DIAMONDS CUT PASTE By AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE IF YOUTH BUT KNEW ROSE OF THE WORLD THE HEART of LADY ANNE THE STAR DREAMER THE PRIDE OF JENNICO THE SECRET ORCHARD THE BATH COMEDY THE HOUSE OF ROMANCE MY MERRY ROCKHURST FLOWER O' THE ORANGE INCOMPARABLE BELLAIRS WROTH : : : : : By EGERTON CASTLE YOUNG APRIL THE LIGHT OF SCARTHEY CONSEQUENCES MARSHFIELD^OBSERVER SCHOOLS AND MASTERS OF FENCE . ENGLISH BOOK-PLATES . THE JERNINGHAM LETTERS LE ROMAN DU PRINCE OTHON :::::: 'YOU CALL YOURSELF MY NIECE, DO YOU? DO YOU EXPECT ME TO KISS YOU?" (Page 1.56) DIAMONDS CUT PASTE BY AGNES & EGERTON CASTLE Authors of "Rose of the World," " Wroth," "The Pride of Jennico," "Incomparable Bellalrs," "Young April," etc. "Diamonds cut diamonds" The Lover's Melancholy FORD ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 1909 Copyright, 1908, 1909, by DODD. MEAD & COMPANY Published, September, 1909 CONTENTS BOOK I THE STORY OF A DAY BOOK II A WEEK'S CHRONICLE 119 BOOK III ONE NIGHT 277 2228366 ILLUSTRATIONS " You call yourself my niece, do you? Do you expect me to kiss you?" . . Frontispiece She rose and went to her writing table Facing page 8 The taper fingers picked off a long golden hair Facing page 64 " There's just one thing to do I must take you right away, and as soon as possible marry you " . . Facing page 346 BOOK I THE STORY OF A DAY LADY GEKTRFDE ESDALE rose from the low chair in which she had been desultorily perusing the Morn- ing Post, and faced her visitors with an air of expect- ancy which quickly changed to one of supreme astonishment. " Mamma and Flo ! This is a surprise." " Quite a surprise," confirmed the Dowager in her uncompromising bass. She paused in the middle of the room, waiting with a portentous air till the footman should have closed the door. " We came in a meter a street meter," she then announced, and made an irritable attempt to free her fine old head and her close bonnet from the anomalous wrappings. " We motored down in a taximeter, dear mamma means," amended her companion. " Motored? Mamma never ! " If anything had been further needed to point to the extraordinary momentousness of the occasion, this announcement would have completed it. The Countess of Enniscorthy in a motor! It had not been a thing even to dream of; it was Middle Victo- rian tradition in the car of progress ! " Allow me, mamma," said Lady Florence. Lady Florence Jamieson was the assiduous eldest daughter, who, since her own widowhood, had never left her mother's side. Her filial devotion had become almost proverbial. It was resented by the other daughters 4 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE as excessive, irritating, and an encroachment upon their rights. Lady Gertrude had a little private smile at the tartness with which Lady Enniscorthy responded, waving the hovering hand away from the veil knotted under her determined chin. " Allow me, Florence. I am not helpless yet." She flung the chiffon from her energetically as she spoke; while, nothing daunted, Lady Florence in- stantly provided footstool and cushion to the chair into which the Dowager had deposited herself. The latter further asserted her independence by pushing the stool away with a little kick. Her foot was encased in a boot of black satin, flat-soled, toe- capped, elastic-sided ; which almost pathetic remnant of bygone fashion could not disguise its small and shapely proportions. The old Countess of Enniscorthy might have copied with impunity the pretty audacity of the lady who, expecting the visit of an admirer of her youth, received him veiled and enwrapped, lying on a sofa, with only her little feet in dainty shoes propped up on a cushion visible to his gaze all that he should ever behold of her again, all that was left intact of her bygone beauty, she averred. Not that there was not much that was beautiful in the old age of Lady Enniscorthy; all, indeed, was strik- ing. A piercing, hazel-grey eye under an arched eyebrow of sable hue and fine aristocracy of line that years could never touch; iron-grey hair that had once been dense black, with the crisp wave in it THE STORY OF A DAY 5 that such luxuriance of growth never loses ; a beak of nose that the prominent chin fully matched ; and, between, lips set with a determination that impressed before their chiselled curve could be noticed faded lips now, and trembling a little at times with the weakness of senility, which is all the more piteous in the strong-willed. They must have been glorious lips when young blood coloured them and young smiles parted them. But the nose remained, no doubt, the most imposing feature of her face. A peccant maid of hers was once heard to observe: " When her ladyship looks at me with that nose, I could sink into the earth ! " Lady Gertrude noted its stern hook to-day, and her heart slightly sank. " Mamma is certainly very angry about some- thing," she thought, and searched through her mind in vain for peccadilloes. She glanced questioningly at Lady Florence. The latter returned the look with one full of compassion and sorrow. " Gertrude, dearest, it's quite true. Dear mamma sent for a taximeter because she wanted to come to you without a minute's delay. Dear mamma; she must be terribly shaken ! Perhaps she ought to have taken a glass of sherry and a biscuit first? " " Pray allow me to speak for myself ! " interposed dear mamma. " Sit down, Florence, you fuss ter- ribly. Sit down you, too, Gertrude. Yes, I have something serious to say to you: you may imagine it is not for nothing that I have come all the way from London to Windsor in that insane machine 6 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE . . . which certainly has the advantage of ra- pidity. Though I don't know," she added, with a small acid laugh, " considering the quickness with which bad news travels, that it is such an advantage to receive them an hour or so in advance." "Bad news?" echoed Lady Gertrude quickly. " Has anything happened to Reginald? " " He is quite well, I believe," said Lady Ennis- corthy, her keen eye on her daughter's paling cheek. " As to anything happening to him, I wonder what you expected when you abandoned him in India ? " " Oh, dear mamma," said Lady Gertrude, with the natural irritation of reaction, while the fine bloom of her complexion returned intensified, " need we go over that old ground again? " " We must," said her mother solemnly. And Lady Florence affirmed this statement with a deep sigh. " Are you aware," proceeded the Dowager, " that the Invicta arrived this morning at eight o'clock at Southampton and that Ernest was with his mother by half-past eleven ? " Lady Gertrude glanced at the chimney-piece clock ; it was half-past one. " I am sure it was very kind of Florence," she said absently, " to tear herself away from her boy's em- braces I hope he is well, and Coralie too? " " I could not let mamma come alone." Lady Florence Jamieson hesitated, her eye on the Dow- ager. " Mamma thought it very urgent that you should be informed of everything." " Gertrude," said Lady Enniscorthy, " where is THE STORY OF A DAY 7 Reginald? Yes, I know he has not arrived. The footman has told me so I suppose your butler is out, but I think that after one o'clock both servants should attend the door. Where is Reginald, Ger- trude; and why is he not with you? " " Dear me, mamma, I suppose he's waiting for a convenient train. I daresay he has a lot of business to see to in London. I got a wire from Southamp- ton this morning." Lady Gertrude rose and went to her writing-table. A tall woman, long-limbed, moving with invariable slow grace ; grande dame from the top of her rippled black head to the tip of her well-shod foot. Her mother's glance followed her approvingly. " Ah, here it is : * Arrived safely. Shall be with you earliest possible moment.' ' " And he is not here yet," said Lady Enniscorthy. " I think Gertrude ought at least to have gone to meet him," sighed Lady Florence. Her handsome brown eyes uplifted themselves with a look in which piety and sorrow were mixed. When she had had the privilege of wifehood, her ideas of its duties had been far other. " I do not like platform emotion," said Lady Ger- trude placidly. " And Reginald, dear Reginald, is emotional." " Yes, Gertrude," said Lady Enniscorthy, " Regi- nald has a peculiarly emotional temperament." The tone in which she spoke, the look which the speaker exchanged with her widowed daughter, and the silence which immediately ensued were all preg- 8 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE nant. If self-control and intrinsic smoothness of disposition had not been Lady Gertrude's peculiar gifts, she must have found the situation exasperating beyond concealment. The Countess Dowager of Enniscorthy she pre- ferred to be thus addressed, although she was now once again sole bearer of the title, the intervening peeress having had but a brief reign, and the present male owner of the family honours being too young to have got him a wife was, and had always been, mag- nificent in all her relations with life. Yet in one thing she had proved a failure, and the bitterness of that failure had shadowed the best part of her existence. She had (to use her own expression) brought " only women, silly women," into the world. Her three daughters had, in their sensitive, childish days, car- ried between them a consciousness of guilt for their sex for which it seemed as if they could never suffi- ciently apologise to their mother. Mamma could scarcely have been at fault ; the weakness must have been theirs. Well past youth themselves now, they still became as children again before their parent, receiving with reverence the affection tempered with contempt she bestowed upon them. Lady Gertrude, however, youngest and fairest of the trio, most resembled her mother in strength of character; and she had, in several instances, openly carried out her own way in spite of maternal remon- strance. The second daughter (Lady Challoner, poor THE STORY OF A DAY 9 Jane"), upon the other hand, was as incapable of being moulded into any kind of shape and as hope- lessly deliquescent as an overwarmed jelly. The fool of the family, she had espoused, late in life, the most unattractive peer in the realm. The Dowager had long given up endeavouring to guide, and was con- tent to snub her. Lord Challoner himself had an iron will, but " poor Jane " ran out of the mould persistently. Lady Florence, the eldest, was (as her sisters con- fided to each other) deep, not to say sly. They could not be made to believe that her obtrusive devotion to her mother sprang solely from filial affection. Per- haps the Dowager did not think so herself; she treated her something like a paid companion, yet had a curious dependence on her. She ground her, as the phrase goes, but could not get on without her. Lady Gertrude, the open rebel, was undoubtedly her mother's favourite. But with Lady Enniscorthy partiality did not imply weakness. She was nearly as severe with her best-loved daughter as with Lady Florence. And Gertrude Esdale's chief act of re- bellion, and its consequences, being now under dis- cussion, there was no relenting towards her in the maternal mind. " Reginald's peculiarly emotional temperament." On this phrase the Dowager had paused, and the silence was charged with the weight of an often re- peated condemnation combined with a new triumph. " What did I tell you ? " she proceeded at length, 10 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE in her deep voice. " What did I write to you in India when I first heard of your insane decision? What did I say to you over and over again? You have abandoned your husband, my dear, and now you must face the consequences." " Dear mamma, you know I saw my duty other- wise. Reginald could get on without me. The child could not." Lady Gertrude spoke with a patient weariness of argument so reiterated that it had lost all colour. " I could have looked after Norah," said Lady Enniscorthy. Her terrible nose took a fiercer hook; her lips tightened as she uttered the words, to which Lady Gertrude made no response. That silence of Ger- trude's, expressive of a complete divergence of opin- ion which filial respect would not allow her to emit, was one of her many aggravating ways. " You must face the consequences," repeated her mother now, in truly awful tones. Lady Florence sighed. " It would save time," said Gertrude, turning rather sharply on her, " if you would give these con- sequences a name." Before the latter could reply, Lady Enniscorthy delivered herself: "Another woman " The wife broke into frank laughter the laughter of relief, of amusement. " Oh, my dear mamma, I'm afraid, after all these years, you can't frighten me with such a bogey. Why, my poor Reginald has had his little flirtations THE STORY OF A DAY 11 since the first day of our honeymoon. Thank good- ness, they're as innocent as he is himself, and as nu- merous as the hairs on his head. I devoutly trust he has not lost his nice curly locks in the three years since I have seen him." " Three years, indeed, since you last met," said her mother, " seven, since you left him to his own de- vices. I am afraid, Gertrude, you will find that he has lost something more important than his hair, something you will never be able to regain." " Do you mean his heart? " asked Lady Gertrude, looking down, and smoothing the folds of her pretty morning gown with two ivory taper fingers she had the most beautiful hands in all the world. But her gentle voice could not conceal the upward twitch of her lips. The thought of Sir Reginald's heart seemed to be rather a joke to her. " I mean," said the old lady, " his sense of conju- gal obligation." Lady Gertrude raised her violet-grey eyes with a sudden flicker of the usually placid eyelids. " And when a man loses that, my dear," the mother went on, " it is not a woman of over forty who will bring it back." Relentlessly the grating tones pro- ceeded : " The institution of marriage which has been ordained to consecrate the affections, to strengthen the family ties, begins and ends with the obligation solemnly undertaken that husband and wife should cleave together " " But, my dear mamma, half the husbands and wives of the world are separated by sheer force of other duties." 12 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE " The wife's first duty is to her husband ; if she voluntarily leaves him she has failed in her marriage vow. A man very soon gets into the fatal habit of doing without his wife. He learns first to do for himself; and by-and-by he finds it more convenient to have someone else to do for him. He finds it is more agreeable than being alone; sometimes he finds the substitutes more agreeable than his lawful com- panion." " Mamma ! " " Substitutes take care to make themselves emi- nently agreeable; all that is given them, all that they give, has the charm of not being obligatory. They can be changed at will ; they can be chosen young and lovely. When men are getting rather elderly, Gertrude, they are peculiarly susceptible to the charm of youth, and peculiarly flattered that they should still be reckoned as men who count with very young women." " Is this dissertation, dear mamma, meant to break to me the news that Reginald has found . . . substitutes during my absence ? " Gertrude folded her hands as she spoke. She was determined to smile, but could not keep a hint of bitterness either from lip or voice. " Reginald has found something infinitely more dangerous a substitute." " The consequences " murmured Lady Ger- trude to herself. " Once again, the name, dear mamma? " " Florence," ordered the Dowager, " the name." THE STORY OF A DAY 13 " A Mrs. Lancelot," sighed Lady Florence. " Have you heard of her? " sepulchrally demanded Lady Enniscorthy of her youngest daughter. This latter drew her arched brows in the effort of thought. Her face assumed an expression singularly like her mother's. "Mrs. Lancelot? I remember vaguely yes he did speak of her once. A pretty little widow, Mrs. Lancelot, who was very kind to him when he had his attack of fever about a year ago; but he has not mentioned her since." Once more Lady Enniscorthy and the widow inter- changed glances. He had not mentioned her for a year. Could anything be more marked? " That is the business which is keeping your hus- band from coming straight to his home," said the Dowager. As she spoke the door opened and the butler made his appearance, bearing a telegram on a tray, which he presented with the words : " Luncheon is served, my lady." Lady Gertrude waited characteristically a second or two before opening the orange envelope. When she looked up at last from the sheet, her face re- tained its charming serenity; yet there was a subtle change upon it. 61 It is from Reginald," she said, and proceeded to read aloud : " * Unavoidably detained till even- ing. Important War Office business. REGINALD.' ' " Do you believe in this important business ? " asked her mother with a sneer. 14 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE " No," answered Gertrude thoughtfully. She paused, and the maddening sigh of Lady Florence filled the interval. Gertrude turned upon her. " I suppose," she said, " this is Coralie's gossip? " " Both Ernest and Coralie spoke openly of the matter," answered Lady Florence. As usual, the old lady was ready with her em- phatic interpolation. " It is, I fear, a matter that has gone beyond mere gossip." Again Gertrude remained thoughtful. A third time she consulted the telegram. Then: " Florence," she said, " would you mind taking dear mamma in to lunch? I shall join you in a minute or two. I am thinking," she added explana- torily to the Dowager, " of telephoning to beg Ernest or Coralie, or both, if possible to come to me at once. I suppose I might catch Ernest at his club, or Coralie in Park Lane." " You'll certainly catch Coralie," said Lady Florence ; " but she said she was going to have " here she smiled plaintively " a real, good, tight beauty sleep after her journey." " She won't mind interrupting it, I'm sure, for me," said Gertrude. At any other time she would have bantered her sister on the tone of depression in which she re- peated the innocent remark. Lady Florence was eminently blessed in her son's choice, and, in her own peculiarly saintly way, exasperatingly resigned THE STORY OF A DAY 15 to the prettiest, sweetest, American daughter-in-law in all the world. Lady Enniscorthy hoisted herself out of her chair, and stood looking with a certain pride at her young- est daughter. " I could not possibly say where Ernest was," pro- ceeded Florence unwillingly. She was of those who regard their children as so exclusively their property that it becomes a griev- ance when anyone else attempts to make use of them, even for the smallest service. " Florence," said her mother snubbingly, " you spend your life in inventing difficulties. Coralie will know where Ernest is ; it is much better that they should both come and give their report, since Ger- trude requires so much convincing. Take me in and give me my lunch. I hope there is something I can eat, Gertrude." " Dear mamma, I hope there is," said the mistress of the house sweetly, as with leisurely step she moved to the morning-room, where was installed the tele- phone. On her way she paused to ring and give an order to the servant, who promptly answered the call. " Let Miss Norah know that, as Sir Reginald will not be able to be with us before evening, I wish her, therefore, to attend her drawing-class as usual. And, Barker, order the car to be round for her at two o'clock." II ORANGE COURT is a pleasant Georgian house with an outlook on Windsor Park. Lady Gertrude had chosen it for her one precious child as combining all the advantages of town and country. The girl could attend occasional classes, lectures and concerts, and be visited by the best masters, without losing the benefit of fresh air. The spacious rooms, opening on gardens that almost ran into the Park, were charming without being magnificent. An excellent but reserved taste had presided everywhere; there was more comfort than grandeur, more refinement than expensiveness. The only hint of extravagance was in the flowers, which were lavish within doors as well as without. For the rest, all was pretty, " chintzy," and fresh, with some cabinets of fine china, a few good pic- tures, and a general scheme of furniture that should harmonise with the delicate Adam decoration the distinctive cachet of the house. The whole place had never looked more attractive than on this brisk June day ; and Lady Gertrude, as she sat waiting for " Trunks," let her eye wander through the open door into the harmonious vista beyond, with, for all her courage, a sense of sudden and bitter anger. . . . Was her mother right, indeed? Were men of such poor stuff that they could not endure the separation imposed by the 16 THE STORY OF A DAY 17 most sacred maternal obligation without seeking undignified solace? Was the marriage contract, then, so frail a thing to the average husband that the wife must needs keep constant watch upon him to avert his infringing its clauses? There had been a very warm sense of satisfac- tion, if scarcely rapture, in her heart this morning at the thought of her husband's return ; and there was not a bowl of sweet peas, not a single one of those slender glasses of roses that she had not her- self disposed with an eye to his pleasure. Mrs. Lancelot, a pretty little widow, her substi- tute! . . . The telephone-bell rang sharply, unpleasantly arousing her. "Is this 178 Park Lane? Can I speak to Mrs. Jamieson? Oh! Can I speak to her maid? Yes; I'll hold on." . . . It certainly was strange that Reginald had never mentioned Mrs. Lancelot again in his weekly letters. Save for that one casual reference over a year ago, which any less acute memory than hers would have failed to retain, he had not written her name ; and yet now it was familiarly coupled with his Her substitute! . . . " Yes. Is that Mrs. Jamieson's maid? Oh, it's you, my dear. My dear, I'm heartbroken to disturb you, but if you and Ernest could come down to me here at once, it would be a real kindness. No, Regi- nald has not made his appearance yet; but grand- mamma and your mother-in-law are here." 18 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE Here Lady Gertrude started and rubbed her ear, for the recipient of this news at the other end had given a whistle which, if expressive of thorough un- derstanding, was somewhat too piercingly conveyed along the wires. "What? You'll come? You and Ernest? At once? That's right; thank you." Lady Gertrude hung up the receiver quickly. De- liberately composed as she was, any further remarks or confidences just then would have intensified the galling discomfort of her position. She went into the dining-room without giving herself leisure for reflection. Here she found the Dowager somewhat peevish over the absence of potash-water and the oddity of her daughter preferring Irish whisky to Scotch. Be- fore Lady Gertrude had had time to help herself to a cutlet, Lady Enniscorthy passed on to another grievance a grievance that lost no savour for being again an old one. " I see," she said, casting a severe look around the table, " that you adhere to your ridiculous arrange- ment of banishing Norah to the schoolroom for her meals, as if she were still fed on pap and couldn't behave herself at table. I wonder " with an acid laugh " how you reconcile this regulation with your theory of maternal education. You left your husband, we understand, to be with your child." " I used to make it a rule," insinuated Lady Flor- ence, " to have Ernest down at lunch from his second THE STORY OF A DAY 19 birthday. It was one of the precious hours of the day- " Norah dines with me," interrupted Lady Ger- trude ; " we find it fits in better with the lessons ; and then we are not troubled by Fraulein's presence, and I too have a precious hour, Florence. Dear mamma, you know how it is here at Windsor ; people always dropping in to lunch; it unsettled the child, interfered fatally with the hours of classes and all the rest of it. Norah " The door was thrown open upon the name, and the owner of it sprang into the room with less de- corum than might have been expected from a young lady whose upbringing was so systematically con- ducted. " Upon my word," said Lady Enniscorthy, " one would think the house were on fire ! " But her hawk-eye softened indescribably as it rested on the radiant vision of youth that had so tempestuously presented itself. That was the first impression that Norah Esdale invariably produced youth; extraordinary freshness and vitality. She was ruthlessly young; her personality met one with a dash, as of a mid-sea wave or the slap of a spring wind. She seemed to give out sunshine, to move in an atmosphere of her own, all breeze and gaiety and careless strength an embodiment of April. She took heart and eye by storm; and it was only after a while that one saw how irregular was the charming face ; saw that the figure was too slim for its height ; that its movements were as brusque and awkward 20 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE as a puppy's. Many wondered how the serene, slow-moving, eminently smooth-mannered, low-voiced mother could have produced this impetuous creature. People commented with smiles on the results of dear Lady Gertrude's system. But what mattered it? Who could have wanted Norah's nose to be other than tip-tilted, her mouth less widely curved over those dazzling 1 teeth? Who could have wished her hair less ruddy? Who could have endured to see it sleeked down, when its luxuriance ran to such irre- sistible curls and misty tendrils? Her laugh was infectious, her tempers fascinating, her sallies ador- able, her awkwardness, her immaturity, the grace of youth itself. And through her eyes, under those marked and arched black brows the family trait which in her was so rare a beauty contrasted with the chestnut head the frankest and most innocent soul that girl ever owned looked out upon the world. The eyes were green. Lady Florence was alone to lament it. Before even the impatient hand had dashed open the door, Norah's voice had been uplifted in no sub- dued accents. " Mamma Mamma, mayn't I chuck that bally old studio this afternoon, since I was to have given it up anyhow for father? Cousin Enn wants me to go for a spin with him. Mayn't I go? Please, please " " Norah, don't you see your grandmother? " " Oh, grannie darling ! " The long legs took two leaps ; and the awe-in- THE STORY OF A DAY 21 spiring Dowager was assaulted by her granddaugh- ter's embrace ; the Middle Victorian bonnet was knocked crooked on the majestic old head. Lady Florence, with a cry of horror, just saved the de- spised glass of soda water and Irish whisky; a re- buke of unusual tartness was driven from her meek lips: " Norah you are impossible ! Grandmamma can- not be treated with this roughness." " Hold your tongue, Florence," said grand- mamma. " Gertrude, your daughter is a hoyden." But the little, trembling, old, blue-veined hands, with their weight of rings, were unconsciously caress- ing the bright head. And grandmamma's lips had a smile which only one being on earth had now the power to call there. " Grannie tell mamma to let me go. It isn't a day to be stuffed up in a studio Grannie ! " Norah broke from her grandmother's clasp as im- pulsively as she had sought it and reared her slender- ness, all tense and quivering with impatience. " Mamma, cousin Enn is waiting on the telephone." " Norah," said Lady Gertrude, " you have not said good-morning to your aunt." " Oh, how do you do, Aunt Florence ? " The girl dropped an unwilling peck somewhere in the direction of Lady Florence's eyebrow, and, standing erect, safely behind the widow's bonnet, grimaced her frank objection to the ceremony and to the person concerned. " Mamma " 22 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE " Gently, Norah, gently ! " "What am I to say to Enn?" " You are to tell him, my dear, that you are due at St. John's Wood at three o'clock; that you are very much obliged to him for his kind thought of you, and are sorry you cannot accept." " Mamma " protested Norah in high-pitched anguish. " I ordered the car at two for you, dear, so you will have plenty of fresh air. Now go and dress. You've had your lunch, I suppose? " " One bite of it a beastly loin chop. Enn said " In the voice there was a quiver as of tears, which the bright eyes winked fiercely back. " Enn said he'd lunch me at Marlow, where there's ever such good grub and " " That will do, Norah, you know my wishes." " Mamma " "Not a word more." Lady Gertrude's pleasant tones had not lost one of their musical inflections. On her somewhat statuesque face rested an air of smiling inflexibility. " Grannie " Norah had dragged herself to the door; she now wheeled round with a flounce of blue linen skirts which gave a generous vision of pretty, thin, silk- stockinged leg. " Grannie, you might tell mamma to be nice to me, for once ! " " My dear," said Lady Enniscorthy, who had as- sumed a sphinx-like attitude during this dialogue, THE STORY OF A DAY 23 " it is only when daughters are young that they are supposed to obey their parents." The child hesitated a second, met her mother's steady glance and rushed from the room with more than the suspicion of a slam of the door behind her. The three women had a sudden sensation of gloom, as if the sunshine had gone, too. Yet it was still flowing through the wide French windows and the landscape beyond lay bathed in unclouded radiance. Lady Enniscorthy gave a little fierce laugh. Her favourite grandchild's disappointment stirred her against her daughter with a resentment scarcely pro- portionate to the occasion. " I congratulate you," she said, " I congratulate you upon your discipline and its results. Reginald will indeed be gratified. He will feel that the sacri- fice which was imposed upon him has been brilliantly compensated for. Pray, my dear Gertrude I am an ignorant old woman, and find it hard to keep pace with the modern culture what might * bally ' mean ? " " The child certainly does talk dreadful slang," lamented Florence. She kept a frightened eye upon her mother as she spoke ; it was scarcely safe for old ladies to be thus excited. Gertrude Esdale sat smiling, playing with the strawberries on her plate. " Norah is a little wild," she conceded gracefully, " and she has picked up as you say, Florence some silly slang, chiefly from Enniscorthy. One of my reasons, dear mamma, for not wishing them to be 24 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE so much together. But Norah is a good child a good, obedient child. And my will is law to her in spite of her little explosions. I have," said Lady Gertrude, " encouraged her to be frank with me, and she is as loyal to me behind my back as she is out- spoken to my face." " I say I congratulate you," said the grandmother. She rose, still tremulously agitated from the con- straint she was putting upon a temper as flaring as Norah's own. " But since the girl is such a para- gon, I wonder you think it necessary to thwart her so persistently." " We shall have coffee in the drawing-room," said Lady Gertrude, pressing the electric button at the corner of the dinner-table. " Thank you, Florence ; I am quite capable of conveying myself as far as the drawing-room," snapped the Dowager. Gertrude's habit of switch- ing off discussion in this final manner was, to the last degree, exasperating to Lady Enniscorthy all the more so that it was difficult to resent openly without opposing temper to suavity. As usual, Florence, the souffre-douleur, came in for the snub. As the three ladies entered the drawing-room there was a whirl of blue skirts in the adjoining morning- room and the sound of a closing door, soft enough this time, which Lady Gertrude was careful to ignore. She guessed rightly, that Norah had been telephoning the recent decision to her cousin. Far, however, was the confident mother from suspecting what had passed along the wires. THE STORY OF A DAY 25 " Mamma's perfectly horrid this morning she says I'm not to go with you." " Oh, I say ! " . . . came an answering la- ment of hollow disgust. " Just when papa put us off, and everything. Enn, I am disappointed." " So am I, ra-ther I say, Norah this is not quite nice of cousin Gertrude." " Beastly " " Ton my word it is," repeated the brilliant con- versationalist at the other end of the wire. " And I am to go to the studio." "What?" "I am to go to that disgusting studio instead." "What?" " The car's coming in two sees., and I'm to be stuffed up all the afternoon in St. John's Wood." "Wha-at?" " Enn, you're a perfect idiot 1 I won't say it again." " I say, Norah " the accents from Windsor, which had been dreamily reflective, were now hurried and excited " I say, Norah, cut the studio and come with me." " Enn- " " Your mother needn't know till you're gone." " What about Fraulein? " " Oh, Fraulein zum Henker " said the guards* man (who had passed in languages). " Enn " " Hang it all, Norah, it would be a crime to misa 26 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE our spin to-day. Look here can't we square Frau- lein ? Can't you square Fraulein ? " " I might," said Norah reflectively. " I'll be round in a jiffy " " find you in the school-room? " " Hush, they're coming ! " Before she corked him up (as she phrased it to herself) she caught his last words: " The car in the back lane." The coffee was bubbling over the tiny spirit flame. Lady Gertrude's taper fingers moved smoothly among the old Spode cups. " I hear a motor," said Lady Florence, pausing to listen, the sugar spoon suspended in mid-air. " That is the car for Norah," said Lady Ger- trude, casting a glance through the window at the further end of the room. " It is too early for Coralie." She caught a glint of her own chauffeur's white cap through the muslin curtains. Lady Enniscorthy snorted. " How that horrible machine throbs ! " " Surely I hear another motor? " pursued Lady Florence. Hers was the type of mind that comments unneces- sarily on the obvious and minute events of life. " That's on the road," responded the placid sister. Coffee was taken thereafter in a silence broken only by Lady Enniscorthy's demands for more milk, more sugar, and more coffee. THE STORY OF A DAY 27 " The motor's gone," remarked Lady Florence at length. Lady Gertrude did not this time cast a glance towards the window; perhaps she did not want to see her daughter's pretty muffled head glide across the panes, knowing that it was full of mutinous and resentful thoughts against herself. But she need not have feared to look, for the car moving away at a steady wheel was empty of pas- sengers. Enniscorthy lightly sprang up the back stairs and then entered the schoolroom without knock- ing. Norah, alone by the uncleared luncheon table, was reflectively gazing at a blue jug of warm water which stood flanked by a tumbler on a small tray. Over her school frock the girl had donned her loose white motor coat, which hung open, revealing the slight, belted figure ; from her winged motor hat, which gave the charming wild beauty of her face something of a Valkyrie look, the long gauze ends of her veil floated untied. Young Enniscorthy paused upon his impetuous entrance. Norah struck him (as he expressed it) all of a heap whenever he saw her. To-day with " that winged thing " and " those floaty things " and the smile which she turned upon him, and " by Jove ! " that look in her eyes . . . Well, he'd known it all along, of course, known it without knowing it, as it were, but now it came upon him in such a way 28 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE that it positively robbed him of breath. Norah was the one being in the world for him. He stood, panting a little. " There you are, Enn," said Norah, with great composure. She had smiled a brilliant smile of welcome and satisfaction at sight of her young lover; for she, in turn, had thought him very good to look upon, and had known (long before Enniscorthy himself) that he and she were destined for each other. But there was no agitation about the matter. She was practical, she was content ; she liked him with all her clear brain and all her child's heart. The woman in her was yet deeply asleep. He was good to look on ; " one of the best," his comrades called him clean-limbed and clean-minded, a wholesome English youth, full of life, of honest common sense and inherited prejudice as to honour and class obligations. " Hang it all there are things a fellow does not do," that would be his con- demnation of any infraction of those unwritten laws ; and how severe those laws, it would take a mind at- tuned to his own to understand. Not over-clever, but capable of sturdy work; not unduly handsome, but well-featured, with a finely-set head, a good square brow and jaw; and something besides, some- thing intangible and incommunicable, of breeding and charm; a smile, an occasional look in the eyes that told of a spirituality a little unusual in a not otherwise unusual type. "I say, Norah ready? Come along." THE STORY OF A DAY 29 (We grow increasingly inarticulate with the cen- turies how will our children's children communicate to each other the deepest feelings of their souls?) She ran to him and began to whisper. " Look here, Enn, you pop down to the hall door and just tell Binks the car's not wanted. Oh, don't be stupid ! Binks is waiting for me with the car, of course. You've got to get him quietly away; you can give him ten shillings and say the car won't be wanted: with a wink like this. Binks will under- stand ; he's a dear. But, I say, you'd better go out by the back door, and slink round by the house, in case Barker should be in the hall. Barker is a reg- ular pig ! " " Right ! " said Enniscorthy. He returned, with astounding celerity, to find Norah in much the same attitude as before. " It's 0. K. " he began, loud and jovial. She arrested him, finger on lip, and made a grimace at the door, which was half open behind her. " Hush, you gabby ! Fraulein ! " He took a couple of steps towards her. " Hulloa ! Haven't you settled with her yet ? " he whispered back. " No," responded Norah, in the same undertone, with much mouthing. " I'm thinking of something." She straightened herself and looked extraordi- narily innocent. " Norah ! Norah ! " came a somewhat querulous voice from the next room. This was followed by a patter of short steps. 30 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE " Yes," responded the pupil cheerfully. " It is late, child. Haf you seen my blue spec- tacles ? Ach, I haf not yet dronk my hot water ! " A flat, squat figure, dingy-brown in garments and complexion, bearing a fantastic resemblance to a do- mestic blackbeetle reared on its hind legs, appeared in the doorway adjoining the two rooms. The plainness of the flat countenance was redeemed by the remark- able intelligence of the forehead; the discontented twist of the mouth by a twinkle of kind eyes. Frau- lein was a " good old sort " Norah was the first to admit it. She was a treasure of learning, Lady Gertrude knew, and a treasure of fidelity. " Ach ! it is my lord ! " cried the German lady from the threshold. She ought to have been angry it was an infringe- ment of all established rules. But she smiled ; and a thousand good-humoured, humorous wrinkles gath- ered up her countenance, making it quite pleasant to look upon, drawing one irresistibly to smile back. Fraulein had her vulnerable points. This handsome young man an Edelmann with his pretty, kind ways, never failed to find one of them. Norah, the minx, had knowledge of another. " Good-morning, Fraulein. I hope you don't mind. I just looked in for one minute, don't you know." He turned for instructions to his cousin. She was feeling the blue jug. " It's quite warm still. It's Fraulein's hot water," she explained sympathetically. " She's doing the Salisbury treatment now. It's agreeing with her THE STORY OF A DAY 31 ever so much better than nuts. Minced beef at every meal, you know, and you mustn't drink till after meals and then it's hot water." " Oh, I say ! " said Enniscorthy. There was gen- uine concern in his voice. The Salisbury treatment sounded unspeakably horrible. " It is for my rheumatism, my lort," said the little Teuton. She stretched her knobby hand in its buff cotton glove for the glass of water Norah was thoughtfully pouring out. " I say, by Jove, you know ! " said Enniscorthy, staring. " Do you think it really agrees with you?" "Do you?" asked Norah, pausing in her act of ministration. She put down the jug. " You look awfully tired ! Perhaps it's the minced beef ? " " Ach, wass ! " cried Fraulein, a note of alarm in her voice. " She does look tired," said Norah, her green eyes roaming solemnly to her cousin's face. " She looks quite ill. Oh, I do hope, Trottsky darling, you haven't got one of your chills! There' such a lot of flu about." " Ach ! " " Gladys had a temperature of a hundred and three last week. (That's the second housemaid, Enn. Mamma says she's to be called Mary, but I don't see why she shouldn't be called Gladys, if she likes, poor thing!) " Fraulein had sat down and was feeling her pulse under the cotton glove. Her face was no longer 32 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE wrinkled with its good smile. Its subfusk hue had altered to a sickly pallor. Her pulse was undeniably quick. There was no doubt about it. Norah knew her little governess's weakest point. She winked meaningly at Enniscorthy. " Tell you what, Trottsky, I'm going to take your temperature. And if it's up, you will just bundle into bed with a quinine and phenacetin." " Aber, Norah, Liebchen! ..." said Frau- lein mistily, and propped her head on her hand. A temperature! It was more than probable that she had a temperature with so rapid a pulse. Now that she came to think of it the workings of her brain had been extraordinarily vivid, not to say excited, during the history lesson this morning. She had thought it had been stimulated by the fire of pa- triotism, for the story of the Prussian victory at Waterloo never failed to stir her soul ; but it was most probably this fever. And she had had little or no appetite for that second helping of minced beef. She had had positively to force herself to it. And was there not a pain over her left eye? " Perhaps it would be better," she admitted. Norah briskly departed and as briskly returned. She knew where the thermometer was on the table beside Fraulein's bed. " Are you sure it is shaken down ? " asked the sud- den invalid anxiously, as Norah stood again beside the hot-water jug, with nimble fingers unscrewing the top of the nickel case. " It was a point and a half up last night." THE STORY OF A DAY 33 " Of course ! " cried the pupil in her gay young voice. She tossed back the long ends of her veil and began to shake the thermometer violently. " O Weh, mein Kopf! " sighed Fraulein Traut- mann or Trottsky, affectionately, for Norah. The pain had now distinctly developed in both temples ; it could only be the frontal ague of severe influenza. She clasped them in her small gloved fingers. There was a clink against the blue jug. Norah dropped the thermometer-case ostentatiously upon the tray ; then she stood over her teacher and deftly inserted the thermometer into her mouth. " But, child," spluttered the latter, " have you even washed it? " " What do you take me for? " cried Norah, with accents of truth. " I washed it most carefully, Frau- lein." Enniscorthy, who since Norah's wink had ab- stained from even watching the proceedings and stood by the window, looking down through the open sash on the green lawn and whistling under his breath, now wheeled round. He glanced at the little German, who sat with corrugated brows, the air of anxiety and pain on her face contrasting with the false rakishness with which the thermometer stuck out of one side of her mouth. " I say, Norah," he began then, and his eyes wore a puzzled and not altogether pleased expression as they turned upon his cousin. " I say, Norah, you know " 34 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE " Sh-sh ! " She waved him peremptorily to silence. " You mustn't speak ; don't you see I'm taking the time? We'll make it three minutes, Trots; its safer." Enniscorthy ran his very nice, well-shaped hand through his thick fair hair, and pulled as much as he could grasp to assist the process of thinking. Ap- parently the stimulation failed, for he turned again to the window with an air of dejection. Norah's uplifted voice startled him. " A hundred and three ! " Her tones were shrill, as if some alarm mingled with the importance of the announcement. " Aber, in Gottes Namen!" . . . ejaculated Fraulein. In her excitement, she snatched the ther- mometer from her pupil's hand with a vigour sur- prising in one so stricken. " It is doch true ! " she exclaimed. " True rather ! Hundred and three no mistake about it. Just look, Enn poor Fraulein ! Isn't it lucky we found it out before starting in the motor? Why, it might have been your death ! No, Trottsky, it's bed, and quinine, and and " Fraulein was heard to murmur some contradictory remarks about her duty to Lady Gertrude; her de- sire for an immediate interview with her; her fear of conveying infection. Her face had grown very red; there was an unwonted light in her eyes. " I feel unendlich elend ! " she avowed. Yet her accents breathed less of complaint than of a certain sombre satisfaction. THE STORY OF A DAY 35 " Now, don't you worry I'll settle everything with mamma. Oh, yes, oh, yes, Thomasine can take me to the studio! Tell you what, Fraulein, I'll call on Dr. Somers on the way and send him up to you post-haste." " Ach, he will not say it is hypochondria this time ! " said the little Fraulein ; there was no mis- taking it triumph in her tone. She rose as she spoke, and Norah promptly hus- tled her towards her bedroom. " Goot-morning, my lort," said the polite " Trott- sky," in plaintive farewell over her shoulder. " Come now, Trottsky, I can't let you kiss him this time." " Ach, Norah pfui! " " Thomasine, indeed," cried the girl, as she closed the door upon the sufferer and came skipping back towards the young man, her veil flying, mischief and joy bubbling from her. "Thomasine, indeed " Then with one of her irrepressible outbursts : " I am going with my own Tommy boy and nobody else." She flung herself against Enniscorthy as she spoke, and he had to catch her by the waist to keep her from falling. She bent the adorable lithe- ness of her young weight over his arm and laughed up at him, her green eyes swimming in tears of mirth. " Hold me, Enn, hold me, or I shall die ! It's a mercy it wasn't a hundred and nine, or poor old Trottsky would have had a fit." 36 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE " Steady, steady, Norah ! Look here, old girl stand straight, will you?" The boy was trembling from the contact that left her cool and untroubled as a flower. But it was his code and his instinct that he should not even draw close the arm that held his beloved. The time was not yet at hand when he would speak; she was still a child. And though he shook with his young honest feeling for her, his judgment remained uninfluenced. Beginning with the inevitable " I say, you know," he proceeded, in rebuking tones : " It isn't quite pretty of you, Norah. The poor little thing must be very ill to have such a tempera- ture. By Jove, they made an awful fuss when I went up to that after my polo smash." Norah, not the least offended, took the table for support instead of her young guardsman. " Oh, Enn, you incomparable idiot, you complete ass! Didn't you see me? Why, I dipped the ther- mometer into the hot-water jug!" "Norah!" " Trottsky is as well as you or I." " Oh, I say, what a horrid trick ! " " Trick ! She's as happy as a queen. She's going to have three hours' unmitigated glory, until the doctor finds her normal again. And then even he cannot deny the thermometer, can he? Trust her to brandish it at him. They will talk till all's blue; and he'll have to keep her in bed in case it should be true bill, and she have a collapse after such a sudden fall." THE STORY OF A DAY 37 " Norah, you're too clever to live," said Ennis- corthy, not quite certain whether he approved of so much cleverness. " Well, you ain't ! That ought to be a comfort to you. Come, let's scuttle." She tucked her arm into his : they ran out together like children. ni LADY GERTRUDE was wont to say that what she most admired about her American niece was her eye- lashes ; these were fabulously long and curling, and gave extraordinary value to a pair of innocent blue eyes, set oddly and attractively in a soft, dark, south- ern face. But while her husband conceded the worth of the eyelashes, in his heart what he most admired was Coralie's figure. She was indeed faite au moule, as one of her dressmakers (Coralie often purchased clothes in Paris) was fond of observing; designed on lines such as scarcely any Englishwoman can boast of, and but few Americans. Slight and yet round ; lithe, balanced, with the perfect grace of her perfect build, it was a pleasure to see her walk across a room. It was a pleasure, when she sat still, to trace for oneself how curve of throat met curve of chin, how roundness of arm lost itself in delicacy of wrist. For the rest she had a small face with indefinite fea- tures, except for those blue eyes ; dark hair that went into little rings ; a nose that cocked even more than Norah's own, and drew the upper lip with it apart in a baby kind of way over very small white teeth. From the same baby lips remarks of the most ex- traordinary shrewdness were wont to emerge, couched in pointed language, but enunciated in the softest accents. The voice insinuated, while the lan- 38 THE STORY OF A DAY 39 guage knocked you down ; the contrast was piquant. Withal Coralie had tact. Ernest, her excellent British husband a captain of artillery, with as little notion of sparing a situa- tion as one of his own shells looked, as he felt, the very image of awkwardness to find himself thrust into the centre of a family conclave upon a matter of so much delicacy. But Coralie's ease never de- serted her for a second; nay, it almost seemed as if she enjoyed the horrible moments. He had not wanted to go to Windsor at all, so soon as Coralie had made him understand for what purpose he was wanted there. She had divined the position from the first strained word of Lady Ger- trude's telephonic communication. But when he had said how much rather he would not start on such an errand, Coralie had answered: " Oh, my, Ernest, you've just got to go!" And when Coralie said " You've just got to," Ernest felt he just had to. All the way down he had lamented in her unsym- pathetic ear: " 'Pon my soul, Coralie, this is a very silly busi- ness. This is a regular fool business ! How am I to go and talk about my uncle to my aunt, don't you know? " " You needn't talk," said Coralie. " I'll do that ; but you're wanted as a kind of support. Aunt G. asked for both of us. Aunt G. has always been lovely to me, and I don't see how I can get out of doing her a service when she asks me." 40 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE " Jolly queer kind of service ! " muttered Captain Jamieson, " tattling about a man's flirtations to his wife ! " " You don't understand she means to know ; she's just got to know," opined his wife. There it was. His aunt had got to know, and he had got to go ; and deuced uncomfortable it seemed all round. As the motor slowed through the Geor- gian pillars of the Orange Court entrance-gates, the soldier made a futile attempt at self-consolation. " Perhaps," he hazarded, " that's not what we are wanted for at all." " Perhaps you're just an old silly," said Mrs. Jamieson, with her engaging blink of eyelashes and tilt of tilted lip. Captain Jamieson would have liked to kiss her then and there, as she stood up shaking the motor- wraps from her slim figure. But Barker was staring at them from the doorstep. Barker had not yet fathomed the meaning of this gathering of the clans in conjunction with his master's non-appearance. No sooner had they crossed the threshold of the drawing-room than, with mingled admiration and dismay, the soldier realised afresh his wife's acumen. His first look at his grandmother's and mother's por- tentous countenances dispelled all his own lingering hope. The first words that greeted him were final confirmation : " Ernest, your uncle Reginald has not yet arrived." It was Lady Enniscorthy who spoke. Lady Florence sighed. Ernest blushed as if he had himself THE STORY OF A DAY 41 been the delinquent. Yet Lady Gertrude was all suavity. " You dears ! " she said, and kissed them both. " I cannot thank you enough for coming. Yes, indeed, my man still plays the truant ; and after three years* absence! Well, you see, that's just what I want to talk about. It is a little disturbing, isn't it? Cor- alie, you're a perfect wonder! I don't believe you ever travel like a human being. You've just been unpacked from silver paper and, oh, my dear, what a dowdy I feel beside you ! " Coralie made play with her eyelashes. She thought Lady Gertrude (as she informed her hus- band afterwards) quite superb to carry it off like that. But Ernest did not agree with her. He was very glad, he told himself, that he was not Sir Regi- nald. Aunt Gertrude was too airy. It wasn't wholesome. Coralie liked to hear her clothes praised ; she pre- ferred to be praised for her taste than for her looks a subtlety which her husband had not yet fath- omed. She now gave herself a little undulatory shake of satisfaction. In anyone less graceful it would have been a wriggle; with her, it was an expression of feeling which added to her somewhat feline charm. She looked round; the smile became accentuated on her lips as she met her grandmother-in-law's stare. Lady Enniscorthy had never outwardly appeared to have forgiven her grandson's marriage; to have admitted the American to her family circle. Her feel- 42 DIAMONDS CUT PASTE ings, however, displayed themselves chiefly by an un- relenting gaze and by a strong silence. To her Cora- lie was apparently only the American her grandson had picked up. What she did and said and how she looked was no concern of the Dowager's. Mrs. Jamieson seemed to find the situation stimulating. She had a curious affection for the terrible old lady. For Lady Florence, on the other hand, by whom she knew herself really disliked, but who adminis- tered her thrusts wrapped in honeyed words, she had a cordial, not to say cheerful, enmity. It was her practice to stock her memory with the most outland- ish Americanisms, picked up irrespective of district or probability, for the sheer delight of hurling them at the widow's sleek head. But she had a way of pronouncing the word : really, which was all her own, and which added a wheedling persuasiveness to its meaning. " We did quite sufficient embracing this morning," said Lady Enniscorthy, as Coralie hovered, smiling, before her chair. " Sit here, my dear," said Lady Gertrude inter- vening. " Ernest, do sit. Now, Coralie, please read that telegram." " Oh, ginger ! " said Coralie, when she had done as she was bidden. "My! Ernest he calls it im- portant business." " What do you call it ? " asked Lady Gertrude swiftly. " Waal " with an exaggerated twang " guess I'd better tell you what it calls itself.'' THE STORY OF A DAY 43 " My dear, that is exactly what I have asked you down for." Coralie paused a second. She pursed her lips and sent a slow glance round, pausing with an imper- ceptible wink upon her husband's heated counte- nance. Then she delivered herself unctuously: " It calls itself, ' Emerald Fanny.' " "Emerald Fanny?" " It does, it does ! " Mrs. Jamieson went off into a gurgle of soft laughter. " And it writes itself * Emerald Fanny,' with a dash and two dots. I got a letter from her just before I came out, signed, ' Yours sincerely, Emerald Fanny, dash and two dots.' And it's all wrong from beginning to end. It's hair's the wrong yellow; it's got patent leather shoes ; and it's tied up in little bows. And it " She paused, arresting her glib tongue just in time ; she was going to add : " It's made a puffect fool of Uncle Reggie." But Lady Gertrude completed the description with equal point, if less directness. " And my husband admires her so much that he cannot tear himself away from her." " Oh, come now," said the soldier "