed so 
 forbidding and menacing an expression that I instinc- 
 tively jumped up and threw myself before my prisoner, 
 who, shuddering from head to foot with renewed ter- 
 ror, cowered in a huddled heap across the desk. 
 
 "Paul," I said, in French, "all this must remain 
 secret excepting in the case of any disobedience or sign 
 of insubordination on the part of this fellow. I have 
 summoned you here to witness his confession, and 
 also to take absolute charge of him." 
 
 Not a muscle of my worthy attendant's face moved. 
 He merely faced around, standing at attention like a 
 soldier before his commanding officer, his keen gray 
 eyes fixed upon me with alert and intelligent compre- 
 hension, but showing plainly, in the almost ferocious 
 tension of his whole attitude, that should I order him to 
 pounce upon the wretched Effendi and to tear him limb 
 from limb without further formality, he would obey 
 without the slightest hesitation, not to say with joyful 
 alacrity. 
 
 Turning to Luigi, who seemed on the very point of 
 fainting, I pointed towards the pen, which had dropped 
 from his nerveless fingers, and bent over him until he 
 had affixed both name and date to the document, which, 
 used by me in the right quarter, would in all prob- 
 ability cost him his life. This accomplished, I bade 
 Paul go and terminate his toilet, pack a valise for 
 himself, and then return to me as soon as he could. 
 9 129
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "In the meanwhile I will remain on guard here/' I 
 concluded. 
 
 "My lady/' whispered Paul, beseechingly, "please 
 allow me to summon Sahla. He is devoted to your 
 ladyship's service, and would not betray his trust 
 even under torture. I cannot bear to leave your lady- 
 ship with this criminal." 
 
 "You have known me long enough, Paul, to avoid 
 making such a blunder as to offer me a garde du corps," 
 I replied, sternly, though I felt more like laughing 
 than striking heroic attitudes, and I added, emphati- 
 cally, " Sputen Sie sich." 
 
 The familiar Viennese colloquialism had the instan- 
 taneous effect of making Paul back out of the room 
 with extraordinary celerity, pink pyjamas, swallow- 
 tail coat, and all. That exit would have made the fort- 
 une of any comedian privileged to copy it from life. 
 
 With equal speed he returned, clad in a faultless 
 morning-suit, and carrying in his hand a pith helmet 
 which he was inordinately proud of sporting when off 
 duty, thinking, no doubt, that it added a distinguished 
 and Oriental finish to his appearance. The night was 
 by now far advanced, and a peculiar creamy quality 
 in the air coming in through the windows, which had 
 long ere this been thrown open, heralded the advent of 
 dawn. 
 
 "Paul," I said, "you will now accompany Luigi 
 Effendi home, and superintend the packing up of his 
 goods and chattels. Then take him to Alexandria 
 and engage passage for him on the steamer which 
 leaves for Brindisi to-morrow. On no account, how- 
 ever, are you to lose sight of him for a single instant 
 until the packet weighs anchor, and if he attempts any 
 trick you will please not hesitate to call the police to 
 your assistance. I will give you a letter which you can 
 
 130
 
 use as your credentials in case such a thing happens. 
 As to you," I continued, addressing myself to the half- 
 breed, whose discomfiture was complete, "you under- 
 stand that if you venture to disobey my orders, not 
 only will you be transferred to the custody of the au- 
 thorities, but your confession will be handed by me to 
 your accomplices, who are not likely to show you much 
 mercy." 
 
 Then, a sudden thought presenting itself to my mind, 
 I demanded: "Is your wife in Cairo?" 
 
 " No, my lady. Fortunately she is in Italy visiting 
 her friends who are," he added, with something of his 
 past bumptiousness and singularly ill-placed vanity, 
 "high and noble people." 
 
 " I am delighted to hear it, in your interest," was my 
 slightly scornful and sarcastic rejoinder. "It is to 
 be hoped, however, that they will not find out any- 
 thing about your present little difficulty, as it might 
 alter the flattering opinion they doubtless entertain 
 with regard to you. Paul will hand you at the 1 tst a 
 sum of money sufficient to defray your travelling and 
 other expenses, but do not attempt to come back to 
 Egypt until I myself have left the country for good and 
 all. And, furthermore, I will have you shadowed, and 
 I am in a position to make matters extremely unpleas- 
 ant for you should you be so lamentably imprudent 
 as to play me false a second time." 
 
 I then gave Paul Luigi's revolver, motioned him to 
 take my place, and left the room to get the money and 
 letter which were needful for his carrying out of my 
 orders. Thirty minutes later I had the gratification of 
 seeing my dejected captive slinking towards the gate 
 with the crestfallen mien of a "fox caught by a hen," 
 the tall, forbidding form of my Austrian delegate, re- 
 volver in hand, towering above his cowering figure.
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "A good job done!" I remarked to myself, yawning 
 desperately and stretching my cramped limbs, for I 
 was beginning to feel the effect of this impromptu bit 
 of detective work. For a few minutes I stood on the 
 steps gazing at the delicate flush of the eastern sky, 
 so faint and shadowy as yet that it seemed but a scarf 
 of silken gauze cast across the paling stars, and then, 
 suddenly recalling the extraordinary threat which 
 Paul had murmured to his prisoner as they walked 
 side by side from the house, all the laughter pent up 
 during the night by reason of my own more than 
 necessarily idiotic position shook me from head to 
 foot like an aspen-leaf, weak tears coursing down my 
 face the while. 
 
 That one sentence of Paul's, assuredly not meant for 
 my ears, had done the trick. It was good. "Mind 
 you, I am poisonous when I spread myself," that re- 
 markable and eloquent linguist had said, "and don't 
 forget, you bung-eyed mongrel, that if you so much as 
 stir a finger without my permission I'll shoot you twice 
 over so as to keep my end up, and set fire to your beard 
 afterwards." 
 
 Down I sank on the lowest step, laughing until my 
 sides ached. A large Judas-tree close by, shaken by 
 the rising breeze, scattered its magenta-hued blossoms 
 in showers upon my head, and one of my pet flamin- 
 goes on his early rounds, attracted by the sound of 
 my uncontrollable mirth, stopped short and gazed 
 with such solemn disapproval at me that I grew quite 
 ashamed of myself and sought the seclusion of my 
 room, where I at last fell asleep just as the fiery orb of 
 the rising sun was transforming the awakening world 
 into a glory of molten gold.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 There lived in the land of the Nile 
 A clever and bad crocodile, 
 
 Whose boiler-plate mail 
 
 And umbrageous tail 
 Brought all things his way for a while. 
 
 But his merry and cynical smile 
 
 Took a hook down one day half a mile; 
 
 He was hauled with a yank 
 
 To the flowery bank, 
 And this was the end of his guile. 
 
 M. M. 
 
 THE sun was near its setting as I drove that after- 
 noon to meet Fred at the station, the red tulips were 
 glowing bravely in the Ezbekieh Gardens under a 
 sky violet like the cup of an anemone, and the military 
 band in the kiosk was playing the khedivial hymn 
 with a lavish clamor of brass to which my mettlesome 
 bays, Castor and Pollux, seemed inclined to object. 
 A long and peaceful sleep the result of a good con- 
 science, no doubt had, however, fully refreshed me, 
 and a gentle but firm tightening of the reins reduced 
 them to instant obedience. It was always a pleasure 
 to me, when I was my own charioteer, to watch the 
 graceful, airy flight of my stalwart sdises in front of 
 the horses. With their long, flowing white sleeves, loose 
 white breeches, gold-broidered azure vests, and gorgeous 
 silken sashes wound round their slim waists in sculpt- 
 ural folds, they scarcely seemed to touch the ground 
 
 i33
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 with the tips of their bronze-hued feet as they sped along 
 together, without any apparent effort, the very em- 
 bodiment of lightness and elasticity. To-day their 
 wonderfully long, easy steps were somewhat impeded 
 by the unusual concourse of people all along the boule- 
 vards, waddling on foot or trotting on donkey -back 
 with as little industrial effort or apparent object as so 
 many unclean street-flies a good-tempered, dirty, un- 
 improvable tribe, on their way to a great religious 
 ceremony beyond the old Mooskie. 
 
 Just as I was about to turn into the avenue leading 
 to the terminus, three tall, sleek white donkeys hove 
 in sight, bearing as many huge balloon-like bundles 
 of black silk surmounted by impervious veils, through 
 which only bright eyes were perceptible. In other 
 words, it was a small detachment of harem beauties, 
 escorted by eunuchs and riding astride like men, as 
 two tiny yellow shoes hammering merrily away on 
 either side of each costly steed conclusively proved. 
 
 Unfortunately a long string of laden camels, with 
 their serpent-like necks and crests swaying supercili- 
 ously high in the air, and grunting hoarse and wrath- 
 ful grunts, swung their ungainly bulks and burdens 
 straight in the path of the aristocratic white asses. 
 There was a collision, a shriek, a twinkle of the afore- 
 said small shoes in the air, and the foremost of the fair 
 riders abruptly forsook her saddle to wallow most un- 
 gracefully upon a neighboring heap of unsavory refuse. 
 
 At once there was wild confusion. The crowd rushed 
 to the rescue, for there was backsheesh in sight. Every- 
 body fell foul of everybody else, turbans and tarboushes 
 bobbed, and galabiehs flapped on this side and that; 
 there was pulling, hauling, shoving, and punching, 
 cursing and shouting galore, while high over all the 
 din rose the shrill, soprano vociferations of the indignant 
 
 134
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 eunuchs and the frightened yells of the prostrate lady, 
 who doubtless expected (and with good reason) to be 
 trampled by her would-be rescuers. 
 
 I had all I could do to manage my almost stampeding 
 horses with the help of the sdises, who had immediately 
 jumped to their heads, and began to fear that the time 
 of my lord's arrival would be past before the road 
 should be cleared of the wildly gesticulating mob, when 
 a familiar sound reached me through the tumult 
 " Hallo-e-e-e-e-Hallo-o-o "the war-cry of my friend 
 the Judge! 
 
 Glancing about, I saw a large, white gingham um- 
 brella rising and falling with flail-like regularity on the 
 outskirts of the throng, which suddenly swayed and 
 broke, and down through "lanes of shouting" dashed 
 a champion indeed. Mounted on a knock-kneed little 
 donkey, so small as to be concealed beneath his portly 
 form, save for four tiny hoofs and two enormous and 
 intelligent ears, " Yankee Doodle," in his inevitable silk 
 hat, careered along, hammering right and left with his 
 umbrella, and discharging volleys of explosive English 
 and vernacular oaths. Three other donkey-riders of 
 his acquaintance followed at his heels, and this little 
 cavalry squad drove the crowd in truly gallant style. 
 In a twinkling the dismounted lady was picked up and 
 restored to her affrighted guardians, the tumult had 
 melted away, the guilty camels were defiling down a 
 side street, and my road lay clear to the railway station. 
 
 I was hardly able to speak for laughing, and the. 
 thanks I attempted to offer to the Chevalier du Merite 
 were utterly lost, for his tiny charger, seeing himself in 
 possession of the field, gave vent to the hard, dry see- 
 saw of a victorious bray, which, taken up by all his 
 fellow-laborers with spirited unanimity, surpassed any 
 outburst of donkey music I had ever heard before. But 
 
 i35
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the climax of the ludicrous was reached a moment later, 
 when the Judge's donkey-boy, proud of his animal's 
 share in the exploit, fell to patting and caressing the 
 long -eared one, crooning, in a fluent monotone, 
 " Goodee donkey Lilly Langtry, a goodee bravee don- 
 key, muchee better you than big white ass, muchee 
 better than Sarah Bernhardt, muchee better than " 
 Here the Europeans interfered for the relief of their 
 aching sides, and, with a helpless nod of farewell, I 
 signed to the sdises to give the horses their heads, and 
 pursued my way at a rapid pace. 
 
 The station was, as usual, packed with amateur and 
 professional beggars yelling hoarsely for backsheesh, 
 soldiers just enlisted squatting on their haunches with 
 long sticks of sugar-cane protruding from their thick, 
 brown lips, perspiring Europeans, and old Arabs clad 
 in blue linen in short, with that fantastic pell-mell, 
 that incongruous blending of many races that will 
 touch but never truly mingle, which constitutes the 
 passing throng in Eastern cities of modern times. 
 
 I alighted, and, preceded by my groom, who shoul- 
 dered a way through the crowd, passed on to the plat- 
 form, where some English staff officers, all a-glitter with 
 gold lace, were grouped around Lady B . . . . g, the 
 British Resident's charming and popular wife. She 
 also was awaiting her husband, and held by the hand 
 her youngest boy, a lovely and fragile-looking child in 
 a violet-velvet suit, with a cloud of pale, corn-colored 
 hair framing his delicate little face. 
 
 With a gurgling and prolonged whistle the train 
 pulled up, panting and puffing painfully, and disgorged 
 its hot and dusty passengers. Fred and Sir E . . . . n 
 B . . . . g were among the first to appear, presenting the 
 inevitable sorry spectacle which a long ride through 
 the desert insures without the possibility of escape, the 
 
 136
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 powdery sand drifting in through the crevices of the 
 closed windows and covering the hapless traveller with 
 a coating of yellow, impalpable grime. 
 
 While driving home along the disagreeably Parisian- 
 ized boulevards, where once the branches of the stately 
 sycamores planted by Mehemet-Ali waved their lux- 
 uriant branches, we talked of indifferent subjects, the 
 presence of the groom making it impossible for me to let 
 Fred into the unsavory and unfathomable mysteries of 
 Oriental wiliness exemplified by the late doings of 
 Luigi Effendi ; but as soon as we reached the seclusion 
 of our abode I placed him in possession of the facts. 
 These made his eyes open rather wider than usual 
 and his temper fray at the edges, like a sorely tried 
 garment. 
 
 For over an hour he vituperated, striding up and down 
 the floor in the height of exasperation, while I heroi- 
 cally refrained from capping the climax by pronounc- 
 ing those words so dear to the heart of woman, the 
 crushing " I told you so!" 
 
 At last, quite exhausted, he accepted my suggestion 
 of turning his attention to his bath and toilet, but before 
 leaving the room he suddenly walked up to me where 
 I sat idly playing with the ears of Ali Baba, and, 
 putting his hand on my shoulder, exclaimed : 
 
 "Thank you for your generosity and forbearance, 
 Pussy. Unlike other good women, you do not make 
 of your virtues and excellencies a sheaf of poisoned 
 arrows for the destruction of those less sagacious than 
 yourself. God deliver me from such! I'd rather deal 
 with sinners who have put a foot through every precept 
 of the Decalogue. There's some sympathy in them 
 at least, sometimes ! " 
 
 I burst out laughing. " Oh, get along with you, my 
 dearest boy! " I exclaimed. " Dismiss all these annoy-
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ances from your head for the present ; you are due at 
 Abdeen at half-past nine, and it is now forty-five min- 
 utes after seven. Do you want the chef to commit 
 suicide, like Vatel, because your dinner will have been 
 spoiled by waiting?" 
 
 I had never seen him so fully roused or so reckless in 
 denunciation of his difficult position, and I was propor- 
 tionately worried. His violence had spent itself, but 
 I, knowing him as I did, felt that there was some real 
 menace and stern meaning in this tranquillity follow- 
 ing so closely upon it. 
 
 "I told you long ago," he said, smiling slightly and 
 a little bitterly, " that your life with me would not be a 
 bed of roses. I suppose that you realize the vejacity of 
 my words now." 
 
 " Fred," I replied, sharply, for I was really beginning 
 to be annoyed, " I must beg you not to talk in this way. 
 When I regret having married you I will tell you so 
 quite frankly, you may be sure 1 For the present we 
 have no time for such useless vaporings, so go and 
 get dressed and let me do likewise," I concluded, in a 
 lighter tone. 
 
 "You are certainly an extraordinary woman," he 
 murmured, as he kissed my hand, and with that he 
 left me. 
 
 Late that evening I stood by one of the open windows 
 of the billiard-room looking out upon the shadowy gar- 
 dens, and listening to the peaceful splashing of the 
 fountains in the artificial ponds under the trees. I 
 had sent word to the boob that I would be at home for 
 nobody, knowing that Fred would be anxious to talk 
 the incidents of the last forty-eight hours over with 
 me when he came back from the palace. 
 
 But the hours passed on and he did not come. 
 
 Evening became night, the great clock in the main 
 
 138
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 hall struck the half after eleven, and the air, laden with 
 the sweet breath of millions of native hyacinths hiding 
 amid the underbrush, had grown perceptibly colder 
 before he at length arrived, looking pale and weary, but 
 with a singular and almost mischievous expression in 
 his eyes. He carried in both hands, as if it were exces- 
 sively heavy, a coarse canvas bag, at which I looked 
 with undisguised surprise. The low, cushioned win- 
 dow-seat where I sat was littered with my fan, my cig- 
 arette-case, an open book, and a cluster of tea-roses, 
 all of which my lord unceremoniously swept away; 
 then with a smart jerk he upset his ungainly burden, 
 and a shower of gold pieces more than a thousand, 
 as I found out afterwards came down with a musical 
 clatter upon the silk of the cushions. 
 
 For a moment I gazed in silence at the glittering 
 heap, from which the lamps burning over the billiard- 
 table coaxed forth subdued rays of tawny mellowness ; 
 then, mastering my curiosity, for I always enjoyed 
 teasing Fred a little, I said, sweetly: 
 
 " The banks stay open late to-night, dear or did you 
 bring this from Alexandria as a surprise for me?" 
 
 "Is that all you find to say?" he exclaimed, almost 
 resentfully. "Well, I can at least surprise you in 
 another way." Then, making a dramatic pause, as 
 is de rigueur for any eloquent orator before heaving a 
 particularly impressive argument at the heads of his 
 audience, he cried : 
 
 " We start this very day for England, and yon yellow 
 stuff represents my personal travelling expenses, as 
 handed me half an hour ago by Tewfik Khedive him- 
 self. Now what do you say to that?" 
 
 "Very handsome of him, I'm sure," I answered, per- 
 versely, running my fingers through the small moun- 
 tain of golden disks. But noticing that poor Fred 
 
 i39
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 who was still sometimes very boyish in his ways really 
 felt crestfallen at my unfeeling acceptation of his little 
 coup-de-the&tre, I looked up at him merrily, and, hold- 
 ing out several of the pieces towards him, I said : " Look, 
 old boy, the Viceroy must be getting rather poor for a 
 crowned head. He's dug down near to the original 
 floor of his treasure-vault, and has surely struck the 
 stratum laid down by his great-great-grandfather, for 
 many of these things are apparently Jacobuses and 
 old Georges, worth their face value several times over!" 
 
 "Is that so?" he replied, striding to the lamp, coins 
 in hand, and then we both laughed like children at an 
 episode so very Oriental and out of the common, al- 
 though I myself was seriously vexed at the prospect 
 of another breathless flight over two continents and 
 as many tossing seas, and all, most probably, for a 
 wild-goose chase, as was usually the case for those 
 journeying on Tewfik's errands. 
 
 There was, of course, no sleep for us that night. 
 The household was aroused, and all was at once bustle 
 and preparation. When I at last, after untold fatigues, 
 finally emerged from my dressing-room clothed for the 
 journey, Fred came up, carrying the ridiculous-looking 
 canvas-bag. 
 
 "Oh, Pussy," he said, desperately, "how are we to 
 carry that dead weight? We cannot very well trust it 
 to the servants travelling with us. Sahla is staying 
 here to mind the place during our absence, and Paul, 
 to whom I have wired, will only meet us at Alexandria. 
 I can stow but a small portion of the contents about my 
 own person. What am I to do with the rest?" 
 
 I pondered for a minute, and then fetched from my 
 room a small satchel of white levantine morocco hang- 
 ing from a platinum-clasped belt of the same material, 
 which was one of my favorite travelling adjuncts, and, 
 
 140
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 emptying it hastily, filled it to the brim with the golden 
 guineas and louis from the canvas sack. The weight 
 was a heavy one, but little did I care, for, to begin with, 
 I would hardly be called upon to walk more than a few 
 steps at a time, as we jumped from carriages to trains 
 and from trains to steamers; and, moreover, I knew 
 that I was perfectly equal to carrying it had it been 
 double its present respectable bulk. 
 
 As we drove, an hour later, through all the sunshine 
 and stillness and fragrance of the gardens, beneath 
 the arched splendor of the rose avenue and the long 
 aisle of berceaux, garlanded with pink and saffron hued 
 banskia in full flower, I heaved a deep sigh of regret, 
 for I knew that when we returned the fierce heat of 
 summer would have scorched all that delicate loveli- 
 ness into ashy sereness and decay. I disliked very 
 much, just then, the idea of exchanging my admirably 
 ordained and delicious Cairene home for the bustle and 
 hurry and discomforts of hotels, my dignified and 
 soft-footed Oriental servants for the English " Jeames," 
 the French "Jeans," or the Italian "Giovannis" of 
 commerce, and the soft and balmy air of Egypt for the 
 raw east winds and sour, rain-laden skies of northern 
 Europe. 
 
 Before long we reached the sordid-looking station 
 in a cloud of dust which made the horses snort impa- 
 tiently, and in a few minutes more were on the plat- 
 form in the heart of a howling mob of Arabs and Lev- 
 antines of every conceivable breed, which fell back 
 reluctantly at the earnest and " striking " solicitations 
 of our kavasses. Sahla registered our luggage of 
 which there was not much for so hurried a trip 
 finally entering into a violent altercation with one of 
 the railway's officials about the position of the saloon 
 carriage reserved for us. His voice, for once raised in 
 
 141
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 genuine anger high above the deafening clamor of the 
 crowd, caused Fred to hand me quickly into the train 
 and to run over to the spot where they were wildly ges- 
 ticulating. 
 
 Unspeakable was the noise, the glare, the flies, and 
 the ceaseless shrieking for backsheesh of the impish and 
 filthy little vendors patrolling the platform with their 
 goolahs of water, their baskets of oranges and fresh 
 dates, and their wilted bouquets of discouraged mag- 
 nolias and gardenias. I gazed amusedly at the ever- 
 changing scene, grew interested in a free fight between 
 two abominably dirty boys for the possession of a small 
 coin, and finally became so absorbed in my own 
 thoughts that I did not at first notice that we were 
 gently gliding out of the station. It was only the sight 
 of the wonderful varieties of verdure spread over the 
 map-like stretch of table-land surrounding the city, and 
 over which camels and greasy water-oxen were patient- 
 ly plodding with their half-naked fellaheen drivers be- 
 side them, that made me turn to see where Fred was 
 hiding himself. I glanced about the velvet-upholstered 
 salon, but it was empty save for my own personal and 
 special attendant, Mohammed Yousuf, who stood on 
 duty behind me motionless as a statue in his flowing 
 white draperies, with hands folded over the hilt of the 
 formidable yataghan stuck in his silken belt. 
 
 "Where is your master?" I asked of him. "Is he 
 in the smoking-carriage?" 
 
 With true Oriental impassiveness he replied, not a 
 muscle of his dark face moving as he spoke : " My lord 
 came just in time to be too late, Allah's will be done, 
 Maleshl" I stared at him thunderstruck; then the 
 gravity of the situation dawning upon me, I made him 
 fetch the conductor in charge of the train, and when 
 that worthy presented himself, salaaming with becom- 
 
 142
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ing humility, my worst suspicions were confirmed, for, 
 as I had thought, there would be no other train leaving 
 Cairo that would reach Alexandria before the sailing of 
 the mail-steamer for Brindisi. This was, indeed, a nice 
 dilemma. "God send that he may think of a special 
 train!" I muttered, fervently. "Tewfik's gold pieces 
 will be seriously diminished thereby, but, as Mohammed 
 Yousuf says, Malesh." 
 
 We were now swiftly rushing over lonely tracts 
 of land towards Kaffir-Azzayat. From among the 
 reeds and yellowing grasses by the side of the track 
 plovers were rising, and I sat by a window, watching 
 vacantly the play of the sunshine upon the waving 
 foliage of the fields of sugar-cane or corn, which made 
 great patches of intense verdure upon the dun-colored 
 ground. The carriage was darkened from the pierc- 
 ing light without, and in its twilight the gleam of Mo- 
 hammed's eyes and dazzling white teeth were alone 
 discernible, as he plied a huge feather fly-chaser with 
 untiring diligence, his voluminous muslin sleeve fall- 
 ing and rising like the pinion of a soaring frigate bird. 
 
 At last we reached Kaffir-Azzayat, and, anxious to 
 wire back to Cairo in order to find out whether or not 
 Fred would be in time for the steamer, I rose quick- 
 ly, and without waiting for Mohammed's help jumped 
 down upon the platform, which, of course, was thronged 
 with a host of people who had no business whatsoever 
 to be there. Unfortunately, in my hurry I had for- 
 gotten the bag of gold hanging at my waist. The shock 
 of my abrupt descent to terra firma burst open the lock, 
 and the guineas rolled out in a veritable avalanche 
 under the feet of the countless natives lounging to and 
 fro. 
 
 In true Egyptian fashion, Mohammed, who had fol- 
 lowed me, began to belabor that rabble rout with his 
 
 143
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 kourbash before any possible excuse had been offered 
 him for such sudden violence ; but it soon became ap- 
 parent that his decisive action was well considered, for 
 not one of the gold pieces escaped recovery, the whole 
 amount being scrupulously picked up by the blue-robed 
 fellahs and white-robed porters, and handed to him with 
 extraordinary empressement. Thoroughly exasperated 
 by this odious contretemps, but also desirous of reward- 
 ing this touching display of enforced honesty, I scatter- 
 ed a couple of handfuls of piastres taken from my ener- 
 getic attendant's travelling satchel among the gold 
 rescuers, and passed on to a very primitive telegraph- 
 office, where I had the gratification of discovering, after 
 a prolonged dispute over the wires between the emplo3^es 
 at either end during which the train was kept back by 
 the obsequious station-master in spite of the loud and 
 discordant protestations of the other passengers that 
 Fred was following me at a couple of hours' interval on 
 a special train. Greatly reassured, I once more took 
 my place, and after a loud banging of doors and much 
 unnecessary shrieking we got off, accompanied by the 
 enthusiastic yells of joy and eulogistic epithets of the 
 recipients of my largesse. 
 
 On we sped, now through the dead silence and weird 
 solitude of endless gray wastes unrelieved by tree, bush, 
 or shrub, with only the throbbing of the engine and the 
 friction of the wheels on the polished rails to remind us 
 of civilization, now skirting long avenues of acacias 
 and wild figs, or leafy bowers of palms sheltering clus- 
 ters of little mud hovels built en forteresses, and from the 
 narrow loopholes of which hung blue and crimson rags 
 the family washing, no doubt in picturesque con- 
 fusion. Truly there were views constantly being 
 framed in the carriage windows that would have made 
 the fortune of any painter talented enough to catch the 
 
 144
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 couleur locale with which they teemed. But this is 
 again digressing from my subject. 
 
 I breathed a sigh of deep relief on entering the Alex- 
 andria terminus, where, praise be to a merciful Provi- 
 dence, everything was admirably systematized for the 
 safe reception and farther transportation of passengers 
 and of their luggage. As I drove through the principal 
 streets to the Grand Plaza, on or near which all the 
 leading hotels were then situated, I \vas once again 
 unpleasantly struck by the disgustingly correct and 
 European aspect of the city which so short a time be- 
 fore had been levelled to an almost complete wreck of 
 ruins by British shot and shell. 
 
 A general air of freshness and bustle pervaded the 
 whole place, contrasting strongly with the drowsy indo- 
 lence of Cairo. Alas for the above-mentioned couleur 
 locale! Alexandria, like Smyrna and several other 
 Eastern cities, is a decided disappointment to lovers 
 of the Orient. However, I had the compensatory pleas- 
 ure of finding my faithful Paul awaiting me at the 
 hotel, where he had caused a suite of rooms to be pre- 
 pared for me in exactly the fashion I liked, with masses 
 of flowers everywhere, down-drawn blinds insuring 
 coolness, and a dainty collation of fruit and sherbet 
 disposed on the balcony overlooking the gardens. He 
 reported that Luigi Effendi had behaved throughout 
 the trip with astonishing meekness and propriety as 
 indeed, considering Paul's imposing personality, I had 
 expected. After commending him for his masterly 
 management, I hurriedly changed my dress and went 
 to the station to meet Fred. 
 
 I will drop a merciful curtain over the personal ap- 
 pearance of the poor fellow when, tired and furious, he 
 swung himself from the train that evening. In his 
 impatience he had imagined that he would shorten the 
 10 i45
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 route by riding on the engine and vituperating the 
 driver, with the pleasing result of transforming his face, 
 hands, and ultra-chic pale gray travelling suit into a 
 monochrome of rich, sooty blackness, and his temper 
 into something for which the English language affords 
 no adequate descriptive phraseology. 
 
 Tout est bien qui finit bien, however, for in spite of all 
 these vexations we managed to board in excellent 
 time the good ship Mongolia, whose jolly and kind- 
 hearted captain an old friend, for this was the fifth 
 time we were crossing with him made us royally wel- 
 come. After four days of pleasant gliding between 
 blue skies and bluer waters we landed at Brindisi, 
 jumped without delay from the steamer to the express 
 train, as I had expected that we would, and swiftly sped 
 through many little, crumbling mediaeval towns, each 
 of which had had its strategic importance and season 
 of glory in the days when the Moorish corsairs used to 
 descend like swooping vultures upon these coasts. 
 Unfortunately, the whole region seems never to have 
 recovered from these repeated shocks, and wears to 
 this day a lugubrious stamp of poverty and decay, very 
 melancholy to observe even en passant. 
 
 Our first halt was at Naples, and it would have been 
 a short one had not ex - Khedive Ismail Pasha, who 
 was then sojourning at La Favorita (a beautiful resi- 
 dence lent to him by King Humbert), finding out by 
 means best known to himself that we were within easy 
 reach, sent for Fred the very moment we set foot in 
 our hotel. In order to describe La Favorita, I would 
 merely have to borrow a string of adjectives descriptive 
 of flowers, shrubs, bubbling fountains, verdant lawns, 
 and beautiful views, from previous pages of this narra- 
 tive, and so I will pass it over and devote my energies 
 to the more difficult task of sketching, physically and 
 
 146
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 morally, that most extraordinary of Oriental Rulers, 
 Ismail Khedive, who for a long span was regarded as 
 the luckiest of human beings, but whose last years were 
 sufficiently miserable to make up, and more than make 
 up, for the insolent good fortune hitherto his. 
 
 It would be presumptuous on my part to dabble at 
 any length with the historical side of Ismail's career, 
 for better pens than mine have long ere this accom- 
 plished that task, and yet it is quite impossible to talk 
 of the dispossessed Khedive as he was when I saw him 
 for the last time in his Neapolitan exile without touch- 
 ing, if ever so slightly, upon the times immediately pre- 
 ceding his flight from Egypt. The strangest feature of 
 his great run of luck is that it was inaugurated by what 
 many claim to have been a crime committed in cold 
 blood, whereas his misfortunes dated from the very 
 moment when he attempted the suppression of the 
 slave-trade in his dominions, which goes far to show 
 for why not be sententious when one can that vir- 
 tue is occasionally punished and crime rewarded. 
 
 Everybody knows that his accession to the throne 
 was due to an accident namely, the tragic death of his 
 elder brother Achmet in the raging waters of the Nile 
 during the flood rise of 1858. Rumors were rife when 
 this happened as to the then Prince Ismail's complicity 
 in the terrible catastrophe, thanks to which the sceptre 
 came within his grasp, for it was difficult not to find a 
 curious coincidence between his excusing himself at 
 the last moment from accompanying his brother to the 
 fe"tes given by Sa ; d Pasha at Alexandria (the invita- 
 tions to which amounted really to commands), and the 
 fact that by so doing he escaped the sinister fate which 
 befell the royal party on the return trip to Cairo. 
 
 At Kaffir-Azzayat, midway between Alexandria and 
 Cairo, the railway passes over the Nile by Stephenson's
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 famous drawbridge. As the train with all its august 
 occupants came thundering down the steep slope lead- 
 ing to the bridge, the engineer saw too late that the draw 
 was open, and that a fearful gulf yawned above the 
 flooded waters racing wildly towards the sea seventy- 
 five feet below. Vainly he tried to reverse the engine, 
 but with no effect, and the entire train leaped into the 
 river, with all the passengers on board. 
 
 The only man to escape from that awful death-trap 
 was Prince Ham! in, the young and beloved brother of 
 Said Pasha. Skilled in all athletic sports, and, more- 
 over, a remarkably powerful swimmer, the Prince, while 
 the train hung yet suspended in mid-air, jumped clear 
 of the salon carriage he had occupied, and, plunging 
 headlong into the frothing waters, gained with diffi- 
 culty the shore, where he lay exhausted and helpless 
 until he was picked up by the horrified bridge employes 
 who had witnessed the awful incident. 
 
 They, at any rate, could not be held responsible, for the 
 director of the railroad, whose duty it was not only to 
 have the passage of the train signalled in time, but to 
 accompany it in person on this occasion, had, like Prince 
 Ismail, excused himself at the last moment on a plea 
 of sudden, and, under the ensuing circumstances, some- 
 what suspicious, indisposition. Be all this as it may, 
 Achmet's death left the succession to the throne clear 
 for Ismail, and when Said joined in his turn the great 
 majority, he found himself enabled to inaugurate at 
 once the numerous reforms which he had long since 
 planned against the time of his possible accession. 
 
 Ismail Khedive was, in spite of his lack of all claim 
 to good looks, a highly interesting, and to many a most 
 fascinating, man. Under the middle height, heavily 
 and squarely built, with extremely broad shoulders, 
 which made him appear much shorter of stature than 
 
 148
 
 he really was, he had a round, full face, with regular 
 features, a short-cropped beard and mustache partially 
 concealing a rather cruel and sensuous mouth, and the 
 most extraordinary eyes in the world. Although he 
 ordinarily kept them half closed, when he condescended 
 to open them there was a sharp, penetrating, steely flash 
 from the gold-pailletted orbs, so keen and disconcerting 
 that his interlocutors found it difficult to suppress a 
 sudden sense of dread and insecurity, as well as an 
 instinctive distruct of this uncanny personage, whose 
 habitual expression was positively sphinx-like in its 
 gentle and somewhat contemptuous coldness. 
 
 His voice, too, was always a surprise, for it possess- 
 ed a well - modulated, caressing persuasiveness which 
 came oddly from so autocratic a man, especially when 
 coupled with the winning, witching smile which trans- 
 figured him so strangely when he sought to please, but 
 under this mask of bland serenity there lurked a strength 
 and a force of purpose which few could resist, and which 
 bent to his will all those who came into contact with him. 
 
 It would be, however, a great mistake to imagine 
 that Ismail Khedive was the mere blood-thirsty oppressor 
 which he has often been represented to be. Nothing 
 could be falser, for, indeed, many are the deeds of mercy 
 which can be brought home to him, both during his 
 reign and afterwards. Also he was a great diplomat, 
 shrewd, sagacious, supple, and of such adroitness that 
 he was not unjustly nicknamed the Oriental Talleyrand. 
 Whatever his faults and shortcomings, at all events 
 he was so excessively superior to his paltry successor, 
 that to visit him after a protracted course of Tewfik 
 Khedive's regime was like passing from a tainted and 
 miasma-laden atmosphere to the clear, cold, biting, and 
 bracing air of a snow-capped mountain summit. 
 
 The Sardanapalian luxury with which Ismail loved 
 
 149
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 to surround himself was tempered by taste of a very 
 high order, for he knew how to make that rarest of all 
 distinctions which separates magnificence from vulgar 
 display, and even in the selection of the gifts which he 
 lavished upon those about him there was the stamp of 
 a judgment enlightened and truly artistic. 
 
 In diplomatic circles he was nicknamed Son Imper- 
 turbabilite, as he never betrayed any sign of disap- 
 pointment, joy, or sorrow, and, like La Grande Cathe- 
 rine, first of that sobriquet, remained on all occasions 
 absolutely unmoved, whether in public or sotto quattr'- 
 occhi with an intimate friend or boon companion. Last, 
 but not least, this blue-eyed and sandy-bearded Ori- 
 ental was remarkably well informed upon most ques- 
 tions of the day. Also his knowledge of practical 
 matters was of a singularly universal and comprehen- 
 sive character, as was clearly displayed by the intelli- 
 gent manner in which during his reign he personally 
 superintended the construction of railroads, docks, 
 sugar factories, elaborate systems of irrigation, the 
 founding of schools and hospitals, and a thousand 
 other improvements which transformed the Egypt of 
 Mehemet-Ali almost beyond recognition. 
 
 But, alas ! the day of reckoning came at the end of 
 thirteen years an unlucky number for him, of a truth 
 thirteen years of boundless extravagance, during which 
 he had negotiated a national debt of one hundred 
 million pounds sterling, the interest of which could no 
 longer be met. Then followed the intervention of 
 France, Germany, and England, the appointment of 
 a commission of financial investigation, the generous 
 offer made by Ismail to surrender his private estates, 
 amounting to something over five million pounds ster- 
 ling, the demand made upon him for further sacrifices 
 and concessions, not only of a financial but of a politi- 
 co
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 cal character, to which he could not and would not 
 agree, and finally his deposition by the Sultan (whose 
 bitter jealousy he had aroused by his unconquerable 
 spirit of independence) and his departure from the land 
 of Egypt, preceded by the secret expedition at the dead 
 of night of a file of military fourgons laden with specie 
 and jewels supposed to have been worth some twenty 
 million pounds sterling. 
 
 This treasure was conveyed from the harimlik of 
 Abdeen over the long-abandoned caravan route to Suez 
 under the escort of the dispossessed Khedive's private 
 janissaries, and embarked on a steamer which for a 
 week had been waiting within hail of the shore. 
 
 Poor Ismail! His punishment was, of a truth, great- 
 er than his crimes! To a man as fond of power as 
 he was, his enforced inactivity, and his hopeless exile 
 from all that which he had created and loved, was gall 
 and wormwood indeed, and the numerous conspiracies 
 which he fomented to recover his lost kingdom found 
 their explanation, if not their excuse, in the cruelly 
 crushed ambition and pride which never for an instant 
 stopped bleeding inwardly. 
 
 I immediately surmised, when Fred was so pressingly 
 invited to visit the ex-Khedive, toute affaire cessante, 
 that probably once again the spirit of intrigue had en- 
 tered into him, but forbore from mentioning my opinion 
 on the subject to my lord, having long since learned 
 that prophecies, whether good or bad, are most useless 
 and pointless weapons, and sometimes even very im- 
 politic ones to handle. 
 
 Nor was I mistaken, for with his usual delicacy of 
 touch and consummate ability and tact, Ismail gave 
 Fred to understand avoiding, of course, any crude 
 statement or direct offer that the man who assisted 
 him in re-entering his closed paradise would become 
 
 151
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 rich and powerful beyond the dreams of all imaginable 
 greed. The whole subject was treated sub rosa, and 
 with such nonchalance and coolness that the most 
 umbrageous honesty could not well take offence. And 
 when Fred, in an equally guarded fashion, made it 
 clear to his illustrious tempter that his own ambitions 
 were of the most modest kind and quite removed from 
 any possibility of compromise, far from showing how 
 greatly disappointed he was, "that devil of a man" 
 as Nubar used to call him beamed upon his incorrup- 
 tible guest, and entreated him to accept for himself and 
 for me an invitation to luncheon the next day, sending 
 me on that very evening a wealth of magnificent orchids 
 avec homages respectueux. 
 
 " He is superb!" I mused, gazing at his floral offering, 
 while Fred was repeating to me the conversation which 
 had taken place between him and the supple and wily 
 Albanian. "Truly such unscrupulous cleverness is 
 piquant, nay, almost refreshing, and a man who never 
 blunders, never acknowledges himself beaten, and con- 
 trives never to take a rebuff, is, in spite of any code of 
 morals, a man to wonder at and to admire after a 
 fashion." 
 
 When we reached La Favorita at the appointed time 
 I was charmed with the improvements instituted by 
 Ismail throughout that lofty, spacious, lovely house. 
 Delving in his treasure chests, he had brought forth to 
 the light of day brocades with gold threads and silver 
 embroideries gleaming on their glossy surfaces, weapons 
 so profusely jewelled that they sparkled where they 
 hung like fluctuating sun-rays, and many unique 
 pieces of transparent enamelling or precious metal 
 patiently wrought into wonderful patterns by those 
 masterly artificers of the Far East, who, sitting on mats 
 under the waving foliage of palm and sycamore, or in 
 
 152
 
 the deep gloom of bazaars, give a whole lifetime to the 
 completion of one single object, the finished beauty of 
 which finds not its equal. 
 
 The sumptuous villa looked its handsomest with the 
 brightness of the Italian noon dancing on its many 
 windows, on its pinnacles and crockets and spires, and 
 on the folds of the silken flag drooping upon its central 
 terrace. The gardens were gay with dahlias, fuchsias, 
 camellias, and roses, and two white peacocks birds of 
 ill-omen, they say in Brittany swept the marble perron 
 with their long, diapered tails. 
 
 Ismail, accompanied by his faithful old friend and 
 retainer, Ragheb Pasha, the only one of his courtiers 
 who had loyally followed him into exile, came to meet 
 us with the courteous and charming grace which he 
 knew so well how to assume, and did the honors of his 
 table with perfect taste and simplicity, and with that 
 high-bred repose of manner which is one of the most 
 covetable accomplishments of a host. Moreover, the 
 little repast was daintily and admirably prepared and 
 served, but not ostentatious : some delicious Neapolitan 
 oysters the best in the world, as many gourmets claim 
 sent to the table on a bed of pale-green algae, which 
 gave them a most appetizing look; prawns stewed in 
 champagne; fat little quails roasted in vine-leaves; 
 mushrooms stuffed with foie gras ; white Milanese truf- 
 fles sous la serviette ; a salad of pineapple and Russian 
 violets, as good to eat as it was to look at ; and, finally, 
 some wonderful fruit accompanied by inimitable Turk- 
 ish patisseries, only found in Harims, and matching 
 in perfection the fragrant coffee smoking in tiny cups 
 of priceless porcelain and gold filigree work, which 
 was brought to us with verbena-scented cigarettes of 
 exquisite flavor. 
 
 Ismail was in one of his most captivating moods,
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 displaying his many - faceted wit, and also the fact 
 that he was not only an earnest scholar, but a man 
 deeply interested in all new inventions and topics 
 of the hour. His conversation, easy, brilliant, and 
 fluent, fascinated us in no mean degree, for it had a 
 flavor as rare and as pure as the old wines glittering 
 in the delicate glasses before our plates. His knowledge 
 of all the finesses of the French language which he 
 preferred to all others was really wonderful, but a 
 quaint trick of interlarding his sentences with frequent 
 de cis and de l&s and cecis and celas, although giving 
 them an individuality, and a sort of cachet, became 
 slightly tedious after a while. 
 
 After luncheon we sat on the marble terrace, com- 
 manding a view wellnigh unequalled for its serene 
 loveliness and richness of coloring, unwilling to take 
 our departure, so pleased and interested were we by the 
 depth of thought, aptness of quotation, and originality 
 of opinion displayed by the versatile ex-Khedive. One 
 would really have thought that he had set his heart on 
 making a conquest of us, and the slight antagonism 
 I had felt against him, since his conversation with 
 Fred, melted away as I listened and replied, for there 
 was a melody in his voice and a charm in his manner 
 that it was not easy to resist. Knowing me well enough 
 to realize that I was averse to flattery, he met me on 
 the common ground of art, travels, and sport, having, 
 like myself, a real passion for good horse-flesh, and on 
 that, as on all other topics upon which he had touched, 
 he conversed easily, discursively, and delightfully. 
 
 The noon had deepened into afternoon, and the chimes 
 of a distant church were sounding four when we rose 
 to take our leave, but as we turned to re-enter the house 
 an aide-de-camp, with a strangely blanched face, ap- 
 proached rapidly and murmured some words in his
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 master's ear. For the first time in my acquaintance 
 with Ismail I saw uncontrollable anger sweep over 
 his face, which turned literally livid, and then flushed 
 darkly, his eyes kindling with deep wrath. 
 
 For a second he positively staggered, then, with a 
 short excuse delivered in a strained, hoarse voice, 
 passed quickly into the house, followed by his gentle- 
 man, leaving us completely mystified and not a little 
 anxious, for the blow which had just fallen on our host 
 could be no mean one to have created such an impres- 
 sion on such a man. 
 
 Of course the merest form of etiquette forbade us to 
 depart without taking leave of him, or, at least, before 
 receiving a message to the effect that he would not re- 
 turn, and so we sat down again on the bamboo rocking- 
 chairs we had so recently vacated, occupying our time 
 in admiring the exquisite panorama before us, bright, 
 beautiful, and as full of shifting light as diamonds 
 are. Half an hour or so elapsed, and I was getting a 
 little impatient and annoyed, when suddenlj 7 Ismail 
 reappeared, and as I perceived the change in his look, 
 in his carriage, in every feature of his face, which had 
 become aged and drawn and bloodless, I rose in alarm 
 and took a step to meet him. 
 
 "Pardon me for having been so discourteous as to 
 keep you waiting," he said, with evident effort. Then 
 a convulsion passed over his face, a short sob rattled 
 in his throat, and he sank limply upon a chair, cover- 
 ing his eyes with his hands. 
 
 "Monseigneur," I murmured, greatly moved, "is 
 there anything we can do?" 
 
 He did not stir, and Fred, much embarrassed, and 
 feeling the extreme awkwardness of his position, moved 
 softly to the farther end of the terrace, seemingly ab- 
 sorbed in the rolling of a recalcitrant cigarette. 
 
 155
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Ismail sat still, leaning his face on his hand, grimly 
 repressing every gesture or word that could have re- 
 vealed what was passing in his mind, but presenting 
 such a spectacle of distress, nevertheless, that I was 
 quite at a loss what to say or do. 
 
 "Monseigneur," I whispered again, venturing to 
 touch him lightly on the shoulder, for the agony of 
 this strong man was painful to behold, and I hoped 
 that by reminding him of the presence of comparative 
 strangers I would restore to him his wonted energy. 
 
 With a shudder he rose, and, standing once more 
 firm and erect, said, almost brutally : 
 
 "I am not fit to be seen just now, and yet courage 
 fails me to face alone the supreme shame and sor- 
 row of my life. Listen!" he added, seizing my wrist 
 between his strong fingers, while an expression of 
 tigerish fury drew his brows together. " Listen ! 
 Shame has been done me, shame so deep, so black, so 
 cruel, that I yes, even I am powerless to avenge it! 
 There was one woman whom I held dear above all 
 earthly things, a lovely, antelope-eyed creature, lithe 
 and graceful as a palm-tree, a priceless pearl, on whom 
 I could not endure any other sight than my own to 
 look, whom I married to be the joy of my old age, 
 and whom I guarded as the greatest gem of my treas- 
 ures. Riches, honor, life itself I would have surren- 
 dered rather than surrender her. She was my one 
 consolation, my one hope, my one tenderness, for she 
 was something beyond all her sex, and she loved me 
 with a great love. Yes, me, who was so unworthy of 
 her as I thought." 
 
 He paused, the veins on his forehead swelling like 
 purple cords, and his sinewy, massive form gathered 
 together as for a spring. Then he laughed, a short, 
 stern, sardonic laugh, horrible to hear. Mute with 
 
 156
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 astonishment, I looked at him, deep pity rising in my 
 heart. 
 
 "Last night," he continued, heeding me no more 
 than had I been the empty air, " she lay in my arms, 
 her sweet, false face pillowed on my breast, and before 
 dawn, when I left her, she was sleeping like a child, 
 an innocent, pure, sinless child, guarded by angels. 
 Yet she is gone as Allah liveth! she has fled from 
 me, from my passionate love, from my unbounded 
 tenderness, fled with another may he be accursed! 
 to the noise, the mirth, the riotous vice, the desecrat- 
 ing glare of the outside world!" 
 
 The unfortunate man crushed a blasphemous oath 
 through his clinched teeth, his eyes burning like flames, 
 his lips quivering with impotent fury, his whole frame 
 trembling violently. I had seen almost every shape 
 of mental and physical suffering, but the torture which 
 shook his steel - knit frame passed all that I had 
 dreamed as possible. It was held as in bonds of iron, 
 for the sake of what remained to him of pride as a once 
 great ruler and leader of men, but its tremors spoke 
 more than any eloquence ever spoke in this world. 
 I bent my head as I heard him; my own teeth were 
 clinched, and but for a little I would have shared 
 his anger and indignation to the point of myself 
 cursing the woman and the man who had left him so 
 desolate. 
 
 Of course, no words of mine were likely to be of use, 
 and I still kept silent, trusting in my mute sympathy 
 more than in anything I could have said or done. 
 Fred remained where he had at first moved to, leaning 
 over the parapet of the terrace as if rapt in contempla- 
 tion of the verdant gardens, and Ismail, evidently 
 quite oblivious of his presence, gazed straight before 
 him, his face gradually reassuming a more natural 
 
 157
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 expression. At last he spoke, a wicked gleam flashing 
 from under his now half-shut eyelids, and his voice 
 sounding harsh and metallic, like clanging bronze. 
 
 " I would sooner have doubted anything in earth or 
 heaven than have believed that my darling should 
 ever betray me, and yet she made me her dupe, as had 
 I been the most malleable of easily cozened fools/' 
 
 A nervous spasm of laughter contracted his mouth, 
 like a rictus of death. " My word !" thought I. " How 
 he will hate me later for having been a witness to such 
 shame and humiliation!" To a Mohammedan, women 
 impure and unfaithful are the horror of horrors, and to 
 be betrayed as he had been, the last degree of dishonor. 
 But I might as well have tried to move mountains from 
 their bases as to stem the boiling torrent of his wrath. 
 All the pent-up emotions of a lifetime breaking through 
 the triple bastions of his pride, his self-restraint and 
 his great moral strength had gotten beyond his con- 
 trol, and certainly beyond mine, under that intolerable 
 outrage and deception which burned him like devouring 
 flames, and as I watched him I felt a little sorry for 
 Fred and for myself, since Ismail was not a pleasant 
 enemy to make, nor a man to forgive those who had 
 thus seen him lay his soul bare. 
 
 Perhaps he guessed my thoughts, for with a great 
 effort he pulled himself together. 
 
 " You have been very good, very patient, to listen to 
 what I have told you. I thank you from my heart, 
 and I crave your pardon for disturbing your purity with 
 so foul a tale. I am betrayed, befooled, and, alas! I 
 have no longer the power to avenge betrayal at least, 
 as I understand revenge. The enormity of this irre- 
 parable wrong is but a paltry excuse for my present 
 lack of courage to meet it. But let that pass." 
 
 Again he paused, and then rapidly, as if he owed me 
 
 158
 
 ' I WILL WREAK SUCH VENGEANCE AS MAY WELL BE AN 
 EXAMPLE TO ALL TRAITORS !' "
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 some explanation and wished now to get it as quickly 
 over as possible, he added: 
 
 "This morning, before dawn, she stole away to her 
 lover's arms. I am told he is a young and wealthy 
 American, who has been, it appears, cruising about in 
 sight of this shore for several weeks. How he ever 
 saw her or spoke to her I know not as yet, but upon 
 those of my people who have helped her in this I will 
 wreak such vengeance as may well be an example to 
 all traitors!" 
 
 " Monseigneur," I said, in reply, " do you think that 
 any woman on earth is worth such grief as yours? 
 When you are calmer, I think, and better able to gauge 
 the shallowness of the joys you now regret, and to see 
 that the dishonor is not yours, but belongs to the man 
 who stole her from you like a thief in the night, this 
 great bitterness will pass from you, and, perchance, 
 pity alone remain." 
 
 " Pity!" he laughed, aloud. " Ah, no! Heaven may 
 forgive. I never shall. But your words are brave 
 and ought to show me the way. Would that I had 
 your spirit, but, Inshallah ! this blow has broken me 
 as I never dreamed of being broken. Forgive me, 
 I implore you again, and believe in my undying grat- 
 itude!" He bowed low over my hand, pressed it to his 
 lips, and without another word, without a gesture, 
 he left the terrace with his old, determined, soldierly 
 step. 
 
 Sadly I looked after him. 
 
 He was at heart but a half-savage tyrant, perchance, 
 but yet infinite sympathy and pity made my soul ache 
 for him. 
 
 As we rushed without halt across Europe to Eng- 
 land, the memory of that scene on the terrace of La 
 Favorita chilled and depressed me singularly, nor could
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I succeed for many days in shaking off the painful im- 
 pression created thereby. 
 
 London was not looking its best when we arrived. 
 There was a gray sky and a strong north wind blowing 
 sourly through the soot-begrimed streets, and although 
 crocuses and primroses shyly peeped through the turf 
 of Hyde Park, yet the trees were still almost completely 
 denuded, and if ever I saw a man look unutterable 
 disgust, Fred looked it as we drove from the station 
 to our own place. 
 
 "How unpatriotic you are," I said, smiling at his 
 frowning countenance. 
 
 " Damn patriotism," he replied, with more candor 
 than politeness. " London is a coarse, uncouth, and 
 discourteous city, if ever there was one. We are sup- 
 posed to be a superior race; we have conquered half 
 the world or thereabouts; yet our capital is the din- 
 giest spot on earth, we ourselves behave like Yahoos 
 whenever we get the chance, and, as far as our climate 
 is concerned, even the marble and bronze statues in 
 the squares and parks crumble under its gentle minis- 
 trations." 
 
 I laughed again. "You are quite as outspoken as 
 
 the old Duke of C e, who asked me last year at 
 
 a Foreign Office reception, 'What do you think of this 
 bear garden which we Londoners are pleased to call 
 the best people?' I was at a loss what to answer for 
 once in my life, which seemed to delight him im- 
 mensely. ' You are too well bred,' he chuckled, 'to tell 
 me how charmingly impressed you are by the delicate 
 daintiness of our pushing, gushing, vulgar society 
 people, who frequently behave as if born in Shoreditch 
 or the Seven Dials. Indeed, you must be irresistibly 
 struck with the extent to which sweetness and polish 
 prevail on our island." 
 
 160
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " What did you say?" interrupted Fred, with a grin. 
 
 "Oh, I said something about London being handi- 
 capped by the versatility of its climate, and concluded 
 with some inanity about fogs and rain having a dele- 
 terious influence upon its inhabitants, at which brilliant 
 apergu he laughed most heartily and unblushingly. 
 
 At that moment the carriage stopped at our portals, 
 and we descended amid an inelegant and common- 
 place crowd hurrying under umbrellas along the un- 
 tidy-looking street, which, indeed, seemed unspeakably 
 dark and noisy and ugly after the forests of magnolia, 
 the waving palms, the white palaces like ivory cut into 
 lace- work, and the dignified Arabs and Turks and 
 Moors we had left behind us a few short days before. 
 
 " After all," I exclaimed, a moment later, as I entered 
 my own especial and favorite room, "it is good to be 
 amid some of one's own goods and chattels again." 
 
 It was a quaint, pleasant apartment, a mixture of 
 every style, suggestive of la vie intime and of true 
 repose. The hangings and furniture were subdued in 
 coloring, and great, shallow bowls, filled with simple, 
 fragrant wood - violets, made its atmosphere one of 
 spring. 
 
 "Oh, you are irretrievably good-tempered," grumbled 
 poor Fred, with whom the climate of London always 
 and hopelessly disagrees. "Good God!" he added, 
 shrugging his shoulders and opening his cigarette- 
 case, " what asses we are to imagine that we can teach 
 the Orient anything. Conceit surely goes no farther." 
 
 "You are very depressing, my good boy, and very 
 opinionated," I said, with dawning impatience, "and 
 if you keep up your lamentations much longer I can- 
 not promise that my temper which you were so good 
 as to praise just now will not fray out at the edges, 
 even as yours has done. Really, if you are determined 
 161
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 to be logical and unromantic, and to revile your native 
 town and your compatriots for the rest of the evening, 
 I shall be compelled to do so, too, in sheer self-defence, 
 and that you will not like, as you very well know." 
 
 Fortunately, a servant just then entered and an- 
 nounced my father-in-law. With swift steps and much 
 joy in our hearts we went to meet the dear old gen- 
 tleman, whose handsome face cleared and brightened 
 with pleasure at our greeting, and there was an end of 
 Fred's ill-humor, and of every other unpleasant thing 
 for the time being. 
 
 I have always thought, and think so still, that Pater 
 as we invariably called him was then one of the 
 most popular men in England. He had the kindest of 
 hearts, a great charm of manner, a bright and steady 
 wit, a cheerful spirit, and, what is better than all the 
 rest, no one on earth ever found in him a single im- 
 pulse that was not unselfish, a single sentiment that 
 was rooted in vanity, or a single motive dictated by 
 self-indulgence. 
 
 We were the greatest of friends, he and I, and we 
 immediately set to work planning and plotting to see 
 as much of each other as possible in the intervals of 
 unavoidable social duties during my short stay, while 
 Fred was gyrating from London to Windsor and back 
 again, on secret and solemn errands bent. 
 
 We had succulent little suppers when returning 
 from the theatre or opera, drove about quite after the 
 manner of tourists, spending hours at Kew Gardens 
 or Richmond, or simply in the Park, where we fed the 
 ducks and swans. We journeyed one day to Brighton 
 to get a breath of fresh, pure, salty air, and even did 
 some shopping together, visiting jewellers', modistes', 
 art-galleries, museums, exhibitions, and what-not else, 
 like two country cousins, and enjoyed ourselves im- 
 
 162
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 mensely. Fortunately, my mother-in-law and her nu- 
 merous daughters were away, a calamity which we 
 accepted with pious and unblushing resignation, and 
 the feelings with which the proverbial mice are credited 
 when the cat is absent. 
 
 Seldom had London been so agitated in its lower 
 depths as was the case during this short visit of ours. 
 The "Reds" were troublesome, and the murmurings 
 of the populace distinctly audible above the gay mu- 
 sic and merry laughter of the privileged classes going 
 through the pleasures of a brilliant season. Hostile 
 demonstrations had been quite frequent during the 
 past weeks, and some alarm was felt by those in power 
 lest the beast of revolution should break loose from its 
 straining chains and do much damage. Truly, a rad- 
 ical government was not a reassuring one, and the 
 Conservatives strutted about with inflated chests and 
 a general expression of, " Had you elected us," and 
 "We told you so," stamped clearly all over them, 
 while the " Grand Old Man " was openly accused of 
 ruling 
 
 " With a firebrand for a sceptre 
 And a fool's-cap for a crown." 
 
 The weather improved, and one might almost have 
 said that belated spring was remorsefully hurrying 
 to make her bow and proffer her apologies, as testified 
 by the many-hued parterres, green turf, and fresh, 
 delicate verdure (which the famous London soot was 
 doing its best to discourage, but which bravely held 
 its own with the aid of daily showers), and by the 
 flower-filled window-boxes all over Mayfair and other 
 select regions. 
 
 One morning I was riding placidly up the "Row," 
 followed by a groom, when I was accosted by Lord 
 
 163
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 George L n, not without cause nicknamed by 
 
 society, " the Saurian Apollo," for he was one of those 
 magnificently handsome men whom one rarely meets 
 out of England, superbly tall, ideally blond, blue-eyed, 
 and aristocratic, but rather uncomfortably dull. 
 
 After uttering a few commonplaces, this young god 
 suddenly drawled: "I say, you know, now, upon my 
 honor, you should not be riding in the Park to-day; 
 really, now, it is imprudent! The Home Secretary 
 was telling me a few moments ago that trouble is 
 expected. The 'Roughs' are prowling about, and 
 they may invade the Park; beastly shame, too, crush 
 all the flowers; wish one could rake them down the 
 'Roughs/ of course with a volley of grape-shot." 
 And exhausted by this, for him, unusually eloquent 
 and lengthy speech, he fell to stroking his little, gold- 
 colored mustache, while his limpid and ingenuous 
 eyes wandered aimlessly about, as if in search of revo- 
 lutionary bands lurking behind the bushes. 
 
 "Your sentiments do you great credit," I said, laugh- 
 ing, "but I am not the least little bit afraid of mobs. 
 They are so easily cowed. I've met with them in Hun- 
 gary and in Paris, where they are much more excitable 
 and dangerous than here, and so can claim a certain 
 familiarity with such cattle." 
 
 "Oh, just as you like, of course," he replied, with a 
 shrug of his broad shoulders. "Perhaps it's a false 
 alarm, after all, but I'd better ride with you, in case you 
 do get yourself into trouble." 
 
 His tone of insufferable protection got on my nerves, 
 and with more asperity than gratitude for his proffered 
 services, I exclaimed : 
 
 "Pray do not do anything of the kind. I am per- 
 fectly able to take care of myself." Then noticing his 
 crestfallen air, for he was as a rule greatly flattered and 
 
 164
 
 A DOFFED COKONET 
 
 petted by women, I added, with a smile, " Thank you 
 very much, all the same," and wheeling my horse 
 sharply around I set off at a hand-gallop, calling out 
 to him as I did so, over my shoulder, " Remember me 
 to your mother and sisters," and left him, sitting his 
 gigantic sorrel like a statue of disappointment. 
 
 Nevertheless, I enjoyed my ride greatly, under the fine, 
 gauzy velum of budding trees, casting mosaic-like, trans- 
 parent shadows upon the ground, and when I turned 
 my face towards home I had completely forgotten Lord 
 George's warning. As I came in view of the deliciously 
 flower-bowered lodge at Stanhope Gate, I was sharply 
 reminded of it by the sight of a disorderly and wildly 
 gesticulating procession of men and women, bearing 
 red flags and emitting hoarse roars of menace as they 
 advanced, ruthlessly trampling the tender grass of the 
 velvety lawns and demolishing plants and shrubs under 
 their multitudinous feet. In imitation of the populace, 
 I left the path for the sward, with a view of making a 
 circuit to avoid their perspiring, howling, and malo- 
 dorous contact, all the more, too, as both my horse and 
 the groom's, quite terrified by sights and sounds which 
 ere this had never met their aristocratic eyes and ears, 
 began to fret, plunge, and rear in a fashion which 
 might at any moment end in a double runaway. 
 
 My strategic movement was, however, of no use 
 whatsoever, for the mob was spreading out on both 
 sides like a fan, and the foremost rank, catching sight 
 of me, broke into a chorus of vile execrations quite 
 deafening in volume, and portending intentions by no 
 means friendly to myself. 
 
 A minute more and I was completely surrounded, 
 separated from my groom by an angry sea of abomin- 
 able, open-mouthed heads that completely beggars 
 description, and before I had time to quite realize my 
 
 165
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 position my horse and I were jammed fast in those 
 vociferating hordes of temporary maniacs. Truly, it 
 was no joke to control my mettlesome chestnut, Will-o'- 
 the-Wisp, for, prevented from advancing, terrified and 
 infuriated by that awful din, which had for leitmotif 
 the unutterably ghastly Yah of the infuriated London 
 pleb, the animal attempted to rise on his hind legs 
 and paw murderously the living mass pressing him 
 closely on all sides. A fall would have been hopelessly 
 fatal, and yet a fall was an almost foregone conclusion, 
 for the ground had been rendered slippery by that morn- 
 ing's rain and the trampling it had just been sub- 
 jected to. 
 
 "You brute!" I cried to a gigantic ruffian who had 
 seized the bridle of my dainty thoroughbred. "Drop 
 that instantly, do you hear?" 
 
 A derisive shout of laughter, taken up by the crowd, 
 and a volley of oaths and execrations followed; then 
 vSome one yelled out : 
 
 " Tear 'er out of 'er saddle, but don't ye go for to 
 'urt 'er; she's a plucked 'un, damn 'er!" 
 
 " Hurt me! I'd just like to see you try!" I cried, with 
 unconscious bravado, for my own anger was so great 
 that I scarcely knew what I was about. Looking back 
 for a second, I saw my poor groom dragged from his 
 maddened horse and odiously beaten and buffeted. 
 There was blood on his face, but his eyes blazed with 
 rage, and he was making a brave fight in his wild at- 
 tempt to rejoin me. This was the last straw which 
 broke down all pretence of self-control for me. " I saw 
 red," as we say in French, and, raising my hunting- 
 crop, struck so violently at the disgusting faces near- 
 est to me that the press gave back a little, and profiting 
 by the instant of stupefaction which followed, I used 
 my spur to such excellent purpose that Will-o '-the- Wisp, 
 
 166
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 crazed by this new and unjust aggression, plunged 
 with irresistible force into the wriggling, seething mass 
 of cowardly canaille, scattering them right and left. 
 The scorn and contempt I felt for them must have shown 
 on my face, for as I tightened my grip on the reins in a 
 futile attempt to lead my bruised, snorting, struggling 
 horse to where the groom was being so brutally handled, 
 I heard a raucous, liquor-soaked voice exclaiming : 
 
 " Don't ye go for to despise us, ye damned haristo- 
 crat, or we'll murder ye and yer gilded flunkey." 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders, and the fluctuating waves 
 of the mob having fortunately carried me within reach 
 of my servant, I called out to him : " Catch hold of my 
 saddle-flaps and I'll drag you out of this quick!" 
 
 With two blows, delivered in a masterly fashion, the 
 groom felled the two men nearest to him, then obeying 
 orders, he held on with one hand, using the other one 
 as a means of offence and defence so effectively that 
 our united efforts actually forced a passage for us, 
 and in another instant we were, to all intents and 
 purposes, out of danger, thanks also to the fact that 
 a squad of police was at last making its appearance 
 at a swift run to intercept the "Roughs," whose in- 
 stinct of self-preservation was demonstrated by a gen- 
 eral sauve qui pent. 
 
 "Are you much hurt, Parker?" I asked the groom 
 running by my side, " or can you keep up till we reach 
 the Park gates?" 
 
 " 'Course I can, my lady." And in this hour of peril, 
 which levels all differences of rank and makes all the 
 world akin, the brave fellow added : " Lord, how I'd like 
 to shoot those brutes, the cowards, to want to strike a 
 lady and a fine 'orse like this ! " Evidently, in Parker's 
 mind, my rank and Will-o '-the- Wisp s beauty should 
 have made us sacred. I smiled grimly at the com- 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 munity of sentiment between Lord George and the 
 groom, and as the crowd had now completely dis- 
 persed, I adopted a more peaceful gait and looked about 
 me. Ominous-looking groups were gathered around 
 the Marble Arch as we drew near, and the neighboring 
 streets overflowed with people, while the measured beat 
 of many horses' hoofs falling in rapid cadence upon 
 the pavement could be heard even above the roars of 
 the people. 
 
 " There is going to be a rush; that's the Guards com- 
 ing," I said to Parker, who was sponging the blood 
 from his face with his handkerchief. " It's no use try- 
 ing to reach the square ; can't we get into Park Lane 
 by the back way?" 
 
 " Sure we can, my lady. Gawd, what can 'ave be- 
 come of my 'orse?" he added, ruefully. "A hanimal 
 as there is but few like, and worth more than that 'ole 
 crowd put together! Begging your ladyship's pardon, 
 but did the blackguards try to 'urt you, too, my lady?" 
 
 " I really don't know," I replied, smiling; " to tell you 
 the truth, Parker, I was too angry to notice what they 
 tried to do, Or left undone." 
 
 " Well, my lady, forgiving my boldness, I won't soon 
 forget 'ow your ladyship laid about with that 'ere 
 whip. It was a grand sight, it was, and a nervy one. 
 I do 'ope, I do, that the soldiers will kill the 'ole pack 
 of them," with which all-embracing malediction the 
 worthy fellow relapsed into a silent rage, which was 
 sufficiently expressed upon his countenance to leave no 
 doubt about the genuineness of his philanthropic inten- 
 tions. 
 
 The crowds were thinning a little, and the whole 
 affray would very likely be over before evening ; also, 
 we were near home, which was a blessing, for our 
 appearance was strange and disordered enough to ex- 
 
 168
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 plain the looks of utter amazement cast at us by the foot- 
 passengers who were crossing the Park with a haste 
 denoting general perturbation and alarm. 
 
 " I am sorry you were hurt, Parker, and I thank you 
 for the pluck you displayed," I said, as I dismounted 
 at the back door of my house. "Don't worry about 
 your horse; he will have been rescued by the police or 
 the soldiers, and you had better bathe your face with 
 hot salt and water. You are badly bruised." 
 
 "Thank your ladyship, kindly, it's nothing at all; 
 it's only the 'orse I'm worriting about," replied the poor 
 fellow, who presented a most extraordinary picture with 
 his dishevelled hair, blood-stained face, torn clothes, 
 furious expression, and blackened eye. 
 
 Truly, that morning's work was not very pleasant, 
 but, of course, it might have been ever so much worse ; 
 and with this consoling and philosophical reflection I 
 traversed the hall and ran up-stairs to my dressing- 
 room, where I exchanged my now disreputable-looking 
 habit for a peignoir, had the dust washed out of my 
 hair, and, after taking my bath, got ready to go to 
 Windsor, whither Fred and I were bound that after- 
 noon whether the streets were passable or not. 
 
 Nothing was left of the agitation of the morning, as 
 far as I was now concerned, and I entered the conser- 
 vatory opening into my own rooms, to fuss a little among 
 my flowers while waiting for my father-in-law, who was 
 coming to luncheon previous to accompanying us. 
 
 Half an hour later Mohammed announced him, and 
 he entered hastily, very flushed and angry-looking, and 
 quite breathless. 
 
 "Why, Pater," I exclaimed, in surprise, "what is the 
 matter?" 
 
 "Matter! Everything is the matter! The Social- 
 ists are having it all their own way, are administer- 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ing a couple of black eyes to the government, and 
 are holding meetings all over the place, roaring like 
 wild animals, trampling down the lawns, and prepar- 
 ing, as far as I can see, to sack London, by wrecking 
 carriages and breaking windows. It is a mercy that 
 I escaped being bonneted on my way here. The cab- 
 inet is in such a funk that I would not be surprised 
 if it brought in a bill for universal suffrage, as a sop 
 to the 'Reds.'" 
 
 I laughed. "My dearest Pater/' I said, consolingly, 
 " I'm awfully sorry that you should have been bothered, 
 too. An hour ago I had a personal encounter with your 
 London canaille, who pulled Parker out of his saddle, 
 and threatened to treat me in a similar way. But your 
 mobs do not seem to be really as ill-natured as their 
 threats and yells would lead one to believe. They are 
 hideous to look at, but rather too beery and heavy to 
 accomplish much at least, that is my judgment of 
 them. They are brutes, yes, but boastful brutes only, 
 methinks." 
 
 " Good God ! Do you mean to tell me that you were 
 caught in that nauseating throng?" cried the dear old 
 chap, crimsoning once more with fury and indignation. 
 " If such scandalous spectacles are allowed in London, 
 the government deserves that all decent people should 
 withdraw their support. Don't talk to me of the Lib- 
 erals! Their only care is to please the ratepayers, 
 and to this they sacrifice everything. The old Whigs 
 were all right, but, damn it all, nothing can be more 
 different from them than their successors !" 
 
 " Don't be cross, Pater," I replied, laughing. " What 
 on earth will be the use of your upsetting yourself? If 
 you could do anything to ameliorate the present state 
 of affairs it would be different, but, as matters stand, 
 you're only agitating yourself for nothing. Do what 
 
 170
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 we like, we cannot prevent our epoch from being servile, 
 coarse, vulgar, and obsequious that is, to the great 
 unwashed, of whom everybody is more or less afraid ! 
 Huge, blind, uncontrollable forces are rising from the 
 oozing mud of democracy, driven onwards by envy 
 and by want two sorry motives. Pray tell me what 
 decent people, as you say, can do against such a com- 
 bination?" 
 
 "You are a cool young lady," he exclaimed, with 
 dawning amusement. "You have a singular way of 
 calming down my patriotic forebodings, but I am bound 
 to acknowledge that it would be a pleasure to follow 
 your dictates if " 
 
 At that juncture the door was brusquely thrown 
 open and Fred rushed into the room, with so per- 
 turbed a countenance that both his father and myself 
 looked at him in surprise. 
 
 "Is what I hear true," he cried "about your being 
 nearly killed this morning by the mob? Surely it 
 cannot be possible that you should have been so im- 
 prudent as to expose yourself to ill-treatment at the 
 hands of the lunatics who are even now being charged 
 down Piccadilly by the ' Blues '? " 
 
 " My imprudence was quite involuntary, my dearest 
 boy," I answered, with some impatience, "so you need 
 not glare at me so dramatically. I had not the least idea 
 that your London populace was so irredeemably brutal 
 and uncouth, nor, for that matter, that it was breaking 
 out into drunken explosions to-day, so I don't think 
 that I am to be blamed." 
 
 " I have explained a thousand times to you that Eng- 
 land is right on the top of a political volcano, and that 
 the present governmental policy is to appeal to the 
 people, instead of holding them in check with an iron 
 hand, as you no doubt would have them do." 
 
 171
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " Well, the people are responding to that appeal in 
 their thousands and tens of thousands, aren't they?" 
 I said, with a faint sneer. 
 
 "I don't see why you are joking," he exclaimed, 
 angrily. " Do you imagine that England is ripe for a 
 democracy?" 
 
 "Viz., Tennyson," I murmured. 
 
 " 'And all submitted to a people's will!' 
 
 What else, if you please, is a parliamentary form of 
 government based upon?" 
 
 "You are most trying, exasperating, and perverse 
 this morning ; can we make an absolute stand against 
 electoral representation?" he retorted. 
 
 " That would certainly be wiser than the present 
 plan of pandering to the lower orders. To rule through 
 and by the multitude is leading most nations to final 
 destruction, in my humble opinion." 
 
 lie fairly stamped his foot. "What other weapons 
 do you think that the present situation demands, save 
 opportunism and flattery? The food must be suited 
 to the eater." 
 
 " Oh, of course, if that is the view you take of it, then 
 you can hardly indulge in complaints and vitupera- 
 tions. But you really have an extraordinary talent 
 for antithesis." 
 
 "Why will you exaggerate things so? I am trying 
 to explain what is easiest felt than defined." 
 
 " Like the voice of the oracle of Delphi, yours is not 
 always infallible, especially when you speak like a 
 demagogue." 
 
 "A demagogue . . . pshaw! At any rate, I am glad 
 to say that we will be able to leave this abominable 
 place in twenty-four hours. I am sick of it," he said, 
 hotly and irrelevantly. 
 
 172
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " That is nice for me," muttered Pater, who had been 
 listening with an amused smile to our controversy. 
 
 "You old darling/' I exclaimed, slipping my arm 
 around his neck, " don't mind Fred ; he has never for- 
 given me my antiquated Legitimist politics, and he 
 likes nothing better than to split straws and to quarrel 
 with words, as you very well know. Moreover, luncheon 
 is ready," I added, as the butler pronounced the con- 
 secrated, " Miladi est servie," and threw wide the door 
 leading to the hall. " You see, in spite of the fact that 
 London is in the hands of the Red revolutionists, and 
 possibly doomed to fire, sword, and carnage, we know 
 our duties to our internal economy too well to let our 
 meals wait for five minutes on account of such trifling 
 incidents." 
 
 When, later on, we drove to the station, the streets were 
 nearly clear, but as I glanced at the wrecked parterres 
 of the Park, which a sudden squall of wind and rain were 
 transforming into beds of mud and debris, and at the 
 gloomy thoroughfares we were traversing, which looked 
 like a smirched and smudged charcoal-drawing under 
 the lowering gray sky, I sympathized with poor Fred's 
 feeling of relief, release, and deliverance at the prospect 
 of "getting away" from it all. Never had I been so 
 sensible of the extreme ugliness, the crowded monotony, 
 and the lamentably uninviting aspect of that wealthiest 
 of all cities, and instinctively I patted my lord's hand. 
 
 "Hello, Pussy, what's up? Want me to buy you 
 some orchids?" he exclaimed, surprised. 
 
 We were passing before a florist's shop, from which 
 the shutters, prudently put up in the morning for fear 
 of the people's unwelcome " response," were now being 
 removed, exposing to view some magnificent mauve 
 catleyas, arranged, however, with that singular lack 
 of taste and artistic sense common to all English shop- 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 windows, whether they contain jewels, flowers, gloves, 
 or crockery. 
 
 "No, indeed," I replied, laughing. "Thanks for 
 your good intentions. I was merely sorry for having 
 failed to completely enter into your feelings on the sub- 
 ject of your native city. My! but it is ugly!" 
 
 Pater chuckled. "So," he said "so you, too, are 
 beginning to feel the dreariness and depression which 
 London produces on all sensitive natures. It is dis- 
 couraging to think that we who are the first nation in 
 the world I beg your pardon, my dear, it's a matter 
 of habit for me to say so live in gloom, fogs, rain, and 
 unspeakably malodorous filth, and that we spoil every- 
 thing we touch with our smoke and steam and general 
 oiliness." 
 
 "Well, but you understand comfort better than any 
 other people," I argued, moved by a feeling of fairness 
 and justice towards my husband's country. "Think 
 of your many contrivances for making a home what 
 it should be, of your excellent servants, who under- 
 stand the art of sparing one even the trouble to think, 
 of your carefully aired and cut newspapers a great 
 weakness with the dear man and especially of your 
 wholly admirable country houses, with their unex- 
 celled lawns and timber and luxuriant verdure." 
 
 "I grant you that the country is nice," he replied, 
 descending from the carriage, for we had reached the 
 station steps, " but, unfortunately, we cannot live there 
 all the year round." 
 
 The majestic pile of Windsor Castle was illumined 
 by the red glare of the setting sun as we drove up the 
 hill leading to it, and the Italian gardens looked so 
 splendid and yet so homelike that I could not repress 
 an exclamation of delight. Near at hand the woods 
 of the great Park shut off the horizon, and between 
 
 i74
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 lay deep emerald lawns, rose - walks, flower - laden 
 terraces, and carpets of costly plants stretching their 
 glowing colors under the pale - blue evening haze 
 rising from the lake. The whole scene had some- 
 thing precious and pastoral, in spite of its grandeur 
 and gorgeousness, which involuntarily made me think 
 of the Trouvere's : 
 
 " Sus ! debout I Aliens voir 1'herbelette perleuse. 
 Et votre beau rosier de boutons couronne, 
 Et vos oeillets mignons, auxquels avez donne, 
 Hier au soir eau claire d'une main si mignonne." 
 
 It would have been such an ideal background for the 
 Fabliaux and the Romaunts. Ah, yes, a place to dream 
 a life away in, and die in contentedly, with one's eyes 
 gazing to the last at that delicious rolling of hill and 
 dale, that expanse of woodland and pasture and stream, 
 which seems but the extension of the domain itself. 
 
 It was a pity to think how that fair country of Eng- 
 land was being more and more Germanized by the 
 Crown, and greatly did I wish that I could have seen 
 Britain in the olden days when it belonged to itself, 
 and must have been so beautiful in its unshackled free- 
 dom and its peaceful, lovely sylvan scenery. 
 
 On the morrow we once more turned our faces towards 
 Egypt, that paradise of palm -groves, banana -plants, 
 and tamarind - trees, filled with the odor of tropical 
 flowers, where fragrance and light and heat and ever- 
 changing color, and the sweet, shrill notes of birds 
 among the white bells of the datura are blent in one 
 delicious harmony, gorgeous and fugitive like the 
 spirit of Heaven itself. As we passed through the 
 luxuriant orchards of northern France, now in full 
 bloom and looking like a sea of faintly rose foam, with 
 low-roofed cottages half drowned in its fragrant bil- 
 
 175
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 lows, and saw the fair landscape with its slender old 
 church-spires raising proudly towards the clouds their 
 gilded crosses, its countless towers, chateaux, farm- 
 houses, and picturesque, moss - grown mills peeping 
 through interlacing branches, I sighed a little, partly 
 from fatigue and partly frbm regret, but "Bah!" 
 thought I, we shall return there for good some day, and 
 live out the rest of our lives en plantant nos choux. 
 In the meanwhile there is work to do that must be 
 done, so, " Avanti, signorel" as the Italian pilot had 
 cried invariably, when going on duty off Naples in my 
 yachting days. 
 
 We had had a pleasant though almost expected sur- 
 prise, by-the-way, which I had nearly forgotten to men- 
 tion, when examining at leisure the famous old guineas 
 coming from the bed-rock of Tewfik Khedive's treasure 
 chamber, for over half of them proved to be such old 
 Georges, Cromwellian pieces, and Jacobuses as would 
 have gladdened the heart of a numismatist. I selected 
 a certain number of them as souvenirs of this curious 
 incident, and Fred disposed of the others in so advan- 
 tageous a fashion that he felt quite elated, and de- 
 clared he would greet Tewfik on our return with extra 
 warmth a futile and even unkind thing to do in Cairo 
 at the beginning of summer, as I informed him. 
 
 Mohammed was left behind, much to my regret, for 
 the lad was invaluable and utterly trustworthy. De- 
 spite the duskiness of his skin, his remarkable come- 
 liness, melting, almond-shaped eyes, delicate features, 
 and dazzling teeth had worked havoc with the heart 
 of a portly widow fifteen years his senior, but en- 
 dowed with the goods of this world to the tune of 
 five hundred pounds a year. The young wretch hatf 
 not only married her, but had gone to live in Camber- 
 well in a "desirable semi-detached villa" (see ad- 
 
 176
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 vertisements). Indeed, a few days before our depart- 
 ure he had made a clean breast of his matrimonial 
 adventure to me, confessing that the lady had been 
 attached to him ever since his first trip with us to Eng- 
 land, a year before, and that this time she had insisted 
 upon marrying him. 
 
 "The kindnesses which Your Magnificence has 
 shown to her slave are as countless as the dates on the 
 trees of my country/' he had said to me, with the usual 
 emphasis and hyperbole of his race, "and when the 
 heralds of Allah will shout forth at the last the good 
 deeds of the great people of the earth, first of all they 
 will proclaim those of Your Loftiness, on whose name 
 be peace ; but Allah must fear that no gifts within his 
 power to bestow can be great enough to reward her, 
 nor can Mohammed, her slave and servant, find words 
 to tell the gratitude that fills his soul, because his 
 Protectress has been like a mother to him, though she 
 is young and of surpassing beauty, like unto a jewel 
 of great price. Yet he must now leave her, and his 
 heart, therefore, is sore and heavy within him." 
 
 There he stood in all the majesty of his snowy muslin 
 robes, azure-and-silver sash, amaranth fez, and yel- 
 low babouches, looking more like an enamelled bronze 
 statue than a mortal man, his slim, dusky hands crossed 
 on his chest, and his eyes lowered in token of profound 
 respect; truly the very embodiment of that far Orient 
 which remains always more or less to us a shadowy 
 and gorgeous panorama of mystery, be we ever so well 
 acquainted with the revers de la medaille as exempli- 
 fied by saddle-galled donkeys, ragged, untidy fellaheen, 
 savage pariah dogs, swooping carrion-birds, cholera, 
 khamsins, bovine pest, and fly-tortured babies, not to 
 mention the rest. 
 
 "Mohammed," I said, breaking into the rapid but 
 12 i 77
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 broken stream of his parlance, and borrowing some- 
 thing of his own manner of speech, " my heart, too, is 
 heavy and sore within me to think that thou, Mohammed 
 my son, hast decided to sell thyself for a mess of pot- 
 tage, as it were, that thy spirit hath grown soft within 
 thee, like melting fat, and that thou wouldst abandon 
 the land of thy fathers to dwell forevermore amid smoke 
 and darkness. Wisely was it written by the prophet, 
 'Let him that desireth oblivion confer benefits/ for I 
 see now that thou wilt let me go back without thee to 
 the land of the white datura flower, whence thou earnest 
 with me, because an infidel woman hath looked upon 
 thee with favor." 
 
 Poor Mohammed looked positively crushed beneath 
 the weight of this magniloquent harangue, and the 
 spirit of mischief prompting me, I continued : 
 
 "Loyalty to one's own people and to one's country 
 and creed is a virtue to be rewarded with fine gold, my 
 son Mohammed. Forget thou not this! To forget is 
 very sinful!" 
 
 " Know, O most glorious and best of mankind, who 
 art of noble ancestors and gentle disposition, that were 
 I to serve thee for seven times one thousand years, 
 regarding nothing else as of importance, I could not 
 requite thee, but till I have regained thy favor and 
 gained thy pardon, Lady of kind and wise conduct, 
 I shall know no rest." 
 
 The situation was rapidly assuming threatening 
 possibilities, and I began to repent my unfortunate 
 pleasantry. Seeing that I remained silent, my attend- 
 ant salaamed low and continued : 
 
 " I must leave thee for a season. May thy days be 
 fortunate, and the noses of thine enemies be rubbed 
 thoroughly in the dust. Know this, O most brilliant 
 of stars, that wheresoever I may wander I shall never 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 cease to study the memory of thy virtues, O thou of 
 wisdom and eloquence." 
 
 " That is as it may be, Mohammed/' I replied, in 
 gloomy tones, " but remember that he who adventureth 
 upon matrimony is as one who gropeth with his hand 
 after the one eel in a nest of serpents. So doth the good 
 old proverb say. Pray that thine may be the eel." 
 
 "Be not angered with thy slave, high-born One, 
 and suffer me to depart in peace. May Allah never 
 deprive thy friends of thy magnanimous presence, 
 and may thy head long survive, which will be far below 
 thy deserts, for thou art of a truth more beautiful to 
 behold than the full moon, and greater than all the 
 sages." 
 
 Here I decided that the time had really come to stem 
 this torrent of Oriental adulation, and with a gracious 
 smile I said, impressively : 
 
 "Thou speakest the truth, for surely my benevo- 
 lence towards thee hath no bounds, and I can deny 
 thee nothing. Therefore do I bid thee farewell. May 
 Allah bring thee all thy desires. Let not thy heart be 
 troubled, for none can alter what is predestined." 
 
 Mohammed, like all Orientals, was impervious to 
 irony, which was a mercy, and with a last, high-sound- 
 ing sentence, to the effect that no honor and advance- 
 ment could ever be in excess of my deserts, he departed, 
 leaving me, in spite of my regret at losing an excellent 
 servant, almost convulsed with laughter at the extrav- 
 agant tenor of our late conversation. 
 
 Rome has always been a favorite city of mine, and I 
 was glad that it was necessary for us to spend a few 
 days there before rushing on towards our final desti- 
 nation. I greeted with enthusiasm the green Cam- 
 pagna, the purple heights of Rocca di Papa, and the 
 quaint antique city itself, so different from any other
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 in the world. Rome crowning its seven hills, with its 
 cypress woods and olive groves warm in the light of 
 the western sun, and facing the amethyst and pearl 
 lines of the mountains, where reign the majestic stone- 
 pines with tall, rosy heather at their feet, is a sight 
 never to be forgotten as one approaches it. 
 
 On the night of our arrival we went to a reception at 
 
 the Palazzo F e. We came rather late, and found, 
 
 in spite of the advanced season, that nearly every one 
 present was an acquaintance or a friend. 
 
 The guests had assembled in the long gallery, with 
 its many tall windows opening upon the gardens 
 illuminated to the very edge of the Tiber. The walls 
 were covered with unique Gobelins and lined with art 
 treasures just as unique Raphaels and Caraccios, 
 Murillos and Corregios, and glorious statues which 
 had been there ever since the time when they had 
 left the hands of the great masters who had begotten 
 them. Distant music filled the beautiful place with 
 softened echoes, and did not disturb the murmur of con- 
 versation carried on in tones of well-bred modulation. 
 
 Throughout that vast piano nobile all was majestic, 
 cool, and redolent of the delicious fragrance coming in 
 from the great eucalypti without, and of the discreet per- 
 fumes wafted on the ambient air by lace and feather fans. 
 
 Almost the first person with whom I conversed was 
 that kind-hearted, delightful, and witty prelate, Cardi- 
 nal S i, who was at that time Prefect of the Prop- 
 aganda, and was better known by the appellation of 
 " The Red Pope " than by any other, and who controlled 
 all the enormous ecclesiastical revenues of the non- 
 Catholic countries of the civilized world. Very stout, 
 but with delicate, strong features, a large, humorous 
 mouth, and wonderful eyes literally beaming with 
 kindness, a noble brow, and a fascinating smile, he
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 impressed one as being half scholar and half saint, and 
 withal a thorough grand seigneur, with a fondness for 
 gentle mirth and the companionship of distinguished 
 people. Working as hard and harder, too than any 
 parish priest, His Eminence led the life of an anchorite, 
 in a shabby little suite of carpetless and curtainless 
 rooms on the top floor of the old Propaganda palace, 
 and his well-worn cassocks, shining with the lustre 
 of hard service, were characteristic of a man whose 
 unselfishness and charity were proverbial. Early 
 and late, once the absorbing duties of his high office 
 accomplished, this Prince of the Church labored for 
 the poor and suffering. No slum was too fetid and 
 Heaven only knows how fetid the Roman slums south 
 of the Ghetto are for the Cardinal's personal visita- 
 tion upon errands of mercy. Often he returned from 
 them in the vague, dismal twilight of early morning, 
 wan, tired, hungry, thirsty, and foot-sore, but con- 
 tent with his night's labors, and with a bright and 
 serene countenance. His high rank was nothing to 
 him, and it was difficult to realize that he possessed it, 
 so simple were his ways, so modest his manner, so 
 more than plain his attire, save for the gleam of the 
 great ruby set in his archiepiscopal ring, or the bright- 
 ness mellowed by use of his silken sash and his old 
 black . soutane's narrow scarlet passe- poils. Doubts 
 of any sort as to what duty was never assailed him. 
 His deep faith was as pure and true as the sun shining 
 in the heavens, and as single-hearted and unswerving 
 as were his perseverance and courage. I had a deep 
 and affectionate reverence for that dear old man, whose 
 very presence was like a benediction, and was greatly 
 pleased, too, to see him for once in all the splendor of 
 his scarlet robes, which set off his venerable countenance 
 beautifully. 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 We stood by one of the open windows, talking quietly 
 of old times and of mutual friends, until we were joined 
 by another almost equally interesting personage, Prince 
 
 Marc C a, once chief of Queen Marguerite's 
 
 Household, but as on the death of his father, the prin- 
 cipal dignitary of the Pontifical Court, he had inherited 
 the charge of Prince assistant of the Holy Seat, he 
 could, of course, not remain with the Queen, and after 
 handing in his resignation never again crossed the 
 threshold of the Quirinal. The unutterable sadness of 
 his eyes, the melancholy of his smile, were a perpetual 
 reminder of the ghastly tragedy which had broken 
 both his spirit and his heart. The days were not yet 
 far away when he had been one of the happiest men in 
 the world, living in his wonderful Roman palace, with 
 his beautiful and beloved young wife and his two little 
 daughters, a life of luxurious repose and perpetual en- 
 chantment. The Princess, a singularly fascinating 
 woman with a delicate, patrician head, as perfect as 
 the graceful body which supported it, was much ad- 
 mired and courted. Among the men who paid her the 
 most attention was the young Marquis dell G . . . . i, 
 grandson of a Bonaparte prince and nephew of the 
 celebrated Cardinal of that ilk. The love which he 
 conceived for the wife of his friend was a whirlwind 
 of passion so violent that it transformed his whole 
 existence. However, he never swerved from the paths 
 of honesty, and never declared himself to Donna Vit- 
 toria as she used to be called but nevetheless gos- 
 sip grew rife around them, declaring that the guiltless- 
 ness of those two was a thing not to be believed for an 
 instant, and gradually but surely the rumor of their 
 supposed crime grew in volume until it reached the ears 
 of the last person usually informed of such scandals 
 namely, the husband. 
 
 182
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Prince Marc knew his wife too well to believe a word 
 against her, but versed in the ways of the world, and 
 knowing its cruelties, he spoke frankly and kindly 
 to his friend about the odious fashion in which the 
 woman whom they both loved was talked about, and 
 asked him in all fairness to discontinue his visits and 
 attentions. Stricken to the heart, and horrified beyond 
 expression at having unwittingly compromised her, 
 the young man went home, and, in despair, blew out 
 his brains, leaving behind him a letter of poignant 
 regret and touching apology addressed to Donna Vit- 
 toria, together with a velvet ecrin containing a great 
 butterfly of rubies, sapphires, and emeralds, transfixed 
 by a diamond stiletto a most cherished possession, 
 which he had inherited from his mother. 
 
 The Princess was at that time far from strong, and 
 the shock was so overpowering that it robbed her of 
 her reason. Her husband's grief was terrible, and he 
 devoted all his time to her, nursing and humoring her 
 with an abnegation seldom met with, and making her 
 his only care. Indeed, he seldom left her, excepting 
 when called away by the duties of his great office, and 
 withdrew almost completely from that society which 
 had held for him but a bundle of rods. 
 
 I was, therefore, surprised to meet him at the Palazzo 
 
 F e, until he explained that he was in charge 
 
 of one of the foreign princes present that night. An 
 intense pity always filled my heart when I met this 
 victim of one of society's greatest blunders. Society, 
 unfortunately, does not discriminate, but merely lays 
 down a few broad lines, between which it corrals two 
 sets of people, those of whom it approves and those of 
 whom it does not, regardless of their sins or virtues. 
 Can anything be more unfair? Indeed, in my humble 
 opinion, society in any and every clime is always, even 
 
 183
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 when at its best, something too poor for heaven and 
 too pale for hell! 
 
 Next day we dined with Donna Laura M i, 
 
 the only woman in Europe who could be said to 
 have a salon in the full acceptation of the word. 
 I have seldom met a shrewder, cleverer, or more fasci- 
 nating personality (nor do I believe that many exist) 
 than the still comely widow of the finest statesman 
 Italy has ever known. 
 
 A woman of the world to the tips of her dainty fingers, 
 she was, nevertheless, a quick-witted and sagacious pol- 
 itician, knew everybody worth knowing, was a great 
 friend of Bismarck, Gortschakow, e tutti quanti, as far 
 as great statesmen were concerned calling them all 
 indiscriminately by their Christian names and was a 
 power in many lands. 
 
 Her uncle, the famous Cardinal A .... n, used to say 
 of her that she was the cleverest diplomat he had ever 
 met, and did his level best when she was still a very 
 
 young girl to marry her to Lord G e, the 
 
 enormously wealthy British statesman. She, how- 
 ever, preferred to this great personage, and to the lofty 
 position he offered her, the exceedingly good-looking 
 Sicilian Prince of C e, who, after a compar- 
 atively short time of more than questionable connu- 
 bial bliss, suddenly went insane and died in a lunatic 
 asylum, leaving her with two small children and very 
 little money. She was not inconsolable, however, and 
 soon married Victor Emmanuel's favorite Prime-Min- 
 ister, Signer M i, who literally adored her, 
 
 and proved a model step-father to her little ones. 
 
 Her daughter, who was surpassingly lovely, became 
 
 at the age of sixteen the wife of Count D f, 
 
 a very wealthy, cold, and rather unsympathetic Prus- 
 sian, whose crowning sin was to abhor music. This 
 
 184
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 lack of appreciation on his part for the delightful har- 
 monies evoked from the pianoforte by his charming 
 little wife proved his final undoing, for while represent- 
 ing his country at Dresden, his first secretary of em- 
 bassy, Count B . . . w, who happened to be quite as 
 music-mad as the young Countess, spent most of his 
 time playing duets with her. Life became soon unbear- 
 able for the one without the other, and in order to be 
 able to continue throughout its course an eternal duet, 
 they eloped one fine morning, leaving the man "not 
 moved by concert of sweet sounds " desolate, but too 
 proud and too icy to acknowledge it by anything but 
 immediate steps for a divorce. 
 
 Happily for the Countess, the Iron Chancellor of 
 the German Empire was at that time very anxious to 
 materialize the Triple Alliance, and, naturally eager to 
 please Signer M i, he talked his aged sover- 
 eign, kind-hearted Emperor William, into overlooking 
 Count B . . . w's and Countess D f 's runaway mar- 
 riage a ceremony which had been hurriedly performed 
 as soon as the divorce freeing her had been granted. 
 
 Indeed, after a very short period of diplomatic dis- 
 grace, the secretary of embassy was sent to St. Peters- 
 burg, where his own and his wife's magnificent mu- 
 sical talent caused them speedily to become personae 
 gratissimae with the Czarina. 
 
 From Petersburg Count B . . . w was sent to Bucha- 
 rest, and then to Rome, the amazing rapidity with which 
 he climbed the diplomatic ladder being but another 
 example of the lamentable fact that virtue is not always 
 the only excellence which calls for a reward. Of course, 
 this all belongs to the history of some years ago, but 
 at a much more recent date, when Count B . . . w was 
 finally appointed Chancellor of the German Empire, 
 
 thus becoming the immediate chief of Count D f , his 
 
 185
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 wife's divorced husband, who was still vegetating on 
 the banks of the Elbe, inextinguishable if covert laugh- 
 ter rippled throughout Europe, and those who were on' 
 the inside track realized with renewed admiration the 
 amazing cleverness and savoir-faire of Donna Laura 
 
 M i, for it is certainly more to her than to 
 
 any one else that her recreant little daughter owes 
 the masterly unravelling of her tangled matrimonial 
 skeins. 
 
 On,the evening to which I refer we met at the Signora's 
 hospitable house several more of our old acquaint- 
 ances, first and foremost, His Excellency the German 
 Ambassador to the Quirinal, nicknamed by his own 
 irreverent subordinates "Tante K . . . . e," and by the 
 world in general "Bismarck's David," having won his 
 promotion in the service by soothing the irritable temper 
 of that illustrious statesman when he was his secretary 
 by playing Chopin and Liszt to him with uncommon 
 maestria. Queen Marguerite, herself an excellent musi- 
 cian, was an enthusiastic admirer of " Tante K . . . . e," 
 and was never tired of playing classical music with him 
 on two pianos. Alas, poor David! He, too, was un- 
 done later on by melody, for, falling desperately in 
 love with a highly gifted singer until then not par- 
 ticular^ famous, but in whom he imagined that he 
 discovered the feu sacre of true genius he married her, 
 and this was the end of his career both as a diplomat 
 and a courtier. 
 
 When I think of him as I saw him for the last time on 
 that occasion, with his fat, square-tipped fingers lightly 
 
 caressing the keys of Donna M i's sonorous 
 
 piano de concert, and his round, German face upturned 
 towards the frescoed ceiling in rapt enjoyment of his 
 own superb execution, I cannot refrain from offering 
 a little sigh to the memory of that jovial and good- 
 
 186
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 natured disciple of St. Cecilia who made me spend so 
 many delightful hours in days of long ago, when the 
 spirit of music entered his soul. 
 
 On the morning of our departure I was honored by 
 a private audience from the Holy Father, but as soon 
 as I had removed the black dress and lace mantilla 
 which are de rigueur at the Vatican, and slipped into 
 my travelling-dress, it was time to be off again. On 
 we sped out of the Eternal City, which looked its best 
 with the sun shining brightly on the Volscian Hills, 
 the line of the Leonessa, and the purple heights of 
 the Sabine Mountains, glowing like heaped -up sap- 
 phires and amethysts. There was still a little snow 
 on the summit of Monte Gennaro, for the maize and 
 the corn were not yet ripe in the fertile Roman 
 plains, rosy-red with countless poppies. At last the 
 gilded cross of St. Peter's disappeared behind the fleecy 
 cloud-world, and we rolled with increased speed towards 
 Brindisi, the good ship Mongolia, and the many in- 
 trigues and troubles of His Highness Tewfik Khedive. 
 
 Once again we landed at Port Sai'd amid a shrieking, 
 yelling, struggling mob of dusty porters fighting for the 
 privilege of carrying our hand-luggage, and, escorted 
 by that same unavoidable rabble rout of chattering and 
 grinning human monkeys which is ever about one in 
 Egypt, we bent our steps towards the Hotel des Etran- 
 gers, the only half-way possible one then. We had 
 decided to charter a steam-launch to take us through 
 the Suez Canal to Ismailia, and shortly after midnight 
 we embarked and were soon splashing merrily out of 
 the harbor towards de Lesseps's great waterway. 
 
 Within the velvety shadow extending between the 
 steep banks of the canal our little craft sped on famously, 
 its diminutive funnel vomiting torrents of smoke, which 
 gleamed silvery white where the moon-beams touched 
 
 187
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 it far above us and turned it into fairy-like clouds. 
 Gradually Dame Luna's magic-rays invaded the sombre 
 area of the canal itself, until the small steamer on its 
 rippling waters shone like an overgrown metal toy in 
 that admirable Egyptian luminosity, which I hailed 
 like an old friend. I drank in the splendor of that night 
 in long, thirsty draughts, and leaving Fred to slumber 
 in the liliputian cabin which he very nearly filled 
 with his six-foot something of length, I sat on deck 
 watching the vast and shadowy desert wastes on both 
 sides of the way, unbroken save by an occasional thicket 
 of yellow-tufted mimosa or a slumbering file of camels, 
 lying like a succession of immense, conical ant-heaps 
 on the orange-hued sand. At sunrise we sighted Is- 
 mailia, nestling in a leafy bower of acacia, fig, and 
 carob trees on the edge of its beautiful lake, and I could 
 have shouted for joy, so exquisite was the view before 
 me. The glassy surface of the water, just tinted with 
 shimmering rose, and shrouded here and there with 
 pearl-hued vapors, was streaked with long flights of 
 newly awakened birds hurrying out on their daily 
 fishing expeditions, and on the bank, towards which 
 we were gliding rapidly, great, blue herons and pink 
 flamingoes rose lazily from the feathery reeds where 
 they rested, craning their dainty necks to watch us as 
 we passed, disturbing with our fanlike wake the quiet 
 of that mirror-like surface which reflected their brightly 
 plumed selves. 
 
 We arrived tired, it is true, but safe and sound at 
 Cairo, and I was just in time to witness on the very 
 morrow of my return a spectacle which few European 
 women have been privileged to see, and which I would 
 not have missed for a great deal namely, a series of 
 fetes given in honor of semi-royal nuptials, and carried 
 out in the bona-fide, old-fashioned style which still 
 
 188
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 obtains in Egypt in so far as such ceremonies are con- 
 cerned. Indeed, I was so delighted with what I saw 
 then that I cannot resist the temptation of dwelling 
 for a little while upon this charming experience of mine. 
 
 On the first day devoted to the wedding - feasts, 
 on leaving my carriage 1 was conducted by the chief 
 eunuch through a magnificent garden, a place of 
 luxuriant verdure and bubbling fountains, which 
 was illumined by thousands of pink and pale-green 
 lamps, swinging from the trees like strange, ideal 
 fruit, bordering the parterres with their capricious fes- 
 toons, and cincturing the palace, which seemed hung 
 from top to bottom with strings of live jewels, at once 
 soft, brilliant, and chaste in their unspeakably delicious 
 mellowness. The path i followed was strewn with 
 powdered sea -shells and bordered on either side by 
 rare plants in full bloom, filling the air with exquisite 
 perfumes. It was a rather sultry but clear night, the 
 sky was radiant, and the lustre of a great, white moon, 
 hanging like a giganjtic pearl in the deep blue overhead, 
 lit the trellised rose-walks leading to the marble palace 
 and cast into bold relief against the deep shadow of 
 palm and ilex the many feathery jets d'eau crown- 
 ing flower-filled basins of alabaster with whispering 
 coolness. 
 
 My guide and I soon reached an open loggia, with 
 floor and columns of white marble. One side opened to 
 the balmy air, the other was richly draped with wonder- 
 ful silken banners and hangings embroidered with 
 gold and silver devices, flowers, and fruit. Every- 
 where arborescent ferns in large, square tubs of bronze 
 filled in the spaces between the columns, which were 
 themselves garlanded with jasmine, roses, and a 
 sort of highly odorous pink wistaria I had never seen 
 before. Here eunuchs, attired in gala uniforms, were 
 
 189
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 waiting to escort me to a huge and superbly decorated 
 reception-room, where a galaxy of beautiful white slaves, 
 clad in brilliantly picturesque Eastern costumes and 
 literally covered with jewels, took charge of me, and 
 passing me, so to speak, from one to the other, ushered 
 me into a yet more splendid salon, where dancing-girls, 
 tambourine or castanets in hand, performed the grace- 
 ful gyrations of a true Oriental dance. On and on I 
 was conducted through an interminable series of apart- 
 ments gorgeously decorated in Turkish style, with 
 gold - diapered walls glittering enough to dazzle the 
 eyes of a hawk. Each room shaded off in color into the 
 next, embracing every imaginable tint of the prism; 
 there was blue-gold, green-g_ld, red-gold, violet-gold, 
 orange-gold, yellow-gold, indigo-gold, all shimmering 
 like waves of fluctuating electricity, and I am bound 
 to say that this unique style of mural decoration far 
 surpassed in beauty anything which the richest im- 
 agination might suggest. 
 
 The last of this astonishing suite was occupied by 
 the mother of the bride, a remarkably well-preserved 
 woman of thirty, clothed in transparent gauzes scin- 
 tillating with gems, and whose jet-black tresses, in- 
 termingled with strands of pearls, were crowned by 
 a scarlet, thickly pailletted fez, the long, dark -blue 
 tassel of which hung over her left shoulder. Here all 
 manner of extraordinary refreshments were served 
 drinks of every imaginable color, sherbets in filigree 
 cups of gold, fruits reposing on heaped-up rose petals, 
 confections which Oriental hands alone can prepare, 
 and bon-bons too pretty by far to be broken up and 
 eaten. 
 
 The hostess's thronelike divan was surrounded by 
 a dozen female slaves carrying drawn swords, and by 
 an equal number of eunuchs armed to the teeth, and the 
 
 190
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 numerous guests sat upon other divans ranged along 
 the wall, watching a group of almehs dancing a sort 
 of etherealized ballet, in which wreaths of magnolia, 
 datura, lotus, and oleander played a prominent part. 
 Afterwards they received rich gifts from the hostess, 
 and also from the guests, who, according to an im- 
 memorial custom, never attend such fe'tes without bring- 
 ing costly presents for the singing and dancing girls. 
 
 Suddenly the curtains of a lofty, arched door were 
 drawn aside and the bride appeared, slowly walking 
 upon a broad strip of cloth of gold which slaves, moving 
 backward, unrolled under her tiny feet as she ad- 
 vanced. On either side of this royal carpet marched 
 a double row of eunuchs, bearing tall silver candelabras 
 wherein pink candles burned, and twenty-four young 
 girls, wearing costumes of gold - striped white satin, 
 followed and surrounded the fiancee, holding above 
 her head an arched canopy formed entirely of fresh 
 orange-blossoms and silvered leaves. 
 
 Meanwhile other .girls, standing on little inlaid 
 benches, or tripods, showered upon this fair procession, 
 and also upon the guests, handful after handful of tiny 
 gold coins struck expressly for the occasion, and which 
 were carried away by those present as charming little 
 mementoes of this auspicious ceremony. With well- 
 nigh military precision the guests fell into step behind 
 the bridal cortege, and, forming into a triple line, follow- 
 ed it from salon to salon until a great hall, furnished 
 and upholstered in white and silver, and profusely 
 decorated with orange, lemon, and myrtle blossoms, 
 was reached. On a raised platform were three white 
 satin chairs, upon which the bride, her mother, and 
 the bridegroom's mother took their places. 
 
 The bride was an exceedingly lovely girl, almost 
 a baby in years, with velvety black eyes soft as a ga- 
 
 191
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 zelle's, a little rosebud of a mouth, a skin like the in- 
 nermost heart of a tea-rose, and blue-black hair, as 
 fine as fits de la vierge, falling in opulent splendor 
 from beneath a diadem of diamonds of fabulous value. 
 A long tunic of heaviest shimmering brocade, em- 
 broidered with silver and pearls, showed off the perfect 
 contours of her form, and wide trousers of soft satin, 
 half concealed by the long ends of a broad silken sash 
 worked with jewels, allowed her absurdly delicate ankles 
 and narrow, deliciously arched feet to be freely admired. 
 The latter were enclosed in babouches, which appeared 
 to be made entirely of diamonds and rubies. From 
 her shoulders hung a white velvet mantle, lined with 
 cloth of silver and provided with an immense train, 
 which was carried behind her, when she walked, by 
 six maidens clad in pure white. 
 
 As soon as everybody was seated the wedding-pres- 
 ents, consisting of jewels, admirable cashmere shawls, 
 gold and silver plate, and other objects of a magnificence 
 which really beggars description, were carried on golden 
 trays, protected by gayly beribboned, transparent cov- 
 ers of crystal, past the fortunate fiance'e, by coal-black 
 slave-girls, whose yellow and crimson gauze robes, im- 
 prisoned at the waist by tightly fitting corselets of 
 burnished gold, made a superb blotch of color amid all 
 the virginal whiteness surrounding us. This formal- 
 ity accomplished, a tall, veiled figure appeared upon 
 the scene, and, standing erect before the dai's, uttered 
 a long and lyrical recitative in praise of the blushing 
 bride. 
 
 "Here, guests of high degree," the high-pitched 
 but melodious voice said, " we are allowed to contemplate 
 the faultless channs of a maiden who to-morrow will 
 adorn the palace of her well-beloved, and cause great 
 joy and pride to blossom forth in his manly heart. She 
 
 192
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 is a marvel of marvels, young as a newly born dove, 
 white as cream, slender as a reed j her eyes are like pools 
 of heavenly light, her mouth puts to shame the bud of 
 the scarlet lily, the waves of her silken hair are made 
 lustrous each night by the magic touch of her protect- 
 ing spirits, her purity is like a frozen moon-beam's, her 
 innocence greater than that of the little lamb a week 
 old! Behold her, noble guests! Behold, O slaves 
 and people, this pearl of our harem, who has but just 
 received the priceless nechane* sent to her by her lord 
 that is to be, and whose virginal blushes were first 
 called forth by the fragrance of the great love by which 
 it was perfumed." 
 
 The voice rose and fell in canorous cadence, the veiled 
 figure opened its gauze-enwrapped arms like napping 
 wings, threw back its swathed head, and finally, when 
 the interminable monologue ended, retired backward 
 with solemn tread to the music of a hundred guzlas 
 and native harps, emanating from an invisible or- 
 chestra concealed amid palms and flowers behind the 
 dai's. 
 
 The distribution of the chaoura followed this, the 
 chaoura being a scarf of fine linen, richly embroidered 
 with gold, and contained in a boga, or square envelope, 
 of azure velvet tied with gold cord, which is presented to 
 each guest in the name of the bride and groom. Then 
 the " nightingales," or " singers of songs," were ushered 
 in with great ceremony, and, grouping themselves on 
 each side of the dai's, commenced a series of melodies 
 composed of couplets and refrains, sung alternately 
 by each group. Here is an example of these musical 
 creations, which are generally improvised for the 
 occasion : 
 
 * A jewel equivalent to our engagement-ring. 
 193
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 COUPLET 
 
 Oh I my beloved, slumber sweetly ; 
 
 For seven years have I waited to wake thee; 
 
 A kiss will I press on thy rosy lips, 
 
 A caress on thy snowy bosom. 
 
 Wake, my beloved, I am thy love 
 
 Wake, my arms await thee. 
 
 REFRAIN 
 
 O moon ! O moon ! My little white moon, 
 
 Swinging in the sky, 
 
 Shine on my love as she slumbers; 
 
 But wake her not, 
 
 Thou little round moon, 
 
 For 'twill be my joy to do so. 
 
 COUPLET 
 
 White as a lily she lies there, 
 
 Waiting for me, her lover ; 
 
 Heart of my heart, 
 
 Soul of my soul, 
 
 Favorite wife of my youth ; 
 
 Pink as a rose she will awake. 
 
 Acknowledging me as her lord. 
 
 REFRAIN 
 
 O moon ! O moon ! My little round moon, 
 
 Who dyest the plumage of the awakening dove 
 
 As with the rich tints of henna, 
 
 Shine on my love 
 
 But wake her not, 
 
 For it is my joy to do so. 
 
 When the songs were brought to an end the guests 
 once more formed into a procession, and as they passed 
 before the bride each in turn cast over her a little pinch 
 of salt, so that she soon appeared as had a slight 
 
 194
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 frost fallen upon her white-clad form, which had 
 been hurriedly covered with a transparent veil of arach- 
 nean gauze. Blushing rosy red beneath these shim- 
 mering folds, the girl stood strangely still, her lovely 
 eyes cast down, her long lalhes sweeping her rounded 
 cheeks, her little hands folded upon her breast, a s\veet, 
 pretty, dreamy figure, looking almost unreal in its ex- 
 traordinary daintiness and beauty of coloring. 
 
 This was the end. With profound obeisances the 
 guests retired, bowed out by slaves and eunuchs, while 
 the fiancee was conducted back to her apartments, 
 where she was to await in fasting and prayer other 
 similar ceremonies, which during a whole week, day 
 after day and night after night, would precede her 
 wedding. 
 
 " B'ismillah!* Who made this exquisite dress for 
 you?" 
 
 The words were whispered in my ear as I walked once 
 more through the gardens, followed and preceded by 
 eunuchs and accompanied by the chief eunuch himself, 
 who, according to custom, held me tightly by the elbow 
 as if I were his prisoner. 
 
 I turned around, much surprised, and found myself 
 face to face with the favorite wife of the Prime-Minister. 
 She herself was attired with the greatest magnificence 
 and quite h la Franqua, save for the diaphanous ydsh- 
 mak of white silk tulle which floated like a cloud over 
 her head and shoulders. 
 
 Hardly able to repress a smile, I told her the name 
 of my couturier, and, quite regardless of the fact that 
 we were stopping the way, and that my escort's Olym- 
 pian brows were drawn together in a ferocious frown, 
 she began to finger my gown with exclamations of purest 
 delight. 
 
 * In the name of Allah. 
 195
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " Oh, I noticed during the zaffa (procession) that you 
 were the best - dressed lady there. Even the bride, 
 when to-morrow she appears dressed ft la Franqua, as 
 is our custom now, will have nothing finer than this. 
 Oh, think of pink velvet veiled with silver tissue, and 
 then again with such splendid lace ! Oh, what illumina- 
 tion to the mind, what clovelike fragrance! And your 
 rubies! Oh, really, really, salat en Nabi (bless the 
 Prophet!), such marvels I never have beheld! Your 
 yashmak, too powdered with diamond-dust! Ya, la, 
 la! You are happy, indeed! Elhame dulli lah!" 
 
 I was not so sure about the happiness at that moment, 
 but assuredly I had never been so embarrassed in all 
 my previous existence. The good lady's loud excla- 
 mations had brought to my side all the women within 
 range of her voice, and the chorus burst into extrava- 
 gant praise, interlarded with excited and interminable 
 Ya, la, las and Ya, la, Us. It was absolutely unen- 
 durable. They fingered my hair, my jewels, my fan, 
 my bouquet. They bent down to examine my slip- 
 pers, and when they discovered, after a regular fight 
 for it, that the latter were provided with silver heels, 
 and that my train was lined with hand-painted satin, 
 their joy became nothing short of delirium. With the 
 greatest possible trouble I disengaged myself from their 
 little, jewelled hands, and only breathed easily when 
 two gigantic eunuchs had lifted me bodily into my car- 
 riage with that precipitation and violence which forms 
 part and parcel of their etiquette. 
 
 "Yalla! Ya ost !" ("Drive on, coachman!") cried 
 out their chief, shrilly, and at last I was at liberty to 
 laugh unmolested and unrestrained. 
 
 Space fails me to describe the remainder of those 
 memorable wedding festivities at any length, and yet 
 jt seems hardly fair to scamper over the narration there-
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 of, for they were well worth recording from the " Song of 
 the Bride/' sung by the Gawouazis (singing dancers) 
 on the leilat el henna (night of the henna), and which 
 is composed with a view of exalting the manifold quali- 
 ties, heroic deeds, and surpassing beauty of the bride- 
 groom, to the last act of this amorous drama, when the 
 young couple are left alone together and see each other 
 face to face for the first time. 
 
 The panegyric of the bridegroom is something like 
 the following : 
 
 " I am weak and reeling with joy. 
 
 My love is hue the perfumed breezes of Allah's pleasure- 
 grounds ! 
 
 My love resembles the moon, the stars, and the planets. 
 Resembles the moon swinging on the point of a slender reed. 
 He is ravishing, he is polite, he is unequalled. 
 Incomparably brave, handsome, and spiritual. 
 I am drawn to him with an irresistible force. 
 Ah! poor little me, I will drown in the flood of his love!" 
 
 And so forth and so on, for twenty-four couplets and 
 as many refrains. 
 
 I had seen many curious pageants in many quaint 
 corners of the globe, yet I was greatly impressed and 
 surprised by what I saw then. It was all so extraordi- 
 nary and characteristic. 
 
 The reception of the bride at her husband's palace 
 struck me as especially original, and as, thanks to my 
 being a European woman, I could after a fashion see 
 the ceremonies in both the harim'lik and salaam' lik, 
 I was in a position to judge them with some fairness. 
 The bridegroom had often dined at my house, as had 
 also his illustrious father, his younger brother, and two 
 of his uncles, so that instead of joining the cortege of 
 the bride I was courteously invited to precede it, and 
 to be already on the spot when it arrived at its destina- 
 
 197
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 tion. I was very glad of this, for it spared me the an- 
 noyance of driving slowly through the streets, blocked 
 in a long file of equipages, and regaled the while with 
 the music of many brass bands, string and wind in- 
 struments, the martial airs played on the zoumara be- 
 ing especially trying to the nerves and exasperating 
 to horses not carefully and patiently trained to accept 
 such cacophony. 
 
 When my brougham drew up before the elaborate- 
 ly decorated portals, the venerable master of the house 
 hurried down the steps of the palace, and, offering me 
 his hand, conducted me through a succession of loggias, 
 halls, and reception-rooms to the vast gardens separat- 
 ing the salaam' lik from the harim'lik, and as we passed 
 along I was enabled to see all that Cairo then held of im- 
 portant seigneurs clad in gala costumes and uniforms, 
 lounging in the state apartment lighted a giorno by 
 myriads of candles and lamps. The courtesy ydshmak, 
 which I wore over my court-dress, precluded according 
 to the time-honored Mohammedan custom the possi- 
 bility of any of the male guests bowing to me or of 
 even looking my way, and this scrupulous observance 
 of the respect due to the veil that is supposed to shield 
 the modesty of Eastern women, on the part of men whom 
 I was accustomed to receive at my house, amused me 
 very much. 
 
 The greatest magnificence was displayed throughout 
 the salaam'lik. The buffets and consoles groaned be- 
 neath the weight of gold and silver plate ; every imag- 
 inable sort of refreshment was handed around by slave- 
 boys clad in all the colors of the rainbow; garlands of 
 glowing flowers adorned both walls and ceiling, and 
 silken banners, sparkling with gold, fluttered in every 
 direction. At last we arrived at the threshold of the 
 harim'lik, where the eunuchs, bowing to the ground, 
 
 198
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 made way for us and formed into a double line, through 
 the middle of which we proceeded to the apartment re- 
 served for the reception of the bride. There I was met by 
 the mother of the bridegroom, and my host took leave 
 of me to return to his own portion of the palace. 
 
 Again I was granted the privilege of gazing upon 
 gilded walls, painted ceilings, gorgeous furniture, 
 admirable embroideries, and absolutely astounding 
 rugs a display which was, after all, but a repetition 
 of what I had seen at the bride's home and in many 
 other Cairene and Constantinopolitan palaces; but I 
 must confess that the bridal -room on this occasion 
 far distanced anything I had ever beheld. There the 
 draperies and hangings were of thick, soft, old-rose 
 silken stuffs, brocaded in a deliciously light pattern 
 of convolvulus vines and flowers, in silver and gold. 
 The carpet covering the centre of the rich mosaic floor 
 was of faint turquoise blue, old-rose, and white, with a 
 bloom on it like that of a ripe Reine- Claude plum, 
 and the divans lining the wall were draped with rose- 
 hued satin, embroidered with silk, gold, silver, and 
 chenille in the most elaborate manner. 
 
 From the ceiling hung several lamps of solid silver, 
 shedding the softest of lights upon this enchanting 
 room and upon the nuptial bed, an enormous and finely 
 gilded four-poster, crowned by a canopy of gold-and- 
 pearl embroidered cloth of silver, from which drooped 
 a broad fringe and numerous tassels of crystal and coral 
 beads, and provided with pink-tufted white satin mat- 
 tresses and pillows, showing through the exquisitely 
 sheer batiste and costly laces of the cases and sheets. 
 The counterpane, doubled back and falling to the floor, 
 was another marvellous piece of needlework, which look- 
 ed as if fairies alone could be responsible for the capri- 
 cious arabesques adorning it ; and on each side of this 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 regal couch tall perfume-burners of pink copper poured 
 forth delicious vapors, which rose in transparent volutes 
 from their cunningly perforated covers. 
 
 While I was yet taking in all these splendors, the 
 sound of the approaching procession faintly reached 
 our ears, and we hurried away to greet the bride 
 on her entrance. Just inside the threshold of the 
 harim'lik we stopped, almost on the edge of a broad 
 pool of blood staining the garden sand with vivid scar- 
 let, and which but a minute before had been coursing 
 through the body of a baby buffalo, sacrificed in honor 
 of the fiance'e, and which now lay limp and lifeless un- 
 der a neighboring clump of blooming rose-bushes. 
 The vanguard of the cortege ranged itself along three 
 sides of the great yard, under the severe eyes of a 
 squad of blue - uniformed khedivial mounted - police ; 
 the bouquet - bearers, torch - bearers, and standard, 
 bearers, bestriding milk-white stallions, formed them- 
 selves into line along the outer edge thereof, and, pre- 
 ceded by a band of musicians, the ponderous gala 
 carriage, made of mirrors and much gilded scroll-work, 
 and drawn by six snowy horses magnificently ca- 
 parisoned, rumbled heavily up and stopped before the 
 entrance steps. Seized by vigorous and eager hands, 
 the bride was lifted out and almost carried within the 
 palace, where she was greeted by prolonged wailing 
 shrieks of unutterable shrillness, which, followed by 
 a weird and curiously rapid clapping of the tongue 
 against the palate, makes up the regulation and some- 
 what terrifying welcome of the fiance'e on such oc- 
 casions. It would be difficult, indeed, to imagine a 
 wilder and more discordant concert than this savage 
 outburst, which carries one back in spirit to the re- 
 motest ages of the human race. 
 
 Covered from head to foot with a thick and impene-
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 trable silken veil, striped with gold and fastened on each 
 side of the head by two rutilant cascades of golden thread 
 falling to the very ground, the trembling girl was 
 led forward by her father and brother, the long train 
 of her white satin dress literally ablaze with diamonds 
 rippling behind her in big waves of light as she slowly 
 advanced, followed by six almehs, singing softly the 
 following words : 
 
 " Here she comes, the beauty unsurpassed ! 
 Her eyebrows are traced as with an onyx pencil I 
 Her eyes are soft as a gazelle's ! 
 Her teeth are pearls of untold value! 
 Her hair falls to her little feet like showers of fine silk I 
 Her little nose is dainty as a Syrian azerolle/ 
 
 Ya la la, Ya la li, Ya la li la! 
 Her mouth, like the great Suleiman's ring, changes everything 
 
 to gold ! 
 
 Her pink-coral lips are moist with heavenly dews! 
 Her neck, like an alabaster column, is smooth and polished ! 
 Her ivory bosom gently rises and falls like that of a sleeping 
 
 baby ! 
 * Her green jade heels will bring luck to her beloved ! 
 
 Ya la la, Ya la li la la! 
 
 Bow, O people! Be humble. Bow, guests, people, and slaves, 
 for here cometh the bride!" 
 
 When the song ceased, a blast of silver trumpets rang 
 out through the great hall, and a group of eunuchs 
 appeared bearing lighted candelabra and preceding 
 the bridegroom, who, apparelled with the utmost 
 splendor, hurried forward and prostrated himself upon 
 a gorgeous prayer-rug which had been prepared for 
 him, almost at the feet of his bride. After publicly 
 
 * A person who brings good luck is said to possess " green 
 heels," one who brings bad luck, "black heels," green being 
 the color of the Prophet. 
 
 201
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 lifting his heart towards his Maker, and thanking Him, 
 so to speak officially, for the great boon about to be 
 granted him, he solemnly rose, drew the slender, grace- 
 ful figure of the girl within the shelter of his arms, and 
 pinned upon her breast a jewel of great price. She in 
 turn inclined herself in low obeisance, and taking his 
 hand in both her own, pressed it reverentially to her lips 
 through her silken veil, which was not for an instant 
 raised during the whole ceremony. Gently, tenderly, 
 her lord led her away, while all present fell back in 
 utter and imposing silence, through which, from far 
 away in the gardens, the floating melody of some ex- 
 quisitely played string instruments was just perceptible. 
 Before reaching the door leading to their private apart- 
 ments the young couple turned and bowed low towards 
 those assembled to wish them God-speed. The chief 
 eunuch drew back the heavy, shimmering curtains 
 of the lofty arch under which they were about to pass, 
 there was a strident crash of cymbals as they disap- 
 peared beneath it, and, with one nerve-shaking shout 
 of triumph from the entire assembly, the ceremony was 
 brought to a close. 
 
 Man and maid were at last allowed to look into each 
 other's eyes and seek to discover whether they would, 
 indeed, love each other.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Intrigue and moonlight, treachery and gold. 
 
 Antiquity and newness in one breath ; 
 Verdure escaping from the desert's hold, 
 
 Blood, flowers, beauty, and blue sky and death. 
 
 M. M. 
 
 " WOULD it be possible for your husband to make 
 use of the influences which he possesses at Berlin to 
 provoke an international congress in order to counter- 
 act the party now in favor of a British protectorate in 
 Egypt?" 
 
 " As a last and forlorn hope?" 
 
 " Why, yes possibly ; although the present govern- 
 ment is not in favor of a protectorate, is it?" 
 
 "No, I think that I may safely say that much; but 
 then the present government is rather erratic, and 
 little to be trusted. Of course, such a congress might 
 be the salvation of His Highness, as it probably would 
 insure the neutrality of Egypt a neutrality guaran- 
 teed by the great Powers, not one of which would then 
 have precedence over the other. For you doubtless 
 realize, my dear Pasha, that in case of such an arrange- 
 ment, France especially would make a particular point 
 of England's being reduced to the rank and file, instead 
 of lording it over here as she does now?" 
 
 "Oh yes, I understand that. Naturally, Russia, 
 Turkey, Italy and, more than all, France are adverse 
 to British preponderance in Egypt; and I believe that 
 such a conference would make of this country a sort 
 
 203
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 of second Belgium, with its neutrality guaranteed by 
 a concert of the great Powers." 
 
 "There is a point which you do not take into suffi- 
 cient consideration at the ministry, and that is France's 
 extreme eagerness to guarantee the Egyptian debt and 
 to render herself immediately responsible for the pay- 
 ment of the coupons. Of course, this would be done 
 with a view of taking the management of this country 
 in her own hands and of substituting herself for Eng- 
 land. It would be a point d'honneur with France to 
 accomplish all that England has neglected to do here 
 for the good of the people and of the land, but still one 
 cannot by any means be sure that it would, after all, 
 be best if France were to gain the upper hand, in spite 
 of England's remissness in fulfilling her freely taken 
 engagements. At any rate, whatever happens, the 
 question of supremacy in Egypt will be hotly disputed 
 between those two countries now." 
 
 " This reduces our present situation to a mere Franco- 
 British squabble?" 
 
 " Yes, after a fashion, it does ; but one must not lose 
 sight of the fact that France, by this ill-timed inter- 
 ference of hers, at a moment when chaos is already 
 reigning supreme, is probably going to force England 
 into a policy which has until now been distasteful to 
 her, and which will not be a good or sound one either 
 for herself or for Egypt. Moreover, should England 
 guarantee the debt which would mean, of course, her 
 declaring a protectorate that will be the end of all the 
 Khedive's chances, for it will no longer be worth her 
 while to maintain him on the throne." 
 
 " What do you think of the English Premier's atti- 
 tude in the matter?" 
 
 " My dear Pasha, you know as well as I do what the 
 Premier is. The mere mention of Egypt throws him 
 
 204
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 into veritable convulsions of rage, and his good wife 
 a Cerberus in petticoats never fails to warn those 
 who approach him that they are under no circum- 
 stances whatsoever to allude to it in his presence. It is 
 most ridiculous, but what can one do? You have no 
 idea of the bitter quarrels which are caused by the 
 Egyptian question in England. While we were there 
 a most regrettable scene took place between him and 
 
 Lord N e during a meeting of the Cabinet. 
 
 The Premier got up from his place, and, hitting the 
 table violently with his clinched fist, declared that the 
 British troops would have to be immediately recalled, 
 
 whereupon Lord N e also rose and said that 
 
 the English people would never consent to this, and 
 that personally he himself would hand in his resig- 
 nation if such an outrage were permitted. The quarrel 
 waxed so hot and heavy that finally the Premier took 
 his departure, and was ill in bed for a week from sheer 
 exasperation. Is that not typical?" 
 
 " Dear me, dear me ! We are really in a very critical 
 situation, and how we shall ever manage to negotiate 
 the loan of five or six millions, which is to us a sine 
 qua non, if neither France nor England guarantee 
 our solvency, is a mystery to me. Yet the failure to 
 achieve this would spell ruin for us." 
 
 "Remember what I told you just now, and draw 
 your own conclusions." 
 
 The Egyptian Premier rose abruptly from the divan 
 where he had been sitting during our conversation, 
 and loudly snapping his fingers a most uncanny and 
 exasperating habit of his took his stand before the 
 open window and fell into a brown study, from which 
 I took care not to arouse him at once, having had 
 enough of this wearisome discussion. 
 
 After a comparatively long interval, which I em- 
 
 205
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ployed in looking at the gorgeous salon where we had 
 spent the last hour or so in profitless talk, he turned 
 once more towards me, and in his low-pitched, languid 
 voice, said, tentatively : 
 
 "The English imagine, don't they, that were their 
 troops to be withdrawn, the Dervishes would vanquish 
 us and be upon the Mediterranean in the twinkling of 
 an eye?" 
 
 I laughed. " Well, you cannot blame them for slight- 
 ly exaggerating their own importance. They con- 
 sider themselves the policemen of the entire world, 
 although you and I are too wise, are we not, to believe 
 in the fable of their disinterestedness? That is only 
 one of their harmless little boasts, and deceives nobody 
 who knows them at all intimately." 
 
 " They are a queer people. Just think of their pre- 
 tending that in 1881 nothing could be further from their 
 minds than interference in Egypt, and yet 1882 left 
 them practically in possession of the country. Who 
 will ever believe that they really had no choice in the 
 matter?" 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders and remained silent, for I 
 was not minded to reopen an exhaustive chapter 
 namely, that of Egyptian grievances against England. 
 For a few moments the great statesman puffed thought- 
 fully at his cigarette ; then he sat down again beside 
 me, and with an air of determination, which had been 
 utterly lacking from his whole attitude until then, said, 
 shortly : 
 
 " Can you yes or no induce your husband to set 
 the idea of a congress or conference going ? This 
 is the main point just now, for I am gradually com- 
 ing to the conclusion that that would indeed be our 
 salvation." 
 
 "I believe I can easily do what you ask," I replied, 
 
 206
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 after a little pause ; " but whether Fred succeeds or not 
 is quite another question." 
 
 "Will you try?" 
 
 " Yes, of course I will try that is, if you really wish 
 me to do so. Perhaps the plan is not as perfect as you 
 think, however, although it may certainly be attempted, 
 and might prove successful." 
 
 " We have a proverb which says that to-day only is 
 our own," murmured R . . z, with a hopeless little 
 smile, "and our friends the English have another 
 about striking the iron while it is hot. You see, Mon- 
 seigneur is frightened wellnigh out of his wits by the 
 continual attacks made upon him in the House of Com- 
 mons. Last night he was so worried about this that 
 he alarmed even me." 
 
 " I trust that you will not think me disloyal if I say 
 that it were better for him to be man enough to face 
 the truth as it stands, instead of spending his time in 
 wrathful vituperation and idle terrors. He is very 
 difficult to manage." 
 
 I paused and looked out towards the gardens, flooded 
 with sunshine and redolent with the intoxicating scent 
 of millions of blossoms. "Heavens and earth," I 
 thought, impatiently, " que sommes nous venus faire 
 dans cette galerel" Ever since our return from Eng- 
 land Fred had been bending all his efforts to bolstering 
 up Tewfik's sinking courage and energy, more for the 
 honor of the task intrusted to himself than from any 
 increased interest in the Viceroy's affairs, which, in spite 
 of all one could do and did to help him, were, thanks 
 to his own methods, in a chronic and hopeless muddle. 
 Weariness and exasperation were now his reward. Two 
 or three times lately, however, I had been on the point of 
 believing that there must be some other' and graver rea- 
 son for his harassed looks, but he denied this absolutely. 
 
 207
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 R . . z Pasha, probably astonished at my silence, 
 gave an uneasy look in my direction, his brown, parch- 
 ment-like face, keen, piercing eyes, and wizened figure 
 making a strange picture against the delicate pink- 
 and-white satin cushions upon which he was leaning. 
 We had not very much to say to each other now, and 
 when the Premier addressed me again it was in a 
 staccato and apologetic tone which surprised me a 
 little. 
 
 " I have made -you spend a very dull morning," he 
 said, with a brisk rubbing of his dry hands, which 
 sounded like the friction of withered leaves. "You 
 are always so patient and kind. Truly, you have been 
 invaluable to us in-val-u-a-ble " ; he pronounced the 
 word syllable by syllable, as if to give it greater em- 
 phasis. "You must not think that we do not appre- 
 ciate all that you do for us. ..." 
 
 "My dear Pasha," I interrupted, "I am doing ab- 
 solutely nothing. Pray do not consider it necessary 
 to thank me. I would be only too glad to be of assist- 
 ance when Fred is busy or absent as is now the case 
 but my knowledge of politics is far too slender to give 
 me any right of interference. I am, you see," I added, 
 reflectively, "nothing but a worldly butterfly, playing 
 occasionally at being serious and deeply interested in 
 the affairs of the hour, but all I accomplish is a mere 
 flutter of wings." 
 
 He laughed. " That is not how we judge your abil- 
 ities ; but if this were really the case you would have all 
 the greater merit in forcing yourself to talk about such 
 uninteresting subjects as the destiny of nations. You 
 who have been created to enjoy all that life holds of 
 fairest and most beautiful. And now, may I be allowed 
 to show you something which I think you will admire? 
 It is a thoroughly original specimen of our somewhat 
 
 208
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 crude art, but you are indulgent to our failings, and so 
 it may find grace in your eyes." 
 
 He rose, and, unlocking a small cabinet of exquisite 
 workmanship, handed me a faded box of azure velvet. 
 " It belonged to my mother," he said, simply, " so you 
 see that it is rather ancient." 
 
 I touched the spring which closed the ecrin, and 
 gave a start of astonishment at the sight of the mag- 
 nificent jewel it contained a triple row of rubies, large 
 and clear and perfect, forming an ornament of fab- 
 ulous value set quaintly in a flexible mesh of dull 
 gold, preciously worked in representation of pome- 
 granate leaves and buds. 
 
 "How beautiful!" I exclaimed, tilting the box to and 
 fro to allow the bright morning light fair play about 
 the facets of the stones. 
 
 "I am glad you like it/' he said, turning his 
 eyes away, "for I wish you to accept it as a sou- 
 venir of your visit here. Will you honor me by so 
 doing?" 
 
 Quietly setting the box on the divan, I looked smil- 
 ingly at him. 
 
 "Bribery and corruption?" I asked, in a tone meant 
 to convey the impression that I looked upon the whole 
 thing as a mere amiable pleasantry. Then 1 contin- 
 ued, in the same gay and speculative tone: "When I 
 consider that I deserve a reward for my invaluable 
 services, I will beg you to let me come and wander about 
 those superb gardens" here I indicated with a sweep 
 of the hand the blossoming parterres and rose-grown 
 paths stretching before the windows " and will help 
 myself unstintingly to Your Excellency's finest flowers 
 and plants, for I am passionate^ fond of flowers. But 
 until that time arrives I must respectfully decline to 
 be presented with jewels worth a king's ransom." 
 H 209
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 He watched me as I spoke with curious and al- 
 most grotesque astonishment. It was obvious that 
 he was mentally calculating the real import of my 
 words, for to complicated natures like his plain and 
 outspoken truths generally wear a dangerous and 
 scheming aspect. His mouth was twisted into a smile 
 like that of an old goblin, and his lean fingers twitched 
 round the glorious golden collar, which he had taken 
 from its receptacle. 
 
 " Do you see any impropriety in a man of my age 
 I could be your grandfather, you know giving a 
 little token of gratitude and reverence to a child like 
 you?" he said, speaking with curious distinctness. 
 In spite of his unprepossessing exterior, he was an in- 
 teresting and by no means displeasing personality. 
 He had always been a hard worker, and there were 
 characteristic furrows about his eyes, showing clearly 
 that he had suffered deeply at some time or other of his 
 life, while others betrayed the fact that he was in 
 a precarious state of health. He was an Oriental in 
 the full acceptation of the word, and beneath his long 
 stambouline beat a heart cruel, jealous, uncivilized, 
 and fierce, in which great contempt for women reigned 
 supreme those women, pretty, empty-headed, chat- 
 tering, who lived indolent, useless, luxurious lives in 
 unseen zenanas, beyond the flowering trees and shrubs 
 of mysterious gardens ; but Oriental though he was, he 
 had been, by reason of the necessities of a diplomatic 
 career, too well trained in the codes of European so- 
 ciety to make the mistake of allowing this feeling to 
 betray itself now, and therefore the expression of his 
 face was difficult to read as he stood before me still 
 holding the glittering rubies, which looked like things 
 alive. 
 
 "My dear Pasha," I said, quickly, "I will now bid 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 you good-morning and ride home, for the sun is getting 
 hot and I must not risk my complexion which has 
 never been my best point, I regret to say even in the 
 interest of political intrigue." 
 
 He stood for a second irresolutely between me and 
 the door, then suddenly a peculiar smile broke over 
 his countenance. " You are a very strange, and, permit 
 me to add, a very dangerous woman. A woman is 
 always dangerous when she does in no single particu- 
 lar act as one has a right to expect that a woman will 
 act, and I well, I am an old fool to have classed you 
 even momentarily with the rest. I humbly beg your 
 pardon for so doing." 
 
 " That's right ; beg my pardon, by all means. That 
 is as it should be," I replied, merrily, " although, strict- 
 ly speaking, your sin is not enormous. It seems to me 
 that you must have met with singularly unscrupulous 
 and greedy people, which makes your generous inten- 
 tions towards myself both plausible and forgivable." 
 
 "Then you forgive me?" he said, in a low voice. 
 
 "Yes, I do, mais ne recommencez pas." 
 
 We passed out into the gardens, and walked down a 
 path above which long, drooping fronds of amethystine 
 wistaria rustled and swayed, to the spot where the sdis 
 was waiting with my horse. Before mounting, I turned 
 to my host and held out my hand. " Sans rancune?" 
 I said, smiling. " Sans rancune," he repeated, bend- 
 ing low over it, and as I trotted briskly away I saw his 
 bowed form outlined in sombre colors against the won- 
 derful brightness of the flowering shrubs and plants, 
 like a mystified interrogation mark. 
 
 It was past lunch-time when I arrived home, and the 
 heat was very great. I dismounted, and walked slowly 
 and a little wearily into the house. It was cool there; 
 the light was dim and evenly diffused, and the tinkling
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 of the fountain in the patio fell gratefully on the ear. 
 I drew aside a great curtain embossed with a white- 
 and-silver design and entered a room which I called 
 my den, and which I preferred to all the other ones put 
 together. The walls were hung with willow-green 
 silk of a thick and matt texture, which made a delicious 
 background for some of my favorite pictures among 
 others, one of a snow-capped mountain summit out- 
 lined with exquisite softness against a clear, lemon- 
 tinted sky. A huge eagle was swooping down towards 
 the glittering snow, and that was all; but the execu- 
 tion was masterly, and the sense of cold which a mere 
 glance at it afforded one was invaluable in Egypt's 
 brazen climate. Willow-green curtains shrouded the 
 tall windows; the couches and arm-chairs were low 
 and broad, and a profusion of cut flowers, all pale yel- 
 low and white, in iridescent crystal bowls and vases 
 loaded the air with perfume. 
 
 I sat down on one of the couches after ringing the 
 bell, and when Paul entered I asked him to bring me 
 some fruit and some iced tea, for I was not hungry, and 
 the mere thought of the dining or breakfast rooms, 
 with their plate-loaded sideboards and profuse table 
 paraphernalia, made me feel inclined to run away. In 
 my little, green room the glare and heat, the worry and 
 noise of the outside world could not enter, for which 
 mercy I was truly grateful, as I had a splitting head- 
 ache and longed for silence and absolute quiet. 
 
 Late that night I sat again in my green room, read- 
 ing. All the windows had been thrown open to admit 
 the cool air, blowing in over the drowsy, starlit gardens, 
 and I was thoroughly enjoying my peaceful seclusion 
 when suddenly Sahla appeared with a disturbed ex- 
 pression on his usually remarkably impassive features, 
 and announced in an awed and tremulous voice that 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " His Highness Tewfik Khedive " was in the drawing- 
 room and wished to see me at once. 
 
 "The Khedive!" I exclaimed, greatly astonished, 
 for his presence at such an hour was simply incredible. 
 
 Fred had gone to Alexandria the night before, and 
 as it was Tewfik who had sent him there he could not 
 possibly ignore the fact that he was absent. Some- 
 thing, therefore, of quite extraordinary importance 
 must have occurred. Wondering what new trouble 
 was brewing, I hurried to the drawing-room without 
 taking time to exchange my loose white robe for a 
 more correct attire. 
 
 When I entered, the Khedive and an elderly aide- 
 de-camp were standing in the middle of the room ear- 
 nestly conversing, but as the faint rustle of my skirts 
 reached their ears they turned towards me, as if they 
 had both been set upon one and the same pivot. The 
 Viceroy's beard, hair, and eyes looked preternaturally 
 black, thanks to the almost livid pallor of his round, 
 full face, and his voice was hoarse and constrained as 
 he greeted me. 
 
 I waved my hand towards a divan, and he sat down, 
 a curious, indefinite patch of black in the dimly lighted 
 room, his aide-de-camp remaining standing at some 
 distance. 
 
 "I am afraid I am intruding in a fashion quite be- 
 yond pardon," he said, in his perfect but somewhat 
 slow French. 
 
 "Not at all." 
 
 "I am in a cruel dilemma," he continued, more 
 smoothly, "and it would have been imperative for me 
 to consult your husband, but, failing him, I came to 
 you, whom I know I can trust implicitly, and who also 
 are cognizant of all my miserable affairs." 
 
 There was nothing regal in my august interlocutor's 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 appearance as he almost crouched on the broad, crim- 
 son divan, looking more like an obsequious merchant 
 of the bazaar than a mighty potentate. 
 
 "What can I do to help you, Monseigneur?" 
 
 I spoke with blunt directness, staring him full in the 
 eyes, with a hope of compelling him to come at once to 
 the point instead of meandering off into long and ex- 
 haustive lamentation, as was his wont when worried. 
 
 He hesitated before replying, for to give a truthful 
 and plain answer was always difficult to him, and to 
 give an untruthful one would have been worse than 
 useless in so obviously pressing a case. At last he 
 said, drawing a long slip of paper from an inner pocket 
 of his stambouline : 
 
 " Read what I have just received and tell me what I 
 am to do." 
 
 A glance at the printed words showed me that there 
 was, after all, real gravity in the situation, but that 
 the Khedive's ordinary lack of coolness and of reso- 
 lution were after all the most dangerous factors which 
 it possessed. All this passed through my mind very 
 rapidly, and at the end of a few seconds I leaned back 
 in my chair and said, quietly : 
 
 " I think, Monseigneur, that you exaggerate the diffi- 
 culties of this new incident, if you will allow me to say 
 so." 
 
 "Exaggerate!" shrieked Tewfik, straightening him- 
 self and raising his clinched fists above his head in 
 a dramatic and almost ludicrous fashion. " Why, my 
 throne, . . . nay, my very life, are no longer worth a 
 moment's purchase. Everybody betrays me, abandons 
 me, tries to make me do the wrong thing, take the wrong 
 decision 1 I cannot trust even my ministers. I hardly 
 dare to take a cup of coffee outside the harim'lik for 
 fear of being poisoned. The foreign diplomatists ac- 
 
 214
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 credited to my court make sport of me and now comes 
 this terrible threat!" 
 
 He paused an instant to mop the perspiration from 
 his brow, and, without giving me time to put in a word, 
 continued, in the same wild strain: 
 
 "Do you know that I am being attacked before the 
 English House of Commons with unexampled viru- 
 lence, and that evidently nothing will satisfy its mem- 
 bers save my deposition? No man, I suppose no sov- 
 ereign, surely likes to be accused of the crimes which 
 are being constantly laid at my door crimes so hope- 
 lessly and sordidly petty/' he concluded, almost in 
 tears and his fat face growing yet a shade paler, 
 "that none but a craven would dream of committing 
 them." 
 
 I crossed my hands deliberately one over the other, 
 for there was nothing for it but to wait with what resig- 
 nation I could muster until this man, who had for the 
 time being evidently quite lost his mental equipoise, 
 should have spoken himself out. In his corner of the 
 big room the aide-de-camp stood as motionless as a 
 statue, and, apparently, as deaf and as dumb also, for 
 not a muscle of his bronzed face moved, and his eyes 
 were unluminous and dull as those of a slumbering 
 reptile. An uncanny man at best of times was Araki 
 
 M t Bey, an.d peculiarly unpleasant to gaze upon 
 
 just then. 
 
 "I am being treated," the Khedive rattled on, "as a 
 knave and a fool! They make me out to be a sort of 
 tragic ass, a mere tool in the hands of half a dozen dif- 
 ferent parties; even my own father conspires against 
 me longs to overthrow me! Can you deny that such 
 is the case? tt was reported to me that you saw him 
 at Naples, and he must surely then have given vent to 
 his hatred against me. Deny it if you can!" 
 
 215
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 This was decidedly going too far, and my temper 
 never of the best was slowly rising. 
 
 " Your father, Monseigneur/' I said, coldly, meas- 
 uring out my words with elaborate care, so as to give 
 him neither too little nor too much of the medicine he 
 needed, "never even pronounced the name of Your 
 Highness, either to my husband or to me, and I wish 
 to respectfully remind you of the fact that there should 
 be no mention of disloyalty before the wife of a man 
 who has been of far more than sterling honesty and 
 staunchness to yourself, Monseigneur." 
 
 There was a note of warning and disapproval in my 
 voice which made him wince. 
 
 "Pray forgive me," he said, humbly. "I was not 
 alluding to your husband, of course. I am almost 
 beside myself, and do not know what I am saying." 
 
 " Well, Monseigneur, I am of opinion that it might 
 be wise to cease looking backward for the moment, at 
 least and to try and decide what would be best for 
 you, Sir, to do in the immediate present." I unclasped 
 my hands, took a cigarette from the silver box on the 
 table, arid began to smoke, looking straight at him, 
 after having silently offered him a soothing weed, which 
 he as silently accepted. 
 
 I felt intensely provoked with this weak and vacil- 
 lating man, who had reached the point where he found 
 it necessary to rely upon the strength and sagacity of 
 a mere woman, a stranger to his race and kin. He 
 seemed really to be on the verge of hysterics, and, ris- 
 ing, began to walk distractedly about the room, to the 
 imminent peril of the fragile furniture standing in his 
 way ! After a silent scrutiny of his convulsed face, I, 
 too, rose, and catching up with him, laid my hand on 
 his arm with a decision which brought him to an im- 
 mediate stand-still. 
 
 216
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "There really is nothing in the despatch you just 
 showed me to put you in such a state, Monseigneur," 
 I said, somewhat roughly, noticing that his lips 
 twitched curiously, and that tears actually stood in his 
 eyes. I was in no wise minded to let him give way 
 entirely, and I saw at once that my energetic treat- 
 ment was taking effect, for the passion that had dis- 
 figured him, suddenly died out, and, sinking down in a 
 chair, he began to speak more quietly. 
 
 "Help me," he said, imploringly. "You must see 
 that I am not able to judge for myself. I have just 
 peeped through the open doors of Hell! Have patience 
 with me!" 
 
 I was touched by his overpowering distress and hu- 
 miliation, and sitting down beside him, I spoke sooth- 
 ingly and encouragingly. When I found, after a 
 while, that he was calmer and could assimilate a strong- 
 er diet, I passed on to the incident which had brought 
 him to seek my inefficient advice. Long and earnestly 
 I whispered, trying to make him realize that pluck and 
 determination could alone meet the situation, and that 
 under no circumstance should he let himself be induced 
 to try and conciliate everybody. At last he raised his 
 head with something like energy, and in a firmer voice 
 said: 
 
 "I think and feel that you are wholly right, but 
 would you mind drafting the reply to this quasi ulti- 
 matum for me? I will never be able to do it right. 
 Would to God that you w r ere a man, and that I might 
 make you my Prime-Minister!" he added, with absolute 
 gravity. 
 
 To save my life I could not help laughing, although 
 I felt irritated enough to have cheerfully boxed my 
 illustrious visitor's ears. 
 
 " This is not very nattering for our dear friend, R . . z 
 
 217
 
 A DOFFED CO.RONET 
 
 Pasha/' I replied, rising and walking to a small escri- 
 toire. 
 
 "He has been behaving like a fool lately," was the 
 consolatory rejoinder, and I was still laughing as I 
 bent over a sheet of paper and began to ply my pen in- 
 dustriously, the whole situation seemed so ridiculous! 
 Nevertheless my fighting spirit was up in arms, and 
 I burnished, sharpened, and honed my style until I 
 produced a counter - ultimatum which I flattered my- 
 self was tolerably ingenious in its specious wording. 
 I fixed my attention fiercely on the matter in hand, and 
 when I had brought my task to a satisfactory conclu- 
 sion I again laughed softly to myself, but this time 
 with pleasure. 
 
 When I handed the closely written pages to Tewfik 
 he read them twice over in silence, his look of laborious 
 attention making him appear as if he were the core of 
 a world that spun like a zoetrope around him, for he 
 gazed at the paper which he held in his shaking hand 
 with eyes that were full of amazement, and even of 
 that fear which seizes the imagination when encom- 
 passed by the violence of a radical change. 
 
 At last he spoke, with a sort of awed distinctness. 
 ' I shall have this sent at once," he said, rising. " It 
 is a masterpiece ; but will they ever believe that I com- 
 posed it?" 
 
 " What does that matter?" I rejoined, with airy malice. 
 " You will sign it, will you not? Surely that ought to 
 suffice." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so," he said, glancing around as if 
 looking for some one to praise the heroism of his reso- 
 lution. All at once a strange light of enthusiasm 
 leaped up in his until then piteously drawn face. " I 
 will try to follow this policy to the end indeed I will," 
 he exclaimed, the fire of excitement burning in his eyes. 
 
 218
 
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Perhaps it will mean success; but there are many 
 who will want to murder me," and his face turned as 
 gray as ashes at the thought of so horrible a possibility. 
 
 " Allons done, Monseigneur, ne faiblissez done pas 
 comme cela ; tous les Rois courent les memes risques !" 
 
 The Viceroy looked down on the floor and made no 
 answer. The Arab proverb which says that "those 
 who can rouse a sleeping cat can also make it sleep 
 again," shot through my mind. Why had I gone to 
 the trouble of momentarily arousing him to the knowl- 
 edge of what a monarch really should be? What folly 
 it all wasl Truly, I was sorely tempted for a minute 
 to undo the work of the past two hours at one blow. 
 
 His mood, however, had meanwhile changed again, 
 for he had squared his shoulders, and in a tone of as- 
 tonishingly martial virility said, decisively: 
 
 " Henceforward, madame, I will fear nothing ! Good- 
 night, and a thousand thanks. I really do not know 
 how to express my gratitude and my admiration. They 
 are both limitless." 
 
 "You will please me best by saying nothing about 
 either," I replied, a little stiffly, for the chameleonic 
 propensities of this pinchbeck sovereign were begin- 
 ning to get on my nerves, and I was anxious to see him 
 take his leave. " I will ring for Your Highness's car- 
 riage," I continued, taking a step towards the bell. 
 
 "I walked here. There would have been too much 
 danger of my being recognized had I driven from the 
 palace," was his surprising reply, as he sauntered 
 towards the door, but before reaching it he suddenly 
 turned back and added, uneasily : " I would be greatly 
 distressed if I thought that Mahmoud Bey should ever 
 find out that I have been here to-night. He, more than 
 any one else, must be kept in ignorance of my visit to 
 you." 
 
 219
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Why he more than any one else?" I could not help 
 exclaiming. 
 
 " Because he is no friend of yours, nor of your hus- 
 band's either; in fact, if I had believed him " He 
 paused, pursing his lips and looking at me furtively 
 out of the corners of his eyes, evidently furious with 
 himself for having said so much ; but this was a clew 
 which I did not propose to let slip by, and with- 
 out the slightest regard for the frown of displeasure 
 which now drew together Tewfik's august brow, I ask- 
 ed him peremptorily what Mahmoud had said against 
 Fred. He hummed and hawed and took refuge behind 
 some incoherent sentences about "petty jealousies," 
 but the more I watched his expression of demure art- 
 fulness the more I became determined to get at the 
 bottom of this new phase of Mahmoud's machinations. 
 " If I ever can nail my suspicions upon him," I thought, 
 " I'll show him the time of day," and aloud I said, firmly : 
 
 " Monseigneur, I must ask you, as a personal favor, 
 to tell me the truth about this. Be assured that I have 
 very serious reasons for speaking as I do." 
 
 Possibly the Khedive resented the veiled command 
 of the words, but he dared not rebel. 
 
 "Oh," he said, irritably, "I am sorry to have said 
 anything about it ; it was but yet another of my foolish 
 impulses, as you must see for yourself. Mahmoud mere- 
 ly once gave me to understand that your husband was 
 not . . . quite trustworthy, . . . was, in short, . . . un- 
 scrupulous ... in certain matters, . . . but please re- 
 member that I did not give the slightest credence to 
 this accusation ... to this preposterous accusation, I 
 may say." 
 
 "Thank you," I replied, unable to repress a sneer. 
 " Was this accusation made in connection with valu- 
 ables of considerable importance, by any chance?" 
 
 220
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 The Khedive started as if touched with a red-hot 
 iron. His lips quivered, partly with fear and partly 
 with rage, and a gleam of terror shot from his eyes. 
 
 " I do not know what you mean, my lady/' he stam- 
 mered. " Upon my honor, I don't. Mahmoud is not a 
 man I choose to anger ; he is very dangerous very dan- 
 gerous indeed, so you will not force me to say more 
 than I mean . . . more than I know, or than there is to 
 tell, that is." 
 
 I listened imperturbably. I knew enough to make it 
 now possible for me to act, and as I realized, moreover, 
 that Tewfik would not be prevailed upon to utter an- 
 other word on the subject, I said, simply: 
 
 "I would not for the world trouble you, Sir, just 
 now with this little problem, although the action of 
 Mahmoud Bey bears an ugly name, and comes with- 
 in the scope of the law. Libel is bad enough, criminal 
 libel is worse! However, I may, at any rate, assure 
 you that I will not refer to the subject again until I am 
 in a better-informed position, and meanwhile I do not 
 mind also promising you, Monseigneur, while I am 
 about it, that what you told me just now I will not men- 
 tion to my husband, who certainly would not accept it 
 tamely." 
 
 He drew a deep sigh of relief and the frown disap- 
 peared as if by magic, together with the tone of childish 
 exasperation which had characterized his last remarks. 
 
 "You are very kind, very generous; I will not for- 
 get all you are doing for me," he said, quickly. " No- 
 body ever understood me so perfectly and completely 
 as you understand me. Thank you again and again." 
 
 We were by that time on the terrace, and a faint 
 lightening of the violet sky in the east heralded the 
 approach of dawn. 
 
 "We must hurry," exclaimed Tewfik, turning to 
 
 221
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 his wooden aide-de-camp, who had fallen into step and 
 was following close at our heels. " May Allah be with 
 us and prevent my being discovered outside the palace. 
 How could I explain my conduct!" 
 
 I slightly raised my shoulders in indication that I 
 even I could not suggest a fitting subterfuge, and 
 watched him hasten away under the darkness of the 
 trees with genuine amusement. 
 
 " Et maintenant & nous deux, Maitre Mahmoud," I 
 murmured, as I reascended the steps, bitter thoughts 
 chasing away all my humorous appreciation of Tew- 
 fik Khedive's wonderful instability and lightning-like 
 shiftiness. A white wrath came upon me as the white 
 squall descends upon my own Breton coast, its livid 
 hue of destruction making one feel that perchance hell 
 itself is white, and that Dor6's conceptions of the horri- 
 ble ice-fields of Hades are drawn from life. 
 
 I slept but little, and was up bright and early, having 
 at last decided what I would do. I do not mind con- 
 fessing that I had passed many hours in mental con- 
 flict concerning my future conduct with regard to 
 Mahmoud. It would have been a blessed and sacred 
 duty to me to unmask the lying hound who had 
 tried, and was trying still, no doubt, to wrong Fred so 
 grievously; but I had also a more complex task than 
 that before me. 
 
 " Calomniez, calomniez, U en restera toujours quel- 
 quechose," rightfully says the proverb for calumny is 
 a deadly weapon, and the wounds it inflicts fester for- 
 ever, like a cancerous growth which nothing can eradi- 
 cate. It would be easy for me to expose Mahmoud and 
 his deeds to his sovereign, but Tewfik feared the man, 
 and if he considered redress at all, radical indeed would 
 be the means that would suggest themselves to him. 
 On the other hand, if the matter became public, forever 
 
 222
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and ever afterwards my husband's name the name 
 I myself now bore would be coupled with the history 
 of a peculiarly cowardly and ugly theft, and although 
 he was as innocent as an unborn child, yet the world 
 would brand him unhesitatingly with a more or less 
 heavy share in an ignominy. And what also of the 
 secrecy of his mission? Was that to be shouted from 
 Dan to Beersheba by a hundred thousand eager throats? 
 " The whiter the wall, the greater the stain made upon 
 it by falling mud," I muttered to myself as I stepped 
 out of my room and walked slowly to where my horse 
 was waiting. "No, no; I must deal with him alone, 
 and seek help from nobody. That is the only safe 
 way." 
 
 The roses were all aglow on the lawns around the 
 house, and the sunbeams danced in the marble foun- 
 tains as I rode out of my own grounds and walked my 
 horse under the shade of the trees lining the avenue, 
 and I sadly reflected that it was really unduly warm for 
 this season of the year, even in Cairo. Mahmoud had 
 kept away from my house ever since our return from 
 England, and before our departure had only called twice, 
 when he was sure to find plenty of people there, which 
 made me inclined to think that he dreaded to meet 
 me alone. This being the case, it would be difficult for 
 me to corner him, as it was now my intention to do, 
 for I could not, of course, summon him without giving 
 him to understand that I had some very good reason 
 for doing so, which certainly would be most unadvis- 
 able. I had, therefore, to meet him on neutral ground, 
 and in a place where he could not escape me. This 
 was what I was about to attempt. 
 
 I rode slowly towards the Kazr-el-Nil bridge, but as 
 soon as I had crossed the river and left my sais be- 
 hind me I set off at a smart hand-gallop along the 
 
 223
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 broad and shady road leading to the Khedive's sum- 
 mer palace, whither most of the officials of the House- 
 hold had already moved in anticipation of his arrival 
 on that very same evening. 
 
 I had not the slightest doubt that Mahmoud would 
 be there, organizing his " Gracious Master's " private 
 chancellerie, as it was his wont to do, and I there- 
 fore headed straight for that portion of the great build- 
 ing where the viceregal apartments were situated. 
 
 All the windows were wide open, and from the back 
 of my sixteen-hander I could plainly see that a con- 
 siderable amount of bustle was going on within, where 
 a host of servants were hurrying to and fro, carrying 
 boxes and cases, or moving furniture from place to 
 place under the direction of solemn-looking gentle- 
 men whose stamboulines made black blotches upon 
 the general brightness of the gorgeous salons, or of 
 much - gilded officers, jingling their spurs upon the 
 polished, inlaid floors. 
 
 In the embrasure of a deeply embayed window, pro- 
 fusely garlanded with azure and white passiflora, I at 
 last caught sight of a broad back and a slim waist, 
 easily recognizable as belonging to friend Mahmoud, 
 and, bending sideways out of my saddle, I succeeded 
 in touching his gold-laced shoulder sharply with the 
 end of my riding -crop. He faced round with an 
 alarmed gesture, which left no doubt as to the uneasi- 
 ness of his conscience, and when he saw who had played 
 this merry little prank upon him his joy was neither 
 overwhelming nor convincing. 
 
 "Why, my dearest lady, can I believe my eyes? Is 
 this really your own charming self? This is a surprise, 
 indeed!" he cried, with a twisted smile which it must 
 have hurt him to produce. 
 
 " Your eyes are quite trustworthy, for it is really my 
 
 224
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 own charming self, my dear Bey, and what will no 
 doubt please you still more is that you can do me a ser- 
 vice ! One of my horse's shoes is, I fear, loosened, and 
 if you will send me somebody to see whether such is 
 the case I will dismount and grant you the delight of 
 my presence while the damage is being repaired/' 
 
 "Mais comment done, chere madame!" he replied, 
 with empressement, and he vanished from the window 
 to reappear almost immediately at my side, followed by 
 a footman, who took possession of my horse and led 
 him away to the stables and the farrier's domain. 
 
 Mahmoud gallantly offered me his arm which I de- 
 clined with thanks and proposed that we should stroll 
 through the gardens. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no," I said, peremptorily. " I am abom- 
 inably warm. Is there not a cool and secluded corner 
 of this establishment where we can sit down and smoke 
 a cigarette in peace?" 
 
 "Certainly, of course there is, and if you will gra- 
 ciously excuse the confusion necessary to the occasion 
 I will conduct you to Monseigneur's study, which is 
 the only room where work of some sort is not in prog- 
 ress." 
 
 "That will suit me admirably," I replied, following 
 him into that apartment, which was entered from the 
 gardens through a glass -domed antechamber lined 
 with tropical plants, where, in gigantic cages of sil- 
 vered wire, green parakeets, rose-crested cockatoos, 
 and scarlet-robed cardinals disported themselves noisily. 
 
 The blinds were partly drawn down, and although 
 there was plenty of light, yet it was of a subdued and 
 refreshing quality, most soothing after the fatiguing 
 glare outside, and I sank with a little sigh of content 
 into the depths of an uncommonly comfortable arm- 
 chair and lit a cigarette, 
 5 225
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Aren't you going to sit down?" I asked of the aide- 
 de-camp, who was fidgeting around, and who all of a 
 sudden seemed to have grown extraordinarily awk- 
 ward and embarrassed. 
 
 "You are delivered into my hands, oh, mine enemy!" 
 I thought, with a little inward laugh, as I watched him 
 drag a dainty, gilded chair quite inadequate to his 
 weight opposite to me; and, aloud, I continued: 
 
 " I cannot tell you how glad I am to have found you 
 here this morning. It has been my wish to speak to 
 you alone for some time past, and I consider it as quite 
 providential that Heliogabalus Heliogabalus is my 
 horse should have almost cast a shoe, since it pro- 
 cures me this tete-h-tete." 
 
 A smirk of extreme fatuity coarsened his features, 
 and I nearly laughed aloud at the keenness of his mis- 
 apprehension. 
 
 " I am indeed gratified," he murmured, with a half- 
 bewildered, half-sentimental glance. "You cannot 
 doubt the joy which your words give me." 
 
 "Well," I said, reflectively, "it remains to be seen 
 whether your joy will be lasting, for, unfortunately, 
 my dear Bey, I have a thing or two to tell you which 
 the most sanguine of men could not construe into a 
 declaration of love." 
 
 "Whatever may fall from your adorable lips will 
 be a delight for me to hear, I assure you," he stated, 
 with an impassioned gaze of such meritorious insin- 
 cerity that I softly clapped my hands as a tribute to his 
 histrionic talents. 
 
 He shifted his chair uneasily, and his olive skin 
 darkened to a dull, angry red. It was easy to see that 
 if he could have done so he would have shown me a 
 clean pair of heels, but it was impossible for him to es- 
 cape me now, and I perceived that he was afraid, with 
 
 226
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 that fear which conceals itself under an assumption of 
 great ease and exaggerated familiarity. He moved 
 his large, well-shod feet nervously, then drew a jew- 
 elled cigarette-case from his pocket, and, opening it 
 with a nourish, offered it to me. I was no longer in 
 the mood, however, for small courtesies, so I waved 
 this proffered olive - branch unceremoniously away, 
 and said, very quietly: 
 
 "I think that we need not keep our masks on any 
 longer. The game is up, Mahmoud Bey!" 
 
 His broad chest rose and fell as if breath were failing 
 him, and the hand which still held the glittering case 
 towards me trembled; but he remained silent, and I 
 continued, without raising my voice or showing the 
 least sign of anger: 
 
 "Did it ever occur to you that I saw through you 
 from the first, and that when you came, three months 
 or so ago, to look for a jewel which you had purposely 
 left behind you, I was not entirely duped by the clever 
 little comedy you played for my especial benefit?" 
 
 " I do not know what you mean, my dearest lady," 
 he interrupted, with a laugh, which rattled strangely 
 in his throat. " What grounds have you for speaking 
 as you do?" 
 
 "The very best, and with your kind permission I 
 will tell you what they are." 
 
 "I am curious to know what they are," he replied, 
 with an abortive attempt at a sneer. 
 
 " Very well, then ; I am glad to be in a position to 
 fully satisfy you on that score. Now, to begin with, 
 1 happen to know all, or nearly all, the frauds which 
 you have practised on the Khedive in order to procure 
 the money to pander to your many and admirably 
 decadent vices including that of the Countess de 
 
 M o's emeralds, to which I alluded very trans- 
 
 227
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 parently on the occasion of your pretended loss of the 
 famous Collier de la Favorite." 
 
 Mahmoud was for the moment so completely taken 
 aback by this straight blow that he lost all his swag- 
 ger, all his power of inexhaustible falsehood, and re- 
 mained silent, biting his lips until the mark of his teeth 
 showed lividly against their already almost complete 
 absence of color. 
 
 "You are an unutterable scoundrel, Mahmoud Bey, 
 but that, of course, is none of my business, and as I 
 told you once before, as long as you left me and mine 
 alone I was prepared to remain a silent spectator of 
 your varied and multiform villanies. I gave you, how- 
 ever, a fair, if indirect, warning that you would have 
 to stop short of meddling with Fred's affairs, and it 
 is a great pity that you should have disregarded the 
 advice!" 
 
 The man was evidently in a sort of stupor, staring 
 fixedly at the smoked - out cigarette, which was be- 
 ginning to discolor his fingers. Truly, he had not even 
 presence of mind enough left to defend himself. The 
 harassing torment of his compulsory submission to 
 me made him grind his teeth, as I could see by the con- 
 tinual slow movement of his prominent jaw; but still 
 he said nothing, for he saw without the possibility of 
 a doubt that I was one too many for him, and his help- 
 less and wordless revolt was a disgusting spectacle. 
 The low-bred ruffianism which was his true inner man 
 became painfully apparent, and if wishes could kill I 
 would assuredly have fallen dead where I sat. 
 
 " You left the collar behind you, as I just said, so as 
 to be able, if ever it came to be discovered that you had 
 ultimately replaced its magnificent jewels by worthless 
 paste, to fasten the guilt on my husband, God forgive 
 you!"
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " It is false!" he cried, with a tremor in his voice, which 
 was partly impotent rage, but chiefly intolerable fear. 
 
 "Oh, not at all; I have all the facts in hand, down to 
 the very name of the merchant to whom you sold the 
 genuine stones." 
 
 "Who told you all this?" 
 
 "That does not in the least concern you, my friend. 
 Let it suffice that I know it, and what is more, I know 
 also where the stolen gems are, and can produce them 
 at a moment's notice. When you began to plot 
 against my husband you did a dangerous thing, for 
 I then determined to make you smart for the new in- 
 famy you were rendering yourself guilty of, and I 
 patiently forged the chain by which I now hold you 
 securely and strongly." 
 
 " Don't be too sure of holding me," he said, insolently, 
 pulling himself together at last by a violent and des- 
 perate effort. "Whether you are right or wrong in 
 accusing me matters not at all, for your interest does 
 not lie in exposing me." 
 
 "I infinitely prefer you to defend yourself," I said, 
 scornfully. " It is unpleasant to have to hit a wet rag. 
 But let us proceed. You may or you may not know 
 that your agent, Luigi Effendi, was caught red-handed 
 by me while tampering with secret papers. I never 
 thought of making responsible for this the person for 
 whom he believed that he worked, as I immediately 
 guessed that you had only used your master's name 
 in order to induce the man to become your tool, and that> 
 according to your thrifty custom, you sold the news 
 thus obtained to the Khedive, pluming yourself on your 
 extraordinary ability in getting it, but studiously avoid- 
 ing to tell him whom you were betraying to do so. 
 For even his callousness would have hesitated to tap 
 the information which an honest, loyal, and useful 
 
 229
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 man was taking so much pains to get for him, and to 
 interfere with the excellent work he was doing. When 
 you do such things you should not give written orders ; 
 they remain against you; and they are at present in 
 my hands, together with the full, signed, and duly 
 attested confession of your unclean agent." 
 
 "Stop, for mercy's sake! I have heard enough!" he 
 almost shrieked, shaking from head to foot so violently 
 that his golden aiguillettes rustled like leaves in a high 
 wind. 
 
 " Oh no, you have not. I will tell you a great deal more 
 before I stop. You are pleased to despise the Khedive 
 because you can lead him into mad follies, and because 
 you imagine that you can go on blackmailing him for- 
 ever. But Tewfik is not altogether the ignoble dupe 
 you think him. He is a dupe better men than he 
 have been so but he would not countenance such 
 deeds as you have done in his name. Now if I went 
 to him and showed him Luigi Effendi's confession, 
 and your written instructions to betray my husband's 
 trust ; if, moreover, I placed in his possession the gems 
 which you stole from the necklace confided to your 
 care, and if I also brought him undeniable proofs of 
 the fraud which you perpetrated on Countess de 
 M o, you would no longer find him the malle- 
 able fool you deem him, and you would learn a lesson 
 which you would not be likely to have the chance of 
 forgetting. I have only named three out of the many 
 sins you have committed against him, but rest assured 
 that I have several other cards in hand which I can 
 play equally well and equally effectively. And now it 
 rests with you whether you want to save your neck by 
 doing as I bid you, or whether I am to go to the Khe- 
 dive and disclose to him the true character of his faith- 
 ful aide-de-camp." 
 
 230
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " What is it you want of me?" he groaned. 
 
 I drew from my pocket and passed to him a few lines 
 which I had written that morning and brought with 
 me. They ran thus: 
 
 "I, Mahmoud Bey, aide-de-camp of His Highness Tewfik Khe- 
 dive, do acknowledge that I changed the gems adorning the so- 
 called Collier de la Favorite, which had been intrusted to my 
 care, for worthless paste, and that I sold the genuine stones and 
 appropriated the money thus fraudulently obtained." 
 
 "Sign it," I said, curtly. 
 
 " Never!" he cried, pushing it away. " Do you think 
 that I am going to sign my own death-warrant?" 
 
 "Don't be a fool, Mahmoud Bey! You are clever 
 enough to understand that you are in my power, and 
 that you will have to do exactly what I tell you. More- 
 over, you must see for yourself that if I wanted to 
 ruin you I would not need that paper to do so. I mere- 
 ly wish to have it as an additional weapon against 
 you, guaranteeing your future neutrality in my hus- 
 band's affairs, so you had better sign it, and close 
 this unpleasant incident once and for all. Indeed, I 
 can assure you that you will sign it, or that you will 
 regret it very greatly." 
 
 "I will not sign it," he reiterated, stubbornly. 
 
 There was a moment's silence. Mahmoud's eyes 
 wandered restlessly round the large room like those 
 of an animal at bay, for he was beginning to perceive 
 that he would have to obey me or suffer far worse things. 
 Suddenly he changed his tactics, and throwing himself 
 at my feet he implored me, with tears and moans 
 quite nauseating to witness to spare him. 
 
 " This is becoming wearisome, my good man," I 
 said, drawing the edge of my skirt, which he had 
 clutched convulsively, from his grasp. "I have told 
 
 231
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 you what I shall do if you do not sign this paper ; the 
 choice is yours to make. Of course, if you desire that 
 I should tell you any more episodes of your past similar 
 to those already mentioned I can easily do so ; it might, 
 perchance, hasten your decision." 
 
 When he had vainly used all the resources of entreaty 
 and cajolery, he rose at last from his knees, as abject- 
 looking a human being as I had ever seen, and, leaning 
 against the wall, he crossed his arms and begged me to 
 give him five minutes to reflect. It was granted, and 
 I waited with quiet patience, watching keenly the 
 various expressions following one another on his dis- 
 torted countenance. At last a singularly crafty look 
 came into his dark eyes, and, holding out his hand for 
 the paper, he went to the Khedive's writing-table, signed 
 it, and brought it to me in silence. He was vanquished, 
 cowed, and terrified, but I saw at one glance that he 
 fondly fancied he could yet undo me, and so remained 
 on the defensive. 
 
 "Thank you," I said, coldly; "and now, if you are 
 ever tempted again to speak ill of my husband, you will 
 please remember that my silence is only conditional on 
 your own good behavior." 
 
 To my intense astonishment the supple Turk, instead 
 of heaping reproaches upon me, took his highly scented 
 handkerchief from his sleeve, deliberately and delicate- 
 ly mopped his damp brow, and then, with a cringing 
 smile, said, plaintively: 
 
 "You have trapped me very cleverly, but we need 
 not be enemies. I confess myself beaten. I have 
 been a weak, sinful man, ever unable to withstand 
 temptation. How can a woman like you understand? 
 Will you be merciful now will you forgive me, and let 
 me try to redeem your good opinion?" 
 
 I gazed at him searchingly. His attitude was diffi- 
 
 232
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 cult to explain, and I had, somehow or other, the idea 
 that I was running some very decided and immediate 
 danger, and that it would behoove me to keep my eyes 
 remarkably wide open. I shrugged my shoulders and 
 rose to go. 
 
 "You will not leave like that?" he said, eagerly. 
 " You are not well ; this scene has been too much for 
 you. Let me at least fetch you a glass of water, or a 
 cup of coffee." 
 
 A light dawned upon me. "Oh, oh," thought I, 
 "so that is your little game, you simpleton," and, turn- 
 ing back, I deliberately sat down again and accepted 
 his offer. With suspicious alacrity he left the room, 
 and I fell to gently tapping the side of my boot with my 
 riding-crop, smiling a little at what I expected quite 
 confidently would follow. 
 
 The silence was complete, save for the quarrelsome 
 voices of the South American and Australian feathered 
 tribe outside the door, and I unconsciously watched 
 for the fall of the aide-de-camp's returning step. Ten 
 minutes at least elapsed before he once more entered, 
 followed by a Berberine servant who bore a small, 
 golden tray supporting two little, jewelled cups of 
 fragrant coffee and a goolah of clear spring-water. 
 Mahmoud himself drew forward a heavy ebony table, 
 and, dismissing the servant, placed one of the cups a 
 blue-and-gold one before me with inviting promptness. 
 
 "This will do you good," he murmured, seating 
 himself opposite me, and drawing the other cup 
 which was of a deep-rose color to his side of the tray. 
 
 "I am sure it will," I responded, innocently. "Now 
 you can give me a cigarette," and as he turned to 
 pick up his magnificent cigarette-case, which, at the 
 beginning of our encounter, had dropped on the floor, 
 I deftly seized the opportunity to change cups with him. 
 
 233
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "What delicious coffee you have over here/' I said, 
 conversationally. " I always wonder why your method 
 of preparing it is not more generally adopted in Europe. " 
 
 "Yes," he replied, "it is very nice. I dote on our 
 Turkish coffee," and, suiting the action to the words, 
 he raised the pretty little trinket to his lips. Before he 
 had had time to touch it, however, I said, fixing my 
 eyes derisively upon his: 
 
 " I would not drink that if I were you. That is the 
 one you meant for me!" 
 
 With a crash the little cup dropped to the floor, and 
 he jumped to his feet, overthrowing his chair, and 
 made a dash at me. 
 
 " Not so fast, my friend," I uttered, calmly. " You 
 did not imagine that I came here unarmed, did you?" 
 
 A stray sunbeam gliding beneath one of the blinds 
 fell squarely on the glittering barrel of a small " bull- 
 dog " revolver within a foot of his face, and he recoiled 
 with a blasphemous execration. Truly, the man was 
 a hopeless rascal, but not an interesting or a pictur- 
 esque one, for he was very vulgar, and his methods 
 were lamentably commonplace. The heavy, black 
 villain of a suburban melodrama that was about his 
 measure and, really, my gorge rose at his being so 
 unworthy of my steel. 
 
 "Come along," I said, contemptuously, "and be 
 good enough to precede me to the door. You are not 
 the sort of person whom one likes to feel behind one's 
 back." 
 
 This last and supreme failure had broken what was 
 left of his nerve, and he obeyed meekly, casting ner- 
 vous glances over his shoulder at me, probably afraid 
 that I would accelerate his progress across the great 
 room with the aid of the weapon I still held grimly in 
 dangerous proximity to his worthless carcass, or else 
 
 234
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 put an end to it in a summary fashion. Thoughts 
 travel swiftly under such circumstances, and I reflected 
 as we passed en monome, as it were, through the ante- 
 chamber, where the voluble parrots were cursing each 
 other in bird-language, that for a woman who had an 
 almost neurotic dread of the ridiculous, I was of late 
 singularly unlucky. Of a truth, the little procession 
 we formed suggested a small child driving a very large 
 pig to market, and I came within an ace of laughing 
 outright which would have been really very inde- 
 corous. 
 
 Nevertheless, after that long and eventful stance in 
 the viceregal study, the brilliant sunshine was welcome 
 to me, and I paused for a moment beside a broad par- 
 terre of velvety gloxinias laid out on both sides of the 
 private door from which we had emerged, to draw a 
 deep breath of relief. Mahmoud stood beside me with 
 drooping shoulders, limp as a rag, and vainly striving 
 to recover something of his usual dashing and con- 
 quering demeanor. 
 
 " Pray call my horse," I said, shortly, and, I regret 
 to add, rather snappishly, for now that the affair 
 was over I felt singularly irritable, and, truth to tell, 
 experienced a somewhat chilly sensation. Indeed, it be- 
 gan to appear to me rather late, as usual that I had 
 run some risks after all, since no one at home knew 
 where I had gone, and only a few native servants were 
 witnesses of my entrance into the palace. 
 
 Instead of doing as he w r as bidden, my companion 
 brusquely wheeled round, exclaiming: 
 
 "Why did you not shoot me? Your eyes looked as 
 if you would have liked to." 
 
 "My eyes told the truth," I replied, "but the fact is 
 that you are not worth swinging for ; and, moreover, 
 if I am to tell you the exact state of my mind, I 
 
 235
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 may as well confess that in spite of your infamous 
 and ignoble behavior I cannot help making some al- 
 lowance for you, because once, a long time ago, I 
 saw you show kindness to a child who had been 
 run over by a carriage. You may not remember the 
 circumstance, but I never forgot it I am not one who 
 easily forgets anything. The little thing was not 
 much hurt, strange to say, but was, of course, terrified 
 to the last degree. You got off your charger and picked 
 the miserable little wretch out of the dirt without a 
 thought of its grimy condition or of the exquisiteness of 
 your uniform, and nestled it in your arms as a mother 
 might have done. You never looked better, in my 
 opinion, than when you strode through the crowd which 
 had gathered around you, with your azure tunic wet 
 with tears and blood, your white gloves caked with 
 dust, and your tarboush pushed shamefacedly over 
 your eyes. That is why, my good man, I am fool 
 enough to pity you even more than I despise you." 
 
 "I don't understand you at all, I really do not," he 
 muttered, in a puzzled and bewildered way, which made 
 me smile in spite ot myself, and signalling to the groom 
 who was walking Heliogabalus up and down a neigh- 
 boring path, I replied, sincerely: 
 
 "Rest easy, you are not the only one. Sometimes 
 I even do not understand myself." 
 
 He turned away with a slight shudder. He was 
 still very pale, and had lost all the impudent insouci- 
 ance of his earlier manner, for he was cruelly humbled, 
 but this novel attitude became him better, as I almost 
 told him. 
 
 "The horse's shoes have been carefully examined, 
 my lady," said the groom, who had now brought Helio- 
 gabalus to a stand-still before me. " They were all in 
 perfect condition." 
 
 236
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " Really," I said, absent-mindedly, and slipping a 
 douceur into his willing palm, "I am not surprised to 
 hear it." And without another word to Mahmoud I 
 lengthened my stirrup-leather, swung myself into the 
 saddle, and trotted briskly away towards the broad, 
 blue Nile that beautiful river which, amid the level 
 monotony of Egypt, kept at that time still intact its 
 savage grandeur, its legendary power, its potent Ori- 
 ental charm; a tameless, barbaric thing, which was 
 later to be brutally corseted with stone and steel by 
 the engineers of a so-called progressive civilization. 
 
 I had not ridden far when I overtook Captain 
 
 F e, who, clad from head to foot in white twill, 
 
 and with a most fetching solar-topee set rakishly on 
 his yellow curls, was returning from an inspection of 
 the polo grounds. 
 
 " Deuced glad to meet you/' quoth the " handsomest 
 man in the English army," with the insipid drawl 
 which he was pleased to consider both smart and emi- 
 nently becoming to his rather effeminate style of 
 beauty. "Beastly lonely out here in the morning, 
 'pon my word. May I ride home with you?" 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so," I replied, ungraciously, but 
 without arousing the slightest feeling of resentment in 
 the breast of this amiable disciple of Mars, whose pink- 
 and-white skin was of quite extraordinary thickness. 
 
 "Deuced nice habit that," he continued, unabashed. 
 "Lovely cool shade of gray; wish our uniforms were 
 made of that stuff. Is it silk?" 
 
 " No, it is plain linen ; not worthy of you, as you see. 
 Why don't you write to the War Office petitioning for 
 flax-gray silk fatigue uniforms, with a little sky-blue or 
 pale-pink embroidery in relief, and a nice, long, sweep- 
 ing feather in your forage-cap? You would be the 
 jnost lady- like soldier in Her Majesty's service." 
 
 237
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Ah, now you're chaffing; that isn't fair. You're 
 always chaffing me. It isn't my fault if I am not coarse- 
 grained and indifferent to what is becoming. Why 
 should a man neglect his personal appearance any more 
 than a girl does? Tell me that." 
 
 " Don't ask me to answer conundrums; it is too warm 
 a day for that kind of pastime, and besides I have got 
 a headache." 
 
 "That's bad. Try violet water and extract of ver- 
 bena when you get home, three parts of each, as a com- 
 press. I always use it; it is wonderful, and so fra- 
 grant!" 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders and lapsed into a silence 
 meditative, profound, and dealing solely with human 
 imbecility. 
 
 "I say," continued the undaunted Captain, "the 
 Countess is leaving Cairo in a week for Helouan; she 
 is not going to Europe this year; wants to enjoy her 
 flirtation to the top of her bent, I suppose, while her 
 husband is in Carlsbad for the sake of his liver." 
 
 " What are you talking about?" I asked, greatly 
 mystified. "Madame S. . . a has a flirtation? You 
 must be raving!" 
 
 "Not a bit of it; it's the sad truth. The old lady 
 has awakened to the manly charm and supreme re- 
 finement of no less a person than your friend Mahmoud 
 Bey, and they are cooing and billing all day long in 
 the most approved fashion." 
 
 I checked my horse so violently that he reared up on 
 end with a snort of disgust. 
 
 " What ails that brute?" cried F e, who 
 
 was but an ordinary horseman and not particularly 
 stout of heart. "You seem to have a preference for 
 ill-tempered cattle." 
 
 " The ill-temper was distinctly mine," I replied, im- 
 
 238
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 patiently ; " but pray proceed with your story ; it bids 
 fair to be a piquant one." 
 
 The ingenuous blue eyes of my fair escort glittered 
 with pleasure at my unwonted appreciation, and he 
 resumed the thread of his discourse at the point where 
 Heliogabalus had interrupted it. 
 
 " Well, you see I went to tea at Ma Chaumiere yes- 
 terday, and found madame all alone in her boudoir. 
 When I came in she frowned most damnably, and kept 
 lookirg at the door over my head after I had sat down 
 near her on a low chair, as if I was intercepting her 
 view of something interesting. She hardly spoke, and 
 fidgeted about on the sofa, jingling her bracelets and 
 playing with her chatelaine in a manner that made 
 me nervous, so I said : ' Whom are you expecting is it 
 the Count? Because if it is I'm going away. I don't 
 like to play gooseberry to married couples.' ' 
 
 "Quod Deus conjunxit non separet," I muttered, 
 under my breath. 
 
 "What's that, Russian?" demanded the Captain. 
 
 "No, Chinese. But do proceed; you entertain me 
 immensely." 
 
 " Lord, what a linguist you are ! But it does sound 
 like Russian, now, doesn't it?" 
 
 " Oh, I dare say it does. Remarkably bright of you 
 to detect the similarity. What did the Countess say 
 then?" 
 
 " Well, she told me that I was quite correct, and that 
 she was eagerly expecting the Count, so I took her hint 
 and rose to go without waiting for tea. She did not 
 press me to stay, and I hurried out in a bit of a huff, 
 but in the entrance hall I collided with Mahmoud Bey. 
 'Hallo!' I said, 'don't go in; she's in a deuce of a tem- 
 per, and waiting for her husband ! ' ' The devil you 
 say!' retorted that dark horse, plunging into the bou- 
 
 239
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 doir. Well, thinks I, if she can stand him as a third, 
 why should I not be there, too ; and as I wanted my tea 
 I went back swiftly, pushed the portiere aside, and 
 caught Mahmoud kneeling on a cushion at her feet and 
 devouring her with his eyes, as if she were something 
 good to eat!" 
 
 "My dear Captain," I said, as soon as I could control 
 my mirth, "I congratulate you; your reappearance 
 must have been effective!" 
 
 "It was that," he answered, quite seriously. "She 
 turned as red as a cabbage a red cabbage, you under- 
 stand and he jumped up, glaring at me furiously. 
 'Playing solitaire?' I said, sweetly." 
 
 "You said that?" I exclaimed, incredulously. That 
 youth was, perchance, not so silly as he looked, after 
 all. 
 
 "Yes, I did; and they looked vexed, and explained 
 that they were rehearsing a charade that was to be 
 given for her birthday-party at least, she did, for he 
 was looking as glum as an owl. You don't think they 
 were hoaxing me, do you?" 
 
 "Certainly not," I managed to say, gravely, with a 
 rapid retraction of my recent hopeful views concerning 
 that interesting young warrior's sharpness. 
 
 "I sat down between them and sipped my tea," he 
 continued, "and they began to talk especially she 
 about all sorts of people, tearing them to pieces, as 
 usual." 
 
 "Whom did they mention particularly?" I could not 
 help asking. 
 
 " That's just where I am puzzled. I could not follow 
 what they said, because you know how she nicknames 
 everybody ; but they were deucedly hard on ' the Icicle/ 
 whoever that may be ; they said she was the very devil, 
 and that it would be a mercy when she was gotten rid 
 
 240
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 of. ' Can't you put in a word against her, and him as 
 well, in high quarters?' asked madame, and Mahmoud 
 told her that he had already done it, and would never 
 rest till they were both over the seas and far away. 
 They bored me so that I finally took myself off, and in 
 the evening I heard the men joking at the club about 
 her and Mahmoud, and saying that the husband's 
 long reign was at last over." 
 
 "Look here, young man," I said, suddenly turning 
 in my saddle in order to face him squarely. " I want 
 you to understand something : if Countess Vera appears 
 to have what you call a flirtation, she has a first-class 
 motive for doing so. She may be unscrupulous, but 
 she is not legere, and the only man she ever loved is 
 her present husband. Believe me, she does not care a 
 fig for Mahmoud Bey, who is a coxcomb and an ass. 
 She is using him, however, for some deep game or other. 
 I know her well, and although she does not like me, 
 that is no reason why I should let her be accused of 
 what she is certainly not guilty of." 
 
 "Well, I'm damned!" exclaimed the lad. "I had no 
 idea you cottoned up to her!" 
 
 "I do not 'cotton up' to her as you so elegantly 
 put it," I answered, irascibly. " Indeed, I dislike her 
 absolutely, and distrust her still more, but it always 
 exasperates me to hear slander, even when innocently 
 repeated so there!" and I absent-mindedly flicked a fly 
 from Heliogabalus's left ear with my open hand, bend- 
 ing forward to do so at an angle of forty-five degrees. 
 
 "How can you stoop like that with a tight corset?" 
 inquired the carpet-knight, guilelessly. 
 
 Still intent on the unpleasant news I had just heard, 
 I replied almost mechanically, and without dreaming 
 of taking offence at this unimportant boy's singular 
 remark. 
 
 16 241
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " I never wear them on horseback." 
 
 "Whew! your habit must be deucedly well-made, 
 then!" 
 
 I looked at him with astonishment. "It would be 
 more polite to say that I am," I said, gravely. 
 
 "Haw-haw! very good! You are quite right," he 
 chuckled, delightedly. "There's nobody like you for 
 chaffing a fellow." 
 
 Fortunately we had now reached Kazr-el-Nil, and 
 my sdis bounding forward, I bade a hasty adieu to the 
 brilliant Captain and trotted home under the now al- 
 most perpendicular rays of the incandescent sun, which 
 made the streets blush a golden red and the atmos- 
 phere dance dizzily before my tired eyes. 
 
 " A dangerous combination, that of Mahmoud and 
 Madame S . . . a! I am glad that I made him sign 
 that paper," I thought, as I turned into the broad avenue 
 leading to my own gates, with a little sigh of fatigue 
 and of dawning anxiety. 
 
 That night I went to a dinner given by Sir James 
 
 D . . . . r, chief of General Sir Frederick S n's 
 
 staff, in the Esbekieh Gardens. The table had been 
 set under a large, clematis-grown arbor, and the un- 
 usual coolness of the night, the bright and pleasant 
 people present, and the excellence of the cuisine made a 
 perfect tout-ensemble which put everybody in the best 
 of humors from the first. I sat between my host and 
 that gallant and unfortunate soldier, Colonel B . . . r 
 Pasha, who, some years before, had been compelled to 
 leave the English army in consequence of his connec- 
 tion with a cause celebre, which to this day is remem- 
 bered and alluded to with commiseration. The rare 
 chivalry which he displayed throughout that cruel trial 
 towards the woman who so relentlessly pursued him 
 with her hatred, the extreme severity of the punish- 
 
 242
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ment meted out to him, his courage in adversity, his 
 previous fine record, and his heroic bravery while fight- 
 ing subsequently beneath the Egyptian banner, had 
 created a very profound and wide-spread sympathy in 
 his behalf, which was nowhere more pronounced than 
 in England and in the British army, and extended 
 from the lowest to the highest in the land, stopping, 
 however, just short of the Throne. 
 
 The sweet-faced, patient, loyal wife, who had stood 
 by him, believed in him, and given him heart to en- 
 dure the tortures he went through, was also present, 
 and as I watched her wan smile and soft, wistful eyes 
 always seeking his with deep and unaltered tenderness 
 and admiration across the lilies and gardenias of the 
 table corbeilles, I came nigh to reconsidering my ver- 
 dict upon a sex that sometimes can produce so flawless 
 a being. 
 
 " When is your husband coming back?" asked B . . . r 
 Pasha. "I would like to thank him for what he has 
 attempted to do for me. I will never forget his kind- 
 ness." 
 
 He spoke in a low, subdued, pathetic voice, which 
 came oddly from the tall, martial-looking, broad-shoul- 
 dered man, and I was about to make some remark 
 turning the conversation a painful one for him, I 
 knew into other channels, when he continued, under 
 cover of the increasing buzz of voices rising around 
 Sir James's hospitable board : 
 
 " Tell him, however, that he must not take any further 
 trouble about the matter. The Queen will never con- 
 sent, and I have become reconciled to to past sorrows 
 and disappointments. For my wife and children I 
 would have been glad if justice could have been done 
 me; but, after all, the worst is over, and I do not 
 complain." 
 
 243
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I did not answer, save by a nod of acquiescence, for 
 the moment was scarcely well chosen for such a sub- 
 ject, or to let one's self be carried away by feelings too 
 strong and sincere, too grave and poignant, to find place 
 amid a gathering of thorough-paced worldings such 
 as surrounded us. 
 
 Fred, at a suggestion from Lord Wolseley one of 
 the fairest-minded of men, and who has most untruth- 
 fully been described as harsh and selfish had drafted 
 for the Khedive, and induced him to write, a private 
 letter to the Queen, asking as a particular favor the 
 rehabilitation of Colonel B . . . r Pasha and his rein- 
 statement in the British army in consideration of his 
 great services to Egypt, and of the wellnigh unpar- 
 alleled bravery which he had displayed at Tokar and 
 other battles against the Dervishes on the Red Sea 
 coast. 
 
 A brother-at-arms of B . . . r had, only a few days 
 before, enthusiastically described to me his gallantry 
 amid the din and turmoil of several of those terrible 
 desert encounters, where the Egyptian troops contended 
 with choking sands and parching thirst, as well as a 
 fierce and savage enemy, and drew a noble picture, in- 
 deed, of the tall officer, bare-headed and bare-chested, 
 dashing on his charger at the head of his men, and 
 with voice and example lifting them by a splendid ef- 
 fort to victory. 
 
 " They'll follow him anywhere," said he. " He is a 
 born leader of men and a d d fine fellow!" 
 
 I thought sadly of all this while he spoke to me, and 
 also of the ill-luck which steadily pursued this un- 
 fortunate man, for three months had already elapsed 
 since the despatch of the letter and it still remained 
 unanswered. Alas! it was destined never to receive 
 an acknowledgment, and to be the only instance of a 
 
 244
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 letter written by Tewfik to the Queen remaining without 
 a response. 
 
 For the rest of the dinner B . . . r Pasha and myself 
 did not seem to have much to say to each other, and we 
 both turned to our respective neighbors in order to re- 
 gain an equanimity that had already failed us. A 
 dinner-party is always an odd and difficult game, even 
 to those who have played it for a number of years, and 
 it requires special gifts to face its complexities with an 
 unflagging and assured vivacity, whatever one's state 
 of mind may be ; but nevertheless, by the time dessert 
 made its appearance I felt happier than I had done all 
 day, my ideas grew brighter, and I managed to join 
 several times in the general gay and light-hearted 
 chatter of my fellow-guests. 
 
 The Esbekieh Gardens looked extremely poetical, 
 and the atmosphere of the lovely night was pregnant 
 with a strange tenderness and softness purely Oriental. 
 The silver disc of the moon was extraordinarily bright, 
 and on the faint breeze, ruffling only the smallest leaves 
 of the trees, hovered the penetrating scent of tropical 
 blossoms, while glow-lamps outlined the winding paths 
 radiating from the central music pavilion, around 
 which the spearlike rays of a score of crimson lights 
 touched the dark foliage of some camellias and mag- 
 nolias artistically grouped beneath them, and the 
 sound of an Arab orchestra came to our ears, like the 
 living spirit of the place, in ceaseless, weird pulsations, 
 clear and clean-cut on the surface of the night, although 
 softened and mellowed by distance. 
 
 Again my thoughts began to wander, for it seemed 
 to me, to use maritime parlance, that there were break- 
 ers ahead, and that our life in Egypt, already passably 
 difficult as it was, would now be made almost impossi- 
 ble by all that had lately occurred. The Mahmoud in- 
 
 245
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 cident, complicated by Madame S . . . a's animosity, 
 threatened to bring on absolute warfare, although of a 
 kind which would not be fairly fought on her side, and 
 could not be openly met on mine. I felt myself un- 
 qualified for a game of this sort, for my standard of 
 "fair-play" was uncompromisingly high, and I could 
 not help dreading a little what was bound to follow. 
 Countess Vera was overbearing, sarcastic, and unkind, 
 and her dislike to me had lately made such giant 
 strides for reasons unknown that I could not but 
 see a cloud looming large and disquieting upon my 
 horizon, her extreme cleverness and keen intellect mak- 
 ing her a dangerous adversary to encounter, whether 
 openly or otherwise. That she was using Mahmoud as 
 a mere tool I was absolutely certain, for, with all her 
 faults, she was no flirt, and her devotion to her hus- 
 band was too well known a fact to be doubted for an 
 instant; so once again it behooved me to keep my 
 eyes pretty wide open. 
 
 " Are you going to the viceregal concert to-morrow?" 
 asked young Lord H . . . s, a stalwart boy of about 
 twenty-five, with fine, hazel eyes, light -brown hair 
 growing low on the forehead, and a general flavor of 
 Bond Street and the Guards' Club about his ultra-fash- 
 ionable attire. This boy had also a well-modulated 
 voice, a somewhat listless manner, and a great deal 
 of painfully and laboriously acquired cynicism, with 
 which he liked to crush his every youthful feeling and 
 impulse in a most amusing manner, for nature over- 
 lapped art at every turn, greatly to his own confusion 
 and his hearer's delight. " Don't you think," he con- 
 tinued, as we rose from the table and filed into a second 
 arbor, where coffee and liqueurs were awaiting us, " it is 
 a beastly shame to go in for social gatherings when 
 the thermometer plainly indicates that siestas and 
 
 246
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 dolce-far-nientes are the only recommendable forms of 
 pleasure?" And before I had time to answer he quickly 
 added, in an entirely different tone and with a joyful 
 glance of anticipation, " I am dying to see the summer 
 palace illuminated, and I do hope that we shall dance 
 a lot after the concert!" I laughed, and he blushed a 
 vivid crimson, worthy of his tender age. 
 
 "Yes, I am going, of course," I replied. "Fred will 
 be back just in time, I dare say, and I assure you that 
 you will enjoy the evening much better than you im- 
 agine. It will, I trust, be as cool as to-night, and those 
 gardens, when lighted a giorno, are a sight not to be 
 forgotten; moreover, the music is always good, and 
 few as are*the women who still linger in Cairo, they 
 happen to be all rather pretty and bright specimens of 
 the Eternel feminin!" 
 
 We had formed sympathetic groups by this time, 
 and Lord H . . . s and I had been joined by Major 
 A .... h, a Victoria Cross man of extreme solemnity, 
 who had a knack of suddenly sinking in melancholy 
 reveries, from which he emerged with a piteous look of 
 embarrassment and apology. This did not, however, 
 prevent him from being a very shrewd and keen observer 
 when he cared to take the trouble. A little smile of cool 
 amusement now hovered on the Major's lips and his 
 inscrutable eyes were fixed on the broad allee meander- 
 ing between hedges of rhododendrons past the arched 
 entrance of our temporary open-air salon, as if he 
 were completely oblivious of the people round him, 
 although murmured scraps of conversation, amused 
 exclamations, and low laughter formed a sort of con- 
 tinuous subdued accompaniment to our own quiet lit- 
 tle talk. 
 
 " What are you looking at?" asked Lord H . . . s 
 touching the Major's sleeve to attract his wandering 
 
 247
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 attention. The latter started, and replied in what I 
 called his absent-minded voice: 
 
 "Oh, I was watching that awful Russian woman, 
 Madame S . . . a, who for the past ten minutes has been 
 pacing up and down with her escort in front of this 
 shady retreat, as if she were a vedette on scouting duty. " 
 
 I turned quickly round, and saw Madame S . . . a 
 in a black lace gown and a large, black lace hat covered 
 with red roses, walking towards our arbor, engaged in 
 earnest conversation with Mahmoud, and followed by 
 her husband and by a tall man with a long beard and 
 feverish eyes an English free-lance journalist of sadly 
 
 evil repute, by name H . . . . M e who carried 
 
 the Countess's huge feather fan. 
 
 "I cannot understand," I said, settling myself again 
 in my chair, " how she can endure the presence of that 
 awful newspaper man. He is execrably bred, minus 
 the incumbrance of a mind, and given to a kind of 
 immoral literature exempt of the redeeming qualities 
 of wit and purpose a sort of literary scavenger, as 
 one might say! And as to his wife, no wonder Ma- 
 dame S . . . a has nicknamed her ' Le Mouton qui r&ve. ' 
 She is dangerously stupid!" 
 
 Lord H . . . s gave vent to a prolonged, boyish guffaw, 
 which he checked as suddenly as it came, while the 
 Major relapsed into one of his gloomiest reveries, strok- 
 ing his small mustache, and looking so poetically 
 wretched that he might have posed for a statue of De- 
 feat or Despair. 
 
 A fierce resentment swept over me, for if Madame 
 S . . . a was going to have such allies as these, the 
 war would become a mere guerre d' ambuscade , fought 
 on one side by brigands. I turned once more and 
 watched my incomprehensible enemy as she saun- 
 tered past, earnestly whispering with Mahmoud Bey, 
 
 248
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and finally disappeared round the bend of the rhodo- 
 dendron thicket. From the Sharia-Kamel-Pasha now 
 came the trampling of many feet an Arab bridal pro- 
 cession on its way to the Mooskie, preceded by tara- 
 bouckas and plaintive little drums of singularly muf- 
 fled sonority. 
 
 Lord H . . . s jumped up, forgetting for the millionth 
 time that he was a cynical, blase 1 , prematurely old man 
 of the world, and with a hasty apology ran out of the 
 arbor towards the garden-gates, crying, gleefully: 
 
 " I must catch a glimpse of those beggars ; they are 
 so exquisite^ picturesque!" 
 
 A faint smell of incense and of orange-flowers floated 
 towards us, and Major A .... h sniffed the air with a 
 play of features which made him look as though he 
 was on the verge of tears, i rose, and, picking up my 
 fan and light wrap, bade Sir James adieu, declining to 
 delay my departure despite his polite entreaties, for 
 I longed to be alone, and accepting the silently gal- 
 lant Major's arm, I walked to where my victoria *stood 
 waiting opposite the new hotel and drove off. 
 
 Suddenly, as the horses turned into the quiet streets 
 of the Ismailia quarter, an irresistible desire to stand 
 face to face with Madame S . . . a, and to see for myself 
 whether my suspicions were right, overcame me ; and I 
 bade my coachman drive to Ma Chaumiere. Outward- 
 ly, the mistress of this luxurious " cottage " and myself 
 were on perfectly friendly terms, and as Cairene customs 
 made a call at ten o'clock at night quite allowable, I 
 had no reason to delay my visit and my investigation. 
 
 In spite of a pronounced dislike for melodramatic 
 situations, my great penchant for taking the bull by 
 the horns ruled in the present instance, so I was decid- 
 edly pleased to find that Countess Vera had just come 
 home and was sitting in the garden with some friends, 
 
 249
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and in a moment more I stood on the turf-carpeted ter- 
 race at the back of the house, where a long arcade, cov- 
 ered with climbing banskia and purple bougainvillier 
 vines, served as a summer salon. The clear, bright 
 light of the moon shone through the flower - laden 
 branches upon the four people whom I had seen stroll- 
 ing half an 'hour earlier in the public gardens, and 
 upon Nubar Pasha, who was smoking a cigarette out 
 of one of his customary long-stemmed amber holders, 
 which he invariably stuffed with cotton, "to prevent 
 the evil effects of nicotine," as he was fond of declaring. 
 
 We all seemed ready grouped for a scene from the 
 boards of the Gymnase, and I almost wondered why 
 slow and appropriate music did not make itself discreetly 
 heard behind the neighboring shrubs. "How absurd 
 this all is!" I thought, with a wraith of my former keen 
 enjoyment of ridiculous incidents, while shaking hands, 
 well aware that four out of the five present hated me 
 as sincerely as if I had been closely related to them. 
 They nevertheless greeted me with the most effusive 
 and distinguished consideration! 
 
 "This is indeed a charming surprise!" exclaimed 
 my hostess, rising and coming to meet me with out- 
 stretched hands and a frank, kindly smile. " We were 
 talking about you only a little while ago." 
 
 "I hope you were dealing leniently with me," I re- 
 joined, with a short laugh. "When witty people dis- 
 cuss their friends the latter are rather likely to be served 
 up a la sauce piquante." 
 
 "That makes me very unwilling to be ever remem- 
 bered by you in my absence," laughed the Count, of- 
 fering me a cigarette, together with a little alcohol flame 
 darting from a mazarine-blue-enamelled snake -head, 
 like a poisonous tongue. 
 
 "Thanks for the implied compliment," I replied, 
 
 250
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 laughing; "but my present state of mind is rather of 
 an extinguished kind. In such hot weather one's 
 field of witticism surpasses in poverty even the bare- 
 ness of Arabia Petraea." 
 
 Nubar gave vent to one of his fat, gurgling chuckles, 
 and muttered, beneath his gray mustache: "Dear, 
 dear, this is when Greek meets Greek, and diamond 
 cuts diamond!" and leaning luxuriously back in the 
 depths of his long cane-chair cushioned, according to 
 the tenets of Ma Chaumiere, with sixteenth - century 
 cloth of silver he prepared to enjoy himself hugely, as 
 I could plainly discern by the mischievous twinkle of 
 his eye. 
 
 " My dear," said Madame S . . . a, with an assump- 
 tion of affectionate familiarity so palpably overdrawn 
 that I silently wondered how so clever a woman could 
 commit such an error, "I am going to bring a com- 
 patriot of ours to see you I always look upon you as 
 entirely Russian, you know. I do not think you ever 
 met him, but he will charm you, I feel certain, for he is 
 exceedingly horsy and doggy, and, withal, wonderful- 
 ly chic and dashing ; in short, Monsieur de L ff, 
 
 late of the Muscovite Embassy at Constantinople. He 
 is arriving here to-morrow on his way to the Gold Coast, 
 where he has been appointed as Consul - General, I 
 think, or something of the sort." 
 
 " Andre" Nikolaitch L ff?" I asked, surprised. 
 
 "I thought that he had been invited to leave the ser- 
 vice in so pressing a way as to preclude his showing 
 any possible reluctance to do so?" 
 
 "You are mistaken. I have not heard anything 
 about this; and you must remember that he comes 
 from a remarkably good family." 
 
 "Y-e-es, he has come a long way from it," I inter- 
 rupted, somewhat impatiently. "I had the question- 
 
 251
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 able honor to meet him at an English country house 
 two or three years ago. He struck up a great friend- 
 ship there with a wealthy but not very intelligent fel- 
 low-guest, the owner of a good deal of loose cash, which 
 he attempted so very shamelessly to divert into his 
 own pocket that he attracted the attention of Lord 
 
 S y, our mutual host an observing man and 
 
 was quietly but swiftly turned adrift to seek another 
 deal of the cards. " 
 
 Madame S . . . a was about to protest, the light of 
 battle kindling in her small, almond-shaped, Tartar 
 eyes, when Nubar interposed. 
 
 "I am afraid," he said, in his slow, incisive way, 
 "that your well-known kindness and your indulgent 
 and charitable interpretation of character, Madame 
 S . . . a, blinds you to the true nature of your protege ! 
 I happen to know him well very well myself, and I 
 can assure you that his past is of the shadiest, and 
 his future singularly speculative; moreover, he is af- 
 filiated with the Third Section in Petersburg, and more 
 or less with the Rue de Jerusalem in Paris, Bow Street 
 in London, and Mulberry Street in New York all this, 
 of course, very much sub-rosa, and in consideration of 
 hard-cash returns. He is a person to be studiously 
 avoided." 
 
 "Fie! a diplomat! Surely that is impossible!" cried 
 Madame S . . . a, with pious indignation. " What can 
 my cousin Boris have been about, to give him letters 
 of introduction to me and to speak so highly of him?" 
 
 " Your cousin Boris was certainly ill-advised, and as 
 
 to L ff being a diplomat, that is quite untrue, 
 
 for he did leave the service some years ago under a 
 very dark cloud indeed, and since then he has essayed 
 every species of successful and unsuccessful adventure, 
 has gathered a considerable share of plunder, and has 
 
 252
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 had some very narrow escapes from being sent to end 
 his days in Siberia. In fact, it is the difficulty which 
 he experienced in avoiding the grasp of the law that 
 made him ultimately associate himself with the police. 
 I am surprised that you, who know everything and 
 everybody, should not have remembered that!" 
 
 When Nubar ceased speaking I glanced at Madame 
 S . . . a, who managed to infuse into her attitude as much 
 genuine astonishment as ever was felt by a poor, con- 
 fiding, deluded being when making a quite unexpected 
 and unpleasant discovery. Her jewelled hands hung 
 by her side ; her whole face was expressive of tumultu- 
 ous feelings, almost amounting to terror. And terrified 
 she possibly was, for in her anxiety to go too fast in her 
 plan of revenge upon me for what crime I will prob- 
 ably never know she had unmasked her batteries most 
 imprudently, and that before a man of Nubar's keenness 
 and shrewdness, who, moreover, was my personal and 
 devoted friend. 
 
 I leaned forward in my seat, and for a moment or 
 two smoked in silence, with my eyes full upon her. I 
 knew now what I had come to find out. She had 
 
 fancied that with L ff's help she could discover 
 
 exactly what were the real business relations of Fred 
 with the Khedive and England, and establish a plan of 
 campaign which would dislodge us from Egypt. That 
 there was yet more than that simmering in her active 
 brain I felt sure of, and I was confirmed in this belief 
 by the rapid glance of warning which she exchanged 
 with Mahmoud and her new ally, the English news- 
 paper man, who, rather white -faced and nervous, 
 showed discouragement in every line of their persons. 
 
 Obviously the conspirators could do nothing for some 
 time now without laying themselves open to grave 
 suspicion, and I inwardly blessed my visit, which had, 
 
 253
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 by pure luck, mixed their cards in so timely a fashion. 
 Indeed, so far as the immediate present was concerned, 
 I felt that I need give very little further thought to their 
 unsavory machinations. After listening for a quar- 
 ter of an hour or so to the Countess Vera's lamenta- 
 tions and pathetic denunciations of a world where her 
 good -nature and simple-mindedness were constantly 
 leading her into trouble, I rose, took my leave, and 
 shook the dust of my slippers upon four of the neatest 
 scoundrels which it has ever been my evil fortune to 
 meet, taking with me, however, Nubar, who on the 
 way home gave me some excellent advice and a few 
 very useful hints about sundry things. 
 
 Fred came back on the morrow in good time to ac- 
 company me to the last Court concert of the season, 
 but not early enough for me to have a chance of telling 
 him about all that had occurred during his short ab- 
 sence, and, save for a few words about the Khedive's 
 visit, I confined myself to mere generalities. Of my 
 encounter with Mahmoud I had made up my mind to 
 speak not at all, for why should I make him retrospec- 
 tively anxious? I had warned him two or three times 
 about the treacherous aide-de-camp, and if his per- 
 sistent optimism prevented him from according to what 
 I said the importance and weight it deserved, I was not 
 inclined to harp any more on that chord. In the light 
 of subsequent events I saw later that it would have been 
 better for me to have done so, but at the time of his re- 
 turn I thought that I had good reason to look upon 
 Mahmoud thenceforth as a negligible quantity, and so 
 I unfortunately kept silent. 
 
 As the last touches were being put to my pearl-sown 
 dress of white lace, looped up with white lilac and dia- 
 mond fleur-de-lys, he entered my dressing-room, as 
 was his wont on such occasions, and, seating himself 
 
 254
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 on an ottoman, watched the women fastening jewels 
 all over me for this was a gala night, when a grande 
 toilette was a matter of sheer etiquette. 
 
 " Oh ! thou art fairer than the evening air 
 Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars I" 
 
 he murmured, smiling, and, picking up from the carpet, 
 where it had fallen, a small branch of white lilac, he 
 slipped it in his coat above the brocliette of decorations 
 hanging from the button -hole. " L'ordre du Mari 
 Amoureux," he continued, half joking and half serious. 
 "Dear me, Pussy, are you intent upon fresh con- 
 quests? You are gotten up regardless of expense! A 
 perfect Queen of Sheba!" 
 
 "Does that mean that your wisdom is no greater 
 than King Solomon's?" I replied, taking my fan and 
 bouquet from a table and preparing to leave the room. 
 "To tell you the truth, I am for once anxious to look 
 my best, hence the blinding display of diamonds you 
 observe. This may prove to be a field-night." 
 
 The drive to the palace was a delightful one, for the 
 sky was radiant, and the white lustre of the full moon 
 shone over the land, making everything as light as day, 
 and transforming the viceregal abode, with its gorgeous 
 gardens, its silvery fountains, its marble loggias, and 
 its lacelike arcades, into something supernaturally 
 lovely. 
 
 The Khedive's entertainments with such a back- 
 ground were really Worth attending, and even to the 
 most blas6 eyes presented features of quite special in- 
 terest ; so, in spite of the comparative emptiness of Cairo 
 at this time of year, the avenue was crowded with car- 
 riages as we drove up, and the buzz of many voices 
 sounding beneath the lofty, gilded ceilings of the vast 
 reception-rooms greeted us on our entrance. 
 
 255
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Tewfik was in one of his happiest moods, and re- 
 ceived his guests with an urbanity and a courtliness 
 which he knew very well how to assume, and which 
 became him excellently. Shortly after ten o'clock he 
 led the way, with Lady B . . . . g, wife of the British 
 Envoy, on his arm, to the concert-room, where the best 
 singers of the opera troupe and several special lumi- 
 naries of the musical world on their way back from a 
 tour in India enchanted us with sweet melody. 
 
 Every one who had been invited had come, and the 
 long galleries, lined with tall Venetian mirrors and 
 decorated with masses of verdure and white and pink 
 roses relieved here and there by feathery clumps of 
 golden mimosa, were ideally occupied, peopled enough 
 but not crowded, and kept deliciously cool by enormous 
 blocks of ice emerging from cup-shaped receptacles of 
 green-bronze smothered in bronze-green ferns, through 
 the delicate fronds of which the frozen glitter of these 
 great crystalline masses shone dazzlingly, giving one 
 an invaluable impression of chilliness. 
 
 In the second row of chairs sat Madame S . . . a, 
 clad in several shades of red and generously decolletee, 
 with an interminable flight of jewelled moths disport- 
 ing themselves upon her statuesque figure, her long, 
 silken train, and her dark hair, where they sparkled 
 magnificently. She was wreathed in smiles, and gen- 
 tly beat time with another of her gigantic fans made 
 this time of cardinal feathers against her admirably 
 gloved hands, a picture of absolute and clear-conscienced 
 enjoyment. 
 
 She nodded to me in the friendliest manner possible, 
 and several times during the concert looked my way, 
 when some especially fine harmony was in progress, 
 as if to associate me affectionately with her enthusiastic 
 appreciation thereof. On her right hand was a small 
 
 256
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and grizzled Ambassador, with deep-set, quizzical eyes 
 and a nut-cracker profile, and on her left a melancholy- 
 looking young man a celebrated African traveller by 
 trade who perpetually inclined his head on one side 
 like a thoughtful bird. 
 
 A prolonged and sonorous rustling at length an- 
 nounced that the performance was over, and we moved 
 back to the other apartments. From the band in the 
 gallery came the intoxicating lilt of excellently exe- 
 cuted dance-music, and soon, in spite of the heat, the 
 sibilant rustle of silken skirts and the slight friction 
 of delicate slippers on the highly polished floors made 
 itself heard. 
 
 I had decided not to dance, but Prince Hussein, the 
 Khedive's brother, rushed up to me and asked me 
 for a waltz, which I granted him at once, for he was 
 one of the best dancers I ever met. Tall, slight, wiry, 
 and very good - looking, Prince Hussein was certainly 
 the most European - looking Oriental it is possible to 
 imagine, and his blue eyes and long, tawny mustache, 
 coupled with notable taste in dress, and charm of 
 manner, made him resemble an Austrian or Russian 
 grand seigneur far more than a Turko-Egyptian Prince. 
 There 'was a boyish spring and grace about his step 
 quite irresistible, and we spun round with a delicious 
 unanimity of motion which only such a partner can 
 procure one. We danced in a wide circle, Prince Hus- 
 sein steering as no one else could steer, and did not 
 stop until the last strains of that old-fashioned but 
 wonderfully rhythmed waltz, Les Dragons de la Reine, 
 died away on the heavily scented air. 
 
 "Come out into the gardens," he said, a little breath- 
 lessly, as we passed out of the human hedge standing 
 before the doors to watch the dancers, and into the 
 gardens we went, first stopping for a moment in the 
 7 257
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 supper-room, where a number of the Khedive's high 
 officials, with superb uniforms and breasts sparkling 
 with decorations, were already helping fair foreign 
 dames to sherbets and fruit. There was an enormous 
 display of gold and silver plates on and about the buffet, 
 the letters " T M " in gold, surmounted by a jewelled 
 crown, gleaming on every piece of the service, from 
 the tiny bonbon plates of cut crystal to the great, pale- 
 blue Sevres epergnes, in which splendid fruit rose in 
 flower-decked pyramids. 
 
 "Have some sugared violets, at least," urged Prince 
 Hussein, " or a little sorbet aux fleurs, or anything else 
 of that ethereal sort which matches your tastes and 
 yourself, but for mercy's sake hurry up, because brother 
 Tewfik, who does not flourish the light fantastic 
 toe thanks, I suppose, to his ponderousness of build 
 and of mind is squinting in our direction, as if 
 meditating to take you away from under my shelter- 
 ing wing. He looks positively enterprising this even- 
 ing." 
 
 I laughed. When Prince Hussein was in that mis- 
 chievous mood I always did my best to keep him at 
 nonsense-point, for the poor fellow had a heart-break- 
 ing time of it at home, having married a young beauty 
 who stoutly declined to obey either her husband or the 
 dictates of the Mohammedan faith, to which she be- 
 longed, and who spent half her time and all her money 
 in Paris, where she appeared in public without the 
 prescribed ydsmak and in extravagant toilettes, sur- 
 rounded by a crowd of gommeux and gommeuses as 
 shallow-brained and shallow-souled as herself. The 
 soft-hearted, indulgent husband never summoned up 
 courage to enforce conformity to the adamantine rules 
 of Islam not to mention those of common wifely de- 
 cency and led a sad and lonely life in his palace and 
 
 258
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the gardens about it, which certainly are among the 
 most beautiful in the world. 
 
 With a great show of haste and of fear, we fairly 
 ran down the steps leading to the dazzlingly illumi- 
 nated pleasure-ground, where many of the guests were 
 breathing the soft, balmy air of the peerless night. 
 There we met a host of acquaintances enjoying their 
 share of sweet Eastern keff (repose) beneath the blos- 
 soming tulip and magnolia trees Mahmoud playing 
 Mephisto to Countess Vera's middle-aged Marguerite ; 
 Lord H . . . s strolling in a preternaturally grave man- 
 ner arm-in-arm with Captain F e, who was en- 
 deavoring to break down his dignified reserve by telling 
 him funny but pointless stories the point of a joke 
 being invariably what that innocent youth forgot 
 truly, he might have been a Hungarian in that respect ; 
 
 H o pacing quietly up and down with Countess 
 
 de M o, whose chaste dress and bandeaux a la 
 
 Vierge were more uncompromisingly prim than ever, 
 and who wore, with innocent and gentle pride, the 
 famous emeralds with which Mahmoud had so fatally 
 tampered; and finally, among many others, dear old 
 "Yankee Doodle," who greeted us with a subdued and 
 painstakingly modified version of his customary " Hal- 
 loo-ee-ee-hallo-o," whispered hoarsely beneath the 
 cover of his half-closed hand. Below the terrace, fire- 
 works were being let off, huge rockets bursting in the 
 face of the solemn moon, and falling in a shower of 
 golden sparks upon the tall jets of the fountains. Pha- 
 raoh's serpents, pin-wheels, Roman candles, bouquets 
 of multi-colored stars, Bengal fires, and metallic horns 
 of plenty, from which all the colors of the rainbow 
 spouted noisily, flashed brilliantly and died away 
 beyond the dark masses of the trees. When we re- 
 entered the Galerie des Fetes we were intercepted by 
 
 259
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the Khedive, who, as Prince Hussein had surmised, 
 was lying in wait for us. 
 
 " Souffler n'est pas jouer!" murmured that incor- 
 rigible tease, bowing low, first to me, then to his august 
 brother. " I relinquish my fair partner to Your Royal 
 Highness. May peace be with you both," and, trans- 
 ferring my hand from his own to the Khedive's arm, 
 this unfortunate but merry Prince left us. 
 
 I felt as if I had eaten my white bread first, and now 
 resigned myself with an eager and even delighted 
 nmile women were deceivers ever to accept a course 
 of heavy cake, and was a little surprised when Tewfik, 
 discarding for once his slow and hesitating manner of 
 speech, said, gayly : " I have been waiting long for the 
 pleasure and honor of a few minutes with you, and 
 when we have sat out a quadrille or two alas! I do not, 
 like my little brother, indulge in terpsichorean delights 
 we will, if you wish it, go and spend a few minutes 
 with somebody who is even now looking at us from up 
 yonder," and he vaguely indicated a sort of wide balcony 
 overhanging the gallery and quite inclosed in exquis- 
 itely fine moucharabieh work. 
 
 I knew what he meant, and measured the desire he 
 had to show me favor by this veiled allusion to his 
 Consort, which was in direct contradiction to Oriental 
 etiquette, and conferred upon me the unprecedented 
 distinction of being treated as etant de la famille. I 
 bowed my head in silent and grateful acquiescence, and 
 we walked the whole length of the enfilade of salons, 
 chatting about indifferent topics, until we reached the 
 last, a charming room hung and upholstered with Louis 
 XVI. brocade of dead-turquoise and silver in a delicate 
 pattern of hedge-roses and true-lovers' knots, where we 
 Sat down side by side en frdres ! 
 
 There was nobody there besides ourselves, but
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 through the broad, open doors we could see the people 
 moving about in a maze of brilliant coloring very 
 pleasing to the eye. Tewfik had possessed himself 
 of my fan and was softly furling and unfurling it, his 
 dark eyes bent on the tracery of the lace with which 
 it was covered, as if his life depended upon count- 
 ing the very meshes of the filmy fabric. At last he 
 spoke. 
 
 "There is something I want to tell you," he said, 
 with an unusual firmness and resonance of voice. 
 " You have been very good and very loyal to me, very 
 patient and helpful. Is there anything that I can do to 
 show you my gratitude? Please do not think I am go- 
 ing to blunder, too, and offer you a jewel or a deco- 
 ration in souvenir of what you have done I, at least, 
 know you too well for that. But is there not something 
 else which would give you even a moment's pleasure?" 
 
 I was touched. Never had I thought that the Khe- 
 dive was capable of showing such considerate kindness, 
 or of displaying such fine comprehension. Had I done 
 him an injustice, after all?" 
 
 " Monseigneur," I replied, in a slightly lowered voice, 
 "I am deeply grateful for this generous speech, and 
 there is nothing that can be more pleasing and wel- 
 come to me than to have been privileged to hear it. 
 Nous sommes quittes, Monseigneur." 
 
 "We can never be that," he murmured. "Your ac- 
 count against me is too heavy to be ever balanced by 
 mere words. Tell me, is there nothing I can do for the 
 benefit of others, and that you can suggest? Surely 
 that is what would please you best. I know you well, 
 you see." 
 
 Truly, Tewfik was revealing himself in an entirely 
 new light, and a swift wave of something very like re- 
 morse for my perchance too harsh judgment of him 
 
 261
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 swept over me. Well counselled, he might perchance 
 have become a totally different man, and so to my re- 
 morse was added the pang of leaving him unwarned 
 in the hands of Mahmoud Bey and of similar scoun- 
 drels. 
 
 "Alas, Monseigneur," I answered, "even thus I can- 
 not accept any boon, not only because I have done 
 nothing, or next to nothing, to deserve a reward, but 
 also because I am afraid that I have sometimes done 
 Your Highness an injustice. Long as I have known 
 you, Monseigneur, yet have I failed to read you entire- 
 ly right, and I beg your pardon for a partial blindness 
 which I can never forgive myself." 
 
 "Oh," he said, with a rather pathetic little smile, 
 " do not say that ; however evil you may have thought 
 me, you have not been far wrong. I am at the present 
 moment enduring an hour of self -censure and find 
 myself in an humbled mood rare, indeed, with me. 
 I am, in consequence, inclined to display such poor 
 qualities as I may possess; but I know myself it will 
 not last; I am too easily led astray for that." 
 
 That settled it. I could, in justice, not remain silent 
 any longer. To be sure, I had given Mahmoud a quasi 
 promise not to ruin him, but peradventure, by making 
 use of that rare mood of Tewfik's, I could set him on 
 his guard without being untrue to my tacit understand- 
 ing with the wretched aide-de-camp. At any rate, there 
 was no hesitation possible. 
 
 "Monseigneur," I said, with sudden decision, "I 
 am also just now in a mood rare with me. I am un- 
 decided how to do my duty towards yourself without 
 breaking a half-promise which, although given to a 
 most contemptible scoundrel, nevertheless seems bind- 
 ing to me, after a fashion." 
 
 The Khedive started and looked at me in surprise. 
 
 262
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Whatever do you mean?" he asked, peering into my 
 eyes with a sudden reawakening of his suspicious 
 nature. There was a little fearsome weakness in the 
 slight trembling of his lips. 
 
 "Simply this," I continued, without a tremor, for 
 surely he cruelly needed a helping hand. "Your 
 Highness is too confiding, too ready to underestimate 
 the greed and villany of those whose interest it is to 
 feather their nests promptly and at any cost, and who 
 take advantage of every passing incident to attain this 
 end." 
 
 A strange expression of eager, almost hungry, curi- 
 osity came into his face, as if an oft-considered and 
 oppressive question had been recalled to his mind, and 
 he saw at last a way of discovering the answer. He 
 seemed to feel all at once as might some very simple, 
 uncomprehending person on waking up on a battle- 
 field, or in a place of wickedness hitherto quite un- 
 known to him. From the Galerie des Fetes came the 
 music of the " sleigh-bells polka " tinkling persistently 
 in my ears, and obscuring mockingly my thoughts 
 and my power of clear diction. I paused and hesi- 
 tated. The shifty look of uneasiness almost of fear 
 in Tewfik's eyes grew more definite, his thick, black 
 brows were drawn in a perplexed frown, and I felt my 
 glowing impulse to ^ave him from the traps set about 
 his feet turn cold within me ; yet I strove to think that 
 he was susceptible of being drawn out of himself and 
 forced into better and nobler ways, and struggled 
 against impatience, discouragement, and a sense of 
 helplessness and vague anger ; but still I could not pre- 
 vent my voice from sounding cold and repellent in my 
 own ears as I resumed my hopeless task. 
 
 "There are in your entourage, Sir, many envious 
 and consequently dangerous persons I do not pre- 
 263
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 sume that this is news to you, or that I am dis- 
 playing great acumen in stating so patent a fact 
 persons who abuse your confidence, and wholly be- 
 tray the trust placed in them. Now, ever since my 
 husband has filled the post which he secretly holds in 
 your service, Monseigneur, I have had great facilities 
 for keen observation at my disposal, and I have not 
 wasted them. The knowledge thus acquired I would 
 like to place at 3 7 our disposal, but I cannot turn informer. 
 It simply goes against the grain with me." 
 
 Tewfik looked up at me out of the corner of his soft, 
 Oriental eyes, which suddenly twinkled cunningly, as 
 if he at last began to understand and was willing to 
 drive a hard bargain. 
 
 " Is there anybody in particular," he said, in a sharp, 
 dry voice, " whom you wish to warn me against?" 
 
 "There is somebody very much in particular," I 
 replied, with blunt directness ; " but I do not intend to 
 tell you who it is." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because it would not be quite fair play, and also 
 because I can serve you just as well, I begin to think, 
 without mentioning names at present, at least." 
 
 "How can you do that?" 
 
 "Simply by entreating you, Monseigneur, to trust 
 nobody with any secrets or or valuables, without 
 having tested their loyalty and their honesty to the 
 very core. Nobody, mind you, Monseigneur!" 
 
 " You know, then, positively, that my trust has been 
 betrayed?" 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "Lately?" 
 
 "Yes, comparatively so." 
 
 " Has this betrayal this dishonesty been very prej- 
 udicial to me?" 
 
 264
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "That depends. I believed so at first, but lately I 
 have thought of something which will remedy what I 
 know to have happened." 
 
 " Cannot you tell me how?" 
 
 "Not yet; not before I have carried my project to 
 completion, and perhaps not at all, if I can manage to 
 accomplish as much as I hope to do." 
 
 " But what am / to do how am I to know what to 
 do?" he said, fretfully and with asperity. 
 
 "Monseigneur," I said, coldly, "you have known 
 me for a long time now. I cannot tell whether the 
 opportunities Your Highness has had of understand- 
 ing my character have been employed to the utmost; 
 but one thing, at least, I think you should have 
 learned, and that is that if I undertake to do a thing I 
 generally do my best to bring it to a satisfactory con- 
 clusion. I volunteered to place you beyond the possi- 
 bility if you would deign to accept my advice of 
 being again subjected to gross dishonesty and dis- 
 loyalty, and it looks, therefore, as if I clearly foresaw 
 the possibility of so doing. Permit me to add, however, 
 that if I am to succeed, I shall have to demand from 
 you, Sir, a promise of absolute secrecy with regard to 
 what has passed between us to-night." 
 
 Tewfik dropped his fretful discontent immediately 
 and looked up at me like a chidden child. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; please do not be offended ; and 
 rest assured that I trust you implicitly, and that I will 
 do just as you advise," he said, somewhat crestfallenly. 
 " Tell me what it is you wish me to do." 
 
 "Really, Monseigneur," I replied, with an inclina- 
 tion to laughter, instantly repressed, " I must apologize 
 for having spoken as I did just now; it was quite un- 
 justifiable. But I have lately had cause for a good deal 
 of worry, and I am afraid that my temper has suffered 
 
 265
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 thereby. I therefore hope that you will forgive a breach 
 of etiquette for which the condescension shown to me 
 by Your Highness is alone responsible." 
 
 " There can be no question of condescension from me to 
 you ; it is quite the other way round, as you must know." 
 
 I inclined my head with I natter myself a very 
 proper and well-considered mixture of appreciation 
 for so overwhelming a compliment and of polite acqui- 
 escence therein, and then continued : 
 
 " To-morrow I will do myself the honor of communi- 
 cating to you, Monseigneur, what it .seems best to me 
 for Your Highness to do. In the meanwhile let me ex- 
 press my deep gratitude for the gratifying confidence 
 placed in me. It shall be my earnest endeavor to de- 
 serve it always." 
 
 When we recrossed the salons we met Madame 
 
 S . . . a leaning on H o's arm, and as she passed 
 
 us, with a low courtesy for the Khedive and a most acrid 
 look for myself, I distinctly heard her murmur in Rus- 
 sian to her escort, "Ah, this is something new!" I 
 caught her meaning admirably, and regretted that she 
 should have had the opportunity of adding this new 
 arrow to her quiverful of malicious and poisonous in- 
 tentions with regard to me; but as, after all, I could do 
 nothing to prevent her from taking evil views of every- 
 thing I did, I dismissed the matter resolutely from my 
 mind. 
 
 After having accompanied Tewfik to the screened 
 balcony where the Khedivia was ensconced and spent 
 a most enjoyable half-hour with her, I returned to the 
 ballroom, danced a quadrille with Prince Hussein, a 
 waltz with Lord H . . . s, and then sending for Fred, 
 who had been playing whist for the past two hours in 
 a distant salon, we drove home under the paling sky in 
 the cool shiver of the rising dawn. 
 
 266
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 When the carriage stopped before our own perron I 
 descended and paused, looking at the rose garden. I 
 shall not go to bed, I thought, as the "first rays of 
 sunrise touched the nodding flowers with pale gold. 
 I shall bathe and breakfast, and then ride over to my 
 kind old friend at Rhoda. The time has come when 
 I need his advice. Then, noticing that Fred was 
 yawning dismally, I said, with a laugh: "Go to bed, 
 you poor, tired-out creature, and dream of anything 
 but Oriental intrigues. You are worn out." 
 
 He half turned, with the evident intention of asking 
 me what I meant, but weariness conquered and he dis- 
 appeared inside the house, attempting ineffectually to 
 smother another yawn, which reminded me of "Yan- 
 kee Doodle's" famous " yowl of the deserted jackal." 
 
 As for me, I gathered my white velvet cloak more 
 closely about my shoulders, and, crossing the terrace, 
 sought my dressing-room. 
 
 Two hours later I was on my way to Rhoda, and 
 on my return home, after a long interview with the 
 sagacious and keen-witted hermit of that lovely The- 
 baide, I sent confidentially to the Khedive a short 
 letter, in which I told him that, although for the pres- 
 ent it was impossible for me to explain myself more 
 fully in regard to the subject which we had discussed 
 on the previous night, yet the occasion for me to do 
 so might arise at any moment, and that in the mean- 
 while, in case of my temporary absence or of my death, 
 my good friend and counsellor, the Due d'A . . . . t had 
 all the facts concerning the affair in hand, as well as 
 absolute proofs of my allegations. If anything super- 
 vened which rendered it peremptory for him (the Khe- 
 dive) to be made acquainted with the names of the 
 person or persons who had rendered themselves guilty 
 of disloyalty and dishonesty towards himself, M. 
 
 267
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 d'A . . . . t would reveal them to him. I concluded by 
 entreating him to resort to this only under stress of 
 necessity, and, well aware that there was so little love 
 lost between himself and the Duke that he would not 
 approach him excepting at the last extremity, I pre- 
 pared to endure the manifold tortures of a second Egyp- 
 tian summer with the help of a blameless conscience! 
 
 As the hot season arrived I began to feel the effects 
 of the many fatigues and anxieties through which I 
 had passed during the last two years, and a sense of 
 languor and discouragement which I had never ex- 
 perienced before made it necessary for me to summon 
 all my reserve strength to my assistance. The political 
 situation was graver than ever. Fred was forced to 
 work early and late, and in my eagerness to help him 
 I cast all hygienic prudence to the winds. Weeks of 
 scorching heat, interspersed by frightful khamsins 
 and ghastly sand-storms, came and went; twice we 
 followed the Khedive to Rhamleh and Alexandria, and 
 twice we came back to poor, sun-baked Cairo, deserted 
 by all save the diplomats and officers of the army of 
 occupation, who, as I was the only European woman 
 in the place, congregated at my house every night in 
 their tens and twenties and paid me loyal homage! 
 
 At last the weather grew a little cooler, but only for 
 a short time, and, far from reviving me, this respite 
 seemed to do me more harm than good, and I heard 
 with dismay that I was expected to crown all my mis- 
 eries by giving a gala dinner to a score of Egyptian 
 high officials, and another score of British, French, 
 German, Russian, and Italian diplomats, so that they 
 might have an opportunity to discuss several grave 
 and delicate topics on neutral ground. With a sinking 
 heart I threw myself once more into the fray, and 
 reached the day of this unwelcome banquet with 
 
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 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 scarcely strength enough to realize how very weak I 
 had become. 
 
 The heat that lay over Cairo increased instead of 
 lessening as night came on. Sahla was in despair, 
 for he was afraid that the beauty of the house, filled 
 with flowers and gay with all sorts of cunningly de- 
 vised decorations, due to his innate artistic taste, would 
 be spoiled by this intolerable temperature. He and 
 Paul stood in the dining-room, asking each other for 
 the hundredth time, at least, whether my guests would 
 venture out, or whether, for the first time in these faith- 
 ful servitors' memory, a soiree at my house would be a 
 fiasco. 
 
 Before undertaking the business of dressing I made 
 my usual tour of inspection. The whole place looked 
 ghostly to me for some unexplainable reason, in spite 
 of the wealth of copper - colored azaleas and sulphur- 
 hued roses which filled every available nook and cor- 
 ner, and as I walked through the comparatively 
 speaking cool and scented corridors I shuddered a 
 little. Everything was exquisitely arranged ; the sweet 
 breath of flowers filled the whole house, and I had no 
 reason for dissatisfaction; yet I had never in all my 
 life been so blue as on that evening. 
 
 Wearily I sought my dressing - room and put my- 
 self in the hands of my women, but my temples 
 throbbed so violently that I soon bade them stop their 
 exasperating efforts to make me look anything but a 
 washed-out doll, and stepped out upon the balcony to 
 see if the air even suffocating as it was would re- 
 vive me. All outside, however, swam around me like 
 a mist of shadowy forms and floating clouds ; the great 
 trees in the gardens seemed to retreat ; I saw their im- 
 mobile branches as from a long distance ; small sounds 
 seemed to have strangely increased in volume; and 
 
 269
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the whispers of the maids behind me hammered mur- 
 derously on my brain. 
 
 I leaned my head on my hands, and for once dis- 
 tinctly felt that I had reached the limit of my faculties, 
 and that I was on the point of breaking down altogether. 
 I was so uncertain of myself as I stood there leaning 
 dizzily against the jamb of the French window that I 
 actually debated for a moment whether to go on 
 dressing or to go to bed and let my distinguished guests 
 take care of themselves ! Was I, then, after all, going 
 to give way? A feeling of disgust at my weakness 
 ran through me. I literally flung myself back into 
 my dressing-room, and with clinched teeth allowed 
 my toilet to be completed, the excitement engendered 
 by the intense effort to conquer myself driving me on, 
 and making me temporarily disregard headache and 
 misery. 
 
 My first and last look at the glass showed me a 
 peaked, pinched, paper-white face, lighted by my eyes 
 rendered abnormally big by fever. "This will never 
 do," I muttered to myself, and then, turning to Jo- 
 hanna, I said, brusquely, " Bring me a glass of water 
 and my little travelling medicine-case," and when she 
 had obeyed I swallowed a large dose of strychnia, 
 which in a short while brought back some of my 
 usual strength. 
 
 I was dressed in white, as usual, and wore a quantity 
 of emeralds, set to represent diamond - encircled tre- 
 foils, the small tiara standing up high in my hair, and 
 a gigantic lizard, made entirely of emeralds (save his 
 eyes, which were two huge, canary-hued diamonds), 
 upholding a long trail of laburnum falling from the 
 left shoulder to the right side of the Venetian lace train. 
 The cold touch of the gems aroused me from the cloudy 
 dreams that seemed so strangely to beset me, and I 
 
 270
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 musingly stroked the glittering scales of the lizard 
 one of my favorite jewels. 
 
 How well I remembered the day when my Empress 
 had given it to me, concealed in a great cluster of edel- 
 weiss gathered by herself in the mountains above Ischl, 
 in the good old times when we used to share our griefs 
 and joys like sisters! She knew that I loved jewels, 
 not only on account of their lustre and beauty, but 
 because, following the old occultist idea, I imputed to 
 them a sort of dim personality, a latent life which in- 
 fluenced one's destiny, so that they were, in a way, 
 little companions on the road of life, conscious of the 
 wearer's feelings, and capable of attaching themselves 
 to her in more ways than one. This belief supersti- 
 tious, if you will refused to be shaken off, and though 
 I never would acknowledge it, I cared for my mag- 
 nificent collection of gems more than it is possible 
 to care for merely inanimate objects. Indeed, though 
 it may seem intensely ridiculous to say so, I could not 
 imagine life without jewels, and thought that such a 
 one would be, in a way, an empty and lonely existence. 
 
 After all, why should the idea be an absurd one? 
 Why should we, who comprehend so little of the lives 
 of our nearest and dearest, find it impossible to conceive 
 of a life other than that of the animal or vegetable? 
 Between such an existence and that of the plant there 
 would be surely no greater or more wonderful differ- 
 ence than separates the plant from man. We, in our 
 pride of being created a little lower than the angels, 
 deny consciousness and feeling to the world of trees 
 and flowers, because it does not possess our nervous 
 system, and beyond that world the existence of life 
 itself, on account of the lack of what we are pleased to 
 term vital phenomena. If, however, one has sufficient 
 imagination and intellectuality to do justice to the 
 
 271
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 vegetable, is it hard to think a pearl, an emerald, or a 
 sapphire susceptible of suffering not acute, indeed, as 
 ours, but nevertheless suffering from neglect, obscur- 
 ity, or lack of appreciation and care? 
 
 Fred used always to say, laughingly, that my taste 
 for big jewels was barbaric, and that I owed it to the 
 Muscovite half of my nature failing in this, for once, 
 to recognize my true motive. 
 
 "The future of the whole world is with Russia/' I 
 used to reply, perversely if truthfully. "Russians 
 may be barbarous, cruel, fierce, fickle, and artificial 
 all at once I mean patrician Russians, of course; 
 but it is just because they are made up of conflicting 
 elements which have not as yet become homogeneous 
 that from them will come the dominant race of the 
 future." 
 
 I had, however, but little desire that evening to in- 
 dulge in philosophical or in political apergus, all my 
 energy being bent on holding myself upright, a:*d in 
 not betraying the fact that I was on the verge of col- 
 lapse. I knew that in a few more moments forty guests 
 would drive through my gates, and that it was my 
 bounden duty to receive them smilingly and to do all 
 within my power to make the evening a success, and 
 as I slowly walked down the length of the hall to join 
 Fred in the central salon I concentrated my attention 
 upon that one point and upon no other. 
 
 As the tall Louis Quatorze clock in the dining-room 
 boomed forth the hour of nine we seated ourselves 
 around the table, upon which " Rose-Turque " and am- 
 ber shaded candles burned amid strongly scented flow- 
 ers. The heat was oppressive, and not even the punkah 
 gave any relief from the awful sensation caused by the 
 
 damp burning of the sweltering night. H o was 
 
 the only one of my guests who really talked. He gave 
 
 272
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 his rich imagination full play, making it sparkle about 
 his subject with a sort of deliberate exuberance, as if he 
 wished to whirl us all with him into a pleasanter and 
 cooler world. I listened to him with rapt attention, 
 trying to forget the odd feeling of dizziness and faint- 
 ness which at times almost overcame me. With my 
 left hand I clasped the handle of my fan ; the other lay 
 clinched upon the table - cloth as I leaned forward 
 towards him; there was no relaxation of my aching 
 muscles, no throwing off of tension, and it seemed to 
 me as if my parched lips would never join again. 
 
 At last I succeeded in partly shaking off the strange 
 sensation of helplessness which numbed me. I took a 
 peach from a dish before me and began slowly to peel 
 it ; once or twice my fruit-knife struck the plate with a 
 tiny ringing sound of the gold upon the crystal, and I 
 started as if a pistol had been let off in my ear. Oppo- 
 site me, on a console, there was a Japanese bronze mon- 
 ster with green jade eyes, and, glancing up, I fancied 
 that in the dim light it was cautiously regarding me 
 as if it would penetrate my soul. Indeed, I could not 
 for a moment help fancying that it was alive, and was 
 gaining a curious ascendency over me, and suddenly I 
 leaned back in my chair and burst out laughing. 
 
 "What's the joke?" said Fred, a little anxiously, I 
 thought. 
 
 "My own folly/' I replied. "I found myself think- 
 ing that this little devil yonder " and I pointed at the 
 delicately and cunningly wrought figure " was beck- 
 oning to me," and I went on laughing in a way that 
 was not natural, while that little demon with the face 
 of death seemed to whisper funny words to me across 
 the table and over the heads of my guests. I tried to 
 understand whence emanated the spell that was en- 
 veloping me more and more, but failed lamentably, 
 * 273
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and sought in vain to call to my assistance a little of 
 that commonplace common-sense upon which I gen- 
 erally .prided myself. Soon, from the strangeness of 
 it all, arose an overmastering sense of terror, and, 
 hurriedly giving the signal to leave the table, I took 
 R . . . z Pasha's arm and walked with unequal, nervous 
 steps to the drawing-room, where I sank exhausted on 
 a deep arm-chair between two open windows. In spite 
 of all effort I was beset by an impression that was novel 
 to me and horrible an impression that I was defend- 
 ing myself against the fierce fury, the measureless 
 hatred and cruelty of something shapeless and intangi- 
 ble, which I could not repulse. I felt as if the great, 
 spacious, luxurious room were a cage, and I were shut 
 up in it with that disembodied being, who, if it had 
 its will, would never allow me to escape alive. Was I 
 going insane? I looked out into the velvety darkness 
 of the night, my whole strength put out to vanquish 
 the ghastly sensation of insecurity, the helplessly 
 reeling brain, the increasing trembling of every limb. 
 
 "Are you ill? You look dreadfully." 
 
 The words fell on my ear and roused me to instant 
 and overpowering passion. I turned fiercely towards 
 Fred, who was bending over the back of my chair, and 
 had whispered this very natural and certainly most ex- 
 cusable question hurriedly to me, and said, furiously, 
 although in a voice as low as his own : 
 
 "111! What nonsense! I never was better in my 
 life. Do go away and attend to your guests. You 
 annoy me!" 
 
 A pained and surprised expression came into his 
 eyes, for it was not my habit to be either harsh or im- 
 patient with him, and I could see, in spite of my rap- 
 idly increasing haziness and irresponsibility, that he 
 was deeply hurt. I did not, however, apologize, but 
 
 274
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 without a single pang of regret for my unusual lack 
 of even common courtesy watched him turn abruptly 
 away and pass into the first salon, where the greatest 
 number of those present were still lingering. 
 
 " Let us go out upon the terrace; it is too warm here," 
 I said to the Prime-Minister, who did not seem to have 
 noticed my queer condition, for he instantly rose and 
 followed me with some trivial remark about the weather. 
 The comparative freshness of the air revived me as soon 
 as I had left the brilliantly lighted drawing-room, and, 
 leaning upon the marble balustrade, I looked down into 
 the dusky gardens, from which rose a violent perfume 
 of jasmine. 
 
 With elaborate attention I listened to what my com- 
 panion said about the imprudence I was committing 
 in remaining a second summer in Cairo, and managed 
 to answer him suitably, but I was unpleasantly con- 
 scious of the extraordinary fashion in which I was clip- 
 ping some of my words and running the rest into one 
 another, and I determined to remain silent, if I could, un- 
 til this new and bewildering symptom had passed away. 
 
 Fortunately the old man had launched himself into 
 a long dissertation concerning the alteration which 
 the cutting of the Suez Canal had caused in the climate 
 of northern Egypt, and this giving me a chance to 
 remain mute, I softly and quietly busied myself with 
 the complete destruction of my fan, splintering the 
 carved mother-of-pearl sticks, and tearing to shreds 
 the long, graceful ostrich-feathers, which I dropped 
 into the flower-beds below with the joy of a child float- 
 ing paper butterflies in the breeze ; and when the wreck 
 of that pretty toy was complete I bent low over the 
 terrace wall, feeling as if I were suspended in mid-air 
 above some dark and narrow pit, pressing a hated thing 
 down to perdition. 
 
 275
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Suddenly I felt as if I was falling to the very bot- 
 tom of that unfathomable abyss ; a sensation of mortal 
 sickness gained upon me, making me think that blood 
 was surging in my eyes, and that my heart was be- 
 coming cold and faint; great blotches of darkness 
 leaped before me, forming demoniacal patterns which 
 rushed together like those in a kaleidoscope, separated 
 again, and then scattered in all directions at once. I 
 said something what, I never could remember caught 
 my breath, choked, fought for air, strove to cry out, to 
 rush forward, but my voice was strangled in my throat ; 
 then I fell in a heap at the feet of the Prime-Minister, 
 striking my head against the marble balustrade. 
 
 I do not think, however, that I was even momen- 
 tarily in a faint, for I had a clear inward sense of my 
 condition, although I no longer noticed what was go- 
 ing on about me, nor felt the touch of those who came 
 to my assistance. I looked back over my past, as a 
 drowning man does when he first sinks below the sur- 
 face of the water, and I felt as if I had undertaken a 
 journey to a fearful distance, and was hurrying with 
 incredible swiftness upon the road I had once slowly 
 travelled. Like a meteor my mind shot onward along 
 the vanished days, observing, as I went, their wisdom 
 and their folly, and at last I caught myself murmuring 
 in Bas-Breton little snatches of childish songs, the 
 final words of which were frequently missing, which 
 greatly vexed me. Hours, days, weeks ah, God! 
 months passed, as I found out afterwards, in this 
 guise, punctuated by the monotonous refrains of the 
 melodies which had rocked me to sleep twenty years 
 before : 
 
 " Teuss, Teuss Arpouli&k 
 Galaichen 
 
 Teuss Arpouli&k du{" 
 276
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I distinctly saw Teuss ArpouliSk the three-headed 
 devil, with many gleaming teeth and eyes the evil 
 spirit of the Bretons ; I distinctly heard the Kariquet 
 Ancou death's wheelbarrow rattle dismally at every 
 turn of its ghostly wheel, and driven by Teuss himself, 
 with a whip made of serpents, to urge the minor devils 
 of his suite on and on and on, amid the shrieks of hur- 
 ricane and tempest and the rush of mountainous waves. 
 
 That final concert of tumbling, hissing waters never 
 failed to change my entire train of thought. I longed 
 for the cool, salty air of Brittany, for the delicious sense 
 of freedom I had always enjoyed on my beloved cliffs, 
 and I imagined sometimes that I was back there once 
 more, dancing lightly on the edge of the abyss, where 
 the sea leaped against the invincible rocky bastions, 
 feeling the boisterous wind on my face, hearing the 
 surge, and the mournful noise of the shingle sliding up 
 and down the narrow, rock-strewn beach far below me 
 
 " Jusqu'au revoir la belle, 
 Bientot nous reviendrons. 
 
 Toutouie la-la Toutouie la-la ! 
 Dans le goemon hurle la vague ! 
 
 Toutouie la-la I" 
 
 Why had I come out of my true life, my own land, 
 to perish miserably of thirst and of heat in this place 
 of endless sand and scorching sun-glare, where I was 
 now struggling for breath? 
 
 I tossed restlessly, throwing out my arms and fight- 
 ing constantly to get away from that overpowering 
 atmosphere which surrounded me always. I had nev- 
 er before known "what hell is, in waiting to abide!" 
 Sometimes I would yearn cruelly also for the tranquil Al- 
 pine loveliness of Upper Austria, the scent of mountain 
 strawberries and forest blossoms, the fragrance of the 
 great pine woods, the silver, glacier-fed streams tum- 
 
 277
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 bling over moss-grown bowlders. The snowy sum- 
 mits of the Dachstein and Thorstein gleamed whitely 
 afar off, and my heart went out to the light - hearted, 
 brave people living beneath those mighty buttresses of 
 ice in the haunts of the chamois and the golden eagle. 
 
 Once I partly came to myself, opened wide my eyes, 
 which I had stubbornly kept closed since many days 
 and nights, in order, no doubt, to better follow the tan- 
 talizing visions which were at once a joy and a despair, 
 and looked about me. I gazed at the ceiling and the 
 walls of my room, where golden dragons disported 
 themselves among fantastic blooms on a background 
 of azure silk, then at the carefully shaded lamp stand- 
 ing on a pedestal at the foot of my bed, then again at the 
 mosquito-curtain of light-blue gauze veined with silver, 
 which, for the first time in my knowledge of it, was 
 looped back with ribbons against the supports of the 
 canopy above my head. 
 
 Two ideas alternated in my mind, two visions stood 
 fluctuating before me; in one I stood a strong, healthy, 
 happy figure ; in the other I was but a haggard, ghost- 
 like, emaciated being, tottering feebly on palsied feet. 
 I sighed a little and fell to examining my thin, trans- 
 parent, waxen hands with quite disproportionate sor- 
 row. How would I ever again control horses with these 
 little, weak fingers, looking as delicate as the claws of 
 an unfledged bird? I kept them open, resting, palm 
 upturned, upon the azure coverlet, a queer sensation 
 of disgust and despair coming over me. The feverish 
 thirst and fainting weariness I was enduring were as 
 nothing compared with the thought that I would now 
 be forever helpless and a burden to others. 
 
 No! no! it was best to die, I thought, with a groan. 
 I felt all this in my body as well as in my mind, an in- 
 exorable grief which surely nothing could assuage. 
 
 278
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Cold perspiration broke out upon me; anguish ran 
 searchingly through my entire being like some ruth- 
 less investigator, scattering, destroying, mingling, and 
 separating all my sensations. My teeth were set; I 
 breathed with a hissing swiftness, and stretched my- 
 self as if in obedience to the summons of the rack. As 
 I did so I turned my head slightly and saw Fred lying 
 in an arm-chair close to the head of my bed, fast asleep ; 
 his face was white and drawn, and he was much thinner 
 than I had ever seen him. Beads of perspiration were 
 dropping from his forehead, and in his hand he held 
 limply the palm-leaf fan with which he had evidently 
 been fanning me. I tried to stretch out my arm to 
 touch him, but I could not do so, and tears of vexation 
 at my utter helplessness sprung to my eyes. I kept 
 very quiet, the complete silence of the room weighing 
 like lead upon me, and I fancied that even the ticking 
 of a clock would have been a relief. Once more I glanced 
 at the walls; the dragons were no longer quiet and 
 decorous ; they had grown angry like myself, and were 
 clawing at each other furiously. 
 
 "I must send them all away; they make my head 
 ache," I muttered, and tried to rise. "Hush! Hush! 
 Hush!" I called out to the tangle of beasts writhing all 
 around me. I thought I heard some one crying out ; 
 an extraordinary vagueness came over me; an odd 
 sensation of swimming lightness invaded my brain. 
 I was still partially conscious, but was, nevertheless, 
 eagerly travelling on some incoherent errand, singing 
 idly the while, and groping my way towards I knew 
 not what! Little by little the dim glimmer vouch- 
 safed me of the world of fact and matter faded away, 
 until at last I sank completely back into the dreamy, 
 confused unreality of the past weeks.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 " Och, Patsy," said Mary, 
 " It's cruel, unfair ye 
 
 Are actin', an' heartless, to go to New York I 
 It's a bad counthry. There's 
 Such woild bulls, Injuns, bears, 
 
 An' naygurs ! Acushla, stay wid me in Cork 1" 
 
 " Och, Mary," said Pat, 
 " If it's cryin' ye're at, 
 
 Me heart, loike me pockuts, ye turn inside out! 
 Sure I'll just cut me way, thin, 
 Through the bastes an' the haythin, 
 
 Till I come where the gold is a-layin about." 
 
 M. M. 
 
 "SlNG that again from the beginning/' I pleaded, 
 and Jerry began to sing, or, rather, to recite in mono- 
 tone, in his deep, mellow voice, the pathetic little Bre- 
 ton ballad, accompanying himself en sourdine on a 
 banjo as he did so: 
 
 " Comme il courait, il tomba, 
 
 Et Ion, Ion, laire, 
 
 Et Ion, Ion, la, 
 Comme il courait, il tomba, 
 Et par terre le coeur roulal 
 
 " Et 1'coeur disait en tombant, 
 Et Ion, Ion, laire, 
 Et Ion, Ion, la, 
 Et 1'coeur disait en pleurant 
 T'es-tu fait mal, mon enfant?" 
 280
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I was lying in a hammock on the lawn, beneath a 
 tent of embroidered Egyptian cloth; the heat of sum- 
 mer was over, and the rhododendrons were just be- 
 ginning to bloom anew. Beside me sat Fred, holding 
 one of my hands, and Jerry, who had returned from 
 Abyssinia suddenly during the most critical period of my 
 illness, and had remained to help nurse me back to life. 
 
 Wistfully I listened to the little song which brought 
 back to me the picture of home, of the waves lifting 
 their crests and breaking against the basalt cliffs, and 
 of the seamews skimming above the rippling, glancing 
 waters of the bay. I pressed my hands closer together 
 and said, tentatively : " Am I not well enough yet to go 
 away?" 
 
 My two companions were silent, looking at me with 
 doubtful eyes. There was a tinkling of tiny bells in 
 the garden and my pet gazelle bounded towards me, 
 shaking her silver collar mischievously, and tossing 
 her dainty head to attract attention. 
 
 "Oh, you beauty!" I said, laughing; "you do not 
 know what suffering or pain or disappointment mean ; 
 that is why you are so pretty and sweet and altogether 
 lovable!" 
 
 " Can one not be sweet and pretty and lovable other- 
 wise?" asked Jerry. "I thought that we had all seen 
 this difficult feat accomplished successfully here of late. " 
 
 "This is a tender point with me just now," I replied, 
 running my fingers through the short curls, now, alas ! 
 replacing the heavy braids which had fallen under the 
 doctor's scissors. "Illness is a harsh taskmaster, 
 and although 
 
 " ' Le pauvre en sa cabane ou le chaume le couvre 
 
 Est sujet a ses lois, 
 
 Et la garde qui veille aux barrieres du Louvre 
 N'en defend point nos Rois !' 
 281
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 yet it is a penalty hard indeed to bear, because 
 one has during its course to reveal, nolens volens, the 
 exact dose of selfishness which one possesses. My 
 confessor tells me unwearyingly that such an ex- 
 perience is intended to wean us from the joys of earth ; 
 but I for one cannot agree with him, because I never 
 have desired so greatly to be able to wander amid green 
 forests or along the cliffs of mine own land, to ride and 
 drive and sail, and, in one word, enjoy what to me, at 
 least, makes up the chief pleasures of life, as since I 
 have been imprisoned by the very evil which that holy 
 man considers ' a most salutary lesson of detach- 
 ment. ' ' 
 
 Fred got up and walked towards the house, calling 
 back with a forced gayety which I had for some time 
 noticed was growing habitual to him : " I am going 
 to order your beef-tea. It is time for you to take it, 
 you dissatisfied and complaining woman! You were 
 an angel while you were ill ; don't try to make up for 
 it now!" and his mirthless laugh rang on the golden 
 afternoon air like a sort of warning which made me 
 wince. 
 
 "Jerry, what is the matter with him?" I asked, anx- 
 iously. " He is not himself at all, and it cannot be 
 mere fatigue and worry which have changed him so!" 
 
 "Poor old chap, you do not realize how fearful he 
 was of losing you as who shouldn't be, if you permit 
 me to say so and then remember that for week after 
 week he hardly left your bedside, day or night; in- 
 deed, when I arrived I had almost to use force to oblige 
 him to take some rest!" 
 
 "Yes, I know. Is he not a wonderful nurse? But 
 still at his age one is not permanently saddened by 
 such an experience, especially as he has had the in 
 my opinion somewhat questionable bliss of seeing 
 
 282
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 me recover from this delightful attack of typhoid. No, 
 no ; mark my words, there is something preying on his 
 mind, but what, I do not know how to discover." 
 
 " My dear girl, are you sure that you are not a little 
 fanciful about this? I grant you that he does not look 
 either as well or as happy as last year, but this surely 
 can readily be accounted for, as I said just now, by what 
 he has been through during the past four months." 
 
 I threw myself impatiently back on my cushions, 
 swinging the hammock quite perilously as I did so. 
 "Why, Jerry," I exclaimed, "you must be as blind as 
 a bat; he is so altered that sometimes I hardly know 
 him ! He does not look older, he does not look actually 
 unhappy, but his whole personality suggests resist- 
 ance and concealment, a weight too heavy for one's 
 shoulders, as it were, and stubbornness, too his eyes 
 have a furtive, obstinate look. I know that behind all 
 this lies some evil or other." 
 
 " But if you really believe' all this, question him, 
 draw him out; he cannot withstand your influence. 
 You realize that, don't you?" 
 
 I laughed aloud. "My influence!" I said, bitterly. 
 " I am a nice one, am I not, to charm any one, particu- 
 larly my own husband, into doing what he distinctly 
 does not want to do? Have you looked at me lately, 
 Jerry?" I continued, quite unabashed by an emphatic 
 shrug of his shoulders more eloquent than polite. 
 "Physically and mentally I am an excellent picture 
 of a wreck, with a sixteenth-century dimness over it 
 which I recommend to your kind attention! No, you 
 are not to pay me any compliments, my dear ; it would 
 only vex me, although I am sure that you are quite 
 sincere when you make them." 
 
 " I will not make you any compliments ; but I must 
 confess that you are talking arrant rot." 
 
 283
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Nonsense! I cannot help seeing things as they 
 are ; it is a little way I have. Life is a succession of 
 losses. I am ready to accept this melancholy truism; 
 but my recent ones, including those of energy, strength, 
 wit, brilliancy, looks, health, and last but not least, 
 my hair, begin to count as something irreparable 
 quelle degringolade, hein ?" 
 
 "If I did not know you so well I would think that 
 you are joking, for, if you will allow me to say so, I do 
 not recognize you at all in this discouraged, disheart- 
 ened, and diffident mood!" 
 
 "I assure you that I was never more completely in 
 earnest. I trust that you do not think me capable of 
 fishing for compliments, after all!" 
 
 " My dearest little girl, you are absurd. Compliment 
 or no compliment, I will tell you the truth, whether you 
 like it or not. Your charm and magnetism are wholly 
 unimpaired. Indeed, you have added to them the ad- 
 ditional fascination of temporary helplessness, which, 
 in one as self-reliant, independent, and courageous as 
 yourself, is excessively winning ; and as to your trying 
 to make any one think that your pallor, your thin- 
 ness (which makes your eyes as big as saucers), and 
 your cropped curls, rob you of your looks, that is pre- 
 posterous." 
 
 There was a touch of grave sadness mixed with this 
 tone of gentle persiflage which forbade my pursuing 
 that subject, and I thought to myself, with some real 
 annoyance, as I saw him lapse into one of the abstracted 
 moods in which he had indulged before his abrupt de- 
 parture for Abyssinia: 
 
 " Love's words are weak, but not love's silences 1" 
 
 The great wonder-flower of romantic tenderness was 
 still blossoming in his faithful, loyal heart, and the 
 
 284
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 old vague, sorrowful feeling concerning him which 
 had come upon me on the night of his last departure 
 made itself once more felt. His was much too fine and 
 grand a nature to waste his life in a vain and fruit- 
 less sentiment of that kind. I was sorry now, too, for 
 having spoken as openly and recklessly to him as I 
 had just done, and could have bitten my tongue off 
 for having been so unusually tactless. 
 
 Softly Jerry twanged the strings of his banjo, look- 
 ing fixedly at a budding magnolia, as if bent upon count- 
 ing with absolute exactness every promise of bloom 
 nestling among its lustrous leaves. At last he said, 
 in a conversationally indifferent way, but without re- 
 moving his gaze from the magnolia: 
 
 "I think that you should not allow yourself to 
 be troubled by gloomy forebodings at present; it will 
 only retard your recovery and your departure/' He 
 paused, then continued, coldly and baldly, as if mere- 
 ly stating a bit of current news : " And as to the other 
 matter, you may reassure yourself completely. Your 
 reign is not over; as a matter of fact, you are somewhat 
 more rather than less of a charmeuse than you have 
 ever been. No man living will agree with your pres- 
 ent unflattering opinion of yourself." 
 
 "Oh, well, never mind," I replied, airily; "it is, after 
 all, not of the smallest consequence; what, however, 
 is of paramount importance, is for me to find out what 
 ails Fred. Tell me, Jerry, has Mahmoud Bey been here 
 often during my illness?" 
 
 "That bounder?" he replied, his mouth and eyes 
 both expressing measureless contempt. 
 
 " Yes, that bounder ! To you I may confess that he 
 has been for a long time past a considerable thorn in 
 my side. You must see that it would do no good to tell 
 anybody else. There was an unpleasant incident last 
 
 285
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 spring, and I traced what might have developed into a 
 first-class villany and felony as well to him; but 
 Fred is rather amused by the fellow, and pooh-poohed 
 my views of the matter. It would take too long to tell 
 you about it now, but I will do so later on, when there 
 is less fear of our being disturbed. Moreover, there is 
 another man whose influence I dread for Fred, and that 
 is that diplomatic - financier, or financial diplomatist, 
 
 whichever you like to call it Sir B s D n. 
 
 He hates Fred, although he flatters him most delicately 
 and cleverly whenever he gets the chance." 
 
 "You are entirely right in mistrusting that one. 
 He is a dangerous scamp, very shrewd, very clever, 
 and as unscrupulous as they make them, and, more- 
 over, his w r ays of making a fortune are a trifle more 
 than questionable, as you know. He \vould have us 
 believe that his dealings with the stock exchange are a 
 harmless little pastime a little innocent fad whereas 
 there is no possible doubt that more than once he spec- 
 ulated on state secrets that had been intrusted to the 
 honor he hasn't got." 
 
 " Yes, I know he is an ugly customer, and he will never 
 forgive Fred for having been once the innocent con- 
 veyer of a royal reproof and a royal snub to him and to 
 his precious wife. It was unfortunate for my poor lad 
 that such snubs are generally administered by proxy! 
 That man is so mean that a hundred souls like his 
 would rattle in a mustard-seed, and I fear that some 
 day or other he will play Fred some nasty trick." 
 
 "Does he call here often?" 
 
 "No, indeed! He knows that I dislike him, that 
 I am not taken in by his assumed gentlemanliness, 
 and I have shown him plainly that his financial 
 jargon bores me. It is dotted with 'bulls/ 'bears, 
 'ursine operations/ 'realizations/ 'tightness/ and a 
 
 286
 
 A DOFFED CORONET . 
 
 hundred other ridiculous terms which I neither relish 
 nor understand." 
 
 " Well, you are not afraid that Fred should be drawn 
 into gambling on "Change/ are you? He has a nice 
 income of his own, and you, in spite of all you sacrificed 
 when you married him, are still richer than is good for 
 you to be, so where would the incentive come in?" 
 
 " That's just it. Fred is a queer fellow at times. To 
 begin with, he is annoyed that I should be better off 
 than he is. You see, there are many who hinted pretty 
 plainly that he had made a beau reve in more senses 
 than one when he married me, and it is pardonable, 
 perhaps, under the circumstances, that he should re- 
 gret not to be the wealthier of the two. Who knows, 
 therefore, whether he might not be tempted by a clever 
 enemy of his and mine to try and increase his capital 
 by means which people less queer than myself con- 
 sider perfectly fair namely, by gambling in stocks? 
 It is improbable, but, after all, possible. I heard him 
 say once that he had bought a lot of mining shares. 
 I paid no attention to it at the time, for it w r as just 
 before I was taken ill, and my head was in a wretched 
 muddle, but during the last few days it has been re- 
 called to my mind by finding a broker's letter address- 
 ed to him in the mail-bag. I asked him when handing 
 it to him what he had to do with such people, but he 
 turned the conversation to other topics, and I was feel- 
 ing too tired and rocky to carry the war into his camp." 
 
 "Hum . . . !" muttered Jerry, with a slight frown. 
 " This certainly seems to need looking into, but I dread 
 for you any form of excitement or worry while you are 
 still too weak to w r alk across a room, or even to stand 
 on your poor little feet. Confound everybody and 
 everything! This mania for gambling in mining 
 shares is such a convenient way of ruining one's self. 
 
 287
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Why, the greatest cretin can lose or make a fortune in 
 a week at that game. He buys at, let us say, a sov- 
 ereign a share, and in a few days he may sell again 
 for three or four times the amount. When one esti- 
 mates this in thousands the result is rather formid- 
 able." 
 
 I sighed and turned my attention to the beef-tea 
 which Sahla brought at that moment, and to some 
 thin bread-and-butter handed to me, bit by bit, by 
 Jerry, who evidently did not consider me strong enough 
 to hold up a whole slice at once. 
 
 I knew very little, technically speaking, about 
 finance, but I had an instinctive horror of financiers 
 whether big or small, and when Jerry had carried me 
 back to my rooms, across the already dusky gardens, 
 I read long and studiously the stock-exchange reports 
 of the best-informed sheets, frowning and fidgeting 
 over the hideous and incomprehensible words with 
 which they bristled, in my anxiety to find out how the 
 mining shares I had mentioned to my faithful knight- 
 errant were rated. 
 
 It would have been boastful forme to pretend that 
 my health and strength were improving; indeed, Jer- 
 ry had been quite right in saying that fretting would 
 retard my recovery, and so there was nothing for it but 
 to severely repress any inclination to dwell upon the 
 future which seemed just then, to say the least, preg- 
 nant with difficulties and to devote my whole atten- 
 tion to following the behests of my physicians with 
 military precision, swallow tonics, restoratives, nour- 
 ishing food for which I felt ten times my old horror 
 and turn myself into a mere thoughtless, feelingless 
 piece of machinery. 
 
 Many weary days went by thus, and very gradually 
 I became once more able, with dogged determination, to 
 
 288
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 walk slowly and hesitatingly about the house, or along 
 half the length of the terrace, with somebody in close 
 attendance to steady my insecure footsteps. That 
 ghastly illness was, indeed, followed by a yet ghastlier 
 convalescence, and I noticed that my kind nurses and 
 my medical men more than once despaired of pulling 
 me through it. 
 
 At last I was pronounced well enough to undertake 
 in a fortnight or so if great care and prudence were 
 exercised the trip back to Europe, and my spirits 
 began to rise rapidly again. Strange to say, Fred, 
 who had been so magnificently faithful in his con- 
 stant care of me as long as I was in danger, since I had 
 been pronounced to be "doing better" had withdrawn 
 almost entirely from the little " corps of devoted order- 
 lies," as I called the group formed by himself, Jerry, 
 and two other admirable friends of whom one was my 
 
 godfather, F . . . . x-T n and the other my 
 
 old "chum," Prince H n, who had tended me 
 
 for nearly six months with a devotion difficult to 
 describe. 
 
 1 puzzled more and more over this strange defection 
 and made myself very miserable about it, but yet I 
 tried to adhere to my resolve about not fretting, 
 and avoided talking to Fred about all this until I felt 
 strong enough to do so without any exhibition of 
 feminine weakness, of which I dreaded more than any- 
 thing else to render myself guilty. 
 
 I felt strangely hurt by this entirely unexpected atti- 
 tude on Fred's part, for he seemed anxious to avoid 
 me, and especially any possibility of my questioning 
 him, had I been minded to do so all of which was 
 a decided breach of contract, for it had been well under- 
 stood between us from the first that we would share 
 joys and sorrows alike, as good comrades fighting life's 
 9 289
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 battles shoulder to shoulder should do ; so pride made 
 me leave him entirely free to act as he thought fit, and 
 an awkward and painful restraint on both sides was 
 the inevitable result of this undesirable state of affairs. 
 
 Two weeks before the date fixed for our departure I 
 was lying on the lounge in my dressing-room one morn- 
 ing, with Ali-Baba standing watch over me, and oc- 
 casionally licking the tips of my fingers to indicate 
 that he was wide awake and ready to go and fetch one 
 or all of the servants if need arose, like the sagacious 
 and clever dog he was, when suddenly I heard a car- 
 riage stop, and immediately afterwards Fred's step, 
 first on the veranda and then in the central hall. 
 Under the new regime I thought that he would prob- 
 ably go on to the chancellerie, or his own rooms, and 
 not come near me until Jerry and my other " orderlies " 
 carne in to lunch, and my heart hardened against him. 
 I felt so very weak yet, and so very lonely! Greatly 
 to my surprise, however, he turned into the corridor 
 leading to my side of the house and knocked at my 
 door. 
 
 "Come in!" I said, without looking up from the 
 pages of my book or silencing Ali-Baba, who was 
 yapping a joyful welcome to the master he now so sel- 
 dom saw. Something in the manner of his entrance 
 made me raise my eyes against my will, and with an 
 exclamation of alarm I started to my feet, for his face 
 was pale and set, and his whole bearing eloquently ex- 
 pressive of bad news. 
 
 "What has happened?" 1 asked, feeling suddenly 
 cold all over. 
 
 He groaned, and, casting himself down upon a chair, 
 let his head fall upon his hands. 
 
 Swiftly I went up to him, and, touching him gently 
 on the shoulder, begged him to tell me what was the 
 
 290
 
 matter, but for 'a few seconds which seemed remark- 
 ably long to me I could not get him to answer a word. 
 At last, when my alarm had become almost unbear- 
 able, he raised towards me a face ages older than that 
 to which I was accustomed, and said, in a curiously 
 broken voice: 
 
 "Matter! I am ruined! I have lost every penny I 
 possessed in the world!" 
 
 "Oh, Lord, how you frightened me!" I exclaimed, 
 sitting down rather abruptly on the arm of a sofa 
 opposite to him. "Is that all?" 
 
 "All! What more do you want?" 
 
 " Nothing, nothing ; this will suffice me for the pres- 
 ent," I said, with a little laugh not very merry, nor 
 very genuine, but still a very presentable little laugh ; 
 and then I continued in the same semi-bantering tone, 
 because I divined that pity and sympathy would bring 
 about numerous undesirable catastrophes. 
 
 "Assuredly it is a misfortune, but I do not see that 
 you need be so tragic about it. We are not as yet, so 
 far as I am aware, in danger of starving, or even of 
 having to work very hard for our daily bread, "so cheer 
 up, dear old boy, and tell me all about it." 
 
 I pretended not to see the incredulous amazement 
 with which he regarded me, and, stretching my hand 
 towards a neighboring table, took a cigarette how 
 glad I was to have resumed the use of the soothing 
 herb three days before ! and began to smoke with true 
 Oriental impassiveness. 
 
 "For God's sake, Muzzi, do you realize what I just 
 told you?" he cried, rising and beginning to v.alk ner- 
 vously to and fro. 
 
 " Why, yes, of course I do ; but I cannot for the life 
 of me understand why the loss of your money granted 
 that you have really lost it all should make you look 
 
 291
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and act as you do now. Plate d' argent n'est pas mor- 
 telle and we have plenty more, you know!" 
 
 "Ah, yes yours!" 
 
 "Precisely." 
 
 " Well, do you imagine that I can calmly and cheer- 
 fully contemplate living henceforth entirely on your 
 money?" 
 
 "Tut-tut, don't be foolish! Perhaps, after all, your 
 situation is not as desperate as you think ; and to begin 
 with, do sit down and tell me, if it be possible, how this 
 all came about." 
 
 He sat down again, and wiped his face with his 
 handkerchief. 
 
 "I have been a fool!" he said, furiously. "An ab- 
 surdly confiding idiot. I see it now when it is too 
 late!" 
 
 I nodded encouragingly, but as he relapsed into 
 silence, staring in front of him, like a man who has 
 fallen down a precipice and cannot make up his mind 
 whether he be dead or alive, I threw away my half- 
 smoked cigarette and again took the floor. 
 
 "I dare say that you have allowed yourself to be 
 advised in your financial ventures since now you 
 have joined the phalanx of money makers and losers 
 by people who were only too glad to give you wrong 
 
 tips. For instance, Sir B s D n, for I 
 
 would swear that he had a hand in this silly business." 
 
 "Who told you this?" 
 
 " Nobody ; but it is easy enough to guess. " 
 
 He groaned anew, and smothered an oath between 
 his clinched teeth. 
 
 "Look here, Fred," I continued, an idea flashing 
 upon me, "do you owe anybody anything, or can you 
 completely cover the loss?" 
 
 " N no, I do not owe anybody a penny, but " 
 
 292
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "What I mean is, do you need money to save the 
 the situation your name, you know, from being un- 
 pleasantly mentioned anywhere? I am not versed in 
 finance, but 1 have heard of people being what is it 
 you call it? posted on 'Change, or something like that. 
 Is that your case? Answer me!" 
 
 "My poor girl, my poor little girl," he murmured, 
 with a sudden flash of piteous tenderness, "that you 
 should have to suffer this, too!" 
 
 " Ah, so that is what makes you feel so badly ! Well 
 now, tell me this instant how much you need to cleai 
 yourself, and when you want it." 
 
 And then, with eyes cast down, he told me with man] 
 pauses and much hesitation the full extent of the ca- 
 lamity. He had, it appeared, allowed himself to be 
 drawn into speculating, with the idea of augmenting 
 his capital sufficiently to clear himself forever of the 
 imputation of having married me partly for my money 
 a piece of gossip about which he was absurdly sen- 
 sitive, although, for the matter of that, rumors of quite 
 a contrary nature were also afloat. Through a strange 
 concourse of unlucky circumstances, and especially be- 
 cause he was entirely ignorant of affairs of this kind, 
 he had suddenly found himself involved to a much 
 greater extent than he had imagined. 
 
 Horrified, he had tried to recoup himself by risking 
 yet larger sums, and some mining shares upon which 
 he had built fantastic hopes having without the slight- 
 est warning fallen to zero, owing to an inundation of 
 the mines, he now remained insolvent for an exceed- 
 ingly large sum. Naturally, also, as I had surmised, 
 Sir B s D n had been his chief finan- 
 cial adviser. 
 
 For a few minutes I occupied myself with sowing, in 
 the furrows of remembrance, the seeds of an anger 
 
 293
 
 to call it by a mild name which would, I hoped, pro- 
 duce in good time a neat little harvest of unpleasant- 
 ness for that worthy, and I thought bitterly of the re- 
 mark that I had once heard that discreet rogue make 
 to the effect that financiers well versed like himself in 
 the business of the stock exchange despised the " scran- 
 nel" operations of amateurs. Did he call such differ- 
 ences on settling day the result of " scrannel " opera- 
 tions, I wondered? Anyhow, the "deal" was closed 
 to use the trade parlance the famous mining shares 
 were unnegotiable, and Fred, thanks to him, practically 
 a bankrupt. Assuredly his kind adviser had reason 
 to be satisfied. 
 
 I lighted another cigarette, pour me donner conte- 
 nance, and after a rapid mental calculation said to 
 that poor, broken, amateur financier whose name I bore : 
 
 "Do not be down-hearted, husband mine, you will 
 have the money in hand to settle your differences 
 Lor', what exquisite language this is! to-morrow 
 when the banks open, for I will cable my Viennese bank- 
 ers to wire me the necessary sum at once, which will give 
 you plenty of time," and, stooping down, I kissed him. 
 
 "You want to pay this?" he cried. "You want to 
 cripple your fortune to throw the greater portion of it 
 into this pit of mud I have dug before your feet?" 
 
 "Oh, look here, Fred, please don't talk nonsense! 
 What can be more natural than that I should help you 
 out of this difficulty? Who has a better right to do so, I'd 
 like to know? You really cannot very well treat me as a 
 stranger, seeing that you married me. I have always 
 considered myself as your best friend and comrade, apart 
 from anything else, and I may at least be allowed a 
 friend's privilege. Just you sit still while I write my 
 despatch, and do not worry ! I am, perchance, a trifle 
 wealthier than you know, and the payment of this sum 
 
 294
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 will not by any means cripple me or my fortunes. So 
 there!" 
 
 These pages have already recorded too many melo- 
 dramatic incidents for me to dwell on the hours that 
 followed. Fred behaved like a trump, poor old boy! 
 and I was so relieved to find that money alone had been 
 at the bottom of his recent changeful and incompre- 
 hensible moods that I now felt almost light-hearted. 
 Of course, the payment of this debt, which I considered 
 to be a debt of honor, would take a far greater slice out 
 of my capital than I cared to have him know then, for 
 at the time of my marriage to him I had had to surrender 
 a large part of my personal income, or, rather, to put 
 it baldly, the two hundred thousand francs annual al- 
 lowance made to me by my aunt, the Duchess de 
 
 S , who held a life interest in the money left to me 
 
 by her husband, and who had broken absolutely with 
 me when I had refused to take her advice as to my sec- 
 ond matrimonial venture; but, notwithstanding this, 
 even after paying Fred's debt I would still control an in- 
 come which would make it possible for us to continue 
 life almost on the same luxurious footing as heretofore. 
 
 One resolve I took, however, and an unshakable one 
 it was, too. I determined to pay back in full what I per- 
 sonally owed of chagrin and misery to Sir B s 
 
 D n, and to any other person who had helped 
 
 him in that sorry job, for I fancied, somehow, that there 
 must be somebody else. 
 
 Fred did not appear at lunch, and as Jerry was obliged 
 to spend a portion of the afternoon at the British Lega- 
 tion, I found myself alone for several hours in the 
 garden under the shelter of the little tent, with a 
 book on my lap which I did not read. No breeze lifted 
 the fan-shaped leaves of the palms, and the monoto- 
 nous drone of some insects darting about among the 
 
 295
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 roses was the only sound to be heard. With the elas- 
 ticity inherent to my nature, the moment I had real- 
 ized the new state of our fortunes my mental fibres had 
 automatically adjusted themselves to it, and I found 
 no very great trouble in mentally rearranging our lives 
 to meet the requirements of the situation. Material 
 changes would be few, but the material portion of one's 
 existence not being the one which is of paramount im- 
 portance, there were other alterations to attend to that 
 engrossed my attention more imperiously. 
 
 The sun was already off the lawns, and a refresh- 
 ing breeze was just springing up to dissipate the heat 
 garnered during the day under the thick verdure, and 
 swept gently along the rose-colored Numidian marble 
 terrace, lightly stirring leaf and flower, when the crisp 
 noise of crushed gravel made me look up, and there 
 before me stood Mahmoud Bey in his glittering uniform, 
 as spick and span as ever, and with a strangely am- 
 biguous smile playing under his heavy mustache. 
 A visit from him was about the last thing I had ex- 
 pected, but I found with that pleasure which a con- 
 valescent experiences in regaining former powers 
 no difficulty in assuming a perfectly natural manner, 
 although my heart hammered uncomfortably against 
 my ribs, and a little twitching of the nerves made it 
 plain to me that I was eager for the fray, especially as 
 I perceived immediately that he also was in the grip 
 of some violent emotion, although he concealed it ad- 
 mirably under a great show of interest in my health. 
 
 "How charming it is to find you up and about," 
 said he, drawing a camp-stool forward and seating 
 himself close to me. 
 
 "What will you have?" I asked. "Tea, coffee, 
 brandy-and-soda? Coffee, perhaps! I think that I 
 remember your telling me once that you like it tt la 
 
 296
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Turque. We prepare it here just as you do, only we 
 do not make it quite ... as ... strong!" 
 
 These words, pronounced in a light, bantering tone, 
 evidently made the aide-de-camp aware that the cur- 
 tain had risen on the drama, for he drew himself up at 
 once as if placing himself on the defensive. 
 
 "I will take nothing just now," he replied, with a 
 certain effort, as if this simple statement was being 
 wrung from him. " I have not come to pay you a 
 social call, my lady, but to entreat you to listen to me 
 for a few minutes patiently, for I have to tell you some- 
 thing something of the utmost gravity and impor- 
 tance!" he concluded, moistening his dry lips with the 
 tip of his tongue. 
 
 "Something of importance to you?" I inquired, and 
 again the commonplace words seemed to fall momen- 
 tously. 
 
 "Something of importance to us both," he replied, 
 rattling the gold cords of his sword-knot nervously, 
 and looking persistently away from me. 
 
 "That must certainly be interesting," I said, and 
 leaning back I drew down a slender pepper -tree 
 branch which overhung the open flap of the tent, gath- 
 ered the tiny berries like red buckshot in the hol- 
 low of my hand, and began to throw them one by one 
 at the gnarled trunk of a misshapen and hunch-backed 
 palm-tree which reminded me somehow of Mahmoud. 
 
 "Oh yes, I think I may perhaps succeed in in- 
 teresting you ! " he remarked, with a covert insolence 
 which he had never allowed himself as yet to display 
 towards me. 
 
 I cast the rest of the pepper-berries at one throw 
 against the tree, and sat up straight. 
 
 " It will be the very first time that you do so, then!" I 
 replied, " so pray come to the point. But I must remind 
 
 297
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 you before you begin that a more deferential tone is de 
 rigueur in my presence and now proceed/' I concluded, 
 with a vague sweep of my left hand, indicating that I 
 was relinquishing the platform to him. 
 
 "You are mistaken, madame/' he began, "if you 
 think that I have come here and carefully avoided 
 being announced by evading your boob in anything 
 but a conciliatory spirit. Indeed, I have come to offer 
 you my help at a moment when you need friends and 
 not foes!" 
 
 " You astonish me ! May I inquire to what moment 
 you are alluding? Personally, I am not conscious of 
 needing either the help of the one or the interference of 
 the other. Besides which, I do not think that, strictly 
 speaking, you can call yourself my friend, or for the 
 matter of that my foe, because you know a foe is 
 generally supposed to inspire fear, or at least appre- 
 hension, which you most emphatically fail to do." 
 
 " You are right, my lady, right as ever," he exclaimed, 
 with sudden passion. " I have never been your friend, 
 for friendship between us was always impossible. 
 There can live in my soul but deepest hatred, or ... or 
 fiercest love, where you are concerned. Let me speak ; 
 let me tell you at last why I have persecuted you, why 
 I have tried to place you in a position where you would 
 be humbled and at my mercy, why now I am here to 
 offer you my help, my life, my very heart's blood. ..." 
 
 He had leaned nearer and nearer towards me until 
 his hot breath touched my cheek. Was the man in 
 earnest, or merely a better comedian than I had given 
 him credit for? With a rapid twist of the wrist I un- 
 furled a large sandal-wood fan which had been lying 
 on my lap and flashed it between us, just touching the 
 tip of his nose with it, and causing him to disappear 
 in sudden eclipse behind its odorous fret-work. 
 
 298
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Exit Romeo!" I said, with a low laugh, and then 
 drawing back and closing this novel weapon of de- 
 fence with a crackling sound, I declaimed: "Enter 
 the heavy villain, poignard in hand!" 
 
 I regret to say that at that instant Mahmoud swore 
 an oath savoring more of Billingsgate or Ratcliff- 
 Highway than of the mysterious and poetical Orient. 
 For that estimable Turk was an excellent linguist. 
 
 "Fie, Excellency!" I said, still laughing; "where 
 are your manners?" 
 
 "Manners! Damn manners! You are enough to 
 drive a man crazy; but you will not laugh so gayly 
 when you know all!" 
 
 " Brrr-rr-rrr ! You positively frighten me! You do 
 not really think, however, that anything can be worse 
 than the abortive declaration I have just been sub- 
 jected to? Pardon my frankness, but melodrama al- 
 ways bores me, and I wish that you would confine 
 yourself to your habitual roles minor parts, that is, 
 for the leading one does not particularly suit your 
 brand of talent." 
 
 "You may joke, my lady, but when you find that 
 you have destroyed the only chance your husband has 
 of saving himself from ruin you may possibly regret it." 
 
 " Ah, nous y voild, done ! " I said, clapping my hands 
 softly. "The plot is revealed generous lover versus 
 vanquished and ruined husband; heroic wife sacri- 
 ficing her honor to save that of her lord! Superb! 
 Simply superb! Good ending for a fifth act. Con- 
 gratulations, Mahmoud Bey." 
 
 A spasm of fury convulsed his features, and he fairly 
 stamped his foot. 
 
 "Do you know that dishonor stares you and your 
 precious husband in the face? Do you know that he 
 has lost all his money and owes an enormous sum be- 
 
 299
 
 A DOFFE'D CORONET 
 
 sides, which he has no means of paying?" he cried, in 
 a strained, high-pitched voice. "I came here/' he 
 went on, " to offer you my help, if you will only grant 
 me a a a little pity, a little tenderness in return. 
 For you I am ready to give all I have. I am richer 
 than people think, and I can save you yet. Your fate 
 is in my hands, your husband's name, his future 
 everything!" 
 
 "I understand that a heart lies at my feet," I replied, 
 with another amused laugh; "but even supposing 
 that to be true, there is another point from which to 
 consider the situation. One does not carefully treasure 
 the signed confession of a person whom one regards 
 with a a a little pity and tenderness. Incident- 
 ally, therefore, you would expect to regain that in- 
 teresting document, wouldn't you? Do you think you 
 can get it?" 
 
 He was about to speak, evidently in vehement de- 
 nial, but I gave him no opportunity. 
 
 "Allow me to translate your proposals from stage 
 language to that of fact as quickly as possible, so that I 
 may be rid of you," I continued. " You offer me money 
 stolen money, since it is yours to save the man you 
 yourself have helped to ruin. You are a bosom friend 
 
 of Sir B s D n, and you have been, I 
 
 would swear, his ally throughout this financial cam- 
 paign, which, though so disastrous for Fred, I have 
 
 discovered has been for D n, and doubtless for 
 
 you, also, quite indecently remunerative. Ah, you 
 don't like my way of putting it!" for Mahmoud's ex- 
 pression of exasperation had changed to one of extreme 
 discomfort, and he was shifting uneasily in his seat. 
 
 "Now I have a bit of advice to give you," I went 
 on, smiling sweetly at him. "And that is, don't, my 
 dear Bey, give so much attention to gossip. Gossip 
 
 300
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 probably told you that at the time of my second mar- 
 riage I was obliged to sacrifice my entire property. I am 
 sorry to tell you that the report is untrue. As it hap- 
 pens, I am sufficiently wealthy to pay all my husband's 
 debts ' without turning a hair/ as your friends in trade 
 would put it. So the bottom has dropped out of your 
 little scheme, and you have proved yourself an ass as 
 well as a scoundrel. Either reputation is enough for 
 one man to bear, my dear Bey, and it is quite deplorable 
 that you should so readily assume both." 
 
 My adversary by this time presented a most ludi- 
 crous picture of grotesquely mingled emotions fear, as- 
 tonishment, disgust, and disappointment. I laughed 
 aloud; not that the humor of the situation was very 
 apparent to me I was too angry for that but I was 
 forced either to accept that aspect of it, or transgress 
 an inflexible principle of mine that one must not lose 
 one's temper with an inferior. But oh ! to have been a 
 man for five minutes, to have ceased playing Lord 
 High Executioner to this human mollusc, to have eased 
 my strained nerves by slapping the fellow's face and 
 dismissing him with a sound and hearty kick! 
 
 Mahmoud, true to his contemptible code, now tried 
 flattery. 
 
 "Ah, what a woman you are!" he exclaimed, with 
 abject admiration. "What emotion touches you? 
 Neither love, nor fear, nor rage " 
 
 "Nor what Judge B r calls 'soft sawder/ 
 
 you might add," I interrupted, scornfully. "I don't 
 wonder you are surprised at me. All you know of 
 Europeans has been learned from the hundreds of social 
 wrecks who take refuge over here when their own coun- 
 tries are too hot to hold them, pirates of society who 
 have dragged their names through mud and slime, 
 and who hope to blind their audience here with the 
 
 301
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 debris of their battered escutcheons. What emotions 
 do you expect to inspire save disgust? You, who are 
 quite too insignificant, too contemptible to be even in- 
 teresting. Listen, you are even respited! In a few 
 days I am going to Europe not so fast, my friend, 
 pray do not look so relieved until you have heard me 
 out!" For Mahmoud's drooping attitude had disap- 
 peared on the instant, and he was all attention and 
 alert interest. 
 
 After a moment's pause I resumed: "Do you know 
 the Due d'A t?" 
 
 "The Due d'A .... t, on Rhoda?" he replied, be- 
 wildered. "No, I do not know him, but I know his 
 secretary. Why do you ask?" 
 
 " So you know his secretary ; and when scamp num- 
 ber one meets scamp number two but it does not mat- 
 ter. I will tell you, however, what does. The gems 
 you removed from the Collier de la Favorite are in the 
 Duke's possession ; for he bought them from the mer- 
 chant to whom you sold them." 
 
 "Impossible!" 
 
 " Oh no, quite possible ; I have seen them, and both 
 he and I know that they are the identical ones." 
 
 "Will he speak?" 
 
 "No, he won't. He is yet another honorable person- 
 age quite beyond your understanding who would 
 dislike very much to turn informer. So he will not 
 speak excepting you yourself force him to do so by 
 persevering in the ways you have trodden until now, 
 or if you continue to attack my husband by word of 
 mouth or otherwise ; or else, again, if the Khedive dis- 
 covers your removal of gems from that or possibly 
 any other jewel belonging to him. By-the-bye, have 
 you still got access to his valuables?" 
 
 "No," he replied, submissively; "there have been 
 
 302
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 great changes at the palace this summer. His High- 
 ness has grown strangely suspicious, and no one but 
 himself or Prince Hussein has access to his valuables 
 and private papers." 
 
 I smiled, well pleased at finding that Tewfik had 
 indeed taken my hint, and continued : 
 
 "The Duke is my friend, and I have placed in his 
 hands a sealed envelope containing copies of all the 
 written proofs I have of your guilt, and also a state- 
 ment of my entire dealings with you. Thus you see 
 that my absence even for several months does not in- 
 dicate that you will not be closely watched, so h ban 
 entendeur salut ! And now do me the favor to leave 
 me at once. I do not think that I can put up with you 
 another minute," and, rising abruptly, I blew the gold 
 whistle hanging to my chatelaine three times shrilly, 
 for I distinctly felt that if the fellow stood there any 
 longer looking at me I would do him an injury. He 
 presumably read something of the kind in my eyes, for 
 what little color he had left fled from his face, and with- 
 out awaiting the advent of the servant I had summoned 
 he bowed profoundly and departed, while I, sinking 
 back into my chair again, laughed silently. 
 
 But alas for whatever intentions, good or bad, I 
 may have had regarding him. Fate intervened.- 
 
 Of my last two weeks in Egypt I will not speak. They 
 were not pleasant ones, for besides the temporary gloom 
 which Fred's financial mishap had cast over him 
 and which, of course, reacted upon me it is always a 
 tedious job to leave, for an indefinite period, a house 
 filled from top to bottom with bric-a-brac and costly 
 furniture, especially when one is not in good health, 
 and when consequently the superintending of servants 
 and packers is an almost overwhelming fatigue. At 
 last we were off, however, accompanied as far as Alex- 
 
 303
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 andria by several faithful friends, among them poor 
 Jerry, whose devotion and goodness had been past be- 
 lief, and who now looked so broken up that it pained 
 me cruelly to say good-bye to him. We embarked 
 on one of the Messageries Maritimes steamers, for 
 this time we were going leisurely and by easy stages 
 to Brittany, where we intended to stay for a few weeks 
 at my own place on the great cliffs overlooking La 
 Mer Sauvage. 
 
 My mother, whose feeling of resentment on account 
 of my second marriage had gradually become somewhat 
 modified, and who would have been ready to welcome a 
 reconciliation, had sent us a formal invitation to visit 
 her at my dear old home, where she lived six months 
 out of the year ; but what I needed was peace, silence, 
 and repose, all of which could not very well be obtained 
 in the house where she reigned, and which was always 
 full of guests bent on making of life a continual pageant. 
 I therefore thanked her, and accepted conditionally to 
 come to her at a later date when sufficiently recovered, 
 but not while I was still so much of an invalid as to be a 
 trouble-fete. 
 
 As soon as the carriage reached the narrow roads 
 leading through the cork-oak forest to my dear old ivy- 
 grown castle my heart gave a great leap. I felt that 
 here I would soon be well and happy again. Above 
 our heads the evergreen branches met, letting the pale- 
 golden Breton sun filter soft, warm rays upon the moss 
 and heather, the broom and gorse, with which the 
 ground was covered as with a royal mantle. Snowy 
 clematis and pink convolvulus clothed the rough 
 trunks of the century-old trees, and bird-songs \vere 
 heard everywhere, while quite close at hand, just be- 
 yond the luxuriant belt of verdure bordering the 
 road, the sound of the sea against its lofty granite 
 
 3<>4
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 bastions seemed the leitmotif of nature's sweet har- 
 mony. 
 
 Now and again we drove past a cluster of little cot- 
 tages, built of rough stone and roofed with thatch, 
 wherein blue irises and pink foxglove had taken root 
 and blossomed as in a garden. The inhabitants of these 
 poetical chaumie'res honest ones those, and not gilded 
 imitations like Madame S . . . a's came out to wel- 
 come us, clad in their picturesque costumes of heavy 
 cloth embroidered in multi-colored silks and silver 
 thread, and surmounted either by the large, white- 
 winged coiffe which recalls the mediaeval "hennin," 
 and gives to the straight profiles and large, flax-blue 
 eyes of our peasant women an ideal and chaste purity, 
 or by the three-cornered felt hats, profusely decorated 
 with bright chenille cords and silver buckles, worn by 
 the men on fete days. 
 
 At last this was home my only true and real 
 home ! How good it felt to be there again, surrounded 
 by the deep-hearted love of my people, for although 
 five years had elapsed since my last visit to the old 
 
 manoir of K t, one does not forget in Brittany, 
 
 and the time might have been ten times longer. The 
 castle, a massive but elegantly shaped building, as 
 lonely in its situation as though perched at the very 
 confines of the w r orld, is profusely mullioned, machic- 
 olated, and turreted, and stands in a vast park fron- 
 tiered on one side by the basaltic cliffs I love so well, 
 and on the other by splendid oak forests, and as we 
 entered the cour d'honneur I stretched out my thin 
 hands to it all as to a dear, kind, comforting friend, 
 and breathed in deeply the sweet, pungent smell of the 
 familiar flowers, ripening fruit, and plants basking in 
 the sun, mixed with the glad fragrance of brine and 
 sea-weed, and of the violet-scented salt-marshes which 
 10 305
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 lay three miles farther up the coast in a break of the 
 cliffs. In my love for Brittany I reached a moral height 
 which I never touched otherwise, and in which every 
 doubt, every sorrow, every regret was swept away as 
 with one strong, health-giving, heavenly breath. Home 
 at last! But for how long? 
 
 " II est parti vent arriere, 
 
 II reviendra en louvoyant !" 
 
 The ancient sailor-song spoke truly, for I had gone 
 thence gay, happy, strong, healthy, full of life, and I 
 came back weak, ill, and down-hearted; that is what 
 the old song meant to say in maritime parlance. I had 
 come back, indeed, to be healed, strengthened, cheered, 
 and made happy again. 
 
 How I did sleep in my huge room of panelled oak 
 and Flemish tapestries, that smelled of lavender and 
 pressed rose-leaves. And when I awoke in the morning 
 in the grand old bed, with its bleu de France brocade 
 hangings and its carved and coroneted canopy, how 
 joyful I was to hear the fresh, crisp sound of the waves, 
 and the thrushes singing in the blossoming elder- 
 boughs beneath my windows! All the young life in 
 me seemed to grow anew, and to become once more 
 glad and free from care. 
 
 Many quiet and happy days followed for me, during 
 which I recovered all my vitality, and soon I was once 
 more able to spend hours in the saddle, galloping over 
 the silvery sands at low tide, or through the narrow 
 bridle-path of the forest, and to sail my boat amid the 
 great, black rocks of the bay Ar-Men-Du, as they call 
 them in Bas-Breton the navigation of my tiny vessel 
 demanding my careful attention, but yet not to the 
 point of preventing me from enjoying to the uttermost 
 the smooth, easy, gliding motion over the grayish-green 
 
 306
 
 water, where flocks of gulls and sea-swallows dipped 
 their silky wings within a stone's throw of me. 
 
 Fred, too, was benefited by this purely contempla- 
 tive existence, far away from everybody and everything 
 save the household, the dear old priest who had been 
 my beloved tutor and was now the chaplain of the 
 memoir and the peasants and fisher-folk who had 
 known me since babyhood and loved me as had I been 
 their own. He was always a charming companion, 
 gay, light-hearted, and full of fun, and although he 
 had not my passionate love for the country in general 
 and Brittany in particular, yet he spent a very happy 
 time on horseback or on the sea, or else in the vast li- 
 brary, oak-panelled like every other room throughout 
 the castle, and containing, besides hundreds of vol- 
 umes not much more recent that Diderot some rare 
 black-letter records, parchments, ancient manuscripts, 
 and a collection of illuminated missals and "hour- 
 books" of singular beauty, for he was ever a bit of a 
 bookworm. 
 
 But, alas, in November, Fred having been summoned 
 to London, I resigned myself to once more leave the 
 dear old place, closing the series of my delights by a 
 long ride along the shore to where the most wonderful 
 steeple in Brittany or in the world, perhaps raises its 
 weather-worn cross towards the hazy sky on the very 
 edge of a rocky precipice a marvellous, lacelike tower 
 of gray, lichen-grown stone, shooting higher and 
 higher up in the air, and light and carved & jour enough 
 to give one vertigo when climbing the spiral stairs 
 leading to the summit. Through the interstices of 
 the granite lace-work one sees the tossing sea, the 
 heather-clad plain, the distant tops of the cork-oaks, 
 as if one were soaring ; and frightened rooks a swarm 
 of bugel - noz ! rise from their perches amid the huge 
 
 307
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 bronze bells, screeching and circling wildly round with 
 a noisy flapping of their sombre wings, which makes 
 one a little dizzy at such an altitude. Six hundred 
 years of storm and rain has this marvellous steeple 
 withstood, its grimacing gargoyles overhanging the 
 restless ocean with a sneer of defiance on their ugly 
 faces, and seeming to ask mockingly of one another 
 why they are still there staring the sun and the moon 
 in the face, or watching the hurricanes blow the water 
 into froth at the foot of their immutable gray tower, 
 when all else bearing human shape came and went, 
 was born and died, to be thrust away under the brown 
 earth or to sleep an eternal sleep on a bed of delicately 
 tinted weed fifty fathoms beneath the surface of that 
 endlessly tossing sea. 
 
 I dismounted at the entrance of the cloisters, and, 
 leaving my horse with the groom, walked slowly to the 
 very edge of the cliff and gazed at the pale-blue mirror 
 before me, which melted away on the horizon-line into 
 the similar azurine pallor of the sky, for, strange to 
 record, the bay was lulled into an unusual drowsy repose 
 on that occasion by the splendor of the autumnal day. 
 When I turned round I saw an old, old crone, bent and 
 gnarled like an evil fairy, with a hooked profile resem- 
 bling that of an owl, and little, red-rimmed, gray eyes, 
 blinking hen-fashion, telling her beads on the steps of 
 the gaunt calvary to the left of the church. I stepped 
 over the short, salty grass, dotted with sea-pinks and 
 sea-thistles, and bade her good-morning. 
 
 "Jesus, ma Doue! Jesus, ma Doue I" she croaked. 
 "Our lady come back to her own!" and noticing my 
 surprise at being recognized, so far from my own place, 
 she broke out in a torrent of Bas-Breton, for they do 
 not speak Galleuc (French) in those parts. 
 
 "Ah, you look like him!" she wailed. "Like the 
 
 308
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 saint we have lost our dear, dear lord, a giant in 
 strength and in goodness, handsome as none else ever 
 was, and with a heart of gold and a soul of crystal, 
 riding his great, black horse wherever there was a fine 
 deed to do. 'Jesus, ma Done!' our lost lord, our lost 
 lord!" 
 
 Tears sprang to my eyes, and I sat down beside her 
 on the moss-grown steps of the cross it was so long 
 since any one had talked to me of my father ! An in- 
 tense longing to stay forevermore in the place that had 
 known him and reverenced his memory like that of a 
 saint where his preux Chevalier d'antan was remem- 
 bered, as it was meet that he should be filled my whole 
 being. I listened to the old woman's crooning voice 
 retailing to me the brave deeds and the thousand kind- 
 nesses he had done, and I gazed, almost with despair, 
 at the plain all golden with gorse, excepting where it 
 blushed rosy-red with feathery heather, at the rock- 
 girthed sea intoning its deep-throated monotonous 
 chant, and at last at the antique church, itself a prayer 
 in stone, linking our paltry times to the glorious ages 
 that have passed away: 
 
 " Mon clocher est 1'plus beau d'la terre, 
 
 Mon pays 1'plus beau d'alentour; 
 Rendez-moi, ma bruyere, 
 Et mon clocher a jour I" 
 
 I rose, and, followed by the old creature hobbling 
 along on her two sticks, entered the church. All 
 around the thick, gray walls, saints clad in the cos- 
 tumes of distant centuries looked down upon us from 
 their can-en niches in the dark, tranquil, incense-laden 
 atmosphere. Beneath the pavement, made of enormous 
 blocks of granite, knights and ladies, dead so long ago 
 that the crested shields and crowns marking their rest- 
 
 309
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ing-places are worn flat by the feet of the many genera- 
 tions that followed them, slept their last sleep, while 
 through the open, iron-bound portals -a fresh sea-breeze 
 entered freely, stirring the flowers and the marvellous 
 antique lace cloth upon the high altar. We were all 
 alone in the dusky edifice, and I glanced almost with 
 envy at the bent, frail figure of the aged peasant woman 
 kneeling at my side and praying fervently with a rapt, 
 mystical expression on her toothless, withered counte- 
 nance, which almost beautified it. Then I left her to 
 her silent contemplation of the great saints of Brittany 
 St. Gildas, St. Thegounec, St. Tuginal, St. Tugdual, 
 St. Bertrand and to her long invocations, half Latin, 
 half Bas - Breton, accompanied en sourdine by the 
 " hou, houau-hou-hou " of the wind whistling through 
 the stone lace-work of the slender steeple piercing into 
 the calm, blue sky. 
 
 My road home followed for a while the salt-marshes, 
 upon which pink mould and emerald- green mossy 
 slime floated wherever the refuse water was allowed to 
 accumulate in the deep etiers, then it skirted a bowlder- 
 strewn beach from which the sea had just retired, leav- 
 ing uncovered immense fields of brown ribbon-weed, 
 scalloped and shirred like satin baldaquins, and of 
 delicate pale-green, rose, and amethyst tinted grasses 
 hanging like gigantic tresses from the rocks. Night 
 was coming on, and the four great stones, just beyond 
 low-water mark, which are supposed to be dedicated 
 to Bugel-du (the little black man), leader of the legion 
 of kourrigans (gnomes) who dwell in the caves near 
 by, assumed in the failing light a singularly weird 
 aspect. I loved those stones, and stopped my horse to 
 look my fill at this savage portion of the rugged coast. 
 
 " Et les Celtes regrettaient quatre pierres brutes sous 
 un ciel pluvieux, au fond d'un golfe rempli d'llots I" 
 
 310
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Alas, I was a Celt, too I 
 ***** 
 
 Galgenhumor, a German word for which there is no 
 equivalent or adequate translation in any of the seven 
 or eight languages I have the misfortune to speak or 
 in all the others I do not speak, for the matter of that, 
 so far as I know is yet one of the most expressive which 
 the human tongue can pronounce, for it means in its 
 conciseness a great many things difficult to render 
 even in a whole sentence. Galgenhwnor the brave, 
 almost defiant show of spirit displayed by the poor 
 wretch on his way to the gallows ; the last manifestation 
 of a dying pride, a sinking courage, or merely, perad- 
 venture, the supreme effort of quiveting nerves laid 
 bare and raw to conceal from the general public the 
 misery of a struggling soul ; and perhaps, again, only 
 the gay, bantering tone, the merry smile, the ever-pres- 
 ent joke used by the well-bred and sensitive worldling 
 as a brilliant if flimsy annor behind which a weary, 
 momentarily imbittered heart can fight its own battles, 
 desiring no help nor succor, and keeping secret the fact 
 that some spot in its innermost and remotest corner is 
 lightly or sorely wounded. 
 
 Whatever Galgenhilmor may be, sufficient is it to 
 say that I had a very respectable dose of it when on a 
 late autumn morning we said good-bye to the old 
 manoir, leaving it in its solitary grandeur closed and 
 lifeless once more, save for Monsieur I' Abbe's now 
 Monsieur le Cure's private apartment, and the quar- 
 ters near the gardens where the reduced staff of ser 
 vants lived all the year round one of the fairest spots 
 on earth, deserted ! We embarked at St. Malo for Eng- 
 
 3"
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 land, and during the whole passage I felt that my 
 only safety lay in laughing, joking, and making 
 fun of everything at least accomplishing by so doing 
 the praiseworthy object of cheering Fred, who as he 
 neared his native land was inclined to grow, as usual, 
 gloomier and gloomier! It seemed to me, nevertheless, 
 that we were tearing ahead in a cruel, jeering haste, 
 hard to bear, indeed, and I was glad when the sea got 
 rough all in a moment, a stiff breeze rose, and the little 
 steamer began to pitch and plunge and rear like a vi- 
 cious horse, in the teeth of an uncommonly fresh nor'- 
 easter. This sort of thing was far more in keeping 
 with my real mood than even the convenient Galgen- 
 humor, for it drove every one below and left me in un- 
 disputed possession of the deck as far as passengers 
 were concerned to think, and think, and think, and 
 turn my eyes in undisturbed solitude towards the fast- 
 fading coast of Brittany. 
 
 Ah, surely there was something prophetic in the bit- 
 terness of that parting! 
 
 The trip was not a very long one, and sooner than 
 I should have wished we were again within the realms 
 of that polished and refined civilization which rejoices 
 in muddy skies, greasy pavements, horrible noises, 
 squalor, tinsel - luxury, rain, and dirt. A pleasant 
 little incident occurred, however, at the railway sta- 
 tion. We had hardly taken our places in the car- 
 riage reserved for us and sent our servants to theirs, 
 where they were at leisure to meditate, after the grum- 
 bling manner of their kind, over the pleasures of equi- 
 noctial storms and sea-sickness, when a boy of ten or 
 twelve years old, blond of locks and bright-blue-eyed, 
 went past, carrying an armful of illustrated papers 
 and magazines, and crying his wares in so angelic, 
 pure, silver-toned a voice that I started to my feet in 
 
 312
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 sheer rapture and beckoned peremptorily to him to come 
 back. "Illustrated London News," sang the little 
 fellow, something like this : 
 
 S 
 
 II - lus - trat - ed Lon - don Ne - e - ews 
 
 "Illustrated Lon . . . ' Here he placed his little, 
 ragged shoe on the carriage-step, and, looking up at 
 me with a cherub's smile, held out one or two of the 
 papers. 
 
 "Give them all!" I said, quickly. "How much for 
 the whole batch?" 
 
 The smile broadened; amazed and incredulous de- 
 light shone on the chubby pink-and- white British face, 
 and when the papers and magazines had been trans- 
 ferred from the boy's arms to the seat beside me, and 
 he had been hastily indemnified for their loss and re- 
 warded for his exquisite voice and handsome little face 
 with much gold, Fred burst out laughing as we glided 
 out of the terminus. 
 
 "Incorrigible!" he said, when his merriment had 
 somewhat subsided. "You are incorrigible; nothing 
 will ever alter you." A true prophet, that husband of 
 mine, for of a truth nothing ever did more's the pity. 
 
 On we rushed through fertile, cramped, verdure-clad 
 England, its lovely villages looking like a succession 
 of highly ornamental, luxurious toys set daintily in a 
 frame of emerald grass and brilliant autumnal flowers 
 for the joy of the onlooker ; but unhappily, as we neared 
 London, a dismal, cold, disheartening rain set in, blot- 
 ting out the charming landscape, which was such an 
 edifying contrast to my own rugged, romantic, scantily 
 
 313
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 peopled Brittany that I could have cried for sheer 
 homesickness ! 
 
 "This is getting quite unbearable!" I exclaimed, 
 with a desperate mental clutch at that invaluable Gal- 
 genhiimor, which was threatening to desert me for good 
 and all. "What say you, gallant Knight of the 
 Gloomy Countenance shall we sing a Te Deum in 
 honor of Great Britain to enliven this weary progress, or 
 shall we immortalize ourselves by pulling the danger- 
 signal-bell and stopping the train in order to complain 
 of this inhospitable weather? But no! on second 
 thought, let us prepare a pleasing surprise for the 
 guard by climbing into the hand-luggage net overhead 
 there and playing hide-and-seek with him when he 
 appears at the next station." 
 
 I blush to record that the boyish mischievousness 
 inherent in my lord and master now broke forth with a 
 vigor which bore testimony to the originality of my 
 proposal, and impelled by that God-sent Galgenhumor, 
 now once more in the ascendant, I did not scruple 
 to carry it into immediate execution. We swung our- 
 selves into the comparatively broad, brass-bound nets, 
 where, thanks to youthful slenderness, we managed 
 not only to ensconce ourselves, but by careful balancing 
 actually to maintain our positions despite the violent 
 oscillations of the train. I am bound to confess that 
 a faint sensation of nausea was superinduced by this 
 daring experiment, but what is such a trifling discom- 
 fort compared with the truly witty and highly spiced 
 pleasantry we contemplated ? As' we clutched at the 
 precarious support of the curved brass rods we looked 
 at each other and indulged in uncomplimentary re- 
 marks across the carriage about our respective ap- 
 pearances in this our supremely funny imitation of the 
 world-famed Han-Lon-Lees."
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 At last the train slackened its noisy, and, from that 
 lofty perch, decidedly unpleasant speed, and we ceased 
 laughing and became as quiet as frightened mice, con- 
 gratulating ourselves upon the fact that the failing 
 light of the stormy afternoon would greatly reduce our 
 chances of discovery. Two minutes more and the ex- 
 press was brought to a stand-still, the inharmonious 
 voice of the guard coming nearer and nearer, and his 
 demand for "tickets, please" for this was the last 
 stop before the London terminus being borne to our 
 ears with terrifying and inexorable distinctness. The 
 door of the carriage was opened, letting in a bluster of 
 wind and rain, and then a sonorous oath, followed by 
 this remarkably appropriate sentence, made itself heard : 
 
 "Where the h 1 have those swells gone to?" No- 
 body answering this very puzzling question, the non- 
 plussed functionary stood for a moment, painfully be- 
 wildered, on the drenched foot-board, then he muttered 
 something incoherent about " train just starting . . . 
 make inquiries . . . search other carriages . . . report to 
 authorities . . . /' consigned us once more to the hot- 
 test regions he could think of in a hurry, banged the 
 door, and was gone! 
 
 I wiped the tears out of my eyes which suppressed 
 laughter had brought there, bade Fred moderate his 
 own transports of mirth, and then, dizzy and a little 
 sore about the ribs, we clambered down, repaired the 
 disorder of our attire, and sat down opposite each 
 other in preternaturally solemn attitudes to await the 
 denouement. When, a few moments later, the train 
 drew up at Waterloo station, the guard appeared ac- 
 companied by half a dozen railroad officials and three 
 constables and wrenched open the door with excited 
 haste. They peered in, craning their necks over one 
 another's shoulders, and stared at us amazed!
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "What is the matter?" Fred asked, with quiet and 
 somewhat haughty surprise. "Looking for an es- 
 caped criminal?" 
 
 The scene that ensued need not be dwelt upon, be- 
 cause, like all very good things, it did not last long, 
 and, moreover, because it would place the gullibility 
 of the British official in too unfavorable a light, but 
 the energetic "Well, I'll be damned!" of the unhappy 
 guard, when charged by his superiors with having been 
 indulging in strong waters, and his bewilderment when 
 he received a compensatory guinea from Fred, together 
 with a benignant smile and a caution to give up drink, 
 were well worth the trouble we had taken. 
 
 Here I must open a small explanatory parenthesis. 
 When I married Fred I gave him to understand that I 
 would dutifully follow him wherever the exigencies of 
 his career might send him, were it to Patagonia or the 
 North Pole, but not to the United States. My actual 
 knowledge of that country, it should be said, was of a 
 very general nature, being confined, indeed, to bare geog- 
 raphy and a desultory collection of ill-assorted facts. 
 Moreover, the prejudices which I entertained in common 
 with many Europeans, had been intensified no less by 
 encounters with strange and awful Cook's tourists hail- 
 ing from the States than by the dismal reports of 
 furious diplomats, who, in those days, were sent to 
 Washington in punishment of their sins. From these 
 premisses my annoyance may be comprehended when, 
 almost immediately on reaching London, Fred was 
 requested to visit several cities of the American Union. 
 When, however, I had consulted my physicians, I 
 was inclined to forego whatever opposition I had 
 meditated, for they declared with touching and really 
 rare professional unanimity that there could be no 
 question of my going back to Egypt for a very long 
 
 316
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 time, or, indeed, of my sojourning in any tropical 
 country the mischief done to my constitution by 
 the burning African climate being far greater than we 
 had imagined. They recommended a sea voyage and 
 a more or less long stay in a region colder than 
 either Brittany or England, so I pocketed my prej- 
 udices like a meritorious and unselfish wife, and, on 
 condition that we should under no circumstances 
 stay more than six weeks in Yankeeland, prepared, 
 not very cheerfully, it is true, to cross the North At- 
 lantic at the beginning of December. We were not 
 obliged to hurry particularly, and so Pater, with an eye 
 to the doctor's instructions, advised us instead of travel- 
 ling on an ocean greyhound to take passage on a con- 
 siderably smaller and slower merchant vessel starting 
 from London and belonging to a line owned by a friend 
 of his. I was pleased at the idea, not only on account 
 of the comparatively long time we would spend on the 
 water, but also because, as that particular vessel was 
 not going to carry any passengers at that crossing 
 save the president of the company, who was going to 
 New York on business it would amount almost to a 
 yachting trip. So, one misty morning when cloudy 
 was the weather we said once again good-bye to old 
 England, dropped down the river, and turned south- 
 westward to face the furies of the great herring-pond 
 in midwinter, and a cruel winter at that ! 
 
 At the last moment we were joined most unexpected- 
 ly by my brother Bertrand and his valet. We found 
 out too late that the lad, who was then on sick-leave 
 from the navy having, strangely enough, also under- 
 gone a severe attack of typhoid while on the Cochin 
 China station had, after a difference of opinion with his 
 mother, taken the law into his own hands, and, content- 
 ing himself with making his decision known to her in 
 
 317
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 writing, had come post-haste after us. My duty as elder 
 sister was plainly to blame him severely for this coup 
 de tele, but I was so delighted to see the boy again after 
 years of almost total separation, that my admonitions 
 were of a singularly mild description, and I accepted 
 the fait-accom pli with surprising equanimity. There 
 existed between Bertrand and myself a deep and ten- 
 der affection, and as it would have been useless to try 
 to send him back, we came to the conclusion that a 
 short absence of the young sailor could not be con- 
 sidered as a great calamity, and let matters go at that. 
 
 Late on the afternoon of our departure, Fred having 
 retired to his state-room for, in spite of having been 
 twice around the world, he resembled Admiral Nelson 
 in that he always suffered from sea-sickness during the 
 first part of the voyage Bertrand and I, true to our Bre- 
 ton sea-instinct, went out to get a taste of the weather, 
 much to the surprise of the captain, a tall, bull-necked, 
 beetroot-red-faced fellow, and of his officers standing on 
 the bridge. 
 
 It was intensely cold, with a feeling of snow in the 
 air ; the setting sun was indicated by a paler stripe on 
 the western edge of a sky of solid gray, and the wind 
 roared fiercely by, making conversation almost impos- 
 sible. Flying jets of spray clung to masts, funnel, and 
 rigging, clothing them with a thin, silvery coating of 
 ice, and glassing the sloping deck until it began to re- 
 semble the side of a glacier. I found, however, no 
 great difficulty in maintaining my balance, thanks to 
 a very early training in much smaller vessels, which 
 had made me familiar with Atlantic storms ; and as to 
 Bertrand, he, naturally, was in his element. 
 
 We clung to the rail abreast the wheel, and drank in 
 the keen freshness of the air with delight. It was like 
 wine to us us poor children of the North, who had 
 
 318
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 been so lately pent in the scorched and breathless South- 
 land and we hailed the tigerish leap of each foam- 
 crested sea, every shriek of the boisterous northwester, 
 almost as we would have a glimpse of home itself. Ah, 
 but it was good ! 
 
 Our quarters were extremely comfortable, for not 
 only had we two state-rooms apiece, but the lady's salon 
 served me as a sort of boudoir. Our servants were 
 also admirably lodged, and the table much better than 
 could have been expected, especially as the aforesaid 
 president a mild-mannered, rather dense-looking, slow- 
 speaking man had brought along two barrels of oys- 
 ters, a large quantity of fruit, and many other delica- 
 cies, which were enjoyed chiefly by Bertrand and myself, 
 the purveyor thereof being mostly confined to his own 
 cabin. For the matter of that, the weather continued 
 so bad that besides us two only my faithful Paul, 
 who was the happy possessor of a good pair of sea 
 legs, and Jim, my brother's valet, were constantly up 
 and about; indeed, my two maids had to be placed in 
 the charge of the doctor, so pitiable was their plight. 
 
 Jim had served in the British navy, and with his 
 muscular, sinewy frame, shrewd, bronzed face, and 
 clever way of using his hands, looked a hundred times 
 more professional than the captain himself. He had 
 seen a good deal -of men and manners, and was up to 
 every seafaring dodge, a bright, well -trained fellow, 
 who possessed the invaluable quality of being always 
 about when needed and out of the way when not. 
 
 Glad enough we were to have him with us, for 
 the crew and even the officers on that wretched boat 
 were not a reassuring company The former was an 
 "all -nation" gang, venting its feelings in six differ- 
 ent languages with a virulence and emphasis which 
 gave one food for doubt as to the discipline maintained 
 
 319
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 on board, and the captain in addressing them individ- 
 ually or collectively, made no secret of the contempt in 
 which he held each and every one, while both officers 
 and men drank with an unrestrained freedom edifying 
 indeed to behold. 
 
 On the seventh morning after losing sight of land, 
 I came on deck before Bertrand had hoisted his lazy 
 3 7 oung bones out of his bunk, and was just about to 
 make my way aft when the following apostrophe made 
 me pause at the top of the companion-way in order to 
 give myself a fair chance of studying the methods 
 adopted to cheer and encourage his men by our genial 
 commander. 
 
 " Have you been suckled on hen's milk, you coward- 
 ly, banshee - haunted carcasses?" he roared. "What 
 d' you mean by fouling my decks with your whinings 
 and croakings, you white-livered hounds? You are a 
 disgrace to the sea-going profession; go for'ard, and 
 don't you dare to show your filthy mugs up here until 
 you're told to do so!" 
 
 Here the captain, turning abruptly from his audience, 
 which the chart -house concealed from view, caught 
 sight of me and came moodily in my direction, dis- 
 missing them with a wave of his hand, as if he were 
 shooing away chickens. 
 
 "Sorry, your ladyship," he said, passing his fore- 
 finger round the inside of his coat-collar, as if his sud- 
 denly repressed rage were choking him; "but those 
 brutes are the shakiest lot I ever commanded ; they're 
 ready to run like so many sheep at the first sign of dan- 
 ger, and couldn't be trusted to sail paper boats by them- 
 selves. They can take their oath, however, that I'll 
 dirty every one of their tickets when I get ashore." 
 
 " What are they afraid of ?" I asked of him. 
 
 " Oh, they've got hold of some mad sort of yarn 'bout 
 
 320
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 this packet being unlucky, that's all. There's no 
 accounting for sailors' superstitions." 
 
 "Poor devils! Ignorance and superstition are not 
 crimes, captain! Lord, what a life for them to live 
 through!" 
 
 The officer looked at me with a mixture of displeasure 
 and amazement in his small, ferret-like eyes. 
 
 "Don't you go wasting your pity, my lady. Hard- 
 ships is just meat and drink to them; those kind of 
 beasts are used to it, and soft sawder would be the ruina- 
 tion of them. First-class sailormen don't ship on a tub 
 like this; the generality are asses, but not to that ex- 
 tent; they try for the best berths first, but when tars 
 lack watchfulness, sobriety, and fitness, they drift to 
 such craft as this, and cannot be expected to be picked 
 men. That's how we come to have a cheerful crowd 
 of idiots like those. This is a common, low-down vessel 
 and a common, low-down crew, that's what it is, and 
 if I hadn't a wife and five young ones in England, I 
 wouldn't hold such a command at any price." 
 
 This was pleasant! I glanced over the side upon 
 the leaden-hued waters, and then at the sky full of livid 
 gray, vapory clouds, standing out against a denser 
 background of purplish-black. We were rolling most 
 villanously to a steepish beam sea, and the crests of 
 the clamoring waves hissed and gurgled like opening 
 sluices. Less than half a mile away a dingy tramp 
 steamer was driving heavily along, sending her clumsy 
 bows into it till the sea broke in creamy yeast against 
 her cat-heads, and rose in columns of foam half up her 
 jibs. 
 
 "We're going to have dirty weather with a ven- 
 geance," remarked the captain, rolling his eyes specu- 
 latively around. "I wouldn't mention it to you if I 
 didn't know that your ladyship is not afraid of a bit of 
 31 321
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 a squall, but still you'd be better below, my lady/' and 
 touching his cap he hurried away. 
 
 I smiled. Assuredly it would have been difficult to 
 keep secret the approach of the storm eren from the 
 veriest land-lubber, but as a real bona-fide hurricane 
 in mid- Atlantic was a spectacle I had always been de- 
 sirous to see, I would not have gone below for any 
 consideration. I reflected, however, that my present 
 attire was not adequate to the situation for I had 
 merely thrown over my rough, blue serge gown a fur- 
 lined, hooded cloak and I was just preparing to go 
 in search of something more suitable when Jim ap- 
 peared at my side, carrying on his arm my oil-skins, 
 sou'wester, and caban a long, heavy, hooded coat 
 which always formed part of my wardrobe when yacht- 
 ing in northern latitudes. 
 
 " Please, my lady, I thought that your ladyship would 
 probably wish to remain on deck as long as possible to 
 see the show, and so I made free to get these togs from 
 Herr Paul," he said, in his quiet, inobtrusive way. 
 " And your ladyship can step into the chart-house and 
 put them on without troubling to crawl down the com- 
 panionway, as it isn't a pleasant job just now," he con- 
 cluded, with a wise nod of the head. 
 
 "Is there anything you do not think of?" I replied. 
 "You are a veritable treasure, Jim." The man smiled 
 all over his square-jawed, determined face, and pre- 
 ceded me to the chart-house, where I effected a change 
 of coats, after replacing my long skirt for a short one, 
 and my little snow-boots for a pair of tall sea ones, 
 donned my oil-skins, and tied my sou'wester securely 
 on my head over the snug hood of that convenient 
 caban. When I reappeared on deck Jim was wait- 
 ing for me, holding a couple of rope-lengths on his 
 arm. 
 
 322
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Want to lash me and yourself to the mast, Jim?" 
 I asked, gravely. 
 
 " It may come to that, my lady, it may come to that!'* 
 he answered, cheerfully, as if the prospect of very ugly 
 weather was a matter of rejoicing to him. 
 
 At that moment and as if to confirm his prognostica- 
 tions, the ship took a heavy sea in over the foc'sle-head, 
 solid masses of water smiting the men on deck with the 
 force of sledge-hammers as they clawed their way about 
 to the accompaniment of a most infernal clanging of 
 iron and whistling of cordages. Thanks to Jim's fore- 
 thought and perfect familiarity with such oceanic sur- 
 prises I was quite safe, and comparatively well protect- 
 ed, but the din about us was too great for me to tell him 
 so aloud. At that moment, above the roar of the water 
 cascading down to the lower deck, rose the sharp com- 
 mand of the captain, embellished, as usual, by language 
 which, under such circumstances, seemed a mere wan- 
 ton waste of breath. 
 
 " Watch on duty, go to your posts, you damned hell- 
 hounds, and you, quartermaster of the watch, tumble 
 up here in double-quick time!" Then, in a yet louder 
 tone, he yelled, his piercing voice rending the shriek 
 of the wind like a steel blade, " Keep your heads, you 
 swine, or by G d I'll make you sorry for the day you 
 were born!" 
 
 "That man sets my teeth on edge!" I cried to Jim; 
 but I do not know whether my words reached him, for 
 the storm was upon us in good earnest, and truly its 
 clamor was appalling. I do not know whether the men 
 kept their heads according to orders, but they certainly 
 did not keep their feet, for they began to be bowled over 
 like nine-pins, and I reflected that their premonitions 
 of evil might very well come true after all for most of 
 them, since right across the steamer's path blew such a 
 
 323
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 hurricane as a ship has seldom lived through, hurling 
 the waves into a wild vortex, tearing their foaming 
 crests ferociously backward, piling them up in pyram- 
 idal heaps and tumbling them in all directions. Truly 
 a welter of conflicting elements dreadful to behold. 
 Tossed like any bubble we rode hard to sea, risking at 
 any moment to be hurled entirely out of our course by 
 the force of the wind. In the midst of it all Bertrand, 
 in his gleaming oil-skins, appeared suddenly at my 
 side. With a quick shake of his head towards the chart- 
 house, he asked me whether I did not wish to seek shel- 
 ter, but on my giving him an emphatic denial in the 
 same mute fashion speech being now quite out of the 
 question he also produced a rope's end, lashed ham- 
 self, Jim, and me together with a sailor's quick dex- 
 terity, and we were thus enabled to remain for a little 
 longer where we were. 
 
 The great, sinister voice of the storm roared around 
 us, the sky was blacker than ever, and the sound of 
 the tumult grew moment by moment more stupen- 
 dous, like some furious, exasperated howl of deep, re- 
 lentless wrath. The ship at times, as if also seized 
 with an overmastering rage, reared up and leaped 
 upon the onrushing rollers, only to fall headlong like 
 a crippled bird into the treacherous valleys of mov- 
 ing water hollowed out before her. It was horribly 
 oppressive to be down there in those deep pits walled 
 in by almost vertical planes of green water, which 
 threatened to close above our heads, and one longed 
 to climb once more to the surface. ' The exhausted 
 crew, blinded, buffeted, stung by the flying brine, 
 were trying with their benumbed hands, which were 
 sore and bleeding, to fulfil their duty as best they 
 might. Poor wretches, it was already almost more 
 than they could accomplish to clutch at all the moving, 
 
 3*4
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 slimy, slippery things which they had to handle, and 
 yet they had also their work to do aloft, whence came 
 an occasional loud cry of anguish, testifying to 
 crushed fingers, to nails wrenched out of the sock- 
 ets, or to the fact that a man was seized with vertigo in 
 the wildly swinging, ghastly insecurity of the rigging, 
 and had to be lowered down by his comrades, tant bien 
 que mal, at the end of a rope. 
 
 Twelve o'clock! The hour to seek food and shelter, 
 if it were possible! We managed to reach the chart- 
 room, to slide in by a mere slit in the door held ajar by 
 Jim, and to sit down as best we could on a cushioned 
 locker, which had, it seemed, permanently adopted an 
 angle of forty-five degrees, and where we clung looking 
 at one another as if we had not met for a long time. 
 Our lungs were filled with the pure, unbreathed wind 
 which had blown about us so long, and a healthy 
 fatigue made even the precarious and problematical 
 comforts of that closed place attractive. After all, the 
 farther vagaries of the storm or the ship did not 
 concern us, since we could do nothing to prevent 
 them, and with the absolute insouciance which is one 
 of the privileges of those familiarized with the sea, we 
 turned our thoughts to the unromantic question of food. 
 Bertrand got up, struggled with the door, and, followed 
 by Jim, made his way out to go and advise Fred of our 
 whereabouts, and also to forage around for some cold 
 meat, bread, and whatever else one could obtain, for I 
 did not care to go below until really obliged to do so. 
 Of course the captain and his officers were on the bridge, 
 and I had the room all to myself. From one of my 
 pockets I extracted my cigarette-case and match-box, 
 and, with many ludicrous contortions to maintain my 
 equilibrium, I lit a cigarette, in defiance of all regula- 
 tions which, however, had never been enforced where I 
 
 325
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 was concerned. Thanks to a well-contrived lashing of 
 all movable objects, the room was perfectly ship-shape, 
 although a good deal of salt water sloshed about the 
 floor. I waited patiently for half an hour until my 
 scouting party came back with a basket containing 
 some luncheon, and the news that Fred was sleeping 
 the sleep of the just and Paul in attendance upon 
 him. Completely reassured, we fell to, and, despite the 
 capers the ship was cutting, enjoyed this little picnic 
 to the full, laughing and shouting at each other and 
 making every small mishap a pretext for laughter. 
 
 Far from abating, the wind grew more savage as 
 the afternoon wore on. It had a wrathful, tearing 
 cadence, a force almost inconceivable, and when night 
 began to fall a regular blizzard of blinding snow set in, 
 adding its white terror to our desperate straits, and in- 
 creasing the danger tenfold, for it rendered the work of 
 the officers and crew almost insurmountably difficult. 
 Bertrand and Jim agreed to " stand by " if the worst 
 came to the worst and an extra officer or so was re- 
 quired, and while listening to their talk I fell fast 
 asleep on my locker, prevented from being thrown off 
 by the backs of my two companions, who, sitting on 
 the edge of it, formed a living guard-rail to my im- 
 provised couch. 
 
 When I awoke it was quite late, and the smoky cabin- 
 lamps had been lighted and swung about most dis- 
 tressingly at every waltzing motion of the vessel. Ber- 
 trand told me that Fred had fallen asleep again after 
 lunch, and was as well as might be expected, that Paul 
 was still firm at his post, that my women had been 
 dosed with morphine in order to allay both their sick- 
 ness and their fears, and finally, that to the best of his 
 knowledge there was not a sober man on board, ex- 
 cepting one of the six stalwart ranchmen who were on 
 
 326
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 their way back from taking Western horses to the Eu- 
 ropean markets. From the captain, the mates, and 
 the doctor a broken-down Irish gentleman who had 
 been forced to give up all idea of a practice on shore, 
 thanks to his fondness for the whiskey of his native 
 isle, and had accepted this miserable berth sooner 
 than no berth at all down to the stokers, all hands 
 had seized this opportunity to gratify a devouring 
 thirst. I gazed incredulously at my brother. Surely 
 matters could not be as bad as that, for even among 
 so undisciplined a ship's company there must be an 
 instinct of self-preservation which would prevent so 
 perilous a course of conduct. Nevertheless it was just 
 as he had said, and in that pitch-black night we were 
 at the utter mercy of hurricane and drunkards ! There 
 was deep concern on the faces of Bertrand and Jim, 
 and so I made as light as possible of the matter in order 
 to cheer them up a bit, for it was plain that their fears 
 were centred upon me. The awful noise outside seemed 
 to increase; there were moments when nothing but 
 shrill, whistling notes were heard ; then came a fero- 
 cious paroxysm of deep, cavernous roars, followed by 
 the heavy, sullen blows of the waves against the sides 
 and overhead, that ran through the whole ship as if 
 it had been transformed into a vibrating, sonorous 
 drum of gigantic dimensions. 
 
 Suddenly the door flew open and the doctor tumbled 
 into the room, landing on all-fours at my feet. Jim sprang 
 to the door and closed it after a few minutes' fight with 
 the wind, which threatened to wrench it out of his 
 hands, while Bertrand picked up the prostrate medical 
 man and set him on the locker beside me. There could 
 be no doubt of his condition ; he was exceedingly drunk, 
 and yet, with that intense desire which survives in 
 people once well bred to conceal this graceless condi- 
 
 327
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 tion, he made shift to speak almost soberly, and to ex- 
 press himself comprehensibly, if somewhat thickly. 
 
 "Man just fell down into hold/' he said, in a voice 
 sufficiently raised to be audible above the general tur- 
 moil. "Broke his head open, deep scalp wound, bleed- 
 ing a lot ... can't sew him up, too shaky . . . can you 
 come and help?" 
 
 In the course of conversation with him I had let him 
 see that I knew a little about surgery, and this fact, 
 magazined in some obscure corner of his befuddled brain, 
 had apparently suggested itself to him in the urgency 
 of the moment. I did not hesitate, for it was easy to 
 see that he was totally incapable of performing the 
 slightest operation. A little, even a very little, skill in 
 such a case was better, I thought, than the bungling 
 of an intoxicated man with instruments, especially 
 under such circumstances; and besides, a mere scalp 
 wound would not be very difficult to deal with, so I 
 rose at once and prepared to follow him. Bertrand did 
 not seem to relish this, but we had both been brought 
 up in a school which teaches that there are certain duties 
 which cannot be shirked, and he therefore said nothing. 
 
 We filed out, and after numerous ridiculous mishaps, 
 falls, and bumps, finally reached the top of the ladder 
 leading to the part of the hold where the wounded man 
 lay. Two sailors, very much the worse for liquor, were 
 lighting the way with grimy lanterns, while another, 
 not much better off than his mates, had hold of the 
 doctor's arm, for fear of his following his patient's 
 dangerous example. It was a case of the blind lead- 
 ing the blind, and I laughed in spite of my own sorry 
 predicament, for it was no joke to lower my skirts and 
 myself through the narrow 'tween -deck hatch under 
 such circumstances, even with the help of two such 
 efficient assistants as Bertrand and Jim. 
 
 328
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Bad as were matters on deck, they were as nothing 
 when compared with what met sight, nose, and ears 
 below. From one end to the other the black cavern 
 stretching before us was swinging like a monstrous 
 pendulum, continually, blindly, furiously, horribly. 
 Bertrand preceded me on the ladder, walking back- 
 ward so as to hold me. I also descended backward, 
 in order to have a firm grip with my hands, while Jim 
 went down like a gymnast underneath, moving direct- 
 ly opposite to me, with the laudable intention, I sup- 
 pose, of keeping me in countenance. When we reached 
 the bottom I breathed more freely not, however, from 
 the purity of the atmosphere. 
 
 Truly the spectacle transcended the wildest imagin- 
 ings. Three or four inches of thick, filthy water swept 
 to and fro across the floor, with all sorts of abominable 
 detritus floating about in it; the heavy, nauseous air 
 was very nearly unbreathable, and the motion of the 
 ship in those depths indescribable. Indeed, we were 
 at first tossed about like beans boiling in a pan, bob- 
 bing up and down and from side to side in a totally 
 irresponsible fashion, until, growing more accustomed 
 to the darkness, the stench, the motion, and the deaf en- 
 ing noise, we began to gain more control over our limbs 
 and wits. 
 
 "Gawd!" muttered the sailor next to me, holding his 
 swinging lantern desperately with both hands. " Gawd ! 
 if I ever get a billet ashore, even as a scavenger, I'll 
 never even so much as look at salt water again!" 
 
 In the filthy, black water a man lay, half undressed, 
 upon a couple of empty, sodden sacks; near at hand 
 there were a basin, a bottle, and a few evidences of sur- 
 gical aid stuck firmly in a basket of that white sand 
 which is used to clean decks, and which prevented 
 them from falling or from knocking together and break- 
 
 329
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ing. The second sailor held his lantern over the wound- 
 ed man, saying, between his teeth, " Verdammt eng- 
 lischer betrunkener Schiceinehund I How you feel, hein?" 
 It was charming! 
 
 The injured sailor was bleeding profusely from a 
 contused and lacerated wound, reaching from his left 
 eyebrow, which it severed, to the coronal suture on the 
 opposite side of the skull, and the bone was bared 
 throughout the greater part of the length of the wound. 
 He was quite unconscious, and breathing very heavily, 
 and after a few minutes' examination I began to sus- 
 pect that he had suffered a fracture of the occipital 
 bone by contre-coup. I said as much to the doctor, 
 who looked at me with dull, vinous, uncomprehending 
 eyes. Evidently his last potation was momentarily 
 having a greater effect upon him. 
 
 " Contre-coup, hum, contre-coup," he said, with por- 
 tentous professional gravity. "Occip'tal bone, hum, 
 ver' fine bone, my lady I mean exceedly ushful shtruct- 
 ure"; and then, oracularly, "joinsh (hie!) anteriorly 
 sphenoid bone, lat'rally petroush portion of temporal. 
 Containshs (hie!) foramenmagnurn, m' lady, foramen- 
 magnum, y' know!" he concluded, with an impressive 
 gesture, as if the surgical question were satisfactorily 
 settled. 
 
 Clearly there was little to be expected from the doc- 
 tor! So I set to work single-handed, although some- 
 what sick at heart, for the injuries I now considered it 
 my duty to try and patch up were far greater than I 
 had surmised. The doctor's instruments, moreover, 
 were, like the doctor himself, very much the worse for 
 wear, the needle-holders were missing from his frayed, 
 ragged, and incomplete instrument-case, and the needles 
 were deplorably rusty. I cleaned and disinfected them 
 as well as I could, but even with my best efforts it was a 
 
 330
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 sorry exhibition of surgery. The shaving of the scalp 
 was nothing short of a gymnastic performance, thanks 
 to the dizzy swinging of the ship, and the sailor's hide 
 so extraordinarily tough that I thought I could never 
 bring the job to a conclusion. 
 
 At last I was through both hide and operation, and 
 none too soon, for the hold of that ship was little short 
 of an inferno, and with beads of perspiration pouring 
 from my forehead like raindrops, in spite of the cold, 
 I stood up. Four sailors lifted my unfortunate patient 
 and dropped him no less than four times in conveying 
 him to the foc'sle. It was pitiful! 
 
 The men's quarters, whither I accompanied him, 
 still followed by my "staff," and by the broken-down 
 gentleman doctor, who, more broken-down than ever, 
 was pouring into my ears some further invaluable ana- 
 tomical facts was reduced to the condition of a main 
 drain, with two feet of slimy water eddying around 
 and rolling about broken bottles, tin platters, articles 
 of clothing, and open sea-chests in the foul-smelling 
 darkness. The storm had no pity for this poor wretch, 
 who was pitched into his hammock, where he lay se- 
 cured with a rope, moaning in a ghastly, gurgling 
 fashion. The doctor, in a paroxysm of misplaced pro- 
 fessional energy, proposed to give him something to 
 eat, and was with difficulty dissuaded from cramming 
 into the man's mouth a most pernicious-looking hunk 
 of bread, which he had laboriously fished from the 
 d6bris washing against his unsteady legs. Entreat- 
 ing Bertrand to take him away, I proceeded to extri- 
 cate myself from the puzzling maze of hammocks, full 
 and empty, hanging from the low ceiling and swing- 
 ing violently to and fro, but the doctor's voice, raised 
 in loud protestations, made me pause in my retreat. 
 
 " Lemme give him breadsh," he begged ; " strengthen
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 him wonderfullesh, new meshod, feed patients, lemme 
 feed him!" When they wouldn't permit it he burst 
 into tears, and fought madly to recover the disgusting 
 loaf which Bertrand had cast away upon the waters 
 again, sincerely hoping, I presume, that it would not 
 come back to him after many days 1 
 
 At this point in the proceedings Jim intervened by 
 quietly but masterfully picking me up in his arms and 
 marching off with me, as if I had been a baby, saying, 
 respectfully but firmly, "That's quite enough fun for 
 to-night, my lady, and a little over." 
 
 I do not think that I will ever forget that night. As 
 in most of the stirring moments of my life, the tragic 
 was so mixed with the ridiculous that it was difficult to 
 know whether to laugh or cry. Before seeking my 
 state-room I once more glanced out into the storm. It had 
 stopped snowing, and the sky looked a vault of black- 
 ness, filled with vast, dim shapes, forming and reform- 
 ing and driving on in maddened haste. The sea was 
 a vague blackness, and the ship still staggered through 
 mountainous waves whose crests glimmered whitely 
 to her lanterns. With a little shrug of the shoulders 
 I bade good-night to Bertrand and to Jim, and at last 
 went below. 
 
 This infernal storm lasted four days and nights, 
 with scarcely any break, and even on the fifth day the 
 aspect of sea and sky was far from reassuring. We 
 had been driven completely out of our course ; a portion 
 of the rigging had been carried away, and, sheathed 
 in ice from main-truck to water-line, the ship looked 
 much more like a wreck than anything else. The 
 unfortunate crew endured many hours of toil and 
 much scientific cursing before even the main deck was 
 somewhat cleared up. 
 
 I had become extremely popular on board since the 
 
 332
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 night when I had taken upon myself the doctor's func- 
 tions, and I got along extremely well, not alone with 
 that sorry lot, the "all-nation" crew, but was now on 
 speaking terms with three of the ranchmen, huge, 
 rough, handsome, and, in their way, extremely cour- 
 teous and chivalrous fellows, who exalted the beauties 
 of the great Western plains to me in language so 
 picturesque and vivid that I began to long for a 
 glimpse of them. 
 
 It was, I soon found, in a great measure the cap- 
 tain's fault if the men were surly and difficult to man- 
 age; and, indeed, why should they not have resented 
 being treated as though they were mere aliens on suf- 
 ferance, creatures to be bullied, brow-beaten, sworn at, 
 and, generally speaking, handled like unruly beasts? 
 Their days dragged wearily, monotonously on, enli- 
 vened by jeers, which were generally accompanied and 
 emphasized by horrible threats and brutal cuffings, and 
 all manner of scurvy treatment, which found, it ap- 
 pears, its excuse in the captain's freely expressed opin- 
 ion to the effect that " the percentage of foreigners " 
 he pronounced it furriners " in the British mercantile 
 service was about as high as he wanted to know of/' 
 and that " all ' furriners ' were a lot of filthy swine, with 
 not a single redeeming quality to recommend them!" 
 
 In my humble opinion, however, many of these poor 
 tars, under proper discipline, might have fearlessly chal- 
 lenged comparison with any seafarers in the wide world, 
 for they were not by any means " greenies," and, drunk 
 or sober, they put up an excellent fight for the life of 
 the rotten old tub in which they had signed. 
 
 As soon as the weather had somewhat moderated, 
 Fred made his appearance on deck, and we amused, 
 ourselves with revolver practice at a beer-bottle tied by 
 a long string to a yard-arm, and very difficult shooting 
 
 999
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 it was, too, as this target swung wildly from side to side 
 at every lurch of the ship. We were all good hands 
 with fire-arms, but Fred beat us easily, for he is a splen- 
 did shot, and we decided to present him with a gold 
 beer-bottle to attach to his watch-chain, en guise de prix 
 d'honneur, when we reached New York. 
 
 The cold grew yet more intense as we approached 
 the Newfoundland banks, and we began to grope our 
 way through fantastic wreaths of frost fog, which did 
 not permit of any amusements whatsoever, for the 
 creeping blood was nearly frozen in our veins. The 
 ship's sheathing of ice became extraordinarily thick and 
 fantastic of design. In the rigging hung enormous 
 icicles, the masts were transformed into massive white 
 pillars, and a gigantic scroll-work incrusted bows and 
 bulwarks. To cap the climax, something having hap- 
 pened to the engines, for seven long and ghastly days 
 and nights we crawled along under a rag of sail until 
 the damage was repaired, pounding up and down, and 
 rolling from side to side, while the turmoil of a new and 
 terrific tempest howled unceasingly around us. 
 
 At length the weather grew calmer, though still 
 horribly cold, and finally, one evening, we sighted 
 Fire Island Light, and caught a first faint, elusive, 
 shadowy glimpse of the New World. 
 
 Little we knew how fitting a prelude was that voyage 
 to the experiences that there awaited us!
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 There were men from Erin fair amid that patriot band. 
 Why had they come to ramp and rair away from their child- 
 hood's land? 
 
 The Dutchman one might see beside that polling booth, 
 Along with Dago and Chinee, and Huns and Poles, forsooth ! 
 
 What sought they thus afar? A place to get the swag, 
 Against our customs levy war and have a glorious jag. 
 Th' oppressed of all the world we pity at our ease, 
 And let them over here be whirled to do as they damn please I 
 
 "The Pilgrim Fathers." 
 M. M. 
 
 SLOWLY, uncouthly, ponderously the steamer moved 
 to her pier, where her lamentable condition at once elicit- 
 ed loud and pitying comments from the 'longshoremen, 
 custom-house officers, and workmen assembled there. 
 
 "Been to the North Pole?" shouted a burly, blue- 
 clad official, addressing our captain, who, quite sober 
 for once, and proportionately sullen, was leaning against 
 the bridge railing. "You've been keeping company 
 with a blizzard, to judge by the looks of you!" and 
 without waiting for an answer he bustled away. 
 
 The aspect of the city from the wharves was dis- 
 couraging; gaunt and unpicturesque wooden sheds, 
 squalor, and dirt making a fitting foreground to a 
 picture which sadly lacked both coloring and sym- 
 metry. My heart was strangely heavy, for this arrival 
 in the earliest hours of a dismally cold winter morning 
 was calculated to depress the most buoyant spirit, and 
 
 335
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I turned impatiently from the dingy pier, the hurrying, 
 jostling crowds, and the tall, ghostly buildings in the 
 middle distance to join Fred and Bertrand, who were 
 superintending the hoisting of our luggage from the 
 hold. I was filled with misgivings as I saw the in- 
 terminable file of trunks which were being heaped 
 upon hand-trucks for removal to the custom-house, 
 and anathematized the intelligent friends who, before 
 our departure from London, had sent us a large and 
 elaborate collection of superfine perfumes, toilet articles, 
 and small conveniences of all kinds under the impres- 
 sion that such commodities would not be purchasable 
 in the savage wilds of New York! I also began to 
 suspect that I had been wrong to bring along the 
 quantity of gowns, wraps, hats, and Heaven knows 
 what else, which would have been necessary for a six 
 weeks' visit to Petersburg, Vienna, or London, and 
 that, between my friends' under-estimation of Amer- 
 ican possibilities and my over-estimation of the same, 
 I was hopelessly encumbered with a lot of useless ob- 
 jects very annoying to drag after a party like ours from 
 one end of the States to the other. 
 
 Making, however, contre fortune bon coeur, I hastily 
 took leave of the captain and the officers, of the gentle- 
 man-doctor whose early potations inclined him to be 
 tearful of the crew in toto, with a comprehensive wave 
 of the hand, of the ranchmen, who raised their som- 
 breros high above their heads and actually cheered 
 me and finally of the luckless president, who, white 
 as a sheet, red-eyed, and shaky, was cursing the en- 
 tire personnel of the boat with all the vehemence his 
 condition permitted, and swearing with weak but irre- 
 pressible oaths that he meant to spend the rest of his 
 days in New York sooner than entrust himself once 
 more to the mercies of one of his own vessels. 
 
 336
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I am bound to say that the custom-house officers 
 showed us marked courtesy, and thus were we able to 
 drive off almost immediately in two awfully and won- 
 derfully constructed vehicles, which, as far as shape 
 was concerned, reminded me of the famous voitures du 
 sacre, which, since the crowning of Charles X., have 
 lain in "innocuous desuetude" in the ex-royal mews 
 of France's extinct monarchs, and which gave one the 
 impression of being hung on hair-trigger springs, for 
 at every step of the meagre horses drawing them these 
 singular affairs bounced up and down in the most 
 ludicrous and disconcerting fashion. As we painfully 
 jogged along on the worst-paved of streets my spirits 
 flagged more and more, for the spectacle presented by 
 the lower portion of the great city shortly after its awak- 
 ening was depressing beyond description. The nar- 
 row, unkept streets still dozed in the icy mist rising 
 from the river, with the air of a drunkard about to 
 rouse from his stupor. Vehicles were but few, but the 
 sidewalks were crowded with workingmen and women, 
 who hurried on as if on their way to some great con- 
 flagration. Everything looked sordid and offensively 
 public, and the weather did not contribute to mend 
 matters, for it was one of those slippery, glistening, 
 gray days which make the whole world infinitely dreary. 
 We hardly spoke as we drove along Fifth Avenue, and 
 I was glad indeed when we at last stopped before the 
 Hotel Windsor. 
 
 The suite of three bedrooms, one bath, one dining, 
 and one sitting room, which w r as assigned to us, to- 
 gether with adjoining accommodation for the servants, 
 was prettily furnished; bright wood fires burned in the 
 open grates, and I heaved a sigh of relief as, throwing 
 off my furs, I sank into the cushioned depths of a huge 
 arm-chair in front of the cheery blaze. 
 " 337
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 A bath, a change of clothes, and the feeling of hav- 
 ing left behind for good those trying days on the ship 
 soon toned me up, and when I joined my boys at a small, 
 daintily set table within range of the fire, I had com- 
 pletely recovered my good-humor, and was quite ready 
 to look upon everything hopefully. When we ap- 
 proached the end of breakfast Fred bent forward and, 
 glancing towards the window, said, with a smile : 
 
 " How well I remember my first visit here! Dear me, 
 it must be nearly ten years ago! At that time this 
 hotel was quite on the outskirts of the city, and the 
 park rather like a wilderness. Really, the place has 
 grown beyond belief!" He turned abruptly towards 
 me and broke into a laugh. "I do wonder, Pussy, 
 how you will like the dreaded land. Is your parti- 
 pris against it still as vivacious?" 
 
 "Ah, that is not fair!" I exclaimed. "I have not 
 uttered a single grumbling note as yet, although our 
 debut has not been, so far, particularly pleasant." 
 
 "My dear girl, I was only chaffing; you have been 
 as good as gold, and I can hardly believe that it is you 
 in person whom I have enticed to Yankeeland. Eh, 
 Bertrand, is it not extraordinary that your sister should 
 have consented to come at all?" 
 
 Bertrand did not at once reply. He twirled his tea- 
 cup by the handle a little while in silence, then replied, 
 with more gravity than was his wont: 
 
 " Well, yes ; but here we are, for weal or woe, and we 
 are bound to make the best of it, of course. That's 
 the way to look at it." 
 
 " I wonder if you are going to be burdened with super- 
 stitious forebodings, Tranet!" I said, lightly. "Should 
 you get into that sort of rut you are done for." 
 
 The boy squirted some seltzer-water into his glass 
 before answering. 
 
 338
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Superstitious forebodings! What do you mean?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " Well, perhaps I used the wrong words, but you look 
 as glum as an owl, and an atmosphere of depression 
 seems to hover about you. What's amiss?" 
 
 Bertrand flushed. "By Gad!" he said, pushing 
 away his fruit-plate, and returning suddenly to his 
 usual merry way of speaking, "you are an ungrateful 
 person. I was merely worrying about you a bit, be- 
 cause I doubt whether you will like it here, even for a 
 short time; but rest easy, I am not going to burden 
 my mind again with misgivings on your account, so 
 put that in your pipe and smoke it!" 
 
 "I would rather smoke a cigarette, if your 'lud- 
 ship' will sufficiently unbend to procure me one," I 
 replied, demurely. 
 
 Fred had risen from the table, and was putting on 
 the fur-lined coat which Paul had just brought in, 
 Jim following with Bertrand's, for they had to go out 
 for an hour or so before luncheon. 
 
 "You are not going to mope while we are gone, are 
 you?" my lord asked, somewhat anxiously. 
 
 I swung my chair round with a laugh. " Upon my 
 word," I said, "you are a nice pair! What on earth 
 should I mope for? You know very well that I am not of 
 a moping turn of mind ! Do have sense, my poor, dear 
 boys. One would think, seeing the way you treat me, 
 that morally and physically I am made of spun glass." 
 
 As soon as they were gone I rose, and walking to 
 one of the windows looked out. " Heavens !" I thought ; 
 "has there ever existed anj^thing to approach this ex- 
 hibit of architecture? What a jumble! Narrow, cof- 
 fee-complexioned houses standing cheek by jowl with 
 magnificent buildings copied from Viollet-le-Duc, but 
 set in a yard or so of turf, instead of having spacious 
 
 339
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 grounds around them, great white-marble edifices 
 proudly lording it over ramshackle wooden structures 
 painted a sickly yellow, slices of every conceivable 
 style thrown haphazard together like second - rate 
 wares at a bargain sale! What eclecticism!" Here a 
 knock at the door arrested me in mid-reverie, and I 
 turned from the contemplation of the avenue to con- 
 front a waiter who held a gigantic pasteboard box in 
 his arms. He slammed it on a side-table and, mutter- 
 ing something about its just having been left for me 
 down-stairs, retired precipitately, as though there was 
 not a single minute for him to spare in futile matters of 
 etiquette. With some curiosity I opened the box, and 
 found that it contained dozens of what I later on dis- 
 covered were called "American Beauty roses/' packed 
 in layers of maiden-hair ferns. Delightedly I lifted 
 the long-stemmed flowers from their green bed, and 
 soon came upon a card revealing the fact that our 
 arrival in New York must already, with lightning and 
 unexplainable rapidity, have become known, for be- 
 neath the engraved name of that charming woman, 
 Mrs. W. W. A . . . r now many years dead the follow- 
 ing line was pencilled: "Welcome to a new country 
 from an old friend." This was kind indeed, and I 
 glanced around the room 'for wherewithal to hold this 
 superb floral offering; but there was nothing of the 
 kind to be seen, and I was on the point of ringing 
 the bell when I caught sight of two peculiarly shaped 
 but very handsome blue-crystal vases, placed carelessly, 
 strangely enough, on each side of the hearth-rug. I 
 lifted them to the table. "Oh, those Americans!" I 
 muttered to myself ; " what genius they have for inven- 
 tion ! Fancy having deep flower - vases like that with 
 sloping edges to hold up the stems of the blossoms!" 
 and, quite charmed with this device, I arranged Mrs. 
 
 340
 
 A . . . r's roses with elaborate care in the two novel and 
 original receptacles which so tickled my fancy, placing 
 them, when completed, side by side upon the centre-table 
 of the sitting-room. Shortly afterwards another waiter 
 entered to remove the breakfast things, and I called 
 him to give some instructions. He was a big, burly 
 fellow, with a round, bullet head, a broad, smiling face, 
 lighted by a pair of excessively small china-blue eyes, 
 innocent of lashes, a remarkably diminutive nose, turn- 
 ing abruptly and menacingly upward, an interminable 
 upper lip, and no chin to speak of. 
 
 " Will 3 7 ou be so kind as to find out if my trunks have 
 arrived, and, if so, will you please see that they are 
 brought up at once?" 
 
 The man lolled languidly back against the side of 
 the door, napkin in hand, and with a friendly nod of 
 his round head delivered himself of these incompre- 
 hensible words: 
 
 "Well, when next I hoof it down-stairs I'll give a 
 kick into the office and see about it. You may be sure 
 I won't forget!" he concluded, with an air of conferring 
 a personal favor. 
 
 I stared. I did not, of course, wish to set myself up 
 yet as an infallible authority on American manners, 
 nor, for the matter of that, on Irish-American ones 
 for there was no mistaking the accent and the cast of 
 features of the friendly waiter but still at first blush 
 I disapproved of this mode of address, and was on the 
 point of begging him to explain himself more clearly, 
 and, if possible, more politely, when a look of absolute 
 amazement leaped into his eyes, which had wandered 
 towards the flowers on the table. A convulsion of merri- 
 ment twisted his Milesian countenance, he made a sudden 
 dive through the door, and the sound of hasty footsteps 
 and uproarious guffaws retreated down the corridor. 
 
 34i
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "What on earth is the mattes?" I said, aloud, com- 
 pletely nonplussed by such extraordinary behavior. 
 " Is the man a lunatic ? What strange manners, and, 
 dear me, what inconceivable impudence!" 
 
 Then and there I decided to be waited upon by the 
 hotel servants as little as feasible, and, summoning 
 Paul and Jim, I charged them with the entire service of 
 our apartments, whether at meal-time or any other, ex- 
 cepting, of course, the making up of the rooms. 
 
 "How do you like it here, Jim?" I asked, curious to 
 hear what he thought, for it was sure to be something 
 picturesque. 
 
 "Rum sort of a place, my lady!" he replied, simply. 
 "The little I 'ave seen of it don't seem quite natural- 
 like, the people act funny, and they do speak a jargon 
 I've 'card nowhere before, my lady ! We've only been 
 'ere a few hours, but it's not difficult to hunderstand 
 that they are rare ones for poking and prying into 
 other folk's affairs!" 
 
 "Have they tried to question you?" I exclaimed, 
 immensely amused. " Oh, dear, how very funny ! What 
 did they say, Jim?" 
 
 "Well, my lady, the 'ead-waiter as came up to get 
 the horder for your ladyship's breakfast, a corpulent, 
 well-to-do sort of a man, 'e says to me, says 'e, ' And 
 where may you be coming from? Your boss seems to 
 be a rich man; is 'e 'ere for pleasure or on biz? And 
 are you serving the dark un or t'other?' 
 
 "'My master,' I says, says I, stiff-like, in answer, 
 ' is not in the 'abit of consulting me, nor of telling me 'is 
 private haffairs, and if it's just the same to you, Mr. 
 'Ead-waiter, I'll trouble you to turn your hattention 
 to that meenyou-card in your 'and!' 'You're a great 
 silly,' says 'e, laughing; 'I'm not going to 'urt your 
 boss by just only talking about 'im. One should think 
 
 342
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 'e was a royal personage to see the fuss you are mak- 
 ing. Tell me, is it true that the young chap is a mar- 
 quis? You can tell me that, can't you?' 
 
 "'I can, but I won't,' says I, again. 'Maybe I don't 
 hunderstand your system over 'ere, but I was told as 
 this is a republic, and so wot does it matter to you 'oo's 
 a marquis and 'oo ain't?' " 
 
 "What did he say then?" I queried, gleefully. 
 
 Jim smiled significantly. " 'E didn't say much 
 more, my lady to me, that is. 'E didn't look as if 'e 
 knew which hend 'e stood on, and hafter hattempting 
 to tackle Herr Paul but that, o' course, was no go 
 'e left the room sort of crestfallen." 
 
 Just then Fred and Bertrand entered briskly, rub- 
 bing their hands and complaining of the cold. 
 
 "Look, Fred," I cried, coming towards him, "look 
 at these roses; it's a variety I've never seen before." 
 
 Fred glanced in the direction indicated, an expres- 
 sion of extreme astonishment overspreading his face ; 
 then he suddenly burst into a roar of laughter. 
 
 "Look, Bertrand, look!" he gasped. 
 
 Bertrand was immediately seized with similar par- 
 oxysms, and presently both subsided feebly, side by 
 side, upon a sofa, while I stood before them glancing 
 from one to the other with all the resentment of one who 
 fails to comprehend anything of the joke, except that 
 it in some way is at one's own expense. 
 
 Now it is one of my weaknesses that I do not like to 
 be laughed at, so when they were nearing the stage of 
 reminiscent grins and chuckles I asked, with some as- 
 perity, to have this delightful jest explained to me. 
 
 " C-C-Certainly, my d-d-dear," responded Fred, wip- 
 ing his streaming eyes. "Your flower- vases are . . . 
 Oh, dear, dear! ... a bit odd, that's all!" 
 
 "What's wrong with them? They are the most 
 
 343
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 convenient I have ever seen. Those broad, sloping 
 edges are " 
 
 Fred exhibited dangerous symptoms of relapse. 
 "Sloping edges! O Lord! Why, they're cuspidors!" 
 
 "Cus what?" 
 
 "Well, if you will have it spittoons!" 
 
 " Spit-t-o-o-n-s ! What on earth " 
 
 " Crachoirs! Don't you understand?" 
 
 Yes, at last I understood ; but the humor of the situ- 
 ation did not strike me just then. I vaguely recol- 
 lected having heard of crachoirs, to be sure, but had 
 never seen any, and fairly snatching my roses out of 
 those too-convenient receptacles, I made for the door, 
 a little offended. 
 
 "Come back here," cried Fred, as I was disappearing 
 into the next room with my fragrant burden. " Please 
 come back. I've got a letter for you which I took from 
 a much-gilded flunkey as we were coming in. It should 
 have been delivered with the roses." 
 
 "Open it, then, and see what it is," I said, pausing 
 inside the door. 
 
 He did so and found that Mr. and Mrs. W. W. A . . . r 
 were sending us their opera-box that night, together 
 with their compliments and regrets that previous en- 
 gagements prevented them from giving themselves 
 the pleasure of calling on us at once, or of coming with 
 us that evening to the Metropolitan Opera-House. 
 
 "Do you feel like going," asked Fred, "or will you 
 be too tired?" 
 
 " Tired? Nonsense! Why should I be tired? I slept 
 like a top last night, and if I can only get hold of my 
 trunks I will be very glad to go." 
 
 "Want to dazzle Uncle Sam?" he said, laughing. 
 
 "Going to try to," I called back, at last disappear- 
 ing. A few moments afterwards Paul knocked at my 
 
 344
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 door, and delivered a message to the effect that if I 
 wished it Fred and Bertrand were ready for a walk 
 with me down the avenue, and within a quarter of an 
 hour we were marching towards Union Square. The 
 sun was now shining brightly, and its cheerful rays 
 made the broad thoroughfare look far better than it 
 had done earlier in the day. We strolled into Tiffany's, 
 where Mr. C . . k, the manager, took us all round and 
 showed us the beautiful things in the place. It was 
 then that for the first time I saw a Mexican opal those 
 wonderful tinted globes of shifting light, so different 
 from the milky, iridescent Hungarian gems and had 
 it not been for my ridiculously superstitious dread of 
 these supposedly ill-fated stones, I would have invested 
 in a goodly number of them. 
 
 When we came back to the hotel for luncheon, we 
 found a batch of invitations for dinners, dances, and 
 theatre -par ties, which would occupy many days at 
 several per diem, if we meant to accept them afl. 
 
 " Well, this is something like it ! Talk of hospital- 
 ity!" exclaimed Bertrand. "It looks as though we 
 were going to have a merry time of it, after all!" 
 
 "That's nothing yet," replied Fred. "You have 
 no idea to what extent Americans carry that virtue. 
 Truly, they are the most hospitable people in the world." 
 
 Just then we were informed that the Archbishop of 
 New York was down-stairs asking to see us. As Fred 
 had only sent him an hour or so before the letters 
 of introduction which when in England he had 
 received from Rome, such empressement was the height 
 of courtesy, and I told the servant to show him up 
 immediately. Intense was my surprise when, instead 
 of the purple - robed prelate whom I had expected to 
 see, a strangely youthful - looking gentleman attired 
 in very much the same way as Protestant clergymen 
 
 345
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 in Europe save for the heavy gold chain about his 
 neck and the narrow strip of episcopal violet showing 
 beneath his round collar was ushered into the room. 
 This democratic simplicity was the first real shock 
 which I had received in the Land of the Free, but the 
 courtly manner and charming personality of the Arch- 
 bishop soon made me forget it, and we spent a delight- 
 ful hour talking of mutual friends in Rome, Paris, 
 London, and even Vienna, for His Grace had been 
 quite a traveller. It would have been difficult for any 
 one to be more interesting and entertaining than this 
 remarkably young and witty Prince of the Church, 
 who had just enough of the Irish strain in him to make 
 him a most brilliant and amusing conversationalist. 
 From the very first we were all strongly attracted to 
 him, though we little thought how loyal, kind, and 
 devoted a friend he was to be. 
 
 Hardly had he left us when an old acquaintance of 
 
 Fred's, Mr. J. B. P , was announced, and also 
 
 proved to be a very charming and interesting person. 
 We asked him to dine \^ith us that night, but with a 
 rather pathetic little smile he refused, saying that he 
 did not like to leave his little girl at home alone with 
 servants, for her mother (whom Fred afterwards in- 
 formed me considered herself the greatest amateur 
 actress of the civilized world) was dining out with some 
 friends who were taking her to the opera afterwards. 
 
 Several more people called in the course of the after- 
 noon, so that I barely had time before dinner to get 
 into my war-paint. Fred seemed very anxious that I 
 should pay special attention to my toilet, and so, to 
 please him, I donned a white velvet, long-trained four- 
 reau, edged with a ripple of fresh white lilac and steph- 
 anotis, and a tiara, collar, and stomacher of green 
 sapphires, black pearls, and diamonds, also taking 
 
 346
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 with me, instead of the hackneyed fan, a large cluster 
 of white lilac and stephanotis held together by a huge 
 salamander of variously colored diamonds, while as a 
 wrap I threw about me a long mantle of cloth of silver, 
 lined and bordered with Russian sable. 
 
 When we entered the A . . . r box the house was 
 hushed, for one of the greatest singers of the age was 
 holding the vast audience under the spell of her match- 
 less voice. When the curtain fell another old friend of 
 Fred's Mr. V .... z joined us, and having been pre- 
 sented to me, took a vacant chair at my side. After 
 the first compliments had been exchanged I picked up 
 my opera - glasses and looked around, not, however, 
 on that account losing a word of the running fire of 
 comment dealing with tne gorgeously apparelled occu- 
 pants of the boxes and stalls, indulged in by Fred and 
 his friend. 
 
 "Isn't that my old flame, Maria P ..... 1" began 
 my lord, indicating a remarkably pretty woman with 
 dark hair and beautiful, bright -brown eyes, which, 
 together with a disdainful little curl of the lips, betrayed 
 a tendency to sarcasm and even cynicism. "She was 
 the wittiest and cleverest girl I met when over here last, 
 a truly sparkling being, but so quick to see the ridicu- 
 lous side of everything that most men were afraid of 
 her, and in consequence she was far less entouree than 
 many less beautiful and fascinating girls." 
 
 "Ah, yes," replied Mr. V .... z; "but she's married 
 now, and to the very last man whom you would have 
 imagined she would have chosen. He's pretty heavy 
 cake, a Scotchman, absolutely devoid of humor, excru- 
 ciatingly dull, and so insanely jealous of his wife that 
 he will not even allow her to dance, which is a great 
 pity, for she used to be no end of a good waltzer." 
 
 "That's the usual fate of coquettes," commented 
 347
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Fred, sententiously. "They generally meet their 
 fate in husbands who are their absolute antithesis in 
 every respect." 
 
 "Yes; if I had not known her wilfulness and inde- 
 pendence of character I should have thought that hers 
 was purely a mariage de convenance arranged by her 
 family, to whom such a husband must be singularly 
 congenial." 
 
 "As I recall them," replied Fred, "her people carried 
 their respect for les convenances to a really trying limit, 
 and the atmosphere of their house was a trifle depress- 
 ing, the only relief from its dulness being pretty Maria 
 herself. I always particularly remember," he went 
 on, turning to me, "the family prayers when I stayed 
 with them in the country. They used to take place 
 immediately before breakfast, the entire staff of ser- 
 vants trooping into the dining-room, and kneeling, ac- 
 cording to orders, with their faces to the wall, while the 
 family and guests, as being composed of superior clay, 
 addressed their devotions to the Creator kneeling with 
 theirs towards the breakfast-table, upon which the big, 
 old-fashioned silver urn hummed a pious rumbling 
 accompaniment to the monotonous drone emitted by 
 the head of the house. One could, moreover, hardly 
 call these prayers supplications, for they sounded like 
 peremptory instructions which the paterfamilias ad- 
 dressed to Heaven! The funniest part of it all was 
 that the Swiss governess used to kneel sideways, neither 
 facing the wall nor yet the breakfast-table, but infusing 
 into the proud humility of her attitude a suggestion of 
 both positions." 
 
 "Dear me," I said, meditatively, "I would not have 
 thought that class distinctions were so clearly defined 
 over here." 
 
 " I beg your pardon . The feeling of caste is, on the 
 
 348
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 contrary, far more pronounced in this country than 
 in Europe. There is mighty little democratic spirit 
 on this side of the water! Don't you see, in Europe 
 the differences of rank are so well defined that there is 
 no danger of their ever being forgotten, while here there 
 are none at all, and the classes are always, so to speak, 
 on the defensive, as if fearing to lose a tithe of the con- 
 sideration due to the position they hold above the 
 masses/' 
 
 "Who is that pretty, affected woman over there," I 
 inquired, "to whom that Spanish-looking man seems 
 so devoted?" 
 
 " Why, that is the wife of poor J. B. P , who 
 
 called on us this afternoon. I don't quite agree with 
 you about her prettiness, though ; her features are too 
 sharp, and she is too slight and devoid of figure. She is 
 a Southerner, I believe, and P himself is a mem- 
 ber of the family of which I was just speaking." 
 
 " She does not get on at all well with her husband's 
 
 people," chimed in Fred's friend. " Indeed, old P 
 
 greatly disapproved of his son's choice, and tried by 
 every possible means to thwart it. It is greatly her 
 fault, too, if she has not won a place in their regard. 
 She is intensely ambitious, literally eaten up w T ith 
 vanity, and never so happy as when posing and post- 
 uring behind the footlights of some drawing-room 
 vstage, which naturally is gall and wormwood to her 
 husband's straitlaced parents, for there are a couple of 
 bishops in the family, and the whole crowd regard all 
 matters theatrical with holy horror." 
 
 " Isn t that man with her A. Th. R . . . , the only 
 American member of the Paris Jockey Club?" asked 
 Fred. "I think I remember meeting him there." 
 
 " Yes, he also distinguishes himself by being her cav- 
 alliere-servente, and by Constantly dinning in her ears 
 
 349
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 that she is far too clever and brilliant for the family 
 into which she has married, and that they are endeavor- 
 ing to make her as dull as themselves by keeping her 
 in the background ; he has done more than any one 
 else to make her dissatisfied with her lot. If ever that 
 menage goes to smash a large share of the responsi- 
 bility will rest on his shoulders. One can, however, 
 be quite assured that there is nothing serious between 
 them, for, unscrupulous as he is where women are con- 
 cerned, yet she is so cold-bloodedly selfish and so devoid 
 of heart that nobody can, for one moment, imagine her 
 sacrificing her social position for the sake of a man, 
 or for anything else save the gratification of her in- 
 ordinate vanity! 
 
 "His story, by the way, is a strange one," he con- 
 tinued. " Up to the age of fourteen he was invariably 
 dressed as a girl. His parents were divorced, and 
 the courts assigned the child to the father, but the 
 mother refused to surrender him, and so it came about 
 that his entire boyhood was spent in flight, by means of 
 steam-yachts, special trains, and fast horses, from the 
 agents of his father and from those of the law. More- 
 over, his mother, to whom he was devoted, insisted 
 upon his passing himself off as a girl in order to put 
 his pursuers off the track." 
 
 At that moment the curtain rose, and those male 
 chatterboxes were forced to relapse into silence; but 
 so strong is the force of example that as soon as it tell 
 again I myself became the offender, exclaiming: 
 
 "Why, that stout, oddly dressed old lady over there 
 
 must be my dear old friend, Mrs. John B ! 
 
 Dear me, how like her it is to wear those outrageously 
 glace, one-button gloves and apple-green at that with 
 a low, sleeveless dress of royal purple 1 She and her 
 husband are the best-hearted people I ever met, but 
 
 350
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 they are certainly eccentric to an almost incredible 
 degree. Do you know them?" (This to Fred's friend.) 
 
 "Indeed.. I do." 
 
 "My father," interposed Fred, "is awfully fond of 
 them. He is never tired of talking about them, and 
 
 has often related to me how, when Mr. B 
 
 occupied the United States Legation at Paris under 
 the Empire, the Emperor one day sent him the Im- 
 perial box at the opera an exceptional honor, of 
 course, and only accorded because of his representing 
 a great and friendly Power. Neither he nor his wife 
 felt like going to the opera that night, so, with the 
 bonte de coeur which distinguishes them, they sent 
 their servants instead, and, to the intense amazement 
 of the brilliant audience, w r hen the door of the Imperial 
 box was thrown open there appeared, instead of Their 
 Majesties, or some members of the Bonaparte family, 
 the maids, the butler, the footman, the chef, and 
 the negro coachman of the American Envoy! The 
 
 B s, however, were so universally popular and 
 
 so sincerely liked for their unaffected and simple kind- 
 ness of heart and ever-present generosity, that, strange 
 as it may seem, no offence was taken, either at the 
 Tuileries or anywhere else, and the whole affair passed 
 off as a huge joke, which nobody appreciated or en- 
 joyed more keenly than did the Emperor himself. But 
 he never again placed his opera-box at the disposal of 
 
 the American Legation ! Dear old Mrs. B ! She 
 
 never seemed to be able to realize, after the close of her 
 husband's term of office, that she was no longer en- 
 titled to rank as an Ambassadress, and at Berlin she 
 
 used constantly to fall foul of old E deR , 
 
 the Grand-Master of the Ceremonies, owing to her dis- 
 inclination to yield the pas at Court entertainments to 
 Mrs. F . . . , the wife of the American Charge d'Affaires." 
 
 35i
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " Why, there is Mrs. F . . . /' I said. "You had bet- 
 ter go and speak to her, Fred. She is such a charm- 
 ing woman. I wonder if she is still as wildly enthu- 
 siastic about Wagner as she used to be when she was a 
 member of the music-mad coterie organized by Count- 
 ess S x, otherwise La Princesse Trompelte, 
 
 and who is now married to my good friend, Count 
 W n." 
 
 "It is really a shame that F . . . should have 
 left the American diplomatic service/' broke in Fred, 
 " for he possessed a thorough training, and knew all 
 the ins and outs of the European grand monde. His 
 parents, too, were delightful people. Indeed, his 
 mother, whom I used to know very well at Washington, 
 was the ideal of an American great lady, her man- 
 ners, breeding, kindly dignity, and entire freedom 
 from all affectation and pose stamping her as a person- 
 age wherever she went." 
 
 "Oh, go on, Fred; go and say good-evening to her 
 now! You are tiresome with your reminiscences! 
 Don't you think he has become dreadfully prosy?" 
 
 Mr. V .... z laughed, and Fred, shaking a threaten- 
 ing finger at me, left the box. 
 
 "Is this your first visit to America, Marquis?" asked 
 our new acquaintance of Bertrand, who had been 
 spending his time, opera-glass in hand, looking at the 
 pretty girls all around the house. 
 
 "Yes, it is, and I" 
 
 "Oh," I interrupted, brusquely, "but we are quite 
 en pays de connaissance ! Yonder is old mother 
 
 S ! She is a joy forever, just as florid and fussy 
 
 and animated as of yore. She always reminds me 
 of that antique English institution, Maria, Marchioness 
 
 of A y, not in appearance, of course, but in 
 
 speech and manner, for she has just the same racy 
 
 352
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 way of talking about people and things, of calling a 
 spade a spade, and of interlarding her words with pict- 
 uresque expletives. I met Mrs. S at Carlsbad, 
 
 three years ago, and took a great liking to her." 
 
 "What marchioness does she remind you of?" 
 
 "Maria Marchioness! The queerest old lady in 
 England. Swears like a trooper, you know. The 
 last time I saw her it was at Covent Garden, and we 
 were all waiting for our carriages. The Prince was 
 standing immediately in front of her, but, nevertheless, 
 when the footman did not run fast enough for hers, 
 she apostrophized him in a fashion that doubled every 
 one up, appealing to the Divinity by no means in 
 prayer, and mentioning the hottest of places with a 
 freedom and force which could not have been matched ! 
 That unfortunate footman's maternal ancestress, too, 
 if she was to be believed, was a singularly questionable 
 
 character. Ah ! there is Fred in Mrs. S 's box 
 
 now, shaking hands and laughing. I wonder what 
 she is telling him!" 
 
 In a few minutes Fred returned, still laughing. 
 
 " Mrs. S is going to call on you to-morrow," 
 
 he said. " She wants us to dine with her on Wednes- 
 day. She is quite unchanged in looks, and still fairly 
 bubbling with fun. Who would think that her daughter 
 was so exceedingly handsome and dignified that she 
 was the rage of a London season? She was one of the 
 first American girls to marry abroad, you know." 
 
 "Whom did she marry?" asked Bertrand. 
 
 "D , of the Guards. I remember her well 
 
 before her marriage, when she got herself pretty 
 severely blamed for going everywhere without her 
 mother, of whom she was a bit ashamed, as she was 
 also of her honest, hotel-keeping father's memory. 
 Isn't it curious," J>e added, turning to his friend, "that 
 353
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 so many American belles who have married abroad 
 have become the mothers of twins? I could cite at 
 least a dozen international marriages which have been 
 blessed with double surprises of this kind! It's odd, 
 
 isn't it? Mother S was raving to me just now 
 
 about her twin grandchildren." 
 
 Again the curtain rose, and we had to forego any of 
 the further interesting details which Fred, whom I had 
 never seen so loquacious, was evidently going to im- 
 part to us, and I amused myself with gazing at a 
 couple who had just entered a box only a short dis- 
 tance from ours. The man was clean-shaven, with 
 good features, while his companion had not much to 
 recommend her, save a rather imperious fashion of 
 holding her head and as many jewels as a Hindoo 
 idol festooned about her person. 
 
 When we were at liberty to resume our rather un- 
 charitable conversation, I asked of Mr. V .... z who 
 they were. 
 
 "Oh, they are people who have come to the front 
 since your husband was here last. Do 3 7 ou remember, 
 old man," he continued, touching him lightly on the 
 shoulder, "how unmercifully he and his brothers used 
 to be snubbed, not on their own account, to be sure, 
 but because of the intense unpopularity of their father 
 and grandfather?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Fred ; "I'll never forget the day when 
 on coming up from Washington to New York in Colonel 
 
 T S 's private car, which he had 
 
 placed at my disposal, these young V s, 
 
 whose car occupied the end of the train, sent to ask 
 permission to pass through mine in order to join some 
 friends forward. I thought that you fellows were 
 pretty harsh when you implored me to refuse so small 
 a favor which you called a piece of presumption 
 
 354
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and how put out you were because I let them through, 
 after all." 
 
 " Well, times have changed, for they are now in the 
 high tide of fashion, thanks largely to the younger 
 brother's shrewd Southern wife, who is past-mistress 
 in the science of social strategy. She was clever enough 
 to secure the assistance of that other Southern girl 
 
 who married the impoverished Lord M e, 
 
 and what between the desire of the smart set here to view 
 
 the treasures accumulated in the new V 
 
 mansion and the gratification of becoming the friend of 
 
 Lady M e, the future Duchess of M r, 
 
 everybody responded to the invitation of Mr. and Mrs. 
 
 V to the magnificent fancy-dress ball with 
 
 which they inaugurated their social career." 
 
 In the adjoining box was a man whose clean-cut, 
 refined face and trim figure attracted my attention, 
 and Fred whispered to me that it was A .... n 
 T . . . . n, a leading banker of Swiss origin, and bear- 
 ing a name celebrated as that of the iconoclast who, Toy 
 his researches, destroyed everybody's illusions as to 
 William Tell. His wife, who was with him, proclaimed 
 by her dress and manner that she was French. 
 
 Just then the door of our box opened, and who should 
 enter but Count A . . o, whom we had last seen at Brus- 
 sels, and who seemed quite as surprised to meet us in 
 New York as we were to find him there. He was ac- 
 companied by another old acquaintance, Baron von 
 
 S , the Austrian Minister to Washington, a 
 
 delightful old man, who had a queer trick of jerking 
 his head forward every two or three minutes as if his 
 collar were hurting the back of his neck! lie owed 
 his position in the diplomatic service to the fact that 
 when attached to the Austrian Consulate in London, 
 when yet a mere lad, he had, at the risk of his whole 
 
 355
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 future, given shelter and hospitality to Julius Andrassy, 
 then a political fugitive under sentence of death. When, 
 after the Austro-Hungarian amnesty, Andrassy be- 
 came Prime-Mjnister and Chancellor of the Dual Em- 
 pire, he did not forget the young consular clerk who 
 had befriended him, and, indeed, remembered him 
 
 to such purpose that S became, in turn, Consul- 
 
 General in London, Minister to Siam, Japan, Cairo, 
 and eventually Washington. Naturally, both he and 
 the Count kissed my hand, which seemed to cause 
 some surprise in the neighboring boxes. A . . o in- 
 formed me that he had just been transferred to Wash- 
 ington with the rank of German Envoy and Minister 
 Plenipotentiary, which, however, did not seem to par- 
 ticularly overjoy him. 
 
 I refrained scrupulously, of course, from asking 
 him about Madame I'Ambassadrice, for, alas, his run- 
 away marriage with the lovely but somewhat flighty 
 Viennese actress J . . . . h, within a few hours of the 
 time appointed for her wedding to the celebrated actor 
 Sonnenthal, was eventually the cause of great vexa- 
 tion and trouble to him. As he belonged to a devout 
 Catholic family, he had much trouble in getting rid of 
 his wife after the first glamour had passed away, and 
 was only restored to the diplomatic service from which 
 he had been removed in consequence of his marriage 
 when he had secured a divorce. I may add that, later 
 on, J . . . . h came to America professionally, and al- 
 lowed herself to be billed on the programmes, not by 
 her own name, but as Countess A . . o, which created 
 quite a stir in diplomatic circles. 
 
 I was rather amused at his coming into our box, for 
 he was a celebrated mauvaise langue, and his comments, 
 both on the people present and mutual acquaintances 
 in Europe, did not lack piquancy. 
 
 356
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Indeed, I enjoyed that first evening in New York 
 very much, and was especially struck by the remark- 
 able display of jewels in the boxes. Mrs. A . . . ., 
 senior, who wore black and silver brocade of a large 
 and conspicuous pattern, had a regular breastplate of 
 diamonds, and sewn on a black velvet knotted in her 
 hair some enormous solitaires, which sparkled like 
 so many stars beneath the brilliant light of the chan- 
 delier. The shapes of the tiaras sported by several of 
 the ladies present were, however, somewhat astonish- 
 ing in an assemblage of untitled people, for I noticed 
 some shaped like imperial crowns, others exhibited 
 ducal strawberry-leaves, while again one very stout 
 dame, clad in blush-rose-pink satin, actually wore on 
 her elaborately curled tresses a sort of triple pontifical 
 tiara, composed of gorgeously gemmed circlets. An- 
 other, with superb pearls about her neck, had done her 
 best to cultivate a vague resemblance between herself 
 and a certain much-admired royal lady, for her hair 
 was arranged in scrupulous imitation of the bonnet of 
 little curls which w r e are accustomed to connect with 
 that personage. Beside her was a very handsome girl, 
 gowned in vivid azure, and with a wealth of sapphires 
 as big as hazel-nuts radiating blue and purple rays in 
 every direction. How many millions of dollars were 
 represented by those feminine ornaments it would be 
 difficult to guess, and Count A . . o asked, plaintively, 
 what was the use of abstaining from the annoyance 
 and etiquette of a Court, if one's womenkind, with a 
 lamentable disregard for democratic simplicity, insisted 
 on garbing themselves as for a Bal-bei-Hof on a mere, 
 plain, every-day occasion like the present one? We all 
 laughed at this sally, and, the time having come for us 
 to return home, sought our respective carriages. 
 
 When we arrived at the hotel, where a nice little sup- 
 
 357 
 I
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 per was awaiting us in our private dining-room, in spite 
 of the fact that we had brought Mr. V .... z with us, 
 Bertrand, with one of his sudden bursts of irrepress- 
 ible gayety, seized his opera-hat, and, using it as a 
 tambourine, began whirling round the room singing 
 the following extraordinary ditty, which amazed Fred 
 and myself, and sent the friend into roars of laughter : 
 
 " Society, Mickey, the travellers say, 
 
 Is a game inthrancin' the monkeys play. 
 
 The haul-ton, up in a palm-tree high, 
 
 Swing by their tails an' shpit in the eye 
 
 Of the vile plebeians an' nouvo ritches 
 
 As wears a different cut of britches, 
 
 An' thry to climb wid mean dishpite 
 
 That glitterin' an' malodorous height. 
 
 But there's some don't care for the game at all, 
 
 An' them's the properest lads of all." 
 
 "Where on earth did you get that?" exclaimed Fred. 
 "You certainly seem to have assimilated the atmos- 
 phere of the country with startling rapidity." 
 
 " Do tell us where you got it," I said ; but the lad, 
 with the utmost gravity, took his place at the table, 
 and nothing would induce him to reveal the source 
 from which he had drawn this remarkable quip, even 
 when we were alone together and I attacked him again 
 on the subject. I therefore always retained some sus- 
 picion that he had composed it himself on the spur of 
 the moment. 
 
 On the next night we dined with the C ... s F .... s 
 of trans - Atlantic cable fame, in a charming, old- 
 fashioned house somewhere near Gramercy Park. 
 The drawing-room was a double one, separated by 
 white columns "colonial," they said they were 
 and there were quantities of pretty and costly things 
 strewn all around on handsome, ponderous, antique 
 
 358
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 cabinets and bahuts. There were few guests besides 
 ourselves, but the dinner-table was covered with a 
 mass of Russian violets and exquisite yellow roses, 
 the cooking was perfect, and the service intrusted to 
 an English butler and footmen, who made us forget 
 that this was not in the very heart of Mayfair. 
 
 From that moment on we were literally whirled 
 through a veritable maze of entertainments, and both 
 Bertrand and I gauged the veracity of Fred's remark 
 about American hospitality. Thus we spent Christ- 
 mas and the New Year in the gayest of fashions, but I 
 must confess that I missed the quaint old ceremonies 
 observed on those fete-days in Brittany, Austria, and 
 England. Here all was too new, too full of glitter, too 
 superficial for such observances, and even the Pon- 
 tifical Mass which I attended in St. Patrick's Cathe- 
 dral lacked the mellowness of surrounding and much 
 of the deep reverence to which I had been accustomed 
 all my life. 
 
 Perhaps, too, I was a little difficult to satisfy that 
 morning, having danced myself violently into the 
 New Year the night before at the A ... r's, but no the 
 'deep and mystical piety of my Bretons was absent 
 from the pomp and ceremony of that religious perform- 
 ance. I could not disguise this fact from myself, try 
 as I would ! 
 
 It had been arranged that we should start for Chicago 
 early in January, and, in spite of my love for new sights 
 and travels, I did not contemplate the trip with much 
 joy, thanks to the unkind descriptions that, with touch- 
 ing unanimity, New Yorkers had given me of this place, 
 nor was the Chicago of those years a particularly at- 
 tractive town, as I soon found out, though I am told 
 it has since changed completely, and now rivals New 
 York! The weather, moreover, was certainly not en- 
 
 359
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 couraging for a winter journey, but as it was not en- 
 tirely from choice that we were going, and as I was not 
 minded to allow poor Fred to go alone, I resigned myself 
 to accompanying him "with the best grace I could muster. 
 
 When, however, the cold still increased, had it not 
 been that all arrangements had already been made 
 for our departure and that the special car placed at 
 our disposal by the president of the railroad was await- 
 ing us at the station, we would certainly have postponed 
 this long and fatiguing trip until the season had be- 
 come somewhat more propitious. 
 
 On a freezing Thursday night Fred and I started, 
 with Paul and Johanna in attendance, leaving Ber- 
 trand, who was to wait at the Windsor for the mail and 
 follow us later. 
 
 Wrapped in furs to the eyes, we "boarded" the 
 train as they say in America and were immediately 
 overwhelmed by that ghastly, suffocating steam-heat 
 which all over the States is the bane of travellers from 
 November until May. 
 
 With an exclamation of dismay I threw off my long 
 coat and hood, and implored Fred to have the car aired 
 before settling ourselves for the night. In consequence, 
 the colored attendant was summoned, and his astonish- 
 ment at such a request was really amusing to witness. 
 He suggested, nevertheless, that while the windows 
 were open we should temporarily retire to the neigh- 
 boring Pullman, and we followed his advice at once. 
 
 There were very few people there, all being men save 
 one over-dressed person in a much braided and broid- 
 ered gray dress, fur-trimmed and befrogged until the 
 original material barely appeared, and wearing around 
 her throat a gorgeous ornament made of huge dia- 
 monds, matching in size the enormous solitaires hang- 
 ing from her large, flat ears. 
 
 360
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I turned my eyes quickly away from this extraor- 
 dinary - looking object, who was talking in a loud, 
 nasal, excited voice to a small, thin, mean little man, 
 shabbily dressed, and with a hideous old crush hat 
 set far at the back of his head. He had a very large 
 nose, a very large mouth, revealing long, discolored 
 teeth, and, even when speaking, continually champed 
 his jaws in a fashion which to my now more experienced 
 eye revealed the lamentable fact that he was chewing, 
 and soon, to my intense amusement, he dexterously 
 propelled a jet of tobacco-juice into one of those recep- 
 tacles which I had on my arrival mistaken for flower 
 vases ! 
 
 "Good shot, that!" I said to Fred, in French, gazing 
 with approval at the distance which separated the worthy 
 chewer from his target. Really, I could not help laugh- 
 ing ! Fred, who often takes it into his head to adopt a 
 role very unsuited to him i.e., that of a strict formalist 
 glared at me, indicating by a deprecating shrug of 
 his shoulders and a distressed upheaval of his eye- 
 brows to the top of his forehead that my conduct was 
 disgraceful, so I concealed myself and my untimely 
 laughter behind a newspaper. 
 
 I had been busy with the columns of that publication 
 for some minutes, and inwardly resiling the thick, 
 oppressive atmosphere which here also reigned supreme, 
 when the little, weazened man, rising from his swivel 
 chair, bore down upon us, and with a happy mixture 
 of Yankee twang and German accent, said, touch- 
 ing Fred on the shoulder: 
 
 "Hadn't your lady better come and sit with mine? 
 It would be sorter less lonesome for her, as there's 
 nothing but gentlemen in this car." 
 
 "A rash assertion," thought I, running my eyes over 
 the men present, who all of them betrayed only too 
 
 361
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 clearly the fact that they were scarcely entitled to this 
 appellation. 
 
 Fred looked up in some consternation. "Oh, thank 
 you ever so much," he replied, quickly; "you're very 
 good, but my wife and I are only here for a few moments 
 while the next car is being aired. It would hardly 
 be worth while to change places." 
 
 "So! Then you are the English gent who is going 
 to Chicago in the president's special, hey?" 
 
 "I suppose so," said Fred, quite bewildered. 
 
 "Ain't you sure?" asked the German- Yankee, with 
 a dry chuckle and a tightening of his polychrome 
 teeth upon his cherished quid. "Because if you are 
 that same gent I guess you have got a letter of introduc- 
 tion to me in your pocket. I am John X , the 
 
 'Dead Meat King/ as they call me, and you must have 
 heard of me." 
 
 Good Lord ! The " Dead Meat King " ! He looked it, 
 and I thanked Heaven inwardly for the sheltering leaves 
 of the newspaper which hid me just then from view. 
 Fred had risen and was towering by some twenty or 
 thirty inches above His Beefy Majesty. 
 
 "Let me introduce you to my wife," he said, with 
 a refined courtesy that fitted the situation as an apron 
 would a cow. 
 
 " All right. I'll be even with you when we're alone, 
 my lad," I soliloquized, reluctantly dropping the paper 
 on my lap. 
 
 "Glad to meet you; shake, there!" ejaculated the 
 little man, with a grin that nearly capsized my gravity 
 again, for the dark cavern of his mouth was revealed 
 and suddenly gave his countenance a startling re- 
 semblance to the old - fashioned door - knockers which 
 in small German towns still serve the double purpose 
 of letter -slit and a means of arousing the people of 
 
 362
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the house. I extended my hand, which was imme- 
 diately ingulfed by one four sizes too large for its pos- 
 sessor and the nails of which were in deep mourning 
 for soap. 
 
 " Ho! Mamie! Come over here, old lady, and get ac- 
 quainted with the madame." Then, while the female 
 mastodon just mentioned was extricating herself from 
 a mass of rugs, shawls, an enormous box of bon-bons, 
 and a couple of gold-handled umbrellas, which she had 
 been nursing on her lap, her good husband took from 
 his pocket a common, flat, yellow glass bottle, un- 
 screwed the metal lid, rilled it with a brand of whiskey 
 strong enough to speak for itself, which pervaded the 
 car with nauseous fumes, and, offering it to Fred, said, 
 jovially, "Let's seal the friendship!" 
 
 This pleased me so immensely that I was glad to rise 
 abruptly from my seat in order to receive the " Dead 
 Meat Queen," employing the two or three seconds she 
 occupied in waddling across the aisle by burying my 
 nose within the great bunch of violets I held in my 
 hand. 
 
 "Well, my dear," she said, after we had once more 
 settled down, "and how do you like our country? It 
 must surprise you if you come from the other side, 
 where everything is so small and uncomfortable. Don't 
 it, now?" 
 
 "It does!" I said, gravely. 
 
 " Now I thought so ! My man and I went to London 
 and Paree on our way to Germany some years ago, but 
 I can't say as I was much impressed by both them places, 
 for when once you git used to Chicawgo it's difficult to 
 put up with anything else. And as for Germany," 
 continued the loquacious lady, taking a deep breath, 
 "don't talk to me of it! A dirty, nasty, ill-favored 
 country, which it's a wonder to me that such fine men 
 
 363
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 as my husband can ever have come out of it. Been 
 to Germany?" she concluded. 
 
 "Yes, many times." 
 
 "And you like it?" 
 
 "N-n-o, not very much." 
 
 "Ah! I thought so. You look too much the lady 
 to put up with them fat Dutchmen!" 
 
 At that moment I happened to glance over my 
 shoulder, and saw poor Fred, who had been talking 
 in a lively and eminently praiseworthy fashion to 
 his august interlocutor, and holding in his hand the 
 improvised goblet of whiskey, seize a moment when 
 the latter was furiously blowing his nose with a red 
 bandana, to throw the stuff under his seat, and that 
 with so innocent and guileless a smile that I choked 
 to prevent myself from laughing. 
 
 "What's tickling you?" said Mrs. X , 
 
 peering at me with her prominent, chocolate-colored 
 eyes. " Lord, my dear, but you have a cheerful temple- 
 ment, that's plain to be seen, and I do hope that our 
 fine climate and the decent, healthy food that you'll 
 get here will put color in them pale cheeks of yours, for 
 that's all that's lacking to make you real good-looking !" 
 and without waiting for a suitable recognition of this 
 handsome compliment, the kind-hearted lady continued, 
 emphasizing every word she spoke with a smart little 
 tap of her exceedingly beringed, short, red fingers on 
 my knee: "Tell you what you should do! You 
 should let your man go alone to the hotel, and come 
 and stay with me yourself. I'd feed you up and make 
 you look real stout before I'd done with you." 
 
 " Thank you ever so much ; it's very kind of you ; 
 but I could not dream of thus inconveniencing you," I 
 replied, wondering within myself what she intend- 
 ed to do with Fred, for it did not at first dawn upon 
 
 364
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 me that the word "man" indicated him and not 
 Paul. 
 
 " Tut, tut, my dear ; no inconvenience. I've got as 
 fine a house on Michigan Avenue as you've seen in 
 your life, and there's only the two of us and a son, 
 and a niece that I've adopted, to live in it, not counting 
 the help, of course, which is generally a pesky lot and 
 cruel hard to manage. I've taken quite a fancy to you 
 and I'm sorry to see you look so poorly. Have you 
 been ill?" 
 
 " Yes, but that was quite a little while ago several 
 months. I had typhoid fever in Egypt." 
 
 "Egypt! Did you say Egypt?" squealed the "King" 
 in my ear, so loudly that I jumped and dropped my 
 violets on the floor. 
 
 "Yes, I said Egypt." 
 
 "Hum, that's in Africky, ain't it? I hain't quite 
 forgotten my gee-ography yet. And what were you 
 doing there?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing in particular. Listening to the croco- 
 diles' sobs and looking at the mummies ; not much else." 
 
 "Ah, I thought so! Loafing! That's what all you 
 Yurrupeans do as soon as you've got a penny of your 
 own, and that's why you come over here in droves to 
 be fed by us Amurricans when you've run through 
 your dollars." 
 
 There was of course no controverting such a truism, 
 and I gazed at this wise man with an expectant and 
 encouraging look. He nodded, and then, placing one 
 of his hairy, square-fingered paws on my arm, said, 
 interrogatively : 
 
 "Got any of them things about you? I'd like to 
 see some of them." 
 
 "What things?" I asked, in surprise. 
 
 "Why, them mummies and crocodiles." 
 ' 365
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "About me? Do you mean in my pocket?" 
 
 "Yes, or in your satchel." 
 
 I looked keenly at him to ascertain whether he was 
 joking or whether his comprehension of these words 
 was somewhat at fault, but noticing his expectant 
 and attentive expression, I apologized for my neglect 
 in not providing myself with such objects of general 
 interest before leaving the land of the Pharaohs. Fort- 
 unately, at that moment a sleek and prosperous-look- 
 ing man, with glossy side-whiskers and a velvet cap, 
 burst suddenly into a roar of laughter, and, jump- 
 ing out of his chair as if he had been shot out of a 
 catapult, rushed from the car, nearly upsetting Paul, 
 who, preternaturally solemn and dignified as usual, 
 was approaching to announce that our quarters were 
 set to rights and habitable. This little incident cut 
 short our interesting conversation, and with a "Yes, 
 Paul, we're coming," I rose at once. 
 
 "That a friend of yours?" said Mrs. X , 
 
 gazing approvingly upon the tall, soldierly figure of 
 my confidential servant, irreproachably clad, gloved 
 and groomed, and who certainly looked more like a 
 retired diplomat than one of the fraternity which she 
 had comprehensively and inappropriately called "help." 
 
 "No; that's my servant." 
 
 "Your servant! You mean to tell me that you 
 brought a servant over to Amurrica with you?" 
 
 " Pardon me, I brought three, and my brother, who 
 has remained in New York, one. My maid is at pres- 
 ent in the next car waiting to help me undress." 
 
 "Well, I never! No wonder you are called a spend- 
 thrift race! The idea! Say, John, d'ye hear that? 
 Them people brought four servants to 'tend to them all 
 the way from Yurrup!" 
 
 The " Dead Meat King " shrugged his narrow, stoop- 
 
 366
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ing shoulders with ineffable contempt. "I'd like to see 
 myself travelling with a fine gentleman like that for 
 my valley. I'd feel like kickin' the stuffin' out of him 
 all day long. Good-for-nothin', lazy lot, all of them." 
 
 "Excuse me," I said, beginning to lose patience 
 a little; "the man has been nearly ten years in my 
 employ, and is one of the best and most trustworthy 
 persons imaginable. But I will now say good-night, 
 as it is getting late." 
 
 " Oh, don't go away mad ! Have some whiskey, just 
 a teeny drop to warm your vittles before bed. It won't 
 hurt you. Mamie takes a lick of it herself sometimes, 
 It's much better than all your Frenchified wines for 
 the digestion, for it's good, honest, genuyne licker, at 
 least, and cost me fifty cents a pint at the refreshment- 
 room in N' York, so I know it must be pretty good." 
 
 "My wife drinks nothing but water," interposed 
 Fred, judging that I must be by this time past speech. 
 
 " Well, at meal-times that's right ; so do I, or else milk ; 
 but 'tween times a little, delicate thing like her wants 
 something comforting, like Old Rye, or else some good 
 meat-juice. I'll make you taste some made by myself 
 from the cattle raised on my ranches in Texas. It's 
 strong enough to wake a corpse. You'll see! Just 
 wait till I get you down in the stock-yards!" 
 
 With this promising prospect we sought the blessed 
 seclusion of the president's car, and hardly had the 
 door closed behind us when I gave free vent to the ex- 
 uberant mirth repressed during the last hour. 
 
 " Oh, Fred !" I said, as soon as I could speak ; " this is 
 delicious! What sort of people are they? How I wish 
 Bertrand was here, he would enjoy it so! Isn't that 
 man a Jew? And as to her good Lord!" 
 
 Fred, who was winding up his watch, looked gravely, 
 almost reprovingly, at me. "Dash it all/' he said, 
 
 367
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "you have no business to be so critical; they are well- 
 meaning people enough, and I was all the time in dread 
 lest they should notice that you were laughing at them. " 
 
 I looked at him in amazement. " I'm sorry you did 
 not drink that whiskey now, and that it didn't choke 
 you, you sanctimonious hypocrite! Now go to bed, 
 and send Johanna to me ; I'm tired. Heaven be praised 
 that we have this car, and are not obliged to anchor 
 alongside that pair. I am sure they both snore like 
 church-organs." With which peroration I turned my 
 back upon my lord and gazed out upon the dreary, 
 snow-clad plain that we were traversing. 
 
 "Look here, Pussy, don't be huffy," he said, apolo- 
 getically ; " they are vulgar people, certainly, but you 
 must make allowances. He is a German peasant 
 with probably a touch of Semitic blood, and a brain 
 turned by American theories and ideas which he cannot 
 assimilate, and too many millions as well. As for his 
 wife, she's a motherly old thing with no harm in her. I 
 have letters of introduction to him, and since he has been 
 warned of our coming, there is no use in putting their 
 backs up, for, after all, it may interest you to visit his 
 slaughter-houses and factories you, who are always 
 so fond of couleur locale!" 
 
 "Amen!" I replied. "Truly, you are an amiable 
 and worthy preacher. This is a talent I did not know 
 you possessed, and one which I advise you seriously 
 to cultivate. But now, if you will be so kind as to send 
 me my maid, as I have already asked you to do, I will 
 be greatly obliged, for this conversation with your 
 new friends has exhausted me." 
 
 He laughed, went forthwith to summon Johanna, 
 and soon after I was sleeping the sleep of the just, rocked 
 by the oscillations of the train, which was bearing me 
 farther and farther from mine own land. 
 
 368
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Of the rest of the trip there is little to say, save that 
 it was very wearisome, and that Their Majesties, the 
 " Dead Meat King and Queen," let no occasion pass to 
 improve the acquaintance thus fortuitously begun. In- 
 deed, bolts and bars could not keep them out of my way, 
 for hardly had I finished dressing next morning when 
 the lady pushed herself in and actually embraced me 
 tenderly, which set my teeth on edge, for under no cir- 
 cumstances am I of a caressing turn of mind, and this 
 extraordinary familiarity almost took my breath away. 
 There she sat, watching with curious eyes Johanna 
 put away my night-robe and the various toilet para- 
 phernalia scattered around, and the only remark worthy 
 of record was her question as to the use of so elabo- 
 rate a night-dress, as no one but one's husband saw 
 it, and why I went to the trouble of wearing such 
 beautiful silken underclothing beneath a plain wool- 
 len travelling-gown. She also went into raptures 
 over my dressing-case, and finally got so much on 
 my nerves that I felt like shrieking with sheer exas- 
 peration. 
 
 At last we reached Chicago, and drove at once to 
 the hotel, where Paul had secured, by telegraph, 
 a very showy and sumptuous apartment for us. On 
 the morrow, just as I was about to sit down to break- 
 fast, Mrs. X 's card was brought to me with 
 
 a message to the effect that that lady was at the door 
 with her sleigh to take me for a drive about town. 
 
 Greatly annoyed, I sent word that as I had only just 
 sat down to breakfast I would not care to keep her wait- 
 ing so long. But another message returned to the effect 
 that she would be glad to wait in the parlors until I 
 had finished; so that, much to Fred's mischievous 
 amusement, I had no alternative but to acquiesce, 
 swallow my breakfast hastily, and join her down- 
 34 369
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 stairs. She was dressed with the utmost magnificence 
 in a gown of purple velvet and a long and evidently 
 very costly seal-skin wrap, the whole topped off with 
 a bonnet which seemed chiefly composed of red dahlias 
 and golden wheat-ears. 
 
 Silently and very unwilling!} 7 I followed her out to a 
 gorgeous sleigh, drawn by two prancing black horses, 
 and driven by a coachman who looked like a hay-stack, 
 so profuse and shaggy were the furs which enwrapped 
 him. 
 
 "Pat," said his mistress, "this is a compatriot of 
 yours, and you'll be glad to pass her the time of day." 
 Then, turning to me, "This is Patrick Muldoon, who 
 is from your side of the world." I have often since 
 then thanked a merciful Providence that I did not lose 
 my presence of mind. I stepped briskly forward and, 
 holding out my hand with eager and what I thought 
 pleasingly democratic spontaneity, said, gravely: 
 
 " I am very glad to see you, Mr. Muldoon ; it is al- 
 ways so nice to meet a compatriot." 
 
 With difficulty " Mr." Muldoon turned his head inside 
 the storm-collar of his fur cape, and, much to my sur- 
 prise, displayed a good, honest Irish face, full of con- 
 sternation and almost of reproach, as if he, at least, 
 saw the incongruity of the situation. This grieved me, 
 and, extending my hand farther towards him, I said, 
 smiling: "Won't you shake hands? I assure you it 
 really gives me great pleasure to meet you. You need 
 not doubt it." 
 
 He dropped his whip, and in a bashful, almost shame- 
 faced way that went to my heart, held out his own 
 enormous palm, which looked positively gigantic in its 
 fur-lined glove, and squeezed my fingers so violently 
 that I winced. Then, to relieve the situation of its 
 embarrassment, I walked forward and stroked the 
 
 370
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 glossy neck of the magnificent horse nearest me, say- 
 ing, with quiet appreciation : 
 
 "These are fine horses, Pat; one can see that you 
 take wonderful care of them." 
 
 The man gave me a nine-inch smile, and was about, 
 as I could see by the twinkle of his small, blue eyes, 
 to offer some information about the team, when " Her 
 Majesty the Queen" peremptorily ordered me to "stop 
 fooling," as I would be frozen to death if I waited much 
 longer on the sidewalk. 
 
 I climbed obediently into the sleigh, and we were 
 whirled off at once along Michigan Avenue and the 
 shore of the frozen lake, across which a wind of such 
 grewsome iciness blew that even in a Siberian mid- 
 winter I had not endured anything like it. Speech 
 was impossible, and I w r as glad enough of the light, 
 white, knitted shawl which my hostess flung over my 
 head face and all like a ydshmhk, after an ap- 
 proved Chicago fashion, for all the women we met, 
 whether walking or driving, were similarly accoutred. 
 After a seemingly interminable drive we stopped be- 
 fore a large, pretentious mansion and fairly ran up 
 the steps into a spacious hall of wonderful and awe- 
 inspiring nakedness, for it contained nothing but a com- 
 mon china-ware umbrella-stand and an oaken bench. 
 
 From this we passed into a drawing - room which 
 at first seemed made entirely of pure gold, the ceiling, 
 walls, and furniture being so elaborately and thickly 
 gilded that my eyes ached. The sofas and couches 
 were covered with crimson velvet, and the rug and 
 curtains were of the brightest of brilliant greens! 
 
 "''Ain't that a lovely room?" quoth Her Majesty, 
 seating herself on a glittering ottoman, and indicating 
 with a wide sweep of her plump arm the dazzling splen- 
 dors of her abode. 
 
 37i
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "It is, indeed/' I replied, with mild stupefaction. 
 "To tell you the truth, I have never seen one like it." 
 
 "Of course not, of course not! How could you? I 
 bet you there isn't a parlor like this in any of the royal 
 palaces of Yurrup." 
 
 "Indeed, there is not/' I replied, truthfully, gazing 
 about with curiosity. 
 
 "Now, if you're interested in pictures, just clap an 
 eye on those opposite. My man bought them in New 
 York only last year, and I make free to say they can- 
 not be equalled for beauty/' 
 
 I rose dutifully, and turned my attention to a score 
 or so of that particular brand of horror which is to be 
 met with in most of the small hotels in Switzerland, 
 and which I have always dubbed "oleomargarines " 
 in other words, the most bare-faced chromos imaginable. 
 The frames, however, were so visibly costly that my 
 enthusiastic exclamation of " Oh, superb ! " was partly 
 truthful. 
 
 "Excuse me a moment," said the mistress of this 
 priceless collection. " While you are looking around a 
 bit I will go and call my niece, who would be awfully 
 riled if I didn't let her see you." 
 
 Patiently I waited, curious to know what new shock 
 was in store for me, until the door opened and Mrs. 
 
 X re-entered, shouting, as she came, " My 
 
 niece is out, but I've brought another compatriot of 
 yours with me." This time I was ready for her, and 
 evinced no astonishment when a portly, white-aproned 
 dame entered and stepped up, smiling amiably. 
 
 "This," said Mrs. X , "is Mrs. Williams, 
 
 who does the cooking for us. She's from England, 
 like yourself, and she's a reg'lar artist at puddings 
 and all such like." 
 
 "How do you do, Mrs. Williams?" I said, affably, 
 
 37*
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and, making room on the sofa beside me, I added, 
 "Won't you sit down here and talk to me a little?" 
 
 This excellent woman evidently did not possess the 
 natural tact which distinguished "Mr." Muldoon, for 
 with a great rustle of starched petticoats she seated her- 
 self, and deigned to favor me with a quantity of polite 
 small talk, which much delighted me. " I've served, in 
 my time," said she, " in the first families of England, and 
 I don't like this country much, but the wages, of course, 
 is so much better than over there that I'll stay a few 
 years longer, ye understand, mem or perhaps I should 
 say 'my lady,' by the looks of you," and then, screen- 
 ing her wide mouth elaborately with her hand, she 
 continued, in a loud whisper: 
 
 " In course I know as 'tain't my place to sit here by 
 the likes of you, but in this 'ouse the customs is dif- 
 ferent, and if I gave up one of my privileges I wouldn't 
 get the same treatment afterwards." 
 
 I laughed, and sincerely hoped that her mistress, 
 who was fussing at the other end of the room with some 
 greasy little packages which she had brought from 
 the sleigh, had not heard what she said. Soon that 
 lady approached and asked what I would like to have. 
 
 "Nothing, thank you," I replied. "I've only just 
 breakfasted. I could not swallow a morsel of any- 
 thing." 
 
 " Now, that's wrong ; a slice of plum-cake and a nice 
 mug of newly drawn ale, or else a good cup of coffee 
 and cream and some hot griddle-cakes, would do you 
 good, I know." 
 
 I shuddered at the bare idea of this delicate fare. 
 
 "Anyhow, we'll go and see the dining-room," con- 
 cluded Mrs. X , leading the way down a nar- 
 row passage and a narrower staircase to the lower 
 regions, into a low-ceiled apartment papered in sun- 
 
 373
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 flower yellow, with a big, garish, brown-and-blue pat- 
 tern of the leech-and-centipede order crawling all over 
 it, and furnished with light oak, which struck a chill 
 to one's very soul in such weather. 
 
 "This art paper/' exclaimed my hostess, with par- 
 donable pride, " was a present of my man for my last 
 birthday. He surprised me with it wiien I came back 
 from a visit to Mommer out in Michigan. That man's 
 got a taste such as few people has, and he's promised 
 to give me curtains to match the walls when he next 
 goes East." 
 
 I silently wondered what the anticipated draperies 
 would be like, and drew my furs about me, for the tem- 
 perature of that "art" dining-room must have been 
 something below zero. 
 
 "It's a bit chilly down here," said Mrs. X , 
 
 possibly divining my thoughts, " as we don't light up 
 the stove except at meal times," and she airily in- 
 dicated an extraordinary machine of iron and brass, 
 with a transparent mica front, which filled the space 
 between the windows. "You can't imagine," she 
 continued, with grim enjoyment, "what an economy 
 them kerosene-stoves is, and except for a little smell 
 occasionally they're regular treasures. Me and my 
 man don't believe in wasting money, piles being hard 
 to make, and when he's got too much of it, he buys me 
 diamonds, which is portable, and always a safe invest- 
 ment. Come to think of it, I'll show you my joolry 
 when we get up-stairs." 
 
 "You are, indeed, a fortunate woman, Mrs. 
 X ," I said, sweetly. 
 
 "Yes, that I am," she responded, smiling all over 
 her jolly countenance ; and so, after I had, with justifi- 
 able punctiliousness, gone to the kitchen to take leave 
 of Mrs. Williams, I was shown the contents of a jewel- 
 
 374
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 box full of diamonds, which, if perhaps not of the very 
 first water, were, at any rate, of a size to compare fa- 
 vorably with carriage-lamps or carafe-stoppers. Other 
 gems there were none, for, as their owner judiciously 
 remarked, "Colored stones make no show, and look 
 like nothing but bits of glass." And as to pearls, she 
 had no use for them, a statement with which I cord- 
 ially agreed. 
 
 I had the utmost difficulty in escaping from the hos- 
 pitable hands of the lady, who was determined that I 
 should lunch among the centipedes and leeches, and 
 I could have almost shouted for joy when I took an af- 
 fectionate leave of "Mr." Muldoon at the door of the 
 hotel, manifesting my satisfaction by a substantial 
 douceur. Fred was not there when I arrived, but soon 
 came in with the unwelcome statement that we were 
 dining that night with a distinguished member of the 
 legal profession, who, with his spinster sister, had called 
 to invite us. 
 
 I will always remember that dinner, and this, my 
 first glimpse of a prim, old-fashioned, grimly regulated 
 American household. I had, of course, donned a low- 
 cut dress, which, on this occasion, was of pale-pink 
 velvet, bordered with ermine and lightly embroidered 
 with seed-pearls, and was a little confused when con- 
 fronted by a tall, gray-haired woman, clad in black 
 silk high to the throat, and adorned with six different 
 necklaces one of jet, one of lapis-lazuli, two of gar- 
 nets, and the rest of bright malachite, which fell grace- 
 lessly over a singularly flat chest. A construction 
 of black lace and violets crowned her scanty tresses, 
 and there w r ere black lace mittens on her thin hands. 
 
 Her brother had a fraternal resemblance to a bread- 
 knife, being very long, very narrow, and very sharp, 
 with a steely gleam in his close-set eyes, and a keen 
 
 375
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 way of cutting through any subject under discussion, 
 which left no possibility for argument. 
 
 The banqueting-hall was in the basement, three or 
 four feet below the level of the street, and was paved 
 with black-and-white marble, with a little island of 
 Turkish rug under the table ; deep- red curtains, bordered 
 with black velvet bands, shrouding all the windows; 
 and two sideboards, facing each other, loaded with 
 remarkably handsome and ponderous antique Dutch 
 plate. The table itself was set on spotless damask, 
 with white china innocent of decoration, a limited 
 array of thickish glasses, and a low brass jardiniere 
 filled with artificial roses and tulips which could never 
 have deceived anybody. 
 
 At a sign from the animated bread-knife we stood 
 behind our chairs, while he delivered himself of an in- 
 terminable and dry-as-dust grace, which, beginning 
 with "firstly, my Christian brethren," and running on 
 through secondly, thirdly, and fourthly, was terminated 
 by a lugubrious " amen," drawn from the deepest cav- 
 erns of his being, and I rustled into my place with a 
 sigh of relief, thinking of the party of the first part 
 and the party of the second part. While standing 
 on that thinly covered marble floor, rny feet, protected 
 only by gossamer silk hose and pink satin slippers, had 
 turned into icicles, and I would have given anything 
 to stamp them a bit to restore the circulation. 
 
 I looked hopelessly at the iced clams before me, and 
 with yet greater discouragement upon the anaemic 
 consomm6, whereon floated little, pale-faced noodles 
 and tiny scraps of toast. This was followed by 
 a large slice of salmon with brown sauce, a fat and 
 aldermanic turkey, with the usual rich, red cranberry 
 trimmings, and boiled vegetables, replaced, in turn, by 
 little round bullets of some fishy substance served with 
 
 376
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 a tomato - and - cucumber salad, the climax being 
 reached when pumpkin - pies the size of small saucers 
 and lemon -ices in green glass cups were set be- 
 fore us. 
 
 "This is a national dish/' remarked the lady of the 
 house, caressing with her dessert-knife the little pie 
 before her. " I thought you would like to taste it, for I 
 do not think that in Europe you grow pumpkins worthy 
 of the name." 
 
 " Pardon me, we do ; citrouilles we call them, but we 
 use them generally for soups." 
 
 "Oh, indeed!" with an aggrieved and saddened 
 smile. "I have been several times to Europe. My 
 brother and I went to London, Paris, Vienna, and even 
 to St. Petersburg; that is how I come to have these 
 necklaces," and she jangled them carelessly. "I got 
 the jet in France which is, I believe, celebrated for it 
 the garnets in Austria, where they are quite plentiful, 
 and the malachite and lapis-lazuli in Russia; they 
 make nice souvenirs of our journey." 
 
 "What a charmingly original idea!"- I exclaimed, 
 having long since desired to make some pleasant re- 
 mark. " I trust that when next you go over to the other 
 side you will not forget to let us know, so that we may 
 have the opportunity of returning your charming hos- 
 pitality." 
 
 "You are very kind," she replied, rising and pre- 
 ceding me to the "foyer-hall," as she called it, and 
 with reason, as I shall show later. I was cold to the 
 marrow of my bones, and hungry, too, for I had hardly 
 touched the hot viands dished on cold plates, which 
 instantly congealed their various sauces, and I would 
 have welcomed a cup of hot, black coffee, but had to be 
 content with tepid, green tea, and the rather dictatorial 
 information that coffee was horribly destructive to the 
 
 377
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 nerves, and should never be indulged in by people 
 careful of their health. 
 
 "My brother/' continued this precise lady, "has 
 very strict ideas of his own about diet and hygiene. 
 Now you will have noticed, no doubt, that our house is 
 not over-heated, like most American establishments." 
 
 Alas, I had noticed it, for my arms and neck were 
 painfully "goose-fleshy." 
 
 "He sleeps with wide-open windows all the year 
 round, even on the coldest nights, and the four fires 
 which you see here are merely a concession on his part 
 to his plan of architecture. He designed this house 
 himself." 
 
 I thought to myself that the concession was very 
 half-hearted, for though the idea of an octagonal, white 
 wood column, rising in the middle of this foyer-hall, and 
 scooped out on four sides into tiny excavations wherein 
 smouldered a few handf uls of coal, was distinctly novel, 
 yet it did not greatly improve the glacial atmosphere 
 of this apartment, which was entirely panelled in glis- 
 tening white and draped with narrow, sage-green cur- 
 tains and portieres. There were, however, on the 
 walls some splendid and very interesting trophies: 
 Indian arms, feathered head-dresses, elaborately em- 
 broidered robes, and some heads of elk, moose, and 
 mountain-goats, which testified to the sporting ten- 
 dencies of the legal gentleman still sitting down-stairs 
 with Fred over a bottle of old port. 
 
 The festivities of the evening terminated by the ap- 
 pearance upon the scene of small cups of cocoa, flanked 
 by dry biscuits and salted almonds, which my host 
 declared to be the best of night-caps; fortunately, it 
 was a stirrup-cup as well, and we departed with mutual 
 expressions of esteem, richer by a pair of sore throats, 
 a tomahawk fit souvenir of this iron-clad evening 
 
 378
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and by a neatly bound volume of that delightful book 
 Mr. Isaacs which, as our legal friend truthfully de- 
 clared, " was a wonderful work from the pen of one of 
 the glories of the recent school of American literature." 
 
 The next day was set apart for our visit to the stock- 
 yards, and, bright and early, we traversed a wilderness 
 of gaunt wooden buildings scattered amid empty lots 
 and uniformly covered with gra3"ish snow and icicles, 
 and finally reached an immense factory which, even 
 in this purifying winter season, \vas heralded by an 
 agglomeration of stenches quite impossible to describe. 
 
 We \vere received by John X and his son, a 
 
 dark-complexioned, dark-eyed, and dark-haired youth, 
 \vhose skin seemed to exude oil, and whose spare, nar- 
 row-chested figure had the cringing suppleness of the 
 Chosen People so unmistakably that I chuckled inwardly 
 at the w*ay in which I had detected in the father the 
 hereditary characteristics which, even after generations 
 of intermixture with Gentiles, yet remain ineradicable 
 throughout the ages. 
 
 "Come along! Come along!" cried the Honorable 
 John, snatching my hand and tucking it under his 
 arm. "Time's money here, and I'll just run you 
 through the whole thing. Bui pick up them skirts of 
 yours, for this place ain't no drawing-room, nor no 
 heliotrope neither, and you should have had the sense 
 to put on a good, serviceable dress and heavy boots, 
 instead of all that highfalutin finery," he concluded, 
 contemptuously, pointing to my perfectly plain mouse- 
 colored cloth gown, the only sin of which was to reveal, 
 when raised from the vile mud of the path in which 
 we stood, the " frou-frou " of silk petticoats. 
 
 At the double-quick we raced into a gigantic shed, 
 where creaking machinery, wheels, and belts groaned 
 and shrieked in concert, and which was, moreover, 
 
 379
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 filled with the stench and squeals of an army of pigs, 
 the lowing of cattle, and the terrified bleat of other 
 animals which I presumed were sheep, although I was 
 not sure. 
 
 Some of the unfortunate porkers were just being 
 urged down a narrow gang-plank towards a barbarous- 
 looking iron Tour de Nesle, in which they disappeared, 
 grunting. 
 
 "See them pigs?" chuckled John X 
 
 "You mind how they go in? Waal, they come out 
 on t'other side all cut up and scraped and clean as 
 whistles." 
 
 It was impossible to say whether the man was joking 
 or serious, but I flatly refused to put his words to the 
 proof, and allowing him to pounce upon Fred and con- 
 duct him to that abominable place of carnage, I bestow- 
 ed the light of my countenance upon John Junior, who, 
 muttering something about steers and pens, strutted at 
 my side into the yards proper. We walked upon some 
 rotten planks between two long files of small, square 
 enclosures, each containing a wretched, demoralized 
 steer lying, standing, or even crouching in the mud, 
 and with such woful expressions in their poor, fright- 
 ened eyes that I could have boxed the ears of the young 
 man at my side when he yelled, in a hoarse falsetto, to 
 some men armed with short, stocky carbines to "come 
 up and show the lady how the brutes were knocked 
 over." 
 
 Unwilling a second time to show the white feather, I 
 stood my ground and witnessed the assassination of 
 several of the meek-eyed animals, who, with piteous 
 groans, fell forward, one after another, in such a man- 
 ner as made it impossible for me to contemplate eating 
 meat in the future. 
 
 As I was turning away from this ghastly sight, I 
 
 380
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 noticed coming towards us a cow-boy with whom I 
 had often conversed during our eventful trans- Atlantic 
 passage. Tall and extremely well made, with frank, 
 blue eyes, well-cut features, and a cap of crisp, golden 
 curls, he made a picturesque figure in his plains- 
 man's costume as he approached me, sombrero in 
 hand. 
 
 "Why, how come you here, Mr. P n?" I ex- 
 claimed, holding out my hand, which was grasped 
 eagerly. 
 
 " I belong to one of Mr. X 's ranches, and 
 
 I'm here on business," he replied, with his peculiarly 
 winning smile. 
 
 "You know 'Gentleman Sam'?" squealed the heir 
 of the stock-yards, with a condescending nod towards 
 his father's stalwart young employe. 
 
 " Certainly, I know him. We came over on the same 
 boat." 
 
 The young man stared incredulously. "On that 
 kind of a boat?" he repeated. 
 
 "Yes," I said, shortly, not deeming it necessary 
 to enter into explanations. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly, and with 
 a change of tone which possibly denoted a slight low- 
 ering of the opinion he had hitherto held of me, he in- 
 dicated with a motion of his arm a broad plank en- 
 closure which stood squarely across our path. 
 
 "Like to see it all?" he said, listlessly. 
 
 " Yes," I replied again. 
 
 He preceded me over the rotten planks covering the 
 mud and ice, and I followed closely, the cow-boy be- 
 hind me. Twenty yards farther John Junior looked 
 at me over his shoulder and said, with a little, irritating 
 laugh, " I don't think you can cross this without being 
 carried," and he pointed to a place where, for ten feet or 
 
 381
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 so, the boards were lacking, and where the half-frozen 
 earth had been trampled into a pulp. 
 
 "I do not suppose that you propose to carry me," I 
 remarked, glancing at him with a smile. Before he 
 had time to reply, "Gentleman Sam" strode past me, 
 holding in his hand the broad, crimson woollen sash 
 which he had worn folded round and round his waist, 
 and with a quick motion spread it across the foul quag- 
 mire. 
 
 "This is better than nothing," he said, quietly, 
 completely unconscious of the dark frown which sud- 
 denly knit the brows of his employer's son. 
 
 "It will do splendidly," I replied, walking lightly 
 over this improvised bridge, which, as the mud was 
 almost solid, completely protected me from its contact, 
 and, after inspecting the farther enclosure, which con- 
 fined a squealing whirlpool of pigs, I recrossed the gap 
 in the boarding in the same fashion, and, still followed 
 by "Gentleman Sam," we rejoined Fred and the " Dead 
 Meat King" at the corner of the main building. 
 
 "And now lunch," said that worthy, with one of 
 his most pernicious grins. " We all feel pretty hungry, 
 I guess." This was far from being the case with me, 
 for since I had entered these shambles a feeling of posi- 
 tive nausea had been creeping over me, and I would have 
 been glad to return to the carriage and drive away ; 
 but this was not to be, for the great John had once more 
 seized my arm, and was hustling me away with the 
 biggest strides his short bow -legs could encompass 
 towards a low, brick building from which emanated 
 odors of hot charcuterie. Before I knew what was 
 happening we entered the dark, smoky place, which 
 was crowded with men, apparently part butchers and 
 part clerks, but who all alike diffused a strong savor 
 of wet dog from their unclean clothing. 
 
 382
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 At the far end of the room was a long, zinc-covered 
 bar, behind which rose tiers of crockery and glasses, 
 while upon it revolting-looking messes smoked in great 
 dishes, together with tall coffee-pots, mugs, and pyra- 
 mids of sliced bread on wooden platters. 
 
 Two or three attendants, dressed in dingy jackets 
 and aprons, which had once been white, and with ex- 
 traordinarily sleek, carefully parted hair, were hurry- 
 ing to and fro, distributing food and drink to the mul- 
 titude. 
 
 "Here we are, like the politicians, in the hands of 
 our friends/' exclaimed our amiable guide, lifting me 
 suddenly by the elbows, with a strength one would not 
 have expected from his small frame, and depositing me 
 like a child on a tall stool before the bar. Before I had 
 recovered from my amazement he had shoved in front 
 of me a deep tin platter that I would have thought 
 hardly good enough to feed a puppy from, containing 
 what seemed a sort of pie of brown beans surmounted 
 by a square lump of fat pork. He then tossed me a 
 tin fork and a black-handled knife which had seen 
 much service. 
 
 "What '11 you drink?" he yelled in my ear, above the 
 din of many raucous voices clamoring for similar dain- 
 ties. "You can have coffee good coffee, I tell you 
 or milk, or anything else you feel like. If you don't 
 see what you want, ask for it." 
 
 I glanced appealingly at Fred, who stood near, sep- 
 arated from me only by John Junior and a fat, greasy 
 individual with a shaggy, fur cap driven down over 
 his eyes and a sort of blue-jean night-robe reaching to 
 his feet, but he was making a loyal and courageous 
 attack on his own tin platter, and did not catch my 
 eye, so that I hardly knew what to do, for the reek, 
 the heat, and the astoundingly familiar handling of 
 
 383
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 my host, which was something I had never before ex- 
 perienced, made me feel exceedingly queer. 
 
 "I know what you need," said the latter. "Just 
 wait a minute, and I'll get you a piping-hot cup of beef- 
 iuice fresh from the vats. That '11 put heart into you," 
 and with a lively play of his elbows he dived into the 
 crowd and disappeared, much to my relief. Again I 
 tried to catch Fred's eye, but new hordes of workmen 
 having invaded my corner of the room all communi- 
 cations were cut off, and I had almost decided to slide 
 off my lofty perch and make a bolt for the door when a 
 large and toil-hardened but neatly kept hand gently 
 touched my arm, and the voice of "Gentleman Sam" 
 whispered in my ear. 
 
 "You don't fancy this place, my lady. Would you 
 like to get away?" 
 
 "Indeed, I would," I exclaimed, clutching at the big, 
 strong fingers in genuine distress. 
 
 "All right. Excuse me, then." Putting his arm 
 around me, he lifted me to the floor, and added, in a 
 louder tone : " Here, mates, make room for this lady ; 
 it's too hot for her in here." 
 
 Oh, how good the clear, freezing air felt outside! 
 My gigantic escort looked sadly at me, as if the whole 
 incident had been his fault, and muttered something 
 which was lost in the height above my head, but it 
 sounded like, "Damned old fool!" no doubt a refer- 
 ence to his employer, which would have greatly aston- 
 ished that worthy had he heard it. "How are you 
 now, my lady?" he said, anxiously. 
 
 "Oh, all right," I said, laughing. "I am sorry I 
 made such a fool of myself. I am not generally so 
 faint-hearted, but the smells, first of the slaughter- 
 houses, then of the pens, and finally those of 
 that caf6 yonder, made me feel a little sick. I 
 
 384
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 am very sensitive to smells/' I concluded, apologet- 
 ically. 
 
 " We-ell, I only wonder you held out so long. This 
 part of the town is pretty ripe, for it's got the com- 
 bined stench of many thousand head of cattle, dead 
 and alive." 
 
 At that moment John Senior, with his son and my 
 lord and master, shot out of the eating-house, and hur- 
 ried towards us with loud exclamations and questions 
 as to my disappearance. To my intense amusement, 
 John Junior was carrying a steaming cup, while his 
 father bore a small loaf and brandished one of the 
 worn, disreputable, black knives in his hand. 
 
 "That's a lovely trick you've played us! You're 
 a nice party, you are! Why couldn't you stay and 
 eat your dinner like a Christian, instead of lightin' 
 out with 'Gentleman Sam,' who oughter be mindin' 
 his own business somewhere else?" 
 
 I had borne already a good deal of unpleasant famil- 
 iarity from His Majesty the " King," but this was going 
 a trifle too far, and though I tried to appreciate the rough 
 hospitality that made him race after me with his cup 
 of beef-juice, I was no longer in the mood to let him 
 address me in that tone, and was on the point of an- 
 swering him pretty sharply, when an imploring look 
 from Fred arrested me, and I contented myself with 
 saying that I had been subject to fainting fits since my 
 illness, and that the heat in the cafe had been so great 
 that I could not have answered for the consequences 
 had I remained much longer. With great difficulty I 
 prevented him from virtually pouring the contents of 
 the cup down my throat, and it was only by patiently 
 listening to a perfect torrent of encomiums upon that 
 life-giving liquid that I succeeded in pacifying him. 
 
 At last we moved towards the carriage, but before 
 '5 385
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 that I turned to "Gentleman Sam," who, quite regard- 
 less of his employer's rude hint as to his room being 
 preferred to his company, still towered protectingly be- 
 side me, and, holding out my hand, said, ignoring the 
 stares of the two Johns: 
 
 " I am ever so much obliged, Mr. P n. If you 
 
 happen to have a moment to spare before returning to 
 the ranch, come and see us; my husband and myself 
 will be delighted if you do." 
 
 The cow-boy made me a bow worthy of a throne- 
 room, and, having grasped warmly the hand which 
 Fred extended with a few words confirming the invita- 
 tion, strode rapidly away. 
 
 "I wonder," snarled "King" John, scowling at 
 me, "that you care to notice that stuck-up jackass!" 
 and he pointed at "Gentleman Sam's" retreating 
 figure. 
 
 Now I do not remember whether I mentioned that 
 
 Samuel P n, alias "Gentleman Sam/' was, in 
 
 my humble opinion, very far from being a conceited 
 ass, for, on the contrary, I had long ere this detected 
 in him the gentleman by nature, if not by education, 
 which is the better of the two. On board the steamer, 
 among that rowdy crew, I had never seen him intoxi- 
 cated nor in any way ill-behaved, and that he knew 
 always how to keep his place was sufficiently proved by 
 the fact that he had never tried to impose his company 
 upon us, although both Bertrand and myself had often 
 sought him out to ask for some of his wonderful West- 
 ern yarns, which he had a talent for telling in a sim- 
 ple, and, in its way, poetical fashion, very attractive 
 indeed. He was invariably modest, unobtrusive, and 
 obliging, although his undeniable good looks might 
 well have made a smaller-minded man more presuming 
 in the presence of a woman. Above all, he had to 
 
 386
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 perfection that chivalrous, if rough-hewn, courtesy 
 which is so charmingly displayed by so many of the 
 plainsmen, and, indeed, very often, by comparatively 
 uneducated American men towards all women, old or 
 young, thus offering a pleasing contrast to the modern 
 London "swell," who of late years has adopted an air 
 of insufferable camaraderie towards the opposite sex, 
 and so far from lifting his hat in bowing, contents him- 
 self with barely touching the brim. 
 
 So, looking Mr. X full in the face, I said, 
 
 coldly : " I think you are entirely mistaken in your esti- 
 mate of Mr. P n. It would, indeed, be fortunate 
 
 if his manners and attitude were more frequently met 
 with among those who claim to be his superiors." The 
 taunt glided from the pachydermatous hide of the 
 "King" like water from a duck's back, but his more 
 intelligent son flushed a little, and gave me a sidelong 
 glance of spite that nearly made me laugh. We drove 
 the interesting pair back to the hotel, and gave them a 
 sumptuous lunch in our apartments, for the enjoyment 
 of which their large ingestion of pork and beans had 
 evidently not disqualified them. Towards the close of 
 the feast the " King " drew from his pocket a couple of 
 diminutive, brilliantly labelled tin cans, holding about 
 two ounces apiece, and to which small can-openers were 
 attached with a wire. Rising from his place, he crossed 
 over to the fire, near which I had just sat down, tapped 
 me lightly on the shoulder, and exclaimed : 
 
 "Now this is what I want to show and explain to 
 you. See here. These is samples of the best concen- 
 trated extract of beef that's made in Chicawgo, or, for 
 the matter of that, anywhere else in the world. I un- 
 derstand you've got pretty high - toned acquaintances 
 in Yurrup. Ain't that so?" 
 
 "Pretty high-toned?" I replied, resignedly. 
 
 387
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "I mean kings and emperors and dukes, and the 
 like of that. Not that I think much of them personally, 
 but as customers they might do well enough, because 
 there's no stuff on top of this green foot- tool that can 
 
 beat John X 's beef-extract as a nourishment 
 
 for campaigning soldiers. What sort of kings and 
 queens do you know intimately, I mean?" 
 
 "Several," I said, now ready for anything. 
 
 John X balanced himself on his heels, with 
 
 his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, keeping 
 hold, however, of the little tin cans, as if he wanted to 
 hatch them out by vital heat, and gave a low, tobacco- 
 tainted whistle. 
 
 "Whew! Say, she ain't guying me?" he queried, 
 over his shoulder to Fred, who did not hear him, for, 
 on hospitable thoughts intent, he had gone with John 
 Junior to the other end of the room towards a table 
 where the cigars and liqueurs had been placed. 
 
 "No, no; I'm not guying you," I said, laughing. 
 "You needn't appeal to him. What else do you want 
 to know?" 
 
 "Well, just this. Are you well enough acquainted 
 to go and visit 'em? Yes or no?" 
 
 "Of course I am!" 
 
 "That's the cheese. I'm going to give you a whole 
 case of little cans like those, each with a little patent 
 opener attached, like that, and when you go back to 
 Yurrup and call on their royal nibses, you just 
 tuck one or two into your pocket, and when you've 
 brought the talk round to Amurrica, as you no doubt 
 will, being fresh from the States, you'll just whip one 
 out and open it I'm going to show you how and 
 you'll make 'em smell and taste it, for it's that de- 
 licious it ain't unpleasant to eat right out of the
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "What on earth do you want me to do that for?" 
 said I, laughing heartily. 
 
 " S-s-s-sh ! Don't you be foolish. This is no laugh- 
 ing matter. Mamie's shown you her jools, hain't she? 
 Now, women-folks never has too many of them things, 
 and if you do what I tell you, this old gent" and he 
 playfully tapped his chest "is going to give you a 
 commission on every can you sell, which '11 make it 
 easy for you to visit the big jool stores of the Palace 
 Royal in Paree with extra full pockets." 
 
 "I am afraid," I said, with a commendable show 
 of regret, "that this plan, though admirable in theory, 
 would not work as well as you anticipate." 
 
 "And \vhy not, pray tell? Are all them crowned 
 heads born fools, or would they take offence at your 
 putting them up to a good thing?" 
 
 I was nonplussed. How was I to make that ex- 
 traordinary man understand the enormity of his re- 
 quest? Suddenly a happy thought struck me. 
 
 "I take it," I said, in a thoroughly business-like 
 manner, "that you want me to obtain army contracts 
 for you." 
 
 " Now you're shoutin'," he said, enthusiastically. 
 
 " Pardon me, I have not raised my voice," I replied, 
 somewhat confused. 
 
 " Oh, I mean you've hit the nigger-baby, you know 
 you're on the track, that is." 
 
 " Oh, very well ! If that is what you want, you should 
 approach my husband, not me. He knows a great 
 many ministers of war, and it is they who manage 
 such matters, and not the sovereigns themselves," I 
 concluded, dogmatically, delighted to shift the burden 
 of so weighty an affair onto Fred's shoulders! 
 
 " All right. I'll tackle him right away. Only what 
 them sovereigns is paid money by the people for, if it 
 
 389
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ain't even to look after the proper feeding of their sol- 
 diers, beats me hollow!" 
 
 " Dear me, Mr. X , why are you so aston- 
 ished? Are you not a European? Your wife said you 
 were German." 
 
 "I? Lord preserve us! I came over here as a little 
 shaver about twelve years old, and I'd never have set 
 foot in the old country again if it hadn't been to collect 
 my grandfather's legacy. 'Twasn't much of a legacy, 
 but everything counts, and I wasn't going to let it fall 
 into the hands of a lot of hungry Dutchmen, who were 
 just achin' for it. I ain't above turning an honest 
 penny if I can, and it ain't because I've got millions of 
 my own that I can afford to sneeze at several cool hun- 
 dreds! No, ma'am; my parents was foreigners, but 
 I'm a free Amurrican citizen; I ain't the slave of no 
 effete Yurropean despotism." 
 
 I nodded. Outside the snow was falling heavily, 
 covering the edges of the balcony with a regal fur bor- 
 der, and, shuddering a little, I thought of the big din- 
 ner-party we were to attend that evening. Somehow 
 or other the snow seemed colder here than even in 
 Russia, and that eternal wind, blowing over the white 
 stretches of the lake, was certainly more thoroughly 
 iced than anything of the sort I had as yet encoun- 
 tered. 
 
 John X had joined Fred, and was pouring 
 
 into his ear his sanguine projects for the furtherance 
 of his interests at the Courts of Europe, and John Ju- 
 nior crossed the room towards me in his curious, 
 shambling way. " O patre pulchro fili pulchrior " 
 I thought, wearily, as he leaned his thin, curved 
 shoulder against the mantel-piece, with conversational 
 intent plainly depicted on his sour little countenance. 
 
 "You made me very jealous this morning," he 
 
 390
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 smirked, twirling his apology for a mustache with the 
 air of an all-conquering hero. 
 
 " God forgive me \" I mused ; " this little beast is going 
 to try and flirt with me!" This was so funny that 
 my dawning ill-humor immediately evaporated, and I 
 turned to him with a smiling face and an inward spasm 
 of merriment. 
 
 "Indeed!" I said. 
 
 " Yes ; although I could not make up my mind about 
 a girl of your evident refinement really admiring mere 
 brute strength." 
 
 "And why not?" I asked. "Mere brute strength 
 has its charm from an artistic point of view." 
 
 " Oh, you're only laughing at me, I see ; perhaps you 
 don't know that I'm a college man " this in a nettled 
 tone. 
 
 "What did you say you were?" 
 
 "I mean that I was brought up at a university." 
 
 " Well, one must be brought up somewhere, must one 
 not?" I rejoined. 
 
 "Certainly; but I didn't want you to think that I 
 was a mere high-school graduate. You see, my father 
 is a plain sort of a man, who never had the advantages 
 of education ; but it is different with me, and I'm only 
 in business with him because the old man, who is as 
 stubborn as a mule, insisted upon it, and threatened to 
 disown me if I refused. Now I would have preferred 
 to adopt some profession, like the law> for instance, or 
 else to travel about for pleasure awhile." 
 
 "It is very good of you to tell me all that," I replied, 
 politely ; " but I do not think that you should speak of 
 your father as you do. He must be a man of consid- 
 erable energy and talent to have built up, single-handed, 
 such a business as his another admirable example of 
 brute force, by the way." 
 
 39i
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 The young hopeful shrugged his shoulders disdain- 
 fully. "Pshaw!" he said; "don't you make any mis- 
 take. I can guess what you think of a man like him, 
 and of the old lady, too, although you concealed your 
 feelings mighty well this morning, and even at lunch, 
 when he paraded his primitive table-manners under 
 your very nose. I'm no fool." 
 
 "No, you are, I am afraid, something infinitely 
 worse! Your father may be, let us say, a rough dia- 
 mond ; but you you . . . well, I'd sooner not tell you 
 what I think, and so with your kind permission I 
 will now join that very ill-educated person, your father, 
 who at least is a man, and not a pitiful little make- 
 believe like yourself." 
 
 "Oh, I say, that is going it rather strong, isn't it?" 
 he gasped, between anger and dismay ; but the swish 
 of my skirt as I rose and swiftly crossed the room pre- 
 vented me from hearing more, and I threw so much 
 warmth into my conversation with the old " King " 
 for he at least was genuine, and, as such, a mightily 
 pleasing contrast to his discomfited heir-apparent 
 that Fred looked at me with undisguised astonishment, 
 for I even made a rash promise to visit Her Majesty 
 the " Queen " next day. Kindly old lady, her fat, jolly 
 personality, her small, oil -stove economies, and her 
 gorgeous red -and -gold drawing-room were seen in 
 pleasing perspective when one had in the foreground 
 that sallow, misbegotten little horror, with his long, 
 fur coat and diamond solitaire shirt-studs, swaggering 
 in the mud of his father's stock-yards, or posing as 
 a drawing-room hero and a thorough-paced Don Juan! 
 
 For the next few days we had many invitations 
 to the houses of some charming and refined people, 
 who gave us handsome dinners and luncheons, and 
 also one dance which was a distinct success. I 
 
 392
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 might, indeed, have had a very pleasant time if for 
 the second time in my life bona-fide Heimweh had not 
 clutched me by the throat! I struggled against it 
 with all my might and main, and successfully con- 
 cealed my feelings from Fred, but, do what I would, I 
 could not help seeing that big Western city, though 
 wrapped in its glittering winter finery of ice and snow, 
 through a black pall which shut out every possibility 
 of enjoyment. 
 
 At last came an evening when Fred and I returned 
 from a soiree given in our honor at the house of a great 
 mine-owner. During the long drive to the hotel I had 
 not spoken a word, and when I entered our apartments 
 I tore off my ermine-lined sortie-de-bal , and, throwing 
 it on the sofa, determined to tell Fred then and there 
 how wretched I felt ; but at that moment the door I 
 had just closed suddenly opened, and Bertrand, whom 
 I thought still miles and miles away, stepped in quietly. 
 
 At the sight of him something seemed to brutally 
 break the iron resolve which had endured until then, 
 and with a for once in a way thoroughly and lament- 
 ably feminine cry of distress, I flung my arms about 
 his neck and burst into a passion of tears. 
 
 "For mercy's sake, my girl, my little girlie! You 
 crying! It must be something pretty bad. What ails 
 her, Fred? I haven't seen her do a thing like that 
 since she was twelve years old," he exclaimed, strok- 
 ing my bowed head tenderly. 
 
 Fred, greatly alarmed, was already imploring me to 
 tell him what had happened, but I am ashamed to say 
 that, now that my habitual self-restraint had given way, 
 I found it almost impossible not to continue making 
 a fool of myself, and it was only after a few minutes' 
 violent struggle that it became possible to apologize for 
 this absolutely ridiculous outbreak. 
 
 393
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "That's all very well/' said Fred, decisively, "but 
 we leave tomorrow night! I'm certainly not going to 
 have you made miserable if I can help it. I am sorry, 
 old man," he continued to Bertrand, who, thoroughly 
 perturbed, was still gently stroking my hair, "but if 
 you are desirous of lingering in this city you will 
 have to do so without us." 
 
 "Not I!" said the boy. "I am going back with 
 you, you may be sure. I'll just run down to-morrow 
 to old What's-his-name's stock-yards and get a sniff 
 at them which ought to be enough if all Margot wrote 
 me is correct and then I shall cheerfully shake the 
 dust of my sandals upon this blessed place. Going 
 to bed?" he added, as I turned away and picked up my 
 cloak. "Jim's outside, longing to pay his respects. 
 The beggar is more attached to you even than to me, 
 and spent all his time urging me to leave the delights 
 of New York for the stormy West. Your second maid 
 is, of course, perfectly safe at the Windsor, where she 
 is lionized by several other kindred spirits, who, hav- 
 ing discovered that she is in the employ of a genuine, 
 hall-marked, simon-pure aristocrat, are giving her the 
 time of her life! And now promise us not to fret and 
 to be a good girl!" he added, opening the door for 
 me. 
 
 I was so abominably mortified that I spent half the 
 night pacing the floor of my room, smoking innumer- 
 able cigarettes, and cursing the momentary weak- 
 ness which had so incomprehensibly overwhelmed me. 
 What could there be in Chicago that so depressed me? 
 I leave this riddle to be guessed by cleverer people than 
 myself. 
 
 In the morning I made a round of farewell visits, 
 and coming back to a late lunch, found with Bertrand 
 in the sitting-room no other personage than "Gentle- 
 
 394
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 man Sam/' who jumped to his feet as I entered and 
 turned as red as a poppy. 
 
 "Well, I am glad to see you," I exclaimed, coming 
 forward with outstretched hand. "I thought that 
 you had left the city without remembering us." 
 
 "What did I tell you?" laughed Bertrand, clapping 
 the big cow-boy heartily on the shoulder, and then, 
 turning to me, he added, "This young gentleman 
 at first absolutely refused to come and lunch, because 
 he pretended that his costume was unfit for a lady's 
 drawing-room ! ' ' 
 
 "What nonsense!" I said, laughing. "It is the most 
 picturesque thing in the world, especially when com- 
 pared with the funereal frock-coats one generally en- 
 counters at such functions, and here comes Fred wear- 
 ing one of them ! How do you do, Fred ? Please ring 
 the bell for lunch. We are all hungry this cold morn- 
 ing." 
 
 The cow-boy laughed. "I wish you wouldn't 'Mr. 
 P ..... n' me," he said, with another bright blush. 
 " I am plain ' Sam ' to everybody, and it makes me feel 
 foolish to be addressed otherwise. It is a very good 
 thing," he added, reflectively, "that I don't see very 
 much of you people, for you'd end by making me 
 dissatisfied with my lot." 
 
 "Don't say that," said Bertrand. "I think, on the 
 contrary, that life out on the plains must be ideal for a 
 healthy, manly chap like you. I'd not ask anything 
 better myself than to join you, and give up, once and 
 for all, all this inane society racket, to which we are 
 bound like convicts to their chains." 
 
 "It's a pretty hard life., in spite of it all," replied the 
 young fellow, with a smile. " I'm no milksop, but I can 
 tell you the pace which we have to keep up doesn't 
 make a picnic of it. It looks well from the outside, I 
 
 395
 
 A DOF.FED CORONET 
 
 dare say, and what one reads of it in books and news- 
 papers is no doubt very fine, but when you sift it right 
 down to the bed-rock it's quite another thing." 
 
 " I wouldn't mind trying it," said Bertrand, excitedly. 
 "I've seen some hard service myself at sea, and I didn't 
 dislike it." 
 
 "H-m," replied the cow-boy, "I don't know about 
 that. Don't think me rude or presuming, but the life 
 of an officer in the navy, with his private servant at 
 beck and call, his swell state-room, his three square 
 meals a day, and the good-will of his superiors, can, 
 even in bad weather, be no patch on what even a 
 ranch-owner in the West has to put up with." 
 
 "Never mind, I'd jolly well like to try it," muttered 
 Bertrand, with the dogged obstinacy which makes 
 Bretons, of all classes and types, such mules to deal 
 with. 
 
 I caught Fred's eye, realizing that, being given the 
 rebellious nature of the boy and his love of adventure, 
 this topic was about as dangerous as nitro-glycerine in 
 a powder-mill, and well aware that no finessing would 
 serve to turn the conversation, since Bertrand was 
 evidently eagerly interested in it, I suddenly stretched 
 out my hand to reach a dish of olives, and overturned 
 the claret-jug at my elbow so that its contents splashed 
 right into my brother's lap, covering his light-gray 
 morning-suit with a ruddy deluge. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," I exclaimed, in apparent dis- 
 tress. "That's too bad, you poor old boy I" 
 
 "Comes from wearing so much lace about your 
 sleeves," gravely remarked Fred, with a faint twinkle 
 in his eye, while Bertrand, laughing good-naturedly, 
 disappeared into the next room, calling loudly for 
 Jim. 
 
 As soon as the door had closed behind him, I turned 
 
 396
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 to my guest, who had been looking amusedly on, and, 
 putting my hand on his rough sleeve, I said, quickly : 
 
 " My dear Mr. P n, I want you to do me a 
 
 favor, and that is not to see my brother again after you 
 leave here to-day. He is what w r e call in French un 
 pen maboul, which means, in plain English, or rather 
 American, a little cracked, on the subject of adventures. 
 He is also an only son, and the last of his name, which 
 means a good deal in Europe. I would, therefore, 
 never forgive myself if, through our fault, he should 
 take it into his head to experiment out West as to the 
 extent of his endurance." 
 
 "I guessed as much," said "Gentleman Sam," 
 quietly, "and that's why I spoke as I did about our 
 life, which, truth to tell, is not a bed of roses." 
 
 "Yes," I retorted, "but you don't know the boy. 
 The blacker you paint the prospect, the wilder he will 
 be to have a try, while, if you remain non-committal, 
 he will immediately realize that I have spoken to you 
 on the subject, and that is why I beg you to refrain 
 from mentioning it to him. He will be back in a mo- 
 ment, so please give me your address ; so that, in case 
 of necessity, I may communicate with you." 
 
 The young fellow scribbled his name and that of 
 his ranch on the back of the menu-card before him 
 and handed it to me, saying, hurriedly, for Bertrand 
 could be heard returning, "Trust me, I'll do my best 
 to put him off the scent " ; and when my brother re- 
 entered the room he found us discussing the various 
 adventures which we had gone through during our 
 stormy trans- Atlantic passage with a placidity which 
 those occurrences hardly seemed to warrant. 
 
 Paul, who had been standing behind my chair when 
 I displayed such intelligent clumsiness as to the 
 claret-jug, had swiftly and silently repaired the danv 
 
 397
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 age, and therefore Bertrand could resume his lunch 
 as if nothing had happened. Seconded by Fred, I 
 kept up a feu roulant of jokes and anecdotes which 
 landed us smoothly in the coffee-and-cigarette stage, 
 without a single reference to cattle-ranches, Western 
 blizzards, or the fascinating adventures of the plains. 
 I could not but marvel at the extraordinary savoir- 
 faire of that strange fellow, "Gentleman Sam/' for his 
 modest, quiet, well-bred attitude, and especially his 
 clever handling of a situation which must have been 
 entirely new to him, could not have been surpassed 
 by the most thorough-paced of diplomats. 
 
 Such surprises, however, are common in America, 
 where sometimes a burly 'longshoreman, a bricklayer, 
 or a car-conductor will display an innate tact and a 
 natural breeding which one would seek for in vain 
 throughout Europe among the lower middle classes 
 or bourgeois element. I am not prepared to explain 
 this, of course, for it is unexplainable, but I am quite 
 ready to stand by what I say, and to declare that dur- 
 ing my long sojourn in America I have been shown 
 more real courtesy and politesse du coeur by what 
 is generally termed the "lower orders" than by any- 
 body save people of my own class, anywhere else in 
 the world. 
 
 Indeed, as far as I have been able to judge, the only 
 objectionable classes in America are the nouveaux 
 riches and the wealthy seekers of newspaper notoriety, 
 who, like their European kindred, are purse-proud, over- 
 bearing, and bumptious. Taking as models the con- 
 tinental so-called "smart set," they remind one irre- 
 sistibly of the frog who tried to blow himself up to 
 the size of an ox. Neither the process nor the model 
 is attractive, and the result is beyond all description 
 displeasing, for these paltry imitators have not even 
 
 398
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the superficial knowledge of the world and the glib 
 facility acquired by generations of "smart" people, 
 but allow their own vulgar natures to protrude through 
 the disguise at every seam, and tempt one to the 
 rather crude retort which one day, when thoroughly 
 exasperated, I made to a well-known millionaire, who 
 was tapping his chest and boasting of being "self- 
 made " : 
 
 " What you say might be good as an excuse, but it 
 does not entitle you to much admiration." 
 
 In America, where distinctions of rank and title are 
 lacking, it is even more true than in Europe that the 
 best people are the quiet and unassuming. Between 
 your nouveaux riches, trying to get "in the swim/' and 
 the noisy, newspaper-notoriety-hunting " upper-crust/' 
 who are attempting to keep them out, or dickering as 
 to the terms upon which they can be admitted, is a 
 class of people who pursue the even tenor of their way 
 without regard to the great dailies, some wealthy, some 
 not, some out of mere self-respect and natural percep- 
 tion of the fitness of things, others with an additional 
 confidence bred of the long possession of name and 
 status. 
 
 But to return to our muttons or rather to our cattle- 
 man. Half an hour after lunch "Gentleman Sam/' 
 picking up his wide - brimmed, silver - strapped som- 
 brero, rose to take his leave. 
 
 "I have to thank you," he said, "for the pleasantest 
 hours I have ever spent, and also for the kindness which 
 made you treat me as one of yourselves/' Then, 
 blushing violently, as was his wont, he, much to my 
 astonishment, raised my hand to his lips, adding, a 
 little shamefacedly, "It takes thoroughbreds to do 
 what you have done. I know thoroughbreds when I 
 meet them." 
 
 399
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Wait a minute, old fellow, I am going with you," 
 exclaimed Bertrand. "I'd like to have a little talk 
 before I say good-bye. " 
 
 "Don't do that, sir! Young John, the boss's nice 
 little son, has appointed to meet me at the next bar- 
 room, and he is a pretty poisonous lad, let me tell you. 
 I think he only means to watch me, for he has been 
 awfully cut up by the way you people treated me, 
 and if we were to walk out of here together it would be 
 as much as my job is worth. As it is," he concluded, 
 with a somewhat bitter smile, "I wish I could find 
 something else to do, for I don't fancy their way with 
 me particularly." 
 
 Fortunately, Bertrand was lighting a cigarette, or 
 else he could not have failed to notice the look of par- 
 faite entente which "Gentleman Sam" exchanged with 
 me. "If I can possibly manage it, and I think I'll be 
 able to, I will come to the depot to bid you good-bye 
 again to-night; and, of course, I am entirely at your 
 service for anything you want to know from now on 
 till doomsday." 
 
 "All right, give me your address; I'll write to you." 
 
 "My address? Ah, yes!" and with the utmost cool- 
 ness this singular cattleman dictated an entirely dif- 
 ferent one from that he had inscribed on the back of 
 the menu-card. Then he shook hands again all round, 
 and was gone. 
 
 "Good boy, that, very," said Fred, appreciatively. 
 "I like his looks and ways." 
 
 "I should rather think so! He is the incarnation of 
 clean-bred strength, morally and physically," I replied, 
 " and one can pass no higher eulogium upon any man." 
 
 That night we left Chicago behind us, and it was 
 with a sigh of relief that I saw the big city disappear 
 in a drifting cloud of snow. 
 
 400
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 For a few weeks more we were continually on the 
 wing, visiting various cities, and combining the affairs 
 which had compelled us to cross the water with a con- 
 siderable amount of pleasure, finally arriving once 
 more in New York a week before the date now three 
 times postponed set for our return to Europe. With 
 our tickets already purchased this time on a popular 
 Cunarder we made an interminable round of farewell 
 visits. Indeed, we felt sorry to leave all the good 
 friends we had made, for it would have been impossible 
 to have been received more kindly or made, in every 
 sense of the word, more welcome than we had been ; 
 and New York, in its early spring freshness, was doing 
 its best to give us a last impression, far more pleasing 
 than any previously received. 
 
 On the day before our proposed departure a cable- 
 gram was brought to me, which read as follows : 
 
 "Do not start. Await next mail. Important news. Further 
 instructions." 
 
 Fred was out, and so I sought out Bertrand, whom I 
 found dancing about his room, dumb-bells in hand, 
 as was his custom of a morning, and singing: 
 
 "II y a rien d'faraud 
 Comme un matelot 
 Qu'a lav sa peau 
 Dans cinq ou six eaux." 
 
 "Look here, old man/' I said, in some perturbation, 
 handing him the despatch, "what can this mean?" 
 
 "Oh, some fool trick or other/' he said, carelessly, 
 in his recently acquired American slang. 
 
 "Fool trick!" I repeated. "A nice way of putting it, 
 and very reassuring, too. I wonder what Fred will 
 
 say!" 
 26
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 At birth ye meet yer Fortune, 
 
 An' findin' her the same 
 Fer many years, ye think her 
 
 A motherly old dame ; 
 But once ye get at odds with her 
 
 Ye'll find, my lad, I fear, 
 The lady's still got teeth enough 
 
 To come and chew yer ear. 
 
 Ye're on good terms with Fortune, 
 
 Ye dally with her wheel, 
 An' laugh to think that ever it 
 
 Could scrunch ye till ye squeal, 
 Or that yer smilin' goddess 
 
 Could pet yer till ye're blind, 
 And then sneak round and lift yer 
 
 With a healthy kick behind. 
 
 M. M. 
 
 MY disappointment at having to delay our departure 
 again was deep. We had all had a much better and 
 pleasanter time than we had anticipated, as I have al- 
 ready remarked, and had received such hospitality and 
 kindness that it would have been difficult, indeed, to 
 find fault with either the country or its inhabitants; 
 but still my eyes were aching for a sight of home, and 
 I fretted a good deal at the new postponement to which 
 we were forced to submit. 
 
 "Dashed nasty trick to play us!" said Bertrand, 
 when he came to fetch me for a drive in the park 
 that afternoon. "What do they mean by it? I won- 
 der what misfortune is in the wind now!" 
 
 402
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "My dear boy, don't talk like that; you make me 
 feel queer! It's silly to paint the devil on the wall!" I 
 said, sharply. 
 
 " By Gad, I wish I were a week older ; I don't know 
 why, but I have a nast} 7 ^ feeling about the whole thing ! 
 I wonder if there is not another cable explaining mat- 
 ters a little more clearly," the lad continued, jumping up 
 and walking about excitedly ; then, opening a door, he 
 bawled, "Jim, Ji-i-i-m, Ji-i-i-m!" at the top of his voice. 
 
 In a moment Jim made his appearance, wearing a 
 rather severe and injured expression. 
 
 " Did you call, my lord?" 
 
 "No; I was only talking in my sleep! But since 
 you are here accidentally, go down and see if there 
 is not a cablegram in the office for her ladyship." 
 
 "Oh; Bertrand!" I exclaimed, as soon as poor Jim 
 had gone; "how can you be so foolish? You know 
 very well that we are to 'await letters.' Those are 
 the instructions." 
 
 " Gam ! I wish I knew what it's all about I would 
 give" 
 
 The sentence was never finished, for Jim at that 
 moment re-entered and reported, with an aggrieved 
 air, that there was nothing even faintly resembling a 
 cablegram for me in the office. 
 
 "Don't get discouraged, Jim!" his young master 
 exclaimed. "Don't lose heart! Go down every hour, 
 and, like Bruce's spider, try, try again!" 
 
 "How many times did Bruce's spider 'try, try 
 again'?" I inquired, gravely, while Jim, evidently 
 convinced of Bertrand's temporary insanity, took him- 
 self off with celerity and despatch. 
 
 "I don't remember, for certain; three or four thou- 
 sand times, I believe ; anyhow, it's always wiser to be 
 on the safe side, so I mean to keep Jim at it, day and 
 
 403
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 night, until those cursed letters arrive. Hooroop! 
 it's four o'clock, and the carriage has been waiting 
 an hour in the east wind ! Hurry up, my good girl, or 
 the horses will die of chilblains, and we'll have to pay 
 for them!" 
 
 " Really, Bertrand, your choice of expletives is quite 
 remarkable. May I inquire what ' garn ' and ' hooroop ' 
 mean?" 
 
 " Can't tell you ; it's a family secret ; but if you have 
 heard my suggestion about hurrying, can you tell me 
 how the idea strikes you?" 
 
 "On the whole," I replied, after a minute's reflection, 
 "your idea strikes me as rather sound." 
 
 " Shall you then do me the favor of acting according- 
 
 ly?" 
 
 "It seems the only thing to do," I answered, with 
 business-like promptitude, " although it's rather a nui- 
 sance!" And dropping him a low courtesy I went in 
 search of my furs, followed by a roar of laughter from 
 that light-hearted pessimist. 
 
 Somehow or other, nevertheless, his words rankled 
 in my mind, and I became anxious and unsettled, al- 
 though I took myself severely to task for it, and did 
 not allow either him or Fred to perceive my unusual 
 mood. The days dragged on in a very trying fashion ; 
 a haunting presage of disaster sat heavy on me, and 
 whenever I was alone I brooded sombrely upon the 
 future for the very first time in my life. These vague 
 forebodings grew quite intolerable, and in order to con- 
 ceal them I adopted so gay and merry an attitude that 
 both Fred and Bertrand caught the infection of my 
 exuberant mirth and laughed from morning till night. 
 At last, one day that when the European mail was 
 expected I returned from a walk in the park, and met 
 Jim at the door of the lift, carrying in his hand a batch 
 
 404
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 of letters and newspapers. My heart stood suddenly 
 still, and taking them from him I paused a moment 
 half fearing to enter the sitting-room, where the boys 
 were awaiting me with afternoon tea. Then, stepping 
 forward, I thrust the door open with my foot, exclaim- 
 ing, cheerfully : 
 
 "Here, at last, is the answer to the riddle!" 
 
 They both started to their feet. Selecting one of the 
 envelopes, I threw the rest on the table with a smile, 
 and inserted a finger under the flap. While the closely 
 written sheets were before my eyes there was a peculiar 
 and oppressive silence in the room, broken only by the 
 " pff t-pff t " of the crackling logs on the hearth and the 
 low, monotonous hum of the tea-uni. 
 
 Slowly and carefully I read, undergoing a shock 
 disabling for a fleeting moment, but bracing beyond 
 words immediately afterwards, for here, at last, was 
 something tangible, and all the brooding and the dull, 
 vague, aching apprehension of the previous days passed 
 from me as suddenly and completely as if dispersed 
 at a blow. Thank God, I knew myself now to be 
 strung up again to my ordinary pitch, and by a flash 
 of intuition, unerring and instantaneous, saw precise- 
 ly what tone I should adopt, and how I should an- 
 nounce my news. 
 
 I folded up the letter. 
 
 "Fred," I said, with a good -humor too grim for 
 smiles, "it's your turn to 'stand by/ old boy. Listen 
 carefully, please. My banker has committed suicide, 
 after making away with every shilling of all the funds 
 in his possession, including mine. I am for the present 
 just as penniless as yourself, save for some practically 
 unproductive lands which, as you know, I cannot alien- 
 ate, but the situation is not surely without humor, if you 
 will only take the trouble to look at it in the proper light. " 
 
 405
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Fred stared ; his face was the color of ashes. I knew 
 that a bad moment had come, and set my teeth. 
 
 For several minutes there was a silence that was 
 almost palpable; then Bertrand gave a low whistle. 
 
 "Look here, my dear boys," I said, methodically 
 replacing the fateful missive in its envelope, "I don't 
 see that there is any use in worrying just now. Such 
 strong meat demands time for digestion, and, more- 
 over, recriminations or complaints will not mend mat- 
 ters. Consider how fortunate it is that this blow should 
 have fallen upon us while we are on this side of the 
 water. Had it happened in Europe, or Egypt, every- 
 lx>dy would have been bound to hear about it, and we 
 would have been subjected to the pity of our friends, 
 and exasperated by the malicious and covert rejoic- 
 ing of our enemies. But here we need not speak of 
 this contretemps, and if the worst comes to the worst, 
 and we find this letter is correct in every detail, it is 
 the easiest thing in the world to drop out of sight 
 and work for our living without anybody being the 
 wiser." 
 
 "You are extremely philosophic. Imagine talking 
 of the loss of practically all that you possess as a contre- 
 temps!" said Fred, with a groan. 
 
 "I am sorry if you don't agree with me. It is the 
 first time such a thing has happened," I replied, as if 
 the matter in hand were but of slight importance. 
 
 "Then we must agree to disagree in this instance." 
 
 "Oh, come," interposed Bertrand, "you are not 
 going to quarrel, are you? And as to you, Margot, I 
 am as proud of you as proud can be. You are a brick, 
 with the heart ef a lion and the face of a flower." 
 
 I could not help bursting out laughing. The com- 
 pliment was so original and so characteristic. Even 
 Fred melted a little, and I gained my point, which was 
 
 406
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 to make him promise not to refer to the subject any . 
 more that night. 
 
 For the moment there was nothing better to do than 
 adhere to our immediate engagements, so we went 
 to a dinner given in our honor by Mr. and Mrs. W. 
 W f A . . . r, where we met some very charm- 
 ing people, and had a far less miserable evening than 
 might have been expected under the circumstances. 
 
 The next day we sent several cables to Europe in 
 order to find out whether our case was as bad as the let- 
 ter which had so completely overthrown all our plans 
 indicated. Alas ! The answers confirmed the worst, and 
 there remained nothing for us to do but face the music. 
 
 We determined to tell all our friends and acquaint- 
 ances that we were leaving America via Boston, 
 so as to avoid any proposal of escorting us to the 
 steamer. This left us a week to pack up and find 
 quarters where we could lie low, for no other solution 
 to the problem had presented itself than to remain for 
 the present in jhe United States. It goes without say- 
 ing that nothing could have induced us to carry our 
 woes to anybody on either side of the Atlantic, and with 
 touching ignorance we fondly supposed that to earn 
 one's living was the easiest thing imaginable. 
 
 In the afternoon I went alone for a walk in Central 
 Park, leaving the boys free to go to one or all of the 
 many clubs of which they had been made honorary 
 members during our stay. The sky was overcast, 
 the young green of the lawns was dimmed with dust, 
 and from time to time a puff of wind stirred the new- 
 leaved branches of the trees. It was not a day to 
 cheer one much, but still the exercise was bracing, after 
 a fashion, and did me good. For an hour and a half I 
 paced up and down a deserted path, meeting nothing 
 but an occasional whirl of last year's leaves waltzing 
 
 407
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 past. Truly, my thoughts were not less scattered 
 and confused than. they! 
 
 One of the salient facts of my misfortune that occur- 
 red and recurred to me with mocking persistence was 
 
 that Sir B sD n and Mahmoud Bey were 
 
 now beyond my reach. Hitherto it had been a satis- 
 faction to think that the measure they had meted 
 not to me, but to mine I could measure to them again, 
 grain for grain, and now that it was no longer in my 
 power to do so, I felt distinctly robbed of something. 
 Disapprove, all good Christians, an ye will! 
 
 I cannot say that I was either sad or unhappy, but I 
 felt a sort of mental fatigue, as if my brain had been 
 violently bruised. I dreaded horribly having to tell 
 my servants that it had become imperative for me to 
 part with them, as all three had now been with me for 
 nearly ten years, and I knew judging by myself 
 what a wrench this would prove to be for them. 
 
 "Why is the world such a topsy-turvy place?" I 
 asked of a passing crow, and for an answer received a 
 dismal croak, as the bird flew heedlessly on, balancing 
 on its sombre pinions. 
 
 I wished I could have soared, too, beyond that dull, 
 gray sky, instead of crawling on earth like a snail. 
 
 " Viva la Chiocciola 
 Viva la Bestial 
 Che unisce il merito 
 Alia modestia!"* 
 
 I caught myself humming with contrition, for I could 
 not help thinking that should I fail to weather the 
 storm as it should be weathered, even that hum- 
 ble little snail would be far superior to me. Before 
 
 * Long live the snail, long live the beast, which combines merit 
 with modesty. 
 
 408
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 reaching the hotel I had determined not to talk to the 
 servants until the very last, and thus relieved myself 
 for the time being of at least one painful thought. 
 
 On the next day I sallied forth bright and early 
 to seek, with Bertrand's help, a shelter of some kind 
 or other, for I could not bring myself yet to look upon 
 a cheap dwelling as a home. 
 
 I am sorry that space and time fail me to give at 
 least a short description of our weary peregrinations 
 through New York, for they were certainly carried 
 on in the spirit of unconventionally and guilelessness 
 which just then was inspiring our smallest actions! 
 But I cannot resist the temptation of devoting a few 
 vshort lines to our first ridiculous experience in habita- 
 tion hunting. 
 
 Taking a hansom, we started on our quest with 
 hopeful hearts. It was blowing a regular gale, and 
 the wind whistled through the streets and across the 
 avenues with a very unseasonable, shrieking sound, 
 whirling the dust high up in the air and driving the 
 foot-passengers along the sidewalks to the flapping 
 accompaniment of distraught millinery and collapsing 
 umbrellas. Distant thunder growled at intervals, and 
 great, bulging clouds of dark, purplish gray advanced 
 rapidly from the east, cleft now and again by vivid 
 flashes of lightning. 
 
 On Madison Avenue, the storm having abated, we 
 stopped our hansom and resolved to walk, looking, as 
 we went, for possible placards in the windows announ- 
 cing that there were apartments to let. But we saw 
 nothing of the kind, and it suddenly occurred to us 
 that, en attendant mieux, we could not do better than 
 to retain rooms at some good boarding-house or other, 
 if such a thing existed! I had an instinctive dread of 
 such establishments, but I thought that, after all, beg- 
 
 409
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 gars could not be choosers, and accosting a postman 
 who, laden with mail, was descending the steps of a big, 
 brown-stone house, I asked him to tell me where the best 
 place of that kind could be found. He looked at me with 
 undisguised surprise, and, it seemed to me, with a vague 
 suggestion of contempt; but as there was certainly 
 nothing offensive in my request, I was about to repeat 
 it, when he said, with a shrug of his broad shoulders : 
 
 "Here, on the next corner, you will find the very 
 best one in New York City, and good luck to you, my 
 fine madame!" 
 
 Fortunately, Bertrand, who had lagged a few steps 
 behind to look down a side street in the hope of dis- 
 covering some indication of "desirable rooms," did not 
 hear this absurd and insolent remark, which he would 
 have resented, very much to the detriment of the per- 
 petrator thereof; so, contenting myself with communi- 
 cating, minus its frills, the information which I had 
 obtained, we directed our steps to the fine corner house 
 indicated. We walked briskly up the steps and rang 
 the bell. The door was almost immediately opened by 
 a tall footman wearing a gorgeous livery. 
 
 "Do you happen to know whether I can get rooms 
 here?" I said, doubtingly, for the large hall, decorated 
 with immense palms and gaudily furnished in red 
 damask and much gilding, hardly looked what I had 
 fancied the entrance of a boarding-house to be. 
 
 "Yes, miss, I think you can; but you had best see 
 the madame." 
 
 "All right/' I replied. "Will you ask her to receive 
 me?" 
 
 "Certainly, miss," he said, bowing and ushering us 
 into a huge drawing-room hung with turquoise-blue 
 plush and so overloaded with dazzling ornaments, 
 pictures, statuary, and bric-a-brac of questionable 
 
 410
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 taste that I almost called him back, having taken 
 an instant dislike to it. The windows were draped 
 with triple curtains of tulle, lace, and finally of heavy 
 brocade ; the vast carpet covering the floor was vulgar 
 in design, but evidently exceedingly costly, and on 
 the walls there were an alarming number of pictures, 
 which, to say the very least, belonged to a school not 
 distinguished for pruderie. 
 
 "What a singular room!" I remarked, taking a few 
 steps to examine a group in bronze representing a 
 satyr surrounded by gambolling nymphs. 
 
 " H-m-m-m-m yes rather ; I do not think much of 
 it," replied Bertrand ; " perhaps we had better go away." 
 
 "It's too late now," I whispered, hurriedly, for the 
 rustle of a trailing skirt warned me that the " madame," 
 whoever she might be, was approaching. In came a 
 tall, stately woman, with a beautiful figure, a cameo- 
 like face, large, mild, blue eyes, and silvery hair rolled 
 artistically back from her smooth forehead. Her attire 
 was entirely black, but of astonishing magnificence, 
 and in her ears sparkled two immense solitaires of the 
 finest water. She inclined her head in right queenly 
 fashion, and waving us towards a sofa, sank grace- 
 fully upon a sort of throne upholstered in blue-and- 
 gold brocade. 
 
 "I understand that you would like to look at my 
 rooms," she drawled, twirling her numerous rings 
 upon her white fingers, as she spoke, with studied 
 negligence. 
 
 "That is what I came here for," I retorted, a little 
 impatiently, for these airs and graces were, in my opin- 
 ion, quite unseemly in a person of her humble calling. 
 
 "If you like we will walk up-stairs at once," she 
 said, rising with an impressive swish of her long, jet- 
 broidered train. 
 
 411
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Up a broad, low-stepped staircase we marched, to 
 the accompaniment of the distant strains of a piano, 
 played by a distinctly untutored hand, and were sol' 
 emnly preceded by "madame" into a bedroom of the 
 most luxurious, not to say extravagant, description. 
 There were mirrors everywhere between the windows, 
 over the fireplace, on the ceiling, and, dear me ! even at 
 the back of the bed, which looked as if it were made of 
 solid gold. Both draperies and carpet were ineffably 
 pink, and through an open door a bath-room of white 
 marble, with yet more mirrors, invited the onlooker to 
 take an immediate plunge. 
 
 "This is one of my nicest suites," said the lady of 
 this wonderful establishment, with a complacent, cir- 
 cular look, " and as summer is coming on I can let you 
 have it cheaply, as such rooms go. Of course, you know 
 that champagne is five dollars a bottle?" 
 
 "Champagne!" I gasped, completely taken back by 
 this incomprehensible statement. 
 
 At that moment I felt that Bertrand was trying to at- 
 tract my attention by pulling the ends of my sash, but 
 thinking that he merely wished to caution me against 
 possible extortion, I heeded him not, and said, quietly : 
 
 " I never drink champagne, so the price does not mat- 
 ter to me, but I would like to know how many rooms 
 you have, for three is the least number I shall require." 
 
 "Why three?" demanded the queenly one. 
 
 "One for myself, one for my husband, and one for 
 my brother, here," I replied, carelessly, indicating 
 Bertrand, who, much to my surprise, was as red as a 
 poppy and fidgeted from one foot to the other in the 
 most unaccountable way. 
 
 "Your husband! your brother!" The until then 
 carefully modulated voice almost rose to a shriek. 
 "Where do you think you are?" 
 
 412
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " In a boarding-house, of course a very superb one," 
 I added, with conciliatory emphasis. 
 
 Here Bertrand, with a hasty and nearly inarticulate 
 apology, fairly dragged me from the beautiful room, 
 leaving the owner thereof apparently sunk in stupor, 
 for she gazed after us without lifting a ringer to detain 
 us. her hands sunk to her side, and her haughty head 
 inclined towards her portly bosom. As I descended, 
 following Bertrand passively in my surprise at this 
 sudden turn of events, several pretty heads, surmounted 
 by remarkably coquettish coiffures, appeared at half- 
 open doors and scrutinized us curiously. At last we 
 reached the sidewalk. 
 
 "Oh, Lord!" exclaimed poor Bertrand, mopping the 
 sweat from his brow. "I pray God that nobody has 
 seen us go in or out!" 
 
 The last days at the Windsor were busy ones, leaving 
 really no scope for moping or repining, for we had dis- 
 covered that rara avis, an apartment almost comfort- 
 ably furnished for one hundred and twenty-five dollars 
 a month (which to our innocence seemed the acme of 
 economy), and were having it set in order. As luck 
 would have it, the weather was so unseasonably hot that 
 all the fashionable people were hurrying to the coun- 
 try or the sea-side for relief, so that the danger of en- 
 countering friends or acquaintances was steadily de- 
 creasing. I was sincerely amused by the polite regrets 
 expressed on all sides because we would not delay our 
 departure in order to accept invitations to Newport. 
 A fine figure we would have cut there now, forsooth! 
 Such a picture completely dislocated my ideas. 
 
 At last our trunks were packed and ready to be sent
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 to the Grand Central Station "en route for Boston" 
 really, to be left there till called for. Our adieus were 
 said, our last largesses distributed ! " Vogue la ga- 
 lere I" We were going full steam ahead towards the 
 uncertain future which lay so hazily before us, and we 
 said, like the Breton fisher-folk : 
 
 " Que Dieu nous garde, car la mer est grande et notre 
 barque est petite." 
 
 I suppose the blow was a hard one, but as yet, at any 
 rate, we did not seem to realize it, nor how singularly 
 unsuited we were for an existence of privations and 
 poverty. On the last night at the hotel I glanced 
 around the room and laughed! Hot-house lilies and 
 delicate orchids blossomed on every table, and in front 
 of a mirror the many pieces of my toilet-set made a 
 litter of gold, with gemmed monograms and coronets 
 catching the rays of the silk-shaded lamps; while in 
 the mirror itself I saw my white-clad reflection, dia- 
 monds and pearls coiled about my neck, nestling in 
 my hair, and glittering on my fingers and arms, with 
 here and there, as a relief to their white sparkle, the 
 tinted gleam of a ruby or sapphire. 
 
 I had done very well since my arrival in America, 
 with only three servants in my train, and I felt certain 
 that to do altogether without them would be no great 
 hardship. To be sure, I had never drawn on my own 
 stockings, nor put up my own hair, but it would not be 
 so difficult to try, and also to succeed. And what pretty 
 little dresses one could order in the name of economy 
 dainty French muslins in pinks and whites and pale 
 lilacs cheap they must be, although my past experi- 
 ence of brown holland and white duck when handled by 
 my couturier, or by Morgan in the case of yachting- 
 suits, had caused me sometimes to reflect, en passant, 
 upon the astonishing costliness of linen and cotton 
 
 414
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 materials! Again I laughed gleefully. What fun the 
 whole thing was just then, thanks to its novelty, and 
 also to my pathetic and total inexperience of such mat- 
 ters! I did not feel at all heroic, but amiably philo- 
 sophical, and the sordid vulgarity of res angusta domi 
 was to me so completely a closed book that I contem- 
 plated my descent from a throne of elegance, position, 
 and excessive luxury as a graceful sort of performance 
 not at all devoid of humorous and interesting features. 
 The thought of continuing my dolce-far-niente life at 
 the expense of my relatives was far more ghastly to 
 me than a near prospect of pulse and water as a steady 
 diet for the rest of my existence, and I never for an in- 
 stant entertained, thank God ! the idea of passing under 
 the family yoke or of acknowledging myself beaten; 
 moreover, I knew enough of the world to realize the 
 strength and truth of the lines which say : 
 
 " Si vous 6tes dans la ddtresse, 
 
 Oh, mes amis, cachez le bien ! 
 Car I'homme est bon, et s'interesse 
 A ceux qui n'ont besoin de rienl" 
 
 Well, to-morrow I would have left all behind that had 
 made life for me hitherto, and more than ever I tried 
 to bear in mind that fundamental maxim of my phi- 
 losophy which somebody has since so well expressed 
 in the quaint verse: 
 
 " The inner side of every cloud 
 
 Is bright and shining ; 
 Therefore I turn my clouds about, 
 And always wear them inside out, 
 To show the lining." 
 
 The homeward-bound steamer, which was supposed 
 by all our American acquaintances to take us back, 
 
 415
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 in a few hours more would have set sail for old Eng- 
 land, carrying among its second-class passengers the 
 devoted servants whom I had had so much trouble to 
 get rid of. Alasl that dreaded scene had been worse 
 than my darkest anticipations, the faithful creatures 
 imploring me with tears to keep them on without pay 
 which, of course, was not to be thought of ; and demur- 
 ring, until I took a high hand, even to accept their pas- 
 sage home, and the three months' extra wages which 
 would keep them in comfort until they found other sit- 
 uations. Jim was even more hard to manage. He 
 flatly refused either to leave America as long as his 
 beloved young master was there, or to be a charge 
 upon our slender finances, but secured a job in the 
 Pullman car service, and declared that he was awaiting 
 the time when Monsieur le Marquis should be able to 
 employ him again. Indeed, the royal-hearted fellow 
 was anxious to draw his little savings from a London 
 bank in order to place them at our disposal, and was 
 with difficulty dissuaded from so doing. 
 
 To tell the truth, our flat, un petit appartement meu- 
 ble how amusing that sounded! was much above 
 our new station in life. However, as we had re- 
 marked while discussing its advantages, it was cosey 
 and clean, having just been freshly decorated, and, 
 after all, one must have pleasant quarters, even if it is 
 necessary to pinch and scrape in other matters. 
 
 That flat really our first venture in what may be 
 called house-keeping was on the second floor of a big, 
 red-brick building. The windows of the " parlor " a 
 species of chamber of which I had never heard before 
 opened on Forty-third Street ; but those of the boxlike 
 bedrooms gave on a narrow area, which, I am forced 
 to confess, was a dreary enough prospect, while the 
 kitchen and dining-room overlooked a small, paved 
 
 416
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 yard, bounded on all sides by the grim backs of other 
 tall apartment-houses, pierced by innumerable green- 
 shuttered casements. 
 
 In all there were six rooms, including two rather 
 large cupboards for the storage of servants, a diminu- 
 tive kitchen, and a small bath-room, the pink-kalso- 
 mined walls of which gave one the distinct impression 
 of having descended suddenly into the interior of a 
 salmon. The whole place positively reeked of respect- 
 ability, which was, of course, "a great advantage," 
 as the janitor remarked when he first showed us around, 
 and as proof of which he declared that there were no less 
 than two druggists, one dentist, a picture-dealer, and 
 a grocer owning a corner store living in the building! 
 He pronounced this encomium with crushing hauteur, 
 and though my risible nerves were exquisitely tickled 
 by a thought of the possibility of a belligerent contest 
 between the two druggists, I managed to look suit- 
 ably overwhelmed by the social eminence of my sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 Early in the morning we arrived with bag and bag- 
 gage at our new " home," the three of us brimming full 
 of mischief and hilarity and ready to take everything 
 par le bon cote. Our joy reached its climax when our 
 friend the janitor, casting a severe eye upon the pile of 
 trunks which our Jehu had deposited on the sidewalk 
 and in the narrow entrance hall, placed a grimy finger 
 on the platinum monogram and coronet which we 
 had stupidly suffered to remain on every one of them, 
 and asked : " What's them things spoilin' the looks of 
 that nice tan leather for?" 
 
 His criticisms were disarmed, however, by my shy 
 tender of a ten-dollar gold piece for now that we were 
 to be economical, I felt forced, much against my will, 
 to be sparing in the matter of tips and the offending
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 trunks were speedily placed where we, laughing heart- 
 ily at the incident, at once proceeded to unpack them. 
 
 Surveying the "parlor," I decided that I did not like 
 that name, and immediately rechristened it The Para- 
 dise, for its walls and ceilings were azure-hued and 
 there were blue curtains and blue coverings to the fur- 
 niture. Along three of the walls were book-shelves 
 which delighted me, for, when once filled, the idea which 
 possessed me that it must resemble the waiting-room 
 of the dentist below would be dispelled. Some jars of 
 common but prettily tinted pottery suggested flowers 
 and plants. These I must have, for to live without 
 them seemed quite impossible, so I despatched Bertrand 
 post-haste to the nearest florist, whence he soon re- 
 turned accompanied by three messenger-boys, laden 
 with lovely blossoming shrubs and a huge basket of 
 freshly cut roses. I joyfully clapped my hands. 
 
 "Now, my dears/' I exclaimed, "just give me ten 
 minutes, and I will have transformed this little hutch 
 into a bower of loveliness." 
 
 Gravely Bertrand was replacing some dollar bills in 
 his pocket-book. 
 
 "I hope," he said, apologetically, "you don't think 
 I've spent too much money on those gay vegetables. 
 They seem to run pretty high here." 
 
 "How much?" said I, with one foot firmly planted 
 on the table, from which coign of vantage I was fill- 
 ing a jardiniere on the mantel-piece with smilax and 
 jacqueminots. 
 
 "Fifty-two dollars and sixty-five cents," he replied, 
 dubiously. 
 
 "That's not much; they're very pretty. Of course, 
 in Paris I believe they would not cost that, but when in 
 Rome one must do as the Romans do and not com- 
 plain," said I. 
 
 418
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Fred, who was struggling with the recalcitrant lock 
 of a huge, violet-wood box containing some of my 
 evening and Court dresses, having finally succeeded in 
 opening it, called upon me to tell him where I wanted 
 to bestow all this finery. 
 
 "Why, in a closet, you silly boy!" 
 
 "What am I to do with the trains?" he ob- 
 jected. 
 
 "The trains! What do you mean?" I rejoined, pet- 
 ulantly. 
 
 " I mean that there isn't a shelf anywhere here wide 
 enough to hold one of them, even if you roll them up 
 very tightly." 
 
 "Roll up very tightly hand-painted satins and em- 
 broidered velvets? Fred, I am ashamed of you ! Leave 
 them in the trunks, the senseless, useless things, and 
 I'll ask our obliging janitor to put them somewhere in 
 the garret for me." 
 
 Fred looked perplexed. " Yes, perhaps he will ; but 
 don't bother the man too much until you have given 
 him something more." 
 
 " I'll ask him to show me where, and take them up 
 myself later on," said Bertrand, squaring his broad 
 shoulders with conscious pride; "but just now I'm 
 beastly hungry. I say, Muzzi, can't we go out and 
 have some lunch? This is awfully exhausting work, 
 and my stomach is in my heels." 
 
 " You poor boy, of course you must be hungry, and 
 so must Fred. How selfish of me not to think of it! 
 To-morrow I'll try my hand at cooking something for 
 you two gourmets. I am sure I can do it, for I've often 
 watched my chefs at work. They handled food so pret- 
 tily. To-day we must go out to lunch. But now look 
 here, Fred; no extravagance, if you please, and no 
 fashionable restaurants! A steak, or chop, or some- 
 
 419
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 thing of that kind, that's all we need. The reign of 
 economy has begun!" 
 
 " Hurrah for the reign of economy, and of good, juicy 
 steak!" sang out Bertrand, rubbing the dust from his 
 patent leathers with a silk handkerchief. "But let's 
 hurry about it. I am literally starving." 
 
 " I won't be a minute. I'll just exchange this walk- 
 ing-gown, which is all crumpled, for another one, and 
 be with you directly," said I. 
 
 Suiting the action to the words, I retired into my 
 tiny bedroom, and with remarkable clumsiness and 
 hurry divested myself of my pastel-blue silk-cloth frock. 
 In spite of my haste I soon heard Fred and Bertrand 
 dancing a war-dance before the door, and entreating 
 me, with blood-curdling whoops, to put an end to their 
 tortures. 
 
 "Oh, don't bother me," I cried back. "There are 
 sixty-three little silver olives closing this hussar jacket 
 of mine, and you don't know how difficult it is to fasten 
 them one's self." 
 
 "Don't talk of olives; you make my mouth water!" 
 shouted Bertrand, through the key-hole. 
 
 My hair was rumpled, thanks to n:y unskilful way 
 of pulling skirts over my head, and would not be coaxed 
 into anything like order. I stamped my foot viciously, 
 with a passing thought of Johanna's deft fingers, but 
 at last I got my unruly tresses tucked away under one 
 of Virot's prettiest mousquetaire hats, matching in 
 color the myrtle-green costume I had quickly snatched 
 from a hamper on the floor, and, drawing on my suede 
 gloves, rejoined my companions. 
 
 "Oh, come, you can't go out with varnished shoes! 
 They don't suit that dress. Bronze ones are what you 
 need. Those spoil the scheme of color," exclaimed 
 Bertrand, surveying me with his usual fastidiousness. 
 
 420
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " Bother the shoes ! " protested Fred. " Let's go. It's 
 already two o'clock." 
 
 And so we sallied forth, walking swiftly towards 
 Eighth Avenue and economy. We bravely entered a 
 "chop-house/' and seated ourselves at a little polished 
 table adorned with a cruet-stand, flanked by a dish of 
 pickles and another of water-cress. The long, nar- 
 row room was crowded, and, much to my annoyance, 
 everybody present turned and stared at us with un- 
 disguised astonishment, and I heard a whispered 
 "Actor -folks on a spree," which covered me with 
 confusion. I looked imploringly at Bertrand, who had 
 turned as red as a turkey-cock, while Fred muttered, 
 wrathf ully : 
 
 "It's those idiotic diamonds in your ears, as big as 
 hazel-nuts." 
 
 My temper was getting the worst of me, for I was 
 tired, and hungry as well. 
 
 " What about your gray frock - coats, and pearl 
 scarf - pins, and boutonnieres of orchids?" I replied, 
 frowning defiantly. " Why, there's a woman over 
 there devouring you with her eyes. It's positively 
 disgusting." 
 
 This was a clincher. They dared not try to cast 
 any more blame upon me, and with tremendous gusto 
 we fell upon the steak and potatoes, brought by a 
 friendly waiter wearing a dazzlingly white apron. 
 
 "Adversity improves your appetite," whispered 
 Fred to me across the table. "Yesterday I couldn't 
 tempt you with quail or ortolan. Shall I order another 
 steak?" 
 
 "No, no; one is quite enough," I pleaded, refraining 
 from pushing my plate forward for more. "You and 
 Bertrand finish this; I've had enough," I continued, 
 mendaciously. 
 
 421
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "So have we," said they together, loading their 
 plates with water-cress and the remainder of the pota- 
 toes, which the friendly waiter informed us were "in 
 their jackets!" 
 
 "How decent of them!" said I. "It reminds me of 
 the old maid at that other flat which we inspected last 
 week who had put pantalettes on the legs of her 
 piano." 
 
 "The one with the parrot, who declared that you 
 must engage yourself to keep no dogs, cats, or babies 
 while on her premises?" asked Fred. 
 
 "The very same," I replied. "She had nice little 
 cork-screw curls bobbing up and down, and every time 
 she said 'dear me/ in her queer falsetto voice, the par- 
 rot behind her cleared his throat aggressively, and also 
 said 'dear me/ only three tones lower. Bertrand and 
 I almost exploded with laughter under both their 
 Roman noses." 
 
 The meal, such as it was, being now at an end, Fred 
 called the waiter. 
 
 " Steak, sixty cents ; potatoes, ten cents ; two beers, 
 twenty cents; pot of tea, twenty-five cents one dol- 
 lar fifteen, please," replied that worthy. 
 
 "How much for the water-cress and bread?" asked 
 Fred. 
 
 "Nothing, sir; that's thrown in." 
 
 "Thrown in, is it? how nice!" and much elated at 
 such unparalleled munificence, Fred handed the as- 
 tonished man three crisp dollar bills, requesting him to 
 keep the change. 
 
 We then slunk away, bowed out by the proprietor 
 himself, who, to my surprise, was in his shirt- sleeves, 
 but whose politeness was unimpeachable. 
 
 The afternoon wore on, and so small was our apart- 
 ment that by six o'clock everything was ready and 
 
 422
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 garnished, except the beds, that I was direfully puz- 
 zled how to make up. Bertrand intended to accompany 
 Fred down town to keep a business appointment, so I 
 gave him an order for some little rolls, some pate de foie 
 gras, caviare, fruit, and other tid-bits with which to 
 prepare a supper when they returned, and was then left, 
 for the first time in my life, entirely alone at home. 
 
 As soon as they had departed I made the grand tour 
 of my tiny domain, and finally stopped before the front 
 window, whence I looked out a little wearily. The 
 lights in the street below came forth one by one, and 
 the minutes passed into half-hours, while I listened 
 vaguely to the sounds of the great city and the human 
 bee-hive of which I now inhabited a corner. On the 
 sidewalk I could plainly hear the janitor and some of 
 his cronies laughing and talking, and when a group of 
 boys sauntered by, one of them playing a sour-toned 
 accordion, I could not repress a slight shudder. Of 
 course my thoughts wandered to what I had left be- 
 hind. Brittany and its wave -beaten shores, so dear 
 to me, the luminous magnificence of Egypt, the brill- 
 iancy and charm of Vienna and St. Petersburg, the 
 gayeties of Paris, the beauty of English parks, or the 
 hurry and scurry of London seasons. Then, in fancy, 
 I returned to fair Corfu, to my beloved Empress and 
 the happy days spent with her, to my dear horses, my 
 dogs, my hundred and one pleasures and amusements! 
 That reverie was a long one, and absorbed me so com- 
 pletely that I gave a start of astonishment when at 
 last, turning round, I was confronted by the narrow 
 walls of the mean little room in which I stood. 
 
 Crossing over to my bed-chamber, I undressed and 
 donned a tea-gown. It was a pretty thing showers of 
 Mechlin lace over pale-pink velvet and a short, mirth- 
 less laugh escaped me as I slipped into it, but I pinned up 
 
 423
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the long train and marched resolutely into the kitchen, 
 where everything was in wild confusion. For an hour 
 or so I busied myself with plates, dishes, and sauce- 
 pans, preserving my ridiculous flounces and frou- 
 frous from stains and dust by the help of a huge bath- 
 towel tied around my waist with a business-like bit of 
 string. A little before eleven o'clock I had evoked 
 something like order from the general chaos, and ex- 
 temporized from the provisions sent by Bertrand a 
 snug little rupper to cheer their hearts and stomachs 
 on their return. Really, the little dining-room, with 
 its snowy drapery, its sage-green rug and curtains, 
 and plain oak furniture, looked very pleasing by gas- 
 light. With a sigh of relief I re-entered The Paradise, 
 and divesting myself of my improvised apron, turned 
 up the light of a green-shaded reading-lamp, and took 
 down, hap-hazard, a volume from one of the shelves. 
 Carrying it to the lounge by the open window, I stretch- 
 ed myself out at full length on the cushions, with a sigh 
 of utter weariness. 
 
 It was oppressively hot, although the spring was still 
 young, and both the night and the city looked to me 
 more stagnant, sordid, and overwhelmed in gloom than 
 ever before. A strange restlessness had suddenly taken 
 possession of me, and it seemed as if I were being 
 pricked with numberless sharp-pointed electric needles. 
 I sat up impatiently. The people in the street moved 
 like sleepy cripples in this weary trance of heat. It 
 was, indeed, a night without night's tenderness or 
 starry charm, and I was not, by far, as happy as I 
 had been earlier in the day, when the presence of 
 Fred and Bertrand, and also the prospect of possessing 
 this quaint and novel little habitation of ours, had cast 
 a rosy, hopeful glow over everything. My sanguine 
 mood had passed slowly away, and as, with bowed 
 
 424
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 head, I gazed into the pulsating darkness without, it 
 seemed to me as if my very heart and soul grovelled 
 in the dust, breathing in its choking and acrid breath. 
 The heat garnered during the day in the narrow streets 
 had increased, so as to be almost intolerable. The sky 
 overhead was of a lack-lustre blackness, and now and 
 again a lazy puff of wind blew about the dirty rubbish 
 that had accumulated among the greasy paving-stones, 
 causing bits of papers and straw to dance dizzily along 
 the sidewalks. 
 
 Suddenly I remembered that I had forgotten to pre- 
 pare the salad which Bertrand had sent with the other 
 supplies, and, springing up remorsefully, I went back to 
 the kitchen, where I stood hesitating for a moment. On 
 the square deal table stood a bowl of fresh lettuce- 
 leaves and some coral-hued tomatoes in a glass dish. 
 I pulled open the door of the dresser and fumbled vague- 
 ly among its contents. 
 
 " This will never do/' I thought, realizing the languor 
 of depression that was steadily growing upon me, and 
 trying to pull myself together. With studied care I 
 selected a knife, fork, and spoon, and collecting mus- 
 tard, salt, oil, vinegar, and pepper on a tray, carried 
 them to the table. Then occurred an accident that 
 threw me into quite disproportionate consternation. I 
 dropped the bowl in which I was preparing the dressing, 
 and it broke into three neat pieces on the bare, wood 
 floor, but I took myself morally by the collar, so to 
 speak, and, kneeling down, quickiy repaired the mis- 
 chief, after which I once more applied myself to my 
 task. Eleven o'clock was striking from a neighboring 
 church - tower, breaking the silence of the little, dark 
 kitchen. Great beads of perspiration ran from my fore- 
 head to my cheeks. 
 
 "It doesn't matter," I murmured to myself, brushing 
 
 425
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the drops away with the back of my hand. "I dare 
 say it will be cooler soon." At that moment a faint, 
 silvery gleam began to show through the window, 
 which was only partly covered by a thin cotton blind 
 the moon was at last breaking through the inky dark- 
 ness without. One long, spearlike ray reached across 
 the dingy table to me, like the hand of a friend, and at 
 once I felt my vigor and courage return. 
 
 When I had placed the salad in the dining-room, 
 beside the jardiniere of crimson and yellow roses deco- 
 rating the centre of the table, I walked back to The 
 Paradise, and, taking from an open trunk a large 
 feather fan, I once more lay down on the lounge, at- 
 tempting by its means to obtain a little coolness, and 
 gradually I dropped into a broken slumber, from which 
 a tinkle of the bell roused me. 
 
 I saw immediately, when Fred and Bertrand entered, 
 that something had gone wrong, but forbearing to 
 question them, led the way to the dining-room, and 
 made them sit down to the little meal that was in readi- 
 ness. They fell to with reassuring appetite, and soon 
 I had the satisfaction of seeing more cheerful looks ap- 
 pear upon their tired faces. While we smoked our 
 cigarettes and sipped tea made with a little travelling 
 samovar, I heard the tale of Fred's first disappointment. 
 He had found, right at the outset, poor fellow! how 
 difficult it would prove for him to find the lucrative 
 position which he had fondly imagined would be easily 
 obtained by an English university man and diplomat 
 en disponibilite. 
 
 "Better luck next time/' I said, lightly. "You 
 are abominably tired to-night, and cannot look upon 
 matters with proper fairness. Let's all go to bed and 
 sleep the sleep of the just. La nuit porte conseil." 
 
 Next morning I was up bright and early, burning 
 
 426
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 with eager anticipation of my first marketing. Leav- 
 ing the boys to perform their dandified toilets, I sallied 
 forth and turned my steps towards Eighth Avenue, 
 thinking that, as it was uglier, it was presumably 
 cheaper than Sixth. I wore the simplest gown I had, 
 but still the delicate texture of the avoine-mftre pine- 
 apple batiste, profusely worked with floss silks of the 
 same tint and finely pleated over reseda-hued foulard, 
 with a hat en suite, covered with linden blossoms, did 
 not seem exactlj 7 appropriate to the occasion. 
 
 I had, of course, no idea how to go about my under- 
 taking ; but one thing seemed clesr that people going 
 to market must have a basket for their purchases, so, 
 looking anxiously up and down the dingy thorough- 
 fare, I noticed what I have since learned is called a 
 hardware shop, and, entering, I selected from an un- 
 gainly mass of wicker-work depending from the ceil- 
 ing a substantially square affair with a heavy lid. 
 
 "Where shall I send it, lady?" asked the shopman, 
 wiping the sweat from his brow with the edge of a dirty 
 apron. 
 
 " I'll take it myself ; I want it for marketing," I ex- 
 plained, surprised, and thinking that such courtesy 
 called forth by the purchase of an article that seemed 
 amazingly cheap at seventy-five cents for I did not 
 know but what it might be worth five dollars spoke 
 well for American tradesmen. He stared at me for a 
 moment with his mouth open, and then a grin that I 
 considered offensively derisive spread over his face, 
 so, taking up my property, I stepped out. A sun like 
 molten metal swept the cross-streets with a promise of 
 another day of ghastly heat, which made one's eyes 
 smart with anticipation, and with a sidelong glance of 
 disgust at a couple of meagre cats pawing a heap of 
 kitchen refuse near some area steps, I walked away. 
 
 427
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Soon a large butcher-shop hove in sight. The odor of 
 raw flesh has always made me feel sick, but I plucked 
 up courage and marched resolutely in. 
 
 " What can I do for you, madame?" said a red-faced 
 individual, whose neck rose in a roll behind his ears, 
 and whose corpulence was wrapped, like a parcel, in 
 blue, checked cotton. 
 
 "I would like a joint of lamb/' I replied, with assur- 
 ance. 
 
 "Yes'm, cert'nly; which part, mum shoulder, leg, 
 or saddle, mum?" 
 
 "Can you buy leg without shoulder, or shoulder 
 without leg?" I asked, confusedly. 
 
 The fat-necked one stared. 
 
 " Why, yes'm ; the shoulder doesn't come with the 
 leg. There's only two legs to a lamb." 
 
 "Only two legs to a lamb!" I repeated, wondering 
 if the American mutton travelled on two feet exclusively ; 
 but, afraid to exhibit ignorance, I hastily demanded a 
 leg. 
 
 After a great clatter of knife and whetstone, he began 
 a surgical operation on a helpless carcass suspended, 
 neck downward, from a murderous hook. Reminded 
 of my war experience in hospital tents, I was think- 
 ing the process would have been less revolting if per- 
 formed on a human subject, when, flinging the result 
 on the scales, he announced, oracularly: "Seven and 
 three-quarters." This did not seem much for a lamb 
 with only two legs, but I paid, and removing the lid 
 from my basket, held it out invitingly. He laughed 
 outright, very rudely, as I thought, and my apprecia- 
 tion of the American tradesman, raised so high at 
 the beginning of the hardware - shop experience, de- 
 clined rapidly. I was not going to be put out of coun- 
 tenance by such a lout, however, and bestowing on him 
 
 428
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 a look of freezing disdain, I requested him curtly to 
 put the meat in the basket. He shrugged his fat shoul- 
 ders, expectorated philosophically and accurately into a 
 box of waste, and, wrapping the joint in brown paper, 
 carried out my directions with a surly slam. I was 
 very angry as I once more emerged into the glare of 
 the avenue, and it was with a quick and rather staccato 
 step that I headed for a grocery, before which sickly 
 cabbages, discouraged salads, and withered radishes 
 stood cheek by jowl with funny little square baskets 
 filled with unhealtlty-looking strawberries and other 
 dust-powdered fruit. The heat had become some- 
 thing awful, and the white tulle of my veil felt damp 
 and uncomfortable, and caught limply, again and 
 again, in the fastening of my solitaire pearl ear-rings ; 
 moreover, the weight of the big basket made my rings 
 cut into my fingers under the gloves. 
 
 The grocer was tall and lanky, with a peaked face 
 framed in long, sandy "weepers" and an expansive 
 smile, disclosing a few very yellow teeth. He wore an 
 odd linen coat reaching down to his heels, which filled 
 me with amazement, for it seemed strange to wear an 
 overcoat in-doors ! On his asking what he could do for 
 me, I was puzzled ; but eager to seem perfectly at home 
 with grocers and their wares, I glibly started a list of 
 articles. 
 
 "Five pounds of pepper, if you please." 
 
 "Is it to fix your furs with, mum?" he asked. 
 
 "Fix my what?" I asked, helplessly. 
 
 "Your furs, mum, for the summer; but no matter," 
 he continued, scribbling my order down with great 
 rapidity. 
 
 "Oh ah some jam, and, let me see, some sugar 
 and salt, and, yes, some butter and potatoes," I con- 
 tinued, floundering desperately along. "And put it 
 
 429
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 all in the basket, please," I added, depositing that use- 
 ful article on the counter. For a moment he looked at 
 me from head to foot with such undisguised amaze- 
 ment that I felt quite uncomfortable and embarrassed. 
 
 " Now look here, mum," he began, firmly, " no doubt 
 you're a stranger in these parts, as is plain to be seen. 
 Here we don't allow ladies to carry loads like this. I'll 
 send it round to your house if you'll give me your ad- 
 dress." 
 
 "I couldn't dream of troubling you," I stammered, 
 recollecting unpleasantly my intended economy in tips. 
 
 "Trouble! Why, mum, that's what we're here for! 
 But you didn't tell me what quantities you wanted." 
 
 "Oh, well, I'm sure I don't know! Send what you 
 please," I rejoined, hastily. "Here's my address," 
 and I scribbled it on my card. "Please send the bill 
 with it, for I'm in a hurry." 
 
 "No need for a bill to-day, mum, if you'll give us 
 your custom. We keep an elegant line of creamery 
 butter, new-laid eggs, fresh vegetables " here I groaned 
 in spirit, thinking of the well-worn exhibit outside 
 "fine dry groceries, English bacon, imported wines 
 and liquors, foreign and domestic jams, and the finest 
 brands of cigars and cigarettes." 
 
 Heavens, the man must have divined my weakness 
 for Turkish tobacco ! 
 
 I was about to take up my basket, when he laid a 
 detaining hand upon it. 
 
 "Now, mum," he declared, "and what did I tell you? 
 You ain't going to carry this, either. My boy will 
 bring it with the rest." 
 
 Quite overwhelmed, I relinquished my hold upon the 
 handle and fled, leaving him, no doubt, under the im- 
 pression that I was mentally deranged. 
 
 A little discouraged, I determined to cut short my 
 
 430
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 marketing operations, but before going home I wished 
 very much to get some lobsters, as both Fred and Ber- 
 trand were very fond of them. Vainly I trudged up 
 and down the avenue in search of a fish-monger, and 
 then, with a sudden inspiration, I approached a huge, 
 blue-coated policeman, who, with his hands behind his 
 back, was staring into a window full of whiskey and 
 liqueur bottles of all kinds. 
 
 "Excuse me, Bobby/' I said, with an engaging 
 smile, "but where can I find a lobster?" 
 
 "A lobster?" he echoed, turning very red and look- 
 ing upon me with an eye of suspicion. 
 
 "Yes; will you show me a place where I can get 
 lobsters and prawns and such things?" said I, dimly 
 discerning that I had offended him. 
 
 "Oh!" said he, looking, for some reason or other, 
 much relieved, "you mean a fish-market?" 
 
 "Yes I suppose so," I replied. 
 
 "Come along, then; there's one right at the other 
 end of my beat. And you can walk with me," he added, 
 patronizingly. 
 
 Nothing loath, I fell into step as best I could, and, 
 wishing to make his task as little unpleasant as pos- 
 sible, I entered into conversation. A moment later a 
 couple of ragamuffins, passing by, exhibited unmistak- 
 able signs of interest and amusement. 
 
 " Hello ! " yelled one. " Git onto old Gilesy's mash !" 
 
 I failed to comprehend this remark, but, noticing an 
 increased attention drawn upon myself from several 
 knots of by-standers, and also a self-conscious squaring 
 of the shoulders and twirling of the mustache on the 
 part of my escort, I suspected that it was more com- 
 plimentary to him than to myself. Fortunately, at 
 that moment we came abreast of a show-window filled 
 with fish of every description languidly reposing on
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 a bed of sea - weed and flanked by artistically erected 
 bastions of oysters and various crustaceans. 
 
 "That's the ticket/' quoth my guide, counsellor, and 
 friend, "and I guess I'll wait outside for you, because" 
 he was kind enough to conclude " it '11 be real pleas- 
 ant to have a nice little body like you to talk to on the 
 way back." 
 
 Properly gratified, as was only natural, I nodded 
 my appreciation, and, with much more sagacity than I 
 had displayed heretofore, bought two vicious - looking 
 lobsters. Their threatening nippers having been se- 
 cured with twine, they were deftly tied in paper by the 
 vendor, and, carrying these at arm's -length to avoid 
 the water drip, I rejoined "Gilesy," expressing my 
 satisfaction at having, thanks to him, completed my 
 errand. 
 
 "Gimme them fish," he said, smiling, "they're ruin- 
 ing your gloves. Mine are cotton, you see, and it 
 don't matter. Sure it won't hurt them or me to carry 
 them as far as I go." 
 
 "That's very good of you," I said, gratefully, sur- 
 rendering the uncomfortable parcel. "Do you know, 
 I've always liked the police wherever I have been. My 
 father-in-law, in London, goes by the name of the po- 
 liceman's friend, and last year the Metropolitan force 
 presented him with a silver dinner-service." 
 
 "And what may the old gent's name be?" asked 
 Brass Buttons. 
 
 I mentioned it, whereupon he grew suddenly very 
 respectful. Oddly enough, he was a Londoner born, 
 and recognized it at once. Straightening himself up 
 in a soldierly way, he exclaimed, saluting in most 
 approved style : 
 
 "You'll excuse my familiarity, my lady, but who'd 
 have thought to find one of the quality from the old 
 
 432
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 country doing marketing on Eighth Avenue? How- 
 soever, now that I know you, my lady, if it happens 
 that you live in the neighborhood, I hope as I can do 
 you a service now and again ; it would be a real pleas- 
 ure, you can believe me. My name is Giles, and this 
 is my number/' and he pointed to his badge. "So, 
 whenever you want me, just send for me, and I'll be 
 proud to serve you." 
 
 A few moments more brought us to the corner of my 
 street, and I thanked my new acquaintance most cord- 
 ially, not only for his ready help, but for his interest 
 in my future welfare. Slipping a two-dollar bill into 
 his hand which I must do him the justice to say he 
 at first demurred at accepting I resumed my lobsters 
 and ran home, for the watch that hung at my chate- 
 laine showed I had been away two hours. I found 
 Fred and Bertrand pacing excitedly up and down be- 
 fore the apartment-house, and so worried by my pro- 
 longed absence that they rather unjustly overwhelmed 
 me with reproaches, which, seeing how genuinely dis- 
 tressed they were, I accepted in a meek and humble 
 spirit to which they were not accustomed. When we 
 once more found ourselves in our rooms, they showed 
 me many little improvements which they had already 
 contrived. The trunks that were not of immediate 
 necessity had been conveyed to what Bertrand ex- 
 plained was called the storage - room, somewhere in 
 the roof, and this greatly added to our comfort in such 
 restricted quarters. 
 
 My first experience in cooking dinner for we en- 
 tirely forgot lunch was exceedingly humorous. Ber- 
 trand, protecting his irreproachable clothes with a blue 
 silk undershirt tied about his waist by the sleeves, 
 volunteered as marmiton, and presented a most ludi- 
 crous appearance seated on the kitchen-table and hold- 
 28 433
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ing in his lap a tin pan of potatoes, which he divested 
 of their "jackets" to quote our friend of the chop- 
 house. I must not forget to mention that while I was 
 away my grocery order had arrived. Full advantage 
 had naturally been taken of my despairing carte-blanche, 
 for not only was the floor of the " store-room " a fair- 
 sized closet but those of the kitchen and dining-room, 
 piled up with bags and baskets. My consternation 
 may be imagined ; but as it would have been undesir- 
 able and unpleasant to make an expose of my slip-shod 
 business methods, I explained airily that I thought it 
 was wiser to lay in a good stock at once, and received 
 with becoming modesty the praise my sagacity elicited. 
 Not in vain had I trusted that masculine ideas of house- 
 keeping would prevent the boys from comprehending 
 the futility of provisioning ourselves against the " wreck- 
 ful siege of battering days" with dozens of jam and 
 pickles, bag after bag of salt and sugar, and box after 
 box of raisins and spice! 
 
 At five o'clock I put upon the table a meal which I 
 would not venture to honor with the name of dinner, 
 but which, partaking of the nature of a picnic, gave 
 us much more pleasure than any banquet would have 
 done. I prided myself on having successfully over- 
 come all culinary difficulties ; and although the famous 
 leg of lamb was a little underdone, the potatoes slightly 
 burned, and the soup altogether lacking, yet the youth- 
 ful appetites of my boys made them overlook all de- 
 ficiencies, and we finished the feast with delicious cof- 
 fee and some Turkish cigarettes in the most approved 
 fashion, all turning in afterwards to the dish-washing. 
 This last was the most disagreeable experience yet en- 
 countered. Fred at first insisted that I should wear 
 gloves, and I got into such a mess that I ended by turn- 
 ing him out of the kitchen and setting him to clean 
 
 434
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 my rings of the grease with which they had thus be- 
 come clotted. 
 
 An experience even more momentous than the initial 
 attempt at cooking w T as my first ride on the elevated 
 railroad. I was to meet Fred at the general post-office, 
 and, very proud of going down-town alone, like any 
 ordinary mortal, I climbed the stairs at Forty-second 
 Street, and bought a ticket with secret self-congratu- 
 lations upon my matter-of-fact manner, then, drop- 
 ping it in the box with studied carelessness, asked if I 
 were on the down-town side. 
 
 "No, miss, this is the up-town track/' replied the 
 chopper, in stentorian tones. " Cross the street for the 
 dow r n-town trains." 
 
 I humbly descended, feeling the wind taken very 
 much out of my sails, and crossing Forty-second Street 
 ran up again, purchased another ticket, and remarked, 
 confidently, to the ticket-chopper: 
 
 "This is the down-town side." 
 
 "Not at all," was the gruff reply. "I told you to 
 cross the street for the down-town train. Don't you 
 understand?" 
 
 I recognized him then with a thrill of bewilderment, 
 and, covered with confusion, hastily retraced my steps, 
 reascended, bought another ticket, and emerged into 
 the presence of that same ubiquitous ticket - chopper. 
 I began to think the man had wings, or trap-doors to 
 pop up through like a jack-in-the-box. 
 
 "Say," he exclaimed, wrathfully, perhaps thinking 
 himself the victim of some incomprehensible joke, 
 "are you daft?" and seizing me unceremoniously by 
 the arm he whirled me round, and, pointing across the 
 tracks to the opposite station, he blustered : 
 
 "The other side of the avenue, don't you hear?" 
 
 "Why didn't you say so before?" I cried, indignant- 
 
 435
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ly. "You told me to cross the street; you didn't say 
 avenue. How did you expect me to understand?" 
 
 "It takes a good deal to make some people under- 
 stand/' he returned, scornfully. "But here, now, I'll 
 pass you on," and, making a speaking-trumpet of his 
 hands, he bawled across the metals to his colleague : 
 
 "Pass this one through. She's put three tickets in 
 the box already. She's a crank." 
 
 I wondered why I was referred to as a piece of machin- 
 ery, but I was beginning to understand that English 
 is not necessarily American, and in my relief at the 
 elucidation of the mystery of the tracks, I forebore to 
 ask him to explain. 
 
 When I told Fred about it at the post-office, he gave 
 vent to a series of guffaws which made everybody turn 
 around to stare at him, and later on he repeated it to 
 Bertrand as the best joke he had ever heard. 
 
 Days went by and I gradually became accustomed 
 to my new duties. At the end of a month, indeed, I 
 considered myself to be a thorough-paced house-keeper, 
 although, as I look back upon those days from the 
 present glory of my hard-bought knowledge, I cannot 
 but marvel at what it would be weak to term my im- 
 becility. Of course it seemed but natural to me that the 
 boys should be fed on the fat of the land, and being 
 unable to find on Eighth Avenue the delicacies which 
 seemed to me necessary for them, I extended my pur- 
 chases to Sixth, and occasionally even to Fifth Ave- 
 nue. The result to my purse was disastrous, for a 
 serious inroad had already been made upon it by a bill 
 of $165 sent at the end of the first week by the thrifty 
 grocer, who, infuriated at seeing no more orders forth- 
 coming, poured out in this manner the phials of his 
 wrath on my hapless head. 
 
 The janitor and his wife were now my sworn friends, 
 
 436
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and I was creditably informed that they were prone to 
 describe me as "quite the lady/' which ought to have 
 made up for most of my annoyances, as it is agree- 
 able to be popular wherever one finds one's self. These 
 poor people, who were very kind and helpful, had a 
 fine, bouncing baby of which they were inordinately 
 proud, and I had become quite fond of the blue-eyed, 
 curly-headed mite. One evening, as I was returning 
 home from a long walk in the park, I was dismayed to 
 hear that the poor little fellow had been seized with 
 croup. Naturally, I went at once to the basement, 
 where, in a damp, dark room, below the level of the 
 street, I found an almost distracted father and a mother 
 in hysterics. Taking the law into my own hands, I 
 established myself in the character of nurse, interviewed 
 the doctor, sent for a croup-kettle, and this sort of 
 thing being more in my province and more familiar to 
 me than cooking and making beds worked with a will 
 to save the little flickering life. This was, however, not 
 to be granted me, and three days after falling ill, the 
 once so jolly baby lay in a little white coffin, wrapped 
 in a long lace scarf of mine which had last done duty 
 at a Drawing-room, and which made an ideal shroud 
 for that poor little broken bud. The funeral still further 
 depleted my exchequer; but the loads of snowy blos- 
 soms and the white hearse electrified the street, and 
 the gratitude of the parents would have been cheap at 
 ten times the amount. 
 
 The condition of the bereaved young mother soon 
 became so alarming that the husband decided to send 
 for a little nephew, who had just lost his own mother, 
 thinking thus to occupy her thoughts beneficially. 
 He had not, however, reckoned with the distressing 
 homesickness of the small orphan, and on the very 
 first night of its arrival was at a loss what to do, be- 
 
 437
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 tween his sobbing wife, and a poor little three-year-old 
 who obstinately stood in a corner with a continuous 
 wail of "Mamma!" on his tremulous lips and a tragic 
 look in his big, black eyes. Bertrand, who had gone 
 down to inquire why there was no hot water in the 
 bath-room, took the wretched little chap in his arms 
 and carried him up to me. I will draw a veil over 
 the experience of the next three days, chiefly spent 
 by all three of us carrying "Rory" a fit name, by- 
 the-way up and down the floor, as this was the only 
 way of making him stop his everlasting complaint. 
 And to this very day I cannot think without a shud- 
 der of the unceasing "I want Muzzer/' which was 
 droned in our ears for at least twenty hours out of the 
 twenty-four. The child refused to sleep except in the 
 lap of one of us, and if we did not want him to wake up 
 with a shriek we were forced to keep up a sing-song 
 monotone by way of lullaby, which was, perhaps, as 
 trying to the singer as to the listeners. At last Ber- 
 trand hit on a marvellous plan, and snatching up the 
 child ran down-stairs, called a hansom, and took him 
 for a long drive in Central Park. Whether it was the 
 novelty of the thing, or the comparatively fresh air 
 for, Lord knows, that summer was truly infernal but 
 the poor little tyrant was conquered from that moment, 
 and gave no further trouble to us or to his relatives in 
 the basement, which was indeed a mercy. 
 
 Meanwhile our circumstances were not particularly 
 favorable. Poor Fred vainly patrolled the business 
 portions of the city in quest of an acceptable position, 
 but everywhere his name and social rank were a draw- 
 back instead of a help, the argument evidently being 
 that a person of his importance seeking honest work 
 must have some dark shadow over his past, or some 
 darker motive in prospect. Had we remained at the 
 
 438
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Windsor Hotel imposing upon the credulity of the pub- 
 lic at large, sponging upon our friends, and running 
 up huge jewellers', milliners', and tailors' bills, as so 
 many stranded Europeans have done, we would have 
 succeeded of that there can be no doubt in gaining 
 both profit and honor. But the idea of paddling our 
 own little humble canoe and of owing nothing to any 
 one was evidently preposterous, and deserved the con- 
 tempt with which it was treated. The plain " Mr." and 
 "Mrs." which we had substituted at once for any loftier 
 appellation did not even help us in this land of democ- 
 racy, and, in a word, the whole enterprise speedily 
 became most disheartening. What money we still 
 possessed when the crash came was rapidly dwindling, 
 and although I said nothing about it to either of my 
 partners in misery, yet I foresaw the day when there 
 would be absolutely nothing left. 
 
 To make matters yet more precarious and painful, 
 my mother deluged Bertrand with bitter reproaches, 
 arriving by every mail in highly scented envelopes, 
 the persistent fragrance of which haunted me day and 
 night. She in turn commanded, supplicated, threat- 
 ened, and stormed, and it seemed clear from her state- 
 ments that as long as the boy remained with us he 
 would incur the displeasure of his entire family. But 
 stubborn as are all Bretons, he refused to be coerced. 
 I dearly loved to keep him with me, yet was I not minded 
 to ingulf him with our wrecked prospects and to drag 
 him down with us any further. My position in regard 
 to the matter, already sufficiently difficult, was made still 
 more so by the fact that the influence of New York was 
 not a good one for a boy who, born and bred among the 
 highest aristocracy of Europe, could not assimilate his 
 present surroundings, jealously as I tried to keep him 
 away from questionable associates. Extremely lov- 
 
 439
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 able, remarkably handsome, and generous to a fault, 
 poor Bertrand was galled by the sordid narrowness of 
 our present means, for until he became of age, which 
 was not to be for three years, he was dependent upon 
 his mother, who had cut off all supplies in order to force 
 him to defer to her wishes; and often I looked at the 
 horrors the future might hold for the lad, and silently 
 asked of these shadowy abominations, "What are you 
 going to do to him?" 
 
 This new sorrow preyed on my mind and on Fred's 
 also. Like those that had preceded it, it was, alas! 
 not of an ennobling kind. It fitted no wings to the soul, 
 as suffering often does, and my efforts to guard my 
 dear brother seemed just then of no avail. I was still 
 too young to realize that one cannot lay violent hands 
 on the soul of another and thus lift it into safety. 
 I was not feeling very well just then, and my nerves, 
 which had until now seemed non-existent, began to 
 play me stupid tricks. When I was alone, in the even- 
 ing especially, the walls of the room seemed to close 
 around me with ponderous relentlessness, while a 
 nauseating feeling of vertigo sometimes overcame me. 
 In all my life I had not known such a state of affairs, 
 excepting before my attack of typhoid, and I was cruel- 
 ly ashamed of it. At last I made up my mind to have 
 a serious conversation with my brother, and summon- 
 ing all my courage to my assistance, profited by a mo- 
 ment when Fred was absent, and sought the boy. I 
 found him in the dining-room smoking a cigarette and 
 looking excessively moody. 
 
 "You have come to scold me, I suppose/' he said, 
 without lifting his eyes. 
 
 I looked at him in silence for a moment, and then 
 sat down beside him. 
 
 "Well?" he said, at length, somewhat aggressively. 
 
 440
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Well/' I repeated, "I want to warn you, Bertrand, 
 that we are very near the end of our tether. There is 
 no earthly use in bothering Fred about this, but the 
 fact is that, if he does not soon find work, we will 
 starve, to put it baldly!" 
 
 The boy looked up at me with cool indifference, evi- 
 dently incredulous, and suspecting me of an ulterior 
 motive. 
 
 "Is that all you have to say?" he rejoined. "Be- 
 cause if so I will go out." 
 
 " Not yet, please ; I have something more to tell you," 
 I replied. " You clearly think I am telling you this in 
 order to make you yield the point and return to Brittany. 
 This is not the case. I need not tell you that nothing 
 could make me happier than to keep you here with me, 
 for the depth of my affection is nothing new to you. 
 But what am I to do? You accompanied us for a short 
 trip, undertaken under the most agreeable and au- 
 spicious of circumstances, but now you are staying on 
 after this alteration in our affairs and position. How 
 can I involve you in our privations and difficulties, 
 especially since it is distinctly against your mother's 
 wishes that you should remain here ; and let me add," 
 I said, meaningly, " that the atmosphere of this country 
 under the present conditions is not beneficial to you." 
 
 He rose, flushing scarlet. " There is nothing in my 
 conduct to cause you anxiety," he said, stiffly. 
 
 " Sit down, Bertrand," I rejoined, quite as stiffly. 
 
 "Suppose I refuse to hear any more?" 
 
 "What is the necessity of supposing absurdities? 
 But, as I was saying, the time has arrived when you 
 can hesitate no longer, and when you must come to a 
 decision regarding your future. You say that to live 
 under the same roof as our mother is distasteful to you, 
 and I understand, to a certain extent, your position in 
 
 441
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the matter. But, on my part, I am not going to coun- 
 tenance your sacrificing the position to which you 
 have been born on my account." 
 
 " Do you mean that I am to leave you in the lurch, 
 and return to ease and luxury, while you are here in 
 this abominable situation?" 
 
 "Exactly; you have quite grasped my meaning, 
 although I cannot approve your wording of it." 
 
 Again he rose from the chair in which he had re- 
 seated himself at my bidding. 
 
 "That is all, I suppose, and now I will go out/' he 
 said, with his usual mulish obstinacy. 
 
 I was fast losing patience. "Before you go, you 
 will perhaps be good enough to tell me what you intend 
 to do." 
 
 "What would you have me do?" he demanded. 
 
 " You know quite well what I wish. I have already 
 told you that I understand, after a fashion, your desire 
 to be away from our mother. As you have now com- 
 pletely recovered your health, however, and as it can- 
 not be supposed that your sick-leave will be indefinitely 
 prolonged, I want you to resume your position in the 
 navy and complete your service. It would be better 
 for you, even though, as a widow's only son, you are 
 exempt. By the time you have done so matters will 
 have adjusted themselves." 
 
 He remained silent for a few moments, and then, as 
 I continued to look inquiringly at him, replied, sullenly : 
 
 "I will do nothing; at least, for the present." 
 
 With a violent effort I controlled my rising temper. 
 
 "Look here, Bertrand," I said, turning my eyes 
 away, " you are not acting fairly towards me. I meant 
 to give you a mere affectionate word of warning, and 
 it is you wfio are forcing me to put it all in capital let- 
 ters. Surely, we need not rub each other the wrong 
 
 442
 
 way like this, and it is a great pity that you should re- 
 fuse to understand me, for nobody will ever love you as 
 I do, little one." 
 
 Here my voice broke slightly, and I hastily lit a cigar- 
 ette to hide the unwelcome softening of my mood. The 
 change of tone did not escape him, and he immediately 
 followed up his advantage. In quite an altered manner 
 he walked around the table, and, with that winsome- 
 ness which he can always assume at will, and in 
 which he is past-master, said : 
 
 " I wish you would not bother, dear old girl. So do 
 I love you better than all the world put together, and, 
 really, I had not the slightest idea that you were wor- 
 rying so much about me." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, my dear!" I said, sorrowfully, "how 
 can I help worrying when I see you, through my fault, 
 declasse, and thrown with people whom you would other- 
 wise never have learned to know. People whose tone, 
 manners, and morals, so far as I can judge, from what 
 you yourself tell me, are wholly and utterly contempti- 
 ble. At your age, and with your tastes, this sort of life 
 is impossible. Do you think that I am going to calmly 
 sit down and let you go to the dogs by the shortest cut? 
 Fred and I, like the celebrated goat of legend, must 
 browse where we are tied, but you, thank God ! hold your 
 future in the hollow of your hand, to make or to mar as 
 you list. Do not let me be the cause of your sacrificing it 
 in more ways than one. I have not exaggerated when I 
 told you just now that we are on the limit which sepa- 
 rates privation from downright want. Perhaps I have 
 not been wise in my management of our resources. Let 
 my inexperience be the excuse if there be any. Some- 
 thing must be done at once. This morning I went to 
 a leading stationery - shop and obtained, under pre- 
 text of helping a little proteg of mine, an order for 
 
 443
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 several dozen painted menu cards to be completed as 
 soon as possible. They will pay my convenient prote"g6 
 to wit, myself two dollars a dozen, and they tell me 
 that this is " an excessive remuneration," only given be- 
 cause the sample I showed them is so much better than 
 the usual run of such work. Now, supposing Fred 
 continues to be unsuccessful in his search, how can we 
 live on such a pittance?" 
 
 "My poor Margot, is it really as bad as that? Can 
 nothing else be done?" 
 
 "Yes, something else can be done; but, truly, I do 
 not know how to break it to Fred." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " Well, it is to sell, or take to some mont-de-pi&e or 
 other, a few of my jewels or my dressing-case." 
 
 "Oh, rot!" exclaimed the boy, furiously, throwing 
 his hammered-gold cigarette-case on the table. " I am 
 not going to let you do anything so foolish. I'll sell 
 my things, or pawn them, or whatever it's called, before 
 I'll allow that!" 
 
 "But this is what I cannot permit. You must re- 
 member that you are not of age, and that if you were 
 to dispose of your valuables in order to assist us, you 
 would be putting the last thorn in my crown of sor- 
 rows." 
 
 He winced, and then, kicking away his chair, began 
 to pace the floor, whistling softly between his closed 
 teeth. 
 
 I felt my resolution failing. Much as I despised 
 myself for such weakness, once he had shown me his 
 affection and tenderness I could no longer urge him 
 to a course contrary to his wishes, praiseworthy though 
 it might be, and grasping thankfully at the side issue, 
 I suddenly sprang to my feet, exclaiming : "I'd like 
 to know what's the matter with me! Am I turning 
 
 444
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 into a coward? What has become of my backbone, 
 and of my much- vaunted pluck? You just watch me, 
 Bertrand! I will present to Fred the necessity of get- 
 ting rid of some of my things in such a way that he 
 will think it a good joke; and as to you, my dearest, 
 just forgive my ill-temper and my croakings." 
 
 Gravely and quietly he drew me down on the sofa, 
 and, kneeling in front of me, threw his arms about 
 my neck. He did not speak, but he breathed rather 
 hurriedly, and for a few moments we remained per- 
 fectly still, thinking, no doubt, at a tremendous rate. 
 Greatly fearing lest his attitude should end by break- 
 ing my self-control, for I abominate emotional scenes, 
 I rose to my feet \vith almost brutal abruptness. 
 
 "We are a couple of idiots," I remarked, irritably. 
 
 At this he laughed somewhat shamefacedly, and, 
 after a few minutes of awkward silence, said: 
 
 " It's just like you, Margot. My behavior has been 
 abominable, yet, instead of reproaching me, you give 
 me the best and kindest of advice, and wind up by apol- 
 ogizing, presumably for hurting my worthless feelings. 
 Dear old girl, I'm awfully sorry. I swear I won't do 
 anything to hurt you again. As for my mother, I'll 
 tell you what I'll do. All she seems to want, the sweet 
 old lady, is to get me away from you, so I'll go West 
 as a cow-boy, and, once there, we'll see whether she'll 
 give me money to buy a ranch. It would be a great 
 life for me all out-doors, you know and a splendid 
 experience. Why, it's been my ambition ever since I 
 met those jolly chaps on the voyage here. And you 
 needn't worry about me, old girl, I'll keep straight." 
 
 Just then we heard a latch-key turning in the door, 
 and Fred came in, looking hot and tired. There was 
 no need to ask him whether, at last, something had 
 " turned up," and so I contented myself with bringing 
 
 445
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 him a cup of coffee, with a small glass of chartreuse, 
 As soon as he seemed a little refreshed and cheered 
 I said, impressively : 
 
 " Do you think that you two giants could, if I made 
 it worth your while, carry a heavy load a little distance 
 for me?" 
 
 Fred looked up, smiling. "What are you up to 
 now, little woman? Do you want to open a laundry? 
 And must we bring home the wash?" 
 
 " Oh no ; your task is to be much more distinguished, 
 for in my high and mighty wisdom I have decided that 
 we are dreadfully imprudent to keep in this insecure 
 and promiscuous place the valuables pertaining to our 
 past rank and status." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 " Simply this : when we are all three out at the same 
 time, which occurs frequently, as you know, such use- 
 less and cumbersome objects as my dressing-case, for 
 instance, with its highly ornamental but equally futile 
 one hundred and seventeen pieces, are at the mercy of 
 the first enterprising person owning a jimmy. Now 
 I don't intend to store this thing, and spend untold 
 wealth in so doing. So observe the brilliancy of my 
 plan. You boys will kindly find out for me a safe 
 and honorable mont-de-piete, or preteur-sur-gage is it 
 not what you call a pawn-shop in your God-forsaken 
 language? and thus it is I who will receive money, 
 in place of being obliged to disburse it." 
 
 "Surely, Pussy, it hasn't come to that? We can't 
 be as hard up as that yet I" 
 
 " How ridiculous of you to think so, Fred ; but I might 
 have thought as much of you! Do you imagine that 
 if we were really on our last financial legs I could laugh 
 and joke as I am doing ? Don't I tell you that I cannot 
 rest easy as long as these costly things are littering 
 
 446
 
 " I WATCHED THEM WALKING BRISKLY ALONG THE SIDE- 
 WALK, SWINGING BETWEEN THEM, BY ITS 
 MASSIVE HANDLES, THE HEAVY BOX "
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the place, and can you blame me if in our position, 
 which is not, as you think, desperate, but merely one 
 which suggests prudence, I prefer to have a portion 
 of their value in hand, rather than to pay some one to 
 keep them for me?" 
 
 Serenity was returning to Fred's careworn face, and 
 he finally fell in with my project in a fashion which 
 delighted me, for the ruse had succeeded beyond my 
 wildest hopes. 
 
 " There's no time like the present," I continued ; " and 
 so, my good, dear, and estimable partners in this exist- 
 ence of strife, do me the favor to get ready, while I en- 
 tomb bottles, brushes, combs, boxes, and what not, in 
 their customary sarcophagus. And then merrily do 
 you go, my lads for merriness j^ou'll need in this hot 
 weather carrying a ton or so of gold and gems." 
 
 Without giving them time or leisure to make any 
 objections, I swiftly retired to the sanctity of my bed- 
 room, and tenderly fitted all the pretty baubles which 
 had made my toilet-table a thing of beauty into their 
 purple - velvet niches, closing with a sharp click the 
 lock of the large silver-and-tortoise-shell casket contain- 
 ing them a chef-d'oeuvre of Froment Meurice and 
 lastly, not without a good deal of muscular exertion, 
 encasing the whole ponderous affair in its steel-lined, 
 tawny - leather case. When I re-entered the dining- 
 room, Fred, looking up from the newspaper he had 
 been perusing, said, anxiously : 
 
 "What is the matter, Pussy? You don't look well." 
 
 "Why, I am as right as a trivet," I replied, quite re- 
 solved to stick at no mendacity. " Don't become im- 
 aginative, Fred; I never was better in my life. I 
 eat like a horse, sleep like a dormouse, and have no 
 time for sickness or worry. That's one of the greatest 
 advantages of our present enviable plight. But don't 
 
 447
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 let us waste any more time. Come to my room and 
 shoulder your burden no light one, I assure you!" 
 
 A few minutes later I watched them walking briskly 
 along the sidewalk, swinging between them, by its 
 massive handles, the heavy box. This spoke well for 
 their condition, and I smiled as I saw them disappear 
 around the corner. Then, taking up from the denuded 
 table the jewels that I had removed from the secret 
 drawer of the doomed dressing-case, I said, with the 
 tiniest of sighs, "Loss number one!" 
 
 When they returned, just in time for dinrfer, I had 
 pains to conceal my disappointment. The dressing- 
 case had originally cost thirty thousand francs, but on 
 deposition at a loan-office it had added to our failing ex- 
 chequer only five hundred dollars ! This was owing, we 
 were told, to the fact that the monograms and coronets 
 diminished the chance of its finding a ready sale. How- 
 ever, the wolf could be kept from the door, and Fred in 
 blissful ignorance of the state of our affairs, for some 
 time yet. So on the whole, I went to bed much more 
 contented in mind.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Beside the Nile his antique flow 
 
 I recked not of the winter snow 
 
 That distant seemed, and far more nigh 
 
 The river blue and golden sky 
 
 In those strange days of long ago. 
 
 Now where the gulls wail to and fro 
 Across the drear ice-flood below, 
 Think you my thoughts regretful lie 
 Beside the Nile? 
 
 To the gray lift I answer " No!" 
 Is naught but warmth and color? Oh! 
 That in my inmost heart have I 
 Richer than all the gold could buy, 
 That glittered in the tropic glow 
 Beside the Nile I 
 
 M. M. 
 
 THE five hundred dollars which we now possessed 
 did not, however, prevent me from setting to work on 
 my menu-painting venture. It was a distinct success 
 as far as the menus themselves were concerned, for 
 with praiseworthy enthusiasm I let loose my fantasy 
 upon these little squares of pasteboard which had 
 hitherto been to me merely the unconsidered adjuncts 
 of dinner-parties, to be flung carelessly aside, or, more 
 rarely, preserved as mementoes, but which now I gar- 
 landed with woodland blossoms, tropical flowers, tiny 
 sea - pictures, birds, butterflies, or impressive land- 
 scapes two inches long, probably for those very tables 
 at which I had so recently dined ! Work as hard or as 
 *9 449
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 well as I could, however, the pay I received was so 
 small that my infinitesimal earnings were no great 
 help, except in so far as they permitted me to preserve 
 my own self-respect by paying for what little items I 
 might personally require. 
 
 Within a week I determined that this sort of thing 
 would not do, and so I sallied forth one morning and 
 offered my humble abilities in the decorative line to a 
 wholesale house dealing in bric-a-brac of a cheap and 
 unsophisticated sort, and was soon busy painting 
 white wooden blotter-pads, paper-knives, thin silk sofa- 
 cushions, sachets, celluloid photograph - frames, and 
 other graceless objects of the same order in a hurried, 
 breathless way, forced upon me by the small figure 
 paid for each. Early and late I toiled, bending over 
 these absurd art treasures until a green-sailed boat on 
 a purple sea, or a black cabbage-rose daintily clutched 
 in a wooden nut-cracker, seemed natural and perfectly 
 admirable objects to me, for familiarity breeds con- 
 tempt, and as the wings of my fancy had been clipped 
 by my new task-masters, who God forgive them! 
 provided me with models, I lived in the unreal world 
 where such monstrosities are manufactured by the 
 gross for the higher enlightenment of slim - pursed 
 Christmas and birthday gift purchasers. 
 
 Poor Fred continued to pursue an ever more and 
 more elusive situation, and Bertrand was still with us, 
 although I momentarily expected him to put into ex- 
 ecution his cow-boy project, and had reached the point 
 where this would have almost seemed desirable, since 
 life in New York, under such circumstances as ours, 
 was about the most unfortunate thing that could have 
 befallen him. 
 
 The consequence of all this was that I was almost 
 always alone, and that, save for the time I spent in house- 
 
 45
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 work, which now included the washing of all the un- 
 starched linen (which I surreptitiously dried in the 
 kitchen for fear of discovery by the janitor or tenants of 
 this "high-toned apartment"), I never stirred from my 
 painting-table. 
 
 One afternoon a violent headache made it impossible 
 for me to continue to bend over a strange and awful 
 combination of azure lilacs and green poppies, meant 
 to adorn a most elaborate citron-hued night-robe case, 
 and, with the first moment of genuine impatience I had 
 allowed myself to display, I flung my cheap little 
 brushes on the table, changed my working-dress for 
 a walking attire a triumph of Laferriere's and 
 marched briskly off to Central Park. 
 
 The morning having been stormy, there were com- 
 paratively few people in the broad, shady allees, and, 
 drawn by my unconquerable love for horses, I directed 
 my steps towards the nearest tan-bark path. Just as I 
 was about to enter a narrow road which, at this point, 
 ran parallel to the riding-track for some distance, my 
 attention was arrested by a solitary figure that of a 
 young girl mounted on a big brute of a sorrel horse 
 which had "riding academy" stamped all over his 
 gaunt anatomy. The poor little rider had entirely 
 lost control of her ungainly mount, that, profiting by 
 the inexperienced hand on the bridle, was tossing his 
 big, bony head, trying to wrench himself free, and pas- 
 saging, dishing, and kicking up in an exceedingly 
 nasty fashion. The girl had already lost her stirrup, 
 and was clinging convulsively with one hand to the 
 pommel of her bulky, inelegant saddle. 
 
 I glanced up and down, and seeing nobody far or 
 near who might be mistaken for an escort, I promptly 
 descended to the tan-bark, and before the horse had 
 time to notice me, had taken firm hold of the bridle.
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Then, profiting by the animal's astonishment at this 
 unexpected assault, I bade the girl let herself slide to 
 the ground. Fortunately she obeyed immediately, and 
 as soon as she was out of the saddle I gave the ugly 
 beast a fierce jerk of the bit, which left him in no 
 doubt as to the change of hand. It is not necessary 
 to be of tall stature to do this, for there is a knack 
 of doing all things ; and, moreover, a horse generally 
 understands at once the sort of person with whom he 
 has to deal. 
 
 It did not, therefore, astonish me to see this unlovely 
 specimen adopt at once an humbler demeanor, and 
 although he snorted defiantly, and gave me a wicked 
 leer out of the corner of a very resentful eye, he did 
 not offer to do battle, and stood perfectly still beside 
 me. 
 
 "Are you alone?" I asked, of the little, trembling 
 figure standing forlornly, with blanched face, a few 
 paces away. 
 
 "Yes that is, no. My instructor is somewhere 
 behind. The w r ind blew his hat off and he got down to 
 recover it. I can't imagine where he is." 
 
 My opinion of a riding-master who did not know 
 enough to wear a hat-guard, especially when, as in this 
 case, he was in charge of a thoroughly unexperienced 
 pupil and of a hard-mouthed skate like the one I 
 held, was not long in forming, and, leading the beast 
 to one side of the path to wait further developments, 
 I fell to stroking his nose with a murmured, "Pretty 
 pet, you! Nice old boy! Oh, you beauty!" which 
 caused his late rider to burst into screams of girlish 
 laughter. 
 
 At that moment, heralded by the thud of frantic 
 hoofs, there appeared upon the scene an individual, 
 fat, red-faced, greatly excited, clad in a most amazing
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 combination of tight-fitting, putty-colored breeches, 
 short, dark jacket, a yard or so of iron-clad collar, and 
 horror of horrors! a pair of jack-boots which bore a 
 ludicrous resemblance to those of Don Caesar de Bazan. 
 He rode or, rather, attempted to ride a replica of the 
 handsome nag described above, and held in his hand 
 his lately recovered tile. 
 
 With much effort, a wild flapping of elbows, and an 
 apoplectic flushing of his already peony-hued face, he 
 drew up alongside, crying, at the top of his voice : " Vat 
 iss de matter mit you? Did you fall? And who is dot 
 lady? Did she pick you up?" 
 
 I had by this time recovered from my stupefaction 
 at the sight of so remarkable a horseman, and my in- 
 dignation getting the better of my amusement, I said, 
 sternly : 
 
 "Small thanks to you that I didn't have to pick her 
 up! What do you mean by risking the girl's life in 
 such a fashion?" 
 
 "Egsguse me, I don'd see dot dot is any piznis of 
 yours." 
 
 "All the more reason for me to do what I did," I 
 replied, " since you, whose business it evidently was, 
 neglected it." Then, changing suddenly to emphatic 
 German, I gave that man a lecture that made his thick 
 Dutch blood retire precipitately from his congested 
 countenance and left him gasping with astonishment. 
 I had not noticed that during our polyglot squab- 
 ble an elderly man, mounted on a splendid cob and 
 followed at regulation distance by a liveried groom, 
 had stopped behind me, and was taking in the whole 
 scene as if he liked it; but turning to address the 
 girl, who was courageously preparing to reascend her 
 mountainous steed with the help of the now grovelling 
 German, I saw a pair of kindly, merry blue eyes fixed 
 
 453
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 upon me with such complete appreciation of the hu- 
 morous side of the situation that I could not help laugh- 
 ing, and, when pupil and "instructor" had departed, I 
 was much surprised by the nice old gentleman's dis- 
 mounting and approaching me, hat in hand. 
 
 "I hope you won't be offended/' he said, "if I thank 
 you, in the name of the profession, for the excellent 
 tongue-lashing you have just administered to that 
 riding-master. I know him. There are many like 
 him in New York, who constitute a danger to the popu- 
 lation at large and the pupils intrusted to them in par- 
 ticular. May I inquire whether you are yourself a 
 professional?" 
 
 "No, a mere amateur," I replied, laughing, "but one 
 who is very fond of horse-flesh, especially when it is 
 not represented by such sorry specimens as the two 
 that have just left us. That's a remarkably fine cob 
 of yours," I concluded, glancing enviously at the beau- 
 tiful bay rubbing its velvety nose against its master's 
 shoulder in that tenderly confiding fashion which its 
 kind only display towards those who love them. 
 
 "Rigoletto? Yes; he's something to be proud of. 
 Goes like clock-work, and is the best park hack I've 
 owned for a coon's age." Then he added, with a hu- 
 morous, inquiring look, "He's for sale, you know." 
 
 "That's a pity," I said, "for he suits you to a T. I 
 would not sell him if I were you. You will find diffi- 
 culty in getting another cob built like that one, that 
 will carry your weight as easily as he does." 
 
 "H-m! For an amateur, you're a pretty good judge 
 of horses, aren't you?" he responded, with a chuckle; 
 then he continued: "Look here, ma'am; I wish you 
 would come back with me for a few hundred yards. I 
 have a little establishment here near the Park, which, 
 I flatter myself, is kept in apple-pie order, and where I 
 
 454
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 have just now a few nags well worth looking at. Strict- 
 ly speaking, I'm neither a dealer nor have I a riding 
 academy, but I keep myself busy buying and selling 
 good horses, and I'm beginning to be pretty well known 
 here, though New York is not by any means a sporting 
 centre; but still I have a few clients who, when they 
 want a good thing, come to me. Won't you give the 
 place a look? I'd be proud if you would." 
 
 Then, suddenly remembering an omission, he fum- 
 bled hastily in his pocket, extracted a card-case adorn- 
 ed with an enormous gold horseshoe, and handed me 
 
 a card on which was engraved " D. M. A n," 
 
 followed by his business address. 
 
 Now it would be quite idle for me to try and conceal 
 the fact that a rush of unholy joy filled my soul to over- 
 flowing. I had made a loyal effort to be a good, hum- 
 drum, pains-taking hausfrau, and had resolutely put 
 aside every thought of the sport that has ever been my 
 greatest pleasure; but, after all, we are not obliged 
 to discount such little surprises as Fate, perchance 
 kinder than we deserve, has in store for us, and as this 
 one had come to me without any effort of my own, I 
 considered myself perfectly justifiable in yielding to the 
 temptation. Moreover, the gray hairs and eminently 
 respectable appearance of my interlocutor were too 
 convincing to admit of doubting his words. So I ac- 
 cepted his offer as simply as it ha4 been made. 
 
 A pleased expression overspread the ruddy face of 
 my new acquaintance, who alas, poor fellow ! prob- 
 ably looked upon me as a prospective wealthy purchas- 
 er, thanks to the irreproachably cut tweed suit I wore, 
 the big pearl solitaires in my ears, and the little dia- 
 mond horseshoe in my white sporting tie. 
 
 "Here, Frank, take Rigoletto home!" he called to 
 the groom, and as soon as the latter and the covetable 
 
 455
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 cob had trotted away, Mr. A n and myself set 
 
 off in the direction of the Park gates, chatting in the 
 most friendly fashion about the latest improvements 
 in stable sanitation, ventilation, bits, saddles, snaffles, 
 training, racing, and other equally interesting topics. 
 
 I was much pleased with his stables, but as the 
 hour was late I could not stay long, much to my re- 
 gret, and after receiving a pressing invitation to come 
 and try some of the horses, or all of them, at my 
 very earliest convenience, I shook hands heartily with 
 
 Mr. A n and walked home, determined to say 
 
 nothing about this to my boys, for the present at least, 
 knowing well that my little escapade would probably 
 not meet with their approval, as they were both re- 
 markably punctilious about my becoming acquainted 
 with any one whom they themselves did not know, and, 
 moreover, I found a singular pleasure in this harmless 
 little secret remaining unguessed, for already a sense 
 of new possibilities concerning my personal struggle 
 for life was dawning upon my mind. 
 
 That night I stayed up till the small hours in order 
 to finish not only the azure lilacs and green poppies 
 already on the ways, but several other bits of similar 
 ghastliness composing the last batch of "art- work" I 
 had undertaken to do, and next morning, a little before 
 ten o'clock, I walked into Mr. A n's office wear- 
 ing my riding-habit under a long covert cloth driving- 
 coat, in the pocket of which were concealed a spur 
 and a new and improved snaffle of which I had spoken 
 to him on the previous afternoon, and which I had 
 bought in London a few days before my departure for 
 America. 
 
 A n greeted with evident delight my ready- 
 
 for-work attire. " That's right," he cried, with a beam- 
 ing smile. "You wait a moment and I'll have a few 
 
 456
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 choice ones led into the ring for your inspection. I'm 
 clean crazy to see you in the saddle, for you're just cut 
 out to show off a horse. " This being the one compliment 
 which found favor in my eyes, I followed him, well 
 pleased, into the stables, which, though not extensive, 
 contained a goodly number of well-groomed, sleek, 
 handsome horses, attesting the judgment and ability of 
 their owner, and unstintingly expressed my admiration. 
 
 "Wait till you see them moving," he exclaimed, 
 and, shouting to a stableman, who stood at the door 
 of a perfectly appointed saddle-room with a polishing- 
 steel in his hand, to bring The Babe and Lunatic 
 into the ring, and be quick about it, he preceded 
 me into a tolerably large enclosure, well lighted and 
 tan-barked, where a helper was plying a rake with great 
 industry. Pretty soon the horses made their appear- 
 ance, and I had the opportunity of becoming acquainted 
 with the animal very appropriately called Lunatic, 
 who started in to give us a sample of his temper by 
 doing his level best to tear himself loose from his at- 
 tendant. 
 
 "There's the lad for you, if you're anything of a 
 rider," laughed A n. "Not one of your easy- 
 going, milk-and-water gentlemen mischievous as a 
 monkey, quick as a wink, and full of ambition, but 
 tvith his heart in the right place, let me tell you. Would 
 3'ou like to try him?" The last words were pronounced 
 with a little doubtful, sidelong glance, which put me 
 immediately on my mettle. 
 
 " Yes, I would, if j^ou'll trust him to me," I replied, 
 with a smile, looking delightedly at the colt, which, 
 though inclined to be a trifle leggy, with a little too 
 much daylight under him, was, however, blessed with 
 a great perfection of form and a coat of satin-like glossi- 
 ness, shining like burnished metal in the sunlight 
 
 457
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 falling from lofty windows twenty feet above the 
 ground. 
 
 "What's amiss?" suddenly asked A n, no- 
 ticing, with quick intuition, that I was not altogether 
 pleased with what I saw. 
 
 "Oh, I was only wondering why on earth you dis- 
 figure that beautiful animal by allowing such a long 
 tail. Why don't you dock it?" 
 
 " Can't. It's the fashion here for horses to carry long 
 fly-dusters, worse luck!" 
 
 "If I were you I would teach them better, for this 
 is thoroughly unsportsman-like." I had meanwhile 
 drawn nearer to Lunatic and began to pat his glossy 
 neck, without seemingly taking any notice of the de- 
 cidedly suspicious fashion in which he was regarding 
 me, and, determined that my first should be a master- 
 stroke, I made use of a little trick taught me by an 
 old Cossack many years before, and which is nothing 
 but elementary "voltige." I put my hand lightly on 
 the pommel, and, taking the animal completely by sur- 
 prise, vaulted into the saddle. 
 
 The colt gave a wild leap forward, as nimbly as a 
 stag, and pricking up his delicate, tapering ears, gath- 
 ered his legs w r ell under him and sailed away around 
 the ring in amazing style. 
 
 "By G d, that was well done!" roared A n, 
 
 standing stock-still and watching me delightedly. I 
 laughed a little, and proceeded to put Lunatic through 
 his paces. There was really no harm in him, and after 
 a few minutes we came to a very decent understanding, 
 and when I brought him back to where his owner and 
 the groom were waiting, I felt that in a very short time I 
 could transform this ticklish horse into a lady's hunter, 
 provided that lady could ride a little. 
 "Does he jump?" I asked, eagerly. 
 
 458
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Oh, after a fashion, when he feels like it," confessed 
 his owner, a little dubiously. "Would you like to try 
 him over a hurdle or two?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The grin on A n's face broadened. " Bring 
 
 the hurdles/' he said to the groom, and turning to 
 me, he added : "You've got spirit enough, and that's a 
 fact. I think you must have tried to fool me when 
 3 7 ou said that you were not a professional. Yours is 
 not amateur riding, by a long chalk." 
 
 I laughed. "I've been in the saddle since I was 
 three years old," I acknowledged, "and I may as well 
 tell you that horses have always been my chief inter- 
 est in life, and that until lately I owned a pretty good 
 stable of my own." 
 
 "Not in this country?" 
 
 "No, not in this country, certainly. I've been horse- 
 less for a few months, and that's why I am out of prac- 
 tice a little bit." 
 
 " I don't see any sign of that. But here are the hur- 
 dles, and I'm curious to see how that youngster is go- 
 ing to negotiate them with a lady on his back." 
 
 I needed no second invitation, put the colt at a fast 
 gallop, and brought him without any great difficulty 
 to the first leap; but quick as lightning the treacher- 
 ous brute stopped and made a tete a queue with a sud- 
 denness which would have unseated me if I had not 
 been prepared for something of the kind. Now I do not 
 believe in punishing horses until it becomes impossible 
 to do otherwise, so I trotted him back to the starting- 
 point, and once more brought him up to the insignifi- 
 cant obstacle, but he turned again like a snake and tore 
 around the whole extent of the ring as if possessed. 
 
 "This will never do, my fine fellow!" I muttered, 
 closing my teeth, and with methodical vigor I gave 
 
 459
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 him a sharp taste of my hunting-crop. There ensued 
 a short struggle, but I got the mastery, and Lunatic, 
 after this, not only approached the objectionable hur- 
 dles one after another quite willing!} 7 , but rose each 
 time like a bird and landed on the other side with the 
 lightness of wind-blown thistle-down. 
 
 A n's delight knew no bounds. " That 
 
 bucketing will do him all the good in the world," he 
 cried. " There's no use talking, you know what you're 
 about. Great Scott! you could ride the head off the 
 devil! I'll tell you what," he went on, as I brought the 
 horse, all in a lather, to a stand-still before him, " after 
 this you have the run of these stables, and can have 
 any of my horses to ride in the Park, the ring, or the 
 open country whenever you like. My word, but you're 
 a wonder!" 
 
 "You are very good!" I replied, jumping to the 
 ground and throwing the reins to the waiting groom ; 
 "but, of course, I'd never dream of accepting such an 
 offer. I don't suppose you keep a stable for my per- 
 sonal gratification." 
 
 "Look here, ma'am," he said, looking me full in the 
 face, " don't think me impertinent. I don't know your 
 circumstances, you see, and you don't look as if they 
 were very much straitened ; but is it certain sure that 
 you would not accept an offer from me a handsome 
 one, that is to break in and sell lady's hacks? 
 There's money in such a deal and lots of it, too for 
 both of us." 
 
 I was sorely tempted to say "yes" at once, for it 
 was just the sort of thing I would have loved to do, but, 
 somehow or other, I felt pretty certain that Fred would 
 object. And yet this would give me work not only con- 
 genial but lucrative, and might finally end in my hav- 
 ing training and boarding stables of my own. Lord! 
 
 460
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 what a joy that would be ! Strangely enough, poor Fred 
 considered it a terrible humiliation that I should have 
 to work at all, which was really ridiculous, for where 
 could be the shame of our having come a financial 
 cropper and of my trying to help him keep a roof over 
 our heads? I did not see things in that light at all, 
 and had always greatly admired the moral courage dis- 
 played by the Muscovite Prince and Princess Michael 
 H . . . . ff, who, similarly situated, had come to America 
 to work for their own support until such time as the 
 decease of relatives holding a life interest in certain 
 estates should repair their fortunes. They were great 
 nobles, and had occupied one of the most brilliant and 
 enviable positions at the Court of St. Petersburg, but 
 nevertheless they bravely and cheerfully doffed their 
 coronets, and while the Prince secured a berth, first as 
 brakeman and then as fireman on the New York Central 
 Railroad, his beautiful Princess took in fine wash- 
 ing to help him keep the wolf from the door. After a 
 long time the then Czar, having heard of this remark- 
 able piece of renunciation and courage, sent for them, 
 and appointed Prince H . . . . ff Minister of Roads and 
 Communications, with a large salary. A few years later 
 the Prince and Princess revisited this country, for 
 pleasure this time, and with a view of once more look- 
 ing upon the spot where, in spite of reverses and pri- 
 vations, they had been very happy. 
 
 This is by no means the only instance of aristocrats 
 coming to New York, not with the intention of bartering 
 an ancient name and title for the dollars of some Ameri- 
 can heiress, but because they are eager to earn, unob- 
 trusively, an honest living in a plucky and honorable 
 fashion men and women who have been overtaken by 
 financial difficulties, and who, destined to inherit vast 
 wealth at some later period, find it impossible to go the 
 
 461
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 pace to which they have been used while waiting for an 
 alteration in their circumstances. 
 
 All of them lay aside, on landing, all pretension 
 to rank, drop temporarily whatever titles they may 
 possess, and determine to rely solely upon their own 
 exertions to make their way in a land where they fondly 
 imagine that all men start with the same chance of 
 success. 
 
 It is sad to relate that many of these high-minded 
 nobles meet with failure, thanks to their being unaccus- 
 tomed to the conditions of American life, and ignorant 
 of any trade save those of arms and diplomacy, neither 
 of which constitutes a very useful equipment under 
 such circumstances. Alas ! many fall by the wayside, 
 as did, for instance, the great-grandson of the famous 
 
 German Field-Marshal von B r, who succumbed 
 
 to the effects of privation and want in the paupers' 
 ward of a New York hospital, and the brother of the 
 
 Right Honorable Sir Henry D d W . . . . e, 
 
 once British Ambassador to the Court of Spain, who 
 died while serving as a porter in a wholesale grocery 
 store in Jacksonville. That unfortunate young man, 
 who had graduated with honors from Oxford, when 
 he came financially to grief, emigrated to America, 
 where he was in turn a dry-goods clerk, a bill-collector, 
 and a bartender, before taking the final position above 
 mentioned. 
 
 It was also while working as night -porter in the 
 mailing department of a New York newspaper-office 
 that Lord D d, weakened by consumption con- 
 tracted in the exposure incident to his humble calling, 
 fell sick and died practically of starvation, owing to 
 the fact that he was without friends, and having quar- 
 relled with his grandfather, the Earl of P . . . h who 
 was nearly a hundred years old and without other 
 
 462
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 male issue was too proud to notify his relatives of his 
 condition. 
 
 During my own sojourn in New York as a toiler 
 I once met face to face, in a little German restaurant 
 where we had casually dropped in to lunch, no less a 
 personage than Prince Benjamin R . . . n, the younger 
 brother of the chief of the great Austrian and French 
 family of that name. He had been one of my dancers 
 at Vienna, and our mutual astonishment, when, wear- 
 ing the white jacket and apron of a waiter, he brought 
 me the tea and sandwiches that I had ordered, may be 
 better imagined than described. He looked as if he 
 could have bitten a tenpenny nail in two, for this tall, 
 round-faced fellow, whom we had christened "Baby" 
 at Court, had more or less deserved his downfall, his 
 debts and follies having been such that he had been 
 disowned by his uncle, the head of his house. 
 
 I have omitted to say that when we were in Chicago 
 we discovered that the head-waiter at the Grand Pa- 
 cific Hotel was a Count von G n, at one time an 
 
 officer of the regiment of hussars which the Emperor 
 of Germany had commanded in person before his ac- 
 cession to the throne. On leaving the army the Count 
 had gone out West with the idea of running a cattle- 
 ranch, and, having lost all his money in the attempt, 
 was forced to seek other means of livelihood. 
 
 Nor is this all ; but it would take too much space to de- 
 scribe a hundredth part of the histories of the wrecks and 
 ruins that have been scattered throughout the United 
 States, and so I will content myself with but a few more 
 instances, one of which concerned a cousin of Fred's, 
 
 the German Count F . . . k von F n, who 
 
 labored as the driver of a Belt Line car for many months, 
 
 arid another, Count V .... r C e, the son of 
 
 one of Emperor Francis Joseph's favorite aides -de- 
 
 463
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 camp, who actually begged his bread for a time on 
 the streets of New York, having become disabled by 
 a fracture of the right arm while working as a com- 
 missionaire. A few years later the Count, who had 
 meanwhile inherited some money and returned to his 
 own land, was sent to Washington as Austro - Hun- 
 garian Charge d'Affaires, and his feelings during 
 his time of office must have been singular, when he 
 remembered how recently he had been a footsore and 
 weary member of the great American Wandering Will- 
 iam fraternity. 
 
 Few persons have any idea of the amount of Old 
 World romance that is hidden away in the East Side 
 of New York, and in the poorer districts of Brook- 
 lyn and Harlem. Indeed, it would require the pen of a 
 Dickens to describe the final acts of many an aristo- 
 cratic tragedy which is carefully concealed in the meaner 
 streets of democracy's greatest city, for it is precisely 
 those whose career and antecedents are of the most 
 intensely dramatic character, whose rank is of the lofti- 
 est and whose path was the most brilliant, who are at 
 the greatest pains to conceal their identity and the 
 temporary or final eclipse of their fortunes from the 
 prying gaze of the curious. 
 
 Witness the case of that young nobleman, a grand- 
 son of a celebrated statesman, who fell sick and died in 
 the hospital unidentified, for he had pawned his very 
 clothes in order to obtain food. When his relatives be- 
 came alarmed at his prolonged silence, and attempted to 
 discover his whereabouts with the help of the consular 
 service and various detective agencies, he was finally 
 discovered as an empty skull and a few bare bones on 
 the dissecting-slates of a medical college. 
 
 This digression has carried me far from my subject, 
 although it was suggested thereby, for I thought then, 
 
 464
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 as I think to-day, that it is when aristocrats scorn the 
 benefits which might accrue to them from the posses- 
 sion of an empty title, and voluntarily rtuounce such 
 privileges to work for their own bread, that they show 
 themselves thoroughbreds, and not when they become 
 toadies and fortune-hunters the last and most pitiable 
 stage of degradation. 
 
 I felt quite certain, moreover, that I had it in me to 
 succeed as a horse-trainer, all the more that in a new 
 country a feminine trainer would be a novelty and an 
 attraction. In those days Americans, in spite of their 
 undeniable fondness for horses, understood but little 
 about their management and general handling, women 
 especially being then a veritable eyesore in the saddle. 
 Those I saw in the Park, with very few exceptions, 
 indulged in fluttering ribbons, ludicrous head-gear, 
 saddle-pads of garish patterns, and elaborate whale- 
 bone whips with silken lashes and extraordinary jew- 
 elled knobs which reminded one of old-fashioned circus 
 equestriennes. Their riding, too, was mostly execra- 
 ble, belonging neither to the correct and conven- 
 tional haute-ecole nor the free-and-easy cross-country 
 style, but a ridiculous mixture of both, intermingled 
 with clumsy timidity and a considerable amount of 
 pose and "side." Indeed, they were justly described 
 
 by my friend A n as "calamities on castors," 
 
 a bit of colloquialism which enchanted me. 
 
 The amazing success achieved in horse-breeding and 
 training by a very dear friend of mine, Princess " Au- 
 
 guste" M t, flashed across my mind as I 
 
 walked home through the dingy New York streets, 
 cogitating over A n's offer. 
 
 There appeared once more before my eyes the bleak 
 Polish country-side across which I had so often guided 
 a four-in-hand or a pair of restive trotters over narrow, 
 30 465
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ill-kept roads, deeply furrowed in mud or hardened by 
 early frost. 1 seemed to feel again the searching No- 
 vember winds, whistling through shaggy pine-branches 
 and rattling the denuded twigs of the birches meeting 
 high above my head in confused tangles, with their 
 harsh outlines continuously traversed by great flights 
 of ravens winging their hurried flight towards the dis- 
 tant ranges of the Carpathian Mountains under dun- 
 colored skies. Once more I saw the long, straggling 
 stone buildings fronting on an immense yard, which 
 was entered by a heavy granite archway, surmounted 
 by a carven coat of arms and a princely coronet. 
 
 I saw the long rows of open stable doors, the large 
 forge in full swing, and the yards and huge hay-stacks 
 in the middle distance, bespeaking scrupulous care and 
 a practical comprehension of stud-farming. And what 
 about the Princess herself? She was tall and slender, 
 with a delicately cut, slightly aquiline face, almost inno- 
 cent of wrinkles although she was then over fifty years 
 of age a healthy-looking skin tanned to a clear amber, 
 a square, determined chin and white, even teeth. Clad 
 in shooting-jacket and serviceable riding-breeches, ad- 
 mirably fitting riding-boots, and a broad-brimmed, soft 
 felt hat a costume she had adopted as being more con- 
 venient than even the shortest of skirts for the prosecu- 
 tion of her beloved hobby she was always in or about 
 the yards, personally overlooking every detail of her 
 vast establishment. 
 
 What a witty and amusing woman she was, and, 
 when once launched upon her favorite topics, how en- 
 tertaining! She professed the most withering con- 
 tempt for the ordinary type of sportswomen, declaring 
 that they knew, generally speaking, as much about 
 the points of a horse as they did about the composi- 
 tion of the fixed stars, and never hesitated to declare 
 
 466
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 that that particular portion of the fair sex which is in- 
 clined to be horsy par genre and without a real love 
 of the thing, is, as a rule, more disreputable and ob- 
 noxious than any shady jockey, bookie, or even welsher 
 belonging to the outside edge of the ring. 
 
 Princess "Auguste" was the fourth daughter of 
 
 Count Julius Max M t, who, at the imminent 
 
 peril of his life, had rescued the widowed Princess 
 Charles-Emmanuel of Savoy from the flames that de- 
 voured the Austrian Embassy at Paris on the night of 
 the gala ball given by the then Ambassador, Prince 
 Schwartzenberg, in honor of Napoleon I.'s wedding 
 with Archduchess Marie Louise. 
 
 The Count was at that time only nineteen years of 
 age, and so handsome that the young royal widow fell 
 desperately in love with him, and proved her gratitude 
 by marrying him and securing his elevation to the 
 rank of Prince. In spite of his youth he was a devoted 
 step-father to her little children, one of whom, by-the- 
 way, was afterwards King Charles Albert of Sardinia, 
 and another the mother of Archduke Rainer of Austria. 
 
 From him my friend Princess "Auguste" had evi- 
 dently inherited her dauntless courage, to which she 
 added a certain amount of eccentricity, for this enor- 
 mously wealthy noblew r oman, good - looking and ex- 
 tremely gifted, held herself persistently aloof from her 
 peers and devoted her entire life to horses. She lived 
 like an anchorite, not from any motive of avarice, but 
 because her personal tastes were surprisingly simple. 
 Charitable to a fault, the welfare of her tenants and 
 peasantry was of paramount importance to her, and a 
 large part of her income was expended in the promo- 
 tion of their health and comfort. 
 
 Her success with horses was phenomenal, and I 
 do not think there was anything on four feet which 
 
 467
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 she could not ride and master, her methods being, 
 however, singularly gentle and coaxing for such a 
 strong-minded woman. 
 
 Why should I not also achieve a similar success, al- 
 though being without capital ? There could be no great 
 possibility of comparison between her past achievements 
 and my future ones, yet a spirit of emulation rose in 
 me; but I was far too wise to broach the subject to my 
 lord and master, or even to Bertrand, for the present. 
 
 Affairs were adopting a rather grim aspect for us. 
 Foolishly enough, I had sent back by diplomatic valise 
 my more valuable jewels to the care of trustworthy 
 hands, and little by little the lesser luminaries of my 
 jewel-box followed in the track of the dressing-case. 
 Once more the wolf was at the door, though I muzzled 
 him most carefully when the boys were present. De- 
 spair was beginning to gnaw at my heart, for it took 
 all my sagacity to continue paying the rent and to 
 furnish plain, simple meals for Fred and Bertrand, 
 from which, long ere this, all recherche morsels had dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 Fred, who did not realize any more than Bertrand the 
 recent urgency of the situation for of late I had taken 
 the disposal of my valuables into my own hands used 
 to say that I had become altogether too grave and de- 
 termined. "A regular Duke of Wellington in petti- 
 coats," he would say, laughing; and little did he know 
 that this unwonted sternness was my only safeguard 
 against a general and most inglorious breakdown. 
 
 Whenever I could I made a point of spending a couple 
 
 of hours or so at A n's, working in the ring 
 
 with a will, or taking "young 7 uns" out, followed by a 
 groom gotten up in first-class Hyde Park Corner style. 
 My exquisitely fitting Busvine habit and my Lincoln 
 and Bennet stovepipe hat created quite a sensation, 
 
 468
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and, thanks to them, and perhaps, also, a little to my 
 handling of the horses, I was the direct cause of the 
 " governor's " making several advantageous sales. 
 
 And that is where I showed myself a fool, for, al- 
 though the sides of my purse touched, I refused to ac- 
 cept the commissions which were, after all, most hon- 
 orably due to me, because I could not stomach the idea 
 of receiving money for a service which was at the same 
 time so great a pleasure. 
 
 I witnessed many funny incidents at A n's, 
 
 one of which, in particular, I shall not soon forget, 
 for I laughed as I had not laughed for months, and 
 felt almost as though I were again well fed and hap- 
 py. One morning A n told me that the wife 
 
 of an enormously wealthy and successful brewer, who 
 was trying to take society by storm, would arrive in 
 a few moments to select a Park hack. She had, it 
 seems, been told that horsiness was a sine qua non of 
 elegance and social excellence, and, resolving to become 
 at once a perfect horsewoman, was fresh from a course 
 of twenty -four riding - lessons at an academy in the 
 neighborhood of the Park. 
 
 "She wants to see some horses ridden by a lady," 
 
 explained A n, with visible embarrassment, 
 
 busying himself with his cigar-case as he spoke in a 
 fashion that made me smile. 
 
 "Well, what's the matter with my showing her 
 those you have on hand?" I exclaimed. "Don't I ride 
 well enough?" 
 
 "That isn't it, that isn't it," muttered he; "but a 
 woman like you, who looks one's hat off, is not the 
 kind one likes to ask to trot out cattle for a person of 
 my new customer's sort. I should have to be nine 
 varieties of a born fool not to know pretty well by this 
 time what you are or thereabouts ; and that breweress, 
 
 469
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 in spite of her avoirdupois, is what might be called one 
 of Heaven's light-weights!" 
 
 " Oh, don't talk nonsense, Mr. A n. I am 
 
 only too glad to oblige you if I can, and if the breweress 
 proves disagreeable I will give her a file to gnaw, as 
 you say over here. Meanwhile, if you will permit me, 
 I will just exercise Skylark while waiting for this dis- 
 tinguished patron of yours." 
 
 The black colt mentioned was much on the pattern 
 of the now long - since - sold Lunatic. He was ner- 
 vous and inclined to cut up rough, and engrossed my 
 attention so completely that I forgot all about the 
 brewing equestrienne that was to be, and was com- 
 pletely taken by surprise when Pat, the head groom, 
 ran round to where I was endeavoring to make that 
 devilish "young un" understand the A B C of his 
 equine education, and told me that "the governor" 
 sent his compliments, and would I come to the upper 
 end of the ring for a moment? 
 
 I turned Skylark round and trotted him towards 
 a group on the wooden steps leading down to the 
 ring, which included a fat, red-faced woman, a thin, 
 shy-looking girl, a gorgeously liveried footman bear- 
 ing himself like a South American parrot, and poor 
 A n himself, who seemed greatly distressed. 
 
 The fat dame looked superciliously at me through 
 a long-handled, jewelled lorgnette, saying, in a loud 
 whisper, "Professional, of course?" The wretched 
 "governor's" comely features assumed the hue of a 
 freshly boiled lobster, and he hastened to my side, hat 
 in hand. 
 
 "I hate to ask you," he said, "but would you very 
 much mind riding Little Boy Blue for a few minutes, 
 just to show this party what he can do?" 
 
 "I don't mind at all; I think it amusing," I replied, 
 
 470
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 heroically repressing the laughter which rose in me at 
 the thought of the figure that pudding-shaped woman 
 would cut on the dainty thoroughbred's back, should 
 she be so imprudent as to venture herself there, and, 
 beckoning Pat to follow me, I galloped off to the stables. 
 
 When I came back, madame and her retinue were 
 standing by the mounting-block, but I took no ap- 
 parent notice of her, and, entering into the spirit of the 
 thing, made use of one of the tricks of the trade by 
 letting Pat display the graces of an elderly chestnut 
 mare, which he had hastily bestridden, while I ap- 
 peared entirely absorbed in the delicate management 
 of Little Boy Blue, who, in conscious pride of his own 
 beauty, tossed his delicate head from side to side, and 
 used his perfect legs like a ballet-dancer. 
 
 After a few turns around the ring, I called A n 
 
 to my side and asked him what I was to do next. 
 
 "Confound the w r oman," he said, wrathfully, "she 
 wants to see you on the chestnut mare, but I'm going 
 to tell her you're not here to satisfy her whims. She 
 is a gump. She looks as if she had a digestion equal 
 to disposing of poached bath-towels, and she certainly 
 has cheek to match." 
 
 " Don't tell her ; please don't ! Anything to oblige a 
 lady, my dear sir. I will change saddles with Pat, and 
 sell her Molly, if I can, for it cuts me to the heart to 
 think of her owning Little Boy Blue." 
 
 "You get too much attached to horses. It's a great 
 drawback in trade. Business first, you know." 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so," I said, wearily, sliding to the 
 ground and holding the beautiful colt while his girths 
 were being unbuckled by his special attendant. For 
 the next half -hour I showed off the mare, and with 
 exemplary patience that is, for me endured the ab- 
 surd remarks and questions of the female leviathan 
 
 47i
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 who coveted her. At last, in answer to a more than 
 permissibly idiotic demand, I said, without moving a 
 muscle : 
 
 "I assure you, madame, that Molly will give you 
 every satisfaction. She's warranted to carry a lady, 
 draw a bicycle, or go on roller-skates, if need be. She's 
 the very thing for you." 
 
 Much to my astonishment the would-be sports- 
 woman, far from taking offence at my words which 
 I regretted before they were well out of my mouth 
 accepted them as part of her many novel experiences, 
 and merely exclaimed : 
 
 " Dear me, how wicked to give a Christian name to a 
 brute beast! Couldn't it be changed if I decide to buy?" 
 
 " Certainly, madame, certainly!" broke in A n, 
 
 with a mercantile smile, which made me positively 
 angry. "You can call her anything you please, al- 
 though it is not customary to alter the names of pedi- 
 gree horses." 
 
 Molly a pedigree horse! I could hardly restrain my 
 unholy joy at the tallness of the fib. Lord, how he was 
 going to stick her ! 
 
 "I'd like to try her, then," was the sudden and most 
 unexpected rejoinder. 
 
 "Try her, by all means," I said, shaking with sup- 
 pressed laughter. "But hadn't you better first go 
 home and put on a riding-habit?" 
 
 This suggestion was made in the very innocence of 
 my soul, and I nearly fell from the mare's broad, ser- 
 viceable back when the lady answered, indignantly : 
 
 "Well, and ain't this habit good enough, then? 
 What would you have me wear?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing, nothing more elaborate, I'm sure! 
 Pardon me, I am a little near-sighted and thought you 
 were dressed for the carriage." 
 
 472
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Truly the mistake was excusable, for who would 
 have dreamed of connecting the befogged and em- 
 broidered maroon cloth gown, falling in generous folds 
 from the immense hips to the ponderous flat feet, with 
 the requirements of the saddle. My amusement was 
 intensified by a muttered remark from Pat which I 
 caught. 
 
 "May you be twenty years in heaven before the 
 devil knows you are dead," he said, looking at me, this 
 curious valediction nearly upsetting my hard- won equa- 
 nimity, which was further endangered by the ex- 
 traordinary fashion in which " " hoisted herself 
 
 from the mounting-block into the saddle. She was so 
 coquettish about it, too, indulging in small bursts of girl- 
 ish laughter as if she were being tickled, and looking 
 archly at A n, with evidently a pleasant con- 
 sciousness of her personal charms, and of the impres- 
 sion which they must surely produce upon any male 
 onlooker. 
 
 In harsh, commanding tones, however, she bade the 
 cockatoo hand her her whip a most dangerous weapon 
 in such hands and, in yet more contemptuous tones, 
 ordered her meek companion to mind "darling Fido," 
 a horrible little hairy terrier that I had not noticed be- 
 fore, but which the poor dependant dutifully picked 
 up and fell to petting with a cringing subservience piti- 
 ful to behold. 
 
 "Bless my soul, she'll kill herself!" growled 
 A n, after one glance at the leviathan pick- 
 ing up her reins with a jerk that made Molly snort 
 and pull at her bit. I thought as much myself, and as, 
 fortunately, a groom had just brought into the ring 
 another horse with a side-saddle in case Molly failed 
 to suit, I hurriedly mounted, and, catching up with 
 the adipose rider, took charge of affairs. 
 
 473
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Allow me," I said, bending sideways towards her 
 and readjusting the reins, while talking soothingly to 
 the alarmed mare. 
 
 "Don't I hold 'em right? That's how they showed 
 me to. But perhaps you're more difficult to please 
 than men-teachers," panted madame, upon whom the 
 riding-ring jog-trot was already telling. 
 
 I had made up my mind to be amiable, or to die in 
 the effort, and so, instead of leaving her impertinent 
 remark unanswered, I went to the trouble of giving 
 her a regular riding-lesson, judiciously sprinkled with 
 little words of praise, which it cost me something to 
 utter, and at the end of half an hour I had the gratifi- 
 cation of hearing her accept A n's steep price 
 
 for Molly without a murmur. 
 
 Turning to me, as soon as the transaction was 
 brought to a satisfactory end, she delivered herself of 
 this remarkable statement : 
 
 " I like your way of teaching, young woman. I think 
 you had better arrange to give me lessons three times a 
 week, and I don't mind paying you a trifle more than 
 I did at the academy, money being no object to me 
 when I'm pleased. Here's for to-day, anyhow," and 
 she thrust into my hand a crisp five-dollar bill. 
 
 I thought A n would have had a fit. He 
 
 fairly stamped his foot. "Good Heavens, madame, 
 this lady is not a professional or a teacher. I've told 
 you so already. She is a lady as much as yourself ! " 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. A n," I said, with a bow 
 
 and smile testifying my gratitude. 
 
 The dealer floundered helplessly, and, to cover the 
 embarrassment of the moment, I turned to Pat, who, 
 grinning all over his good-humored Irish face, was 
 taking in the situation, and handed him the five dol- 
 lars a sum which I had not been able to keep in its 
 
 474
 
 entirety for a good many weeks saying, mischiev- 
 ously : " Madame wishes you to accept this to bind the 
 sale, Pat." 
 
 "The idea!" snarled the leviathan. "That's real 
 wicked waste," and she flounced off, accompanied by 
 A n, to whom she gave directions about send- 
 ing poor old Molly around to her stables, as if the beast 
 had been a bag of bonbons or a dozen of gloves. 
 
 The results of my interesting myself in A n's 
 
 affairs were so satisfactory to himself that one fine day 
 he once more made me an offer to enter into a sort of 
 partnership with him, and at such advantageous terms 
 that I promised him to think the matter over. I had 
 never let him know anything at all about myself, ex- 
 cept that I was married and living \vith my husband 
 in the neighborhood, and that I had not as yet men- 
 tioned to the latter my little equine escapades, for fear 
 of arousing his ever-alert fears on my account. The 
 time had now come, however, when, if I had any seri- 
 ous intentions of accepting A n's proposal, it 
 
 would become necessary to divulge the matter and 
 to tell Fred and Bertrand what I had been doing. I 
 nevertheless continued to decorate ridiculous objects of 
 virtu, and even attained a proficiency in this line which 
 made me hope that I would be finally able to make, if 
 not a living, at least quite a little income in this way 
 if I persevered ; but as a matter of fact my heart was 
 set upon horses, and I could not for the life of me 
 give up the idea of earning my bread by my skill with 
 them. 
 
 Matters were at this pass when suddenly Bertrand 
 announced to me that he had managed to obtain a 
 letter of credit, thanks to his possessing a sum of 
 money which he had inherited shortly before from a 
 distant relative, and which he had, by letter, induced 
 
 475
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 his guardian to allow him to make use of for the pur- 
 chase of a partnership in a ranch on the confines of 
 Colorado. The only stipulation and that made by 
 his mother, who evidently feared that the boy would 
 offer to help us was that the letter should only 
 be presentable at a bank in Denver. She attributed 
 his prolonged absence from home entirely to our in- 
 fluence, and was so bitterly incensed that once again 
 the breach between her and myself, which had been 
 almost bridged over, was more than ever impassable. 
 
 I had tried to induce her to allow me to collect a por- 
 tion of the rents accruing from some valuable farms left 
 in trust to her for me, with the understanding, however, 
 that it was optional for her to allow r me the usufruct 
 thereof. She had availed herself of this option to cut 
 off those revenues when I married Fred, although until 
 then I had always drawn them. It was these lands to 
 w r hich I have once alluded as " unproductive," meaning 
 thereby that it was very doubtful whether she would 
 ever consent to let me draw a single cent therefrom. 
 And, indeed, she flatly refused to "let me have more 
 money to waste/' as she kindly put it. 
 
 My old manoir of K t, with its broad lands 
 
 and salt-marshes, just about paid for itself, the estate 
 being a large and costly one to keep up, and I there- 
 fore was not a whit the richer because I owned it. All 
 my remaining jewels were now pledged, and I saw 
 every day more clearly that the idea of continuing in 
 our present little home was an impossibility, but since 
 Bertrand was on the point of departure, I infinitely 
 preferred to let him go away under the impression that 
 our situation was far from a desperate one, rather than 
 place him in a position where he might suggest means 
 to help us which we never would have dreamed of 
 accepting. 
 
 476
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Another drawback of which I did not want to speak, 
 any more than I did of the others, was that my health 
 began at that time to be far from good, which surprised 
 me greatly, for, apart from my terrible attack of typhoid 
 in Cairo, I had always been as sound as a bell, and 
 could not account for the feeling of languor and mis- 
 ery which made life a burden to me. 
 
 Bertrand's leave of absence from the navy having 
 been indefinitely prolonged by the help of powerful 
 influences and doctors' certificates, the lad finally left 
 us, and bitter was my distress when, on one oppres- 
 sive, sultry summer evening, he bade me good-bye, 
 and, accompanied by Fred and the faithful Jim, who 
 had joyfully responded to his summons, started on 
 his long journey. I can distinctly remember that as I 
 watched them disappearing at the corner of the street, 
 a piano-organ began to play a melody from " II Trova- 
 tore," which has always been particularly hateful to me 
 from sad associations, and this unfortunate occurrence 
 drove me nearly wild. I left the window, and, throwing 
 myself face downward on the sofa, lay perfectly still in 
 a state of such intense wretchedness that the disorder 
 of my mind seemed as that of an untidy room, where 
 restless and impatient hands have been at work casting 
 the debris in odd corners and cursorily sweeping the 
 middle of the floor so as to make it look decent, but 
 where a sudden gust of wind whirls everything about 
 in distracting confusion. 
 
 Two or three days later I gently told Fred that it 
 was no longer possible for us to retain our present, 
 comparatively speaking, comfortable and pre ' ty little 
 flat, and with heavy hearts we set about loo zing for 
 something cheaper and simpler. 
 
 This we found in Thirty-third Street, two rooms 
 and a bath, and a tiny, tiny little kitchen in the base- 
 
 477
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 ment, abutting on that of the landlady, a sour-faced 
 Irishwoman, whose voice alone was enough to make 
 one take flight, so rasping and unpleasant was it. 
 
 The furniture was very scanty and very clean, but 
 the view from the window's was positively suicidal, 
 especially during the scorching summer days, with 
 the noise of heavy wagons and cars rattling continually 
 in one's ears, accompanied by the hoarse, coarse voices 
 and heavy laughter of the inhabitants of that dingy 
 quarter of the town. It was a dismal place, indeed, 
 with its malodorous suggestion of dark slums, where 
 Hell's Kitchen hid its squalor some dozen blocks or 
 so away, and before I descended so many steps farther 
 down the scale, I made up my mind to profit by what 
 remained to me of the outward appearance, at least, of 
 semi-prosperity to send for an old physician established 
 in our vicinity, and of whom I had heard favorable re- 
 ports, in order to find out, if possible, what was ailing 
 me. 
 
 He came and went, leaving me absolutely bewil- 
 dered and incredulous about his astounding diagnosis. 
 How very happy such tidings w r ould have made me a 
 year before, granted that he spoke the truth, but how 
 terrifying they were now so much so, indeed, that I 
 carefully abstained from telling Fred either of the doc- 
 tor's visit or of its unexpected result. 
 
 There was an end, for the present at any rate, of all 
 my fine dreams with regard to the training of horses, 
 
 and sorrowfully I went and told A n that as I 
 
 was leaving home for the rest of the summer I would 
 have temporarily to interrupt my delightful rides. He 
 was sincerely grieved, and made me promise to come 
 back as soon as possible, for, as he said, "the place 
 would not be the same without me." 
 
 Of the weeks that followed the least said the better, 
 
 478
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 for they were nothing short of a perpetual nightmare, 
 upon which I dwell even now as little as possible in 
 my thoughts. The weather was trying beyond descrip- 
 tion, being composed of a succession of broiling days 
 and nights, with ghastly thunder-storms, and scorch- 
 ing winds almost worse than an Egyptian Khamsin. 
 By dint of redoubling my efforts in the decorative line, 
 and by the sale of a few precious little knick-knacks 
 which I still possessed, I managed to prevent Fred 
 from noticing that the question of actual food had be- 
 come one of momentary uncertainty. 
 
 Fortunately the poor fellow was out the greater part 
 of the day still bent on obtaining this elusive situation 
 which we had never ceased hoping would finally save 
 us from total want, and thus I had but one meal to pro- 
 vide for namely, dinner, the early morning toast and 
 tea being hardly worthy of the name of a meal. 
 
 Those dinners! How intensely funny they were! 
 " Funny " may seem a euphemism, but still my sfinse 
 of humor never quite left me, as luck would have it, 
 and I often could not help laughing when I glorified 
 an Irish stew, or a couple of chops flanked by two po- 
 tatoes, into a sort of banquet by setting on the white 
 oil-cloth, among forks and knives no longer silver, but 
 plain wood and iron, like those of the Chicago stock- 
 yards eating -room a small bowl of green leaves 
 and homely flowers purchased for a few cents from 
 itinerant vendors, and of which I took extraordi- 
 nary care in order to make them last as long as pos- 
 sible. 
 
 ,Fred behaved splendidly. The pampered clubman, 
 who had so short a time before found fault with the 
 exquisite cuisine of a chef to whom I paid the salary of 
 a general officer, now ate contentedly, and even lav- 
 ished praise upon dishes which Eugene Sue in his 
 
 479
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Alysteres de Paris so graphically describes as "desmets 
 de portiere," washed down by tepid water, for ice was, of 
 course, out of the question, and terminated by one, or 
 at the utmost two, cigarettes of a very inferior quality. 
 
 It was then that we both knew what hunger means, 
 and when clad in our expensive clothes and presenting 
 the outward appearance of extremely wealthy and pros- 
 perous members of an ultra - fashionable set, we often 
 hurried past the doors of some inviting restaurant, 
 because the aromas thereof were somewhat aggravat- 
 ing to our empty stomachs. 
 
 Such experiences are liable to make one singularly 
 pitiful towards any poor wretch imploring one's charity 
 in the street, even if one be certain that the alms de- 
 manded in the whining sing-song of the professional 
 beggar will go direct to a drinking-shop, for it is far 
 better to give, even twenty times, to the undeserving 
 than to run the risk of once refusing a really hungry 
 man. 
 
 The day before my birthday, strangely enough, our 
 landlord, a good-natured, rather inebriate Hibernian, 
 employed somewhere upon the city water-works, took 
 a holiday at the seashore, and brought back such a 
 quantity of fish as trophies of his skill as an angler 
 that he burst upon me with an offering of some big, 
 fat flounders and several large crabs. Lord, what a 
 feast that was ! I went to the expense of buying some 
 crisp salad and a little fruit, also half a pound of coffee, 
 and a large bunch of snowy marguerites, half of which 
 I gave to the wife of the successful fisherman and part 
 provider of the banquet, \vho, remarkable to state, had 
 in a far corner of her morose and grumbling nature an 
 intense love for flowers. 
 
 When Fred came home he gave a gasp of astonish- 
 ment at the gorgeousness of the festive board. Truly, 
 
 480
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I had surpassed myself, and had even gone so far as 
 to decorate every dish and plate, of which there were 
 at least six being given the magnitude of my prepara- 
 tions with those ingeniously devised little Japanese 
 tissue - paper napkins which that year druggists so 
 liberally presented to their customers 
 
 I had of late become quite a patron of the druggist 
 at the next corner, by reason of the frequent headaches 
 which added their quantum of annoyance to my varie- 
 gated and multitudinous vexations, and with praise- 
 worthy taste I invariably selected pink-and-white ones, 
 which, of course, produced a very grand effect on the 
 white oil-cloth. 
 
 "Let my lord suffer his hand-maiden to relieve him 
 of his hat," I said, courtesying. "The banquet pre- 
 pared for my lord is now in readiness and awaiting his 
 good pleasure." 
 
 "May I inquire," replied he, peering curiously at 
 the unwonted magnificence of the table appointments, 
 "to what I am indebted for this flattering reception? 
 Do my eyes betray the trust I place in them, or is yon- 
 der dish really a dressed crab?" 
 
 " It is, kind and beloved sir, it is, and if you but knew 
 how long a crab takes dressing longer even than you 
 do, in fact and realized that the dish upon which you 
 deign to gaze contains six able-bodied specimens of 
 that ilk, you would yield to the pardonable temptation 
 of sampling them at once in recognition of the dresser's 
 efforts." 
 
 Fred leaned forward and took another good look at 
 the appetizing concoction within the dish. " Have you 
 robbed a bank in my absence? Tell me the worst at 
 once!" 
 
 "Cheer up, friend; my hands are as clean as my 
 conscience, which is something to be proud of after my 
 
 3' 481
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 attentions to the crabs. You can eat and make merry ; 
 the wife of your bosom is as yet blameless." 
 
 "For all its small mercies let a wise Providence be 
 praised/' he murmured, piously, taking his place op- 
 posite to me, and drawing the dressed crabs lovingly 
 and tenderly towards his side of the table. "A great 
 Court physician once assured me that my heart is 
 superbly sound. I can now readily believe that his 
 wisdom led him not astray, else this surprise might 
 have ended fatally for me, and caused you to become a 
 lone-lorn widow in the very prime of your youth and 
 beauty." 
 
 " In order to avoid giving you further shocks, it will 
 be safer for me to tell you that two large and juicy floun- 
 ders are even now reposing on the kitchen stove, and 
 will appear as a second course when you have exhaust- 
 ed the joys of the toothsome dainty which now absorbs 
 your attention. These will be followed by some fragrant 
 coffee at twenty-eight cents a pound, prepared in ap- 
 proved Turkish fashion!" 
 
 " Really, I am not strong enough to bear up against 
 such proofs of devotion in spite of the well-averred and 
 countersigned healthiness of my heart. Spare me any 
 further details, my good woman, and assuage my 
 curiosity by answering my first question, What is the 
 occasion I am thus bidden to celebrate?" 
 
 "My twenty-fourth birthday, Monseigneur. Noth- 
 ing short of this auspicious anniversary would have 
 led me to cook two of the four luscious fish which this 
 morning adorned my larder. ' Waste not, want not/ is 
 my motto; but I am of opinion that this comforting 
 proverb holds good only on ordinary days." 
 
 A pained expression, quickly repressed, swept over 
 Fred's mobile features; then, also realizing that ban- 
 ter was the safest sauce for those fish, he gravely 
 
 482
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 and impressively rose, detached a full-blown marguerite 
 from the central bouquet, and, dropping on one knee 
 beside me, said, unctuously : 
 
 "Let this blossom the sweetest of all flowers 
 testify to the loyalty and fealty of your most passion- 
 ate admirer, fair la dye, and be the harbinger of an era 
 of plethoric prosperity, when crabs and flounders will 
 frolic in countless hordes about us, and a golden Pacto- 
 lus flow freely into our temporarily depleted coffers." 
 
 I fastened the marguerite in my dress, and, kissing 
 my hand to him, ran down-stairs to fetch " the second 
 course/' which was as greatly appreciated as the first, 
 I need not add. 
 
 "Promise me, gallant Knight, promise me some- 
 thing!" I said, fervently, as I deposited the deliciously 
 cooked flounders upon the table. 
 
 "All right," said Fred, eying them en connaisseur. 
 
 " Hurrah! Promise me that you will eat them both!" 
 
 Fred drew himself up rather stiffly. ' 
 
 "If you consider that fair," he remarked, "I can 
 only say that the sense of honor which adversity has 
 left you is disgracefully small!" 
 
 "I know! It is terrible!" I acquiesced. "But let my 
 excuse for this degrading demand upon your generosity 
 be that I have eaten too much crab to allow another 
 morsel, be it ever so tempting, to pass my lips!" 
 
 And thus the banquet was eaten! 
 
 It seemed as if the good wishes uttered by Fred on 
 that memorable day had somehow or other broken our 
 long run of bad luck, for the very next day he obtained 
 a position at the munificent salary of thirty dollars a 
 week, which made us feel as if we were once m )re mill- 
 ionaires, and when in addition to this I received a very 
 large order for the painting in gouache colors of some 
 really handsome sachets and satin bonbon boxes for 
 
 483
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 a leading firm of confectioners certain to bring me a 
 comparatively large profit we came to the conclusion 
 that we could once more aspire to the dignity of an 
 apartment. 
 
 We therefore left, with bag and baggage, our wretch- 
 ed quarters, and for the second time established our 
 selves in Forty-third Street, two doors from where we 
 had lived before. Truly, this fortunate alteration in 
 our circumstances happened just in time, for I could 
 no longer doubt the correctness of my old doctor's diag- 
 nosis, and could now indulge in this joyful hope with- 
 out any too great misgivings. 
 
 This being the case, I confided to Fred the new dig- 
 nity in store for him, and this improvident man's de- 
 light had something pathetically humorous about it, 
 for had the interesting stranger expected been destined 
 to inherit the fairest crown and imperial estate in the 
 world, the prospective father could not have looked upon 
 this advent more enthusiastically. 
 
 I set to work with a will, painting all day, and work- 
 ing half the night at certain fluffy and diaphanous 
 garments of diminutive size, the material for which 
 was furnished by the lavish destruction of my ridicu- 
 lously elaborate wardrobe, petticoats flounced with 
 broad Valenciennes, Mechlin, and Alengon laces being 
 transformed into regal little robes, and an exquisite 
 pale-pink-and-silver Court-train lined with w r hite satin 
 providing magnificent and very original draperies for 
 the plainest of wicker-work cradles and dressing-bas- 
 kets. This was evidently a leaf taken out of Madame 
 S . . . a's book, for whenever I glanced at these speci- 
 mens of my handiwork I could not help thinking of 
 that lady's studiously simple rattan-chairs cushioned 
 with priceless sixteenth-century cloth-of-silver. 
 
 The Saturday when Fred was to bring his first salary 
 
 484
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 home we decided to make memorable by a tasteful little 
 dinner, and when walking home late in the afternoon 
 from my quest for sundry dainties, I was attracted 
 by some Japanese chrysanthemums of singular beauty, 
 each blossom as big as a small saucer, and of a vir- 
 ginal whiteness as woolly as a new-born lamb. 
 
 "Those are just the thing," thought I, and, embold- 
 ened by the pleasant feeling that much gold was to be 
 ours before night, I entered the shop wherein countless 
 blossoms basked in the rays of the electric-light, and 
 with a recklessness savoring of former days deter- 
 mined to invest in a dollar's worth or so of the blooms. 
 
 Chrysanthemums in Europe are an inexpensive 
 vegetable, and my extravagance could not be very 
 great, I thought, so I requested the diamond-solitaired 
 clerk to give me a modest dozen. With glistening eyes 
 I watched him remove the enormously long -stemmed 
 beauties from a lordly cloisonne vase where they re- 
 posed, wrap them up with a flourish in rustling sheets 
 of waxed paper, smiling the while in a fashion which 
 alone was an inducement to patronize the establishment. 
 
 "How much?" said I, carelessly, and in the easy 
 tone of a person accustomed to buy flowers two or three 
 times a day in or out of season. 
 
 " Twenty-five dollars ; these are rare specimens, and 
 quite newly imported." 
 
 I felt the blood receding violently from my face, and 
 my heart thump wildly against my ribs with " 'ammer, 
 'ammer, 'ammer" of the celebrated English sports- 
 man. Of course it was quite out of the question for 
 me to leave the luckless flowers on the counter and run 
 away, as I would have given much to be able to do, 
 but the trouble was that all my purse contained was 
 three rather frayed dollar bills and a couple of dimes. 
 What was to be done? 
 
 485
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 For once, however, luck came my way. The es- 
 timable clerk, bending gracefully over the counter 
 and taking me in at one glance, from the aigrette of 
 my stylish little bonnet to the tip of my patent-leather 
 shoe, remarked : 
 
 " You're not thinking of carrying those home, ma'am, 
 are you? If you will give me your address we will 
 send them right around." 
 
 With a shuddering sigh of relief I handed him my 
 card, smiling superciliously. 
 
 "Yes, send them, please; I won't want them before 
 dinner," and with what remained of courage in my 
 trembling frame I swept grandly out of that accursed 
 place. 
 
 What was Fred going to say? Poor old fellow! 
 Nearly a week's hard and dispiriting work, resulting 
 in the, to him, very questionable pleasure of gazing 
 upon huge, woolly, white, recently imported Japanese 
 chrysanthemums, for \vhich I now reflected that I had 
 no more fit receptacle than the wash-boiler. Dear, 
 dear! Could it be possible that after all my hardly 
 bought experience I could be such a fool! Tears of 
 mortification rushed to my eyes, and I hurried along 
 the wind-blown street, anathematizing myself softly 
 under my breath. 
 
 Suddenly a thought made me stop dead with a re- 
 vulsion of feelings which nearly overcame me. When 
 
 first Dr. C 1 had disclosed to me his suspicions 
 
 as to the nature of my ailments, I had hidden three ten- 
 dollar gold pieces in the lining of my now empty jewel- 
 case, and no privations, how r ever hard or bitter, had 
 made me yield to the temptation of bringing them to 
 the light of day, for I reflected that I had entered upon 
 a period when improvidence would have to be called 
 by another and harsher name. These three gold pieces 
 
 486
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 were now my salvation, and though I felt an almost 
 superstitious horror in diverting them from the use for 
 which they had been originally intended, yet as soon 
 as I reached home I swiftly took them out, and sitting 
 down without even removing my hat and gloves, anx- 
 iously awaited the advent of the florist's messenger. 
 
 My one dread was that poor Fred might come home 
 before I had dismissed the unwelcome individual and 
 discover what a good-for-nothing, wasteful person he 
 had married. The minutes passed slowly. Every 
 one seemed an hour, but at last the bell rang and I 
 flew to the door. Behind it stood a pale-faced youth 
 bearing a gigantic box. "Idiot!" I muttered between 
 my teeth, in uncomplimentary reference to myself. 
 
 "What did you say, ma'am?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing at all!" I replied, depositing the three 
 eagles in his grimy palm. 
 
 " I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't make but four dol- 
 lars change. I'll have to run back to the store." 
 
 "Keep it for yourself; that was a heavy box," I said, 
 impelled by an old, ineradicable habit, but almost im- 
 mediately remembering regretfully what a fine, juicy 
 leg of lamb that dollar would have bought. 
 
 "Thank you, lady; very much obliged, I'm sure/' 
 quoth the youth with a far-spreading smile, and as he 
 walked down-stairs I heard him gayly whistling " Cap- 
 tain Jinks of the Horse Marines." I longed greedily 
 for his heart's blood, but what is the use of vain 
 wishes? And I could not now allow the grass or the 
 chrysanthemums, either to grow under my feet. 
 
 One thing was certain Fred must not be allowed to 
 see those long stems! He had no love for flowers, but 
 had bought many, having always been of a very gal- 
 lant turn of mind. Horrible thought! He had been 
 in America before, and perchance knew the value of 
 
 487
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 newly imported specimens, so with fierce energy I tore 
 open the box and broke off the glorious blossoms six 
 inches from their nodding heads, concealing all traces 
 of my crime in the coal-hole. 
 
 Then, flying back to my room, I made a dive into 
 the wardrobe, and got out a delicious frock of lemon- 
 tinted silk gauze and silver tissue, open en coeur in 
 front and with elbow - sleeves terminated by sabots of 
 needle-point. I had worn it but once, and that at a 
 
 dinner given by Grand Duke V r " Volodia," 
 
 as he is familiarly called a dinner given in my honor 
 during my last short sojourn in London before coming 
 to America ; and as I shook out its glimmering folds a 
 few violets which had been in my belt on that night 
 fell at my feet. I picked them up, looked at them in- 
 tently for a moment, and then carefully placed them 
 between the leaves of my writing-pad. 
 
 "Tempi passatil" I murmured, and, turning once 
 more to the wardrobe, I hurriedly brought forth the 
 stockings, slippers, and petticoats which went with the 
 dress. 
 
 "Blow the expense!" I muttered, vulgarly but em- 
 phatically. "I will attire myself with magnificence 
 quite regardless!" which I proceeded to do. When 
 my task w r as accomplished I ran to the dining-room, 
 -and pulling two of the execrable chrysanthemums out 
 of the vegetable-dish in which I had placed them in 
 lieu of a jardiniere, I set one rakishly on the spot where 
 once a tiara used to sparkle, the other at the south- 
 west point of my corsage, and before rushing to the 
 kitchen, where a fat pullet roasting before the fire was 
 demanding my immediate attention in sputter language, 
 I climbed upon a chair, gazed in the mantel looking- 
 glass, and delivered myself of that great and expres- 
 sive German word, " Coloss-a-a-1 ! " 
 
 488
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 A few days later the following advertisement caught 
 my eye in the columns of the daily paper : 
 
 WANTED. Designers for silk manufactory. Large sums paid 
 for original designs. Apply to, etc. 
 
 This, perhaps, thought I, will afford me the chance 
 to recover my twenty-six dollars, and 1 at once set out 
 for the place indicated, where I was received by a small, 
 thin man, with a pronounced Jewish caste of counte- 
 nance, who deigned to acquaint me with the require- 
 ments of his firm, although he declared that he could not 
 for a moment entertain the idea that a lady of my tran- 
 scendently prosperous and elegant appearance could be 
 really in search of such work. 
 
 There I showed the white feather, and, apprehensive 
 lest, if I acknowledged this to be the case, he would 
 refuse to countenance my application, I fell back upon 
 
 the device of the poor old Duchess de P y one 
 
 that I had already used once and confessed that a 
 young protege of mine, recently from Europe, was the 
 artist aspiring to the vacant post of designer in ordi- 
 nary to his Hebraic Highness. Strengthened by a 
 gracious assurance that he would himself inspect and 
 treat leniently the work of my young friend, I left him 
 with joy in my heart, and on the way home purchased 
 several sheets of tinted paper, whereon to try my hand 
 at this new branch of industrial art. 
 
 We had heard of Bertrand, who, according to his 
 statements, was doing extremely well. He had gone 
 into partnership with a young Mexican, whose ranch 
 was situated on the confines of New Mexico, and his 
 letters were teeming with technical expressions such 
 as "round-ups," "stampedes," "mavericks," "lari- 
 ats," "corrals, ""haciendas," e tutti quanti. If he was 
 to be believed, prosperity could go no farther than that 
 
 489
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 achieved by him, and so full of life and youthful strength 
 were his missives that a great load was lifted from my 
 mind, and I looked forward eagerly each week to his 
 breezy reports, cleverly illustrated with pen-and-ink 
 sketches representing himself as a wild and woolly 
 Westerner armed to the teeth and galloping furiously, 
 in the most approved fashion, on a fiery mustang at the 
 rear of a countless herd of flying, long-horned steers, 
 and followed by his trusty Jim, similarly accoutred. 
 
 That autumn was a lovely one, the woods along 
 the Hudson adopting that gorgeous coloring which is 
 found nowhere but in the New World, and which clothes 
 the whole country-side with imperial scarlet and daz- 
 zling gold. Fred and I, following the time-honored cus- 
 tom of the working-classes "on a Sunday afternoon," 
 made little excursions to the environs of New York, 
 treating ourselves in the evening to plain but abundant 
 little suppers see boarding-house prospectuses and 
 coming home tired but contented to our humble home 
 in the topmost corner of the populous bee-hive where 
 we had found lodgment. 
 
 These joys were, however, of but short duration, 
 for the winter set in with alarming promptitude and 
 severity, and was heralded in November by a regular 
 blizzard of snow and ice. I was doing well with my 
 silk designing, and had even been the recipient of ele- 
 gant encomiums from my Jewish friend, accompanied 
 by a substantial check which warmed the cockles of 
 my heart. Indeed, a certain composition of mine, made 
 up largely of tiny pink shells and showers of apple-blos- 
 som petals, found so much favor in the manufacturer's 
 eyes that for that single pattern he actually paid me 
 twenty-five dollars, thus almost completely wiping out 
 the debt that I had contracted towards the interesting 
 stranger. 
 
 490
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 My health was once more excellent, and I now look 
 ed hopefully and cheerfully towards the early spring, 
 since our sky was gradually losing so many of its 
 clouds. Our Christmas festivities were characteristic, 
 for I surprised Fred with a diminutive Christmas-tree 
 gayly decorated with pink-and-white candles and many 
 little tufts of silver tinsel, also six lady - apples, six 
 tangerine oranges, and six sticks of candy ! My pres- 
 ent to him was a smoking-jacket, which I had manu- 
 factured from another of my Court-trains, this one of 
 deep-crimson brocade with gold fleur-de-lis and lined 
 with an unquestionably brilliant piece of orange velvet 
 which had once done duty as an opera-cloak. 
 
 I am sorry I cannot praise the fit of the garment, 
 my talents as a tailor having been insufficiently devel- 
 oped, but still, provided it was left wide open and negli- 
 gently thrown back as if in the heat of argument, it 
 was not altogether unwearable, and, moreover, caused 
 us so much amusement that it well repaid the sacrifice 
 of two articles of apparel which had not originally cost 
 much more than a couple of thousand dollars apiece. 
 
 Fred insisted upon it that I should also have made 
 him a smoking-cap, adorned with a golden tassel, in 
 order to complete the magnificence of his appearance, 
 but I pointed out to him the extravagance of his desires, 
 and turned my attention to a ridiculous pair of worsted 
 pink-and-white knitted boots about the length of my 
 finger and which he had facetiously hung to the top- 
 most branch of the tree. This, somehow or other, check- 
 ed our uproarious merriment and made us look at each 
 other with the wise nods of augurs. 
 
 Early in January I received a visit from the old J^scu- 
 lapius, to whom I pinned my faith. 
 
 "I came to warn you," said he, "that if the happy 
 event should occur at night, I will not preside, but will 
 
 491
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 send you my son, who has just graduated from a hospi- 
 tal after finishing his course at the medical college, and 
 is now joining me in my practice. He is a nice young 
 chap of twenty-four, and I am sure you will like him." 
 
 I was looking at him open-mouthed, a foolish feeling 
 of dread and despair making my hands and feet as 
 cold as ice. When I found my voice I said, somewhat 
 
 pleadingly : " Why, surely, Dr. C 1, you cannot 
 
 mean this! I am accustomed to you now, and, more- 
 over, you do not seriously contemplate the possibility 
 of making me serve as a debut to your son's profes- 
 sional career!" 
 
 "Pooh, pooh! my dear madame ; the youngsters now- 
 adays know more than we old fellows ever did! You 
 will be in perfectly safe hands, so don't be fanciful and 
 childish. I am far too old to undertake such errands 
 on cold winter nights, and I have already told my son 
 to call upon you so that you may become acquainted." 
 
 I rose to my feet. "Is this your last word, Doctor?" 
 I said, very quietly, although I was boiling with indig- 
 nation. 
 
 "Why, certainly; and you are a foolish young wom- 
 an to object to such a natural arrangement." 
 
 "Foolish or not," I interrupted, "I will be obliged 
 to you if you will kindly let me know the amount of 
 my indebtedness at once. It is not my intention to 
 place myself under the care of a young whipper-snapper, 
 whether he be your son or not, and I wonder what your 
 distinguished confreres here, who are, as is well known, 
 the first gynaecologists in the world, would think of 
 your treatment of a patient who trusted in you!" 
 
 Medicus turned towards me an inflamed countenance, 
 which, with his hoary hair, now more than ever re- 
 sembled a large strawberry rolled in sugar, and, vainly 
 attempting to look dignified, said, truculently: 
 
 492
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " All right, madame ; I dare say you will have plenty 
 of cause for regretting your decision in this matter. 
 I will send you my bill this very day, and I have now 
 the honor to wish you good-afternoon." 
 
 I bowed him out, closing the door after him with 
 some violence, and when I was once more alone, in- 
 dulged in a few ominous reflections upon the complete 
 helplessness of my position, for I knew hardly any- 
 body, and was not acquainted even with the names 
 of any recommendable physicians, save those which are 
 household words throughout America, and even Eu- 
 rope, and who would be proportionately high-priced. 
 
 Some time before I had become casually acquainted 
 with an old lady who lived on the second floor of our 
 apartment-house. She was a frail and refined-looking 
 woman, always dressed in severe black, and one day 
 as I was coming home I had met her at the foot of the 
 stairs, carrying a visibly heavy travelling-bag. 
 
 Quickly and without waiting to think, I had stepped 
 up and taken the weighty object from her hand, carry- 
 ing it to her door for her, and she had displayed such 
 disproportionate gratitude for this trifling service that, 
 'nolens volens, I had been obliged to accept her invita- 
 tion to take a cup of tea with her in her rooms. 
 
 Her surroundings were those of a gentlewoman, and 
 in the conversation which ensued she proved herself a 
 well-informed and polished person. From that mo- 
 ment on we had exchanged an occasional visit, and, 
 strangely enough, shortly after the doctor's abrupt 
 exit the nice old lady called, bringing me a lovely 
 bunch of violets, just received from her son, a planter 
 in Florida. 
 
 I was so irritated at what had just occurred that I 
 told her all about it, and also for the first time since I 
 had known her betrayed, perchance in the bitterness 
 
 49*
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 of my heart, a little more of my real circumstances 
 than in cooler moments I could have been induced to. 
 
 "I am sincerely sorry for you, my dear," she said, 
 sympathetically stroking my hand. " I know what it 
 is to be alone when one is ill, for not so very long ago I 
 went through a dangerous operation, and, indeed, owe 
 my life to the fact that the surgeon who attended me 
 is what one might call a regular wizard, and, moreover, 
 the kindest-hearted and most sympathetic member of a 
 profession which can boast of many fine men. I would 
 like you to know him. He is Dr. W. G. W . . . e, and 
 though still a young man, as celebrated surgeons go, 
 he is perhaps the ablest and most successful operator 
 in this country." 
 
 "Which means that he is quite beyond my reach," 
 I said, lightly, and, eager to dismiss the subject which 
 I had so imprudently broached, I abruptly turned the 
 conversation into other channels, determined to keep 
 my own counsel in the future, and not even to tell Fred 
 about this new contretemps, which, however, weighed 
 terribly upon me. 
 
 As I had, however, nearly two months more before 
 me, I resolutely put aside disquieting thoughts and 
 awaited better things, in the spirit of Mr. Micawber. 
 
 Nor, marvellous to relate, was I disappointed, for 
 
 about a week after Dr. C 1's defection I was 
 
 sitting somewhat disconsolately alone at half-past 
 nine in the evening in my diminutive "drawing-room," 
 hard at work upon an intricate design of sea-weed 
 and idealized star-fish and echidnae, when, to my sur- 
 prise, the door-bell rang. I had not the faintest idea 
 who my late visitor could be, and was, indeed, inclined 
 not to open the door at all, thinking it might be a mis- 
 take, but, finally rising and unfastening the chain, con- 
 fronted a tall, extremely well-dressed man, with a knot 
 
 494
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 of violets in the lapel of his fur-lined coat and an all- 
 prevailing flavor of recherche and bonne compagnie, 
 which was its own passport. 
 
 "Mrs. ?" he inquired, glancing at the white tea- 
 gown which proclaimed me the mistress of the house, 
 and, on my replying in the affirmative, he added, "I 
 am Dr. W . . . e ; may I have a few words with you?" 
 
 My astonishment had reached positive stupefaction, 
 and as I preceded him into the pleasant little room, 
 lighted by fire and lamp, and which I always kept 
 in perfect order despite its being my studio as well, 
 I was wellnigh speechless. I silently pointed to an 
 arm-chair, and, seating myself in the place I had oc- 
 cupied before this unexpected interruption, I looked at 
 my visitor. 
 
 There is no denying that he was a very handsome 
 man, on the right side of forty, but with prema- 
 turely silvered hair and mustache, large, bright, blue 
 eyes of extreme kindliness, a fresh, healthful com- 
 plexion, and the finely shaped hands of the born sur- 
 geon. 
 
 He returned my gaze with interest, and gave a little, 
 half-embarrassed, half-merry laugh. 
 
 " Let me begin by saying that I know all about you," 
 he said, w r ith a gleam of mischief in those penetrating 
 blue orbs of his. 
 
 "All about me?" I said, laughing also. "It must 
 be very dreadful." 
 
 " Well, as much as our mutual friend Mrs. R t 
 
 knows, . which perhaps is not a great deal, but quite 
 enough, as it stands, to make me desirous of redeeming 
 the honor of my profession in your eyes. You have 
 
 been very badly treated, and were Dr. C 1 not 
 
 such an antiquated old fossil I would make it un- 
 pleasant for him. As things are, however, I must cop- 
 
 495
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 tent myself with begging you to let me do myself the 
 pleasure of taking up his sadly neglected duties." 
 
 For a long time past I had not encountered much 
 of the empressement which once I had considered as 
 my due, and this spontaneous and inexplicable kind- 
 liness made a very inconvenient lump rise into my 
 throat. 
 
 "My dear doctor/' I said at last, "I cannot tell you 
 how touched I am by your offer, but just because you 
 are treating me with such unparalleled friendliness it 
 is my duty to tell you that I cannot accept it." 
 
 "Why not?" he said, bending forward and scrutiniz- 
 ing me sharply. 
 
 "I will have to pocket my pride to tell you the rea- 
 son," I replied, giving, absent-mindedly, a stroke or 
 two to my unfinished painting. 
 
 "That is not necessary," he returned, quickly. "I 
 can guess your reason, and let me tell you it is a per- 
 fectly worthless one, and not to be considered for an 
 instant." 
 
 "Pardon me," I interposed, throwing down my 
 brushes and turning my eyes again upon him, " I have 
 not yet reached the point where I can calmly accept 
 charity!" I concluded, gulping down the lump with 
 a violent effort. 
 
 "Now, look here, my dear lady/' he said, suddenly, 
 taking hold of both my hands, as a very young 
 father might have done, "we are not going to argue 
 that point; there is no need to talk of charity, for I 
 will expect you to pay me when your circumstances 
 are once more what they used to be, so don't fret 
 about that. You are here in a foreign land, without 
 kith or kin, as I understand ; moreover, you have been 
 left in the lurch in a most unprofessional and disgust- 
 ing manner by an old scamp who should have known 
 
 496
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 better. Surely you do not wish me to disfigure my own 
 career by leaving you at the mercy of the first comer? 
 To begin with, I am not going to listen to any objec- 
 tions, so you might as well resign yourself to be my 
 patient. Come, now, give me the history of this case, 
 and, for mercy's sake, let me return to my usual pro- 
 fessional attitude." 
 
 Oscillating between two inclinations, laughter and 
 tears, I complied with his request, for what else could 
 I do? He had a quiet, authoritative manner which 
 brooked no resistance, and a direct simplicity of demean- 
 or that made me at once consider him a friend in need 
 and a friend indeed. 
 
 He chatted with me for over an hour, and, discovering 
 that I was an enthusiast about modern surgery, told me 
 of his patients, his wonderful operations, and interested 
 me so much that when he at last rose to take his leave 
 I was on the point of begging him to stay a little longer 
 in spite of the lateness of the hour. 
 
 "You must come and see my wife/' he said, while 
 I stood by him in the hall as he was putting on his 
 coat, "and my children, too. I have two little girls 
 and two little boys, the last only a month old a boun- 
 cing boy he is, too that will give you courage for what 
 is coming, although you don't seem to be the sort of 
 woman who needs encouragement. I have a brother, 
 too, another young whipper-snapper who has just 
 graduated from a hospital. But don't be afraid, I 
 won't send him; I want this job myself," he continued, 
 with another of his infectious laughs. 
 
 "You need not fear," I remarked, dryly, "I will not 
 deprive you of my very valuable patronage. But you 
 must let me tell you now what I think of what you 
 have just done." 
 
 "Spare my blushes," he cried, wrenching the door 
 3 497
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 open. "You'll thank me later, when you, too, have a 
 bouncing boy to make your life unbearable." 
 
 "Mind you, it must be a boy," I called after him. 
 "Don't you play me any tricks. No girl for me." 
 He ran down-stairs, laughing heartily, and, from the 
 bottom of the first flight, he responded: 
 
 "Of course it will be a boy. I always oblige my 
 patients and obey their slightest whims." 
 
 Slowly I closed the door and took several turns around 
 the room, whistling softly an execrable habit of mine, 
 of which I had vainly tried to get rid, now that I was in 
 circumstances when such infringements of generally 
 accepted rules were no longer chic or de mise. 
 
 "God bless that man!" I said at last. "A strange 
 individual, surely, who treats people as well when they 
 are at the bottom of the ladder as if they were yet at 
 the top of it. This is a good omen, and something to 
 tell Fred. I wish I deserved it all more, grumbling, 
 dissatisfied fool that I am!" 
 
 During the next few weeks I was forced gradually 
 to relinquish much of my household duties, so much so 
 that Fred insisted upon my engaging the services of a 
 slavey. I dreaded this extremely, not only on account 
 of the expense, but because I had heard much that was 
 dispiriting about American "help," and could not bear 
 the thought of introducing so disturbing an element 
 into our peaceful and well-regulated little home; but 
 as on two different occasions Fred had found me lying 
 on the floor in a dead faint when coming home, and 
 as, moreover, the lifting of coal-scuttles, the manage- 
 ment of a broom, and the washing of even the plain- 
 est of house-linen had become quite out of the ques- 
 tion, I consented to bespeak the assistance of a little 
 German girl, crooked of shape and red of eyes, and 
 so reassuringly ill-favored that the question of "fol- 
 
 498
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 lowers" -a momentous one for my inexperience 
 seemed a singularly remote possibility. I had, of 
 course, never had to deal with that class of servant, 
 and stood absolutely in awe of the painfully familiar, 
 unconsciously impertinent girl who bounced about the 
 kitchen, addressed me as "marm," and seemed to look 
 upon me as an inferior far more than as a mis- 
 tress. 
 
 Her willingness to get through her work quickly 
 and thoroughly was testified especially by her wholesale 
 breaking of crockery, her violent turning of mattresses 
 upon the neighboring daintily arranged toilet-tables, 
 and her throwing about of saucepans with a clatter 
 which was enough to drive one wild. 
 
 The gentle art of dishing-up or of setting an attrac- 
 tive table was as foreign to her as if she had been a 
 Feejee-Islander, and I soon got so tired of her that it 
 was all I could do to endure her presence. 
 
 I was very busy arranging my small domain, for I 
 took some pride in having everything ship-shape be- 
 fore the great event. In order to economize space, 
 I packed up all my finery, dinner and Court dresses, 
 elaborate walking and driving costumes, hats, bon- 
 nets, and chaussures, leaving out only a couple of 
 tea-gowns, a long, fur-lined cloak, and, in short, only 
 what I could wear under present circumstances, and 
 on the advice of the janitor, who was a somewhat of- 
 cious person, sent all my trunks to what he grandilo- 
 quently termed the storage-rooms at the top of the house. 
 As I packed up all these exquisite things, it suddenly 
 occurred to me that I had been very silly not to sell 
 the greater part of them, for they could not have failed 
 to bring a considerable sum ; but thus to dispose of 
 clothes was so novel an idea that it had never presented 
 itself to my mind. I determined, however, if my finan- 
 
 499
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 cial situation did not considerably improve, that I 
 would do something of the kind later on. 
 
 It had grown horribly cold, and was almost contin- 
 uously snowing or sleeting. I was therefore forced 
 to give up the long walks which more recently I had 
 taken with Fred late at night as the ground was too 
 slippery to admit of such pedestrian feats. Dr. W . . . e 
 came once a week to see me, and I had grown to trust 
 him blindly, and, since I was under his care, to look 
 forward with perfect equanimity to whatever would 
 take place. 
 
 A rather ridiculous incident marked these last days 
 of February, for while perusing the advertisements of 
 the daily paper in search of new openings for my tal- 
 ents, I had come upon an advertisement promising 
 to furnish information and materials which would en- 
 able any one who could paint on textiles to earn from 
 thirty to fifty dollars a week, and had dubiously, but 
 hopefully, written to the people and city mentioned, 
 sending a dollar, as requested. In due course of time 
 I received, in return, a plethoric envelope containing 
 two little squares of cotton velvet, one bright red, the 
 other peacock - blue, stamped with conventional sun- 
 flowers, and accompanied by an infinitesimal tube of 
 Chinese white, a tiny brush, and a slip of paper 
 printed in large, red letters as follows: 
 
 TRY YOUR HAND AT PAINTING ON VELVET. 
 
 WHEN ONCE YOU HAVE MASTERED THIS ART 
 
 YOU WILL COMMAND A LARGE SALARY AND 
 
 WE WILL OURSELVES FURNISH YOU WITH 
 
 ALL THE WORK YOU CAN DO. 
 
 Could anything be more funny for those who could 
 afford to lose the dollar? I could not; but I laughed, 
 nevertheless, till I almost cried, and hung the two 
 
 500
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 squares of cheap velvet on the wall as a warning, should 
 I ever be tempted again to get myself cheated in a sim- 
 ilar manner. 
 
 Just at that time I received a most unpleasant shock 
 in a letter from Bertrand, which arrived one snowy 
 morning, when the sky was lowering and the wind 
 howled dismally around my lofty eyrie. To make a 
 long story short, I may as well say at once that the 
 boy had come a cropper w r ith his horse, had suffered a 
 fracture of the leg, and had been confined for several 
 weeks to his room, a fact of which his unscrupulous 
 partner had taken advantage to sell all that was sal- 
 able, including the ranch itself, and skip out, leaving 
 poor Bertrand nothing but his clothes and a brace of 
 revolvers to bless himself with. 
 
 Of course, in a civilized region, such a sale would 
 not have held good, but in those days the New Mexico 
 border was anything but civilized, and Faustrecht held 
 supreme sway, so much so, indeed, that hardly had the 
 boy sufficiently recovered from his injuries to stand on 
 his feet when he was summarily kicked put, and found 
 himself alone in the Western world with a singularly 
 vicious bronco, which his ex-partner had also gener- 
 ously left him, with a view of affording him a means 
 of exit from the plains, and presumably poor old Jim, 
 whom, however, singularly enough, he did not men- 
 tion. 
 
 Furious, but quite undaunted, Bertrand set out on 
 his travels, but this time without the means of making 
 his progress either a rapid or a pleasant one. He gave 
 me an address where he expected to arrive some time 
 or other, and, although he did not say so, it was plain 
 to me that a little money found there upon his arrival 
 \vould not be amiss, and so, knowing what assistance 
 might now be expected from his mother, I gathered 
 
 501
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 together what resources I had, and sent him some- 
 thing to help him along; for the thought of that dis- 
 abled and disappointed lad, making his way through 
 the great wilderness of the Southwest, was a torment- 
 ing one to me, and one that I could have very well done 
 without. 
 
 I easily guessed having gone through the mill my- 
 self what reproaches would be addressed him from 
 the other side of the water, and to a proud and over- 
 bearing spirit like his it could not fail to be a most 
 humiliating experience. 
 
 Yet another vexation loomed large upon my horizon, 
 and that was the choice which had been made for me 
 of a monthly nurse. I was thoroughly inexperienced 
 in such matters, for in those days, throughout Catholic 
 Europe, Sisters of Mercy were intrusted with all hos- 
 pital and most private practice, and in cases like mine 
 the sage femme, or midwife, invariably seconded the 
 physician in charge. Now, a sage femme, whether in 
 town or country, is generally a middle-aged matron, 
 without any pretence to either much technical educa- 
 tion or social status, and the person who had been chosen 
 
 by Dr. C 1, and who came to call upon me 
 
 gowned in an ultra - exaggeration of fashion with a 
 much-beplumed Rembrandt hat and a collection of irri- 
 tatingly jingling bangles, was of a totally different 
 sort, and had displeased me very much. Her broad 
 face, deeply pitted with small -pox, was in itself suf- 
 ficiently unattractive, though that was scarcely her 
 fault, but her self-assertive assumption of social equality 
 and superior knowledge of the world had most dis- 
 agreeably impressed me. However, as I am not fussy 
 by nature, and am always ready to accept an accom- 
 plished fact with as few objections as possible, and, 
 moreover, being totally ignorant of that class of women, 
 
 502
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I had acquiesced readily enough after being told by 
 her medical patron that she was a graduate of a large 
 New York hospital, and thoroughly trustworthy and 
 obliging. I now know better, and, after several severe 
 sieges of illness, must admit that, with the exception 
 of a certain charming Miss M . . . . w, my opinion 
 of the American trained nurse is but small. The other- 
 wise remarkably capable American medical fraternity 
 have, apparently, not sufficiently considered the harm 
 that may be done by introducing into their patients' 
 families intriguing and adventurous persons w r ho 
 combine an inconceivable neglect of their charges 
 'with a strict personal attention to cordials and sick- 
 room delicacies, and whose profession, if openly prac- 
 tised, would be relegated to the sidewalk. 
 
 But as the moment approached when the nurse was to 
 take up her residence with me, I grew to dislike the idea 
 of her presence more and more, until the prospect be- 
 came a perfect nightmare; and when she finally ar- 
 rived, I felt that under no circumstances could I 
 ever surmount my dislike for this shrill - voiced, ill- 
 mannered woman who, alas! evinced, par dessus le 
 marche, a good deal of fondness for coarse banter and 
 strong waters. 
 
 These last few days were not very pleasant, for I 
 received further disquieting news from Bertrand, and 
 Fred, with a white, frightened face, continually looked 
 at me as if I were about to depart on a far longer journey 
 than I had yet undertaken. To cap the climax, a thaw 
 set in, and dismal rains and damp winds made the 
 always drearyoutlook from the windows one of the 
 most depressing I had ever gazed upon. 
 
 "I think you had better send for Dr. W . . . e," I 
 said, late one afternoon, to the nurse, who, sitting by 
 the window, was retrimming her amazing picture- 
 
 503
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 hat with huge magenta roses, the very look of which 
 made me feel sick and faint! 
 
 "What's the matter?" she said, in her brusque, un- 
 pleasant way. " Don't be fanciful. You're all right!" 
 
 From where I lay on the sofa I looked at her a little 
 amused. 
 
 "I am not much given to fancies," I said, smiling. 
 "Send for Dr. W . . . e!" 
 
 " Humph ! I don't take much stock in him, " she grum- 
 bled. "He's too high-toned for my taste; you'd have 
 been a long sight better off with a general practitioner. 
 No need of a specialist in a case like this." 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders. Such heresies demanded 
 no refutation. 
 
 "Those bigbugs," she continued, irritably, "are a 
 nuisance; too finicky by half. Did you hear him the 
 other day? 'Nurse, 3 7 ou will please see about the 
 sheets being properly aired and dried before an open 
 fire, and you must have everything to hand arranged 
 in proper order, everything brand - new, mind you, and 
 washed in your presence separately from the rest of 
 the linen.' He makes me tired!" 
 
 I sat up, and, letting my feet slide to the floor, said, 
 coldly : 
 
 " Be good enough to reserve your opinion until it is 
 asked for. Such sayings are entirely unprofessional, 
 as you might know, since you call yourself a trained 
 nurse. I do not think that if the physicians who rec- 
 ommend you were aware of the fashion in which you 
 speak you would be likely to get many more engage- 
 ments. And now send for Dr. W . . * e!" 
 
 She bounced out of her chair with a violence which 
 sent her appalling rose-garlanded hat rolling under the 
 table. 
 
 "Just as you please," she snapped. "Of course you 
 
 504
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 think that you understand the situation better than 
 I do." 
 
 "There is one thing I understand/' I replied, curtly, 
 "and that is, that if you do not keep a civil tongue in 
 your head I shall report you to the doctor, and request 
 your immediate dismissal." 
 
 In an instant her expression changed and became 
 fawning and cringing. "You mustn't mind what I 
 said," she pleaded. "I meant no harm. I have a 
 bad twinge of neuralgia this morning, and that always 
 makes me cranky. Lie down again, please do, and I'll 
 go and telephone right away." 
 
 This was just as I thought! The woman was a 
 bully, of that there could be no doubt, and to be at 
 her mercy was not a cheerful prospect. 
 
 In a few minutes she returned. 
 
 "The doctor is sick in bed," she said, with a glee 
 which would have suited the announcement that she 
 had just inherited millions. "He wrenched his back 
 lifting a patient in the hospital this morning, and 
 can't move." 
 
 "What's that?" I cried, hardly believing my ears. 
 
 "He can't come, that's what it is, and his brother, 
 with whom I spoke, suggested that you should send 
 
 for Dr. C 1, as he at least knows something 
 
 about the case." 
 
 "Nonsense!" I exclaimed. Then a rushing sound 
 surged in my ears, the dim light of the windows be- 
 came suddenly eclipsed in blackness, and I felt myself 
 falling to inconceivable depths. Somehow or other, 
 I thought that I was in a railroad accident, and that a 
 heap of wreckage was crushing the life out of me. After 
 a seemingly long time, during which I fancied I was 
 being carried to a hospital on a stretcher, and an in- 
 definite period of succeeding calm, I opened my eyes. 
 
 505
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Surely it must all be true, for I found myself in bed, 
 but, curiously enough, in my own room, dimly lighted 
 by shaded lamps, and somebody was feeling my pulse. 
 I turned my head. It was Dr. C 1. 
 
 With a little gasp, I closed my eyes again. So it 
 had conte to that, after all! 
 
 "She's coming to, doctor," I heard the nurse exclaim. 
 
 "Oh, she doesn't hear what we say," he muttered. 
 " This is going to be a bad case, nurse, a very bad case. 
 I wish to God W . . . e were here instead of me." 
 
 " Pshaw, you're every bit as good as he. I don't 
 take no stock whatsoever in him, as I was telling the 
 patient this afternoon, except when it comes to cutting 
 and slashing." 
 
 I was now in full possession of my senses, but pur- 
 posely kept my eyes tightly closed. "She won't give 
 you much trouble," continued the nurse. "She's got 
 grit, for one thing." 
 
 The doctor had dropped my hand, and I could hear 
 him closing his watch, and shifting his position un- 
 easily. I set my teeth, and determined that, come what 
 might, I would not give them the satisfaction of know- 
 ing what an additional horror their presence was to me. 
 
 Hours passed. I heard the doctor state that he 
 would stay all night, and bid the nurse prepare a bed 
 for him somewhere. Then Fred came home and sat by 
 me, holding my hand, but still I would neither speak 
 nor open my eyes, concentrating all my strength upon 
 the repression of even so much as a moan, while the 
 little travelling-clock on my toilet-table ticked ner- 
 vously and rapidly, as if eager to rush over those mis- 
 erable hours. 
 
 At last, when everything had become absolutely 
 silent, I ventured to glance around. A gray dawn was 
 smudging the curtains with gloomy patches of light. 
 
 506
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Stretched on a sofa, the nurse was sleeping profoundly, 
 while on an ann-chair beside me, as once before at 
 Cairo, sat Fred, looking ghastly. Dreading that he 
 should speak and arouse the nurse, "Hush, hush!" I 
 whispered. 
 
 "Are you better?" he asked, softly. 
 
 "Don't worry. I'll be all right. Try and find out 
 if Dr. W ... e is better. I don't want that other man. 
 Send to find out." 
 
 "I will as soon as the sun's up." 
 
 " Then, please, go to bed meanwhile, Fred. There's 
 no use in your making yourself ill. I can manage 
 very well by myself." Better, in fact, I thought, for I 
 dreaded the scrutiny of those watchful eyes, lest they 
 should discover the true state of affairs. 
 
 "I'll do nothing of the kind," he replied, in the same 
 low whisper. 
 
 " Well, then, do go and lie down in the next room, at 
 least for a little while, for I'm going to sleep." 
 
 He looked doubtfully at me. "Would it make you 
 feel easier? Of course, I shouldn't sleep. I'd be right 
 within call." 
 
 " Certainly it would make me feel easier. It worries 
 me horribly to have you sitting up for nothing." 
 
 He knew me too well to resist any longer, and, 
 tiptoeing across the floor, he disappeared beyond the 
 portieres of his own room. I waited until I felt quite 
 certain that, exhausted as he was, he had dropped into 
 a slumber. Indeed, I could hear his regular breathing 
 from where I lay. Then, very slowly, I got up, threw 
 a warm dressing-gown over my shoulders, and holding 
 on to the furniture, and then to the wall of the hallway, 
 crept, step by step, into the dining - room and closed 
 the door behind me. 
 
 At last I was alone, and with a weary little sigh I 
 
 507
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 sat down on the broad window-seat and looked up at 
 the now glowing sky, where great masses of fleecy 
 white clouds were thrown into bold relief by the dark 
 vapors behind them. "I think I'll light a cigarette/' 
 I thought, and getting slowly up again, I got matches 
 and the box from a side-table. But the attempt was a 
 failure, and as soon as I had lighted it, I threw it away, 
 and taking up a book from the table, tried to read. 
 
 It happened to be Monte Cristo, and in the gradu- 
 ally increasing light, I did my best to awaken my old 
 interest in that marvellous story, but, like the cigarette, 
 it was soon cast aside. It was by now becoming a bit 
 lonely in the little dining-room, and I wondered vague- 
 ly whether I would have to go back to bed, arouse the 
 nurse and doctor, and eat humble-pie after all ! 
 
 The telephone was in the little hall separating the 
 kitchen from the dining-room, and I gazed longingly 
 at it, wondering whether it w r as too early to inquire 
 personally after Dr. W . . . e. But pride came to my 
 assistance. "It won't do for a charity patient," I 
 thought, bitterly, " to summon princes of science, as if 
 they were at her beck and call." Idly and listlessly I 
 watched the small hand of the clock creep around to 
 the figure six, and just as the hour began to strike, 
 the telephone-bell tinkled. 
 
 I rose as if struck by a galvanic shock and seized 
 the receiver. After the usual preliminaries an unknown 
 voice said: 
 
 " Dr. W . . . e wants to know how the patient is get- 
 ting along." 
 
 "Just the same," I replied, steadying my voice. 
 
 "Any complications?" 
 
 "Yes, I think so." 
 
 "Who are you? Send the nurse to the telephone." 
 
 "The nurse is asleep." 
 
 508
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Isn't Dr. C 1 there? Ask him to step to 
 
 the 'phone." 
 
 "He's asleep, too." 
 
 "Good God, what a state of affairs! Are they mad? 
 Where is the patient? Is nobody with her?" 
 
 "I'm the patient," I said, with a little attempt at a 
 laugh. 
 
 "For Heaven's sake! Have you taken charge of 
 your own case?" 
 
 "I suppose so. I can do as well as the others, at 
 any rate." 
 
 Here the instrument transmitted a string of exple- 
 tives followed by a hurried : " I beg your pardon. I'm 
 Dr. W . . . e's assistant, and I will at once report to him 
 what you have just told me." 
 
 "Tell him," I said, "that I'm ever so much obliged 
 to him for his kind interest, and that I'd give any- 
 thing in the world to have him here." 
 
 "I will. Good-bye." 
 
 I was not sorry to hang up the receiver and resume 
 my place on the window-seat, for cold perspiration was 
 streaming down my back. 
 
 "This Prince of science is a real good Prince," I 
 muttered, and, somewhat comforted, I applied myself 
 to tying the ribbon of my dressing-gown in a beautiful 
 bow! Half an hour or so later, for I had by then 
 almost lost the notion of time, there was a gentle peal 
 at the door-bell. I hurried as well as I could into the 
 front hall and admitted a tall, slender, young man, 
 who, in spite of his dark eyes, dark hair, and small, 
 dark mustache, had a certain air de famille with Dr. 
 W . . . e, which made me say : 
 
 "Are you Dr. Bob?" 
 
 " Yes, I am ; a whipper-snapper, as you see, but quite 
 old enough to raise the roof here. It's a nice thing to 
 
 5<>9
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 leave you alone like that. Why, you poor little woman, 
 you look like death." 
 
 He had rapidly thrown his overcoat and hat on a 
 chair. "Which way to your room?" he said. 
 
 "Second door to the left," I replied, faintly. He 
 stooped, lifted me in his arms, and muttering some- 
 thing between his teeth which was not complimentary 
 to the doctor and nurse slumbering sweetly near by, he 
 marched off with a stamping of heels which would 
 have awakened the dead. Then carefully placing me 
 on the bed, and throwing a rug over me, he strode 
 over to the sofa, and roughly catching the nurse by the 
 shoulder he shook her violently. 
 
 During the altercation which followed, and in which 
 Fred almost immediately joined, I lost comprehension of 
 what was going on, and it was many hours later when 
 I regained sufficient consciousness and grasp of the 
 situation to hear the gruff voice of Dr. C 1 ex- 
 claiming : 
 
 "I'm sick as a dog. I'm too old for this kind of cir- 
 cus. Anyhow, there's no hope either for the mother 
 or the child. There's only one man in New York who 
 would have a chance of saving one of them, and that's 
 W . . . e. He must be all right by now. Seventy 
 hours that's time enough to nurse a wrenched back. 
 Bring him here by force, if you have to carry him." 
 
 "You damned old rascal," cried Fred, hoarsely. 
 "Get out! It's better for her to die in peace than 
 with your assistance. I'll go to Dr. W . . . e and get 
 him here if he's alive." 
 
 A feeling of disgust at being the centre of this tur- 
 moil and such a source of sorrow to poor Fred made 
 me turn my head away with a half-smothered excla- 
 mation. 
 
 In a flash he was bending over me. " I'm going to 
 
 510
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 fetch Dr. W . . . e," he said, with an odd little break in 
 his voice. "Don't fret. I'll bring him." 
 
 "All right; what time is it?" 
 
 "Eight o'clock." 
 
 "In the evening?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Hm!" I muttered. "What day in the week?" 
 
 "Friday." 
 
 "I thought so!" 
 
 Probably he did not hear this last remark, or he would 
 have remonstrated with that old superstition, and soon 
 I heard him run out of the room and slam the front 
 
 door behind him. I wondered -whether Dr. C 1 
 
 was still there, but did not wish to inquire. At any 
 rate, the nurse was alone in the room, for I could see 
 her through my half-closed lashes calmly perusing the 
 newspaper under the small circle of light thrown by a 
 pink-shaded lamp. As silently as possible, I stretched 
 out my hand and turned the face of the little clock, 
 which had been placed on the table beside me, so that I 
 could watch it. Half an hour an hour passed. Surely 
 the distance from Forty - third to Fortieth Street near 
 Fifth Avenue must be longer than I had imagined. 
 
 At last, when I thought I could bear up no longer, I 
 heard the latch-key turn in the lock, and Fred entered, 
 followed by Dr. W . . . e, who was wrapped from head 
 to foot in a long, fur-lined ulster, the storm-collar of 
 which almost hid his face. 
 
 "You can thank him," said Fred, "for we had to 
 nearly boil him in a red-hot bath before he could stand 
 on his feet, and it was all he could do to walk down to 
 the carriage." 
 
 I said nothing, for there was nothing to say ; but when, 
 having removed his coat, with Fred's help, he came 
 to the bed, I held out both my hands to him, and I think 
 
 511
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 that he understood without being told. The nurse 
 had precipitately risen to her feet and stood at atten- 
 tion, and the doctor, whose pale and drawn face testi- 
 fied to suffering, glowered at her. 
 
 " Hurry up there! " he said. "This has lasted long 
 enough. Go and fetch my bag from the carriage, 
 where I forgot it." 
 
 "I'll send the girl," she said, bridling. 
 
 "Go yourself!" he thundered. 
 
 Frightened and cowed, the woman rushed out, and, 
 "Good-for-nothing jade!" the doctor muttered after her. 
 
 "As to you," he said, turning to me with the kindest 
 smile I ever saw, "you'll soon be all right. Don't 
 worry." 
 
 "I'm not worrying now," I said, faintly. 
 
 " Where's Dr. C 1?" he said. " Confound the 
 
 man. I want him for the chloroform." 
 
 "Oh, he's gone, I think/' I replied. 
 
 "Gone! Impossible!" 
 
 "He said he was sick." 
 
 "I'll make him sicker before I get through with him. 
 I wish I'd brought Bob; but there's no time to lose, 
 and that fool of a nurse can't be trusted. Do you know 
 anything about chloroform?" he continued, turning 
 to Fred. 
 
 "No; but I can do what you tell me." 
 
 "All right; we'll try it that way. Where is that 
 brute of a woman?" 
 
 She was just coming in, and must have heard him, 
 for her'face was a picture. 
 
 "When did the patient eat last?" he asked, curtly. 
 
 "Not since yesterday morning." 
 
 " What, has she taken nothing?" 
 
 "N-n-no, except a cup of beef-tea last night, and 
 some lemonade to-day." 
 
 512
 
 A DOFFED CORONET* 
 
 "Well, you are a fine nurse! Put some brandy and 
 a glass here on this table. Do just as I tell you, or 
 this will be the last case you will ever attend." 
 
 "I'm not used to being talked to like that, doctor/' 
 she had the audacity to reply. 
 
 "Hold your tongue," he said, and in such a tone 
 that she collapsed. If there had been a laugh left in 
 me, I should certainly have laughed, but as it was, I 
 had reached the limit of endurance, and was glad 
 enough when the sweet, insidious smell of chloroform 
 dulled every sensation but one of curious lightness 
 and comfort/ I was sailing through an intensely blue 
 sky, among a throng of dazzling stars, on each of which 
 stood a little red gnome, laughing at me. Then sud- 
 denly I sank, sank, sank, clutching desperately at a 
 sheaf of blinding moon-rays, and awoke. 
 
 My lips were burning, and I tried to raise my hand 
 to find out what was the matter, but could not do so, 
 and gazed helplessly around. Fred and the nurse were 
 bending over me. 
 
 "The chloroform has burned her a little/' called the 
 woman. 
 
 " Cold-cream," replied the muffled voice of the doctor, 
 who was bending over the sofa. 
 
 "What's the matter?" I asked, dragging out the 
 words painfully. 
 
 "Nothing," gulped Fred. 
 
 "It's a boy, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes," said the doctor; "a fine, big boy." 
 
 "Let me see him." 
 
 "Not yet. In a moment. Be a good girl. I'll be 
 with you right away." 
 
 The perspiration which was dropping in my eyes 
 felt cold and clammy, and again I tried to raise my 
 hand to my face, but had to let it drop helplessly by 
 513
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 my side. The room was very silent, save for a little 
 splashing of water which came from the corner where 
 the doctor stood, and a faint aroma of brandy reached 
 me with growing persistency. 
 
 "Can I see him now?" I said, feebly. 
 
 I heard a quick in-drawing of the doctor's breath. 
 "Not quite yet," he muttered. 
 
 "Is he dead?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 With sudden strength I raised myself on my elbow, 
 and said through clinched teeth, "Bring him to me."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Under gray skies, my lady dear, 
 Veiled is the beauty of the year, 
 The birds are flown; the trees, in pain, 
 Writhe 'neath the arrows of the rain, 
 Or the mist gathers, far and near. 
 
 So that for golden days and clear, 
 And sweet surcease of darkness drear, 
 We long ah, surely, not in vain I 
 Under gray skies. 
 
 Heart of my heart, what need we fear? 
 Hand touching hand doth make good cheer 
 And merry season. Though again 
 With flowers the summer load his wain, 
 For us shall brighter blossom here, 
 Under gray skies. 
 
 M. M. 
 
 IN July I received a letter from Dr. W . . . e, who 
 with his family was spending the summer at the sea- 
 side. "Get your husband to take a couple of weeks' 
 holiday, and come, both of you, and spend them with 
 us. You need a thorough change of scene, for I did 
 not like your looks when I saw you last. My wife 
 bids me say that your rooms are ready for you. 
 We are living very quietly, we have a cow, and the 
 horses are here, and altogether we are having a very 
 pleasant time. Don't trouble to write. Wire the hour 
 of arrival, and I will meet you at the station. You 
 mustn't disappoint us, for we'll take no denial. Don't 
 
 515
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 forget that you owe it to yourself, and what the future 
 is going to bring, to take good care of your health." 
 
 "Just like him," I said to Fred. "That man is a 
 wonder. It isn't enough that he should have looked 
 after me as if I were made of glass for weeks and weeks, 
 and should have come here every day to superintend 
 everything personally. Now he seems to have taken 
 it into his head to provide for our holiday. Really, I 
 don't think we should accept. This is a little too 
 much." 
 
 " On the contrary, I would accept if I were you. Such 
 kindness would be ill -requited by a refusal. Good 
 Lord! I wish I could do something to show him how 
 grateful I am!" 
 
 "So do I, God knows." 
 
 That evening I wrote back, thanking that friend 
 among friends in a few short words, and accepting his 
 invitation for the following Saturday, and then I set at 
 once about my modest preparations. They had to be 
 extremely modest, for all my clothes, in fact every- 
 thing I possessed and had placed in the trunks, stored 
 in the baggage-room, had been stolen. Silks, satins, 
 velvets, laces, priceless furs and dainty underwear, tea- 
 gowns, hats, bonnets, and shoes everything was gone ! 
 When, as soon as I had begun to recover, I sent Fred to 
 get me some clothes, the poor boy had come down with 
 a disconsolate face, holding in one hand a pink silk 
 stocking embroidered with tiny forget-me-nots, and in 
 the other, a white satin silver-heeled slipper, and, throw- 
 ing them in my lap, had told me that this was all that 
 was left out of my fourteen huge trunkfuls of finery. 
 
 He had found the locks all burst open, but the door 
 of the room securely fastened, and on summoning the 
 janitor had received, pour tout potage, a curt statement 
 to the effect that he, the janitor, was not responsible; 
 
 516
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 that there had been, during the past months, many 
 changes of servants and also of tenants in the house, 
 and that, of course, it would be absolutely impossible 
 to trace anything. 
 
 We both were too sad and too discouraged at that 
 time to take any steps in the matter, and, moreover, I 
 would not have dreamed of wearing again any of those 
 objects after they had been fumbled over in " fences " and 
 second-hand shops, even if they could have been found. 
 So there the matter stood. And thus was my wardrobe 
 considerably simplified, consisting now of two elaborate 
 but well-worn tea-gowns, one black and one white, a 
 couple of peignoirs, two pretty yachting-suits, which by 
 a miracle had not been stored in the trunks but at the 
 top of a closet, and an elaborate gray silk dust-coat. I 
 looked rather disconsolately at this noble array, for the 
 W . . . es received a good deal, and even when one's 
 heart is pretty heavy and one's spirit pretty well bro- 
 ken, one does not like, under such circumstances, to 
 look quite like a beggar. 
 
 I had become acquainted with Mrs. W . . . e, whom 
 I had found to be a quiet, sweet, lovable woman, a model 
 mother, and as kind-hearted as her husband, so, as far 
 as they were concerned, it mattered but little whether I 
 appeared at their table in a two-thousand-dollar gown 
 or a plain muslin, but I did not want them to be ashamed 
 of me, and so I marched resolutely into the kitchen 
 and asked the buxom Irish lady who had replaced 
 my impossible Dutch slavey whether she knew any- 
 thing about plain sewing. 
 
 "Yes, mem/' she replied. "I makes all me own 
 clothes. What are ye afther wantin' me to do?" 
 
 " Well, you see, Annie, we are going to spend a little 
 time with Doctor and Mrs. W . . . e, and, as my gowns 
 have all been stolen, I have been thinking that perhaps 
 
 517
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 you and I could try and make a couple of plain little 
 summer dresses." 
 
 "Shure and we can, mem! Jest ye trot out an' buy 
 the matherials, and me and you'll set up to-night an' 
 start right in." 
 
 "You're a good girl, Annie," I replied, making up 
 my mind that I would give her the silk shawl bought 
 in the Cairene bazaar, which she so much admired 
 on account of its border of silver-and-gold flowerets, 
 for money was scarce and tips an impossibility just 
 then. My long illness had left us pretty well stranded, 
 and although I had resumed my decorative painting 
 as soon as I could sit up, poor Fred's thirty-five dollars 
 for he had been raised to that munificent sum 
 made a very poor show when rent, the girl's wages, 
 and food had to come out of it. Fortunately I had 
 just been paid for the sofa cushions, blotting-pads, 
 and shoe -horns which composed my last month's 
 order, and this enabled me to purchase enough black 
 and white batiste to make four perfectly plain frocks, 
 two of each kind, also a sailor-hat, some gloves, and 
 two bathing-suits, one for Fred and one for me. We 
 worked early and late until all was ready, and finally 
 departed for our summer outing. 
 
 Those two weeks were delightful. The affectionate 
 welcome, the companionship of people to whom we had 
 naturally become greatly attached, the freedom from 
 all care and worry, the delicious, cool, salt breezes and 
 splendid surf-bathing, were indeed a treat, and both 
 Fred and myself enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. 
 
 Our stay was marked by a comical incident, which 
 I cannot forbear to mention, for it was rather typical of 
 the makeshifts to which I had sometimes to resort in 
 those days. There had been quite a few little dinners 
 and informal luncheons during the first part of our stay, 
 
 518
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 but towards its end there came an urgent invitation for 
 the W . . . e family, including ourselves, to dine at a 
 fashionable hotel in fact, one of the most-sought-after 
 resorts of that coast with an old couple who were not 
 only among the doctor's best clients, but who, having 
 taken a tremendous fancy to us, would accept no denial 
 from Fred and myself. 
 
 The occasion was to be quite a gala one, for there 
 were a number of people invited, and so I found myself 
 absolutely at a loss to know what to wear. I saw that 
 it would pain both of our kind hosts very much if we did 
 not go. I therefore pondered and pondered and ponder- 
 ed, and finally was struck by an idea which proved a 
 brilliant one. I had bought in Egypt three or four 
 wide, long scarfs of white crepe de chine, and had brought 
 them with me from New York, thinking that they might 
 please the W . . . es' little girls, as each of them was 
 large enough to make a dress for a child, but fortunate- 
 ly for myself I had not as yet presented them. I 
 had also a white silk flounced petticoat which had 
 escaped the general massacre. On the night of the 
 dinner I donned this petticoat, and draped and wound 
 the supple, shining scarfs round and round myself in 
 classic folds, fastening them in place with pins. The 
 corsage thus formed was a chef-d'oeuvre, leaving the 
 neck and arms bare, and terminating on one side in 
 two long, gracefully drooping ends. A couple of clus- 
 ters of white roses from the garden completed my adorn- 
 ment, and I was ready. 
 
 After dinner our hostess, who, being a childless mill- 
 ionairess, thought a good deal about dress, and spent 
 fortunes upon it, took me on one side and asked me in 
 confidence the name of the French artist who had con- 
 ceived and executed " this exquisite gown. " " For," she 
 said, confidently, "it is French handiwork, isn't it?" 
 
 519
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "It is," I replied, laughing, "I made it myself!" 
 Then I pointed out to her the pins with which the whole 
 thing was put together, so much to her amusement that 
 she immediately returned to the drawing-room and told 
 everybody about it. 
 
 We returned to town much invigorated and cheered 
 by these few days of respite in our toilsome life, and 
 took up our labors with a new courage. I heard very 
 seldom from Bertrand now, but he was a continual 
 source of anxiety to me, for, with true Breton stub- 
 bornness, he flatly refused to return to Europe until 
 he had exhausted all possibilities of making a success 
 of his sojourn in the West, and, in spite of the fact 
 that his mother still refused supplies, he remained un- 
 daunted. I sent him what I could whenever I knew 
 where he was, and wondered by what miracle he 
 would be brought to his senses, for here was a boy 
 with the loveliest home on earth open to him, a fine 
 future in the service of his country, if he chose to pur- 
 sue it, and a life of cultured leisure before him, prefer- 
 ring to all this the numberless hardships of a vaquero 
 of the plains, simply because he would not confess 
 himself beaten. 
 
 Early one morning, in the following November, I 
 was still asleep when Annie, the Hibernian cook and 
 generally useful lady already mentioned, knocked at 
 my door and reported that a most dangerous-looking 
 desperado was peremptorily demanding admittance, 
 and that she had chained and barred him out with the 
 utmost difficulty. 
 
 " What on earth do you mean, Annie?" I said, rub- 
 bing my eyes. 
 
 "Faith, mem, an' I don't know what the town's 
 coming to, when the perlice lets such impident rascals 
 come into honest folk's houses." 
 
 520
 
 CONFOUND IT, 
 
 SHE'S MY SISTER/ SAID BERTRAND, 
 WRATHFULLY!"
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "But what does he want?" I asked, quite bewildered. 
 
 "Thanks be to the Howly Mother, I'm no greenhorn 
 any more, or I might ha' been took in by his blandan- 
 dherin', for he had the owdaciousness to say he was 
 own brother to ye, and when I laughed in the face of 
 him he slammed a big paper of roses he had in his fist 
 down on the flure, an' says again, mad-like, ' Confound 
 it, she's my sister,' says he." 
 
 That was enough for me. No one but Bertrand 
 could have attempted such an entree, and, throwing a 
 bath-robe over my shoulders, I rushed to the door, leav- 
 ing my factotum to follow, petrified with a surprise 
 which was intensified to the point of stupor when she 
 saw the wild desperado hugging me like a bear, and 
 nearly crying over me. 
 
 When Fred, who had been awakened, en sursaut, by 
 the commotion, had joined us, simply but effectively clad 
 in his azure pyjamas, and when our incoherent exclama- 
 tions of "My poor old boy!" and "You dear little girl!" 
 " Glad to see you, old chap. " " How are you, old man?" 
 "Fred, it's good to be home!" had somewhat subsided, 
 I stepped back a little, took a good look at this last scion 
 of an ancient and noble House, and suddenly burst into 
 uncontrollable laughter, for really, except on the stage, 
 I had never seen such a typical cutthroat. 
 
 His hair, long and lanky, framed his thin, haggard 
 face, and fell in bushy masses from under his weather- 
 beaten, silver-bound sombrero ; a buckskin shirt, shrunk 
 by rain and storm, was tucked into regulation, fringed, 
 cow-boy trousers, bespattered with mud, and spurs of 
 enormous size jangled at his heels, while around his 
 middle a broad cinch-belt supported a couple of knives 
 and an empty revolver-pocket, the New York police 
 having most unkindly relieved him of his "gun," de- 
 spite his protestations! The picturesqueness of his 
 
 521
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 attire was further enhanced by a red cotton handker- 
 chief loosely knotted about his throat, and a short, raw- 
 hide lariat drooping gracefully at his side. 
 
 Laughing, too, he stepped back into the hall, and, lift- 
 ing from the ground a big bunch of roses, handed them 
 to me, saying : " This represents the last of. my cash 
 and, Lordl I'm hungry! Give me something to eat." 
 
 This sentence froze the laughter on my lips, and, turn- 
 ing fiercely on the gaping Annie, I bade her bring to 
 the dining-room everything the larder contained, and 
 be quick about it. 
 
 "To think that I thought thim people was respect- 
 able ! A' nice villyan to be lettin' into the house to be 
 murtherin' of us all in our beds!" she muttered, as she 
 appeared in the kitchen. 
 
 " Shrewd person, that ! ' ' ejaculated Bertrand. " Have 
 you had her long?" 
 
 "Yes, quite a while; but I won't have her much 
 longer if she continues like that the idiot!" I replied. 
 
 " Now, don't be unjust," said Fred. " How could she 
 imagine that a proud coronet lies concealed under this 
 remarkable and time-honored sombrero?" 
 
 When Bertrand had sampled cold meat, sardines, 
 pickles, eggs, cheese, marmalade, coffee, beer, and ten 
 or twelve other eatables and drinkables for this was 
 Saturday and a holiday was in prospect, so our pantry 
 was unusually well stocked he sank back in his chair 
 with a sigh of content. 
 
 " Ouff !" he said, loosening his belt. " I am beginning 
 to feel better. I'd like to know how many times I've 
 tightened this blessed leather to make my hunger small." 
 
 So he, too, had been hungry! I took in both my 
 own his work-hardened and roughened hand, and de- 
 clined to part with it again until he had told us some 
 of his adventures. 
 
 522
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Oh, I wasn't going to give in till I really couldn't 
 help it," he continued. " I've tried a little of every- 
 thing. My last job was barkeeping in a God-forsaken 
 mining-camp. I've also been a chucker-out in a sim- 
 ilar establishment yet farther West. I had charge of 
 a coffee - store in a prohibition town to make up for 
 that, and for two weeks I washed bottles in a bum 
 hotel in Denver. Then I drove a baker's cart in Lead- 
 ville, and used to feed my face with bread on the 
 quiet. Between times, and when I wanted to move 
 from place to place, after my poor old bronco had died 
 of a broken heart, I occupied my leisure hours in steal- 
 ing rides on freight-trains, and if my hide had been a 
 little tougher I'd have reached New York ong before 
 this ; but I got weary of the application of the train- 
 men's boots, and gave it up. So I took a leaf out of 
 the actor's book, and hoofed it along the ties, except 
 once, when I abducted a hand-car, and worked it at 
 a furious rate for a good many miles, yelling at the top 
 of my voice, and shooting off my gun at regular inter- 
 vals to baffle pursuit and cover my trail." 
 
 Fred rose solemnly, and, holding out his hand, said, 
 impressively: "My Lord Marquis, you are a remark- 
 able man, and an honor to your family. There is an 
 invincible devilment in both your sister and yourself 
 which commands my respect and awe." 
 
 "Well," he replied, gravely pump-handling with his 
 enthusiastic brother-in-law, " I've caved in at last. Our 
 imperial lady mother has unconditionally surrendered 
 two or three times, but that alone wouldn't have de- 
 cided me, for I wasn't going to live on her, not if I knew 
 it! But since my estimable god-father has kicked the 
 bucket, and has left me enough to make me quite in- 
 dependent until I become of age and get into my money 
 which will be soon now, thank God! I'm off by the 
 
 523
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 next steamer, and I'd like jolly well to take you 
 along." 
 
 "My dearest boy," I said, rising and beginning to 
 clear the table, "I will never set foot in Europe again 
 until I can do so in exactly the same fashion as I left 
 it. I'd sooner starve some more than be patronized 
 and kindly assisted by anybody, so that settles it." 
 
 "Assisted! Well, there's little fear of that! 'Ma- 
 dame M&re ' is so much afraid that you will accept help, 
 even from me, that, instead of cabling me money for 
 my ticket home, she induced my late godfather's banker 
 to send me here, paste restante, an order for a civilized 
 outfit on a big tailoring firm and a ticket to Havre, 
 where her agent is to meet me. So I'll have to borrow 
 a few dollars from you, if I wish to resume the privi- 
 leges of my rank and tip the stewards on board. I've 
 got my pockets full of pawn-tickets from places 'all 
 over the West, where I had to hang up pistols, guns, 
 watch, shirt-studs, pins, etc., and God knows how I'll 
 ever redeem them, from that distance!" 
 
 "I suggest that we make a souvenir-album of such 
 documents," I remarked. "It might take the place of 
 the one containing the royal autographs that w r as stolen 
 from me here two years ago." 
 
 "What has become of Jim?" asked Fred, sud- 
 denly. " You never mentioned him since you left the 
 ranch." 
 
 Bertrand rose abruptly, threw his half-burned cigar- 
 ette in the fire, and took two or three turns around the 
 room before he answered. Finally, with his back 
 towards us, and gazing intently out of the window, 
 he answered, shortly: "Jim died of pneumonia last 
 November, and I had sooner not speak about it, for, 
 God knows, he was the best friend a man ever had. 
 With him went my luck, for, had he been alive, that 
 
 524
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 scoundrelly partner of mine would never have dared 
 to rob me." 
 
 I was thunderstruck, and especially ashamed to 
 think that our own troubles had made me forgetful 
 until that very moment of the faithful servant who had 
 followed his master with such old-time loyalty. " Ce 
 que c'est que de nous," I thought, dropping the subject, 
 for I saw that this was a tender spot with Bertrand 
 that had best remain untouched. 
 
 A week later, attired in the height of fashion and 
 carrying an irreproachable and well-filled valise, Ber- 
 trand left the little flat which he had entered as a ragged 
 and fear-inspiring desperado. We drove down with him 
 to the steamer, and I thought my heart would have 
 broken when, to the sound of a dismal melody exe- 
 cuted by the ship's orchestra, the great vessel glided 
 from the pier, homeward bound, and I caught a distant 
 glimpse of the last of my blood and kin waving to us 
 a final adieu. 
 
 Sadly Fred and I returned to what \ve now called 
 "home," and w r here Bertrand's carefully preserved 
 roses were still adorning my painting-table. Another 
 chapter of our life was closed ! We had, as on several 
 previous occasions, strained every nerve to make this 
 long-lost brother believe that we were far better off than 
 was really the case, and our little exchequer was sadly 
 depleted by what we had given him for the casual ex- 
 penses of his return trip. I could not help thinking 
 bitterly of the luxurious home in which this arrange- 
 ment that deprived us of our truly hard-earned money 
 had been made, in full knowledge of our circumstances, 
 and the unlikelihood of our allowing the dear boy to 
 leave us empty-handed. 
 
 Another winter came and went, terminated by the 
 most fearful blizzard which New York has ever known, 
 
 525
 
 A DOFP^ED CORONET 
 
 and, while the streets were still blocked with mountain- 
 ous drifts, the telephone and telegraph wires hanging 
 in broken tangles to the buried sidewalks, and all means 
 of transportation at a stand-still, once again Dr. W . . . e 
 was summoned hurriedly to my bedside, where he was 
 to have yet another of those grim battles with death, 
 from which he has so often come forth a victor. That 
 battle, than which he has had few harder, was fought 
 and won, and after many hours he joyfully laid in my 
 arms the long-expected treasure, the thought of which 
 had made so many bitter moments endurable. And a 
 treasure he was and still is, God bless him ! A strong, 
 beautiful, dark-eyed boy, far excelling our fondest hopes. 
 
 A new life began for us, the joys of which fully repaid 
 us for the miseries that had gone before, though there 
 were many hard experiences yet to come. 
 
 It was, perhaps, the hardest of all when, in the heat 
 of the succeeding summer, little Alain fell dangerously 
 ill. Dr. W . . . e was in Europe, and his brother, who 
 attended the child, ordered that he be taken out of the 
 hot, burning city without a moment's delay. With 
 blank horror I counted the few dollars which composed 
 our fortune, and had to confess to myself that if I could 
 not beg, borrow, or steal, the child would die. 
 
 The time had indeed come for me to pocket my pride, 
 and I cabled to my mother, asking her to wire me five 
 hundred dollars of the money that was really mine, 
 making it plain, despite the charges for extra words, 
 that it was a matter of life and death. 
 
 With agony in my heart I awaited the reply. It was 
 short and concise, and consisted of but one word : 
 
 "No." 
 
 With the pink paper crushed in my hand I gazed for 
 a moment at the little, waxen face in the cradle, and 
 then, trusting him for the first time to the servant, I 
 
 526
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 rushed out of the house, flew breathlessly to the private 
 office of the manufacturer who had employed me so 
 long as a designer of textile patterns, caught the terri- 
 fied little Hebrew by his coat-collar, and, unconsciously 
 shaking him as I spoke, practically demanded his 
 money or his life, forgetting that it was not I, but a 
 protege of mine, who was doing his work. 
 
 When I left him I was ashamed of myself and of my 
 scathing dislike and contempt for his entire race which 
 had indeed received its punishment. That ill-favored, 
 mean-looking little person had acted like a gentleman, 
 and paid me in advance for six months' work, with a 
 simplicity and generosity which made it hard, indeed, 
 for me to make my way up-town calmly and decorously. 
 
 Broken pride is perchance the most painful of all fract- 
 ures, and I was glad that the bustle and preparation 
 of our departure for a neighboring sea-side resort kept 
 me from realizing how completely smashed mine was. 
 
 When we returned to town in the autumn, I called 
 
 upon my old friend, A n, who greeted me with 
 
 an enthusiasm which made it comparatively easy for 
 me to undertake the breaking in of some ladies' hacks 
 and hunters during the winter months at a handsome 
 remuneration. I contemptuously crushed under my 
 heel the vigorous little shoots struggling into life from 
 that wrecked pride of mine, and was recompensed when, 
 long before the end of the six months since my new 
 occupation had left me no time for silk designing I 
 was able to refund the money advanced to me by my 
 friend the silk manufacturer. 
 
 I even committed the extravagance of bringing to 
 him the crisp, new greenbacks enclosed in a pocket- 
 book, on one side of which were his initials, and on the 
 other my crest, exquisitely executed in gold by Tif- 
 fany's best designer. 
 
 527
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "I have come to bid you good-bye," I said, placing 
 the little, pink-ribboned package on his desk. " I must 
 now give up working for you, since in the spring I 
 shall leave New York for the country, where we will 
 henceforth live all the year round. This will enable me 
 to put into execution a long-cherished plan for earning 
 my living. You have been a good friend to me, and I 
 wish I could make you realize how grateful I am and 
 will continue to be." 
 
 He had untied the little package, and was gazing 
 with amazement at its contents. 
 
 "Who are you, really?" he asked, timidly. 
 
 "No longer anybody," I said, with a smile. "If you 
 ever think of me, all you need do is to remember me 
 as a mother whose child you saved. That will make 
 a pleasant pillow for you to lie on. Good-bye, and 
 God bless you!" 
 
 In the following May we removed to a pretty house 
 on the Sound, with sufficiently large grounds, and a 
 nice stable attached. Once settled there, we were so 
 comfortable that I began to imagine that we had weath- 
 ered the worst of the storm, but, alas! in a little while 
 another blow descended upon me with such unexpected 
 violence that it made me stagger and all but fall. 
 
 Hard work, sorrows, and disappointments had at last 
 told upon Fred, and one evening he came home des- 
 perately ill. For twenty-one days and nights I kept 
 my vigil at his side, forcing myself to stay awake 
 by living on black coffee. I had need to do so, for 
 the word "contagion" having been pronounced by 
 some ill-informed person, the servants, of whom I now 
 had three in the house, not to mention the stablemen, 
 left me in a body, and I found myself with a delirious 
 patient, a fretful baby who in those first days of dis- 
 tress sickened with a sharp attack of tonsillitis and all 
 
 528
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the work of the house besides, in which my only 
 helper was a little colored groom of sixteen, without 
 whose devotion and eagerness to help I would really 
 have given up all hope of ever pulling through. 
 
 It goes without saying that the expenses of this long 
 and terrible illness far exceeded what I could manage to 
 make, overworked as I was already, and one fine day I 
 looked sadly and helplessly at my last twenty-five cents ! 
 
 That afternoon a fellow- worker of Fred's, whom I 
 knew casually, stopped on his way from a day's outing 
 in the neighborhood to inquire after "his good friend." 
 Driven to desperation, I asked him whether he could 
 obtain for me a month's salary in advance from their 
 mutual chief. 
 
 "Easy as rolling off a log, my dear madame," he 
 said, cheerfully. "I will bring it myself to-morrow." 
 
 I was overwhelmed with gratitude. Truly this loose 
 limbed, awkward, sandy-haired Scotchman was a trump, 
 and I thought that it is in such moments of Sturm 
 und Drang that one finds out how much more real 
 goodness there is in the world than one is generally in- 
 clined to believe, and so, with reviving hope and con- 
 fidence, I awaited what the morrow would bring. 
 
 It brought my Scotch friend bustling into my pres- 
 ence with an empressement which touched me to the 
 heart. Diving into his inside pocket, he brought forth 
 ten new ten-dollar bills, and, laying them on the table 
 before me, said, grandiloquently: 
 
 " I didn't bother the office. It was much easier for me 
 to lend you that myself." 
 
 "Oh, I can't think of accepting your money," I said, 
 cruelly disappointed. "You are very kind, but you 
 shouldn't have done this," and I pushed away the 
 eagerly expected supply. 
 
 "My dear madame," he replied, laughing, "I quite 
 34 529
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 understand that you don't want to accept this without 
 making some return. In a month you will hand me 
 back one hundred and fifty dollars, or, if that be too 
 soon for you, let's make it two hundred dollars at 
 two months. That '11 square us, I guess." 
 
 I rose and looked quietly at him. 
 
 "There are, I believe, usurers to be found in New 
 York, and I perceive that it will be a great deal better 
 to address myself to them, especially as it will not in- 
 clude my having to receive them as friends. If you 
 are in a hurry to return to New York, as I do not 
 doubt you are, I will order the dog-cart to drive you 
 to the station." 
 
 For a moment he stood looking at me, then his eyes 
 dropped and his face turned scarlet. " I only meant to 
 accommodate you," he said, with a vague wave of his 
 hand. "Business is business." 
 
 "Quite so," I remarked; "but I never like to mix 
 business with pleasure. You must remember that 
 from the first I refused to borrow otherwise than from 
 my husband's employer, who has always behaved de- 
 cently to him, and that is why there is nothing left for 
 me to do but to thank you for so far exceeding my 
 modest demand. Would you like the dog-cart?" 
 
 "No, thank you," he muttered, "I'll go by the car. 
 And oh, how is your husband to-day?" 
 
 "Much worse," I said, slowly, "so you see it is 
 perhaps better that I should have been prevented from 
 contracting a debt towards his office." 
 
 Then, turning my back upon him, I left him stand- 
 ing there and returned to the sick-room. 
 
 On the morrow A n telegraphed to me to find 
 
 out whether a handsome colt I had been training was 
 for immediate sale, and, on my replying in the affirma- 
 tive, came down himself to fetch the animal, bringing 
 
 530
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 with him a sum of money which made it possible for 
 me to pursue my desperate voyage under half-steam. 
 
 It was three months before Fred was able to resume 
 work, and by that time I was fairly done for. I shall 
 never forget the first unbroken sleep in three weeks 
 until then I had slept only by cat-naps in a chair 
 which I took on the night when the doctor pronounced 
 him out of danger, for the ludicrousness of my camp- 
 ing-outfit was the first humorous touch in that inter- 
 minable stretch of misery. Lying at full length on 
 the carpet at the foot of his bed, with a fat Burke 's 
 Peerage under my head as a pillow, and a bath-robe 
 thrown over me, I was reminded of the joke which Ber- 
 trand used to make when, in the old days at the flat, we 
 used to make shift to put up one of our rare friends for 
 the night, and he used to hospitably suggest that we 
 lay him on two chairs and cover him up with a walk- 
 ing-stick 1 I dreaded the possibility of my not awaken- 
 ing if I were needed either by my patient or my baby, 
 so I had taken these precautions not to be too comfort- 
 able; but, alas! even such measures were in vain, for 
 no sooner had I closed my eyes than I fell into the deep, 
 dreamless sleep of total exhaustion, and was only awak- 
 ened many hours later by the piteous cries of poor little 
 Alain, who had crawled out of his crib, and was holding 
 me tightly by the neck, desperately sobbing, "Mum- 
 mie dead! Mummie dead!" 
 
 Thinned down to a shadow, and inexpressibly weary, 
 I struggled through Fred's long convalescence, har- 
 assed beyond expression by that terrible question of 
 servants, which is the bane of all American households. 
 Indeed, I must be pardoned for having sometimes felt 
 as if it were hardly worth while to stagger on any 
 longer, for both the W . . . es were abroad, and the 
 summer season had driven the few friends we had to
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 seas or mountains, American or Continental. Our 
 dear Archbishop was in Rome, and had it not been 
 for the bi-monthly letters of that one ever -faithful, 
 peerless friend, that sister -soul who, although I had 
 invariably concealed from her the straits we were in, 
 wrote with a tenderness and love that neither distance 
 nor time ever dulled, and who at no time made me feel 
 the gulf which separates a throne from the place which 
 now was mine, truly I would have been sorely tempted 
 to give up the fight. 
 
 During the following year a regular horde of domes- 
 tics swept destructively through our home, and I was 
 granted the privilege of sampling specimens of qvery 
 nationality which the great sewer of European emigra- 
 tion discharges upon American shores. All were, with- 
 out exception, incarnations of incompetence, careless- 
 ness, and impudence, differing only in the proportions 
 of these ingredients to one another, and when the last- 
 named became of an active rather than a passive quality, 
 so to speak, each creature's stay abruptly terminated. 
 
 There was, for example, a vivacious French cook most 
 melodiously inclined, who insisted on accompanying her 
 merry snatches of Parisian cafe-chantant ditties by a 
 lively pounding of her " Louiss-Squintz " heels as the 
 village shoemaker called them on the kitchen floor, 
 which pleasant sounds were borne to me by every hot- 
 air register, thanks to the fact that the furnace-room 
 abutted on her domain. There was a very youthful 
 butler, who, eager to display his manliness, used to 
 groan forth in a grewsome bass the plaintive strains 
 of "Silver Threads among the Gold" with terrible per- 
 sistence while he busied himself in the pantry, inhar- 
 monious information as to " Darling's growing old " 
 floating up the stairs and making me grit my teeth in 
 impotent despair; and yet another adolescent male 
 
 532
 
 
 " SA MAJESTE BEBE "
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 domestic, hailing from Cork, who was given to whistle 
 away the entire day with a diabolical and nerve-rack- 
 ing shrillness. When I, first gently, then authorita- 
 tively, and then with violence, urged him to desist, he 
 lachrymosely declared that it was not his fault, since 
 the sound of which I complained was nothing more 
 nor less than the wind escaping through an aperture 
 occasioned by the loss of his front teeth. But the lad 
 being otherwise of the Barkis tribe and very willing, 
 I submitted in sheer self-defence to purchase for him 
 a set of artificial teeth, and thenceforth he no longer 
 whistled, but, alas! he took to lifting up his voice in 
 song, which was worse. 
 
 When, however, he took to playing pranks, I began to 
 doubt whether I really needed his services. He started 
 in by painting the entire length of the white-oak banis- 
 ters with a mixture of alcohol and shoe-polish, because, 
 in his opinion, it did not sufficiently harmonize with 
 the heliotrope paper on the walls, thus proving the 
 ruin of my Ai dinner-dress, evoked from the very last 
 relics of a glorious past. After several other freaks of 
 fancy one morning, when, more than usually depressed, 
 I was sitting alone at breakfast with my back towards 
 the open window, he ended by introducing from outside 
 the ripe remains of a kitten suspended by the tail from 
 a fishing-pole, which he jerked up and down under my 
 nose in a manner which led me for a moment to be- 
 lieve that the blow had at last fallen and my mind had 
 given way. When I recognized my error I cast him 
 forth more in anger than sorrow, and his place knew 
 him no more. 
 
 In a moment of foolish extravagance I had engaged 
 an elderly English nurse of great piety for Alain, who, 
 having now reached the age where his chief occupation 
 was to tumble down and injure himself, needed per- 
 
 533
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 petual watching. Bitter was my regret at having done 
 so, for, alas ! she, too, was musically inclined, her melo- 
 mania taking the form, as she shrewdly put it, of 
 "training her little charge towards God" by emitting, 
 in the flattest of flat voices, such sacred melodies as 
 "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and "A wake, My Soul," 
 from morning till night, whether in the nursery, on the 
 beach, or in the garden. 
 
 Poor little Alain, whose musical ear was in danger 
 of being totally vitiated, deemed it, of course, necessary 
 to chime in, and the louder his aged companion raised 
 her pious notes to Heaven, the more did the little chap 
 pipe forth his baby imitation, ending, usually, with a 
 dismal howl when sternly reproved by her, for distorting 
 the sacred words with his infant tongue. 
 
 She had, in her youthful days, served in a like ca- 
 pacity in some aristocratic houses of Great Britain 
 and Ireland, and in her present humbler position 
 gloried in reminiscences of this brilliant past. How 
 often have Fred and I looked helplessly at each other 
 across the table, when " Old Lizzie," standing behind 
 Alain's high-chair, would begin : 
 
 "Baby, don't eat with your fingers. When I was 
 living with Lord John Beresford I never allowed " 
 Or else, "Baby boy, now don't put your fist in your 
 mouth. Lady Gwendolyn Ermyntrude Vere de Vere 
 never allowed her children," etc., etc., until the "late 
 Lord John Beresford, poor, dear man, and her gracious 
 Ladyship " became haunting personalities to us. 
 
 One day Fred facetiously interrupted her. "What 
 did Lord de Liverus allow you to do with his children 
 when you were living with him?" 
 
 Horror-stricken, and touched in the most pious corner 
 of her soul, Lizzie rose in her wrath and unsparingly 
 rebuked Fred for his unseemly levity. 
 
 534
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 Oh, dear! what did I not go through! I had a Ger- 
 man cook who got shockingly drunk and once at- 
 tempted my life with a frying-pan. With the utmost 
 difficulty for she was head and shoulders taller than 
 I I prevented her from accomplishing her nefarious 
 intent by seizing her and throwing her bodily into the 
 laundry, where she remained in durance vile until the 
 return of her master. 
 
 A buxom Swede surreptitiously gathered about her 
 kitchen-hearth seven able-bodied men one dark win- 
 ter night, and when I discovered their presence, with 
 touching simplicity presented them to me as her cous- 
 ins " yoost froom de oold coontry!" 
 
 A worthy Scotch gardener, in whom I had placed 
 my trust, imbibed the waters of his native land, ran 
 amuck in the kitchen and still-rooms late one Satur- 
 day afternoon, and, having put his fellow-servants to 
 flight, afforded me the undisputed honor of evicting 
 him, riding-crop in hand. 
 
 But enough of this enumeration of a foreigner's trials 
 in the domain of Uncle Sam, although I am sorely tempt- 
 ed to relate in detail the story of the colored cook who, to 
 the pardonable indignation of my similarly colored but- 
 ler, was set upon by a discarded suitor in my kitchen, 
 carved liberally with a razor, and tramped almost into 
 smithereens. Aroused by this trifling difference of opin- 
 ion, I was met in the lower hall by a flying volley of 
 soda-water bottles, flat-irons, and lumps of coal that pur- 
 sued the assassin from the house, and, not understand- 
 ing why I was the apparent target of this miscellaneous 
 ammunition, I returned it in kind with a bronze candle- 
 stick I was carrying, missing the butler, and smashing 
 a plate-glass window that cost me ten dollars to replace. 
 
 I am sorry, also, that I lack space to give an ac- 
 count of a domestic mutiny occasioned by my engaging 
 
 535
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 the services of a queer, old-looking boy of fifteen years 
 of age. He had not been twenty-four hours in the 
 house before all the servants rose in revolt and declined 
 to live under the same roof with a " play-actor/' for the 
 new acquisition had slipped his incognito, and appeared 
 as " James O'Brien, the Champion Boy Low Comedian," 
 with a collection of printed hand-bills and posters to 
 substantiate his claim to fame. I bowed to the will of 
 the majority and dismissed him, but first asked him 
 why he had forsaken the lucrative ways of the stage 
 for my comparatively unremunerative service. He re- 
 plied that a dramatic career, with all its temptations, 
 was taking him straight to hell, and that he wished 
 to stop somewhere half-way on the downward track 
 before it should be too late. I wearily concurred in his 
 conception of my residence as a half-way house to 
 Hades, and bade him farewell. 
 
 Let my reader, however, be consoled by the cheering 
 thought that subsequently for five whole years I enjoyed 
 heavenly peace, thanks to the advent, one by one, of 
 four exceptions to the rule, two white and two colored, 
 who by their devoted and cheerful service made me 
 wellnigh forget the ill deeds of their predecessors. 
 
 Let him also remember that this account represents 
 the amusing features of a long course of continual wor- 
 riment and petty domestic annoyance which formed 
 part of my day's work for many years. 
 
 t am tired of cataloguing in these last pages of a 
 long record, sorrows and troubles of all hues and de- 
 scriptions. Let it be, therefore, quite en passant that 
 I mention, for the sake of veracity, the thirteen weeks 
 which, shortly after Fred's recovery, I spent in the 
 deathly grip of meningitis, the agonized days I passed 
 watching over Alain in his struggle with diphtheria, 
 the two years of hard work, and the weeks of pain 
 
 536
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 which elapsed before the day of the last great test ar- 
 rived, and Dr. W . . . e informed me that it was necessary 
 I should undergo a surgical operation of major grade. 
 
 I had long since done with shilly-shallying and 
 become so used to straight facts straightly presented 
 that I had come to like them after a fashion, and on 
 the bright May day when I journeyed to New York to 
 hear my doom, or whatever else it might prove to be, 
 within the four walls of the great surgeon's office at the 
 pretty little private hospital which he had recently 
 built within two doors of our old flat, my one thought, 
 I may say in justice to myself, was for Fred, who sat 
 at my side in the train, and for the little sailor lad now 
 raised to the dignity of an English tar's uniform, who 
 leaned against his knee trying to assimilate in his six- 
 year-old brain matters so grim that they were puzzling 
 wiser heads than his own. 
 
 For myself, I was a little tired of the fight, and rather 
 more occupied with the difficult feat of concealing from 
 them the wonderful thinness to which I was reduced, 
 by coquettishly wrapping about myself the flounces of 
 an ultra-chic little Parisian lace cape than in puzzling 
 over a future which I had long guessed might be of 
 singularly short duration. 
 
 The beating of my heart may have been a little more 
 rapid than was its wont when I stood opposite my 
 faithful doctor after a quarter of an hour's sojourn in 
 his surgery, but, after all, it was still a pretty stout 
 heart from old Armorica. 
 
 "Got collet deusan Armoriq,"* as they put it out there, 
 and my voice was perfectly steady when I looked up in 
 the blue eyes that had just then a little more than their 
 customary kindness, and said, quietly: 
 
 * In Breton, this means either " It was a hard man of Armorica," 
 or " It was a stout heart of Armorica." 
 
 537
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 " I'd like to know just exactly where I stand, and 
 rely upon you to tell me the truth, pure and simple, 
 without any fear of the result." 
 
 For a moment, a very short one, the steady gaze 
 wavered and grew troubled. Then, laying his hand 
 lightly on my shoulder, he said, slowly and with ever 
 so slight a tremor: 
 
 "I respect you too much not to tell you the truth. 
 You have one chance, and that is, an operation within 
 four weeks from now." 
 
 Above the immaculately precise little curtains shroud- 
 ing the lower portions of the surgery windows a dan- 
 cing beam of sunlight fell like a flame upon a tall 
 bunch of gladioli which adorned the professional 
 desk. 
 
 "What lovely flowers those are!" I said. "I have 
 always had a particular fancy for them. May I take 
 one?" 
 
 The doctor abruptly turned his back upon me. It 
 was a splendid plan to concentrate my attention upon a 
 pleasant object for a few seconds, and, interpreting his 
 silence as consent, I took a step tow r ards the flowers, 
 broke off one of the glowing spikes, and fastened the 
 satiny blossoms with elaborate care in my dress. When 
 this was satisfactorily accomplished I turned once 
 more to the arbiter of my fate. 
 
 " I take it for granted that, as usual, you will stand 
 by me." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "When did you say the event was to take 
 place?" 
 
 He glanced hurriedly at a sheaf of notes hanging 
 on a silver hook near the window, made a rapid cal- 
 culation, and said, simply: "On Sunday, the 20th, 
 at ten in the morning. You had better come here 
 
 538
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 for the operation. I will give you the best room in the 
 house." 
 
 The blossoms at my breast not being quite yet to 
 my liking, I shifted them a little and pinned them more 
 securely. "Don't think me ungrateful/' I said, com- 
 ing nearer to him and putting my hand on his arm, 
 " but I would sooner, if it isn't asking too much, have it 
 done at home. Afterwards, you know, it may be more 
 comforting for Fred and Alain." 
 
 "Very well; perhaps you are right." 
 
 I turned to go. 
 
 " I don't thank you, because you will understand that 
 thanks would have to be, under such circumstances, 
 very well presented, which would surpass my present 
 abilities." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, and bent over an open 
 case of instruments, which he contemplated with ab- 
 sorbing attention. 
 
 " Especially, " I continued, " as I have one more favor 
 to ask of you, which is, not to tell Fred, however search- 
 ingly he may question you, the gravity of the situa- 
 tion. He would feel it well, hard, and there is no 
 earthly use of making him anticipate the worst. Make 
 light of it as much as you conscientiously can. It 
 will be a great help to me." 
 
 "By Gad, you are well, you are " 
 
 "Oh, never mind that," I interrupted. "What tonic 
 did you mention? It's best just for a few moments 
 longer to attend to minor details," and, without waiting 
 lor an answer, I opened the door and walked into the 
 central hall, where Fred sat, rigidly, beside Alain, who 
 was playing with the huge Persian cat, the pet of the 
 house. I walked quickly to the group and said, with 
 a little laugh, of which I was afterwards somewhat 
 proud : 
 
 539
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Good news can wait, so let us bid au revoir to 
 this busy man here, whose time I have already quite 
 sufficiently encroached upon." 
 
 Fred looked up, with dawning relief. " Is that true?" 
 he said, addressing the doctor. 
 
 "Well," replied my fellow-conspirator, "of course it's 
 too bad that this should have come to pass, but, with 
 such vitality and pluck as this little girl possesses, 
 there is no cause for apprehension in the ordinary run 
 of things. She will tell you herself all about it, for the 
 surgical profession has lost a great deal by her being a 
 woman, and she can explain quite as well as I what is 
 amiss, and what we have decided." 
 
 I held out my hand, which was grasped with such 
 unexpected force that my fingers ached for an hour 
 after, and so we walked out into the sunshine and 
 animation of the great city which had seen so many 
 tides in the affairs of my life. 
 
 Alas, all our Machiavellian precautions went for 
 nothing, for a few days later Fred, meeting by chance 
 one of Dr. W . . . e's assistants, was told brutally the 
 secret we had so jealously guarded, and when he came 
 back that night one glance at his face showed me 
 that that little game was up, and that the following 
 weeks would be something in the nature of a death- 
 watch. 
 
 The Archbishop helped me wonderfully through what 
 remained for me to undergo. Indefatigably, heeding 
 neither wind nor weather, he came out from the city 
 time and time again, bringing to bear upon our 
 stricken little home the consolations of his office with 
 such delicacy of touch and such high-bred compre- 
 hension of the difficulties hedging him in on all sides 
 that it must be hoped that his recompense is now in 
 proportion to his deeds. 
 
 540
 
 j|E* (H Ffy (- Rh* tt>* - 
 
 " MY AMERICAN HOME "
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 I did not see Dr. W . . . e again until the sombre, 
 tempestuous morning when he and five more of his 
 calling drove through pelting rain to the rocky point 
 whereon our house stood and against which great 
 waves were furiously dashing. 
 
 His quick, energetic step sounded on the stairs with 
 something reassuring in its elasticity, and in a moment 
 he was in the room where, standing at the window, I 
 watched the white breakers chasing each other up the 
 beach. 
 
 Neither of us spoke until the click of steel and the 
 rolling into place of furniture, together with subdued 
 footfalls in the next room, made it imperative for him 
 to break the silence of the one in which we were. Far 
 be it from me to pose as a heroine, for I am nothing of 
 the kind; but, strange to say, in a twinkling all my 
 gloomy thoughts took flight like a flock of ill-omened 
 birds, and, turning eagerly to my companion, I said, 
 almost cheerfully: "Let me look. Let me see what 
 they are doing. It will distract my mind, and you 
 know well it isn't that of which I am afraid." 
 
 "Do as you please," he replied, with a little shrug. 
 "I'm never very professional with you." 
 
 I picked up the long skirt of my peignoir, and, fol- 
 lowed by him, walked into the middle of the busy circle 
 in the large, airy room where the denouement of this 
 little, private drama was to take place. Their stupefac- 
 tion made me smile, for I had quite disassociated myself 
 from the whole thing, and yet I could not help saying, 
 
 " What a lot of big men it takes to cut up one small 
 woman!" 
 
 There was a general gasp, and the senior member 
 of that surgical council advanced almost threateningly 
 towards us. " For Heaven's sake, Dr. W . . . e, take 
 her away!" he said, waving me off excitedly. 
 
 54i
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 "Why? She says it diverts her thoughts! You 
 don't know the breed, my good fellow. She is not an 
 ordinary patient. " 
 
 Unkraut verdirbt nicht, says the German, with his 
 usual sagacity and directness, and I must therefore 
 take it that I belong to the weed family, for I did not 
 die, as could reasonably have been expected that I 
 should ; in fact, the doctor, who remained in charge of 
 me for two weeks afterwards, declared, "Should your 
 husband ever wish to get rid of you he would have to 
 use a battle-axe." 
 
 Indeed, I recovered with marvellous rapidity, and even 
 reached the point where I began to be quite proud of 
 the charmed life I had borne. I had taken, however, 
 such a dislike for our home by the Sound, since the 
 many troubles we had had there, that we soon after- 
 wards gave it up. After sojourning in New York for 
 a time, we finally decided to rent on a term of years a 
 quaint and rambling stone house covered with ivy and 
 creepers, which for over a century has crowned a knoll 
 commanding a lovely prospect of undulating plains 
 and densely wooded hills. 
 
 A number of small legacies had meanwhile fallen to 
 my share, which, although too insignificant to rein- 
 state us in our former European position, yet were of 
 sufficient importance to give us comparative ease and 
 affluence. 
 
 Large paddocks and verdant meadows, which formed 
 part of the estate, seemed, moreover, providentially 
 adapted to the prosecution of my still cherished pur- 
 pose, and there, one glorious October day, we settled 
 
 542
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 down in this last and dearest of our American homes 
 an ideal one, indeed. 
 
 Every animal in my stables, byres, or kennels nay, 
 the very pigeons circling above the verdure-garlanded 
 roofs, my vegetable-garden, my orchard, even the little 
 brook gurgling and bubbling at the end of the past- 
 ures beneath tall pollard-willows and wild-cherry trees, 
 were sources of continual and absorbing interest to me. 
 
 I was proud, too, of my flowers, blossoming all sum- 
 mer long in the numerous parterres intersecting the 
 lawns, and filling with fragrance throughout the win- 
 ter the conservatory upon which the library windows 
 opened. 
 
 Our little bark had passed, unharmed, through many 
 breakers, and I now confidently trusted that we had 
 guided it to a safe and stormless anchorage. 
 
 Then, as the grim, gray dawning touched 
 
 The sneering seas with white, 
 A voice came back from the reeling prow, 
 " Be of good cheer, O helmsman ; now 
 
 I see the harbor light 1"
 
 L'ENVOI 
 
 MY task is brought to a close here! Its lights and 
 shadows fill my horizon with sweet and bitter remem- 
 brances almost equally dear to me. Perchance, by 
 recording in the preceding pages so many sombre and 
 intimate personal incidents, I have laid myself open to 
 hostile criticism, and yet, could my reader realize how 
 difficult it is to check one's self when once started upon 
 the steep slope of reminiscence, he would pause in his 
 judgment and deal leniently with me. 
 
 I will leave behind in this country which has been 
 hospitable and kindly to me many pleasant and 
 happy hours, and will with deep regret lose sight of 
 the friends to whom I must say "Good-bye." Yet on 
 my way I take the three great factors of my happiness 
 Fred, the ever loyal and loving companion of my 
 life ; Alain, my pride and my joy ; and Rex, this other 
 son of ours whom we have adopted and taken to our 
 hearts, and whose whole-souled devotion has been of 
 so rare a kind that it seems hopeless and vain to try 
 and describe it. 
 
 My longing for Europe, for the old, gay, careless 
 days, has lost much of its keenness, although Brittany 
 is now and as ever, unchangeably, my bourne. Death 
 has mown freely through the ranks of those dear to 
 me, and I will never quite recover from that greatest 
 and most irreparable loss of all which, with the crushing 
 brutality of a thunder-bolt, befell me that of my Em- 
 press. My thoughts of her, Rex has expressed as I 
 
 544
 
 A DOFFED CORONET 
 
 could not have expressed them myself, in some exqui- 
 site lines, written on the last anniversary of her tragic 
 death. With these I end my story, after the mariner of 
 those old monkish writers who were wont to close their 
 manuscript with a prayer for the blessing of the Saints, 
 offering to the one to whom I owe so much of the little 
 good there is in me, an 
 
 INVOCATION 
 
 Oh when, on nights most calm and beautiful, 
 Shine forth the silent stars all graciously, 
 Wilt thou bring peace, as doth their lustre, laying 
 Pale hands of quiet on the heaving sea? 
 
 Revisit thy beloved, all the pain 
 Of sundering years, of loss itself, withdrawn; 
 Light with thine eyes old faithfulness again, 
 And touch new splendor in the brightness gone! 
 
 Or if, from far beyond that happy bourne 
 Thou com'st not, send sweet influences, that may, 
 Like those dim heralds of the lingering morn, 
 Whisper my darkness of a distant day. 
 
 Grant me that strength which most of all I prize, 
 To draw my pathway to the utmost verge, 
 Straight, calm, and moveless as the moon-glade lies, 
 Throned on the wild manes of the tossing surge. 
 
 So shall I rest, and stay the impatient feet 
 That yearn unceasingly towards thee now. 
 Sweet Spirit, guard me! for I fain would greet 
 As royally the Messenger as thou. 
 
 THE END
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 JUL 2 6 1977 
 
 Fnrm Ut-Series 444

 
 p>. -*** 
 
 
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